Guild Wars 2

Strength runes seem to be commonly recommended for D/D Ele, e.g. on metabattle.com:
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_D/D_Roamer

That makes sense, given how well we synergize with Might stacking mechanics.

I’m planning on running Signet of Restoration for the sustain and -40% condition duration food.

Given that, I’m wondering what your thoughts are on going with Hoelbrak instead of Strength runes for a 0/2/0/6/6 build.

Strength runes + food:

• +75% effective Might duration (incl +30% from trait line)
• -40% condition duration
• +5% damage

Hoelbrak runes + food:

• +60% effective Might duration (incl +30% from trait line)
• -60% condition duration
• better when-hit proc Might (10s duration vs 5s)

I’m leaning towards Hoelbrak due to how much condition spamming there is in WvW, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

khefka.2804:

Current favorite roaming build is 10/5/30/20/5 (II,I-X-XII,VI-IX) since you can drop the 10 points from Honor and trade PoV for FW and also have easy access to fury.

What do you mean by easy access to Fury?

khefka.2804:

Main reason to go meds over shouts though is that it is almost suicide to roam without JI, and that leaves you one utility short in a shout build.

OK thanks.

Sounds like you agree with Hunter that Meditations are better than AH+Shouts for roaming

xFireize.6318:

1. It is way way way more than sufficient.

OK thanks.

xFireize.6318:

I’d say 3000 armor is enough, but I have 3300 on my frontline bunker build.

To get to 3k I’d need to gear a bit more defensively, e.g. use Melandru’s instead of Hoelbrak’s.

xFireize.6318:

3. For self-heal, Empowering Might gives you way more heal than the other two traits. So if your intention is for defense, choose that. Between Writ of Persistence and Exaltation, Persistence would give you more boons and self heal.

Thanks.

xFireize.6318:

4. It’s not as great compared to a 5-sized group, but your other sources of heal should be able to handle 1v1.

My impression – and you and the two other repliers have confirmed – that AH is not really optimal for roaming.

Hunter.4783:

Shouts don’t work that good for 1v1 roaming unfortunately and a meditation build with traveler runes will give you nearly 100% more burst dmg, pressure AND sustain.

What kills people in 1v1 and 2v2 is burst and the ability to pressure when u have them on the defensive, you have none of that. That is why medi burst is king in solo romaing

Understood re: applying pressure.

So basically you’re saying for roaming that:
Meditations > AH + shouts

Hunter.4783:

You have neither GS nor Sword, so your mobility will be severely crippled whenever u are chasing or trying to run away from stuff.

Yes, I forgot to update the link. I find GS3 to be very valuable, as a gap closer or creator, and for the AOE blind.

Hunter.4783:

You also have retreat for mobility which will hinder you at times due to popping it for condi cleanse vs mobility and vice versa.

I also use Retreat for the on-demand AOE Aegis.

What food are you using? I assume you’re not using -condi food. If you are using Traveler’s Runes then I assume you consume food that supports your burst.

I’ve been looking at a 0/5/30/30/5 AH build for roaming (zerging is not really my thing) with Hammer and either GS, Sword/Focus, Mace/Focus, Scepter/Focus, or Staff for the 2nd weapon set.

Here’s a link to my tentative spec:
http://www.intothemists.com/calc/?build=-9;4NF-40M3JG-90;9;54TT4;435A178;14-F0;2qObSqObSNBlccGm5;3vV0X5Y8ZG4La5Z-870HV8aNX8a;9;9;9;9;9;54k3N

I’ve read through Brutaly’s most excellent guide, but I still have some questions and would appreciate input from veterans of the class:

1. given the current meta with heavy conditions, do you think 60-65% passive condi removal (via food and Melandru/Hoelbrak runes) is sufficient with Guardian? When soloing I plan to slot Purity instead of Strength in Numbers. I was thinking of going with shout condition removal but many of the shouts even with Superior Aria have fairly long cooldowns

2. how much Armor is enough? Guardian feels so different from my Warrior in that we have more access to Protection/Blind/Aegis, so to some extent it feels like I get less mileage out of Toughness on my Guardian compared to Warrior, since the Guardian can avoid damage but the Warrior has to eat it (aside from Enduring Pain)

3. Which of the following would you take: Empowering Might, Writ of Persistence, or Writ of Exaltation?

4. in a 1v1 or 2v2 context, does AH provide meaningful value? I expect as the group size goes to 3+ that the healing scales well, but I’m curious for soloing and duoing contexts

5. what’s your pick for the 2nd weapon? Hammer seems like a no brainer due to the auto-chain and Mighty Blow mechanics

Thanks for the feedback!

Has there been any update from the devs that they’re thinking about this?

Zanthrax.6538:

I had an idea about running pvt gear to get as much power and crit damage as i can ( not caring about precision in gear ) running the standard 0/10/0/30/30 build but running shorter arcane spell cd in arcane and using arcane blast and arcane wave on 16 second an 24 second cd respectively….i tried it out in spvp and you are tanky as can be but the arcane spells are guaranteed crit and you are power heavy with a pvt build.

Curious how it might be with say pvt gear and beryl ( power vit critdamage ) gems on accessories….anyone else tried a similar idea to this yet?

Arcane utilities are certainly offensively-oriented, but cantrips provide a lot more versatility.

I think before I’d replace cantrips with arcane utilities that I’d probably think of re-gearing and keeping the cantrips.

But I’m glad to hear it’s working for you

It can be hard to visualize someone else’s keybindings, so here’s a diagram to help you understand mine:
http://taugrim.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/gw2-keybinds-v1-2.png

1-5 abilities
W/R strafe
E forward
D dodge
ASFG attunements
Z elite ability
XCV utility abilities

The explanation for my keybindings is here:
http://taugrim.com/2012/06/27/guide-to-guild-wars-2-keybinds/

Intigo.1653:

You forgot to include your sigils in the gw2buildcraft link, by the way.

Fixed.

teg.1340:

At the same time while being extremely hard to kill it took me forever to take down my enemies. And the longer the fight goes chances are good other people engage combat. What started as a 1vs1 often ends in a 1vsX or Xvs1.

Its a combination of soldiers armor, knights weapons + trinkets and ruby gems. I just switched clerics trinkets for knights a few days ago so I cannot say how much I miss the additional healing power.

What do you think about this? Are you satisfied with your damage output? Do you have plans for a more damage oriented build?

The short answer to your question is I am OK with my damage output, because I’m consciously trading off damage for survivability. But your point about ending 1v1’s faster is very valid.

Once I get some karma and badges saved up, I’m going to try out another set of trinkets and jewels.

Wizardauz.3761:

“Deal extra damage based on the amount of boons currently on your target”

Hate it? Love it? Confused? Stupid? Amazing?

/discuss

Misread your post the first time.

It would be fair to have mechanics like Boon Hate, given how strong boons are and how some classes (e.g. Ele) can keep multiple boons rolling indefinitely, while other classes can not.

daphoenix.4283:

I originally wrote the guide based on your inspiring guides =P

Dude, the guide you wrote for D/D, it’s a freaking encyclopedia and masterpiece

And your gameplay videos are amazing!

The Feb 26th update brought several nerfs and a fix to D/D Elementalist:

• Ride the Lightning: This ability’s recharge has been increased to 20 seconds (previously: 15 seconds)
• Soothing Disruption: Vigor and regeneration boons granted by activating cantrips have been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.
• Zephyr’s Boon: Fixed a bug that caused Shocking Aura to apply double the boons of other auras.

In this video, I discuss my adjustments to these changes:

• Kiting with a decreased emphasis on Ride the Lightning
• Stacking boon duration to 90% (1.9x), to help offset the shortened durations of the boons from cantrips and auras

By the way, if you haven’t heard of it yet, GW2 BuildCraft provides a WvW calculator, so you can see someone’s full WvW spec:
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/elementalist/?1.0|8.1c.h1h.8.1c.h5|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71g.1c.71g.1c.71h.1c.71h.1c.b1h.1c.b1h|1k.68.1k.68.1k.68.1k.68.1k.68.1c.68|0.a1.0.u35b.u56b|1.1|1n.1v.1s.1u.29|e

As always, thanks to daphoenix for the D/D “Tanky DPS” spec – it’s been so fun to play

greenslab.9425:

Frost Aura: Incoming damage is reduced by 10% while under the effects of this aura. Enemies are only able to be chilled by this aura once per second. This affects all frost auras.

Flame Aura: In addition to the burning condition, this aura now grants 10 seconds of might each time the player is struck. This aura can activate only once per second. This change affects all flame auras.

Comet: This ability’s strike now occurs faster upon casting.

Evasive Arcana: The spell cast while in water attunement has been split between PvE and PvP. This spell’s effectiveness with the healing attribute has been reduced by 50% while in PvP.

Flame Shield: This skill now lasts 5 seconds instead of 3.

Flame Wall: The combat region for combo interactions has been increased.

Glyph of Elemental Harmony: This healing skill now grants three stacks of might when used in fire attunement instead of one.

Ride the Lightning: This ability’s recharge has been increased to 20 seconds.

Shocking Aura: Updated this ability to indicate its cooldown on stunning enemies.

Stoning: This ability’s projectile speed has been increased by 22%.

Static Field: This field will now properly stun enemies that cross it rather than merely dazing them.

---

Discuss away!

OP: can you add these to your post? They were appended to the patch notes:

- Renewing Stamina: This trait now has a 5-second cooldown between activations and has a 100% chance to activate, increased from 33%.

- Soothing Disruption: Vigor and regeneration boons granted by activating cantrips have been reduced from 10 seconds to 6 seconds.

- Zephyr’s Boon: Fixed a bug that caused Shocking Aura to apply double the boons of other auras.

Just so that people reading your post can see the comprehensive list.

salluks.6017:

i was always tanky support build, recently changed to this.. i feel really squishy and die to even npc without kiting.

any help?

NPCs (e.g. Veteran) are easy to kill with this or any functional build.

How is it you’re dying to NPCs?

Warlord.9074:

I personally like shields I rather have a shield than a warhorn anyday in PVP. Single sword is great for the leap but the damage pales in comparison to an axe. I would take Axe/shield over sword/horn anyday in pvp. And use a GS most of the time and swap to a rifle in certain situations. I prefer Longbow though in large battles becasue of the massive aoe damage and it can shoot on top of walls something that rifle cannot.

All in all its a solid build but I prefer choices and more versatile weapon usage.

Depends what’s important to you.

I value the Warhorn over Shield primarily because it provides value in solo and in group situations. Shield is a great weapon paired up with Axe.

Brigg.6189:

Pros –
It’s a great counter to glass cannons and high healing/low health builds (like some guardians).
Excels in small group pvp where getting 1 or 2 downs can give an advantage.
Can score downs and kills on wall players who normally would be free to back off.
Warhorn group buffs (swiftness, endurance, cripple-break) are a huge asset to a group.

Cons-
Not great against good players in 1v1 situations (if they can dodge your burst).
No aoe damage to contribute to large fights.
Single target damage is not a big factor in large fights, downed players are quickly revived if you can’t get out aoe pressure.

That’s a fair assessment.

The AOE damage you can provide, but you have to be in melee range for Sword.

1v1 it depends on the situation. This is not designed to be a 1v1 spec, but it handles itself fine solo, and you can dictate the fights you get in.

Lensar.4920:

I use Rifle and Sword/Horn when moving around, but I swap out the Rifle for the Longbow in Keep/tower attacks and defenses.

That makes sense.

I’d need to get an Exotic Longbow though

Lensar.4920:

I have a couple of different armor sets I use, but most of the time I use my full Glass Cannon build with all berserker gear and rune of divinity.

After a ton of experimentation, I’ve mostly settled on the 0/20/0/30/20 build:

Do your shouts for ~1.2k?

I’ve tried running 30 points in Tactics for the shout-healing, but the return on trait point investment is kind of meh. I know a lot of people like their shout-healing though.

Traits
Crack Shot – Faster rifle recharge and piercing
Rending Strikes – Vulnerability on crit

Leg Specialist – 1 second root (I switch to +longbow range when I switch to the bow)
Lung Cap – Faster shout recharge
Vigorous – Shouts heal

Signet Master – Faster signet recharge
Mobile strikes – Movement skills break immobilize

Lensar.4920:

Rifle: Force – +5 Damage
Sword: Hydromancy – immobilizes nearby enemies for 3 secs on weapon switch
Warhorm: Bloodlust – Power stacks
Longbow: Force – +5 Damage

Hydro on one of the Sword / Warhorn weapons makes sense. I’m not a fan of the 5% damage though – the AOE proc from Sigil of Fire is great for tagging players.

teg.1340:

@Beefcake: Healing surge has been changed a few patches ago. It now gives you full adrenaline.

It’s kind of an odd mechanic.

You can use it to re-fill the Adrenaline bar, but the healing amount (if you need the healing) is lower when Adrenaline is not already full.

If you use it simply to re-fill the bar, then your heal is on cooldown for 30 sec.

Brutalistik.6473:

@ Taurgrim do you have a condition warrior build?

Do you mean have or use?

I don’t use a condition build, but that’s primarily because we only have 1 type of condition application (bleed), so compared to other classes it’s easier to remove our damage.

I’ve been mulling over trying it anyway, but I’d want to get a set of Rare Apothecary gear and go for a bleed tank.

Beefcake.9032:

Hi Taugrim, nice to see you’re still playing GW2 & working on your Warrior builds

I’m running something similar (also 10/30/0/0/30) though going for full zerker gear. Faring well with it in wuvwuv so far but I’ll consider upping my toughness if I start dieing sooner than the rest of my group.

The more you can “blend in” with a larger group or zerg, the better Berserker’s works.

I tend to run in very small groups (1-5 people), and we all agree that each person needs to be reasonably not-squishy in order for us to manage situations that we actively pursue, such as outnumbered fighting.

That said, I ran full Zerker’s and blowing people up is entertaining. I just place a premium on durability.

Beefcake.9032:

I’m using a Sigil of Earth on the rifle. More Bleeds means a higher likelihood for +10% damage from “Attack of Opportunity” trait.

You can do that, or you can let the Rifle 1 hit just once, and you have a bleed up for 9+ sec with Deep Cuts trait.

Beefcake.9032:

Instead of OMM and “Fear Me” I’ve gone for adrenalin-regeneration for the Utilities (Berserker Stance + Signet of Fury).

I’ve wondered about swapping out “Fear Me!” for Balanced Stance for stomping/reviving. But I love AOE CC.

OMM is not essential in this build. I just love making a target explode. Also, I’ve been more comfortable with OMM over SIO as I’ve increased Toughness. Obviously Toughness is not a replacement for a stun breaker, but I don’t implode at least.

Vane.2387:

I use the signet cooldown reduction trait in the discipline line because I run Signet of Might, Fury, and Rage, as well as FGJ and Healing Surge.

A lot of people slot the signet cooldown redux trait. I think Discipline tree forces the player to make some pretty hard choices. Same with Healing Surge, which I’ve considered taking but I love having multiple sources of condition removal.

Speaking of which, how do you deal with roots and snares that keep getting applied?

Vane.2387:

I like your double bloodlust stacking though, seems like a quick way to get it maxed out.

It’s incredibly convenient.

Vane.2387:

Right now I’m using greatsword mainly for countering thieves rezzing people with shadow refuge. I run with my guardian buddy and we typically run where the the player went down at and do the greatsword pull-in move and I hundred blades on top of him. It generally works out pretty well and end up getting a two for one deal when they’re visible again.

Yea that makes a lot of sense

teg.1340:

As for sword / warhorn Im using some rares with power/toughness/vitality for max defense. Dont know if this stat combination is also available as exotics?

The badge gear is Pow/Tou/Vit but acquiring badges takes time, unless you run in a zerg and kill farm.

You can also get that gear from running dungeons, which is probably the most time-efficient method, e.g. Honor of the Waves.

teg.1340:

I found Sigil of Hydromancy for sword extremely useful for better survability. E.g. when jumped by a thief just switch to sword/horn for pbaoe freeze + leap away.

Hydro is a great choice for WH, for the reasons you stated.

Sword 2 with Mobile Strikes has been amazing though, so I’m OK not running with Hydro. If I didn’t have a leap separator, I’d consider Hydro.

teg.1340:

One question Taugrim: Your build lacks any stun breaker or did I miss something? I know its possible to minimize situations where you get stunned by just optimizing positional play. But there are definitely situations where I just need Shake it Off.

You’re correct.

It’s a tradeoff decision. I’ve grown to love “On My Mark!” but SIO is the better choice from a defensive standpoint. That said, my build has multiple abilities / traits to help deal with bad situations, and it’s reasonably durable.

WakkaJabba.3910:

well actually i rolled a warrior because i saw your hammer gun build. just love to swing hammers at foes

I love Hammer/Rifle, such a versatile combination!

My main issue with that combo as I wrote above is the lack of in-combat mobility. Earthshaker doesn’t help that much, even if you were to trait Mobile Strikes, because of the slow animation (which IMO is needed for balance).

Reserved for future updates.

Tips

• Remember to swap to Sword / Warhorn when finishing a downed opponent, to gain the 2 stacks of Bloodlust, to be able to close the gap via Sword 2 if your opponent teleports, and for the additional Toughness
• You have awesome in-combat mobility and you have 1200 range, so play accordingly. You ever watch a surfer? The wave never catches then, because they’re always just in front of it. You can “surf the zerg” by making good use of Sword 2, Warhorn 4, and Warhorn 5. I have kited zergs by myself for incredible distances just by staying in front of their forerunners
• Whenever possible, make sure you have a Bleed on your target (e.g. with Rifle 1) before using Rifle 3 or Kill Shot, so that you benefit from Attack of Opportunity
• Remember that you can stack 15 Vulnerability in 1 GCD, with Rifle 4 and “On My Mark!” which is incredible for friendly focus fire
• If you want to be really anal about balancing Toughness and Critical Damage, consider the ratios of Toughness per Critical Damage for each slot. E.g. shoulders / gloves / boots have the lowest ratio at 17:1 followed by Amulet at 18:1, so if you want to increase Critical Damage at the expense of Toughness, consider those slots. I would personally not go below 2700 Armor with Rifle equipped

FAQs

1. Did you consider using Greatsword instead of Sword / Warhorn?

Short answer: yes. From a practical standpoint, for WvW a Warrior gains substantial mobility with either set of weapons.

The reason I did not go with Greatsword is because it performs most effectively when you slot Physical (e.g. Bull’s Charge, Bolas) utilities and / or Frenzy, and the opportunity cost in terms of utility slots is too high for me.

I tried playing variants of Rifle / Hammer, and while those specs were fun, the bottom-line is that my escapability without a blade was pitifully low. Swiftness alone does not cut it. Even though I swapped to Warhorn out-of-combat for Warhorn 4?s Swiftness boon, I was still lacking the secret sauce of “Run and Gun”: high in-combat mobility.

2. What are the weaknesses of this build?

1. It lacks sustained disabling CC
2. Rifle is not a good sustained close-quarters weapon against a melee, as Rifle 3 will stop casting if an opponent breaks your frontal LoS. You can switch to Sword / Warhorn, but that set provides no disabling CC

3. What gear are you using?

Full set of crafted Exotic weapons and armor, 5 crafted Exotic trinkets, and a Rare backpiece. You can see the specific gear in the WvW Build Overview video below.

4. Why don’t you stack Bloodlust with a 3rd weapon set?

If you can afford a 3rd Exotic weapon set, then go for it.

For a while I was stacking up to 25 using a Major Sigil of Bloodlust on a Rare weapon. I didn’t want to fight players with that weapon (weaker than my Exotic weapons), so I’d farm mobs until I had stacked to 25, then equip my Exotic weapon sets. It was tedious to have to re-do when I died, switched maps, or re-logged.

I find the speed-stacking with Sword / Warhorn to be fast and fun – I can jump right into WvW. If I die and have to re-stack, it doesn’t take long to get back to full again.

You can find the up-to-date guide here:
http://taugrim.com/2012/12/04/guide-to-guild-wars-2-warrior-run-and-gun-build-for-wvw/

Below is a copy of the guide as of Dec 5th.

WvW Considerations
To understand my build choices, here are critical considerations for World PVP:

• Speed kills. More specifically, in-combat speed is king. Some players make the assumption that Swiftness is sufficient, but in my experience, you need the ability to leap or charge and to remove roots (Immobilize) and snares (Cripple and Chill)
• Toughness matters. Going glass cannon for Warrior (and most of the other classes) will cause you to implode under any meaningful focus fire. This isn’t sPvP (structured Player versus Player) or tournaments, where the maximum number of opponents is capped at 5 or 8 respectively. In WvW, players are exposed to situations where they take massive amounts of direct damage. You also want an HP pool that provides you with a sufficient window to react and recover in most situations – in my opinion 20k is the lowest you should run with, given that Warrior has neither stealth nor teleports
• To contribute in a majority of situations, it’s helpful to have a ranged weapon. Any time there are sizable forces facing off or a fight at a tower or keep, there will be heavy ranged exchanges. In addition, the world is much more open compared to sPvP, so ranged weapons tend to work well

With that framing, we can move on to the spec.

Build Calculator and Key Design Decisions
Calculator: http://bit.ly/VcFo41

There are several decisions worthy of note:

• Rifle is the primary offensive weapon. Sword / Warhorn is used for mobility, defense, and melee AOE. I recommend the Knight’s versions for Sword / Warhorn to provide Toughness
• For gear, the primary stats are Power and Precision, secondarily Toughness, and Critical Damage last. In terms of stacking Critical Damage, the most efficient way of doing it is by slotting 6 x Exquisite Ruby Jewel. As a rule of thumb, for Crit builds for Warrior I aim for at least 50 Critical Damage, so that crits deal twice as much damage
• I use Superior Sigil of Bloodlust on both weapons in the Sword / Warhorn set, so that I can speed-stack Bloodlust to 25. Each kill when I have this weapon set equipped provides 2 stacks of Bloodlust
• The Berserker’s Power and Attack of Opportunity traits stack multiplicatively, i.e. at full Adrenaline and with a Bleed applied on the target, your damage increases by a multiplier of 1.232. With my gear set as of December 1st 2012, I have Critical Damage of 63, which means:
  * My crits deals 2.13 x normal damage (1.50 + 0.63)
  * At full Adrenaline and with a Bleed on the target, my crits deals 2.62 x normal damage (2.13 × 1.232). The multiplier is even higher for Kill Shot
• I take the Deep Cuts trait to extend the duration of Bleeds, to increase uptime for Attack of Opportunity
• The Inspiring Shouts trait enables you to fill up your Adrenaline bar while you are casting Kill Shot
• The Mobile Strikes trait in the Discipline line enables Sword 2 (Savage Leap) to break Immobilize

I’ve decided to stick with warrior as main. While I find mesmer hilarious imo warrior has the broadest range of playstyles and this is attractive to me.

I have been running my Hammer Gun builds in tournies. We won 2of 3 on Sunday night and the feedback from many team mates is that itworks find

phaeris.7604:

When people like taugrim/yojack say ’ Well the best build is with rifles’ a ranged weapon there is clearly a problem

sigh

I’m taugrim, please show me a link where I said rifle is the best weapon for warrior.

Such a quote doesn’t exist.

I started using rifle in beta because I doubted its viability. Rifle is a solid weapon but we have several good options available.

Sprawl.3891:

Didn’t you used to run staff vs GS? why the change? I used that old guide to create my current build, will check this one out as well.

I was running Staff originally, but I wanted the knockback from GS, and it turns out the phantasm is better.

GS lacks the combo field creation of Staff but I like the GS abilities a lot. The only downside to GS is that the autoattack is a like a reverse tracer pointing the way back to the Mesmer.

Dixa.6017:

with the oh sword phantasm it has to get in range then leap. that split second is enough time for someone to stay perpetually out of range and your sword phantasm to just run around after them.

I hear you.

I tried OH Sword phantasm tonight for about an hour, and the damage is pretty nuts, and that phantasm has a much shorter time between attacks than Duelist or Berserker.

This build utilizes the Hammer and Rifle weapons to provide the capability to lockdown a target with multiple disabling CC (crowd control) abilities and to deliver effective sustained damage.

Let me know your questions and feedback.

For detailed information on the “Hammer Gun” build, please see the Guide:
http://taugrim.com/2012/09/15/guild-wars-2-hammer-gun-warrior-build/

Has anyone switched from Sword / Pistol to Sword / Sword?

The offhand Sword phantasm has a fairly high attack rate (once every ~4 sec, instead of once every ~7 sec) and crits for ~3k.

I’m going to test running Sword offhand, as it looks promising based on damage on the Mists training dummies.

Braxxus.2904:

In order to get any meaningful heal from shouts you have to spec/gear so heavily for them that you completely kitten your damage output, which would be fine if you could bunker like a guardian for example, however the truth is that the return for that investment is still very lackluster overall imo.

Captain Hammer does solid sustained damage with the power and might stacking, but the issue is the crit rate is the default 4%. So the spec lacks burst.

CH is a build designed for group play, and it’s really good at controlling a target while a glass cannon ally blows them up.

Braxxus.2904:

I wrongly assumed that you came to similar conclusions after reading your statements above (when taken together instead of individual remarks) and your subsequent removal of shout healing from your hammer (rifle now) build in order to obtain a higher offensive output.

I started playing “Hammer Gun” because I wanted to provide meaningful DPS. The tradeoff is losing the shout healing.

Braxxus.2904:

Anyways, apologies again for misspeaking earlier and making a broad statement about a singular quote from you without clarification.

It’s all good, you provided informed opinions in this thread.

chainsawsamurai.5067:

I think Taugrim’s error is that he has been pushing a Rifle Warrior build. The shouts at rifle range

Try to find any post on the interwebs where I’ve recommended Rifle with shout healing. (Hint: you won’t find one).

The only shout healing build I recommend is “Captain Hammer”, and that’s because aside from heals it brings sustained CC. And it has +healing gear.

Braxxus.2904;

Shout healing is a gimmick that’s just not worth the investment. And I really wanted to love it. Hell even Taugrim, who loved shout healing as well, admitted that the shout heals are pretty much poo in the scheme of things

Um, I didn’t say that.

I said taking Vigorous Shouts was not worth it unless you stack +healing. In which case it’s worth it.

It basically means you’re going heavy support though.

There have been some people who claim that Vigorous Shouts is worth it with DPS gear, and that’s where I strongly disagree.

CHunterX.4083:

Why would you pick Hammer over dual Mace?

Um, the “Captain Hammer” build takes Hammer and Mace/Mace.

Moat.7093:

Your builds as always are awesome, I was wondering if you have had a chance to take a look at other more popular builds and giving your input perhaps in a Taugvlog? The one that strikes me as the most popular would be Yojack’s.

What is Yojack’s build? Link it and I’ll take a look over the weekend.

I’ve been working on 3 different Warrior builds, here they are in reverse order:
1. “Hammer Gun”: CC/DPS build featuring Hammer and Rifle:
http://taugrim.com/2012/09/15/guild-wars-2-hammer-gun-warrior-build/

2. “Captain Hammer”: i.e. the build featured in this thread

3. “Run and Gun”: probably best suited to WvW given the range and mobility. I used to play this in sPvP but “Hammer Gun” and “Captain Hammer” IMO are more effective due to higher sustained CC:
http://taugrim.com/2012/05/30/gw2-run-and-gun-warrior-spec/

Outlaw.4078:

I’ve looked at both builds but I’m not seeing how Mending is the best heal skill. I’m guessing because those builds were made before Mending’s CD was increased to 25s and Signet’s reduced to 20s?

I theorycrafted Captain Hammer between BWE1 and BWE2, and it turns out that the build worked really well in practice. Back then yes Mending was on a 20-sec cooldown. It was arguably a bit overpowered. The increase of the cooldown to 25-sec seems fair to me.

The spec still rocks with Mending. Especially if you’re like me and want to have a good answer to sustained incoming condition application.

Here’s a tourney finals post-launch featuring the build:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJHduDNE_g

I posted a narrated PVP video last night talking about the value of the Greatsword and options for managing downed state situations:

Hope you enjoy it, let me know your questions and feedback.

I just posted a video last night. It stripped 4 boons immediately:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnGmjNB24RU

Go to 7:45

Equivocat.8246:

- Sword/Shield for the swap set

Axe (direct damage) or Mace (CC) would be better mainhand options than Sword, since the Sword is a bleed weapon and this build offers direct damage not condition damage.

NuclearMessiah.9503:

Taugrim, glad to see a build from you here. I loved your work in SWTOR and I look forward to trying this one out later.

Let us know what you think after you try it.

WreckSC.1835:

I suspect for PvE I will end up with the range option in there for the fights where you have to stand back a bit rather than the full on mace/hammer version :P.

Pigmartyr.2413:

For WvW/PvE I suggest to anyone trying this build to at least have the off slot with a range weapon. The Hammer is way to awesome to give up vs 2maces but a range weapon in place of them is stellar.

Yes, swapping mace/mace for rifle makes sense for PvE and WvW.

<3 the Hammer!

http://taugrim.com/2012/06/21/guide-to-gw2-captain-hammer-warrior/

This guide discusses my “Captain Hammer” build for GW2 Warrior. When I visualize a captain on the battlefield, I picture a leader bellowing orders, boosting the morale of those under his command, and serving as a rallying point. The name is also a tribute to Whedon’s hilarious Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

This build provides good AOE healing and AOE buffs via shouts, excellent sustained CC capability, high direct damage mitigation with 1810 toughness, damage that steadily increases over time (via stacking of might boons), and high uptime on Weakness debuffs. Therefore, this spec excels at supporting friendlies and “tanking” enemies in sPvP.

I came up with this build after reading an awesome thread by Vorsakan discussing Warrior healing on the GW2Guru Warrior forum. That got me theorycrafting about the possibilities for a shout-based Warrior.

For a more offensive and less support-oriented build that still provides good sustained CC, see my “Hammer Gun”:http://taugrim.com/2012/09/15/guild-wars-2-hammer-gun-warrior-build/ build.

http://taugrim.com/2012/09/23/guide-to-guild-wars-2-mesmer-legion-build/

This guide discusses my “Legion” build for GW2 Mesmer. The build revolves around direct damage, boons, and buffs provided by phantasms and clones.

For the Mesmer class, there are two ends of the spectrum in terms of how you leverage your illusions, i.e. your phantasms and clones. On one end of the spectrum, we have shatter-based builds, which consume illusions for damage, conditions, and distortion (evasion). On the other end, we have builds such as “Legion” which treat illusions and in particular phantasms as valued allies on the battlefield.

If you question the latter approach, please see the FAQ regarding the shatter mechanic in the Guide.

I’ll be making frequent updates to the Guide, so I’m not planning on maintaining it in two places (i.e. there and here).

Let me know your questions and feedback!

Cheers,
Taugrim

What Happened

There was a lot of drama and uproar regarding monetizing GW2 videos on YouTube, because of the following thread on the forums:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Policy-for-posting-videos-on-Youtube-others/

I explain why all the concern on the part of the players was largely unwarranted in the following vlog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ho2ADvndQ4

Why There’s Nothing for Gamers to Worry About

The ArenaNet employee who posted the initial response in the above thread can be faulted for not anticipating that what she wrote would generate a poopstorm. However, later in the thread she clarified ArenaNet’s stance, and that stance is consistent with how game developers regard the YouTube community.

Game developers typically don’t grant permission to customers to make gameplay videos or monetize those videos in the Terms of Use. That said, in practice they typically won’t submit a copyright infringement claim against a gameplay video unless they feel the video is harmful to their product.

Why don’t games developers broadly grant permission to make gameplay videos? It has to do with business risk. While a given YouTuber may have good intentions, there’s no way for the game developer to know for sure that that intent will be executed in a way that they are comfortable with. Moreover the game developer needs to retain the right to have a video pulled down, if they believe the video is harmful to their product.

Links to YouTube monetization, Fair Use

YouTube’s take on monetization for gaming videos: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=138161

FAQs on YouTube for monetization: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=1115890

“Fair Use” doctrine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Zardon.8539:

Great post Taugrim, agree with all of your points.

Just wish we could get a small amount of exp in Spvp, maybe not for kills but for capping, defending, killing the npcs, etc.

It was a curious design decision to not have sPvP provide XP, whereas WvW does.

Hammerheart.1426:

Taugrim,

While I respect your opinion, and completely agree with your post, I must point out a major flaw in structured pvp that you have overlooked.

It makes me forget to go level my character.

Me too :|

Many of my guildees are level 80. My Mesmer is 8 and Warrior is 11.

AN did too good a job with sPvP!

milo.6942:

Gentlemen, we are in the presence of royalty.

I guess. I don’t know. He has some youtube channel or something. He’s cool guy I hear.

Edit: good post!
Edit2: Read linked article, STRONGLY RECOMMENDED reading for everyone in this sub forum.

milo’s progression in that post was pretty entertaining

Guild Wars 2 provides the highest “skill cap” PVP environment of any MMORPG I’ve ever played, even moreso for GW2 tournaments.

Let me frame that statement in a broader context. I’m not saying that GW2 PVP is the only game that requires skill. Too often you hear gamers claim that Game X requires no skills, whereas in every MMORPG I’ve ever played, skill is a differentiating factor between players, particularly of the same class and spec. That said, for a variety of reasons, the extent to which skill matters in determining outcomes varies. There are plenty of games where gear is a huge factor and/or where there are specs that enjoy superior mechanics relative to other specs and classes.

What Makes GW2 PVP So Skill-Based?

1. No holy trinity. Without dedicated healers, all players are responsible for managing their own HP.
2. True tradeoff decisions. I have yet to find a see a spec that can do-it-all, because by design GW2 forces the player to make tradeoff decisions between talents, utilities, and most especially gear components (runes, sigils, and amulet / jewel). By comparison, there are specs and classes in other games that offer good damage, good survivability, and good CC. E.g. in WoW Cataclysm, Death Knights and Frost Mages were strong in all three of those areas, which is why they were the two non-healing classes that were over-represented in my experience at 2k and above in the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets.
3. Downed state management. The downed state is reviled by some players, but I have grown to increasingly appreciate the rich complexity that it adds to the game. Finishing and reviving players one of the most critical factors in sPvP and especially tournament play, because it provides opportunities for players to counter one another as they try to revive or finish targets.
4. Movement and aiming truly matter. The game’s dodge mechanic, which is shared across classes, provides an evade to an opponent’s attack, but it requires recognizing what is worth evading and timing the dodge accordingly. Likewise, many of the most potent attack or CC abilities require that the caster aim and time their ability use, especially with an ability’s specific animation, distance to target, etc.

Key Implications for Individual Players

Simply put, there’s a huge learning curve for any new player, and even for veteran players trying a new class. Stepping into the Mists for the first time on a new class is daunting, because you have to sort out the following:

• Which weapons do I use in each set?
• Which traits (talents) do I take that complement my weapon choices?
• What healing, utility, and elite skills do I slot to complement the capabilities of my spec or fill holes?
• What gear components (sigils for weapons, runes for armor, amulet, and jewel) synergize with the capabilities of my spec?
• How do I manage my profession mechanic (attunement “stance-dancing” for Elementalists, kits for Engineers, etc)?
• Given all that, what’s the order of ability execution for maximum effect, and in which situations?
• How do I play my particular build in solo and group situations?

Given all that and the game mechanics, the mistakes I have most commonly seen when players create a build are:

1. Not understanding how the build holds up against direct damage, sustained incoming conditions, and incoming CC
2. Pairing weapons that have different damage characteristics, e.g. for Warrior using mainhand axe (direct damge) and mainhand sword (condition damage)
3. Not understanding what the build offers in a group context

For point #1, many players are not sufficiently spec’ing to remove multiple conditions, which may be part of the reason why condition-based specs are popular. Point #3 has much broader implications, especially in a tournament setting.

Key Implications for Tournament Players

I hit the post size limitation. Rest of the article here:
http://taugrim.com/2012/09/16/the-skill-cap-of-guild-wars-2-pvp-and-the-implications/