Guild Wars 2

Anet lets just call it what it is. Warrior really struggles in PvP because its all based on bursts skills. Yet you gave every class but thief the ability to counter and sustain.

Lets go condi warrior, against the average player its great. You can stack tons of bleeds,confusion and weakness. If using sword torch add in some burn damage as well.

Lets go pure damage. Once again you can catch people with a bulls charge, shield, head butt and land some insane burst skills.

So lets get to the problem, it is near impossible to land enough bursts hits to take anyone down at higher levels.

Rangers cele form allows for them to remove full conditions so if i were to stack/ land 3-4 hits on my condi warrior they could instantly remove them all and begin to heal. If i was full dps with rifle/gs/axe shield they have all the counters. Staff 4 allows for rifle shots to not go threw and switching to melee weapons means they can just range with the staff/longbow.

Revanents have everything at the moment. On dodge roll they gain stability so that means in non beserk combat warriors cant apply the confusion. They also get the shield with a heal skill that makes it near impossible to burst them down with damage. They also have these skill on shorter cool downs.

Guardians now have the F3 skill which makes it so you cant hurt them if they keep you in front of them. As warrior is a all burst build with a limited time to land these hits. Guardians simply hit F3 and then start a renewed focus. Repeat process if necessary.

Mesmer to me is the cheapest for warriors to try and 1 vs 1. With clones and skills that apply 8-10 stacks of torment and confusion, warriors are forced to use there 2 stances quickly. Now comes the annoying part about mesmers, the shield and distortion. They can literally avoid all the damage once a warrior goes into beserk mode.

I dont want to do anymore but what all these classes have that warrior does not is basic abilities to survive. Against every class a there is a counter to what warrior does. In 1 vs 1 situations the only class warrior can beat if on equal skill level is thief.

Now the warriors problem in these 1 vs 1 exchanges applies to warrior in team fights. In team fights warriors dont even need to be targeted because the passive damage and aoe skills will force warriors to use their stances. Warriors will not die immediately but that doesnt change the fact that there no full heal skills that other classes have.

You have improved the necro class to the point that they have more sustain, boon strips, 2 life bars and passive dps.

You have made it so that warriors have to land skills with in a 130-300 range and when bulls charge, the F1 skills of GS/Mace/ Axe all miss when they seem to be in range. The warrior is unable to sustain a missed attack.

Even when a warrior does everything right, the fights are extended because of other classes passives such as mini form for engy, because of full heals that ele-scrapper-druids-revenants have, then the counters classes have for warrior yet warrior is given pure burst damage that they are unable to use.

I have had success in my 1 vs 1 fights but when against [players of equal skill level or better you realize you have nothing to counter. there have been many times during this season a rev has used his sword 2 skill while i had endure the pain and it him me. WItht eh insane amount of necros running around, the resistance i get from beserker stance is taken from me.

I am finding many of my friends who play thief are having the same struggles. Unlike thief, warrior had these problems in season 1. I used my warrior at times during season 1 on my way to legendary 2. Yet the warrior got no upgrades other then rifle which seems to be a PvE thing more then PvP. Warrior and thief are the C-Team of PvP with Guardians on the JV team. The rest have a place on a team on Varsity squad even though the player might not be as good. I find this incredibly frustrating being that the HOT was released almost 6 months ago.

How can 2 classes be so irrelevant for so long.

Look for the fun how long ago a dev replied to this warrior forum.
If you are to lazy, the awnser is last year, before HoT Xd

First, I’m really inexperienced in PvP and with the Warrior. I’m a long-time guardian player who’s fallen in love with the Warrior class (which I am switching over to as my main). So, I completely understand if what I’m saying below is missing vital information, but please remember I’m just trying to be helpful.

With all due respect, kdaddy, your post reads like you hit a wall and instead of thinking of ways to go around it, you’re just upset that you can’t go through it. It’s hard for me to imagine that the warrior in PvP is “all based on burst skills.” To me that sounds like you’re not thinking about the other things you can do, and how you can adapt towards the other dominant strategies you’re facing. PvP is all about thinking sideways, right? So with the Warrior class being so straight-forward, it seems even more vital to try to take a step to the left.

For instance, your point on the Ranger’s Cele (and if I may throw in the Gaurdian as well), you say they can just shed stacks of cond damage. The way I see it that means cond duration isn’t worth pursuing; and if you want to utilize cond damage, then the focus needs to be on continual quick applications of condis. It doesn’t matter so much if they get shed, so long as they get at least one tick, and you can reapply them quickly…. it’s about consistent pressure… make your foes use up their cleanses foolishly (in this case force the druid to keep having to go cele).

For the Guardian f3 ability… guardians have notoriously long CDs. The DH f3 has a 75 sec CD. So, if you can force them to pop f3, renewed focus, then f3 again you’ve just put two of their skills on a large CD; and with RF on cd, they’re less likely to use f1 & f2 if they haven’t already. I see that as awesome if you can do so without popping your huge attacks to do so… so, in what ways can you do that?

For the mesmer problem, I feel that Brawler’s Recovery and Savage Instinct are your solutions there. You have controllable and super quick condi cleanse: you can remove the torment/confusion, get in some attacks, and when the next batch of condis comes in, your 5sec cd is ready to pop for another cleanse. Isn’t this a functional defense against most condi builds? What am I missing?

The warrior has a huge range of weapons to use, and it can reduce weapon swap to 5 sec. That seems to me to be the advantage of this class that needs to be exploited more: your opponents need to worry about what combo of weapons you’re bringing to the table.

For a wild and out-there example… has anyone ever considered a rifle/LB against the metas they’re often up against? It seems like it’d bring a lot of advantage to the fight. such as 1) constant ranged ability means you can weapon-swap cleanse w/o having to worry about not being able to hit your target. 2) You can better avoid the traps of the DH, ranger, etc. 3) If other players are bringing melee weapons as their swap-outs, then you’ve just put a huge crimp in their abilities to mess with you. 4) longer range = more opportunity for dodging, damage avoidance, and advantageous positioning. In this case you’d be focusing on consistent pressure over burst/spike damage…. swapping weapons so frequently you won’t need to worry about the slow AA of both weapons.

There was a forum thread in the necro forums a few days ago where someone claimed they went into a PvP match with a core necro, and were able to take advantage of everyone’s expectations he was a Reaper. So, why not find ways to do that with the Warrior? …exploit their expectation that all you’re going to do is run up and hit them with bursts.

~EW

Why would you go long range only. It sucks when someone melee you with massive dps burst while having a longbow in your hand.
Try for example to fight a decent revenant with your warrior. Then you will understand were all the rage is coming from.

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

Why would you go long range only. It sucks when someone melee you with massive dps burst while having a longbow in your hand.

With all long-range you’d also have Pin Down, Brutal Shot, and Rifle Butt all to help keep distance. If they want to dps burst melee you so badly, they’re going to have to either run up to you dealing with those skills being flung at them (and lose capture points, right?), or use up longer cd transportation skills to bridge the gap. Then after all that they’d have to contend with HB. Yeah, I recognize you can’t always keep someone at a distance, and I don’t have an answer for that except to utilize what you have to keep the distance and pressure them to use up all their CD skills so they’ve got a lot less to work with when they get to you. It’s about controlling the fight instead of directly dominating it with DPS.

There’s never going to be a perfect solution to the problems I’m reading the Warriors are facing. PvP isn’t (or shouldn’t) be built so that anyone has an easy time… but they should have a chance, aye, and I’m sad to read so many instances where all y’all feel forgotten by ANet.

~EW

long range only sucks, because almost everyone and their mom has better long range dps then you do..also instant gapclosers..

lighter.2708:

long range only sucks, because almost everyone and their mom has better long range dps then you do..also instant gapclosers..

I can accept that… as I said, y’all know more about it than I do. That was just one idea I had knocking around for the last couple days. The direct (dps) approach isn’t cutting it for Warriors going by all the forum threads, so it seems that some sideways thinking is necessary.

So, what ideas do you have that don’t require dev intervention? We might as well try to keep the conversation constructive, right?

~EW

Very legit post, I can’t help it but wonder how bad are the revs I am beating. Stab on dodge?? kitten , revs sure are spoiled kids. And @ephemeral, dude that won’t change a thing, a good players would be able to counter any combo you come up with on your warrir. 6ou will get him once, but no twice. And the other class are obv. Op er than warrior. So, we need some love.

Also increasing the threshold on weakness ( def minor 3) to 50% would help a lot as we would be able to land or blow/ or at least so down the target.

They need to rebuild war or give us the needed things in order to make us viable again.
We wont get any of this. Instead, we are going to receive random nerfs and random buffs no one was asking for.
Everyone here has seen that several times now.
With the next balance patch in a couple of months you will see it with your own eyes.
The only solution is: fire that guy whos doing all the balancing.
Its obvious that hé sucks at his work.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

First, I’m really inexperienced in PvP and with the Warrior. I’m a long-time guardian player who’s fallen in love with the Warrior class (which I am switching over to as my main). So, I completely understand if what I’m saying below is missing vital information, but please remember I’m just trying to be helpful.

With all due respect, kdaddy, your post reads like you hit a wall and instead of thinking of ways to go around it, you’re just upset that you can’t go through it. It’s hard for me to imagine that the warrior in PvP is “all based on burst skills.” To me that sounds like you’re not thinking about the other things you can do, and how you can adapt towards the other dominant strategies you’re facing. PvP is all about thinking sideways, right? So with the Warrior class being so straight-forward, it seems even more vital to try to take a step to the left.

For instance, your point on the Ranger’s Cele (and if I may throw in the Gaurdian as well), you say they can just shed stacks of cond damage. The way I see it that means cond duration isn’t worth pursuing; and if you want to utilize cond damage, then the focus needs to be on continual quick applications of condis. It doesn’t matter so much if they get shed, so long as they get at least one tick, and you can reapply them quickly…. it’s about consistent pressure… make your foes use up their cleanses foolishly (in this case force the druid to keep having to go cele).

For the Guardian f3 ability… guardians have notoriously long CDs. The DH f3 has a 75 sec CD. So, if you can force them to pop f3, renewed focus, then f3 again you’ve just put two of their skills on a large CD; and with RF on cd, they’re less likely to use f1 & f2 if they haven’t already. I see that as awesome if you can do so without popping your huge attacks to do so… so, in what ways can you do that?

For the mesmer problem, I feel that Brawler’s Recovery and Savage Instinct are your solutions there. You have controllable and super quick condi cleanse: you can remove the torment/confusion, get in some attacks, and when the next batch of condis comes in, your 5sec cd is ready to pop for another cleanse. Isn’t this a functional defense against most condi builds? What am I missing?

The warrior has a huge range of weapons to use, and it can reduce weapon swap to 5 sec. That seems to me to be the advantage of this class that needs to be exploited more: your opponents need to worry about what combo of weapons you’re bringing to the table.

For a wild and out-there example… has anyone ever considered a rifle/LB against the metas they’re often up against? It seems like it’d bring a lot of advantage to the fight. such as 1) constant ranged ability means you can weapon-swap cleanse w/o having to worry about not being able to hit your target. 2) You can better avoid the traps of the DH, ranger, etc. 3) If other players are bringing melee weapons as their swap-outs, then you’ve just put a huge crimp in their abilities to mess with you. 4) longer range = more opportunity for dodging, damage avoidance, and advantageous positioning. In this case you’d be focusing on consistent pressure over burst/spike damage…. swapping weapons so frequently you won’t need to worry about the slow AA of both weapons.

There was a forum thread in the necro forums a few days ago where someone claimed they went into a PvP match with a core necro, and were able to take advantage of everyone’s expectations he was a Reaper. So, why not find ways to do that with the Warrior? …exploit their expectation that all you’re going to do is run up and hit them with bursts.

~EW

Ok where to start,

1- The Wall
Not really, i havent hit the wall since i havent played nearly as much in the first season. I got to legendary 2 first season. I used warrior, ele,necromancer, ranger to do it. I had to quit using ranger since simply there were better rangers then me around ruby. I had to quit using warrior in legendary because rev easily countered me last season there was a million of them. So towards the end of it i was only using ele and necro. This season has been far easier and im not nearly grinding matches as much. At the start of the season i started off like kitten . I could of rushed to legendary but i took the start of the season very slowly, doing only 3-4 games a day.

2-Build set up
You talk about ranger and guardians and forcing them to use skills. What you are missing is the cool down aspect. Stances have a 1 minute cool down, also if you go discipline over defense you are running a very glassy build. Also your talking about consistent pressure. You have already said taking discipline over defense which means you stances have less of a cool down, you lack stability, your healing of time is far less and you are not using a shield. You dont have the sustain as a warrior period that is as good as another class and then you take the glassiest build set. If you are not taking power or arms, you are a support build and you are not a top 5 support build. If i know what a person is running before the match of course i can do the counter build. The problem is even if i did there is a chance i wouldnt win if they are of equal skill or better.

3- VS guardian
Once again i am talking about equally skilled players. If they see me head butt/ or use berserker stance they know im going into mode. This is the time to land your big attacks. Traditionally the guardian/DH are running 3-4 traps which means your going to have to use endure the pain during the fight. If they time there skills and the right times as i time mine the DH will win out. Making him pop his skills doesnt change the fact i had to use mine as well.

4- VS mesmer
Lol when i read this i have a feeling you dont PvP that often. If im running core warrior, yeah i could use discipline/defense and be Bunker but i wouldnt have the damage to take a good one down. If i take beserk spec that means you need to do damage since nothing about it has sustain. Please just go into a 1 vs 1 room and play some people who play mesmer and watch as you remove 1 condi, they will reapply 2-3 more after especially if they are using staff.

5-range weapons
Question how do you expect to win a fight? Ele has a team support shout that gives everyone reflects. Who are you going to kill? Scrapper has 2-3 skills that all reflect projectiles, what is your plan to kill it? Literally all someone has to do is get on point, cap it and then chase you since you cant block,run and they counter everything you do. Also are you gonna run a condi or dps build because rifle does dps and longbow does more condi damage. If you say both many classes have the sustain to go with you all day. Literally counters to range weapons ranger staff 4, rev hammer skill 4, guardian staff, ele magnetic aura, scrapper, mesmer manipulation reflect trait. You will be focused what skills do these weapons have for you to sustain?

6-The necro
This was accomplished with a free to play account. It has a different MMR and it has been stated that new accounts are given average/slightly below average MMR. There have been many posts and threads of people who couldnt get out of ruby get to legendary on a new HOT account. Which means 2 things, Anet is getting there money for people buying multiple accounts. 2 MM can be a bit unfair. Lord Helseth went on to reddit and played someone account who said they cant carry the bads they play with in sapphire. Helseth quickly won the next couple games and began to rip the person and tell them to L2P. Ive won my fair amount of games on warrior and this post was about equal level caliber players playing against one another.

I will post some pics, you can argue skill sets and build set up but you are arguing my thought process in fights.

@kdaddy (and everyone else, hehe), I appreciate you spelling all that out… it’s helping me to understand more of the picture. You’re right I don’t really PvP much, if at all, and that admission probably got lost in that huge wall of text I wrote. Thank you for taking the time to explain more, I really appreciate it. I definitely have a lot more to ponder now. I’m not giving up that there isn’t some off-the-cuff skill/weapon combination that might help even the odds… but, yeah, I’m starting to see more of what y’all mean. I may not be much of a PvPer, but I do wanna help if possible.

~EW

Its fine Xd Im not a Pvper either. I only come to pvp to duel with friends. Practice. Learn etc. I do know how to xploit in pvp do xd
Roaming in EB (yes the other borderlands sucks) is the only thing lately that I do most when playing Gw2. The build diversity makes it more fun in my opinion. The way people can mixed there stats. Using runes/sigils that you normaly cant choose in pvp. Creating hybrids in so many different ways. Its fun to experiment with it.

Ohh yeah for PvE and WvW warrior has some much different builds you can run. For instance i run gun flame with all power/precision/ferocity gear and use 2 stances with signet of might. Insane damage

For PvE i run a safe build so i dont die and i still use ham/bow in PvE. I enjoy hammer alot and i can run around and not worry about much even in the HOT areas.

I made this post because of the PvP situation. I can understand that in theory crafting warrior can do alot of things with some of the trait lines. What ends up happening is for what ever reason it just doesnt work.

I tried defense/ discipline/beserker and trading power for the new spec line and it just didnt work. As someone who msotly plays warrior ive tried some different things and they just didnt stack up which is why i wrote this.

Good Luck All

Man hambow was my main build to roam with in wvw when it was still viable. Man I miss hambow

I think the best way to describe it would be, everyone has burst, but they also have sustain. Albeit maybe thief, but even they can just gtfo out of a fight if it goes south. Warrior has the burst, no problem there, they lack the sustain.

I feel like healing signet should have pulsing resistance, or something. If we just had a way to manage being locked down easier I would love that.

The number one reason warrior struggles is because revenants exist. If you took the class out of the game, warrior would be in a good spot because we can contribute to killing a lot of the classes currently, but can be weak to some classes on the individual level.

Revenant is just warrior on steroids, and we take up the same space, hence the problem.

Next class will be the Berserker. He will do everything that warrior and revenant do but better. He will be immune to CC and conditions, and kill everything in 1 hit. Watch.

It’s just too much.
We have an immense assortment of base spec weapons, but those are weaker than elite spec weapons and skills. Since our elite spec weapon is niche within the condi category, and the mechanic and skills don’t add a lot (mainly a cool and fun transformation), we will still need to resort to the base spec weapons with high mobility or defense to survive.

So base spec vs elite spec, with the main focus on “HELP!” instead of “CHARGE!”.

Survival was okay versus the other base specs, but we’d need more of it versus elite specs, which our elite spec doesn’t provide. And so we are out of luck. (Guardian keeps you ranged and blocks your projectiles, Necro stabs and CCs with condi on top, Scrapper CCs and healtanks, Duid ranges and healtanks, etc. Warrior just stays the same with a slight tweak to how you applicate damage i.e. a primal burst instead of a burst)

Maybe make the next elite spec have two adrenaline bars.
1 goes to the left and fills by taking damage allowing use of a defensive burst skill.
1 goes to the right and fills by dealing damage allowing use of an offensive burst skill.
Have a trait in there that reverses their adrenaline-gain.
I Just need something to stay alive other than running and hiding because running and hiding doesnt let you win a fight, nor is it always that easy to get away.