Guild Wars 2

I’ve been out for several, SEVERAL months.

How does the balance landscape look right now?

What are the roles and meta-priorities in ranked PvP right now?

Burr, a friend of mine uses the build, but with Valkyrie Amulet + Shout heals instead. It’s a total bomb in PvP and an excellent homepoint-defender variant.

9/10. Using Mace/Sword + Longbow CondiControl. Absolute juggernaut.

Jonwar.9205:

Nobody does use berserker’s stance in PvP

:c I resent that statement.

I used a Berserker+Balanced+Last Stand triple stance build with Vigor generation before Berserker was changed.

Isaac.6041:

Geiir.7603:

If this is true, then we will get screwed over by Last Refuge 33% more often…

I agree. Last Refuge needs to be switched with Slowed Pulse or something like that.

+1

/15characters

Sarrow.2785:

Ya pls nerf. Remove the ‘r’ and decrease the font size.

… wut?

JK. Love you man.

On another note, who’s stoked about the new Steal uptime? And possibly looking into boon duration + cond damage for support D/D?

Cyhann.2609:

SharadSun.3089:

“Oh No You Don’t” Sword/Pistol Hypersteal build.

Interrupts EVERYWHERE.

Headshot OP, needs nerf!

srsly doe

Everyone’s so used to spamming 3 for damage. It’s silly. Autoattack for damage, Headshot for interrupt, Pistol Whip for killsetups and cleave survival.

darkace.8925:

Red Raven.7824:

darkace.8925:

Daecollo.9578:

Black Powder/Well of Darkness and some others immediately reapply as long as you are in the area. None of those matter.

A wise man once said, “don’t stand in the fire.”

Yeah, if you’re standing in any of those for the duration you’re a total idiot.

I’m glad someone realizes standing in lingering aoe is a learn2play problem, not a “warrior is underpowered” problem.

/tips hat

The thing is, even the highest-ranked teams in the global PvP scene have already called out against the mindless prevalence of AoE in this game xD and with that volume of AoE sustain (which this game wasn’t balanced around), Warriors do have very little defense.

With the new cleanse traits/skills we have access to though, we’ll be on a level playing field.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Thief #1 is using D/P
Thief #2 is using D/P

Both Thieves fight each other 1v1.
Thief #1 wins by over powering Thief #2.

D/P is OP.

my lungs

Have you EVER played S/D Valkyrie glass in WvW? ;-;

it’s frightening. And makes me feel bad for other classes.

Just because a lot of people play a class, doesn’t make it inherently better. Build a strong playstyle and you’ll end up fighting similarly-skilled players to a standstill.

Seth.4927:

Disclaimer: My main is a thief and I play WvW with a D/P & S/D set.

This trait as it currently is, counters good gameplay and Initiative management and allows the Thief to achieve the so hated “perma stealth”, which is the main reason for people “dislike” to fight thieves in my opinion.

So here is a question to fellow thieves: How would it affect your gameplay if Infusion of Shadow had a 3 seconds internal cooldown?

In my view D/P would still have it’s access to stealth without target while making it harder/impossible to maintain permanent stealth with it, the smoke field lasts 4 seconds though and some testing is needed.

Actually, that’d be a great idea!

Just add something else to the trait to compensate, I think. Like put it on a 5 second internal CD and flat heal us for a little bit, or maybe add 5x Might for 3s.

EDIT: YESSSSS MIGHT YESSSSSSS

AlBundy.7851:

SharadSun.3089:

Warlord.9074:

I’m going to propose this question here becasue ANET doesnt read the other forums obviously.

There are multiple threads in the warrior section and the spvp section explaining why this balance patch did not help warriors. Some of the so called buffs are not helpful becasue they are flawed “cleasinf ire” for example.

It is not a buff or a fix if its a nerf is more damaging than the amount any fixes or buffs that could cure the nerf. Then pile on a bunch of buffs for other professions that don’t need buffed.

Please explain why Cleansing Ire, one of the most powerful active condition removal traits in the game, let alone this patch, is “flawed” and “not helpful”.

I’m running it. xD IDK about you guys.

Can you go back to whatever chit class you were playing before or actually learn the basic warrior mechanics before you post please.

You know, mindlessly flinging insults helps nobody. =p

Anyways: With Cleansing Ire, we have the CAPACITY to remove up to 6 conditions every 8-10 seconds. That is HUGE. That is more than any Ranger can lay claim to.

And with Runes of Lyssa and/or Signet of Renewal and/or Berserker’s Stance, we gain even more condition parity. I can actually play Axe/Hammer Valk without worrying about being kited (much)

Leo G.4501:

-stuf-

Bahaha. I actually laughed. That was a pretty systematic takedown. xD

But I agree with the warrior forums comment, it’s pretty doomandgloomy here. You guys don’t rely on the Warrior as an IRL livelihood, I’m not sure why or when the Warrior forums turned into a “HE’S A THIEF BURN HIM” witch hunt.

The changes are welcome, at least for me. I spend and accrue Adrenaline as fast as possible in order to build Endurance to dodge more of the opponent’s burst, and so far it’s worked like a charm. My only legitimate weakness is being trained down by conditions, and now I can fight against that doing… exactly what I did before.

Warlord.9074:

I’m going to propose this question here becasue ANET doesnt read the other forums obviously.

There are multiple threads in the warrior section and the spvp section explaining why this balance patch did not help warriors. Some of the so called buffs are not helpful becasue they are flawed “cleasinf ire” for example.

It is not a buff or a fix if its a nerf is more damaging than the amount any fixes or buffs that could cure the nerf. Then pile on a bunch of buffs for other professions that don’t need buffed.

Please explain why Cleansing Ire, one of the most powerful active condition removal traits in the game, let alone this patch, is “flawed” and “not helpful”.

I’m running it. xD IDK about you guys.

wait… there’s people who DON’T use the Steal item? . _.

It’s the strongest collection of moves in the game! A PBAoE+reflect+Whirl, a 4s Daze, a 10s Chill, that sweet sweet heal+condi remove…

Like the other guy said, I memorized the stolen item from each class and steal from specific opponents in specific situations. If I’m fighting a Mesmer and a Guardian and the Mesmer is low, I’ll Steal from the Guardian to daze the Mesmer for 4 seconds, enough for me to finish him off usually. Or if I’m getting bursted by a Mesmer and a Ranger, I’ll steal from the Ranger if I’m taking heavier condis or from the Mesmer if the burst is looking to hit soon.

“Oh No You Don’t” Sword/Pistol Hypersteal build.

Interrupts EVERYWHERE.

XII.9401:

redslion.9675:

Leo G.4501:

XII.9401:

Your in for a rude awakening if you think DOTE and relying on <25% health abilities for a warrior are gonna help you against a bunker. Go test out the DOTE against a good bunker now.

Says Desperate Power activates at 50% HP, not 25% anymore.

And with 27k health and around 2.7k armor you can make good use of it.

About DotE… well, it’s another damage increase. Everything helps getting that final stretch to completely deplete the health of the guardian. If that works.

Yes..because we all know health/toughness is what mitigates damage and not protection/regen..guess that’s why warriors are better bunkers than guardians or are tougher than Eles while still dishing out damage, huh?

DotE is crap. Increased damage that can’t even break through a single protection in a best case sceneraio.

Show us a vid of you destroying a good bunker guard with DotE, please. Till then..

A guildie of mine uses the trait to destroy bunkers. I’ll upload the video soon, but unfortunately I can’t share builds.

Lighter.5631:

because you can obviously get all those (significant)burn poison and bleeds with even one set of weapon as a CC weapon. And because they can`t obviously cleanse those conditions.

as long you don`t have a build ready, all you talking is just bs, because just throwing random conditions there will obviously help you win the argument.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApcTjcO9uBPGPMxBEkCNMLMKOCxT9wOuj4A-TsAAzCsIWStkbJzSylsLN6Y1xMAA

Check ’em. Burn, Poison, Bleed, Confusion. Obviously, adjust Last Stand and Sweet Vengeance to Cleansing Ire and DotE once patch rolls in.

@jonwar: I would have agreed before, but with the condition sustain we’ll (potentially) be receiving next patch, we’ll be able to provide continuous damage and control to the midfight, something that a necro or similar condiburst is incapable of right now.

The pure scale of Bleeds we can output (14 easy stacks with Longbow + the Sword Offhand) means that we’ll be able to pick off targets easily, while still retaining that AoE Burn reapplication which even Engineers have trouble keeping up.

So we’d be a massive support to a teamfight, keeping pressure on the entire enemy team while being able to pick off individuals through a combination of Immobilize, CC, and the aforementioned Burn/Poison/Bleed. It arguably hits harder and more sustainably than standard Warrior burst, albeit over a longer time.

Zepidel.5349:

Phantom.8179:

Good day!
I’ve been messing around with the Thief profession, and I like it. Alot! However, I am still relatively new (also new to the whole assassin characters in general). I’m thinking that I would like to go with a dagger/dagger main set, with a shortbow offhand. My logic is that I can get close and personal with the dagger/dagger set, and also pick off/distance myself with the shortbow or stealth skills. I’ve been reading through the wikis, various guilds and forum posts. However, I am still very confused on how to approach the build. My main concern is survivability. But I guess that what dodging, stealth and add healing bonuses to armor are for? What would be the staple build for this kind of approach that I could read up on? There are so many it seems (very daunting lol).

Edit: I’m more concerned with PvE, than I am PvP or WvW.

Good, you didnt get sucked into thinking a condition or venom build is viable. Thats great man.

Run a 25-30-0-15-0 build for max zerk with a little survive based on active mitigation. Spam backstab when you can and switch to heart seeker at 25%. Use sb on anyfights with more than 1 mob, cluster bomb is you bread and butter spam it like crazy and throw in poison fields for good measure. Always wait a wile before attacking a boss so you dont over aggro and die. When kitten hits the fan in meele range and you out of healing dont obe afraid to switch to shortbow and take it easy untill you got a heal on cd and some hp.

Does anyone else smell… cheese?

:P

Anyways, I run S/P P/P Knight in PvE/WvW, and it works very well. Really steady damage, lots of survive, lots of cleave with intelligent choices.

Daecollo.9578:

SharadSun.3089:

Almost every time I use an interruption skill, really. Mace mainhand has two of the best interrupts in the game, and one is getting better.

Confusion only interrupts when you use a skill, if your stunned you can’t use skills.

Do you understand this?

Daecollo.9578:

SharadSun.3089:

Almost every time I use an interruption skill, really. Mace mainhand has two of the best interrupts in the game, and one is getting better.

Confusion only interrupts when you use a skill, if your stunned you can’t use skills.

Do you understand this?

Yes, I do, and since every class is getting stunbreak diversity (which we happen to be QQing endlessly about), your point is moot =p

If you stun them for 3 seconds and drop 8 seconds of 4xConfusion on them, they have a choice.

a) Sit there and let the Burn, Poison, and Bleeds tick while I smack them in the face for 1-2k crits, then frantically cast skills while Confusion ticks them for the remaining 5 seconds.

b) Break the stun and then cast skills, causing the full 7-8 seconds of Confusion to tick.

Regardless of the target’s ability to break stuns or not, this trait is very good because it provides extra condition cover and the possibility to smack for a very insidious amount of damage.

Almost every time I use an interruption skill, really. Mace mainhand has two of the best interrupts in the game, and one is getting better.

Distracting Strikes: This trait now applies 4 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds upon interrupting an enemy.

Does nobody else see this blatantly overpowered asset?

On a hybrid build, that’s 500 damage per skill use for 8 seconds, every time we manage to interrupt a cast somehow.

Hammer/Longbow, Mace+Sword/Longbow, Sword+Shield/Longbow.

As a thief, S/D (read: Larcenous Strike) needed a nerf. It was a cheesy playstyle that simply wasn’t being used right.

A good example of a fully balanced playstyle is D/P: Every single move works and is synergetic. S/D has three usable moves: Infiltrator’s Strike, Flanking/Larcenous combo, and the autoattack.

In response to nerfing Larcenous Strike and Shadow Return, they should have brought Dagger Offhand new utility and actual playability to compensate, and maybe increase the viability of the P/D and D/D that have been suffering as well.

Oh man… so much QQ here.

Thieves are still the single most reliable appliers of Weakness, which is now extremely powerful (a flat 12.5% incoming damage decrease: 25% of their hits deal only 50% damage). Shortbow is a liiiittle bit overpowered now, and using an init-regen power/crit build will contribute infinitely more to teamfights now.

Berengar.6951:

It isn’t a true stun breaker but it is still an instant cast teleport. So you’ll be stunned for all 1/4 of a second but you’ll be 1200 units away from the guy who’s trying to jam a sword down your throat.

Bahaha. I was waiting for someone to say it, and so tactfully.

But seriously, the man’s right. It’s still perfectly useful, it’s usable while stunned, but it’s not going to let you cheese with permanent mobility.

Idk, I feel like the changes are completely in line with the Thief archetype xD these are things that ANet has been stressing about Thieves.

Shortbow’s Cluster Bomb is really and honestly overpowered. Hitting for 4-5k+ in a repeatable AoE is seriously a bit silly and repetitive, and I don’t see Thieves as ranged bombarders, rather midranged interceptors at most. The nerf hurt PvE Shortbow a lot, though.

Still, I stick with P/P + S/P for Fractals/PvE purposes and I fare perfectly well, with really competitive DPS and a frightening amount of utility. So I’m not sure why people think SB is our only ranged option ;-; even though it used to have our only 1200range attack, range itself isn’t paramount in PvE.

Taran Redleaf.7912:

Putting condition removal on burst abilities does not help my build (and would potentially hurt my warrior). I keep adrenaline up at all times for the heal. If I have to choose between condition removal and heal, I’ll stay with healing. Its better to just heal “through” the condition, than to get caught with no heal because I removed a condition.

The heal is about 120 per second on full adrenaline. A stack of 5 Bleeds + Burning + , say, Cripple, will end up handing you a LOT more damage than you would be mitigating with a measly 360-400 per 3 seconds. Even 360-400 per SECOND wouldn’t be enough.

Coldin.2840:

SharadSun.3089:

Why is everyone so fixated on the Cluster Bomb nerf? It’s not even our main source of DPS. Shortbow was REALLY strong, and this nerf put Cluster Bomb in line with the rest of our stuff.

I’m surprised not as many people are crying over the Shadow Return mega-nerf =p

Hopefully, they altered S/P’s timing enough to make it viable again.

People are focused on the Cluster Bomb because we don’t have any other 1200 ranged attack. Shortbow honestly isn’t all that strong, but works great as a utility weapon. I really don’t see it as the weapon thieves pull out when they want to do damage, but when they want to run support, or simply stay at a safe distance.

Though, according to the “leaked” notes, Rangers got all their Shortbow skills reduced to 900 meters too. But that came with a damage boost to make up for it.

Ahhh. I guess this is the PvP/PvE dichotomy then?

I’m a tourney player, so 900 vs 1200 range is fairly negligible as a Thief, given that I don’t have many ranged bombard options anyways and I may as well close to deal damage.

Arganthium.5638:

I should explain.

“Bad” is a relative term. He’s great compared to the majority of the community right now. He’s bad relative to what players can and should strive to be, and can achieve. I’m not a particularly good player, but I can theorycraft, and I can affirm that Jumper is making some fairly odd choices.

Relative to the meta, he’s great. Relative to what players will be like as he disappears from the scene and is replaced by more flexible players as the theory and competition within this game increases… If he wants to stick around, he’d better learn to adapt.

Doesn’t that hold true for everyone? =)

We learn and evolve with the meta. The D/D Burst Thief is totally obsolete right now. The S/P Hastewhip is ABYSMALLY obsolete. But months ago, they were meta.

Soon, S/D will join the ranks of D/P as viable-but-not-mandatory. And that’s a good trend to have.

Jumper hijacked the Unicorn build and made it dangerous, then jumped on D/P and made its relative brokenness public. Now he’s done the same with S/D.

I’m not singing his praises at all xD I know far better thieves. But you can’t say that he’s not using the build to its full potential, because that burst with the timing he’s introduced have won Team DM too many matches to ignore.

Why is everyone so fixated on the Cluster Bomb nerf? It’s not even our main source of DPS. Shortbow was REALLY strong, and this nerf put Cluster Bomb in line with the rest of our stuff.

I’m surprised not as many people are crying over the Shadow Return mega-nerf =p

Hopefully, they altered S/P’s timing enough to make it viable again.

Kuro Kami.8436:

If these devs really do intend to put Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus in the Grandmaster trait, then you’re really asking warriors to be more glass-like than ever. Since a warrior without any of those two traits will do considerably less damage, it will ruin their title of DPS king in pve. Therefore making warriors having to max out either Strength and/or Discipline. If this is a ploy to get warriors to stop using Greatswords, then good job, it’ll be achieved. Reading the “supposed” patch list, it seems like they’re leaning towards the light-armor classes i.e. NECROS and mesmers. OT: Also, why make thieves more powerful than they already are. You devs are so one-sided it makes me sick. SICK!

How are thieves more powerful? They lost the permanent-stunbreak they had with the Sword 2, that’s the biggest nerf since EVER.

timidobserver.7925:

I hope our changes don’t revolve around turrets yet again. I say screw turrets. Until they revamp how turrets function entirely, they’ll be useless. Spend time adjusting stuff that can actually be salvaged.

. _. you’ve got to be kidding. Turrets are excellent right now, Accelerant Healing+Net builds are crazy,

Arganthium.5638:

So let me get this straight- you spent 30 trait points and two sigils just so that you can utilize the after cast on Slice? The heck? I can tell you from my S/D experience that that’s easily achievable without that degree of overkill. And it’s not like you’re going to just stand there clueless after you hit the auto, anyhow. There’s this thing called “positioning”, too, ya know, that you could be spending time in getting rather than rolling in, practically speaking, some arbitrary direction.

And your combos:

Your first one is an elaborate scheme designed to save you a tenth of a second in exchange for the two tenths of a second it takes you to remember it.

Your second one… If you’re bragging about it doing significantly more damage than the auto, you should check the coefficients out on the skills. And taking out the evade time on FS, here, lacks any justification, and the same goes for evasion time on the dodge, assuming that we’re calculating DPS (which we suddenly seem to be doing). And, again, the positioning on this is somewhat suspect, although I’m getting the feeling that you don’t care about player-opponent positioning anyways. Your videos show it, too.

Your third combo is likely to only end up dealing the FS coefficient of .75 (as a good enemy will start attacking while you’re using FS), and you’ll probably end up missing LS anyways due to bad positioning from dodges. Unless, of course, you want to eat tons of damage while dealing your own.

And what happened to team fights? What happened to people using AoE and range to blast you to pieces? What happened to targeting and focus firing? You seem not to have considered these.

Not that it matters; none of this says anything in reply to previous points I’ve made. Seems just to be more of an advertisement for your alleged “skill”. You have no territory control, no solid defense, no good positioning, an inefficient method of dealing damage, no good utility of IS/SR, and no range, among a variety of other problems that plague you. Your build is both theoretically and practically inefficient, and your play style is suffering for it.

So what do I run? 10/0/0/30/30 with Mug, III, IX, and X in Acro, and traits V, VII, and XII in Trix. I run soldier’s amulet with zerker jewel, Lyssa runes, Withdraw, RfInit, InfSignet, SStep, and Basi venom. I also run two sigils of force (sword, SB) and a sigil of bloodlust on my dagger. I regenerate enough initiative to maintain a constant stream of damage output, amplified by the third minor in Trix. I can swap between melee and range, and sustain myself long enough to participate in team fights or 1v2 for long periods of time. I can manipulate Steal easily, position myself quickly, and have enough passive (or what I classify as type I active, essentially the “less dangerous” type) regeneration to focus on the details in a battle.

And you? Do you even understand the theory behind the game? It doesn’t seem like it; you were, after all, using base damage amounts as opposed to coefficients earlier. And your zerker amulet is mathematically inferior. Your calculations are extremely sketchy, and none of them take into account practical issues in battle. To me, this seems more like a build that went through tons of trial-and-error to its ultimately flawed state not based on facts, but biases on your behalf.

Do you even use damage amplifiers and dampeners in making your builds?

Jumper plays a good Thief. He knows what he’s doing. As good as you are, the fact remains that he also plays for one of the top 5 teams in the WORLD and consistently supports his team more than almost any Thief in the current meta.

I do agree with the “spam is bad” bit, but starting a thread to rail on his inadequacies when he’s clearly not inadequate is kind of an exercise in futility.

There’s no way to survive after being hit ;-; such is the life of the Thief.

If you want a powerful single-shot cannon, use Valkyrie or Berserker gear and D/P. Good luck staying alive afterwards.

Armor: Berserker or Valkyrie (Runes of the Thief/Scholar/Divinity or Ruby/Emerald Orbs)
Trinkets: Berserker or Cavalier (Ruby/Emerald Orbs)
Weapons: Berserker (1x Sigil of Air/Fire and 1x Sigil of Bloodlust/Perception)

If you want a really strong hybrid condi/control melee DPS build (with a bit of survive), go D/D Rampagers and might stacking with Sigil of Battle and foods. One of the most versatile builds in PvE/WvW, made possible because of all the extra might-stacks from PvE food.

Armor: Rampager (2x Rune of Hoelbrak, 2x Rune of Fire, 2x Rune of Strength)
Trinkets: Rampager or Rabid (Coral Orb)
Weapons: Rampager (1x Sigil of Battle and 1x Sigil of Perception/Bloodlust on each set)

S/P is an interesting option that takes a good bit of skill to play and utilize properly. IMO it’s the most powerful Thief set in PvE/WvW. If you’re smart, just go full Berserker’s and watch ‘em cry, but if you don’t play the weapons right you’ll die more than you’d like.

Armor: Knight or Berserker (Runes of the Thief/Infiltration or Ruby/Emerald Orbs)
Trinkets: Berserker or Knight/Valkyrie (Ruby/Emerald Orbs)
Weapons: Berserker (1x Sigil of Air/Fire/Force/Accuracy and 1x Sigil of Perception/Bloodlust)

He edged out our Deku God by just a bit ;-;

Grats to everyone who played though, it was a worthy fight. =)

BlueprintLFE.2358:

Please don’t make the player larger with rampage, it would look cool, but completely put a huge target on us to be focused down like an eles tornado.

If you’re playing vs. half-decent opponents, size means absolutely nothing xD I think the size change would actually be pretty cool.

People focus eles in Tornado form because they have no defensive utility in Tornado Form. Simple as that.

This build’s been around for a good while now, but with D/D instead of S/D. Having both direct and condition damage + Rampager gear maximizes your output by taking advantage of Might to the fullest.

+1

I’ve been getting horrific skill lag as well.

PLS HELP ;-;

Tulisin.6945:

Grimwolf.7163:

The Thieves are just handled rather poorly in general. Take Venoms for example.
Like you said, they’re terrible because they have to be balanced around the possibility that you can share them with several teammates.
A skill cannot be balanced around the assumption that you WILL have an optional trait; especially a 30 point one at the top of an indirectly related path like Shadow Arts.
If the trait is THAT strong, you need to either remove the trait or make it base-line.
Base-line Venomous Aura would go a long way toward making the Thief a less selfish class, anyway.

Absolutely, although I don’t necessarily agree that venomous aura should be a baseline, I think it’d work well as an elite (make basilisk a regular utility, it isn’t powerful enough any more to be an elite). Step one to decent venoms on all thieves is definitely nerfing the trait lines though. To truly give thieves a varied toolset I’d like to see venoms made into passive procs with their active effects being swaps between 2/3 effects.

I’m envisioning:
10 % base proc chance, 20-30s cooldown on proc, 15s cooldown on swap (modifiable by traits)

Drake Venoms:
-Ice Drake: As it is now (multiply duration by 3)
-Fire Drake: Applies burning
-Marsh Drake: Applies confusion

Reptile Venoms:
-Skale: As it is now (duration by 3)
-Basilisk: As it is now (same duration)
-Snake: Copy spider venom (duration by 3)

Leeching Venoms:
-Vigorous Venom: Steal 50 endurance (1 dodge) on proc
-Vampire Venom: Decent amount of life leech, the numbers would have to be worked out.
-Thievery Venom: Steals 1-2 boons, if target has no boons when it procs, grant 4 init.

Ambush Venoms:
-Devourer Venom: As it is now, double duration to account for two charges.
-Smokey Venom: 1/4s daze + blind on proc.
-Explosive Venom: Small DD + blast finisher.

New Elite: Venom share same effect as now, including forcing the effects to apply on your next attacks instead of being chance-based, which gives the elite a large amount of solo use as well by allowing a venom build to force-proc all of its (now useful) venoms immediately.

There, now venoms are useful, worth building around, but also not required to be an entire build to get use. They help every current build and give thieves access to more conditions and combat options via a unique mechanic. There’s also plenty of room for balanced traits to tweak them (X happens on venom type change, X faster venom proc recharge, X higher chance to proc).

/drool

I WANT THIS

shimmerless.4560:

Teckos.1305:

you want survivability 2 ways to go shout heal which is great for pve with soldier set or the one i like the most the “support CC regen like a bows warrior” i play in pvp i the main thing with this build is the fact that you will get near permanent regeneration up time (runes of dwayna ) with and incredible cleanse through war horn converting condition into boons(quick breathing) i use healing signet it comes pretty handy and helps me proc rune if teammates need regen or if i don’t have regen up (being unlucky with passive proc and not taking slows which is pretty rare). I may link the build if you are interested.

(my total regen comes from signet + regen (through runes traits and condi conversion)+ adrenal health => you dont need a lot of healing power since AH doesn’t scale with HPower, signet scales really badly but you could consider a little cleric gem for a stronger regen while focusing on other Offensive/defensive jewels ).

The problem is that there is no real balance between survivability and damage output for Warriors. Healing Signet should really be the baseline heal for how the Warrior is meant to be played, but it’s just too weak (the regen only barely outdoes Adrenal Health and the active is awful).

Dwayna/Melandru runes, traited Warhorn, AH, Dogged March, full Toughness/Cleric’s builds, all of these do help your survivability, but that’s all they’ll do, and you will become absolutely toothless in the process. To add to injury, running full tank gear locks you into Hammer and _only _ Hammer, because you are simply doing nothing else with that gear otherwise. A Warrior can either knock people around and hope their teammates’ll keep them floored, or they can go full glass and try to catch people whose stun breaks are down before taking a dirt nap themselves.

As it stands there’s just no real middle ground, and at either end of the spectrum (from tank to glass) the Warrior’s usefulness is questionable. The best third option I’ve seen so far is the condi Longbow with Sigils setup, but even when this works I think a lot of players ask if this is how they expected the Warrior would play.

In my eyes the Frenzy GS setup would be a gimmick build rather than the class standard; in its place the Warrior would be an impossibly thick-skinned rhino with the best sustain in the game, all based around traits and skill management. In a lot of ways I feel like the Warrior and the Guardian should’ve been one class, a class called the Warrior. An almost-purely melee brute unmatched in his potential to take a beating and recover, with solid damage output and the capacity for high burst after a windup. Bringing back great-designed skills like I Will Survive would go a long way to making this work.

DIS

ALL OF DIS

S/D is a pretty hard counter to Mesmers right now. It’s impossible to land proper CC on anyone who’s dodging and stealthing and evading that much, while still maintaining ridiculous damage output.

That’s not a nerf =p that’s an exploit bugfix.

But back on topic: The 0-cooldown Adrenaline Skill would reward adrenaline-stacking builds and allow us to do some pretty crazy things, just like all the other classes. Instead of raw damage or invulnerability burst, we’d have a CC chain that could freeze and lockdown targets long enough to allow for an uninterruptible damage burst.

My name is Diarmuidh and I’m a bad Mesmer.

Well, not entirely bad. I’ve reached top1000 on a few occasions, and I’m better than the average faceroller. I play with my guild, Thunderguard, on our Strike Team Omega.

But I want to get better. I’ve mastered the basic move combos and I understand the basics of the class, but I want to excel and go above and beyond, eventually pushing myself and my team into the highest echelons of PvP.

I’m posting here to ask for help from the highest-ranked Mesmers in GW2 tPvP. If you could help me train, duel, and practice, I would be more than grateful.

Thank you for your help =)

- Sharad (Diarmuidh)

The reason that the Warrior is so… for lack of a better word, gimpy… is because we LACK complexity. We lack options, flavor, abilities, and yes maybe we have uniqueness, but the only way we’re unique is that we’re simple and easy to counter.

The class with the deepest and most involved gameplay, Mesmer, is currently the most powerful because they have OPTIONS. Maybe not the weapons that they can use, but the THINGS they can do, and the fact that they can do it all without really sacrificing anything.

Daecollo.9578:

I don’t want banners to be part of our class. Warriors are not all buff-bots.

Although I like the fact you should be able to wear a banner on your back, it should take up a utility slot and traits.

It also would not really help us in any of our current issues.

He meant that Banners would operate like Engineer Kits, not Mesmer Shatters =p

But different.

When you equip a banner under Dand’s edit, it would give you new F1-F4 skills.

The banners are still Utility Skills.

I sort of see what OP is trying to say, and I agree that Stealth should be a really momentous and important thing, not an easily-spammable trash effect that contributes nothing to skilled gameplay.

As a career thief, I feel confident in saying that stealthing while in-combat should be exactly what Shemsu mentioned: a prestige effect, something that needs to be traited for. In return, Thieves need more utility and “meat” to make us for our lack of access to easy stealth; more CC, more debilitating effects, more attrition, MORE SHADOWSTEPS.

Maybe a trait that shadowsteps us 450m away whenever we’re CC’d. Maybe a trait that blinds on dodge. There’s lots of good ideas to wean Thieves from stealth-oriented and/or gimmicky gameplay, and proper utilization and 2-for-1’s of all the Thieves’ abilities (shadowstepping, evasion, blinding, critical hits, high-damage attacks, hit volume, and initiative use) will make this class a deeper experience.

Dand.8231:

Banners: Powerful but clunky and requires you to babysit them. They get left behind, lost, stolen. You waste time picking up and dropping them constantly.

My (reposted) suggestion?
Have them work using a toggle on/off system, somewhat like engineer toolkits. When toggled on, the banner is displayed on your characters back, and provides its passive bonuses to allies within range. Your #1-5 remain unchanged however, instead the F3 and F4 buttons become available. F3 is Inspire (functioning exactly like it is now, banner #3), and F4 is the banner specific skill (currently banner #2). Only one banner may be active at a time, and toggling off/swapping banners will incur a 30 second cooldown. Banners can no longer be dropped, lost, stolen, etc.

For the elite banner, which functions slightly differently…
F4: Nearby downed allies immediately rally, CT 2, CD 240, Uses Ground Targeting.

MAKE THIS MAN A DEV

#BattleStandard2013meta

+1

I actually support this idea, despite all my talks of checks-and-balances.

The mechanic makes a LOT of sense, whereas Adrenaline skills on a cooldown make no sense at all. It would make Hammer the go-to weapon, bring Mace into the limelight, give the Axe/Axe set a new life, and allow competent and creative builds.

Hammer CC chainer would be a legitimate reality. And hell, if Mesmers can have access to such ridiculous amounts of damage and utility, I think giving Warriors a chainable utility is hardly a balance issue at all.

CMstorm.8679:

alright, so Sharadsun and I have been discussing ways to improve the warrior in gw2 (mainly for pvp) but not so that it’s op at all. For example, Mending (originally an enchantment/boon) in gw1 gave you health regen when it was up. Now, in gw2, it just heals you and cures 2 conditions (not so bad.)But it should heal, remove X conditions over time and grant regen. but many players, including myself have been complaining that warriors have weak heals. When I look at it, we have a pretty big heal and a semi-decent heal (healing signet doesnt really count.) Mending is pretty good, but it’s outmatched by ele’s Ether Renewl. The guardians’ heals are pretty good, but the CD is a bit longer, however they have at least 4 extra healing utilities :P Thieves have ridiculous healing accessibility. They can hop into stealth, remove conditions, regen health and extra initiative, get healed whenever they use init. and maybe heal on venom skills use. but thieves are generally glassier and they make up for it with their stealth abilities… Ranger, mesmer, engi im not gonna bother ranting about. I think everyone knows about what goes on with them :P
What i’m getting at IS not how warriors need more healing. It just looks like we’re notting getting healed much because of our larger health pool compared to other classes.
Many people have offered their “insight” on warrior, and I’d like to offer some of my ideas/improvements toward warrior as well.

1: Adrenal Health – either increase the amount of health we gain based on the adrenaline stage, decrease the heal time (because 360hp every 3.5secs is practically nothing), or make it so we gain X health on our next attack based on the adrenaline stage. (and no, im not saying that we gain health on each hit based on adrenaline. We’d gain health on the last strike of adrenaline of every stage. Make sense? :P)

2: Change the Mighty Defenses trait. We already have HUGE access to might that we don’t need anymore of it. Every other class except thief and warrior has at least 1 Protection skill, either from a weapon or a utility. Mighty Defenses should have something to do with a Protection boon, OR gain X amount of toughness based on how many times we block for a duration…

3. Shield Stance needs to be changed at some point. Shield “stance” not only the title of it needs to be changed, but it needs to have at least 1 other function, because I hardly see warriors using shields unless they’re running some sort of CC or hybrid build…etc
And I really like the posts on the Warrior Sustainability Ideas thread

A couple things

Shield Stance should be an actual stance! Labeled and treated as such, too.

And if we had a stance that healed us for a flat amount per condition… we’d be viable if not a little bit terrifying!

DISCUSS~