Guild Wars 2

Going to attempt to keep this concise. We all know the underlying common issues with the Warrior right now, but I want to try a different approach. Without speaking about Fast Hands or Adrenaline on taking hits, the Warrior traits themselves can serve to be moved, altered, or changed completely to bring us back to viability, in PvP and even enhanced roles in the soon to be Raid Content. So here we go.
__________________________________________________________________
Strength

The Strength Specialization as a whole, fills many a former and current viable build for us. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t need work, so here are my suggestions and rationale.

• Peak Performance is not what it could be, a trait that makes Physical Skills really stand out. Increased damage is a lazy effect, and doesn’t help make skills like Kick useful in any viable builds despite how much theory-crafting we do. I propose the following… “Peak Performance gives the following effects to Physical Skills: Bull’s Charge grants 6 seconds of Swiftness to yourself, Kick Inflicts 1 stack of Confusion on hit, Stomp Inflicts 2 seconds of Slow on hit, Throw Bolas applies 6 seconds of Cripple on hit, and Rampage deals more damage based on how much Adrenaline you have. All Physical Skill Cooldowns are reduced”. Essentially, without going into specific detail Peak Performance should be a necessarily trait to pick up in any Warrior builds running more than 1 physical, as granting additional effects can open up the possibility of branching viable builds using things like Interrupt Condition Warrior with Kick and Throw Bolas for layers, or Bull’s Charge to keep up movement during a fight. We need tools, we need them now.

• Great Fortitude is in a bad spot. If the intent was to provide a bruiser power build without a great-sword, you would still take Body Blow for the sheer Weakness application in the Strength Specialization, which is superior than converting 10% of Power into Vitality. However, it is hard for me to find a trait to flip this with on the Master Level that won’t completely mess up something we have going. The closest thing was Destruction of the Empowered, but then I heard the million cries of SPvP GS Warriors freak out at me and decided against it. So we need to change it completely, make it something competitive with Body Blow and Forceful Greatsword. I doubt any GS warriors will ever take something other than Forceful, so we are really competing with Body Blow, and here’s my response. “Great Fortitude grants increased Toughness based the current stages of Adrenaline the Warrior has built up. (Stage 0 – 0/Stage 1 – 200/Stage 2 – 400/Stage 3 – 600)” A passive effect the Warrior controls on himself, rather than the active defense through weakness by Body Blow. 600 Toughness is no joke, but maintaining it means the Warrior doesn’t use his level 3 Burst, which actually might help in cases where he is taking heat while waiting for an opening.

• Axe Mastery has a problem. It’s biggest potential for a nice double-axe set-up providing 20% crit damage, is flawed by the presence of Berserker’s Power. Maintaining the overall 20% damage increase is significantly easier in PvE than a PvP environment, the problem with Axe Mastery though, isn’t the trait. The weapon is an issue, more specifically the Axe 5. I am not sure if you are aware, but Whirling Axe has a caveat in SPvP versus PvE/WvW, in that it does 50% MORE damage in the former than the latter. It was nerfed a while back in the PvE/WvW environment due to having too much cleave. THAT, needs to be reverted. Whirling Axe is how you make Axe Mastery WORK, because it can’t compare with Berserker’s Power when the double-axe setup isn’t optimal. Furthermore, if coupled with my changed Great Fortitude, not using the Axe Burst grants a double-axe Warrior a nice Toughness Boost to make him a harder threat to burst down like he’s full Berserker.
  __________________________________________________________________

Strength needs to be a bit more cohesive, it is probably the only decent line without too many practical issues, my suggestions for improving it other than Peak Performance revamp, are probably optional. I would really appreciate seeing our Physical Skills do more when traited other than a straight damage increase, which only really impacted Rampage and look how well that shook things up for? It did a decent job!

I have the rest of my thoughts on other Traitlines that I will be pushing out for the next few days, Arms and Tactics are going to be really rough to work with…telling you right now. Let me know what you think about my Strength Propositions.

bro pls dont try anything….watever u do its pointless berserkers suck in pvp … in pve they are gimmick class so pls just accept it (even devs dont do anything)its pointless

I refuse to give up on this profession.

Arms

This is going to be gruesome. I don’t think I can keep this to a single post about this Specialization, it is worse imho than the Tactics line. Here goes.

• Major Adept as a whole. Signet Mastery is so far beyond the other two traits, actually I got a question for you. Without going into your game or the wiki, think of what the other two traits are called and what they do. …You probably got Berserker’s Fury right, but Opportunist you might have thought was in something like Tactics right? Sorry, little bit of mind-games, but anyways my point is that the other two traits are complete hogwash at this point. It is fine to have a trait dedicated to Signets, but you need something that can be used by other builds involved in this line, which seems to cater to things like conditions or dual-wielding or even critical chance. Opportunist…essentially will give you perma-fury every 10 seconds if you immobilize someone. If you want it to compete, you need to make it better.

“Opportunist grants 10 seconds of Fury if you apply a cripple, chill or immobilize to a target. ICD 10 Seconds.” That is profoundly better, self-fury uptime while you keep up cripples and immobilizes, and even chills if you inflict it somehow!

“Berserker’s Fury grants Adrenaline while in combat. While Dual-Wielding an off-hand mace, axe or sword, gain reduced damaging-condition duration on you based on your Adrenaline level. (Stage 0 – 0%/Stage 1 – 11%/Stage 2 – 22%/Stage 3 – 33%)” Off-hand builds need something specifically defensive in the Arms Tree. Notice the ‘damaging’ tag there, meaning this won’t stack with Dogged March, it will only cover the other conditions with specific weapon-setups. Bluntly, Arms will have your dual-wielding requirements filled now, or at least my attempt to make them a thing is here.

• Unsuspecting Foe. This one is…in a weird spot. IF it weren’t for the fact Blademaster was in the same line, flipping Unsuspecting Foe and Sundering Mace would be really nice. Darn. Anyways, this is tough to consider. The effect is strong, but this trait can’t be used where it is. Actually between the other two traits, conditions and dual-wielding are more or less A-OK. I propose…this.

“Unsuspecting Foe will cripple (4 Seconds) a target critically hit by your Burst Skill. (ICD: 20 seconds)” Mull over that one, think of the synergy from this line and other lines. It seems a bit weak but its not if you are thinking along the same vein I am. Also the numbers can be tweaked, a 20 second ICD might be a bit high, also assume it only hits one target, might be broken if it could do up to 5.
____________________________________________________________________

Some things. Yes, I considered the ideal behind putting either of the Ranged Weapon traits in this line, but if I start going down that path, I will end up needing to get a whiteboard and some colored markers and start really bringing up the traits from scratch. It’s possible that moving traits around might be the real solution, but I rather just look at each line objectively, find out why it needs to fill its job right, and put some synergy between that line, other lines, other utilities, and improving current builds and opening up new ones. I could have gone really far and made Off-hands broken but I would rather not.

I’ll probably end up looking back at what I posted here tomorrow and revising, this took me longer than expected to comb through, not to mention a headache.

One thing I would like to Mention. Your proposed changes to Berserkers Fury and Great Fortitude. I could go find the link and w/e but im lazy but basically its related to the whole adrelinie bar thing and Berserkers Power.

Basically when they massively changed everything the devs came out with the changes to traits with bonuses reliant on KEEPING FULL ADRENALINE.. Becasue why would have a trait that relies on NOT using the Class mechanic. Same reason for that phantasm change on mesmers. Promotion of using the Specific Class Skills.

Therefore, As much i recognize and support your movement i dont believe that changes that go completely against what the devs just changed a few months ago will ever really gain traction.

And just to help you out. I may mention that all the traits to deal wiht Burst Skills are minor GM or GM while other classes get Bonuses to thier F -series skills in Minor and MAster tiers as well. IE, Mug or Blinding dissapation

A different approach to Great fortitude perhaps, would be to work like Berserkers Power and Grant Extra Vitality after a burst skill for an X amount of time based on what Tier Burst was used

Ok lets see….
As a PvE Warrior…
What must be for me to play Axe/Axe .

Strength

• A usefull Strength Adept Trait
• Axe Mastery
• Berserker Power

Arms

• Signet Mastery
• A usefull Arms Master Trait
• Dualwield (let it stack with berserker 10% attackspeed)

Disciplin ( we can change it for berserker)

• Warrior Sprint
• A usefull Master Trait (pve)
• Burst Mastery

Offhand Axe

• Axe 4+5 more dmg
• Axe 4 also gives Might
• Axe 5 projektil destruction + Vulnerability

then i would think about it xD

Sorry about that, I got delayed due to other personal issues.

@Belarorn: You might be right. However, if that were the case, the appropriate measure would be to rework Adrenaline as a whole, which is as far as I assume to be, too embedded into the code of the game to work around. Can you imagine the balance changes if they decided to increase or decrease the number of ticks, or had Adrenaline operate off some other mechanic? It would be catastrophic.

@Danalcedo: I believe I made my point about off-hand axe viability, I believe if it were a viable build in say, WvW, we would see more play of it. The thing is, Warrior has far more access to weapons than any other profession which could be our advantage if certain weapons weren’t so completely useless. It would be A-OK if off-hand axe 5 for instance absolutely shreked zergs, given its natural disadvantages. As long as a weapon has a purpose, it will be used.

Defense

• Cull the Weak. So, between Shield Mastery or Dogged March, this trait has no chance. Give it one. “Increases damage to weakened foes (5% to 10%). Striking a foe below the health threshold that doesn’t have weakness, inflicts weakness (25% health to 50% health).

You can argue that the Defense Trait line should be about active or passive defense, but ultimately if you want this line to be taken you need some offense options that revolve around defensive measures. Weakness is a commonly used condition that does nothing to normal monsters that do a flat amount of damage without critting. Instead, make Weakness a means for Warrior to do more damage with a target under its effects. It’s also not likely to see a Warrior run this unless they can apply weakness (under a few certain weapons) but it gives them the option over Dogged March.

• Armored Attack. Thinking about it, why would you take this trait? Would it be an appropriate substitute for Defy Pain? Not in SPvP, but what about PvE? Grants power or in essence physical damage for how much toughness you have. Interestingly enough, I can’t validate this trait over Defy Pain, even in a Solo or some weird build you run with friends. It needs more, essentially. “Gain Power based on your Armor” Slight change in phrasing, but essentially is a flat buff since the Heavy Armor ‘defense’ is added to append to more Power given from the trait.

To be fair though, I think I can come up with a more clever mechanic about Armored Attack, but this was a bit delayed and Defense as a whole (without even touching CI’s Adrenaline on hit) is fairly OK.

Tactics will be the next sweep. Stay tuned!