Guild Wars 2

Traits effecting skill tooltips is a great idea! Glad to see that is coming in.

New ground targeting sounds very interesting. I think giving people a choice is always a positive.

Making Support builds viable would be a huge and welcome game changer. I know the holy trinity don’t make a show in this game, but reducing peoples’ ability to survive would really increase the need for a support class in team fights. Reduce ability to cleanse condi’s, reduce ability to constantly apply vigor, and this makes the support classes instantly more viable if they can AoE provide these things.

As a Warrior Shouts are huge. Support would be great. But you need to make sure they aren’t like Ranger spirits at the moment where you can spam them all as soon as they are off cooldown. Maybe tweak them so like stances they are a bit more situational.

Ele Staff support is something that is really enjoyable and would be good to see that improved. It ties in to the above comment on making support more viable in general.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Damage-Power-Precision-and-Golden-Ratios/first#post2041178

Scroll up and read that

No. You’re mistaken. A lot of this doesn’t fit into a good “current” build. And even then I would argue that a few weeks ago the Stances synergy was pretty prevalent in M/S S/M builds.

Typing the weapon names into the wiki would do absolutely nothing for banners, shouts etc, so thanks for the input, but I’m not going to bite. This is meant for new players looking to get into theorycrafting, not trolls.

Cheers pal, will do.

Just like to get a bit of feedback so at least I know this isn’t a total waste of my time and might actually help some newer players!

sinject.4607:

what are you talking about, you people are nuts. A 3.75 sec stun on a 7sec cd is in no world balanced; not only that but given the fact you have heavy armor, high hp, high damage output, and high mobility you shouldn’t be complaining at all. Warriors literally are the one of the most overpowered things in this game and if you don’t think so you’re lying to yourself big time.

You show your ignorance by putting 3.75.

Stuns round up to the nearest full second. It’s 4 seconds with sigil of para

Tested this and you don’t get the buffs when you are reflecting. So I have updated this in the blog post. Thanks guys!

How did this fail?

dani.1956:

Excalibur.9748:

papaganoosh.7908:

Good video. He speaks the truth. And Warr is deff the most balanced class, people need to be brought in line with it, not the other way around.

Sure I’ll take a 400HPS passive heal on my thief if that’s what it means to be brought in line with the warrior.

After you get the 400Hp/S passive heal warrior will get permanent invisibility too and we call it a patch !

beat me to it! haha I’ll take perma invis healing me and curing conditions any day.

Good video. He speaks the truth. And Warr is deff the most balanced class, people need to be brought in line with it, not the other way around.

Crashed the server :P

This is crazy. Why not ban keyboards, gaming mice, energy drinks, comfy chairs and rainbows and happiness while you’re at it.

Anet climbing in your windows, snatching your microphones up.

Interesting! I haven’t actually checked whether you get “block” pop up when you are reflecting. I suppose you wouldn’t, and as a result the reflect trait should maybe be taken OR the block traits. I may do some testing tonight and split them on the guide.

Sorry for the link to outside. When I tried to copy and paste it all in the links didn’t carry and after writing it all I’m too lazy/tired to do the links again.

Link

This is meant to stimulate players that are new to theorycrafting and new to Warrior to go out and create their own builds, suited to their own skill level and play style.

Would love any seasoned players to have a look and see if you think I’ve missed any synergies or suggest some more, less obvious, trait pairings.

Happy crafting!

Thanks for the comments. I did this mainly as a PvP tool, however, I think if I have time I might develop it a bit more, maybe put in what gear/food can compliment each foundation build.

Sorry for the link to outside. When I tried to copy and paste it all in the links didn’t carry and after writing it all I’m too lazy/tired to do the links again.

Link

This is meant to stimulate players that are new to theorycrafting and new to Warrior to go out and create their own builds, suited to their own skill level and play style.

Would love any seasoned players to have a look and see if you think I’ve missed any synergies or suggest some more, less obvious, trait pairings.

Happy crafting!

Sorry should have stated. Neither. PvP based. For locking down squishy targets such as Necro, Engi, burst Ele etc

With Warrior increasingly being used as a CC stun monster, and the fact that as it stands Hammer skills are so incredibly telegraphed, thought I would rehash a slightly older build for stacking hard CC on targets and locking them down, whilst still having decent damage from Axe. You lose mobility by swapping sword out for axe (from the standard build lots of people use at the moment) and the condi clear is almost non existent which may prove to be a problem if you do not use zerkers stance effectively and if you are really having problems you could consider swapping in Mending instead.

Link

Would appreciate any comments or changes people can suggest as this is pure theory and am yet to test it.

Blog post

Original

<Team looking for a player(s)>
Team name: The Unnamed [ThUn]
Region: UK/EU
Amount of members: Around 10 depending on who is online
Practice Times: Most evenings between 6pm and 11pm
Class(es) you are looking for: All enthusiastic players who want to learn and develop
Other (Anything else that you would like to add): Check our guild website in my sig if you are interested!

This build has always been here, it just became more viable now we have cleansing ire and easier to stick on people with improved warriors sprint.

The fact that you have to let the Warrior get so close and stay so close for this build to work just makes me think people need to learn to position better when they are runnin glass builds.

Also kitten es Necro’s off and that’s always nice for those fotm players that flocked to the class this month.

Velron.3729:

Defektive.7283:

To be fair, the sPvPers crying are the ones who aren’t / haven’t played at a high level.

I would go as far as to say they don’t fully understand the counters and the important of positioning / situational awareness.

Those are the same people who cried over Eviscerate damage and Bulls, Frenzy, 100b….and look what happened there. lol

Exactly this. The people who are whining are the people who don’t see a massive shockwave (tremor) coming towards them and dodge. Or see your Warr drop the shoulder and go in for the shield bash.

These are the same people that didn’t see bull’s charge coming. Once they stopped watching their keyboards or skill buttons and started watching the game they realised “oh wait, warriors have really telegraphed abilities, I’ll just dodge/move”

Steelo.4597:

I DEMAND that all Anet employees have to play the game at least 4 hours out of 8 during their WORK TIME and be PAID for it. Also at a request of anet employee working in spvp this PAID TIME can be extended to 6 hours out of 8 without the superior manager being allowed to say no. i want to see them Anets working themselves to top rating and know every kitten thing about balance that there is to know :P because when i read this “we work 9 hours and play the game in our off time”.. well thats a sad story imo.

Would you also be happy for the bi monthly patches to be changed to once every two months as a result of this, because by cutting down their actual work time this would be a result.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

papaganoosh.7908:

What is the point of bashing the devs? Everyone whines that they don’t engage with us enough and then as soon as they do we get people saying things like “well you obviously don’t know your own game” and “do you even play this game” etc

I know common courtesy disappears when people get in front of a keyboard, but can we try and keep in mind that for most of the devs this game is their job and their life outside of the job, and ridiculous over the top bashing of it is like someone going up to you and just shouting a torrent of abuse at you about every aspect of your life…

Absolutely. However ppl are frustrated and there is no excuse for their patches balancewise. They went into the right direction, we even had a really good balance-state before the necro-buff went in. It was a state where guardian, mesmer, ele, thief, engi and ranger were in a perfect spot. The only thing that remained was necro (as warrior will never fit into this combat-system). Instead of stick to their philosophy of slow and small balance-changes, they crashed with an Airplane into the door. From Zero-to-Hero is what they did. This class became so abusive, that we are now, before PAX, in the worst state of balance since the nerf o thief-dmg. PPL should not bash the devs, but the devs shouldn’t shearch for excuses either.

I think that this is the first time in a long time that all classes are viable in some way, shape or form.

Necro is very powerful, and to make Warrior viable they make them the best counter for any Necro by giving them the tools to totally lock them down with CC.

That being said I think the current AoE Condi cleave meta is terrible and not fun to play.

JonathanSharp.7094:

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

[snip]

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

This is the same reason that Red doesn’t get interrupts in Magic, the reason that Zergs, normally, have much more mobility than Protoss (since Toss are usually stronger unit-by-unit), and why Karthus has no escapes. By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.

This seems to be a point that a lot of people do not understand/do not like. They get attached to one class and as a result want that class to have the ability to do everything/have all boons/have all condis/have all utilities/play all roles, when really this would kill the game and make it a homogeneous mess where the classes themselves were just ‘skins’ with slightly different animations over the same underlying abilities.

Nova Stiker.8396:

S Tier:
+Warriors
-Necromancers

A Tier
+Engineers
=Ranger
-Guardian
-Mesmer

B Tier
+Elementalist
-Thief

Want to be power based? Sorry! Wrong meta for you!

Warrior top… care to elaborate?

What is the point of bashing the devs? Everyone whines that they don’t engage with us enough and then as soon as they do we get people saying things like “well you obviously don’t know your own game” and “do you even play this game” etc

I know common courtesy disappears when people get in front of a keyboard, but can we try and keep in mind that for most of the devs this game is their job and their life outside of the job, and ridiculous over the top bashing of it is like someone going up to you and just shouting a torrent of abuse at you about every aspect of your life…

The replies from Allie here are amazing (something I haven’t seen on the forums for a long time).

You guys have either REALLY cheesed her off or we are seeing a great new precedence of give and take from the devs.

LoBo.1724:

They buffed RAMPAGE!
Warriors are competitive now! Let’s all hold hands and be happy!

Bullsh*t.

Ontopic;

The real Warrior buff these last few patches, have been the fact that they are actively nerfing other loved classes. This sounds crazy, I know.
Indirectly this is giving Warriors a HUGE buff, because when everyone is lowered to poo-poo status, WE WILL, float out on top as the smelliest and meanest one.

To be honest, I’d rather ALL classes be POWERFUL, DIVERSE and OP in their own sense, than have all classes in the game be dragged in the nerf mud and end up like lowly Warriors.

. . I don’t want this game to end up like other popular games (LoL, WoW, etc) where they simply make all classes/champions homogenous in order to easier balance the game . . . .

Disagree with this wholly. The devs have said many times that they made Warrior first and it was the benchmark that all other classes were gauged against. Warrior is also the most “balanced” of the classes. The only reason they have been underpowered is because every other class was too powerful. If everyone is brought down to the level of the warrior then the game will be much better.

If you are worried about homogeneous classes then worry bout everyone being “OP” and having access to every buff, every condi, all the burst damage, all the sustain etc etc, that is when things become samey and boring. Every class should have a major flaw or weakness.

Black Teagan.9215:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Dand.8231:

Torment?

Rework of Jug?!

Rush/Bull?!?

Healing Buffs?!?!?!

Apparently I’ve been sucked into parallel dimension where ANet actually <3’s warriors!

We care about all professions. =)

Any plans to give thiefs a perma +25% speed trait?

I mean warrior have one and the requirement is really absurd for a melee class, that have an elite signet with 30 sec haste + the massive movement of the greatsword or the burstskills from the hammer.

Thiefs should be the fastest class, but they dont.
Ok thiefs have the Fleet Shadow Trait an the Signet of Shadows, but the requirement for the Trait is very expensive for a short speedbuff(it saves one sec.), and in stealth the most times useless, because noone know where you are or what you do.
And for the Signet, its necessary to use a skillslot, which has much more effect on the survivability than a Tier 1 trait.

I think the thief has deserved a better passive speed and mobility, if they must fight without any deff and the smallest base hp in this game.

Shortbow? If a thief is being outpaced by anyone then you’re doing it wrong fella…

JonPeters.5630:

The heal sig is a typo. The numbers are correct but it should say per second. Yes, that is correct, 392 health per second.

Oh JP you just made my evening. This opens up some interesting Healing Sig/Adrenal Health/Dolyak Runes/Sig of Leeching or Water possibilities

dooger.2640:

Nice video.
I am having trouble coming to grips with playing a low crit build

I am guessing you are running something close to
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQRApe8ZjcO1wxQqQ4wBEkCN8LOFGP1j5APiDA-TwAA1CnIMSZkzIjRSjsGNQYRwmgJBA

You are playing the cc which makes sense, it seems like the low crit would hurt burst.
Are you counting on fury from group? (not saying its wrong, just wondering)

Unsuspecting Foe

It’s just the mechanic of the ability. Earthshaker goes Stun then Damage, the other two’s go Damage then Stun.

Hammer and X/Warhorn

Try and find some use in the two most underused weps

Narcarsis.5739:

I do this on my main account. Rating is meaningless.

Thank god it isn’t just me that thinks this.

Everyone is just bringing conflicting results! And Ziggs you used Whirling Axe, which instantly voids your opinion buddy

While that does make sense, it doesn’t fall in line with the testing I did last night.

Fjandi.2516:

papaganoosh.7908:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Guardian;
No swiftness apart from shouts.

Sorry to be pedantic but:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Swiftness

Sorry to be pedantic but i will never pick a staff as a zerker dps guardian, so according to your comment every guardian has to take retreat or equip a staff in order to get swiftness. I know he forgot to mention the staff symbol, but the point is a dps guardian has no valid options for swiftness.
On a side note i totally agree with CntrlAltDefeat, good post.

Not trying to troll, but a dps guardian isn’t, as you put it, a valid option. That’s like me complaining my bunker warrior (which I don’t have because it is like a chocolate teapot) doesn’t have access to protection. Every class isn’t meant to be able to fulfill every role. If they were it would be boring as what class you choose would essentially just be a skin.

Defektive.7283:

Velron.3729:

I’m fairly certain that the +stun duration sigils do not stack. Actually pretty sure Defektive said he tested it with one and with two…or maybe I watched him do it on his stream.

I tested it on-stream for the people who kept asking me to try it.

Doesn’t stack.

I’ll test it again tonight I suppose and will use a stop watch.

Did you manage to test this? I had a go and it appears both 1 and 2 just create a 4 second stun (at full adren).

Like everyone else is saying if Stuns are rounded then it doesnt matter if you go for +15% or +30%, it will all = 4 seconds, which is what it appears to do. If you had a 4 sec stun it might be possible to test it properly as one would be rounded to 5 and one to 6, but we don’t.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Guardian;
No swiftness apart from shouts.

Sorry to be pedantic but:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Swiftness

For sigils can anyone confirm or deny the point being debated for SoP in this thread?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Papa-s-Stance-Warrior-Build/first#post2419635

It was my understanding that they didn’t stack together

Very true on all counts. We lack cleave, we lack condi’s that we can cover with lesser condi’s and certainly rely on our team mates. That said, the ability to move around the map pretty quickly and provide decent damage and nice CC is a refreshing change from GS.

The problem seems to be that your decision making as Warr needs to be almost flawless and the team around you need to be very slick with their targetting and general play for you to really shine. Having a team that have played together for so long is a great bonus, especially when you consider that because of the state of Warrior’s that is the best you can hope for. Very few teams (I pretty much want to say no teams here) will have played with a Warrior for an extended period of time because they’ve been so terrible.

Anyway, gl with the new team, look forward to facing you guys at some point.

Defektive.7283:

Impromptu bunker Warrior?

That feel.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/That-feel-when-tPvP-win-vs-goods-Mmmmmmm/

I used a similar trip stance + soldiers ammy build scrimming against some team mates last night. It’s awesome when they send 3 guys after you in a team fight before realising you aren’t that normal squishy Warr with no defences.

WP btw. I semi-watched the hour and a bit when you played the same guys 3 times in a row and beat them every time. Shows how useful a Warr can be if played correctly.

Interesting.

I usually dismiss the duration stack ones after learning that the condi’s only tick for every full second applied (making half and quarter seconds redundant), but will certainly test the Sigil of Para stacking when I get in game. It seems weird to me that the devs would make all wep swap sigils share an ICD, not allow the on kill sigils to stack, put an ICD on the on crit sigils, but then leave these alone. If they have then this is great as it will make Skull Crack even stronger.

Bait out the stunbreak with Shield Bash and Skull Crack them to death

Only issue I see with your build is the synergy between Unsuspecting Foe + Cleansing Ire and Berserkers Power. You’d really want a buff like that coming off with your HB, but you will also want to use Unsuspecting Foe and Cleansing Ire whenever you can (for 50% crit and condi cleanse), so you will hardly ever be at full Adren long enough to take advantage. Also what is the Adren generation like on it?

I like the GS Mace/Shield build. I used it a lot. However, as of last night (when I finally had some time to do extensive testing) I have fallen back in love with the Mace/Shield Sword/Mace build. When surrounded by a bursty team, and taking Warriors sprint, you can always be where the action is thickest and help your team mates get off their full damage, whilst providing some very decent pressure to the opposition.

Build

Yeah it sucks being forced into something (when it isn’t crazy OP).

Ele’s didn’t mind bunkering all those months ago when they just couldnt be beaten
I don’t see Necro’s complaining about insane terrormancer dhuumfire builds

But I can completely see why Warrior’s might resent playing CC builds, especially when the skill floor is a lot higher than the bog standard GS build. (not saying that is why you aren’t happy with it btw!)

Defektive.7283:

As soon as I stopped trying to make the deeps happen and relied on my teammates for that spike / cleave – my job became much clearer. If my team is cleaving a downed body, then my job is to interrupt the ressers and keep them in that AoE cleave.

Because of that it makes trait choices, sigil choices and the like much easier since I’m trying to fullfil two roles (roaming / team fight) not 3 (roaming / team fight / aoe cleave).

Think this is the approach a lot more Warriors need to take. Everyone knows the Warrior CC is very strong and if the rumblings from devs is anything to go by we are going to get a bit more sustain in the future (fingers crossed).

Warriors need to stop trying to fit in to the current roles (Bunker, Condi, Cleave etc) and we need to create our own role in which we are able to stick on a target, provide some middle of the road constant pressure and most importantly keep them in one place for the other guys in the team to deal the real damage.

Using tremor on an opposition player as he moves towards rezzing his team mate (before they have poppped Stab) is just as important as getting that guy down in the first place.

Because double SoP don’t stack….

For your build I don’t see it working that well between Cleansing Ire/Unsuspecting Foe and Berserker’s Power. It seems slightly counter intuitive that you’ll want to use Skull Crack every time it is off cooldown (and you see the opportunity) for Cleansing Ire and Unsuspecting foe, so the Berserker’s power will only ever really give you more damage on Skull Crack which is negligible.

Also not sure how extensively you have run that, but to me it seems slightly lacking in Adrenaline gain, although I suppose you do have Berserker’s Stance for that at some points.

edit : what he said about sigil ^^

Love this vid. So good.

Axe/Axe is just not viable right now. Infact Axe offhand in general is just not viable.

The pitiful Fury on 4 is a bit of a waste of time, and don’t get me started on Axe 5. I love the idea of dual axe, but the damage is just pointless. Axe auto attack (correct me if I am wrong someone) does more damage than Axe 5, and doesn’t broadcast to everyone that you are trying to do some damage by spinning around for 5 seconds like a maniac. If you think you won’t get insta interrupted (if you don’t pop stab) or immobilized, then you need to play more team based tPvP and less solo queue.

That being said, don’t stop theorycrafting! The more people we have trying new things the better.

Is this for PvE or WvW? Because as stated above Stances are (pretty much) the only viable way to go for SPvP at the moment.

Until our healing/sustain gets buffed it won’t be viable to bunker a point, even a home point, with a Warrior. Which is a shame, because the mechanics are all there (pairing adren regen, with banner regen and sig regen).

This is an updated version of the build. Love the buff to zerkers stance!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAR5ejgOtwpQyQMxBE0jvoKyiTBlQ9AP2w4A-TsAg0CnIqRVjrGTNyas1MsYZxGBA

It is up to personal preference whether you use Last Stand or Defy Pain in the trait line.

Personally I am a big fan of Div Runes, but you could use Lyssa or Melandru if you were having lots of problems with condi damage.

It is also worth noting that Vigorous Focus doesn’t appear to trigger with Defy Pain (haven’t tested with Last Stand) not sure if this is a bug or intended.