69 replies to this topic

[RivenTheValorous]

Introduction

So I have noticed roughly a billion threads all claiming that Warriors are underpowered (maybe in sPvP they are). Those threads that have people complaining about Hundred Blades, obviously haven't learned to play the game yet and should be ignored.

Let me first say that Warriors are in no way underpowered. They can essentially do whatever it is you need them to do. You need CC? We got it. You need a tank? M1A1 Abrams over here. Raw Damage? Handled. AoE? It's decent, but hey, we're no Elementalist.

Basically, everyone just hasn't figured out how exactly to build a Warrior yet, but it's a good thing that I am here to help you.

This is my build, but before you go crazy, let me explain it to you (remember this is WvW).

Stats:

Power: 2048 (2057)
Precision: 1972 (2023)
Toughness: 1836 (1657)
Vitality: 1233 (1233)

Attack: 3148 (3128)
Condition Damage: 200 (328)
Crit Chance: 54% (57%)
Armor: 3047 (2868)
Health: 21,542 (21,542)

() Stats with Longbow

Weapons

Let's begin with weapons, I chose Greatsword, not for hundred Blades, but for the unbelievable utility. The gap closing on this weapon is amazing, not to mention the fact that it has one of the best damage dealing skills in the game, and a RANGED cripple. After you get past the fact that most noobs decide to use this weapon, it is pretty damn awesome (not to mention it has the BEST skins, I use Fellblade). You want an Knight's stats Greatsword and I use a Superior Sigil of Blood for the added survivability. Strength, Force, Accuracy, Fire, and Air are also good options.

Secondly, I use a Longbow. Why not the Rifle? you may ask. Well, let me tell you. The Longbow excels at not only doing excellent single target damage (even more now with the #1 damage buff), but it is also the easy choice for ranged AoE on a warrior. Arcing Arrow and Combustive Shot can absolutely do work on a mass of people, which conveniently gather at gates you are defending. This not only lets you rake in the experience when your team kills all of them, but it also let's you contribute where a Warrior is typically weak. You want a Rampager's stats Longbow with a Superior Sigil of Fire for even more added AoE. The condition damage is a good addition by sacrificing some toughness since you are more survivable at a range anyway. Bow of the White Hart is a great skin and has the desired stat combo, for those interested.

Armor and Accessories

Regarding Armor, you want to take full Knight's stats.This gives me Power, Precision, and Toughness which are key to what this build tries to accomplish. The Toughness is absolutely essential for not dying! Everyone is a glass cannon in this game, but not you! You will have 1850+ Toughness. Build Tanky DPS and you will be a champion!

Accessories you want to have Knight's stats as well. For my back piece, I run the Guild Assassin's Backpack (Power, Precision, Crit Damage), but the Guild Defender Backpack (Power, Toughness, Vitality) could also be very effective. Some Vitality is made up for in the traits, but a few Pow/Tough/Vit accessories which can be acquired with Badges of Honor could help as well if you feel your health is lacking. Warriors do have the highest base health, however. Jewels can also be personal preference for whatever you feel that you need, but I run Knight's jewels on all of my pieces as well, including the backpack.

For Runes, I take a full set of Runes of the Pack. The swiftness duration, Power, Precision are excellent for what this build accomplishes in WvW. Mobility is key, so the Swiftness duration plus the boon duration that this build gives are absolutely crucial to success. Additionally, this build can also stack boons for you as a front line player because you get Swiftness, Might, and Fury 5% of the time when you are hit. With your boon duration and Empowered trait, these boons can really help to make a much higher difference in damage during a fight in addition to maintaining swiftness uptime during a fight. The +100 Precision for your last rune bonus is something that you don't always get from runes as well since this rune set gives 4 things that directly synergize with the build while giving a good number of stats despite the balance of this rune set.

Skills

For Skills, I take mending as my heal. When there are masses of enemies attacking, you better believe that immobilizes and cripples are going to be hitting you all over the place. You gotta be able to get rid of those conditions. I choose not to take the other heals because Healing Signet just doesn't heal for enough outside of it's passive, which doesn't help if you are being bursted by 10 people, when you want to be using your adrenaline for your Longbow's F1, you don't want Healing Surge, and whatever Racial Heal you get probably doesn't cut it either.

For my utility skills (these are flexible) I take Bull's Charge, Signet of Stamina, and Endure Pain. Bull's Charge, besides being a great initiator, is also an amazing escape because it's movement doesn't depend on cripples or any other slowing ability. Signet of Stamina is great for even more condition removal! You pick those things up everywhere! (remember to wear protection). It also helps you dodgeroll out of all sorts of sticky situations. Endure Pain has a decent cooldown, but that 5 seconds of invulnerability is often a lifesaver. Other options for skills are Bola (for single target immobilize), I don't like this because it's single target and has only one use, it is also very easy to dodge/miss. Stomp, which is an amazing AoE CC that is excellent if you jump down from a wall or find yourself in a crowd. Any banner is a great support item to run on a Warrior, same with any shout. The Signet of Stamina, however, is the only skill I feel is really interchangeable, although the lack of endurance regeneration is incredibly noticeable whenever it isn't on my bar.

For my elite, I take Signet Of Rage. When you are not using it, for example, while defending a tower from the wall, it helps keep your Longbow F1 up even more often. When activated, you have 36 seconds (with the 20% boon duration from Tactics) of 20% Critical Chance, 5 Stacks of Might, and 33% Speed Boost. This Signet is only on a 60 second cooldown meaning that you can have it active 60% of the time. This ability is excellent utility allowing you to traverse the battlefield even faster, get out of an area, or be able to stick on an enemy and dish out that much more damage. Other options for Elites include Battle Standard, which is great support, but is on a long cooldown, or (if you are human) Reaper of Grenth which I find to be good damage and AoE with poison/chill, but it also has a long cooldown. Overall, prioritizing mobility and survivability on your skill bar should be your focus.

Traits

On to my traits. I take 30 in Strength, 20 in Arms, and 20 in Tactics. These traits are the most beneficial to this build for Several reasons. Having more attack damage and critical chance are never a bad thing. The condition damage and condition duration really help out when using the longbow as well.

In my strength tree, I take #3 for a bit of extra tankiness. This build runs a lot of power and using that high stat to help out a stat that benefits survivability is just amazing. I take #9 for the huge boost in damage on the Greatsword. This helps to make sure your melee encounters come out with you on top. Finally, I take #2 as Restorative Strength to help with the susceptibility of a melee class to CC. This gets rid of many conditions that are consistently being applied that hurt your mobility in addition to allowing the 2 conditions that Mending cures to get rid of damaging conditions instead of hoping they clear your CC. #2 is interchangeable with #1, #5, #11, and #12 although I think it is the most consistently beneficial.

In my arms tree I take #5 and #10. These are pretty self explanatory for the vulnerability on critical, might on critical hit which just augments your damage, and the cooldowns on your Greatsword mean all of your abilities are that much more efficient! There really aren't any better options in this tree and I don't believe putting 30 points in here will benefit you more than the extra power you get and the 3rd Trait in Strength.

In my Tactics tree, I take #4 and #6. Longbow range of 900 is abysmal when you are trying to poke at an opposing team or you are trying to defend a wall. You absolutely need the 1200 range. It makes your life so much easier, especially being able to combo your Arcing Arrow on your Combustive Shot. Empowered allows you to get even more damage with your boons which this build has done a great job of stacking. In works great with your runes, Signet of Rage, and boon duration as well as my allies since I run with my guild group a lot. The second tier in Tactics also enables you to improve banners, cause immobilize on cripple, decrease shout cooldown, have even more condition removal, or buff your allies with +70 power. These are #1, #2, #5, #7, #8 and #10.

Conclusion

Overall, I think this is the best balance of Damage and Tankiness that you can get on a Warrior. It gives you all of the offensive tools you need allowing you to be highly mobile and survivable in a melee situation while also being potent and strong from a range. I hope you enjoyed this guide, and, as usual, all feedback is welcome!

EDIT 11/21/12: Updates to the build and Formatting

Edited by RivenTheValorous, 22 November 2012 - 01:02 AM.

[Cugel]

Really agree with u, actually I rerolled from 80 Guardian to 80 Warrior, I just want to ask something, Why u pick ur traits as offensive, I have seen lot of 20 STR , 0 ARMS, 30 DEFENSE, 0 TACTIC, 20 DISCIPLINE. Do u have enough Defense to survive small/medium groups? And why not take longbow as ur weapon inside ur bag? because axe+shield is great for charge with eviserate and shield to scape/daze.

Really love ur topic

[Thanatar]

I am so totally going to try that shit. Nice job mate. :-)

[SirSirrrr]

I agree with Cugel. There's no reason to have longbow as an equipped secondary when it's only situationally useful. Just equip it when you need to defend something with ranged, otherwise it's almost always better to have a second melee set, especially a warhorn in WvW for permanent swiftness. In fact, what I do is run a double melee set with GS and sword/sword with a horn in my bag next to my longbow and only equip it for a second to buff then re-equip the sword.

Actually, I've been totally phasing out longbow usage altogether lately anyways. I disagree when you say it has decent damage potential; I feel it's outclassed entirely by every other class except guardian. It only has two AoE abilities, neither of which are particularly good. Arcing shot is just bad. Small AoE, low range (1200 with the trait is adequate, but 900 without is just garbage and we cant be wasting trait slots on things warriors aren't good at), low damage, nuff said. Combustive shot is only good with level 3 adrenaline, and that gets tricky against good opponents. I don't mean to be condescending, but I've been going up against HoD lately and when there's 20-30 PRX at your gate you don't get the chance to build adrenaline. You'll die in 5 seconds if you poke your head over the wall to get some shots off. I feel there's always a better place for warriors than on the walls defending, or if you absolutely have to, run supplies to repair/build siege. Permanent swiftness + savage leap + GS mobility make warriors one of the best classes at it and endure pain + stability + mobile strikes make it pretty much impossible for enemies to block you from getting back inside.

[Ironfungus]

Great thread Riven, though I feel inclined to agree with SirSirrrr regarding the longbow. Unless you're gearing for condition damage, you're not going to get much out of the longbow's burst ability (or is it based on power, and not condition damage?).

[Cugel]

Any idea of whats runes should be put on our gear?

[Thanatar]

I have been trying it for some time yesterday. Was using Soldier runes (from my prior shout healing build), as well as Shake it off nad the shake it off trait instead of signet of stamina. The stunbreaker and shorter cd on condition removal felt good. But gs+bow is a nice combination (i miss my horn though).

[TheVice]

Oh.. ppl finally realising whats best weapons for wvw... *slow clapping sounds*.

I also swap to rifle occasionally if I need to chase/deal with only few ppl and especially if I might run into 1v1 situations. Bow is simply not viable in 1v1, same as gs (if your opponent can evade frenzy+100b, rifle to the rescue. Just a bit lower damage (actully that's even questionable, adrenaline attack often crits enemies for 12-14k for me) and great kiting abilities while you wait for your gs cd's to finish).

As about gameplay, don't be a hero. Use longbow/rifle. I know I know, we're warriors, we must melee. I hate it that we can't nuke ppl with our greatswords freely either, but what would you prefer, gear/spec mostly as a glass cannon and have frakloads of fun nuking enemies, seeing huge numbers and NOT dying, or rush in playing "real warrior" and die in few hits? Don't worry, when this little bitch decides to go close range to you thinking he can deal with you that way, that's when gs comes to play to make them rush to forums to cry about how op we are.

Edited by TheVice, 25 September 2012 - 08:27 AM.

[Thanatar]

Well, I played hammer / sword + horn before and it was great for wvw. But it lacked 1v1 / killing power, so I wanted to try something else. There are no "best" weapons. Only the ones you prefer. Imo.

[RivenTheValorous]

Just to reply to everyone, I started running this build very early on in my character creation, so I've only seen it get stronger. Also, Longbow does have decent damage when you are running a 57%+ crit chance (with Signet of Rage on) since it procs the chance to crit twice per auto attack. Also, even though the Combustive shot's burning is based off of condition damage, the initial burst is based off of Power (which you have plenty of in this build) Arcing shot's initial burst is also based on power. The AoE burning is just an added bonus. #2 (fan of arrows, also applies burning and is slightly AoE) The high crit chance and double shots per auto attack also allow for the sigil of fire to proc quite often as well laying down even more AoE. This build isn't going to instakill anyone by burning them to death (could be a cute spec with a sword mainhand). The longbow is primarily for being able to strongly support your team while defending. There are so many times I find myself in one group facing off against another large group and until all hell breaks loose and we get into melee range, I need the Longbow in order to poke them down with my team instead of standing around. I understand the sentiment that it is hard to stand on top of a wall and auto attack when there are 40 people at your gate, but if you just run up and F1 or 3 and back off, you are doing decent, power based AoE bursts that allow you to contribute to the defense while not getting melted. Also, this build is much more survivable than many other warriors I see. Everyone likes dealing damage and goes glass cannon because everyone else does and when you are a tank, you don't do as much damage so it's "not as fun" for some people. The idea here is to be a sort of Tanky DPS, so no, you can't always murder someone outright, but you aren't going to go down when someone looks at you funny like most other warrior builds.

Regarding keeping the longbow in my pack, my traits are geared for using a greatsword and a longbow meaning that Axe/Shield has no trait bonuses making it a less effective option, I understand that axe/shield is an amazing combination (when I play sPvP it's what I run along with GS), but it simply isn't viable to switch between 2 melee sets, especially when I spend so much time switching back and forth as you engage/disengage as a battle progresses.

These are personal preferences, however, and should not be confused with me forcing you to play in any particular style. My guild and myself play mostly WvW so this build is strictly applicable to that, especially since the stats and equipment work a little differently in sPvP. I've explained what my weapon choices are and why those have seemed to work for me and I don't pretend this to be the end all be all answer for Warriors in WvW, simply what is fun and has worked out for me.

Regarding runes, they are entirely up to you. Power + Toughness, Power + Vitality, Power + Precision, Power + Crit Damage are all good combinations. I think power is probably the most essential stat to spec into, second of which being Precision, but you should choose one or the other in order to prevent being squishy. Personally, I am running Runes of the Noble right now as it's my only set of armor and I am still farming and such so I wanted the Magic Find. I don't really miss having that extra 50 toughness or Vitality or whatever second stat you would get from your runes and the power on them is pretty good. With a Power + Toughness rune set, you would probably be even more effective. One thing to bear in mind is that conditions are akin to true damage so they tick a certain amount no matter what regardless of your armor. Because of this, the only way to counter condition damage is having condition removal (which this build runs) or run more health since health counters true damage (same amount of damage, larger health pool instead of higher armor, takes longer to die etc.), so running Power + Vitality runes may be one of your best options to be well rounded, but sticking to Power + Toughness wouldn't be wrong either.

Thanks for all the feedback so far! More is always welcome.

Edited by RivenTheValorous, 25 September 2012 - 12:14 PM.

[Way Overpowered]

My Arching Arrow has 1200 range and AOE's for about 10,000 damage on most targets (Critical Hits).
My Combustible Arrow has a 1200 range and ticks for about 1,200 damage on most targets (Critical Hits).

No, it isn't very useful in a 1v1 situation.  But if you are standing in my red circle you are going to die 9 out of 10 times.

Protip:  If you cast Arching Arrow and the Combustible they hit at nearly the same time.

[RivenTheValorous]

Way Overpowered, on 25 September 2012 - 09:30 PM, said:

My Arching Arrow has 1200 range and AOE's for about 10,000 damage on most targets (Critical Hits).
My Combustible Arrow has a 1200 range and ticks for about 1,200 damage on most targets (Critical Hits).

No, it isn't very useful in a 1v1 situation.  But if you are standing in my red circle you are going to die 9 out of 10 times.

Protip:  If you cast Arching Arrow and the Combustible they hit at nearly the same time.

This. Also, I believe Combustive Shot creates a blast combo field so you can shoot that and Arcing Arrow on top of it? Correct me if I'm wrong, it's hard to tell if it's doing additional damage sometimes.

[Thanatar]

It creates a combofield, that is correct (our only one as warriors). But a blast finisher on a fire field won't deal additional damage, but buff nearby enemies with might.

[jeddahwe]

Why not take Signet recharge 20%?

[RivenTheValorous]

Signet Recharge 20% is in Discipline and the trait bonuses that I get out of that, I did not feel was worth putting at minimum 10 points into it, especially when it servers to make this build less survivable which is a huge deal in WvW.

[Beowulf]

your build has one major flaw due to which it fails. You dont have mobile strikes trait which breaks immobilize with movement skills, in WvW you are using greatsword for insane mobility ,yet you dont have this essential trait, one immoblizie and you are down within 2 seconds (you dont have a shield for blocking or mobile strikes - no chance to escape a zerg kicking yo ass)

other than that, nice guide for beginners

[RivenTheValorous]

I don't have mobile strikes because I don't spec into Discipline. Frankly, that is the only reason I would put points in that trait. A possible solution could be 20 Strength 20 Arms 10 Tactics 20 Discipline. I don't think that would hurt the build too much even though I really like how it is set up now. Choosing engages wisely is important and this build entirely depends on when you decide to go in. A beginner running this build could easily get stomped with poor decision making/mechanics. Also, this build is a lot more survivable than you may suspect, an immobilize is not the end of the world.

[lmaonade]

I don't like your build.

It is a good one, but I just personally don't like it. However, I can respect the fact that it has probably worked wonders for you, or else you wouldn't post about it, or use it for that matter. I am a classic sword and board man, so all my setups have to have that piece, I also like shout builds on the warrior, makes me a very valuable skirmish fighter with a decent amount of everything from heals to CC.

I can see how your build would work though, just wouldn't work for me I do like the longbow, just not for PvP, I feel as if it's too slow, but that's just me. I agree completely on the GS though, superb utility, and excellent at chases (that is, when Rush doesn't bug up), Bladetrail combined with #1 on Tactics tree is just amazing.

Edited by lmaonade, 27 September 2012 - 10:33 AM.

[turbo234]

Needs frenzy. signet doesn't serve enough of a purpose to me here.

bulls->frenzy->hb

[Invoky]

turbo234, on 27 September 2012 - 10:36 AM, said:

Needs frenzy. signet doesn't serve enough of a purpose to me here.

bulls->frenzy->hb

Frenzy is horrible in WvW tbh. Frenzy is good in small scale pvp or 1v1 situation. We are talking about wvw here. Wvw = zerg vs zerg. If you are not fighting zerg 90% of time you aren't being helpful to ur server.

[turbo234]

Invoky, on 27 September 2012 - 10:56 AM, said:

Frenzy is horrible in WvW tbh. Frenzy is good in small scale pvp or 1v1 situation. We are talking about wvw here. Wvw = zerg vs zerg. If you are not fighting zerg 90% of time you aren't being helpful to ur server.

I understand it's wvw, that's why If it was in the zerg I would cover with defy pain. Otherwise in smaller situations you have a get out of jail free card on the side while you can still quickly kill someone.

[RivenTheValorous]

lmaonade, on 27 September 2012 - 10:32 AM, said:

I don't like your build.

It is a good one, but I just personally don't like it. However, I can respect the fact that it has probably worked wonders for you, or else you wouldn't post about it, or use it for that matter. I am a classic sword and board man, so all my setups have to have that piece, I also like shout builds on the warrior, makes me a very valuable skirmish fighter with a decent amount of everything from heals to CC.

I can see how your build would work though, just wouldn't work for me I do like the longbow, just not for PvP, I feel as if it's too slow, but that's just me. I agree completely on the GS though, superb utility, and excellent at chases (that is, when Rush doesn't bug up), Bladetrail combined with #1 on Tactics tree is just amazing.

Thank you for the feedback! I have really been considering taking leg specialist. I think it would be a very cute mechanic to try and work in. As it stands right now, I don't feel like I use Bladetrail enough Need to work on that. I played GW1 where all I could do was Sword and Shield and I loved it! I even used it in here for a while before I picked up a Greatsword from my human storyline around level 10. To each their own though! I prefer a little more supporting damage while defending and dishing out the pain while transitioning into a melee brawl, but Shouts are useful too. You are raising the effectiveness of everyone around you, that shouldn't be overlooked.

turbo234, on 27 September 2012 - 10:36 AM, said:

Needs frenzy. signet doesn't serve enough of a purpose to me here.

bulls->frenzy->hb

This is kind of funny that you'd mention because this build is about SUSTAINED dps and being tanky. The entire point of having defensive stats goes out the window when you use frenzy. This doesn't need that burst and would be a one trick pony plain and simple. So what, you get a solo kill once in a while? Most of the time I am rolling in a medium-large sized group, having a Commander Book will do that to you. There aren't opportunities for Frenzy they way I play the game and the slot would be a waste. When you are sieging or defending, conditions hurt, and you need endurance to dodge the pain coming your way. My personal preference is to run Signet of Stamina. You seem to be discounting the amazing damage on every other GS skill other than HB. It isn't as important to kill one person as it is to be continually useful so that you can kill 6, 7, even 8 more.

[Lilitu]

You would do more damage by swapping out any 2 traits from any tree and finishing off the tactics tree in order to pick up 'empowered'.

Restorative strength instead of the power->vitality would yield higher survivability. The reason for this is your mending will eat the cc and then remove damaging things such as poison/bleed/burn.. this returning you more hp than you would have gained from the power->vital.

Personally I don't see crit chance or crit damage as being very good bang for buck, I'd only bother if going all out. Eg precision without the +30% crit dmg trait isn't great. For example if you are at  ~1800 power already, With the base 150% crit damage you would need 100% crit or 2000+ precision to match the dps benefits of an additional 916 power. Crit and crit damage scale very poorly unless used in combo with each other... at which point you become glass.

Edited by Lilitu, 27 September 2012 - 07:44 PM.

[lmaonade]

RivenTheValorous, on 27 September 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

Thank you for the feedback! I have really been considering taking leg specialist. I think it would be a very cute mechanic to try and work in. As it stands right now, I don't feel like I use Bladetrail enough Need to work on that. I played GW1 where all I could do was Sword and Shield and I loved it! I even used it in here for a while before I picked up a Greatsword from my human storyline around level 10. To each their own though! I prefer a little more supporting damage while defending and dishing out the pain while transitioning into a melee brawl, but Shouts are useful too. You are raising the effectiveness of everyone around you, that shouldn't be overlooked.



This is kind of funny that you'd mention because this build is about SUSTAINED dps and being tanky. The entire point of having defensive stats goes out the window when you use frenzy. This doesn't need that burst and would be a one trick pony plain and simple. So what, you get a solo kill once in a while? Most of the time I am rolling in a medium-large sized group, having a Commander Book will do that to you. There aren't opportunities for Frenzy they way I play the game and the slot would be a waste. When you are sieging or defending, conditions hurt, and you need endurance to dodge the pain coming your way. My personal preference is to run Signet of Stamina. You seem to be discounting the amazing damage on every other GS skill other than HB. It isn't as important to kill one person as it is to be continually useful so that you can kill 6, 7, even 8 more.

Yup, Bladetrail is a close favorite with Whirlwind being my favorite, leg specialist and the 1k hp can be amazing for your survival (and chase/in-fights too), I'm a bit biased towards shout builds naturally because I usually am the main damage soak in my team, so I am content with dealing less damage and supporting more. But in your situation I love your utilities, however, I'm kinda iffy on Endure Pain, it's a long CD short duration stance that can change battles, but I prefer lower CD utilies that can still do nice things like balanced stance for a stun break and stability.

Edited by lmaonade, 28 September 2012 - 11:56 AM.

[Morglum]

RivenTheValorous, on 23 September 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

Regarding Equipment, you obviously want an Exotic Greatsword with a Superior Sigil of Accuracy for the increased critical chance benefiting more than anything else.

Endure Pain has a decent cooldown, but that 5 seconds of invulnerability is often a lifesaver.

The condition damage and condition duration really help out when using the longbow as well.

The 10% increased damage to burning foes just helps you deal even more damage since 3 of your longbow skills cause burning.

I just picked those things out because there is some flawed information and misunderstandings. Let me explain:
1. 5% should add much less damage as another sigil of fire. Crit is nice but only if you proc things with it and one of those things is sigil procs.
2. Endure Pain lasts 3 seconds (yes, besides the tooltip saying something else. The trait Last Stand only triggers 3 seconds as well by the way. It also only works against direct damage. Conditions are still apllied AND continue to hurt.
3. Condition Duration is sadly having a pretty mixed effect with longbow. Since only full seconds tick and you apply it adds nothing to burning unless you are hitting with several burnings at once. So when you place your burst field and continue to shoot at your enemy the combo effect burns in conjunction with the burn field will add up to maybe a few more ticks than normally. But for the combo field alone or fan of fire condition duration actually does nothing.
4. The 10% are okay but only your burst and fan of fire are adding burns! All other tooltips are wrong. Fan of fire also only adds 1s of burn (per arrow) instead of 2s. It can add a 3s burn if you fire at point blank but only if you are at a little distance to your enemy because otherwise the arrows count as one arrow, at least when I tested this. You will benefit from the 10% against people in your burst combo field though. In other situations it´s pretty useless.

Also I´d like to add that I think going for -cd for physical utilities is a waste unless you use more then bull's charge. Especially because the minor traits are not that good. If you put 5 more points in Arms you get +10% damage for bleeded targets and for another 5 points you can get haste (perfect for GS) or extra adrenaline on crit (perfect for longbow). Also I think 33% to get a vulnerability on crit is pretty bad. How many vulnerabilities do you get if you constantly shoot with dual shot? 3? 4? That´s 3-4% direct damage only, not worth it imho. Maybe you can add the information how many stacks you get?
Other than that I like the build as it is a) a longbow build and something different than most builds you see.

It´s a totally different "longbow"-build then what I use, might give power-longbow a try to check it out.
My build is condition based and works very well in WvW as does yours obviously. I am not a big fan of GS for WvW, I prefer having warhorn with condition removal and sword for the leap. Of course I also chose it as it is the only condition weapon available. With warhorn condition removal and shouts+soldiers you are very likely to escape almost everything paired with sword's leap.
http://www.guildwars...0533-swordfire/

[Thanatar]

One question: how do you guys live without the speedbuff and condition removal from the horn in wvw? I always feel crippled, if I dont bring a horn.

[Morglum]

Me too that´s why I always play with horn and signet in WvW. You need perma swiftness unless you are defending a keep.

[Combo Breaker]

Mmmmm it's not bad, I agree people who say warrior's are bad have no idea how to play their class though. See, the GS builds are decent, they do have mobility, but there's other weapon sets that do so much more for a wr and still have some of the mobility.

For example, Shield/sword (warhorn in inventory). I spec deep in tactics and defense and still put out compareable dps, obviously losing the burst of the GS, but a well specced defensive warrior can literally turn the tide of any sized fight.

Also you nailed it, longbow is MILES ahead of rifle, it makes me sad when I see wr's using rifles in wvw ><.

[RivenTheValorous]

The Longbow isn't based around Condition Duration, at least for me. The condition duration comes along with the power so it's admittedly a cute little perk. I'm strongly considering picking up Leg Specialist instead of burning arrows. And seeing how that works. When it comes down to it, I just feel that Rifle is incredibly underwhelming in WvW. The lack of AoE, even with penetrating shots, isn't getting it done. Personally, I have Signet of Rage up most of the time (36 up 24 off) and with The 8 seconds trimmed off the CD for Bull's Charge and the 20% CD on GS abilities, Bull's Charge, Whirlwind Attack, and Rush are up a good portion of the time. Signet of Stamina and Mending are both there in order to cure those conditions and keep that swiftness/mobility intact. You can also take the trait that makes CC effects be cured when you heal. This would allow mending to cure more damaging conditions. Sword/Warhorn is also a very valid build, but Because of Warhorn's AoE buffs, I feel as thought it is much better suited for stacking buffs with a shout warrior or a banner warrior.

Regarding taking another melee set, I simply love the look of the Greatsword and I really enjoy the mechanics of playing it effectively. A warrior's biggest weakness is being kited and I think that Greatsword mitigates that effectively (as does Sword/Warhorn).

After testing this build extensively, I have found that in it's current state it is very survivable and Signet of Rage gives an impressive amount of sticking power when in a fight. Because of this, unless assaulting a Tower/Keep, I find myself being about to be swapped into my Greatsword most of the time. I know what everyone may be thinking, "How can you melee in a zerg v zerg in an open field?". Well, the answer to that question is you charge at them. You can't do it alone, but thankfully I have a coordinated guild and alliance that back me up with decisions like that. Not to mention, it gives you a calculated advantage tactically because you can plan on the charge or set up a flank. Whoever you are fighting against, 90% of the time, will not react effectively to their position being rushed and as soon as you get to the casters and squishies (which is easy because they often don't try to move until they realize we're on top of them), your team wins that engagement. Melee weapons have a huge role in WvW if you have the balls to back up the tactics.

A few changes I would consider are shifting 10 points from strength into Arms, Tactics, or placing 10 in defense for the +200 toughness while CC'd. It is all personal preference, really, and slight variations on this build should not create any huge changes in player capability.

Edited by RivenTheValorous, 01 October 2012 - 06:31 PM.

[Yinero]

Thanatar, on 26 September 2012 - 01:22 PM, said:

It creates a combofield, that is correct (our only one as warriors). But a blast finisher on a fire field won't deal additional damage, but buff nearby enemies with might.

Just wanted to correct this because I had a twitch in my neck when I read it, lol. The blast finisher from longbows doesnt buff your eneimies with might. It buffs your Allies who are in the blast radius with might.