Guild Wars 2

Do they? Or do they want those traits because they’re the best option on an otherwise bad line?

Would a power build choose Burning Arrows over Stick and Move? Would a condi build take it over Body Blow? I wouldn’t.

See, that’s the thing. If we have decent traits spread all over the place, then they just won’t be taken as much as they should. Pull PS out of Tactics and give it the overhaul it needs. It’s not a good traitline, and PS is the only thing propping it up… and only some of the time. Vigorous Shouts is a shell of its former self, and the warhorn’s meh too.

Fast Hands needs to be baseline. Then I can finally justify going into Tactics for Leg Specialist. I’m still not entirely sure how people use GS / Hammer without Leg Specialist honestly, its so important. I guess they are just far better warriors than myself.

Choppy.4183:

Do they? Or do they want those traits because they’re the best option on an otherwise bad line?

Would a power build choose Burning Arrows over Stick and Move? Would a condi build take it over Body Blow? I wouldn’t.

See, that’s the thing. If we have decent traits spread all over the place, then they just won’t be taken as much as they should. Pull PS out of Tactics and give it the overhaul it needs. It’s not a good traitline, and PS is the only thing propping it up… and only some of the time. Vigorous Shouts is a shell of its former self, and the warhorn’s meh too.

Tactics isn’t a great line, no.

So the solution is to take everything that halfway works in Tactics, move it to other lines, and make Tactics an abhorrent line? A free skip for Warriors? I don’t think so.

Fix Vigorous Shouts, put purification back on the warhorn, roll Burning Arrows’ burning into Dual Shot baseline and do something else with the bow trait, and make Tactics into a powerful and useful group support line the way it’s supposed to be, with Phalanx Strength one of the capstones of that line. Don’t put every trait Warriors take in Strength and then say “Huzzah, now I can skip even unlocking the other traitlines!”

PS is not a Strength trait. Not everything gets to be in one convenient line. That is, once again, just bad game design.

Fwiw, it was a suggestion in response to the call in this thread to separate the might from FG and calls in other threads to move PS into strength (which others have made). I don’t have a horse in either of those races, and I’m happy to leave FG and PS exactly as they are now.

But the idea of turning the might on crit of FG into a gm trait is just terrible, and more so if it gained an ICD.

Also, the case for PS in Strength is just as strong as PS in Tactics. The latter focuses on the party support aspect, the former focuses on power/raw damage.

Fast hands as baseline wouldn’t change much about the viability of warrior builds in spvp. Ironically, we have some of the best condi cleanse in game but the spammability of condis and CC makes condi burst still king at the end of the day.

What I’m concerned about is that too many abilities are considered “must have”. Forget traits for a moment. CI is pretty core in defense and several other traits like fast hands give warriors reaction time. However, unless you go full shoutbow you cannot survive without stances.

Compare baseline stances to baseline shouts. There’s no comparison. Compare stances to physicals (heh). Too much of warrior viability is locked into heavily patched stances that have little to do with spec.

This is why I think the beserker is going to be a tough sell. They want us to utilize at least a few rage mechanics but they require dropping utilities that cannot be dropped. Shouts are core to shoutbow, stances for anything else.

Fast hands baseline would be a QoL change but Anet probably thinks it’s too good to baseline. The reality is that most warrior utilities need rework because warrior must soak an enormous number of hits compared to other classes. The closest comparable class in that regard are guards but they have blocks and then more blocks.

Why did no one mention how physical + rage utilities are still mostly useless.

Kick is most likely the most useless utility in the game for a heavily melee oriented class.
Bola misses if the enemy so much as side steps to the right/left.
Stomp roots you and can interrupt if you try to move before animation is finished and sends enemies flying to safety (away from you).
Rock smash roots you again and does kitten poor damage.
On my mark inflicts a measily 10 vulnerability stacks on a incredibly long CD…. and the list goes on and on.

Why does a melee oriented class get so outclass by necro/engineer/ele/ranger/guardian/reverant in every single way in utilities + weapon skillset is beyond me.

I’m not sure if I follow when you guys say you want this and that ‘baselined’. It’s kind of like elementalist players asking for attunement recharge reduction baselined or guardian virtue recharge baselined.

This goes for all professions, not just warrior, but I think the trait system would work a lot better if weapon traits were decoupled from trait lines.
Weapon traits, especially for profession that have a lot of weapons such as warrior, really kill trait line options. If you’re using the weapon, they become near auto-picks in many cases, and if you’re not using the weapon they become completely dead options.

They should make it so that either
a) All weapon traits exist as an option at every trait tier of every trait line. For example; you can chose to slot in the sword trait in the adept tactics slot, or the grandmaster defense slot, or the master arms slot. They effectively act as filler traits to be selected when you have no good options for that slot for your build.
or
b) Weapon traits are complimentary. You get an extra “weapon trait slot” allowing you to take 1 of your choosing, regardless of your build.

In both cases, this opens up a bunch of trait slots that can be filled with more build defining and interesting traits that aren’t limited by weapon choice.

This thread had a lot of good suggestions and feedback in it – just want to put it back on the front page now that the expansion is live. Hopefully we can get some of our concerns exposed to the devs.

How is everyone feeling about Warrior traits now that we’ve had more time to play with them in HoT? I’m having a really tough time incorporating the new stuff into a build. I feel like Defense and Discipline are even MORE mandatory now, with the more difficult PvE content.

I’m trying really hard to incorporate Berserker into all modes of play but I can’t justify any of the benefits.

• The new Bursts are worse than the old ones.
• Smash Brawler feels mandatory because 15 second downtime as soon as zerk ends feels so terrible to play with.
• None of the utilities except Outrage and Headbutt are worth taking. They’re all too weak, too selfish for group play, and the cooldowns aren’t justified. Headbutt is 20 seconds but Sundering Leap is 25?
• It’s too difficult to activate zerk without To the Limit, Signet of Fury, or Headbutt, one of which can be blocked, blinded, and flatout missed because the range is so low.
• And while ramping up the adrenaline to use Zerk, the enemy usually dies before I can activate it and then all my Adrenaline completely drains within 2 seconds. Sometimes I wish I was always in combat forever and just toggle it off when I need to waypoint.
• Another thing I hate is that getting downed drains all your Adrenaline, making it even worse if you blow all your adrenaline cooldowns.
• Torch is worthless because by taking Berserker, I’m giving up Sprint+FH Line. I end up never using it besides activating Torch 5 before a fight then switching to something else permanently. And by dropping Sprint+FH, I tend to use Warhorn for the swiftness because the only access to any sort of meaningful movement speed is Sword, Warhorn, Greatsword, and Signet of Rage.
• There is no place for Berserker in a PS+EA build and thus many dungeon/fractal builds. Strength and Tactics are so intertwined because of FGS+PS, thus Arms and Sprint+FH is competing for the 3rd line. Berserker is utterly outclassed between the two when comparing to Signet Mastery/Furious + Vulnerability stacking or Sprint+FH.

I feel like Berserker works so well with the Sprint+FH line because of how fast you gain adrenaline during zerk gives you the ability to use both of your weapon’s burst skills. But the way it is now, Berserker actually competes with Sprint+FH and it’s hard to fit in both without Strength/Defense/Arms depending on whatever you do. In the PS example, Strength and Tactics are a given with the 3rd being competed with 3 other trait lines.

It just feels so bad when Chronomancers get Dogged March+Sprint in a minor trait whereas we have to dedicate 2 adept traits from 2 different trait lines to get both of them on a class that has no teleports or really any good movement. I’d give up 3 second quickness and 10 Adrenaline generator if I could have that in a single trait in Berserker.

Agree with most of what’s being posted in this thread. Here’s what I think about Rage and Physical skills, and in general with the Warrior and the Berserker as a whole.

TL:DR – give warrior and berserker more access to taunt or knockdown, or pull, PLEASE stop with the pushback and launch skills for this melee themed class and elite spec. Reaper, a melee themed elite spec, can pull multiple targets with GS and has tons of chill, even causing chill when Fearing so that targets still stay close even while fleeing. We, berserkers, get even more leaps so we spend more time in the air and not on the ground fighting, and more skills that push enemies away from us.
If you want Wild Blow to be a hard AOE cc – make it an AOE knockdown.

Why so many push back skills for a class which theme is a melee fighter? I already spend time trying to chase my enemy and stay in melee so I can hit him/her, why would I want to push him/her further away from me – so I could spend more time chasing my target and not spend that time DPSing in melee range? It really is pointless, we have enough pushback skills so please stop giving us more. Give us pull skills, or more skills to keep the enemy close.

Comparing with Reaper, which has a melee theme too. That elite spec has tools to keep enemies close.

Reaper has a pull on GS and chill to keep enemies close so he can be effective.
Shivers of Dread – whenever you inflict fear, you also chill (3 and a half second chill baseline, enough to cover your longest lasting fear skill and keep enemies closer even when making them flee) That’s incredibly thoughtful and a really good minor trait!

Berserkers, which have melee theme again (off-hand we can only use with melee weapons, skill category type that is Physical skills v2, which are melee), get:

Wild Blow – the skill with the longest description, the one the sounds the most brutal and yet the one that is the most ineffective. Launch foes 400 range away from you, and pushback other targets around that target so that you could spend more time running around hitting the air.
What?

Where are the knockdowns then if you want to give us more Physical skills? We already have Stomp and Kick if we want to lose time and do nothing, why not give us something to keep enemies around us? What about taunt? New effect that IS perfect for warriors AND berserkes, yet we see it nowhere else but on the trait Bloody Roar, which is Taut enemies for 1sec when you enter Berserk mode, so 1sec taunt on a 15sec cd, you also need time to even get to that 15sec cd, because you need full adrenaline for that.

Didn’t GW1 warriors had a shout that would knockdown crippled enemies, or something like that? That’s perfect for a warrior. Could be an utility or elite shout in GW2. Why do we get some many launch/pushback and leap skills in GW2 though? Even if it’s a short knockdown, 1sec or half a sec, it’s still something different. Or 1-2 sec taunt on a few utilities.
Just give us more/different tools to keep enemies around us, or at least attempt to do it – of course abilities can be dodged/blinded/missed/etc. Don’t give us more tools to keep enemies away from us, because that is ineffective and pointless, and we already have enough of that.

If you want Wild Blow to be a hard AOE cc – make it an AOE knockdown. Once again – PLEASE stop with the launch/pushback skills on this class and the elite spec, and the future warrior’s elite specs. We already have enough of this type of skills.