Warrior Trait Synergy

Hi everyone,

Been a while since I last properly posted, been taking a break from the game, mainly due to the fact I do not enjoy the current super cheesy condi meta in PvP, but that's just my feelings on it. I was using this time to brush up on other classes and get some casual theorycrafting on Warrior going when I decided to do this post.

Do you have an in depth knowledge of the Warrior class?
Are you confident in creating your own builds?
Do you know exactly which traits and utilities compliment each other?

If the answer to any of the above is yes, then I would suggest you stop reading, this post isn't for you and it will come across as condescending, probably make you rage and then most likely make you want to troll.

The aim is to help out new players, or players who are new to theorycrafting, with the Warrior class and give them some very basic "building blocks" that they can then play around with and build on. Lots of people just use the builds that get posted up as the 'best' build for that class and what the community think is the role it can fulfill within a high end team. However, this doesn't always suit the individual person's playstyle or skill level, as well as pigeonholing everyone into a role and giving the general community tunnel vision when it comes to innovating new builds. The more people have a go at theorycrafting and improving their general class knowledge the greater chance we have as a community of finding and developing some of the lesser played builds.

To this end I have tried to pull together groups of traits that compliment other traits, utilities or weapons, in an attempt for people to be able to go, "Hey, I like playing with Shouts, where should I start?" and hopefully showing players that are newer to theorycrafting. Hope you enjoy and get involved in theorycrafting more!

Block/Shield

This build has a shield, three traits and an armour set. Personally I am not a fan of the runeset, but I wanted the first one of these to go all out to show you how you can max one particular part of your class and work a build around it as your focal point, regardless of trait level etc. It is worth noting that when "reflecting" ranged damage this does not count as block and you do not get the bonuses or procs.

Shouts

AoE healing shouts that remove conditions, provide good support and keep your adrenaline up

Banners

Regenerating banners. Not a fan of Powerful Banners (as the damage is negligible), but the AoE rez on Battle Standard can change a fight, and the Furious Rally on Banner of Disc is very nice.

Stances

Very popular at the moment and very strong. Can have close to perma vigor if you go that way, as well as amazingly long stances (especially berserkers stance)

Signets

Seems a little bit counter intuitive, but makes the passive on signets stronger, and if you use them means they are on passive again faster.

Burst
or
Cleansing Ire

Cleansing Ire version of this is very popular at the moment! Both reward you for using your adrenaline and as a result you need to spec further into strong adrenaline generation,

Adrenaline

Opposite of the above, rewarded for not using adrenaline. Good for Greatsword, as it has a very weak Burst ability.

Healing

Maximizes ticks you can have of healing/second. Can Chain it with Banners or Shouts for even more.

Immobilize

Used to be very strong, the ICD on leg specialist has killed it a bit, but still good in some situations (Hammer with Valk jewel in PvP for example)

Longbow

Two generally quite weak traits, but if speccing heavily into a Longbow build can be useful.

Greatsword

Great to boost your GS damage. Nice to pair with one of the Adrenaline traits.

Axe

Big fan of this (but I just quite like axes). Gives you nice damage and nice Adrenaline generation.

Boons

Interesting one this. Warhorn is very underused in PvP, but I have always been a fan of the AoE condi peel and boon generation. Especially in the current meta.

Physical Utility Build

With Warrior increasingly being used as a CC stun monster, and the fact that as it stands Hammer skills are so incredibly telegraphed, thought I would rehash a slightly older build for stacking hard CC on targets and locking them down, whilst still having decent damage from Axe. You lose mobility by swapping sword out for axe (from the standard build lots of people use at the moment) and the condi clear is almost non existent which may prove to be a problem if you do not use zerkers stance effectively and if you are really having problems you could consider swapping in Mending instead.

Link

Would appreciate any comments or changes people can suggest as this is pure theory and am yet to test it.

Papa's Adrenaline Junkie Build Mark III

So this is the third time I have reworked this build. It takes a lot more traits now they have been moved around to Grandmaster, but I find the damage is pretty outrageous.

Quite a few of the big players have stated that as Warriors still have zero sustain, there is no point in going anything into defence or endure pain etc, just get in, do crazy damage and either get out or die.

This build allows you to do damage with the bow, engage on your terms, get a swift HB off, and run back to your spot for more longbow action.

Give it a go, it is quite frustrating, but until they give us more sustain and the crazy AoE condi circus dies down I think hit and run dps is all we can hope for.

The utilities are up to you really, I go for throw bolas to root people for HB and kick to keep people off you when you freecast with Longbow.

Build

Papa's Physical Training Build

So the dust has settled a bit on the patch, I have had time to read a lot of builds by some very good players and hear what they have to say about possible uses for the Warrior.

From this (and this will be stating the obvious for many of you) the things that are causing problems right now are AoE damage and Conditions.

The embodiment of this is the Necro so I wanted to create a build that could put down some AoE damage and Condi's whilst at the same time bringing to the table a good foil for Necro, lots of CC.

This is what I came up with:

Build 1

I have been a fan for the Physical Utility skills for a while now, but they just never seemed viable putting up a Grandmaster trait for them.

This build brings:

Decent AoE team peels from Warhorn (when in team fights)
Good CC
Great AoE damage with burns ticking along

The way I tend to play this is almost never engaging unless you have to, and using Kick to keep people off you, hence the Scholar Runes. You could swap out stomp for Bolas for keeping someone away from you, but I like the ability to knock people out of Sanctuary/Rez/Shadow Refuge.

If you are having trouble staying above 90% you can switch one rune (or all of them) out for Divinity Runes and the damage is still very nice.

Similarly if you like engaging more in Melee range you can swap the below traits out:

Restorative Strength instead of Great Fortitude
Deep Cuts instead of Rending Strikes

There is another interesting variant of the build below using the Valk ammy and Unsuspecting Foe.

Build 2

Papa's Elements Build

This build is based on Elements. Earth (Earthquake), Wind (Whirling Axe), Fire (Fire Sigil) and Ice (Hydromancy Sigil).

It explains the main rotation used in this build.

Earthquake
Swap to Axe/Axe
Hydromancy procs, chilling everyone as well as them being stunned
Whirling Axe
Fire sigil should proc giving you more AoE damage

This can then be followed by an Eviscerate on your teams target.

This uses Divinity Runes on armour, Fire and Hydromancy on Axe/Axe, Fire on Hammer.

You can use whatever Utilities you feel comfortable with. They are not that important for this build. I will say that Frenzy with Whirling Axe or even Axe Auto attack is amazing and is a guaranteed full Adrenaline bar.

This lacks a bit of condi clear so I took the Sigil of Stamina too. 

Papa's Stance Warrior

The new changes are like christmas for theorycrafters. Sadly I am going away tomorrow morning, otherwise I'd be caning these changes for the next week.

I hope to have a couple of new builds up before I go away though, so watch this space.

The first one is below and was inspired by a build a guildmate put up before the changes. I've always been a bit annoyed with the waste of Condi damage if you spec into arms and take Axe/Shield + GS, so with this you get a bit of condi pressure to go with your burst.

This uses Sword/Mace (Air + Battle) and Axe/Shield (Rage + Force) with a Zerker Ammy and Zerker Jewel. Armour is 5x rune of infiltration and 1x rune of divinity.

You get good survivabilty from Defy Pain and Sure Footed (if you take Endure Pain) and for your other utils you take 2 out of the other 3 stances. I would always suggest some Frenzy for a bit more burst damage, Balanced Stance is nice for stomping, rezzing and general stability needs, and the buff to Berserker Stance means it is now very viable if you are facing a condi heavy team.

The basic rotation is:

Engage

Axe auto attack to build adrenaline

Shield Bash + Eviscerate

Swap to sword

Tremor

Final Thrust

This is really nice damage and is pretty repeatable. It gives you a pretty certain Evisc crit and if the Tremor allows you to get off the long cast on Final Thrust, which hits as hard as Evisc if the foe is under 50%.

Papa's Stupid Axe Build

Build link - here

This build is ridiculous. It keeps crazy stacks of might up and lets you hit a big eviscerate (like on the video below) if you are smart with it.

You need to pick your battles carefully. Keep your elite up as much of the time in the fight as you can, and alongside furious reaction this should give you the 5% extra crit damage (for a total of 65%) and a crit chance of 59%.

This is pretty stable, and with the sigil up too it isn't strange for you to easily keep your power around the 2600 mark.

Try it out. It can be pretty suicidal, but you get some nice CC with the shield 4, the mace 5 and throw bolas. Between them you will always have something to pair with your eviscerate so you can hit it a lot of the time.

Try it out, it's fun!