tldr: I think that the Defense Line has many issues, so would like to suggest the following changes (new trait organization, one trait removal, one new trait):
- Baseline: gain adrenaline on hit,
- Master: Balanced Stance, Sundering Mace, Insensible,
- Minor: Armored Attack,
- Grand Master: Defy Pain, Rousing Resilience, Cleansing Ire.
Explanations follow.
I would like to suggest a possible change of the Defense Line, in its Master and Grandmaster traits, to address what I perceive as design issues, even if we get a new version tomorrow. My suggestions include nerfs and buffs (I’ve tried to keep things balanced).
The target settings, as currently envisioned by ArenaNet, are as follows:
- Master: Defy Pain, Armored Attack, Sundering Mace,
- Minor: Spiked Armor,
- Grandmaster: Last Stand, Cleansing Ire, Rousing Resilience.
The issues I see are multiple:
- The warrior gets an easy access to retaliation,
- Cleansing Ire, being a Blackhole trait (a nice expression by Juba, IIRC), will automatically shadow Last Stand and Rousing Resilience,
- The natural synergy between Last Stand and Rousing Resilience cannot be leveraged anymore, since both traits belong to the same tier.
Let’s start with retaliation. As much as I’d love to consistently have retaliation, I don’t think it makes sense on the warrior class. A warrior has, by design, no (or little) access to certain boons: protection, aegis, regeneration, retaliation. There’s a very good reason for that: the class has no stealth, no teleport, poor ranged options, i.e. it’s meant to be kitable and hit. It has been compensated greatly for these penalties, with good base stats (armor and health), good mobility, blocks and CC skills. Thus, it does not need further compensation (or more precisely, compensation of a new nature). So my first proposal is to remove the minor trait Spiked Armor altogether (a big nerf).
Let us move on to Cleansing Ire. Initially, the trait was introduced as a quick and dirty way to patch the lack of condition removal for the class. What makes it Black Hole it that it not only removes conditions but also helps building adrenaline – in other words, it breaks orthogonality. I therefore have two suggestions in that regard:
- Make the adrenaline component baseline. This suggestion has been made countless times already. This would be a buff to the class, but not that much, because of a simple fact: getting hit is bad (especially when you don’t have retaliation). This is obviously true in PvE, where some mobs can significantly reduce your health (and sometimes one-shot you). And it’s true in PvP, where hits are likely to apply both physical and condition damage, as well as control effects.
- Nerf the synergy between Cleansing Ire and the Longbow. All burst skills should hit successfully in order to trigger Cleansing Ire – the Long Bow exception is obviously a technical one, not a business one. Use the first pulse of the bow AoE as a rule to decide whether to trigger Cleansing Ire or not.
Next, restore the synergy between stances-based traits. Rousing Resilience and Last Stand should be on different tiers, the same as Last Stand and Defy Pain. There’s no reason to disallow the obvious synergy with Last Stand. Now, rearranging traits is not easy, because one should preserve sensible build options. My suggestion is as follows:
- Baseline: gain adrenaline on hit,
- Master: Last Stand, Sundering Mace, Insensible,
- Minor: Armored Attack (back where it is),
- Grand Master: Defy Pain, Rousing Resilience, Cleansing Ire.
What is Insensible? It’s a new Master trait – since Spiked Armor has been removed, one needs a new trait. Insensible would work as follows: “Gain Resistance (4s) each time you receive Bleed, Burning, Torment,(CD=15s)”. The warrior, by design, will be hit more than any other classes – so will receive more conditions (given the buff condition application will receive). So let’s give him a way to manage these, consistent with its nature: Resistance. It’d be less potent that it seems, because as a boon, Resistance can be removed or corrupted. Also, only damaging conditions trigger the trait – no soft cc conditions, no poison (a natural warrior counterplay), no confusion (anyone should be punished for using skills under confusion).
In terms of build diversity:
- Last Stand + Defy Pain, Last Stand + Rousing Resilience => stances build, physical defense,
- Last Stand + Cleansing Ire => stances builds, condition defense,
- Insensible + Cleansing Ire => Heavy condition defense,
- Insensible + Defy Pain, Insensible + Rousing Resilience => physical and condition defense,
- Sundering Mace + Cleansing Ire => Mace builds (weapon-optimized and burst-optimized) + condition defense,
- Sundering Mace + Defy Pain, Sundering Mace + Rousing Resilience => Mace builds (weapon-optimized), physical defense.
What do you think?