Guild Wars 2

((The Mad Tinkerer will be a weekly column that is posted every Tuesday. We feel it is a unique take on the world of Theory-crafting in Tyria. Our goal is to have fun while looking at ways to build and create new builds, talents, traits, and trees. We hope that you enjoy this and learn what you can))

http://sittingonacouch.com/mad-tinkerer-tinkering-warrior/

This month the Mad Tinkerer is working on ways to improve the Warrior so he isn’t nerfed into the ground. This week was healing, next week will be weapons, and finally traits and abilities.

I like the suggestions minus Healing Surge.

Frenzy effect (25% more damage taken, without quickness?) means you’re going to need to predict healing to an extent. If you’re super low and use it you’ve got to kite for 5 seconds and hopefully you don’t have any condi’s otherwise you melt.

If you use it at mid-range HP you’re going to have a 5 second timeframe in which an enemy player can pop his/her CDs and do a crazy amount of damage (does the debuff apply to full duration of condis applied while debuff is up or only apply while the debuff exists) and possibly out damage the heal you’re getting so you’ve really gained nothing.

In summary: I feel like the 5 second debuff window is potentially giving up more than you’re gaining far as HP and Adrenaline.

My suggestion for Healing Surge -

Healing Surge (1 s cast, 25 second cool-down.)
Heal yourself. Remove 1 condition for each Bar of Adrenaline you have. If you have no conditions, additional healing is applied for each Bar.
Adrenaline: Each bar removes 1 condition and each bar unspent gives an additional 600 HP.
Healing: 8,000 (upwards of 9,800 HP or 8000 HP and 3 condi’s removed)

I realize this makes it a lot more like Mending but my thought is behind not having to have Cleansing Ire as a required trait.

I don’t like HS change, because HS is excellent WvW spike heal. And i don’t like idea to heal in middle of massive AoE spike and fall dead instantly just because someone want to make it better for sPvP.

Rednik.3809:

I don’t like HS change, because HS is excellent WvW spike heal. And i don’t like idea to heal in middle of massive AoE spike and fall dead instantly just because someone want to make it better for sPvP.

That’s a great counter point. I will make sure to bring it up to The Mad Tinkerer. Once we have finished with the sections, I will see if we can get him to do a point/counterpoint to the suggestions. I think it would be a fascinating column.

Please no more sugestions to give warriors healing skills that could kill them.
Unless… Every profession have the same drawbacks.

It hurts to read.

honovi.7893:

It hurts to read.

Could you explain a little more clearly?

Bas.7406:

honovi.7893:

It hurts to read.

Could you explain a little more clearly?

Light grey text on a white background strains my eyes. If the background stayed dark like the rest of the website then it would have been fine. Dark backgrounds and light text is pleasing to my eyes

DanielGames.5198:

Bas.7406:

honovi.7893:

It hurts to read.

Could you explain a little more clearly?

Light grey text on a white background strains my eyes. If the background stayed dark like the rest of the website then it would have been fine. Dark backgrounds and light text is pleasing to my eyes

Ah, now that makes sense. We are still working on the formatting for it. We felt the dark background and gray text made it to difficult to read. We changed it to the black on white to make it easier. We are trying to create a more parchment background. I am unsure as to why the text keeps coming out as grey we have tried to make it black.

First off TLDR. Secondly I saw Daecollo’s name as a contributor. He is known for wildly OP suggestions

Honestly, the style of writing there is atrocious. Are you sure the writer isn’t like… DID or something?

Also, as was pointed out, gray-on-white isn’t the most appealing of colour choices. Neither is full italics.

As for the actual suggestions:

1. I don’t like the idea with the Healing Signet, simply because while the healing might remain the same, having it tick so rarely makes trash. If you want to make it tick less often, make it something like 3s.
2. Having Healing Surge result in taking additional damage makes no sense. That goes against the whole point of it being a healing skill in the first place.
3. I don’t like the idea with Mending because it would result in having 2 out of 3 healing skills be over-time heals.

Olba.5376:

Honestly, the style of writing there is atrocious. Are you sure the writer isn’t like… DID or something?

Also, as was pointed out, gray-on-white isn’t the most appealing of colour choices. Neither is full italics.

As for the actual suggestions:

1. I don’t like the idea with the Healing Signet, simply because while the healing might remain the same, having it tick so rarely makes trash. If you want to make it tick less often, make it something like 3s.
2. Having Healing Surge result in taking additional damage makes no sense. That goes against the whole point of it being a healing skill in the first place.
3. I don’t like the idea with Mending because it would result in having 2 out of 3 healing skills be over-time heals.

I appreciate teh feedback. Getting the correct format is a lot tougher then I anticipated. The gray on black is too faint. White on black hurts the eyes and that white block quote with black or gray text is too jarring.

I have had to learn how to edit CSS in order to fine tune it.

Luckily CSS makes it easy to edit the entire sites scheme once you understand it.

AttackAttack.8917:

Luckily CSS makes it easy to edit the entire sites scheme once you understand it.

I had someone show me how to fix some stuff, it is edited and ready to go I may have to use a thicker font though.

Daecolla being a contributor makes the whole post pretty much redundant.

KarlusDavius.1024:

Daecolla being a contributor makes the whole post pretty much redundant.

Comments like this are incorrect. Daecollo while a bit rambunctious at times has talent as a writer, and while all his ideas are not good ideas he does have good ideas as well. To throw out all the food in your house because you found mold on one potato is ignorant.

Not a fan of the format. I had to select/highlight the text to read it
Not a fan of the ideas. I pretty much hate them all.
Not a fan of the writing style. He thinks that… He believes… He has seen…

Ultimately, due to the length, and the above 3 reasons… TL;DR.

Dand.8231:

Not a fan of the format. I had to select/highlight the text to read it
Not a fan of the ideas. I pretty much hate them all.
Not a fan of the writing style. He thinks that… He believes… He has seen…

Ultimately, due to the length, and the above 3 reasons… TL;DR.

Thank you for the comments. We finally fixed the formatting. If you read it earlier in the day we had some trouble with it, and it was finally resolved. The writing style is not for everyone. It is called The Mad Tinkerer, and our goal was to do the standard bit differently in a more fun/eccentric style. However we will have more standard columns in the future.

Bas.7406:

Comments like this are incorrect. Daecollo while a bit rambunctious at times has talent as a writer, and while all his ideas are not good ideas he does have good ideas as well. To throw out all the food in your house because you found mold on one potato is ignorant.

His ideas are so consistently outlandish, unreasonable, and completely without any mathematical basis whatsoever, that you’ve got your analogy backwards; it’d be like cutting open 100 potatos because one of them may be good.

And is that not the definition of insanity? Repeating the same actions, and expecting different results?

To put that into less subtle context: Reading Daecollos posts and expecting something rational and balanced, is a legitimate interpretation of the definition of insanity.

Edit: I’m not trying to bash daecollo or yourself, Bas, but there’s this thing I subscribe to called pattern recognition.

Dand.8231:

His ideas are so consistently outlandish, unreasonable, and completely without any mathematical basis whatsoever, that you’ve got your analogy backwards; it’d be like cutting open 100 potatos because one of them may be good.

Well, Daecollo has usually had some basis for the numbers when it came to healing skills.

And is that not the definition of insanity? Repeating the same actions, and expecting different results?

Only if it’s impossible for that action to get a different result. Surely I am not insane for rolling a die and expecting to get something other than a 1. Rolling the die expecting to get a 7, on the other hand…

While I am not exactly a fan of the person in question, disregarding everything he says because of what he has said in the past is kinda, like, really bad.

Olba.5376:

Only if it’s impossible for that action to get a different result. Surely I am not insane for rolling a die and expecting to get something other than a 1. Rolling the die expecting to get a 7, on the other hand…

While I am not exactly a fan of the person in question, disregarding everything he says because of what he has said in the past is kinda, like, really bad.

I suppose it’s more of a high-effort to low-reward ratio, than a true impossibility. Relating to your dice theory, it’d be like rolling it till it ends up stuck perfectly in a crevice on your table, where no one side is face up. Sure, it can happen, I’ve seen it happen on rare occasions.

But I’m not going to sit here rolling all day, hoping it happens again.

Dand.8231:

His ideas are so consistently outlandish, unreasonable, and completely without any mathematical basis whatsoever, that you’ve got your analogy backwards; it’d be like cutting open 100 potatos because one of them may be good.

And is that not the definition of insanity? Repeating the same actions, and expecting different results?

To put that into less subtle context: Reading Daecollos posts and expecting something rational and balanced, is a legitimate interpretation of the definition of insanity.

Edit: I’m not trying to bash daecollo or yourself, Bas, but there’s this thing I subscribe to called pattern recognition.

I was not taking it as a bash of myself or Daecollo. I actually feel Daecollo got himself into the situation simply because he didn’t filter or explain why he feels his ideas work. One of the reasons we enjoy having him as a columnist is that his work has to be edited. If you notice this column explains in much more detail the basis for the theories which is all they are theoretical ideas.

The column is submitted. I read through it note the errors in context or ask him to explain something in more detail or have him verify the math before publishing. The style is written because I wanted him to do it differently. While the style won’t fit everyone, I do like the originality and insane brilliance behind the persona.

I do agree that the Healing Surge changes are bad. I don’t like them, and think that it’s the wrong way to go about something. However, just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean I can’t see the value in it. I see his opinion, but speaking from a wvwvw or pvp perspective the change would eliminate that heal from my bar.

Daecollo’s forums posts were less clear, more random, and would immediately be followed up with about 8 more before he finished one thought. A column forces him into a specific method so that he has to think through and explain his thoughts. I honestly think his changes while not all great would make for a more dynamic playstyle.

The definition of insanity “popularly commented” is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. However, that statement isn’t true. Because we routinely do things repetitively expecting it to change. The belief that something will change even if what we are doing isn’t working the first time is human.

Let me give you a counter point what would you call someone who believed in Holding to the theory that if one idea isn’t good then every idea is bad. That we should ignore any person who doesn’t contribute in the manner or method we feel it deserves. If this is your case then Europe was right and America will fail, the world is still flat, and there is no such thing as a sound barrier.

I am not trying to argue with anyone simply stating that sometimes out of insanity you get something incredible.

Content
Here’s what came to mind after reading.

Healing Signet: I don’t know how to fix it to not break it and satisfy the horde of anti-healing-signet QQers

Healing Surge: Taking more damage turned on the creative juices. It kind of works with the “higher health pool” flavor that the warrior has.
0.5sec cast, x sec cd (dunno what number makes it balanced)
Heal yourself (for what ever it heals now with 0 adre … maybe less IDK). Gain frenzy for 5sec. Recover 41.25% (this is 33% x 1.25) of direct damage taken for the duration of frenzy.

This is basically protection (it negates 33% direct damage) with greater risk. You have to survive taking a hit (while in frenzy – 25% more damage) to negate 41.25% (including the frenzy effect) for a net result of negating 33% direct damage.

Mending: Here is why I Think mending will never be good. It is active condition removal in a meta of passive condition application. For reference, I have this guard friend who ran POV + 3ple shouts when it converted 2 conditions per shout. When it went back to 1 condition per shout he tried going melandru + lemongrass and it was “infinitely better” (he said).

The only reason to take mending is for the condition removal. If you do THAT, you may as well have “no heal”.

1.5sec cast,20sec cd (not a channel but has a noticable cast time)
Cure 1 condition every 0.5sec for 4 sec. Heal 875 (mending is 5240 + cure 3 conditions so (5240/3)/2 ~ 875) per condition cured.

It’ll be like an active/passive mix thing. You need to activate the passive effect. You also need conditions on you (or constantly applied conditions on you) to get the heals.

Aesthetics
It’s like the site is cut in half in terms of format where the 1st part is the top until

((The Mad Tinkerer will be a weekly column that is posted every Tuesday. We feel it is a unique take on the world of Theory-crafting in Tyria. Our goal is to have fun while looking at ways to build and create new builds, talents, traits, and trees. We hope that you enjoy this and learn what you can))

and the 2nd part is bellow that.

Bas.7406:

KarlusDavius.1024:

Daecolla being a contributor makes the whole post pretty much redundant.

Comments like this are incorrect. Daecollo while a bit rambunctious at times has talent as a writer, and while all his ideas are not good ideas he does have good ideas as well. To throw out all the food in your house because you found mold on one potato is ignorant.

Comments like this can never be incorrect because it is a personal opinion. Apologies but 99% of bad ideas to justify 1% good ideas isn’t worth sticking round for. It’s like opening 100 cartons of milk and sifting through the gone off ones until you find that one good one, yet your so fed up of the gone off milk that you’ve gone off milk altogether.

KarlusDavius.1024:

Bas.7406:

KarlusDavius.1024:

Daecolla being a contributor makes the whole post pretty much redundant.

Comments like this are incorrect. Daecollo while a bit rambunctious at times has talent as a writer, and while all his ideas are not good ideas he does have good ideas as well. To throw out all the food in your house because you found mold on one potato is ignorant.

Comments like this can never be incorrect because it is a personal opinion. Apologies but 99% of bad ideas to justify 1% good ideas isn’t worth sticking round for. It’s like opening 100 cartons of milk and sifting through the gone off ones until you find that one good one, yet your so fed up of the gone off milk that you’ve gone off milk altogether.

Some ideas of Deacollo were good, some were OP, some were not that good but he tried to improve something on what he thought that was bad on the warrior profession. I respect him for that.

We all post here in the hope that the warrior improves. But logical thinking is needed in how it will effect the class as a whole. Screaming for protection on everything isn’t the way forward. Some very intelligent people explained in vast detail why is was a bad idea, yet he ignored it and carried on. He mad a rod for his own back.

Anyway, this has become about a person rather than the class. So I’ll leave it be. Interesting idea, but maybe keep the discussion on the thread rather than an external website where the chances of a dev reading a slim to none?

Bas: I’ll give you a little advice for “filtering” Daecollo then. Keep him away from hard numbers. He doesn’t have the head for mathing out balanced numerical values, cooldowns, etc.

Keep him to vague ideas and concepts, such as “increased damage for a short time” instead of “+25% damage for 4 seconds” or “several seconds of protection” instead of “3 seconds of protection.”

His ideas sound (and often are) less absurd when you disregard his wonky unbalanced math, and focus on the core of what he’s trying to say.

To date, Daecollo has had only 1 idea I like. The rest were either recycled ideas (nothing wrong with that, but I cant exactly credit him with someone elses good idea) or IMO, complete mathematical rubbish.

Dand.8231:

Bas: I’ll give you a little advice for “filtering” Daecollo then. Keep him away from hard numbers. He doesn’t have the head for mathing out balanced numerical values, cooldowns, etc.

Keep him to vague ideas and concepts, such as “increased damage for a short time” instead of “+25% damage for 4 seconds” or “several seconds of protection” instead of “3 seconds of protection.”

His ideas sound (and often are) less absurd when you disregard his wonky unbalanced math, and focus on the core of what he’s trying to say.

To date, Daecollo has had only 1 idea I like. The rest were either recycled ideas (nothing wrong with that, but I cant exactly credit him with someone elses good idea) or IMO, complete mathematical rubbish.

I believe the more hard numbers are my call. I asked him for more fine tuned numbers. I felt saying several seconds can be misconstrued. I wanted numbers that I can look at and say okay so you want 3 seconds. This would bring about a more educated discussion – where one could say isn’t 3 seconds too much if balanced against the other numbers.

When it comes to that end, I asked for numbers, and he gave me his numbers. I didn’t double check them to ensure they would be completely wonky. I looked over the base numbers and they looked pretty good, but their wasn’t anything glaring that I noticed on my end.

As we all know imbalanced and wonky are standard practice when it comes to GW2 balancing – let’s not forget that everyone saw the Necro’s dhumfire as insane but it was still implemented.

Part Two is now up and running – http://sittingonacouch.com/mad-tinkerer-tinkering-warrior-part-2/

Traits are underfire!

On my phone so can’t I’ve a detailed comment. However 90% of them are bad ideas. It’s really annoying to read as well. Healing in weapon swap isn’t needed. However some are a nice touch. Bleed when critically hit is a nice thought.

Once again protection rears it’s ugly head. We don’t need it. Never do!

Bas.7406:

KarlusDavius.1024:

Daecolla being a contributor makes the whole post pretty much redundant.

Comments like this are incorrect. Daecollo while a bit rambunctious at times has talent as a writer, and while all his ideas are not good ideas he does have good ideas as well. To throw out all the food in your house because you found mold on one potato is ignorant.

Actually, he has more bad ideas than good ideas.

So to counter your analogy, Throwing out all of your food out because 80% of the food has mold on it is acceptable.

Bas.7406:

Part Two is now up and running – http://sittingonacouch.com/mad-tinkerer-tinkering-warrior-part-2/

Traits are underfire!

Well, here’s the quick list:

1. Versatile Power being identical to Sigil of Battle? So if I equip both, I get 6 stacks of Might for 20s on a 9s cooldown? Way OP.
2. I rather like Critical Burst where it is. No reason to change it. Especially NOT with a condition, since that’ll just clash with Burst Mastery again.
3. Armored Attack and Adrenal Health will never switch places, especially since the former is getting boosted to 10% in December. Not to mention that even now, gaining 100+ Power for putting 5 points into a traitline would make no sense.
4. Short Temper giving Might and Adrenaline whenever you miss? Nope. Especially not since you could just sit in a smoke field and stack ridiculous amounts of Might.
5. Berserker’s Might locking your adrenaline at 30? I hope he’s trolling, because that’s just ridiculous.
6. Wait, did he seriously suggest a 5 point minor trait that would reduce Poison, torment and Bleed by 33%? Yeah, that’s got to be a joke.
7. Heal on weapon swap? So getting adrenaline and might is not enough, now he wants heals too? Yeah, no.

So… that’s 7 bad traits out of the suggested 14. That’s a failed grade.

Bas, I suggest you add a page describing what the warrior currently is, his roles, strengths and weaknesses as a playable class (no flavor text, just straight up information) and what this column wants it to be.

Here’s an example:
Class mechanic: adrenaline → What about it? Warriors gain adrenaline to be able to use burst attacks. So it’s about using adrenaline (not sitting on it).
Issue’s
Berserker’s Might, Adrenal Health, Heightened Focus traits are still about NOT using your adrenaline.

Changes
Berserker’s Might – increase damage by 5% per adrenaline bar spent for x sec
Adrenal Health – gain hp per strike of adrenaline ganed <- this suggestion in particular I like because it discourages sitting on your adrenaline at full
Heightened Focus – increase crit rate by 5% per adrenaline bar spent for x sec

Here at least the suggestions follow a theme/direction (instead of these random suggestions with “it fits the warrior” as their only justification")