Guild Wars 2

Zepidel.5349:

BurrTheKing.8571:

oZii.2864:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Me and my guild were messing around with a burst comp and we had some success vs bunker comps. We were mostly messing around but when we got serious we won most of our games. I was running what I’m calling The Bunker Buster which is essentially a new version of what Warriors ran at the start of the game. You can only use the big burst once every minute but it can instantly kill squishy targets and get bunkers down to below 25%. We also had a Meditation guard and a Warrior running something similar to me.

So long as we were smart with our rotations 2 of us were able to blow up any tough target very quickly. It’s not an easy team to run and you probably noticed my build is really vulnerable after the initial burst but I could see running a support Ele and a bunker guard with it being really solid. Of course I have no idea how this would work at “high level” play.

Soo are you still thinking about quitting? Are warriors still in a bad place in this “Condi-Meta”? Just looking for hyperbolic advice I just see people talking about double War comps so I am confused by your previous expert warrior perspective.

I just don’t take the game seriously as far as competition goes anymore. I just run with guildies using odd comps and we just decided “we hate bunkers, let’s run crazy burst.” I still see plenty of MM’s, Condi/pushback Engis, Spirit Rangers, and other builds that are just plain boring to fight. In our group if you’re condi, expect to be bursted down first even if it’s not the best option. People call Warrior a “passive” class almost purely because we don’t generally press a button to heal yet I see so many specs that can be boiled down to “put red circles on another small circles” or “let the AI do it.” Those seem much more passive than 90% of Warrior specs, especially mine which doesn’t even use Healing Signet.

The game could really do for some GvG leagues, community ran or otherwise. Allow them to set their own rules, and times.

Could have fun stuff like 4 month long leagues with specific rule sets and have matches every weekend with prize pools for the teams with specific ladder ranks.

TTPvP and just some leaderboards, and the occasional officially ran tourney like ToL is getting really stale.

The map design really hurts TPvP if you ask me. It needs to have larger capture points and the ability for 2 players to cap over 1 tanky enemy, at a slower speed of course. They could also do with more interesting environmental mechanics just not on the level of Skyhammer. Something like destructible graves on Foefire that can be used to break LoS. Just minor things that spice things up without cheesey insta-kills like falling to your death. I think a TF2 stlye capture point mode would also be worthwhile as well. It would make things more focused and therefore easier to stream and if the zones are large then you could actually tell wtf was going on.

The fact that there is STILL no GvG is pretty nuts. I mean, PvP in general was such a huge part of GW1 the lack of variety in GW2 still surprises me.

oZii.2864:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Me and my guild were messing around with a burst comp and we had some success vs bunker comps. We were mostly messing around but when we got serious we won most of our games. I was running what I’m calling The Bunker Buster which is essentially a new version of what Warriors ran at the start of the game. You can only use the big burst once every minute but it can instantly kill squishy targets and get bunkers down to below 25%. We also had a Meditation guard and a Warrior running something similar to me.

So long as we were smart with our rotations 2 of us were able to blow up any tough target very quickly. It’s not an easy team to run and you probably noticed my build is really vulnerable after the initial burst but I could see running a support Ele and a bunker guard with it being really solid. Of course I have no idea how this would work at “high level” play.

Soo are you still thinking about quitting? Are warriors still in a bad place in this “Condi-Meta”? Just looking for hyperbolic advice I just see people talking about double War comps so I am confused by your previous expert warrior perspective.

I just don’t take the game seriously as far as competition goes anymore. I just run with guildies using odd comps and we just decided “we hate bunkers, let’s run crazy burst.” I still see plenty of MM’s, Condi/pushback Engis, Spirit Rangers, and other builds that are just plain boring to fight. In our group if you’re condi, expect to be bursted down first even if it’s not the best option. People call Warrior a “passive” class almost purely because we don’t generally press a button to heal yet I see so many specs that can be boiled down to “put red circles on another small circles” or “let the AI do it.” Those seem much more passive than 90% of Warrior specs, especially mine which doesn’t even use Healing Signet.

Me and my guild were messing around with a burst comp and we had some success vs bunker comps. We were mostly messing around but when we got serious we won most of our games. I was running what I’m calling The Bunker Buster which is essentially a new version of what Warriors ran at the start of the game. You can only use the big burst once every minute but it can instantly kill squishy targets and get bunkers down to below 25%. We also had a Meditation guard and a Warrior running something similar to me.

So long as we were smart with our rotations 2 of us were able to blow up any tough target very quickly. It’s not an easy team to run and you probably noticed my build is really vulnerable after the initial burst but I could see running a support Ele and a bunker guard with it being really solid. Of course I have no idea how this would work at “high level” play.

I think many of you are looking at this from the wrong angle. It’s not the Warrior, or any one class/spec, that that is to blame. What’s wrong with PvP is that we have tiny little capture points and the fact that one tanky player can totally deny the cap of 2 or more players.

This design means that AoE and tanky builds are going to be prevalent. Hambow wouldn’t be that great if the capture point wasn’t so small. The same goes for condi necros and engis. If the points were larger the builds would still be good, but avoidable without leaving the point. I’m also not a fan of one player being able to deny the cap of 2+. It should definitely slow the progress by a large amount but it being able to stall indefinitely is not a mechanic I’m a fan of.

The playerbase seems to be pretty satisfied with where Warrior is at now. Beating on Hammer or Bow any more would just make them worthless.

I’ve encountered a lot of teams in TPvP running double Engi. They either spam bombs and nades or they run constant Knock Back builds. Throw a Condi Necro or Spirit Ranger in the mix and even if you win it’s not going to be fun.

I just want to say I called the NA meta a mile away. Almost every “good” team I’ve played in TPvP was mostly bunkers. It’s painfully boring to play against and equally boring to watch.

If I had to guess, we might see EU move this way as well. From what I watched of the EU tourney most teams just had updated versions of the "old"meta. They probably didn’t want to mess around with a new team composition so close to the tourney. That’s like I said just a guess but it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of Engis that either spam bombs or knockbacks.

Auesis.7301:

If you do this, then change the system so that only one stance can be used at a time. Using a second stance overwrites the first.

You can’t be in two different stances in a martial art at the same time unless you have 4 legs and 4 arms.

I’d prefer it just being the boons, honestly.

The problem with that would be if you had traits like Defy Pain or Last Stand while using another stance that could seriously screw you over. I personally wouldn’t care because I don’t really use those but if you made the stances override all that would do is make everyone swap out Balanced Stance for Dolyak Signet. Outside of WvW with food no one is going to give up Zerker Stance and you don’t wanna get stunned 2 seconds into Zerker and end up overriding it. They would have to totally rebalance stances by reducing CDs and durations so that you can swap from stance to stance without totally screwing yourself over.

It is a shame that Stances are basically Signets by another name but there’s no clean way to change them without totally invalidating a ton of skills/traits. It would be cool to see your character change is posture based on what stance you’re in though. Unless condis get changed to the point where Zerker Stance isn’t a requirement all making stances overwrite each other would do is remove Balanced Stance from play.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

BurrTheKing.8571:

My problem with blind-focused Thieves is less the field itself and more the unblockable binds that get applied. Say I’m a Warrior with a shield. I see the BP go down and block the blind shot. They then leap and a blind gets applied through my block. If that blind wasn’t thee I could have positioned myself in such a way as to hit the Thief with something like an Eviscerate or Skull Crack(it’s hard but I’ve done it with Zerker Stance on) but with that last blind I don’t have enough time to clear it and then use the skill. If I evade I don’t have enough time and if I don’t I’ll miss. There’s no room for countering it outside of Zerker Stance being up and I generally save that for the end of the fight because otherwise that smoke bomb they get at the end can save them.

That’s not true at all. There’s a lot of ways to counter blindness without ’zerker stance. Warriors are just so fixed at the utility skill that they ignore the usability of other skills.

For instance, if you have an Axe main-hand, Cyclone Axe can remove the blind if the Thief goes on stealth and they get really close. If they’re not in stealth, you can use Throw Axe to remove blind. Those skills are in fairly low cooldown even without traits.

Like almost all Thief builds the problem is not the focus of the build itself but rather the FREQUENCY of the main mechanic of the build. D/P is basically just using BP + Backstab. While almost every class has a main combo they don’t generally get to use the whole combo multiple times in the span of a minute.

What else do you want them to do in a span of a minute? Other professions have cooldowns as low kitten seconds. What do you think is the frequency of that skill in a minute?

You’re not making any sense.

Even warrior’s combos generally rely on at least one 20-40 second CD skill or utility. You can do smaller versions of the combo in between but you’ll only hit that big combo every now and then.

I hate to break it to you but a Sw/Sw Warrior has a max cooldown of 15 seconds. That’s only one weapon set, I know, but you’re only complaining about one weapon set also, that is D/P.

You’re missing the whole point of what I’m saying. Skills like Evis, Skull Crack, hell EVERY burst skill is highly telegraphed to the point where you might as well be doing a Dragonball Z-style shout when you use them (Eeee—-vviiiisss-ooooorrr—-atttttoooo). In order to beat something like D/P you have to disrupt the leap while they’re in the Black Powder so they either have to use it again or they use another source like SR or their heal. There’s not a whole lot of ways to consistently do that on Warrior because it requires standing in the power in most cases. In addition to that they fire off a blind when they use BP which means that if Zerker Stance isn’t on within a second you have to clear said blind THEN interrupt the leap. If they do leap then they apply ANOTHER blind that you have to cleanse. With Axe/LB I can beat those thieves, but only because of Zerker Stance. Sometimes you get lucky and the Combustive Shot pulses just as you get blinded and the attack goes through but that’s not a guarantee.

Also, I really, REALLY have to laugh at any Thief that complains about Evis when you can do greater damage WHILE STEALTHED. If you get hit by an Evis that means you either got outplayed or did something wrong.

No profession has CDs comparable to Thief because…they have none. I don’t dislike the rouge archetype but the way it’s done in this game is terrible. I found the Way they did assassin in GW1 to have a much more interesting design. You had to land skills in a certain order, you couldn’t use Y attack until you hit with X. Some chains were short and able to be repeated quickly but if it was disrupted they had to start over from scratch and where typically punished with a CD. This sort of exists in GW2 but the lack of cooldowns makes it feel spammy and more forgiving.

Impale+Flurry isn’t a combo. That’s 2 conditions that are easily cleansed by many classes. What would be is Fear Me + Pin Down + Swap to sword with sigil of doom + impale + Flurry. Note that 2 of those skills have lengthy CD’s. Without FM landing Pin Down is more difficult since it has an obvious tell and only doing the sword half of the combo isn’t anywhere near as damaging. I think condi builds on any class don’t take much skill but it’s still not a combo you do every 15 seconds and it’s more complicated than BP + HS + Backstab. Most Thief specs revolve around the repeated use of 1 or 2 attacks while the rest are used for utility. That’s not really the fault of the players but just a problem with the class’s design.

My problem with blind-focused Thieves is less the field itself and more the unblockable binds that get applied. Say I’m a Warrior with a shield. I see the BP go down and block the blind shot. They then leap and a blind gets applied through my block. If that blind wasn’t thee I could have positioned myself in such a way as to hit the Thief with something like an Eviscerate or Skull Crack(it’s hard but I’ve done it with Zerker Stance on) but with that last blind I don’t have enough time to clear it and then use the skill. If I evade I don’t have enough time and if I don’t I’ll miss. There’s no room for countering it outside of Zerker Stance being up and I generally save that for the end of the fight because otherwise that smoke bomb they get at the end can save them.

Like almost all Thief builds the problem is not the focus of the build itself but rather the FREQUENCY of the main mechanic of the build. D/P is basically just using BP + Backstab. While almost every class has a main combo they don’t generally get to use the whole combo multiple times in the span of a minute. Even warrior’s combos generally rely on at least one 20-40 second CD skill or utility. You can do smaller versions of the combo in between but you’ll only hit that big combo every now and then.

The skill is absolutely fine as it is. It is designed to give you a period of time to get the upper hand on condition users. If you can’t survive for 8 seconds then the fault lies with you. It is only up around 13% of the time. It’s also only good for adrenaline gain VS power based enemies. It also does not cleanse conditions that are already on you which means you have to use it in anticipation of the condi spike because using it after isn’t going to do you any good.

It’s also fairly obvious when the stance is active. Again, if you waste all your condis while it’s up, your fault. It’s a near-mandatory skill in PvP and chances are w/o Warriors would have no place in a team.

xbutcherx.3861:

Warrior Axe #5 should be better than the thief when it steals the skill, The thief reflects warrior doesn’t, never understood that. I still use it because I like it is 10k damage to 5 mobs all around you and a good skill to fill up adrenaline only for PvE.

It could stay exactly as is damage wise and I would consider using it if it reflected projectiles. That sort of utility is what it lacks. I’m still not a fan of Dual Strike though, Warriors don’t really need extra Fury and landing it can be clunky on moving targets. I get the idea is that you get just enough Fury time that you have increased crit chance during Whirling Axe but I would prefer something different.

It’s not an unsalvageable weapon, it just needs that reflect utility.

I would ditch the offhand axe, even with the Whirling Axe’s damage being higher in PvP its DPS is still lower than just auto attacking. With a shield or sword you have some defense and a way to set up combos.

I agree with the use of Mighty Defense, it’s strong with runes of Strength because each attack is some 11 seconds of might and vs a Thief or other fast attacking foes you’ll find yourself grinning and going “my turn.” I actually prefer LB with axe but depending on your team the GS is good for roaming and has good combo capabilities.

This is what I would run

I’m still wrestling between Great Fortitude and Short Temper. Unlike LB, GS w/o the trait doesn’t give any Might. That being said ST is more situational because some builds have no blocks at all. It can be great vs Guardians or other Warriors because you can just AA away and get free might and adrenaline.

A good combo is swap to axe while under pressure → Shield Block → Shield Bash → Eviscerate → Swap to GS → Whirlwind → Bull’s Charge → 100b. Hit that and most targets are dead.

If your team has a Ele or Thief I would suggest leaving roaming to them and run something like this that gives you tons more sustain while still having good damage.

It’s not really fair to compare the two. While they’re the same weapon the two classes use them very differently. Warrior uses it for control and is best used in close range. Fan of Fire, Arcing Arrow, and Pin Down are all less effective at range. Meanwhile, LB on Ranger is for long range sniping. I can’t attest to how good it is post patch, but comparing it to Warrior isn’t the way to do it.

I feel that the rune is needed is power is to remain even remotely viable post-patch. It lets you bring anti-condi while being able to deal enough damage that you stand a chance to burst a tanky condi user down in a reasonable amount of time.

I understand that it limits variety but unless ANet decides to nerf conditions then the Runes should stay as is.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Carighan.6758:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Not easy to find when they stealth and die to bleeds or similar.

Not saying I agree it’s a problem, just saying it can be exceedingly difficult sometimes to find them.

But if they die to bleeds, then where’s the problem?

Because they aren’t actually dead, they’re downed. And you have no clue where they are downed, or even if they are. Don’t forget that going down is a total condition-wipe, so you can’t even hope for those bleeds to buy time to find them.

This is happening with increasing frequency as of late. The Thief will be low on health and will go down in a place that is impossible for you to know. They could be in front of you, they could be behind you, you could have just stepped on them.

Twice today I’ve had situations where I’m fairly sure I have downed the Thief but considering time in money in PvP I can’t just spend a good 10+ seconds running around spamming attacks hoping I hit them. No other class has such an easy out for getting downed. If it was a rare occurrence it wouldn’t be terrible but if I’m seeing it multiple times in 5 games there’s a problem.

You should be revealed when you are downed. In fact, there are many problems with the downed state mechanic right now. Being able to stomp while stealthed means that half of the classes can do NOTHING because the downed skill requires a target. Same with any sort of blind field. Classes that have downed abilities that either stealth, teleport, or allow them to move are not affected and can still delay the stomp. Meanwhile, classes that lack that are helpless.

Using Stability to stomp is fine, it is possible for a well organized team to strip the Stability and interrupt the stomp. Where things get fuzzy is when vulnerabilities are involved. While they do generally have a long CD there is pretty much no way to counterplay them outside of stealthing the downed player or reviving them before the stomp finishes.

Either the downed states of half the classes need to be improved so they aren’t so easily countered, or the classes with the more useful downed states need to be brought down. Personally, I would rather every class has a unblockable/unblindable AoE interrupt. Like the Guardian has a knockback, Warrior could have a knockdown (delays for the same amount as the push), Ele could have something that depends on the element they are attuned to, Mesmer could Daze, Thief could petrify like Baski Venom. Basically, they would all do the same thing but in different ways. I think it sounds more fair to make stomping while Invulnerable impossible because like I said there’s no counterplay. The only way to stomp would be by using stability, or just canceling the stomp and evading. To compensate the time it takes teammates to revive would have to be increased.

I know this will probably never happen, but right now the downed state is a cool but imperfect system. The battle isn’t over until the stomp so it seems imbalanced for some classes to have an easier time than others.

Rednik.3809:

Terrahero.9358:

YES it comes from the fact its a Warrior. A Warrior gets a massive amount of vitality and toughness for free.

920 vs 1064 vs 1211 for full set. Really massive, oh my.

Yan, I really get tired of people saying heavy armor is such a huge advantage when it’s more about gear choices than anything else. A Zerker War is still going to be significantly squishier than a Soldier Necro. Not to mention as usual they conveniently forget to cut out all the sustain mechanics Warriors lack. Let’s take away the Warrior’s base states, make them equal to a light class, and then give them access to stealth and protection to compensate. Maybe give them offhand Torch with a 10 second CD blind field so they can be more like the ever skillful Thief.

dancingmonkey.4902:

You mean this link you put in the earlier post?

BurrTheKing.8571:

I’m going to post a build here that I would like those defending conditions to try:

Here it is

Not sure what a Spanish oral exam has to do with your argument, but….umm……thats where the link took me anyway.

Anyway, I agree they should invest more in balancing PvP entirely separately. They have already done this in many cases. I disagree that PvP should take priority. And do not claim telling the entire opposing argument posters they have no business posting here when the original post and all conversation after, clearly discuss WvW is not ego. You have no place insisting you can change the topic at your whim, there are plenty of topics on that subject already..

HAHA! That’s something a friend asked me to check over for him and I accidentally copy/pasted wrong. Give me a min and I’ll fix it.. That actually a funny mistake.

EDIT: Fixed now, here it is

Also, OP DID mention PvP if you didn’t notice, so the conversation was never changed. I just focued on what I view as the most salvageable game mode balance wise.

EDIT 2: Now I have to explain how the video got 28 views when it’s private…it’s still funny.

@people You can’t balance WvW. Food, gear differences, and PvE elements make the number of variables so large it’ll always be chaos. Since ANet doesn’t want to split the game and balance each separately that means PvP should (and from what we can tell, does) take priority because it actually has a chance at being balanced. It has nothing to do with ego.

I do post proof, go try that Warrior build I posted. First hand experience is the best proof.

oZii.2864:

This is why nothing about balance ever seems coherent. Top level player says it’s power meta, other player says nah it’s condi’s. Other player wants balthazar runes nerfed/engineers nerfed, top level player brings up strength runes implying they should be nerfed.

The Tourney of Legends had tons of teams running the exact same composition of last patch only with updated runes/sigils. That doesn’t mean that it’s a power meta it means that they all played it safe rather than risking trying out new compositions so close to a tourney. TCG, the team that won, were one of the few that tried something different but it was still geared towards beating the “old” meta. Their Warrior seemed built specifically to kill Hambow and if I remember correctly the Thief was S/D and kept getting free might by stealing.

dancingmonkey.4902:

coglin.1867:

BurrTheKing.8571:

To specialize so much requires sacrificing a lot of offensive power.

Exactly. This is the point exactly. You chose not to specialize away from heavy direct damage, then complain and that the disadvantage to your build should be specifically nerfed or that it is over powered after you chose not to counter it in your build.

So if I rune melandru runes, generosity/purity sigil, and rune around destroying condition roamers in WvW in 1v1 fights, then by Burrtheking and others own definition, clearly stuns and direct damage are extremely over powered.

Should all go and spam make threads about how direct damage builds are over powered, and that soldiers gear needs to be nerfed because it is too much damage, for the amount of armor/health compared to an anti-condition build ?? It seems to me to be the logic of most of the claimers here that there is some issue with conditions.

Do you even READ what I post? I’m talking about conditions in TEAM FIGHTS. A Guardian can keep your team safe from Hammer using AoE Stability because the best skills are on longer CDs. There’s no build that can deal with unblockable AoE conditions that are reapplied constantly. There are more ways to totally mitigate power damage than there are for Conditions. Even if you cleanse conditions it still did damage to you because chances are it ticked at least once. Meanwhile, if I block an Evis or a Backstab it didn’t do any damage to me.

EDIT: What? I’m fine with condition damage existing. The game would be boring if there was just one way to deal damage. What I don’t like is how you can remain tanky while still dishing out damage (see the build posted earlier). With Settler’s gear 2 out of the 3 stats are defensive, the only thing I’m losing out on is a few bleed stacks from crit that hardly affects me. While running DPS if I lack in either Power, Precision, or Ferocity I’m going to lose DPS in some way. My condi Warrior gives up much, much less than my DPS Axe Warrior if I want sustain. Also, I’m talking about PvP, not the mess that is WvW. In PvP there’s no Lemongrass and there isn’t tons of players all on screen. Keep WvW out of this because it has no place in a balance discussion. Try running a 4 Hammer Warrior and a Hammer Guard in PvP and see how well you do.

@Drarnor All of those things you mentioned either have long casts or obvious tells. Not to mention you can use a skill to go invulnerable, you a longer block, what have you. AoE Conditions, especially bombs, sit on the ground and linger on a tiny capture point. Step off the point and they can decap or deny you the cap. These Engis are also tough and take at least 2-3 people to kill in a decent time frame. A bunker Guardian will survive for a long time but they don’t have ANYWHERE near the damage that tanky coni builds do. You still need the Guardian for mid fights but it’s hard to have better home guard than a condi user.

coglin.1867:

BurrTheKing.8571:

To specialize so much requires sacrificing a lot of offensive power.

Exactly. This is the point exactly. You chose not to specialize away from heavy direct damage, then complain and that the disadvantage to your build should be specifically nerfed or that it is over powered after you chose not to counter it in your build.

I’m going to keep using the control example. You do not generally NEED to spec into having tons of stun breaks/stability to beat control heavy builds. But when it comes to conditions, if you do not heavily spec into anti-condi you will be overwhelmed by them. Sure, you can beat a single condi user but it’s when you get multiple where it doesn’t matter how much removal you have because it will eventually run dry. If you have Stability you are safe from control so long as it isn’t stripped. You can cleanse a condition but outside of 8 seconds of Zerker Stance it’s going to come right back. It’s especially bad with Burngineers. “Oh, you got rid of that burn? Here have another.”

dancingmonkey.4902:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

The problem being that spamming of conditions is MUCH easier than the removal of conditions.

Wait…Wha……What? Well DUH. If cleanses kept pace with condition removal, then condition builds would be completely useless. This already occurs in WvW any time you have and groups of significant size clashing at all. It is one thing to offer a reasonable argument, but to expect a 100% counter 100% of the time doesn’t make a lot of sense.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Because we are FORCED into using them. Try going condi without them. It simply can not be done because of the lack of condition covers.

It appears you do not understand the definition of “forced”. You really should work on that. Proclaiming “optimal” to mean the same as “forced” does nothing for your argument. Your making way to many blind assumptions here. We do not all follow your build perspective in out professions, and we do not all build for 10% damage optimization all the time, if ever.

I do go conditions without them easily. In my condition build, I generally run with generosity and purity.

The same can be said about control. If you can’t control someone reliably what would be the point of control builds? Yet people will rage on and on about Hammer on Warrior even though it’s much easier to mitigate than unblockable Marks and Grenades. When it comes to control though you can take just a few different things and be set, with conditions I can dedicate most of my build to it and still be overwhelmed.

On a Warrior I could run Cleansing Ire with a bow, Sigils of Purity, Dogged March, Signet of Stamina, Berserker’s Stance, and Lyssa/Mel Runes and STILL get overwhelmed in a team fight. To specialize so much requires sacrificing a lot of offensive power. Now I find myself drawn to condi more and more because I can wear them down before they wear me down and not lose that much offensive capability.

If you want to be competitive then optimal might as well mean forced if you’re serious about doing well. If I look at my build options and choice B gives more positives than A and C then chances are I’m going to use B even if it’s only marginally better. Good players are always going to use the best possible builds.

EDIT: Here is a build like I described

Meanwhile I could just run this and kill the condition user and any power user stupid enough to go after me.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Searing flames allows a lot of stripping for guardians too

Engineers have a really solid stripping with mine/mine field

Acid elixir trait will strip boons when an engineer uses the AoE buff of elixirs as well.

That is true as well.

Wow, we actually agreed on something. Call the press.

We’re never going to hear the end of Warrior rants until they receive the same treatment that Ele did a few months after launch. Look at the signature or post history of the majority of anti-Warrior threads and you’ll probably find that they main or spend a significant amount of time on Thief. What confuses me is that Thief is one of if not the class best equipped to kill a Warrior.

What really drives me nuts is the sheer volume of blatant LIES about how the class works. Examples include people thinking Adrenal Health activates every second as opposed to every 3, statements about Endure Pain making Warriors “immune,” and they bring up Warrior base stats and ignore how minor the difference between armor weight classes are and also conveniently overlook the myriad of mechanics they last.

There’s also a many examples of exaggeration whether it be damage, healing, duration, whatever. If you point this out there are users here (we know who they are) that will totally ignore your main points and instead nitpick about minor details. If you really hit the nail on the head they’ll make personal attacks or just never respond and go after a more weakly structured argument.

You are correct, there’s a portion of the forum community that will never view Warriors as “balanced” until they can win against them 100% of the time.

Oidmetala.8426:

this rune is for sure to strong atm

nearly every power profession run it.
and it makes nearly all power professions much stronger then they should be at the moment.

warriors run strengh runes
mesmers run strengh runes
eles run strengh runes
some thiefs run strengh runes

this 4 professions run around with ~20 perma might and just kill everything

so there is of course no condi meta atm
we have a power meta

There are so many counters to these runes it’s not even funny. A boon stealing Thief must LOVE this new trend because all it does is make them stronger. I’m starting to already move away from them because I’m tired of making Super-Thieves. In addition you can corrupt them or strip them. So really all these runes do is encourage you to roll a Thief, Necro, or Mesmer.

Play TPvP against a full team and you’ll see Power is not the meta. Burn duration is much more powerful than Might stacking.

Solori.6025:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Solori.6025:

Wait..are you telling me the team that won was not a full condition team?!

#condispamisOPamirit?
#datguarddoe

Note that most of the teams were running what was basically an updated version of last patches meta while the winning team ran a comp that was really strong against it. Most apparently wanted to play it safe and it didn’t pay off.

So what you are saying is condispam teams have a counter and the winning team basically did that and won?

No, what I said is that there where not many teams that made heavy use of condi. Many were still running mostly power-based builds and TCGs team was really strong against that. I didn’t watch every game but most teams I saw didn’t have more than 1 condi spec. There was actually a surprisingly low number of Engis and an unnecessarily high number of Warriors. Hambow isn’t all that great now that people have finally started to figure out how to fight them.

I’m going to guess that the NA tourney is going to have a different meta than the EU one did because they’re going to have more time to experiment.

Solori.6025:

Wait..are you telling me the team that won was not a full condition team?!

#condispamisOPamirit?
#datguarddoe

Note that most of the teams were running what was basically an updated version of last patches meta while the winning team ran a comp that was really strong against it. Most apparently wanted to play it safe and it didn’t pay off.

yolo swaggins.2570:

I am giving a comparison based on wiki. It doesn’t matter if power sword is bad because what I stated is the truth. Power sword might not be as viable as Hambow or stunlock builds but it can still work in a power build.

EDIT: You know what, as someone who spends a good amount of time on the warrior forum, please explain to me how power sword is bad.

Power sword used to be decent with run with bow using traits like 0/4/4/0/6. You force them to fight in the Combustive Shot and land Arcing Arrow then swap to sword and land Final Thrust for the finish. Arching shot was nerfed for 15% on top of the ferocity nerf and now it’s better to just use it for might stacking on a condi build. Believe it or not what also helped was keeping up Fire Shields with Bull’s Charge, Sagage Leap, and Shield Bash. You had no real condi damage but it was always on. That damage is still there but Arcing Arrow was the main damage dealer. You could still run it, but other power builds will out-DPS you now (Meditation Guardian, most Thieves with half a brain). I use Axe now because of the Sigil of Intelligence buff and because the auto attack isn’t bogged down by having conditions it doesn’t need for Power.

I’m going to post a build here that I would like those defending conditions to try:

Here it is
What this build can do:
- Deal condition damage in excess of 2k a tick
- Heal itself and allies
- Stack a large amount of Might on itself and allies, further increasing its damage
- Can beat pretty much every build 1v1. You COULD build to counter it but it would cost you vs many other specs.
- Win 2v1s unless it’s against 2 condition users (Baski Venom Thieves are cute since Shrug it off instantly triggers generally, breaks the venom and activates Rousing Resilience, and gives me 1000 extra armor making follow up attacks hit for almost nothing.

This build’s power comes less from the Warrior class and more from the fact that I can deal the damage that I can while remaining tanky because I don’t need any other stat besides Condition Damage to do so. Duration isn’t important because the duration is long enough on its own and I can easily reapply the most damaging conditions. I’ve beaten power-based builds by just face tanking them. My time to kill is around the same as if I had run Axe but it’s easier to apply and with this build I can support my team. I stopped using it because I was disgusted with how strong this is. It’s also important to note that I play on a crappy throttled DSL connection (yay for no competition in my area) with 1-3 seconds delay and “freezes” and still do well.

EDIT: Also coglin if anyone is dying to that Hammer/Rifle build outside of a zerg they must be pretty terrible. This build has it beat in pretty much every way.

EDIT 2: Just for fun, after you run the build above swap over to this one and compare your performance. I enjoy running this but the level of difficulty is much higher. I’d love to run with 6 in Strength but the nerf to building Momentum makes it much less appealing. take the 2 in Strength and put it into Tactics for Desperate Power if you want to have a chance to pull some clutch saves.

EDIT: So I accidentally linked a video someone asked me to check for them…opps.

yolo swaggins.2570:

BurrTheKing.8571:

yolo swaggins.2570:

Lifestealer.4910:

oh and forgot to add, how broken thieves are in wvw and spvp with those 13k+ backstabs.

I’ve seen warriors hit ~13k with Final Thrust and that takes very little set up.

So, here’s a laundry list of things wrong with your statement.

1. To hit something that high both parities would have to be pure glass, or the target was an uplevel. The target also has to be below 50%.

2. Little setup? Are you joking!? Final Thrust has a long channel time and short range. Hitting it w/o Shield Bash, Bull’s Charge, or Flurry (which to hit that 1k would probably require Berserker’s Power so you would want a full adren bar, further limiting your options).

3. Power Sword is no longer worth running. I used to have a decent Sword/Shield + LB power build but with Arcing Arrow being nerfed by more than just the 15% advertised (thanks to the Ferocity nerf) the damage just isn’t there anymore. With Evis you can hit hard w/o the 50% HP requirement. Even running pure DPS axe you would have to be squishy as hell to be hit for 13k, especially in PvP.

I can go on but I think you get the point. Stop exaggerating.

I’m not exaggerating. Here is a few things that FT has over Backstab:

1.) Final Thrust has a higher damage modifier than Backstab. So given the same stats and bonuses, Final Thrust would hit harder.

2.) Final Thrust doesn’t require the Warrior to be stealthed or be behind the target for it to work. It just needs the target to have half health. This gives warrior a greater advantage than thieves in this area because while the thief HAS to be in stealth for them to use it, their window of opportunity is limited and if they don’t land it properly it makes the fight harder for them. Warrior can use their FT whenever it isn’t on cooldown.

3.) Final Thrust cleaves, so even if there were multiple bodies nearby the target would still get hit. Backstab does not cleave though and with other bodies around the target, the backstab has a chance to hit one of them instead.

4.) With flurry being the burst for sword mainhand, the warrior can pin them for up to 4s with the burst, cancel early and then use FT instead of burning a stun beforehand.

And then there is eviscerate.

You always manage to impress me with your ability to miss the point.

You totally ignored the MASSIVE negative that I posted, the main one being that POWER SWORD IS BAD.

That Axe build on Warrior is solid, although on the variant I’m not really sure it’s worth taking Building Momentum because it was “fixed” and now barely gives any endurance. While it hurts to lose Reckless dodge putting 10 into Tactics for Desperate Power makes it synergize well with Defy Pain and allows for some pretty clutch turnarounds especially vs squishy targets.

Bowflex.4502:

I think most teams post patch are picking what’s comfortable for the sake of minimizing mistakes.

Some classes have become incredibly strong post patch, I.e engineer, however due to the risk of doing something “new In a tournament environment” few are playing them.

That explains why hambow ect is still prevalent.

I can’t say I blame them, if only the tournament was 4 weeks from now, Im sure you’d see a higher variety in builds and comps.

It seems like the teams that are taking advantage of newer specs are getting rewarded. That being said if the tourney had taken place later we probably would have seen 3/5 players using condi.

yolo swaggins.2570:

Lifestealer.4910:

oh and forgot to add, how broken thieves are in wvw and spvp with those 13k+ backstabs.

I’ve seen warriors hit ~13k with Final Thrust and that takes very little set up.

So, here’s a laundry list of things wrong with your statement.

1. To hit something that high both parities would have to be pure glass, or the target was an uplevel. The target also has to be below 50%.

2. Little setup? Are you joking!? Final Thrust has a long channel time and short range. Hitting it w/o Shield Bash, Bull’s Charge, or Flurry (which to hit that 1k would probably require Berserker’s Power so you would want a full adren bar, further limiting your options).

3. Power Sword is no longer worth running. I used to have a decent Sword/Shield + LB power build but with Arcing Arrow being nerfed by more than just the 15% advertised (thanks to the Ferocity nerf) the damage just isn’t there anymore. With Evis you can hit hard w/o the 50% HP requirement. Even running pure DPS axe you would have to be squishy as hell to be hit for 13k, especially in PvP.

I can go on but I think you get the point. Stop exaggerating.

If you ask me, and you did, there are no builds/class in this game that are particularly difficult to play. Even Ele and Engi, who have the greatest number of skills aren’t that hard to learn especially if we compare them to other MMOs.

Some players LOVE to say that Warrior has the lowest skill level, but if you are going to say that Ele/Engi has the highest then the difference would be maybe an hour of learning. Mastering this game as for as PvP/WvW is concerned is all about positioning and teamwork rather than the challenge of paying a class.

Some terrible ideas I have heard on this thread and why they are terrible:

1. Reduce the active to 250/hps: When the game launched it was 200/hps and was beond worthless. Basically you’re proposing that making it just 50 more hps than its launch level of healing would make it “balanced?” This would not only make the heal terrible but leave Warrior with no good healing skills.

2. Make the heal based on Adrenaline level: This would make the heal bad for the same reason Healing Surge is bad. It punishes you for using your class mechanic. Most halfway decent Warrior builds require frequent use of your adren in order to get rid of conditions. Making it based on adrenaline level would mean that it would force you to just sit on adrenaline if you want any healing…all while bleed, poison, and Burn kills you.

3. Statements about “invulnerability” being enough to make up for a nerf: Warrior does not have invulnerability. Stances keep Warriors from taking damage from one specific source. While Endure Pain is up you are vulnerable to conditions and Control. While Berserker’s Stance is up you are vulnerable to Power and Control. While Balanced Stance is up you are vulnerable to Power and Conditions. If you use all three at once you’re probably screwed anyways because you won’t be doing it again any time soon. The only blocks Warrior have access to come from the Shield ( seconds every 30), Counterblow on mace (either 1 attack or you must be traited and be blocking projectiles), and Riposte on offhand sword(same as Counterblow except it does block projectiles w/o the trait).

4. Something about Last Stand vs Dogged March: You DO realize that Last Stand is a MASTER trait and not a ADEPT trait yes? That means if you want to take it that means either ditching Cleansing Ire or going 30 in defense and giving up a GM trait. With Hambow you go 30 into Defense and give up a GM for the Merciless Hammer trait. Your whole conversation is confusing and shows that neither of you seem to get the trait placements.

5. Adrenal Health: Another trait that has its effectiveness dramatically over-exaggerated. First, it only triggers ever 3 seconds. Second, because most Warrior builds constantly use their adrenaline (for reasons listed above) you’ll only get an occasional max heal out of it.

Crovax.7854:

Emapudapus.1307:

For new meta i would say more like 2 bunker engis and 3 wars. Only thing changed, as i see, is that there are axe warriors on the rise, bunkers, that do 10k eviscerate ….

Are you smoking the same stuff as OP? Engi is a potent bunker but will, in its current state, never be a better pick than guard. Axe bunker? 10k? What?

As someone who uses axe, I would have to hit a super glassy Thief/Mes while being zerk myself to get even close to 10k. With tanky amulets and Sigil of Intel you’ll be getting maybe around 4k on average because you’ll have no ferocity. You could go Cavalier, but a fat lot of good that does you against the multitudes of Condi builds where you’re better off as Zerk and trying to kill them fast. Axe builds actually got nerfed. With Building Momentum being made basically useless you aren’t dodging as much which means fewer Reckless Dodges.

I think we could use a GW1 approach to conditions. In that game you could only lose so much hp/sec from things such as conditions and hexes. It made sense because they were intended to slowly wear you down, unlike here where it’s possible to “spike” with tons of conditions.

If there was some sort of hard cap on how much dmg/sec you could take from condis it might make it impractical to have more than one player speced into it on your team. It would still be good but you just wouldn’t want a team with 3 condi users because you would reach the cap so fast. That kind of change wouldn’t be easy but the idea that you can deal the same kind of damage as a power build in the same time period with less investment gear-wise is ridiculous.

The nerf to power was totally unneeded and I would like to see at least part of the nerf reverted.

It is odd that they are using Warrior in a way that seems less than optimal. I can see using Hambow, I can also sort understand soldiers because with Sigil of Intel if you swap then immediately land ES and combo from there you don’t NEED precision. Still, the Hambows were getting destroyed by condis to the point where I feel like they’re just convincing themselves it’s still the meta. More importantly they seem to not realize that Condi Warrior is ABSURDLY strong now. It lacks the AoE but combo it with a Necro using Epidemic and watch as the enemy team has to deal with 20 some stacks of bleed. As a condi War the only thing I have issue with 1v1 is MM and that’s because AI was bugged after the patch.

The Warriors in general didn’t seem to be dominating nearly as much as the condi spam builds were in team fights.

Chicago Jack.5647:

Warriors are actually in somewhat of a good spot now. The big thing that needs to be addressed is a reason to press their heal button.

They just have to quit crying, and start learning how to do something other than press all their weapon buttons in succession.

I still don’t understand why people think that pressing your heal is so much more skillful than not having to press a button. Against many builds the fact that it lacks a burst of healing is very much a weakness. When a Thief loses to me it’s because they spend too much time playing passively in stealth. The longer you draw out the fight the higher the chance the Warrior will win.

phirefox…duelists, especially dedicated duelists, are not the people to ask about game balance. They say they “main” Warrior but seem to spend a large amount of time on their Thief/Mesmer. Sure that’s a bit of a strawman but in my experience T/Me players say they play Warrior and roll face on it in order to make their arguments seem more legitimate. There was someone who talked crap about Warrior on a daily basis who ended posting their PvP stats and had hardly played ANY PvP at all. The game is not and should not be balanced around 1v1 because it is a team game. Warriors are certainly strong at that but right now having a condi Necro and Engi can melt your average Hambow if they aren’t terrible. In WvW balance is even less relevant because food and other buffs exist.

Players like these will never be happy with Warrior until they can beat them 100% of the time like launch. They post threads with “suggestions” to “balance” Warriors that include making Heal Sig worse than it was pre-buff, nerfing CI, Nerfing Berserk Stance, Nerfing traits hardly anybody actually use, etc. I’ve seen MM Necros calling the class passive and D/P Thieves calling it “cheese.” They also post totally false info or exaggerate the effectiveness of traits like Adrenal Health. More recently they constantly bring up the high base stats but ignore the mechanics they don’t have.

All us War mains can do is correct the false info and avoid dropping down to their level. Sometimes I fail that, I also make the mistake of arguing when I’m lacking sleep and can barely type a full sentence.

Iavra.8510:

Ok for me but considering that the other day we had ~20 people in OS arena, at least 15 of them warrior, should be a clear sign that something is wrong.

Did you ever stop and consider that the Warrior archetype is one of the most popular in ANY fantasy setting? People keep trying to use a classes popularity as proof of the class being broken when it’s popular in most MMOs. There were people playing Warrior in PvP even when the best you could hope for was a Bull’s + Frenzy + 100b combo before dying. It doesn’t hurt that Heavy classes have the best looking armor.

Juba.8406:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Unfortunately, Burst Precision is a totally worthless trait because of Sigil of Intelligence. Why lose up to 15% extra damage when you just have to use your Burst within 3 attacks?

because Sigil of Intelligence is on 9s CD, i found it hilarious doing crit Earthshaker followed by instant crit Eviscerate, ill lose more damage if i took berserkers power because i got almost 0 Precision, the idea is that you don’t need Precision, outside of initial basic Precision and the high Fury up time.

i mean with Cavalier amulet you get the max toughness and your bursts hits hard, the burst are the main damage.

But with that setup the only thing that will be doing any damage is your burst skills. A condi Warrior would be better in both survival and damage (although lacking control). I tried a setup with this trait but I just found Intel to be better.

This patch has really put me off PvP. I was hoping Axe/GS wouldn’t be hit too hard but now that burst skills hardly restore any endurance the sustain and DPS (Reckless Dodge) has dropped substantially. I used to like to do the Far Assaulter role but now with so many MMs guarding it it has no chance. I need to get around to trying axe/lb to see if it has a chance against them.

Syde.5961:

All AI builds can be countered by hard AoE DPS and CC
AKA Hambow

That isn’t true. They’re tough enough to just facetank a full, uninterrupted Hammer combo and as soon as Zerker Stance runs out you’re basically screwed in a 1v1 situation. That being said I haven’t used Hambow vs a MM since they fixed how much damage AI was doing in PvP. I do know that I’ve had situations where I did not miss a singe attack on a MM and couldn’t down them solo.

PU/Spirit Ranger isn’t that hard to deal with but MM is the most obnoxious build I have ever seen. The player can simply stand in on spot spamming attacks and be successful. People claim that Warrior has a low skill ceiling but MM requires very little input to be successful. Builds that are 100% reliant on AI are not health for the game. Just imagine being a non-GW2 member and tuning into the tourney and seeing a build that is nothing but red circles and AI mobs. In fact, in TPvP it seems like 2/3 games have at least 1 MM and in same cases 2. You aren’t going to lure serious players back if the meta is going to be mostly condi bunkers and AI.

Warlord.9074:

Burr is right.

15 char

IMO the only good grandmaster trait we got was the might sharing trait. All other traits are either not needed or underwhelming.

I’m actually finding decent synergy with Shake it off + Shrug it Off with Rousing Resilience because it actually triggers on ANYTHING that warrants using a stun break like daze and knockback.

Unfortunately, Burst Precision is a totally worthless trait because of Sigil of Intelligence. Why lose up to 15% extra damage when you just have to use your Burst within 3 attacks?

Sadly, builds like this one or this are probably the most powerful setups Warriors have. The only weakness of the first one is that there’s no way to deny a stomp but your minor traits also make you tougher while reviving and let you do it faster.

Don’t get me wrong, Hambow is still good for team fights, but those builds will wipe the floor with it. The condition builds are also strong in teamfights but also serve as good far assaults and home guards. What annoys me is that I would rather play Axe/GS but condi is just better overall. A Evis can of course one shot a squishy but the sustain is so low. What confuses me is that people cry cheese when I hit a 9k Evis but don’t say anything about my condi builds. Up till now I have yet to receive any crap on the same level of my power builds. I guess people are fine with taking 1.5-2k+ condi ticks but not with one big Evis or a Skull Crack even though those builds are much harder to play and aren’t as strong.

Why are some of you calling this “free” Stability? It requires you to trait into and as I said above there are significant tradeoffs for taking it. I personally don’t encounter many Warriors with this traits, and when they do they’re often times new to the class, at least in PvP. If this is WvW we’re talking, who cares? WvW is so random that trying to balance it is a exercise in futility. Balance is most important in TPvP, and right now there are much bigger problems than 8 seconds of stability every 90 seconds.

I’ve actually been getting some nice rewards. I’ve gotten 2 pieces of ascended armor (sadly with stats I don’t really need as a Warrior -_-) and a ring. That being said, it would be nice to be able to get ascended armor with stats you actually WANT. Many players, myself included, have no interest in grinding for ascended armor so having a way to earn it via PvP would be nice. Perhaps they could make the reward track only progress on TPvP wins or something like that.

hihey.1075:

dDuff.3860:

After patch lyssa runes converts up to 5 conditions into 9 sec of regen
While tooltip says: convert up to 5 conditions into boons

/Discuss
#omgnerf

Nope. They convert conditions using this formula:
Blind: Fury
Bleed, Poison, Burn, Torment: Regeneration
Vulnerability: Protection
Weakness: Might
Cripple, Chilled, Immobilize: Swiftness
Confusion: Retaliation
Fear: Stability.

So if you use them for cleansing bleeds/poison/torment, all you will get is regen.

This seems to be correct. I’m actually OK with that because if it it had worked like Warrior’s Warhorn trait you would hae gotten mostly Vigor which while useful, regen is far superior. I DO think it would be more fair if you got 5 seconds for each of those boons removed instead of just 5 for all of them.

The Kodan leg armor is a good “lightly armored” set. It only has a small amount of metal on it with the rest being cloth. Both that and draconic look really cool when you fight because of how it flaps around.