Guild Wars 2

mistsim.2748:

I guess im just hoping ANet gives warriors some more build variety. their only build shouldn’t revolve around an elite, which it does.

This I agree with. I’m trying to be constructive about it here.

I’ve still yet to see a Ranger that can reliably deal with the CC Warrior puts out in a team fight. In a 1v1, sure a decent Ranger can kite a GS/Hammer Warrior, but on a point fight there’s generally not enough room for that.

When I see a Ranger, I’m going to use a weak CC to force Shared Anguish, then I’m going to use a low Adren Earthshaker to force Lightning Reflexes (generally have Sigil of Hydromancy to make that easy). After that, it’s Open season. Once I start CCing I’ll pop Stability to avoid Taunt and it’s generally either a dead Ranger or a fleeing Ranger.

If i get focused on a Warrior, I have 2 skills that reduce all power damage to 0, a trait that makes me immune to condis, and 1-2 sources of Stability. I’m a good stomper while under pressure.

I disagree. I feel like his changes generally moved both classes in the direction that few players who played those classes actually wanted.

For Mesmer:

• Added Blinding Dissipation, a trait that is unavoidable and further blurs the line between Mesmer and Thief.

• Buffed PU, once again blurring the line between Mes and Thief. Mes used to be all about shorter duration stealths so that you can set up some of a spike, not camping in stealth so that you can set up a full spike before the enemy player even sees you.

• Made a once GM that could have been good as 100% stun on daze, did that, and then made it a ADEPT TRAIT! Now landing spikes are even easier than just beyond using stealth stacking.

• Builds in general just feel like slightly different flavors of the same thing when it comes to power.

For Necro:

• Rather than making it the attrition class that it was in GW1, it is now a class that doesn’t actually have good condi application unless the enemy has good application.

A passive that just transfers condis for you? How fun and engaging! /s

• MM is still basically about using your weapon skills while your braindead minions help you passively sustain yourself. Also, even while strong 1v1 to those who don’t know how to fight them, any class with decent AoE/cleave can just rush into them and group them together, kill them, then avoid the AoE they leave behind. Especially easy to do as a GS Warrior with double EP.

I have a guildy who uses it and they seem to only use it out of GW1 nostalgia.

• Few of the long standing issues the class has had where actually addressed. head over to the Necro forum where these issues can be discussed by players that main it.

So no, I don’t think Mr. Gee’s work on this update was that great. For Mesmer, there was some good ideas, but too many took the skill away from the class and instead just made it a better version of a Thief.

While I generally am on the side of buffs over nerfs, in GW2’s case bring everyone up to Mesmer level would make the game just about who has their burst off CD and can hit it faster.

nicknamenick.2437:

If you swap Merciless to master then pls swap Brawler back to GM…
I dont want to choose between Merciless and Brawler, not all builds need Burst mastery you know (only hambow really needs it.. so swap hammer to master, brawler to GM.. all happy)

While I see where you’re coming from, moving BR to GM would hurt more builds than it helps. Hambow doesn’t really need BR because of the use of LB + CI. You know the main reason we’re probably seeing GS/Hammer? It’s probably because Berserker’s power is still bugged with LB.

This move would make both Hambow and hopefully some sort of Shouts/Banner build both viable AND balanced. Yes, it might hurt GS/Hammer, but in exchange we get 2 builds and GS/Hammer will still be fine for WvW. In addition, the Meta GS/Hammer build doesn’t use MH atm anyways, it uses heightened Focus. BR in it’s current spot is also still good for Mace/Shield builds. We would be getting 2 viable builds, a unchanged build that was already decent, and a only slightly nerfed version of the current “meta.”

runeblade.7514:

Rifle- I want this to be buffed to 1500 range.

I think this would step on Ranger’s toes too much. Ranger LB is supposed to be the long range sniper weapon. Rifle seems more designed for mid-long range combat.

mistsim.2748:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Wait till someone goes down, pop Rampage and just wail on the revivers. .

but good players don’t try to rez someone without popping their invulns and paying attention to the rampage. you see Rampage warriors wiping teams when going up against bad soloq’ers. and as I said, outside of rampage, what does a zerker warrior do except fight to stay alive? again, much more difficult against skilled players.

Forcing them to use those countermeasures is an important role of Rampage. Without that pressure, they don’t always have to actually use those skills from just normal cleave. Even against good teams, Rampage can be effective. Also, if nothing else it forces the team to target the Warrior or at least play around them. If you have a bunker/support player on your team they can take care of the pressure the War will receive.

I’m not saying that Rampage can’t easily be countered, by what does Ranger bring in terms of Elites? Rampage as One is just OK, and Entangle is good but still doesn’t have the potential team crushing power.

Also, what does Ranger do besides fight and stay alive? Against quite a few classes, it’s not even great at that staying alive part. A good War being one of those classes. PvP is generally about fighting on point, and War does that better currently imo.

NinjaEd.3946:

I actually like how rifle is on warrior. My biggest inspiration was getting killed by them time to time and going to spectate to see how they funded such a build and to my surprise, it is quite good.

The auto attack most certainly is not weak, and it isn’t meant for heavy damage anyways. Put on the arms trait line for the vuln on crit and that alone guarantees extra adrenaline gain. Aimed shot helps keep them away, volley is where your real damage comes in since if you pick rifle, you have crack shot which makes that 5-7k every 8 seconds, brutal shot doesn’t need anything it already applies 8 kitten stacks of vulnerability, and rifle butt is flat out awesome since it is so hard to miss with it and it cleaves. As for landing kill shot, well for being the highest single hitting skill in the game it is fine, there are ways to ensure it lands anyways.

As for the rest of the post, I really wish Heightened Focus never saw the light of day. That trait is a huge cripple for warrior build diversity, pretty much everyone flocks to some sort of cc followed by GS and this trait. They really should up the ICD on it to a reasonable amount like 30 seconds.

At it’s roots though it is still only really strong in some 1v1 situations where the Warrior can afford to repeatedly kite you. In a actual PvP match, kiting around isn’t that useful. It’s the same problem that LB Rangers have where, yes, they have strong off point power but are also fairly weak once you get in their face. My changes would make it so that you can use Aimed Shot to interrupt key skills while at close range so with that + Rifle Butt you would be able to use it on point more effectively. That synergy with the Arms line was why I suggested vuln on the AA, you could be procing a ton of vuln to make Volly even stronger.

As it stands, i would much rather have a GS/Hammer Warrior that is on point the whole fight and constantly CCing/cleaving than a Warrior sitting to the side trying to avoid anyone being near them.

UBcktieDL.5318:

don’t forget to bring an viable alternative to peak performance into strenght adept tier. and buff some defenses, so we don’t need to use double endure pain.

Yah, I was thinking about moving Crack Shot to the Adept Strength line…but I don’t think ANet wants 3 weapon traits in one line. Also, in a Rifle build I might want some Physical skills which give me evade/mobility so that I could maybe skip the Defense line. Restorative Strength is such a strange change they made, even if Mending was buffed you wouldn’t take it and all our other heals have too long of a CD to use it effectively. I feel like we could do with another Adrenaline gain focused trait there.

Maybe a new trait where interrupts grant Might and Adrenaline? That would synergize with some builds. Basically a Warrior version of Chaotic/ Bountiful Interruptions. It would also allow even power builds to run Body Blow/Distracting Strikes and still gain plenty of damage from the conditions. It could make Hambow a lot more skillful.

Power Ranger has generally very poor on point sustain. Sure, you can pew-pew off point but there are going to be times when you need to be on point to stop a stomp/deny a cap. Warrior isn’t great, but so long as you have double Endure Pain you can be decent on point. Warriors also have more access to Stability than Rangers.

Also, if used right Rampage can still destroy an entire team if used at the right time, predictable or not. Wait till someone goes down, pop Rampage and just wail on the revivers. Even with stability and all the damage mitigation, you’re going to at least put that reviver at half health and force them to use all their contermeasures against you, making finishing them off much easier.

I almost forgot something!

The Rifle: Oh Rifle, it’s so close to being good, but isn’t. There’s a couple issues with it:

• The Auto Attack is weak. It wasn’t that good when it had bleed on it, but it’s better than it is now. Just upping the damage would be boring, so maybe giving the AA vulnerability? That would give it synergy with GS and its own Brutal shot. Or, bring back the bleed as it would also synergize with Body Blow because of the bellow idea.

• Aimed Shot seems very weak and just…boring. As some of you know, I love interrupt focused builds. making Aimed shot a Daze would give Rifle a light CC role and more synergy with Body Blow and Distracting Strikes. If this happened, bringing back the bleed might actually be a good idea as well. I could see a hybrid Rifle + Sword build being a possibility.

• Crack shot is in a poor spot. Sadly, nothing that competes with Warrior’s Sprint has much of a chance to be taken. If rifle gets bleed back on its AA, then it could go back to a minor Arms trait. Maybe move Berserker’s Fury? If the Devs were to go the pure power route though, there’s not much to be done. You CAN do both without Crack Shot and without Warriors Sprint IF you focus on the ranged part of the build.

Current rifle is actually capable of beating certain builds fairly easily, but its weaknesses keep it from being more than an occasional duel weapon. As much as the hybrid concept seems decent, I think Bow already covers that role and many of us would rather it just be a pure power weapon.

Before anyone says anything, yes, this is similar to my last post. However, this post is going to be a lot more specific this time around. I’m posting this here because I’m focusing on build variety for PvP (with a side of WvW). Also, we see more Dev presence here than in class forums.

Warrior has always been a class that has a lot of cool potential builds, but more often than not you’ll end up back on a build that uses double Endure Pain. In this post I’m going to focus on what I think needs to be changed/adjusted in order to make different kinds of builds viable.

Reviving Hambow: This one is the simplest change to make. Merciless Hammer being a GM trait means it directly competes with Burst Mastery. This means that the synergy between using a full Combustive Shot and swapping to Hammer to use a 1-2 bar Earthshaker is much more clunky to time. The Might that you give to your team fighting on point and the AoE CC is what makes the weapon set good.

Moving Merciless Hammer to Master tier and buffing Inspiring Battle Standard and making it a GM would hopefully make Hambow viable (good synergy with Body Blow too) in addition to opening another build option…

Shoutbow/Support: While Shoutbow was a very easy to play and boring build for most, it was undeniably a good build. With all the other changes with the Specialization, especially with all the increased damage, nerfing the build to the extent they did was overkill. Shouts need to be brought back to around where they used to be, hopefully that will make them still slightly weaker than before, but still strong.

A buff/move of Inspiring Battle Standard would allow for a 2 (3 with To The Limit!) and a Banner. To make it viable I think Inspiring Battle Standard needs its CD reduction back, and have it increase the radius of the Banners. In a perfect world I’d like to see the ability to wear Banners on your back and pressing the skill again lets you wield it like you currently do, basically like a support-focused version of Engi kits. If not though, the first 2 buffs are more than enough to maybe make it worthwhile for a support build.

The Physical Warrior: The problem with Physical skills has always been the lack of utility they provide. It’s also very easy to avoid/mitigate the skills as well. Fixing this is tricky.

One possibility it making Physical skills Evade when traited. This helps skills like Bull’s Charge and especially Stomp. Also, Mending should be made a Physical skill.

I think Stomp could also do with being a ground targeted leap (if it could somehow work like Blink/Lightning Flash only with the War jumping would be amazing) because currently if you see the War activate it you can just walk back and be safe.

I don’t expect 3 Physical Skills War to be a thing, but being able to slot 2 and not be by default worse than a double EP war would be great.

Condi War: This one is really tricky. There’s a ton of removal now and the only reason Burn builds are working is because they only have to tic a few times for it to be damaging. Warrior condi is generally bleed based and needs a high number of stacks to be damaging or to tic for a while.

One trait that seems cool but is currently lackluster is Powerful Synergy. Maybe instead of just doubling the duration, it should double the effectiveness as well. That means 2 stacks of burning and Might. The burn wouldn’t be as good as Guard or Ele, but it would at least help.

Honestly, I think pure condi on a War isn’t going to be a good choice. That being said, a hybrid using Carrion, Rampager’s, or Cele could work. It would be nice to get a hybrid set that is more focused than Cele but still has some defensive stats like Marauder.

I would like to see every class have more build variety, but other classes have more complex problems. Most of Warrior’s problems come down to a trait or too.

Apolo.5942:

Today you have only 1 build: Double endure pain+rampage. Thats it, everything else is just decoration on those 2 things, you remove them and the warrior is useless.

Sad, but true. I’ve been trying a lot of different builds, and while so are fun and have their uses (this right here can easily be kited but with proper support Eles just die once they use their Armor of Earth and Lightning Flash), they still don’t have the utility that GS/Hammer or Skullcracker (which is basically the same build if I’m honest) brings with double EP.

I would honestly be happy if they brought back Hambow (just make Merciless Hammer a Master and buff Inspiring Banners and make it GM) and even Shoutbow. I’m at the point where I don’t care how “skillful” a build is, just so long as it’s viable. There’s some fun gimmick builds to be had, but I’m in a small minority that actually enjoys playing them (like Weakness and Distracting Strikes builds).

The Arms line LOOKS good, but condi builds just aren’t viable. Same with Tactis traits like Powerful Synergy. It’s a cool concept but double duration isn’t that impressive. Make the finishers twice as effective (2 stacks of burn and 2 might when hit with fire shield) and MAYBE our condi builds would be worthwhile. Actually no, they wouldn’t. The second you start fighting a Necro they’ll just passively send all your condis back to you.

silentnight warrior.2714:

jportell.2197:

ronpierce.2760:

Thieves make sense with it (in some areas maybe too much bit overall, it’s in the right place).

Mesmer’s should NOT have blinds, really at all… Their whole game is confusing the enemies and dropping target and making clones, adding blind on top of that is both silly and doesn’t really fit the class.

Guardians deal with flashing lights, makes sense to have a few blinds. Could be toned down since they’re also the blockiest of blockies.

Elementalist really shouldn’t have many blinds. Blinding Ashes should hhave been a 10 sec ICD per target and add a little more offensive flavor to it.

That’s my feels on this whole situation. Thanks for listening friends.

Okay if mesmers shouldn’t have blinds that means that any of our traits dealing with blinds need removed. However I also propose that:

Engis, Warriors, and Thieves should not get confusion in any skill or trait at all.
And warriors and thieves should not have torment, at all. I mean if we are being fair on which classes should and shouldn’t have things.
Thanks for listening.

It makes perfect sense for warrior to have confusion on their traits, expecially on interrupt traits using stuns and dazes.
But anyway those traits are not viable in any warrior build because it require interrupt someone with telegraphed skills, making it harder to stack confusion. Besides the stuns and dazes already take away some damage confusion would make in that time. On top of that CC weapons are weak condition dealers.

Brah, my Distracting Strikes build is totally viable (Rampager Ammy varient in testing)!

But seriously, War having Confusion is far from a problem imo, especially since you have to land interrupts. It’s a totally different playstyle than just stunlocking, you gotta space your CC out so that the Confusion is actually useful.

P.S. Can Stomp become Warrior’s version of Blink only you just jump really high..please?

Exciton.8942:

Why should rampage be nerf’ed? I really like zerker warrior being viable in the meta, essentially competing with mesmers and medi guards.

I am fine with certain classes not in the meta, aka ranger. That class is too poorly designed. The pet mechanics needs an overhaul.

Just need some balance tweaks and bug fixes and I can see a much more exciting meta compared to the previous shoutbow meta which I hate so much.

It’s not about it just possibly being nerfed, it’s also about players wising up and learning to just bring Moa or how to counter it in general. Once its effectiveness is marginalized, what does War bring to the table that another class doesn’t do better?

In the past, Hambow brought CC and AoE Might. Shoutbow brought a ton of cleanse/might/decent damage. What does Hammer/GS bring? OK mobility and damage with CC sure, but what about what it does for the team? Mesmer/Teef does better in terms of mobility/damage and they also bring AoE stealth, portals, boon stripping, etc. Same with Guardian, I can make a MediGuard with good damage AND team support.

Currently, most meta builds bring something to the team in terms of support. With weak Shouts, War has lost that support except for Battle Standard. Heck, I played as a Trap Ranger last night and I brought good team support in the form of Healing Spring and the trait that activates “Search and Rescue” when I revive.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I was planning on possibly swapping over to Mesmer main if this patch worked out well…but it worked out too well. It used to be that if you were a good Mesmer you could destroy all but the best teef players. Yes, being hardcountered can suck, but it wasn’t like they were being destroyed by every class or anything.

I played just one evening as Mesmer post patch, that was all it took for me to lose interest in playing it. Even when playing sloppy I was still effective. I was moderately competent before, but that night I felt like a god. The appeal is gone for me, I felt rewarded when i did well as a Mesmer before, now I feel like the kills are being handed to me.

So why not strive for even more success?
Are you on Helseth’s level yet?

If it’s so easy, why not try for a higher tier of play?

Why do so many people come in here complaining about how easy it is, when there’s clearly plenty of room between them and the upper tiers??

Why bother? I have no desire to play this game competitively when that level of play is so poorly supported.

I have and will continue to play to make fun builds. I love gimmicks or out there builds. Warrior offers a lot of options for that. Mesmer on the other hand…the way they’ve done traits there’s not much room for experimentation. I’d much rather master and be good on a so-so class (which Warrior is once people learn to counter Rampage) than master a class that is a victim of power creep.

Sooo…the thread is kinda confusing now cause my sig is different. At the time I had a semi-decent Burn guard build in my sig. It didn’t use torch and instead relied on Burn duration and Burn on block and Purging Flames + Whirls.

The problem with it was, in an actual game with Shoutbow Wars and D/D Eles there was so much removal that the burn rarely got to do all of its damage. Now, you can stack enough burning that just 2-3 ticks do a huge amount of damage. That’s the important distinction. Both my and False’s more well known Condi Guard needed time for the burn to hurt.

Happicakes.2054:

Cynz.9437:

Mogar.9216:

Cynz.9437:

Ok, amuse me: most common mesmer build atm runs confounding suggestion with mantra of distraction. How do you counter that on a class that has no stability while mes is in stealth. I am all ear.

Stun breaker + withdraw pretty much negates any mesmer who burst you from stealth. If you are using shadow step or Roll for init 1 skill does it.

that is the thing it doesn’t

i broke 1st stun countless times and still couldn’t activate withdraw because even though it doesn’t state it, it does have miniscule cast time (hence why you can’t use it while stunned)… with the stun spam, gl getting it off

besides why would i use withdraw if i am still at full HP?

Happicakes.2054:

Cynz.9437:

Ok, amuse me: most common mesmer build atm runs confounding suggestion with mantra of distraction. How do you counter that on a class that has no stability while mes is in stealth. I am all ear.

The stun is a big tell in stealth. When stunned, use a stun break and dodge/channeled invulnerability/channeled block.

Edit: I see Morgar got there first.

stun has big tell in stealth? what?

i don’t have invul nor block~

dodge doesn’t save me from getting blinded and reducing my chances to counter mes

If you are getting stunned when a mes is in stealth, that means the burst is coming hot on its heels. Use a stunbreak, and evade/dodge. If quick, you will avoid the whole burst. As for blind, use AA to clear and then press on. I would also recommend trying to match stealth for stealth as well. You can always wait the Mesmer out (assuming D/P, not viable in other instances).

If the Mes is smart, the stun will come just as the Mirror Blade connects, leaving the target no time to react. You could always burst from stealth, but an easy stun that also synergizes with another trait for more damage has pushed the ease of landing it over the top. Let’s not forget PU, which allows you to easily ambush your target.

I was planning on possibly swapping over to Mesmer main if this patch worked out well…but it worked out too well. It used to be that if you were a good Mesmer you could destroy all but the best teef players. Yes, being hardcountered can suck, but it wasn’t like they were being destroyed by every class or anything.

I played just one evening as Mesmer post patch, that was all it took for me to lose interest in playing it. Even when playing sloppy I was still effective. I was moderately competent before, but that night I felt like a god. The appeal is gone for me, I felt rewarded when i did well as a Mesmer before, now I feel like the kills are being handed to me.

There’s no denying that Rampage got a major buff this balance patch. That being said, Warrior as a whole took a big hit in the support department. Shouts now heal for a negligible amount even when using healing power focused ammys, and Warhorn no longer converts condis. I’m going to be looking at the Warrior class under the assumption that we won’t be getting any major balance changes any time soon.

Currently, Warrior is good at the following:

• Crowd Control – AoE and single target

They are decent at:

• Damage – Single target and cleave. Rampage is Great damage but if you know how to avoid/counter it then it’s not a huge threat. The build in my sig does have potentially high damage but only if you can land a full combo.

• Sustain – when built for it

• Mobility – but only on flat ground

• Condi removal – so long as you can land your burst skills

• Team support – but not really that amazing post nerf

Right now, I would say the only real thing keeping Warrior relevant is the strength of Rampage and Battle Standard. Even before the nerfs many of those items in the “decent” category were the same strength proportionate as they are now. The major change is that Team Support used to be in a Amazing category.

Yes, you can still run Shoutbow with a Cleric or Crusader ammy and still have good support. Losing that bruiser aspect that the Cele ammy carried (as much as I hated it) is what kept the class viable.

If Rampage gets nerfed, or all the new Mesmers learn to bring Moa whenever they see a Warrior on the enemy team their usefulness of the class will be almost as low as Ranger. Especially since Mantra Mesmers now bring very easy to land and effective CC.

Even if Mes took a hit in the damage and sustain departments they would still be a better choice to bring on your team over a War. In fact, even MediGuard brings way more team support while also doing great damage and having great sustain.

Warrior NEEDS the old mix of support/sustain/damage with a side of CC to remain viable. The best hope for this imo is a revival of Hambow. If possible, I’d rather avoid bringing back the Cele Shoutbow snoozefest but I would rather Warriors have a place in the meta than none at all.

Something like this would be preferable imo.

There’s a few things keeping this build from viability. The most obvious is that Shouts now have too low of healing. I find the fact that they nerfed them while upping the overall game damage to be…confusing.

The other major issue is the fact that Merciless Hammer is competing with Burst Mastery. Regaining that 1 bar after Combustive Shot so that you can quickly follow up with Earthshaker to give out AoE Might is very important. However, if you neglect MH then the timing of your Hammer combos become clunky.

A possible solution to this is a buff to Inspiring Banners and moving it to GM in exchange for MH. I wrote about this possibility here. This would also open up an option for a more pure support Warrior with Shouts and a Banner (2 with elite).

Oh, and “To the Limit” needs a bug fix (doesn’t cleanse a condi with Soldier runes) and possibly a functionality change. Since Shouts already give adrenaline, having it give adrenaline seems counterproductive. Maybe remove that part and make the endurance part refill the entire bar for all allies around you. That would make it unique and hopefully worth taking over Healing Signet.

While I play almost every class now (finally made a Ele), I only feel confident about commenting on what Warrior needs to stay viable. I want to see Ranger and Necro have a place in the meta as well, but I don’t play them often enough to comment on what they need (although I’m enjoying Trap Ranger with the revive trait atm).

Honestly, while I like Warrior the only thing keeping me from switching fully over to guard is the fact that I have put so much time onto War in terms of looks/weapon skins and just general love to drop the class. I would rather “skill-less” builds like Hambow or Shoutbow come back and be viable then have the class be reduced to just their elites.

So, after messing around with almost every version of this build you can think of, this version is what I’ve been having the most success with

Yes, only having the traited stability can be a problem. The thing is, there was so many Mesmers with mantra running around that as soon as you use your Stability it gets stripped anyways. With Frenzy you have a stun break and it makes landing Skull Crack right after getting CC’d much easier. It’s rare that someone actually sees it coming.

If Mesmers do get hit with the nerf bat then perhaps going back to Balanced Stance might be fine. For now though, I feel better off with 2 stun breaks.

You aren’t going to use Hammer normally on this build. If anyone played Hammer in GW2 they might have know about quarter knocking. You had to time your follow up CC so that they had just enough time to start using a skill but you end up interrupting it, which is more bleeding, weakness, and confusion.

There’s also the fact that most players have at least 1 stun breaker and they typically try to retaliate right after, this makes any burst after that hit like a wet noodle.

The duration is long enough that the stacked up weakness will last longer than the CC by a big margin. After you land the combo, swap back to bow which applies more bleed/poison.

I’m not so sure about Rampager’s, but Cele does help make up for the Crit issue.

T raw.4658:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I’m totally fine if teef receives buffs in other areas in exchange for a reduction of blind spam. Also, it’s not like teef can’t just go stealth for the stomp.

This is why your opinion on balance is disregarded.

This is a core ability of a thief that you are wanting to nerf. There are no blocks/invulns/stability/etc. on thieves. You got blinds, stealth, and a severely nerfed evasion build. To compensate thieves for your “opinion” you need to totally rework the class….which ain’t kittening happening. This would leave you will a even more broken class which has been your goal for a long time in regards to thieves.

The only thing that needs to happen to blinds in this game is the removal of it from Eles/Mesmers.

Makes no difference to me, I generally just need one combo to kill D/P anyways.

Also, players said that it would take a total overhaul to make Warrior viable…it took 2 trait changes and 2 trait moves.

I’m totally fine if teef receives buffs in other areas in exchange for a reduction of blind spam. Also, it’s not like teef can’t just go stealth for the stomp.

Weakness. It’s probably one of the most overlooked conditions in the game. In a meta that has such high damage, having the ability to keep those guys from critting can be potentially very strong.

This build turns the weakness game up to the max

Feel free to offer up improvements.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Let me give this a shot…

From the pov of someone who has a Teef but dislikes playing it it AND against it, D/P is less OP and more of a joy-killer. Fighting against a D/P Teef is boring because it basically all comes down to how obnoxious fighting the build is. You spend much of the fight blinded and waiting for the Teef to make their move from stealth. Nothing is more frustrating than blocking a backstab but the Teef just keeps pressing that 1 key over and over till it hits. If your countermeasures are going to outlast their stealth, they can just drop another Black Powder and Heartseeker through it and start the whole process over.

Even when I win I generally just walk away annoyed, it isn’t fun to fight against in any way. Everything about the build…actually Teef in general, feels excessive. It’s either an annoying amount of blind and stealth on D/P, an annoying amount of teleports and evades on S/D, or an annoying amount of stuns on S/P.

I would actually frequently play my Teef if they felt less spammy and gained a bit more sustain in the form of other mechanics. When I play other classes I can generally build to have multiple different mechanics in my build. When I swap weapons, kits, or attunments the feel of my character can majorly change. When you swap weapons on a Teef, it’s probably to play defensively until you can go back you your main weapon set. On that main set, you’ll also often have skills that are rarely ever used.

As a GW1 player, I was expecting Teef to be more similar to Assassin, but it isn’t. That class had issues too but its damage came from a generally long combo of attacks and you were punished for messing it up or mistiming your burst (there were a couple of exceptions).

Also, Black Powder on downed classes that need to land a projectile feels dirty. Most of those attacks are not quick enough to allow you to cleanse the blind and still land the 2 skill. Meanwhile, Teef gets a downed state that is VERY good at denying stomps.

So yah, it’s less that the class is OP, and more that it’s generally not fun to fight against and feels “spammy” even when it’s an experienced player.

What does spammy even mean lol? You say thief feels spammy and then go on to say that you believe thieves swap weapons to play defensively. Sorry, but that sounds like another “mechanic” to me.

I’m going to use shortbow as an example (most common). Lots of thieves, assuming yourself included, will literally never use shortbow in a fight unless running away/3 evade spamming because they never even bothered to see it as an offensive set as well. Yet it has so much utility and damage that at the right time it wins fights. It has immobilize, clusterbomb, poison fields, hell I have secured teammates’ stomps with the blind from infiltrator’s arrow. Scrub thieves that don’t realize their offhand’s potential does not count against the class, much less make it “spammy.” Warrior hammer spams stuns and CC how spammy!!! Engis spam nades, kite all day and spam gear shield!!! See, I too can call other class mechanics I don’t like “spammy.”

As far as the d/p 5 QQ come on. We’ve already gotten the nerf stick for that once (pulses every 2 sec instead of every 1 sec). Literally impossible to reasonably nerf it any more.

Warriors, Guardians, and Rangers generally swap their weapons very frequently because they have cool downs. They physically CAN’T spam in most cases (you can argue that Rapid Fire feels pretty spammy). These classes don’t have a “main set” and an “offhand” set, they have two main weapons. Spam means using the same skill over and over on little to no CD. Even if you are timing the use of your skills as a Teef, the fact is that with no CD’s it’s going to feel like you’re just constantly pushing out the same attack over and over.

Yes, other classes all have “spam” in one way or another, but Teef is DESIGNED around it. Also, your example of using Warrior’s Hammer is probably the worst possible example considering the base CDs on most of those skills XD.

I am aware that SB is a great utility weapon, but I would much rather that Teef weapon sets complement each other and comboing between weapon sets is where your damage comes from, not from 1 or 2 skills on your main weapon set.

Let me give this a shot…

From the pov of someone who has a Teef but dislikes playing it it AND against it, D/P is less OP and more of a joy-killer. Fighting against a D/P Teef is boring because it basically all comes down to how obnoxious fighting the build is. You spend much of the fight blinded and waiting for the Teef to make their move from stealth. Nothing is more frustrating than blocking a backstab but the Teef just keeps pressing that 1 key over and over till it hits. If your countermeasures are going to outlast their stealth, they can just drop another Black Powder and Heartseeker through it and start the whole process over.

Even when I win I generally just walk away annoyed, it isn’t fun to fight against in any way. Everything about the build…actually Teef in general, feels excessive. It’s either an annoying amount of blind and stealth on D/P, an annoying amount of teleports and evades on S/D, or an annoying amount of stuns on S/P.

I would actually frequently play my Teef if they felt less spammy and gained a bit more sustain in the form of other mechanics. When I play other classes I can generally build to have multiple different mechanics in my build. When I swap weapons, kits, or attunments the feel of my character can majorly change. When you swap weapons on a Teef, it’s probably to play defensively until you can go back you your main weapon set. On that main set, you’ll also often have skills that are rarely ever used.

Also, Black Powder on downed classes that need to land a projectile feels dirty. Most of those attacks are not quick enough to allow you to cleanse the blind and still land the 2 skill. Meanwhile, Teef gets a downed state that is VERY good at denying stomps.

So yah, it’s less that the class is OP, and more that it’s generally not fun to fight against and feels “spammy” even when it’s an experienced player.

Doon.2364:

Use the skullcrack build against him. Use the shield and mace to block his burst. Then when at max adrenaline, do shield bash, skullcrack, swap weapon to greatsword 100blade. If you get him to low hp, pop Rampage and finish him. Good luck!

Sometimes also help to watch videos of good players playing a warrior u can see how they fight other classes.

+1 to this.

One thing though, don’t go for the Skull Crack right away. Try doing Shield Bash + 100b or Whirlwind attack. This generally forces a pain stun break/block. This will make landing the Frenzy + Skullcrack much easier. Try to save Berserker Stance for your burst to avoid blind.

T raw.4658:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Narcarsis.5739:

BurrTheKing.8571:

The more obvious solution is to make the order of the attacks different:

1. Trigger the unblockable teleport projectile that deals no damage.

2: Trigger the blockable blind and strike that are now the same attack.

This means that you avoid the potential reverse-pull but also allow players to counter the blind.

EDIT: Or if possible just make the reverse pull not happen if it’s reflected and just have it blind/damage the teef instead.

Your second suggestion is the only one that would work, as the teleport and blind are currently tied together. Same goes with the edit – reflect and block fall under the same category in the game engine.

In my opinion if you tie the blind to the strike it won’t change much of anything, you’ll likely still complain about blinds. There are ways to force people out of blocks or negate the affects. Aegis is easy to remove and certain abilities can stun/interrupt through block (Choking Gas + Basilisk Venom, Warrior Signet, Necro Fear Mark, Guardian GS pull, etc). Unblockable abilities add counterplay to the plethora of blocks in the game – removing them only increase the strength of things like Gear Shield, Aegis, Shelter, etc. The things broken at the moment are those that are un-dodgeable (Taunt, Blinding Dissipation). Nothing should be un-dodgeable/un-invulnerable.

Most unblockable skill in this game are from utilities or trait, they are also fairly rare. Having access to a skill that is unblockable just because the devs needed an easy solution to the reflect issue isn’t a good enough reason for it to be a basic attack skill imo. Having Shadow Shot being unblockable isn’t keeping blocks from being the be-all-end-all. It also makes it laughably easy for a Teef to stay in melee range and makes kiting them more difficult than it used to be.

Like I said Zerker Stance and Rampage your way to victory b/c obviously anything that requires you to problem solve is an impossible hurdle.

You are the reason that Anet puts low skill classes builds into this game. Please realize that while you do have an opinion on this public forum yours is disregarded in anything talking balance.

I hope you have a wonderful day and I’m sorry for telling you the truth.

Like i told you, I’m talking from the perspective of someone who plays basically every class. I’m not talking about it from a Warrior standpoint or any other class specifically.

I actually spent over an hour in WvW dueling a good D/P teef with the build in my sig while they had food/buffs and I did not and I probably won 70% of the fights. I was also using Defiant Stance for many of them which wasn’t really optimal most of the time. It’s basically about playing defensive and getting them to use their steal/stunbreak then doing a Frenzy + Skullcrack + 100b and it’s basically game over. That being said some fights dragged on when they just repeatedly used Shadow Shot from stealth and those were the fights that they generally ended up winning. Oh, and I had Rampage equipped for a good # of fights but never used, did eventually bring the signet.

If you properly abuse stealth and blinds, there’s few fights that a Mes or Teef stand to lose. When I beat either, on any class, it’s because they got too greedy or made a mistake.

Supreme.3164:

I think you have reading comprehension problems.

I’ve said that if you run a mele build centered around mele range condi application…yeah you will lose 90% of time against mesmer which is a ranged class centered around stealth burst

Adapt your build to your opponents..or lose

As someone who has been trying to make a S/S + LB condi/hybrid build…yah it’s kind of impossible to match any sort of ranged class if they’re not terrible. There’s so much melee hate in this update with all the blinds they’ve added on both Mes and Ele.

Narcarsis.5739:

BurrTheKing.8571:

The more obvious solution is to make the order of the attacks different:

1. Trigger the unblockable teleport projectile that deals no damage.

2: Trigger the blockable blind and strike that are now the same attack.

This means that you avoid the potential reverse-pull but also allow players to counter the blind.

EDIT: Or if possible just make the reverse pull not happen if it’s reflected and just have it blind/damage the teef instead.

Your second suggestion is the only one that would work, as the teleport and blind are currently tied together. Same goes with the edit – reflect and block fall under the same category in the game engine.

In my opinion if you tie the blind to the strike it won’t change much of anything, you’ll likely still complain about blinds. There are ways to force people out of blocks or negate the affects. Aegis is easy to remove and certain abilities can stun/interrupt through block (Choking Gas + Basilisk Venom, Warrior Signet, Necro Fear Mark, Guardian GS pull, etc). Unblockable abilities add counterplay to the plethora of blocks in the game – removing them only increase the strength of things like Gear Shield, Aegis, Shelter, etc. The things broken at the moment are those that are un-dodgeable (Taunt, Blinding Dissipation). Nothing should be un-dodgeable/un-invulnerable.

Most unblockable skill in this game are from utilities or trait, they are also fairly rare. Having access to a skill that is unblockable just because the devs needed an easy solution to the reflect issue isn’t a good enough reason for it to be a basic attack skill imo. Having Shadow Shot being unblockable isn’t keeping blocks from being the be-all-end-all. It also makes it laughably easy for a Teef to stay in melee range and makes kiting them more difficult than it used to be.

Narcarsis.5739:

There’s a reason Shadowshot was made unblockable. There used to be no counterplay to using Shadowshot on reflecting enemies. Mesmers with reflect on distortion, guardian walls (yes, people used to use the reflect wall), and anything else with reflect would cause Shadowshot to reflect back to the Thief, teleporting the enemy to them – away from their team – and interrupting any cast they were using forcing them to attempt to cast the strike portion of the ability. You could cancel heals through distort, move people 900 range out of position into your team, etc. There was no counterplay to it and they fixed it in the only way that the game engine allows. The blind/port is unblockable but the strike is still a blockable ability.

The more obvious solution is to make the order of the attacks different:

1. Trigger the unblockable teleport projectile that deals no damage.

2: Trigger the blockable blind and strike that are now the same attack.

This means that you avoid the potential reverse-pull but also allow players to counter the blind.

EDIT: Or if possible just make the reverse pull not happen if it’s reflected and just have it blind/damage the teef instead.

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

The blind is unblockable because it’s attached to the shot itself which also includes the teleport. When it wasn’t unblockable, if you fired it into a reflect it shadowstepped your target to you (if you didn’t dodge your reflected shot). It is still dodgeable though and there are skills on professions that make you immune to blinds or conditions in general. If a blind prevents you from landing an attack or attacking so you don’t waste an attack it’s working as intended. The only blind that seems like it’s not is the mesmer one that goes through dodges.

I wanna ask, how do you dodge something that is instant (referring to mesmers shatter)

People pushing the dodges changes do not know anything. The dodge bug is the least of the problems when it comes of the issue of blinds.

If you’re in the face of the mesmer you can only predict it (much like dodging a thief steal or ele S/X lightning strike/blinding flash). If you’re not within range, the clones have to run at you first after seeing the mesmer shatter animation, so you should be able to dodge (or correct me if I’m wrong on where the blind comes from). It probably should be blockable as well since as far as I can tell it’s just an extra effect tacked on to shatters (like confusion or vuln).

Blind is only around the mesmer, so I think people pushing for the make BD dodgeable are…fixing it won’t change anything.

It appears you are correct. I thought that it was attached in the same way. Perhaps making it blockable/dodgeable would be enough as it would be the same as any other shatter effect.

nah, the verdict still stands, there still would not be any counterplay excpet for random dodging.

Honestly, the game would probably be better off if there were less insta-cast skills in the game. Even a small audio cue 1/4th second before the attack would be good enough to counter it. Why is it that classes like Warrior, Guard, Ranger, Ele, Necro,and often Engi all have some sort of tell on the majority of their skills but now Mes/Teef can very easily camp stealth and set up spikes with no obvious tell?

Even if all they did was make a few insta-cast abilities 1/4th second cast and have them play some sort of sound as you activate it would be good enough for many players. Prediction was all well and good with Mesmers until they buffed PU.

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

StickerHappy.8052:

Maugetarr.6823:

The blind is unblockable because it’s attached to the shot itself which also includes the teleport. When it wasn’t unblockable, if you fired it into a reflect it shadowstepped your target to you (if you didn’t dodge your reflected shot). It is still dodgeable though and there are skills on professions that make you immune to blinds or conditions in general. If a blind prevents you from landing an attack or attacking so you don’t waste an attack it’s working as intended. The only blind that seems like it’s not is the mesmer one that goes through dodges.

I wanna ask, how do you dodge something that is instant (referring to mesmers shatter)

People pushing the dodges changes do not know anything. The dodge bug is the least of the problems when it comes of the issue of blinds.

If you’re in the face of the mesmer you can only predict it (much like dodging a thief steal or ele S/X lightning strike/blinding flash). If you’re not within range, the clones have to run at you first after seeing the mesmer shatter animation, so you should be able to dodge (or correct me if I’m wrong on where the blind comes from). It probably should be blockable as well since as far as I can tell it’s just an extra effect tacked on to shatters (like confusion or vuln).

Blind is only around the mesmer, so I think people pushing for the make BD dodgeable are…fixing it won’t change anything.

The blind allows Mesmer to use a shatter like their F2 that is normally not that commonly used on power builds except for boon stripping to use the shatter defensively. You could also make a 2 second distortion more like 3 seconds if you don’t want to use a condi cleanse on the blind because the next attack is going to miss because you can’t cleanse a blind on a invulnerable foe.

Also, the fact that something uncounterable exists in the game just shouldn’t be allowed. Right now, most things have SOME sort of counter. Even with skills like Berserker Stance the obvious counterplay is to not use your conditions during the Stance, or to load up the condis before they activate the stance. Even Stealth now has a few more ways to counter it (although I feel like every class needs a skill that reveals).

Having something that is not dodgeable in a game where dodge is supposed to counter everything is just not OK. And yes, it is possible to predict shatter while being close and you should be rewarded for avoiding it by being able to capitalize on it. However, depending on your class/build that 1 little blind can throw off your entire combo.

People seem to also be forgetting that the Mesmer is typically going to be using themselves in their shatters which means their in range to blind. Stop saying that it only procs on the Mes like that makes it weaker somehow.

I want to point out that I never stated that Shadow Shot was unblockable.

Choppy.4183:

Of all the proposals on where to move MH and what to swap for it, yours is the best, imo. It also better bifurcates the role of support warrior and control warrior. I’m also ok with where MH is now, but admit I haven’t been using hammer much since the patch for different reasons.

The proposed changes to the banner trait seem a little strange though. I mean, the utility is obvious (it’s a lot like how Ritualists could move their spirits around in GW1), but it might be too much and it would look awkward too, fwiw.

Why not just give the CD reduction (as you suggested) and add the radius boost that banners had before?

I’d be OK with just the CD reduction and radius boost, but the other suggestions are mostly from a WvW perspective. I’ve tried to ferry my Banner around while in a group…but it’s just too awkward to do. Picking up the Banner itself can sometimes be a challenge.

If ANet were to do something like I suggested I wouldn’t be mad if they didn’t make them attach to your back, just making them have some sort of magical glow at the base and having them follow like Spirit Weapons would be fine. Warriors already use magical tools in the form of Signets, so having magically enchanted Banners isn’t all that theme-breaking imo.

@Larynx.2453 You don’t really want Quickness when using Hammer, the whole point is to keep them locked down. Also, the benefit of Burst Mastery on Hambow is that you drop the Combustive Shot then use Arcing Arrow followed by the 1 bar burst on Hammer to hopefully stun/damage but also give AoE Might to your party.

Currently though, if you take MH the timing on that combo is much more clunky to pull off.

Cynz.9437:

Idk about you or what you play or what you “mastered”, i just know that blinds got blocked whenever i used shadowshot on blocking enemy.

I don’t even know how to respond to you…it’s right there in the tooltip that the shot is unblockable. What is blockable (I believe, teef attacks are so fast it can be hard to tell) is the followup hit. The change probably only happened because when, like I said, the shot was blockable you could have someone with reflect be pulled. You also used to be able to reflect a Mesmer projectile (Scepter AA I believe) that created a clone and a non-Mesmer could have a clone from it. I’m not sure if you can still do that or not. You can also currently reflect Hunter’s Shot and gain the stealth from it.

The fix with Shadow shot was changed to unblockable to avoid the above from happening.

Cynz.9437:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Cynz.9437:

shadowshot is blockable/dodgable… fyi

So yah, about that unblockable bit.

@phokus.8934 Last I checked, even Teefs call Teefs Teef.

teleport is unblockable, blind/dmg portion is blockable…
do you even play this game?

Wrong. I just spent several hours the other day dueling a D/P Teef, the blind went through every block. What I DID block was the damage.

As far as I understand, the skill was split into two separate attacks. One is the attack that causes you to teleport/blind, the other does damage. The Teleblind is unblockable/reflectable because at one time it was possible for the one to reflect the whole skill which would have THEM to shadowstep to the user.

Also to the other guy…you do realize that I play EVERY class right? Before I didn’t have an Ele but now I do. I haven’t MASTERED every class but that’s because I don’t enjoy all of them. At the very least though I have a good grasp of most classes mechanics and traits. Also, any Teef with a brain will just break away as soon as they see that Rampage, which isn’t hard to do.

I’m actually considering swapping to Guardian main because they have generally been consistently a part of every modes meta since launch.

Cynz.9437:

shadowshot is blockable/dodgable… fyi

So yah, about that unblockable bit.

@phokus.8934 Last I checked, even Teefs call Teefs Teef.

abc.5790:

Think about it…in the past blind was removed if you swing in the open air.

How worthless is that?

Only worthless if you were spamming it and not timing it. There’s a reason why most blind skills are fast/instant, to be a pseudo-interrupt.

Khenzy.9348:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Khenzy.9348:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Khenzy.9348:

I agree. You often miss key skills due to all the random blinds been thrown around constantly in team fights, it’s incredibly annoying and there’s just no counter for such a thing. Blind is such a powerful condition, much more than it’s been given credit for, it should not be anywhere near as abundant.

It’s a lot like Weakness in that regard. Super strong but you rarely see it mentioned cause few have ready access to it. I’m actually looking at making some sort of Hybrid Hambow Warrior because Body Blow is actually a really interesting trait.

Yeah, weakness is really powerful too, even more so now that vigor has been nerfed. Both blind and weakness should be applied only under certain circumstances, like with the trait you mentioned or like with Lightning Rod. They shouldn’t be applied passively like with traits such as Blinding Ashes or Weakening Shroud, these are not the kind of conditions that should be spammed around or have a high uptime of.

Blinding Disipation is an entirely different beast. It’s just flat out overpowered and shouldn’t even be a thing on such a slippery and bursty profession with so many other active defenses. Being able to dodge it or not is not the actual problem.

I do agree that Mes didn’t need that blind, the problem is that it’s probably not going anywhere. If it was blockable/evadeable/dodgeable and had like a 10 second ICD it probably wouldn’t be too bad though. To a Mes 10 might sound high, but let’s not forget that there’s 4 skills that can trigger it.

If you’re interested here’s a silly Weakness gimmick build I’m messing around with for fun. The Rata Sum rune is a bit much but there’s no other way that I know of to get the duration up to 4 seconds. There’s so much condi removal that I feel like the duration is needed to make it good. There’s also the ever-annoying fact that Merciless Hammer is competing with Burst Mastery. I can’t decide which one is actually better. I’m using MH because without it the CD on the hammer skills seem so obnoxiously long.

@Grimreaper.5370 I thought about that to. It’s an interesting concept but also a potentially high-labor one as well.

We are getting offtopic in your own thread! But well… I’d change it to something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJASTjMdQZHWFCmhApIGICMsF8CGBWA4D2z0vw0LGA-TpBHwAAeAACOEAJLDE4IAM4CAIb/BA

Sigil of Debility plus Rata Sum Runes are kind of a wase if all you want is to raise up a single second on Body Blow or Cull the Weak which both don’t even have ICDs. As long as you land your stuns and hammer 2, your foe should have near perma weakness anyways. I changed celestial amulet with Carrion, otherwise I think your damage would be on the low side. Rune of Vampirism with such low armor and lack of disengage is kind of a must have. You could try Sigil of Impact or even Paralyzation over Intelligence.
Burst mastery is there to promote might stacking with F1s, it should be up to you.

Still, don’t get your hopes up with warrior builds, this profession is a ‘one skill wonder’ right now (rampage), outside of the elite, warriors are kind of underwhelming.

Yah, that’s what I would run if I wanted to be “viable” but I like to go all the way into my gimmicks, mostly cause even on a “viable” version the build won’t be amazing till you can use both Merciless Hammer and Burst Mastery.

Many of you have probably had the dilemma of having to choose between Merciless Hammer (MH) and Burst Mastery. Not being able to have both is what I believe is keeping Hambow from making any sort of comeback. Having both would be unlikely to make any sort of Hammer build OP. The problem is, how do you change this?

The simple solution would be to swap MH and Inspiring Battle Standard (IBS). However, IBS isn’t actually that amazing of a Trait. That being said, if it WAS a good trait…why that might be a totally different story. A strong IBS would potentially make up for the nerf to Shouts.

Here’s my idea:

• Bring back the Banner CD reduction…why was it even removed in the first place?

• When IBS is equipped, all of your summoned Banners follow you. You could also have them stick to the Warrior’s back and have them stick out at different angles if you have multiple, although I don’t see players ever using more than 2 (one being the Elite).

• Summoning a Banner replaces that skill with a “Pick up Banner” skill. Pressing this will bring that Banner forward and allow you to use the skills on that Banner. The actual skills on there aren’t that terrible, it’s just that no one in their right mind would stop to pick it up. Because pressing the same utility skill would “stow” the Banner skill 5 could keep the same animation and just be a nice little Blast Finisher.

Changes like these would allow the Warrior to make up some of the team utility it has lost in PvP/WvW. I like being a Warrior, but in those modes it’s generally good to bring team support, even Teef and Mes do atm.

It would also open a ton of doors in terms of skill cap. Having the ability to have a “kit” of sorts would be VERY interesting. The tradeoff would be losing the ranged revive ability of Battle Standard, but I think having the be mobile is a fine tradeoff.

Yes, this is just another one of my silly ideas that will probably never be seen by a dev, but the idea itself is super appealing. Even if you go for a power build, you would have the option of being able to bring some sort of support to the team outside of shouts. Hey, if you wanted you could go 2(3 if you bring the heal) shouts and 2 Banners and be a great support character that is a bit more labor intensive than boring old Shoutbow.

Khenzy.9348:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Khenzy.9348:

I agree. You often miss key skills due to all the random blinds been thrown around constantly in team fights, it’s incredibly annoying and there’s just no counter for such a thing. Blind is such a powerful condition, much more than it’s been given credit for, it should not be anywhere near as abundant.

It’s a lot like Weakness in that regard. Super strong but you rarely see it mentioned cause few have ready access to it. I’m actually looking at making some sort of Hybrid Hambow Warrior because Body Blow is actually a really interesting trait.

Yeah, weakness is really powerful too, even more so now that vigor has been nerfed. Both blind and weakness should be applied only under certain circumstances, like with the trait you mentioned or like with Lightning Rod. They shouldn’t be applied passively like with traits such as Blinding Ashes or Weakening Shroud, these are not the kind of conditions that should be spammed around or have a high uptime of.

Blinding Disipation is an entirely different beast. It’s just flat out overpowered and shouldn’t even be a thing on such a slippery and bursty profession with so many other active defenses. Being able to dodge it or not is not the actual problem.

I do agree that Mes didn’t need that blind, the problem is that it’s probably not going anywhere. If it was blockable/evadeable/dodgeable and had like a 10 second ICD it probably wouldn’t be too bad though. To a Mes 10 might sound high, but let’s not forget that there’s 4 skills that can trigger it.

If you’re interested here’s a silly Weakness gimmick build I’m messing around with for fun. The Rata Sum rune is a bit much but there’s no other way that I know of to get the duration up to 4 seconds. There’s so much condi removal that I feel like the duration is needed to make it good. There’s also the ever-annoying fact that Merciless Hammer is competing with Burst Mastery. I can’t decide which one is actually better. I’m using MH because without it the CD on the hammer skills seem so obnoxiously long.

@Grimreaper.5370 I thought about that to. It’s an interesting concept but also a potentially high-labor one as well.

Khenzy.9348:

I agree. You often miss key skills due to all the random blinds been thrown around constantly in team fights, it’s incredibly annoying and there’s just no counter for such a thing. Blind is such a powerful condition, much more than it’s been given credit for, it should not be anywhere near as abundant.

It’s a lot like Weakness in that regard. Super strong but you rarely see it mentioned cause few have ready access to it. I’m actually looking at making some sort of Hybrid Hambow Warrior because Body Blow is actually a really interesting trait.

ASP.8093:

BD needs a fix. I’m pretty sure it’s just an outright bug.

In general, I think Blind’s duration is excessive. With 3-second Blinds being pretty standard, you don’t have to worry about timing blind too well if you’re generally bouncing in and out of reach and evading a lot. Reducing the duration slightly would make Blind more like a soft interrupt. I’m not, like, yelling for that to happen, though, because I think it’s a change that might put D/P thieves in a bad place. But I think the rather long duration is a significant contributor to the “feel bad” factor.

That’s an option, even 2 seconds would feel much better.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

what the? since when was blind buffed ?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blind

“Blindness is removed after the condition’s time runs out, or after an outgoing attack that would have been successful if not for the blind.”

if we attack nothing, the blind will not go away?

At launch, you could tap your auto attack button and swing at air and the blind would be removed. I assume it was supposed to be kind of a “wiping the dirt from your eyes” kind of move. Blind wasn’t as good, but if you actually timed it it still did the job fine. Now, you have to actually “waste” an attack that would have otherwise hit in order to cleanse the blind, or of course use a condi cleanse.

Sorry, guess I could have worded it better because no everyone was here since launch/remembers stuff like that.

I had grown tired of the Shoutbow Warrior Meta and had almost totally switched over to playing Mes post patch. Yes, teef had the ability to just wreck you if they were even somewhat good, but against almost every other class you could easily take them down.

Now…I can’t even be bothered to play Mes. When you get a player to swap back to WARRIOR because it feels more skillful…you got a problem.

Confounding Suggestions, PU, and Blinding Dissipation and mantras charging up in the background are the biggest culprits. I’m totally cool with interrupts being rewarded. However, I actually get hit by Power Block with surprising infrequency. What’s killing me, and allowing me to kill them, is the stun from the mantra making landing a Shatter pathetically easy.

It’s really a shame, I used to defend Mes as the class that has similar mechanics to Teef but in the right moderation…now they both just seems silly.

What in the name of the Six is up with ANets infatuation with BLIND!?

Now Teef, Ele, Guard, and Mes all have a ton of access to blind. I’ve seen Teefs be able to win fights in relative safety by just using Shadow Shot over and over while stealthed because it’s super easy to just disrupt the enemy that way. On several of the above listed classes many of these blinds are either unblockable, unaviodable, or both! There’s very little counterplay to be had. In the case of Mesmer you can’t even pull out the tired old “just dodge” argument (which applies to everything and is the least helpful thing you can say, especially since many of them can also be used from stealth).

Blind was less obnoxious when you could cleanse it by simply auto attacking. It was still good imo, it just forced players to actually TIME their blinds rather than just throwing them out willy nilly.

The current sea of soot it severely hindering my personal enjoyment of the game. I don’t mind it existing, but whenever I use any of the above mentioned classes I feel cheap. Blind on classes like Engi doesn’t feel all that bad, they have to time it because they can’t throw it out constantly.

There are several possible solutions to this:

• Traits like Blinding Dissipation HAVE to be dodgeable. I would even go so far as to say that it needs a ICD as well. Because IP is baseline now if you’re a power-based Mes you can use F2 to blind, dodge or create a clone in some way, then F4 for another blind, which the target cannot cleanse if it’s a 1v1 so after the invuln ends the Mes is still safe for one more attack and there’s nothing you can do about it.

• Similar to above, skills such as Shadow Shot should not be unblockable. It’s laughably easy to use it while stealthed.

• The Blinding Ashes ICD seems very low, Ele’s aren’t as bad as Mes and Teef but the trait is just as annoying as Incendiary Powder where basically no matter what you do, you’re probably going to have it trigger no matter how hard you try and avoid it.

• You could also just revert blind to how it used to work and allow it to be removed by auto attacking. Or, you could make 2 different types of blind. On classes like Warrior/Engi where they only have a few blinds their blinds could function like they currently do.

• (ASP.8093) Slightly reducing the duration of most blinds by even 1 second so that they would be 2 second instead of the normal 3 would make them much more of a “soft CC” as opposed to what they are now.

EDIT: Random side-question:

I know people have mixed opinions of me, sometimes I deserve the hate. That being said, would any of you who read my posts be interested in watching a narrated version of posts like this but in video form? I recently graduated with a degree in communications so I thought doing something like that might be good practice.

I enjoy the faster pace and the Specialization system in general. The real problem atm is that there are still a ton of lackluster traits on some classes while others got traits that are too powerful.

Mesmers and Eles are the biggest offenders in terms of having too strong of traits. Meanwhile poor Necro and Ranger are just sorta…there.

Necro is in a funny spot where it’s sustain isn’t that bad, but in PvP they can generally be easily locked down and focused. Sometimes you can just save them for last because their killing potential isn’t that great.

Warrior feels like a total mixed bag. I didn’t love Shoutbow but now it’s just…bad. When I look at long term viability it seems like Guardian is in a way better place. As a MediGuard I can still add a ton of team support into my build while still doing damage, but on War I’m generally selfish. Bunker Guard seems like it’s going to make a big comeback as well. Hammer/GS on Warrior isn’t bad but when I look at it it still seems like Mesmer is just superior. Mes can abuse the terrain via teleports, it still brings some team support, it can do good CC now as well. Similar situation with D/P Teef.

Also, what the hell is up with ANets infatuation with BLIND!?

Now Teef, Ele, Guard, and Mes all have a ton of access to blind. I’ve seen Teefs be able to win fights in relative safety by just using Shadow Shot over and over while stealthed because it’s super easy to just disrupt the enemy that way. On several of the above listed classes many of these blinds are either unblockable, unaviodable, or both! There’s very little counterplay to be had. In the case of Mesmer you can’t even pull out the tired old “just dodge” argument (which applies to everything and is the least helpful thing you can say, especially since many of them can also be used from stealth).

Blind was less obnoxious when you could cleanse it by simply auto attacking. It was still good imo, it just forced players to actually TIME their blinds rather than just throwing them out willy nilly.

I’m gonna make this blind rant it’s own post…

Heimdallr.7021:

Hvaran.6327:

shoutwar is dead

banner is still there
imobs and stuns are still there.

Why shoutwar is dead? I didn’t follow all the recent changes.

thanks

The heal amount from shouts was dramatically reduced, Warhorn no longer transforms condis to boons.

Thank you all for your feedback.

This is what I’ve come up with after your suggestions

Another possible option

Sad that Rangers don’t get to be a part of the meta…but it’s fun to try different unique builds that no other class can do.

Hey there! So, I don’t play my Ranger much but I see an opportunity for a really fun Poison Master gimmick build. That being said, I’m not nearly as good at Ranger theorycrafting as I am at other classes I play more.

Here is what I have so far.

I tried to not have a ton of utility holes. I had a trap version but it lacked condi removal, ooc speed, and a stun break. Be as brutal as you want. That being said, I’m committed to the poison stacking gimmick.

After some suggestions I have updated the build to something like this.