I main a warrior and I’m always trying to experiment new stuff with him, whenever is weapons combinations, traits or whatever else there is to do. The problem with the warrior is not as huge as people make it sound, the problem with the warrior is that they are balanced in every way, making the other classes who aren’t get an edge on us easily. Now let me explain what I mean.
Say I spec my warrior to be a “tank/bunker” if you go with healing shouts, weapon and shield and play it correctly, you will survive a long time but your damage output will be garbage. This is what you expect of a bunker, at least in most games this is how you balance them. Now we put a bunker guardian on the other hand. He doesn’t need to use a shield leave him with a GS as he gets traits that benefit 2 handed weapon even in the defensive tree. Give him healing meditations what do you get? Same tanking power BUT he still deals enough damage to pair a balance warrior or even out dps him and he does it on multiple targets at once while constantly healing and buffing allies. Use healing signet you go from 20% hp to full no problem. Use your meditations and deal conditions + heal conditions + heal allies and still get your hp full again, by the time you need to heal again signed will be ready for you. Mind you regardless of specs and choices you still get many passive bonus upon yourself. Now how is that fair?
Let’s go to another class, the thief. Spec full defense condition damage thief. He will keep self healing while placing conditions on you. His damage is garbage yes, but the conditions stack so fast they deal all the damage he needs while he heals himself and stealth when needed. Now let’s take a look at a condition damage warrior, sword or maybe rifle. We put a bleed on enemies with 3rd sword hit…can deal 10% more damage to bleeding enemies, now in a bunker build with sword that means like 30 -60 more damage? Our bleed stacking is so slow one can cure it and never see the bleeding do anything. If you go for a crit build you might put a bleed 2 two more. But again so slow it won’t help you much.
Now here is the main problem with warriors and all classes. Spec glass cannon in anything other than a back stab thief or maybe a mesmer and you will be crushed. Spec Balance builds and everything will go sort of ok until you meet a bunker. Spec bunker and win against everything except other bunkers. Now you may say that’s when team work comes in, but I thought team work was meant to be something like sharing buffs and curing each other conditions along with making combos, not teaming 3 v 1 to take down a guardian or mesmer.
Now warrior does all that, but if he does why is he so frown upon? Simple, guardians do all that while packing more fire power, free buffs and healing. Elementalist? Same story, if you learn to dance with your elements you be lol’ing at almost everything. Now that is great cause it requires actual skill which is the same as the warrior, with actual skill the warrior could shine if it wasn’t because the numbers play against him.
Let’s leave aside the mesmer who can pack a punch as any build, confuse the real player behind the character and deal both condition damage and burst damage.
Another problem with the warrior is their main mechanic. Burst, while guardians’s virtues give them free buffs and heals, elementalist elements give them a situation advantage by switching elements, thief stealth make them lethal and confusing and so on the list goes… Warriors burst does nothing. Burst with a rifle you see the kind of numbers you would expect from a burst. Now burst with a sword, laughable easy to dodge damage, mace? IT STUNS if it hits…does it hit? Rarely, even in pve high lvl areas have mobs that can counter the mace burst easily. Hammer? It stuns!!! AND IS AOE!!! But…only if it hits, the long animation means you can walk off the aoe area…not even dodge just walk…even moving pve mobs can dodge it.
