Modifying Warrior Mechanics

Modifying Warrior Mechanics

in Warrior

Posted by: Manijin.3428

Manijin.3428

I was struck recently by how much I enjoy the warrior class in GW2, and realized that, while the class is fun, it didn’t do much to remind me of my old warrior back in GW1. Now, I know that these are completely different games, but I think there are a few things we could take from GW2’s predecessor that would help warrior feel more… fluid and engaging. This is by no means a complaint, rather something that I think would add to the complexity of the class without drastically unbalancing it, and what could serve as an idea for the devs, should they be interested.

It seems that the idea for a warrior is that, unlike many of the burst or bunker classes (speaking in a PvP perspective), it functions by dealing steady damage to its opponents and has the durability to withstand attacks and unleash attacks of his own. However, I feel that the current mechanics don’t really provide this feeling. It seems that a warrior can either be somewhat durable with low-medium damage or squishy with decent damage, but it seems that, outside of a few abilities, the class isn’t very adaptive to combat, which can lead to frustration.

My suggestion? A slight alteration of the Adrenaline mechanic which allows it to function more as a hybrid of Initiative and Life Force: It is built up much like it is currently, perhaps with more levels of adrenaline, but expended to use warrior abilities, including utility and healing skills, which would likely come with reduced cooldowns, and perhaps a minor change in functionality. Suddenly, utility skills have the ability to drastically alter a fight, and warriors could choose which of their abilities are most important dependent upon the situation (choosing to focus on healing if they need to bunker for a bit or heal through a big boss burst, etc.).

This would also increase the importance of moderating consumption of adrenaline, as opposed to using it either very frequently, or rarely. Traits such as Cleansing Ire would require better timing (as opposed to “switch to Longbow for cleansing time!”), and traits that increase your attributes by X% based on adrenaline would require more of a sacrifice in PvE (which I see as a good thing, since they basically have NO downsides).

This does run the risk of becoming an ability spam-fest, but if all of your abilities draw from the same adrenaline pool, it would serve to make warriors more versatile and adaptable in all modes of gameplay without (theoretically) overpowering them by letting them use all of their abilities simultaneously.

Thoughts?