Guild Wars 2

I tried to play warrior WITHOUT RAMPAGE in the last days. With different setups (zerk, marauder, celestial, soldier, even clerics).
Result: Even tanky builds with soldier amulet just get bursted in seconds, they die faster than my d/d fire magic ele even with 28k and 3,3k armor.

Some conclusions:
1st. Warrior lacks active defense. Stances prefer zerk/marauder setup and leave warrior defenseless once they have cooldowns. Shield Block and Rampage are everything warrior has if getting focused by crowd control (stablity is easily removed by mesmers)
2nd. Sustain is too low. The class relies on healing signet and dogged march regen buff to recover hp. overall damage is too high to for these heals to do their work. shout heal is a joke right now, shouts also leave warrior completely defenseless against focused fire. Blinds also make it impossible to remove conditions with cleansing ire, leaving brawlers recovery as the only reliable way to remove conditions.
3rd. The only way how warrios can work in the meta is full damage with quickness buffs and rampage. consider it as “kill them before they kill me”. quickness allows rampage to quickly burst down enemies while they are stunlocked and rampage gives warrior the necessary defenses to survive it.

how could it be fixed?
quickness+rampage is too strong, but it is the only thing that keeps warrior viable. remove it and the class will be a complete joke. the only build that i tested without rampage with some succes was gs//a/s since shield gives warriors an additional way to mitigate damage. gs/hammer without rampage is simply not working, gets focused way too easily.

some ideas:
1. nerf quickness to 25%. Will solve a lot of issues with rampage. Increase duration of some quickness buffs in the game to compensate for other gamemodes (pve)
2. give an good alternative strenght adept trait. maybe move leg specialist there. restorative strenght fits quite good into tactics.
3. make burst skill immune to blind or let them at least proc cleansing ire without hitting. gives warrior some chances against mesmer.
4. somehow buff warrior defense. lets say a 10% damage reduction while having might?
5. chance berserker stance to pulsing resistance (3*3s). would help alot against condi burst builds.

atm you go war only for rampage, outside it it’s pretty trash

or you just reroll cele d/d ele and go faceroll not even really needing an elitè

#anetbalance

Warrior will be fine if they don’t buff Engi, Ranger, Necro, Thief, and they nerf Mesmer and Ele.

Right now, it’s just the Mesmer and Ele blind spam that screws Warrior with most other classes like Thief. You should have a more balanced match-up with the classes that aren’t Mes and Ele though once you learn how to land hits better.

All that needs to happen at best is make Thick Skin eat one blind every 20 seconds tbh.

The current playstyle which is “kill or be killed” might be clunky, sure. But it’s also what makes Warrior unique. Warrior should be the attack to survive or “out-damage” type of class which is kinda working right now cause the way Warrior deals damage and sustains is somewhat reasonable compared to Mes and Ele at the moment and should be kind of a balancing point with some balancing tweaks to rampage.

Just wait for the elite specs or something imo.

Nier.8741:

Warrior will be fine if they don’t buff Engi, Ranger, Necro, Thief, and they nerf Mesmer and Ele.

The problem isn’t they are weak overall, it’s that over half of it is rampage. I mean, either you completely kitten in 1v2 scenarios vs squishy classes or you can’t contribute to a 3v2 because you don’t have any way of going uphill and your enemy does. Not enough engagements are decided with your skill being factored, just the matchup.

At least Warriors are not in Engineer or Rangers position.

I have to agree i used to run GS+HM and shouts, it was mid rangy, may be not top tier like the cookie cutter builds but decent enough. Shout bow condis was decent enough as well.

Now days is double endure pain + rampage or go home, any variation is just decoration on those 2 skills.

UBcktieDL.5318:

1. nerf quickness to 25%. Will solve a lot of issues with rampage. Increase duration of some quickness buffs in the game to compensate for other gamemodes (pve)
2. give an good alternative strenght adept trait. maybe move leg specialist there. restorative strenght fits quite good into tactics.
3. make burst skill immune to blind or let them at least proc cleansing ire without hitting. gives warrior some chances against mesmer.
4. somehow buff warrior defense. lets say a 10% damage reduction while having might?
5. chance berserker stance to pulsing resistance (3*3s). would help alot against condi burst builds.

1. Quickness used to be 100%. and them they nerfed it to 50% and it was unviable for 2 years. Its finally in a good spot now we don’t need another nerf.

2. I agree, death from above is useless in pvp, restorative strength is useless when using healing signet, and peak performance is useless without rampage.

3.Watch to see when you have blind and don’t waste your burst skill.

4. I don’t think it is necessarry

5. Way too big of a buff, Bezerker stance is already proably the strongest utlility for warriors, and we have some of the most condition removal already.

My suggestions,
1. revert hambow nerfs
2. buff shout heal to something like 2k per shout with celestial
3. switch cleansing ire and spiked armor.

No matter what everyone is going to choose cleansing ire as the grandmaster trait for defense. If these were switched and CI was the grandmaster minor trait, you could choose last stand, spiked armor, or resounding resiliance as a grandmaster giving you more options.

Have you tried celestial hambow + shouts? Great group support, very tanky, mid-tier dps, very easy to stack might up to 25 for your team while CCing the enemy team. Good control on point.

The build on metabattle is a bit off — if you go for brawler’s recovery + vigorous shouts over what’s there, you live a lot longer. You should be able to 1v1 a d/d ele pretty evenly.

nicknamenick.2437:

+1

Totally agree on this topic.

dday.9532:

3. switch cleansing ire and spiked armor.

No matter what everyone is going to choose cleansing ire as the grandmaster trait for defense. If these were switched and CI was the grandmaster minor trait, you could choose last stand, spiked armor, or resounding resiliance as a grandmaster giving you more options.

Yes pls!

So we can pick “last stand” in GM.
(drop some offensive for more defensive stuff, this would be much better)

u dont really need cleansing ire as zerker now…since a lot less condi duration , brawlers recovery and etc.

Kharr.5746:

Have you tried celestial hambow + shouts? Great group support, very tanky, mid-tier dps, very easy to stack might up to 25 for your team while CCing the enemy team. Good control on point.

The build on metabattle is a bit off — if you go for brawler’s recovery + vigorous shouts over what’s there, you live a lot longer. You should be able to 1v1 a d/d ele pretty evenly.

i don’t know how you survive on such a build. i even struggled on soldier hambow , damage is just kitten high at the moment. if you don’t run any stability, any decent rampage warrior will cc you to death, especially with the low mobility of a hambow build.
after some more matches, i believe the primary problem is the lack of active defenses and condi removal. i died quite often against burn guardians because they blinded any burst skill and brawlers recovery seems to cleanse the 1 stack vulnerability more often than the 10 stacks of burning

- shouts help a lot against conditions but leave you very vulnerable to cc/burst damage builds (basically any mesmer/warrior build)
- stances leave you vulnerable against condition builds once berserker stance runs out. helpts quite a bit against burst damage. still weak against surprising condition burst (hello burn guard/condi shatter mesmer)

i started to build around shield. it gives me the defense i personally need without the “oh no i lose, better press rampage” kitten tactic. traited shield seems very strong, i start playing more with axe/shield gs and mace/shield gs.

I think rampage would be more balanced if it was either:

A.) Returned to a Transformation skill to lose the damage boost from Physical Training. It was already very strong before.

or,

B.) Made so all stance effects are lost upon transforming.

And that’s assuming that mesmers and eles will be equally nerfed. With things the way they are right now, rampage is the only thing keeping warriors from being at the bottom of the food chain, and it’s really not even a problem when you compare it to how OP mesmers and eles are in general lol.

And my main is an ele. (\(^-^)/)

Pretty much anything that isn’t one of the three hard counter stances/Rampage is a joke and will burn up upon getting focused.

for the topic opener:
go check my thread about defence trait line of warrior in the warrior class section subforum.
I already said all that has to been said about the most horrible trait line between all the classes of the game. I would save only one trait, defy pain, and only if it procs at 50%,, when condi burst cant finish you like it happens at 25%. Despite of that, all the defensive mechanics of warrior are horrible, making it the primary target in a group combat. Yes u understood it, you will be the first to go down and you will be the first target of the opposite team. So the only way to win is play Rampage and zerker, kill them in a few skill or get killed. Out of rampage, you will have to fight like a thief without stealth, get in the fight burst, and run away waiting for CDs.

Nerf Rampage and you can delete warrior already. But still i would be happy to see a rampage nerf, to force balance team to check warrior defence trait line a bit.

Off course i m not even paying any attention to tactics, by this time i think is irrecoverable. The saddest thing is that half of the trait line is based on the ressing, like they saying “just give up fighting warrior, you are a ressing servant for the other decent classes” XD XD XD. And what happens if even in this, mesmers and guardians can ress even better than you my little warrior XD XD XD. And that with only one trait they obliterate your entire tactic line XD XD. I’ll give you just one little example for the fun:

GUARDIAN ADEPT MAJOR TRAIT:
Protective Reviver: Activate a shield of absorption when you begin reviving an ally. Upon successful revival, you and ally each gain aegis, protection and regeneration.

Compared to the 3 Warrior tactics minor traits:
1) Gain extra toughness per level while reviving.
In this Case guardian would say “who need a 5% damage reduction while reviving when i can reflect any ranged attacks and push back any melee attack? pitifull warrior tanky wannabe”

2) Grant might to nearby allies when you successfully revive someone
In this case guardian would say “oh nice you gived might on reviving, but you know with my 33% protection damage reduction your might is kinda ridicoulous? and dont let me start with the others boons i gived him… just to know little warry why you give them only one boon? And why not give the boon to yourself too after all your try hard to ress? are you so unselfish? It gives you honor, but useless…”

3) Might applied by you also grants healing power:
Guardian would say “didnt you read i already gived regeneration protection and aegis? stop trying little warry… ok ok you are strong, tell me then how much healing power? 10 healing power?? are you that generous, or you just trolling me man really stop it”

And on top of that: guardian can even chose to be a support for the downed or not by chosing this trait line, cuz his trait is a major one!!! Warrior has to resign himself on beeing a ress bot i guess by chosing this line, cuz really seems like if someone chose tactic is because he like to ress, 3 of the traits are for ressing!!!! With absolutely no choice.

I could go on with every single trait comparison on with other classes trait and show how ridicoulous warrior traits are, but i give up. It’s so evident by just reading them after reading other classes one.

nicknamenick.2437:

lighter.2708:

nicknamenick.2437:

+1

Totally agree on this topic.

dday.9532:

3. switch cleansing ire and spiked armor.

No matter what everyone is going to choose cleansing ire as the grandmaster trait for defense. If these were switched and CI was the grandmaster minor trait, you could choose last stand, spiked armor, or resounding resiliance as a grandmaster giving you more options.

Yes pls!

So we can pick “last stand” in GM.
(drop some offensive for more defensive stuff, this would be much better)

u dont really need cleansing ire as zerker now…since a lot less condi duration , brawlers recovery and etc.

Its not just the cleansing, mostly i take it because the adrenaline.
More adrenaline means longer CC/more burst and a higher berserkers power also
Without this on Hammer is really hurting

doesn’t matter tho, you are not tanky enough to take hit to fully profit from the effect..
auto stab+stunbreak will help you land more hits and vigor so more dodges..

im jamming clerics shouts (ham axe/sh) and it feels pretty tough to me. sure, not tough like pre patch and those shout heal nerfs hurt but still good for playing.

The move of the meta towards burst and condition burst, with small nerfs to warriors and buffs to other classes, wasn’t at all in their favour. There is only Ramapge now.

Almost everything else about warriors feels below average. It is becoming harder and harder to justify having one on your team, apart from being forced to because that’s the only class member X plays.

Warriors used to be a must have in most teams for a long time. It might be their turn to be pushed out of the meta this time.

Personally, I’d use this chance for a big overhaul of the class if I was ArenaNet:

- make shield a bigger part of the class, with action combat orientated blocks
- make stances a core mechanic, with the ability to swap their passive effects in combat (those would be up to balancing of course)
- not unique to warriors, but make toughness actually matter

These changes would reduce the need to go tripple stances to have any form of defense. Opening up utilities slots for currently unused options like banners, physical skills or shouts (outside of full shout builds).

One can only dream.

Revert ALL adrenaline-related nerfs, make warrior sprint and fast hands baseline, add old banner CD and radius trait to healing one, revert warhorn nerf, combine all Tactics minor traits into one, restore SoR signet buffs back to 30s.
This will give some diversity back.

UBcktieDL.5318:

Some conclusions:
1st. Warrior lacks active defense. Stances prefer zerk/marauder setup and leave warrior defenseless once they have cooldowns. Shield Block and Rampage are everything warrior has if getting focused by crowd control (stablity is easily removed by mesmers)
2nd. Sustain is too low. The class relies on healing signet and dogged march regen buff to recover hp. overall damage is too high to for these heals to do their work. shout heal is a joke right now, shouts also leave warrior completely defenseless against focused fire. Blinds also make it impossible to remove conditions with cleansing ire, leaving brawlers recovery as the only reliable way to remove conditions.
3rd. The only way how warrios can work in the meta is full damage with quickness buffs and rampage. consider it as “kill them before they kill me”. quickness allows rampage to quickly burst down enemies while they are stunlocked and rampage gives warrior the necessary defenses to survive it.

Lol welcome to the world of necros

I still dont understand why shouts needed to be nerfed. They wernt OP at all =/

Rednik.3809:

Revert ALL adrenaline-related nerfs, make warrior sprint and fast hands baseline, add old banner CD and radius trait to healing one, revert warhorn nerf, combine all Tactics minor traits into one, restore SoR signet buffs back to 30s.
This will give some diversity back.

This! I agree with you totally. Also move all weapon-reduction traits to master tier so it doesn’t compete with grand-master traits. And buff/change some of the useless warrior traits to offer more build diversity.