Guild Wars 2

I really don’t wanna get caught up in forum drama, but recently I’ve seen far too many posts asking for a totally unreasonable number of changes. If you’re a dev involved with this class I just want you to know that the class is not in as bad of a place as many are making it out to be. My list comes about from my own experiences as well as from many hours talking with other Warrior and in some cases non-Warrior players who I find can have insight that those of us who play it all the time lack. These changes are intended to be simple (in concept from someone with no background in game design) as possible and to open more build options.

Baseline Fast Hands

Let me start by saying that I in no way oppose other classes getting traits like this baseline if they need it to function. I know Thief has a few as does Ranger and Ele. I play all of those classes (only really play enough Ele to understand some builds), but I’m not well versed enough to say what’s needed and what’s just nice to have though.

Warrior though, it’s easy, Warrior weapons are pretty obviously balanced around this traits existence. In the old trait system you only needed to invest a few points for it so it was less of an issue. War in general benefited from being able to dip just a few points into some trees. In this new system, Warrior’s in PvP/WvW simply need that trait to be effective. It also dramatically hurts Berserker as well.

Adrenaline Decay

This hurts PvE the most. It can feel like you hardly use your class mechanic in many cases and that can kill the enjoyment. I feel like starting a SLOW and steady drain as soon as you leave combat would be a fair compromise from the old system which was apparently seen as lasting too long. Again, the current system hurts Berserker a lot.

A Few Trait Swaps

Some traits are in awkward places that keep builds that would be at least viable from reaching their full potential. A big one is Crack Shot. I feel like the devs might not want 3 weapon traits in one line, but right now if you’re running Healing Signet and no Physical Skills you’re pretty starved for options so it would fit wonderfully there. Otherwise swapping places with Destruction of the Empowered is acceptable. Someday down the line maybe Axe Mastery will be buffed and traits can be shuffled again, but as things currently stand players don’t wanna lose Warrior’s Sprint.

Another big one is swapping Inspiring Banners and Merciless Hammer. I could see Hambow making a bit of a comeback then because you would have both Cleansing Ire and Merciless Hammer which is needed for the Combustive Shot + Earthshaker combo that is a staple of that build. Without Merciless Hammer your DPS feels much lower and CDs line up awkwardly with weapon swaps. Again, we can talk Inspiring Banner Changes another day, just trying to make a few more builds work now.

Anything else right now is just greedy.

For base Warrior, I think that’s all that is really needed right now. A mini change would be to revert the nerf to Vigorous Shouts.

Now, I’ve been writing a lot about Berserker changes but many of mine are way more difficult to implement (comparatively, most are just about usability and sustain) and can be discussed once we hopefully get base Warrior in a good spot. You can’t build a tall tower on shaky ground.

Also, I know all the devs are busy, but can we PLEASE get at least some sort of communication as to whether these complaints/suggestions are at least being looked at? I would at least be able to make a clean break with the class if I got told “No, we like how we’ve designed Warrior” rather than me posting here way more often than I should in the hope that I can help affect some kind of change. There’s a lot of us Warriors and from both the forums, reddit, and in game many seem very disappointed right now. This class has been a bumpy ride since launch. From “OP” Bull’s Charge + Frenzy + 100b, to being seen as terrible for almost a year, to being slightly over the top with Hambow/Axebow/Shoutbow, and now we’re almost right back where we were shortly after launch in terms of PvP, not wanted or needed.

What about Embrace the Pain baseline (adrenaline on being hit), that would be a really big qol change and might actually promote not slotting Cleansing Ire for once literally since it’s introduction as a trait

Revenant is fun. And strong.

Pestering and begging the devs to respond isn’t going to get you anywhere. Projects, be they game development or otherwise, have schedules and daily tasks that need to be tended to. They aren’t ignoring us, they’re busy. Arena Net, like many devs, have proven that they do listen and take feedback into consideration, it’s just a matter of when they have time.
And as precious as everyone thinks their advice is, it’s not. The warrior sub-forum can harp on about “baseline so-and-so” to the ends of time, that doesn’t change the validity of the suggestion. As great as fast-hands baseline would be, I’m still unconvinced on why exactly it “needs” to be baseline.
Most instances of things being made baseline were to fix the functionality of the mechanic. Traits that were required just to make a utility-type usable for example. Fast Hands can be strong/useful in many circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it fits the above. If anything, I’d say the so called “need” for Fast Hands is a symptom of warrior problems, not a cause.
To go with your analogy, the tower is being built on fairly sturdy ground as-is, the problem is the bricks are made out of feces.
We have so many weak traits, traits in lines that have poor synergy, and utility skills that are either under-tuned or outright useless. Not to mention weapons like off-hand axe that are in a laughable position.

Honestly IMO, I’d be happy with the Fast Hands baseline change, it honestly is a long time coming. Discipline is already a great traitline for most builds. Hammer and rifle builds would already use it. It would just add a lot more diversity to our builds. It won’t necessarily make builds a lot stronger, just different options each with it’s own pros and cons.

Like mace for example. You could probably go strength/arms/defense. But at that same token you sacrifice 25% movement speed, condition removal on swap, might and quickness for more crit chance overall, signet CD, minor bleeds. Or probably some weird celestial hybrid. It would also make Berserker a more lucrative option.

killahmayne.9518:

It would also make Berserker an option.

Fixed that for you bro. I’ve tried, but Berserker can not be picked over another traitline currently. Discipline is what you would drop if you were to take it, but not if you lose FH. Condi warrior, or even hybrid war could be alright if you can take something like Str/Arms+Def+Berserker.

Arewn.2368:

Pestering and begging the devs to respond isn’t going to get you anywhere. Projects, be they game development or otherwise, have schedules and daily tasks that need to be tended to. They aren’t ignoring us, they’re busy. Arena Net, like many devs, have proven that they do listen and take feedback into consideration, it’s just a matter of when they have time.
And as precious as everyone thinks their advice is, it’s not. The warrior sub-forum can harp on about “baseline so-and-so” to the ends of time, that doesn’t change the validity of the suggestion. As great as fast-hands baseline would be, I’m still unconvinced on why exactly it “needs” to be baseline.
Most instances of things being made baseline were to fix the functionality of the mechanic. Traits that were required just to make a utility-type usable for example. Fast Hands can be strong/useful in many circumstances, but that doesn’t mean it fits the above. If anything, I’d say the so called “need” for Fast Hands is a symptom of warrior problems, not a cause.
To go with your analogy, the tower is being built on fairly sturdy ground as-is, the problem is the bricks are made out of feces.
We have so many weak traits, traits in lines that have poor synergy, and utility skills that are either under-tuned or outright useless. Not to mention weapons like off-hand axe that are in a laughable position.

I read all the class sub-forums and I have been seeing a decent amount of dev response. While often times it’s just “We’re aware of this” or “We’re looking into it,” that’s way more than what we’ve been getting here.

I don’t have a ton of time to play these days, so I need to decide if it’s time to just totally drop Warrior and go and fully kit out my Engi or Necro.

I would love to have a 3 second (untraited) shout stun that reach out to about 3/4’s of my rifle range. I pretty sure It would help with kiters somewhat. I’ll trade that for headbutt any day.

I would like Rupturing Smash to create a dust cloud (6s) that blocks all ranged type attacks, will only allow melee attacks.

All stances increase duration by 2 seconds.

Greatsword Rush should evade while running and cast time reduce 3/4 second.

Bladetrail should pull enemy on the return attack, range increase to 1200.

ANET doesn’t listen to us.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Arewn.2368:

…

I read all the class sub-forums and I have been seeing a decent amount of dev response. While often times it’s just “We’re aware of this” or “We’re looking into it,” that’s way more than what we’ve been getting here.

There are currently two topics with this suspicious lack of dev responses:
Warrior balance and the reduced dungeon rewards.
The current balance might be intended like the rewards thing.

It is obvious why one does not argue about balance on the internet, especially if it’s with your own customers. Think all of us can understand that. Still, would be nice to hear where they are coming from.

+1 on that Adrenaline decay comment.
I’d be fine with 1 per second lost, so I can at least keep it a little while, but it feels more like 5 per second.

As a hammer fan, its trait needs a re-write. I don’t know to what, but bonus damage on a slow-moving hammer when its best stun is 2 seconds? Poor design, unless you have a thief friend spamming gun-daze. I end up using the quickness trait instead, since it applies to any weapon and isn’t reliant on finding an enemy that won’t Defiance bar or stun-break out of it.

And let’s be honest, after seeing Scrapper’s triple-diving-hammer and Revenant’s 15sec-cooldown-ranged-AoE-stun, Warrior hammer needs some huge improvement on effect and cooldown times.

Banners need to have their time switched to 75 seconds on, 90 second cooldown. 30 seconds in between banners is just hateful. And with healing becoming more important for PvE, I’d recommend a pulse heal go with the trait to pair with Regen.

i somehow see we need some buff on adrenal decay, but baseline fast hand will make warrior broken op.

I really agree with most of this, but what i can’t stress enough is the Warrior’s Sprint thing.

As a Berserker now i’m running Strength/Discipline/Berserker, and literally the only reason i’m using Discipline is because of Warrior’s Sprint, it’s just too good not to have, especially for running around the jungle. Fast Hands is great and all, but you need to carry a ranged weapon as an offset a lot anyway in the jungle so camping GS is not a big deal, it really is just for Warrior’s Sprint. I would obviously much prefer to use Arms as my second specialization because it works with Berserker so well, especially with Furious.

As it stands now, Discipline has 3 pretty good traits in the first tier while Strength has 0. All 3 of Strength’s first tier traits are just useless filler, the only decent one being might on heal but vast majority of warriors use healing signet anyway so it’s pointless. If Warrior’s Sprint could get swapped into Strength then Strength would actually have a nice first tier trait, Discpline would actually have a choice, and using Arms as one of your specializations would actually be enticing.