Guild Wars 2

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

Ooooh, this made my day!
But seriously, something has to be epicly wrong in a game when a class gets not playable anymore in tPvP just with a debuff on one single utility. Or are we wrong?

I can live without Frenzy. I’m not logging in until they bring back Reverse Bladetrail though.

I guess Warriors are out of PvP for the next 1-2 months.

I can’t say I’m surprised though. PvP players are minority. Warriors are monority within the minority. All ten of us can Rampage on the forums, Kick walls and poke devs with Banners, but I seriously doubt we’ll achieve anything.

I wonder if they’ll show up on April SotG. This will be interesting.

I don’t know if I’m just understating all the issues with this class or what, but I feel like the problems this class has are so blatantly obvious and esay to fix that the fact they haven’t done anything about it now has left me dumbfounded.

I find the largest problem with this class just skill normalization. Why do things work one way for every other class in the game, but for the Warrior things are different? Why don’t skills like Bull’s Charge and rush work the same as Swoop and Ride the Lightning? Why are Warrior skills the only ones impact by movement impairing abilities?

The next big issue is poor healing coefficients which limits the value of the entire tactics line. Why can’t a Warrior build a defensive spec with this class and expect it to perform as well as a bunker as other classes do? You have classes like elementalists that can heal for 10k+ health before they even use their heal. But the Warrior has to use 3 shouts on a 15-20 second cooldown just to heal for 6k?

Next is poor inner-tree balance. Take the defense line for example. We have merciless hammer that needs near impossible levels of APM to ever make use of the trait in a realistic scenario because the disabling effects this class has only last 1 or 2 seconds at most. Can’t even get an auto attack in sometimes!

I mean this class has only one real primary weapon option because this class can’t function as it is without the mobility greatsword provides. Can you imagine playing without it? Add to that we don’t really much diversity in how we trait the class becase so few traits have any meaingful impact on the class. And then the obvious issues of condition removal, lack of a real bunker option, and no flexibility in skill choice?

If it weren’t for the PvE and WvW performance of this class, it would be almost as terrible as Rangers, Engineers, and Necromancers.

moved to the warrior forum, never to be seen by a dev again.

Atherakhia.4086:

I don’t know if I’m just understating all the issues with this class or what, but I feel like the problems this class has are so blatantly obvious and esay to fix that the fact they haven’t done anything about it now has left me dumbfounded.

The truth of the matter is that Anet devs are pretty bad at playing the game in general. I mean in the last SotG, Karl was calling the guardian’s teleports “Shadowsteps” … Really man? The guardian doesn’t shadowstep!! You’re playing a thief too much aren’t you Karl?

And no, I don’t care if the mechanics are nearly coded the same way. What you chose to name one ability, regardless of how it looks underneath, is the name of that specific ability. Liken it to assigning a variable. Just because X = 125 and Y = 125 doesn’t mean you can use them interchangeably. X is still X and Y is still Y.

Honestly I’m not all that upset about it. It was probably just a simple mistake and we all make them. Its just that to hear a dev consistantly make it is disturbing to say the least.

Atherakhia.4086:

I mean this class has only one real primary weapon option because this class can’t function as it is without the mobility greatsword provides.

Anet: “We hear you loud and clear! Thats why we’re slashing the Greatsword’s mobility next patch and buffing Dolyak Signet to 100 toughness up from 90. That should fix the issues at hand, right?”

JonathanSharp.7094:

NOW = no.

In upcoming patches will Warriors see some changes? = yes.

Jon, all the community asks for is really Warriors to be put near the top of the queue of class balancing (after the bunker D/D Eles and bunker Guardian build balancing in sPvP) similar to how other class adjustments were put to the top after go-live (Necro/Engin/Mesmer). 6-7 months to see very gradual end user changes is far too long to wait for the Warrior class (longbow, banners, etc.) and will ultimately extricate the player base to either reroll or find something else to do entirely.

/heads down, work hard, we know you can do it

I will probably be infracted for stating this opinion, though it’s not offensive or anything, simply what I personally think and I hope Anet won’t take it wrong.

I personally believe the balance team never got into any serious PvP setting for any extended period of time to have a proper idea of what needs to be done or what is lacking.
When the guy from Team Paradigm, who is obviously expert in PvP, pointed out the flaws of the current meta, all of the 3 guys were completely grounded, as if those were news to them or things they could never agree with due to lack of proper PvP experience.

Therefore I think a balance team would need to rely on expert players’ feedback to make their changes, instead of doing what they “think” would be the right thing based on little personal experience/skill with the game’s high-end PvP.

Also, the changes made so far show that they try to cure X by enweakening Y and hoping that the lack of Y will make X less OP.
It’s as if I was to cure a bleeding patient with cough syrup and hope for the best.
When there is a problem you don’t have to be afraid to deal with the exact skill/mechanic/build and try to “circumvent” the damage by changing unrelated stuff.

It’s like adding boon strippers into UW because using Protective Spirit with 55hp is an exploitable mechanic.
A bad design needs to be changed, instead of adding stuff that counters bad design, let alone revolve an entire game setting around it.

I agree with you Sharp.

But i don’t understand why you didn’t change ALL the skills, traits, runes and sigils that give quickness. And where is the trait that gives more damage against people with boons? or something for the constants movement controll that oppres warriors? Karl talked about that in the SoTG.
I was hoping in something like: XII strenght trait: you deal 20% more damage vs targets with protection.

Anyway i play war and i think that it is one of the best profession. He have dps, semi-bunker, control, support, spike, ranged builds and they are all avable because they are quite strong.

Now the pach is out and it need some times to see how the meta will change, and it the warriors are that bad that no one will use them.
For the next pach please fix strenght runes they don’t give 5% more damage with might and i love them.

I think the solution is very simple for helping Warriors, because their “immense strength” in PvE boils down to exactly 1 skill, Hundred Blades. The problem isn’t with enemy AI, either; the problem is in the skill.

Solutions that aren’t knee-jerk:

• Reduce Hundred Blades’ damage output by 25%
• Reduce Hundred Blades’ cooldown by 1 second
• Decrease the time Hundred Blades takes to complete by 50%

What does this do? This results in a faster burst, but of less damage. In PvE this means that your net dps when smashing your sword against the foe is reduced because the damage is reduced more than the cooldown is. In PvP this means that you can actually connect with more of your burst because it executes faster, increasing the actual damage you inflict to an immobilized or stunned opponent. For bonus points, it would also look cooler because you’d be swinging your sword faster.

Of course other things such as main hand Mace, Swords, and so on need buffs as well to bring them in-line with other weapons. The only reason that Warriors are so strong in PvE, though, is Hundred Blades, and addressing that will significantly fix up those issues on that end while simultaneously helping PvPers. It’s win-win.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

You know, I understand your point from all perspectives.

But then I remember the many Warrior players who now have to endure being a second rate ‘citizen’ in PvP until you decide to push a patch through.

Now, prove me wrong but ArenaNet patches don’t come out ‘lickity split’. While you don’t have something lined up tomorrow, that also means we won’t have something for another 2-3 weeks+.

From a professional standpoint, I don’t break one part of a clients application in favor of improving another. If I released the application and I broke something – then I work overtime to bring it back into line.

Thus, from my perspective, you broke something in favor of fixing another portion – and now have blatantly stated that we’re at your mercy of ‘soon’.

My customer’s would be throwing a fit right now.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

Jon, the problem is the complaints are piling up, the issues are blatantly obvious, and not once have I ever read a single person complain about banners. And for 3 patches now, the improvements were all related to banners. Not on mobility. Not on bunker builds. Not on conditions. And not on defensive options.

And what’s funny, seeing as I play(ed) a Ranger, is you’re making all these banner changes when your time and effort really should have been spent revising ranger spirits as they’re infinitely worse than banners and yet their functional use to the class and group are almost identical to those of banners for warriors.

I’m no novice to MMO’s so I know I’m probably not being fair in my criticism, but it really does seem like nothing of substance is ever changing in the right direction for Warriors (and Rangers…).

Did he just say they are focusing on doing small tweaks to balance at a time….? Really??

What about globally nerfing Quickness across the board without regards to how it affects other mechanics or systems?

Was there any thought in how much more burst-dependent Warriors are, that Frenzy’s penalty might have to reflect this global change, or that classes without Quickness (ele) become generally more powerful as a result?

I’m just confused how the developers believe these changes will positively affect pvp team composition (i.e. 2-3 elementalists per team).

JonathanSharp.7094:

Good points, but the reason we sometimes adjust the “unplayed” specs is to provide build diversity. Banners are one of those specs that we’re trying to adjust slowly to provide a whole new build for Warriors. This doesn’t mean we don’t care about other specs, we’re just trying to do things slowly.

And yes, Ranger spirits are in the same boat as Warrior banners. They were VERY powerful before ship, but after changes, they are on the lower end of the power curve right now. So they’ll be slowly adjusted over time to bring them back up as well.

I think this is the problem actually.

Continually patches are rolled out for unplayed skills, utility, and playstyles in hopes to improve them. While this is ok for engineers mostly, for other classes who are already dead last in tier, if it doesn’t move us up a rank, it just seems pointless.

I mean banners are pve first and foremost. They were already used though, so its nothing but a 100% buff to them. Meanwhile warriors get the extremely short end of the stick with quickness, and you didn’t even change burst or bunkers.
———————————————————————————-
Which is something I’m still bothered by. Quickness wasn’t the main factor in people dying fast. The only class that could use this to a significant purpose was the warrior, every other class that could kill in “2-3 seconds” Has alternatives to quickness, EXCEPT for warrior.

The problem has always been the critical damage system. Too much crit chance with too much crit damage.

Every class STILL hits for the same amount, they just can’t use quickness. Which in most cases was a small proc or if you really wanted nothing but damage, a utility.

But who actually paid for quickness? Warriors. Every other quickness debuff is fine. Warriors however STILL have the same 50% damage taken, and to begin with it was a simple task of “avoid then punish with a 50% bonus on-top of criticals”. Quickness was only able to be used against complete burst or people who didn’t understand the concept of “stun-breaker” Nerfing it for warriors either proves you are LAZY or just hate us.

Main thing that warrior need to be boosted in every build out here is sustain, a way to get rid of cripple/chill, and turn adrenaline into something worth using (passive bonuses for keeping adrenaline at max needs to go.) Lets see what will be done in next 2 updates, but i don’t have much hopes for anything than few tooltip fixes.

I been one of the people saying “its ok, they got time, its a new game” but the patches from january was overkill, definitely too much, and the march one with quickness nerf destroyed the olny one viable build warrior had

Jonathan Sharp, I would sincerely like to thank you for consistently posting on this thread, It gives me at least the smallest bit of proof that at least one Dev reads and responds (responding being the better part) to what we the players are saying. Even if you’re only able to say the dreaded “soon”, I still am gracious for the fact that at least somebody cares enough to respond to us.

On another note, many of us hate hearing the word “soon”, would it be to difficult to give us an ETA? Whether you deliver it 3 days before or after this ETA, it would still give many of us some shred of hope knowing that we can expect A, B, or C, by such and such date. Providing a rough date of release is usually almost always better than constantly saying “soon”. It gives people a physical date that they can hopefully expect to see some changes instead of the sense of not knowing that “soon” spreads. It’s the same principal of that one saying, “If I can’t see it, then it’s not true”. Please don’t take this in any way as meant to harm or insult, just trying to smother the grease fire that was this recent patch.

By the way, before you rage me for being a “Dev Lover”, I play warrior as my main.

i love may warrior but they are just way too simple. Warriors just have such a bad mechanic with the adrenaline, i never feel like i should even use it. many classes have f1-f4 skills, except thieves (who can teleport and get a random useful skill) and necros (who have sweet death shroud and 5 totally different skills). someone a while back an idea for warriors to have F1-F4 skills as well, with F1 remaining the same they are now and F2, F3 and F4 being stances based on Damage, Defense and Support. would make warriors more versatile for sure.

While I appreciate a dev responding to forum posts, I feel it’s a complete waste of time for them to skim the forums to pick and choose which posts they want to respond to. I’ve brought up the idea of opening a PTR with an accompanying forum so that all future changes and notes are made available to the players. Why can’t there be a PTR that any player can sign up for (with minimum play time restrictions so that there is level of testing consistancy) so that Anet can take advantage of FREE testers? I know that there is a test realm that are invite only, but their current testing system only fosters more secrecy because the players in that test realm can’t talk about any upcoming changes. Players need to see something tangible and not just get a “we’re working on it” or “when it’s ready” response whenever they mention something that Anet is currently working on. At least with the whack-a-mole approach, people see a big enough change that they know someone is working.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Atherakhia.4086:

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

Jon, the problem is the complaints are piling up, the issues are blatantly obvious, and not once have I ever read a single person complain about banners. And for 3 patches now, the improvements were all related to banners. Not on mobility. Not on bunker builds. Not on conditions. And not on defensive options.

And what’s funny, seeing as I play(ed) a Ranger, is you’re making all these banner changes when your time and effort really should have been spent revising ranger spirits as they’re infinitely worse than banners and yet their functional use to the class and group are almost identical to those of banners for warriors.

I’m no novice to MMO’s so I know I’m probably not being fair in my criticism, but it really does seem like nothing of substance is ever changing in the right direction for Warriors (and Rangers…).

Good points, but the reason we sometimes adjust the “unplayed” specs is to provide build diversity. Banners are one of those specs that we’re trying to adjust slowly to provide a whole new build for Warriors. This doesn’t mean we don’t care about other specs, we’re just trying to do things slowly.

And yes, Ranger spirits are in the same boat as Warrior banners. They were VERY powerful before ship, but after changes, they are on the lower end of the power curve right now. So they’ll be slowly adjusted over time to bring them back up as well.

Spirits are not even on the same ballpark of weak banners might have been. Banners provide buffs no other class brings (crit dmg, for example), and have active abilities while wielded. They are indestructible and portable.

Spirits are destructible, offer a boon or condition proc on a very low uptime, and their activated effects aren’t even remarkable due to their cast times and spirit’s susceptibility to aoe bombs.

Why did spirits and guardian spirit weapons become destructible while banners remain immune?

JonathanSharp.7094:

Agreed! 100 blades needs to be changed, but other things need to be changed to compensate.

As I’ve said, that’ll be happening in coming patches.

I’m happy you guys see that HB needs to be changed.
Can’t you guys just remove the final hit (which is 20% of HB damage), but make HB free-to-move?
I think that lock-in-place mechanics for melee weapons aren’t good due to the mobile nature of melee combat.

You might also want to look into Arcing Slice, the burst skill no Warrior uses.
I suggest turning the Fury boon into a Vigor one, which is more mobility-style oriented as GS is.

Last but not least, pathing and hit-fail issues of Rush, Bull and Bolas.

Zenith.7301:

Why did spirits and guardian spirit weapons become destructible while banners remain immune?

That’s an easy one. Spirit weapons act on their own while following the guardian and still allowing him to use weapon skills; they do not immediately cost a utility cooldown because of their command ability. Ranger spirits grant spirit-specific buffs much like the banners do, however they continue to be a useable utility after placement much like spirit weapons.

Both spirits and spirit weapons have much shorter cooldowns than banners as well, so their uptime in spots where you need them is much more likely and would not require you to literally carry one of your utility skills around in place of a weapon from encounter to encounter.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Like you did with the “Revealed” nerf?

Zenith.7301:

Why did spirits and guardian spirit weapons become destructible while banners remain immune?

Banners are environmental weapons.
You can’t destroy an Elementalist Conjures either.
If you’re comparing things, then you compare Banners to Conjures or hell even the Elixir gun and Flamethrower an engineer drops on Downed.
Conjures are buffs to an individual and a set of weapon skills.
Banners are buffs to a group and a set of weapon skills.
Ranger Spirits are more like Engi turrets and Guardian Spirit weapons than Banners IMO.

Jon if you’re reading this, remember the Ritualist skill Summon Spirits?
If you want to help banners along you should let a warrior be able to summon back his Banner via a chain skill. Would be a “small” step in the right direction.

Okamakiri.8746:

Like you did with the “Revealed” nerf?

Zing!

Just wanted to say thanks to JonathanSharp for posting here and to remember we have passionate people playing the class, so they can get heated but I am sure the appreciate the fact you’re engaged in discussions.

I took a break from the game because of the warrior issues, I came back to try out the patch and unsure how to go (alts etc), but Warriors have gotten the short end of the stick for a long time without response people are a bit too negative.

Look forward to the upcoming changes, and hope they are good!

Personally I think the forum warriors are really freaking out and making a big show of QQ acting all uppity… But mostly because they will not attempt to evolve their gameplay to compensate.

I’ve played many styles in all aspect of play on my warrior, and yeah I even played fullon zerk too ! But having perspective helps : the one thing they are MOSTLY complaining about is not being able to do a bull’s rush—>frenzy—→Endure pain—→fullon zerky 100b to win in 2.1 seconds ( Which tbh is a cheap shot, like small punch—>grab in street fighter).

I don’t think there is a need for a damage control-style post.

Mr. Sharp – your replies have gone a LONG way in easing my anxiety for the warrior class. However, as I’m sure you’re aware, words are not enough. People who want to stick it out with their class of choice will have to deal with 1-2months of pain while we wait for any balancing. That is a fairly long time when you consider what it might do to our positions in pvp or group love or whatever.
A warrior defines me, I’m not interested in playing the flavor of Anet class choices (Ele or Mesmer or Guardian) – they dont speak to me on a personal level. Warrior all the way, and in the mean time my experience in GW2 became not enjoyable. For the first time in awhile, I’m looking at other options out there.
My advice, if you’re going to nurf a class, you need to give us other options out there that are SUBSTANTIAL to making us look at builds we may have not considered before.

Kaga, Im currently running a spiked defense/ sword/shield axe/mace build, got any advice on what currently works?

Kaga.7629:

Personally I think the forum warriors are really freaking out and making a big show of QQ acting all uppity… But mostly because they will not attempt to evolve their gameplay to compensate.

I’ve played many styles in all aspect of play on my warrior, and yeah I even played fullon zerk too ! But having perspective helps : the one thing they are MOSTLY complaining about is not being able to do a bull’s rush—>frenzy—->Endure pain—->fullon zerky 100b to win in 2.1 seconds ( Which tbh is a cheap shot, like small punch—>grab in street fighter).

I don’t think there is a need for a damage control-style post.

That’s not the main thing people are complaining about. You’ve got it all wrong. The general complaint is now that we dont have a viable frenzy what are our serious competitive options in pvp? Please make any build you want and I promise you my Ele, Mesmer or Guardian will stomp you into the ground. Hell I’m almost 100% positive my engineer or thief would also.

Edit: The more I think about it, my necro would handle my best warrior builds with ease. EVEN my dagger dagger necro build would laugh at my warrior 1v1.

Redscope.6215:

Zenith.7301:

Why did spirits and guardian spirit weapons become destructible while banners remain immune?

That’s an easy one. Spirit weapons act on their own while following the guardian and still allowing him to use weapon skills; they do not immediately cost a utility cooldown because of their command ability. Ranger spirits grant spirit-specific buffs much like the banners do, however they continue to be a useable utility after placement much like spirit weapons.

Both spirits and spirit weapons have much shorter cooldowns than banners as well, so their uptime in spots where you need them is much more likely and would not require you to literally carry one of your utility skills around in place of a weapon from encounter to encounter.

What? Given that most guardians are not traited for spirits not destructing when commanded, most guardians don’t get to use the command ability because it’s BAD. Especially in the case of the spirit shield. It already costs them a utility cooldown since they’re not carrying shouts — with the exception of the spirit hammer all command abilities are useless.

Spirit boons are short duration, have no uptime comparable to banners. And to even bring their activated abilities as if you would set them down in the way of harm, which is where they need to be because their ability is activated UNDER them, will not happen given their frailty.

You’re also exaggerating the inconvenience of carrying banners around — I bet rangers would kill for this inconvenience. You talk about cooldowns, but don’t care to pay attention that banners have full uptime. Banner of defense will always stay up 1 minute out of 2 minutes. The spirits die within seconds of being targeted and go on a 60 second cd — their cd is also tempered with their much inferior proc effects while your banner gives benefit 100% of the time. You cannot counter banner benefits, but you can shut down spirits immediately and casually with cleaves.

And when you list the inconvenience of switching weaponsets while carrying a banner, you forget the rather useful groiup wide boons their wielded abilities provide.

Been Waiting months to hear a dev actually respond to a warrior cry for balance, and I am glad they finally decided to respond. In response to people thinking warriors don’t need any fixing compared to other classes, please note that most balancing issues are related to all of theses = PvP : WvW : PvE. Not just PvE. Everyone Clearly knows that against Ai, Warriors are the most desired class simply because of the pure dps a warrior can lay down against multiple and single targets is so high. I think many warriors can agree that we are strong in PvE, maybe too strong, but its not why we picked being warriors.

I for one know that my love of the warrior class comes from the idea of being the best melee class for damage and require adequate skill to master. The skill curve of each class exists, and for Warriors currently It has a massively steep curve at the end (specifically for WvW in my opinion) because warrior have such an easy time playing in PvE, that the need to dodge/use certain utilities at specific times/min and max builds for proper fights, doesn’t exist at lvl 80 for many warriors.

D/D ele’s are perhaps downright the strongest in almost all aspects of PvP and WvW, even with their decently high skill curve to learn, its not impossible to master. Warriors are hindered not only by the skill curve required to play (which would be nice if it was the only factor) but because of the lack of synergy between skills/trait/weapon and how they correlate to the games meta for both WvW, and PvP.

I mostly speak from a WvW view, since i Have long given up trying to make PvP warrior a goal. Warriors aren’t terrible in WvW, but they can’t really do the role I thought they were ment to do, such as being incredibly strong disruptive class with high toughness and can get in the face of 3-5 players without getting downed in a few seconds flat (for those who run P/V/T gear and hammer/(anything) builds, must admit that conditions and Aoe skills make warriors minced meat no matter how much toughness/vitality you stack). I don’t want warriors to be invincible in any way, but I wish there were mechanics that assist warriors with sustain and defensive measures to stay in the front lines for more than 4-6 seconds at a time before having to jump out because of all the ridiculous focus fire and AOE/condition spamming. Warriors really lack sustain in almost all fields of play.

Please offer us some more insight on what you guys plan to take on warriors, because I know I have been playing since launch as a warrior, and have stuck to a build luckily that hasn’t been touched by any patches in a negative way, but should it happen within the next patch, I would find it best to reroll a guardian which boasts considerably better synchronizing skills/traits/weapons for a Melee oriented Class.

One more thing is, why Buff banners? They already have decent use in WvWPvE for regen, Offer decent stats in PvE places where picking up banner and putting it down isn’t really a hastle (compared to WvW/PvP). Did any devs ask the community if Banners are the most concerning things for warriors? I for one think that Banners truly only need the design to either be carried or altered to be more mobile, as their uses aren’t too unique in design. I believe Stances need more look over, or even our physical abilities that many players on the forums have asked to be looked at. Not to mention almost no one uses 1/2 of the Signets due to how useless they are at lvl 80. I can atleast say I think Banners were fine before, and even with the buff now, they are fine, but their place in PvP is for bunkering, and Warriors still will not be able to bunker with just Banners.

Thank you for your response Mr. Sharp

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sorry I can’t respond to everyone, but I’ll try to hit some other issues you’ve brought up:

Thanks for responding at all! Your words, however many or few, are always appreciated!

JonathanSharp.7094:

we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

Hundred Blades was only powerful when coupled with Frenzy, a gap closer, and an immobilization. Otherwise its nearly pointless outside of PvE.

JonathanSharp.7094:

-Responding overall: We read a ton of things on the forums, but as you can imagine, we can’t respond to them all. When time allows, like today, I try to get on the forums as much as I can with actual responses – not just reading.

Again, thank you very much for your time. As we all know it is not required of you to do so. Your insight can do a lot to quell unsubstantiated speculation and arguements.

: Agreed. In the coming patches we have plans to give the Warrior: more resistance to movement hindering condies, the ability to punish boons, and we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

GW1 style John?
Time for some Mage Hunter Smashing on dat Hammer know what I mean?

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

Coff Coff Thieves nerfs Coff Coff Eles Buffs Coff Coff coff….

I think the general consensus is that 100bs does alot of damage but is semi lackluster when you really look at it. Paired with quickness made it good other wise its not something you really spam.

I do like the posters suggestions though not bad actually. I think the number 1 thing warriors need is just a way to deal with movement hindering conditions. There are options in the traits but they are in the same tier as other options that are really good like restorative strength, beserker power and greatsword damage increase trait.

If you look at the thief SA trait line what makes it so good is that you basically can trait for conditions with 1 trait (tier 1) and don’t necessarily have to have a condi removing utility. I know on my thief I don’t run a condi removal utility because I take the condi removal trait. I haven’t seen many builds for warriors that go 30 points into strength and maybe that is part of the problem (still a bit new to warrior compared to thief) but at most I see 10-20 points in strength in most builds for warriors. Maybe if restorative strength was moved to defense line like the thief condi removal is in its defensive trait line that could help warriors out alot.

Redscope.6215:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sorry I can’t respond to everyone, but I’ll try to hit some other issues you’ve brought up:

Thanks for responding at all! Your words, however many or few, are always appreciated!

JonathanSharp.7094:

we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

Hundred Blades was only powerful when coupled with Frenzy, a gap closer, and an immobilization. Otherwise its nearly pointless outside of PvE.

JonathanSharp.7094:

-Responding overall: We read a ton of things on the forums, but as you can imagine, we can’t respond to them all. When time allows, like today, I try to get on the forums as much as I can with actual responses – not just reading.

Again, thank you very much for your time. As we all know it is not required of you to do so. Your insight can do a lot to quell unsubstantiated speculation and arguements.

Even at 2.1k toughness if my ranger ate a full 100b, he was reduced to around 10% HP left.

100b is ridiculously strong if it lands.

It just needs about a 40% damage nerf, shorter channel, and be made mobile in return. When it’s the only single ability that can land 28k figures on berserker gear (in cof there’s even a video of it doing 42k).

Really, that’s all the change it needs. Warriors are hurt because they can’t land it, but if they could land it, it’d be broken. So reduce the cd of endure pain, reduce the cd on whirling attack and reduce its damage and give it a long cripple duration.

Other weapons’ leaps should have mobility boosts as well except for axe, which if it will see a mobility boost its crazy sustained damage needs to come down by toning the autoattack down.

Buff warrior heals a bit.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Laxuar.3504:

I agree with you Sharp.

But i don’t understand why you didn’t change ALL the skills, traits, runes and sigils that give quickness. And where is the trait that gives more damage against people with boons? or something for the constants movement controll that oppres warriors? Karl talked about that in the SoTG.
I was hoping in something like: XII strenght trait: you deal 20% more damage vs targets with protection.

That stuff is coming in later patches. We want Warriors to “punish” boons, which is going to balance out the quickness hits. Same with other classes. We’re going to slowly introduce those things to balance out what we’re doing to quickness.

And overall, we want to slow the game down so that new players aren’t dying to certain specs in 2-3 seconds. So the quickness change is one step towards that.

the game might be too fast on burst versus newbs, but its also extremely slow on bunker versus anyone else. As far as warrior punishing boons, that kind of sucks for the rest of the classes, since right now bunker is unbeatable for many builds. Building the game so its like, must have bunker, must have warrior(anti-bunker) is not a good idea. As of right now, bunker is even more powerful, since quickness style bursts have been reduced.

Then the whole other facet is, in PVE, where boss fights take a long time for most groups, slowing down the overall dps (which the current changes have done) makes the whole thing more drawn out, and not in an entertaining way. And boon punishment is by and large irrelevant to these encounters.

Zenith.7301:

Redscope.6215:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sorry I can’t respond to everyone, but I’ll try to hit some other issues you’ve brought up:

Thanks for responding at all! Your words, however many or few, are always appreciated!

JonathanSharp.7094:

we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

Hundred Blades was only powerful when coupled with Frenzy, a gap closer, and an immobilization. Otherwise its nearly pointless outside of PvE.

JonathanSharp.7094:

-Responding overall: We read a ton of things on the forums, but as you can imagine, we can’t respond to them all. When time allows, like today, I try to get on the forums as much as I can with actual responses – not just reading.

Again, thank you very much for your time. As we all know it is not required of you to do so. Your insight can do a lot to quell unsubstantiated speculation and arguements.

Even at 2.1k toughness if my ranger ate a full 100b, he was reduced to around 10% HP left.

100b is ridiculously strong if it lands.

It just needs about a 40% damage nerf, shorter channel, and be made mobile in return. When it’s the only single ability that can land 28k figures on berserker gear (in cof there’s even a video of it doing 42k).

Really, that’s all the change it needs. Warriors are hurt because they can’t land it, but if they could land it, it’d be broken. So reduce the cd of endure pain, reduce the cd on whirling attack and reduce its damage and give it a long cripple duration.

Other weapons’ leaps should have mobility boosts as well except for axe, which if it will see a mobility boost its crazy sustained damage needs to come down by toning the autoattack down.

Buff warrior heals a bit.

No not this at all 40% damage nerf is alot lol. Right now you need to set it up I like it that way. Your suggestion makes it spammy. Whirlwind is fine and a cripple on whirlwind huh? With your suggestion then its just going to be about 100bs and whirlwind spam dont even need try blade trail. Just take leg specialists its a good trait whirlwind with cripple would be to much. Blade trail takes care of cripple and can immobilize.

Zerker warrior is strong if it lands but those are all if’s and its not hard to punish warriors for whiffing any of these attacks. 4 secs of invuln but still able to be crippled chilled and immob I mean if you know your fighting a warrior isn’t that the first thing you put on them is movement impairment thats not hard at all its not like warriors have perma vigor or something.

Your suggestion is way to extreme.

Zenith.7301:

What? Given that most guardians are not traited for spirits not destructing when commanded, most guardians don’t get to use the command ability because it’s BAD. Especially in the case of the spirit shield. It already costs them a utility cooldown since they’re not carrying shouts — with the exception of the spirit hammer all command abilities are useless.

Regardless, it is there. I’m not questioning how good/bad/useful these skills are, I’m providing you with a reason as to why the spirit weapon is destructable and the banner is not. If you want to change the subject to usefulness of skills, we can go there instead.

Zenith.7301:

Spirit boons are short duration, have no uptime comparable to banners. And to even bring their activated abilities as if you would set them down in the way of harm, which is where they need to be because their ability is activated UNDER them, will not happen given their frailty.

Again, their active abilities usefulness was not in question. The fact that it exists is what I’m comparing to the banner’s indestructability. If you want to compare usefulness, how useful is immobilizing and crippling a warrior closing the distance on you vs. an extra 170 power and 170 condition damage within a limited 600 radius? How important is it that a melee class must leave you to focus a summoned creature down in order to not be hampered by it? Do you even notice that being able to be attacked means a spirit can body block for you as you escape attacks? That question even eludes mesmers as they don’t seem to consider their clones as a miniature aegis against single-target attacks.

All of these things must be considered when balancing summons.

Zenith.7301:

You’re also exaggerating the inconvenience of carrying banners around — I bet rangers would kill for this inconvenience. You talk about cooldowns, but don’t care to pay attention that banners have full uptime.

The ability to pick up and move banners is as much a benefit as it is a curse. Tell me you’d rather have a moveable spirit with no active ability on a 120 second cooldown that can be moved at the cost of your weapon skills’ readiness; then you would be asking for a banner.

Spirits and spirit weapons have full uptime too, its just not guaranteed. They certainly can last for as long as they’re supposed to.

Zenith.7301:

The spirits die within seconds of being targeted

Bingo, you’ve hit the nail on the head. They have to be targeted. You have to actively use time, concentration, and skills on them in order to bring them down.

Zenith.7301:

their cd is also tempered with their much inferior proc effects while your banner gives benefit 100% of the time.

I would not consider a >1/3 of all hits proccing 3 base seconds of protection inferior to any banner. In fact, when traited in Nature Magic, one of the Ranger’s most potent lines, you can nearly perma-protect if that spirit is up. That’s all the more reason to let it be kill-able don’t you think? Well maybe not, but most people would.

Rangers can already perma-regen from Nature Magic. Perma-protect on top of that, add 1200 range, and a pet that melts faces off with a near infinite range and you’ve got an extremely powerful build.

Zenith.7301:

You cannot counter banner benefits, but you can shut down spirits immediately and casually with cleaves.

You absolutely can counter banner benefits. Simply move outside of the radius. The warrior has to get to you, you’ve got superior range. How is it that ranged players always forget about their distance advantage?

As for cleaves: if you’re standing next to your spirits fighting a melee as a ranger, you’re not doing it right. If you’re fighting a warrior in a banner’s buff circle, you’re not doing it right.

Zenith.7301:

And when you list the inconvenience of switching weaponsets while carrying a banner, you forget the rather useful groiup wide boons their wielded abilities provide.

Which are so very useful when fighting other players. They’re almost OP. In fact, I specifically call a banner, pick it up, and spam ‘1’ with it because its just so powerful. Please…

-Banners: We’re playing with some other ideas on how to make them stronger/a unique play style, while also trying to make sure they don’t “step on the toes” of similar abilities for other classes, like Ranger spirits.

HAHAHAHA! You funny man!

Zenith.7301:

Even at 2.1k toughness if my ranger ate a full 100b, he was reduced to around 10% HP left.

100b is ridiculously strong if it lands.

Its very strong. It also takes 3.5s to complete without Frenzy. It roots you, and without being coupled with a gap closer and an immobilizing ability, its the easiest player skill in the game to avoid. I think the only thing easier to dodge is the ettin’s wind-up smash.

The bigger question in my mind is, aside from being stuck in one spot by some freak accident of you not dodging the bolas or bringing a stun breaker with you, why are you eating a full Hundred Blades attack? Especially as a ranger? Just because you’re a bunker build with high toughness doesn’t mean you facetank a high damage attack and expect to shrug it off. Its channelled for a reason, so you have time to leave.

Zenith.7301:

Even at 2.1k toughness if my ranger ate a full 100b, he was reduced to around 10% HP left.

100b is ridiculously strong if it lands.

It just needs about a 40% damage nerf, shorter channel, and be made mobile in return. When it’s the only single ability that can land 28k figures on berserker gear (in cof there’s even a video of it doing 42k).

How much heal did you have? 10K!?

With that much toughness a FULL GLASS CANON 100B warrior will not do above 14K damage in sPvP (which is where the concern for the builds is most prominent), the end.

Also you seriously can’t be using PvE crit numbers to try and support an argument for PvP, it’s absolutely and completely pointless to do so.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Sorry I can’t respond to everyone, but I’ll try to hit some other issues you’ve brought up:

-Words aren’t enough: Agreed. In the coming patches we have plans to give the Warrior: more resistance to movement hindering condies, the ability to punish boons, and we want to improve some of their specs that are out-shined by 100 b’s.

-Responding overall: We read a ton of things on the forums, but as you can imagine, we can’t respond to them all. When time allows, like today, I try to get on the forums as much as I can with actual responses – not just reading.

-Banners: We’re playing with some other ideas on how to make them stronger/a unique play style, while also trying to make sure they don’t “step on the toes” of similar abilities for other classes, like Ranger spirits.

-“Soon” vs. actual ETA’s: This is a fine point, but the reason I don’t give actual dates is because things can sometimes slip past those dates. When this happens, players can feel like we were lying or we didn’t fulfill a “promise”. I know it sucks, but it’s just safer for us not to use dates or ETA’s until we’re REALLY close to a feature or change being ready.

Gonna go hit some of the other sub-forums, thanks for all the feedback guys!

and what about the other classes john, why are warriors able to be given some of the changes that they should recieve while others like rangers have no idea what you are planning. and you (as a balance dev) havent stepped foot in there for 4 months

what do the other classes have to look forward to

rshadowkirby.3548:

and what about the other classes john, why are warriors able to be given some of the changes that they should recieve while others like rangers have no idea what you are planning. and you (as a balance dev) havent stepped foot in there for 4 months

what do the other classes have to look forward to

I hope you’re just trying to be funny….

If not maybe you should just wait for him to make his way to the ranger forums to address ranger issues, cause he’s not gonna highlight them on the warrior forums, obviously.

JonathanSharp.7094:

And overall, we want to slow the game down so that new players aren’t dying to certain specs in 2-3 seconds. So the quickness change is one step towards that.

I’m very glad to hear this. I was beginning to wonder if the breakneck pace of PvP combat is actually recognized as a problem or if it’s just Anet’s design philosophy. I’m glad that it’s not. Believe me, your game will open up so much more when combat is slowed down. I can’t count how many interesting builds I’ve made with my toons that didn’t work because they were “too cute”.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We’re going to be working on a lot of Warrior stuff in the coming patches. But will we be changing things, in the OP’s words, “in a few days”? Nope. We have to wait for patches to move through the system of developing content, refining it, iterating on it, getting it tested, and then getting pushed to live.

Warriors are very strong in PvE, and they’re struggling in PvP – we know this. Contrary to popular belief, we play our game, in all formats, and we talk to player experts in all formats. We also read the forums.

But that doesn’t mean we’re going to throw knee-jerk/reactive changes based on any piece of feedback we receive. As we’ve said NUMEROUS times, we’re doing slow tweaks so that we don’t have to do whack-a-mole balance.

Just because things don’t happen “in a few days” doesn’t mean they’re not happening!

OH? SLOW TWEAKS?
You mean instantly cutting quickness by 50% for EVERY classes = slow tweeks?
If you only change the quickness on time warp alone, then it should not be of a big deal atm. But you simple killed one class in a patch and call it slow tweak?

You claimed you tested the game thoroughly, then why allow things like ride the lightning to dominate in one map called spirit watch for a long time without addressing the movement debuff on orbs?

Why would you allow a class called warrior to be nerf to hell without ANY sort of compensation to it, thinking adding a few tweak for PVE (banners hello?) will make PVP fine?

Clearly almost all the decisions your team made so far not only did not address ANYTHING a class suffers (pets in dgn hello? no damage reduction for aoe? spirits?), but also made the balance even worse.
Your attempt to fix rangers in PVE in the earlier patches is laughable really…
Adding higher proc on spirits without addressing the internal cool down, without addressing the survivability of spirits, and then deciding to buff just banners…(unkillable, movable, higher bonuses, no internal cool down)

Truly hilarious!

I’ll tell you what, your theory of new players friendly(quickness not quick at all) is the most hilarious thing I’ve heard so far.
New players will be OWNED by all the bunkers because they have absolutely no chance of killing them, and the condition spamming will give them the most frustrating experience in PVP. I’ll happily slaughter all the newbies with my condition+ survival specs because newbies cant kill me anymore with cheap quicknesses.

Classes who use CC + combo + aoe will easily dominate those newbies.
Classes that don’t need quickness to spike down targets (ele and mesmer hello?) will laugh all the newbies so hard, and those newbies will have absolutely no chance of defeating them unless they roll an OP class themselves.

You know why so many people QQing about your developtor teams? Because the communication is so bad that players no longer put faith in you guys anymore.

Aomine, your essay of a post is what’s hilarious.

No, I’m not happy warriors are now not viable at all in tPvP, but at least 80% of what you’re complaining about is not only false but can be explained away with common sense.

Take a chill pill and think it through next time, they might pay attention if you do.