Guild Wars 2

Rebalancing Warrior Traits

Howdy! I’m creating this thread with the aim of providing a location for ArenaNet to gather some useful feedback from players about issues with Warriors, focusing primarily on Traits (since they’ve mentioned that they’d like to do a more thorough balance pass on traits for all classes in the near? future.) Please note that if you want to whine about overpowered or underpowered, or insult other players or ArenaNet, this isn’t the thread for it. If you can’t post constructively, please don’t post at all.

I do feel like it’s worth mentioning that I’d like to see there be less overall passive tools for dealing with boons and conditions, though; I feel like boon removal (purging) and condition removal (cleansing), as well as boon applications (buffing) and condition applications (debuffing) should primarily be done with button presses, not something that happens automatically, though some automatic/passive stuff is alright as long as it’s kept in check; left unrestrained, I feel like having too much automatic or passive applying/removing will lead to power creep, which isn’t good for the game in the long term. I mostly mention this to give some context to my ideas, so they don’t appear to be entirely out of left field.

Lastly, before beginning, I like the idea of that another poster forwarded that Traits should generally work out something like: two Offense-focused trees, two Defense-focused trees, and then the fifth tree being focused on the class’s unique ability (in our case, Adrenaline and Burst skills.) With that in mind, if it’s not already obvious, Strength and Arms are our Offense trees, Defense and Tactics are our… Defense trees, and Discipline is obviously our Profession tree.

Anyway, I’ll list my ideas and then provide a little bit of justification of why I feel the change I’m suggesting would improve the game. Hopefully we’ll be able to develop some good discussion using these ideas as a starting point, even if we end up talking about ideas that are completely contrary to mine

Strength

Powerful Banners (Adept VI) - Damage increased by 20% (from 365 to 438); Banners now deal damage when summoned as well as when using the Plant Standard skill (this is the #5 skill while carrying any Banner.) Combined with Plant Standard being a Blast finisher, this should make this Trait a little bit more useful, especially for a Banner-focused Warrior that wants to add some damage to his kit, rather than defense.

Otherwise, Strength is a pretty good tree; I feel like Berserker’s Might is actually an excellent Trait that’s overshadowed by Signet of Rage’s passive Adrenaline generation. The most likely solution would be to nerf Signet of Rage’s passive Adrenaline generation, but this would also probably require Rampage to be substantially improved, since there are few if any situations in which a damage-focused Warrior would want to take Rampage over Signet of Rage; this is a subject for a different thread, however, since it extends beyond Traits.

I will say one thing that will make Rampage immeasurably better: since the whole concept is to turn me into the Thing for 20 seconds, can we make it automatically make me shout It’s clobberin’ time! when I activate it?

Arms

Furious Speed (Adept II) - Now grants 3 seconds of Swiftness on a 3 second internal cooldown; as long as your crit chance is decent and you’re hitting something, you’ll still be able to have effectively permanent Swiftness, but it won’t last you very long once you stop hitting things.

Unsuspecting Foe (Adept IV) - Reduced to 20% bonus to crit chance against stunned enemies. For an Adept tier Trait, 50% was far too good, making it much too easy for Warriors to skimp on Precision and still maintain very high critical hit rates. (This was an idea another poster had, but I can’t remember who mentioned it )

Last Chance (Grandmaster XII) - Grants 4 seconds of Quickness on a 25 second internal cooldown, effectively doubling the Trait’s maximum potential uptime to 16%, up from roughly 8%. Quickness is very, very good, but given that it already requires a foe that’s nearly dead to begin with, a 45 second internal cooldown is a little extreme.

As with Berserker’s Might, I feel Furious is a great Trait that will become more valued if Signet of Rage’s passive Adrenaline gain is reduced. As it is currently, it’s actually pretty hard to recommend putting more than 25 points into Arms unless you really want that extra 50 Precision and Malice.

Defense

Dogged March (Adept II) - Now reduces the first Immobilize or Chill effect by 33% and grants 3 seconds of regeneration, on an 8 second internal cooldown. Dogged March does not affect Crippled at all anymore, and no longer provides any passive benefits; it will proc the Regeneration and reduce the duration of the first Immobilize or Chilled effect you’re struck with, and then do nothing until the internal cooldown passes. As mentioned, I feel there’s far too much passive condition reduction or removal in the game (this isn’t just in the Warrior trees, it’s everywhere), and especially for an Adept tier Trait, Dogged March is far too good.

Adrenal Health (Master, minor) - Swapped with Armored Attack (Grandmaster, minor.) The healing gained from Adrenal Health is very good, especially when combined with Adrenaline boosters (such as Signet of Rage or Grandmaster tier Traits like Furious and Berserker’s Might.) Because of that, it should be reserved for people willing to sacrifice damage in order to become harder to kill; the amount healed could be increased to compensate.

Spiked Armor (Grandmaster XII) - Adjusted to 7 seconds, every 15 seconds. I kind of feel like this should be a Master tier Trait and not a Grandmaster tier, but I’m not really sure what to swap it with; maybe Cleansing Ire, but I feel like Cleansing Ire is fine where it’s at if Dogged March gets nerfed. I have a hard time seeing people choosing Spiked Armor over Defy Pain.

The main issues with Defense are primarily that two of its best Traits, Dogged March and Cleansing Ire (along with the minor, Adrenal Health) are all somewhat easily accessible for people not wanting to commit to a defensively-oriented build. I’d kind of like Dogged March (in its current iteration) and Cleansing Ire to become mutually exclusive, both being Master tier Traits, but Last Stand is far too good to be an Adept tier Trait and there aren’t other alternatives (Spiked Armor would also probably be far too strong as an Adept Trait.)

Tactics

Lung Capacity (Adept II) - Now also increases area of effect of Shouts by 50%, essentially being the Shout-focused clone of Inspiring Banners. Always thought it was odd that Banners get boosted to 900 AOE but Shouts remain stuck at 600, even after taking the Trait.

Desperate Power (Adept III) - Boosts damage by 10% whenever you’re below 50% health. Essentially the same Trait, just you’re more likely to actually get to use it without being dead three seconds later.

Quick Breathing (Master IX) - Only Call to Arms converts a condition to a boon. Charge already clears Chilled, Immobilize, and Crippled, and it also has twice the AOE of Call to Arms and a much shorter cooldown (not to mention it providing permanent Swiftness by time you can take Quick Breathing.) By shifting the condition converting to be only on Call to Arms, we’re avoiding power creep while also adding some decision-making to playing a Warhorn spec: do you want to use Call to Arms to clear a condition, save it for use as a Blast finisher, or do you really need to get Weakness on an enemy/Vigor on a buddy?

Reviver’s Might (Grandmaster, minor) - Grants the ally you revived 3 stacks of Might for 12 seconds; no longer grants Might to you or nearby allies. Essentially rather than potentially giving two or three people one stack of Might, you’re slapping the guy you just rescued on the kitten and telling him to go rip someone in half. Supports the, uh, support-y nature of a Grandmaster Tactics Warrior more than the current iteration.

I kind of like where Tactics is at for the most part, with a Shouts-focused Warrior being kind of a healer-type, while a Banner-focused Warrior is more concerned with buffing teammates than with healing them (since the regeneration provided by banners is fairly mild compared to the burst healing of Shouts.)

Discipline

Signet Mastery (Adept VI) - Swapped with Sweet Revenge (Master VII.) Signet Mastery is much too strong for an Adept tier Trait, especially when used with Dolyak Signet or Signet of Rage; if Signet of Rage’s passive Adrenaline gain gets reduced, Signet of Fury could also see a comeback (essentially being a free 3 bars of Adrenaline on demand.)

That’s the only complaint I have with this tree. Otherwise, I like it quite a bit and feel it fits the “utility” slot quite well. I do have a mild concern with Inspiring Shouts being here (I’d rather see it rolled into an existing Shout Trait somewhere, if possible), but then again, maybe it’s good to make Shout-focused Warriors pick and choose what they’d like.

So nerf all are tree’s wow your brilliant, you seem to try to be balancing warriors as if they could be 30/ in all trees at the same time, do you even play a warrior?

deathklock.4961:

So nerf all are tree’s wow your brilliant, you seem to try to be balancing warriors as if they could be 30/ in all trees at the same time, do you even play a warrior?

Does he even play gw2 is the real question

….

PizzaSHARK.2741:

I feel like Berserker’s Might is actually an excellent Trait that’s overshadowed by Signet of Rage’s passive Adrenaline generation. The most likely solution would be to nerf Signet of Rage’s passive Adrenaline generation, […]

What? Berserker’s might = 2 adrenaline / 3 sec. Rage = 1 adrenaline / 3 sec.
I stopped reading past here. If you really played a warrior this would be a HUGE GLARING fact check failure. As we all know, if you don’t check your facts suddenly you fail at the most basic reasoning (there’s a satire out there of people who don’t know their facts saying they hate Obamacare but are all for the affordable healthcare act. Same thing. I’ll link if I have the time and find it again. Proves this point well.)

Please make sure you check your facts and actually play it some. There’s a lot more passive and your type “problems” in other classes much more so than warriors, i.e. maintaining very powerful boons just from doing a mindless spammed action (mesmer vigor on crit, ranger prot on dodge) or very passive gameplay that’s near mindless (heavy stealth/dodge thief which throw off condis like crazy)

Ottohi.2871:

What? Berserker’s might = 2 adrenaline / 3 sec. Rage = 1 adrenaline / 3 sec.
I stopped reading past here. If you really played a warrior this would be a HUGE GLARING fact check failure. As we all know, if you don’t check your facts suddenly you fail at the most basic reasoning (there’s a satire out there of people who don’t know their facts saying they hate Obamacare but are all for the affordable healthcare act. Same thing. I’ll link if I have the time and find it again. Proves this point well.)

Please make sure you check your facts and actually play it some. There’s a lot more passive and your type “problems” in other classes much more so than warriors, i.e. maintaining very powerful boons just from doing a mindless spammed action (mesmer vigor on crit, ranger prot on dodge) or very passive gameplay that’s near mindless (heavy stealth/dodge thief which throw off condis like crazy)

Warrior is literally the only class I’ve played.

I’m not saying that Signet of Rage’s passive is stronger than Berserker’s Might, but the fact that it exists at all makes other Adrenaline boosters such as Berserker’s Might (as well as Healing Surge, Furious, and maybe Signet of Fury’s active) less attractive by comparison.

But then again, maybe Signet of Rage would be fine if there was actually a choice between it and Rampage; as it is, Rampage is pretty bad, so there’s no real choice if you’re anything but a Banners Warrior.

But that’s not really something that’s about Traits, more about skills, so it’s not something I want to get into in this thread; you’re welcome to make another thread suggesting possible ways of improving Rampage if you’d like.

PizzaSHARK.2741:

I’m not saying that Signet of Rage’s passive is stronger than Berserker’s Might, but the fact that it exists at all makes other Adrenaline boosters such as Berserker’s Might (as well as Healing Surge, Furious, and maybe Signet of Fury’s active) less attractive by comparison.

You do realize that 1 adrenaline per 3 seconds is pathetic, since you get 1 strike for 1 attack anyway and all autoattacks give you more than 1 attack every 3 seconds? For example, the Axe autoattack chain has 6 hits and takes 3.6 seconds, so that’s already 5 times better than the passive of Signet of Rage.

And of course, you’re only going to get the passive effect when the signet is not on cooldown, which should be always, because the active effect is far superior to the passive.

And the other effects? Well, Sharpened Axes with 50% crit chance means the axe autoattack chain gives you 9 strikes of adrenaline in 3.6 seconds, which is a whopping 7.5 times better than Signet of Rage.

so you’re basically asking to nerf the class into the ground because ?
Because why not.
Seriously – what are we even doing here?

warriors need a buff

Sabastian.7126:

warriors need a buff

+1

I’d like to see a few big changes. Double the adrenaline bar to 6 bars which are smaller. Keep burst skills at 3 per use. Give us some F2 F3 abilities like kick and stomp which use one bar of adrenaline. I don’t think things like that should be skills as such, there physical. They should cost adrenaline to use.

I’d love to see offhand F abilities, but I think that’s never going to happen. I would also like to see cleansing ire changed to reduce condition duration per bar of adrenaline. So if it was 6, each bar would give 2.5% reduction.

Adrenaline should be integral to warrior, but it’s just not. It’s bolted into the side.

The defense tree is fine where it’s at; it isn’t a game changer for glass cannon specs at all. The tactics tree minor traits (determined revival, fast healer) are arguably the worst circumstantial traits in the game and you think they’re fine…

This changes would make the warrior even worse than before they were buffed. lol

KarlusDavius.1024:

I’d like to see a few big changes. Double the adrenaline bar to 6 bars which are smaller. Keep burst skills at 3 per use. Give us some F2 F3 abilities like kick and stomp which use one bar of adrenaline. I don’t think things like that should be skills as such, there physical. They should cost adrenaline to use.

I’d love to see offhand F abilities, but I think that’s never going to happen. I would also like to see cleansing ire changed to reduce condition duration per bar of adrenaline. So if it was 6, each bar would give 2.5% reduction.

Adrenaline should be integral to warrior, but it’s just not. It’s bolted into the side.

That’s an interesting idea, but it might cause some balancing headaches. You’d probably have to remove the stun break/stability from Stomp.

Pizza just stop, you dont play a warrior, how do i know this? Because what warrior in there right mind would want to have the changes you suggested go thru, unless playing a totaly broken class is your goal.

deathklock.4961:

Pizza just stop, you dont play a warrior, how do i know this? Because what warrior in there right mind would want to have the changes you suggested go thru, unless playing a totaly broken class is your goal.

Please stop posting in this thread if you have nothing constructive to say.

PizzaSHARK.2741:

deathklock.4961:

Pizza just stop, you dont play a warrior, how do i know this? Because what warrior in there right mind would want to have the changes you suggested go thru, unless playing a totaly broken class is your goal.

Please stop posting in this thread if you have nothing constructive to say.

He can post where he wants to post. Your suggestions are ludicrous and he has every right to say so.

So… nerf Furious Speed, Unsuspecting Foe, Dogged March, Adrenal Health, Quick Breathing, Signet Mastery, all because “i want to!”, and in return we got 1 sec retal, +50% shout radius and (this is clearly a winner) 2 more stacks of might on revive . Lol, just lol.

Ashanor.5319:

He can post where he wants to post. Your suggestions are ludicrous and he has every right to say so.

Except that he’s not suggesting anything; he’s just spewing bile without actually providing any actual rebuttal or constructive suggestions.

The entire purpose of this was to provide a starting place; I’m not suggesting I know the perfect solutions, but just wanted to start dialogue that could result in positive, useful, constructive discussion that the developers could benefit from.

PizzaSHARK.2741:

Ashanor.5319:

He can post where he wants to post. Your suggestions are ludicrous and he has every right to say so.

Except that he’s not suggesting anything; he’s just spewing bile without actually providing any actual rebuttal or constructive suggestions.

The entire purpose of this was to provide a starting place; I’m not suggesting I know the perfect solutions, but just wanted to start dialogue that could result in positive, useful, constructive discussion that the developers could benefit from.

If you actually played a warrior, you would know why your suggestions would destroy this class, luckily your opinion’s carry 0 weight. And no the devs are not gonna come here and take any of your ludicrous ideas to heart, warriors are fine.