Guild Wars 2

Anet: The banners have pretty much been unchanged all this time, with no apparent plans for them to be changed going forward. I’ve even made similar posts, literally years ago.

But I, and many others, feel they need it.

Not sure how easy this is, technically speaking, but conceptually, it’s feasible.

Banners could work somewhat like Engy kits. Cast the skill and the banner appears in your hand, giving you the existing #1-5 skills. Casting it again, or hitting ~ swap, stows the banner.

Going a bit further with it, the banner could display on your back or with an icon somehow, pulsing it’s effect outward. This could be accomplished using a buff that is granted, and refreshes, while the banner is held, and lasts for a minute or two after it’s stowed. While the buff is in place, the banner shows on the warriors back (or some other symbol visually) and the warrior pulses the benefits of that banner (+power/condi for strength banner, etc) around themselves, just like if they were holding it in their hands. Using a different banner would clear previous banner buffs; only 1 at a time.

The banner #2 skills could also be normalized and fixed:
Strength: Might 2 for 8 seconds
Defense: Protection for 3 seconds
Discipline: Fury for 8 seconds
Tactics: Regen for 6 seconds
Battle Standard(Elite): Stability for 6 seconds

Banner #3 is actually fine.

Banner #4 could be changed to remove the weird pre-post pause to make it useful, or just made into a tiny leap.

Banner #5 could still slam and blast finisher, but just not drop the banner.

And last but not least, the Battle Standard could have an F1 skill to throw the banner, reviving downed allied. The banner ‘bundle’ would be lost from the Warriors grasp (obviously), and the Battle Standard Elite skill would then go on cooldown for 240 seconds. In effect, the F1 would become what the Battle Standards current functionality is.

Didn’t mean for it to be a long read. Tried to keep it short!

This has been suggested by me and about 150 other people over the last years. Anet took the idea, and made them into facets on the revenant.

I don’t like their current state too much either. I see 2 solutions:

• Remove the bundle skills, and reduce the summoning cooldown so you can resummon it faster as you move around.
• Limit picking it up to the owner only, and then upgrade the bundle skills to kit and conjure levels.

In both cases, banners would turn into invulnerable (or maybe not) turret-like objects. Let’s call them totems to distinguish them from turrets, since they wouldn’t attack, just buff nearby allies.

For the first option, using the skill would work just as of now, only that with a shorter cooldown. Only the owner would be able to pick it up, which would remove it from the ground and clear the cooldown on the skill so you can summon it again instantly. I don’t like this solution too much, but it solves most of the problems.

The second solution would be the best, but would require some work. Here’s how it would work:

• When you use a banner, it activates like a kit.
• If you want to place it in the ground, you use skill 5, which is ranged. The resulting totem can not be picked. Using the kit again would destroy the totem, as you’re assumed to summon the banner back to your hands.
• Deployed totems apply passive buffs as of now. If you’re wielding a banner, your character applies said passive buffs as well.
• Banner skills 1, 3, and 4 are removed. Only 2 (the special skill of each banner) and 5 (plant banner) remain. These 2 remaining skills are placed in skill buttons 4 and 5.
• Banner kits now have different visuals. The warrior wields the banner with one hand, and with the another he wields a conjured weapon, providing combat skills through skill buttons 1, 2, and 3.

So this second idea pretty much summons a weapon together with the banner as well. The skills can be the same as those of the normal weapons, or new ones. Depending on the weapon, the hand you’re wielding the banner with would change. Ideas:

• Banner of Defense: Shield
• Banner of Discipline: Sword
• Banner of Strength: Axe
• Banner of Tactics: Mace
• Battle Standard: Warhorn

Ideally, these conjured weapons would use unique models. If you really want to go further, we could give banners an aesthetic upgrade as well, to make them look cooler, and make the new weapon skins match the new designs.

Also, this banner revamp could be a good opportunity to introduce the missing healing utility banner as well.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

This has been suggested by me and about 150 other people over the last years. Anet took the idea, and made them into facets on the revenant.

Guardians were asking Anet to fix Spirit weapons to, anet fixed them on Scrapper XD.

On topic:
Issue with banners is that they are all the same, with the diference if only skill 2, wich is supper weak.
Banners need some QoL work.

Aeolus.3615:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

This has been suggested by me and about 150 other people over the last years. Anet took the idea, and made them into facets on the revenant.

Guardians were asking Anet to fix Spirit weapons to, anet fixed them on Scrapper XD.

On topic:
Issue with banners is that they are all the same, with the diference if only skill 2, wich is supper weak.
Banners need some QoL work.

Yeah, I sorta got that impression too. Facets really are similar to banners but mostly better.

Still, it doesn’t mean the warrior cant have nice things too. Right? Right???

Aeolus.3615:

Issue with banners is that they are all the same, with the difference if only skill 2, which is super weak.
Banners need some QoL work.

This is probably my biggest problem with banners being carryable. Dragging them around to go from location to location is useful for quickly re-establishing a battleground, but doing so punishes the carrier with some semi-useful utility and a pathetic auto attack. Why bother with Skill 2, even it were buffed, when you have no other use for it?

Banners could definitely use some buffs. Laying out a bit of stream of consciousness here.

The TL;DR:

• Skill 1 / 3 / 4 / 5 all need upgrades to make carrying less punishing.
• Make Skill 2 more standardized and useful. Convert to Shouts for more synergy.
• Trait lowers cooldown by 10-15 sec and increases Banner effect radius.
• Burst skill for Banners.

Skill 1 – Currently too slow and not damaging enough to justify carrying a banner. Up the overall DPS into the range of Elementalist weapons. Add Vulnerability per hit (1 stack for 10 sec or 3 stacks for 5 sec, something like that). Give it oomph.

Skill 2 – Most of the buff ones aren’t so bad, there’s just no other reason to carry a banner to actually use them. The attack ones are fairly garbage. So keep to the spirit of the banner and make all of them boons. There’s some possibility in having the Skill 2 be a Shout, just for some decent synergy with the Tactics line.
As Shouts:
Defense – Protection (3 sec, 10 sec cooldown), Inflicts Knockback on nearby enemies.
Discipline – Fury’s good(-ish) as is. Maybe tack on a short Quickness (1-2 sec).
Strength – (Ugh, so bad…) 3 Might for 8 sec, Inflicts 3 Vuln for 6 sec to nearby enemies.
Compassion – Huh, Shout thoughts mean a lot of double dipping on HealPow for this Skill 2. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I kinda like it.
Battle Standard – The Stability’s okay, but it feels lackluster for an elite. It feels like it needs something else to pair with it.

So maybe, maybe not Skill 2/Shout, but it’s worth considering.

Skill 3 – It’s decent, but tack on a “Removes Cripple/Chill/Immobilize” and it’d be worth grouping up for.

Skill 4- Useful for getting toward a fight while having the banner in transit. I wouldn’t mind seeing a damage or buff burst (small range, like 130 or 250) at the end just to make it a wee bit more strategic. I’d almost recommend making it a Leap finisher, just to pretend that Powerful Synergy is useful.

Skill 5 – Not that I miss Powerful Banners, but with the ability to drop it by weapon swap, and blast finishers not being that useful to justify waiting for a banner skill to come off cooldown, it really ought to be doing radial damage like it did with the old trait.

But that’s not all! Because the trait needs some fixing too.

Inspiring Banners:
Change Regen to pulsing heal. 250 per 3 seconds, 25% HealPow rate.
Decrease Banner summoning cooldown by 10 seconds. I’d prefer 15 sec, but it’s a preemptive compromise. The 6-sec gap before the trait was mutilated was too short, but 30 seconds trait or no trait, is too long. 15-20sec feels like the sweet spot.
While carrying a banner, increase the radius of the Banner’s effect by 300. (So Radius 900.)

And the cherry on top:
Give the Banner a Burst skill for Warriors! I’m not sure what it would do, but it would mean carrying the banner doesn’t utterly hamstring the warrior. I also want something hilarious for a primal burst, but that’s probably just me. :P

I mean the effect of banners is far better (individually) than Facets. But the CD is insane, I’d much prefer to see that cut in half. Ofc the duration would need to be shorter, 90s is far too long for sPvP anyways.

Huskyboy.1053:

I mean the effect of banners is far better (individually) than Facets. But the CD is insane, I’d much prefer to see that cut in half. Ofc the duration would need to be shorter, 90s is far too long for sPvP anyways.

Yeah, when ANet tweaked banners, they focused on uptime% instead of usability.
90 sec up with 30 extra seconds of downtime? That gap is way too wide.

75 up plus 15 cooldown maintains an acceptable uptime% while closing the gap enough to make re-using them less painful.

If we’re thinking that banners should lose their ability to be picked up and treat them more like spirits (keep them immune to damage/influence by enemies), then we’d be looking at much shorter durations and cooldowns, 30 sec up plus 5 second gap in between effect ending and cast (35 sec total cooldown). Warriors can still define battlefields without having to drag the banners and their relatively useless skills around.
Add on a secondary bonus per pulse (to simulate what Skill 2 would normally do), and it makes for a strong skill all around.

Banners are fine in PVE in PVP they are not very good. ANET pls fix.

I like the way banners work. They make a great blast finisher. Their trait needs a 20% reduced cooldown and they have needed new artwork since launch, but otherwise they are fine..

If you want to use it like an engi kit, pick it back up.