Guild Wars 2

The banner warrior in WvW is a great idea in theory, however in practice it just doesn’t work well. The reason being is the current pace of WvW which is very fast; mobility on the battlefield seems to be the key to winning.

The Issue:

Placing banners and picking them up works against the concept of being fast & mobile – It is a very cumbersome mechanic. Holding the banner to keep pace with your teammates and better control the buff aura insuring they receive them severely limits your abilities, and more importantly it just isn’t fun. Banner abilities are generic and extremely boring. Thats not an issue in itself though, Banner #2 & #3 are decent abilities.

The Suggested fix:

Make banners replace your Secondary weapon set when picked up. When you weapon swap it saps between the banner while it is active and your primary weapon set. Add a component to “Inspiring banners” that allows the stat bonuses (including regen if traited) to persist when you swap to your primary weapon set. This will make the banner warrior more interesting to play adding some more functionality & mobility while holding the banner. It will also maintain the concept of placing banners with ability #5 if you do like that play style or it works better in certain situations like sieges or PvE.

I like your idea but it would waste a secondary slot so here is an improvement.
When you harvest a banner on a Warrior you get a another profession skill that allows you to wear the Banner.
Once you’re wearing it, that profession skill allows you to switch to weapons or back to banner.
This way we keep the usual weapons but also carry the banner on our backs.

I’d prefer having the banner on my back and access to both weapon sets myself. We can keep dreaming. Giving warriors all the benefits of banners with both weapon sets would be way too good and everyone would take 30 tactics to get it. Perhaps if you made a trait in the defense 3rd trait slot that lets you wear a banner on your back and use both weapon sets it may fly. There has to be give and take and from what I’ve seen develoeprs almost always take more then they give.