Guild Wars 2

As you all may know, Warriors are at the bottom of the food chain in terms of viability in tPvP. So I have suggested a few changes in order to clean up some of the traits, make room for a larger variety of builds and for new traits that could come in and help give the class a little boost. Feel free to praise, comment, flame, agree, disagree and everything in between. While to other classes these changes seem OP, I am also in accordance with modifying and merging traits for all the other classes, including Mesmers.

Strength

Reckless Dodge: Gain 2 stacks of might at the end of a dodge roll (6 seconds)

Stick and Move: Gain a 5% damage bonus when endurance is not full

Restorative Strength: Using a heal skill removes crippled, chilled, immobilize, weakness and blind

Short Temper: Gain 3 stacks of might for 5 seconds and 3 strikes of adrenaline each time you are blocked

Dual Wielding: Damage is increased by 10% when wielding an axe, mace or sword in your offhand

Distracting Strikes: Apply 4 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds when you burst a foe. (10 second cooldown)

Arms

Furious Speed: Grant 6 seconds of vigor and swiftness on critical hits. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds

Rending Strikes: 66% chance to cause vulnerability on critical hits

Furious Reaction: Gain fury, vigor and might (8 seconds) when you take damage greater than 10% of your maximum health. This effect can only trigger once every 20 seconds.

Blademaster: Increase your critical hit chance with a sword by 10%. Sword skills recharge 20% faster.

Opportunist: Gain 3 stacks of might and fury for 10 seconds when you immobilize a target. This effect can only occur once every 10 seconds

Defense

Thick Skin: Reduce damage taken by 10% when under 40% health

Adrenal Health: Regenerate health per strike of adrenaline gained (50 health, scales 3% of your healing power)

Armored Attack: 10% of toughness is given as a bonus to power

Combine Shield Master and Missile Deflection (Adept)

Dogged March: Incoming immobilize, chill, cripple and blind durations are reduced by 33%. Gain 3 seconds of regeneration when you are inflicted with one of these conditions (10 second cooldown)

Sure-footed: Reduce cooldown on stances by 20%

Vigorous Return: I am not entirely sure how to change or improve this

Combine Cull the weak with sundering Mace by making it 15% damage increase when a foe is weakened (Master)

Last Stand: Activates Balanced Stance when you are dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back or stunned. This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds.

Cleansing Ire: Gain adrenaline when hit. Remove a condition for every bar of adrenaline gained.

Spiked Armor: Gain 5 seconds of retaliation and 3 seconds of protection when struck by a critical hit. Cannot trigger more than once every 15 seconds

Defy Pain: Activates Endure pain at 35% Health. This effect can only trigger once every 60 seconds.

Tactics

Determined Revival: Change to:

Desperate Blocking: Grant aegis to you and your allies when you reach 50% health (25 second cooldown)

Fast Healer: Gain 6 seconds of regeneration when reviving an ally (20 second cooldown). Increase revive speed by 20%.

Reviver’s Might: Change to:

Precise Healing: 10% of your precision is converted into healing power

Leg Specialist: Apply a 2 second immobilize whenever you cripple a target with a skill (6 second cooldown)

Stronger Bowstrings: Increase longbow range and damage by 10%

Shrug it Off: Remove blind and an additional condition when blinded. This can only trigger once every 30 seconds. Also breaks stuns.

Burning Arrows: 33% chance to apply a 1 second burn on critical hit. Longbow recharge reduced by 20%.

Inspiring Battle Standard combined with Inspiring Banners and Powerful banners (Grandmaster)

Vigorous Shouts combined with Lung Capacity.

Discipline

Versatile Power: Gain 2 stacks of might for 10 seconds on weapon swap

Mighty Defenses: Deal retaliation damage for the duration of the block

Thrill of the Kill: Change to:

Adrenaline Rush: Gain a bar of adrenaline per second for 2 seconds when you reach 25% health

Combine Warrior’s Sprint and Mobile Strikes (Adept)

Signet Mastery: Signets recharge 20% faster and remove 1 condition on use.

Heightened Focus merged with Berserker’s Power (Discipline, Grandmaster tree)

Burst Mastery: Burst skills deal 10% more damage, grant Aegis and cost less.

Berserker’s Focus: Gain 4%, 8%, 12% critical hit chance and damage corresponding to each stage of adrenaline.

These changes to the traits I have suggested addressed a few complaints that the Warrior community has been having. A main one has been blindness and condition remvoal and there are a few more accessible options for doing so.

Restorative Strength removing blinds is one option. Dogged March reduces its duration by 33%. Cleansing Ire now removes a condition per bar of adrenaline gained. A free Aegis when you hit 50% health. My new and improved Shrug it Off. Signets removing one condition and Burst Mastery granting Aegis before it lands.

Another major complaint is sustainability and I have suggested many ways that this could improve. Namely Adrenal Heal, pretty much you gain 50 health per strike of adrenaline you gain. This will synergize with traits such as Cleansing Ire, Berserker’s Might, and skills such as Healing Surge and Signet of Rage for decent healing outside of using shout heals. Also, I have suggested adding a 3 second protection to Spiked Armor, this gives you at least a 20% uptime on protection, two options that grant Aegis, Last Stand being on a 60 second cooldown, 10% reduced damage under 40% health. And overall merging and tweaking some traits that make achieving sustainability much easier. There are now more options for vigor as well, higher uptime, and 20% stance cooldowns.

Another complaint has been speccing into tanky and sustain specs not doing enough damage. So I have added more ways to stack might up really high and with the inherent boon duration in tactics. It makes it easier to retain these might stacks in order to deal damage. And there are also more options you can go as a shout build due to some of the trait merging and clean up. Armored attack also allows defensive builds to add some punch.

With these changes, it would also be viable to spec into a bit of healing power due to Adrenal Health changes, Healing Shouts and the Precise Healing trait.

I believe if these type of changes are implemented it could bring Warriors into viability in the tPvP scene.

Anet should read, discuss and improve. Current state of traits ins unsatisfying!

If your design of traits is being used by Anet, I would be so happy. Good ideas and insight in these trait designs.

killahmayne.9518:

1. Restorative Strength: Using a heal skill removes crippled, chilled, immobilize, weakness and blind
2. Dual Wielding: Damage is increased by 10% when wielding an axe, mace or sword in your offhand
3. Distracting Strikes: Apply 4 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds when you burst a foe. (10 second cooldown)
4. Blademaster: Increase your critical hit chance with a sword by 10%. Sword skills recharge 20% faster.
5. Adrenal Health: Regenerate health per strike of adrenaline gained (50 health, scales 3% of your healing power)
6. Armored Attack: 10% of toughness is given as a bonus to power
7. Dogged March: Incoming immobilize, chill, cripple and blind durations are reduced by 33%. Gain 3 seconds of regeneration when you are inflicted with one of these conditions (10 second cooldown)
8. Cleansing Ire: Gain adrenaline when hit. Remove a condition for every bar of adrenaline gained.
9. Spiked Armor: Gain 5 seconds of retaliation and 3 seconds of protection when struck by a critical hit. Cannot trigger more than once every 15 seconds
10. Leg Specialist: Apply a 2 second immobilize whenever you cripple a target with a skill (6 second cooldown)
11. Shrug it Off: Remove blind and an additional condition when blinded. This can only trigger once every 30 seconds. Also breaks stuns.
12. Signet Mastery: Signets recharge 20% faster and remove 1 condition on use.
13. Heightened Focus merged with Berserker’s Power (Discipline, Grandmaster tree)

1. This would literally make Mending a useless skill. Not many people use it now because of the low amount of healing, but you’re still proposing a trait that specifically targets pretty much all the conditions that a Warrior is perceived weak to?
2. I think 10% is a bit too much, considering the abundance of other +damage% traits we got. Especially with your proposed +15% to Maces.
3. I don’t like this trait simply because the duration, plus placing in the traitline makes it so that it’s actually 8.8s confusion on a 10s cooldown. Permanent conditions from traits are a bad idea.
4. I think 20% on Savage Leap might make Warriors a bit too mobile. We’re talking a 900 range Leap on a 6.4s cooldown.
5. I don’t like the idea simply because I like Adrenal Health because it allows you to regain health without attacking.
6. 10% Toughness to Power for 25 points in a traitline that most people go 20 points into for Cleansing Ire? I think that’s a bit too powerful.
7. Again with the Blind durations. Give it a rest already. Not to mention that tying our weakness to Blind to specific traits (10 Strength, 20 Defense) would pigeonhole everyone into taking one or both of those traits.
8. I don’t like this idea simply because I prefer being in control of my condition removals. Not to mention the obvious issues such as utilities or traits that affect adrenaline gain and the baseline differences in adrenaline gain between certain weapons.
9. Why the Protection?
10. 2s immobolize on a 6s cooldown is way too powerful, considering that things like Hamstring and Throw Axe give very high uptime on Cripple already. They made the change to Leg Specialist for a reason.
11. AGAIN with the blind? Seriously? And why are you eliminating the connection the trait has with Shake it off? That’s not cool.
12. Not a fan of this idea simply because it makes Mending even more useless.
13. No, not a good idea. They made those traits Grandmaster in separate trees for a kitten good reason.

I will agree warriors get kitten on by everything in pvp but some of these traits are blatantly overpowered, especially the 10% of toughness is given as a bonus to power. Thick skin would also be in every warrior build unless it was moved to the end minor trait in Defense. Honestly I would like to see Defy Pain have some sort of damage reduction akin to your version of thick skin except instead of 40% have it be 50% and Spiked armor needs a 10 second cool down instead of 15.

Main problem with the warrior atm is its far to stat dependent and the traits are positioned so freakin horribly thakittens either go damage and die right away or live and deal no damage, thus prolonging the inevitable. Only build that is currently viable is a sword/mace condition warrior but necros and mesmers will stomp you to kitten still.

To maintain balance you have to compromise and not go overboard. Anet tends to do that with kitten like the necro recently and the dervish in GW1.

Anet, your profanity filter needs work yo

Many of these ideas for pvp would break warriors even more for pve as well. Not that Anet seems to really care about pve, but consider that when trying t figure out new changes.

1. This would literally make Mending a useless skill. Not many people use it now because of the low amount of healing, but you’re still proposing a trait that specifically targets pretty much all the conditions that a Warrior is perceived weak to?
2. I think 10% is a bit too much, considering the abundance of other +damage% traits we got. Especially with your proposed +15% to Maces.
3. I don’t like this trait simply because the duration, plus placing in the traitline makes it so that it’s actually 8.8s confusion on a 10s cooldown. Permanent conditions from traits are a bad idea.
4. I think 20% on Savage Leap might make Warriors a bit too mobile. We’re talking a 900 range Leap on a 6.4s cooldown.
5. I don’t like the idea simply because I like Adrenal Health because it allows you to regain health without attacking.
6. 10% Toughness to Power for 25 points in a traitline that most people go 20 points into for Cleansing Ire? I think that’s a bit too powerful.
7. Again with the Blind durations. Give it a rest already. Not to mention that tying our weakness to Blind to specific traits (10 Strength, 20 Defense) would pigeonhole everyone into taking one or both of those traits.
8. I don’t like this idea simply because I prefer being in control of my condition removals. Not to mention the obvious issues such as utilities or traits that affect adrenaline gain and the baseline differences in adrenaline gain between certain weapons.
9. Why the Protection?
10. 2s immobolize on a 6s cooldown is way too powerful, considering that things like Hamstring and Throw Axe give very high uptime on Cripple already. They made the change to Leg Specialist for a reason.
11. AGAIN with the blind? Seriously? And why are you eliminating the connection the trait has with Shake it off? That’s not cool.
12. Not a fan of this idea simply because it makes Mending even more useless.
13. No, not a good idea. They made those traits Grandmaster in separate trees for a kitten good reason.

1: RP already removes immobilized, chilled, weakness and cripple. Why not one extra? It does not make mending useless for the fact that it does not get rid of damaging conditions such as bleeds, burns, confusions and poisons. That is not all conditions.

2: DW is an underutilized trait b/c many people do not use Mace, Axe and Sword offhands. People will use shield/warhorn most of the time. Doing this change may see more diversity.

3: The trait DS is already 4 stacks of confusion at 8 seconds, therefore making it 8.8 seconds like you said. And this is on interrupt. Meaning it has no CD and you could therefore stack this. If you have 30 disc you could use Skull Crack every 7 seconds, making it permanent. My change puts a limitation to that, while at the same time allowing a build that is not based on interrupts to use that trait.

4: Perhaps, this change was more to address the viability of using an OH sword. Just simply increase the cooldown of savage leap by 1 second, no harm done there.

5: If you have cleansing ire, BM, SoF, adrenaline on shouts, swap, it allows you to gain HP without attacking.

6: It really isnt. If you have 1,500 toughness that is an extra 75 power. Hardly game-breaking at all. Not everybody goes 20 into defense, and if they want to go 25 in defense this effects the allocation of their other traits changes drastically.

7: It is not pigeonholing anybody to take those traits. RP would only take away a blind every 25-30 seconds. Blind cooldowns on most skills from most classes are less than that. You can just take DM and be OK with the -33% duration which would help. You could also take my new suggested version of Shrug it Off by going 20 into tactics. And even remove a condition when you use a signet, thus creating more options.

8: Having this way of condition removal I believe is better b/c it allows for more reliable condition removal and sidesteps the issue on cleansing ire not removing blinds before burst is used. While there might be some issues, a few tweaks shouldn’t hurt.

9: Why not? We are a class with billions of melee options yet not as durable.

10: Hamstring and Throw Axe hardly give uptime on cripple, maybe against a stationary target. The Sword chain takes like 2 seconds to execute, and in s/tPvP, executing the full chain (w/o any stuns or KDs) isn’t going to happen very often. And throw axe really? This change allows warriors to stick to their targets slightly longer.

11: Whats wrong with implementing a suggestion whom even top warrior PvPers acknowledge there is a problem with?

12: I use Mending because having too much condition removal is never a BAD thing. Many warrior builds do not use signets outside from SoR, it just gives you an extra option. It would not make mending useless because many signets have high cooldowns and you forego the passive.

13: Just like I am sure there is a very good reason why Warriors have been voted at the bottom of the tPvP food chain and why ANet even knowing this after a year does not make some drastic changes.

And these changes would not be OP because I also have suggested that ANet do some similar changes to all professions in terms of cleaning up their traitlines.