czwartek, 13 marca 2014

[ARCHIVE] Warrior /w Greatsword guide for Competitive Play

Views: Almost 90,000, one of the most popular warrior guides available on the web at the time.

Disclaimer: This is a rather old guide, it was viable on the initial release and shortly after, as for the current state of the game - most likely that is not the case.



1. Introduction

After spending almost 300 hours on my  warrior and upon reaching level 80/sPvP rank 40 I just simply fell in love. Warrior is a type of class with very risky but rewarding play style - it all comes down to either kill or be killed. While I obviously did not have enough time to learn as much about other classes in Guild Wars 2, I am pretty confident that there is no class in the entire game that can pull off as much damage as warrior in such a very short amount of time. Warrior's burst with the correct spec is without a doubt best in game, hands down. That is what makes him so dangerous. If you are looking for a gap closer bruiser who can just sit on one target and focus the hell out of it, bursting it down in seconds: you did the right thing by choosing warrior. Of course there is always a downside to one's superiority. While warrior can pull off insane damage, he can be very squishy at times despite his heavy armor. Let me clarify on the matter in the next chapter of this guide.


2. Explanation of skill/weapon choices



Frenzy in combination with greatsword's Hundred Blades ability is simply insane. The problem with frenzy though is that it also increases the damage YOU receive by 50%. That is A LOT. If you use frenzy at a wrong time, you will end up dead. That is where Endure Pain comes in. Endure Pain utterly negates the effect of frenzy, making you completly immune to all types of damage that you will obtain in the next 5 seconds. Although such a synergy of skills is great, it is not always best to use frenzy along with endure pain at the same time - it all depends on the situation that you find yourself in. When you see an opportunity to burst down a target and your opponents are focusing different player, there is no need for you to use endure pain. Both skills have very long cooldown and you have to use them wisely. It is also worth nothing that both frenzy and endure pain act as a cc-breaker and remove any stun effects present on you.

You might ask: why greatsword? What is so great about this weapon? Well, greatsword comes with amazing utility/mobility (and trust me, mobility is always priceless for any melee class and I just can't stress this enough) on top of insane burst. With Greatsword, warrior can have up to three different leaps/gap closers. Whirlwind AttackRush and alas Bull's Charge that is our skill of choice. Our burst comes from the Hundred Blades ability that I mentioned before. The only problem with Hundred Blades is that it can be very easily avoided - that is why it is best used after stunning or knocking down your target of choice. It is also a good counter if you are being focused. You just pop out endure pain along with frenzy, and your opponent will surely back down.

Skills 2 34 and 5 are the type of undisputedly set in stone. Bull's Charge is your only CC that you so greatly need because of hundred blades's weakness. As for Signet of Rage, it works amazingly well with Frenzy and uptime on it is half of all the time which is kind of OP. On top of almost constant movement speed you gain a boost to your damage stats which works great with hundred blades. You could consider switching your Healing ability (1). As for the healing ability, Mending is my personal choice because of its additional effect being the removal of two conditions although both Healing Surge and Healing Sigent are viable and can prove to be superior to one another in certain situations, depending on the circumstances.

Your secondary weapon of choice should be an axe (MH) along with shield (OH). This will help you to get through toughest of moments during which you are being focused by the enemy team. Also, shield does not only provide you with block, but also with 1 second long stun that can prove very useful.

As far as choosing weapon for water combat goes (though there is no water combat in tournaments due to lack of Raid on the Capricorn battleground in the bg roster), I suggest picking up Spear (close quarters aquatic weapon) - partly because of benefit that Slashing Power trait provides you with (10% damage increase for both greatsword and spear). Though mainly because I find Spear to be the most useful underwater weapon. Number 5 ability, Tsunami Slash is yet another amazing gap closer that you can use in order to move faster through the battleground map or to simply stalk your prey.

One of the problems with Guild Wars 2 is that there are countless different types of buffs in-game with no detailed description of what they exactly benefit the player with. Let me list for you, all the buffs (or rather boons) that are of interest to warrior and this spec in particular:

 Fury - 20% critical chance

 Might is a boon which increases power and condition damage and stacks in intensity. The effect of might is determined by the following formula:

0.375 * Level + 5 Power/Condition Damage per stack

 Swiftness is a boon that increases movement speed by 33%.

All of the above are gained from Signet of Rage.

 Quickness is an effect that makes all skills and actions twice as fast. Quickness granted by non-elite skills usually comes with some kind of temporary drawback, such as penalty to endurance regeneration or increase in damage taken.

Gained by using Frenzy and also by procing Last Chance trait (Arms talent line).

 Berserker Stance (obtained from Berserker's Might trait from the Strength line) - Gain adrenaline for a short time.  Duration: 8 s

As for Conditions (negative effects that can be inflicted against enemies through the use of skills and affecting traits):

 Bleeding is a stackable condition that deals damage over time.

Bleeding can stack in intensity up to 25 times and each stack does one pulse of damage per second. The damage dealt by bleeding is determined by the following formula:

2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage per stack per second

 Vulnerability is a condition which increases damage the target takes by 1%.

Vulnerabilty stacks up to 25 times. Characters suffering from vulnerability have a shattering shield debuff appear on themselves when the condition is applied.


3. Balancing your stats
As for the statistics, power is the most sought after stat for this spec (due to its scaling with Hundred Blades ability). Precision comes second, along with crit damage of which efficiency is based upon your crit chance (hence partly precision; the more precision you have, the more effective % crit damage becomes and vice versa).


Power >>> Precision > % Crit Damage >>

and the lesser stats of use for you are as follows:

Vitality > Toughness > Condition Damage

Condition damage is unfortunately kind of useless for the greatsword spec because only DoT (Damage over Time) ability that we have comes from traits and it procs upon critical hits (and upon critical hits it has only 33% chance to be applied to begin with). Anyway, DoTs are not what this build is about - we are supposed to burst down our enemy in matter of seconds before he is able to even react in any way.

4. Gameplay




At your prime (that is when you have your cooldowns active) you are an unstoppable wave of destruction, crushing everything in its path - none shall be able to withstand your might. That is why usage and management of cooldowwns is so essential when it comes to playing warrior properly.

Important thing to note about PvP is that there is no such thing as rotation when you confront other, real players. You have to learn how to adapt to different situations and that is what makes you a better player. Learn when to kill the right target and know when to pop your defensive cooldowns.

You should always have a Warhorn in your inventory and use it when you are out of combat. Why? It will grant you a free speed boost and you won't have to waste your Signet of Rage. Once you use Charge just open your inventory and re-equip your greatsword. IMPORTANT! Make sure that you don't get yourself into combat with your warhorn equipped because then you won't be able to use your greatsword and thus will be pretty much screwed.

Here is the list of abilities that warrior with a greatsword uses, with their respective detailed descriptions(including CD's):
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/c/c6/Chain_Arrow_Toolbelt.png/25px-Chain_Arrow_Toolbelt.pnghttp://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/7/71/Arcing_Slice.png/33px-Arcing_Slice.png Arcing Slice, Burst Ability http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/f4/Tango-recharge-darker.png 10, Strike your foe with an uppercut and gain fury. Useless ability, don't even bother to use it. Why? Because of: Healing Surge and traits that we chose (Berserker's Power and Heightened Focus)
.http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/b/b3/Greatsword_Swing.png/33px-Greatsword_Swing.png Greatsword Swing, Slash your foe.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/4/48/Redirect_Arrow.png/25px-Redirect_Arrow.pnghttp://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/3/37/Greatsword_Slice.png/33px-Greatsword_Slice.png Greatsword Slice, Slice your foe.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/4/48/Redirect_Arrow.png/25px-Redirect_Arrow.pnghttp://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/fb/Brutal_Strike.png/33px-Brutal_Strike.png Brutal Strike, Hit your foe with a final brutal strike.
 http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/b/ba/Hundred_Blades.png/33px-Hundred_Blades.png Hundred Bladeshttp://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/f4/Tango-recharge-darker.png 8, Repeatedly strike multiple foes. The last strike does extra damage. Your main source of DMG. Amazing AoE!
 http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/fe/Whirlwind_Attack.png/33px-Whirlwind_Attack.png Whirlwind Attack http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/f4/Tango-recharge-darker.png 10, Whirl in a target's direction, slashing foes along your path. Also acts as a additional dodge/escape skill. AoE ability as well!
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/0/05/Bladetrail.png/33px-Bladetrail.png Bladetrail http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/f4/Tango-recharge-darker.png 15, Throw your greatsword at your foe so that it returns to you, crippling foes along the way. Use it to slow down your enemy. It can also do AoE DMG if thrown correctly.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/4/42/Rush.png/33px-Rush.png Rushhttp://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/f/f4/Tango-recharge-darker.png 20, Charge and strike your foe. It takes some time for its strike to go off, but it hits pretty hard (especially if it crits).

I hope that you enjoyed reading this guide, stay tuned for more!

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