Warrior's (are they relevant?)

I expect someone reading this will think I'm playing the Troll here, but I'm not I'm quite serious.

I very much like playing my Warrior, I just like to hack and slash on the front line of the battle; but between Assassin's flitting in and out of reality like so many demented Dr Who's and Necro's racing behind walls of minions the would do the Dallas Cowboys Offensive line proud.

I have to say, I've begun to seriously wonder if other players see them as a totally nerfed NPC class not to be taken seriously as a player character option;

Genuinely interested in your thoughts. BB.

I don't think so at all, I like warriors too, and they are great tanks in general PvE areas and also good with hammers PvP.
/Jonas

I play a warrior, so I'm pretty biased; but I think they've a perfectly viable class. With a sin secondary and some aoe skills, they can jump into groups and deal pretty high damage very quickly. I find warriors a perfectly good character to play in a normal group, and for scs, such as FoW, can rival the dervishes for speed.

I love playing with a warrior, there is nothing more satisfying(maybe a mesmer for me) than playing with this class.

I see them as underpowered, only reason I play mine is so I can swing those fancy swords from time to time. I also find them to be the class with the least options. You either play melee warrior or you do what? Melee Aoe is better on sin and derv and tanking is better on sin or random gimmick builds.

I do like playing as a warrior, but I tend to find they aren't as effective as most other classes.

I haven't used a warrior hero since I had a full team of others, really.

As player, I prefer assassin or dervish as melee class. The warrior is rather underpowered compared to these. As NPC or hero, I ceased to take a warrior hero or henchman 4 years ago. Only required when forced by the mission. Their AI isn't even remotely able to deliver what a player can do: clever positioning play, blocking enemy NPCs at the terrain. Caster heroes are way more efficient.

I cannot understand why so many posts in this forum say: "The warrior is THE damage machine". These are mostly directed to new players. This is in fact what drives new players away, since the warrior (in PvE) cannot deliver what these posts promise.

The most effective way to use a warrior is unfortunately only through the hammer. In PvP for obvious reasons, and PvE all you need is Dwarven Battle Stance+Dwarven Stability (auspicious blow for energy, yeti smash and whirlwind for AoE 'rupt and KD) . Useful but gets boring after a while.

Want to see damage numbers exploding on your screen? Take hammer with adrenaline mod and Death's Charge for jumping in foes. Don`t forget heroes with barbs, mark of pain and splinter, hex and condition remover.

Popular pve builds: W/N Raptor Farmer, PvE Hundred Blades Warrior, PvE Earth Shaker

and no, I not recommend warrior heroes.

For PvE I love my dervish/sin since they are quite powerful, the only time I would use a warrior would be in PvP because of the excellent KD and power the hammer has but it is not needed or really meant for PvE. Rather it is used for quick shots on specific targets, which in PvE you would rather have pure damage and pressure consistently. Eh thats just my two cents on this though.

I'll also add a PvE Dragon Slash spammer to that.


I'm a Warrior player, and I'd agree that they are underpowered in PvE, to some extent. In PvP, they're still good pressure, but that's not really necessary in PvE.

However, there's a few builds (some listed above) that are very good. The one I typically run spams Dragon Slash/Brawling Headbutt for 20~ seconds of solid K/D, or 20~ seconds of solid Dragon Slash.

Offensively, there's:
Hundred Blades/Whirlwind/Sun & Moon Slash AoE build
Earth Shaker build
Dragon Slash K/D build
Warrior's Endurance build

And a few other minor ones. Defensively, of course, they're still worthy tanks, but a lot of areas don't even need tanks anymore.

Since the last few Dervish updates, I'd say the Dervish more or less outclasses the Warrior as a general pressure/AoE thing. More self-maintaining too. Assassins though? I disagree. Sure, they're still much better at spiking, but not as a general PvE wailer.

Whenever I see "Warrior" and "Underpowered" in the same sentence, my eyes bleed.

Sure, Dervishes and Assassins can be better for some roles, but "underpowered"? Please...

Agreed. Power creep is bad. Warrior is fine, and calling them underpowered is silly. Now, hero warriors on the other hand are pretty dumb, so you could definitely argue they are underpowered, but that's mostly because of AI faults.

I don't play much with my warrior, practically just use it to raptor farm.
They aren't underpowered in my view, they are in fact one of the most balanced professions. The later updates on the other hand overpowered some of the others but that's another matter for discussion.
One last thing, a Warrior is not a (dedicated) tanker, it's a great damage dealer. There are/were some niche builds that used them for tanking but that's not it's main purpose.

Warrior are fine for players. When it comes to heroes or hench though, I can't find a space of them. They're better in HM since the changes to AL, but still need a team build built around the fact the team has a warrior in it (SoH, MoP etc) .

I am feeling alot or warrior hate when I play.

Other than FoWsc, which is at best since now people prefer VoS Dervs instead, you are shunned from UW. The only time I can find groups who will take a warrior is when it's needed for tanking on Z Bounties, and so it resigns you to a tedious garrison role(bitch job).

@OP: Do you mean for PvE or PvP or both? In PvP they are so viable. Like any class, it's the player not the class that shines. A good player on a bad class can make mediocre players think they can do the same thing with that class. That is saying something. I am a terrible warrior, but I have watched replays of HA and GvG that have made me roll into RA with a Warrior only to realize I have no skill lol.

In PvE there are a TON of cool things you can do with a Warrior. Also, if you are being a hipster Warrior and not using EotN skills, you are just hindering your success.

Pff, I was using Garlath Slash before Garlath started using it.

Tons to think about, Thanks for all the interesting responses.

I was mostly thinking PvE because honestly I have not touched PvP yet; I recently ran 'Test of the Chosen' with a Minion maker, and have used one myself a few times as a Hench; and like I said it seemed like you very quickly got this snowball of undead running in front of the Necro, which (intuitively at least) made one think, ok and me an my axe are here for ???

I am surprised the consensus opinion seems to favor Hammer builds; I recently rolled my Warrior her Merc, and my other Hero over to Axes, which again intuitively seemed more effective. I kept the hammers because I'm still working my way through the storylines and you never know when your going to find something with just a ton of Armor,

BTW, am I reading this thread correctly...
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/w...tml?t=10027353

I know if you say have a +8 Axe, and you only invest 7 you get seriously nerfed.

But am I right in believing that what folks are saying here is; beyond that you have to invest 12 in the Mastery of Any Weapon just to get the full Baseline Damage spread; honestly that seems like a huge investment in Attribute points just to get to Baseline Zero? no? I think it's relevant to our conversation; because you certainly want your warrior to get full value from their weapon when s/he hits.

Once again,
Much more to think about than I expected when I opened this thread; thank you all for your thoughts. BB.

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(I later found this, but honestly if find it more confusing than clarifying; but it does indicate yes to get 1:1 value out of your weapon you do have to make that huge investment in Attribute points to buff yourself up to 12. Oh well I will never understand the underlying code in any real detail. )

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dama...ng_progression

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Talkamage_calculation )

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I have to admit, I can't make any judgements about the builds linked to the next post; because honestly I'm not familiar with more than half the skill icons presented. My own KISS build relies heavily on pretty low energy skills.

Bane Signet, Reveral of Fortune; Frenzy to up the Hit count. A Distance Rez and a Good +80Heal to help the Monk(s) out; but it seems to me for now, better to have low Energy skills available than Awesome skills that aren't.

The main problem with warriors is the players. See bellow.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/p...t10482447.html

Put simply, the Warrior's job is to kill the enemy, and weapon mastery helps you do that. You want to raise your weapon mastery as high as possible, because it's (usually) your primary damage attribute. You can best help your Monk or your backline by killing the enemy faster instead of bringing heals, since dead foes deal no damage. You do need 12 in mastery to deal 100% listed base damage, yes. You can also choose adrenaline skills to manage energy.

By the way, that site you linked to(guildwars.wikia.com) is out of date, and not updated any longer. In fact, people intentionally post misinformation there, so I'd recommend you avoid it in the future.


Official Wiki
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Damage_calculation

GuildWiki

P.S. The builds in that PuG warrior thread are all terrible; that's the joke.

Edit: See this post for a simplified explanation of damage and weapon requirement. You may also find the rest of that thread helpful.

That can apply quite well to any profession. Recently, I came across a Necro wanting to join a HM mission for Masters reward who had 5 minion skills in their bar, and the rest were heals (Orison, Heal Area, Healing Breeze).

Part of the confusion is that Warriors (and other physicals as well) rely on allies to buff damage with skills such as Strength of Honor, Order of Pain, Barbs, Mark of Pain, etc. The latter combo very well with Hundred Blades, but I prefer running Hammer for knockdown utility and the absurdity that is Renewing Smash.

Generally if you are relying on physical damage, you want a minimum of two and general max of four (I run Hammer + 3 Dervish Heroes) melee in order to take advantage of your buffs.

ive played warior for 6 years now and they arent underpowered. sure they cant takn as good as a a perma sin but there more stable and if you drop a spear on them they are a very robust tank/dps combo for pve.

Warriors are good. I main Assassin out of preference, but not necessarily out of effectiveness. I'd say you could make a convincing case for any of the physicals at this point.

And don't let Warrior hero AI even enter into the discussion -- all physical hero AI is bad.

I like playing warrior in PvP, not so much in PvE. Hero warriors suck, especially if you play in the Domain of Anguish a lot. It's hard to keep them from agro'ing extra groups. Once in awhile I take on on normal mode to take advantage of their Charge skill, but not often.

In the GVG battles, I run a anti-melee build that's a lot of fun to play, especially given the number of sins that play, and don't remember ever losing to a sin in 1 on 1 combat. Mesmers and elementalists are a completely different story.

On heroes, my default frontline are a balth derv and a earthshaker war. In HM i micro the war's yetismash when i want a kd early. FGJ -> crude swing -> earth shaker. Rince and repeat.

Other warrior bars are viable to in some areas. True the ai cant be as effective as a human player but the same goes for sins or eles or for anything really.

Most run bars on warrior heroes:

Earth shaker
Shock axe (yes, shock axe)
Starburst Axe
Whirling Axe (Nagas with Escape come to mind)

When playing as war myself i ussually dish out the biggest chunk of the party damage. You can spike out targets fairly quickly while puttin out alot of pressure when ur building adrenaline. A d chop or kd here and there never hurt either if there are key skills to take out.

I hardly ever use sin heroes, only when im running a barbs nec cuz they attack faster. The low armor can really be a drain on the healers.

Warriors are very versatile. There are decent builds for each weapon and some tanking builds (though for the most part those are useless in today's hyper protted meta). All the weapons and styles feel different to play, which is very good. In comparison, assassins only really have shadowform (a gimmick) or death blossom spam. Dervs have a few options, including some caster ones, but most of their melee builds play the same. Where warriors fail is in speed clears (just 100b in FoW or tank in the Deep).

For a novice warrior, this is a helpful thread. Thanks all.

Warrior was my first profession and is still by quite some distance my favorite.

I'm pretty much always running a WE/Axe bar and with that build in mind, a warrior's strengths imo are:
- Easy deep wound access (dismember is pretty spamable)
- Easy IAS access (frenzy/flail)
- High base armor and thus high survivability.
-> This has the added advantage of being able to run ahead of your party by a few seconds, taking care of aggro while the rest of your party joins in. This without needing to resort to ridiculous tank builds. (This is usually what's lacking in the average pug warrior, the ability to control enemy aggro as they wish..something that can be of immense value to just about any team setup)
- Spammable AS making most shutdown obsolete..bar attack speed affecting hexes.
- Easy aoe access with ww/cyclone
- No reliance on strippable buffs

underused? yes. useless? no. people just can't think for themselves to be honest, people want meta and meta only sometimes, but fail to see that there is other useful builds out there.

although if you were going to talk about pvp, warriors are usually a staple unless it's a gimmick build.

I'm not sure if you're implying that attribute investment is a problem - you can change your attributes both up and down whenever you are in an outpost (I'm not sure whether you know about this, as I don't know how much you've played the game). So it makes sense to set your weapon to 12 and then put the the other 12 in Strength (unless you are doing something special, where you may want to invest a bit in Tactics or an element for Conjure, but -only- if you're actually using the skills that need this). In fact, most good builds for most classes spec in 2 or at most 3 attributes; there are only a few exceptions.

Also, warrior is not competing with undead meat shield, as they're not supposed to tank damage; their high armour just offsets their melee range. They do huge single-target continuous damage (assassins are single-target spike damage, so they're different), very high AoE damage (but are less flexible than dervishes in this regard) and have easy access to Deep Wound, knockdown, attack speed and running speed.