Guild Wars 2

Since developers poke their heads into the Warrior forums on occasion I think it would benefit not only the community, but the game as a whole to have an honest debate about our class in both PvE and PvP.

I see a lot of doom-saying, panic, and stretches that always touches the topic of warrior balance so if we’re graced with some developer eyes lets try to make it worthwhile rather than having thread after disappointing thread closed and locked.

A couple rules

- If you’re going to rage, go to the spvp forums to flip a table then come back once you’re ready, whenever people go nuts the thread gets derailed and dies.

- No new ‘skill / trait’ creations at this point, whenever people start adding their own input on new skills and traits the thread gets swamped and dies.

- This can not be a buff warriors only thread, we need to be logical and call out how to balance things, otherwise we become unreasonable and the thread dies.

- Pick things to address you can explain well, endless pages of ideas will kill this thread because few are willing to read through all those points to debate on.

- Keep it short and concise.

I’ll start

1) – 100 Blades is holding the Warrior class back as a whole, its puts us up on a pedestal in PvE which I hear resentment as a whole from other classes, I personally think it does far too much damage in any environment.

- 100 Blades is strong enough it will become a major balancing issue that ANet will be in a tough situation when it comes to giving us better mobility and sustainability.

2) – Banners, simply put I think banners are clunky, they should just become F2, F3, F4 Skills and be carried on our backs, it would help immensely with making them viable.

3) – Healing power really should scale better for warriors, not sure how else I can put this.

4) – Brawn, we can not buff Brawn (Discipline Attribute) the way it currently is, changing it is the only option to go forward otherwise we end up with warrior burst becoming a balancing issue.

- Not sure how to approach this, possibly +adrenaline gain, or a method to deal with conditions.

Please lets keep it civil and constructive, real talk.

All I can say is that every single one of my friends leveled a non-warrior class first. When they leveled up there warrior, they found it LAUGHABLY easy. As in, I’ve had 4/4 friends in this exact situation say “Warriors are way too strong.”

Now, let’s notice two things about what I’m saying. First of all, it’s secondhand information. I haven’t leveled a Warr myself, because I don’t like to be the faceroll class even in perception. That said, I know all these friends in real life and trust their sensibilities. Second of all, leveling-up does not equal endgame PVE. I realize this.

What I also realize is that Warrior stacking is worse than Guardian/Mesmer stacking ever was. We’ve got groups that will kick out Rangers and Thieves to get Warriors in. This is not okay.

I am amazed — AMAZED — that Warriors were not reduced to PVE rubble in this balance patch. 100b is not the only problem: It’s the might stacking. That, combined with the fact that Warriors can go glass cannon and still face-tank. Y’know what happens if I go into a PVE scenario as full offense on my Thief? I die. A lot.

It’s just unfair and it’s ruining the game. I’m not raging, I’m telling the truth. It disappoints me to the point that I just don’t want to play any more, because my main is a Thief and I don’t care about PVP. (If you want a balanced PVP experience, play a MOBA, imo). As a PVE Thief, I am unquestionably nudged out of my role as a melee damage dealer. Warriors out-class us in every way. It sucks.

The greatsword traits are way too good, Hammer/Mace/Sword and other weapons all need a buff.

100b is too powerful in PVE, tbh.

Honestly, I don’t even think warriors are that strong in PVE. Yeah they can do a lot of damage, but the same problems that plague them in PVP are visible in PVE as well, and that’s weakness to conditions and lack of staying power. Discussing how much easier a warrior is to level compared to some other classes is irrelevant, because leveling is a joke on any class.

PvE:
- Warrior is DPS king. That is partly because most content is extremely easy and if you are confident in dodging you can run more glassy. Also warriors have a variety of traits that add percentage based damage increases, thus amplifying the damage the more glassy you run.

WvW:
- Pretty good. Not top tier, but you can fill a variety of roles. A balanced build esp. after the dogged trait can stick on target fairly easily. Roaming is ok, you can take camps solo and usually you can fight most classes you come across. Group / Support is pretty good, as you can spec heavy CC, heavy AoE burst (longbow), healing (shouts / banner), general DPS (GS + axe), damage soak (VTP armor).
- Warriors scale nicely with stats, which is seen in WvW compared to SPvP, where the damage is much higher. Also the access to food allows the warrior to cover weakness gaps (-condi duration etc.)

SPvP:
- Hotjoins are fine. Imho skill level just not that high there
- Tpvp is the big issue. Warrior has a hard time fitting any role, as guard, ele or thief can usually fill it better (bunker, damage or roam)

Thief is get in do good damage quickly get out.

You can’t face tank on a thief, if a thief could face tank better than a warrior then why bring a warrior? Then you would have better burst and since you could face tank better and almost as good sustained with pistol whips built in evasion. You wouldn’t need stealth anymore because well you could face tank, spec assassin’s reward for healing and signet of malice.

Your always going to have people that want the best class for a specific role. I am not saying warriors aren’t strong in PvE they are just good at what they do in PvE because stuff just doesn’t dodge roll or move.

Most people in the thief forums know that its weak in PvE, heck is weak in tPvP too. It shines in WvW.

As far as 100 blades I can’t see why people think that warrior’s wont get PvP buffs because 100 blades. People that PvP and WvW know that 100 blades is well not very good.

Look at confusion. Its weak in PvE right? Was weak in tPvP/sPvP and now they made it weaker in WvW while not even touching its damage at all in the PvE environment.

So if you apply that to 100 blades. Strong in PvE, weak in tPvP/sPvP because well people dodge and kiting a warrior isn’t hard. Buff warriors signets passives, give DoTE and dogged march.

Just from those 2 it seems that they try to take into consideration all aspects of the game and not just 1 mode holding another mode back.

You mentioned some very good points. Something needs to be done with 100 Blades, whether it is increasing its cooldown, decreasing its damage, or even something like replacing it as our burst skill which seems extremely lackluster for such a powerful and mobile weapon. It just does too much damage in PvE where enemies don’t move around or dodge, and it isn’t mobile enough for any use in PvP with the recent and necessary quickness nerf.

Banners are sort of clunky, but the backpack idea sounds like it would shelf their potential. Most warriors simply summon them and move on in any situation. I feel that is a mistake of an amateur warrior though; skilled warriors will summon their banners into combo fields, pick them up while transitioning from battle to battle, and even pick them up to use their unique abilities before planting them into another combo field in the middle of a skirmish. In WvW they are extremely useful for speeding up a group of your allies albeit it’s fairly easy to drop and forget them in a chase or escape.

I know you said no suggesting traits or skills, but perhaps just making banners have a base range of 1200 without the trait, and combining regenerating banners and banner recharge into a single trait would make them more viable. Planting them on our back and turning them into F2-5 skills would remove too many of their present mechanics and make them quite dull.

Daecollo.9578:

The greatsword traits are way too good, Hammer/Mace/Sword and other weapons all need a buff.

100b is too powerful in PVE, tbh.

Pretty much this, I would be happy to trade my damage on 100 blades for a non rooted one with a 25-33% damage reduction. I probably use 100b the least out of every skill on my bar in WvW and sPvP.

The people who say HB is holding warriors have never used a solid axe build. In fact something like haste axe1 + eviscerate is more powerful than HB. Not only can you move while attacking you can also leap and deal massive damage and you cannot be interrupted. The people who are advocating HB nerfs are the same people who are trying to keep warriors down and don’t even play the profession to begin with, nerfing HB would make Warriors even worst than they are now. Nerfing isn’t the answer. IF HB was so good than why isnt warrior good in SPVP. Becasue HB is a fail skill.

Banners should give a different type of regeneration, not a boon. The fact that this constant regeneration is up not only causes problems due to the warrior overlapping the guardians superior regen, but it also can be removed, converted and quite simply destroyed. The idea of giving the group a HoT as well as keeping guardians in the loop with their regens will make a healing banner a lot more viable in pve pushing ppl away from this silly 100B spam. On that note, Warriors need better heals. Where we gain something, I understand we have to lose something aswell. considering this is a proposed change for PVE, the paralleled fix would be to reduce the damage on 100B drastically but removing the root

Apparently no one in the balance team has ever heard of the term PvE.

I feel the real issue is PvE mobs being stupid and predictable in design, and the warrior class seems to only cater around to that. The npcs in heart of the mists are a better direction in how mobs in PvE should behave.

Mobs focus on the following: Aggro and spam high damage attacks to kill. PvE mobs pretty much fight like how warriors are being labeled as! They do not attempt to dodge, very few attempt to damage sustain, and always attempt to face tank players. This is why having high dps shines above all else. Mobs are also HP sponges and only one thing will reduce that sponge faster: More damage.

Warrior can afford to take a damage cut, but it deserves the damage migration and recovery sustain abilities other classes have beyond just spamming the Heal 6 skill. Regeneration and toughness are clearly far weaker and barely delay the inevitable.

PvE Mobs need smarter AI management. This does NOT mean give them more HP and more damage via scaling. The ability to dodge, retreat and avoid combat, call reinforcements, save abilities for certain situations, etc. Skills like Hundred Blades won’t blow enemies up because the Warrior won the DPS race. Reduce the vast amount of HP sponges so having all that extra DPS isn’t desirable.

As said in the main class description for Warrior:

“—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.”

Clearly not the case when maxing DPS is the most efficient way to go. For now the longer the fight is, the more pressure is put on the Warrior (and everyone else). Our current skills and traits basically tell us “End this fight quickly, or else.”

Like Warlord said Axe auto attack is about the same DPS as 100B. There is a post here on the forums with the math.

Just from some quick searching Axe beats GS on sustained and GS beats Axe for burst because of 100Bs. 100 blades optimal dps is if a mob is up against a wall. Missing a part of 100Bs then it doesn’t beat Axe. Either way from the threads I just looked at the numbers are so close that it’s negligible. For the dps PvE warriors anyway are running both.

Sooo nerf axe damage and eviscerate and nerf 100 blades would be more correct if thats what some of you really want.

You know what would happen if they nerfed 100 blades and listened to some of this crazy suggestions? People would build for axe more than GS and still out dps your thief while still face tanking. Then you would have to come back and ask for a nerf to axe. This is just in reference to the whole nerf 100 blades its holding us back argument.

Warlord.9074:

The people who say HB is holding warriors have never used a solid axe build. In fact something like haste axe1 + eviscerate is more powerful than HB. Not only can you move while attacking you can also leap and deal massive damage and you cannot be interrupted. The people who are advocating HB nerfs are the same people who are trying to keep warriors down and don’t even play the profession to begin with, nerfing HB would make Warriors even worst than they are now. Nerfing isn’t the answer. IF HB was so good than why isnt warrior good in SPVP. Becasue HB is a fail skill.

So you’re comparing an entire axe build with quickness to one skill on one weapon? A GS build will EASILY do far more damage than an axe build simply because of one skill: 100 Blades. You contradict yourself by saying “if 100 Blades was so good why isn’t Warrior good in sPvP?” 100 Blades is TOO good in PvE, which is exactly what we’re discussing. Warriors aren’t struggling in PvE, and 100 Blades isn’t even a factor in our lack of sPvP potential.

Banners should give a different type of regeneration, not a boon.

PvE Mobs need smarter AI management.

Kudos to these guys.

Some nice ideas guys,
- Regeneration from banners, the type should be along the lines of what water eles get possibly to stop the overlap?

- Mobile 100 Blades, but damage drop in compensation, would help in both departments, PvE and PvP.

- Might stacking an issue? – I can definitely see 25 stacks as problematic now that you mention it.

- Props to the overly aggressive guy sporting the Axe build, I still think 100 blades is too strong in its current form considering the cooldown for PvE spam, but good point.

- As to hammer, mace, etc doing low damage, I’ve had quite a bit of success with high crit hammer builds, can pump out some beefy damage while having top notch CC, that is a thin line as well.

Good thread Sol Haer, i appreciate it and i hope devs will look at this nice suggestions you guys posted.

Key to balancing warrior is tunning down 100b imo. My idea is to reduce damage by 35%-50% and make it usable while moving but reduce moving speed by 30%-50%.

Next step i think is giving warriors some regeneration and protection to make us viable bunker (especially in spvp). Some people may say “but why, go play guardian if you wanna bunker.” I disagree, there is no holy trinity, so everyone can be everything (i.e. bunker ele,ranger; dps guardian) and the most important thing: we are soldier class, just like guardian is. I know, warriors don’t use magic but we can use some things like hardened skin, enrage mechanics etc.
These two buffs are so important for warrior’s sustain(which is a big issue now). I think these boons should be applied through weapons, not through traits( we are masters of the martial skills for some reason), my examples:

Offhand sword 4.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rip
Rename it for “Taste for blood”
Rip your sword from your foe for extra damage and regeneration.

Shield 5.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_Stance
Reduce blocking attacks to 2 seconds and give protection at the end of blocking.

And the last thing. Don’t you think that our class mechanics are inferior to the other classes? We have only one adrenaline skill which is not so awesome. My suggestion is to give 1-2 additional skills, first one: heal based on adrenaline level and second one(not sure if it should be implemented) cure conditions(how much is based on adrenaline as well). Or maybe just buff adrenaline skills.

Pawstruck.9708:

As a PVE Thief, I am unquestionably nudged out of my role as a melee damage dealer. Warriors out-class us in every way. It sucks.

Warriors using a greatsword, specced as berserker, wearing full berserker gear out damage your melee thief (which is not the ideal pve settup for thief).
Does every class with every weapon with every spec need to all do the same amount of damage?

Lets be a bit more realistic here…..The HB and warrior you guys are all complaining about is only a problem in one path of one dungeon. There is never a time or place that such a warrior is wanted outside of this.
COF P1 is something that should of been made harder long ago, you could take 5 engineers and still blast through it in no time, that a warrior happens to have what is needed to make it slightly faster isn’t a reason to nerf a skill.

Make this thread again after COF P1 isn’t so popular and see if people still think HB needs to be changed.

oZii.2864:

Thief is get in do good damage quickly get out.

You can’t face tank on a thief, if a thief could face tank better than a warrior then why bring a warrior?

Right. And if you can face tank on a Warrior AND do double the damage of a Thief (which is pretty much the case), why bring the Thief?

Thieves DON’T do “good damage quickly get out.” They do moderate, much-less-than-Warrior damage, and then die. Unless you sit back with Shortbow spamming Cluster Bomb… which, y’know, that’s great fun. As it stands now, Warriors have it ALL: DPS, lack of skillful interface input, and safety (facetanking). Thus, everything else is obsolete except maybe mesmers and guardians.

The problem with Warriors is that they were designed to rely on high armor and health to sustain them, but that doesn’t matter when compared to defensive options such as blocks, blinds, protection, etc.

Guardians and Thieves have better sustain than Wars do even though they have nearly half the health (and less armor in the Thief’s case) which further highlights the design flaw of the Warrior. I’d gladly sacrifice some of my offensive power and even a few thousand HP to have some of that sustain.

I’d suggest that Warriors have greatly improved sustain, but only when attacking. Someone mentioned a trait that could be similar (NOTE: I said similar) to the prenerfed Omnomberry Pies, or even a way to give ourselves the Protection Boon would help out a lot.

Mentioning Hundred Blades. The skill is great. In PvE. Against mobs that are too dumb to move. The ideal thing to do is improve mob A.I, but that’s not going to happen. Nerfing the damage may kill the viability of greatsword in PvP. I don’t know…

I suggest either of these suggestion to balance warrior issues.

1. Reduce HB damage by 25% but we can move while channeling HB.
2. Replace HB with a healing skill that heals around 9k (We have 2 instead of 1 heal = sustain)

ChaosDoom.8459:

I suggest either of these suggestion to balance warrior issues.

1. Reduce HB damage by 25% but we can move while channeling HB.
2. Replace HB with a healing skill that heals around 9k (We have 2 instead of 1 heal = sustain)

100b IMHO is fine.. It’s a high situational burst. It does have it’s uses even in WvW. I’d rather see a trait being setup to do something like that.

I would rather see defensive abilities instead of making +healing better just for the shout build.. or our crappy healing signet. I say give the warrior ways of gaining protection instead of regen or add other ways to to heal rather than having to use shouts.

The only problem I have with warriors is its healing. Fair enough, they don’t want warriors to be Guardians 2.0, but the large health pool on a warrior is laughable when you see your health drop in spades and then your healing fills it up a teaspoon.

The cast time on the warrior heals is also a killer, considering that we are heavily dependant on melee and we don’t have the easiest access to stability (without wasting utility skills).

Like many have discovered, going full clerics on a warrior not only doesn’t allow you to be a real bunker 1v1, but it also destroys your damage.

Warrior weapon-type traits for offensive land-weapons:

Axe: Axe Mastery (+10% crit damage), Sharpened Axes (Extra Adrenaline on crit)

Mace: Sundering Mace (+10% damage on weakened targets, -20% skill cooldown)

Hammer: Merciless Hammer (+25% damage on disabled targets, -20% skill cooldown)

Rifle: Crack Shot (-20% skill cooldown, shots pierce)

Longbow: Stronger Bowstrings (Increased Range)

Sword: Blademaster (+10% critical chance)

General: Dual Wielding (+5% damage when offhand wielding a OH weapon.)

Greatsword: Forceful Greatsword (Might On Critical, -20% skill cooldown), Slashing Power (+10% damage)
^^ The problem.

Right now, the traits to improve weapons are heavily skewed towards greatsword. For whatever reason they have a base 10% increase in weapon type damage as a trait, while the only other trait with anything near it is either axes (critical damage) or Dual wielding (offhand with half the bonus.) Add to the fact that greatsword grants might on crit on its cooldown reduction trait (with Rifle, Mace and Hammer being the only other offensive weapons with cooldown reduction traits) and despite having the largest number of weapon combinations available, the warrior begins appearing a one trick pony.

I feel that the traits for weapons ought to be streamlines a bit. There are items about warrior I feel should be addressed but that’s the biggest one, the imbalance in weapon traits

Pawstruck.9708:

All I can say is that every single one of my friends leveled a non-warrior class first. When they leveled up there warrior, they found it LAUGHABLY easy. As in, I’ve had 4/4 friends in this exact situation say “Warriors are way too strong.”

Pawstruck.9708:

I haven’t leveled a Warr myself,

Wow, I totally didn’t see that twist coming. Get new friends.

Pawstruck.9708:

(If you want a balanced PVP experience, play a MOBA, imo).

A little ironic for a game called guild wars, developed by a company called ARENAnet no? It was advertised as a pvp game as well so stop with this entitled crap.

Pawstruck.9708:

As a PVE Thief, I am unquestionably nudged out of my role as a melee damage dealer. Warriors out-class us in every way. It sucks.

Not a warrior issue. Thieves are built around stealth and teleports far too much and not enough around sustained combat. Makes them a good pvp class for bursting but pretty suboptimal at sustained dps. The initiative system is also something holding back any meaningful sustained, most attacks can’t be too powerful since the class can spam (kinda makes that whole, “I don’t wanna be the faceroll class” thing funny now that I think about it). Blame developers for such a lopsided class design.

Sol Haer.5187:

2) – Banners, simply put I think banners are clunky, they should just become F2, F3, F4 Skills and be carried on our backs, it would help immensely with making them viable.

i absolutely love this idea for warrior. if we could get that it could create some very dynamic and fluid fights where you do not have to stay in one spot/or in the general vicinity for the effects. Combine them with a couple hammer warriors and i can just see so many possibilities that could unlock new combat styles.

That and if you are in a defense of something, you wont have to worry about some idiot coming up to steal one of your banners to take it just for swiftness.

well i +1 that

100b should be left as it is you are rooted to the ground when using it thats bad enough. Whats the point of nerfing it in the first place? because of cof farmers? you know they are just going to change to next strong thing it its a endless cycle. this is not a good enough reason to nerf it.

Zygil.1276:

As said in the main class description for Warrior:

“—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.”

Clearly not the case when maxing DPS is the most efficient way to go. For now the longer the fight is, the more pressure is put on the Warrior (and everyone else). Our current skills and traits basically tell us “End this fight quickly, or else.”

That quote made me rofl. Thank you. Agreed, clearly not. The longer the fight goes on the less dangerous warriors become as I get scared to land full 100b, kite alot, dodge, retreat, with lack of survivability. ahaha thats great. more like guardians

Pve:

Other than fractals and the eventual dungeon I don’t pve much, sure I do world bosses but those are free chest imo “At least as they stand now”.

Our damage in full dps is hella high, in none full dps is ok. Nerfing hundred blades would be a good idea in the PVE environmental.

S/T/WvW.PVP

Now here is a whole different problem. I will start with what I believe is the true problem with warriors: Animations + Hit detection. As you know in any other mmo, melees would get a hit when they used their abilities within range, in other words if I charge and use my shield bash and the person was running to the side I look like I hit the air but I get hit count and the hit stuns my enemy allowing me to put some damage in as the fight flows. Now on GW2 I charge my enemy he ran to the left I hit the air he lol’s at me as my skill goes into cool down and I just lost mayor DPS/CC and so on.

This is the main thing that drags warriors back, I use my sword burst as my enemy was charging away, I imovilize him a few feet away and get a bunch of misses as I hit the air, I use my hammer 5 to knock the down they run in the oposite direction and the hammer slams the ground next to them thus missing, use number 4 they run a little farther from you and you miss another stun, they side step and you lost your chance to put weakness on them. Now since all classes are far more mobile than the warrior, Elementalist fly around tossing all kinds of kitten at you, mesmers get to tele around or stealth, thiefs can run around you poking you for stealth over and over and over and over or simply vanish into smoke and disengage, guardians can tele around with meditations sword skills and great sword leaps so on. So if say a warrior charges with his great sword the enemy moves or is simply running away big chances are you will hit the air since our animations suck and our hit detection although realistic blows our class to hell.

Secondly our animations are either static or predicable. Hammer 4 good CC predictable as hell and horribly roots you upon use, HB you can only do it in front of you, if you cut HB damage in half and let me move around while doing it I gladly make the trade. But anyways you get the point by now.

Next point is Burst. Our burst skills don’t burst, some got added effect that make em worth using such as the hammer and maybe the sword, the bow is good in wvw sort of in pve. but over all their damage is not good enough and since 4 out of 5 in pvp are bunkers and most of them got protection our damage with burst goes down to hell, not to mention most of the burst tend to miss a lot.

Now another point that been discussed a lot, our healing. Signet if you spec and sacrifice everything for healing power, use food and what not then is kinda viable…but overall is just a waste of a heal slot. Mending, removes 2 conditions but the heal is mediocre as hell. Healing surge is the only heal that is kinda good and only if you have full adrenaline. If not well you just wasted a good heal.

Last point: Our hp: People seem to make a huge drama about our hp pool. I know we got more hp than everyone else, so what? We can’t sustain it due to no protection, no aegis no real defenses….and guess wut? We can’t heal it either cause our heals are inferior to most classes and those that are superior can’t keep up with our health. So in simple words, is like carrying 1 million dollars in a broken bag, by the time you reach the bank you will have a LOT less than the dude who had 750k in a safe box.

Our heal pool is not so different after all, my guardian is not a bunker yet uses a similar build as my warrior, he goes up to 19.8k, my warrior goes up to around 24k. My ranger goes up to 22k in a similar build and both of them out last my warrior and keep on going damage for longer than my warrior. My ranger’s pet hits about as hard as my warrior without a beast master build and my ranger keeps damage flowing, while my guardian can jump in hold the line and keep damage and control flowing.

warrior is only good for fast run dungeons.