Guild Wars 2

As a warrior, I find being downed to just be plain unenjoyabe. Except underwater, where you can’t be finished so easily.

While some classes can avoid being finished for quite a while, warriors have but one defense. Throw hammer. It not only can be circumvented by stability(which I don’t see a huge problem with), but also by stealth, blind, pets body blocking, or a quick sidestep.

I’m not sure how to fix it. Maybe give it a short cool down. Maybe they just need to change the way finishing works. I just know I hate throw hammer.

I wouldn’t say its weak since you have to time it right especially if one player trying to finish you off. You will still have time for vengeance. If you get blind, and etc then most likely we are going down. However I know a few other classes have it worst than us like Rangers, Guardians or Engineers.

Brutalistik.6473:

However I know a few other classes have it worst than us like Rangers, Guardians or Engineers.

Aoe ranged daze, Aoe point blank knockback. (engineer is in the same boat as our initial interrupt) how are those two worse? As a warrior if you have two people smashing you it’s game over, the guardian can even counter stealthed stomps if he times it right.

I understand why it tends to be like this, since vengeance is a pretty kitten good ability if you get time to use it, but I don’t think the initial interrupt should be countered because there’s a kitten pet in the way. Give single target interrupts piercing and it wouldn’t change team stomping much for warriors but makes pets not be an I win stomp if the ranger has any brains.

Clearly you’ve never seen Elementalist’s downed state.

Warrior downed state is actually one of the best, mostly because of Vengeance, which is one of the best downed abilities there is. Most importantly Throw Hammer can give you the time you need to get into Vengeance. Yes, Hammer only works on 1 target, but honestly that’s fine, not everything is meant to be auto win.

You’re right Elementalists do have it worst than any other class overall. I completely forgot about theirs…poor guys.

Well this IS the warrior forum, but I do say they need to rework the down state for several classes.

Actually no, hammer throw does not give you the time to use vengeance, even if you use it at the very last millisecond of their stomp, you still have a cast time on vengeance.

Not only that, but the hammer can be body blocked by anything, and can’t be used against invisible enemies.

Thieves can invis stomp you, mesmers can invis stomp you, rangers can have their pet block the hammer…there is nothing you can do about it.

So do you suggest we get something else like a aoe stun? or aoe fear?

Zietlogik’s point is really the most pertinent. It really takes negligence on your opponent’s part for you to be able to vengeance. Against a warrior as long as you begin your finish within a couple seconds of downing the warrior you will be able to weather the hammer throw and still finish off the warrior before he gets to vengeance.

However, I would say that playing a class does tech you how to kill them. Having played a thief, I now understand how to successfully finish them. (though its still much harder than a warrior)

The problem is with the balance. Vengeance is an extremely powerful ability. If you don’t get rallied in the 15 seconds it takes to come up, you have a free 15 seconds to take down your opponent. And with Warrior burst potential, that’s nothing to scoff at.

Then with your chance to rally on enemy defeat, or the associated trait, you may get to live on. Warriors are currently the only ones able to self-rally in the downed state, and that’s pretty huge. Buff their other two skills and it becomes ridiculously OP.

Also consider that it’s possible that the philosophy of the downed state is actually profession-dependent. It’s purpose might not be considered the same by the devs (this is, of course, conjecture on my part). But it does make a certain amount of sense to balance some professions such that it’s hard to get them down, and easier to dismiss them once they are, and to have some professions that enter the downed state more easily, but can melt faces while there.

When I look at the Warrior right now, I see a profession that’s super tough to get down, with very strong offensive, defensive, and control capabilities at any range, not to mention insane burst potential with most weapons. But once you down them, there’s a 15 second window where their abilities are vastly reduced. If you don’t defeat them in that window, you’re dead.

That sounds like a really powerful class to me. When I look at it in that broader sense, I’m not convinced there’s any problem here. If there is, then Vengeance really has to go before anything else is changed. I’d be sorry to lose it, because it’s amazing, but I’m not going to pretend like anything else wouldn’t be OP.

Just to add another example, because I’m kinda bored anyway, think about the Mesmer instead. They’re hard to get down because of their ability to control the battlefield, but they themselves are quite squishy if you can manage to watch your confusion stacks or catch them in the act.

Their downed state has to be appropriately powerful to compensate. But it’s not powerful in an untoward insta-win kind of way, like Vengeance is, but in the same way the class is—they are going to do everything in their power to control and befuddle you while they escape, and their downed state gives them three great tools for doing so.

I may not be right here—I’m perfectly happy to admit that—but I think people really need to take the time to wonder if the idea of comparing downed states in a vacuum is actually an appropriate representation of reality.

I’m also not saying balance is perfect by any means—it’s fully possible that, say, Throw Hammer does need a buff even with Vengeance as it is. I’m just trying to bring the conversation somewhere I think is more constructive.

I think you give Vengeance a little too much credit in your post, it is powerful, but not as powerful as you make it out to be.

In various situations the outcome changes, if you are in a 1v1 type situation, you effectively have 9 seconds to down a player, unless you have your stability on off cooldown, your stomp takes 3 seconds, and if you fight anything with a mechanic to combat a stomp (another warrior, guardian, thief, mesmer, ranger pet etc.) you will need to spend that extra time trying to stomp, or else you just keel over and they get back up…in fact, using vengeance in alot of situations will rally your ENEMY over yourself, if you cannot finish them off.

Not only does the window seem very small for vengeance, you also (unless traited) don’t have a 100% chance to rally when defeating an opponent.

Also while in Vengeance your allies cannot rally you normally (downed res) so are 100% dead unless luck is on your side, and an enemy falls and procs your self-rally.

Vengeance is not some all-powerful “i’m never dead” skill, there are a vast number of ways to combat vengeance.

But this is a topic about Hammer throw, which is really just a crappy skill that tried to delay the inevitable without actually providing any significant aid.

But that was my point, you can’t have a conversation about the power of hammer throw, at least not a meaningful one, without first having a conversation about the whole picture it is a part of.

Whether or not it is a weak ability only matters if its weak in context. That stuff is important. Maybe Hammer Throw is under-powered relative to other profession’s downed state abilities. But that doesn’t matter if Warrior as it stands now, as a whole, is well balanced with regards to other professions.

So, sure, by all means consider to discuss how weak you think Hammer Throw is. But that renders the thread relatively useless for any practical application. Unless you are going to discuss the ability as a part of the profession (and it’s subsequent balance) overall, you aren’t doing anything of value. You’re just ranting.

It may very well be true that HT is under-powered. My post was never meant to say otherwise. It was only to point out that a weak ability doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the profession—balance necessitates that EVERY player have abilities of varying power. And if one profession is designed to be a little bit more powerful in their normal state, they have to be a little bit weaker when downed.

im not quite sure why you guys find vengeance to be so good. Unless you have 20 points spent to make it consistently res you, its pretty much only useful in pvp.

Throw hammer is decent, I don’t see a problem with it. It’s single target, but it can buy you the time you need to vengeance or be rallied.

Warrior downstate IMO becomes a problem with vengeance. It’s great, fun, and harshly situational. Also the T2 discipline trait mentioned above makes it very frustrating.

Also, guardian downstate bad? When it comes to teamwork, which is supposed to be important for this game, it’s one of the best. As long as someone is there to rally the guardian and he is roughly above half downed hp, he will be rallied. Thanks to all that time they get after force pushing everything away.

If you are able to use Vengeance in an 1v1 situation you’re playing against a complete idiot.

If you’re a warrior and you get downed, you probably deserve it :P

Turtles All The Way Down.5608:

If you’re a warrior and you get downed, you probably deserve it :P

Yeah stupid you for thinking that you can rush into melee against 5 people and come out alive like guardians do.

Unless specced for full defense, warriors go down pretty easily and even when specced for full defense, they can still be focused down quite quickly.

Guardians don’t “come out alive” so much as they “don’t die until their team shows up”

but yes if you can’t pick your fights you probably deserve a death. I mean it’s not like there’s anything that’s going to kill you alone.

@ the people saying Eles have the worst down state: Necros down state.

DreadShinobi.4751:

Clearly you’ve never seen Elementalist’s downed state.

Warrior downed state is actually one of the best, mostly because of Vengeance, which is one of the best downed abilities there is. Most importantly Throw Hammer can give you the time you need to get into Vengeance. Yes, Hammer only works on 1 target, but honestly that’s fine, not everything is meant to be auto win.

cleary you only do PvE…. lol

Sprinkles.6748:

Throw hammer is decent, I don’t see a problem with it. It’s single target, but it can buy you the time you need to vengeance or be rallied.

Warrior downstate IMO becomes a problem with vengeance. It’s great, fun, and harshly situational. Also the T2 discipline trait mentioned above makes it very frustrating.

Also, guardian downstate bad? When it comes to teamwork, which is supposed to be important for this game, it’s one of the best. As long as someone is there to rally the guardian and he is roughly above half downed hp, he will be rallied. Thanks to all that time they get after force pushing everything away.

you need to try WvW before post this nonsense. You can buy time in pve maybe… but try at WvW against many enemies, with pets, mobs, and stuff, and then comeback here and tell me how you “buy time”….
all is shinny in pve… but there is not single target at WvW… you can take 1 vs1 .. but thats pretty rare…

idiggory.6019:

The problem is with the balance. Vengeance is an extremely powerful ability. If you don’t get rallied in the 15 seconds it takes to come up, you have a free 15 seconds to take down your opponent. And with Warrior burst potential, that’s nothing to scoff at.

Then with your chance to rally on enemy defeat, or the associated trait, you may get to live on. Warriors are currently the only ones able to self-rally in the downed state, and that’s pretty huge. Buff their other two skills and it becomes ridiculously OP.

Also consider that it’s possible that the philosophy of the downed state is actually profession-dependent. It’s purpose might not be considered the same by the devs (this is, of course, conjecture on my part). But it does make a certain amount of sense to balance some professions such that it’s hard to get them down, and easier to dismiss them once they are, and to have some professions that enter the downed state more easily, but can melt faces while there.

When I look at the Warrior right now, I see a profession that’s super tough to get down, with very strong offensive, defensive, and control capabilities at any range, not to mention insane burst potential with most weapons. But once you down them, there’s a 15 second window where their abilities are vastly reduced. If you don’t defeat them in that window, you’re dead.

That sounds like a really powerful class to me. When I look at it in that broader sense, I’m not convinced there’s any problem here. If there is, then Vengeance really has to go before anything else is changed. I’d be sorry to lose it, because it’s amazing, but I’m not going to pretend like anything else wouldn’t be OP.

Just to add another example, because I’m kinda bored anyway, think about the Mesmer instead. They’re hard to get down because of their ability to control the battlefield, but they themselves are quite squishy if you can manage to watch your confusion stacks or catch them in the act.

Their downed state has to be appropriately powerful to compensate. But it’s not powerful in an untoward insta-win kind of way, like Vengeance is, but in the same way the class is—they are going to do everything in their power to control and befuddle you while they escape, and their downed state gives them three great tools for doing so.

I may not be right here—I’m perfectly happy to admit that—but I think people really need to take the time to wonder if the idea of comparing downed states in a vacuum is actually an appropriate representation of reality.

I’m also not saying balance is perfect by any means—it’s fully possible that, say, Throw Hammer does need a buff even with Vengeance as it is. I’m just trying to bring the conversation somewhere I think is more constructive.

yes, sure, because in WvW you always do 1 vs 1…. lol…. you always throw the axe and stop the 4-6 guys who want to finish u off…. and when you go vengeance you always have all your skills ready to kill with our “warrior burst” in less of 15 sec , before anyone else hit u….

I view it as although Throw Hammer ability is weak as a downed state ability, Vengeance reliability is the real underlying and confusing issue.

Vengeance is very rough to use as a warrior (some call it bugged) as you need to have kill credit which means you need to have tagged the target (5% damage done) which resets frequently after you get back up from a downed state. So even if you get the killing blow on a player or mob, it might not even work (even with Sweet Revenge).

Leading to Sweet Revenge (the talent is good) BUT only if you get to use it. In most circumstances in PvP and many times solo in PvE, that just does not happen. Sweet Revenge should probably reduce the recharge cooldown (shorten the length it takes for the ability to become active) so it can be more useful for a T2 downed state only talent.

You shouldn’t need to take Vigorous Return (in Toughness) just to have a better chance of this talent being used. (Maybe combine the two talents?)

Vengeance is the only good Warrior downed skill. The others are pretty lame.

@antartis and zietlogik, If they start stomping you right when you go down and start stomping you again right after they get up from getting knocked by hammer, then no Throw Hammer does not give you enough time to vengeance, however not everyone starts stomping right away and sometimes there are other things around that preventing them stomping right away or stomping the second time. Regardless it would be overpowered if Hammer was 100% chance to enter vengeance every time because with my spec I can down and kill anything not named Mesmer after getting up from a vengeance (traited for 100% rally). If Hammer meant I could get into vengeance every time I wouldn’t be getting killed at all.

It’s good how it is.

DreadShinobi.4751:

@antartis and zietlogik, If they start stomping you right when you go down and start stomping you again right after they get up from getting knocked by hammer, then no Throw Hammer does not give you enough time to vengeance, however not everyone starts stomping right away and sometimes there are other things around that preventing them stomping right away or stomping the second time. Regardless it would be overpowered if Hammer was 100% chance to enter vengeance every time because with my spec I can down and kill anything not named Mesmer after getting up from a vengeance (traited for 100% rally). If Hammer meant I could get into vengeance every time I wouldn’t be getting killed at all.

It’s good how it is.

I just want the hammer to be AOE, kinda like the guardian push back skill, is ironic that 99% of our skills are aoe…but not that one… 98% at WvW there is not 1 vs 1… so the skill is kinda LOL there…. thats my point…

Hammer needs to be changed into Stomp. Just put Stomp at #2 downed and the problem is fixed. It makes everyone around you fly back.. it’s the only way to fix it really.

Vengeance is pretty good yes, but ONLY if you put 20 points in Discipline, and what’s the point of having it if you never get to use it.. a powerful ability isn’t very powerful if it’s never used.

I think having to put 20 points in a useless trait line just to have the downed state be worth anything, is enough of a sacrifice to turn downed hammer skill into something useful like an aoe knockback like Stomp. Make the warrior slam both his arms into the ground, causing a tremor that knocks back everyone around.

Right now it’s just way too easy to finish a warrior long before he can get up with vengeance, and it’s not like he is certain to win then after using vengeance, odds are he’ll just be downed again due to low health.

I know one thing, I’m sick and tired of thiefs going stealth to finish me off, when I’m helpless. In downed state I could’ve (and few times did) win the fight by knocking glass cannon thief down and then finishing him off with 3. They take alot of damage but thanks to thier stealth and crazy damage they deal, they keep winning. If you don’t want to nerf kittening thiefs to oblivion, like they deserve, then at least give us some tool to live long enough to be able to use 3 when downed and to prevent stealth finish.

A lot of other profession players in this thread.

Warriors now easily have the worst downed state in the game. Unlike other professions, our #2 only affects a single target and can be blocked or blinded, in addition to simply ignoring by standing behind an obstacle like say, oh… a BEAR. Stealth, stability and so on also apply. The #2 is definitely the worst in the game. If anyone actually argues against this, they’re a fool, or just being contrarian.

The #3, before you even get to it, is rarely used. If you are downed and an enemy begins to spike you, if you time your hammer perfectly to hit them in the final moments of their kill animation, Vengeance will still not be charged by the time they get back up and attempt to spike you again. So, already, it’s bad.

Vengeance, of course, WILL kill you. Using it is tantamount to saying “I want to pay armor repair costs” in PvE or WvW. In sPvP, it’s a “I lose” button that allows you to potentially do a little more damage before the other players wins. Maybe you can turn it into a draw. So, at best, even if you USE the #3 skill, you still lose in every situation.

The only exception is the incredibly low chance of rallying off a Vengeance kill. I have used Vengeance in PvE and literally killed twenty minor enemies before it ran out and killed me anyway. The odds are not good. The ONLY way of remedying this is a single trait buried in the major zone of the worst attribute line in the game across all professions. Discipline has been nerfed since the betas, and now effectively does nothing other than allow you to choose the traits located there. When you invest 20 points in Discipline, you’re doing it only to fix Vengeance. The loss in points and the loss of a trait somewhere else means you’re most likely going to be going down more often anyway. Vengeance will finally rally you when you kill someone (as it should natively), but you still most likely will not be able to use it due to its high charge time.

Also, when considering Warrior is probably the weakest dueling profession in the game, the entire downed system of the class seems to be built around punishing you for not having better professions nearby to help you. We get it, ANet. You want us to accompany other players. But you’re not helping.

The problem with the players is all they see is a skill that makes you ignore the downed state and keep fighting, which of course isn’t true. The problem with the company is that they want our downed state to be terrible because their intention for the class is outdated by several betas. I imagine we won’t see our downed state fixed until they start addressing all the other minor problems with the class, which considering they’re “most happy” with the Warrior (at least in terms of having the least need), won’t be for a very long time.

My suggestion for a solution is to lower the charge of Vengeance by one second and make it have, at least, have a native 100% for you to reenter the downed state after a kill, with a small chance to rally. In addition, increase the speed of the hammer throw, remove its high arc and give it a small AoE that can knock off several players if they’re balled up together. Also, make it ignore blinds, at the least. Stability, blocks and the like I can understand.

Vengeance is awful

Why? Because even if you do kill someone, no way you will stomp them, so they’ll just rez from your death.

I only play PVE, so not certain why Vengance is supposed to be so awesome. It’s always been a gamble whether I’d die after killing the mob anyway. Thus, to me it’s not a savior button so much as a “I’m gonna die anyway, maybe I can kill it and loot repair costs before I bite it” button. Depending on how low the health is on the enemy, I will choose to hit it with rocks and hammers instead, since that’s guaranteed to revive me if I win. Thus far, it’s worked much better than relying on Vengance.

I can’t help but wonder… I understand throwing rocks since you are, you know, on the GROUND, where rocks abound but… where does that hammer come from?! o_O

Obviously our tool belt, but a tape measure and square don’t knock people down then you throw them. So hammer it is.

TheMerc.4850:

As a warrior if you have two people smashing you it’s game over, the guardian can even counter stealthed stomps if he times it right.

This is the only thing that needs to be fixed.

Stealth needs to break upon ACTION, not damage. As soon as you start channeling, you’re revealed. End of story.

Would rather see Vengeance default to 100% with the current timer, and be traitable to become available much quicker when downed (i.e. Hammer throw is enough to get off Vengeance).

i think i get vengeance off maybe 1-2 times while WvWing and its only use is to run away to die somewhere i can be rezzed. sure i can stick around and trying to fight and probably get finished off in which case i auto die (you have to remember warriors are not invulnerable while in vengeance) and once we do die, we have to sit there and wait to respawn because otherwise u respawn and when vengeance is up you die again back in the keep. (which is kitten i would rather have the smoke cloud elementalist thing than vengeance which ends up just costing me more in repairs……

pve is a different story, ive saved groups from wipes with vengeance then rezzing other players but WvW…. lame skill.

1) Hammer needs to be changed into Stomp, an aoe knockback that ignores blind.
2) Rally needs to happen on downing a player, not on finishing them.
3) Vengeance needs to be available MUCH sooner after getting downed.. because what use is there in an ability if you never get the chance to use it?

Considering you have to put 20 points into a useless trait line just in order to get any use out of vengeance, I don’t think these changes are anywhere near overpowered.

I like your suggestions Zsymon. The one thing I was going to suggest was making vengeance available sooner. I so often die before I can even pop it.

Zsymon.8457:

1) Hammer needs to be changed into Stomp, an aoe knockback that ignores blind.

No it doesn’t, an AoE might be useful, but one that ignores blind is plain overpowered. I just pop stability and drop the finisher against other players, why shouldn’t others without stability be able use one of their skills to finish a player that they’ve already beaten?

Zsymon.8457:

3) Vengeance needs to be available MUCH sooner after getting downed.. because what use is there in an ability if you never get the chance to use it?

Vengeance should be hard to use and you should really only be able to pop it if your opponent has been silly enough to ignore you or has been knocked down by your hammer. If you have three people/npc’s beating on you then you shouldn’t just be able to get back up – that would be what we call overpowered.

Vengeance is for those times where you’ve been downed by somebody and you’ve knocked them back once they’ve tried to finish you. It means that because they made a mistake you get another chance to punish them for it. I think Vengeance is such a scrub move in a game like this, at least against other players. But that won’t stop me using it when I can, it’s too good not too.

I would disagree that you should have one of your slots being filled by an ability that is only useful when you are playing against someone who is bad.

It should be more designed so that if the warrior does everything right then he can get it off, but if the warrior messes up then he fails.

your abilities should not be dependent on facing bad players to work. there is no ‘skill’ in that.

Fritz.5026:

your abilities should not be dependent on facing bad players to work. there is no ‘skill’ in that.

Personally I don’t really consider Vengeance to be about “skill” anyway, considering that to use it you need to be beaten anyway.

Varyag.3751:

Fritz.5026:

your abilities should not be dependent on facing bad players to work. there is no ‘skill’ in that.

Personally I don’t really consider Vengeance to be about “skill” anyway, considering that to use it you need to be beaten anyway.

then it should be replaced by something that a warrior can actually use to benefit him.

i find it hard to believe that people think you should have one of your extremely limited ability slots taken up by something that is only useful when you face bad players.

either the skill needs to be replaced by something that is worth the slot, or it needs to be dependent on the warriors skill to be effective. the end.

Fritz.5026

then it should be replaced by something that a warrior can actually use to benefit him.

I’d call being able to hop up from near death and kill the guy who almost killed you is quite a benefit. I just don’t think it should be an “I win” button that you can pop the second you get downed.

Fritz.5026

either the skill needs to be replaced by something that is worth the slot, or it needs to be dependent on the warriors skill to be effective. the end.

Vengeance is fine and it’s not going to get changed. The end. See? I can do it too!

This thread is about hammer, a skill that could actually use some tuning.

i never said it should be an “iwin” button, i simply said it should be dependent on the warriors ability instead of facing bad players to actually ever work.

as far as your second section goes then why have most of your posts in this thread been about vengeance? it seems you are just looking for excuses at this point.

Fritz.5026:

i never said it should be an “iwin” button, i simply said it should be dependent on the warriors ability instead of facing bad players to actually ever work.

Warrior has the best #3 skill for downed abilities. None of the downed abilities are based on player skill – and Warrior’s Vengeance is the only downed skill that allows you to get back up off the ground without healing.

Fritz.5026:

as far as your second section goes then why have most of your posts in this thread been about vengeance? it seems you are just looking for excuses at this point.

I made my sentence about it – which was in agreement about Warrior having an aoe #2 skill – and that’s all that was needed. It seems everybody has jumped from talking about hammer’s weakness to Vengeance being “weak” because it’s not an instant skill.

Varyag.3751:

I made my sentence about it – which was in agreement about Warrior having an aoe #2 skill – and that’s all that was needed. It seems everybody has jumped from talking about hammer’s weakness to Vengeance being “weak” because it’s not an instant skill.

your very first post in this thread was about vengeance, and every time you have posted since has been about vengeance. i mean seriously, you just want to argue for the sake of arguing.

i would actually make points, but why bother, this discussion is not going to go anywhere. you will keep arguing because you want to argue.

Fritz.5026:

your very first post in this thread was about vengeance, and every time you have posted since has been about vengeance.

My first post was about all of Warrior’s downed skills (except for vengeance) being pathetic. First paragraph in my second post was about hammer specifically. Maybe I’ll repeat myself – all that Warrior #2 downed skill needs is to be AoE – that single fix by itself would make Warrior’s chances of surviving downed much higher. I dare say it would be a tweak that wouldn’t be overpowered, either.

the funny thing is if you read you last post, and would stop arguing for 10 seconds, you would see that actually agree with what i said.

by making the warriors #2 skill aoe it would make the warriors surviving a downed state more dependent on the warrior than just facing bad players.

anyhow, i know all you really want to hear is you are right and you win. so there you go.

lol