Guild Wars 2

Dante.1508:

Engineer while kinda fun to play lacks in almost every department, if you enjoy playing the weak under dog go for it if not steer clear..

It needs a lot of work and fixes…to be a viable class..

Be wary of Dungeons people actively exclude and kick engineers just heads up..

True. Sometimes I need to do some fast talking with my Engie when joining random dungeon groups, “Don’tBootMeAltAlt!BeenThroughHereAMillionTimesNoNoob!!”, or some such thing. But they’re happy when I whip out my elixir gun and healing turret and lay down a permanent light field with Kit Refinement for endless condition removal and retaliation. We don’t have YouTube-worthy DPS, but engineers do some things better than any other class.

Oreoginal.1580:

I went with Dolyak Runes before. The Health Regeneration was TERRIBLE. I switched to Soldier’s Runes now and I can honestly say that it’s significantly more useful AND WAY less cheaper than Dolyak Runes. Also, you said so yourself that you use shouts. Soldier’s Runes are perfect for you!

Agreed. At 40hp/sec, Dolyak will only give you 2400 hps/minute. A healing shout build, at a base 300 healing, will heal ~1500×2 and remove 2 conditions every 20 seconds (assuming your utility includes 2 shouts and stability or Endure Pain).

I suppose Dolyak would be a decent choice if you’re trying some sort of tanky non-shout build. But in general, I don’t think Dolyak is really a warrior rune set.

Well, here’s the thing about the warrior horn – the Quick Breathing trait, which he almost definitely has, converts one condition to a boon, poison > regen, vuln > prot, weakness > might, confusion > retaliation, etc., and he can do it every 8 seconds. Throw on Soldier runes, and a condition-heavy class is going to have a tough time.

A trick (and I’m not sure why I’m telling you this), make sure that you keep the war crippled/immobilized/chilled, it completely screws up the boon conversion – the conversion will always convert the CC, and the bleeds etc never get removed.

The shield reflect is great in Southsun Cove versus karka who always open up with that ranged tail-shooty thing. Hit FGJ, casually walk into a pack, hit Shield Stance, watch them damage themselves to a pixel of health, one or two hits to finish them, loot.

On that note, it seem that the chance to crit with the reflected shots is based on your crit chance (in PvE anyway). When I’m all raged up and 80ish % crit chance, pretty much every reflected shot will crit for ~2500.

Warp Sniper.6795:

I want to make an archer. I may make a ranger however I’m not really into the whole pet deal. I can work with it but I want to know if the longbow warrior is any good in dungeons, WvW, and spvp.

I will probably run with a sword/warhorn in the other weapon slot. Any information will be much appreciated.

:D

Longbow can be a beast in WvW with a full berseker build. You can clear a keep wall like no one’s business – I’ve had Combustive Shot ticking for 1500-2000, and Arcing Arrow hitting for 7-8000. Normal dungeons it’ll work, fractals not so much, you’re going to be pretty squishy. You might be able to make a LB/zerker build work in open PvE, but you really only have one ranged CC, unless you slot Throw Bolas or something. IMO, you’re better off going Rifle if you want to play a ranged war, where at least you can keep the target crippled half the time.

That being said, LB is a great secondary weapon since you can drop a fire field and finish it yourself. I run axe/shield and LB, and my favorite is Combustive Shot > Arcing Arrow (might) > swap and Shield Bash for fire shield > Eviscerate for fire shield again when you have a bar of adrenaline.

Retsuko.2035:

The trait skill Missile Deflection in the warrior’s defense tree is not bad.

Yep, check out Mighty Defenses (I) in Discipline too for might whenever you block. For WvW, you want to look at Mobile Strikes (X) in Discipline -Shield Bash will break immobilize. There’s nothing worse than taunting 50 enemies only to be immobilized a split second before you hit Shield Stance. I use a 0/0/20/30/20 axe/shield build since Eviscerate breaks it too.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-s7wF-0-NKkN0_4cL-60;9;6JTJ;448-07B09-JJF7c;1ZF18ZF185BS

foofad.5162:

I hope the response is to increase the effectiveness of other build possibilities rather than to decrease the effectiveness of AH.

This is a cool idea, Stanholo. I’m gonna goof around with a glassier version though – Knight’s weapons, Berserker everything else and 0/30/30/10/0 with shouts and meditations (MF rather than AH for WvW roaming) and see if I can keep from dying horribly. It’ll be entertaining in any event.

Hmm, a MF build could be interesting, and maybe even better than AH since we’re really not going to be throwing around a steady stream of boons like we would be with hammer/mace/staff. To make AH work with this, I think we’d need a 0/20/30/20/0 build for Empowering Might in Honor. But that means giving up Right Hand Strength in Radiance, which is the equivalent of losing 415 precision. But if crit chance can be maintained at 70%+ somehow, this could be a winner.

Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll give both builds a try. Losing 300 Vitality makes me a little tentative, since the build only has me around 20k hps as it is, but maybe the extra toughness AH will compensate.

Everyone else has a catchy build name, so here we go – I was wondering if anyone has tried something like this before:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-7Fk3d;0JF-40M3JG-90;9;49T-T-1;056A;117A;1JJ-44;1ZF18ZF185Bg

The build is primarily for PVE (so far) and leverages the lifetap effect of Omnomberry Pies to which I’ve recently become addicted.

Gear is full PVT with Soldier Runes, Knight weapons, and Berzerker jewelry. With pies, Maintenance Oil, Sigils of Perception (on one sword/torch set) and then Sigils of Accuracy and Blood when I have 25 stacks.

This gives me around 70% chance to crit. The trick to all this is fact that food procs have no cooldown and can proc on each target hit. The Omnomberry Pie hp proc heals 348 and does not appear to be modified by your heal rating. So that’s a 66% chance to heal for 348 on every crit on every target.

Now, if we look at the sword/torch combo: #1 autoattack hits 5 times in 3 swings. #3 hits 8 times, and #5 hits 10 times in a cone. Now for a little theorycrafting – single target, you #2 to close, #3 for 8 hits, #5 for 10 hits, #1 for 5 hits – that’s 24 hits for your opening. If we have 70% crit, that’s 17 crits. And if we assume that 66% proc a lifetap, that’s 11 × 348 damage and heal – 3800 on one target plus the damage of the attacks themselves in around 7 seconds.

It works incredibly well in open world PVE and normal dungeons. But I haven’t tried it in fractal dungeons or PvP yet. I’m loving it so far.

I ran that build for a long time, 10/0/30/30/0 and it it a beast with full PVT and soldier accessories- I love it when people say, “but you won’t do any damage!” What does the “P” in PVT stand for? I’ve easily hit 3800+ Attack with a few might might stacks. 3500 armor and 30k hps…yeah, what a crappy build!

“But you have no crit!” – With Rage, that’s 24% up all of the time (with FGJ, SoR and 30% boon duration via Tactics). Throw in Omnomberry Pies (70 precision), Maintenance Oil (~200 precision) and now your crit’s up to ~37%. Now add in Sigil of Perception and you’re up to ~49%. Sigil of Accuracy and bang, 54%! Add a Sigil of Blood just because – I’d go Axe/Shield since the speed of the axe increases the effect of your lifetaps.

As for added tanky-ness, I’d go with Soldier Runes – Dolyak is a 30hp/sec meh heal. Better to to be able to purge conditions that will do 100x that per second.

I’m running a higher-crit build now, 0/0/20/30/20, but I might go back.

Danicco.3568:

I don’t know why you guys say it’s bad when it’s one of the most OP effects from all Runes…

I’m a Guardian, and my passive Health Regen is 100ish per second. We have a Major Master Trait that enhances it by 25% (so it’s a 25 increase). The Rune’s effect is worth more than that.

If you compare with other Runes’ effects, you’ll notice they’re pretty much equivalent.

I think if they buffed this Regen effect it would be the best Rune ever. Imagine if any non-Guardian had the same Health Regen as a Guardian?
Or a Guardian with a 200+ health regen per second… that would be awesome! (Guardians can achieve this already but at the cost of a build/gear sets)

30 HP/sec at 80 is junk. That’s 1800hp/minute, or just less than the damage done by a single bleed stack applied by a player with 0 condition damage. Or you can get soldier runes and remove 25 stacks of bleed with each shout. No contest.

I have an 80 War and Guard, and I spend 95% of my time on the War because he’s so kitten fun. Don’t get me wrong, the Guard is fun with its big bag of support tricks; but the DPS on the War, even with a tanky build, just feels much more substantial – I can’t really explain it better than that.

And with 30 points in Tactics, you have the option of providing great support with group-healing shouts or healing banners while going DPS or tank in every other aspect of your build – granted it’ll be easier going tank with 30 tactics, but with food, buffs and rage you can easily have high DPS too. With Guardian..meh, you really need to go one way or the other.

Natsu Dragneel.1625:

with 1k healing power at level 80, i do believe it was hitting about 380ish every 3 or 4 tic’s, or something similar to that

You were probably at 3 bars of adrenaline, since Adrenal Health isn’t modified by healing power.

AH gives 360ish health every 3 seconds at 3 bars, less for 1 and 2 bars, so it’s ideal if you’re not bursting much. But even if you are, it’s still worthwhile. On the topic of regen, Healing Signet ticks for ~210 every second with 0 healing power, which means that, combined, you’re regening ~20k hps/min.

Zelotes.1570:

Quick question on sigils:

If using Axe/Shield (only dual-wield config of the build), do you put Sigil of Perception on both Axe and Shield? Or what would you stick on shield instead?

(This is assuming that having 2 x Sigil of Perception equipped in Axe/Shield wouldn’t build stacks of Precision twice as fast).

Funny you mention that, because having two Sigils of Precision WILL double your stack gain, ie. a Sigil on axe and another on shield = 2 stacks per kill (this might be a bug, I should probably keep my mouth shut…). I run with two sets of weapons, the double-precision Sigil set, and another for when I have 25 stacks of precision with Sigils of Accuracy and Blood. And as long as your crit chance is high enough (~50-60% with Rage), the Sigil of Blood and Omnomberry Ghost make for tasty life-tapping goodness.

Nice build, I’ve tried similar variations, but timing the horn blasts to gain protection is a neat idea, I’m going to try it.

The only thing I’d suggest would be to try going 0/0/20/30/20. You give up Reckless Dodge, Restorative Strength and Spiked Armor, but you gain Signet Mastery (Signet of Stamina down to 36 seconds), Fast Hands and Mobile Strikes. So, with FH you can really take advantage of those Sigils of Energy; and MS means that you’re breaking immobilize with Shield Bash every 20 seconds, and with Savage Leap every 8 seconds. I know Reckless Dodge is a big part of the plan, but your build could really leverage MS.

10/0/30/30/0 mace/shield, heal shout build with soldier runes. Go PVT overkill on everything, even jewelry (Emerald gems). Superior Sharpening Stones gives +201 power. Omnomberry Ghost food and Sigil of Blood for lifetaps on crit. Get yourself 25 stacks of bloodlust for another +250 power, and you’ll be running around 3500 attack, 3400 armor, 30k hps, and 20%ish chance to crit (before Fury). Now go back to Orr, crush all before you and listen for the lamentation of the women.

There’s so much random agro and conditions flying around in Orr, a glass cannon-y build is going to have a hard time in some areas.

Geewoody.2017:

You use a build that isn’t ridiculous.

As GS + A/Sh:

I patiently swap back and forth between my weapons using up my normal cooldowns most of the fight. Once my Adrenaline is close to full, I pop Signet of Rage, switch to GS, smack them around until they use up their stamina, and finish them with a Frenzy/Rush 100b combo’d with Whirlwind and a switch back to A/Sh for the Evis.

Not the only way to do it, I’ve seen some hammer warriors rock them as well.

This is probably the best approach to beating a bunker guardian, slow and steady, get them to blow their cooldowns, and then unload. Th only things I’d suggest would be to initially stick with just axe/shield or GS, don’t switch right away. I have an 80 warrior and an 80 guardian (bunker of course), and if a warrior is switching between axe/shield and GS, it’s obvious he has a lot of burst, so the guardian is going to keep a save in reserve. A couple of caveats (assuming one on one):

• Don’t blow your charge immediately, she probably has Aegis up. And if she doesn’t, and VoC is on cooldown, she’ll probably hit Save Yourself or Stand Your Ground for stability and retaliation as you come into range. Don’t make yourself out to be a bursty threat initially.
• If you’re running a condition build, pick another target. a bunker guardian has way too many ways to remove conditions – soldier runes combined with Pure of Voice remove two conditions AND gives one random boon with each shout. Save Yourself, Purging Flames, Bow of Truth, Contemplation of Purity, Smite Condition…just..forget it.
• Selfless Daring heals all on an evade, which can be 1k+ heal, Vigorous Precision gives vigor on crit… whittling a guardian down is going to take a long long time.
• A guardian’s real weakness is her relatively low hps, usually not much over 20k. And they usually need to balance healing, toughness and vitality, so if they have 1200 healing power, they’re not going to have 3k+ armor and vice versa. A properly timed stun > burst > HB will have the best chance at a kill.

Catinka.5476:

I need some build advice I’m not running a glass cannon but with FotM after level 10 I seem to die a lot more which might be the groups I run with but it made me doubt my build so I just want my build balanced between damage and survivability.

4/6 of my armor pieces are power/toughness/vitality the other 2 are power/precision/critical damage all have soldier’s runes. All jewelry is knight except back piece which is ascended in power/toughness/vitality.

As slot skills I use mending for healing, endure pain, for great justice, shake it off and signet of rage.

My stats are with food:
Attack 3167
Critical Chance 39%
Armor 3205
Health 24682

I use a greatsword for melee and a rifle for ranged.

Traits are:
20 points in strength with berserker’s power and slashing power.
30 points in defense with turtle’s defense, last stand, defy pain.
20 points in tactics with leg specialist and shrug it off.

So any advice?

It’s a good build, I run a hammer PTV 10/0/30/30/0 build with more vitality than you, but lower crit chance. The only thing I would suggest is to drop Defense to 20 (Defy Pain is a little iffy in a lot of opinions), and go 30 Tactics for Vigorous Shouts, maybe also swap Shrug it Off for Lung Capacity. Two healing shouts will give you an extra 3k or so hps every 20 seconds. Besides that? Eh, duck more!

niedawow.6725:

The most easy way to level is by using sword+warhorn, rifle as offhand.

Can’t add much here, sword+warhorn/rifle is great for open world PvE leveling – the #2 leap and Swiftness make traveling much more enjoyable. You might also want to try longbow in your offhand – create a fire field with your longbow burst, and then swap to sword+warhorn and #2 savage leap, which is a finisher, for fire armor.

Sonea.8056:

Nop i mean, i need to make sacrifice but more than warrior and for less damage.

Well, there’s your problem right there. Your traits are all in French.

An interesting build. I run a tanky hammer build with a banner, 10/0/30/30/0 in dungeons. The perma-regen is very nice, especially for Mesmers since it also gives them what is essentially permanent protection with their Illusory Membrane minor trait. But WvW…I’ve gone back and forth between a banner for speed with a mace/shield offhand. Or no banner, but sword/warhorn offhand. It’s a real tradeoff (which is kind of cool in a way) – with banner, and I can equip something I’d use in combat offhand rather than a horn for movement and nothing else; but that ties up a utility slot, which usually means I lose Endure Pain or stability.

Kyouhei.2341:

Hey everyone I found a topic on Guru and we still couldn’t figure out how to achieve these Stats:

https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/19520/statss.JPG

Decent Attack, Decent Crit Rate, Really High Crit DMG, Really High Defense, really good HP.

Which Items do you combine to get these Stats? Can someone make a detailed list please? of Chest, shoulders, … Runes, Traits, Accessory and everything you can equip to get higher stats.
Maybe someone has similar or even better stats. please help us!

Lot’s of us would be really grateful for the help!

Howdy! Lurking warrior, but I have a Guardian too. This is my War, but I’m building the Guardian in the same way:

Full AC dungeon power/toughness/vitality and weapon.
30 points in Vitality and Toughness trait lines.
All Exotic emerald jewelry, and the storyline reward berserker back slot with a ruby gem.
Six piece Superior Rune of the Soldier.

I’d assume this person is 0/0/30/30/10

AlfredKlios.9657:

Never again warrior for pvp.

Can’t compete with kite heavy Mesmers who run around in circles infi-kiting warriors who even have traited immobilize breakers and several cripple breakers and stun breakers and can turn stealth if all other failsafes fall, or just turn you into a moa.

So best recommendation is to pick up a ranged weapon and beat them at their own game? Warrior ranged is extremely weak, the 2 significant sources of rifle’s damage volley and killshot can be dodged more easily than anything i can think of. Longbow is a powerful contender but a mesmer just walks like a jogger in a park out of the fire to continue the ranged bombing on you.
Or they can just set up a projectile reflecting field just to troll you, but most often will win the damage race by relying on stealth as long as possible to stay hidden and let copies bomb you down.

Thieves who at the drop of a hat and out of nowhere mega combo you for 30k+ health who can just as easily stealth out of a fight if their burst fails or is faulted. Feel sorry for 100b warriors which is the only burst we have in the game, who A, can’t even come close to thief burst, and B. dont have a fallback/escape mechanic if their burst fails, so they end up perishing soon after.

Solution? Roll 1 of the 2 classes who can escape any situation with ease and have extremely powerful and sometimes broken builds/abilities to abuse. Choose a mesmer if you want some skillcap that can handle ANY situation and any build with ease, or a thief if you just want to roam around exploding 1 person every minute and have good insurance against being downed.

If you want to be a warrior in pvp, roll a guardian,at least they can bunker.

P.S. , am a Longbow Shout build who can do massive burst in short time with burning+arcing arrow. I can make short work of all engineers and rangers i’ve encountered, but never mesmers. They almost kill me with every engagement unless they have absolutely no idea what they’re doing, or can just use one of their infinite number of escape mechanics in their toolbags to leave the fight if things get hairy.

Here are some truism I’ve discovered while eating dirt as a DPS warrior:

Damage done is an algorithm that primarily compares the attacker’s Attack (weapon damage + Power) to the target’s Armor (gear defense + Toughness). Pretty much every range character is going to stack Power, Precision and Crit Damage which, with exotics, will give them around 3000 Attack. So, when a warrior goes into melee range with 5 signets, Berserker armor, Crit Damage runes and 2000 Armor, you’re going to end up like everyone jumping off the landing craft on D-Day who isn’t Tom Hanks.

If you’re running with a solid group, with a lot of support abilities, a melee GC build can work. Otherwise, it’s Toughness. And when you think you’ve overdone the Toughness, keep adding Toughness. Your Crit Rating is going to be low, but you’ll do more damage than you would have done running back from the rally point. Also, all Toughness gear has Power too, so your damage won’t be kitten (I typed ‘kitten’. I like it.)

A ranged GC warrior build can work (and is a lot of fun), but understand that you’re a sniper – if a Thief jumps you, you’re going to die, and you’re probably not going to out duel a Mesmer. No hard feelings, it’s the way of things. Try to die dramatically.

If you’ve decided to go Toughness and melee it up, you MUST have some form of Stability, and you SHOULD have a stun-breaking ability, Ignore Pain and a gap closing ability.

Your choice for offhand weapon(s) shouldn’t be random, and should complement your main hand setup for fighting and/or be used as escape kit. Personally, I like Sword/Warhorn offhand (no-target Leap, Quickness, Weakness and movement condition remover).

That all I got. Carry on.

The OP is definitely on the right track. Warrior DPS is not king in dungeons unless you have a ton of support in your group..and even then. What good is all that DPS if you have to bail out every 10 seconds to wait for your heal to refresh? A high toughness build lets you stay in and do more sustained DPS, and give you a bigger margin for error.

Personally, I run 10/0/30/30/0
Restorative Strength
Turtle’s Defense/Merciless Hammer/Defy Pain
Empowered/Lung Capacity/Vigorous Shouts
For dungeons, you can also swap to Inspiring Battle Standard and Inspiring Banners for what is essentially perma group-regen with your +30% boon duration.

I’ve tried moving 10 points from Defense into Strength or Discipline, but Defy Pain is just too huge.

What is missing on your link that makes your stats so much lower than what you say you have?
Attack: 2126 , Crit: 4% , Armor: 2477 , Health: 23022

Where do you get 25% crit when you have full focus on power vit thougness gear?

just wondering since im intresting in building the same but need to know what you actually use and what is your stats :P

Here’s stats with the current build.

Deep Strike is like the drug dealer in Warriortown. It’s 200 lousy precision in exchange for 5 slot abilities you’ll try like hell to never use. What a waste. Just say ‘no’.

Madtavish.9037:

I was thinking about something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQNBiYDbk0J5NGS4hJSAgeYFXbZUY0PqC2lKUGA;TsAA1CtoKyUkoIbRuikFtEZAxGCA (copy -> paste the link)
(sry its a PvP Builder so there aren’t those Emerald Jewels)

Basically stacking Lots of Toughness, Vitaly and Power (trough Trait lines, Armor and Accessories) and some crit (not shown because of missing emerald jewelery). And also making the Power, Vit and Toughness scale from each other.
Having SUPERIOR Condition removal (Heal removes some, Signet of Stamina and Signet of Rage /w Rune of Lyssa.
The 1st Utility slot being a free one, you can fill it with anything you want (FGJ/Fear Me/Frenzy/Signet of Rage – for insta Earthshaker/Banner of your choice… but the Balanced Stance and Signet of Stamina probably being mandatory for a frontline fighter.

Unless you want to have Empowered/Longer longbow range or improved banner, i think its better to drop those 10 points into Discipline, either for Movement Skills breaking Immobilize (Hammer F1, Sword 2) or 100% to Rally if you kill someone in Vengeance. Oh And faster weapon swapping. (don’t think thats major thing since hammer will probably be your main wep most of time)

Sigils are for +Power when near kills, since i don’t assume you should be dying much and this will make you hit even harder.

So what do you think?

Probably a better overall build for solo PvP. It looks like you’re losing about 100 vitality, not a huge deal, and gaining 100 power by going Strength 20 and dropping to Tactics 10. You’re also losing around 20% boon duration in Tactics and dropping healing shouts altogether.

Better damage and condition removal, but shorter boons and they’re self-only, except for FGJ. I run with a group, so I’m addicted to the healing shouts and condition removal of soldier runes. But if you run solo, or you already have lots of people throwing boons around, this build is pretty solid imo.

Robique:

Interesting. The Lyssa rune six-piece bonus is pretty huge, but I’m not sure I’d replace the Soldier, since the trait/Soldier rune combo does AE healing and condition removal. But you’ve got me thinking about 10 in Discipline for the 20% signet recharge… Combine that with Restorative Strength for 10 in Strength – heals remove movement conditions, and that would be every 16 seconds. Hmm… Think maybe I’d go Dolyak signet for the stability (since this build doesn’t have any), For Great Justice and Shake it Off. So, 10/0/20/30/10, Dolyak would help compensate the loss of 100 toughness…but it would lose Defy Pain and Armored Attack. Need to play around with it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Rissou.7213:

What is missing on your link that makes your stats so much lower than what you say you have?
Attack: 2126 , Crit: 4% , Armor: 2477 , Health: 23022

Where do you get 25% crit when you have full focus on power vit thougness gear?

just wondering since im intresting in building the same but need to know what you actually use and what is your stats :P

The gw2db build doesn’t include the AC armor or weapon stats. Not at my computer at the moment, but I’ll post the full stats here tonight. The precision comes from 5 Emerald Orichalcum * of the Knight jewelry pieces and a Berserker back slot item.

After weeks of consideration, contemplation by the sea, and a thousand waypoint recalls, I decided to see what would happen to my WvW warrior if I focused on survivability. So, I put away the swords, axes and greatswords, picked up a hammer and headed to AC to grind tears for exotic power/toughness/vitality armor. I slotted six Superior Rune of the Soldier pieces, made a set of exotic emerald jewelry, and moved to a 10/0/30/30/0 trait build. Now, I run around 3400 armor, 3000 attack, 27k hps and a crit rate around 25%.

It’s been enlightening. Since the change, I don’t think I’ve lost a legitimate 1v1 encounter with any class in open field (not a kill every time, sometimes they just run away after a minute of me not being dead), and I’ve revived people while being focused fired from a wall and rolled away with 60% health. Suddenly, I feel like the berserker I’ve always knew I could be, ever since first grade. My takeaway from this is the understanding that toughness is insanely important for a warrior in PvP. Damage done is mainly a comparison between the attacker’s Attack and the target’s Armor. Since every ranged class, and thief, is stacking power and precision, strolling into range with low toughness is a recipe for disaster when you consider that you’re certainly going to be CC’d 90% of the time. Since warriors have limited damage avoidance, like guardians, we have to focus on damage mitigation (toughness).

Dual axes and 5 signets is great while leveling, but a glass cannon build in WvW is suicide unless you’re part of a VERY coordinated group with overlapping support. We’re not thieves, we don’t have their surprise and escape abilities, so we shouldn’t play like them and expect to kill like they do. Like I mentioned, I run a 10/0/30/30/0 build with three shouts, a hammer primary and sword/warhorn offhand (for escape):

http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/2067-juggernaut

Anyone else have a similar experience and/or revelation?

This is what I’m using now http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/1443-tanky-shout-healer

It’s about as tanky a build as I think one can make, especially when you gear up with dungeon/karma/PvP power/toughness/vitality gear and a Superior Rune of the Soldier set. Also, your three shouts all heal and purge a condition. I swap Defense (10) between Turtle’s Defense and Missile Reflection depending on the fight, but mostly just run with Turtle.

The link is broken for me too, but I run something similar so I get the synergies. Here’s the build as I understand it, based on the video and discussion:
http://www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/1443-tanky-shout-healer

It’s weird that no one mentions warhorn. Not sexy, I know. Quick Breathing purges conditions and turns them into boons – so every 16 seconds you get two purges and free boons, 10 seconds of quickness and vigor and AE weakness. Then take Empowered for bonus damage for each boon. I run sword/horn, lots of bleeds and mobility and solid damage.

I agree with the all-signet snickering – you give up way too much utility for a measly +40 precision per slot. At this point, everyone in PvP knows how to deal with a HB warrior, maybe it’s time to try something different.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McRkVo0MoRNhmoRNhmax0x0VcRqosb

This is an all-purpose sword/warhorn build that I’ve been using at level 80 with great success. I wanted a setup that would let me switch from solo play to dungeon runs to PvP without ever having to visit the trainer. I’ve tried every build imaginable, and this is the only one that hits all the marks for me.

The setup as listed is what I usually run around with solo, or when dungeon running. It focuses heavily on bleed damage, so I maximize it with Ravager gear for +power, +precision and +condition.

Before you scoff at the warhorn and reach for your offhand axe, note that Quick Breathing in Tactics reduces the cooldownby 20% AND converts 1 condition into a boon. So, every 16 seconds you’re gaining Vigor, Quickness, two random boons, purging conditions on your group and weakening enemies around you. Now take a look at Empowered in Tactics: Increase damage for every boon on you. That’s a lot of benefit and bonus damage for two horn blasts. Not to mention, weakness and quickness makes warhorn an amazing option for escaping bad situations.

Sword is superior to axe (main hand), in my opinion, because of its flexibility and free bleeds in the auto attack that synergize (if it’s not a word, it should be) with condition focused traits like Precise Strikes and Deep Cuts. Without using the burst, I’ll typically maintain 10-15 stacks of bleed on the target. After bursting with Flurry, it’ll climb to 20-25 stacks. Now throw in Hamstring and Savage Leap (which is also a finisher) to close the gap.

You also have a high critical strike chance that triggers Furious. Typically, I’ll burn all of my adrenaline on Flurry and be back at 2 bars of adrenaline by the time the burst ends, which ensures that I’m maximizing the damage bonus of Berserker’s Power.

Support comes in two flavors: healing shouts and banners. The one listed in the build leverages Vigorous Shouts in Tactics to make all shouts heal you and your group. You could also replace Signet of Fury with Shake it Off for a third shout-heal. The banner support option is best suited for static dungeon fights:

Swap Berserker’s Power in Strength for Powerful Banners.
Swap Empowered and Vigorous Shouts for Inspiring Banners and Inspiring Battle Standard in Tactics.
Swap utility skills to Banners of Strength, Defense and Tactics, and your elite Battle Standard.

And finally (because this build needs more flexibility!), you can swap Quick Breathing for Stronger Bowstrings in Tactics, or Blademaster for Crack Shot in Arms if you need to go ranged, like at PvP keep battles. Crack Shot is great for underwater battles too!

Insane flexibility. Never having to visit the trainer again. Priceless.

@EpicFace: GS or axe/axe (with rifle on swap) are probably the most popular weapon combos for solo PvE. Check out YoJack’s post in this forum for an interesting PvP build discussion.

If you can, get a target on the mesmer before they start pumping out clones – ctrl+t is the default, I believe. Also, clones don’t evade or run when you beat on them, so don’t waste your time if the target just stands there But agreed, they’re a pain to fight.

Awesome build, thanks for sharing! I’ve gone through a bunch of different build trying to get the perfect balance – GS, Hammer/Sword, Axe/Horn, and finally got around to Sword/Horn, which is definitely an all around winner. Your setup brings it together, very nice.