Guild Wars 2

I main a warrior, and the sustain is real. Is it too much? Well, it’s a matter of perspective. If you believe that Druid, Revenant, Mesmer, Elem and Scrapper are okay, then the warrior is definitely okay, without a doubt. If you however believe that they’re too strong, then the warrior might indeed be too strong, and nerfing should be made globally.

By “too strong”, I mean cheese, i.e. an unreasonable skill/risk/reward ratio, provided by unbalanced skills, traits and/or utilities.

Threat.7450:

This idea would set a record for “Fastest AFK”.

As soon as some guy presses B and sees an amulet or utility that he doesn’t approve, that’ll be it. " I’m AFK if you’re gonna use that * amulet!"

It’s a good idea in theory, but the environment is too toxic. It’s best to just team queue with people that you already know their builds.

This is a good point, but is it really relevant? A toxic player will always find a reason to AFK, possibly very early in the game: they don’t like your title, they feel like the opening was so bad it’s not worth moving on and so on…

I actually like the idea of showing the amulet, it would help think of a decent strategy from the start. Most players don’t bother to talk, some even hide the chat to avoid being exposed to toxic behaviors… With amulets shown, I’d be able to understand what role players intend to fulfill during the game, and adjust accordingly.

I have zero wins, but a lot of losses. Can I have some compensation title? I’d fancy “Ultimate Loser”, and I’m sure my teammates would be thrilled to play with me

On a serious note, I like the idea of having titles which reward ambitious and hard-working pvp players.

Thanks for this info, much appreciated. I feel that the current rules, while being satisfying on many aspects, are quite lacking on others. Still, this is just a video game, not a life and death situation, so I won’t mind.

I suppose than soloqueuing with a single profession should give me the most consistent match making. I’ll be paying attention to the new rules published with the next season, if any.

The V.8759:

That actually makes no sense. Very few warriors these days have much fury in their build. The only fury application could be elite sigil or Fatal Frenzy trait. Next to that, very few people run arms, dual strike or FGJ.

There’s also Arcing Slice, the GS F1. Most power warriors use a GS, thus can obtain a lot of fury as long as they land their bursts (15s per level 3 burst).

Hi,

With season 3 approaching, I’m considering giving it a chance and see how far I can go (I didn’t participate in the first two seasons). Discussing with some friends, it seems I have misunderstood how match making is working. I have two questions below, and would be grateful to anyone shedding some light upon them.

My understanding is that each player is assigned a level (MMR) for each profession he plays, the precision of which increasing with the number of games played. Then, the match making algorithm selects 10 players with similar levels and puts them together. People grouped together receive a malus in the match making (to offset the better coordination), and divisions act as hard limits for levels.

Q1: Profession MMR

I seem to remember that profession MMR was disabled, but friends told me it was back. Which one is it? I’m super strong on warrior and super weak on thief, so the related MMR would be different. If profession MMR is disabled, does this mean the system uses some sort of average MMR, disregarding the possibly high variance, whatever the number of games?

Q2: Grouping

Friends have told me we can group with people belonging to other divisions, thus possibly disregarding the MMR. This means that matches can be made with people way weaker than you are, to the point of making 4v5 or 5v4. How does the match making system resolves this? 4 strong + 1 weak vs 4 strong + 1 weak still would give a lot of random in the game.

Thanks.

Giving the ability for a warrior to equip 3 weapons, and swap them in the same way he does with two weapons, is something that’s actually been discussed before HoT, when theorycrafting what the Berserker trait line could be. ¹

Allowing 3 weapons to be freely swapped would probably be too hard to balance. After all, you’d get access to 3 weapons, i.e. a significant increase in the range of available skills, which is super strong, even if the underlying build loses some consistency. Now, gating the swap behind a 30s CD means you would only change it while being out of combat, in which case you’d probably be better off sticking to a single build idea and optimizing it, without changing weapons.

Arms might get a chance soon. It’s not in the PvE meta anymore, and is not much used in other game modes, thus it’s now completely free to balance (and it sure needs it, seeing how weak it currently is).

¹It was fun, then we warriors gained a F2 changing the initial burst of the main hand weapon, and ending up with a worthless class for PvP for the following 6 months… until they lazily buffed us recently “à la Cleansing Ire”, by changing Adrenal Health.

Let me guess… the thief with 115 points was responsible for capping, while the others did what thieves do best: decap and gank! Must have been fun indeed

While the longbow can do decent damage, in both physical and condition flavors, I think bow users simply take it because it brings a lot to the builds, especially its F1:

• It always hits, unless your projectile is blocked, reflected or destroyed. This nearly guarantees burst-based effects, such as damage boost (Berserker’s Power), endurance refill (Building Momentum), condition cleansing (Cleansing Ire), healing (Adrenal Health). Other burst skills usually require a setup to be landed (because they’re telegraphed, and opponents are wary of it), meaning less triggers from these effects. This is huge.
• In its vanilla version, it is a large AoE skill, which covers most Conquest nodes, helping in the cap/decap processes. Even if the opponents decide to stay away from it (meaning they must have a ranged option too), their adds are not so clever – mesmer clones, minions, pets… all take the damage ticks, which is very good to disrupt the opponents attacks patterns.
• It is a fire field. The bow itself can combo natively (#3 for area might, #4 and #5 for 100% added burn), and the warrior has plenty of other finishers, in utilities as well as in other weapons. Pair it with a sword for a fire aura, with a hammer or warhorn for great might building capabilities… The bow provides good offensive support.

Other bow skills are good, but naturally not better or worse than skills from other weapons! It’s just that it works beautifully with the warrior’s mechanics and traits, as well as with the nature of Conquest. Also, one interesting feature of the bow is that it’s a ranged weapon – as a warrior can be easily kited, this helps maintain some pressure on the opponents.

I’d never used the Sigil of Agility before, but reading so many people saying good things about it, I gave it a try tonight, in place of the bugged Sigil of Leeching. Interesting and fun indeed! The melee swap on a Hydromancy/Agility GS is great.

Also, I thought they’d fixed the Quickness on movement skills, but apparently the fix isn’t what I thought it was, since I just hit a 10k+ with GS #3 on a glassy elem, with the Demolisher amulet…

I don’t like it either, but I’m not a fan of most 4-stat amulets too, which I believe bring too much on the table. Recently, I’ve found myself reminiscing about the amulet/jewel system. I didn’t play much PvP at the time, so don’t really know about its shortcomings, which prompted ANet to remove it – but I remember I enjoyed it: assemble your stats, knowing that diluting the stats too much would make your build mediocre.

Are you guys for real? The weaponless druid was just kiting a warrior, who did not even care about it, as he was just keeping control of the node for the whole game. In the end, the warrior’s team won by a huge margin…

In addition, the streamer was completely shameless: complaining about his team mates being kittens and going AFK (guess why they did that and what they thought of him), saying the opposing team had bad rotations (but why try-hard when the opposing team cannot obviously make more than 65 points)…

It’s okay to try and stream such content, after all it can be entertaining, despite the obvious lack of respect towards fellow team mates. However, seeking some sense about it is foolish. The druid class may have too much sustain, or not – but such a video is nowhere near enough to make a valid proof.

Rush is a sort of pulsing skill, with each pulse it adjusts the direction to the target. Therefore, to have it change its course, you need to select a different target. Or, if you have started Rush without a target, then you need to select the target while Rushing (have called targets makes it easier, just press ‘T’).

Hi,

Dristig.9678:

Elegie.3620:

• Your build may not have enough armor to sustain regular hits, in which case the offensive Last Stand would be better.

I think you’re confusing Last Stand with Defy Pain.

I really mean Last Stand. Cleansing Ire gives adrenaline when you’re hit; if you’re glassy, getting hit too much is getting killed too much, thus the adrenaline generation part is a bit wasted. When I run the old Berserker GS + Axe/Shield for instance, I go Last Stand – YMMV.

Defy pain is a no-brainer, though, especially since it proc at 50%. Don’t know if they fixed the Endure Pain bug yet.

There’s no doubt that the value of Cleansing Ire has increased with the patch. It helps you generate more adrenaline, thus contributing to more frequent bursts, i.e. more sustain (Adrenal Health), more damage (Berserker’s Power), more condition cleanse (Cleansing Ire). Coupled with a bow and Burst Mastery, you get template which is indeed quite strong.

However, I believe there are cases when you’d prefer the other GM traits, for instance:

• Your build may not have enough armor to sustain regular hits, in which case the offensive Last Stand would be better. This would be the case with Berserker or Marauder, although one would arguably replace those by Demolisher now.
• It may also have other ways to deal with adrenaline or conditions (e.g. as traited shouts in a Shoutbow), possibly giving more value to Rousing Resilience.
• You may want to counter heavy CC and benefit from the extra toughness and healing from Rousing Resilience, and have a team member help with cleaning conditions if necessary.

Hi guys,

Thanks a bunch for all your insight, much appreciated. That’s a lot of food for thought, and plenty of stuff to test in the coming days. I’ll follow up if I have additional questions, cheers for setting me on the right track!

Hello,

I’d like to invest some time in learning properly how to play thief. I’m mostly interested in brawling in PvP, if possible 1v1, 1vX, or XvX using power setups (no condition builds), with high mobility and damage.

So far, I’ve tried and enjoyed the D/P metabattle build very much. I’m now in the process of playing staff, and would like to know if you have good resources to share (previous posts, videos), or simply tips to provide.

I’m running the following, which I found from spectating other thieves:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZAQJAWVn0MBFmiVOBmOB8PhFYCbuDOCbhehhzQbQLBEAyAA-TpBEABAcEAe4QAU/+DIcBAI4BAYeZAA

Specifically, I’m interested in the following topics (although anything else is relevant):

• I’ve taken a shortbow because I love #5, but aside from it I don’t find myself using it a lot. Rather than kite and range, I find it easier to disengage and seek another fight. So, should I keep the shortbow, or is there another weapon set I can complement the staff with?
• I have no stealth, so only rely on evades to survive. I’m okay with it (I main a power warrior), but I feel that forfeiting stealth is a bit of a missed opportunity here. Is it?
• I’m not sure of how to use the staff skills efficiently. So far, I use #2 with Steal and Signet of Infiltrator, #1 at melee, and #3 to lure melee attacks and evade. The rest is circumstantial, so I’m pretty sure I’ve missed the “essence” of staff game play so far. When running D/P, I had clear patterns in mind for all skills.

Thanks for reading, looking forward to your expert guidance.

It’s not about 1v1, I believe that ANet does not care a bit about it. It’s just that players are clients who pay. All hate being killed, thus classes now include lots of defense, both passive and active, and 4-stats amulets with free defense stats have been added. All like to kill, so classes include lots of offense effects, unblockable utilities and conditions, giving a chance to kill even to bunkerish specs. Clients feel strange: they have everything they wanted, but the overall balance feels like ****. They don’t understand why.

I’m not a gaming expert, so I could be wrong, but I have the intuition that a true balance should force a player to make a choice: choose what gameplay/role you want to fulfill, build in consequence, and accept you need to sacrifice something. Either damage, control, defense, support… but not all at the same time. Natural counters would then emerge, and team effort would be properly rewarded.

[PvP context, point of view of a power warrior, not a condi warrior]

As others have said, the build in use matters in the choice of utilities. Sometimes, the utilities are what make the build work.

For me, as a selfish power warrior, I believe that stances are still supreme. Putting aside that most of them are stun breakers:

• Berserker’s Stance is the most interesting. Pulsing Resistance is great against all these condition builds. The adrenaline generation is excellent too, and sometimes I activate the stance just for it. An early burst for Adrenal Health and Berserker’s Power can be significant in a fight.
• Balanced Stance is very good, and it also triggers Rousing Resilience without the need to break from stun, so it’s a good synergy. If you trait Last Stand, then Balanced Stance can be replaced by anything (like Frenzy).
• Endure Pain is nice, I now use it early in the game to maintain my HP above 75% for Thick Skin. It’s a long CD though, plus it shines mainly against power setups which are less frequent than condi ones these days, which is why I sometimes swap it with another utility.

Physical skills could be good, but the problem is that they don’t provide enough when compared to stances:

• Stomp and Kick (?) push back your opponents out of melee. Following up is a pain as a melee warrior. Plus Stomp is currently bugged: the Blast finisher does not work, and nor does the Immobilization removal when paired with Warrior’s Sprint.
• Rush… could be nice, but its CD is way too high. I’d rather have the knockdown last one second less, but have the CD reduced. Wouldn’t use it with a CD of less than 25s (untraited).
• Bolas was fun to use in the past, but now with all the skills that remove immobilization (or any condition), passively or not, or reduce its duration, it’s guaranteed to never be useful. Plus there’s some pathing issue.
• Peak Performance is wrong. The point of Physical Skills is not to do damage (except for Rampage), but rather to hard control. Rather than deal damage in relation to adrenaline, they should do something different: provide Quickness, remove a boon, whatever…

Dolyak signet should just be forgotten. The stability can be removed too easily, so it’s completely inferior to Balanced Stance. Other signets still interesting, and Signet Mastery is one of our greatest trait, too bad that the specialization to which it belongs is so lacking it’ll rarely see use in PvP.

As for Rage skills, I only use Headbutt and Outrage, as a power warrior. These are strong utilities, too bad the Berserker line does not better synergize with power setups.

I use Hydromancy and Leeching too. Dodging into range (triggering Reckless Dodge, activating Stick and Move), swapping for Hydromancy, #3 through the opponent, #5 back to him then F1 is one of my preferred combo.

Thanks for your comments.

@Furajir The build I use is definitely selfish. In my to do list, there’s indeed some kind of shout-based support warrior to experiment on. Cleric shout warrior with the bow… makes you pretty much unkillable, I guess! You run Defense/Tactics/Discipline, with the GS/Bow?

@Jack I’m an old school warrior, and doing without Discipline is still a bit difficult for me – I find myself missing my usual weapons rotations (no Fast Hands), no might/adrenaline/cleanse on swap… But I do know that this mindset is narrow, as I’ve seen many STR/DEF/ZER builds working nicely. I really need to give it a try, thanks for sharing!

Hotjoin games are special. People go there to test builds, to brawl, to train something specific… and most don’t care about playing Conquest. However, going to Unranked or Ranked, you will definitely see something different, with more team play. Too bad one cannot spectate there, you’ll have to watch streams…

The level in hotjoin is not below or above the level in ranked or unranked, it’s actually irrelevant. It’s just that you have a wider range of players, since you get no match making, so you can fight players way weaker or stronger than you are.

I’ve tried the MaceShield/Bow. Not used to not having mobility, so gotta learn a bit, but the build is… very strong indeed. Only one surprise so far: I didn’t get insulted as much as I’d expected

Hi,

Recently, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing a Demolisher GS/Bow, so wanted to share through a quick video. Part one is the build description, part two has some commented fights illustrating the strengths of weaknesses of the build.

I’m a casual warrior, the fights are from hotjoin as I was testing variations, so don’t expect high level play. I’m just having fun and hope that, maybe, you’ll have fun trying it too.

Of course, I’m not the one who invented it, I’m just playing it. I found out about it when watching the stream of Tarcis Anastasis, to whom I offer my thanks for introducing me to it. The format of the video has similarities to “The warrior is beautiful” video by Obindo, which inspired me and made me progress in my game play – this is my way to thank him for it.

Enjoy!

Hi,

Fivedawgs.4267:

Which software should I use? As far as the build I have no idea. Most revs do the wings thing then sword 3 then block. Precision or staff 5… this guy watch my stab dude, he always get me at the right time…. And his build just hit hard.

Alas I’m not really knowledgeable in terms of recording software. As a NVidia user, I’ve been using Shadowplay, designed for NVidia cards. It’s free and easy to use, the capture does not make the game lag, it can be manually activated to either start a new capture, or persist the last 5 minutes played. If you have a NVidia GPU, then this is probably your best option. Otherwise, I don’t know.

The captured video is a mp4 file. You can then edit it, e.g. cutting start/end points, for instance using Windows Movie Maker (free), or VideoPad (the free version, I’m only starting to learn this one though, looks good so far). Finally, you just upload the video on Youtube, make sure the link is shared.

While this looks complicated at first, it’s actually fairly easy to learn. Recording lost fights is actually a good way to review one’s mistakes and improve – there’s often no need to edit and share, one’s own analysis often is enough to spot opportunities.

Finally, I don’t know Toker personally, but maybe he wouldn’t mind doing a few 1v1s with you and provide some pointers? Or if he hasn’t time, then maybe you could also ask for some sparring partners on the Revenant forum, asking for some tips if you meet great fighters?

If I were in your shoes, first I’d be kittened So I’d want to be mean and run some gimmick builds first, e.g.:

• Signet of might and CC through his blocks, to mess his rhythm and see if something good can come out of it (e.g. GS/Hammer, or GS/mace/shield skullcracker, possibly with the Zerk specialization),
• Full condi/heal kitten, let’s see if a power rev can still put up a fight that way.

I wish you good luck. If you ever put on some videos, then I’ll be happy to watch them and provide feedback on the game play (which may or may not be useful, as I’m not a master!).

There are many significant parameters to take into account in a matchup: the classes in use, the builds and their counters, the skills of the players… You’re not supposed to win every matchup, this is team work after all.

Do you know what build he uses? This could help in devising a counter-build, if you aim at beating him in particular. Also, if you could post a video of you losing a duel, maybe we could find out areas of improvement for you, as well as patterns to take advantage of in your opponent’s game play?

Anyway, I applaud your fighting spirit here, and I wish you the best in this challenge!

Hi,

The physical skill “Stomp” of the warrior class has been transformed into a movement skill, but the interaction with the trait Warrior’s Sprint (in the Discipline specialization) does not work: when immobilized, activating “Stomp” should remove the immobilization, but currently does not.

Thanks.

No shouts, limited bursts (but maybe he did land enough GS bursts to maintain Adrenal Health?), this could hint at Rousing Resilience. Your build having a lot of hard control would have been quite beneficial in that case, especially if he bundled some Outrage in it, powered up by the Runes of the Tempest (and possibly a bit of Healing Power, maybe Mender amulet).

It’s too bad he didn’t want to share

Choppy.4183:

I just have dodge bound to the V key. It lets me jump dodge just by hitting it and the space bar together, if I want.

That’s exactly what I do. At first it seemed a bit unnatural since I was used to double tapping, but now I cannot do otherwise.

It’s a bit hard to tell – what answers did he give you? Did he just taunt you (which would be disappointing between fellow warriors), or did he give you answers which did not make sense to you (i.e. communication issues)?

The current warrior sustain is awesome, and certainly underestimated by the community. The Demolisher amulet, in particular, is a blessing for the power warrior, because it does not remove much attack potential when compared to the Berserker amulet, but adds a lot of toughness, meaning Cleansing Ire can finally shine.

I’m digressing a bit here, but the Cleansing Ire mechanics is just so strong. It generates adrenaline at a fast rate, fueling bursts, meaning more damage (Berserker’s Power), more sustain (cleansing condition, getting HP through Adrenal Health) and even more Cleansing Ire. Add in Burst Mastery and Versatile Rage, possibly the passive of the Signet of Rage, and everything becomes smooth.

When you mix in the sustain from Thick Skin and stances (resistance, stability, physical invulnerability) to help you kite, regen and maintain your HP above 75%, you get something strongly resilient.

I’ve been playing a bit of unranked games, GS/Bow demolisher, STR/DEF/DIS, optimizing adrenaline generation and might building. After a few games of adjusting, I found that I was able to truly sustain (and sometimes win) 1v2s. I’m as amazed as I was when I first tried the celestial Axebow, coming from Berserker background.

EDIT: There’s also the matter of endurance. The Strength line, besides the 40% damage increase brought to GS users, also focuses on endurance. The more you burst (i.e. merely apply the Cleansing Ire full mechanics), the more endurance you get through Building Momentum. More dodges means more defense, and even more damage through the excellent Reckless Dodge.

I rarely feel as much satisfaction as when I kill a player in vengeance and get away with it

Hi,

Cerby.1069:

Jumping and dodging definitely aint gonna be happening tho…don’t have the timing for it and the button presses don’t always register properly on my keyboard :/

Yes, the keyboard really helps in this regard. I play on a laptop, and my jump dodges were difficult to make before. I’ve now bought a separate mechanical keyboard, and it works everytime (plus it’s very comfortable to work/play with). Only caveat is that it’s expensive

Cerby.1069:

Also I find it kind of odd the people you play with complain about a 6s unblockable and bloodlust stacks….. on a warrior of all thing…
Just….!?!?!!? lol. Whatever, I obviously do not care for these opinions!

The blood/corruption stacks is simply part of the dueling/GvG etiquette, from many years ago, so players abide to it whether it makes sense or not. However I don’t recall the Signet of Might being part of it, although I can understand if a warrior agrees not to use it when facing a guardian, as blocking is (was) part of their main mechanics.

Haven’t commented on the video yet, found it skillful and very enjoyable to watch, thanks for sharing!

Yes, I confirm the bug, the blast finisher does not work. Haven’t tested the synergy with Warrior’s Sprint yet. It’d be great if this could be fixed, the new utility looks so promising… Thanks.

It’s unfortunately a bug, yes. Actually, I’m eager to see it fixed, because I really want to use it, to move from my triple stances setup to two stances + stomp (not sure if I’ll replace Balanced Stance or Endure Pain, though).

The utility looks quite good. It’s a stun breaker, it can give many seconds of stability, its CD is 32s when traited, it’s an additional hard control, it’s a movement skill (I think), and it’s a blast finisher which will work wonders with my bow…

I’ve been playing the Greatbow a lot recently, but with the Demolisher amulet and the Runes of Strength (adjusting sigils accordingly). The new amulet is wonderful for the warrior: the added toughness allows you to take more hits, thus generating more adrenaline through Cleansing Ire – meaning more combustive shots, more Adrenal Health, more Berserker’s Power… The resulting sustain and damage are impressive. There are plenty of natural synergies with the build – plus, as you say, it’s super fun to play.

What I enjoy the most is playing with friends on some vocal server. Sometimes we do some unranked games, and I enjoy playing Conquest, coordinating and trying to snowball the game, as well as fighting people of my level. Sometimes, we simply want to brawl and go to hotjoin – being pitted against one another, taunting on teamspeak, fighting to our heart’s content, dancing on each other’s corpses, having a great time…

If you don’t enjoy the game anymore, just have a break and try something else! Unless you have pro-like objectives, it’s still just a game, you should definitely enjoy it and not end up frustrated about it. You can always come back when you wish.

“Your next three attacks after swapping to this weapon while in combat are unblockable. (cooldown: 9 seconds)”

I came back to the game many days ago, after being away for many months. A friend of mine put a joke on me, having me believe that some Sigil of Savagery had been introduced, and was the new thing. Honestly, how could I call BS on it when he told me before of all these 4-stats amulets…

Have fun with your ignorant friends, too. Tell them about the Sigil of Savagery

laquito.5269:

Yeah, most important and entertaining GW2 streamer decides to not stream anymore, totally not a big deal. Once Leeto decides to quit aswell you can go and enjoy your boring and monotonous family friendly streamers.

This is exactly whats wrong with this community:, casualness and a non competitive mindset.

I don’t mind the game being casual, it’s a possible and noble orientation, just give people a way to have fun at a game without trying too hard.

I don’t mind the game being competitive, competition brings the best out of us, great efforts and achievements, plus a good entertainment / educational value for those watching.

Being semi-casual (or semi-pro) however feels like having a semi-ambition. When designing a product, I think it’s important to first have a vision and to commit to it. You may experiment as you wish in the implementation, but the vision must be strong. In GW2, I’m still not sure what the vision is. If they really want to make e-sport, then I think they should commit more to fixing the technical hurdles to this objective.

I found myself enjoying watching Helseth play the game. When he was trying hard, his gameplay was sharp and inspired. When he was fooling around, he still was fun, although sometimes a bit annoying (no offense meant). I think he was really trying to make a quality stream, and found he somehow succeeded in that endeavor. Him saying that the game failed in providing him content to build upon, is not unreasonable.

I’ve played Skyhammer more. My initial point stands (it was oversimplified to the point of becoming dull), and I have an additional note to make: fighting at A/C often has big camera issues, with the walls coming in plain view. There’s no way the map can become competitive is these are not fixed.

EDIT: also, in the lower platform, it’d be great if you could add some jump pads (where the previous ones stood), or even pile up some blocks.

The warrior has been buffed by the patch, no one will laugh at you for using one! Here come a few builds I’ve tried recently.

1) Shoutbow

It’s an old meta build, the easiest to start with, and probably the most efficient. It has been buffed by the patch, and could perform well on the competitive scene. It is a support build, which provides altruistic healing and condition clear, running in an hybrid flavor.

Spam the Longbow F1 as much as you can, and blast it with Bow #3 and Warhorn #5 to get might. Try and make good use of the signets of Geomancy (switch at melee) and Intelligence (Sword #3, Bow #3).

The following version is a learning one. Many changes can be considered when you’ve become familiar with the build:

• Change the Signet of Rage by the War Banner. The Signet gives you adrenaline on passive, which helps in the rotations (don’t activate it).
• Change Rousing Resilience by Cleansing Ire if you face a team with heavy condition pressure. Cleansing Ire also provides adrenaline on hit, so will help in your rotations. Tip: Balanced Stance triggers Rousing Resilience without any need to break from stun.
• Consider changing the Mercenary amulet to the Sage amulet if you want to provide more healing to your team.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNBMhNakpDKDxOPwyD4ExwWQpxQp3C4fHAheOCRdHA-TpBHABA8AA6Z/hAOCACcIAK4EAYfZAA

2) Burnzerker

A build proposed by Tarcis recently, which works well. Good AoE condition pressure / spike.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Tarcis-A-Veteran-Warrior-Build-Share/first#post6101867

3) Power warrior

The power warrior has good physical damage pressure, and decent mobility. It’s usually fun to play, but a bit fragile – something the new Demolisher amulet seems to address! Give it a try if you feel aggressive, but note that it’s unlikely to appear in any team comp. Switch the amulet from Demolisher to Berserker if you want to maximize the damage.

GS / Axe+Shield is a standard melee brawler.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR3ejMdQbIWFCehApIGCCKtMy+swOgLIAwWoGiBA-TpRHwAEuAAs2fAwRAwwBBYwDAgZZAA

And check out Obindo’s thoughts on how to make damage with it.

GS / Bow is another good brawler, a bit less brutal than the previous one, but the Combustive Shot of the bow helps maximizing the value of Cleansing Ire and Adrenal Health (the traits trigger without the need to hit the opponent).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJARTjMdQjHWFCehAnIGKCKc1bhQQ7ioPLsB4BCAA-TpBFwANuAAl2fAwhAgxDAIxRAoaZAA

4) Condition / Control

The warrior has a lot of hard control available, and two traits (Body Blow and Distracting Strikes) which can bring bleed / weakness / confusion on it. This means you can try and run hybrid build with heavy control to create good condition pressure, although blocks / stability will hard counter you.

The base version:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRAsc5ejMdQZIWFCehAnIGMCMdL88eC4IYF8BsAwGMnB-TpBHABFcCACe/BBOCABcQAsvMAAPAAA

The Zerk version (no Discipline, so no Fast Hands, enjoy the Berserker Mace burst for condi spike):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRApe8fnMdAlkiVhAehAEliFjAzIAsBzZIjgVwy7t4mcfuA-TpBHABCcCACe/hCOIAAcEAC4BAYfZAA

5) Hambow

The hambow is an old meta build, which was great for fighting on point. Spam Combustive shot and blast it with Bow #3 and Hammer F1. Not sure how you’d best build it nowadays, many variations are possible. Here’s one I tried.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJASTjMdQZIWFCehApIGICMLA8B7Z6XY6tFwW3LYEA-TpBHAB2XGIgjAQBXAABOEAds/AAPAAA

Enjoy, and welcome to the warrior class!

Hello there fellow warriors,

Have any of you experimented a bit with the “new” physical skills, whatever game mode? Any build / idea to share? Or do you think the buffs brought by the last patch are not enough / not relevant?

Thanks for sharing!

If you liked Shoutbow, then maybe it’s time to give it another go? Hambow would probably be good too, although I’m not sure how much stability/blocks… current builds are equipped with (which would counter Body Blow and Distracting Strikes).

The bow works decently when paired with a GS. I’ve tried a demolisher version, and there are many natural synergies with the traits and game play. If you never played GS/Bow before, then give it a chance!

Chill a bit friends, he wasn’t asking for a nerf, he was just enthusiastic about the trait and joking about it

A real GW2-flavored nerf post would be something like the following:

“Adrenal Health is completely OP. The warrior just has to spam the LB F1 and run in circles, and he gets healed, he gets his condis cleansed, and he’s even making damage because the AoE of the bow is too large for the size of the node… At the very least, put a CD on it, and put one on CI as well while you’re at it. Warrior scrubs go learn some skills for once.”

I don’t know if you’re trolling or not

Adrenal Health is definitely good, and I could see them toning down the healing a bit. Still, I don’t believe they’ll do it – because they’d definitely need to compensate the warrior by adding some support elsewhere, and they still haven’t found a proper way to do it. (hint: put regen on stances, make Last Stand not conflict with Cleansing Ire / Rousing Resilience, and add vigor / quickness on physical skills usage).

Combustive Shot with Berserker’s Power, Adrenal Health, Cleansing Ire, Burst Mastery might be a winner in PvP. Played a couple of hours with Demolisher GS/Bow, and won an interesting 1v2 with it. Wasn’t a burst fight, but rather a long one, the sustain was real.

I only played on Skyhammers 2 or 3 times, but my initial impression is that the map has become dull. I understand there was some mechanics exploit before, but removing all possibility to fall down makes it bit insipid. I’d add back a few of them – and if you don’t want people to fall to death, then either put a platform below (with jump pads to get back up), or have some sort of teleport mechanism (which could be used actively to move on the map?).

I like the change in Spirit Watch, but feel that awarding 50 points might be a tiny bit too much.

The Lord on Foefire is definitely soloable. If you don’t want to buff it further, then protect its access to it (e.g. need to kill two strong body guards before an entry appears)?

I’ve only played the new warrior for 4-5 hours so far, but I think the overall buff’s not bad for now:

• The new Adrenal Health works, although it requires a bow to be fully maximized (as is the case for Cleansing Ire).
• I remain skeptical for physical skills: I think that the skill type, to be valuable, needs to be enriched by additional effect(s), and not by damage.
• The LB buffs are unexpected, I’ve tried a power GS/LB build as it was hinted, and while it somehow worked I cannot really see the value of it in a team comp.

Even if I’d agree that DEF and DIS are important trait lines, as they’ve been for many years now, they still offer a certain build variation (as you already know, from reading your posts in the warrior forum). To sum it up for others:

• STR can give you the standard power warrior and the condi-control warrior. Both are decent brawlers, although they can (too?) easily be countered by other classes. This is not a warrior problem though, but a problem of other classes having access to too many boons.
• ARM is still dubious. Signets look too weak (although Signet Mastery is a great trait), and many traits are useless (in that other builds achieve better results for the same intent). More work is to be done here.
• TAC doesn’t look bad at all, and I can see the old defense support shoutbow coming back as a viable competitive option, differentiated from other classes either by Rampage or the War Banner. Offense support looks pretty unlikely though.
• BER is interesting too, and Sword+Torch / Longbow burn zerker is the second probable top build which could be played. Don’t know if the rifle can still be a thing.

It’s not that bad, and I’ll be looking forward to how top players include warriors in their comps, for which role. However, I would heartily agree that there’s more work to be done on the warrior, and in that view definitely understand your frustration. The current balancing lacks inspiration and ambition, as you’ve rightly pointed out in the Healing Signet joke. I would love some improvement to the warrior mechanics rather than some plain damage/heal buff (e.g. offhand F2).

I don’t get how ANet intends to resolve the paradox of making a competitive game mode while building that much on passive play. Some classes remain blatantly unbalanced, even after this patch.

I’ve just reinstalled the game, wanted to try some things out. I went with a GS/Bow, demolisher/Strength, STR/DEF/DIS build. It’s an old setup to maximize the value of bursts (including the new Adrenal Health), with decent might building. Not a competitive build, just some brawling stuff… initial testing worked nicely, good damage and surprisingly good sustain. It’s fun.

Template (replace the amulet with Demolisher):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJARTjMdQjHWFCehAnIGKCKc1bhQQ7ioPLsB4BCAA-TpBFwAMeAAl2fAwRAoaZgGXAgEHCAA

Nocta.5274:

i think there’s a good build hiding beneath all the enw changes.

Well, Shoutbow seems to somehow have been targeted, with the warhorn buff and the obvious synergy between Adrenal Health and Vigorous Shouts. I suppose that some Berserker burnbow might be more interesting, too.

The balancing brought to the warrior is lazy and has no ambition – although one might argue that tying Adrenal Health to adrenaline usage is better than simply adding a new passive.

However, what other solution do they have, when they persist in trying to balance PvP and PvE with the same traits? From a PvP point of view, the warrior needs a change in mechanics – but not from a PvE point of view. Changing the Defense line or physical skills is actually the best they can do, as these are not used at all in PvE.

While your points are sound and fair, I’m afraid your expectations are too high. This is GW2: even its PvP is casual, most players don’t try hard, prefer to bash than reflect. I do like your spirit though – congrats on reaching legend on your warrior.

As for some lazy 5% healing signet buff… It depends on whether they’ve finally understood that balance isn’t about giving everything to every class to please everyone.

A friendly reminder to ANet developers: the Endure Pain bug is still here. As a warrior, planning to use the skill to counter a particular enemy physical burst is simply asking to get killed.