Support Warrior Builds for Raids/Fractals (QuickDPS, Heal, etc.)

[Sarius.9285]

So, Im getting a little annoyed that there are no viable(not optimal) Warrior Support Builds, besides Quickness Condi Berserker(which honestly is absolutely not fun to play) on any of the common build sites.

Back when Banners got quickness, someone showed me a pretty fun Core Warrior Quickness Build, so Im wondering, do any of you have any other fun/functioning Warrior Support Builds?

[eXruina.4956]

Hi DPS. 😎💪

 

On a serious note, I've done some extensive experiments, but none bore fruit, sadly, none were really worth running over the Healing Specs other classes brought, its not not even remotely close, both in terms of boon quality (Protection, Resolution, Stability etc..) and Healing Output.

[Greyrat.2378]

I wanted to try this one for some time, but did not have opportunity to test it out yet:

 

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Warrior_-_Quickness_Support_Healer

 

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can comment on how viable its.

 

[Sarius.9285]

18 minutes ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

I wanted to try this one for some time, but did not have opportunity to test it out yet:

 

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Warrior_-_Quickness_Support_Healer

 

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can comment on how viable its.

 

honestly I might give this one a try lol, would be cool if it was at least somewhat functional ^^

[Sarius.9285]

34 minutes ago, eXruina.4956 said:

Hi DPS. 😎💪

 

On a serious note, I've done some extensive experiments, but none bore fruit, sadly, none were really worth running over the Healing Specs other classes brought, its not not even remotely close, both in terms of boon quality (Protection, Resolution, Stability etc..) and Healing Output.

yea thats what I was afraid lol ^^ Warrior really got the short end in terms of versatility with 3 DPS specs lol

[Myror.7521]

@Sarius.9285 U mean the shortest end since all of them are melee (okay to be fair Bladesworn is now midranged)

[Sarius.9285]

2 hours ago, Pati.2438 said:

@Sarius.9285 U mean the shortest end since all of them are melee (okay to be fair Bladesworn is now midranged)

And I mean "technically" Condition Berserker has some ranged, but then again it's condo berserker...😂

 

[Infusion.7149]

3 hours ago, Greyrat.2378 said:

I wanted to try this one for some time, but did not have opportunity to test it out yet:

 

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Warrior_-_Quickness_Support_Healer

 

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can comment on how viable its.

 

That is essentially how to build a heal warrior (Discipline +Tactics).

The caveat is that since Soldier's Comfort is gated by a 10s cooldown indirectly (Marching Orders) it is held back a bit and would have been far better with around 4 to 6s cooldown to match core bursts with alacrity. Boon output other than the might (from bursts), swiftness, vigor, regen, and quickness is sort of lacking. You would probably pair with an alacrity source, most of which heal in some fashion unless it is alac mirage which luckily has some fury generation but little protection or resolution output. Maybe alac untamed as well but it is rare to see. There is very little reason to run this with say a heal mech, heal druid, heal tempest, alac specter, etc. It is not a good match with alac renegade due to the base fury output and alac ren only outputs protection when traited for it.

It is also of note it does not have a regen-like effect that stacks with regen such as virtue of resolve sharing (firebrand variants/willbender), spirit of nature (heal druid), medical dispersion field (heal mech/scrapper), soothing mist (heal tempest), tablet passive healing (heal renegade/herald). Even a heal scourge (which does not have alacrity or quickness) has vampiric to fall back on.

It could also be argued that warrior doesn't have a mainhand heal weapon (offhand warhorn does have barrier), but even meta healbrands use axe mainhand. In that sense if mace provided barrier to others in PvE only that would have been a step in the right direction as well. Even mesmer which is arguably one of the worst options for healing has illusionary inspiration paired with scepter if you choose to go that route.

 

[Sarius.9285]

2 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Boon output other than the might (from bursts), swiftness, vigor, regen, and quickness is sort of lacking. You would probably pair with an alacrity source, most of which heal in some fashion unless it is alac mirage which luckily has some fury generation but little protection or resolution output. Maybe alac untamed as well but it is rare to see.

well I tried it a bit and 25 Might, 100% Fury, Quickness and Good amount of cleanses, Barrier and Vigor felt pretty nice, but of course, having no regen or protection kinda sucks on a heal build lol.

I used Bladesworn to refresh the cooldowns a good amount so I only needed 1 Banner for Quickness

[Jzaku.9765]

Low access to Regen (through Banner of Defense) and no access to Prot means that you should practically never be seriously running a Heal Warrior build. Modern meta unequivocally expects the "Healer" to provide these boons and unless you are capable of assessing everyone else's builds and actually ask them to take Prot sources that don't require them to do cumbersome gear swaps, you are just griefing your team's success rate. That's not to speak of all the other problems Infusion has highlighted already.

If you don't like Quickness Condi Berserker and would rather play another variant of qdps Warrior, you can try Discipline Bladesworn making 0 gear swaps from your existing standard DPS Bladesworn gear. Between the Banners and Martial Cadence you will have very consistent Quickness uptime while effectively playing launch Bladesworn's discipline rotation spamming Dragon Slash off CD. I wouldn't call it better than quick czerk, but IMO it's more fun to play.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Jzaku.9765

[Sarius.9285]

36 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

you don't like Quickness Condi Berserker and would rather play another variant of qdps Warrior, you can try Discipline Bladesworn making 0 gear swaps from your existing standard DPS Bladesworn gear. Between the Banners and Martial Cadence you will have very consistent Quickness uptime while effectively playing launch Bladesworn's discipline rotation spamming Dragon Slash off CD. I wouldn't call it better than quick czerk, but IMO it's more fun to play.

I went and tried Q Spellbreaker, cause personally Bladesworn is by far my least favorite spec in the game. And to be honest, it's pretty good 

[Myror.7521]

And this is why WE Finaly need a supp spec..... Still waiting for them to Finaly gain it to us! xd

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I said it before and I'll say it again.

Add Resolution to either Guard Counter or Revenge Counter and make both give their boons in an AoE and all of a sudden Spellbreaker will become a viable support spec when paired with Tactics.

As far as Tactics is concerned:

Remove the CD from Soldier's Comfort, tier it based on adrenaline spent, give each tier low base healing but very high scaling.

Make MM heal allies you grant might to (no reduction in the healing amount).

Merge Empower Allies into Phalanx Strength in EA's spot

Create a new GM trait that gives barrier when you heal an ally. 100 barrier 0.05 scaling.

Not a lot is needed with the Tactics and Spellbreaker to turn them into a support build.

[JTGuevara.9018]

On 3/27/2023 at 7:26 AM, Sarius.9285 said:

So, Im getting a little annoyed that there are no viable(not optimal) Warrior Support Builds, besides Quickness Condi Berserker(which honestly is absolutely not fun to play) on any of the common build sites.

Back when Banners got quickness, someone showed me a pretty fun Core Warrior Quickness Build, so Im wondering, do any of you have any other fun/functioning Warrior Support Builds?

There are viable support builds, however...

You would have to invest deeply into concentration to make use of them and give up a lot of damage in return. And then there is the question of: how does it stack up to other support builds(?). Also, warrior due to its profession mechanics is limited in what it can do in terms of support. (warrior lacks a mechanic like guardian virtues, for example) Also, it lacks a support specialization! But see, many others here and I could go for PARAGRAPHS about that.

Quickness warrior builds allow warriors to both support a group through a single boon as well as dish out damage. Also, since quickness caps out at 30 sec, you don't need to invest that much into concentration. And then there is might, of which warrior has in spades.

[JTGuevara.9018]

I also want to add:

Healing warrior is dependent on the Tactics line, propped up by a single trait(Vigorous Shouts). Warrior has no consistent access to regen, protection or direct group healing modifiers via other specs and traits to even make a healing role viable in the first place without Tactics.

Since others, I'm sure, have discussed the implications of re-jiggering the other specs to make healing warrior possible, the consensus reached is...a support specialization!

[Infusion.7149]

9 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

I also want to add:

Healing warrior is dependent on the Tactics line, propped up by a single trait(Vigorous Shouts). Warrior has no consistent access to regen, protection or direct group healing modifiers via other specs and traits to even make a healing role viable in the first place without Tactics.

Since others, I'm sure, have discussed the implications of re-jiggering the other specs to make healing warrior possible, the consensus reached is...a support specialization!

If it's PvE only Arenanet could just share the barrier on mace. That would make it a tank/support weapon and give an additional barrier source.

Soldier's Comfort is technically a heal as well if you don't run Vigorous Shouts, but the cooldown is too long considering the amount of group heals warrriors have access to. It could be remade into a lower base heal with lower cooldown (4-6s) to make it more for topping off scholar uptime. It could probably also output regen for PvE purposes.

Banner of defense has regen on it, so I would not say warrior does not have group regen ; if Arenanet wants it to be as broken as Unbroken Lines (prot/aegis/stab), Crisis Zone (prot/aegis/stab) or "Aftershock" (prot, aegis, reflect) in terms of one skill doing multiple things they could add prot for PVE. In general banners were reworked for PvE to have boon output, the only other real boon output is from "For Great Justice" and warhorn offhand.

Likewise if Arenanet wants to shift spellbreaker into more of a support role they could have Guard Counter do AoE prot in PvE since it competes with a DPS trait; if PVE bladesworn support is to be a thing then Immortal Dragon could have AoE prot (it competes with a DPS trait) and/or Unshakable mountain could have AoE barrier in PvE. It seems spellbreaker was intended to be the support since dagger mainhand has AoE might in PVE.

Key boons and effects:

• Quickness - Banner of Tactics, Banner of Defense/Strength when traited, Charge on warhorn , Martial Cadence is generally not going to be run on a healer
• Might - not really an issue but if Marching Orders had half the cooldown it would be nice
• Fury - Banner of Discipline generally is not run if healing, "For Great Justice" if slotted , Charge on warhorn if traited , Battle Standard
• Stability - Banner of Tactics
• Swiftness - Charge on warhorn , Battle Standard
• Vigor - Call of Valor on warhorn
• Aegis - Banner of Defense
• Cleanse - warhorn's Call of Valor, "Shake it Off" if slotted
• Regen - Banner of Defense
• Resistance - Banner of Tactics , Call of Valor if traited
• Barrier - Call of Valor on Warhorn, Banner of Defense
• Prot - ?
• Resolution - ?

In summary you are really looking at a mainhand weapon paired with warhorn, "To the Limit", "For Great Justice"/"Shake it Off" (ammo skills), Banner of Tactics, Banner of Defense, Battle Standard as the elite skill. Discipline is required for quickness on banners ; tactics for the heal and added might generation.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If it's PvE only Arenanet could just share the barrier on mace. That would make it a tank/support weapon and give an additional barrier source.

Soldier's Comfort is technically a heal as well if you don't run Vigorous Shouts, but the cooldown is too long considering the amount of group heals warrriors have access to. It could be remade into a lower base heal with lower cooldown (4-6s) to make it more for topping off scholar uptime. It could probably also output regen for PvE purposes.

Banner of defense has regen on it, so I would not say warrior does not have group regen ; if Arenanet wants it to be as broken as Unbroken Lines (prot/aegis/stab), Crisis Zone (prot/aegis/stab) or "Aftershock" (prot, aegis, reflect) in terms of one skill doing multiple things they could add prot for PVE. In general banners were reworked for PvE to have boon output, the only other real boon output is from "For Great Justice" and warhorn offhand.

Likewise if Arenanet wants to shift spellbreaker into more of a support role they could have Guard Counter do AoE prot in PvE since it competes with a DPS trait; if PVE bladesworn support is to be a thing then Immortal Dragon could have AoE prot (it competes with a DPS trait) and/or Unshakable mountain could have AoE barrier in PvE. It seems spellbreaker was intended to be the support since dagger mainhand has AoE might in PVE.

Key boons and effects:

• Quickness - Banner of Tactics, Banner of Defense/Strength when traited, Charge on warhorn , Martial Cadence is generally not going to be run on a healer
• Might - not really an issue but if Marching Orders had half the cooldown it would be nice
• Fury - Banner of Discipline generally is not run if healing, "For Great Justice" if slotted , Charge on warhorn if traited , Battle Standard
• Stability - Banner of Tactics
• Swiftness - Charge on warhorn , Battle Standard
• Vigor - Call of Valor on warhorn
• Aegis - Banner of Defense
• Cleanse - warhorn's Call of Valor, "Shake it Off" if slotted
• Regen - Banner of Defense
• Resistance - Banner of Tactics , Call of Valor if traited
• Barrier - Call of Valor on Warhorn, Banner of Defense
• Prot - ?
• Resolution - ?

In summary you are really looking at a mainhand weapon paired with warhorn, "To the Limit", "For Great Justice"/"Shake it Off" (ammo skills), Banner of Tactics, Banner of Defense, Battle Standard as the elite skill. Discipline is required for quickness on banners ; tactics for the heal and added might generation.

And there it is.

MH pistol on BSW would have fit the bill.

Making guard and revenge counter aoe would also work.

Tactics would still need work though.

[Jzaku.9765]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Likewise if Arenanet wants to shift spellbreaker into more of a support role they could have Guard Counter do AoE prot in PvE since it competes with a DPS trait; if PVE bladesworn support is to be a thing then Immortal Dragon could have AoE prot (it competes with a DPS trait) and/or Unshakable mountain could have AoE barrier in PvE. It seems spellbreaker was intended to be the support since dagger mainhand has AoE might in PVE.

I used to hope they might do this then realized they almost 100% certainly won't because it'll affect PvP. I don't think we'll see big changes to the functionality or roles of existing especs at all with CMC at the helm.  I'd have had hope if we were in an era where the balance lead was clearly making PVE focused changes without caring about how it affects PVP cough rifle engi changes cough

At the same time I don't support the idea of Core Warrior being the primary source of support capabilities. Primarily because it'll affect the point in my previous paragraph, but also because it just seems like a bad idea not to sequester the abilities that make a competitive "heal Warrior" build into an espec. One that actually competes with all the absolutely busted PVE Healer builds that currently exist. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Jzaku.9765

[Infusion.7149]

2 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I used to hope they might do this then realized they almost 100% certainly won't because it'll affect PvP. I don't think we'll see big changes to the functionality or roles of existing especs at all with CMC at the helm.  

At the same time I don't support the idea of Core Warrior being the primary source of support capabilities. Primarily because it'll affect the point in my previous paragraph, but also because it just seems like a bad idea not to sequester the abilities that make a competitive "heal Warrior" build into an espec. One that actually competes with all the absolutely busted PVE Healer builds that currently exist. 

There are PvE splits and you can see firebrand, herald, and scrapper in particular. In addition, there is no clear indication there will more more elite specs: I would rather have something that makes warrior able to boon support in PvE better without having to resort to waiting for an uncertain eventuality.

Honor on guardian is a core traitline, Water Magic on elementalist is a core traitline, Inventions are core traitline of engineers, Salvation on revenant, Nature Magic on ranger, Blood Magic on necromancer (although not really a heal spec), Inspiration on mesmer, Shadow Arts on thief (although heal scaling is poor). Having a support focused traitline is not really an issue but you will note the worse healers tend to not have a heal weapon whether it is thief (which gets scepter on specter that has awful heal scaling), mesmer (you can make scepter a semi-heal weapon if you use Illusionary Inspiration), and necro.

I remember CmC stating that (PvP) spellbreaker was a support in the past along with tempest and that the goal was to bring back other supports other than core guard around EoD launch.

[Jzaku.9765]

23 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Honor on guardian is a core traitline, Water Magic on elementalist is a core traitline, Inventions are core traitline of engineers, Salvation on revenant, Nature Magic on ranger, Blood Magic on necromancer (although not really a heal spec), Inspiration on mesmer, Shadow Arts on thief (although heal scaling is poor). Having a support focused traitline is not really an issue but you will note the worse healers tend to not have a heal weapon whether it is thief (which gets scepter on specter that has awful heal scaling), mesmer (you can make scepter a semi-heal weapon if you use Illusionary Inspiration), and necro.

This is something I wanted to bring up but felt it was self-explanatory. These traitlines and core abilities are supplementary but do not make a competitive Healer build. Heal Ele without Tempest is straight garbage like Quickness Heal Cata (so clunky and nigh unplayable that maybe 1-2 people actually play this) and Heal Weaver (nonexistent even back when healers didnt necessarily need to provide Quick/Alac despite being able to abuse Healing Ripple).

That's not to say I don't think Warrior needs better support options in Core, I just don't think a full modern competitive Healer build should be possible entirely from Core.

And yeah, I made this thread so I'm actually implying I have no hope at all that Support Warrior will exist even in the future (lol)

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

22 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

That's not to say I don't think Warrior needs better support options in Core, I just don't think a full modern competitive Healer build should be possible entirely from Core.

And yeah, I made this thread so I'm actually implying I have no hope at all that Support Warrior will exist even in the future (lol)

Yeah, there needs to be an espec to tie it together, but that espec will have to rely on Tactics. Tactics needs tightening up for that role to properly function.

[JTGuevara.9018]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

If it's PvE only Arenanet could just share the barrier on mace. That would make it a tank/support weapon and give an additional barrier source.

Soldier's Comfort is technically a heal as well if you don't run Vigorous Shouts, but the cooldown is too long considering the amount of group heals warrriors have access to. It could be remade into a lower base heal with lower cooldown (4-6s) to make it more for topping off scholar uptime. It could probably also output regen for PvE purposes.

Banner of defense has regen on it, so I would not say warrior does not have group regen ; if Arenanet wants it to be as broken as Unbroken Lines (prot/aegis/stab), Crisis Zone (prot/aegis/stab) or "Aftershock" (prot, aegis, reflect) in terms of one skill doing multiple things they could add prot for PVE. In general banners were reworked for PvE to have boon output, the only other real boon output is from "For Great Justice" and warhorn offhand.

Likewise if Arenanet wants to shift spellbreaker into more of a support role they could have Guard Counter do AoE prot in PvE since it competes with a DPS trait; if PVE bladesworn support is to be a thing then Immortal Dragon could have AoE prot (it competes with a DPS trait) and/or Unshakable mountain could have AoE barrier in PvE. It seems spellbreaker was intended to be the support since dagger mainhand has AoE might in PVE.

Key boons and effects:

• Quickness - Banner of Tactics, Banner of Defense/Strength when traited, Charge on warhorn , Martial Cadence is generally not going to be run on a healer
• Might - not really an issue but if Marching Orders had half the cooldown it would be nice
• Fury - Banner of Discipline generally is not run if healing, "For Great Justice" if slotted , Charge on warhorn if traited , Battle Standard
• Stability - Banner of Tactics
• Swiftness - Charge on warhorn , Battle Standard
• Vigor - Call of Valor on warhorn
• Aegis - Banner of Defense
• Cleanse - warhorn's Call of Valor, "Shake it Off" if slotted
• Regen - Banner of Defense
• Resistance - Banner of Tactics , Call of Valor if traited
• Barrier - Call of Valor on Warhorn, Banner of Defense
• Prot - ?
• Resolution - ?

In summary you are really looking at a mainhand weapon paired with warhorn, "To the Limit", "For Great Justice"/"Shake it Off" (ammo skills), Banner of Tactics, Banner of Defense, Battle Standard as the elite skill. Discipline is required for quickness on banners ; tactics for the heal and added might generation.

Warrior's regen output, even with that, lacks in comparison to might, fury and quickness. Warrior natively puts out more of those than anything else.

[Hotride.2187]

On 3/27/2023 at 8:50 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

It could also be argued that warrior doesn't have a mainhand heal weapon (offhand warhorn does have barrier), but even meta healbrands use axe mainhand.

HFB also uses staff. And it also has F2, F3, mantras and so on. Probably not the best example to compare to.

[Infusion.7149]

11 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

HFB also uses staff. And it also has F2, F3, mantras and so on. Probably not the best example to compare to.

The only difference would be holy strike with 8s base cooldown then if you are talking about cele axe+torch with staff as opposed to axe+shield with staff for full harrier. A mace+warhorn warrior with the above mentioned changes would be roughly on par with a firebrand mainly relying on symbols and bow of truth.

Mantras don't heal at all, especially with the change to prot+resolution on mantra of solace. F3 tome skills don't heal at all.

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

6 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The only difference would be holy strike with 8s base cooldown then if you are talking about cele axe+torch with staff as opposed to axe+shield with staff for full harrier. A mace+warhorn warrior with the above mentioned changes would be roughly on par with a firebrand mainly relying on symbols and bow of truth.

Mantras don't heal at all, especially with the change to prot+resolution on mantra of solace. F3 tome skills don't heal at all.

Well part of the problem with guardian (firebrand being the main culprit here) isn't just it's ability to heal but the other support boons it's able to provide, and several of them fairly on demand, versus someone like a quickness warrior or a support specter.  You have to hit the skills off CD otherwise you give up on your main job giving quickness on warrior or alac on specter.  Like the banner of tactics yes it has stability on it but you have to use it off CD or others won't get the quickness they need.