Guild Wars 2

I made a post about this a long time ago here

this was my idea for impale/rip and I still think it would be awesome

It is commonly agreed upon that condition warriors are missing something and because of that they are generally weak/easily counterable.

I believe they could make a few small changes to one skill and make condition specs viable on warriors without stepping on the toes of other classes.

That skill is Impale.

This skill has really cool mechanics and it really defines Sword/Sword as a condition setup.

The problems(and fixes):
Slow projectile speed - The speed of the thrown sword could be improved so it is not so easily dodged/strafed. The current speed of arrows would be adequate.

Slow activation for Rip - There’s not really much reason for the activation of Rip to be 3/4 of a second. You have to cast Impale first(and land it), then you have to be in melee range, then you have to actually land Rip.

Small Range for Rip - The range of Rip makes it rather prohibitive to use. I feel like this part of the skill could and should be ranged. They could use a rope pull animation for this part of the skill if it was ranged.

The Improvement(s):
Rip - Using Rip now inflicts a Deep Wound(no, not that deep wound)

Deep Wound - When a deep wound is inflicted, the affected enemy receives 1 random condition every second for 5 seconds. Deep wound appears as an effect on the enemy just like Impale.

I feel these improvements would vastly improve a condition warrior’s viability, and do it in a way and in a place that makes sense. The warrior gains access to a good source of cover conditions but without control over what conditions are applied(from Deep Wound). It also utilizes the cool and unique mechanics of the skill to separate the warrior’s condition spec from other classes’.

I would like to see heal/support roles(not necessarily dedicated healers). I hate how selfish this game has become. Bunkers only really protect themselves.

They could change it so healing power scales differently for allies/party members.

So let’s say you’re a warrior using Vigorous Shouts that heal for 1k normally. If you were to stack healing power the same shout might heal you for 2k and your party for 3k.

The problem with support builds before is that they were able to heal themselves too much. Making healing power scale differently for outgoing heals keeps the general level of self-survivability the same, but turns healing power into a stat that might actually be worth a kitten

I think Anet needs to promote better group function A large part of this game revolves around individual skill. Allowing for support builds, the importance of individual skill is smeared a little bit, which I think would be a big step in the right direction for sPvP.

It seems though that they are making no effort to improve a huge part if not the biggest part of the game which is skills, mechanics, and traits. It’s not just things that were nerfed. It’s also things like ‘Downed State’ which while they are a good idea, they feel incomplete, clunky, or downright un-fun.

Some things were changed late in the development, like the Necromancer’s ‘Death Shroud.’ Death Shroud and their Soul Reaping tree were bugged pretty badly for a while. In fact when you go into death shroud it is still 4 skills and the same bar layout, like the downed state that it originally was.

The PvE community feels it
The PvP community feels it

I think the skills and abilities really need a closer look and better polish. It seems like Anet has basically brushed their hands together, said “DONE!”, and moved the entirety of their attention else where as if everything is perfect.

It is commonly agreed upon that condition warriors are missing something and because of that they are generally weak/easily counterable.

I believe they could make a few small changes to one skill and make condition specs viable on warriors without stepping on the toes of other classes.

That skill is Impale.

This skill has really cool mechanics and it really defines Sword/Sword as a condition setup.

The problems(and fixes):
Slow projectile speed - The speed of the thrown sword could be improved so it is not so easily dodged/strafed. The current speed of arrows would be adequate.

Slow activation for Rip - There’s not really much reason for the activation of Rip to be 3/4 of a second. You have to cast Impale first(and land it), then you have to be in melee range, then you have to actually land Rip.

Small Range for Rip - The range of Rip makes it rather prohibitive to use. I feel like this part of the skill could and should be ranged. They could use a rope pull animation for this part of the skill if it was ranged.

The Improvement(s):
Rip - Using Rip now inflicts a Deep Wound(no, not that deep wound)

Deep Wound - When a deep wound is inflicted, the affected enemy receives 1 random condition every second for 5 seconds. Deep wound appears as an effect on the enemy just like Impale.

I feel these improvements would vastly improve a condition warrior’s viability, and do it in a way and in a place that makes sense. The warrior gains access to a good source of cover conditions but without control over what conditions are applied(from Deep Wound). It also utilizes the cool and unique mechanics of the skill to separate the warrior’s condition spec from other classes’.

Prime targets for non-Frenzy HB are downed foes(and the people ressing them).

Also without Frenzy, you are better off using long immobilizes rather than stuns. Immobilize is better for landing HB due to the fact that it’s harder(and slower) to cleanse than a stun. If you combine them though, they will most likely eat the whole thing.

Also a side note that may be of interest. Condition duration affects the duration of Immobilize, so you can keep people still for a long time so long as they don’t teleport or cleanse.

pownguin.9205:

I’m aware that “Bolas is a fail.” That was the point of this thread. Leg specialist is okay, but I’m not wasting trait points on something that is only going to last one second. Literally. That’s not enough to pull off a skill that takes 3 1/2 seconds to to use. Even with frenzy, HB takes 1.75 seconds to cast. I’m also most likely going to use Bladetrail way before I’m even close to my target to catch up to them. Even if I used Hamstring instead when I’m actually close I still have to swap back to greatsword and maybe even use frenzy too. That takes way too much time for that Leg Specialist to even be useful. If this is so helpful how come the 1 second stun from Shield Bash isn’t enough to pull off HB?

Leg specialist doesn’t hold them still long enough to HB, but it DOES hold them still long enough to successfully bulls charge them or for that matter Bolas. Shield Bash is useful in the same way. You use Shield Bash to hold them still and CC them with another skill.

Leg specialist merely sets your opponent up so you can land your longer CC skills more easily and reliably. I explained how it works in my previous post. Though I forgot to mention that frenzy is also necessary to reliably land HB.

Also Since you’re playing in WvW, you’re probably running with a group. Leg Specialist also makes it easier for your group to catch up or CC an opponent.

If you want to be successful as a warrior you need to think about how your opponent is going to play and react. The better you know that, the easier it is for you to cut off their options and kill them.

The absolute easiest way to land HB is with GS + Sword/Shield

Pick up the Leg specialist trait in tactics, it might not seem like much, but 1 second of immobilize will kill people in WvW.

There’s like 4 different ways to land successfully depending on the situation.

The easiest way, but somewhat unreliable is simply:
Bladetrail(to immobilize and stop rolls)→bull’s charge→HB

-If they have fresh CDs or you want to reliably hit them:
Shield bash to bait stun break→switch to GS→blade trail, if they roll to avoid→ time your bull’s charge for the end of their roll→HB

-If you have full adrenaline, flurry on the sword is a great way to land HB, just cast flurry for the immobilize→break the channeling→ switch to GS→ HB, if you’re having a hard time landing flurry try using hamstring first

The longest way, but most reliable might look like:
Savage Leap→Hamstring→Shield Bash→Flurry(if you have the adrenaline)→Bladetrail→Bull’s Charge→HB

I prefer the sword in WvW because you can use it to give chase or to run away and it is pretty awesome for CC as well. Usually just the immobilize from the leg specialist and flurry are enough, so a warhorn is also a good choice with the sword, but for maximum reliability and CC the shield is better.

I ran with GS/LB for a while(after they buffed healing surge)

The great part about it is you have off-point dps that can soften targets(and bait rolls) before you ever set foot on a point, and the combo field is wonderful. Anything that removes the warrior from damage center is a good thing.

The bad is that your only defensive utility on the bow is a measly small area blind. There is also a noticeable gap in the sustained DPS .

It’s mostly a support damage build and for that it is pretty great. It doesn’t provide much survivability(compared to other typical sPvP setups), so direct confrontation is usually avoided.

My group laughed at me, but they didn’t complain!

A post I made a while ago about improving banners. They could really streamline the banners and make them aggressive and supportive(and more interesting).

Angriff.1935:

I do feel that banners are extremely underwhelming as they are now. There’s not much benefit to actually holding them, and the skills you can use while holding them are generally pretty weak.

I think the banners could be made a whole lot more exciting than they are. I had posted a thread on my new approach to how a warrior should play and with that thinking in mind, the possibilities are exciting.

I’ll post my ideas for the banner here though.

I actually like carrying around a banner, and feel that it should stay a two handed weapon. The regular skills need to be reworked. They can actually use most of the existing skills, so the bar might look like this.

1. Stab - Should actually be a stabbing motion, faster like the spear underwater. maybe give a combo with stab->jab->thrust. Maybe causes vulnerability like greatsword autoattack

2. Brutal banner - This skill can actually stay the same, just stuns instead of causing vulnerability, all

3. Inspire - Maybe give it a unique buff for each one(in addition to swiftness).
Example: The basic bar for each banner will be the same, so for banner of tactics, Inspire would also heal and grant regeneration as well as grant swiftness. Basically the #2 skill could just be merged with inspire, banner of strength would need a new effect for this.

4. Enraging Charge - Sprint forward with your banner to stab your foe. If successfully hits, grant fury to allies. Basically the same as it is now but with a stabbing motion, give it 900 range.

5. Vanquish - Forcefully plant your banner in the ground to damage nearby foes. Deals massive damage to downed players. Uses same planting animation but with an AoE effect.

Instead of just giving it F1, F2, F3…skills, banners should get a unique adrenaline skill to use with each one.
Strength F1 – Merciless Banner - Repeatedly Stab Foe. For each successful hit, allies gain might. (similar to mariner’s frenzy except slower and hits 1 target)

Tactics F1 – Staggering Banner - Push back nearby foes. For each foe pushed back, allies gain stability. (use hammer’s staggering blow animation)

Defense F1 – Protective banner - Stab the ground with the banner and deal damage to foes in the area. For every foe struck, give protection.

Discipline F1 – Disciple’s Banner - Stab your foe with great force. For every teammate in the area Disciple’s Banner hits for +damage
-
-
-
Battle Standard is where things could get really cool. A unique bar separate, but similar to regular banners.

1. Banner Strike - Hits multiple foes compared to 1 foe with regular banners. Could chain Banner Strike->Banner Swipe->Sweeping Banner

2. Frenzied Banner - Basically a land version of Mariner’s Frenzy

3. Inspiring Swipe - Swing your banner, inspiring allies and nearby damaging foes. Buffs allies in a similar manner to Inspire as described before and grants the normal buffs applied by the original version of "whirlwind banner

4. Savage Banner - Lunge at your for and stab them with your banner. Grants fury upon successful strike. Basically same range and mechanics as savage leap with sword.

5. Victorious Beacon - Forcefully plant your Battle Standard in the ground damaging nearby enemies and healing nearby allies. Deals massive damage to downed players.

Battle Standard F1 – Whirlwind Banner - Swing your banner(once) and create a whirlwind around yourself. All allies in the area lose a condition and gain swiftness(pulsed effect)

I tried to keep it from stepping into other weapon’s territory by mostly only causing damage. Brutal banner for regular banners is mostly for defense and there are no cripples on any of the banners. A good amount of the skills are only as powerful as there are more or less allies or enemies so I feel that is a balancing point of its own.
Battle Standard is more damage and support based than the other banners, so I feel that it wouldn’t need a disable skill.

I may have gotten carried away thinking about this.

Sand Beagle.9867:

No, i meant what i said. PvP. Both sPvP and tPvP. The warrior excels at neither. You may have more luck in sPvP because the teams are composed of newer players, solo players, and have almost no coordination. In pvp, regardless of type a warrior is one of the least viable classes.

If there was something besides conquest, then yes that statement might be too vague. If there was TDM and CTF, i am betting the warrior would be more useful and a heck of a lot more fun to play, but 5 months in and nothing has changed, so i am not holding my breath for anything besides more conquest.

And like others have said, once you reach a certain point, all that is left is crafting builds (besides teamwork, strategy, tactics obv).

And again, like others have said, the only warrior build right now that is even remotely viable in PvP is the 100b build. Here is why:

No matter what you do or how you do it, another class and another build can do it better. You are not helping your team by playing a gimped class. The 100b build is the only warrior build currently that can be partly useful, due to its high burst damage potential.

Provemewrong

Well I’ll just say that because of the lack of coordination and lower skill players, the warrior can be used to greater effect. That’s not the point of my post though.

I’m not really even saying you’re wrong. I was moreso gearing my post towards the people who think warriors are “master of arms” and hail them as the ultimate fighting machine.

I do want the warrior to be more viable for tPvP and I would like to see more build diversity for warriors.

1)I wouldn’t say that this game needs dedicated healers.

I think this game needs better support roles in general. Particularly in PvP.

In sPvP, support roles are almost useless. There’s too much damage to heal through and you don’t have a big enough effect to really make the sacrifice in damage or survivability worth while.

Most of the time(again in sPvP) it’s more beneficial to your team to just run a bunker and keep yourself alive.

2) Though I do think you should be able to run a heal spec if you desire.

3) It’s not necessarily a problem that they removed dedicated healers. It’s that it’s very difficult to directly support teammates(not by attacking your opponent). The best support you can currently run is either a res skill or a skill that allows you to res them or keep them from getting stomped. Otherwise you just run damage or self survival or a mix of both and everything else is just a bonus.

Yup…another thread with people arguing about something when they haven’t specified

HOTJOIN

or

TOURNAMENT PvP

This is largely the reason for the grossly different views of things. Particularly on the viability of the Warrior in PvP.

So please say what you play when you’re gonna make a statement.

Because there’s a difference between Hotjoin – Free Tournaments – Paid Tournaments

I have successfully played a warrior in both Hotjoin and Free Tournaments and even Paids at times

It’s in Paids where you start to feel useless though and limited to builds because people actually know how to deal with you there. It’s not impossible to play warrior in Paids, you just need a really good team that can make up for you playing a warrior.

Mattidore, I think your problem is that you’re not exploring the warrior’s capabilities and other weapon sets. Warrior’s have some of the highest mobility in the game, and in WvW, mobility = survivability.

Hammer is a difficult main weapon to run in WvW. It is not a damage weapon. Because of that you need coordinated teammates that can hit people while you have them locked down. Not to mention it is not a very mobile weapon, so you are almost entirely reliant on your weapon swap for mobility and survivability. Lastly the CC that hammer does provide for the most part can be broken with stun breaks which is not always ideal.

I think other weapon sets provide better survivability, better mobility, and greatly increased killing power.

Greatsword is almost ideal for WvW. It has high mobility – Whirlwind Attack + Rush, some minor CC – Bladetrail which can be further improved with the “Leg Specialist” trait, and it does high burst damage – Hundred Blades.

As for weapon swaps there’s a couple of things you really need to think about.

Mobility – charge/leaps, swiftness
Survivability – high mobility, condition removal, hard defense
Utility – Supplemental actions, usually snares or combo fields

There’s one weapon set that fills all three of these categories. Sword/Warhorn

Sword provides yet another leap/gap closer(savage leap). Hamstring provides some CC(again made better by ‘leg specialist’). Flurry(burst skill) immobilizes, which can allow you to hold someone still for 4 seconds(which can set up 100 blades nicely).

Warhorn is for survivability. It may not seem like much at first, but it can save you AND your teammates. Charge supplements your signet of rage so you can keep swiftness up permanently. It also removes cripple and immobilize. Call to arms gives you and your team mates vigor which allows you to roll more. If you choose to go into tactics warhorn can be made even better with the ‘Quick Breathing’ trait.

Lastly and very importantly. In the Discipline at 20 points you have access to the trait ‘Mobile Strikes.’ This allows any skill that generates movement to break immobilize.

Using Greatsword as your main and Sword/Warhorn as your swap, you can chase down and CC just about any class. You can run away from large mobs. You can deal large amounts of damage. You support your group.

I’m not telling you that you need to run GS + Sword/Warhorn. I’m just giving you an idea of what is available to you.

Taking signet over anything else is only justified really by stacking regen sources. Which means atleast the 15 points in defense for adrenal health and 30 points in tactics for Inspiring Battle Standard. And like Honsu said, it’s made better when you stack healing power.

Otherwise you’re better off with mending or healing surge. They’re pretty interchangeably useful.

Healing surge is great for adrenaline hungry builds. It’s really great for running a ranged weapon set on switch because when you’re low on HP you pull out and heal and lay down combustive shot or kill shot. Or if you’re using a high CC build where you need to use either earthshaker or skull crack.

Mending is great if you need condition removal. Paired with restorative strength you can clear a whole stack of conditions. If you’re using a soldier rune set(which if you’re running a healing shout build, you SHOULD be using soldier’s) mending is kinda redundant and not quite as useful, unless you need a ridiculous amount of condition removal.

If you’re playing solo, maybe mending. In a group, you’re probably going to want to run healing surge. Though running signet can work if you’re running a tank build with high regen.

Defektive.7283:

I think the only solution here is to increase thief damage across the board by 68.3% and make them immune to immobilize / cripple.

At least, that’s the only obvious solution to me.

THEN they can revert the stealth nerf. Problem(s) solved.

Well the first step is to see what weaknesses this setup posesses. Greatsword/Hammer(or anyways you use them) lacks hard active defense(which you have supplemented with the defense tree). It also lacks continued pressure, though hammer does make up for that a bit with control.

I think that your real problem is that you are not making the best use of the damage that the greatsword has to offer.

One change you might make is to switch out mending for healing surge. Use healing surge to fill your adrenaline instead of signet of fury. This frees up a slot on your bar for something like Frenzy or bolas/bulls charge. You give up a bit of survival vs conditions, but you gain the ability to actually use the greatsword effectively.
you could then do something like:
Use your hammer to stun or KD, switch to greatsword →Frenzy+ 100blades

As for equipment choices

Runes of Lyssa no longer grant all boons(in sPvP). They only give 5 seconds of protection and retaliation.

You will be better served with offensive runes(scholar, divinity, eagle, air) some defensive runes can serve well, but their stats are often not very beneficial.

Sigils of Rage are not usually the best choice. The quickness they provide can be nice, but it is highly unpredictable. Uncontrolled quickness is nigh useless. I suggest something that will have a more consistent benefit or a direct addition to your damage. Maybe a Sigil of Fire on the greatsword(for maximum burst) and a sigil of bloodlust on the hammer(increases damage all around)

For traits, I have tried hammer so many times only to end up feeling that the damage just isn’t there. I am not sure that “Merciless Hammer” is worth the trait slot. Especially if you’re using your hammer as more of a setup for your greatsword. Since last stand was recently fixed, you may want to try swapping out merciless hammer for last stand, or if you’re feeling brave swapping out defy pain for last stand.

Other thoughts

Playing aggressively is HUGELY important for playing a warrior. Your best defense is making your opponent run from you. If they are running away, they are doing less or no damage. I am not saying to attack without thought. You need to be deliberate and FAST. That is what makes a good warrior.

Bulls rush is nearly invaluable on an offensive warrior. While your build has the means to secure an effective burst, bull’s rush takes a gap closer + CC and rolls it into one good skill. As much as you might resent bulls rush, it really is the bread and butter of burst warriors. Consider it and try it(maybe bolas too though they’re harder to use)

I do not want to tell you how to build your warrior, so I am not going to tell you a standard burst build or what I do to get kills. I tried to change as little of your build as possible. I could give more suggestions, but outside of these you start running a completely different warrior.

Maybe it is you who cannot see others’ point of view.

You seem to think changing the skill will affect anything other than PvP

They have split skills before. They will do it again.

jportell.2197:

We are fighting your logic tooth and nail

Edit: He beat me to it!

Discipline has benefits that are not directly related to damage, but complement it very well.

The important one is at 15 points with “Fast Hands.” This trait completely changes how you can use your warrior. Weapon switching is highly important, especially for warriors.

At 20 points you have some interesting choices. Probably the more common is “Mobile Strikes” which allows any skill that generates movement to break immobilize. Also you have access to “Sweet Revenge” also at 20 points, which can be invaluable when in PvE(to a lesser extent in PvP) so using Veangeance doesn’t become a roll of the dice.

Then the added bonus to going for any of those gives you access to “Signet Mastery” at 10 points, which improves Signet of Rage’s uptime/downtime ratio. Chances are, if you’re a warrior, you’re probably using Siget of Rage, and if you’re using signet of rage, you want it to have as much uptime as possible.

20 points is usually the most anyone will invest into discipline, any more and you’re probably running a specialized build for something specific.

I can’t believe this thread is STILL going on.

I’m not gonna argue anymore. I’m going to state some facts.

Time Warp is highly effective when used with a coordinated team
Time Warp is marginally effective when used without coordination

Time Warp is not just used for attacking/damaging. It is also used to res, stomp, and heal.
Retaliation/reflection/confusion does NOT counter those things.

Lets consider other elites with strong effects(some that have been mentioned) and compare.

Battle Standard - 2 second cast time – 192 second recharge traited(240 secs untraited)- AoE Res(arguably the only reason you would even bring this elite). Banners are clunky, and it’s other effects (fury, might and stability) while beneficial are really only a bonus to the ability to res.

Realistically, the only real opportunity for using Battle Standard is when you have downed teammates. If you use it at other times you forfeit the biggest benefit that it provides. So most of the time you do not benefit from the effects of the banner, and even with the banner you need to be holding it to get the most out of it(stability). Whereas Time Warp can be applied to nearly any situation to turn it in the caster’s(team’s) favor. While both are powerful, Battle Standard is highly situational.

Now let’s look at the only other elite haste skill in the game.

Tome of Wrath - 1 second cast(to summon the book) and 2 seconds to cast zealots fervor(haste) – 180 second recharge –
Zealots Fervor, grants 3 seconds of haste and 10 seconds of fury to nearby allies
While it has some other offensive skills, the only real reason to bring this is for the haste and maybe the knockdown(which is a 4 1/2 second cast by the way)

Even if you were to use zealot’s fervor on CD both times, it takes 2 seconds to cast both times and only nets you a maximum of 6 seconds of haste. Not only that but most guardians, even offensive spec ones will probably opt for the survivability of the other two elites. And remember that guardian who is using Tome of Wrath cannot use utilities, can’t stomp, can’t res.

Lets look at the other skills that give quickness(I do mean skills). They have drawbacks. All of them.

Frenzy – 50% increase in damage taken
Quickening Zephyr – the user and their pet cannot be healed
Haste – endurance is drained and endurance regeneration halted
Elixir U – randomly includes one of the drawbacks from other non-elite quickness skills

Compared to
Time Warp – 1/4 second cast – 210 second recharge – Ground targeted AoE – 10 seconds of quickness.
-Extremely Short cast time
-No drawbacks to the haste
-Can be casted from range

This is a fact, you cannot argue it. Every other method of acquiring haste through a skill, has some sort of drawback or risk involved in it’s execution. Tome of Wrath, you need to be casting for 3 seconds before you can grant haste(not to mention the giant book you just pulled out). All of the other haste skills have hard negative effects.

IF there’s anything that is wrong with Time Warp, it’s the fact that it is inconsistent with the other skills and seems to follow it’s own rules.

I’m gonna quote myself here

At best those other elites are highly situational, some of which are COMBINED with Time Warp and abused.

Anyways, I have a different idea for Time Warp.

Turn it into a “transform” skill. Make it work almost exactly like Plague Form for Necro. They could use the animation for the underwater skill “Vortex”

Mesmer enters a Time Warp and gains protection

You have 3 skills which you can pulse in AoE. Maybe they could look like this
-Haste for 1 second
-Chilled for 1 second
-X stacks of Confusion for Y seconds

I favor this a bit to my earlier suggestion, because it gives a bit more flexibility and I think makes it more interesting to use. Not only that, but it can be used in other ways than just granting haste for 10 seconds. The mesmer can still be interrupted, but it wont make the Time Warp end early, so it’s not so risky

I feel the same way. Warriors feel like they’re trying to compete with all the other classes for a role, but they just can’t do any of them better.

I think other classes need help too though.

Guardians could use more viable support builds. Keeping others alive with a guardian is worth a whole lot less than keeping yourself alive at the moment, which I think is absolutely backwards. What is a GUARDIAN guarding? Answer: themselves.

Necros pretty much never give up their staff and off-hand dagger.

Most of the other classes have a little more flexibility(not much more)

Ryuujin.8236:

Angriff.1935:

One again, the solution is easy:
-Make Time Warp a channeled skill. You interrupt the mesmer, you stop Time Warp.
-Make it centered around the Mesmer. The mesmer must risk their own safety to grant a benefit to their team. In a good team, the mesmer will have support, and suffer little to no consequence.

And how exactly is this meant to be any use to a solo PvE mesmer, if he can have quickness just as long as he doesn’t actually cast anything? ¬_¬

Remember; for whatever reason anet has decided no PvE/PvP split for mezzie so whatever strategies emerge here have got to remain useful in story mode too (A part of the game where Mesmer is already one of the weakest classes)

Oh, yes, I only implied it in my earlier post. I do suggest it is split. It’s fine for PvE and WvW. It’s mostly only tPvP where it’s abused.

WvW offers alot more space to move around in and there are no small points you need to hold, so Time Warp is actually pretty situationally effective. Making effective use of it really almost requires a bottleneck.

In PvE, there’s no reason to change it. Theres much less possibility to abuse it, and even so, the ability to abuse it is hampered by spawn timers and HP thresholds on bosses.

Well. I believe I have identified the problem here.

The people in this thread are arguing in two different realms

Hotjoin and Tournament PvP

In hotjoin Time Warp is not a huge problem, mostly because coordination is minimal, so a Time Warp requires attentive, knowlegable players to even begin abusing.

In Tournament PvP(yes it exists) where you likely have a premade team that may even have voice chat, Time Warp’s effects are amplified.

There is no such thing as countering time warp at the moment. It is just plopped on a point usually and abused as much as possible. Anything you do to “counter” it would happen normally anyways, and only really kills bad players who have no idea whats going on. Most likely if you are fighting someone of such low skill cap, chances are you’re in hotjoin anyways.

DaShi.1368:

This thread has gotten ridiculous. It is clearly just another anti Mesmer thread. TW is being exaggerated just to kill one of the few reasons to bring a Mesmer in tpvp at all. Each class has an elite when used at the right time can turn the tide of the battle. Manywithshorter cool downs. TW is favored, not because it is op, because it counters the bunker builds that are the meta. So many are crying that Mesmers are op because they are required, but ignore that guardians are in every group (and are preferred in pve as well). People are complaining about a symptom rather than the disease because of mesmer hate. Removing TW not improve the game, it will only remove the Mesmer.

Even if it were true that the ONLY reason people bring mesmer is for Time Warp, that must be one insanely good reason.

The fact of the matter is that Time Warp right now is a bonus. A “no risk” fire and forget(and abuse) button to turn just about any fight in the caster’s favor. Mesmers actually operate just fine without Time Warp. Notice how long the CD on Time Warp is? Most of the time Mesmers aren’t even using it and they’re STILL considered by many to be OP.

I would like to hear of all these elites that other classes have that can “turn the tide of battle.” At best those other elites are highly situational, some of which are COMBINED with Time Warp and abused.

It’s not mesmer hate to think Time Warp is out of line. It wouldn’t matter what class has it. It’s still too powerful.

One again, the solution is easy:
-Make Time Warp a channeled skill. You interrupt the mesmer, you stop Time Warp.
-Make it centered around the Mesmer. The mesmer must risk their own safety to grant a benefit to their team. In a good team, the mesmer will have support, and suffer little to no consequence.

This would maintain the same effect and group utility of Time Warp, but it could no longer be abused so easily. Heck they could probably even make it so the mesmer who is casting it gains protection.

What people in this thread don’t seem to understand is how powerful Time Warp is when it is laid on a point when there is a team fight.

Any single skill that can shift the momentum of a fight so easily such as Time Warp shouldn’t exist(in PvP). Atleast not in the form it’s in now.

Cooldown? You only need to use it once. After that you just need to hold the point or keep it contested.

Counters? Sometimes Time Warp isn’t used to kill people(so confusion/retaliation has little to no effect)
It can also be used to:
-stomp
-res
-heal

Run away? In tPvP that means losing the point, and that means potentially losing the match because of ONE skill that ONE person brought.

You say it’s balanced because everyone can bring it? You’re saying that if everyone brings a mesmer it’s fine. What about teams without a mesmer with Time Warp?

I stick by my suggestion of making it a channeled skill centered around the mesmer. It can keep it’s effect, but the mesmer should have to sacrifice or risk something for something so powerful.

There are no other skills in the game that can have as profound effect on a battle as Time Warp, except for maybe Portal in the right situation…hmmm..

Time Warp just provides a benefit that greatly outweighs any negatives you can consider for it to be “balanced”

Well, I posted it in my other thread, so I’ll post it here.

Make Time Warp a channeled skill that is centered around the caster.

This does two things.
1. It requires the mesmer to risk their own safety, not just by proximity requirement, but by not being able to use anything other than instant cast skills
2. Allows Time Warp to be interrupted

It still maintains it’s massive group utility and it’s duration and effect, but its not something you can just lay on a battle to turn the tide. Also mesmers will no longer be able to use this as a personal quickness. The one upside to it working this way is that the Time Warp effect can now move instead of being static.

This game needs more group oriented skills and things that benefit the group more than the caster. Time Warp really could use a change like this.

Where to start…

I’ll just say that momentum shifts happen too quickly and with too little effort or risk. Things like Time Warp could easily be addressed by making it a channeled skill that surrounds the mesmer. It then becomes a group support skill and becomes counterable.

The pace at which things happen is too quick and mistakes are too costly. Giving a little more room for error doesn’t remove dynamics. The only way that would happen is if they were to disproportionately reduce the amount of damage or defenses, which might result in stagnant game play or over the top damage. Reduce them properly and the game will see a more even temper, not reduced dynamics.

Matchmaking will help stop new players from facing top tier teams, which is good, but paid tournaments will still be bad because of the low amount of teams queuing.

I’m not going to even begin with GW2 vs LoL. It’s bad to compare the games both in the way they’re balanced and the learning curve. If the mechanics were the same lets say like LoL vs DoTA, then it might be valid.

HappinessFactory.4910:

To be the devil’s advocate here, I actually prefer the extremist pacing and how a well executed attack can turn the tides in your favor. Also how a poorly timed dodge can easily be your doom.

Let me use this example to explain my point; The other day i was playing with members of JBUO against QT one foefire. At one point my teammates had downed 2 enemies and were in the process of stomping them. I was mulling about at around 2k hp with 0 dodges left as a ranger on the mid point. Hman (a really good warrior) proceeded to cleave me down and quickness stomp me with stability, instantly rallying his teammates which lead to them winning the node.

Even though i was the victim of poor play, I felt that Hman’s actions should be rewarded and I should be punished for failure. This makes games more exciting and fun to play imo.

The way i read your post you suggest that they either remove or tweak downed state significantly and normalize damage and tankiness across the board to all professions. If this were to occur we would lose a ton of interactions with the downed state, and every single build would be similar. There wouldnt be any bunker builds, burst builds, condition builds, it would just be tanky dps, tanky dps, tanky dps.

That was mind numbing in LoL and that would be dreary here in GW2.

P.S. when you’re talking about room for error, you suggest that if they were to Incorporate your ideas the game would be more noob friendly. Well, there is only minimal room for error against good teams. If there was a matchmaking system so that noobs didnt have to go against experienced players… there would be more room for error.

I completely understand. I mainly play thief and warrior, so I have seen how rewarding it can be to turn the tide of a fight. In fact that’s pretty much all I ever did.

I have also seen how frustrating it can be. If you have any one teammate that just isn’t up to par, it can mean the game. It doesn’t matter how good some of the other players are, things just happen so quickly that there’s really no possibility helping them.

I don’t think people understand what it would be like playing this game if survival wasn’t such a dire effort. I think it would encourage people to engage in fights more often. I know from playing a warrior that would be true. I actually hate just going in, unloading damage, and getting out. Killing people doesn’t even feel satisfying anymore unless it’s vs a bunker.

What I am advocating is that all damage be brought back equally, again not just burst, and to compensate bunkers can’t remain with their current ability to withstand damage as nobody would ever kill anybody. So burst would still exist as it does, it would just require better timing and coordination to utilize effectively. I feel as though it should require teamwork to kill someone very quickly, and not just one person’s whim.

As for rally and downstate, they could use dodgeball rules. Rallying could occur on merely downing someone, but it would only rally one person(the first person to be downed). So a roamer(or anyone assisting) could still turn the tide massively, they would just have to work harder for it. Res skills could be made to only res one person. So I don’t think that changing down state is necessary. This would make the momentum shifts of big fights much more predictable.

My, I’ve been getting a little wordy here.

Chi Malady.2015:

I feel the pacing is fine. I find the action oriented combat a breath of fresh air in a traditionally slow and boring genre.

I’m not talking about the speed of the game and the “action oriented combat .” I’m talking moreso about the speed at which people die and res.

People can be downed almost instantly, or they can survive for minutes.

Sometimes you can have 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 that would actually last a decent amount of time, but usually like I was saying you just have a high mobility burst class come in and what might be a “normally paced fight” is suddenly and violently over. This is very much the same for large fights like the example I used in my first post.

It’s these extremely sudden momentum shifts that make for bad gameplay. It can turn from a favorable situation to unfavorable in a matter of seconds. That doesn’t just affect one person on a team, it affects the whole team. So one small mistake turns into a huge mistake.

In Guild Wars 1 the momentum shifts were much more gradual and linear. Mostly because you had more structured groups, where there was more of a priority list for targets. Also because you had dedicated healers so HP pools could go back up as fast as they went down. This made it very difficult to kill anyone on a well coordinated team. And when you killed someone it just pushed them a little closer to losing. You could either use res sig or they would get ressed in 2 minutes.

In GW2 the pacing is absurd in comparison. Dying is so common and instead of ressing every 2 minutes you res in 20 seconds. Res skills recharge themselves instead of being one time use(except with morale boost)

Anyways my beef is with the pacing and it’s massive influence on momentum shifts.

I actually like the speed, action, and mechanics the of combat

Balance for Guild Wars 2 means many different things to many different people. The pacing of fights is a big factor for most who claim something is unbalanced. Some fights end very abruptly, some fights extend indefinitely(or until the match ends). Some people prefer this style of “balance”.As a result of this pacing of fights, any given match is almost entirely dictated by momentum and tactics.

The team with the most momentum, or the ability to largely disrupt the momentum of the opposing team will win. Most of the time it’s sending high damage high mobility classes to shift the momentum of stagnant fights. Sometimes it’s sending an extremely tough class/build to a point to hamper their momentum. Every fight, whether is is 1v1 or 5v5 is dictated by momentum as well.

It seems there is actually very little strategy involved in GW2 at the moment. The most strategy you will likely encounter are beginning strats for who to send to which point. The match is then dictated by tactics or reactionary decisions and decisive movements. It is impossible to say at the beginning of a match how you will be dealing with anything near the end of the match.

The problem herein is that between the rapid pace of fights and little strategy involved, gives very little room for error. For instance in a 4v4 one team may down 3 members of the opposing team, in a decisive action, one team may give up a point to assist the losing(and now downed team). That one person can single-handedly shift a losing team with 3 people on the ground, to 5 people standing and reverse the situation all in a matter of seconds with either a stomp or a res. That person could have been stopped, but still that’s not a lot of room for error. I’ve personally witnessed this very scenario on many occassions.

I cannot and will not blame any individual class for any of the percieved imbalances in this game. Do I think the game is imbalanced? It doesn’t matter, I just don’t really enjoy playing the game(PvP) the way it is right now. I think many others might feel the way I do. Most people on the forums just end up pointing fingers.

I blame the pacing of this game(not the "action"or amount of activity skills, speed, mechanics). I don’t think this game is very far from having good pacing. I believe that the basic problems across the board for “pacing issues” lie in the amount of damage overall and the amount of defenses available.

If all damage(not just burst) were toned down, points could be more easily contested or held off with less tanky builds, and making mistakes when defending, wouldn’t be so costly. Also group fights would be more habitable to melee classes like warrior and thieves, so balanced builds might be more desirable than burst. AoE damage(which stated as a problem by the devs themselves) would also be toned down.

If less defenses were available(along with less damage) fights would result in less stagnant standoffs. Also because there would be less defenses available and less damage flying around, support builds would become more attractive and thus more build diversity.

The pacing would become more of an even temper across the board. It doesn’t invalidate burst and it doesn’t remove defensive builds. What it does do is make coordination and teamwork have a greater effect.

I think apart from the few people who actually do enjoy the current state of PvP in this game, this solution would solve many problems for many people. It would make the game a little more noob friendly, make fights more thoughtful and involved, and make errors a little less costly.

I want to enjoy playing GW2, but right now all I can do is make absurdly long forum posts and hope -_-

This might sound crazy, but what if they removed the ability to stealth from D/D and changed the way Cloak and Dagger works(bear with me please).

At the moment I don’t think thieves are encouraged to switch weapons enough. The only time they need to switch weapons is when they can’t(or don’t want to be) be in a fight and need to use the shortbow, or just need to get around the map.

If they brought in a weapon switching requirement to set up backstab combos, you might start to see something different with thieves. It wouldn’t destroy the current way backstab is used, you would just have to use a utility to stealth instead of a weapon skill or you would have to bring two melee weapon sets, which would cut down movement and increase the risk for the thief

I think probably the easiest way to make this change would just to make Cloak and Dagger have different functionality depending which MH weapon you’re using. So backstab thieves could still use CnD in its current functionality, they would just have to switch weapon sets to do it. And since thieves don’t have cooldowns on weapon skills, having a redundant offhand dagger wouldn’t be so bad.

An idea of how it could work:
D/D – functionality similar to Infiltrator’s Strike(just the teleport and the attack) and have it only cloak for the duration of the attack. This changes CnD into more of an approach skill that also breaks target, but keeps the theme of the skill correct.
S/D – Same current functionality
I don’t have any ideas for P/D.

I think this would work well. It increases the amount of involvement in backstab combos, and increases the amount of risk involved by requiring either the use of a utility or a weapon swap to stealth.

Unfortunately it would also make bunkering better.

Reducing damage would be as simple as reducing damage stats on the amulets/runes. This would affect all classes fairly evenly.

Either way, bunkering is the reason that high burst is necessary. Unfortunately burst vs bunker is pretty stable where it’s at. So to change damage or vitality, would necessitate changing bunkering.

It’s pretty apparent regardless of what school of thought you come from that balanced builds and support builds are almost always sub-par. Not impossible to implement but unfavorable. I’d like to see a more desirable middle ground.

condiments.8043:

That was a good post Caed with reasonable suggestions. After playing thief quite a bit over the past couple of months, I’ll give my two cents into how thief plays into the current game design vision. I do believe Mr. Big has a couple good points on the class and I am reconsidering my commitment to the class.

People saying bunker/burst being so extreme at the moment is misleading……………

I was tempted to make a similar post earlier.

People point the finger at thieves, just because their burst is hard to see coming. The problem doesn’t lie with thieves alone though. There’s just too much damage coming from every source.

Your warrior example is probably the reason that I feel that is true. Theres too much damage at the “epicenter” of fights for the warrior to stay around for long. I don’t think its a problem with the warrior’s design. I think its a lack of consideration for that role. A thief get away by not having to be in the fight like a warrior, hence all the finger pointing at thieves.

If they toned town the damage from every source, it would make that “epicenter” a more hospitable place, so sustained damage builds might become more viable. Burst builds could still exist as their damage would be brought back the same % as all other builds.

The only problem with this idea is that bunker classes would become even more difficult to kill. So defensive capabilities of some classes would have to be brought back as well, including the thief which is why I agree with Caed’s post.

They could actually leave the amount of healing relatively the same. You might actually start to see real support builds rather than the selfish burst/bunker/AoE builds that are the current meta. Less damage and less defensive capabilities would make healing builds, group condition removal, and group buffs more important.

I don’t think its a problem with any one class. It’s every class.

I highly agree. Make it so games wont start until they have full players, and add a penalty for leaving before the match end(worked pretty well in GW 1 with random arenas).

With this system you would have to change the way people join a match a little bit though.

Play now:
-Play now would put you in the lobby of the next available match with the most people in the “lobby”(just sitting at match waiting to begin)
-Add a sorting feature for joining (or not joining) certain maps and game types(currently only 5v5 and 8v8). So if you wanted to join a particular map, you just check the box for that map and you’ll be dropped in the lobby for the next match to start that map

Manual Hotjoin:
-allow players to queue to join a server with a match in progress, say if a friend is currently in a match you can queue his match and you’ll join on the start of the next match.
-allow for multiple server queuing allows for similar operation to the play now sorting options

This system may make it harder to get into a match, but I feel the matches will be more consistent and less lopsided. It’s really a bigger issue for 5v5 than 8v8 though, as you said, so 8v8 could just be left the way it is.

The other option is that they just make a gw1 random arenas style joining for 5v5. Where you join a random group and play with that group until you lose, until a certain point where you are spat out and are given a reward chest.(with unique rewards?)

Braxxus.2904:

That’s poopy balance imo. In many other’s opinion too. Doesn’t make it right or wrong, but it is just as valid an opinion. Also the majority of players, if you haven’t noticed from the checkered past of “team based” mmo pvp (balance and gameplay) don’t feel like going though the hand-holding and circle jerking required nor have a desire to wade through the environment of overinflated egos from tweens for “team based” PvP to be the end-all-be-all.

So what you’re saying is that you don’t want to play with a team and you want it to be 1v1 all day long. Believe it or not, other people like playing as a team and being able to create builds that complement each other, rather than everyone being as self sufficient as possible.

Balancing towards 1v1 or even 2v2 means any sort of group fight is gonna be a clusterkitten, which is where the game is at right now.

If you balance towards group fighting, a good deal of the problems in the smaller fights are actually reduced as well.

I think it can be balanced for both actually.

The problems that they discussed on the high tPvP level are the same basic problems at the low level hotjoin level.

You hear them talking about how they have to deal with elementalist bunkers. You hear them talking about surviving a “fight” with thieves. Basically their problems are the same: burst and bunker.

If bunkers weren’t so hard to kill, burst wouldn’t be an absolute necessity as it is now. If burst wasn’t so high, bunkering wouldn’t be a big necessity. If there were more group support options, a good TEAM would be better than a group of 5 strong individuals.

If they made these changes, new players wouldn’t get destroyed so violently, they wouldn’t run into so many unkillable bunkers, and it might actually encourage them to work with their team instead of just focusing on greedily capping and point farming.

The game currently allows for too great of extremes in both the defensive and offensive directions. If things were brought back, the frantic pace of the matches would become a little more evenly tempered and pvp might become more attractive and fun for both the high level and low level.

Just saying that it should be balanced for high level or low level is not the right way to go. At high level you have the people who already are taking advantage of the systems in the game, and if you balance for them you just make them better at the game rather than making the game better for everyone. If you balance for low level, you take depth away from the game.

Edit: To further clarify. I think damage overall should be decreased, the current burst vs non-burst damage ratio is actually fine, it’s the amounts of damage in general. To make it so bunkering builds aren’t overpowered a lot of the hard damage mitigation(protection/invulnerability/blocking) could be toned down. The healing could be left alone, thus support builds (ex: shout warrior) would become more valuble and viable.

If there is a problem with burst, then there is a problem with bunkering. For burst to be reduced, the amount of defenses some classes have, must be brought back in line. The amount of punishment some classes take make having extremely high damage output builds a necessity.

Someone mentioned self healing was the problem, but I think it’s actually hard damage mitigation like protection, invulnerable skills and blocks that make the more durable classes so hard to kill.

Oddly enough I think giving classes a little more healing with less protection would make for more interesting fights if the burst were to be toned down.

If they made it so you could actually run a support build instead of self sufficient burst and bunker classes, you might actually start to see some sort of teamwork rather than a team of 5 strong individuals.

The thing that made GW1 work was that you needed more than 1 person usually to kill a member of the opposing team. Think about shockaxe warriors. They didn’t have enough damage to put someone away by themselves, but they initiated the damage with shock and they finished the damage with eviscerate. If a warrior misplaced his burst or didn’t time it well with his team, no one died.

I feel like the same should really apply here. With Warriors, Thieves, Mesmers, and (sometimes) elementalists all doing relatively insane damage, group fights become extremely messy and it all boils down to who can res better which is a silly thing to determine the outcome of a fight.

If they want a somewhat balanced game, they do need to tone down burst, but they also need to tone down bunkering as well. Then they need to make group support abilities better, and maybe then when it’s no longer a mad scramble to inflict damage or survive you might start to see this game for what it could be.

Enough with all of this self sufficient crap, there needs to be better group support options and less “selfish” burst/bunkering.

Have you by any chance ever equipped a shortbow? Not only does it do AoE damage, but it also has an autoattack that bounces. So regardless of whether you play PvP or PvE the shortbow allows you to pump out respectable DPS even from range.

Also if your focus is AoE damage, then you may want to run a condition spec(like 0/0/30/20/20) with caltrops. Condition specs also afford quite a bit of survivability as well since they focus on high vigor upkeep time to be constantly dodging(to drop caltrops), and with Death Blossom you can avoid an enormous amount of damage. Not only that but with that same spec you can gear it towards high stealth up time and condition removal.

So I think it’s time you try something different and explore the class a bit more thoroughly.

I came up with some ideas that I think would make warriors more playable as a whole.

People complain about the warrior trait tree, but really we have some nice traits that could just be placed a little better. I think the Defense and Tactics trees need some tweaking, and just a little bit to make them really usable and really provide the longevity that warriors lack.

Defense
-Shield Mastery - Move to Adept(10 pts). This allows damage oriented builds to have a bit easier access to a good survival trait. This also opens up better traiting options when specced 30 points into defense.
-Missile Deflection - Switched places with Shield Mastery(why can we deflect missiles with a shield before mastering it anyways?). Also add the effect, retaliatory Strikes(Counter Blow/Riposte) do 50% more damage.
-Last Stand - Replaces Adrenal Health as 15pt(master) minor trait. This would allow tanking builds a little more flexibility towards damage. Also burst builds can sacrifice a little bit of damage for a bit more flexibility with utilities.
-Adrenal Health - Replaces Thick Skin as 5pt minor trait.

Defender’s Resilience- New Trait, replaces Last Stand – Gain 4 seconds of protection(20 second cooldown) when an attack is successfully blocked with a skill(Counterblow/Riposte/Shield Stance only). This gives weapon blocks a bit more utility and overall usefulness and gives the warrior access to a little bit of protection. It mostly benefits the two single block skills so mainhand mace and offhand sword become more attractive.

Tactics
– Quick Breathing - Move to Adept(replaced stronger bowstrings). Allows for better more flexible support builds, and makes warhorn more attractive for less Tactics intensive builds.
– Determined Revival - Move to 15pt(master) minor trait. Activates endure pain when reviving an ally(cooldown 90 sec). This would really be an awesome change and would give the warrior something different to bring to the table. This would give the warrior some resilience in an unusual way. It could be used for stalling on a point with a teammate or could be combined with frenzy to provide powerful rez potential. This would synergize well with a bunker build and the 15 points may be a worthy sacrifice for a dps build.

Discipline
– Fast Hands - Switch with Versatile Rage. Having Fast hands at 5 points instead of 15 allows easier access to fast hands for heavy defense builds.

These ideas are really to give incentive for more defensive builds without changing or improving burst builds drastically. They give options to give up damage for survival and make survival easier with tanking builds.

Some other ideas to go with these that are somewhat unrelated to survivability.
Eviscerate - Increase Range to 450, reduce startup and afterdelay. This would make eviscerate more usable all around, both offensively and as a tool to escape, though its range is not as great as savage leap it doesn’t make MH sword obsolete.

Impale → Rip - Improve Projectile speed on Impale. Rip now inflicts a deep wound for 5 seconds. Deep wound inflicts a random condition(pulsed effect). This would give warrior better access to other conditions and provide cover conditions for condition based builds.

I really want other builds to be viable I think things like these need to be done to make them more attractive.

I wouldn’t call the clunkyness of the warrior to be the core issue. Basic self survivability is the real core issue. Warrior’s can deal damage, but they’re not great at taking it. That’s another thread though.

Really though i think Bulls Rush and Whirlwind Attack are actually two of the warriors least clunky attacks. Earthshaker though is extremely unwieldy.

I do agree the warrior could use a good deal of fluidity. Just using skills like “Leap of Faith” on a guardian feels amazing when all you’ve done is play a warrior.

I made a thread about that a while ago…nobody paid attention to it
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/A-New-Approach-to-a-Balanced-Warrior

My understanding of the problem wasn’t as deep then, but I still like my ideas there.

I posted it in another thread recently. A warrior is good at sustained damage and pressure with relatively equivalent burst damage to a thief.

The problem is warriors don’t have the longevity in the midst of a fight to make the most of this.

Warriors have survivability, that is they can escape just about any situation to run away and survive. They have access to a large amount of gap closers/openers and a trait that makes every single one of them able to break immobilize. Surviving is easy.

The problem is that the warriors greatest strength, sustained damage and pressure, is not matched by being able to mitigate sustained damage and pressure. Due to this the warrior has had to become an extreme burst class to be viable.

Comparing a thief to a warrior is not good for determining what is wrong. Yes, a warrior can be every bit as dangerous as a thief and in some cases even more dangerous because of their sustained damage. The big difference is in the approach.

A thief’s survivability is largely built into the approach. Stealth breaks target and prevents further targeting, and teleports eliminate the need for positioning and spacing.

A warrior does neither of these things. So it is apparent that what warriors require is raw damage mitigation. The question is how can this be added without it feeling like it was tacked on like an afterthought?

One of my ideas was to have a trait that gives protection for every blocked attack. This would give skills like “Counterblow” and “Riposte” much more utility, and skills like “Shield Stance” longevity beyond the duration.

I do look forward to the day when I can live longer and not just survive.

They could just implement the cast bar like GW1 had.

Then you could see what they’re doing and when they’re doing it.

Problem solved.

Edit – I didn’t actually read any posts until after I posted. The whole being small and slightly less noticeable thing is a problem. A minor problem, but still a problem.

First of all Powerful Banners is a completely worthless trait. Even with a full berzerker set, a combo field, some stacks of might, and a utility bar(+ elite) full of banners it still does worthless amounts of damage.

Considering you would have to bring multiple banners to even begin trying to abuse this trait, I think the damage could be substantially improved without causing balance issues(or rampant banner warriors). Keep in mind, banners are on a 90(or higher) second CD, 600 range, with 1 second (or higher) casts. So even if the damage were effectively doubled, the damage might roughly equal that of a full 100blades combo with a whirlwind. This is assuming you bring 4 banners with a glass spec, which is asking to get destroyed.

Powerful Banners needs to be improved or replaced with something that has a use.

My Suggestions:
Banners – untraited:
- Do the damage they currently do when traited
- Reduce cast time of non-elite banners

Powerful Banners:
- Increases Banner damage by 100%
- Using banners grant X stacks of might for Y seconds to nearby allies
- Increases the area of effect(like greater marks with Necro)

Battle Standard:
- Battle Standard does more damage, as it takes 2 seconds to cast

This might sound silly, but I think it would be nice to be able to re-roll a character(basically starting a new character), but with the same name and age. Thinking about Guild Wars 1 I remember having characters that were 3-4 years old and not wanting to delete them because they were a source of birth day presents, just taking up slots and being nothing but storage.

It would also be nice for people who play PvP, who may want to re-roll a character under the same name but have a different race or class, but without resetting a character’s age.

It practically already was in the game with the orbs in WvW, though its gone for now. All the mechanics are already there, the orb has its own set of skills when you carry it and it causes degen on the holder so, you can’t regen naturally.

They really only need to create some maps for it.

I like the idea of capture the orb.

I still think it would be cool to build a ranger without a pet. Ranger’s would be the only class with 2 different class mechanics if it were to become a reality. Versatility is a Ranger’s game.

And to clarify this:

Angriff.1935:

It just reminds me of how a beastmaster was never really viable in GW1 because of clunky pet mechanics.

I never touched a ranger outside of PvP in GW1.

PS: Bunny Thumpers anyone? I vote hammers for Rangers.

I hope they do fix the pets. It just reminds me of how a beastmaster was never really viable in GW1 because of clunky pet mechanics.

I didn’t really mean my post as a knock to the idea of pets, I just hate to see a class that suffers because of an NPC that your sort of forced to drag around.

Glad to see people like their pets and just want them to work.