Guild Wars 2

dancingmonkey.4902:

Yup, i meant immobilize, not cripple.

Point is, you claim that some how, warriors are magically easier to kit, when the have more ease of access to removal one of the 3 conditions that allow kiting, then the other professions do.

I do think they are easier to kite. Let’s run down the list from my personal experience:

Guardian: Can teleport up into my face if they need to, unhindered by cripple/chill. Kiting also isn’t necessarily issue, it’s more dodging the key abilities.

Engineer: More often than not they’re probably trying to kite me than the other way around. More of a positional battle with bombs/grenades/etc. happening. No real need to kite them, really.

Ranger: Looking to kite me more often than the other way around. If it’s a non-bow Ranger, they can deal with being kited at mid range, which is where I typically reside in a kiting scenario.

Thief: Kiting a Thief isn’t a thing you can do, and you shouldn’t try. You need to be timing dodges properly. Too much instant-cast gap close. The only time I do any sort of Thief kiting is against a P/D Thief when they try to run at me obviously, just to delay their #3/#5 as much as possible.

Mesmer: Basically always kiting me unless they use S/X, then they rely on the swordsman to pop in with the immob + Blurred Frenzy.

Elementalist: A strange mix, but generally it’s more about dodging their up-close abilities. No real need to kite them, but naturally Chill is devastating if timed properly.

Necro: Kiting is only a temporary measure, and with condis flying back and forth, it’s more about generally managing the overall fight instead of trying to keep them kited.

Warrior is the only class I consistently have to kite around in order to succeed. I can get up close for some Dagger #1 on occasion, but it’s a rare occasion, and I need to be on top of the next dodge that comes out.

Again, -40% condi duration food causes WvW to be a weird scenario. If you aren’t running +40% duration and expect to kite a Warrior with cripple/chill, you won’t get anywhere and odds are it’ll be nearly impossible.

However, that doesn’t detract from the fact that mobility skills suffer in effectiveness while crippled and chilled, cripple and chill much more effectively kite Warriors. In my experience, of course.

And I honestly think that if Mobile Strikes didn’t exist, Warriors would be so incredibly sad. Even with it, they either have to save their mobility to strictly break immob, or you can immob after they use their mobility, forcing them to either gun into their next mobility (predictable), or sit there and take it (ideal).

I do think I’m in a bit of a special situation, since I think Necros are strong against Warriors in general. However, I think people still really exaggerate things about Warriors (among other classes) on the forums.

point is , even anet finally nerf war to ground , It will still be better than now .

A game with 7 complicated classes is just better than a game only with a mindless boring class.
plain and simple.

Wooohooo, I played warrior in sPvP hot joint just now. I know it is not representative, because you meet all kinds of people, but seriously, after some fails, I wrecked them nicely. My strongest opponents: other warriors

I used this build:
Ty Pin’s experimental sPvP build

Advantages:

• decent single target and AoE dmg output
• good CC
• high mobility
• decent toughness
• very good condition removal, and I mean very good (it is hard not hit smth, turrets, Illusions, pets, rune set pets, thief elite and such)
• frequent stun breaks

Disadvantages:

• 1st 3 AoE CC skills from Hammer avoided, so I had to wait a few seconds to finally successfully AoE Stun and 100b again…

—> I would judge that build a CC and mobility heavy balanced build, with low risk.

First Impression
From my 1st impression it was very easy to play warrior. I didn’t encounter the problems with telegraphed animation, because you simply overpressure your opponent. If he isn’t smart enough to disengage and wait for his defenses to come out of cd he won’t be able to avoid that last CC finally. And this is the moment where you can hammer and 100b away on them. I think many thought I am hambow, because I fought them for a long time with hammer alone and then switched to sword and 100bed them.. few seconds later I bull charged and 100bed them again. That worked surprisingly often.

But…
Now of course I understand, that all of this has to be put into perspective. I am not drawing a final conclusion for it was only hot join. So few this only as my 1st impression… I tend to be anyway overenthusiastic when I try new classes, because of all the new possibilities

IMO cripple is bigger issue than immobile. Immobile is powerful but rather short lasting. Cripple on the other hand are more often applied and lasts longer.

But the issue with warrior is that if he is a melee build (that’s most of the weapon choices). He will need to get to the target to do anything. So even if warriors get more access to removal, they still need to remove it and get to the target, hence he is more kitable.

Most ranged based warrior won’t even bother with Mobile strikes.

Okay, as a seasoned Warrior I have to say something to this.

This whole stance people take that Warriors have no weakness is just ignorant or an attempt to cause waves because I am and I hope many many others have noticed the 3 big weaknesses of the Warrior.

Yes.. only 3 but they are massive weaknesses and when exploited the Warrior falls apart.

Yes we have a rifle/longbow so range is something we have and when specialized it can pump out some damage but those types of Warriors outside of a blob are few and far between because.. believe it or not they are hard to use for mainly the games faulty mechanics of always needing to be in front of someone in order to channel a skill (Volley). I think a Necro can agree with me here.

ANYWAY here are the 3 key weaknesses that people seem to be over looking.

1. Conditions… Literally the only way for us to bypass them is Berserker Stance which is only 8 seconds -10 if specialized with a 60s cooldown. Small window to deny them. Outside of that, if the Warrior is not good enough to pay attention the person will be condi bombed into the ground. This ties into the second massive weakness.

2. Kiting. If a Warrior cannot stay in range to basically keep swinging they will once again.. fall apart. A Warrior thrives on constantly dealing damage, but everything a Warrior has is designed to stay in combat (Sustain) and just keep plugging away at someones hp finishing them off with a massive burst.

3. This one is hard to explain and I would imagine only a select few can understand this one but the Warriors final key weakness is a combination of two things. Telegraphed skills and being out damaged on their own terms.

A Warrior has massive dps and burst I know but when a Warrior is up against someone who can dish it right back at them it is very very hard for the Warrior to keep up because it basically penalizes the person for being aggressive which is the only way for a warrior to stay alive outside being a wet noodle tank. A skilled player will wait for the heavy hitting skills and dodge them and just pound away at the Warrior because the person has nothing else to bring to the fight if the person is getting out dps’d by the other player. A good Warrior will find a way but the general population panics and tries to run away or just swing more and die wondering why did they just get owned by that Thief or that Mesmer who just burned through their HP by playing smart.

TL/DR. The Warrior has not as many weaknesses but the ones we do have are very strong weaknesses that range from being condi bombed, to kited, to being met on their own grounds with just out damaging them and dodging the key skills.

The average player that complains/debates w/e you wanna call it that a Warrior is OP is someone who keeps going right back at the Warrior with the same setup expecting it to work the next 10 times and then raging out when they cannot beat them. Unknowingly eating the Eviscerates or trying to dps under an Earthshaker or taking the Killshot to the face.

I tell this to every single person I help train for PvP/WvW… there will always be someone better then you, there will always be someone with a better (Cheesy) build then yours. It will always happen.

That is all I gotta say about this.

#1: Limited dodging and evading (Rangers, Thieves, Mesmers, Guardians, Elementalists all do this better)

#2: Lack of defensive boon generation (Protection, Regeneration, Aegis)

#3: Counterable in-combat mobility (Rush, Savage Leap, Earthshaker, etc)

These three weaknesses pretty much point to the fact that a Warrior pretty much uses their base stats to face-tank damage. Other classes have teleports and stealth which are more reliable gap-closers than anything a warrior has. And pretty much a warrior can be kited.

Conditions are a weakness to any build that doesn’t use a Longbow. Try using a Mace/GS build against a PU Condi Mesmer or a D/P + P/D Thief. Or even Axe/GS.

Terrible ranged options as well. Inb4 everybody comes in and says wth are you talking about Longbow OP!!!!. Longbow is a terrible weapon for ranged combat. First of all it is only 900 range. The auto-attacks completely suck. The enemy has to be AFK for you to land Arcing Arrow and Combustive Shot from 900 Range. Smoldering Arrow actually doesn’t land very well past 600 units and Pindown requires you to have a gap closing melee weapon to take advantage of it. The Longbow is more of a semi-ranged melee bruiser weapon most effective within 300-400 units within an enemy. Pretty much, every attack has a high chance of missing past 600 units, enemies can sidestep most of your isht.

And rifle? plz. Tell me how you are helping a team by going full berserker and trying to snipe people every 10 seconds.

if any warrior player thinks its sad that they do not have pets. My ranger is willing to share her’s. You can pick my bear up at any moment. I’ll even trade all the pet related traits for well, any trait you do not want.

In return i want;
Ill take Warriors Sprint, Restorative Strength, Blademaster, Armored Attack, Deep Cuts, Opportunist.
Sword Offhand with all skills related to it
Warhorn skillset
Dolyak Signet Utility Skill
Stomp Utility skill

Wanna complete the transaction?? You can have a bear today, at a bargain price!!!!

MarauderShields.6830:

The first step should be to reduce mobility strictly to engaging capability. The warrior is a melee archetype and needs means to keep close to his opponent. However, as of now, warrs can engage/disengage freely and better than many thief builds. I don’t think the Hit&Run gameplay fits the class.

One of the reasons warrior is so good at hit and run is because of their ability to reduce the duration of cripple, chill, and immobilize down by 98%. They would literally be getting nowhere otherwise.

Hammerguard.9834:

MarauderShields.6830:

The first step should be to reduce mobility strictly to engaging capability. The warrior is a melee archetype and needs means to keep close to his opponent. However, as of now, warrs can engage/disengage freely and better than many thief builds. I don’t think the Hit&Run gameplay fits the class.

One of the reasons warrior is so good at hit and run is because of their ability to reduce the duration of cripple, chill, and immobilize down by 98%. They would literally be getting nowhere otherwise.

And that, folks, is the fault of the food. Not the Warrior class.

TyPin.9860:

Wooohooo, I played warrior in sPvP hot joint just now. I know it is not representative, because you meet all kinds of people, but seriously, after some fails, I wrecked them nicely. My strongest opponents: other warriors

I used this build:
Ty Pin’s experimental sPvP build

Advantages:

• decent single target and AoE dmg output
• good CC
• high mobility
• decent toughness
• very good condition removal, and I mean very good (it is hard not hit smth, turrets, Illusions, pets, rune set pets, thief elite and such)
• frequent stun breaks

Disadvantages:

• 1st 3 AoE CC skills from Hammer avoided, so I had to wait a few seconds to finally successfully AoE Stun and 100b again…

—> I would judge that build a CC and mobility heavy balanced build, with low risk.

First Impression
From my 1st impression it was very easy to play warrior. I didn’t encounter the problems with telegraphed animation, because you simply overpressure your opponent. If he isn’t smart enough to disengage and wait for his defenses to come out of cd he won’t be able to avoid that last CC finally. And this is the moment where you can hammer and 100b away on them. I think many thought I am hambow, because I fought them for a long time with hammer alone and then switched to sword and 100bed them.. few seconds later I bull charged and 100bed them again. That worked surprisingly often.

But…
Now of course I understand, that all of this has to be put into perspective. I am not drawing a final conclusion for it was only hot join. So few this only as my 1st impression… I tend to be anyway overenthusiastic when I try new classes, because of all the new possibilities

welcome! fellow new warrior player!

yes, you will definitely enjoy yourself by playing warrior in hotjoin, that is, until you met up with better players. :p

however, do also try to play warrior in team arena as well.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Hammerguard.9834:

MarauderShields.6830:

The first step should be to reduce mobility strictly to engaging capability. The warrior is a melee archetype and needs means to keep close to his opponent. However, as of now, warrs can engage/disengage freely and better than many thief builds. I don’t think the Hit&Run gameplay fits the class.

One of the reasons warrior is so good at hit and run is because of their ability to reduce the duration of cripple, chill, and immobilize down by 98%. They would literally be getting nowhere otherwise.

And that, folks, is the fault of the food. Not the Warrior class.

Uh, no. Although condi duration food is broke as kittens, condi duration food + rune of melandrus gets warriors to a 65% decrease in condi duration for all conditions, then dogged march (warrior trait) brings warriors to a 98% duration decrease in cripple, chill, and immobilize while maintaining a 65% duration decrease in all other conditions.

EDIT: Fun fact; Dogged March (Warrior Adept Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize and regeneration when affected by one. Leg Mods (Engineer Master Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize… brilliant.

Too bad warriors get 26000 hp 3000 toughness 2300 power 50% crit and 170% c.dmg in pvp. These stats are too low, pls buff… Ohh wait these stars make warrior a “lick my keyboard to win matches” class. The only negative I see in them is that a class that require no thinking should only entertain a simpleton. I get bored of pressing 1-5 in a monotonous combo after about a minute. No idea how you warriors manage to score so high on the boards, but props to ya

Hammerguard.9834:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Hammerguard.9834:

MarauderShields.6830:

The first step should be to reduce mobility strictly to engaging capability. The warrior is a melee archetype and needs means to keep close to his opponent. However, as of now, warrs can engage/disengage freely and better than many thief builds. I don’t think the Hit&Run gameplay fits the class.

One of the reasons warrior is so good at hit and run is because of their ability to reduce the duration of cripple, chill, and immobilize down by 98%. They would literally be getting nowhere otherwise.

And that, folks, is the fault of the food. Not the Warrior class.

Uh, no. Although condi duration food is broke as kittens, condi duration food + rune of melandrus gets warriors to a 65% decrease in condi duration for all conditions, then dogged march (warrior trait) brings warriors to a 98% duration decrease in cripple, chill, and immobilize while maintaining a 65% duration decrease in all other conditions.

EDIT: Fun fact; Dogged March (Warrior Adept Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize and regeneration when affected by one. Leg Mods (Engineer Master Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize… brilliant.

Maybe they differ a bit because one of the two is the kiter and the other is the one kited.

And the regen lasts for 3 seconds and has a cooldown of 10 seconds (iirc, this doesn’t read in wiki though, for a reason I don’t know). So dogged march heals roughly around 500 to 600 HP for the warrior in that 3 seconds. Warriors don’t usually have high healing power stat so we don’t heal that much from it.

And yea, it used to not have ICD, but now that it does it’s more inline.

killahmayne.9518:

Terrible ranged options as well. Inb4 everybody comes in and says wth are you talking about Longbow OP!!!!. Longbow is a terrible weapon for ranged combat. First of all it is only 900 range. The auto-attacks completely suck. The enemy has to be AFK for you to land Arcing Arrow and Combustive Shot from 900 Range. Smoldering Arrow actually doesn’t land very well past 600 units and Pindown requires you to have a gap closing melee weapon to take advantage of it. The Longbow is more of a semi-ranged melee bruiser weapon most effective within 300-400 units within an enemy. Pretty much, every attack has a high chance of missing past 600 units, enemies can sidestep most of your isht.

Actually, I really don’t know WTH you’re talking about. Combustive Shot has such a big radius you’d have to be completely inept not to be able to cover the general vicinity, especially when in sPVP on a node. And when aren’t you ever on a node fighting? I don’t have any problems landing smothering arrow when in range and I use arcing arrow into a crowd with no issues. And pindown? I usually use it when my opponents are running/kiting away from me and shoot them in the back or when I know they’ve used up their dodges.

So yeah I don’t know how in hell you can say longbow is a “terrible ranged option” and it just reeks of someone desperately trying to defend the profession.

Also, wouldn’t you say a profession that relies less on dodging but more on it’s base stats for defense means that it’s more forgiving than other professions? Sure there are other factors as well but the general consensus has always been that dodging takes more player skill while being more tanky because of passive stats takes less skill.

I think most of these have been said already, but I say them again if someone missed them!

- Weak to move impaires
We can stack a lot of reduction to them, but thats it. Our only ways to deal with them is cleansing or stacking that reduction. We don’t have instant teleport skills to go around them. This weakness is the reason you see so many warriors with the -40% food and runes to reduce it.

- Predictable skills and combos
Most high hitters have big telegraphic animations, they are rather easy to dodge. Don’t tell me to roll Asuran because that is not warrior imbalance, that is Asurans being imbalanced in PvP scenario overall because they are harder to read than others and races in this game don’t really have any other advantages over others than size.

- Burst damage
Yes, we die to it. Outside Endure Pain and couple blocks with relatively long CD’s we quickly die to damage spikes. We can heal roughly 450 to 500 hps and additional shout heals but that opens us to other weaknesses if we trait for that. So as long as you can keep high pressure on us and can bait our EP and blocks you will down the warrior in matter of seconds.

- Conditions
True, we have good amount of cleansing with CI and we can negate them with BS. Maybe you could bait out BS and after that bomb the warrior. Signet of Stamina is a good condition clear but it has longish CD as well (45s) so you can bait that out as well and you see it in warriors toolbar if he/she has it.

- Boons
While some warrior builds do more damage the more boons you have we have no reliable way to strip you from them so you don’t have to worry about that.

- Easy to predict builds
If you have a good sense of the weapons warrior has you will know pretty much instantly when the combat starts what the warrior is capable of and there rarely is any surprises to the flow of the battle.

- Kiting
Most warriors need to be sitting on top of your face to deal damage. If you are able to kite, kite for god sake. Warrior has to burn the move skills to get close to you and then you can spike them without the fear of them running away the next second

- Blinds
Any field that pulses blinds will nullify most of our weapons because they are so slow. Few exceptions are Axe AA, sword AA and GS 100b, those can bypass the blind spam moderatly. Hammer is near useless against good blind application. I die to blinds more than anything else to be honest. If the enemy has a way to spam blind and is good at timing them it’s good bye to the warrior.

Paavotar.3971:

- Weak to move impaires
We can stack a lot of reduction to them, but thats it. Our only ways to deal with them is cleansing or stacking that reduction. We don’t have instant teleport skills to go around them. This weakness is the reason you see so many warriors with the -40% food and runes to reduce it.

wouldn’t say this is a warrior weakness as warriors deal with things like that better than most. Would consider it an strength if anything Oo

- Burst damage
Yes, we die to it. Outside Endure Pain and couple blocks with relatively long CD’s we quickly die to damage spikes. We can heal roughly 450 to 500 hps and additional shout heals but that opens us to other weaknesses if we trait for that. So as long as you can keep high pressure on us and can bait our EP and blocks you will down the warrior in matter of seconds.

Definitely is not a warrior weakness. i don’t think any class has the burst potential to take down a glass warrior in a single burst. in my experience, it will always take multiple bursts to take a warrior down. it’s almost like saying a weakness of people with hp is damage xP again… would consider this a strength… warriors have the best anti burst in the game i think………………

- Conditions
True, we have good amount of cleansing with CI and we can negate them with BS. Maybe you could bait out BS and after that bomb the warrior. Signet of Stamina is a good condition clear but it has longish CD as well (45s) so you can bait that out as well and you see it in warriors toolbar if he/she has it.

Highest HP, good condi cleanse, very nice healing… unless you consider something “that can kill you” as an weakness… then sure. compared to the other classes? no, definitely not

- Boons
While some warrior builds do more damage the more boons you have we have no reliable way to strip you from them so you don’t have to worry about that.

not really a weakness this… its like saying warriors do not have clones so you dun have to worry about them when fighting them! few classes have this ability…….

Warriors have weaknesses yes, but not THAT many, and definitely not ^ those.

Emi.4152:

Paavotar.3971:

- Weak to move impaires
We can stack a lot of reduction to them, but thats it. Our only ways to deal with them is cleansing or stacking that reduction. We don’t have instant teleport skills to go around them. This weakness is the reason you see so many warriors with the -40% food and runes to reduce it.

wouldn’t say this is a warrior weakness as warriors deal with things like that better than most. Would consider it an strength if anything Oo

And yet our primary source of dealing with these conditions come from runes and food that everyone else can have as well. And you see warriors actively pushing to deal with these conditions because they hinder warrior in great extend because we have no instant teleports or anything like that that would bypass these conditions. All of our mobility skills, which warrior is pretty dependant on, is affected a lot by cripple and chill.

Emi.4152:

- Burst damage
Yes, we die to it. Outside Endure Pain and couple blocks with relatively long CD’s we quickly die to damage spikes. We can heal roughly 450 to 500 hps and additional shout heals but that opens us to other weaknesses if we trait for that. So as long as you can keep high pressure on us and can bait our EP and blocks you will down the warrior in matter of seconds.

Definitely is not a warrior weakness. i don’t think any class has the burst potential to take down a glass warrior in a single burst. in my experience, it will always take multiple bursts to take a warrior down. it’s almost like saying a weakness of people with hp is damage xP again… would consider this a strength… warriors have the best anti burst in the game i think………………

Most warriors carry Healing signet that grants roughly 450-500 hps when you combine it with adrenaline health. That is our healing. They don’t have any fast way to heal up if struck with burst, but if they are left to regen afterwards it’s no problem. You need to keep the pressure up when you face warrior.

Emi.4152:

- Conditions
True, we have good amount of cleansing with CI and we can negate them with BS. Maybe you could bait out BS and after that bomb the warrior. Signet of Stamina is a good condition clear but it has longish CD as well (45s) so you can bait that out as well and you see it in warriors toolbar if he/she has it.

Highest HP, good condi cleanse, very nice healing… unless you consider something “that can kill you” as an weakness… then sure. compared to the other classes? no, definitely not

If the warrior doesn’t have LB with them you can pretty easily reduce their condi cleansing by a lot, just avoid the obviously big animated burst skills. What comes to BS, if you see it start avoiding the warrior if you are condibuild. You can easily save your biggest condi burst after it ends, then you have 30+ seconds to stack him with a tons of stuff.

Emi.4152:

- Boons
While some warrior builds do more damage the more boons you have we have no reliable way to strip you from them so you don’t have to worry about that.

not really a weakness this… its like saying warriors do not have clones so you dun have to worry about them when fighting them! few classes have this ability…….

Warriors have weaknesses yes, but not THAT many, and definitely not ^ those.

I’m not saying there is one magical weakness warrior has no way to protect itself from, but warrior has quite a few of them and while covering one they open another a bit more. Because warrior has a ways to defend itself against most of it’s weaknesses (not in one magical build) and is rather easy to adapt to new environment it looks like we don’t have any weaknesses when it’s not actually true.

Paavotar.3971:

And yet our primary source of dealing with these conditions come from runes and food that everyone else can have as well. And you see warriors actively pushing to deal with these conditions because they hinder warrior in great extend because we have no instant teleports or anything like that that would bypass these conditions. All of our mobility skills, which warrior is pretty dependant on, is affected a lot by cripple and chill.

also have nifty traits and condi cleanse :>

Most warriors carry Healing signet that grants roughly 450-500 hps when you combine it with adrenaline health. That is our healing. They don’t have any fast way to heal up if struck with burst, but if they are left to regen afterwards it’s no problem. You need to keep the pressure up when you face warrior.

1. that’s considered sustain not burst or rather… sustained burst! :P and the amount of ‘sustained burst!’ you need to take down a warrior far exceeds all other classes. (all classes and builds are ‘weak’ against ‘being hit over and over and over non-stop’ and warriors are better at dealing with that than others. i.e. not a weakness xP)

2. you know you can… press on the healing signet button for a bunch of hp all at once right? but most warriors won’t… because the passive is very very very nice.

If the warrior doesn’t have LB with them you can pretty easily reduce their condi cleansing by a lot, just avoid the obviously big animated burst skills. What comes to BS, if you see it start avoiding the warrior if you are condibuild. You can easily save your biggest condi burst after it ends, then you have 30+ seconds to stack him with a tons of stuff.

most classes have problems with many many condis being stacked on them at the same time and will also die (faster than a warrior due to lower health as well….) and they don’t even have LB.

I’m not saying there is one magical weakness warrior has no way to protect itself from, but warrior has quite a few of them and while covering one they open another a bit more. Because warrior has a ways to defend itself against most of it’s weaknesses (not in one magical build) and is rather easy to adapt to new environment it looks like we don’t have any weaknesses when it’s not actually true.

agreed and never said i didn’t Oo

but saying… lots and lots of damage/condi will kill a warrior and that is a weakness! is going abit too far… xP

edit – please keep in mind that me not agreeing with a few points does not mean i’m automatically saying “OhMiGoSH war OP everywhere Nerf everything!!!”

TyPin.9860:

I have created a warrior some hours ago and I will try to sPvP with her… and eventually level her up… my Mesmer just tags nothing in Zerg fights So I can test the claims about boon reliance and telegraphing myself.
However, instead of arguing your position (and with me you can argue your position, I am not blindly claiming facts out of the air and defend them to the last breath) you say figuratively: “Not played warrior yourself? You know nothing John Snow!” ^^

Ok let me enlighten you on your findings, before you discover them yourself.

You will find warrior to be easy to get accustomed to. Then, you will also find that we do not have an answer to everything.

Btw, testing our telegraphed skills in WvW, especially in zerg fights is not a good idea. In zvz it is hardly possible to predict every hammerstun because zvz is in itself chaotic. Try it in obsidian sanctum, instead.

About boon reliance, warrior does not rely on it as much as ele or guardian. We do, however, somewhat need at least either might or fury to get to significant damage levels. Otherwise we have to spec full zerk.

Inb4 people saying warriors do good damage without these; they don’t.

And something else, just don’t post if you haven’t played the profession. You can not possibly understand what you are talking about to the fullest if you did not play the class.

guys, OP is talking about the 6/6/6/6/6 build with 4 weapon swaps and 5 utility slots.

warriors can have:
high single target and aoe damage
high sustain
high condi damage
high condi cleansing
high mobility
high cc

however in any real build you are only able to get 2-3 of those. the gs/hammer build OP was using in hotjoin would get absolutely destroyed against any condi or blind spamming build.

the ONLY thing about warrior that might be unbalanced is combustive shot and the fact that you can’t reliably stop it from clearing condis.

I just tough of something war doesn’t have any AI since banner are just buffs that could justify that they’re more self-build than other the professions and I don’t think war is superior on anything ranger will outdo regen,thief burst,necro condi,guardian support…..
Any war focusing on mobility doesn’t do much damge GS or Sword/Warhorn are troll weapons. I don’t have problems killing war with my conditions. Probably only celestial can seem really strong but the same can go for any professions.

Hammerguard.9834:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Hammerguard.9834:

MarauderShields.6830:

The first step should be to reduce mobility strictly to engaging capability. The warrior is a melee archetype and needs means to keep close to his opponent. However, as of now, warrs can engage/disengage freely and better than many thief builds. I don’t think the Hit&Run gameplay fits the class.

One of the reasons warrior is so good at hit and run is because of their ability to reduce the duration of cripple, chill, and immobilize down by 98%. They would literally be getting nowhere otherwise.

And that, folks, is the fault of the food. Not the Warrior class.

Uh, no. Although condi duration food is broke as kittens, condi duration food + rune of melandrus gets warriors to a 65% decrease in condi duration for all conditions, then dogged march (warrior trait) brings warriors to a 98% duration decrease in cripple, chill, and immobilize while maintaining a 65% duration decrease in all other conditions.

EDIT: Fun fact; Dogged March (Warrior Adept Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize and regeneration when affected by one. Leg Mods (Engineer Master Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize… brilliant.

Without the food, Warriors can sit at -58% condi duration for cripple, chill, immob. I, for example, have 30% condi duration from traits and 10% condi duration from runes (to work against Melandru), leaving me at +40% condi duration. The net that a Warrior specced anti-condi duration against me for cripple, chill, and immob is -18%.

So a 5 second chill lasts 4.1 seconds. Considering how devastating chill/cripple/immob are to a Warrior, this feels about right to me. I still get duration, but the Warrior dedicated runes and traits to knocking it down, so that’s where I feel it should land.

Enter: Food. If I don’t use +40% duration food, the net is now -58%. For those playing the home game, that’s 3.2 times the reduction they would otherwise get without food. Now that 5 second chill is lasting 2.1 seconds, a full 2 seconds less than without food.

That adds up. And it’s primarily the fault of food.

I don’t need your anti-Warrior propaganda. I’ve crunched the numbers, and the real outlier is food in a WvW setting. Also, your fun fact proves nothing, which someone has already pointed out. An Engineer can still be doing damage at range with these control effects on them. A Warrior is often completely hosed if they are being kited with Chill/Cripple/Immob. If you don’t realize that, then you’ve very clearly never played one, especially not back before Cleansing Ire/the Zerker Stance change. I don’t even think Dogged March was a thing back then, but I could be misremembering.

Cygnus.6903:

Only a few long cooldown utilities to soak all of the damage that warriors, as opposed to many other classes, are forced to eat.

You’re joinking right? Between shield and endure pain (and the traits) warrior has as much damage avoid skills as any other profession. Not to mention they have as many dodges as the next one.

ThiBash.5634:

Cygnus.6903:

Only a few long cooldown utilities to soak all of the damage that warriors, as opposed to many other classes, are forced to eat.

You’re joinking right? Between shield and endure pain (and the traits) warrior has as much damage avoid skills as any other profession. Not to mention they have as many dodges as the next one.

Endure Pain is a 4 second immunity to direct damage on a 60 second cooldown. If you spec for Defy Pain, which you should never do unless running Axe shield GS, you get another 4 seconds. To direct damage. Only. And I’m not sure, but I thought this was on a 90 second cooldown.

Shield stance is a block, 3 seconds, with a 30 second cooldown. So, theoretically, that could be used twice a minute. Don’t forget though, blocks can actually be circumvented or even interrupted. Wouldn’t that be a pain!
Oh, and while shield stance is active, you won’t be doing much else.

Thus, the warrior that specs for as much direct damage mitigation as he possible can through the use of shield stance and double EP, gets 14 seconds of mitigation during the first minute of fighting. He is, however, completely open to conditions, interrupts, you name it, during this time.

The duration still seems like more then other classes, and I guess it is. I am not going to do a detailed research on how many seconds other classes can get worth of blocks, immunity or invulnerability.

Whoops, there is a downside to speccing for this much direct damage defense. you take shield. You must obviously take zomfgOPlongbowcondicleansemadness. So… Sword mainhand? How mobile are you now?
Don’t take longbow you say? Where is your condition cleanse? Aoe?

Warrior don’t get the tools other classes get to avoid having to eat this much damage in the first place. Things like blinds, aegis, AI-controlled meatshields, teleports, stealth, protection, the list goes on.

And your comment on dodging is both strange (because I never mentioned dodging) and wrong. Other classes have better access to vigor (mesmer, engineer, thief), evading skills (thief, ranger). Warrior do fine in the dodging department, but they are, again, in no way top of the food chain here.

Warrior strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths:

1. High health pool
2. High armor rating
3. Can deal physical damage or condition damage
4. Versatile choice of weapons

Weakness:

1. No way to remove enemy boons
2. Inferior group support i.e group stability, group condi removal, group stun breaker etc.
3. Heavily reliant on stances for durability. Once they expire the class becomes considerably weaker.
4. No access to protection
5. Minimum access to combo fields

The only imbalance warrior has atm is its ability to disengage almost on par with a thief. According to devs on one of the previous ready ups!, this isn’t particularly part of their class design. They should be as guardian, first to get into battle and last to leave.

I feel warriors are in the hot seat too often, I believe they are strong but not as strong as people make them out to be. A vast majority of their skill kitten nal is self centered, meaning its not the class you want to bring when you want ally support.

I fail to see Warriors as a problem, it seems all of them are running around with PuG stomping zerker greatsword builds. Like the PU Mesmer, these are incredibly powerful 1v1 but in team fights you’re going to get bursted with just a little bit of focus. Relying heavily on Endure Pain to kill your foe before they kill you and playing around Endure Pain is key.

The trick is don’t 1v1, do some 2v2 and hope your ally can hold his own.

In a match what start should have ended in absolute distaster, as me and a necormancer went mid, two guys went far and one home. Enemy team did a 1-3-1 starting split and behold, 3 zerker greatsword Warriors came running in with longbows.

We wrecked them. It was annoying to play around Endure Pain in the middle of the fight but by the end of the fight all 3 were off point poking with Longbow while we down each of them.
________________________________________________________________

Here are some tips to fighting pug stomper warriors:

1. They HAVE to dodge a lot, use that to your advantage to apply key conditions and NOT key attacks. As long as they can Endure Pain they are going to burst you in the 4 seconds.

2. When they are longbow, go melee, it will be easier to see Pin Down. When they are melee, kite and attack while being evasive, Greatsword only has 2 melee attacks, the rest are chase skills. Unless they are zerker hammer (which a lot are not), no Warrior will use the Greatsword Burst for Cleansing Ire.

3. Pay attention to Stability, Endure Pain and Zerker Stance! Kite off point if needed, it’s better to have it decapped than you to die.

4. Team fights, even if your team is just average players you can easily win. Zerker Warriors are not like thieves, they cannot teleport away when in focus fire danger. All they can do it pop the 4 second invincibility and what you do is tell them, “We’ll be right back with you in 4 seconds sir. Please enjoy weakness and poison and we will be right with you.”

5. Thieves. Really, any thief build can just wreck pug stomping builds. If you are bunking home and the enemy zerker Warrior keeps trying to take it, have your thief bunk it. If they change strategies, so do you.

6. Change Endure Pain and Zerker Stance ArenaNet. Seriously, need ideas for fun utility skills outside of PvP only? Why do damage immunities exist 6 of 8 classes? Why so much?! Guardian and Mesmer, sure. But Engineer, Elementalist, Warrior and freaking Ranger can completely negate damage?
B-A-D.
Let me tell Riot, the owners of League of Legends, gamings #1 e-sport of my idea of making Zhonya’s Hourglass a starter Trinket instead.
Oh…
They laughed at me, they didn’t even think I was serious because giving everyone a 2 second invincibility is just a bad idea

Nova Stiker.8396:

Let me tell Riot, the owners of League of Legends, gamings #1 e-sport of my idea of making Zhonya’s Hourglass a starter Trinket instead.

Yes, let’s take our balance input for a MMORPG, a genre aimed at all spectrums of gamers, from a highly competitive and inherently brutal genre which is also PvP-only.

That sounds sensible.

Not that ANet is doing well on balancing, but your idea sounds no better. Full-damage-avoidance for example is active play. You need to decide when and where to utilize it, and it’s very very rarely spammable or continuous. That’s a very good design for abilities, allowing a skilled player to avoid crucial skills of their opponent to make their setup falter, respectively in PvE-encounters avoid a one-shot attack after they failed to walk away from it.

Yes, in a MOBA those skills are usually bad. Quite obviously so, looking at the genre. Just like how in a MMORPG, those skills are often really good. Again, quite obvious when looking at the genre.

But mind you, I don’t think ANet is doing well on balance at all. I just think your idea sounds no better, and quite possibly a lot worse. :P

Cygnus.6903:

And something else, just don’t post if you haven’t played the profession. You can not possibly understand what you are talking about to the fullest if you did not play the class.

That statement is just stupid. Of course I can’t have a full deep understanding, but you could explain and help to understand. Try the reverse. If someone who plays Warrior says the profession has no weaknesses, because he might have gotten in right from the first moment and also is a very good player without himself consciously realizing that. He might still have a total biased opinion, even with him playing the profession.

On the other hand I believe to have a good grasp of all the professions potential abilities. That doesn’t mean I am right all the time. But the statement of: “play it yourself, otherwise I won’t take your opinion seriously”, is just plain arrogance and laziness to argue and it doesn’t thrive a discussion. It shuts it down with a non constructive statement.

One doesn’t have to experience everything through the eyes of a certain profession to understand how it works. It helps, I agree with that, but my initial post was open to the suggestion I might have overlooked things. I was open to a discussion and have already through the discussion granted alterations to my initial claims.

On the other hand some things were a bit exaggerated.Take telegraphing for instance. I have gathered some experience with warrior now (although I agree that it is still not the most of experience as of yet). What I have come to realize is, that if you are smart about it, you can pressure your opponent so much, that he can’t avoid all the stuns. I mean hammer has 3 hard CCs and 2 soft CCs (and the CC from burst is on a maximum cd of 10 seconds mostly). Only AA doesn’t CC. You will get your stuns off eventually.

And I have now experienced that Hammer from both sides now.

I could also (theoretically) take your statement in reverse and say: if played not every other profession, you can not possibly grasp the impact of your profession on the meta game play. Thus, you can never never have a full understanding of the real weaknesses. And while you may have still played all professions, not everybody did. But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t participate in a discussion. Stop making excuses for your laziness to argue. There were some posts in defense of warriors and I have read them thoroughly. Some where just plain jokes… like warrior not heaving stealth… but some were well argued and made me question my position already.

Prysin.8542:

if any warrior player thinks its sad that they do not have pets. My ranger is willing to share her’s. You can pick my bear up at any moment. I’ll even trade all the pet related traits for well, any trait you do not want.

In return i want;
Ill take Warriors Sprint, Restorative Strength, Blademaster, Armored Attack, Deep Cuts, Opportunist.
Sword Offhand with all skills related to it
Warhorn skillset
Dolyak Signet Utility Skill
Stomp Utility skill

Wanna complete the transaction?? You can have a bear today, at a bargain price!!!!

My question for you is…. why don’t you just play a warrior. Surely you can’t be that lazy to level one?

Or are you trying to take all of warrior’s strength, and all of ranger’s strength, and leave all of their weakness out of the door? Kind of a childish post here.

Aza.2105:

Warrior strengths and weaknesses:

Strengths:

1. High health pool
2. High armor rating
3. Can deal physical damage or condition damage
4. Versatile choice of weapons

Weakness:

1. No way to remove enemy boons
2. Inferior group support i.e group stability, group condi removal, group stun breaker etc.
3. Heavily reliant on stances for durability. Once they expire the class becomes considerably weaker.
4. No access to protection
5. Minimum access to combo fields

The only imbalance warrior has atm is its ability to disengage almost on par with a thief. According to devs on one of the previous ready ups!, this isn’t particularly part of their class design. They should be as guardian, first to get into battle and last to leave.

I feel warriors are in the hot seat too often, I believe they are strong but not as strong as people make them out to be. A vast majority of their skill kitten nal is self centered, meaning its not the class you want to bring when you want ally support.

I agree with this.

The mobility and disengage ability is the main problem. Warriors should be a “first in last out” kind of class, but for a class with already good damage/defence to be able to engage and disengage from any combat with ease is a little too much.

isolatedchimp.2510:

killahmayne.9518:

Terrible ranged options as well. Inb4 everybody comes in and says wth are you talking about Longbow OP!!!!. Longbow is a terrible weapon for ranged combat. First of all it is only 900 range. The auto-attacks completely suck. The enemy has to be AFK for you to land Arcing Arrow and Combustive Shot from 900 Range. Smoldering Arrow actually doesn’t land very well past 600 units and Pindown requires you to have a gap closing melee weapon to take advantage of it. The Longbow is more of a semi-ranged melee bruiser weapon most effective within 300-400 units within an enemy. Pretty much, every attack has a high chance of missing past 600 units, enemies can sidestep most of your isht.

Actually, I really don’t know WTH you’re talking about. Combustive Shot has such a big radius you’d have to be completely inept not to be able to cover the general vicinity, especially when in sPVP on a node. And when aren’t you ever on a node fighting? I don’t have any problems landing smothering arrow when in range and I use arcing arrow into a crowd with no issues. And pindown? I usually use it when my opponents are running/kiting away from me and shoot them in the back or when I know they’ve used up their dodges.

So yeah I don’t know how in hell you can say longbow is a “terrible ranged option” and it just reeks of someone desperately trying to defend the profession.

Also, wouldn’t you say a profession that relies less on dodging but more on it’s base stats for defense means that it’s more forgiving than other professions? Sure there are other factors as well but the general consensus has always been that dodging takes more player skill while being more tanky because of passive stats takes less skill.

Did you not read anything I just said? Next time before you comment please actually take the time to understand what I am saying instead of spewing a whole bunch of nonsense. I said Longbow is a terrible weapon FOR RANGED COMBAT. Which means for combat which requires range around 900 units which is around the range for a Longbow. I never said it was a terrible weapon for SEMI-MELEE COMBAT.

When you are fighting on a node you are pretty much well within 900 units, and I never knocked on its usefulness in melee range or close quarters. So tell me how any competent player is getting hit by Combustive Shot, Arcing Arrow or Smoldering Arrow at 900 range???? But ohhhhh we are talking about sPvP now like it is the only game mode lol.

Pindown by itself isn’t a great skill unless you follow it up with a hard hitting burst. Or unless you go condi.

Talking about ranged combat strictly.

Mesmer GS > Longbow
Ranger Shortbow/Longbow > Longbow
Engi/Thief Pistol > Longbow
Thief Shortbow > Longbow
Necro Staff/Scepter > Longbow
Guardian Scepter > Longbow
Mesmer Scepter > Longbow

A warrior simply doesn’t within fights which require considerable range. Which is their weakness. Next time I suggest maybe a little bit of comprehension?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Hammerguard.9834:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Hammerguard.9834:

MarauderShields.6830:

The first step should be to reduce mobility strictly to engaging capability. The warrior is a melee archetype and needs means to keep close to his opponent. However, as of now, warrs can engage/disengage freely and better than many thief builds. I don’t think the Hit&Run gameplay fits the class.

One of the reasons warrior is so good at hit and run is because of their ability to reduce the duration of cripple, chill, and immobilize down by 98%. They would literally be getting nowhere otherwise.

And that, folks, is the fault of the food. Not the Warrior class.

Uh, no. Although condi duration food is broke as kittens, condi duration food + rune of melandrus gets warriors to a 65% decrease in condi duration for all conditions, then dogged march (warrior trait) brings warriors to a 98% duration decrease in cripple, chill, and immobilize while maintaining a 65% duration decrease in all other conditions.

EDIT: Fun fact; Dogged March (Warrior Adept Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize and regeneration when affected by one. Leg Mods (Engineer Master Trait): 33% reduced duration to cripple, chill, and immobilize… brilliant.

Without the food, Warriors can sit at -58% condi duration for cripple, chill, immob. I, for example, have 30% condi duration from traits and 10% condi duration from runes (to work against Melandru), leaving me at +40% condi duration. The net that a Warrior specced anti-condi duration against me for cripple, chill, and immob is -18%.

So a 5 second chill lasts 4.1 seconds. Considering how devastating chill/cripple/immob are to a Warrior, this feels about right to me. I still get duration, but the Warrior dedicated runes and traits to knocking it down, so that’s where I feel it should land.

Enter: Food. If I don’t use +40% duration food, the net is now -58%. For those playing the home game, that’s 3.2 times the reduction they would otherwise get without food. Now that 5 second chill is lasting 2.1 seconds, a full 2 seconds less than without food.

That adds up. And it’s primarily the fault of food.

I don’t need your anti-Warrior propaganda. I’ve crunched the numbers, and the real outlier is food in a WvW setting. Also, your fun fact proves nothing, which someone has already pointed out. An Engineer can still be doing damage at range with these control effects on them. A Warrior is often completely hosed if they are being kited with Chill/Cripple/Immob. If you don’t realize that, then you’ve very clearly never played one, especially not back before Cleansing Ire/the Zerker Stance change. I don’t even think Dogged March was a thing back then, but I could be misremembering.

What kind of junk response is this? It’s a combination of Dogged March and food that makes it absurd. You could have easily replaced Dogged March with food in your little “experiment” and gotten the same results. You can’t tell me 33% isn’t as big a hit to condi duration as 40%. Secondly, you think any warrior in WvW cares that you’re a condi heavily specced into condi duration? How many of you are there? Do you plan on slowing the warriors down all by your lonesome?

As for the Engineer, yes, they’re mostly ranged but they don’t have anything near the base stats or mobility skills that a warrior has built in to help them with that fact that they’re mostly melee. A warrior has 7 movement skills while an engineer has 3. Warriors also have more health and more armor than engineers. So is it fair that warriors get a better version of Leg Mods for cheaper? No.

Hammerguard.9834:

What kind of junk response is this? It’s a combination of Dogged March and food that makes it absurd. You could have easily replaced Dogged March with food in your little “experiment” and gotten the same results. You can’t tell me 33% isn’t as big a hit to condi duration as 40%. Secondly, you think any warrior in WvW cares that you’re a condi heavily specced into condi duration? How many of you are there? Do you plan on slowing the warriors down all by your lonesome?

As for the Engineer, yes, they’re mostly ranged but they don’t have anything near the base stats or mobility skills that a warrior has built in to help them with that fact that they’re mostly melee. A warrior has 7 movement skills while an engineer has 3. Warriors also have more health and more armor than engineers. So is it fair that warriors get a better version of Leg Mods for cheaper? No.

I’ve slowed many Warriors down all by my lonesome. Unless they have Zerker Stance up, or run a useless Sword+Warhorn/GS build, odds are they can’t get away.

And do you start designing traits around what food exists, or should you design food around how the classes can build? My initial comparison was taking the game without food, because food is a buff that means nothing towards balance.

And where is slowing down a Warrior an issue? WvW.

Where isn’t it an issue? sPvP.

What doesn’t exist in sPvP? Food.

Why? Because it has nothing to do with class balance, it’s just there for your character to feel even stronger with PvE-style buffs.

That’s why I left it out. Also, your comments around Engi make me think you’re one of the people who say “Warriors get both the highest base health AND the highest base toughness? Imba.”. I think it’s perfectly fair that a Warrior gets Leg Mods for cheaper.

And I don’t take part in Class Pity Parties. Doing trait comparisons like that is a complete and total waste of time. It reminds me of when Necros complained about Incendiary Powder being the same as Dhuumfire for cheaper. Different class. Deal with it.

You need a time machine.

Then you go back to when Conditions were meant to be their weakness. They were designed to be strong on every other front because Conditions is a big weakness to have. They needed to be overwhelming potent at everything else to balance that out.

Like many things, this wasn’t balanced properly and Warriors didn’t have the staying power necessary to deal with that weakness. So they got buffed whilst almost everyone else got nerfed.

Now, that weakness is unrecognisable in Warrior, but all the design decisions based on that are still there.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Hammerguard.9834:

What kind of junk response is this? It’s a combination of Dogged March and food that makes it absurd. You could have easily replaced Dogged March with food in your little “experiment” and gotten the same results. You can’t tell me 33% isn’t as big a hit to condi duration as 40%. Secondly, you think any warrior in WvW cares that you’re a condi heavily specced into condi duration? How many of you are there? Do you plan on slowing the warriors down all by your lonesome?

As for the Engineer, yes, they’re mostly ranged but they don’t have anything near the base stats or mobility skills that a warrior has built in to help them with that fact that they’re mostly melee. A warrior has 7 movement skills while an engineer has 3. Warriors also have more health and more armor than engineers. So is it fair that warriors get a better version of Leg Mods for cheaper? No.

I’ve slowed many Warriors down all by my lonesome. Unless they have Zerker Stance up, or run a useless Sword+Warhorn/GS build, odds are they can’t get away.

And do you start designing traits around what food exists, or should you design food around how the classes can build? My initial comparison was taking the game without food, because food is a buff that means nothing towards balance.

And where is slowing down a Warrior an issue? WvW.

Where isn’t it an issue? sPvP.

What doesn’t exist in sPvP? Food.

Why? Because it has nothing to do with class balance, it’s just there for your character to feel even stronger with PvE-style buffs.

That’s why I left it out. Also, your comments around Engi make me think you’re one of the people who say “Warriors get both the highest base health AND the highest base toughness? Imba.”. I think it’s perfectly fair that a Warrior gets Leg Mods for cheaper.

And I don’t take part in Class Pity Parties. Doing trait comparisons like that is a complete and total waste of time. It reminds me of when Necros complained about Incendiary Powder being the same as Dhuumfire for cheaper. Different class. Deal with it.

Tell me why it’s always the warrior that comes up when talking about mobility nerfs, genius? Did you forget that every class has access to the same foods? Take out food entirely and warrior still wins.

sPvP is a completely different beast where the focus lies in being able to stay in the fight and take out the enemies for capture points. Nobody cares if a warrior runs away in sPvP because it’s does them little good. If it did, they’d be a target for mobility nerfs there as well.

And guess what happened when engineers and necros had the same trait on different tiers? They were both changed. Expect the same of Leg Mods/Dogged March.

Emi.4152:

hmm… for the warrior i would say the greatest weakness is the obvious animations.

so fricken annoying when ppl say this, u are implying ltd (learn to dodge) and yet, I bet u still get hit with more than half of the telegraphed skills warriors have.

its not that they are telegraphed, u can dodge a few, but they are on such short cooldown that u run out of dodges after a few attacks.

nicknamenick.2437:

Warrior:
•high HP pool,heavy armor and high melee single target and AoE DPS, good crowd control, good mobility, frequent stun breakers
• Relies on landing its burst attacks to remove conditions.
Spending burst attacks cost adrenaline wich you first need to build and spending it will also cost you hps and/or other stat bonus like +crit/damage traits.
No defensive boons or any way to deal with boons on others
only 1 blind
only 1 combo field
no stealth/teleport/clones/pets or any other fancy stuff.

so annoying as well, use a lb, and if u don’t, burst attacks recharge is on 7-10 second cooldown, and with such high regen and armor, dealing with conditions for another second or two while u swap weapons to try and land a burst again, really isn’t a big deal.

also, adrenal health isn’t that strong that you shouldn’t spend ur adrenaline for. and cleansing ire can build a full bar in literally a heartbeat… and no one except full zerker really uses the 15% modifier traits

ok, stability uptime is crazy, I count that as a defensive boon, and with such high armor and regen, its like they have permanent regeneration and protection anyways, which, with dogged march, regeneration isn’t a problem anyways.

and destruction of the empowered… /wiki it. u can literally hit nearly 30% increased dmg on a target when they have all boons up.

about the blind…? many classes don’t have access to blinds so this is a nonexistent point

fire combo field is good combo field to have. its handy in groups and for dmg…

yeah ok… they have rlly high… everything, I think that counts as pretty fancy…

as like the devs, you were completely reaching to find any weaknesses for warriors

Hammerguard.9834:

Tell me why it’s always the warrior that comes up when talking about mobility nerfs, genius? Did you forget that every class has access to the same foods? Take out food entirely and warrior still wins.

sPvP is a completely different beast where the focus lies in being able to stay in the fight and take out the enemies for capture points. Nobody cares if a warrior runs away in sPvP because it’s does them little good. If it did, they’d be a target for mobility nerfs there as well.

And guess what happened when engineers and necros had the same trait on different tiers? They were both changed. Expect the same of Leg Mods/Dogged March.

Warriors always come up because they are one of two classes that people currently like to rag on via forums. Thief/Stealth is Warrior/Mobility’s significant other.

Take out food entirely and every single player who didn’t run +40% condi duration food now has utility conditions that last for at least 40% of their duration. Which is nontrivial.

Do you truly believe that Dogged March should be changed because Warriors can get to -98% duration with food+runes? It sounds like Engis can get to -98% duration with food+runes as well. Do you believe that sPvP balance should take a hit and warriors should be that much more vulnerable to soft CC because, when paired with food, it makes it so they can escape WvW situations when the other player isn’t running +40% condi duration food?

Hammerguard.9834:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Hammerguard.9834:

What kind of junk response is this? It’s a combination of Dogged March and food that makes it absurd. You could have easily replaced Dogged March with food in your little "experiment" and gotten the same results. You can’t tell me 33% isn’t as big a hit to condi duration as 40%. Secondly, you think any warrior in WvW cares that you’re a condi heavily specced into condi duration? How many of you are there? Do you plan on slowing the warriors down all by your lonesome?

As for the Engineer, yes, they’re mostly ranged but they don’t have anything near the base stats or mobility skills that a warrior has built in to help them with that fact that they’re mostly melee. A warrior has 7 movement skills while an engineer has 3. Warriors also have more health and more armor than engineers. So is it fair that warriors get a better version of Leg Mods for cheaper? No.

I’ve slowed many Warriors down all by my lonesome. Unless they have Zerker Stance up, or run a useless Sword+Warhorn/GS build, odds are they can’t get away.

And do you start designing traits around what food exists, or should you design food around how the classes can build? My initial comparison was taking the game without food, because food is a buff that means nothing towards balance.

And where is slowing down a Warrior an issue? WvW.

Where isn’t it an issue? sPvP.

What doesn’t exist in sPvP? Food.

Why? Because it has nothing to do with class balance, it’s just there for your character to feel even stronger with PvE-style buffs.

That’s why I left it out. Also, your comments around Engi make me think you’re one of the people who say "Warriors get both the highest base health AND the highest base toughness? Imba.". I think it’s perfectly fair that a Warrior gets Leg Mods for cheaper.

And I don’t take part in Class Pity Parties. Doing trait comparisons like that is a complete and total waste of time. It reminds me of when Necros complained about Incendiary Powder being the same as Dhuumfire for cheaper. Different class. Deal with it.

Tell me why it’s always the warrior that comes up when talking about mobility nerfs, genius? Did you forget that every class has access to the same foods? Take out food entirely and warrior still wins.

sPvP is a completely different beast where the focus lies in being able to stay in the fight and take out the enemies for capture points. Nobody cares if a warrior runs away in sPvP because it’s does them little good. If it did, they’d be a target for mobility nerfs there as well.

And guess what happened when engineers and necros had the same trait on different tiers? They were both changed. Expect the same of Leg Mods/Dogged March.

Take out foods entirely in WvW and Warriors will be a lot more susceptible to chill, immobilize and cripples. Warriors are terrible at ranged combat and therefore need gap closing in order to do damage to their enemies. These gap closers are also countered by the above, as opposed to gap closers of certain other classes that pretty much ignore conditions all together. Warriors rely on gap closing more than any other class.

Engineers on the other hand have plenty options for ranged combat and are quite proficient at it. Chills, cripples and immobilize doesn’t effect them as much as a warrior because they don’t rely on getting up into the enemy’s face to deal damage.

So basically when you bring up the necro and the engi burning traits, (which btw are more game-changing than Dogged March/Leg Mods), you are comparing two sets of completely different traits. And then you are comparing it between two classes with totally different playing styles.

Guess what? our grandmaster minor trait in Strength adds like 5% damage. Lets compare more traits between classes and use that to justify any tweaks and changes in balance shall we? Or wonder why Defy Pain is a GM trait where other classes have basically the same functionality except it is a master trait.

shadowpass.4236:

Emi.4152:

hmm… for the warrior i would say the greatest weakness is the obvious animations.

so fricken annoying when ppl say this, u are implying ltd (learn to dodge) and yet, I bet u still get hit with more than half of the telegraphed skills warriors have.

its not that they are telegraphed, u can dodge a few, but they are on such short cooldown that u run out of dodges after a few attacks.

Of course i still get hit by telegraphed skills. Sometimes i don’t notice, sometimes i’m concentrating on something else, or even sometimes i’m completely out of everything to do anything about it. But the fact remains that warrior hard hitting / cc skills are well telegraphed and you have more of a chance of mitigating them than you would with other classes. (as well as being predictable for certain builds)

On the flip side… what exactly would be the point for warriors if every single worthwhile skill they have is avoided 100% of the time? <- not exactly what i would call balance either.

If anything, the only things i’m not entirely happy about when fighting warriors is that their stat advantage seems a little too high & the nike warriors are… well, nike warriors :P but thats not too bad, i don’t go into every fight expecting to win.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Do you truly believe that Dogged March should be changed because Warriors can get to -98% duration with food+runes? It sounds like Engis can get to -98% duration with food+runes as well. Do you believe that sPvP balance should take a hit and warriors should be that much more vulnerable to soft CC because, when paired with food, it makes it so they can escape WvW situations when the other player isn’t running +40% condi duration food?

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.

shadowpass.4236:

also, adrenal health isn’t that strong that you shouldn’t spend ur adrenaline for. and cleansing ire can build a full bar in literally a heartbeat… and no one except full zerker really uses the 15% modifier traits

ok, stability uptime is crazy, I count that as a defensive boon, and with such high armor and regen, its like they have permanent regeneration and protection anyways, which, with dogged march, regeneration isn’t a problem anyways.

and destruction of the empowered… /wiki it. u can literally hit nearly 30% increased dmg on a target when they have all boons up.

Im just going to touch this part of your post.

Anyhow, Cleansing Ire doesn’t build your adrenal in heartbeat, unless during that heartbeat you take 30 hits. CI regenerates 1 strike of adrenaline per hit taken and full reserve is 30 strikes. With consistenly hitting your target, taking hits and swapping weapons (and having the traits to benefit) you can regenerate adrenaline pretty fast, but CI is not the best source of adrenaline, it helps with it.

Stability uptime is really good with warriors, no arguing there, but it’s not crazy. Stance – 8s – 10s + boon duration, Signet 8s + boon duration and the trait 8s – 10s + boon duration. That is a lot of stability but you won’t see any warriors running with all of them at once. You might see someone with max two of them and what comes to stability it can be corrupted to fear. But it’s still a strength of a warrior, have to agree there.

Regeneration of Dogged March has an internal cooldown of 10 seconds. And with its low duration of 3 seconds the regen is not the main reason to take it. It’s a nice addition, but in the end its only roughly extra 500 – 600 health every 10 seconds. The internal cooldown fact isn’t stated in wiki, but it is in the game. You can check it from the trait itself ingame or from some of the build builders.

And DotE, yes. It’s a funny trait. It’s extremely nice with all these boons flying around, but that 30% increased damage doesn’t happen that often and if it does then they will more than likely have protection up as well. The trait is extremely nice against anyone who spams boons (guardian, ele and engineer), but not that great against thieves and rangers, with mesmers being in the half way because they have very random number of boons and protection is one of the most consistent ones around on them.

This telegraphing argument sounds like an excuse to me, the more I hear it.
Just some examples on other professions:

• Necromancer
  Scepter #2 & dagger #5 are hard hitting condition attacks, and they have a freaking black smoke thingy that announces them. Auto attack #3, what applies poison, is announced by 2 bleeding auto attacks, all staff skills, except auto attack have a freaking circle announcing they’re coming.
• Engineer
  Every bomb and grenade has a big obvious circle announcing it.
• Guardian
  has similar animations as warrior but even longer cast times (Hammer for instance)

I agree that there are some obvious animations. However, they are not nearly on all weapon sets. It’s not like Eviscerate is ultra animated, except for a charge on the other player. And Hammer for example, the weapon of warrior that probably has the most obvious animation, don’t have like 2s cast time… they are at 3/4 of a second, or even less, except for #5 (and #5 hits more consistently than F1 in my experience, because every1 is looking out for only that one raising hammer). Those animations are, if at all, in line with other professions. They are so hard hitting, that for instance a glass cannon build hit by it, could spell certain death. Those animations are there, so you can tell what will happen and to give you the choice if you wanna take or avoid it, if you can make that decision in such a short time.

Another point is that many other professions rely on combination of skills to be equally hard hitting, while the warrior relies on one hit on very short cool downs.

This animation topic, now that I am trying warrior myself, sounds more like a issue on paper, than really in the fight. It sounds more like an excuse.

Hammerguard.9834:

Tell me why it’s always the warrior that comes up when talking about mobility nerfs, genius? Did you forget that every class has access to the same foods? Take out food entirely and warrior still wins.

sPvP is a completely different beast where the focus lies in being able to stay in the fight and take out the enemies for capture points. Nobody cares if a warrior runs away in sPvP because it’s does them little good. If it did, they’d be a target for mobility nerfs there as well.

And guess what happened when engineers and necros had the same trait on different tiers? They were both changed. Expect the same of Leg Mods/Dogged March.

Warrior always comes up in that discussion not for the fact that it has a lot of good chasing and gap closeners but because the same skills can be used to run away as well. A lot of people don’t understand that warrior needs those gap closeners to get into the combat and not get totally nuked on their way to the target and that it is something that makes warriors stand out in the combat because they can fly around the battlefield getting close and personal real quick.

Now, that is not the problem here, the problem is that those same skills can be used to run away and flee. While I don’t believe in fair fights and that fleeing is acceptable if you are able to, warrior has a bit too much running power with such low cooldowns.

And there has been lot of discussion in warrior forums how to change this so that we don’t totally nerf the ability of warrior to close the gap that we need but make escaping harder. Making rush need target has been one of the best options so far in my opinion. Sure, you can still target something far away from your target and run but it wouldn’t be as easy and cheesy.

I laugh at some people’s assumptions that warriors having no apparent teleport, stealth, pets, or clones are weaknesses or a means of balancing around other classes. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Mobility – Greater than any teleport in the game. Teleport is not negated by their mobility but it completely surpasses it.

Stealth – If your using means of stealth to run away from a warrior, that wouldn’t be a a warrior weakness, that’d be your inability to deal with them and a weakness on your part. You also have to take into consideration if the warrior is carrying a rifle, I’ve downed many thieves and mesmers with kill shot as they pop out of stealth running away. Not to mention, they can usually still be caught due to mobility.

Pets – This shouldn’t even be mentioned, pets are a liability due to their atrocious AI skills, and inability to dodge heavy AoE (pulling them out of battle is a weakness on the Rangers part because now their dps suffers. I mained a Ranger long before any other class, their pets do not help them, they hinder them. Those who think they found a good build that works with their pet are only fooling themselves if they think they can take out a decent warrior.

Clones – Same as pets, completely useless. A warrior without clones does not put them at a disadvantage in anyway.

The only thing I can think of that might be a weakness for a warrior, is in the hands of a player whom think’s their invincible. Stroll into battle thinking they are godly only to get wiped out because they in fact think they are invincible.

The problem with Warrior mobility is entirely in that many charge-type abilities like Leap, Bull Rush, Whirlwind etc can be used without a target.

If this was changed globally, Warrior mobility would nosedive. And considering just how much punishment they can take and how much they deal out, relying on someone else to keep the target in range seems a sensible downside to me.

DeadlySynz.3471:

The only thing I can think of that might be a weakness for a warrior, is in the hands of a player whom think’s their invincible. Stroll into battle thinking they are godly only to get wiped out because they in fact think they are invincible.

wouldn’t say that’s the only weakness but… my gosh that happens a lot. (bags) Warrior players seem to be especially prone to rushing a zerg by themselves xP

TyPin.9860:

On the other hand I believe to have a good grasp of all the professions potential abilities. That doesn’t mean I am right all the time. But the statement of: “play it yourself, otherwise I won’t take your opinion seriously”, is just plain arrogance and laziness to argue and it doesn’t thrive a discussion. It shuts it down with a non constructive statement.
….

First of all, I never said I didn’t take you seriously. Just the fact that I am replying to you once again proves that, and my not-so-lazy attitude towards discussion.

The rest fo your story all sounds great, and I did notice you taking back some of your initial false claims.

But that is just the point. Let me quote you on your initial post:

TyPin.9860:

One might disagree on some of those, but that is not the point. The point is that there are weaknesses for every profession except the warrior. I do not want the damage or HP pool or healing of the warrior or such nerfed. What I would like to see is the warrior having some disadvantages. So either I did not think hard enough and you guys can correct me or something should be done, to bring the warrior in line with other professions in terms of trade off.

Apart from you stating here that disagreeing with you is besides the point (which it isn’t, that is the entire point), you are claiming warriors have no weakness, and then completely nullify your own credibility again by saying that you may not have thought hard enough.

What kind of a response will such a statement induce? Especially coming from somebody who admits never to have played the class? You can keep saying this is not a valid argument, and of course you have a right to speak your mind without knowing every class, but don’t make such bold claims about a class that you didn’t play.

If you want to have a normal discussion without pretty much insulting warriors as a whole, try just asking for ways to defeat warriors next time. Or, even better, look for the topics on warrior mythbusting and how to defeat warriors.

And you may say I did not contribute to your knowledge about the class, in which case I gladly quote my first post;

Cygnus.6903:

Emi.4152:

hmm… for the warrior i would say the greatest weakness is the obvious animations.

This and the long cast times for the important-to-hit-attacks.

Oh, and we are easily kited by anything with a few cripples and chills and a little +condition duration.

Only a few long cooldown utilities to soak all of the damage that warriors, as opposed to many other classes, are forced to eat.

I made some other contributing posts, won’t quote everything.

DeadlySynz.3471:

I laugh at some people’s assumptions that warriors having no apparent teleport, stealth, pets, or clones are weaknesses or a means of balancing around other classes. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Mobility – Greater than any teleport in the game. Teleport is not negated by their mobility but it completely surpasses it.

Stealth – If your using means of stealth to run away from a warrior, that wouldn’t be a a warrior weakness, that’d be your inability to deal with them and a weakness on your part. You also have to take into consideration if the warrior is carrying a rifle, I’ve downed many thieves and mesmers with kill shot as they pop out of stealth running away. Not to mention, they can usually still be caught due to mobility.

Pets – This shouldn’t even be mentioned, pets are a liability due to their atrocious AI skills, and inability to dodge heavy AoE (pulling them out of battle is a weakness on the Rangers part because now their dps suffers. I mained a Ranger long before any other class, their pets do not help them, they hinder them. Those who think they found a good build that works with their pet are only fooling themselves if they think they can take out a decent warrior.

Clones – Same as pets, completely useless. A warrior without clones does not put them at a disadvantage in anyway.

The only thing I can think of that might be a weakness for a warrior, is in the hands of a player whom think’s their invincible. Stroll into battle thinking they are godly only to get wiped out because they in fact think they are invincible.

Yes. I agree with everything you said. In sPVP stealth/clones/pets/minions..they’re all laughable..yeah, completely laughable. You so far from reality it hurts.

Cygnus.6903:

The rest fo your story all sounds great, and I did notice you taking back some of your initial false claims.

But that is just the point. Let me quote you on your initial post:

TyPin.9860:

One might disagree on some of those, but that is not the point. The point is that there are weaknesses for every profession except the warrior. I do not want the damage or HP pool or healing of the warrior or such nerfed. What I would like to see is the warrior having some disadvantages. So either I did not think hard enough and you guys can correct me or something should be done, to bring the warrior in line with other professions in terms of trade off.

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.

I was interested on how the warrior profession is perceived and in the same moment share my perception of them. And the paradox was, that we have a game design, that has all professions with designed trade offs, but the warrior has none. And while being a heavy armor profession, has access to the best mobility in the game.

Now, that was my initial statement. After having read the posts and played the profession myself for hours on hours in sPvP, I have a slightly different opinion of warriors: They indeed have no clear disadvantages.

Now before you start complaining, let me explain:
The warrior profession doesn’t fit the trade off concept because of a very important reason. They appear to be the archetype profession for guild wars 2. They are the base design, as far as I see it, from which you build the other professions. I see all the trade offs of other professions following a bonus malus system compared to warrior and that seems actually okay to me and puts the warrior in a unique but not unbalanced spot. They have no trade offs as an inherent profession attribute, thus can assume many roles. The trade off lies rather in a certain build, one can use. A guardian for instance can not get rid of his boon reliance if he wants to stay competative (although he can reduce it a bit), while a warrior can choose to play a a heavy boon reliant build or not.

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.

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.