Guild Wars 2

I have played warrior since the game released and I had no problem chasing players however, over the past years with all the nerfs to the warrior’s leap abilities and closing the gap abilities, it has become a tiring effort to constantly be on the chase after you opponents. Now, everyone can be a range/meele class and reset fight with stealth and/or teleports.

Examples:

• Thief losing the fight? No problem, runs away and resets the fight. Comes back full health and gets another shot at it. Or use teleport skills to get to the top of a cliff where warrior has to travel 10000 miles to get to the top.
• Ranger losing the fight? No problem, stealth, run, leave a trail of traps with movement impairing conditions.
• Elementalist losing the fight? No problem, call the elite great-sword skill and run, use teleports to climb a cliff while the warrior has to travel 10000 miles to get to the top.
• Guardian losing fight? same thing, use teleports to get to near by NPC, rabbits, deer, etc.. use teleports to get to the top of a cliff.
• Mezmerer losing fight? No problem, use stealth, run, use blink to get to the top of a cliff where the warrior has to travel 10000 miles to get to it.
• Engineer losing fight? No problem, leap, use stealth, run, leave a trail of movement impairing conditions.
• Warrior losing fight? Big problem, just run like forest gump you will be visible the entire chase and you cannot leap to cliff.

Seriously Anet how can you not see that the warrior is at a disadvantage here? The warrior is the only Melee class that has to constantly be near the enemy to deal damage. I am getting frustrated at all the times that thieves, rangers, elementalist, mezmers run away when their health is low then use stealth or climb a cliff, regenerate and come back for another shot.

Considering the same copy paste warrior build beats 90% of other builds in a 1v1, I think the advantage of stealth for escaping and resetting is perfectly fair. Also, you are delusional if you think a guardian can run from a warrior.

While I’ve often noted that people who still refer to “Nike warrior” haven’t quite grasped how much our mobility has been nerfed, there’s some irony in a warrior making the same complaints about other classes that they used to make about us.

That said, I don’t think it’s a major problem for warrior because we can still build relatively speedy even if we aren’t setting land speed records anymore. Similarly, most of the classes you mentioned have to build for that hustle too, with the exception of thief.

Pity the poor necro though. They’ll never make the track team.

Wow…a warrior complaining about fight resetting? That’s rich.

Dude you don’t need to even reset fight cause you have perma 1.1k hp/s regen. I dont even want to mention extreme dmg in full bers gear without consequence + perma stab or ressistance. Be happy you dont have 11k base hp which you should be having right now. Most broken class in wvw. Thiefs and condi reapers ar not far behind.

Ragnarox.9601:

Dude you don’t need to even reset fight cause you have perma 1.1k hp/s regen. I dont even want to mention extreme dmg in full bers gear without consequence + perma stab or ressistance. Be happy you dont have 11k base hp which you should be having right now. Most broken class in wvw. Thiefs and condi reapers ar not far behind.

Would love to see a perma resistance build that actually does damage. Unless when you say “Perma” you are like most posters exaggerating just a bit.

And if you tell me you are using Heal sig for the 6 sec resistance then say bye bye to the “perma” 1.1k hp/s Cant have it both ways.

As someone who has pretty much played a warrior as a main since beta release, I don’t have a problem with this at all. Warriors can devastate other classes if we can lock them down so having the ability to escape is fair.

Forget about catching a thief or a mesmer. Especially thief can reset whever she wants. Druids with quick draw staff/gs can be painful also. But I mean warrior hits like a truck, so some professions should escape.

On the other hand everyone told me that playing warrior was easy. On the contrary, it is harder than playing a thief (it feels like it ). Of course I am accustomed to thief but it is so easy to dodge/shadowstep/steal etc. all those sweet mobility options. How do you guys deal with high mobility professions anyway?

and Necros? toss a rope at them?

alain.1659:

Forget about catching a thief or a mesmer. Especially thief can reset whever she wants. Druids with quick draw staff/gs can be painful also. But I mean warrior hits like a truck, so some professions should escape.

On the other hand everyone told me that playing warrior was easy. On the contrary, it is harder than playing a thief (it feels like it ). Of course I am accustomed to thief but it is so easy to dodge/shadowstep/steal etc. all those sweet mobility options. How do you guys deal with high mobility professions anyway?

We just cope with it, there is nothing much we can do, except to constantly chase and chase and chase the enemies because our class require us to be within 130 units of the enemy. To be honest it is exhausting!

However, once in a while you encounter the noob that sits on your 100 blades and you feel like you have finally accomplished something in life.

alain.1659:

How do you guys deal with high mobility professions anyway?

I run a high damage build that pretty much requires the thief to make a critical mistake and for me to take out more than half health in a single blow, plus a well placed Whirlind Attack immediately after to finish the rest.

There’s a lot of baiting required (or inexperience on the thief’s part) to make that work though, including letting myself get below 50% health or otherwise “playing possum” to make them become overconfident. Running away, causing them to burn initiative in the chase, only to feed them the ol’ “turn and burn” is another tactic. Weapon stowing midway through a telegraphed skill, and otherwise not being predictable in sequences and timing helps a lot.

If I ran Berserker, it would be easier, tbh. More stuns, more damage on burst, and more forgiving of mistakes.

Let me try these tactics, thanks. I usually play thief so I still cannot coop with warrior.

I don’t really feel like disputing all of this although the argument itself seems rather silly considering the position warrior is in. However I did want to just jump in here and comment on what you said about Elementalist, as a ele main myself I can assure you what you said simply isn’t true and you make the issue sound a lot worse then it is in your post.

So first off let’s look at the meta ele build, this being the support D/F tempest, 80% of these Elememtalists run full shouts for maximum support for there group, which means they have no lighting flash (the port you was referring to) they also have no mobility skills as main hand dagger offers none and neither does off hand focus, this means there only mobility would be permanent swiftness, something a warrior should have no issue keeping up with thanks to rush and your own swiftness (that’s assuming your running mace in your other hand and not sword which offers even more mobility) however some of these ele’s might run lighting flash which is a 40second cd 900range port (it can be trained for a lower cd but that’s not the case with this build) so in conclusion other then a few specific spots the 900 range port is able to port up (if there even running it) then warrior has no issue keeping up with a meta Elementalist, unless he’s a complete welly and wastes his mobility while within 100 range.

Ok so onto the next build, this one isn’t nearly as common as the previous build or its variants. S/F Elementalist, this is the most mobile of all the Ele builds thanks to its rather high access to super speed, Warriors will have a hard time catching this build if it doesn’t want to be caught, however, if they choose to run its very likely they won’t get you down, this build relies on high burst, something warrior is very good at negating for starters. So you won’t catch this build if it don’t want to be cuaght, but it also won’t down you if it’s not engaging you fully as its bursts relies on getting in close proximity to a warrior. This is when it gets abit more interesting, this build typically runs full cantrips, and traits them for lower cd’s, so mistform(cd 42seconds)armour of earth(cd 40seconss) and lighting flash(cd 32seconds), so when you take into account the low cd’s of Warriors stuns and the fact a S/F ele has to get in moderate range to do real burst a warrior should have no issue locking a S/F ele down once there longish cd’s are up considering the cd’s of warriors cc’s, you should have no trouble stun locking a S/F ele and if they are playing cautious you really shouldn’t go down to them with your defensive capabilities. This is all ofc assuming the two players are of equal skill. Maybe I strayed a little off point with this one in regards to your post as yes if they are cautious they can leave and come back but you shouldn’t lost to them if they do so.

Now let’s talk about another build, D/D Elementalist, this is the one I myself run, but it’s a very uncommon build nowdays, it’s sustained mobility is rather shoody much like the D/F Elementalist, however we do have ride the lighting on offhand dagger which is a 30second cd 1200 range mobility skill, this skill can be interupted however, so you can stop it, unlike Druids staff 3 skill for instance, we also run full cantrips just like S/F Elementalist so we also have a 32second cd 900range port, so maybe if your running mace/gs we can leave the fight assuming we don’t use both these skills in our rotations to engage and burst (like a D/D ele should do) but we simply leave the unable to down you, so again you lose nothing, and with the exact same cd’s as S/F ele the same situation applies, you can easily cc us once the cd’s are spent, negating our kiting, (lighting flash isn’t a stun break), so basically we won’t kill you if we have to keep kiting and if we don’t you will eventually land a cc chain and kill us, once again assuming the skill is equal.

A lot of these fights change even more once you throw in sword which others war another good mobility skill. So basically there’s a few non meta builds that are not very common that can reset vs a war in specific circumstances but they gain nothing from doing so. And the most common meta build Elementalist has is unable to kite a warrior atall.

The issue with Warrior is the lack of a viable medium ranged weapon (spammable autoattack) and not so much that other classes can escape (as that should be a viable option for all) aka a pistol mainhaind or axe throw auto like Ranger, etc. Fundamentally, that issue coupled with the legacy flaw of Warrior’s Sprint in it only applying to melee weapons from how the game functioned pre-HoT/pre-Swiftness abilities given to all (except Guardian) is ultimately what creates the odd fight disengage/chase issue.

What I’d like to see is alternatives to Warriors whereby have an option (second weapon) but also comes at a tradeoff.

Yes, this is a problem, but it’s also a design flaw with Warrior.

Warrior beats almost any class/build in a 1v1 where the opponent stays to fight. The only way to beat the meta stance build is to kite and reset the fight until the Warrior’s defenses are on cooldown, THEN move in for the kill.

Is this thread meant to be ironic?

coro.3176:

Yes, this is a problem, but it’s also a design flaw with Warrior.

Warrior beats almost any class/build in a 1v1 where the opponent stays to fight. The only way to beat the meta stance build is to kite and reset the fight until the Warrior’s defenses are on cooldown, THEN move in for the kill.

As a current WvW thief main, I can 110% confirm this. Resetting the fight is often strategic and sometimes crucial to avoid getting 1-shotted by a berserker (bad enough full glass teef hits for a little more then the passive heals during their god mode.) Waiting it out/resetting has become a must. Until War’s get toned down, this will never change.

I just don’t think it’s very good game design when your opponent can’t engage with you for 30 seconds+ at a time and just has to run away.

For example, on my condi engi which relies on blind, immobilize, cripple, and chill to slow my opponent and keep them off me, I can actually turn and attack the warrior for maybe 10% of a fight without risking a stun-burst-insta-death combo.

I have to kite for ~8s (heal signet resist), then ~15s (berserker stance resist), then 8s (signet), then 15s (Eternal Champion stability), then 8s (signet), then more stab if they have Last Stand and/or Balanced stance, then 8s (signet). Now I have a short window (maybe 10 seconds or less?) to try to cc and kill them.

Occasionally I’ll try and damage them when their resist is down but stability is up. This usually goes badly though, because I’ll have to dodge Headbutt, then dodge Shield-Bash.. now I have no dodges, then eat damage or another stun.

Basically, the entire fight is spent waiting almost a minute for an opening. This is .. kind of bad gameplay.

Not saying either direction on this but I will say last time I was 1v1ing a guildie in our arena on his thief he made the comment that my warrior seemed like a zombie just limping towards his thief and constantly keeping pressure on him.

coro.3176:

I just don’t think it’s very good game design when your opponent can’t engage with you for 30 seconds+ at a time and just has to run away.

For example, on my condi engi which relies on blind, immobilize, cripple, and chill to slow my opponent and keep them off me, I can actually turn and attack the warrior for maybe 10% of a fight without risking a stun-burst-insta-death combo.

I have to kite for ~8s (heal signet resist), then ~15s (berserker stance resist), then 8s (signet), then 15s (Eternal Champion stability), then 8s (signet), then more stab if they have Last Stand and/or Balanced stance, then 8s (signet). Now I have a short window (maybe 10 seconds or less?) to try to cc and kill them.

Occasionally I’ll try and damage them when their resist is down but stability is up. This usually goes badly though, because I’ll have to dodge Headbutt, then dodge Shield-Bash.. now I have no dodges, then eat damage or another stun.

Basically, the entire fight is spent waiting almost a minute for an opening. This is .. kind of bad gameplay.

Any warrior who uses his heal signet for anything more than an emergency (6s, not 8s) of resistance will die.

Second, don’t cc them. Someone with the sort of stability you’ve described has crappy condi management. They could have (though not in what you described) built to make cc a gift to them through rousing resilience. Don’t cc those guys either.

You can’t expect the same strategy to work against every build. If your standard strategy is to cc and then Condi burst, change your strategy against a high stability or high clearing opponent. If you have no option to do that, recognize it’s a hard counter to your build.

It’s 8s with boon duration (I mainly play wvw).

They don’t have crappy condi management. They have the resistance I described above, plus the usual condi clears (weapon swap, etc).. My only chance is to burst them when it’s on cooldown. My point is that it’s not a fun fight to be running away for most of it. There should be some give and take – y’know? They dodge my attack, I dodge theirs. Repeat.

Instead, it’s more like – Warrior chases me for 50 seconds. I chase warrior for 10 seconds. Repeat.

coro.3176:

It’s 8s with boon duration (I mainly play wvw).

They don’t have crappy condi management. They have the resistance I described above, plus the usual condi clears (weapon swap, etc).. My only chance is to burst them when it’s on cooldown. My point is that it’s not a fun fight to be running away for most of it. There should be some give and take – y’know? They dodge my attack, I dodge theirs. Repeat.

Instead, it’s more like – Warrior chases me for 50 seconds. I chase warrior for 10 seconds. Repeat.

Well, if they have Last Stand (as you described) they don’t have Cleansing Ire. That leaves then with (probably) one clear on swap (every 5s if they’re diligent) and (maybe) two condis when entering rage state.

If they’re using their stance and signet as you described, you should be able to bury then in condis once you see them proc the signet the second time. When they come out of that resistance, they’ll be sitting ducks.

It’s unlikely that you’re coming across many longbow warriors in wvw, which means you should also focus on ranged pressure while keeping distance. It keeps you safe from the Headbutt combo, it will starve your opponent in terms of adren build up, and not landing a burst will cut his healing potential by 2/3.

Keeping your distance and plunking away from range is what you should do even if he has cleansing ire, because the clear requires him to hit you.

I play a power vanilla warrior that uses sword and greatsword. That means I’m at a disadvantage in almost every respect against a meta Berserker who has more damage and defense than I do in melee range (same with most DHs), and I don’t even have the option of doing damage from range.

So what do I do? I use my superior mobility to kite when he’s in rage, I draw out his Last Stand (if he has it), I’m careful when I close to avoid Headbutt (because I’ll be punished) and I fake him out with weapon stows, and unpredictable timing. Of he’s got Rousing Resilliance, I don’t even bother using a stun.

That isn’t what I do against a necro, most rangers, or mesmers, for that matter.

You have more options than I do in the match you described, so you don’t have to have 10 min fights.