Guild Wars 2

This may be posted already, but it deserved a thread rather than being buried somewhere.

Warrior:
The overall goal here is to reduce the damage for the very high control warriors. This means reducing some dependency on going 30 points into discipline for Burst Mastery, making warriors spend 20 points in Arms to get the benefit of Unsuspecting Foe. We also reduced the damage on the hammer’s burst skill to separate the control from the damage. We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area of effect control, but we’re trying to prevent them from easily doing both. We also increased the readability of Skull Crack, which will allow opposing players to more easily react to it. Combustive Shot on longbow also saw some rework. It will scale better with adrenaline levels, and still provide strong burning per adrenaline level, but the raw damage was toned down slightly.

Strength 5 – Reckless Dodge. Increased Damage by 25%
Strength III – Great Fortitude. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 7%.
Arms IV – Unsuspecting Foe. Moved to Master Tier.
Arms VII – Crack Shot. Moved to Adept Tier.
Arms XII – Last Chance. Increased the threshold form 25% to 50%. Reduced the cooldown from 45 seconds to 40seconds.
Defense 25 – Armored Attack. Increased conversion rate from 5% to 10%.
Defense XII – Spiked Armor. Reduced the recharge from 15s to 10s.
Tactics 5 – Determined Revival. Now correctly displays the amount of toughness.
Tactics 25 – Reviver’s Might. Now applies 3 stacks of Might instead of 1.
Discipline II – Thrill of the Kill. Increased Adrenaline gain from 1 to 10.
Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.
Skull Crack. Increased the cast time from 1/4s to 1/2s. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.
Combustive Shot – Increased pulse duration to 3s. Increased burn duration per pulse to 3s. Normalized damage per pulse. Updated pulses per tier to 2, 3,and 4 respectively for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3.

_making warriors spend 20 points in Arms to get the benefit of Unsuspecting Foe. _

I guess I’ll deal with it. Allowed us to deal viable damage while CCing..but..okay. I guess we need to be like Warriors in other MMOs where we struggle without a partner holding our hand.

We also reduced the damage on the hammer’s burst skill to separate the control from the damage. We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area of effect control, but we’re trying to prevent them from easily doing both.

Pick between damage or control. Kind of like when the game launched, a year ago, when Warriors were complete garbage and laughed at in Tpvp. Great.

We also increased the readability of Skull Crack, which will allow opposing players to more easily react to it.

Why? Because of whiners? Because people can’t figure out to push stability? Or push roll when a Warrior with a mace mainhand is smacking them in the face?

Defense XII – Spiked Armor. Reduced the recharge from 15s to 10s.
Still a garbage trait.

Tactics 25 – Reviver’s Might. Now applies 3 stacks of Might instead of 1.
Also still garbage.

Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
Why nerf ALL Burst damage? Most of them suck anyway (see:greatsword)

Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.
Over nerfing imo.

Skull Crack. Increased the cast time from 1/4s to 1/2s. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.
See above.

Back to launch day!

I would swap hambow build for a pure regen bunker or DPS hammer\GS.
At least we still have Healing Signet and zerker stance didn’t get nerfed

But I think you’re overreacting dude . Seriously , yea hammer is weaker in a soldier setup but you still can get decent CC with mace\shield and btw we needed those nerfs , the hambow build was beyond ridiculous . UF trait getting moved.forces us to get rid of burst mastery to avoid spamming burst skills.

Actually posted in “Nerf incoming”..

Thanks
About 74 posts and 24 hours after the thread was created though, which makes it hard to spot.
I notice you’re the thread creator. If you want to edit your original thread to include the newly released info I’m happy to ask ask a mod merge these threads, but that’s not what the other thread was originally for.

Well i think theres no need to make another thread. I will edit name in a sec.

Welp, looks like it’s time to dust off the longbow and start spamming them arcing arrows.

:( Been using Unsuspecting Foe since launch… curse it’s getting picked up and brought to the attention of the masses! Thus far I’ve run it in a more damage focused setup, never used a precisionless setup so I get a 100% (50-60 to 100) boost in crit rate rather than a 1250% (4% up to 54%) boost, mostly because I’m rarely with other hammer warriors so there’s not often any other sources of stun to make the uptime reliable.

Debating whether to shift to a 0/20/30/0/20 or try and stick with 30 dis/def and 10 elsewhere, but move the 10. Only problem for me is that there is really no 10point traits I like in the other lines since desperate power got reduced to 25%.

Quite a hefty nerf to Earthshaker damage there overall – I was actually expecting the balance to be around the sustained health rather than damage (considering they kept giving us damage traits in the past). So I guess we hold onto healing signet for the time being! With rifle trait being on 1st tier perhaps we shall see more Rifle offhands?

Mace is dead .There is no way in hell someone would land a 130 range skullcrack on a skilled player .50% nerf with nothing in return.There is no reason at all to go for UF now since the only viable stun would be earthshatter anyway.

I’m surprised there weren’t any pve nerfs. To me this says anet clearly wants warriors to be the top pve dpsers.

Neandramathal.9536:

:( Been using Unsuspecting Foe since launch… curse it’s getting picked up and brought to the attention of the masses! Thus far I’ve run it in a more damage focused setup, never used a precisionless setup so I get a 100% (50-60 to 100) boost in crit rate rather than a 1250% (4% up to 54%) boost, mostly because I’m rarely with other hammer warriors so there’s not often any other sources of stun to make the uptime reliable.

Debating whether to shift to a 0/20/30/0/20 or try and stick with 30 dis/def and 10 elsewhere, but move the 10. Only problem for me is that there is really no 10point traits I like in the other lines since desperate power got reduced to 25%.

Quite a hefty nerf to Earthshaker damage there overall – I was actually expecting the balance to be around the sustained health rather than damage (considering they kept giving us damage traits in the past). So I guess we hold onto healing signet for the time being! With rifle trait being on 1st tier perhaps we shall see more Rifle offhands?

More likely a mace/shield.. Pretty fun builds if u ask me, just easy to kiting like hell.
Rifle is current state is too weak to make any real uses outside of yt movies “my killshot did 100k damage in upscaled guy” Also as i like rifle im happy see it moved to adept, i think its should be placed in discipline. As for hammer patch will show us if hammer remain viable or will become useless.

Evagal.2584:

_making warriors spend 20 points in Arms to get the benefit of Unsuspecting Foe. _

I guess I’ll deal with it. Allowed us to deal viable damage while CCing..but..okay. I guess we need to be like Warriors in other MMOs where we struggle without a partner holding our hand.

We also reduced the damage on the hammer’s burst skill to separate the control from the damage. We don’t mind warriors doing massive damage, or doing great area of effect control, but we’re trying to prevent them from easily doing both.

Pick between damage or control. Kind of like when the game launched, a year ago, when Warriors were complete garbage and laughed at in Tpvp. Great.

We also increased the readability of Skull Crack, which will allow opposing players to more easily react to it.

Why? Because of whiners? Because people can’t figure out to push stability? Or push roll when a Warrior with a mace mainhand is smacking them in the face?

Defense XII – Spiked Armor. Reduced the recharge from 15s to 10s.
Still a garbage trait.

Tactics 25 – Reviver’s Might. Now applies 3 stacks of Might instead of 1.
Also still garbage.

Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
Why nerf ALL Burst damage? Most of them suck anyway (see:greatsword)

Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.
Over nerfing imo.

Skull Crack. Increased the cast time from 1/4s to 1/2s. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.
See above.

Back to launch day!

I agree with this post entirely. Warrior are slowly being reverted to what they were at launch. They’ll end up being Entirely offensive, or Entirely defencive, and guardians will be preferred overall.

mini.6018:

Mace is dead .There is no way in hell someone would land a 130 range skullcrack on a skilled player .50% nerf with nothing in return.There is no reason at all to go for UF now since the only viable stun would be earthshatter anyway.

Actually you suggested to move it to GM as far i rebember. Axe/shield will still remain okay with that, a lil worse sword if we want to pick opportunist/blademaster or both. But for hammer i agree – theres no reason to pick it anymore. Not for a 2second stun.

I mainly play warrior and thief and the nerf to warrior was absolutly needed . They are just forcing us to go more support\bunker instead of dmg . Everybody knows that hammer was broken . 100% crit chance in soldiers … and then earthshaker hits like a truck . It’s not like thieves at least . D\P and S\D nerfed into the ground . Thief is free kill now .

IMO. if they’re gonna nerf the Dmg on Earthshaker atleast make it unblockable. 20% reduced dmg is stupid

Scoobaniec.9561:

mini.6018:

Mace is dead .There is no way in hell someone would land a 130 range skullcrack on a skilled player .50% nerf with nothing in return.There is no reason at all to go for UF now since the only viable stun would be earthshatter anyway.

Actually you suggested to move it to GM as far i rebember. Axe/shield will still remain okay with that, a lil worse sword if we want to pick opportunist/blademaster or both. But for hammer i agree – theres no reason to pick it anymore. Not for a 2second stun.

Yes that is true and placing it higher is a good choice .What is a poor choice is increasing by 50% the cast time of skullcrack on a weapon that has zero mobility,the lowest range in the game and the slowes auto attack in the game also paired with no mobility and no cripple.Skull crack was good gounter to thieves jumping on you out of nowwhere and would give you the time to react but now it would be just useless and no exageration in that at all.

Aso another poor choice is nerfing hammer dps on a dps build.Someone that was not using uf and used a zerker build got nerfed for no reason whatsoever when the only problem warriors had was pairing the dps with tankiness not dps with cc wich all classes have.

mini.6018:

Scoobaniec.9561:

mini.6018:

Mace is dead .There is no way in hell someone would land a 130 range skullcrack on a skilled player .50% nerf with nothing in return.There is no reason at all to go for UF now since the only viable stun would be earthshatter anyway.

Actually you suggested to move it to GM as far i rebember. Axe/shield will still remain okay with that, a lil worse sword if we want to pick opportunist/blademaster or both. But for hammer i agree – theres no reason to pick it anymore. Not for a 2second stun.

Yes that is true and placing it higher is a good choice .What is a poor choice is increasing by 50% the cast time of skullcrack on a weapon that has zero mobility,the lowest range in the game and the slowes auto attack in the game also paired with no mobility and no cripple.Skull crack was good gounter to thieves jumping on you out of nowwhere and would give you the time to react but now it would be just useless and no exageration in that at all.

I know its over nerf to mace without compensation..

Counter blow – still a single block no matter if ranged or melee, on top of that slow. Gl block shield bash+evi combo..before counterblow do damage we will eat evi in face.

Pommel bash – cool its remain insta cast, but damage is a trash. And its not even a stun

Mace chain – pulverize..Seriously do i need to say something else? Mace going to a dead status, probably followed by hammer.

UF and 2 damage skills nerf on hammer is too much. And let me guess..ES will remain 3/4sec still? Wut a joke it is? Salvage ur hammer boys.
______

Rifle, greatsword, axes, sword still unaddressed.

Meh, didn’t like much hammer anyways and always preferred rifle over longbow, as except from zerg clashes the only useful skill in WvW is 5.

Where’s the source for all this?!

Found it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview

I posted this in the official balance thread and the other balance thread but will add it here also.

JonPeters.5630:

Warrior:

• Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.
• Earthshaker. Reduced damage by 20%.
• Staggering Blow. Reduced damage by 23%.

This would pretty much render the hammer completely useless, especially if UF is moved to Master.

• Earthshaker already takes a damage reduction if you don’t have UF. I fear that nerfing it even more would make it very weak for an F1 skill (even less if burst mastery is also nerfed.)

• In order to get UF once it is moved to Master you need to sacrifice either Burst Mastery (extra damage), or Merciless Hammer (extrta control) or Cleansing Ire (extra survability).

• I can unerstand staggering blow being toned down a bit since it has become mobile and can actually hit something but -23% seems a little harsh.

I truly believe that all of this added together is overkill and will completely destroy the hammer warrior. Why not start with just the changes to UF and the longbow and see how it all evens out with other professions being buffed?

Nobody got buffed that’s the thing lol

Those damage reductions on earthshaker and staggering blow are quite something. UF I can understand moving to master as you then have to make a big trait tree choice but just wow on those damage reductions. Have to see how it works out but hammer really took a hit for all folks even those not stacking crit and UF.

The control aspect is minor – stability or even the large number of blinds flying about can resolve that and only 3 skills of the 6 on hammer give any decent form of aoe cc anyway.

Changes seem a bit too much on the shave side and not enough on the strong specialty side for me. Will have to see how it plays out, especially against changes to other professions. Would have rather seen some changes (not necessarily nerfs) to HS and some other forms of sustain. Oh well, stay strong my warrior brethren!

rip in peace Mace. Clearly that 0 range stun was just too incredibly quick and mobile for mouth breathing keyboard turners.

the hammer nerfs are unnecessary. the changes to UF and BM are gonna tone down dmg more then enough without reducing it another 20% on top of that. All this is gonna do is destroy other non meta hammer builds(ie hammer shouts).

They asked for feed back so I guess now its time to get loud. The other changes are doable but 20% to earth shaker and 23% to staggering blow is ridiculous.

The main issue I see with UF is that it allows someone with 0 investment in precision to get 74% crit chance via stun+fury, which is huge, especially when there are multiple hammer warriors together (hence the WvW meta of guards/warriors almost exclusively).

If it wasn’t a flat bonus, but say a %age of your precision added it would be different. Even doubling your existing (bonus from gear/stats etc) precision would make more sense, sure it’d allow for large damage, but you wouldn’t be a tank with CC and damage – you’d have to choose one or the other. It’s been in it’s current form since release and was never an issue, but meh – tbh the only thing that bugs me about the change is personally I’m not interested in any other 10point traits anywhere

The hammer nerf ontop is quite extreme. I was considering going back to Hammer/Sword+Shield instead of GS, but with the damage nerfs the GS becomes too necessary for damage/mobility combined.

I guess it’s just wait and see how it turns out.

ya hammer damage nerf was over the top, this is why i dont like ANets ballence changes, they op a class just a little and then nuke the crap outta it.

a t s e.9614:

Nobody got buffed that’s the thing lol

Ele’s, Engie’s, Guards (why i do not understand), mesmer’s (we shall see), Rangers all got buffed with only a few minor rebalances here and there.

Nec, Thief and War have been brought down a peg or two this time around. Saw it coming though these classes suffered from the fact that they got to have the howl pie and eat it too now they have to choose a slice like everyone else. In the case of the warrior you can go tanky CC hammer but have little dmage or go offence CC with the hammer but have no defence instead of being this massive Meat shield bulldozer with a side of kick-kitten that it is today.

“Strength 5 – Reckless Dodge. Increased Damage by 25%”
This I actually like. Keep this.

“Defense XII – Spiked Armor. Reduced the recharge from 15s to 10s.”
Cool, still ain’t ever gonna use it. Why? Retaliation punishes rapid attacks and not necessarily burst.

“Discipline II – Thrill of the Kill. Increased Adrenaline gain from 1 to 10.”
Hahahaha! That could actually oddly be somewhat useful.

“Discipline XI – Burst Mastery. Reduced damage increase from 10% to 7%. Removed erroneous adrenaline gain fact.”
But… even our biggest damage burst didn’t do that much at all… Why?

“Skull Crack. Increased the cast time from 1/4s to 1/2s. Updated the animation and effects of this skill to be more clear.”
If it’s getting nerfed to be slower and more easily seen (not a big time nerf but could well be) it’s not going to retain it’s “Surprise mace to the head!” Stun ability. Therefore, I’d like to see it add (1/2/3) stack(s) of confusion. It’s shouldn’t be called Skull Crack for nothing!

“Combustive Shot – Increased pulse duration to 3s. Increased burn duration per pulse to 3s. Normalized damage per pulse. Updated pulses per tier to 2, 3,and 4 respectively for tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3.”
K. Sounds like it might maybe do something.

So people are actually whining about a nerf to hammer while they get all these cool buffs? Still I’ve never seen the charm of Unsuspecting Foe. It was all based on a clutched hammer burst that is hard and annoying to use in a massive zerg when my fps drops to 15-20 frames. If you’re interested in small groups wvw or dueling some fools there are already tons of better and more op builds than hammer/mace and Unsuspecting Foe combo.
You can easily get 26k hp, 2k toughness 60% crit damage and 70%crit chance with sword/axe combo while dishing some hilarious damage in zergs, especially when you’re defending castles and keeps.
I personally only get annoyed by the longbow nerf, since I wanted to try condition damage build. I’m not sure if it’s worth anymore since that’s like 20-25% overall damage nerf to combustive shot.

good luck with ur sword axe build then

and no there is and wont be a better spec for smallscale or solo then hammer+ all the traits

mace/gs builds also reach their limits fast vs halfway decent players

List to do in december :

Salvage mace
Salvage hammer
Hmm maybe salvage bow
Make a spirit ranger or a necro

Well at least i will have more mats for craftleveling ^^

Kunzzi.5714:

So people are actually whining about a nerf to hammer while they get all these cool buffs? Still I’ve never seen the charm of Unsuspecting Foe. It was all based on a clutched hammer burst that is hard and annoying to use in a massive zerg when my fps drops to 15-20 frames. If you’re interested in small groups wvw or dueling some fools there are already tons of better and more op builds than hammer/mace and Unsuspecting Foe combo.
You can easily get 26k hp, 2k toughness 60% crit damage and 70%crit chance with sword/axe combo while dishing some hilarious damage in zergs, especially when you’re defending castles and keeps.
I personally only get annoyed by the longbow nerf, since I wanted to try condition damage build. I’m not sure if it’s worth anymore since that’s like 20-25% overall damage nerf to combustive shot.

cool buffs? where do u see those? All I see is a mace nerf, the meta build being broken and hammer being trashed along with all associated builds.

“You can easily get 26k hp, 2k toughness 60% crit damage and 70%crit chance "
Your talking about wvw, after u stack food ascended etc u can have any stats u want no matter what class u have.

mini.6018:

List to do in december :

Salvage mace
Salvage hammer
Hmm maybe salvage bow
Make a spirit ranger or a necro

Well at least i will have more mats for craftleveling ^^

I wouldn’t roll a spirit ranger bud, they got nerfed as well, mainly endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%, lightning spirit dmg drop by 33%, burning passive on the sun spirit from 3s to 2s, etc…. Please don’t type like other classes didn’t receive nerfs. I think the only class that benefited this patch is mesmer, maybe guardian too.

Ryan.8367:

mini.6018:

List to do in december :

Salvage mace
Salvage hammer
Hmm maybe salvage bow
Make a spirit ranger or a necro

Well at least i will have more mats for craftleveling ^^

I wouldn’t roll a spirit ranger bud, they got nerfed as well, mainly endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%, lightning spirit dmg drop by 33%, burning passive on the sun spirit from 3s to 2s, etc…. Please don’t type like other classes didn’t receive nerfs. I think the only class that benefited this patch is mesmer, maybe guardian too.

You need to realize that with hammer 20% dps loss in zerk,40%ish lost in soldier and with mace being DELETED literally warrior is back to square one.The most non viable class in spvp EVER.So any other class would be better and necro and ranger still seem viable atm.

Gs is not realiable.sword is ok but lacks stuns blocks and without them the class lacks survavibility again.Rifle ? lmao.All warriors weapons are now nerfed into oblivion or broken as hell.The only semi viable build would be condi shout healer wich is pure kitten for team play aswell,easily replacable by any other class since lacks cc and extended survavibility except pure facetanking wich is the worst way of tanking possible.A zerker with acces to blocks,evades,stealth.teleports and such is way better at even 10k hp and everyone knows it by now.

I love how they “FIX” any other things which is not need fix.
but the things which really need to look into is getting forgotten.
KITTEN STEALTH
KITTEN 800 EVADES PER SECONDS
KITTEN TELEPORTS

But we must have “FIXES” cuz oh my god. I teleport 8 times a second,evade 90 times a second and stealth in every second,and a warrior just hit me with it’s 8sec casting time hammer skills.

Why the whiners get what they want?
WHEN we get,WHAT we Want?

mini.6018:

Ryan.8367:

mini.6018:

List to do in december :

Salvage mace
Salvage hammer
Hmm maybe salvage bow
Make a spirit ranger or a necro

Well at least i will have more mats for craftleveling ^^

I wouldn’t roll a spirit ranger bud, they got nerfed as well, mainly endurance regeneration from 50% to 25%, lightning spirit dmg drop by 33%, burning passive on the sun spirit from 3s to 2s, etc…. Please don’t type like other classes didn’t receive nerfs. I think the only class that benefited this patch is mesmer, maybe guardian too.

You need to realize that with hammer 20% dps loss in zerk,40%ish lost in soldier and with mace being DELETED literally warrior is back to square one.The most non viable class in spvp EVER.So any other class would be better and necro and ranger still seem viable atm.

Gs is not realiable.sword is ok but lacks stuns blocks and without them the class lacks survavibility again.Rifle ? lmao.All warriors weapons are now nerfed into oblivion or broken as hell.The only semi viable build would be condi shout healer wich is pure kitten for team play aswell,easily replacable by any other class since lacks cc and extended survavibility except pure facetanking wich is the worst way of tanking possible.A zerker with acces to blocks,evades,stealth.teleports and such is way better at even 10k hp and everyone knows it by now.

i understand, i think its dumb to nerf both in one run. Ranger is only viable because it fills a role as being a team kitten bunker point holder. If you want to spend your time sitting on a point on the offchance youll catch a fight every 5 minutes then by all means , roll ranger. if you want to do anything other than that (there are rangers that do btw) then you will find the class is very underpowered. Ranger has been plagued by the shadow of OP ever since this stupid spirit build has seen publicity in tPvP games while the people calling it OP NERF NERF don’t stop and realize that that is literally the only build that’s viable in all game modes, especially WvW and even then it’s terrible there because one aoe from a group kills them but again, I’m sorry for putting the focus on rangers, this is about warriors and for that I agree , UF move up a trait + the dmg % nerfs is kinda over the top but you’ll have to see how it plays out I guess.

What about the PvE players? I like the Hammer/Axe&shield with zerker gear in PvE, now im back to the kittening boring GS i guess. Ye, they dont give a kitten. Only 2 viable wep at pve, even less in pvp after dec5. Nice changes anet, keep it up…

Now I want to see Engi nerfs

I welcome the upcoming changes with open arms.. Finally, Arena.net shows who’s in charge.

Well done Arena.net!

From now and on, I encourage you Arena.net to remind other as well. that, no one Dare to attempt to overthrown your Supreme Status.

Also I encourage you Arena.net to continue your journey in eliminating all godlike threats, till the end of guild wars 2 lifespan and beyond.

SpecterMAT.7306:

I love how they “FIX” any other things which is not need fix.
but the things which really need to look into is getting forgotten.
KITTEN STEALTH
KITTEN 800 EVADES PER SECONDS
KITTEN TELEPORTS

But we must have “FIXES” cuz oh my god. I teleport 8 times a second,evade 90 times a second and stealth in every second,and a warrior just hit me with it’s 8sec casting time hammer skills.

Why the whiners get what they want?
WHEN we get,WHAT we Want?

Check thief patch notes?

Gathslan.1870:

SpecterMAT.7306:

I love how they “FIX” any other things which is not need fix.
but the things which really need to look into is getting forgotten.
KITTEN STEALTH
KITTEN 800 EVADES PER SECONDS
KITTEN TELEPORTS

But we must have “FIXES” cuz oh my god. I teleport 8 times a second,evade 90 times a second and stealth in every second,and a warrior just hit me with it’s 8sec casting time hammer skills.

Why the whiners get what they want?
WHEN we get,WHAT we Want?

Check thief patch notes?

Thief stealth, vigor and initiative are getting a pretty good beating as well.

I approve of this. Its a another show of Anet past ability to balance like they did in gw1 without completely breaking a class. Hopefully they will be able to balance the rest of the classes in a similar fashion.

Assassin X.8573:

I approve of this. Its a another show of Anet past ability to balance like they did in gw1 without completely breaking a class. Hopefully they will be able to balance the rest of the classes in a similar fashion.

You forgot /sarcasm

Okay, will attempt to be as concise as possible, and for full disclosure, I primarily run a control warrior build.

Unsuspecting Foe – Acceptable. Crit chance may still need tweaking down.

Crack Shot – Love it! Hopefully more rifle warriors now.

Armored Attack – Love it! Maybe too strong now!

Spiked Armor – Interesting. Does not solve accusations of passive warriors.

Burst Mastery – Questionable. Seems unfair that all burst skills suffer because of Earthshaker burst.

Earthshaker – Questionable. Unsuspecting Foe and Burst Mastery changes already hurt this enough.

Staggering Blow – Very bad. Cast time needs to be slower, damage needs to stay where it is.

Skull Crack – Love it! This is how Staggering Blow should be changed instead.

Combustive Shot – Interesting, though I question if the duration is too long at tiers 2 and 3.

Check effectiveness of the following build in the new environment versus the standard hammer burst build in the current environment:

20 Arms: Furious Reaction, Unsuspecting Foe
30 Defense: Dogged March, Cleansing Ire, Merciless Hammer
20 Discipline: Vigorous Focus, Signet Mastery

Healing Signet, Balanced Stance, Berserker Stance, Endure Pain, Signet of Rage

Corian.4068:

Crack Shot – Love it! Hopefully more rifle warriors now.

I don’t think so, rifle is not viable, but for sure ill try to give it a shot again.

why not make hammer f1 do 0 dmg. Atm the bads using hammer only use it for the stun so you havent done anything to hurt the badhammerriders. You just hindered the people who actually use hammer with a brain.

If im right the F1 will do less dmg then auto. Even arcing slice does more then GS auto, this is just sad anet. Balance team plz look at what you do before you do it because reading through all of the balance changes for different classes you guys did terrible.

Rangers needed buffs so thats great and they got nerfed in the endurance departmant. Thats cool
Eles nerfed more.
Wars got buffed in random things where as hammer gets nerfed even more.

Julie Yann.5379:

This would pretty much render the hammer completely useless, especially if UF is moved to Master.

No; what it’s doing is making the Hammer a control-focused weapon, not a damage-focused one. With the current iteration, you get your cake and you’re eating it, too, and that’s why Hammer is currently overpowered.

• Earthshaker already takes a damage reduction if you don’t have UF. I fear that nerfing it even more would make it very weak for an F1 skill (even less if burst mastery is also nerfed.)

It doesn’t take a damage reduction if you don’t have UF; it just doesn’t get an obscene boost to its damage output. It’s possible that Earthshaker won’t need the damage reduction with UF no longer being automatically accessible, but I’d like to see how it plays out before we start saying the skill is useless.

Remember, it’s still an AOE stun with a short cooldown, huge area of effect, and long range. It could do 0 damage and it would still be a button very much worth pushing.

Personally I think it’d be more fun if it launched everyone it hits, since that seems more Hulk-like, but stunning is fine, too :p

• In order to get UF once it is moved to Master you need to sacrifice either Burst Mastery (extra damage), or Merciless Hammer (extrta control) or Cleansing Ire (extra survability).

Exactly! They’re forcing players to make choices, rather than being able to get pretty much everything with a single build. Now you have to choose if you want to be harder to kill, want better control, or want more damage. It’s basically pick two out of the three possible choices. I don’t see this as being bad.

I truly believe that all of this added together is overkill and will completely destroy the hammer warrior. Why not start with just the changes to UF and the longbow and see how it all evens out with other professions being buffed?

The Hammer will still be a useful weapon. You have a colossal AOE stun for an adrenaline dump, a conical knockback, and a single-target knockdown all on one weapon, plus an AOE cripple on a fairly brief cooldown.

It’s possible and maybe even likely that the Hammer will no longer be the one-stop shop for damage, control, and everything else… but that’s a good thing. Warriors can have two weapon sets equipped at any time and swap between them freely.

Hammer/Longbow will probably still be just fine and be viable, but it’s not going to give you the damage output, survivability, and control of an entire team anymore. Most likely, you will still be difficult to kill and exert a great amount of control over your enemies, but you’ll be needing someone else to kill them while you set them up.

Or you could swap out the Longbow for some damage, or vice-versa. Choices!

I don’t think the ES/Staggering Blow damage reductions are as large of nerfs as people think. If ES is 100% of your damage, it’s a straight 20% damage reduction. If it’s 50%, it’s a 10% damage reduction overall. Odds are it’s less than 20% if you aren’t flailing every other ability wildly/stupidly and missing, at which point it’s a 4% reduction in the amount of total damage you output.

You have two weapons. If people were crutching on ES spam to get kills, they might take a bit more of a nerf feel than others. If you use ES + two autos, ES is already ~50% of your total damage done, so you really won’t feel it all that much.

Typical forum overexaggerations, though. I’m kind of excited for the change, though I’ll miss Leg Specialist. I haven’t even been using Burst Mastery, so that part doesn’t phase me personally at all.