dragonhunter vs banner warrior

hi guys, I am really torn between these 2 professions...I am looking to main either one, and focus on it but I couldn't seem to find which one suits me better...... I have tested them both in different occasions..i have played them both many hours (both level 80 with 150 AR) ... im more into open world/stories/fracs... not much of spvp/wvw...... but still couldn't make up my mind..... im running on full zerkers and power dps builds.... A+A/GS on warrior and Gs/Scepter+Focus on dh..

it seems to me that the dragonhunter is extremely squishy compare to the warrior..i know the mechanics in fracs fairly well but im downed very frequently on the dh, but not warrior (both melee so im expecting the same playstyle)..I have seen the forums with people saying otherwise (dh has much higher survivability than the warrior)....appreciate your thoughts.

Despite both warrior and guardian wearing heavy armor, guardian has low health whereas warrior has high health which makes sense why dragonhunter would be squishier.

In terms of survivability, activating Wings of Resolve heals you more than the passive effect and it heals allies around you, that's where most of your sustain comes in as dragonhunter. Using Zealous Blade in Zeal allows you to heal yourself when you use a combo finisher in light fields. Simply use Symbol of Wrath (greatsword 4) then start spamming every greatsword skill as all of them cause combo finishers. It may not be much, but at least it's something. Also, try to have your allies pull aggro before you start dealing damage. If all of them pile up on you, you're pretty much dead.

@Hoodie.1045 said:Despite both warrior and guardian wearing heavy armor, guardian has low health whereas warrior has high health which makes sense why dragonhunter would be squishier.

In terms of survivability, activating Wings of Resolve heals you more than the passive effect and it heals allies around you, that's where most of your sustain comes in as dragonhunter. Using Zealous Blade in Zeal allows you to heal yourself when you use combo finisher in light fields. Simply use Symbol of Wrath (greatsword 4) then start spamming every greatsword skill as all of them cause combo finishers. It may not be much, but at least it's something. Also, try to have your allies pull aggro before you start dealing damage. If all of them pile up on you, you're pretty much dead.

Thanks for all the tips, it seems to work better now but still, it’s squishier than the warrior. Curious here how would people say guardian is ‘way more’ tanky than a warrior..

It may be you healer as well , when I play with my mates I don't even need to dodge they just outheal everything on druid ez (ofc some things must be dodged).and u got Ur f3 block and the heal you use on meta build heals u lot while it's up if you keep doing the damage .

Btw you can also try this:

• Pick the trait "Pure of Heart" which give a decent chunk of health whenever aegis block an attack.
• In the same line you will find the minor trait "Selfless Daring" which heals for a small amount that scales massive with healingpower whenever you complete a dodge roll.
• Couple this with the healing skill "Shelter" for more blocks
• Slot Superior Runes of the Defender for that 10% extra health and 5% health regained every time you block on a 1 sec icd for some pretty awesome sustain.

It will be a slight dps loss with this rune, but as a guard you can use the "Radiance" traitline and valkyrie gear (ignoring any precision) to more than make up for it. And remember - it's landing your hits that will do any damage, not your gear - which is especially true if you spend most your time in downstate because you chose to run glasscannon.

Another rune worthy of note is the recently upgraded "Superior Rune of the Earth".

Edit: There will be alot of people complaining I'm giving up on the Valor traitline in this build setup, but what you essentially lose out on is condi cleansed on heal (dh have a trait for that), some toughness (you won't need it with valk gear) and fury (you already have 100% crit chance thanks to Radiance). Use your blinds wisely, and use your f2 or gs 3 within light fields to get a light aura which will cover the retaliation uptime you get with Virtues traitline, and make sure you take the automatic Shards of Faith trap for extra heals and dmg whenever you are cc'd. You now effectively played around the entire Virtues and Valor traitline. As for Zeal traitline it just got nerfed and the small % of damage it gives is alot less than Radiance, making Radiance best in slot. If you worry about losing 20% reduced cd on greatsword skills simply slot a "Superior Sigil of Frenzy" and you will not even notice - plus this also shortens your heal, your f-skills, elites, traited skills and utilities on top.

The build I'm suggesting is either full valkyrie gear (with some toughness if needed) or a zerk mix and the traitlines Radiance, Honor, Dragonhunter. The key traits are "Righteous Instincts", "Pure of Heart" and "Hunter's Determination". Lastly remember to use the "Shelter" healing skill -the rest is entirely up to you.

I would say..

If you want to provide "support" via banners / CC / Emergency Rez while still having the option to both DPS and survive. I would say go Warrior. The HP Pool does help on those game modes you normally play at. Mace/Mace on Core warrior is one of the best CC weapon combination AFAIK (Mace 5, Mace 3 Mace F1 on Lvl 3 Adrenaline). Also you provide a lot of damage stat increase via the banners and EA on tactics trait which improves overall group DPS. (Generally when I do fracts as a warrior, I go for A/A M/M for both Damage and CC potential. GS only works for Spellbreaker but that is my own opinion)

If you want to be a bit more damage oriented or major support, go for Guardian. The Base HP does seem low but the class gets away from having a build in block skill (via F3). If you also use focus (for DH Power), you have 3 extra blocks via Focus 5. F2 is also a good heal skill (both yourself and your party mates). For FB, the current meta is the quickness support FB which provides a lot of buffs and heals. There is a damage variant but I am not a fan of it.

Over all, both class have there ups and downs but generally speaking this is how I normally advise other players that asked me in-game when they are choosing between both classes.

thanks guys for all your helpful input, i have actually tried out all above recommendations and i'd say it helped alot, my dh seems to tank much better now, but still no where close the warrior...

i think one of my main issue with the Dh is the CD on heal skills while im low on hp... when both main healing skill on CD ( f2 and main heal) while looking at 20% hp left... it seems there is nothing much i can do but to either down or run around....on warrior i dont get so panic as i'll be trying to dodge and gs3 out etc when my hp is at half...

@"SASHI.7260" said:I would say..

If you want to provide "support" via banners / CC / Emergency Rez while still having the option to both DPS and survive. I would say go Warrior. The HP Pool does help on those game modes you normally play at. Mace/Mace on Core warrior is one of the best CC weapon combination AFAIK (Mace 5, Mace 3 Mace F1 on Lvl 3 Adrenaline). Also you provide a lot of damage stat increase via the banners and EA on tactics trait which improves overall group DPS. (Generally when I do fracts as a warrior, I go for A/A M/M for both Damage and CC potential. GS only works for Spellbreaker but that is my own opinion)

M/M is a good build but im afraid i'll be using my GS as i have invested quite a bit on the eternity and wouldn't want to put it aside...

@DHung.5263 said:thanks guys for all your helpful input, i have actually tried out all above recommendations and i'd say it helped alot, my dh seems to tank much better now, but still no where close the warrior...

i think one of my main issue with the Dh is the CD on heal skills while im low on hp... when both main healing skill on CD ( f2 and main heal) while looking at 20% hp left... it seems there is nothing much i can do but to either down or run around....on warrior i dont get so panic as i'll be trying to dodge and gs3 out etc when my hp is at half...

@"SASHI.7260" said:I would say..

If you want to provide "support" via banners / CC / Emergency Rez while still having the option to both DPS and survive. I would say go Warrior. The HP Pool does help on those game modes you normally play at. Mace/Mace on Core warrior is one of the best CC weapon combination AFAIK (Mace 5, Mace 3 Mace F1 on Lvl 3 Adrenaline). Also you provide a lot of damage stat increase via the banners and EA on tactics trait which improves overall group DPS. (Generally when I do fracts as a warrior, I go for A/A M/M for both Damage and CC potential. GS only works for Spellbreaker but that is my own opinion)

It's natural that warrior feels more sustainy because of Endure Pain, passives and top tier health regeneration with Defense line. If you want to match that I suggest you go medi guard - you will be a little squishier but getting your health up to full will be easier than ever.

Traitlines:

• Radiance (Healer's Retribution, Radiant Fire, Righteous Instincts)
• Valor (Smiter's Boon, Stalwart Defender, Monk's Focus)
• Dragonhunter (Piercing Light or Soaring Devastation, Hunter's Determination, Big Game Hunter)

Skills:

• Litany of Wrath
• Smite Condition
• Prosession of Blades
• Renewed Focus

Gear:I suggest mainly valk still, but swap focus for shield. This is because the blocks get ripped through fast, while the shield will cc (since pve mobs don't dodge/have stab), block projectile pressure and detonate for a decent heal. Shield 4 do quite a bit of damage and gives protection. For a masd heal jump right in, pop f3, activate your heal, use PoB and greatsword 4 then 2 and maybe a Smite Condition while your at it. When low use f2, then your elite while walking, then f2 again for 50% of your health back, use shield 5 for some extra support. Try to Tether (f1) as many foes as possible before you engage for that 20% dmg bonus (meaning you heal 20% more with your heal). I chose a burn trait in radiance, this is because it cannot be blocked and counts towards your healing so 2000 of that is guaranteed to get back to you with 5 targets + the heal + the 2000 from the medi trait. This and the frenzy sigil means extremely low cooldowns and almost every skill on your bar heals for 10% of your health. Vampirism runes can help here as you can deal with trash mobs in an instant.

Thanks @rng.1024 , will definitely try these out, I’m definitely enjoying DH more than the warrior in terms of the play style (Im a gs person and DH gs feels more smooth compared to warrior’s gs) but it feels much squishier than the warrior which is what drawing me away...

After playing both however, when I switch back to soulbeast it feels a world of difference, almost never down in any instances lol

btw Sigil of frenzy offers 2 sec reduce recharge per kill, so if I kill 5 mobs that’s a whooping 10 secs reduce cd to every skills? Is that how it works?

EDIT: ok just noticed there’s a 10 secs cooldown to Sigil of frenzy

@DHung.5263 said:Thanks @"rng.1024" , will definitely try these out, I’m definitely enjoying DH more than the warrior in terms of the play style (Im a gs person and DH gs feels more smooth compared to warrior’s gs) but it feels much squishier than the warrior which is what drawing me away...

After playing both however, when I switch back to soulbeast it feels a world of difference, almost never down in any instances lol

btw Sigil of frenzy offers 2 sec reduce recharge per kill, so if I kill 5 mobs that’s a whooping 10 secs reduce cd to every skills? Is that how it works?

EDIT: ok just noticed there’s a 10 secs cooldown to Sigil of frenzy

I get what you mean, some professions feel "sluggish" in a way while guardian to me feels like paper/cardboard - nothing like it. It also make sense with how you feel sustained with soulbeast, it plays alot like warrior to be honest. It's important to remember even though they are both heavy armor professions, guardian and warrior don't play alike - you can't facetank as effectively, you don't have as frequent evades and lesser health mean you will feel squishier. However guardian is all about knowing when to burst heal, spacing them out and blocking the big hits - since you don't have a 50% "save me" skill you need to pay a little more attention and stay on the move. In return you get to full heal ever so often, do good damage and block alot more attacks. Getting off warrior is tricky for several reasons, whether it be the high regen, resistance, stab or damage immunity but guardian offers alot of that back in a different form.

Yeah the icd is 10 seconds on the sigil, but more often than not you will score a kill in that timeframe. It will f.ex shorten your elite by a potential 14 seconds, and every time it procs your low cd heal gets a 10% recharge reduction.

So the important thing is to learn the priorities of your skills - aka the best way to rotate through them. As I mentioned earlier a warrior can facetank most things but become weaker as the fight progresses. The opposite is true for guardian and you will be near invulnerable if you space your defensives out.

If fun is a factor dh inmo is one of the most fun specs in the game. It’s person preference of course but warrior and it’s specs alway bored me quickly.

thanks again @rng.1024 .

another question - for guardian/warrior heavy will it be more viable to go full marauder or valkyrie's?

@DHung.5263 said:thanks again @rng.1024 .

another question - for guardian/warrior heavy will it be more viable to go full marauder or valkyrie's?

This depends entirely of whether you choose to use the Radiance traitline or not. Personally I tend to favour marauder as it makes you more versatile and you don't have to worry about keeping retaliation up for good dps. However you lose out on about 3600 health compared to valkyrie, but to me it's superfluous. The only thing that justifies Valkyrie is that it gives you max on a defensive stat while doing zerker damage as long as retaliation is up (through Radiance line). However a smart way to go is to to do the math and try to get your critical chance to about 80% max and spend the rest of your points elsewhere - when you reach 100% crit chance (with 20% fury, 50% radiance grandmaster, 10% on burning, 15% main hand) then any further investment into precision is a waste of statpoints. Also note you will lose some power going marauder, meaning you will need an offensive rune (power main) to do the same damage, or find ways to build around 6 stacks of perma might.

So in summary:

• Valkyrie for superior burst dps and 15% more health
• Marauder for excellent sustained dps which doesn't rely on boon uptime

Using marauder also opens up other traitlines as you no longer need radiance, you are free to pick whichever one you want. My advice is to slot marauder until you reach 1560 vitality, then start to look at other stat combinations to either build defense or further offense (f.ex Zealot, Cavalier, Viper or Zerk). Remember more health reduces the efficacy of your meditation heals unless you opt for more healingpower, but 17245 (PvP marauder value) should be more than enough for any PvE content. Should you choose to run the Honor traitline instead of radiance, the grandmaster can give you 300 vitality points for free - this is what makes guardian so versatile, as it allows you to spend those 300 points elsewhere. Same goes for the grandmaster in the Zeal line, you can pick that and you get free 150 power which you can then reallocate. Or double down for max damage/tankyness. If you like power damage and big numbers, full marauder is definitely the way to go.

I had most my ascended trinkets and gears tweaked towards berserker stats (ranger/necro) I have 2 trinkets left un stat...now on melee classes like warrior and dh I’m not sure if I should go berserker or marauder/Valkyrie....as ranger/necro do not need those stats...

@DHung.5263 said:I had most my ascended trinkets and gears tweaked towards berserker stats (ranger/necro) I have 2 trinkets left un stat...now on melee classes like warrior and dh I’m not sure if I should go berserker or marauder/Valkyrie....as ranger/necro do not need those stats...

How about leaving them zerker and go for marauder armor and weapons? An exotic set is fairly easy to acquire. If need be you can run Honor/Valor/Dragonhunter even to make up for the lost vitality, at a slight cost of dps.

Or use a vitality rune like Vampirism or Holosmith. You don't need more hp than what you're comfortable with, for me that's 16k but for alot of zerk guards the base 11645 is more than enough.

I'd recommend Firebrand. I run around with 13.7k health and do T4 Fracs(though I think 15k might be better to be pug safe, I.E., not get one shot) on Firebrand. Firebrand has more active defenses (blocks and blinds). This is easy mode open world build.

For the items, you can switch trinkets to beserker and rings as marauder. Preferably the backpack is maurauder also.

This was my beginner build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQNAR8ensADFBjtCBOCD0EhF+BDLAkeKCWLgx1eaPj+RPpA-jlSBQBUS9nro04BHBA8o7JQbAsv1HMjSwMqMDAPAANcRACAcA48zP/8zPvvP/8zP/8zP/8zPvUAbNTD-w

Don't be afraid to use 1 charge of your heal offensively(quickness and defensively provides protection). Combo it with Whirling wrath to mow down enemies quicker. You need one stun breaker.

For fractals, you may want to switch the 2 energy to more damage oriented sigils on weapons but travelers runes is fine unless you're in a min/max group.

When you feel more confident, change elite to mantra of Liberation (quickness on stablility) an stun breaker , and you can change stand your ground to whatever floats your boat. I take bane signet for extra CC if needed.

@"Mushuchalaka.9437" said:I'd recommend Firebrand. I run around with 13.7k health and do T4 Fracs(though I think 15k might be better to be pug safe, I.E., not get one shot) on Firebrand. Firebrand has more active defenses (blocks and blinds). This is easy mode open world build.

For the items, you can switch trinkets to beserker and rings as marauder. Preferably the backpack is maurauder also.

This was my beginner build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQNAR8ensADFBjtCBOCD0EhF+BDLAkeKCWLgx1eaPj+RPpA-jlSBQBUS9nro04BHBA8o7JQbAsv1HMjSwMqMDAPAANcRACAcA48zP/8zPvvP/8zP/8zP/8zPvUAbNTD-w

Don't be afraid to use 1 charge of your heal offensively(quickness and defensively provides protection). Combo it with Whirling wrath to mow down enemies quicker. You need one stun breaker.

For fractals, you may want to switch the 2 energy to more damage oriented sigils on weapons but travelers runes is fine unless you're in a min/max group.

When you feel more confident, change elite to mantra of Liberation (quickness on stablility) an stun breaker , and you can change stand your ground to whatever floats your boat. I take bane signet for extra CC if needed.

thanks... i always wanted to try firebrand... is it viable to run fb with gsword though? i've checked out meta battle and most builds do not have a GS in it... hmm

also, how about GS/ staff fb?

@DHung.5263 said:

@"Mushuchalaka.9437" said:I'd recommend Firebrand. I run around with 13.7k health and do T4 Fracs(though I think 15k might be better to be pug safe, I.E., not get one shot) on Firebrand. Firebrand has more active defenses (blocks and blinds). This is easy mode open world build.

For the items, you can switch trinkets to beserker and rings as marauder. Preferably the backpack is maurauder also.

This was my beginner build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVEQNAR8ensADFBjtCBOCD0EhF+BDLAkeKCWLgx1eaPj+RPpA-jlSBQBUS9nro04BHBA8o7JQbAsv1HMjSwMqMDAPAANcRACAcA48zP/8zPvvP/8zP/8zP/8zPvUAbNTD-w

Don't be afraid to use 1 charge of your heal offensively(quickness and defensively provides protection). Combo it with Whirling wrath to mow down enemies quicker. You need one stun breaker.

For fractals, you may want to switch the 2 energy to more damage oriented sigils on weapons but travelers runes is fine unless you're in a min/max group.

When you feel more confident, change elite to mantra of Liberation (quickness on stablility) an stun breaker , and you can change stand your ground to whatever floats your boat. I take bane signet for extra CC if needed.

GS is definitely viable and is more dps oriented for power. If you prefer a range offhand, scepter/focus would be better than staff.