Guild Wars 2

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Choppy.4183:

Besides, warriors already have Fast Hands. Making it baseline doesn’t give them the gift of shorter cooldowns, it gives the gift of greater build diversity.

See, that logic makes no sense to me. I’ll use Ranger for my example. Every WvW and PvP build after the trait changes will need to take Wilderness Survival for traited condition clears. Either Empathic Bond or Wilderness Knowledge. So since we will all need to take that trait line to get one of those, if we want traited condi clear, why not just make one of them baseline? It would certainly give Ranger the gift of greater build diversity.

Compare the difference between warriors today and warriors if FH was made baseline. What’s the difference between their cooldowns? Nothing, because they all trait it now.

Arguing against making FH baseline on the grounds that shorter weapon swap cooldowns are great is a bad argument, because shorter cooldowns are constant either way.

The question is whether or not they’d be more powerful if they didn’t have to trait into discipline to get it. Clearly additional powerful build options would emerge, but no more so than you can get through the discipline line. All that gets unlocked is greater diversity.

I’m not familiar enough with rangers to address your question, as it’s one of two classes I don’t currently play. I can’t imagine two traits are a ranger’s only condi clear options though, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone complain about a lack of condi clearing power for rangers.

Jeez, so much catching to do since I last came here XD. It’s funny enough to see that the “debate” hasn’t evolved one bit and is actually going for one more round of everything that has already been said

The smart thing to do here would probably be to drop it for we won’t advance any further until the changes actually come live ! You’re just hurting your brains for quite nothing. Just a friendly heads up.

If we sum up what’s been said so far : Fast Hands made baseline has its pros and cons, and noone agrees with the other because no valid argument has been produced so far (or people won’t listen to it anyway).

Even our friends Sebrent, Juba and Choppy who wrote the most detailed and interesting posts so far (to my poor and miserable mind) have achieved nothing and are starting to go around in circles, that means something.

Sebrent.3625:

Because some people’s reasoning is “other classes got some traits baseline … Mesmer got 5 things … so Warrior should get some things baseline”.

It’s bad reasoning …. but it keeps popping up.

By their logic, when they were growing up they should have gotten a wheelchair because some other kid injured in a car accident got one.

To quote one of my sons’ books … they have the “greedy gimmes” (Berenstein Bears ftw).

I was talking about comparing traits. You cannot do that in any profession (or is not the smartest thing to do).

BlackTruth.6813:

Name me a build without discipline that will be broken with baseline fast hands please.

People who think Fast Hands shouldn’t be baseline are literally using fail arguments. The only advantage that fast hands give that people complain about is.. on-swap advantage. And on-swap only really helps certain builds such as Tarcis’ Greatbow, shoutbow, and condi specs, and maybe soldier hammer. Only shoutbow is a real problem tbh though a shoutbow variation, in theory, without discipline won’t really work if fast hands were to be baseline.

Maybe fire/air + energy DPS builds without using discipline could be strong if fast hands become baseline. But I don’t believe it will be cancer either unless they give Warrior some instant cast mechanics.

For real though? Are you going to say.. Unsuspecting Foe will be OP with baseline fast hands? L2P, mace and hammer are already too telegraphed. Are you going to say.. Condi Warrior will be OP with baseline fast hands? There’s no point in picking that over shoutbow and it has no CC.

Like name me a build that will be OP with baseline fast hands without the discipline tree, please. I’m going to laugh if you say DPS warr will be op because that just shows you have zero reaction time and just bad to have an opinion.

So long as they keep Warrior telegraphed and not have too many evades on weapon skills, baseline fast hands will NOT HURT balancing.

P.S I still don’t understand why casuals are saying their opinion on why Fast Hands shouldn’t be baseline. That isn’t a big buff tbh.

They cannot name one. Dont expect too much.

This tread its getting funnier each day. Examples:

1 – You cannot say that fasthands is mandatory for warrior (ignoring all viable builds in the past and in presence)

2 – You can say that FH will be OP if baseline (with no proffs of that statement).

Something is wrong here….

(grabs popcorn…)

So every guy who says NO for baseline Fast Hands are :

• a Mesmer
• a Ranger
• a Necromancer
• a PvE Warrior

my fellow warrior mates, How DARE us ask for a baseline.

What everyone claiming fast hand should not be made baseline implies:

That we all should have 1 weapon, only 1 weapon attack, no utility and no traits. Every class. Cuz I could use vigor on struck and kitten, while playing warrior. So elementalists and guards cannot have it at all, cuz other classes can also use it! Thief mesmer and ranger should not be allowed to have stealth! Why? because other classes would also benefit from having free stealth.
This is the same, when u complain about fast hands, because other classes also benefits from it… OFC THEY DO. So u want us all to be the same? Neutral? Let’s remove all classes and make it one, don’t u think?

Choppy.4183:

The question is whether or not they’d be more powerful if they didn’t have to trait into discipline to get it. Clearly additional powerful build options would emerge, but no more so than you can get through the discipline line. All that gets unlocked is greater diversity.

To me, that is not a question at all, it is an obvious yes. Would a Ranger be more powerful with Loud Whistle? Would an Ele be more powerful with Lingering Elements? Would a Guard be more powerful with Virtue of Retribution? Would a Necro be more powerful with Last Gasp? Would a Mesmer be more powerful with Illusionist’s celerity? Would a Thief be more powerful with Prepardness? Yes, of course they would be. The difference being is that Fast Hands is SO good, so much better than every other 5th line Minor Master trait, that every warrior brings it, rather than just situationally.

Even with bringing FH, Warrior already has tons of build diversity as the Disc line interacts with burst skills, every weapon set, removes conditions, gives adrenaline/might on swap etc. That makes it able to function with any build the war can make. Literally every build can benefit from it. Does that make it mandatory? No. You will not be as powerful, but it’s not like you absolutely cannot play without it. Every class in the game could benefit immensly from FH and it is the only Minor Master trait in the game that interacts with a common-to-all mechanic like weapon swapping.

To those who say the opposers have not provided any builds that do not use FH, I have provided one. Not to mention, I guarantee that any build presented would simply be dismissed due solely to it not having FH.

FatRaKoon.1782:

Even our friends Sebrent, Juba and Choppy who wrote the most detailed and interesting posts so far (to my poor and miserable mind) have achieved nothing and are starting to go around in circles, that means something.

Not going in a circle or anything.

My point is simple enough “Make (Fast Hands + Warrior Sprint) Baseline so DISC weight get toned down a bit in order to make diverse builds for Warrior and increasing the chances of picking up the new SPEC line”

Of course a Mesmer wouldn’t understand especially the one who take things personal.

I guess these people just wants to see the typical shoutbow warrior every time, they are not against buffing warrior they are against Warrior’s build Diversity.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I have provided one.

no you did not.

Juba.8406:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I have provided one.

no you did not.

Yes, I did, you just ignored it because it doesn’t have FH.

What trait would you put in Disc to replace FH? Anything there would have to interact with swapping and or burst skills anyway so it would definitely make having FH baseline OP.

As a compromise, why not make weapon swapping 20% faster base and reduce FH to 30% faster? If you take FH, you get the same benefit, but also get a reasonable CD reduction without it and there doesn’t need to be another trait added.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Juba.8406:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I have provided one.

no you did not.

Yes, I did, you just ignored it because it doesn’t have FH.

What trait would you put in Disc to replace FH? Anything there would have to interact with swapping and or burst skills anyway so it would definitely make having FH baseline OP.

Do me a favor and go play that build in sPvP.

Then I will hug you while you cry on my shoulder.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

What trait would you put in Disc to replace FH? Anything there would have to interact with swapping and or burst skills anyway so it would definitely make having FH baseline OP.

BTW you are missing the point entirely.

If FH+WS made baseline then i wont Have to take DISC, whatever trait they put there as replacement is not important, because simply i wont take DISC, i might take Arms,Tact,STR or the the new SPEC line, this what we needed more diversity not pigeonholing.

Juba.8406:

Do me a favor and go play that build in sPvP.

Do me a favor and read the post again.

Juba.8406:

If FH+WS made baseline then i wont Have to take DISC, whatever trait they put there as replacement is not important, because simply i wont take DISC, i might take Arms,Tact,STR or the the new SPEC line, this what we needed more diversity not pigeonholing.

Yet, you would still be able to take disc and pick up another trait that interacts with burst or swap for free.

Every class can say the same thing as you have about their good traits. FH is so good, they need to put a CD on swap sigils purely because of it.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Yet, you would still be able to take disc and pick up another trait that interacts with burst or swap for free. .

The only warrs that goes DISC after FH+WH made baseline are hammer warrs + burst spam wars.

You can help us suggest the new traits to replace FH+WH, whatever you suggest i will back you up on it, how about that ?

I will help you with one trait, “undo the merge between Mobile Strikes & Warrior’s Sprint and make Mobile Strikes a major trait”

Now to be honest, I’m becoming less and less sure we should make it baseline, because it is certainly a strong trait… But I’m also certain that we need an alternative that allows us more build diversity, so I hope Anet is going to find a good compromise for warriors.

And by build diversity, I mean diversity within builds, not number of different builds.

This is an answer to something perfectly dumb I read in previous comments : the fact that warriors can use more builds than other classes is no sign of true build diversity, it is just a direct consequence of the fact that warrior is the class that can wield the most weapons. But if you look more carefully, you’ll see that, as someone already stated, every warrior that seek good performance is forced to go at least in two different branches.

That I don’t want anymore, not while some other classes are getting freed from the same constraints. This seems pretty unfair to me. I mean, if things stay what they are, warriors will only have one Elite Spec build !

I’m not saying making FH baseline is the right solution though…

To quote myself…

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

As a compromise, why not make weapon swapping 20% faster base and reduce FH to 30% faster? If you take FH, you get the same benefit, but also get a reasonable CD reduction without it and there doesn’t need to be another trait added.

20% is a decent gain, yet not overpowered as can be evidenced by Warrior runes, I suppose though if War runes had Power main stat, they would be a lot more attractive… regardless… 20% brings the swap to 8s and that is faster than the base burst skill CD with the trait changes, so it is kinda required imo. I just think a 50% reduction for no investment is too much.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

To quote myself…

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

As a compromise, why not make weapon swapping 20% faster base and reduce FH to 30% faster? If you take FH, you get the same benefit, but also get a reasonable CD reduction without it and there doesn’t need to be another trait added.

20% is a decent gain, yet not overpowered as can be evidenced by Warrior runes, I suppose though if War runes had Power main stat, they would be a lot more attractive… regardless… 20% brings the swap to 8s and that is faster than the base burst skill CD with the trait changes, so it is kinda required imo. I just think a 50% reduction for no investment is too much.

Disagree.

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?
2- If ANet really didn´t balanced warrior skills / weapons / combos to have FH why do they make it mandatory for every warrior who traits at least 3 points into discipline? You cannot choose to NOT to take it after the specialization if you go for the discipline tree.

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?

They did not mention it in the first place, when they first talked about specialization, so people assume they don’t want Fast Hands to be made baseline. It could indeed be the case, or it could be they did not think about it, or that they’re still considering/testing it.

Why did warriors receive Fast Hands in the first place? Because weapon-swapping is key to the warrior gameplay. Why did thieves receive Feline Grace? Because evading is key to their gameplay. Both warriors and thieves would be thrilled to get Fast Hands or Feline Grace, as both classes swap weapons and evade – but a class’ identity, aside from its core mechanics, is defined by having more of certain things and less of others, is all.

There is a difference between Fast Hands and Feline Grace though, in that the warrior overall mechanics is lacking comparing to the thief’s one, and that Fast Hands, rather than complementing it as a nice extension of a possible gameplay, has been used as a crutch for all possible warrior gameplays.

Elegie.3620:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?

They did not mention it in the first place, when they first talked about specialization, so people assume they don’t want Fast Hands to be made baseline. It could indeed be the case, or it could be they did not think about it, or that they’re still considering/testing it.

Why did warriors receive Fast Hands in the first place? Because weapon-swapping is key to the warrior gameplay. Why did thieves receive Feline Grace? Because evading is key to their gameplay. Both warriors and thieves would be thrilled to get Fast Hands or Feline Grace, as both classes swap weapons and evade – but a class’ identity, aside from its core mechanics, is defined by having more of certain things and less of others, is all.

There is a difference between Fast Hands and Feline Grace though, in that the warrior overall mechanics is lacking comparing to the thief’s one, and that Fast Hands, rather than complementing it as a nice extension of a possible gameplay, has been used as a crutch for all possible warrior gameplays.

You realise Feline Grace is taking a massive nerf with the trait changes?

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?
2- If ANet really didn´t balanced warrior skills / weapons / combos to have FH why do they make it mandatory for every warrior who traits at least 3 points into discipline? You cannot choose to NOT to take it after the specialization if you go for the discipline tree.

If ANet wanted it to be baseline, do you not think they would have made the change with all the others? Warrior got zero baseline traits, because they don’t need any.
It is “mandatory” as a minor in discipline as that is the trait line that interacts, synergises if you will, with burst skills and weapons swaps.

Juba.8406:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

To quote myself…

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

As a compromise, why not make weapon swapping 20% faster base and reduce FH to 30% faster? If you take FH, you get the same benefit, but also get a reasonable CD reduction without it and there doesn’t need to be another trait added.

20% is a decent gain, yet not overpowered as can be evidenced by Warrior runes, I suppose though if War runes had Power main stat, they would be a lot more attractive… regardless… 20% brings the swap to 8s and that is faster than the base burst skill CD with the trait changes, so it is kinda required imo. I just think a 50% reduction for no investment is too much.

Disagree.

With what?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Elegie.3620:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?

They did not mention it in the first place, when they first talked about specialization, so people assume they don’t want Fast Hands to be made baseline. It could indeed be the case, or it could be they did not think about it, or that they’re still considering/testing it.

Why did warriors receive Fast Hands in the first place? Because weapon-swapping is key to the warrior gameplay. Why did thieves receive Feline Grace? Because evading is key to their gameplay. Both warriors and thieves would be thrilled to get Fast Hands or Feline Grace, as both classes swap weapons and evade – but a class’ identity, aside from its core mechanics, is defined by having more of certain things and less of others, is all.

There is a difference between Fast Hands and Feline Grace though, in that the warrior overall mechanics is lacking comparing to the thief’s one, and that Fast Hands, rather than complementing it as a nice extension of a possible gameplay, has been used as a crutch for all possible warrior gameplays.

You realise Feline Grace is taking a massive nerf with the trait changes?

Can you elaborate?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?
2- If ANet really didn´t balanced warrior skills / weapons / combos to have FH why do they make it mandatory for every warrior who traits at least 3 points into discipline? You cannot choose to NOT to take it after the specialization if you go for the discipline tree.

If ANet wanted it to be baseline, do you not think they would have made the change with all the others? Warrior got zero baseline traits, because they don’t need any

LOL!

We warriors need to shut up not even allowed to give feedback, we should listen to this fellow Ranger and that Mesmer, apparently they know more about our profession than we do xD.

Is that what you are trying to say ?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?
2- If ANet really didn´t balanced warrior skills / weapons / combos to have FH why do they make it mandatory for every warrior who traits at least 3 points into discipline? You cannot choose to NOT to take it after the specialization if you go for the discipline tree.

If ANet wanted it to be baseline, do you not think they would have made the change with all the others? Warrior got zero baseline traits, because they don’t need any.
It is “mandatory” as a minor in discipline as that is the trait line that interacts, synergises if you will, with burst skills and weapons swaps.

Still (using mesmer as example because people are used to) mesmers could build without IP. warriors going full in the same trait line must take FH. That says a lot.

That could mean that ANet is thinking to force warrior to still take the last trait line but they are also thinking to free other trait lines for us. (defence?) Maybe elite specialization will free us from defense line.

The thing is, no matter what ANet will do (give FH or not as baseline), warriors will take it anyway.
The build diversity could be with the elite specialization, could be the thing we need to get rid of defense or discipline.
Right now if those are to stay a must in warrior builds, we will only have x.×.6.×.6 builds running around.

(snipping irrelevant parts)

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Elegie.3620:

Why did warriors receive Fast Hands in the first place? Because weapon-swapping is key to the warrior gameplay. Why did thieves receive Feline Grace? Because evading is key to their gameplay. Both warriors and thieves would be thrilled to get Fast Hands or Feline Grace, as both classes swap weapons and evade – but a class’ identity, aside from its core mechanics, is defined by having more of certain things and less of others, is all.

There is a difference between Fast Hands and Feline Grace though, in that the warrior overall mechanics is lacking comparing to the thief’s one, and that Fast Hands, rather than complementing it as a nice extension of a possible gameplay, has been used as a crutch for all possible warrior gameplays.

You realise Feline Grace is taking a massive nerf with the trait changes?

Surely, you realize that my point is to express that a class identity not only includes a core mechanics but also gameplay components? And that in the case of the warrior, the mechanics is lacking so the gameplay component has become a necessity rather than a complement? Strictly comparing Feline Grace and Fast Hands makes no sense at all, is this really what you understood of it?

silentnight warrior.2714:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Elegie.3620:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?

They did not mention it in the first place, when they first talked about specialization, so people assume they don’t want Fast Hands to be made baseline. It could indeed be the case, or it could be they did not think about it, or that they’re still considering/testing it.

Why did warriors receive Fast Hands in the first place? Because weapon-swapping is key to the warrior gameplay. Why did thieves receive Feline Grace? Because evading is key to their gameplay. Both warriors and thieves would be thrilled to get Fast Hands or Feline Grace, as both classes swap weapons and evade – but a class’ identity, aside from its core mechanics, is defined by having more of certain things and less of others, is all.

There is a difference between Fast Hands and Feline Grace though, in that the warrior overall mechanics is lacking comparing to the thief’s one, and that Fast Hands, rather than complementing it as a nice extension of a possible gameplay, has been used as a crutch for all possible warrior gameplays.

You realise Feline Grace is taking a massive nerf with the trait changes?

Can you elaborate?

Feline Grace gives 15 endurance on dodge right now whereas after the changes it will give 2s of vigor if you successfully dodge an attack.

Juba.8406:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Btw i read people saying here that ANet dont want warriors to have FH baseline. There is something that keeps me wondering.
1- How they know that?
2- If ANet really didn´t balanced warrior skills / weapons / combos to have FH why do they make it mandatory for every warrior who traits at least 3 points into discipline? You cannot choose to NOT to take it after the specialization if you go for the discipline tree.

If ANet wanted it to be baseline, do you not think they would have made the change with all the others? Warrior got zero baseline traits, because they don’t need any

LOL!

We warriors need to shut up not even allowed to give feedback, we should listen to this fellow Ranger and that Mesmer, apparently they know more about our profession than we do xD.

Is that what you are trying to say ?

That is not at all what I said. I cannot see how you could possibly manage to construe that from the text I posted.

Elegie.3620:

(snipping irrelevant parts)

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Elegie.3620:

Why did warriors receive Fast Hands in the first place? Because weapon-swapping is key to the warrior gameplay. Why did thieves receive Feline Grace? Because evading is key to their gameplay. Both warriors and thieves would be thrilled to get Fast Hands or Feline Grace, as both classes swap weapons and evade – but a class’ identity, aside from its core mechanics, is defined by having more of certain things and less of others, is all.

There is a difference between Fast Hands and Feline Grace though, in that the warrior overall mechanics is lacking comparing to the thief’s one, and that Fast Hands, rather than complementing it as a nice extension of a possible gameplay, has been used as a crutch for all possible warrior gameplays.

You realise Feline Grace is taking a massive nerf with the trait changes?

Surely, you realize that my point is to express that a class identity not only includes a core mechanics but also gameplay components? And that in the case of the warrior, the mechanics is lacking so the gameplay component has become a necessity rather than a complement? Strictly comparing Feline Grace and Fast Hands makes no sense at all, is this really what you understood of it?

Yes, I understand what you are saying. Never the less, if they decide to nerf such a ‘key’ part of thief why should Warrior have it’s ‘key’ mechanic/identity buffed to baseline? Fast Hands is so strong, it will always be a ‘necessity’, it’s got nothing to do with lacking mechanics, it is purely that good. Hence my point about ANet would have already made the change during their extensive trait balancing, but they decided not to do it, and for good reason. Just having it as an option is strong enough.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

ANet would have already made the change during their extensive trait balancing, but they decided not to do it, and for good reason. .

So your solution is Shut the kitten up, right ?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Yes, I understand what you are saying. Never the less, if they decide to nerf such a ‘key’ part of thief why should Warrior have it’s ‘key’ mechanic/identity buffed to baseline?

Balance is surely a global thing, but it’s also a local thing, and a nerf somewhere in the class might be compensated by a buff somewhere else in the class. Comparing two traits of different classes is like comparing oranges and apples.

You know, I honestly don’t care about Fast Hands being made baseline or not. If it’s not made baseline, then I’ll simply go on and take Discipline, and all warriors will do the same. We’ll work things out eventually. We’re just disappointed that the class is designed in such a way you must always take Discipline to be viable. It’s bad design, and in my honest opinion indicates a poor (lacking) class mechanics.

Regards.

a quicker weapon swap only leads to faster combo chains and using up cooldowns quicker too making it base line would quickly drain you of any weapon skills leaving you without ether or weapon set being on cooldown yes you could burst chain quicker with fast hands but that does not mean it should be base line.

what if a warroir took weapons with longer cooldowns and wanted to not Use fast hands because it could mess up his rotations burning through skills too quickly leaving him with only lower cooldowns and a larger window untill the next spike, i understand that Fast hands is good but it is build defineing not widening diversity as it can effect other builds just as much messing up play styles.

Juba.8406:

So every guy who says NO for baseline Fast Hands are :

• a Mesmer
• a Ranger
• a Necromancer
• a PvE Warrior

my fellow warrior mates, How DARE us ask for a baseline.

Most aren’t disagreeing with you because they are Mesmers, Rangers, Necros. They are disagreeing with you because what you are asking for is unrealistic. You said it yourself, FH and WS are the best traits we have in that line and you want to make them baseline?! Are you kittening serious?

Julie Yann.5379:

Juba.8406:

So every guy who says NO for baseline Fast Hands are :

• a Mesmer
• a Ranger
• a Necromancer
• a PvE Warrior

my fellow warrior mates, How DARE us ask for a baseline.

Most aren’t disagreeing with you because they are Mesmers, Rangers, Necros. They are disagreeing with you because what you are asking for is unrealistic. You said it yourself, FH and WS are the best traits we have in that line and you want to make them baseline?! Are you kittening serious?

100% serious.

Heck, now even those arguing for FH becoming baseline are contradicting each other.

• Some say it is really powerful and they need it because of that.
• Others say it isn’t that powerful so it shouldn’t be a problem if it’s baseline.

I still say that:

• FH is quite powerful
• FH is not necessary to be viable

Many of you claim you want FH made baseline so that you can have more build diversity, but ff you really wanted more build diversity for Warriors, shouldn’t you be thinking of ways to dethrone the Shout Build since it is the meta build Warriors are pigon-holed into for both sPvP and WvW. Since not a one has focused on that, I’m unconvinced that “build diversity” is the true goal … or that FH is the solution.

Fast hands is awesome. That’s why so many take it. But there is a big difference between awesome and required.

Required would mean you were unviable without it … just like people were claiming before with the adrenaline changes.

I don’t see it.

Giving it for free is power creep … getting something extra is something extra no matter how you play with the words. That extra results in extra power; however much it is. That is power creep.

Back to the current Shout Build … Fast Hands is actually quite powerful in it … how else can you swap from Sword to Bow, Burst, Blast w/ Bow, Swap, Blast w/ Horn, Leap w/ Sword for a large amount of Might?

Giving that for free is quite powerful.

@Juba:
And 100% unrealistic … unless your goal is for Warrior to ride a buff/nerf rollercoaster in a WoW-style balance patching.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

a quicker weapon swap only leads to faster combo chains and using up cooldowns quicker too making it base line would quickly drain you of any weapon skills leaving you without ether or weapon set being on cooldown yes you could burst chain quicker with fast hands but that does not mean it should be base line.

what if a warroir took weapons with longer cooldowns and wanted to not Use fast hands because it could mess up his rotations burning through skills too quickly leaving him with only lower cooldowns and a larger window untill the next spike, i understand that Fast hands is good but it is build defineing not widening diversity as it can effect other builds just as much messing up play styles.

Lol, wut m8?

Sebrent.3625:

Heck, now even those arguing for FH becoming baseline are contradicting each other.

• Some say it is really powerful and they need it because of that.
• Others say it isn’t that powerful so it shouldn’t be a problem if it’s baseline.

You’re misconstruing what people are saying. You’ve done this more than once to different people, usually by presenting it as a contradiction laid out as above. One might say you’re deliberately strawmanning.

Sebrent.3625:

• FH is not necessary to be viable….

Fast hands is awesome. That’s why so many take it. But there is a big difference between awesome and required.

Required would mean you were unviable without it … just like people were claiming before with the adrenaline changes.

You have yet to demonstrate that warriors are viable without Fast Hands. The evidence is against you here, and it’s been laid out several times by others.

All you’ve provided in support is one incomplete build of your own making that will get wrecked, not just by other warriors, but pretty much any other class too.

Sebrent.3625:

Many of you claim you want FH made baseline so that you can have more build diversity, but ff you really wanted more build diversity for Warriors, shouldn’t you be thinking of ways to dethrone the Shout Build since it is the meta build Warriors are pigon-holed into for both sPvP and WvW. Since not a one has focused on that, I’m unconvinced that “build diversity” is the true goal … or that FH is the solution.

This is a shameless red herring argument.

Sebrent.3625:

Giving it for free is power creep … getting something extra is something extra no matter how you play with the words. That extra results in extra power; however much it is. That is power creep.

Power creep to the extent of one refunded trait point now, and not having to choose discipline later. That scares you? I guess Mesmes should give back IP then… I mean, they ended up with the exact same power creep and, as you pointed out, they didn’t even need it (as evidenced by mesmer builds that don’t take it now).

Juba.8406:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

ANet would have already made the change during their extensive trait balancing, but they decided not to do it, and for good reason. .

So your solution is Shut the kitten up, right ?

How could you possibly think that is what I meant?

@Choppy:
What am I misconstruing this time? The only two times I’ve done this it was your post in the middle of the bloody night, so it’s a bit understandable that I get tired. I did apologize for both and corrected myself, did I not. It’s not intentional as you keep trying to suggest.

I gave a build. It is viable. It does work. Is it as powerful as classic ShoutBow? Depends on who it is fighting, but it does not stack Might nearly as well due to the 5s cooldown preventing the swap back for the Horn Blast + Leap. So if your opponent can’t get rid of your Might Stacks, you would be better off with Fast Hands.

Go to a different build and the necessity of Fast Hands becomes much different.

This all goes back to “viable” versus “powerful”. Lack of Fast Hands is still “viable”. Lack of Fast Hands is “less powerful”. How much “less powerful” depends on the build. The more a build synergizes with Weapon Swaps the more powerful Fast Hands is. So fast weapon cooldowns, on-swap sigils, on-swap traits, etc. leads to it being very powerful. Slower weapon cooldowns and sigils/traits that don’t care about weapon swap leads to it being less powerful.

It is not a shameless red herring argument to point out that the primary reasoning people get claiming for wanting FH baseline is to promote build diversity yet the suggestion they are providing isn’t going to do diddly for removing the Shout build pigonhole that Warriors are currently in. That’s pointing out that I disagree that making FH baseline will promote build diversity. That’s disagreeing with your reasoning why it should be made baseline. That is quite pertinent.

One refunded trait point my butt. You have to invest 3 points to get it. You can argue semantics but it requires 3 points invested in Discipline to get it. That is the minimum. However it is ultimately moot because nothing is getting baselined now. You have to pick an entire Specialization later. That is far from a small 1 trait point investment. That is an immense opportunity cost.

You think Mesmer should give back IP because I don’t think Warrior needs Fast Hands. Was there some negotiation taking place that said that “if Warrior can’t have what they want, then Mesmer can’t have what they ultimately needed” for their class mechanic to not be useless in large AOE/Cleave situations ? Those are two largely different issues. We’ve been over that comparison so many times now that I think you are roleplaying a dense warrior.

Heck, let’s have Burst Skills now depend on the survival of bad AI made of paper and have at least the same cooldown as Mind Wrack … heck that’s still two 15 second cooldowns instead of a 15s, 30s, kitten and 60s. You’ll also need to lose Adrenaline when AOE’d/Cleaved.

If you want to talk about Strawman … you provided a darn good one there. We’ll ignore the place of Warrior without their FH baseline versus Mesmer without IP baseline … <sarcasm>obviously they are on equal footing given one’s place in all the metas and the other’s place in barely one … and that’s for utility and uses Phantasm build without IP (PvE).</sarcasm>

@Sebrent
Go back to every time you’ve used bullet points to point out “contradictions” made by other people. You’ve misrepresented what was said.

How do you know your build is viable? Have you tested it yet? Because I’m fairly certain it would get wrecked by most builds out there. It has lower damage and sustain than classic shoutbow by a lot, you’ll be stuck in an inappropriate weapon for longer, and you suffer from the same weaknesses shoutbow has.

Put another way, people will find it easier to kill you and you’ll have a harder time killing them.

It was a shameless red herring argument because making FH baseline and developing builds that aren’t shoutbow aren’t mutually exclusive or even contradictory things to do. Besides, how do you know people aren’t working on other builds? Juba has videos out there of builds he runs, and I haven’t noticed shoutbow being among them. I don’t run a shoutbow either, but more because I don’t spend a lot of time pvp (more wvw).

You’ve yet to demonstrate that warriors are viable without Fast Hands, you’ve simply asserted it. Those who say they’re not have provided evidence (no current builds lack Fast Hands) and logic (if warriors aren’t OP with FH now but it keeps them locked in discipline, then giving them FH without locking them in Discipline won’t make them OP either). You’ve not come close to meeting that standard.

Your understanding of opportunity cost is wrong because you assume no value to the other two traits . I’ve explained, repeatedly, that making FH baseline amounts to a refund on one trait point and a reduction of build rigidity. That’s not significant power creep.

And I don’t think Mesmers should give back IP, and I’ve made that clear. In my previous comment I was applying the logic you applied to why warriors shouldn’t get FH to mesmers. By your rationale that I quoted, mesmers shouldn’t get IP. I don’t agree with your rationale.

You evidently don’t know what a strawman argument i if you think what you described is a strawman.

Also, what’s with the pity party for mesmers. Mesmers are awesome and their burst is incredibly good. If you main a mesmer and don’t know that, you have a serious l2p issue because getting those bursts aren’t that hard. Giving them IP was a good idea, nevertheless.

Sebrent.3625:

I still say that:

• FH is quite powerful
• FH is not necessary to be viable

No, no and a hundred times no. FH is necessary for any build to be viable. In the current meta, yes, but I have yet to see how they hope to balance it with the Elite Spec. thing.
Being viable does in no way mean that you can play the class, it means that you are competitive at a minimum. Hotjoins builds are all viable in hotjoin but this never means it can be viable generally speaking.
Making a build without FH, going in any PU game and succeeding in killing a guy will never be a proof of viability.

I’m sorry but this is no valid argument and noone with a bit of sense can agree to it.

Sebrent.3625:

Many of you claim you want FH made baseline so that you can have more build diversity, but ff you really wanted more build diversity for Warriors, shouldn’t you be thinking of ways to dethrone the Shout Build since it is the meta build Warriors are pigon-holed into for both sPvP and WvW. Since not a one has focused on that, I’m unconvinced that “build diversity” is the true goal … or that FH is the solution.

Regarding the Shoutbow build, it is not FH that makes the salt of it but the Celestial amulet. Knowing that they intend on nerfing this amulet within the next update, I doubt Shoutbow will stay in the meta, so I don’t think our priority right now is to find a way to dethrone this build.

Besides, counters are already starting to show at higher sPvP levels : right now, a tanky/Celestial-based compo stands no chance against a well-rounded offensive/burst compo, but as it is a high risk/high reward compo, teams are still a bit timid.

Sebrent.3625:

Giving that for free is quite powerful.

Having taken some perspective on the matter, I have to agree with you. I do think that build diversity is an issue (as I demonstrated in my previous post) but I don’t believe making FH baseline is a good idea… There must be another way of doing things.

As I said previously, if the situation remains the same, when the expansion hit us, warrios will have only one Elite Spec. build (even without having info, I doubt that a single traitline will be able to make us forget about both FH and CI).

@Choppy.4183:
We’re just going to have to disagree on your first paragraph on the contradictions … most of my bullet points have been:

• Questions
• Pointing out when someone said something that is blatantly wrong (like “Warrior can’t full-zerk”).
• These bullet points now :-p

Your opportunity cost projection contradicts what you’ve been saying about build diversity. If it’s just a 1 trait point opportunity cost then all you’re gaining for build diversity is 1 trait point … that doesn’t get you crap in most situations.

It isn’t a shameless red herring. Your argument for FH baseline is for build diversity. I say that FH won’t provide it. That’s quite on topic. It’s like if you told me that Illusionary Persona needs to be baseline so that Phantasm builds can improve. I would tell you that you’re going about it the wrong way if you’re wanting to improve Phantasm builds.

Heck, let’s just get rid of both Fast Hands and Illusionary Persona. They just no longer exist. Now neither class has a trait they feel like they have to have … build diversity incoming.

Kagamiku and I met late (for me) last night and agreed on a few things:

• We get along far better in chat than forums (no walls of text in chat, lol)
• He plays shoutbow better than I do
• No FH on shoutbow is viable
• No FH on shoutbow is weaker because you can’t [Swap to LB], [Burst], [LB Blast], [Swap to Sword], [Horn Blast], [Sword Leap] with a 10s cooldown.
• No FH would be far less of an issue with other builds because they aren’t as dependent on comboing that Fire Field.
• Shoutbow pigeon-holing is a bigger “issue” for Warrior build diversity … neither of us like being pigeon-holed in the meta
• It would be difficult for a new traitline to offer anything as powerful for Shoutbow as Fast Hands given the comboing with the Fire Field and swapping to use LBow burst for cleanse on demand … my only suggestion I could think for a new trait would have to be something that rewards staying in a weapon set for X seconds and resets itself on weapon swap. Neither of us was sure what that reward would be or how powerful it’d need to be though

“Weaker” is not “Unviable”. What part of that is unclear? If we gave Warrior an I-WIN button, it would obviously be the strongest thing Warrior has. It would not mean that warrior builds without it were “Unviable”. They would simply be less competitive. It also wouldn’t mean that the warrior needed that I-WIN button baselined.

@FatRaKoon.1782:
I think we both agree that we don’t want any trait to be necessary in every build (hurts build diversity) … we’re just not sure how to make that not an issue. Agreed?

Both Fast Hands and Cleansing Ire are such traits that come up when it comes to “necessary warrior traits”. Agreed? … so why are we just focused on Fast Hands?

I think a big part of the Cele meta is the friggin Might Stacking. I hate that the meta is so boon-heavy. Boons = passive stats = passive gameplay. I’d prefer it get back to more evading the big hits while landing your own.

Do you have any links to some teams successfully playing the new high risk/high reward comps? I haven’t been watching the most recent tournaments. My interest in PvP at the moment is much less given my pregnant wife can now interrupt me at any time of day/night … even when she’s supposed to be sleeping.

I agree, we currently have no clue what we could possibly get that would be good enough to make people take it instead of FH instead of just taking it with FH. It’d have to …

• Synergize so well with 2 other Specializations so that you liked that more than having FH
• or conflict with Fast Hands while being of equal power … being more powerful would make it likely become the new “necessary” trait.

FatRaKoon.1782:

but I don’t believe making FH baseline is a good idea…

But giving Mesmers 6 Baseline traits plus Dogged march+ Warrior’s Sprint altogether combined as 1 minor trait is a Marvelous idea, right ?

@Sebrent
Your whole line of argument that other classes would benefit from having lower swap CD is irrelevant:

1. They don’t have it, yet viable builds abound
2. Afaik, none of them use Warrior Sigil, so presumably the pressure isn’t that high
3. Viable warrior builds without FH do not abound
4. Warriors with FH are not imbalanced against the other classes you mentioned
5. Giving those classes FH would be incredible power creep because they’ve already been balanced without it
6. Baselining FH to warriors will not lead to considerable power creep, especially after the new content, because warriors have already been balanced with it (and they already have it)

This is why we’d laugh at anyone who said stealth is powerful, especially on thieves, so warriors should get it too while otherwise remaining the same. And this is why you’ll get no traction with the argument here.

Elegie.3620:

Removing Fast Hands would logically lower the value of weapon-swapping (you’d swap less often). The consequences are:

• Weaker weapons rotations, because of the reduced CD’s synergies between weapons (including the burst skill). This means a reduced efficiency of the warrior, in both attacking and defending. This also means a reduced adrenaline building rate, since we’d be hitting less.
• Weaker effects of traits benefiting from weapon-swapping: condition cleansing (Brawler’s Recovery), might building (Versatile Power), adrenaline building (Versatile Rage).
• Weaker effects of burst-based features, because of the overall drop of the adrenaline building rate: less bursts means less condition cleansing (Cleansing Ire), less endurance regeneration (Building Momentum), less critical chance (Critical Burst, only interesting in “pulsing” bursts though).
• Reduced value of weapon-swapping sigils. The warrior, thanks to Fast Hands, can take great advantage of these sigils (though admittedly not as well as eles or engies).

As one can see, swapping weapons is critical for the warrior, it’s not just nice to have, the class is built around it. Removing Fast Hands would increase build diversity for sure, but would render the whole class mechanics not only inefficient, but also ineffective. One would have to significantly reengineer the class to make Fast Hands optional (and such a thing would go beyond a mere class specialization).

I don’t believe anything else needs to be said.

@Sebrent, what makes shoubow (or any longbow build) so strong is not the Cele amulet. It’s CI, not only is it a guaranteed condi cleanse but the adrenaline gain from it (even under light fire) allows you to spam a full fire field the moment it’s off CD and allows you to burst much earlier in the fight. That is why we are kind of pigeonholed I to the longbow meta. Heck, on some of my builds I can full burst on both weapons (with FH) continuously.

1. Yep. And Warrior has Viable builds without it.

2. That’s because Warrior Runes have a higher opportunity cost (some runes sets are essential to various builds). Warrior Runes also only reduce it to an 8 second cooldown … not 5 second … so higher cost and less reward isn’t very attractive

3. That’s because people prefer to play what is most powerful. If Warrior had that I-WIN button, it’d be all over the place. I don’t think either of us is going to lie to ourselves and say that isn’t the case … though there are some who would not take it due to some principle(s) or some other reason(s) as is always the case with builds. It would be a large majority as always happens when something becomes known to be OP. Hence why MMOs (not just GW2) see bandwagoning to OP classes when that “OPness” is sufficiently high … as an I-WIN button would be.

4. I never said Warriors with FH are imbalanced against other classes. They are part of the meta after all. Warriors without FH would have a harder time competing but they still could. They could most definitely compete with those who can’t even achieve meta status.

5. I 100% agree it’d be power creep for non-Warrior classes. I don’t believe I’ve ever said it wouldn’t be a power creep for anyone. I’ve never actually asked for FH on other classes though. If you look back at my posts, any time I mentioned other classes and FH it was in reply to someone’s reason(s) why they thought FH was needed as opposed to just crazy awesome to have. Those reason(s) were always shared with other classes who “suffered” the same “issue”. That was why I would bring up those other classes.

6. Baselining FH would be power creep. It is gaining something without paying for it. I have no real big issue with that if it is truly required and/or won’t cause imbalance. We haven’t proved either so we can’t say for sure. I simply do not want to have to go to a balance rollercoaster situation, and, as stated before I adhere to the “wait and see” methodology as opposed to the “change and see” methodology.

I agree that stealth on a warrior would be ridiculously stupid … can you imagine a Hammer Warrior stealthing? Man that would be a nasty surprise. I’d laugh the first time and then think WTH till it was gone.

I’m liking this numbering you did in your most recent post. It makes it much easier to reply … I don’t have to play with the quote tags … takes up less space too.

7. From this whole discussion I’m starting to feel like Fast Hands is one of those traits like Illusionary Elasticity, Residual Venom, etc. that makes it hard to balance around. How do you balance an extra bounce that can make an ability do twice as much damage? How do you balance venoms that can do +25% more to +100% more when you have a single trait?

As such, I’m starting to lean towards it needing to just be baseline for that one reason … ease of balance.

That being said, if Fast Hands was made baseline, in my mind they’d need to look at the strength of on-swap sigils, Warrior on-swap traits, and Warrior weapon cooldowns. That isn’t saying that any of them need to be changed, but I think an analysis would be warranted. Agree?

I’m still unconvinced that it’s needed for any of the other reasons, but this one reason is becoming more and more convincing …

… if it hasn’t become apparent to you yet, I mull these things over in my head quite a bit and play both saids when I do. I think this is twice I’ve now given points for it being baselined :-p … both being things not mentioned before ;-)

Why do I have to argue both sides of this … gosh :-D

Julie Yann.5379:

@Sebrent, what makes shoubow (or any longbow build) so strong is not the Cele amulet. It’s CI, not only is it a guaranteed condi cleanse but the adrenaline gain from it (even under light fire) allows you to spam a full fire field the moment it’s off CD and allows you to burst much earlier in the fight. That is why we are kind of pigeonholed I to the longbow meta. Heck, on some of my builds I can full burst on both weapons (with FH) continuously.

Good points.

How would you go about combating this pigeon hole issue? … or should we start a separate topic for that? (assuming you want to discuss it further).

Should ArenaNet change how CI interacts with the burst skill for Longbow? If so, what do you suggest?

I like these discussions btw, despite some of the heat, etc.. If we’ve learned anything from the Specializations coming, it’s that:
(1) ArenaNet can keep a secret till it’s closer to ready
(2) ArenaNet does look at our ideas on the forums … several trait changes for Mesmer were straight from various discussions in the Mesmer subforums. I believe the same has happened for other classes as well … I’m just less intimately familiar with all such discussions.

Sebrent.3625:

Julie Yann.5379:

@Sebrent, what makes shoubow (or any longbow build) so strong is not the Cele amulet. It’s CI, not only is it a guaranteed condi cleanse but the adrenaline gain from it (even under light fire) allows you to spam a full fire field the moment it’s off CD and allows you to burst much earlier in the fight. That is why we are kind of pigeonholed I to the longbow meta. Heck, on some of my builds I can full burst on both weapons (with FH) continuously.

Good points.

How would you go about combating this pigeon hole issue? … or should we start a separate topic for that? (assuming you want to discuss it further).

Should ArenaNet change how CI interacts with the burst skill for Longbow? If so, what do you suggest?

I like these discussions btw, despite some of the heat, etc.. If we’ve learned anything from the Specializations coming, it’s that:
(1) ArenaNet can keep a secret till it’s closer to ready
(2) ArenaNet does look at our ideas on the forums … several trait changes for Mesmer were straight from various discussions in the Mesmer subforums. I believe the same has happened for other classes as well … I’m just less intimately familiar with all such discussions.

I said it before, speparate Embrace Pain from CI and make it baseline. Even with the new condi cleanse options that we will be getting I believe warriors will still be picking CI cause the adrenaline gain from it is just too kitten good and if you pick CI you might as well take a bow to maximize it’s potential. By separating them all non-bow builds get the benefit of being able to use our core mechanic and CI doesn’t overshadow our other condi cleanse options, opening up more build options, especially DPS/non-support builds which is what we really need.

While I would love FH and WS to be baseline, it’s not going to happen.

For the same reason I can now see FH being baseline, I could see Embrace the Pain being baseline … ease of balancing.

Heck, you’re likely at least doubling your adrenaline gain when you gain adrenaline when hit. How can you balance that?

Again though, it all needs an analysis because if you are going to get both baseline, some things need an extra look to ensure balance … otherwise you’ll become a friggin elementalist on the power curve and sPvP and PvE meta groups will become 2 Ele and 2 Warriors … leaving 1 slot for 7 classes to fight over :-p

… man … didn’t think I’d wind up agreeing to baselining both FH and Embrace Pain … but now that I’ve brought up talk about trying to balance without them baseline … it’s a tough thing to argue against (in my mind).

@Sebrent
I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s just a comprehension issue rather than anything deliberate because you again misrepresented what I said about opportunity cost, you bungled up the red herring bit, and made a number of other errors in your last post about what I said.

Combined with the other errors, maybe there’s no sense in carrying on the conversation.

Given some very key things I said in the last posts that I figure would highly interest you … and the non-specificity of what you just said, I feel like you’re just posting that because you’re tired of discussing and didn’t actually read.

Even if you did read, how exactly could there be any discussion, improvement, rectification, clarification, … anything at all … from what you just said.

What was misrepresented?
What errors?

Heck, I guess after the claims that “Warrior can’t full zerk” and “Warrior coefficients are bad” … I should have just saved us all some time and said what you have just now …

TLDR.3625:

1. Yep. And Warrior has Viable builds without it.

Nope.