Guild Wars 2

In solo PvE content, there is not better weapon then Greatsword for warrior. Axe comes close in damage to GS (being only slightly less), but offers you nothing in terms of mobility. Travelling time is just way shorter with GS 3 and 5.

I understand your bias towards GS, just a personal preference thing I guess. I loved the rifle when I started my warrior, it actually motivated me to main warrior. Now I use GS hammer in WvW, GS/longbow in PvE. Try it, and maybe you will love the GS as well.

In that case, Greatsword. For both PvE and WvW. It gives you great mobility, thus you can travel faster.

Also, don’t be surprised if you use GS more then Rifle, because Hundred Blades and Whirlwind are amazing in PvE.

Free tip; try to level up in EotM. Can get ~3 levels per hour with a decent commander.

killahmayne.9518:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQJARSjMdUFaZIOewJagfgC9t3C7gpAQ9bk7dBA-TliFAB1eEAwTXwI7PMo6PXpE0IleA8AAYSZADHCgEuAABAQA25OTn7MwQH6QH6QHa7coDdn7colCYJhRA-w

This is a great build, I have recently changed my build to exactly the same utilities and it works very well in outnumbered fights.

What area of the game do you play?

Exactly this happened to me just now, already 150g gone. Items that apparently sold but did not get gold for pickup.

Get Hoelbrak. It’s the meta for a reason.

Hammer/GS is well known, good that you’re having fun with it (as I have since launch…it’s awesome).

Also; sigil of impact.

Will watch the vid later.

Edit: watched it, stopped watching at ~10:00. Too much of doing nothing. EotM is boring son.

MidoriMarch.8067:

any class/mechanics can be “OP” if the player is extremely good and skillful

You’re not using “OP” correctly.

Anyway, I disagree with you. Stealth in itself is an OP mechanic in the right hands. There is no mechanic in this entire game that even comes close to how powerful stealth can be. Which is why I was talking about good players. Because in the hands of bads, stealth is, unsurprisingly, bad.

On topic; stealth is not something you can fix IMO. That would mean to remove the easy access to it that both thief and mesmer have, which in turn means you would have to seriously buff them both. So if you are serious about fixing stealth, try buffing thief and mesmer first. Then mostly remove stealth, and voila.

@Shakeystorm; you can’t expect a ‘fix stealth’ topic to not have any discussion on the class that uses stealth most.

frans.8092:

That is something you can learn, hence why it really is a learn-to-play issue.

You can not really 100% believe this right? That would mean you are either pretty bad, or inexperienced when it comes to fighting really good thieves.

I have no problem with stealth, mainly because it is fun to play with on my thief (I main a warrior).

But stealth, in the hands of not an average, but a good player, has nothing to do with l2p on his targets behalf. Nay, it becomes completely broken in capable hands.

What I am trying to say is that you can say l2p all you want, but when it comes down to facing the better thieves, stealth is an OP mechanic.

The fact that thieves, apart from said OP mechanic, are a rather mediocre class at best, only means that thieves with less skill will get facepalmed by the likes of you and me.

tPvP; Hambow or celestial Axebow will do the things you are asking for (well, the pressure anyway).

WvW; roaming or zerg?

There are a lot of builds between this page and page 5, you would probably find all you’re looking for.

My wish was granted; Toxic Gloves.

It’s a question of how much time your willing to invest to get the maximum amount of gold per skill point. I believe investing in upgrading mats through MF is the most profitable way, but only when looking at the sp/g ratio.

I just made a legendary with a friend of mine who had all the gold/mats needed. I invested karma and skill points, and got a nice profit of about half a g per skill point.

Dondagora.9645:

Just a public opinion thread. Since the question is vague, I’ll split it into three lists.

a) List the professions from 1-8 from strongest<1> in its role to weakest<8> in its role.

b) List the professions from 1-8 from requiring the most skill<1> to the least skill<8> to play.

c) List the professions from 1-8 being the most broken, imbalanced, or otherwise<1> to the least broken, most balanced, and overall “okay”<8>. For this one, perhaps give a reason, or even just whether it is imbalanced in the “OP” fashion or broken in the “UP” way of things.

In small-scale WvW roaming;

the a-list:

1. Thief
2. Elementalist
3. Mesmer
4. Engineer
5. Warrior
6. Ranger
7. Guardian
8. Necromancer

The b-list is impossible to create with any value to it without specifying builds. Shatter Mesmer can be very skill-demanding, whereas PU is pretty much the easiest thing to play in this game (way easier then any warrior spec, for instance).

c-list (same problem as b-list, but here goes):

Imbalanced (skill required vs reward);

1. PU mesmer
2. P/D thief
3. Condi Engineer

On the Edge (of uselessness);

4. Warrior (one or two nerfs away from turning ‘adequate’ back into insta-lootbag)
5. Other thieves (always getting nerfed, just because stealth is so incredible in the right hands)

Weak;

6. Guardian (little mobility, other then that they are still top of the foodchain)
7. Ranger (staying power, but not enough damage for roaming)
8. Necromancer (mobility and incredible weak to cc)

“OK”;

Elementalist (IMO on of the strongest classes in roaming that is not cheese-mode-faceroll-ez, I put thief above because of stealth. But Elementalist requires enough skill that I am fine with the output, all be it a bit too much in 1v1)

Zerk all the way. In PvE, there is no other good choice really. And zerk is the most fun as it forces you to actively mitigate the highest hitting attacks. I use 90% zerk and a little cavalier, but I mostly roam wvw.

Don’t go condi for pve. In wvw, it is very powerful in small scale fighting. Boring, but powerful.

Reviving as a whole is too quick in this game IMO.

Axe Sword +longbow in pvp is scary.

Are you sure you didn’t copy paste this from somewhere?!?

It is pretty much the meta Axe/Shield GS build. But you have trooper runes with 0 shouts?? Kind of odd…

Well, I have some cavalier trinkets. Those are pretty sweet.

If you don’t run fractals, you could buy those. Or buy more zerk for your alts so you don’t have to switch.

Or just get gold for your laurels..

Out of all classes, warrior is one of the absolute worst when it comes to outnumbered fights. Speaking out of experience, going up against anything other then 1v1 puts you at a significant disadvantage, simply because you have to soak all damage (either with your toughness/HP or utilities like EP, which have a huge cooldown).

Other classes, such as thief and mesmer, have way more active mitigation. Stealth, blocks, teleports, evades, invulnerabilities (of which warrior has only one, Defiant Stance) at regular intervals make them the best candidate for 1vX.

That being said, a warrior can take out a single target if he manages to do a full rotation. I play Hammer/GS as well, and I have actually won a decent amount of 1v2 with it, even against adequate players. If, however, their skill level is equal to yours, not only should you expect to lose, but you should lose.

My conclusion is that a warrior actually needs to go as zerk as he can muster. I run with almost full zerk, Hoelbrak runes (I recommend these for any power warrior roaming spec), and like 2 cavalier trinkets. This makes me sit at 2700 power with stacks, ~45% crit chance and ~210 crit damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJEQJARSjMdUGaXImdwJaAmgCdnPBhwx0OAU+EfOA-TlCEABJcBA29IAslSQmUWJlSFWU/RiDBQb6KA4BBEz+DkBYZLA-w

Merciless Hammer+Sigil of Impact=Hulk.

Spicyhash.7605:

Adept Thief Trait: Ezio Macaroni
Character wears Assassin’s Creed style hood

Grandmaster Engineer Trait: Prybar 5 to 3
After using magnet, use Pry Bar regardless of opponent actually being pulled

Adept Warrior Trait: Scaredy Cat
When you are about to die, automatically use greatsword skills Rush followed by Whirlwind

Adept Ranger Trait: Contingency
Use point black shot automatically regardless of the situation

Adept Elementalist Trait: Double-edged Sword
Mist form lasts twice as long, but cannot enter doors while in mist form

Grandmaster Guardian Trait: Spinal Tap
Wave of Wrath now does double damage

Thief Adept minor trait for Critical Strikes: Use Heartseeker automatically. Always. Even with shortbow. Restore 1 initiative.

Thief Adept minor trait for Shadow Arts: If your target manages to block or dodge or otherwise mitigate backstab, you don’t lose stealth, but you do take backstab damage yourself. Restore 1 initiative.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cygnus.6903:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Blocks/blinds/evades don’t work against Hambow builds to prevent CI. Even if they did, landing your burst skills has never been difficult (outside of Kill Shot), against me. No more difficult than landing some CC, for example.

Fixed.

Only longbow reliably procs CI.

No, you broke it. I don’t have issues landing burst skills either. Maybe that’s because I’m used to landing long cast times from necro, though.

Flurry is dead easy to land, Skull Crack isn’t difficult in the slightest, and Eviscerate is rarely avoided if I already baited a dodge (again, not difficult to do). Arcing Slice is probably the easiest burst skill to land because nobody ever watches for it. Earthshaker and Kill Shot are the only tough ones to land (Kill Shot being nigh impossible).

We must agree to disagree.

Carighan.6758:

It’s… you give me the ability to bring you an unfair fight. Why would I not capitalize on that?

That is not the issue I’m talking about here. It is not the fact that in WvW, you will get swamped by superior numbers sooner or later. You can and should expect that to happen. I do not hate people for Xv1ing me. In fact, just having superior numbers is outplaying your opponent in a sense.

It is not even that there are superior builds in this game. There pretty much always are. Sure, the best build for roaming can probably be hard countered by a build that is tailored to exactly that purpose, but said counter will have a hard time doing anything else.

The problem, IMO, is that the superior build I am talking about, should demand very high skill from the player. Condition specs don’t have that demand. Of course, this is all in my opinion, and many condition enthusiasts will not hesitate to drown mine in theirs.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Cygnus.6903:

The importance of precision when using conditions is extremely overestimated. It doesn’t actually increase condition damage, just the amount of conditions. And it does a poor job at that. Dire nets you the same amount of condition damage stat, precision is often not worth it.

Umm, I hate to use things like facts, logic, and common sense and all, but how does increasing the amount of conditions, their stack level, or their duration not increase a players condition damage output?

Enthusiast spotted!

Please mr. monkey, where did I state that

increasing the amount of conditions, their stack level, or their duration

does not increase a players’ condition damage output?

Read it again. I said that

The importance of precision when using conditions is extremely overestimated.

It is not hardly as important as you or others may try to make it out to be, and sure as hell inferior to using Dire in almost all cases.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Blocks/blinds/evades don’t work against Hambow builds to prevent CI. Even if they did, landing your burst skills has never been difficult (outside of Kill Shot), against me. No more difficult than landing some CC, for example.

Fixed.

Only longbow reliably procs CI.

Interesting stuff. As Celestial D/D ele is going to be my next alt, good to know they are fun

Question, how does a sword/warhorn warrior have better mobility then a GS/Hammer?

Why, when talking about the best mobility, is nobody talking about the fact that thief mobility can be uninterruptable?

Warrior is very easy to learn, bit harder to master. The real challenge comes when you face other players of similar skill, on different classes. They will have far superior mechanics and options available to them to defeat you, thus timing and movement become very important for the warrior.

You do have incredible mobility, which allows for more errors. Warrior is, however, not even close to being the most forgiving class out there.

Let’s do this so condition specs can be easier to play.

Nice vid. Good builds. And Charr.

Carighan.6758:

Cygnus.6903:

Cause that glass cannon risks everything, while you are in full dire. And give me that GC build that does 80% of your HP in 2 seconds, ty.

If you are in full dire, your conditions barely tickle targets.

No…they don’t..

The importance of precision when using conditions is extremely overestimated. It doesn’t actually increase condition damage, just the amount of conditions. And it does a poor job at that. Dire nets you the same amount of condition damage stat, precision is often not worth it.

You do know that the main reason for the current power meta in pvp is Strength rune? Actually, Hybrid is very prevalent because of it.
Conditions will not any time soon rule any part of the game other then small WvW roaming. It is just in that area though, that conditions are way too easy to play to reap such benefits.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Cygnus.6903:

Wallace MacBix.2089:

If a full glass cannon can burst 80% of my hp in a second or two (in knights/dire gear), why can’t my conditions be equally dangerous to him?

Cause that glass cannon risks everything, while you are in full dire. And give me that GC build that does 80% of your HP in 2 seconds, ty.

Btw, what does the GC do after you’ve healed back to 70%?

Actually knights/dire, and I wish I knew then at least I could figure out a counter. And normally they just stealth and get ready to burst again while I try to swing/AoE/dodge blindly and hope I get lucky.

Aha! so it not is your enemy, but yourself that damages you, young padawan.

Eiland.1405:

Basically because of the so unbalanced condi duration foods in wvw you can break free from the LB + CI spvp meta.

IMO warrior with Hammer + GS is most fun build in the whole game

This is true. Hammer/GS is such an oldschool warrior build, love it.

Anything/GS basically. Not using GS means you will not be mobile, which is pretty much all the defense a warrior has in WvW.

Also, don’t use hambow in roaming. That build is stupidly weak in WvW (you know, cause of walking and all).

Ropechef.6192:

Land speed : Thief with Warrior stupidly close behind. (( This being a concept of a point A to point B notion. Yes i have actually tested it. ))

In Combat Mobility: Thief with Mesmer a close second. Warrior and Ranger are a most likely tied for 3rd.

This. Ranger is insanely mobile in combat, which is all that matters really.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

If a full glass cannon can burst 80% of my hp in a second or two (in knights/dire gear), why can’t my conditions be equally dangerous to him?

Cause that glass cannon risks everything, while you are in full dire. And give me that GC build that does 80% of your HP in 2 seconds, ty.

Btw, what does the GC do after you’ve healed back to 70%?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Why straight to 20s?In most cases, a 10 second ICD is meaningless, since it can’t be activated more frequently than that anyway. ICD’s only mean anything if they actually prevent something from occurring. A 10 second ICD wouldn’t do that.

You don’t play warrior, which is why you can not possibly understand what playing a warrior was like without Cleansing Ire.

Thus, completely overnerfing a trait by cutting it in half, which is what you are trying to do here, can only be viewed as a lack of knowledge in my opinion.

Oh, and warriors that take Cleansing Ire as their only way of mitigating conditions, will die. To conditions.

a t s e.9614:

No offense but your suggestions make me wonder if you really play warrior or another class..

His suggestion actually screams being a warrior, it’s all good fun.

The title of this topic is really funny. Nobody noticed?

yski.7642:

Don’t sell warriors too short – I’m sure we can at least get to 50k, probably way higher.

@Cygnus No external buffs are allowed, so all the might and vulnerability you want you’ll have to stack yourself, and the moment you deal any damage is the moment the timer starts ticking.

So, can anyone think of any other burst rotations, or is Killshot + (Signet of Fury) + Eviscerate our best bet?

Wads is right, banner, OMM and Signet of Fury.

But I can’t think of a better damage rotation.

And i’d say 50k is a pretty safe estimate if you don’t have full might and vulnerability.

wads.5730:

Cygnus.6903:

That’s the thing, warriors don’t really have high instaburst skills.

I guess something like Frenzy>Killshot>Signet of Fury>Eviscerate, with 6/0/0/2/6? But that won’t come close to ele.

add in on my mark, signet of rage, and discipline banner.

but yeah, warriors would only be able to compete if your time window was like 5 seconds or something, enough to get off a quickness 100b, ww, rush, evisc

Yeah, but i thought he meant the damage rotation. I was suggesting this under the impression that everything else (vulnerability, might) is maxed out.

Problem with your suggestion is that if you want to slot OMM and discipline banner, where would you fit signet of fury and signet of might?

Snowmoon.1758:

Only good for melee situations against pve-players though.

Fixed.

derbaer.1284:

Im a newbie hambow, too (main mesmer) and funny enough, didnt ask about the rotation.
What I do mostly is: bow F1 – bow 5 – swap – hammer F1 – hammer 5 – hammer 2 – hammer 4 – hammer AA

as a burst sequence. Anything that could bedone better here?

Try to end with hammer F1, you will have more adrenaline and thus more stun duration for more merciless hammer abuse.

That’s the thing, warriors don’t really have high instaburst skills.

I guess something like Frenzy>Killshot>Signet of Fury>Eviscerate, with 6/0/0/2/6? But that won’t come close to ele.

A combination of zerk and cavalier. Others tend to use zerk/knights or knights/cavalier.

Your burst will simply not be burst with PVT. Other then that, the build can be better, but you should just browse through the forum a bit to find the current meta. I use 4/0/6/0/4 with hammer/greatsword.

Segev.4108:

It’s a Burst based build………(Using Power/Vit/Tough gear)

That does not work.

S/S longbow builds with Dire equipment are somewhat indestructible while melting anything fairly quick. So ask yourself this; where is the fun if there is no challenge?

Carighan.6758:

Don’t make a composition-fallacy. Yes, Warriors have fourth best DPS in PvE, are too durable and too mobile in sPvP if they spec for useless builds and are in a solid fourth place in WvW roaming as well. And off course a good 2nd in blobvblob. Yes.

Fixed.

Pokecenter.3548:

2 – Should i go for Hoelbrak (low budget, let’s leave the Strength out for now) or Scholar runes? As i recall Scholar should give higher dps, but since you mentioned ‘group utility’ the Hoelbrak would tag along better with the EA and Phalanx build; also they are overal more usefull (those -20condi duration can be good for WvW) and less dependent on my skill (I still didn’t try my War in dungeons, so im unsure how well i could manage him at >90% hp).

6 – I meant like, couple weeks ago i saw a post where someone said that to bring out the best of Warrior’s speed/mobility you would use x skill, and then y, and so on. At the time i didn’t have the Warrior so i didn’t pay much attention.. usually I use Signet of Rage and then spam Warhorn’s #4, alternating with GS #5, and using the 25% melee speed trait you suggested (i had it already but completely forgot so didn’t use it). Is there something else i could use in order to have higher speed or mobility?

8 – Any other good WvW builds other than the hambow that I should look into?

2. From my own experience I can tell you Hoelbrak is fine in PvE. Compared to Strength you will only lose out on 7% damage and a little might duration, which is negligible (not the 7%, but the might). As a warrior, which is easier to maintain in PvE then other classes, you will still often be MvP in a PuG.

6. Highest speed is obtained when using Sword/Warhorn+GS. I did world exploration like this, and it works fine. I would still equip Warrior’s Sprint, which is just a quality of life improvement.

8. Funny you even mention Hambow when talking about WvW. Hambow is only half decent in Zerg v Zerg. If you plan to do anything else then that, don’t use Hambow.

Axe/Shield GS, Mace/Shield GS, Sword/Shield GS, Sword/Shield Hammer, GS Hammer, Sword/Sword Longbow, there are lots of viable builds in WvW.

Imagi.4561:

1. Because of the Thief’s high mobility and the ability to engage and disengage quickly, they make excellent roamers. Personally, most of my time is spent capping and decapping, if I’m not assisting in a team fight. I also have a lot of fun with generally being a nuisance to the other team. (Thieves excel at that.)

2. Stealth is a unique mechanic in GW2, and the fact that it can be used both offensively and defensively is what makes it such an important survival tool for many Thieves.

3. The right build and player in any class can perform respectably in 1v1 or 1vX, but in my opinion the best dueling class is Mesmer, and the best class for 1vX is either Guardian or Engineer.

Agree with this, except for the 1vX part. Engineers do excel in that, more then any other class IMO (if you spec conditions), but guardians do not. They either lack the DPS or the survivability to 1vX as good as other professions can.

Aside from this, i can comment on warriors. They are actually good in pretty much every aspect of the game, without being the best at anything. Well, I guess they are the best world explorers.
Still, warrior performs quite well in all aspects, often ending up in the top three out of eight.

killahmayne.9518:

Mending, either they should reduce the cooldown or up the healing a little bit. I think they should up the healing a little bit. Three conditions every 15 seconds is kind of a lot given the warrior options for condi removal. Up the healing to around 6,300 and it becomes a viable heal. That puts it at 300 HP/S which is fair.

I’d still rather have the reduced cooldown. Reduce the amount of conditions removed to 2, and your fine IMO. 300 HP/s sounds fine. So make it 4,5k heal every 15 seconds, 2 conditions removed (untraited).

this way, mending would make the warrior strong against conditions, and weaker against burst. Perfect.

Not just the extra 15%, but also the 10% from Slashing Power and the 3% from Stick and Move make it a total of 28%… And then I haven’t said anything about the 300 extra power.
Not going 6 into strength as a warrior in PvE is limiting any party your in basically. If you play solo, then go right ahead and use w/e. That 6 in Strength will still speed things up, though.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

hmmm i see. well, at least, at the moment, arcing slice is a not a bad skill for fighting stationary PvE / WvW mobs that would not block / evade / kite around etc. get some free fury and then slice them up with hundred blades.

Actually, Arcing Slice is even worse in PvE. Why deplete your adrenaline, thus losing 15% damage buff for a little Fury, of which we can already get more then enough with FGJ and SoR? In PvE, no need to take other utilities.