Frontline Guide

So I know this is a lot of reading, but it gives a nice in depth overview of any frontline characters job.

In GvG your main goal as a Warrior (or any frontline class) is to kill stuff. To do this effectively you need to do “big damage”. This is usually done, at least how I’ve found success with it, is by pressuring targets. To do this I try to make their monks cast as many spells in rapid succession as I can and not letting any of the protection ones getting the effect, therefore wasting their energy. This is done by a lot of target swapping.

Then if we are not getting kills through on just pressure it’s time to call some spikes to go along with our pressure. The idea of the spike is to get some damage from the rest of the team to go along with your damage. At the very least this will cause the monks to use up a lot of their energy to save this target, then you can get a kill on another while the monks are still short on energy. The spikes are called by which ever Warrior it is calling it pinging a target and saying spike this, then counting 3-2-1, I myself prefer the damage to hit the target on 1, and before 1 no one should attack the spike target or use any skills on it because it will give the spike away.

Some Important Warrior Skills:


[frenzy] --- [primal rage] –these are important skills on an axe bar because they let you attack faster which lets you gain adrenaline faster which therefore allows you to do more damage. Primal Rage is also nice because it also acts as a speed boast so you can catch kiters.



[bulls strike] this is a skill that is in my opinion one of the biggest life-threatening skills to a monk, if you can land the knockdown you have 3 seconds to damage the monk where it can’t do anything, this will set up kills for you.


[Eviscerate] + [Dismember] –these are very important because of the deep wound they apply to the target. Being able to do about a hundred damage and taking another chunk of 100 health off with the deep wound is very crucial.


[rush]this is important because it lets you cancel [frenzy] +[primal rage]
so that you don’t take the double damage if you’re getting attacked.


[Executioner's Strike] + [body blow]
–these are nice skills because they are nice follow ups to [eviscerate] + [dismember] because they do a lot of damage too, and right after applying the deep wound that is nice. They can also be used on their own to cause the monks to throw their protection prayer spells around.

Every Warrior bar will also have a [resurrection signet]on it the other skills are utility skills depending on what you want to bring/what team needs.

Some Examples are:



[disrupting Chop] [Shock] [conjure Frost] [Conjure Flame] [Conjure Lightning] + a lot more.

How I prioritize Spike targets (some would disagree with me but I find this to work)
1) Death Penalty—More death penalty means they have less health which means you need to do less damage to them. Plus if you can get a target to 60% dp they won’t resurrect in the base and will therefore need to be resurrected by their team.

2) Hard Resurrection Skill—Next I will look to spike whoever has the hard resurrection skill. This is because if you can kill this character they will be forced to use a [resurrection Signet] on him and therefore have one less to use the rest of the match.

3) Key Character—Next I will go with a key character in their build. I qualify a key character as someone that makes or breaks the build, so if they die the build won’t work to its full potential. Or as someone that our team is always complaining about on vent, for instance if they have a Mesmer shutting down our monks the Mesmer is a key character, if they have a Elementalist constantly keeping our frontline blind he is a key character.

4) Flag Runner—This is the character that is running there flags, this is because if the runner is dead they won’t run flags as effectively and therefore it would be easy for us to hold the flag stand for 2 minutes and get a morale boast.

5) Armor Level—basically self explanatory I will only spike 60AL targets not the 80AL Warriors because you can do more damage to a 60AL target causing the monks to use up more energy up on that character to save him from death.

6) Positioning—If someone is way out of position, like a warrior way out of range of his monks, it is then an easy kill since he has no one to heal him, then that is the target to spike and get a kill on.

If you have any questions feel free to ask me in game or on vent.

The Hammer Warrior uses the same positioning and spike target prioritizing as the axe. The Hammer Warrior can not pressure as well as an axe, but is useful on a spike, for this reason one Hammer Warrior is usually ran in conjunction with an Axe Warrior. The Hammer Warrior is used mainly for the knockdown capability on spikes. If done right it can keep a monk knockdown for 6-9 seconds, depending if you land your [bulls strike] or not. This means that the rest of the team can do damage to a target with only one monk to protect it.

The basic Hammer Template is

[magehunters smash] [crushing blow] [hammer bash] [bulls strike] [flail] [enraging charge] [protectors strike] [resurrection signet]

[devastating hammer] and [heavy blow] can replace [magehunters smash] and [hammer bash]

[protectors strike] can also be replaced with several skills:

[deaths charge] --for a shadow step to target

[iron palm] --for a knockdown on a foe suffering a condition

[wild throw] --for stance removal

[resurrection signet] can also be replaced with [death pact signet] for a hard resurrection skill.

Now for the Dervish, the Dervish is used more as a pressure frontline. This is the main reason why I like to run a 3 Dervish frontline. The Dervish is played basically the same as the Warrior, except that the dervish doesn’t have as much spike potential, but however it does have more pressure, at least in my opinion.

This is because of the elite that I really like to use on a Dervish frontliner in GvG.
[wounding strike] not only does this apply a deep wound, it also causes bleeding and with a 3 second recharge is highly spamable.

The Dervish Bar I really like to use on a Frontliner is this:
The Dervish Bar I really like to use on a Frontliner is this:
[build prof=Dervish/Elementalist Mysticism=8 ScytheMastery=12 WindPrayers=6 WaterMagic=8][Wounding Strike][Mystic Sweep][Eremites Attack][Signet of Mystic Speed][Heart of Fury][Faithful Intervention][Conjure Frost][Resurrection Signet][/build]

[faithful intervention] is to help fuel [wounding strike] as is [conjure frost] the conjure is also to get the bonus damage.
If running 3 Dervishs each one will run a different conjure.


Now the Assassin, the Assassin is able to have a nice pressure between pressuring and spiking. Played pretty much the same as the Warrior and the Dervish, while running Assassins you are still able to call a spike and get a decent amount of damage onto one target. Assassins have a variety of builds that can be run.

My favorite skill combo for an Assassin is: [palm strike] [trampling ox] [falling lotus strike] [twisting fangs]

[falling lotus strike] can also be exchanged for [falling spider] but if this is done sometimes energy might be a problem.

Assassin can also use [wastrels collapse] followed by [falling spider] or [falling lotus strike]

Some other useful elites for an Assassin frontliner are [moebius strike] [shattering assault] and [mark of insecurity]

A nice unblockable chain is: [Conjure frost] [golden fox strike] [wild strike] [shattering assault]

[conjure frost] can be any other conjure, it is more for the extra damage and the pre-requisite so that [golden fox strike] is unblockable.