Guild Wars 2

Interpretor.3091:

Pce, see you next week!

Lmao, +1 to you!

While we’re almost certainly not going to get what many have been demanding for the warrior, we should also pay attention to changes in other classes (and generally) to see whether what we’re up against becomes more manageable. The goal, I think, is balance.

For example, removal of some of the bunker amulets in pvp should help us, and there may be other changes that will help make us more viable there.

Similarly, I predict the King of Fires change will help reduce our damage output in pve, but will also make the trait more useful in pvp and small scale wvw.

Anyway, let’s try to show a bit of dignity.

Great vid. I actually didn’t know you could change the direction of Rush mid-cast like that, and I hadn’t considered doing an SoR fake out either (though in retrospect I know I’ve done it accidentally).

Always nice to learn new things. Thanks again.

I’ve never run the build linked below, and I’ve only guessed at it, but I recall some people I know getting some decent results using something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRApf8enMdAlkidhAWhAElilrADJAkASdvj2T7rVJH06qBA-TpRAQBe4EAAgDCg+KDwhHAAIOCALc/BA

The pvp players were of high quality, and so was the one person I know who was trying it out in wvw. The wvw version used Defender runes.

Anyway, I’ve probably butchered it, but I think the general concept was:

• Break stuns for fun and profit (armour, personal and group heals)
• Keep that Fire Shield up as much as possible
• Berserk mode gives you lots of condi application

You have:

• decent direct damage
• decent control
• good defensive capabilities
• decent movement
• good condi diversity and damage

Early results seemed fun and promising, but I have no idea if they stuck with it.

EDIT: I see the chassis it’s built on is very similar to Elegie’s two builds.

I don’t actually care for Rage, even though I’m a Quickness junkie. You can’t control when it will proc and, even if it did just before a 100b, I think you’d get more damage from a Force, Air or Fire sigil in that 30s window.

Maybe they’ll fix our gap closers too….

chibbi.3706:

Even without fast hands discipline is just too good.

And even if they make fast hands less mandatory, it will still be one of our best traits just for its ability to proc on swap sigils ( which are the best sigils in the game) twice as much.

I agree that it’s a good line otherwise, but I could imagine builds that would get more out of other lines if camping a weapon for 10s was more viable. We’ll just have to see… for all we know it was just meaningless fluff text.

Warlord.9074:

He hit me for 6.2k with 5 boons. Without DOTE he hit me for 5.2k. Anyone whoe thinks DOTE does not work or is not worth taking over BR has no idea what they are talking about.

Again, I don’t think anyone’s saying DotE doesn’t work. Whether it’s worth taking over BR depends on what you’re up against and what build you’re running.

The more direct damage oriented your build is, the more valuable DotE is, and conversely so the more your stats migrate to condi or defense. You’re right when you say BR doesn’t help much against a condi bomb, but as noted earlier it can keep you from taking many thousands of damage by removing high burn or bleed stacks, reduce damage and improve healing by removing poison, or remove conditions that can plummet your dps by far more than you’d get from DotE, like chill, fear, blind and immob.

I think they’re both good traits, personally. I’ve no idea why there’s a controversy here.

It’s just been speculation at this point. That they want to reduce the importance of weapon swap/FH for success, and thus Discipline, because of this statement in the balance teaser:

“Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with.”

But it’s not clear what they actually mean by that because nothing in the livestream seemed to relate to that goal, except maybe the defensive roll on rifle. Ultimately, we have no idea what’s in store except a few underwhelming changes so far.

emkelly.2371:

They’re just the crutch on which many of our viable builds rely.

I know its a bit hateful to say this. but so is Death Shroud and Reaper Shroud. In fact Necros have it even better. they can activate death shroud automatically and it last far longer than any warrior stance. Thre is nothing lazy about stances. you need to kow when to activate them, but at the same time they need to last longer than 4-8 seconds.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying people who run stances are somehow bad players (I’ve been running three on my bar, plus two in my traits since at least June). I’m saying the immunities provided by (most) stances are a necessary crutch for an otherwise crippled class, and that buffing those skills doesn’t cure the warrior it improves the crutch.

Moreover, stances, especially longer lasting ones, can carry lazy and skillless play as much as it can carry skilled play. For example, suppose an 8-10s Endure Pain, plus a 3-15s Berserker Stance, and a 13-15 traited Balanced Stance on a Gunflame build. Enter zerk state, pop stances, spam GF (or Arc Divider) ftw… no dodging or blocking necessary, and plenty of adren to just stand and fire. Sounds awful.

emkelly.2371:

i dunno. Stances cool down or increased duration of stances. i know there is already a trait for it, but an extra 2 seconds on endure pain doesn’t really help anyone. if stances lasted for a longer duration we might have better sustain without having to rely on heals alone.

Cooldown, by a mile.

Longer duration rewards lazier play on the part of the warrior against opponents who don’t know the class. Opponents who do know to kite a stance when it would interfere with their attacks, which leaves you vulnerable for the next 60s (and they know it).

Honestly though, I don’t think stances are the path to greater sustainability for the warrior. They’re just the crutch on which many of our viable builds rely.

Mithrilos.8036:

Choppy.4183:

@Mithrilos
You didn’t read the rest of the thread, did you?

what ? i’ve read it yes…why ?

Because immediately above your post Warlord and I discussed how prevalent Arms has become on wvw Gunflame builds, and he acknowledged he wasn’t aware of that.

I personally prefer something more like Berserker Power. Gaining healing for a period of time based on adrenaline consumption…. increasing either the amount or time (probably amount) based on stages consumed.

It would be more consistent with the rest of our traits, and the way AH currently works is more a legacy of a period when Anet wanted us to be strategic about when to use and when to hold adren. All of those other holding traits have been changed, including Berserker’s Power (which used to be based on holding, rather than consuming aden).

As for why not just rely on CI, I find chill, blind, and even cripple can make the CI cleanse awfully unreliable… or kiters, they can be tricky too. I also like Brawlers to quickly purge Fear.

Yashuoa.9527:

So 1k hp more every 20 sec from adrenal+signet, doesnt feel all that great to me in this context. Although I also just dont like the mechanic of Adrenal health as explained.

Not really though… I mean, sure if you held full adren for that full 20s, but would you deny your burst skills for that long to get an extra 1k? I wouldn’t.

Just accounting for the Healing Signet alone, it’d take 50 seconds to get that extra 1k.

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

Awell, 1 thing is for sure – that guy whos doing all the balancing… I think hé doesnt have a clue whats going on. If I face a decent druïd with my warrior, i get recked obviously. If I win from a druïd with my warrior, then I know that it was just a bad player. Thiefs Will get some dps buffs (bravo for thiefs) while warrior gets 20hp extra. How is 20hp + adrenaline health is going to help me VS a decent druïd? I still Will get recked, doesnt matter wich build I run. The druïd will always outsustain the warrior. Yes what a great balancing this game have. Some stuff Will never be fixed I learn that from Arenanet. #GSskill5 #glitchy4life

It’s funny/sad, I was dueling a friend who normally runs warrior (or thief as an alt) but was trying out druid. We’re normally pretty even, but he ruined me with it.

Then we started experimenting…..

We compared the time it took to burst the other person to nothing if that person just stood there. I was running zerk with gs and axe, he was running celestial, and he won by a mile. Plus, his bursts are aoe, meaning when we actually fought, he could kite while delivering them, and blind me while I was trying to get him.

Then I had him just stand there (but he could heal) while I unloaded Killshots and Volleys into him. I probably put six of each into him, plus autos in between, and he was still at 20% or so.

His Heal as One had roughly the same healing output as the passive on Healing Signet (not counting the benefit he’d get from the healing power out of his amulet), plus it gave additional buffs. Then he had soooo many other heals, plus water fields, on top of that. His health pool was 4k higher than mine, and his armour would have been roughly the same, I suppose.

I’m not sure what the removal of Celestial will do to that situation… whether there’s a good alternative amulet for the build. But even moving to a purely offensive amulet he’d have stronger damage output (more than he had when I fought him) and would still have way more effective health (through all the heals), plus his kite-while-kill options would still be there.

Anyway, even he was mad about it by the time we were done….

@Mithrilos
You didn’t read the rest of the thread, did you?

I’m pretty sure the OP means the warrior needs more tools to reduce incoming damage (like Protection), not that warrior dps needs to be reduced….

Not teef though. I think they’re going to start wrecking us hard like the old days unless there’s something important they haven’t revealed yet. Melee warriors anyway.

Ross Biddle.2367:

You’re a base melee war with 2400 armor and 20k hp, seems very squish for WvW considering you have to face everything up close and personal, and you don’t have any invulns.

Also is it just me or is On My Mark one of the most useless utilities in the game? XD What’s up with the cd on it too.

Yeah, even one of the devs acknowledge that when they released that rage skill you’re using for your decap build.

That’s why I proposed it be replaced with an aoe Taunt called, “Come at me, bro!” in the other thread.

In fact, Signet Mastery is becoming the preferred line for big fights in wvw.

You lose out on a net +15% or so from the Strength line, but double your unblockable time (more actually, with sig cd reduction). You could even switch to all Valk gear for more durability because your crit chance can be kept high enough without it, and you’ll have guaranteed crits on gunflame regardless.

With all the blocks, aegis, etc in blobs, that unblockability is really important to getting your blasts through to the next target. Much more so than the extra raw damage to be had through the Strength line anyway.

Might be alright. I’d go Shield Mastery and Leg Specialist over what you’ve picked though.

Mithrilos.8036:

true and sad indeed that we can’t even turn ourselves while F1 with the rifle.

Unblockable ? there is a signet for that, i think Killshot should give super speed after cast in order to evade or repositionning.

Just a couple points:

1. Kill Shot/Gunflame actually tracks a moving target, even if they enter stealth mid-channel. Missing on evade is fair.
2. Signet of Might makes you unblockable for 6s. The trait Signet Mastery also gives a free Signet of Might effect when you hit target below 50%

nicknamenick.2437:

They could make it like this:

F1: old burst skill
F2: berserker mode / Press it again for Berserker burst skill.

So you dont have to press 2 different buttons but rather 1 button 2 times..

Quite right. That solution would probably make everyone happy. Simpler fix too.

Juba.8406:

If you want to play Warrior then play it like a thief, +1 fights and abuse mobility to rotate other points, that is the only thing that worked a bit for me ( i would get rid of hammer n use sword).

But even so, sometimes you must accept Warrior’s current weakness compared to the others.

That’s how I run it too, and it mostly works well. I’ve even been inducted as an “honorary thief” by my thief friends in wvw, based on how I play it.

That said, I really like the incoming changes to thieves and, if they don’t have some great unmentioned warrior buffs incoming, then I might try out sword thief for a while after the balance patch.

I’m terrible with my thief now, but if it gets to a point where it’s closer to how I’d like to run my warrior than my warrior, I might try that for a while. No salt, just experimentation… for science!

But why reduce options just to save a keybind? Makes no sense to me….

choovanski.5462:

DanAlcedo.3281:

choovanski.5462:

online.1278:

i qould use it alot if it can be rolled back to prev that just push back all the enemy upto 300~600 range something to captuee point

yeah I know. oh what decaps we could be having.

but then the wvw players would be mad because knockback is worthless in wvw.
This the problem…
Knockback is strong PvP but hated inWvW.

You dont want to get the enemy “away” from you , you want them to “stay” where they are so they get the full dps from the caster line.

so? you still have earthshaker for the stun that is better than imob.
at least knockback gives versatility.

plus, who cares wvw is dead anyhow

I remember a lot of people not liking the knockback for the reason mentioned. I don’t remember anyone liking the immob they put in to replace it.

Makes more sense to me the way it is, tbh. And yes, sometimes you might rather use the normal burst, like skull crack for the long stun, or a 1-st tier Arcing Slice when you don’t have max adren but can put someone down.

I know, but what I’m saying is the rifle doesn’t really utilize the investment in condi damage/duration very well.

So shifting toward the more traditional power/ferocity would yield far better results when on that weapon set. Moreover, since we’re talking about spamming in primal state anyway, the quick burst recharge and adren building makes weapon swapping somewhat unnecessary.

In terms of projectile finishers, the bow auto is actually better for this because it has two projectiles per attack with no loss of direct damage. So camping the longbow, spamming and blasting the fields, and then shooting two arrows through it every attack would yield far better results with Viper gear than swapping over to rifle after an lb burst. And lb 3 is a high damage aoe blast that would take advantage of the power side of viper too, so it wouldn’t be wasted by not swapping to rifle either.

Since this is for wvw, consider what swapping the rifle out for sw+x would give you (and going with Arms over Strength). You’d get mobility, fire shield, an auto that works with hybrid by stacking an additional condition, hard hit in Final Thrust, and a whole lot more burning via Flaming Flurry (so you’d have no dead weapon). With your offhand, you could take more condi and a block (sword), defense and a stun (shield), another blast finisher with aoe buffs/debuff (warhorn), or more burns and bleeds (torch).

It just seems better to me in every way, and in no way compromises the backline ranged attack style the OP is going for. In fact, I think it enhances it because camping bow seems better to me with these stats than trying to work riffle into the rotation during berserker mode, while giving you additional utility for when a ranged set just won’t do.

The other approach I was referring to would keep the Strength line, likely trait Distracting Strikes, and use the Mace offhand. You lose the mobility of sword, but you gain a block, you gain a pretty good condi bomb if you use Skull Grinder, gain additional opportunities to stack in confusion, and the mace hits harder than most people realize, so the power side of the viper gear would still work well with it outside of berserk mode.

The reason I’d go with sword though is because of where he’s want to use it. The mobility is more important than a single block, the fire shield is excellent up close, the condi from the auto and Flaming Flurry cleaves/pierces, and Final Thrust cleaves too. Sadly, the mace is all single target, so the sword would be better in a group fight in every way, should the battle shift to where sticking with a ranged weapon isn’t the way to go.

Again, I just see this approach as superior to achieving what I think the OP is going for, and then opening up additional avenues beyond that. But I also think standard gunflame would be more effective in large wvw play, tbh. I’m all for experimentation and the OP playing whatever he finds most fun though.

Not sure I understand the condi sniping part. I mean, there’s some burn on gunflame, but that’s about it for the rifle. Then you have lb 5 with a lot of condi but on a 25 cd and it doesn’t pierce, and the burn fields. Lb 2 is more of an up close skill.

So wouldn’t it be better to either focus on direct damage and spam the hell out of gunflame (which most people do), or run a melee set that works hybrid (sword, (primal) mace), etc) and just spam your burn field whenever the opportunity allows for it?

I’d like to see them introduce protection throughout the warrior, tbh. But more than 3s of every 20s.

Every class except warrior and thief has access to it, so it’s not as though it’s limited to particular classes. It also fits thematically and mechanically well with warrior (and berserker).

I think the original concept was, “let’s give the warrior the highest toughness and health pool, and then we’ll give other classes less of those but other mitigations”. But the game is waaaaay more lethal now, so the extra bit of toughness doesn’t do much of anything, and the health pool only lasts so long (especially with the state of our healing).

Gaining a fair amount of protection would fit with the rough and tumble bruiser concept, and the amount of boon hate flying around would allow for solid counterplay.

Yes, it would still leave us relatively vulnerable to condi classes outside of initial burst (depending on build), but it’s reasonable to have weaknesses, and we’re not exactly dead in the water for condis either.

I also don’t understand how warriors didn’t end up with more taunt than they did. I mean, that condition is like it was made for a warrior archetype! Anyway, that’s not relevant here, I realize.

EDIT: Also, when I say add protection throughout the class, I mean a lot. Like replace Thick Skin with a trait that gives 1/2/3s of protection for each stage of adren used in a burst, 2s of protection on weapon swap on Discipline, protection added to each of the new Rage skills to go with the whole “I can’t be killed!” motif, and probably to Physical skills too so they have more value (again, going for that “I’m an unkillable brute” thing).

Obviously, so we don’t create even more need to run Discipline, FH would be baselined and replaced with this new protection-on-swap trait. Though note I’d probably drop this if Anet puts real work into making it possible for us to camp weapons… I don’t see any reason to work against that if they actually go through with it.

As for Taunt, since I mentioned it, I’d replace “On My Mark!” with a 3s single target taunt renamed to something like, “Come at me, brah!” (I’d also reduce Fear’s cd to 45 sec). I’d add aoe Taunt to the entire duration of Defiant Stance too, just to shore that heal up, and increase the Taunt on Bloody Roar to 2s.

I honestly don’t see how that would improve our sustainability much, and I rather like the retaliation that we get now (so I don’t personally like the cost).

I mean, 3s of regeneration (assuming no healing power) would be a mere 390 health in the first 3 of 20s. Protection is nice, but 3s every 20s wouldn’t go that far. And 1s of resistance isn’t enough of a break to survive any condi bombs.

Moreover, if the trait is still triggered by critical hits (or just “struck”, as per the rune), then the very short window would rarely correspond to incoming bursts, rather they’d be on cd when the bursts came in.

What am I missing?

Eh… while I find what was presented for the warrior underwhelming, they did say what was presented was a small amount of what they have in mind (at the end).

So nothing to get excited about, but nothing to get worked up about either. We’ll find out in a week and a half or so.

Cygnus.6903:

Even if warrior is buffed enough so that you could opt not to take Fast Hands and be viable, I don’t see any road to take in which Fast Hands would not still be the better option, and thus required. Because why would you kitten yourself?

I do. Suppose our weapons gained enough utility (defensive, mobility, etc), lower cooldowns, and bursts that don’t need setup from another weapon so you can stay on a weapon fairly easily. We could then equip weapons to deal with combat situations, rather than out of necessity (e.g. packing a ranged weapon in case we’re being kited or to act as an opener, and then a melee manhandler).

Having access to that second set in 5s would be undeniably better than having to wait 10s. However, the relative value may be less than another benefit due to the changes making staying with one weapon longer more viable.

We’ll just have to weigh up the options once the changes are made (or at least announced). Maybe FH will still be the most important trait by a mile, but maybe other builds will get more by dropping Discipline to take advantage of some other trait combo that was previously not viable.

Well, this is where we have to wait and see what they’ve come up with. It’s premature to speculate how many builds will still run Disc. I like the line, but I’ll drop it if I like something better….

Just in terms of the ferocity gain, you’re looking at roughly 1% added to your crit damage multiplier while in Primal state for every 100 precision you manage to invest. Half that outside of Primal state.

The other stuff is relevant to your question though. Precision doesn’t only feed Blood Reckoning, it also affects how often you’ll take advantage of the ferocity, in addition to the other things affecting your crit chance. This sits in opposition to the benefit you would have lost to make the investment.

I never see the conditions Nike’s talking about to make that worthwhile, given the opportunity cost. But that has a lot to do with where and with whom I play.

What’s your precision, power, and ferocity at now, and is Nike’s description at all similar to how/where you’re playing the game?

NikeEU.7690:

The advice I recommend in my guide is to wear enough Assassins pieces in order to reach 93% crit chance without food.

This way, when you have a Druid in your group with spotter you can use Power food, you won’t have any wasted precision. if you don’t have a druid in your group, you can use food with Precision in it.

This is the way that will result in the least waste in all scenarios.

Nike, can you link your guide? Not that I doubt you since you always seem to provide the math, but 93% crit seems like the cost for that much investment in Precision would be way too high.

I gots to see those numbers!

Also, I think a few of us are operating on different assumptions. I presume Ross’ (and my) comment were about pvp (that ammy, where there is no other gear). But it seems Juba and Nike are talking about wvw/pve. Might make a difference.

EDIT: For example, I found this old chart from someone who put in more work than I want to atm, and it indicates that sort of investment in crit chance would very rarely be worth it, at least on straight weapon damage.

Two things to note:

1. I don’t know if his math is right, I haven’t checked it
2. The horizontal axis is the crit damage multiplier, and 50% refers to the +50% over base. Anet later changed how this modifier is presented, so interpret it to mean 150% crit damage. Realistically, nobody is going to get past the 140% shown on the chart, which equals 240% crit damage as it’s presented now in game.

In wvw, I run full zerk gear, power food, and I might stack like a boss. Iirc, my pre-might power is around 2700, crit chance is 50% (before fury), and crit damage is 220% (120% on the chart).

That means I’m short 100 power, not precision (breakpoint is 2800 power), until I get 3-4 might. But then once Fury kicks in, I have to have 17 stacks of might before I’m over invested in power. Granted, I routinely hit 25 stacks but I don’t spend most of my time there.

Things that would push power over the edge would be additional buffs, bloodlust stacks (which I don’t personally rely on as a roaming warrior), and Blood Reckoning, which would push up the crit damage making precision more valuable than the chart shows, but not by a tonne.

So I guess I could see how a well oiled pve death squad could make the Assassins worthwhile, I can’t see it being the optimal choice in pvp or wvw, personally. Unless the chart’s math is wrong.

No, Kill Shot pierces. Alain, more than likely one of your targets has aegis or some other block, which will stop your shot cold unless it’s unblockable for some reason (e.g. Signet of Might).

As for Kill Shot in wvw, it’s not optimal but it can be fun with a roaming partner. As emkelly said, Gunflame is better in every way.

Look for Vaans’ videos on youtube. Of anyone, I think Vaans’ has put out the most footage on roaming and dueling with Kill Shot of anyone, and more recently Gunflame.

Anyway, I don’t like it personally. I sometimes bring out KS for duels, but otherwise leave it on the shelf.

Investment in power still comes out ahead by my calculations.

Keep in mind that the extra 300 precision you’ll get from an Assassin amulet works out to an extra 14% crit chance and a mere +1.4% crit damage (2.8% in Primal State) by way of Blood Reckoning vs a Berserker Amulet. This comes at the cost of 300 power, which feeds into both crits and non-crits.

Bottom line, the benefit of Blood Reckoning isn’t enough of a damage buff to favour Assassin over Berserker.

Cerby.1069:

Wow terrible advice guys.

Don’t roll a warrior. It’s bad in the current state and we have no idea what will happen to it once patches come out. It’s also very simplistic, so it’s much better to pick it up as your second character….by then it might be patched so its win-win.

Caedmon.6798:

Nope,get a rev.

This. Revenant is this game’s warrior class.

What if he ends up mostly doing pve and prefers playing a warrior? He has lots of character slots… there’s nothing wrong with trying them all to see what fits best.

I thought I’d like the thief a lot more than I did, and it was the opposite with mesmer, which I found intuitive. Yet I main warrior because I enjoy it the most and have since learned to be good with it.

There’s no reason to not try out the warrior if he’s looking for a character to level.

Ross Biddle.2367:

One thing that’s nice about the signit to berserk cd’s is that they all come up at the same time. So procing a sig of fury into berserk, with a sig of might to make sure your gunflames will land will set you on in your way to burst a target. Once berserk has finished and the cd come up, sig of fury and might are both ready to go again.

Would there be a case to drop either of the signets in favour of Signet of Stamina?

I recognize the cost would be whatever trait you drop plus the +100 prec you’re more likely to get by proccing either of those sigils over Stamina (which you’ll likely want to keep the passive going).

But permanent, unstealable/uncorruptable vigor plus a total condi wipe on a 36s cd is pretty sweet.

I guess it comes down to two things:

1. How relatively important is that adren from the Fury sig if you have Headbutt doing the same thing, and the +180 precision otherwise?
2. How relatively important is that unblockability from the Might sig when you already have it from the mastery trait, and the +180 might otherwise?

I recognize that all three would be pretty strong, so it’s hard to make a bad choice. I’m just not sure what’s optimal.

I messed around with Valk post June 23 but pre-HoT, and I think there’s something there. I also think HoT expanded the potential, which you’ve taken advantage of.

The build looks pretty good, but it’s pretty vulnerable outside of a particular niche. That being said, I predict this build (or something like it) will really soar after the upcoming balance changes. It’s well thought out, cohesive, doesn’t use a zerk amulet (or gear, for outside pvp), it skips FH (which I see as being an objective for the upcoming patch) and it uses rifle (which is getting some specific attention).

This is definitely something to review again later this month. In the meantime, I’m glad to see an out-of-the-box build that has some value. Great job.

The banner won’t maintain 9 stacks though, and Dolyaks only lasts for 8s.

In retrospect, I’ll bet the OP is running a heavy cc build and the warrior is using Balanced Stance at the beginning of the encounter. Then the OP uses a cc skill and procs Last Stance and leaves the warrior 9 stacks.

The reason it appears as though the warrior always has 9 stacks is because he does, but only for the first 10s of every fight with the OP.

Only one skill gives 10 stacks (Dolyaks Signet), and it doesn’t last particularly long. Plus it’s on a 60/48s CD.

Another possibility is Balanced Stance on the bar plus Last Stand via traits. But they’re you’re liking at max 10s every 40s, plus proccing both isn’t strong play.

Those are the only options as far as warrior builds go.

emkelly.2371:

Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with.

• From this you can expect changes to weapon skills to make each-weapon more self sufficient.
• Because of this there is a strong possibility they will remove fast hands because it is no longer needed.

This is really the only bit having to do with Fast Hands, and it’s the second point that’s out on a limb, imo.

Virtually no traits are needed, and that’s the goal. Just because Fast Hands won’t be needed (fingers crossed) doesn’t mean it won’t be a useful trait. And even if it wasn’t useful, there have been several near-useless traits in our lines (and others’) since launch.

So I just don’t see any evidence or reason for them to remove Fast Hands. If that’s their plan, they’ve certainly given us no reason to think so.

Harper.4173:

emkelly.2371:

Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.

More than likely they are going to remove fast hand entirely and give each weapon the ability to work without the need to swap to another weapon every 5 seconds..

If fast hands is taken out it would certainly be a terrible blow to the class.

There is absolutely no reason to think they’ll be doing that. They didn’t even hint at it in the announcement, so there’s no sense worrying about it unless they indicate otherwise.

@Rauderi
Regarding sigils, I used to think the same. But FH actually does help with sigils in that you can get the same effect with on-swap sigils on one weapon set that builds without FH would need the sigils on both sets to achieve.

For example, an FH warrior could put a Battle Sigil and an Energy sigil on one set, getting the benefit every 10s (every 2nd weapon swap). But a non-FH build would need to put those two sigils on both weapon sets to get the might and endurance every 10s. For the FH warrior, that means you have two additional sigil slots to work with (different sigils, obviously) that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

It’s actually not an insignificant benefit, but it’s not anywhere near something I’d call indispensable, and certainly not something worth investing a traitline for by itself.

FatRaKoon.1782:

Henry.5713:

Does anyone else feel like people will still use Fast Hands even if we get a major CD reduction to our weapon skills?

I probably will. The thing is, weapon skill CD reduction is one issue that is not related to Fast Hands, at the very least not entirely related.
Sure Fast Hands synergised really well with short weapon skills CDs, but the other major aspect of this trait is regarding on-swap sigils.

From this perspective, reducing weapon skills CDs adresses only one aspect of why is Fast Hands such a necessity.

You’re right, cds are only one part. But they also mentioned something about changing skill functionality. If they make it so more things are located on single weapons (e.g. setup and burst, damage and defense, etc), then it reduces the need for FH even more.

True, there’s still the advantage to on-swap sigils, and FH would undoubtedly remain a very good trait in its own right. But by addressing these other issues they increase the likelihood of a viable, or even optimal, build that doesn’t use Disc. Str-Arms-Bers, maybe, or Arms-Def-Bers etc.

I agree with the other posts, though do know that you could get through the normal pve content with any class really. If warrior looks the most appealing to you, start with it. And if you don’t enjoy it much after the first few levels, try something else.

I started with a warrior, but for some reason didn’t enjoy melee combat at all. So at around level 8 I created an Engineer and took it through the entire storyline before coming back to my warrior and leveling it up. Since then, I’ve come to prefer my (double melee) warrior by quite a lot and have logged the most hours on it, largely in wvw.

As others have said, warriors do really well in higher level pve, and a balance patch is coming that will hopefully address their sorry state in pvp. Even if it doesn’t, you can do just fine in lower level pvp and in a lot of wvw, you’re just at a bit of a disadvantage compared with other classes.

Super Wilson.7408:

I do not get to play as much as many others. I have 1200 total spvp games since launch and I did manage to make it to Diamond rank with about 90% warrior games. Warrior isn’t exactly bad it’s just everything else is SO much better and Diamond feels like the end of the road without a strong group to carry me. I just love the warrior and can’t manage to have any fun playing other classes. I have high hopes for the warrior update but also fear the over buff. It’s not any fun being underpowered but at least you get respect when you beat someone rather than being OP and everyone thinks you suck and are carried by your class.

Yup, totally agree with this. Also, I loooooove your Kodan Stomp Dance Party video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXmNI-OpMvc