Guild Wars 2

Tom Gore.4035:

How do you survive in full zerker when you fight in ZvZ?

Knight it is, then. I’d like to be able to survive a few moments in the frontline, too.

The simple reason to make zerk ascended gear is because zerk is the most useful in most gameplay modes. Crafting a full ascended set costs somewhere between 250-300g, and that is a very careful estimate (I never calculated because I had a lot of mats). The silk/linen alone is a lot of gold. Going through all that just for a set that is slightly better in zergVzerg is a complete waste IMO. Also, with more skill, the need for more defensive stats declines.

Also, somebody here said WvW players have lots of ore/dust/fragments. That is not true at all. Dust and ore come in very low quantities in WvW. The only thing you will have stacks of, are empyreal fragments. You will need to grind PvE for ore and dust.

I fully agree with a t s e, vitality is a waste on anything other then a meat shield. And even then, warriors get ~22k HP with buffs and 0 vit. It really only has some use in zergvzerg because you get healed by your group, which makes you more burst resistant.

Carpboy.7145:

Cygnus.6903:

I’m fine with the 8%. It is a justifiable nerf that doesn’t wreck the skill.

Taking out the regen from Dogged March is way more painful.

Those leaked notes are confirmed fake

I will believe that when I see it.

yanniell.1236:

This build gives you high crit chance through Unsuspecting Foe.

Except that you didn’t trait UF. :P

Good eye

DanSH.6143:

runeblade.7514:

condi mace/sword Warrior

What is this build?

This is the most common mace/sword condi Warr build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNApcTjMdUGaVIehwJagApALVxo4HiX9YO4JOA-TsAgyCuIKSVkrITRyisFN6Y1xcBA

What a topic…

I seriously can’t tell if you’re serious or just having a laugh anymore. Anyway, good day.

coglin.1867:

Cygnus.6903:

Also, I am very curious about those numbers. Is that simply auto-attacking?

killahmayne.9518:

I would also be curious to see the math on that as well and how that was tested.

These two post make the point in themselves. You both do not have the slightest idea what condition builds do compared to power builds. You both are suggesting condition damage builds are OP or more powerful damage wise, then go on to point out that you would like to see the damage comparison numbers. Clearly displaying that your making accusations without having the slightest idea what the facts actually are.

Why are you here complaining about conditions, and arguing against them, when you don’t even have a clue that they are out damaged by direct damage builds?

Take engineers for example, they have 3 weapons combo choices, Pistol/Pistol, Pistol/Shield, and Rifle. The rifle is basically all power oriented while pistols are condition damage. Rare veggie pizza adds 0 damage to 3 of the 4 damage skills, while for example the +100 power food adds a total of 11.5% damage to the rifle skills total. When total damage of the pistols with rare veggie pizza are combined it is a 7.7% damage increase. Giving the power weapon with power food a 3.5% damage increase over the condition focused weapons with rare veggie pizza.

Another solid argument, well done. Why didn’t you respond to the earlier post explaining why condition damage is OP?

Everybody knows direct damage has higher DPS potential. That’s basically why direct damage > condition damage in PvE. There are just a plethora of reasons that make condition damage more powerful in PvP.

Basic math means close to nothing in a game with this many variables.

But ok teacher teacher, teach us.

Lupanic.6502:

Cygnus.6903:

DanSH.6143:

6. condi mace/sword Warrior

This made me lol.

Condi engineer beats all specs you listed.

I could also say condi engineer beats all.

terror necro and condi warrior are pretty hard vs condi engi. I would say terror necro is the worst enemy for condi engi because he sends all the condis back.

s/p thief are for all classes hard to counter because they jump on you with IS -> pistol whip->IR and repeat

Terror necro might be a tricky fight, but I’d still put my money on the engie. Dodge the worst part, and you can CC the necro (which is their ultimate weakness). I agree, it might be a very close match.

Also, s/p thief has a very hard time with high stability uptime.

Tei.1704:

coglin.1867:

We have had discussion in the past in which we have threads displaying all of the math proving this. Soldiers gear for example, out damages Dire gear by a fair bit. Dire gear has to have 50% condition duration to even compare, mathematically speaking. The problem is, that so many posters simply regurgitate other post or threads here, without actually having tested anything or developed any facts for themselves.

Condition builds aren’t better than power builds because conditions can deal more optimal damage. Conditions are better because: there are way more counters to power damage, you need to take specific gear, traits and skills to counter conditions, power attacks tend to be way more telegraphed, damaging traits for condi builds give you more conditions which overwhelms any reasonable amount of condi removal and they can deal similar damage to glass cannons from range with the armor/hp of a bunker.

Does your math account for conditions ignoring protection, armor and weakness? Can math account for the fact that conditions get applied without warning on crit? What formula did you use to account for the fact that you can snare and kite most power builds to mitigate their damage, but that is way less effective against condition builds? Do your tests account for the fact that power builds are dealing zero damage the instant they stop hitting somebody? CC, healing, running away, rezzing, finishing and using defensive skills like shield stance means a power build is dealing literally no damage. Condition builds can stop actively attacking for a few moments and the damage is still ticking away.

You’d only need to “test” builds and grab a calculator if you don’t actually play the game. There are lots of things elementary school math can’t account for. As you said, the problem isn’t damage; the problem is the damage in addition to all the other advantages condition builds have going for them. You shouldn’t just regurgitate some numbers you saw without actually playing the game and thinking beyond “this number is higher.”

This^

Condition meta will not only continue, but expand.

Also, I am very curious about those numbers. Is that simply auto-attacking?

Kanenas.4906:

Only when all the cool damage buff bonuses from traits, runes etc will be changed to work with condition damage too.

And even without that, the current meta is condition. Go figure.

I like the idea.

Problem is, who gets it?

DanSH.6143:

6. condi mace/sword Warrior

This made me lol.

Condi engineer beats all specs you listed.

I could also say condi engineer beats all.

I’m fine with the 8%. It is a justifiable nerf that doesn’t wreck the skill.

Taking out the regen from Dogged March is way more painful.

Mijo.3274:

The mace/shield + Gs build was the most OP build warrior ever had, i was the first one to talk about it on the forum, i remember winning some 3vs1 in tpvp, just too much!
I think the best version of it right now could be this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApeRjkOxupQGPMxBEMDNsKOPoClgJ0HsDA-TsAA0CnICSFkLITQygsBNQYZxUEA
Zerker amulet is useless, the Valkyrie is way better for this kind of build, you simply dont need 100%+ crit chance.

…..

But the build you posted is better. Just take VI in arms instead of V, it is way more useful and gives you near perma-fury. Also, I like hydromancy on mace (chill>F1 is way easier, and a nice added burst). After the next patch you will be able to use that along with Sigil of Fire on GS. Just add the Sigil of Force to the GS and you’re done.

Still a strong build, but the purpose of this build has better classes for it.

Tom Gore.4035:

Well obviously I do have several exotic sets. One zerker for dungeon speedruns, for example.

I think I’ll still go PVT on the ascended, because I’m getting it mainly for WvW.

PVT is only so-so for zerging. I agree, Knights is better, but I’d go full zerk always.

Kynical.8679:

So I finally got tired of the standard soldier + soldier shout build for zerg busting and I saw videos of players like Liryc and Flamu (along with other warriors from other servers) using what seems to be GS + A/WH, H+S/WH, and A/M+S/W and I was wondering what the build is exactly for it? I’m assuming it’s something along the lines of Knights armor + Melandru runes and Cav trinkets? Or is it the other way around? Traits are also something I would like to compare with. Anyone willing to share builds with me?

I use Hammer+GS or Hammer+sword/shield, basically the same build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIEQJARSjkOpwtQGPMxBE0DNsK4ijCAkJUKsjNE-jkCBYfCREEIkFQEIAZmFRjtCqIas6aYKXpWFTIygrIa1yAssFA-w

I have 3 cavalier trinkets, rest is all zerker, Hoelbrak runes. If you feel like you need more toughness to get going, by all means use more cavalier. This build gives you high crit chance through Unsuspecting Foe. Along with 95% uptime on Fury from SoR and Furious Reaction, you need a minimum of 30% base crit to allow for 100% crit chance on stunned targets (even less for Earthshaker because it gets another 10% chance from Arms 15 minor trait). I run with 40% base crit chance, so my damage is higher when my opponent is not stunned. This helps if I have a hard time landing ES.

You use GS for survival, and Hammer for burst. A good rotation drops a lot of targets.

Have fun!

DanSH.6143:

hey Jerry, nice build.
I suggest you try mace/sword instead of sword/shield, you can take “Deflection Mastery” instead of dogged march or spiked armor.
It adds a lot of CC while having better condition output than sword/shield. It also works great with perplexity.

I wouldn’t use mace. This build desperately needs sword mainhand for mobility and gap closer. Also, Sword burst is way better for condition damage then a mace which scales with power and can inflict some confusion every 8 seconds.

Sword offhand could be good, but it gives him no extra interrupt.

Hi all!

Currently in the process of gearing up my mesmer. Recent aesthetic reasons have brought me back to smer while I main a warrior.

PU seems like it’s no fun, so I want to get into shatter. My current gear is pretty much all zerk with some bad runes to give me a lil swiftness, I intend to get Traveler. First, however, I want to find out what stats to get on my gear.

Below is a set-up I made with my current trinkets. I would like to keep the ascended ones, exo’s can be replaced.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAsfRlwzipXUTrGb9ICqHaH49dkU0avWJF82FC-jkDBYLCiUEA0HQEBgpqKrJQCilhFRjVxATVCWfCR5KoaXQ2xCqeDKzCBUeCA-w

I found with my current skill level, I get gibbed by thieves a little too easy. Switching back to some cavalier/knight’s might be better.

First question; I wonder if full zerk is just better in the long run, and I should take a few phails along the way as bonus?

Second question; between knight’s and cavalier, which do you prefer?

Third question; I focussed on crit chance (bloodlust sigil is a little expensive and I had perception on two weapons for easy double-stacking). Mind wrack had an 80% crit chance with sword, 100% with fury (that’s what I was aiming for in case of a small group setting). Would you advise more power instead of precision?

Last one; I never tried omnomberry pie, but I had a lot of them in my bank for some reason. I actually noticed a nice little sustain from it. Is it worth it?

Thanks a lot!

Supreme.5370:

Is it some kind of item that u can get from WvW or something or like skill points?

Im sorry im really noob at this game so idk what u r talking about

Stacks of bloodlust are obtained from Superior Sigil of Bloodlust. Google it.

Borderlands bloodlust is a buff provided to all members of a server if you manage to capture and hold 3 of the 5 borderlands capture points in one of the borderland maps. After holding them for 2 minutes, your entire server gets the buff. Capturing 1 gives you 30 stat points on all stats, capturing 2 gives 50, and the third one gives a total of 60 bonus stat points.

WvW guard kill bonus can be obtained by spending a certain amount of rank points into certain ‘WvW specialties’. After obtaining them, you can get an added 2,500 HP and 100 power+condition damage by killing 5 or more npcs (guards, lords, etc.).

Hope that helped.

a t s e.9614:

Btw sword offhand is way better : shorter cooldown block , bleeds on counter and torment is just crazy damage . Shield bash is worthless if yo get leg specialist , you can use savage leap to immob then land the flurry .

He uses shield for more interrupts and lolzyoufinallygotmelowsoiblockeverythingpwn.

Steelo.4597:

lack of sustain, but besides that strong build. would hurt my pride though running this xD

No. Just no. Apart from the insane base stats in armor and HP, passive healing signet regen, you have the shield block (which could definitely be traited) and sword 2/bull’s rush to kite for some quick healing. This build will IMO lose only against the classes that condibunker better (engie and necro).

This build has been posted several times, with minor variations.

It is not hard to play due to the insane passive defense and still extremely effective.

Let me suggest you drop Spiked Armor, as it scales with power of which you have none. You can use those trait points to get awesome other traits, like Burst Mastery or Short Temper.

Right now, condition spam tank engineer > all.

After the patch, who knows.

Both of your answers were very informative, thank you!

Hi all!

I found an incredibly awesome-looking sword skin, which I now intend to use on my mesmer.

However, I have the habit of losing interest in a class after a while (haven’t played mesmer in a long time because of this). Thus I am wondering if the trick with transmuting still works.

Transmuting a soulbound skin onto a non-soulbound skin made the item account bound again, readily available for any other chatacter (of the same armor class) to use.

Anybody recently tried this?

Thanks!

P.S.: The skin involved is the fractal sword.

True or not, this would be bad.

Do you want the correct answer? no

a t s e is right in saying it is bordering OP in team fights. Bordering, not quite OP. It depends on the situation. Although generally speaking, hambow is quite easy to play, and two hambow warriors can perform very well, even in high end pvp.

Also, longbow and healing signet are getting a nerf next patch. Especially longbow will suffer from it, although not particularly in team fights. It’s a complete overnerf that will not really touch hambow’s capability in a team fight, due to the general ‘chaotic’ nature of those fights.

Frenk.5917:

PRAISE THE LORD for you are not in the balance team, then!

This^

As a warrior main, I have absolutely no problem with this skill. Don’t get me wrong, it is very powerful, and surely one of the better stolen skills. But it is just right, IMO.

A lot of the other thief stolen skills need buffs, actually.

Stacks of bloodlust (25=250 power), borderlands bloodlust (can add up to 60) and the WvW guard kill bonus (another max 100 power) also help. That can add up to ~400 power.

I have 0 points invested in Strength, but when fully stacked (without the 100 power from wvw guards) I reach ~3750 attack.

All this thread proves that was not already known is that the ‘other player’ is bad.

Warrior is easy to start with.

At high levels, you get owned against a LOT of classes.

Lyonell.1753:

So I quit GW2 about 6 – 8 months ago I believe it was, pretty much bored with the “more of the same” over and over state of the game. Since my friends decided to play again I decide to make a casual come back to the game for a while, now the important this is: Hows the warrior doing these days? I only WvW, already did my good share of dungeons and fractals back in the day, I quit around the time they made condition warrior an spvp beast, so would be nice if people gave some advice on whats is most popular right now WvW wise.

Also heard they added a new tear of gear past exotic, guess I can hunt for that in a while so any advice as of what changes fell upon the class?

The most important changes, IMO, are;

-Cleansing Ire (trait)
-Dogged March (trait)
-Berserker’s Power got moved to Grandmaster
-So did Heightened Focus
-Healing Signet buff (significant, a flood of QQ is creating a nerf next patch, but it will still be viable)
-Hammer damage got nerfed
-Hammer attacks became more fluid
-Changes to Berserker’s Stance

That’s about it.

Warriors are very viable in all areas of the game at this point, but they only truly excel in sPvP team fights/point assault. I roam about 90% of my time, and I use GS/Hammer like I did 17 months ago. Great fun.

Also, the gear you mentioned is called ascended, and, apart from amulet and rings, is quite time-consuming to obtain. Just type in Ascended on google to find out.

Welcome back.

I like the idea, it has been proposed many times on the forum here.

Thing is, giving the warrior a completely new option to choose from requires serious balancing.

BlackBeard.2873:

Cleansing Ire is a big problem, especially with burst mastery, but I would suggest a different fix:

Warrior burst bar now decreases regardless of whether the attack hits. 1
Cleansing Ire now only procs on an effective burst attack that hits. 2
Cleansing Ire no longer gives bonus adrenaline for being hit. 3
Dogged March now gives might instead of regen. 4

Problem solved: kill warriors with condis by focusing on avoiding the burst attacks, which are now VERY important. Warriors now need to be smarter about setting up burst attacks to get that cleanse. Adrenal health now gets stronger in comparison because it gives more access to burst skills that are necessary for cleanse.

I also like the idea of having an off-hand burst skill quite a bit (meaning 2 options for 2-handed weapons), although this would take some time to develop.

Some of the things you are proposing here are extremely overnerfing IMO.

1 Losing all adrenaline if the attack does not connect? With all the blinds/blocks/aegis/stealth/evades going around? It is already hard to land half your burst attacks against a half decent player, this will completely destroy warriors.

2 The trait already works that way… Only Longbow functions differently, as it should, because it is AoE.

3 I don’t understand the reason for this suggestion, but it is indeed a significant nerf. So you want to deplete adrenaline even is the warrior does not land the attack, and remove the adrenaline regenerating function of Cleansing Ire all in one? This is not a nerfbat, this is a nerfchainsaw.

4 Dogged March is in the defense traitline, regen makes a lot more sense. The unfairness in all of this is that everybody is promoting conditions should be the warriors weakness again… Like that ever stopped being the case. Note I am not talking about damaging conditions, but soft CC. A class with a bit of condition duration and a plethora of blinds, cripples and chills will /laugh at you. So, if anything, swiftness would make more sense then might. But actually, I’d make a case for vigor. This increases skillful play more then passive regen, or might for that matter.

A second burst skill does sound like fun, although it would require serious rebalancing. Just giving the warrior an extra option warrants nerfing all other burst skills.

Sykper.6583:

Warriors ARE simple to play, but it has been restated again and again and again that they fall off at high-skill play. I want this to change. I want more complicated mechanics, I want warriors to put in just a bit more play to be around the level of a insanely good elementalist or thief.

This is so true, however I feel only decent warriors and really good players on other professions know it. That is the main problem right now, and the reason why this forum is littered with anti-warrior propaganda.

The thing is, there is a huge problem with the game right in order now to change this. The goal is, as you adequatly put, to increase the skill cap for warriors, so that they become harder to play, but also have a better chance vs other classes that know what they are doing. It’s funny that you should mention elementalists and thieves, as most people (including myself) agree that elementalists need buffs and warriors do fine vs thieves (on this I disagree).

Now just look at a simple mechanic like blind. A thief, who can almost literally spam this condition, can nullify every dangerous attack a warrior throws at him except for AoE (which you can simply move out of), as long as the thief has enough skill to do so. A warrior, being a ‘clunky’ class by default, has no such mechanic. Don’t even get me started on the amount of evades or stealth some classes have available in this game.

Thus, as it is now, I see no other way for warriors to be viable other then to have a lot of passive strengths and little active. This subsequently makes them easier to play, but weaker in higher levels of play. In team fights they excel, but that is IMO the only area in the game in which they might be the best. Not OP, but the best.

Jackums.3496:

It will be a buff, yes.

To condition builds.

This^

You will be required to slot a damage sigil or rune to offset the loss in net DPS.

Because there will be a loss otherwise.

Hi all!

As it stands, I feel condition damage is over the top. You either spec heavily into condi-removal, or die easily against a condi-heavy class. Even still, a half decent engineer or necromancer can often put so much repeated pressure on you, cleansing may not be enough.

Yet, on the other hand, in PvE condition damage is the ugly duckling compared to direct damage. PvE often revolves around killing quickly, which a direct damage dealer does best.

Something that always struck me as ‘unfair’ is that a condition player can spec heavily into passive sustain through base stats while retaining incredible damage potential through condition damage. You need just that one stat to do high-very high damage, albeit over time.

Now, compare this to a player that uses PVT (power toughness vitality) gear. This player will do very low damage, as he lacks the other two stats that are fundamental to a direct damage build. One can argue that he was not speccing for damage in the first place, hence the choice for PVT. But the player that uses Dire gear (condi toughness vitality) will inflict very high damage.

Stick with me.

We need other stats to be way more important to you as a condition player, just as critical damage and precision are to a direct damage dealer. Don’t even start about precision for condi builds as it is now, because you can easily forgo the stat entirely and still do incredible condition damage (just not as much, but still more then enough).

In an ideal world, PVT gear would do a little less damage over time then CVT gear, while having better burst potential (as far as you can talk about burst on a PVT player). Right now, both are highly in favor of CVT.

It actually goes the other way around as well. Rampager gear should be the condition damage equivalent of Berserker gear (because you sacrifice the same survivability), with the same difference as I mentioned with PVT/CVT (lower spike damage, higher sustained). To accomplish this, condition damage needs a big nerf, where power and precision need buffs (to condition damage based builds).

Which brings me to the suggestion.

Make condition damage less potent the more stacks your opponent has, where power grows stronger regarding conditions. For example (I did not invest time into numbercrunching, as I’m no good with that), if you just spec condi damage and get 2k base, your first bleed will tick 130, second 120, third 110, etc. Now, if you spec into Power as well, that number will decrease more slowly, and in the case of Rampager remain almost constant. Precision can be used in a similar way as it is now, to obtain a slight condition burst and more ways to apply stacks (proc on crit).

If it worked this way, in PvP, condition specs would have to make a choice between being tanky with mediocre damage (like PVT users) or being incredibly dangerous while being in incredible danger (like berserkers).
Whereas in PvE, condition dealers would add good DPS to the group, just like a direct damage dealer does, without becoming as cheesy as condition tanks are in PvP right now. Hell, your group would even lose out on DPS potential not taking a rampager with you.

Again, I did not crunch numbers on this. Overall, condition damage needs a slight nerf IMO, just as direct damage is getting in March. But a Rampager should be able to deal as much damage over a longer period of time as a Berserker, the Berserker just has greater spikes (and lower sustained DPS).

If this has been suggested already, /ignore. Otherwise, feedback?

I’m still glad we have two great elite skills, but Rampage really is bad.

However, haven’t you heard? We can not improve worthless elite skills on warrior until all other classes can roflstomp us again.

killahmayne.9518:

I think i posted the wrong build, lol. The build above is the one I go.

Anyways, I actually go 20/0/30/0/20, mainly because of Building Momentum, and the 5% extra damage equipping the offhand is a bonus i will gladly take.

I have considered Hoelbrak at the top of my list of rune choices and will definitely try that out.

Missile Deflection I feel has its uses. It can take a second for the person to stop auto-attacking and by then they will have reflected 1 or 2 shots back at them. Also if you time it properly you can reflect some major projectiles back at somebody. For example bladetrail, you can easily time your block to reflect telegraphed projectiles like that. Also, it serves another purpose. Missile Deflection blocks and reflects ALL projectiles for the duration of riposte. Where as if you don’t have the trait it only blocks one attack (whether it is a projectile or not). So it serves a defensive purpose as well.

However Dogged March is a great alternative as well and may serve better in certain situations.

Alright, this build is already better then what you posted first. Happens.

Building Momentum is great, and the 5% extra damage with your OH sword is decent, no comments.

However, about the sword block, let me inform you that it blocks all missiles regardless if you take missile deflection. In that way, it functions exactly the same as the shield 5 skill, for instance. Only if a non-missile attack (like a melee attack, or a GS auto from mesmer) hits you will you stop blocking.
So don’t think grabbing missile deflection will guarantee the blocks (or in this case the reflects) with sword 5, that block is already guaranteed. Therefore, Missile reflection only gives you that 1 or 2 reflected attack, definitely not worth it on a build with just 1 block, IMO.

killahmayne.9518:

I like the Power to Vitality conversion because it synergizes with the high power this build has. It gives me around 1.7K extra HP, which is an extra 170 stat points basically. Short Temper also looks like it could be very useful, I actually never really considered that. Warriors and Guardians would be the main classes that would proc this trait.

Mesmers may proc it (though very limited), Engineers may proc it if that one block skill and maybe a random aegis buff. Necros don’t have any blocks, thieves don’t, most rangers don’t and most elementalists don’t carry blocks either. So I feel like outside Warriors and Guardians the trait is limited, where as 1.7K HP would help in any situation.

Normally, I would agree and say 170 stat points is a lot. I mean, that’s why I often use Dolyak Signet instead of balanced stance. But, the more of that stat you have, the less useful it becomes. It is exactly this reason that I find vitality to be an absolute waste of stat points, other then rolling a zergling. ~22k HP (with buffs) is something a lot of other classes can only dream off, and we reach that with 0 stat points invested.

Now, were there no viable alternative, you would still be right in taking it. But Short temper, especially with longbow or hammer, is just so incredibly good, it’s one of the best minor traits in the game.
I may agree with you that in a 1v1 situation against non-blocking classes, which you adequatly mentioned, the trait does little to support you. However, in any given 1v2 where one of your opponents is a guardian (omg these guys block half your attacks), warrior, engineer or mesmer you will gain a lot of burst potential. Now imagine fighting two of these classes.
Also, PU mesmer and condi engineer are two difficult fights for a warrior. PU gets a lot of aegis (hello short temper), whereas you can go all out on the engineer when he uses his 3 second block skill. This trait gets you 3 stacks per attack blocked, no CD. You can reach 9-15 stacks easily, albeit for a short time (a bit longer with Hoelbrak). Your build benefits from might even more, due to all the conditions you apply.

killahmayne.9518:

I have thought about putting 30 into discipline, but I just can’t forgo Building Momentum whatsoever from the Strength tree. I could remove 10 points from defense but then I lose a substantial amount of power as well as retaliation for a minimal increase in burst damage and reduced cost of burst skills which I feel really isn’t needed.

So don’t do it. If you get used to a certain playstyle and like it, by all means, don’t change it up. Your video shows you’re skilled with this build, and building momentum is awesome.
I will however say Spiked armor is rather mediocre for a grandmaster trait if you don’t have added boon duration. There is a lot of synergy with your build, as you have a lot of low damage sources (which, added up, are great sustained DPS).

Still, the condi+ food offers too little on this build to justify not taking condi- food.

My two cents.

Julie Yann.5379:

As for rending strikes and furious reaction, it’s a toss up, they are both pretty meh to me. I might give Furious Reaction another shot since Rending strikes doesn’t proc all that often either 32 seconds of vigor over 60 seconds sounds quite appealing.
I do use the stances for their effects I normally use my evades first so I always get vigor when I need it.
While ES and 2 autos is what ends the fight it is not all that it takes. It is just the final burst after I bait out their evades and stability. When I have full stacks it’s an 8 to 14k combo depending on how tough the target is.
When the changes to HS come I will re-evaluate the traits but I active would have to be something quite OP to make it worth using even with an 8% reduction. I would laugh if the active gave a decent heal+vigor.

Points taken. FYI, Furious Reaction is 10 seconds of vigor with 30 sec cooldown. Considering it won’t proc immediately after the timer expires, you can expect 15-20 seconds of vigor per minute.

Julie Yann.5379:

I don’t know how I ended up putting defiant stance on there but it is suppose to be a signet.

I played around with Furious Reaction but I didn’t think it proc’d often enough and I find I don’t really need that much fury. ES is already 99% crit plus the following 2 auto-attacks are 89% which usually results in a downed opponent. I always found 1800 toughness to be the sweet spot for my roaming builds. The reason I got the sentinel chest piece is because that was what gave me the Ehp to Epower ratio I was looking for.

As for Vigorous Focus and Signet Mastery most fights rarely last longer than a minute, not enough to really benefit from 2 SoR activations and since I don’t use it for mapping I get more out of vigor on stance. Which I get to control over some random vigor that might be wasted from furious reaction.

Everybody has their personal preferences, seems you found yours. I don’t know how much 1800 toughness equates to, I roam with ~3k armor.

If an earthshaker+2 auto’s downs your opponent… then you could have used any other build to down him. And the thing I found roaming with Hammer/GS is that without the Fury (giving me 60 base crit chance), DPS drops to an unexceptable minimum if ES doesn’t connect.
At any rate, Rending strikes is just a very mediocre trait. It certainly does not outway free 10 sec vigor every ~30 seconds, IMO off course.

You’re right in saying Furious Reaction does not give you absolute control over when you have vigor. Yet, Vigorous focus doesn’t either. You use your stances for the stance effect, not the vigor (I hope). So it’s still ‘just a bonus’. I would be surprised if you would be able to predict you need another dodge roll 4 seconds from now during a fight.

About signet Mastery, it is not just used for SoR. You have Dolyak Signet, which gets the 20% reduction as well. Fights that don’t last longer then a minute might occur more often then not, but when they do last longer, you will need that stability. A decent warrior, for instance, should be able to survive for more then 48 seconds. And his stability uptime will be better.
Also, when healing signet gets nerfed and the active boosted, the CD reduction will be good for that as well.

I used this, with offhand shield, sword and warhorn. All work, actually, different benefits. I don’t play Longbow/GS, because that is very reliant on pin down actually hitting, whereas with sword, you have more soft CC, like you said. Pin down is getting a huge nerf.

Try Hoelbrak though. Missile Reflection doesn’t do much for you, a half decent player will stop spamming missiles for two seconds and you’re back where you started. Dogged March+Hoelbrak is already good, I would definitely take condi reduction food as well.

Also, 10 points in strength may seem decent, but the trait you choose is bad IMO. Warrior has enough HP, by far (~22k in WvW with bonusses). Also, Short temper is a beast with Longbow, so if you insist on those 10 traitpoints, take that.

Another viable option would be to take 30 in Discipline, so you can Longbow F1, switch, and lock them down with sword F1.

Even better would be to dump the 10 points in arms, and take both Burst Mastery and Short Temper. Rending Strikes will give you maybe a 3-4% damage boost. Not worth it.

Sweet vid.

Just think of the QQ we would get if we had another viable stance to use in PvP or small scale WvW. It is fine as is.

Julie Yann.5379:

Runty Choir.4893:

Its the F1 skill. This is my build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS8ejkOFvtQqQMxBE0DNsK4ijCAUJUKmjNE-jwCBoiAoLRm8AmKIQpqFRjtqpIas6FYqSJV5KQaXweDKrSBExwI-e
I only take 20 in Dicipline then cleansing ire removes 3 conditions instead of 2. Also i crit a lot more and have a lot of Fury uptime.
If you wanna see the build in action check the vid in my sig.

Cleansing Ire removes 3 conditions even with burst mastery. Since we are all sharing builds, this is my roaming Hammer build.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|2.5g.h2.0.0.0|c.5g.h4.e.5g.h1l.0.0.0|5p.7r.5p.7r.51p.7r.5p.7r.5p.7r.1p.7r.0.0.0.0.0.0|2s.0.21k.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0.2s.0|0.k57.u29a.0.k53|16.1|6u.6i.6h.6c.6m|e

It has slightly lower crit damage then the other build presented here but it has a higher effective health with a slight trade off in effective power and the added benefit of Melandru Runes + Food which makes it almost immune to CC. I trait vigorous focus instead of destruction of empowered cause I like the extra evades.

Yours looks a lot like mine, the trait point distribution is the same.

I use VI in Arms, Furious Reaction. That will get you 95% uptime on fury, if you also;

Take VI in Discipline over Vigorous focus. That trait only gets you 12 seconds of vigor per minute (if you use two stances, defiant stance is only useful when zerging), while Signet Mastery lowers both Dolyak and SoR cooldowns. Also, Furious reaction gets you 10 seconds of Vigor each 30 seconds, which gets you almost 20 per minute.

Also, generally speaking, vitality is an absolutely wasted stat on a warrior, other then playing as a zergling. After the initial added defense against burst, vitality does nothing for you during a fight. And we can already reach ~22k (higher then all other classes) with WvW boosts and guard leech. Toughness is way better.

On a sidenote, the less vitality you have, the better Furious reaction procs, as the enemy only need to hit you for ~2k to activate the trait.

Have fun.

Tamtam.4328:

Looks like that recently a lot specs in PvP/WvW are heavily based on the use of longbow (hambow, gs/bow, ss/bow), which by the way is going to nerfed (slightly) soon again by Anet.

While bow is a not-so-bad weapon, imho there are a lot of more fun and war-ish weapons that could be used instead.

Imho one of the reasons why people use bow is that it is the only weapon, coupled with cleansing ire, that guarantees condition removal when burst is used.
Burst skills from other weapos can be missed, blocked, dodged, thus not allowing a realiable condition removal.

This limits a lot the viable specs and make longbow a preferred weapon, in particular for PvP.

I would propose a couple of changes to allow more spec variety:
- remove cleansing ire trait and make it inherent to the burst skill mechanic. Every time you use a burst skill, conditions are removed as per cleansing ire trait (after the miss/dodge/block check is done .. i.e. If you are blinded, you burst would miss but the conditions are removed afterwards)
- To compensate the improvement above, every time a burst skill is used, all the adrenaline is lost (even if the burst gets missed dodged, blinded, etc..).

What do you think?

No thanks. I’d rather keep my adrenaline. And longbow is a great weapon for a lot of reasons other then guaranteed cleansing.

Conditions need to be toned down, but not by making another condition too important. Just make a new condition that reduces condi damage like weakness does with direct.

MidoriMarch.8067:

Warriors are way too op

Exactly how OP are they allowed to be, then?

zapv.8051:

When necros, rangers, and engineers get massive buffs in PvE then maybe they should consider this. Before that any buffs to warrior are really unjustified.

Just go away. This argument is so bad, just leave.

On topic, I agree Axe 5 needs a buff. It does, however, need to remain significantly weaker then axe auto in PvE, because it hits 5 instead of 3 targets. Also, whirldamage is better then cleave.
another option is to remove the 5 targets, and make it 3 instead. Then damage should actually be slightly higher then auto.

vinniekliennie.8619:

i don’t wanna start a troll or flame war. but what do you guys think about nerfing skills or classes is it just a lazy way to balance games or are there anthor ways to balance classes and skills?

Nerfing is nessecary, overnerfing is where it becomes lazy.

I would not use sword warhorn with this. The weapon set just does not bring anything to the table, apart from some weakness/vigor and a leap for a bit of mobility.

Try Longbow instead. It gives you AoE, which synergizes incredibly with the Might on blocked trait. In a team fight, with a guardian or something on the opposing team, you will get to 20+ stacks easily. Also, Longbow 3 inside fire field=more might, Axe Burst and Shield 4 gives you fire shield (more might), Longbow burst gives you a reliable condition cleanse (solving your condi problem), the advantages are numerous.

Another suggestion might be to use Axe with Warhorn instead of shield. You don’t get the shield 4 into evis combo, but that didn’t crit often anyway. Warhorn 5 is a blast finisher for even more might, and warhorn 4 guarantees swiftness.

Other changes I would make is use Vigorous Focus in Discipline instead of Mighty Defenses, as a smart player will stop attacking (and you will thus gain only a few stacks of might, which have a short duration anyway). Short temper is way better, it’s an offensive based trait and it can give you a lot of stacks very quickly. Mighty defenses only gives 1 stack per attack blocked, and you only have 1 blocking skill on a long cooldown.
Vigorous focus also synergizes well with Warhorn 5 (if you take that with Axe instead of shield), granting you a lot of vigor.

Lastly, I would take 3 stances instead of just EP with FGJ and Dolyak Signet. Dolyak without signet recharge is plain inferior, and FGJ does not bring much to the table on this build except for a bit of might and more Fury. It is good for damage, but most your ‘burst’ damage comes from very high power along with high auto with axe, evis (which only crits 1/4 of the time anyway) and retaliate. As it is now, blind spam will kitten you (no berserker’s stance), and like I said, Dolyak is just bad without the CD.

My two cents.

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Thief (p/p is cool but completely useless)

A tip and a fun thing to do with hammer. When running away from a fight, bind a key to look behind you. You can use earthshaker like this for a surprise stun that almost nobody anticipates.

also, use about face, then hammer 3 then about face again to cripple pursuers. You can do the same thing with hammer 5, charge it, last second about face and boom. More obvious then the earthshaker trick though.

Berserker is fine for both.

if you want an all out damage build for pve, grab zerk trinkets for that. And get knights orcavalier for wvw. Easier to get trinkets then ascended gear.

Also, with more experience, you will find more zerk pieces will fit you better.