Guild Wars 2

Hi, wanted to formulate some ideas of mine in this thread in regards to changes for the warrior.

Before i go on I want to note that I in no way think the warrior is underpowered, simply that some of their utilities, weapon skills, and traits are clunky and in the spirit of being productive I’d like to address them here.

1) The warrior has a distinct lack of protection. As we all know it is very difficult for a profession to be utilized as a bunker-style character without this boon. On the other hand i understand that the warrior is in the highest bracket of health and armor and that protection is an extremely powerful boon. My suggestions on this point will be minor.

2) Banners are clunky and troublesome. Their #2 ability once picked up is actually quite good on its own but doesnt allow itself to shine due to the long amount of time that must be spent to pick up the banner, use the ability, and place the banner back down, even when using the tilde weapon swap function to drop it quickly.

3) Warriors have some sever overlap when it comes to their utilities which is good in some ways and bad in others. They also have a distinct lack of swiftness (one of the reasons the GS is so popular is the mobility) except for the banners which still has the aforementioned problem if their swiftness is to be utilized.

4) Combo fields are scarce, so scarce in fact that while we have several finishers we only have 1 field (Adrenaline Long Bow fire field). Now i understand why this is the case… we are not magical, we would be incredibly powerful if the fields were able to be accessed regularly, and the skills that award us a field would have to be carefully implemented.

1) Protection: Trait in defensive line:
Defender’s Resolve: Whenever you block an attack you gain 3 seconds of protection. For shield stance the 3 seconds of protections begins after the channel ends.
Redoubled Defenses: When you are critically struck you gain protection for 4 seconds. This effect has a 10 second cool down.

I wouldnt say do both of these but 1 would suffice. Also thick skin in the minor traits for defense is terrible and should be:

Your toughness is increased by 300 against the next 1 attack. This recharges only if you go 8 seconds without taking damage or upon dropping combat.
There is also another application of this to banner of defense under the section where i address banners.

2) Banners: Banners should do their #2 ability in an area when they are thrown down. All #2 banner abilities should be replaced with the spinning knockback that the defensive banner has since their previous #2 will be on summoning. Banner effects on summonr will be(keep in mind banners still keep their auras):

Banner of Strength: All enemies within 600 range of the target area are afflicted with vulnerability (5 stacks) for 15 seconds. This can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d)

Banner of Precision: All enemies within 600 range of the target area are blinded(or) weakened for 8 seconds. This can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d).

Banner of Tactics: All allies within 1000 range of the target area are healed for (current #2 heal) and are given regeneration (as the #2 does now) for 15 seconds. This can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d)

Banner of Defense: All allies within 1000 range are given protection for 6 seconds. The protection can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d)

These changes to banners make them actually good on their own merit and worthy of their cooldown and hassle of pick up / use / throw down.

1. Overlap efficiency/ swiftness fix.

-Berserkers stance should grant swiftness for 4 seconds plus 2 seconds per EMPTY bar of adrenaline. This will make it useful and keeps in theme with the warrior. Increase the cooldown by 10seconds.
-Signet of Precision should grant fury and increased critical damage on use. Remove its adrenaline booster… thats what berserker’s stance is for.
-Kick: Removes 2 boons (more professions need effective boon stripping).
-Rid us of self roots… these are terrible ideas on ANY melee ability.
-GS #5 skill is useful but slightly redundant… i’d love to see Uppercut come back in as our #5… or make arcing slice the #5 and make uppercut the adrenaline ability. The second charge isnt needed and promotes less than intelligent play.
-Make healing surge a stance and mending a shout. I understand the implications of this.

1. Nothing at the moment, something to look into in the future

Lastly NEW SKILL:

Utility> “Seismic slam”: Push back all enemies in front of you. You create a barrier of rock spikes in front of you in a line (from left to right) that denies enemies movement tthrough it and stops projectiles. Lasts 6 seconds, 45sec cool down. This isnt a super viable thing to give us right now since it would offset the balance of utility skills numerically but id love to see something like this in the future

1) Agree
2) Sort of agree- Problem with banners is lack of mobility with the banners themselves especially if you spec into banners, as you can only carry one. I’d like them to be something similar to the guardian summoned weapons in that they follow the warrior around and use the abilities that were on the banners themselves.
3)swiftness is also applied by warhorn which also strips any movement restricting abilities. Signet of rage also gives 33 seconds of swiftness on a 60 second cooldown.(personally, I’m always running with this up)I think we’re fine here.
4) I sort of agree here, but keep in mind that the asuran racial Radiation Field allows those warriors to use blast finishers on that.

Your protection ideas sound pretty nifty, but I’m unsure if it’ll be balanced in comparison to other classes.

I’ll finally end it with saying that I love the #5 GS ability, it’s a really good gap closer and also escape skill that I use to get in and out of heavy combat.

On the other hand i understand that the warrior is in the highest bracket of health and armor and that protection is an extremely powerful boon

^You just pointed out why warriors don’t have protection, yes I can understand why it would be nice but at the same time it would be overpowered because of our hp/armour as it is now

I also agree banners need some love but your ideas don’t seem right either(same with signet of precision)

stances are fine imo

@boon removal- there is a sigil for it but as a class mechanic I say NO. . . warriors are a front line soldier, not a tactician. (if that makes sense -_-;)

Self-roots are meant to be drawbacks of using the skills, use it at the wrong time and your screwed, plus it would be kind of hard to swing a great sword wildly like that without planting your feet

New skill idea sounds like an Elementalist skill o.o;

I would like the elite skill Rampage have the same benefits as Ranger elite skill Rampage as one.

Some nice ideas. The biggest fix we need aside from the bug fixes (fast hands, stance durations, tooltip errors?) imo is elite skills.

Rampage should theoretically be the PvP elite of choice, but its current state is terrible. You will do LESS damage with rampage skills than you would with your normal weapon (unless your on a super defensive set like mace/shield at the moment). The cc-skills are interesting but in the end, can be replicated in other areas very easily (hammer or physical utility skills). You can’t capitalize on the CC either since the damage in rampage form is terrible. Its only good for stability atm.

They either need to vastly buff the damage in the form (by at least 2x), or let you use normal weapon skills and add a different effect to the skill. (how about stability + remove all conditions + immune to conditions for the next 5 seconds or something lol)

Defense tree shouldn’t have healing, it should have boon duration. Endure Pain trait should be moved to something more aggressive because defense tree to me isn’t aggressive, and Endure Pain is definitely a skill that helps aggression/glass cannon. Retaliation should be changed to protection. Tactics tree is the one that is supposed to have healing on top of more HP.

Discipline mastery needs a rework (I.E burst damage increase to something else such as cool down reduction or adrenaline consumption or just revert the burst damage portion to like 15% more burst damage or something), while movement skills such as Whirlwind Attack, Eviscerate, Savage Leap, etc should be able to break immobilize regardless of having the mastery or not.

Attacking in general should give 3 times adrenaline regardless of critical hits or getting hit.

About Protection being OP for us:

No, it wouldn’t be overpowered. Considering our Toughness/Armour alone does very little to mitigate serious burst damage. 3700 toughness with about 25k hp and I could get burst down(about) 2 seconds slower than a glass cannon. This is by being hit by a full glass cannon.

Damage outshines Toughness due to the latter having poor scaling. The HP does little in helping you also. If Warrior has the highest HP/Armour and that’s suppose to mean something. Why is it that some of the other classes can still tank better? They have much better self support. Something we need to truly be an effective frontline class in a game that “erased” the Holy Trinity. We’re not that great at healing, but we can at least improve in enduring to make up for it.

1) agree. The reason why warrior bunkers are underwhelm by guardian counterparts. Not forgetting that warriors lack any strong source of regen and passive condition removals.
2) warrior banners should proc more benefits for their clunkiness.
3) swiftness high uptime via signet of rage. I find it reasonable. But they should have traits/ utilities that further increase movement speed on top of swiftness. Warriors often run 2 sets of melee weapons and so this is really needed to minimize kiting.
4) warrior is designed to be a combo finisher class.

The biggest issue with the banner is the pick-up time. There’s a whole animation dedicated to picking up banners, and you’re rooted in place until it’s complete. Removing this make the banner much easier to move around and use in combat.

Akumu.7238:

3700 toughness with about 25k hp and I could get burst down(about) 2 seconds slower than a glass cannon.

I love it. Even if they gave Warrior something broken like triple swap or a better trait line, it won’t make a difference if you’re dying in 2 seconds with those stats. Like no offense but I’m laughing so hard on how it sounds so true.

Protection wouldnt be op. Toughness is great but is almost nothing as a bunker or tanky build without some method of adding protection at clutch times. Toughness’ poor scaling doesnt allow it to act as a true defense against burst or as a true damage soak. It doesnt do its job particularly well, even if you’re fully dedicated to it. Protection is needed to be a truly defensive character. This is why rangers, engineers, guardians, elementalists, necromancers, and mesmers all have it. Thieves can also GET IT but they have stealth which can be used very defensively to avoid damage. So why is warrior the only one who doesnt get that capability?

Banners need that buff imo, or to act something akin to ranger spirits with a passive proc chance on some sort of effect

Swiftness with signet of rage is good, but i dont think you should be confined to using 1 elite if you want to move quickly as a largely melee class. Swiftness of berserker stance fixes a lot of problems, even with the swiftess proc in arms trait and the movement speed increase (which is not defined as a percentage) in discipline.

I know we are supposed to be a combo finisher class but we have the opposite problem of the necro who has tons of fields and extremely constraining finishers (and limited in number). It just feels clunky to have half a mechanic without being able to reliably complete that mechanic when it is a global/game-wide thing. This is just my opinion and it isnt like it would make us insanely OP to have 1-2 combo fields other than burning arrow.

In the same way i think the necro dag #5, axe #3, and DS #2 should all be finishers. It is just a difference in design ideals i guess.

also to the person who said we arent a tactician we have A TACTICS TRAIT and a BANNER OF TACTICS. We are a warrior not a mindless berserker

1. I agree that warriors should have it in their skillset, but as something scarce or situational, we are the offensive plate class after all. Something like changing thick skin to give us protection for a few seconds instead of the extra armor. Maybe add a shorter duration protection when spiked armor procs.

2. Banners are really clunky for their benefit. I’d suggest that they end up being an area denial item, like stripping a specific boon in a visible, small circle where they are planted, as big as a guardian symbols maybe. They’d tick every 3 seconds.

strength – remove stability (I can overpower you with my strength)
tactics – remove protection (I know where your weak point is)
discipline – remove vigor (I know when to strike)
defense – remove might (you aren’t going to hit me through this)

battle – 1 second knockdown (make it shake the ground)

The radius will be small enough to circumvent, yet still make point capture easier. Multiple banners could make a wall, forcing attackers to walk around or pick a boon to get stripped. Banners bolster allies and intimidate foes, we’re lacking the intimidate part :P

3. Berserker stance grants swiftness and fills you endurance on use.

4. Make stomp leave behind a smoke field, because of the dust. Reduce the base cooldown of the other physical utilities while you’re at it to balance them out.

^
That would be balanced if it only stripped specific boons at a 12 second period every 3 seconds.

@Nergrom

I can’t agree with that type of use for banners. It would force Banners to keep a high cd while not being able to last for very long(for balance purposes). To me it also limits a banner Warriors Role far too much. It relies on the other players actions and I feel the Warrior play style is too aggressive for such a role. In my opinion banners shouldn’t work that way.

I think banners should work more like Shaman Totems in WoW for a Tactics Warrior. Except with a focus on buffing. They should be able to be placed/re-placed at will, without waiting for a long cd. While providing a buff to allies for a small duration every tick. Every tick could be 5 seconds.

Banner of Strength: Gives 3 stacks of Might for 15 seconds/tick -edit-

Banner of Discipline: Gives Fury for 2 seconds/tick

Banner of Tactics: Gives Vigor For 3 seconds/tick

Banner of Defense: Gives Protection for 1 second/tick

Battle Standard: I like the above type of battle standard but not sure. I would think that it wouldn’t be as consistent considering it prevents complete control over a group of players for a moment. This could be really OP if you take into account more than 1 warrior. Especially if 2+ run around with hammers for 1 set. I think it should provide a more consistent(but small duration) stability instead.

Trait- Inspiring banners: Provide its own buff that regens and not provide the regen buff. Why? Because Regen doesn’t stack. A tier 3 skill shouldn’t become useless because of an ALLY trying to help out.

I think Banners should focus more on consistent buffing for a group, while Shouts should be more of a hybrid(buff/debuff).

Fear Me: Causes Weakness and Vulnerability

On My Mark(change name…): Causes AoE Blind

Shake it off: Removes a conditions and grant vigor. We need more ways for vigor in general. We are way too sluggish and warhorn/signet shouldn’t be the only effective way to get it. The two choices forces too much on a player. We need another option for it(the terrible trait doesn’t count…).

For Great Justice: Can stay the way it is.

side note- Signet of the Dolyak: Reduce damage by a set percentage. Preferably 10% like a Guardian’s signet. Stop handing us useless toughness gains… This signet is worthless right now.

Banners really should have some better benefit for how clunky they are. I really do think the vulnerability, weakness, protection, and healing/regen on summon is the best way to go about that with recasts on the 5. Their pick up also needs to be instant. Being able to throw banners ocne theyve been picked up instead of slam them down would be good too.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Their pick up also needs to be instant. Being able to throw banners ocne theyve been picked up instead of slam them down would be good too.

My only problem with the mandatory pick up is it that it would remain a bit clunky. A banner warrior would not be able to roll 2-4 banners without needing others to move them(to be time efficient and practical).

There needs to be a way to have all 4 banners down and not feel as if you are nailed to the ground because of it. Some suggest they appear on your back. I personally wouldn’t mind if it was more like WoW shaman totems. Either way would be far better than it is now.

I think even picking them up to use abilities is overrated. Just like with underwater combat, I would rather use my normal weapon abilities. Making the AoE effects worth something is more important. Anet can give them hp if that will get them to move on their own or with 1 button press per banner.

They should let you mount banners on your back so you can walk around and fight or carry a 2nd banner. Although imagine fighting a warrior with a banner sticking out of his back, it’s like “You should attack me because I’m AoE buffing the entire party with regeneration!”

warrior is a very balanced class overall,
I partially agree with point-1 regarding the lack of “protection” boon.

banners shine (as in OP ) in groups , they are not that good nor intended for solo.

combo fields, indeed we lack those, but we really can’t expect being elementalists in full plate arent we? I can live with that if we can get some source of protection.
as other people said, we are probably the only class who can have all the finishers (projectile, burst, leap, blast, whirl…) at the same time.

related to #1
what indeed is a problem is banner of defense.
i.e:
banner of tactics #2 is regen boon
banner of discipline #2 is fury boon
banner of strength #2 invulnerability debuff
battle #2 standard is stability boon

while banner of defense #2 is yet another knockback… it should be 5sec protection…
it is logical and requested.

we (as warriors) have
three knockbacks- two weapons and one utility, three knockdowns- two weapons and one utility and zero protection boon sources..