Guild Wars 2

The bigger issue with energy is the slow regen and the reset on legend swap, not the weapon skill costs. It forces you to switch to legends that are completely unsuited for your build.
You could address both issues at the same time though, tying energy generation to weapon skills (2-5) and removing energy reset on swap. That will move rev away from auto attacking and will make sure every skill has a use.

Sublimatio.6981:

No, it would be amazing because there would be place for everyone

There is a difference between everyone having a place, and actually having to take every class. Missing out on 10k dps for every group buff you didn’t bring because you don’t have 9 players each playing a different class isn’t exactly better than what we have now. At least now, you can pick any of the dps options for the dps slots without having a significant difference.

And then you would have to get one of every class when making your team. Sure, there will be different classes used, but there will be no diversity in the team composition, you would just take one of each every time.

NikeEU.7690:

For support classes their personal dps plus the support they bring has to be of value in excess of a pure dps class or else the concept of support classes are meaningless.

That is absolutely true, however the problem with warrior is that banners aren’t exclusive to PS build. If there ever is another might stacking build, you would still bring banners on dps warrior which would do 30k dps (or whatever it will be without signets) and still have the 11k from banners, basically replacing one of the dps classes with a 4th support.

Rednik.3809:

Feanor.2358:

NikeEU.7690:

Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.

Riiight, because the warriors aren’t mandatory already. Please be realistic.

Because warrior damage is not high enough to bring him into dps slot instead of traditional dps, and his raid spot is given to him not because of his dps at all, and nerfing his dps will not change anything in raid composition. So, basically you are asking “this guy is too good at chess, so we need to reduce his ability to play football”.

If you nerf warrior dps enough, at some point you would consider bringing a guardian to stack might. The problem with that is that, considering the amount of group dps banners bring, that nerf would have to be massive. But then playing a warrior wouldn’t be very exciting, because your gameplay consists of using damage skills in your rotation, which then will hit like a wet noodle. Anet’s current solution to that seems to be making the stronger buffs 10 man, so that they only guarantee you 1 spot instead of 2, and that way they can ignore them when balancing the dps.

NikeEU.7690:

Having 1 spot in a 10 man squad reserved for warrior is called good balance. That should be the eventual goal for every class.

You could have one spot guaranteed for every class, if you gave each of them a unique buff. Would that be good though?

NikeEU.7690:

Also, what most people miss here is that the current balance is excellent except for Revenant and necro to a far lesser extent. A lot of the ideas people are posting would not improve the current balance and in fact make it worse. Im happy people discuss these topics but most people don’t even understand the problems so the solutions they offer are pretty bad.

Sure, the balance is fine in the sense that most classes see play right now. The problem is that raid teams are locked into 2 warrior, 2 chrono, 2 druid setup, which leaves only 4 slots open for the other 6 classes. And then you have crangers that are likely to take some of those as well. The dps options for those 4 slots are actually fairly balanced, and you sometimes even see a necro in there. Revs need to decide what they want to be, though.

Tested it on some random person in DR, it doesn’t work. Thanks for wasting 10 seconds of my life.

apharma.3741:

Secondly, no, exclusive unique buffs is not fine, it mandates bringing specific classes especially when they are overloaded with those buffs like current druid and warrior.

And this is exactly why personal dps should be adjusted according to the buffs the class provides. Did you even read what I said?

NikeEU.7690:

Why would you nerf the warrior dps condi build? It has lower dps than all the other dps builds and if you want extra utility from it you have to lower the dps further. If anything the damage should be buffed so it’s a viable.alternative to other pure dps builds.

Since right now PS warrior is pretty much mandatory in every subgroup, the dps and banners don’t really matter, but if another class is ever able to stack might as good as warrior, the banners and personal dps will be a factor in deciding whether you take a PS warrior or that other build, or whether you take a warrior in the dps slot or not. Although having 1 spot in a 10 man squad reserved for warrior isn’t really a big issue, so whatever.

apharma.3741:

Ozzrel, not sure we are on the same page but guardian is really strong on dps and the rotation isn’t super complex either. Engy for condi is a fairly complex rotation but the power build can hit 25k pressing 2 or 3 buttons and leaving auto attack on, if you want to weave in higher damage abilities it’s not a lot more complex and is competitive with other damage builds.

I’m not saying that their dps is bad – I’m saying that it is worse than other options. Other classes either get more dps or have a unique buff. Guardians just do ok dps – and nothing else.

@Topic

What about the idea of standardising unique buffs?

That would just be more flavors of boons. Boring and pointless. Having unique buffs is fine – as long as the dps balance takes that into account.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

What variety?!

8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed the tank spot in runs. Chrono or get lost.
8 outta 9 professions aren’t allowed to be the healer, cause druid or go home.
8 outta 9 professions are flipped off if they wanna be the might stacker. PS warr or hit the road.

Above “variety” takes up 6/10 slots. Remaining 4 can only be dps (or kiter) and even there some prejudice runs rampant (too many want ele, cranger). And i’m cranger main myself when it comes to raids, so it’s not like i feel jeleaous or wanna cry out my “they didn’t want me” frustrations. It’s just the current, quite rotten state of affairs when it comes to “play your way” in raids…

Which is why I suggested creating another quickness stacking option… and druid nerfs…
PS could also be nerfed, so warriors would have to invest more into boon duration, which can make guard a viable alternative. Rev would still need a buff, because waiting for 24 seconds to stack up might is just terrible.

There is no “dps chrono” and “tank chrono”. The difference between tank chrono and non-tank chrono is 1 trinket that you use to grab aggro. Lack of dps is just part of being chrono – and the alacrity is there to compensate for that. So no, chrono doesn’t need damage buffs of any sort – it is not supposed to do damage.
Being the only class that can stack quickness is a different issue, one that can be easily fixed with future elite specs. Having 6 slots taken by support roles isn’t a problem, as long as there is variety within the supports.

As far as personal dps is concerned, the balance seems fine right now. Most of the balance issues are with the buffs different classes provide:

Warrior – Currently too strong. Has some of the best offensive buffs (banners and EA), while also being the only might stacker that is currently use (the alternatives are guard and rev, both of which have issues). Condi PS damage should be lowered, condi dps build should be kept as is until another class becomes viable for stacking might (then the dps build can be nerfed too – you shouldn’t have both dps and strong buffs).

Guardian – Good dps, good healing, but no useful offensive buffs. That is a tough one. Unless you buff the dps to silly levels, they will never be the optimal pick for the dps slot.
However, like someone said in this thread, having them as dps/healer hybrid might be the way to go.
Maybe adjust virtues/radiance to be better suited for that role?
That will also make burning aspect of guardian actually useful for something. Merging battle presence with absolute resolution would be a good place to start, allowing them to be taken at the same time as permeating wrath.

Revenant – Tries too do too many things at once – and fails at all of them. This one needs an extensive rework – there is no one change that will fix them.
Having them be able to make more specialized builds would be nice – focusing on either dps or buffing, not trying to do both at the same time.

Thief – Probably the most simple of all classes. They just do dps – and that is what they should do. Having them as one of the higher dps classes is completely fine.

Engineer – Another simple case – dps and a minor buff. Harder to play than other pure dps options, but also rewards the players that master it with higher dps potential. Fairly balanced.

Ranger – Strong dps with easy rotation with damage build, stupidly OP buffs with the healer build. When a single class takes half of the raid squad slots, you know there is a problem.
For the dps build – a slight reduction in damage would be enough.
Druid on the other hand is probably the most overpowered build in raids right now. A druid can use full dps gear and do a decent chunk of damage, provide some of the strongest damage buffs to the team and heal, all at the same time.
At least some of these aspect should be nerfed. I think spotter should be moved somewhere where it is more accessible to cranger while being out of reach of druid and the base healing of druid should be reduced so they would actually have to use healing gear. Guards would get personal dps and healing, druids would get healing and damage buffs. Balance.

Elementalist – More damage on big hitboxes, less damage on small hitboxes. Whether that is a good thing is debatable, but at least that is some sort of balance.

Mesmer – I think chrono is in a fine spot. Currently it is the only quickness stacker, but in the future, if another quickness stacking build becomes a thing, it can be balanced against chrono by having higher personal dps (to compensate for lack of alacrity).
DPS mesmer could be better, but that is something that should probably be addressed with the next elite spec – that way it won’t affect chrono damage.

Necromancer – Power necro is bad. Blood magic is bad. Condi necro relies on dysfunctional combo system.
The easiest fix for condi necro would be changing combo field priorty. That would make them reach their potential dps much more reliably, and would put them in a good spot, especially in fights where epidemic is used.
Power necro – where is the damage? Axe, dagger, GS, all of the weapons are bad. Shroud skills are worse than auto attacking with your weapon. Damage modifiers? What damage modifiers? Power necro needs some big buffs, and shroud needs to be made useful for power builds.
Blood Magic – the support trait line that does absolutely nothing. Life Siphoning should scale better. The damage with power, the healing with healing power. That way a power necro would be able to take it to increase group dps, while a healer necro would be able to provide meaningful group sustain (or maybe even both?). Staff should be reworked to be a better support weapon if healer necro is ever to become a thing.

I guess you missed the part where eles only use 2 attunements for dps, and only 1 when healing. Sure, there is situational use for attunements that aren’t part of your rotation, but that is hardly what defines the class or what makes it viable.

Adding 3rd legend isn’t a fix, if anything it will break the class even more. The legends already have no synergy between them whatsoever, and the only reason you use more than one is the energy reset, and that 2nd legend you pick is always Glint.
Revs have to be changed to not rely on swapping legends so much, or legends have to be changed to not have strict roles.

The most commonly used build is the Condi PS.
Other options are:
Power PS – used when condi build doesn’t work because of its massive ramp up time.
Condi DPS (2 variations, same gear) – when you already have another warrior stacking might.

Even if you go for all 3 of them, you only need 3 gear sets (with trinkets shared between 2), not 8. You don’t need to have multiple gear setups for power PS.

The biggest issue with guardian healing is druid. Guardians can heal just fine, but there really is no reason to take anything other than druid, ever.
Grace of the land has to go, or it needs to be made a non-unique buff available to all healers. I’m in favor of the 1st option.

I like the idea of moving swiftness to staff 5, however it doesn’t leave many options for the symbol. Perhaps pulsing Aegis? The amount of pulses can be adjusted.
I think empower is fine as it is. You can’t move while channeling, but the radius is pretty big for an aoe heal.
Orb of Light needs a rework, projectile detonation is an awful mechanic. If it was made ground targeted, the detonation part can stay though (the orb can stay at the targeted location for 1 sec, giving you time to detonate it).

Since stomp is a movement skill now, shouldn’t it benefit from warrior’s sprint? I think that got overlooked.

Cataca.3867:

I dont get it, how does discipline force you to use a longbow?

Landing your burst skills becomes much more important if you don’t use a berserker build. Missing one due to a random blind can really screw you over, especially if it is the first burst skill you use in a fight (which would delay your adrenal health).

perko.8309:

I agree that Tactics is under-powered and Arms is way too limited, but Discipline is a great trait line. If you leave it out of your build, it’s because there are 3 other trees better than this wonderful tree for your play style. That’s a GOOD thing!
There was a time when Discipline was the hands-down best trait line we had – and it didn’t get nerfed. Some of the others caught up. Be thankful.

Using a discipline build forces you to use longbow, severely limiting your choice. In the other weapon set you can use:
-Sword or axe, both of which are really weak.
-Greatsword, which is better used with berserker.
-Hammer, which just might be good enough… we will have to wait and see.
Axe is probably the best target for a rework to make it a better weapon in a discipline build, as it really has no use right now. Sword can be made better by improving arms, although I think it needs a buff to the skills as well (more condi applications… maybe torment?). So yes, discipline can be left as it is.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Vigorous Shouts have a 1.0 healing coefficient, so you need investment to make it worthwhile. Its something that I wish was more present on other skills with healing.

The problem is that we already give up too much damage potential by taking tactics instead of strength, without having to take clerics amulet too. At least eles can still do some damage in their support build.

Choppy.4183:

How does the design of Defense make us reliant on spamming bursts? Unless I’m missing something, hitting a full burst every 15s isn’t spammy at all.

Try playing non-berserker, non-discipline build and tell me how reliable it is.

Rev, but neither are dps gods and they aren’t brought for their dps. If you want to do big dps, play ele.

With the buff to adrenal health, defense tree became very strong, and even more mandatory than before. This is fine though, as it does what it is supposed to do: provide you with better survivability. Strength and berserker are also quite solid, providing us with nice DPS boost.

However, the way defense tree is designed forces us to rely on spamming our burst skills, meaning we have to go either berserker or discipline, which also puts them at direct competition with each other. As it is right now, discipline just isn’t as good as berserker, but that can be fixed by either improving damage related traits in discipline or the skills on weapons that benefit more from discipline than from berserker (like hammer).
The other 2 trees are in even worse state:
Tactics, which is our support tree, was destroyed by the vigorous shouts nerf. Warriors don’t have water fields they can blast or weapon skills that heal allies, all of the group healing comes from this trait, and it just isn’t enough.
Arms is probably our worst spec right now. It focuses entirely on bleeding based sword builds, which are completely outclassed by condi on CC from strength and burning from berserker. Sword should be made a better condi weapon, and this tree needs traits that are useful outside of sword builds.

tl;dr version: we now have a decent base, but tactics, arms and discipline need to be brought up to the level of strength and berserker to increase build diversity.

Does this count as alive?

They need to make utility skills do what they are actually meant to do, right now they are way too weak.

Physical skills:
All of them are CC skills, all of them have stupidly high cooldown for what they do. Cooldowns have to go down and stomp should knock targets further away to be actually useful.

Stances:
They are meant to allow you to play aggressively while ignoring incoming damage/cc, but with the long cooldowns and short durations you are left vulnerable for way too long. Reduce CDs and add a trait that further reduces CDs when you hit someone (let’s say 2 sec reduction with 1 sec cooldown). Make frenzy apply superspeed.

Banners:
They are meant to buff your allies, and while the unique buffs are nice they just aren’t enough in PvP. Remove inspiring battle standard trait and instead make 4 minor traits (free up space by either removing useless traits like thick skin or by combining traits like reckless dodge and stick and move). Make each trait work on one of the banners (strength trait on banner of strength etc), reduce the cooldown and make the banner apply a boon on every pulse: might for strength, fury for discipline, protection for defense and regen for tactics.

Shouts:
They used to be good before the healing was nerfed, now they are a joke. Either buff the healing back or add some synergy in other traits. They could make it so brawler’s recovery would make your condi removals heal if they successfully remove a condi or make shake it off break stuns on allies (and possibly apply rousing resilience to them if you have it).

1. Move the main platform closer to the ground and the skyhammer platform closer to the main platform so that falling down won’t kill you. Add a way to get back to the main platform from the ground level.
2. At points A and C there is were little room to fight. At one side of the cap point there is a wall, at the other side there are the 3 holes, so if you have to leave the cap point you have to move really close to the holes. Expand the whole area, make more room for fighting, make it so there is more space between the holes… and then you can even make the holes larger.
3. Skyhammer will either be too strong or will end up like trebs, never used. I don’t even know what can be done about it, maybe replace it with a different secondary objective?
4. Adjust the jump pads to more reliably put you where you need to be.

Cooldowns on warrior utilities are indeed a bit too long compared to what other classes now have. But number tweaks alone won’t be enough.

Physicals need bigger changes to be worth the utility slot:
Kick: making it a stunbreaker might be enough, but it need to be made more fluid, the skill is too slow.
Bull’s: A single target stun will never be worth taking… ever. Maybe add a secondary, shorter, AoE stun?
Stomp: It’s an AoE knockback, you would want to use it to keep people away from something (someone being ressed, or knock them off of capture point) but the knockback range is so small it’s useless. Make throw targets further away.
Bolas: Again, not worth wasting a slot on. Maybe make it cripple+torment to make it useful in condi builds?

As for sustain, warriors need something that supports aggressive play, not that bunkering with shouts bullkitten. I would suggest GM strength and arms traits for that. Something like healing for % of damage done for strength and a proc when target is under 50% that heals for each condition on it for arms (with cooldown of course).

NikeEU.7690:

The new Healing Surge will have the same cast time I believe.

Shout with a cast time? That will be new.

Body Blow competing for a spot with Distracting Strikes? Nope.
Move Great Fortitude to adept and throw away Restorative Strength.

Also, don’t forget that Axe lost a 5% damage trait.

@BurrTheKing
Or you could take any of these builds and take discipline instead of either tactics or defense. Not every build needs Shoutbow level of condi removal, and going for shouts in a non-celestial build seems pointless.

Zin.6170:

YuiRS.8129:

Ozzrel.9825:

Do shields even stack duration?

They do.

Do you mean fire shield? It didn’t about an hour ago when I tested it. It just reset the timer. It may be different with the others auras. I don’t believe they are called shields with the other auras.

If they don’t stack, this trait is beyond useless.

Do shields even stack duration?

With the patch coming in a couple of days, I decided to make an analysis of how it will affect various Warrior builds in PvP:

Shoutbow:
The current meta build will become even stronger after the patch. With the new shout and access to more discipline traits it will have more condi removal, AoE healing, AoE buffs and even faster might stacking.
With the banner regen trait the AoE healing will be absolutely disgusting.

Hambow:
With Merciless Hammer and Burst Mastery being in the same tier, Hambow as it is now will probably cease to exist. You will have to either give up on cooldown reduction and damage or the much needed adrenaline generation. But with the ability to max out 3 trait lines you get access to shouts, giving you a new way to get adrenaline.
The new build will look more like a Shoutbow variant than the old Hambow. Compared to normal Shoutbow it will have less condi removal and mobility, but gain the Hammer CC. This build will have everything you can possibly want in a teamfight.

Axe:
Axe doesn’t really get anything in the patch, and with the power creep of the other builds it will fall even further behind. It is hard to imagine it being able to compete with the new meta builds.

Greatsword:
With everything GS related being moved to one trait in Strength, the weapon gains a nice boost. With the sad state Axe is in, GS will probably be the weapon of choice for damage builds. Other classes still do it better, though.

Mace:
Condition Mace build gains a small buff in form of 2 stacks of bleed on stuns and some extra might and adrenaline from Discipline. Will still be a fun build to play, but unlikely to become part of the meta.

Sword:
Sword will have the Arms spec all to itself and it will be the spec to take if you use that weapon, regardless of whether you want to play condi, power or hybrid.
More condi damage for condi builds, more crit and easier to land final thrust for power builds (also thanks to 15sec icd heightened focus in disc). Sword actually looks really strong in that patch.

Non-Longbow Builds:
With CI being unchanged, LB is still indispensable. Even with its damage being nerfed it will provide great AoE pressure.
Maybe with more condi removal options becoming available and the new game mode coming later we will see more WvW-like builds with more focus on mobility and less on AoE pressure.

Rifle:
What rifle?

tl;dr version:
It will still be Shoutbows everywhere, possibly with hammer instead of sword/horn.

@Toxsa
Same logic can be applied to CI with non-bow weapons: If you have to wait more than 5 seconds until the target runs out of dodges and you can land your F1, you will probably die.

Sure, do you like condition damage builds?

Sure, when things stop dying before I can apply 3 stacks of bleed.

Shoutbow vs Shoutbow is an endless fight, unless one of you makes some big mistakes.There isn’t much you can do. Ask you team for help or continue stalling, depending on what is best in that situation.

NikeEU.7690:

Ozzrel.9825:

At the very least it will allow axe to compete with GS.

Why would we want that? The best way to get DPS from greatsword is to use your skills in a proper rotation. The best way to get DPS from axe is to… press 1. You really want to make a press 1 weapon better? ZZZZZ

I’d rather have a Fast Hands build, but it is not going to happen, is it?

For Mending to be able to compete with the other heals, its healing per second should be somewhere between TTL and HS passive. The problem is that it might just replace HS in CI builds, so for the buff to happen it will have to be made incompatible with CI.

Both GS and Condi variants of the Mace build get a little buff, but I really doubt it will be enough.

As for Unsuspecting Foe, I don’t think it will ever see any use in Arms. The spec doesn’t provide anything useful to CC builds, even if they are condi based. Arms doesn’t have anything useful for any build that isn’t using Sword as the main weapon. Maybe they should move Merciless Hammer to Arms to add some variety to that spec, and save hambow at the same time.

Well, it doesn’t really matter if it is a GM or a Master trait. Having Last Stand and CI in the same tier is bad though. LS will never see any use, but with the buffs to shout builds stances really need that boost to be able to compete.

Josh Davis.6015:

I mentioned Healing Surge in the other thread. It’s been renamed to “To the Limit” and is categorized as a shout. It also gives a flat 25 endurance to yourself and nearby allies (600 radius).

Healing Signet now gives 6 seconds of Resistance on activation.

The 25 endurance part… here you say that Healing Surge is getting it, while in patch notes it says Healing Signet. I think you mixed something up. Somewhere.

Separating it from GS is fine. Putting it in tactics line… not really.
It could be a good strength adept trait, instead of the crap we have there. At the very least it will allow axe to compete with GS.

Having to force the target to use their defensive skill and dodges before landing your burst skill is fine. Having to do that before you can remove conditions is not. It doesn’t make CI more “skillful”, it makes it just plain bad. You can be a Warrior god, it will still take you some time to force these dodges. Meanwhile the conditions keep doing damage.

Cygnus.6903:

The weird thing is that they worded it so incredibly poor, that we can’t be sure either way.

There is nothing wrong with the wording. The only thing it can possibly mean is what the OP said. There is simply no way “all adrenaline tiers of that burst skill.” (notice the word “that”) can refer to different burst skills.
But apparently people understand things the way they want to understand them.

Bearhugger.4326:

Did they change their mind on the Healing Signet passive nerf? I don’t see any change for Healing Signet listed anywhere.

I admit I wouldn’t mind to keep the Healing Signet passive, especially if poison is going to stack…

Poison will have higher damage potential (in condi builds) but lower uptime. If anything, it is a nerf to the healing reduction part.

Thuggernaut.1250:

nicknamenick.2437:

using a burst skill for your equipped weapon will now set the recharge of all adrenaline tiers of that burst skill

Does anyone understand this??

they didn’t explain it very well in the video, but I think this means that now you can’t drop a full tier 3 burst, then swap weapons and instantly drop a tier 1 burst (with the leftover adren from burst mastery or berserker’s stance). you have to wait the full recharge time, even if you swap your weapon set.

Oooor, more likely, it refers to different tiers of the same burst skill. If I remember correctly, for some weapons the different tiers are technically different skills.

So you want Warriors to go back to state they were in before the addition of CI? When they would die to anything with a couple of condis?
I don’t understand why warrior condi removal has to have additional drawbacks and can’t work reliably when you need it.

Yes it is. I don’t think you realise how fast that is.
It will be impossible to kite a warrior and he will avoid every skill that isn’t instant by running through you.
Also, you didn’t provide any reason why the trait should be changed at all.

Aomine.5012:

Like I said earlier, it has nothing to do with other profession. I bring out ranger only because it’s a good example since it’s the worst class currently in high-end PVP. My goal is to stop people from being irrational that everything should be baseline despite it is a very strong class without all the baseline thing, and it will clearly break the balance between all classes even more if these buffs are without any trade-off.

Sure, some people ask for ridiculous changes, like the recent WS thread. That happens in every forum. But pretty much everyone here agrees that for any change that happens to make warriors stronger will have to come with some trade-off. Like we paid for Healing Signet and CI with nerf to weapons and adrenaline.

Aomine, dear, we all understand that you Rangers aren’t in the best spot right now. We feel you, man. We truly do. And we wish you many buffs and all the QoL changes you might want.
But the state of your beloved class is not a reason to come to the Warrior forums (a class that does well) and start saying that we are greedy and only fish for buffs, especially in threads that don’t even talk about making Warriors stronger, but rather discuss the design flaws of that class.
<3

As if Mr. Ranger here and the other trolls needed more food… please..

The ramp up time of condi builds will still hold them back unless we start seeing more enemies with massive health pools.

To be fair, that’s a double edged blade. Yeah, it’s hard to build without it. But one could also argue no one has a trait as impactful to any build they could possibly make at any given time. So while it might be too mandatory and counter argument could very well be that the trait itself (not the class) is far too powerful.

Yes, the trait is powerful. To compensate for that everything else has to be weaker.
As stated before removing the trait (or nerfing it) is also a solution, but then warrior will need to be buffed in other areas, which would be much more work than making it baseline (and more opportunities to screw up the balance).