Guild Wars 2

Rumors for a reworking of burst skills seem all but confirmed, and so here are my thoughts on an ideal (IMO of course) version of the system:

Rework: Berserkers Might/Fury Traits: Removed, and a weaker version of the trait rolled into the base adrenaline system, +2% DPS/Crit @1 bar, +4% @2 bars, and +6% @3 bars.

Rework: Adrenal Health: Every time you earn 1 or more strikes of adrenaline, you gain regeneration for 2 seconds. Stacks duration.

Rework: Adrenal Surge: Heal, and gain the Surge buff, which causes regular attacks to generate an additional strike of adrenaline for the next 10 seconds.

Rework: Mending: Heal, and remove all conditions. Each condition removed grants you a strike of adrenaline.

New Defense Trait: Steadfast Rage: Using a burst skill grants you 2 seconds of protection per adrenal bar spent.

I’d also really like to see a new F2 burst skill implemented, based on your offhand/2handed weapon. Below are some suggestions I cooked up a while back:

Greatsword
F2 – Blade Cyclone: Spin in a circle, releasing a fiery shockwave that damages and burns nearby foes. Combo Field Fire, {2/3/4} Seconds, AOE Range 600

Axe
F2 – Dismember: A quick strike that hacks off a chunk of an opponents armor, leaving them more vulnerable to attacks for a short time. No damage, applies Vulnerability {5/10/15} for 10 seconds, Range 130, CT 1/4

Mace
F2 – Dustbowl: Slams your weapon into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust, sand, ice, or dirt, blinding and confusing nearby foes for {1/2/3} seconds. Combo Field Smoke, {2/3/4} seconds, AOE Range 450.

Sword
F2 – Trailblazer: Charge forward, striking, burning, and bleeding all foes in a line, and leaving behind a trail of fire. Combo Field Fire, {1/2/3} seconds. Range 900.

Longbow
F2 – Infused Arrow: Charge an arrow with intense flames, before launching it at an enemy. On contact, the arrow will explode, knocking down all foes within 130 of the blast. CT 1.5

Rifle
F2 – Covering Fire: Lay down an extremely rapid fire volley of bullets, striking foes in a tight cone every second, for 5 seconds. Every hit has a 10% chance to inflict cripple for 1 second. CT 5/Channeled.

Hammer
F2 – Unheaval: Slams the ground, damaging foes and creating a ring of upturned earth thats impassible for {2/4/6} seconds and obscures ranged attacks in or out. CT 3/4.

Shield
F2 – Shield Wall: Enter a stance where you block all attacks for {1/2/3} seconds, but may continue to attack and use skills. During shield wall, damage you inflict during is reduced by 25%, and generates no adrenaline.

Warhorn
F2 – Shatter Eardrums: An instantaneous sonic shockwave that dazes all nearby foes for {1/1.5/2} seconds. CT 0, Range 450.

currently Adrenal Health grants 360 hp per 3 seconds, if wiki is to be believed. which seems better than Regeneration 130 + (0.125 * Healing Power) per second. And it is not a boon so it cannot be stripped. If this is true, please do not change Adrenal health to grant regeneration lol. Buff it to 800 hp per 3 seconds maybe

Night Sentry.3902:

currently Adrenal Health grants 360 hp per 3 seconds, if wiki is to be believed. which seems better than Regeneration 130 + (0.125 * Healing Power) per second.

360/3=120 hps. Regen is slightly stronger.

Now it does have the advantage of being a trait and not a boon, but you need to sit on your adrenaline for it to function. The devs have stated they wish to make adrenaline more usable. Thus you wont be sitting on adren, you’ll be using your bursts. In that scenario, adrenal health would be useless in it’s current form.

Dand.8231:

Night Sentry.3902:

currently Adrenal Health grants 360 hp per 3 seconds, if wiki is to be believed. which seems better than Regeneration 130 + (0.125 * Healing Power) per second.

360/3=120 hps. Regen is slightly stronger.

Now it does have the advantage of being a trait and not a boon, but you need to sit on your adrenaline for it to function. The devs have stated they wish to make adrenaline more usable. Thus you wont be sitting on adren, you’ll be using your bursts. In that scenario, adrenal health would be useless in it’s current form.

Does that also mean they play to take out healing surge berserkers might and H.focus?

Dempsey.8760:

Does that also mean they play to take out healing surge berserkers might and H.focus?

Only the devs know for sure. All I have to go by are a few vague statements about making adrenaline and burst skills see more use.

From that, one can assume that means less of an incentive to sit mindlessly on an orange bar and more of an incentive to use burst skills. Speculating even further, a nerf/removal/revamp of passive adrenaline skills, a buff to burst skills, and possibly even effects linked to earning adrenaline.

Now, that’s a lot of speculation with minimal evidence, mind you, but it paints a very pretty picture doesn’t it?

Just give us a stance that is actually defensive like in GW1, defensive stance, shield stance, Etc. Something of that form exists in every mmo but this one. lulz

I’m currently working towards The Predator b/c I love Killshot….don’t change rifle burst please!

If they buff burst, my current build will be an ANIMAL. Hell, it already is. I constantly burst the way it stands at the moment, switching between Combustive Shot and Earthshaker, generating shedloads of Area Might as I go.
Adding MOAR BURST would make me giggle maniacally and possibly do a little happy dance.

I think the suggestions here are very well thought through.

Adrenalin is the core mechanic of the Warrior, so it feels natural if its uses gets expanded.

With all the ways to gain Adrenalin you listed here, it gets hard to actually spend it properly. With my current spec (Ad on crit, reduced Burstcost) I reach a full bar long before the 8 sec CD of my Burst is up.
A F2 might be the answer but you will not have to choose which to use since you have AD for both.

Also I have a different opinion on axe F2: Axes stack Vulv rather quickly, even more with proper traits. I don’t think that we need additional Vulv because when you are in a group vulve get stacked to max rather quickly so the new additional stacks would be wasted. So instead I’d say buff Whirling Axe and make it F2. As a replacement for it add a Leap attack like Swords have. I see Axe as a skirmish weapon but Gameplay feels slow if you can’t jump right into battle.

Head cleaver – leaps at your foe in an attempt to burst its head. This has an increased chance to crit. In addition successfull attacks dazes your foe. X Damage , Y Yards.

Also: And this is imo very important: Add a Burst ability for banners. Banners are the warriors trademark abillity but you cant use your Adrenalin when you pick up your banner. Imo this is a misconception so banners should have a Burst too.

Monki.5012:

Head cleaver – leaps at your foe in an attempt to burst its head. This has an increased chance to crit. In addition successfull attacks dazes your foe. X Damage , Y Yards.

No need to call it “Head Cleaver”, Guild Wars 1 already had a very similar Elite skill called Decapitate. However it was rarely used as Eviscerate always outclassed it.

Rework: Adrenal Health:
There are 10 strikes per adrenaline level making 30 strikes for a full bar right. That idea would make it give regen on every hit if your bar isn’t full, so this would need an internal cd.

Rework: Mending: Heal
This is a good buff. Removing all conditions makes it roughly on par with the necro’s condition removing heal. The adrenaline is a nice little bonus as well to make up for doing less in high condition situation. Again though, 1 strike is only 1/10 of a level, so that effect isn’t actually doing much.

New Defense Trait:
The idea is nice, but it may be too strong. This would make perma protection easy to achieve using proper runes and just this trait, or even with just the trait itself regardless of runes if you were to wep swap or if you offhand bursts count. Using the fact (or possible exploit?) that the bar doesn’t drain right away to use 2 back to back bursts makes sure adren isn’t a problem.

Rework: Berserkers Might/Fury
Seems like good idea to add some depth through tradeoffs for bursts.
Greatsword

F2 – Blade Cyclone: – Shatter Eardrums
Not bad, but aoe range is kind of high for aoe offensive abilities if you mean for it to be the radius. Both healing rain and meteor shower only have a radius of 360 in comparison.

Overall, Off hand burst skills are a nice idea to make give off hands more of an impact while expanding warrior’s rather low amount of skills on a full set. They also make adrenaline more of something you have to manage because they add more choices, adding some more thought to a fight.