Guild Wars 2

LeviQuiteQuirky.6892:

RE: Answer 3c. I thought the Cooldown and duration were the same.

Huh… the wiki does say 15s, but I was sure I saw 12.5s somewhere. I’m not sure why they’d bother to add a CD that equals the duration of a state that can’t be cancelled if it starts on activation, but you never know. My bet is it’s at the end so it has a 50% uptime at most.

LeviQuiteQuirky.6892:

3. Questions

3a. Does the Heal Skill *Blood Reckoning…. .give healing on outgoing condition damage?

3b. Do the following Traits still get their final tier functionality when the Adrenaline Bar is full whilst in Beserk mode, and if so what happens with their lower tier Adrenaline Bar boosts?

3c. Does the 15 second recharge time for Bezerk mode start once you’ve activated it or after it ends? https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Berserk

3d. Will the Trait Rousing Resilience: Gain toughness and health when you break out of a stun.

…and does the effect of Rousing Reslience stack on multiple stun breaks? If so, in what way? Duration or intensity?

3e. Does the 5 second recharge on Primal Burst skills apply to both weapons on use or just the one currently equipped when used?

3f. Does the Trait Versatile Power: Gain might on weapon swap. Burst skills recharge 15% faster apply to Primal Burst skills?

3g. Does The Trait *Burst Mastery ..apply to Primal Burst skills?

Answers:

3a: Yes, it heals from outgoing condition damage too. Was mentioned in the Twitch stream.

3b: Yes, they still function, as mentioned in the Twitch stream. They didn’t mention anything about levels while in Berserk, afaik, but I suspect Level 3 is the only one that will be possible… which is amazing since max adren when in Berserk only requires 10 hits.

3c: They didn’t mention this on the stream. It would be odd to start it when initiated given the cooldown is shorter than the duration, but I guess we’ll find out.

3d: Yes, Hugh mentioned on the stream that he’d made a build that played with this mechanic. I don’t think there’s any reason to think it can stack in intensity, and I doubt it’d stack in duration but I guess we’ll have to see.

3e: Probably just the one, as normal.

3f: I believe they said all adren/burst related traits were to work in Berserk, so there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t.

3g: As per 3f, yes, probably.

@Leo
I disagree. I won’t personally feel compelled to use Berserker from a power perspective, meaning, I don’t think the traits or Berserk mechanism overshadow all other aspects of the warrior and I fully expect to continue running builds without them.

I do think it’s a class upgrade though in that it provides additional versatility through powerful options.

+1 to the original purpose of this thread. Robert seems to be on a roll, and Berserker looks like it will be lots of fun to play.

I hadn’t decided if I was going to buy HoT (only because I spend most of my time running a warrior in wvw these days, and wasn’t sure if it’d bring anything new to the parts of the game I play), but this probably clinches it for me.

As for whether the new spec is OP, I guess we’ll have to see. I’m fully in support of toning it down if it turns out to be out of hand. I just love the addition of another mechanic to the warrior chassis and a trait line that can work well with a range of builds.

Yeah, it’s been well documented. After the June 24 patch it seemed like all warrior movement skills that aren’t leaps became slower, even after accounting for the loss of benefit from speed bonuses.

The slowdown you’re noticing at the beginning is probably the point when your speed bonus (from swiftness or warrior’s sprint) stops applying and Rush kicks in.

Also, keep an eye on whether you have Quickness. If you have it, Rush (and any other movement skill) won’t travel as far.

Milkshake. Boys. Yard.

Pretty sexy stuff in those traits and skills. There’s good synergy, conceptual cohesion, and it looks like it would be fun to play.

Jzaku.9765:

Choppy.4183:

Whatever the result, the warrior appears to be in good hands.

Not particularly Fast Hands though.

Fast Hands baseline w h e n

Indeed. I’m really hoping Robert looks at this and comes to the same conclusion most of us have – that making FH baseline would open up so much build diversity potential without much power creep, if any.

If it did result in a particularly OP build, the build could be dealt with accordingly without sacrificing diversity.

There was another excellent thread here somewhere with suggestions on how to divorce our current weapon traits from specific weapons, again increasing the potential for build diversity without necessarily power creeping (though higher risk than baseline FH I think). Anyway, hopefully he considers it as a way for the warrior to better utilize the large weapon diversity that’s intended as a class feature concept.

I know it has practically no value anywhere else in the game, but Death From Above pays dividends in laughs and salty tears in wvw.

Robert, I’d like to say (hopefully without sounding like a shameless kiss kitten ) that I appreciate you taking the time to engage the forums as you develop the Berserker. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I’ve also read that you were involved with developing the Chronomamcer and adjusting the mesmer traits generally, the most interesting specialization and most synergystic trait lines in the game. Whatever the result, the warrior appears to be in good hands.

skowcia.8257:

Well whirl does way more damage than it was intended. Also arcing slide can clean more than 3 conditions.

Wait, what? What circumstances has it clear more than 3 condis?

As mentioned previously, more than 4 hits with whirlwind is definitely a bug. But a lot of damage calculated properly on 4 hits is fair game, imo.

Donut.6914:

Noob question, pls no bully

Can I be a Berserker WITHOUT using torch? Everything sounds great to me, the berserk mode, the rage skills, all that is right up my alley. But I don’t really want to use a torch, and the torch skills don’t sound very interesting.

I presume so. I mean, the specializations would be awfully restricting if you couldn’t.

I think someone posted a video about this before, which had Slow making a warrior run further. Presumably, Quickness would do the opposite.

My guess is the approach taken for movement affecting boons/conditions was to ignore speed modifiers. Since Quickness/Slow affect activation time (rather than modifying movement speed), they would still affect total distance travelled.

ulchanar.4309:

I see what you mean now, but Holl said “first fight” and there’s that 12k WW at 0:30 that cannot be anything else.

Quite right. I just went from the start of his link, which was midway through the video or so. But, at 0:30, there’s clearly a 12k whirlwind against that ranger with only14 stacks of might. Craziness.

ulchanar.4309:

Hmm, I don’t see him acitivate any 100b there (ranger fight at 0:30). He’s using sword #2, swap, GS #3 (3 impacts for 3114, 6101 and finally 12162 damage) then GS#4. And he always moves, no chance for a partial 100b.

It’s at 4:35. The partial 100b gets the damage to about 12.3k, then he whirlwinds through them.

I suspect the damage tag for whirlwind was placed in front of the 12k tag from the 100b, but on the side of the opponent that was facing Holl when he initiated whirlwind. There was a bit of lag, and by the time it appeared Holl was on the opposite side the whirlwind damage tag was placed behind the 100b tag from Holl’s new perspecctive, making it appear as though the 12.3k was from the whirlwind he just executed.

Holl.3109:

Interesting, but if it was a partial 100b then why didn’t it go on CD?

Because you activated it. I’m not suggesting you didn’t use whirlwind, only that the 12k damage label was from the 100b that preceded it.

Holl.3109:

First fight – 12k WW, highest ive ever got in PvP/WvW

If you watch that at 0.25 speed it looks like that 12k is actually from the partial 100b just before Whirlwind. I think you only put two hits into your targets with Whirlwind there.

Could be wrong, but it’s how it looks when you slow it down.

ulchanar.4309:

WW attack should hit up to 4 times only. Skill tooltip says “number of impacts: 4”. Wiki says:

“A stationary enemy in its path will be hit 2-4 times depending on their size and distance from the starting point. Starting in melee range (130 units), player characters and smaller enemies will be hit 2-3 times, while bigger creatures will be hit all 4 times. The size of a creature usually matches their selection circle.

Used against an obstacle in an angle that prevents advance or while immobilized will allow you to deliver all 4 hits to enemies in range."

If you were hit 6-7 times by a single WW attack you should report it as a bug.

Exactly. OP, if you were hit 6-7 times, then it was definitely a bug.

Holl.3109:

WELL kitten , was gone for about a week and a half and see this thread loaded with replies…. and then saw they were about mesmer PU and warrior healing signet u_u Hasn’t this already been discussed to death tho? well…
(

Lol, yeah… exactly. Well, talk about HS being OP was played out more than a year ago. I haven’t talked about PU since shortly after patch, but dude holds a grudge.

In case you didn’t notice, he pointed to your build as something needing a nerf. XD

Thanks for the comments so far, everyone. It’s helpful.

But, to be clear, I’m not asking “how much toughness/vitality/hp do we need to stay alive and be effective?”

I’m wondering, if we have two identical builds with equally skilled people behind them, and one uses full zerk and the other has more defensive gear, can the extra damage from the zerk gear be less than the extra damage reduction/healing from the more defensive gear?

Like I said in the original post, I’m very comfortable in all zerk gear (two of my four sets are zerk). But I’m wondering if it’s a less efficient gear setup than some of the other options.

@Skyper
It’s possible, but I spent some time chatting with both of them, have played long enough to know when I’m getting outclassed, and I did have them sit there and eat my 100b outside of the fights, measured relative damage difference to health bars, etc.

Neither of these was a “I lost a fight and it must have been some trick or the gear!” scenario.

Again, I’ll refer to this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtpz0nMdEn8

Through efficient use of the Intelligence Sigil on his main burst, and a reasonably good crit chance when factoring in the fury, his damage is about as good as a zerk warrior due to the ferocity and power, but he has very good armor and health too.

This may be a slightly different issue in that the weapon choices allow an efficient use of the Intelligence sigil, thereby forgoing a major stat investment in precision, but I’m not so sure. The shout heal warrior I described was also using an Intelligence sigil and, considering our 5s swap, this could be a key reason why zerk isn’t as optimal as frequently believed.

To give an example, have a look at this build I threw together:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJARTjMdQlH25BueAnIGqCKtHi9cI3guOFwFfrDAA-TVCHAB3pEEgHAgSK/WTXAuHCAJV/xgjAQL7PMwFAIAACwNvZ28mBOv5Nv5Nv55m38m38m3sUAfr1C-w

It maintains high power and a reasonable 45% crit chance through perma fury, plus it has guaranteed crits on its main damage rotation via the Intelligence Sigil. True it doesn’t have the raw damage output of a full zerk setup, but it has solid damage that can be applied continuously (in part thanks to the bow).

It also has almost 1k more armor than zerk and provides a whopping 1k+ heal/sec (approx) via Healing Signet, Adrenal Health, Renewal Sigil, Shouts, and Dogged March.

I’m not claiming this is better than zerk because I haven’t done the math. But out of the gates I can say a zerk setup probably isn’t putting out 600 damage/sec more than this build (the healing advantage on the other build less heal sig on a zerk build), and that’s not even factoring in the extra armor or the net benefit of providing that much healing to allies.

EDIT: Do note the food choice on that build is only giving about 21 health/s, but it applies party wide (i.e. about 135 extra health per shout). If rolling alone, cheap ol’ Mango Pie is clearly better at 85 health/s (self only), and there may even be better choices out there that have nothing to do with healing.

The changes to warhorn were reduction from a 10-person buff to 5, and switching condi conversion on a traited warhorn to condi removal.

The speed buff difference is entirely attributable to the loss of boon duration on the Tactics line.

I’ve generally been running all-zerk for roaming and havoc in wvw for a couple of years now, and I’ve done pretty well with it. I still do, frankly.

But I dueled a couple different warriors the last few weeks that were running tankier setups, and it left me wondering whether there’s more value to them than the common wisdom currently gives them credit. In fact, I wonder if they’re better than full zerk, even in duels.

Both times, I was running a full stance gs/s+sh build, and the first warrior had the same weapon and trait comp but with tankier gear. The other warrior was running gs/a+sh on a healing shout setup. I don’t remember the gear, but both were running Dolyak Runes (with an eye to switch), possibly Mango Pie, and some mix of (maybe?) Clerics, Settler, and I don’t know what else (or even if that was really the stat array).

The impression I got was that the additional damage output I got from my gear was less valuable than the extra sustain they were able to pull from theirs. I ran a few tests, like noting damage trade, etc. and I don’t think this was a difference in skill issue.

I’m also reminded of the cav/valk h/gs build I found and posted in another thread, which should have almost the same damage output as a zerk setup by efficiently utilizing the Intelligence Sigil, but way tankier.

Conventional wisdom holds that investing in defensive attributes beyond surviving a burst is generally less valuable than offensive attributes (I’ve said the same myself). But recently someone rightly pointed out that the correct thing to look at isn’t the percentage increase of extra damage or defense, but the actual values translated into time (the time it takes for you or your opponent to be dead).

Before I work up the motivation to do a bunch of math, has anyone else already done it since the June 23 patch and/or have you found tankier specs better than expected?

Depends what you’re looking for. Major Air will do more damage than Superior Fire to a single target and on the same cooldown.

But put one more target into the equation and Superior Fire is delivering more total damage. Superior fire will hit up to three additional targets beyond that.

Can’t go wrong with both air and fire, if you’re just looking for dps. Not sure what comes out on top math-wise though.

Pretty sure overwriting is the intended behaviour for BP

I may have underplayed the benefits. Adding in Heightened Focus, we could have an enormous quickness uptime too. Under ideal circumstances, 40s per min, not including rage sigil, which we probably wouldn’t use anyway.

Also, the 20s/min of condi immune is interspersed with CI (if we trait it instead of LS) and Brawlers (and possibly Cleansing Sigil), plus condi reduction food. Then Resistance on HS if we really needed it.

Double endure pain is the same as it is now, and plenty good with Shield Stance.

We’d be the new OP class.

I’d like to see more active defenses over buffing stances, which seem to be our best utilities already, tbh.

Those would be… some pretty massive buffs.

We’d be condi immune with superspeed 1/3 of the time, quickened with continuous burst 1/3 of the time, and guaranteed big health while forcing people to eat our burst 10% of the time.

Plus the advantages of double cc immunity, and double damage immunity from endure pain. And vigor on every stance….

We’d rightly be nerfed within 30s of changes like that going in.

That was the original plan, based on the pre-patch release notes/comments from Anet. For some reason, they changed their minds before the June 23 release and reduced the condition removal from 3 to 2.

Afaik, they haven’t said anything about it since the “we changed our minds” comment.

Adjust.6903:

Greatsword and Longbow seems like a strong option to try and play with…

Yup, definitely works well. You can roam and use it in havoc as well as h/gs, and you’re basically giving up cc for the ability to maintain constant damage pressure.

No idea how it fares in PvP though.

So I don’t know necro well at all (it’s one of the classes I don’t play), but I wrecked a signet necro yesterday in wvw by using Berserker Stance and bursting the hell out of them. Don’t know if he was bad or not, since I have a sample size of one.

Then I discussed the build with someone who has more familiarity with necros, and he told me signet necros typically have their condi bomb, then they’ll go Death Shroud if you’re still up and beat the hell out of you with it.

From there, I surmised:

1. Use Berserker Stance early before the condi bomb is applied
2. If you’re too slow, consider using Healing Signet (unless you have a good clear)
3. Lock them down and burst them mercilessly
4. Keep swapping weapons to frequently to trigger Brawlers and/or Cleansing Sigil
5. Use Endure Pain as soon as he enters Death Shroud
6. Continue bursting
7. If he gets another condi bomb off, use Healing Signet
8. You have 6s to kill him before dying

Don’t know if the above works or not, mostly because of my lack of experience and knowledge about the build. The necro I fought didn’t make it to Death Shroud, though I did surprise attack him and then backup arrived and he got dogpiled.

I like the bird on Privateer for much the same reason, and often use those runes when I want something cheap to test out a power build on a new class in Wvw.

That bird hits like a mofo and most people just ignore him. In fact, it almost never dies early unless it gets caught in collateral damage. Plus, you know, “Yarr!”

@spell
Are you saying you think balance should never be considered in wvw or that the “everyone fights everyone” aspect can make it difficult to distinguish l2p issues from mechanical imbalance?

For example, suppose there was a food that gave condi immunity and warrior buffs had 3x the range and no limit on number of allies affected. Clearly, these wouldn’t have an impact on pvp but it would have an obvious impact in wvw that, imo, would warrant a fix. Would you agree, or are you saying even then there’s no point in trying to balance?

To be clear though, nothing in this thread has been “warrior (or mesmer) is op in wvw”. There’s obviously no mechanical advantage to Holl’s build in wvw that it wouldn’t also have in pvp. I think all of us recognize that this is a solid build, but definitely not op (or even optimal) in either wvw or pvp.

What denis is referring to is an argument I made a few weeks ago on another subforum that mesmer stealth from the recently buffed PU trait is excessive. It’s only really a problem in wvw, and denis appears to be unable to let the argument go, which is why he’s here trying to derail this thread.

Also, for the record, he doesn’t agree with you. He wrote this two days ago to someone else on yet another thread in the mesmer subforum about people wanting the PU stealth buff reduced….

denis.9487:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Vid-The-SwordMaster-WvW-Roaming
Fix your own Nike warrior before coming here. Only difference is you actually see the warrior run away and re-engage with Mesmer its pu.

Denis, let it go. Or start a new thread somewhere and make whatever argument you want, but stop trying to derail Holl’s thread.

Yup. Str-Def-Tac and all zero works. You can also tank it up with cav and valk gear while using an an Intel sigil.

Not sure about other builds, but the all zerk one is on metabattle.

EDIT: Oops, I meant Disc not Tac

Spartacus.3192:

I like Skull Cracker build on my war but i have to say if I come across a double stability warrior (balanced stance + Last Stand trait) it can be a real headache fighting them.

Any tips on this?

Use Mace 3 to proc Last Stand and put it on its 90s cd, fight him with your gs for about 10s, fight him like you’d normally fight a warrior.

But a full stance warrior is going to have a bunch of stun breaks beyond this, possibly including Endure Pain, Defy Pain, and Frenzy (i.e. 5 stun breaks). Patience is really what it’ll take. Do your normal rotations, and be prepared to abort if he breaks the stun in case he’s setting you up for a burst.

The offer still stands to test them out, if you want.

I’ll happily show you the relative power difference, if you’d like. I’ll play my mesmer as crappily as I do and you can run this build and any other warrior build you want to try out. I have a bunch of experience with this build and others, so I could give you pointers on how to run them to have the best shot of beating me on a PU mesmer.

The nerfs mesmers received in the last patch evened things out a bit, but I think you’ll see pretty quickly they still have the edge over this build (which has more survivability than other warrior roaming builds) and any other one you want to try out.

It’d be a good opportunity for you to learn how a warrior works and just how powerful your main is. You’ll also see why people are/were asking for nerfs to mesmer after the patch but not so much to warrior.

You know, denis, straying off topic and trying to derail a thread is a good way to get your posts removed. This is a thread about Holl’s warrior build. Feel free to comment on it if you want. Or try it out and report back if you want, though I’m not sure you even have a warrior.

You could also start a new thread to make your case that warriors have OP sustain, or too much damage, or whatever. The warrior subforum probably isn’t the place to make your case that the the mesmer was underpowered and the June 23 patch finally brought it into balance with everyone else, but you could try. My guess is a mod would move it to the mesmer forum where it belongs.

My post history is a matter of public record. So anybody who actually cared (and I can’t imagine anyone would) could quickly see that all I’ve ever said about nerfing mesmers after the June 23 patch was that PU stealth buff should be clawed back and the rest left alone for a while. That was based on personal experience playing a mesmer and playing against one, not a video.

Again, though, this isn’t the thread to discuss these things.

Back on topic, Holl’s build is very good for roaming in wvw. The mobility, damage, and defense are all good, but as killahmayne said it’s not the most lethal build a warrior can run, nor does it contribute as much as other builds to a group fight.

The exception being if its defensive options and mobility allow it to survive being focused in a group fight to the point that an h/gs would probably die. Generally, it’s a great all-rounder though.

As for being a Nike warrior, it’s almost as fast as a warrior can be now, but things have changed. I was running this build the other day and I had a thief, ranger, guardian, and possibly a mesmer chase me have way across a map. They eventually caught me too. Still, this is a pretty fast build.

denis.9487:

Choppy.4183:

@Holl
Correction, my gear’s a little different than yours. I use:

1. Full zerk, including weapons. My weapons are ascended, so crit chance is solid
2. Pack runes, which are amazing, as are Hoelbrak. Not sure which is best.
3. Fire, Air, Energy, and Intelligence sigils. Intelligence on the sword, ofc

On the runes, the might extension as obvious synergy with Forceful Greatsword, and the condi duration reduction is obviously fantastic. Pack Runes give perma fury, which is probably excessive given the fury Arcing Slice gives, and the swiftness and bonus 125 precision is nice too. They really shine in a group.

So, by yourself I think Hoelbrak comes out the clear winner for this setup. In a havoc though, Pack probably wins out. I was thinking about making some ascended armor, so maybe I’ll throw Hoelbrak on there so I have both.

This is the same stuff Mesmer gets flamed for. Your out running zergs!! 16k damage?? Nerf the warrior!!! The only difference is you can see the warrior disengage re-engage Mesmer is invisible.

I’ll make you a deal. You run this build and I’ll run a PU mesmer and we’ll see if you can kill me even once. Send me a pm anytime you’re ready. This isn’t even the most powerful warrior build out there, and yet nobody serious is calling for warrior nerfs these days.

Sadly, we won’t be able to prove who can escape zergs more easily, at least not at the same time. Having run both builds, I can say without any hesitation that a PU mesmer has that covered easily.

For those of you who don’t know denis, I met him on the mesmer subforum. He’s a mesmer main who’s convinced Healing Signet gives warriors godlike sustain…. o_O

Did you kill something after you used Vengence? It’s not an auto rally on use, it’s supposed to be a guaranteed rally if you kill while Vengenced.

You normally have a 25% chance to rally each kill while vengenced .

@online
It’s a very niche build that appears to be built from the idea of defeating another niche build he runs on an ele.

It definitely had some major weaknesses against common thteats in Wvw (where it’ll be used), but maybe he’ll have enough fun to offset that. I don’t think he’s proposing a new build so much as looking for advice to make small improvements to a build he thinks he might like.

It’s entirely based on cc up close and then rifle damage at range. The best case scenario is stacking a bunch of vuln and weakness followed by a killshot landing.

Condi, high cc, or ranged dps builds will wreck the build, I think. Mobile melee will too unless he can catch them with cc and they can’t clear the weakness, even then, I think he’ll be at a disadvantage still.

With Cleansing Ire, you’ll never have problems with adren gain in Wvw.

Has the one stun break on Stomp, but otherwise, pretty vulnerable to cc of all kinds, yeah.

I’d have the same concern, but then he looks like a competent warrior in a competent guild, and he says he’s run this in spvp and wvw.

As for your build, it’ll only cost gold to test it out. I think I see some pretty massive holes there (you’re also a sitting duck against most condi builds, and stability will neutrilize your combat contribution), but it’s just my opinion and I could be wrong

Have fun!

Maybe this is more what you’re looking for?

Build is in the video’s description. A fully ascended version would use all Cavalier trinkets and then whatever mix of Cavalier and Valkyrie armor and weapons gets you to the levels you like. All Valk armor and all Cav weapons best approximate the distribution he has there.

Reasons you may like it:

• It’s definitely not meta
• It’s got ranged and melee
• It’s not zerk, and has lots of armor and decent health
• The key rotation hits hard and is aoe

Judging by the comments, your key burst rotation takes advantage of the Intelligence Sigil on the greatsword:

1. [Optional] Combustive Shot (F1 lb)
2. Arcing Arrow (lb 3) If you used CS first you’ll blast for might
3. Swap weapons before AA lands – So it benefits from the Intel Sigil on the gs
4. Arcing Slice (F1 gs)
5. Whirlwind Attack

I have no experience with this gear comp (using zerker yes, but not this version).

Your original build has a number of problems from a wvw perspective. Most ranged attackers will out damage you and will be able to easily avoid most of your rifle dps. Unless people aren’t able to watch you, you’ll need to be a bit tricky to land KS on the rifle. As mentioned, your all-physical utilities are coming at a really high opportunity cost for the cc they bring.

You’re also slow as hell even with the Trav Runes, which would make me nervous as a warrior in wvw unless I was in a large group. The reason most warriors have mobility built into their weapons (and why ham/bow didn’t really come into wvw even at its peak in pvp) is that it’s one of the few “active defenses” a warrior has.

I think you’ll be surprised by how little defense the health pool and armor give you when compared to the active mitigation options you’re used to on the ele. Maintaining high dps (kill or be killed) is really important for a warrior because the sustain isn’t great.

Me likey too. Great job!

Fwiw, I main a warrior and play a few other classes (not ranger). I’m not aware of any hatred against the class, though it’s often considered an easy class that might get you labelled a scrub using a cheesy class/build if you win and a speed bump if you don’t. Warriors get that all the time due to the historically low skill floor.

The thing is, I’ve seen some pretty amazing rangers in wvw running a variety of builds. Once you get to a certain level of play, it becomes obvious who’s coasting on an OP class mechanic and who isn’t. Successful rangers aren’t coasting, imo.

I do think rangers could use some party support skills. Maybe that’s what Druid will have, I don’t know.

I use it to good effect in wvw roaming and havoc, it still has a role in larger scale wvw, and I understand it still has a role in most dungeon speed parties due to PS. Basically, if you enjoy the playstyle then you should do fine with it wherever you go.

Though I do well with it in small scale wvw, it’s not clear what it’s role is in organized havoc these days. It’s not great in gank squad for obvious reasons, and it’s cc is very good but wasn’t the best prior to the mesmer mantra debuff (not sure how that sits now). It can hit hard as a zerk, but that makes you a very vulnerable target unless you can use your mobility to get out of the heat without leaving your friends hanging.

Eles are the premier support class now, so much so I don’t think that’s a good avenue for warriors at all anymore.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s high armor and health pool allow you to sit there and take beats though, or that it’s faceroll easy because the mechanics are simple. Higher end play requires quite a bit of precision due to (1) big telegraphs on most skills, (2) limited active defense, and (3) always being visible.

I actually find other classes, notably mesmer, more forgiving to play.

A Berserker seems like the polar opposite of a Samurai to me

Whirlwind is my best friend against any dagger thief, blind spamming or not. Beyond the above points, also remember that your weapon range is greater than the BP radius.

@Holl
Correction, my gear’s a little different than yours. I use:

1. Full zerk, including weapons. My weapons are ascended, so crit chance is solid
2. Pack runes, which are amazing, as are Hoelbrak. Not sure which is best.
3. Fire, Air, Energy, and Intelligence sigils. Intelligence on the sword, ofc

On the runes, the might extension as obvious synergy with Forceful Greatsword, and the condi duration reduction is obviously fantastic. Pack Runes give perma fury, which is probably excessive given the fury Arcing Slice gives, and the swiftness and bonus 125 precision is nice too. They really shine in a group.

So, by yourself I think Hoelbrak comes out the clear winner for this setup. In a havoc though, Pack probably wins out. I was thinking about making some ascended armor, so maybe I’ll throw Hoelbrak on there so I have both.