Guild Wars 2

IMO, banners on the back is a horrible idea because it is too much for us to be able to do at once. And i dont mean being able to manage all the skills buffs, I mean it brings too much to the table without a penalty.

If warriors are the control class, you can’t give them something glaringly different or better than other classes like that, it needs to be balanced with give and take. Giving us the ability to carry a banner while still fully equipping our weapon sets is too much. It would be like giving an engie a grenade kit and allowing him to keep his rifle, or whatever other analogy you want.

typing this on my phone while on the bus, so forgive my lack of typical finesse. . .

I would like to see banners made more like Engineer kits, in terms of their utility. activating a banner utlity would equip the banner in your main hand, or both hands if off hand is empty,

banner skills wouldnt change much, but the benefit wouls be their mobility, and the option of an off hand, including the pethora of new weapon combos. the penalty is that only “two hand” banners can plant for combo field (since its skill 5). banners cannot be equipped in the off hand.

banners need a bigger traited range.

imagine equipping your banner, with your warhorn, or your mace, or shield?

the Improved Battle Standard trait could be the requirement to allow “two hand” banners, and woulf properly buff range. inspiring banners would remain the same.

adrenal health is worth every point. also, i used to be condition specced, and so had the 25 pt talent for crits in the arms tree. been playing back and forth between power and pre. i do miss the bleed stacks when solo.

“That ain’t a nerf; this is a nerf.” – Crocodile Dundee

you all must say nerf out loud in your best paul hogan impression. i command it!

/facepalm

it’s “make do.”

one is a noun, the other a verb.

Grenade speed was increased 10-15% in the Nov. 15 update.

The issue is lack of a longer lasting swiftness, then, and not the functionality of grenades, because the only trouble I ever have is when a target goes oor, which is never, since we have 1500 range trained.

We have a mobile, free targeting projectile that collides with obstacles (buggy, yes), has aoe damage and a variety of conditions, and can be hot-swapped at will with a 1 sec timer? Kittens, that sucks.

Coltz.5617:

How often do you play paid tourneys?

Irrelevant to being capable of manipulating your keyboard/mouse. Pve, pvp, tPvP, spvp, wvw, doesn’t matter, WASD and 1-5 are always in the same place.

Edit: remember mmos with 20+ key binds? Peeps kittening about 5-10 is laughable.

LAUGHABLE…
kekekekittenkeke
you must learn to master WASD
Doesn’t mater if the game is free or paid,
Your lack of control doesn’t make the grade.

Blows my mind how many engines seem incapable of hitting 1-5 while right clicking the mouse for free-camera and using WASD.

Same goes for this auto target kittening, try learning to lead your target … with skill.

edit: Mebbe pick up an FPS or two and practice not being newbs at action games, given that GW2 is pretty light on the RPG, especially your beloved engine.

ive long tought the gm turret trait in the inventions tree should grant the 5sec CD on pick ups, and increase RoF instead of what it does now.

pet bar abilities shouldnt even be a dream, they should have been part of the game design, and forget the lack luster F skills, leave kits as they are, and just make elixers tossable with different effects for self/ally/foe.

glass cannon = big badda booms

big badda booms are the opposite of subtlety

tactucs =/= big badda boom.

tactics are often subtle and refined.

seems to me like you just want one big raer class that has everything.

might i recommend an ele?

my banner warhorn warrior loves the tactics and defense trees.

25/0/15/30/0

rehaul is technically not a word. and you can cram your kittens if you dont like specifics, this is an engie forum, after all.

i would just like to point out that warrior banners, like kits, take up a whole utility slot, mimus the bonus F ability, and have a 90 second cooldown, and have to be carried everywhere, effectively reducing your ability to fight.

they are not at all as versatile as kits, and im a banner warrior, who fights for the right to banner on the warrior forums.

banners are more like turrets than kits.

Yaki.9563:

nakoda.4213:

with 1470 healing, banners, signet, and adrenal health (3 bars), my self regen is approximatly 1150 hps.

which is kitten awesome.

that said, i almost never use healing signet, and i burst as often as i can, so my typical self regen is around 650 hps. oh no…

I think your numbers are off. You’re saying banner regen + signet gives you 1000 hps…

329-345 banners
289-339 adrenal health.

no signet. roughly 650 hps. depends on what buffs I have or if I’m in a wvw with bonuses, and all that.

obviously, these are observed numbers from gameplay not dummy testing.

KirinDave.6451:

Robin is only cool because you know one day he’ll become awesome and so you want to see how a superhero grows up.

No he won’t, stop kittening yourself. boy wonder is a tool.

That said, I hear what your are saying, but I have yet to find my engineer lacking. Maybe I am not jaded because I made him post nade nerf?

KirinDave.6451:

That’s sort of why people are in here complaining. We all like lots of aspects of the class. But we want something that is effective and cohesive. It says a lot that we’re still here complaining. If we didn’t care at all the we wouldn’t be bothering.

I don’t follow, peeps be kittening cuz they have a class that is deep, fun, and challenging?

Isslair.4908:

I guess you’re just one of those persons who don’t excel at anything and is okay with others carrying you. Well, GW2 is a game for everyone.

Ya you’re right, cuz my 450 hps group regen, perma swiftness, condition conversion, and area buffs as a warrior in addition to the damage y’all keep kittening about makes my team carry me everywhere,

And my boons, crowd control, condition damage, utilities like supply crates, golems, turrets, and proc effect nades are also completely useless to my groups as well.

Oh right, I forgot, self-motivated tPvP is the only part of this game that matters… My bad!

Hello, I’m a warrior, a banner/warhorn warrior. Apparently that makes me better than all of you.

:s

Anyway, a little while ago I started knocking about with an engine alt.

Holy kitten am I having fun, so much so that I haven’t touched my warrior since I rolled this lil’ spitfire.

/0.02$

Edit :: I don’t just play pve or pvp, I play everything… like, you know, the whole kitten game, so maybe that’s why I’m having fun… with the game and all…

with 1470 healing, banners, signet, and adrenal health (3 bars), my self regen is approximatly 1150 hps.

which is kitten awesome.

that said, i almost never use healing signet, and i burst as often as i can, so my typical self regen is around 650 hps. oh no…

i’d like to add that 0/25/15/30/0 is not a ‘ridiculous’ build, but it is a build specific to certain weapons which the OP wasn’t using.

warhorn, banners/shouts, sword, longbow. it is a support build, not a solo build, that keep groups (previously raids before 5 player limit was fixed) alive and condition free, in addition to the buffs that Warhorns and Banners bring to the table.

cond dmg is fine (you are right, it is underpowered when trying to be a glory hero and try to 2v1 everything but, ) when playing in a group, the bleeds and burns (and poison if you are an asura) drop heavy damage when using full apothecary armour and trinkets. (i cannot wait for passiflora stuff to drop even somewhat in price. 20+ g per piece is effbomb kitten no one’s kitten is worth that much)

Deria.9158:

but right now I’m seeing new content and pay-for-use features likes personal arenas being prioritized over making the game solid and that concerns me.

as long as it doesn’t surprise you then you’ll be okay

if you had any doubts before playing GW2 about its pay to play status, they ought to be resolved by now.

ANet has a business model they need to follow. and follow it they shall.

it would be cool to see the banners be given a back slot, like a quiver of sorts, and the banners become the F# abilities, akin to engineer utility pack.

you’d still have to be carrying the banner to provide it’s boon, a quivered banner couldn’t just pulsate buffs.

also keep in mind the more mobile the banner, the smaller the radius they would have to have in order to compensate for the movement.

Nakoda; Jade Quarry
80 Warrior (0/25/15/30/0)

I think that banner range should be determined by in hand vs ground placement (600/900); inspiring banners trait changes such that increases the range to (900/1200) and grants the regen. the improved battle standard trait turns the banner into a 1h weapon (same abilities as now) that can support an offhand of whatever type, using the off hand skills already in place. banner/warhorn, banner/sword, banner/mace (yes, folks, the hammerbammer build), banner/shield, etc etc. this gives up the ability to replant the banner for a combo field effect. if no off hand is equipped, then the banner is two-handed and gets 4 and 5 back. only warriors can move banners.

“whine” it’s spelled “whine.”

all you’ve done is provide some evidence that glass cannons can go boom.

the poster you quoted even said: “this guy is afk, but…”

part of the issue here is the continuing misconception that warrior == tank.

warrior != tank in GW2.

warrior ~= combat specialist

that means either being IN the combat or AIDING the combat in any way possible to achieve a victory harder/better/faster.

In previous EQ-mold MMO, that means tanky-spanky; let the dps face roll while you shrug off dmg like a kitten in a milk bowl.

In GW2 that means bring utility…and, if some of your cookie-cutter brains haven’t exploded into a million furballs yet, DPS in GW2 is just another utility.

The reason that glass cannon build “suck” in PvE dungeons is, as Ksielvin has noted, not-so-experienced players breeze through PvE with their boomstick builds, watching the kitten fly without experiencing the complicated dynamics of GW2 group content.

Then, they either come here and cry foul that their class sucks and isn’t viable in group content; OR, they find a non-DPS utility build and come here and complain that glass cannons suck and that GW2 has ruined the image of warriors; OR, (and least common of the three) learns from their game play and realizes the strengths and weaknesses of each kind of build and then brings the Pwntown to kittenville regardless of where they are playing because they aren’t narrow-minded Odi’s running into closed screen doors all the time.

warrior profession kittens all over your face.

when you go to tank your spank, use a gentle paw, a piece of advice for kittens who tend to rub it raw.

P.S. don’t forget your mittens. Oh those poor little kittens who forget their mittens…

Braxxus.2904:

nakoda.4213:

This seems an aweful like like the utility of a support warrior …

Annnnd they do it better than a warrior. Which is what I thought I implied with “They melee better than a warrior”.

(Also “support” warriors suck, especially now that they can’t shout heal 6-infinite player stacks in W3. Bring an engi, ele, or guard if you want that “support” role covered)

I switched to D/D ele for TPvP and shelved my warrior for serious tryhard matches specifically because of how amazingly strong ele’s are at this same role. Which goes back to the thing that is repeated time and time again by so very many posters:
Any role you specialize your warrior to do another class can do better. Jack of all trades, master of none = crap position in competitive play.

Why take an 8 when you can have a 10, skill factor being equal from the player for both.

I believe his build link is pretty out of date, and wasn’t aware he did wuvwuv

It isn’t what you implied at all because support and melee are two different roles.

Sorry, but you are wrong. Support warriors do not suck. Support warriors “suck” for you because you want to have a big boomstick of a class that can dominate everything it does. That isn’t how it works.

I play a support warrior. In PvE and in WvWvW, I am a highly sought after commodity because I provide permanent regen, permanent condition conversion, group buffs, group mobility, and a healthy supply of hard hitting bleeds.

Your apparent lack of creativity is what is keeping you from realizing the potential of the warrior class entirely because you’ve got a bug crawling where it ought not to be about another class having more “utility” and “diversity” than yours when you continually refuse to acknowledge the diversity and range of the class you have that is perfectly balanced, considered OP by everyone else, and right where anet wants it to be.

Buck up. There are many ways to skin a charr.

Meanwhile, other warriors are continuing to post videos about their melee dominance while other professions are continuing to cry foul about it because they aren’t where anet wants them yet.

Braxxus.2904

And Santa clause is coming over for poker night too.

Watch your chips, Santa has a nasty bluff.

Also, following the link you posted , and the subsequent link to the actual build used in WvW ( http://en.gw2codex.com/build/14586-zomoa-s-scepter-focus-support-build ), it says:

Zomoa

Description

This is a rough build used for drawing fire and supporting allies in team fights. Solo ability is mediocre and I do not recommend it for solo runners.

note the bolded part …

This seems an aweful like like the utility of a support warrior …

Braxxus.2904:

Navzar.2938:

Way to selectively ignore the thread.

I refer you to the answer I gave Cog. Please utilize some level of comprehension when you read before responding. The quoted text you lept on like a starving jackal was in reference to the poster I was responding to and his talk about “flashy effects”. Nothing more, nothing less.

you keep saying “flashy effects” referring to my post while telling others to “comprehend” and yet I never talked about flashy effects. I did talk about flashy abilities and seperately about secondary effects and even went so far as to amend my intention in a following post. I understand that it is easy for you to combine the two because thinking about multiple things at once is difficult, but perhaps you ought to reconsider your hostility towards people because all you are doing is beginning to represent yourself as a forum troll and not a lucid participant of debate.

I implore you to coherently respond to the simple question above: how would you fix the hammer?

I recommend browsing these forums for the numerous threads that debate about the pros and cons of the warrior profesion,

also, the sticky thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Post-Your-Build-Thread/first

has a plethora of information.

The end result is that there is no one spec or build that is best.

Until you get up to the point where you can use traits that remove conditions (like quick breathing) or have gear that allows you to use runes that remove conditions (like Soldier runes) then what you need to do is balance yourself with gear that accentuates your weaknesses: add vitality and toughness. Conversely, focus on more damage so that your foes drop before the conditions become unmanagable.

You’ve a fair way to go from 23, so keep at it! Plenty of time to experiment with your profession.

Once again, short-sightedness is blinding you to the broader scope of the argument.

As with the discussion in the thread about the Ele Hammer, warriors are decidedly not reliant upon the secondary effects of ability usage and instead rely upon the direct application of their abilities.

That said, a warrior is still capable of applying condition damage in a variety of types through the judicious use of their skills and traits. An entire trait line (Arms) is dedicated to the upkeep of bleeds and vulnerabilites, for example, and yes, I play a condition warrior in WvW who also uses banners and a warhorn quite effectively with a build that also utilizes bleeds in PvE content when soloing and doing dungeons. No, I am not at the top of the pvp meta, but I put other people there through my role as a support warrior.

As a matter of opinion, your crutch of “who’s on top” belies your inability to think outside the singular experience of your own play session rather than the macroperception of the entire battlefield.

I never implied that a warrior can swap between four weapons (even though a dual weilding warrior CAN, in fact, swap between four weapons), but what I did state is that warriors can (with varying degrees of success, I will grant you) apply all forms of conditions. The standpoint that “warriors can’t cond” is, in all its aspects, fallacious.

To use your own rhetoric (and argument) show me an Ele that melees at the top of the pvp meta.

edit: there are many ways to play the game. you have yet to find yours.

it still strikes me that the overarching drive behind the argument is a desire to be a one man wrecking crew instead of a team player when, as currently designed, warriors are balanced because they EXCEL at team synergy and no solo-oriented warfare.

perhaps “flashy” was the wrong adjective, I did nto mean to evoke the aesthetic, in fact, my post specifically articulates the non-flashiness of the abilities and how they, as they are, offer a wide range of utility without necesarily relying on secondary effects.

so from a certain perspective, warriors (commonly decried as OP by many others) are already diverse and self-reliant because they can be “OP” without needing to rely on gimicks.

i personally do not find warrior to be a boring profession because, perhaps, i never consider myself to be above the rest of the people in the “multi” portion of the MMO.

Judah.5420:

Yeah – I was curious about the build using shout heals, etc.

How should my traits look?

I picked up the build from one of the three posted above:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAneSnkOk8YzDSBxEhAAfwKThi0HgL9gM0SD;ToAA1CtoyyklILbWuskZtoYAB

But it feels flawed with having only 15 points in defense..? I mean, 20 points minimum to get the shield skill… so shouldn’t I get 20? Probably subtract from the 5 points in discipline..

Also, is healing skill on gear at all important for a tanky-ish warrior? I mean, it seems to be close to a 1:1 ratio when I put on some crap blues just to see how it changes. Probably not worth it, but thought i’d ask.

Otherwise, going to just keep going POW/VIT/TOUGH.

Clerics gear is Power/Tough/Healing
Apothecary gear is Tough/Healing/Cond dmg
there is also Pre/Vita/Healing gear

If you want to use a shield, absolutely put at least 20 points in to defense, but if you use other weapon combinations (like warhorn) then the shield trait is moot.

Healing is very important for a tank, especially if you use shouts or banners, because it effects regen and healing skills. if you have healing signet, it is bolstered by healing, your ability to revive downed allies is effected by healing, everything that heals you is effected by healing.

my spec is 0/25/15/30/0.

What do you mean that warriors cannot condition?

We have bleeds (swords), burns (bows), and poison (radiation field). What other conditions are there?

We also apply weaknesses (warhorn), stuns (hammer), cripples (axe), and immobilize (one of the off-hands that I can’t place at the moment) … (not to mention all the stuff i haven’t mentioned).

Would you please clarify what you mean about warriors not being able to condition?

Keep in mind (and this rather cross references the thread about warriors being boring) that warrior abilities aren’t particularly flashy by design.

one of the reasons why warriors are balanced is precisely because our abilities do not have myriad secondary effects that can additively or multiplicatively change the outcome of our attacks and have repercussions that ripple out through the other classes.

It may seem reductive, but warriors swing weapons, inspire allies, and have the ability to single handedly change the tide of combat for the benefit of the rest of their team, that is, sacrifical gains.

Warrior weapons do not need to have a plethora of add-ons.

The warrior hammer already has AoE on its third attack. If you are in a fire field (i.e. from a warrior longbow) this already combines to add burning in that AoE blast.

Think about how your warrior is used and how a warrior is meant to be a frontline melee. React to other classes both friend and foe by offering them the power of your support or by suffering them the slings and arrows of defeat.

They just aren’t your slings and arrows.

… Unless you are using a bola and longbow.

yes we are boring.

so boring in fact that everyone thinks we are OP yet doesn’t want to BE us.

excelsior?

but whirlwind is so much fun on an Asura .. it’s like you wing around letting the sword take you where it may!

I will justify myself by intimating your indolent ego with my hyperactive fists of destructive fury.

try this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Banner-Warrior

also, just as a note, and perhaps hypocritical, i noticed that all of your builds were named “so and so’s such and such.”

I highly recommend experimenting. And do not listen to anyone who says that “the only way to is…”

Hawks.5736:

Asura if you dont mind the way they look.

Are you suggesting that my otter-like sheen is anything less than as incredible as my overpoweringly awe-inspiring intellect that comes backed by an erudite and expansive vocabulary and a physical prowess titanic in potential yet tiny in proportion? I’ll have you know that Asuran physiognamy is the result of generations of carefully planned and ingeniously implemented evolutionary manipulation specifically designed to perpetuate the propagation of predominantly powerful genetic material!

Indeed, sir.

ButterOfDeath.2873:

Asura for the lulz

Vilhelm.9647:

I found banners to be more effective at healing unless you got some healing power. It also took up only a single utility slot to get the regen buff, leaving two more slots open for other powers. Healing shouts needs all three slots to be most effective.

well, you really only need two with the 20% CD reduction from traits. FGJ and SIO can be cycled reliably. The third slot can be anything that adds to your flavour, be it a banner, or a signet, or a physical. even radiation field is fun sometimes.

Manijin.3428:

Now, I’m not saying that the Shouts are superior to banners at all. I actually usually run the Banner of Tactics in a raid-ish group for the AoE heal and Regen and Swiftness. I just don’t think you can compare shout builds and banner builds, because they both rely on fundamentally different philosophies (i.e., HoT vs. Spot Healing). Neither is better, they simply excel at different types of heals.

I completely agree, I was more trying to continue showing the diversity of banners in general, which are greatly overlooked.

in fact…

azmodeus.3409:

STR10 V
ARMS 20 V, X or XII
TAC 30 V, VI, XI
DIS 10 V or VI

GS/rifle
Banner of disipline, frenzy, FGJ, sig rage, mending with lyssa runes and full pwr/prec/crit dmg

or banner of choice, shake it off, FGJ, healing surge, sig rage with runes of the soldier and pwr/prec/crit dmg or defensive equip as needed power/vit/tough

i found the heals from shouts to be inferior to banner regen, and using a banner does not take you out of the fight you get used to it. also perma group swiftness is pure win.

is an awesome example that is a heavy hitting dps build rather than a utility/heal build that still capitalizes on banner regen.

imma try this later …

well, as a brief counter to that before I jet to work:

yes, shouts heal more in one go, and move with you as an intrinsic feature of it being you shouting; however, banners also provide boons to your party which persist for a much greater time than your shouts. additionally, banners can be placed spread around the field of an encounter to provide those boons to a large area, and each banner field of effect allows 5 more people to be healed in larger encounters (I do not believe that overlapping areas count however, apparently crossing the beams is a bad things). The point is, banners are an easily manageable way to provide heals and buffs to your party in a persistent manner, so that long term encounters are easier over all.

That is to say, for boss fights, or even champion fights, banners outweigh the “oh shoot” button of a shout heal. At 1120 heals plus 25 stacks of life signet, a shout heal lands for approximately 2500 heals, and can be dropped every 25 to 40 seconds. Te buff from a shout lasts approximately 15 seconds or less. If you have 3 shouts slotted, you can reliably give your group 7500 heals every 30 seconds on average.

With the same healing stat, Banners last just shy of 90 seconds (the tooltip duration is incorrect), and tick for approximately 325 heals every 3 seconds (or 110 a second to make the math easy) as a persistent regen that does NOT APPLY ITSELF to people with full health. Unlike a shout heal, none of your outgoing healing is being wasted. So, in 30 seconds, one banner heals for roughly 3250 and provides a persistent boon that lasts for as long as the heal, and you do not have to keep watching your skill bar to pop the heal when it may or may not be useful.

also, strategic banner planting can be helpful.

example, place your tactics banner nearer the boss and your defense banner farther away, or vice versa depending on the fight. If melee needs to back out, they can run back into a field of defensive boons to regen a bit and perhaps ward off adds while the rest benefit from the tactics boons (including longer lasting boons).

off to work with me.

Defektive.7283:

As a Warrior play from day 1 I can tell you, the fact that we really don’t have any other build available to us to compete with at the same level as the standard GC is extremely disheartening.

as a warrior who has played since day one, you haven’t put much effort into trying out many builds, have you?

You have 70 trait points, 5 trait lines, 50 trait skills to choose from, 3 main hand weapons, 2 off hand weapons, 2 two hand weapons, and 2 ranged weapons to experiment with, a schwack load of skills to fine tune, 2 asuran fur coats, and a partridge in a pear tree to work with.

GS is not the only available/viable spec at any level.

that said ….

Braxxus.2904:

Thematically. Functionally I love the ele mechanics as it reminds me of how warriors have and should be with stance dancing (my prot warrior), aura twisting (chosen: WAR) and manifest molding (bear shaman: AoC… basically what our hammer/shout healer build SHOULD be like)*

i would give my kitten’s left hairball to have stance dancing again.

with 25 stacks of life sigil, my banners (at 1120 heals pre-sigil) tick for approximately 325.

ComeAndSee.1356:

I mean, come on. I have 3173 armor and I got crit for 9493 damage by Killshot in WvW. This is probably a 15k crit on a light armor. If warriors can hit that hard on the highest armored classes than how is that ability balanced?

I’m also tired of the billion warriors running around frenzied Hundred Blading + Blade Trail for 12k~ damage in 1.75s on my 3k armor. Yeah, give me ten billions reasons how you can dodge it so you can justify the ridiculous amount of damage being thrown out by warriors right now.

So coming from somebody who has the highest defenses in game — warriors hit too hard. They nerfed the 8k++ backstab crits, why not this crap already?

that lil asura there looks an aweful lot nakkish.

JQ represent!

Also, a few posts above is correct: my banner spec got nerfed. no more army regen.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Banner-Warrior/first#post771075

YojimboJones.6243:

As for regen banners vs healing shouts, I think there are pros and cons to both. The beauty of these builds is that you can swap between the two depending on what is needed. If you know an area/boss is going to do lots of conditions and you really want to be using shake it off and FGJ with heals, use that. if it’s more of a tank and spank and you think banners will be better (including battle standard, 60 sec duration pulsing FGJ) then use that. Just swap your skills and major traits.

Indeed. I have experimented a lot with this capability, and if I switch to a Shout spec, I will dual wield swords and end up being more DPS with emergency heals than a HoT Bot. They both work exceptionally well, and farming solo is definitely easier with the shouts and Dual Wield than with the warhorn, though I can fight considerably more mobs for longer with banners when on my own.

At the end of the day, situational awareness is what is key. Be aware, and be flexible.

Like your mom.

Nonfat.8742:

My question is : do you think specing rifle instead of longbow for dungeon play is more effective since the rifle has a knockback,snare and the OP F1 ability wich name Ive forgotten

Yes and no. Utility is key in group situations, so the utilities are definitely handy, and the rifle snare is one of the best. Kill Shot, OP as it is, however, is pretty hard to justify in dungeons because of how long it takes to set up and fire, it keeps you too stationary when you are typically mobile.

In my experience, I only use ranged in groups when melee is not an option, but the tradeoff is the warhorn, which is so useful that the ranged becomes a very situational tool. That said, many boss fights are those situations. Like Path 1 in HotW, there is no reason for me to be melee during that encounter, so I focus on the totems while buffing with the warhorn until I have full adrenaline, then drop a flame field from my longbow F1 skill so that everyone gets some extra burn damage in, then switch back to my warhorn after CD is down.

Ultimately, how you play is how you feel most comfortable, and I am always most comfortable when I feel useful and needed in a group. In previous MMO, that meant being a tank (I have been a main raid tank since EQ and in every MMO that followed the same general flavour of playstyle). In GW2, without the “tanking” role, in the more traditional sense, that meant learning how to mitigate damage without soaking it up, so I heal and buff now.

THERE IS NO WRONG SPEC (not even 5 signets, all you nay-sayers can sit on your thumbs), so experiment and find a groove that makes the ladies wanna dance next to you.

In the immortal words of James Brown: If It’s good to ya, it’s good for ya.

UHH! Yeah!

I am a banner warrior, who uses a 1h Sword + Warhorn / Longbow.

My build:

0
25 :: Deep Cuts, Blademaster
15 :: Cull the Weak
30 :: Inspiring Banners, Quick Breathing, Inspiring Battle Standard
0

My preferred stats are Healing, Precision, Vita/Tough.

With this build, one banner, set to the side of an encounter, will heal my party (previously an entire raid in CS before they reduced the efficacy to only 5 people …) for 312 per tick (second) with 1320 healing. By placing your banners efficiently around the combat zone, you can blanket a very large area with a substantial regeneration field, and only 5 seconds of downtime. If you overlap banner fields, you can have a permanent regeneration field for your group.

Note: Banner heals do no stack, just the area of effect, so it is important to keep them spread out. Now, despite the nerf to 5 people per banner, 3 banners is still up to 15 people if a raid aware group can stay within a particular banner field.

Warhorn is indispensable with Quick Breathing. converting Conditions to Boons is priceless.

I use Defensive Banner, Shake It Off, Tactical Banner, and the elite Warbanner.

My healing skill is Healing Surge.

In solo play, I often switch that to Healing Signet because the regeneration from Adrenal Health, Healing Signet, and a banner do stack, so in solo play I have approximately 650 health regeneration per second. I will throw down two banners about 50 feet apart, and start kiting mobs in a circle around them, stacking bleeds with my sword, taking very little damage. Warhorn skills make me even harder to kill because I have 3 immobilization removal tools (two warhorn skills with QB, and shake it off).

This is obviously a character design geared for group play moreso than solo play, but it is very fun to play with, essentially, I am a very hard to kill combat medic. Oh ya, in combat, my revive ticks for 759, so downed players get up fast.

And I am a highly valued commodity in WvW.

I am sure I can say more, but this should give you an idea of how to use banners effectively.