Guild Wars 2

Faranox.4217:

Hammer/Rifle with Leg Specialist and Opportunist is what I like to run in zergs/sieges. With Bolas you’ve got three Immob’s available to you. Hammer #3, they stunbreak, swap rifle #2, maybe they stunbreak again, bolas, they’re eaten alive. No one gets in, no one gets out. Also, crack shot is great on bridges.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.. Why would the enemy use a stunbreak when immobilized?

And Leg specialist has a 5 second cooldown. So if you Hammer 3, then swap and rifle 2, rifle 2 doesn’t immobilize.

nicknamenick.2437:

But now I run this for a long time but i see more classes that counter its damage very easy. If the class is kinda bunkerstyle you wouldnt do enough pressure with sword. And pressure is a huge part of a duel/fight. Without that your forced to leap away

That’s the thing, you don’t take sword because it is the best burst weapon we have; it isn’t. Obviously you need to balance the weapon sets you choose, and you always sacrifice something. If your sword is not downing people, then you need a secondary weapon set that does that, either by itself or in combination with sword.

You say pressure is a huge part of a fight, I agree. But when you’re losing a fight, either because of your own faults/opponent’s superiority or because your opponent got help, sword allows you to escape, whereas, for instance, axe does not. IMO, buffing sword would interfere with this balance.

That’s what I figured, just stated in case of.

But I must respectfully disagree with you, I believe sword is fine for power builds. The added bleeding damage, even with no condition damage, is a good bonus. You can get a cheap trait in Arms to increase the duration by 50%. And if you go 25 into Arms, you get a full 10% damage increase against bleeding targets, a trait that fits sword very well.

Apart from this, sword is IMO intended to be used in a hybrid build. Even that is somewhat viable. And having certain weapons being viable for certain specs is how it should be. You won’t see anybody (in their right mind) use a greatsword in a full condition spec.

Edit: I do use sword for damage in WvW. In between bursts, sword is a fine weapon to lay down some sustained DPS. And if you’re fighting an opponent with high mobility or stealth, at least the bleeds continue doing some damage.
Shield 4 + Final Thrust can also quickly end a fight.

K U T M.4539:

Almost zero warriors, aside from every single wvw warrior.

Not every one, but a lot for sure. Sword main hand is fine. And changing offhand would hurt condition builds.

Think it was two days ago when somebody linked a 89k crit here on the forum.

I’d go with Elegie’s build. Some traits are simply mandatory for roaming as a warrior.

I would advise not to use PVT, but rather use zerker, knight’s or cavalier. Vitality is a wasted stat on a warrior, IMO. If you have guard leech, you can reach ~22k HP with 0 vitality invested.

Also, be ready to die. Without mobility (and this build has none), you will get overrun often. It would be a good idea to take bull’s rush instead of kick, jut for this reason. Bull’s has nice rush with hammer too.

sorrow.2364:

Extremely slow projectile?
Which is your definition of slow, exactly?
The argument isn’t that it is impossible to dodge, the argument is that it is not that easy to dodge as you guys are trying to prove.
Actually, saying that is is hard to impossible to dodge in close range is an argument, since it isn’t telegraphed in any situation, but you can work around to make the skill really hard to dodge.

The comparison with elementalist makes no sense at all. The setting is completely different and instant cast skills are purely damaging skills with no utility and relatively low damage.

Alright, I’ll bite again.

My definition of a slow projectile is not Pin Down, yet that isn’t my definition of fast either. But I guess you got me there.
The comparison to elementalist does make sense, however. Every ranged skill in the game with a cast time is harder to avoid when you get closer. I said elementalist, but I can take any class to make the point. That’s why you should stay the kitten away from the warrior that’s using his longbow. You will find when not standing next to him that you can and will avoid most damage.

You say instant cast skills have no utility and relatively low damage. To what are you compairing these skills? Let me link to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gAif9qE4WY

This is not intended to make some point of eles being OP, which they aren’t. But they do have options, and this burst is insane, by any standard.

The utility in this spec is that you are the utility. You can decide the outcome of a fight if you coordinate well and have your teammate immobilize or stun somebody for you.

sorrow.2364:

In PvP you are forced to stay in it, unless you want to let the enemy team cap the node, making all the efforts of fighting useless.

Keep in mind that I’m talking purely on a PvP perspective, since it is the only gamemode I play.

Didn’t say in your post that you were talking about PvP, but I might have missed that in a previous post.

But then, you make it seem like combustive shot is the only ‘unavoidable’ and powerful AoE skill in the game… If you are going to be on point in PvP, you will eat AoE. Elementalist and necromancer are king in that area. So using that skill to prove how untelegraphed warriors are is very biased, to say the least.

sorrow.2364:

It is.
I’ll dare you to dodge 100% of the time backbreaker casted by an Asura.
The animation is no different from an anonymous autoattack hammer swing.

I will dodge it at least 90% of the time in a 1v1, asura or not, unless I get outplayed. A prior stun/knockback/knockdown/immobilize or w/e may open up an opportunity for the opponent to hit me with the extremely telegraphed backbreaker.
But PvP isn’t 1v1, now is it? When you’re in a team fight, you will get hit by the backbreaker you couldn’t see coming because the mesmer you were fighting was kittening with your head. The same goes for any other skill that you would normally (or better said, in a 1v1 situation) anticipate and defend against (like proper positioning against a backstab thief, popping a utility to avoid the extreme ele burst damage, etc.).

Let me be perfectly clear, I do think eles need buffs in PvP (and only PvP).

Do you want to roam or are you running with a large group or zerg?

sorrow.2364:

GJ at going through my whole post history trying to grasp at something to invalidate my point instead of just countering it with actual arguments.

So let’s try actual arguments.

sorrow.2364:

Pin Down is 1/4s casting time and with little to no telegraph except for the projectile travel time.

So you only have the extremely slow projectile to dodge? The travel time being telegraphed makes the skill telegraphed, I call bs again. Saying a ranged skill is impossible to dodge from close range is not an argument in your favor, because ranged skills of an elementalist have that same advantage. Yet you get skills without cast time, from range.

sorrow.2364:

Combustive Shot is unavoidable.

If you stand in it… Yet there is a big red circle telling not to do that… Quite similar to the Elementalists Flame Burst, actually. And if you want to complain about combustive shot being strong, it is our class mechanic. It should be.
In PvP this is a good area denial skill, sure. But you are not forced to stand in it, therefore it is actually easily avoided. If you play WvW, combustive shot loses a lot of it’s value (not talking about zerging).

sorrow.2364:

Whirlwind and Backbreaker on hammer are relatively telegraphed

Holy hell, did you actually post this? Backbreaker is RELATIVELY TELEGRAPHED???

I’ll stop any argument here.

Warrior QQ has come to this. What’s next?

If people put half the time they take to destroy other classes into ‘fixing’ their own, this game would have perfect balance.

EvilSardine.9635:

Were you stomping him? There is a glitch with stomping a downed player. You start the stomping animation with stability on and they hit you with their interrupt causing your character to be “knocked down” but if you don’t move your controls, the stomping still happens. This happens every single time I try stomping someone when I have stability.

If it wasn’t during a stomp it might still be the same bug. I have been “knocked down” with stability while doing hundred blades and my character is on the ground but invisible damage is being done to the people around me by my invisible hundred blades. Happens with other professions as well.

This.

Been like this for a very long time also.

CMstorm.8679:

I’m bringing this up, because I want to know a decent build or two that uses those items as a base…

Stealth QQ. Your backstabs must be over 9000!

P Fun Daddy.1208:

You have AoE and ranged too. Besides, ranged is easier to dodge because of travel time for the most part, not to mention that its much more punishing to miss with our extra-long cooldowns.

Again, the point of my little rant is that warriors by no means have the highest telegraphing. That honor, if you can call it that, belongs to elementalists.

Have to call BS on this.

More punishing? A decent elementalist will never have to auto-attack. Ever. Long cooldowns may be true, but you have an abundance of skills. Missing an important skill is hurtful to any clkitten to an elementalist I’d even dare say.

And about the telegraphing, you tripping? At least elementalists can use non-telegraphed (as in instant) skills viably. Warriors get three interrupts with a short cast time (mace 3, rifle 5 and kick). That’s it. EVERY other warrior skill is as telegraphed as you can get.

PvE just isn’t enjoyable.

This will help.

Tarkan.5609:

Hey guys
I am currently working on ascending my WvW Solo Roaming Build.
I am using GS for mobility and sword MH for mobility as well as the f1->100b combo.
Now I am not sure about my OH
- Axe: terrible in WvW (how can it even be that the thieves’ stolen ability is way more useful than our original 5 skill)
- Mace: nice in PvE but the lack of defense (no mobility, blocks whatsoever) makes it bad in WvW imo
- Warhorn: good for swiftness and vigor/weakness and I like it in PvE, but in WvW there are better options (especially for Solo Roaming)
- Shield: used to run with this and I think it is probably my favorite to date – stun for #3 or #F1 on sword or against ressing/stomping enemies & 3 sec block
- Sword: well… that’s the question:
I never used Sword OH as I always run power on my warrior – but it seems like the second #4 skill has nice dmg if u are able to “land” it – also the block is mainly against ranged enemies but on a shorter CD than the one from shield

What would you recommend me? Shield or sword (I have no condition dmg at all) or any other OH weapon?

Shield. Both skills are good, and you bave no interrupt on your other weapons. Vital for solo roaming. You have your build already? Cause I used to run this.

and the stolen axe skill is better because it should be. It is their class mechanic.

that being said, having axe 5 reflect projectiles or even having the possibility to trait it as such wod make axe OH viable instantly.

Snorcha.7586:

try playing an ele, even IF we stack toughness, we are lucky to ever reach the 2.8k mark. And if we do, we do around about 300-500 dmg on crit… Warriors… LOL.

Such a weak remark… The difference in armor rating between heavy and light exotic is 291 total, for ascended it’s 304. So a warrior vs an ele with the same kind of armor prefix (for instance, cavalier) will never have a greater difference in total stat. If the warrior can reach 4k, you can reach 3.7k with the same gear, as a light version, on ele.

QQ more.

Jae.5138:

toughness is the way to go. i don’t know why anyone would ever pick vitality over toughness, especially if you’re running HoS build.

I agree with this for 99%. I would add that I don’t know why anyone would ever pick vitality over toughness, ON A WARRIOR. We have base ~20k HP…. And your investing 30 into tactics, giving you another 3k…

Also, when in a fight, your vitality does nothing else for you other then increasing the amount of burst damage you can initially endure. After that, toughness is way more useful. Even more in a build that uses healing shouts!

Great topic. Good advice.

Tsezar.6950:

dont think a bow can do the things better as a rifle its a totaly different weapon for different things

and yes if ppl start to qq even its easy to outplay or is balanced it gets nerfed

You mean single target damage from distance? Bow might have a slower attack and thus a lower single target DPS, however it has a more reliable burst combo and brings waaaaaaay more utility for both yourself and any group you roll with. Zone control, aoe, the strongest condition, reliable condition cleansing, too much to name.

And even worse, single target damage from range is not what a warrior is made for. If you want this, make a mesmer with a GS or even a Longbow Ranger. Really, you use rifle or longbow to soften them up then move in with your melee set to dish out more damage. Longbow sets this up a lot better then rifle.

I agree with you on the inexplicable nerfs that happen, but people won’t qq about rifle simply because it is nowhere close to OP.

Rifle won’t get nerfed. Everything a warrior can do is done best with another weapon, bar perhaps fighting mesmers. Rifle is just an insane amount of fun.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I’m going to check out your vids. I have always felt comfortable using my rifle, much more so than hammer. I’ve reconciled to the fact that I can’t use my warr in zerg WvW fights because the hammer and I do not get along. However, I would be interested in trying your build for roaming with a small group. Have you come across stealth thief? If so, how does this build fare?

I have a similar build to OP, and frankly, a good Backstab thief will beat you. No doubt about it.

The tracking in stealth is nice, and I don’t doubt OP killing lots of thieves. The thing is, most thieves are incredibads. If you meet a decent one, they will burst you down in 2-3 combo’s (depending on your adequate use of dodge/EP), while being able to dodge your volley and blind your killshot.

To OP: nice vids, decent build. Rifle is just so much fun.

Yes.

There are literally nine topics on wvw builds on this first page alone. People are flocking to warrios due to the conceived OPness of the class. Stomping bads has become incredibly easy indeed.

If you want to try mace gs, try 0/30/20/0/20. Burst mastery is not nessecary, you can gain adrenaline fast enough. The grandmaster minor gives you 10% damage boost. Take III with it to prolong your crit bleeds to almost guarantee the 10%. Also, with 30 in Arms, you can take unsuspecting foe and forceful gs, or try out the new last chance. I have, and it’s fun. Not many people expect you to suddenly gain quickness anymore.

Basically, always take 20 in defense.

Thief blinds were a problem. Then we went to the gym.

Flissy has sound advice, follow it. Often, stunning or immobilising the thief twice will do the trick. Sword Dagger is harder IMO.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Cygnus.6903:

Agree with Bazzoong here, it’s hard enough to put a dent in them as P/D conditions, stacking 12+ bleeds…

L2P issue here. Why stack bleed against a Warrior when Poison does it very well. lol.

Like poison alone will kill him? L2 not assume I don’t apply poison. A bad warrior will cleanse often. You need at least 4-5 conditions to make your bleeds and poison do the damage you need, and then still you better pray they don’t run Lyssa.

As a thief who mains a warrior I have no problems with them, but a good warrior can outplay a P/D thief.

A good thief never has to get killed in a 1v1.

But as I understand, you didn’t get killed either?

Agree with Bazzoong here, it’s hard enough to put a dent in them as P/D conditions, stacking 12+ bleeds…

Hello all!

As the last patch introduced a new NPC in pvp allowing you to buy a character all the way up to level 80 with just 120k glory and a bit of gold, I was thinking of levelling up my engineer. PvE is just too boring to me, so I couldn’t bring myself to level him by PvEing as I did my three other 80’s.

Anyways, I was roaming WvW the other day, when I met this Engineer from my server. He had this kitten rifle and grenade build (with Predator, awesome) which did an insane amount of direct damage. This appealed to me, as I really like the rifle and grenades, but have never really made anything to use it. I also don’t wish to play condition engineer, and frankly just like big numbers (who doesn’t?).

This post is me looking for some incentive to make such a build, and actually level up my engie to start using it.

Thanks!

No.

Only use rifle to snipe in zergs.

Phoenixfudge.5290:

It’s incredibly viable for solo roaming. It’s also incredibly fun. With the right build you can get the best mobility in the game hands down. The only thing that comes close is a s/w and gs warrior.

Having the best mobility in the game is pretty useful when running from an angry mob/zerg.

How exactly do you achieve the best mobility with P/D? I’m not talking utility here, but even then, I don’t think anything comes close to S/W+GS warrior. Maybe in the initial sprint thanks to teleports and steal, but after that, the warrior has better cooldowns on his mobility skills. And that’s without considering insta cleansing movement impairing conditions.

Other then that, I agree with you on viability for solo roaming P/D. And it is a lot of fun.

10/0/30/0/30, but well said. I do use one venom (sometimes caltrops when I’m feeling cheesy), skale venom to cover bleeds.

Just avoid groups with a thief that uses messiah’s build.

They are strong. I usually run with 1, Endure Pain. It’s a great panic button, as it’s a stun breaker also.

Berserker’s Stance is good, but in PvP IMO. In WvW you can avoid the biggest condition spikes more easily.

Balanced stance is good, however I prefer Dolyak Signet.

Don’t like it.

It is only really useful for zerg fights, yet it will create more QQ.

I actually think the 15% bleed runes are missing their purpose on your build. You will not be doing the best 1v1 damage anyway, which is what bleeds are about (even with Ricochet your AoE is not that good). This build is about making the group you run with that much stronger as a whole. Your 45% longer bleeds won’t help too much with that.

I play a solo P/D build, so no venoms, only for roaming. I just switched my old 15% bleed runes out for runes of the traveler. 25% movement speed without investing a utility is just too good to pass up on. Besides, you still get a nice 10% boost to all conditions. Along with 10 in DA and 40% condi food I still get 60% on my bleeds, 70% when I use my weapon set with Sigil of Agony. That makes my 1 skill inflict 6 and 3/4 seconds of bleeding. To be honest, a half decent opponent will cleanse before that timer runs out anyway. And if your opponent is bad, who cares about duration?

I’d say just improving some of the items you can steal right now is enough. Steal becomes incredibly potent with some trait investment (just like most F abilities of other classes need investment also). Right now, just the elementalist and engineer items are bordering useless. All other items range from ok to great.

I play the exact same build (trait and skill wise), difference being I use the trait that reduces deception utility cooldown. I don’t find myself out of initiative with the base 15 this build provides, and things will get better december 10th.

It’s a great build, and contrary to the above poster, I think you should keep it like this. Steal is just awesome with such a low cooldown and all the added bonuses. Stealing boons is incredible, as a lot of classes depend on boons like protection or stability. You also need the poison it inflicts. I can’t find myself ever going back to using steal without 30 into trickery.

Dodging more is not nessecary, as survival is accomplished mainly by stealth and teleports (steal, shadowstep, pistol 3). Just be sure to apply your other conditions as well to counteract cleansing. Apart from bleeding, you have easy access to 5 other conditions, being torment, immobilise, vulnerability, poison and blind. Although not every condition is equally useful to you, stacking them all is.
Some advice, if you’re expecting a difficult fight in which another stealth skill would be useful, swap out the signet for Blinding Powder.

I do agree with messiah that you should use dire gear, not carrion. You don’t have a lot of high damaging moves, and that extra bit of power won’t help. Toughness will.

Have fun.

As opposed to being a certain death trait right now?

Imagi.4561:

I don’t think it’s completely outrageous, but I think it’s excessive. In my opinion, terrible mobility should be their trade-off for high health, damage, and armor.

That’s the thing, without mobility the warrior does not have any damage at all.

It’s fine the way it is. Thief with shortbow can be the most mobile class, if you’re unsatisfied with mobility outside of shortbow, then don’t compare yourself to a warrior. They are completely reliant on GS or mainhand sword for mobility. Whereas thief has escape mechanisms on every weapon set they can use except pistol pistol.

Wow, lots of good advice in here guys, thanks a lot. Forgot how helpful and fun a forum can be because of all the whining (I play warrior main since launch..).

Definitely know what I’m going to try. 10/0/30/0/30 seems like a big improvement to 0/0/30/20/20. I like all the dodge moves suggested here, but I am more of a stealth/tele style player. So I probably will be using D/P as offhand, just for the stealth generating and blind puddle. Death Blossom is nice, but seems situational.

Again, thanks for all the advice!

Hi all!

Been a while since I’ve been on the thief forum. I actually stripped down my thief from it’s divine gear, to invest the gold into another class I like playing. I’m thinking of getting back into the thief action, and the weapons I want to use are pistol/dagger, condition style. I only play as a roamer in WvW, sometimes accompanied by one or two friends. No PvE. So the main focus is just some roaming fun.

After a bit of theorycrafting I came up with this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAqY4alcmKPHdS+E+5EB3ji60m6p4ritTBWlPA-jEzAouioRTBCItIZUHI6AcesIasFsgUziW5LsKIM1KRUtXpIa1CBoYOA-w

I’ll have 25 stacks of corruption on me when roaming, so add another 250 condi damage.

I have some questions about the build. Mainly if it’s any good. Any opinions on the amount of condition damage/healing power? Is healing power worth it on a build like this? Or should I just try to get as much Dire as possible?

What about the healing skill/utilities? Go with HiS or is Signet of Malice worth a try?

I know you can just buy Dire weapons from the TP, what about armor/trinkets? I know you can get Dire Armor from I think CoE, but I’m not much of a farmer. Have about 35 gold to spend on the entire set of gear, along with about enough laurels for 2 trinkets and a lot of materials for crafting (although I don’t remember if I have the medium armor crafting profession at 400).

Other then that, do sigils of agony stack?

As for the offhand, I’m in doubt between shortbow and dagger/pistol. Shortbow gets me good mobility and on demand poison, but does not grant me stealth or heavy blind potential. Whereas with Dagger pistol I lose out on the great mobility (partially covered by HS), get a little poison through dagger 1 chain, but an awesome interrupt with pistol 4 and a great stomp skill in pistol 5. Not to mention reliable stealth through pistol 5+ HS.

Lots of questions, I know. Thanks in advance for your time!

kitten.3178:

IMO These warrior changes were much needed, and this is coming from someone who has mained a warrior since headstart. I wonder what people running gs m/s will run now, hopefully more warriors will diversify their builds while still being efficient.

0/30/20/0/20 instead of current 0/20/20/0/30

Disadvantages to current build;
-8 1/4 second cooldown on mace F1 instead of 7 3/4. So you lose half a second.
-10% less critical damage.
-No more gaining 1 stack of might on weapon swap due to 25 point minor trait in Disc (which allowed you to maintain 2 stacks pretty easily).

Advantages;
-Bleeds you apply have 50% more duration, which in itself doesn’t really help your damage, but;
-Your overall damage is increased by 10% thanks to 25 point minor in Arms.
-100 more Precision.
-100 more Conditions damage.

Overall, damage done is increased thanks to Arms minor. The half second increase to your mace cooldown is hardly noticed. There are no other noteworthy changes. I am already running this build instead of the old one.

The problem, of course, is what they are doing to the F1. Because I don’t want another slap on the fingers for writing something that’s not allowed, I’ll just describe their claim of wanting Mace to make a comeback as the control weapon instead of hammer as, well, odd.

I was just reading this thread due to Anet replying. The frustrating thing about this game is that they are overbuffing and overnerfing every single time. Take the suggested change to Mace. They are making the animation easier to see. I guess warriors have to be the easy to master easy to counter class.

But, instead of testing to see if the improved animation fixes the ‘issue’, they also increase cast time by 100%.

Making changes based on bad players’ lack of knowledge fueled complaints is taking the fun out of playing GW2.

Already, the shock of healing signet not getting nerfed (yet) is too much for the average forum visitor.

And what about mobility? They are not nerfing that? So how are we supposed to put immobilize on an engineer with 93% reduction???? Wait wha…. engineers can do that too?

Bad post, I know. But this forum is bad and even worse, full of bads.

So my question, do you think QQ will stop?

Star Ace.5207:

Wanted to add, will anyone still use UF after this?

I am already using 0/30/20/0/20 mace/shield + gs. The only thing I’ll have to get used to is the increase in casting time on mace burst. Thanks to this OP, I might add.

Will it matter? No. Bads will be bads.

I use it because as a warrior you don’t have the EZmode spamming abilities that most other classes have. Mesmers let clones fight for them, necro’s have AoE and minions, eles have insane PBAoE, engineers have AoE, rangers have pets and spirits, guardians have spirit weapons. Thieves have stealth. Fact of the matter is every class can do significant damage or is able to survive through simple mechanics without having to invest a great deal of attention in it.

In short, as a warrior you have to have more skill IMO, just for concentrating on doing damage and proper positioning. The fact that my heal doesn’t require even more attention makes the warrior a smoother class to play, for me. This was a lot harder before HS got buffed. I’m Just an average player off course.

Thanks for the advice. Guess using grenades will have to wait.

Hello engineers!

My first post on this forum. I just created an engineer and upped him to 20 with a scroll. I have the gold to craft him up to 80, but I’m too cheap for it I guess? Anyways, I’d say playing some PvE is good for getting to know the skills.

That being said, I take no pleasure in PvEing, so any advice to speed up the process?

I’m talking traits to go for early, power+crit or condi, what weapons, what utilities.

Thanks!

Can you move this to the suggestions forum?

Something I miss is OHKOing 5 people with Earthshaker.

Something I don’t miss is having to kite a ranger with a GS because he is better in melee range.

I do miss having good fights with eles, it just looks cool.

I don’t miss being the laughing stock of PvP.

I would say I miss the challenge when fighting pretty much any class (or player), but I’d lie. Now you just have challenging fights with good players. And have some sweet revenge on bads.

Agree 100%.

There is actually a suggestions forum, but there is a small group of people that refuses to understand that a suggestion to nerf warriors does not belong here but there.

It really takes the fun out of reading this forum if all you see is zomfgbigmenwifgspwnzmeplznerf.

The strange thing is that the only class that should always, and I mean without exception always kill any warrior in 1v1 is the mesmer. Staff just completely wrecks warriors. Maybe, just maybe a sword/shield+longbow warrior can come out on top, but that’s a big maybe.