Guild Wars 2

That’s basically the build Cygnus popularized. The new AH just made it stronger.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Video-Berserker-WvW-Roaming-Build

Really though, the mace can be swapped out without too much loss if the other weapon is otherwise preferable for some reason.

Also know that Shield Mastery prevents the runes’ healing effect being triggered by projectiles.

Spartacus.3192:

Choppy.4183:

EvilHero.1248:

1 question, why break stun with headbutt / berserker mode over a 10 sec break stun skill?? is there even a reason to save outrage when there’s no passive effect in it?

Because it will give you 5k health (2x Rousing Resilience, one from the headbutt and the other from entering berserker state) and put your in Berserker State (where you want to be) to start wrecking house with your opponent sitting in a 4s stun, while still having your short cd stun breaker ready if you need it.

so if someone stuns me. I use headbutt to break stun (2.5k heal). It also stuns me so i use berserk to break it again and i get another 2.5k heal right?

Exactly. And an opponent just standing there waiting to eat your Berserker burst, unless they have a stun break too.

EvilHero.1248:

1 question, why break stun with headbutt / berserker mode over a 10 sec break stun skill?? is there even a reason to save outrage when there’s no passive effect in it?

Because it will give you 5k health (2x Rousing Resilience, one from the headbutt and the other from entering berserker state) and put your in Berserker State (where you want to be) to start wrecking house with your opponent sitting in a 4s stun, while still having your short cd stun breaker ready if you need it.

ronpierce.2760:

That said, I feel the number is a little high, the pay off is certainly exceeding the risk involved by quite a bit. Seeing as how the healing is the same (correct me if I’m wrong?)

No, it’s quite a bit more healing. It used to be somewhere in the mid-300s every 3s, provided you had full adrenaline (i.e. didn’t burst). Now it’s just under 2500 health over 15s per stage of adrenaline used when landing a burst, with a maximum of 3 stacks (so just under 500 health/s).

Whether it’s too high remains to be seen. While just under 900 health/s (including Healing Signet, and assuming no healing power) is a lot of healing, it’s in the context of warrior having serious sustain issues at 370/s.

While I’ve noticed the increased sustain in a fight, I haven’t found it to be particularly overpowered, nor is it in the running for top-tier sustain.

@FiveDawgs
You’re not factoring in the might generating benefit of the Strength Runes, which is really its primary effect. All that extra might (by way of the 45% duration increase, plus the small gain on hit) accounts for a significant power increase on a build that already generates a lot of might (like a traited gs build).

It also appears as though you’ve calculated the bonus damage from the Infiltration Runes as though it applies throughout the entire fight, which as you’ve noted, it doesn’t.

But even if we leave that in, and we factor in the extra precision, you’re still not hitting the damage levels you calculated for Strength Runes that don’t account for the extra might through Strength Runes.

That all aside, Infiltration is still a good, and fairly unusual rune choice. The stealth is a nice benefit, and there will probably be situations where the bonus modifier hits exactly when you want it – when an opponent is out of mitigators. It just doesn’t appear to have the raw damage of something like Strength Runes.

pepsis.5384:

Healing Signet seemed to not work at all last night when I checked. I only got the healing from the new Adrenal in the combat log.

Depending on when your night time is, you were probably experiencing the signet bug in which the passive effects on signets wasn’t coming back if you used the active.

Yesterday’s patch fixed that though. So if you weren’t getting the healing from HS after the patch, you should probably report it.

As for this bizarre debate about whether the effect is passive or active, it really is beside the point. Yes, people regularly complain about all of the passive stuff going on gw2, but is something that’s basically passive inherently bad? No. Is something active inherently good? No.

The only things that matter for this change are:

1. Does it help address the warrior sustain problem everyone acknowledges?
2. Does it go too far or not far enough?

The answer to the first question is obviously yes. The answer to the second question will become clearer over the course of the next quarter as it, and all the other changes, see some play time and people make build/class decisions accordingly.

It seems patently obvious to me that warrior’s don’t have excessive sustain with this trait. Whether it’s enough to improve the class’ value and esteem in pvp remains to be seen.

Guardian signets apparently had the same issue, and got fixed. Bodes well for a quick fix for us.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-April-19-2016/first#post6105851

EDIT: Our signets are fixed too.

Here ye be.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/PvE-Roaming-Build/first#post6106750

Julius Seizure.4985:

This is way too much sustain crammed into one godly and now mandatory MINOR trait. Why can’t there be viable sustain options spread more evenly in the trait lines? Besides, a trait this good should happen at the Major tier, where opportunity cost occurs. I am just frustrated that this even made it out of internal testing…

Is it though? I mean, do you think a warrior with this is even close to top of the heap in terms of sustain? Because it really isn’t… It’s a nice buff that needs field testing.

And it’s not mandatory if you can get by without it. We’ve been able to get by with warrior in most game modes without it until yesterday, and now we have to see how we do with it in light of all the other changes.

Yeah, but pets, clones, and critters block it too. That’s tough for a signature burst.

As a quick correction, those stances actually pulse the boons for the duration, so untraited and no boon buffs you get 12s resistance and (I assume) 12s of stability

They explicitly moved away from the point-buy system
because it made game balance way more difficult. More combinations = more variables.

I actually prefer the new system, despite some of the limitations that come with it.

@Talonblaze
I don’t know… I mean, I’m able to hit a full burst in 15s no matter which weapon set I use, including all of the ones you mentioned, and I run vanilla. It’s not a very high bar to hit, tbh, and the 15s window means you don’t have to spam bursts off cd if you don’t want to.

Also, don’t forget about the traits and skills that help with adren generation.

Though it’s not mentioned in the release notes, this indeed appears to be the case.

I wonder if it’s an error with the notes or the deployment.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

@Choppy: you get 1 stack per bar of adrenaline spent… so if your adrenaline is maxed, you get all 3 stacks of AH when you land your burst. In berzerk mode, a single full bar of berzerk counts as 3 stacks of adrenaline for AH (this has been stated on the wiki for the previous AH, though hasn’t been updated with the new patch changes). So, even if you miss with one burst, in 5 sec you’ve got another shot at a full 3 stacks. So in or out of bezerk mode, it’s fairly easy to keep 3 stacks of AH up.

~EW

Ah gotcha, yeah, that’s an easy bar to reach. With several chances in that 15s even if you miss once or twice. I’m still good with it though, tbh.

To the person having trouble with being blinded, if you can’t clear it with an auto, Berserker Stance is probably the best blind immunity skill in the game. If that’s not off cd, using Healing Signet certainly seems like a self-defeating way to deal with the blind in this case, so waiting it out while swinging autos, getting out of the field, etc.

The only real cost blind incurs is a short delay (if you notice it and act accordingly), or a large delay due to losing your adrenaline because you didn’t notice. But you have a 15s window, so it isn’t that bad.

I honestly don’t understand the complaints here.

Some people are mad because they think it’s too easy to get, others are mad because they think it’s not easy enough. Some people don’t like that it’s on the defense line, others because it somehow interferes with their pet concept of a warrior.

It’s a non-intrusive healing buff to a line most warriors are running anyway, that required no trait change so leaving most builds intact, that requires you to succeed at something you should be trying to do anyway (land your bursts), and in the context of most other classes otherwise having much more healing/sustainability.

Also, dominik, you said you have to land one burst to get 500 health/s…. I may be wrong, but isn’t it 2500 health over 15s for each landed burst (max 3 stacks)? That requires maintaining a land-rate of 3 bursts every 15s in order to get 500 health/s, which means landing two bursts on one set off cd, plus one on your alt set, assuming you aren’t in Berserker State. That’s not a low bar to get that max healing.

And if you ARE running Berserker, sure, it’s easier to get those three bursts off than vanilla while in the state. But Berserkers aren’t going to be using their bursts much outside of Berserker state, so it kind of balances out.

Caedmon.6798:

If it was due to pierce happening,then why does it never happen on a volley ?

Volley doesn’t have an aoe explosion on it.

carlito.8954:

Wolfric.9380:

Unless you don´t have physical skills on your bar it makes sense. Most warriors use healing signet so might gain is not realy useful…

how does it make sense with physical skills?

im not being sarcastic/arrogant i really don’t know lol

I think he was referring to both alternatives there. Healing Signet makes it less likely that you’ll get the benefit from Restorative Strength (plus, some builds are swimming in might anyway), and no physical skills means no value from Peak Performance.

I just wrote something in the other thread about this, but Death From Above is an excellent trait for roaming in its own right, imo. If you’re always aware of your environment and thoughtful about approach and movement, you can use it to gain all sorts of combat advantage or escape:

• Start a 1vx fight by jumping on unsuspecting enemies from a rise/cliff instead of running straight in. Did that to a group of five the other day and knocked them off a decently-sized cliff, only to DfA them again (that was about 5-6k to each them from the two DfA, plus the fall damage)
• Lose that big group of baddies who’ve got the hate on for you by jumping off a cliff they aren’t likely to survive. I’ve done that with 10+ people chasing just me… some know better to try, some do it and die immediately, some lose so much health they can be killed easily, and the one or two who might also have a falling trait are much more manageable than the original 10+
• Get around faster by taking more direct paths, and getting past large groups who are guarding more common choke points
• Delay a siege by dropping on enemies, then attacking, disabling, running inside, etc
• I’ve even gotten the occasional benefit by jumping into a field (stealth, fires shield, etc)

It might be my favourite trait in terms of fun.

carlito.8954:

what is the point of using “death from above”

It’s a fantastic roamer trait in wvw.

It allows you to survive more direct pathways that you wouldn’t otherwise survive, you can use cliffs to shake, or even turn the tables, on enemies who’re chasing you. You can use it to slow down sieges simply by jumping off of a wall onto attackers, and then doing whatever makes sense from there (attacking, disabling, supply trapping, or just running back inside to do it again). My personal favourite is leaping off of a cliff onto an unsuspecting enemy, only to burst him to downed before he can even get up. In fact, it’s not a bad way to start a 1vx if the cliff isn’t too high.

While I genuinely like the trait itself, it also has no real competition in that slot.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Honestly, the damage seems fine still. Yes, no more crazy 10-15k hits, but being able to take Signet of Might and have an unblockable AoE interrupt that deals good damage. Maybe if they had it do a bit of bonus damage if you interrupt them and that would get it down to a 10% nerf.

I feel the same way. Good move on damage, but the piercing change was a mistake.

I wonder if it was the product of trying to remove the double hit rather than something they genuinely felt needed to be toned down. As in, if not removing the piercing would entail a far more complicated fix. After all, Kill Shot didn’t lose the piercing.

You could honestly get away with just about anything in open world pve. I’d suggest something like this for a few reasons:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR8ejMdQXIWFCmdAnIGICK9Lm+tAPhXYFsAICGAA-TRBXABAs/o8zxHAwDKB7R9nQ0NAA-e

1. Good for map completion via gs, s, Warrior’s Sprint, Bull’s Charge, swiftness
2. Plenty of damage via gs
3. Good defense if you need it
4. It’s a build that works in other parts of the game, so it’s not bad to get used to it

The runes could be swapped to whatever you want. Scrapper’s a good choice if you need a little more defense.

I don’t see the point of a PS build since you’ll be roaming, and won’t reliably have people in range to benefit from PS. Better to go for a more useful traitline.

I threw Bull’s Charge in there mostly for the extra movement. It’s a free slot though that you could use for anything. Any of the Signets would be a good choice, or whatever you want really.

If you don’t need/want as much movement, you could swap the sword for an axe for extra damage. Of you could put a longbow in there and just use your gs for movement.

You could leave the build intact if you went with longbow, just swap out Shield Mastery for Dogged March. Could also swap Last Stand for Cleansing Ire, which might be better in open world anyway.

roamzero.9486:

Adrenal Health must be broken/bugged. It’s only supposed to proc every 3s not every 1s.

Iirc,, the new tooltip says it now has a 1s interval.

+1 here too. Combined with advancements on a number of other fronts with this patch, keep up the good work.

Sartharina.3542:

I really wish they’d boost rifle normal skill DPS to accommodate the loss of Gunflame’s ridiculous power.

Agreed. Or a combination of returning the damage lost plus more utility.

lighter.2708:

Also, like even you add defensive on non defense line, like skills etc, defense line will still be best for tanky specs.. since the sustain adds on each other, i seriously don’t get your logic here…

I’m not sure I get yours. You’ve just said tanky specs will use it regardless, and we know most burst-based specs already use it too.

So what’s the problem with putting the buff in a line most use and that seems the most conceptually coherent? Add it to any other line and people will be as kittened, if not more:

Strength? Now most of your condi specs, tank specs, and most Berserker specs are shut out. Discipline? There’s already a thread going that includes people saying Fast Hands is the only thing that keeps them there (for their builds anyway). Arms? Tactics? Minor lines that see the least play in current builds. Berserker? So much for buffing the core.

It may well be that more sustain buffing is required, but a rework of minor traits in Defense seems the most sensible start for a bunch of reasons.

Ross Biddle.2367:

lighter.2708:

Choppy.4183:

lighter.2708:

except if you don’t go defense line, you have completely 0 sustain compare to the rest of the class

Strictly speaking, that isn’t quite true. There’s the defensive options in Berserker, defensive tools tied to weapon and trait selection, and then defensive attributes tied to gear/amulet.

Sure, Defense has a couple of new shiny things. But this doesn’t feel mandatory to me, tbh.

You are basically saying warrior prepatch was completely fine sustain wise(with or without defense line)..gg i’m done…

But it’s all relative. Depending on your role, running without defense can be perfectly legit. It just means you have to play within certain styles, and avoid others.

Exactly.

Also, if someone wants to take the position that it shouldn’t have been buffs to the Defense line, then what would you want instead? There’s an opportunity cost no matter where you put it, and they went with a line that most warriors are already including in their builds, that’s conceptually coherent, and involves modifying minor traits.

lighter.2708:

except if you don’t go defense line, you have completely 0 sustain compare to the rest of the class

Strictly speaking, that isn’t quite true. There’s the defensive options in Berserker, defensive tools tied to weapon and trait selection, and then defensive attributes tied to gear/amulet.

Sure, Defense has a couple of new shiny things. But this doesn’t feel mandatory to me, tbh.

I only had time to duel a scrapper in Wvw before having to log off again, but we came to a stalemate. Actually, tbh, I think I would have beaten him because I wasn’t even pressured enough to keep EP on cd, but the point was proven and I had to go.

He was competent, and I run full zerk vanilla warrior. So, yeah, that change to Adrenal Health (and maybe even Thick Skin to a limited extent) seems pretty solid.

I’m not at all sad about the changes to gunflame either, and I’m glad to see True Shot got the same treatment. It’s all necessary for bringing more sanity to the game.

Forestgreen.7981:

Its fine until a rev/ele shows up and protection boons the entire team. Then the random rev skillful passive proc hits and you do effectively 0 damage. Also stability buff hurts warrior more as you won’t be able to break all those stability stacks on people anymore so goodbye setting up hundred blades.

I honestly wonder who the heck is doing balances on warrior.

Protection on, or provided by, other classes isn’t a reason to give warriors a damage boost. If something’s broken, like when a warrior fighting an ele did 19? damage with an Eviscerate crit, the problem is on the defense side.

And there’s no way the stability buff hurts warriors. Warriors are the only class to get more stability than there has been, and that’s to Stomp. The change to how frequently you can remove a stack doesn’t impact us in the situation you’re describing because we don’t have any skills that can remove stability in less than 3/4s. It does help us to survive the incredible amount of cc flying around out there better though.

There’s no misfire on any of these buffs, from what I can see. They were all in areas sorely needing them, more tweaking (and possibly changes to other things) will probably occur in the next patch, and Anet put out quite a lot of changes (well beyond class balance) that hit the right notes as well.

Ven Zehn.6573:

Keep in mind with balanced stance, the stacks don’t get removed as quickly now. Before you could lose on every .05s, now it’s every .75s iirc.

Quite right. I’m just reading the full notes now, saw that, and came back to amend my concern. The likelihood of losing those two stacks in 3s under the new system is moderately low… still possible, but it’s probably about right.

In fairness, I’m tearing people to pieces in wvw when I’m able to land my hits. My gs auto attack is about 4-5k when I’ve got my might and cruelty stacks going.

It’s a pretty easy thing to account for, and is an overall buff as well. As RookSix does anyway, just save EP for when you’re low or use it early in the fight.

The buff comes in by way of a higher likelihood of sending your opponent into panic as you’re bursting him while at high health and not taking any damage yourself, and for your cd to be up so you can use the trait again before the fight is over.

If you use EP early, then it’s conceivable that you’d get to use both twice, which equals 20s of direct damage immunity in a single fight.

I think this looks very promising… not only because it’s a very clear bundle of buffs where warrior actually needs it, but also because several of these things are ideas first brought up on this forum. As in, things that make me think they’ve been paying attention to the forum and many of the great suggestions made by people here.

About the only thing I’m (slightly) concerned about is the change to Balanced Stance. In principle, I like the approach. Where I’m apprehensive is if the (reduced) reapplied stability doesn’t count as a reapplied stun break.

For example, imagine three cc’s landing in 3s with the last one being a 3s knockdown (Bull’s Charge). Stability would reapply just after the BC lands, but you’d be stuck there for almost 3s despite that. In the old version, they’d need to get you with 6 cc’s, though that would be over the course of the entire duration.

Mephiston.8765:

This build works!! Thanks…and to the sh**heads who say its old and that mace/shield is sooo much better…u are wrong. Cause this build can actually apply condis pretty easy and mostly ranged (Longbow, King of Fires!), while mace can be easily outkited. Having Discipline over Strength gives this build the mobility back that every warrior pvp build needs.

Without getting into which build is better, the longbow doesn’t really have much ranged condi pressure. Fan of Fire works far better up close, Pin Down is easily dodged at range and those bleeds will get cleared before they’re done, and the only thing left is the burst, in which only the distracted and incompetent will stand for any length of time.

The warrior longbow is more useful as a short range weapon, even when used with a power build (which is super unusual now, I know).

Scrapper runes are certainly great on the warrior, but they aren’t in the running for best burst. Scholar’s up there though.

There have been so many threads on this, including complete trait, skill, and weapon remakes.

Nice video, thanks for posting. I appreciate that you didn’t use one of the same three or four songs everybody else seems to use in gameplay videos.

As for the condi aspect of some of your choices, I don’t think it’s optimized but I don’t think it’s a huge deal either way, personally. You’re definitely giving up some damage for it, but if you find the extra long immobilize on Flurry is worth the investment then there’s nothing wrong with it. Personally, I find 4s of immob is enough for me to do everything I need to do, unless they clear it in the first 1s, which would nail you too.

The boon duration choices are interesting, and something someone else was asking about on the forum the other day – the value of maxing boon duration.

Your stability from Last Stand is lasting for 14s, and your resistance from Berserker Stance is lasting a whopping 21s, assuming none of it gets stolen, corrupted, etc., which is amazing.

The cost, of course, is the loss of some power and either might generation (via Strength runes and/or Golden Fried Dumplings) or ferocity (via Scholar runes). I looked at your build before watching the video, and I half expected the loss of might generation to be offset by the extended length. But I think I’m actually achieving stacks faster via Strength runes and the Dumplings.

That all said, I think we’re talking about the edges of optimization here. The build seems to work just fine with this gear comp, so to each their own. Nice tower ninja at the end there…

The warrior forum just before each balance patch, and then the inevitable aftermath:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMKQsi7nbno

Sartharina.3542:

… no it’s not. What’s disgusting is that it took 4 years for the rifle to finally become a worthwhile weapon for Warriors. In fact, the only problem with Gunflame is that it’s locked behind the berzerker trait. “Not completely terrible” is an awful reason to gut something.

They could keep/make rifle a worthwhile weapon and still nerf gunflame. They just need to back away from the “let’s load everything into this one thing, and then make the rest of the weapon weak to compensate” concept they have going for the warrior rifle.

Wolfric gave you some solid advice there. Definitely don’t spend any time trying to get ascended armour or weapons until you’ve figured out how you like to play your warrior.

Unless you dislike greatsword for some reason, that’s probably going to be one of your weapons. Works well against pve critters who’ll just eat 100 blades, and it’s good in wvw for mobility and respectable damage.

Casual pve is forgiving of just about any build, and you’ll find it easier to skip defensive stats like toughness and vitality there. In wvw, it’ll be a process of matching your skill and style against other players to figure out how much toughness/vitality you should run. Pvp is a good place to experiment in order to figure out what works for you before you buy any gear.

I think gs/a+m will still work in pve, but I’m not all that up-to-date on pve stuff. It’s not a good build for pvp or wvw though… lacks defense, so you’ll spend most of your time dead. The best condi build in pvp/wvw for warriors is the berserker m+sh/s+t. I think the preferred condi build for pve is lb/s+t, but I might be wrong about that.

Good luck!

Liewec.2896:

i run GS + sw/sh, its the ultimate “get out of dodge” spec, it lets me play full zerker and then slip away if i’m taking too much damage.

between GS 5+3 and sword 2 you have a ton of manoeuvrability

the down side is that you’re limited pretty much to GS for offence,
sword #3 is a tasty on lower health targets though

its the only way i can ditch warrior’s sprint and still feel mobile.

Yes, I play the same for the same reasons. But we’re not the fastest out of combat, and only about the middle of the pack (or less) in terms of in-combat mobility, even with that spec. It used to be different, but years of people complaining about Nascar/Nike warriors got us pinched.

The reason this spec can get you out of a lot of jams is because you choose the moment of escape. Most thieves, rangers, engineers, elementalists, revenants, and even the occasional mesmer can do the same to you.

And that’s when running the fastest warrior spec available, and accepting the damage loss by running power sword to do it.

I’ve thought about working in the different interrupt sigils into builds too. Personally, I’d go Defender as you mentioned, solely because of how much you could be kited when running this build and because you have no escape. The sustainability would be very handy.

For a damage-oriented rune choice, you’re probably best off with Pack runes. The extra precision along with good Fury uptime will let you take better advantage of that high Ferocity you have going. I think the benefit would be better than what you’ll get from Strength Runes. Others worth considering, along with tweaks to your consumables, are Eagle and Scholar, both of which I suspect will do more for you than Strength.

Scrapper runes would be a middle path between the total offense and defense approaches above.

Looks like it might be fun, though. Just be mindful to not chain your cc’s like you normally do with a hammer. You need to give them time to start activating a skill before you cc them again. Stability on your opponent is obviously what’s going to hurt you the most.

Eh… will keep playing warrior, and the game generally, as long as I keep having fun. Besides, I’m already a Legendary Grand Champion Hello Kitty Island Adventurer, so that’s out.

Or use Pack runes along with SoR and maybe balanced stance for out if combat swiftness.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Finally have the screenshot to back up my post. Elementalist OP
Eviscerate UP

LOL….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eSMxRya2S8

Sartharina.3542:

I really, really do not like Sword 3 on warrior. It’s a stupidly situational skill, and, with the Sword 2 ALSO being situational, makes sword “2-1-1-1-F1-1-1-1-1” And the burst conflicts with the otherwise good mobility of sword because it’s a root (Something Zerker sword burst fixes).

See, and I like Final Thrust a lot. It may not be so useful in pve, but against other players it hits almost as hard as an eviscerate and it cleaves. The highest damage I’ve had with it against a player is about 12k or so, and then about 25k against an NPC (Tower Lord).

I’d personally rather see most of our weapons changed so they can be effectively run with power, condi, or hybrid.

I think sword auto could use an attack speed increases to shore up both sides of its damage, and the burst needs its bleeds improved and the cast/aftercast delays fixed. I’m personally good with not improving the mobility of axe, but I think the addition of a block/evade on the main hand (#2 maybe) and some condi or small cc (1/4s daze) on the auto chain would be good.

@shadowpass
Nobody has trashed his playstyle in any comment section, afaik. He played it superbly.

LOL, that was hilarious! 10/10

I’ve never actually died from it before!

Haha, yeah, I have no idea.

Though it’s not restricted to Shield Slam, or at least it wasn’t. I once used Bull’s Charge on someone and went closer to 30 feet in the air. Apparently others could see it happen too.

I’ve never personally died because of it, but it’s certainly prevented a burst. And I have no idea why it happens as there’s no obviously consistent condition when it does occur. A bit like the Endure Pain bug….