Tips for WAR PVP, Stat weights and Medals

[Syrus_Draco]

Otherwise, you'd have to be more specific. Otherwise, it's all about hotbar management and muscle memory. Try to get very familiar with swapping to your PvP hotbar so that you don't get lost in your own controls during a match.

Mostly crossbar set up. Since my PVE cross bar has been so ingrained into my muscle memory, I'm trying to reorganize my cross bars. The reason for this is, the biggest difference with PVP and PVE is the excessive amount of movement that PVP has. Because of this, I do have a lot of my main actions on my D-Pad, and if I need to hit the D-Pad briefly to hit one of those actions (example: Fell Cleave is on a D-Pad, again from that PVE set up makes the most sense to me) then that'll make me briefly pause in place. I am actively trying to figure out what works best, but if others have a crossbar for warrior that they have found great success on, I could look at that as a reference/jumping off point

[Februs]

I am actively trying to figure out what works best, but if others have a crossbar for warrior that they have found great success on, I could look at that as a reference/jumping off point

All of my hotbars on all of my jobs were optimized for movement while maintaining actions. On melee Dps jobs it makes a lot of sense because they have positional requirements for their combos, but I even do this on my tanks because I don't like having to pause my actions while dodging AoE's (such as boss cleaves). It's also useful for raids and extreme trials, as it allows you to maintain 100% dps up-time on bosses while still retaining the ability to move and dodge at a moment's notice. For that reason, the vast majority of my combo actions are kept on my right triggered face buttons, which will likely seem backwards to you. I can give you an idea of how that works, though sadly I can't post any pictures ... sorry.

In any case, I'm pretty particular about my hotbars. For all 3 tanks, I have 3 primary hotbars and one PvP hotbar. Each of the primary 3 hotbars are dedicated to a single combo; however, I also keep duplicate actions across all 3 to make it easy to swap between combos on the fly without having to swap hotbars. For example: on my War, hotbars 1 through 3 all have this layout:

• Right Trigger+Circle = Heavy Swing
• RT+X = Skull Sunder
• RT+Square = Maim

However. each RT + Triangle on all 3 hotbars is a different combo finisher. On Hotbar 1: RT+Triangle = Butchers Block. On Hotbar 2, it's Storm's Path, and on Hotbar 3, it's Storm's Eye.

By setting it up like this, I can easily execute the first and second combo action of any combo on any hotbar. I only have to swap hotbars for the final hit. Likewise, I also keep oGCD actions that I regularly use on duplicate positions across my hotbars so that I have access to them immediately, no matter what the circumstances. As long as those actions have the exact same button mapping on all 3 hotbars, then I will always hit the right button no matter what hotbar I happen to be using at the time.

I take the same approach to my oGCD infurate/abandon actions, only the introduction of a second stance had me modify the layout a bit after HW came out. Currently, my first two Hotbars are exact duplicates of one another.

• Left Trigger+Circle = Inner Beast.
• LT+X = Steel Cyclone
• LT+Square = Unchained
• LT + Triangle = Infuriate

My 3rd Hotbar is my dedicated "dps" hotbar, so Inner Beast is swapped with Fell Cleave, and Steel Cyclone is swapped with Decimate. I swap it in that fashion because it's a single target attack for a single target attack, and an AoE for an AoE. It just helps my brain keep things consistent. Infuriate remains in the same position on all 3 hotbars, so that it is always at the ready no matter what stance I'm using. Unchained, however, is swapped out on my Deliverance Hotbar with Holmgang. I chose that one because it is not used frequently enough (in most content) to warrant duplication, and it sometimes needs to be used in a hurry, meaning I don't want to have to take my thumb off the movement stick while using it (especially in PvP).

After all of that, it's just a matter of filling in the blanks with your CD's. Which CD's get put where depends on how you like it, and which ones you like to couple together (for example, I like to keep Bloodbath and Berserk on the same hotbar, so that I can use them together for the best results). War's CD's are pretty fluid though, so it's up to you how you'll like it. You should have room for an additional duplication on at least one other hotbar, as well. I typically go with Brutal Swing (duplicated across HB 1 and 2), so that I always have a stun at the ready, but that's up to you. I typically make those kinds of judgments based on frequency of use, but everyone is different.

As for PvP actions. I keep those completely separate on a different hotbar. I don't like to mix PvP and PvE, and we have limited hotbar space to work with, so it's better just to keep them aside and learn to swap to them when they are needed. One thing you might consider is setting up a horizontal or vertical hotbar somewhere on your screen (off to the side somewhere). You will not be able to use it using controller (unless you activate the virtual mouse ... which is way too slow to be viable); however, any actions you keep on that hotbar will still show their CD timers. So, you'll know when Full Swing is at the ready without having to swap to your PvP hotbar, for example. I have an entirely different HUD layout saved for PvP, in which all of my PvP actions are on display so I can keep an eye on them without having to constantly flip flop around. It's a pain to set up the first time, but once it's done it's done.

Another fun side note is that you can spy on your teammates PvP actions if you set them to that HB as well. For example, if you set Attunement to your horizontal or vertical hotbar as a War, you will still see it activate when your healer uses it. I'm not sure if SE intended for this to be a thing, but it is ... or was, last time I checked. Dunno if it was patched out recently or not.

Anyway, I hope that helps. It works pretty well for me, but I'm accustomed to it because I had my HB's set up like this pretty early on in ARR. I came from games with a lot more movement in them, so it just made more sense to me to keep my thumb on the stick at all times. In your case, it might be harder to learn since you're accustomed to doing it the other way. This is just one alternative though. Maybe someone else will give you something more familiar to work with.