Guild Wars 2

I have always enjoyed control builds but Hambow has always been rather weak when it comes to fighting classes like Thieves, Mesmers, and any build that moves around a lot. that can easily avoid all of your big control skills. So I decided I wanted to make a build that is focused on fighting those classes while still being able to face down most foes. I’ve been testing it for a while and was told that it was a nightmare to fight…so I made a bad pun and made it the build name.

The Knightmare

Knightmare 2

I really hate it when people run from a fight or simply refuse to fight me head on, so this build applies a ton of Immobilize in addition to a bit of Chill to insure that whatever your fighting stays in range of you most of the time. I try to take as much advantage of Sword and Longbow being hybrid weapons as much as possible although most damage comes from the power side. Attack of Opportunity insure you are pretty much always doing 10% more damage and Blademaster in addition to high Fury uptime and Lyssa runes means most of your attacks will crit. Just like most Warrior builds these days you’re very strong against condition builds as well due to your plethora of removal.

I actually tried running Warhorn instead of Shield and but the 20 points in Tactics for Quick Breathing and Leg Specialist but the removal from the 2 Warhorn skills just wasn’t enough to combat a condi spam build. You also lost a lot of sustain because let’s face it the Defense line has the best traits for Warriors.

Now, I don’t I may have made this as optimal as I could have. For one thing I’m not totally sold on Bolas yet. It does synergize well with Pin Down since it makes it hit much more frequently and If they cleanse the first Immob they’ll be hit the the second immidiatly after. Add in Flurry after that and they’re probably not going anywhere. It’s also a finisher which makes it work well with Combustive Shot (in fact you also get 2 leap finishers and a blast finisher). That being said there may be better options.

You probably noticed that there’s 2 versions of the build. I can’t decide whether getting that extra power via Armored Attack is better than Destruction of the Empowered or not. It be more obvious if there was a +Power/Perc/Tough like in PvE because with toughness as the primary stat you get a pretty large bonus. That being said against foes with a lot of boons you can deal a good deal of extra damage. The Chill on the weapons is a bit of a gimmick (my Warrior’s name is Burr Chillthorn) and can be replaced by whatever you want but I have noticed that it can serve as a good cover condition.

Please leave any feedback, but please post your reasoning for your suggestions.

I’ve started subbing out Leg Specialist and Bull’s Charge for Lung Capacity and Fear Me. The amount of disruption you can cause is hilarious and you can also force them to run off cliffs.

Gee, you accused me of not knowing the class I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing and you say I’m being hostile. You tired to take 2 very specific aspects that offer very little of the mechanics I mentioned having little to no access to and acted as if that invalidated my statement. The small possibility of getting 3 seconds of Protection doesn’t make Warrior’s survival skyrocket and neither does having a single evade on GS.

Most of Warrior sustain comes from high regen and stats and nothing else. Meanwhile, other classes rely on boons, stealth, what have you. They’re all so different that comparing two traits that are similar in function is meaningless because there are so many other factors in play.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

hellsmachine.4085:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Joonks.7501:

The patch notes are fake. There’s a sticky in the prof balance forum.

All leaked patch notes to date have been correct.

But ArenaNet said they’re fake… ArenaNet wouldn’t lie to us now would they?

For fear of being “warned” for the hundredth bajillionth time. Most of the “leaked” patch notes I read from game to game about 90% of the “leaked” changes make it into games.

In the past they never came out and said they were false though. It would do them no good to lie about it because we’ll know as soon as the patch hits and the blowback for lying would be pretty darn big.

Although I would have liked to get 150 toughness with a shield though.

Aegael.6938:

I was excited for these mainly because they were significant changes. Nerfs or buffs, change is always interesting.

I dunno, “We nerfed healing signet by 8% and reduced armor of earth cooldown” isn’t very interesting to me. They didn’t make any new builds viable, didn’t rework garbage traits like Siphoned Power, they just…tweaked stuff that’s already seeing a ton of use.

It’s not exciting, but wide-sweeping changes have never worked in the past and normally ended up coming along with many bugs that take months to get fixed (Signet passives not activating when you enter a zone). The really issue is how infrequent the updates are. I would much rather have a few small changes every 2 weeks with the living story updates than one large one every few months, or in this case a small one.

The Zerker and Sigil changes will really open up some new possibilities so that will be interesting. Being able to have a “on Crit” and “on Swap” sigil on a set may make up for the crit damage nerf.

In the case of the Warrior notes, I did find some of the changes to not make any sense. This would include increasing Rushes CD and nerfing Bull’s Charge, a skill no one complains about. So in this case I think I am going to believe the notes are false and that what we were shown earlier is more or less what we’re going to get.

Bran.7425:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Bran.7425:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Jett.1239:

I’ve always been of the opinion that nerfs/buffs should be done in small increments and not all at once; clearly my opinion does not intersect with reality…

I feel like they keep caving in to the forum/E-Sports crowd way more than they should. Not that good ideas don’t occasionally come from those groups, it’s just that throwing them all into one patch leaves so many ways for things to go wrong.

I would much prefer a small balance patch every 2 weeks than one giant one every few months. That way if the Healing Signet nerf alone wasn’t enough THEN you take away the regen from Dogged March. Not to mention that supposedly big rune changes are coming and if Lyssa gets hit hard then Warrior’s sustain will take another big hit.

I’m looking at running something like this if these notes are true. Not really sold on Bolas and I may end up needed Signet of Stamina but this will let me still throw down a lot of control just in a different form. Also, with the buff to Shield Master and with Dolyak Signet I’ll have some good toughness even with Zerker gear (shame those bonuses don’t stack with Armored Attack). Between that and having a block hopefully I’ll maintain decent sustain. The problem is I won’t be able to deny stomps as often with no hammer.

EDIT: I guess one benefit is that we’ll hopefully get less people overblowing how powerful Warrior is…but then again probably not. Some won’t be satisfied until we’re back to being free kills like at launch.

You realize that Dogged March was basically a better (in all ways lower tier grant regeneration) version of an elemenalist trait (master tier not adapt)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Geomancer%27s_Freedom

So not total destruction mode yet….

Good God, I am SO tired of responding to these kinds of statements.

YOU CANNOT DIRECTLY COMPARE TWO TRAITS/SKILLS/ATTACKS ON TWO DIFFERENT CLASSES!

Each class has many different factors to take into consideration when talking about balance. For example, Warrior’s have high HP/Toughness/Regen but have very little to no access to Protection/Evades/Stealth/Etc. Something that’s balanced on one class would be wildly OP if it was the same on another class. Comparisons like yours prove nothing when talking about balance.

Why not when all you can say is I am not broken they [other professions] have protection, stealth, or evades. You don’t even know your own profession that well

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quick_Breathing Oh look there protection, where according to you there is none.

And yet again http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Whirlwind_Attack, evades where did that come from.

So if I understand you correctly you all those exactly the same traits (same trait same tier) across all the profession are in fact not balanced, but warrior can have a better version of a trait at a lower expenditure of trait points and that is ok.

I for one am just as time of, but it won’t be warrior if it…. doesn’t get be over-tuned.

Way to pick and choose what I said, and clearly you don’t know the class at all if I don’t know it well. Quick Breathing, warhorn in general is hardly used outside of WvW zerging and even then most builds don’t invest the 20 points for the trait. It’s also not something you can control reliably. Not everyone uses Vulnerability, and even then most of the time you end up getting more vigor than anything else. The duration is also not that long on top of that. I’ve tried many times to make Warhorn work but in the end I would rather have those points in Defense since you can’t afford to have points in both if you want to actually kill something.

Also, Whirlwind Attack is the ONLY source of Evade Warriors have and it’s on a pretty mediocre weapon. Not to mention I said “very little to no,” not just no. One evade every 10 seconds doesn’t make a Warrior a Thief all of the sudden. Basically, you’re argument is flimsy as hell and your examples are as well.

The Knight

I started using this when I got tired of people running away from me and my hatred for fighting Thieves and Mesmers. I’m not totally sold on Bolas yet but with Pin Down and Flurry you’re supplying a different kind of control that is strong against what Hammer isn’t. I wish PvP had the proper Knights gear like what I use in WvW because it synergies well with Armored Attack and it lets you deal a good amount of damage while being tough. I do feel like Flurry doesn’t have the correct range though because it feels much shorter than 130. Hitting a Shield Bash + Final Thrust combo for the finish always feels satisfying. You can also do some crazy stuff like using Flurry on multiple enemies, canceling (bind sheathe weapon if you haven’t already), then laying down your heavy hitters like Final Thrust and Arching Shot. There’s also plenty of combos to be had, Savage Leap, Shield Bash, Bolas, and Arching Shot will let you keep a steady stream of burn that still hits pretty hard even without a significant investment in condition damage.

I used to hate how hybrid the sword and Longbow were but with Attack of Opportunity giving you a constant 10% damage increase the bleed feels like a benefit and your crit chance is very high. It’s also fun to be that sword and board archetype with the added bonus of range.

Bran.7425:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Jett.1239:

I’ve always been of the opinion that nerfs/buffs should be done in small increments and not all at once; clearly my opinion does not intersect with reality…

I feel like they keep caving in to the forum/E-Sports crowd way more than they should. Not that good ideas don’t occasionally come from those groups, it’s just that throwing them all into one patch leaves so many ways for things to go wrong.

I would much prefer a small balance patch every 2 weeks than one giant one every few months. That way if the Healing Signet nerf alone wasn’t enough THEN you take away the regen from Dogged March. Not to mention that supposedly big rune changes are coming and if Lyssa gets hit hard then Warrior’s sustain will take another big hit.

I’m looking at running something like this if these notes are true. Not really sold on Bolas and I may end up needed Signet of Stamina but this will let me still throw down a lot of control just in a different form. Also, with the buff to Shield Master and with Dolyak Signet I’ll have some good toughness even with Zerker gear (shame those bonuses don’t stack with Armored Attack). Between that and having a block hopefully I’ll maintain decent sustain. The problem is I won’t be able to deny stomps as often with no hammer.

EDIT: I guess one benefit is that we’ll hopefully get less people overblowing how powerful Warrior is…but then again probably not. Some won’t be satisfied until we’re back to being free kills like at launch.

You realize that Dogged March was basically a better (in all ways lower tier grant regeneration) version of an elemenalist trait (master tier not adapt)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Geomancer%27s_Freedom

So not total destruction mode yet….

Good God, I am SO tired of responding to these kinds of statements.

YOU CANNOT DIRECTLY COMPARE TWO TRAITS/SKILLS/ATTACKS ON TWO DIFFERENT CLASSES!

Each class has many different factors to take into consideration when talking about balance. For example, Warrior’s have high HP/Toughness/Regen but have very little to no access to Protection/Evades/Stealth/Etc. Something that’s balanced on one class would be wildly OP if it was the same on another class. Comparisons like yours prove nothing when talking about balance.

Jett.1239:

I’ve always been of the opinion that nerfs/buffs should be done in small increments and not all at once; clearly my opinion does not intersect with reality…

I feel like they keep caving in to the forum/E-Sports crowd way more than they should. Not that good ideas don’t occasionally come from those groups, it’s just that throwing them all into one patch leaves so many ways for things to go wrong.

I would much prefer a small balance patch every 2 weeks than one giant one every few months. That way if the Healing Signet nerf alone wasn’t enough THEN you take away the regen from Dogged March. Not to mention that supposedly big rune changes are coming and if Lyssa gets hit hard then Warrior’s sustain will take another big hit.

I’m looking at running something like this if these notes are true. Not really sold on Bolas and I may end up needed Signet of Stamina but this will let me still throw down a lot of control just in a different form. Also, with the buff to Shield Master and with Dolyak Signet I’ll have some good toughness even with Zerker gear (shame those bonuses don’t stack with Armored Attack). Between that and having a block hopefully I’ll maintain decent sustain. The problem is I won’t be able to deny stomps as often with no hammer.

EDIT: I guess one benefit is that we’ll hopefully get less people overblowing how powerful Warrior is…but then again probably not. Some won’t be satisfied until we’re back to being free kills like at launch.

Some of these nerfs seem really nonsensical. 25 second CD on Rush is only understandable if they made it actually HIT when you use it to attack because it can hit hard, perhaps they speed it up. This whole “warrior 2 gud at running” thing always seemed ridiculous to me. Thieves and Mesmers can stealth/teleport for long periods of time in order to escape yet I see that is untouched unless I missed something.

Any good player will probably easily avoid Pin Down now, I’m fine with obvious animations but why does only Warrior get them while other casting classes have the same animation for several spells or the tell is so subtle, especially on Asura, that you’ll end up guessing what they’re using. This is yet another hit to bow, the last being Combustive shot being nerfed because someone thought that it refills it’s own adrenaline bar when it doesn’t.

Unless I’m missing something obvious, outside of Dhuumfire nerf conditions didn’t take that heavy of a hit to justify nerfing Zerker Stance. Already I bring the stance, Dogged March, Cleansing Ire, and Lyssa runes (sometimes even Signet of Stamina) and find myself having to use my cleanses perfectly or I WILL lose to conditions. Nobody used Zerker Stance at 6 seconds and while we probably will now I foresee conditions being able to overwhelm Warriors now. What role will they serve if this is the case?

Did anyone really believe that Bull’s Charge was too strong? This makes it function like it did in GW1 but it was already very easy to avoid as it is now. Granted all this is going to change is that you’ll have to run behind someone after you’ve already stunned/KD them but it just doesn’t seem necessary.

I feel like they have totally abandoned the idea of “shaving” and just gave into the forums and went full destruction mode. I can deal with the Healing Signet nerf, but nerfing dogged and zerker stance in the same patch seems like possible overkill. It would have been wiser to just nerf HS and see what happens. Small changes may anger people but throwing out so many nerfs at once has never worked in the past (Ele).

I’m going to give this post a “nope” of disapproval.

First of all, as a Warrior I don’t want Protection. What separates us from Guardians is the fact that our sustain comes mostly from regeneration and a high health pool. Take away that and throw on Protection and suddenly Warriors become a lot more like Guardians to the point where they lose that tough-as-nails feel that is a staple of fantasy games.

Warriors don’t rely on magic or stealth to get the job done, they power through whatever is thrown at them with their own natural toughness and heavy armor. In GW2 the boons they use regularly are more “martial” in nature: Might, Fury, Swiftness, Regen with some Vigor or Retaliation (but how many actually use Spiked Armor). Guardians on the other hand use more “magical” boons like Aegis and Protection. Boons like that in addition to the numerous blocks they have give the class it’s own identity. What you’re proposing blurs that line and brings the to classes closer together.

You’re also nerfing so many skills that are either fine as is or are already seen as not being that good. For example, why the hell would you nerf Bolas; not only is it annoying to hit as is stacking Immob on Warrior is so eaisly cleansed it’s not even funny. I’ve run with Sword + Bow with Bolas and Leg Spec and while it’s amusing on classes with no real condi cleanse It’s really not all that strong and I feel better off with another utility. In fact, you seem to have a thing against Immobilize in general. One second of Immob ever TEN seconds!? Who would ever touch that trait again it would be so worthless.

There’s tons of pointless and unneeded nerfs. You want Spiked Armor back to where it was pre-buff even though as it is now it hardly sees any use? You’re giving sword the A-Net treatment by making all the damage be on the last, easily avoided attack. You know what, I can’t do this to myself. I’m not going to sit here and waste my time and pick apart every meaningless suggestion. Long story short you want to remove the classes identity while nerfing their damage on most every weapon. You’ve also made many functionality changes that I’m pretty sure aren’t even doable in the game engine or would require more resources than they would be willing to spend.

It’s clear you’re just another player who wants Warrior to go back to how it was at launch, a free kill. You may not want to believe that, but your suggestions would make Warrior an inferior version of a Guardian. You know why we see so many Warriors around right now, because conditions builds are still strong and they’re the one class that can reliably take them out. There are a plethora of builds that can beat Hambow but your average hotjoin and SoloQ player refuses to build around the fact that they will be facing Warriors. So many run the same builds they did pre-buffs and now that they aren’t effective they want nerfs so things can go back to how they were. Most games like this you’ll see the meta shift when your old strategy doesn’t work anymore but for some reason GW2 players don’t want to change.

a t s e.9614:

You want a build that requires skill ? You probably just have to reroll to engi or something else. Replacing hammer with a greatsword dosent make this build more skillful than hambow . My advice would be dont use greatsword in tPvP , people expect you to run hambow or condi warr.

The only place where GS works is WvW roaming since you dont have to
support your team you can use a single target based build.
As far as the build goes 0\20\20\0\30 works with any power based build .

In the future, just ignore this guy. He has it out for Warrior and will basically only ever say negative things about it. I do enjoy GS+LB but I would suggest using it only if your team is lacking on the damage side of things. What’s also fun about the build is that there’s a lot of variation in what you can do.

Here’s a few options:
Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

You can also do a lot of mixes with what you put in one of your skill slots because I like Bull’s Charge to insure that I always stay close with GS but in option 3 you’re really glass and don’t have Cleansing Ire so that extra cleanse is good. I’ve also been messing around with Sigil of Hydromancy on the GS so that if they stun break after a Bull’s or cleanse the immob on Pin Down they’ll still eat a few more hits. It’s just all going to depend on your team.

What I enjoy about the playstyle is how mobile and fluid it feels.

Why shouldn’t we strive to improve all classes so that every playstyle is viable? I see nothing wrong with having more variety, unless you just want to always play against Hambow and condi tank?

At the very least I’d like to see it reflect projectiles like the thief steal. I can deal with lower damage if it comes with a bit of utility. If the whirl finisher on it worked a bit better I could see some nice syergy with LB as well.

Bonus: Global: Professions: How would you like to see us evolve (profession: voting is currently underway) balance?- Owner- Allie Murdock

Rather than following the recent trend of bringing Warrior’s down to other classes’ level of mediocrity, it would seem healthier to bring them up to Warrior’s level. Before the most recent balance changes Warriors had arguably the highest number of viable builds. Now several of those builds were destroyed or at least were brought down to the point where they’re no longer worth using such as the Mace/Shield + Greatsword Skullcracker build. What bothers me the most is that the builds that got destroyed in some cases weren’t even the main target. Hambow was the build on the chopping board but it’s still the best option in TPvP. I don’t think that removing build options is the healthiest thing for the game.

Anyways, I consider Warrior the most well designed class in the game. They are viable in every game mode, and have decent amount of variation in terms of what roles they can play. If every class were in that situation then the game would be in a pretty good spot. I assume Warriors received the focus they did because they were considered the weakest class in terms of PvP.

That laser focus approach seemed to work pretty well and I think Ele or Ranger are the most deserving right now of that same treatment. Now this has the unfortunate side effect of other professions feeling neglected but going class-by-class let’s you also have the power to make the class strong by allowing them to counter whatever the current meta is.

Right now Condis are very strong but are held in check by control like Hammer, so let Ele/Ranger be paper to this whole Rock-Paper-Scissors game we have going on here. That way you can avoid power creep because you’re buffing against a specific spec rather than just increasing stats.

Hopefully this would lead to a more player-driven rotating meta and that would be enough to placate people while other improvements are made.

The devs said a while back that they want players to be able to focus on the enemies on screen rather than staring at their health bar. However, there are many skills and boons that do not have noticeable visual representation on character models.

The worst offender would have to be Stability. That extra half seconds you have to take to check if they have it on or not can be the difference between a successful attack and a failed one. Having some sort of circle at their feet with the pillar in the boons image would be enough to let us instantly confirm whether or not they have the boon on. Other boons could maybe just use a slight size increase like Retaliation so that people who play more zoomed out can see it clearer.

This next part will mostly come from the perspective of me being a Warrior primary so it’ll probably be a bit biased. First off, I actually really like that most of Warrior’s hard-hitting skills have very obvious animations. That being said, other classes tend to have much less obvious animations. In the middle of a team fight a slightly different hand motion is going to stand out a lot less than a Warrior leaping in the air or a Guardian doing a Spin-2-Win. If some the ranged classes had some more visible tells it would make things feel much more skill based.

One thing I admit to is that Warrior stances could use some more visual feedback. In particular, the particle effects of Berserker Stance are really subtle and can only bee seen if you’re zoomed in very close. This is another case where I think simply scaling it up would like condi users that they should be saving their spells because just like with Stability that extra half second or so makes a difference. Endure pain isn’t all that great of a skill but it could also do with some sort of visual indicator. Perhaps a sort of steel coating surrounding them like the Juggernaut effect.

I don’t have any technical knowledge nor do I know what the current focus is so I don’t know how feasible these suggestions are but I feel that they would go a long way in improving gameplay.

I feel a middle ground can be found, make it instant but add some sort of obvious particle effect around them so that it’s instantly recognizable. I feel like this should be so with every stance.

The devs say they don’t want players looking at the enemy’s health bar constantly but with many skills in this game you HAVE to look in order to avoid wasting skills. The worst offender is Stability.

Black Box.9312:

Samhayn.2385:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I’m getting tired of this pointless circle-jerk.

Some counters, going with Hambow as it’s the most common, some of these examples can be beaten by other Warrior builds but those would in term lose to builds Hambow may not etc.:

1. PU Mesmer. Having all your AIs scattered about makes them not be taken out by Combustive Shot. With all of the stun breaks, teleports, and blurred frenzy you should never be hit by a full Hammer combo.

2. Melee Ranger. The build I’ve found that works best was Axe/Dagger+Sword/Torch with 0/0/30/30/10. I lost to this a few times and tried it out for myself and even with my terrible mastery of the playstyle (I find it odd to let my skills do most of the moving for me and end up canceling skills by accident) I could beat most meta Warrior builds. It has insane regen, but also tons of protection. In fact the person I got this build off of beat pretty much every 1v1 I saw them get into. Undead runes with Rabid gear makes them capable of large condi spikes and most importantly they almost always have poison applied. Add it Rampage as One and for 20 seconds the Warrior can do very little damage to you and you can force them to use most of their long CD condition skills while it’s up.

3. Standard Condi Necro with Golem. The one big mistake I always see Necros make is that they use all their best skills at the start and while Berseker Stance is up. You have to putt on just enough condis to force the stance, kite while it’s active, then wait until they use their burst and pile everything on. If you see them go for another burst to cleanse use the Goelm’s charge to either force them to use their Stability (Hambow only brings generally, contrary to popular belief) and if you can corrupt it while laying down the Fear you’re a shoe-in. Now, if they have say Signet of Stamina they may win,but that means they went full on into countering you and it makes them weaker to the other 2 builds mentioned.

4. Damage Guardian. I don’t know a ton about this build but I do know that with all of their blind, high damage, and access to invulnerability that they have a strong chance of beating the Warrior, especially if you get the upper hand early. Same thing as Necro, don’t waste your blinds when Zerker Stance is up and use your blocks that will last you for most of the duration and then blind the big telegraphed Hammer attacks and it’s cash money.

5. Blind Thieves. Similar to Guardian, it’s all about saving your blinds for the big telegraphed attacks and suddenly their DPS is kitten poor. Especially potent is using the steal skill in a blind field, it’s probably the most annoying thing ever to a Warrior.

I’m sure there’s a few more I’ve forgotten but I feel that 5 makes my point, play defensive when Zerker Stance is up, then negate all of the Hammer’s big attacks. Also of note, Pin Down actually does have a different animation, there’s circles around the arrow as it flies. Now this is harder to see coming in CQC but don’t you worry because that’s getting nearly a second charge time soon so at that point Warrior will be the undisputed king of obvious and highly telegraphed attacks.

My biggest gripe with this forum is that I hardly ever hear anyone seriously trying to counter the current meta. Most just instantly throw their hands up in the air when something beats their current build and demand it gets nerfed without even attempting to find a solution. It’s getting really annoying because even in real life everyone wants the solution handed to them on a silver platter rather than trying to fix things yourself.

I like how you put necro and kite in there together during the part of the fight that nothing can slow you down. I mean its easy right?

I found it funny that he referenced guardian’s ‘access to invulnerability’. Because 2 seconds from an elite with a 90 second cooldown is totally superior to anything warrior has.

It’s fun how if you use it vs a Earthshaker and follow up with your damage you’ve all but won the fight. I never said they had a lot of invul, but it’s a factor as is all the blinds, aegis, and blocks from weapon skills. As for Necro, Spectral Walk is a wonderful skill for the job.

Sol.4310:

BurrTheKing.8571:

2. Melee Ranger. The build I’ve found that works best was Axe/Dagger+Sword/Torch with 0/0/30/30/10. I lost to this a few times and tried it out for myself and even with my terrible mastery of the playstyle (I find it odd to let my skills do most of the moving for me and end up canceling skills by accident) I could beat most meta Warrior builds. It has insane regen, but also tons of protection. In fact the person I got this build off of beat pretty much every 1v1 I saw them get into. Undead runes with Rabid gear makes them capable of large condi spikes and most importantly they almost always have poison applied. Add it Rampage as One and for 20 seconds the Warrior can do very little damage to you and you can force them to use most of their long CD condition skills while it’s up.

Sorry but what about Team Que, problem which almost all Warriors seem to forget. I’ve got a build that’s also great at DUELING in a DUELING SERVER, I take it to Team Que and takes so long to kill the Warrior he has time to call for backup and you end up losing anyways. So there for build isn’t viable if you just end up dead. Next time I’m in a Team Que match I’ll ask the Warrior to wait for my CD’s and bow before he attacks.

I’d say that build would make for a good home bunker, as neither can kill each other quickly. The builds are fairly similar in approach they just do things in a different way and while one focuses on conditions the other uses CC.

…and now we’re measuring kittens. Can we please get back to the topic at had. Anyone wanting an answer to the OP’s question look on page 2.

Just going to say it’s annoying that I posted the answer to the OP’s question and it got ignored in favor of LB’s use in WvW.

Aberrant.6749:

Rednik.3809:

Aberrant.6749:

longbow

Good for sPvP, meh in WvW, meh for non-condition or non-zerker builds. Only really useful things are skill 5 and skill F1 (only with 20 pts in def line).

rifle

Lol.

I wouldn’t call longbow meh in WvW. Pin down alone…

Rifle isn’t bad in ZvZ, 1 shotting players while being hidden in a group works. It’s rubbish in PvE and sPvP though…

I would say Longbow is good in WvW but if you were to run Hammer with it your movement would suck and retreating would be basically impossible. I run it with either GS or Sword/Warhorn because that gives you great team support while maintaining a good offense. That being said you’ll find yourself really weak to certain builds but with the Sword+bow in particular it’s great for locking down people trying to flee with all that immobilize.

You cannot make changes to the function of a rune on just one class, I’m not even sure the game engine allows for that. The simplest fix would be to have it only do one of the current effects, either a cleanse or all of the boons. Give one effect to Lyssa, and the other to a rune set that has a useless 6/6 bonus (Fighter Runes maybe, because lol to 1 stack of might on heal).

I also don’t like how I feel forced into taking them but as a Warrior and with conditions being as strong as they are the cleanse is way more useful to me then the boons. I tried NOT using them in PvP for a while and even with Zerker Stance and Cleansing Ire conditions can just overwhelm you.

Also, as a Warrior I don’t want Protection. That boon is what separates Warriors from Guardians. They sustain themselves with boons while we have more health and regen. getting 5 seconds of it every 48-60 seconds isn’t a big deal but I don’t really NEED it, more of a side perk. It would probably be a decent Warrior nerf without having to directly nerf anything on the class itself. I’d still probably take the cleanse although that all depends on how big of a hit condis take in the near future.

I’m getting tired of this pointless circle-jerk.

Some counters, going with Hambow as it’s the most common, some of these examples can be beaten by other Warrior builds but those would in term lose to builds Hambow may not etc.:

1. PU Mesmer. Having all your AIs scattered about makes them not be taken out by Combustive Shot. With all of the stun breaks, teleports, and blurred frenzy you should never be hit by a full Hammer combo.

2. Melee Ranger. The build I’ve found that works best was Axe/Dagger+Sword/Torch with 0/0/30/30/10. I lost to this a few times and tried it out for myself and even with my terrible mastery of the playstyle (I find it odd to let my skills do most of the moving for me and end up canceling skills by accident) I could beat most meta Warrior builds. It has insane regen, but also tons of protection. In fact the person I got this build off of beat pretty much every 1v1 I saw them get into. Undead runes with Rabid gear makes them capable of large condi spikes and most importantly they almost always have poison applied. Add it Rampage as One and for 20 seconds the Warrior can do very little damage to you and you can force them to use most of their long CD condition skills while it’s up.

3. Standard Condi Necro with Golem. The one big mistake I always see Necros make is that they use all their best skills at the start and while Berseker Stance is up. You have to putt on just enough condis to force the stance, kite while it’s active, then wait until they use their burst and pile everything on. If you see them go for another burst to cleanse use the Goelm’s charge to either force them to use their Stability (Hambow only brings generally, contrary to popular belief) and if you can corrupt it while laying down the Fear you’re a shoe-in. Now, if they have say Signet of Stamina they may win,but that means they went full on into countering you and it makes them weaker to the other 2 builds mentioned.

4. Damage Guardian. I don’t know a ton about this build but I do know that with all of their blind, high damage, and access to invulnerability that they have a strong chance of beating the Warrior, especially if you get the upper hand early. Same thing as Necro, don’t waste your blinds when Zerker Stance is up and use your blocks that will last you for most of the duration and then blind the big telegraphed Hammer attacks and it’s cash money.

5. Blind Thieves. Similar to Guardian, it’s all about saving your blinds for the big telegraphed attacks and suddenly their DPS is kitten poor. Especially potent is using the steal skill in a blind field, it’s probably the most annoying thing ever to a Warrior.

I’m sure there’s a few more I’ve forgotten but I feel that 5 makes my point, play defensive when Zerker Stance is up, then negate all of the Hammer’s big attacks. Also of note, Pin Down actually does have a different animation, there’s circles around the arrow as it flies. Now this is harder to see coming in CQC but don’t you worry because that’s getting nearly a second charge time soon so at that point Warrior will be the undisputed king of obvious and highly telegraphed attacks.

My biggest gripe with this forum is that I hardly ever hear anyone seriously trying to counter the current meta. Most just instantly throw their hands up in the air when something beats their current build and demand it gets nerfed without even attempting to find a solution. It’s getting really annoying because even in real life everyone wants the solution handed to them on a silver platter rather than trying to fix things yourself.

phaeris.7604:

Killshots can hit for 15k upwards from a range of 1200 plus.

If you’re fighting a in a zerg are you telling me you are actively looking for the rifle warrior to get on his knee and fire whilst everything else is going on.

Don’t you think the rifle warrior may actually time his shot?

No ability should hit for that much damage from that far, especially on a high armour, high hp class.

Just because it CAN hit for that hard doesn’t mean it does so consistently. Not only does hitting that kind of damage requires a VERY glassy build with all zerker gear and something like 30/25/0/0/15 in stats. This makes the Warrior not much tougher than your average Thief only without the benefit of stealth and blind. If you elect to take “On My Mark” that also means you have one less skill to dedicate to sustain. Even with Lyssa runes and Berserker Stance conditions can easily overwhelm you, especially a Necro with a full DS.

Your words sound like someone who has never actually played the build in question but have simply been a victim of it. I have, and I can tell you while there’s a bit of fun to be had it’s very impractical and I find that there are much more dangerous builds a Warrior could run that offer much better sustain inside a zerg.

Also, Brutal Shot and Aimed Shot are really, really boring skills imo. Brutal has way to long of a charge time for what it does, and while Aimed has some synergy with Leg Specialist, I can’t see ever sacrificing the points to bring it. MAYBE I could see going Rifle with Sword/Warhorn with 0/30/0/20/20 which would offer more sustain but Killshot wouldn’t hit nearly as hard.

Wow, this is probably the most obvious attempt to “slander” Warriors I have seen in a while. You not only tossed out a banner but you also boosted yourself with food AND you’re running quad signets but then attempt to MS Paint them out but forget to take out the bar above it.

I’m sure you also have sigils to increase that crit chance on top of your Fury and going by the chat Divinity runes as well. This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Basically what you got there is an incredibly worthless build that has high stats but no REAL sustain.

Fext.3614:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Rifle is another weapon that is generally crap, and believe me I have tried and tried to make it viable.

Please be more specific. I’m somehow tired that ppl tend to say things like that without adding any evidence. Rifle is not a crap, far from it – it’s a nice backup weapon for gs users.
Now, if you want (and can) to go pure melee it’s fine. I agree that the axe/mace does more damage than the rifle. But I tried both rifle and bow and rifle has several advantages:
bleed on auto (Attack of Opportunity is nice when using gs2)
8 stacks of vulnerability for 12s with 15 (12 traited) s colldown
interrupt with 15(12) s cd

The bow#1 root is indeed over rifle#2 slow, but OTOH it has slower cd and bow traits are not available if you go melee.

I use gs as the main damage source, and rifle nicely supports that. You put on slow, bleeding vulnerability, then charge, and gs2, gs3 eventualy to evade if needed and repeat.

Bow might be better damage wise with aoe, and is a good choice if you want to go pure ranged, but I use the rifle as a supporting weapon.

Bow is a superior weapon not only for the points you mentioned but because of its synergy with Cleansing Ire. Outside of picking off people in WvW Kill Shot is just not a reliable burst. Not only is it easy to avoid it also required heavy investment to make it work. The weapon forces you to invest so much just to make it halfway worthwhile when bow is not only reliable but also has better synergy.

Even with the upcoming nerf Pin Down is great with both GS and Hammer and makes landing those heavy hitting attacks much easier. Arching Arrow also hits like a truck and if used in the fire field it gives you might as well. Most of the skills are also much simpler to use.

Rifle as it currently is just feels way too clunky and Kill Shot is only good against bad opponents. I do use it in WvW but to counter it all you need to do is save your dodges for Volley and Kill Shot and most of its damage is gone. I’ve tried pretty much every feasible build I could think of and it was always lacking compared to other builds.

Unfortunately, if you want to be effective Axe/Axe isn’t the best option. It’s a shame because who doesn’t want to Spin2Win but the damage on it is less than the Axe 1 skill.

Rifle is another weapon that is generally crap, and believe me I have tried and tried to make it viable. The only place that it’s slightly worth using is WvW as a sniper, but even then there’s better builds out there and if you get in a 1v1 you’ll probably be screwed.

Axe/Mace is good in PvE when paired with a Greatsword on a berserker 30/25/0/0/15 build.

teg.1340:

BurrTheKing.8571:

teg.1340:

Healing Signet + Adrenal Health 3:

Now: 517 hps
Then: 487 hps

So the 8% HS nerf is actually a 6% loss of hps. Its even lower when you factor in regen from dogged march.

As always people overestimate the amount of healing Adrenal Health functionally gives you.

First off, AH only tics once every 3 seconds. Secondly, in order for the heal to be significant you need a full bar of adrenaline. Thirdly, every meta Warrior build out there focuses on using your adrenaline very frequently. Most of the time you are only getting the first tier of healing because you aren’t sitting on your adren.

You’re misrepresenting how much hps is actually being gained by just averaging everything out.

Adrenal Health 3 ticks every 3s for 351, thats 117 hps. Add 400 hps from HS, result is 517 hps. Its even higher with regen from dogged march.

Yep its the maximum hps not the average, but its also extremely easy to gain adrenaline after using it. My warrior often is back at 100% adrenaline even before the burst skill is off cooldown.

You’re still counting situational healing as if it’s consistent. If you were to do some in-depth study on the average Hambow healing during a TPvP match I bet the average hps would be lower.

teg.1340:

Healing Signet + Adrenal Health 3:

Now: 517 hps
Then: 487 hps

So the 8% HS nerf is actually a 6% loss of hps. Its even lower when you factor in regen from dogged march.

As always people overestimate the amount of healing Adrenal Health functionally gives you.

First off, AH only tics once every 3 seconds. Secondly, in order for the heal to be significant you need a full bar of adrenaline. Thirdly, every meta Warrior build out there focuses on using your adrenaline very frequently. Most of the time you are only getting the first tier of healing because you aren’t sitting on your adren.

You’re misrepresenting how much hps is actually being gained by just averaging everything out.

style.6173:

@OP:

So, let me get this straight. The warrior becomes OP and then you feel that the work is done?

The work was done on Warrior, they should have moved on to another class like Ele and focused on bringing them up. Warrior felt “done” because no matter your playstyle there was probably a build out there for you. Every class in the game should have that sort of versatility. I personally think it really sucks that many classes are lucky to have one viable build.

Now with nerfs that versatility on the War has gone down. What makes things worse is that builds that were just viable and not OP were harmed more by these nerfs than the target build, Hambow. Skullcracker is a good example. It was pretty good and despite what the forums would have you believe the real problem with the burst was the plain animation and not the cast time. Now SC not only takes what feels like ages to use but the sort range and funky hitbox makes it a nightmare to use. Not to mention outside of the burst the mace was only good because it allowed for it to be combo’d with 100b. Both weapons by themselves weren’t good at all but together it made for a good way to lock down a single target.

This build got shafted by the updates because in their attempt to nerf Hambow’s damage they moved Unsuspecting Foe rather that either reducing the bonus crit change it gave, or even more sensibly reduce the amount of bonus damage Merciless Hammer gave. They could have also make Earthshaker’s damage be applied before the stun so it wouldn’t have been affected by either trait. That way they would have only nerfed Hambow for the most part instead of destroying a build that they weren’t even attempting to nerf. And there are several other builds that got destroyed all in the attempt to nerf one. What’s worse is that said build is still one of if not the best build.

I don’t care what class you are, if you think this approach to balance is OK then I’m just going to view you as someone who just wants Warriors to go back to where they were a year ago.

The best balance decision they ever made was rather than starting by nerfing Necros and Spirit Rangers into the dirt the instead made Warriors able to hard counter them. Even today both of those builds mentioned above were not hit as severely as they might have been if they had simply given into the angry mob and nerfed them into uselessness. I see no reason why they can’t continue balancing this way as opposed to running around smacking everyone with the nerf-stick until everyone feels like their class sucks. I keep hearing people refer to this as power creep, but that’s a misuse of the term in this instance. If you’re only buff something to be powerful against something that is currently powerful then all you’re doing is playing a more advanced game of rock-paper-scissors.

This already exists in the game but it needs to be expanded. In the simplest of terms as things currently stand Control beats Conditions, Mobility (don’t like this term but I haven’t got a better one, I’m basically talking about Mesmers and certain Thief builds, this also includes many burst damage builds) beats Control, and Conditions beat Mobility. If we saw more balancing like this there would be more focus on team composition and how well you work together then there currently is. Of course there are some builds that are able to beat their general counter but I’m talking about builds that are focused around a certain task.

P.S This post was a response to many posts because I can’t spend all day responding to everyone individually, especially since so many appear to have either not read the whole post or just totally misunderstood what was written.

oZii.2864:

I think skull crack change was good. The cast on it could be a tad faster but now you just need to count dodges requires a little bit more timing.

The issue with it is that even if you do count dodges and get right up on them, the attack will sometimes miss anyways. This happens frequently vs moving targets and that element of luck makes many decide not to bother with it.

I’m not sure how the set up hitboxes, but this may have something to do with the fact that the old animation was a wide horizontal swing while the new one is vertical. I’m not sure if it was just an aesthetic change but regardless it NEEDS slightly more range to avoid this issue.

Defektive.7283:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Defektive.7283:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Does it get dirty when you do that?

Only when I hear how poorly the progress is.

Clearly we just need to invent the new Rifle/LB meta so that all classes will bow before our ranged spam. This will fix all problems in the game.

greatsword should fire bullets too.

gunblade style

Ironically, I was lagging so bad the other day that I could switch out from rifle to cancel Kill Shot and it would shoot out of the GS.

Defektive.7283:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Does it get dirty when you do that?

Only when I hear how poorly the progress is.

Clearly we just need to invent the new Rifle/LB meta so that all classes will bow before our ranged spam. This will fix all problems in the game.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

thaooo.5320:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Healing Signet = The BEST passive regen in the game no question.
Blocks = Shield
Immunities = Utilities
CC = Hammer
Condition Cleansing = Traits

Questionable, Altruistic Healing pulls crazy numbers, as well as Signet of Malice, which is capable of restoring thousands per second.

Every class is capable of combining all of those aspects into a single build, on top of their additional mechanics like perma vigor, perma regeneration, protection, evade, shadowstep, blind and stealth. That’s not a warrior exclusive combination.

Every class? Say hello to Necromancer – No blocks, No Immunities, no Vigor, no evade, no stealth, no leaps, very limited forms of CC

While it is not warrior exclusive not all classes have access to them all and even less have all that access combined with joint highest health, joint highest armor, BEST passive regen in the game…

Say hello to Necromancer – best aoe conditions in the game, Death Shroud (when traited correctly), same base health as Warrior, very small to no tells when casting Fear and Torment, he ability to corrupt stability.

A good Necromancer can beat a Hambow Warrior, but most waste their best skills while the Warrior has Zerker stance up. If you start to engage a hambow Warrior you should expect that stance to come out early and only use just enough of your skills to bait it out. When it’s done, use a fear to bait out Dolyak/Balanced, Corrupt it, chain fear and torment. It may not kill them outright, but from then on all you have to do is keep enough poison (Plague on to negate HS until you an do it again. However in a team fight that first combo will be enough if you focus. Foot in the Grave is also a good trait to have and I’ve been seeing it more.

If it’s a condi Warrior, well you’re a necro and can probably show them who’s boss.

Does it get dirty when you do that?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

BurrTheKing.8571:

You also have to consider other class mechanics when talking about healing, you cannot directly compare them without factoring in everything from Aegis, Protection, Stealth, Clones, Evades, etc. This point has been beaten to death but so many just ignore it because it’s an inconvenient fact to have to face.

Warrior has the joint highest health, joint highest Armor, Blocks, Invuls, Immunities and the BEST regen in the game…

They don’t need Protection or Aegis when you can just face tank everything and have plenty of skills to negate damage while STILL getting heals without doing ANYTHING and you have Immunities that allow you to continue to heal AND deal damage

With all of that and more – Do you HONESTLY think that Healing Signet and Adrenal Health is balanced?

You literally just proved my point to the letter, focusing on only what they have and not what they don’t have . Those immunities are good, but both come with hefty cooldowns and both only make you immune to ONE type of damage. If you pop both at the same time then you leave yourself wide open and a good player will simply play defensively for the few seconds that whatever immunity that counters them is in place.

There are plenty of builds that counter not only the current Warrior meta but many other builds as well, mainly on Thieves and Mesmers but Ranger’s have that melee build (0/0/30/30/10) that wrecks Hambow as well and is a good home bunker and is basically the Ranger version of Warrior’s s/s+lb. There are even Engi builds that are great counters (Protection Injection ftw). You don’t see these very often in SoloQ and hotjoin but against good TPvP teams there’s generally at least one person build to counter Hambow. It’s a team game, which is another factor to consider when balancing. It’s not just about how a build does 1v1, but how it affects team fights as well.

EDIT: Sykper made a good point that if you nerf Warrior’s condi removal/mitigation they would go back to being dominated by it. To expand on that we would also see a resurgence of teams with nothing but condi Necros and Spirit Rangers because their hard counter is suddenly a joke.

It’s still an issue of other classes being deficient, not Warrior being too strong.

You also have to consider other class mechanics when talking about healing, you cannot directly compare them without factoring in everything from Aegis, Protection, Stealth, Clones, Evades, blind, etc. This point has been beaten to death but so many just ignore it because it’s an inconvenient fact to have to face. Their only significant form of sustain comes from this regen, they have one evade on GS and one longish block on shield. People who don’t play Warriors will go on and on about what Warriors do have while totally disregarding what they lack.

Like all games the Warrior archetype focuses on raw power and their armor in order to survive while other classes. sustain themselves via other means. They always look really strong if you just compare base states and ignore anything else. A lot of people, myself included, enjoy being the guy that doesn’t use magic or deception to get things done. Right now they walk the fine line between strong and useless because before Healing Signet all those other traits and skill changes didn’t make them worth using.

I hate repeating myself all the time but very few ever actually confront the points I bring up and would rather just say “Healing Signet is better than X heal, therefore OP.”

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Rezzet.3614:

thaooo.5320:

Healing Signet is not OP.

The cry of many babies is OP.

Learn to GW2.

^ this is what we call a scrub

More like someone that relies on how broken Warrior is to be any “good” and knows once/if that Warrior gets fixed then he will struggle with the class that has made it so easy for him to look “good”

This argument is so old and overused, not to mention weak. Of course, the original post was also weak because it didn’t offer any facts. That being said, you probably have never played in a game with him so you have no way of knowing how good or bad he is. Attacking the person instead of the argument, no matter how weak, doesn’t accomplish or prove anything.

I don’t care what class we’re talking about, there is no build that will turn a bad player into a good one. Yes, certain classes are easier to learn, but a new/poor player will not use a build to its utmost potential. In PvP they will also probably make poor decisions such as fighting off point while having less points and picking fights that aren’t winnable. Hambow for example has a lot of might stacking potential but not many actually take advantage of that. They often tend to just spam skills like Combustive Shot on CD which will make them lose out to a good condi Necro or Mesmer or really anyone.

What you said is also insinuating that Warrior players only play the class because it’s “easy,” not because they might actually enjoy the playstyle. I know that if I try to play and of the magic classes or things like melee Ranger I can’t stand the playstyle because you either basically target a guy and press your skills or let your skills do all the moving for you (I kept canceling skills on the Axe/Dagger + Sword/Torch Ranger build because I’m so used to having so much control over my movement). At least on Warrior I can hit people without having them targeted all the time when playing melee and this makes things much more fun that your average point-and-click MMO. I think I would like it if the game took a few tips from Smite and made more attacks ground targeted, especially Blade Trail, if I could target it myself maybe it would actually hit someone not standing still.

apt.9184:

I do not get how you are having fun still spamming your aoe dude. It’s actually funny to see how 6 months ago warrior was the harder to pull off since you had to time every cleanse or you would get your face stomped in by pretty much everything. But, now you see ranks 10’s on condi bunker warriors….. I honestly think at this point the passive signet needs a change along with longbow’s interaction with cleansing ire.

If you’re spamming Combustive Shot then chances are a good condition user will wipe the floor with you. If you get greedy and use your CS before the guy puts more conditions on you they’ll instantly capitalize and stack on you. This forces you into using your Lyssa cleanse earlier than what’s necessary and Zerker Stance doesn’t cleanse condis already on you. So while you may have access to it every 8 or so seconds on average that doesn’t mean you should be using it.

As for changing how CI interacts with CS, I’m not even sure that’s possible in the engine. That would, I imagine, involve changing it from something different than a burst skill. However you would also then have to make sure that it still interacts with other Burst-related traits correctly. I doubt it’s as simple as saying “don’t let CS work with CI.” I base this theory off of what devs have said in the past about what’s possible in the game engine. If you did have to change so much imagine how many things could get broken in the process.

I also don’t get how you can accuse it of being spammy when there are so many skills in this game with low CDs. Not to mention it’s also a class mechanic. So what if you see R10’s running condi warrior? You can see R10’s running any build currently in the meta that doesn’t instantly make them pros at the game. Most low ranks using condi war hardly ever use the combo field correctly and halve its effectiveness.

6 months ago people didn’t know how to deal with the now-good Warrior because them never had to try in order to beat them. It was just like launch where everyone said Frenzied Bull Charge + 100b was OP…until they learned that dodging and stun breakers existed.

4. Before the most recent nerfs Warrior was the most complete class in the game, no contest. It had a use in every game mode, the greatest number of builds, and the most polish. Now several of those builds are simply not worth using because there are better options. This isn’t a good thing. We need to stop jumping on the “nerf X” bandwagon. Over the lifetime of this game it’s been proven that balancing by using soft counters isn’t working. It was the Warrior being able to hard counter the meta condi builds that finally lead to the meta shifting a bit. With more hard counters it becomes more about team work and composition. It also helps to avoid power creep because if you’re just making sure that everything has some sort of counter builds aren’t actually becoming more statistically powerful. I can name very few games that focus on “soft” counters that actually feel balanced.

5. The Warrior of a few patches back should have been the measuring stick that the balance team should have striven to bring all other classes up to. Forums are great for getting ideas on what to buff (within reason), but terrible for deciding what to nerf. Players who main something and have merit are generally more objective but if they’ve never touched another class then they will clearly be biased. I say this knowing that I’m biased towards Warriors because I enjoy(ed) playing them the most. I am aware of this bias though and so I avoid going to other classes forums and saying “nerf X” because I have no clue when it comes to some classes. Sure I’ll say how much I hate fighting Mesmers and Thieves because I find Clones and Stealth to be boring mechanics but I’ve only played them just enough to know what their skills do so I can fight them. I don’t know enough to offer balance advice.

Anyways this became a bit of a rant but long story short is that we need to get out of this nerfing mindset and focus on what class we main needs to have improved rather than sticking our noses into thins we aren’t qualified to talk about.

I am so sick and tired of people jumping on the nerf-train on pretty much every single “competitive” game.

Let me lay down some facts about Warrior’s before the recent (and some not so recent) nerfs:

1. A few patches ago almost every weapon has some sort of viable build attached to it. Axe used to but it had it’s auto attack damage, which was it’s only strength, tied to the last attack that is simple to avoid. Rifle is the only weapon that stands out as being generally terrible, sure it has some uses in WvW and you can do some cheeky stuff with Bow/Rifle but it’s all cheese and easily countered. Offhand axe is also pretty mediocre considering even with the Whirling Axe buff the auto still hits harder.

2. These builds all fulfilled different roles from DPS, Control, and Conditions. If you liked variety then Warrior was your best bet.

3. Nerfs to skills like Skull Crack have simply destroyed the viability of certain builds. I focus on SC because now even if you count dodges and set things up the slower cast time and short range means that the skill will sometimes just whiff even if you’re right on top of someone. The Unsuspecting Foe move also hurt the Mace+GS build, which served a different role than Hambow. Yes, it was bad that a Soldier gear Warrior cold have around up to 95% crit chance if Fury was up but then they should have just reduced the bonus because now you much choose between it and Forceful GS. The rest of the Mace skills aren’t all that great so it needs that synergy. If UF had it’s bonus reduced to around 15% extra crit chance it would still be a solid option but if you ran with Soldiers your DPS would be crap. The 10 pt Arms traits are now in that same awkward spot that the Strength 10 pt traits are where unless you’re running a very specific build there’s few “good” options. Simply reducing UF’s effectiveness would have also forced Hambow users to make a choice between it and Leg Specialist because both would be equally useful. It doesn’t matter if you like these builds or not the fact remains that removing entire builds and weapons from viability is not healthy.

3. As stated before by others Warrior’s other heals are lackluster compared to HS. Try running one of the current meta builds but replace your heal and see how well you do. If HS must be nerfed then the other heals need looking at. Defiant Stance’s concept is cool but it needs a PvP split to be worthwhile. Mending has potential for DPS builds so that they can just run it and Zerker Stance. They’ll still be more vulnerable than someone with Cleansing Ire + Dogged March but that’s fine. There’s also some cool synergy to be had with Restorative strength. Either it needs another CD reduction, the active needs to be stronger, or it needs some sort of short Zerker Stance effect after using . Healing Surge’s design is just bad and punishes you for using your class mechanic. Without a full bar it’s heal is pathetic for the CD. As for how to make it worthwhile that’s tricky. I’m not sure if just making it a flat heal would make it too strong, maybe just have it fill only 1 bar or perhaps none at all, however that would be pretty boring. As for HS itself If they just ever so slightly increase the active then the passive heal nerf would be fine by me. It would actually be cool to get the random boon from using your heal and once again it would make Restorative Strength worth using considering when traited it has a pretty short CD. I actually WANT some healing changes because it means more build diversity, but they have to be careful because they risk sending Warriors to the Ele tier of useless (in PvP).

sorrow.2364:

redslion.9675:

That’s why warriors were so good before buffs, right?

The above average argument doesn’t work well: most used healing skills are ALL above average (mostly with their added benefits).

Withdrawal has a lower cooldown. And considering the obscene condi meta that stands now, 3 conditions cleansed is not enough. Traiting Mending sure removes a lot of conditions, too bad that most of the time you’ll have to cleanse movement imparing effect before you need to heal, not after. If a necro forces you into healing before you can get to him, you have already lost, unless you are cc heavy. This means you’ll need other ways to get rid of conditions. And even then, we all saw how costant streams of condition removals are better than once in a while heavy cleanses. Most conditions are reapplied really fast, and some of them can completely shut you down (cripple, chill). So you need to take Cleansing Ire. Making Mending redundant.

Mending and surge can be useful if you can down someone with warrior in seconds, which is achievable is the enemy is less than rank 10. Maybe.

Mending and Surge were buffed in the same patch of Healing Signet, if I’m not wrong, along with Berserker Stance, Cleansing Ire, Dogged March and all the kittens warrior got.
Warrior were not bad because of the heals, warrior were bad because they had no condition removal whatsoever in a condition heavy meta.

Mending was a mediocre heal when it removed only 2 conditions on a 25s cooldown and with lower health, while Surge was still an extremely good heal even before they buffed it further.

What the developers did, instead of just fixing the condition removal issue and making Healing Signet somehow viable instead of crazy OP, is throwing every buff they can at warrior. They made them literally immune to conditions, buffed their control potential, buffed their burst skills, buffed their adrenaline regen, buffed their damage and buffed their sustain.

All your theorycrafting is based on the assumption that you can’t take both Mending and Cleansing Ire because it is reduntant. True, you need to take also cleansing ire other than mending because how good that trait is, but the true problem is that you don’t need further condition removal because of Berserker Stance.
With that skill, all you have to do is press it, cleanse the conditions with cleansing ire and, thanks to healing signet, you have a cheaper, uncounterable, completely automated and better version of Mending.
Cleansing Ire alone will never make you survive to condition bursts, especially on a profession which is designed to just facetank hits.

The issue is the synergy of Healing Signet with complete immunities, not that Mending or Surge are bad healing skills. All the buffs to warriors were cheap solutions to a tough issue, placing it on the completely opposite side of the spectrum.

You’re incorrect about the order that Warriors received buffs. This is important because the received the trait changes and Zerker Stance buff BEFORE the healing changes(June 2013). Before the healing buffs Warriors were still not considered viable. It was only the healing buffs that made them viable and it was almost a month before any builds surfaced. So yes, nerfing healing may significantly impact Warrior’s viability. Now 8% may not be that bad but we can’t know until we play.

Doon.2364:

Yea, before the patch that nerfed the mace, hammer, and longbow, warrior was complete. If the goal of ANet is to achieve a class that has multiple builds that can flourish then they did so with the warrior pre-patch. But now the warrior has definitely taken a step backwards becoming slightly broken. ANet should have left the warrior alone but focus more on bringing the other classes up to par.

Thank you for being one of the few that appears to have correctly comprehended what I wrote. Several here seem to think that because their class sucks currently that Warrior should have to start sucking as well. That’s not how you balance a game and it’s really selfish thinking. I want every class to have at least one viable build on every weapon.

The same people that complain about how their class is getting nerfed then go and demand other classes get nerfed. We’re eventually going to end up with every class only having one viable build and the game will become stale and boring.

Kicast.1459:

Lol, I love this argument and see it so often.

When you have one profession dominating in almost all domains compared to the others you have two choices
=> one obvious: adjust the anomaly (realign things to a normal level)
=> one long, complex and finally bad : buff all other professions and enter in a power creep process

I am sure you have an idea on which scenario is prefered by warriors:)
[/quote]

Because having half of a classes weapons be nerfed into oblivion is the preferred course of action and is clearly the best choice for the longevity of the game. You can avoid power creep if you stick to hard counters like they have been. It’s much easier to balance rock-paper-scissors.

Moderator Note:
“Please refrain from cross-posting/making duplicate posts. We understand that you want your post to be read by as many people as possible. However, posting the same post in multiple places only serves to create disruptions on the forums and this activity is not allowed.
You are warned.”

That was the moderator note, I don’t recall doing this. I did make a similar post…several months ago when things were different.

MrForz.1953:

Marsares.2053:

If warriors took a step back, most of the other classes got pushed off a cliff by the Devs.

BOOM! /thread

Both of these statements seem illogical because it makes it sound like this kind of balance philosophy is OK, when it isn’t. Just because other classes have it worse doesn’t mean making other classes builds worthless is OK. In an ideal game every weapon would have at least one worthwhile build and Warrior was the closest to this. Only Axe and Rifle really needed major changes while everything else only needed slight tweaks here and there.

Like I said before, nerfing another class just to bring it down to the frankly mediocre levels of other classes, considering some are lucky to have 1 viable build, isn’t balancing but simply destructive behavior.

Other classes need buffs, there have been way too many nerfs recently.

IchigoHatake.5098:

Nope, warriors have ABSOLUTELY no viable builds, because all the op traits and utilities don’t count. cleansing ire: not op at all, longbow: not op, sword; impale: not op at all. Nope I do not see any viable builds, condi wars are definitely not op.

Your sarcasm is palpable, however f you had read what I wrote correctly you would have noticed that I didn’t say they had NO viable builds. What I said s that there are much less than there were. It’s not balance to change a weapon to the point where they’re worthless, which has happened to several weapons.

mini.6018:

You do realize that by doing NORMAL damage the world boss dies 30 to 40 times faster right?I mean this must be news for you but that is why people use berserk classes in pve. Berseker classes can do 17k damage in under 3 seconds and you claim 17k over 30 seconds is op .Funny

This thread is the perfect example why devs never take into consideration warrior points in forums and go with the breeze blown by other classes qq.The topic is to say the least laughable.

Actually, it’s been clear with recent changes that the balance team listens to these forums too much when it comes to nerfs. I mean look at the upcoming nerfs to Pin Down and Healing Signet.