Guild Wars 2

Fast Hands is such a hot button issue in the Warrior subforum, but (at least to my knowledge/search) we have yet to get an official Dev response as to why Fast Hands is not or will not become baseline. Do they think it will make Wars too OP? Do they believe traits are balanced around having to take discipline in PvP for Fast Hands? What is the reasoning? Are we not allowed to know the thought process behind this?

Reasoning is Choice

Apparently the devs assigned to warrior are very hands off, but hopefully they are listening all the same. ANET is always saying they listen to their community, and the consensus here seems pretty in favor of baseline Fast Hands, it’s an interesting test to their claim if nothing else

Seems warriors want fast hands as much as necros want vital persistence….shall we join forces and storm the gates?!

They haven’t responded because they don’t need to. Making any trait baseline is extremely bad for this game. The only reason Illusionary Persona was made baseline was because that was the only way to guarantee that Mesmers weren’t the only profession in the game that could get zero effect from their profession mechanic. Blasting Staff? That was eliminating what turned out to be a poorly designed trait and rebalancing the weapon it had previously worked on to function the way it should have in the first place. Weapon rebalancing happens all the time*, and in this instance helped ArenaNet smooth out their new specializations.

Baselining Fast Hands? That means letting Warriors have ten traits – ten actual traits, not “let’s rebalance E-Staff” or “Let’s ensure Mesmers can use their profession mechanic properly”, but “Let’s give Warriors a free trait for no cost” – while telling other professions that have ‘necessary’ traits in equally necessary traitlines to go flush themselves. It means a pretty huge amount of power creep, and it also means breaking the current rule ArenaNet’s held to that professions all have a similar baseline performance.

Your base stats, your swap time, your footspeed, all the fundamentals are identical across all professions. You don’t have to keep track of a hundred and one things that’re different between the nine. There’s base health, there’s armor type, and then there’s your skills, weapons and traits. Those last three are how you’re supposed to differentiate your character, not “Warriors get quick swaps, but Rangers have a natural 10% movement boost, then Engineers gain an extra boost to Vulnerable targets, except after that Guardians…”

There’s a consensus here for baseline Fast Hands? Of course there is! If there’s one thing the official forums for any game are absolutely masters of, it’s deciding what the devs should be doing but aren’t. This is the Warrior PvP Complaints subforum, where PvP players go to complain about the fact that the Warrior is clearly* and inarguably* the WORST profession in sPvP – do you expect there to not be wide agreement that an enormous upgrade to the class, which would allow them to ignore an entire traitline forevermore, would be Awesome To Have?

The argument is “Fast Hands is already in every Warrior build ever. All this does is give us back free choice of three traitlines.” A’ight, coo’. What about Elementalists? Most Elementalist players I know feel that cantrips are flat required, as is EAtt, and thus they’re hard-locked into both Water and Arcane. Would they feel it’s perfectly fine for Warriors to get their Fast Hands baseline’d, such that they can freely pick whichever three traits give them the most stunbreaks or the most deep cleanses or the most +10%-while-[X]? How ’bout Necromancers, who maintain that Vital Persistence is critical for any build worth playing and are thus locked into Soul Reaping?

Why can’t those guys get their ‘absolutely essential, cannot-play-class-without’ traits baselined as well? I’m sure you all have a reason – what reason would that be? When you have it…turn it around, and ask yourself “why does this not apply to Warriors?”

Now, I get it. It’s frustrating to be forced into a line you might not want to pick by the realities of the game, and Fast Hands feels like one of those things that could safely be baselined without upsetting balance too much. I can see the logic, as I’ve said elsewhere. But the more I’ve thought about this recently, the more I’ve become convinced it’s exactly the sort of can of worms that nobody really wants to open. This isn’t just about Warriors in a vacuum – this is about figuring out if it’s cool for ArenaNet to start baselining half a dozen traits per profession, letting the power creep get absolutely, unacceptably disgusting, and dealing a heavy blow to an already complex game’s ease of use and intuitive ability to switch between classes, all in the name of ‘this would make PvP better!’

I don’t PvP. And as a PvE player in a PvE guild, I am sick unto death of the PvP guys absolutely, crushingly dominating the game’s balancing and driving ninety percent of ArenaNet’s class/profession-based decision-making. Discipline is an excellent line, as opposed to, ohh, say…Water. Maybe it’d be all right to not shaft everyone who doesn’t spend all night standing in control points, just this once?

A class design defines a mechanics, which makes available (among other things) a certain number of skills in exchange of CD and/or resources. So far, these mechanics multiply the number of skills either with a weapon swap (warriors, guardians, thieves, rangers, mesmers, necros, revenants) or with a special management (elems, engis).

The warrior has been designed with weapon swapping. The problem is that weapon swapping isn’t enough to make the class competitive in a player-vs-player environment, because the class design principles are too weak:

• The warrior gains only one additional skill, gated behind adrenaline and CD, which limits the skill rotations which can be leveraged against other classes,
• The warrior has been made easily kitable and hittable, blessed with high HP and armor to be able to resist, but the current damage and mobility levels have become too high for this compensation to suffice. And the warrior mechanics cannot be used defensively.

Making fast weapon swap baseline would mean that the underlying paradigm of the warrior would change. That is possible, but maybe too difficult to manage in regards of balancing. Also, rather than implementing fast weapon swapping, they could consider enriching the warrior mechanics (e.g. adding a permanent F2 skill) – this would alleviate the pressure on fast weapon swapping. But again, probably too difficult / costly.

In the end, the class will probably be balanced with new super traits/skills (like we got the Healing Signet or Cleansing Ire). My bet for the next one is “Get Resistance when bled/burnt/tormented” – or maybe on physical skills usage, to revitalize physical skills (something like Demonic Defiance or Wilderness Knowledge).

@DevilLordLaser
I don’t think you’re right about how reticent they are to baseline things. IIRC, Mesmers had six traits baselined when they gained IP as part of the class. Other classes got things baselined too.

Most of the time they were traits that extended range or duration, or reduced cool downs. For example, the CD on warrior burst used to be 10s base and 7s if you went all the way into Discipline. With the new traitlines, the baseline CD was reduced for all warriors.

That aside, I don’t think the argument that it’s bad design to baseline traits is very strong either, tbh. It’s each decision is either good for the game or it’s not. Each class has its own unique aspects, with some of those aspects defined by traits and others not. Deciding which aspects need opting into (through traits, or whatever) and which don’t should be based on the facts and what it would mean for the game.

Combining traits, as they did quite a bit in the June patch, more or less has the same effect as baselining. True, you’d need to at least choose the traitline, but we now get three or four pre-patch traits just for choosing Shield Master now. That wasn’t bad for the game, and the decision to do it made sense in light of the facts and Anet’s objectives.

Similarly, baselining FH would increase build diversity by quite a lot while entailing no power creep that couldn’t be easily mitigated. It should make the warrior more fun to play and more fun to play against, and all of these things (build diversity, maintaining power balance, and fun) are all well within Anet’s stated objectives.

The decision on whether or not to baseline other traits on other classes would have to stand or fall on their own merits.

I agree, fast hands needs to be baseline. Warriors rely wayy too much on that trait its not even funny. Even my friends who never play warrior agree. Weapon swapping is apart of the warriors rotation for maximized dps and even survival. Being forced to trait it all the time doesn’t support build diversity. This is even more apparent with the new Berserker spec which doesn’t seem to have a place anywhere unless your doing pve condi dps.

And even if your not doing condi, you still wouldn’t want to take Berserker because you’d have to give up on either more dps more survival. The only way to keep both, is to not trait discipline, but if you don’t trait that, you won’t get fast hands. Theres soo many things wrong here, I could write a freaking book! Its awkward really.

only rev gets what the fans want

DevilLordLaser.8619:

They haven’t responded because they don’t need to. Making any trait baseline is extremely bad for this game. The only reason Illusionary Persona was made baseline was because that was the only way to guarantee that Mesmers weren’t the only profession in the game that could get zero effect from their profession mechanic. Blasting Staff? That was eliminating what turned out to be a poorly designed trait and rebalancing the weapon it had previously worked on to function the way it should have in the first place. Weapon rebalancing happens all the time*, and in this instance helped ArenaNet smooth out their new specializations.

If a mesmer tried to shatter with no illusions they wasted the shatter and it’s their fault, if a warrior uses a burst skill out of range from the target/mistargets the aoe they waste the skill and it’s their fault, if a thief tries to use steal from too far away or with no target they waste the skill and it’s their fault, if a guardian activates virtue of courage when their passive aegis is up and no allies are in range they waste the skill and it’s their fault, if the guardian does the same with virtue of resolve when at full health then they waste the skill and it’s their fault, if an engineer misses an elixir toss they waste the skill and it’s their fault etc. etc. etc.

Mesmers being able to use a skill/profession mechanic to no effect by their own error was not something unique to the class.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Baselining Fast Hands? That means letting Warriors have ten traits – ten actual traits, not “let’s rebalance E-Staff” or “Let’s ensure Mesmers can use their profession mechanic properly”, but “Let’s give Warriors a free trait for no cost” – while telling other professions that have ‘necessary’ traits in equally necessary traitlines to go flush themselves. It means a pretty huge amount of power creep, and it also means breaking the current rule ArenaNet’s held to that professions all have a similar baseline performance.

What is “ten traits” even meant to mean? 10 trait points? We swapped to specialisations a while ago and before that it took three trait points of 14 total to access fast hands. Before that it took 15 trait points of 70 total. If you mean that warriors gain a whole extra trait line from not selecting discipline then that consists of only 6 traits at once (and they just lost the other 5 traits from discipline.)

You were just talking about other classes getting traits for free at no cost because they were “necessary”, which is the point people are making about fast hands. Just because you don’t think it’s “necessary” doesn’t make it any different to another class getting powerful and useful traits made baseline.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Your base stats, your swap time, your footspeed, all the fundamentals are identical across all professions. You don’t have to keep track of a hundred and one things that’re different between the nine. There’s base health, there’s armor type, and then there’s your skills, weapons and traits. Those last three are how you’re supposed to differentiate your character, not “Warriors get quick swaps, but Rangers have a natural 10% movement boost, then Engineers gain an extra boost to Vulnerable targets, except after that Guardians…”

Elementalists and engineers don’t have the same swap time as the other professions, because they swap in a completely different non-“identical across professions” way. Thieves don’t have weapon skill cooldowns and rely on initiative unlike any other class and revenants have a mix of cooldowns and a regenerating energy sysem unlike any other class

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Now, I get it. It’s frustrating to be forced into a line you might not want to pick by the realities of the game, and Fast Hands feels like one of those things that could safely be baselined without upsetting balance too much. I can see the logic, as I’ve said elsewhere. But the more I’ve thought about this recently, the more I’ve become convinced it’s exactly the sort of can of worms that nobody really wants to open. This isn’t just about Warriors in a vacuum – this is about figuring out if it’s cool for ArenaNet to start baselining half a dozen traits per profession, letting the power creep get absolutely, unacceptably disgusting, and dealing a heavy blow to an already complex game’s ease of use and intuitive ability to switch between classes, all in the name of ‘this would make PvP better!’

Mesmer skills that create bouncing projectiles will now have them bounce one additional time.
Reduced the recharge on glamour skills by 20%.
Using any shatter skill now creates the shatter effect on you as well by default.
Mantras now give 600 toughness while channeling them.
Manipulation skill range has been increased to 1200.
Pistol skills used by you and your illusions have had their range increased to 1200.

Look, it’s half a dozen traits baselined for a single profession. Compared to the one that warriors got.

Longbow weapon skill range has been increased to 1200.

I don’t have anything in particular against mesmers, I’m just using them as an example since you think their previous ability to waste a profession mechanic by using it at the wrong time was a terrible injustice done against them and only them.

Anet, pls let it happen.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

The argument is “Fast Hands is already in every Warrior build ever. All this does is give us back free choice of three traitlines.” A’ight, coo’. What about Elementalists? Most Elementalist players I know feel that cantrips are flat required, as is EAtt, and thus they’re hard-locked into both Water and Arcane. Would they feel it’s perfectly fine for Warriors to get their Fast Hands baseline’d, such that they can freely pick whichever three traits give them the most stunbreaks or the most deep cleanses or the most +10%-while-[X]? How ’bout Necromancers, who maintain that Vital Persistence is critical for any build worth playing and are thus locked into Soul Reaping?

Why can’t those guys get their ‘absolutely essential, cannot-play-class-without’ traits baselined as well? I’m sure you all have a reason – what reason would that be? When you have it…turn it around, and ask yourself “why does this not apply to Warriors?”

Now, I get it. It’s frustrating to be forced into a line you might not want to pick by the realities of the game, and Fast Hands feels like one of those things that could safely be baselined without upsetting balance too much. I can see the logic, as I’ve said elsewhere. But the more I’ve thought about this recently, the more I’ve become convinced it’s exactly the sort of can of worms that nobody really wants to open. This isn’t just about Warriors in a vacuum – this is about figuring out if it’s cool for ArenaNet to start baselining half a dozen traits per profession, letting the power creep get absolutely, unacceptably disgusting, and dealing a heavy blow to an already complex game’s ease of use and intuitive ability to switch between classes, all in the name of ‘this would make PvP better!’

I don’t PvP. And as a PvE player in a PvE guild, I am sick unto death of the PvP guys absolutely, crushingly dominating the game’s balancing and driving ninety percent of ArenaNet’s class/profession-based decision-making. Discipline is an excellent line, as opposed to, ohh, say…Water. Maybe it’d be all right to not shaft everyone who doesn’t spend all night standing in control points, just this once?

We all want Warrior to perform well in any game mode. The frustration lies in the fact that there are so few good builds that do so, because they all rely on Fast Hands (except for the meta dungeon PvE build of course). I don’t think anyone can claim that Warrior is the worst PvP profession, but it certainly dropped a few more notches compared to Mesmer and Ele, which both received multiple baselined traits in the specialization patch. Even Guardians got a significant boost, with shouts that actually perform well (Warrior shouts got nerfed in the exact same patch).

You argue that power creep and trait baselining is bad for the game. Every profession’s players think that some traits are “must-haves” and should get baselined, and that would lead to insane balance problems.

The problem is that ANet already did so for multiple professions. If Warrior doesn’t get the same treatment for its most vital minor trait, it will get left in the dust. Actually, Fast Hands is the only claim that Warriors have to actually being “weapon masters.”

Build diversity is in the crapper for Warrior… this problem even extends to PvE for meta dungeons, etc. Berserker makes the problem even worse, because nobody can figure out which traitline to drop for it (if at all). Discipline can’t go, because of Fast Hands.

I hate to use the argument that “we should get it because someone else got it!” But ANet already let the genie out of the bottle. It’s too late to turn back the Mesmer/Ele baselines. It’s time Warrior got its turn.

I don’t think PvP players asking for Warrior buffs shafts any PvE Warrior at all… that just sounds spurious. If you’re worried about getting backlash nerfs because of a buff that helps PvP only, that could happen any time for any number of reasons. ANet has never been afraid to nerf Warrior before; that can’t discourage us from asking for buffs.

Thank you everyone for constructive criticism on both the positives and negatives of a baseline Fast Hands trait. I really do appreciate this post not becoming a flame war where we might run the risk of the mods shutting it down. Honestly, I just wanted to make this post to get a dev to reply about Fast Hands. Even a simple yes or no to the following question:

Do you see Fast Hands as a necessity to many Warrior builds? Or do you think that Fast Hands should remain a choice among builds for warriors?

@The Blind Man
FH is seen as pretty indispensible for any PvP or Wvw build in the very least. Even if it was made baseline, Discipline would still be considered one of our best traitlines, but, as Thuggernaughtentioned above, we’d at least be able to explore builds that didn’t use it.

FH is what’s bringing every zerk, condi, hybrid, and bunker build to Discipline. Let’s explore some non-Discipline combos for a while.

Choppy.4183:

FH is what’s bringing every zerk, condi, hybrid, and bunker build to Discipline. Let’s explore some non-Discipline combos for a while.

That’s basically how I feel. No matter the build (and I argue especially for condi builds, but that’s another post) you have to have FH. That limits our build diversity, and even pigeon holes us into situations where you have "GS/A+S only viable build?" posts. I also think the reason why condi builds aren’t explored as deeply as they could be with the new zerker spec is because every zerker spec requires FH still. So you take zerker+discipline then....Arms? And lose Defense or Tactics? Okay so you have no sustain or cleanse whatsoever for PvP. That’s a terrible build. Without being tied into FH to fully execute our profession mechanics we could start to explore different builds and might even see some build variety.

Keep this post alive, let’s see why the Devs believe FH shouldn’t be baseline. I’m more curious than I am complaining or calling them out for it. I’d just like to hear their thoughts. They have a much larger perspective than most of us when it comes to this game, so I think they may be able to provide some concrete insight into why FH should not be baseline.

I’m sure anet knows about all of this, as with other profession’s ‘baseline problems’, however, as it stands, the Warrior’s gameplay is not serverely hindered by this- so I doubt this issue is very high up on Anet’s To-Do list, especially with HoT and more traits to balance.

In other words, don’t expect a developer response.

make a baseline -3sec weapon swap CD, make fast fast hand -2sec weapon swap CD.

Overall warrior weapon swap faster than most class, while discipline remain superior in terms of weapon swapping.

if they baseline fast hands then they better baseline vital persistence. necro also only have one choice of another trait line because vp is required if you want to even make it through a single rotation in shroud

@unlucky
The two are unrelated. The case for whether or not Vital Persistence should be baselined is either strong or weak regardless of the case for Fast Hands.

I know nothing about necros, but if baselining VP will improve the fun and diversity of the class, then I say good luck to you. If it leads to a bunch of power creep, I hope you, like most of the people asking for FH, will readily accept the necessary nerfs to bring back the balance that was lost.

I don’t understand how necros can compare a Master Major trait to an Adept Minor trait. If you *have* to have VP for a full rotation in shroud while standing in safety then shroud drains way too fast. If you *have* to have VP for a full rotation in shroud because you are taking a ton of damage, then I don’t think that VP is an integral part of your class. Warriors rely on combos of skills from our two weapon sets. No other class relies on weapon swap nearly as much as warrior does. It is essentially our class mechanic, at least in the eyes of the players. Still no word on how the Devs feel about it.