Guild Wars 2

With dragon hunter out of the bag, who knows what we might get? Here is my crazy guess on the specialization.

Shadow Blade:

Rather than turning to rage and strength, shadow blades draw their power from a much darker place. By tapping into the realm of the shade, shadow blades can become shells of their former selves and strike enemies from a place beyond the veil.

Weapon: Offhand Dagger
New Skill Type: Venoms
New F2: Shadow Walk

New Mechanics:

By pressing F2 shadow blades become a silhouette and gain defiance. While in shadow walk, the warrior gains defiance and super speed and attacks 25% faster. All leaps while in shadow walk become shadow steps. While in shadow walk the warrior deals 33% less damage but takes 20% less damage.

While in shadow walk, adrenaline is drained. Using F1 performs the warrior’s burst using the adrenaline level that the warrior had prior to entering shadow walk and ends it. Shadow Blades are distinguished from necromancer’s shroud when using their ability due to a red cloudy tint and glowing red eyes. They look more like the shadow assassin finisher.

Although shadow walk gives the warrior defiance, cc effects against the warrior reduce the shadow walk duration instead of applying their effects.

New Skills:

Souldrinker Venom (Heal):
Heal yourself and apply 3 charges of venom. When you strike an enemy steal 1 boon and heal yourself for an additional amount.

Shadowstrike Venom:
Apply 3 charges of venom to yourself. The next time you are attacked you take no damage, lose one charge, and your shadow attacks the enemy, dealing damage and removing 1 boon.

Shadowsplinter Venom:
Apply 3 charges of venom to yourself. The next time you attack an enemy, enemies around the target are struck by shadowy barbs and you lose 1 charge.

Darkseeker Venom:
Apply 3 charges of venom to yourself. The next time you attack an enemy, that enemy is is blinded, weakened, and you lose a charge.

Banishing Venom (Elite):
Apply 3 charges of venom to yourself. Each enemy you strike with this venom becomes banished to the shadow plane for 2 seconds per application of this venom where they are dealt periodic damage, deal zero damage with attacks, cannot apply conditions, and cannot apply boons or heals to allies.

Traits:

-Minor: Shadowstalker: Entering shadow walk marks your current target for death. When within 600m of target your shadow walk drains adrenaline 20% slower.
-Adept: Immaterial Shade: Shadow walk periodically cleanses 1 condition every 2 seconds.
-Grandmaster: Foreboding Presence: Venoms are shared with nearby allies. Gain fury when striking a poisoned or blinded enemy.

Adept:
-Disciple of Midnight: Entering shadow walk blinds nearby foes and deals damage.
-Opaque Shadow: Entering shadow walk breaks stun. CC effects used against you while you are defiant consume less shadow walk time and grant you might.
-Deathly Shadow: Entering shadow walk aoe poisons foes around you. Critical hits against an enemy with 3 or more conditions grants you might.

Master:
-Shade of Anguish: Your venoms apply torment to foes.
-Protective Envoy: The next enemy that strikes you under the 25% health threshold is transferred 2 of your conditions then banished to the shadow plane for 2 seconds.
-Beyonder’s Touch: Your critical hits reduce the damage penalty of shadow walk. Boons your remove also apply vulnerability.

Grandmaster:
-Beyonder’s Focus: Your burst skills are unaffected by the damage penalty from Shadow Walk. Exiting shadow walk also returns adrenaline.
-Lost in Shadow: Entering shadow walk places you into stealth and leaves a clone of you in the material world. If this clone is killed the enemy is banished to the shadow plane for 3 seconds. You deal 20% more damage to enemies in the shadow plane while in shadow walk.
-Devouring Shade: Entering shadow walk steals 1 boon from a nearby enemy every 2 seconds. Critical hits against enemies while in shadow walk refreshes 1 condition on them.

That would be sick I really want something darky.

I could see Warriors getting Venoms, although I hope they would be a bit more flashy than what teefs have. Honestly what you described just sounds like a slightly different take on teef and I would not be OK with that. I already find that class to be too forgiving and straight forward, I wouldn’t want my main class to go that way even more than it already has.

Whatever spec we get, I would want it to increase the skill ceiling because atm the most complex mechanic we have is weapon sheathing which is something every class has.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I could see Warriors getting Venoms, although I hope they would be a bit more flashy than what teefs have. Honestly what you described just sounds like a slightly different take on teef and I would not be OK with that. I already find that class to be too forgiving and straight forward, I wouldn’t want my main class to go that way even more than it already has.

Whatever spec we get, I would want it to increase the skill ceiling because atm the most complex mechanic we have is weapon sheathing which is something every class has.

I would disagree and am absolutely sure the devs stated somewhere that they wanted warrior to remain “simple and easy to play.”

Classes like the Chronomancer are there for high skill ceiling play. I don’t think the warrior will benefit from being overly complex. For those that are unsatisfied with warrior simplicity, I think that is a player issue and not a design issue and those players should try more complex classes.

Here was the criteria that I used to build the above specialization:

1.) New specialization mechanic must harmonize with the current burst F1 and not replace/overshadow it unless the entire system and F1 are being changed by the spec. In this instance the core class mechanic must still be competitive.

2.) New F skill must be easy to use and understand. Warrior must remain an accessible class that is easy to pick up and play by a newcomer, but has enough depth and pressure combos to allow more experienced players to stay interested. This is the opposite of mesmer, where you go in knowing you will have a rubix cube to unravel.

3.) Must maintain an “in your face/hack and slash” playstyle of hyperaggression with tools to stick on an enemy. To this degree it must have tools to mitigate enemy soft and hard CC and stay alive long enough to do significant melee pressure when used correctly.

4.) Must allow options for both physical and condition damage build types.

Wtb stealth for warriors I always wanted to sneak behind some poor sod with stealth and HB like “SURPRISE MOTHERKITTEN!”.

That’s a great idea OP! But the name doesn’t fit. Lothar’s Edge would be a better name for this specialization.

This sounds pretty good overall… very well thought out.

It does sound cool, so cool they made a new profession just for that it’s called: Reverent.

Considering Guardian’s specialization is called “Dragon hunter” which kinda doesn’t really make sense but makes sense GW2 lore-wise, I wouldn’t be surprised of Warrior got something out of the ordinary.

lordhelmos.7623:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I could see Warriors getting Venoms, although I hope they would be a bit more flashy than what teefs have. Honestly what you described just sounds like a slightly different take on teef and I would not be OK with that. I already find that class to be too forgiving and straight forward, I wouldn’t want my main class to go that way even more than it already has.

Whatever spec we get, I would want it to increase the skill ceiling because atm the most complex mechanic we have is weapon sheathing which is something every class has.

I would disagree and am absolutely sure the devs stated somewhere that they wanted warrior to remain “simple and easy to play.”

Classes like the Chronomancer are there for high skill ceiling play. I don’t think the warrior will benefit from being overly complex. For those that are unsatisfied with warrior simplicity, I think that is a player issue and not a design issue and those players should try more complex classes.

Here was the criteria that I used to build the above specialization:

1.) New specialization mechanic must harmonize with the current burst F1 and not replace/overshadow it unless the entire system and F1 are being changed by the spec. In this instance the core class mechanic must still be competitive.

2.) New F skill must be easy to use and understand. Warrior must remain an accessible class that is easy to pick up and play by a newcomer, but has enough depth and pressure combos to allow more experienced players to stay interested. This is the opposite of mesmer, where you go in knowing you will have a rubix cube to unravel.

3.) Must maintain an “in your face/hack and slash” playstyle of hyperaggression with tools to stick on an enemy. To this degree it must have tools to mitigate enemy soft and hard CC and stay alive long enough to do significant melee pressure when used correctly.

4.) Must allow options for both physical and condition damage build types.

As a counter, specializations give you a new icon and abilities to where you are no longer just a Warrior. The Warrior base class can remain simple mechanically, but you can add more complexity on the specs to add more depth that they currently lack.

Your argument about being friendly to newcomers doesn’t really make sense, because newcomers won’t be using specializations until they reach level 80 (except for maybe PvP, but the game discourages you from diving into that when you’re new).

You got to give veteran Warrior players a reason to stick with the character that they’ve spent so many hours on. Personally, I’ve recently become fairly bored of most of the builds because the most complex thing we have is weapon sheathing, and that’s not even Warrior specific.

I would say ideally Warrior as a class should be “easy to learn, hard to master” and not just “easy” and that the spec adds new mechanics that are simple conceptually but require a bit of skill to use effectively.

great idea!

I like it! Love the idea of taking people into the shadow realm with you for brief periods of time and all that jazz