Guild Wars 2

They aren’t somewhat useable because NOBODY USES THEM. Even noobs quickly realize that they don’t live using the other 3 heals, especially in PvP. I can’t think of one good build that would use them.

Also, with a good Mending you could run something like this or possibly even this and have enough condi mitigation to kill your target before the conditions become a problem. Also, no one uses Burst Precision, it’s a worthless trait when Sigil of Intelligence exists.

Defiant Stance is a highly reactive skill. The cast time means you can’t pop it when you need it most, while being locked down or spiked. You also can’t use it while say using a Frenzied 100b or the like. The Defiant Stance + Frenzy synergy seems like a coll possibility but atm you can’t use it when you need it most.

Xaylin.1860:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I never said that Warriors struggle, just that they are hamstringed into have HS, a LB, 4 pts in Defense, and 3 in Discipline. There’s not a helluvalot of room for doing anything new or meta-breaking when you have so few options.

At the very least making Mending worth taking will allow for more DPS builds that don’t need any points in Defense.

Those weren’t exactly your words. But you said something comparable to it. At least I would consider dying because of not taking meta options as ‘struggling’. I do agree that the alternatives are weaker. There is no way of denying that. However, I disagree that all alternatives are as aweful as some people make them look. It is indeed regretable that so many classes are virtually forced into specific builds. But I doubt that simply buffing several skills will solve this issue for Warriors without harming the game balance and ultimatively the class itself.

For example: Mending. I already said I’m personally all up for a buff. I just don’t think the Adrenaline component you suggested is needed. However, would decreasing the cooldown to 15s actually help build diversity? Regardless of the healing value, it would still be at least 50% less efficient than CI when it comes to condition removal. People will still go for CI because a 4 point trait investment is extremly low for the benefit you can get. While some weapons offer better synergies than others (e.g. LB) CI still appeals to a broad selection of builds with different weapons. It also doesn’t require you to pick any additional utility skill. Even very offensive builds can afford that. Furthermore, you won’t be able to keep people from picking both at once because both, CI and Mending, are easy to access. In other words: Buffing Mending in the proposed way will most likely not promote build diversity but can potentially negatively affect game balance by providing Warriors with even more condition removal.

The suggested changes would open up options for more glassy Warrior builds. Right now, having to take that 4 points into Defense reduces the amount of points you could be putting into Strength and Discipline. If I wanted to run what would basically be a spike build right now conditions would just totally destroy me even worse than a Thief of Mesmer trying to do the same thing. However, with a worthwhile Mending I would theoretically be able to spike down my target before I got overwhelmed by condis because I would have my heal act as a cleanse without having to bring something like Signet of Stamina. It would also mean I wouldn’t have to bring a LB and could run something like Axe + GS and act as a roamer. Right now that build is “ok” but you have to put that 4 points into Defense, which means a Thief does the job better, which in my book makes it not viable. I added the Adrenaline fact because it’s supposed to be like Consume Conditions but for Warrior. Instead of healing more for each condition though, you gain adrenaline. That idea is why I decided that Healing Surge just makes more sense being a really simple burst heal. It’s the only way it will ever compete with Healing Signet. I refuse to believe that the current mechanic it has is good or “skillful.” I would only accept it if every healing skill in the game had similar risk-reward mechanics. So long as there are healing skills that are mostly reward with little risk the ones that are like Healing Surge will always be inferior and seldom used.

If Defiant Stance was a instant cast and was affected by Sure Footed I could also see some builds using Frenzy and actually being good instead of something that you use as a joke. The current 1/4th second cast time isn’t something that can really be interrupted and with a 35 second CD and with it showing big green numbers with a blue glow while in use being able to use it while being stunned/spiked seems pretty reasonable all things considered. It’s a heal that’s cool in concept but outside of a few situations it’s not worth using. I for one thing that all heals should be at least somewhat useable on every class. If done right we’ll see much greater variety than what we see now, especially in PvP.

I never said that Warriors struggle, just that they are hamstringed into have HS, a LB, 4 pts in Defense, and 3 in Discipline. There’s not a helluvalot of room for doing anything new or meta-breaking when you have so few options.

At the very least making Mending worth taking will allow for more DPS builds that don’t need any points in Defense.

I can think of very few viable builds that don’t have CI + LB. Without it, you’re going to die to any sort of condition Necro, Balthazar Engi, Condi Warrior, etc because the amount they apply will outpace removal from Soldier + Shouts or Warhorn removal. I’ve tried running both of those things together and it was awful because you could just barely keep up but you also had hardly any offense. If you claim that there’s such a build that is viable and lacks CI then please show me it.

As I have said numerous times, having a heal that give you adrenaline isn’t that much of an advantage. You also don’t always have the luxury of knowing when you’re going to need to heal. One second you can be fine, you use your burst, suddenly you get Backstabbed and now you only have access to a puny heal on a 30 second CD. Cleansing Ire is needed and Healing Surge goes directly against it, one says “use me, use me” while the other says “if you use me, I suck.” Traits like Heightened Focus and Berserker’s Power aren’t necessarily punishing you for using your Adrenaline because using a burst while under their effect means you either have a higher chance to crit on your burst or to deal more damage. It’s easy to gain adrenaline on Warrior but when you REALLY need to heal you don’t want to have to wait those extra few seconds. So no, Healing Signet isn’t too good, Healing Surge is bad.

The healing from levels 0-2 is stupidly low and not to mention that using it at level 2 not only heals for a low amount (considering Warrior often lacks damaging mitigation that other classes have) but also only gives you a single measly bar of adrenaline making it a lose-lose. Also, neither of you said if you would take a healing skill on Necro that would only heal you for the max amount if you had full Life Force. Letting it fill your full Life Force bar would be a bit OP though because Death Shroud is WAY better than burst skills especially with Power Necros. It’s not a good comparison but the whole fact remains that it would be a heal that actively discourages you from using your main class mechanic. It’s not about risk reward, it’s about saying “would I rather suffer through these conditions or do I want my heal to not suck?”

I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that if you were to nerf Healing Signet into uselessness that Warriors would fall out of the meta because their sustain would not be high enough. I know this because the Healing changes came after CI/Dogged March/all the other buffs and Warriors were still not viable. Even after the first week or so Warriors using Healing Surge weren’t being successful. It wasn’t until Healing Signet became the norm that Warriors became viable. Go play a Healing Surge Warrior using either Hambow or Celestial Axebow in a TPvP match and see how well you do. Chances are you’ll have little success.

NinjaEd.3946:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that, please note that outside of regen banner and Heal Shouts that Warrior lacks smaller heals and boons like Protection that other classes have. If most of them were designed like that I would be more OK with it, but most heals do not require you to do so. When they do have downsideds it’s not normally such a huge difference. The gap between level 0 and level 3 is huge. If you use it on levels 0-1 the amount of healing you get for a 30 second CD is pathetic and Warriors don’t generally need the adrenaline gain as much as they need the healing. I for one can’t justify taking a heal that has such a huge potential drawbacks when the drawback for HS is so much less. While HS still has the huge weakness in the fact that it is very weak if you get bursted, it’s much easier to compensate for in a build.

Consume Conditions, use it with no conditions its meh.
SoM forces a thief to play very offensive with high AoE to make any use of the passive.
Litany of Wrath forces the guardian to immediately pump dps or miss out on any real healing.
etc.

There is a good list of healing skills that are best used under specific conditions and healing surge is no exception. However it has the function of either giving you the offense you needed or to heal you a lot or possibly both if you plan to spend that adrenaline. It’s a well designed heal that requires thought and has the potential to be on par with if we exclude the fact that HS is never removed and never requires risking a cast time (because you don’t use the active). Hs should only work for bunker like spec’s who have some investment into Healing power, it should not have such a good base heal because it makes it impossible for the other healing skills to compete then.

I’ve tried using Healing Surge numerous times, it’s not good. The fact remains that in oreder to survive as a Warrior you need to constantly use your adrenaline to cleanse conditions with CI. It’s not a risk-reward skill, it’s almost all risk with the occasional reward. Why would I want to run the risk of needing my heal right after using a burst? Warriors already have to use LB to ensure you don’t get overwhelmed by conditions, why would I want a heal that adds yet another risk that other classes don’t have to take? If Healing Surge was good, we would see people using it. You also can’t blame it on Heal Sig because it’s in a good place now.

As for Consume Conditions, Necromancers have ways to apply conditions to themselves and it’s not dependent on their class mechanic. Let me ask you this, would you use a Necomancer heal that only healed for a decent amount if you have full life force?

Simon.3794:

jportell.2197:

Lol warrirors have been “shaved.” And they are the only class that actually got adjusted with shaves. Every other class has been pounded into the ground like a giant hammering a post into the ground.

you serious? rifle celestial, fear necro, balthazar engi, steal sd thief, staff ele, dd ele.

For a split second I thought you meant Warrior Rifle Celestial and was extremely confused.

Xae Isareth.1364:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Its a case of resource management. You chose to use up your adrenaline for the burst, which appropriately means you get less heal out of your heal. Action and consequence.

Name one other good heal that forces you to do that, please note that outside of regen banner and Heal Shouts that Warrior lacks smaller heals and boons like Protection that other classes have. If most of them were designed like that I would be more OK with it, but most heals do not require you to do so. When they do have downsideds it’s not normally such a huge difference. The gap between level 0 and level 3 is huge. If you use it on levels 0-1 the amount of healing you get for a 30 second CD is pathetic and Warriors don’t generally need the adrenaline gain as much as they need the healing. I for one can’t justify taking a heal that has such a huge potential drawbacks when the drawback for HS is so much less. While HS still has the huge weakness in the fact that it is very weak if you get bursted, it’s much easier to compensate for in a build.

Tamps.6125:

Delete warriors from GW2 and problem solved, actiually i cant even understand how Anet even made such a class.

I mean really? What fantasy MMO has a Warrior in it? Pfft. Nobody likes that archetype in the least.

/s

IndigoSundown.5419:

IMO, Healing Surge was designed for warriors who trait Berserker’s Power. That said, designing traits and skills around not using one’s class mechanic feels odd.

You’re probably right that it was meant to synergize with BP. You’re also right that it’s strange to encourage NOT using your class mechanic, especially when Warriors have to use CI which means you HAVE to use your adrenaline constantly. Warriors also have no issues with gaining adrenaline most of the time because they have Berserker Stance and CI and often times Burst Mastery. I rarely find myself wanting for more Adrenaline, which is what makes the effect not all that amazing.

It sounds cool on paper but there’s a reason no good Warrior uses it. It’s not that HS is too strong, right now it feels like reducing it any more would make it too weak and the other heals aren’t a viable replacement which would lead to Warriors being just like launch, no sustain.

Several people point out the few strengths of the other heals but the fact is that no good Warrior uses them outside of some rare situations. Many things on Warrior sound good on paper but totally fail in practice.

I’m also not denying that other classes have problems, but I don’t play those classes enough to claim to know what they need. Because of this I’m not going to advocate or make posts about buffing other professions. Just because other professions have issues doesn’t invalidate the problems I have with my main class. There’s such a huge gap between balance updates I would hope that ANet could attempt to tweak all of the classes. If they were doing changes every few weeks, sure I could understand Warrior going on the back burner but not when it’s every 4-6 months. I’d rather not sit around for almost half a year with 0 significant changes. If you want your class changed then feel free to make your own thread.

Also, I posted this here because there’s been no sign of devs reading the Warrior forum but they seem to pay attention to this one.

I feel like taking all those cleanses would be pretty overkill considering it would make you really vulnerable to anything NOT using condis. You’d basically be a Diamond Skin Ele. With Berserker Stance and either CI or a buffed Mending I feel like you’d be set and be able to devote everything else to offense so that the fight doesn’t last long enough for you to be overwhelmed.

Mace is probably my favorite Warrior weapon, but it only shines when paired with a GS atm. There’s potential for a Mace/Axe + Axe/Shield or maybe Mace/Axe + Sword/Shield but right now offhand Axe needs more utility like what the Thief steal has. Mace is basically a weapon that enables combos and is really good at denying stomps when they don’t have stability/invulnerability.

It’s main weakness is that it doesn’t go all that amazingly with a LB which means condi clear can be a real issue. You can go Skull Crack + Fan of Fire + Arching Arrow but honestly the DPS would be way lower than Axebow I’d imagine. This is of course why many Warrior mains are trying to make the GS burst an alternative to Combustive Shot.

EDIT: After I wrote this I came up with a concept similar to Axebow but I can’t test it for a while. I don’t really like offhand Axe but this might be something worth trying out. Here it is. You’ll have to use Pin Down and Bull’s to set up Skull Crack but after that you should be able to land all of Axe 4 and 5. It’ll deal less than a full 100b but it doesn’t root you, you can evade, and you can still bring a LB for cleanse. Probably not viable but it’s kind of a cool concept if someone wants to try it out.

Nikkinella.8254:

I’m all for buffing GS ability in combat, as long as they do something about it being so good at running away. The last thing we need is for it to become the best in combat weapon that also allows you to run halfway across the map anytime you please when you start getting outplayed and reset fights repeatedly till you win.

If a Warrior is continuously running away, let them. Turn and go the other way and you’ll be reset as well. Being able to run away is not all that big of a deal. It’s nowhere near as bad as a Thief that can disengage and reengage instantly while still having great escape potential.

Even in WvW a single Warrior running away from a fight doesn’t really change anything. It’s a weapon that is heavily based around mobility and Rush has a decent recharge time. Nerf Rush’s ability to run away and you nerf their ability to close the distance when they use it to attack. Make it like RtL where you have to hit with it or it goes on a longer CD it would be too punishing because the skill loves to miss. Warriors also don’t have as many skills as Eles.

Sarrs.4831:

sounds like the problem is that so much of warrior survivability is predicated around CI

It is, which is why I think the most important healing skill that needs to be changed is Mending. With it being viable a whole bunch more options will hopefully open up.

Xae Isareth.1364:

I disagree with Healing Surge. I think it’s a very versatile heal which can be used both offensively and defensively, which is great.

Want a huge heal? Save your adrenaline.
Want to pump out more damage/stuns/burns/whatever? Sacrifice some healing to do that.

It’s not versatile in the least. Say you get spiked right after using your burst, you’re basically screwed. The rank 1 or 2 heal isn’t enough to keep you alive, I don’t care how good you are there are going to be plenty of situations were you NEED the full healing but there’s no guarantee you’ll have it. Adren gain is no issue if you have CI.

Warrior players have to constantly listen to people complain about Healing Signet, even with the recent nerfs. What people seem to overlook is that it’s hard to blame Warrior players when there is no other viable options to choose from. To pick any of the other 3 heals is pretty much a death sentence outside of Defiant Stance in zerg surfing. Here’s what’s wrong with the other Warrior healing skills and some suggestions.

Healing Surge: This is a skill that punishes the Warrior for using their profession mechanic, adrenaline. The healing at 3 bars is not bad at all, the major problem is that it can completely punish the user for using their adren, something that you HAVE to do if you don’t want to be eaten alive. While really boring mechanically, I would suggest removing the adrenaline gain, and just make the highest level of healing the default. It has a long CD and a longish activation time which justifies the high burst heal.

Mending: It’s theoretically a great heal for glassier Warriors who want to not put 4 points into Defense for Cleansing Ire. With Restorative Strength it would practically be a full cleanse. However, with such a low amount of healing at a 20 second CD it’s not worth taking. I would suggest something similar to Consume Conditions, only instead of healing more for each condi removed it would grant Adrenaline. This would benefit those using Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus because it will get them their bonus effect back faster. In addition, the CD would be better at 15 seconds. Due to it being an intended replacement for CI, 20 seconds can be a bit long. The healing values might still need to be looked at because even at 15 seconds the healing may still be too low.

Defiant Stance: This is a really interesting skill mechanically but in its current form it’s only good in big Zerg battles in WvW. While it has the potential to take you from almost dead to full the base healing is still way too low for a 35 second CD heal. Something around Mending’s current healing would seem fair. This skill is a stance, and yet it has a cast time. The whole idea of this skill is that you time it so that when your opponents try to lay down the hurt you turn that into healing, but which a cast time that can be really tricky considering most of the time that hurt will be coming while you are locked down in some way. If it was made in instant cast the amount that each attack heals for might need to be reduced, but honestly if they don’t realize that their attacks are healing them they deserve whatever happens. It could also be interesting is making Sure-Footed increase the duration by 1 second, but that might be imbalanced.

Most Warriors are just as displeased with their healing options as those who don’t play the class. Warrior as a whole has been all but forced into using the following: Healing Signet, Longbow, 4 points into Defense for Cleansing ire, and 3 points into Discipline for Fast Hands. It’s hard to not run builds like Hambow or Celestial Axebow when not taking them typically involves dieing horribly.

I agree that GS needs to become a weapon that is a viable replacement for LB. Currently, very few Warrior builds can be considered viable without a LB in their build. Skullcracker comes close, but without the ability to reliably cleanse in many, many situations it becomes worthless which is why we don’t see it more often outside of WvW roaming.

All I would want from a new GS burst is the ability to reliable activate Cleansing ire so that I don’t have to take a LB. The damage can be low, and have minimal bonus mechanics, it just has to keep be from being eaten alive by condis. There’s plenty of ways to do this. One would be changing the function to something like Spectral Wave only with more range and no knockback. It would still be blockable, blindable, and evadeable, but it would give the user a fair shot vs a build that carries a ton of soft CC. If in addition Brawler’s Recovery was changed so that Burst skills can’t be blinded (Brawler’s Rage) it would make the 2 mechanics synergize. Although, I think the revised skill would have to do something else besides just make burst unblindable, because that it really narrow for a GM level trait. Maybe something simple like applying a few stacks of vulnerability. Nothing too powerful, just something that doesn’t make the trait useless against all abut a few handful of builds.

Warrior may be strong, but I know many, myself included, that are fed up with being tied at the hip with a ranged weapon. In addition to being almost forced into taking Cleansing Ire (fixed by making Mending not terrible) there’s becoming less and less room for experimentation since almost every build need a LB, 4 in Defense, and 3 in Discipline.

Aza.2105:

Althalos.6734:

Warning – math ahead:
0 healing power Warrior with no traits and with Healing Signet = 362 health/second
Healing Signet: 362

0 healing power quad meditation, 30 Valor Guardian with Meditation Mastery and Monk’s Focus = 363.22 health/second
(base healing + Monk’s Focus) / ((skill cooldown * Meditation Mastery) + skill cast time)
Smite Condition: (0 + 1960) / ((20 * 0.8) + 0) = 122.50
Judge’s Intervention: (0 + 1960) / ((45 * 0.8) + 0) = 54.44
Contemplation of Purity: (0 + 1960) / ((60 * 0.8) + 0) = 40.83
Litany of Wrath: (1640 + 1960) / ((30 * 0.8) + 0.75) = 145.45 (not counting 20% damage to healing conversion)

Conclusion: A quad meditation guardian has the same sustain as a Healing Signet warrior if he uses his meditations whenever possible and the warrior denies him to gain extra 6 second 20% of damage healing from Litany of Wrath.

And to answer the OP:
Nothing changed and I can’t say they are more popular than before. PvE and sPvP premade teams will always take 1 guardian for utility, WvW groups will always use a mix of guardians and warriors as the main force with a few support mesmers and elementalists behind. It will stay this way as long as guardians will be stuck so deep inside group support/utility role or another profession ascends to their level.

You aren’t including adrenal health, every warrior in pvp takes this with cleansing ire….

Also, zerker guardian has no sustain they have burst healing. Not sure why you included litany of wrath. Because its completely theoretical, in the sense that you must land all of your attacks to make use of it. Its a better group fight heal than it is for single fights because of this. So I wouldn’t bother including it in your mathematical analysis if I were you.

Adrenal Health has been overestimated for ages now. It only tics once over 3 seconds and the vast majority of Warrior builds revolve around using your adrenaline constantly to not be eaten alive by conditions. It’s an OK trait, but nearly as amazing as some seem to thing it is.

I like generosity as well, I cycle around depending on what I encounter. Sometimes that extra condi cleanse is really useful, it’s also funny when you transfer a long duration burn back to an Engi.

I’ve been using Spiked armor as well and it imo the better choice. To me all Defy Pain does more often than not is delay the inevitable, while Spiked Armor can often mean that you wouldn’t have needed DP in the first place.

My version is only slighty different. I don’t think Hoelbrak runes are necessary tbh, between Berserker Stance and CI I don’t feel like a little duration reduction is worth trading a constant 7% damage increase. I like Missile Deflecting because everything about this build is about attacking from as many different sources as possible. Why just block it when you can send it back in their faces? I’ll often turn away for the first part so it doesn’t trigger the counter until I turn around at the very end. It just feels nice to be on the offensive even while playing defensive.

I’m still not a fan of Endure Pain, with 2 skills with stability you can be the designated stomper in team fights and Decap Engis also can’t force you off point so easily and Hambow Warriors become a joke. Sometimes that 4-5 seconds of taking no physical damage can be useful but like I said before most of the time it feels like I’m just delaying the inevitable.

Don’t take this as me tearing down your version, it works perfectly fine, I just have a sightly different playstyle. One thing I will say though is that I find the build editor I use much better in terms of presentation. It’s also faster to use because in PvP mode it defaults to using all 6 runes and doesn’t have the gem anymore.

Simon.3794:

nop, nothing is viable except hambow for war.

even axe/sword is semi viable cuz no cc, and only good for duel.

i know because i already tried every single possibility

I personally find Axe/Sword with Celestial gear more versatile than Hambow. Yes, you give up that control but in exchange you gain the ability to always have some way to exploit a weakness in the enemy. You have decent condi damage and power damage while still being tough enough to stay in the fight. Anyone who’s good is going to save some form of Stability/Invulnerability for stomps so losing out on the ability to interrupt stomps hurt much less than I expected it to.

I just wish I could get out of using Longbow on Warrior. You can do good work with Skullcracker but certain builds are just going to flat out suck to fight against. If GS had a sort of AoE that always triggered Cleansing Ire like Combustive shot does but with a much smaller range then I could see Warriors being able to ditch the bow.

The meta is the meta for a reason. People who are serious about the game will find the most powerful combination of mechanics and will use them. I don’t believe in the idea that using a build you like as opposed the the meta is a good thing if you want to take the game seriously. If you run something that has been proven weaker than other alternatives and it loses the game for your team then you were selfish and screwed over the people you’re playing with. If you’re running with a group of friends who are OK with your decision that’s perfectly fine but for arenas like SoloQ and joining TPvP solo you should be running something that is at least viable in some way. Yes, you bought the game and that gives you the right to play how you want, within reason. If you ask me it isn’t moral to screw other people over in a competitive environment “for the lolz.” In a team game you make sacrifices for the group or things fall apart, your idea of fun doesn’t outweigh that of your teammates. You should still have fun of course, there’s at least one viable build for every playstyle, just don’t screw others over.

That being said, the meta can change with no balance changes from the devs. If you think you found a way to counter the meta then by all means try it out. Right now we see tons of people using runes of Strength and I’m already seeing more and more builds focused around boon stripping. If it keeps up we might see the meta shift because people will get tired of that Thief stealing all their Might and insta-gibbing them or a Necro turning them all into Weakness. Until that shift happens though, the meta is going to be the best because it’s been proven to be the most effective way of doing things. If you can play well with a non-meta build than I can almost guarantee that you would do better with the meta if you took the time to learn it. Depending on how difficult it is (but in this game nothing is that hard) you might not be better immediately but once you know it it’ll be better than what you had before.

That’s for PvP anyways, in PvE most of the same things apply and depending on if your group is going for a fast clear you having the right setup is even more important. In solo WvW roaming do whatever you want because you’re not hurting anyone but yourself if you run a non-meta build. It can be annoying dealing with someone who wants to be “anti-meta” and doing worse because of it. Don’t be that person, please.

Neko.9021:

Hammer and Longbow, 0/0/30/10/30, Soldier Amulet and Strength Runes. Berserker’s Stance and Healing Signet.

Look up “Hambow” builds that are up to date and you should do well.

Hambow is so overrated. Something like this will pretty much let you handle anything that comes your way. Do they attack fast? Death by Retaliation. Do they have poor coni removal? Death by Burning and Torment. Are they allergic to taking an axe to the throat? Use Evis with 3 attacks after switching and get a nice bit of burst damage. Sure, you lack the control of the Hammer but this build isn’t totally shut down by someone having stability or a heap of teleports. It also has a nice side benefit of not being Hambow which halves the amount of QQ. People will still complain about HS, just say that you are sorry for not using Mending.

Celestial gear is going to be the real problem, that and the ability to use Strength runes to maintain good damage even on a tanky build.

As stated above all of the condi War’s most damaging attacks are much easier to avoid than the majority of condition builds out there. Whether it’s Pin Down, Flurry, Impale, or Ripost they all have easy to read tells. What makes it good is that if you land all those big hitters the target has 1.5-2k Bleed ticks in addition to Burn damage and often times Poison from Doom sigils.

I’d be less worried about pure condi Wars these days, certain builds hard counter them. What I WOULD be worried about is more Warriors realizing how good Celestial gear is because I bet it would have enough power damage to break through Diamond Skin and other builds that are resilient to condi.

I’m reviving this thread so that it can actually be updated since the creator of that old thread no longer hangs around here. If someone knows of a way to make a poll that has more options than straw poll that be great. Also, if a mod could merge the old thread with this one but give me the editing rights that would be really helpful.

EDIT: I’m thinking of maybe making multiple polls, 1 for each tier, and letting people vote multiple times. I ask that posters list builds that they think should be included and I’ll take it from there.

EDIT 2: Changing it from a Class list to a Build list, seems to make more sense.

EDIT 3: Here’s a test version of the poll, I know I left some builds out I just wanted to get feedback.

I can bring back my thread if you guys want so that I can actually update it. Perhaps we can set up some sort of poll or something. Is there any free program that would allow users to order the classes?

The best Rifle build I’ve managed to come up with is this. The reasoning for going 6 in Arms is for Attack of Opportunity because at least then the Rifle AA becomes slightly less terrible since it gives you a constant 10% damage increase and the Forceful GS trait also helps out. If you time it perfectly you can go Bull’s Charge + Kill Shot and it’ll connect the split second before they get up. Rifle seems to basically be a ranged Axe but honestly sometimes the range isn’t worth it. Sniping off a squishy target from a distance can be useful but something about the weapon has always felt off to me.

You could also run something like this or this which would give you more soft CC and some team condi removal on option 1. Sword also benefits from AoO and still give you mobility. You also have the option of using Flurry and swapping to Rifle and getting a full Volley in 1v1 situations where you probably won’t be able to reliably land KS. Personally it’s a spec I would LIKE to use but when I looks at what some other builds bring it’s difficult to justify.

Xae Isareth.1364:

a t s e.9614:

Loco.4561:

I still see more warriors than guardians, yes guardians can out dps warriors and it takes skill to do considering the low HP. Warriors however doesn’t take a lot of skill, low risk – high reward.

Both warrior and guardian don’t take much skill , both classes are straight forward: swing your great sword and that’s about it. Although warrior has healing signet, guard also has a lot of passive regen and aegis from traits.

Except if you go full DPS as a guardian, you have the lowest HP in the game, on the same level as eles, but without their huge array of skills.

I play both War and Meditation Guardian. I actually find that the sustain on the Guard is higher and it can have much better burst damage. With GS + Mace/Focus you have blocks that not only act as sustain but also hit like a truck when they trigger.

Luke.4562:

+1

EDIT: What the heck do you mean by “denaturalizing?”

Misleading, watering down the meaning of my argument by associating it to something which isn’t directly related to it.

I can make the same comparison as you did:
The fact Necro have more aoe condis doesn’t balance a thing, Arcing Arrow deals a ridicle amount of Aoe damage on a way larger area of effect and can be spammed on a short cooldown; keep in mind the LongBow also is used in berserker builds, with no need of condi damage because of their ridicle damage.

So what do we have? Ridicle single target damage and ridicle Aoe damage.
This justifies the fact that Warrior has still better traits than most classes. Sure.
Where’s the balance you were arguing for?
Don’t even try to come and say Burning isn’t Bleeding, blah blah blah.. Imbalanced damage is still imbalanced damage.

The more, i love how people use the verbalizations “comparing apples to oranges” to apparently giving more emphasis and meaning to their arguments…

Did you miss the 15% Arcing Arrow dmg nerf ON TOP of the ferocity nerf? Burning on Warrior is only damaging if you somehow manage to not evade a single one of the Pulses (btw Combustive Shot was also nerfed several times), the duration isn’t that long unless you take runes/sigils for it. It sounds like you’re living it the game of several months ago.

The apples to oranges statement holds true because every clas is so different design wise that it makes zero sense to compare traits in a vacuum. You can’t just ignore the other mechanics the class has in place. You can’t say “X class has this and this and this” without also saying “it lacks that that and that.” As stated before, giving some of the traits that Warrior has to Necro would make them crazy imbalanced. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but I for one see more Necros (Generally Power or Corruptomancer) and Engis (Bunker or Decap) these days than I do Warriors. Even when Warriors were at their peak popularity it was generally because they countered the condition meta at the time.

Your arguments are fundamentally flawed because you seem to think that you can just pick one part of what makes a class and disreguard anything else. Least I checked Necromances are still the superior condition class.

Also, I’m still not sold on your use of denaturalize, but that’s just semantics.

Terrahero.9358:

Lifestealer.4910:

What is this warrior meta you talk about. Most teams i see consist of 2+ engis and even most top EU team started to drop warriors and put more engis on their team.

If anything this is the engi meta we are in.

Funny enough we just got a big tournament on which 128 teams competed, and we can safely conclude that you are wrong.
Engineer was the second least played profession, and Warrior the second most played profession. Especially in the top teams, who would even field double-warrior at times.

Similarly Condition builds were under-represented aswell. So any complaints about either engineers or conditions is just a good indication of the level the complainer plays on, protip, its nowhere near the top.

Those tournaments happened shortly after the patch and the teams were probably not willing to changing up their team compositions. New metas don’t form overnight.

DaShi.1368:

BurrTheKing.8571:

It’s not about beating them, it’s that the builds are boring to fight against. Not to mention that the builds that CAN kill them not only don’t kill them fast but are also generally boring as well. As a Warrior if I want to kill a bunker Engi I’d have to run condi Warrior and it still wouldn’t be fast enough. Not to mention Decap Engis that have more pushback than even a Warrior with both Balanced Stance and Dolyak Signet can handle.

This is part of the problem. Engineers need all those knockbacks to counter the warriors with all their stability, cc, and damage. Other classes can’t have their abilities brought down, until warriors themselves are dealt with. Frankly, these build seem like an excellent counter to the warrior meta.

Warrior’s actually have the easiest time, I just throw on both stability skills and I could even fit Last Stand in if I really needed to.

isolatedchimp.2510:

Wait, so we’re now calling for nerfs based on degree of boredom associated with whatever you’re trying to nerf? In that case, we might have to nerf the whole conquest game mode because it’s getting pretty monotonous.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Just because something is objective doesn’t mean it’s not an opinion shared by others. It’s also relevant because if players aren’t enjoying themselves they aren’t going to play, duh.

I’m pretty sure you mean “subjective” because objective is the opposite of an opinion.

Yah, auto correct messed the post bad, I’ll fix it. If you noticed I never called for nerfs. What I want is for conquest to have larger capture points and to not allow a single player to deny the cap of 2+, just to delay it. Decap and bunker Engi aren’t “OP” so much as they excel at taking advantage of tiny little points.

coglin.1867:

I do not think they are boring to fight. Your opinion on that is subjective at best. I never have much trouble getting them off a point with my mesmer, necro, or power engie.

In my opinion, you need to practice more before making balance claims. I see myself and many many others deal with them on a daily basis. By the way, when did one individuals opinion of how fun his enemy is to fight, become relevant to a balance discussion?

Just because something is subjective doesn’t mean it’s not an opinion shared by others. It’s also relevant because if players aren’t enjoying themselves they aren’t going to play, duh.

EDIT: Objective to Subjective, screw auto correct.

Luke.4562:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Warriors also only has access to 3 damaging conditions: Bleeds, Torment, and Burning. Let’s compare that to what Necro has: Everything. The most dangerous condi skills that Warrior has are also highly telegraphed, Impale and Pin Down. To go further, both of those skills are single target (although sometimes you get a lucky pierce from Pin Down) Necro has the ability to spread their condis all over. You’re comparing apples to oranges here.

Imbalanced traits and too much damage are still the problems here, they have nothing to do with what you listed above.
You’re clearly denaturalizing my point making unappropriate comparisons, this is public information pollution.

How is it unrelated? You claim something to be superior to something else but only want to compare mechanics that prove your point while ignoring other mechanics that balance things out? Warrior condition builds are largely single target while Necros are more AoE. Therefore it makes sense that Warrior traits would be stronger in some ways. If Necros had 50% bleed duration it would be INSANE.

EDIT: What the heck do you mean by “denaturalizing?”

Luke.4562:

Olba.5376:

COOOOOOFFF COOOOFFFFF!!!!!!!!!! And Sword’s bleeds are way better than Scepter’s…

The justification for Deep Cuts lies in Flurry: Flurry applies multiple 2s bleeds. Anything short of 50% would have no effect on this due to how the ticks are timed.

It’s a poor justification, because if we assume that’s made just for Flurry, then we forget it affects all other bleeds: autoattack bleeds are yet long (8seconds untraited), offhand’s too (12 seconds untraited and 15 seconds of cooldown), Pin Down (from 12 seconds and 6300 damages on 25 seconds cooldown to 10000 damages over 18 seconds [and I calcualted without adding any other traits or stats])…
Warrior has a major uptime, duration and damage on bleeds. And even major traits.

Olba.5376:

The shortest bleed on a Necro is 5s, meaning that 20% is the minimum required to get a benefit.

Blood Curse 4 seconds untraited, Barbed Precision 2 seconds.

I’ve said enough.

Warriors also only has access to 3 damaging conditions: Bleeds, Torment, and Burning. Let’s compare that to what Necro has: Everything. The most dangerous condi skills that Warrior has are also highly telegraphed, Impale and Pin Down. To go further, both of those skills are single target (although sometimes you get a lucky pierce from Pin Down) Necro has the ability to spread their condis all over. You’re comparing apples to oranges here.

You can argue that you need your CD reduction traits merged with similar traits, but please don’t compare them to other classes. Warrior and Ranger are very different in design so comparing their traits doesn’t make sense. If we were to compare traits across all classes and make all similar traits as strong as the best one, some classes would become crazy broken.

I don’t disagree that Ranger traits need help, but comparing them to other traits doesn’t “prove” anything. This is doubly true in this case because Rifle on Warrior is pathetic traited or not. It’s a weapon that has less AoE yet less damage than the LB on Warrior, a weapon that has been nerfed multiple times.

ricky.2679:

Bump. Agreed with the post above, because it is mainly the design of conquest for both pvp and wvw that is unbalanced. And the classes must be balanced to be good at both of them which makes it even harder especially if you include pve as well. I think that perhaps Arenanet did not realise how much more complicated the balance of wvw and pvp was than pve.

I mean it’s easy to fix a class for pve just give it more dps but for pvp and wvw it gets much more complicated. Because of this power creep in the last patch many builds are over the top but it’s ok because they are all “overpowered” lol. The solution according to the elite pro players of this game is to learn to play.

Anyway please continue to debate the balance and meta of this game. Perhaps we can even find counters to the most commonly used builds so that players don’t have to play the same old builds and classes all the time. Thanks for the discussion and posts so far.

The more I hear the “pro” players talk the less I value their input. I’ve played many, many games with conquest formats that work just fine because they give you a decent amount of area to work with. In GW2 ANet makes these maps that you use less than a 3rd of. I can’t blame people for going bunker and AoE spam when it’s what the game encourages. The builds we see right now aren’t necessarily “OP,” they just do what the gamemode encourages best. Rebalancing the classes is just putting a band-aid on the problem.

Many (not all) of the “best” players we see post on the forums tend to say nothing more than “l2p scrub” even though they know nothing about said player or how good they are. Not everyone is willing to dedicate the amount of time to GW2 PvP when they don’t find it enjoyable enough to do more than a few games in every now and then. These days, half the time when you lose it doesn’t feel like you got outplayed, it just feels like you got cheated. Other games I can lose and go “they played better than me;” I don’t get the same feeling in this one.

Flissy.4093:

Condi engies tend to lack condition removal (usually have it on healing turret only) and often has ZERO stability. If they take either of those in a greater amount, they kitten their condis.

Its an L2P issue, just like all PvP whines.

“Dear Anet,

Nerf paper! Scissors is fine though.

Sincerely, rock".

It’s not about beating them, it’s that the builds are boring to fight against. Not to mention that the builds that CAN kill them not only don’t kill them fast but are also generally boring as well. As a Warrior if I want to kill a bunker Engi I’d have to run condi Warrior and it still wouldn’t be fast enough. Not to mention Decap Engis that have more pushback than even a Warrior with both Balanced Stance and Dolyak Signet can handle.

It doesn’t matter if you kill them, so long as they keep you off point for long enough they win. The overall class balance isn’t bad, PvP is just designed in such a way where tactics like these will just always win. The capture points are too small and the ability for 1 person to deny the cap from 2+ is ridiculous.

a t s e.9614:

BurrTheKing.8571:

a t s e.9614:

Julie Yann.5379:

nicknamenick.2437:

Dee Jay.2460:

We can’t have an objective debate about Warriors balance as long as Healing Signet and Adrenal Healing are ticking away for over 600 HPS. That’s just ridiculous. It turns every Block, every immunity and every evade into a 1-4k heal.

Aedrion.6483:

This smells like Soldiers+Sigil of Intelligence to me.
Normally not OP, but hilariously overpowered on warriors because of Evis having such huge base damage.

Soldiers gives pretty crappy crit damage. Looks more like a Valk/Cav mix or a Cav/Zerk mix + sigil of intelligence.

Yes, other things are probably OP too but nothing comes close to the passive healing. And until we see it nerfed/changed we can’t really objectively kitten other imbalances.

HAHAHa! You must be living in 2013 i think?
Because i and almost all warriors get around 360-370 from HS these days.. And lets say you have always 50% adrenaline (full adrenaline is never using CI so 50% is much more reality) thats another 50 health per second…

so its around 410-420

but ofc still people think its 600+ hps…

A lot of people still think that adrenal health ticks 360 every second. It’s every 3 seconds. So 120 every second if you never use your adrenaline. Average 50 hps during a fight sounds about right.

Aedrion.6483:

This smells like Soldiers+Sigil of Intelligence to me.
Normally not OP, but hilariously overpowered on warriors because of Evis having such huge base damage.

Soldiers gives pretty crappy crit damage. Looks more like a Valk/Cav mix or a Cav/Zerk mix + sigil of intelligence.

Soldier warrior can still crit 8k-10k eviscerate because of the high base damage and multipliers from traits.

You’re only going to hit those numbers on a really glassy foe. Soldier’s has no Ferocity, on anyone with a decent amount of toughness it’s going to be around 4-6k if the Warrior wants to have some actual sustain in their build. I’m not going to count things like Guard Stacks and other Buffs because that’s not the class’s fault and they’re also available to anyone with the time/money.

We really need to stop exaggerating when it comes to ANY class. In the last several days I’ve seen exaggerations on the damage, weapon swaps, healing per second (Adrenal Health is every THREE SECONDS people, and most wars only have full adren for MAYBE one tic), and several other things. If you’re going to say something about a class, go to the wiki and read up on what you’re talking about.

You can even test it yourself in PvP, go take soldier amulet with intel sigil , Axe/sword longbow with 25 stacks of might you crit way more than 8k on a glass thief.

The thing is thief is the only class in the game that is forced to go full glass to deal damage which makes it very high risk unlike warrior/necro who can abuse crit chance and damage from traits/sigils/runes while being tanky as kitten.

As I said its not OP but the thief has to be very skilled to out -play a warrior without shadow arts.

I run axe all the time and even with 25 stacks of might you’d be lucky to hit that high on someone who’s not glass. People keeps saying they see people running around with that amount constantly, which is total exaggeration unless your whole team is using blast finishers in which case teamwork OP. If I’m fighting a Thief I think I’d actually try to keep my Might stacks low if they’re S/D because all I’m going to do is run the risk of giving THEM my might. In fact, I’d imagine this meta is a boon-stealing Thief’s paradise which is why we see S/D so much.

Not to mention outside of the 3 crits on swap every 9 seconds Soldier DPS is rather low (less crit chance even with Fury). It’ll kill you but not fast, while Thief can take a target out much faster and just evade/teleport away if things go south.

Some things I want to comment on.

While I understand the feeling that some don’t like the idea of giving another “free” cleanse to Warrior or the idea that LB burst is always a cleanse, but imagine if it wasn’t like it currently was. While I don’t make a habit of comparing other class traits, most other classes cleanses are passive procs every X amount of time. If you want to talk about a lack of risk that would be it. There are downsides to that but with how much blind/block/etc that is in this game it would be SUPER punishing to have all weapons require a hit. Against a foe that has massive amounts of condis missing or mistiming a burst is already death often times, making Combustive Shot require a hit after it has already had the number of pulses reduced would be cruel.

As for suggestions, in the past I thought it be nice to have something like Spectral Wave but have it deal low damage but be unblockable, but now I have another more interesting idea(I haven’t read every post so maybe this was already proposed). One thing Warrior’s sorely lack is combo fields; they have plenty of attacks that combo off of them but once again they are forced into LB if they want to actually make these combos on their own. It would be interesting to have the Warrior stab the ground and produce a combo field about the size of untraited Guardian Symbols (or smaller). This would trigger CI and allow the Warrior to do some interesting combos. As for what type of field that’s where it gets tricky. I want to say Smoke because thematically it would be like you kicking up a cloud of dirt that “conceals” you (like in anime or action movies). The potential problem with that would be that it would allow Warriors to blind and Stealth. That being said, while it sounds like it could be OP the ways the Warrior could to this is by either having a Sword, Shield, Axe,Warhorn or Bull’s Charge. Not only can you only have a couple of these in a build it wouldn’t be that practical. Running GS + Sword/Shield/Warhorn would have pretty terrible damage, the best you could hope for is going for a Final Thrust while stealthed and that would still not make it that much easier to land, it would be pretty cool though. Basically it would be a kitten version of a D/P Thief. Using Bull’s charge in it on someone who is targeted means getting revealed a split second later and using it to run means for 1 second you’re going in a very predictable direction, not to mention for escaping it wouldn’t help to stop moving to USE the burst so you’d be better off just flat out running. Using Evis on Axe after using the full burst would leave you with 1 bar that won’t hit hard and just like Bull’s you unstealth you right after and using it w/o a target means you have no adren and no real followup. On average it would probably just be used to make Bladetrail and Whirlwind Attack blind. This is kind of a silly idea but at the same time it would be kind of cool to see what players come up with. GW2 has never done things like other games.

The other option would be a dark field which would just be blinds and health steal but that makes less sense thematically. No other field would make any sort of sense. It’s not the most practical idea but I think every class should have interesting options to explore. Neither of these things are likely to happen but it’s one of those things you go “that would be interesting.” The whole concept is to make GS a functional replacement for LB. I don’t support nerfing LB for like the 4th time in a row by making it require a hit to activate CI. The new burst would have to serve the same practical purpose otherwise Warrior’s won’t every want to put down their bows.

a t s e.9614:

Julie Yann.5379:

nicknamenick.2437:

Dee Jay.2460:

We can’t have an objective debate about Warriors balance as long as Healing Signet and Adrenal Healing are ticking away for over 600 HPS. That’s just ridiculous. It turns every Block, every immunity and every evade into a 1-4k heal.

Aedrion.6483:

This smells like Soldiers+Sigil of Intelligence to me.
Normally not OP, but hilariously overpowered on warriors because of Evis having such huge base damage.

Soldiers gives pretty crappy crit damage. Looks more like a Valk/Cav mix or a Cav/Zerk mix + sigil of intelligence.

Yes, other things are probably OP too but nothing comes close to the passive healing. And until we see it nerfed/changed we can’t really objectively kitten other imbalances.

HAHAHa! You must be living in 2013 i think?
Because i and almost all warriors get around 360-370 from HS these days.. And lets say you have always 50% adrenaline (full adrenaline is never using CI so 50% is much more reality) thats another 50 health per second…

so its around 410-420

but ofc still people think its 600+ hps…

A lot of people still think that adrenal health ticks 360 every second. It’s every 3 seconds. So 120 every second if you never use your adrenaline. Average 50 hps during a fight sounds about right.

Aedrion.6483:

This smells like Soldiers+Sigil of Intelligence to me.
Normally not OP, but hilariously overpowered on warriors because of Evis having such huge base damage.

Soldiers gives pretty crappy crit damage. Looks more like a Valk/Cav mix or a Cav/Zerk mix + sigil of intelligence.

Soldier warrior can still crit 8k-10k eviscerate because of the high base damage and multipliers from traits.

You’re only going to hit those numbers on a really glassy foe. Soldier’s has no Ferocity, on anyone with a decent amount of toughness it’s going to be around 4-6k if the Warrior wants to have some actual sustain in their build. I’m not going to count things like Guard Stacks and other Buffs because that’s not the class’s fault and they’re also available to anyone with the time/money.

We really need to stop exaggerating when it comes to ANY class. In the last several days I’ve seen exaggerations on the damage, weapon swaps, healing per second (Adrenal Health is every THREE SECONDS people, and most wars only have full adren for MAYBE one tic), and several other things. If you’re going to say something about a class, go to the wiki and read up on what you’re talking about.

Proper use of your blocks to reflect attacks is key to victory. It’s also perfect for stomp denial if they aren’t using stability/invuln. In team fights if your team goes for whoever you target they’re going to die. I often run with a DPS Meditation Guard that waits until I stun and then hits them for massive numbers in addition to my own. even if they stun break they’re going to be hurting from the initial burst. The ONLY builds I have real issues with are some Mesmer builds that I rarely encounter and more recently the corruptomacer build that’s making the rounds. Even with that build I’m slowly learning how to bait out the dangerous stuff before going for the kill. It’s a weapon that is designed to give more control than hammer at the cost of having no AoE and being less forgiving. Once you master landing Skull Crack with no setups the weapon will treat you well and you’ll get to laugh as you watch people kill themselves with their own attacks and you scream ORA-ORA-ORA-ORA-ORA as you land that full 100b.

I suggest it for those who are tired of Hambow and LB in general.

What Carpboy posted is pretty much exactly what I use and I can vouch for its effectiveness. Two changes, I don’t use Dogged March, instead I use Missile Deflection. It does make you a bit more vulnerable to builds with a lot of soft control skills but the ability to reflect is great because almost every build has something that it can benefit from. To synergize with that I take Mighty Defense as well to ensure even more might. In addition I’ve found myself using Rampage more because it’s really good if used at the start to gain an early lead in a 2v1. Squishy targets die almost instantly.

oZii.2864:

mrauls.6519:

Balance to me is every profession being capable of killing the other professions in a competent way

Then the game is balanced for you since you can counter any other build by changing traits and weapons. I don’t think there are any uncounterable builds. Professions on the surface need certain traits/weapons to counter other builds.

To expand on that, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a build that is just slightly above others if there’s a viable counter. A “perfectly balanced” game would most likely get stale, but if there’s something out there that is becoming more and more prominent then there’s a chance for a more obscure/underused build coming into the meta because it happens to counter it. We saw this happen with Condi Necros, there were 2 per team until Warrior’s were buffed to hard counter them. The problem currently plaguing PvP is that the metas we’ve had all come from how PvP is designed and it encourages builds that are not fun to many players.

The problem with WvW is that there’s so many performance enhancers. Things like food and guard stacks can allow a Warrior to cover up any weak points that exist in their build. You can run -40% condi duration food and give up Cleansing Ire for something like Last Stand or Merciless Hammer and then have room for Defy Pain in the GM slot. You can run a tanky armor set and subsidize your naturally lower DPS with guard stacks, or you can do the same thing with a more glassy set, getting tons more HP.

Every class can do that but it can help Warriors more because the whole point of them having high base stats is because they lack other forms of sustain. it works fine in PvP because there’s no food/guard stacks there. Without those buffs in WvW the Warrior isn’t really that much harder to take on than any other class. WvW is just imbalanced by nature and that’s unlikely to change. ANet doesn’t want to split the balance so it seems really unfair to nerf a class in PvP because of factors in WvW.

Dee Jay.2460:

Guardians pushed out of meta?

Never. That class alone is responsible for the entire bunker-meta in the first place and turns all team-mates into immortal heroes as soon as it joins a fight.

I agree that this is probably the kittentiest and lamest meta we’ve ever had dominated by low-risk/high reward builds with perma Protection, Vigor and Regeneration that simply refuse to die.

You might as well just say Engi. It’s a shame, when I used to play that class all the time it felt so much more challenging. Now, it seems like half of the sustain is automated and the only thing I have to do is use my heal and the block on the Tool Kit.

Malediktus.9250:

Branden Gee.2150:

We know about this issue. Unfortunately it is going to take some time to fix it.

I guess that means we will have to wait 6 months for this crucial fix and will be part of the next feature patch

I would imagine it would require them to make new models for every costume on every race. That isn’t something that you can just pop out in a few hours. I’d imagine the people that would have to do that are currently working on living world stuff.

Classes that don’t have traits like Fast Hands or skills like Kits are designed around not having them. Reducing weapon swapping time would no doubt make some builds stupidly broken. Imagine a DPS Meditation Guard with lower swap times (shudder).

Also as stated above it’s 5 seconds not 4. If you’re going to say things about another class make darn sure what you’re saying is accurate.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We agree the scoreboard needs an overhaul at some point. What kind of functionality would you want to see on the scoreboard? Stat comparison between teams? Between players? What you scored best in?

In TPvP it would be nice to have as much data thrown at is in a sort of after-action report as possible. A person-by-person breakdown of damage dealt (further broken down by the sources), damage received, points captured, points defended, secondary objective (stat depends on map), things like that. If there was a was to see these reports in the PvP window it would be good for figuring out where you’re strong and where you’re weak.

As for what you see on the standard score screen I think captures and defends are probably the most important. That way home and mid guards receive recognition for their contribution because currently they could be the reason you won but have hardly any points. As to what counts as a defense I guess it would have to be something like every X amount of time spent on a point or something. A way to see who was the top at certain things like how you currently see at the end but it’s on the final score screen as opposed to just the person who got the reward would also be nice.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

-snip-

It’s a shame, I don’t hate the rogue/thief archetype but I dislike how it’s done in this game. I would totally play one if there was a way to play like a sort of bruiser with no stealth but instead a focus on blocks and parrying with just a bit of evade thrown in, but not WHOLE PLAYSTYLE being about evades.

I don’t know how you would change the class without a partial or total redesign. The initiative system sound cool in theory, no cooldowns but you have to manage your skill useage carefully, but that’s not how it plays out in reality. Assassins in GW1 had an attack chaining mechanic that is sort of like what we have today but at the same time not really. Maybe there would be a way to add something like this to the mix. Of course the problem is that in GW1 you could a string of 7 attack skills and little to no utility which isn’t a thing in GW2. Perhaps lessen the damage of certain attacks but have them deal more damage/additional effects if a certain prerequisite is met? Sadly, I don’t see the class changing in any significant way that would make me want to pick it up again.

We aren’t seeing that homogenization happening in PvP though, the opposite in fact. I see an almost proportionate amount of every class except for Ranger. As mentioned before Mesmer is slightly down on that curve but I see at least 1 every few games where before I saw none.

making a balance plan that encompasses all at once is IMPOSSIBLE. What could be done is adding/changing mechanics that encourages change. For example, if they wanted to discourage zerging in WvW a bit, have the game apply some sort of debuff when X number of players are in close proximity. Maybe you want to discourage a team tanky and AoE focused builds in PvP, make the capture points larger and allow for w/e team has the most players on points to cap over the other team that is on the same point. Maybe you want condis to be better in PvP, have the amount of maximum stacks scale based on the number of players (no idea if that would work it’s just an example). You can focus on the balance of one game mode if you have the others designed differently. “One Size Fits All” balancing will just leave everyone annoyed. It would also be impossibly complex to ensure that enough playstlyes are both available and that none are too strong in any one mode. Right now ANet seems to be balancing for PvP considering almost all the major changes were to builds the community had a beef against.

Also, WvW balance should be based more around food buffs and the like because that’s what really throws things off. Many skills already have a cap of how many targets they can hit so it already takes into account how they affect large scale conflict, and the number is high enough that it doesn’t effect PvP very often outside of AI builds like Spirits and Minions.

I play WvW but I know that I would never want to have the game balanced over it., and PvE’s problems once again stem more from design decisions than balance.

EDIT: Umm…there was a post above me but now it has vanished.