Guild Wars 2

FORWARD:

What I’ve noticed with warriors is that compared to the other classes of the game, with a single F1 burst key, we have the lowest amount of skills that are available to us when compared to every other class.

Many of our utility skills have long CDs and short-lived effects (i.e. physical skills). Some are passives (healsig) that are never even used.

This makes warriors both heavily weapon dependent and stuck pressing nothing but 1 longer than any other class. Since our utilities are so situational, we spend the majority of our time autoattacking. Weapon dependency and the lack of good skill availability makes fast hands a must in every build, otherwise you spend 50% of the battle looking at a recharging skillbar.

Fast hands is not the root of the problem but a band aid fix on the larger problem of warrior skill availability.

My proposal is to change the warrior’s core mechanic to function more like elementalists:

WEAPON SWAP OVERHAUL:

Warriors will have have access to 4 weapons sets, much like eles have with their elements.

F1: Set1
F2: Set2
F3: Set3
F4: Set4
F5: Burst/Specialization Skill
Weapon Swap: Removed or possible swap between offense/defensive burst. Can also be used for a specialization mechanic.

This would make warriors more of a true weapon master. CDs for weapon swaps can be made longer to offset having a larger pool of skills. Fast hands can reduce weapon swap recharge by a flat (15-20%). Stun durations and effects for weapons will need to toned down or some stuns removed to prevent permalock through Mace > Hammer > Shield combos.

Warrior success should be about chaining weapon combos and swapping to the right tool for the job. This would also add much needed depth to the class.

Well i think we are too late for something like that.

This is a complete Warrior recreation that will never happen.

@lordhelmos.7623:
This looks like an expansion on my suggestion a week or so ago that an Elite Specialization for Warrior could give access to a 3rd weapon set.

Overall, I think it would be quite interesting but have to be done carefully to not be OP … but I think that about most big changes to classes :-p

@Juba:
I don’t think it’s too late. It could happen with the new specialization coming (we don’t know) or it could come with future specializations. It depends on the codebase behind the scenes, ArenaNet’s vision for warrior, and what ArenaNet is willing to do.

Could be fun – pretty hard to balance though.

One of the main issues with having more than 2 weapons I think is that it would effect the fluidity of combat. I think it would take a lot of work to adjust the mechanics of different skills to achieve a cohesive playstyle with 4 weapons, and in my honest (and possibly heavily biased) opinion I don’t know that it would add much practical utility past what we already have.

I really want to dive into philosophy here and have a discussion about the depth of warrior play-styles, but I think most of it can be summed up with having respect for each of the weapons, like what they bring to the table, rather than seeing them as a pigeon-hole. Also, have respect for how you develop your play-style. Many people try to be super quick and press buttons as fast as they can when they initially start out (myself included for the longest time) but the warrior is a beast that is wooed with solid patience and precise aggression.

Your assessment of current Warrior sounds like Mesmer but without the “auto attack much of the time” part. What you want to change it to sounds like your typical ele/engie faceroll kit/atunement swap keyspam. I’m not the most experienced warrior but it sounds like an awful idea. Zagerus has the right idea- beast that is wooed with solid patience and precise aggression.

On the other hand, 4 weapon sets, a celestial ammy, a-typical build, it’d round out the warrior in the current cele meta quite nicely -_-u

4 weaponsets is like godmode in my opinion. Think of the rotations you can make with 4 weaponsets. It would be to overpowered and it would make allot of proffesions cry.

Hammer – Gs with longbow and rifle for perma facerol pressure xD The combo’s you can make would be out of this world.

Yeah, Hoaxintelligence is right, this idea is not uninteresting but is plain crazy as it stands.
We would be able to go CQC with tons of invul, blocks or CC (stances, shield, sword offhand or mace main/off), then gap close/flee with a GS or sword/warhorn set, and finally put heavy ranged pressure with rifle while our first set is going off CD (it even leaves some place for an extra set).

Definitely not a good idea.

Hahaha, imagine Hammer, GS, Sword/Shield and LB. Absurd.

I dunno about MH Sword in that since it is more of a hybrid/condi weapon; as is Longbow.

I’m not so sure about how easy it would be to balance 4 weapon sets for a Warrior as they were not intended to be that way … there would need to be some counterbalance.

I think removing burst skills could be that counterbalance, but I’m not sure if that would be too much or too little. Replacing the F1 with F1, F2, F3, F4 for each weapon set would be in-line with what we’re seeing with the new Elite Specializations so far.

Sebrent.3625:

I dunno about MH Sword in that since it is more of a hybrid/condi weapon; as is Longbow.

Straight up shoutbow gear.

/emote hides his own Cele bulds

You filthy Cele … get out of here Heimskarl :-p

Quadruple Swap would be a little overpowered. Sure, elementalist has 4 sets which seems similar, but they’re tethered into a single choice, and the cooldowns are designed with 4 sets in mind.