Hey, I’m the Warrior, and I’m the symbol of courage that stays in the heart of the battle, face to face with my enemies. I love being in melee – this strengthens me, and I bet you they will run like cowards when they hear my battle cry. I have prepared for this, my weapon arsenal is ready and I know every one of those weapons as if they were part of my own body. I don’t ask any questions from anyone, my physical training and my battlefield knowledge will overwhelm their weak bodies and show them that their gods can’t protect them from my steel… or my fist.
If your heart beats with the same rage as mine, then I welcome you with this pint of beer to start your own Warrior.
In Guild Wars 2 the Warrior has access to many different roles and is the most versatile professionin the game. First, the warrior is a profession that excels in mobility with plenty of movement skills through weapons skills, utilities and swiftness. This will give you an edge over slower professions (Necromancer and Guardian especially).
It is a naturally solid profession, combining at the same time heavy armor and the highest base health pool in the game to let you stay in melee range and absorb a lot of damage without necessarily having to use defensive cooldowns to stay alive. The warrior has access to the biggest amount ofcrowd control in the game, which gives you more survivability and more damage output to you and your allies, but this could also act as a requirement sometimes and you might feel weakened when your opponent has stability.
Yet, the Warrior is also a really strong supportive profession to play, having access to three main support tools: Shouts, Banners and the Warhorn. All of those are really strong whether in PvE or in PvP, and they are good to heal your allies, remove conditions and to give them different kind of boons (both defensive and offensive boons).
In addition to this, the Warrior is able to deal high amounts of damage, which most of the time relies onburst sequences rather than just a sustainable source of damage. You will have the feeling to use your skills in a specific order, fitting to the current situation you are facing. Considering the different kind of tools you have, the Warrior is a good duelist, strong on his own and does not necessarily need any kind of help to do well in a fight.
But he also definitely benefits from his allies and makes them benefit from his own tools as well. You will be able to pretty much fit every possible role as a warrior, as long as you understand how to find the right tools with your weapons, utilities and traits.
To build your warrior, you will have to choose between those roles and balance your character between some of them. The more tools you try to fit into your build, the more each one of them will become weak.
A good reason to play Warrior is his access to so many different weapons (two weapon sets at a time). This gives him versatility and fun, especially because the warrior has an easy access to a reduced weapon-swap cooldown. This will give him a five second weapon swap, compared to the usual ten seconds other professions have access to. Also, unlike other professions, when the warrior equips a weapon, he gets one more skill: the adrenaline burst skill. There are seven different adrenaline abilities on ground (two underwater). Those skills are under two requirements: the amount of adrenaline you have generated and its own cooldown.
You have two-handed weapons like the hammer, which gives lot of crowd control tools and a good damaging output with area-of-effect skills. The greatsword is a weapon that gives you a high amount of mobility and survivability (keep in mind the Whirlwind acts like a Dodge), but also some of the greatest burst damage in the game with the infamous Hundred Blades. The longbow grants you the only combo field the Warrior has access to (a fire field), a decent amount of condition damaging abilities, big area-of-effect skills at a very long range and a weapon that helps a lot when you start PvE. The rifle is a good bursting, single target weapon applying conditions, with a good amount of crowd control and the possibility to have piercing shots with the right trait.
You have one handed weapons like the axe, which grants you a high amount of damage – whether burst or sustainable damage – and is very melee oriented while being weak against ranged professions. The sword is a high-mobility weapon with a good, sustainable damage output, bringing the bleed condition and strong movement impairing effects. The mace gives you a lot of survivability and a lot of crowd control, but does not necessarily deal a lot of damage.
Then, you have offhand weapons like the shield, which gives you survivability, crowd control and is able to reflect projectiles when traited properly. And you also have the Warhorn, which is a strong support weapon granting boons to you and your allies, and conditions to your enemies.
Between those, you have a total of 19 different weapon combinations.
Traits
The Warrior has five trait lines:
Strength is obviously a good offensive tree with a passive power gain. This trait line will greatly improve your axe and greatsword damage. It increases the amount of endurance you have and deals damage every time you dodge roll. It is also the tree that improves physical utilities.
Arms is the trait line that brings many ways to build critical chance in your build. It also helps you deal condition damage and has many ways to take advantage of it. It helps generate adrenaline and greatly improves your sword, rifle, harpoon, greatsword, mace and hammer usage.
The Defense tree definitely improves your survivability with a passive toughness and healing gain. It improves your mace, shield and hammer usage. It also improves stances, and it offers another way to bring stability to yourself while also including the amazing projectile reflection trait.
The Tactics tree is the dedicated support tree that improves your warhorn, your shouts and your banners. It passively gives health and boon duration. Moreover, this trait line gives bonuses to your bow, granting it a better range and more damage.
Lastly, the Discipline tree brings more critical damage, improves your adrenaline abilities by reducing their adrenaline cost or by reducing the cooldowns. This tree also has one of the best traits the warrior has access to with a five second reduction on weapon swap. This trait line gives all signets a lower cooldown.
You are not one of those weak scholars or a cowardly adventurer. Instead, you are a berserker, templar, barbarian, gladiator, conqueror or whatever name you like to give to this kind of profession. Bring the fury and the rage and surge it on the hordes of Zhaitan. Make your enemies taste their own blood and pray they were never born in a world where the battlefield is your territory. You are a Warrior.