Warriors...

Hey, returning player here. Been away for 2 years or so.

My PvE is a warrior and I enjoy the class very much. Just wanted to get some opinions on the class in its current state.

When I quit (and this will no doubt date my knowledge of the game), in PvP, if you played a sword warrior you were a noob, if you played a hammer warrior you needed a gimick (kd/as etc.) and axe warriors were viable...but only if you had one in the group.

It seems to me that hammer warriors are quite powerful nowadays...with a plethora of knock-downs at their disposal and an even greater variety of skills to use once you've got the target knocked down.

Sword warriors still seem relatively rare from what I've seen so far since being back. What, if anything, do sword warriors do well?

Axe warriors seem relatively unchanged from what I've seen.

What secondaries are popular now and why? I see a lot of warrior/monk combos in random arenas, but that's how it always was...people love their noobish survivability builds for randoms (or am i off base with that comment?).

Basically this post is in regard to how warriors perform in PvP.

EDIT: Yikes I just realized I posted this in the wrong forum...I used the back button on my browser and effed up which forum I was posting in. Soooo sorry mods.|||In the large scale, the game is what it's always been. Sword warriors are for pressure. Axe is still awesome. Hammers are still the fists of an angry god (and never needed a "gimmick"). Yes, people still run noob builds in RA. Despite that they'll probably get nowhere without a monk.

Check PvXwiki for builds if you want to see what people run nowadays. Some skills have changed so it'll pay off to read the descriptions again.

Welcome back. |||There are alot of different things to know when playing a warrior in pvp.

With regards to difficulty and style the different weapons are as follows:

Sword (Easy):

Minded at pressure and conditions (Bleeding cripple and DW)

The low maximum damage of the sword means that the dps is less dependent on critical hits and positioning (Other weapons get a greater benefit from positioning themselves behind their foes to increase crit chance and also get better rewards for qstepping around their foe to hit him in the back). Sword bars are usually pretty chained and easy to understand. Interrupting is easyer but also less effective. Many sword bars draw on the use of a conjure to boost damage.

Hammer (Medium):

Hammer bars are minded around knockdown(usualyl carries 3 kds rather than 2, and the application of conditions (DW, weakness and lately also low duration daze). The knockdowns in the hammer line come with less drawbacks and easyer use making them popular for qknocking. The slow attack rate makes qstepping and qknocking "easy" while paying for it with less mobility on the field and more damage loss when qknocking. The high damage output is complemented by good positioning and increasing critical hit rate rewarding better gameplay.

Axe (Hard):

With an attack rate the same as swords but a maximum damage alot higher, axes reap great rewards for good positioning (hitting foes in the back). The application of DW is pretty much the only condition you are tossing around. The fast attack rate means qstepping and qknocking is hard but the critical rate means large spikes. Propor stance usage makes axe wielders more mobile than hammer, due to faster interchangeability between stances. Axe attacks are not chained making target switching alot more effective and making axe wielders less effected by prot monks and block when used correctly. Axes make up for only having two knockdowns by having more interruption attacks than sword, the longer activation makes the use of these attacks harder but also makes the rewards larger.