So, I see a lot of whine going on regarding Rush. As a Warrior main, I feel the pain of having dropped some mobility, but I also understand why the movement across all similar skills was nerfed via the swiftness change.
Were we too fast before?
IMHO, Yes. Rush was great at engaging, but TOO good at disengaging.
Are we too slow now?
Again IMHO, Yes. Rush is now poor at disengaging, which would be fine, except is equally bad at engaging.
Run, Run, as fast as you can?
See, Rush was being used as a pure movement skill prior to the J23rd patch. It was being used to disengage more than engage. This is for a number of reasons: Rush was highly telegraphed and easily dodged. It also frequently missed due to the buggy ‘homing’ nature.
However it still served as a decent chasing mechanism. It didn’t hit very often but it does have decent damage when it does hit, and most importantly, it did do an excellent job of closing big gaps.
It’s worth mentioning that Ride the Lightning had a similar problem in the past. We all know how that ended. While the solution worked mechanically, Ele’s were/are not happy with the outcome.
Reducing the Divorce Rate
So, IMHO, the real problem is in nerfing our disengage tool, Warriors also took the same nerf to their engage tool. So how do we ensure Rush is still functional as an engage without becoming OP as a disengage? Well, we could make it so Rush only works on targeted foes, or that, like RTL, it has a double CD if it doesn’t hit, but both of these solutions are likely to upset the player base. They are examples of hard limits, forceful changes that tend to upset people, and reduce fun.
Run for Fun
So there’s no fix then, right? Wrong! Let’s explore a few options of soft limits. Whereas a hard limit simply disallows something, a soft limit simply encourages, rewarding proper use without directly forbidding unintended use. (You could argue that RTLs change qualifies as soft, but the heavy-handed application; doubling the existing CD on an existing skill, generally negates this sentiment).
What a Rush
The first and most obvious change I’d suggest is a drastic change to how Rush works fundamentally.
Right now it’s a long channel, during which the Warrior has about +50% movement speed (estimated). Alongside someone running with Swiftness +33% movement speed, the difference is rather negligible. This is made even worse by the pre-cast pause, and the post-cast pause, each of which causes the Warrior to lose a split-second worth of movement. This just wont do. Warriors need to be FAST to chase down those fleeing cowards. Think of a Thief teleporting with Steal.
Now, Rush as a teleport is a cool fix, and mechanically would solve the problem of lacking engage speed, but it’s not really very Warrior-like, is it. What would be ideal, then? IMHO, a super fast, sliding strike to/through our target. The overall distance covered would remain the same (1200) but that distance would be covered in a much much shorter time. Picture a channel time of 0.5, as opposed to the current lumbering 2 second channel time.
Run for the Hills
So now Rush is quick and accurate enough to actually strike foes. The range is unchanged, but the fast execution means it’ll see more use to close a gap in combat. It will also be a moderate increase in burst mobility.
But that doesn’t address Warriors using it to flee. Remember, we want to give Warriors who engage with Rush a gold star, but we DONT want to totally remove it as a disengage, just prevent it from outperforming it’s engage functionality.
In other words, a Warrior using Rush to escape should never outrun a Warrior using Rush to chase him.
One option is a variant of the RTL treatment. Base cooldown up to 25 seconds from 20. However, every strike you land on a foe (with any melee weapon) reduces the Rush cooldown by 1 second. This means you will have a hefty 25s cooldown when using it to travel, but the CD can easily be 15-20s in a battle.
Additionally, Rush should apply cripple for 3s on hit, to slow down fleeing foes. This will have a minimal impact on enemies who want to engage the Warrior in melee, but hamper those trying to Kite or Escape.
/ideas
Well, I’m spent for now, suggest your own or critique my suggestions here. Try to keep the discussion constructive!
