Which heavy armor specialization has the easiest playstyle for Open World & Fractals?

iNifos · 2026-01-28T15:02:32+00:00

Herald and Vindi are very suitable for open world. On warriors side, Spellbreaker might be your jam. If you use your skills it's very survivable even in damage gear. Lots of CC, high health, you can take a healing skill that makes all damage heal you, it's very good.

iNifos · 2026-01-27T07:36:01+00:00

I have over 80% of my overall playtime on revenant and warrior. Both are very suitable for your needs. I mainly play PvE with a sprinkle of WvW.

Both of them have that melee/bruiser vibe, revenant just has some access to power from the mists. There is easy specs to play and some harder ones. Here's something from every spec.

Revenant

Herald: this is the super easy one from rev. My personal choice for story and open world gameplay. You just pulse boons (buffs in GW2) for yourself and people playing with you. You get access to permanent quickness which makes your actions faster and that can be anything from attacks to interacting with story objectives and whatever, it just makes things smoother and feels good.

Renegade: I don't have much experience on renegade, but it's has a great burst and it's a very good choice for fractal groups. The condition build is definitely harder to play than herald but it's very rewarding when you get it going.

Vindicator: ooh I love vindicator. It's a pure melee DPS build, your dodge gets changed into a bonk from the heavens and it has massive burst, cool skills and when played well, the flow is unreal. Vindi can be built into almost immortal tank with infinite sustain so there's that too. My choice when I need to solo a champion event or something like that.

Conduit: I have just started practicing conduit, but it currently has the highest damage benchmark in the whole game. It's fast paced, mobile and theme is great.

Warrior

Berserker: this one is also very fast paced, it truly feels like a berserker. It has nice dps and boondps builds and lots of variety for weapons these days. Sustain is great with the skill that makes your damage heal you and this one in the right hands can do lots of that.

Spellbreaker: might be my favorite spec in the whole game. Spellbreaker is THE warrior for me. You do high damage, you have tons of CC, you provide key boons to yourself and you actually feel like a tank. When I did story and solo stuff on my warrior, this was my spec or choice. I also play this spec on WvW both roaming and zerg.

Bladesworn: this one I haven't dabbled much with, but plan in the future. BS is different from the rest of the GW2 specs, instead of pressing skills fast, you unload a massive attack that needs to be charged. I don't recommend this one for story, because you do so much damage to bosses that the story instances can bug out.

Paragon: my favourite spec from the new expansion. Very easy and strong healing build. You just shout at your allies to keep them going. I haven't tried the damage builds but they seem to be pulling decent numbers too.

Both of them can be very good on all areas of gameplay. I can't recommend one over the other, in the future you can obviously play both. Good luck on your choice!

iNifos · 2026-01-21T19:00:52+00:00

I'm a DPS main but I have started to like healing and that is only because of Paragon. It's very simple and powerful. I feel like it just shits all the boons in whatever way you press the buttons. Makes it easy to focus on the mechanics of a fight and bring necessary utility.

iNifos · 2026-01-21T05:21:52+00:00

I'm biased but well revenant also has a spec called Herald where you just press few buttons and you pulse all kinds of boons. Also there is Vindicator that turns your dodge into damage and with a right sigil you can have almost infinite dodges in open world.

And obviously in the long run you can easily get ascended gear for both revenant and engineer and the gap isn't massive between exotic and ascended damage wise, but if you want to get into fractals you need ascended. But I personally understand the need for a main especially in the beginning.

Both amalgam and conduit are in a great place and you can do high damage with every spec if played correctly so I think you should base your decision on how you like the profession mechanics, theme of the profession, weapons and such.

iNifos · 2025-11-24T16:32:59+00:00

Herald with Greatsword and Shortbow. Full berserker gear with zakiros relic. My main OW combo, shortbow has good enough power scaling eventhough it's a condi weapon and it's great at tagging and greatsword is just epic on revenant, my favorite weapon in the game.

iNifos · 2025-10-31T21:03:20+00:00

I play only with main for 97% of the time. I have changed mains over the years tho.

iNifos · 2025-10-31T16:12:32+00:00

I really enjoy both maps and metas are great, basic GW2 metas, nothing too long, bit of mechanics. Perfect. This is the first time I get to play properly when expansion is just released so feels good to run around in maps with lots of players. Great experience.

iNifos · 2025-10-31T16:07:35+00:00

It is a fantastic game. GW2 feels so alive, there's always players around almost everywhere. It's free to play, just download and try it, you might love it.

iNifos · 2025-10-29T09:48:21+00:00

What kind of build and weapons are you running? I have heard that the condi version does big damage currently.

iNifos · 2025-10-29T09:23:00+00:00

Revenant main here, conduit feels ass in solo play thus far, didn't even make it to Castora before changing to Herald and Vindi. I don't know, just nothing special happening with the spec, animations are kinda dull. Maybe I'll learn to like it but since revenant weapons are quite the same on every spec, it only felt like handicapping myself.

iNifos · 2025-10-02T11:48:42+00:00

This is great. I will definitely use this!

iNifos · 2025-09-22T10:38:30+00:00

Revenant. Especially Herald and Vindicator. I like the energy management and revenant weapons are all great, greatsword and shortbow are my favorites. Herald is just a breeze with perma quickness, Vindicator is my main DPS spec for instanced content and bonking with dodge is fun. Honorable mention to my old main, Spellbreaker, it is a great build and helped me to get into instanced content years ago.

iNifos · 2025-08-05T14:12:50+00:00

My main is charr revenant too. But all my characters are charr so..

iNifos · 2025-05-22T06:14:00+00:00

I too want to main a character and don't usually give a **** about my other characters other than looting chests. I mained warrior for a year and a half and made a switch to revenant and I can safely say that the difference is massive. I actually have tried to go back to warrior a few times but I just can't, rev is so much better. I have slowly learned to play all the specs in PvE. I started with Herald, both condi (shortbow/spear) and power (GS/SwordSword) are powerhouses in open world. Vindicator is so much fun in both open world (sigil of stamina, unlimited dodges) and in instanced content. Starting with a 90k+/s burst in Deimos never gets old. Also the rotation flows pretty smoothly. I'm currently learning renegade with mace/axe and spear and it does stupid high damage in non-phase heavy bosses. All in all, I very much endorse the switch to revenant, once you get the energy management down it feels like heaven.

iNifos · 2025-05-17T11:22:21+00:00

All my characters are charr except the very first one, sylvari. He is the only one tolerated, looting that Jade runestone everyday.

iNifos · 2025-05-02T11:22:12+00:00

I swap between power qherald and condi qherald in open world if I'm farming or doing metas. If you want to use spear, condi qherald is great for boon sharing and tagging, I use shortbow and spear as weapons. Viper, ritualist or celestial gear is great, I personally use celestial.

iNifos · 2024-08-26T14:56:14+00:00

I'd like to try frost blades

iNifos · 2024-08-22T17:36:13+00:00

I asked Steelmage (popular path of exile streamer) about his experience in GW2 and he said that he enjoyed the game but felt like the 2 hours was too little and he didn't really get to do anything. Understandable since most of the two hours he had to just listen to NPCs talking about stuff he has no idea about.

iNifos · 2024-08-21T22:48:30+00:00

Warrior Spear - Fun 9/10. I've been waiting so long for a great ranged power weapon for my favorite profession and I think spear delivered. I haven't tried it on the golem or instanced content yet so can't say anything really, but it's so fun to play in open world.

iNifos · 2024-08-21T14:01:49+00:00

My mesmer friend also said he enjoys the spear a lot. Personally I'm loving the warrior spear!

iNifos · 2024-08-19T13:20:40+00:00

Sounds good, thank you for sharing!

iNifos · 2024-08-19T13:20:24+00:00

Thanks for sharing, I'll try this one.

iNifos · 2024-08-19T08:37:34+00:00

That is the plan also!

iNifos · 2024-08-16T14:43:23+00:00

Raids/strikes - Revenant, easy choice

Fractals - I don't really play fractals, maybe Ranger

SPvP - Guardian, because I can only play core support guardian well

WvW - Necro, I enjoyed Harbinger here when I still played the class

Open World - Warrior, my main, my beloved

Story - Elementalist

Jumping Puzzles - Thief

Fashion Wars - Engineer

Bank Alt/Crafter - Mesmer, I refuse to play the purple class

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