Guild Wars 2

My only real issue with this skill is that sometimes the pathfinding on it is unreliable.

Even with the self stun, it is a 2 second stun on a 20 second CD that can crit for high numbers and if you DO have traits like EC or just Outrage it’s a 3 second CD. That’s a free 100b right there.

it also fills your adrenaline so you can instantly go Berserk, if you have Savage Instinct that makes you break the stun as well. With a rifle that means a free Gun Flame or Decapitate or Arc Divider.

If they make it more consistent, it’s a pretty solid elite, I think it needs that downside to be balanced.

SlayerSixx.5763:

You cant CC him. It goes against anime logic to interrupt your enemy as he’s calling his attack’s name out.

Oh, right. You gotta wait for the attack, it’s only polite.

Also, when using the GS and using Whirlwind Attack or Rush the enemy will say “He’s Fast!”

I’m pretty sure I can guess, but can I get a build link?

Also, now show all the times you got blinded/blocked/dodged/reflected/CC’d/condi’d.

So, I’ve been doing a lot of theorycrafting and so far I’ve come to the following conclusions:

• Berserker “works” best if you ditch Discipline. It hurts, but otherwise you lose out on either sustain or DPS to take the Spec.

• I don’t see much reason to run Power Berserker. You could do Berserker – Defense – Strength, but I feel like the traditional Str-Def-Dis is just better.

I feel ashamed, I normally try to be at least a little creative with my builds, but what I’ve come up with isn’t that creative at all.

Shoutzerker

Yup, it’s basically Shoutbow + Berserker. That being said, there are some unique things about this build that differentiates it from normal Shoutbow.

• It has 3 Stun Breaks, which synergizes well with Rousing Resilience

• Burning Arrows is actually surprisingly good on this. Just with Dual Shot and Fan of Fire you can have a surprisingly good burn uptime.

• If you use “Fear me” and Scorched Earth together you’ll force them to run through all of field which can be very painful. Use Pin down right at the end of the fear and you got a fairly deadly combo.

• If you’re fighting at range you can use Flames of War and then swap to LB and just pew pew away and get the occasional double proc of burn.

Not having Discipline does hurt, but you can actually camp LB and it won’t hurt so bad.

I’m still messing with amulets and sigils, it’s weird not building around a 5 second weapon swap. You also lack Swiftness, but your mobility is still OK due to sword. You could make some changes to the build like adding a Warhorn and Signet of Rage.

I’m not happy about it, but if you wanna be a Berserker and be of use on a team, this is the best I can come up with.

The biggest issues I have with Berserker are the design of the Berserk mode itself and the lack of real utility on most Rage skills.

I would make Berserk something like this:

• You no longer have normal burst skills.

• Berserk has no CD, still needs full adren to activate. Maybe require more adren than currently?

• When you go Berserk, you get access to Primal Bursts. Using them drains a percentage of your Berserk bar. Landing a Primal Burst refunds some of that adrenaline. Adrenaline SLOWLY drains while going Berserk. Bursts like LB will need to hit something to refund that adrenaline.

• A good Berserker who lands their bursts will stay Berserk, missing is punished.

As for the Rage skills:

Sundering Leap: Make this skill able to leap up certain Z-axis spots. That utility is often times more valuable than any Endure Pain. Evades while using. If it can’t be made to leap up Z-axis then reduce the CD fairly significantly.

Shattering Blow: It would be cool to have this skill last longer and have an animation that has you stomping the ground and smashing the rocks for around 3 seconds while reflecting. If not maybe have it root you and block from the front for a longer time.

Wild Blow: Just needs usability changes I think. Try 300 range and see how that works. Maybe try unblockable? Taking an offensive utility is a big sacrifice for a Warrior and the animation is long enough that you can counter it in many different other ways.

Outrage: Fine as is.

Head Butt: Solid Skill, but the range still feels wonky. 300 might be too much but 180 is barely melee range and it just feels weird.

Blood Reckoning: Dear lord is this heal bad. The increased crit chance idea is cool, but it still doesn’t heal for much even if you land a bunch of hits. Warrior doesn’t have a pulsing heal like Troll Ungent. Maybe make it pulse fewer times and keep the crits healing you and crit chance aspect but tone down the current bonuses as needed.

Berserker Traits:

A lot of numbers may need to be looked at with my proposed functionality changes to the Berserk form, but none seem too overpowering remaining as is.

Smash Brawler: Berserk wouldn’t have a CD so this would lose half of it’s current use, maybe try making Primal Bursts remove blind?

Dead or Alive: This trait seems like one of those where it’s either too weak or too strong. The amount it heals you for isn’t that great, but any higher might be too much.

Eternal Champion: Might be too good with my suggested changes. It would be cool to see a break bar on this and tweak to where you can resist a few CCs but not be almost immune to them for a potentially long time.

Now for the “fun” part, base Warrior.

Building Momentum: Gives a pathetic amount of adrenaline. Imo it was fine pre-“fix.”

Distracting Strikes: Some cool synergy with the Mace Primal Burst, but in the pre-spec patch preview it also gave Might, I think that would make it more worthy of a GM spot.

Thick Skin: I agree with the idea of bringing back Turtle’s Defense.

Inspiring Banners: Bringing back the CD reduction would be a good start. I would almost say swap it’s position with Burning Arrows because if Shouts ever get reverted to their old heal values War might become a bit too tanky.

Fast Hands: Needs to be baseline. You can argue all you want that other classes have 10 second weapons swaps, but they also have other class mechanics and weapon CDs that justify it. Warrior weapons are designed around rapidly swapping. Other classes suffer from mandatory lines, we know, but don’t get mad at Warriors for wanting to get the same treatment Mesmers did with IP.

Well, there you have it. The current War/Zerker has made me really regret having ever picked War as a main. It’s been a emotional rollercoaster of buffs and nerfs. It feels like the designer of Berserker didn’t have much love for it. I put a lot of work into Burr and now I just sigh when I play him on Zerker.

Let me begin by saying that I do have a Necro and I have played him a decent amount, but I have never really found the class that interesting, until now. Now however, I’m starting to seriously regret all my time spent as a Warrior and Engineer. Now, Scrapper isn’t bad, but the best builds I have found are basically either a mixing of old metas or revolves around using boring utilities. The only Gyro really worth using is Bulwark. Sneak isn’t bad but can be really kitten y, as can all the others. I basically just feel like Engi + Hammer, it doesn’t change how I play. Berserker is…well I could write pages (and have) on the problems with that Spec.

Reaper may not be the best elite spec, but man does it really change how you play. Not only that, it offers some fun new build options that feel totally new. You can go full on into Chill, make a new version of a Minion Master, or just go pure damage. Reaper Shroud makes old traits work in new and interesting ways.

Reaper is what I think all the Elite specs should have been conceptually. It offers a new way to play with plenty of synergy with old traits. Some specs have 1 of these things, but Reaper makes me think I’m a new class rather than the base class + a few things. Things need tweaking no doubt, but there’s way more potential there than on something like Berserker.

I would say have the evade be during the leaps, but in between leaps you are vulnerable to CC as a counter. The evade is so short currently that Perfectly Weighted is a bit underwhelming. I also agree that the aftercast is still too long.

The toolbelt skill on the Blast Gyro is now a Stun Break, so it’s much more useful than before. You can also use that skill out of combat to speed up NPCs and the Blast Gyro itself is good for break bars.

The Heal Gyro Toolbelt is also incredibly good with Rocket Charge. You get 3 heals out of it and it applies protection. The Heal Gyro itself is also instant and can be used while CC’d and detonating it is fairly damaging and is a daze.

The only really bad thing about Gyros are that they’re still very stoopid AI wise.

While fairly useful at times in PvP, in PvE the Function Gyro is almost worthless. In a Zerg it’s very hard to click on a downed ally, and I haven’t seen any enemies that need stomping. This has been stated hundreds of times, that being said I still like the concept.

I personally don’t want to see the FG become a F6, that’s just too many dang buttons. The simplest solution to me would be to give the FG a passive when you aren’t using it, kinda like a signet. Maybe granting you Super Speed occasionally while in combat?

Maybe a passive is a bit boring though…what about triggering on a specific action such as an interrupt? There’s already a bunch of new sigils focused around interrupts and outside of P/P every Engi weapon has some form of CC and many kits do as well.

Either of these options would give the FG at least some use in PvE and probably wouldn’t make them too strong in PvP.

If you’re running FT + Elixirs or Gyros you can afford to spend the time in between using your main weapon in FT to stack Might. I stay in it until Overcharged Shot if off CD and then quick swap to rifle and do a whole combo. You won’t knock yourself back and you can follow up with Net Shot + Blunderbuss + Jump Shot then swap back to FT and use Air Blast (after Jump Shot is normally when players will be able to use skills again and this will catch heals often) and a Flame Blast which will deal crazy damage.

The synergy with Scrapper is also really strong. With just Jugg and Mass Momentum with +Might Duration runes you can get around 16 Stacks of Might from just being in FT.

On several PvP maps, having access to abilities that allow you to jump up the Z-axis can be enormously powerful. Skills such as Infiltrator’s Arrow, Lightning Flash, Blink, etc. are generally far more valuable than a standard leap or running skill.

You can argue that the only reason Thief sees as much use as it does is due to its access to IA. Now, before you call me a Thief hater, I am not focusing on any particular skill or class, what I am focusing on is the ability to ignore the Z-axis in general. As cool as the mechanic is, I’m not sure that it’s good for the game. Maybe I’m mistaken but it seems like the maps were not designed with this mechanic in mind.

I would argue that other specs such as GS Warrior/Ranger would be more appealing if the ability to ignore the Z-axis didn’t exist. Another option would be to add the ability to classes that don’t have it. They don’t all have to be able to teleport to the top of bridges but they could at least leap up a few ledges (if that’s technically possible). Some examples could be Sundering Leap on Berserker, Ancesteral Grace on Druid Staff, and Jump Shot on Engi. This would give more classes the ability to back cap or deny back caps.

Either option would make PvP more interesting in my opinion. Interested to see how wrong everyone thinks I am. :P

I would say that instead of class you should focus on specific builds instead. For example, a FT HGH Engi is pretty strong but not that hard to play. However, a Static Discharge Engi can be one of the hardest builds to run and do well with since much of its sustain is based around blasting your water fields and it’s not great against heavy burst and there are many ways to counter the Discharges.

Most classes have at least one hard to play build (that is also at least somewhat viable) and then a build that practically plays itself.

I did a write-up here focusing specifically on the design of the Berserk form. I was going to write it here but it ended up being long enough that I figured it warranted its own post because of how specific it was.

I wanted to add that recently I have finished map completion on my Engi and have started considering making that my main and letting my Warrior fall to the wayside. I really love the concept of Warrior…but right now Scrapper will appear to offer the type of playstyle I actually wanted from Warrior.

I’ll be able to run this build here and be a big, scary melee bruiser that also has good team support. The Elite spec has some major problems, but the core concept is strong enough that it’s starting to look like it’s time to make the switch.

Berserker just isn’t what i was looking for. The concepts behind it seem confused and run counter to what I expected elite specs to be after seeing the Reaper. In fact, I’m certainly going to be trying out Reaper, it’s just that my Engi was never too far behind my Warrior but my Necro doesn’t have as much cash/money sunk into it…yet. Reaper is a great example of what a good elite spec is, it significantly changes how you play the class.

Anyways, I really hope that a few patches after HoT comes out Berserker might bring me back to Warrior…but as it stands base Warrior has gotten stale and berserker doesn’t offer anything that truly excited me like Scrapper does (dat hammer though).

EdwinLi.1284:

Don’t forget the part that Medic Gyro can be activated even when you’re stunned or knocked down.

great for that “Oh **** my stun break is down and I need heal but I’m currently stunned/knocked down” Pop Medic Gyro “All better now.”

There’s also the fact that you can use Reconstruction Field on the move AND it provides Protection. You can’t easily account for the amount of damage that Protection may negate but it can be potentially high. Also if you time it right and have a Flamethrower you can get FOUR Healing blasts.

The turret can also be used as a daze if you detonate it as it starts getting low.

I don’t think you can mathematically quantify which is better.

The potential issue I see with Gyros being invulnerable is that there’s a lack of counterplay.

Perhaps make them immune to damage but susceptible to CC and change Stabilization Core to include all Gyros? Perhaps CCing a Gyro drains a second of their “Fuel?” It’s still iffy on a PvP/WvW PoV but it would make them much more useful for PvE.

lorddarkflare.9186:

Frenk.5917:

ANort.1425:

They really weren’t thinking when they gave engi a trait for +25% stun duration when engi only has access to 2 stuns, hammer 5 and Supply Crate

This

I concur as well. I expect the trait to be one of the first things Irenio fixes.

It makes no sense, but we have known that since the PoI.

Decisive Renown is also pretty underwhelming as well. It’s one of those minors that you barely notice. It’s also just kind of boring. Warrior Tactics minors have the same issue.

Currently, half of the blame resides with the design of the Berserker and the other half lies with the base Warrior. It’s hard to build a good house on sand.

The Issues with Berserker:

The trait line isn’t bad, but it brings nothing that makes it worth taking over Strength (Arms in some condi builds), Defense, or Discipline.

Rage Skills are basically just a different breed of Physical skills.

As a result they will not generally be used for exactly the same reason. I don’t LIKE using stances, but not using them means you’re a poor Warrior unless you’re playing Shoutbow. I can see Reaper being used on a team because while it can be very selfish it does some very useful things like AoE Chill and boon stripping. What do Rage skills bring to your team? A (very) brief reflect.

Now the obvious exception is Outrage. It has good synergy with Rousing Resilience…but you’ll still probably just see people bring Last Stand. Oh, and I’m pretty sure Savage Instinct isn’t triggering RR even though I’m pretty sure it should. Head Butt isn’t bad….but feels really clunky and inconsistent.

A focus on condi when now many, many, many specs have a plethora of removal/negation options.

Applying a good amount of Burn means bringing Rage Skills, which means you’ll have much less sustain. Now, you can go for just a moderate amount of burning but I was under the impression that the theme was supposed to be “everything is on fire all the time!” with the differentiation to Burn Guards being that the Guard is more about burst burning while Berserker is about sustained burn.

The design of the Berserk Mode itself.

I’m assuming that in an effort to differentiate Berserk from Death/Reaper Shroud the Devs gave the form a CD. However, this does not only make me not feel like a Berserker, but it also hurts it mechanically as well. When you aren’t in Berserk mode you feel weak. The CD also means you probably won’t see any Berserkers in organized PvE either.

Now, if Shroud is an ability that is a bit slower to gain but lasts a long time, why not make Berserk easy to enter but harder to maintain? Make us have to constantly smack enemies to stay angry but if they pull a invuln/chain blocks etc. you just have to get full adrenaline aging rather than sitting around waiting for the form to come off CD and not using your class mechanic cause you wanna make sure you can enter the form when it’s off CD.

The Issues of the Base Warrior:

Like several classes, Warrior is almost required to run certain specs depending on the game mode. However, many of those classes are just tied to a single spec, Warrior is tied to two. In fact, depending on what kind of build you’re going for your other spec is often decided for you as well.

No Defense? Have fun melting to even a small amount of condi pressure once your Berserker Stance wears off.

No Discipline? Enjoy 10 second weapon swaps on weapons clearly designed around rapidly swapping. No Warrior’s Sprint also means you’ll be a breeze to kite.

Going Power w/o Strength? Enjoy dealing much less damage and losing out of your GS trait (you’re probably using GS). Oh, and if you want to make a condi build using CC weapons you need this as well for Body Blow and Distracting Strikes.

Going Condi (in base War why would you though?) without Arms? You now have much lower condi application

While in theory having Strength and Arms decided for you depending on what type of damage you want to do is fine, being forced into Defense and Discipline is not.

Warrior is great for stomping noobs, but someone with any sort of knowledge about the class will just easily squash you unless they majorly screw up.

I’m totally cool with Shouts and Stances being there for new players, but just because the class is designed around mechanical simplicity doesn’t mean it can’t offer a bit more for veteran players.

Looping back around to Rage skills, why can’t sundering Leap be the Warrior version of Blink/Flash? Obviously you can’t make it work on all ledges/bridges but being able to chase after classes that can reach them would go a long way. Shattering Blow is just…there. A Warrior with a shield and/or mace has a lot of reflect already and the duration is too short to be reliably timed (It can also randomly swing you the opposite way of your target). Being able to move while constantly punching rocks (not “summoning”) like the Dragon Hunters’ block only with reflect would at least add a bit of team utility.

Being able to have a bit of nuanced sustain that involves positioning and timing and is also VIABLE would open a ton of options.

One last thing I’m going back and forth on, while many agree that Fast Hands needs to be baseline, I’m starting to think that the movement speed increase with melee weapons needs to be baseline as well.

Why? Even with baseline Fast hands you become very, very easy to kite. Warrior’s Sprint could still be a trait…maybe make it remove Chill and Slow as well? Warrior is a class focused on melee combat, sure we have ranged options but they’re almost never the main focus of a build. Right now, Reapers and Scrappers feel more like Warriors than Warriors in terms of melee sustain.

This was a longwinded rant I know, but I’m just so utterly disappointed by Berserker that I want to get all my thoughts out.

In addition to this, it would be nice to eventually see some of the difficulty of the earlier betas of the main game return as well. Enemy AI used to be at least somewhat intelligent but for three years now we’ve mostly fought enemies that blindly charge you and maybe use one or 2 skills.

Being a “casual” MMO does not mean that it have to be skill-less to play. I would much rather have a game where the content is challenging due to smart enemies and mechanics with minimal gear grind.

Are.1326:

Ice.5162:

Surprise Shot has no cast time, and with its lower cooldown you can dish out the same amount of DPS.

You can also combine the rifle turret for an extra interrupt / blast finisher (which also triggers a static discharge, meaning rifle turret gives you two of them).

By far the instant cast time, you can cast it while channeling other spells. It is very significant.

Generally this is true, but the build we talk about don’t go explosives so the interupt won’t be there. With Expert Examination triggering of Launch Personal Battering Ram I think its benefits outweight Suprice Shot in this specific build. You get a launch on short cooldown in the utility slot and a daze + weakness + 5x vulnerability + cripple + superiour dmg on the toolbelt. With the CC found on Hammer ( #5 followed by #3) you get all the time you need to chain up both the launch and the daze.

Also, the shorter cooldown on Suprice Shot does not outweight the extra dmg on Launch Personal Batterig Ram. Tested them side by side on the same enemy. LPBR critted for 3819 while Suprice shot critted for 2497.

Rifle Turret can also be used as a extra blast finisher + knock back with Healing Turret. The damage from the detonation isn’t something to be sneezed at. Also, Surprise Shot is much faster than the Battering Ram.

The REAL issue is that many toolbelt skills don’t properly work with Static Discharge. Fix the targeting issues and you could use a Gyro or 2 in your build which would get you some sustain.

Notable Issues:

• Gyro Movement in general is terrible. The Function Gyro gets confused easily and this makes it all but pointless. It also has very low health.

• The Stealth Gyro tries to “attack” enemies and in generally does terribly at keeping up with the player.

• Shredder Gyro seems pretty worthless because it dies fast if placed on a enemy in PvE and in PvP you can just not stand near it. I don’t think it would be OP if it followed the player and spun around.

• There’s no stun break on any Gyro. At first I thought the decent access to Stability would be good enough but it isn’t. Maybe have it on the Purge Gyro?

• Speaking of the Purge Gyro, it seems to get confused and not actually remove conditions as often as it should.

• Hammer overall is good, but sometimes skill 3 can leap in odd ways and miss for no real reason.

It is a tad slow, but can also be traited to reflect and when it does hit it’s really paninful. It can hit 3-5k on a low CD.

I’m still of the opinion that Axe is a much weaker weapon than Mace. You can take advantage of the reflect trait with it and the Counterblow itself hits hard. The Pommel bash can interrupt heals which is way better than a unreliable cripple. The AA also has weakness on it which is good for damage mitigation. Also there’s the fact that it can set up a spoke for your entire team or bait out all the countermeasures.

I have been playing a lot of Engi and it is true that some builds are difficult just because unlike other classes War can land a series of hard hitting attacks which unless you’re really focused on mitigating power you can find yourself on very low health from just a couple of hits. I’m great vs normal levels of sustained damage though.

I run a FT and Elixirs build and while I can beat Wars 1v1 getting blindsided or getting hit by just 1 combo is dangerous. Your standard Soldier with Nades and Tool kit should do fine though.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Sagat.3285:

Since it’s in the same tier as CI I support this +1.

aye thanks for the support!

Zuik.7158:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

“Remove a condition, gain toughness and health when you activate a stun break.”

I see what you did there…

eheheheh that’s the whole idea.

“Oh my, what in the world happened to your blind!?”

Actually, instead of just making it cleanse a condition, why not make it focus on removing blind?

That would give it a flavor of its own while still keeping it good.

Honestly, that’s probably how Warrior condi removal should have always worked, have a few ways to remove the most harmful condis like Immob and Blind but having to heavily spec in order to just removal random condis.

given that conditions are removed randomly now, removing blind first would be good!

and,
http://dulfy.net/2015/09/26/gw2-twitchcon-skill-balance-update-preview/

Warrior
Rousing Resilience is getting a huge % buff (130% buff).

hopefully, we get some nice buff this time.

making it remove condition and activate upon using a stun breaker would be really, really nice and a nice alternative to the only really feasible with combustive shot cleansing ire.

Since that post I would actually be more interested in a baseline Fast Hands and replacing the trait with a minor that makes Burst skills remove Blind on a 14 or so second CD.

hmmm burst skills remove blind before landing burst, no icd.

much better.

Yes of course before the burst. It would be better with no ICD, but not balanced. It would make combinations involving Burst Mastery and Arcing Slice too strong, not to mention Berserker bursts having such low CDs.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Sagat.3285:

Since it’s in the same tier as CI I support this +1.

aye thanks for the support!

Zuik.7158:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

“Remove a condition, gain toughness and health when you activate a stun break.”

I see what you did there…

eheheheh that’s the whole idea.

“Oh my, what in the world happened to your blind!?”

Actually, instead of just making it cleanse a condition, why not make it focus on removing blind?

That would give it a flavor of its own while still keeping it good.

Honestly, that’s probably how Warrior condi removal should have always worked, have a few ways to remove the most harmful condis like Immob and Blind but having to heavily spec in order to just removal random condis.

given that conditions are removed randomly now, removing blind first would be good!

and,
http://dulfy.net/2015/09/26/gw2-twitchcon-skill-balance-update-preview/

Warrior
Rousing Resilience is getting a huge % buff (130% buff).

hopefully, we get some nice buff this time.

making it remove condition and activate upon using a stun breaker would be really, really nice and a nice alternative to the only really feasible with combustive shot cleansing ire.

Since that post I would actually be more interested in a baseline Fast Hands and replacing the trait with a minor that makes Burst skills remove Blind on a 14 or so second CD.

Zenith.7301:

What would be the point of Rampage if it can’t be a flat out better version of the necromancer’s now nerfed Lich form?

Don’t break the trend. Healing Signet> Signet of Vampirism. Rampage>Lich.

What fun is there in being a warrior if you can’t have better things than a necro.

;)

You do realize that Necro is now in a much better spot than Warrior now right? Just cause a class can beat you 1v1 doesn’t make the class better for TEAM PvP.

Quadox.7834:

Jurica.1742:

IMO CS is nowhere near OP. You basically have stun on diversion which is a 40s CD. By that logic necro ds 3 is super super super OP because its better than a stun and on a shorter cooldown. PU I agree with and Blinding Disippation I don’t. You basically have only 2 blinds. Mind wrack and CoF, using distort and diversion for blind is just stupid + you need to be close range. This all with PU is a bit over the top but once chrono becomes meta it will be needed for mesmer to function properly and everyone will see that CS and BD are not OP.
So CS and BD crying is invalid, PU crying I support.

Im scared of stating my opinion because of forum warriors (not you), but i think Confounding suggestions is not overpowered, rather it makes mesmer too ez. I think this is what OP meant as well, and other in this thread. (plsdon’tkillmepeople)

Yes, that was my general point.

I was a very “meh” Mesmer prepatch but post patch I was surviving engagements I had no right to just because I could panic spam abilities and shatters to blind and then set up a easy spike that was all but unavoidable.

This thread is from before multiple bug fixes which had Mantras on low CDs and it was very easy to just be consistently putting out stuns.

Even now it’s still a easy way to land spikes and Blinding Dissipation can help you survive in situations you probably shouldn’t have. I think we just see less Mesmers now because D/D is much more broken and players perspective changed. Now the setup is just great as opposed to absurd. I still can’t go back to my Mes because I just don’t feel skillful doing well on it anymore. I was aspiring to master the mechanics to bring out the classes power, now traits can do that for me. Even if I don’t do that I think the class has been forever tainted by the mantra bug and a few traits.

I was so hoping for a off-meta interrupt build too…

zaxon.6819:

Burrtheking how many seconds is that total for a fight.. to be immune to something.

the cooldown dosent matter if it can be chained for a good percentage of each fight..

we know that fights arent non stop and when you engage your new targets you ususally have the cooldowns back from the last fight.

That’s still not “spamming.” Spamming is using the same skill repeatedly in a short period of time.

Also, if you focus the War and force a Zerker Stance and EP pop then the number is dramatically lower. Rampage is easily blinded, can big and obvious tells, and 2 classes can bring Moa to totally shut it down. Necros can also corrupt the stability. I have faced other Wars 1v1 without me using Rampage and beat the Warrior using it because it’s so predictable. I can generally do this on most classes unless it’s a really squishy buld or I get caught with no CDs.

Gav.1425:

All warriors have? Or all warriors need? I don’t know if you’ve faced a good warrior lately, but they can spam invulns to condi, to damage, and when all that’s down, it’s time to roll face rampage.

I play everything I a know what’s broken when I play it. I can roll a Rampage warrior and mash my feet on the keyboard for tournament wins.

Go solo queue and tell me who wins a team fight with one or two rampaged in the mix.

Spam immunities? Berserker Stance is 60 seconds, same thing with Endure Pain, and the trait Defy Pain also has a 60 seconds ICD. How is that in any way spam? The Warrior is also super weak once those stances are on CD. That’s probably why Rousing Resilience is getting a healing buff and shield skills are getting a CD. It’ll hopefully offer sustain that isn’t Stance Dependent.

I don’t believe I’m alone in disliking the concept behind Gyros and Spirit Weapons because they don’t feel like you as the player are in real control of them. They have minds of their own, and those minds are not too sharp. Having Gyros and Spirit Weapons be an extension of the player would give the player a sense of control and make them much more useful in general.

I’m going to be focusing on Gyros from here on but many of the concepts can be applied to spirit weapons.

• Gyros stick to the Scrapper like glue. They only leave the players side if their active abilities require it, after completing the action they will quickly return to the players side. Gyros are not targetable or destructible. The bomb Gyro will of course still blow itself up.

• The self destruct skill is replaced with another active skill. In many cases it could just be their current skill but reduced in effectiveness because now they can’t be destroyed. Bulwark takes a % of the damage but maybe a lower % or a longer CD. The whirl Gyro doesn’t spin for as long but is mobile.

• The toolbelt skills are generally find as is. The heal Gyro might need a more useful skill.

• The trait that gives a field on destruction now produces the field on active skill use, maybe with a bit of a ICD to avoid spam.

EDIT:

• Function Gyros can be used with more interactable objects such as gathering nodes. The function Gyros can still be damaged and destroyed but fly from the Engi to the target and have a lower ICD.

I believe these changes would make the player feel like their more in control while still having the cool theme. Spirit weapons would lose out on toolbelt skills but would have auto attacks instead.

I use a human with a mix of Magiteck and Scarlet armor with the Mystic or the Inquest weapons. Asura are too darn small to really appreciate the cool factor of the aesthetic imo. There’s also the fact that human armor tends to have much less clipping and is just better modeled on average. Everyone else is going for steampunk looking hammers while I’ll just be using mystic/inquest. It’s not a super original look but it looks good and I actually like trench coats.

I do kinda regret not making a Charr sometimes especially since some of the racial skills are great for a SD Engi. That being said, the tail and horn clipping can be really annoying and obvious. Only a handful of armors actually look cool on Charr imo.

In addition to the 130% healing buff, don’t forget that you don’t actually currently have to break an actual stun to get the effect atm. I had it trigger on dazes, knock downs, etc. Heck, I would use Headbutt offensively and get the effect.

That being said, when traded with Savage Instinct I don’t think it ever triggered RR which might be a bug. If it’s made to work with RR that’s 3+ ways of procing it which if my math is correct it’ll be healing for around 2,530 with no healing power. That’s no joke.

I could actually see a Berserker build that focuses camping one weapon set like this build here being fairly decent. Pick a LB or something else and just open with it but stay in Mace for the duration of the Berserk form and just focus on interrupts and bleeding. Stack a ton of bleeding, vuln, and confusion then use your heal. Also, all that weakness is damage mitigation making you even tougher to kill. I just put on Sundering Leap because you’ll probably need a way to not be kited.

I mean, on paper that’s a Warrior build that doesn’t use Discipline or double Endure Pain but still has decent sustain. That being said there’s so much condi removal around so who knows…you could make a power version with Hammer/GS but not having Discipline would hurt more and losing Strength just seems like a big no-go.

That being said I can’t complain about getting a interrupt focused build since I’ve wanted a viable one for a while.

EDIT: Sword build that loses one stun break but gains a EP

I don’t know if any of these will actually be of any use in PvP but at least I’m seeing some options now.

The problem with that would be retaliation. Having 6-8 strikes could be a TON of damage done to yourself.

Huzzah! My FT camping build grows even more dangerous!

From the livestream:

• Rousing Resilience Buffed by 130%

• Last Stand ICD now 40 seconds

• Rifle DMG buff

• Shield skills CD reduction and Bash now stuns for 2 seconds

Looks like it might be possible to have decent sustain without being totally focused on Double Endure Pain. Really good Berserker Synergy on RR. Always happy to see Shield get buffed…Skullcracker gets even stronger.

Levetty.1279:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I’m confused as to what some of you wanted. Did you want top teir DPS when there’s already plenty of offensive options available? Would you rather be in the situation Warrior is in where the spec basically offers nothing really new in terms of role and is basically just side grade and probably won’t see much serrious use?

Its basic 1 note support through heal spam when most other classes can provide decent group healing while offering damage boons or soemthign unique to the party and has direct competition from Ventari legend which is on a better class.

We have no idea what raids are like. The current support on zerk teams might not be enough. Hopefully it doesn’t become mandatory but if it does then I would think that’s a positive thing for Ranger mains. Also, I see some good potential condi builds. Maybe Settlers?

I’m confused as to what some of you wanted. Did you want top teir DPS when there’s already plenty of offensive options available? Where would be the balance in that? It would also be boring, there’s plenty of DPS in the game already. Would you rather be in the situation Warrior is in where the spec basically offers nothing really new in terms of role and is basically just side grade and probably won’t see much serrious use?

At least Druid is giving you access to a new role that will be useful in almost all areas of the game. Hopefully ANet will someday go back and make the old PvE content hard like in the betas and then teams will always be happy to have the healing and support.

I can’t think of anything that Ranger actually needed offensively, it’s just that the current options are a bit weak or tied to lackluster pets AI. Hopefully they’ll fix that in the balance teaser later.

They’re also being given to all Rangers, not just Druid. So, if you’re not keen on being a healer you’ll at least be getting a cool new companion.

The HP and function of Gyros are imo not the problem, what is the problem is that the gyros that follow you don’t follow you closely enough. AoE would not be a huge issue if the heal, bulwark, and stealth gyro stuck very closely to you.

If you make the gyros prioritize following the player then they are less like AI and more like an extension of the player. This would make some of the gyros toolbelt and field on destruction trait much more useful. This applies for manually detonating it as well.

Necro minions move fairly well now, why not gyros?

I am aware that there may be other problems with the gyros, but the movement is imo the biggest problem.

I do agree that power builds are not a huge issue, although there are times when your condi removal screws you over. You have some weakness and 9 stacks of burn and your removal removes the weakness. Would be nice to either have removal prioritize high damage stacks. Although, that punishes players that are condi focused and wisely use their covers.

I would say become at least somewhat familiar with every class, but fous on 2 because you never know when Anet will just destroy a class’s viability. For a while Wars were terrible, then they became meta, now they’re basically pure support to the point where you wonder why you aren’t playing another class.

If I hadn’t spent as much time on Engi as I had i would have probably quit until the HoT release. I don’t think it hurts to have a class to fall back on. The game is also not that hard so it’s not like you can’t easily learn a new class. It’s not like dota or lol where different characters play totally different. At the end of the day rotating and properly timing dodges are more important than anything else.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

This is wrong. But i’m not surprised. Some ppl just see some condis on them, die and start crying about those condis without even knowing what killed them. I got “accused” for using a cheese condi build several times, while i was playing a power build (melee ranger) with zero condition dmg.

Tbf. If you have a bird and beast mastery you can have very powerful conditions that dramatically affect the fight such as weakness and blind. Have Sword/Dagger instead of GS and you have poison that keeps their healing low.

OP came off a bit poorly but I think their point is that here are a fair number of debilitating condis out there that you don’t need to be specialized for to make them dangerous.

I have a power HGH FT/Elixirs build and if I land the FT burns win might on it still tics for a scary amount.

Thuggernaut.1250:

BurrTheKing.8571:

I got something even more fun in mind.

Decapitate becomes a sort of reverse Arcing Strike and deals more damage the higher their health is. Once they’re low it deals very little damage. However, if you use it to knock someone’s health to 0, they just die. No downed state, just the sweet embrace of
Grenth.

It would rarely happen, but when it does you will feel like the most powerful person alive.

Btw, idc if it’s “OP” it sounds stupidly fun in my head.

I like it. It gives you an incentive to Decapitate; roll the dice and see if you score a brutal kill. This would make an axe Warrior the ultimate gambler in combat, and it fits in with the Berserker theme: a kill-crazy wild man whose rage strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies.

Wonder if they could get away with enemy players heads flying off in a T rated game if the don’t add in a ton of blood…

Would make reviving a bit awkward though.

Recently on these forums I have seen a ton of negativity based on what we saw on PoI. However I want to point some things out:

1: Not to be rude to the dev but we never saw the spec played in any sort of optimal manner. The fights vs the training AI had him making very little to no use of all the combos the spec has access to.

2: While the base damage on many Hammer attacks seem low, don’t forget the spec has the potential for absurd might stacking and Vulnerability application (and weakness). This means that as the fight goes on the Scrapper will be hitting harder and harder.

3: While gyros may still be weak to AoE, it will be possible to buff them to be much tankier I believe. You can use the healing gyro to heal the bulwark and use the toolbelt skill to give both Protection. You can also bring FT or Bomb kit or whatever for blasts in the water field.

4: We currently know very little about raids so saying the spec is useless in PvE seems silly. Sure, maybe it won’t be great in the PvE we have now, but if there are enemies you have to stomp in raids and they actively deny stomps and reses then having a gyro that spawns with Stab could be invaluable.

Can we PLEASE wait until we actually PLAY the Scrapper before deciding that it’s bad?

I got something even more fun in mind.

Decapitate becomes a sort of reverse Arcing Strike and deals more damage the higher their health is. Once they’re low it deals very little damage. However, if you use it to knock someone’s health to 0, they just die. No downed state, just the sweet embrace of
Grenth.

It would rarely happen, but when it does you will feel like the most powerful person alive.

Btw, idc if it’s “OP” it sounds stupidly fun in my head.

I feel like the healing and bulwark Gyro have more potential synergy than some realize. The heal gyro toolbelt gives Protection. Using your heal can potentially Protection as well. Placing the Bulwark gyro in the heal bot belt skill means it’s taking less damage and is healing. If you have the heal bot out and have other sources of Protection that means the damage the Bulwark is taking is less multiple times over. This whole time the heal drone is healing both of you.

I’m not sure if that is how it will work but if it does that sounds tanky as hell.

WhiteOil.1836:

Kraljevo.2801:

WhiteOil.1836:

•"Rupturing Smash: Instead of knockback this skill now causes 1 second of immobilize on hit. This skill can no longer hit the same target twice. Increased damage by 100%".

This change was a mistake the knockback was Very nice, One of the only reasons I was looking forward to hammer and now it has no CC just an immobilize a 1 second immobilize!!!!. this hurts the weapon trait and the weapons use for cc

we can trait for immobilize already. Rupturing blow was useful for area control and spacing, offence and defense, taking a rick leaping into an area just to immobilize is weak!! the damage was fine

Please revert the change

No offense, but not a single warrior I know found the knockback to be useful, be it in WvW, PvP or PvE. All it does is displacing enemies which you don’t want in most of scenarios. The immobilize is much more useful, despite its short duration.

I disagree, the immobilize doesn’t not synergize with the hammer trait
put on leg specialist and you get your 1s immobilize anyway
lots of skills now clear immobilize anyway
its weak

on top of that it hit multiple times this new version hits once the
1 crit of rupturing smash did about 800dmg near zerk
multiple crits hit from 2.4k to 3.2k

read what I posted more carefully is area control and spacing better? or is a 1s immobilize?

The change does give hammer the option of being able to deal damage when the target has Stability. It gives you the ability to go F1 → 2 → 3 which is decent damage for a weapon that is normally dependent on CC chains to do damage.

Some good changes…but we still have the elephant in the room, Fast Hands.

Depending on what you want to run, your build is almost decided for you. As things are now I could see something like “this”: being decent (depends on how good the heal is now and if torch + Brawler’s is good enough removal). However, with baseline FH I could get way better synergy from this setup. Not so sure on the LB use, it’ll depend on the new P-Burst.

This would help Power too. ATM I could see running something like this, but with baseline Fast Hands I could do something way more interesting like this. This has some REALLY cool synergy with Rousing Resilience. It gives the Warrior sustain outside of Endure Pain, which many Warriors have wanted for a while. Although, I think atm RR doesn’t activate when you go Berserk while using Savage instinct.

Both of the alternate builds lose the mobility of Warrior’s Sprint, but they gain something new that is much more interesting and synergistic.

Other thoughts:

Sundering leap seems nice now, but I still think adding the ability to leap onto some ledges in PvP would give it very valuable utility.

I get the idea behind Shattering Blow, but even with these changes it just seems lackluster. If I could use it on the move (I know why you can’t currently) OR if I was rooted longer but the reflect was 360 degrees and lasted as long as the cast, I could see using it in one of my builds.