Guild Wars 2

Hey, my name is Blaze and I love Warrior class, currently having over 2000 games on it. It’s really a shame the class has been on the bottom of the food chain ever since people figured out you can dodge Bullscharge-Frenzy-100b. It’s obvious devs have a serious problem with balancing it. I’ve seen a lot of suggestions around the forums, some are quite good, others not so much.

What I love about the class is how manual it is compared to all the others. As a Warrior you can’t just press your skills and be sure they hit, you have to MAKE sure they land through right positioning, aiming and watching the range. While it puts Warrior at the disadvantage compared to other classes, it’s also what makes the class fun to play.

With that in mind, I decided to go over every single skill and trait and propose a complete redesign to improve class’ performance without dumbing down the class and sacrificing the ‘manual’ element that makes it fun to play. I think months upon months of number tweaking is not working out and it’s high time for some real changes.

1. Expanding Burst Mechanic

Burst is a rather poor mechanic compared to what other classes have, and I believe it has a lot of room for improvement.

There are three things which can be done to make bursts more meaningful:

• Improving current F1 skills – I’ll be talking about those in each weapon’s section.
• Introducing new ways of spending adrenaline – Bursts should be able to provide more diffirent effects than a single extra skill per weapon set. I propose adding extra burst skills to let us choose which of the effects we want – F2 ‘utility’ burst skill for every main hand weapon, as well as F3 skills for off-hand weapons (F3 not avaliable while wielding two-handed weapons). I’ll provide example skills in each weapon’s section.
• Streamlining adrenaline-related traits – Currently there are two types of traits countering each other – either spending adrenaline or holding onto it. I believe all of those should be changed to provide their effects either while earning or spending adrenaline to promote more active usage of it instead or sitting on it for passive effects. I’ll go into detail about each of those in traits section.

2. Weapons

• Greatsword

I see Greatsword as mobile weapon – being all over the place, going in and out of meele range while providing constant AoE pressure. I should be able to feel the momentum of this giant weapon. Due to its size it should be able to hit larger area than one-handed meele weapons, but it’s unability of performing precise strikes should cause a slight damage penalty.

General:
Decrease damage of all skills by 10-15%
Increase hit radius of all skills from 130 to 180-200.

F1 – Shockwave (New Skill) – Shoot a wave of energy that damages and knocks down foes in line.
Example: http://youtu.be/-bcpWuc2W4I?t=28s
Cooldown – 10s
Cast Time – 0.75s
Damage – 50% of Eviscerate damage, scaling with adrenaline level
Range – 400/500/600 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Knockdown – 0.5s
Combo Finisher – Physical Projectile

F2 – Sandstorm (New Skill) – Spin in place, disturbing dust beneath your feet, blinding and weakening nearby foes.
Cooldown – 15s
Cast Time – 1s, self root while casting
Damage – 100/250/450 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Blind – 3s (reapplies every 2 seconds)
Weakness – 4s
Radius: 180
Duration – 3/4/5s (scaling with adrenaline level)
Combo Field – Smoke

#1 – Increase vulnerability duration on first two attacks to 10 seconds, increase damage on final strike by 15%
#2 – Rename to Bladestorm. Replace skill with Guardian’s Whirling Wrath mechanic, working only in meele range (remove the projectile part), reduce damage by 30% from original 100b. Increase base cooldown to 10 seconds.
#3 – It’s fine.
#4 – Revert to the state before ‘reverse bladetrail’ removal or increase angle at which skill activates to 180-270 degrees. Currently skill often fails when trying to attack a target outside 90 degree angle in front of character.
#5 – Rename to ‘Dash’. Instead of trying to improve current animation (which often fails even after recent changes), simply replace it with something that already works – Swoop mechanic from Ranger’s GS.

• Hammer

As another big weapon, I believe range on hammer skills should also be slightly increased.

General:
Increase hit radius of all skills from 130 to 150.

F1 – Earthshaker – It’s mostly fine. Needs a slight improvement when landing point is lower than when you started, so it actually activates when hitting the ground, instead of mid-air.

F2 – Earthsplitter (New Skill) – Slam the hammer into the ground, creating a fissure which blocks enemy movement. (Unlike Guardian Staff wall, this would simply block enemies from moving instead of knocking them down while they try to cross)
Example: http://youtu.be/Fz5t71FF-GU?t=8s
Cooldown – 25s
Cast Time – 1s
Damage – None
Range – 300/450/600 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Duration – 4s

#1 – Smooth out transition between 2nd and 3rd hit.
#2 – It’s Fine. (Current range is 130 not 150 though)
#3 – It’s Fine.
#4 – Make self root kick in 0.25s after cast has started, remove the 2nd root which kicks in after cast has finished.
#5 – Make knockdown duration 2s as it’s supposed to be, right now it’s more like 0.5-0.75s.

• Longbow

F1 – Combustive Shot – It’s fine.

F2 – Heavy Arrow (New Skill) – Fire a quick shot to remove crippled, chilled and immobilized and push yourself away from your foe.
Cooldown – 20s
Cast Time – 0.25s
Damage – 500
Range – 300
Pushback distance – 300/500/700 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Combo Finisher – Physical Projectile

#1 – Increase projectile speed by 15%
#2 – It’s fine.
#3 – Reduce cast time to 0.5s, increase projectile speed by 10%
#4 – It’s fine.
#5 – It’s fine.

• Rifle

F1 – It’s fine.

F2 – Shotgun (New Skill) – Fire a powerful scattershot that knocks back, bleeds and cripples foes in a cone. (120 degrees in front of character)
Cooldown – 20s
Cast Time – 0.5s
Damage – 400/550/700 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Range – 300
Knockback – 300
Bleed (8 stacks) – 4s/7s/10s (scaling with adrenaline level)
Cripple – 5s

#1 – It’s fine.
#2 – It’s fine.
#3 – It’s fine.
#4 – Increase vulnerability to 10 stacks.
#5 – It’s fine.

• Axe

F1 – It’s fine.

F2 – Bury The Hatchet (New Skill) – Toss your axe into the ground, crippling your enemies, granting swiftness and protection to your allies.
Cooldown – 20s
Cast Time – 0.5s
Damage – None
Radius – 200/250/300 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Cripple – 5s/7s/9s (scaling with adrenaline level)
Protection – 5s
Swiftness – 10s

F3 (offhand) – Chained (New Skill) – Throw chained axes at nearby foes, immobilizing them.
Cooldown – 30s
Cast Time – 0.75s
Damage – 500
Radius – 150/300/450
Immobilize – 3s
Combo Finisher – Whirl

#1 – Redistribute damage, making 3rd and 6th hits in the chain hit harder, instead of having everything on 6th hit.
#2 – Increase Vulnerability to 5 stacks.
#3 – It’s fine.
#4 – Increase damage to be the same as #2, Increase fury duration to 5-6s.
#5 – Not sure about this one…

• Mace

F1 – It’s fine.

F2 – Seismic Wave (New Skill) – Slam your mace into the ground, creating wave that knocks down foes.
Cooldown – 30s
Cast Time – 1s
Damage – 800
Radius – 150/250/350 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Knockdown – 1s/1.5s/2s
Combo Finisher – Blast

F3 (offhand) – Turbulence (New Skill) – Spin around, launching your foes into the air and reflecting projectiles.
Cooldown – 25s
Cast Time – 0.75s
Damage – 600
Radius – 200
Launch – 200/350/500 (scaling with adrenaline level)
Combo Finisher – Whirl

#1 – Reduce cast time of 3rd skill to 0.75s
#2 – Make it work like Sword #5 block, so it doesn’t get cancelled by projectiles.
#3 – It’s fine.
#4 – Reduce cast time to 0.5s, Increase Vulnerability to 5 stacks.
#5 – It’s fine.

• Sword

F1 – It’s fine.

F2 – Acrobatic Slash (New Skill) – Slash your foe, then evade backwards, curing crippled, chilled and immobilized.
Cooldown – 20s
Cast Time – 0.25s
Damage – 500
Evade – 0.25s/0.5s/0.75s (scaling with adrenaline level)
Distance – 400/500/600 (scaling with adrenaline level)

F3 (offhand) – Vicious Stab (New Skill) – Stab your foe with both weapons, applying cripple, bleed and weakness.
Cooldown – 20s
Cast Time – 0.75s
Damage – 500
Cripple – 6s
Bleed (6 stacks) – 10s
Weakness – 6s

#1 – Hamstring – rename to Cold Steel, change cripple to 0.5-0.75s chill (so we can go back to no-ICD Leg Specialist)
#2 – Some people report issues with skill pathing, this should be looked at.
#3 – Either reduce cooldown to 12s or cast time to 0.5s.
#4 – Slightly speed up bleed application.
#5 – It’s fine.

• Shield

F3 (offhand) – Shield Throw (New Skill) – Throw your shield, dazing foes in line.
Cooldown – 20s
Cast Time – 0.5s
Damage – 500
Daze – 1.5s
Range – 400/550/700 (scaling with adrenaline level)

#4 – It’s fine.
#5 – It’s fine.

• Warhorn

F3 (offhand) – Battle March (New Skill) – Grant stability and protection to yourself and allies.
Cooldown – 25s
Cast Time – 0.5s
Range – 800
Stability – 4s/5.5s/7s (scaling with adrenaline level)
Protection – 4s/5.5s/7s (scaling with adrenaline level)

#4 – Reduce aftercast.
#5 – Reduce aftercast.

3. Traits

• Strenght
  Stick and Move (25p) – Replace with Berserker’s Might(XII) (reduce it to 1 strike per 3 seconds).
  III – Great Fortitute – Replace with Berserker’s Power(XI).
  New III – Berserker’s Power – Increase damage by 5/9/12% (scaling with adrenaline level) for 10 seconds on using Burst skill. Does not stack with Hightened Focus.
  V – Dual Wielding – Increase damage bonus to 10%
  New XI – Agile Movement – Gain evasion during movement skills.
  New XII – Finish Them! – Deal 20% extra damage when target is below 50% health.

• Arms
  IV – Unsuspecting Foe – +25% critical chance against disabled foes.
  VIII – Blademaster – Increases critical chance with a sword by 10%, reduces cooldown of sword skills by 20%

• Defense
  Adrenal Health (15p) – Regenerate health each time you gain adrenaline (80-100 per adrenaline strike).
  Armored Attack (25p) – Replace with Spiked Armor(XII).
  I – Shield Master – Rename to Block Mastery. Reflect missiles while blocking. Reduces cooldown of all block skills by 20%.
  II – Dogged March – Reduce ICD on regeneration to 6 seconds.
  III – Sure Footed – Decrease cooldown of Stance skills by 20%.
  New V – Strong Metabolism – Increase effects of healing skills by 15%.
  VI – Cull the Weak – Increase damage bonus to 10%
  VII – Last Stand – Reduce cooldown to 40s (as Balanced Stance)
  IX – Cleansing Ire – Also makes meele burst skills immune to blind.
  New XII – Last Breath – Become immune to conditions at 25% health.

• Tactics
  Determined Revival (5p) – Remove.
  New 5p – Blood Drinker – Steal health on critical hits (100-150 per crit).
  Fast Healer (15p) – Remove
  New 15p – Inspiring Presence – Increase power and toughness of nearby allies by 100.
  Reviver’s Might (25p) – Remove
  New 25p – Combat Medic – Gain 5 toughness per level while reviving, increase revive speed by 10%.
  I – Leg Specialist – Remove ICD (this is intended to go together with sword #1 change).
  VII – Shrug it Off – Reduce CD to 25s (as Shake it Off).
  IX – Quick Breathing – Warhorn skills recharge 20% faster. Warhorn skills convert 2 conditions into boons.
  X – Burning Arrows – Also reduces longbow skills cooldowns by 20% (was mentioned in patch notes but not applied in game)

• Discipline
  Versatile Power (25p) – Rename to Keep Going – Remove one condition on weapon swap (Possibly ICD 10s?)
  II – Thrill of the Kill – Replace with Hightened Focus.
  New II – Hightened Focus – Increase critical chance by 5/10/15% (scaling with adrenaline level) for 10 seconds on using Burst skill. Does not stack with Berserker’s Power.
  X – Mobile Strikes – Movement skills remove immobilized, chilled and crippled.
  XI – Burst Mastery – Burst skills cost less and become unblockable.
  New XII – Athletic – Endurance regenerates 50% faster (does not stack with Signet of Stamina).

4. Utility skills

• Heals

Mending – Heal yourself and cure four conditions, gaining extra health for each condition cured.
Cooldown – 25s
Cast Time – 1s
Healing – 7000
Healing per condition – 500

Healing Surge – Reduce cooldown to 20 seconds.

Healing Signet
Cooldown – 20s
Cast Time – 1s
Passive – Gain health each time you gain adrenaline (100-150 per adrenaline strike)
Healing – 5000

• Utilities

Kick – Add 4s cripple.
Stomp – Add 4s cripple.
Throw Bolas – Increase projectile speed by 15%
Berserker Stance – Increase duration to 8s
Banner of Tactics – Remove.

New – Scorpion Chain – Pull your foe to you and knock them down.
Cooldown – 30s
Cast Time – 0.5s
Damage – 150
Range – 600
Knockdown – 1.5s

• Elites

Signet of Rage
Passive – Increases movement speed by 25% (does not stack with Warrior’s Sprint trait)
Active – Grants ‘Rage’ for 30 seconds.
Rage: Displays effect similar to Rangers’ Rampage As One for the duration. Every 5 seconds grants swiftness, fury and 5 stacks of might for 6 seconds.

Adrenaline gain from passive is pretty much useless, while extra movement speed is much needed. Change to active is so Elite acts like a Elite, as it is now whole skill can be almost instantly negated by a Thief spamming 3 (and any other way of boon removal).

As of now no idea what to do with other elites…

Posted everything I got, updated crappy notepad formatting, so should be much easier to read now.

Kudos – hard to give credit to everyone whose suggestions I included here, so I’ll just thank every Warrior who posted constructive ideas around these forums, you guys know who you are.

Now, let’s get some constructive discussion going here instead of pointless QQ.

I dont like the hundred blades rework you suggest, and the tactics minor traits either.

I would prefer hundred blades to stay the way it is or just make it movile, or gaining the effect of the number 5 spear skill so you move towards your target.

Here are some suggestions i did in ahother posts:

-Movility skills should grant us evasion.and this could be merged with movile strikes

-The 10% more critical chance on sword should give 20% reduction on sword skills too.

-Yes, the reflecting missiles every time you block should be in the shield trait too and add another more usefull trait in there.

-Tactics minor traits need to be reworked reviving speed and toughness while reviving… nah, replace them for something morsefull like:

-healing every time you use a burst skill in the grand master, or gain regeneration.
-remove 2 condition each time you gain regeneration in master or each time you heal
-Increase healing power by something in adept

-Definitely get rid of those traits that reward you for not using adrenaline, those passive effects for sitting on adrenaline are bad.

-Adrenaline health is one example just change it so the effect will stay when you are full and then use your adrenaline and it will fade over time to the minimum level.

-Sure footed trait in the defense line should give 20% reduction cd on stances instead of 1 second duration…

-Definitely rush needs to be like bulls charge with no knock down.

-Warhon should convert more than 1 condition in a boon with the quick breathing, let us be realistic here, conditions are everywhere you have like 10 applications of everything and you convert 1 condition with warhorn… its just not that usefull.

-This is another… f2 bursting skills for offhand and 2 handed weapons, just to add more variety and utulities complexity to the class.

-Banners Burst skills, depending on the banner you do a burst that gives boons to the party members and gives conditions to allies, like i said, depending on the banner you used.

And you can put your suggestions in this topic i did:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/The-Topic-that-will-fix-the-warriors/page/2#post2354698

@Fenrir Cool suggestions, and most of those are included in the changes I proposed. Imo evasion on mobility skills is too powerful to be merged into Mobile Strikes, as this would grant Warrior more evades than Ranger, so I placed it as 30p Strenght trait.

As for 100b, Spear 5 mechanic is fine underwater, but on the ground following target like this would be too automated for my taste, I’ld prefer to keep control over my character at all times.

Tactics 25 pt kinda sticks out. I’d say make it a master trait and slot in empowered instead. I’d also keep the GS damage and keep 100b on the GS, because it has it’s uses.

I hope all this contributions we do are usefull i hope the devs sees them because they seem to dont know what to do to the class really, increasing hp pools its not going to do anything, whoever goes to the next SOTG show should recieve all this suggestions to give them to the devs.

peter.9024:

Tactics 25 pt kinda sticks out. I’d say make it a master trait and slot in empowered instead. I’d also keep the GS damage and keep 100b on the GS, because it has it’s uses.

Tactics 25p is the merge of old 5p and 15p traits, figured they could be combined, but together would be too strong for 5p or 15p trait, so I thought they could replace the current useless 25p. Ofc it could be fitted as Master trait just as well.

As for GS damage, I thought it’ld be a fair tradeoff for slightly increased range.
Idea behind 100b change is to give it more uses. Check out the Whirling Wrath on a Guardian, you usually have much bigger chance of landing the whole thing compared to 100b. I just feel the signature move of a weapon should be less situational.

Fenrir.5493:

I hope all this contributions we do are usefull i hope the devs sees them because they seem to dont know what to do to the class really, increasing hp pools its not going to do anything, whoever goes to the next SOTG show should recieve all this suggestions to give them to the devs.

Well that’s exactly why I spent last couple days writing this list, bringing both the best suggestions from Warrior community as well as things I was thinking of myself. I believe a complete list of thought-out changes has much higher chance of getting dev attention and achieving something than 50 threads saying ‘why are warriors so weak, buff them, just give them…. something’.

Btw, what do you guys think of new burst skills? F2/F3 skills were brought up before, but never with actual suggestions what they could do. I’m interested what others think about those examples and new tactical options they could bring.

Harrier should be a god kitten developer. These skills are amazingly more interesting, useful and in-line with basically every other skill in every other class.

Nerf our HP if that is the limiting factor, give us this.

Please base god.

I have recently been dedicating a lot of my time to playing melee classes. After reading so much negative comments on them I had to see for myself.

The things I would change for both Warrior and guardian would be almost entirely under the hood changes.

1) Remove self rooting skills. Considering the melee classes hit range is basically 220 units, I think this is obvious.

2) increase their hit degree window. Currently the melee classes hit anything 180 degrees in front of them. With traits like death from above and strength of the fallen, these traits just don’t serve much usefulness. Change them to entry level traits that allow attacks to now hit in a 270 degree window around them.

3) Smooth out and increase the fluid action of gap closing. Currently on guardian and warrior the gap closing I’ve notice leaps you at your target, then you kinda rubber band back and then land beside them. Maybe this is because of differences in ping, but the issue of gap closing to ‘beside’ your opponent is a genuine issue. Especially when it leaves you both standing shoulder to shoulder.

4) reduce the mild stall at the start of some skills. If you use guardian sword 2 followed by 3 there s a clear stall in between the 2 skills. This doesn’t help again the self root sword 3 also causes. Sword 3 cone hit area also could be widened.

5) Vigor needs to be greatly reduced across the board in PvP. Utility skills that promote high vigor regen are fine simply because to make use of it, it needs to be slotted. However a lot classes get vigor as a secondary and third effect from very mild using of weapon skills. The general 2 dodges each person gets should be used wisely and not used as a crutch. It would also not hurt this game if in PvP evading still results in a glancing blow.

6) heavy armour melee needs a passive movement speed buff. It does not need to be on par with what squish classes get, but try just following the roaming golem using only auto attack. You can almost hear the Benny Hill theme tune playing.

Melee classes should have to work for their victories like any other. It shouldn’t be reduced to simply firing these skills in this order will create a chain that is near godlike to avoid. This is what happened in Gw1 with hammer warrior. They could catch you in a stunlock that was nothing more than triggering your skills in a specific order. They only needed to look at the skills, not the player on the screen. Hiowever in gw2 I think the idea’s behind the heavy melee’s are sound, but they just don’t gel as what they were thought to. Also there is some skills that just don’t figure. I am still yet to see what as a guardian with hammer I would want a skill that knocks my opponent back and right out of melee range? I can understand it would be useful to an opponent off a node..that is so situational-has no benefit for PvE-now doesn’t allow to continue your attack chain even though your successfully hitting.

Just dropping a +1 for Harrier. You can tell this took effort and thought.

Great post, love the ideas.

Amazing post. Some absolutely cracking ideas.

Some really great ideas. If there is a Tempus the devs will read your post and bless Warriors with some much-needed equalization with the other classes.

Amazing ideas, i love how some of these changes would make it feel alot more fluid but keep the “control” we have of our abilities

A lot of great ideas, really well done!!
I like almost everything you written but some things are “over the top” or “out of place” (quotes needed).

Utilities

• Mending: removing four conditions PLUS increase the healing by 500 for every condition removed. Imho it is not really need it if devs tune down conditions from other classes.
• Removing banner of Tactis: not possible, because there are 4 skills for each type of skill (4 signets, 4 shouts, 4 stances…) so you have to modify it but not change. The suggested “Scorpion Chain” is basically Thief’s “Scorpion Wire”, it can’t see it fitting Warrior’s “style”.

Weapons

• GS F2 is awesome but giving a Smoke Field to Warriors MAY be game-breaking. I can see stealthed Rifle’s F1 shooting down people. Fun for Warriors but it may bring a giant whining.
• Axe F2: I can’t understand it. Why should an Axe thrown in the ground reduce incoming damage? XD
• Sword F2: Like the evade, but can’t see how can you make it scale with adrenaline. If the evade length rises then it means that the animation is longer too, which may be a bad thing in some cases. Considering its long cooldown, I suggest to put a 1s fixed evade and also fixed range (an inconsistent movement skill may cause problems). It would be awesome to make it with two casts: first time you press you leap to your target, second time you leap backwards (and evade).
• Longbow F2: Incoherent with the name of the skill; if the arrow is heavy, the enemy should be pushed back, not you :P And this is how I suggest it to change: make it a push back and not a “leap away”. Also remove the effect of “remove chill/cripple/immobilize”, it does not fit with the skill.
• Shield F3: Too similar to Engineer’s shield #5. I got an idea but it may be overpowered. Put yourself in a stance that let you absorb all projectiles. When you activate the skill you release all absorbed projectiles on the target. But it does not fit with Warrior, it is too “Engi-style”.

Traits

• Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus: you can’t prevent stacking. If someone has both of them you can’t decide which overlaps the other one. Imho leaving them both will not be overpowered. Maybe reduce their duration to 6-7s.
• Agile Movement: I absolutely love it! But putting something like this ingame MAY be very dangerous, you risk too see burst damage Warriors that evades like a S/D ranger.
• Adrenal Health: I prefer like it is now. I just suggest to change it to “each second” rather than “each three seconds” (obviously with 1/3 of the heal).
• Cleansing Ire: I disagree with the added effect of blind immunity. Too much effects on a single trait will make it a must-have which is a situation that has to be avoided.
• Blood Drinker: Need ICD or lower values to prevent being OP in PVE (and yes, I care about PVE because it is the PVE that is preventing the Warrior from receiving big changes).
• Burst Mastery: The blind immunity should be added here.
• Athletic: I like it but I prefer to see a minor trait that gives 5s of Vigor on crits with 5s of ICD; yes, like Elemenetalists and Mesmers. I really can not understand why MAGES have perma Vigor while FIGHTERS do not. And by the way it is not fair that you have to spend 30 points for a Major trait to have the same effect of a Ranger trait which costs only 5 points and is a Minor trait.

Ok, these are all things that I didn’t like it, which means that I love all other suggested changes Some are really great!! I hope to see them implemented in nearly future ^^

F2 a stat. cure all conditions when entering the stat. stability, 25% attack speed, 15% damage increase. consume adrenaline over time

F3 a stat. immune to all conditions, stability, armor +25%, healing power +25%. consume adrenaline over time

adrenaline regen rate -85% while in stats.

with 40 sec cd.

just an idea which i used a few seconds to think of, so it might be bad, but throwing it anyway. might give inspirations.

@Oni Link Fair points, but I disagree with some of them.

Mending – This really depends on what will be done about condition spam, if it gets tone down the heal might indeed be over the top, but I was looking at the current condition state while writing this.
Banner of Tactics / Scorpion Chain – Well a pull skill was requested numerous times and IMO fits Warrior more than thief. Thought of putting this mechanic as Axe F2, but it would have a hard time competing for use with Eviscerate. As a utility skill it could be a nice alternative to Bullscharge. As for Banner… well it’s pretty much the most useless skill on a Warrior, and I’m more concerned about having some decent skills to use, than sticking to the ‘4 skills of each kind’ rule :P.

GS F2 – Remember it’s still a burst skill, so it would consume whole adrenaline. You would have to blast in it to gain stealth and use Signet of Fury/Healing Surge to gain adrenaline back so you can Killshot. With Rifle/GS combo the only blast you could get would be Stomp/Banners, so doing a combo like this would cost you a lot.
Axe F2 – Well ‘to bury the hatchet’ means to make peace/stop fighting, so I thought it’ld be nice for defensive/disengage skill :P.
Sword F2 – Fair point. Something has to scale with adrenaline though. Could be something like ‘1s evade, leap back 600, immobilize enemy for 1/2/3s’.
LB F2 – Wanted to create something that would let you gain some distance, while not being an exact copy of Ranger LB skill.

Berserker’s Power/Hightened Focus – Oh but you can easily prevent it from stacking. When one is selected, simply hide the other one from selection, as happens with traits that are already selected.
Agile Movement – That’s exactly the reason to put it into 30p strenght, so you have to choose between it and ‘Finish Them!’.
Adrenal Health – I’m against encouraging sitting on adrenaline, imo it should be constantly flowing.
Cleansing Ire – Alternatively it could be make Hammer and Mace burst skills blind immune, as they’re too slow to reliably and quickly clear off blinds.
Blood Drinker – Could be balanced separately for PvE.
Burst Mastery Necro can make their whole weapon unblockable with 10p trait, so I think unblockable bursts is alright for 30p, remember pretty much all bursts have long enough casts/animations for enemies to identify them and evade/interrupt.
Athletic – Good point.

Hope you can see my point of view on some of these changes now.

Burst Skill should be the most threaten trick to the foe.
Features are must: Range, Unblockable, True damage(like LoL)

Just e.g.
GS Burst Skill: Earthquake(motion: GS stick in the ground): range immobilized, true damage, warrior invincible when casting, 5 torment to foe.
30s CD.

something like that.

@Harrier

• Banner/Scorpion: The “4 skills of each kind” rule will not be abandoned so we should think how to improve banner mechanics rather than how to get rid of them XD
• GS F2: Yes I know, in fact I like the idea but it needs testing fore sure.
• Sword F2: Forgot to suggest an adrenaline scaling value XD
• Berserker/Heightened: You can’t do that, too many changes involved. Traits hiding each other on different lines is something that probably devs never thought about and never will. Anyway I can’t understand why you are so much worried, even with both traits it won’t be overpowered imho.
• Adrenal Health: But if you remove that then you will ruin even more the possibility of a passive HP regen build (banner+healing signet+adrenal health and so on). Imho there should be two possible “schools”: the adrenaline users and the adrenaline sparers.
• Burst Mastery: That is why I would like to see other classes nerfs together or before Warrior buffs. They should really be toned down.

I compliment on your well written post here. I like your ideas. However there’s one thing I would like to point out concerning F1-F4 skills and traits

There are traits in Warrior trees for which I simply feel should be accessible to every warrior, not only if you trait into them. Take Warrior’s sprint and Cleansing Ire for example.

I would definitely stick something in manner what those traits offer into F2-F4 skills. And make those same traits only something that boosts those skills. I just think every warrior should be able to gain sprint through spending adrenaline if he decides he’s going to spend his adrenaline on that. He has choices after all, he could use it on sprint, attack or cleansing himself of some conditions, so I don’t think it’s anywhere OP.

Every Thief has access to shadow step on F1 after all, however they have traits that enhance that shadow step with stealth/damage etc. Every mesmer can shatter, but they have traits that make shatter skills stronger…

I think Anet just isn’t creative enough when it comes to warriors spending their adrenaline, when they could actually fix many warrior problems through adding more F2-F4 utility skills.

Anyway keep the brainstorming going, they may actually hear our suggestions out… One can always hope right?

Uh, having more utility skills is basically the engineer’s mechanic, though. I doubt they’ll ever change it that way.

Great ideas Harrier! tho here are my thoughts about it

Bursts
- It should be
F1 – Mainhand
F2 – Offhand
- There is no need for Both Hands burst I would much prefer it to be replaced as Utility skills but the effects should be based on Adrenaline.
F3 – Utility skill
- Last Stand(decide on cooldown)- Doubles your current HP for a short period of time, after the effects worn off, your hp will stay as whats left
F4 – Utility Skill
- Replenish(temporary word)(decide on cooldown) – Should reset one utility skill (Random)

- The best idea there is to manage the adrenaline skills is to make Bursts skills to use a specific bar of adrenaline therefore they need to manage
which burst skills to use.
Ex: there are 3 bars of Adrenaline, each burst skill will cost bars of adrenaline,
F1 – Mainhand – 2 Bars of Adrenaline
F2 – Offhand – 2 Bars of Adrenaline
F3 – Utility – 3 Bars of Adrenaline
F4 – Utility – 3 Bars of Adrenaline
(What do you guys think about this?)

*Add Movement Skill tooltip on skills, the same as stealth attack/signets/traps w/e it is, so players know what are Movement skills.

*Greatsword
-It is a good mobile weapon as what you’ve mentioned, and I agree the hit radius of the skills should be increased more depending on your race.
-Damage Should stay as it is.

F1 Skill – Needs rework
- About the shockwave, I dont pretty much like the idea of it, It would be better to make it a projectile?
- My idea about it
- New Mainhand Burst Skill "Hemmorhage *Range Skill[CoolDown and CastTime here] ( Temporary name ) – Warrior throw’s its greatsword to enemy’s head to Immobalize or stun enemy for 2s and add (stacks here)bleeds due to hemmorhage.

F2 Skill – Throw Greatsword – throws greatsword on the enemy knocking them down on hit.


Greatsword Skills
-Overall just increase the hit radius.
1. Completely fine
2. Hundred blades – is just fine, it only needs to increase its speed to compensate from haste nerf and increase hit radius
3. Whirlwind attack[Movement Skill] – is fine, just need to increase range and hit radius
4. Blade trail – should be ground targetting same as same as phoenix on elementalists,it should hit enemies on the way and cripples enemy when it returns to you.
5. Rush[Movement Skill] – should be renamed to Dash, make it a leap finisher same as Bullcharge/Shield bash, increase the speed, animation is okay just quicker execution.


Hammer – needs a complete rework on skills
- It should be the CC heavy weapon of a juggernaut warrior!

F1 – Skill is fine
F2 – I like Harrier’s Idea

Skills
1. should hit 2x vulnerability per hit which will last 10seconds
2. its fine, increase the range of enemy throw
Now here’s what needs to be changed, 3,4,5 skills should be changed into a jumping skills, and should be turned into leap finishers
animation similar to F1 skill of Hammer.
3. Hammer Shock – Needs rework, it should be Ground Targetting skill that will knockdown enemies *should be Leap finisher
4. Staggering Blow – Needs rework, it should be Ground Targetting skill that will knockback enemies should be Leap finisher
5. Backbreaker (Needs rename) – Needs rework, it should be Ground targetting skill that will stun enemies should be Leap finisher

Hammer is not so popular among warriors, maybe good on WvW but on PvP side there’s none, if Hammer warrior will be the CC juggernaut, hey? wouldn’t it
be even more of a threat for enemy? that way warrior will be useful on teamfights or large scale fights.

*Longbow – should increase range from 1000 to 1,200 and reduce the casting speed
F1 – Perfectly fine
F2 – Harrier’s idea is just fine, so far I cant think of anything yet, but my best bet for it to be melee counter

Skills
1. its fine, just need to speed up the arrows abit
2. Fan of Fire – Should be 8 arrows with wide area hit
3. Arcing Arrow – its fine
4. Smoldering arrow – needs rework, make it a ground targetting smoke combo field
5. Pin down – its fine

Tho in my opinion the best bet for long bow should be a cripple based weapon, so skills should have some cripple effects on it.

*Rifle
F1 – Its fine, should deal more damage to compensate for the time being used for casting it or decrease casting increase range 1500 – 2000
F2 – Poisonous Bullet(temporary name) – should inflict poison/weakness to the enemy (duration here)

Skills
1. Its fine
2. Its fine, just need to add vulnerability to it
3. Its perfect.
4. Its fine, decrease cast speed
5. Rifle Butt – should knock back enemy and add cripple 4s(Should not be affected by leg specialist trait) to hit (If you’re gonna hit someone with that rifle in the head wouldn’t they feel daze in real life? they should atleast be crippled!)

As for rifle, it should be the best Vulnerability applier, so you can benefit more from your damage and burst skill.

*Axe
F1 – Decrease the casting time
F2 – Leaping Axes – Leap on your enemy while dealing damage ( eviscerate with longer range but lesser damage ) [Gap closer] [Movement Skill] should have long cooldown same as bullcharge or rush

Skills
Mainhand:
1. Increase the damage of chops back!
2. Cyclone Axe (REMOVE IT!) replace by Hundred Chops – It should be a chop version of hundred blades
3. Throw Axe – thumbs up, its fine!

Offhand
4. Dual Strike(REMOVE IT) replace by Throw Dual Axes – Throw your 2 axes on enemy’s head dealing bleeds and cripple.
5. Whirling Axe – needs to be projectile reflector rest of it is just fine.

*Mace
F1 – Its fine
F2 – Throw Mace – Throws mace on enemies to knock them down by 1 second

Skills
Mainhand
1. Needs quicker cast, applies vulnerability on hit and weakness on final hit
2. its fine
3. replace daze with stun

Offhand
4. remove the skill and replace it with new one, (Name here) – throws the mace on enemy legs to cripple him
5. its fine

Mace is another good source of CC tho its less popular as it has no mobility, you gotta give them more CC but reduce the dmg on melee attacks.

*Sword
F1 – replace it with new skill, “Stab – Stabs enemy, adds weakness, bleeds, cripple”
F2 – Throw Sword – Throws sword on the enemy hitting the legs to immobalize them

Skills
Mainhand
1. its fine add weakness on hamstring
2. Increase the range of leap and add bleeds
3. decrease cast time!!!!!!!! and add bleeds

Offhand
4. remove it! replace it with new skill “Dual Slice – using two swords to slice the enemy while dazing them and adding bleeds”
5. remove it! replace it with new skill “Sword Block – uses 2 swords to block opponents for 3 seconds”

As for swords it should the best weapon to add bleeds as for warrior, and its pretty much ideal for condi builds or to benefit the trait Attack of oppurtunity

*Shield
F2 – Throw Shield – Throws shield and knock downs enemy

Skills
Offhand
4. Should increase range
5. Reduce Cooldown a little

*Warhorn
F2 – Transform 2 Condition into Boons

Skills
4. its fine
5. its fine


*Healing Skills
Mending – I like harrier’s idea

Healing Surge – decrease cooldown to 15seconds

Healing Signet – decrease cooldown to 15seconds


this is whats on my mind atm, I’ll add more later when I come back

These are some of the best ideas i’ve ever seen on the forums.

However, Healing Signet should be 300 per strike, Signet of Malice is 130 base with no penalty and procs off any damage, this should be double that due to having penalties.

Or just be 160 healing per damaging attack.

Also, the mace’s ‘3’ chain should have a built-in block.

Also with Healing Signet, please do not simply just lower its duration, if you want a 15 second heal make mending or surge be it, but healing signet is meant for its passive.

A lot of these changes aren’t going to happen or are too over-the-top. Additional weapon abilities (your F2 and F3) for each weapon will take far too long to implement and balance. The condition removal and health return is crazy good. Instead, concentrate on fixing the existing ones and especially the utility skills.

I agree that burst abilities should be more compelling. But you don’t need additional abilities for that, just fix the current ones. Bring them all up to the level of Combustive Shot and Earthshaker. The traits that are based off current adrenaline level are a sound concept and should probably be at master level with their old values or slightly lower. The issue with them is that some weapons, such as greatsword, have no reason to ever use the burst ability. If using the burst ability is necessary to get the full benefit of the weapon, the problem goes away. The “bank adrenaline” traits are then beneficial if your burst ability is situational or if you want to throw out some extra damage before using your F1 as part of a damage spike. That adds further gameplay depth to the timing of using your burst ability and also is a consolation if your burst ability misses.

Another issue is that you’re gearing up for an arms race, which destroys PvP in MMOs. Adding extra condition removal, unblockable, condition ignore, etc, in order to counter a few builds completely screws over the less frequent use of those skills by everyone else. So then everyone else needs buffed to compensate and you enter a cycle where the last build to be buffed towers above all others. AoE blinds, especially those that pulse should be examined for their cooldowns and spammability. If you use a blind properly, it should stop or delay a big attack. The same goes for a block. The current condition-based meta needs to have the offending professions adjusted rather than everyone rising to counter them. If warriors still have problems with certain conditions, such as movement-imparing ones, then a targeted approach like mobile strikes or warhorn #4 is better.

One specific thing I would change is to make Kick a stunbreak with 1s of stability (so you can’t be knocked down mid-cast). That differentiates it from the other CC abilities and gives it a secondary role to make it worth taking. I would remove Stomp because Kick and Stomp are too similar.

Going to have to agree with Exedore. Too many of those changes aren’t really realistic and have potentially other implications. A large problem with the warrior class isn’t the warrior itself but what it is up against. Warrior is designed to be a melee oriented class with large animations. Throw that against classes with dodges every 3.5s + evade weapon skills + cripples and snares and there is your problem. Many other classes are simply built with the tools that are disproportionately effective against warriors. But then there are specs that don’t have widespread access to these tools and warriors do well against them. It is a polar situation.

Attempting to equalize the warriors strength against these effects causes the warrior to then become too strong when these effects aren’t available.

So lets adjust the warrior from both ends of the spectrum. Which are the opposing specs that just carry too many counters to the warrior? Take those specs reduce those counters, monitor how that effects the class and then potentially buff them in other ways that aren’t as specific against warriors.

Then from the other end give warriors some tools that are specific against what counters it. Most weapon sets for warrior do have a number of underpreforming skills that could instead be tailored more in this way.

Or even more simply adding another burst skill that is shared across all weapon sets that acts similar to berserker’s stance, maybe with a small heal attached.

Exedore.6320:

A lot of these changes aren’t going to happen or are too over-the-top. Additional weapon abilities (your F2 and F3) for each weapon will take far too long to implement and balance. The condition removal and health return is crazy good. Instead, concentrate on fixing the existing ones and especially the utility skills.

I agree that burst abilities should be more compelling. But you don’t need additional abilities for that, just fix the current ones. Bring them all up to the level of Combustive Shot and Earthshaker. The traits that are based off current adrenaline level are a sound concept and should probably be at master level with their old values or slightly lower. The issue with them is that some weapons, such as greatsword, have no reason to ever use the burst ability. If using the burst ability is necessary to get the full benefit of the weapon, the problem goes away. The “bank adrenaline” traits are then beneficial if your burst ability is situational or if you want to throw out some extra damage before using your F1 as part of a damage spike. That adds further gameplay depth to the timing of using your burst ability and also is a consolation if your burst ability misses.

Another issue is that you’re gearing up for an arms race, which destroys PvP in MMOs. Adding extra condition removal, unblockable, condition ignore, etc, in order to counter a few builds completely screws over the less frequent use of those skills by everyone else. So then everyone else needs buffed to compensate and you enter a cycle where the last build to be buffed towers above all others. AoE blinds, especially those that pulse should be examined for their cooldowns and spammability. If you use a blind properly, it should stop or delay a big attack. The same goes for a block. The current condition-based meta needs to have the offending professions adjusted rather than everyone rising to counter them. If warriors still have problems with certain conditions, such as movement-imparing ones, then a targeted approach like mobile strikes or warhorn #4 is better.

One specific thing I would change is to make Kick a stunbreak with 1s of stability (so you can’t be knocked down mid-cast). That differentiates it from the other CC abilities and gives it a secondary role to make it worth taking. I would remove Stomp because Kick and Stomp are too similar.

Improving the existing F1’s doesn’t adress the current issue of Burst. Think about it, and give me exact definition of Warrior’s unique class mechanic. It’ld be something along the lines of “One extra skill per weapon set on 10 second cooldown. As long as you have resource for it, you have 6 weapon skills avaliable instead of 5.” That’s it. Might sound fancy, but in fact it’s not. Now, think on what other classes have. Ele’s attunements, Thief’s zero-cooldown weapon skills, Necro’s deathshroud. And then we have a Warrior with his single extra skill per weapon set.

Devs promised us additional ways of spending adrenaline, and so I am calling this promise now. Adding extra Burst skills would greatly increase tactical options avaliable to Warrior, making the class much more interesting and challenging to play.

As for the time needed to create new skills… about 70-80% of the F2/F3 skills I suggested are already in game. Some mechanics could be adapted from other classes, some from PvE mobs (surprise!), with small numbers/animations tweaking. I actually ran by some Ettins today, saw them performing exactly the same skill as the Seismic Wave I suggested for Mace F2.

Arms race was already happening for quite a while by the way, Warriors were just left out of it. What I proposed was not to counter a ‘few builds’ but to adapt to the current meta state where mindless ranged condi spam makes winners and meele power builds are free kills. If condi spam is brought in line with power builds, I’ll be the first to say ‘scrap some of those changes, we don’t need them anymore’.

Also, take a good look at the spread of the traits I suggested. Saying they are over the top, because I suggest to add ‘this, this and that’ is like saying “Thief is OP, because he can steal from 1500 range every 17 seconds, while dazing, stealing boons and jumping into stealth. Then he can instantly burst others 100-0 and enter stealth again to heal to full and remove conditions”.

You can’t have everything. Everything you pick causes you to lose out on something else, and you gotta think really hard _on (kitten filter…) what you want to get. That was the idea when I worked on trait changes. No trait should be a no-brainer pick, they should have just as good alternatives, that might perform just as good or better, depending on circumstances. Especially 30p traits.

Harrier.9380:

Improving the existing F1’s doesn’t adress the current issue of Burst. Think about it, and give me exact definition of Warrior’s unique class mechanic.

I don’t view classes solely by their mechanic, but as a package. I see warrior as a weapon master class with access to a wide variety of non-magical weapons. They have a very direct combat style with an offensive focus – instead of buffing or supporting allies directly, they hinder enemies. In contrast, guardian is more magical and has a more group-centric focus.

I do agree that the adrenaline system could be improved, but I don’t see additional abilities as the best way to do that. Right now, in most builds, it does feel like just another weapon cooldown. The rate at which adrenaline is gained versus spent needs addressed. If you can generate it too fast, it’s another cooldown. Too slow and it feels clunky. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think during earlier beta weekends, burst abilities didn’t have a cooldown and were only limited by adrenaline. That would make for an interesting mechanic.

As for the time needed to create new skills… about 70-80% of the F2/F3 skills I suggested are already in game.

It’s not hard to make a skill, I agree with that. There is some difficulty in implementing them as an F2/F3 skill with a resource system. But the biggest time sink is balancing all these new skills not just within the weapon, but across weapon swaps.

Arms race was already happening for quite a while by the way, Warriors were just left out of it. What I proposed was not to counter a ‘few builds’ but to adapt to the current meta state where mindless ranged condi spam makes winners and meele power builds are free kills.

The condi spam of the current meta is a result of those few builds, mostly necromancer. There was no arms race before and there isn’t one just yet. But player reactions of more condition removal are pointing it in that direction.

Also, take a good look at the spread of the traits I suggested.

Alright then…
New XII – Finish Them! – Deal 20% extra damage when target is below 50% health.
This would be mandatory for PvE. It would have to be nerfed to nothing as a PvE equivalent. I’m concerned about having two drastically different effects. It may also cause issues with secondary mechanic NPCs in sPvP.

Adrenal Health (15p) – Regenerate health each time you gain adrenaline (80-100 per adrenaline strike).
Depending on implementation, it could be hundreds of health a second. The gain adrenaline when hit trait procs left and right from incidental hits and fills up your bar very quickly. If this remains in effect when the bar is full, it’s crazy good. If not, it’s worse than the current.

IX – Cleansing Ire – Also makes meele burst skills immune to blind.
This trait is already stacked and blind is supposed to be that powerful. Address blind spam from other professions instead.

New XII – Last Breath – Become immune to conditions at 25% health.
Is this permanent? Does it affect existing conditions or just new conditions? If it doesn’t do anything to existing conditions, it’s crap. If it’s permanent, it’s too good.

New 15p – Inspiring Presence – Increase power and toughness of nearby allies by 100.
Remember that “allies” includes self. A free, unconditional 200 stat points is pretty huge. Also, how does it stack with the major traits that do this?

XI – Burst Mastery – Burst skills cost less and become unblockable.
Unblockable Eviscerate, that’ll go over well…

I’ve covered the adrenaline-based ones and the anti-condition ones before. Overall, all these changes do are make different extreme glass cannon builds and possibly a very powerful bunker build.

If you really want to open up warrior trait selection, there’s one simple change you can make: Fast Hands (weapon swap cooldown reduced to 5sec) becomes baseline for the profession. Pretty much every build takes it and for good reason.

Last Breath is somewhat of a copy of the engineer trait Automated Response. It doesn’t heal pre-existing conditions.
But where engineers have got medium hp and armor, and you basically have to trait for it to not die (you would have like 6500 hp in soldier equip and would need a condition removal as soon as you’re below that treshhold; also, you can’t do any worthwhile damage with a similar setup) warriors would still have higher vitality and armor, and still moderate burst capabilities even in soldier equip.
Also, these utility skills on F buttons are basically a more versatile version of engineers’ toolbelt abilities…without the costs we’ve had to pay for those (the lack of weapon swapping and reduced main weapon damage).

Exedore.6320:

I do agree that the adrenaline system could be improved, but I don’t see additional abilities as the best way to do that. Right now, in most builds, it does feel like just another weapon cooldown. The rate at which adrenaline is gained versus spent needs addressed. If you can generate it too fast, it’s another cooldown. Too slow and it feels clunky.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about, it’s a single cooldown, you can put extra effects on it, toy with cooldowns, adrenaline gain ratio, but as long as the whole Burst mechanic is limited to a single extra skill, it’ll remain just that – one extra cooldown.

It’s not hard to make a skill, I agree with that. There is some difficulty in implementing them as an F2/F3 skill with a resource system. But the biggest time sink is balancing all these new skills not just within the weapon, but across weapon swaps.

Doesn’t matter if it’s F2/F3/1/7/Q/R – It’s just a keybind. You create a skill, then make it tap into adrenaline like other bursts, could probably even reuse part of the other skills code. As for testing, that’s what the test server is for. Better have them test some actual changes than projectile finishers and tooltips on underwater skills or whether banners now hit 3 targets reliably (Yes, I’m still bitter about those old patches).

The condi spam of the current meta is a result of those few builds, mostly necromancer. There was no arms race before and there isn’t one just yet. But player reactions of more condition removal are pointing it in that direction.

Condi spam meta started pretty much when HGH Engi became popular, then died down a bit once it got nerfed a bit.
There was arms race, believe me:
- Destruction of the Empowered was supposed to be a counter vs. bunkers, mainly Eles that were stupidly OP at the time.
- Same thing with a change to S/D Thief. Anti boon, anti bunker with it’s unblockable attacks spam.
- Recent improvement of Ele burst was in turn counter to glass Thieves (at least imo)
- Overbuffing Necro’s condi pressure was probably response to Engineers taking place of condi kings in teams. What necro needed though was more survivability, not more damage and extra fears.
- As the meta changes towards mindless AoE condi spam, it’s obvious players start demanding more condi clearing.

Alright then…
New XII – Finish Them!

Warrior’s main PvE weapon is GS, with 100b being the main offender. As you can see, I suggested shaving off quite some damage off it to go with this trait.
Thieves have trait like this too, not nerfed in PvE. Friend of mine was able to pull off 11k Heartseekers in CoF ^^.

Adrenal Health (15p)

Hmm that’s actually a good point. It was intended for adrenaling gained through dealing damage.
Though on the other hand 80-100hp each time you get hit would barely matter, as the damage you take would be much greater than what health you can get (excluding during endure pain). People would have to hit you with steady weapons to refill your health instead of bringing it down :P.

IX – Cleansing Ire
This trait is already stacked and blind is supposed to be that powerful. Address blind spam from other professions instead.

No discussion here, if blinds weren’t so out of control (especially vs Mace and Hammer), I’ld gladly take this change off the list.
But as you can see I was working on ideas to improve Warrior, not ideas ‘what to change on other professions to make Warrior’s life easier’. :P

New XII – Last Breath

Same as Engineer trait. It’s force your foes to change strategy while you hit that threshold – having to bring some power damage, stunning you so you don’t heal up, instead of spamming whatever condi skill is avaliable and waiting for you to melt.

New 15p – Inspiring Presence
Remember that “allies” includes self. A free, unconditional 200 stat points is pretty huge. Also, how does it stack with the major traits that do this?

I’ll give you that one, was running low on ideas what to replace 15p with. A friend of mine had some ideas what could be done there, but totally forgot what it was.

XI – Burst Mastery
Unblockable Eviscerate, that’ll go over well…

Which you can still dodge. Or chill, so Warrior doesn’t make it to you. Or immobilize. Or knock him back mid-air.
You can already have unblockable Eviscerate, just at the cost of one utility skill instead of 30p trait. (Reminder – Necromancer can make his whole weapon unblockable with 10p trait. S/D Thief gets unblockable skill for free, that also steals 2 boons).

Had to cut some quotes due to post length.

Burst Ability
Okay, if you’re going to compare burst skills to other professions’, it’s really two skills since you have two weapons. And you have some choice in what those skills are, which most other professions don’t have. What I was getting at with the burst ability cooldown is that if adrenaline is the limiting factor and not the cooldown itself, they it has its own unique mechanic. If you can gain adrenaline quickly, you can do two burst skills within a couple seconds of each other. That would make adrenaline generation abilities and traits far more meaningful as a choice.

If you go with 2 or 3 adrenaline abilities that are still bound by a cooldown and not adrenaline regeneration, it’s still just extra ability with a cooldown using your logic. Just like the current burst abilities, some will be always used and some will be mostly ignored.

Meta Game
I still disagree about the arms race with respect to boon hate. Boon hate is not as globally powerful as condition application/removal. But that’s getting off-topic. The point is that when trying to counter a problem, you have to examine the cause. In the case of condition spam, everyone, not just warriors are having trouble with it.

Traits
“<profession> has it already” alone is not enough to justify a trait. Your “Finish Them!” does have potential, and it’s more a problem with PvE targets being giant punching bags than challenges. Your “Last Breath” is still questionable though, as someone already mentioned. Engineers and Warriors play differently, so while it may be okay for them, it may not be for warriors.

Blind and block (the single attack form) are an intentional weakness of slow, high damage weapons. However, blind and block are bad against fast attacks, which is where retaliation shines. In a game intended to be more visual, knowing how weapons work is important. If one can suddenly act differently, though the recipient doesn’t know that, that’s bad design. Adding special rules that needlessly complicate gameplay can kill it. Yes, Signet of Might can make an attack unblockable, but it has a cast time and a tell, and your opponent can tell you’re running signet of might and to be aware of that, so an opponent can adjust to the fact that suddenly one mechanic doesn’t work how it would the other 99% of the time. Using a utility skill for this is also a huge price to pay, often more than a trait.

I don’t like how much unblockable has been spread around either, but for necromancer staff, it was to fix problems with how the ability was triggered. For necro staff, it’s supposed to be an AoE that is passive until someone hits it. But if you cast it on a group of people and one of the people in the AoE was randomly selected as the trigger and blocked it, it did nothing. Necro marks are also not heavy on burst, so making them unblockable is similar to just making them trigger the block on the one person and still go off in the area. Though the fear mark being unblockable is a little silly. I don’t know the reasoning for the thief one.

The biggest question is, why ignore block, but dodge, etc still work? Is there a reason, like necro staff marks, that blocking negates more of the ability than a dodge?

Very nice ideas here. You guys should bump a suggestions thread so that devs can get tons of ideas and hopefully put some of them in.

Burst Ability
If you go with no-cooldown Bursts, it’ll remove every tactical element from it. What would be the point in timing your skills right, if you can just stack up adrenaline making traits and have a burst avaliable every 3 seconds? How diffirent would it be from a Thief mindlessly spamming Heartseeker? You can bet within two days forum would be full of threads saying “OMG THOSE EVISCERATE SPAMMER NOOBS, ALL THEY CAN DO IS PRESS F1 ALL DAY. NERF NERF NERF NERF NERF.”
Not to mention the ‘Burst Skill Cooldown Reduction’ in Discipline would have to be changed to something else. What would that be, back to 3% extra Burst damage?

Yes extra ability would turn the Burst from one extra cooldown to two-three extra cooldowns. But if I was to choose whether I want extra skill to use or making Bursts spammabe, I’ld go with extra skill any day. Bringing new tactical options and forcing you to think on what to do >>> dumbing down mechanics so they can be mindlessly spammed.

Trick is to make those skills good in diffirent situations, so sometimes F1 helps you more, sometimes F2 is the better choice.

Meta Game
Boon hate might be not as big of a problem as condi spam, but it was a part of the arms race nonetheless.
I completely agree with you. My point here was adapting Warrior to the current meta and biringing the class on par with others, not looking for specific solutions in other classes. Condition spam needs to be adressed ofc, once it’s brought in line, some of the changes I suggested will become obsolete. I wouldn’t mind that.

Traits
As for Last Breath… Remember that Warrior is supposed to sit in meele range. In teamfights this means eating most of cleave damage, both from power and condi. While Engineers have lower health pool, they are also not required to spend whole fight sitting in meele range (outside of of bombs, but I see less and less of those).

The biggest question is, why ignore block, but dodge, etc still work? Is there a reason, like necro staff marks, that blocking negates more of the ability than a dodge?

In some cases, yes. Have you ever had someone with random Aegis procc walk right into the path of Combustive Shot? Skill gets completely negated. Doesn’t do ANY damage, doesn’t even land on the ground for fire field. Poof, adrenaline and cooldown gone. Much like Necro marks.

Hi, just came to say that cleansing ire should be build into class mechanic on f2, and adrenal health should improve it.

F2 > Cleansing ire> remove 1 conditon per bar
Adrenal health > gain 1k health per adrenaline bar using cleansing ire.

Does its sounds over the top?

Current state is:

Cleansing ire works against adrenal health:

-Adrenal health grants passive regeneration of hp every 3sec while sitting on adrenaline bar, howered when burst is used that regeneration is lost.

-Cleansing ire – Cure conditions on burst. Sounds great, but at same time its does promote spamming f1 everytime its off cd, on top of that a condition clean ability is counter by..conditions. Blind, immo, chill, cripple.

Trying to fix a class by adding traits is the last option we need. Every class has some build mechanic into class..Everyone except wars. Traits are there for improving mechanic we actually have, not for fixing a class that lacking tools it need.

Just my 2 cents

Harrier.9380:

Traits
As for Last Breath… Remember that Warrior is supposed to sit in meele range. In teamfights this means eating most of cleave damage, both from power and condi. While Engineers have lower health pool, they are also not required to spend whole fight sitting in meele range (outside of of bombs, but I see less and less of those).

Lower health pool and lower armor. That means, trait points will usually be spent in order to increase toughness too (and that’s why you could see many people using bombs – the grandmaster trait of the toughness/healing power tree gives bombs some little healing capabilities). But as i already said before, to properly use it you had to be fully specced for that purpose, and due to the nature of engineers’ weapons, you couldn’t do any decent damage. Also, if you’re fighting in a point, you’re basically in melee range anyway.
Giving this same ability to the warrior, they would give it to a class that can already do some decent damage even in soldier’s gear. Also, pairing it with endure pain, it would basically make it invulnerable for the full duration of the skill. Add on stability and protection on demand (since some skills you’ve suggested can give both of them) -both boons that engineers can’t get reliably – and you’ve basically made engineer bunkers useless on a whole.

Also, the mechanic you suggest, putting utilities – related to weapons in this case – on the F bar is basically a ripoff of the engineer’s mechanic. Except we get to use a single weapon because of that, and with a damage reduction on the main weapon just because we may use kits.
But unlike toolbelts – that usually have got quite minor effects – the effects you suggest are actually pretty strong. Throw shield is basically taken directly from the engineer’s static shield. With half the cooldown.

I can understand you don’t like the current situation. But you’re asking devs to make the class blatantly overpowered.

Nice post here.

Class mechanic skills definitely need expanding on.

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

They would never give us fun things like that. That’s why I’ve pretty much given up at this point.

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

Stance danceing.. the one thing i loved the most with warrior in wow >_>

Anyway i think the skill “Stomp” should have 1sec of invul instead of stability

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

This is a very good suggestion indeed.

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

The stance idea is something already seen on forums and something everyone would like to see, but devs… sigh…

I would like a F2 to give a new ability to 2H weapons and to be an ability for offhand weapons.

For example, Sword / Shield, F1 would be current sword move, F2 would be a offhand shield move.
Axe / Axe would be Eviscerate and F2 would be a new axe ability.

Naturally, having no weapon would result in F1 being Flacon Punch and F2 being Gannon Stomp (Ganondorf down A from smash bros)

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

+1

Fellow WoW warrior fan eh. Its a shame WoW streamlined the game so much that things such as this (which were true fun class mechanics) were just screwed over.

Demon.5082:

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

+1

Fellow WoW warrior fan eh. Its a shame WoW streamlined the game so much that things such as this (which were true fun class mechanics) were just screwed over.

But then again, i’ve blizz have been slowly killing off the importance of stance danceing(might even be no reason for it now in this new panda land thing?)

Vuh.1328:

Demon.5082:

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

+1

Fellow WoW warrior fan eh. Its a shame WoW streamlined the game so much that things such as this (which were true fun class mechanics) were just screwed over.

But then again, i’ve blizz have been slowly killing off the importance of stance danceing(might even be no reason for it now in this new panda land thing?)

WoW was one of my favorite (and long term) mmo games but I literally saw it being butchered bit by bit thanks to Blizzard deciding “Screw the game. We want $$ so cater to casuals”. I have no problem in catering to casuals (I am semi casual myself) but I hate to see the flavor of each class being torn apart and being homogenized.

This is why I am against any changes that give multiple classes the unique mechanics of others (Some eles suggested smoke fields in the fire traits).

I also do not like a class being made easy mode. You are supposed to enjoy (and suffer) on your class as you learn it. Yes you will die painfully many times to learn certain flaws but you will also kill/win many times and learn its benefits.

1. – Hamstring – rename to Cold Steel, change cripple to 0.5-0.75s chill (so we can go back to no-ICD Leg Specialist)

love this idea