Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/profession-balance-goals-for-the-winter-2016-update/

Here it is. While vague, it appears that they have taken a decent look at Warrior:

“We’ve taken a look at the warrior’s baseline abilities, adjusting cooldowns, damage, and in some cases even functionality. Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with. Rifle has also seen a bit of a rework, gaining a more defensive nature while retaining its overall purpose of kill-shotting every enemy of Tyria. We’ll also be taking another pass at improving the berserker elite specialization, focusing on increasing its usability in various game modes and promoting more active skill use in trait design. Lastly, we’ll improve the warrior’s ability to sustain themselves in combat.”

Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

Juba.8406:

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.

Rifle getting a rework to make it boost defence in some way – now that I am intrigued by. I have always loved rifle and I would be over the moon if they finally managed to give it a proper place, rather than it being a bad version of ranger longbow.

more “defensive”, they will put reflects and “shield generator” instead of shots.

ugrakarma.9416:

more “defensive”, they will put reflects and “shield generator” instead of shots.

Maybe it will get a covering fire ability, that dazes or gives AOE protection or something. That would be welcome, as the current shot that gives vulnerability is not satisfying to use. Imagine if rifle caused vulnerability on its autofire, that would be very nice. Base piercing would be great too.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Juba.8406:

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.

Tbh, they could somewhat reduce the need to deal with trait placement by dealing with just the weapon skills. For example, where they say they want to improve what can be done with a single weapon, it tells me they’re looking to reduce the necessity of Fast Hands, which is great. That, in turn, could free up an entire traitline for those builds that would do better with something other than discipline.

I’m not sure what they have in mind for improved sustain, but it’s good to see it on there. That, too, might reduce the pressure to take something like Defense or the more defensive options in Berserker. I find it’s the presence of practically mandatory traits that really hampers us in the trait department (though not exclusively, I realize).

Frankly, I think they hit most of the key issues we’ve been raising on this forum, which makes me hope they’ve been listening. Even if they don’t pull off a resounding success, I’m appreciative of that fact alone and hopeful that the changes will at least improve upon where we are today.

Well not needing Fast Hands would be great, but I still think making it baseline would fir the class much better, and would reduce a lot of the work, because let be real. most players only use Discipline because of it (and Warrior’s Sprint)

And seeing that they are looking into Rifle makes me think that even without Fast Hands, if the Rifle becomes good a lot of people will still play that line because Right with the traits is just in a “allright” spot, without it it’s unplayable.

They could change the trait (maintain the CD reduction, and add some bonus to rifle skills) and make Rifle pierce on it’s own, this would be great too

mPascoal.4258:

Well not needing Fast Hands would be great, but I still think making it baseline would fir the class much better, and would reduce a lot of the work, because let be real. most players only use Discipline because of it (and Warrior’s Sprint)

And seeing that they are looking into Rifle makes me think that even without Fast Hands, if the Rifle becomes good a lot of people will still play that line because Right with the traits is just in a “allright” spot, without it it’s unplayable.

They could change the trait (maintain the CD reduction, and add some bonus to rifle skills) and make Rifle pierce on it’s own, this would be great too

I’ll take my wins where I can get ‘em… To be fair though, while I agree making FH would be easier, I’m not going to argue if they’re going to put in the work to make the other route work.

In principle, the result might even be better if we can be completely viable camping a single weapon. That in and of itself would contribute to greater diversity among warriors by making the weapons themselves more meaningful than what they can do for a burst on another set.

Also, fwiw, I think Discipline is a really strong traitline even if you ignore Fast Hands and Warrior’s Sprint. Brawlers Recovery and DotE are very good, and Heightened Focus is also excellent. Burst Mastery, though not one of my favourite, is still better than more than half of our Grandmasters. I don’t expect I’ll drop Discipline even if FH is no longer required…. though I like that I might be able to if something looks better.

Still holding out for a Tactic Grandmaster Banner trait in place of Powerful Synergy which would be moved to where the only banner trait presently in the game is right now in Discipline (it’s really not that useful, especially competing with a shout trait and phalanx strength).

Thuggernaut.1250:

Juba.8406:

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.

Nah, Altered skills are the way to do it, warrior’s skills were never good pvp wise and always relied on cheese build to stay in meta..in the pass, Anet just touch warrior’s by number, which will only cause no-skill cheese build or completely out of the pvp scene..
only way to do it is to provide more PvP friendly skills, so warrior will still has more plays even when the class sucks ( look at thief, thief suck, but their skills are mostly pvp friendly, so they still have more plays then warrior)

Obviously we don’t know yet if they’ve made a move on baseline Fast Hands, but if they don’t baseline it, I hope they have some miraculous buffs planned for our weapon skills. Right now, waiting out a full nine-second swap on Warrior is a death-sentence.

Being a warrior since the beginning near exclusively (2357 hours of 2542 across 1234(lol) days) here’s how I read this after seeing similar such thing since forever.

Real version:
“We’ve taken a look at the warrior’s baseline abilities, adjusting cooldowns, damage, and in some cases even functionality. Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with. Rifle has also seen a bit of a rework, gaining a more defensive nature while retaining its overall purpose of kill-shotting every enemy of Tyria. We’ll also be taking another pass at improving the berserker elite specialization, focusing on increasing its usability in various game modes and promoting more active skill use in trait design. Lastly, we’ll improve the warrior’s ability to sustain themselves in combat.

My version with changes in brackets:
“We’ve taken a look at [sigils and stances only], adjusting cooldowns, damage, and in some cases even [the active function]. Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with [hammer, greatsword, and rifle] so that the cooldowns feel more [shorter because they are]. Rifle has also seen a bit of a rework, gaining a more defensive nature while retaining its overall purpose of [spamming killshot via berserk]. We’ll also be taking another pass at improving the berserker elite specialization, focusing on increasing its [damage] in various game modes and promoting more [damage after ability] use in trait design. Lastly, we’ll improve [healing signet].”

I hope I am wrong. I hope I am very wrong.

Are they removing fast hands or just adjusting some of the weapons cooldowns so they don’t rely on fast hands too much?

Mulling.8421:

Are they removing fast hands or just adjusting the some of the weapons cooldowns so they rely on fast hands too much?

Unfortunately, we don’t know yet. Hopefully the “Guild Chat” on Friday will reveal more.

Mulling.8421:

Are they removing fast hands or just adjusting the some of the weapons cooldowns so they rely on fast hands too much?

I’m suspecting the latter. The big reason Fast Hands was “required” was because of skill spamming. If the cooldowns get lowered, then everyone can just camp greatsword~

chronometria.3708:

Rifle getting a rework to make it boost defence in some way – now that I am intrigued by. I have always loved rifle and I would be over the moon if they finally managed to give it a proper place

Same here.
Makes me glad to read these Rifle plans of theirs.

Yashuoa.9527:

chronometria.3708:

Rifle getting a rework to make it boost defence in some way – now that I am intrigued by. I have always loved rifle and I would be over the moon if they finally managed to give it a proper place

Same here.
Makes me glad to read these Rifle plans of theirs.

Don’t be surprised if it is just a Deflecting Shot replacement (probably for swap for Brutal Shot).

The comment about “additional sustain” defensively is very interesting considering how much back/forth Healing signet whining has produced over the years.

More than likely, it’s just a cover to reducing stance power (burst immunity from condition application / power damage) for a couple extra skill/utility block options.

The only thing I do imagine is that Smash Brawler becomes baseline as that makes or breaks Berserker. Accordingly, Warrior condition DPS will be immediately reduced as well (ANet logic).

The core fundamental problems with Warrior builds will still probably exist:
1. Reliance on taking a far majority of traits/utilities just to produce Adrenaline to use the mechanic/maximize damage output (and even defensive options, see #2 below). Note, Fast Hands falls into this area as one of the best base adrenaline creation contenders along with access to faster/more powerful adrenaline abilities off weapons.

2. Reliance on Cleansing Ire to have any viable option for condition removal. Dogged March also in Defense line pushes the line to the “must take” for any builds outside of raids The exception being Shout traits + Trooper runes. Warhorn condition conversion trait still remains heavily nerfed.

3. Reliance on taking specific lines just for weapon traits (while the Warrior has highest access to weapons of any other class, it can only effectively use them if it takes the related weapon cooldown reduction trait – or in some cases, like Greatsword, you would never use it without the related trait). This leads to why certain weapons (i.e. Axe) are underutilized because it directly competes with the highest DPS boost trait Warrior can get.)

4. General clunkiness of class remains. Slow/highly telegrahed animations everywhere with low DPS output.

Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.

More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..

Warriors in truth do not need much to become viable. What really made them hurting so much is what the other classes got with HoT not what was nerfed on warrior.

That being said I hope they take a nice approach with warriors to slightly improve them while drastically nerfing all the other classes

This is great stuff. I agree with Azukas above, Warriors feel great when you lean into the skill rotations and get the feel of things.* We just need some keen adjustments to get us up to par as a profession. I am very interested and eagerly awaiting to see what they do with the traits, cooldowns and how they are implementing improved sustain for us. Sustain is the biggest issue I would say.
In a typical match of Conquest I find myself having to bail out of teamfights with a few seconds left on the stances because it’s hard to recover when you get low. If they implement this sustain in such a way that we would be actively and skillfully taking part in it occurring it would be a beautiful boon to the profession.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Juba.8406:

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.

I personally hope you’re right because then touching our traits to fix core warrior problems will just make more mandatory traits (see: cleansing ire)

Them baselining crap and changing our weapons to be more utility has been something I’ve been dying to hear for YEARS now

emkelly.2371:

Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.

More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..

I’m already running without fast hands XD

Base CD reductions gonna be awesome

Ross Biddle.2367:

I’m already running without fast hands XD

Base CD reductions gonna be awesome

Fast hands is love, fast hands is life

Mulling.8421:

Ross Biddle.2367:

I’m already running without fast hands XD

Base CD reductions gonna be awesome

Fast hands is love, fast hands is life

It’s an amazing trait. You can do amazing things with it. But I thought to myself “I can play on a 10s cd on Mesmer, why not War”, so I dropped discipline, re-disciplined myself… -_-, and funnily enough it worked.

it is dissapointing news to me. Of course, war will be bit more powerful as long as it says buffing but i predict, it will become too easy and too simply to play. Even now is pretty simple tho, which means it’s not funny to play game regardless of how it works well or not.

Choppy.4183:

Thuggernaut.1250:

Juba.8406:

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.

Tbh, they could somewhat reduce the need to deal with trait placement by dealing with just the weapon skills. For example, where they say they want to improve what can be done with a single weapon, it tells me they’re looking to reduce the necessity of Fast Hands, which is great. That, in turn, could free up an entire traitline for those builds that would do better with something other than discipline.

I’m not sure what they have in mind for improved sustain, but it’s good to see it on there. That, too, might reduce the pressure to take something like Defense or the more defensive options in Berserker. I find it’s the presence of practically mandatory traits that really hampers us in the trait department (though not exclusively, I realize).

Frankly, I think they hit most of the key issues we’ve been raising on this forum, which makes me hope they’ve been listening. Even if they don’t pull off a resounding success, I’m appreciative of that fact alone and hopeful that the changes will at least improve upon where we are today.

the thing is, I like fast hands, I just hate the trait line

Its pretty simple…Warrior utilities and ESPECIALLY weapon skills need to do more….period. They are outdated as f in HOT.

When other classes can get boons,blinds/debuffs/condition removal and evades for FREE just by putting on a weapon, all we get is damage, damage and some more damage… or some unreliable CC/gapcloser.

The majority of utilities are just laughable when you think of it. Physical skills? Long kitten cooldowns/one trick ponies. Banners? Nothing interesting gameplay wise apart from War Banner. Shouts? Does anyone even use them nowadays? Rage skills? Underwhelming to say the least. Stances? The only saving grace pretty much, and even those need help (especially Berserker Stance/Defiant Stance). Healing skills? Is there any other viable option apart from Healing Signet?

Well the idea of having a bunch of little things, that on their own are weak, you can use fairly often to gradually wreck the enemy is kind of good. Is that what they said somewhere in there? I can’t tell anymore too cryptic.

Other than that, my reaction was the same as Ottohi.

You know, re-reading it, it really shows how messed up warriors are atm that berserker needs ANOTHER PASS, and everything from damage to Skill CDs are being looked at. I’m still really sore that a lot of us were pointing out during the beta how weak our specialization was, and even how messed up warriors were, but it never got attention except for a few “buffs” to berserker, that ended up doing nothing.

I’m really hoping they read these forums, I want to play my warrior again.

I just wish warriors sprint change place with peek performance. I dont like disci line <.<.

I think this entire announcement is worthless. We can only speculate until we get some details.

It’s like saying ‘we are going to try and (un)balance the game again’.

We already knew that.

ryandeniszorro.6735:

I just wish warriors sprint change place with peak performance. I dont like disci line <.<.

With banners in such a shoddy state, I’m inclined to agree. I don’t need Fast Hands, but I take Discipline for Warrior’s Sprint. If WS moved to another trait line, I’d be using that instead.

emkelly.2371:

Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.

More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..

If fast hands is taken out it would certainly be a terrible blow to the class.

Harper.4173:

emkelly.2371:

Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.

More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..

If fast hands is taken out it would certainly be a terrible blow to the class.

There is absolutely no reason to think they’ll be doing that. They didn’t even hint at it in the announcement, so there’s no sense worrying about it unless they indicate otherwise.

Choppy.4183
Harper.4173:
emkelly.2371:
More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..
If fast hands is taken out it would certainly be a terrible blow to the class.
There is absolutely no reason to think they’ll be doing that. They didn’t even hint at it in the announcement, so there’s no sense worrying about it unless they indicate otherwise.
about 5 minutes ago
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Actually Choppy I can explain the reasoning behind that and it is even more plausible than you think.

We’ve taken a look at the warrior’s baseline abilities, adjusting cooldowns, damage, and in some cases even functionality.

• baseline abilities means warrior unique mechanics. from this you can expect
• changes to adrenaline
• changes to burst skills
• Traits that effect these things.

Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with.

• From this you can expect changes to weapon skills to make each-weapon more self sufficient.
• Because of this there is a strong possibility they will remove fast hands because it is no longer needed.

Rifle has also seen a bit of a rework, gaining a more defensive nature while retaining its overall purpose of kill-shotting every enemy of Tyria.

• Expect Killshot and gunflame to get nerfed by at least 20-30%
• Expect weapon to get more defensive abilities to the rifle in an attempt to make up for it.

We’ll also be taking another pass at improving the berserker elite specialization, focusing on increasing its usability in various game modes and promoting more active skill use in trait design.

• Expect a change/move to at least 3 traits that effect primal burst and rage skills.
• Expect changes to torch

Lastly, we’ll improve the warrior’s ability to sustain themselves in combat.

• this is the most vague statement because there are a plethora of different ways you can improve sustain.*

emkelly.2371:

Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with.

• From this you can expect changes to weapon skills to make each-weapon more self sufficient.
• Because of this there is a strong possibility they will remove fast hands because it is no longer needed.

This is really the only bit having to do with Fast Hands, and it’s the second point that’s out on a limb, imo.

Virtually no traits are needed, and that’s the goal. Just because Fast Hands won’t be needed (fingers crossed) doesn’t mean it won’t be a useful trait. And even if it wasn’t useful, there have been several near-useless traits in our lines (and others’) since launch.

So I just don’t see any evidence or reason for them to remove Fast Hands. If that’s their plan, they’ve certainly given us no reason to think so.

“From this you can expect changes to weapon skills to make each-weapon more self sufficient.”

I expect that to some capacity or another. Probably shorter cooldowns or better weapon-specific traits to make weapons more viable. If single weapons have reasonable cooldowns and effectiveness, there will be less incentive to take Fast Hands for skill-spam.

So I doubt Fast Hands will go away, since the Discipline line’s minors and Brawler’s Recovery are focused on fast weapon swap. Not to say it 100% won’t happen, but the odds of them retooling Discipline that much to remove Fast Hands entirely doesn’t seem to benefit.

True. this is by no means what i want. fast hands is an amazing trait, even if it is not mechanically mandatory. i hope they do not get rid of it. but perhaps removing it from being the trait that a warrior HAS to have will be a good start.

Warrior sustain. Means one of the following:
More heal signet changes
Gain health while using a stance trait
Burst skills heal you
Some actual health from adrenal health
Activated burst skills give you some damage reduction buff, similar to the damage multiplier buff.
I would even like a defensive f3 like use adrenaline to sustain yourself, recovering health. Sort of like a toss elixir.

The way they work warrior, it is going to be tied to F1 somehow. We live and die by f1 apparently.

Harper.4173:

emkelly.2371:

Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.

More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..

If fast hands is taken out it would certainly be a terrible blow to the class.

Will end Warrior right there, the 5 second weapon swap is what making warrior a Warrior

Juba.8406
Harper.4173:
emkelly.2371:
More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..
If fast hands is taken out it would certainly be a terrible blow to the class.
Will end Warrior right there, the 5 second weapon swap is what making warrior a Warrior

Depends on how they do it. I could live with 10 second cool down if each weapon was useful on it’s own.

To be honest i just hope that Anet actually watched this forum and take ideas from the many Warrior rebuilds out there. Mine included of course, but any of the very talented and imaginative people who have made it their mission to create the ultimate suggestions for fixing the current problems with warrior. As a community we all came together in one voice and supported changes to the warrior. out ideas differed, but because of this we gave a very clear picture of what we wanted from the warrior. he’res hoping ArenaNet listened.

Fast Hands debate aside, I think we can all agree on one thing:

Reverse the adrenaline nerf.

I highly doubt they’ll do it, but that one nerf has done more damage to the Warrior profession than most of the prior nerfs combined.

Jzaku.9765:

Thuggernaut.1250:

Juba.8406:

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.

I personally hope you’re right because then touching our traits to fix core warrior problems will just make more mandatory traits (see: cleansing ire)

Them baselining crap and changing our weapons to be more utility has been something I’ve been dying to hear for YEARS now

My problem isn’t really the traits themselves (except for total garbage traits like Powerful Synergy, Inspiring Battle Standard, Thick Skin, etc.), but the placement of the traits.

For example, having Axe Mastery compete with Berserker’s Power is just insanity. Even axe users will have to take Berserker’s Power, forcing them to forego the reduced recharge time. Same deal with Crack Shot and a couple others.

The problem is that there are mandatory traits, and if ANet doesn’t solve the core issues that make them mandatory, they should at least move them around so not taking them isn’t as much of a penalty.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Jzaku.9765:

Thuggernaut.1250:

Juba.8406:

lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.

I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.

I personally hope you’re right because then touching our traits to fix core warrior problems will just make more mandatory traits (see: cleansing ire)

Them baselining crap and changing our weapons to be more utility has been something I’ve been dying to hear for YEARS now

My problem isn’t really the traits themselves (except for total garbage traits like Powerful Synergy, Inspiring Battle Standard, Thick Skin, etc.), but the placement of the traits.

For example, having Axe Mastery compete with Berserker’s Power is just insanity. Even axe users will have to take Berserker’s Power, forcing them to forego the reduced recharge time. Same deal with Crack Shot and a couple others.

The problem is that there are mandatory traits, and if ANet doesn’t solve the core issues that make them mandatory, they should at least move them around so not taking them isn’t as much of a penalty.

Agree with everything you’re saying here.

Moving Fast Hands won’t be a solution, however (I don’t think that’s what you’re implying, so I might just be stating the obvious here). Anyway, you could move it anywhere and that line would become mandatory.

As for reverting the adrenaline nerf, you mean the decay out of combat? Because I am totally fine with adrenaline getting depleted if you miss a burst skill.

Fast Hands is where warrior needs to be adjusted, nay, healed. Most mandatory trait in the game, more mandatory then Illusionary Persona was for a mesmer IMO. Not talking PvE, obviously.

Even if warrior is buffed enough so that you could opt not to take Fast Hands and be viable, I don’t see any road to take in which Fast Hands would not still be the better option, and thus required. Because why would you kitten yourself?

Cygnus.6903:

Even if warrior is buffed enough so that you could opt not to take Fast Hands and be viable, I don’t see any road to take in which Fast Hands would not still be the better option, and thus required. Because why would you kitten yourself?

I do. Suppose our weapons gained enough utility (defensive, mobility, etc), lower cooldowns, and bursts that don’t need setup from another weapon so you can stay on a weapon fairly easily. We could then equip weapons to deal with combat situations, rather than out of necessity (e.g. packing a ranged weapon in case we’re being kited or to act as an opener, and then a melee manhandler).

Having access to that second set in 5s would be undeniably better than having to wait 10s. However, the relative value may be less than another benefit due to the changes making staying with one weapon longer more viable.

We’ll just have to weigh up the options once the changes are made (or at least announced). Maybe FH will still be the most important trait by a mile, but maybe other builds will get more by dropping Discipline to take advantage of some other trait combo that was previously not viable.