LONG POST BELOW (tl;dr at bottom)
To start there are many unknowns coming this next big update; with completely new rune sets/sigils coming, we have no idea how these traits could compliment the new changes. Also we don’t even know if 4/5 of these traits are official. I apologize for the length of the post.
With that said, I feel that the new GM traits that we see being released for the warrior are overall not that substantial. New traits DOES NOT equal more power . New traits should provide a different functionality, and to be fair, there is some of that here. The main issue I see is what traits you sacrifice by taking these newer GM traits, but its just a balance issue that will be tweaked in time.
Strength: Burst Precision – Burst skills have an increased chance to critically hit ( Chance: 100%)
Any warrior that is building 30 into strength is most likely some form of DPS, and therefore, already has the precision/means to crit the majority of bursts if not all of them. This trait makes me wonder about a low precision DPS but only getting reliable crit on 1 or 2 skills seems strange for DPS. Also, you lose damage by not taking Berserker’s Power. Furthermore, the information I’ve seen for the new sigil of intelligence would really compete with this trait.
Arms: Dual Wield Agility- Your attack speed is increased by 10% when wielding a sword, axe or mace in your offhand.
I find this trait very odd. I will note, I see potential on sword/sword builds, since the burst skill should finish before the immobilize runs out. I could also see this being very valuable for the mace but how much is 10% going to do? Also, I’m curious about the effects on utility skills.
Defense: Rousing Resilience – Gain toughness when you break out of a stun. The amount of toughness gained is up to 1000, based on your level and lasts for 4 seconds.
Obviously just for tanks. No hammer warrior would take this and few other warriors go 30 into def. If a tank warrior runs this, they miss out on passive retaliation, which would really hurt the damage potential. Note, 1000 toughness means nothing to conditions.
Tactics: Phalanx Strength – When you grant yourself might, grant it to nearby allies as well. 6s of might is granted each time this trait triggers. (It works with blast finishers)
I can see potential. If a warrior builds 30 into tactics, he is either trying to run healing shouts or banners (support). If you take this trait, you lose the regeneration banner/healing shout options. I see great potential with Battle Standard and I think this trait is made for it. This trait basically gives an offensive support banner style instead. Little use beyond that, unless you tried 20 in arms for gs crit = might. I think that’d just be a weird build lol.
Discipline: Brawler’s Recovery – Remove blindness when you swap weapons.
Too clunky to use IMO. For example, you need to stun but have to swap to remove the blind but now you’re on the wrong weapon. The cleansing this provides would be accidental most of the time. Also, I don’t think is compares to Burst Mastery and its not enough to deal with blind spammer builds, which is the first thought when considering this trait.
TL;DR
Overall, it’s almost as if they wanted to give the warrior new options, but we didn’t really get much new functionality. In some cases, there’s too much overlap, (refer to strength trait). Or in other cases, it’s just not that useful (discipline trait). All of this is just my first impressions. The warrior is in a nice place, it would just be great to see new functionality (not more power, mind you).
AGAIN – we can’t really judge these traits fully until we see all the new changes that come with this update and we don’t even know if 4/5 of these traits actually exist. Arenanet has only revealed Dual-Wielding Agility (Arms) in the official post.
[WHO] Guild Warrior
Gate of Madness
~Might is Right~