Guild Wars 2

fellyn.5083:

I can’t speak for NSP but I imagine that they disagree with how DB is staying competitive score wise (hint: it’s not because of your us prime time people) so that might be why they choose to target you guys instead of trying to fight DH.

Lol. If you use a word like “disagree”, then you’re opening up a whole world of complaints about “double teaming”. By saying it like that, you represent yourself as someone who is unhappy with the fact that DB has a strong night presence and your server does not, and is taking it out on the NA players.

Like Greens said, this point that you bring up is worded as a dig at DB NA players. Yes, it is a fact that our NA prime time isn’t as strong as DH nor NSP’s (hint: this has been the case forever, and we all acknowledged it). However, saying that you “disagree” with how DB stays competitive is almost an insult to both NA players and Oceanic players at the same time. Is it DB’s fault that they have a good Oceanic population? Is it a “bad” thing that they do? I don’t think so. I think we’re lucky. I think that puts us in a pretty good place competitively in WvW. We’re lucky as NA players, as it’d definitely be more difficult to try and recruit Oceanic players than it is NA players.

I say it’s an insult because whether or not DB has enough NA players to compete with prime time numbers of this tier, it’s not like the NA players aren’t fighting. It’s not like we’re just laying down and letting the Oceanic players do all the point gathering. We’re fighting as best as we can, and if we didn’t, there would be absolutely no chance we would stay competitive in this tier at all.

Now if you want to say that DB is being targeted because that’s the best way to keep DB from running away with points, then I can’t argue with that. If a team lacking coverage at a certain time is up against a team with good coverage during that time, then it’s a good idea to try and minimize the impact of that discrepancy. However, I can’t agree with your opinion that DB having Oceanic coverage is somehow something to “disagree” with.

Don’t open up this jar again by raising opinions like that, please. We have enough people complaining about “double teaming” in this forum as it is.

I normally don’t like playing tank/support, but I did make an armor set for it.

I made it 0/0/25/30/15 with reflect on block, shield mastery or merciless hammer depending on which you like better (if you choose hammer, reflect on block isn’t very useful, so you could switch that for something else), leg specialist (for hammer cripple. Again, you could change this out if you don’t use hammer), lung capacity, vigorous shouts, and warrior’s sprint.

I made my armor Soldier’s armor (Power/Toughness/Vitality) with soldier runes (for condition removal on all shouts). Trinkets are all cleric’s, with a soldier’s backpiece and a cleric’s jewel in it. Weapons are also all cleric weapons, and you can mix and match which weapons you want (hammer, mace, shield, warhorn, sword are the popular choices). I run the three low-cooldown shouts, healing signet, and warbanner for my utilities.

While I haven’t exactly optimized this build at all, I sure as hell am hard to kill with it. I saw heals up to 2000 on myself with each shout (~1200-1500 usually, I think) and healing signet heals for ~250 per tick. HP gets to ~27k and toughness is ~3200. I didn’t really pay attention to my strength, but it’s not exactly great with this build. However, you can take on a lot of things and live without any trouble at all. In WvW, it’s quite enjoyable to go into a group of 5 people alone and swing around a hammer and play with them while not dying. I’ll keep my analogy to myself as it’s not exactly the most polite of analogies, but it’s enormous fun.

As a wise person once posted in a comment on a video that I saw once on the internet, “Health is the biggest troll ever”. I quite agree with this. Just stand there and watch someone unload everything on you and heal it all back up and knock them down for kicks. You won’t kill anyone very easily with the damage output of this build, but they’ll kill you even less easily.

Furey.6734:

Shadowscamp.8065:

Raific.4652:

Furey.6734:

As a commander of DB I normally choose to attack DH the first placed server during the match. However, tonight we pushed NSP first simply because we are getting annoyed of the double teaming. I will continue to do the same every night till it stops. You will notice the proof of this by the widening gap between DB and NSP. So your strategy is not working. Either way, DB has stood their ground on their own. We do not need to double team on another server to win or get where we are.

I love paranoid people and good conspiracies! Someone said the following on our TS the other day and I thought it was hysterical: “They think we are coordinating perfect attacks with other servers when we can’t even coordinate attacks with our own!” I believe you give us too much credit. :p

Each server will always think they are the victim. I guess it is how the gaming world is. If “you” win, it is skill. If “they” win, there is some other reason that victory was stolen from ya.

Please do continue to attack us because we will be attacking you… and DH. Don’t take it personal, its all for fun.

I agree with this.

However, I don’t think people think you’re actually coordinating the “double team”. I’m pretty sure no one on this thread is under the delusion that anyone in this tier is trying hard enough to actually get coordinated attacks cross-servers. In reality, there are many reasons for both 1st place and 3rd place to try and take down whoever’s in 2nd place. For those in 1st place, it’s to get even more of a lead over whoever’s the biggest threat, in this case 2nd place. For those in 3rd place, it’s to try and overtake 2nd place to become a contender. Being in the middle of a 3-way fight is usually a hard place to be in.

Either way, it’s a mechanic of a 3-way fight for those in 2nd place to be attacked from both sides more often than 1st attacks 3rd or vice versa. There are just more reasons for both 1st and 3rd to do that than attack each other.

I never said anything about the attacks being co-ordinated, and I know there isn’t. I have played on EB during DH prime time and our server has witnessed that DH and NSP left each other alone the whole time aside from a few camp swaps. Both servers focused on DB alone until DB wiped out. Then instead of moving on to attack each other to gain points, we are spawn camped. This would happen for at least 4-6 hours. Is that normal? I have never seen this happen to this extent from any other match. Would this be fun if this happened to you? Does our NA primetime deserve to be treated like this just because of what happens on the nights?

DH, you are playing the match as you should be. You are going for first and you are beating down the next contender. That makes perfect sense. However, NSP’s logic is a bit flawed. How does beating down the 2nd place server bring them closer to 1st place? Don’t forget that there is no DB night shift to save the day on Friday because the match ends before they come on.

Like I said before, DB does not need any other servers to get to where they are at. If we win or lose we did it on our own. We dont want to jump up a tier weak because our advancement isn’t justified. We will just get clobbered back down.

PS: Shadowscamp your logic is a bit flawed. DH and DB have been switching between first place. Yet the hammer always comes down on DB NA prime time.

Yes, we have been switching, only because we have night coverage and they don’t. The hammer comes down on NA prime time because we have a weaker prime time than they do. At that time, we’ll have been pushed into second because DH has better day coverage than we do. In that case, it still stands that we’ll be pushed into a double team.

I’m not gonna argue that NSP should or should not be trying to take us down. The fact is, it’s in their interest to fight their way past our score first, because by the time their numbers are on, we’re in second. If they take us down, they they have a better shot at getting first than if they let us overtake DH and then have to claw past DH’s already high score and then us.

That being said, I can’t argue that there may be people that take into account very highly the fact that we actually have night coverage and they don’t. In that case, it’s perfectly possible that they want to beat us as NA crew as much as possible to minimize the night crew’s effectiveness, which may be a bit unfair to us as NA crew, but there’s at least some logic to it. Like fellyn said, the fact that we have good night coverage is kind of huge in terms of a 24 hour match. We just lack as much NA coverage as the other two servers do. That’s not to say that our NA crew is something to be looked down on, but it’s a fact that we often have outmanned buff during the day on all maps.

Recently.1043:

blurps.2340:

This is actually a fine exsample of why Warriors are the most balanced and most finished class in this game. Building and spending adrenaline as fast as possible as well as trying to keep it full at all times are both perfectly valid options, what’s better for you and your build depends on your choices.

Just the way it’s supposed to be.

I kind of gotta disagree. At least for PvE, most of the times its not worth it to use you’re adren if you have heightened focus/berserker’s power. Burst skills are more useful in PvP where the additional effects matter (stun on hammer/mace and snare on sword) The gs and axe ones are basically never good, pve or pvp since the pure damage from the skill does not offset the subsequent loss in damage afterwards.

Gotta disagree with this a bit. I do agree that with a GS, you probably should never use the burst skill, since the damage is quite low. However, high damage burst skills like Eviscerate and Kill Shot have their own uses in PvP, mostly as a finisher (as you said, you lose some damage afterwards, so it’s never a good idea to open with either skill). If you’re confident in the damage that you output with Eviscerate or Kill Shot, once they get to that threshold of health where you can either down them with one burst or get them quite low, then that burst skill is very useful to stop them in their tracks. Of course, you gotta actually land a kill shot for this to apply, but eviscerate damage isn’t anything to be sniffed at either, and it’s quicker to execute.

Alexander.4827:

Zietlogik.6208:

the Guardian’s signet gives an indifferent damage reduction (%10), whereas Dolyak gives 90 toughness (definitely NOT 10% damage reduction)…just like the signets he linked.

Read the wording. Dolyak signet says it reduces incoming damage, the same as signet of judgment, not that it raises toughness.

Shadowscamp.8065:

Well yes. I agree to that. But I thought the complaint was between SoJ and DS.

This is not a complaint if a developer came into this thread right now and said that the wording for the Doylak signet was off and should say “raises toughness” meaning that it is functioning correctly right now then that’s fine. I simply won’t use it. My question to developers is it the wording or the functionality that is incorrect? Either way it should be fixed.

Why is that not a complaint? You’re disputing the “raises toughness” and “reduces incoming damage” wording. There’s nothing wrong with complaining about that difference. If you think it’s not worded right, or you think it should be changed, then it’s a complaint, and there’s not really anything wrong with that.

And on the subject, raising toughness does technically reduce incoming damage. SoJ just does it better. If want the tooltip to be more specific, then that’s fine. Otherwise, I still think that a Stability active is so much better than a Retaliation/Weakness active. Whether or not a warrior has a better option for stability (balanced stance) is another subject, but still. I don’t think the two signets can really be compared, since one’s strength is in its passive and one is in its active.

Edit: Reading again, I think this may have been off topic. My bad.

Raific.4652:

Furey.6734:

As a commander of DB I normally choose to attack DH the first placed server during the match. However, tonight we pushed NSP first simply because we are getting annoyed of the double teaming. I will continue to do the same every night till it stops. You will notice the proof of this by the widening gap between DB and NSP. So your strategy is not working. Either way, DB has stood their ground on their own. We do not need to double team on another server to win or get where we are.

I love paranoid people and good conspiracies! Someone said the following on our TS the other day and I thought it was hysterical: “They think we are coordinating perfect attacks with other servers when we can’t even coordinate attacks with our own!” I believe you give us too much credit. :p

Each server will always think they are the victim. I guess it is how the gaming world is. If “you” win, it is skill. If “they” win, there is some other reason that victory was stolen from ya.

Please do continue to attack us because we will be attacking you… and DH. Don’t take it personal, its all for fun.

I agree with this.

However, I don’t think people think you’re actually coordinating the “double team”. I’m pretty sure no one on this thread is under the delusion that anyone in this tier is trying hard enough to actually get coordinated attacks cross-servers. In reality, there are many reasons for both 1st place and 3rd place to try and take down whoever’s in 2nd place. For those in 1st place, it’s to get even more of a lead over whoever’s the biggest threat, in this case 2nd place. For those in 3rd place, it’s to try and overtake 2nd place to become a contender. Being in the middle of a 3-way fight is usually a hard place to be in.

Either way, it’s a mechanic of a 3-way fight for those in 2nd place to be attacked from both sides more often than 1st attacks 3rd or vice versa. There are just more reasons for both 1st and 3rd to do that than attack each other.

Doctor Orderly MD PhD DDS.7625:

I suppose what I’m saying is…

Shadowscamp.8065:

Also, the invulnerability is only for ~1 seconds upon getting up. Time your fear right and he’ll get affected by it. Invulnerability is not the issue here.

…This is incorrect. if you 1v1 warrior ditto and he downs you and some seconds (not too few) later you down him, you win: you get a guaranteed stomp after using vengeance asap. I would assume the same goes for warrior vs necro / engineer / ranger / guardian.

Well yes, I wasn’t disputing the fact that you can stomp after vengeancing. I was saying that invulnerability isn’t exactly the Vengeance mechanic. No other class can rally and fight normally for 15 seconds. This is true. However, all I said in that quote is that that it’s still possible to affect a warrior with control effects once the rally invulnerability wears off. I don’t have a timer on it, no, but if you’re any distance away from the warrior once he pops vengeance, the invulnerability will wear off by the time he gets to you. And yes, I’ve both been the one to vengeance as well been on the receiving end.

Neandramathal.9536:

Shadowscamp.8065:

SoJ’s active seems by far inferior to that of Dolyak Signet, though. Stability is such a powerful boon. Yes, Dolyak Signet’s passive is definitely not as good as that of SoJ, but really, I’d choose to activate stability over retaliation and weakness any day. Might as well just leave SoJ on passive.

Whilst this is true, if you want stability Balanced Stance is far superior to Dolyak Signet.

Well yes. I agree to that. But I thought the complaint was between SoJ and DS.

Wait, why do I have to do some testing? I’m aware that you have invulnerability when you Vengeance. What I said is invulnerability is not a Vengeance mechanic, rather a rally mechanic, where Vengeance causes you to rally.

SoJ’s active seems by far inferior to that of Dolyak Signet, though. Stability is such a powerful boon. Yes, Dolyak Signet’s passive is definitely not as good as that of SoJ, but really, I’d choose to activate stability over retaliation and weakness any day. Might as well just leave SoJ on passive.

Teabaker.9524:

Warriors have the strongest downed state in the game. Sadly, they are under preforming pretty hard in PvP, so it doesn’t change much.

But if warriors get buffed, they should/will probably get nerfed in the downed state.

I wouldn’t say that. I think they have a 4-5 second timer on one of the strongest downed skills in the game (traited of course, or else it’s essentially a suicide run, which can’t be considered “strong”). A mesmer also has one of the strongest down 1 skills (confusion spam) and one of the highest damaging 3 skills as well.

The first question probably isn’t the best question to ask, since I’m pretty sure most people who’ve played extensively in either have probably killed one of every class at least once. Or, maybe it should be “which classes do you have the least trouble with?” since if you’ve spent any significant amount of time in either PvP type, if you haven’t killed one particular class, that should also be covered under the second question.

Anyway, I seem to have the easiest time with rangers, engineers, elementalists, and necromancers. This comes with a bit of a caveat, since I actually haven’t met many engineers in WvW who want to try and 1v1 me, preferring to kite me around. Necromancers are a bit more difficult to fight because of condition spams, but since I run 3 condition removals, it’s not as hard to deal with. Rangers are probably the easiest fight for me. I also haven’t lost to an elementalist yet, but I have definitely not been able to catch more than a few D/D elementalists when they want to run. I also haven’t lost a 1v1 against another warrior, but in all honesty, I haven’t had many opportunities to 1v1 another warrior. I stun break out of any bull rush + HB combo immediately out of habit by now, so I haven’t exactly lost there, but once again, I haven’t been able to catch a bunch of them if they want to run with GS 3 and 5.

I have the most trouble with specific guardians, because depending on if I come up against a good healing build, a lot of the time it becomes hard to take down their health since I’m not exactly a burst build while they steadily take down my health. Mesmers are also sometimes hard to deal with because of the sheer amount of clones they can output and the amount of control and evasion they’re given, though much less so now, since I’ve fought a lot of them and played one, so I know many of the tricks they have, which is a lot of their power. I have trouble occasionally with thieves only if they are a constant stealth build. In that case, if they’re smart, they’ll jump around to where I’m not and just run in and out and wear down my health while I can’t hit them. I have no issues with backstab thieves probably because I run a shield, so I just block their initial burst, and then turn on them. Again, though, it’s sometimes hard to catch a lot of them if they choose to run.

BUILD:
The build I run in WvW is 20/30/0/0/20 (Berserker’s Power, Axe Mastery, Rending Strikes, Crack Shot, Last Chance, Warrior’s Sprint, and Sweet Revenge) with Power/Toughness/Vitality armor, Berserker trinkets, and a Berserker pack piece. As far as skills go, I use Mending, Bull’s Rush, “Fear Me!”, “Shake it Off!”, and Signet of Rage. I run Lyssa runes in my armor for complete condition removal and all boons for 5 seconds on my elite (which includes stability, which is awesome).

My weapons are Axe/Shield/Rifle, with the axe and rifle being berserker stats and the shield being knight’s stats. The axe and rifle have sigils of rage and my shield has a sigil of battle in it.

I suppose the major complaint I have about this build is the lack of mobility, but if I can land a good bull’s rush, I can usually stick to my target with some cripples and swiftness.

TL;DR:
Usually easy: Engineers, Rangers, Elementalists, Necromancers.
Occasionally difficult: Guardians, Mesmers, Thieves
Build/weapons above.

You’re invulnerable for ~1 seconds because of rally. You don’t “get invulnerability”. It’s only the rally mechanic that every character gets upon being downed or rallied.

Rofl. Just kite the warrior around. Yes, rocks do damage, but if you pop your survivability skills when you down him, there’s no way he’ll get you down before he pops vengeance. Once he does that, run around and wait for vengeance to wear out.

From a downed state, warriors have a fairly useless 2. In a bigger fight, you’ll only stop one person and then you’re finished by the others. In a 1v1, you must time the hammer just right or your opponent will have ample time to get up and finish you before you can vengeance. You can pop stability or something to ignore the hammer as well.

Also, the invulnerability is only for ~1 seconds upon getting up. Time your fear right and he’ll get affected by it. Invulnerability is not the issue here.

When a warrior gets downed, don’t let him down you. Downed players should not be downing other players unless the fight was very even, and in that case, you shouldn’t feel that “cheated”. There’s a good chance a warrior would kill you in an even down fight anyway, because rocks do a lot of damage.

A few other classes also have fairly powerful downed skills. Take a mesmer, for example. If you give them time to pop their 3, the phantasm does a lot of damage, and you’ll easily get downed. Pop stability when stomping. It’s extremely powerful. In any case, a warrior will not have enough time to pop vengeance if you’re efficient about stomping them, and if you were down low enough to be downed immediately after you downed them, then he would have beaten you in a down fight anyway, just like a mesmer or a guardian would.

In any case, if you’re up, then you should never be afraid of a warrior on vengeance. It’s only the people that aren’t efficent about stomping and then just dawdle around their downed body that have an issue.

I’m kind of iffy about replying to any thread like this, ‘cause it kinda seems a bit like I’m pandering for WvW members to me, but I do have to give a shout out to Dragonbrand just because I enjoy WvW so much. I joined WvW a little late in Dragonbrand’s WvW history, so I didn’t really experience the whole guild exodus or anything. I experienced being on the bottom for many matchups in a row, which probably resulted in a lot more people leaving for the winning server in the matchup. My friend that invited me to GW2 actually transferred to SoS the week after we got stomped by them.

It’s only been the past month or so that our matchups have been more even. I say that a bit loosely because we just got utterly destroyed by Ehmry Bay in our matchup with EBay and HoD a week or two ago, but we held our own against Maguuma for two weeks (we won one then we lost one, and Maguuma moved up a tier). The thing is, we have a strong Asian presence for our tier. the issue is, we definitely have a weak Euro presence and a persistent but still-a-bit-weaker-than-our-tier NA presence. We tend to recapture plenty of things during the late night EST, then capture maps overnight because we have a few Taiwan guilds that play overnight.

That being said, our NA presence is… Well, to me, hilarious. Most of our commanders aren’t overly concerned with our win, more the current fight and what’s best at the moment, and an odd amount of joking around occurs between everyone. Of course, we have our share of people that get frustrated when we lose stuff during NA prime time, but for the most part, our NA crew is lively and poke fun at each other. I very much enjoy it, even when we’re losing everything in our BL. We don’t really have any really big WvW guilds during the day. We have a few WvW focused guilds, definitely, but none of them are nearly as big as they could be. They certainly can’t make a full zerg by themselves.

The thing is, most of the regular WvW players that are still playing in DB are here to stay. I’ve been playing with the same group of players for weeks because we just enjoy what we do. Sometimes we’re completely boned, sometimes we’re on the bigger side, but we always enjoy the fight. I can’t speak for everyone, of course, but our group of regulars definitely is there for the fighting. I love it, and I’m sure they love it too. We like to win, but we’re also tenacious and light-hearted in losing, and we’re kind of bouncing around in tier 5.

Anyway, do what you and your guild feels is right, but I wouldn’t feel right not saying something about a group of players I’m so fond of.

Einlanzer.1627:

Shadowscamp.8065:

Rifle bleeds are slightly lackluster, mainly because the autoattack chain is a little slow. That coupled with the fact that nothing else on the rifle does condition damage means that condition damage gear is slightly wasted if you’re using a rifle.

If you want a condition build, try sword/shield/longbow or sword/sword/longbow with condition traits. Swords are the warrior’s bleed weapon (you can stack a lot with flurry and impale is non-removable, I think) and longbow does some good burning damage. Otherwise, if you want to run a rifle and another weapon other than a mainhand sword, then I think you should probably forego condition damage stats and go for more power/prec/critdmg with some toughness/vitality somewhere in there. Sigils of Earth don’t really make up for a weapon set that is not focused around conditions.

God if you think the warrior’s rifle is lackluster, you should try a Pistol thief. There’s something wrong with the ranged weapons in this game.

Oh God no. I love the warrior rifle. I just meant that the bleed on rifle 1 is lackluster. Everything else is great, just the bleeding shot is out of place.

xD

I guess the point of my posts is that I think you’re losing out on a bit of damage by overstatting precision and not having enough power in your build.

I think one of the reasons people say that the warrior can’t do conditions quite as well as some other classes is because of Necromancers. Necros have so many skills that have to do with conditions, and they can change boons into conditions and transferring conditions and other stuff like that, whereas warriors can only stack bleeds and occasionally set people on fire. Mesmers also have confusion and stuff, which is an incredibly powerful condition.

I suppose you have a few condition things with your Asura racials, but I think it was said somewhere that racials were designed to be a bit weaker than normal skills so that one race would not be dominant in terms of a class due to its racial skill. I would definitely not go without Fear Me as part of my build, just ‘cause it’s so useful. Again, I’m not really good with conditions, since it’s kind of hard to tell how much damage you’re doing as it ticks.

If you’re trying to do a hybrid of damage and condition damage, I’d suggest not sacrificing power for it. Also, as far as critical chance goes, I think the noticeable threshold of diminishing returns for critical hits is about 55%, so sacrificing a bit of precision won’t hurt that much as you’re going to want to do base damage as a hybrid in the first place.

Other than that, I can’t tell you much more.

I run 20/30/0/0/20, with soldier armor and berserker jewels. I hit 1500-2000 criticals with a zerker axe and 800-900 criticals with a zerker rifle on normal Orr mobs. A full adrenaline bar killshot also hits for base 7000-8000 with a critical hit and volley hits for around 4000-5000 on normal Orr mobs depending on how many crits I get in the chain. Keep in mind these numbers vary a bit depending on my adrenaline level because of Berserker’s Power. I can’t give you DPS numbers, so that’s the best I got.

Speccing as much toughness as you do is not really an issue. It’s more toughness than I have, as I run Soldier’s armor and Berserker’s jewels.

Personally, condition damage seems a bit lackluster on a warrior, though I have never tried to fully spec into it. I’ve heard on the forums that condition damage can be done better with another class, but I’m pretty sure that condition damage is viable on a warrior. If you really want to use condition damage, try a mix of Rampager’s gear and Knight’s gear, maybe full Knight’s armor and Rampager jewels (or vice versa since you already have the knight’s jewels. Knight’s armor can be used in more builds, however, but that’s just me). Rampager’s gear is Power/Precision/Condition damage and you have Knight’s accessories. Either that or Rampager’s gear and Carrion (Power/Vitality/Condition Damage) gear for complete condition damage.

Unfortunately, there is not a set of Power/Toughness/Condition damage gear out there currently, and I would always recommend toughness over vitality, but unless you go full glass condition damage with rampager’s gear, Carrion’s probably your next best bet.

Of course, you could also use your set of armor with Condition Damage/Precision/Toughness, but I never like to be without Power in any build, but that may be just me. I think the issue is that you’re not focused enough into a spec. What I said about the weapon choice I think still holds true. Any pure warrior condition spec (I think) runs a sword and a longbow, just because those two are kind of the only condition focused weapons for the warrior right now.

Also, maintaining bleeds isn’t “inferior”, per se, but talk around the forums seems to be that other classes can do it better, and if you’re in a big fight against a boss, bleeds will cap at 25 anyway, so if you have a lot bleeders in a group, your damage will fall off due to the cap.

TL;DR
Your build currently seems a bit unfocused. I don’t think the full toughness is the issue with your damage. Precision is a stat that’s meant to boost your DPS through crits, but without power, those crits won’t do that much damage in the first place. What’s left, then, is condition damage, but you aren’t running full condition damage gear either. Sacrificing precision is fine if you go condition damage as crits won’t be your main source of damage. Try one or the other. I think bleed spec is perfectly fine, but it has to be more focused in order to notice a difference.

If someone else more experienced with a bleed spec wants to correct anything I said, that’s fine. I haven’t tried much with bleeds as of yet.

Lol. It’s a comparison question, not a how to play question.

I run 20/30/0/0/20 with Soldier armor + Runes of Lyssa, Berserker jewelery + ruby jewels and a Berserker back piece (stuck with a green one ‘cause I don’t want to pay 5 gold for a rare one and I’m too lazy to do that many Fractals atm).

I run axe/shield/rifle (axe/rifle are zerk stats with sigils of rage, shield is knight’s with sigil of battle) in WvW which, of course, gives me a lot of different numbers, but if I run the same weapon set in Orr, I do ~1500 crits on axe auto chain hits (I think. I’m just going off of memory here) and ~800 /900 crits with rifle autoattacks? Maybe. I’ll test this a bit when I get back from class. My stats with this setup are ~3000 attack, ~2500 armor, ~20k hp, 48% base crit chance, and 71% crit damage.

Edit:
Did some testing, axe auto chain does ~1500-2000 crits and rifle is around what I said before on normal trash Orr mobs. I still have no DPS calculations, and will not be doing any ‘cause I’m lazy.

Rifle bleeds are slightly lackluster, mainly because the autoattack chain is a little slow. That coupled with the fact that nothing else on the rifle does condition damage means that condition damage gear is slightly wasted if you’re using a rifle.

If you want a condition build, try sword/shield/longbow or sword/sword/longbow with condition traits. Swords are the warrior’s bleed weapon (you can stack a lot with flurry and impale is non-removable, I think) and longbow does some good burning damage. Otherwise, if you want to run a rifle and another weapon other than a mainhand sword, then I think you should probably forego condition damage stats and go for more power/prec/critdmg with some toughness/vitality somewhere in there. Sigils of Earth don’t really make up for a weapon set that is not focused around conditions.

I run a warrior mainly in WvW, and I find myself enjoying myself immensely running headlong at the front of the pack into a fight and being aggressive as possible to put pressure on my opponents. I do plenty of damage and can survive for a while being chased by 10 people. 2v1 is no problem most of the time because the second I jump in and start whacking people, they get scared and blow most of their escapes right off the bat. I’m very survivable in a big fight and I put pressure on people with my damage output. With a rifle, too, I can put pressure on people from far away with heavy damage from volley and the ranged cripple, and even half-health people with killshot (seeing as it’s much harder to notice the killshot animation in a big brawl), and that ranged pressure is a huge plus from the guardian’s lack thereof.

Of course, as Braxxus said, there are definitely better choices for pure damage and utility. The mesmer is probably the most useful of all classes in WvW and a thief would probably do more damage. A staff elementalist or a ranger are better at taking out siege on top of walls. A guard can do a lot with wards and shields and jump in a big group and probably survive a bit better through their heals and a D/D elementalist has probably the best dive in and out of a big fight with heavy AOE damage and accompanying survivability with their mist form and stability.

That being said, I do agree. If you don’t REALLY enjoy the warrior playstyle, then you may not be able to accept the warrior’s shortcomings in group utility (especially with the recent nerf of shout heals). However, I enjoy the brawler playstyle immensely. Your playstyle, of course, depends heavily on your choice of weapons. A GS warrior will be running out of fights more often than I do as an axe/shield warrior and can’t hold/push the line as well. A hammer warrior pushes well, but does not output as much damage in a big fight. I have not seen a good sword warrior in a fight yet, so I can’t comment on that.

Try it out. You may love it, or you may hate it. All I can tell you is that a warrior is not a class that’s heavily biased into one role or another. Support is viable, damage is viable, survivability is viable, CC is viable. It all depends on how you like to play.

Your build is actually quite survivable. It’s farther into the survivability area than most warriors go. Personally, I would switch the tactics traits to discipline traits because Fast Hands is so good, but that’s just me. Also, for your skills, I’d switch FGJ for Fear Me, which works defensively in fractals very well, as FM goes through Defiant.

Part of your deaths may be because of your groups, but keep in mind that no class in this game is meant to be able to survive a whole lot of damage. Dungeons are meant to be difficult and you’re not supposed to be able to stand there and take hits. Guardians have wards and shields to prevent damage, not to take it.

I run less survivability than you, and I don’t die very often in Fractals, but part of that is also because I run mostly with groups with one or two of my friends that use TeamSpeak, which makes it much easier to coordinate what you need to do in Fractals.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Lazy-Kai-s-guide-to-PvE/first#post852161

This thread maybe? I’m only at level 40 on my mesmer, so I can’t give the best advice.

One thing I would do, though, is get Blink and Decoy as your utilities. They can get you out of some sticky situations easily in PvE (as well as PvP).

Also, greatsword seems to be a fairly good leveling tool, with an AOE knockback and the zerker. Either run that or a staff, which gives you the shield on the 4, the away-from-enemy blink on the 2, and an AOE field on the 5. Also try running mainhand sword as a secondary, because the number 2 gives you a few seconds of Distortion, which can be used both defensively and offensively. Offhand could be pistol (for more damage), or focus, depending on which you like better. Focus is nice for getting around, and pistol 5 is useful for interrupts and the duelist.

Also, kite. Lots of kiting.

Nergrom.7592:

How would axe/mace + rifle perform?

You lack the defense and mobility of the x/shield offset, but you get something to murder kiters with and to bait melee to get into axe range

I run axe/shield and rifle in WvW. With Warrior’s Sprint I lose a bit of chasing power when I switch to rifle, but I also get a long ranged cripple. You can get that on them, and then land a mace 5 or bait some other dodges. So to answer your question, it performs very well. I never like to be without a ranged weapon, and I like Rifle much more than I do Longbow, so.

If I were you, I’d switch out Spiked Armor for Last Stand. Stability is very powerful, especially in PvP. I’d also personally switch out Mighty Defenses for Warrior’s Sprint or Inspiring Shouts since you’re going shouty anyway, but if you like the might stacks, that’s fine. Otherwise, what armor are you using?

Well, see. That’s the point. One is more offensive, one is more defensive. A shield is meant to defend things, after all. I prefer running with shield in WvW because sometimes I need that invulnerability to get into an objective. Mace is certainly a more offensive weapon with a ranged knockdown and vuln attack, but sometimes you just need a shield.

Well, as far as I know, the 24k hits are only as a result of the bugged piercing trait, which compounded Berserker’s Power damage as the shots pierced. That was fixed in the last patch. However, you can still get very high numbers like he did by going full glass cannon. They didn’t nerf Kill Shot damage in any way, so potentially you could still get the same numbers he was getting on single targets.

It didn’t exactly get buffed. The third part of the chain was made “more responsive”, which I think meant it could be canceled quicker.

Well, that all depends on what you mean by “boring” and what’s “boring” to you. I can tell you right now that warrior skills aren’t that “interesting”. They’re not flashy nor do they have very interesting effects. They do things that you think a warrior would do. Hack, slash, knock things around, and generally screw things up. You can control the fight with a hammer, you can just go full on hacking away with an axe, and you leap about right in the middle of things.

Do I find that fun? Yes, absolutely. I have incredible amounts of fun on my warrior. I can’t do anything really flashy, make colored explosions, or make wacky noises, but I can fight. I can stop someone from using a big move with a bull’s rush or a shield smack and I can generally lay pain on them. In short, a warrior does basically what you’d think a warrior does. They get in and fight. A warrior can be very reactive and quick depending on what kind of warrior you play.

If you’re asking for fun, that’s very dependent on you. If you want to make flashy explosions of light or make cool noises, maybe a mesmer or a guardian would be better for you. But personally, I’ve had the most fun on a warrior. Try it out. Especially in PvP. You’ll have the most fun there with a warrior in my opinion, but it still all depends on your preference.

Another note: Fear does not count as “CC” to the Defiant buff.

To each server, it always seems that both opposing sides are “teaming up”. That’s the nature of a 3-way fight. It’s always a 2v1 from a server’s point of view. In reality, though, coordination between teams rarely happens. Certainly it could possibly be that three individuals from two different servers became buddies and partied up, but it will NEVER be the case that two servers actively work together to take down a third unless both teams are losing severely and decide to leave each other alone and focus on the big threat. I’ve seen so many complaints about being “double teamed”, but in WvWvW, it’s ALWAYS a “double team”. Each server works for their own end.

Again, while it may be that two people from one server and one from another decided to keep you out of a jumping puzzle, think about what you would think if the tag above the EBay character was a DB tag, or if the two DB players were on EBay? It’s no different. At the end of the day, every player is a person, and people can make friends regardless of server.

Defiant is kind of two buffs. The first buff generates 3 (on bosses I’ve been aware of this at least) stacks of the second kind of “Defiant”. The first buff does not actually make the boss immune to CC, but the second buff does. Which means in bosses that I’ve seen, 1 in every 4 CC’s works. I’m pretty sure the 3 stack rule doesn’t apply to every single boss, and some just are immune period (WvW tower/keep defenders for example), but that’s what I’ve seen. Check to see which buff the boss has on. It’ll show up under their health bar.

Try 20/30/0/0/20 if you want to do more damage than a tankier build like shouts or banners, but if you get power/toughness/vitality armor, you’ll be a heck of a lot tankier than a glass cannon even with berserker jewels.

20 in Strength gets you Bersker’s Power and the axe crit trait, 30 in Arms gets you Rending Strikes, piercing rifle (if you want to go rifle, I guess), and Last Chance, which is completely fantastic in PvP, though I suppose a bit unnecessary for PvE, so you could switch those 10 points out for something else if you like. The 20 points in Discipline are, in my opinion, kind of indispensable. Tier 1 trait would be Warrior’s Sprint (which I love, but that’s just my opinion), and tier 2 would be Sweet Vengeance, which I guess if you don’t die a whole lot in dungeons isn’t that necessary, but in PvP, it makes Vengeance one of the best downed skills available. The 15 point minor trait is what I’d trait into discipline for mainly, though. The reduced cooldown (though kinda bugged) is really nice, since I like to swap a lot.

I use that, as well as axe/sheild/rifle.

The very fact that we’re “playing a game” means that there’s no need to be dicks about it. A “legitimate strategy” would be valid if there weren’t people who actually enjoy fighting against all odds. DB has been up against big numbers for quite a few weeks. Last week we were on top, but that doesn’t mean that due to our exodus of players to bigger servers hasn’t left its mark on us. Most of us left enjoy the fight because that’s what we do.

On that note, trying to “crush the morale” will not really work in a game where there are barely any repercussions for dying. It’s a valid strategy when you lose friends to war. In fact, all of war seems to be a big fight to get rid of the other side’s morale. No “war” has been fought where the losing side does not surrender eventually, because no one enjoys actually dying (there may be a select few, but they’re probably dead by now). Genocide exists, yes. But in terms of war, no. No side will be willing to fight until every one of them is actually dead.

In this case, then, the mentality of “spawn camping” is one merely borne out of the desire to feel powerful. The fact that people can respawn and come back immediately, but a group can “camp” them and shut them down immediately is not a “legitimate strategy”. In fact, you should realize that the mere fact that people can come back immediately very close by, while your spawn is on the other side of the map, is a huge tactical disadvantage to the campers. If there were even a semblance of similar numbers, the camping side would begin to flag and lose numbers as more and more drop and have to run all the way back, whereas the camped team has no end of reinforcements as they fall.

Spawn camping cannot last as a “legitimate strategy” for the mere fact of proximity. Why would you put yourself in the way of a potentially endless stream of reinforcements? Oh, right. This is a game. Repercussions for dying are minimal and free. Then keep in mind that this works for both sides. Yet, there are people who do leave when facing overwhelming odds, but the reasons when being spawn camped is usually “what kitten these guys are”. Does any group in their right mind want to build that reputation? Yes, we will defend ethics, because at the end of the day, no one is actually going to die. There will be repercussions on people’s opinions of one side or another. If one side behaved badly, that stain will be put on their reputation in the minds of everyone else participating.

Spawn camping is not a “legitimate strategy”. Please do not defend it. In any situation outside of a game, it would be the worst tactical situation that a leader could put their team in.

In other news, good job getting our BL back during the evening, DB, and good job on getting part of it back, HoD. Don’t ever leave just because you’re outnumbered. The fun is the fighting, after all.

Jinks.2057:

Shadowscamp.8065:

Jinks.2057:

Not impressed with solo players on either DB or HoD.

Maybe we’ll see better stock next week

Rofl.

Really?

Get off your high horse. No one needs to see you pad yourself.

WvW is big. You’re only going to see what you want to see. Keep your insulting attitude out of here and discuss the match, not how good you think you are.

Meanwhile, both HoD and DB are getting back a little footing right now. More than we’ve had all weekend, at least. I’m hoping it’ll carry over to the weekdays so it becomes a bit more of an even match.

Good luck to both of us!

High horse no

Simple observation yes

Im far from the greatest either way

Saying “no” and “yes” does not change the fact that you just insulted every member of both losing servers. That implies that you consider yourself better than anyone on either server, which is the root of the expression “high horse”. Merely stating the contrary does not make what you say true and harmless, it in fact makes it even more rude and haughty, considering you don’t even think you’re doing anything wrong.

I also don’t care if you say you’re “far from the greatest”. Get off your high horse once again. I don’t for a second think that you’re “the greatest”. In fact, I’m assuming you’re VERY far from “the greatest”. The fact is that you just insinuated that you were better than anyone on both losing servers, and that’s something that’s not needed in a discussion thread.

Get it out of here, or don’t post at all.

Jinks.2057:

Not impressed with solo players on either DB or HoD.

Maybe we’ll see better stock next week

Rofl.

Really?

Get off your high horse. No one needs to see you pad yourself.

WvW is big. You’re only going to see what you want to see. Keep your insulting attitude out of here and discuss the match, not how good you think you are.

Meanwhile, both HoD and DB are getting back a little footing right now. More than we’ve had all weekend, at least. I’m hoping it’ll carry over to the weekdays so it becomes a bit more of an even match.

Good luck to both of us!

It’s not like we’re finding it particularly easy right now. :P

Edit: This last stand at Godslore is pretty hilarious though.

Edit: Once again, this post is rendered unnecessary.

@ Jinks: Currently, the score is:
EBay: 13,955
Dragonbrand: 902
Henge of Denravi: 780

…A mod plays for Dragonbrand?

Please. Keep your accusations out of this thread. The rest of us already asked you to. And especially accusing a mod, what do you hope to get out of it?

Keep this thread CIVIL and accusation-free.

On behalf of all of us. As well as for your forum privileges.

Edit: Also, @CRrabbit.

That’s quite insulting to all the people who WvW in DB now.
Like, really insulting.

We have plenty of good WvW’ers and tacticians. Yes, a lot of people left, but that doesn’t mean that you have to insult everyone who stayed.

Either way, it looks like EBay has a hell of a lot of people on at prime time. It’ll be interesting to see if they have this kind of coverage ALL the time, or if it’s just this group. They’re upgrading as well as building siege in our borderlands at all points, so it’s very hard to retake points without overwhelming force. I’m interested to see whether our larger-than-normal night crew will be able to claw back some points or not.

Either way, EBay currently seems VERY organized in capping and guarding the other two borderlands. I think a lot of the invaders we see are from the same guilds, so that’s not surprising. It’s certainly disheartening, but I hope that once the weekend is over, it’ll become less of a blowout.

I was testing it a bit last night, and it seemed to me that canceling triple chop was quicker when you pressed 1 again.

Not quite sure what exactly they did, but that’s just what it seemed like to me.

I’ve enjoyed fighting both NS and SF when we have our weak times. Even during our weaker-than-our-night-crew hours, we still have plenty of good fights. As I said before, I didn’t want to have this advantage of a night crew versus servers who don’t really have one. However, please don’t discount our day crew who also works very hard to protect what we have when SF and NSP have their stronger hours, even if you are frustrated at not having a strong presence at night.

Edit: In fact, we fought for SM and got it just last night, and that was completely our NA crew.

While the sentiment is understandable, keep in mind that siege can easily be set up by the JP portals. I ported through once and was immediately met with 3 arrow carts and ballistae, and there’s no way I could have fought back either, because the ledges are too far away to hit the siege weapons. So yes, my only option was to go down and hide under a cliff and wait for them to fight me or run away. I couldn’t choose, and it wasn’t a mesmer issue. It was a griefer issue.

I don’t play sPvP, but you could try Axe/Shield or Axe/Mace. Still does heavy damage but you get a bit of utility if you like. Works out great for me in WvW, but again, I have no experience in sPvP.

Well. I run Pow/Tough/Vit armor and Pow/Prec/Crit Dmg jewelery and I specced 20/30/0/0/20. I run berserker/knight’s weapons depending on which set I use. With this setup I get 48% base crit, 3000 power, 2500 armor, and 20k hp. I do plenty of damage and I survive longer than a lot of other people. I think this setup is getting a lot out of warrior stats, though it may not be “optimal”.

Are you sure you specced 30 into Arms? You should definitely getting a higher crit% with that and berserker’s armor.

Also, there’s a trait in the strength line (I think) called Berserker’s Power, which gives extra % damage depending on which level of adrenaline you’re at. Most offensive warrior builds run it. It’s very powerful, and since the GS burst is pretty useless anyway, you’d be doing more damage just keeping your adrenaline up.

As Thirsty said, Some warriors run full Knight’s gear. Pow/Prec/Tough is quite nice, even if you do lose some crit damage. Toughness scales better and will make you take less damage overall, and you get a high crit chance. You could try knight’s armor and berserker trinkets or vice versa.

I mainly play WvW, so your results may vary depending, but if you still don’t like any of the offensive specs (if you don’t know what traits to get, I can point you in some directions), you can run one of the shout heal builds that are so popular on the forums nowadays. You’ll need to run your traits and armor completely differently, though.

Kabukijo.6053:

Wow thats alot of crying …. without berserker . we will have what ???? a spamming aoe.. like ranger or ele… or eng … or theif with short bow .. nope… has anyone looked at our traits and how useless they are … berserker is all we have to get anything on a wall with out it being block los even tho we can see half of ur body and its still blocked … so .. 20 sec cool down .. and berserker dies in 2 hits ……… 2 hits .. hes dead … most the time i get 2 up on one person …. meaning he ran around for 16 secs and never 2 shotted first one .. that hit for what 2 to 3 k .. grew up and lose the noob before coming to forums oh and cool down on berserker att is 5-7 secs so much complaining whem most of the trouble i have is that the whole wall is coated in rain of fire and arrows and siege

most of are traits sound like this … do damage on interupt .. cause condition on interupt … gain a boon on interupt … useless crap … last time i checked no one in the history of gw2 so far died on interupt

Periods.

Periods everywhere.

You’ll need toughness somewhere if you run survivability at all. Vitality is not enough, and is mainly to survive heavy conditions.

I mean, some people run glass cannon in dungeons and are fine, and it seems like you’re doing that just with a bit less crit% and a bit of vitality.

Also, if you have berserker’s power (strength trait), you’ll do more damage -not- spamming the burst skill on the GS.

Try it out. It seems like it’s basically a glass cannon build that can survive two extra hits.