Guild Wars 2

Warrior is in this weird place where even the parts that aren’t terrible are still inferior to other classes, or the pro is outweighed by a huge con. The hybrid Mace/Shield + Sword/Torch or Rifle builds are solid 1v1 builds, but at the end of the day having a Reaper to corrupt boons is way more useful. A Power Rifle build can put out some good damage, but it’s way more useful to have a Scrapper that not only deals good power damage but also has way more sustain and team support.

One thing Warrior does have more than any other class is CC. Unfortunately, that CC is also very easy to counter. The long stun on Skull Crack seems really powerful, but good luck landing it when everyone is swimming in stun breaks or other ways to avoid being hit by it. I’ve been trying to use it but even if I consistently land the skill and bait the counters chances are that will take so long that you’ll be dead before that happens.

I do feel that CC should be the niche that Warriors bring to the team. Now, I don’t want to further power creep any more than is necessary. I don’t want the CC to be easier to land, but there do need to be ways to make it more reliable. I have a few ideas for this:

• Ditch Restorative Strength for a new trait, Blind Rage. This trait will make the user immune to blind while using a Burst Skill. Strength is a good place for this trait because not only is Restorative Strength a “meh” trait to begin with, it also forces players to choose Strength over Defense, Discipline, or Berserker depending on your build. Hammer and Mace builds probably won’t use Berserker because of the Primal Burst skills being either condi focused or in Hammers case weak.

• Speaking of Hammer, the Primal Burst skill Rapturing Smash is just awful. It doesn’t hit hard, and it only applies a little daze and immob. If the current animation was reversed it could be turned into a pull, a mechanic that Warrior has always been lacking. This would be super useful for PvP as you could pull people away from a revive and skilled players could even use it to pull someone off of a point and keep them off while a teammate caps.

• Sundering Mace could be given a unique mechanic, connecting with Mace Burst skills will remove Stability on a longish ICD (30-45 seconds?). Having such specific boon removal is something no other class really has. It would reward players for landing the Burst and baiting but would still be countered by normal stun breaks.

• Warriors need to bring some sort of offensive support to the team. Making the traits Savage Instinct and Dead or Alive affect nearby allies. This means that they would bring a AoE stun break + condi removal and a bit of a failsafe when they hit 0 near you. Making Eternal Champion pulse Stability but at a much slower rate would also be a good option as well. Bringing Shouts back to their old healing value would also be worth looking at considering Celestial is gone now.

Warrior will still have a ton of issues even with changes like these, but it would hopefully at least make them a bit more appealing on a team. I am sick and tired of people saying things like “We got a War gg we lose” as soon as they see me. I should be able to play the class i want to play and not be forced into using Reaper, Scrapper, or Revenant. Giving Warrior a defined role would go a long way even if we just end up with one meta build like everyone else, we would at least have a meta.

Warrior cannot fulfill its role as long as Scrapper/Revenant remain in the current forms.

Pyriall.1683:

Warrior cannot fulfill any role as long as Scrapper/Revenant remain in the current forms.

Pyriall.1683:

Warrior cannot fulfill its role as long as Scrapper/Revenant remain in the current forms.

QTF. I miss playing my warrior, but as a class it’s too much of a liability to my team.

Warrior needs an adept trait “Your CC removes 5 stacks of stability instead of 1”.

I have been running a shout build that is currently strong. With good play it does respectful damage. It has good sustain. It has useful mobility and to an extent useful team dynamic. Out of the 9 professions I play 8 of them and have each one upgraded to various states of ascension. Some fully ascended, so only minor. Yet this is the disparity of warrior currently..when played well it doesn’t added up to a strong, respectful, good or useful day on the field. Basically there isn’t an area where they excel gluing all their respectful, good,useful and strong aspects together.

To add idea’s to hammer, I think some test play with the idea that some hammer skills (3-4-5-f1) Either cripple, knock down as per normal versus a target without stability, or remove 2 stacks of stability against those who have the boon active. This ultimately could remove 8 stacks of stability if all skills hit.

Fear me as a shout I would change to a boon strip that removes protection, stability.

On my mark would have been a better choice for team unblockable(+vulnerability application) rather than basi venom.

Ultimately I, like you were present when anet decided to ‘separate the damage from the control’ aspects of hammer. Currently hammer damage is overall weak with it never being used in PvE, Fractals, Raids..and especially PvP. The ubiquitous amount of stability/blind has all but nullified it’s control.

A weapon choice supported by some traits that allows a profession such warrior to act as a cat among the pigeons in team play would be useful in the current meta. With druids still performing well in team situations, ele’s still having a presence as viable team support, scrappers having strong sustain and necro’s having the ability to stack 3-5 stacks of stability allowing them to use reaper shroud over death shroud and having a strong melee presence in team moments, this creates an opportunity to carve out a niche for warrior. That niche being they can excel at hindering, upsetting and removing a lot support features in a team situation.

I am confident I am not the only one who keeps seeing some team situations playing out;
1) a Reaper running havoc with chill/corruption
2) A scrapper firmly in the thick of it holding onto their lightning field for the best moment and pumping regen/stability/protection/cleanses to allies
3) A druid just doing what a druid does. Adding sustain damage and team support
4)a ele making the team a lot harder to pick off.
5) Possibility (likely) a revenant driving home the lion share of damage vs a single target.

Variations of this situation are fairly common currently, so a profession that can quickly remove stability stacks, eliminate a targets protection/stability or severely weaken one target temporarily and over short periods of time remove enough support that the next chains of CC are going to start shutting down a strong support orientated team would be useful.

…However the key here,…‘after some test play’….

I agree warrior lacks a specific role.

Warrior does NOT need more offense. I feel most warrior’s weapons are also balanced, except for warhorn, which weak after all those nerfs. The problem is that many other professions have unbalanced weapons e.g. engineer’s hammer.

Warrior lacks sustain. Even if you take a very defensive amulet + all the possible defensive traits + utilities, the warrior sustain is still supbar compared to similarly specced druid, revenant, scrapper, elementalist or reaper. “To the Limit!” would be a great burst heal, but it is prone to interrupts (1 s cast) and has too long cooldown. I would slightly reduce it’s heal amount to bring the cooldown lower. Berserker trait line still lacks sustain and offers mainly more burst capability, but really doesn’t make significant enough dent in bringing warrior sustain to the level of several other elite specs.

I would actually tone down gunflame damage + remove 10 % dmg buff from forceful greatsword trait after buffing warrior’s sustain. Warrior should be “da man” = able stay long time in focus and on target, instead of being a “hit and run” profession or long range sniper.

Some warrior skills, like stomp, have never seen any significant use any game mode, so those skills needs buffing or rework.

Cynz.9437:

Pyriall.1683:

Warrior cannot fulfill any role as long as Scrapper/Revenant remain in the current forms.

Wrong, Warrior’s role is to exaggerate your thief class being the worst class ever.

Pyriall.1683:

Warrior cannot fulfill its role as long as Scrapper/Revenant remain in the current forms.

Its just this really. Its the meta. Warrior and thief are fine. Its the other classes that are out of tune (too powerful) that over fulfill their roles that push out warrior and thief.

Nothing complex or clever buff wise needs to happen to warrior or thief. Scrapper and Rev just need fine tuning.

If you buff war/thief in some weird way (to the point you always want one) you’ll just get an even worse meta most likely.

omg guys you already didn give up on warrior? stop using it, rlly you are hurting yourself

Shala.8352:

omg guys you already didn give up on warrior? stop using it, rlly you are hurting yourself

People really exaggerate. If you’re a good player you can make warrior (or thief) work. And if your bad you’ll be bad meta or not.

I just wouldn’t stack them.

Warrior does had a niche, and your right it is CC. In fact in large team fights Rampage with well timed 5+4 and 3rd attack on auto (uppercut) are great in giving ur team the field advantage it needs. This ONLYworks when 1 target is focused (this is where calling out targets as a warrior is very important, this is not done very often in emerald-where im at atm).
On issues of sustain, yes warrior is poor however since i lack sustain i just run away heal up and come back (with a GS+sw/torch) GS skills 3+5 and sword skill 2 using torch 5 to cleanse cripple for example U will need discipline for this, Warrior’s spirit is a must
The benefits of running rather than say like other classes stay and sustain is
1) u heal up 2)cure/time out conditions 3)u have no boons coming into fight thus no strip/conversion 4) u don’t give them pts for a kill 5) u don’t put stress on ur team for a res.
But besides CC, warrior’s niche is downed enemies, and excels perfectly at that
100b is just too sexy

Mightybird.6034:

Shala.8352:

omg guys you already didn give up on warrior? stop using it, rlly you are hurting yourself

People really exaggerate. If you’re a good player you can make warrior (or thief) work. And if your bad you’ll be bad meta or not.
People really exaggerate. If you’re a good player you can make warrior work against bad players. And if your bad or equally skilled you’ll be bad.

I just wouldn’t stack them.

fixed

MetalJacket.2307:

Warrior does had a niche, and your right it is CC. In fact in large team fights Rampage with well timed 5+4 and 3rd attack on auto (uppercut) are great in giving ur team the field advantage it needs. This ONLYworks when 1 target is focused (this is where calling out targets as a warrior is very important, this is not done very often in emerald-where im at atm).
On issues of sustain, yes warrior is poor however since i lack sustain i just run away heal up and come back (with a GS+sw/torch) GS skills 3+5 and sword skill 2 using torch 5 to cleanse cripple for example U will need discipline for this, Warrior’s spirit is a must
The benefits of running rather than say like other classes stay and sustain is
1) u heal up 2)cure/time out conditions 3)u have no boons coming into fight thus no strip/conversion 4) u don’t give them pts for a kill 5) u don’t put stress on ur team for a res.
But besides CC, warrior’s niche is downed enemies, and excels perfectly at that
100b is just too sexy

That niche is easily countered by most decent players. Sure, Rampage can win you a team fight, or you get focused instantly and die or they just throw blinds at you. Also, GS and Sword/Torch? That set doesn’t have any hard CC whatsoever.

Having to run away and heal is something other classes don’t generally have to do. When I play Scrapper I can stay in the fight the whole time and it just comes down to whether we win the team fight or not.

Nobody sane would want a Warrior on their team for Rampage alone. Being strong for 15 seconds every few minutes is not a strength.

MetalJacket.2307:

Warrior does had a niche, and your right it is CC. In fact in large team fights Rampage with well timed 5+4 and 3rd attack on auto (uppercut) are great in giving ur team the field advantage it needs. This ONLYworks when 1 target is focused (this is where calling out targets as a warrior is very important, this is not done very often in emerald-where im at atm).
On issues of sustain, yes warrior is poor however since i lack sustain i just run away heal up and come back (with a GS+sw/torch) GS skills 3+5 and sword skill 2 using torch 5 to cleanse cripple for example U will need discipline for this, Warrior’s spirit is a must
The benefits of running rather than say like other classes stay and sustain is
1) u heal up 2)cure/time out conditions 3)u have no boons coming into fight thus no strip/conversion 4) u don’t give them pts for a kill 5) u don’t put stress on ur team for a res.
But besides CC, warrior’s niche is downed enemies, and excels perfectly at that
100b is just too sexy

Rampage is moa’d 99.9999999% of the time.