Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: This post will concern the PvP warrior and the direction warrior is hopefully/should continue taking in the next balance patches and expansions.

Spellbreaker will be a strong, balanced and fun warrior spec in the next expansion.
It gives warriors access to the things that they have needed the most: a source of personal periodic resistance and skill based condition removal (Full Counter, Cleansing Ire), boon striping, and a personal invulnurability that does NOT come from UTILITIES.
Take note of that last part, because it is the key to success and its where Anet is taking the warrior and I’m here to say that it’s a very good thing.
Warriors are and have almost always been reliant on passive abilities and passive defensive utilities. Look at all of our utilities, all one click and done and they are WAY too good to pass up as utilities in PvP. This all arose during the hasty balances by Anet back when they made the game. Especially when they buffed Healing Signet 4-5 years ago when warrior was subpar at best. The fixes were hastily done to appease players and to keep them from quitting the game in its early state. That is when we saw builds like Hambow dominate simply because Healing Signet, Berserkers Stance, Balanced Stance, and Endure Pain, were all extremely strong and always have been. Even now, the best utilities STILL ARE those 4 utilities, even after major nerfs to them.

Now however, Anet is not as worried about losing their player base/has more time on their hands to balance and as a result,they are slowly making changes to warrior to make us more skill based and less reliant on our passive utilities. They are giving us skill based abilities and access to resistence, stability, regen, might stacking and condition removal through our choice of traits and abilities, NOT our utilities. This is a truly great thing because warriors have so many cool utilities that are simply not viable/unusable because we have needed Stances to survive in the past. However, they can’t just buff traits and leave stances the way that they are, or we will truly become unkillable.

Seeing things like Full Counter in the game, and the nerf to Endure Pain and tweaks on adrenal regen and healing signet gives me hope that warrior will become a more balanced, skill dependent class. Instead of a class entirely reliant on its passive utilities. They are buffing signets (still more skill based than stances), Bulls Charge, and giving us a pretty solid skill based heal, while also slightly nerfing endure pain, berskers stance and healing signet.
They obviously still have some tweaking to do, but I appreciate the direction that they are taking. I would love to be able to use less of my stances and more of my cooler, more skill based and rewarding utilities such as Bulls Charge, Throw Bolas, Kick, and Stomp. Not only will these things make warrior less faceroll, but it will also bring the feel of playing an actual warrior class to the game, which is definitely something we need to continue in future balance patches. More skill, less passive.

Hope you’re right, because that would be awesome.

I strongly agree with most of this. I would argue that with the recent changes to Strength and Physical Skills that they have become legitimate choices if you choose strategic play over face-roll invulnerable. I’ve been roaming WvW with Bull’s Charge and Stomp and feel they are offering a lot in the way of damage, cc, and even some sustain with Stability on Stomp. They undoubtedly take the place of Endure Pain, Dolyak Signet, or Balanced Stance, but their benefits are real.

After playing PvP a lot yesterday with essentially the same build as I roam with I did come across one frustration. With a little more tactical approach I find myself much less willing to get in a Dragonhunter or Reaper’s face. It’s better to circle them while traps, wells, and shroud cool off, but we’re left with no short range weapon option to harrass with in this case. I found myself frustratingly circling a point until I felt confident leaping in. Can’t have our cake and eat it too, but still something I noticed. I think that the sustain Spellbreaker brings to the table will help change this, as well as the knowledge that if we get on you we’re gonna rip your boons and then punish you severely.

People will adjust to what warrior’s are coming up with that’s not the standard issue of the last couple years. For now though I’m enjoying delivering unexpected cc and bursts and watching thieves and rangers think twice about pressuring me to invuln and then have their way with me. Looking forward to putting Spellbreaker back in the mix!!