Guild Wars 2

> 2015
> Witcher 3 just released, a game that has been lauded by fans and critics alike as basically the second coming. Not just for quality but for its sheer length and value
> Normal game price, comes bundled with a ton of free goodies including free DLCs and OST
> Age of F2P titles with extremely cost-efficient “Bundles” being common
> “Summer sales” everywhere, including Steam’s legendary summer sale.
> TheValue.png
> E3 going on right now
> Some people saving up for the veritable torrent of big “blockbusters” coming out later this year or next year
> After months of saying nothing you finally announce your expansion’s price
> FULL GAME PRICE FOR A BARE BONES EXPANSION!
> Further insult your player base by kittening veterans
> “New players get the base game (which many of you payed full price for) for free! You get to eat kitten!”
> Top kek

Gotta give it to you ANet, you got the comedic timing just right. Didn’t even have to bring up the whole “kittenting on your original core values by furthering the gap between exotic and ascended and further enforcing vertical progression”. Stay classy.

I’ll be honest, I was hoping this expansion would bring me back to the game, but, as far as jokes go at least I got a nice laugh out of it! Back to Temeria then. Nothing to see here.

Tom Gore.4035:

August 2012 called and wants it’s “op” tactic back.

But yeah, with the new influx of “PvP” players in the field, there are bound to be many who still fall to the good ol’ Bull Rush + Frenzy + 100b combo.

Me, I slot a stun breaker.

Basically this. This was never viable to begin with, even back before the quickness nerf. All it did was waste someone’s stun breaker and then force the warrior to run or die. In any decent team it was just a poor man’s thief (“get them while they have everything down”). It hasn’t really gotten any better.

If your gimmick “wombo combo” fails, with both chars on their feet, you’re done. Game over. Ironically for a build called “bunker buster” it gets absolutely destroyed by bunkers. Face any condi build and you implode. This kind of build was left in 2012 for a reason.

E for effort I guess.

Highchu.3806:

“Ascended Defenders Chests” offer the prefixes (Cavalier/Knights/Settlers/Sentinel/Celestial/Shaman).

Settlers/Celestial/Shaman are bad for warriors. We have no use for Healing Power and we don’t benefit very well from the stat spread of Celestial. Sentinel might be an okay alternative to Soldiers, but I’d still go with Soldiers if I had the choice.

The only two of any real use for Warriors are:
Cavalier (Toughness +Power+Ferosity)
Knights (Toughness+Power+Precision)

Whichever you choose depends on what kind of build you are running. I think Knights is the safer choice since its always easier to make use of higher Precision over Ferosity. The Shoulders/Gloves/Feet offer the lowest stats so either way it shouldn’t make a big difference.

He said PvE.

PvE is Berserker. Everything.

Short version: Needs work. You’re clearly new, so I’ll do some hand holding.

Let’s start with the more egregious stuff.

First things first – Axe offhand is dreadful. In general. In PvE and PvP. I know what you’re going to say (you already said it):

I Prefer WW Axe cuz its 360º damage i can move.(Plus its an amazing Whirl Combo finisher IMO)

Yeah… No. Sorry. Axe #5 is utterly dreadful. Don’t forget that the number it shows is the full damage of the entire channel. That means the damage you see happened over the entire spinning animation… The move itself is a little better in PvP because of the damage bonus but seriously, it’s not worth it. You’re sacrificing way too much. You have other very good offhands – Shield gives you a juicy stun and one of the best blocks in the game; Sword gives you a nice block and Rip has a rather ludicrous power scaling for some serious burst; Warhorn gives you mobility and condi clear, Mace gives you a ranged AoE 2 second knockdown… Off hand axe in its current state is a serious no-no in sPvP. Most melee auto-attacks cover ~120 degrees at least (many seem to cover over 180). Just do auto attacks and you don’t need to waste your off hand slot.

Moving on. Runes of the Dolyak: No. Nope. Nein. 43 hp/sec is a waste of a rune slot. Runes of strength if you’re going to might stack (and why wouldn’t you? you’re a warrior ffs), runes of Melandru… Runes of “Anything that isn’t Dolyak” really.

Banner of Defense… Why? You’re not a banner build. Banners have insane cooldowns and (other than warbanner) really don’t bring THAT much to the table when untraited. There are so many more important things you could be taking instead… For example: Signet of Stamina for a full condi removal. Berserker Stance for condi immunity – which leads me to my next point…

… You have no condi removal. 0. Nothing. Goodluck surviving 20 seconds against a half-decent team in this condi heavy meta. Engineers and Necros, for example, will think christmas came early. Just load you up and watch you burn. Literally nothing you can do with this build currently. Cleansing Ire is pretty much mandatory for warriors for a reason. Feel free to trade it for Spiked Armor. Not that useful. Or for Merciless Hammer… Better than Spiked Armor, but Cleansing Ire is utterly essentially.

Deep cuts… Again, ask yourself, why? You have no condition damage. Your bleeds do very little in the way of damage. 50% extra nothing is still nothing. If you’re using a hammer and putting 25 points or more in Arms, Unsuspecting Foe is pretty much the only reason to do it. Personally I’d cut the last 5 points though. This isn’t PvE. You have more important things to put trait points in, like Mobile Strikes. Sword and Hammer both have movement skills that can be used to break immobilizes.

Less egregious but still questionable:

- Warrior’s Sprint: Here’s the thing, the movement speed modifiers don’t stack with swiftness, and swiftness wins (33% vs. 25%). If you’re running Signet of Rage then you REALLY should be running Signet Mastery (particularly as you’re also running Signet of the Dolyak, and Signet of Stamina is a good option as well). Your swiftness uptime that way renders WS mostly redundant, and you get a lot more out of that trait. If you’re running that, then take the other signets out (except Healing Signet, evidently). You can take Warbanner for some nice team revives, and you can substitute Signet of the Dolyak for Balanced Stance. Having both is just….inefficient. Too much overlapping. You’re not getting everything you can out of either.

- Deep Strike: This isn’t PvE. You have enough precision with the berserker amulet. Furious speed gives you about 100% uptime on swiftness while fighting (another reasno to ditch warrior’s sprint).

- Sigil choices: Bit of a mess aren’t they? Why sigil of Hydromancy? You’re running a hammer warrior with sword on switch. CC and sticking to targets should very much not be an issue for you. Sigil of accuracy? Why? You have a berserker build… You don’t need more crit chance. Diminuishing returns, etc. Trade those Hydromancy for Sigils of Battle (might stacking!) and those Runes of the Dolyak for Runes of Strength. Now we’re talking. For secondary sigils, I like Sigil of Paralization on the hammer, but Sigil of Strength/air/fire/force/energy are pretty nice too.

- Finally, Bull’s Charge: Hammer + Sword… In sPvP. You have no issues sticking to targets, nor should you need a 45 second cooldown dash. Bull’s Charge is fantastic in WvW where mobility is king and queen, but sPvP is about holding points. Consider something else, like Endure Pain, Balanced stance, or the aforementioned Sigil of Stamina and Berserker Stance.

So yeah, needs work, but I’ve seen worse. Hope that helps.

ITT: We act like idiots and pretend subjective aesthetic preferences are objective.

“STOP LIKING THINGS I DON’T!”, etc.

Leveling is never fun. It’s a pointless mechanic these days.

That said, previous it was at least fairly painless and had a nice flow to it. Now it’s absolutely dreadful.

It was actually far more than 10% over all, but I haven’t bothered doing the math. It’s not relevant how much it got changed, but how much it is now.

IIRC our stats got pushed very close to sPvP, which previously was about 40/50% lower in crit damage – you could get over 100% crit damage in PvE/WvW without exterior buffs, while max in sPvP was about 65%, again, IIRC.

Which is a good thing, to be honest. Crit damage, and consequently power damage, in PvE and WvW was completely out of whack. Especially after applying foods and buffs and accounting for the “ganky” nature of WvW.

What got hit REALLY hard, however, was min-maxing. Previously crit. damage was not a normally distributed stat. Some pieces had far higher crit. damage-to-stat ratio than others, which allowed for min-maxing (i.e.: picking the right stats for the right pieces of gear) to get you a lot more stats overall on your gear. Given that ferocity is a normalized stat the “peaks” got hit the hardest, and min maxed gear saw some catastrophic losses (some possibly around the 100% mark).

Given how much some people invested in it (like myself) it kinda sucks a bit that we didn’t get a “one time gear change” for gear with crit. damage (like it happened to mf gear). But hey… Bit ham fisted and clumbsy, but overall a positive change for the game. A sacrifice I’m willing to make.

With a small group? Depends on team comp. But something with mobility.

Solo roaming? Probably Thief. Warrior in second.

Simply put the most important quality in solo roaming is mobility, since you run a fairly decent risk of running into very bad situations. You never know what’s around the corner and it might be a single player, a team, or a huge zerg. As such, the most valuable skill for a solo roamer is their ability to get away from a sticky situation.

Thieves are the undisputed kings of the getaway. Short of being chain-CCed and AoEd by an entire zerg, you’ll only kill a Thief in WvW roaming if they mess up by overcommitting. If the Thief knows when to cut their losses and say “kitten this, I’m out”, you can drive them away, but you simply can’t kill them.

Second would probably be a Warrior built for high mobility (for example GS + Sword and Warhorn).

Mesmers are outright broken in 1 vs 1 (except against thieves), but they’re not very mobile, and if they run into a bigger team they’re usually not as good at escaping as the aforementioned classes, which significantly diminishes their roaming potential. They’re still pretty good, mind you.

Also, OP you’re free to disregard people who say ignorant and demonstrably false crap like this:

Dreary Yew.5187:

Flatten even the tankiest enemies in 3 seconds,

Prove it. Unless by “tankiest” you mean full berserker with maybe melandru runes or something.

I had been wanting to change my Mesmer’s look for a while, but didn’t want to lose her old armor’s look…

Edit: It’s not showing the attachment for some reason… Eh? Maybe wait a bit…

I’m sorry but…Who cares?

Leveling from 1 to 80 is so incredibly fast in this game. The only reason it wasn’t previously a complete waste to transmute items bellow level 80 was because the item you used for it (the 1-79 stones) were also completely and utterly worthless. And even then it was a waste of time.

Leave it as is.

At the moderator’s request, reposting here – Storing skins should give 1 transmutation charge, otherwise we’re just losing out on one free transmutation.

hedition.7261:

Although technically speaking most of us have more charges than we will ever use, I’d hate to waste a charge.

Well…. I like to change my look a lot.

But yeah, it’s not like this could even be exploited, since you can only “store” a skin once. Once you have it you can’t delete it and “re-store”.

Unless the system is currently bugged, if you store a Skin (which gives you one free transmutation on use) it simply destroys the skin and sends it to the vault, where you’ll need 1 transmutation charge to equip it, therefore losing the one free charge of the skin.

Wouldn’t it be quite sensible to give 1 free Transmutation Charge if one “stores” a usable skin? Seeing as it should be “storing” the one free transmutation the skin comes with…?

Unrelated question: if I use a skin that previously existed separately for the 3 weight classes (such as the Gas Mask), it will be unlocked for all 3 weight classes, correct?

The spider always targets ranged.

Also, what does this have to do with “no free lunch”/economics?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Unlike other classes Necros can’t stomp while in any transformation. However if you follow Dulfy’s guide it should still be possible for necros.

You can’t stomp while in transformation, but neither can anyone else. You can do a “kara-cancel” style thing and stomp with it though.

But it’s irrelevant. Stability doesn’t work here.

Mito.2831:

Hi mates,

I know there is a lot of topics like this one.
I am playing thief, want to make second character – war.
I play mostly pvp and ocasionaly wvw

Please suggest me GS build – I am considering to start from the following build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApeRjkOxupQyQMxBEkCsoKOKUCmQ9wO2w4A-TsAA1CnICSFkLITQygsBNQYJyECA

I would like to be DPS, dont know wether if it has to be full glass canon or something in between, even still learning the traits so help apriciated.

Please let me know if I have to correct anything.

Also Hummer builds are welcomed. Its fun to stunn around, nevertheless with less dmg.

Thank you in advance.
RGS

You seem fine. Although I would recommend against full zerker. You don’t need it damage wise and the survivability you lose is colossal.

If you’re in PvP go for Soldier’s (with zerker amulet at most). If you’re in WvW go for a mix of some soldiers, and almost everything else cavalier. You want a bit over 3k armor and around 30% critical chance before buffs (+ 50% from unsuspecting foe + 20% from fury = 100%!). Everything else is dumped into power, critical damage and vitality.

And do drop the atrocious Destruction of the Empowered for the far, FAR, more beneficial Mobile Strikes. Priceless with a GS.

Zoid.2568:

Don’t play meta builds.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS8ZjkO1wtQyQMxBE0jvgL2CjCjQ8SKGjBE-TsAA1CtIgSBlDKDUSosQNAZBxeDA

Of course not! Better to play useless crap “different for the sake of being different without having any understanding of why certain metas exist” builds that don’t work. Hours of fun.

Flissy.4093:

Nice try.

ArenaNet would never do something as logical as fill in the “blank” elite types they are missing, i.e. Signet Ele, Shout Warrior.

Yes they would. They’ve began doing that with the healing skills.

On the other hand, since most of the suggestions seem uninspired and uninteresting, and ranging somewhere between “extremely niche” to “useless” – that’s totally something they would do. I’m especially inclined to believe in this since the Ranger’s version is particularly dreadful and would show, once again, that they’re either utterly ignorant of the core disfunctionalities of the class, or too stubborn to change them.

So, while there’s no guarantee these are real, I wouldn’t really have many issues believing them.

hellsmachine.4085:

Can’t auto attack when target is dodging like a squirrell on crack, or even stealthed. Whirling axe comes in handy for this.

Now you’re just outright lying.

How can Whirling Axe hit something an auto-attack can’t? The move is not unblockable or undodgeable. Anything your auto-attack will miss Whirling Axe will miss as well.

hellsmachine.4085:

Just don’t try to convince us it’s useless, because it’s not.

How?

We’re not trying to convince you of anything. You are. You’re trying to convince us OH Axe is not utterly useless. We’re presenting evidence it is and asking for evidence that it isn’t… Where is it? What does OH Axe actually do to be worth the slot? What is OH Axe good for?

Forzani.2584:

Link to build doesn’t work

It’s working fine for me. Try copy pasting? Keep in mind I only did the traits, so everything else IS blank.

In case it doesn’t work for you for some reason: 0/10/20/10/30

• nothing
• III
• II / IX
• I
• VI / X / XI

Flissy.4093:

I do want to remind you that Whirling Axe does deal 50% more damage in PvP.

Not that that makes it any good, mind you.

Yeah, it’s still a gigantic pile of kitten though. Just 50% less so I guess.

hellsmachine.4085:

Wrong, there are many situations where Axe offhand is useful. When 2-5 players are stacked together, or when a player is low on health and evis is on CD, or if you just want to build up adrenaline for Evis.

Your opinion is invalid.

No. He’s right. Off hand axe is completely useless. In PvP especially. Axes in general are pretty crap in PvP, but at least mainhand axe has damage going for it. Off hand has nothing. Literally nothing.

• Warhorn and Shield have defensive skills and utility. Shield has one of the best blocks in the game and a nice stun. Warhorn has condition removal, swiftness, a blast finisher and AoE Vigor and Weakness.
• OH Mace has control (AoE knockdown) and damage (vuln stacking and decent damage on skills)
• OH Sword has a mixture of some defense (block) and decent offense that mixes conditions and power damage (rip)
• OH Axe has…. Nothing. Literally. Nothing. #4 is an incredibly slow melee attack with relatively mediocre damage. The only use of the skill is to get a lot of fury, which is only accomplished by hitting a lot of targets (useless in PvP). In PvE you already have perma fury so it’s trash as well. #5 is supposed to be … Something… An AoE DPS skill I guess, but the damage is miserable. It has no burst (too slow) or sustained DPS (too low DPS in general). Warrior has better AoE options, and even auto-attacks are better damage. So… There’s really no reason to ever use this terrible weapon…

If 2-5 players are crowding around you’re still better off auto-attacking. If a player is low on health you’re better off auto-attacking. You’re always better off auto-attacking because, despite the large number, the actual DPS on #5 is kitten . It’s really bad. It just shows a big number because it’s a very slow channel.

KarlusDavius.1024:

If they stealth while your channeling it tracks them, if I remember correctly?

Yes. Any channel is maintained through stealth so long as the target remains valid (in range, in LoS…etc).

Although the reason rifle isn’t currently used is partially because of Longbow’s synergy with Cleansing Ire and partly…. That… well… Longbow is just better. At almost everything. It has better condition application because of far more burn, spike bleed, and fire combo field. It has more direct damage because of a much more controllable burst (#3 is ridiculous with power). It helps you keep people in place since the massive immobilize in almost every situation barring other warriors beats the rifle’s cripple. And on top of everything it has a LOT more AoE whereas rifle is almost exclusively single target.

Rifle has decent burst through their rapid fire skill, but the rifle’s main point is kill shot. Unfortunately while killshot does have a ridiculously high damage spike it’s also an extremely vulnerable and telegraphed, so it’s relatively easy to avoid. Whereas Longbow’s #3 still delivers a very painful blow while being much easier to land (pretty much guaranteed unless they instantly clear the #5 and roll) and being a large AoE that’s also a blast finisher.

karakurt.8690:

You gota be kiddin me…

Then what is it? What do you honestly think this beats?

Lurock Turoth.9085:

I think old ProxyDamage has a bit to much of a kitten for Discipline. But in any case don’t make hybrid builds, they just suck no matter what class.

Mostly that’s because Discipline is currently the second best warrior tree, and only behind Defense because Cleansing Ire is so bloody essential.

On a build that uses Signet of Rage (let alone anything else) Signet Mastery is practically essential. Fast Hands is practically mandatory. Mobile Strikes is another practically mandatory trait unless you’re running Dogged March + Lemongrass + Melandru runes. And, finally, Burst Mastery, while not absolutely mandatory, is just really, really, good. Not only given the power of most Warrior’s bursts, but because of its synergy with Cleansing Ire.

karakurt.8690:

I think you clearly doesn’t undertand this is not only condition warrior as title says survival condition warrior.

…But your “survival” ranges somewhere between bad and bellow mediocre…

karakurt.8690:

As I write for defiant stance “for zergs big fights but also still helps you to survive one on ones.” I’ve already made my warning here I think warriors can understand what I mean.

If you do this build you will see you won’t need mobility because you can stand against six opponent as a rock about thirty seconds isn’t it enough? Try this Strength-Discipline warrior.I know it everyone knows it that it is clearly the worst type of build of warrior “my kitten”-
In addition You can easily run away by using fear me,signet of stamina and signet of rage.

You are really underestimating Last Chance trait soo bad.It is pretty useful.

Cleansing Ire? Are you sure that you know what do these ones do ; Signet of Stamina and Superior Sigil of Purity.

This is not a hybrid build I believe this is one of balanced one.

See, this right here, it tells me you know bugger all about the game. You think Signet of Stamina (especially without Signet Mastery…lol) and sigil of purity in any way shape or form equate to Cleansing Ire? How high were you when you wrote this?

Passive and long cooldown traits are generally mediocre from the start as you can’t control their activation, but Last Chance specifically is mediocrity incarnate. You can’t say it’s straight out bad, as it has no particular downside and it does have an almost certain guarantee to trigger in a fight… But Quickness isn’t that important anymore. Especially not 4 seconds every 40… That’s a 10% uptime! Not since it was nerfed. I mean, it’s still nice, but it’s not really… All that… You’re wasting a grandmaster trait on a relatively minor, uncontrollable, and situational buff.

Defiant stance, one on one, is bad. Especially in comparison with Healing Signet. It’s only good against those clueless W+M1 gommers that simply run at you and hit you regardless of anything else… And do you really need an advantage against those?

Personally I think it’s adorable how you think Fear Me is a reliable escape method (and not easily nullified by any single stun breaker) and that you think Last Stand is enough stability for WvW.

But hey, goodluck!

1. Ranger
2. Necromancer
3. Thief

Honestly just wanna write “Ranger, ranger, ranger”. As it stands Ranger is just a garbled mess of bad game design and dysfunctional mechanics…

KarlusDavius.1024:

Power and condition doesn’t work. Choose a power build or condition build. Not both. Defiant stance isn’t good if you want to be tanky, healing signet outshines it. PVT or VPT gear for power, Dire for condition.

Traits are too all over the place.

This. One or the other. Trying to do both means you’ll just do both poorly.

You “will not go down in any moment so easily” my kitten .

• No Healing Signet… Lolwut? Defiant Stance is only good on zergs, and even then…
• No points in Discipline? Oh dear… That means no fast switch, no cooldown reduction on signets (on a build that uses SoR and SoS? double lolwut), no mobile strikes (on a build with basically no condi removal…) and no Burst mastery or burst cooldown reduction…
• Not even 3k armor…
• 30 points in arms? Why in the world… You’re seriously sacrificing the Discipline tree for Last kittening chance??? I… Why?
• You’re seriously not going to take Cleansing Ire…? You are suicidal.

All over the place. Goodluck with it. I’m not touching it with a 10 ft pole.

Edit: LOL! You don’t even have stability outside of that kittenty 90 sec cooldown passive trait… GG.

Seras.5702:

cut for size

The problem is the activation condition doesn’t synergise well with the Warrior’s weapon sets.

See condition Mesmers and Engineers, the more common users of those runes, still have plenty of access to dazes/stuns in their normal condition builds to make it work. Most mesmer weapon sets have dazes, one of their shatters has daze, and they can sub in a utility skill at least for an extra stun/daze. Engineers already usually care some hard CC on them, and can easily sub 1 kit for some extra without much worry. Neither sacrifices anything significant for it. They just have hard CC as part of their “package”.

Warriors do not.

As I mentioned in the other post although warriors have a bucket load of hard CC it’s all in power weapons. Mace and Hammer have the most interruption potential for the warrior and, while it is quite good, it’s all on weapons that benefit absolutely 0 from conditions. Neither weapon has a single condition between them. Running Mace with Off-hand sword…. It gives you that, but at the cost of any mobility. Keep in mind Mace has 0 mobility… It’s usually combod with the GS because of that (and because lvl 3 burst = HB). Just doesn’t seem worth it.

This leaves you in an awkward position where there is no good choice for that trait. You pay too much for it for a far too unreliable pay off.

I mean, try it if you want. If you catch an opponent unaware and the stars align and it all lands perfectly it’s pretty funny, but don’t expect to get good results consistently…

Eiland.1405:

Yeah nice dissing guys, much afford, i liked it.

3 question to @ProxyDamage:

1. If debating between melandru and undead y not take antitoxin runes? it the new melandru rune for cond builds.

2. if u take melandru + food + dodged march for 98% reduction on immoblize do u still find ‘mobile strikes’ that mandatory? I don’t wvw much thats I am asking.

3. if ‘mobile strikes’ is’nt mandatory won’t you find going 30 in discipline a bit wasted? as the CD on burst is very fine on 8.5 sec as well and all that crit dmg just goes to waste on full cond build. not there is much to do about it.. coz we can’t get all these trait together with furios (30 arms)

1. Forgot about those entirely. Not a bad option to be fair. A middle ground between Undead and Melandru. Not as good defensively as Melandru (no stun duration reduction, less condi. dur. reduction, no toughness), but carries a bit extra punch with condition damage (albeit less than Undead’s) which Melandru lacks.
2. In that case, not mandatory. No. Immobilizes will pretty much wash off you anyways. That said, I usually don’t bother with food (and when I do it’s not always Lemongrass for a variety of reasons) so… Yeah. I just like the consistency of having that “anti-immobilize” on demand regardless of my food. But if you’re running the whole thing, yeah, you can skip MS.
3. In that specific situation it’s questionable, but I like to keep it. Simply put on my condi. build I abuse bursts a LOT. Flurry puts a massive amount of pressure on an opponent while also keeping them from running away, and Combustive Shot is just so very, very, good… at everything… ever. As I explained above. Additionally I like to be able to “double burst”. Because of the way Burst Mastery works (you don’t spend less you just get “refunded”) this means that you can use a level 3 burst, and then immediately switch and use a lvl 1. It’s very useful to be to, for example, clean an extra condition while immobilizing someone in your lvl 3 Combustive Shot and applying some extra bleeds… But it’s debatable if, as previously mentioned, you stack condi duration reduction. Still wouldn’t waste those points on Distracting Strikes though.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I hope no one seriously listens to this advice.

If you “don’t see” why mace is better than axe you really don’t understand.

Mace 4 = 4% dps boost for your team
Mace 5 = on demand aoe knock down for trash mobs or interrupt for bosses.

Axe 4 = useless Fury when every warrior build already had perma Fury
Axe 5 = low dps aoe attack that is worse than an auto attack in every case except 6+ enemies which happens essentially almost never

You would be better off with offhand warhorn than axe when fighting large groups of mobs, since the AOE Weakness is going to be very significant.

Against difficult bosses, you can replace the mace with off hand sword with energy sigil for the additional dodge and block.

So much this…

You don’t need the fury from Axe #4, and #5 looks pretty with big numbers until you realize it’s so godkitten slow the DPS is actually worst than autos.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

With healing signet currently what it is and 20 points in toughness/healing for cleansing, 3 seconds of dogged march is also defunct. Deflect missiles has it purposes, or shield recharge. 3 seconds regen is the equiv of every tenth drip from the tap, you’ll get an extra drip. If 410 (500 including adrenal health)every second is not enough regen for you, then maybe it is fair to say, you need a very forgiving build in order to survive. This is a very fair comment to make. The more regen you trait makes your build more forgiving and tolerant of ignorant or unskillful dodges. However being i don’t know anything..who am I to say.

You really don’t… Who the hell takes Dogged March for the 3 second regen…? It’s low activation, pathetic duration, and it’s not like Warrior benefits from Healing power enough to sacrifice other stats for it… Even if it did, it’s a low activation 3 second regen!

Dogged March is used because it stacks with condi. duration reduction food (such as Lemongrass ) and Runes of Melandru. Together it means you’re practically invulnerable to movement impairing conditions.

Given that most of the Warrior’s condi removal comes from Cleaning Ire, and that most of that, except for longbow, requires you sticking to your target, having movement impairing conditions wash away is a little tiny bit important!

The more you know…

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Naturally the proof is in the pudding. I don’t currently have the hard drive space for frapping out a vid, so the OP can search “warrior perlexity build” or “highly defensive sword/longbow warrior condi” each has it strengths. One is very forgiving, the other has a lot of free give away’s in terms of what happens simply by you being hit.

Yes… You keep using that sentence… Yet, I wonder which of the builds is more used in high rank competitive play actually winning anything… I bet Distracting strikes is very used in tournament pla-… oh wait!

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

PS warrior bow attacks do not cause conditions. Unless you are in a fire field, then you have 20% projectile chance. However, you knowing what is best obviously know this. I am sure you’ll correct your post, as it was misleading to simply frame ‘conditions on auto attack are just too handy. ’ When you meant to say, ’20% chance to have 1 second conditions on auto attack when standing in a fire field that optimally you didn’t drop until it was phase 3 adrenaline.’ I almost could be forgiven with a statement like that that maybe the person making it didn’t know anything about the game. But obviously you do. You seem to know best.

Yeah, if ONLY there was a way to add condition damage to your auto-attacks ! If only…

And if only 2 of the Longbow’s skills were guaranteed projectile combo finishers and one was a guaranteed blast finisher (on top of your auto-attack having the standard 20% chance of course)…

And if only the Longbow already had 3 condition skills… Such as AoE burns and instant 5 stacks of bleed…

And if only, if only, you didn’t waste 20 trait points on that useless waste of time that is Distracting Strikes and instead, maybe, maxed out the Discipline tree and got Burst Mastery… If, maybe, that gave you a full level 3 Combustive Shot roughly every 7 seconds – which, as you obviously know, means a giant AoE heavy burn, a giant fire combo field, and 3 conditions removed every 7 seconds… Cause that would give you a (slightly less then) 7 second cooldown on a 4 second duration skill, which kinda means… little math… carry the one… roughly over 57% upkeep on your AoE burn and fire combo field…

If only you put all of that together… That would be pretty neat!

If only…

But I’m sure your extremely conditional, low application and reapplication rate, confusion stacks are better men. Stick to your guns. Stay the course!

Oh why even bother, I just realized you don’t even take Mobile Strikes… in WvW…

I try to avoid breaking down posts, instead I prefer to answer to the full cohesive point of the post, but this is such a garbled mess I honestly can’t.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

@proxy damage. If i don’t know what I am doing, why I am still winning 2 vs 1 roaming. I guess it must be the gods smiling on me.

OMG HOW CAN I A 1 VS 8 AND MULTIPLE 1 vs 3S! Because the “average player” is really, really, bad. Such as, for example, using distracting strikes…

OMG UPSCALED LVL 20 THIEF IS OP AND THE NEW META!

Or…OR… OOOOOOR… Most people are kinda bad. Maybe. Especially the ones being shown in cherry picked highlight reels. Maybe.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Play how you want, but drop the ego on thinking you know better on someone else’s play style. The proof is always in the pudding. 16 stacks of confusion doing 5k+ damage per skill use, torment, poison, 10+ stacks of bleeds and fire aura can’t be wrong. Those numbers are far from useless. The 20% on hit from perplexity, 10 seconds confusion on interrupt on 8 second cooldown+ 3 stack confusion on interrupt with no cool down just isn’t wrong.

That’s the problem… It is. Here’s the thing, 16 stacks of confusion sound great, until you understand the opportunity cost of those 16 stacks of confusion…

• First Distracting Strikes is a Major Master trait from the Strength tree. The Strength tree not being particularly hot right now for Warriors in PvP (there are more important traits) means that one trait is costing you 20 trait points. 20. Trait. Points. It better be worth its weight in gold…

• Second the activation condition for Distracting Strikes is interruption. In a game with no cast bars, quick skill cast times, and where most disables are slower than most other skills interruptions are extremely unreliable. In most cases you can’t simply react to a skill because its actually just as fast if not faster than your interrupt! Even if you removed human reaction time (approximately 0.2 seconds on average) from the equation. But hey, at least Warrior has plenty of hard CC right…?

• …Except they don’t. Not on condition builds. And therein lies the crux of the matter. All Warrior condition weapons have soft CC (cripples/immobilizes) and all Warrior control weapons with multiple hard CCs (Hammer/Mace) are purely power weapons with no conditions whatsoever. There are no condition off-hands, which leaves you a SINGLE stun option for a condition build – Shield Bash – A single stun on a 25 (20 if traited) cooldown. That’s 1 chance every 20-25 seconds to get 4 stacks of confusion. You can raise that a bit by including Bull’s Charge , seeing as Bull’s Charge is also a useful mobility skill in WvW, which gives you another chance every 40 seconds. That’s it. Sacrifice any more utility skills and you’re gimping yourself to the point of suicide.

• So, best case scenario, you essentially got 3 chances every 40 seconds to apply the confusion stacks IF they cause interruptions. And for that you’re sacrificing 20 trait points, your runes, one utility skill – you’re forced to take Bull’s Chage, and off-hand sword. Totally worth it…

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

It maybe not your playstyle, just the same as I think your build is pedestrian. The 1 second immobile from leg spec doesn’t even stack with flurry. It has already expired by the time flurry cast is achieved. therefore it is a wasted 10 points that does not serve any greater purpose.

That’s because you’re ignorant – accidentally or willfully I can’t say. I wrote right in front of that why LS is there. It’s not there to stack with Flurry. Flurry doesn’t need stacking. Its immobilize is long enough to deliver itself.

The problem is that Flurry is an immobile channel (meaning it’s cancelled if you move) and has a hefty 1/2 sec cast time, meaning that anyone moving away from you when you cast it will almost inevitably be out of your range when the skill triggers. That’s what LS is there for. Savage Leap gives you a guarantee cripple, which, instead, gives you a guaranteed Immobilize for 1 seconds. This guarantees a Flurry hit since the target can’t even dodge out of range (immobilize prevents dodges, unlike cripple). That’s what LS does. Essentially guarantees a Flurry every 8 seconds.

Kinda good on a condition build…

1/2

Wethospu.6437:

Actually it’s not. As I said, it heals downed players instead of reviving.

The Battle Standard will, however, instantly revive up to 3 DOWNED (not defeated) allies in its AoE when its first dropped by the warrior.

Read again.

If your issue is with the terminology than take it up with ANet, because “revive” is the terminology they use.

Q.E.D.

Place a battle standard that revives fallen allies and grants fury, might, and swiftness to allies.

Holy mother of misinformation…

• The Battle Standard (Warrior banner elite) does NOT revive when you use the #5 skill. That’s just a blast finisher…

• The Battle Standard will, however, instantly revive up to 3 DOWNED (not defeated) allies in its AoE when its first dropped by the warrior.

• However, the Standard CAN fully revive NPCs from death, such as keep lords (NPCs don’t have a downed state).

• The Battle Standard ALSO provides bonus while it’s out, like any other banner skill. In this case, Fury, Might and Swiftness.

• Battle Standard will ALSO trigger any other traits that any other banner does. For example, if you have Inspiring Battle Standards trait it’ll grant regen to players.

So the reason you see people use it without people getting downed is for the buffs. However in PvP/WvW this is often unwise as you lose the triple revival.

@OP: A few things I’d change.

1. is that you seem to be putting some points in doing “power” damage… Which is pointless. You have very little power and no crit damage. Don’t bother. Personally I’d remove 20 of the 30 points you have in arms. Consider the following.

• You lose some crit chance, but you get more bursts – burst mastery allows you to chain 2 bursts together (one lvl 3 and one lvl 1) which not only gives you more damage and utility, but also allows you to remove 4 conditions instantly. It allows you to, for example, pin down > burst > switch to sword > Leap in> burst. It’s an insane amount of condition damage, conditions removed for you, and a lot of immobilizing your target (which hurts any char outside of a warrior a lot).
• You also get Leg Specialist. I consider LS one of the most underrated traits in the game for sword. Not only does it make it easier to stick to a target, but it makes Savage Leap > Burst an easy and practically unavoidable combo. Given how difficult Sword’s burst can be to land (due to the delayed startup) and how much condi pressure it puts when it lands, I find this trait mandatory for sword.
• Also switched missile deflection for dogged march simply because I think it has more synergy in WvW with both condi reduction foods and runes of melandru.

For #2 I’d switch sigil of energy for sigil of earth/torment on bow. When 2 handed weapons have 2 sigils then by all means add that in, but before that it’s just too useful to have condition on auto-attack, regardless of how short the duration is. It adds another condition to the bow which in turn means more pressure and more damage.

1. Rune choice. I don’t personally like Runes of Lyssa on warrior. I think the Elite is far too useful to hold back JUST for the condi removal. On top of that you have very reliable condi removal with CI + burst mastery and bow and sword. Bow doesn’t need to hit anything to trigger CI, and Sword has a very easy time sticking to any target (and landing burst with leg specialist). I think Signet of Rage is something you wanna have up while fighting as much as possible, not holding on to it for that one cleanse you might need… Additionally sometimes, especially in WvW, you simply need the banner! Which kittens with runes of Lyssa royally… In short, I wouldn’t use them.

Instead I’ll give you what I consider the two better choices: Runes of the Undead or Runes of Melandru. Runes of the Undead will give you the highest condi damage (especially as a warrior with very high toughness) and so are naturally more offensive choices, while Runes of Melandru are the more defensive option. They synergize very, very, well with Dogged March and condi duration reduction food.

In sPvP I run my warrior with Runes of Undead. In WvW on the other hand, I tend to gravitate towards Runes of Melandru. Both are good.

And for #4, to answer your last question, Bull’s Charge is a peculiar creature. I don’t run it in sPvP on my condi warrior since I find sticking to targets easy enough with this build… However I have a very hard time removing it from my skill bar in WvW simply because of the burst of mobility it gives me. It’s a very quick dash that, with mobile strikes, breaks immobilizes… That alone makes it golden. Together with any other mobility skill (savage leap, rush…) it gives you an unparalleled burst of mobility that makes you very difficult to catch or run away from. It has saved me from many zergs and allowed me to catch many runners.

These days I find that I simply don’t roam without it (regardless of build), while I often switch it out for something else (balanced stance for more stability, zerker stance for condi immunity, signet of stamina for condi cleansing and mini-vigor…) if I’m sticking to a zerg.

Cheers. And goodluck.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Perplexity.
20-15-20-0-15-Distracting strikes is essential.

Wrong.

Distracting strikes is one of the worst traits in the game. Running it is the equivalent of saying “I don’t know how to play this game”. So… No.

Epic.3950:

0/10 Wouldn’t consider experienced player.
plz youtube t3hsanny and try to tell him divinity is bad.

I’ll tell you for him: Runes of divinity are kitten nuggets. And L2P while you’re at it.

In sPvP they’re somewhat useful due to the absence of many of the WvW min-maxing options. In WvW they’re generally a waste as you’re giving away free points in relevant stats for negligible scattershot bonuses in irrelevant stats. It makes a proper min-maxer cry a little inside.

Same issue as Celestial gear, with the exception that celestial head and chest gear can actually be useful due to the higher ratio of normal stat-to-crit damage.

They’re both good at either.

Warrior is a more offensive class. Guardian is more defensive.

In PvP if you prefer to stay alive and support then Guardian is a bit better. If you prefer to jump in and hammer kitten Warrior is a bit better. Personally I prefer my guardian for commanding and my warrior for roaming.

In PvE it’s practically irrelevant. Most parties will need more warriors than guardians, but practically every party needs A guardian at least… Warriors do more DPS, but guardians do support with their DPS.

Either are good choices.

Interpretor.3091:

For the love of god don’t make a condition warrior. Build a full zerkers set with full divinity runes and practice with that. Condition warriors are useless.

….Why would you EVER run full zerker with divinity in WvW…? Sweet mother of stat inefficiency…

And Condi warriors are fine for roaming/small group fights, although they are naturally inferior to hammer warriors for zergs/bigger groups.

0/10. Wouldn’t read again.

I’m assuming this is for PvE? Because there is no “zerker meta” in PvP… Much the opposite.

If so….. Why? Seriously, what’s the point?

The whole “breaking the meta” thing came up in games where people simply stubbornly stuck to a handful of builds because that’s what’s being done ignoring equally valid options simply because they’re not as commonly used.

… This isn’t the issue in the “PvE Zerker Meta”. The berserker PvE meta didn’t come up because someone tried it, posted it, and everyone just followed along, or because a couple famous players used it. The current PvE meta exists because, simply put: there is no reason to use anything else.

Conditions suck balls in PvE. They’re hard capped so even having more than one in a party significantly reduces the utility of at least one of them (something that doesn’t happen to power builds), and they’re simply not as good at bursting down/sustain DPSing things as power builds… Conditions are designed for wars of attrition, as can be frequently seen on PvP, something that simply does not happen in PvE.

That leaves power builds. However, there’s also no reason to take defensive stats because of the way monsters in this game work. Small trash mobs are insignificant enough that they’re simply plowed through, so you don’t need any defense either ways, and bigger mobs, like champions, hit too hard to be “tanked” any ways. This is because you’re supposed to dodge the big hits, not tank them… However, dodging is something you can do equally with all stats, rendering defensive stats useless in their entirety.

Alas, all that’s left is full offensive power damage: Berserker.

See, this is the problem with “breaking the meta” crap. Unfortunately more often than not “breaking the meta” is just hipsters trying to be different for the sake of being different, without any understanding of why the meta is the way it is in the first place. More often than not the meta is the way it is for a reason.

Before you think of breaking the meta you need to understand the meta. Sometimes there’s no reason to “break the meta” because the meta is the way it is because it’s simply the most best way to do something. QED.

So, to go back to your initial post: there’s no reason to do it. You can complete the PvE content naked, it’s possibly and plenty of people have done it. Berserker is still the best. For a reason.

Seras.5702:

Yes, it’s subjective. And since I can’t seem to make a decision on my own yet, I’d like to hear why others prefer one race over another. I’d like to hear which races have cool animations from those who’ve played them a lot. I’d like to hear which race/gender combos look best in various armors at both low & high ends.

Also, I did say racial abilities aren’t important for this conversation.

But thanks for your opinion…

Do you understand what “subjective” means? It essentially means we can’t decide for you. You have a thread where people show off their warriors it’s stickied for heaven’s sake… You can find tons of clips on youtube of different warriors on different races. We can’t tell you what you think is “cool” or not.

I made a norn warrior. But, unlike some people in this very thread, I think max body width norn looks like a pile of kittened kitten. They clearly don’t think so. But that’s a personal opinion. Neither is right or wrong.

Do you understand the issue? We, literally, can’t help you.

Carpboy.7145:

Lmao

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxrRL7g3DuY

Yeah 20k is only doable on full zerker. But you can easily get 10-15k on a “proper” warrior build. Thats more than half their health gone in a single hit.

I’ve been hit by the “full berserker” axe warriors a lot. Cannon fodder. On non-full berserkers I don’t really remember getting hit for over 6k.

As for the video… Oh dear. First fight is hilarious. He’s completely overbuffed with foods, guard stacks, bloodlust… everything (one of the biggest cancers of WvW) vs. 2 non-buffed characters: A ranger and a staff ele… Both fairly bad players. If there are ever 2 classes/builds that are incredibly underperforming when played by mediocre players… yeah. Also, he’kittenting that ele for 4k eviscerate… So… I don’t think he’s really full berserker 30/25/0/0/15….

Moving on… Oh yeah, 7k eviscerate… ON AN UPSCALED! LOL! And the other guardian is doing Whirling Wrath at range… Ok. I’m pretty sure I get the picture: cherry picked footage displaying “l337 skillz” versus incompetents, horrible dueling builds and upscaleds… GG.

Clumsy.6257:

I said same build and armor/runes. I didn’t say anything about weapons. Swapping weapons around more than evens out the playing field. And yes, they were probably unskilled players. That being said, this was in WvW where 95% of the players are unskilled. Or it could be the fact that I have extensive experience with all classes so its considerably easier for me to counter classes that would normally be a problem. Either way, I run full glass on all classes in roaming and zerg situations and its more than doable if you pay attention.

That was a reply to carpboy that mentioned using both HB and eviscerate.

That said, it’s “doable” in the sense that, yeah, about 95% of WvW players are criminally bad. But that doesn’t meant that the build is good. It means that the average player is horrible. There is a series of entertaining youtube clips from some guy doing WvW roaming/duels with AN UPSCALED engineer (sir mustachio…? or something), something like, level 10 to 30, and murdering people. Same thing. It’s not that a low level engineer is a good choice for WvW, just that the bar is set so incredibly kittening low that, on average, you can get away with murder.

Carpboy.7145:

If you can use Ma#4 knockdown and bulls rush with 100b and eviscerate its not a horrible build to roam with. Just squishy. 20k eviscerates anyone?

20k eviscerate? On what? A full berserker upscaled?

Yeah, you have a lot of damage! You also have no survivability! You have bull’s charge! oh woopity kittening do! What decent player isn’t running a stun breaker?

What are you going to do against a “proper” warrior? ZOMG EVISCERATE! …woopity…5k… Basically a dent. Meanwhile you’re going to be eating, say, to be conservative, 2-4k damage per hammer hit.

Also, you’re running AXE in WvW? Oh lord.. What else are you running? GS? Congrats, you can kill low level upscaleds… If they’re really low level, or bad…

Carpboy.7145:

And sigil of earth…no. You have 0 condi dmg.

Hammer would also be a lot better than mace or bow

Yeah, I didn’t even get that far… I stopped at runes of Dolyak.

Sigil of Earth with 0 condi damage? Why in the world…?

Also mace/shield and bow? Do you have mobility? Do you despite actually catching people? If you’re going to run mace/shield you need greatsword (or at the very least sword) on switch.

Clumsy.6257:

I’ve been running my warrior build of full berserkers + scholars with 30/25/0/0/15 traits in WvW and have found it fairly easy to dominate in roaming situations.

Yeah… Not buying it. Either you’re outright lying or playing against incredibly incompetent players. Both equally likely… With that build any decent player will eat you alive.

wildfang.9670:

dolyak runes

The rest honestly seem…underperforming, but this right here… No. Just no. Dolyak runes are trash. The bonus you get from 6 of them is a whooping 30 hp/s. You’re better off with something like Runes of Melandru.

Heng Rai.4826:

I like to take him with me everywhere I go so wvw pve dungeon or fractals you name it . I use gs and lb at the moment.

Wrong answer.

There isn’t a build that is actually good at both because PvE and PvP are so fundamentally different.

PvE is full berserker offense. PvP is far more about survivability. You can have a build that does both poorly or two separate builds that do each thing well.

You can’t have both. Anyone saying otherwise is either ignorant or disingenuous.

Additionally, stats are only a part of your build.

I’m sorry, but isn’t this fundamentally a nonsensical and ridiculous question?

Aesthetics is an extremely subjective and personal thing. You’re essentially asking us what do YOU like the most.

And racials aren’t important mostly because racials (fortunately) suck outside of very gimmicky uses.

Nick.6972:

Can you get anything special? Why play EOTM over the real WvW?

I think the question is much the opposite: Why play “normal” WvW instead of EOTM? EOTM is prettier, better designed, more functional…. Does “normal” WvW have anything special?

Ladies and gentlemen it’s 2014 and we can’t have a gay relationship in a videogame without people complaining that it’s “PUSHING THE GAY AGENDUH!”. In fact, it’s bad enough that we have to make a big fuss around it being a “GAY!!” relationship, instead of just “a relationship”.

The real joke is that we call ourselves an envolved or superior species.

NERFS MENTIONED! EVERYONE PANIC! IGNORANCE AND OVERREACTION! OH JOLLY GEE! PANIC!

…lol…

All of this kitten over 8% reduction on the passive. 8%. EIGHT kittenING PERCENT! That’s around 30 less health a second. It is sooooooooo utterly kittening irrelevant….

The problem is that it’s still a permanent and passive, no-counter play, heal. It’s still not the amount. The amount was/is fine. Until ANet realizes that it’s the basic design of the thing that’s broken (as I said a million times now: The passives in signets should be a bonus to the active, not their main reason to be) everything else is either an irrelevant token change (QED) or nerfing it back into uselessness.

BrunoBRS.5178:

CharrGirl.7896:

BobbyStein.2315:

I’m sensing a recurring, somewhat creepy theme here.

Oh there is plenty of that on the internet already.

I mean just look at this minion photo-bomb!

http://24.media.tumblr.com/d6cb976a2afe7cf0a58188c9de00a95a/tumblr_mztuqdpJ4R1qa3e2do1_1280.jpg

because of course someone already drew that.

Actually I’d bet money someone drew worse than that… Brb…

…yep. Knew it.

The “average” player, believe it or not, is incredibly bad. Like… face tanking “watch-out-here-it-comes!” telegraphed attacks. They don’t read descriptions, let alone Dulfy or any resources outside of the game. Remember the Queen’s Gauntlet? I saw people dying over, and over, and over, and over to the first 3 champions. Yes, including the very first one.

Go to sPvP and spectate players. Half the builds don’t even make sense. I saw a necro running a well build… With no wells. A thief with a pure (and fairly bad) condition build… And berserker gear.

Good heavens, I remember a few months ago reading somewhere some people complaining veterans mobs while leveling were too strong and very hard to solo!

This kind of thing isn’t for everyone. And that’s ok. The problem is that ANet creates events that require coordination, but doesn’t give the players the ability to coordinate… So you try to get a team together and get stuck in separate overflows with people that struggle with “HIT THE BACK OF THE CREATURE THAT SAYS SO UNDER ITS NAME AND HAS A BIG SHINY SHIELD IN FRONT OF IT!”. I’ve seen people fail that one kitten …

It takes all the fun out of it when you can’t coordinate with people who know what they’re doing, and the mechanics of the event don’t even allow you to carry the ones that don’t have a clue.

Kicking water uphill, etc.