Guild Wars 2

Evil, you keep saying stealth has counters without actually saying what they are. That doesn’t really help your argument any. To me a counter is something that cancels out stealth. Just being able to hit them in stealth isn’t a counter. Sure I know that they’ll probably be going for the backstab but I don’t know anyone who can go “Aha!” and figure out exactly where the Thief is (unless SR is down of course).

Stealth on Engi is a good example of stealth that feels fair. It generally lasts just long enough to where you can set up an attack and nothing else. It requires you to time things well and give you an advantage but your opponent will have an idea of what’s coming next. ANet isn’t going to redesign all of stealth to work like this most likely so having 1 or 2 currently underused skills per class that have relatively high CD’s apply a few seconds (3-4 at most) of reveal seems a good compromise. The only real smart use of such skills would be when SR comes down or when they are about to stealth while at low HP.

evilapprentice.6379:

BurrTheKing.8571:

What none of you have addressed is the fact that I provided clear evidence that every mechanic in this game has some form of counter but except for one skill stealth has none. .

What’s the counter for immunity skills?
Waiting?

What’s a condition spec’s counter to Berserker stance, (Current) AR, or Diamond skin?
Don’t play a condition spec? Bring a friend?

What’s the practical counter to Berserker’s Stance + Stability, especially for a class that can’t strip boons? Run away?

Stealth has a counter – It’s mostly rooted in knowing how to play the game. Certain setups are better or worse at it, but everyone has a chance if they have any idea what they’re doing and what spec of thief they’re facing. Yes, Stealth spam can be very annoying in WvW, but it’s not without counter. Stealth is much less powerful (most consider it UP) in PvP because of how easy it is to predict where a stealth player is, and how much it “costs” (In terms of winning the game) to sit in stealth and do nothing.

In short, learning to play the game will teach you how to counter stealth.

I swear some of you seem to refuse to read full posts before responding. Did I not JUST say that I win the majority of all my 1v1/Small scale fights (Our group of has taken out over double our number in the past)? The L2P argument doesn’t apply and if you read completely you would know that. I’m sure you’ll refuse to believe me because you would rather focus on personal attack but at the end of the day you can’t prove I am a bad player anymore than that I am a good one.

You gave a total non-answer when you say “Stealth has a counter – It’s mostly rooted in knowing how to play the game.” You gave no actual counter besides “L2P” which is about the least helpful thing you could say.

As for Berserker’s Stance, since you seem determined to shift the focus from stealth back to personal attacks based on what class I play (although you did throw in a few similar skills though AR is getting nerfed), it’s very different from stealth. The most important difference is that you can SEE the duration the skill will be active for. There’s no guessing, the guy will be glowing and there will be a very distinct icon under his name. It also only affects a single type of damage. If you force the Warrior to use both Zerk and Stability at the same time, you should be happy. You just forced them to use two long CD skills and as soon as they’re used up you’re free to go to work. Another fact about Zerker Stance, it initially only lasted 6 seconds and nobody used it because it didn’t last long enough to mount a significant offensive. It was only at 8 (how many people really trait into it when it means giving up Dogged March) that people started using it.

The most important point to all of this is that you always know what the other person is doing. There is no guessing, you see every attack. If they run, you know they are running away, not hiding nearby healing up while your skills are still on CD. If you built yourself right you should have some way to survive for 8-10 seconds on any class.

EDIT: As for Diamond Skin, I’m not really sure if it should exist in its current form or not. Just like AR it can last much, much longer than Zerker does since users of it tend to be good at staying at the correct health threshold. Of course because Engi is my secondary I do how badly condis can hit them unless they invest most of their build towards countering it. We’ll see how it all plays out on the 15th.

On a side note, I’ve noticed that at least in Sorrow’s Furnace’s recent matchups I am encountering a lot less clkittenred as of late. I’ve fought against more people who say “gf” and other shows of good sportsmanship after a fight than those that say “War noob git gud” 7 times until they get suppressed. So if we could channel some of that civility and focus less on me and more on what I made this thread for that be great.

EDIT 2: @Maugetarr.6823 I actually have started going back to old school glass cannon Axe/Shield + GS and if you time your skills right you’re correct that many Thieves can’t react fast enough before taking a ton of damage and an Evis and practically one-shot if they’re glassy enough. I almost feel bad for talking smack about it though it is basically a higher-risk Thief build since most of your damage comes from 2 really obvious attacks. The nostalgia for the start of the game is pretty fun as well, that being said a Thief can practically insta-gib you if you run what I do but at least the fight is short either way.

Let me catch up…

Ok, so let me start by saying that I play primarily small group/solo roaming in WvW and PvP. I’m sure those who zerg surf or roam with a largish group would not have any trouble with Thieves besides their ability to stealth away to never be seen again.

In small group/solo/duels it’s totally different, I never find it enjoyable to spend half of a fight waiting for my opponent to make a move. If you can truthfully claim that you can consistently interrupt Thief’s stealth skills to where they have minimum time spent flailing around I’ll be genuinely impressed. Several of you really love to jump to conclusions about my skill level. I can say with confidence that so long as I am not ambushed mid fight I generally either kill the Thief or it ends up in a stalemate.

What none of you have addressed is the fact that I provided clear evidence that every mechanic in this game has some form of counter but except for one skill stealth has none. Why is it OK for control to be counted by stability but it’s not OK for stealth to be countered by reveal? Stop making personal attacks and pay more attention to my arguments.

Fade.7658:

lol, a warrior asking for nerfs for another profession.

Pot and kettle, and all that.

Weakest argument I’ve heard in a while. I MAIN Warrior, I do not ONLY play Warrior. My other class in Engi which actually has the best chance vs Thieves. I don’t even know why I dignified this with a response because you offered nothing of value.

This “War player so clearly has no right to discuss balance” crap is getting really old. You are trying to draw attention away from the discussion by making a personal attack.

Dodging, Blocking, Or Blinding aren’t necessarily that effective because doing so doesn’t reveal them.

Interrupting the HS can only be done while they are standing in the Black Powder. As a Warrior that means I can ONLY do that while Zerker Stance is up because even leaping in there with a CC you will probably get blinded before it hits, if you interrupt them after they leap through the field they still gain stealth and a lot of control skills require a target. That means you have 2 seconds to CC them enough to where you kill them. That’s how I always beat D/P (unless they do something stupid) but that can be a really dubious thing to do in some situations. In team fights you won’t necessarily have the ability to focus on the Thief, and another enemy may have forced you to use Zerker Stance earlier.

There are a lot of bad Thieves just like there are a lot of bad Warriors, but a good Thief can be pretty much unkillable while a good Warrior can still be locked down and killed. A good Warrior will kill a bad Thief. A moderately good thief will have a fair chance to kill a good Warrior. A good Thief can take on a good Warrior and a few others and still manage to down people (granted if they rev right away they won’t get the stomp). That last example happened to me last night. This Sword/Dagger Thief took on 3 of us, all with good gear and builds and all good at the game, and managed to down both me and a Guardian (a minute or 2 apart mind you) while being able to disengage no matter how we chain CC’d. What’s worse is that we DID down him but because he got freebie stealth at 10% health he was able to shadow step, get downed, stacked stealth with the downed skill, and revive while we had no clear idea where he was. He was an absolute nightmare. Even if you beat him you couldn’t stomp him.

Stacking stealth with skills besides Shadow Refuge shouldn’t be a thing, or at least it shouldn’t exceed 6 seconds. With the ability to heal while your foe has to just blindly use attacks hoping to find you plus with the upcoming option to instead reduce incoming physical damage by 50% even if you DO catch them you won’t significantly damage them. That trait may end up being a nightmare. Cleaving a downed Thief is typically faster than stomping but now they can reduce that damage by 50% when they use the stealth which buys them even more time to get revived by allies or to use while reviving others.

Mesmer should not be able to deal damage while remaining out of combat. It is the definition of low risk high reward. The only solution I can think of is having the AI stop attacking while they are stealthed so you get time to clear them out.

Predicting sounds all well and good but let’s be honest that isn’t a counter. Some Thieves go for the backstab right after stealthing while other wait till the last second and other do it some time in-between.

Because I know they aren’t likely to make changes to stealth itself at least we can get some skills that give us a way to go “no resetting the engagement for you.”

ThiBash.5634:

Stealth has some counters, but due to the way it is currently implemented, those counters don’t work.

The main issue with stealth is that it’s a layer of defense on top of the other defensive mechanics a profession may have. Being invisible is strong, but if the person using it can also teleport to a different location, or trade places with a clone, or have acces to multiple blocks/immunities during the short time they’re revealed, then it essentially becomes a mechanic without downsides.

One thing that would be very cool is if certain ranger pets could ‘sniff out’ stealthed characters and attack them automatically. It’s too muc of a hard counter to implement though.

I agree that a huge part of what makes stealth so strong is the ability to use other abilities while in it. I could see it being better balanced if you were only allowed to use certain skills while stealthed. That way it would be more of an initiator rather than something you use all the time. That still doesn’t help that they can heal during it however or the fact that they have no penalty to movement speed.

Assassins in GW1 had to land certain attacks before they would be able to use a more powerful one. Some of these were pretty spamable but if you interrupted the chain you would really screw them up. It’s a shame that concept didn’t extend to GW2.

Honesty I want to know how many people that are going to “lose out” on a lot of points this is actually going to affect. I don’t see a huge number of 53+ players even in TPvP. ANet has done tons of foolish things in the past but I think even they would take into account how many r53+players there were so I doubt it’s a huge number. I would bet an even smaller number did that LEGITIMATELY.

This new scale looks like it’s going to do a lot more good than ill. Very few would want to work towards rewards that took months of play to reach. If you want ANet to spend more time on PvP there needs to be more obtainable rewards, which means the ranking system shouldn’t scale as ridiculously as it currently does.

Lately, stealth has been going from a minor annoyance to something that is totally throwing off the balance of the game. Everything in this game has numerous amounts of direct counters except for Stealth. Control skills are countered by Stability, Blind, and Block. Conditions are countered by skills like Berserker’s Stance, Empathetic Bond, 409, etc. The balance between these mechanics may not be perfect, but they exist. As far as stealth goes the only real “counter” out there is Sic ’Em on the Ranger.

What we need is more skills to have the ability to put Reveal on stealth classes like Thieve and Mesmer. It does not have to last for long, just long enough that vs stealth heavy builds you throw them off their game long enough to mount a counter attack. Not all of them should require a target because skills like Shadow Refuge and Mass Invisibility are often times used when the target is already stealthed. These long duration stealths allow for them to totally reset the fight while the other person flails around trying to get lucky. It drives me insane when I hear people say “you can still hit them in stealth you know!?” (Yes, we know) as if that means you can magically always know where they are. Any stealth user with half a brain is going to get the hell out of danger and not stick around and they generally have shadowsteps/teleports to do it. The ability to also stack stealth after being downed is also ridiculous and can lead to the player being downed but conditions or what have you and being able to revive.

What I would like all of you to do is propose skills on your main class that seem like good candidates to receive the ability to apply reveal. I’ll start with Warrior:

Fear Me!: The best candidate by far. It has a fairly long cool down and if you want to reduce that you have to find 10 points to put into tactics and would also have to swap out Bull’s Charge.

Stomp: Even with the buffs it’s still not an amazing skill. It would be another reason to justify it being on your bar and once again has a fairly long CD. Might even give people a reason to grab Physical Training (but probably not).

Also, if ANet even gives Warriors an elite shout I’d like to see “None Shall Pass!” from GW1 brought back. It knocked down moving foes and it would be nice for it to have reveal as well.

I’m tired of being unable to reliably do anything about stealth heavy classes that have the ability to simply stealth up again after messing up and having to wait around for 10+ seconds wondering if maybe I downed them and don’t know it.

So, let me preface this by saying that I am a Warrior main. As such I hate all stealthing classes and find them boring to fight and generally obnoxious. However, I used to feel that in most situations where I wasn’t backstabbed at 25% HP (I’m OK with that that’s what the rouge archetype does) I had a fair chance if I avoided the initial burst.

Tonight that view changed. My guild encountered a Thief that had the ability to not only survive an onslaught of 3 players, but could also hit hard enough to down us. He never got to stomp because we all know to lay down CC on the downed guy then res, but the fact was that the second you got his health low he would vanish and then appear shortly after back at full health. These are not bad players. Most of us hit all of our skills but it never mattered, they could always escape, heal up, then go right back on the offense. D/P Thieves I can beat by forcing them to use their countermeasures then popping Zerker Stance and going for the kill, but this build had countermeasures on such a short CD that multiple CC focused builds couldn’t stop him.

I can’t say I know enough about Thief traits to say exactly what they were running but I do know that the combination of Sword/Dagger could strip our Guardian of boons and then burst them down. Their use of Infiltrator’s Return and Withdraw allowed them to quickly disengage when things looked hairy. What made things worse is that we KNOW we downed him via the scream, but because they always stealthed when they got low they could just stack more stealth while we flail around with no clear idea of where he was. THAT is what ate at me the most. They went down, but because getting downed doesn’t reveal you (which is stupid) you aren’t always punished for it.

It felt like it was less about their personal skill and more that the stealth itself allowed them to do things that shouldn’t be possible. This isn’t your ambush class archetype, this is sustained assassination. Even though we chained CC’d, Immob, you name it, it didn’t matter because all they had to do was chain stealth a few times and they would be all healed up again.

Rogue-like classes are supposed to excel at either high amounts of burst damage via ambushing their target or being more of a bruiser and using dexterity to avoid getting hurt but staying in the fray. In GW2 as a Thief it is possible to do both in one build. It seems that if you mess up your ambush you aren’t generally punished, you can simply stealth up and try again. I am so sick of this “you can still hit them when they’re stealthed” because while that’s true said Thief can use any number of methods to get the hell away from the danger all while healing up. This will only get worse on the 15th when they’ll be tougher while stealthed.

It seems like it’s too late to do a total redesign of Thief, but what we need is more anti-stealth mechanics in the game. Giving even a single ability to apply reveal for a few seconds would give you a chance to punish a Thief for screwing up. The same applies to Mesmers, the ability to harm your foe while remaining invisible offers little counterplay and simply shouldn’t exist.

I’ve used a power version in the past but focuses on Might stacking as opposed to condis.

Link

This version actually brings a lot more team support because your shouts are also cleansing condis on your teammates and the Warhorn also converts condis as well. With FGJ, Arcing Arrow, Call to Arms, and Sigil of Battle you will have a ton of Might so even with all of your more support oriented traits you can still hit hard.

I’m just going to say that I’m done debating you. At the end of the day almost all your suggestions are the definition of impractical. As it has been said by others you’ve pretty much redesigned the ENTIRE combat system and every change is very complex. I offer a lot of suggestions but most of the time it’s just cool down or damage changes or transferring already present mechanics onto something else.

Small suggestions are almost always the ones that get implemented. Almost every Warrior buff came from some sort of thread from CI, Zerker Stance, being able to move during Staggering Blow, whatever. They were all simple but effective, something that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. All right, I’m finished.

Talyn.3295:

BurrTheKing.8571:

We already spend those 30 points on average but good God if we HAD to spend 30 points that would make the build variety drop down to Guardian levels.

This made me smile. I mean with Guardians being in such a good spot right now, would it really hurt the warriors all that much

I know Guards are in that situation, but I think you would agree that it sucks and shouldn’t happen to ANY class.

Why are people so afraid of Unblockable? The attack is not going to hit that hard even on full glass. It’s JUST there to insure that it has one less thing to keep the cleanse from actually happening. If Unblockable was that strong more Warriors would use Signet of Strength.

Warrior

Rifle: It’s ALMOST good but misses the mark. While it can be fun to snipe people in WvW in PvP it doesn’t have much of a place.

Bleeding Shot: A big reason on why it’s bad is that while it’s a direct power weapon the AA deals little damage and applies a condition you don’t need or want. I’ve tried running it with Attack of Opportunity and Sword but it just didn’t work. If it was just flat damage or slightly more damage with vulnerability it would fit the weapon more.

Aimed Shot: Like a lot of rifle skills it’s not bad, but not that good either. That being said, combined with Leg Specialist and Opportunist it works pretty well.

Volley: Fine as is

Brutal Shot: Here’s the big one. This is supposed to be the attack that sets up Volley and Kill Shot. However with a 12-15 CD while Volley is 8-10 it doesn’t sync up like it should. Rifle seems intended to apply constant pressure but if you have to wait several seconds to get the most out if it you either use Volley w/o it or you only use it every other time. If it shared the same CD AND was a (1/2) to (3/4) second activation it would be good.

Rifle Butt: Another skill that is fine as is. Really strong when combined with Bolas.

Kill Shot: And heeeeerreeee the big one. Strong if you can pull it off but hard as hell to actually pull off. As stated before Rifle feels like it’s supposed to constantly apply pressure but gets in its own way. At nearly 2 seconds activation time it’s impossible to not see coming if you’re looking at the user. If you can go Rifle Butt + Bolas you’ll have enough time to use it but they can blind you, block, go invulnerable, whatever. I think it would be better off having a mechanic similar to Final Thrust. Have it only have a 1 second activation with the same animation but it only deals max damage when the target is bellow 50% health. The damage might need to be toned down I’m not sure but this change would really make it a “Kill” Shot designed to finish off your target. Maybe the health % may need lowering as well but the concept is to make it easier to land but more situational.

Simon.3794:

tbh i think even 200 range is good.
unblockable is not necessary tho.
also i prefer fury.
oh and not as a projectile please.

200 is barely longer than melee distance…

In fact Arcing Slice currently has a range of 150…so it would extend like 2 ft. The whole point is so you have a way to get rid of movement impairing conditions so you can run double melee and not be so tied to Longbow, which is probably Warrior’s best weapon I would say. It would mostly help builds like Mace/Shield + GS builds because while it is pretty strong but also really easy to kite if you have a ton of soft CCs.

Swagg.9236:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Those Warrior signet changes would be terrible.

As a Warrior I do not want protection, ever.

Before you say that, you must ask yourself: how does a Warrior survive without godmode? Warriors often live through combat by means of popping invulnerabilities. Since I’m working to fix that, they can have tiny bursts of timed protection in place of those invulnerabilities. I am planning on increasing Healing Signet’s recharge, though. I’ll have to rework the healing output as well in order to balance the change properly.

BurrTheKing.8571:

I also don’t like tying the signets in with Adrenaline level,

All I’m hearing is “I don’t like working for powerful bonuses,” and “I want my huge, passive stat buff all the time.” Too bad. Learn to work for your bonuses and deal with limited windows of opportunity.

The addition of Protection would require reworking the ENTIRE class, which ANet would never do. Also, my point still stands that Protection is the Guardian thing, regen and health is the Warrior thing.

It isn’t “work” to gain adrenaline, you do it naturally by fighting. Some of those changes you make also screw you over for using your class mechanic, not good. It’s the same reason why Healing Surge isn’t good. If you don’t have adrenaline, the thing youre supposed to be using just like a Necro is supposed to use DS, it doesn’t heal for jack considering the CD. If you only have those bonuses while at full adren, you probably won’t have them very often at all. Even with the signets that give you boons at certain adrenaline levels, you don’t always have DIRECT control over when you get them. With Stances at least you control when those activate. You see a power spike coming, Endure Pain, Condis? Zerker Stance. If you wanted to save the Protection for when you actually WANT it that would require not hitting anything.

All this does is take more control from the player. It’s not random per-say but it’s not easily controllable either. I don’t want Protection while a guy is playing defensively but I also don’t want to let up the pressure. So again, I would never want these changes.

I would say that as I said before is that the best option is just to make Warriors not FORCED to use it. Even WITH the trait condi classes can overwhelm you with the pure amount of spam they have access to and the only way to change that would be to make them less spamable or in the case of Necro not able to put every condi in the game on you in a split second. If condis required a bit more finesse to use then we could talk about nerfing CI but until then it needs to remain where it is. ANet realized that having a melee class that is hyper-vulnerable to movement impairments was silly and so they changed the design philosophy.

Signet of Strength can still be blinded and Earthshaker is affected by cripple/Chill and is easily avoided unless comboed with something. And the only projectile weapons Warrior has is Bow (the whole point of this suggestion is to not be so reliant on it), and Rifle which is still a really poor weapon, especially in PvP. I doubt I’m going to be able to trust Kill Shot to reliably hit someone who is constantly kiting me due to soft CC. The 900 range I suggested is also shorter than your average LB or rifle attack. It will hardly be used at all except for a cleanse and maybe to hit a retreating target that is low on health. It’ll open up all kinds of double melee set option that right now are currently not worth running, especially in PvP.

Simon.3794:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Those Warrior signet changes would be terrible.

As a Warrior I do not want protection, ever. Protection is what makes it OK for Warrior to have high HP and Regen, they lack any other kind of damage mitigation in any great amount. With frequent Protection the line between Warrior and Guardian gets thinner and thinner and both classes start to lose a sense of uniqueness.

I also don’t like tying the signets in with Adrenaline level, the whole point around signets is that they’re reliable. The only Signets I’m not interested in is Might and that’s just because I can’t afford to have it on my bar. If we weren’t so dependent on other skills it might have a use but right now, nope.

Seriously, I’m normally all for debate but every suggested change you have made for Warrior has been out of touch or just bad, so please just stop. As for other classes I don’t play them enough to know what they need so I won’t comment.

Protection would make warrior so OP. and warrior doesnt lack damage mitigation, warrior lack skills that are not affected by soft CCs, a single soft CC and your mobility got cut in half, and you have to take all the damage, unlike others can position themself without caring about soft CCs.

Let me rephrase, Warriors lack mitigation that other classes have in great amounts such as evades (has 1 on GS), blinds (1 on bow), stealth (I guess you could reflect Hunter’s Shot), teleports, clones, Protection+Aegis, etc. To make up for it Warriors are tough, have high HP, and have high healing. You’re right that even a little access to Protection it would make them better than a Guardian at bunkering.

It would be nice to have a trait to make gap closers not effected by cripple and chill or maybe just have them not be effected by them and in exchange they also don’t gain anything from Swiftness and Warrior’s Sprint. I’m sure some will argue that this would make them even better at running away but to that I say that if you made the run then you pretty much won. It’s still not as strong as perma-stealth which is getting buffed even further.

Those Warrior signet changes would be terrible.

As a Warrior I do not want protection, ever. Protection is what makes it OK for Warrior to have high HP and Regen, they lack any other kind of damage mitigation in any great amount. With frequent Protection the line between Warrior and Guardian gets thinner and thinner and both classes start to lose a sense of uniqueness.

I also don’t like tying the signets in with Adrenaline level, the whole point around signets is that they’re reliable. The only Signets I’m not interested in is Might and that’s just because I can’t afford to have it on my bar. If we weren’t so dependent on other skills it might have a use but right now, nope. For some of your changes the active would become so weak compared to the passive you may as well never use it. This makes things even worse because some encourage you to sit on adren while others want you to spend. Signet of Fury would become WORTHLESS to activate in small scale fights where it’s already not really worth bringing in the first place.

Seriously, I’m normally all for debate but every suggested change you have made for Warrior has been out of touch or just bad, so please just stop. As for other classes I don’t play them enough to know what they need so I won’t comment.

Proven.2854:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Deniara Devious.3948:

I already explained in another thread why this idea is BAD:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Decap-Engi-HamBow-Warrior-S-P-Thief-nerfed

Summary: long range unblockable attacks with very low cooldown = overpowered and easily abused for other things as well. Cleansing ire is already too good for a 20 point trait. No viable warrior build is without it.

Wait, so Warrior isn’t viable w/o CI, but it’s too good for a 20 point trait? Are you saying that Warrior Should have to spend 30 points JUST to be viable? We already spend those 30 points on average but good God if we HAD to spend 30 points that would make the build variety drop down to Guardian levels. I think the only way you can have viable condi removal w/o is Soldier’s runes with 3 shouts and a traited Warhorn.

Cleansing Ire is needed for Warrior to be viable, so why is it too good? Do you just want Warriors to go back to being spammed to death by conditions so that if you see a condi user you should just turn the other way? I don’t understand your logic. Sounds like you just want Warriors to be unable to kill condi builds.

A trait like that is too good when it becomes practically mandatory for the class. Mesmer is like that right now with Deceptive Evasion. There are even people that want Deceptive Evasion to be baked into the basic mechanics of the class. That’s how good Cleansing Ire is for Warrior right now.

This still doesn’t make any sense, what are you saying you want to happen to CI? Try running a build w/o it, you’ll get demolished by conditions outside of Soldier runes with 3 shouts and traited Warhorn, which is more of a support build. While is sucks to be almost forced into this trait it wouldn’t make sense to move or nerf it if it means making Warrior go back to “oh look a condi user, I’m dead.”

Are you saying that by default that Warriors should just have cleanse on Burst like some are saying Mesmer should just have Deceptive Evasion? I don’t get what you’re trying to say.

An easy way to fix this would be to make Mending viable. If it was a 15 second heal you could run it with 20 in Strength for Restorative Strength and get up to 7 condis cleansed on heal. That would at least allow for more build variety in terms of traits.

Harper.4173:

DeadlySynz.3471:

They should just remove the LB from the warrior all together. They aren’t a ranger, they already have rifle, them holding a LB doesn’t make sense.

It makes as much sense as ranger holding a greatsword. Let’s not have this discussion.

I agree 100%. This game has tons of non-traditional uses of weaponry and Warrior using a bow makes a lot more sense than a Necro with an axe or a Ele with a dagger. Thing is I personally love that they did that and it makes things way more unique and we don’t see every caster class running around with a staff or scepter.

Jzaku.9765:

Yamsandjams.3267:

I feel that’s more of a problem with combustive shot than anything. If they’re just getting free condi removal via cleansing ire without actually having to “land” the ability, then it’s definitely getting more mileage out of a trait than it’s supposed to give. The more logical solution to me would be to change how combustive shot interacts with cleansing ire so it demonstrates behaviour that is consistent with other burst skills. I’m not sure what that would look like, but I don’t feel letting the arcing slice or any other burst skill exhibit the same characteristics is the way to go, unless you’re advocating a change in the way cleansing ire functions as well.

I think you’re probably right in that arcing slice wouldn’t be used a great deal even if it was made into some form of ranged attack, but it would be more useful in certain situations. For instance, you could use it to damage people running away from you, or fire into a crowd (assuming it pierces) to hit multiple targets. It would be the only melee weapon that would have a truly ranged burst attack. Maybe the projectile could also go much fast than something like tremor, so you can finish someone off even if they’ve put distance between you, meaning you don’t necessarily have to chase them down (even though GS already excels at that).

I did suggest that exact change to combustive shot in my thread for reasonable warrior changes. Perhaps you’d like to take a look at it?

Warrior’s NEED that “free” cleanse if they’re to have any chance at beating a Necro/Engi condi user. It’s not like Warriors are not dedicating a lot to get condi removal, in fact half of most War builds is purely dedicated to stopping it. It just goes to show how insane condis are that even with 4-5 things in your build to mitigate things you can still lose easily even if you time the cleanses well.

Things are probably only going to get worse with the critical damage nerf because condis will start to look more appealing.

monochrome.9841:

@perko
Bringing something OP down by 8% it’s not even close to making a HalfGod from God – and even then, they would both just stomp mortals.
I guess it’s easier to do your homework when you lack objectivity.
Do us a favor and maybe buy some objectivity in nearest shop beforu you post.

Warrior is one poorly placed nerf away from being totally useless. At launch Warrior had the same armor, health, mobility, etc and was totally worthless compared to thief. It got Dogged March, Cleansing Ire, and a buff to Zerker Stance (all of these were suggestions from the Warrior forum) and was STILL not competitive. It wasn’t until Healing Signet got buffed that Warrior became strong.

So yes, an 8% nerf here and a 5% nerf there is actually the right thing to do. They learned from Ele, in a single patch it went from best class in the game to one of the worst. They’re trying to avoid that happening again. I just wish they wouldn’t keep beating up Longbow. I could take the Arching Arrow and Pin Down nerfs if they reverted the Combustive shot change. That was nerfed because someone thought hits from it refilled your adrenaline bar…which it doesn’t.

The unblockable is needed because not only is the damage not very high, the whole point is that it’s supposed to replace Combustive Shot. The only was CS misses is if gets blocked/reflected, you can evade or blind the user but it doesn’t effect the condi removal. This is designed to be the opposite; you can blind or evade it but you can’t block it. I’d even give up the Vulnerability but like I said the damage is supposed to be on the low end, maybe slightly more than an auto attack if even that. I changed the description to be more clear on that.

Even with these changes it would only be used if you were being kited and needed to proc CI badly. Say you’re running Mace/Shield+GS, you’re still going to mostly use Skull Crack. Maybe you’d use it more on other combos like with Axe or Sword but even then those weapons have much stronger bursts.

I’ve responded to you here.

Deniara Devious.3948:

I already explained in another thread why this idea is BAD:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Decap-Engi-HamBow-Warrior-S-P-Thief-nerfed

Summary: long range unblockable attacks with very low cooldown = overpowered and easily abused for other things as well. Cleansing ire is already too good for a 20 point trait. No viable warrior build is without it.

Wait, so Warrior isn’t viable w/o CI, but it’s too good for a 20 point trait? Are you saying that Warrior Should have to spend 30 points JUST to be viable? We already spend those 30 points on average but good God if we HAD to spend 30 points that would make the build variety drop down to Guardian levels. I think the only way you can have viable condi removal w/o is Soldier’s runes with 3 shouts and a traited Warhorn.

Cleansing Ire is needed for Warrior to be viable, so why is it too good? Do you just want Warriors to go back to being spammed to death by conditions so that if you see a condi user you should just turn the other way? I don’t understand your logic. Sounds like you just want Warriors to be unable to kill condi builds.

I want to start by saying that I did make a thread about this skill in the Warrior forum and while it got a bit of attention it feel like the Devs do not frequent the class forums as much as this one so I would like to bring this up again. I have also expanded upon the original idea from the suggestions I received.

Currently, the Longbow is a very popular weapon. Skills like Pin Down and Arcing Arrow are strong skills especially with Hammer. However, the real strength of this weapon comes from Combustive Shot being a reliable way to cleanse conditions via Cleansing Ire. With conditions being so popular and the upcoming nerf to critical damage the trait is and will likely remain a mainstay of most Warrior builds. The problem is, some weapons have no way of reliably landing their burst. Even with CI, Zerker Stance, Dogged March, and Lyssa Runes (which are getting a nerf) you can still be overwhelmed very easily by a smart condi build user (aka not using all your best stuff when Zerker Stance is up). If the Devs want Hambow to be less prevalent, why not offer more option?

Arcing Slice is the best candidate for a remake to fill the role of consistent condi cleanse since it isn’t worth using in its current form. I’ve rambled on too much so here’s my idea:

Arcing Slice: Burst. Send out a blade of air that strikes the target.
Damage: Around the same as an AA
Level 1-3 Adrenaline: 3…5 Vulnerability (10 seconds)
Unblockable
Range: 900 (same as Bladetrail)

Some of these values may have to be changed since I don’t have the means to know how OP/UP something would be. The only really important part of this is the fact that it’s a ranged attack and unblockable. While the attack can still be blinded and dodged it would still make double melee builds have a way to reliably cleanse conditions. I replaced Fury with Vulnerability since that seemed to fit the weapon and Warriors don’t really need more access to fury. If you’re using Berserker’s Power you’re sacrificing that extra damage anyways. I view this as more of a utility burst, it lets you hit them a bit harder with follow-up attacks and synergies with CI while not hitting that hard. I think it would also be a good skill to be a aimed skill (as would Bladetrail) and maybe even pierce although that may be too much.

While I like Longbow (even with the nerfs), everyone gets tired of being tied to one weapon, especially in PvP. I know, A LOT of classes have this problem. However, I main Warrior and it’s the class I understand the best. Please, keep the whole “War is already good they don’t deserve anything else” out of this thread and instead be constructive and try to help your own class.

One last reason why I would like to see this happen…I think the guys that make the skill animations would make this look kitten cool.

I wanted to chime in about Hambow. While I get why they are trying to push people away from this spec they are continuously hurting other builds in the process. The thing that makes bow so valuable is that it is a reliable way to get rid of conditions via Cleansing Ire. Most other bursts are easy blinded or avoided and even between CI, Zerker Stance, Dogged March, and Lyssa runes you can still be overwhelmed by conditions if you don’t hit your bursts.

What I think Warrior needs, and I have suggested this in the past, is a burst that doesn’t necessarily hit hard but fills the role of consistent condi cleanse. I think that Greatsword would be the best candidate because the current burst is useless. If it were to be changed to something like:

Arcing Slice: Send out a slash of air that strikes the foe. Unblockable. Range: 900

While this can still be blocked and dodged it will still give a melee weapon a way to get the effect from CI to get rid of condis. Bow will still be good, but this would open up more options build wise because with the upcoming nerf to critical damage I can see condis becoming even more common.

I might make another thread about this in this forum since the Devs don’t seem to frequent the class forums anymore.

I we’re talking about classes being able to get other weapons already in the game, I would totally use daggers or even better pistols on my Warrior. Honestly, I don’t see any reason why Warrior can’t use all non-magical weapons considering that variety of weaponry is the whole point of Warrior. You could even tie them into Crack Shot and Blademaster traits.

As for Polearms, I’ve looked at the models in game and I do hope we get them eventually. That is a weapon that can serve a roll no other melee weapon really does, reach. Having a weapon that allows you to reliably hit kiting foes without a Bow would be really nice and I could see the animations being really cool. You could also just add some skins that look like 2-handed axes and that will probably be good enough to satisfy people.

The Tengu thing was a joke but we have evidence of Polearms already being in the game.

Shinjo.6092:

phaeris.7604:

Thief is the LEAST risky class to play. Best escapes in the game.

A thief has to be revealed and in mêlée range in order to do damage. A Mesmer can sit in stealth a mile away and never exposing themselves while their clones and phantasms do all the damage. And when they DO come out of stealth, they have protection, aegis, block, evades and invuls. Blink can be traited to go 1500 range and can have half the cool down of shadowstep. So Please explain to me how you think thief is less risky to play than a Mesmer.

Also, you haven’t explained why you think it’s okay for a Mesmer to stay in stealth and DO DAMAGE, while a thief should be revealed when blocked, EVEN IF THEY DO 0 DAMAGE from the block. Why the double standard?

Oh, I agree that it’s pretty lame that mesmers can hurt you while stealthed. I think the AI should stop attacking while the user is stealthed. Honestly, I don’t like stealth in this game at all. I’d raher it be something that you use tactically to set up an attack and doesn’t last more than 5 seconds.

mrmadhaze.8706:

phaeris.7604:

The issue is. they go stealth, and there’s no counter play. I can blow cooldowns/dodges trying to avoid the incoming damage, but they just stealth again if they don’t get the attack resetting the fight in their favour and your manouveres achieved nothing.

To people who say ‘You can predict where they are in stealth!’. Don’t, I mained a thief for a year, and if you’re any good on one your oponent has no idea where you are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRmmVOIUgIg

If this guy can c&d a stealthed thief you predict where he is and hit him.
The rest is just free complaints.

That was one of the most boring duels I have ever seen. Thief v Thief has to be one of worst possible matchups in the game if you like visceral fights.

I agree that USING an attack should knock you out of stealth, not just hitting. I can perfectly time a Counterblow against a D/P Thief but that’s not gonna stop them from just attacking again.

The initiative mechanic would be cool if it didn’t recharge so quickly. As it is now it makes the class feel spammy and less interesting to fight. Miss the backstab? No problem just use Black Powder and try again…and again…aaaaand…again. Evan as a Warrior I feel like I have more mini-combos that I use depending on the situation. Against most Thief builds it feels like I’m seeing the same combo done over and over and it’s not as interesting to fight as other classes. What I REALLY can’t stand is the use of Shadow Refugee and remaining hidden for 10+ seconds. All you can really do if you don’t force them out of the circle is flail around and hope you smack them. I’m fine with stealth being a way to set up attacks but not as a way to avoid fighting. It’s less about being OP (although screw Pistol Whip) and more that the class is uninteresting to fight.

Other Warriors, Guardians, Necros, Engis, Rangers, Eles, all these classes can be fun to fight against. Thief and Mesmer, not so much. One feels repetitive and the other clutters your screen with visual effects.

I know this isn’t the most popular rune set but as a Warrior main I find them rather enjoyable. With a Mace/Shield + GS build running 20/0/30/0/20 you can stack a good amount of confusion in addition to having roughly 50% up-time on Retaliation. Those moments when you perfectly time all your interrupts and get some 20 stacks on them feels really cool and rewarding. You can even mess around with Rampage since most of the skills have the ability to interrupt.

These changes seem reasonable for the most part, they’ll certainly be popular but so long as there are plenty of other viable choices I don’t think I’ll mind.

bobomb.5209:

BurrTheKing.8571:

ReesesPBC.4603:

I don’t see the need to bring in the fact that warriors can’t have certain defense boons when they don’t need it to survive. The reason mobility comes into play is because everyone keeps mentioning that warriors need it to keep up with their enemy, that’s great, but they can turn around and use it to disengage. Going along with the philosophy of the warrior (here comes another argument on that) that mobility was “intended” to stick to their target and not flee from it. The class design as a warrior was to stay in melee range, correct? Warriors excel at melee, correct? Then why is it that their skills are being used for exactly the opposite? Why are warriors running away when they have absolutely amazing staying power?

Yes, those mobility skills were present pre-buff but the buffs also made those mobility skills even stronger because of dogged march/passive regen/stance immunities/overall higher toughness allowed warriors to escape and reset fights with an extremely high success rate.

How would you change it? People already hate what ANet did to RTL so it’s not like they’re going to do the same to Rush. Making the skills require a target is a step back into the dark ages of MMO combat and takes freedom away from the player.

I honestly don’t think the mobility is that imbalanced, if they just have a GS they are catachable and if they have GS+S then they have given up tons of (imo) better options.

Why not just apply the same mechanic as say a mesmer. You can’t use rush or bulls rush without a target. You could still aim at an npc or random mob in WvW but it would be eradicated in PvP, as well as severely hampering it’s effectiveness in WvW.

And this way you wouldn’t have to mess with the skill directly.

Requiring it to have a target would totally kill the feeling of freedom you have compared to other MMOs. There’s a difference between requiring a target you are teleporting to and and requiring a target to…run. Not to mention Rush likes to make you overshoot your target and miss as does Bull’s Rush so at least they have a use for getting from A to B.

I actually think certain teleport skills shouldn’t require a target but I could see that potentially being really buggy.

ReesesPBC.4603:

I don’t see the need to bring in the fact that warriors can’t have certain defense boons when they don’t need it to survive. The reason mobility comes into play is because everyone keeps mentioning that warriors need it to keep up with their enemy, that’s great, but they can turn around and use it to disengage. Going along with the philosophy of the warrior (here comes another argument on that) that mobility was “intended” to stick to their target and not flee from it. The class design as a warrior was to stay in melee range, correct? Warriors excel at melee, correct? Then why is it that their skills are being used for exactly the opposite? Why are warriors running away when they have absolutely amazing staying power?

Yes, those mobility skills were present pre-buff but the buffs also made those mobility skills even stronger because of dogged march/passive regen/stance immunities/overall higher toughness allowed warriors to escape and reset fights with an extremely high success rate.

How would you change it? People already hate what ANet did to RTL so it’s not like they’re going to do the same to Rush. Making the skills require a target is a step back into the dark ages of MMO combat and takes freedom away from the player.

I honestly don’t think the mobility is that imbalanced, if they just have a GS they are catachable and if they have GS+S then they have given up tons of (imo) better options.

I’m sorry…unnecessary mobility!? In any game like this the melee weapon users that don’t have teleports or stealth NEED a way to close the gap because otherwise the kiting classes will ALWAYS beat them. This is exactly why Warrior received the aforementioned condi mitigation because without them even with the mobility they could never keep up because it was so easy to cripple/immob/chill them to death.

I mentioned Thieves because that is what you were comparing to to. I actually have very little problem killing D/P thieves with Mace/Shield + GS because all you have to do is wait around 2 seconds after they stealth and use Counterblow to make the backstab miss. Just make them use their teleports then use Skull Crack + 100b while Zerker stance is up and you have yourself one dead thief. My only issue with them is that they aren’t fun to fight since you don’t see them most of the time.

I’m loving your superiority complex. I highly doubt you’ve experienced all 50+ servers as well. The majority of complaints I hear about Warriors is Hammer trains, you can’t have a Hammer trains and a mobility Warrior at the same time. I’m sure some groups run raiding parties with GS+Sword. If these groups are beating other small groups it’s because they’re much better. The build has only one combo to be afraid of and that’s Flurry + 100b. Only other thing to look out for is Final Thrust other than that the build isn’t better at much more than moving around and slapping yaks. That’s important but hardly something to totally hamper their mobility over.

You also really love to point out the ability to cleanse 3 conditions every 10 seconds, but to do so consistently would require the use of a Bow, which means dropping the Sword. The Warhorn does have the ability to get rid of movement impairing conditions but if you want to trait for it you have to go into the Tactics line which means sacrificing a lot of damage.

You also pointed out all of Warrior’s strengths but left out the fact that they lack: frequent access to protection/Aegis, Stealth, clones, evade spam (one skill on one weapon doesn’t count), Death Shroud, Blinds (again, only 1 skill on one weapon), Teleports, the list goes on and on. Reduce the armor, health, or healing and Warrior becomes totally worthless. The class is based around being the middle of the road class as far as what it’s good at. It can hit hard but can’t spike as well as a Thief, it’s tough but Guardians are better at prolonged sustain, they can even do conditions but don’t the the AoE abilities of Necros and Engis. Most good Warrior builds are good at multiple things but not amazing at any one of them. GS + Sword is good at one thing, mobility. It doesn’t have AoE stunning ability, AoE fire fields, or a 3 sec long stun.

There is not one build that gives the reliable 3 condi cleanse, has unmatchable mobility, and high control all in one build. You can get a couple in a build but there will always be something lacking. I like Mace/Shield+GS but the lack of a bow means conditions can overwhelm me if you aren’t foolish and waste you best condis while Zerker stance is up. I also like both Sword + Bow and GS + Bow but both are really weak to high spike damage builds. I play condi War every now and then but while it’s strong 1v1 Necros and Engi still do condis better because they’re AoE.

You don’t seem to grasp how precarious Warror’s situation is. It’s one poorly thought out nerf away from being worthless. ANet seems to recognize this for the most part because they’re just chipping away instead of using a mallet.

EDIT: Harper you’re much better at saying the same things I wanna say but in about a page less text :P.

coglin.1867:

BurrTheKing.8571:

And Thieves are supposed to use their Stealth to set up attacks, not to run away and hide like a scared child.

Is that what stealth is designed for? Do you have any proof of this or are you simply representing your opinion as fact? All I know is I linked dev quotes stating that it is a fact that thieves are intended to have more mobility then Warriors. Unless you have an actual dev quote or a fact, or even reasonable evidence, all your doing is spinning your wheels.

Honestly, this angle of “I have no actual facts or evidence, but your wrong cause I said so” argument just works against you, as well as removes your credibility in general.

I mean the facts and evidence are all there that make this entire “thief” angle of a warriors argument a bit laughable if you ask me. It is as if the warrior community would rather try to out smart common sense rather then offer a reasonable solution.

Seems to me like you’re saying that it’s fine for Thieves to use stealth to escape combat but it’s not OK for a Warrior to use their speed to do the same thing. Not many Warriors run GS + Sword/Warhorn, most only have a GS. It is not that hard to catch a Warrior with just a GS in the short term, especially if they used their utilities in the battle before hand. You can actually SEE that the Warrior is running away.

Meanwhile, I thief with D/P can use their weapon set to stealth, head in a random direction, drop Shadow Refugee, and never be seen again if they don’t want to. What makes this more useful than just running is that you can hang around and pick someone off or if it’s a big fight just heal up because no one will be directly targeting you. I’ve stunned Thieves in SR many times but unless I kill them it doesn’t matter because they can shadow step away. Even if I do down them they can get stealthed again while downed then stack it with the downed stealth and simply revive and repeat the whole process over.

Why is this OK but it’s not for Warrior to have the ability to use their gap closers are a means to escape? The double standard you have is obvious. I for one would take knowing that someone is running away from me over not knowing if I’m going to get backstabbed sometime withing the next 10+ seconds any day. I don’t mind stealth existing but if they gain no movement penalty and getting hit doesn’t reveal them then you should not be able to use it for extended periods of time. I’m actually OK with the Black powder + HS combo because I know exactly how long they have to attack me, but combined with Shadow Refugee it becomes a guessing game that you can’t counterplay outside of some very specific situations like using Fear Me to force them out of the field.

coglin.1867:

BurrTheKing.8571:

“Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.”

A. My information was more recent then yours. Not to mention, your linking a PR department advertisement quote and I am quoting the Design Leader.

B Attacking speed and recast speed does not mean mobility. Context my friend, context. It specifically states “in battle” not “to run like a scared child” which is what many are defending the ability to do here, or “mobility around the map”, it says "in battle.

And Thieves are supposed to use their Stealth to set up attacks, not to run away and hide like a scared child.

You’re link IS more outdated because they clearly changed their vision or the Warrior because they made it more resilient to conditions. If that vision was still the same they would have never added Dogged March and Cleansing Ire in addition to changing Zerker Stance. But you know what’s even more interesting? Even with the changes Warrior wasn’t viable until the Healing buffs.

The promotional material is more accurate than that blog post because Warrior’s are indeed more dangerous the longer the fight drags on. It’s obvious that after that post Mr. Sharp changed his vision for the Warrior class and made them able to counter the then-meta Necro condi spam. It’s just a natural side effect that the gap losers are going to also be useable to escape. Making it require a target would be a HUGE step back. That’s the kind of systems that old MMOs use and it takes away from the freedom of the game. Next thing you know people are going to demand that all Warrior skills require you to target them.

@coglin and others

I keep seeing the old profession definitions dragged out time and time again. Let’s be honest and admit that they no longer mean anything. ANet decided that having a class that is so weak to what was at the time (and still is) a major part of the meta wasn’t what they wanted so they changed it. Warrior was totally and completely inadequate for around a year because at best they could charge in and try to kill a target before dying themselves. That definition of Warrior is outdated, although you overlooked one that does back up the mobility.

From the GW2.com Warrior profession page

“Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.”

Now if that doesn’t perfectly describe Warrior’s current state I don’t know what does. Oh, there’s also this from the wiki

Greatsword — Sweeping, brutal attacks which carry the greatsword’s momentum from foe to foe.

Sword — Quick and mobile, with many opportunities to cause bleeding.

Sooooooo…yes there are plenty of official sources citing Warrior’s mobility.

As a little added bonus here’s the Thief’s page on the website

“Experts at stealth and surprise, thieves can move through the shadows, vanish into thin air, or steal items from their opponents and use them as weapons. Thieves practice an agile, acrobatic fighting style, which can make them very hard to hit.”

That blog post is from December 2012, here we are in 2014 and these definition are what they have posted on the official website. I would consider those to be more true to the design philosophy since most of them are accurate.

I’m thankful that ANet only gives in to a few forum “suggestions” because if they listened to all the threads here Warriors would have less mobility, less sustain, less condition mitigation, and finally less damage. Many aren’t interested in balance, they just Warrior to be the free kill it used to be.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

BurrTheKing.8571:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Burnfall.9573:

• A Warrior is not a Ranger*

A warrior should not replace a ranger

My vision for bows is for ranger class only.

your argument is invalid as warriors are proficient in almost all martial weapons save a few puny ones.

No, it just means that they can use all weapons. What’s the deal of a class who can use almost al weapons and being the best in using them? It would be simply stupid.

What would be the point of having access to the LB on Warrior if it wasn’t good? The problem lies with Ranger LB being too weak, not Warrior LB being too strong.

It does mean that you can adapt to every situation you will encounter. However, a Ranger wielding a LB would be more effective than a Warrior using LB.

Again, nerfing longbow for the THIRD time is not the answer to Ranger LB being weak.

The nerf to Combustive Shot was given because someone on the balance team thought the hits from it gave you adrenaline…it doesn’t.

They’re giving Pin Down Nearly a second long cast time because some claimed that you couldn’t see it coming, even though it has a arrow path (circles around the arrow as it flies) that it totally different from the other skills. I even heard someone say that it looks exactly like the auto attack which is a DUAL SHOT.

At this rate Warrior is going to become an inferior Guardian, tough but can’t kill jack but in this case also unable to tank multiple enemies for a prolonged period. They’re beating Hambow to death without any care about what other specs are getting torn to shreds along with it. All these bow nerfs are hurting Sword + LB or GS + LB waaaay more than Hambow.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Burnfall.9573:

• A Warrior is not a Ranger*

A warrior should not replace a ranger

My vision for bows is for ranger class only.

your argument is invalid as warriors are proficient in almost all martial weapons save a few puny ones.

No, it just means that they can use all weapons. What’s the deal of a class who can use almost al weapons and being the best in using them? It would be simply stupid.

What would be the point of having access to the LB on Warrior if it wasn’t good? The problem lies with Ranger LB being too weak, not Warrior LB being too strong.

Why stop with just visual flair while we wait for the match? Imagine having graves that can be used to break LoS on Graveyard. Or how about actually being able to fight inside Windmill and Mansion and have them be destructible like Clock Tower. Right now most maps feel very samey outside of the map-specific mechanic. While the home points have to be functionally identical that doesn’t mean they all have to be tiny circles with nothing else to them.

Having more variety in capture point design would give each maps more character. Just…please not skyhammer levels of crazy. Having a hill you can be knocked off of and forces you to run back up can be cool…being instakilled by a long fall less so.

EDIT: It might actually be cool to see some sort of jumping puzzle in some of the maps. Alternate paths that get you there quicker but if you mess it up you’re going to show up late to the party.

Hugh Norfolk.2798:

The time is coming that my bow and hammer will crush many a foe, but who knows maybe I will dust off my Mace/Sword and Long Bow. Only time will tell. :P

May I suggest this build if you’re looking to pick up Mace.

I’m still rather conflicted. These runes are one of the few that have a really interesting effect that really changes how you build your character. On my WvW set I used Mace/Shield in a totally different way when I use these runes as opposed to on more straight forward runes. You don’t try to chain your stuns together, instead you try to save them for timed interrupts to maximize their effectiveness.

One thing I really missed from GW1 was the focus on skill interrupts and this certainly brings a bit of that back. Of course, that being said there needs to be enough counters or everyone will run them. To keep the spirit of the runes without making them too strong there should be no free stacks either from hitting someone or being hit. I like the confusion on interrupt because that’s at least somewhat skill based. Maybe replace the 4th bonus with 1 stack of confusion with a really low ICD or something to that extent. At least that way players that just spam control skills won’t get as much use out of them.

As a side note, the runes will give my a valid excuse to use Rampage in PvP.

Normally, I would agree with you all that this is a terrible idea…normally.

However, I think I might enjoy the chaos caused by adding these runes and it might be to the point of hilarity. Just imagine, an entire server filled with nothing but control based Engis, Thieves, Mesmers, and Warriors and everyone has purple butterflies over their head. It’s like watching a Pokemon battle where both sides cast confuse ray.

Also, it’s not condi Warriors you should be afraid of, it’s power Warriors running Mace/Shield + GS 20/0/30/0/20 with Spiked Armor. Enjoy not being able to do anything without half-killing yourself in between eating near full 100bs.

Aberrant.6749:

It doesn’t matter that they can freely slap yaks and hop/cap camps while evading/being nearly immune to cc? It’s fine that it would take a coordinated team of other classes to do the aprox the same? Yea… I disagree with that.

That being said though, it’s only in WvW where this matters. WvW “balance” is nearly non-existant.

It doesn’t change the fact that in the overall picture of things most of what you named will HELP with winning but won’t be the thing that actually wins it.

Honestly, SF may not be the best WvW server out there but I don’t see an excessive number of Warriors on any of our matchups. In fact, I see scores more thieves and mesmers these days than anything else, and even then it only feels slightly above average. I’ve actually been seeing a proportionate representation of each class for the most part.

I will agree that balance in WvW means jack. The addition on armor differences and numerous buffs make some things waaaay stronger than they normally are.

I’m going to look at this purely from a WvW viewpoint.

The ability of a couple Warriors to chase after or run away doesn’t matter. A single player escaping a fight doesn’t significantly influence the outcome of a WvW matchup. The same applies to a Warrior chasing you. Sure, it sucks if you die but again, your death didn’t matter. What matters in WvW is taking points, roaming is good fun but isn’t important when it comes to winning.

The most valuable application of Warrior mobility would be a group of them going around flipping camps and maybe taking undefended towers and the like. Even then, the same could be said about any coordinated group of the same class. So many of you are looking at the small picture and totally ignoring the larger picture. In a zerg it doesn’t matter how fast you are seeing as you can only go as fast as the zerg.

If a Warrior runs away from the fight you should just count is as a win. I said this before but a Thief/Mesmer’s ability to go stealth for a long period of time while healing up is waaaay more useful because they can still stay around the battle. When a Warrior leaves they have to run all the way back which chances are will be too late.

TL;DR: What happens on the small scale of WvW is not significant enough to balance around.

DeceiverX.8361:

Lolwut.

Apparently 100% maximum effectiveness on class mechanic isn’t very good.

But the ranger in a tree which already has 2 necessary GM traits which requires you to pick one just got one more to improve projectile speed so your attacks can hit a strafing target.

AKA something which should be implemented by default.

Meanwhile their class mechanic is total trash and will remain trash with no real other updates.

Like, really? Warrior arguably got some of the best traits lol.

The 100% crit chance on burst is only going to benefit Axe or Rifle users with Valk gear at best. The thing about that is that even then the benefit would be marginal because you won’t have very high damage output because you won’t be critting as often with normal attack. Not to mention you’re sacrificing up to 15% extra damage on ALL your attacks which is way more useful. You could mix-and-match of course but it’s still not going to be that amazing.

All the other traits are either too weak or too specific like the Defense and Discipline traits. They might be good vs specific builds but how many are going to run them outside of duels once you now what someone is running? I’m going to go with not many. While the defensive trait will be good against Control Warriors and Pistol Whip Thieves, outside of that it’s not worthwhile. The Discipline trait is something I would like in concept, a way to counter blind spam, but with at best 1 removal every 5 seconds I won’t bother. If it was adept Tier maybe but not GM.

The Tactic’s trait WILL be enjoyable but only in a organized environment. With 2 Warriors and a venom share Thief I can see a lot of shenanigans in my future.

Also, can we please stop this “my class didn’t get good stuff so you don’t deserve good stuff either” crap? It’s not Warrior’s fault that your class has problems. We’re trying to improve our class just like you wat to improve yours and that’s all that there is to it.

Sir Arthur.8905:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I get what Imbune is saying. Having duels can enable bad behavior because some people (mostly kids) feel they have something to prove and can become really obnoxious. Even if there was an option to automatically refuse duels some people would still harass and insult you for not wanting to duel them. In WvW it’s not so bad because you have to go through a few extra steps in order to whisper someone but even then I’ve been shouted at by people I’ve beaten while roaming.

Compared to most MMOs the GW2 community is fairly positive and I really enjoy that. Open world dueling just offers up more opportunities for immature people to be a nuisance when right now there aren’t many. Just look at this thread, already I’m seeing “carebear” being thrown around as an insult. I haven’t seen that used since my (very) brief time with Aion. That isn’t the type of atmosphere I appreciate. The current level of duel support feels more than adequate because you can do it if you want but also have the ability to ignore it completely.

It also cannot be overstated how imbalanced certain abilities are in 1v1 situations and I don’t want the devs to waste time banning or rebalancing things just for 1v1s that don’t prove or accomplish anything.

Is it adequate? Do you duel with the current resources? I’ve seen that statement a lot from anti-duelers on this thread. You say you think what we have is adequate enough… how can you say that when you personally don’t duel, and have no interest in it? That’s like me saying “I’m hungry” and you say “I think you’ve eaten enough” if it was enough, I wouldn’t be hungry, much like if this was adequate, this forum thread would never have gone so far.

1v1 scenarios happen in pvp matches, as well as roaming. Please give examples of those “certain abilities” that are imbalanced, as I have no idea what you are talking about.

I actually do duel at least once or twice a week which is why I find the current accommodations fine. The only real issue is if you’re current WvW opponents aren’t interested in dueling but no system is going to fix that. The whole point of WvW is to instill a sense of companionship with your server, not to fight it.

My main problem with duels is classes like Thieves and Mesmers spending most of the duel avoiding the fight. Sitting in stealth for 10+ seconds at a time isn’t fun to fight and you know the die-hard duelers are all going to run them for the most part. The imba abilities would be mostly Thieves Guild and Moa and a few of the transformation skills. Some classes are “sneaky” or “cheap” by design and go against the whole spirit of what it means to duel. Warrior V Warrior V Guardian V Ranger V Engi can be fun (you can argue the balance of Supply Crate cause some classes don’t have enough AoE to deal with it effectively 1v1) because you spent most of the duel exchanging blows. Sitting around waiting for a stealth class to heal up isn’t fun for most and is generally a waste of time.

Also, while what is important to me isn’t important to everyone I’m pretty sure the community at large would prefer they spend more time polishing the game as opposed to adding more features that have a big potential to be buggy or exploitable and take God knows how long to fix.

I don’t agree with some of these definitions on what cheese is. While I only spectate games like StarCraft that is the game that defined “cheese” to me. My definition is a strategy that will either win you the fight quickly or will fail terribly. Something like a pure glass Warrior that goes Bull’s Charge + Frenzy + 100b could qualify because if you catch your foe with it they’ll take a huge amount of damage and may insta-gib them…or they’ll evade or stun break and you’ll be left with basically no condi removal or a way to mitigate damage long enough between the CD on the combo.

Thieves also have a lot of these builds where they have almost no utility and either kill you instantly or get horribly murdered. They don’t necessarily have to be all-in DPS builds, they just have to rely on your opponent not being able to counter your strategy. They are dependent on surprising your opponent for the most part as well.

Clip.6845:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Cynic.4805:

So of course the system will need a refuse duel requests option in the menu, but what of the players harassing you through chat? What is to stop you from simply blocking that person and you will hear nothing from them again?

That’s the thing though, right now I rarely have to deal with that because of the extra effort you have to put in to try and get someone to duel you. However if there was a readily available way to do it some will flame you for not wanting to bother with them. What’s worse is that even as things are now I’ve blocked one troll only for his friend(s) to continue the assault. I enjoy a bit of light-hearted trash talk but some people take it waaaay too personally. I would say this kind of behavior would happen much more frequently with open world dueling.

Isn’t that a weird thing to assume to happen? I mean, if that’s the only reason you don’t want duelling I think it’s a non-issue because I don’t think people thát annoying exist in large numbers. Maybe the odd bored 13 year old during school breaks.

But I can say with a fair amount of certainty that there’s a significant number of people like that out there because it ran rampant in many MMOs I’ve played i the past. Some games you couldn’t walk through a hub area without numerous players running around spamming duel requests and if you had it turned off they would spout off crap like “come on dule meh u ______” and the like, and they were always on the class that was the strongest 1v1. It made the whole game feel more toxic especially when you’re trying to do something else.

Now, maybe I’m just being overly cynical but my main reason for not wanting it is that I don’t want resources being put towards a duel mode when there’s more important things that can be focused on.