GW2. How To Fight Warrior. How To Beat Warrior. Class Mechanics. Matchup Guide. Warrior Berserker Spellbreaker Bladesworn. Guild Wars 2 PvP 2023.

Your ability to adapt to situations in PvP is not only tied to your knowledge of your class, but also of the classes you will be facing. This is a basic guide to understanding Warriors in PvP so that you can figure out how to fight them without having to learn to play the class entirely.

Contents

Mechanics

As masters of physical combat, warriors have the most weapon diversity of all classes. Knowing how to fight against them can differ greatly based on the weapons they choose, but every warrior will need to build Adrenaline to use their powerful burst skills which change depending on their weapon. They can gain adrenaline in many ways from traits and skills such as swapping weapons, using utility skills, or taking damage, but ultimately these are out of your control. The most reliable way to prevent a warrior from gaining adrenaline is to not get hit by them. This is easier said than done, but it is the best way to counter warriors because they gain damage modifiers, healing, and more effects when constantly hitting enemies, especially with their burst skills.

If you constantly trade blows with a warrior they eventually win because they get more value out of hitting you than you do hitting them. If you want to counter a warrior you need to not trade damage with them using kiting, deciding which skills you can trade with them, or abusing their animations. Their attack animations are long and telegraphed, meaning you can handle them one at a time.

Use your best attacks to trade with them, otherwise only attack them when you can disengage before they hit you back
Using terrain to create a difference in height will make it harder for them to land their mostly melee attacks and to chase you.
Blind and Aegis counter the slow and singular animations

If you can starve them of adrenaline by minimizing contact like this, you will prevent them from getting much of the synergy of their build. In a way, taking your time to carefully avoid their attacks can actually pressure them more than a relentless assault of attacks.

Downed State

If you manage to get an enemy warrior into the downed state, disposing of them involves handling a few skills:

Single Targeted Projectile Knock – Blind, Stability, Invulnerability, Ports, and line of sight behind an object or other player will allow you to secure your finishing stomp on a warrior.

Vengeance – After 8 seconds a warrior can choose to revive themselves for several seconds, where they have full control of their character. If they score kills during this time, they have a 25% chance per kill to fully rally. If they lose all of their health or the timer runs out, they die. While in vengeance, warriors cannot contest capture points. If they vengeance in a 1v1 the best thing to do is run away and survive. If they vengeance in a team fight try to disable them so they can’t recklessly demolish your team. If the situation is extremely close and your teammates go down, try to put damage into a vengeance warrior, since they will rally your allies when they die.

Traits

While you can learn how to play against meta builds, not everyone plays the same builds and there are some variations of warrior that may differ from one another. Understanding their traits and how they synergize with their class can help you to fight them.

The most common traitline that warriors run is Discipline.

The elite specializations warriors can play offer new mechanics and burst skills to play around.

Berserker

Berserkers use their adrenaline to enter Berserk Mode which gives them stat boosts and access to more powerful Primal Burst skills. Save your defensive cooldowns for when they are in berserk to survive until it is over. It is a limited amount of time.

Spellbreaker

Spellbreaker burst skills use less adrenaline, but they can also use Full Counter to survive and recharge their burst skills for sustained frontline presence. Avoid hitting into their Full Counter which is available around every 8 seconds with Discipline, because triggering it will cause a counter attack which will disable you and trigger any traits that trigger on burst skill use. Learn to stow weapon against spellbreakers and use it when you predict they will counter.

Bladesworn

Bladesworns lose access to one of their weapons but gain access to the Gunsaber which has ranged ammunition skills. Try to move from side to side when approaching them to avoid the projectiles. They cannot be denied adrenaline anymore and gain access to the Dragon Slash ability. When you see them standing still charging up, they are about to do a Dragon Slash which will do massive damage and stun you. You can choose to predict it and dodge, but they can always delay it longer. The two best options are:

Play aggressively while they are charging, using CCs and heavy damage. It will kill them or force them to use the Dragon Slash earlier which will make it more predictable to dodge
Don’t waste dodges but run away so you are out of range of the Dragon Slash. Even if they charge at you it will be easier to react the further the distance they must travel

Matchups

There is always a potential to beat an enemy either by rotating into better fights or outplaying their mechanics, but these are the main dynamics of how specific classes interact with warriors:

Warriors Counter

Engineer

Warriors can stay on top of an engineer with similar mobility
Engineers lack stun breaks
Despite engineers having blind and ranged damage, warriors can afford to take some hits to last through them

Ranger

Warriors can sustain by landing their skills on the pet even when the ranger is kiting
Tons of CC will help warriors lock down a ranger to prevent them from being so slippery
Warriors are mobile and durable enough to withstand a ranger’s harassment

Situational Dangers

Revenant

Warriors are slower than revenants and will often be outplayed because of it
Tons of CC will help warriors lock down a revenant if they can land it
Warriors are durable enough to survive and stall a revenant

Mesmer

Warriors can get adrenaline from killing the mesmer clones
Mesmers have access to plenty of evades, blinds, and CC to be hard to hit
Warriors can sustain through a mesmer’s distractions

Thief

Thieves are hard to catch and can choose the most opportune time to fight
Excessive blinds counter warrior
Warriors are durable enough to survive and sustain through the burst damage of a thief

Counters Warriors

Necromancer

Necromancers will put out conditions and CC to debilitate warriors
Warriors and necromancers love to trade damage, but necromancers have the range advantage
Necromancers can pressure enough to break down the warrior’s defenses

Guardian

Blind and Aegis allow guardians to trade blows against warriors without taking hits back
Guardians give stability to their allies which stops much of the CC a warrior can dish out
Warriors must be in melee most of the time which forces them to stand in guardian symbols