Guild Wars 2

Come say hi on the TC forums, might have better luck there.

Yes, very dependent on PvE/PvP/WvW, need to specify which.

Great, in case it helps, warrior leveling build.

I play both as mains, primarily in WvW. Some of the main differences:

Warrior has more build versatility, but Guardian is stronger at protecting and healing your teammates and self-healing.

They are the only two heavy armor classes in the game, but Warrior is heavily offensive oriented, Guardian is heavily defensive oriented.

You can make a Warrior defensive-oriented too with build and gear, but it can never be as strong defensively as a full bunker spec’d Guardian.

Likewise, you can make a Guardian offensive-oriented too with build and gear, but it can never be as powerful as fully offensive-spec’d Warrior.

Warrior has significantly better ranged options, Guardian has the strongest potential “sustain” (self healing) in the game.

Whichever you choose, if you hope to do any PvP, I strongly suggest picking Asura for the race. Both Guardian and Warrior suffer the same problem of many of their best attacks being very easy to anticipate, see the “tell”, and avoid, even moreso on the larger races. Tiny Asura’s smaller radius weapon swings and movements help with that.

This might help too: GW2 vs WoW Combat Mechanics.

Carry both, swap them depending on the situation.

Think you might need iWave to push enemies off cliffs? GS.

Think you might need more survival? Staff.

Think you’ll be able to hide behind your frontline and pelt the enemy from a distance? GS.

Going solo roaming? Staff.

Attacking a keep/tower and need to spawn some iZerkers on the ramparts to help clear siege? GS.

Etc. etc. Both are good, never leave home, er, spawn, without both in your bags.

http://osicat.weebly.com/

Second this, their base cd is fine but they really need a trait that provides the option of 20% cd reduction, probably in the Defense or Discipline Master Tier.

I play both Guardian and Warrior, and in WvW at least Guardian Shouts are superior to any utilities a Warrior can slot. A 20% cd reduction still wouldn’t make Stances the equivalent of Guardian Shouts, but would get them close enough.

Here’s a good answer I bookmarked recently – how to level post June 2013 balance patch.

Your 30/0/0/10/30 build is fine for Orr, just swap the Discipline Adept Trait to Warrior’s Sprint and the Discipline Master Trait to Mobile Strikes. Then when you’re map traveling use GS + S/WH + Bull’s Charge + Signet of Rage.

That gives you 2x Swiftnesses, and 5 movement abilities, all 5 of which break immobilize thanks to Mobile Strikes, you’ll be zipping and zooming around Orr completely unstoppable, un-cc’able.

Run Mending + Shake It Off! + Signet of Stamina if you need more condition removal.

When you reach your destintion and need to fight, swap S/WH for Axe/Mace. Optionally, swap the two Discipline Traits back to damage traits, though for trash mobs that won’t be necessary.

This is exactly what I do for farming Ori Ore/Orrian Saplings/Herbs, works a treat.

Just occured to me that 0/10/30/0/30 would be better.

Since the max potential Crit Chance is 110%, you can drop Critical Burst for Cleansing Ire. That drops your max potential Crit Chance to 98%, but gets you much faster Adrenaline regen, strong condition removal, and slightly more Toughness and Power.

Not enough damage in your build. Try 0/15/25/0/30 instead. That’s a mix of Cavalier and Valkyrie gear, if you want more damage, go 100% Berserker.

Both traits Unsuspecting Foe and Merciless Hammer apply their damage buffs to Earthshaker. When Earthshaker lands, it stuns first, then applies its damage, so those traits apply their damage buffs immediately after the stun but before the damage.

That’s +15% Crit Chance (Heightened Focus) + 10% Crit Chance (Critical Burst) + 50% Crit Chance (Unsuspecting Foe) + 20% Crit Chance (Fury) + 15% base = 110% Crit Chance.

Damage buffs from Destruction of the Empowered + Versatile Power + Armored Attack + Merciless Hammer. DoE generally won’t help much against boon-less trash mobs, but not many other good choices in that tier for pure damage.

Alot of fun. Also try Axe in place of Sword for better autoattack damage in between Earthshakers.

I play both, frontline zerging with both. Warrior is more fun, but guardian is “better at keeping the zerg alive and going in wvw.”

Guardians are fundamentally defensive-oriented, Warriors are fundamentally offensive-oriented. You can make a Warrior defensive-oriented too with a bunker/commander/zerg build, but it doesn’t fit together as well as a Guardian bunker/commander/zerg build, and doesn’t contain quite the level of group support.

That said, there is nothing more fun in WvW zerging than a Hammer warrior. Guardians are fun and effective, but boring by comparison.

I think Warlord is referring to stacking your zerg with Water fields + Blast finishers, hence the banners on warriors.

What I’m curious about is where does the condition removal come from then, if your frontline is not running Shout/Soldier Rune builds. Melandru builds (runes + soup + Dogged March), or something else?

Dhampyr.2104:

Woo, get to see BG again! Used to be on Kaineng when we had the epic matchup thread, really looking forward to catching up with you guys again!

Oh yes, such nostalgia, those were the days. Best matchup and matchup thread ever.

Good to see BG again! Hello again SoR! GL everyone!

Warlord.9074:

group comp and use of water fields while maintaining an calculated ratio of class balance in zergs outweighs shout healing. Blasting in waterfields far outweighs shouts by a long shot. And in turn becasue shout healing isnt needed warriors can spec for more damage, or use differnt weapons more effectively, while having more stun breakers and more stability

Shouts aren’t just for healing, but also for AoE condition removal. What are those comps doing for condition removal, Melandru or something else?

And I do agree, it’s really nice to not have to slot shouts on a Warrior if you can figure out a comp that works without them. They’re fine in dungeons, but meh in WvW.

Gotchaz.7865:

Hiya, nice to see a player from a server we are competing with. I’m on JQ as well and I’m a warrior and I go by the name Beowulf.

TC may have seen my strength for themselves, have watched me rise from the darkness of war, dripping with my enemies’ blood. I drove five great giants into chains, chased all of that race from the earth. I swam in the blackness of night, hunting monsters out of the ocean, and killing them one by one; death was my errand and the fate they had earned.

:D +1

Gotchaz.7865:

My stats are 30k health, 3100 attack, 407 health regen per second, 3,126 armor, 2000 toughness, that should give you an idea at least and pray to your Gods you may never cross my path!

:)

407 health regen per second, is that from healing Signet + Adrenal Health?

Velron.3729:

Here’s mine, no ascended gear bc I hate PVE.

I’m on JQ, in Decisive Actions we like to try to zerg smash with like 15-20 people so I run a very tanky front liner with #1 always being Don’t Die. One death = rallies = you aint zerg smashing.

Thanks. /agree on Don’t Die, priority #1.

PS – you know you can buy Ascended gear with Laurels + Badges? No need to PvE to get it anymore.

ashlenty.9358:

When I’m in tanky (VPT) mod:
Health: ~35000 (up +2500 if I kill some npc)
Armor: ~3350
Power: ~3100 base
Crit Chance: 4% base
Crit Damage: 0%

But in Zerg, warrior who love damage can also play with a bow (like I do):
Health: ~19000 (up +2500 if I kill some npc)
Armor: ~2300
Power: ~3900 base
Crit Chance: ~80% base
Crit Damage: 120%

Crazy health. Wish I’d got my war to 80 before the Sentinel gear was discontinued and still cheap. Have the jewels from left over Azurite Orbs, but not the full armor.

And that is really nice to be able to switch up stats like that. Do you use the same build, or have to retrait too?

Daniel Warren.4968:

JQ reporting

Health: 20780
Armor: ~3300
Power: ~2800 base
Crit Chance: ~50% base
Crit Damage: 55%

GS | S/Shield
Endure Pain, Balanced Stance, Berserker Stance, Rage Sig
0/20/30/0/20

Thanks, do you zerg frontline with that or is that a roaming build? I ask b/c Zerker Stance + not much AoE tagging ability there, it seems.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

You have 3 stunbreakers (my favourite is Stomp),

The new Stomp is by far my favorite Warrior ability now. So. much. fun. And it’s a stun break, Stabililty, and blast finisher all in one. <3

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Even if you ignore the stun duration, then look at what you give up for that condition cleansing – it will be 1 to 3 utility slots taken up with shouts (depending on how many shouts each warrior runs) on all 5 of your guild’s warriors. Running Melandru means you can now get rid of your shout utility skill(s) and shout traits and put something better than a shout in its place.
You can also replace the shout traits with something useful.
Imagine your 5 condi clearing warriors now running Stomp.
Bodies flying everywhere while they use perma vigor to dodge the hammer train.

Yes absolutely. That is the biggest win with Melandru Runes imho, you’re not locked into Shouts.

I come to Warrior from a Guardian, which was my main previously, and for WvW zerg frontlining at least, Warrior shouts are poor compared to Guardian shouts.

A mere two Guardian shouts provide 2x stun breaks, and AoE Stability/Protection/Regen/Retal on 24s-28s cd. Throw in either Save Yourselves! or Retreat! even more defensive buff awesomeness. Then trait for Shout Healing, and slot either Soldier Runes or Healing/Boon Duration Runes, for a really powerful Shout build.

Guardian Shouts just have a lot of natural build synergy without any major sacrifices, they’re a no-brainer for WvW. Shouts are a T1 skill for Guardians.

By comparison, the problem with Warrior shouts in WvW zerging is that they are more offensive oriented, when you need a heavily defensive spec.

If you go Shouts, then it’s at the cost of one or two additional stun breakers, Stability, or Invulnerability. It’s also difficult to get the trait to reduce Shout cooldowns, Lung Capacity, since it’s in the Master Tier competing with Quick Breathing and Vigorous Shouts, which almost all builds prioritize over shout cooldowns.

My impression coming a Guardian is that (in WvW only) Warrior Shouts are T2 skills, Stances are T1. Melandru Runes let you slot any combination of Balanced Stance, Endure Pain, Stomp, Dolyak Signet, or Shake It Off!, getting you some combination of 3x stun breakers, Stability, Invuln, 200 armor, or condition removal.

Far superior to what Shouts can offer, unless as I mentioned before, you’re running a guild comp built around Guards and Warriors all with Soldiers Runes and Shout builds, which case I think that mutual support is stronger than what a Melandru/Stance based build can offer.

But strong opinions on both sides of this, so I’m putting together a P/V/T set with Soldiers Runes for specifically that purpose, to be able to swap gear and run with Shout/Soldiers comps if they happen to be on the map without screwing them up. It’s easy to have both sets, since Melandru can be had from Orr temple and Soldiers Runes can be crafted.

jul.7602:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBiYDbkzJGu6x5BKOggeohVhAaK8DpHiBbkGA-j0xAoLACBQ2rIasV2ioxqsx0lER1ecioaZAYGDA-w

Too many warriors are running glassy builds or roaming build. More harm than good if your map is qued.

For group play, full soldier runes greatly outperforms melandru. Removing 4 conditions from allies in earshot is far more important than -25% condition and stun duration. Also if you scale it up to a zerg vs zerg, 4 warriors with soldier runes + 2 shouts + shrug it off will obviously be a better choice than melandru.

Warriors in ZvZ shouldn’t even be concerned with damage in their builds because every other light profession heavily out damages you from a range. Warriors can’t fufill the DPS role. Warriors strength lie in soaking up damage while helping their team sustain with constant buffs, swiftness and lots of condition removal and throwing in soem light CC.

I actually have exactly that gear set, except with Melandru runes instead of Soldiers, but typically run with a different trait build (20/0/20/0/30 or 0/15/25/0/30). Works great, plenty of escapes, always among the last standing if we wipe.

I’m farming up a P/V/T armor set with Soldiers Rune too, though, because there are some times it’s necessary, like when tagging along with a guild comp that requires it. Nice to have options and to be able to slot into any comp.

Now if only ANet could bring back Sentinels armor. 20g+ per piece is ridiculous.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Your main issue is you are trying to maintain some damage in your build – get rid of all the crit damage and precision and focus only on power, toughness and vitality.

The problem is, Crit Damage is the most optimal choice in terms of stat point costs for Ascended trinkets. So I’d rather go with Cavalier Ascended trinkets, Soldiers/Sentinels everywhere else, and completely sacrifice Precision, which you can get from Traits, Sigils, Boons, and Buffs instead.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

I have used Melandru and Soldier runes – Melandru is better IMO – Melandru is a team play rune in that you don’t die as easily which means all those downed players you smashed with your hammer don’t get a rally.

This really depends on guild comp. If you have, say, 5 Wars and 5 Guards in your frontline, all running Soldier Runes, that’s more effective condition removal than Melandru + Lemongrass Poultry Soup.

But if on the other hand you run solo a lot, or with pug/militia zergs, or guild groups that don’t require specific builds, then Melandru + Soup + Dogged March + Cleansing Ire is a better option for dealing with conditions.

insanemaniac.2456:

imagine a 50 bot zerg walking back and forth between pangloss and ogrewatch,

Has that ever really happened?

Epic.3950:

So you got one guy from NSP and one guy from FC. you just downed them both in a 3 way fight but what do you do? as soon as you stomp one, the other rallies, if you stomp the other guy the other guy rallies. good luck killing them both at the exact same time.

Just hang out nearby and let them fight it out in downed state trying to revive off each other, while you heal and your cooldowns refresh.

One will kill the other and revive with 50% health, then you finish him off immediately.

I actually like downed state for reasons like this – it adds an extra element of complexity and tactical dilemna to even small scale battles.

A good D/P permastealth thief vs a good Mesmer = a good fight that ain’t gonna be proved one way or the other arguing about it on the forums. It’s just gonna come down to player skill, lag, and other such factors.

That said, the question had nothing to do with that, it’s whether mesmers are a viable “glass cannon zerker”. Answer is, it depends on what you mean by that.

If you mean, are they a good glass cannon solo roamer? Then the answer is, yes, by all means, they are very good at that. Search for Osicat on these forums or Youtube for some great vids on that.

But if you mean, are they a good glass cannon zerger? Then the answer is, they can be, sort of, again depending on player skill, but it’s not easy or recommended for someone just getting back into the game.

I know at least one person on TC who zergs with glass-ish gear successfully, but he’s been a mesmer since launch and has played WvW primarily almost nonstop since then, proving it’s at least possible. I’m sure there are others.

But for someone asking this question, you should go full Soldiers P/V/T bunker gear, relearn the class, figure out builds, etc., before stepping up to Knight/Zerker or full Zerker glass cannon gear. The name of the game when zerging is to stay alive in face of the damage output of ~20 players (or 50+ in T1), everything else is secondary.

Don’t bother reporting them, just spoil it for them. Block the ones from your server, and gank, kill, and camp the ones from other server till they have to go do something else.

Thanks guys, I see I’m in the right ballpark, maybe a little low on health, but that’s easy enough to adjust.

I run Melandru b/c I do a lot of solo’ing – scouting, yak running, keep defense, etc. But working on a Soldier Rune set now too.

I’m using a similar build – Hammer/GS, Balanced Stance + Endure Pain, though Stomp instead of Dolyak Signet. Melandru/Dogged March/Lemongrass Poultry Soup. 20/0/20/0/30.

If you can remember anything more about that 3200 Armor hard cap, that would be great. Will try to find out more about that.

Lots of build guides with thorough explanations at intothemists.com. Sort by Warrior and type (dungeon, wvw, etc).

The few times TC has had the priviledge of fighting a T1 server, you guys are all unusually tanky compared to most T2 and below. I assume that’s simply a necessity of the megazerg warfare common in T1 (NA at least, not sure about EU).

So out of curiousity, what stats do T1 zerg warriors run in that environment? For example, on mine my rule tends to be:

Health: 25,000
Armor: 3000
Crit: 0% – 11% base crit, depending on build, but with buffs from Fury and Traits.
Attack: 3000 minimum
All remaining stat points into Power and Crit Damage.

How does that compare to the T1 meta? Do you go for even more Health and Armor and less damage, or is that about right?

Also, great fighting JQ this week, learning a lot, and kudos to FA for bringing it as always. WTB more matchups vs T1 + FA + DB.

Yo dudes, regarding cross-server guilds, I’m pretty sure guild tag is not exclusive, eg you can have multiple guilds with the same tag on different servers.

I’ve guested before to JQ or SoR or somewhere and ran into someone with my own guild tag [DIS] and was trying to figure out why their nameplate was blue instead of gold, until I realized they were in a different guild.

Probably same thing happening here, different guilds, same tag.

Edit: although that screenshot does show the same guild name, not just tag, so maybe not applicable here, not sure.

Contiguous.1345:

What puzzles me is that we’ve been begging for something (anything!) along these lines since day 1.

ANet hired a lot last since launch, but it appears those new employees are only now starting to fire on all cylinders, which is not uncommon ramp up time for complex software projects.

I think their ability to respond to issues like this is better now than it has been at any time since launch, so hopefully we’ll start seeing more frequent QoL improvements in WvW like this and other suggestions.

That said, /bump. Great idea, ANet please consider.

Muchos gracias!

Thx, just can’t get online for a while, and was wondering.

It doesn’t appear so from the wiki, but just wanted to verify. For example, if I have the trait Opportunist (gain Fury when you Immobilize), and I stun an enemy, do I gain Fury?

Fiorrello.8126:

on the other hand none of the warriors hammer skills quite compare to the guardians [banish] in terms of satisfaction on a clean hit.

Sounds like you haven’t quite discovered the joys of Earthshaker in an enemy zerg yet? Especially with high 100% Crit Damage and enough Crit Chance buffs for near 100% Crit Chance.

Also, leap off a keep wall into enemy zerg → Death From Above → Earthshaker → Stomp = is a lot of fun.

For zerging, imho, go for the following stats:

Health: 25,000
Armor: 3000
Crit: 15%

All the rest of your stat points into Power and Crit Damage. Either Soldier Runes or Melandru Runes for condition management. And 30 pts into Discipline for 7s Earthshakers.

Example build and gear: 0/10/20/0/30

A little low on the Health and Crit Chance, but close. Play around with the gear you have in the calc to see if you can get closer to those magic numbers.

Here’s another example with more expensive gear (Sentinels + full Ascended): 0/15/25/0/30

You’ll get extra Crit Chance from multiple Traits (Heightened Focus + Unsuspecting Foe + Critical Burst) + Fury, so you can skimp on that stat in your gear.

Part of it is also not just having a weapon ability good at tagging, but also never dying. Dead men don’t tag.

Bunker/support staff Guardian is one of the best at both AoE tagging and not dying.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

My take on it is the more lopsided the match, the less people on higher-tiered Servers can be kittened to bother with sweeping.

Pretty much this. Just another example of getting lazy and sloppy when we’re in a mismatch. Glad it’s not just TC, it sounds like.

Not to take anything away from Fox or anyone else who notices these things and exploits them every chance they get. Plenty of opportunities for the clever and sneaky.

Vespirisa.1497:

I can say the groups are very coordinated. When its oceanic we tend to run 1 group to man all 4 maps with scouts in other maps telling us the instant there is trouble so we may respond. The “rallians” or militia as you call them are vey engaged with us since I can see a lot of them in the TS listening to the various commanders we have. If TC can organize themselves even more they might have a chance in NA and Ocx/SEA time

That’s definitely an on-going project for TC, the problem is when we get into imbalanced matchups where we dominate by virtue of population, we get lazy and sloppy and those efforts sort of fall the wayside.

It usually takes us a couple weeks to ramp up and adapt to the competition when we get someone better, like when stacked KN came into T2, and later newly stacked DB. And it’s been nice fighting DB this week as they’ve forced us to get it together.

Rackhir Tanelorn.9123:

insisting that there were 2 “T2” Servers and that TC wasn’t “T1.5” and how much they

I wouldn’t call TC T1.5 until/unless we get a JQ/DB/TC or JQ/BG/TC or SoR/T1/TC matchup. That would give us a clearer picture of how close we are to T1.

But until then I’d say we’re just solid T2, as is DB. I think there’s still a non-trivial gap b/t T2 and T1, not least due to the amount of time the T1 servers have spent fighting each other in the most intense 24/7 matchups, which TC doesn’t have the benefit of. We’d get there after a few weeks, but as of right now there’s an experience gap.

We have a solid lead right now, but part of that is having EB in the tier instead of FA, PPT gain from coverage imbalances is amplified. Remember how DB dominated T3 even before getting RE & co, there’s no way I could consider them a T2.5 server.

All that said, we should just get rid of the idea of “.5”. Either you’re T1 or T2 or T3 or whatever, until you’re something else.

Earthshaker. And Earthshaker. And Earthshaker. And oh yeah, Earthshaker. Did I mention Earthshaker?

Death From Above and the new Stomp (traited) are pretty awesome too.

I have a Guardian I love for zerg frontlining, but godkitten Earthshaker owns me, I only ever log into my Guardian anymore when there’s a very specific need for him, otherwise Hammer Warrior is my default WvW go-to.

So. Much. Fun.

Guardian. Staff #1 + Retaliation.

First player to 250,000 kills = Staff Guardian. Also the Red Guard GM, but he still beat his Necro’s to that achievement. Don’t think RG runs engi’s, but not sure about that.

Quirky, creative, fun, like most RP servers are. Large population, strong WvW, decent representation in sPvP, 24/7 player base (decent SEA/Oceanic/EU player base).

Not many better choices, if you landed here purely randomly, you lucked out. Come say hi at the server forums.

Excalibur.9748:

How would TC do if it matches up with SoR again? Do you think we could win this time?

No chance. Even with another T1 server in the mix to split SoR’s attention, it would still be a blowout.

I can’t help but chuckle when TC’s opponents say we’re “stacked”. They just haven’t had the opportunity to fight SoR yet.

Also, SoR is not just stacked, but extremely well coordinated. Both their guilds and militia don’t play like a collection of guilds and individuals, but as a single integrated team, and they treat all 4 maps as a single map. Their response time, cross-map coordination, map hopping is all top of the game.

TC does that to some extent too, you can’t stay in T2 without it, but SoR has it down to a science.

That said I would love to fight SoR again, hopefully with at least DB or another T1 server. Lots to learn, and TC has generally been pretty good at learning from better servers we face.

LordByron.8369:

If you want MORE reflection, avoding IC is a bad idea.

I thought the IC nerf was going to make the build unviable, but tried it anyway and surprisingly don’t miss IC like I thought I would.

With newly buffed Phantasms + Persisting Images + Signet of Illusions, most of the time they last long enough for their cooldown to expire before they die. Many times I actually have to check myself from spamming Illusion skills – a pre-patch habit – so I don’t overwrite ones already out. Of course that’s somewhat encounter-dependent too.

But overall I’m happy to be able get all 300 precision + 30% crit damage from Dueling, plus all the Dueling and Inspiration traits I want (I used to go 20 and 25 respectively and would toggle different traits in each line for different encounters, don’t have to do that anymore).

Overall I’m actually happier with this new build so far than the pre-patch ones.

I still prefer the Reflection/Phantasm build, now with more Crit + Crit Dmg: 10/30/0/30/0.

Fwiw, here’s a leveling build based on Mr. P’s mesmer build, but current with the new patch.

For dungeons, I used to run the Phantasm/Reflect 10/20/0/30/10 or 20/20/0/25/5 builds, the new post-patch version of that is 10/30/0/30/0, works fine.

Just ignore all the nubs wailing and gnashing their teeth over the changes. It hurt non-shatter builds in PvP, but PvE is fine.