Guild Wars 2

All this talk of taking your time and baiting them… What is the thief doing in the meanwhile? A decent thief can burst down a 3k armor 22k hp warrior in 2 rotations.

Seriously, most thieves are bads, just /laugh. But when you face a good one, you are at a disadvantage.

Only use arcing slice to cleanse conditions.

roamzero.9486:

Looks more like a dueling build. Can’t really roam effectively without at least some mobility in there.

This.

You messed up the links m8.

I would not recommend Vaanss build for mere mortals.

Mace shield GS is perfectly fine for all others though.

I’d go with something like this;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNApeRjMdUGaVImdwJaAlgCdofBdwx2OAUOFjOA-TlCCABiqiywHBgxUCCwDAQLlf0oeRJ6DQ4QAkz+DXcCAIDwyWA-w

Sera.6250:

you’re pretty much set up full eviscerate, the 5% off of dual wielding may be more useful than the 10% off the gs damage since you’re using your gs as an attrition/movement weap and switching to axe for burst

i know the 10% gs is technically more dps on immobile target, but dual wielding may be more dps in practice, dunno for sure tho

He does like 30% of his DPS with well timed whirlwinds. That 10% is actually just right.

VaAnSs.1567:

Looking for advices

And you, stop looking for advice, and start giving out some ;P

Very entertaining duels yesterday, your guildies too.

No fast hands is bad. Don’t take deep strike, it sucks terribly in any form of pvp. Swap those 10 points in Arms for Discipline to get Mobile Strikes and you’re golden.

Fun runes, different build, still condi.

@ warlord: I don’t think it is as good in roaming as my favorite gs hammer. It is definitely different though, and I do feel it has quite some punch and that surprising effect. Haven’t dueled a lot with it yet. I am getting a new rig soon, will make a vid then.

@ eiland: I don’t see how my build compares to that? A lot of different traits, runes, even the weapons differ for 75%… Also, that’s a condi build?

Davidjack.1507:

How about this?

Bone Wall
Summon a Bone Wall at targeted area that decays over time.
cast: 1 sec
health: 80,000
Health drain: 5,000 a second.
uncrittable.
affected only by burning.

now every 5k damage to it lowers it’s life span by 1 sec.

another idea is it can lose it’s length for every x amount of damage done to it.

This, but just normally influenced by damage, not just burning. This would be a base 16 second duration, which is insane for a blocking wall.

Wyrden.4713:

i dont play a necro buti would start playing one for this

wads.5730:

well done, a build posted on warrior forums i didn’t want to vomit upon reading.

i think you’ve covered all your bases pretty well. i think the only changes i’d make is swap warriors sprint for DoTE. your signet covers most of your incombat swiftness anyways. the other option is to take vigorous focus, since you lack any sort of vigor uptime.

i’d also swap doom sigil or impact for hydromancy sigil instead.

Thanks for that! I don’t like vomit.

On DotE, I will try it again. Probably instead of Signet Mastery though. I really dislike being without extra movement speed when I go full melee.

Vigorous focus also seems like a good choice. Discipline is a good line in general. I do feel I always have dodges when i need ’m, through Sigil of Energy and building momentum (nerfed but still adds some endurance).

Hydro used to be my favorite thanks to the blind cleanse on swap, or the insta burst, or the help with escaping. I won’t need the blind cleanse as much though with BS, the burst on this build won’t match a power build anyway, and being able to escape or not with this build probably won’t change with hydro. Still, it’s cheap, so might as well give it a go. That’d be instead of doom definitely, all other sigils are irreplaceable the way I see it.

Nice vid man. Some pointers;

The sounds was a bit wonky for me, might be the songs, might be the recording.

Try not to use Berserker Stance so early. And by that I mean that there were several fights in which you activate it while running towards the opponent, wasting a good 2-3 seconds of the 8 second skill.

Also, when you destroy random turrets, try swapping weapons all the time. You will get an additional 5 strikes of adrenaline every time, which means more adrenaline going into a fight (if that happens before it drains again, which it usually does in pvp).

No fast hands is a no go in roaming.

You could potentially work around CI, but you will be weaker then with it. Vaanss does a nice job at it though. Check out his build.

killahmayne.9518:

Wut.

Hammer does a lot of burst damage with merciless hammer and sigil of impact. Even with his build.

He can easily get a good combo off. Maybe a 3K Backbreaker, 2.5K Staggering Blow, 2K Earthshaker followed by a 3K Fierce Blow, if all four of these attack crit. He will be able to get off a decent 10K combo assuming all of these attacks hit.

For the sword burst to do a lot of damage he needs to get his enemy below 50%. Even then I don’t see him doing more than 6K on a decently armored target. It doesn’t make sense to waste a sigil of intelligence on the sword for one attack, especially when none of his hammer attacks crit which wouldn’t result in a hard hitting Final Thrust anyway.

Pretty much agree with this. One sidenote, the numbers you mention on hammer have actually been higher. I also play a zerk/cavalier warrior with 2700 power and 200 crit damage, he crits for 5-6k during a hammer burst rotation. This build lacks 500 power, that doesn’t mean the damage gets halved. I usually get 3.5k-4.5k hits, unless it is the most defensive of enemies. I’ll get back to this.

killahmayne.9518:

But on to the build. It feels like with this build that you inevitably run into the same question that most hybrids run into. Why? Aside from being different, why run this as opposed to a full condi build, or a full power build. Does this build shine in a situation where a full power or a full condi wouldn’t? In what situations would it do so?

I feel like against a decent player in 99% of situations, it wouldn’t do better than a full condi or a full power type build.

It functions better then full power or condi when the opponent specs to outplay one of those builds. For instance, fighting other warriors (who usually spec a lot of stability), the hammer is less strong (as you no doubtedly know playing hammer/gs yourself). If they don’t pack significant condi clear, though, torment from sword 4 really eats them up. Not to mention doom.

I also seem to have an easier time dealing with bunkerish specs. Again, the conditions eat away at them, and if I manage to time an interrupt well that’s usually game. You could say this for a full power spec as well, but if I don’t manage to land the hammerstun, my conditions still apply pressure (and doom reduces healing).

I’d say the strength of this build, as with any hybrid, is that it always performs well, even if it is outperformed by full condi/power specs in certain situations.

killahmayne.9518:

I think if you possibly hybridized more (if that is a word), like maybe having 800 condition damage and could stack might better, I could see it as a really effective build. The reason why lb/axe warriors and d/d eles who go celestial actually are effective as opposed to other builds are because of their ability to keep up decent stacks of might. This build doesn’t really do that and I don’t really think your conditions would really hurt enough to make a big difference, you just might as well go full power at that point. Why hit for a 10K rotation with hammer + some crappy condition damage when you could go for a 17-18K+ rotation straight up and kill the person?

I also feel like Perplexity runes would be a better option than Antitoxin.

This is actually a real weakness of the build, it lacks might stacking. You can get to 10 somewhat reliably through SoR and runes, but those have medicore uptime. The trait in Strength helps against blockers though (warriors, guardians, mesmers, engineers). The realisation is that without longbow, a warrior will not be able to stack a lot of might.

However, I’ve had a blast (literally) when roaming with a D/D or longbow warrior friend of mine. You have a blast finisher and a leap, which can quickly get you up to 15-20 stacks along with their finishers. Also adds burn. In 2-man roaming, this build does incredibly well in my experience.

Again about the numbers, I can land a 11-14k rotation with hammer if all hits connect. They usually crit (or at least 3 of them) thanks to Intelligence. Also, this build allows you to mislead your opponent into thinking you are condition specced, only for them to realise that 65% of their HP is not enough to survive your rotation.

Perplexity would work well with this build, although I already feel it lacks a little mobility. Damagewise it would off course be better. I personally don’t like the nature of the runes, and I do not wish to spec more into conditions. The main damage source in this build is still power. I also feel that due to the rather high cooldowns on perplexity, a single cleanse would remove the confusion and I would still only be applying it through Distracting Strikes.

Thanks for the feedback though.

Don’t put expensive runes on either karma or WvW gear. You can not salvage that gear to get the rune back, if you decide to swap the rune to another piece of armor.

So first either craft or buy your gear from the tp, then put the strength runes on them. Or, better yet, take Hoelbrak. Slightly less damage in PvE (who cares), but way more survivability in WvW.

Hi all!

Been trying something different in WvW roaming. I am a big fan of hammer, just crafted Mjölnir. I also recently got lucky and found my first fractal weapon; the sword. This is what led me to design this build.

The build is a hybrid, the first one I found to work for me in WvW. My old attempts to a hybrid always lacked burst in my opinion. Burst is actually the selling point of this build, when it utilises Sigil of Intelligence on Hammer to put the hurt down.

The Leap of Faith;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAS8cjMdUGaVIOewJagjgC9p3BrgxA4mVmFfBA-T1TDABvpuivXAgHeAAtpZ4JlJVpEqLlCOv/Ac6A4UliFUCilSCAMBBxBBQijAAZAYGDA-w

Note that I use some gear that I ‘stumbled’ upon, like the dire ascended. These are just the stats I was aiming for and they seem to work.

Pro’s:
-Good mobility with Sword #2 and Hammer burst and constant 25% movement speed increase. Can opt to take Bull’s Rush for more mobility.
-97% movement condi reduction through Rune of Antitoxin+Lemongrass+Dogged March. 64% on all other conditions.
-Good pressure through various conditions; bleed, torment, confusion, poison all with 20% increased durations. 750 condition damage on swords with guard stacks. Goes up to 1100 easily with 10 stacks of might through runes and SoR.
-A surprisingly deadly burst rotation. Reach 2200 power on hammer with guard stacks in WvW, without might. Add ~200 crit damage, Merciless hammer+Sigil of impact (30% flat damage increase) and sigil of intelligence and you will end fights before your opponent knows what hit ’m. This combination defines the build.
-High base survivability; 25k HP (with guard stacks), 3150 armor. High weakness uptime from Hammer 2 also helps.
-OK condition cleansing through CI with both sword and hammer burst.
-Double stability rocks.
-It feels like hammer when every hit does 4k damage.

Cons:
-No longbow means less reliable cleanse and no burn.
-No burst Mastery, but I feel this build needs that triple cleanse when you do manage to hit with a full bar. Adrenaline production should not be a problem.
-Lacks the raw mobility of GS.
-Blind hurts.

Let me know what you guys think.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

I’ve found success with hammer/axeshield with bolas and bulls charge, with burst precision trait no one expects to get crit by eviscerate with no fury up or let alone even get hit by evis should they dodge earth shaker.

No mobility though.

Decent dueling spec, but only if you take Burst Mastery IMO.

This is the way of the pug.

Ibbydibby.1238:

The warrior class in total as I have watched it the past 2 months pretty much has me looking for the next game to play.

If all of you did that, this forum would clean up nicely.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAR5ejMdUFaZImdwJaAlgCdofBdwx2OAUOFjOA-TlCCABM8AAiU9ixUCCwRAYTVUc4CAolyv60NcxBBIn9HCAgAczbGAO6RP6RP6R7m38m38m3sMAMjB-w

Try this. 30% crit+Fury+UF=100% crit chance. You have about 85% uptime on fury, which should be enough.

Hoelbrak>Strength in WvW.

Air+Fire on GS will mean an insane burst when you finally land Skullcrack.

Paralysation and Energy on Mace/shield, nothing strange.

Take 30 in Defense for both Dogged March and Missile Deflection. Especially the reflect will help tremendously with closing the gap when fighting ranged. Good pressure too.

Also, vitality is overrated, even in a condi-meta. You might want to run with a little vit, but with guard stacks a warrior sits at like 22k base. Should be enough. Also, with this much toughness you can forgo Endure Pain for Berserker’s Stance and not get wrecked by blind. BS is also an almost sure way to escape as you can not be soft CC’d.

Not the best, but viable. What build are you using?

I find it to work very well with reflect on block.

Dagins.5163:

Cygnus.6903:

it seems incredibly overpowered

Thinking this way, dealing damage is also overpowered, because it allows you to kill an enemy.

What if cooldown for the stability strip sigil was 1 minute? Would you still see it as overpowered? Or suddenly it isn’t?

Sigil of nullification is problematic, because it pretty much does nothing. It is random and unreliable. Random and unreliable mechanics should be reduced to absolute minimum in this game.

1 minute cd would still be OP, yes.

Ah so again with the ‘warriors can reset fights which only thieves and mesmers should be able to do!’

Discrimination.

McWolfy.5924:

Wvw: hammer+sword/warhorn
Pve: gs+axe/mace
End of story. This is the optimal setup. If you use anything else you loose something what you need

But you may gain something else. Entertainment.

I would say that transferrig certain conditions would suffer from the same overpowered nature. Sure, cleansing a bleed or cripple won’t be gamechanging, but what about poison? Confusion? Chill? Conditions that are hard to apply for some classes but do have a huge impact on battle should not be singled out by a sigil to be removed.

It would be less detrimental then the boon removal sigil though.

Lishtenbird.2814:

With the recent Ready Up in mind, it’s most likely the 1st one – definite team roles, strengths and kryptonites.

Due to people saying stuff like ‘warriors get everything’ without really knowing what they are talking about (cause that statement in itself can never be true), I fear the same thing.

We must agree to disagree on pretty much everything else though.

If I wanted a game in which I was depending on others to help me function, I would probably be playing WoW? Never played it, but I know that has the trinity.

I don’t want WoW.

I want gw2.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Except that you already do. If you want to tag mobs in world boss and temple events (what I “liked most” prior to megazerger patch), you have to roll guardian because you gonna get a tiny portion of loot if you play, say, a mesmer instead. Or you should jump on ele for mist form if you want to easily kill Scarlet with the no-knockback achievement. And that’s how it works everywhere and will even if warrior gets nerfed: as long as there’s no trinity, you still can do anything solo (because no one’s going to nerf wars by 50%), but you’re less efficient in content X than when on class B or when in a group.

No, I don’t. It is very easy to get the ‘best’ gear in the game. I got it, so I only play the things I find enjoyable (WvW). I don’t play PvE aside from the occassional super easy dungeon for a little cash in which you could roll anything,

Lishtenbird.2814:

Cygnus.6903:

I just don’t understand why it is that only two classes (thief and mesmer) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight.

Let’s rephrase it to how it is now: I just don’t understand why it is that only three classes (thief, mesmer and warrior) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight. Does it make any more sense?

No, it does not. Give every class the ability to escape if they want to. Me? I will only escape if I find that I am facing unfavourable odds. Runners gonna run, I usually don’t even chase because I find it a waste of time and view it as a win either way.

Lishtenbird.2814:

The official stance is that content in this game is not balanced around 1v1 and duels cannot be used to measure balance. If warriors are stripped of their mobility, they finally start needing other classes to control the group (or rely on their limited abilities in it) so that they can roll in their heavy bodies and start delivering damage – this makes sense.

This makes sense to you and is your interpretation of a statement. I play warrior in a different way. It really is possible to not kill warrior mobility and still have an enjoyable fight with one.

And what is to say that this game shouldn’t or couldn’t be balanced more regarding 1v1? Or at least with 1v1 in mind?

Dagins.5163:

I am strongly against random boon or condition removal. Let’s be honest, you can’t control this sigil anyhow. In 99% cases a removed boon is a suprise both for you and your enemy, and the situation is not utilized at all.

There should be sigils that strip certain boons, for example only stability, have reliable cooldown and on-hit chance (not crit). It would be used for stun warriors to have more reliable stunlock attempts, but right now nobody bothers with it, because you are more likely to remove some ‘trash’ boon instead of the one you want to strip.

Another example: there could be a sigil that removes vigor and swiftness (2 in 1), so you are capable of chasing down some annoying bunker engineer or thief.

There are many examples, another might be might+fury removal for people who don’t like being hit too hard, anti-bunker protection removal, and cherry on top – retailation removal. The last would make a couple of builds suddenly viable.

I understand what you’re saying, but it seems incredibly overpowered to be able to reliably strip certain boons. Especially stability.

Carighan.6758:

Cygnus.6903:

And what if you like playing alone?

While some support for being able to play solo is encouraged (and would happen even with such a system, as it happens in PvE), players who are primarily interested in single-player gaming would probably not pick up a MMO-game. The genre is nearly the antithesis of what they want to play.

I disagree completely. GW2 to me is a game that allows me to play either solo or with others, against a lot of other people, which is where single player games lack IMO. Now I do realise fully that this means that I can expect to be outnumbered and thus in an unfavorable position because of it, but that’s why I really like gw2. It allows me to play the game I want, without being forced into anything.

I don’t have to farm, I don’t have to zerg, I don’t have to play one of two classes to be able to do what I like most. Or at least, that’s how it is now.

Most builds posted here are fun, but I don’t think this is what OP meant by viable. That being said, Rifle is not a good weapon for roaming, nor zerging. It can be fun to use though.

I’d try something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQJARUjMdU2ZjHuewJiAmgCZnPBXX7AQXVkqFA-TlCEABEcEASU9ntUCawhAgJlBSp0TiHAQb6CA4CAEz+DkCYJlRA-w

An ideal combination would be something like GS 4 (immobilize) > Bull’s Rush > Hunded Blades (might stacking) > swap > Fear Me (zomfgwtf) > Killshot. Fun to use, and if you fail, you still have nice armor and mobility through foods to not die horribly.

I’d always take Leg specialist with GS/Rifle.

Ralkuth.1456:

As a Warrior vs Thief duel goes, you have to be quick.

This. Timing is everything when fighting them. Even zerker stance, while very helpful against D/P, is easily outplayed by a half decent thief just by stealthing/kiting for 8 seconds.

D/P: Don’t stand in the blind field. Try aiming CC where they aim their heartseeker out of black powder. If you manage to interrupt it, the thief is down 9 initiative and does not stealth.
Also, they often slot both Shadowstep, which is a double stunbreaker (the second one expires after 10 seconds) and infiltrator’s signet, another stunbreaker. Don’t unleash your full combo until you have baited these out.
Finally, accept that a d/p thief never has to die to you. Honestly, a good one will only die to a warrior if he overextends, which is what you will have to try to induce. this is, however, a double-edged sword. If you feel you are in a bad spot, or they have a better opening on you, try to use all your mobility to leave combat and reset your health. This is not easy, as D/P also comes with insane pursuit skills.

S/D: Timing is even more important here. You absolutely have to CC them after an evade. Again, they often have 2-3 stunbreaks, so don’t blow it all on the first time you actually hit them. This fight is that much harder because of not being able to use stability, as the thief will not only remove it, but claim it for himself.
Try not to get hit from the back if he stealths, as that will daze you and the thief can unleash burst.

tl;dr: I feel thief should have the upper hand in an equally skilled match-up. Their dueling mechanics are just awesome.

Trust me, no set of armor will protect you in WvW on level 35. You will die when targetted by any 80.

Rifle is best with zerk.

Knight’s or Cavalier both have power and toughness on them. But again, rifle is best with zerk. Don’t even think about condition damage, rifle 1 is a skill you should not even be using really. And if you do, it is just for a little extra pressure while you wait for rifle/secondary weapon cooldowns to come back up. It is way to slow to stack a serious amount of bleeds. Rifle 1 does help with getting the Arms 5 point minor Grandmaster trait that increases damage by 10% on bleeding targets.

There was a guy who posted a decent rifle gs build on here a while ago, and he had some entertaining vids too.

Carighan.6758:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

you are really being very unreasonable here, do you know?

Not really, sorry.
I just think that a larger rework which leaves classes in a Team-Fortress like state of enforced mutual reliance is healthier for a massive multiplayer game than the 1-per-1 balance players frequently seem to want.

Because the latter just promotes bad behaviour and not wanting to play together. The former makes people play together either way, they’re reliant on each other.

So classes would be defined by weaknesses which can be covered by someone else.

And what if you like playing alone?

People complaining about passive stuff in this game should first look at their own builds, and realise how much of what they are ‘doing’ is actually being done for them. Passively.

TyPin.9860:

@Cygnus.6903:
First: I enjoy arguing with you.

Same.

TyPin.9860:

Now to the actual points: I agree that my experience is not the best as of now with warrior.

To be sure what we are talking about I used mostly and with the biggest success this build: click me

Let’s stop talking about experience. You are at least improving that, which is mroe then what can be said for the larger part of the player base.

TyPin.9860:

Condition cleanses:
Conditions were quite easy to cleanse. The build has already condition duration reduction in traits and rune (although I will switch Hoelbrack out probably for something more offensive). With the reduced signet recharge and signet of stamina I can remove already all conditions and have a stun breaker on 36s cool down. With Shake it off I have another combined stun break and small condition cleanse in a 25s cool down (I first wanted to make a shouts build with soldier runes, if the warrior shouts wouldn’t be such horrid boring skills). That already is already similar to the condition cleanse I have on the Power Mesmer, which I main, and doesn’t include the cleansing ire trait.

Let me correct you here. Signet of Stamina is not a stunbreak. It is a great skill though, and since lyssa nerf has been used on a lot of PvP builds.

On the conditions, I imagine them being a larger problem in WvW (my preferred area of the game), especially for those warriors that don’t spec for passive condition resistance.

For PvP, at least the tournament part, I would say that SiO is a lackluster skill for a warrior. One would argue that a warrior needs at least one skill that grants stability.

TyPin.9860:

With cleansing ire though I can cleanse additional conditions. Blinded is the easiest condition to get rid of.

Just not by using cleansing Ire. Of course, anybody can cleanse blind by attacking. It gets worrisome when you realize that most warrior attacks are so slow, that cleansing them before you actually land your heavy hitter is hard when fighting strong players. They will be able to for instance blind your earthshaker, denying cleansing Ire and mitigating the damage all in one.[/quote]

TyPin.9860:

Telegraphing:

Of course all profs suffer from telegraphing. You may be right to say it’s not per se a warrior only weakness, but in pvp, most builds use either hammer or longbow (or both), and they really are telegraphed. Still strong, but that is because of the nature of pvp in this game (on point battle). Try hambow in wvw, and you will fail. Horribly.

@ people suggesting to nerf warrior mobility; of course I am very biased towards this. I also did not aprove in any way of the nerfing of RtL, which most people now use as an argument to nerf warrior mobility.

I just don’t understand why it is that only two classes (thief and mesmer) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight. Oh, and FGS pretty much allows eles to escape from anything as well.

Another thing, I agree with Burr that nerfing Rush would also mean it has to get buffed to reasonable levels. Right now it always misses, which is a crucial difference to RtL. RtL is also AoE, making it again way easier to land. Rush would at least have to cleave.
I actually find his idea for a rework quite good as well.

TyPin.9860:

When I say that is not the point, it doesn’t mean you can not disagree with me. What I was saying was, that you might disagree with some of the weaknesses of other professions. But the fact is every other profession has clear weak spots and, as of my initial claim, I did not see any weak spot in warrior.

You also misunderstand the intend of my initial post, however I might have not made it clear. I have personally no problem with warriors. I can beat them on Mesmer and Necromancer (the 2 professions I am most familiar with). The intend of this post was to find the trade off of the warrior profession. Not because I think they were too strong, but because I felt the design was flawed. I would have rather had a warrior profession, that is stronger in one area but has a serious designed weakness or trade off to it, because all the other professions have designed trade offs. I did not want any nerf to the warrior in general, because that would be stupid, when I personally have no issues with warriors in means of fighting them.

It seems very strange to me that you were searching for weaknesses in a class that you apparently have no problem defeating. How can a class be defeated if it has no weaknesses?

The rest of your plea does make sense, and I guess it somewhat explains why you were looking for weaknesses. I guess it’s simple, not being able to truly distinquish oneself in anything is a weakness in itself.

I will reply to your new claims though.

TyPin.9860:

The points I previously accepted, but mainly due to my personal experience now have to disagree with as weaknesses, were the following:

• weak to blind (blocks part of condition cleanse):
  Warrior has several good condition cleanse option, including cleansing Ire that in sum can not be seen as a weakness, because the cleanses can easily remove conditions to a point, where they aren’t a real issue any more. This mitigation of conditions, although achieved partly via passive traits, requires active and clever management, thus making it okay imho.
• highly telegraphed attacks:
  Not really an issue, because those attacks are on a very short coll down and very effective. If at all, those telegraphed attacks make them balanced in the first place. Also not all weapon sets have such telegraphed attacks. It mainly concerns Rifle and Hammer.
• relies on boons, which could be corrupted, ripped or stolen:
  While some boons are good to increase damage, it is nothing like boon reliance like elementalist or guardian, for which boons seem to be a core mechanic, unlike the warrior.

First, personal experience coming from hotjoin playing Hammer/GS is again not that impressive. It is slightly better then when you started this topic, though.

Just the fact that you say warriors can cleanse until the point that condi’s aren’t an issue anymore completely throws me off. Especially when you mention Cleansing Ire along with blinds. Cleansing Ire is the worst way to remove a blind, as the blind doesn’t allow for removal… (excluding longbow). Also, you want CI to cleanse the damaging or movement impairing condi’s.
But conditions can wreck a warrior, especially if he is double melee. Blind, and especially blind spam is the worst, followed closely by chill>immobilize and cripple.

About the telegraphing, it’s not just rifle and hammer. Pin down (longbow 5), Mace burst, Final Thrust (sword 3), Hundred Blades, Rush…

And talking about short cooldowns, let’s take hammer for example (I won’t go into rifle as it is not really pvp viable). Take it from me as a hammer enthusiast since launch, the only two attacks that you absolutely must dodge on hammer are the burst, and the #5. Off course, hammer #4 can open up an opportunity to use the other two, in which case, stunbreak>dodge.
Hammer bust has a 7,75 cooldown when traited. Hammer 5 has a 24 second cooldown when traited. This means that in a 30 second fight, where the warrior uses hammer half the time, you would be dodging 3-4 attacks maximum. Endurance refills by 50% in 10 seconds if I am not mistaking, along with 100% to start with. That’s 5 dodges. Excluding Sigil of energy, vigor or other endurance regen capabilities. That is excluding blocks, blinds, simple kiting, and all other methods to /laugh at the warriors efforts. Off course, I also exclude other skills from the warrior that you might have to dodge or mitigate, but hey, you have (utility) skills too right?

On the boon thing, I didn’t really agree on that to begin with, warriors can work around them. Fury and Might are arguably the most important ones. Off course, these are less important then protection is for a guardian, but then again, if all were the same…

That sigil would be way better, thus cooldown should be even higher and chance lower.

I agree with the need for a buff. Does anybody ever use this I wonder.

TyPin.9860:

On the other hand I believe to have a good grasp of all the professions potential abilities. That doesn’t mean I am right all the time. But the statement of: “play it yourself, otherwise I won’t take your opinion seriously”, is just plain arrogance and laziness to argue and it doesn’t thrive a discussion. It shuts it down with a non constructive statement.
….

First of all, I never said I didn’t take you seriously. Just the fact that I am replying to you once again proves that, and my not-so-lazy attitude towards discussion.

The rest fo your story all sounds great, and I did notice you taking back some of your initial false claims.

But that is just the point. Let me quote you on your initial post:

TyPin.9860:

One might disagree on some of those, but that is not the point. The point is that there are weaknesses for every profession except the warrior. I do not want the damage or HP pool or healing of the warrior or such nerfed. What I would like to see is the warrior having some disadvantages. So either I did not think hard enough and you guys can correct me or something should be done, to bring the warrior in line with other professions in terms of trade off.

Apart from you stating here that disagreeing with you is besides the point (which it isn’t, that is the entire point), you are claiming warriors have no weakness, and then completely nullify your own credibility again by saying that you may not have thought hard enough.

What kind of a response will such a statement induce? Especially coming from somebody who admits never to have played the class? You can keep saying this is not a valid argument, and of course you have a right to speak your mind without knowing every class, but don’t make such bold claims about a class that you didn’t play.

If you want to have a normal discussion without pretty much insulting warriors as a whole, try just asking for ways to defeat warriors next time. Or, even better, look for the topics on warrior mythbusting and how to defeat warriors.

And you may say I did not contribute to your knowledge about the class, in which case I gladly quote my first post;

Cygnus.6903:

Emi.4152:

hmm… for the warrior i would say the greatest weakness is the obvious animations.

This and the long cast times for the important-to-hit-attacks.

Oh, and we are easily kited by anything with a few cripples and chills and a little +condition duration.

Only a few long cooldown utilities to soak all of the damage that warriors, as opposed to many other classes, are forced to eat.

I made some other contributing posts, won’t quote everything.

Jurica.1742:

Do some research on mesmers before you say something like that. It isn’t about the friggin nerf to iLeap. It is a totally uncalled stupid nerf, but it is one of a long series, and the mesmer community keeps getting more and more annoyed with every patch because we’re promised flowers and we get the middle finger constantly.

Seriously bro? You schooling me on this, a warrior main since launch? Try being absolutely worthless in anything pvp related for a year before things get better. I know mesmers are not exactly a walk in the park right now, but you never were, and never will be in the same spot warriors were just a year ago.

I know enough about the class and the bugs that plague it that this so-called tooltip fix stealth nerf is total bs. That’s why I said to just change the skill to work as it used to. We were having a discussion about interpreting tooltips, not wether or not mesmers should have their old iLeap.

Has the mesmer playerbase really become this vengeful? I don’t remember it this way.

ThiBash.5634:

Cygnus.6903:

Only a few long cooldown utilities to soak all of the damage that warriors, as opposed to many other classes, are forced to eat.

You’re joinking right? Between shield and endure pain (and the traits) warrior has as much damage avoid skills as any other profession. Not to mention they have as many dodges as the next one.

Endure Pain is a 4 second immunity to direct damage on a 60 second cooldown. If you spec for Defy Pain, which you should never do unless running Axe shield GS, you get another 4 seconds. To direct damage. Only. And I’m not sure, but I thought this was on a 90 second cooldown.

Shield stance is a block, 3 seconds, with a 30 second cooldown. So, theoretically, that could be used twice a minute. Don’t forget though, blocks can actually be circumvented or even interrupted. Wouldn’t that be a pain!
Oh, and while shield stance is active, you won’t be doing much else.

Thus, the warrior that specs for as much direct damage mitigation as he possible can through the use of shield stance and double EP, gets 14 seconds of mitigation during the first minute of fighting. He is, however, completely open to conditions, interrupts, you name it, during this time.

The duration still seems like more then other classes, and I guess it is. I am not going to do a detailed research on how many seconds other classes can get worth of blocks, immunity or invulnerability.

Whoops, there is a downside to speccing for this much direct damage defense. you take shield. You must obviously take zomfgOPlongbowcondicleansemadness. So… Sword mainhand? How mobile are you now?
Don’t take longbow you say? Where is your condition cleanse? Aoe?

Warrior don’t get the tools other classes get to avoid having to eat this much damage in the first place. Things like blinds, aegis, AI-controlled meatshields, teleports, stealth, protection, the list goes on.

And your comment on dodging is both strange (because I never mentioned dodging) and wrong. Other classes have better access to vigor (mesmer, engineer, thief), evading skills (thief, ranger). Warrior do fine in the dodging department, but they are, again, in no way top of the food chain here.

Sergoros.4398:

Cygnus.6903:

Sergoros.4398:

Cygnus.6903:

Anet fixed this bug properly, cause honestly, it did seem like a bug.

Now redesign the skill to work the way it used to.

I hardly ever play mesmer, but this seems like an unwanted change.

Flying warriors on www does seem like a bug. They should fix all their escape skills. They should be only gap closers. Not escape run away like lighting skills.

p.s. Because tooltips! thats why!

What tooltip leads you to think this way?

Weird comment.

Btw, if we are fixing all escape skills, then no more teleports and stealth for you mister!

Didnt you read my post above? “Lunge at enemy.” "Swirl to the enemy. "

Thats a tooltips of the warrior escape skills. Obviously escaping is not intended and is an exploit, that should be fixed.

p.s. Tooltips is a god. Obey tooltips.

Lil weak. Not that funny either. What you’re doing is taking things out of context into ridiculousness. Also, completely unnessecary and counterproductive to bring up other classes when talking about fixing a mesmer skill.

A tooltip that says swap with the clone would imply that if there is no clone, i.e. because of it dying to quickly, there can be no swap. A tooltip saying you need a target for the skill to work does not fit this description, because otherwise what would happen if the target is simply too far away?

Now I hear everybody on your end going nuts, as they also nerfed elementalists’ RtL exactly because of this. They probably will do this to warriors as well. Then I reply by saying that other classes, like thief and mesmer have copious amounts of stealth and teleports to escape any given situation at will. So why do these classes get escape tools, whereas warriors or elementalists don’t?

And that is how you completely derail off topic.

I repeat what I said earlier, change the skill for it to work the way it used to, with a correct tooltip. One might argue that if the clone dies before you manage to leap, the mesmer should be punished for this in some way. That means taking away the immobilize, the leap, or increasing the cooldown (you know, back to the RtL nerf?).

However, I didn’t mind the old version.

This tooltip ftw stuff has to end.

killahmayne.9518:

What Cygnus said basically. If I only had one stability I would most likely choose Balanced Stance of Dolyak Signet. And I would much rather have a second source of stability and that 180 toughness then basically two stunbreaks/two condi removals in that time span. You can’t stomp people if people stun you back to back (which is fairly common in 1vX fights). With stability nobody can stop you unless they corrupt or remove it (which isn’t nearly as common).

I also have good uptime on that 180 toughness because I am always using Balanced Stance before I am using Dolyak Signet. But again, the 180 toughness is just a little bonus and isn’t a deciding factor on whether to run double stability.

However, Bulls Charge, and even Bolas (they are actually not bad contrary to popular belief) are good choices if you only want to run single stability. Then there is of course the Endure Pains and the SoS’

I run Heightened Focus besides Burst Mastery because in outnumbered fights when you are constantly getting hit, reduced adrenaline on burst doesn’t even really matter. So the only bonus to me would be the 7% damage on burst. While with heightened focus, I pretty much have an extra 15% crit chance when I use Greatsword because I rarely ever use the burst. Even on Hammer when I use the burst adrenaline isn’t hard to come by so I have pretty decent uptime on the trait.

Hydromancy could be a decent choice over Sigil of Fire for sure. But with the build I run I would probably never go Sigil of Intelligence b/c it relies on certain factors to be effective. The AoE from the hammer causes the charges to be used up very quickly (especially in 1VX fights, I think that is how it works I will have to check again though I might be wrong) so it is dispersed among multiple targets, rather than one. And especially with heightened focus I never really found critting to be a problem. It might be OK for 1v1 but I don’t tailor builds around 1v1 but for practical situations in WvW.

Sigil of battle I would never switch either unless I switched my Runes of Strength. 3 stacks of might that lasts 29 seconds is unreal. That is basically a perma 6 stacks of might, which is 210 power which roughly equals 12-15% extra damage with my build.

Blinds are ofc a problem, but really that only comes from blind spamming thieves and certain guardian builds. Which I doubt one sigil swap every 9 seconds would counter.

This.

I would always advise yo use a bloodlust sigil though. On Killahmayne’s build, I’d suggest replacing fire on GS with bloodlust. It’s simple, 250 power is easily obtained with the new way stacking sigils work. And the benefit of bloodlust over for instance Fire, is that it is a constant damage bonus for both weapon sets. Fire might achieve a slightly higher burst, but this build has insane burst with hammer+MH+sigil of impact already. Sustained damage is better and it increases hammer burst as well.

Downside is that for wvw, you need two sigils, one for underwater weapon (otherwise you lose stacks when swimming).

I fought a warrior in a duel the other day. He used mace/shield + rifle. Man that seemed like a lot of fun. He was intentionally letting people think he was just a full glass idiot, using a lil cc and such, until he shield bashed into mace burt, Signet of Fury or Healing Surge back to full adrenaline and then a 14k killshot.

This is completely unviable, but he had enough skill to always pull it off the first, and often the second time as well.

To me, this is what rifle is about. Funny killshots and lolz if you actually beat somebody with it. Kind of like p/p on thief. You really want the set to work, which it does not, but the fun part keeps drawing you back to it.

Sergoros.4398:

Cygnus.6903:

Anet fixed this bug properly, cause honestly, it did seem like a bug.

Now redesign the skill to work the way it used to.

I hardly ever play mesmer, but this seems like an unwanted change.

Flying warriors on www does seem like a bug. They should fix all their escape skills. They should be only gap closers. Not escape run away like lighting skills.

p.s. Because tooltips! thats why!

What tooltip leads you to think this way?

Weird comment.

Btw, if we are fixing all escape skills, then no more teleports and stealth for you mister!

Anet fixed this bug properly, cause honestly, it did seem like a bug.

Now redesign the skill to work the way it used to.

I hardly ever play mesmer, but this seems like an unwanted change.

Although I do think low cooldown ‘stunbreaks’ are a bad thing.

TyPin.9860:

I have created a warrior some hours ago and I will try to sPvP with her… and eventually level her up… my Mesmer just tags nothing in Zerg fights So I can test the claims about boon reliance and telegraphing myself.
However, instead of arguing your position (and with me you can argue your position, I am not blindly claiming facts out of the air and defend them to the last breath) you say figuratively: “Not played warrior yourself? You know nothing John Snow!” ^^

Ok let me enlighten you on your findings, before you discover them yourself.

You will find warrior to be easy to get accustomed to. Then, you will also find that we do not have an answer to everything.

Btw, testing our telegraphed skills in WvW, especially in zerg fights is not a good idea. In zvz it is hardly possible to predict every hammerstun because zvz is in itself chaotic. Try it in obsidian sanctum, instead.

About boon reliance, warrior does not rely on it as much as ele or guardian. We do, however, somewhat need at least either might or fury to get to significant damage levels. Otherwise we have to spec full zerk.

Inb4 people saying warriors do good damage without these; they don’t.

And something else, just don’t post if you haven’t played the profession. You can not possibly understand what you are talking about to the fullest if you did not play the class.

Emi.4152:

Cygnus.6903:

Emi.4152:

hmm… for the warrior i would say the greatest weakness is the obvious animations.

This and the long cast times for the important-to-hit-attacks.

Oh, and we are easily kited by anything with a few cripples and chills and a little +condition duration.

Only a few long cooldown utilities to soak all of the damage that warriors, as opposed to many other classes, are forced to eat.

now that i’m thinking about it… they also have very predictable combos… unreliable gap closers (insane gap openers though Oo weird).

I guess we can both keep going.

Emi.4152:

hmm… for the warrior i would say the greatest weakness is the obvious animations.

This and the long cast times for the important-to-hit-attacks.

Oh, and we are easily kited by anything with a few cripples and chills and a little +condition duration.

Only a few long cooldown utilities to soak all of the damage that warriors, as opposed to many other classes, are forced to eat.

I can keep going, but I know there is no point.

TyPin.9860:

One might disagree on some of those, but that is not the point. The point is that there are weaknesses for every profession except the warrior.

0/10 for your post based on this sentence. I hope that if you read it again, you can acknowledge the paradox in it?

vincecontix.1264:

Elegie.3620:

vincecontix.1264:

Cygnus.6903:

Axe Sword +longbow in pvp is scary.

Very much so.

I completely agree. Since I’ve started playing it, I find it the best duelling setup for a warrior. IMHO, it’s better than pure condition damage, since there are some opponents that either can activate immunity to conditions (nullifying your damage potential) or pop up some adds which you’d want to quickly take out. And it’s better than pure physical damage, in that it mixes in conditions, diversifying the damage inflicted, and putting more pressure even when the opponent kites.

All in all, the celestial axe/sword+longbow build lets you do good burst damage provided you properly manage might and vulnerability (just did a 9k evisceration a few hours ago!), good sustained damage with conditions, has good toughness and condition management, and can even let you win a few 1v2 (I had some memorable bouts in tPvP). It is a bit lacking in mobility, but since this is conquest, it appears to be manageable.

As soon as this becomes the meta in spvp the qq will move from hambow to this spec.

The thing is hambow still functions best in a teamfight. Where Axe/sword longbow actually destroys hambow, this is often irrelevant as the hambow will not be alone.

Warlord.9074:

^ I rather have burst mastery. Everything else is fine. Not a huge fan of dolyak sig. I know it gives more defense put its totally useless if you pop it and the cool down even traited is longer than balanced stance. If you don’t need endure pain there are other options. Like shake it off as a stun break vs using stability to break a stun. Or signet of might would be alot better with a hammer build.

The thing is, double stability is just that much better then just using balanced stance. Sure, if you only use 1 stability utility then balanced stance should probably be your choice.

SiO is kind of bad in WvW imo. You could use it twice as often as Dolyak Signet, but it only breaks stun (and cures 1 condition, woohoo). Whereas Dolyak signet is constantly providing 180 toughness, until you desperately need that extra 8 seconds of stability for, say, a stomp (in which SiO is useless).

Signet of Might is incredibly situational, even with hammer. You can just as easy wait for the enemies block to run out or remove Aegis with an auto-attack, no need for SoM.