Guild Wars 2

Okay so first off, this is obviously NOT confirmed or even rumored to be an elite specialization but just hear me out. This is an idea for a specialization that can really change up how warrior plays inspired by Woodenpotatoes “Make a Pirate” video. When he was mentioning ideas for some Elite specs, I immediately got the idea for this one as he said Samurai for warrior. So… here we go! Please note that the numbers I say in this thread are all just ball park estimates while using Marauder Amulet in pvp so if something seems overpowered or broken, please leave some constructive feedback

Name: Swordmaster(or maybe Samurai, Sword Sage, Ronin, Blademaster)
Elite Spec. Weapon: Off-Hand Focus (Don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this)
Utility types: Mantras
Specialization Mechanic: Replaces all burst skills AND weapon swap with Focused Blade
Description: Swordmasters are warriors who have trained and mastered the art of sword combat, allowing them to focus all their adrenaline into their curved swords to control the flow of battle by overwhelming their enemies with devastating attacks and sacrificing themselves honorably, if necessary, to ensure the victory for their side.

Alright so, let’s start off with Focused Blade.

-Focused Blade: This is a new type of class mechanic that combines elements of Necromancer’s Death Shroud with an Engineer kit. Essentially what this does is it allows you to focus all your adrenaline into wielding a Katana-style weapon that you switch into when you use your F1 ability. This weapon replaces all your current weapon skills with a new set of skills revolving around this sword. However, you can only wield this weapon for a certain amount of time depending on how much adrenaline you spent to unsheathe your Focused Blade. Also gives you a cool Katana in your mainhand and its scabbard in your offhand. You can still use utilities and elite skills as well while in Focused Blade

Level 1 Adrenaline lets you wield your Focused Blade for 7 seconds
Level 2 gives you 10 seconds
Level 3 gives you 10 seconds as well but also grants 2 Stacks of Might, Fury and Swiftness for 5 seconds for burst capabilities

Focused Blade skills:
First off, I just wanted to say that when thinking of the skills and effects for this, I intended to make it strong for power but not useless for conditions so there are options here for anyone who might want to run a hybrid build or a condition build. There are also traits that improve on it.

Skill 1 (Auto Attack 1)
- Focused Slash: Slash your foe from afar using wind generated from your sword swing.
— Damage: 550
— Applies 1 Stack of Torment for 5 Seconds
— Range: 600
Skill 1 (Auto Attack 2)
- Focused Cut: Slash your foe again, applying torment
— Damage: 550
— Applies 1 Stack of Torment for 5 seconds
— Range: 600
Skill 1 (Auto Attack 3)
- Focused Precision: Cripple your foe with a precision wind cut.
— Damage: 750
— Applies Cripple for 1 second
— Range: 600

Explanation: Basically, this auto attack chain is similar to a Necro axe in that it can hit from a distance but is about as fast as Thief auto attack. The reason for this is that without weapon swap, you will need a pretty versatile weapon for different situations and giving the auto attack range will make it even more worth it to activate it more often to chase down fleeing enemies or prevent having to always force you into melee range if running anything other than Rifle or Longbow with this spec.

Skill 2 (Gap closer Part 1) Cooldown: 10 Seconds
- Precision Throw: Throw your blade at an enemy and immobilize them in place.
— Damage: 550
— Applies Immobilize for 3 seconds
— Combo Finisher: Projectile
— Range: 900
Skill 2 (Gap Close Part 2 Flipover Skill)
- Blade Retrieval: Rush at your immobile foe and rip the blade from them dealing damage.
— Damage: 800
— Range: 1200

Explanation: This works similarly to Impale in that you throw your blade at an enemy but functions like Rush on Greatsword. Cannot work unless you hit a target to prevent Double Rushing if running Greatsword with your build. Great for snaring runners.

Skill 3 (AOE) Cooldown: 10 seconds
- Crushing Sword: Leap to the target area and impale your blade into the ground, crippling nearby enemies and shattering the ground.
— Damage: 1250
— Applies Cripple for 3 seconds
— Combo Finisher: Blast
— Range: 600

Explanation: Just a cool looking AOE skill with some decent cripple duration to keep enemies near you. Now you may be wondering why keep your enemies nearby when auto attack is ranged. Well I’m about to explain that with the next two skills.

(Part 1)

Skill 4 (Stun) Cooldown: 15 seconds
- Scabbard Strike: Bash your foe with your scabbard and deal damage, stunning them.
— Damage: 400
— Stun duration: 1 second
— Range: 130

Skill 5 (Burst) Cooldown: 20 seconds, Duration of Skill 2 seconds
- Onslaught: Unleash a barrage of attacks hitting nearby enemies in a cone in front of you. Randomly apply a stack of condition and vulnerability for each strike.
— Damage: 2500 Total
— Individual Strike Damage: 500, attacks 5 times
— Conditions randomly applied: Torment, Bleeding
— Applies Vulnerability
— Condition Durations: 8 seconds
— Number of Targets: 5
— Range: 200

Explanation: The reason you want to keep your enemies nearby you sometimes is to be able to setup and land your Skill 5 Onslaught. This attack will heavily burst up to 5 players in front of you at a decent range and is perfect for group cleaving. It is similar to Hundred Blades though slightly weaker but has the added effect of applying conditions and of course has longer range than Hundred Blades. Skills 2 through 4 all work perfectly to setup Onslaught as they have various methods of keeping the enemy near you.

Cooldown for Focused Blade will be 9 seconds or about 7 1/2 seconds with Disciplines trait line. All current burst skill traits and effects will still apply when you activate Focused Blade. However, like Death Shroud, cooldown for Focused Blade only begins after you exit Focused Blade.

Cleansing Ire will remove conditions without having to land a hit but won’t be as effective since you have to wait for your single F1 to cooldown after switching back to cleanse.

Berserker’s Power will still apply its effect after Focused Blade is activated.
Burst Precision will have to be changed slightly to make the first skill used after activated Focus Blade to crit.

As for Versatile Rage and Burst Mastery in the Discipline line…
Versatile Rage will grant you another 5 adrenaline as you activate Focused Blade and potentially boost you to the next Adrenaline level if you are close enough.
Burst Mastery will also have to be changed slightly to give your first attack after using Focused Blade to get 7% damage increase. This will be perfect for leading off with Skill 3 after switching to Focused Blade.

Switching to Focused Blade will also count as a weapon swap, similar to kits, so all traits and sigils relating to weapon swap will proc.

(Part 2)

Now as for the Focus Skills…

The idea for the focus was that the Swordmaster would meditate to prevent his rage from exploding in a single burst skill like a regular warrior and instead focus their rage and direct it in battle. Thus the Focus fit perfectly for this concept. I know it draws upon themes from the guardian but the idea is to be a skilled samurai warrior who fights for his honor and for his comrades thus the support skills.

Focus Skill 4 (AOE Support) Cooldown: 20 seconds
- Cleansing Strike: Spin once striking enemies and allies around you. Remove boons from foes and conditions from allies and yourself. Gain resistance and adrenaline for each boon and condition removed.
— Damage: 500
— Number of boons removed per player: 1 boon
— Number of conditions removed per player: 1 condition
— Adrenaline gained: 2 per boon/condition
— Applies resistance for 2 seconds for a total of 10 seconds if 5 players are hit.
— Number of Targets: 5
— Combo Finisher: Whirl
— Range: 150

Explanation: Focus on this Elite Specialization serves 2 purposes. First, to give support to teammates while dealing damage to enemies and second, to build adrenaline in order to draw your Focused Blade to dish out more damage. The idea for this particular skill is that your circular slash is so precise, it weakens your enemies and removes conditions on your allies.

Focus Skill 5 (Single target CC+Adrenaline) Cooldown: 25 Seconds
-Challenge: Target will be taunted and you will build adrenaline. Build double adrenaline if target strikes you while taunted. Target receives damage when taunt ends.
— Damage: 800
— Applies Taunt for 2 seconds
— Adrenaline: 5(10 if hit)
— Range: 600

Explanation: Deals good damage and builds adrenaline. Overall, a very good skill. The idea is that you challenge your enemy’s honor and they are forced to accept the challenge. You then “defeat” them when the taunt ends by delivering a strong hit. Good for spike damage and pulling an enemy off your teammate.

And now for the utilities. Mantras!
Once again, this fits in really well with the idea of a focused and centered warrior who can enter a zen state in battle to dish out precise attacks or keep the morale high by assisting friendlies. In order to allow classes to counter these strong Mantras, you can have each mantra change the color of the character who is charging it to resemble the Box of Fun’s color changing effect. Each color will correspond to a specific Mantra and players who are fighting Swordmaster will be able to easily tell which Mantra a Swordmaster is charging and decide if it’s worth bursting, interrupting, or ignoring it.

Healing Skill Cooldown: 25 Seconds, Charge time: 2 3/4 seconds
- Mantra of Survival: Concentrate and charge a mantra to allow yourself to heal.
— Character Line: “No pain, no death. Survival!”
— Number of charges: 3
— Healing: 3000
— Mantra color change: Blue

Explanation: Yes, I know this is a very strong heal but it is very easy to interrupt if necessary. Furthermore, the cooldown without traits makes it crucial to save these mantra charges for the right opportunity as well as using the other mantras to conserve this one.

(Part 3)

Utility 1(Offensive Mantra) Cooldown: 20 Seconds, Charge time: 1 Second
- Mantra of Skill: Focus on your target and deliver 3 rapid Focused Blade attacks from a distance. Apply conditions.
— Character Line: “Practice, discipline. Skill!”
— Damage per strike: 550
— Last strike damage: 800
— Applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability on first strike, 2 stacks of Torment on second strike, and 2 stacks of bleeding on third strike for 10 seconds.
— Number of Charges: 1
— Range: 900
— Mantra color change: Red

Explanation: Pretty cool and useful skill. Basically delivers an auto attack chain from an extended distance than regular Focused Blade auto attack and applies a bit more conditions. Definitely strong but also risky as you have to charge your mantra and then cast it and wait for cooldown again.

Utility 2(Defensive Mantra) Cooldown: 25 seconds, Charge time: 2 seconds
- Mantra of Persistence: Concentrate your willpower to resist conditions and crowd control.
— Character line: “Resist, stand firm. Persist!”
— Applies 1 stack of stability and resistance for 6 seconds every time a charge is used.
— Number of charges: 2
— Breaks Stuns
— Mantra color change: Yellow

Explanation: Does as it says it does. Gives you 2 stun breaks and stability every 25 seconds if you charge it. Once again, pretty strong but also risky to charge.

Utility 3(Support Mantra) Cooldown: 20 seconds, Charge time: 2 seconds
- Mantra of Assistance: Concentrate on your surroundings and apply slow and weakness to enemies while healing and providing Might to allies.
— Character line: “Observe, prepare. Assist!”
— Damage: 550
— Applies slow to enemies for 3 seconds
— Applies 3 stacks of might to allies for 10 seconds
— Healing: 1500
— Number of Charges: 2
— Combo Finisher: Blast
— Radius: 240
— Mantra color change: Green

Explanation: I’m still very unsure about this one but basically, it’s meant to slow enemies and buff allies so they can counter attack. I think it could be useful in certain scenarios.

Elite Skill Cooldown: 30 Seconds, Charge time: 2 3/4 Seconds.
- Mantra of Honor: Sacrifice yourself to inspire your allies. Cut half of your total HP to apply Stability, Resistance, Fury, Swiftness, Protection, Might, and Retaliation to nearby teammates.
— Character line: “Glory, triumph. Honor!”
— Self Damage: 50% total hp.
— Allies receive 2 Stacks of stability, protection, resistance, swiftness, 5 stacks of might, and retaliation for 10 seconds.
— Healing: 3000
— Number of Targets: 5
— Number of charges: 1
— Radius: 240
— Combo Finisher: Blast
— Mantra Color change: White

Explanation: The idea for this elite was inspired by the idea of honorable, selfless warriors who lay down their lives to ensure the victory of their side. Basically, this skill is really useful if you manage to down someone and your team is attempting to secure the stomp but entire enemy team is pressuring your team too hard. You can sap your own life to heal your teammates and buff them heavily to let them stay in the mayhem for just about long enough to win. I know 50% hp is a huge hit for this somewhat situational skill but it can also turn the tide of the fight if used in the right situation and you can get a huge chunk of hp back if you use your Mantra of Survival right after. Plus there’s a Grandmaster to reduce the damage on yourself if you want to run a support build mainly.

(Part 4)

Speaking of traits…

Trait Line: Swordmaster
Now, similar to Reaper on Necro, this specialization has a specific theme for each 3 rows of traits. Those themes are:
-Conditioned Training traits are for those looking to play a condition oriented Swordmaster without relying on the power based traits.
-Master of the Sword traits specifically meant to bolster the Focused Blade fighting style
-Battlefield Hero for traits that help you stay alive while supporting allies

Let’s start off with the minor traits!

Minor Traits
— Focusing Rage(Minor Adept): Removes weapon swap and burst skills on warrior and replaces them with Focused Blade.
— Bladed Defense(Minor Master): Gain increased toughness while Focused Blade is active. Crippled and snared foes cause 10% less damage to you. Toughness gained: 150
— Building Strength(Minor Grandmaster): 50% Chance to gain might for 5 seconds when hitting with any Skill 1.

Explanation: Tada! Not too bad for minors. Bladed Defense gives you some really nice added damage mitigation in order to allow you to move in for the kill with Onslaught after a Precision Throw or Crushing Sword. Building strength allows you the ability to might stack with any weapon set if you’re running Phalanx Strength while also letting you might stack on yourself for added condition or power damage.

Adept Traits
— Burning Spirit(Conditioned Training): Gain a Fire Aura for 5 seconds when activating Focused Blade.
— Absolute Focus(Master of the Sword): Focus skills give 3 seconds of Quickness. Focus skills recharge 20% faster. Deal 5% more damage to foes with a condition.
— Allied Protection(Battlefield Hero): Pulse protection to allies while charging a mantra.

Explanation: These are the first traits available to Swordmaster. Pretty straight forward. Burning Spirit gives you some options for condition play, Absolute Focus gives you a bit more burst potential, and Allied Protection lets your allies benefit from channeling mantras.

Master Traits
— Heat Treating(Conditioned Training): 30% Chance to cause burning for 5 seconds. Deal 20% more damage to burning foes.
— Total Offense(Master of the Sword): Attacks with sword now additionally cause 10% extra damage when wielding a sword, focus, axe, or mace in your offhand.
— Mantra Training(Battlefield Hero): Gain increased toughness while channeling a mantra. Mantra of Skill now applies fury when a charge is used, Mantra of Persistence also applies regeneration. Mantras recharge 25% faster if any mantra skill is interrupted by a foe.

Explanation: This set of traits is a little more interesting. Heat Treating is obviously great for condition builds but works very well in conjunction with Burning Spirit if you’re not using mainhand sword or focus. Total Offense gives you great reason to run dual weapons as you will get a nice boost in damage and it works very well in conjunction with the Arms trait line. I didn’t want to include shield in order to motivate players to run more offensive sets with this trait theme. Mantra training is really good for punishing rude players who dare interrupt your channeling.

Grandmaster Traits
— Blade Shards(Conditioned Training): Crushing Sword now additionally causes 5 stacks of bleeding for 10 seconds. Blade Retrieval applies 5 stacks of bleeding for 5 seconds.
— Focused Blade Master(Master of the Sword): Focused Blade skills have a 30% chance to destroy an incoming projectile. Focused Blade skills recharge 25% faster if Onslaught or Crushing Sword strikes more than one foe.
— Master of the Mantra(Battlefield Hero): Mantra of Survival will also heal nearby allies for 30% of total healing. Mantra of Assistance will also heal you. Mantra of Honor will only take 30% of your total health.

Explanation: Blade Shards is good for conditions. What else is there to say? If you want to keep those condies sticking on to enemy players, it’s a really good trait to have. Focused Blade Master is just awesome to have. Gives you defense against projectiles and is just great to have in group fights as it will recharge your skills faster. I chose to make this specific to group fights as it’s very strong and having reduced cooldowns for 1v1’s would make Focused Blade overwhelmingly strong. Master of the Mantra just solidifies support Mantra builds and allows you to use Mantra of Honor more safely. Not to mention gives you some extra healing for yourself and allies.
(Part 5)

These traits allow for good synergy with practically all warrior weapons and allow for some creative hybrid, condition, support, and even power builds to be made.

So…. that’s pretty much it. Let me know what you guys think and if you would one day like to see a specialization like this come to Warrior someday. I think the concept is perfect but obviously, some of the numbers are probably too strong or too weak but that’s just the general idea. If by some miracle Anet likes this idea, I’m sure they’d balance it better. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed my Elite Specialization idea!

TL;DR: Warrior gets weapon swap and burst taken away but gets cool Samurai Engineer Kit/Death Shroud, Mantras, and some good traits.

Looks fun. Pretty well thought out, just glancing over it.

That_shaman already datamined a specialization named Berserker a few weeks ago, sadly. So chances are high that that will be our spec.

I’d rather play your suggestion though lol

Focused Blade seems way too focused on defense. We don’t really have a defensive burst so I would at least add some blocks or evades to the skills of Focused Blade to make it more versatile.

Although personally I’m not very interested in samurais and katanas. I think their armor was hideous and rubbish, and while the katana looks like an excellent cutter, I find it quite short for a two-handed sword and its hand guard looks lackluster as well. And just in general, they have been given more than their share of glory in animé and Japanese RPGs so I’d like Arenanet to get us something more original for elite specs. I’ll welcome a samurai elite if we go to Cantha because it will be more in-themed there, but otherwise I’d rather they didn’t pull out a samurai spec.

Berserker? Well, it makes me wonder if our F2 will be an off-hand burst or just a “Berserk” skill that burns adrenaline. If it’s just “Berserk”, it better be an awesome berserk that does more than increase our damage by X% because that’s not going to cut it with an off-hand like torch. (Which is probably what we’re getting.)

Bearhugger.4326:

Focused Blade seems way too focused on defense. We don’t really have a defensive burst so I would at least add some blocks or evades to the skills of Focused Blade to make it more versatile.

Although personally I’m not very interested in samurais and katanas. I think their armor was hideous and rubbish, and while the katana looks like an excellent cutter, I find it quite short for a two-handed sword and its hand guard looks lackluster as well. And just in general, they have been given more than their share of glory in animé and Japanese RPGs so I’d like Arenanet to get us something more original for elite specs. I’ll welcome a samurai elite if we go to Cantha because it will be more in-themed there, but otherwise I’d rather they didn’t pull out a samurai spec.

Berserker? Well, it makes me wonder if our F2 will be an off-hand burst or just a “Berserk” skill that burns adrenaline. If it’s just “Berserk”, it better be an awesome berserk that does more than increase our damage by X% because that’s not going to cut it with an off-hand like torch. (Which is probably what we’re getting.)

They datamined a skill called “King of Fighting” that will supposedly give Warriors a PvE breakbar. It will probably be useless though because of the Mantra Mesmers who can frontload CC easily. CC the Warrior 3-4 times and he gets disabled for like 4 seconds, which is the backlash for draining the breakbar, and then 1shot him.

Bearhugger.4326:

Focused Blade seems way too focused on defense. We don’t really have a defensive burst so I would at least add some blocks or evades to the skills of Focused Blade to make it more versatile.

Although personally I’m not very interested in samurais and katanas. I think their armor was hideous and rubbish, and while the katana looks like an excellent cutter, I find it quite short for a two-handed sword and its hand guard looks lackluster as well. And just in general, they have been given more than their share of glory in animé and Japanese RPGs so I’d like Arenanet to get us something more original for elite specs. I’ll welcome a samurai elite if we go to Cantha because it will be more in-themed there, but otherwise I’d rather they didn’t pull out a samurai spec.

Berserker? Well, it makes me wonder if our F2 will be an off-hand burst or just a “Berserk” skill that burns adrenaline. If it’s just “Berserk”, it better be an awesome berserk that does more than increase our damage by X% because that’s not going to cut it with an off-hand like torch. (Which is probably what we’re getting.)

I was actually thinking that it would be a perfect addition to the game should we ever return to Cantha. I’m on the other side of the fence though, I think a Samurai specialization would be really interesting as it could add some really flashy sword style attacks to a class that is really just smash, hack, and kick as well. Ironically, I main thief but flashy attacks are so my thing haha. I think the warrior as it is right now is already basically a Berserker that’s why I’m not too excited about the potential of that being the Elite Spec. I would love to see Warriors get above land spears however. Man, I would love to be a spear fighter.

Mantra of Honor need to be changed or else its useless in SPvP.

Knighthonor.4061:

Mantra of Honor need to be changed or else its useless in SPvP.

The only real use would be should your team be close to securing a stomp. You can buff your team heavily to get the stomp or right at the start of a fight with Mantra of Survival charged + the Master of the Mantra grandmaster. Or if you’re running double Endure Pain, you can use it at half hp with the grandmaster trait to proc your second Endure Pain and become immune to damage while your entire team just got a crap ton of boons. However, 30-50% of your hp for a bunch of boons might not be so great even with Mantra of Survival’s big heal so yeah I could totally see it getting some sort of damage reduction or maybe give it the effect of applying the opposite of each of those boons you shared out to yourself. Essentially applying corrupt boon on yourself in exchange for buffing all your allies.

One thing to note, I came up with this Elite Spec and wrote this article out over the span of 3-4 hours haha so maybe not all the skills are up to par.

Skill 3 (AOE)Cooldown: 10 seconds
and Combo Finisher: Blast
Too OP! Blast->Leap and +5sCD and it is ok

Utility 2(Defensive Mantra)
Too strong
It can’t be stun break AND stabilyty 6s/20s CD + everything else m/be stby-> protection and regen or even AOE 5 players- so it will be a stunbreak and boons to allys

Utility 3(Support Mantra)
No blast! and direct Heal-> regen 15s (total HoT can stay ~1500HPat 0Healing Power)

Elite Skill
3000 Direct Heal ->10% totall player’s HP so an 11kHP player gets healed for 1100HP and 25K- 2500HP

Building Strength(Minor Grandmaster)
5s iCD and ok

Focused Blade Master
“Focused Blade skills have a 30% chance to destroy an incoming projectile. Focused Blade skills recharge 25% faster if Onslaught or Crushing Sword strikes more than one foe”. -> evade atacks while using focus skills, Focus skills recharge 25% faster if an atack is evaded.

that are just the things that are TOO OP to begin whit
Idk how is dmg on skills compered to other skills so no coment on them
and you need 1 more mantra
so 1heal, 1elit and 4 utility

M/be a CC mantra 1200 range
5s of chill +
range < 300 1s stun if the enemy is “hit” behind or aside / 2s daze if hit in front
range < 800 5s cripple aside or behind / 4s slow in front