(edited by killahmayne.9518)
An introspective look on Warrior changes
So now let us talk about the much anticipated Grandmaster traits
Burst Precision: To me, this is a bit of an odd trait. It currently competes with Berserker’s Power which grants 15% additional damage on full burst. At a first glance, it seems like a full glass cannon warrior has absolutely no need for this trait. It definitely won’t be a trait used in PvE. In WvW, a full glass cannon warrior with fury already has kitten near 100% critical chance, if you use critical burst, it probably is 100% (correct me if I am wrong there). So it seems like even a full glass cannon warrior will find this trait completely useless and redundant. Why would they give up 15% damage?
The next thing one would think of intuitively is, what about wearing all Valk’s gear? If one can crit 100% on burst, why would you need precision?
This is an example of a classic zerker build except that it would utilize valk gear. Unfortunately you cannot take full advantage of valk gear because the trinkets only offer a hybrid. So with the Signet of Fury you would have around 30% crit chance with fury that makes it 50%. The choices in terms of gear would already make this build half redundant and suboptimal. However if you have Signet of Fury down the crit chance is only 21%.
However, you would have around 25.5K HP. With WvW bonuses that might push 28K. With Guard stacks you might be pushing 30K HP. Which truly is a lot of HP for a supposed glass cannon build. However, you are losing 15% damage from Berserker’s Power which is quite a lot. And the 100% critical chance bonus is only for burst skills. Which means with fury, you are only critting for half of your hits on average (which really isn’t a whole lot of DPS compared to the classic glass cannon which crits on at least 80% of their hits). So essentially it is a simple tradeoff of more survivability vs more overall sustained burst DPS and more damaging hits. However, with no toughness, mitigation or condition removal, having 30K HP doesn’t mean much if you get hit by 12K backstabs or laced with conditions. You just have a better window of absorbing 2 more big hits and maybe being able to sustain smaller hits for a few more seconds before you need to back off. Instead of Berserker gear, you could get cavalier gear, but you would be reducing your damage even further.
Another possible set up would be going 30/0/20/0/20 as a roamer build. The main weapon set up that would take advantage of this trait set up would be axe/shield + greatsword, since it is extremely important that eviscerate from the axe crits. Not so much for weapons like hammer, longbow, greatsword, sword, mace, etc. Now this theoretically wouldn’t be a terrible set up at all. You can still be quite tanky and do nice damage, except however it is suboptimal.
You lose 15% damage from berserker’s power. You should already have around 60-70% crit chance including fury if you have built for it. Which is plenty. for eviscerate to inherently crit most of the time you want it. If you intend to go full valks, and have around 40% crit chance with fury, relying on a burst to do all your damage for you and then having terrible DPS until your burst is up again is a dangerous ideology to follow. This is because you are not always going to land eviscerates when you want to, and even if you do, it may not be enough because you have low sustained DPS.
It would be a build something like this:
However, what makes this trait even more redundant is the new sigil of intelligence, which causes your next 3 attacks to critically hit. As a rifle build, you can easily switch to it and then immediately fire a killshot. Then stay on rifle for a bit, switch to your offset, wait till your rifle burst is back, switch, then fire killshot again, etc. Same thing for axe. You can land Bull’s Charge, switch from greatsword to axe, then eviscerate. Or if you are close enough, you can switch from greatsword to axe, shield bash then eviscerate.
So overall, a 100% chance to crit on burst isn’t as amazing as one may see it. Because most glass cannon builds already have close to 100% chance to crit in general. Not building precision to take advantage of this may seem like a good idea in theory but relying on burst for most of your damage is a dangerous path to take. You lose 15% damage from Berserker’s Power, and any attack that isn’t a Burst ability is only going to crit half the time on average at best as a glass cannon. As a roaming build, even less so. The sigil of intelligence basically addresses the need to crit on burst although it requires good timing on swap.
(edited by killahmayne.9518)
Defense: Rousing Resilience – Gain toughness when you break out of a stun. The amount of toughness gained is up to 1000, based on your level and lasts for 4 seconds.
What in the actual kitten.
Tactics: Phalanx Strength – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well. 6s of might is granted each time this trait triggers.
Curious what the radius of “nearby allies” is.
‘Discipline: Brawler’s Recovery – Remove blindness when you swap weapons.’
Who the heck came up with this lol. No no, I’m just gonna break all rotations just to remove blind and also waste a Grandmaster trait spot, instead of just autoattacking once. Genius.
‘Discipline: Brawler’s Recovery – Remove blindness when you swap weapons.’
Who the heck came up with this lol. No no, I’m just gonna break all rotations just to remove blind and also waste a Grandmaster trait spot, instead of just autoattacking once. Genius.
Really hope a dev comments on this and explains why this trait was put in.
Also, the 8% nerf to healing signet… I thought this was supposed to be accompanied by a stronger base heal so that it was actually worth it to use when needed…. And why reduce the regen again? Because of pvp or wvw? They’ve seperated the skills in each, couldn’t we have kept it the same for pve? Maybe I’m missing something here.
Slow down and smell the pixels.
Wow if they really nerf Building Momentum. Literally only reason to ever use burst skills in PvE.
Where did you get this Grandmaster trait info? So far I have only seen the dual wielding agility being officially stated.
Edit: nevermind I found the dulfy thread.
Be careful what you wish for, Anet might just give it to you “HoT”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
(edited by Julie Yann.5379)
‘Discipline: Brawler’s Recovery – Remove blindness when you swap weapons.’
Who the heck came up with this lol. No no, I’m just gonna break all rotations just to remove blind and also waste a Grandmaster trait spot, instead of just autoattacking once. Genius.
Why is this a bad trait? This trait is awesome. Especially for axe warriors that swap to eviserate.
5x Warrior, 5x Ranger, 4x Elementalist, 4x Engineer,
4x Necromancer, 3x Mesmer, 4x Guardian, 4x Thief, 4 Revenant
4x Necromancer, 3x Mesmer, 4x Guardian, 4x Thief, 4 Revenant
- Strength: Burst Precision – Burst skills have an increased chance to critically hit ( Chance: 100%)
Could potentially open up some new tanky high burst damage builds that don’t require a bunch of precision. Something with Cavalier and Valkyrie gear.
- Arms: Dual Wield Agility- Your attack speed is increased by 10% when wielding a sword, axe or mace in your offhand.
Not sure if it is worth 30 points. 10% seems negligible, I guess we’ll see how well it pairs with the dual weilding trait in strength.
- Defense: Rousing Resilience – Gain toughness when you break out of a stun. The amount of toughness gained is up to 1000, based on your level and lasts for 4 seconds.
This is really meh because of the way toughness scales Your damage reduction would range from 20% to 11% for 4 secs depending on how much toughness you have in your gear. It’s a very situational buff and I don’t think it is worth 30points
- Tactics: Phalanx Strength – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well. 6s of might is granted each time this trait triggers. (It works with blast finishers)
This is an even bigger joke than the god awful minor traits we have in this traitline. Might is really not that hard to come by for anybody. Definitely not worth 30 points.
- Discipline: Brawler’s Recovery – Remove blindness when you swap weapons.
I actually don’t find this one that bad, it will definitely be useful when fighting blind spamming thieves and guardians.
Be careful what you wish for, Anet might just give it to you “HoT”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
(edited by Julie Yann.5379)
I took up alot more space then i wanted to with Burst Precision, but I would like to address other Traits that we got.
Dual Wield Agility: First of all, very few builds go the full 30 in arms. Going 30 into arms only really benefits sword builds, and greatsword builds, although they will miss a lot of power if they don’t go 30 strength instead. Second of all, you need to use an axe/mace/sword offhand, two of which nobody uses in WvW or PvP. Some condition builds may consider going 30 into arms with Dual Wield agility, for faster application of bleeds.
However, realistically, 10% more attack speed means for every 10 auto attacks, you will get one extra autoattack, which hardly seems worth it. Who is going to sit there and let you auto attack that many times? At most within a given time span you may get off 1 extra bleed. You may see a difference in Flurry channelling time but that is pretty much it. I am not sure if that is worth the 30 in arms, and perhaps there are better traits elsewhere you can pull from.
Rousing Resiliance: Hmmmm, finally a worthwhile grandmaster trait, or so it seems at first glance. To put this in perspective, a 3000 armor warrior goes from 38.8% damage mitigation to 54.1% damage mitigation. This is equivalent to a protection buff, plus approximately 6%. Based on how toughness works, this number becomes much higher the lower toughness you have. For example, a 2,500 armor warrior goes from 25.97% damage mitigation to 48.51%, which represents approximately an 87% damage mitigation change.
Again let’s put this trait into perspective. Basically the trait says that you gain 1000 toughness when you break out of a stun for 4 seconds. Based on this description, I make two assumptions. It means that I must physically get stunned first and then I must then break out of it to gain the bonus. Which means if somebody uses a stun while I have stability, this effect will not work. Secondly, this trait only works on stuns. It means that knockbacks, knockdowns, sinks, floats, etc will not trigger this trait at all.
Okay, now this trait suddenly sounds less OP. It requires you to get stunned first of all, and then it requires you to break out of the stun.
Most warriors tend to equip two stunbreakers on their utility bar. One is Endure Pain, the other is either Dolyak Signet or Balanced Stance. Like nick mentioned, stunbreaking using Endure Pain is useless because you mitigate all damage anyway, both the trait and endure pain lasting 4 seconds. That leaves Balanced Stance/Dolyak Signet, on a 40-60 second cooldown.
So theoretically that is a 7-10% uptime on this buff. In practicality this is much less because, well, consider this.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun
Discounting Water skills and the stun from rampage which nobody uses, there are 14 skills in the game that stun. Three of which come from the warrior themselves. This means that the likelihood of being stunned from a class that isn’t a warrior or an ele is slim to none (unless maybe you encounter a Lockdown mesmer which then again are pretty rare themselves, and not all of them run CS).
Given this low likelihood of being stunned, in the heat of the battle, if you get hard CC’ed, you are most likely not going to care, or not even paying attention to whether you were stunned or knocked down. Regardless, you are going to want to stun break whatever hard CC is put on you to avoid further damage. Which means you may not even proc this trait at all. You’re likely not going to save your stunbreak when you get knocked down, in order to proc the trait when you get stun.
While roaming in WvW, I don’t see this to be a beneficial trait unless you are fighting a hammer or a mace warrior. And I don’t think people are going to get stunned on purpose just to use a stunbreak to gain 1000 toughness. They are going to want to dodge it.
In zergs it might be different. Many warriors in zergs use hammer with shout builds. I understand that there are a variety of warrior shout builds. Some go 10/0/30/30/0, some go 0/0/30/30/10, 0/0/25/30/15, etc. A standard shout warrior will have Shake it off and probably Balanced Stance or Dolyak Signet, unless they rely on guardians for stability. However, in a zerg most will pre-emptively pop stability then charge, rather than charge into the zerg. This may change with this trait, unless guardians are already popping stability. It may be interesting how this trait may play out in a hammer train vs hammer train. It could potentially be really good. Give protection to a warrior and it may be like an endure pain basically, but still it is only 4 seconds.
In sPvP it would also be interesting to see the effectiveness of this trait. Just based on the fact that there are a lot of hambow builds out there, the trait may proc enough to be useful in that setting, which is kind of ironic in a way. Many choose to run balanced stance and Dolyak Signet to there is the potential for decent uptime with this trait, (perhaps around 15% of the time). However condi builds can still do decent amounts of damage. The other problem is that giving up Merciless Hammer would be cutting your DPS down a lot.
However despite the situations where it can be really good, I can hardly call this trait overpowered. Hammer builds used in sPvP give up Merciless Hammer. Non-hammer builds in sPvP aren’t as good anyway, even if using the new trait. WvW roaming and 1v1 it is situational at best. In WvW zergs it can potentially be good, but then again you are giving up Merciless Hammer as a shout/hammer build. Also, I don’t see how this trait would be that much better than Defy Pain. Defy Pain negates all burst damage for 4 seconds when you reach 25% health on a 60 second CD, while Rousing Resilience is likely to proc about every 60 seconds due to cooldowns on stunbreakers and gives about 1000 toughness. In closing, it doesn’t seem as powerful as people make it out to be.
Phalanx Strength - This trait doesn’t look too terrible on paper (it probably is in practicality) but nobody would ever use this over vigorous shouts .... ever. In zerg fights, using FGJ, having Warbanner, Staff Guardians, Blast Finishers, Eles, Engis, other warriors can easily net you up to 25 stacks of might. This trait would definitely be a waste. Nothing much to discuss here. If Vigorous shouts wasn’t in tactics nobody would use tactics, period.
Brawler’s recovery - Ummm, really? I understand, blind spamming can be a problem sometimes, but just auto attacking once, or using cleansing ire does the trick, or having enough -condition duration for the blinds not to last more than 3 seconds. This is an OK trait a best and would definitely have some uses. However, it does not warrant 30 into discipline whatsoever. It is definitely situational, and by situational, probably only good against thieves and semi-OK against Guardians.
I was really hoping for some dramatic changes that would come from this. It doesn’t look like much will change, but ofc we haven’t played with them yet. To me none of these traits are something that I would consider swapping in or creating a build around.
Strength trait: is completely overshadowed by the new sigil of intelligence (next 3 attacks crit).
Arms is interesting for 2x sword but wont create new builds.
Defense trait is not worth taking over previous grandmaster.
Tactics is interesting but not worth traiting into tactics.
Discipline …. looks like an adept trait at best. And as others have said i would much rather just attack once.
While I was very excited by other profs new traits because they have the potential to open up more builds. The Warrior traits look like they wont see much use. But that’s my pre-play opinion. I hope im wrong!
Rousing Resiliance: Hmmmm, finally a worthwhile grandmaster trait, or so it seems at first glance. To put this in perspective, a 3000 armor warrior goes from 38.8% damage mitigation to 54.1% damage mitigation. This is equivalent to a protection buff, plus approximately 6%. Based on how toughness works, this number becomes much higher the lower toughness you have. For example, a 2,500 armor warrior goes from 25.97% damage mitigation to 48.51%, which represents approximately an 87% damage mitigation change.
I’ve been using the gwbuildcraft calculator and the different at 2500 armor is 27.34 to 47.94 which is equal to 20.6% for 4 seconds a few times per minute if you run with a lot of stun breaks and get stunned alot. If you max out on toughness gear you only benefit from a 11% increase which is pretty terrible for a 30 point investment. Especially when you compare it to our other options.
Be careful what you wish for, Anet might just give it to you “HoT”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
Rousing Resiliance: Hmmmm, finally a worthwhile grandmaster trait, or so it seems at first glance. To put this in perspective, a 3000 armor warrior goes from 38.8% damage mitigation to 54.1% damage mitigation. This is equivalent to a protection buff, plus approximately 6%. Based on how toughness works, this number becomes much higher the lower toughness you have. For example, a 2,500 armor warrior goes from 25.97% damage mitigation to 48.51%, which represents approximately an 87% damage mitigation change.
I’ve been using the gwbuildcraft calculator and the different at 2500 armor is 27.34 to 47.94 which is equal to 20.6% for 4 seconds a few times per minute if you run with a lot of stun breaks and get stunned alot. If you max out on toughness gear you only benefit from a 11% increase which is pretty terrible for a 30 point investment. Especially when you compare it to our other options.
Think about it this way.
With zero damage reduction, you take 2000 damage from one hit.
With 50% damage reduction, you take 1000 damage from one hit.
With protection, you take 33% less damage from that 50% damage reduction, which means you take 670 damage. This equates to an overall 66.5% damage reduction.
Protection doesn’t add 33% to total percent damage reduction which is a common misconception. For example, with protection, you do not go from 20% damage reduction to 53% damage reduction. It is multiplicative, meaning in actuality you go from 20% damage reduction to 26.6% damage reduction. Which is essentially a 33% increase in damage reduction if you understand what I mean, or 33% less damage taken.
For example, using my calculation that you quoted. Going from 38.8% damage mitigation to 54.1% mitigation change. This represents a 15.3% increased damage reduction the way that you understand it. And in the way that you understand it, this is less than half as effective as protection.
However, in reality, Going from 38.8% to 54.1% damage mitigation represents a 39.5% increase in the reduction of the damage taken (15.3/38.8). You are basically taking a percent of a percent, if that makes sense. If you were to apply protection, applying 33% damage reduction of 38.8% damage reduction would give you a total of 51.6% damage reduction.
Overall total damage reduction, expressed as a percentage, and percentage increase of total damage reduction are different.
It is confusing, I know, but I hope I explained it clearly.
A 30/0/20/0/20 axe/Sh+GS full cavalier build with the new sigil of intelligence looks insane for roaming. Definitely an awesome trait.
Im curious how burst precision works with combustive shot. New hambow build? GS/LB could also be really powerful
Rousing Resiliance: Hmmmm, finally a worthwhile grandmaster trait, or so it seems at first glance. To put this in perspective, a 3000 armor warrior goes from 38.8% damage mitigation to 54.1% damage mitigation. This is equivalent to a protection buff, plus approximately 6%. Based on how toughness works, this number becomes much higher the lower toughness you have. For example, a 2,500 armor warrior goes from 25.97% damage mitigation to 48.51%, which represents approximately an 87% damage mitigation change.
I’ve been using the gwbuildcraft calculator and the different at 2500 armor is 27.34 to 47.94 which is equal to 20.6% for 4 seconds a few times per minute if you run with a lot of stun breaks and get stunned alot. If you max out on toughness gear you only benefit from a 11% increase which is pretty terrible for a 30 point investment. Especially when you compare it to our other options.
Think about it this way.
With zero damage reduction, you take 2000 damage from one hit.
With 50% damage reduction, you take 1000 damage from one hit.With protection, you take 33% less damage from that 50% damage reduction, which means you take 670 damage. This equates to an overall 66.5% damage reduction.
Protection doesn’t add 33% to total percent damage reduction which is a common misconception. For example, with protection, you do not go from 20% damage reduction to 53% damage reduction. It is multiplicative, meaning in actuality you go from 20% damage reduction to 26.6% damage reduction. Which is essentially a 33% increase in damage reduction if you understand what I mean, or 33% less damage taken.
For example, using my calculation that you quoted. Going from 38.8% damage mitigation to 54.1% mitigation change. This represents a 15.3% increased damage reduction the way that you understand it. And in the way that you understand it, this is less than half as effective as protection.
However, in reality, Going from 38.8% to 54.1% damage mitigation represents a 39.5% increase in the reduction of the damage taken (15.3/38.8). You are basically taking a percent of a percent, if that makes sense. If you were to apply protection, applying 33% damage reduction of 38.8% damage reduction would give you a total of 51.6% damage reduction.
Overall total damage reduction, expressed as a percentage, and percentage increase of total damage reduction are different.
It is confusing, I know, but I hope I explained it clearly.
I always thought that protection was a straight 33% percent damage reduction not a 33% of the 30% (or whatever number) you have to begin with. It’s not very clear in the wiki. So basically protection benefits you less if you have more armor to begin with since you are taking less damage to begin with. This trait benefits you less the more armor you have. I guess it would give zerk builds some survivability but is it really worth sacrificing all those trait points for this when you have plenty of more useful trait s to choose from? I think not. Another one of those “looks good on paper” deals but isn’t as good as it looks in practice.
Be careful what you wish for, Anet might just give it to you “HoT”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
“…let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die;.”
(edited by Julie Yann.5379)
I was really hoping for some dramatic changes that would come from this. It doesn’t look like much will change, but ofc we haven’t played with them yet. To me none of these traits are something that I would consider swapping in or creating a build around.
Strength trait: is completely overshadowed by the new sigil of intelligence (next 3 attacks crit).
Arms is interesting for 2x sword but wont create new builds.
Defense trait is not worth taking over previous grandmaster.
Tactics is interesting but not worth traiting into tactics.
Discipline …. looks like an adept trait at best. And as others have said i would much rather just attack once.While I was very excited by other profs new traits because they have the potential to open up more builds. The Warrior traits look like they wont see much use. But that’s my pre-play opinion. I hope im wrong!
Me too. After suffering nerf wave after nerf wave, I was hoping for something to get excited about. These GM traits aren’t even mildly attractive.
A 30/0/20/0/20 axe/Sh+GS full cavalier build with the new sigil of intelligence looks insane for roaming. Definitely an awesome trait.
Im curious how burst precision works with combustive shot. New hambow build? GS/LB could also be really powerful
Burst precision would be pretty crap on the Longbow. You do realize that Combustive shot pulses something like every 3-4 seconds, and when it crits it crits for like 500 on really tanky players and maybe upwards to 1,500 on really squishy players. I doubt anybody would want to get rid of Merciless Hammer for this trait.
GS/LB has always been a fairly powerful spec. But personally I would never run it with Burst Precision. If I were to go 30 in strength I would much rather get Berserker’s Power.
Im wondering if burst precision would apply to each tick, or just the initial one
All of the grandmaster traits seem useless based on what is currently possible in game. They same to be filling some sort of niche build role that doesn’t exist. To promote creating some sort of Niche build. Way I see it is nobody will do this because its not only unnecessary but sub optimal. example: assuming they are fixing sigils there is already a on swap sigil that grants 100% chance to crit. If this is now fixed why would somone take that trate over another one when they could use that sigil?
Thats assuming they dont already have like a 70% chance to crit or higher?
I’m sure here comes the trolls to tell me not everyone runs meta builds and is 1337 but I am here to say those people are not running these new niche builds now. And chances are they will not use them either because what they are using now is optimal for how they play even if its not how others play.
All in all this entire patch is about making the game easyer for new players and Baddies alike with an emphasis in nerfing the warriors along with crit damage which is a double nerf.
The sad part is these baddies are playing professions that are stronger than warriors mesmers etc and just simply dont know how to play.
“Just press 2 to win all the dps was us cuz we’re a
warrior and we’re the best class” Eugene
warrior and we’re the best class” Eugene
(edited by Warlord.9074)
100% crit chance without precision? power stacking cavalier rifle warrior coming at you soon!
i fear we will look back to this day and remember the good old wvw as it is now – Jan 2015
Well, that sucks. I was hoping for something interesting, and instead we got Grandmaster Traits in spots they don’t even belong in.
How Burst Precision isn’t a Discipline trait (the one DESIGNED around Burst attacks), is beyond me…
You guys forget one thing about rousing resilience:
You can’t calculate it as “overall reduction over a minute”.
If you feel the need to stun break, it’s because you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some baddies are ready to pound on you and they will all launch their big attacks, trying to burst you down, before the stun wears off.
I can imagine that trait to be fairly useful in hammer train vs hammer train fights.
There is another problem, which is worth mentioning: If you want to make full use of the trait, you need to drop cleansing ire. Basically, if you got that trait, your cleansing ire will compete heavily with last stand for that master tier slot. With this trait, last stand will basically read:
“whenever you are hit by an incoming control effect, gain stability, swiftness and 1000 toughness instead.”
The only crime, turrets committed, is being good against the celestial meta.
The mob has spoken and the turrets shall be burnt at the stake.
The mob has spoken and the turrets shall be burnt at the stake.
(edited by naphack.9346)
100% crit chance without precision? power stacking cavalier rifle warrior coming at you soon!
Have you ever played an effective rifle warrior build that doesn’t need precision for Volly and AA? Having no crit chance with a rifle sounds like a horrible idea since the majority of rifles damage comes from Volly and AA.
“Just press 2 to win all the dps was us cuz we’re a
warrior and we’re the best class” Eugene
warrior and we’re the best class” Eugene
Didn’t know there is something like an effective rifle warrior build tbh.
i fear we will look back to this day and remember the good old wvw as it is now – Jan 2015
Like i mentioned before, completely relying on rifle burst for all of your damage is kind of a bad ideology to follow. Because more than 70% of your DPS comes from Volley and auto attacks. A volley can hit relatively close to a Killshot hit if all 5 shots land, plus you are mobile and it is easier to pierce. If you have no precision, that is the difference between say a 6-7K volley and a 11-12K volley.
Also, who knows how these crit damage changes effects these builds. Maybe power stacking vit or cavalier rifle builds could be somewhat an OK build in WvW. I’m not ruling it out of the equation, though I doubt it due to a rifle not even being that great of a weapon to begin with.
Didn’t know there is something like an effective rifle warrior build tbh.
There is, but it is much more synergistic with a coordinated team that can cover for some of its weaknesses like vulnerability to either CC chain or condi bombing (i.e. pocket support providing secondary stab or condi cleanse).
In that case it is an extremely useful build for applying extraordinary pressure on single (or multiple targets with crack shot) at range.
My opinions for wvw:
Disclaimer: Considering that Anet had stated that pretty much every sigil and rune in the game is getting an overhaul, speculating on specific builds given that the entire game might change based on these rune and sigil changes seems a bit pointless at this stage. Nevertheless…
Strength: Burst Precision – Burst skills have an increased chance to critically hit ( Chance: 100%)
Obviously some possible use in creating hugely bunker builds that rely heavily on burst damage. Eviscerate and Hammer earthshaker come to immediate mind. Rifle killshot seems good in theory but at least half damage and most utility-burning/dodge-burning use of rifle comes from volley (volley with 100% crit chance and 120%+ crit damage with high power will hit for upwards of 11-12k, as much as the killshot…it also tracks stealthed targets, penetrates with crack shot, triggers on-crit sigils and has a very low CD). Simply volleying a target has huge utility because it forces the target to use defensive CDs or dodges to avoid taking huge damage, both of which then act to set-up a killshot for later.
My first impression of this trait is that it is in direct competition with a number of other possible setups. Hypothetically, people have been discussing the 30/0/20/0/20 build. However, what would seem more effective in almost any scenario is running 10/0/30/0/30 or 20/0/20/0/30 with sigils(s) of intelligence and remove blindness on weapon swap. This would:
1) Achieve the same effect as running the burst precision trait, except also provide 2 more guaranteed crits beyond the burst skill crit;
2) It’s not limited to burst skills, and can be applied to other high-damage abilities like Arcing Arrow.
3) Allow for greater crit damage by freeing up 10 points to place into the discipline line. With 100% crit chance, every point of crit damage dramatically outweighs power. Would also allow one to take the below Brawler’s recovery, clearing blindness on weapon swap before setting up a large burst like earthshaker or evis;
4) Prevent you from having to go deep in the strength tree, in lieu of 30 in defense or another line of choice (such as 10 in tactics for immobs to set-up sigil of intel-procced large damage skills).
Arms: Dual Wield Agility- Your attack speed is increased by 10% when wielding a sword, axe or mace in your offhand.
1) 10% attack speed does not equate to 10% increased damage. This would only be true if 100% of attacks hit their target. In fact, it’s much lower than this as not all attacks hit the intended target.
2) The only use I possibly see for this is for a sword offhand build that may already go 30 in disciple for bleed procs off sigils and doesn’t currently benefit much from Furious. Otherwise, axe offhand needs a major overhaul to be even viable, and builds using mace offhand don’t usually go deep in the arms tree, and this grandmaster trait doesn’t provide enough benefit to warrant going 30 deep in the tree to reap its benefit (at the sacrifice of something else, like defense or disc).
V deathTouch V – Warrior
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma
(edited by deathTouch.9706)
(con’t)
Defense: Rousing Resilience – Gain toughness when you break out of a stun. The amount of toughness gained is up to 1000, based on your level and lasts for 4 seconds.
1) If this ONLY applies to stuns and not other forms of CC such as dazes, fears, knockdowns, blowouts, etc. then it is not likely a good choice. You could possibly use it in lieu of EP for a 2nd stability (both balanced stance and dolyak signet) as a sort of poor man’s invuln, relying on the increase in toughness to act as your damage mitigating factor while gaining the benefit of stability.
2) Also realize the diminishing returns on toughness. A warrior who is going 30 in defense will already have relatively high toughness, and an extra 1000 toughness, although seems good on paper, provides only protection-boon equivalent damage mitigation for 4 seconds. For a grandmaster trait…
3) The fact you have to actually get stunned first is a big turn-off for me. Often times I use my stun breakers “preemptively” in fights (especially dolyak sig or balanced stance) to provide stab BEFORE I initiate a big hit, largely because even in the split second it takes to react to being stunned by popping the appropriate stunbreaker, I’ve already taken large damage. Furthermore, if I’m channeling an ability like 100b on a downed clump in wvw, I certainly DONT want to get interrupted/stunned while doing it. Using preemptive stability/stunbreakers to accomplish large damage/initiations negates the use of this trait.
4) NOTE: This trait would be much improved if the 1000 toughness was applied simply by USING a stunbreaker. This would solve both the issue of the skill not being applied in cases of CC use that are not classified strictly as a “stun” while also allowing you to use it per-emptively upon initiating into a large group of enemies.
Tactics: Phalanx Strength – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well. 6s of might is granted each time this trait triggers. (It works with blast finishers)
1) If this trait does not have an ICD it actually has a chance to be relatively powerful when mixed into large groups of players (i.e. blobs and zergs). It would allow a group to upkeep 25 or near 25 stacks of might throughout a fight simply by stacking a few phalanx wars who are blasting fields and casting FGJ on traited shortened CD. Do not underestimate the utility of this skill when mixed into larger groups. If anything, I think this trait has the potential to be the most gamechanging of all the new traits for war, especially with the potential of boon-duration and might-duration increasing runes, but we need to wait and see on the details before we can really evaluate this trait.
Discipline: Brawler’s Recovery – Remove blindness when you swap weapons.
1) As discussed above, has some synergy with weapon swapping into burst or other high-damage skills, especially with sigil of intel procs. Whether it is worth taking over burst mastery or heightened focus (the latter of course assuming no sigil of intel on weapons) remains to be seen, based on rune/sigil changes and any other balancing changes that may occur. Having a grandmaster trait that removes one blind on weapon swap seems a bit weak, considering how quickly blinds can be re-applied especially in melee, and I would suggest a temporary blind immunity be attached to this trait (i.e. Remove blindness when you swap weapons and prevents you from being blinded for 2 seconds). This would allow for weapon swaps out of GS or sword/x into things like earthshakers, even into blind fields, while allowing you to hold onto berserker’s stance CD, making it a very powerful grandmaster trait. Opposing players would still have all their other methods of damage mitigation to counter the telegraphed burst, such as dodges, evades, invulns, teleports, etc, maintaining its balance.
V deathTouch V – Warrior
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma
(edited by deathTouch.9706)
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1) 10% attack speed does not equate to 10% increased damage. This would only be true if 100% of attacks hit their target. In fact, it’s much lower than this as not all attacks hit the intended target.
Let’s say you attack 100 times. Only 50% of your attacks hit so you hit 50 times. With the trait you will be able to attack 110 times which results in 55 hits. 10% more.
However, that is on average. Let’s say you hit twice (1s per attack). Opponent dodges at 1.95s so the second hit misses. With trait you would get both hits resulting in 100% more damage. But the opponent may also dodge at 1.75s so the second hit misses even with the trait.
(edited by Wethospu.6437)
Yes, you’re right actually. What is true though is that unless you are continuously attacking for the duration of the fight, the damage output benefit will be less than 10%. Also as you edited above, it’s on average. It’s hard to quantify the exact benefit without making a bunch of assumptions.
Either way, in most situations I would speculate it provides less of an average damage buff than even some of the lower-level traits that increase damage of weapons based on certain conditions AND reduce cooldowns of said weapons, or traits such as DotE. These all being averages, of course.
The overall point though is that I don’t think the inherent benefit of having the 10% increased attack speed and devoting 30 points in arms is worth sacrificing whatever else is currently being built for mace offhands (and axe offhands are borderline non-viable right now). Sword offhand condi-specs may see benefit from it, but only because they may be 30 in arms anyway for sigil of earth procs and bleeds from crits via precise strikes minor trait + Attack of Opportunity minor trait synergy, and don’t see huge benefit from furious currently.
V deathTouch V – Warrior
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma
STD [Scarlet Gave Me Harpies]
Maguuma
(edited by deathTouch.9706)
—
1) 10% attack speed does not equate to 10% increased damage. This would only be true if 100% of attacks hit their target. In fact, it’s much lower than this as not all attacks hit the intended target.Let’s say you attack 100 times. Only 50% of your attacks hit so you hit 50 times. With the trait you will be able to attack 110 times which results in 55 hits. 10% more.
However, that is on average. Let’s say you hit twice (1s per attack). Opponent dodges at 1.95s so the second hit misses. With trait you would get both hits resulting in 100% more damage. But the opponent may also dodge at 1.75s so the second hit misses even with the trait.
This assumes that the whole time you are just standing there and auto-attacking. If you bring dodging into the equation, this will probably end up being less. With the axe it becomes more of a grey area because of the different damages on the tooltip that the axe has. The extra autoattack could be from the weaker part of the axe chain which would mean in reality the DPS increase would be less than 10%, unless maybe you auto-attack like 30 times.
Some mobs don’t need to be auto-attacked a lot to die. This would definitely work better on bosses. However, with most bosses they have some kind of big hit you need to dodge, or some kind of interrupt that would stop your auto-attack chain.
It definitely seems like that in practicality the 10% attack speed boost would definitely be less than 10% boost in DPS.
I’m just going to summarize:
The warrior changes suck.
EDIT: Except for Rousing Resilience. I’m looking forward to my 4 second endure pain on a 20 second cooldown x2. (shake it off, and shrug it off). Delicious. Even better than the real endure pain because +1000 toughness synergizes with conversion equips and traits. Yum yum.
Warriors have access to the shortest cooldown stunbreaker in the entire game (20 seconds). Rousing Resilience is going to be a monster.
(edited by zone.1073)
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1) 10% attack speed does not equate to 10% increased damage. This would only be true if 100% of attacks hit their target. In fact, it’s much lower than this as not all attacks hit the intended target.Let’s say you attack 100 times. Only 50% of your attacks hit so you hit 50 times. With the trait you will be able to attack 110 times which results in 55 hits. 10% more.
However, that is on average. Let’s say you hit twice (1s per attack). Opponent dodges at 1.95s so the second hit misses. With trait you would get both hits resulting in 100% more damage. But the opponent may also dodge at 1.75s so the second hit misses even with the trait.
This assumes that the whole time you are just standing there and auto-attacking. If you bring dodging into the equation, this will probably end up being less. With the axe it becomes more of a grey area because of the different damages on the tooltip that the axe has. The extra autoattack could be from the weaker part of the axe chain which would mean in reality the DPS increase would be less than 10%, unless maybe you auto-attack like 30 times.
Some mobs don’t need to be auto-attacked a lot to die. This would definitely work better on bosses. However, with most bosses they have some kind of big hit you need to dodge, or some kind of interrupt that would stop your auto-attack chain.
It definitely seems like that in practicality the 10% attack speed boost would definitely be less than 10% boost in DPS.
Ok, let’s say you attack 10 times (1 s each) and dodge 2 times (0.75 s each) which takes 11.5 seconds. With trait, you will be able to attack 11 times (11*1/1.1 + 2*0.75 = 11.5). So again, 10% more hits.
As I said above, it’s even possible to get 100% more damage. So please stop being biased and only assuming bad scenarios.
With faster attacks you will finish your chain faster giving you more chances for good dodges.