Guild Wars 2

I think melee warrior survivability in WvWvW needs some looking at. The large majority of warrior weapons are melee and from a ranged perspective, we’re not really meant to beat anyone with a pure ranged build.

Some people may argue that our longbow is one of the best AoE weapons in the game and that the burst from the rifle is pretty insane, and while that may be true vs a sitting target against a competent player with 2 proper dodges you’re dead meat.

Putting 30 points into Defense is a pretty serious kitten for a warrior’s DPS and not because you loose some power or precision or condition damage or even mobility but because you loose very important traits.

Going 30 points into any of the other trees actually gives you something meaningful. With 30 points in Discipline you get to break imobilize and faster adrenaline gain, 30 points in Arms and you get a really nuts finisher with the quickness trait and not to mention vital traits for bleed builds and also rifle, 30 points into Strength increases your damage quite a lot overall through all the trait options and decreases your physical utility CDs making the 100b build very viable.

30 points into Defense should make you much more durable allowing you to actually play melee in a WvWvW environment. I don’t mean allow you to actually go in first vs 20-30 people and have high expectations, but at least be able to run in vs 2-3 opponents and not get torn to pieces in a matter of seconds.

I’m running a hammer warrior with around 2300 toughness (including the 300 from Defense) and stacked with all the survivability utility skills I can get and if 2 or 3 competent players even look at me I’m pretty much gone. My best survivability skill in my entire build is my sword/shield weapon set because I can leap away and then shield stance.

I think the main issue is that the warrior in theory needs to focus on damage reduction in order to survive. I don’t know how much 2300 toughness reduces the incoming damage but it is pretty much the most you can get. Lets assume it reduces the damage I take around 40-50%, at my 20k HP that basically means I gain another 10k HP top which vs 2-3 players is another 3 seconds of living.

I think that approach overall is wrong because increasing or decreasing the amount of damage toughness reduces isn’t a possible fix. If you increase the amount of damage toughness reduces then we’ll simply be ok in larger fights and just OP in 1v1s. I think a better approach is to somehow scale the amount of toughness you have with an immunity ability. So say something such as "for every 500 toughness you get to block all incoming damage for 1 second with a 15-20 seconds CD. A player like myself would then be able to be immune to all the damage for around 4-5 seconds every 20 seconds, then run out, recover a little bit, analyze the fight, find a good angle and go back in.

At this point, all I can do is go in with my Hammer AoE stun, then do an AoE knockback, use Ignore Pain within the first 2 seconds and once that’s done, get my shield out for my Shield Stance running away and hopefully make it out with a Savage Leap. I can only do this once every 1 minute and a half because I have to wait for the Ignore Pain CD. Even during my initial charge I didn’t get that much accomplished other than burning through all my CDs and I really would have been much more successful using a rifle or bow instead.

I really want to play melee and use all the weapon sets available however right now I can’t with the current game mechanics. I have made it possible to some extent with a Hammer Sword/Shield and even published a video which I’ll link bellow however I have to be 10x better than my opponents to pull it through.

If you have the time please also check Matale 7-2 and look at the last minute or so where I fight a guardian together with 1-2 other people and eventually I just give up because all of us couldn’t kill him and he killed the other 2 people that were with me. I WANT THAT kind of survivability too.

I hope something will be done in the near future to allow me to play my warrior the way I like it, as a melee in WvWvW. Thanks for taking the time to read this!
- Matale

Melee is good, you just need proper support from the team.
In my guild we run a melee team for wvw and it works wonders, but you need Guardiand and Mesmers to use their reflection walls in order to melee properly, Guardian’s gandalf and Warrior CC also helps preventing people from kiting.

Most people is still going 100% ranged in WvW and that’s sad because my guild is rolling down those teams very easily (this is why Seafarer is always on top, think about it enemies…).

I use full zerker setup with Knight’s weapon and 30def, running around with 2800 armor, 3k pow, 50% crit, and 210% crit dmg.

I prefer Hammer+Axe/Warhorn with leg specialist than Sword/Shield tho.
Perma-swiftness + immobicripple + vigor allow me to keep more steady pressure along with negating more damage (another weakness from horn).
I use your same utilities (on that note, Signet of Fury ftw).

PS: You can get up to 36% crit dmg from just jewels.
I think it’s fair to lose 300 armor for 36% crit dmg, at least you bring crit dmg up to 200%.
That means your 1.5k crits are turning into 2k ones, 2k ones turn into 3k ones etc.

I understand what you’re saying but you’re running into a group that isn’t as organized or as good as you guys are… I can do fine vs a few opponents that aren’t as good as I am but when you’re facing several opponents of equal level melee just wont work as a warrior in WvWvW. Guardians on the other hand are able to play melee and be very productive at the same time.

that straw man came out fast. “everyone you fight against sucks completely and is not possibly organized in any fashion, while everyone i fight is equally as skilled as me and their naturally overpowered class kills me.”

Also, I’m not talking about damage here, I’m discussing pure survival. As a melee warrior there is no possible way you can gear up and participate into a fight vs decent opponents as melee in WvWvW, you’ll go down really fast. You always need to be a part of a team and hope they’ll be able to carry you. If they switched to a guardian instead they would have a much easier time.

And again, I’m not saying you going solo vs 2-5 people. I’m giving as an example an environment of 10 vs 10 where you’re pretty much useless as melee unless its a very organized group babysitting you.

uh oh, gotta be part of a team in team based PvP. and more hyperbolic kitten to round out the post.

well according to your reply I probably just picked the wrong profession then and I should have went Guardian, since they seem to be able to do it just fine

or a thief

I’m not sure the Guardian is better.
In the end you get 11s invul from EP/DP/Sblock, so against a spike you’re better off as a Warrior.
Against continuous damage Guardian comes off on top due to prot/regen.
Also, Guardian gets no cripples whatsoever.
People will be able to get away from you permanently before you’re able to kill them.

If anything, I’d place my bet on a TOU-stacking Thief with stealth build.

@Stefanplc

You seem to not be complaining that warriors aren’t viable, but that they aren’t OP like many complain Guardians are. You also want to play a thief now apparently. Well guess what many consider the 3 most powerful classes atm? Yeah that’s two/three you listed. You can roll flavor of the month if you want many do.

stefanplc.5234:

I 30 points into Defense should make you much more durable allowing you to actually play melee in a WvWvW environment. I don’t mean allow you to actually go in first vs 20-30 people and have high expectations, but at least be able to run in vs 2-3 opponents and not get torn to pieces in a matter of seconds.

Man I’m tired of hearing this. Nobody should be able to face tank 2-3 people and still have decent dps. Nobody

As far as your points in defense you don’t need all 30. Toughness doesn’t even work against conditions and from your video it looks like you let them build up and cook on you quite a bit without even using shake it off or mending so that may be an area you want to take a look at to start.

Further I see you took “defy pain” and endure pain as well. You realize they are only working for 3-4 seconds and not the full 5 correct? Just something to note because whether it’s working as intended or not I think a lot of people are avoiding them. You also aren’t going with all defensive skills as you claim you have signet of fury on your bar so please don’t give me that.

Finally vitality > toughness imho for survivability

@ Proeliator

I think you might be having some reading issues as I’m not discussing damage and I’m not discussing me going vs 2-3 people. I’m complaining about the fact that melee warriors are not viable in WvWvW. I’m talking about how in larger groups of PvP you just can’t play a melee warrior because you go down in seconds even if you’re building yourself in full defensive mode. I specifically explained a 10 vs 10 scenario. Other professions such as a guardian for example or a thief or a mesmer are able to play melee-ish in such situations.

The Ignore Pain icon sits there as a buff for 5 seconds so I assumed that the immunity was there too. The reason I took signet of fury over say signet of Stamina or Dolyak Signet is because using it I can get my adrenaline back really fast and continue regenning HP and then I can also get adrenaline really quick when I need to do an AoE Hammer stun to avoid taking more damage (for 2 seconds). After Ignore Pain and Shake it Off it’s the best defensive trait you can get, far better than +90 toughness.

Vitality is better vs condition damage and toughness is much better vs direct damage. If you have some pretty decent condition removal you don’t need to stack vitality. Toughness also gets better with healing and since I’m playing a control build I can get more heals off. I’m usually saving shake it off for more opportune moments in order to have a chance to remove a stun, a fear or a cripple.

There are a total of 8 professions and over half of them are accused as being OP in some shape of form, thieves, mesm, guardian, gs warriors and so forth. Again I’m not discussing damage I’m discussing survivability in large PvP groups which has nothing to do with those.

Please spend more time reading before posting random replies.

There seems to be a lot of theorycrafting in this thread, along the lines of IF the warrior runs into competent players, then blahblahblah he will die.
But this isn’t tpvp, this is WvW. Unless you are on the top 6-7 WvW servers, most of the people you face in WvW probably won’t even be level 80 (at least that is my experience on Yak’s Bend). You have to see what the reality of the situation is, versus what it could be. I run hammer + axe/mace or hammer + rifle in WvW and do fine. You can call it “not viable” if you wish but that doesn’t change anything.

kyokara.1867:

There seems to be a lot of theorycrafting in this thread, along the lines of IF the warrior runs into competent players, then blahblahblah he will die.
But this isn’t tpvp, this is WvW. Unless you are on the top 6-7 WvW servers, most of the people you face in WvW probably won’t even be level 80 (at least that is my experience on Yak’s Bend). You have to see what the reality of the situation is, versus what it could be.

I’m on the #2 arguably the #1 server in EU. Most people by now are 80 and have all of their gear as do I. Unless they’re bad you can’t play melee, the moment you go in you become targeted and you die really fast. The first time you go in, you’ll make it out probably due to Ignore Pain but then that’s it for the next minute and a half and you haven’t accomplished much either. I’m not even talking about going first into a group of 10 people, but actually doing it in a smart way, find a opportune spot, come in from the side and only have 2-3 people switching to you. Even in the case of 2-3 people switching to you, it’s the same situation, Ignore Pain within the first 4-5 seconds and then you need to run or die.

A few days ago I almost got 2 shot by a thief luckly Defy Pain popped. That shouldn’t happen, what’s even the point of toughness then?

This is also from experience and from trying out tens of builds trying to make melee work. As I’m sure you can tell from the video, I’m not exactly a pvp idiot either, I’m fairly decent.

I agree thieves need to be toned down a little, they arguably have more survivability than any class due to their stealth mechanics while also doing more damage than any class and I doubt that’s intended.

I will have to re-evaluate my WvW experience when I face better servers then. I guess there are advantages to being on a low ranked server!

kyokara.1867:

I agree thieves need to be toned down a little, they arguably have more survivability than any class due to their stealth mechanics while also doing more damage than any class and I doubt that’s intended.

I will have to re-evaluate my WvW experience when I face better servers then. I guess there are advantages to being on a low ranked server!

In any case, lets stick to the topic of this thread which is melee warrior survivability in WvWvW. Even if you go to the extreme and reduce his damage to half, I’m still dead in a matter of 3-4 seconds and that’s my point. Once Ignore Pain is on CD, I have no business participating in a large group PvP as melee. So if that’s the case, what’s even the point of going in as melee in the first place? It’s not like I’m getting much done, I’m just burning through survivability CDs without much to show for it. In the current state of the game I’d bring much more to the table with a rifle and a bow, constantly doing damage, taking people out etc…

The problem is we have 2-3 times as many melee options as we have ranged, shouldn’t melee actually be viable in WvWvW? I would personally really like to play that without having to organize a whole group to babysit me.

The reason melee works in sPvP is because in most fights you’re only encountering a 2v2 or a 3v3 so there’s far less pressure.

This thread actually reminds me of another very similar a few days ago may have been same OP?

Generally speaking if you’re running towards the enemy zerg you will be the target of focus fire every time. 2+ players focusing you should either make you retreat or die every time or else the game would be melee > range.

You seem to be complaining more about the Meta of WVW rather than the balance of melee vs ranged. The mass range kittenergs tend to deter melee because unless you have more than 1-2 melee charging in you’re going to die to focus fire as it should be.

Steph the reason I’m giving you grief is because you’re listings all of these complaints to sum up that you want the survivability to withstand focus fire by 2-3+ people. Many of us have and do get in and out of concentrated formations doing a lot of damage and then get out again. The reason damage is a valid thing to discuss here is because warriors have outstanding damage output. If you want the survivability of a guardian you will have to nerf our damage.

My suggestion pretty much is that instead of reducing a certain % of damage, to replace that with becoming immune to the damage so it has the same effect when 1 person is focusing you as it would when 3 people are. I would personally like to see in the Defensive tree traits such as “Ignore Pain CD is now 30 seconds but you also only do 50% of your normal damage” “Shield Stance CD reduced by 50% and duration increased by 1 second” and so forth, traits that give you survivability without making you OP. It’s not like you’d be immune to damage and just dropping people left and right. In order to be viable as melee in WvWvW you need short CDs that either reduce the damage drastically or all of it so you can run in and out of a fight constantly and not once every minute and a half.

Proeliator.8740:

This thread actually reminds me of another very similar a few days ago may have been same OP?

Generally speaking if you’re running towards the enemy zerg you will be the target of focus fire every time. 2+ players focusing you should either make you retreat or die every time or else the game would be melee > range.

You seem to be complaining more about the Meta of WVW rather than the balance of melee vs ranged. The mass range kittenergs tend to deter melee because unless you have more than 1-2 melee charging in you’re going to die to focus fire as it should be.

Steph the reason I’m giving you grief is because you’re listings all of these complaints to sum up that you want the survivability to withstand focus fire by 2-3+ people. Many of us have and do get in and out of concentrated formations doing a lot of damage and then get out again. The reason damage is a valid thing to discuss here is because warriors have outstanding damage output. If you want the survivability of a guardian you will have to nerf our damage.

Well that’s exactly what I’m saying, introduce survivability traits and CDs that nerfs your damage when you’re using them. For example during Shield Stance you’re doing no damage, an Ignore Pain that’s on a shorter CD but you only do 50% damage and so forth.

I dont expect to go first into a zerg and survive, but if there’s a large PvP group where people are constantly fighting all over the place, there’s nothing I can really do as melee. I’m offering as an example, where we’re fighting 10 of us vs 10 of them, that I would go around and attack from the side and out of those 10 people only 2 or 3 would switch to me. I don’t expect to live forever, but I do expect to be able to hold my ground for 10 seconds or have a chance at getting out or something like that, actually be productive as melee and not go down right away. Versus a group of players that know a little bit about PvP and what they’re doing, I have close to no chance at surviving. I would even be happy with a skill similar to “Heroic Leap” I think it’s called in WoW where I’d be able to jump away like 2000 yards on somewhat of a short CD, like 30 seconds or so, so that I can constantly go in and out and do something.

Right now as melee, vs a group of organized people in a balanced fight number wise, I go in, I do a little bit of damage, use all my defensive CDs and then I’ll die for sure. I could do more damage and more control as ranged as this point in the game.

The reason toughness or “resilience” as it was called in WoW worked so well in that game for a warrior was due to healers. If I would have constant heals on me, then stacking toughness for survivability would work and in most situations I’d be fine. But since there are no healers and our personal heals are pretty small, a large amount of toughness just adds 2-3 more hits before you die which is complete crap if you think about it. There is no other option either, increasing vitality or both wouldn’t fix it, that’s why I’m suggesting a blocking or immunity approach which would have the same effect vs 1 opponent or more, not making us OP.

Those are interesting suggestions but it wouldn’t take much tweaking to make us unkillable. You’re also talking about a very specific request by you which is to be able to get in and out by being able to do you damage and then retreating without dying/taking damage even when being focused by a lot of enemy players. I think that’s kinda the definition of being OP.

The short cooldowns on defensive skills combined with self heals, health regen, high defense, and high hp pools is bordering on unkillable especially in a shout build. With a 5 sec ignore pain every 30, 3-4 sec shield block on an even lower cooldown, and throw in some dodges and evasive maneuvers and the enemy would only have a super short window to kill you between your heals. If you’re a shout build constantly cleansing and healing the only thing that may have a shot at it would be a zerg focus fire or glass cannons and even then I dunno.

I’m a little obsessed with class balance having played so many PVP oriented games and I’m still always surprised that people seem oblivious to how easily something can become OP with just minor tweaks. I think the balance in this game is actually pretty good and it’s that very reason that people feel weak because with great balance comes actually dying because things are even so you won’t always win.

That being said shortening cooldowns may have some potential I’m just not sure you can do it without making us OP

Proeliator.8740:

Those are interesting suggestions but it wouldn’t take much tweaking to make us unkillable. You’re also talking about a very specific request by you which is to be able to get in and out by being able to do you damage and then retreating without dying/taking damage even when being focused by a lot of enemy players. I think that’s kinda the definition of being OP.

The short cooldowns on defensive skills combined with self heals, health regen, high defense, and high hp pools is bordering on unkillable especially in a shout build. With a 5 sec ignore pain every 30, 3-4 sec shield block on an even lower cooldown, and throw in some dodges and evasive maneuvers and the enemy would only have a super short window to kill you between your heals. If you’re a shout build constantly cleansing and healing the only thing that may have a shot at it would be a zerg focus fire or glass cannons and even then I dunno.

I’m a little obsessed with class balance having played so many PVP oriented games and I’m still always surprised that people seem oblivious to how easily something can become OP with just minor tweaks. I think the balance in this game is actually pretty good and it’s that very reason that people feel weak because with great balance comes actually dying because things are even so you won’t always win.

That being said shortening cooldowns may have some potential I’m just not sure you can do it without making us OP

Well I’m not saying having all of them, Heroic Leap or shorter CD on Ignore Pain could be the 2 picks for the 30 pts into Defense trait, you get one or the other. And my examples weren’t even concrete balanced examples, just suggestions for a survivability direction that could allow us to play as melee in WvWvW. If you’re going 30 pts into Defense and 30 pts into Tactics you’re not exactly doing high damage. Both of these trees strike me as defensive trees and they could have more options that would allow you to actually participate as melee in WvWvW all the way up in the 30 pts traits. For example healing shouts won’t do much for you in a WvWvW, as they’ll only buy you 2 more seconds of surviving however a blocking skill for a few seconds seconds on a similar CD would be more valuable. This way, the shouts healing trait would be more preferred in dungeons and smaller fights where the blocking or immunity or mobility or w/e it is would be better in WvWvW.

Like I said, the examples aren’t thought out concrete examples, just suggestions and ideas for a new design because as it is right now it just doesn’t work too well. There should be a proper balance between defense and damage and if you want to play melee in WvWvW where there’s a lot of damage flying all over the place, you’ll obviously need to lose some damage for the sake of defense, however ACTUAL defense not 1 extra second before you die.

stefanplc

and look at the last minute or so where I fight a guardian together with 1-2 other people and eventually I just give up because all of us couldn’t kill him and he killed the other 2 people that were with me. I WANT THAT kind of survivability too.

Within the first 1:30 of that video you do a 1v3 and down 2 of the opponents while managing to survive and get away to heal up… I think you already have what you want.

Throwing out hyperbole and strawmen doesn’t help your case btw.

WvWvW isn’t balanced, isn’t MEANT to be balanced, and never will be balanced. Same with SPvP. Balance happens at the TPvP level. ANet were very clear about this from the very beginning of information releases about GW2 before the betas even got underway.

Now, are warriors balanced? No, they’re pretty underwhelming in TPvP. But in WvWvW and SPvP you don’t need to be balanced to contribute, follow the zerg, range spam, gank, etc. Hell you can be a longbow sword/sword warrior and succeed in WvWvW depending on gear/level and size of the zerg around you.

Braxxus.2904:

stefanplc

and look at the last minute or so where I fight a guardian together with 1-2 other people and eventually I just give up because all of us couldn’t kill him and he killed the other 2 people that were with me. I WANT THAT kind of survivability too.

Within the first 1:30 of that video you do a 1v3 and down 2 of the opponents while managing to survive and get away to heal up… I think you already have what you want.

Throwing out hyperbole and strawmen doesn’t help your case btw.

WvWvW isn’t balanced, isn’t MEANT to be balanced, and never will be balanced. Same with SPvP. Balance happens at the TPvP level. ANet were very clear about this from the very beginning of information releases about GW2 before the betas even got underway.

Now, are warriors balanced? No, they’re pretty underwhelming in TPvP. But in WvWvW and SPvP you don’t need to be balanced to contribute, follow the zerg, range spam, gank, etc. Hell you can be a longbow sword/sword warrior and succeed in WvWvW depending on gear/level and size of the zerg around you.

None of the people that I fought in my video were exactly top notch in skill, gear or even level. I’ve met a lot of opponents in WvWvW of just about every profession and had some solid somewhat long fights vs them. If even one of those people would have replaced any of my opponents in those 1v2 or 1v3 situations things would have went differently.

stefanplc.5234:

None of the people that I fought in my video were exactly top notch in skill, gear or even level.

Perhaps that guardian you talk about thought the same thing…
Just saying.

Anyways, if your point is:
“Guardians are better than warriors” then yes everyone knows this. Most people, if you look at the actual pvp forum and even a number of people here on the warrior forum, understand the warrior is pretty lackluster in PvP. Most polls of the players put us somewhere in the bottom tier in terms of class balance and power when it comes to TPvP (where balance matters).

I was only pointing out that you have in your video constant 1v3’s and such where you not only survive like said guardian you mention but win as well, so….

Braxxus.2904:

stefanplc.5234:

None of the people that I fought in my video were exactly top notch in skill, gear or even level.

Perhaps that guardian you talk about thought the same thing…
Just saying.

Anyways, if your point is:
“Guardians are better than warriors” then yes everyone knows this. Most people, if you look at the actual pvp forum and even a number of people here on the warrior forum, understand the warrior is pretty lackluster in PvP. Most polls of the players put us somewhere in the bottom tier in terms of class balance and power when it comes to TPvP (where balance matters).

I was only pointing out that you have in your video constant 1v3’s and such where you not only survive like said guardian you mention but win as well, so….

Well in regards to the guardian, it was pretty clear he was going to kill me if I didn’t leave, my advantage was that I had a little bit more mobility.

My point is not that other classes are better or OP or anything like that. My point is very simple: in the current state melee warriors are not viable in WvWvW due to low survivability and particularly in larger PvP fights not 2v2 or 3v3 as often met in sPvP. I don’t think that the current design which reduces a % of the incoming damage works and I suggested a new one and I’m sure there are also other ways to do it. I would simply just like to be able to go in WvWvW and be just as successful by playing melee as I would be playing a rifle or bow build.

stefanplc.5234:

I would simply just like to be able to go in WvWvW and be just as successful by playing melee as I would be playing a rifle or bow build.

I would too… However I don’t think that’s reasonable to ask tbh. And I don’t “want” to say that as I love melee, I love the warrior archetype. Buuuut, WvWvW is large scale battle and it makes sense to me that ranged weaponry/AoE will have the advantage there. Look at history, look at reality. Now this is the first game where warriors really have viable (in non-tpvp settings) ranged options. I don’t think it’s really that unreasonable that a warrior going to war bring both a ranged weapon and a melee weapon in order to have combat versatility for any situation.

Truth be told, this actually makes a lot of sense to me from a logic standpoint vs trying to force my desire of “Melee only 100% of the time RAWR!” into the scenario of group combat. If a melee warrior can fight in the midst of 3+ people and not only survive but kill the opponents then it would border and massively OP. Guards can do this (with retaliation at times) and look where the consensus is on guards: OP.

I’ve adapted my thinking and I actually kind of enjoy having a sword/rifle now. I wish I could make sword and shield work worth a kitten so it wasn’t GS/rifle, but maybe some day.

For the record if Longbow wasn’t really “meh” I think it could have some nice synergy with hammer for the self-combos you could pull off. Problem is that Longbow is just kind of “meh” overall on it’s own.

Your problem is not the class, but of tactics and force projection.

Zerg v Zerg moving first (and almost always alone) is going to get you shot by everyone with a ranged weapon all at the same time. You need to move as a unit with other people, or bring firepower to counter zergs (arrow carts, balista).

Get 2-4 mesmers to chain pull people out of the enemy front line for you, until their force is smaller than yours etc.

But again, I’m not saying to fight in the mist of 3+ people and survive and kill opponents one after the other because that would be OP. There needs to be a proper balance between damage and defense, but we should also get ACTUAL defense. I’m saying give me a chance to go in, do something, run out, analyze the fight and go back in, be active and be successful if I’m good. At this point in time the moment you go in you already need to figure out how to get out because you’re about to die within the first few seconds. I believe the current survivability design is designed more towards small fights which are often met in sPvP and we don’t have any options for WvWvW fights. Toughness is pretty good in 1v1s because that bonus HP that it sort of translates into takes a little longer for 1 person to go through, healing shouts do the same thing and so forth. In comparison other professions have the required tools to participate in larger PvP fights through tools such as stealth, ton of immunity spells, clones and so forth. The only reason right now to equip a melee set is to make your escape, our best option for dmg in WvWvW are ranged weapons.

Zoner.1765:

Your problem is not the class, but of tactics and force projection.

Zerg v Zerg moving first (and almost always alone) is going to get you shot by everyone with a ranged weapon all at the same time. You need to move as a unit with other people, or bring firepower to counter zergs (arrow carts, balista).

Get 2-4 mesmers to chain pull people out of the enemy front line for you, until their force is smaller than yours etc.

Please read all the posts I wrote even after the main one. I explained a scenario of a balanced 10 vs 10 fight where I won’t go in like an idiot solo because obviously I would die. As the fights progresses I would try and fight a good entry spot, probably from the side which would only make 2 or 3 of my enemies start switching to me, not the entire zerg. Well even with a smart play like that, the moment 2 or more start focusing me I need to get out as fast as I can or I will die. Without 100% uptime on swiftness, condition removal and savage leap you won’t even make it 2-3 seconds on your retreat, you’ll just die there without actually doing anything productive.

Guardians, thieves, mesmers and others are able to productively play their professions in melee range because they have the tools to survive it but I was a warrior, where the large majority of available weapons to my professions are melee can’t. Not only can I not play melee in WvWvW but even as ranged I’m weaker than other ranged classes and I’ll rarely win a 1v1 vs a ranger or a mesmer or thief using a rifle or a bow.

Welcome to warriors in large scale combat in any mmo.

I hate rifle/longbow on the warrior. Seems such a lackluster choice, it’s like a pulling weapon on Daoc (like axe toss or crossbow, no one ever really specs it).

But in melee the problem a warrior has is his dps is reliant on being in melee range. We’re in fact the only class this applies to. Everyone else’s spammable moves have range or close them onto the target (heartseeker). You have to pretty much be on top of the target as a warrior or you’ll see a miss.

I can savage leap someone then hit snare or sword adrenal, but it will miss every time if they’re moving, as savage leap pauses you for 1/2 a second when you land, and since they’re still moving any follow up move will miss. (so you generally have to savage leap > shield slam > then do a move.

Warriors need better weapon 1 skill damage or better damage mitigation in general to account for their susceptibility to snares/immobilise. We’re the only class who (unless you’re wielding a rifle/longbow) on a root loses 90 percent of your dps.

I get greatswords mesmers hitting me from a mile away for 3x my damage…yet they only have about 5k less hps, and multiple ways to escape if I do reach them.

Something just isn’t correct in the way warriors were designed. I know they were trying to stay away from the tank/healer/mage thing….but if you expect a class to have to be in melee range to do any damage, you need to give it the tools/abilities/defence to do that.

So warriors need to be on par with guardians in melee survivability, while having vastly superior ranged options.

That sounds… balanced?

You have to bring ranged in WvW, unless you want to be standing around doing nothing half the time. You CAN melee plenty though, but it really takes skill. Go axe/warhorn + ranged weapon. Warhorn is great for melee, lets you remove snares and most importantly, gives you VIGOR. Getting extra endurance allows you to get in on a weakened target, finish it off, and escape.

Typically ill be in ranged at the start of engage, look for a weakened target > bow #5 for a snare attempt > swap weapons > horn 4 > bulls rush > horn 5 > eviscerate > chase down and finish > roll /fear my way out > wash and repeat. Gun works here instead of bow also.

As for itemizing/traits, i’d aim for something like 65-70% defensive stats and the rest offense. Survival is more important imo in WvW than pure damage.

@Tom Gore: instead of posting dumb troll posts why don’t you read through a little bit as it this has been mentioned several times. Of course there would be a balance where for extra survivability you’d drop damage and other advantages. As an example someone having 30 pts into defense and 30 pts into tactics at this point in the game would do pretty crap damage with either the bow or the rifle. To actually do high damage with those weapons you need to drop points into Strength and Arms. So one simple request would simply be to have better rewards in the defense and tactics tree so you can actually participate in large fights as melee.

This thread also doesn’t refer to other classes being better or not and comparison between them, it simply points out that melee warrior isn’t viable and needs more survivability in order to be.

Stop kidding yourself. Even if the warrior specs full melee and the Guardian specs full “ranged” (lol) the warrior is going to do more damage at range.

Surviving in melee is what guardians do. That’s about all they do, if not counting for meager healing and support skills.

Warrior on the other hand is a jack of all trades. They don’t excel in any one category, but can do fine in almost all roles. They’re already one of the most versatile classes in the game. You’re essentially suggesting that they should be even more versatile. What would you drop out of the bunch?

I’m currently running a sword and shield build, a change from my old mace/shield build. Let me tell ya, the defense tree got the most amazing traits in the game. Bouncing back missiles anyone? Did you know it bounces everything ranged not just bullets an arrows? Warrior throw bolas at you, boom bolas back to his face no he is immovable, run thief got guild and started spamming shots at you? No prob now both him and his thief are shooting themselves, if he is a glass cannon he will kill himself or leave himself almost death. Ranger come and die like paper. This build also offers bonuses to toughness and other stuff. Did I mention in this tree your shield skills cool down faster? That’s more interrupts with shield bash < my god how I love it and faster cool down in shield stance.

I went full vit because for one I wanted the hp, for second I get healing shouts, with my current stats I get healed for about 1.8k per shout. Spam all 3 shouts you get around 5.4 – 5.6k healed to your hp. Now that is about the same as a second heal right there, it buffs me, removes a condition off me and if enemies are around I get to fear them away, this is great when people are about to finish an ally. Fear them and use elite banner bam your ally is back. We also get faster revive in this build so if you need to res someone in arrow cart fire bam you be doing just fine while saving your team’s life.

My last 3 points I have yet to allocate in a way I am 100% happy, went for the trait that gives me might each time I block, 25 stacks of might when going against a zerg is quite good not awesome but good and it does pomp your damage a lot! But I think I will switch for more bleeding duration or something on the lines of that.

In WvW 2 vs 1 I win 9 – 10 times, the times I loose is if a Mesmer is with them, a good mesmer or even a mediocre mesmer can turn the tide of any battle atm. Same goes with good guardians. I gone as far as 7 v 1 and been able to down a few before dying. Honestly no way in hell I can fully kill them since they can rally each other. 3 – 4 v 1 I can handle depending on the classes involve or at least put enough of a fight to get me time to run or buy time for my team mates. Hell even against a gigantic zerg i can survive at least 10 secs or more something that shouldn’t be doable.

I used this same build in Spvp. Against anyone in 1 v 1 I won 98% of the time. Guardians couldn’t kill me, but I couldn’t kill ’em either!

stefan could you please do some tests against this same Risen Corrupter with your armor?
I need numbers for 3.2k armor, 3.4k armor and 3.5k armor.

I already calculated that between 2400 and 2700 armor there is a 20% damage reduction difference, but only 10% between 2700 and 3000.
DRs almost halve the damage reduction. I need to know how bad DR is with further armor stacking.

PS: You can find the mob in Orr, just outside the northern outpost.

Ive discovered with my warrior that we do not do well when faced with a very long fight as we are squishy. I use a hit and run or fade tactic to go in, use what i got, then get out to heal. We cant take hits like other classes can but we can deal the damage, ergo glass cannon. Ive tried max defense and abilities and i cant get anything down nor survive well. A lot of it though is knowing when to attack and when to be patient. Chasing after someone usually will result in death as he has his buddies waiting for you. I dont know about you guys but i wreck people in wvw, probably just how each person plays though can change the outcome of a fight.

So let me get this straight. Your complaining about having little survivability, whilst in full DPS gear and complaining that you cannot take on 2-3 or more opponents and come out alive?

You cannot have your cake and eat it, what you are asking for, is to still be able to wreck faces while having a truck load of survivability. Well let me explain this to you, it;’s balanced. If you spec into full defence you will have a low damage output. If you spec into full DPS you will have low survivability, you cannot have it both ways.

Warriors are in a much better place than other professions, certainly in WvW. In fact most of the people in my guild run warriors in WvW and I have not heard one really complain about the profession.

I’m just going to abandon this thread personally because people can’t read or stick to a topic properly… i think i’ve said the same thing 50 times now and they still don’t get it replying with garbage and nonsense… there’s nothing constructive going on here

the amount of idiocy for example in Loco’s comment is just way past normal limits

Stefan just ignore the babies/trolls and answer my post.
It’s inevitable to get some trash comments in every thread, just ignore them.

@ Red Falcon: that is a good point you’re making, i’ll reply tomorrow with some numbers as to what damage I was taking so you can compare with your math.. i thought it would be just linear all the way through

it could mean that you’ll get more survivability from a mix of vitality and toughness regardless of how much condition removal you have

I don’t see the problem here. Run full glass Berserker PvE gear, whip out Frenzy + GS and BR-instagib someone on the side, then Rush out with Quickness still up. 20k Hundred Blades will hulksmash most players.

Sorry Stephan, this is what you get from official forums. No ArenaJunkies or Elitist Jerks to wade out the morons—while still getting some attention from the Devs. I don’t know if Arena Net reads Guru, but it has a slightly better community. I agree with your issues.

Ironically, so many people keep pointing to your vid as an example of how awesome melee warrior is. All I see is somebody desperately avoiding getting zerged and downing only a few people while doing average damage—I don’t even think you get to finish them all because you have to run away.

For now, I think warriors have to stick to small scale combat and roaming. Zerg fights are just not ideal, and you might as well use a ranged weapon.

ive read most but not all posts and what i wanna say yes the game is melee unfriendly. most of the time you pass it in ranged.

if you are doubledecked in melee, you can usually only participate when you are after them – they withdraw or if u pick some loner explorer.

as far our melee vs other professions, one on one, sometimes it works and sometimes not.

Here is the jist of surviving WvWvW as melee warrior.

Toughness = Survive AE Damage and pug damage (they dont assist)
Mobility = Survive everything else

Note: Glass Cannon Specced people will rip through your toughness by themselves.

So that pretty much leaves you with Mobility. The best survival spec is without doubt GS. Why? Because there are 2 mobility skills in there on short cooldowns. Whirlwind/Rush. No one/No class can kill you with these 2 up unless you are CCed. In about a second, i am out of range of everyone. Thats how survivable i am. My guild runs guardians with stability. So im immune to CC for the first 20sec of a fight. I also use sword/warhorn. By myself i have stability for around 10 seconds. Sword has a an awesome mobility skill and warhorn has a free anti-cc cleanse. I am so mobile i can jump on people who have barely rendered on the horizon of my screen. I can also disappear so quickly from any zerg.

warhorn is trully underated

Red Falcon.8257:

I use full zerker setup with Knight’s weapon and 30def, running around with 2800 armor, 3k pow, 50% crit, and 210% crit dmg.

Bullcrap? How can you possibly have stats like that? You can’t. I’m running around in FULL Berserker’s, including weapons, with 20 in Arms and 30 in Discipline and 20 in Defense and the only number I compare to is your Crit Chance. I can understand pulling that kind of power and toughness if you’re heavily invested in Strength and Defense, and even having 50% crit if you’re counting Fury crit in your base stats, but there is no way in hell you have 210% crit damage. Stop lying.

seithan.4823:

warhorn is trully underated

my build offers 100% swiftness uptime from Signet of Rage so Shield is better in that case