Guild Wars 2

1. What are the Ranger melee attack’s that have a chance to proc Strider’s Defense ?

2. Does Strider’s Defense proc the destruction of projectiles on the cast time only? Or does it include the cast time + after cast (animation) as well?

I’m trying to understand what Ranger weapons would find use of this trait/has anyone extensively play tested and not for the merit of whether this is any good compared to other options.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

@Artaz

I certainly think that warrior was closer to balance than it is now. Yes, the adrenaline not being spent on whiffing was an issue, but majorly because people could just use it to spam burst over and over. Anet seemed to forget that adrenaline and its state are directly tied to whether many warrior traits work at all. People said that warriors played passively, but our effectiveness depended largely on managing the state of that bar properly. Instead of adjusting the damage of Hammer/longbow and probably putting burst skills on a shared/higher cooldown if they missed, Anet addressed the face of the issue and gutted the core mechanic of the class, which not only did nothing to fix the issue of hambow but somehow managed to cripple every warrior that wasnt using the problem playstyle.

And then people had the -audacity- to crow “well, you should just time your bursts better, hurr” Like landing one highly telegraphed strike on a class like, say a thief, is even kittening possible if he’s above bear rank

So. Anet didnt think there was balance. but they were still wrong in how they fixed it, imo. Their purpose for the patch was to “coax warriors into using adrenaline.”

lol, nope

Tangent:

Warriors needed a tweak to Adrenaline cooldowns but not a loss if miss. ANet decided a year+ ago that Adrenaline abilities needed to be used more often (buffed) and changed Discipline to reduce Adrenaline ability cooldowns and then ANet changed Burst Mastery to even make it more lopsided. And added more tweaks to Adrenaline gaining traits (i.e. Thrill of the Kill, there are far more) or utilities (Berserker’s Stance).

Shared Adrenaline cooldowns would have been an easy tweak and I agree it should have been done. Another option is simply to have a miss cost the Warrior 10 adrenaline strikes and not a full 30. Same outcome, less tweaked power for the Warrior and a consequence. It’s a smaller jump and not a cliff dive.

Warriors also needed a mobility nerf for a counter defensive swap. This could easily be done by changing Rush on Greatsword to a block/Adrenaline strike gain. If you wanted to get really creative, add a target pull to Bladetrail to help with the Warriors now lack of long-range melee weapon distant closers on Greatsword. Done.

Well, at least until ANet starts looking at all the underutilized traits/utilities (including the new GM traits) but that goes for every class.

It’s a weighing of ‘keeping the competition’ with a scoring system heavily favoring population/coverage time.

Why not combine the servers on the lower end with other lower WvW population to be similar to the population of T1 servers and reset glicko? It could be a temporary “server alliance” and as WvW population (different from server population) goes through its ebbs and flows, coverage can be more evenly spread. These servers could even be permanently “merged” (although I recommend a more floating team server format).

The issue with Blackgate server is that its not because WvW people want competition, they want to dominate and “win” the majority of the time. People can claim that guilds/random players move to BG to be part of the competition scene but the real issue is its the same cost to move to Blackgate (1600 gems) as it is for any other server.. With mega-servers on the PvE side, guilds now pooled in resources regardless of server, why would you move anywhere else? It’s not like the queues are bad on BG except on Friday restart nights. BG can claim to have an organized WvW scene (they do) but it is really no different than any Tier 1, Tier 2, T3 and upper T4 servers as well. BG isn’t winning against all because of organization, community, and tactics, it’s dominance in population and all the resources that brings.

So if you can’t fix population imbalance, what can you do?
Play with the idea that lower coverage servers (create outmanned buffs at several tiers) proving bonus PPT scoring by map. When servers are behind other servers by x% in a given week, gain a bonus PPT buff, etc. Provide undermanned buffs that also work with wxp, additional gold, additional karma, etc., have NPCs start creating free siege. Make it so the underdog actually has a reason to keep fighting. It’s not like WvW has massive rewards for playtime at the moment (compared to all other game play types) so why not use this as an opportunity to fix it? Why not make it potentially the most lucrative game play type (adding real ‘in game’ WvW competition not based solely on PPT)?

EDIT: You know what kept me playing as an underdog WvW player in those other games? More short-term “wins”. Winning the battle is more important than winning the war. WvW Seasons is by definition the “winning the war” and it’s boring/not fun for the underdogs.

MarauderShields.6830:

Carighan.6758:

Rapid Fire is just a typical high risk high reward skill. One reflect on someone even standing nearby, and that ranger is dead.

That’s simply utter BS. I had a lot of fun with RF lately and people constantly try to reflect it. One button (store weapon) or one dodge, if you already fired a couple of arrows and don’t want to eat them, is enough. You have to be afk to die by your own RF. I do think Op went overboard with his suggestions but do not try to fool people by claiming RF is high risk when it is obviously not. I never downed fleeing people so easily with backstabs.

This. Reflects can’t be used as often as Rapid Fire. If you are a Ranger (no different than Warrior playing Rifle), keep your stow weapon handy or dodge your own attack to cancel and stop your repeat attack skill (or Kill Shot).

Really short cooldown (traited) burst suddenly doesn’t become burst anymore and becomes standard DPS output (i.e spam). Good luck trying to avoid the spam.

You know what’s funny though, players claiming it’s just Ranger Longbow that is the problem. So you avoid and play perfectly the Longbow Rapid Fire and reflect/dodge and use your endurance to close to the Ranger for you to actually attack back (closer than 1500 range). Congrats, you’ve passed the n00b/no lag challenge. Now Ranger swaps to melee weapon and either evades your damage while hurting you in return (aka Evasion Thief) or runs away/evades your damage to restart long-range Ranger advantage again or hurts you with even more burst damage melee skills from GS or offhand Axe (all with pet doing its control or damage). It’s so lol

Nick.6972:

Zefrost.3425:

Talking about the “pew pew!” from _every single class.#

Guardian? Scepter is hardly ever used.

To be fair, it’s Staff Autoattack because, well, you know. Single target damage is meh but once you start hitting 3+ at a time with a non-reflecting 600 range skill … well, you do the math.

Scepter 2 changing to a symbol would make it far more popular.

Kilger.5490:

I think the problem is rooted in this: People “want” to neglect rangers, as they always have in the past. Now they cant, and they are mad at the discomfort. Its really simple to dodge rf, then squish the squishy ranger (if hes full zerk). You might have to deal with invul for 6 secs, but then hes squishier than ever.

You’re wrong. Rangers are not squishy with traiting and have the DPS at range.

It’s not 6s (double that). And it’s not even invuln so…

And it’s also not Rapid Fire alone.

It’s Rapid Fire’s damage/range with excessive no damage utilities and since the update, Rangers have better defenses than a Warrior (for slightly less trait point investment) … yep, I said it. It’s even amplified further if you forget Longbow and just use Evade weapons (more defense) … or use GS (more Evade) and burst with Maul or use Axe offhand range instead cuz it is just as bursty, pierces and has short cooldown control And in a pet knockdown and fear/immobilize and you win or you kite/win.

That’s what annoys me. It’s not that Rangers were ignored before the update and people are screaming now. It’s that no consideration was given to the balance of one major change at a time. It’s ‘lets buff majorly 5 different things with Rangers’ when it should have been 2.

By the way, do you honestly think prepatch Warrior was balanced? ANet sure didn’t think so.

Keep making your Warrior builds either completely ignore Adrenaline or make your Warrior build so focused into it just to fix it.

Enjoy your build diversity Warriors…lol

Ghotistyx.6942:

I certainly have a few of these.

Burning and Retaliation

Used to be 4016 Condi damage I don’t know what happened to that last little bit, but with full stacks, 3.8k is still impressive.

This build is made for Tome of Wrath (even if Human race). Also take Superior Sigil of Smoldering or run Giver weapons (and then you don’t have to run torch)

Oh, how this would be competitive if Guardian has one/two more cover conditions.

TrOtskY.5927:

rangers ARE pretty much useless in 1v1 against any enemy that has a gap closer. They are much more deadly than before at sitting off points and pew pewing than before, that’s about all they got in terms of buffs. To say they “excel” in 1v1 is just not true at all. They don’t really excel in anything….except pew pew

Thanks for wasting your dodges on Rapid Fire. Now here comes the real pain from Greatsword Maul after I stealth with Hunter’s Shot that you should have dodged too.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

16secs is nothing when you block, dodge and blind

Actually, it’s huge. The Ranger (regardless of the “lengthy” cooldowns – more on that later) has 16s to kill the target while taking virtually -0- damage in return (pet is made mostly useless for damage output but utility is still there). In 16s, you can kill any target that is not actively defending itself for a majority of that time when you are geared for “Glass” Cannon Power (“Glass” is quoted because you are just Cannon Power during your iWin uptime). No class has the equivalent of 16s/Protection boon for more reduced damage.

It’s not per se Longbow and Rapid Fire. It’s the compilation of Longbow Rapid Fire along with Signet of Stone + Protect Me + Dodge/Protection Boon + Evades on melee weapons (and a Signet of Energy and/or Lightning Reflexes too). It’s crazy and it’s not just because of Longbow Rapid Fire. IMO, Rapid Fire is fine compared to the low-skill iWin buttons of SoS and PM chained together.

Now lengthy cooldowns…yeah, see ~60s is not a lengthy cooldown. Warriors have the most comparable utilities (1) Endure Pain at 60s cooldown and (2) Defy Pain a Grandmaster trait at 60s cooldown but uncontrolled (25%). But guess what, Warriors are only 4s in length compared to Ranger’s 6s (a free 4s more!) …but the Warrior has more base health + SoR …well, see Rangers have this wonderful thing called Protection on dodge and Troll Ungent (ergo, 15 point investment for Ranger into Wilderness Survival/Toughness line for Companion’s Defense + 10 in Marksmanship/Power – you know that trait line you are already heavily invested in – versus 30 point investment for Warrior into Defense/Toughness line for Defy Pain).

Do you think that Warriors no damage time is also balanced?

Also, when are people going to start using Rampage as One in their build and realize next to nothing will stop them 1vX for 16s?

Zero Day.2594:

Artaz.3819:

GoogleBrandon.5073:

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

More points per tick for the objectives held by the least covered side? Seems so odd right…

Elaborate…

Side A has 80 players
Side B has 30 players

Side A gets the standard point per tick per objective.
Side B gets the standard point per tick a percentage bonus for being outmanned (like +33% *) per objective.

Ergo, for all things being equal, Side B must hold 75% of Side A for both of them to tick for the same point value per tick.

• Note, rough guess

The problem is that Perfect Inscriptions is how the Signets are balanced compared to cooldown.

1. Perfect Inscriptions should just be removed and every Signet then can have its base cooldown reduced by 15%-20%.

2. Several of the Signets also need to be moved to instant or 1/4 second cast times like other classes (except Signet of Resolve/Signet of Mercy). Signet of Wrath active is the biggest offender.

3. Add to Signet of Mercy’s passive to 25% increased movement speed and make it an Elite?

4. Change Signet of Judgement’s Active to Blind target and/or give Aegis boon to Guardian.

5. Combine Inscribed Removal/Signet Mastery together.

6. Add a Burn (3s) (or Torment???) on Signet use trait to target.

Single shot countered by a highly telegraphed animation such as blind/evade/terrain.

You all are making the assumption that Adrenaline is instant and always available now…there is virtually -0- thought (read: skill floor) to use Rapid Fire on cooldown spam versus the risk of losing Adrenaline pool of Warrior now (on any miss), lose damage bonus, lose health regen, lose counter-condition removal.

Tl;DR It’s a horrible horrible comparison now (it made more sense pre-patch Warrior versus post-patch Ranger). Rapid Fire is easier to use (mobility/multiple projectiles) and spammable on cooldown. Finally, with traits/utilities Rapid Fire actually does more on-demand burst damage

Piercing versus Eagle Eye (both great Ranger talents) is the only downside to Longbow but that’s because of the crazy good GM trait RtW.

Aeolus.3615:

xbutcherx.3861:

Hilarious and now no one talks about warriors…..

wonder what changed , i dont see hambow warriors now.

Warriors don’t exist because of the Adrenaline change gutting the soul of the entire class and turning it into a clunky, slow-paced and boring class. You play a Warrior now if you don’t want to be bothered with using a class mechanic, you don’t want to hit that heal skill, you only use utilities to counter or buff spam (never for offensive/tactical use) and you enjoy slow animation swinging for big numbers.

On topic,

This is the difference. Necro admitted how overpowered Dhuumfire was and it was nerfed shortly thereafter. Mesmers admitted how overpowered PU condition mesmers would become and it was nerfed before it launched.

Rangers continue to defend how Rapid Fire is just perfectly fine and the entire meta needs to adapt. Meanwhile, other hard hitting and burst abilities of other classes have been nerfed time and again.

As a player of 8 80s and all classes, Rangers are not balanced right now. Seriously. Any Ranger counter (block, reflect, evade) is re-countered by the Ranger stowing its weapon and starting over from long range (thank you stealth/immune to movement impairing Trapper Runes and new GS mobility/damage).

Here’s the issue, Range pet AI clunky feeling (it’s been drastically improved from 2 years ago) and was always the counter point to why Rangers were slightly less damaging than other player’s attacks/utility. Well guess what happened in the latest patch. Not only did Rangers get abilities equivalent (read: better because they have range) than any other classes (evades on weapons, more burst, more damage, more buffs – Axe and GS are both awesome now), they also retained 100% of the pet damage/utility. Coupled with that Rangers got a new 10%-15% damage GM trait and invincible for 6s utility…wow! Just that last line would have been crazy good.

Tl;DR It isn’t balanced if building for Ranger long-range burst is the new meta.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

The thing is, how will you balance WvWvW?

More points per tick for the objectives held by the least covered side? Seems so odd right…

LordByron.8369:

So FGS mobility skills are now affected by mobility imparing condition but NOT by swiftness.

While warrior GS3-5 and sw2 were untouched.

Not sure I understand, Warriors GS 3 and GS5 are already and have been since Beta been affected by cripple/chill/immobilize. That’s actually a primary reason why Warriors were given more movement condition reduction traits (i.e. Dogged March).

Mobile Strikes trait has always existed but is really really bad/outdated and no Warrior takes this trait in any build anymore.

TL;DR Warrior skills were untouched because they have always acted in the ‘nerfed-version’ Elementalists got this last patch.

Tspatula.9086:

Well, right now people have a lot of badges… soon enough their stockpile will start to dwindle, which is probably the intent, then people will think twice about disabling siege…

Badges will never run low. It’s the cost of silver which is still next to nothing.

IMO though, it’s basically a legal “trolling” method since there is basically no way for a zerg to prevent the grenade. The grenade needs be a bomb (0 range) and small radius.

Siege built with multiple people (3+) don’t count towards exhaustion.

Add a player portrait option right click, ignore functionality to players to not see/not build those ignored players dropped bundles.

Add “this siege is owned by” description tag and state the player name that dropped the siege on the non-fully built siege placement (if you do nothing else, add this ASAP).

We also need to consider that traps (which also consumes supply) also need to be part of the siege trolling/exhaustion discussion.

IMO, 3 minutes to fully remove exhaustion is not long enough.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

the new combat style that is not Melee meta, times are changing.

Exactly. Any playstyle revolved around melee with little avoidance (besides dodging) is dying/dead (poor Warriors). Gap closers have been repeatedly nerfed (longer cooldowns, lower distance travelled) or have never had their bugs fixed (hello Warriors). Although Mesmers (also significantly buffed this last patch) had the Illusionary Leap “fixed” (really just another teleport). Even Thief evade was significantly nerfed in the patch (evade focused/black powder blind spam).

With one exception, Ranger Greatsword Swoop got a nice 1/2s evade… And Ranger has had fixed Sword/Dagger evades for quite a while now. The not-so-odd part now is if you want to have a playstyle of melee, you should also be playing a Ranger.

The meta will adapt, the screams will still be stated that Rangers got too much and you know what, the players already know it … nearly everyone has tried the new Ranger (or is playing a class with significant stealth/teleport/block/reflection/evade uptime to counter … guess that class that is).

Glicko remains the first problem. Historic ranking does not mean a thing when massive player movement changes occur before the season (and even during).

Coverage still wins over everything else because winning is based on PPT. There are no bonuses for the underdogs/low population sides to score and catch up.

Forget glicko in this small sample size – it’s broke. Servers should be matched on the preceeding 2 weeks of server queue times/volume of queue. Weigh it more if one server has a queue when the other two opponents do not. Done.

Lastly, no week-in week-out WvWer cares not one iota about the rewards for the season. Remove them or add them for every week (what is the harm of WvW skins available all year long?)

You want people to care and participate in WvW seasons … change the rules. Change the landscape. Change the scoring system. Change it is no longer server based/you are assigned a team. Pair servers against other paired servers.

Win.

This is not new, it’s actually really old.

Minimum 0/4/3/0/3 (Forceful GS, Adrenaline Health, Fast Hands)

There are many iterations of it with the trait selection and choices. I highly recommend nubbing it up with Signets/Berserker’s Stance and maximizing damage output with passive play (0/5/3/0/6 with Heightened Focus and Knight/Berserkers – it works pretty good but it’s got anti-condition issues (besides SoS) so go Dogged March and Lemongrass).

Longbow is only there for anti-kiting/ranged AoE damage. Combustion Shot/Arcing Shot nerfs really hurt this build so its kind of meh.

McFribble.2349:

Sebrent.3625:

It’s not a perfect comparison, but you do gain adrenaline from hitting AND being hit. I’d love to get Illusions when you hit me … but I’ll settle for on-dodge when I have that spec’d.

I’m all for discussions on how fast adrenaline should increase / decrease with/without various traits, utilities, etc..

I’m tired of people saying that adrenaline is broken due to operating very closely to another mechanic that’s been in game unchanged for quite some time.

If someone wants to run the numbers on time to get 1 bar of adrenaline and time to lose 1 bar … please go for it and let’s discuss.

Otherwise, “things changed and I don’t like it” is getting tiresome.

Similarly, Warriors only get Adrenaline from being hit when traited for it. We also don’t get a full bar of adrenaline for using a single skill, regardless if we actually hit your target or not. We don’t get the choice of 4 burst skills at any time regardless of our weapon equipped. And we sure as kitten can’t turn invisible, feint our position, or turn someone into a usless bird for 10 seconds either. So I really don’t know why you tried comparing the two ability at face value in thee first place.

All I am saying is comparing Mesmer Shatters with Warrior Bursts is like comparing a truck to a car. They’re both vehicles, but by no means are they the same thing.

Bolded important parts.

Also, no Adrenaline is gained if the target is missed (block/blinded/evade/etc.) I see this myth floating around too.

Adrenaline is actually very difficult to generate quickly unless built for it specifically as weapon swings (cast-time + after-cast) are much slower in general on Warriors compared to other classes and not all attacks (F1s) generate Adrenaline Strikes when they do connect.

How big was ANet’s user test group of the NPE ? How many iterations did you run over the last year with new/returning players with all of the NPE changes ?

I’m generally curious since this may actually be the root cause (a small sample size of feedback users and/or quality of responses). Even Lo Presti mentions (in her post here) that the results were not what she expected either.

Nick.6972:

Why did it take two days to clarify that there are "bugs’ in this new system?

What’s even worse is when major media outlets (PC Gamer) are picking up on the story and spreading the news about the player reactions…

Where is your marketing/PR department? You do realize we live in the world of the internet and anything 24+ hours old without a response of at least “oops, it’s broke” is a major and massive shortfall.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

I prefer being the underdog.

There is a big difference between being the underdog and being treated as the dog.

When every Warrior is using a build focused around Adrenaline traits (Cleansing Ire, Burst Mastery, Furious, Sharpened Axes) or completely trying to avoid it (Berserker’s Might, Adrenaline Health, Heightened Focus) or some combination thereof to compensate (and every build running Berserker’s Stance), you have a HUGE problem with the class mechanic.

Having the fundamental core of the Warrior class (Adrenaline) changed after 2 years is easily the largest ill-conceived change to any class in the last year. In order to fix this, ANet needs to provide Adrenaline strikes at double the amount, add Adrenaline gained while in combat baseline (i.e. give all Warriors Berserker’s Might baseline), and/or make attacks hitting the Warrior generate Adrenaline baseline (not just with Cleansing Ire).

It’s THAT bad. The clunky/slow animation flow/lack of abilities going off of the Warrior combat feels ten times worse now.

The issue with the Sept 9th feature pack is the new zones/brand new character changes are far more detrimental to the game’s longevity and those need to be addressed first. By the time Warrior is addressed, no one will be left to critique it.

TL;DR – I can’t blame the OP; if my only 80 class was Warrior, I would be doing the same right now (coupled with the new zone Sept 9th changes).

It was broken OP before …

In PvE you could use black powder spam and facetank/autoattack melee mobs of elite or below (or ranged mobs standing right next to them).

In stomping, it was a guaranteed stomp as long as you weren’t range interrupted.

It’s not like ANet took out stealth stomps though (which are arguably worse from a balance perspective).

100% speed means that you have normal swiftness speed (25% in combat) despite being effected by cripple or chill. This means you are not kitable during the duration of the speed boost and will stay on target/away from target.

You don’t need to use these trappers runes and Flame/Spike traps (which reveals you) build or even a heavy condition damage focused build. Some condition duration though is still recommended …

Dodging, Blocking, Blinding, etc. did not save the nerf to Eviscerate or even 100B.

The difference between Eviscerate and Rapid Fire is Rapid Fire is spread over 10 shots so blinding the attacker only reduces damage by 10% but 90% of the damage is still delivered and again, Rapid Fire is done at 1200-1500 range.

The difference between 100B and Rapid Fire is it roots the Warrior for the entirety of the duration.

Now you say, well, Warriors have hard CC to lock the target down for the big punch. Well, Rangers have Stealth (at range) and a knockback at range (which is more than half the time of the target to recover from) AND you can’t predict what is hitting you and when. It’s no different than a thief Backstab but can be done from 1200 range.

That’s not balanced. Not balanced at all. It’s so OP.

The problem is ANet reduced the cast time on Rapid Fire for the same damage.

Grok Krog.9581:

Wonder if it’ll still be worth it to bring Warrior into a dungeon after this

Yes, if you miss an Adrenaline burst against a PvE mob you have serious issues not related to the game or simply have no idea regarding the mechanics of a boss.

Hambow or the not-so-new “Greatbow”

You know why Eles and Engineers are better at mid support? Count the number of blast finishers available in any weapon set/toolkit set and count the water combo fields that can be generated. Now compare that to the Guardian class…

That’s the magical formula.

Guardians have light fields and an occasional fire field (Guardians just need to have variability in combo fields and it fixes the problem).

He who brings a hammer, wins most often.

The power of WvW warrior roaming shifts further to GS/Hammer after the update. It already works very well in zerg v zerg (front line). However, classic Hambow works better if massive mobility is not required (havoc).

Don’t underestimate the Signet of Rage nerf as well. It’s basically a go use Banner elite signal.

Harbinger.8637:

Ynna.8769:

Harbinger.8637:

Just make it usable while moving, just like they did with Line of Warding.

Ring of Warding is significantly more powerful than Line of Warding, as it allows actually trapping other players. (Plus it’s on a better weapon, which is also an upside.) It needs to have a drawback.

You can easily trap players if you place your line correctly. The ring already has a number of drawbacks: high CD time, clunky animation, useless against stab and invulnerability skills.

People always complain about guard not having enough soft CCs, this is one small QoL change that would help alleviate this issue.

Also Line of Warding has a 1,200 range. That in an of itself is the balance between Hammer 5 and Staff 5.

I equate Guardian 5 hammer Ring of Warding to Warrior 4 hammer Staggering Blow.

Pre-Warrior Hammer update, Staggering Blow was virtually useless unless you CC’d/immobilized the target first. Then ANet changed Staggering Blow to be used while the Warrior is moving.

It’s the same clunky feeling with Guardian hammer 5 Ring of Warding as the old Warrior hammer 4 Staggering Blow. It’s a relatively long cast and long aftercast and roots you to the ground in order for it to go off. As a Guardian, you need to CC/immobilize the target first (just like the Warrior) or use Judge’s Intervention to circumvent the clunky root and cast time.

process execution.8014:

ANet should really take the stun break off JI and put it on MI. That would really make skill selection an interesting decision for Guardians which hasn’t happened for a long time.

The problem with that is it would be an overall nerf since the cooldown for MI is greater than JI.

IMO, MI needs to have it’s cooldown brought in line somewhere between JI and Smite Condition cooldowns especially if there is no stun break since there is the requirement of needing to target an ally. If it was given stun break, the cooldown is probably right where it should be but I still don’t imagine many taking over Contemplation of Purity – it’s just too good in the heavy condition pressure meta.

See Blink and see Lightning Flash. Changing MI to be more like Lightning Flash in that it does not break stun but being able to be used while stunned might be the more logical if the target requirement was dropped.

xbutcherx.3861:

Artaz.3819:

TL;DR version

Warriors in sPvP are fine – some things were changed but nothing overly major.

Warriors will continue to be easy to play, easy to learn, and extremely one-sided in PvE. Warriors take a few lumps but overall will feel similar.

However, Warriors will get there balls ripped off and handed to them in WvW. G’luck with the new adrenaline mechanic. Bend over, adapt heavily and still be underpowered or reroll.

My Warrior is going into semi-retirement. Guardian and Mesmer, here I come!

Do you even play your warrior? You think this nerf will change anything? mm.. nope, it won’t for good players at least, on the other hand new players are going to be struggling to adapt to the new changes.

2000+ hours on Warrior and covered 100% of the game play types but most of it played in WvW (half zergin’/havoc and the other half roaming). I now only play my Warrior in sPvP or for the general LS updates since it’s the only character I have with full map completion/legendary – the real one and not the skin/full story completion/all dungeons/fractals/blah blah blah.

“Good” players can’t avoid a blind or an evade or an interrupt controlled by the opponent (all instant or near instant). In those cases, your Warrior just spent 100% of your Adrenaline bar for no effect.

No worries, you’ll see.

Now let’s hear your credentials and this will not significantly change the fundamental mechanical portion of any Warrior build.

If you can self-target MI for the heal or use while stunned still (like Mesmer’s Phase Retreat), I think it still has merit.

As others have said, the problem is that it is not a stun breaker as well.

Another option is to lower the cooldown (and the healing component as well) since it is more about its use of mobility/positioning when part of Meditation builds.

TL;DR version

Warriors in sPvP are fine – some things were changed but nothing overly major.

Warriors will continue to be easy to play, easy to learn, and extremely one-sided in PvE. Warriors take a few lumps but overall will feel similar.

However, Warriors will get there balls ripped off and handed to them in WvW. G’luck with the new adrenaline mechanic. Bend over, adapt heavily and still be underpowered or reroll.

My Warrior is going into semi-retirement. Guardian and Mesmer, here I come!

Blaeys.3102:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Thread explosion! Thanks for all the (rapid) responses. There seems to be a fairly consistent feeling that yes, these fights can be more engaging without becoming as difficult as the jungle wurm.

I like some of the ideas being presented, feel free to keep the discussion going. It’s also helpful to hear not only what’s working but why it’s working for you.

On the topic of using siege weapons as a role mechanic in these fights, is that something we want to see more of? I often worry that siege weapons can be just as boring as standing in the safe corner pressing the same attack. Do you feel that they can also cause some contention between players?

I think there is a good compromise on that as well – environmental weapons. Instead of requiring the use of stationary guns, give us a barrel of weapons we can move around with that have a positive impact on the fight (but arent the sole mechanic).

For example, on the shatterer, place a barrel of “grappling guns” near the boss. When it is about to fly up for its immunity phase, if enough players (depending on scale) chain it down, it doesnt fly up and takes extra damage. To compensate, cause it to encase every player in a 1500 radius in crystal prisons if it is allowed to fly up.

Just an example.

Or set up traps when it does come down again so it receives extra damage (damage amplified the more the traps are spread out). The biggest issue with any of the “easy” boss fights is the safe-zone auto attack where movement should be required.

Torment on scepter auto attack

Korusef.3714:

Everybody knows you only ever backstab with Balista.

Is that before or after you steal the local bar patrons pants?

The problem is that it competes with far better utilities that do it better. And more importantly, the reliability of an occasional opponent having good boons and then timing/reacting to it correctly is what really impairs the new incarnation of Mimic. It’s not like you are ripping those boons from the opponent at the same time (which would be far more useful (necro corrupt boon does similar but with offensive intentions at a 40s cooldown afterall)). Although this is still way too much like Arcane Thievery.

Another (better) idea is Mimic should be focused on you – say doubling the applied number of boons and/or double the durations (depending on boon) of the boons you already have on you (even adding a stun break to it). Now that would be useful with a 30s cooldown worthy of the last utility slot. … and it fixes a quality of life, perma-Swiftness boon (if built for it) Mesmer issue.

Cygnus.6903:

I believe there is a difference between tanky and being able to sustain oneself. Like I said, a good thief is still very hard to beat because of their cheesy mechanics (teleports, evades and stealth). But if I manage a single chain (3 attacks) on my hammer warrior, it is a guarantueed kill (2900 power without might and sigil of intelligence hurts). Hell, a single well timed whirlwind can take out half their HP.

So on one side of the coin, stealth, evade teleport is cheesy. And on the other you can take half their HP with 1/4s activated ability. Which side are you arguing for?

By the way, I know the latter is false and an exaggeration (1/2 HP with one Hammer Whirlwind). If a thief that take 3 blows from a hammer autoattack chain (2.75s) in sequence, that thief wouldn’t beat you anyway with any class. If the thief is ‘taking it’, it’s because they are hitting you for significantly more (i.e. from Whirling Axe) or because they can’t avoid it (CC/stun/immobilize).

IE was good enough to put into staff builds before this change. While it was a needed bug fix for staff clones, the incremental power creep from this trait is pretty massive (based on the newer bounce to target AI logic).

But just like the Scepter changes, it’s a wait and see … who knows what other changes ANet may announce for other classes/mechanic changes.

Cygnus.6903:

Look at thieves. They were a plague in WvW. Now, if you so much as look at them, they die.

You can’t look at what can’t be seen. The “skilled” thieves simply stealth and burst attack when needed. A few use position bouncing (sword/dagger/steal/shadow step) but that will likely be gutted depending on the final play of the next ANet change.

You haven’t played a thief recently. They are actually very tanky if you run Shadow Arts (much like Warrior and Defense line). If you get hit, you reposition, cure your conditions and heal back up while invisible.

But yes, Warrior whining will never end because Warrior players take such offense from the forum trollz.

Adrenaline changes are a massive change to Warrior class mechanic and to state anything otherwise is lying to oneself. ANet nudging some traits/utilities to provide more (and even less in the case of Berserker’s Stance) Adrenaline gain at the same time as this sweeping change to compensate shows that you have a class mechanic that is seriously broken. Seriously seriously broken.

For example, when Thief initiative mechanic was nerfed (“balanced”) into the ground and back, what did ANet do? Because the Thief initiative class mechanic basically relied on taking specific traits and utilities to maximize performance, ANet increased the base initiative regen and nerfed the utilities to diversify builds.

In Warrior’s case, they nerfed (penalized) Warriors Adrenaline gains (even the best Warriors can’t avoid blind spam/Aegis so losing all your Adrenaline for no impact will be very common) and now Warriors will “need to” take specific traits and specific utilities as well. Guess what the next step is going to be when 90% of Warriors will have the same 3-4 traits/utilities to compensate? ANet probably already has it on the “balance” roadmap.

In the meantime, do what the Thief players did (besides whine about it) and reroll to the new FotM – at that time, it was Mesmer/Elementalist — you all should be rerolling to Ranger/Engineer

^^^ Its Regeneration Boon or Adrenaline Health since it has exact timing between 3 ticks of Healing Signet

Diba.4682:

I am not so worried about 100B being nerfed as much as 100B being useless (especially in pvp). I honestly think the skill needs to change much more than just a 5% dps nerf.

Concerning the changes with the burst skills adren. I think it is a good change. If it somehow gives the warrior a disadvantage, I think that just means other areas of the warrior should be changed and not this feature. Mainly because it will make a few traits more viable and require more skill to play a warrior. A concern is it may start to form cookie-cutter builds which will not be fun, but we will see if that is true.

If ANet makes the damage worthless, they can replace it with something more mobile and Warriors will forget what 100B was in its glory day.

Honestly though, you are right that GS Autoattack spam will be within a few %s in DPS of 100B now (because of 8s base vuln stacking on GS 1).

Orangensaft.7139:

Artaz.3819:

5-6 tags of different colors.

Blue costs 100 gold
Yellow costs 5000 WvW badges
Green costs 1000 dungeon tokens or 1000 fractal relics
Red costs 300 gold and must be rank 30 PvP
Purple costs 800 gems
Orange costs 2 million karma
etc.

Everyone wins, more fun and encourages cross-game type play (yes, gem store too).

We haven’t even gotten to “guild” tags (a shield with your guild logo) that would cost guild influence for one use.

think this would be a great idea

to have some wvw specific commandertag that needs
5000 wvw tokens & wvw rank 250+

Good point – I’m rank 620?+ and I have no idea if the 5000 WvW tokens is the right mark (but it “feels” about right).

I would want a player commander that has sufficiently experienced that level of the game without being completely unreasonable in the amount of time/effort required to acquire that specific colored tag.

After all, this is a personal vanity improvement that helps the game community at large.