Guild Wars 2

In the discussion about warrior regarding hammer the statement was made by the a-net brass, “If you want to do damage, just use greatsword/axe.”

I am fairly happy about the changes to hammer. I play all aspects of gw2 from spvp/fractals/crafting my legendary/dungeons/living story..and I was happy for spvp that hammer was getting changed, but disappointed those changes will also reflect in PvE.

Not being a hammer user, but a non-ranged warrior (Up-close and personal close quarter combat) The issue you have with that style is that great sword is not the most pick up and go weapon. One actually has to know how to use great sword first before using it. It has no defense, whirlwind is prone to hit-box issue’s on steeper inclines, rush is prone to over shooting if used at longer distances, the f1 has a small precast etc etc..it is still very viable, but you gotta learned it first. This is what makes mace/shield a nice compliment to great sword. It gives you a short duration and long duration block/2x short duration interrupts and a heavy stun that all work fairly well with setting up great sword to do what it does best, but also giving some defense where otherwise you’d have less. Most warrior’s will agree that raw dmg/sustain is a tad better than high crit/crit dmg/burst as it allows you more survival to set up those windows that you can let great sword fly. In terms of opponents..well, I’ve yet to have a player raging at me because i used this combination. Even if i do successfully keep them still for all of 100 blades 3.5 seconds and nail out 8k damage that is dotted with a few lower hitting crits in there.

This is where changes to burst mastery/unsuspecting foe begin to come home. The sustain great sword focus’s on raw power, so it is unsuspecting foe that puts a cherry om top of that dmg (Typical sustains will have 30ish crit chance/20ish% crit dmg/15ish% burst mastery) With it moved to master tier it now compete’s with forceful great sword,..or if prefer to run without forceful great sword and focus on all burst mastery you’ve been clipped there now as well.

There seems to be an element of truth when I say , “If you want damage..use great sword/axe” Is a lot easier said than done..and if you want to do damage and keep some survival viability it is traits like unsuspecting foe/heavy investment in burst mastery/reasonable cast times on skull crack and similiar that all allow you to do that damage when you’ve successfully angled downed a targets area’s to move and then pinned them down.

I do think hammer needed to be toned down. However I did notice with the release of up coming changes and some of the philosophy about what role developers felt professions should aim for (Thank-you for that.) That it was also mentioned nothing was written in stone yet.

As that is the case, if you get the time to roll a a typical sustain great sword warrior with GS-mace/shield w/ unsuspecting foe/skull crack/forceful GS and general handy traits then run one for a handful of matches with unsuspecting foe..then again without and the evidence begins to pile up that although these changes were aimed at toning down the hammer and the warrior mace/hammer CC train express..it does still indirectly affect the builds where they did get a great sword because they were aiming at damage.

with unsuspecting foe/GS f1/rage signet these are the things that help lift a sustain style’s average crit chance to a high crit chance for a reasonable window of time and allows great sword to do the damage it was meant to do.

I kinda have to cast my vote and and say moving unsuspecting to master is not perhaps the best idea, but lowering it’s crit % and changing merciless hammer from “increased damage against disabled…” to “Increased damage against stunned foe’s” is probably a better path to go down as it impacts less the traits/skills used with great sword to do “Get a great sword if you wanna do damage.” and affects PvE less and still retains great sword as a weapon that is not spam friendly, but requires good use of skills used in synergy to get the most from it.

TL:DR- feed the mind..a page isn’t much to read.

gs/mace shield is still pretty kittened lol, it’s unforgiving to play against especially with how warrior sustain is. It’s also pretty forgiving to play with disengage with greatsword (5s weaponswaps/rush/whirlwind). The burst skill on mace also has a really short cooldown plus there’s 2 blocks with mace/shield and 3 CCs.

gs axe/shield zerker bullcharge frenzy endura pain warrior!!!!!

Lighter.5631:

gs axe/shield zerker bullcharge frenzy endura pain warrior!!!!!

Yay! I LOVE free rallies!XD

Warriors are still going to be as stupid as ever. All their weaponskills do craptons of damage on top of having rather low cooldowns relative to other classes, and now that is paired with stance immunities and healing signet sustain.

If you think a 20% damage nerf to two hammer skills is going to do anything when their hammer auto will still hit like a truck, you don’t know what puts warriors over the top.

My 2k toughness toons still get crit for 4k by incredibly tanky (read: 1v1 immortal) warriors.

The fact is no other class besides the necro can be as tanky and deal that much damage, except the necro can be tunneled to the ground and chain cc’d while doing the same to a warrior is not nearly as viable.

Warrior sustain is broken, and either it or their damage needs to come down. I’d prefer it’d be the damage so they don’t lose the possibility of having bunker options.

Zenith.7301:

Warriors are still going to be as stupid as ever. All their weaponskills do craptons of damage on top of having rather low cooldowns relative to other classes, and now that is paired with stance immunities and healing signet sustain.

If you think a 20% damage nerf to two hammer skills is going to do anything when their hammer auto will still hit like a truck, you don’t know what puts warriors over the top.

My 2k toughness toons still get crit for 4k by incredibly tanky (read: 1v1 immortal) warriors.

The fact is no other class besides the necro can be as tanky and deal that much damage, except the necro can be tunneled to the ground and chain cc’d while doing the same to a warrior is not nearly as viable.

Warrior sustain is broken, and either it or their damage needs to come down. I’d prefer it’d be the damage so they don’t lose the possibility of having bunker options.

It depends on what hit you for 4k. Hard hitting skills always exist. Even on power engi I can build very tanky and hit hard with one skill. But it’s often one skill that’s hard to land or has a long cooldown.

e.g.: A tanky warrior is supposed to deal 4k damage and even more with hundred blades. That’s because hundred blades is hard to land on an enemy, unless you use specific utilities. And even there, the damage is dealt over 3.5 seconds. It’s not the same thing as a skill that deals 4k damage istantly.