Guild Wars 2

Using a Greatsword with Phalanx Strength and Forceful Greatsword will give might to your whole team while Rifle is generally selfish. When set up right a Rifle Berserker might do better DPS on their own, but they won’t be making the whole team hit harder, which is more highly valued.

In PvP rifle is actually pretty popular. I would say design wise it’s pretty good now and when using a total glass build you can overwhelm several of the meta builds very quickly.

You don’t even need unreliable mechanics like Scholar runes or Blood Roar to get that kind of damage.

This is what I run, I haven’t played in the last few days but I’m currently in Tier 2 (almost 3) Ruby and have been doing surprisingly well even against meta builds. The damage on this is way more consistent and you don’t have to worry about being CC’d to death.

This build will deal the damage you took without teammates buffing you. The first hit might only be around 8-9k but the second Gun Flame will easily do that, especially if they were stacking might on GS first.

I would much rather have active defense rather than getting on board with every other class that has a laundry list of passives. Making Burst skills more reliable and tying our sustain to landing them seems way more interesting to me.

Defy Pain: Gain a stack of Defy Pain that gives toughness when connecting with a Burst. Gain 1 stack per bar. The number of max stacks and how much toughness it gives would have to be tested but I think allowing for a high number of stacks but only getting a bit of toughness for each would really reinforce the idea that the Warrior gets more dangerous as the fight goes on.

Last Stand: Using a Stance gives 3(?) seconds of 1 stack of Stability. Would have synergy with Eternal Champion in certain situations as well.

Changes like these would make Warrior more reactionary and would also reward consistently hitting your burst skills. I would also like to see Leg Specialist moved to where Restorative Strength is currently and replace Thick Skin or some other useless trait with something that removes blind on Burst skill use. They’re already highly telegraphed that they shouldn’t be so easily countered by such a easily available condi.

I’m kinda confused, it appears to me that most classes have plenty of anti-CC. Revs get it on dodge, Engi/Scrappers have generally 2 Stun Breaks and Stability on Evade, Reapers have stability from their elite and shroud, Tempests have a teleport and an invuln and are just tough in general, Chrono has a teleport and Signet of Humilidy reduces CC duration AND Staff 2 is like a light Stun Break, War has the most Stability in the game…you get the idea.

The thing that is making CC feel excessive is the abundance of Reapers corrupting Stability and skills like Slick Shoes that make using just a stun break useless. Yes, there’s a lot of CC, but if you time your dodges and save your stun Breaks for the RIGHT CC, there should be no problem.

I’m in Ruby atm and even with everyone running the same metabattle build I only feel the CC when I get focused…which is how it should be.

In theory, we shouldn’t need to ban class stacking if the game is balanced. Classes SHOULD be able to preform very different roles. For example in the past you could have a direct damage Warrior, a Condi Warrior, a Healing/Support Warrior, and a CC Warrior all on the same team and be “balanced.”

We only see class stacking when a build is too strong. As a result my suggestions are as follows:

1. Have someone be fully dedicated to class balance. From what I have picked up from Dev comments, there’s no dedicated balance person.

2: Consult experienced players on proposed balance changes. The players dedicated to playing one class can often provide insight that someone who is responsible for all the classes may not be able to see.

3: Consider taking a page from Battlefield 4 and have a community test client. The people willing to download a separate client that updates frequently are probably going to be very vocal and will gives decent feedback. This took BF4 from a struggling game into one that has a thriving community even after being out for a good while. You could cut down on download size by just having it be the HotM and a few servers that have proposed changes.

4: Make more frequent small balance changes throughout the season as needed. It is not fair to players who want to play a specific class to be disadvantaged for an entire PvP season. If just 1 or 2 small changes for underperforming/overpreforming classes come once a week it will change the meta but hopefully for the better. There will always be a meta, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t try to make as many builds viable as possible. PvP wins should be determined by skill, not builds. Having the test client mentioned above would hopefully give you a good way to bug test and see how the changes affects the meta.

5. COMMUNICATE! There was a period of time where we saw a lot of red posts and it was great. Recently though, we’re back to mostly vague statements. Also, there’s been a tendency to say things such as “These are just some of the changes that are coming” and then it turns out that that was actually all of the changes except maybe 1 or 2 minor things. It’s really frustrating to be left in the dark. I understand this is because you don’t want to make promises you might not be able to keep, but if you phrase things correctly it shouldn’t be a problem. Even something as simple as “We are looking into buffing X things and nerfing Y things” would be great.

In my opinion there are few things more important to a PvP game than balance. Game mode design and matchmaking are significant as well, but if the basic gameplay is fun for as many people as possible then you’ll be able to improve on other things gradually and will have less people complaining. This is just one mans opinion, but I’ve put up with some games that have lackluster aspects purely because the balance was there enough to where I didn’t feel screwed over because of what I chose to play as.

This post is here for visibility and because it primarily affects PvP

One of the most damaging parts of the new Specialization system when it comes to Warrior was that we lost the ability to dip into 4 different lines. Often times I would put at least 10 points into tactics just to get Leg Specialist.

What made/makes Leg Specialist so good? Well, to start every weapon except for Mace and Longbow have access to cripple. Secondly, with Bursts, actually War skills in general, being so highly telegraphed it was very useful to be able to use that 1 second of immobilize to set up a hard hitting move. Before, you could go only 10 points into tactics and then only 15-20 into Discipline for Fast Hands and still have enough points to make a well balanced build.

Now, Leg Specialist is still a good trait, but because of its placement in tactics it almost never sees any use. So, my proposition is simple, swap the placement of Leg Specialist with Restorative Strength in Strength. This simple move will go a long way in helping Warriors actually land their attacks. Sustain being low is one thing, but having your class mechanic be easy to avoid, easily blinded, and easily blocked is just as major a issue.

Having this change go into a mid season patch would not dramatically change the meta, but experienced players would certainly appreciate it for certain builds. If you wanted to make things even better, perhaps considering lowering the ICD and making it so that the ICD is based on the enemy it hits. This means that skills like Hammer Shock and Bladetrail would be able to immob multiple enemies. If you wanted to be even cooler you could add cripple onto Pommel Bash and Smoldering Arrow. Mace in particular would benefit from being able to set up the already hard to land Skull Crack with more than just Shield Bash.

This would be a small first step to at least make playing this class a bit less atrocious.

A couple things:

1. The idea isn’t to be optimal, the idea is to go as full hog into burns as possible.

2. While CI would be good, that would mean having no Stability or giving up Sundering Leap, which has synergy with several other traits.

3. There are several reasons for Tactics. Leg Specialist is just a great Traits and helps you to land the combos that this build is so reliant on to work. Burning Arrows is fairly obvious, more burns. Same thing for Powerful Synergy, it lets you constantly have a Flame Aura.

4. I see no reason to take Signet of Fury when Berserker gives you Head Butt. If you are going into arms sure that’s great but Head Butt gives me another burn and full adrenaline. It takes more skill to land but that’s half the fun.

The point of a gimmick isn’t to be optimal, it’s to be good at one thing and it gives you the possibility of a easy win but falls apart if you mess up.

So, I’ve just sorta embraced the state that Warrior is in and have started to go back to just making silly gimmick builds like I used to. This build is all about putting out absurd amount of burn. Almost everything you do in this build will manage to catch something on fire. Is it good? This is a Warrior build what do you think?

I Present the Acolyte of Balthazar

While not having Discipline will be a big adjustment for some, this is counterbalanced by the fast that you will not be short on burns no matter what set you are on. Let me start by saying that it is possible to run something like this and probably be more ‘viable’, but I feel that this compromises the gimmick we’re going for.

Sundering Leap will allow you to produce another fire field while on LB. There’s a funny potential combo out of it as well. Lay down a Scorched Earth then immediately use Sundering leap on your target. This will immobilize them long enough for you to use Pin Down and then Fan of Fire. With all the +duration you got going you can get a good number of burn stacks just by autoing in LB.

Using Blood Reckoning will allow you to actually take advantage of the last part of your runes. If you use it when your target has a ton of burns the healing you get from it can be decent. It’s basically a burst down build though and not having Healing Signet IS going to hit your sustain hard.

This build is basically the old Burn Guard on Elixirs. Pray your burns kill reapers before they transfer them. No, this is not a good build, but when it works the results can be pretty hilarious. I’ve seen 6k a tic JUSt from burning and this build has a decent amount of bleed as well. Much of this is AoE as well which is something the aforementioned Burn Guard lacked. Have fun burning the world down in righteous anger!

EDIT: I’m a bit sad the Balthazar weapons are so expensive now cause I think this gimmick is fun enough to go full hog into owning the whole look.

SMITE has similar gameplay, actually GW2 is basically a MMO moba in many ways so if you can stand the top down perspective you would probably enjoy it. I feel like the learning curve would be less harsh than normal too.

Part of me would actually be OK with this. I don’t enjoy the fact that even with War being as weak as it is, that when I do win it’s because I just repeatedly used one Burst over and over. Gun Flame is predictable, but this is certainly not an unfair change so long as it doesn’t move so slow that it doesn’t track moving targets properly.

Tomiyou.3790:

Fivedawgs.4267:

Tomiyou.3790:

All my opinio: Believe it or not, anet found themselves in a pretty uncomfortable situation regarding warrior. Warrior is still extremely good for WvW, but absolute crap in PvP. So, when you buff warrior in PvP, it becomes op in WvW. And vice versa. Another example of balance having to be split.

I disagree… most warriors will have true 1 vs 1 against someone with equal gear or skill. Don’t be blinded by the wvw videos posted by vanxx, shin, etc.. Unlike spvp, in wvw gear matter. So wvw or split balance is not the problem. Now I am no way saying that warriors are weak.2 but when everyone and their mom can carry by either placing traps are having fear/boon removal on auto whilst warrior always get slapped at the end of every season… you know we have a problem

@OP warrior will never be OP again, cause I have a feeling that’s what you are asking for ’s so frusterating, i used to be able to wipe entire teams and now i get stu.. thats OP dude.

I know the feeling of getting the short end of the stick. I found it in Tempest myself. Although d/f tempest is currently in the meta, I don’t enjoy being a supporting healbot and nothing more. I find it fun in PvE, since people appreciate your good healing, but in PvP/WvW people don’t even realize it.
As for warrior, one of the best abilites (and a balanced one) is Eviscerate. Easy to dodge but deals massive damage, requires setting up burst (just like ele Phoenix now that I think of it). I wish they made abilities in the game more like this, with apparent strengths and weaknesses. That I think is the core of the problem with warrior, or better yet, that’s the reason warrior is bad right now. So many HoT abilities have no clear weakness, and warrior has very few of these kinds of abilities (gunflame tho, completely OP)
Yea, I might have gotten carried away by warrior roaming by Vaanss, but now that I think of it, I would rather face him with than a druid kiting with bow, or any current top tier build actually.

My greatest fear is that rather than making Burst skills more reliable by adding traits that counter blinds and the like, they’ll just speed them up and increase adrenaline gain and turn the class just as spammy as everything else is atm. Heck, Berserker already made Burst skills more spammable as it is.

I really, really hope that they keep Burst skills as something that are devastating but require good timing to land. Even Gun Flame is fairly predictable as it is now. Adding an evade to Rifle was also a good idea to give Wars active sustain.

Wars need a major rework imo. I HATE that I can have 2 stances up at once, it makes no sense. I also dislike traits like Endure Pain and Last Stand that basically play the game for me.

I want a system like the one I described here more and more as time goes by. It’s about time the class got some more complexity like GW1.

Valik Shin.9027:

In wvw warrior is ok because the high stat cap gives wars what they need to take people out before their stances run out. In pvp it’s terrible. It is so bad that no one is asking for a warrior nerf for the frist time in forever

Believe it or not some are actually calling for Gun Flame/general Rifle nerfs.

I feel that it’s not 100b that is the problem, it’s the skills used to set it up. Skull Crack, Bull’s Charge, and Head Butt are less effective than they used to be because now everyone is swimming in stun breaks/Stability.

My old Skullcracker build just feels useless now, even vs other Wars. Now that Last Stand has a lower ICD and that skills like Outrage exist, you’re never going to get the full stun off unless they make a big mistake. You would have to use Pommel Bash to trigger Last Stand, get full adrenaline, land Shield Bash, let them break, then Skull Crack. Not missing a single attack is tricky.

Mace is now basically a condi weapon for Berserkers.

Making Sundering Mace have Stability stripping on Burst would help a little, but it seems like the game is now more suited towards frequent small CC’s rather than big long lasting ones.

MetalJacket.2307:

Warrior does had a niche, and your right it is CC. In fact in large team fights Rampage with well timed 5+4 and 3rd attack on auto (uppercut) are great in giving ur team the field advantage it needs. This ONLYworks when 1 target is focused (this is where calling out targets as a warrior is very important, this is not done very often in emerald-where im at atm).
On issues of sustain, yes warrior is poor however since i lack sustain i just run away heal up and come back (with a GS+sw/torch) GS skills 3+5 and sword skill 2 using torch 5 to cleanse cripple for example U will need discipline for this, Warrior’s spirit is a must
The benefits of running rather than say like other classes stay and sustain is
1) u heal up 2)cure/time out conditions 3)u have no boons coming into fight thus no strip/conversion 4) u don’t give them pts for a kill 5) u don’t put stress on ur team for a res.
But besides CC, warrior’s niche is downed enemies, and excels perfectly at that
100b is just too sexy

That niche is easily countered by most decent players. Sure, Rampage can win you a team fight, or you get focused instantly and die or they just throw blinds at you. Also, GS and Sword/Torch? That set doesn’t have any hard CC whatsoever.

Having to run away and heal is something other classes don’t generally have to do. When I play Scrapper I can stay in the fight the whole time and it just comes down to whether we win the team fight or not.

Nobody sane would want a Warrior on their team for Rampage alone. Being strong for 15 seconds every few minutes is not a strength.

Warrior is in this weird place where even the parts that aren’t terrible are still inferior to other classes, or the pro is outweighed by a huge con. The hybrid Mace/Shield + Sword/Torch or Rifle builds are solid 1v1 builds, but at the end of the day having a Reaper to corrupt boons is way more useful. A Power Rifle build can put out some good damage, but it’s way more useful to have a Scrapper that not only deals good power damage but also has way more sustain and team support.

One thing Warrior does have more than any other class is CC. Unfortunately, that CC is also very easy to counter. The long stun on Skull Crack seems really powerful, but good luck landing it when everyone is swimming in stun breaks or other ways to avoid being hit by it. I’ve been trying to use it but even if I consistently land the skill and bait the counters chances are that will take so long that you’ll be dead before that happens.

I do feel that CC should be the niche that Warriors bring to the team. Now, I don’t want to further power creep any more than is necessary. I don’t want the CC to be easier to land, but there do need to be ways to make it more reliable. I have a few ideas for this:

• Ditch Restorative Strength for a new trait, Blind Rage. This trait will make the user immune to blind while using a Burst Skill. Strength is a good place for this trait because not only is Restorative Strength a “meh” trait to begin with, it also forces players to choose Strength over Defense, Discipline, or Berserker depending on your build. Hammer and Mace builds probably won’t use Berserker because of the Primal Burst skills being either condi focused or in Hammers case weak.

• Speaking of Hammer, the Primal Burst skill Rapturing Smash is just awful. It doesn’t hit hard, and it only applies a little daze and immob. If the current animation was reversed it could be turned into a pull, a mechanic that Warrior has always been lacking. This would be super useful for PvP as you could pull people away from a revive and skilled players could even use it to pull someone off of a point and keep them off while a teammate caps.

• Sundering Mace could be given a unique mechanic, connecting with Mace Burst skills will remove Stability on a longish ICD (30-45 seconds?). Having such specific boon removal is something no other class really has. It would reward players for landing the Burst and baiting but would still be countered by normal stun breaks.

• Warriors need to bring some sort of offensive support to the team. Making the traits Savage Instinct and Dead or Alive affect nearby allies. This means that they would bring a AoE stun break + condi removal and a bit of a failsafe when they hit 0 near you. Making Eternal Champion pulse Stability but at a much slower rate would also be a good option as well. Bringing Shouts back to their old healing value would also be worth looking at considering Celestial is gone now.

Warrior will still have a ton of issues even with changes like these, but it would hopefully at least make them a bit more appealing on a team. I am sick and tired of people saying things like “We got a War gg we lose” as soon as they see me. I should be able to play the class i want to play and not be forced into using Reaper, Scrapper, or Revenant. Giving Warrior a defined role would go a long way even if we just end up with one meta build like everyone else, we would at least have a meta.

Sykper.6583:

I agreed with many things you said.

…Up to the part where you said Scorched Earth sucked. Burnzerker is still very viable in PvE.

If you are working with LB as a whole in SPvP, Scorched Earth has a few advantages over Combustive Shot, Projectile is faster, setting up a burn field path for you to leap through/enemy will have to walk through or go around makes you difficult to chase down.

I say this as Longbow is a better tool to use to deal with DHs than the SwTr variant you see condizerkers running.

Sorry, I haven’t been doing raids so I just figured the nerf hit it hard. As for PvP, I never really see it used because unless you had already used Pin Down it’s unlikely to hit more than once. It feels like just a line Combustive Shot and I find that very, very boring. I would much rather have something that keeps the AoE but has a harder to hit initial explosion of some sort that deals burning and power damage (since berserker is SUPPOSED to be hybrid focused).

That’s personal taste I guess, but I think there’s a reason you almost never see LB in PvP.

Here’s my PvP experience thus far…

So, I started out with a mostly glass Rifle build. Things went great. I made it through Amber and Emerald with only 2 losses, and I certainly wasn’t carried. Players just crumbled to my damage output.

Then I hit Sapphire…

Suddenly it’s like running into a brick wall. While I haven’t gone on any sort of mega losing streak, wins and losses even out quickly. It wasn’t that I was playing worse or even that the players were better, it was the builds and team compositions that improved. Once you start facing players that are using nothing but Reaper, Scrapper, Revenant, and Tempest teams the game just becomes a living nightmare. I can land combo after combo but these builds can just eat them head on and not care. There are some good players but many are clearly being carried by their build.

Even running full glass it can take forever to kill a single target even if they don’t avoid the big hitters. I started trying Sword/Torch with Mace/Shield or Rifle with Mace/Shield but I just felt like an inferior Reaper/Rev. I could beat them 1v1 but in a team fight my effectiveness just plummets because it becomes a joke to marginalize me. I still bring no real team support except for CC and downed cleave. Yes, I can still wipe 3+ enemy players while they’re reviving someone but that doesn’t make me better to have on a team than another meta class.

Warrior is actually a fairly solid 1v1 class, but the game doesn’t revolve around that and having the ability to constantly corrupt boons or simply do good damage while not dying with a bit of support is way more useful.

Blind Spam is still the most effective way to shut Warriors down. Maybe remove the Thick Skin minor with something that cleanse Blind on Burst skill use on a 15 sec ICD or something.

Anyways, I didn’t really expect anything different than this to happen, it’s just a shame that I was genuinely enjoying PvP until I reached Sapphire. The worst part is when you lose purely based on build and not because the other player preformed better than you.

As just one final thought, if the Rapturing Smash Primal Smash wasn’t so terrible it might see some more use. Vanilla Hammer War is OK, but there’s no excuse for it to be such garbage. Scorched earth is now also pretty terrible in both PvP and PvE now.

Forestgreen.7981:

Well look man, A-Net did say that they were introducing challenging content. Playing warrior in ranked is it man. It doesn’t get harder than that. From the looks of it, not one person was able to climb legendary with warrior only, they might of overtuned it and made it impossible.

We had a couple do it on the War forums. I didn’t even bother trying because at the end of the last season was more about grinding out games than anything else.

Valkyriez.6578:

Some people are so jaded it’s depressing. I just finished watching the finals matches and thought it was fantastic. Yes there were some classes missing ( warrior, thief, Guardian, Mesmer and only 1 ranger seen) but it was really interesting to watch.

Side note, I actually loved the lack of portal plays. No portal forced people to get around the map the old fashioned way and rotate properly.

3/9 classes were totally absent and 2/9 were used once meaning that 5/9 classes were not meaningfully represented.

Not only that, out of all the theoretically possible builds in this game we was most classes using very similar builds because they are just objectively better.

On a game like Overwatch where there’s only so many classes (in this case builds), it’s fine to see multiple of the same class, but from what I’ve seen the game actually encourages a variety of strategies because each character has strengths and weaknesses which can lead to different team comps that are all viable. A better example would probably be SMITE but I’m not as familiar with it.

In GW2, we have very little variety and to make things worse the builds involved are not that difficult to play. Sure, they play them better than the average player but there’s almost no “Wow I can’t believe they hit that!” moments of skill that you see in other games. If you just want close games that’s fine I guess but I would rather see variety and players pulling off moves that are major game changers.

Online…up until now I’ve done a decent job at ignoring you.

Now…I really just want you to go away.

You bring nothing constructive to these forums.

Please Stop.

Kicker.8203:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I’m against pure condi, I believe that Berserker is best with a hybrid approach.

I’ve been using this with Mercenary Ammy

What’s the point in using mercenary with this? you barely have any condis. I think it’s best with marauder but if u want to be more tanky then go Paladin’s.
Berserker runes aren’t that great imo.

You have a big burn on Gun Flame, and Skull Grinder has Confusion and Bleeding. Factor in the sigils and the fact that you can just constantly push out said bursts with CC to deny cleanse and I’ve found few builds that can deal with it.

As an example, going Head Butt then using Outrage and going Berserk and using Gun Flame, then following that up with Rifle Butt, Brutal Shot, then Aimed Shot. You can deal 3k-5k with the Gun Flame, then the burning will tic for a little over 1.2k 3 times. After that, you swap to Mace while in melee distance and you’ll apply Chill and Bleeding then all the condis on Skull Grinder. That’s some really good damage for a ammy that also has defensive stats.

I’m against pure condi, I believe that Berserker is best with a hybrid approach.

I’ve been using this with Mercenary Ammy

You can do CI or RR in Defense depending on the team comp. I find with smart use of my blocks, Berserker’s Stance, and Healing Signet active you can still beat even condi necro while using RR so long as you keep the CC up.

As for use in actual TPvP though, a pure power rifle build being supported by a Tempest would be better. All of the builds posted here would be OK for 1v1s, but in actual team fights you’re basically a less effective Reaper or Scrapper. Power Rifle can do something that no other class can really do with Signet of Might and Gun Flame.

I would use something like this only with Mercenary instead. Warrior’s Sprint is also good but for 1v1s it seems less important.

It gives you defense and damage from military sources. Against Druids a direct power build will probably lose if they’re running defensively because they can just let the pet kill you.

You may have trouble vs the Reaper, but if you save your defenses for when they have stability then land all of your CC you can just walk all over them. A power rifle build will hard counter the DH and Scrapper at times but vs the others you’ll lose unless they’re bad. You may not have an easy time against any of them but you’ll have a chance to beat all of them.

You could swap Disipline with Strength and get Body Blow and Distracting Strikes but that means some major trade offs.

…that classes were able to fill the same role, but in different ways.

For example, Warrior could bring support via Shouts healing and removing conditions while Engis could bring healing bombs and water fields to blast in. Thieves could bring high single target damage by being evasive and stealthy while Guardians use their Meditations.

While the individual concepts are still generally there, often times one class is now simply better at doing a certain role than every other class. In addition to that, the trait lines have become very muddled in terms of the role they’re supposed to fit. Some are fine and it’s more of a matter of numbers than functionality. Other lines however are either too broad or too narrow.

One example would be Alchemy on Engi. On the same line you can get access to Protection, passive regen, and also Might. Of course you’re going to see this line see heavy use. Engi as a class has either been a jack of all trades and master of none, or a jack of all trades master of all. Engi is my second most played class but atm I just feel dirty playing it right now because I just bring so much to the table: good damage, team support, CC, and even stealth (and a counter to enemy stealth).

Compare this to Warrior, I actually think that despite its flaws it is still one of the better designed classes. The Strength line is for damage, the Defense line if for…defense, the Tactics line if for (mostly) support, and so on. Warrior is underwhelming mostly due to numbers and the fact that almost every other class has become self sufficient and so individual roles are less prevalent.

TL;DR: We don’t need buffs, we need for almost every class to be scaled back and for each trait line to be more focused so that choices are actually meaningful and that there’s significant tradeoffs.

All the pets need a major overhaul. I feel like both Ranger and non-Ranger players would be happier if the pets were there to supplement the player, not be the main source of damage.

Supplying combo fields or applying condis like Immob or CC like knock down and Fear so that the Ranger can land its damage sounds good. Instead right now we have Rangers building to have as much sustain as possible and just supporting their pet as they decimate the target.

It’s not even about being OP or UP, it’s about making the class both fun to play and fun to play against. I want to fight other players, not brain-dead AI that are only good cause their attacks are dealing high damage while being able to just soak up hits. It’s all subjective but I’m pretty sure few players go “ahhh yay I LOVE fighting the pet!” or “I love having my pet be my main source of damage!”

emkelly.2371:

you may be right, but i think they will nerf it significantly. I cannot see Anet allowing 20k unblock-able damage go without nerf for very long. when they do nerf it warriors will have absolutely nothing to show for themselves.

Only 20k and unblockable if you’re willing to sacrifice what little sustain we already have.

Try and add in some sustain and you’ll see the damage drop quickly.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Serious Thought.5394:

Fun things: this build looks crappy right? Try it (flee from reapers. good lord those guys are op with all the condi transfers).
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNApeTnckCtki1kCmkCEliFjAzIAsBzZJ5ggwH8d4mcfuA-TpxFABH/AAO/QAQeZADOCAns/AAnAAA

This is cancer.

No damage mitigation aside from shield and mace block (double endure pain isn’t enough, idk what convinced you this was), no condition cleanse (no wonder you cant handle reapers), no healing (you might have a decent crit rate, but nowhere near enough ferocity to match the healing done by the other healing skills), poor mobility, and a completely wasted trait.

This build IS cancerous. To the user, that is.

There, I fixed it.

Mercenary Ammy

The sigils could be messed around with, but I would say this is a superior build. You could even substitute Discipline for Strength and Distracting Strikes with Body Blow.

Still not an amazing build, but few things on Warrior are.

While not every class has access to it, Unblockable attacks can really tear through Guardians/DHs like nothing. I use Signet of Might on my Rifle Warrior and sometimes I just feel bad because there’s not much they can do about it. Wait for the shield then start bursting with it on. Wait for the heal and CC. I don’t even use Arms in my build but if I did I would be Unblockable even more frequently.

As a Scrapper with Slick Shoes you can also totally screw up DHs as well. What I will say is that True Shot could do with having its damage spread out. Maybe have it hit for a decent amount but then stick into the target for additional damage, but make that damage dodgeable/blockable.

Once you get over some of its wonkiness, it can actually be majorly useful. I find my movement to be much quicker and strafing/kiting much easier.

I did initially (and still do occasionally) have crazy things happen with movement skills, especially Head Butt on War.

It’s really good for targeting AoEs if you have instant or press and release.

I also just find it more fun to use than the normal camera now.

I agree with other that Mace/Shield with Rifle is a solid weapon set.

This is the version I run.

Using Mercenary ammy. Not so sure how useful it’ll be in ranked, was doing well in duels. Can’t say it’s the most fun build out there though.

Kuya.6495:

Xanctus The Dragonslayer.2318:

gunzerker is really not that good of a build, it’s average, it works in certain ideal situations and maps such as a sniper. it can kitten up necromancers. it has little sustain and little to no condi clear. infact it’s very subpar in a 1 v 1’s. not bad but mediocore. the builds effectivness depends really on your own tactics and your teammates bieng able to sustain you. But it cannot hold a point or fight on point.

5/10 really.

I’m ofcourse open to the possibility that incredibly skilled warriors can make it work and increase it effectivness in skirmishes. but the build self is meh. A guardian has quite a bit of cc and aegis. to combat them. actually focusing a gunzerker down is really all one needs to do. condi’s will also do the trick or cc.

I just use signet of might to counter the aegis and shield of courage.

Yah going pure glass Rifle with Signet of Might kinda is just a flat out hardcounter to Guardian in general. Their sustain is focused on blocks so you just wait for them to come out then unload. Stay close and use a CC when they heal and they won’t even have time to use their elite.

It’s still not an amazing build, but it has its uses vs any block-based build.

Looking back on this thread post patch makes me wish we had a system like this even more. The class has barely changed since the patch and will probably see no use in serious PvP.

I’m really considering quitting for a while or just going full time Scrapper and accept that I’m OP.

Pyriall.1683:

This continued mindset is quite perplexing. Honestly, if you aren’t competing at the highest level of premade team vs team then you can run a lot of various builds (including core) and do well. In the current state of how the queue system works, it isn’t mandatory that you run meta builds.

Feel free to list these builds by all means then. Personally, I’m finding that most non meta builds are flat out weaker than meta, when before there were builds that could counter the meta, they were just harder to play and therefore saw less use.

I don’t want to play inferior builds, I want to play skill builds.

Caedmon.6798:

BurrTheKing.8571:

If you have any sort of corruption now you should be able to crush any Rifle Berserker now. Force the Berserker’s Stance, corrupt, pile on the condis.

If you don’t wanna go down that path that’s your choice, but now Necros/Reapers are back to almost hardcountering many Warrior builds.

A proper rifle warri wont use berserk stance,that means he has sig of fury prob,that means he has full adren at the start of a fight and able to pull of a gunflame early.other than that its a matter of using rush to get out of range so gunflame can recharge and then blast again,most necs are easy to handle on gs/rifle even without any cleansing.

Proper rifle War? I run this version when I have support and something like this when not. Anything let open is for personal taste or depending on team comp.

I see no reason to use Signet of Fury when Head Butt does the job of filling up my Adrenaline, doing decent to amazing damage (seen it hit 9k), and stunning them long enough to hit a Gun Flame and follow it up with Rifle Butt which sets them up for eiher Brutal Shot or Volley.

The Berserker’s Stance change hurt vs Necros but when it comes to many classes the combination of Resistance, Stability, and Unblockable makes dodging or Invuln your only way to avoid it. Crack Shot now also gives out so much Adren that it’s not the end of the world if you miss Head Butt. I see no use for the Arms line either.

In the past, I was able to run builds that may not have been meta, but could still do well on if I played well. Examples would include but are not limited to: Skullcracker on War, Static Discharge on Engi, or Interrupts on Mes. These builds could be used while still being effective so long as you played smart.

Today, it appears that either you are meta or ineffective. Even if you are running a non-meta build that works decently the chances are it isn’t really hard to play. Examples would include Rifle War or a Might Stack Flamethrower Engi.

I’m the type of scrub that wants to play builds that (reasonable) other players respect when they face it. Most meta builds aren’t that difficult to play and most of the time players just have a “lol meta” or “/sigh” reaction to facing it. If you play a build like one I mentioned in the paragraph above you’ll be met with “might spammer” or “lol gunflame.” Sure, there’s no pleasing some players (sometimes I fall under that category) but in the past where I got comments like “respect” or “cool build” is what made the game fun to be.

The PvP in GW2 is not taken seriously and therefore I don’t spend my time playing builds I find to be boring. If the meta was strong but hard to play, sure that’s fantastic, but for over a year (two?) this hasn’t been the case. Everything has devolved into “meta” or “cheese.” This really bums me out. I’m the type of person that wants to pander to the crowd doing cool stuff, not someone like Floyd Mayweather that plays purely to win. I don’t blame people for playing like that if they value winning over all else, but I don’t.

If any Dev reads this, please, consider adding more skillful attacks/traits into the game that make me feel rewarded for landing it because it’s not something everyone can do. I’m fine with easier options existing, but not being essentially the ONLY option.

If you have any sort of corruption now you should be able to crush any Rifle Berserker now. Force the Berserker’s Stance, corrupt, pile on the condis.

If you don’t wanna go down that path that’s your choice, but now Necros/Reapers are back to almost hardcountering many Warrior builds.

Here’s a place to post your new ideas for builds!

I was really disappointed to find that the combination of King of Fires and Powerful Synergy actually have more anti-synergy than synergy. The idea of being able to have near constant fire auras is a cool concept but right now it doesn’t seem to work. Maybe have newly applied fire fields explode when a new one is applied?

I really, really want to make use of Rousing Resilience, but it seems like Last Stand and Cleansing Ire still outclass it. The synergy it has with Headbutt, Outrage, and Savage Instinct is cool, but not at the cost of those other traits.

While Thieves are strong now, I can literally one shot them consistently with any build like this.
Sure, once your stances are gone, so is your sustain, but Thieves and Reapers are way less threatening if you can kill them before they even get to hurt you. Also, you got another evade now that also immobs which lets you combo it with Aimed shot for a long duration cripple. I’m messing around with Mending, mostly because it makes Resotritive Strength more useful and you can remove condis while they are allpied while using Berserker Stance. It’s also fun to play, which is better than what you can say for most Warrior builds. You’re basically a tactical nuke and once you enter Berserk and use Signet of Might and Berserker Stance the only way to not eat a big hit is if you dodge it, and now the new Crack Shot spits out so much adrenaline that you’ll have another Gun Flame ready instantly anyways. I’m also going to mess around with a version with more sustain, but I feel like the loss of Unblockable isn’t worth a little more sustain.

Maaaaybe we’ll see some sort of resurgence of Shout War…but probably not. Maybe if you take War Banner it’ll see more use because of the res nerfs.

Axe/Shield + X just seems like the melee version of Rifle but with way less killing power since Decapitate isn’t that impressive. Not bad, but is the shield worth losing Gun Flame over?

I would take Outrage over Balanced Stance personally. You kind of WANT to eat some CC so you can get the toughness. It also means you will almost always be able to combo it with the self stun from Headbutt.

It would let you take Smash Brawler as well.

Also, probably a Sigil of Intelligence on Axe.

This has its own problems, because the Stability does cover your heal, but it’s all about tradeoffs.

EDIT: I also think that in an organized team they’d probably want War Banner because of the res nerfs.

YOLO Rifle can one shot some builds and has good damage, but once you use your your sustain is still unimpressive. We might be nice carries in lower level PvP but we still lack team support.

Most buffs can be summed up as “that’s nice…I guess.”

I keep trying to make use of Rousing Resilence, but because it competes with 2 of the best traits Warrior has.

It’s not a bad trait, but its location makes it undesirable. Maybe lower the bonus toughness and swap it for a Master trait? Merciless Hammer could do with the same.

Warrior does NOT need Protection or Superspeed. What Warrior needs are:

1: More active defenses. Warrior sustain is so bad because defenses like Stances are only strong in the short term. Once they run out, your goose is cooked. In this thread I put forth ideas that I feel are faithful to both the current and GW1 Warrior spirit, but should make the Warrior simple to play but hard to master.

2: More reliable gap closers. This is a problem with many non-teleport gap closers. If they were more reliable staying in melee range wouldn’t be so difficult.

3: Ways to counter specific condis. The biggest one being blind. Most burst skills are easy enough to avoid as is without the high number of blinds that are being thrown around in team fights.

4: Offensive team support. Making the bottom line of traits on the Zerker line apply to allies would make it much more attractive to a team. I write about this idea here.

I don’t want Warrior becoming a Scrapper, I want a class that has a higher skill ceiling so that it can compete at the highest level, but because the player is good, not because their build carries them.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Jzaku.9765:

Ross Biddle.2367:

online.1278:

Ross Biddle.2367:

I thought we went over this. Engie only has medium armor.

Medium armor has nothing to do with the problem since any warrior build with hammer can’t win scrapper build. if we would be able to fight aginst them evenly with our hammer, i wouldn’t say this tho. (cuz currently war sucks than scrapper generally)

Need I point out… medium hp’s.

I’m not entirely sure how anyone with an ounce of brain power can say this kind of thing unironically when the 2 most survivable builds, in the current meta even, are Tempest and Chrono who both have Light Armour and Lowest/Medium HP respectively

You seem like an intelligent fellow.

Evidently, brain power cannot always account for wit

Good day!

In all fairness, Armor and HP amount is nowhere near as important as having access to protection and damage reducing traits, which Engi has in spades. It also has good healing overall AND with Hammer blocks and reflects.

The only reason Engi Hammer hits so hard is because PvE players complained that it would be useless if the damage was low. Clearly they went overboard because at best it should be comparable with rifle (if they sit in the AoE), not exceeding it.

I say this as someone who is only not a Engi main because my full Ascended set is on Warrior.

Fluffball.8307:

Why even bother defending a point if it’s literally impossible to hold it?

I feel like this just leads to 5 v 5 on every single node. That’s what you did in alliance battles, you never left your team.

Really? Because I remember the side that won typically didn’t Zerg and capped undefended points.

Zerging would be one strategy, another would be having some bruisers that die slow so that your roamer can go decap. In fact, if the enemy team insists on zerging then you can just avoid them and split into 2 groups and cap wherever they aren’t.

While individual class balance does affect the game, the mechanics behind Conquest itself also play a major roll.

The fact that one player can totally deny the cap of 2 or more of the enemy team is the major reason why bunkers are as powerful as they are. Now, if that one bunker could only slow the cap instead of outright denying it, the whole dynamic would change. Going full bunker would be much less rewarding, and it would in theory break up fights, which would help with spectating the game as well.

If a side with 2 players is able to cap a point with one enemy play at say, half the speed then you would see a much greater variety of builds so long as traits allow for it. The current design encourages a very small number of strategies which makes the meta even more powerful.

Class balance is important, but I feel like game mode balance is equally important.

As a add on, the points are also so small which makes things even more chaotic. In addition, the points themselves are also devoid of any terrain decorations on the points. Graveyard would be way cool with actual tombstones and the like to take cover behind, maybe even have them be destructible.

Simeonus.9237:

I hope they remove burning from Rifle’s F1 and increase direct damage. Who the hell need 3 stacks of burning with zerker gear?

It’s actually fairly nice on hybrid builds.

I’m pretty disappointed that all we’re getting is a slight revert to Healing Signet and just a numbers buff to “To the Limit,” rather than functionality changes. While these suggestions might not be optimal, they generally draw from mechanics already in the game and thus would be easier to implement than something totally new.

Healing Signet: Greatly reduce the passive heal. Activating the Signet pulses healing like Troll Unguent. Maybe keep the Resistance just so that it isn’t hardcountered by poison (Rangers have easy ways to deal with it with Evasive Purity). To differentiate it, maybe have it pulse for more healing per second but for a shorter duration. The overall healing per second should be about the same to the soon-to-be-un-nerfed HS, but this version would be more skill based and more importantly gives more power to the player. It would also let Warriors use Runes that have effects that activate on heal use and makes Restorative Strength more useful.

“To the Limit!”: having this heal fill your Adrenaline seems to clash with the fact that Vigorous Shouts already gives you Adren on Shout use. Why not remove that and make it give more AoE Endurance than it currently does? It’s less selfish and helps you avoid damage in addition to healing. The currently proposed healing increase seems good as is.

Mending: Make it a Physical Skill. When traited that means it will have a 16 second CD. If you wanted to do something interesting, maybe lower the base heal but make it be effected the “damage boost” based on Adrenaline level but make it heal more based on that level. it would have to have the base lowered because a 8kish heal on a 16 sec CD is a bit nuts.

Defiant Stance: While they removed instant cast from Facet of Light, this heal will be the only one a Warrior will be bringing if they use it so I think it does deserve to be instant. Either that, or at least up the initial heal a little bit.

Blood Reckoning: This seems like no matter what you do it might not be good, but I do like the idea of it increasing Crit Chance. Keep that, but since Berserker is heavily focused around being hybrid, it should heal for a % of condition damage too. A longer duration (8 seconds?) wouldn’t hurt either. Not sure if that would be OP in PvE though.

I’m not sure if any devs are actively checking this class forum, but if they are, many of us are sick of being tied to the same healing skill no matter what build we have. “To The Limit” might see some use, but the fact that skills like Mending have been useless since practically launch is just crazy to me.

ScionKai.4907:

I think he made an apothecary rifle, at least he said he did. So probably using a bad build.

I wish they would run a tighter show instead of what we have now. It feels like watching 1990’s public access TV or something.

If they had the builds ready that would make things smoother for segments like this. They really need to be more scripted because they seem very uncomfortable ad libbing and it is super awkward to watch. I bet if they learned to use a teleprompter it would improve the show drastically and make it more enjoyable for the hosts and the viewers.

I didn’t watch but if they were doing everything live that seems like a poor way of doing things. Having pre-recorded clips like the HoT previews was better imo, that being said they need to have clips with 2 people using decent builds to show stuff rather than moose. They always came off as underprepared even with prepared stuff and I eventually just waited for a write up.

Warlord.9074:

Juba.8406:

Spartacus.3192:

To The Limit heal increased 40%

Ya it heals for 9k now lol

lol no it heald for 9k below 1 bar of adrin. thats as much as it healed for before with full adrin and how it sacaled with adrin before hot. . So it heals for 9k Base now which sounds small but that is realistically better than it healed for before HoT as you need full adrin to heal for those numbers. Its a buff.

With Vigorous Shouts it’ll be 10k.

It’s still odd to me that they make it fill adrenaline, with Vigorous Shouts you already get a decent amount so this just overlaps. I’d rather have it give more AoE Endurance, that gives you damage mitigation that helps your whole team too.

Maybe we’ll see something come out with Sage ammy?

Ross Biddle.2367:

Talonblaze.3175:

As a primary rifle user, I have to say that the changes are up and down.

The lack of ALL attacks not piercing, including auto bothers me a tad. It was one of the perks to using Crack Shot. Being able to hit multiple enemies even whilst skills were on cooldown at least made it somewhat usable imo.

As for the Brutal Shot change, will have to see how that fares. More defensive skills for rifle aren’t bad, but I worry about it being an annoyance. However, I would have hoped they’d have improved Rifle Butt instead, which I think the roll would have been better suited for. Not to mention a fix to its rather finicky hitting.

Adrenaline gain never really was much of an issue for me on rifle, especially with the vuln change prior to grant extra ticks.

I’d of asked for protection on Rifle Butt, so it had use both in melee and at range.

If they wanted to be sticklers, then the boon can proc on hit. Lose the range benefit, but at least you have to be skillfull to land it, and get something if the target has stabos and is in your face.

They’ll probably never give Warrior protection, it’s one of the few class philosophies they’ve managed to stick with since launch.

These changes aren’t bad per-say, they’re just not really going to change much about Warrior play. They once again buffed our PASSIVE sustain instead of giving us more control over our character. Having a movement skill on rifle is what I would rather see more of, limited sustain that requires player timing to be effective.

The “To the Limit” buff isn’t that big of a deal if the other Shouts healing remain weak. That being said, maybe we could see an offensive support Shout War.

I’ve always liked rifle, so buffs to it are great with me.