Guild Wars 2

Just a slight addition/edit to Endure Pain.

With 30 points into defense a warrior can also grab, Defy Pain (another 4s Endure Pain at 25% hp), but it doesn’t care how you get to 25%; if you’re already blocking and have conditions, it will activate and waste part of your block, same with if you use your own Endure Pain.

They can also take Sure-Footed, an adapt level trait in defense to increase the duration of Endure Pain to 5 seconds. So it is possible for 10sec of Endure Pain, but it requires 2 traits (one adapt, one grandmaster), a utility skill, and good timing. And both of those are on 60 sec cd’s (and again requires the warrior to be at <25% hp, with no immunity to conditions).

Sifu.6527:

teg.1340:

- Warriors can reduce cripple/ chill/ immobilize duration bei -98% via Dogged March, Melandru Runes and Food. But this is easily negated by +Condition Duration food. So with +40% condition duration food the reduction is back to -58%. If the warrior doesn’t use Melandru its only -33%. So a 3s cripple will last 2s, long enough to counter most of the warriors mobility skills.
This statement is false.

+40% condition duration food negates -40% condition duration food. Please clarify why this is false in your opinion.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Just a slight addition/edit to Endure Pain.

With 30 points into defense a warrior can also grab, Defy Pain (another 4s Endure Pain at 25% hp), but it doesn’t care how you get to 25%; if you’re already blocking and have conditions, it will activate and waste part of your block, same with if you use your own Endure Pain.

Another addition to defy pain: Defy Pain goes on cooldown when you use the Endure Pain skill. So if you want to use both, you have to wait for Defy Pain to proc, then use the Endure Pain skill afterwards. That makes Defy Pain extremely lackluster because often when Defy Pain procs you’re at 5-15% hp and conditions usually bring you down easily before Defy Pain wears off.

Sifu.6527:

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s.
Mace?Shield? Please list them all

Never saw a Hammer/Mace+Shield warrior in WvW because this build doesnt have any mobility and is easily kited. So I wrote Hammer, which only got Earthshaker as stun. Mace Skull Crack is also a burst skill, so you have to decide either to use Earthshaker or Skull Crack. There’s barely any synergy between both skills.

Shield Bash is 1s stun. Its barely of any more use than interrupting skills.

teg.1340:

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Just a slight addition/edit to Endure Pain.

With 30 points into defense a warrior can also grab, Defy Pain (another 4s Endure Pain at 25% hp), but it doesn’t care how you get to 25%; if you’re already blocking and have conditions, it will activate and waste part of your block, same with if you use your own Endure Pain.

Another addition to defy pain: Defy Pain goes on cooldown when you use the Endure Pain skill. So if you want to use both, you have to wait for Defy Pain to proc, then use the Endure Pain skill afterwards. That makes Defy Pain extremely lackluster because often when Defy Pain procs you’re at 5-15% hp and conditions usually bring you down easily before Defy Pain wears off.

Woops, thanks. I never use Endure Pain because of that (plus for me 60s cd for 4s isn’t a great uptime).

teg.1340:

Sifu.6527:

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s.
Mace?Shield? Please list them all

Never saw a Hammer/Mace+Shield warrior in WvW because this build doesnt have any mobility and is easily kited. So I wrote Hammer, which only got Earthshaker as stun. Mace Skull Crack is also a burst skill, so you have to decide either to use Earthshaker or Skull Crack. There’s barely any synergy between both skills.

Shield Bash is 1s stun. Its barely of any more use than interrupting skills.

I use that sometimes for lul in wvw xd i roflstomp anyone i meet but that bc they aren’t ready for a heavy cc like that.

teg.1340:

Sifu.6527:

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s.
Mace?Shield? Please list them all

Never saw a Hammer/Mace+Shield warrior in WvW because this build doesnt have any mobility and is easily kited. So I wrote Hammer, which only got Earthshaker as stun. Mace Skull Crack is also a burst skill, so you have to decide either to use Earthshaker or Skull Crack. There’s barely any synergy between both skills.

Shield Bash is 1s stun. Its barely of any more use than interrupting skills.

Hammer/Sword/Sheild
Hammer/GS
GS/Mace/Shield
GS/Axe/Shield

I roam with my Warrior so Mace/Shield and GS fits my playstyle. I run with Axe/Shield sometimes and that 1 sec stun is enough to give me a 100% crit chance on Evis.

teg.1340:

Sifu.6527:

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s.
Mace?Shield? Please list them all

Never saw a Hammer/Mace+Shield warrior in WvW because this build doesnt have any mobility and is easily kited. So I wrote Hammer, which only got Earthshaker as stun. Mace Skull Crack is also a burst skill, so you have to decide either to use Earthshaker or Skull Crack. There’s barely any synergy between both skills.

Shield Bash is 1s stun. Its barely of any more use than interrupting skills.

Mace+shield/GS is seen with reasonable regularity for single-target shutdown.

ES is, when traited, a 7 sec CD skill that with the appropriate build will crit 100% of the time for an average of about 4.5k HP, depending on power, crit dmg and target’s armor. The follow-up strike will also hit for 4.5k-5.5k HP. Also note that the dmg does not scale with adren level, only the stun duration. So with burst mastery there is no reason why you shouldn’t want to at least try to land an earthshaker every 7s. That is a huge amount of AoE pressure you can put out just with unsuspecting foe and burst mastery.

Shield bash is routinely used in combination with immediate final thrust the instant target has dropped below 50% HP. This combo, providing they don’t stun break it or have stab up, usually wins the fight immediately at that point because, even if the target does not die they are in such a healing debt they are unable to recover.

I think healing sig needs some re-balancing to boost its active use and nerf its passive use slightly and, condi war build is too faceroll in single target situations (thank recent buffs to condi/new runes, dire armor and sigils for this), but in general warrior is in a good place else wise.

However, I just don’t think we should be disingenuous when actually discussing what is strong with wars right now.

One thing that should be noted is that, of all classes in this game, war is most dependent on maintaining melee distance to target and especially vulnerable to kiting. It needs tool to maintain that job like -condi duration traits and immob. breaking (especially with this new and absurd immob. stacking change…duoing with a thief as a condi war we were able to instantly stack over 20s of immob onto a guard and bury it in enough condis he was unable to cleanse) or it will once again be throw into the realm of uselessness.

Also realize I’m partially biased because I exclusively play war, mostly with Hammer + sword/shield. I think wars are on the strong side, with some features possibly being a bit OP, but am hesitant to endorse changes for fear that it will sea-saw balance back to where it was a few months ago.

teg.1340:

Sifu.6527:

teg.1340:

- Warriors can reduce cripple/ chill/ immobilize duration bei -98% via Dogged March, Melandru Runes and Food. But this is easily negated by +Condition Duration food. So with +40% condition duration food the reduction is back to -58%. If the warrior doesn’t use Melandru its only -33%. So a 3s cripple will last 2s, long enough to counter most of the warriors mobility skills.
This statement is false.

+40% condition duration food negates -40% condition duration food. Please clarify why this is false in your opinion.

Sorry read the paragraph too fast. This is true.

You forgot to mention there is no 30/30/30/30 build, with 3 weapon swaps and 5s cooldowns on burst skills :P
Another common misconception I see on the forums here

Please, we need this pinned.

This is a solid post, thanks for giving away all of our secrets gosh.

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

Doesn’t matter. The masses have spoken and Arenanet intends to nerf the warrior class.

They will most likely mess up the Trait trees to ensure that a high DPS warrior cannot be defensive, and a defensive warrior cannot do good DPS. And that neither of these two can do crowd control.

It will be an overkill , and will be based almost entirely on the complaining found on the forums and PVP.

There will be a backlash because this time, this class is very highly used by the player base and changes made will affect a lot of people.

Or I could be wrong about how this will turn out.

Part of the problem of basing your reactions as a developer on just the negative folk that choose to use web based forums. Still hoping for in-game survey and feedback UI. hoping.

I cannot decide if warriors are op or not because therefore I had to play all professions.

But what I see is so many QQ threads with lots of misinformation / lies about warriors mechanics. People argue why this or that about warrior is op, but often rely on false facts.

That’s why I made this thread. I don’t want to proof anything. I just want to inform anyone how warriors work.

Yeah, and it is harder than most people think to keep constant adrenaline for burst skills, especially in 1v1.

Even with furious (especially after the potential stealth nerf), signet of fury, and only 10 points in discipline (only 10% burst recharge rate), I get only 2 maybe 3 bursts in a row. And that is using a sword and bow, both of which are faster at getting adrenaline than a hammer.

And even if a hammer bursts misses (sorry just focusing on this because that’s where most of the hate is on now) and it goes on cool down. That’s ~7.5 seconds for it to recharge vs. 10 sec for a unmodified endurance gain dodge. I mean how is this any different than the old bull rush/100blades “uber combo that always kills”.

deathTouch.9706:

Mace+shield/GS is seen with reasonable regularity for single-target shutdown.

Even so, axe/shield + GS can shutdown a single-target quite effectively, even now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r4E9N50lTs

Good post, thanks for this. Regarding Healing Signet, I’ve noticed recently how wildly useful it is against pesky classes who try to tickle and run forever, and to be honest it has been a breath of fresh air. On the flip side, I’m concerned that this is just my relief at not feeling insanely pressured in attrition fights. Perhaps I should feel more pressured, or it shouldn’t be as effective? Or maybe the people I’ve fought have gotten so used to doing so little and spending so much time running that they just aren’t playing up to snuff and I’m deserving more 1on1 encounter wins against classes like Thieves and Mesmers that I didn’t used to get as easily?

And on the other hand, having to sit and wait around outside of a Zerg because I took myself down to half health is very detrimental. I can really see the pros and cons, and I have a hard time justifying the cries of people who have built evasive condition attrition and used to win against a class that used to have minimal sustain. Though I also wonder if I can still dish out too much pressure based on the 1on1 sustain.

Having felt on the back foot for so long, it’s weird considering the possibility that something is too strong. I’ll be curious to see what changes ANet has in store for the Warrior. That being said, all of this post is true.

Rigel.3092:

deathTouch.9706:

Mace+shield/GS is seen with reasonable regularity for single-target shutdown.

Even so, axe/shield + GS can shutdown a single-target quite effectively, even now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r4E9N50lTs

Any good player can make almost any build viable in WvW. It’s all about what role you need said build to fill.

Axe/shield + GS seems a bit awkward imo and I’m REALLY not a fan of the autoattack chain or axe 2 but if someone finds that it fills a role nicely then more power to them.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Good post, thanks for this. Regarding Healing Signet, I’ve noticed recently how wildly useful it is against pesky classes who try to tickle and run forever, and to be honest it has been a breath of fresh air. On the flip side, I’m concerned that this is just my relief at not feeling insanely pressured in attrition fights. Perhaps I should feel more pressured, or it shouldn’t be as effective? Or maybe the people I’ve fought have gotten so used to doing so little and spending so much time running that they just aren’t playing up to snuff and I’m deserving more 1on1 encounter wins against classes like Thieves and Mesmers that I didn’t used to get as easily?

And on the other hand, having to sit and wait around outside of a Zerg because I took myself down to half health is very detrimental. I can really see the pros and cons, and I have a hard time justifying the cries of people who have built evasive condition attrition and used to win against a class that used to have minimal sustain. Though I also wonder if I can still dish out too much pressure based on the 1on1 sustain.

Having felt on the back foot for so long, it’s weird considering the possibility that something is too strong. I’ll be curious to see what changes ANet has in store for the Warrior. That being said, all of this post is true.

Well the thing is, warrior concept was originally a class that “became more powerful as the fight went on”. It was supposed to be the class of attrition. Instead, for many months that role was filled by bunker guards, rangers, eles and the dreaded condi bunker mes.

War had such terrible sustain for such a long time that most war players had to adopt the “full zerker all-or-nothing” mindset to try and burst a target down before they died themselves, as that was the only way to have a chance at winning any type of fight. Furthermore, any warrior player who stuck with the class for the 8 or so months it was relatively weak learned every trick about pretty much everything in the game to be able to win fights because, if you didn’t outplay your opponent, you were guaranteed to lose against almost any other class or build.

When healing sig was buffed, we now once again became a class of attrition, and people who have mastered the class through the period of time the class was weak now seem unstoppable. Was the class overcompensated a bit? Perhaps a tiny bit, but not to the degree that everyone who doesn’t play war would have you believe.

The War now is an all-around threat. It doesn’t have the burst that a pure glass engie has, it doesn’t have the pure survivability that a bunker guard has, it doesn’t have the utility that a mesmer or guard or thief or ele or engie has, but what it does bring is an un-ignorable, high-damage yet durable option to the fight.

And I think that’s why we’re seeing so much frustration with people playing against warriors. Wars are doing enough damage to the point where they cannot be ignored in a fight, yet they are durable enough where hard-focusing them over, say, a glass engie or staff ele usually isn’t a sound decision.

And that’s why I think they’re in a pretty perfect place right. They are fulfilling the role they were intended to fill.

@deathTouch: That’s a good summary. I’ve had my Warrior for about 13-14 months, and although I’ve dabbled in other weapons, I’ve basically been Hammer/GS the entire time. I had never heard that Wars were designed to get stronger as the fight went on, though Adrenaline does lend itself to that fact a bit. For me though, I often tried to max on Adren early and often (using old Zerker Stance, Healing Surge, etc.) to max on Earthshakers, and that goes back to your note that it was Zerker Gear all-in-all-the-time builds. I had to wipe people quickly, or things were bad all the time.

Now, it’s honestly very strange to see these Thieves and Mesmers drop. Like I can’t express how different it is to feel like my opponent has to try to win instead of winning because I maybe made a mistake or two/otherwise didn’t play the situation perfectly. I feel like I might be OP because some of the pressure of not making mistakes has been lifted against these types of builds.

Anyway, I don’t want to derail the thread or anything, just adding some color to the “feels”. Personally, I’d still rather have the sustain with more of an on-use healing mechanic, and I’d advocate some change to Healing Signet. But the difference in small-scale sustain given an appropriate build and execution is staggering.

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s that they can use every ~7 3/4s. So you’ll be stunned approx. 25% of the time.
- Adrenal Health ticks every 3 seconds, not every second. So nop, it doesnt heal for huge amounts. Most warriors use their burst as much as they can, so at average they are at 50% adrenaline (citation needed) which results in an average 125 hp / 3s = 41hps plus healing power. With full adrenaline its 120 hps plus healing power. Also when they use their adrenaline, they lose 3 conditions.
- Warriors strong healing skills compensate for the lack of all the defensive stuff other professions got, e.g. Stealth, Pets, Clones, Blinks
- Healing Signet and Healing Surge both have pros and cons. Healing Signet is less effective against huge spike damage which is unlikely if we have over 3k armor. Thats where Healing Surge shines. Example: In a 40s battle you can use Healing Surge twice for up to 20540 hp. Thats 514 hps vs 407 hps with HS. The reason most warriors just use Healing Signet is that just few enemies run zerker builds. Healing Signet shines against all builds that deal under 1k DPS under pressure, and it can’t be interrupted or stopped. Simple as that.
- Endure Pain lasts 4s not 8s. It doesnt remove conditions and it doesnt negate condition damage. Berserker Stance does this, and there’s a trait to increase the duration of both, along with blocks and Lyssa runes.
- (removed due to inaccuracy)
- All warrior mobility skills rely on the actual run speed. They are hard countered by cripple, chill, root and boon stripping (in case of swiftness stripping). They all have a fairly long traveling time. All conditions are nullfied by Berserker’s Stance, though.
- Mobile Strikes only removes immobilize at the beginning of the skill. You can still immobilize the warrior during traveling time of the skill excluding Greatsword 3, because it evades.
- Warriors can reduce cripple/ chill/ immobilize duration bei -98% via Dogged March, Melandru Runes and Food. But this is easily negated by +Condition Duration food. So with +40% condition duration food the reduction is back to -58%. If the warrior doesn’t use Melandru its only -33%. So a 3s cripple will last 2s, long enough to counter most of the warriors mobility skills.

ftfy

Cogbyrn.7283:

having to sit and wait around outside of a Zerg because I took myself down to half health is very detrimental. I can really see the pros and cons, and I have a hard time justifying the cries of people who have built evasive condition attrition and used to win against a class that used to have minimal sustain.

Having felt on the back foot for so long, it’s weird considering the possibility that something is too strong

That was my experience too, prior to the Healing buff. I would always have 30 Defense with Full Adren, and eat Mango pies, just to try and get SOME kind of sustained health recovery.

deathTouch.9706:

Well the thing is, warrior concept was originally a class that “became more powerful as the fight went on”. It was supposed to be the class of attrition. Instead, for many months that role was filled by bunker guards, rangers, eles and the dreaded condi bunker mes.

War had such terrible sustain for such a long time that most war players had to adopt the “full zerker all-or-nothing” mindset to try and burst a target down before they died themselves, as that was the only way to have a chance at winning any type of fight.

When healing sig was buffed, we now once again became a class of attrition

And I think that’s why we’re seeing so much frustration with people playing against warriors. Wars are doing enough damage to the point where they cannot be ignored in a fight, yet they are durable enough where hard-focusing them over, say, a glass engie or staff ele usually isn’t a sound decision.

And that’s why I think they’re in a pretty perfect place right. They are fulfilling the role they were intended to fill.

Nicely put.

I tend to agree with you, if Warriors are stripped of their healing, three things will happen.
1. One-Shot Glass-Zerker builds will become the new Warrior meta (again)
2. tPvP teams will go back to running 0 Warriors
3. The forums will reverse their stance and start crying that Warrior healing is UP

@Rahar: Cleansing Ire only removes 1 condition per bar of adrenaline used. Not a flat 3.

Berserker Stance doesn’t remove conditions, nor negate damage of conditions that are already on you.

You won’t be stunned 25% of the time if the Warrior doesn’t land the Earthshaker. All classes can: dodge OR block OR evade OR use stability OR blind. And regarding Dodging, players should be trying their hardest to dodge the most impactful abilities in a fight, not just whenever they want. So even without a back-up, play better.

I thought Melandru runes were the issue. Yes, Lyssa can clear condis, but then you’re using your Signet of Rage (assuming that’s your elite) to clear conditions. Which is ok, but eh. I ran Lyssa for a long time, and the best use was using it before bugging out of a fight. If you’re ravaged by conditions, it doesn’t really help.

Either way, none of the information you provided about Endure Pain was about Endure Pain. You’re simply trying to stir the pot because you were concerned there wasn’t enough bold text.

Berserker’s Stance takes Condis out of the equation for what, 8-10 seconds out of 60? It’s a brief period for a Warrior to regain the initiative or make a play. It doesn’t remove conditions or affect the ones that are already on you in any way.

You’d think Greatsword 3 wouldn’t fall victim to being Immob’d when using in conjunction with Mobile Strikes. You’d be wrong: http://www.twitch.tv/cogbyrn/c/1803881. In any case, Rush is the one you want to Immob during, and when you do, the Warrior CANNOT get away from most classes with any kind of pursuit ability.

deathTouch.9706:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Good post, thanks for this. Regarding Healing Signet, I’ve noticed recently how wildly useful it is against pesky classes who try to tickle and run forever, and to be honest it has been a breath of fresh air. On the flip side, I’m concerned that this is just my relief at not feeling insanely pressured in attrition fights. Perhaps I should feel more pressured, or it shouldn’t be as effective? Or maybe the people I’ve fought have gotten so used to doing so little and spending so much time running that they just aren’t playing up to snuff and I’m deserving more 1on1 encounter wins against classes like Thieves and Mesmers that I didn’t used to get as easily?

And on the other hand, having to sit and wait around outside of a Zerg because I took myself down to half health is very detrimental. I can really see the pros and cons, and I have a hard time justifying the cries of people who have built evasive condition attrition and used to win against a class that used to have minimal sustain. Though I also wonder if I can still dish out too much pressure based on the 1on1 sustain.

Having felt on the back foot for so long, it’s weird considering the possibility that something is too strong. I’ll be curious to see what changes ANet has in store for the Warrior. That being said, all of this post is true.

Well the thing is, warrior concept was originally a class that “became more powerful as the fight went on”. It was supposed to be the class of attrition. Instead, for many months that role was filled by bunker guards, rangers, eles and the dreaded condi bunker mes.

War had such terrible sustain for such a long time that most war players had to adopt the “full zerker all-or-nothing” mindset to try and burst a target down before they died themselves, as that was the only way to have a chance at winning any type of fight. Furthermore, any warrior player who stuck with the class for the 8 or so months it was relatively weak learned every trick about pretty much everything in the game to be able to win fights because, if you didn’t outplay your opponent, you were guaranteed to lose against almost any other class or build.

When healing sig was buffed, we now once again became a class of attrition, and people who have mastered the class through the period of time the class was weak now seem unstoppable. Was the class overcompensated a bit? Perhaps a tiny bit, but not to the degree that everyone who doesn’t play war would have you believe.

The War now is an all-around threat. It doesn’t have the burst that a pure glass engie has, it doesn’t have the pure survivability that a bunker guard has, it doesn’t have the utility that a mesmer or guard or thief or ele or engie has, but what it does bring is an un-ignorable, high-damage yet durable option to the fight.

And I think that’s why we’re seeing so much frustration with people playing against warriors. Wars are doing enough damage to the point where they cannot be ignored in a fight, yet they are durable enough where hard-focusing them over, say, a glass engie or staff ele usually isn’t a sound decision.

And that’s why I think they’re in a pretty perfect place right. They are fulfilling the role they were intended to fill.

A very nice summary. Also to Cogbyrn, I did some quick and dirty math a while ago comparing healing signet and healing surge.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Regen-heals-should-be-removed-from-the-game/page/3#post3093020

The short of it is that the effectiveness of healing signet (vs. healing surge, which was the one that most warriors used back in the day) comes down to battle length and poison. In a 30 sec fight, you need 50% uptime of poison for healing signet to equal healing surge in hp/sec. In a 45 sec fight, healing surge already will heal more than healing signet (and poison just makes the gap bigger). In a 25 sec fight (or shorter) healing signet will always be worse than healing surge. And yes, there are pros and cons to active vs. passive healing to consider as well. I don’t think a lot of people think of that when they shout that healing signet is too strong.

I was using healing signet back in the day, when it wasn’t very good, and I was still able to kill people (even though I’m not that great). deathTouch is right, that it forced a lot of us to getting used to other classes.

This post really should be pinned/stickied.

Cogbyrn.7283:

@Rahar: Cleansing Ire only removes 1 condition per bar of adrenaline used. Not a flat 3.

Berserker Stance doesn’t remove conditions, nor negate damage of conditions that are already on you.

I assumed, by the context of the OP, that the Warrior using his adrenaline was at 3 bars. I’m perfectly aware of this, and how easy it is to obtain 3 bars of adrenaline.

As for your next point, this is true. But Warriors have Cleansing Ire, Signet of Stamina, “Shake It Off!”, Lyssa runes, Soldier runes… Suffice to say this shouldn’t be a problem. Part of using Zerker Stance is using it before you get conditions. Not many professions can say that they can become immune to damage at all. Engineers are the only other one that can become immune to conditions, if I remember right, and that’s under 25% health.

Cogbyrn.7283:

You won’t be stunned 25% of the time if the Warrior doesn’t land the Earthshaker. All classes can: dodge OR block OR evade OR use stability OR blind. And regarding Dodging, players should be trying their hardest to dodge the most impactful abilities in a fight, not just whenever they want. So even without a back-up, play better.

With the ease of getting adrenaline, and not all professions having access to what you’ve pointed out above, this isn’t a good excuse for them to be able to throw out Earthshakers every 7 seconds. Not all professions can get stability (Necro, Thief, Mesmer), not all professions have big blocks (Necro, Thief, Mesmer, Ranger, Ele). I could go on. But not all professions have all of these. Playing right certainly does have an impact – And I believe I play right enough – But when it comes down to impossible to react skills like Skull Crack (which has the same recharge time and a 3s stun instead of 2s), that you have to instead anticipate, your point falls flat on it’s face.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I thought Melandru runes were the issue. Yes, Lyssa can clear condis, but then you’re using your Signet of Rage (assuming that’s your elite) to clear conditions. Which is ok, but eh. I ran Lyssa for a long time, and the best use was using it before bugging out of a fight. If you’re ravaged by conditions, it doesn’t really help.

Either way, none of the information you provided about Endure Pain was about Endure Pain. You’re simply trying to stir the pot because you were concerned there wasn’t enough bold text.

Berserker’s Stance takes Condis out of the equation for what, 8-10 seconds out of 60? It’s a brief period for a Warrior to regain the initiative or make a play. It doesn’t remove conditions or affect the ones that are already on you in any way.

How can you just dismiss my point and say it doesn’t help? It clears all conditions as well as giving all boons. If you use it at the right time, it’s a game-changer. It won’t make you immune, yes, but it’ll give you more than an edge. Combine it with your Zerker Stance and you’ve got complete immunity.

Endure pain lasts for 4 seconds. If you activate this, and block immediately after, you’ve got 7s of damage immunity. This is not including the trait (either of them, for that matter. The stance duration one and Defy Pain).

As for Zerker Stance – It doesn’t just clear conditions that damage you. Chilled, Crippled, Immob, Fear – Everything a profession can use to keep you off them (looking at you, necro) can be nullified with a single skill. It’s too powerful, and that’s why it’s on every Warrior’s utilities now. Not many other professions can say that they can ignore conditions at all, and most would kill for a skill that has even half the effect. You’re the special one here. Again, combine with Lyssa runes, Cleansing Ire, shouts, etc. for complete immunity.

Cogbyrn.7283:

You’d think Greatsword 3 wouldn’t fall victim to being Immob’d when using in conjunction with Mobile Strikes. You’d be wrong: http://www.twitch.tv/cogbyrn/c/1803881. In any case, Rush is the one you want to Immob during, and when you do, the Warrior CANNOT get away from most classes with any kind of pursuit ability.

Good video, but it looks like you were immobilized immediately after the skill from what I can tell. Guess someone got lucky. Still, appreciate some evidence in all this.

As for your next point, it’s simply false. To professions without a reliable immobilize, Warriors get away scotch free, even after engaging. Not even Thieves can keep up with their burst mobility specced, even with a shortbow. Take a sword and a greatsword and you’ve got guaranteed escapes. Zerker stance for icing on the cake. Melandru, food, and traits for OVER THE LINE edition.

Rahar.9872:

As for your next point, it’s simply false. To professions without a reliable immobilize, Warriors get away scotch free, even after engaging. Not even Thieves can keep up with their burst mobility specced, even with a shortbow. Take a sword and a greatsword and you’ve got guaranteed escapes. Zerker stance for icing on the cake. Melandru, food, and traits for OVER THE LINE edition.

Nop. Thieves with Shortbow of course catch up with GS/Sw warrior. Blinks are so much better than warrior mobility skills. I’ve done a lot of testing ingame with all the available mobility skills. Rush for example has a traveling time of 2s. With swiftness up you can run approx. 60% of the same distance in the same 2s timeframe.

Rush is 2s traveling time. WW is 1s. Leap is 1s. Blinks are instant and ignore cripple/chill/immob. Do the math…

teg.1340:

Nop. Thieves with Shortbow of course catch up with GS/Sw warrior.

No, no, they really do not. I recently switched to the Warrior OP bandwagon from my main, a thief, while my roaming buddy is still on his. I outrun him on my Warrior and it is not the other way around. That’s just using the sword leap versus shortbow shadowstep or heartseeker leaps, I’m not even using a greatsword for the rush and whirlwind speed…

Shadowstep: 900 range, 0s animation, no cooldown (up to 3x with full ini)
vs
Savage Leap: 600 range, 1s animation, 8s cooldown

Maybe your buddy thief should switch to round-based RPGs?

Deathspike.1870:

teg.1340:

Nop. Thieves with Shortbow of course catch up with GS/Sw warrior.

No, no, they really do not. I recently switched to the Warrior OP bandwagon from my main, a thief, while my roaming buddy is still on his. I outrun him on my Warrior and it is not the other way around. That’s just using the sword leap versus shortbow shadowstep or heartseeker leaps, I’m not even using a greatsword for the rush and whirlwind speed…

They actually do. At the very least, they keep pace well. The only times I really escape a Thief are if he/she blows all of his/her initiative in getting to me from long range and I notice. Then I can bust out. Otherwise, it’s a death race. My main hope against Thieves is that they pull far enough away from their team that I can do a sudden turn and surprise Hammer combo the Thief down.

if you are talking about warriors speced to run then that would be the greatsword, sword/horn or sword/shield.

if you are talking about warriors speced to fight then that would be hammer, axe/shield or mace shield.

no warrior that actually intends to fight and do damage runs with both greatsword and sword. and the build that uses the hammer is a completely different build.

it looks to me like you are arguing how over powered the warrior is by comparing two or three different warrior builds to be the same build.

teg.1340:

Shadowstep: 900 range, 0s animation, no cooldown (up to 3x with full ini)

Shadowstep is an utility skill with 1200 range. It has a cool-down of 50 seconds. If you are referring to the shadow step mechanic, there are multiple sources for it. Infiltrator’s Arrow is the most accessible one (#5 on the shortbow) which in an ideal situation has 900 range. You can’t place it that far without it failing, plus there is a travel time for the arrow that takes time and negates all the traveled distance from the movement. On top of that you have latency which influences that as well. You can fire two of these arrows until you need to wait for initiative regeneration, which is largely dependent on whether you use traits and skills for faster regen (probably neither). Please don’t assume you know a class mechanic because you can (badly) read some wiki.

Cogbyrn.7283:

At the very least, they keep pace well. The only times I really escape a Thief are if he/she blows all of his/her initiative in getting to me from long range and I notice. Then I can bust out. Otherwise, it’s a death race. My main hope against Thieves is that they pull far enough away from their team that I can do a sudden turn and surprise Hammer combo the Thief down.

Yes, they pace well, and they blow their initiative by doing so. If you have a S/D chaser you can leap twice, turn around and smack their heads in because their teleport and evasion skills have been blown. A D/D chaser will probably leap to follow and you just need it to leep 2~3 times before you evade their C&D and kill them. The best chaser is a D/P which has an effective skill, Shadow Shot, with 900 range. If doesn’t actually travel that far due to projectile travel speed so 600 is more realistic. That last one doesn’t blow all your initiative to just keep up with something (and screwing yourself in the process) so D/P chasers are the most respectable. Note that they cannot escape using the same mechanic though, so you can chase them just fine.

Fiorrello.8126:

if you are talking about warriors speced to run then that would be the greatsword, sword/horn or sword/shield.

if you are talking about warriors speced to fight then that would be hammer, axe/shield or mace shield.

no warrior that actually intends to fight and do damage runs with both greatsword and sword. and the build that uses the hammer is a completely different build.

it looks to me like you are arguing how over powered the warrior is by comparing two or three different warrior builds to be the same build.

Don’t you know warriors can do everything without losing anything? (the amazing 30/30/30/30/30 GS/S&W/LB/Ham/axe&shield build) /s

At least that’s what you’d think if you believed even half of the posts on these forums now-a-days.

I don’t know how good/bad other professions meta builds are right now, but there are counters to every single warrior build out there.

Deathspike.1870:

Cogbyrn.7283:

At the very least, they keep pace well. The only times I really escape a Thief are if he/she blows all of his/her initiative in getting to me from long range and I notice. Then I can bust out. Otherwise, it’s a death race. My main hope against Thieves is that they pull far enough away from their team that I can do a sudden turn and surprise Hammer combo the Thief down.

Yes, they pace well, and they blow their initiative by doing so. If you have a S/D chaser you can leap twice, turn around and smack their heads in because their teleport and evasion skills have been blown. A D/D chaser will probably leap to follow and you just need it to leep 2~3 times before you evade their C&D and kill them. The best chaser is a D/P which has an effective skill, Shadow Shot, with 900 range. If doesn’t actually travel that far due to projectile travel speed so 600 is more realistic. That last one doesn’t blow all your initiative to just keep up with something (and screwing yourself in the process) so D/P chasers are the most respectable. Note that they cannot escape using the same mechanic though, so you can chase them just fine.

That’s part of it, but they can also cripple you as you’re trying to get away from ~900 range. Additionally, if they get within 900 range, they can Steal on top of you, which potentially gives some Initiative back and puts them right on your kitten . I don’t think Thieves typically go with Long Reach for Steal, but being able to step 1,500 range onto you means escaping can be difficult, especially if they use any Venoms, etc.

I’m not saying Thieves have it easy, but they can definitely muck up an escape. It’s possible to turn on some if you watch them and play it right, but any cripples/chills/immobs you take while trying to run from a group often allows the rest of the group to catch up at least within range to try to cripple/immob you themselves.

And if a Warrior saves his elite/utilities in order to make his escape, is that really so bad? I’m not necessarily phrasing that at you, Deathspike, but in general it seems like people think a class’s ability to escape when built for it in a WvW situation is a really bad thing. Sure, some classes can’t bug out of fights nearly as easily, but they do other things that allow them to take advantage of their own advantages.

Except Rangers. I really don’t know what they can do.

teg.1340:

There are so many warrior QQ threads nowadays with so many false facts. So I think it’s time to clarify some of those:

- Unsuspecting Foe doesnt work with knockbacks or knockdowns, only with stuns. Hammer only got 1 stun which last up to 2s.
- Adrenal Health ticks every 3 seconds, not every second. So nop, it doesnt heal for huge amounts. Most warriors use their burst as much as they can, so at average they are at 50% adrenaline which results in an average 125 hp / 3s = 41hps. With full adrenaline its 120 hps.
- Warriors strong healing skills compensate for the lack of all the defensive stuff other professions got, e.g. Protection, Aegis, Blinds, Weapon Heals, Stealth, Pets, Clones, Blinks, massive Evades
- Healing Signet and Healing Surge both have pros and cons. Healing Signet is useless against huge spike damage. Thats where Healing Surge shines. Example: In a 40s battle you can use Healing Surge twice for up to 20540 hp. Thats 514 hps vs 407 hps with HS. The reason most warriors just use Healing Signet is that just few enemies run zerker builds. Healing Signet shines against condition and bunker builds. Simple as that.
- Endure Pain lasts 4s not 8s. It doesnt remove conditions and it doesnt negate condition damage.
- Almost all warrior skills have very obvious animations, thus are easy to dodge.
- All warrior mobility skills rely on the actual run speed. They are hard countered by cripple, chill, root and boon stripping (in case of swiftness stripping). They all have a fairly long traveling time.
- Mobile Strikes only removes immobilize at the beginning of the skill. You can still immobilize the warrior during traveling time of the skill.
- Warriors can reduce cripple/ chill/ immobilize duration bei -98% via Dogged March, Melandru Runes and Food. But this is easily negated by +Condition Duration food. So with +40% condition duration food the reduction is back to -58%. If the warrior doesn’t use Melandru its only -33%. So a 3s cripple will last 2s, long enough to counter most of the warriors mobility skills.

Nice big fat “Don’t nerf me bro!” post. See how much it didn’t work?

teg.1340:

- Almost all warrior skills have very obvious animations, thus are easy to dodge.

Skullcrack?! The animations looks like the mace autoattack. Don’t come it with Hundred Blades having an obvious animation. The animation of the skill starting the stun combo matters, the follow-up skills do not.

teg.1340:

— All warrior mobility skills rely on the actual run speed. They are hard countered by cripple, chill, root and boon stripping (in case of swiftness stripping). They all have a fairly long traveling time.

How can you be hard countered by snares and roots with dogged-march/melandru/lemongrass? For many builds running +40% condition duration is not an option.

deathTouch.9706:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Good post, thanks for this. Regarding Healing Signet, I’ve noticed recently how wildly useful it is against pesky classes who try to tickle and run forever, and to be honest it has been a breath of fresh air. On the flip side, I’m concerned that this is just my relief at not feeling insanely pressured in attrition fights. Perhaps I should feel more pressured, or it shouldn’t be as effective? Or maybe the people I’ve fought have gotten so used to doing so little and spending so much time running that they just aren’t playing up to snuff and I’m deserving more 1on1 encounter wins against classes like Thieves and Mesmers that I didn’t used to get as easily?

And on the other hand, having to sit and wait around outside of a Zerg because I took myself down to half health is very detrimental. I can really see the pros and cons, and I have a hard time justifying the cries of people who have built evasive condition attrition and used to win against a class that used to have minimal sustain. Though I also wonder if I can still dish out too much pressure based on the 1on1 sustain.

Having felt on the back foot for so long, it’s weird considering the possibility that something is too strong. I’ll be curious to see what changes ANet has in store for the Warrior. That being said, all of this post is true.

Well the thing is, warrior concept was originally a class that “became more powerful as the fight went on”. It was supposed to be the class of attrition. Instead, for many months that role was filled by bunker guards, rangers, eles and the dreaded condi bunker mes.

War had such terrible sustain for such a long time that most war players had to adopt the “full zerker all-or-nothing” mindset to try and burst a target down before they died themselves, as that was the only way to have a chance at winning any type of fight. Furthermore, any warrior player who stuck with the class for the 8 or so months it was relatively weak learned every trick about pretty much everything in the game to be able to win fights because, if you didn’t outplay your opponent, you were guaranteed to lose against almost any other class or build.

When healing sig was buffed, we now once again became a class of attrition, and people who have mastered the class through the period of time the class was weak now seem unstoppable. Was the class overcompensated a bit? Perhaps a tiny bit, but not to the degree that everyone who doesn’t play war would have you believe.

The War now is an all-around threat. It doesn’t have the burst that a pure glass engie has, it doesn’t have the pure survivability that a bunker guard has, it doesn’t have the utility that a mesmer or guard or thief or ele or engie has, but what it does bring is an un-ignorable, high-damage yet durable option to the fight.

And I think that’s why we’re seeing so much frustration with people playing against warriors. Wars are doing enough damage to the point where they cannot be ignored in a fight, yet they are durable enough where hard-focusing them over, say, a glass engie or staff ele usually isn’t a sound decision.

And that’s why I think they’re in a pretty perfect place right. They are fulfilling the role they were intended to fill.

Great post, unfortunately the whines have won out

and yet we still have a lot of people complain about warriors.
is it because they do puny damage and expect to defeat warriors?
healing signet is only strong against people who deal puny damage.

by the way i added this topic link to my forum signature.

healing surge can be used twice in 40 seconds? It has a 35 second CD. So I am assuming you’re using it at start of fight to gain full adrenaline, even though you have full health and again on cool down? Also with my current set up, even if i did use it twice, that would only need me 14K w/ the assumption being made I am never at full adrenaline for long and adrenal healing scales only with adrenaline and not your healing static.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

healing surge can be used twice in 40 seconds? It has a 35 second CD. So I am assuming you’re using it at start of fight to gain full adrenaline, even though you have full health and again on cool down? Also with my current set up, even if i did use it twice, that would only need me 14K w/ the assumption being made I am never at full adrenaline for long and adrenal healing scales only with adrenaline and not your healing static.

It has a 30 second CD. And within 10 seconds it isn’t out of the realm of impossibility to take 10K damage by say a class like a thief, although you really shouldn’t in a 1v1. But in group fight scenarios that can be definitely the case if you are getting focused. It isn’t also out of the realm of impossibility to have full adrenaline by then. So that is a 10K Heal within 10 seconds. Then 30 seconds later you use it again for another 10K Heal, that is 20K. While it may be the case you are not at full adrenaline by the time your heal is up and you need to use it, one would hope a Warrior would save their burst mechanic when the heal is coming close to off cooldown.

So 20K in 40 seconds is about 500 HP/Sec, compared to the healing signets 400 HP/Sec.

killahmayne.9518:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

healing surge can be used twice in 40 seconds? It has a 35 second CD. So I am assuming you’re using it at start of fight to gain full adrenaline, even though you have full health and again on cool down? Also with my current set up, even if i did use it twice, that would only need me 14K w/ the assumption being made I am never at full adrenaline for long and adrenal healing scales only with adrenaline and not your healing static.

It has a 30 second CD. And within 10 seconds it isn’t out of the realm of impossibility to take 10K damage by say a class like a thief, although you really shouldn’t in a 1v1. But in group fight scenarios that can be definitely the case if you are getting focused. It isn’t also out of the realm of impossibility to have full adrenaline by then. So that is a 10K Heal within 10 seconds. Then 30 seconds later you use it again for another 10K Heal, that is 20K. While it may be the case you are not at full adrenaline by the time your heal is up and you need to use it, one would hope a Warrior would save their burst mechanic when the heal is coming close to off cooldown.

So 20K in 40 seconds is about 500 HP/Sec, compared to the healing signets 400 HP/Sec.

Yep, and healing surge is able to get around poison (assuming you cleanse before you heal of course) a lot better than healing sig.

Also there are utilities that can get you to full adrenaline just as a fight is starting if you really needed it, so gaining adrenaline shouldn’t really ever be an issue.

I must be doing it wrong, gaining adrenaline is always an issue. Every moment you’re in combat its a huge issue.

Xernth.8561:

I must be doing it wrong, gaining adrenaline is always an issue. Every moment you’re in combat its a huge issue.

between versatile rage, being constantly being hit while also hitting targets, it really shouldn’t be a huge issue. Especially when mesmer clones or some form of AI is attacking you as well.

teg.1340:

Sifu.6527:

teg.1340:

- Warriors can reduce cripple/ chill/ immobilize duration bei -98% via Dogged March, Melandru Runes and Food. But this is easily negated by +Condition Duration food. So with +40% condition duration food the reduction is back to -58%. If the warrior doesn’t use Melandru its only -33%. So a 3s cripple will last 2s, long enough to counter most of the warriors mobility skills.
This statement is false.

+40% condition duration food negates -40% condition duration food. Please clarify why this is false in your opinion.

Food counters food, runes counter runes and traits counter traits. My necro has on average 86% condition duration up time. I’ve fought against tons of warrior builds and my normally 20-ish seconds of chill (applied via 4 skills chained) still lasts over 12 seconds easily if they all connect against a negative duration setup.

There’s way more +Condition Duration than -Condition Duration, e.g. you get +30% Condition Duration as a trait stat alone. Food counters food, runes counter runes, but traits clearly favor condition builds.

E.g. a warrior get +50% bleed duration but I dont know a single profession with a -50% bleed duration trait.

I think a lot of the confusion over perspective is people are talking about different modes. PVP, WvWvW and PVE all have different ideals on what is powerful and what is not. In PVP they are somwhere between over powered and over used. Thief for a good example is meh in PVE, pretty heavily abuse in WvWvW (by mostly poor players who cannot hack fair combat), and in PVP they are going from mid tier to bottom tier. In PVP they are simply better choices considering the current meta.

I think as well sometimes its the counter builds that are most vocal, in pvp a lot of condition specs are showing up, and of course the warrior happens to have a very good way of dealing with that. So any player who uses conditions will find warriors troublesome.

teg.1340:

There’s way more +Condition Duration than -Condition Duration, e.g. you get +30% Condition Duration as a trait stat alone. Food counters food, runes counter runes, but traits clearly favor condition builds.

E.g. a warrior get +50% bleed duration but I dont know a single profession with a -50% bleed duration trait.

Well, of course you can’t completely negate a conditioner’s build. It’s good that traits favor condition builds. Defense is good but if it were possible to completely negate all conditions I think that’d be a bit overpowered and imbalanced.

killahmayne.9518:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

healing surge can be used twice in 40 seconds? It has a 35 second CD. So I am assuming you’re using it at start of fight to gain full adrenaline, even though you have full health and again on cool down? Also with my current set up, even if i did use it twice, that would only need me 14K w/ the assumption being made I am never at full adrenaline for long and adrenal healing scales only with adrenaline and not your healing static.

It has a 30 second CD. And within 10 seconds it isn’t out of the realm of impossibility to take 10K damage by say a class like a thief, although you really shouldn’t in a 1v1. But in group fight scenarios that can be definitely the case if you are getting focused. It isn’t also out of the realm of impossibility to have full adrenaline by then. So that is a 10K Heal within 10 seconds. Then 30 seconds later you use it again for another 10K Heal, that is 20K. While it may be the case you are not at full adrenaline by the time your heal is up and you need to use it, one would hope a Warrior would save their burst mechanic when the heal is coming close to off cooldown.

So 20K in 40 seconds is about 500 HP/Sec, compared to the healing signets 400 HP/Sec.

Yoda is well known in the senate. In the senate you see three aliens that look exactly like E.T. It is not out the realms of belief that the civilization E.T comes from know who Yoda is. When E.T comes to earth he finds a boy playing with star wars toys, which must have been weird for E.T. The boy takes E.T out on Halloween where E.T see’s a boy dressed as Yoda and points at him and acknowledges him. Later in the film E.T makes toys and a bike fly. It is not out the realms of belief that if E.T knows who Yoda is and his civilization is part of the senate that E.T is using the force to do this. Which makes it entirely within the realms of belief that E.T is in fact a Jedi.

When you put any thing in the context of, “It is not out the realms of impossibility.” Anything is possible..that does not mean it is probable. Your entire argument is based on the fact no chill, no interrupts, no blinds are being used whatsoever, all of which will increase the cool down of an active heal and hamper adrenaline gain. It is entirely within the realms of possibility that this scenario can and will happen if a warrior engages a group fight situation.

I agree with a lot in this post. Healing Signet is overrated by the public because it is an easy thing to point to when they are losing. I disagree that the Healing Signet should be nerfed. If there is a problem with the balance, change the other classes.

Meanwhile I do think that the reason Hammer is the current #1 choice is because it will completely disable the target and allow the warrior to gain free healing. I personally do not like running hammer, but it is worth looking into more if there is going to be a nerf for warriors.