Guild Wars 2

apt.9184:

The Primary.6371:

apt.9184:

BurrTheKing.8571:

There has been a LOT of forums posted recently pertaining to Warrior. I’m wondering what the balance team feels about Warrior as it is currently. Most of the “information” presented in these forums is just downright wrong. It’s a lot different than Spirit Rangers where it was apparent that there was very few exploitable weaknesses. The current Warrior meta to me is only strong because it aims to counter the condition heavy meta, which I feel was an attempt to allow the players to shift the meta on their own without directly nerfing said builds in the current meta. The builds we run have several counters, you just don’t see them frequently because they aren’t popular currently. If Warrior remains how it is we may see a shift in the game so that for example Mesmers come back into the fray to counter the Warriors that are Countering Rangers and Necros.

I just pray that you do not listen to these forums filled with incorrect information and “shave” Warriors back into mediocrity so shortly after we were made useful after a year of being the punchline of every PvP joke.

If power meta returns trust me warriors will be OP. They will be one shoting people with sustain. So yea I hope they nerf it so noobs on warrs don’t think they are good at the game (same reason I want spirit ranger nerfed). Warriors were balanced before it was just the other classes needed adjustment. ZERK STANCE AND HEALING SIGNET NEED HUGE NERF. I HATE THAT THE CLASS I PUT MY EFFORT INTO LEARNING IS EASY TO PLAY FOR ANYONE NOW. Enough said.

Clear cut counter to berserker stance: wait for the stance to end (very easy to do) then condi burst war. If you spam every direct dps ability when a ranger uses “Protect Me” or the signet then you will have to be an idiot. If you spam all conditions on an engineer traited for 100% condi immunity at 25%, yeap need not repeat myself.

Counter to healing signet: maintain poison on target or maintain pressure. This also seems to work against rangers, mesmer’s, guardians, engineers and elementalists. Well go figure for that eh?

Opinion sack, I never have trouble with these types of wars as I understand the mechanics in play and know how to counter them.

We can also pop zerk stance when we are already training you then what happens? You cant blind his stun you just have to hope to god you dodge the stun or he is dumb and completely misses an insta cast.

Or…you know…you could make sure to save your stunbreaker/stability until you get hit by Earthshaker and not waste it before then. Not to mention popping the Zerker Stance while your training means sure, you’ll probably not get blinded but you’re getting less overall use because they’ll be CC’d for most of the length of the skill.

The optimal use would be to save it until you REALLY need it or to start the fight with it and use Earthshaker right at the end. That way you not only have a chance to have them waste all their good skills but you’ll get to use a full Combustive shot and Earthshaker.

zone.1073:

In arenas, I see necros using signet of spite, putting down a spectral wall, and then stand in place, rolling their face over their scepter #1 key on warriors with berserker stance on.

If face palms scaled with how idiotic a situation is, my face palm would go through my skull and make a giant dent in the wall behind me.

I want to see this animated…

zone.1073:

People are sad that they can’t ram their faces into warriors and have them topple over effortlessly. Unskilled players are not the only ones guilty of this; even the players in the PAX Prime tournament in Seattle were doing this. Sync’s 2 spirit rangers were literally, literally, bashing their heads into Car Crash’s warrior’s AoE. The rangers didn’t die immediately, but the evades do not apply to the spirits and the spirits died fast due to negligence. The rangers were expecting to just prance around and have everything around them die to conditions – totally ignoring key abilities being used, like the warrior’s berserker stance. Is this a case of balance or a case of being outplayed?

Jonathan Sharp was on the ball when he pointed out the fact that warriors only have a small window where they have very high defense, and coordinated kiting can counter warrior stances. Seriously. When you see a warrior pop berserker stance or endure pain, what is stopping you from simply walking away? Why continue to fight in the warrior’s proximity during these defensive cooldowns. It’s equivalent to walking into a necro’s spectral wall and getting feared again, and again, and again, and again and over and over and over again. Why.

I can’t overstate how many players use all of their best condi skills while I’m in Zerker Stance, not only does it have a visual effect when it’s turned on but the icon is hard to miss.

So I just watched the SotG, sounds like Mr. Sharp is fine with Warriors as they are currently. Super basically said it best, and when Vontehil tried to argue against it he got countered pretty fast. I’m cautiously optimistic.

This poll needs to be a 2 parter. First question needs to be “What class is your Main” then the current second question. I’m not sure how this pool service works but if it’s possible to see what class voted for what they view as OP it would be easier to draw reasonable conclusions.

Considering the nature of these forums questions like these is like conducting a political poll, going to a district known for leaning towards Party A and asking if Party A or Party B is better. Honestly, getting meaningful results in terms of what the majority of PvP goers feel is impossible because these forums are filled with the vocal minority. Not to mention looking at some of the posts as of late many of this minority aren’t objective in any way and aren’t qualified to judge balance.

As a fun little distraction it’s fine but as for taking it seriously, not so much.

Leuca.5732:

BurrTheKing.8571:

We had to adapt in order kill you, now you have to adapt if you want to kill us.

No, you got buffs.

We got buffs specifically for the purpose of countering the condition meta. It doesn’t change the fact that all of said buffs are ONLY strong vs conditions. Zerker Stance, Cleansing Ire, and Dogged March are very limited in terms of what they are strong against. The combination of skills and traits is what makes Healing Signet have any use at all.

We adapted our strategy in response to the changes we got. Before, most warriors were running GS + LB or Mace/Shield and basically had to play like thieves without stealth. When we got the changes we asked for we used them to counter the very builds that were making us useless in PvP. Now suddenly some want nerfs to apparently every single change we’ve received, yet it was only until warrior received the healing buffs that we became viable.

If I were to only run Healing Signet and not any of the aforementioned skills/traits you know how effective I’d be? I would be absolutely worthless. If I didn’t run Dogged March you know what would happen? I would be kited and worn down much easier. No Cleansing Ire? Beserker Stance wouldn’t be enough to mitigate the conditions.

What we have is a highly specialized build designed for one purpose, to kill the meta that the majority of the community hates. It’s a great excuse to not run the meta because it’s gradually becoming less and less powerful in Hotjoin and SoloQ. Now all we need is to see more Warriors in TPvP and the meta may change without any major nerfs to the condi builds in question.

Fuzion.7613:

pot.6805:

Fuzion.7613:

zone.1073:

Notice nobody in the top 100 are complaining about warriors right now. It’s because everyone knows that warriors have their counters. It’s OK for classes to have powerful tools as long as the class has solid counters, also.

Hi, I’m top 10 and warriors are op.

Cause you are a necro.

Also, I play much more the necro, The only people who think warriors are in a good place right now are the people playing them. They are way out of hand right now.
Zerker stance, Healing signet, The amount of CC they put out. If thats balanced then godkitten I need to find a different game.

RIP op warrior oct 2nd

Have you considered investing in few offensive Utilities and Traits? Most Necros use maybe 1 defensive utility, most Warriors run 2 and sometime all 3 are defensive. I’d love to be able to run 2 offensive Utilities as a Warrior, but if I did we wouldn’t be able to survive. It isn’t like Necro doesn’t have the tools to hold out vs a Warrior, but it appears that they don’t want to sacrifice offense in order to have more survival which isn’t the warrior’s fault.

We had to adapt in order kill you, now you have to adapt if you want to kill us.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

but … them dire stats will have lower base damage! :p

no crit chance also

Uh, doesn’t matter when you’re only running conditions.

Soldier is ok on let’s say Warrior for example. If you use it you’re losing out on crit chance and crit damage. They can somewhat cover up these weaknesses with traits like Unsuspecting Foe but only for a few seconds and missing the stun means you have very poor DPS.

Conditions don’t have this tradeoff. All you need to do damage is Condition damage. Duration was intended to be the secondary statistic much like crit damage was but it isn’t that important since conditions are so spamable.

The solution is a massive overhaul of all condition skills, giving them reduced duration so that you HAVE to invest in +duration if you want your conditions to actually do major damage. I’d imagine they intended it to be this way but something went wrong during development.

JonPeters.5630:

Sept 17th = no balance
Oct 1st = yes balance

It would be nice to have another case of “leaked” patch notes so that players can offer feedback before it goes into the game. If nothing else it’ll give us something to debate.

ResJudicator.7916:

BurrTheKing.8571:

^
You do realize that the current builds most Warriors use are actually weak to power builds even with the amount of toughness they have yes? Toughness only goes so far, the proper Mesmer, Ele, or Thief build trounces it because we don’t bring skills like Endure Pain. Almost all of the changes we were given were gear towards condition countering, Dogged March, Cleansing Ire, and Zerker Stance in no way help with power builds. Endure Pain got a CD reduction but like I said nobody uses that.

Most decent warriors are smart enough to switch out Zerker Stance for Endure Pain before the match starts when they see that they’re up against a power-heavy team. The rest of the build can stay the same and the warrior will still be very strong vs. power classes.

In 12 seconds, healing sig alone passively heals for about as much as many class’s ACTIVE heals. This high level of healing, combined with high armor and access to either CC, blocks, damage immunity, or distance creators gives enough time for a warrior to passively regen back the damage he took from a burst — with no room for counterplay by the burster.

How many teams actually run all power or all condis though? If there’s one condi user and they focus you down and you decided to only take Endure Pain then you’re screwed because chances are Cleansing Ire alone would not be enough. If you take both skills then you’re sacrificing another skill as well, not to mention both have high cooldowns.

^
I wasn’t actually insulting his skill I was just saying that I bet in hindsight he really regretted using his stunbreak so early because he did take the early lead but couldn’t keep it. I was more saying that I didn’t think you preformed poorly considering you landed your full combo. Also now I do remember that Kick was a good way to counteract the Staggering Blow bug. Anyways, I just thought it was a strange point to be making because the CC builds in question are DESIGNED to kill condis so it’s only natural they would excel against them.

I’d say CC is already very punishing if you miss your important skills because missing an Earthshaker or Backbreaker can spell your death.

Phaeton.9582:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Phaeton.9582:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Phaeton.9582:

hash.6287:

I hope warrior will be viable after nerf.

Cc war was viable before the buffs, people just didn’t know about it/most good players didn’t play warrior.

That said there are several counter builds.. It’ll be interesting if people start running them…

That’s not 100% true. While I used Mace/Shield + GS directly after the Frenzy nerf, there was no Burst Mastery at the time so at best you could do a 2.75 second stun every 10 seconds (and you would rarely use it as soon as it came off cooldown). As for Hammer, while you could use it, wasn’t all that amazing. It had long after casts so you couldn’t typically pull of a full combo before they got a chance to dodge back. Let’s also not forget how hard staying in melee range was before Dogged March and Cleansing Ire.

I ran full CC 30/10/0/0/30 with teams before and after the trait changes.. The build was less forgiving than it is now, but after 50% frenzy glass warrior it was a breath of fresh air. As for mace.. Schwarz ran it competitively back in the day, and it’s always rocked 1v1 vs power classes.. Perhaps without the sustain patches it wasn’t viable in condi meta team fights.

Defence traits only took over shop when they made healing power more useful IMO though.

The fact remains that a CC Warrior was hardly played at high level because of its glaring weaknesses and as a result classes with less weaknesses were preferred.

Here’s me playing like crap and still beating a terror necro 1v1, at the height of their OPness with only 5 second zerker stance, and no defence traits.

Sorry fuzion, had to show someone credible

but yeah don’t know where I’m going with this.. I’m not crying out for a nerf to cc, there’s plenty of nice counter builds and it’d be great if running multiple builds on one class could be that rewarding.

The days of hipster anchor warriors are at an end however ><

Doesn’t look like he had any way to counter your CC because he used Spectral Walk to get to you faster. Not to mention while the decision to have kick on your bar is…interesting, it worked well and you didn’t miss any of the important skills. He should have saved the shroud for WHEN he got CC’d but because he used it early it wasn’t there when he needed it.

Looks like he had a good shot at killing you but misused his skills.

I tend to agree, that’s why I’m adamantly opposed to any nerfs to Warriors. Because of their strength vs. condition users we’re starting to see some changes in terms of builds because they’re getting sick of being dominated. If Warrior stops being that driving force then the meta will likely slip back to where it was a few moths ago because they will not be a threat anymore.

Phaeton.9582:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Phaeton.9582:

hash.6287:

I hope warrior will be viable after nerf.

Cc war was viable before the buffs, people just didn’t know about it/most good players didn’t play warrior.

That said there are several counter builds.. It’ll be interesting if people start running them…

That’s not 100% true. While I used Mace/Shield + GS directly after the Frenzy nerf, there was no Burst Mastery at the time so at best you could do a 2.75 second stun every 10 seconds (and you would rarely use it as soon as it came off cooldown). As for Hammer, while you could use it, wasn’t all that amazing. It had long after casts so you couldn’t typically pull of a full combo before they got a chance to dodge back. Let’s also not forget how hard staying in melee range was before Dogged March and Cleansing Ire.

I ran full CC 30/10/0/0/30 with teams before and after the trait changes.. The build was less forgiving than it is now, but after 50% frenzy glass warrior it was a breath of fresh air. As for mace.. Schwarz ran it competitively back in the day, and it’s always rocked 1v1 vs power classes.. Perhaps without the sustain patches it wasn’t viable in condi meta team fights.

Defence traits only took over shop when they made healing power more useful IMO though.

The fact remains that a CC Warrior was hardly played at high level because of its glaring weaknesses and as a result classes with less weaknesses were preferred.

Phaeton.9582:

hash.6287:

I hope warrior will be viable after nerf.

Cc war was viable before the buffs, people just didn’t know about it/most good players didn’t play warrior.

That said there are several counter builds.. It’ll be interesting if people start running them…

That’s not 100% true. While I used Mace/Shield + GS directly after the Frenzy nerf, there was no Burst Mastery at the time so at best you could do a 2.75 second stun every 10 seconds (and you would rarely use it as soon as it came off cooldown). As for Hammer, while you could use it, wasn’t all that amazing. It had long after casts so you couldn’t typically pull of a full combo before they got a chance to dodge back. Let’s also not forget how hard staying in melee range was before Dogged March and Cleansing Ire.

Seetoo.9316:

BurrTheKing.8571:

The only problem I see with a “charge up” is that I’m not sure anything like that currently exists in the game. If it doesn’t then that would require programming an entirely new system for it, which I doubt they would do.

Already exists. Look at trebs and catas. If you don’t wanna look at trebs and catas, look at the many environmental weapons in open world quests.

That’s charging for distance, not damage. I doubt that they would spend time writing new code to only be used on a single skill, they’ve said before that getting new mechanics into the game is a long process.

Yasha.5963:

Is it just me or suddenly have all the people playing warrior gotten vastly better at playing?

It used to feel like there was a spread of player competence, you could really tell the inexperienced warriors from the average and the masterful ones. In the past I would have good matches against the average warriors that could go either way, and some reasonably close matches against really good warriors which I usually lost.

Recently, however, I can still tell when someone is just learning the class and either doesn’t have a good build or hasn’t learnt how to play well, but I don’t see any average warriors; they all seem to be either elite or inexperienced.

Well, those who have been playing for the last year have gone from the “decent” to “elite” because we’ve been playing with defective equipment and now that we’re up to par our timing and skill usage are a lot more refined now. Of course we also see a lot of people new to the class and yah, they can be REALLY bad. They see the Hammer/Longbow build and try to run it and then miss every Earthshaker and Backbreaker in addition to not stacking might with Combustive Shot.

It’s different from what Spirit Ranger was, it didn’t really require learning very much. Still not a hard build now by any means but at least there’s some risk/reward there now and the spirits can be CC’d as well.

I play Engi as a secondary and while nades are initially hard to land, once you turn on fast cast and get used to the travel time it’s not “hard,” it just takes getting used to. I would be fine with running Healing Surge, but why would I when the meta is conditions, which makes Healing sig the obvious choice. a S/D Thief can train me easily as can multiple Mesmer builds.People keep bring in the nature of the skill, even though that very nature has obvious weaknesses. I know I would switch to Surge in a heartbeat if the meta became Power again because Healing Sig would be terrible. There is some “skill” required to play the game well, but no class is hard to play. This isn’t Tribes or Quake, at the end of the game it’s 3rd person MMO combat where most of the ranged attacks simply require selecting a target and pressing a button. SMITE is for the most part doing ranged combat correctly, and GW2 could learn from it but it seems unlikely the game will ever go to its level of almost everything being a “skillshot.”

Another thing, I haven’t seen any reasonable change suggestions. What would you have it do that it doesn’t become outclassed by one of the other 2 heals? We have a big burst heal, a condi removal one, and a regen one. Making the passive less or forcing it to scale more with Healing Power won’t do any good. Reducing it will make it worthless, and scaling would force cleric gear which would make it a totally inferior Guardian.

Whether or not you agree with the skills nature or not isn’t as important as “is it balanced,” which it is. It’s valuable against a certain playstlye and weak vs another. If you don’t enjoy using it, don’t. If you don’t like being killed by people using it, bring something to counter it.

EDIT: As for the mace “issue,” if it gets renerfed back to 2 seconds you have basically removed it from the game because no Warrior in his right mind would choose it over Hammer.

apt.9184:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I don’t see how you can call Warrior “passive.” Our Heals may be more passive but that is balanced out by the fact that we have all active condition removal. People act like pressing the heal skill is some sort of skillful action now. I can bet that any “shaving” will throw Warriors into the exact same position that Mesmers are currently in.

I feel like a preacher with how often I repeat myself but The Game is not Balanced for 1v1. Right now, warriors are like the heavy version of Mesmers. They are strong 1v1 but still vulnerable to team pressure, even more so with Healing Signet. The difference is that Mesmer tend to be weak to conditions and since they are in the meta they don’t see much play (along with a few other reasons).

I have to ask, how many of you calling for nerfs have even tried modifying your build to account for Warrior? I’ve seen a few smart players who have and as a result can either fight me to a stalemate or at the very least hold out long enough for backup to arrive. They can do this while still preforming their original role, they typically just have to change a offensive utility or trait to a defensive one.

Look at how much Warrior gives up to be so resilient to conditions. We run Soldiers gear with traits like Dogged March and Cleansing Ire with skills like Zerker Stance and Signet of Stamina in addition to runes like Mel and Hoelbrak. Do I WANT to have to bring so many defensive things in my build? No. I have to though in order to avoid being stomped into the ground. I’d love to run all Physical Utility skills or other offensive utilities and to get rid of my 20 points in defense and put is somewhere else, but I can’t do so and expect to be effective.

Many players want to be able to always have a chance at killing any build with their own, that’s not how balance in these types of games work. I know not EVERY class has a hard counter to what we are currently running but instead of demanding nerfs, why don’t you ask for ways to counter what’s killing you like sensible Warriors on the forums did? Of course we had some of just saying “nerf dis,” but did you know that the majority of the changes we received were in some way suggested by the forums?

Warriors adapted, so forgive me if I find some of you selfish when you refuse to change your builds to account for mine when I designed mine to counter your. The tools are already there, use them. Ignore answering these points and you’ve lost the argument.

Sorry but, all easy to play specs should be destroyed. So your argument is completely wrong. We should never have had the healing signet buffed along with the zerk stance.
I hate having to play easy class. Sorry not going to stop till it gets nerfed.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/balancing-for-skill

I kinda love how there’s a video for almost any game related argument. While I don’t agree that it is an easy spec, by your balancing doctrine PvP would shrivel up and die because new players would get tired of being destroyed they would never stay.

That being said not a single build in this game that is viable is “hard” to play. after you get accustomed to Engis and Ele’s volume of skills they aren’t that difficult to play. I don’t know what you want from this game, there’s nothing on Warrior more difficult to use than Hammer. You don’t appear to want Healing Signet “balanced” but sent back into the useless category. Not to mention like I said before any “shave” to the current builds will leave Warrior once again out in the cold and will never see high level play.

I don’t see how you can call Warrior “passive.” Our Heals may be more passive but that is balanced out by the fact that we have all active condition removal. People act like pressing the heal skill is some sort of skillful action now. I can bet that any “shaving” will throw Warriors into the exact same position that Mesmers are currently in.

I feel like a preacher with how often I repeat myself but The Game is not Balanced for 1v1. Right now, warriors are like the heavy version of Mesmers. They are strong 1v1 but still vulnerable to team pressure, even more so with Healing Signet. The difference is that Mesmer tend to be weak to conditions and since they are in the meta they don’t see much play (along with a few other reasons).

I have to ask, how many of you calling for nerfs have even tried modifying your build to account for Warrior? I’ve seen a few smart players who have and as a result can either fight me to a stalemate or at the very least hold out long enough for backup to arrive. They can do this while still preforming their original role, they typically just have to change a offensive utility or trait to a defensive one.

Look at how much Warrior gives up to be so resilient to conditions. We run Soldiers gear with traits like Dogged March and Cleansing Ire with skills like Zerker Stance and Signet of Stamina in addition to runes like Mel and Hoelbrak. Do I WANT to have to bring so many defensive things in my build? No. I have to though in order to avoid being stomped into the ground. I’d love to run all Physical Utility skills or other offensive utilities and to get rid of my 20 points in defense and put is somewhere else, but I can’t do so and expect to be effective.

Many players want to be able to always have a chance at killing any build with their own, that’s not how balance in these types of games work. I know not EVERY class has a hard counter to what we are currently running but instead of demanding nerfs, why don’t you ask for ways to counter what’s killing you like sensible Warriors on the forums did? Of course we had some of just saying “nerf dis,” but did you know that the majority of the changes we received were in some way suggested by the forums?

Warriors adapted, so forgive me if I find some of you selfish when you refuse to change your builds to account for mine when I designed mine to counter your. The tools are already there, use them. Ignore answering these points and you’ve lost the argument.

(I changed the Thread title because a Mod/Dev removed the “Dev” portion)

The only problem I see with a “charge up” is that I’m not sure anything like that currently exists in the game. If it doesn’t then that would require programming an entirely new system for it, which I doubt they would do.

^
You do realize that the current builds most Warriors use are actually weak to power builds even with the amount of toughness they have yes? Toughness only goes so far, the proper Mesmer, Ele, or Thief build trounces it because we don’t bring skills like Endure Pain. Almost all of the changes we were given were gear towards condition countering, Dogged March, Cleansing Ire, and Zerker Stance in no way help with power builds. Endure Pain got a CD reduction but like I said nobody uses that.

If you don’t like Warriors countering you then do what Warriors did, counter what’s killing you. Before Warriors didn’t actually have that option, but I would say most classes have a build that can best what we are currently running.

It still doesn’t make sense to me how some of the same people who claim to hate the current meta are the same people who want to nerf the one class that can actually force it to change.

We appear strong because ANet gave us the perfect tools to crush what everyone is running. Does that make the builds OP? No. Numerous viable counters exist, which is different to what the situation was with Spirit Rangers. Warriors were generally the only class that could consistently beat them. The “shave” they did to them seems minor enough that we’ll still see them played which is good for us because we still have prey. If it gets to the point in SoloQ/TPvP that we see enough Warriors and they make these condi meta build users so frustrated that they start trying to counter us out of spite guess what happens? The meta changed.

This isn’t what’s guaranteed to happen but already I’m seeing a good number of Warriors in SoloQ, and even getting teams with 2-3 of us WINNING if the team has a bunch of Necros and Rangers.

EDIT: Here’s a good video, you may or may not have seen it before.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/perfect-imbalance

Some arguments about the chess part aside, the halfway point onwards is the important part. Necros and Spirit Rangers are A, Warriors became B, but for some reason the majority of the forum community haven’t even bothered trying to find C yet and have become stuck at the “crying on the forums” part.

EDIT 2: Not totally relevant to THIS discussion but if you liked the last build you may enjoy this.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/power-creep

Interesting to see that ANet is both falling into some of the pitfalls PvE wise (ascended gear), but also seems to have taken the creep into account in other areas as well (revamping dungeon rewards and plans to gradually improve them).

Scoobaniec.9561:

^ Rifle has great synergy with bleeding on 1+minor 25 trait. Also as someone that trying to make gs+rifle viable in current state i completely disagree making it a vul stacking bot.

Vul stacking should be a mace job

That doesn’t really make sense though because Mace is a more reactionary weapon set for interrupting heals and stunlocking. The only condition it has is weakness and its trait (that no1 really uses) deals with weakness as well. Also like I said about it’s “synergy” with the 25 in arms trait still stands, why would you want to invest so much into a tree with condition damage when you only have 1 condi that actually benefits from it. At least with dual swords you get a little something out of the investment.

Guess you could run this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAU8cjgOtupQGPMxBETBj48gKCQyT9wO2w2A-TsAg0CnIMSZkzIjRSjsGN0YRw+DA

Of course with rifle in its current form landing it will be just as clunky and you are using an equally clunky utility, bolas, in order to even have a prayer of landing it and at the cost of 10 stacks of Vuln.

Also, you should be pro-vuln if you want to run it with a GS because Vuln is whakittens auto attack applies. Thing is, you’ll still lack a reliable cover condition.

Player Character.9467:

Nikkinella.8254:

Well that’s the thing. You HAVE to run a condition build to stand a chance against it. it destroys any other kind of build. That’s why everyone is running conditions now. Not that i’m complaining. I’m having a blast with my S/S condition warrior.

That’s really funny because the mace/shield gs warrior is actually the counter to the condi necro due to their lack of stability. Also they’re spamming f1 and have dogged march/lemongrass/melandru or hoelbrak.

Yah, saying you have to run condis to beat it is wrong. What you want is constant power based pressure and if you can (and necros can) poison to make the healing signet worthless while you pressure them. The poison doesn’t have to be damaging it’s just to nullify the signet. That being said certain “out of style” Mesmer Condi builds apply so many condis so frequently in addition to so many escapes that CC Warriors don’t stan a chance, meanwhile a condition Warrior can easily stack a to of Bleed/Burb/Torment that the Mesmer will crumble very quickly. Condi warriors can be fun but the CC Warriors won’t have an issue with them and while good 1v1 they don’t bring as much to the table to a teamfight as a Necro or Spirit Ranger.

Derps.7421:

whenever i see a wqrrqir using the healing signet all i see is this

Something easily countered by power builds/consistent poison is a crutch huh? It totally has NOTHING to do with the fact that the current meta lacks any power based damage and as a result a Warrior who builds around condition removal basically nullify their means of doing damage.

The Warrior healing changes were actually pretty much perfect.

Healing Signet: Only shines with Soldiers gear vs Condi-heavy builds when paired with traits and utilities. It appropriately has a uselessly low active heal, which makes sense because it WOULD be OP if you could burst heal then passively regen when you don’t need it. You are basically discouraged from using it actively which once again means that power builds can overwhelm it.

Healing Surge: A good heal for more bursty builds who bring alone some condi removal. Also a nice side benefit of being able to gain max adren if needed at the cost of a lesser heal.

Mending: Lower healing but on a lower CD and is good for builds that have less condi removal but with Restorative Strength can remove up to 7 conditions. This also makes poison all but worthless against it because it’s removed before the heal takes place, something most Healing Surge builds lack.

There’s an appropriate heal for every build. Healing Signet is just the logical choice at the moment because of the condition meta. If it suddenly switched to power overnight you would see mostly Surge and Mending being used. I’m also getting tired of people factoring in Adrenal Health so frequently because with Mace, Hammer, or Bow based builds you’ll be using your adrenaline so often you’ll rarely be getting the maximum effect from it, especially since one of our better builds involves the use of BOTH a Bow and Hammer. Same with the condition based Banner Regen builds, you’re constantly using Combustive Shot and even Flurry in order to keep your foe in the field as long as possible so Adrenal Health is not that useful most of the time as well.

I made a post with suggested rifle changes a while back so I’ll restate some of my ideas.

Bleeding Shot should be redesigned/renamed to apply vulnerability instead of bleed. One of the major problems with rifle in my eyes is that it appears to be a power weapon with skills like Volley and Kill Shot and yet its main attack deals bleeding? I assume it was intended to be paired with the 25 arms trait to get 10% more damage but why would I really want to invest so heavily into a condition damage tree when only ONE skill applies a condition that benefits from in and not to mention that doing so means you miss out on crit damage which means Kill Shot and Volley become weaker.

Aimed Shot, while boring, is actually not bad as when you trait into rifle is only has a 8 second cooldown and the cripple lasts for 5. That’s a really nice cover condition all things considered.

Volley would be fine as is because with traits and runes you would be applying a lot of vulnerability.

Brutal Shot would also be fine as far as stacking vulnerability goes but it needs a 1/2 – 3/4 second cast time instead of a full second.

Rifle Butt is one of the few exceptions where I just want to outright steal another classes skill. I want this skill to be like Guardian’s Banish on hammer. Cooldown would obviously need to be increased and the knockback should be less. It should last juuuuuust long enough that if the target doesn’t pop a stunbreaker you can get off a Kill Shot.

Now for the big one, Kill Shot. Basically all of my suggested changes revolve around this skill. I agree with a shorter cast time but it will have to receive a damage nerf as a result. However, with these changes it would still be possible to deal big damage by stacking up tons of Vulnerability then setting the target up. Without doing this and traiting correctly the damage would be lackluster.

Rifle currently has some of the same problems hammer used to have in terms of how unwieldy and obviously telegraphed it is. I would love to be able to run a build like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAU8cncOEkittenEGPwEZABpQDrijCqIAVPsjNMOA-TkAg0CnIMSZkzIjRSjsGN0A

The dual swords are nice because you can use Impale to apply Torment as a cover condition, switch to your rifle and stack your might then smack them and go for the killshot. After that you may also have time to switch back to swords, use Rip and finish them with Final Thrust. It be a pretty awesome fighting style while still being counterable by having a lot of condition removal or simply predicting the Kill Shot which will be really obvious depending on how much vulnerability you have. It also wouldn’t be that spammable because Rifle Butt would have a longer CD and On My Mark is on a 30 sec CD as well.

I actually really want to be able to use the rifle in PvP, using it in WvW is more of a fun way to kill lowbies with blue gear and against anyone in a small fight it’s all but worthless.

EDIT: WOW that’s a wall of text I did not plan on writing.

Atherakhia.4086:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Atherakhia.4086:

Warriors are very similar to Thieves where they are a fairly weak class overall but have a few very overpowered mechanics that mask their weaknesses.

There’s no way a Warrior should be able to heal 1k a second while maintaining insanely high condition damage and 30k hp. That’s absurd. But it’s the way things are. It’s much worse in WvW.

Healing Signet is insanely overpowered.
Stun duration is insanely overpowered.
Warrior Regen is insanely overpowered.
Burn is insanely overpowered.
Might stacking is insanely overpowered.
45k hp is insanely overpowered.

This really can’t be disputed and all need to be nerfed. And yes, we all acknowledge that the Warrior would be bottom tier when all this goes down. But until these types of things are brought into line the class will never improve.

I can dispute a lot of what you said…because it’s wrong. Even fully specing into Vitality won’t get you 45k HP in WvW, and even trying to get close would make your build terrible.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAscTjkOpwVQyQMxBEkCNsKOKSilI9IMKj1A-jECBoMCiUAAkHRMDqIasV1FRjVJjIqWdDziuIa1SBwm0I-w

Here’s a build trying to maximize HP and still be semi-effective. It has the Regen, the HP, and the Burn. THis build would probably not be that good and notice that I only got to 31k HP. I could get more HP from Soldiers but that would be worthless. Knight’s ammy in PvP can let you get 32k but you would once again be terrible.

I could make another build focusing on Stuns and Might stacking but It would still not have 30k HP and nowhere near 45k.

I’m not much of a WvW guy but even running soldiers with hammer I still get nowhere near the amount of HP you’re claiming, and I can’t do all the other stuff you’re claiming in one build, and any builds with a combination of them would have obvious limitations and counters.

Someone by all means call me out if I’m wrong about not being able to reach 45k HP but as far as I can tell it’s impossible.

Sent gear
Sent weapon
Mango Pie
Vit Banner
Applied Fortitude

And my appologies, I didn’t mean that this was only sPvP or all in one build.

…That build sounds like it wouldn’t be all that good. Lugging around a banner that gives you a limited operating area if you place it. That being said I am VERY casual in WvW and basically just replicate my PvP builds.

Still, WvW will probably always be poorly balanced. Most of the balance problems are also more about food and other buffs than the class itself.

Atherakhia.4086:

Warriors are very similar to Thieves where they are a fairly weak class overall but have a few very overpowered mechanics that mask their weaknesses.

There’s no way a Warrior should be able to heal 1k a second while maintaining insanely high condition damage and 30k hp. That’s absurd. But it’s the way things are. It’s much worse in WvW.

Healing Signet is insanely overpowered.
Stun duration is insanely overpowered.
Warrior Regen is insanely overpowered.
Burn is insanely overpowered.
Might stacking is insanely overpowered.
45k hp is insanely overpowered.

This really can’t be disputed and all need to be nerfed. And yes, we all acknowledge that the Warrior would be bottom tier when all this goes down. But until these types of things are brought into line the class will never improve.

I can dispute a lot of what you said…because it’s wrong. Even fully specing into Vitality won’t get you 45k HP in WvW, and even trying to get close would make your build terrible.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAscTjkOpwVQyQMxBEkCNsKOKSilI9IMKj1A-jECBoMCiUAAkHRMDqIasV1FRjVJjIqWdDziuIa1SBwm0I-w

Here’s a build trying to maximize HP and still be semi-effective. It has the Regen, the HP, and the Burn. THis build would probably not be that good and notice that I only got to 31k HP. I could get more HP from Soldiers but that would be worthless. Knight’s ammy in PvP can let you get 32k but you would once again be terrible.

I could make another build focusing on Stuns and Might stacking but It would still not have 30k HP and nowhere near 45k.

I’m not much of a WvW guy but even running soldiers with hammer I still get nowhere near the amount of HP you’re claiming, and I can’t do all the other stuff you’re claiming in one build, and any builds with a combination of them would have obvious limitations and counters.

Someone by all means call me out if I’m wrong about not being able to reach 45k HP but as far as I can tell it’s impossible.

/sigh

I should have known that I was inviting this when I made the thread but I got my response, even if it was vague. Almost all the negative opinions were poorly presented and in most cases just wrong or viewed through a narrow lens.

Seriously though, go back to your other threads to complain.

Wombat.3510:

BurrTheKing.8571:

You think Warriors enjoyed getting kited to death, or conditioned to death? Once again I’ll say that Skull crack is not 4 seconds it’s around 3.75, a minor difference but misinformation is misinformation. If they don’t enjoy it they should consider investing in stun breakers, stability, or any of the many counters to Skull Crack/ Earthshaker.

Yeah, but it’s easier to qq on the forums than it is to actually learn your class!

Some of them spend more time here than playing the game it feels like. I on the other hand do this when I should be paying attention at class and be taking notes.

Aza.2105:

A healing signet warrior has higher regen than a guardian with clerics set, all the while doing substantially more damage. I feel the problem is that healing signet scales too well without cleric gear. It should hit 400+ hp when a warrior is decked out with healing power.

Otherwise its much too strong.

Guardians still have better sustain because they have access to other boons such as Protection. Not to mention they can bring plenty of blocks and/or blinds in addition to other mechanics. The balance team said in the livestream they want Warrior’s sustain to be more regen based and kitten on based.

So many people want to balance classes depending on how they preform 1v1 when PvP is mostly about teamfights. The only way I could survive a 2v1 is if both are condition based and one of them allows themselves to be focused down and stomped fast. Against good players that isn’t likely to happen.

Lordrosicky.5813:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Wombat.3510:

BurrTheKing.8571:

If Spirit Rangers are to be removed from the meta I want it to be because Warriors are countering them, not because they were nerfed into oblivion.

That’s why I stopped using spirits. I can’t describe how nice it was to have stunbreaks again!

That’s a good example of player-driven change. I bet you would be pretty strong vs my build because you actually bring some sort of counters, Spirit Rangers do not. People keep claiming Warrior is too strong when they most likely never even attempted to switch up their build to account for it. Some of those same people complain about the current meta while trying to nerf the very class that has the means to counter it.

People dont moan because warrior is OP. They moan because getting stunned for at least 4 seconds every 8 seconds really isnt very fun.

You think Warriors enjoyed getting kited to death, or conditioned to death? Once again I’ll say that Skull crack is not 4 seconds it’s around 3.75, a minor difference but misinformation is misinformation. If they don’t enjoy it they should consider investing in stun breakers, stability, or any of the many counters to Skull Crack/ Earthshaker.

I understand that in a perfect game certain mechanics should be fun even when used against you but you don’t nerf a class based on that.

feliscatus.1430:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Anastasis.7258:

I use Soldier amulet sometimes depends on what enemies I faced. More dpsers I use soldier, more condi spamers I use zerker. Sometimes I feel Solider is a lot better but it really depends on luck. Nice build btw! keep going!. Also Battle Sigil migh work but I still like Energy better because I don’t really want to been focusing on might stacking.

Yah I like energy a lot as well, I just wanted to maximize the Runes of Hoelbrak. I actually prefer to use Sig of Stamina so I not only have a cleanse but faster Endurance Regen as well. It’s especially useful is you don’t kill a Spirit Ranger before Zerker Stance runs out and they get a wave of Condis out on you.

I fear Thieves that can just appear and steal all my might though but if I react fast chances are they die in one Hammer combo.

If you enjoy the might stacks, you might try a banner build. I don’t even bother with might duration runes, just sigils of battle and blast combos. Maintain 10-20 stacks in most fights with little effort.

I’ve made a decent Banner Regen build but at most you’ll only want 1 banner and picking it up and using 5 in the combo field takes too long. It’s good for dueling but I can’t say I’d take it into a SoloQ or TPvP match.

Wombat.3510:

BurrTheKing.8571:

If Spirit Rangers are to be removed from the meta I want it to be because Warriors are countering them, not because they were nerfed into oblivion.

That’s why I stopped using spirits. I can’t describe how nice it was to have stunbreaks again!

That’s a good example of player-driven change. I bet you would be pretty strong vs my build because you actually bring some sort of counters, Spirit Rangers do not. People keep claiming Warrior is too strong when they most likely never even attempted to switch up their build to account for it. Some of those same people complain about the current meta while trying to nerf the very class that has the means to counter it.

apt.9184:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Thanks guys!

We’re being very mindful about the way the Sigil of Para fix will hit Warriors. We’ve already got another balance patch brewing, and we’re being very careful to watch all the classes and see how they feel after we shave down the condition spam classes slightly.

As others have said, once we bring down the conditions that “hold down” some of the physical based classes, they will feel stronger. We’re aware of that!

Thanks again for the feedback!

Please nerf our regen from signet and zerk stance and make our frenzy ability back to 100 (or even 75) percent quickness so we can play zerk build again. (as it has a higher skillfloor). Hope you realise our builds are very OP and many top warriors hate how warrior is right now. Thanks.

You basically just hijacked my thread that was taking a positive view about Warrior and are using it to push an agenda that will probably end with Warrior being just as weak as it was previously. Thanks.

There has been a LOT of forums posted recently pertaining to Warrior. I’m wondering what the balance team feels about Warrior as it is currently. Most of the “information” presented in these forums is just downright wrong. It’s a lot different than Spirit Rangers where it was apparent that there was very few exploitable weaknesses. The current Warrior meta to me is only strong because it aims to counter the condition heavy meta, which I feel was an attempt to allow the players to shift the meta on their own without directly nerfing said builds in the current meta. The builds we run have several counters, you just don’t see them frequently because they aren’t popular currently. If Warrior remains how it is we may see a shift in the game so that for example Mesmers come back into the fray to counter the Warriors that are Countering Rangers and Necros.

I just pray that you do not listen to these forums filled with incorrect information and “shave” Warriors back into mediocrity so shortly after we were made useful after a year of being the punchline of every PvP joke.

I like the “shave” they applied to Spirit Rangers. It seems like a decent middle ground. I never like it when a build is totally removed from viability, and from what I can tell they have brought it down while not totally removing its viability. Unless the PvP community views these changes to be more harsh than they actually are I can still see them being used.

If Spirit Rangers are to be removed from the meta I want it to be because Warriors are countering them, not because they were nerfed into oblivion.

I really disagree with the Heal Sig needing a nerf. It’s strong because when paired with condition removal builds that depend on the condis for damage can’t do anything to you. I’ve dueled Thieves and Mesmers that almost 100% counter the build, it’s just that those builds aren’t in the meta so we rarely have to face them. If Warrior becomes a big enough threat Mesmers might see a bit of a revival in a role similar to Warriors, counter the guy trying to counter our condi user. It’s funny cause this is how it was in GW1, Mesmers were always our greatest threat.

Anastasis.7258:

I use Soldier amulet sometimes depends on what enemies I faced. More dpsers I use soldier, more condi spamers I use zerker. Sometimes I feel Solider is a lot better but it really depends on luck. Nice build btw! keep going!. Also Battle Sigil migh work but I still like Energy better because I don’t really want to been focusing on might stacking.

Yah I like energy a lot as well, I just wanted to maximize the Runes of Hoelbrak. I actually prefer to use Sig of Stamina so I not only have a cleanse but faster Endurance Regen as well. It’s especially useful is you don’t kill a Spirit Ranger before Zerker Stance runs out and they get a wave of Condis out on you.

I fear Thieves that can just appear and steal all my might though but if I react fast chances are they die in one Hammer combo.

Daecollo, give it up. The balance team said during the Warrior livestream that they WANT Warrior sustain to be regen based and that protection would remain the Guardian’s forte. Almost all of your changes would make Warrior a clone of other classes.

So, I wrote a small wall of text but it refused to save it for some reason so I’m going to shorten it up.

Healing Signet and the traits often taken with it is only strong because of what the current meta is. The majority of most Warrior builds place a lot of emphasis on countering conditions. Healing Signet and Cleansing Ire are made totally worthless by non-condition power builds. Just because players do not currently choose to run those builds does not mean that counters do not exist.

It seems that many players want to be able to run a build that will always have a fair chance at beating any other builds, but the game isn’t designed in that way. It’s good that hard counters for certain builds exist because that means that whatever comes into the meta has something specialized to stop it. Look at Spirit Rangers, most consider them to be too strong but they are typically wrecked by any decent Warrior due to their lack of stun breaks and Zerker Stance allowing the Warrior to gain an early lead. If more Warriors start being used in PvP it doesn’t matter so much that the Ranger is strong because they’ll never get to do anything with a Warrior around. This allows the players to shape the meta rather than going to the devs and demanding a nerf (although according to Johnathan Sharp the Spirit build is going to be “shaved”).

So I’ll ask you this, if you hate the meta why are you demanding a nerf for something that allows for teams to bring a hard counter to the table? Not to mention that there are builds that hard counter the Warrior as well, especially certain Mesmer and Thief builds. If you are tired of losing to these builds then adapt your build so that you can counter your counter. We the players should be taking the initiative and try to change the meta, something that may not have been possible earlier but is definitely a possibility now.

So first things first, this is far from an original concept as evidence by the title. That being said I decided that I have enough changes in my version that I might as well post it here for those interested. Here is the original thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Anas-Tarcis-Warrior-Spirit/first#post2748929\

The build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJASTjkOxupQGPMxBE0DNsK4iTBlQ9wO2w4A-ToAA1CnICSFkLITQygsBNQYJC

This is essentially a tougher version of the Anas Tarcis Build that is more focused on staying in the fight. It only really lacks in the crit chance department but if you pull off a perfect Hammer combo the difference in damage is actually not that great from Berserker. The obvious weakness is that you can’t just jump out of a fight if things get hairy like you can with a sword but you can pull of some crazy combos with bow. You can switch up utilities as you like, you can use Balanced Stance or go with Sig of Stamina instead of Bulls Charge.

To get the most out of the Hoelbrak runes I use a sigil of Battle. With Combustive Shot and skills like Arching Arrow and Earthshaker you’ll be able to keep up a respectable amount of might that will stick around, just watch out for boon stealing Thieves. It preforms well in teamfights due to the AoE combo field and stun and it can best most of the current meta in 1v1. Shatter mesmers with constant stun breaks/teleports can pretty easily beat you but you don’t see them much because they tend to only be good 1v1. This build feels as strong as it does because like the Skullcracker it counters the condi/heavy meta that tend to not have stun breaks or Stability. Hammer is probably the hardest weapon in the game to master but once you do it can be a force of nature.

Lighter.5631:

Furajir.3815:

conditions are laughable.

Are you playing the same game as i do?
oh wait, you play wvw, why are you even talking about balance in the 1st place again?

The condi meta IS pretty laughable to Warriors atm because of traits like Cleansing Ire and skills like Zerker Stance. It’s pretty cool though because all of our condi clearing is very active and none of this passive stuff that other classes have.

The AoE woulds still have to be timed perfectly in order to get the Vengeance and there’s still stability and cheese stomps. I do agree that Engi has an absolutely terrible down state but it can be pretty funny when on a 1v1 and you go down on point sending them flying out of the point and you cap it.

Honestly, I’d almost just prefer a near clone of the Guardian down 2 skill only instead of a push back it knocks everyone around you down like the current Hammer does. Warrior has a really weak down state in terms of team fighting, Thieves can teleport and stealth, Ele’s can Mist form, Guardian as I said has the AoE push, however Warriors and Engis have really easy to avoid single target 2 skills.

I’m also starting to think you should be immune to blind while down because Thieves being able to always get the free stomp and Guardians, Warriors, Rangers, and Engis due to blind is a bit ridiculous. I’m fine with stability because the skills that give it typically have long CD’s but the blind field does not. Same deal with the teleport stomps. Invis stomps wouldn’t be that big of a problem if the skills were AoE and not targeted.

Anastasis.7258:

Well I have to say if a skill is unpredictable, that means it needs no skills to play with. Skull Crack = unpredictable, so no matter how good you are, you will never dodge that skill with your predict except random dodges. Those “unpredictable skills” makes some low skill players be able to get into a high level environment, which we called it cheesy.
Earthshaker is definitely a predictable skill, which means skills required to play well and you have to fake your enemies in order to land successfully. That’s the reason why most warriors still run mace/shield.

Currently streaming.

Why I know it’s partially because I AM a Warrior, can can say that I can sorta “feel” when the Skull Crack is coming. Also, the skill does actually have a different animation than any other mace skill. I do think it needs some sort of effect around it (it better look cool though) but even as it is currently if you spend enough time fighting it you can avoid it fairly frequently. In fact the reason it’s so easy to land is because people run away from you when actually running through you is how you get it to miss, same with Eathshaker, easy to make it miss because who expects you to run towards the guy with the hammer?

The normal mace swings are generally diagonal swings, Skull Crack is a wide vertical swing, It’s subtle but so is the difference between the animations of Reaper’s Mark and the other marks. Of course it’s hard to see on Asura but that’s a problem with PvP in general atm. I’m just tired of people saying it has no tell because it does.

Since we’re on the topic of annoying visuals, I REALLY hate the way human Warriors hold their 1h weapons, especially swords. With swords, you hold them in such a bizarre way, it looks OK with axes and maces but with swords it looks…wrong. Be cool if you held them down and off to either side of you or something.

It’s something that will probably never be changed but just figured I’d throw it out there. The game has a big focus on style so something like this just bugs me.

Come on man, you should know as a Warrior that we are probably one of the more difficult classes to play. IDK why you would want to go back to old zerker builds because they probably required the least amount of thought and creativity. The builds we run now have a way more complexity and thought put behind them. I don’t see how CC builds that require you reacting to the situation is “cheesy” compared to the old Zerker builds were you always used the same combination no matter what.

How is Mace/Shield + GS any cheesier than Mesmer shatter builds, many Ele builds, and the thief class as a whole? I think using the Mace as a way to make up for the GS’s weaknesses is pretty cool.

Those banner regen “bunkers” crumble against any decent pressure. They’re strong 1v1 and MAYBE 2v1 but only if the other guy is bad. Guardian still has much more survival.

As another note, 0/10/30/0/30 means that you don’t have Banner Resto because you have NO POINTS in TACTICS and even Banner of Dis’s 2 skill only gives 5 1/2 second of regen and it takes a while to pick it up and use. Basically, it looks like you have no clue wtf you’re talking about.

Lapserdak.9056:

But its a elite, also it can be stunned/pushed to interupt rez, warrior rez banner cant be stoped and is instant.

Wrong. Battle Standard has a 2 second cast time and can be interrupted just like anything else. It’s also REALLY obvious when they start casting because of the animation.