Guild Wars 2

If you’re not better than at least 90% of the rest, then you will not be shown on the leaderboards.

The meta is almost picture perfect, where tanks are tanky, conditions actually do stuff, glass cannons don’t literally 1-shot kill but are still dangerous, and builds with a good balance of offense/defense feel strong and useful as opposed to weak and useless.

But of course, this is not enough to satisfy the GW2 PvP forum lurkers. Oh no, of course not.

The upcoming changes are spot on. Healing signet passive feels too powerful? Rework the active. A good active will give players a reason to turn off the passive, and voila, that’s 20 seconds of no healing. Counter gameplay achieved.

Changes like this are amazing, because it’s not a nerf or a buff. It’s a change. Flat out nerfs feel awful, while changes feel refreshing. And that’s what warriors need. Changes.

style.6173:

FOTM is currently hambow, spirit ranger, and decap engi.

Enjoy

FOTY*

A. I. needs to be less automated and more skill based. Have spirit weapons attack only when you land a successful attack yourself. Have turrets fire only when specific conditions have been met, etc.

You’ll eat a muffin. You’re going to eat it and like it!

“Dev: These patch notes are not real!” = “These patch notes are real but are missing a couple things”.

I like bigger models because they are like fly paper. Flies smash their face into you and stick on you forever, and that’s what I want to happen with my beefy warrior, so the rest of my team is safe and free.

Comparison between norn and human:

It looks like this build is getting quite popular, even among the devs…!

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JonathanSharp.7094:

I have 1 of each class, just to keep tabs on how they feel in general.

But if I’m actually trying to hold my own, I run:

• Sword/Sword + Bow Warrior
• Hambow (to keep tabs on how it feels in the meta)
• Various Necros
• Various Guardians
• Various Mesmers
• On internal servers, been playing around with a few new Ranger specs

I don’t get as much time to play as I used to, but when I do play, those are the specs I gravitate towards.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/How-to-dominate-PvP-as-warrior-Shouts

Very simple to get into, challenging to master. Enjoy.

Slim.3024:

The only real “problem” with this build is the fact that some classes have temporary or permanent condition immunity. While you can play around the first, by playing defensively, it is very frustrating to go up against the latter.

The counter to diamond skin is this: combustive shot, stand around and auto attack with longbow, land your #3. Done. They are below 90%. This build has a surprising amount of power stat, so your basic attacks and direct damage skills actually do damage, too.

Engineers with immunity at low HP are a non factor in arenas. They sacrifice so much to get that one trait. It makes them useless. Just focus on capping a point instead of chasing the low HP engineer, and you’re golden.

Aeryn.9813:

I’ve been running a similar LB/SS build for PVP for 2-3 months now. It’s something I discovered on my own from theory crafting stuff. For me, it’s way better than the hambow build and it’s great to see that you’re successful with it. I use Fear Me and my build is slightly more on the offensive side.

I’d like to know your experience vs hambow warriors with berserker’s stance. Or opponents with lots of condi cleansing that remove our bleeds, burns and torment.

In arenas, the most difficult opponents for me are engineers (yes, not even diamond skin eles or other warriors can stand up to this build). The classes that give the most trouble are the ones that have multiple small condition cleansing skills, as opposed to huge cooldown ones like warrior’s berserker stance (not really a cleanse but similar in effect).

I have never, not once, ever lost to a hambow warrior in a 1v1 situation. Ever. Mathematically, it is extremely difficult for a hambow warrior to beat this build, and it’s partially why I run this build in arenas: it’s because I know I am guaranteed to have good match-ups vs many types of opponents, such as the ever popular hambow warrior.

4 shouts that heal and remove conditions, 20 second CD stunbreaker (the shortest CD stun breaker in the entire game), plus a 2nd stunbreaker from trait. To me, the math of this build just screams anti-hambow.

ronpierce.2760:

Yes, so lets make the ultimate GUARDIANTHIEF, best of both worlds, balance.

You mean the fact that warriors are less tanky, offer less team support, and are incapable of bunkering like a guardian can, and they do less damage, have less flexibility, and are less slippery than a thief? Ok.

The only thing going for warriors is their handful of good weapons that do cool things in combination with traits, and a heal that makes them feel less like wet toilet paper. Longbow is cool. Hammer is cool. Sword is cool. That’s it.

Why shouldn’t warriors have powerful weapons? They are designed to be masters of weaponry.

Brigg.6189:

Here’s a question for you though: Does this work in a tpvp and setting, and if so what kind of team would you run with it? Are you taking the place of a bunk guardian?

You play it the same way you’d play an ele, or a necro.

You’re just a hard body. People smash their faces into you like a brick wall, and you kill them instead, and you heal up your allies. Your allies don’t have to worry about “peeling” for you or defending you like a necro would require. Instead, you do whatever the heII you feel like doing, and nothing can stop you in team fights.

I am MMR rank 12 on leaderboards, and it’s very effective still. Try it out!

gesho.9468:

there was huge thread by lordrosiky on this. no dev response. i hope there will be drop-in ladt minute war nerf in the patch. signet nerf is nthing, pin down, okay, offers some intelligent counter for kiting. but overall, war will be top tier of health, toughness, healing, damage and control (top, or one of the top in each category), that is – crazy op.

Play a warrior in arenas and you’ll understand why they need to be tough and have a sturdy body.

Take away their damage? They become guardian copies. Take away their tankiness? They become thieves.

Gmtsai.6349:

Just don’t want to make you upset but I believe the idea of your build was already been published by Tarcis like a year ago or more distant…

Yes, that’s why I stated this:

zone.1073:

The build has always existed in the past, but it got stronger due to ArenaNet’s buff to the burn duration on longbow burst, plus the buffs to passive stat conversion traits, buffs to shout healing, and favorable moving around of traits to fit in everything perfectly.

Just want to shine the spotlight once again on this build, because it’s incredibly good now.

People use longbow because it’s good. People don’t use other weapons because they’re not good. Offhand mace = not good. Offhand axe = not good. Rifle = almost OK, but in the end, not good.

Cleansing Ire is too strong to be a trait. It is Cleansing Ire that is restricting build diversity. If the effects of Cleansing Ire were built into the adrenaline system, then it needs to be a shaved down version, such as 3 adrenaline = 2 conditions cleansed.

The classic greatsword/axe-shield build works great now with Defiant Stance heal and Berserker Stance.

If you like shield, you might also like offhand sword. The #5 on sword is a 2.25 second block, which is quite comparable to the 3s block on shield. The sword block ends when you get hit by melee and you’re facing the target, but you can bypass this canceling effect by facing away from the target that is meleeing you to maximize the block duration.

This is a fun build you can try out. It has unparalleled personal survivability, so if you don’t feel comfortable with the warrior class yet, this is a good build to start with. The build has a lot of room for growth, too, when you do feel comfortable. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/How-to-dominate-PvP-as-warrior-Shouts/first

^ Warhorn pretty much makes the warrior immune to conditions in combination with all the other condi removals in that build. It’s like having berserker stance on permanently.

I used to play with warhorn a lot until the recent buff to offhand sword (torment).

Amir.1570:

What do you do other than immobilize people without being able to interrupt?

I know the notion of warrior support is mind-blowing, yes, but I encourage you to try out the build for yourself and see.

The worst thing an enemy team can do is ignore you, because this build’s AoE condition pressure is crazy in team fights.

wads.5730:

0/10/30/30/0 is better so you can take 50% bleed duration. 30 in defense gives you the option to take stability, or retal.

I ran 50% bleed duration for many months. It’s fine, except that I value adrenaline more, and 5 second weapon swap CD more. The shouts fuel me with constant adrenaline, which translates to stronger damage, more condition cleansing, and more healing.

In my opinion as a competitive warrior player, Cleansing Ire needs to be removed.

Cleansing Ire needs to be removed and built into the Adrenaline mechanics of the class with a toned-down version (3 adrenaline for cleansing 2 conditions, etc). When a trait is so powerful that every build feels like it is mandatory, then the trait is problematic when it comes to build diversity.

bobomb.5209:

but what do you really do?

I don’t have any new video footage of the build I’m using now, but this video is an old version of the build. No cleansing ire, no healing signet, no buffs to shout healing, etc. But it gives you an idea of what the build is capable of doing.

The build I linked is 10x better, more streamlined, more damage and survivability, and more team support than the one shown in the video. Enjoy!

I don’t have any new video footage of the build I’m using now, but this video is an old version of the build.

The build I linked is 10x better, more streamlined, more damage and survivability, and more team support than the one shown in the video. Enjoy! https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/How-to-dominate-PvP-as-warrior-Shouts/first

bobomb.5209:

I can see that you are excited for your build but you are misinforming. Over exaggerating that you can do 10K healing every 25 second

I know that this build seems too good to be true, but it’s really that good. Each shout heals 2.3k with traited cooldowns of 20, 20, 25, and 30 sec. That’s an average of almost 10k HP burst heals about every 25 seconds, mathematically. What other class can heal their entire team for almost 10k HP in such short time frames? No other class can, and that’s what makes warrior support unique, offering something that other classes cannot achieve.

Yes, Warriors burning is indeed 10 seconds duration, with +2 seconds per auto attack through the fire field, in a giant AoE, plus bow #2 deals 6 seconds of burning when used in melee range. It’s not an exaggeration. It’s just the real mechanics of the build.

Yes, this build indeed has the shortest cooldown stunbreaker in the entire game: 20 seconds, which by the way removes 2 conditions in this build also, AND you have access to this skill twice. Again, no exaggeration. It is what it is.

The build’s self survival is indeed strong, with 600 HP pulsing every second (more under certain circumstances like when Dogged March is active). Like someone previously said, the condition removal in this build is “overkill”.

There are many tools in this build that keep the warrior healthy and alive, to allow him to provide burst heals and boons for his teammates while whittling down opponents through AoE conditions.

And it’s just really fun to play because its not just a regular condition build; it’s well-rounded and tailored around being a good team fighter and having strong map presence. Try it out. Feedback is welcome.

I like playing warrior as a sturdy team fighter, also. I actually tailored my build specifically for that, and it works wonderfully.https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/How-to-dominate-PvP-as-warrior-Shouts/first

bobomb.5209:

And finally you seem to bring up the point that with all these great things, support for allies and being tanky, but what do you really do?

The build is designed to carry your team. Try it out. It’s very satisfying and fun to play. It is perhaps the only viable pvp support build for warriors at the moment.

Feedback is appreciated.

Introp.8465:

and torment if you land it

The beauty of this build is how reliable the condi application is. The idea is to immobilize your opponent first, which sets them up for an easy torment + burn.

By the way, longbow’s combustive shot now applies 10 seconds of burning for the full duration, plus your auto attacks apply 2 seconds of burning per hit through the fire field. You thought Necro’s 2 second Dhuumfire burning was painful? Try 12+ seconds of warrior’s burning (with my build, it’s about 520 damage per burning tick). If the opponent retreats from the fire field, they lose the capture point and you neutralize/cap it eventually. Again, a win win situation.

Spectator mode of high MMR ranked games, to educate the PvP community and increase competition.

Featured game spotlight, advertised within the UI of the game itself. High MMR ranked matches will be displayed as a link in the PvP in-game menus, so players can easily find, access, and watch the games.

Quantifiable, viewable MMR.

Separate tiers or brackets in ranked games. Bronze players will only play versus bronze players, silver with only silver, gold with only gold, etc.

Removal of 8 v 8 stock custom arenas; replaced with only 5 v 5 stock custom arenas. Player-purchased custom arenas can still be set to 8 v 8 if chosen by the server owner.
Reasoning: 8 v 8 is toxic to the PvP community, as it poisons and tricks new players into developing bad habits, and also yields no improvement in skill, and doesn’t promote competition and learning.

Serdoc.7261:

A potential counter I see to this build; you have no stability, so a good Warrior using Hammer (or any other form of hard CC) would probably lock you down while cleansing/ignoring your conditions.

It’s true that there is no stability in this build, but it does have a 20 second CD stun breaker x 2, the shortest CD stun break in the whole game.

Remember, this is a support build, that just happens to also have crazy good personal survivability and damage coincidentally. You support your team by giving them 10k HP burst heals in an AoE every ~25 seconds or so. You semi-“stun” opponents aka lock them down in place with immobilizes so your team can go to town on them. On top of everything, you put out strong AoE condition pressure to supplement your team’s damage. All glass cannons die to you 1 v 1. You can only die from 3 v 1s if you play excellently. The build is so tanky, and yet it’s not designed to be a tank: it’s a support. And the build has great condition damage but it’s not designed to be a killer: it’s a support.

With this build you have approximately 1 billion toughness. You can revive teammates quickly through traits and then full heal them back up. It’s very fun.

Elbrant.8046:

you’re giving wrong information bro
more condition pressure than a necro? is a joke
Constant ~600-700 HP healing ticking every second. ?? You have only 391 HP regen every second with 894 healing power (signet+ adren health with 3 stack of adrenaline)
u can heal for 2284 for every shout
lot of cc? u can do only 2 immobilize (Pin Down is SINGLE targhet)

Per second calculations: 437 from signet + 262 from dogged march + 120 from adrenal health per second.

In addition, 2.3k per shout x 4 (all AoE), with optional 1k from sigil of leeching per 9 seconds.

With a good Pin Down, you can immobilize/bleed multiple targets by aiming for a back row target. The projectile applies immobilize + bleed to all targets it passes through, hence AoE. Flurry is a 4 second immobilize on a 10 second cooldown. Pin Down is a long ranged 3 second immobilize on a 25 second cooldown. Yes, it is a lot of CC to lock down opponents, although no interrupts outside of Fear.

Cheers.

Introp.8465:

you have bleed, burn ( of which people just step out) and torment if you land it. its 2/3 condis to clean, every class can do it with ease.

And here comes the Q&As for the skeptical:

Conditions are cleansed in FILO order (first in, last out). So, with my build, the idea is to load up bleeding, torment and burn on the target, then you mask the conditions with vulnerability, poison, blind, cripple, immobilize. Therefore, the damaging conditions can tick for quite a long time on the target, or the target will blow a full cleanse skill with a long cooldown; either way is a win situation. And even if they cleanse torment, the #4 skill on offhand sword will continue to apply new stacks of torment after the cleanse. It’s disgusting.

This is the build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-so-FF;0NKVO0Y4JL-60;9;6TT9;418C16B3;02GmFa;1ZF18ZF189cS

This is an extremely powerful build in pvp due to its mixture of strong team healing support plus strong condition pressure.

Very high condition pressure.
Lots and lots of condition removal tools on short 10 to ~20 second cooldowns.
Constant ~600-700 HP healing ticking every second.
Three shouts (1 from trait) which translates to almost a 8k burst HP heal to yourself and everyone in an AoE to support your team, again on short cooldowns less than 30 seconds.
Lots of CC in the form of 3 to 4 second duration AoE immobilize (Pin Down through multiple targets, Flurry on grouped up targets).

It’s basically a crazy souped up support build that somehow also can kill everything now. The build has always existed in the past, but it got stronger due to ArenaNet’s buff to the burn duration on longbow burst, plus the buffs to passive stat conversion traits, buffs to shout healing, and favorable moving around of traits to fit in everything perfectly.

Enjoy.

In loving memory of simpler times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m1DQ0cflow (this is an old version of the build. No healing signet, no cleansing ire, no torment, not nearly as powerful as the build is today)

Cynz.9437:

tbh i doubt that in deathmatch ppl would run thieves since they drop like flies

in any game i have played that had death match mode, you usually wanted to run bruisers or high CC dmg + support… i believe necros, engis, wars and guards would be the thing

You missed the point.

Cynz.9437:

uh….what? in pvp stealth is huge disadvantage as you can’t hold points while stealthed…

wvw forums this way ->

Using a game mode to justify class balance is inadequate.

When team death match is implemented, then what? Is it still okay then?

Warriors need access to a 2-hand staff to beat up people Ninja Turtles style.

Oh conditions, how beautiful and balanced you are.

Condition damage bypasses protection boon,
bypasses retaliation,
usually comes from instant cast spells with very little to no visible animation,
can often be spammed from a long ranged distance,
usually has much, much, MUCH lower cooldowns than cleanses,
uses FILO mechanics (first in, last out) so a very powerful and damaging stack of conditions can be buried underneath numerous others to ensure full damage is inflicted (condition removals are very seldom condi-specific unless it’s a full wipe or a very specialized ability).

I love conditions.

Sincerely,

a condi warrior.

garethh.3518:

The hype… everything Anet innovated, everything people were talking about (class design, combat system, party setup) was largely focused on PvP.

While I understand the point you’re trying to make, you’re misunderstanding my point. Hype and attention are two different creatures.

Hype refers to before a game is released. It gets hyped up, but the hype says nothing about the attention the game will have after it is released.

Attention in general is self explanatory. What this post is referring to is not the hype the game had back in August 2012. I’m specifically discussing the amount of attention the game has right now at this very moment, which is more relevant.

Hope that clarifies things.

Solution: taking damage removes stealth.

Stealth balanced.

GankSinatra.2653:

Cause gw2 totally had a lack of attention when it released.

The attention was on PvE.

The problem with GW2 is not balance. In fact, GW2 pvp is more balanced now than it ever was before. The problem is popularity.

GW2 has nothing that makes itself stand out. On the outside, GW2 is just a generic fantasy game. “WoW has done it already, so why bother trying GW2?” That is the perspective of the majority of gamers, and they are correct. Why should people even bother trying GW2 when there are so many other great games out there. And sadly, people will never get to experience the great mechanics within GW2 due to its bland outside cover.

No attention = no new pvp players = no growth in pvp population = no revenue = no development = stagnation of pvp.

Step 1. Summon flesh golem.

Step 2. Wait for flesh golem to autoattack the ele a couple times.

Step 3. Take advantage of the hole poked into Diamond Skin and condi away. Repeat steps 2-3.

Slim.3024:

Diamond Skin can work, though the Elementalist will have to use several cooldowns just to keep it running. Cooldowns they won’t have later in the fight.

Nobody would pop a 2k heal with 500 HPs missing on their Elementalist. With Diamond Skin, you will have to, if you want to keep taking advantage of it and that “overheal” will be missing once you run out of cooldowns and drop below the threshold for good.

Having 100% uptime on Diamond Skin is not important, nor is it necessary for the trait to be useful. It’s like a Guardian’s blocking. It can happen suddenly at any time, and no amount of anticipation can counter it. This is how Diamond Skin will be useful. The Ele can suddenly have immunity to conditions at any moment, which can waste important cooldowns from opponents. Warriors can no longer Pin Down (immobilize + bleed) an Ele whenever they feel like it, because Diamond Skin can kick in and negate it. Same with many other classes’ abilities.

Diamond Skin encourages anti-face-roll gameplay, basically.

Apex predators need to die. There should be no apex predators in GW2 PvP, and diamond skin will help with that.

Warriors are strong because that is the nature of melee. You can’t put a cardboard sword and styrofoam shield into a Warrior’s hands and send them off into an enemy team expecting them to succeed (circa September 2012 to October 2013). Give Warriors access to scepters, staffs, and shortbow with spammable 900-1200 range abilities and then we can talk about “shaving” melee. Otherwise, the return of tank Eles will be the saving grace that keeps Warriors in line.

Kids want to hit the trigger freely whenever they want, when really Diamond Skin and the Warrior’s new heal will encourage players to be patient and wait on firing the gun.

“Thief, take off that Diamond Skin so I can explode the Ele with my condition barrage.”

“Done.”

As for the Warrior’s new heal, think stealth but visible. Any class with stealth currently has the same effect as this new heal; when players stealth, they cannot be targeted, they avoid damage for a moment, and they have full control of the situation (they can run, they can stay and fight, they can wait on cooldowns, etc). This is like stealth for Warriors, except you can see the Warrior, you can continue targeting the Warrior, and you can plan accordingly.