Guild Wars 2

Axe 5 is a channeling skill with a 3.5 second cast time. You have to have enough quickness to cover the duration of the channel. If you hit with both Axes from Axe 4 you will gain 3.5 seconds of quickness. If you chain a full axe 4 and 5 together you will get a roughly 3 second channel from Axe 5. Quickness is definitely effecting it.

When we enter combat we get a 33% forward movement speed debuff. The 50% movement speed buff from axe 5 only feels like a 17% buff as a result. I can still feel the difference in movement speed in combat between normal forward movement and axe 5, it is a bit faster.

“Also remember that Longbow bursts do not require hitting your target to gain Adrenal Health. Which means you can drop your bursts at your feet and maintain AH constantly which can be very powerful.”

I really like this aspect of the longbow, it can really turn fights around. Especially in the longer fights. I like the better AOE damage that the longbow has over Rifle for group battles as well, it can really help alot when defending and contesting objectives.

I like to use Sigil of Agility to help me get off much faster Longbow 4 and especially 5’s. 5 is a really telegraphed long animation skill and its really easy to dodge stock.

My main uses Axe/Axe and LB. I have used Rifle as well and I feel its a bit stronger damage wise.

I also run a Berserker Condi build with LB as well. The amount of fire damage it can dish out is really high, and a lot of people dont respect the bleed potential of LB 5 on a condi build. LB does feel a lot stronger on condi.

Nice.

Cool to see some other weapons being used.

Best success with kill shot is using it against targets who are currently engaged, trying to use it in a 1v1 scenario when the enemy is out front and can focus on what you are doing is just asking for 0 damage. Eviscerate is the same way against good players, almost impossible to land against good Thieves and Mesmers. The Warrior has very telegraphed skills and abilities in general, its a very readable class for opponents, as far as I am concerned that’s what makes it not OP.

Right now I am working on a quickness focused rifle build using boon duration. By boosting everything up around the weaker killshot it feels a lot better. Setting up a reliable Killshot is alot easier with a faster Brutal Shot.

Regular rifle feels incredibly weak now, after playing it. I always used rifle on weapon switch, but by making it my main weapon and building everything around it, it feels so much better. I also play it more kiting style like a ranger, chipping the edges and using 2nd line positions like a Necro would.

Its easier to gear, easier to play and go through the rotations, and more forgiving of technical mistakes.

To some, that does indeed make it better.

I still prefer to play power. I am hoping the new spec is strong in both damage types to give players more of a choice. I feel like Berserker is more suited for condi right now.

All of my core Warriors are power.

On TC I came across multiple troll builds being run by Thieves and Guardians the past two matchups.

Watched a condi ghost thief take a whole keep by himself against like 6 defenders. We had multiple people switching to reveal skills, laying stealth traps, using cc abilities and nothing worked. The thief would just spam his insane amount of dodges and get away with short bow bursts and stealth applications. we came close a few times to downing him, but he would just heal up and dodge spam/condi his way through. The amount of condi damage he was applying was insane and even two resistance skills and a 12 condition clear were not enough. Easily the dumbest thing I have seen in this game so far.

The problem with the troll builds is that they stack so much powerful greifing mechanics that it overwhelms any individual players ability to counter them.

Insane amounts of condi, stealth, mobility, dodges, blocks, invulnerability, pulls, cc effects, it does not really matter, it will overwhelm any single build you can come up with. They just overwhelm you, that’s the way these troll builds work.

The only thing I found to work reliably, was a unblock-able knock-back attack that causes the troll to die by falling damage. That is the one thing they are not built to handle.

Other than that massive numbers can do the job, really depends on the troll build, I have seen certain troll builds escape huge numbers of attackers. Even that can be hit or miss.

The best thing is to just go the other way and find another route, especially if you are by yourself.

Through gameplay you set up Eviscerate how you tactically need it. You can constantly spam it to keep pumping adrenal heal, put out lower but consistent damage, clear conditions via cleansing ire, or even break immobilize if you have that traited.

Or you can stack your vulnerabilities, pop signet of rage, Reckless dodge, then hit Eviscerate, for a much larger burst.

Right now you can play it both ways, not sure it needs anything.

Axe/axe has been my main since I started playing WvW seriously, most of this has been pre patch.

Like any weapon set it has advantages and disadvantages. The cleave ability is insane, it can also be quite bursty at times. Lack of mobility, defense, and easily telegraphed attacks round out the prime negatives.

For roaming its a very poor choice, mobility, stealth, and heavy cc builds can really pressure the weapon set hard. It is through group play where Axe/axe shines. You gain the time and the space to go through your rotations and bursts. Your cleave also gains maximum effectiveness. Its harder for enemies to dodge your telegraphed attacks in that setting. Finally, team mates can help to negate your weaknesses allowing you to concentrate on your damage.

You dont really want to play front-line in larger battles, but in smaller groups you can be a lot more aggressive, especially in certain match-ups. That is the most fun for me.

A huge counter is CC, it can ruin your damage potential, mace/shield is a good counter to axe/axe on the melee side of things. Ranged attackers can also pose problems if they can kite effectively. The lack of a gap closer can really hurt in that situation.

I have tried different variations but right now I am going pretty hard on offense in gearing and skills. Its just more fun to play for me.

I still roam with dual axe but its not the strongest, as long as I can survive long enough to get some rotations going for adrenal heal and life steal I can do ok (really comes down to the match-up I get). Its far more devastating in small groups.

My Vanilla Warrior is so OP she can use 3 axes at once, she has insane CLEAVAGE!

(Yes it was cheap, but I dont care!)

" Condition application tends to be much higher than skills that remove it, and condition damage attacks tend to get shorter cool downs because of the compounding nature of the attacks mean there is a period of time the opposing player has to recover. The problem here is it that it’s fairly easy to outstrip all but the most robust defenses against conditions. Because condition damage maintains pressure for a period of time without player input, the condition player can maintain offense while still defending."

After playing condition builds, and playing a lot against them, I feel this pretty much rings true. There seems to be an imbalance right now between cooldowns for the defender, and how fast the condition build can keep re-applying the damage. It does feel like the fight is “on rails”, or on a timer so to speak. Its not enjoyable to play, or play against.

Conditions now are simply stacked too quickly to really counter them fast enough. You simply cannot clear them fast enough. In the animation cast time alone of your main clear you take thousands in condition damage, your cast goes through and you do clear but right after that you are just stacked again. Most condi builds go through rotations of multiple skills with condi damage, its not just one or two skills you have to worry about getting tagged by.

The frequency of the stacks and the number of conditions stacked far far outweigh any clears.

My biggest clear on my Warrior is Signet of Stamina, it can clear up to 12 condis, but it has a 40 second cooldown. In 40 seconds most Condi builds are well into their 2nd full skill rotation, if I am not dead already by then.

Sigil of Purity has a 10 second cooldown on its clear, and its a 60% chance, not 100%. So there will be times when you do not clear when you need it to.

Other clears in the game (lets use Mending as an example) only do 1-3 conditions at a time, but again most condi build rotations are stacking way more than that. Lets say you clear 3 conditons out of 6 just stacked on you, so the 3 that are still on you are ticking for tons of damage. It just doesn’t work.

Most clears are on way too long of a cooldown to even be effective in the current condi meta. This is why resistance, esp on Warriors is way more popular.

Resistance in general is just better than condition clears and especially condi duration reduction.

I agree with part of what the OP was getting at, the Warrior does have very obvious attack animations and mechanics. This makes skilled counterplay pretty much cancel out more than a few advantages the warrior does have. So it can be frustrating.

Other classes are not nearly as easily countered.

There is a reason why my favorite matchup is another Warrior. I really enjoy the fights as there is actual counterplay to what is going on during the fight. I cant say the same for other classes, and condi builds in particular.

Right now my Favorite is 2v2 for “group” fights, and 1v1 against another Warrior for solo battles. I personally feel like past that things are out of control with a lot of things in this game.

With the excess in this game, the Warrior can sometimes feel like trash. If the game was more balanced across the board (across all issues,including certain warrior ones), than the Warrior would feel really, really good.

My biased opinion, outside of a few issues I feel like its in a pretty decent spot, and I enjoy playing it, and against it.

There is a large gap between Vanilla and Elite specs for sustain. So there is actually room to complain.

Not everyone wants to play cookie cutter meta boyz.

When I first started playing this game I ran a longbow build to start off with, I was still learning the game and running 2nd or 3rd line in a zerg helped me ease into things. Helping focus down targeted enemy players, and dropping my AOE’s on the smaller fights that break out when zergs collide were my main jobs. I agree with Choppy its not the best zerg weapon. With so much boon spam it really negates the strengths of the weapon, esp the cc’s.

And as also mentioned above, it does well in smaller scale fights which for me are WAY more fun. The cc’s have way more value there, along with the AOE’s.

I enjoy the play-style, even if its not the strongest weapon out there. Working on getting my ascended longbow for my main.

Right now I am using Scrapper Runes and Knights armor. I use Beserker weapons and trinkets along with zerk stat jewels in the trinkets.

I really like this combo against power warriors, It great against other power builds as well. I feel like I am more durable a lot of times.

The only thing that hurts is the low vitality, and pretty much anything cheese condi related.

I am in the process of switching over to my first ascended gears (marauders), then I will replace the runes in my armor when I start using the damage reduction food. Not sure what runes to use yet.

I would like to switch over to something more damage related. I might try Strength since I run Axe/Axe-LB.

I guess I am looking for the same thing, I have tried a lot of things and nothing is working. I have 4 level 80 warriors.

I really have problems when my Resistance or Clears are interrupted, its pretty much an auto loss for me if that happens at the wrong time. The cast times leave a lot to be desired, and they also are very visually obvious.

Not to mention the cool downs are incredibly long by todays combat standards.

I usually cannot recover in time because there is so much damage getting stacked by condis these days. They usually can get 2 full rotations off before my main clear is off cooldown. It’s very lopsided, my main counters to their damage are so easily negated.

When you throw in the ranged aspect of some of the classes we can fight it becomes even worse as their kiting can deny Adrenal Health and Cleansing Ire due to a lack of hits as they are out of melee range, virutally the whole time. That’s actually what compounds the first problems I laid out earlier.

Mesmers and Druids are the main culprits for me.

The stealth aspects that some of these builds can have only put the final nail in the coffin.

Finally they can stack crazy amounts of toughness and health in their gear choices. They only need one mofo stat for their damage. They do not make sacrifices like physical builds have to.

It almost seems to much, and I am starting to think that’s because it is.

(F1) Eviscerate

The Vanilla Axe Burst ability, Eviscerate can hit very hard. There is a damage bonus calculated by how much Adrenilene we had when we used the skill. The more bars we have the harder the skill hits.

It does have a longer animation time, so its fairly dodgeable. This just means that there is more counterplay to this skill out there. Well timed Bursts are key.

It does have 300 range and it can break immobilize if traited, However, as a main source of damage, I try to only do that in emergency situations, like when facing certain death if I do not break the CC.

Like Axe 3 it can also get wonky at times and miss completely.

Leaping into targets can work well, connecting a Axe 3 can make it much easier to land a F1. When both fail though, it can be pretty painfull.

Combos

Combos are really important for Axe/Axe. The biggest source of damage is landing your combos, without that we loose our consistant damage. We have a decent CC with Axe 3, and landing Axe 2 at key times is important for our damage.

If I get the first crack at an enemy during a surprise attack a combo might look something like this.

Axe 3, dodge roll into target, Axe 2, Axe 5, F1 (Eviscerate)

We can que up attacks as well, it can be very strong to do this, if we get interupted though it can really mess up the whole fight. I tend to use Axe1, and Axe 4 in situations like this.

I tend to trait Axe Mastery, so the 20% cooldown reduction on axe skills helps alot with pumping out combos. Its really noticable. The extra Ferocity per Axe also helps our damage. I also really like the extra Adrenaline per critical Axe hit, combined with Axe 5 and 2, you can really fill your adrenaline bar very quickly, its much more noticable over single axe. More ability to spam F1’s means much better damage output.

Greatest Weakness (Fighting movement heavy builds/classes)

The lack of a movement ability on the regular skill bar really hurts the Axe/Axe kit, not having the extra movment option or the ability to use one as a imobilize breaker (via the dicipline tree trait) is a big liability. This is why I think Axe/Axe is much stronger in group play overall.

Fighting imobilize heavy builds and builds that can kite continuously are real problems. Our kit on weapon swap can help in this problem, but it depends on what we pick. Fighting Theives and Mesmers is really challenging while in Axe/Axe mode.

I really think Axe 4 needs to become a movement ability for Axe/Axe to do better overall

Axe/Axe is my main weapon set right now in WvW and PvP (the small amount I have actually played PvP). Despite what others say, there are some strong suits that can be useful in WvW and PvP. The biggest strength is the cleaving ability the kit has. I tend to run a Vanilla Axe/Axe Warrior with LB and I would consider it my main. I currently have 4 level 80 Warriors, Hopefully 3 more later on. IMHO,Berserker basically ruins Axe/Axe due to the really bad burst skill Decapitate (Decapitate really is a poorly designed Evicserate), due to this I tend to run Vanilla for Axe/Axe.

Axe 1 (Chop, Double Chop, Triple Chop)

It hits hard for a basic attack, this makes it great for saving your harder hitting skills with cooldowns. I can still cleave a down with it, if I have to. It gets pretty strong with some attack speed or quickness thrown in (I like to trait that). This attack hits up to 3 targets.

Axe 2 (Cyclone Axe)

Its a spinning attack that applies Vunerability on up to 5 targets when hit. It works very well as an opening attack before going through a longer combo. This is how I try to use the skill, as part of a combo as much as I can. You get the most mileage from the Vunerability that way.

Axe 3 (Throw Axe)

With 900 range and a fast attack animation on this thrown axe, you can apply your cripple (-50% movement speed) from a fair distance, and quickly. It can be a great opening attack on a ambush, or a clutch attack to keep an enemy within range so you can finish them off.

Its easily dodged, and sometimes it fails to hit seemingly hit-able targets, for these reasons, it can feel a bit disappointing at times. Although it can be very clutch at the times when it does work properly.

Axe 4 (Dual Strike)

This dual Axe attack, grants you 2 stacks of might (%20 Critical Hit Chance) for connecting on up to 3 targets. Like Axe 2, I tend to think of this as part of a combo whenever possible. I do this a lot when things are on cooldown.

Axe 5 (Whirling Axe)

Axe 5 can hit 5 targets while moving 50% faster. It works very well moving with the zerg and cleaving downs. Even in small group fights, this cleaving ability is very strong. If your enemies start to cluster even a tiny bit, then you can get some real mileage out of axe 5. This is a very common occurrence in WvW and a lot of PvP. (not so much at the higher levels of play)

Its a channeling skill, so it has a long animation sequence, the plus side is that it gives you time to position yourself as you cast it, you can constantly adjust. So things like staying just a hare in front of an advancing baddie, or really getting aggressive and body hugging someone are definitely possible. That speed boost while channeling gives you the choice in how you want to play it.

Channeling skills have real negatives of course, and Axe 5 is incredibly obvious when you use it. Good players can easily outplay it, you can count on that. The long cast time makes you vunerable to intterupts, and attacks in general. You can cancel the attack to help minimize any negatives, but you loose out for doing it.

Group play and cleaving are really where axe 5 shines. I enjoy it the most in smaller group fights in PvP and WvW.

I agree, I really like Vanilla Warrior better, there is a lot more freedom of choice in how you build, even though its just not as strong as Berserker. I can live with that though, I am a mediocre player on my best day.

Its also a lot more relaxing to not be playing against the “zerk timer”, seems like a lot of players are pretty good at avoiding the glowing warriors out there.

Watched the vid, looked like fun!

You could take the standard GS warrior meta build and then add your S/SH to it, season to taste. I did that after watching a video someone linked in this forum. This particular player made a sword themed warrior, It looked like it played well, just not the strongest kit out there. They switched between Vanilla and Bersker depending on what they were trying to do. It was pretty cool seeing them hit with sword 3 all of a sudden during a fight.

I do have some experience playing the GS/S/SH build as I have it set up on my third level 80 warrior. The mobility is very good. Its also nice to hit with Shield 4 and set up the thousand blades, instead of missing like a chump. Downing a player using a well timed sword 3 is indeed satisfying.

My only complaints are the sometimes clumsiness of the GS , and the very low damage of S/SH. There are some advantages however, just comes down to how much you can leverage them during a fight.

I am referring to a power warrior.

I personally fell in love with Axe-Axe/Longbow, so I admit I am a bit biased when dealing with swords.

Thanks for the breakdown of my traceroute, I appreciate it.

Unfortunately, I only have one choice for a ISP in my area, so my only choice is to play more on the weekends before prime time hits. It sucks that I cant play with friends, but that’s the way it is.

Thanks again for the breakdown.

I tried the build, there were some positives, and real negatives for me. The positives were its cheap cost to equip, and good durability with the stats, gear, and skills.

My two biggest complaints were the mobility, and the negative consequences of missing the headbutt attack.

The site mentions its a solo roaming build, but based on your videos and actually playing the build I feel its just too slow for solo play. 1v1 It was very hard to disengage bad fights, or counter the kiting classes/builds. This build as it stands really is a good small group build, it just feels a lot weaker solo.

Well the VPN did not work at all, I even tried the advanced version you have to pay monthly for, it lets you select your route and everything. No matter what I tried it did not work at all.

Still the same ridiculous lag spikes.

So its obvious I am still being forced through the same Dallas node just before the NC soft hops.

Not really happy that a third party can cause this big of a problem like this, but since we have next to no regulation here, companies can do what they want.

I will try to file a ticket with my Tiny ISP, its really my last resort. I am very skeptical on this working, as soon as I bring up the word “game” I will get blown off.

Of course a East Coast server would solve all my problems.

What is the policy on using a VPN to connect to GW2?

I have read on some threads that you can get banned for using one, and on other threads peeps are indeed using them. According to one of the stickied threads anything that gives a player an unfair advantage is banned but anything that helps to improve the player experience is not?

Its confusing.

Personally I would rather just use a VPN than try to contact my Tiny ISP who can take up to a week to respond and always makes excuses. Dealing with them is a nightmare.

I dont really want to get banned, but right now this node is going absolutely bonkers and I really want to play.

Even as a new player I can see the amount of projectile hate in this game, making signet of might pretty much necessary for a lot of fights, if you are playing ranged. The windows of opportunity you can have to actually hit things can be very small, there are so many blocks, evades, and reflects on short cooldowns. With enemies chain stealthing things are made even worse.

Kiting/Stealth classes using ranged attacks seem like the biggest counter to the Warrior’s strengths, it negates so much of what the Warrior relys on. It denies Adrenal Health, and Cleansing Ire due to loss of constant hits/adrenaline supply. They can also just sit back and wait out the cooldowns on our abilities, like Ignore Pain, Healing Signet, and even Berserk Mode.

PS, you forgot Bow.

I am having the same problem with this node, for me its hop 10. The problem has been happening for over two weeks.

As a new player I am not happy with this situation. Other games play fine for me.