Guild Wars 2

I tPvP often on my warrior, among other classes. I’m also in the top 50 solo queue leaderboards currently.

I LOVE banners on warrior in competitive pvp. The permanent regeneration combined with healing signet and adrenal health means my warrior passively heals for 900 HP per second. It’s like having a ranger’s troll unguent activated but permanent and forever.

With energy sigils, I also proc the energy regain by picking up or instantly dropping the banner by swap.

The AoE is larger than the middle circle of Legacy of the Foefire. It is extremely useful in team fights because all of the stats, perma regen, and perma swiftness applies to all teammates.

Banner isn’t without flaws though. If a moron teammate picks up the banner, there is no way to forcibly take back the banner; an idiot could hold the banner and run off with it forever, which sucks due to its long cooldown. The #2 skill on all banners are extremely underwhelming. The #5 skill is a self-inflicted 2 second stun, which is horribad. And the dash is very short range. Banners have many benefits in competitive PvP, as mentioned, though.

What do people expect warriors to do? Just obediently roll over, belly up, ready to be slaughtered effortlessly? I don’t understand moron philosophy.

I’m one of the most patient people in the world, but there are times when I would love to strangle my teammates. Enabling friendly fire would be dangerously unhealthy but oh so satisfying.

Narcin Roc.3018:

This map requires you to pay more attention to your enemy’s position than any other map. To time your dodges, pushes, pulls, and stabilities.

Yeah, a thief scorpion wires you in stealth. Position out of that.

How hard is it to disable this map in the arena rotation? They did it for Legacy of the Foefire (albeit it took over 50 hours before they responded).

Rufy.6093:

Why do people do this? What’s the point? Do they make money or something?

Every time a viewer gets bombarded with advertisements during the stream, the streamer earns ~$0.02.

Crovax.7854:

-Cleansing Ire feels useless with a melee build.

It should remove the condition/s prior to executing the skill.
As it stands with the current aoe condition spamfest in teamfights
and especially in 8v8 spvp you are blinded every few seconds.Take into account a slow weapon such as the hammer or the mace and you are completely useless.

I understand your sentiment against Cleansing Ire, especially when trying to land burst skills with a mace or axe. However, Cleansing Ire is amazing with other weapons like sword (since flurry is a 10x multi-hit attack, even scraping the target with 1 hit will activate Cleansing Ire), and as mentioned already, long bow works well with the trait.

Warriors are in a good place right now in terms of PvP balance, but there is still a lot of work to be done. From major things like traits and bugs, to small things like quality of life changes – there is still so much that can be done to fix warriors.

Here are some examples. Feel free to add to this list.

• Last Stand: Activates Balanced Stance when you are dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back, or stunned. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds.
  Why does this trait proc Balanced Stance if the warrior already has stability? For such a long internal cooldown, you’d think the trait would work as it says: activating stability when you need it. Also, a cooldown timer on the boon bar would be incredibly useful.
• Powerful Banners
  Why does this trait make banners deal 500 damage when summoned? That is so insignificant it’s almost mind-boggling to think who it was in the office that thought this was a good idea for a trait.
• Vigorous Return
  Seriously? What is the point of this trait?
• Etc
  Feel free to add to this list.

Also, are warriors in a good place right now in PvP? I’ve seen more diversity in builds, from CC cleave builds to high toughness condition builds like this one. I feel like they’ve come a long ways in terms of balance, and it used to be way worst in the past (such dark times…) but maybe my perspective is skewed because I’m just looking at warrior balance from an improvement perspective.

I’ve been using Sigils of Energy; it’s amazing with this build due to how the banner procs the energy regain. I like sigils of energy because of the potential of avoiding thousands of damage in one evade. It’s really the best survivability sigil in the game, and it synergizes well with this build.

Of course, one could normally just swap weapons to proc the energy sigils. However, since this build doesn’t have the Fast Hands trait, swapping weapons has a lengthy 10 second cooldown. Sometimes you don’t want to swap off the swords, since you’re in a pinch and you need the mobility.

The solution? Pick up the banner and/or quick-drop the banner (by using the weapon swap key). It will proc the energy sigil without having to actually swap weapons, so you don’t compromise your mobility in the process!

Last Stand: Activates Balanced Stance when you are dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back, or stunned. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds.

If the warrior already has stability on, they won’t suffer from any of those effects. So, why does Last Stand activate anyways, when a stun etc is inflicted on a warrior that already has stability on?

For such a tremendously long internal cooldown, one would think Last Stand should function the way it says so: activating stability when you need it. Right now, it just activates whenever a control skill is used on the warrior, regardless if the warrior actually is affected by the stun etc or not.

There is a built-in time window for the system to judge whether a player is a DC or a leaver. Normally if you DC and then quickly re-connect, the game will not count you as a leaver. Also, leaver counts as an automatic loss, even if you were on the winning team.

However, at the very end of the match, any disconnected players are automatically swallowed up into the “THEY ARE LEAVERS, PUNISH THEM” window. So, unfortunately the op may have disconnected at the worst time possible.

Liuc.8026:

Considering the obscene amount of hours it takes to reach rank 70, the reward you get ofr it is beyond laughable in my opinion.

The reward is all of the fun he had playing PvP, and all of the time put into it, and all of the skills and knowledge gained from PvPing that much (though I’m guessing he did a lot of hot join, which is not conducive to good learning).

His rank number just displays to everyone his dedication to PvPing. Also, the phoenix finisher looks great because of how high it shoots into the air. It’s like a big firework.

Yaki.9563:

Warriors have the best condition removal in the game with this bug. Both of those examples you mentioned affect only the player. Warhorn and soldier rune shouts remove conditions from the entire group. Heck, even if you just consider yourself, you have the potential to far outstrip those. Charge: 5 conditions on 12s cooldown. Call to Arms: 2 conditions on 16s cooldown. Shouts: 1 condition, except 2 conditions for SIO all on <30s cooldown. Then there’s the fact that Warhorn converts those conditions to boons. The comparison isn’t even close, warrior blows those classes out of the water.

Except no one uses condition removal in PvE b/c you can faceroll through with no support, and in WvW people only care about numbers. Condition removal doesn’t make numbers. I wouldn’t be surprised if less than 5% of warriors used warhorn more than intermittently.

That’s funny, because Quick Breathing has been working like this since release. For all we know, it could be intended and the tooltip is just incorrect this whole time.

This is how Quick Breathing has always been. What has been the general consensus on warrior’s condition removal? “Bad” “Weak” “Extremely vulnerable to conditions” “Can’t do anything vs condi”. Up until the most recent changes with Berserker Stance and the addition of Cleansing Ire trait, warriors were widely considered the weakest class in the game to conditions. Yet, Quick Breathing has always worked like this, even back then.

And even now, the condition removal by warriors is still inferior to other classes. The passive condition removal examples I listed were just that: PASSIVE FORMS OF CONDITION REMOVAL, or in other words, condition removal that takes no thought, input, or skill from the player. Even those passive condition removals rivals Quick Breathing in terms of effectiveness. Then, if you consider the numerous ACTIVE condition removals of these classes on top of the passives, which many of them do affect allies, you will get a general idea of where warriors are at in terms of condition removal superiority.

Crickets chirping

It’s honestly not even a big change. People didn’t even notice it.

Other classes have far superior condition removal. With purity trait and signet, guardians passively remove 2 conditions every 10 seconds. Rangers remove 4 conditions every 10 seconds passively. Etc.

Confirmed. The trait removes 2 condis in pvp.

Instead of the counter automatically activating, it should be manual (gain the ability to counter once you’ve blocked an attack). So many times I’ve successfully blocked an opponent’s attack, only to have my counter attack miss because the opponent just dodge rolls right after.

Guide updated with newest build information and tips on how to utilize the build in the FAQs section.

Bratpirat.6137:

I like the build, been playing it for few days allthough i changed it after some matches because the damage was so low. With undead runes you gain nearly 300 conditiondmg because of the high toughness and with sigil of geomancy you have a nice aoe bleed, especially for my friends with their spiritarmy.

Thanks for the feedback. I updated the build because I agree, Undead Runes are very strong with this high toughness build.

Undead Runes makes this build really bursty. It’s actually kind of frightening.

Also, I know using banner seems very odd, but don’t hate on it before trying. It’s actually extremely strong, and I consider it the key part of this build.

The banner heals your entire team for 22k HP each over one minute. For a warrior, offering that kind of support to the team is huge.

Step 1: Make five+ engi, mesmer, necro, etc characters.

Step 2: Pop elite in team fight. Swap chars. Pop elite in every team fight. Repeat.

jportell.2197:

zone.1073:

jportell.2197:

zone.1073:

Lord Aargadon.4135:

Random thought, I don’t wish to get caught into this war, but don’t forget that condis still tick past 25% whereas direct dmg immunity at 25% would make you completely immune to dmg past that point, so please stop making that comparison.

Incorrect. New conditions can still be applied and will cause damage to the warrior while in endure pain state. 60 second internal cooldown (used to be 90 seconds).

On the other hand, engineer is completely immune to all condition application and new condition damage while in automated response state. No internal cooldown.

Which begs the question. How much of a meta did ANET want condition damage to push into. This trait has never really changed since release, and only now with the massive influx of condition damage builds and the presences of teams that are running absolutely no power builds is when it gets called OP. This is a sign of a bad meta not a bad trait.

Automated Response is fine as a trait. It just needs an internal cooldown like everything else and we’re good to go in terms of balance.

Everything must have an internal cooldown, period

Except not everything has an internal cool down.
Ranger Protection on dodge.
Thief Swiftness/might on dodge.
Warrior Might on block (you can get so much might just from one shield stance)
Mesmer deceptive Evasion has no ICD.

And these are just off the top of my head so your argument of everything should have an ICD is invalid.

The keyword is should, in order to achieve balance.

jportell.2197:

zone.1073:

Lord Aargadon.4135:

Random thought, I don’t wish to get caught into this war, but don’t forget that condis still tick past 25% whereas direct dmg immunity at 25% would make you completely immune to dmg past that point, so please stop making that comparison.

Incorrect. New conditions can still be applied and will cause damage to the warrior while in endure pain state. 60 second internal cooldown (used to be 90 seconds).

On the other hand, engineer is completely immune to all condition application and new condition damage while in automated response state. No internal cooldown.

Which begs the question. How much of a meta did ANET want condition damage to push into. This trait has never really changed since release, and only now with the massive influx of condition damage builds and the presences of teams that are running absolutely no power builds is when it gets called OP. This is a sign of a bad meta not a bad trait.

Automated Response is fine as a trait. It just needs an internal cooldown like everything else and we’re good to go in terms of balance.

Everything must have an internal cooldown, period

Lord Aargadon.4135:

Random thought, I don’t wish to get caught into this war, but don’t forget that condis still tick past 25% whereas direct dmg immunity at 25% would make you completely immune to dmg past that point, so please stop making that comparison.

Incorrect. New conditions can still be applied and will cause damage to the warrior while in endure pain state. 60 second internal cooldown (used to be 90 seconds).

On the other hand, engineer is completely immune to all condition application and new condition damage while in automated response state. No internal cooldown.

Cygnus.6903:

Therefore attacking far point with this doesn’t seem very viable. You can’t burst them down fast enough to prevent help from showing up, at which point things get tricky.

I find that far-point assaulting with this build works because of how long the build lasts in a 1v2. The longer I can keep the far point neutralized with 2 enemies tunneling me, the easier it is for my team to control the rest of the map due to number advantage.

Good feedback. Keep up the good work.

One thing to remember: The CC from this tanky dps build is actually quite strong.

If you think about it, a stunlock warrior puts out a 4 second stun and a 2 second stun. This build puts out a 4 second immobilize, a 3 second immobilize, and a 1 second immobilize from two sources if traited. It’s not a hard CC like a stun but it does lock the target down and makes it super convenient for your team to focus the target. Stuns can be cleansed by stun breakers; immobilizes cannot be cleansed by stun breakers. It can be quite powerful in team fights.

Cygnus.6903:

I wonder how you calculate 1200 HPS?

I updated the post. I made a calculation error with adrenal health, since it heals every 3 seconds instead of every second.

Cygnus.6903:

The funny thing is it seems that another warrior with some CC and berserker’s stance would hard counter you after last stand wears out. Balanced stance seems somewhat obligatory, seeing as you have no active stability otherwise.

When the enemy team has a stunlock warrior, I find that using balanced stance as the 3rd utility, switching out Dogged March trait for increased stance duration trait, and using lyssa runes, is a hard counter to the stunlock warrior. 12 + 12 + 6 = 30 seconds of stability, which basically makes the stunlock warrior absolutely worthless against this build. After the stunlock warrior’s berserker stance wears out, they usually drop extremely fast to 1 pin down, 1 impale, and 1 flurry. Kiting the warrior with immobilizes means they will struggle to cleanse off your conditions.

^

As much as I’d love to have a free Endure Pain trait with zero internal cooldown that activates automatically at 25% HP, it’s just not going to happen.

You could even use the same argument of “don’t rely on spamming X, use Y instead!!” and it still won’t justify a warrior having an automatic endure pain trait with zero internal cooldown.

Engineers should be no exception to balance.

I’ve played some arena matches with devs that were playing engineers with Automated Response. Pretty sure ArenaNet is aware of the trait’s power.

At the very least, Automated Response should have an internal cooldown implemented just like any other skill.

Melandru runes used to be a very strong counter to conditions (-50% condition duration) but that was nerfed in beta.

Warrior’s berserker stance now gives 10 seconds of condition immunity when traited. Engineers have a trait that gives condition immunity without any internal cooldown. There are strong counters to conditions in the game – they’re just not widespread.

“Solution”: Severely reduce the damage from conditions, but take away condition removal from the game. Burst condition damage solved.

Now conditions will be slow and deadly after a long period of time, rather than a form of burst. The downside is that now conditions cannot be removed, which leads to a whole new set of problems.

I believe in passive effects if they are coupled with highly active gameplay. Warrior’s healing from regeneration + signet, for example, is passive healing. However, the gameplay is extremely active. The warrior is constantly having to land burst skills to remove conditions and carefully time their use of long cooldown skills. This form of “passivity” is fine.

The problematic kind of passive is the kind where the gameplay is completely independent of other players, and everything is controlled by A. I. and requires almost no input from the player.

alcopaul.2156:

FOTMS/META builds are good for the casuals to get into pvp.

Nerfing them will be a bad idea.

No, that’s what the warrior class is for; it was intended to be an introductory class. It’s odd, however, that they made warriors one of the hardest classes in the game to do well in, competitively.

They simplified the warrior class to the point where it was non-functional for the past 8 months; only recently have warriors become borderline viable, although still non-existent in 5-man arenas.

Funny, for a game that preaches so much about the importance of visual clarity in competitive PvP, they sure know how to make PvP very ambiguous.

80% of all characters in GW2 most recent prized tournament were Asura for an obvious reason.

I’m thinking of large rose bud “traps” that get activated when two players stand on it; the flower swallows the two players into a small arena and forces them to duel. Flower opens up after a player is downed.

Warrior conditions are not spammable. They are on relatively long cooldowns. Longbow’s bleeds is on a 25 second cooldown. Torment on the offhand sword is a 15 second cooldown. All of the burst skills are a 10 second cooldown. You can already see the huge gaps in between condition application. Avoid these key abilities and it’s smooth sailing.

On the other hand, classes like Necros can literally, literally put a piece of tape on their #1 key, blindfold themselves, and they will apply 4 different conditions until the target is dead. That is spam.

Well, it looks like the tanky condition warrior build is catching on. I’m seeing it a lot more frequently in arenas, which is interesting.

Warriors need strong heals due to their steep risk-to-reward ratio. Warrior gameplay is extremely risky due to their melee nature, and low reward for the same reason.

This is probably the warrior build that you may find to be problematic.

It is designed to be highly sustainable while also putting out great pressure through conditions. There are counters to it, though. This warrior’s only form of condition removal depends on landing burst skills (except when using longbow), so a well-timed evade will help you avoid damage, plus the warrior will not cleanse any conditions, too. Putting blinds on the warrior while his longbow is out is a good way to ensure that his #5 longbow skill will miss, which is a significant chunk of the warrior’s condition pressure. Etc. Lots of ways to counter it.

Just because a build works does not mean it’s broken. We don’t need to smush a class into the ground in order to achieve balance.

Yes, and there is no limitation on map pings/drawing. Ping the kitten out of that map!

Relying on the chat to communicate means you’re assuming all your teammates are native English speakers. Not always the case.

I find pinging and drawing on the map to be more effective communication. Allies just respond faster and do what you want them to when they see flashing red colors on their screen.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Basically, if a team wins, allow them continue to next match with their party. This would make it more exciting to play in the arenas as you could go for personal win streak records and it would also add more reason to actually win a match. There could also be a minor extra reward for scoring conscutive wins.

Or…

Send a message to all of the fabulous members of your fabulous solo queue team. Invite them all and create a fabulous party. And then join the fabulous team arena queue together! It’ll be fabulous!

Ping the map. Ping the kitten out of it. For some odd reason, solo queuers respond really well to map pings.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Nikkle.4013:

yes, they miss wrote it, jsharp even said this on the warrior forums. Did you think healing signet need a nerf rather then buff?

Considering wars have highest armor and highest hp in the game, sitting at 400 health per second is quite literally ridiculous.

In arenas it’s balanced. The slightest bit of coordination will still wreck a warrior with healing signet up, let alone an actual premade team focusing the warrior down.

Dolyak signet is strong now because the active portion of the skill is instant cast with no animation. You may activate the signet mid execution animation and gain the stability.

Stamina signet is strong in theory but it still has a cast time for the active portion; it’s short but still, it means that you cannot cast it mid action. This can be troublesome when facing enemy necros who tend to dump a billion conditions on your face, then fears you to interrupt any attempt at casting.

pot.6805:

The build has a blank utility, what is it?

More info about the tanky condition build here.

The Monk build for warriors <- Link to build here. Use this variation when enemy comp has high spike, power-based damage and no enemy stunlock warrior.

Heavy condition removal variation. (Switch to Lyssa runes and Signet of Stamina. Save Signet of Rage usage for condition removal. You may use warhorn and the Quick Breathing trait for a near complete condition wipe every ~15 seconds.)

30 seconds of stability variation (Switch to Lyssa runes, Sure-Footed trait, balanced stance. Self-explanatory, but use this variation when enemy team has a stunlock warrior or a high amount of crowd control)

PvP analysis of build here. <- Feedback here is welcome.

This is just a simple guide to a build I have been creating for competitive PvP for several months. It took a lot of experimenting and refining but I would like to share the results now.

Pros:

• 900 HP healing per second forever, no cooldowns required.
• An additional burst heal of 4000 HP.
• High toughness and condition removal.
• Strong team support through AoE damage and AoE healing.
• Strong offensive pressure through condition damage.
• Thrives in 4v4s. Can handle 1v2s adequately. Can kill most classes 1v1.

Cons:

• Team dependent.
• Offers little to no crowd control outside of immobilizes (but does offer a huge amount and duration of immobilizes).
• Low power-based damage.
• Long cooldowns on all utilities (60 to ~120 seconds).

FAQs

• Why healing signet?
  Healing signet heals more than a max adrenaline healing surge over 30 seconds. Combined with perma regeneration and adrenal health, it’s like having a ranger’s troll unguent but permanent and always on. Think monk from GW1.

• Why banner?
  The banner fills up everything that the build lacks and more. It gives damage. It gives mobility (short CD dash and perma swiftness without having to use signet of rage). It gives good healing through perma regeneration, which heals for 22k HP per minute in an AoE. And finally, it allows the warrior to offer good team support because the stats are all AoE.

• What 3rd utility?
  The 3rd utility slot is flexible. Fear Me is a good option for the AoE 3 second stun. Other good options are Balanced Stance, Signet of Stamina, and Dolyak Signet.

Advice on how to use this build?

1. Start the fight by dropping banner and using longbow. Your basic combo is Pin Down, swap, Impale, Flurry. If you can get off all three of these abilities, the target is going to die if they don’t pop defensive cooldowns and start running.
2. As you get more advanced, you can do powerful combos like Pin Down into Combustive Shot, Arcing Arrow + put down banner for Might stacks, then swap to sword. You may pick up and put down the banner again for additional might stacks. Leap to obtain a fire aura, which gives you stacks of might every single time you receive hits. Finish the fight with an Impale, Flurry, and Final Thrust. Every stack of might gives 35 power and condition damage stat, so 25 stacks gives 875 power/condi stats. Maintaining your Might stacks will be the deciding factor in advanced fights.
3. Don’t forget about the banner! After you’ve finished destroying everyone and you’re ready to roam elsewhere, remember to pick up the banner and run with it. The banner heals you for 22k HP per minute and gives perma swiftness, so always bring it for improved roaming.
4. Fight on point. Doing this will force your opponent to make a decision: Do I stand on the point and be forced to eat the fire field damage? Do I step off the point to survive, but then lose the cap? Fighting on point is the easiest way to make full use of Combustive Shot.

Despite how tanky the build is, it is not a bunker. I repeat, THIS IS A TANKY WARRIOR BUT IT’S NOT A TRUE BUNKER. Remember this. Rather, it is a tanky DPS build that is used for roaming, home point defending, or far point assaulting (NOTE: must be an advanced player to pull this off. Hitting far point means you will be doing 1 v 2s constantly, so if you’re not comfortable with the build yet, don’t use this for far point assaulting right away).

This build is a work in progress and is still in experimentation. Feedback is welcome, and happy PvPing.

About 85% of the spirit ranger’s gameplay is automated by 5 sources of evade, NPCs and A.I. (GW2’s A.I. is freakishly good – more useful and stronger than some human players, even). The reason I say spirit ranger is superior than warriors and even most classes in the whole game is mostly due to how passive their gameplay is. They are not reliant on active ability effects, so they don’t have to deal with the RNG that everyone else does. You can blindfold a guy, tell him to start playing spirit ranger, and he’ll still end up killing everyone on the map somehow.

However, just because rangers are an outlier in balance, does not mean warriors are not in a good place right now.

Brigg.6189:

Well, it’s a nice original build. How do you feel it compares to spirit ranger? Have you considered taking banner elite + banner cd reduction?

I feel like spirit ranger is superior in all aspects, but that is no fault of the warrior class. It’s the spirit ranger that sticks out as an outlier compared to all other classes in the game.

I’ve tried to make Battle Standard work but unfortunately its effect is too weak for its 3-4 minute cooldown. The self-stun when casting stability (oh the irony, and why does stability have to be cast?) feels awful, among many other issues with that ability.

Rampage, on the other hand, is actually interesting. You get three 1000 range dashes during Rampage form now (Ranger’s Swoop 3x), which is absurdly good mobility. You can literally travel from one end of the map to the other in Legacy of the Foefire by chaining dashes from skills and Rampage. Lots of reliable CC and 30 seconds of stability on a 2 and a half minute cooldown. It’s an interesting option now.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Healing signet was always pulsing every second.

Thank you, fixed. Confused the signet healing for adrenal health.

Thoughts on warrior’s viability in pvp?

Glassy berserker amulet is gone and a thing of the past. Tanky as kitten is the new fashion now, and a couple of tanky warrior builds are becoming popular in arenas.

Stunlock warriors are strong and viable competitively. In team fights they have the freedom to overextend and survive, and be able to pressure single targets well. The CC support they offer is useful in many team comps. At the very least, these warriors now meet the bare minimum requirement to be viable: having map presence. That’s a start.

Another interesting path that has not become mainstream yet is the tanky condition route. This is the build I have been experimenting and refining with for a few months now. Why Healing Signet? It now heals more than a max adrenaline Healing Surge over 30 seconds. Combined with Adrenal Health and regen, it’s like having a ranger’s Troll Unguent activated but all the time. Why banner? The banner fills up everything that the build is lacking and more: it gives damage, mobility (low CD dash and perma swiftness without having to use Signet of Rage), strong healing through perma regen, and AoE team support. Each bonus from the two rune sets and leeching sigils heal for ~1000 HP each, which compliments the build’s “forever-healing” theme nicely (think: GW1’s Monk).