Warrior - Core Celestial Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Sustain, Hybrid damage and Support

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on June 25, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A core Warrior WvW Roaming build with decent damage and incredible sustain, focusing on hybrid damage with Celestial stats. Can be played solo, but excels in group scenarios where it can make full use of Mending Might and Vigorous Shouts.

Skill Bar

Longbow

Axe/Sword

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• "To the Limit!" can be considered for the Defense variant or if you're roaming in a group where someone else might be able to help you out with cleanses.

Utility

• "On My Mark!" over Bull's Charge, tech choice vs thieves or when you want to support your allies with more instant heals.

Elite

• Battle Standard is an option if you are roaming in a group of 3 or more. Any less and rampage becomes the better option for it's versatility.

• Signet of Rage can be taken if you do not need rampage for stomping or escaping, or if you take Defense traitline over Strength. Supplements adrenaline generation and can be used in emergencies to recover 40 endurance and heal via Might Makes Right and Mending Might.

Weapons

• Sword over Axe - more focus on conditions and mobility.

When running the Defense variant:

• Banner of Tactics over Bull's Charge. Offers 5 stacks of stability with 8 seconds of duration, 5s of superspeed, 4.75 seconds of quickness with banner trait, and will slowly build resistance when standing in the radius, all on a 30 second cooldown. With banner trait, gives almost 100% uptime on resistance assuming you're in the circle for the banner boon application ticks.

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Specializations

Variants

• Empower Allies adds more damage to the build via passive Might stacking without sacrificing much healing (as Might stacking is also a source of healing). Your sustain overall is going to be a bit weaker though.

Specialization Variants

Defense variant, trades dodge economy for superior condition cleanse and weakness spam. Full bunker.

Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Longbow
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Axe
Celestial

Sword
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Antitoxin - offers much better defense against conditions.

• Rune of Superior Rune of Durability - more tanky option.

Consumables

Food

• - great stats that fit Celestial builds perfectly while also providing 10% damage reduction.

• - a very strong defensive option which improves your already great endurance regen. Even has synergy with Might related traits and the Strength line.
  • Budget version: - much cheaper and more than fine.

Utility

• or

Usage

General

• Playstyle: despite having a longbow, this is very much a melee build. Try sticking to targets to deliver maximum damage, or snare and briefly outrange them while conditions are ticking away.

• Swap weapons roughly every 5 seconds, use this time to rotate through weapon skills as fast as possible.

Damage

• If possible, dodge into enemies to damage them with Reckless Dodge and generate Might. This is especially useful if you're Blinded as the damage of the dodge will miss, consuming the condition and allowing you to immediately follow up with something.

• Fan of Fire is a cone attack which means it's best used in point-blank range where all 3 arrows are guaranteed to hit the target.

• Swapping to bow procs Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Doom. The Geomancy proc itself strikes foes around you, which is an instant trigger for the Doom sigil, meaning that a weapon swap (even in the middle of your dodge) is an instant source of 3 Bleeding and 3 Poison procs. Following up with a Fan of Fire in point-blank range adds 3 Burning to the mix. This is a great way of putting pressure on a target in no time.
  • Consider throwing in a Riposte and Cyclone Axe or even an Impale (warrior sword) for even more condition pressure and variety before swapping to longbow.

• Arcing Arrow hits hard with power damage and is a blast finisher, but is hard to land from range unless the target is CC'd. It's yet another longbow skill best used in melee range or close to it.

• Pin Down is strong for its Immobilize, but is slow and hard to land with a long windup, making it easy to dodge. As such, try and use this skill after baiting out some dodges. This skill can be stowed in order to cancel the attack but still have the windup, potentially baiting out dodges - but only do this if you know it will generate value or you the your opponent already dodging.

• Burst skills:
  • Combustive Shot works both as a damage source and a combo field. Its damage is easy to avoid, but you can make it more costly for others to engage you in melee range if you drop this beneath your feet, whch is quite useful even in situations when you're expecting others to open on you from Stealth. As for combos, Arcing Arrow stacks Might for extra damage and healing, Smoldering Arrow is a guaranteed projectile finisher which allows you to apply Burning from range, while swapping to Axe and using Eviscerate inside the field grants you Fire Aura (to mention a few). Higher adrenaline makes the field last longer, but it's already hard to get enemies to stay inside it most of the time so building adrenaline for it is not a priority.
  • Eviscerate is one of your hardest hitting abilities and combo tools. Here adrenaline matters more but don't stress it, even the 1 adrenaline bar version is a great combo tool for longer burst chains. Try to use this skill right after weapon swapping to benefit from Sigil of Superior Sigil of Vision.
  • You gain 15 endurance via Building Momentum if a burst skill hits.

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Vision gives you 100% crit chance for a couple of seconds everytime you swap to axe. Just about every skill on this weapon hits hard but try to prioritize Eviscerate and Throw Axe in this window.
  • You could squeeze more value out of this skill by firing an Arcing Arrow and swapping weapons before it lands. This will make CS crit.

• Throw Axe has 3 main functions: finishing move against low-HP targets, a tool for ranged poking that snares enemies, and it's also a potential trigger for the Immob from the Leg Specialist trait. Immob from Leg Specialist makes this great at setting up other skills such as Eviscerate, Bull's Charge, or even a ranged Impale which would otherwise be easy to dodge.

• Impale (warrior sword) is versatile in its usage. The pulsing Cripple and Torment are difficult to cleanse, making this skill excellent at applying cover conditions to enemies while keeping them snared.
  • The chain skill Rip is difficult to connect without a knockdown or immobilize, but it's still worth going for right before Impale's about to fall off as Rip does a lot of damage and even stacks Might.

• Riposte applies a lot of Bleed stacks if the counter hits, and is a high priority skill for the build's condition damage pressure output. Can be used reactively to block important skills, or any skill really if damage is your main goal. This skill will only block 1 hit within 130 range of the target, but outside of that range it will continue blocking until the block ends. This makes it an excellent tool for kiting to terrain against enemies with ranged pressure.

• Bull's Charge can be your make or break skill during duels or downing an opponent. Try to use it at the end of a player's dodge or stability to make it even harder to dodge, and make the most out of it. Alternatively, this can be used defensively for the evasion and mobility to avoid damage, disengage from a fight, or reach favourable terrain.

Combo examples

Vision proc combo in melee range or slightly outside melee

• Arcing Arrow should be fired slightly past melee range but still in a way that the target is inside the AoE. The goal is to give this a small arc, just long enough to allow for weapon swapping to happen before the projectile lands. We need this to hit while the Vision proc is active.
• Weapon swap for Vision proc
• Throw Axe for an Immob proc from Leg Specialist (and big damage against low HP targets). With a little luck the target will be rooted, unable to dodge your next skill.
• Eviscerate
• Cyclone Axe

Longbow sigil proc combo

• Throw Axe for Immob
• Bull's Charge while the Immob is holding the target in place
• Weapon swap for Geo/Doom proc
• Fan of Fire in point-blank range
• Pin Down
• Combustive Shot

Sustain

• Might Makes Right and Mending Might causes Might applications to heal you and grant a tiny bit of endurance.
  • Add Vigorous Shouts to the mix and "For Great Justice!" basically turns into a healing skill with 2 charges.

• Brawler's Recovery and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing will be used to manage condition levels before resorting to mass cleanses.

• Mending should almost always be used whenever it's available as long as you're missing more than 7k health, but if you're facing a condition build and all of your cleanses are on CD then you might want to hold onto it for a bit so you don't get caught offguard with a condi burst. The 5 cleanses make this your best skill against conditions.

• Shrug It Off is another source of passive cleansing and healing, potentially even a stun break.

• "Shake It Off!" (SIO) is the only on-demand stun break in the build. This skill also affects nearby allies and can be used to support them if you can afford it.

• "For Great Justice!" is used to upkeep both permanent Fury and high stacks of Might, while also serving as a healing skill that regenerates both health and endurance.

• Riposte is an excellent defensive skill that can block way more than just one attack as long as you're not facing the target or you're outside melee range.

• Bull's Charge (when used without a target) is a useful tool for disengaging and putting some distance between you and your enemies in case you're low on health and need to wait for defensive CDs.

• Eviscerate, Bull's Charge, and several Rampage skills have Warrior's Sprint synergy, freeing you from Immob.

Rampage

• Rampage is primarily used for stomping, disengaging, or securing a kill. Can also be used for more CC to stop stomps if needed.