Guild Wars 2

If you’re running mostly PvE, then GS is probably your best bet for the highest damage. If you run 20/20/0/0/30 (I think), you’ll get both GS master traits in Strength and Arms, Berserker’s Power, Rending Strikes, Warrior’s Sprint, Mobile Strikes, and Sweet Revenge, so you get a combination of heavy damage as well as some utility. Don’t go for too many signets, though. At lower levels, they’re fine, but you’re sacrificing a lot of utility for boosted stats. Unless you’re okay with that, of course. It’s your choice.

racta.4250:

DB definitely has more players playing this week than before. Most likely because we are not getting stomped.

I have had queues to get into EB and sometimes DB borderlands for the first time in 3+ weeks.

I… Have not really noticed a difference.

I’m not saying we haven’t got more players playing.
But.
We definitely have our share of ghost town times, especially during Euro time. We have NA and Asian presence, but very limited Euro presence, which SF seems to have more of. It’s a little disheartening to come back from school to, but I’m definitely proud of our evening NA presence. It’s gotten much better.

No one can make you love.

Hah.

But in all honesty, it depends on what kind of fighting you like doing. Warrior is.. Reactive. You leap about hitting things, you dodge, you pressure people. If you see big moves, you block, you dodge, you CC them. If you see an opportunity and you have one of the bursty weapons, you take it. (Keep in mind, this is not GS playstyle)

That said, warrior skills aren’t the most “interesting”. You’re a warrior. You use your body, you jump, you whack things. You don’t really have flashy moves. If you like flashy, the warrior may not be for you. Try a guardian or a mesmer. I love the warrior for the aesthetic. I like taking out people by hacking at them with an axe. I like sitting in the middle of 20 people with a shield up. I like getting on one knee and taking out a target with a rifle. All of those things are SO much fun to me, but may not be to you. It all depends.

If you want builds for leveling up, you probably won’t find one very good one, since a lot of builds rely on Grandmaster traits (healing, last chance, etc). Healing signet is a must for leveling, but falls off later. You may want to try greatsword for leveling. It has the highest DPS in PvE if you trait into it, I think. But play with all the weapons. You may find a set you like more than all the rest. I switched my preferred set 3 times.

I was worried that we would have this advantage. Lol.

Well, Charr is popular for warriors basically because that’s what they do.

I made a human, though. I guess I’ve always preferred to make a “normal” character first before moving onto “for fun” characters. If we’re talking about racial utilities, though, I think either Asura or Sylvari have the most useful for a warrior: ranged CC (technobabble for Asura, grasping roots for Sylvari). Either way, though, I think it’s what you’d be happiest with. I’m happiest with a human warrior.

I was a bit afraid of this, since we usually keep ahead in points during the day (daytime NS pushes seem pretty big so far, though), which is our weakest time. Our nighttime presence is basically what kept us in the running in tier 5 last week. Daytime fighting is a lot of fun, though. I’m glad it’s not like the current tier 4 or 5 matchups at the moment.

I run with the set you have too, and I find that it’s a nice balance of damage and survivability in WvW, at least for me, and I play WvW basically whenever I can. Of course, I run with an axe and a shield, so the shield provides me with survivability when I’m running through a big zerg. Valkyrie + Knights isn’t a bad choice either. It would provide you with a bit more survivability, I think, but I’m not so sure it’s necessary in WvW. However, with a hammer, you may want to spec a little more tanky since you’re the guy who jumps in with a giant hammer and knocks people up rather than doing that much damage (not that hammer damage is anything to be snorted at).

Well, if you trait for warhorn, it’s certainly very nice. However, it’s harder to get out of a sticky situation (in my experience) with it. At least in WvW. You have the condition removal and the vigor, but with a shield you have 3 seconds of blocking everything. For me, that’s extremely useful for running into a tower or a keep when it’s being sieged. I lack a bit of mobility with the axe, it’s true, but I can’t stand the small damage I put out with a sword as I never like going condition damage and I can’t stand the lack of control with a greatsword. The reason I run 3 condition removals is mostly to compensate for my lack of running ability, as well as condition removal is great anyways. Of course, I could get another condition removal and swiftness with the warhorn, but for the block and single target stun, I’d always pick the shield. Try running with both. Again, I have no utility for my team with a shield since I don’t trait into reflecting projectiles, so you may find that a warhorn suits you better.

As far as hammer goes, it’s not my favorite weapon to play with, mainly because for me it plays a little slow. Don’t get me wrong, swinging a giant hammer (or in my case, a one-handed anchor, which is fantastic) and knocking things around is great fun, but for normal use, it just feels a little slow. You should try it yourself though, because that’s just my personal preference for speed over power aesthetically.

I run 20/30/0/0/20 with power/toughness/vitality armor with runes of Lyssa and berserker’s jewels. As far as weapons go, I run axe/shield and rifle. I never like to be without a ranged option. I love WvW, so I usually need it. I run with about.. 3000 power, 49% crit, 75%(?) crit damage, and 2500 armor. I REALLY like how it works for me. I do a fair amount of damage without falling very quickly. Shield block is quite useful, and shield bash is great for locking someone down. I also run Sigils of Rage on most of my weapons, and Sigil of Battle on the offhand. I’m not quite sure what the best offhand sigil option is, as I haven’t really tried most of them. Sigil of Rage, though. I LOVE quickness, and with “Last Chance” grandmaster trait in arms, I get quickness a LOT, without using frenzy. Makes me feel quite ferocious when it goes off.

With Mending, Bull’s Charge, “Fear Me!”, “Shake it Off”, and Signet of Rage, I have a two-condition removal, a single condition removal, and a full condition removal (SoR with Lyssa runes), as well as an aoe fear (for getting out of tough situations) and a gap closer.

Of course, in terms of group support, I’m a bit lacking. My only supportive shout is a single condition removal (I use it to get out of knockdowns), and I don’t have any of the support traits. I guess it’s just my style to be more of a loner as far as fighting goes. If you like Yojack’s build with the horn, I guess you prefer more support-y than I usually like to play, but that’s your preference. (I do, however, carry a warhorn around to get myself and groups of people around quicker, but I always switch back to shield before a fight).

Edit: In terms of my choice of rifle, I traited for piercing rifle shots and the reduced cooldowns. Without it, I would definitely say Longbow is more useful, but in group fights, I can lay down a lot of damage to more than one target. Killshot is also one of my favorite things to use and half-health some squishies during a siege.

…Why the aggression? Jeebus.

I switched out healing signet for mending (2 condition removal heal) so I can’t really say anything about that.

Personally, I love the rifle burst. That being said, I’m mostly a WvW warrior, so in most situations, most people don’t notice the broadcasted kneel and aim. So in siege situations, when someone (read: thief) gets overconfident and overextends, it’s my mission to killshot them at half health from on top of the wall. I wouldn’t like the self-daze at all, since I like the option to cancel and dodge if I need to.

The hammer is largely a control weapon, with a stun, a knockdown, a knockback, and a ranged cripple. However, hammer burst (with quickness/frenzy) is huge. It’s certainly not a sustained damage weapon, but amount of damage you can put out quickly if you pop frenzy is huge.

I hate longbow range. At one point I traited it and was much happier with it, but it seems to be quite a waste of trait points, since it’s not even a weapon specialization skill (reduced cooldowns, increased damage, etc.). Rifle, though, I really like. Especially traited with piercing and cooldowns. They really do need to make default longbow range 1200, though. The longbow was basically the sniper of its time, and you can’t really argue that a “warrior” is too weak to pull back the string farther.

saiyr.3071:

You guys paint the map red every morning though, so there’s that. Almost seems like your prime time isn’t even US prime time.

It ain’t. It’s the Oceanic/Asian guilds in the morning in the US.

Your weapon choices are a bit opposite. While Axe/Mace is generally an offensive-focused set, a hammer is usually a defensive weapon. That’s not to say that a hammer can’t be used to apply some insane burst damage, it’s just easier to chain CC and use it defensively like that.

The question is, do you want to focus on shout healing? You’re running a shout build, and I know you want to do some damage, but which do you prefer? That’s probably going to determine which weapon you trait for if you want to stick with those two sets.

Edit: Also, where are you going to be using this build the most? PvE? PvP? WvW?

By itself, vengeance is kind of just a last resort.

However, when traited, it becomes one of the best downed skills available. Say in PvP, you’re downed, but then you down the other person before they can stomp you. You, however, can vengeance and stomp them and rally. Be careful of mesmers and thieves, though. They can stall for time and teleport around until vengeance runs out and you die.

In PvE as well, if you get downed, if you can get up and kill any mob, you rally.

In essence, you get full access to all of your skills to kill something and rally instead of just throwing rocks. I love coming back with flames of vengeance and either give one last “screw you” to everyone around me in WvW, or just pummel my opponent to the ground and stomp them.

I’m speaking utility-wise. I’m not talking DPS.

And even in that sense, it’s still not that useful, since you hit multiple targets with your autoattack chain anyways. And the fury only lasts for 2 seconds.

Edit: I also never said it was “bad”, because that’s an opinion and is based on what you’re trying to do with your build. If you want DPS and only DPS, they by all means go dual axes. In my opinion, that’s not very “useful”, but it’s your prerogative to do it that way.

Oh, if you’re talking about general PvE, then CC usually ain’t that useful, at least in the open world. That’s why most people run GS, which has basically zero utility, but our traits make the damage extremely high.

However, in dungeons, which are designed to be quite difficult, CC is almost always necessary, or at least extremely useful. In CoF, for example, if you’re hugging the torches in path 1 while someone kills the gatekeeper, you will not be able to sustain the damage for the duration (usually) without some method of preventing damage. Shield has a 3 second block which is nice, or you could do an aoe knockdown with an offhand mace. In that case, you have a few seconds of reprieve to wait for cooldowns or heal up.

Boss fights are kind of a different story. Depending on how you’re built, most of the time you’ll want to stay away from the boss, using a rifle or a longbow. Staying in close is usually too dangerous.

Dual axes aren’t “bad”, per se. It just doesn’t give you a whole lot of utility. Utility as in CC/defense. In that sense, your only “CC” is your ranged cripple on the axe 3. Dual axes is basically only about damage.

Main hand mace and offhand axe isn’t a bad choice either. I feel like the autoattack chain does less damage due to the slow speed, but you get a block and a daze, both of which are quite useful. I feel, though, that the offhand axe 4 just isn’t that useful in general, even though whirling axes is quite nice.

Kita.7819:

Crippling is for the WEAK kitten Would Batman cripple an enemy? No! Why would he waste his time with something like that! Whats the purpose of crippling? to extend the distance between you and an enemy. Why the hell would you want to do something like that? What are you doing, running away? You know who also runs away? COWARDS. are you a coward? If so, get out of this sub-board, you are not welcome as a guardian. You should be ashamed of yourself kitten We are GUARDIANS. We throw ourselves at the enemy. If they run, we chase them down using our own strengths, not using some skill that hampers their own. This is what it means to have HONOR. There is no value in a fight where neither side is at their strongest. We are not thieves, we do not hide silently in the dark waiting for the right time to strike!

A great man once said “I’m the god kitten Batman.” What he meant was that though as simple as his strengths might be, he always proved to be victorious over those that maintained a clear difference in power. He did not scream “OP” when Clayface could stop his movement, nor did he complain on the forums when the Penguin started using these OHKO weapons called “guns.” No, he DEALT WITH IT. He did not need cheap gimmicks to win fights, he just needed his own strengths.

TL:DR: YOU’RE kittenING BATMAN. START ACTING LIKE HIM.

Oh dear.

….You just said that a guardian’s CC is avoidable.
Much like… Every other class’ CC.

Also, “the rest of scepter is a joke”.
Isn’t that more of a -you- problem then?

And your reasoning revolves around them getting away. Yet a guardian has, as we have pointed out, many gap closers.
Many.
You don’t blow those at the beginning of a fight. You use them when they’re running away.

Also, I’m aware that guardians have a traited chill. And.. You’re complaining that you don’t have CC. You’re telling me that if I “knew guardians like you do”, then I’d know that guardians have a chill. But isn’t that counterproductive to your argument? Of course, in my opinion, the “chill” effect is a little out of place, in regards to the fact that guardians literally set people on fire. They sneeze and they set people on fire. Regardless, it exists. So there’s another CC to add to your list.

Everything you’re saying just makes me think that you want easy mode.

Again. Waiting for an issue to pop up here.

Then call it a chill. And why exactly do you want a guardian who sets people on fire to be able to also apply a condition called a “chill”?

And in regards to snares:
Hammer.
Scepter.
Greatsword.

I agree with Dibrom. Guardian has SO many things going for it.
But you just want more.

Slows don’t exist. That’s what cripples are in for.

Guardians have plenty of snares.

Still don’t see the issue here.

Dual wielding axes doesn’t really give you a whole lot more damage. Whirling axe is nice, yes, but the 4 is fairly useless, and axe skills don’t give very much utility. Main hand axe does some pretty heavy damage anyway, but you can pair it with an offhand mace for a ranged knockdown and vulnerability on the 4. I run main hand axe and offhand shield and I have a lot of fun with it, but if you just want big damage, mace may be a slightly better choice.

The only three professions that have legitimate blinks are mesmers, thieves, and guardians. Mesmers cannot be pinned down. That’s a fact. Thieves are also VERY hard to pin down. However, every class has condition removal, and if you don’t run it, then you’re kind of screwed in many cases. If a warrior blows his gap closers on you, then he has a very hard time of escaping, depending on his weapon set.

However, all of these annoyances of condition removal and running also applies to other classes. If a warrior wants to run, he can (sometimes). If a thief wants to run, God knows he can. If a mesmer wants to run, you’ll NEVER catch them. A ranger can’t really run that well, I don’t think. A Necromancer is incredibly difficult to kill. A dagger/dagger elementalist has incredible mobility, but a staff elementalist is basically stuck there. A guardian prevents all your damage, but yes, guardians don’t really have a whole lot in terms of escapes. But you’re only looking at this from a guardian standpoint. From every other class, this is also true. The only really good chasing profession is a thief, because that’s what they do. If anyone wants to PURELY chase anyone who is ONLY running besides a thief, basically your only option is a ranger or a staff elementalist. This applies to ALL classes.

Edit: An Engineer is also incredibly good at kiting.

Thieves can spam skills. That’s their thing. That’s why they’re built around initiative, not cooldowns. Necromancers spam conditions ‘cause that’s their thing. Warriors have a few gap closers and good CC, but on fairly large cooldowns, but that’s also their thing. Rangers do ranged damage, ‘cause well, that’s also their thing. Engineers have MASSIVE control, but that’s also their thing. Mesmers have decent control, but also cannot be pinned down because that’s their thing.

I have nothing to say about elementalists.

Either way, you don’t need to close the gap to initiate the fight. You can also use only one of your skills to close the gap and then you have plenty more gap closers once they try to run away. You also have some decent (sometimes) control over them while you’re next to them. You’re arguing “yes, we have lots of gap closers”, but you -also- want to always be able to keep them from running from you so you don’t have to use them?

What’s going on here?

Hammer has a circle wall, a gap closer, a knockback, and a snare. A greatsword has a mobile AOE, an AOE snare and pull, albeit an unreliable one, and a gap closer. A sword has a blink, a scepter has a single target snare. A shield has an AOE knockback. A staff has a knockdown wall. You can pair all these things with projectile reflection/absorption. I’m not quite sure what the issue is. You can prevent ranged damage, you have four gap closers, two snares, one pull, and two walls. That paired with the guardian aesthetic of preventing damage is incredibly powerful already.

Edit: Guardians have SO many condition removals. SO many. And plenty of them are AOE for your allies as well. As well as healing and AOE healing.

Guardians have two blinks. One with 600 range and a 10 second cooldown (sword) and one with 1200 range with a 45 second cooldown. No, guardians do not have much CC relative to a warrior, but that’s class mechanics. Warrior is built to be great at CC. However, comparing a guardian to a thief, guardians have plenty of control. In fact, AOE control. I don’t see the need considering a guardian can close an 1800 range gap in an instant, which is even more powerful than the leaps or rushes that a warrior has mind you, and the guardian isn’t built to “chase” things.

For weapons, I would stick with a melee set and a ranged set. I prefer rifle, but longbow has a great burst skill for combos if you’re running a dungeon.

Then it gets a little tricky, I think. Do you want to run more support with shouts and warhorn? Or do you want to do some damage?

As far as armor goes, power/toughness/vitality is always a solid choice. I personally run pow/tough/vit armor and berserker jewels and that works nice for me because I prefer doing more damage, but for a more support-y character probably will never take berserker gear.

So.. What exactly do you want to do? Shout support? That seems like what you’re leaning towards right now.

So.. What exactly do you want to do? Shout support? That seems like what you’re leaning towards right now.Also, about 4b/c, my understanding of it is that if you check your greatsword, the stat bonus is about double what the same kind of bonus your sword gives. So if you equip dual swords, the stat bonus will end up being the same. The “weapon power” stat itself I think only applies to offhand skills, but the stat bonuses apply always. That being said, the shield doesn’t give any weapon power by itself, but gives you bonus defense, which is passive.
Don’t quote me on this, because this is mainly my speculation, but I think that’s how it works.

Glad you like it. Have fun thwarting things out for your wife’s virtual blood.

Generally, though, won’t the ranger be doing more damage by staying at range?
I had no idea that shields factored into it, but I think if she’s also damage, targets would prefer the one doing more damage, and traited as he is, he’s most likely doing less.

I dunno what the math on hate is, so I really have no idea. I thought it may be more useful to be able to control more mobs.

I had actually forgotten about that reflecting projectiles while blocking trait. That seems very useful for boss fights, and since most bosses are immune to knockdowns, the shield with that trait would definitely be a better idea.

In grouped normal mob fights, however, I think I’d still suggest an offhand mace for the AOE, and like you said, it shouldn’t change a whole lot of traits if you shift the shield cooldown to the mace cooldown trait.

If you want to keep control of mobs, I think maybe instead of a shield you could go with offhand mace. With that, if you trait number VII in the Defense line, you’ll get a line knockdown with 1200 range on a 20 second cooldown. I suggest that because even you can block attacks with the shield, there’s no real “aggro” skill in this game, to prevent the rise of the “trinity”, so you can’t exactly keep the mobs off of her that well if they decide to aggro her (trust me, I know the feeling of wanting to keep the aggro off of someone). The stun on the shield is also single target, which is useful elsewhere, but not quite so much in a large mob situation, so for overall control, I’d choose that. Of course, the hammer is infinitely better at control, but it seems you’d like to keep your weapon choices.

Of course, if you’re adamant on the shield (or even if you’re willing to switch weapons), shouts are also a fairly useful thing to have to support with. With 30 points in Tactics, you can use major trait XII, and your shouts will heal. Combine that with VIII to recharge shouts faster, you have some good support. “Fear Me!” is also a good AOE control skill in difficult situations. “Shake it Off!” is also a great stunbreaker if you guys get immobilized or stunned or something.
I’d also recommend at least 15 points in Discipline, as faster weapon swapping (if it stops being bugged) is kind of extremely great on a warrior.

As for gear, Power/Toughness/Vitality gear is always a solid choice, but if you want to go shouts, maybe look for Power/Toughness/Healing Power (Cleric’s) to increase the effectiveness of your healing shouts.

It seems most of what I’m saying is about support, but I can’t think of a whole lot else you can do if you want to be a “brick wall”. In this game, a lot of “tanking” has been removed, in favor of avoiding damage. A guardian has a lot more ways of doing this than we do, with projectile reflection, condition removal, and general support. A warrior has more CC in general, but with your weapon choice, it’s kind of limited. The sword burst skill and cripple are useful CC’s, but not the most effective (in my opinion). As I said, a hammer has much better control. AOE knockdown, cripple, stun, more knockdown, and lots and lots of AOE damage. A greatsword is sadly very limited on CC, but it is a very effective PvE weapon. A shield is more defensive for YOU only, so the damage mitigation for your wife would be minimal, unless of course you are quick enough to get in front of her and block projectiles. That, however, seems like a bit of a challenge.

That’s my favorite thing to do in WvW as well. Personally, I’d choose a warrior (I already did) for that role, because whether you’re running in a small group or running alone, the mobility is so much better. In a group, you can speed up the whole group with a warhorn, or if you’re running solo, you have signet of rage on a low cooldown (even lower if traited), a 10% passive speed boost trait, warhorn, greatsword, and sword to get around.

Now with weapon choice, your chase potential really varies. I’m not gonna get into it ‘cause I don’t know how interested you are in that, but some weapons are fantastic at sticking to your enemies and some are not as good. But that’s up to you. Either way, for a “roaming” role, I’d definitely choose a warrior.