Guild Wars 2

One of the reasons why I chose the play warrior before launch was because of this video:
[link]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8iBgOZ_frY[/link]

However, in game, I got something else. I understand Warriors are suppose to take swords to the face and ask for more. I also understand the importance of dodging.

Dodging is great don’t get me wrong, but for a melee character it is a bit inconvenient sometimes because it takes you out of attack range. For instance, one dodge moves your character 300 units over .75 secs, while melee weapon range (auto attack) is 130 units. So, if you dodge a big attack, you’d be 170 units out of range. You’d then have to either run back or use a gap closer. Either way, you lost time to punish the player for leaving him/herself open. In a way, players are rewarded for playing recklessly.

The Solution:
Create a F2 skill for the shield. This skill will rely on adrenaline, but will not be defined as a burst skill (just incase people are worried about cleansing ire synergy.) This will also be an instant skill, but not a stun breaker. Also, blocked attacks will not grant adrenaline even if traited (so its not self filling.) Also, missle reflection wouldn’t work with this skill. Attacking lowers the shield instantly, and still depletes a bar of adrenaline per use.

It would use one bar of adrenaline at a time for a two second duration and a 5 second cd. The skill will not be an 360 degree invulnerability, and will only block frontal attacks. Marks, wells, and other combo fields will still hit a person blocking with this skill.

If a warrior lunches earthshaker infront of you, it will block. However if you are facing the wrong direction, it will hit even though you are blocking.

So in the end, the shield F2 will just be a simple block. Useful against someone who is just spamming their skills. It also offers counterplay by being directional, just attack side or behind. It will also promote the use of timing and force players to learn which skills are blockable.

TL;DR: Move shield 5 to F2, then proceed with nerf.

About dodging, if I’m fighting a mob of which I know I will have to dodge, I strafe sideways. When I dodge, I dodge sideways so my distance to the mob will always be almost the same.

You can also dodge through the mob to stay in range

It would be interesting to have a defensive burst skill for our two handed off hand weapons.

I completely support this idea. I’ve always felt that shield has been very much lacking and in nearly all circumstances it’s better to use a sword offhand. A simple yet effective solution would be to implement what you suggested, OP. It still wouldn’t be needed in most circumstances in PvE but it would actually have an extra block and it makes more sense for a shield to have it.

Great idea.

Everything about your post I agree with. Wow, to be honest that’s kind of a rare find for me.

:)

I have to disagree, this idea is a complete nerf to the shield.

You basically want a much worse version of #5 to be our 2nd burst skill, but to not benefit from any other trait that rely on blocking or adrenaline loss. This is closer to an engi “tool belt” skill than it is a warrior burst one.

If this was a 1st person game, or a slower paced combat game I may agree with you (about the directional bit), but when enemies can turn 180 in a couple of frames things like this aren’t that great. The ranger/thief skills that rely on direction can at least be used from range (which arguably makes initial positioning worse) or have other skills that can put you into the right place.
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To be fair, I would love an F2 skill for off hand/2 handed weapons, but they should be like our other burst skills. I don’t know 100% if they should be “defensive” in nature, some argue we have too much survivability as it stands, but it should help us be more diverse.

My initial thoughts for a shield burst skill would have been a captain america style shield throw, maybe 1/3/5 targets with a 0.5/1.0/1.5s daze (then I realized that engi’s already have something like that). After thinking about it since then I think I’d like an AoE block skill. maybe: 150/300/600 range, 1/3/5 targets, 0.5/1/2sec block all [or block the next1/2/3 attacks for 1/2/5 sec ] (if this is too close to a guard skill, sorry. I haven’t played one of those yet)

There were a lot of things I considered when I came up with this idea. If the synergism is too good, it could easily be considered op.

For instance, allowing it to be fully listed as a burst skill will allow a reduction in cool down by up to 30% and use 33% less adrenaline with burst mastery. Since the skill is already on a 5 sec cool down, a 30% reduction would reduce it to 3.5 sec. On top of that, it would also synergize with cleansing ire. So you’ll basically have 2 sec frontal attack invul and a condi removal on a 3.5 sec cd. Then you could use Healing surge, Signet of Fury, or Berserker’s stance to refill your adrenaline which would allow you to spam. A condi removal every 3.5 secs with a block seems pretty OP to me.

Don’t get me started on how useful this skill would be if it worked with missile reflection.

The warrior profession is really attack heavy. You keep attacking until your opponent dies, then you’re the winner. With this skill I hope to see more back and forth. With more defensive skills, maybe people would be more open to using other builds besides the “I iz immortal pvt.” I recently crafted a set of zealot gear, but since healing doesn’t scale well with my defenses, i’m basically glass. However, if i had this skill, i’ll be better able to defend myself, and I’ll have to do it actively. I’ll have to watch for burst skills and carefully position myself to counter when they fail. My failure would result in my death. If I win, it would be because I fought well, and not because I had great regen backing me up.

Sure, you may say. Kris, just roll another class. I have, but I’ve played warrior since the head start. I remember times when I was the only warrior in a zerg. The only time I truly felt alive was in the zerker meta. Thieves would come out of no where and gank you. Other classes have great ways of defending themselves while warriors have to depend on passive bs. I ultimately want to see the warrior profession reach its potential.

Here’s my vision:
Warrior sees attack coming and raises shield. Guardian’s leap of faith hits nothing but shield. Warrior then uses shield bash, and opens with flurry. Guardian quickly switches to hammer and banishes warrior off cliff.

That would have been a hilarious and fun fight for both sides.

How is shield 5 not enough?

Shield 5 is not enough because it does not offer any counter play being a complete 360 degree invul, and you can only use it once per 24 seconds. In combat, 24 seconds is a long time to be defenseless. Sure you can say, warriors have high base armor and hp. Even with warrior’s high base armor, with no toughness, you are glass. So they are stuck with builds which center around toughness, whether that being power bunker or condi bunker.

This skill will introduce more blocks so that a warrior’s substain will be their hands and not in some signet which is about to be nerfed and eventually nerfed into the ground or stacking toughness. I would love to use my zealot, rabid, or zerk gear in wvw, but i can’t because some type of bunker will always outlast me with damage I could have mitigated with a block but forced to tank because I was out of dodges.

I guess you can say, Kris, L2P. I’m trying man, i’m tryin.

I wouldn’t mind an F2 skill for ALL off-hand weapons, to be honest. Make it so X/Axe,Sword,Mace do an attack with feeds off of both weapons, and make shield have an F2 skill that allows directional block, as you stated.

However, this directional block would have to drain your Adrenaline meter faster than a trophy wife to a bank account, and wouldn’t technically count as a burst skill. You’d be surprised how taxing blocking attacks with a shield can be on a person.

I think all melee weapons should have an extra no (or very low) cooldown block ability that consumes adrenaline as an alternative to dodging.

As said by the comments above and something I’ve said before, to make Warriors more interesting and up the skill cap for them, I think adding another F2 that corresponds to the off-hand or any 2hander will be the best move.

Adrenaline has such potential, but since Warriors only have 1 ability (2 if you count swapping) their ability to choose is limited and that limitation means less skill progression Given that this extra F2 shares cooldown with F1 and has its own functionality that makes it situational rather than competing about damage, it could easily be balanced by implementing the right sort of F2’s.

With an F1 and F2, with weapon swap, that gives warriors 4x Adrenaline attacks, which I feel is more balanced to most classes that uses the whole F1, 2, 3 and 4 system like Elementalist, Engineer and Mesmer.

So the idea to a F2 ability is great, this idea with shield is lacking. Instead there should be something else.