Guild Wars 2

Warrior players have to constantly listen to people complain about Healing Signet, even with the recent nerfs. What people seem to overlook is that it’s hard to blame Warrior players when there is no other viable options to choose from. To pick any of the other 3 heals is pretty much a death sentence outside of Defiant Stance in zerg surfing. Here’s what’s wrong with the other Warrior healing skills and some suggestions.

Healing Surge: This is a skill that punishes the Warrior for using their profession mechanic, adrenaline. The healing at 3 bars is not bad at all, the major problem is that it can completely punish the user for using their adren, something that you HAVE to do if you don’t want to be eaten alive. While really boring mechanically, I would suggest removing the adrenaline gain, and just make the highest level of healing the default. It has a long CD and a longish activation time which justifies the high burst heal.

Mending: It’s theoretically a great heal for glassier Warriors who want to not put 4 points into Defense for Cleansing Ire. With Restorative Strength it would practically be a full cleanse. However, with such a low amount of healing at a 20 second CD it’s not worth taking. I would suggest something similar to Consume Conditions, only instead of healing more for each condi removed it would grant Adrenaline. This would benefit those using Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus because it will get them their bonus effect back faster. In addition, the CD would be better at 15 seconds. Due to it being an intended replacement for CI, 20 seconds can be a bit long. The healing values might still need to be looked at because even at 15 seconds the healing may still be too low.

Defiant Stance: This is a really interesting skill mechanically but in its current form it’s only good in big Zerg battles in WvW. While it has the potential to take you from almost dead to full the base healing is still way too low for a 35 second CD heal. Something around Mending’s current healing would seem fair. This skill is a stance, and yet it has a cast time. The whole idea of this skill is that you time it so that when your opponents try to lay down the hurt you turn that into healing, but which a cast time that can be really tricky considering most of the time that hurt will be coming while you are locked down in some way. If it was made in instant cast the amount that each attack heals for might need to be reduced, but honestly if they don’t realize that their attacks are healing them they deserve whatever happens. It could also be interesting is making Sure-Footed increase the duration by 1 second, but that might be imbalanced.

Most Warriors are just as displeased with their healing options as those who don’t play the class. Warrior as a whole has been all but forced into using the following: Healing Signet, Longbow, 4 points into Defense for Cleansing ire, and 3 points into Discipline for Fast Hands. It’s hard to not run builds like Hambow or Celestial Axebow when not taking them typically involves dieing horribly.

The alternatives to signet received buffs and use to be the go to heal when signet was trash. Every warrior used mending or surge before. Signet is just the best heal that’s all there is to it and other classes are in the same boat.

Most guards run shelter in PvP, most mesmers run ether feast, most necromancers take consume conditions etc…

I see your aim to make the other heals better though. I don’t have a problem with signet personally and think its fine, that said the other heals could be looked at but I don’t know if that will make people move away from signet. Elementalist run signet or ether but glyph doesn’t see a lot of use but it isn’t a bad heal by any stretch as a more explained example.

Just throwing my 2 cent in the ring not disagreeing with the purpose of your thread.

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

Warriors should get increased condition clear in their heals when they give mesmers more condi removal in their healing skills. Because lets face it mesmers are the most struggling class in any pvp mode aside from maybe ranger.

I actually like the ideas, except the healing surge one. That healing skill has a high skill level in using it, greatly rewarding those who use it at stage 3 adrenaline. If anything it should scale off healing power a little more at each stage (more than it already does, I know it already scales higher each tier) because it is a pretty big heal but on a long cooldown.

Also if someone attacks a warrior who is glowing bright blue and your red numbers are turning green, they deserve to be humiliated. Defiant stance has a pretty obvious counter, I don’t see why it has a cast time but sadly many healing skills tied to older utility subcategories received a strange treatment like skelk venom, litany of wrath, A.E.D.

I definitely agree that the Warrior Healing skills bar Healing Signet are completely outshined by it. In my thread about reasonable changes to Warrior I suggested changing:

Jzaku.9765:

• Mending now prioritizes cleansing damaging conditions, and heals 5740(1.2).

- If you actually calculate it out, Mending already had a decent HPS. This change aims to improve it’s reliability as a condition cleanse without traiting 10 into Strength and effectiveness as an actual heal – Improving it’s base heal to slightly above a rank 2 Healing Surge and improving it’s scaling with healing power.

---

• Healing Surge now reads:
  Cooldown: 25s
  Adrenaline: 30
  [Adrenaline level]: [Base Healing] (Scaling with Healing Power)
  Stage 0 : 6,094 (1.40)
  Stage 1 : 6,540 (1.40)
  Stage 2 : 7,361 (1.45)
  Stage 3 : 8,837 (1.50)

- This is quite a comprehensive change. The goal of reducing it’s cooldown is to increase the frequency where you can take advantage of it’s secondary effect of restoring Adrenaline. The healing values have, of course, been reduced by an appropriate amount to take into account this new cooldown (At max adrenaline, it’s exactly the same HPS as it’s old 30s CD version). Additionally, the healing provided by this skill at lower rungs of adrenaline have been significantly increased. It’s clearly still a significant advantage to heal at maximum adrenaline, but now it’s not entirely terrible should you be forced to use it otherwise. The biggest impact should be to getting back into a fight after being rallied – As in that situation you would have 0 adrenaline.

I completely agree that if Mending wasn’t such a bad heal it would promote so much build diversity due to not requiring Cleansing Ire as much. However I do enjoy the flavour that Healing Surge has now and feel it’d be a terrible shame to remove the adrenaline gain off it – so I would suggest keeping the concept of it the same but make the heal scale less badly at lower adrenaline levels.

Inb4 warriors don’t need buffs, they OP!

On topic; Mending is the prime candidate for a buff.

Healing Surge as it is now is actually used by people who want to be different and they might find some use in it. I think it does need a buff, but the core mechanic appeals to some. IMO it does not punish the warrior for using their mechanic, instead it raises the skill level required to utilize it fully. That being said, if healing surge has the highest skill ceiling, it should also have the biggest payoff. Right now, it does not.

Defiant Stance is just not meant to be used outside of PvE and ZvZ. And in those areas it does it’s job very well. I guess they feared it being OP and gave it a casttime, which I find ridiculous as well (it is a stance). I also don’t think the extra 1 second from sure footed would make it OP. Just stop attacking the warrior, and you will be fine (like others pointed out, it has one of the easiest and solid counters in the game).

Thus, Mending is the only healing skill never worth taking in it’s current form. It is not hard to imagine this skill being a viable alternative for CI. Especially with Restorative strength. And let’s face it, if your not using CI, you will be investing into Strength. Due to the often mediocre Adept traits in that line, taking restorative strength with such a low CD healing skill makes perfect sense.

Thus I would just like to see the cooldown reduced to thieves Withdraw, 15 seconds. This will allow the warrior to cleanse more often, which is what the skill is meant to do. Reduce the healing appropriately as to not make mending outheal Surge. Something like 4-4.5k sounds alright.

However, you also have to think about what this would do if warriors take both mending, restorative strength and cleansing ire. I myself run a build right now (4/0/6/0/4) taking Death from Above in Strength (cause it is so boss). I could easily replace that and be a condition cleansing machine.

Healing Surge is kind of a weird heal in the sense that you have to choose between more adrenaline or more healing. So that part I can understand people wanting to change and the fact that it is 99.9% of the time the better decision to elect for the higher heal because of the huge discrepancy between Stage 0 and Stage 4. No other heal has to make that tradeoff as far as I am aware.

The Healing based off adrenaline is fine, IMO I think there is just too large of a gap between Stage 0 Healing and Stage 3. 4,000 is just way too much. I agree with Jzaku’s proposal, however make Stage 0 a 2K difference between Stage 4, i.e making Stage 0 heal for 6,800, Stage 1 7,500, stage 2, 8,200 and stage 3 8,900. 2K Healing is still a significant difference, but makes it a tougher decision of whether you want adrenaline or a larger heal.

Mending, either they should reduce the cooldown or up the healing a little bit. I think they should up the healing a little bit. Three conditions every 15 seconds is kind of a lot given the warrior options for condi removal. Up the healing to around 6,300 and it becomes a viable heal. That puts it at 300 HP/S which is fair.

I feel like taking all those cleanses would be pretty overkill considering it would make you really vulnerable to anything NOT using condis. You’d basically be a Diamond Skin Ele. With Berserker Stance and either CI or a buffed Mending I feel like you’d be set and be able to devote everything else to offense so that the fight doesn’t last long enough for you to be overwhelmed.

I think in general improving things that make us less dependent on CI or changing CI in general opens up a world of builds for a warrior.

Maybe something like a DPS shout build that goes 20/0/0/30/20 for example.

jportell.2197:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

Warriors should get increased condition clear in their heals when they give mesmers more condi removal in their healing skills. Because lets face it mesmers are the most struggling class in any pvp mode aside from maybe ranger.

#1: If you don’t have anything productive to say, why are you even responding in this thread aside from general crying.

#2: What relevance do Mesmers have in this thread please explain this to me?

#3: These are just suggestions to improve Warrior healing skills. Nobody denies Mesmers or any other classes need improvements to some of there mechanics and traits. If you are so upset go cry in another thread or make your own.

#4: Condis are not what keeps Mesmers out of the meta.

#5: Mending Purity gives Ether Feast which is already one of the best HPS skills a 2 condi removal for just 10 points in inspiration. It also gives the healing mantra 4 condi removals on a a very short CD and Mimic gives 2 on a 15 second CD. Mesmers have other issues we all know this but condition management isn’t one of them. The options are there.

killahmayne.9518:

Mending, either they should reduce the cooldown or up the healing a little bit. I think they should up the healing a little bit. Three conditions every 15 seconds is kind of a lot given the warrior options for condi removal. Up the healing to around 6,300 and it becomes a viable heal. That puts it at 300 HP/S which is fair.

I’d still rather have the reduced cooldown. Reduce the amount of conditions removed to 2, and your fine IMO. 300 HP/s sounds fine. So make it 4,5k heal every 15 seconds, 2 conditions removed (untraited).

this way, mending would make the warrior strong against conditions, and weaker against burst. Perfect.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Healing Surge

I got to disagree on this one. Instead of seeing the mechanic as punishment see it as promoting thoughtful gameplay. Yes, you can be bursted when you just spent your Adrenaline. But guess what, maybe you made a wrong choice by spending it. Even at the lowest level the healing value is higher than many other healing skills and you also gain your Adrenaline back. Using it in such a situation isn’t as bad as you make it sound.

The activation time is alright and on a level almost all healing skills are. Personally, there is only one thing I’d like to see changed. The 3rd level should clearly outheal the HPS of the Healing Signet. Because it promotes skillful gameplay instead of passive regeneration.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Mending

I never had drouble with Adrenaline gain and while it is a component of CI I don’t think that it is reason for its popularity. Instead of adding Adrenaline to Mending I’d rather see it healing all damaging conditions and having the base healing value increased slightly. That might be enough for people to consider it again. It doesn’t have to be turned into a second CI. Especially since Mending and CI can be combined.

This actually is one of the biggest issues I see with Warriors. You won’t be able to improve condition removal on Warriors as long as it can be combined with CI because it would be over the top. Which makes CI the thing which needs to change first.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Defiant Stance

For some reason ANet wants to avoid instant healing skills and I can get why. The casttime is reasonable so people can react to the skill. Still, Defiant Stance has its niche uses. Not every skill can perform at its best in every situation and not every skill can be easy to use. Especially in large scale fights. On a different note: Defiant Stance is still far better off than Litany of Wrath or A.E.D.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Most Warriors are just as displeased with their healing options as those who don’t play the class. Warrior as a whole has been all but forced into using the following: Healing Signet, Longbow, 4 points into Defense for Cleansing ire, and 3 points into Discipline for Fast Hands. It’s hard to not run builds like Hambow or Celestial Axebow when not taking them typically involves dieing horribly.

The thing is that nobody is forced to do anything. I’d also argue that Warriors do not die horribly without them. That’s a pretty harsh exaggeration. I personally run many non meta builds on my characters and do fine. On all classes. But quite obviously picking the best available option is the way to go in a competitive environment. However, wether or not there are alternatives to meta choices should not be the only question to ask. It should also be considered if the status quo is reasonable.

While I do agree that Healing Surge and Mending can need improvements I also feel that Healing Signet and Cleansing Ire still need downwards adjustments. They probably aren’t the only culprits (Hello, Stances!) but they are the main reasons for the already long lasting meta. The level of sustainability you gain by just using those two appears to be unjustifiably high when compared to the rather small investment.

We have even come to a point where Healing Signet is the default option and people make their weapon choices solely based on CI. Some people want skills to be changed so their synergy with CI is increased which is utterly stupid and should show how broken this part of the class is. I don’t think that buffing alternatives to the level of Healing Signet and CI is reasonable because they offer too much for a too small commitment. Instead the dominant choices need to be weakened while alternatives receive moderate improvements so they approximate in power.

Ultimatively, buffing alternatives, in this case the (mainly) heals, won’t change anything as long as they don’t clearly outperform the current meta. However, such a buff can hardly be justified (not even with the goal of build diversity) when considering the still very good overall performance of Warriors in basically every game mode.

this isn’t a warrior exclusive issue, imho they need to make a pass over all healing skills since every class will have only one (or if they’re lucky 2!) healing skills that anyone will use.
engis for example will never use something other than turret because of its high healing(which is aoe), condi clear and low(ish) cooldown.

also, just an observation from a GW1 player, Healing Signet and Mending need their names reversing.
since mending was the passive HoT in GW1.

I agree with every thing you say about the problems, especially mending should be 15 second CD.

warriors used to use healing surge and mending, not because they were good, only because they were a better choice compare to healing signet. tldr; they were kitten awful but still best amount what we had.

The signet just has too many advantages over the other heals along with being some of the best overall healing. I know the danger of comparing apples to oranges, especially in a vacuum, but every other class’s passive heal has some sort of caveat/mechanic attached to it that keeps it from being just straight passive.

I would like to see something like increased healing from signet based on current adrenaline (sadly already used in adrenal healing) or have it some how tied to your burst skill (lower healing per tick but have burst skills give you a burst of healing on use, still good synergy with CI).

Either way it needs some counterplay other than “Have 100% poison uptime”. Anyways, just a couple ideas I was thinking on to make it a bit more interesting than just a straight passive heal.

They should change Healing Signet’s passive to increase healing power.

Mostly just because I think it would be funny.

IMO

Healing surge is for offensive builds. They want that bump in adrenaline, they always get adrenaline, the heal is grand at stage 3. It is a good healing skill even with little to no healing power. It fills a purpose.

Defiant stance fits a group build best, turning bright blue (obvious) and turning damage to healing (also obvious) making it easy to counter if people are paying attention. Should remove the cast time and lower the cooldown to 30 seconds. It has a high potential heal but if countered this skill would leave you with just about nothing, which healing skills should not be doing. In a 1v1 or small scale setting, I can’t see this being utilized too well but at least it has a role.

Healing signet should only fit builds who’s main goal is to live. I’d suggest further lowering the HPS base while greatly bumping the scaling off healing power. If a warrior wants to be the meat shield let them but they should have to invest a defensive stat to get there. Right now the base is far too good to pass up, adding the 200 extra healing power from defense (which almost all warriors grab) and it’s just naturally the best option. Also something needs to be done with the active, and if the goal is to fit a face-tank build I’d go with some sort of defensive support to fit the dual function because a small flat heal is meaningless compared to the loss of HPS.

Mending should be an alternative to those who lack sufficient condition removal. It may not be as good as cleansing ire (3 every 10 seconds vs 20 seconds) but it carries the weight having a decent heal attached. Adrenaline per condition removal would be neat but that function is already filled by healing surge as an adrenal supplier. I’d go for something more like reduce the cooldown by 1 second per condition removed, that way it can better compete with cleansing ire, but it wouldn’t be op. The trait Restorative Strength would not affect this skill’s cooldown reduction, or it would be OP. The overall HPS this skill offers is nice but right now it’s easier to get more from cleansing ire + HS.

Healing Surge seems one of the smartest-designed heals in the game to me (as a Mesmer/Engineer). Odd that you’d like to see it changed. I only got a 43 Warrior which I sometimes take into sPvP, but the heal seems well done.

It either heals you for a lot, or gives you a lot of adrenaline, or a combination thereof.
It has a double-use as a utility/offensive tool (which would explain why the new heal had no direct offensive value).

It’s… pretty cool. I wish more heals I had were designed in a non-boring non-trivial way like it. :O

killahmayne.9518:

jportell.2197:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

Warriors should get increased condition clear in their heals when they give mesmers more condi removal in their healing skills. Because lets face it mesmers are the most struggling class in any pvp mode aside from maybe ranger.

#1: If you don’t have anything productive to say, why are you even responding in this thread aside from general crying.

#2: What relevance do Mesmers have in this thread please explain this to me?

#3: These are just suggestions to improve Warrior healing skills. Nobody denies Mesmers or any other classes need improvements to some of there mechanics and traits. If you are so upset go cry in another thread or make your own.

#4: Condis are not what keeps Mesmers out of the meta.

#5: Mending Purity gives Ether Feast which is already one of the best HPS skills a 2 condi removal for just 10 points in inspiration. It also gives the healing mantra 4 condi removals on a a very short CD and Mimic gives 2 on a 15 second CD. Mesmers have other issues we all know this but condition management isn’t one of them. The options are there.

However this is me pointing out that if warriors get anything changed. It should happen AFTER Anet looks at other classes especially in the terms of buffs.

In the way of nerfs warriors should be looked at first.

IMO, Healing Surge was designed for warriors who trait Berserker’s Power. That said, designing traits and skills around not using one’s class mechanic feels odd.

jportell.2197:

killahmayne.9518:

jportell.2197:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

Warriors should get increased condition clear in their heals when they give mesmers more condi removal in their healing skills. Because lets face it mesmers are the most struggling class in any pvp mode aside from maybe ranger.

#1: If you don’t have anything productive to say, why are you even responding in this thread aside from general crying.

#2: What relevance do Mesmers have in this thread please explain this to me?

#3: These are just suggestions to improve Warrior healing skills. Nobody denies Mesmers or any other classes need improvements to some of there mechanics and traits. If you are so upset go cry in another thread or make your own.

#4: Condis are not what keeps Mesmers out of the meta.

#5: Mending Purity gives Ether Feast which is already one of the best HPS skills a 2 condi removal for just 10 points in inspiration. It also gives the healing mantra 4 condi removals on a a very short CD and Mimic gives 2 on a 15 second CD. Mesmers have other issues we all know this but condition management isn’t one of them. The options are there.

However this is me pointing out that if warriors get anything changed. It should happen AFTER Anet looks at other classes especially in the terms of buffs.

In the way of nerfs warriors should be looked at first.

Do i need to say it again this is a thread suggesting changes to Warrior heals and has nothing to do with what you just said. If you want other classes to be buffed first great go explain that to the world in another thread. Just because a class is in a good spot right now doesn’t mean things can’t be addressed.

ANet has already looked at Warrior Nerfs and a few specific things got nerfed pretty hard. So you know ANet is already looking into more nerfs you don’t even need to be worried about that they nerfed Warriors the last 2-3 patches and another one is probably coming soon.

Lol warrirors have been “shaved.” And they are the only class that actually got adjusted with shaves. Every other class has been pounded into the ground like a giant hammering a post into the ground.

Well the Problem with a buffed mending is, if you Slot it and trait for cleansing Ire.
Practically immune to conditions, which should be warriors weakness

killahmayne.9518:

jportell.2197:

killahmayne.9518:

jportell.2197:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

Warriors should get increased condition clear in their heals when they give mesmers more condi removal in their healing skills. Because lets face it mesmers are the most struggling class in any pvp mode aside from maybe ranger.

#1: If you don’t have anything productive to say, why are you even responding in this thread aside from general crying.

#2: What relevance do Mesmers have in this thread please explain this to me?

#3: These are just suggestions to improve Warrior healing skills. Nobody denies Mesmers or any other classes need improvements to some of there mechanics and traits. If you are so upset go cry in another thread or make your own.

#4: Condis are not what keeps Mesmers out of the meta.

#5: Mending Purity gives Ether Feast which is already one of the best HPS skills a 2 condi removal for just 10 points in inspiration. It also gives the healing mantra 4 condi removals on a a very short CD and Mimic gives 2 on a 15 second CD. Mesmers have other issues we all know this but condition management isn’t one of them. The options are there.

However this is me pointing out that if warriors get anything changed. It should happen AFTER Anet looks at other classes especially in the terms of buffs.

In the way of nerfs warriors should be looked at first.

Do i need to say it again this is a thread suggesting changes to Warrior heals and has nothing to do with what you just said. If you want other classes to be buffed first great go explain that to the world in another thread. Just because a class is in a good spot right now doesn’t mean things can’t be addressed.

ANet has already looked at Warrior Nerfs and a few specific things got nerfed pretty hard. So you know ANet is already looking into more nerfs you don’t even need to be worried about that they nerfed Warriors the last 2-3 patches and another one is probably coming soon.

Simply put this is wrong ^. First of all, this is in the [bold]PROFESSION BALANCE[/bold] forum, not the warrior forum. Second, every single balance change has effects on every other class on the game because if one class gets better you can effectively say every other class got worse in comparison. Every change that is made in this game effects every class in this game. Asking for buffs to warrior skills when other classes are barely viable in most of the game 2/3 of the game is ridiculous:

Mesmers are tw, viel and portal bots in wvw, tw bots in pve, and barely viable with shatter builds, where those shatter builds are much much harder to play then any warrior biuld, in pvp.

Rangers have a broken mechanic in WvW, and fill absolutely no role. In PVE they are viable because of frost spirit, spotter, and vulnerability stacking. In PVP they are only being kept alive by spirits group buffs.

These two classes are in terrible spots and your asking for buffs to a class which:

Is one of if not the very easiest to play in all game modes with passive effects. Warriors have unique group buffs in PVE with banners and good easy to reach damage. Warriors have the best aoe stuns with hammer while being extremely tanky and having absurd mobility with greatsword, and can similarly fulfill many roles in PVP. They also have easily the best build diversity, capable of being extremely tanky, having very direct dps, having very good cc, and having very good condition builds.

Having said that you should understand why someone is aggravated that people continuously ask for buffs for warriors when other classes are barely viable in this game and have awful or no build diversity. Furthermore, the warrior players have been bringing it into the Profession Balance subforum, which is blasphemous considering how strong the class is.

^This guy… He gets it.

IndigoSundown.5419:

IMO, Healing Surge was designed for warriors who trait Berserker’s Power. That said, designing traits and skills around not using one’s class mechanic feels odd.

You’re probably right that it was meant to synergize with BP. You’re also right that it’s strange to encourage NOT using your class mechanic, especially when Warriors have to use CI which means you HAVE to use your adrenaline constantly. Warriors also have no issues with gaining adrenaline most of the time because they have Berserker Stance and CI and often times Burst Mastery. I rarely find myself wanting for more Adrenaline, which is what makes the effect not all that amazing.

It sounds cool on paper but there’s a reason no good Warrior uses it. It’s not that HS is too strong, right now it feels like reducing it any more would make it too weak and the other heals aren’t a viable replacement which would lead to Warriors being just like launch, no sustain.

Several people point out the few strengths of the other heals but the fact is that no good Warrior uses them outside of some rare situations. Many things on Warrior sound good on paper but totally fail in practice.

I’m also not denying that other classes have problems, but I don’t play those classes enough to claim to know what they need. Because of this I’m not going to advocate or make posts about buffing other professions. Just because other professions have issues doesn’t invalidate the problems I have with my main class. There’s such a huge gap between balance updates I would hope that ANet could attempt to tweak all of the classes. If they were doing changes every few weeks, sure I could understand Warrior going on the back burner but not when it’s every 4-6 months. I’d rather not sit around for almost half a year with 0 significant changes. If you want your class changed then feel free to make your own thread.

Also, I posted this here because there’s been no sign of devs reading the Warrior forum but they seem to pay attention to this one.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Xae Isareth.1364:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that, please note that outside of regen banner and Heal Shouts that Warrior lacks smaller heals and boons like Protection that other classes have. If most of them were designed like that I would be more OK with it, but most heals do not require you to do so. When they do have downsideds it’s not normally such a huge difference. The gap between level 0 and level 3 is huge. If you use it on levels 0-1 the amount of healing you get for a 30 second CD is pathetic and Warriors don’t generally need the adrenaline gain as much as they need the healing. I for one can’t justify taking a heal that has such a huge potential drawbacks when the drawback for HS is so much less. While HS still has the huge weakness in the fact that it is very weak if you get bursted, it’s much easier to compensate for in a build.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that

good is a point of view, anakin!

More seriously, Ether Feast operates in the same way. I don’t know whether it’s ‘good’ but it’s there.

jportell.2197:

Lol warrirors have been “shaved.” And they are the only class that actually got adjusted with shaves. Every other class has been pounded into the ground like a giant hammering a post into the ground.

you serious? rifle celestial, fear necro, balthazar engi, steal sd thief, staff ele, dd ele.

Simon.3794:

jportell.2197:

Lol warrirors have been “shaved.” And they are the only class that actually got adjusted with shaves. Every other class has been pounded into the ground like a giant hammering a post into the ground.

you serious? rifle celestial, fear necro, balthazar engi, steal sd thief, staff ele, dd ele.

For a split second I thought you meant Warrior Rifle Celestial and was extremely confused.

Simon.3794:

jportell.2197:

Lol warrirors have been “shaved.” And they are the only class that actually got adjusted with shaves. Every other class has been pounded into the ground like a giant hammering a post into the ground.

you serious? rifle celestial, fear necro, balthazar engi, steal sd thief, staff ele, dd ele.

Fear necro- Terror has had its damage chopped in pvp as well as dhuumfire receiving so many nerfs to the pont where it’s almost never used now.

Rifle celestial engi- only mildly good because of strength runes

Balthazar Engi- nowhere near as hard to deal with as the celestial rifle engi but still there

SD thief- has been nerfed into the ground a few times but now only exists because of everyone running around with 25 might stacks.

Staff/dd ele- dd ele is strong once again because of strength runes staff ele is a one trick pony that is one of the most susceptible builds to focus fire.

And once again when it comes to “shaving” warriors were the only ones to get shaved every other class gets hit hard when they get nerfed. Sayyyyyy mesmer?

zapv.8051:

killahmayne.9518:

jportell.2197:

killahmayne.9518:

jportell.2197:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

Warriors should get increased condition clear in their heals when they give mesmers more condi removal in their healing skills. Because lets face it mesmers are the most struggling class in any pvp mode aside from maybe ranger.

#1: If you don’t have anything productive to say, why are you even responding in this thread aside from general crying.

#2: What relevance do Mesmers have in this thread please explain this to me?

#3: These are just suggestions to improve Warrior healing skills. Nobody denies Mesmers or any other classes need improvements to some of there mechanics and traits. If you are so upset go cry in another thread or make your own.

#4: Condis are not what keeps Mesmers out of the meta.

#5: Mending Purity gives Ether Feast which is already one of the best HPS skills a 2 condi removal for just 10 points in inspiration. It also gives the healing mantra 4 condi removals on a a very short CD and Mimic gives 2 on a 15 second CD. Mesmers have other issues we all know this but condition management isn’t one of them. The options are there.

However this is me pointing out that if warriors get anything changed. It should happen AFTER Anet looks at other classes especially in the terms of buffs.

In the way of nerfs warriors should be looked at first.

Do i need to say it again this is a thread suggesting changes to Warrior heals and has nothing to do with what you just said. If you want other classes to be buffed first great go explain that to the world in another thread. Just because a class is in a good spot right now doesn’t mean things can’t be addressed.

ANet has already looked at Warrior Nerfs and a few specific things got nerfed pretty hard. So you know ANet is already looking into more nerfs you don’t even need to be worried about that they nerfed Warriors the last 2-3 patches and another one is probably coming soon.

Simply put this is wrong ^. First of all, this is in the [bold]PROFESSION BALANCE[/bold] forum, not the warrior forum. Second, every single balance change has effects on every other class on the game because if one class gets better you can effectively say every other class got worse in comparison. Every change that is made in this game effects every class in this game. Asking for buffs to warrior skills when other classes are barely viable in most of the game 2/3 of the game is ridiculous:

Mesmers are tw, viel and portal bots in wvw, tw bots in pve, and barely viable with shatter builds, where those shatter builds are much much harder to play then any warrior biuld, in pvp.

Rangers have a broken mechanic in WvW, and fill absolutely no role. In PVE they are viable because of frost spirit, spotter, and vulnerability stacking. In PVP they are only being kept alive by spirits group buffs.

These two classes are in terrible spots and your asking for buffs to a class which:

Is one of if not the very easiest to play in all game modes with passive effects. Warriors have unique group buffs in PVE with banners and good easy to reach damage. Warriors have the best aoe stuns with hammer while being extremely tanky and having absurd mobility with greatsword, and can similarly fulfill many roles in PVP. They also have easily the best build diversity, capable of being extremely tanky, having very direct dps, having very good cc, and having very good condition builds.

Having said that you should understand why someone is aggravated that people continuously ask for buffs for warriors when other classes are barely viable in this game and have awful or no build diversity. Furthermore, the warrior players have been bringing it into the Profession Balance subforum, which is blasphemous considering how strong the class is.

Yes this is the Profession Balance Forum but its impossible to just one topic to talk about everything wrong in the game. Thats why Topics have a title. And this one its explicit with the profession and is issues.

So if people want to talk about the issues other professions have they just need to create a new topic and give them a title so people dont go there and write things out of topic like hapenned in this one.

" We don’t want to nerf healing signet without increasing the active. We’re looking at ways to make it more attractive to use…"

2 months later…

Healing signet reduced by 8% passive remains unchanged, adrenal healing now scales with healing stat as well as adrenaline levels.

So the balancing of healing signet is now directly reliant upon using adrenal healing.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that, please note that outside of regen banner and Heal Shouts that Warrior lacks smaller heals and boons like Protection that other classes have. If most of them were designed like that I would be more OK with it, but most heals do not require you to do so. When they do have downsideds it’s not normally such a huge difference. The gap between level 0 and level 3 is huge. If you use it on levels 0-1 the amount of healing you get for a 30 second CD is pathetic and Warriors don’t generally need the adrenaline gain as much as they need the healing. I for one can’t justify taking a heal that has such a huge potential drawbacks when the drawback for HS is so much less. While HS still has the huge weakness in the fact that it is very weak if you get bursted, it’s much easier to compensate for in a build.

Consume Conditions, use it with no conditions its meh.
SoM forces a thief to play very offensive with high AoE to make any use of the passive.
Litany of Wrath forces the guardian to immediately pump dps or miss out on any real healing.
etc.

There is a good list of healing skills that are best used under specific conditions and healing surge is no exception. However it has the function of either giving you the offense you needed or to heal you a lot or possibly both if you plan to spend that adrenaline. It’s a well designed heal that requires thought and has the potential to be on par with if we exclude the fact that HS is never removed and never requires risking a cast time (because you don’t use the active). Hs should only work for bunker like spec’s who have some investment into Healing power, it should not have such a good base heal because it makes it impossible for the other healing skills to compete then.

NinjaEd.3946:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that, please note that outside of regen banner and Heal Shouts that Warrior lacks smaller heals and boons like Protection that other classes have. If most of them were designed like that I would be more OK with it, but most heals do not require you to do so. When they do have downsideds it’s not normally such a huge difference. The gap between level 0 and level 3 is huge. If you use it on levels 0-1 the amount of healing you get for a 30 second CD is pathetic and Warriors don’t generally need the adrenaline gain as much as they need the healing. I for one can’t justify taking a heal that has such a huge potential drawbacks when the drawback for HS is so much less. While HS still has the huge weakness in the fact that it is very weak if you get bursted, it’s much easier to compensate for in a build.

Consume Conditions, use it with no conditions its meh.
SoM forces a thief to play very offensive with high AoE to make any use of the passive.
Litany of Wrath forces the guardian to immediately pump dps or miss out on any real healing.
etc.

There is a good list of healing skills that are best used under specific conditions and healing surge is no exception. However it has the function of either giving you the offense you needed or to heal you a lot or possibly both if you plan to spend that adrenaline. It’s a well designed heal that requires thought and has the potential to be on par with if we exclude the fact that HS is never removed and never requires risking a cast time (because you don’t use the active). Hs should only work for bunker like spec’s who have some investment into Healing power, it should not have such a good base heal because it makes it impossible for the other healing skills to compete then.

I’ve tried using Healing Surge numerous times, it’s not good. The fact remains that in oreder to survive as a Warrior you need to constantly use your adrenaline to cleanse conditions with CI. It’s not a risk-reward skill, it’s almost all risk with the occasional reward. Why would I want to run the risk of needing my heal right after using a burst? Warriors already have to use LB to ensure you don’t get overwhelmed by conditions, why would I want a heal that adds yet another risk that other classes don’t have to take? If Healing Surge was good, we would see people using it. You also can’t blame it on Heal Sig because it’s in a good place now.

As for Consume Conditions, Necromancers have ways to apply conditions to themselves and it’s not dependent on their class mechanic. Let me ask you this, would you use a Necomancer heal that only healed for a decent amount if you have full life force?

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that, please note that outside of regen banner and Heal Shouts that Warrior lacks smaller heals and boons like Protection that other classes have. If most of them were designed like that I would be more OK with it, but most heals do not require you to do so. When they do have downsideds it’s not normally such a huge difference. The gap between level 0 and level 3 is huge. If you use it on levels 0-1 the amount of healing you get for a 30 second CD is pathetic and Warriors don’t generally need the adrenaline gain as much as they need the healing. I for one can’t justify taking a heal that has such a huge potential drawbacks when the drawback for HS is so much less. While HS still has the huge weakness in the fact that it is very weak if you get bursted, it’s much easier to compensate for in a build.

I got to agree with Xae here. I’d probably agree with you if Healing Surge didn’t have the Adrenaline gain attached to it, but it does. This offers versatility and encourages using the heal in different situations. Even if you happened to heal at a lower Adrenal level than 3 you will still gain Adrenaline. That’s an advantage, a bonus, and not a disadvantage. That is why you don’t see other heals working the same way. Because, for example, Ether Feast would also spawn up to 3 Illusions. Consume Conditions would fill up your Lifeforce. Yeah… that would be nuts. I know.

Besides that, as I said before, Healing Surge still got a very high healing value even at lower lower levels. The HPS is indeed quite low but you can still burst heal for quite a significant amount. And that is what Healing Surge quite obviously was designed for.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Several people point out the few strengths of the other heals but the fact is that no good Warrior uses them outside of some rare situations. Many things on Warrior sound good on paper but totally fail in practice.

Those situations aren’t that rare and they do exist in practice. It’s not only on paper. The main issue here is the Healign Signet not the performance of the other heals. It is as simple as it gets. The HPS is better as long as not facing perma Poison and it is applicable to basically every scenario and build. While Healing Surge could need a slight bump it doesn’t suck. Neither does Defiant Stance. The only heal I consider underwhelming is Mending. The other heals aren’t neglected because they are too situational or too weak but because the Healing Signet remains too strong in comparison. Period.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I’ve tried using Healing Surge numerous times, it’s not good. The fact remains that in oreder to survive as a Warrior you need to constantly use your adrenaline to cleanse conditions with CI. It’s not a risk-reward skill, it’s almost all risk with the occasional reward. Why would I want to run the risk of needing my heal right after using a burst? Warriors already have to use LB to ensure you don’t get overwhelmed by conditions, why would I want a heal that adds yet another risk that other classes don’t have to take? If Healing Surge was good, we would see people using it. You also can’t blame it on Heal Sig because it’s in a good place now.

It is not that difficult to heal before using your burst. Most Warrior players got so numbed by the constant use of CI that they feel the obligation to use their Burst skills on cooldown just for condition removal even if not affected by any conditions. Spamming Burst skills is an issue anyway and CI makes it worse.

I really hate those ‘Warriors die without CI’ statements because they’re not true. I’d even argue that in most situations you can receive the same results with condition removal which is less efficient than CI by simply using it thoughtfully. Meaning, CI isn’t a necessity, just the best option. Of course, less efficient condition removal is less forgiving and requires more attention. We all know that people don’t like that.

I can think of very few viable builds that don’t have CI + LB. Without it, you’re going to die to any sort of condition Necro, Balthazar Engi, Condi Warrior, etc because the amount they apply will outpace removal from Soldier + Shouts or Warhorn removal. I’ve tried running both of those things together and it was awful because you could just barely keep up but you also had hardly any offense. If you claim that there’s such a build that is viable and lacks CI then please show me it.

As I have said numerous times, having a heal that give you adrenaline isn’t that much of an advantage. You also don’t always have the luxury of knowing when you’re going to need to heal. One second you can be fine, you use your burst, suddenly you get Backstabbed and now you only have access to a puny heal on a 30 second CD. Cleansing Ire is needed and Healing Surge goes directly against it, one says “use me, use me” while the other says “if you use me, I suck.” Traits like Heightened Focus and Berserker’s Power aren’t necessarily punishing you for using your Adrenaline because using a burst while under their effect means you either have a higher chance to crit on your burst or to deal more damage. It’s easy to gain adrenaline on Warrior but when you REALLY need to heal you don’t want to have to wait those extra few seconds. So no, Healing Signet isn’t too good, Healing Surge is bad.

The healing from levels 0-2 is stupidly low and not to mention that using it at level 2 not only heals for a low amount (considering Warrior often lacks damaging mitigation that other classes have) but also only gives you a single measly bar of adrenaline making it a lose-lose. Also, neither of you said if you would take a healing skill on Necro that would only heal you for the max amount if you had full Life Force. Letting it fill your full Life Force bar would be a bit OP though because Death Shroud is WAY better than burst skills especially with Power Necros. It’s not a good comparison but the whole fact remains that it would be a heal that actively discourages you from using your main class mechanic. It’s not about risk reward, it’s about saying “would I rather suffer through these conditions or do I want my heal to not suck?”

I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that if you were to nerf Healing Signet into uselessness that Warriors would fall out of the meta because their sustain would not be high enough. I know this because the Healing changes came after CI/Dogged March/all the other buffs and Warriors were still not viable. Even after the first week or so Warriors using Healing Surge weren’t being successful. It wasn’t until Healing Signet became the norm that Warriors became viable. Go play a Healing Surge Warrior using either Hambow or Celestial Axebow in a TPvP match and see how well you do. Chances are you’ll have little success.

That’s just like any heal, there are drawbacks to using it different that just the flat heal. Thief with withdraw, I could use it to heal up after being immobilized and spiked, or I could clear the immobilize and avoid the hit altogether. Guardian I can use the signet and disable the passive condi clear I need or hold onto it and see if I can sustain from other sources of healing.

Warrior isn’t some quick thinking class, they have room for error and obtaining stage 3 adrenaline to then use healing surge isn’t a difficult task. The heal isn’t punishing in any way, you just have to know how to set it up or it won’t be as potent. It’s like saying consume conditions is punishing because a ~5k heal is weak without taking into consideration of how much you heal per condition. It’s a thoughtful healing skill, and there needs to be more of that done to the traits and other skills that are too simple of a design a.k.a HS.

The base heal could use some help on Healing surge but it’s not a bad skill. It’s just not comparable to HS in any way. IMO healing surge on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most effective) I’d say it’s at about a 7. Healing signet would be cranked to 11 even after it was “nerfed”.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

I have to agree.
Mesmers Ether Feast works pretty much the same way. Its heal increases with the amount of illusions up. It is also the Healing skill most Mesmers use. (This includes Shatter Mesmer)

Whats so terrible about the other warrior heals?

Mending removes 3 conditions, its healing is average but if it counters poison-debuff as the condition removal happens before the heal.

Healing Surge is a massive heal on full adrenaline, a wooping 9.8k with a 1.5 scaling on healing power. And it fills up your adrenaline to full, along with all the benefits that conveys.

Defiant Stance is simply a 3sec godmode, you are guarenteed unkillable for 3seconds. Poison also doesnt debuff this healing anymore. With just a 1/4sec casttime, you can pop it just before a burst lands and enjoy your massive heal.

What do these heals have in common? They require a bit more skill then Healing Signet. Which is just awesome while requiring zero player input to be awesome. Thats a luxery problem where HS is simply the outlier that should be brought in line, not buff everything else up to HS absurd level.

I don’t have a problem with Healing Signet having the highest theoretical HPS of the healing skills – it has good sustained healing, but terrible burst recovery. And the sustained healing is only working if you’re not at full health. A well-timed Healing Surge gives a warrior the ability to ride out a damage spike, then counter with their own. Unfortunately, the cooldown is a killer.

The active of Healing signet should probably be changed, though – and possibly not be a self-heal at all. It’s too small to give the few extra seconds to survive to the end of a battle.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I can think of very few viable builds that don’t have CI + LB. Without it, you’re going to die to any sort of condition Necro, Balthazar Engi, Condi Warrior, etc because the amount they apply will outpace removal from Soldier + Shouts or Warhorn removal. I’ve tried running both of those things together and it was awful because you could just barely keep up but you also had hardly any offense. If you claim that there’s such a build that is viable and lacks CI then please show me it.

I’ve not been talking about meta builds. Builds can be viable without being meta. If you want to discuss meta builds – or in other words: optimal trait and skill choices – I agree with you. There is no way around CI when it comes to condition removal. There also hardly is a way around the HS. But from this point of view, buffing alternatives is pointless unless they reach the same level as CI and HS. For me personally, that would be inacceptable.

That being said, what exactly does dying against above mentioned classes mean? Nothing, really. Because that is what is most likely to happen to most other classes and builds if they can’t burst those opponent. You conclude that Warriors are too weak (or at least struggle) and CI is mandatory. I personally conclude that the classes/build set ups you mentioned have a too excessive access to conditions because they steamroll other classes. For example, if the frequency of application was lower, traited Stances would probably become more appealing. I also conclude that CI is quite obviously above average (not to say the best) condition removal because Warriors still stand a chance. Because it lacks a cooldown. That is why I personally refrain from seeing CI as the baseline to aim for when it comes to balancing other skills or traits. It’s out of line.

Running Soldiers + Shouts + Warhorn (with different trait combinations) is far from being aweful. When compared to other classes it is still above average when it comes to condition removal. It also happens to have a very high (potentially close to permanent) uptime of Vigor which Warriors usually lack. All of this affecting your whole group. It also dishes out a high amount of Weakness. Therefore, you can hardly argument that such a build lacks other forms of damage negation or mitigation. CI just happens to outperform every condition removal ingame because it lacks any meaningful restrictions (e.g. cooldown). And again, CI is the issue because it scews the perception people gain of the alternatives. If you die against the classes you mentioned it is because of them needing a balance check. Not the Warrior needing a buff. Against other foes you will be fine even if they focus on condition damage.

Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to go ‘Nerf Warrior’ or anything. But balancing is a very delicate thing and buffing a class which is performing well is insensitive at best. As said earlier, I do think that some heals should be improved but probably not to the extent or in the way you suggested. Because I don’t think that CI and HS are an appropriate benchmark and because I don’t believe that the issues you describe should be solved by buffing Warriors. Your proposition is solely centered on the Warrior while missing the bigger picture.

I never said that Warriors struggle, just that they are hamstringed into have HS, a LB, 4 pts in Defense, and 3 in Discipline. There’s not a helluvalot of room for doing anything new or meta-breaking when you have so few options.

At the very least making Mending worth taking will allow for more DPS builds that don’t need any points in Defense.

I think many classes – not just Warriors – are in the situation that a few very strong traits and skills keep much of the remaining class design in check.

With Warriors, it’s just a bit more pervasive due to how strong some Adrenaline-based effects like Cleansing Ire and how reliable Healing Signet is.

But look at Mesmer Deceptive Evasion: for most builds it’s practically a must-have, but in turn it prevents any real improvement to clone generation because of how many clones DE pumps out (which is why we take it).

Or look at how the weapon-traits interface with the weapons they affect, usually providing non-optional upgrades like -20% CD or +20% range or something.

What I’d do is slowly (class-by-class) go through the class and always buff 2-4 effects relating to a nerf which targets one such “must have” trait. Or skill.

Example – Mesmer clone generation:

• Clones share full HP and Toughness with Mesmer.
• Clones are better, they use skills (which do nothing) and show buffs/debuffs.
• Shatter skills buffed substantially.
• Deceptive Evasion only produces a 3s lasting clone which is not part of the normal 3 clones, and which dodges exactly the other way the Mesmer dodges (so the enemy doesn’t know which direction the Mesmer actually dodged until after). Clone then dissolves, applying Confusion to anyone nearby.

Less clones, but much stronger individually. Removes DE as a must-have for clone-reliant builds while keeping a useful DE for confusing PvP enemies.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I never said that Warriors struggle, just that they are hamstringed into have HS, a LB, 4 pts in Defense, and 3 in Discipline. There’s not a helluvalot of room for doing anything new or meta-breaking when you have so few options.

At the very least making Mending worth taking will allow for more DPS builds that don’t need any points in Defense.

Those weren’t exactly your words. But you said something comparable to it. At least I would consider dying because of not taking meta options as ‘struggling’. I do agree that the alternatives are weaker. There is no way of denying that. However, I disagree that all alternatives are as aweful as some people make them look. It is indeed regretable that so many classes are virtually forced into specific builds. But I doubt that simply buffing several skills will solve this issue for Warriors without harming the game balance and ultimatively the class itself.

For example: Mending. I already said I’m personally all up for a buff. I just don’t think the Adrenaline component you suggested is needed. However, would decreasing the cooldown to 15s actually help build diversity? Regardless of the healing value, it would still be at least 50% less efficient than CI when it comes to condition removal. People will still go for CI because a 4 point trait investment is extremly low for the benefit you can get. While some weapons offer better synergies than others (e.g. LB) CI still appeals to a broad selection of builds with different weapons. It also doesn’t require you to pick any additional utility skill. Even very offensive builds can afford that. Furthermore, you won’t be able to keep people from picking both at once because both, CI and Mending, are easy to access. In other words: Buffing Mending in the proposed way will most likely not promote build diversity but can potentially negatively affect game balance by providing Warriors with even more condition removal.