It seems that a lot of people can agree on that the current warrior elite specc doesn’t really shine in any department. Now I am absolutely not an expert on anything game-design or balance related, but here are some ideas that Anet can do with as they see fit : use some of it, use none of it, ignore it, censor it or permaban my account for the staggering amount of stupidity, just whatever
Part of the ‘Berserker problem’ might be that it tries to cover too many aspects in a single trait line : on the one hand it enables warriors to equip torches and do lots of things with burning – while on the other hand there are some traits that seem to almost desperately try to justify the name Berserker.
It might be a better idea to rename the elite specc Pillager (or raider) and just focus mostly on the torch, and setting things on fire.
Besides the name there shouldn’t be too many things changed, partly because it probably require too much resources but also because it’s already out there.
Limit the changes to adjusting the traits to be more about the burning condition, spreading burning stacks, perhaps some benefits from setting things on fire like a little health return for burning damage done ?
If possible (but I think this would be to large a change to succesfully implement) have the Primal Burst skills replace the standard Burst skills entirely, meaning you’d only have one adrenaline bar, and remove the Berserker stance. This would require some rebalancing of the Primal Bursts and thought about how it would interact with traits that do different things depending on the number of adrenaline bars.
However, I think this would make the Pillager (now Berserker) really feel different than a standard warrior : the burst skill becomes less damaging and impactfull, but with a lower CD and only one bar to fill can still be just as potent, as you can use multiple primal bursts in the same time you can normally use one 3 bar burst skill.
Now onto the Berserker. The name alone is super hype merely because of the name it feels almost mandatory to get the elite specc, no matter what it does. But it might be better to have a elite specc fully dedicated to it, rather than having it share the same narrow traitline with running around like a pyromaniac.
Now here’s my most crazy idea for it : have the Berserker elite specc have no immobile downed state, but more something between having used Vengeance and being downed : the Berserker can still walk around, but slower and has only 1 or 2 slow, long CD melee attacks but with some decent (or maybe even large amount of) damage. This should not be sustainable of course, so limit the time the Berserker can stay in this ‘downed state’ by doing damage to enemies : if the Berserker is getting kited, he should be going down fairly quick.
The other two alternative abilities could be some very minor CC (like a short slow) and maybe something that does a little heal burst, but not keep the Berserker on its feet, as he should focus on hitting enemies to do that.
Besides that, maybe a adrenaline mechanic where the Berserker constantly generates adrenaline at a quite decent rate (he’s very angry all the time ofcourse) but has a penalty for remaining at a full 3 bars for too long.
As for the new weapon it would allow warriors to equip : a Greataxe would ofcourse be perfect, but untill that time a Staff could also work with the theme.
Now here two elite specc ideas that could fit with the Warrior for maybe some points in the far, distant future :
Dualist
- New weapon : offhand pistol
- Trait gimmick : benefits for succesfully blocking (maybe also dodging) attacks, utility skills that are great for sticking to one target but bad for running away, great single target, bad (like almost none) AoE damage (that might require different burst skills)
Brawler
-New weapon : daggers
- Trait gimmick : focus on keeping a target down and disabled, not crazy damage but annoying to get away from and fight against. New trick utility skills … dirty tricks ofcourse. A disarm skill would be cool, could perhaps work like being transformed into a Moa (enemy gains acces to inferior unarmed skills instead of weapon skills)
So now that I got this off my chest, I’ll go back to enjoying the rest of the HoT expansion. So far, besides very few minor annoyances (small bugs and such) I’m having a great time enjoying all the content !
Keep up the great work Anet !