Here is what I’ve been messing with for GS/Axe+shield: Link The whole quickness stacking thing with Seeker’s/Diviner’s isn’t a new concept but with the axe improvements it feels quite strong. Axe has even more cleave pressure now. There is some team fight support built in with the runes and with “Shake It Off!” – this support is particularly nice in 2v3 scenarios where you are outmanned. Bringing “Shake It Off!” also relieves some of the CC pressure that we feel with the Eternal Champion nerf. If the situation allows I usually use it aggressively after Headbutt to get the might. If you feel like Necros and Revs will eat your resistance you can slot in Sigil of Purging for Annulment.
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Typically for PvE Discipline is replaced with Berserker and you run top/top/top. The build feels kind of stiff without Fast Hands but it’ll grow on you if you let it. You can also run the Burnzerker. The Burnzerker would probably give you the survival that you’re looking for as it allows you to play to the mechanics of fights more efficiently since you can weave in and out between ranged and melee. Burnzerker Scoop of Mintberry Swirl Ice Cream
I like the damage mitigation that comes from Necro minions. More often than not I see the AI targeting minions instead of players which helps when people are trying to do the mechanics (Like break seals in Cliffside.) The CC from Flesh Golem is also strong. I also like how the consistent chill and cripple makes break bars feel squishy in addition to allowing you to kite foes more consistently.
I think some of the basis for the changes is rooted in PvP. With the sigil changes especially power builds lost quite a bit of damage. Sigil of air/hydromancy were essentially an additional auto-attack each and they could crit. That added up to a lot of plink pressure. I’m actually starting to like the new Endure Pain because in long fights if you kite well you can use it twice. It’s not the same as the old for sure but we have adapt to what they give us and keep going.
This is bad kitten. I hope this soars into something beautiful for the players and for the game. Posting on the forums and chatting in game is about as close as I get to the organized PvP scene but I guarantee that I’ll be watching those tourny matches as well.
The things that are powerful on each profession are what actually make that profession have a viable slot in PvP though. We’ve been through cycles in PvP where some professions just couldn’t find a place because they were lacking sustain, utility, damage ect. What would you suggest to bring Warriors more in line? I consider myself decent at Warrior and when I go into a fight I honestly feel there is an equal chance of me winning or losing it against players who are on par with my abilities – depending on how well I play. Newer players just get melted, but that isn’t something balance will fix. That will be fixed with dedication and patience.
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Yet Warriors still do not bring team wide utility that other professions bring (and those other professions are still at least on par with Warrior’s ability to skirmish.) You probably faced some newer players that unfortunately got sucked into a high rated matched. In fact a majority of my own matches consisted of fighting people who were new. You can easily tell. That is happening more frequently because of player population.
Send two far immediately and crush in a 2v1 and let a sustain profession go mid to keep it mute as long as possible without dying. A lot of coordination would be needed in a short amount of time though.
These sigil changes look excellent. I like the theme of making weapon swapping a much more important mechanic. It’s a little scary not seeing Sigil of Leeching on the list but it’s understandable as to why it’s not there.
Don’t let a bad instance like this ruin your path, Ithilwen. The prestige and power that comes with beating this kind of content is enough to make people with even the strongest mental fortitude collapse under the feelings of egoism and pride*. In my mind, the whole focus and purpose of this content is to ascend great challenges along side great friends. The elitism is painful to endure to be sure and to see it sweep across a virtual land that you love makes it that much more bitter, but keep following your path!
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I think adding a new aura to the game would allow for adding a bit more sustain to professions that have a profound weakness to physical damage in 1v1 match ups – probably more so than they should. Condi Rev’s and Necromancers rely on attrition to win fights, so I would suggest layering this aura into the Mallyx skill-set and into Spectral Armor for Necromancers. Remove the protection from Spectral Armor.
Dark Aura: Whenever you are struck by a foe, that foe is weakened for x seconds.
Whenever you are struck by a critical hit, inflict blind for 2 seconds.
The intent would be to give these professions more disengage potential against melee physical professions when they get focused in team fights. It would also allow them to hold/mute points for a larger window of time in 1v1s if it is used well.
This thread is about over abundance of condition removal on warrior. Not whether it has the abilities of other classes. Besides, eles throws away many thing to achieve the boons and healing it provides. Ele goes pretty much full bunker and heal to even stand a chance, while warrior picks 1 traitline and bam, you have very good sustain.
As for it having “team utility”, that is exactly the reason they are played 1v1. And in that 1v1, condition based builds can not beat them, unless the skills of the players in that 1v1 is vastly apart.
Yes but I would say that each niche having a counter is good game design. Honestly, as a Warrior it is hard to sustain against good necromancers because the good ones kite off point and use range to their advantage. I’m not sure why Warriors aren’t allowed to stand their ground in 1v1’s.
The unfortunate thing in this instance is that Warriors do not provide auras, aoe healing, protection, might or swiftness in the highest tiers of play. We do damage, have good to great mobility (when running power) and we have decent CC. That’s pretty much the only team utility we have.
Please be mindful that there will still be Warriors that queue up and get assigned to your team in the coming season. I remember season 1 very well. The amount of rage and grief that got thrown my way for simply being a Warrior on their team was unreal. We lacked valid sustain at high tiers of play and any sort of team wide utility outside of DPS pressure and CC. The pressure and CC provides a bit of indirect sustain, but we still lack the team wide utility that other professions can pull out. DH’s are on par with our 1v1 skirmish ability (at the very least) against most professions and they actually do have very viable team utility when going to mid fights. Protection and Retal to name a few.
Just saying now, if we get nerfed I’m still going to play warrior.
Edit:* changed the title from jerk clickbait. Please though, if Warriors do get nerfed chill on the raging this time around.
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That’s not what Yes means. Anet is going to lock people into their pick after the match starts regardles of what you vote, this poll is about whether you should be allowed to change before the match starts to get a better comp.
kitten you are right that is my mistake. I must have read a suggestion and I interpreted the poll that way. I was under the impression that profession-specific MMR meant that teams would also be balanced according to a profession matchmaking algorithm that would alleviate getting profession stacks to begin with.
I voted Yes because I do not view stepping out of a match to pick up a different profession as being very competitive. No competitive game that I can think of allows players to do this mid-match. There have been matches where players just continually swap in and out after they die (on both teams) desperately trying to counter each other and honestly it felt silly. This would make profession win achievements a bit harder (I swapped for wins on a few of them, hypocritical I know) and increase queue times but I personally think it would be worth it. If we truly would get balanced matches out of it that would be excellent.
I would agree with DKShang about at least keeping the Tactics line in your build. Tactics is your premier go-to for group content like Dungeons and Fractals. The support that it offers your group is just too valuable to not have. What you have right now should work fine in lower fractals since you can generally just cleave through the mobs quickly but in higher scales your PS offensive support would be a great asset to have.
Would implementing an Observer Mode where we could watch delayed streams/recordings of like 1950+ rated matches be feasible? I would be really interested in watching those games and I think they would be a great learning tool for people who want to ascend their game in PvP. I know GW1 has such a feature but no idea what kind of tech/development would be needed to make it a thing in GW2.
Nice plates! They look great.
I would totally join the suggestion of running Condi PS, especially if you are pugging. In the higher end fractals you need to be flexible and condi PS allows you to weave efficiently and play to the mechanics. For breaking you sort of have to use your soft cc conditions preemptively to help melt the bar. If Immob, blind and cripple aren’t enough just slot Wild Blow in for For Great Justice.
I usually run the full (nearly) signet build with GS/Rifle for in-between events then switch to PS w/ Banners for the Meta’s. I swap out rifle and use mace/shield for breaking too.
I think shortening the revive/downed invuln buff would allow for more intense moments and a sort of ramp-up effect to situations where players go down. If someone is about to go down players would have to get situated even more urgently for a res.
I would concur that it is a L2P issue because you can feel it when you’re fighting a good Necro. They dodge your initial bursts, kite off point and bait out your stances. A lot of the necros that I fight simply stand right in the middle of the point trying to contest the point, and it’s their mistake. If you watch all of the top players you see that they rarely go on point during the initial fight. You can’t throw on your condi’s set and forget.
Spectral Armor corrupting boons on hit would give you a break from being pressured while it’s active, unless the Warrior or Rev want to get condi bombed and lose their boons. Sorry but I don’t want to go back to never standing a chance against necro’s when a simple change in positioning would benefit your playstyle greatly.
I would be more for adding more boon strip before changing resistance itself. Maybe change Spectral Armor and allow it to corrupt a boon on foes when they attack and give it the same ICD as Auras. It would make Warrior vs Necro fights a little less faceroll. Warrior’s would need to carefully watch for the SA procs and people would need to be careful at mid fights if the necro decides to dive into the fight.
I’ve been bouncing between K Pop’s build, Warlord’s build from S1, Drazeh’s build, and full glass gun flame. 81/163 win/total* at this point and I’m hanging up for about a month. I played really hard over the weekend and there’s just no getting around team comp being a huge deciding factor. People are still adjusting to the meta shift (self included) so gonna give it some time.
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This build is not new – Drazeh of TCG ran it in the Finals. A tanky bruiser that can sustain 1v1’s and 1v2’s and is ideal for setting up +1 scenarios and basically being another pillar of the team that can contest a point while having a surprisingly good amount of hybrid pressure. I’ve had a ton of fun with it thus far and thought I’d throw it out here again.
Some tips:
-Weapon swap into Mace+Shield when you feel you can land geomancy+doom, especially against DH’s. It’s an important piece of pressure.
-Autoattack with Mace; getting the weakness is important for sustain and denying endurance.
-The build allows you to shift into being sort of more aggressive or defensive. Play with sustain in mind when you need too.This is not what drazeh ran in the finals.
Eff you’re right. I mixed up the runes he ran in the Qualifier and 1 sigil is incorrect. Fixing.
This build is not new – Drazeh of TCG ran it in the Finals. A tanky bruiser that can sustain 1v1’s and 1v2’s and is ideal for setting up +1 scenarios and basically being another pillar of the team that can contest a point while having a surprisingly good amount of hybrid pressure. I’ve had a ton of fun with it thus far and thought I’d throw it out here again.
Hybrid GS/Mace+Shield w/ Scavenger Runes
Hybrid GS/Mace+Shield w/ Leadership Runes (Drazeh’s actual S2 Finals build)
Some tips:
-Weapon swap into Mace+Shield when you feel you can land geomancy+doom, especially against DH’s. It’s an important piece of pressure.
-Autoattack with Mace; getting the weakness is important for sustain and denying endurance.
-The build allows you to shift into being sort of more aggressive or defensive. Play with sustain in mind when you need too.
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I think Resistance is fair as is (Disclaimer: I main Warrior) because unlike physical damage, conditions do damage regardless of whether or not the person who applied the condi’s is attacking. You can’t evade, block, or otherwise mitigate the damage from conditions without outright removing the conditions, or gaining Resistance. Physical damage can be evaded, blinded, invulned through, ect so it makes sense that Protection is 33% reduction.
I’m getting it too. I’m using instant cast and about 1/3rd of my WWA’s go in reverse. Only started for me after LS3 Patch, along side the corpse sliding bug.
You are on exactly the right track to become excellent at Warrior with all of the things that you’re being conscious of – Your positioning and movement, skill cooldowns, ect. I have to drop in with the others and say that continually practicing will make you the beast mode player that you want to be. For the mechanical side of things I’d say experiment with different key-binds and take some time to see if they are efficient enough for you.
The mechanical parts of play will take up a good portion of your learning time because you have to feel around and see which binds are most natural for you. If you have a multi-button mouse you could bind one of the buttons to Alt+ or Shift+ through software and then use Alt+1-5 to activate your utility skills. Also you could bind keys around WASD. The main thing is to figure out which binds will allow you to translate your actions into the game accurately and fluidly and don’t distract you in the heat of battle.
I agree with LouWolfSkin and Yasi, practicing on different professions and builds that you’re fighting against would help give you an advantage against them. You will come to predict the rotations and flow of battle against certain professions the more you play on/against them.
That being said, there are certain hard counters that exist between professions and roles, and generally you want to aim for never sinking into a rotation that puts your team at a disadvantage by being in an unfavorable match-up. An example would be a Thief 1v1’ing a bunker Ele – it’s a very bad match up for the Thief and he should go somewhere else asap unless teammates are coming in. Just keep practicing and honing your instincts.
There’s always not 1v1ing them on a profession that isn’t meant to push 1v1 match-ups. If Arc Divider needs a nerf because it’s very hard to dodge then so be it. Good warriors will adapt and the cycle will repeat.
I like how banners are in their current forms. Out of all of the MMO’s that I’ve played, banners in Guild Wars 2 are pretty unique among most heavy physical professions. I could see some adjustments being made to make them easier to use mechanically, like how you’ve suggested carrying them around on our backs, but as for the static buffs I don’t know if I’d change those much.
An activation mechanic would be interesting for smaller combat scenarios, but in Raid scenarios for example the active would probably never be touched until the banner is about to expire. You would want the static buff to be up as long as possible because the length of the fight would prefer that you keep the sustained buff over the active one.
As for the wielded skills I actually quite like those as well. Inspire is beautiful for in-between moments, and the unique slot 2 skill can be a decent compliment to open the next fight with.*
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I think therein lies your problem. You’re trying to 1v1 and kill a Warrior on an Elementalist. Yet if you go into an organized PvP match, that same warrior would spend 15 minutes trying to kill you as a cleric’s d/f bunker. Arc Divider would probably hit you for ~2k despite the warrior being Berserker. Changing Arc Divider simply to facilitate an easier 1v1 in WvW seems like a wrong move, imo. DH’s and Rev’s both are still superb in the 1v1 departments and have great sustain, yet Warrior keeps getting called out because we aren’t push overs in 1v1’s anymore.
It’s pretty interesting to see you posting this. So Warriors aren’t free kills to Revenant’s anymore and we can actually stand our ground in 1v1’s now. Revenant has been over the top in 1v1’s since HoT launched. In Teamfights Warrior is solid and can be keenly focused just like any other profession. Revenants get:
- Shield block
- Aoe protection
- Staff block with blind
- Is able to teleport through walls
- Facet of Nature
- Aoe pulsing Might, Fury and Swiftness and is able to give teams the advantage out of the gate
- Facet heal that is incredibly strong if used under burst
- Chill (way better than cripple)
- A channeled evade that doubles as a spike skill
- One of the strongest cc skills in the game
- Aoe knockback/Aoe stun
- At least 4-5 evades easily
The list goes on. Warriors are fine now, just tone down Skull Grinder and the bleed duration from Shattering Blow.
Just adding here it might not be practical but you could buy a trackball and use your feet to control your cursor/camera. Something like this maybe? Much respect bro.
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I’m running condi meta at the moment as well but I’m hoping to be able to switch back to Power GS/ Axe+shield in later tiers. Right now condi war just feels like too much pressure to pass up.
Phalanx Strength should treat you right for levels below 80 with PuGs. Generally that setup is GS / Mace+shield (for breaking.) Beyond 80+ it can start to get hard to stay in melee range for long periods of time. Unless you have someone in the group whom is dedicated to support, you’ll probably find yourself at range a lot. I’d recommend using Burnzerker for those 80+ Fractals. I use a more support oriented variant of the typical full DPS Burnzerker – here It is useful for complimenting heals and helping to keep condi’s off of the group and still generates moderate amounts of might on it’s own. If the group does seem solid support wise you can just drop Tactics for Discipline and switch shouts to banners and Signet of Fury.
Like pointed out PS Warrior can work in Open World but the area that it is effective is dependent on how close people stay to you and how much of an opportunity the encounter gives you to melee. Instances such as the Tarir events in Auric Basin favor PS because everyone is generally quite close for most of the damage bursts. In the case of the Wyvern’s in Verdant Brink, you’ll probably notice that a lot of people are spread and/or ranging. In those instances PS is a lot more dependent on other players’ positioning.
Thanks for the advice Em. I will use it to sustain on points because I generally don’t go out of my way to try and push 1v1’s offensively.
In regards to Chronos, the advantage that Power Wars have against Chronos is that we have a lot of on point cleave. Cleaving down the illusions and evading/blocking the condi bursts is usually sufficient enough to make them play defensively. I’m still convinced that pushing for 1v1’s with a Warrior in an aggressive manner isn’t the best idea, though.
I’m open to any and all advice Em for sure. For me it’s just the combination of ranged and on point damage it’s quite strong pressure. Do you kill them with ranged or are you all melee in those scenarios?
Seconded on tackling Chrono Condi builds with a power GS/ Axe+shield build. Use axe auto attacks/Whirlwind Attack to tear down the illusions (better if you have Heightened Focus) and stun them after they pop invulns. As for the other 1v1s for Necros you have to kite them when they enter Reaper Shroud, preferably using Shield Stance when/if they whirl to get all of that Might (assuming again that you run shield master :P) before you start kiting. I rarely win 1v1’s against DH’s or Scrappers, they are just too strong in 1v1 skirmishes.
Not touching the discussion about Adrenal Health being passive or not but the change in general feels like a boon overall to me as well. Our sustain feels more “umphy” in high pressure situations compared to the old static AH. I’ve experienced a few scenarios that required kiting off point (hence no bursting) where the old AH would have had the advantage, albeit a tiny one, but other than that I like this change a lot. Ty Anet!
I wouldn’t throw out or remake Warrior. I would be extremely frustrated after logging out on patch day only to log in to a profession that is a shadow of it’s former self. All of that time spent learning the intricacies and the flow of skill rotations washed away by an extreme revamp that more than likely wouldn’t solidify us a top spot in sPvP. Even then, We would have to be on par with Revenant’s mechanically to seal a spot on a team. That is a really, really tall order. I fear Warrior wouldn’t be a warrior at all after such a revamp. I’d prefer tweaks instead.*
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There were some graphs posted a while back with data that seemed to show that there were some extreme variations in MMR that allowed a small subset of players to float along the top and get to Legendary very easily. We don’t have access to the metrics that ArenaNet does, and we also are looking at it from a sort of perfect scenario standpoint. Player population factors in, as well as variance in skill. I know more than one person who has made a f2p account and flew up threw the divisions with no problems, so you could still have players who are Amber playing in Diamond but they are really Legendary x6 on their other account. There’s only so much you can do to prevent getting paired against higher tier players in those scenarios.
Nah, Like I said I had a terrible losing streak a couple of times and there were times where I felt like I was getting paired up against teams that were 5 times better than my own. Same story as the 500 other posts on the forums you know? I don’t know if “MMR Hell” exists or not, nor do I really care to be honest. A change in philosophy worked for me and although I was very abrasive in my first post, I hope there is some stuff in there that can be of use.
More than likely they got paired with really good teammates consistently
This part of your post is finally on topic. Why would they get paired with really good teammates consistently?
What do you propose they do to improve the matchmaking experience with 4 days left in the season?
How does a person who has never played ranked before attain legendary while someone who has played thousands of games cannot? There has to be some “other factor” involved outside of mechanical skill and mental state.
Disregarding your negativity, I find it highly unlikely that someone ascended to Legendary without ever setting foot inside Ranked* before. How is that logical? More than likely they got paired with really good teammates consistently who were more focused on what they needed to do in the match rather then worrying about where everyone else was screwing up. The game is just harder than it used to be for Solo Q’er’s because the bunker meta allowed for a familiar aspect to exist in each game. You got a bunker Mesmer? Okay, good, the entire team knows that Mid or Far will be pressured consistently all game.
That doesn’t exist anymore and for me personally that was one of the biggest obstacles. A single whipe at mid now is pretty much all you need to shift momentum and stagger the other teams respawns. Of course, you won’t have an advantage against a premade that is using TS/Coordinating rotations, but what can Anet do about something that is working as intended? Not allow premades to play against Solo Q’ers?
Let’s disregard everything the OP said.. all you need is a dash of positivity and a philosophy taken from a kungfu movie.
Well, by all means keep flailing into a brick wall and succumbing to the fear of losing and letting it dictate bad rotations. I didn’t just slide smoothly into Legendary. At one point I went from the top-end of T6 Diamond to the very bottom of T2 Diamond. Like 15 losses consecutively. At that point I stopped caring, stopped trying to pass blame ect and just played for fun. A novel idea on a video game right? Watch top streamers and see how emotional they get over things. Your mental game is just as important as your mechanical game.