Warrior Berserker specialization changes.

Warrior Berserker specialization changes.

in Warrior

Posted by: Arddyn.7683

Arddyn.7683

Hi everyone. I have some suggestions that I want to put in here that I thought people might like, or might like to discuss. This is mainly from a PvP aspect, as it is the gamemode I am most familiar with, and I feel Zerker is in a decent spot in Pve already. As it is Zerker feels really weak in pvp compared to most classes, hence I feel the need for some changes.

1. Make Burst Precision(100% crit chance on burst skills) in the Arms traitline so that the Decapitate (Axe primal burst, eviscerate with a shockwave behind target hit) shockwave also always crits.
This would make Zerker much more viable in teamfights with some strong aoe damage. Has clear synergies with Smash Brawler (Reduced CD on Primal bursts) ofcourse. Also people, take heed, the Arms traitline is strong. Try it out sometime.

2. Make some of the other heal skills better.
Mainly aiming for Defiant Stance (damage converted to healing for 3sec, similar to Revenant’s glint heal) and Blood Reckoning (increased crit chance and criticals heal you for 6s). I feel these both need to be instantcast to be viable. Especially blood reckoning seems like a really cool healing utility that would help with burst as well, if activated at the right moment.

3. Add another small class specific mechanic.
I’ve seen a lot of people talk about making fast-hands (5 sec weapon swap) baseline. Although I feel this might be a little too strong some other small class mechanic could be added in it’s stead. Perhaps give Warrior a 7 sec weaponswap to begin with, and give Discipline the option to turn it to 5. This would make a lot of other traitlines viable as we’re bound to multiple ones already. Discipline being a major one. It would still help as I feel most Warrior weapons’ usefulness are based on a fast weapon swap already.

4. Change some of the utilities.
I myself was especially disappointed with most of the rage skills. The elite headbutt is quite good, as is outrage for the 10 second stunbreak. They both have clear synergies with traits like Eternal Champion (might on stunbreak and stab on stunbreak and in zerk mode) or Rousing Resilience (health and extra toughness for 8sec on stunbreak).
I also think physical utilities need a change. These are MADE for PvP but have insanely long cooldown for the utility that they bring, especially since everyone always runs stunbreaks anyway.

5. Change some of the primal burst skills.
I’ve played warrior a long time and always really liked the burst skills that we have, but I was rather surprised that quite some primal bursts have such a different use from their normal burst counterpart. The main ones are the hammer, mace, and sword one. Although they all are quite good on their own, and have a spammy nature with berserker mode and all, they are so different that they don’t entirely make sense to me. Sword for example is still useable as a power weapon since you could cancel Flurry (Immob and bleeds based on adrenaline level) for just the immobilize. It was a neat little thing that you could combine with other weapons. The Primal Burst however, Flaming Flurry(block ranged attacks and shoot piercing fireballs that burn) , turns into a burnburst. Not bad in and of itself, but so different from Flurry that it becomes unusable in power builds, even though sword is quite good if you remain a core warrior. The mace and hammer ones have the same problem, though not quite as bad. Especially the mace has clear synergies with the strength traitline (confusion on interrupt, or weakness and bleed on any cc hit), but falls in kind of the same category as sword. It used to be amazing in Skullcrack(single target long duration stun) build, but now also forces you to have condition damage as a stat to make the primal burst Skull Grinder(short range daze confusion blind bleed and cripple with decent damge) viable atleast. Out of the three beforementioned, this is the most powerful one in my opinion, since the burst skill of this one is so powerful with condition damage and the Strength traitline. Hammer turns from a big aoe stun into a frontal cone kind of area daze and immobilize, of which the immob is easier to dodge even, and in my opinion, is weaker than a flat out aoe stun, as they are still able to cast skills while immobilized.

Overall I feel Warrior is very bound to certain traitlines because they are good on their own, but lack synergy between one another. The berserker traitline is a little bit different in this aspect, but not enough to “glue it all together” so to say, which could be another point adressed in balancing warrior out a little bit.

Well, these are some of the changes that I had in mind, what do you guys think?
Here’s how I run my warrior in PvP nowadays, to make it somewhat viable. It’s a bit of a yolobuild, but it gets through most of the tankiness of the metaclasses, while still having some defensive utilities. Mostly offensive though. Also super strong in some matchups in 1v1’s.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRApc8enMdAtegdhAWhAElileAzIA0CXaI1geQO496md/uA-TpghwA1LDAY/BA

(edited by Arddyn.7683)