Why are warriors absent in WvW?

When you are loading WvW, you see this poster . All characters looking like warriors with axes, battle standards, swords, hammers, and the leading commander an imposing warrior. In fact that poster is a lie, warriors are absent in WvW! They are nowhere to be found, WvW is infested with necros, mesmers, and thieves.

I would love to see warriors be more effective in WvW, the fact that people do not choose warriors tells a lot about the class! Warriors need to be war machines, the devs need to rework the warrior for it to be effective in WvW.

What are your thought? What is the reason why people don't play warrior in WvW?

Spellbreaker is going to be really good for WvW groups. But loading screen art doesn't influence the meta and the meta is guardians, necros, and revenants for the most part. Warriors just don't bring enough to the group currently.

Well, the reason why I don't WvW with my Warrior main of five+ years is simple:

Classes with mechanics like stealth or teleports and all that fancy stuff simply run circles around me. The straightforwardness and relative simplicity of the Warrior is fine in PvE, but terrible in PvP. You're pretty much forced to run with a Greatsword just to have any kind of chance to catch up.

cause they cant aoe spam and stack like necros

@Oglaf.1074 said:Well, the reason why I don't WvW with my Warrior main of five+ years is simple:

Classes with mechanics like stealth or teleports and all that fancy stuff simply run circles around me. The straightforwardness and relative simplicity of the Warrior is fine in PvE, but terrible in PvP. You're pretty much forced to run with a Greatsword just to have any kind of chance to catch up.

I will jump in all the time with a Warrior but this here has shown true all the way. I wont shy away from it still but man, chasing down thiefs and such is fun and annoying at the same time.

This is exactly why I don't play WvW that much. Warrior is my main and I have invested most of my gaming time into that character just to watch him get dropped in seconds unless I run in a zerg. I have played since beta and was really excited about WvW as a game type. Until the zerg concept is forced out of play I don't plan on going back. It has been a while since I've tried it and maybe it's gotten better and I can put one more Warrior in there.

@Hitman.5829 said:When you are loading WvW, you see this poster . All characters looking like warriors with axes, battle standards, swords, hammers, and the leading commander an imposing warrior. In fact that poster is a lie, warriors are absent in WvW! They are nowhere to be found, WvW is infested with necros, mesmers, and thieves.

Umm, I'm usually in WvW and I tend to be the only Mesmer running around with portals and veils haha. Maybe i'll see 2 or 3 others with me but aside from that, WvW is infested with: Thieves mostly, Necros, Guardians and then theres that small random portion of everybody else. Will likely not change either when PoF hits since it'll be the same, just: Deadeyes, Scourge, Firebrands and then most likely Spellbreakers for their boon stripping ults. :/

They gutted berserker just before the expansion, almost as if to make you buy the expansion. That's more than a little heavyhanded and insulting, I would imagine.

@ArchonWing.9480 said:They gutted berserker just before the expansion, almost as if to make you buy the expansion. That's more than a little heavyhanded and insulting, I would imagine.

Although I hate this change warrior is one of the very few professions that can use different specializations for different game modes. Berserker for high end Fractals and raids. Core warrior for sPvP and roaming. Spellbreaker for sPvP and WvW zerging.

I've had the exact opposite experience. I play rev in WvW, and I see warriors everywhere. It is one of the few classes that can reliably kill me while roaming. It wins the auto attack war, while also out-pacing my mobility and my defenses. I mean, in a gigantic zerg the warrior isn't too useful, but it is far from useless. I lament whenever I see a warrior come over the hill.

Warriors can be quite good in small scale/roaming. But easy to counter on certain classes and builds...kite them, wait out their stances and spam condis.

In zerg fights, they do not offer much aside from Condi Berserker, and this is mostly because of aoe condi damage. Unfortunately they still need to rely on a good group comp for support because of high stance cooldowns and do not contribute any boons other then might. In the past warriors would run shout heals with trooper runes and battle standard so they had a nice mix of support, cc, and utility. Current builds are more self oriented.

Spellbreaker has some useful skills, but it doesn't change the fact that warrior does not bring much to zerg fights. Scourge will still be more useful for boon stripping.

@Aeolus.3615 said:cause they cant aoe spam and stack like necros

This hits the nail on the head. A big key to a lot of participation bonuses in WvW is the ability to AOE the heck out of enemy zergs. This is why you'll see lots of classes with mass AOE spams like Necros and Eles.

Long cool downs and very telegraphed skills and abilities. RIP.

When you start to consider that more than a few of the classes you will be fighting have shorter cool-downs and powerful abilities with little to no telegraph then the picture becomes a lot clearer. Even Spellbreakers Full Counter will have a very obvious visual tell.

Warrior still seems okay for small group work, but for zergs it seems like I have better success as a back-line smasher than anything front-line.

Full Counter would be so funny in WvW.It's so easy to activate in WvW that's for sure.

The boon / condition denial would be a tide changer in Lord room.

@Hitman.5829 said:I would love to see warriors be more effective in WvW, the fact that people do not choose warriors tells a lot about the class! Warriors need to be war machines, the devs need to rework the warrior for it to be effective in WvW.

Don't fret. Perhaps you lack historical perspective. Warriors have been one of the most frequently played classes before HoT, so that loading screen art was spot on for most of the last 5yrs.

Given that since release warriors have had easy access to tons of swiftness you can soon start hunting down deadeyes since they are sitting ducks.^^ Paired with your new boon ripping spellbreaker spec warriors are likely to be popular again. Have faith!

There are plenty of solo-roaming Warriors. They're usually very skilled and know their profession well, which is probably why they're solo-roaming! Playing something else for group-play.

@X T D.6458 said:In zerg fights, they do not offer much aside from Condi Berserker, and this is mostly because of aoe condi damage. Unfortunately they still need to rely on a good group comp for support because of high stance cooldowns and do not contribute any boons other then might. In the past warriors would run shout heals with trooper runes and battle standard so they had a nice mix of support, cc, and utility.

aah, the good old times, i miss them

warrior is great in wvsw. doesnt need a rework. its every other class that is the problem

im just kidding. warrior invulnerability spammage is just as bad as what other classes bring to the kitten table. the difference is you dont get to see it in action since meta in wvsw is based on fighting other meta builds, maintaining tank to negate mistakes and create lazy wins, and other lazy stuff like that which works more than it should.warrior is designed around burst. our defense, our offense, its all finite on a very high cooldown. we will never be meta because of this fact.

the truth is you can win just as well, if not faster by running warrior.....only difference is the skillfloor OR more precisely the amount of work you have to do.

why bother 1vs1ing everything when you can just sit around spamming aoe while sipping tea, melting hoards.

certain things could easily be reworked to be useful like banners that arent warbanner. but whatever, having half your utilities be useless is part of the gw2 experience.

if you got a 20+zerg running trailblazer/dire with and my mace/sword(or shield)+bow build, then nobody in your group would die so long as they play it well and dont miss too many rousing resilience procs. at the same time you would do no damage to anything with resistance. you would be stuck fighting normal zergs for eternity. thats why its not meta.

@Shadowresli.3782 said:

@X T D.6458 said:In zerg fights, they do not offer much aside from Condi Berserker, and this is mostly because of aoe condi damage. Unfortunately they still need to rely on a good group comp for support because of high stance cooldowns and do not contribute any boons other then might. In the past warriors would run shout heals with trooper runes and battle standard so they had a nice mix of support, cc, and utility.

I miss it sometimes too. Landing a good Earthshaker was so satisfying, more so then any other skill in my opinion. But the stability nerf, pirateship meta that emerged from that, the condi and cc spamfest we have now just does not make warrior much fun to play in zergs.

Most of the time it feels like you only have a short duration to be of any use because you pretty much have to rely on stances with long cooldowns, party support, and most will run a heal skill where you need to rely on the passive and can do more harm then good when actually used. The Primal burst nerf hurt a lot especially for anyone running Cleansing Ire. Nerfing condi removal in condi meta...yea not gonna be a fun time.

Personally I am not too excited about Spellbreaker, it has some interesting skills but does not fix the core problems warrior has in WvW.

When it comes to WvW zergs, it comes down to the following questions:

• Do you have great AoE DPS? Necro and Ele has this in spades. As the pirate ship meta has changed to more direct pushes, the higher HP of Necro favors them a bit, but see plenty of both.
• Can you help the blob counter condi pressure? Guardian has light fields for whirls and blasts to help cleanse and Revenant has Resistance. Resistance is really the only reason Rev has much of a place in the current WvW meta. When short on Rev, Mesmers might load Null field, but it is looking like Necro may be covering the condi removal role. Not needing Resistance as much may kick out Rev from WvW except maybe backline with hammer and support there as they do have stab share as well (though not as good as Guard).
• Do you bring Stab? WvW zergs are a CC fest - you don't have Stab, you're pretty much dead. Guardian will forever have a role in WvW because of this. They also make great front line due to stab. Warrior has solid stab access, but it is almost all selfish - people would rather have two guards in their 5 man sub party than a guard and warrior.
• Do you bring utility? Mesmer has portals, veil, swiftness, and Null Field when needed. Mesmer wells help add AOE pressure, but Veil and Portals are enough for a zerg to always want a Mesmer or two.
• Do you bring squad heals? Ele, Guardian, and Ranger (Druid) are great at this. However Ranger doesn't bring the AOE pressure of Ele or the stabs of Guardian. Other classes like Engi and Rev can try and do that as well, but have to make sacrifices to do so, and there's not enough room for Heal Bot.

Essentially, the meta boiled down to four classes being best for WvW (Guardian, Necro, Elementalist, Revenant) with a splash of Mesmer and four being unwanted fluff (Thief, Warrior, Engineeer, Ranger). Luckily the unwanted fluff make pretty good roamers - Thief and Engineers with invisi + burst, Warrior able to CC people into submission, and Ranger sniping... but everyone would like their favorite class to be wanted in a Zerg.

Thief, Engineer, and Ranger are likely going to be still left in the cold, but Warrior has hope. Warrior having boon denial can be absolutely huge. The CC meta is going to become a bit more crazy due to heavier boon stripping. Necro will bring strips/corruptions, but not as much as Warrior can, and not complete denial like Warrior can. Denying people boons means no Stab - no stab means you can bounce the enemy around and they can't attack you.... and Warrior is very good at CCing. I do think how strong Spellbreaker will fall into "meta zerg" will depend on two factors: How effective Winds of Disenchantment ends up being in blob fights, and how much boon stripping is still needed after Scourge. I do believe they'll fall more in the zone of Mesmer. If stab gets countered hard enough, that could chip into how required Guardians are and give room for entirely different party/squad makeups.

All speculation now, of course, but I see Warrior fitting at least in some capacity.

I see warriors all the time. Always running broken builds that make them nigh unkillable to anything but a 5v1 or boon corrupters (like me). PoF will make them a lot more noticeable.

Stances are very brief but very powerful. Although they can greatly help a Warrior to survive a bomb or a push, it won't keep them on their feet for a sustained period of time. They require group support to contribute to a prolonged fight and they return nothing. They do not provide the group with meaningful support outside of banners and they cannot out match Necro or Ele AOE's.

With that said, Warriors can deal an absolute ton of damage if they get in your face. Although they won't tag quite as many players as someone who has potent access to AOE's (again, Necro, Ele or even Rev with CoR) they can still be a devastating force during a push. You do not want to get clipped by a Might and Fury stacked Warrior whirling and smashing through everyone. If played intelligently, they can be a viable, even desirable source of damage during pushes.

Outside of zerging, they are extremely strong roamers although they fall short in outnumbered fights. Because Warriors have such strong regenerative options, they can be a real chore to bring down in a 1v1/2. Many of their defences are rooted in long cooldowns and obvious tells however, so they tend to suffer when numbers don't favor them. Still, they are effective at solo capturing objectives and making quick work of anyone who gets locked down. Easily among the best of the roaming/small scale class options, so they do have their place.

@AzureWolf.9150 said:

@Aeolus.3615 said:cause they cant aoe spam and stack like necros

This has a lot to do with it, but Mesmers have it far worse...aoe/cleave is almost non existent. I never play my mesmer because dropping 1 aoe staff 5 every 30 sec is ehhh.

Warrior hammer trains were big for a while, but that got nerfed and here we are.

Use a rifle and longbow combo with battle standards to support your group as it will greatly help when under siege and laying siege to enemy forts. Avoid trying to roam around alone as that's when you're easy prey try staying in big groups as chances are people will ignore you or not notice you. Ranged is king in WvW and groups that travel in that comp have a very high chance of winning most of the time.

I've seen plenty of core warriors in WvW as of late due to the 'nerf' regarding berserker adren-bars albeit they seemed to be mostly small-scale or roamers.

I believe Spellbreaker will reign a viable pick in organised group play due to the strong boon-hate and theory crafted builds already floating about - perhaps the return of 'hammerstun' CC-heavy capabilities.

I genuinely would love it if Spellbreaker proves to be a solid & viable choice for zerging/GvG etc.