Plate armor with two handed sword, what class?

[Lopti.4037]

Hey, I am a long time WoW player and thought I would give GW2 another try, I want to make basically a Warrior that wields a two handed sword and wears heavy plate armor, I love the look and feel of these types of classes in basically every game. So I thought cool will just make a Warrior in GW2 but seeing that after you get to end game you choose an elite specialization and looking at those none of the elite specializations for the Warrior really grab me. The Beserker now uses a torch, the Spellbreaker uses daggers and the Bladesworn now uses a gun-sword which I have always thought were just silly anytime I saw them in an anime it just made me roll my eyes not a fan. But looking around I don't see really any other elite specializations that fit the whole "Knight with twohanded and/or greatsword in plate armor" type of vibe.

Is there an elite specialization I am missing for any of the classes that keeps to that feel of a character? thx in advance for any advice/info.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Lopti.4037
webpage does not know what a kitten sword is and changes the word to kitten... so had to edit to two handed sword.

[MarzAttakz.9608]

Vindicator (if you don't mind the dodge) otherwise it's back to WoW for you. May as well make it a big bulky kitten eating Norn too and complete the whole Gigachad vibe.

 

Two great big two handed swords with Energy or Stamina sigils on each means that even if you accidentally hit the weapon swap key your fantasy can continue uninterrupted.

[Bewt.9258]

Just because the warrior elite specs use different weapons doesn't mean you have to. You can be a greatsword wielding Berserker/Spellbreaker/Bladesworn.

[Stx.4857]

My recommendations would be power berserker warrior, or power vindicator revenant.  Both wear heavy armor and use great swords as primary weapon.  
 

Berserker warrior is basically guts from berserk.  You try to stay in berserk mode as long as possible and use as many burst skills as possible.  It’s really fun.  
 

vindicator is like a a Knight that uses cosmic (mists) magic to enhance their skills.  They channel power from heroes of the past.  They also have a unique dodge ability that shoots them in the air and crashes down, which may or may not fit your taste.  
 

In the current game balance, Vindicator is much stronger than berserker, both in pve dps and also while playing solo.  I don’t know much about PvP balance at the moment.  Berserker is really fun, but Vindicator does more damage, and provides more boons while also having better defense.   Berserker might have more burst though, I’m not 100% sure.  

[the krytan assassin.9235]

The 3 especs that fit your playstyle the best are probably vindicator, power willbenders (can also be made into offensive support) and Reaper (wears light armor, but is very tanky).  Willbender->vindi->Reaper is the current order from high->low dps but that can ofc change in upcoming balance patches. 

 

If you want to check the playstyle/feel of the class you can just youtube & type (class) benchmark (and add power when checking willbender) 

Vindi & Reaper have big hits and relatively low APM. Willbender has pretty high apm with alot of smaller hits (and also swaps to sword/focus once a while). 

 

Warrior can wear greatsword aswell for power  berserker and spellbreaker but most of the warriors play hammer spellbreaker/bladesworn most of the time

Edited March 4, 2023 by the krytan assassin.9235

[Lopti.4037]

Cool thx for the advice guys, sounds like I will do either Berserker Warrior or Vindicator Revenant. Leaning towards Berserker Warrior and just ignore the torch stuff but will do some research on em, thx.

[Dragonzephir.6197]

Its not because you unlock a new weapon with an e-spec that you are forced to play with it.

By default Warrior has access to a Greatsword, so you can enjoy this weapon while playing his 3 e-specs. I'll reccommend the following for instanced PvE content:

Power Berserker : Its not what it used to be, but it can still do decent damage. Very fun to play when you are in berserk mode.
Spellbreaker Greatsword build : At the moment Spellbreaker is meta and deals a lot of damage with either hammer (better overall dps) or greatsword (better burst), also very fun to play.

Try these 2 builds and if you don't like it go with Vindicator.

 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

9 minutes ago, Lopti.4037 said:

Cool thx for the advice guys, sounds like I will do either Berserker Warrior or Vindicator Revenant. Leaning towards Berserker Warrior and just ignore the torch stuff but will do some research on em, thx.

The torch off-hand isn't used on power builds anyway, because its a condition damage weapon. This means you wouldn't take it with greatsword even with weapon swapping.

Edited March 4, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[captrowdy.9561]

A warrior with great sword and axe/axe is pretty decent. If you go vindicator your stuck with just that one elite spec to use great sword. With warrior you could do spellbreaker or berserker and use a great sword often. You can go into the pvp lobby and have access to everything to play around with and see what you like. There’s also guardian but it’s more like a Palladian or whatever. 

[Buran.3796]

Greatsword is available as BASE WEAPON for a lot of professions. Of the heavy armor, the ones which have free access to greatsword are Warrior and Guardian. Greatsword is also available as exclusive weapon for SOME specializations. Of the heavy armor users, the greatsword is available as spec weapon for the Vindicator. This means that for heavy armor buildsyou can wield the greatsword weapon with core Warrior, Berserker, Spellbreaker, Bladesworn, core Guardian, Dragonhunter, Firebrand,, Willbender and Vindicator.

   Now, the game modes are essentially Open World PvE, Instanced PvE, WvW (roaming/small skirmishes/zerging) and PvP. NOT all builds have greatsword as "meta" (the theorical optimal build) in each one of those game modes. Take that in consideration. You can play what you want, but sometimes in some game modes some weapons are weaker than others...

[Yasai.3549]

Dragonhunter GS. 

[rainhelm.3827]

18 hours ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

A warrior with great sword and axe/axe is pretty decent. If you go vindicator your stuck with just that one elite spec to use great sword. With warrior you could do spellbreaker or berserker and use a great sword often. You can go into the pvp lobby and have access to everything to play around with and see what you like. There’s also guardian but it’s more like a Palladian or whatever. 

 

 Just skip berserker and never look back at it. It doesn't matter what numbers it pulls with raid buffs its just a broken mess that they will never fix. You'll thank me for this.

 

Play vindicator or whatever if you want greatswords so badly. If you want warrior and GS combo so badly, consider spellbreaker. But even so what makes spellbreaker great is the hammer-defense synergy, so by running greatsword on spellbreaker you're throwing away what makes it great to begin with.

Edited March 5, 2023 by rainhelm.3827

[captrowdy.9561]

13 hours ago, rainhelm.3827 said:

 

 Just skip berserker and never look back at it. It doesn't matter what numbers it pulls with raid buffs its just a broken mess that they will never fix. You'll thank me for this.

 

Play vindicator or whatever if you want greatswords so badly. If you want warrior and GS combo so badly, consider spellbreaker. But even so what makes spellbreaker great is the hammer-defense synergy, so by running greatsword on spellbreaker you're throwing away what makes it great to begin with.

This only applies to endgame instanced pve. This dude is new to the game and your acting like he’s trying to top arc dps. Warrior will be fine in instanced pve it’s not just top meta or whatever. 

[draxynnic.3719]

Hammer spellbreaker might be fashionable due to the novelty, but Snowcrows has a greatsword variant of power spellbreaker up too. It does the job.

Broadly speaking, if you want to use greatsword, you can do so. Power spellbreaker uses it, power guardians use it, and having access to greatsword is half the point of Vindicator. If it's the warrior theme you're after, greatsword works well with both power spellbreaker and power berserker. Power berserker in general is not shining in endgame PvE, but that's not greatsword's fault, and it can still be fun in open world. (Similar comments apply to power greatsword generally). For vindicator you're going to have less builds available due to greatsword being an elite spec weapon, but if it looks like a playstyle you think you'll enjoy, that might not be a problem. If you're just starting out, though, it might be a while before you can unlock it, so you might be better off with warrior to start off with.

[Cuks.8241]

My top 3 great sword classes exclusively by how the weapon feels, not how meta it is. 

1. Ranger. Yeah it's not a heavy armour class. But kitten that GS feels great. It has heavy hitting skills with AA chain and GS2. GS2 is just awesome and combo with gs5 that resets g2 just deletes. It has mobility, great CC and parry. And while not always meta on power setup in pve, its always viable.

2. Guardian. Yeah power guardians are not currently so good in pve meta. But that can change. Great sword feels great though. Its just a touch better than warrior imo because it doesnt root you on your big dmg skill. It has a bit of a caster feeling though with the animations. Symbol and some blue particle effects. That might turn you off if you look for a warrior type.

3. Warrior. The GS is very good, the vibe is what you want from it. It can be a bit clunky with slower animations but they fixed that a bit lately. Big hitter gs2 roots you which is a bummer. There is also Arc Divider (F1 skill) on berserker which feels great. That one puts it over the guardian imo. Yeah GS hasn't been the best weapon of choice for power warriors in pve (it has been in pvp). But its not far behind and you can make it work.

Vindicator, reaper. Well first of all you are limited to elite specialisations for GS. But even beyond that, while not bad weapons at all, the animations have that caster feeling though more than big brute warrior feeling.

[chronometria.3708]

It may not use "heavy armour", but reaper works fantastically well as a greatsword tank. Considering that there are a lot of outfits that can give a reaper a massive set of full plate, the visuals are not really an issue these days. Compared to the other alternatives - reaper is likely going to have more of the feel you are looking for when actually played and thats by far the most important thing.