I have been running a shout build that is currently strong. With good play it does respectful damage. It has good sustain. It has useful mobility and to an extent useful team dynamic. Out of the 9 professions I play 8 of them and have each one upgraded to various states of ascension. Some fully ascended, so only minor. Yet this is the disparity of warrior currently..when played well it doesn’t added up to a strong, respectful, good or useful day on the field. Basically there isn’t an area where they excel gluing all their respectful, good,useful and strong aspects together.
To add idea’s to hammer, I think some test play with the idea that some hammer skills (3-4-5-f1) Either cripple, knock down as per normal versus a target without stability, or remove 2 stacks of stability against those who have the boon active. This ultimately could remove 8 stacks of stability if all skills hit.
Fear me as a shout I would change to a boon strip that removes protection, stability.
On my mark would have been a better choice for team unblockable(+vulnerability application) rather than basi venom.
Ultimately I, like you were present when anet decided to ‘separate the damage from the control’ aspects of hammer. Currently hammer damage is overall weak with it never being used in PvE, Fractals, Raids..and especially PvP. The ubiquitous amount of stability/blind has all but nullified it’s control.
A weapon choice supported by some traits that allows a profession such warrior to act as a cat among the pigeons in team play would be useful in the current meta. With druids still performing well in team situations, ele’s still having a presence as viable team support, scrappers having strong sustain and necro’s having the ability to stack 3-5 stacks of stability allowing them to use reaper shroud over death shroud and having a strong melee presence in team moments, this creates an opportunity to carve out a niche for warrior. That niche being they can excel at hindering, upsetting and removing a lot support features in a team situation.
I am confident I am not the only one who keeps seeing some team situations playing out;
1) a Reaper running havoc with chill/corruption
2) A scrapper firmly in the thick of it holding onto their lightning field for the best moment and pumping regen/stability/protection/cleanses to allies
3) A druid just doing what a druid does. Adding sustain damage and team support
4)a ele making the team a lot harder to pick off.
5) Possibility (likely) a revenant driving home the lion share of damage vs a single target.
Variations of this situation are fairly common currently, so a profession that can quickly remove stability stacks, eliminate a targets protection/stability or severely weaken one target temporarily and over short periods of time remove enough support that the next chains of CC are going to start shutting down a strong support orientated team would be useful.
…However the key here,…‘after some test play’….