Guild Wars 2

Hello,

First, thank you for giving us this beta week-end. I’ve played many hours with the Spellbreaker, and would like to submit this initial feedback.

To put it in a nutshell, I feel that the specialization offers an interesting gameplay, but lacks too much impact to be relevant yet. I however believe that after some buffs, it should be playable and enjoyable.

The positive things, which made me enthusiastic about the specialization:

• The full counter mechanics is nice. I like that it adds a new survival option, plus does unblockable damage and may remove one boon with Dispelling Force. It feels like a good use for adrenaline. The tell is obvious, so should hopefully allow some counterplay. Congrats on that design!
• The elite allows a nice area control, and I had some fun using it in WvW. However, I believe it should bring more to the table, in terms of buffing allies.
• Rewarding hard control feels good, especially now that we can remove boons. I hope that stability will always be removed first, so that we can benefit better from our builds. I believe that further enhancing hard control would be interesting (besides Dispelling Force and No Escape).

There are many shortcomings though, which cause the specialization to be lacking:

• One has to trade too much damage, survivability and mobility in order to get the debuff capabilities. I am firmly convinced that some buffs are in order here.
• Reserving one bar of adrenaline for counter is fine, but limiting the burst to one bar of adrenaline is not. All burst-enhancing traits lose too much value. In my opinion, burst skills should be able to use up to two bars of adrenaline.

In terms of builds, we have some choice to make, which is good. I do belong to the “Fast Hand Mandatory” faction, so will not play without Discipline, especially for a power warrior. I have tried power warriors based on:

• Defense / Discipline / Spellbreaker, using dagger/dagger and sword/shield. The point was to be resilient, so as to make full use of debuff capabilities during the fight. The build did a correct job, but I would have loved more damage/mobility on the dagger set. This would open new alternate weapon options (especially hammer-based builds, which have so much potential).
• Strength / Discipline / Spellbreaker, using GS and dagger/shield. The point was to play aggressively, but in this regard it felt a bit inferior to the core warrior, even with the debuff options. The gameplay was however enjoyable.

Let us review daggers:

• #1 is fast enough I guess, but the damage is too low. I would recommend a damage buff of around 50%, and/or would consider granting might on all three attacks of the chain.
• #2 is okay, the “Slow” somehow compensating for the lack of damage. However, I would buff the range of the skill from 300 to 450 (or even 600), to improve the mobility of the weapon set.
• #3 felt weird, as mixing utility with average damage seems to be lacking in focus. I would change the skill completely, for instance: evade all attacks, and daze your target after evading. This would improve the survivability, which we are in need of.
• #4 was underwhelming. Even with the damage boost, the overall damage is too low. Considering it requires a setup (hard CC), I would buff the damage by at least 50%.
• #5 felt weird as well, again mixing utility and damage. The skill loses a lot of value when facing non-projectiles attacks.
• Dagger F1 is definitely good. I liked the unblockable attack with a 450 range.
• Counter F2 is excellent, as previously stated.

I’ll review skills and traits I used thereafter. Those I do not mention, I did not try because they looked either underperforming in regards of other skills (Natural Healing, Break Enchantments, Guard Counter, Enchantment Collapse), or downright underwhelming or irrelevant (Sight Beyond Sight, Imminent Thread, Pure Strike). One has to remember that Spellbreaker does not bring mobility, damage or survivability – only debuff – which introduces many build balance constraints.

About skills:

• Featherfoot Grace was not bad at all, but worse than expected. Even with the added stun breaker and the superspeed (both of which being very good), it feels inferior to Berserker Stance, with its pulsing resistance and adrenaline generation. However, I have to say I did not pay enough attention to all the new condition attacks, and may have taken more hits than I usually do (condi-bombed).
• Winds of Disenchantments was very nice, both in WvW and PvP. I do feel that it lacks a little something for an elite, ideally a one-time buff to allies (which could be addressed by introducting a meditation trait, see below).

About traits:

• Dispelling Force is a very nice minor trait. It is something that was once discussed in this forum as a potential buff to physical skills, so it is nice to see it come to life now. Thank you.
• No Escape was interesting, as it somehow help neutralize stun breakers (of which the game is rich). However, I would extend the application of the trait to all hard CC effects, and not just daze and stun (especially for Bull’s Charge).
• Loss Aversion, Slow Counter, Sun and Moon Style: I tried all of them, but do not have an opinion thus far. More testing is in order.
• Revenge Counter was opay, but similarly I did not really perceive the advantage it brought. More testing is in order as well.
• Magebane Tether was useful and enjoyable, like an automatic DH F1. I liked it very much.

Some additional suggestions:

• It would be nice if we could have a meditation trait granting a boon on use, to self and allies (e.g. stability or resistance). Meditations are a bit too weak in my view, and this would improve the overall survivability.
• Also, it would be great if we could further enhance hard CC. For instance, I would love a trait granting a 100% damage boost to the attack following any hard CC.

Cheers for reading, hoping to play with a new Spellbreaker soon!

My biggest gripe for daggers is lack of mobility and too much melee.

Its sad when you have to use the burst and spend adrenaline just to move a bit.

Dagger #2 should be an Ammo type skill with 2 or even 3 charges.
Dagger #3 should be a ranged skill.

I stopped playing GW2 almost 2 years ago because Berserker felt exactly like that to me. The new spec tickIed my curiosity. I guess I’m not really tempted to come back after all.

Berserker was also far to weak when it got released. We can hope that the devs will buff SB like they did with berserker during the months to come.

At the current rate, the only thing I feel spellbreaker has going for it is the traitline and fleetfoot. Other than that everything else feels like a step backwards. D/D has low dmg no mobilty, long cds for skills that dont do much. On top of all of this low range and slow.

I think Dagger f1 should be 600 range and dagger 2 450 range. If dagger 4 is going to be 130 range it should have a faster cast. Dagger 5 just needs a little dmg boost then it will be fine. Auto need a dmg boost honestly.

As for our super hyped elite. The cast time alone is a huge issue. On top of that the 90s cd. CD is fine but the cast has to be lowered to 1s not 1.5s.

The traits are the only good thing but some feel lackluster and there end up being clear winners. Honestly after 5 years/6k hours on war and this happening again doesnt feel great.

As Ferus said. I really hope they consider buffs on dagger and the elite.

Can you change dagger 3 to become throw dagger and chain pull on a 5s cd.

These are my thoughts on it:

- Unless they add more boon based mobs/bosses/etc, the spellbreaker is utter garbage in PvE aside from very niche raid mechanics. We’ll have to wait and see on this depending on what’s released in the new xpac.
- In PvP, while the boon hate is really good – The weapon set itself is very weak against any competent player (slow attacks/bad range-cleave on a class that is built around mobility; now lacking it as a Spellbreaker).
- At best a lateral comparison to Berserker In it’s current nerfed state.
- Unfortunately anet nerfed the berserker but did not make any improvements needed regarding the spellbreaker.
- I predict it will have no use in WvW: bad for zerging, bad in roaming (lack of mobility), and bad in 1v1’s if the opponent simply kites and resets fights (assuming the spellbreaker is hardcountering what it fights).
- Lastly, I also believe it will be one of the bottom tier classes released.

For a first iteration I agree that Spellbreaker is a very nice taste on new gameplay for the Warrior that fills a specific role in terms of a potential in PvP and WvW. The devs did mention that it would have much less success in PvE and I’ve done my testing on that end and came to the same conclusion for things like organized Raid content. What I do expect however is despite the much lower DPS of the spec, that a boss or two in PvE might actually be really suspectible to the capabilities of the Spellbreaker that could be abused to justify the presence.

However let’s get to the meat of it, MH Daggers do feel really weak. The auto-attack needs a solid 25% damage buff at the very least. The Leap from 2 needs to go faster and not necessarily further but it would be welcome. I like the OP’s suggestion about Dagger 3 so I’ll agree on that.

OH dagger actually felt a bit better, it Synergizes well with MH Mace and MH Dagger but those two could use a bit more bite, add damage buffs.

I can understand the reluctance in buffing Dagger as Boon Rip and the Passive Crit Damage SpellBreaker has in its tree could escalate it out of control, but I should not be seeing far, far lower damage doing a rotation of dagger autos than simply running a GS.

By the way, while the OP didn’t go into Revenge Counter I actually did, it feels quite right but I wonder if it is too much to ask if instead of copy conditions, copy and wipe out the 5 conditions on you? It would make it a definitive trait for dealing with Conditions however Magebane is still probably the best for aggressive styles and being the anti stealth.

I feel like I said too many negative things.

On a positive note. Full counter is really nice and magebane tether a dream come true. The spec works nicely with GS/mace/shield. Or GS/hammer. Mace/shield make great use of the SB traitline with the boonremoval on CC. Axe/dagger is nice too because of the reflect on dagger 5 but dagger 4 feels awkward in that setup.

I really like the idea behind the elite aside from its cast time. The heal is great for condi clear with a nice amount healed. Fleetfood feels really good by being simple yet effective on a reasonable cooldown.

Great post, Elegie.

I am actually really enjoying the spec. It takes some getting used to but you can really control fights and chase people pretty good without greatsword.

The only thing that I’ve really struggled fighting against is s/f weaver, but that is just barrier/invuln nonsense.

The damage is bursty. It’s not sustained dps. That’s fine. It’s a pvp spec. We already have a number of good pve builds (ps gs power, and ps condi).

I totally agree with the op Full counter feels good and has a decently telegraphed animation. I like it.

The burst skill on dagger and the #2 skill I see a lot of people complaining about to slow, or too weak. I’ve found it to be very much the opposite. #2 is just the right range to chase ppl with swiftness, but allows targets to escape if they are using superspeed.

Many people are also complaining about dagger oh 4 and I don’t really understand why. I’ve been able to land 15ks on it in spvp. It does good damage, you just have to time it against your opponets animations. Dagger 5 again I don’t get what peoples issue is with this skill, its a great utility skill and does good damage. Coming from being a ranger this is whirling defense 2.0

I don’t find any of the utilities other than the heal, or the elite to be appealing. Maybe it speaks to how broken stances are. I do have to say this elite spec is absolutely insane with bulls charge.

As for traits, I managed to scrap together a pretty nice sustain but bursty build with str(bbm)/def(mtm)/spellbreaker(tbb).

The healing from might makes right, adrenal health and middle master trait work amazingly together. It really allows you to get in and commit to sustaining in the fray.

The pull is a nice interesting mechanic. It gives me two choices, I can choose to cc them by running away and the hopping back to them as they are knocked down, or stay in range and build that sweet sweet might(which turns into endurance + hp).

I feel that spell breaker has a lot of give and take. Which is how classes should be balanced.

One additional grumble … Legendary dagger (Incinerator) visuals are not at all legendary on Spellbreaker. In fact, they appear to be disabled, if that is even possible.

Some thoughts from PVP perspective:

Stability counters this spec hard. It would be ideal to see dagger get a single boon strip without needed to disable to allow for some counter play.

It would be nice to see dagger get either a ranged attack or a pull similar to DH, it is just too easy to kite right now.

Discipline trait line seems mandatory for the 25% move speed if you want to take natural healing due to not being able to upkeep swiftness. The issue is that there is no pure power-based 25% MS rune.

Siric.3589:

Some thoughts from PVP perspective:

Stability counters this spec hard. It would be ideal to see dagger get a single boon strip without needed to disable to allow for some counter play.

It would be nice to see dagger get either a ranged attack or a pull similar to DH, it is just too easy to kite right now.

Discipline trait line seems mandatory for the 25% move speed if you want to take natural healing due to not being able to upkeep swiftness. The issue is that there is no pure power-based 25% MS rune.

Turning the dagger burst into a range would be amazing,especially with tether it would make more sense imo.

I like the concept of the spellbreaker. The 2 daggers have a nice feel to them, though I would do something to the 3 or 4 skill or maybe both. Maybe give the 3 skill a longer range (450) and make it a gap-closer. I like the skills 2 and 5 as they are, but 3 and 4 are a little bland. Yes, you are supposed to hit them in a row, I get that, but the range is really small on both.

The damage ouput should be higher, both on the outo attack and the 5 skill. It’s called “Bladestorm” for a reaoson, make it hit hard. I had no problems with the heal and the utilities, especially “Featherfoot Grace” is a really nice skill. The elite skill feel a little weak however for that long a CD. It has projectile negation and removes boons on a 90 second CD. Either shorten the CD or give it something more (superspeed?) to make it count more.

Spellbreaker is definitely more of a PvP and WvW spec than a PvE one, but I don’t see a big problem with that. Berzerker is in a nice spot in PvE atm, so maybe this spec can fill other niches. Also I hope for more upcoming content (bosses in the new maps, raids etc.) where the mechnic of boon stealing becoms more important and makes the Spellbreaker viable.

What if they made the 3 & 4 dagger skills into 1 skill instead? Like it would cast the 3 skill, then turn into the 4 skill. So you’d still get to have the combo of interrupt + big damage, but it wouldn’t take 2 weapon slots. I do like the quick interrupt, but it seems weird they’d dedicate 2 weapon skills of the new spec to this simple mechanic.

If you don’t get what I’m talking about, think offhand sword 4 (Impale —> Rip).

the daggers feel to slow, I was hoping we’d finally be less telegraphy, dual daggers even sounds fast, also dual wielding doesnt seem to be working with daggers

Ferus.3165:

Berserker was also far to weak when it got released. We can hope that the devs will buff SB like they did with berserker during the months to come.

This is just blatantly not true. I don’t know about powerzerker, but longbow zerker was so broken they had to completely destroy the burst skill early on.

Coming from a Mesmer, I personally enjoy the Spellbreaker even though it might be more appealing for PvP and WvW. For PvE, I really like the synergy between Magebane Tether since I dislike using GS just for Might stacking. This set up is way more flexible. Probably not going to turn out to be meta but certainly usable.

I’m finding spellbreaker to be quite enjoyable, and I’ve never liked warrior before. I’m using D/D + Rifle, with Strength, Defense and Spellbreaker (duh), with the new heal, Bull’s Charge (yes, you read it right), Balanced Stance, Endure Pain, and Rampage.

The survivability is fair, the damage people claim is low but I find it hits decently, similar to thief (not dead eye) which is what Spellbreaker actually feels similar to. Classes designed to get kills don’t usually have skills that hit extremely high, they are good at chaining abilities and landing decent hits, not necessarily trying to land a gimmick shot.

Offhand dagger brings the burst and 5 is fair cleave, and invaluable defense against the dead eyes, dragon hunters and pewpew rangers. It lacks mobility, so rifle is needed for classes like thief than can dart in and out, and it’s good single target damage from ranged. Bull’s charge helps a lot; it’s very versatile, much like all skills thieves take. It can engage, damage, escape, or interrupt. It’s good to follow up with 4 or get to those pesky dead eyes and show them they should go back to core thief.

Without a defensive weapon though, you really need to learn to use full counter. It brings a very new concept to warriors, because it requires this thing called timing. Yup, this elite spec requires you to think on warrior! It’s brilliant, and about time the devs went in that direction. You need the new heal for cleanse, because while you can deal with conditions fairly well with a 27k health pool, you lack cleanse, and that heal is all you have. Plus, it’s a huge heal, which is really needed with marauder warrior.

No Discipline? Tried it, didn’t work as well as Strength and Defense. Defense brings you vigor and stances. You could take discipline, sure, and it would work ok, but this build doesn’t really need fast hands, and the burst skills aren’t that great, plus you want to ensure you always keep 1 bar full for full counter on demand. Kill shot is too telegraphed and the dagger burst skill is alright for the boon strip to chain into an interrupt, but that’s all. It’s utility, not damage. Strength is needed for the GM that gives you back endurance on might gain, which you get often with the AA chain of dagger main hand. Combine that with reckless dodge, (which I still disagree with) and you’re throwing damage out everywhere, and on that note, is why you take Defense. The vigor with the stances really adds to your endurance as well, synergising with dagger AA and Strength GM. Of course, the healing and the stance’s usual effects add more much needed survivability, even if the minor healing trait is significantly lessened with only level 1 burst skills available.

It is essentially rifle thief. Ironic eh? Because the actual rifle thief is awful.

Impact.2780:

I’m finding spellbreaker to be quite enjoyable, and I’ve never liked warrior before. I’m using D/D + Rifle, with Strength, Defense and Spellbreaker (duh), with the new heal, Bull’s Charge (yes, you read it right), Balanced Stance, Endure Pain, and Rampage.

The survivability is fair, the damage people claim is low but I find it hits decently, similar to thief (not dead eye) which is what Spellbreaker actually feels similar to. Classes designed to get kills don’t usually have skills that hit extremely high, they are good at chaining abilities and landing decent hits, not necessarily trying to land a gimmick shot.

Offhand dagger brings the burst and 5 is fair cleave, and invaluable defense against the dead eyes, dragon hunters and pewpew rangers. It lacks mobility, so rifle is needed for classes like thief than can dart in and out, and it’s good single target damage from ranged. Bull’s charge helps a lot; it’s very versatile, much like all skills thieves take. It can engage, damage, escape, or interrupt. It’s good to follow up with 4 or get to those pesky dead eyes and show them they should go back to core thief.

Without a defensive weapon though, you really need to learn to use full counter. It brings a very new concept to warriors, because it requires this thing called timing. Yup, this elite spec requires you to think on warrior! It’s brilliant, and about time the devs went in that direction. You need the new heal for cleanse, because while you can deal with conditions fairly well with a 27k health pool, you lack cleanse, and that heal is all you have. Plus, it’s a huge heal, which is really needed with marauder warrior.

No Discipline? Tried it, didn’t work as well as Strength and Defense. Defense brings you vigor and stances. You could take discipline, sure, and it would work ok, but this build doesn’t really need fast hands, and the burst skills aren’t that great, plus you want to ensure you always keep 1 bar full for full counter on demand. Kill shot is too telegraphed and the dagger burst skill is alright for the boon strip to chain into an interrupt, but that’s all. It’s utility, not damage. Strength is needed for the GM that gives you back endurance on might gain, which you get often with the AA chain of dagger main hand. Combine that with reckless dodge, (which I still disagree with) and you’re throwing damage out everywhere, and on that note, is why you take Defense. The vigor with the stances really adds to your endurance as well, synergising with dagger AA and Strength GM. Of course, the healing and the stance’s usual effects add more much needed survivability, even if the minor healing trait is significantly lessened with only level 1 burst skills available.

It is essentially rifle thief. Ironic eh? Because the actual rifle thief is awful.

I like the outplay potential but you give up a lot for a small amount of new tricks. Also deadeye is pretty dank. Does more dmg than our rifle while having more utility.

Hopefully some buffs for d/d range/damage wise are due along with elite skill getting a lower cast time. Mage bane tether is nice but i wish after you landed a burst you could manually pull with a f3 that becomes available.

Remember that with only one bar weapons that scale off adrenaline have taken a hit, axe, rifle, mace….

I think the spellbreaker is great, but it would be cool if they added an option in the trait line to steal boons instead of removing them.

The more I play spellbreaker, the more I find myself adjusting my build away from it to improve performance. Now it’s down just Full Counter. I’ll next evaluate whether that is better than berserk mode.

DaShi.1368:

The more I play spellbreaker, the more I find myself adjusting my build away from it to improve performance. Now it’s down just Full Counter. I’ll next evaluate whether that is better than berserk mode.

Heh same here..gave some utils a try but i went back to berserk stance/balanced stance/ep.Still giving dd a try because i do feel its fun to play but the dmg is severely lacking on aa and bursting especially.Our elite can also use a shafe off the cd,its far too long imo and should be brought down to 60cd.Other than that im not that impressed with the new spec,if nothing much changes in this month im gonna just stick with forever dodging core warr.

I like spellbreaker! Traitline is fantastic. I really like the concept. The only thing I hate is dagger. Dagger is straight GARBAGE. No mobility at all. The damage is not even all that, plus I just get kited to death and have trouble landing hits. Utilities are ok. The anti-stealth skills are pretty useful imo.

As far as WvW goes: full counter is good.

Dagger needs a buff to damage since it only hits 2 targets. Boon strips should be more targeted (i.e. burst removes protection) .

Maybe have dagger 4 remove retaliation and fury.

RE: the Stab thing OP, the trait says your stuns, dazes, knockdowns and pulls strip boons. If the enemy has stab those effects do not go through and thus do not strip Stab. Takes like 5s to test with a friend.

My overall impressions

• Another Warrior elite spec that didn’t fall too far from the tree. Frankly, playing Breaker feels exactly like core warrior. Full Counter is incredibly strong, but I don’t think it alone carries the Espec. (And it is alone, it’s literally the only new skill if you don’t count the generic full set of Weaponskills 1 heal 4 utility 1 elite)

What I liked

• Naturally, full counter is incredibly satisfying to land.*
• Condi Cleanse and maintaining Adrenal Health is surprisingly decent despite my initial reservations with the leaked info about spellbreaker’s mechanics!
• Particle effects are pretty to look at, although it’s a stark contrast with the rest of warrior’s effects.
• Dagger feels fluid and intuitive to use. The Dagger burst goes a long way towards this.

What I don’t like

• This feels like such a massive oversight that I cannot believe it actually happened, but the T1 core warrior bursts are completely awful in general and I don’t know why we’re restricted to them. If the issue was because mechanically it would drain all adrenaline rendering full counter unable to be used then either revamp the T1s or make new ones for spellbreaker! T1 burst skills weren’t used before HOT and I am so sure that the majority of them aren’t even worth pressing over your regular weapon skills. Looking at you, 1s Skull Crack and 3s duration Combustive Shot. Even T1 eviscerate does less damage than Axe 4 while locking you into a slow animation. That said, Dagger burst is great because it was designed with 2017 GW2 in mind rather than being an archaic relic of 2013 GW2 forced upon the espec.
• Spellbreaker fixes none of the issues with core warrior – Defense and Discipline traitlines, Endure Pain and Berserker Stance still nigh compulsory for pvp. I was kinda excited to try an interrupt Breaker with the new merciless Hammer trait but it just didn’t work. Also it’s mutually exclusive with the new sustain trait in Strength, thanks anet.
• It’s just… core warrior with a counter attack. Please let Irenio take over the next warrior elite spec so we can have some gameplay changing mechanics next time ala Druid or Scourge.

What I would change

• Buff the T1 core weapon bursts to not be terrible. Even if this results in buffs to the T3 versions is that really that terrible considering we’re coming off Berserker who had objectively better versions in some cases?
• Make Dagger 3 a dagger throw with decent range (300?). Pure Melee range is so bad for what it’s supposed to do. See: Thief Pistol 4.
• Reduce the Cast Time of the Breaker heal. The penalty is already the full boon strip (that renders it completely useless in pve lol), it doesn’t also need a year long cast time with it. I highly doubt you’re EVER getting this off against Thief or Mesmer or Necro.
• Featherfoot Grace would actually be competitive Berserker’s stance with a 25s CD instead of a 30s one. Right now it’s still Berserker’s stance every single time.
• Sight Beyond Sight should give you immunity to Blind for it’s duration, goes away after landing the hit together with the buff.

Mostly these are from a PvP perspective, I’m also an avid raider so I’m eagerly waiting to be able to test Breaker on that front – though just from this demo I’m fairly certain it’s gonna perform worse than power Berserker PS (quite a feat to accomplish) just from how bad dagger auto is.

Stuff I forgot to mention:

• Sun and Moon Style is awful in the current implementation. Please make it ALL interrupts grant quickness – It’s a trait that only works while you have a MH dagger out, what the heck? What about synergy with the plethora of other warrior weapons that can interrupt like Mace or Hammer? Are we just not allowed synergy? Half the time it’ll work with full counter and half the time not? Really confused about why this decision was made.
• And the other half of the trait – it’s great in PvE, but again, only when you have an OH dagger out? What if I want to swap weapons? This is such a bad way to implement a weaponmaster trait. Please take inspiration from Shield Master and Merciless Hammer, I should be able to look at this trait and consider running it even if I wasn’t wielding the weapon in question.

• Imminent Threat is awful. Turns out that even when you reduce the CD of what is functionally Fear Me to almost half it’s still not gonna be used ever over Berserker’s Stance and Endure Pain. Actually this is just a warrior problem in general, every utility skill made has to shine REALLY bright to outshine those 2.

• Please make Dagger auto do more damage. I don’t understand why Thief Dagger auto is allowed to be incredibly high DPS but warrior isn’t, considering they have a similarly disruptive skillset and gameplay should they spec for it.

• I’m a little salty about the reused animations on our skills. Eviscerate on Dagger 2 and Heartseeker on Dagger F1?

So far this is what I can see….
Healing from a offhand that you don’t hit with much. Boon strip that a few heralds can counter by applying boons faster then stripped. Damage problems.

1. Take sun and moon style OUT. Having the heal on the offhand only makes it horrible.’

2. Make a trait that heals for a percent of reflected dmg from full counter and the dagger #5. Make it weaker than scouge’s condi healing and daredevils crit healing to ballence it with might makes right.

3. Change the boon strip. Make it so when you strip a boon you debuff the target so as to make it so they cant re apply the boon you stripped for 3 seconds. This is because you can strip them but all you need is 2 heralds near by and……. you have no chance of stripping them faster then they are applied. This makes the core mechanic totally pointless.

4. This then makes the ulti skill bubble kinda not worth it. So make a simple ulti. Make it so the bubble causes a ticking dmg to those in it with boons. Per stack of each boon they take stacking dmg based off your vitality. This is not a stat dmg heavy people stack so it can help to balance and not have tons of glass cannons spam it. This makes you decide if you actually want to strip the boons or punish in a different way. Adding another mechanic to play with. Since your mainly boon stripping this makes you have to sacrifice denial of boons for a time to get the most out of the ulti. Giving others in pvp a chance to counter and kill you.

5. Dagger #1 needs something to happen if might is max. Or in pve with heralds and such spamming out might. This is useless.

Also Jzaku we are restricted to base bursts because full counter can reset them when used. Its because we can use them 2x as much then normal.

Oh my gawd, who cares about full counter spec when they nerfed warrior’s sustain. It was already potato in WvW large scale fights but sure, lets nerf it.

The DPS isn’t low (certainly not high either). The spike damage certainly is low. On rotation it applies pressure constantly with zero downtime on the outgoing DPS. What we are finding is that players going against it under estimate its constant pressure as they are so used to managing big spikes.

Take a DH damage build. They are built to have a high rotational defense with the blocks, invulns, etc and multiple big heals. That makes them a serious problem for spike DPS builds. Miss a shot against them and lights out. Spellbreaker cuts through blocks, rips protection and just doesn’t let up allowing it to fairly quickly grind down even if there are missteps along the way. I think of it as a forgiving sort of DPS.

What this line is clearly missing is any real mobility. That can be offset by the offhand but it does limit the overall potential significantly.

One of my problems with spellbreaker is that barely any of the boonstrips are innate to the unique weapon set. I mean, it’s literally a single boonstrip on a single target, dagger 3 (assumes you stun). The rest have NOTHING to do with breaking spells. Additionally, you can’t even keep up boon strip pressure since d/d can only strip with burst and a single utility (not counting the elite or Full Counter dazes).

Dagger 2 should CONVERT boons into slow. Slice through their spells, rupturing them and making them hinder their caster.

Dagger auto chain should also boon strip on the last hit, a-la necro scepter. It’s a melee weapon with little to no chase potential so landing all the hits should get a reward.

Non-CC weapons need a way to proc boon strip. Perhaps the boon strip minor can be changed to count burst skills in addition to CC, so these 2 weapons have a way to work with spellbreaker. Hammer and Mace then benefit from being lockdown by stripping twice on burst (1 for landing a burst, 1 for cc).

I actually like the meditations, but they mostly underperform for their cd’s.
Break Enchantments has a cast time, which is really awkward compared to Smite Condition. As long as there is so little boonstrip on other weapon sets, I think it would be better to reduce its cd or make it strip 3 boons.

Natural Healing is actually quite nice, especially with all the scourges running around corrupting boons left and right. Being able to cleanse and heal, without adding corrupt targets is quite nice.

Sight Beyond Sight is practically useless, but it is superior to On My Mark for reveals. The blind removal should trigger on the attack rather than just instantly, similar to the Berserkers Wild Blow removing blind/weakness on the attack.

Imminent Threat, like Fear Me, is a joke skill. Fear and Taunt do not synergize with spellbreaker at all as the minor does not count them for boon strips. However, it does give the warrior taunt access, albeit at a tiny range (why is it not shout radius).

Featherfoot Grace is pretty good, but it has a long cd. I’d make it ammo based but cut the superspeed and resistance to 3 seconds with a 30 second ammo recharge. That way you can use it repeatedly if you need to, rather than commit to resistance for a 60 second cd like Berserker Stance.

The elite is pretty strong but I think that it doesn’t need to strip boons. Let weapon skills and the other meditations do that, let it only prevent new boons.

TL;DR
I don’t feel like a breaker of spells because most of the Warrior kit doesn’t actually break spells (1 utility, 1 elite). I’m just here for the elite and full counter.

Spellbreaker is really fun in PvP, but there are a few things lacking to make this elite spec really click. Below is my feedback on what skills and traits I feel need improvement.

Daggers In general, daggers are fun to use, but feel under-tuned damage wise by about 20%. In addition, the following changes would tighten the kit.
1: Additional critical damage should be increased to 25%. The current damage is too low to make it worth using the auto-chain.
2: The cast time is too long, making it difficult to land, and should be decreased to 1/2 sec. It should also apply Immobilized, as the slow is worthless if you cannot land Dagger 3 because the target just keeps moving.
3: Good skill, but could use increased range or be changed to ranged attack.
4: Strong nuke and satisfying too land.
5: Fun, unique skill, but could use a range increase.
Burst: Should deal 25% additional damage per boon removed.

Utilities
Natural Healing: Cast time should be reduced to 1 second.
Sight beyond Sight: Should make you immune to blind for the duration.
Imminent Threat: Recharge should be reduced to 20 seconds and provide a stack of stability for each enemy taunted.
Break Enchantments: Cast time should be removed and damage needs to be doubled.

Traits
Guard Counter: Should also provide vigor.
Dispelling Force: Should also provide stability in addition to boon removal.
Magebane Tether: Should also increase Critical Damage by 20% for the duration.

Something that should of been done, and I thought this was how it was going to work:

Counter should be an entirely separate adrenaline bar (Counter Bar), that isn’t drained by normal burst attacks and fills up independently.

Give us two stocks of level 1 adrenaline, and the separate counter bar (3 total bars). This would allow for skillful weaving of Burst 1, counter, Burst 1. Which would let skilled players still use adrenal health and berserker power.

I enyoyed playing the class, the counter is really fun as the boon removal thematic. In those matches my only complains are:

1) the ults CD (I think in pvp it wont be broken at 60secs, and heck maybe in WvW neither)
2) daggers werent that good at damaging or sticking to oponents, but IMHO they dont need strong buffs, little things like increasing Aura Slicers leap range a little and making bladestorm have a little more range could do wonders.
3) Offhand dagger could use a single boon removal as that is the core mechanic of the spec and I felt that even so its not THAT abundant

Long post, probably will put TL;DR at the end.

Overall I felt the spell breaker was fun. It has a skill floor with hard counter and dagger melted range, but after some time it really started to shine, especially in wvw. The animations were amazing and some of the lower cast time skills are a nice change from the heavy telegraphing warrior normally has.

Traits:
I built mostly around full counter. I have a few comments on some of the traits that need to be buffed to provide both more diversity and balance to the spellbrealer in WvW and PvP.

Loss Aversion:
I feel like this needs more damage. I was running with 2.2k power and it would do 175 damage. I feel this should be somewhere closer to 200-400 to be worth while. The concept is great, and could make for interesting play, but the damage is just far too low.

Slow counter:
Th cripple is very short. Overall, i feel this trait lags behind the other two. It’s not just cripple duration, but the overall lack of ultility it provides in a pvp landscape. Something more along the lines of “reduces cooldown of full counter by 1 sec for every boon fullcounter removes” would be better. Yea, that’s a little OP, but that’s just an example.

Revenge counter:
A solid trait. Adding 1 more second to the resistance would be a wonderful thing.

Utilities

Sight Beyond Sight:
Didn’t really try this one. Seems good in theory, especially with all the dead eyes.

Break Enchantment:
I landed around with this one and it is really nice. Needs a little more does, but I like the way it rewards boonstrip. Maybe +100% damage PER BOON instead of just if it strips a boon. This could give a very heavy burst if you strip the full two boons, and less if you use it at an inopportune time.

Featherfoot grace:
I like this skill. It’s hard to not take berserker stance over it, but I do like it since it gives a stun break too. I would reduce the cool down to 20 or 23 seconds, since we don’t have a meditation cooldown reduction trait. At 30s it’s an annoyingly long cd for what you get.

Elite
Awesome skill. It’s missing 1 thing: stability on cast. If you add 3 or 5 stacks of stability on cast, the 90 sec CD is justified. It would also go a long way fighting melee once it’s up.

Weapons:

Dagger 1:
Needs more dps. Might on more than the last hit would be very helpful too, but mostly jst MORE DAMAGE.

Dagger 2:
Needs a shorter after cast and longer range. 450 would be okay, 600 would be ideal.

Dagger 3: I like it. Maybe slightly higher base damage would help, but I do like it. It should remove a boon on interrupt (along with the increased damage)

Dagger 4: hits nice and hard. I don’t have the tooltip in front of me, but it should remove a boon if they aren’t using a skill (along with the increased damage)

Dagger 5: one of the key words in the text is that it “applies damage”… Can we get it to do some damage. I feel the whole chain should reach 5k, not 2k. It’s just pitifully weak, though the utility of missile reflect is nice. If damage buff is not a possibility, I think that enemies within melds range should get daze or stun (1s). Damage would still be better.

Dagger Burst skill:
Awesome skill. If the dagger 2 isn’t given 600 range, this should have it. Give something on the daggers 600 range so I don’t get kited by literally EVERYTHING!!!

TL;DR:

Very fun especially with a few flaws and a few areas that need buffs. Daggers just need more deeps and longer leeps!!!

Seriously, make the dagger leaps farther.

If u missed it: MAKE. DAHHER. LEAPS. FARTHER. (Both dagger 2 and burst skill)

Nice post oscuro.

I dont like daggers at all so i think they should remove them completely.
Never thought warriors with daggers. It doesnt feel right. Its like Conan wield dagger its ……
Anyway to the game now. I play 99% pvp. Spellbreaker needs buff its damage . Spell breaker has 0% chance of winning vs necro or engies… At least i couldnt win.In team fights i had more fun with spellbreaker using Gs and Hammer and marauder amulet.

If the devs wants for us to have more options when it comes to what build we play, then i think they should make “fast hands” an internal skill that defines the warrior class and not a trait.

angvl.1238:

Never thought warriors with daggers. It doesnt feel right. Its like Conan wield dagger its ……

Conan wasn’t real, but warriors actually using daggers was.

Choppy.4183:

angvl.1238:

Never thought warriors with daggers. It doesnt feel right. Its like Conan wield dagger its ……

Conan wasn’t real, but warriors actually using daggers was.

problem is, some people cant see past the clock and dagger aspect, which is pretty narrow sighted

Choppy.4183:

angvl.1238:

Never thought warriors with daggers. It doesnt feel right. Its like Conan wield dagger its ……

Conan wasn’t real, but warriors actually using daggers was.

Ofc they used them in the kitchen for cooking D

Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485:

Choppy.4183:

angvl.1238:

Never thought warriors with daggers. It doesnt feel right. Its like Conan wield dagger its ……

Conan wasn’t real, but warriors actually using daggers was.

problem is, some people cant see past the clock and dagger aspect, which is pretty narrow sighted

I like the past and if this is narrow for u then i am.

I feel like the dagger damage was a little lackluster, but overall it was a solid fun time in WvW solo-roaming. Didn’t really compare to the power-holosmith in terms of effectiveness though.

I tried it a bit outside of PvP. I also ran into it solo 3-4 encounters while playing on my guardian playing core build. I was clearly ahead in both damage and sustain ability.

It is weak.

Spellbreaker Wishlist:

Dagger auto felt like the weakest melee auto attack in the entire game, and should at least hit 3 opponents rather than 2.

Swap D/D 3 and 4 skills. Open up the possibility of using one of the most rewarding skills(D4) with other stun/knockdown application weapons like shield or mace. This also gives D 5 a guaranteed standalone immobilize with No Escape traited.(Which sounds delicious);

Dagger skill 2 needs to leap further, and either needs lower cooldown or 2-3 ammo.

The sustain of D/D is very weak, and when used with defensive second weapon set, it feels like im on time out for being a bad boy, waiting for weapon swap to come up. Buff the trait Sun and Moon Style to give A LOT more health on critical

I’ve been running Dagger + Dagger / Greatsword with Strength, Discipline, Spellbreaker. Natural Healing, Bull’s Charge, Featherfoot Grace, Stomp, Signet of Rage. Lots of fun and fairly strong. Landing the Arcing Slice—>Full Counter—>Arcing Slice combo is very satisfying. Very strong duelist with ability to escape. I tried more defensive variants but they didn’t work as well.

Overall, Spellbreaker is a fun elite specialization but needs some fine tuning. Damage on daggers is a little weak and the utilities could use shortened cooldowns. Dagger burst should provide some sort of secondary effect for each boon removed. Dispelling Force should provide stability in addition to boon removal. For a PvP-oriented specialization, the lack of stability is surprising.

Last night I posted everything I thought needed improvement, now I will post everything I thought was done very well on the spell breaker as well as the results I got using spell breaker in primarily WvW (only one pvp match)

Play style:

If you don’t read anything else, I encourage you to read this. I know some people dislike warrior daggers, or think this espec is weak. I have a different opinion. I had a decent amount of success in WvW roaming + small group.
A decent amount means:
5 1v2’s
1 1v3
1 2v3
2 2v4
1 2v5
1 3v7

My roaming partners were a minstrel ele and a zero longbow Druid. So I’m either case I had to provide high dps or high sustain (being targeted over the Druid). It went well.

I found spellbreaker useful by playing it like the old dagger dagger ele (used to main it). When I started doing this, my sustain and damage both skyrocketed. The key is that spell breaker ISNT like core warrior or berserker.

Spell breaker plays like a battle Mage. It rewards proper timing and good spacing of skills. A properly timed fullcounter can set up two people to be downed. However, activating fullcounter too early, too far, or too late means that you won’t get the maximum effect.

Furthermore, properly playing spell breaker gives you very high sustain with pretty good damage. Full counter and the limited use of adrenaline lets you stack 3 adrenal health very quickly and maintain it very easily. This gives you very high passive regen (higher than normal war from what I could tell). the full counter is also a short cool down PbAoE burst that can change the course of a fight.

Overall, I think spellbreaker is incredibly fun and well thought out, even if there are parts that need to be improved. It has high sustain and damage, if played properly, and has a fairly high skill ceiling.

Traits

Overall I think the traits were very well done. There may be some slight shortcomings, but they synergise well with existing lines and weapons. A lot of the traits try to balance sustain and offense, and I feel the line as a whole does it very well.

Sun and Moon Style:
Very effective trait IMO. Sybergized well with dagger 3+4 combo allowing the combo to pop off 5-12k damage very quickly. It also helped some with sustain though I am not sure how much.
With having 3 adrenal health stacks more often than core/berserker, I was not able to tell how much sun and moon style added to my overall sustain. I am guessing it added enough to make a slight difference, though doesn’t make or break the added sustain I was having.

Loss Aversion:
While I am highly critical of this trait because of its lack of damage, I feel that the idea behind it is very good. It adds more unblockavle damage (never a bad thing) and makes adrenaline gain a non-issue.

Vengeful Counter:
I love this trait. It allows you to have relatively high resistance uptime and really makes full counter shine if you are using full counter correctly.

Magebane Tether:
Basically a screw you skill to thieves. With full counter, it makes landing it very easy and helps you dominate mobility and stealth based classes.

Weapons:

Overall, the main thing I have to say about the daggers is that their animations are beautiful. Other than that, there are only a few things that really shine.

Dagger 1:
You can just stare at the animation while running and be entertained

Dagger 2:
Animations again.

Dagger 3:
I really like the concept of the dagger 3 rewarding interrupts. It promotes higher skilled gameplay rather than being a tool only setup burst. This skill has solid damage if you do get an interrupt and synergizes very nicely with traits.

Dagger 4:
Another awesome skill. Rewards hard CC, which is plentiful in this build, and has a nice 5-8k burst on crit.

Dagger 5:
I love the animations, and the missile reflect can be used to merc dead eyes when they used the charged shot with the big telegraph.

Dagger Burst Skill:
Despite slow movement and short range, this skill is awesome. The damage is good combined with boon strip and unblockable, it is a very nice burst skill.

Utilities:

Heal (don’t know the name):
High value and good condi clear. I like it (even if heal dog is still better)

Sight beyond sight:
More thief hate is ALWAYS a good thing, and I think that having an ammo system reveal really helps make reveal a weapon and not an inconvenience for thieves. The blind loss is a nice touch too.

Break enchantment:
Decent dps on a nice short cooldown. Offers more boon strip and rewards stripping those boons, which is rewarding slightly higher skill play. An overall solid utility of you are looking to add more dps and/or boonstrip.
This also has a beautiful animation and a nice large radius.

Featherfoot grace:
Stunbreak: good. Resistance: good. Verdict: good.

Elite:
the animation on this skill is awesome. I really like the whole golden dome look and it makes it very easy to tell wether or not you are inside.
As for utility, it’s awesome in an outnumbered fight. The boo strip is unreal and forcing melee combat in the highly ranged metals fantastic, especially in a group. This skill basically kitten s the other group if you fight in any sort of choke.

TL;DR

The animations are great. A lot of the traits and utilities are pretty decent. The play style is not like core warrior/berserker and requires slightly more skill. When played right, it’s very strong.