Guild Wars 2

Did I say gw2 warrior is a archetype warrior? I said it’s the archetype profession of GW2.

The mobility or rather the ease how warriors disengage from fights, is a serious issue. However, what you are describing is the archetype knight. Warrior doesn’t have to be necessarily a knight…

TyPin.9860:

When I say that is not the point, it doesn’t mean you can not disagree with me. What I was saying was, that you might disagree with some of the weaknesses of other professions. But the fact is every other profession has clear weak spots and, as of my initial claim, I did not see any weak spot in warrior.

You also misunderstand the intend of my initial post, however I might have not made it clear. I have personally no problem with warriors. I can beat them on Mesmer and Necromancer (the 2 professions I am most familiar with). The intend of this post was to find the trade off of the warrior profession. Not because I think they were too strong, but because I felt the design was flawed. I would have rather had a warrior profession, that is stronger in one area but has a serious designed weakness or trade off to it, because all the other professions have designed trade offs. I did not want any nerf to the warrior in general, because that would be stupid, when I personally have no issues with warriors in means of fighting them.

It seems very strange to me that you were searching for weaknesses in a class that you apparently have no problem defeating. How can a class be defeated if it has no weaknesses?

The rest of your plea does make sense, and I guess it somewhat explains why you were looking for weaknesses. I guess it’s simple, not being able to truly distinquish oneself in anything is a weakness in itself.

I will reply to your new claims though.

TyPin.9860:

The points I previously accepted, but mainly due to my personal experience now have to disagree with as weaknesses, were the following:

• weak to blind (blocks part of condition cleanse):
  Warrior has several good condition cleanse option, including cleansing Ire that in sum can not be seen as a weakness, because the cleanses can easily remove conditions to a point, where they aren’t a real issue any more. This mitigation of conditions, although achieved partly via passive traits, requires active and clever management, thus making it okay imho.
• highly telegraphed attacks:
  Not really an issue, because those attacks are on a very short coll down and very effective. If at all, those telegraphed attacks make them balanced in the first place. Also not all weapon sets have such telegraphed attacks. It mainly concerns Rifle and Hammer.
• relies on boons, which could be corrupted, ripped or stolen:
  While some boons are good to increase damage, it is nothing like boon reliance like elementalist or guardian, for which boons seem to be a core mechanic, unlike the warrior.

First, personal experience coming from hotjoin playing Hammer/GS is again not that impressive. It is slightly better then when you started this topic, though.

Just the fact that you say warriors can cleanse until the point that condi’s aren’t an issue anymore completely throws me off. Especially when you mention Cleansing Ire along with blinds. Cleansing Ire is the worst way to remove a blind, as the blind doesn’t allow for removal… (excluding longbow). Also, you want CI to cleanse the damaging or movement impairing condi’s.
But conditions can wreck a warrior, especially if he is double melee. Blind, and especially blind spam is the worst, followed closely by chill>immobilize and cripple.

About the telegraphing, it’s not just rifle and hammer. Pin down (longbow 5), Mace burst, Final Thrust (sword 3), Hundred Blades, Rush…

And talking about short cooldowns, let’s take hammer for example (I won’t go into rifle as it is not really pvp viable). Take it from me as a hammer enthusiast since launch, the only two attacks that you absolutely must dodge on hammer are the burst, and the #5. Off course, hammer #4 can open up an opportunity to use the other two, in which case, stunbreak>dodge.
Hammer bust has a 7,75 cooldown when traited. Hammer 5 has a 24 second cooldown when traited. This means that in a 30 second fight, where the warrior uses hammer half the time, you would be dodging 3-4 attacks maximum. Endurance refills by 50% in 10 seconds if I am not mistaking, along with 100% to start with. That’s 5 dodges. Excluding Sigil of energy, vigor or other endurance regen capabilities. That is excluding blocks, blinds, simple kiting, and all other methods to /laugh at the warriors efforts. Off course, I also exclude other skills from the warrior that you might have to dodge or mitigate, but hey, you have (utility) skills too right?

On the boon thing, I didn’t really agree on that to begin with, warriors can work around them. Fury and Might are arguably the most important ones. Off course, these are less important then protection is for a guardian, but then again, if all were the same…

TyPin.9860:

Did I say gw2 warrior is a archetype warrior? I said it’s the archetype profession of GW2.

My comment was not connected to yours. I’m simply comparing what I see in other fantasy works with what I see in GW2. And generally, higher defence is followed by lower mobility (and it makes perfect sense), which I see as the main problem in GW2’s warrior.

TyPin.9860:

However, what you are describing is the archetype knight. Warrior doesn’t have to be necessarily a knight…

I might have a different image of a warrior, but what I think of when I hear “warrior” in fantasy context, it is something large, brutal, savage and having high innate defence and attack (charr?), which is pretty far from how I see a “knight” (which is far closer to guardian in my vision and “lighter”). Warriors are also something that is usually incapable of dealing with magic – but with GW2’s conditions and boons, sigils and runes, it doesn’t really matter much, and obviously (without mounts) they are not able to compete with fast moving assasins or teleporting mages.

I never really thought the lack of boon management to be a down side, up side yes,
But really, is a warrior really missing out?
To me to be able to remove a boon is like " oh nice, that’s cool"
Where as not being able to do it is like " meh, oh well"
Certainly nothing I’ve seen cried about, unlike say lack of range or condi clear.

The main problem I have with warriors is that their achilles heel so to speak isn’t obvious, even if it is there, because as mentioned before, different builds have different weaknesses and different strengths.

If you fight a guard or ele it will pretty much always be weak boon removal/corruption. If you fight a necro it will pretty much always be weak to CC, burst, and focus fire. If you fight and Engi, thief or mesmer, it will almost always be weak to conditions while exceling at CC, or burst/mobility respectively.

With warrior, you don’t know until you’ve fought it and identified its build, what its weaknesses are, whether CC works best, whether conditions work best, whether burst works best, or whether running away and hoping your team saves you works best. To me thats a problem, because there isn’t an objective kyrptonite for warriors in every situation, while for most other classes there is.

And yeah the disengage speed is honestly ludicrous. That should be something only thieves, mesmers, and rangers should be able to do that well, and as it stands some warrior builds can disengage much better than a ranger, and with more speed than a mesmer.

I remember when I played the game over a year ago and warriors were considered bad for pvp due to their actual condition weakness, but I can’t remember exactly when or if I am right about this, isn’t cleansing ire getting added or changed or buffed back then what changed all of that?

tldr: warriors need a single weakness common to all builds. Not many different weaknesses that vary from build to build.

BobbyT.7192:

I never really thought the lack of boon management to be a down side, up side yes,
But really, is a warrior really missing out?
To me to be able to remove a boon is like " oh nice, that’s cool"
Where as not being able to do it is like " meh, oh well"
Certainly nothing I’ve seen cried about, unlike say lack of range or condi clear.

As someone who has focused on boon stripping for a while, I think the difference between having things like Prot/Stability/Fury/Might stacks and NOT having those things is enormous. I can really shut down Guardians or otherwise make them blow through their cooldowns much more quickly, leading to much quicker kills than would normally be allowed.

A Warrior just kind of has to fight through it, and that can be a bear.

I actually hate playing my Warrior now that I’ve spent so much time on my Necro. I feel like there are no toys that really allow you to manipulate a fight given proper timings. The visceral nature can be fun, but it just isn’t for me anymore.

And in my opinion, the power of Hambow is offset by how utterly boring/uninteresting the build is to play. That’s no way to balance a game, but I really, really hate playing it.

@Cygnus.6903:
First: I enjoy arguing with you.

Now to the actual points: I agree that my experience is not the best as of now with warrior. However, even if most of the players you meet in sPvP are easy to outplay. I met some good players, who knew when to dodge and how to approach me very effectively. But anyway, I am working on gathering experience (leveled through PvP alone already from lvl 20 to 44 and made 10g^^) I also tried A/Sh, some variances with mace and even tried a longbow/rifle warrior… that last one was a big fail though

To be sure what we are talking about I used mostly and with the biggest success this build: click me

Condition cleanses:
Conditions were quite easy to cleanse. The build has already condition duration reduction in traits and rune (although I will switch Hoelbrack out probably for something more offensive). With the reduced signet recharge and signet of stamina I can remove already all conditions and have a stun breaker on 36s cool down. With Shake it off I have another combined stun break and small condition cleanse in a 25s cool down (I first wanted to make a shouts build with soldier runes, if the warrior shouts wouldn’t be such horrid boring skills). That already is already similar to the condition cleanse I have on the Power Mesmer, which I main, and doesn’t include the cleansing ire trait.

With cleansing ire though I can cleanse additional conditions. Blinded is the easiest condition to get rid of. Just attack something and then use a burst. I agree it might be harder against blind spammers, but I rarely met someone who would do that and there are other condition cleanses in this build (are blind spammers even a real thing?). And through the endurance gain from signet of stamina and the energy runes you can avoid already a lot of conditions and damage being applied to you. I may need to gather more experience, but from what I have experienced until now condition cleanse is really not an issue (and condition users run around like crazy). Already signet of stamina is such a good cleansing skill, that I don’t know why not every1 is using it. Also the big health pool of warriors helps already mitigating a lot of condition damage. With my mesmer HP pool I wouldn’t have that much time to think about, if I really wanna use the signet or try it one more time with Hammer burst…

Of course theoretically some1 could avoid your Hammer burst every time. What I do in this case is bull’s charge and then burst. Seems wasted, but not if you really wanna get rid of certain conditions. Bull’s charge is an awesome skill to use from melee range

Telegraphing:
All professions have such telegraphed or otherwise indicated skills. The ones from hammer and rifle are ultra super mega unmissable extra crazy galactic obvious. But the other things you named are nothing special as far as I can see it (literally “see it” ^^). What you are saying is, that the telegraphed skills are so obvious, that this is an disadvantage. But the hard hitters of most professions are obviously indicated in this game that this is simply a common principle. Like all Mesmer Phantasms and shatters, Guardian GS #2,5, Hammer #2,3,4 and 5, Ranger GS #2 and 3, Longbow #2 and 5, Necro Staff all marks, all Engineer grenades…
To say warrior’s weakness would be an indication of their attacks would mean all professions had this disadvantage, except the Thief maybe… but at this point you should better speak of an advantage of the thieve instead of a disadvantage of all others…

BobbyT.7192:

I never really thought the lack of boon management to be a down side, up side yes,
But really, is a warrior really missing out?
To me to be able to remove a boon is like " oh nice, that’s cool"
Where as not being able to do it is like " meh, oh well"
Certainly nothing I’ve seen cried about, unlike say lack of range or condi clear.

There are a couple of situations where it’s great. A lot of tankier types rely on might stacks to make their attacks do real damage. Also, when a necro pops Lich Form and you rip their 30-second stability, it’s a total gamechanger. They go from being this hard-hitting juggernaut to everyone’s favorite piñata.

But, yeah, it’s not like being unable to clear conditions. You die when you can’t clear conditions.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Whenever I meet a “warrior” archetype in movies, animation and games, it’s usually a large heavy character which deals massive melee damage and has unparalleled defence, but has problems with mobility. I see this, or this, or this, or at least this. The best counter to this class usually turns out to be a light agile class which has inferior defense but superior mobility, and can win by evading slow attacks and landing well timed/wide area hits.

When I first read about the “warrior” class in GW2, the first thing I thought was “WTF? Did they combine a tank with a jet fighter and called it a balanced class?!”. And that first impression was not far from truth.

Well, your examples are full of hard-hitting athletic types, aren’t they? Boromir or an Uruk-Hai leader aren’t slow and ponderous characters.

Generally, despite the fact that warriors move fast, I haven’t had much trouble evading one (I’m playing mesmer right now, mainly). I have to respect their presence in SPvP, but I’m really not at all intimidated by ’em (I do think twice before engaging a thief or an engineer). In WvW, it boils down to staying away from the front of the hammer train and accepting that some are gonna “Nike” away during smaller fights.

In my experience, the thing with warriors is that they have a very pronounced on/off kind of cycle. When the warrior’s popping stances and movement skills to try to slam you with their best attacks (they need to pop those cooldowns if they want to connect), you can focus on defense; when that stuff’s on cooldown, fighting a warrior is a bit like fighting a Risen Gorilla: sure, the big monster hits hard and could knock you around a bunch, but it’s really easy to counter just about everything it does, often just using movement keys.

Carighan.6758:

Actually, you just made another good case why the food should be changed to +10%/-10%.

Because well, that’s the equivalent of the 100 of another stat you can get, anyhow.

Could even add 15% food for a single condition, then.

I would like to see your numbers as to how +10% condition duration adds anywhere near the damage that for example +100 power does. I made a very detailed post breaking down damage with skills across every profession that disproved your claim in a very large way.

Are you using actual facts to make claims like this? Or just going off of a random uninformed opinion?

Please break it down for us how much damage most condition most condition applying skills will gain with 15% condition duration in a manner that suggest it creates more damage then 100 power does. I would love to see it.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Are you using actual facts to make claims like this? Or just going off of a random uninformed opinion?

Look at your traits window. Add 2 points to the power line, 100 power. Add 2 points to the condition duration line, 10% condition duration.

Carighan.6758:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Are you using actual facts to make claims like this? Or just going off of a random uninformed opinion?

Look at your traits window. Add 2 points to the power line, 100 power. Add 2 points to the condition duration line, 10% condition duration.

What does that have to do with anything? Just because 2 points in one line offers you an extreme amount of diminished returns, does not mean the food should be nerfed to have equally less value.

No the point is, the traits are the most basic equivalent denominator we have.

Gear shows us that ANet considers all non-percent stats equal to each other. These are also equal in the trait window. It follows that we can assume that percent stats are supposed to be equivalent to other stats on a 10 to 1% basis, from the trait window. In other words if percent ever comes to items, an item with 178 of a primary stat would give 17,8% condition duration.

Mind you, this might change in the future! (see Ferocity)
But then it should be changed on a global level. If condition duration is too weak a stats, why exactly should this be fixed via food, instead of at a stat-level?

So your using your personally believed philosophy, to claim something needs a nerf, instead of comparable damage increases and facts. I find that to be a very unconvincing argument.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Carighan.6758:

Actually, you just made another good case why the food should be changed to +10%/-10%.

Because well, that’s the equivalent of the 100 of another stat you can get, anyhow.

Could even add 15% food for a single condition, then.

I would like to see your numbers as to how +10% condition duration adds anywhere near the damage that for example +100 power does. I made a very detailed post breaking down damage with skills across every profession that disproved your claim in a very large way.

Are you using actual facts to make claims like this? Or just going off of a random uninformed opinion?

Please break it down for us how much damage most condition most condition applying skills will gain with 15% condition duration in a manner that suggest it creates more damage then 100 power does. I would love to see it.

Can you link that post? Out of curiosity, did you just analyze bleed/burning/torment/poison damage against the power, or did you also try to analyze the additional effect of increased duration on cripple/chill/immobilize/confusion?

I think is not the class but the play style and player experienced.

Not having something on a profession doesn’t mean it’s a weakness… Weaknesses warriors would otherwise have are covered by very powerful skills, instant utilities, and an extremely reliable heal

dancingmonkey.4902:

So your using your personally believed philosophy, to claim something needs a nerf, instead of comparable damage increases and facts. I find that to be a very unconvincing argument.

How would this be a nerf? If both foods get reduced to 10%, that’s a very sizeable condition buff. Something they need due to how unused conditions go in all serious formats of play.

TyPin playing moderator:
Please keep on topic. Discussions about condition food is interesting and I would be highly invested, but this thread is dedicated to the warrior profession and possible trade offs inherent to it’s nature.

Fair enough. Sorry for the OT.

I keep seeing references to Warrior mobility being too strong. My question to these people is, how would you nerf this without dumbing down the game or making Warriors unable to close the gap?

Say you make skills like Rush and Savage Leap require a target. That to me seems like a major step back in terms of MMO design. Requiring a target to do an attack seems so archaic. Having more freedom of movement is one of the strongest parts of this game. I can’t touch other MMOs that require targets because of this system. Also, since this mobility issue is only really an “issue” in WvW do you think requiring a target would actually change anything? With skills that teleport it makes sense for it to require a target but less so with leaps/running. Here’s what would happen, the Warrior would target an ambient mob or any other mob and use the skill. If they get close enough to hit they’ll cancel the attack via weapon swap or sheathing the weapon. Basically, nothing will change.

If you give Rush/SL the Ride the Lightning treatment do you think that would really change anything? You’ll have the same situation as above where they’ll just target a white or yellow mob that are almost everywhere in WvW. If you did want to encourage these skills for only gap closing then maybe you could up the CD on Rush and have it be halved if it hits something. TO do that and be fair though ANet would HAVE to change the skill so that it more reliably connects with the target.

Reducing the distance also poses problems. Sure, this would make using them for running harder, but it would also make them even MORE susceptible to soft CC. It would be pretty much as bad as pre-buffs Warrior where they couldn’t avoid being kited to death.

With all these in mind here’s my suggestion:

• Increase the CD of Rush but make it be halved if it connects with something.

• Reduce the distance but make the attack faster and remove cripple and chill and make them immune to it while Rushing.

• Change the attack once you reach the target to one that activates as soon as you reach them and possible make it have a slightly wider range so that it can’t be so easily avoided with non dodge.

I’m suggesting that the ONLY skill that be touched right now is Rush. Messing with Rush, Savage leap, and Whirlwind Attack in the same patch could be disastrous for the class (reducing Whirlwind Attaack’s range would actually be a buff to it’s combat effectiveness I bet because the attacks would be close together).

Tee point of this post is that there needs to be a way to let Warriors use their gap closes as gap closers and not punishing Warriors that use them as such just because some run away in WvW. Complaining about S/Horn + GS builds is ridiculous seeing that their combat effectiveness isn’t that great.

Simply require a target in range so that they cannot be used for general mobility.

TyPin.9860:

TyPin playing moderator:
Please keep on topic. Discussions about condition food is interesting and I would be highly invested, but this thread is dedicated to the warrior profession and possible trade offs inherent to it’s nature.

I 90% agree with you, but I think part of the issue is that this food goes a long way in contributing towards negating one of the Warrior’s weaknesses, and this makes it seem like the Warrior doesn’t have this weakness in WvW when in fact food design is contributing more to that fact.

But I won’t try to string the food debate along any further, since it IS starting to veer off course.

didn’t eles get rtl nerfed long ago because it gave them apparently to much mobility?

^ 30 s would be fine but they had to nerf it to 40 s cd:(

btw one way to balance warrior escape ability would be to either make rush or savage leap(not both, would be too much) require a target

no rtl has a 40 s cd, that one shouldnt require target

Wyrden.4713:

btw one way to balance warrior escape ability would be to either make rush or savage leap(not both, would be too much) require a target

no, both rush and savage leap are fine as it is, working well as intended.
no further adjustments are necessary.

stop trying to fix what is not broken.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I keep seeing references to Warrior mobility being too strong. My question to these people is, how would you nerf this without dumbing down the game or making Warriors unable to close the gap?

I would make them unable to close the gap.

Warriors would be a class with high offence and high defence and lots of stability, but unable to CC the target or get close to them. On their own. They have two ranged options ofc, and group-integration wise they rely on someone else to keep the target in their attack range.

BurrTheKing.8571:

It would be pretty much as bad as pre-buffs Warrior where they couldn’t avoid being kited to death.

Oh, so we finally found the thing which was supposed to be this profession’s kryptonite! But wait, it shouldn’t be, because being kited to death is terrible for a warrior, while being chased to death is totally okay for other classes.

Catch your target and kill it. If you can’t hold it, it escapes. And then stings you in the weak spot. That’s how it has always been, from dinosaurs to fantasy high-defence high-damage creatures.

ASP.8093:

Well, your examples are full of hard-hitting athletic types, aren’t they? Boromir or an Uruk-Hai leader aren’t slow and ponderous characters.

You have a point. But you should agree that Boromir’s defence is closer to “ranger” Legolas’s than to any monster’s, and lower defence is what gives them more mobility.

Carighan.6758:

I would make them unable to close the gap.

ridiculous proposal.
warrior’s gap closing and disengaging options are fine, working as intended.

Warriors would be a class with high offence and high defence and lots of stability, but unable to CC the target or get close to them.

high offense, only if they build their traits and stats for that.

high defense, only if they build their traits and stats for that.

lots of stability? only if they use up 2 utility slots for balanced stance, dolyak signet. and if they take the last stand trait.

warriors can only cc the target if they equip the right weapons (mace, hammer) or equip the right utility skills (kick, bulls rush, stomp, fear me) otherwise they cannot cc anyone.

warriors can only get close to their target if they equip the right weapons (long sword, greatsword) or equip the right utility skills (bulls rush)

you are really being very unreasonable here, do you know?

On their own. They have two ranged options ofc, and group-integration wise they rely on someone else to keep the target in their attack range.

guild wars 2 is a team game, yes, but warriors are really fine, and do not require further adjustments.

do you even play warrior?

TyPin.9860:

@Cygnus.6903:
First: I enjoy arguing with you.

Same.

TyPin.9860:

Now to the actual points: I agree that my experience is not the best as of now with warrior.

To be sure what we are talking about I used mostly and with the biggest success this build: click me

Let’s stop talking about experience. You are at least improving that, which is mroe then what can be said for the larger part of the player base.

TyPin.9860:

Condition cleanses:
Conditions were quite easy to cleanse. The build has already condition duration reduction in traits and rune (although I will switch Hoelbrack out probably for something more offensive). With the reduced signet recharge and signet of stamina I can remove already all conditions and have a stun breaker on 36s cool down. With Shake it off I have another combined stun break and small condition cleanse in a 25s cool down (I first wanted to make a shouts build with soldier runes, if the warrior shouts wouldn’t be such horrid boring skills). That already is already similar to the condition cleanse I have on the Power Mesmer, which I main, and doesn’t include the cleansing ire trait.

Let me correct you here. Signet of Stamina is not a stunbreak. It is a great skill though, and since lyssa nerf has been used on a lot of PvP builds.

On the conditions, I imagine them being a larger problem in WvW (my preferred area of the game), especially for those warriors that don’t spec for passive condition resistance.

For PvP, at least the tournament part, I would say that SiO is a lackluster skill for a warrior. One would argue that a warrior needs at least one skill that grants stability.

TyPin.9860:

With cleansing ire though I can cleanse additional conditions. Blinded is the easiest condition to get rid of.

Just not by using cleansing Ire. Of course, anybody can cleanse blind by attacking. It gets worrisome when you realize that most warrior attacks are so slow, that cleansing them before you actually land your heavy hitter is hard when fighting strong players. They will be able to for instance blind your earthshaker, denying cleansing Ire and mitigating the damage all in one.[/quote]

TyPin.9860:

Telegraphing:

Of course all profs suffer from telegraphing. You may be right to say it’s not per se a warrior only weakness, but in pvp, most builds use either hammer or longbow (or both), and they really are telegraphed. Still strong, but that is because of the nature of pvp in this game (on point battle). Try hambow in wvw, and you will fail. Horribly.

@ people suggesting to nerf warrior mobility; of course I am very biased towards this. I also did not aprove in any way of the nerfing of RtL, which most people now use as an argument to nerf warrior mobility.

I just don’t understand why it is that only two classes (thief and mesmer) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight. Oh, and FGS pretty much allows eles to escape from anything as well.

Another thing, I agree with Burr that nerfing Rush would also mean it has to get buffed to reasonable levels. Right now it always misses, which is a crucial difference to RtL. RtL is also AoE, making it again way easier to land. Rush would at least have to cleave.
I actually find his idea for a rework quite good as well.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

you are really being very unreasonable here, do you know?

Not really, sorry.
I just think that a larger rework which leaves classes in a Team-Fortress like state of enforced mutual reliance is healthier for a massive multiplayer game than the 1-per-1 balance players frequently seem to want.

Because the latter just promotes bad behaviour and not wanting to play together. The former makes people play together either way, they’re reliant on each other.

So classes would be defined by weaknesses which can be covered by someone else.

Carighan.6758:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

you are really being very unreasonable here, do you know?

Not really, sorry.
I just think that a larger rework which leaves classes in a Team-Fortress like state of enforced mutual reliance is healthier for a massive multiplayer game than the 1-per-1 balance players frequently seem to want.

Because the latter just promotes bad behaviour and not wanting to play together. The former makes people play together either way, they’re reliant on each other.

So classes would be defined by weaknesses which can be covered by someone else.

And what if you like playing alone?

Carighan.6758:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

you are really being very unreasonable here, do you know?

Not really, sorry.
I just think that a larger rework which leaves classes in a Team-Fortress like state of enforced mutual reliance is healthier for a massive multiplayer game than the 1-per-1 balance players frequently seem to want.

Because the latter just promotes bad behaviour and not wanting to play together. The former makes people play together either way, they’re reliant on each other.

So classes would be defined by weaknesses which can be covered by someone else.

please answer my question.
do you even play warrior at all?

because if you do, you will realize warriors cannot do everything by themselves alone.

warriors can do a variety of things, provided if they equip the right weapons along with the right traits, stats, utility skills.

but warriors cannot do everything.

enforced mutual reliance is already in the game.
are you aware that warriors can only set up a fire field, and only by using long bow?

other professions can set up other kind of combo fields.

various different combo fields, that, is, team work.

Cygnus.6903:

And what if you like playing alone?

While some support for being able to play solo is encouraged (and would happen even with such a system, as it happens in PvE), players who are primarily interested in single-player gaming would probably not pick up a MMO-game. The genre is nearly the antithesis of what they want to play.

Carighan.6758:

Cygnus.6903:

And what if you like playing alone?

While some support for being able to play solo is encouraged (and would happen even with such a system, as it happens in PvE), players who are primarily interested in single-player gaming would probably not pick up a MMO-game. The genre is nearly the antithesis of what they want to play.

I disagree completely. GW2 to me is a game that allows me to play either solo or with others, against a lot of other people, which is where single player games lack IMO. Now I do realise fully that this means that I can expect to be outnumbered and thus in an unfavorable position because of it, but that’s why I really like gw2. It allows me to play the game I want, without being forced into anything.

I don’t have to farm, I don’t have to zerg, I don’t have to play one of two classes to be able to do what I like most. Or at least, that’s how it is now.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

because if you do, you will realize warriors cannot do everything by themselves alone.

warriors can do a variety of things, provided if they equip the right weapons along with the right traits, stats, utility skills.

but warriors cannot do everything.

enforced mutual reliance is already in the game.
are you aware that warriors can only set up a fire field, and only by using long bow?

other professions can set up other kind of combo fields.

various different combo fields, that, is, team work.

Heavy reliance of warriors is a well-known problem and is backed up by a total, complete absence of “zerk wars only or kick!” LFGs… oh wait.

While a world speed clear record team will not consist of purely warriors, PUG groups will. Why? Because it works very good without any combo fields, it’s fast and easy, it provides high return for low risk (as opposed to very high return for high risk in groups which require perfect teamwork). That is a clear indication of a problem with warriors, it exists no matter how many times you call it a “myth”.

Cygnus.6903:

I don’t have to farm, I don’t have to zerg, I don’t have to play one of two classes to be able to do what I like most. Or at least, that’s how it is now.

Except that you already do. If you want to tag mobs in world boss and temple events (what I “liked most” prior to megazerger patch), you have to roll guardian because you gonna get a tiny portion of loot if you play, say, a mesmer instead. Or you should jump on ele for mist form if you want to easily kill Scarlet with the no-knockback achievement. And that’s how it works everywhere and will even if warrior gets nerfed: as long as there’s no trinity, you still can do anything solo (because no one’s going to nerf wars by 50%), but you’re less efficient in content X than when on class B or when in a group.

Cygnus.6903:

I just don’t understand why it is that only two classes (thief and mesmer) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight.

Let’s rephrase it to how it is now: I just don’t understand why it is that only three classes (thief, mesmer and warrior) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight. Does it make any more sense?

The official stance is that content in this game is not balanced around 1v1 and duels cannot be used to measure balance. If warriors are stripped of their mobility, they finally start needing other classes to control the group (or rely on their limited abilities in it) so that they can roll in their heavy bodies and start delivering damage – this makes sense.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Except that you already do. If you want to tag mobs in world boss and temple events (what I “liked most” prior to megazerger patch), you have to roll guardian because you gonna get a tiny portion of loot if you play, say, a mesmer instead. Or you should jump on ele for mist form if you want to easily kill Scarlet with the no-knockback achievement. And that’s how it works everywhere and will even if warrior gets nerfed: as long as there’s no trinity, you still can do anything solo (because no one’s going to nerf wars by 50%), but you’re less efficient in content X than when on class B or when in a group.

No, I don’t. It is very easy to get the ‘best’ gear in the game. I got it, so I only play the things I find enjoyable (WvW). I don’t play PvE aside from the occassional super easy dungeon for a little cash in which you could roll anything,

Lishtenbird.2814:

Cygnus.6903:

I just don’t understand why it is that only two classes (thief and mesmer) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight.

Let’s rephrase it to how it is now: I just don’t understand why it is that only three classes (thief, mesmer and warrior) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight. Does it make any more sense?

No, it does not. Give every class the ability to escape if they want to. Me? I will only escape if I find that I am facing unfavourable odds. Runners gonna run, I usually don’t even chase because I find it a waste of time and view it as a win either way.

Lishtenbird.2814:

The official stance is that content in this game is not balanced around 1v1 and duels cannot be used to measure balance. If warriors are stripped of their mobility, they finally start needing other classes to control the group (or rely on their limited abilities in it) so that they can roll in their heavy bodies and start delivering damage – this makes sense.

This makes sense to you and is your interpretation of a statement. I play warrior in a different way. It really is possible to not kill warrior mobility and still have an enjoyable fight with one.

And what is to say that this game shouldn’t or couldn’t be balanced more regarding 1v1? Or at least with 1v1 in mind?

Telegraphing
It may be correct that those telegraphs make it possible for the opponent to avoid those attacks. But I must honestly say that when one plays a build relying on heavy hitters with obvious telegraphs, that this is the trade off one chose by playing this build. It is not a inherent trade off of the profession. I was running a while with Axe/Shield + GS and it didn’t rely on such mega obvious heavy hitters.

It is a false statement, from my point of view, that warriors rely on Hammer/Longbow in sPvP. I see and play myself different builds, that seem to be successful. Hammer/Longbow is brutal if it hits the unsuspecting foe (like it hit me first on my Mesmer in sPvP, I was destroyed). However, if you study the tells, you can avoid the damage. This is a trade off the Hammer/Longbow build. But as I said, there are other, faster hitting options. And for example eviscerate isn’t that easy to avoid, if the warrior is good and in the right moment shield bashes and then eviscerates you. That build is rather quick imho and the tells aren’t that obvious like with hammer/longbow.

Condition Cleanse
Yeah, I was mistaken, Signet of Stamina is no stun breaker. Somehow I was convinced it was, but I must confused it with dolyak signet. However, it still is a very strong condition cleanse. I have the feeling that many warriors rely either on longbow burst or Hammer burst for their AoE effect to clear conditions. With this condition cleanse is indeed weak fighting a skilled opponent or, as said, in WvW. However I more than once cleanse with GS burst. It may seem like waste, if you heave a way heavier hitting burst on the other weapon, but one must be adaptive. I personally would judge warrior condition cleanse, with all the available traits and skills, a better cleanse than Mesmer cleanses (which I only draw for comparison, because it is my main profession). And that is okay, for warrior relies mostly on melee combat. It might be again a weakness in certain builds, but is no inherent weakness of the warrior profession itself.

Mobility
… is indeed over the top with certain builds. To solve this would be easy imho. If the charge attack, you use to run away, hits, it has the normal cool down. If not the cool down will be increased. This would allow for a running burst of warrior to initially gain distance, but could be taken over in the long run by thief for instance. It would still be very good, but also clearly nerfed and in the same way not nerfed so hard withing combat. Mind you, I would only do that with weapon skill charges, not with utilities like bull’s charge.

Cygnus.6903:

No, I don’t. It is very easy to get the ‘best’ gear in the game. I got it, so I only play the things I find enjoyable (WvW). I don’t play PvE aside from the occassional super easy dungeon for a little cash in which you could roll anything,

“You” is not you but a player. “Best gear” has nothing to do here. I may be enjoying world events for the process, or the loot, or only when both are present, or I may be farming for a full set of legendaries, and I cannot enjoy it on class A, because I can enjoy only, say, 2 aspects of the game on it, while class B can enjoy 7 aspects of the game. And if I want to enjoy that part of the game, I have to roll another class.

Cygnus.6903:

No, it does not. Give every class the ability to escape if they want to.

And give every class heavy armour if they want. And give every class largest HP pool.

When you’re balancing classes, there’s but two ways:

• Give class A ability to X but not Y, and class B ability to Y but not X.
• Give everything to everyone and make the differences purely cosmetic.

When I bought the game as it was advertised, I thought GW2 used the second one. Now I see that it’s the first (except for the warriors).

Cygnus.6903:

And what is to say that this game shouldn’t or couldn’t be balanced more regarding 1v1? Or at least with 1v1 in mind?

If they overhaul the whole class system, they can do it and I wouldn’t mind, because it would most likely mean I can really play and enjoy anything with any class. But at the moment, we have a swiss-knife-warrior next to a tin-opener-mesmer – and the game should choose which way of the above mentioned ones it’s actually going. With the recent Ready Up in mind, it’s most likely the 1st one – definite team roles, strengths and kryptonites.

Lishtenbird.2814:

With the recent Ready Up in mind, it’s most likely the 1st one – definite team roles, strengths and kryptonites.

Due to people saying stuff like ‘warriors get everything’ without really knowing what they are talking about (cause that statement in itself can never be true), I fear the same thing.

We must agree to disagree on pretty much everything else though.

If I wanted a game in which I was depending on others to help me function, I would probably be playing WoW? Never played it, but I know that has the trinity.

I don’t want WoW.

I want gw2.

The warrior, in game, and in a editor is two different beasts all together. In a editor, the warrior has blatant statistical advantages, this causes the illusion of a super profession. While ingame it is obvious that these advantages only apply against static enemies with no active defense or offensive control options. This is what causes issues in balance. Warrior is the prime example of “it works perfectly on paper”. Ingame, reality catches up to you and the rather linear in-combat mobility no longer hold that much value. On the other end we got rangers. To most they make no sense on paper, sometimes even less ingame too, but they make up for it by having more dynamic and responsive movement in combat, allowing for quick outmanoeuvering of the enemy. The ranger would be too strong if given the warriors theoretically sound statistcs, likewise warriors would be too confusing to play with the rangers combat style.

Anet has obviously opted to make the warrior and guardian the stepping-stones. It takes minimal effort and skill to make either work, but they have a lower potential skill cap.
To reduce movement, warrior must gain more base hp and regen to maintain its existing “forgiving design”. A simple “fix” that would grant same movement but less power is to simply slow down and extend the animations to such a degree that you can no longer dart around the battlefield as enemies will be quicker.
The warrior will then be more of a sustained march type, rather then a crazy sprinter

Wyrden.4713:

u dont have to play warrior to know most stuff about it

a lot of pvpers play in lvl 2 chars and do awesome, even in pve, ppl who dont main ranger know that rangers should take frost spotter, etc ur last argument is invalid

a lot of players who do not play warriors themselves, think warriors are overpowered and not balanced. this is not true at all.

hence, those who do not play warriors themselves have no right to say warriors are overpowered, their biased opinions regarding warrior are indeed invalid and can not be taken into consideration.

especially if they do not even play team arena.

for those uninformed, profession skill balances are catered for 5 vs 5 conquest mode team arena, and not PvE or WvW.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

because if you do, you will realize warriors cannot do everything by themselves alone.

warriors can do a variety of things, provided if they equip the right weapons along with the right traits, stats, utility skills.

but warriors cannot do everything.

enforced mutual reliance is already in the game.
are you aware that warriors can only set up a fire field, and only by using long bow?

other professions can set up other kind of combo fields.

various different combo fields, that, is, team work.

Heavy reliance of warriors is a well-known problem and is backed up by a total, complete absence of “zerk wars only or kick!” LFGs… oh wait.

While a world speed clear record team will not consist of purely warriors, PUG groups will. Why? Because it works very good without any combo fields, it’s fast and easy, it provides high return for low risk (as opposed to very high return for high risk in groups which require perfect teamwork). That is a clear indication of a problem with warriors, it exists no matter how many times you call it a “myth”.

Cygnus.6903:

I don’t have to farm, I don’t have to zerg, I don’t have to play one of two classes to be able to do what I like most. Or at least, that’s how it is now.

Except that you already do. If you want to tag mobs in world boss and temple events (what I “liked most” prior to megazerger patch), you have to roll guardian because you gonna get a tiny portion of loot if you play, say, a mesmer instead. Or you should jump on ele for mist form if you want to easily kill Scarlet with the no-knockback achievement. And that’s how it works everywhere and will even if warrior gets nerfed: as long as there’s no trinity, you still can do anything solo (because no one’s going to nerf wars by 50%), but you’re less efficient in content X than when on class B or when in a group.

Cygnus.6903:

I just don’t understand why it is that only two classes (thief and mesmer) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight.

Let’s rephrase it to how it is now: I just don’t understand why it is that only three classes (thief, mesmer and warrior) should be allowed to escape from any situation, or kite and reset any fight. Does it make any more sense?

The official stance is that content in this game is not balanced around 1v1 and duels cannot be used to measure balance. If warriors are stripped of their mobility, they finally start needing other classes to control the group (or rely on their limited abilities in it) so that they can roll in their heavy bodies and start delivering damage – this makes sense.

Yeah – allow me to disagree.

The class that is most popular in PVE is Guardian.
It is good for zerging.
It is good for dungeons
It is a MUST HAVE in fractals.
And any and all content becomes much easier with Guardians.

WvW? Most used class – Guardian.
sPVP – can’t go wrong there.

There’s no place in PVE where you don’t want a guardian.
Warriors in parties are useful but not so much. More than a warrior in a party is wasting a good slot – but you can never really go wrong with more Guardians since they can bring more utility and even more dps than your warrior. And yes – a full dps guardian will slightly outdamage a full dps warrior.

Warriors stripped of their mobility will become free kills since they have no gimmick mechanic to keep them alive.

warriors have builds with great single target or aoe damage, builds with great healing & condi cleanse, builds with great mobility, builds that are very tanky and have stability.. but NEVER everything – you cant tell the weakness by the class when fighting a warrior, you need to get familiar with the builds.

As far as I can see it, one complaint can not be easily ignored. The Warrior profession has no trade offs inherent in it’s nature, as I have earlier argued here.

So to counter a warrior, you have to examine the build they use. Hint: Weapons are a good tell already^^ It is true that warriors can build for many things and are probably one of the most versatile professions in the game. Versatile not in role diversity, but in practicality for the different game modes. They are equally versatile as guardians in that sense. However, while in PvP guardians are for example always weak to boon stripping, stealing or even corrupting, a warrior has his weakness in the build that is used.

Hambow or Hammer/GS (as I have experienced today) are horrible fighting thieves with pistol in the off hand. However, with a fast hitting weapon that issue doesn’t become such a problem any more, but you lose the advantages of GS and/or Hammer making you for example loose mobility and very weak against any profession, that can hold you on distance.

The thing is, while this might seem a bit unbalanced on the first glance, it is very easy to see through and doesn’t throw anyone off, who is informed about the most common builds or willing to inform himself. In the end: on equal skill and knowledge level, warriors are very well balanced imho, even without a clear weakness common to all builds.

The best nerf for warriors in wvw would be to remove the +/- condi duration food…

Muchacho.2390:

The best nerf for warriors in wvw would be to remove the +/- condi duration food…

meaning? warriors is too fixated on staying healthy that they do not eat dat food?

How would you practically pull that off?

Also, any +/- duration food is just offset by others running +/- duration food, so the whole food point is moot as everyone can get it and use it. Same with melandru/hoelbrak runes. They are accessible to everyone.

The only thing warrior has going for it is VERY good CC resistance when using melandru, lemongrass and dogged march.

Arguably this whole tirade of “warrior is unstoppable” could be solved by changing how Dogged March works.
INstead of giving a flat reduction to duration. passively, it could remove said CC skills if their durations were over X seconds (intuitive and interesting as it allows for people to speculate in how to stop a warrior by actively applying loads of short duration CC which will have less impact on the fight unless the fight turns out to be a battle of attrition).

Add an ICD of 2-5 seconds and bam you got a reliable defense that not only removes the problem altogether, but also opens up for better build diversity, as the warrior will no longer be forced to run Melandru + lemongrass to counter the CC spam, they can instead build for more resilience and use their incombat mobility to close the gaps that continuous short duration soft CC will create. This will again make the warrior leaps “more balanced” as they will now serve a legit purpose other then running away when things go south.

Muchacho.2390:

The best nerf for warriors in wvw would be to remove the +/- condi duration food…

That doesn’t make any sense. If the warriors are better at it then the other professions with food, what logic allows you to determine the gap with other professions in this area will change without food? This would nerf across the board, and do nothing to solve the gap in the difference between professions on this particular issue.

Prysin.8542:

Muchacho.2390:

The best nerf for warriors in wvw would be to remove the +/- condi duration food…

meaning? warriors is too fixated on staying healthy that they do not eat dat food?

How would you practically pull that off?

Also, any +/- duration food is just offset by others running +/- duration food, so the whole food point is moot as everyone can get it and use it. Same with melandru/hoelbrak runes. They are accessible to everyone.

The only thing warrior has going for it is VERY good CC resistance when using melandru, lemongrass and dogged march.

Arguably this whole tirade of “warrior is unstoppable” could be solved by changing how Dogged March works.
INstead of giving a flat reduction to duration. passively, it could remove said CC skills if their durations were over X seconds (intuitive and interesting as it allows for people to speculate in how to stop a warrior by actively applying loads of short duration CC which will have less impact on the fight unless the fight turns out to be a battle of attrition).

Add an ICD of 2-5 seconds and bam you got a reliable defense that not only removes the problem altogether, but also opens up for better build diversity, as the warrior will no longer be forced to run Melandru + lemongrass to counter the CC spam, they can instead build for more resilience and use their incombat mobility to close the gaps that continuous short duration soft CC will create. This will again make the warrior leaps “more balanced” as they will now serve a legit purpose other then running away when things go south.

Even so the +/- condition duration food needs some reblancing. If we look at the trait lines we could compare 30% condi duaration to 300 points of some stat and now if we look at the food that would be 470 stat points (40% duartion and 70 vitality/condition damage) while other foods of the same level give only 170 stats….

and if we look at pure facts, food is not meant to scale with trait lines. AHA!!! what a shock.
In that case i would like to compare food with full armor set, in which case it surmounts to like… a exotic helmet plus one exotic glove. Which is like, nothing.

Nerfing the food will only make the min/max crowd roit. It will only hurt the overall DPS in this game, not the balance towards warriors CC immunity. That being said, warriors are about as immune to CC as humans are to snake venom…

ANet need to decide whether they want the Warrior to be durable or mobile.

The Necro lacks mobility because it’s able to tank via Death Shroud, and it’s been stated by devs multiple times that that’s why they lack mobility.

Why does the Warrior get both? The only real opportunity you get to kill a Warrior is when all of their carry-me-immunities wear out, at which point they just run away anyway. There’s no risk. At least Thieves are vulnerable to counter burst.

The Warrior is the only profession in the game with no obvious weaknesses, and it’s in the top three professions across every game mode.

How that isn’t a glaringly obvious sign of imbalance to the devs, I have no idea.