Tank like a Boss!
Introduction – Pheelin’s WvW Tank like a Boss guide.
This guide is for those that want to be a real tank, a certifiable bad-ass on the front lines of WvW. Warriors have the ability to be an amazing tank if you can manage to drop your greatsword and pick up a shield. The Warriors health pool is much greater than that of a Guardian while we don’t have the healing power they do we have some other things we bring the table that make warriors a great addition to your front line. In this guide I will show you the build and stats you should be aiming for which will make you extremely hard to bring down even with several opponents beating on you. This is not a solo players guide as you won’t be able to output the damage you need to secure kills on your own, this is a WvW guide for those seeking to be on the front lines of WvW. With this setup you should hit 31k+ hp with 2k+ toughness and if my math is correct this will be fairly easy to achieve as I am currently at 28k hp with 2k toughness without orb buffs.
How to Play
With this setup you will be very tanky, this does not mean you will never die. You will still need to pick your time to charge, you can’t just go in when you feel like it. If you charge in randomly without your team to back you up then you will get CCd and kill and no one will be able to rez you. The reason I have the bow equipped is to be able to deal damage when you are at range waiting for your opportunity to go in. The times you can go in are when your team calls for an initiation onto the enemy force or if you see someone over extended and you want to hit your immobilize with the bow then swap weapon and leap on that target immobilize again, shield bash, then cripple. This will hopefully have earned your team a kill on an over extended player thus improving your odds for when you do end up initiating a fight.
After you have successfully initiated a fight make sure you are doing everything you can to cc targets and keep yourself alive, if you get low make sure you get back out and try to heal up, or make people chase you in an inopportune direction where they will be chasing you to try and get a kill and find themselves out of position. Just remember this build is a WvW team build, don’t try to go in and solo people or charge without thinking or you will get killed and be useless to your team.
Weapons
Sword + Shield – Currently I find this weapon setup to be optimal. The sword could be changed out based upon personal preference but I like what it brings to fights. While the damage is low especially when not specced into condition damage the 2 abilities I picked the sword for are the adrenaline ability Flurry and the 8 second cd Savage Leap. These 2 abilities are great for mobility and CC. Being able to lock someone down for over 4 seconds is nasty. The shield is self explanatory, its got a stun and a 100% block ability which works on spells as well.
Long Bow – I picked the bow over rifle mainly because of the AoE damage it does when you are at range. You won’t always be in melee range so having a ranged weapon especially in WvW is important. The 3 second immobilize on Pin Down is very strong and when you can combo it with Flurry that person is stuck in place for a very long time.
Abilities
I find these abilities to be ideal in a WvW tanking situation. Some can be switched around for situational reasons but in general these are the abilities you should run. Mending is the best bang for your buck, you will get a good heal out of it and it cures 2 conditions (more if you decide to run Restorative Strength. Endure Pain is pretty self explanatory, it will prevent a ton of damage if you can time it when people start to focus you. I like to use this ability before I get too low as it doesn’t stop condition damage that is already on you so you can die even with it on. For Great Justice and Shake it Off are in my opinion the best shouts you can run. They have short cooldowns which is great for your passive heals on Vigorous Shouts and they benefit your team with might and condition cures. I run Battle Standard as my elite ability because it is great for your team. You won’t benefit a ton off of Signet of Rage because you aren’t a damage dealer. The banner is much more useful as it is a group buff and it will rez people.
Talents
Major Traits
Great Fortitude- This is what I prefer to run because with the gear you are building the power will grant you a nice amount of vitality. However, there are a couple other viable choices for this trait Death From Above if you need to jump off a cliff, or Restorative Strength if you want to cure more stuff in a fight. The great thing is you don’t have to respec to select these, they can be swapped out at any time.
Missile Deflection- This is great because when you charge in and people start to focus you this can reflect damage back to them as well as the conditions they are trying to put on you.
Shield Master- Why not gain some toughness and CD reduction on your shield that can save your ass with Shield Stance.
Defy Pain- A free activation of Endure Pain is great and it doesn’t burn the CD of the one that is on your bar. This is great when you are getting focused really hard or if you are caught out of position and need to make it to safety.
Leg Specialist- This ability is pretty cool, every time you use a cripple you get a free immobilize which just helps you stack up your cc to hold someone in place for a very long time. Also if you really enjoy the rifle then the cripple effect on it will also activate this immobilize.
Shrug it Off- Being able to activate Shake it Off passively which also triggers your heals is really good and it also doesn’t burn the cooldown of the one on your bar so you really get 2 uses of Shake it Off.
Vigorous Shouts- This is the ability I decided to go so far down the tactics line for. Being able passively heal whenever you use a shout is strong, not to mention this heal is AoE and there is no cap on how many people it hits. I’ve seen my heals hit over 40 people and they heal for about 1600 with no healing gear so really not bad. The fact that you can get 4 shouts if you want (3 on bar and the one passive) means you can do quite a bit of healing. These won’t spike you up but they will help you and your team sustain a little better. Also imagine if you could have a few warriors all specced this way spamming shouts constantly, that is a lot of heals that could be going off.
Minor Traits
I won’t go over these in detail but these are the minor traits you get with this spec.
Reckless Dodge
Thick Skin
Adrenal Health
Armored Attack
Determined Revival
Fast Healer
Revivers Might
Gear
Runes
Superior Rune of the Soldier
Crest of the Soldier
These are the runes you will place in each piece of gear and jewelry to give you maximum vitality and toughness. The six rune set bonus on Superior Rune of the Soldier synergizes very well with his build overall. Since I am spamming shouts anyways I might as well be curing more conditions.
Armor
Heavy Whispering Boots
Heavy Whispering Breastplate
Heavy Arcon Gauntlets
Mind of Koda
Heavy Aurora Leggings
Heavy Arcon Pauldrons
Weapons
Kodan Sword
Kodan Shield
Kodan Longbow
Jewelry
Invaders Amulet
Invader Accessory
Invaders Ring
Back
I chose to go with Power/Vitality/Toughness as my stats. These will give me the most benefit for my goal to be tanky. These pieces of gear are the easiest to obtain that have those stats. Instead of going for all pvp gear, the karma gear was much easier to obtain. There is no karma gear helm with these 3 stats so I chose the Koda Helm. There is another set of instance gear with Power/Vitality/Toughness that you can get as well.
The Kodan weapons will be the easiest to get and will limit the amount of pvp tokens you need to farm. There is also another instance set of gear that will get you the same stats but these ones look a little better IMO.
The PvP Invader’s jewelry is the only set of gear that will also give you the Power/Vitality/Toughness stats. These pieces can take some time to get so I would recommend running some type of tanky replacement until you can get these.
The backpack is a pricey piece at 5g, but it really is the only option for the Power/Vitality/Toughness stats.
Tags: Guide, Tank, Warrior, WvW