Guild Wars 2

Still waiting for feedback from ANet on if this is a mistake, or a change in calculations. I’m still pretty sure this is a bug, because I feel like this would have been mentioned in the patch notes if not.

Sold Out.7625:

Bump. Because clarification would be nice at least. If Precision was supposed to be less effective than it is now, that’s okay. But notes are always a beloved thing!

Ditto. I dont mind if the calc changed but I’d like to know if its legit or a bug.

It seems like a bug or programming accident to me. My logic is that we didn’t gain extra stats overall, we just got the traitline stats rolled into baseline/armor, so it wouldnt make sense to change the formula.

Confirmed

The dyes show properly on my character, but dont display properly in the dye preview panel, like in your screenshot

Confirmed. Longbow never procs Berserkers power.

Additionally, a weaker tier Berserkers Power buff will overwrite a stronger tier.

Try it out: Equip a melee weapon and do a Burst on a Training Golem. Then swap to any other melee weapon, and do another burst.

A good fix there is allow all the berserker buffs to coexist on your character, but only the stronger buff has any effect. So if you had +10% and +20% you’d only get the benefit of the +20%, not a +30% total

T raw.4658:

And then you realize Guarded Intention had the resistance boon removed…….

I’m not able to log on to check, but this is what I stumbled up on dulfy: http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/gw2-guarded-initiation.jpg

Was it changed since?

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

I heard from others that warhorn has been made useless? Seems that Anet has gone a little condi happy and wants to see more death and destruction with fewer sustained fights.

I have not tested condi-conversion. I’ll have to get back to you on that. But now that I think about it, charge was nerfed down from 10 targets, down to just 5, so at the very least it was still a huge nerf.

Warrior gets nerfs to stuff like this because their support is too powerful according to ANet, and they’re supposed to be a frontline tanky/smashy class. ANet has a solid idea of what they DONT want Warrior to be able to do. But they aren’t very good at what ANet says they SHOULD be doing, which is why people had all moved to sPvP cele-shoutbows and WvW Zergs running Warhorn Condi-Converts before the patch. It’s an impossible double standard, with the class stuck in a very weird position.

Tarkan.5609:

+100 toughness? on thief? hell yeah, still better than kittening guarded initiation

T raw.4658:

I would take Thick Skin over it due to the fact the 1st hit you receive has an extra 100 toughness to contend with…..where as Guarded Intention just fails from the beginning.

Try again

No need to try again, mathematically, thick skin is FAR FAR worse.

Damage = Weapon * power * skill coefficient / targets armor

Exo greatsword has a Weapon value of 1047. Assume a Warrior with 2000 power, and using Warrior Greatsword AutoAttack with a coeff of 0.7 is smacking the P/P/F Thief who somehow haxxed himself Thick Skin.

No Thick Skin = (1047 * 2000 * 0.7) / 1955 = 749 damage
180 Tgh Thick Skin = (1047 * 2000 * 0.7) / 2135 = 687 damage

Thick skin is on between 10905 and 9814 health. The warrior smacks you once. You take 687 and save yourself from 62 damage, down to 10218 health. Second hit, another 687, with 62 prevented, and down to 9531, so thick skin deactivates. You saved a grand total of 124 health, which is worth about 12 vitality, or roughly 1% of your total health pool, and Thick Skin was activate for roughly the first 1 to 1.5 seconds of the fight.

Compared to resistance for 5 seconds, which makes you immune to the effects of condi? Guarded Initiation is like a dream come true. Wanna trade?

Disclaimer
This is meant to be a CONSTRUCTIVE, AWARENESS POST. THIS IS NOT A WHINE POST. The goal here is to continue to observe and discuss the flaws surrounding this class, and attempt to tweak and adjust till it has reached a solid, balanced, yet playable, state. If your knee-jerk response is “l2pnub” this is not the thread for you.

Onto topic at hand!

Thick Skin – Still just as useless and boring as ever. This trait is bland, horrible, and mathematically provides as little as a 0.004% increase.

Rifle – The trait competes with Mobile Strikes, and isn’t very good regardless. More importantly, the Baseline rifle is just extremely similar yet inferior in every way to Ranger longbow not to mention inferior overall to Warrior Longbow.

Movement Skills – Without the swiftness boost to GS5 Rush and Bullscharge, they’re back to being mostly useless. Before, Rush was primarily a travel/escape skill, not often used in combat, and Bullscharge. Now they don’t even serve that purpose.
The fix however, is very easy: Have Bullscharge and Rush grant 1 to 1.5 seconds of Haste on use. No, really, think about it. Haste would greatly increase the speed at which that distance is covered, and the speed at which the striking animation happens, making them both a rapid gap-close strike.

Blackhole Traits – Fast Hands, Cleansing Ire. Fast hands needs to just be baseline already, and Cleansing Ire needs to be a minor trait, in the slot where Retribution Armor currently sits. Swap the two.

Berserkers Power – Currently, a level 1 burst proc overwrites a level 3 proc, meaning the 10% damage buff deletes and overrides the 20% damage buff.
The Fix here is easy too, allow both buffs to exist, but only the stronger buff has any effect. So for example, you could end up with 8 seconds of +10% and 4 seconds of +20%. Your total damage bonus will be 20%. In 4 seconds, you’ll just have 4 seconds of 10%, and the 20% will have worn off.

Adrenaline Loss on Miss and Traits – Cleansing Ire, and now Berserkers Power, both fail to proc on a miss. But adrenaline is still lost. There are no other skills/traits in the game that drain your resource/cooldown from some thief spamming blinding powder, yet fail to activate and take effect. It’s got to be changed to be either one way, or the other: Either adrenaline is kept on a miss/blind, or the traits activate when the adrenaline is SPENT, not only on a hit.

Earthshaker – Nothing new here. Still a crazy long random precast delay, still misses targets on a slight incline, still prone during this crazy-long-windup process to be hit by the random blind-spam that everyone is vomitting up left and right.

Feel free to post whatever you see that I have missed.

Disclaimer-Repeated
This is meant to be a CONSTRUCTIVE, AWARENESS POST. THIS IS NOT A WHINE POST. The goal here is to continue to observe and discuss the flaws surrounding this class, and attempt to tweak and adjust till it has reached a solid, balanced, yet playable, state. If your knee-jerk response is “l2pnub” this is not the thread for you.

MakubeC.3026:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

You can’t.

Even when we were getting Resistance it was a so-so trait given such a small usage window and cooldown. The actual implementation of it is just plan hilarious.

Challenge accepted.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Thick_Skin

(You never said THIEF trait!)

Sebrent.3625:

Just to be clear… the normalization of the movement on weapon skills to no longer be affected by movespeed is what is making you feel slow now … correct?

That does appear to be the case. RIP Nike Warrior.

Sebrent.3625:

What is wrong with rewarding someone for proper use of block/dodge/blind/etc. ?

What is wrong with letting the mechanics punish someone for using a skill while blind or while their target is blocking/dodging/invuln/etc.?

If you do well, be rewarded. If you mess up, sorry, there are consequences for that.

Is no one even bothering to read my initial post before hitting reply?

Dand.8231:

It requires very little skill to spam blinds/evades/aegis, and many of these moves are on a faster cast timer than burst skills.

cannot control what happens after we start the cast for earthshaker

still get penalized for what happens after we cast earthshaker

Agree, or disagree with me: thats fine. But not reading at all, making a point that’s already been addressed, and trying to hijack the thread to complain about mesmers? Wrong subforum; you’re lost. In fact, get lost.

Cygnus.6903:

It’s just not used that way.

Gotta agree with you here. Longbow has a 1200 range, but probably 90% of my PvP usage is at or below, range 600. At 1200, you only hit with 1 of your 3 fire fans, arching shot has a long travel time and can easily be dodged, and auto-attack will missing moving targets.

I’m NOT saying warrior bow is bad. In fact it’s awesome. It just drastically loses effectiveness the further out you get.

It’s rather ‘meh’ in WvW too. You’re basically a kitten version of a caster, and would be better off rolling a staff ele.

Josh Davis.6015:

Trait functionality has not changed. It will still require landing a strike to proc Cleansing Ire, just as it does now on the live game.

So, basically, Warrior Shoutbow build, the strongest and most meta war build, is getting buffed (healing skill shout, can take regen banners)

Meanwhile, the other builds that are already inferior to shoutbow, and being left out in the cold. Thats basically getting an indirect nerf, due to the power-creep every class is getting.

Warriors will be even MORE dependent on longbow after the balance patch. I personally didnt think that was even possible. The irony is killing me.

Brawl.5178:

how about a new grandmaster trait that activates signet of might active effect when a burst skill is activated. sounds strong but it fits the warrior theme and would synergize with signet traits. and synergy is something warriors desperately need.

I appreciate the constructive idea, but there are 2 small speedbumps:
1) SoMight doesnt counter blinds
2) There’s a SoMight trait in arms when striking low health foes in the next patch, so it’s unlikely they’ll have 2

You’re far from the first person to put the War Rifle alongside the Ranger LB and realize they’re basically “twins” just like Arnold and Danny

Toxsa.2701:

No offense, if you get dodged/ hit when blinded, it means you got out-played and it’s totally your fault.

I dont think you read my post, since I DIRECTLY addressed your concern in my opening. Allow me to quote myself since you clearly only read what you wanted to read:

we cannot control what happens after we start the cast for earthshaker

Yet with cleansing ire only functioning on hit we still get penalized for what happens after we cast earthshaker

So, how exactly is it “my fault” that the burst skill has an inconsistent activation/precast timer, has a bug where it auto-misses targets on slight inclines (like hills and stairs), and an extremely long and obvious animation? Please, by all means, explain how these issues are directly my fault.

I also don’t think you’ve experienced the overabundance of blind-spam combined with the lengthy activation, and animation, of some burst skills. There are plenty of times that a warrior plays perfectly, and yet still gets blinded mid-earthshaker leap, by an AoE blind that was meant for someone else, or was just being spammed just because. That’s not outplaying, thats the reverse: skill spamming.

The issue im talking about is NOT a hypothetical one, it’s the exact reason why so many Warriors feel tethered to longbow and its unmissable burst skill.

I still can’t believe they’ll revert an engineer skill on a whim, allowing them their 20s of swiftness every 20s, but they wont replace a useless trait, or any of the other constructive changes warriors have been asking for, for months.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/RIP-perma-swiftness/page/2#post5169529

TL;DR – Adrenaline Spent and CI Proc on a burst miss, -or- No Adrenaline Spent and No CI Proc on a burst miss. Just not the current setup, which is Adrenaline Spent and No CI Proc on a burst miss.

I actually would be fine with CI only activating on hit, except for the fact that many times the burst skill miss is not the warriors fault. It’s not a failure to set up properly, it’s that spammable blinds/evades/aegis all exist.

It requires very little skill to spam blinds/evades/aegis, and many of these moves are on a faster cast timer than burst skills.

The problem with CI requiring a hit is not the skill required to land the hit but rather the sometimes unavoidable misses when using your burst skill. The chance of an unfortunate and no-fault miss varies greatly from weapon to weapon.

Here are the two obvious extremes:

Longbow Combust – Always hits

Hammer Earthshaker – LONG semi-random precast, long obvious animation, easily dodged, often blind spammed, many times by AoE blinds not even aimed at the warrior.

So we cannot control what happens after we start the cast for earthshaker

Yet with cleansing ire only functioning on hit we still get penalized for what happens after we cast earthshaker

Additionally, adrenaline is spent on a hit OR a miss, since the old change to how adrenaline worked. (It also decays FAR too soon/quickly out of combat, but thats for a different topic.)

If Warriors are going to continue to lose Adrenaline on a miss, the mere expenditure of the adrenaline should proc Cleansing Ire.

If Cleansing Ire will not proc on a miss, then Warriors should keep the adrenaline spent on a missed burst.

Right now it’s the worst of both worlds. It should not be this way.

“Using a burst skill for your equipped weapon will now set the recharge of all adrenaline tiers of that burst skill.”

I don’t really know what that means, but it does not sound like it trigger a cooldown on OTHER burst skills. Note the wording: " That burst skill " and not all burst skills.

Earth shaker, is a different burst skill than Combustive Shot, for example.

I could be wrong?

BurrTheKing.8571:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

BurrTheKing.8571:

Sooo…they potentially did what I said it should do a while ago and everyone yelled at me and called me stupid. -_-

why they call u stupid?

I found the post.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/My-Laundry-List-of-Warrior-Issues/first#post4869593

I say if it actually is just a cleanse on use then it’s a great victory for double melee set users.

I didn’t call you stupid! I just…. unhelpfully linked to the drama llama :P

I actually think I suggested something like remove 1 condition per bar gained, as opposed to spent, in an old constructive post (read: rant about being tethered to longbow). I’m too lazy to fish for it, but hey, per bar spent is equally viable so I ain’t gonna complain!

Thick Skin: Changed from 100 toughness, to a whole 120 toughness. Wow. I’ve already got a long and mathy post on the subject right here, about why thick skin is useless: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Can-we-just-toss-Thick-Skin-already/

Here’s a short and updated version

Damage = Weapon * power * skill coefficient / targets armor

Exo greatsword has a Weapon value of 1047. Assume 2400 power, and using Warrior Greatsword AutoAttack with a coeff of 0.7 (we’ll skip crits, traits, might, etc to keep it simple, because they dont change the outcome, they just speed up reaching it)

No Thick Skin = (1047 * 2400 * 0.7) / 3200 = 549 damage
100 Tgh Thick Skin = (1047 * 2400 * 0.7) / 3300 = 533 damage
120 Tgh Thick Skin = (1047 * 2400 * 0.7) / 3320 = 529 damage

Now, assume a big juicy 30k hp pool from a chunk of soldiers gear. The 90% threshold is from 27000 and up, meaning a 3,000 health window where Thick Skin applies.

So in 6 hits (529 × 6 = 3174) we’ll have lost thick skin. And it will have saved a grand total of…. drumroll …. 120 health! (549-529)x6)

That’s right, this trait adds 120 health worth of survival to someone with a 30,000 health pool. Or in other words, 0.004%.

OP, nerf inc.

PvE: Do the Ascalon Catacombs dungeon (any path) and find the cave troll; he doesn’t always show up. Have stability up, and get hit by his lightning-throw attack, which dazes. It will strip all stability stacks, and then still daze you.

PvP: I have also noticed this will occasionally happen in PvP involving dazes as well, but have not been able to reliably reproduce it, yet. After several attempts vs a mes (diversion) and war (pommel bash), I only got it to work once. It seems to be more fickle/random, but it does rear it’s ugly head every so often.

Sebrent, after looking into it and doing the math, the Exo GS is 1047, LB 1000, and Sword 952. Here are my revised numbers with Weapon Strength and Coefficient (before power/armor calcs):

War 100b: 1.37 partial(7/8), 1.51 full combo, x 1047 Exo GS Power = 1434 partial(7/8), 1581 full
Ranger RF: 1.5 coefficient, x 1000 Exo Longbow Power = 1500
Guard Spin: 1.71, x 1047 Exo GS Power = 1790
Mes BF: 0.96, x 952 Exo Sword Power = 914
Nec GC: 1.28 × 952 Exo Axe Power = 1219

Turns out not a whole lot changed. I guess thats no surprise, as the weapon powers don’t vary TOO much.

Guard Spin still does more over damage with only 33% of the hits/projectiles landing than 100b does if 100% of the hits land, and Ranger Rapid Fire still does nearly identical damage. Both of them allow mobility, and either a greater range or 360 attack cone. Necros still allows full mobility and lifeforce, and Mes still evades like a boss (though the damage is a good bit lower, clearly).

Sebrent.3625:

You didn’t use Weapon Strength in your math

Interesting. I admit I never bothered to check the weapon power. I know the damage calculation, Damage = Weapon strength * Power * Skill coefficient / Armor (in fact I brought it up a few weeks ago in a different thread) but it never occurred to me that ANet would assign different weapons different attack values.

In fact the debate we had was purely related to skill coefficients, and is technically still correct in that limited sense. I’ll update to account for weapon power shortly.

I assumed Weapon Strength was just a function of the Weapons Quality (blue, green, rare, exo, ascd). In fact, it seems to me that by making them the same, damage would be easy and simple to compare as you could look at raw coefficients (as I was doing), but by making them all different, it could become maddening! I simply assumed they went the sane route. Big mistake apparently!

If you’re going to talk down to each other … you should probably make sure you’re doing the math right first.

I don’t talk down to anyone, nor do I assume myself or anyone else is perfect. Both myself and Torqiseknite have evidently failed to consider factors (him channel times, and myself weapon power). Such is life. I’ll revise my math shortly.

Torqiseknite.1380:

Flurry, Volley, and Ghastly Claws all deal significantly less damage than Hundred Blades.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the skill damage coefficients:
Hundred Blades: 4.21 (first 8 strikes), 1.10 (final strike)
Rapid Fire: 3.75
Volley: 3.0
Ghastly Claws: 2.88
Whirling Wrath: 2.8 (7 melee strikes), 0.15 (7 projectiles)
Blurred Frenzy: 2.40
Flurry: 1.039

I don’t believe you, because you forgot an extremely crucial factor here: the times spent channeling.

Warrior 100b— 4.21+1.1 = 5.31 / 3.5 (cast time) = 1.51 DPS averaged across that. That’s assuming you land all 8 hits, including the backloaded final hit. If you break it down to “per hit” you can roughly assume 1 hit per 0.4375 seconds (8 hits in 3.5 seconds), with a damage coefficient of roughly 0.6 per hit (4.21/7 hits) works out to 1.37 DPS for the first 7 hits, with a 2.51 spike at the end (0.4375 with a 1.1 coeff), bringing the average up to 1.51

Ranger RapidFire— 3.75 / 2.5 (cast time) = 1.5 average

Whirling Wrath— (2.8 + (7×0.15)) / 0.75 = 5.133 average. Of course, thats unrealistic, because that assumes perfect hitbox positioning. A more realistic calculation might be that you land only a THIRD of these hits, which is still 1.71

Mes Blurred Fury— 2.4 / 2.5 = 0.96

Nec Ghastly Claws— 2.88 / 2.25 = 1.28

Summary
War 100b: 1.37 partial, 1.51 full combo
Ranger RF: 1.5
Guard Spin: 1.71* (see above)
Mes BF: 0.96
Nec GC: 1.28

For the record, Guardian GS Autoattack is: 1.12 ((0.8+0.8+1.2/2.5)

…but it is clearly superior in terms of damage…

The math clearly says you’re wrong. Ranger rapid fire is nearly identical (but RF is also ranged and fully mobile, and not backloaded on damage), and Whirling Wrath finishes ahead, EVEN if you assume only 33% of your hits/projectiles land. Necro is only 1.28, true, and Mes is lower, but Necro is also fully mobile and generates life force, while Mes evades during their entire animation. Both of these seem to be more than fair tradeoffs.

The reason I don’t support walking Hundred Blades isn’t necessarily because I think it would be overpowered, but rather because it’s flatly unnecessary. You called it a QoL buff, but really what it would do is make the skill far easier to use, requiring much less setup, while still maintaining a higher damage coefficient than every other skill of its kind. Furthermore, let’s look at it in the context of professions: Warrior is one of the few professions that has enough cc to disable a target for long enough to plausibly land a full channeled melee skill. The argument “but they can stunbreak or cleanse it” applies to every kind of cc; Warrior isn’t an exception, and it shouldn’t be. People tend to compare Hundred Blades to Whirling Wrath, but they forget that Guardians have no way to prevent targets from dodging out of melee, and even with the skill’s mobility, it’s practically impossible to ever land the full damage.

If you look at the DPS outcome as I posted above, making it 1/2 mobile actually brings it right in line with whirling wrath.

Also, as a side note, the claim that guards have no CC isnt true, Binding Blade pulls allow for a partial Whirl with no difficulty, mean they dont even need to swap to set up their hits. I’m not calling guard OP or cheap, just refuting your claims.

Anyway, why is it okay to assume that a Warrior MUST bring other skills JUST to set up 100b, but it’s fine that Ranger can just unload with RF, or Guard can Bind/Whirl without switching weapons? It’s great that they have ways to set up, but it should not be a 100% requirement that you set up, it should be a bonus. Backloading the DPS to the final hit already provides this bonus to land the entire chain. That does not mean that it should ONLY be usable following a setup.

I found your original justification for this buff quite strange; if mobs do dodge out of Hundred Blades

To clarify, what I was saying is that the response to most channeled skills is to dodge OUT of melee, because the hits track, are mobile, or hit 360. Warriors does NONE of these, so you can actually just walk around or dodge through the Warrior while he’s rooted, and attack them in the side/back. You cannot do this against any of the other channeled skills.

Gotta agree with you on Fast Hands, it’s basically a must-have trait, and should really be rolled in baseline. When you have 90% of warrior builds – and 100% of all warrior-meta builds – using one trait using the same trait, its time to re-examine things.

Warrior Sprint I disagree on though. That’s definitely trait worthy.

Quadruple Swap would be a little overpowered. Sure, elementalist has 4 sets which seems similar, but they’re tethered into a single choice, and the cooldowns are designed with 4 sets in mind.

Sebrent.3625:

If people feel Hundred Blades is not currently high reward enough, then I imagine we can all agree that a proper (and the simplest) solution is just a numbers tweak on its damage.

There’s obviously a lot of split opinions on this. I feel the 100b reward-vs-risk equation is just off a bit. Making 100b mobile in the form of walking (like whirling wrath) would grant it additional usefulness and versatility, as well as a QoL buff, but not directly up its numbers. I REALLY dont see how it would end up as overpowered.

Lets look at a few channeled skills and compare them (this is NOT a comprehensive list):

Warrior Flurry: self roots, immobs target, frontal cone, tracks targets, melee
Warrior Volley: mobile, tracks targets, ranged
Ranger Rapid Fire: mobile, tracks targets, ranged
Mesmer Blurred Fury: self roots, tracks targets, melee, evade frames
Guard Whirling Wrath: 1/2 mobile, 360 radius
War(and thief) Whirling Axe: 1/2 mobile, 360 radius
Necro Ghastly Claws: mobile, melee

Warrior 100b: self roots, melee

See the disparity? All the other self root skills also track targets. It makes sense because expecting someone to stand in a channeled skill is absurd, especially one with a backloaded damage spike. The skills that do not track are mobile. And most of the channeled skills also provide some additional effect as well. Flurry immobs targets to ensure it hits, or forces a condi break, Blurred Fury evades, etc.

Furthermore, even if 100b does gain 1/2 mobility (walking speed) it wont put it above the rest of the self root and 1/2 melee skills, the defense against it remains the same: Dodge out of melee.

I have a lot of wild and crazy ideas about how to improve WvW (as do many of us) but most are just not practical and would require full rebuilds of the maps and/or game engine. However, some are not quite as drastic, and would make excellent QoL buffs, and are entirely feasible to implement. Post yours below!

1. Craftable/Buyable Superior Siege

The process of making superior in the Mystic Toilet is just painful and time consuming. Adding a weaponsmithing recipe (weaponsmithing seems most fitting but it could easily exist for multiple professions, such as huntsman getting AC/Balis) would allow players to mass produce these instead of grinding them out. Better still, add superiors to the buy list for WvW Badges.

2. Golem Mastery Movement Speed

Needing travelers (or, lol, speed runes) to be a proper golem pilot is just silly. Adding a +25% movement speed bonus to the 5th rank in Golem Mastery in addition to the ejection effect, would quickly resolve this.

3. Siege Repair

Rams, Catas, Treb, and yes, even Golems, should be able to be (slowly) repaired. The final rank of Repair Master could cause any siege you’re currently using to gain a weak regen buff, perhaps something to the effect of 20 HP/S.

We’ve all seen this topic before. “Make 100bs mobile!!1!!!one!!”

But there’s some new context today: Smarter AI!

Normally I make lengthy posts, but I wont mince words here. The bottom line is that either NPCs will soon move out of 100b because they’re smart (making 100b useless) or they wont because they’re stupid (making the AI upgrade pointless).

Either way, somethings being rendered useless.

My suggestion? Let Warriors walk (not run) and turn while channeling 100b, just like a Guardian channeling whirling wrath.

As my main is Warrior, I REALLY hope they just leave Healing Signet passive alone. If they want to buff the active, sure, fine whatever, but there’s a REASON why Warriors all use Healing Signet.

1. Our other two heals (Surge/Mend) sort of suck
2. Complete lack of protection
3. Low alternate heal sources (only shoutheal or banner regens)

Guardians have:
1. Solid alternate heal skills
2. Moderate access to protection
3. Multiple alternate healing sources including a base class mechanic

I remember the dark days of Warrior, when they had minimal sustain and could be whittled away to nothing over time by literally EVERY other class. We were bottom tier PvP.

Then the golden era of the Healing Signet bandaid-buff began, and suddenly Warriors became viable again! We can WvW roam, PvP, and all is good.

Now, as ANet works on adjusting and buffing our other heals, they’re discussing a nerf to healing signet. However, this still only addresses issue #1, and does not touch on #2 and 3, lack or protection and lack of alternate heals.

But Healing Signet has remained our saving grace to this day. Some people call it a crutch that removes all skill, but that’s only partially true, and here’s why I feel that way: Healing signet does not remove all skill, it simply changes how we apply our skill to a battle.

Likewise, Healing signet does not make us uncounterable, it simply changes what the counter is.

Allow me to explain my position and qualify these statements.

Healing signet does not remove all skill, it simply changes how we apply our skill to a battle.
What does this mean? It means Warriors shrug off the small frequent autohits that are not feasible to dodge or block, and thus focus attention on the big burst damage hits that serves as the primary threat to survival. This means Warrior strength lies in facing opponents with big windup swings, Warriors are strong against them as long as player skill is equal.

It also means Warriors remain mostly neutral against most basic attrition builds, that attempt to wear down foes over time while surviving. It comes down to individual skill and build choice and flow of the battle. (Think bunker guards, PU mes)

It means Warriors remain weak against the extreme attrition/sustain builds that can, in effect, output moderate damage, while also putting out high healing. damage avoidance, and sustain. (Think eles, engis, and certain sa thieves)

It also means we remain especially weak against certain condi builds, especially those with a high poison uptime, and many builds that do heavy sustained damage, or high burst damage but spread out across a number of moderately sized hits, or any of the glass builds that can quickly output hard to avoid damage and end a battle. In a 10 second fight, Healing Signet provides less than 4k healing, whereas other heal skills can provide as much as 8k.

OwikGall.1607:

As a tank, this comes quite handy when I want to reduce as much damage from the get-go, and I always try to keep myself within the threshold, which for the most part does happen. I have no complaints over the trait. In fact, I’d be bummed if this was removed.

Not to knock anyones playstyle of choice, but I find this claim of yours to be highly dubious.

Theres no real trinity, but if you’re “tanking” you’re probably running a very high toughness gearset. Assuming you have about 3300 armor, not unreasonable with some soldiers/knights, the increase of 100 toughness, from 3200 to 3300, would provide you with only a TINY increase, as I’ll demonstrate:

Damage = Weapon * power * skill coefficient / targets armor

An exo greatsword has a Weapon value of 1047. Assume 2400 power, and using Warrior Greatsword AutoAttack with a coeff of 0.7 (we’ll skip crits, traits, might, etc to keep it simple)

(1047 * 2400 * 0.7) / 3200 = 549 damage
(1047 * 2400 * 0.7) / 3300 = 533 damage

In other words, thick skin saves you from only 16 damage. 16! That’s it. Assuming you have 30,000 health from some soldiers gear, that’ll save you from about 106 damage total (30,000 – (533*6)), before you drop below 27,000 and the trait deactivates. We’ll average that out, so Thick Skin adds a meager 0.35% (106/30,000) to your health pool.

Now compare that to Adrenal Health. Assume you have no healing power beyond the defense line, and assume we average out the Adrenaline uptime to mimic spending and earning, we get (0+140+270+405)/4=203.75 Health/3Second (67.9 H/S)
Sitting on full adrenaline is simply 405 H/3S (135 H/S).
That’s 0.22% worth your healthpool, PER SECOND (remember, we already averages out adrenaline uptime earlier to arrive at 67.9). And sitting full is 0.45%, again per second.

So in a short 15 second fight, Adrenal Health will provide 1018 health, versus the 106 damage reduction from thick skin. So even in the quick battles, Thick Skin is literally 10 times WORSE than Adrenal Health.

Lets look at a duel, that drags on 2 minutes: Adrenal Avg is 8148 health recovered. Thick skin, lets assume you recover to full health 4 times (healing surge), is 424 damage (106*4). Adrenal Health is 19 times better than thick skin. If you sit on your adrenaline, its 135 H/S, for 16,200 health, and becomes 38 times better than thick skin.

I hope this explanation puts into perspective how useless and droll Thick Skin actually is. Whatever benefit you think you’re getting from it…. trust me, it’s mathematically negligible.

Its “official” the new necro spec is: Greatsword Waver!

Rejected names include: Dark magic man, Blade carrying guy, and Bob.

Discuss!

Seriously, it’s a terrible trait on multiple levels.

Problem 1. Power Underwhelming
180 toughness when above 90% health. Woo. If you average it out flatly (180 for 10% of the time), its an extra 18 toughness overall. Except as many players know, you spend far more than 10% of the fight below 90% health, so you probably have more like 3-5% combat uptime.
And the cherry on top? 180 toughness works out to be a paltry amount of damage reduction, even for low toughness characters.

Problem 2. “I made my build around thick skin!” -No Warrior Ever
The trait adds nothing fun, or useful. It adds a forgettable trait that has no real relevance on the playstyle, build, or anything at all. Not every minor trait is supposed to redefine a class, but think of Fast Hands, Adrenal Health, etc.

Fix 1. When the pain comes marching in
Move Dogged March, or Armored Attack, to the minor slot, and delete Thick Skin entirely. That leaves a new adapt trait, which I think could be filled with something shiny and new.

Fix 2 When the going gets tough , the tough get tougher
Thick Skin COULD be worked to make it more interesting and functional. I suggest making it’s damage reduction a flat , which then inversely scales based on the warriors current health. Like so:
Thick Skin Trait: Gain 1 ‘ThickSkin’ stack for every 20 health missing.
‘ThickSkin’ Buff: 2% damage reduction, stacks up to 4 times.

In other words, from 100% down to 80% health, no change. Once you dip below 80% you gain a stack which provides 2%. Once you dip below 60%, you gain a 2nd stack for 4% total, and below 40% you’ve got 3 stacks for 6% damage reduction total. If you’re healed back up above 60% (but below 80%) you’d be left with 1 stack, for 2% damage reduction.

Feedback welcome; fellow players and warriors, please let me know what you think!

JonPeters.5630:

Wanted to run a potential idea past you all. Comments welcome.

Tome of Courage -> Signet of Courage
Passive: PBAoE Heal every 10 seconds.
Active: Light of Deliverance

Tome of Wrath -> “Feel My Wrath”
Shout that grants Quickness and Fury

We like the idea of tomes and if we did this we would hope to bring them back in a future Elite Specialization.

Thoughts? Comments?

Thanks,

Jon

So, basically Tome of Courage becomes a Signet type, 180 cd, version of its 5 skill: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Light_of_Deliverance

And Wrath becomes a shout type, 30s cd, of its 4 skill: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zealot%27s_Fervor

I approve this change. While I dont main a guard, both my roommates do, and their opinions are that Tomes are COOL in concept but USELESS in practice (“F- Tomes!” is a direct quote). Both run Renewed Focus. 95% of Guardians I run into use renewed focus.

Scrapping tomes and rebuilding into a Specialization later on is awesome sounding too.

Also Jon, I think that just asking this question, and seeking feedback from the community, is fantastic
Please do this as much as possible!

Remember: Even when you listen you can’t make everyone happy, but when you don’t listen you can make everyone unhappy!

GS: Arcing Slice – Overall 3/5
Pros: 5 targets, fury, bonus execute damage
Cons: 3/4 cast time makes it hard to hit mobile targets, slightly undersized AoE radius

Hammer: Earthshaker – Overall 4/5
Pros: 5 targets, AoE Stun, Blast Finisher
Cons: Buggy delay, moderate telegraph

Longbow: Combust Shot – Overall 5/5
Pros: 5 targets, AoE power damage, AoE burn, Always procs CI, Large fire field
Cons: Terrible at rank 1 and 2 adrenaline

Rifle: Killshot – Overall 1/5
Pros: High damage, high range, projectile finisher
Cons: Self root, slow cast, insane telegraph, needs trait to pierce, buggy ‘obstructed’

Axe: Evisc – Overall 3/5
Pros: High damage, leap finisher
Cons: Moderate telegraph, 1 target

Mace: Skill Crack – Overall 2/5
Pros: Stun
Cons: Moderate telegraph, 1 target

Sword: Flurry – Overall 3/5
Pros: High condi, Immobilize
Cons: Self root, long cast, constant buggy immobilize lag (often self-roots immediately but immobs target a second later, after they run out of melee range, causing all swings to miss)

I agree. Armored Attack made sense as a Minor.

But it’s stupid as a choice, especially since it competes with Dogged March, and Shield Master. Well, competes is the wrong phrase… more like gets destroyed by.

Merging it into Thick Skin would actually make perfect sense. It might need to be nerfed down to 5% but it would solve two issues at once: Thick skin being useless, and armored attack never being picked.

Some self copy/pasta:
I also dont see why they nerfed armored attack from 10% to 7% either. Assuming you have a toughness of 1800 or so from soldiers gear, which is fairly high, thats +180 power at 10%, or 126 power at 7%. Blech, 126 power for yourself only? Empower Allies is =150 power for EVERYONE, 150×5=750 power total. Armored attack in its current form and location is not a choice, it’ll never get picked.

I cant imagine ANY Warriors out there ever wanted, or cared about Thick Skin.

I’m thinking it seriously is THE most useless minor trait in the game. It’s certainly the most unloved in in the Warrior class, at the very least.

I was really hoping they’d delete it and replace it with something else during this revamp.

I also dont see why they nerfed armored attack from 10% to 7% either. Assuming you have a toughness of 1800 or so from soldiers gear, which is fairly high, thats +180 power at 10%, or 126 power at 7%. Blech, 126 power for yourself only? Empower Allies is =150 power for EVERYONE, 150×5=750 power total. Armored attack in its current form and location is not a choice, it’ll never get picked.

Solution
Move Dogged March into Thick Skins minor spot, since its basically mandatory; only a niche few block-spam builds will take shield master, and no one will touch the nerfed Armored attack trait.

Next unnerf Armored Attack to 10% toughness > power conversion

Finally, a 3rd new adept trait, to fill the gap, something like…
“Unbreakable Armor: Whenever you are inflicted with vulnerability, you instead gain Protection for 3s. Cooldown 30s”

It sounds like with the change to Healing Surge becoming a shout, and Mending physical, Healing Signet does not need a nerf.

It’ll have legitimate competition now from both other Warrior heals. If they mess with the active ability, whatever, but please dont touch the passive heal, ANet!

I remember the days when Warriors had 0 sustain, and it makes me a sad panda!

I STRONGLY support this. (and in fact suggested this a week ago! :P )

In addition to your points, it ALSO addresses the issue of losing Boon/Condi duration, AND the issue of sPvP stat distribution.

the warrior profession will have a new way to spend adrenaline, and a new way to interact with their adrenaline bar.

Interesting. We’ve long suspected an F2 is coming. Getting confirmation is great!

But “and new way to interact” was mentioned too. What could that mean? A new way to generate adrenaline?

We already have gain adrenaline options when:
Hitting
Getting Hit
Swapping
Over time in combat
Activating Certain Utility Skills

I’m no white knight, but I support this new trait approach. The pros greatly outweigh the cons, and im eager to see how it plays out.

As a bit of feedback: I’d like to see all flat damage+ traits go out the window, and be replaced with something a bit more enjoyable.

For example:
Warrior Forceful greatsword is a GOOD master trait! Shorter cooldown to let you access your skills more often, and a neat might proc effect which you can build around (strength runes, phalanx strength, etc).

Warrior Slashing power, on the other hand is a flat +10% damage boost, which is highly useful mechanically, but doesn’t add any fun gameplay, and thus I consider a BAD master trait.

Exception: Minor traits are fine with small flat bonuses. Slashing power would make for decent minor trait. It’s the PICKED traits that should add/change gameplay.

@Galeskyring:
I think you SERIOUSLY misunderstood the info presented by ANet.

This is what I understood:
-You have 5 available trait lines, same as now
-You pick and fully progress 3 of these lines, and ignore the remaining 2
-You get 3 predetermined minors from each trait line
-You pick 1 major, adept, and grandmaster for each of the 3 trait line, for a total of 9 traits
-Stats are no longer linked to trait lines
-Elite Specialization will replace a specific trait line

Pros:
-Each trait will supposedly be more viable and competitive = greater build variety
-No more wonky stat lines associated with the trees = greater build freedom
-Creates a solid foundation = additional specializations can be easily added going forward

Cons:
-Less options at each individual selection – However one might argue that 3 viable choices is better than 1 viable choice and 5 useless choices.

-Slightly less freedom to dive halfway into multiple trait lines – Again, one could argue that the stat removal adds more freedom than this takes away, for an overall net gain in build freedom

Honestly, I’m very optimistic about this news. The system seems fun from a build perspective, balanced (or easily rebalancable… is that a word?) from a mechanical perspective, and scalable from an future content perspective.

Yes there are drawbacks, but I feel the overall result is a MUCH better system than whats currently in place.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Now I know why Rytlock is blind. He didnt want to see the spoilers.

I always thought it was cause he couldn’t stand to read anymore warrior patch notes.

Purple Miku.7032:

If it’s not fully reviving them then it’s because the targets have poison, which reduces healing efficacy. Battle standard restores 100% of a person’s downed health, so if that person has poison it will only restore 66% of it instead.

Seems like an unintended bug.

They COULD spend tons of time recoding it, and messing with it so battle standard isn’t affected by poison, conditions, etc….

Or… they could just change the value to restore 200% downed players health.

Wiki about the mists: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Mists
So, basically, Tyria is a floating pocket of reality, in a sea of energy. And there are other worlds there too, as evidenced by numerous events.

But what if there are other versions of the SAME world as well?

What if there are multiple copies of Tyria floating around in this ether, inhabited by entirely different populations?! Why, when using an Asura gate or Waypoint to travel, you could even be accidentally shunted from your familiar home, to some alien Tyria! Would you even be able to tell the difference?! Those who you stand shoulder to shoulder with today, may well be those who stand against you as foes in the mist war tomorrow! Only by grounding yourself with other familiar, strong-willed travelers, do you stand any chance of remaining in your own world; five seems to be the ideal number.

How do these transportation devices even work anyway?! To step through and travel such a great distant instantly seems impossible, but the mists are a place where time and space become extremely negotiable. It makes sense that the only way to accomplish this form of travel is to involve the mists in some form.

Furthermore, I highly suspect that the minds behind the Black Lion Trading Post are not only aware of this, but have discovered a way to access and exploit these other worlds. If anyone could devise such an absurd yet profitable cross-world trading network, its Gnashblade(s?).

Some other points of note!
-Slain enemies returning constantly
-Events and missions and conversations that seem to repeat in an endless loop
-Portals to a Battleground left by the God of War
-Some citizens of the world always remember you, while others always act like they’ve just met you for the first time
-Some areas such as dungeons, appear to revert to a fixed state each time you enter

Ahem. So, basically my fun (but pointless) theory is that each server represents a different version of Tyria floating around in the mists! Every commonly accepted MMO mechanic that people glaze over can be instead explained by this theory! I love it when mechanics and lore converge!

Zackie.8923:

“Needing” to log in everyday burns people out and make it feel like a job instead of playing.

Changing dailies to monthlies paces the game better.

If you’re doing this for a reward or cause it feels like an obligation, you’re doing it wrong. This is a game. Play for fun.

I log in daily, not cause I get some bouncy chest on my screen, but because I freakin love WvW. The daily reward chest is a nifty bonus, but I’ve been playing long before it came along.

PS: If logging in for the daily chest is really too stressful, you CAN still get your daily rewards with HALF the work. Log in 1 minute before reset to get your Day 1 chest, then wait 60 seconds for your Day 2 chest.
Bam, I just halved your stress level!

Sword #2 has an obnoxious pause at the very beginning, and very end.

Greatsword #5 Rush has the same.

Banners #4 all have the same thing.

I know it’s always been this way, but it’s always bothered me. Why can’t these moves be smoother??

Aktium.9506:

Dand.8231:

but the majority of might from your LB F1 fire field will come from OTHERS blast finishers

You don’t actually play Warrior do you? Hambow and Shoutbow both maintain 20+ stacks of might on their own.

You’ve got a valid point there. Even so, overall, traits and stats still do not match up well.

bigbobpataki.4796:

I think a much simpler solution would just create a pool of stats, say 300 or so points, that you individually assign in blocks of 20 or 30. People who like the “stats are linked to traits” system or have concerns that unlinking them would create balance issues are happy, people who want more freedom in builds are happy. Things like NPCs in the game would also be scaled up a little to compensate.

Thats basically my Suggestion 2:

Suggestion 2
Remove stats from the trait lines, and just create a second stat line, where you independently assign points as you please.

Justine.6351:

I got easier solution.
Remove stats from traitlines.
Do nothing more.

And no one the wiser ;-)

I’ve actually considered this, however, it creates two problems.

1. Mobs all got stronger relative to players. This can be fixed by tweaking them ALL, but thats a lot of extra work.

2. Some stats like Boon Duration+ and Condi Dur+ are harder to come by on gear than Power+ and Precision+. Additionally, the class specific stat does not exist anywhere else at all.

It’s for this reason that I think Suggestion 1 is the cooler of the two, but Suggestion 2 is far more realistic and do-able.

Ok, I guess you could argue for the AoE might on a firefield, but the majority of might from your LB F1 fire field will come from OTHERS blast finishers, and be affected by THEIR boon duration, not yours. You’re just making the ring.

Solori.6025:

I think this would lead to a lot of powerful, broken combinations.
Like having shadow arts + preparedness and Hidden Killer.

It would be intersting, But kitten-awful to balance.

I think you misunderstood. I didn’t suggest removing adept/master/grand tiers. I only suggested we remove the associated stat bonuses with each trait line.

Suggestion 1
Remove stats from the trait lines themselves, and link them to each individual trait in a way that makes sense (ex: Warriors trait Forceful Greatsword adds 50 power/50 precision, while Engineer trait Incendiary Powder adds 50 condi/5% condi duration, and Elementalist trait Elemental Attunment adds 5% Intelligence/5% boon duration)

Suggestion 2
Remove stats from the trait lines, and just create a second stat line, where you independently assign points as you please.

The end result of either would be the same exact amount of stat points and trait restrictions as we have present, just with more flexibility to assign them without ending up with useless stats, or fear of missing out on 300 of a key stat.