Guild Wars 2

Does the trait Combined Training (+5% dual skill damage) apply to conditions done by dual skills too, like Death Blossom bleeds, or just the direct damage component? The wiki implies direct damage only, anyone know for sure?

I’d vote BG. World first Tequatl kill, on the way to NA Season 1 champ, a class act even/especially when steamrolling lower tier servers (like the ~8wks TC spent in T2 with BG last spring).

Even though BG is taking some chaff for now for recruiting for Season 1, they’re one of the few servers that rose steadily through the ranks to T1 with hard work and perseverence, rather than a single instant big influx of guilds from an imploding server that shot them up to T1. Only JQ has a better record in that respect, having started in T1 and never fallen out of it.

JQ would be a close second, simply by virtue of never having been out of T1 in the history of the game. It would be interesting to see how they’d handle it if they did get dropped to T2, though I don’t foresee that ever happening now that server transfers are so expensive.

style.6173:

I still find it odd that the most OP item in the game is untouched. The issue with warriors is not their stun or their damage, but the amount of their passive heal. The signet needs a major change. It’s crazy that someone can run a zerker set and still get 400 hp/sec.

Instead the healing signet needs to have its base heal reduced and increase the tie to healing powering. If someone wants to run zerker or soldier’s, it should heal for less than today. If someone wants to run all clerics, it should heal for more than today.

Nah, Warriors who go Healing Signet effectively give up an active heal. The Signet’s active is pathetic and should never be used. That’s an interesting strategic tradeoff.

If you’re fighting one, burst through their passive heal. If that’s a problem then maybe Warrior evasion and/or stunlocking needs to be nerfed instead, to make bursting them more viable. Remove Evade from Whirlwind, or Endurance regen traits, or something along those lines. But Signet is right where it should be, imho.

First, regardless what anyone thinks of any of the actual changes, this is a great post. Excellent advance notice, excellent explanations of your reasoning, thanks for taking the time to communicate this.

A few thoughts on the four classes I play:

Warrior

You’re significantly nerfing the damage of the WvW 0/10/30/0/30 Unsuspecting Foe Hammer build variants, but Blind was already an easy, effective, nearly spammable hard counter to Earthshaker.

Not only does Blind negate both the CC and damage to the caster from Earthshaker, but to all 5 targets Earthshaker would have hit. That’s an arguably OP counter, especially with the current Necro meta, a single Blind-traited VoJ-spamming Guardian, or a couple OH Pistol Thieves in your group.

The counterbalance to Blind’s power till now was the risk of getting hit with an Earthshaker – high burst damage + strong CC. Now Earthshaker just does strong CC, no more high burst damage. ES is significantly weakened, but its counter, Blind, remains just as strong and effective, hence even moreso relative to Earthshaker.

So, any chance you could rebalance Blind relative to Earthshaker, say by adding a (hard-to-get) trait or something that makes Earthshaker immune to Blinds? For example:

• Defense X – Merciless Hammer: moved to Grandmaster tier, added immunity to Blind (cd 10s).

Eg, hammer abilities would be immune to Blind once every 10s, but you have to be careful which ability you spend the immunity on. If you have an Earthshaker cd coming up in 3s, but accidentally use your Blind immunity on an autoattack, then it won’t be available for Earthshaker for another 10s cd.

That provides the ability to negate Blind, but it would require conscientious play and active management of abilities to use it effectively, as well as requiring 30pts in Defense (meaning you would definitely have to give up either Unsuspecting Foe or Burst Mastery to get it).

Guardian

I love the proposed Guardian changes, but only b/c they’ll make Guardians even more OP in PvE, which I’m not sure is what you want.

The current Guardian high-end PvE meta of Zerker/Scholar/Sword is already one of, if it not the, highest sustained DPS metas in the game. And now you’re significantly buffing that DPS meta?

Really unnecessary imho, at least for PvE. Maybe this is necessary for sPvP, which is cool, but if so those buffs should probably only apply in sPvP then.

But honestly if these changes go through, I’ll be lovin it, they’re great for guardians. Just want to throw out there it might not be great for PvE balance.

Mesmer

Looking good all around. Much needed condition removal? Check. Finally getting Illusionist’s Celerity tuned just right? Check.

IC was OP as a Minor Adept trait, and too expensive as a Minor Grandmaster trait. Should be just right as a Minor Master trait.

Thief

Clearly an attempt to nerf D/P permastealth, but I think the 33% base Initiative regen rate increase is a worthy tradeoff. I suspect players will still find a way to make permastealth work for sneaking into Keeps/Towers in WvW and hiding there, they just won’t have any spare initiative to fight with. That is as it should be – either permastealth or fight, but not both. /fingers crossed that’s how it actually turns out.

Like it. In general GW2 has made me a fan of shorter-duration but more consequential boons/conditions, and this definitely fits that model better. +1.

Does it crit on all 5 targets it hits or none at all? Or can it crit on one target but not others in the same attack?

Pretty sure it’s the latter, but just need to confirm, and this info isn’t on the wiki or in search results, and can’t log in to the game to check for a while.

Learn it, live it, love it.

Zietlogik.6208:

…do you only use 1 weapon set?

I am mainly a PvP/WvW oriented player…and never once do I look at a build and plan on using only 1 weapon. Weapon swaps are what will separate you from bad players, learn to use them, and then you won’t have the dilemma in the first place…

GS + Hammer works perfectly for me in WvW.

But if you want to be exclusive to PvE, then GS + LB is probably a better option since most champs and world-bosses cannot be effectively CCed by the hammer.

/second

PS – great vid, <3 Hammer/GS.

Another option is to leave “quick casting” disabled, and double-tap F1 (or whatever you want to cast).

That’s almost as fast as quick cast, but still gives you the targeting reticle to see where Earthshaker is going to land. Best of both worlds.

Julie Yann.5379:

That’s why I said with some modifications. At the moment I have been going with 30-0-0-30-10 full PTV with Hoelbrak runes. If I can squeeze more hurt by stacking modifiers I will.

Try moving those 10pts in Disc to Defense IV “Cull the Weak” +5% dmg to Weakened foes. Teq has weakness up constantly. Something like this.

If you can maintain <50% health without getting downed, Desperate Power + Mango Pie might be an option, just swap the Scholar Runes to something else if you’re using them.

5x Rune of Infiltration could also be interesting for the <50% burn phase: +10% vs target with <50% health

Or 6x Rune of the Thief if you can stand beside Teq, which is pretty close to where the zerg stacks. +5% dmg when behind or beside the target.

For WvW, get your crit chance from Traits and Fury (Unsuspecting Foe, Heightened Focus, For Great Justice!/Elite Signet), then stack your gear with Power, Crit Damage, Toughness, Vitality.

Tsezar.6950:

earthshaker does crit 100% if you already have 50% crit chance.. because the stun comes before the dmg.. dont know how it is with scullcrack and shield bash

Right, this is exactly how I thought it worked, and seemed to from my experience, but the wiki note is saying the opposite, that the stun must come from another source first.

I’d correct the wiki, but haven’t played a UF build lately, and can’t check to make sure atm.

All WvW/sPvP, I don’t think anyone uses hammer in Dungeons/FotM. Hammer/GS WvW build works well for Scarlet Invasions too.

http://intothemists.com/guides/812-anas_tarcis_tpvp_warrior_meta
http://intothemists.com/guides/406-matales_hammer_maceshield_spvp_build
http://intothemists.com/guides/405-phaetons_anchor_warrior_build_cc_cleave
http://intothemists.com/guides/397-guild_comp_frontline_zerg_warrior
http://intothemists.com/guides/334-wvw_hammer_train_warrior
http://intothemists.com/guides/214-wvw_keep_defensezerg_disruptor_warrior
http://intothemists.com/guides/26-allpurpose_hammerjammer

I was just looking at the wiki page for Unsuspecting Foe and it says it does not apply to Shield Bash, Skull Crack, or Earthshaker unless the target is already stunned. Is that a recent nerf or has it always been that way?

The note was added 27 July 2013, but it’s not clear from the talk page if this was tested.

Great update, thanks!

Only one request:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Further down the Road

• We’re reworking the combat log to make it more easily used. This will involve help from a ton of departments, but it will help every player in the game. By providing you better combat information, you’ll be able to better make tweaks to your build, and you’ll be able to better adjust your play to deal with difficult encounters.

Please consider making the combat log exportable to some standardized data format like JSON, so we can start building websites for combat log analysis. I think that would be a lot of fun, for both the PvE and PvP/WvW theorycrafters.

Still no DPS meter so the game would remain basically the same – skill and animation based, play the game not the UI. But would give us a chance to go back later and analyze and evaluate our performance and figure out how to improve it.

Just a request to make the gem store available via a website or mobile app or something outside the game. Would be nice to be able to peruse it (and make impulse purchases) from anywhere – work, traveling, etc – and have that stuff waiting in my in-game mail when I get home.

Keep in mind that with level 80 builds, especially 30/x/x/x/30, you won’t have the key traits till level 60 at the earliest. Here’s another option that’s less reliant on grandmaster traits, has more constant regen which will help in sticky situations and overpulls.

Vena.8436:

The zerg doesn’t care about the +1(3) stomp because they never stomp to begin with, so you’re basically telling the zerg to ignore the nodes, reap massive benefits for ignoring them, and then win more.

Zergs generally don’t stomp till the fight is decided, but after that they sure as heck do, or if they see an opportunity to end a fight or revive their own downed with a Timewarp/Quickness stomp. It happens.

Vena.8436:

The stomp bonus is relevant especially for small scale combat where stomping is key; to give said players a penalty for fighting over said buff which only they truly reap benefits from (while perplexedly rewarding zergers ignoring the buff) seems completely self-defeating and pointless.

From what I’ve observed, weaker/lower pop servers are more likely to resort to small scale havoc groups and roamers, and they’re exactly the ones who would benefit a great deal from a stat buff – give the smaller side higher stats so that the stronger/more populated side will have work harder to kill them. If the latter can still succeed at it, they reap the reward of increased PPT from it.

The weaker side is better enabled to take on a stronger side, which actually keeps the game fun for both sides, while still maintaining incentive (in the form of PPT) for the stronger side.

Vena.8436:

The entire design (the nodes decapping themselves if left unattended, the need to maintain control for the buff, no reward for capping, etc) is on-paper intended to reward small teams and punish just zerging around in circles.

The thing is, with the 2m warning, I’m afraid zergs will just map hop to the BL they’re about to lose the Bloodlust buff on and wipe the small team trying to ninja it. 2m is plenty of time for that.

It’s only if another zerg is ninja’ing the buff that the map hopping zerg might be thwarted. So I don’t see how small teams are going to be very effective at this, as long as there’s one map hopping zerg around to jump in and wipe them. Which means the incentive is still there to zerg, and zergs will just shift some or all of their focus to fighting over the buff more than towers and keeps.

It would be interesting if zergs switched completely to attacking and defending the mid points for the buff, while leaving camp/tower/keep assaults up to havoc squads and roamers.

Malachi.1836:

Simple and obvious solution. Make the stat buff go to the lower pop servers and increase the point gain for kills by holding all three buffs in zones. Give the incentive to have the buff and fight for it. But give the sides with ultimately the lower population (remember this game isn’t skill based. Its population) a stat buff to be more competitive with lesser numbers.

Yes, exactly! PPT gain to the server with the Bloodlust buff, stat buffs to the server/s without. That would balance incentives of all sides very well, mitigate the population imbalance problem, and keep things interesting even for dominant servers against weaker/lower pop ones.

Reslinal.2359:

The thing that really puzzles me is why ANET wants to alienate a segment of the WvW population at no apparent gain.

Agreed, been scratching my head on that one too. In roughly even matchups, like NA T1, it makes BL tactics and strats a lot more complex and interesting.

But we’re getting fewer and fewer roughly equal matchups, first with the randomization system and soon with the WvW Leagues.

Imbalanced matchups, which we’re getting more of, are going to suck even more with Bloodlust.

I think a better system would have been to do something like:

Bloodlust:

1. The server that has Bloodlust buff gets 1 PPT per stack of BL per stomp (up to 3 stacks, one per BL).

2. The server without Bloodlust gets +50 to all stats, per stack of Bloodlust differential. Eg Red server has 0 Bloodlust stacks, Blue has 1 stack, Green has 2 stacks, so Red gets +100 to all stats, Blue gets +50, Green gets +0.

That would give dominating servers a PPT reward for dominating, but also an increased challenge the more they are dominating – eg, they have to work harder to keep their PPT buff.

And it would give dominated servers more hope and reason to come out and fight against superior odds than they currently have.

That’s good for everyone in that keeps the WvW player base up, while still rewarding winning servers and keeping things challenging and interesting for all sides.

ParaldaWind.4523:

However, I also feel like it hurts open field fighting outside of GvG. Most of the active WvW guilds do raids and focus primarily on open field combat. This new buff really hurts a large segment of the WvW population by destroying any sense of fairness these fights might’ve had.

I actually think what will happen with open field fighting is, if one side has Bloodlust, the other zerg/s will prioritize attacking their capture points and try to steal the buff – they have no choice.

It will literally turn into a “King of the Mountain” type of PvP, where the defending zerg bunkers on their three cap points and tries to preserve their stat buff at all costs, while the other two zergs try to knock them off.

Havoc groups might try to ninja towers and keeps while the big battle rages around the center points.

Overall the open-field tactics could get a lot more interesting, but evenly-matched GvG, whether organized, or impromptu open field battles, could be a thing of the past.

You’re missing the forest for the trees, mate. There are other MMORPG’s in the works, those were just the first two examples off the top of my head.

The main point here, is ANet has a chance to lock in a decidedly enthusiastic community, reducing the chance they’ll lose those players to the next truly innovative MMORPG’s.

GW2 broke the mold in a way no other mmorpg has since WoW, but now that they’ve shown it can be done and how, several upcoming ones seem to have taken those lessons to heart and are moving way beyond the WoW mold, both in PvE and PvP design.

Maybe none will outdo GW2, or maybe they all will, or maybe somewhere in between, no way to know. But from a business perspective, pure risk management suggests that if you see a clear way to lock in even a segment of your customer base, especially a rabidly enthusiastic segment, before your competitors can even launch, do it.

1. Snowballing: The Bloodlust cross-map stat buff makes dominant servers even more dominant, and is difficult for the underdog/s to neutralize/steal due to the required mechanic of decap -> neutralize -> cap -> hold 2m (with 2m warning appearing on enemy screens).

2. GvG: Whenever Bloodlust is active on any one BL it applies its staff buff across all maps, making GvG impossible across all maps.

Snowballing

The only situation where Bloodlust is interesting is in roughly equal matchups where there can be constant flipping of the buff. But not all matchups are roughly equal, especially with the new match randomization system in place.

Prior to Bloodlust, there is still fun to be had when you’re getting dominated simply by forgetting PPT and going out and fighting hard against larger numbers and/or better skill/experience, knowing at least that equal stat points more effectively allocated and better team organization and coordination can still win against larger forces. You get better, get some bragging rights, and still have fun.

But vs a dominant server with Bloodlust across all three BL’s giving every enemy player on every map up to +150 to all stats, only the truly hardcore challenge seekers on the dominated servers will remain. Others will increasingly say, “what’s the point”, and sit the week out. This isn’t ideal for building the WvW player base.

GvG

GvG’ers are some of the game’s most rabid fans. I have no idea what portion of the overall player base they compose, probably a very small one, but their outsized enthusiasm for and commitment to the game is not something to take lightly.

They’ve created a flourishing Youtube scene, and their own league and ladder. Something similar has also happened with the sPvP Esports community. It’s clear that the combat mechanics in GW2 are supremely fun, both in small scale sPvP and large scale GvG, enough to inspire these folks to stick with the game and build up the PvP aspects of it despite some lingering post-launch shortcomings.

Missed Opportunities?

ANet has a chance to lock them in as long-term players, even when other promising upcoming MMORPG’s launch. One of the lessons in the tech startup scene of late is, when in your search for a business model you stumble upon something that inspires such customer dedication and loyalty, run with it, support it, cultivate it, develop it – even if it wasn’t part of your original plan. Pivot. Don’t ignore and alienate it.

I’m concerned the new Bloodlust changes could accomplish the latter, rather than former, without really gaining anything notable for the cost. I hope not, and won’t know for sure till playing it, but make this post in the hopes it at least gets on ANet’s radar, in case the worst case does play out, they’ll be willing to consider pivoting again and changing it.

I was a Prot warrior for most of WoW, and started with Warrior when GW2 launched but wasn’t feeling it for some reason. So I experimented with other classes, and got a Mesmer, Thief, and Guardian to 80 first.

Then I discovered the joys of Earthshaker and got my Warrior to 80 and have been addicted ever since. Fast movement speed + movement abilities + high burst damage (both single target and AoE) = fun fun fun!

coronaas.4362:

If my warrior was ever given a pistol I feel like he would rather hit people with it then fire such a puny weapon

Or eat it for a snack.

Asura if you like Tron 1, 2

You also get to be a little ankle biter, but your bites really hurt bad and are hard to see. Deadly combination.

And flying through the air, like with Earthshaker or Savage Leap, feels like being Yoda.

Intothemists recently added a guide section, there are a lot of good warrior guides there you should get up to speed on. Also guildwars2guru has good up to date guides.

Hammer, Greatsword, and Longbow builds are all good for event farming – lots of AoE damage tagging. Pick one and spec around it.

I would suggest for the Scarlet Invasion events to go tanky and have stun breaks and stability, b/c those mobs do a lot of damage and some groups of them can chain stun you. A WvW build is good in those cases.

Earthshaker has a 0.5 second cast time, and could be affected by a prior ability’s aftercast. Those are compounded with big zerg skill lag, but then so is every other skill.

And yeah, it’s another skill that doesn’t handle elevation well. Guardian GS Leap of Faith is another, especially on big characters like Norn. Fwiw I found rerolling Asura fixed it.

Skull Cracker 3.0 (that’s an sPvP build but works equally well in WvW roaming)

Titan’s WvW Roaming/Small Group Builds

Fyi, this thread is (was) 6 months old.

You can’t really compare to other classes. We have other traits that are OP compared to their counterparts in other classes. And frankly, imho, our OP traits are better than their OP traits. Be happy about that

One armor set, has to be useful in both dungeons and WvW?

Hoelbrak or Divinity. Hoelbrak is a lot cheaper.

That said, you really should collect two sets of armor, one for dungeons (full Berserker with either Scholar, Divnity, or Ruby Orbs) and one for WvW (Soldiers, with either Hoelbrak, Melandru, or Soldier).

Bhima.9518:

Great build that looks to be a great alternative to my 0/0/20/20/30. I’m starting to see the benefit of going Melandru/condi lowering food. Basically, you just don’t need to take any condi removal (besides the trait) nor do you actively need to worry about it that much. I have been running a shout build with solidiers and warhorn for condi removal, but it means you have to react defensively too often and be caught in sword/warhorn. This leaves you focusing on just smashing stuff.

Shout/Soldier Runes builds are strong when your guild frontline is 5-10 warriors and guardians all running that build. The cross-healing and condition removal is really strong.

But I find if you’re running in a disorganized pug zerg or solo/small group roaming, the Melandru version is better. More selfish, but when you can’t rely on group condition removal as much, it’s a nice option to have.

I carry both sets with me and swap armor and retrait as the situation dictates.

I play almost the exact same WvW build except geared exclusively for big zerg battles, love it.

Warrior’s Sprint and Mobile Strikes for survivability through mobility. No Zerker pieces, only Cavalier, Valkyrie, or Soldier. Heightened Focus + For Great Justice! to compensate for the lost Precision.

But the playstyle is the same. Good survivability, strong Earthshakers on 7.75 cd. Unsuspecting Foe + Merciless Hammer + Heightened Focus + Fury + Sigil of Impact (or in your case DoE + Burst Mastery) + gear optimized for Power and Crit Damage = some hard hitting Earthshakers, Skull Crackers, and Shield Bashes.

Defektive.7283:

kurtosis.9526:

I’ll withold judgement on this build till warriors start making it into the top tier tPvP team comps with this build. If they’re not there yet, that means the counters to it are still stronger and it’s not OP.

/wave

Nice, how’s it playing out up there? Changing the meta? OP? I spend most of my time in WvW so am not fully tuned into the tPvP scene, but consider it the benchmark for all things PvP.

jul.7602:

kurtosis.9526:

jul.7602:

You should be stacking health and armor in a 10:1 ratio.

This is interesting, first time I’ve heard it. What’s the reasoning and/or theorycrafting for that?

I think this would interest you, http://www.strikeforceguild.com/forum/post/last/m/7813886/viewthread/4773531-maximizing-survivability-through-ehp

I used to use another website that had more precise calculations, but for some reason I think that was deleted. This should be a very good read though.

Great writeup, thank you.

Fwiw the only build calc I know of that includes EHP is gw2buildcraft.com but it’s out of date and not being updated anymore. However, the Intothemists.com guys have told me that’s on their todo list, so hopefully they get it soon. It’s a simple calculation, at least until you try to include healing.

jul.7602:

You should be stacking health and armor in a 10:1 ratio.

This is interesting, first time I’ve heard it. What’s the reasoning and/or theorycrafting for that?

I’ll withold judgement on this build till warriors start making it into the top tier tPvP team comps with this build. If they’re not there yet, that means the counters to it are still stronger and it’s not OP.

Steelo.4597:

i run this as commander and also as roamer, it features longbow which is a must have in my opinion in wvw, since its the only warrior weapon that can put ranged pressure on a wall.

Probably not the best reason for a commander to carry a Longbow, leave wall clearing to your zerg.

Mobility (GS/Sword/Hammer) = survival = #1 priority for a commander.

My favorite, assuming you have a frontline of heavies all running Shouts/Soldier Runes: 0/10/30/30/0 Guild Comp Frontline Warrior. 27,000+ Health, 3200+ Armor (considered baseline in T1, fwiw), good team support, good mobility, good damage. Details in the guide.

I like the general idea of your Tank/DPS build, but with a few changes:

0/10/30/30/0 Guild Comp Frontline Hammer Warrior

Or a more selfish version for disorganized pug zergs and roaming:

0/10/30/0/30 Hammer Train Warrior

PS – Unsuspecting Foe + Merciless Hammer > all. Explanation in those links.

Same. The fun factor is just too hard to beat.

Try one of these instead:

0/10/30/30/0 (better solo or in disorganized/pug zergs)

0/10/30/0/30 (better in organized guild groups with all the frontline guards and wars running Shout/Soldier Rune builds)

Some notes:

1. You get the optimum amount of stat points with Ascended gear by getting pieces with Crit Damage on them – Berserker, Berserker/Valkyrie, Cavalier. If you have any desire to fight in large zerg battles, Cavalier is best.

2. Merciless Hammer + Unsuspecting Foe is an awesome combo in WvW. The way stunning abilities work (Earthshaker, Shield Bash, Skull Crack), is they apply the stun first, then get any buffs that proc against stunned opponents, then apply their damage.

So as long as the target doesn’t have Stability or Invuln, then Earthshaker gets +50% Crit Chance and +25% damage. Backbreaker gets +25% damage (it’s not a stun so no UF).

Just watch enemy buffs and when Stability drops, Earthshaker into them for 3500-4000 damage to up to 5 players each (with the 0/10/30/0/30 Hammer Train build).

3. For zerging, aim for 25,000 Health, 3200 Armor, 2 stun breaks, and 2 Stabilities (Dolyak Signet + Balanced Stance is good). Put everything else into Power, Crit Damage, and Precision (or get Precision from traits like Unsuspecting Foe and Heightened Focus and Fury).

4. You can switch either of those builds to a roaming 1v1 build just by swapping the Sword/Horn to Mace/Shield, then you’ll have a WvW version of the sPvP Skull Cracker 3.0 build.

Stomp is awesome in any kind of big WvW battles.

I love running Balanced Stance + Dolyak Signet + Stomp: 3x Stun breaks, 2x long duration Stability, 1x short duration Stability with AoE knockback.

Great combo for frontline Warrior. Combined with Mobile Strikes, Cleansing Ire, Dogged March, Lemongrass Poultry Soup, and Melandru Runes, I’m practically un-cc’able.

That said, I’m running a build now where I need For Great Justice! more than Stomp for Fury uptime and guaranteed Earthshaker crits, but I swap into Stomp whenever I can.

Asura. T3 Tron Armor.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Post-a-Screenshot-of-your-Guardian/page/17#post1885471

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/races/asura/Asura-Heavy-Armour-skins/2068820

While there are good reasons to consider race in choosing a warrior, none of them have anything to do with the racial abilities.

One of the biggest problems for Warriors is that a lot of our best attacks have big, slow tells and hence are easy to dodge/block/avoid/etc. This is especially true with all Hammer skills, Sword #3 Final Thrust, and Rifle burst.

Rolling a tiny Asura warrior helps a little in that respect – they appear faster due to the much smaller swing radius (even though they aren’t actually), and smaller is harder to see in some cases.

That said, Charr warriors are just awesome, Human and Norn show armor the best, maybe Sylvari too but not certain (haven’t heard any problems with them).

Viking Jorun.5413:

Oh. My. God. I should have remembered the temple armor "-.- I just sold all of my superior siege today to buy melandru runes for my GS burst set…

Tell me about it, hate it when something like that happens. If it makes you feel any better, at least you didn’t waste 50 laurels on the wrong Ascended pieces…

Cygnus.6903:

Again, good advice. I’ve already put together the gear set I want, which gives me 100% crit chance if fury is up and my target is stunned (so 30% base). All other slots go to cavalier. I do wish to have maximum crit damage, and with my set-up I will have 3200 attack, 30% base crit chance, 3k armor, base vit and 100% crit damage.

I sure would like cavalier armor to be available other then a lucky fractal drop… Just not a viable option to farm it.

I don’t slot vitality on my warrior, as i feel it is kind of a waste with such huge base HP. 19k HP (often 20 due to WvW bonusses) is enough for me, especially given our reasonable cleansing options.

I think I will wait till the next balance patch to see if they don’t decide to destroy warriors again due to all the QQing. If not, then I’ve made up my mind.

Thanks for the feedback!

Sounds good! You really only need to max Health too if you want to fight in big zerg battles, which it sounds like isn’t a priority for you, so focusing more on Precision is fine. Having a base of 30% Crit Chance instead of 9% means you don’t need Heightened Focus and can get Burst Mastery or something else there instead.

Assassin.7890:

Could you explain that in more detail? If I understood it the right way, one should boost crt DMG only on shoulder/gloves/boots OR on ascended trinkets?

No, both shoulders/gloves/boots AND ascended trinkets… AND everything else in that list should have Crit Damage on it.

Doesn’t matter if it’s Berserker, Valkyrie, or Cavalier, as long as it has the max possible Crit Damage (eg, not Celestial which only has partial Crit Damage).

Everything not on that list should have non-Crit Damage pieces, be it Soldiers, Knights, Sentinels, etc.

Cygnus.6903:

The idea behind it is that trinkets and gloves/boots/shoulders give you the highest return in crit damage compared to raw stats. For instance, if you get soldiers gloves, you get 24 toughness and vitality. If you change that to valkyrie, you get 24 vitality and 2% crit damage, effectively giving you 1% crit damage for every 12 toughness you lose.

Now look at your helmet for comparison. That gives you only 1% crit damage per 16 raw stat invested! You can maximize stat gain like this if you want to create a more balanced build.

Exactly. Here’s all the the theorycrafting on that I’ve bookmarked, for anyone who wants the details:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18q7oe/not_all_slots_are_created_equal_dos_and_donts_of/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18voh7/a_long_painful_analysis_of_effective_power/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/12dmi5/tip_stat_optimization_with_crit_damage/

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/pwr-vit-tough-vs-pwr-pre-critdmg/first#post1322140

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18xcr7/a_question_of_stat_optimization_power_precision/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/115mln/power_vs_precision_vs_critical_damage_what_do_we/