A Comprehensive Look at the Warrior

A Comprehensive Look at the Warrior

in Warrior

Posted by: deathTouch.9706

deathTouch.9706

Note: This post was intended to comprehensively express my personal opinions regarding the current state of the warrior and how it can be improved on in future patches. I have included a TL;DR portion/summary at the end of this post to highlight the main points

To begin, for those who don’t know me, I’ve played exclusively warrior since release and have mainly focused on PvP aspects of the game, primarily WvW but recently moreso sPvP. I have about 3,000 hours logged on my warrior. However, I hope that you judge my ideas more on the merits of the ideas themselves than any amount of gaming experience that I bring to the table. This experience is what has led to my below conclusions concerning my favorite gw2 class.

There is one fact that I would like to establish within the roles of class balance that I do not intend in the least to be elitist, but has been my experience in helping developers in other games balance classes/units etc. This has included games such as World of Tanks and World in Conflict. You cannot balance a game with the lowest, or even average, “common denominator”-skilled player in mind. This is because what is balanced and even viable for play at a lower skill level where players are highly inefficient in their decisions to use CDs and routinely are in poor position for their role is necessarily imbalanced when players learn to optimize their builds and skill usage while exploiting advantages that they discover while striving to achieve success at the highest level of play. Furthermore, there is always opportunity for a currently unskilled player to become a skilled player through self-improvement and time, whereas skilled players do not become unskilled players (or if they do after taking a long break they quickly become skilled after spending minimum time with the game). Thus, although input from all levels of play should be listened to, a heavy weight should be placed on players who have mastered their class and understand the intricacies of their role and the roles of every other class in the game.

To begin, we need to establish in general the purpose of the warrior class. In an MMO, if a class does not have a unique purpose that differentiates itself from other classes within that MMO, in particular if it is inferior to another class in every regard, it is viewed as “underpowered” and usually not played. Likewise, if a particular class is viewed as having more diversity in roles, or a greater range of roles for which it can fill, then it is typically comparatively viewed as “overpowered”.

Based on my experience in the game, the warrior’s main purpose or niche, as it currently stands, is to provide a balanced medium between CC, damage and utility, depending on build. For example, certain builds like pure glass cannon rifle have the ability to do tremendous damage in melee and at range, but is typically reliant on other players to peel or support such a build considering the lack of CC available to these builds and their generally more squishy nature with lack of low CD survival skills like stealth. Other builds, like banner regen hambow or condi war in spvp focus on massive survivability over all else in order to hold a particular point in spvp, even against outnumbered odds, until more damage-focused teammates can arrive to eliminate the threat to the point. Similarly in wvw, hammer + mobility weapon is a common choice for warriors because it is a highly-versatile build that can be built for both survivability and reasonably good damage, and scales well with groups of people and against hitting blobs of enemies, which is a common occurrence in wvw given the state of the game and presence of AoE cap. It can also be paired with banners or utility skills that support teammates.

V deathTouch V – Warrior
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma

(edited by deathTouch.9706)

A Comprehensive Look at the Warrior

in Warrior

Posted by: deathTouch.9706

deathTouch.9706

(con’t)

This, however, illustrates one of the main issues currently facing the warrior: it can accomplish a number of different roles with very little build diversity. It can be a glass DPS burster, a massive tank, or a well-rounded DPS and frontline unit with essentially the same weapon sets, usually (but not exclusively) including a hammer. Increasing build diversity for the simple sake of increasing build diversity is not the solution, but rather increasing the uniqueness of the weapons available to the warrior, as well as the utilities available to the warrior, so that the warrior can fill a greater number of more specialized roles IS the solution. Example: Currently mainhand mace is basically a single-target version of hammer as previously it was valued over hammer in 1v1 situations because of its low cast-time skullcrack. With the new animation, hammer is better in almost every situation due to its multiple CCs, high burst damage especially when paired with high crit dmg, and AoE nature. Likewise, offhand mace suffers from being inferior to hammer as well offering a ranged knockdown but a generally useless 4 skill. Mainhand axe is another example of a weapon that is meant as a high-damage, single target weapon, but falls short of achieving this goal because too much reliance is placed on landing the eviscerate, as well as having comparable damage to a hammer stun chain without its AoE or CC utility.

However, rather than just fiddling with numbers on these generally unused weapon sets, I would advise the devs to rethink and redesign these weapons all-together, with some sort of purpose in mind not just for the weapon overall, but each individual skill in the weapon. Let’s be honest, not all weapon skills are created equal (even when considering niche roles). Axe 2 providing low damage and low vulnerability stacks? It’s a wasted skill that provides generally nothing useful in any particular situation. Thus, the first solution to improving the warrior in general is reworking weapon sets and skills to give each a thoughtful purpose for accomplishing some meaningful task in the game.

This can obviously also be extended to utilities and elites. Rework useless utilities like “On my mark!” and Kick that no one ever uses because of its inferior utility in comparison to something like Berserkers Stance or Endure Pain. Not all utilities (and certainly elites) are created equal, and some just have no business being in the same set of options as the others because they are almost entirely inferior to another choice that has identical cost (1 utility or elite slot).

In line with this suggestion to rework the weapon and utility skills, however, we need to consider another point that has been brought up by both warriors and non-warriors alike. Let’s first define some terms: A skill floor is the “entry level” or “minimum level” amount of skill that a particular class or build needs to be viable for play. In this case, we’ll define that as being able to contribute in a fight without being downed within X seconds. A skill ceiling is the limitations of the class that can be achieved through the ideals of “perfect play”. In reality, the skill ceiling is never reached because no one can play any class perfectly, but it can be approached given enough experience, knowledge and time with the game, in general, and a class, in particular. The warrior is a very forgiving class for a new and generally unskilled player to use. It has base high toughness and vit, allowing for the player to make mistakes without being punished to the extent that they are downed (in contrast to a class like ele or ranger), and the straightforward “does damage” skills make it relatively easy for a player to figure out when in general they should be using what skills. Thus, the warrior has a very low skill floor, which I would argue is currently the lowest in the game. It is extremely easy and forgiving to make a banner regen tank warrior and sit on a point while facetanking most damage.

The skill ceiling for a warrior is dependent on build. Glass rifle gs builds have the potential to have high skill ceilings based on their extreme burst, high mobility yet fragile nature, but the build is generally dependent on having supporting teammates to help peel. The more common builds, such as tanky condi war or tanky ham + mobility war both have generally lower skill ceilings than most other classes, such as thief and mes. Just as the straightforward weapon and utility skills make the class easy for new players, they can be a hindrance to more skilled players when facing classes that can teleport, stealth, shield, apply auras, blinds, etc, and especially when considering the highly-telegraphed animations of the warrior’s abilities. Yes, the warrior can build for good damage with good survivability, but when played at the absolute upper tiers, can be outplayed with good management of utilities such as blind, block, aegis, dodge, teleport, etc.

V deathTouch V – Warrior
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma

(edited by deathTouch.9706)

A Comprehensive Look at the Warrior

in Warrior

Posted by: deathTouch.9706

deathTouch.9706

(con’t)

In conjunction with reworking weapon skills and utilities to give certain ones more purpose and diversify the role of the warrior, it should be done such that the skill floor AND ceiling of the class is raised. Thus, the warrior should have builds that are less effective to lesser-skilled players and more effective for higher-skilled players. This would help alleviate concerns of players who feel the warrior is too effective in the hands of players who do not really understand what they are doing while simultaneously answering some of the concerns of more skilled warriors concerning our difficulty dealing with certain builds or situations.

I’d like to end with a thought that I’ve had for a long time concerning the general balancing strategy by Anet, in particular with their goal of trying to balance interactions between classes and builds in PvE, WvW and sPvP situations simultaneously. I would argue that it is entirely impossible to balance these three aspects of the game simultaneously. What is ideal and optimal in a situation where your enemy simply stands and facetanks damage without intelligent use of abilities will never, ever be balanced in a situation where your opponent is not only reacting, but anticipating, what you will do next. Thus, I would encourage the dev team that, if they are serious about balancing this game in the long term, they need to separate out their balancing decisions completely and entirely between PvE, WvW and sPvP. It may be more work upfront in balancing three separate game modes, but it will prevent this “seasawing” balancing where one aspect of a class is OP in, for example PvE, but UP in elements of WvW and sPvP.

Comments, thoughts and ideas are of course welcome.

TL;DR/Summary: Useless or inferior warrior weapon and utility skills need to be reworked, with specific purposes for their inclusion in mind. Warrior skill floor and ceiling need to both be increased. PvE, WvW and sPvP balancing changes need to always be partitioned if achievement of long-term class balance is desired.

V deathTouch V – Warrior
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma

(edited by deathTouch.9706)

A Comprehensive Look at the Warrior

in Warrior

Posted by: tonyg.3824

tonyg.3824

As a fellow warrior that has also played since beta and on behalf of the warrior community your post hit the nail on the head good sir.

Unfortunately I highly doubt the anet team really cares for pvp anymore at the rate the casual player is taking over the game it seems they would rather cater to the game modes those casuals are attached too pve and wvw.

These days in pvp a newbie picks up his class makes a build and expects the world from it and then heads into hotjoins/solo que and typically doesn’t have a good time which leads to them heading back to pve, wvw where they can have a better time zerging bosses and other zergs of players.

Believe me when I say I hope anet throws pvpers a bone to chew on, and at the same time attracts more players to pvp, but when your balancing a game for casuals that have no interest for pvp “smash keyboard and win” seems to be doing alright for them aye?

Vernichtung/miniature gaar/Infamous jack/Sli/Gaarku/gaar of nore

A Comprehensive Look at the Warrior

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Posted by: zone.1073

zone.1073

The upcoming changes are spot on. Healing signet passive feels too powerful? Rework the active. A good active will give players a reason to turn off the passive, and voila, that’s 20 seconds of no healing. Counter gameplay achieved.

Changes like this are amazing, because it’s not a nerf or a buff. It’s a change. Flat out nerfs feel awful, while changes feel refreshing. And that’s what warriors need. Changes.

A Comprehensive Look at the Warrior

in Warrior

Posted by: Purple Miku.7032

Purple Miku.7032

As a fellow warrior that has also played since beta and on behalf of the warrior community your post hit the nail on the head good sir.

Unfortunately I highly doubt the anet team really cares for pvp anymore at the rate the casual player is taking over the game it seems they would rather cater to the game modes those casuals are attached too pve and wvw.

These days in pvp a newbie picks up his class makes a build and expects the world from it and then heads into hotjoins/solo que and typically doesn’t have a good time which leads to them heading back to pve, wvw where they can have a better time zerging bosses and other zergs of players.

Believe me when I say I hope anet throws pvpers a bone to chew on, and at the same time attracts more players to pvp, but when your balancing a game for casuals that have no interest for pvp “smash keyboard and win” seems to be doing alright for them aye?

As someone who has tried and thoroughly disliked PvP on GW2, I have to say that it feels like a playpen. It doesn’t feel the way that PvP should. I don’t have fun running around and taking turns standing in circles until they change colors. If I join a sPvP match then I want to do absolutely nothing but fight someone else. The restrictions are just so… bleh.

I can’t see myself giving a crap about this game’s PvP unless they implement a way to have risk fights and something different than this tacky red vs. blue capture points crap.

The game’s been ruined for years, but “PKing” on Runescape during its prime was the most thrilling PvP I’ve ever EVER experienced on any game, despite the click-and-wait combat system. Why? Because you were exploring in a wilderness and the deeper you ventured, the less safe you were. Your heart would be beating out of your chest as you narrowly escaped a huge team with a blinking red health bar and you would quiver with happiness when you killed someone for a ton of goods, like an Abyssal Whip back before it became common trash. This thrill is completely absent on GW2. It’s too safe and with no consequence to failure and no tangible rewards, there’s simply no drive for me to bother at all!

Arenanet has been changing PvP and claiming to have a lot of things planned for it in the past months from what I’ve observed, but I don’t think they’re taking the appropriate steps needed to make it more attractive to the players.

What I said in the long-winded paragraph above— THAT is what I believe sucks about the PvP. I haven’t really encountered any class-specific problems in PvP aside from feeling that elementalists seem to be a little less viable for PvP. I feel like they’re often times way too easy to beat when I bump into them but then again maybe it’s because I’m finding noobs.

(edited by Purple Miku.7032)