Guild Wars 2

Alright, I’ve read other posts about this topic, and I’ve mained warrior since launch but like many others I swapped since warriors are garbage in higher tier sPvP. After dueling revs, and other classes I strongly believe that these simple changes are what’s gonna make warrior viable, nothing over the top.

1. There’s so much sustain in this meta, I’ve noticed a high up-time in protection and stability is pretty much a given to every class. So my suggestion to deal with this would be to add a trait that allows warriors to boon rip. This would make them more viable in 1v1 situations especially against specs such as revs since they can get perma protection. I would suggest 2 boon rips on a trait on a 20 sec CD, maybe less.

2. The trait Savage Instinct needs more condition removal. If you compare it to Druidic Clarity, it’s essentially the same trait, both are in the Adept line, and Druidic Clarity is far superior. You can argue that you can activate Berserker more often but if you roll a heal such as Troll Unguent on ranger it fills you Celestial Avatar Form insanely quickly, besides Celestial Avatar Form has far more utility use than Berserker mode. I would recommend at least 5 conditions should be removed, or you can even swap Smash Brawler with Heat The Soul putting Smash Brawler on the second trait line allowing it to synergize with Savage Instinct.

3. Head Butt is arguably the worst elite in PvP and of the specializations. I think this skill needs a range of at least 300, or make it unblockable.

4. Warriors need a better heal. Healing Signet essentially forces you to run Adrenal Health, Mending is too low of a burst heal, To The Limit has a huge CD, Defiant Stance is a kittentier version of Glint Heal, and Blood Reckoning is useless since people can just kite around you, block, invuln, evade, etc. My suggestion is this: warriors need a decent burst heal, I think Mending needs to be a pulse heal that heals for ~8k overall such as Troll Unguent, To The Limit having a 25sec standard CD, or giving warriors a Glint-esque type heal. Having a decent heal would allow warriors to free up a trait-line and not be as reliable on the Defense trait-line for Adrenal Health and Defy Pain.

5. Finally, if the option of boon ripping is not available, I think Rousing Resilience needs to be moved to another trait-line, I would recommend moving it to the Discipline trait-line and it can replace any of the Grandmaster traits in Discipline. Why? So it can compete with perma protection up-time and provide more sustain for warriors.

Post some suggestions down below. I think these changes are not over the top but can make warriors viable if played skillfully in higher tier sPvP.

-Mortal Wombat X

I actually think that Head Butt is fine, it’s just a bit clunky. It can be an amazing opener and can give you a free Primal Burst.

As for heals it’s a given that they’re pretty bad atm. That being said I think it comes down to just tweaking numbers. Mending being a physical skill so you can trait for lower CD and maybe slightly higher base heal makes it decent on paper. Blood Reckoning has a cool concept but could use a much longer duration or a greater percentage of damage given as healing. A heal that buffs your crit chance is cool, but it should also be for ALL damage and not just power. To The Limit doesn’t need the adrenaline gain imo since it already gives some when traited. Maybe get rid of that and up the AoE endurance gain. The idea of you mitigating more damage via dodges is cool. Defiant Stance deserves to be instant like all stances. It still has counter play due to you having to absorb damage for it to actually heal. Same duration as the Rev heal when traited seems fair as well.

I like Rousing Resilience where it is, it’s a defensive trait after all. It has tons of synergy with Berserker. With better heals it would let us have better sustain and if Savage Instinct had better condi removal you would have a sturdy build.

What we REALLY need is offensive team support. Make Savage instinct removal condis and break stun for allies when you go Berserk. Dead or Alove heals you and nearby allies when Berserk mode ends. Eternal Champion pulses Stability to nearby allies, but at a slower rate of course. This would actually give Warriors a place in a team. They could focus on damage but not be totally selfish.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I actually think that Head Butt is fine, it’s just a bit clunky. It can be an amazing opener and can give you a free Primal Burst.

As for heals it’s a given that they’re pretty bad atm. That being said I think it comes down to just tweaking numbers. Mending being a physical skill so you can trait for lower CD and maybe slightly higher base heal makes it decent on paper. Blood Reckoning has a cool concept but could use a much longer duration or a greater percentage of damage given as healing. A heal that buffs your crit chance is cool, but it should also be for ALL damage and not just power. To The Limit doesn’t need the adrenaline gain imo since it already gives some when traited. Maybe get rid of that and up the AoE endurance gain. The idea of you mitigating more damage via dodges is cool. Defiant Stance deserves to be instant like all stances. It still has counter play due to you having to absorb damage for it to actually heal. Same duration as the Rev heal when traited seems fair as well.

I like Rousing Resilience where it is, it’s a defensive trait after all. It has tons of synergy with Berserker. With better heals it would let us have better sustain and if Savage Instinct had better condi removal you would have a sturdy build.

What we REALLY need is offensive team support. Make Savage instinct removal condis and break stun for allies when you go Berserk. Dead or Alove heals you and nearby allies when Berserk mode ends. Eternal Champion pulses Stability to nearby allies, but at a slower rate of course. This would actually give Warriors a place in a team. They could focus on damage but not be totally selfish.

“x when traited is perfectly fine compared to baseline on other classes”

Defiant stance AND glint heal are both really terrible as healing skills, the only reason rev can use it effectively is because they have a back up heal for when it doesn’t even heal you because the opponent isn’t kittened so they don’t use it as a heal, it’s functionally used as a temporary invuln skill like endure pain etc.

Like you draw the comparison and what you’re saying is that defiant stance would be fine when specifically traiting for it when compared to quite literally half of a revenant’s “healing skill” baseline. Same with quite a few of the other skills you mention actually.

One of the key issues with warrior is all our compulsory traits already (see: cleansing ire and fast hands), why would anyone advocate HAVING to trait just to make a skill not-completely-terrible? A trait shouldn’t turn something from “bad” to “good”, it should turn something from " good " to “great”.

tl;dr imo please stop suggesting to fix warriors through traits because that makes those traits COMPULSORY just to make the class functional, literally exactly the same thing happened when they introduced cleansing ire to " fix" warriors condi cleanse problem like 2 years ago

While the traits are in desperate need of help, utilities could also use some tweaking. Stances are a required part of almost any build that wants to survive in any kind of combat since the alternatives don’t bring near enough to the table to even be worth considering.

Based on what I’ve read I reckon ya’ll never really played warrior in higher tier pvp. HEADBUTT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT OK. It needs a buff, there’s no reason to run it over something like Rampage. Warrior trait line and utilities need some tweaking, it is not a numbers game since ANet have already nerf things such as the regen on Adrenal Health. Warrior lacks boons (such as protection) therefore they need a counter to it (such as a boon rip).

while boon rip would be lovely, in older streams they have noted that boon stripping is a defining trait of necromancer and Mesmer, not the warrior. So chances are that wont happen.

Brawl.5178:

while boon rip would be lovely, in older streams they have noted that boon stripping is a defining trait of necromancer and Mesmer, not the warrior. So chances are that wont happen.

Warrior should take a route similar to the Destruction of Empowered trait, working around boons instead of stripping them. For example, instead of stripping protection, it could get something that bypasses all damage reduction except armor. Or to deal with stability, make Blood Reckoning have crits also do a really short 1/4s daze to remove stab stacks. Make Torch’s Blaze Breaker inflict an extra stack of burn per boon on target. A lot of things can be done.

Head butt rework.
1)Unblockable
2)400 range.
3)movement skill so mobile strikes affects it.
4)leap finisher. Works with warrior fire fields and then maybe grand master double aura may get used, and it can be proc’ed in others fields.

Apart from that I can’t see warrior getting boon removal, so the above boon hate idea’s would be a better path to travel.

Destruction of the empowered was supposed to be warriors boon hate option, but compared to the other options in its tier, its not worth taking. The trait is also not designed very well because protection is so strong, even with every boon on the target it still doesn’t make up enough damage, and if the target has every boon except protection it is too effective. at least in my opinion.

Honestly I don’t think there’s a way to buff warriors to bring them back without a overhaul, weapons skills are basic and just suck like a majority of traits and utility skills, mobility does as well ( going up y axis n kitten). Even if Rev gets nerfed, it’ll still be better than warrior by a long run.