Guild Wars 2

We’re generally happy with the offense and damage potential of the warrior, but survivability and durability in PvP have been observed to be lacking, even when defensive measures are taken. We’re looking to boost defense in areas where the warrior specializes in it. Stability-granting utilities have been refocused and reworked with the new stability cooldown specifically in mind, and the Defense line has gained significant increases. Within this line, Adrenal Health has been transformed from an adrenaline-holding minor trait into one that grants a much stronger healing effect when landing burst abilities.

Dual Shot: The damage of this skill has been increased by 33%.

Fan of Fire: Increased the burning duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds. Physical damage has been increased by 10%.
Smoldering Arrow: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.

Pin Down: The damage of this skill has been increased by 10%.

Eviscerate: Updated this skill to not be affected by movement-impeding effects.

Gun Flame: The physical damage of this skill has been reduced by 20%. Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to hit enemies twice. This skill no longer pierces but still delivers the area-of-effect attack. Fixed a bug that caused the tool tip to show a decrease in damage when the Burst Mastery trait was in use.

Dolyak Signet: The cooldown of this signet has been reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds.

Balanced Stance: This skill now periodically applies swiftness and two stacks of stability for 3 seconds every 3 seconds that the stance is active.

Throw Bolas: The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 16 seconds.

Kick: The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 20 seconds to 12 seconds.

Bull’s Charge: Increased the knockdown duration from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.

Stomp: This skill is now ground targeted and will move the warrior from a distance of 450 to a target area. This skill now grants 1 stack of stability for 5 seconds per target struck in addition to its own initial stack of stability, which has been increased from 1 second to 5 seconds. The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 45 seconds to 40 seconds.

Thick Skin: The health threshold of this trait has been decreased from 90% to 75%. The toughness this trait applies has been increased from a maximum of 120 to 180.

Dogged March: The regeneration duration applied by this trait has been increased from 3 seconds to 6 seconds.

Cull the Weak: Increased the health threshold for weakness application from 25% to 33%.

Defy Pain: The threshold for activating Endure Pain has been increased from 25% health to 50% health.

Quick Breathing: Increased the number of conditions removed on warhorn-skill use from 1 to 2.

Burst Mastery: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from appropriately increasing damage.

Adrenal Health: This trait has been reworked. For each level of adrenaline spent, the warrior will gain an instance of Adrenal Health that will heal over the course of 15 seconds. This effect stacks up to 3 times.

Well well well bois, pulsing stab, 525 healing per tick for total of 7425 every 15s and a defy pain that can’t be bypassed when below 25%.

What do you think, is it enough to bring us back from the dark ages to compete with the big boys?. Personally the healing sound pretty nuts when paired with berserker f1 spam….we’ll see.

Ps. Evis is fixed \o/

Not enough, try harder

Early to say, but most probably not.

Even with these buffs Warrior is still below other classes in terms of survivability, and the problem of it not bringing anything actually useful to the table still remains.

I really hate the place the rifle is at. It is a strictly power based weapon that changes to a mostly condition based primal burst.

Mesmer main here. Jumped in at the end of the season2 to play the meta mes. At the end of it I realized that the power warrior is the counter.

Standout Changes:

Dual Shot: It wasn’t the damage that was the problem, it’s the projectile speed. I guess it just reinforces the fact that the Longbow is actually for short/mid range?

Gun Flame: We all saw this coming, going to have to see if the sustain changes are enough to outweigh the changes here. I’m going to miss the piercing a lot. Imo that was one of the more skillful elements of the weapon.

Balanced Stance: At least this makes it feel more like a stance and less like a passiveless Signet.

Stomp: FINALLY! This will make the skill way more useful for clearing points in PvP. I could see some clutch Hammer plays where you knock everyone off the point then continuously stun and knock them back.

All the Defense Stuff: Might help, I would have liked to see a more creative change to Defy Pain. Something like what they did to Adrenal Health.

Nothing solved, warrior still trash tier. They buffed the defensive line and then went ahead and buffed all previously non-meta ability on ALL the other classes.
Last viable build on warrior was to go full and I mean FULL dps, not take defense traitline to even take a crack at people’s protection boon humping. Taking defense traitline hurts your dps so bad for next to no sustain. Sorry boyz warrior still has no sustain, this changes nothing.

Well after looking at it for a little bit it seems they just gave us more regen again, but this time a much more significant amount. Kind of lazy if you ask me. Some of the minor things are cool though like the aforementioned Stomp skill. Maybe some sorta condi build with hammer or longbow and Rousing resilience and Distracting strikes will give us some ok pressure with good tankiness through regen and stunbreak heals.

2475hp heal every 15 s is like 165 hp/s? While the old was 351 hp/s with 3 full bars.

Not sure if a buff or a nerf.

Bigsexy.8302:

2475hp heal every 15 s is like 165 hp/s? While the old was 351 hp/s with 3 full bars.

Not sure if a buff or a nerf.

yeah, you missed the part where it stack to 3, depending on how many adrenaline bars you used. (ofc berz adrenaline skill count as 3)

atreyu.9624:

Bigsexy.8302:

2475hp heal every 15 s is like 165 hp/s? While the old was 351 hp/s with 3 full bars.

Not sure if a buff or a nerf.

yeah, you missed the part where it stack to 3, depending on how many adrenaline bars you used. (ofc berz adrenaline skill count as 3)

Well, it’s not very clear in the tooltip. I guess I’d take it as a buff then…

the Adrenal Health change is amazing, 6-7k health every 15 seconds, and you’re not punished for spending adrenaline now!

sucks that shout heals weren’t buffed, but atleast adrenal health got this whopper buff

not liking the balanced stance change for wvw.. its useless when I run into a large group, cc runs out too fast to get any distance.

before i could at least get distance to run or get defensive if i had to, now those 2 stabs run out, i run a couple steps before i getcced, stab comes back up, run another couple steps… get cced again… guess ill swap out to dol sig

I think this looks very promising… not only because it’s a very clear bundle of buffs where warrior actually needs it, but also because several of these things are ideas first brought up on this forum. As in, things that make me think they’ve been paying attention to the forum and many of the great suggestions made by people here.

About the only thing I’m (slightly) concerned about is the change to Balanced Stance. In principle, I like the approach. Where I’m apprehensive is if the (reduced) reapplied stability doesn’t count as a reapplied stun break.

For example, imagine three cc’s landing in 3s with the last one being a 3s knockdown (Bull’s Charge). Stability would reapply just after the BC lands, but you’d be stuck there for almost 3s despite that. In the old version, they’d need to get you with 6 cc’s, though that would be over the course of the entire duration.

Bigsexy.8302:

2475hp heal every 15 s is like 165 hp/s? While the old was 351 hp/s with 3 full bars.

Not sure if a buff or a nerf.

Old adrenal health only ticked once every three seconds.

yeah insane heal…7500 hp over 15 secs if u use 3 bars of adrenalin…with signet u have roughly 900 heal/sec

I’m very intrigued at the change to Adrenal Health… I see why they did it: to encourage use of adrenaline instead of saving it up… I just don’t know if it’ll be a benefit to my play style and build, or a hindrance. I’m looking forward to finding out.

At the very least I’ll be glad to use my burst skills more frequently.

~EW

Keep in mind with balanced stance, the stacks don’t get removed as quickly now. Before you could lose on every .05s, now it’s every .75s iirc.

Ven Zehn.6573:

Keep in mind with balanced stance, the stacks don’t get removed as quickly now. Before you could lose on every .05s, now it’s every .75s iirc.

Quite right. I’m just reading the full notes now, saw that, and came back to amend my concern. The likelihood of losing those two stacks in 3s under the new system is moderately low… still possible, but it’s probably about right.

Disappointed: As I Would very much liked to have our speed increased, we must trait Discipline, or carry the otherwise useless, IMHO, warhorn just to keep up with a party. I really don’t like spamming Signet of Rage on the run given its long cool down; I might just need it in the fight.

Oh look, no changes to usability for Mace or Hammer traits.
Still not enough synergy in Warrior traits overall.
And Banners still nerfed.

Glad to see some Stance cooldowns and Physical skills get some much needed improvement.

At least I have the Quick Breathing to cuddle up with at night.

Overall quality of this patch is much better than the Q1 2016 patch, that’s for sure.

However, it’s still narrow in scope and nature and fails to address everything else not fixed.

It’s good to see ArenaNet finally taking these patches more seriously.

I don’t think it’s fully up to snuff but it’s definetely a step in the right direction. Good job, A-Net!

You guys are missing a few points. In a vacuum, these warrior changes are not substantial.

But considering the changes to engineer regeneration, necromancer chill, and life steal normalization, I think our sustain has seen a pretty substantial buff.
Engineers would not die due to rapid healing, but now you can interrupt heal turret and the regen is lower.
Damaging condition of 500 dps is no longer there, so heal signet becomes better.
I need to test life steal but I guess they lowered it.

Now I can spam arcing slice and be rewarded, or land timely eviscerates at the proper range.
Having health per second is much better than health per 3 seconds.
I just might return and play warrior again.

EDIT: I forgot the stability removal changes and the changes to slick shoes. It is like being reborn again.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

You guys are missing a few points. In a vacuum, these warrior changes are not substantial.

But considering the changes to engineer regeneration, necromancer chill, and life steal normalization, I think our sustain has seen a pretty substantial buff.
Engineers would not die due to rapid healing, but now you can interrupt heal turret and the regen is lower.
Damaging condition of 500 dps is no longer there, so heal signet becomes better.
I need to test life steal but I guess they lowered it.

Now I can spam arcing slice and be rewarded, or land timely eviscerates at the proper range.
Having health per second is much better than health per 3 seconds.
I just might return and play warrior again.

EDIT: I forgot the stability removal changes and the changes to slick shoes. It is like being reborn again.

+1

I really hate this patch,

They talk about diversity and boosts up physical skills? They increase damage to longbow and other skills and reduce the damage of gun flame. I assume its because of the nerfs to sustain to other classes and the introduction of the new amulets.

What makes me so upset is they didnt fix core skills. 2 heal skills are broken such as mending not being a physical skill and defiant stance which is like the rev heal skill except 10,000 times worse.

The didnt rebuild ramapage, anet talks about sustain. This is a elite skill that pulses 1 stability and does far less damage after all the nerfs.

Warrior aside, every class has 2-3 useless elite skills. Are you serious anet?

We all know of the power creep, please play a core build vs a HOT build and you will be like wow. Then you increase the damage of a bunch of skills on warrior, ele, ranger and we wonder why the sustain is also crazy.

Lets call it what it is, HOT made this game more spammy, a faster button mashing game.

The amount of stun breakers, stability which now pulses, amount other crap is terrible for game play along with the other stuff.

Not home to test anything yet, but, is elite spec a must for the new adrenal health?

Furajir.3815:

Not home to test anything yet, but, is elite spec a must for the new adrenal health?

No, after doing duels over the past few hours core warrior functions well with it (presuming you run zerker stance / sig of fury).

Ughhhhh Defense Specialization – Last stand:

This doesn’t make sense. For my purposes its the same as it was before the changes to stability. Except now I don’t get vigor when using stances……? You aren’t helping my defense or survivability AT ALLL with this change. This wasn’t even in the notes……bug? SHould I make a bug report!?!!?!?

EDIT: FALSE ALARM! it’s just not listed on the ui anymore or in the hero tab anymore (they forgot to relist it I guess), but u still get vigor ingame.

I’M HAPPY NOW. This is a buff to my builds overall. And it allows for a few more options. I can’t be unhappy with the changes. But I am still disheartened that they nerfed gunflame (I can’t use it but it was sorta needed as an option) and didn’t address hammer or other stuff in our builds like specialization lines and what not.

you know what? Thank you Anet. At least you are trying. I’l reserve judgement for after playing it for awhile

Again not diference in warr, “it’s a BIG UPDATE” warr to be continued garbbage trash in pvp or pve, Burnzerker(BAD) PS(normal),“i love to big change anet”… Fail with warr again!

Adrenal Health buff is really good and as someone a few posts up mentioned, compared to the nerfs to other classes, this is looking better for warriors.

And with Engineers pretty much out of the meta, Warrior might be back in the mix as a bruiser… maybe with banner elite now (lord)?

As a Mesmer main and someone who used to play Warrior, I see nothing but good changes for Warrior here. Although nerfing Gun Flame 20%.

yeah we knew that was coming. it was overpowered. then agian 25k damage – 20% is still 20k damage. soooo

It all looks good, much better than anything we’ve seen lately for the Warrior class, I for one am happy.

A lot of work actually came into this patch, from balance to polish. I for one am happy with the changes.

I only had time to duel a scrapper in Wvw before having to log off again, but we came to a stalemate. Actually, tbh, I think I would have beaten him because I wasn’t even pressured enough to keep EP on cd, but the point was proven and I had to go.

He was competent, and I run full zerk vanilla warrior. So, yeah, that change to Adrenal Health (and maybe even Thick Skin to a limited extent) seems pretty solid.

I’m not at all sad about the changes to gunflame either, and I’m glad to see True Shot got the same treatment. It’s all necessary for bringing more sanity to the game.

Honestly, I feel on the whole the changes are pretty good. Not quite sure why they decided it was longbow that needed the largest buff of our weapons, but fair enough. Physical buffs were long overdue, maybe we’ll see a bit more use of them now.

I do, however, have one MAJOR objection to the changes. While helpful, most of the biggest buffs were applied to the defense traitline. We were already pressured into taking that line if we wanted any ability to survive at all, this only compounds the problem. Future adjustments to warrior should focus on spreading effectiveness to our other lines to give people more options instead of locking us into the same 2-3 specializations.

Adrenal Health requires you to hit your target spend the adrenaline to get the healing buff. It was tested.

I think everyone agrees that gun flame hit too hard, but I don’t necessarily agree with nerfing the piercing part. Also, rifle damage as a whole wasn’t OP, so why not redistribute some of the 20% to one of the other 4 skills?

Onlysaneman.9612:

I do, however, have one MAJOR objection to the changes. While helpful, most of the biggest buffs were applied to the defense traitline. We were already pressured into taking that line if we wanted any ability to survive at all, this only compounds the problem. Future adjustments to warrior should focus on spreading effectiveness to our other lines to give people more options instead of locking us into the same 2-3 specializations.

This right here my friend. This is the stuff we’ve wanted this patch and last major patch (when healing signet got buffed). They seem hesitant to touch warrior traitlines though, outside of tinkering the stats of a couple of the individuals abilities.

The balancing of the patch piqued my interest, but that is all.

I’ll test warrior out before I make an opinion on this.

JTGuevara.9018:

The balancing of the patch piqued my interest, but that is all.

I’ll test warrior out before I make an opinion on this.

^^^

Test the changes first before anyone comes and cries on the forum.

Onlysaneman.9612:

Honestly, I feel on the whole the changes are pretty good. Not quite sure why they decided it was longbow that needed the largest buff of our weapons, but fair enough. Physical buffs were long overdue, maybe we’ll see a bit more use of them now.

I do, however, have one MAJOR objection to the changes. While helpful, most of the biggest buffs were applied to the defense traitline. We were already pressured into taking that line if we wanted any ability to survive at all, this only compounds the problem. Future adjustments to warrior should focus on spreading effectiveness to our other lines to give people more options instead of locking us into the same 2-3 specializations.

Because let’s just forget that warriors have

Mace main
Mace offhand
Axe offhand
Hamm

Never getting any love.

Caedmon.6798:

Because let’s just forget that warriors have

Mace main
Mace offhand
Axe offhand
Hamm

Never getting any love.

The best we saw were a few token cooldown reductions to Hammer. While it’s appreciated (in light of Revenant/Engi hammers..), the traits for mace and hammer don’t work with the actual weapons at all, unless you have a pocket thief with phasers set to Head Shot. So we’re still going to see either the range game with bow/gun because survivability still isn’t top priority, or more FG/PS spam.

Rauderi.8706:

Caedmon.6798:

Because let’s just forget that warriors have

Mace main
Mace offhand
Axe offhand
Hamm

Never getting any love.

The best we saw were a few token cooldown reductions to Hammer. While it’s appreciated (in light of Revenant/Engi hammers..), the traits for mace and hammer don’t work with the actual weapons at all, unless you have a pocket thief with phasers set to Head Shot. So we’re still going to see either the range game with bow/gun because survivability still isn’t top priority, or more FG/PS spam.

Agree,i won’t be changing my builds with the current changes to warri besides throwing in some more damage to make up for the gunflame loss perhaps.