Guild Wars 2

Blinding that stack intensity, each stack removed by each attack. Some professions will be simply shut down by this for several seconds.

Its almost the same as someone asking Stun to stack duration.

And you speak of direct nerfs while there are indirect ones…

When warrior largely relies on passive defenses for survivability (toughness and large health pool) AND you increase damage output of most professions (be it burst or condi) you actually NERF warrior survivability.

When you increase damage output of all conditions except bleeding and at the same time you increase more or less the condi management capabilities of all professions AND you leave warrior condi capabilities THE SAME… its actually an indirect NERF.

KhainPride.3987:

…

I have one suggestion thus far and its related to rifle build. What if crack shot also added +25% movement speed while equipping a rifle?

Hmmm…

I think that the main reason devs designed Warrior’s Sprint (+25% movement speed) that way is to prevent warriors with ranged weapons to have increased mobility. When Warrior’s Sprint gives you the buff only when you got melee weapons equipped it would be stupid to have the same effect on a ranged weapon trait.

It would be stupid to have the exact same effect on a trait that is used for a ranged weapon.

dominik.9721:

Let’s change dis trait and add quickness to it. Everytime you get quickness your allies will get quickness for 4 seconds as well.
To run dis trait you have to sacrifice the strength traitline, so you won’t have a dps warrior + support in one – which means it wouldn’t be op.
…

And how exactly you would justify the fact the usage of one Specialization (tactics) or a specific trait (PS) will restrict the usage of another Specialization (Strength)?

This will be unique among all professions and while we are craving for more viable build options we ’ll get less Specialization combos…

I don’t think that this change will happen but not because the Quickness sharing part is so exaggerating but because the Strength restriction goes against the general profession design.

Schokoladenonkel.7295:

…

The thing is though, that one can’t necessarily say, Warrior is kitten just because it doesn’t play the way you want it to play, when there is a somewhat viable way to play it. I am mainly referring to solo/duo queue here btw. ,since that’s where my experience is mostly based on.

During the game’s life-span, at least this far, Warrior had more that a couple of viable or at least acceptable builds for each game mode.

What bothers me is that, with recent changes, instead of warriors to have more viable options and/or fixed some of the previous ones to be better… they were actually reduced to 1 build per mode in some cases with most builds having something in common… the GS.

Valik Shin.9027:

That’s y I said CHANGED or replaced. I understand some of these skills don’t need removed just tweaked to make them better

What stroke me badly was the “…or replaced” part.

Generally speaking I am amazed, as well, how people are stuck on changing some working stuff and doesn’t say anything about NON-working stuff.

I bet that some ppl out there are happy that we got a build that can kill something and they come back here and say… “Wow, ultra-new GS Zerker build with 1 trait changed… Try it out!!!”… instead of wondering “we have 21 weapon combos, why only this few are viable???”.

I still bet that if A.Net silently deleted Arms specialization half warriors wouldn’t even mention its absence.

Schokoladenonkel.7295:

… GS is kind of obligatory in my eyes. I also feel like alot of people don’t understand the Warrior concept which is not a facetanking brawler, but more a very mobile hard hitter and “melee-kiter”, at least the way I understand and play it…

Choco…

Your whole post is referring to a specific build you play. Still, by profession design warrior doesn’t follow (or fails to follow) your concept. If you try different weapons you will see that warrior isn’t as hard-hitter as a GS makes him and he can’t kill as fast as a GS warrior kills.

Personally, I would like to know what Arena.Net had in mind when they designed the Warrior but what Wiki say in Warrior description ( Warriors are masters of martial skills. They’re versatile in combat and benefit from offensive and defensive abilities. Warriors inspire allies and demoralize enemies ) doesn’t reflect the current state of warrior that good.

Valik Shin.9027:

Inspiring battle standard, crack shot, rousing resilience, powerful synergy, axe mastery, unsupecting foe, burst precision, dual wielding. All trait that could be changed or replaced.

Because you don’t use the specific traits or because the traits aren’t made good by Arena.Net doesn’t mean that the concept of these traits is wrong.

Some of the ones you mentioned are the only traits that buff specific skills-types and weapons of the warrior. For example, Inspiring Battle Standard… it has its shortcomings, it should be changed to be useful, but NOT replaced as this trait is the only that buffs banners should exist.

Dual Wielding. Yeah dual wielding 1h weapons is not good at the moment BUT it should be. So the trait should be changed to make dual-wielding viable, not replaced by something irrelevant.

In general you don’t sacrifice stuff you should actually fix just to keep other things the way you want.

dominik.9721:

one question.
do you pvp?

you pretty much need the discipline- and defens-traitline to be at least close to being viable. So you have to decide between the strength and the tactic traitline.
Are you actually serious by asking what’s wrong about PS in a PvP perspective? It’s useless af and nobody uses it. And since shoutbow is basically ded as well the whole tactic traitline is garbage. Including quickness to dis trait will be an interesting option for warriors,owing to their ability to get a lot of quickness.

I’m really not willing to explain basic stuff in dis thread.

I do mostly WvW, only a few matches as Warrior in sPvP every now and then. Yeah I am aware of the current Warrior issues (lack of build variety, survivability issues etc.) but still they won’t be fixed by what you suggest.

I agree that Discipline is quite appealing to most people due to Fast Hands trait (I also like Warrior’s Sprint). But what you mention about Defense being almost a “must have” in order to be able to survive long enough in a battle, while its true, its just the “peak of the iceberg”. Still lack of Defense is not the real problem, neither changing Phalanx Strength should be the solution. This is what I would like to discuss a bit.

Currently, the combination to success for a Warrior is Zerker-Stances-Greatsword. Try to remove one of these three things and our chances to succeed are greatly reduced. Why? We need to kill fast in order not to be the ones who die first.

So, we are forced into picking Defense for a single reason! Defense meets the need to stay alive just a bit longer. What Defense has is mostly the additional Endure Pain though Defy Pain trait and the improved Stances or Cleansing Ire.

Do we agree on this?

So, the real problem is that Warrior can’t stay alive long enough. We don’t have very good heals, we have very limited active defenses (evades, blinds, stealth etc) and our passive defenses (toughness + huge HP) are lacking due to the increased damage (Burst & Condi) all professions deal. Our only chance is being Zerker with a GS and utilize stances.

So, the real reason that few of us spec into Phalanx Strength isn’t that its useless… you just need to prioritize other, more essential stuff.

As I see it the only way to fix the problem is to admit it and solve it rather than trying to bypass it (as bypassing it will always make the problem reappear in another form… currently pigeonholing warriors into the same burst build).

Whats wrong with Phalanx Str as is?

You just need some team coop to get the benefits. Apart from that, whats wrong with Strength+Tactics? Its DPS+Offensive Support(Might share).

And why, above all, Tactics usage should restrict Strength usage?

VagaMule.1658:

This topic is saying we arent in any real position for anything. The simple reply to your post is – Use GS. …

Maybe OP didn’t try GS and decide to give other weapon combos a chance. Then its no wonder why he feels that way.

What we all need to understand is that with current state of balance and the Warrior class we actually play a Greatsword equipped with a Warrior.

Sykper.6583:

Gonna keep it short and sweet. This kind of reasoning will apply ANYWHERE.

- Warriors have Effective but Predictable attacks.
- Warriors have no access to powerful active defenses outside of Stances, which are inhibited to being used once (twice if really elongated fight) in a skirmish. Stances also negatively influence the Warrior’s mobile or offensive utility elsewhere. (For instance, full Stance Warrior has no gap closers outside his weapons, which carry moderate to long cooldowns and as stated previously, are predictable)
- Susceptibility to conditions, specifically Blind, pigeon-hole Warriors into very few versatile builds, when coupled with the implicit predictability and the Stance inhibiting Warrior potential, makes us a counterable and unfortunately ‘routine’ fight across any build.
- Toughness has never been so weak since the balance patch.

I can go into detail, but these are the exact reasons for the Warrior status across all game-modes.

1) Not all warrior weapons skills are equally effective (compare GS dps output to any other wepon set, for example)

2) Toughness is a real issue for us and I don’t see it being solved easily. With the current burst damage being so high, toughness isn’t as effective as active defenses (evades, blocks, blinds etc.). Having in mind that toughness comes at an even higher cost of DPS output you end up a bit more tanky but unable to kill anything on your own. This kills tanky builds (and condi builds) and forces a warrior to go full zerker in order to “burst before get bursted”

Even if you try to fix toughness to provide more survivability, you ’ll end up making Guards too hard to die.

VagaMule.1658:

I think warriors are OK at the moment. Condis such as burning and confusion are the enemy for us though, like any other class. Burning is really strong even if you have your condi cleanse or condi ignore skills, 1-2 ticks of burning of 2-3 stacks hits for so much.

…

I disagree.

The only thing that seems to work with Warrior is the typical GS builds (I don’t play with Hammer much). These builds works OK for a reason. It can deliver its massive damage in the few seconds you are immune to condi/direct dmg.

If you don’t use GS you simply can’t kill fast enough. If you don’t use stances you probably won’t survive long enough.

If you really think that Warrior is OK and condis such as confusion and burn are the real problem go try a Warr condi build with confusion and burning and post here the results.

I really dunno why they didn’t turned Mending to a Physical Skill in the end. Maybe they thought that Warrior would have too many (or too powerful) condi cleanses. Still thats not the case anymore since most condi proffs can reapply the condis faster.

ShakeyStorm.7180:

Warriors are masters of weaponry who rely on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. Adrenaline fuels their offensive power—the longer warriors stay in a fight, the more dangerous they become.

— GuildWars2.com Warrior

Being masters of weaponry, Elite Warriors can carry up to four (4) sets of weapons. Similar to the Elementalist’s elemental affinity, warriors can swap sets using F1-F4 (F5 being Burst?). Weapon swap reduced cool down is base line.

Change is subtle but Warriors now become TRUE masters of weaponry.

What do you think?

I think I should start copy paste my replies from threads regarding Elite Spec…

Lets assume that Warrior has 4 available weapon sets (similar to an ele). When most duel-wielding options are sub-par to GS damage and Hammer CC, what other weapons you think most people would take? Maybe Sword+Warhorn for mobility and LB/Rifle for range?

Whats the use of getting more weapon slots when, although they got 21 available weapon combinations, most warrs play with 2-3 specific weapon combinations???

TheDuck.4526:

@ Ilias

I think those are good points, but that’s a different discussion to be had altogether and I think you should create a new topic on it. Whether we like it or not, we’re going to get new weapons. This topic is discussing the content of our inevitable new weapons as opposed to the stale content of old weapons.

TheDuck you are right about the new weapons. I mentioned myself that no matter what we ARE getting at least one weapon that wasn’t usable for our profession. Please don’t take my post wrong. By no means I meant that discussing something new or different is kinda bad. Still, there is a limit-line we shouldn’t cross.

And heading back on-topic … (and my objections)

Its not impossible in a game like GW2 to make a focus be equipped as main-hand and off-hand. Its not impossible to think of weapon skills that will make foci melee weapons (same way sword/axe/mace/GS has ranged skills).

BUT…

As a dual-wielding weapon set, while our “old” specializations (like Arms which benefits dual wielding) remains as is, foci are most likely doomed to be overshadowed by GS/Hammer.

Why? How would you pair it with existing core-specializations?

Lets assume (for a start) that A.Net won’t make an OP’ed Elite Spec that will overshadow all other core-specs to an extent that it means too little whether you pick X or Z. So, apart from Elite Spec, you ‘ll pick Arms to boost dual-wielding… but Arms won’t boost damage to the GS level! So, you should pick Strength in order to further boost damage but your dual-wielding will be still lacking (attack speed etc). Now if you pick both Strength+Arms you most probably just wrecked your build’s defensive capabilities!!!

So, dual wielding a new weapon seems problematic from the start. Only if A.Net picks to create an Elite Spec really OP’ed then, that weapon with Strength will be the only one used by warrs.

I would find an Elite Spec for wielding a GS/Hammer as 1h along with a Shield, more viable and with less problems.

I would suggest, since we are in the Warrior sub-forum, that we should make ALL weapons available to the Warrior profession useful to an equal degree.

Warrior currently has one of the widest collection of usable weapons and the most weapon combos of all professions. Still, most builds use the same weapons over and over. Its clear that some weapons, especially some weapon combos, have no real reason of existence as no one uses them. For some weapon combos I am certain that there wasn’t ever, during the whole “life” of this game this far, a build that was generally accepted by at least a respectable portion of the player base.

Adding more weapons to the existing ones has little to add if we are to remain stuck on what we are using already. It has little to add if it simply replace one of the weapons that already stands out. It will add totally nothing if its just another set that will be overshadowed by our “favored” weapons.

So, instead of asking more weapons to be added we should ask for a weapon skill revamp and trait buff for the already many under-used (not to say useless) weapons we have.

No matter what with the introduction of elite specializations some new weapon will be added to the warrior. But I see little purpose and I am holding an even “smaller basket” to the options this will open up.

GS-something/Shield is the typical build people run nowadays. Mostly a high reward/risk build that you “rush & burst OR fail & run”. You “window of opportunity” is 10-15 secs where you need to deliver literally anything you got on GS and if you fail to kill or almost kill your target just switch to shield, block and run till your skills are off cool down.

coglin.1867:

I disagree.

It is no better or worse then direct damage. What I feel is the problem, are simply specific skills, and every profession has them, that apply abnormally high stack counts of a specific condition…

I agree with that.

Lets look at Burning for example.

How many complained about condi warriors? Even with new condis NONE! What about Mesmer or Engi?

A Zerker Guard can apply more Burns that a Condi Warrior fully traited and specced into burning.

Its not the condis but the condi applying capabilities of certain skills and professions.

coglin.1867:

…

As I see it the problem isn’t conditions, it is damage out put as a whole. Direct damage is no higher or lower then condition damage out put right now.

Warrior’s, for example, direct DPS is way higher than Condi DPS. Condi cleanse on the other hand are inferior to some profession condi applying capabilities and if you go for fully for condi cleanse then your build will struggle to kill anything.

Actually whatever build uses a GS is more or less viable (cause GS dmg simply overshadows anything else a warrior has).

GS+???/Sh (Most usual thing… great success!!!)
GS+Rifle
GS+Bow
GS+Hammer

Sometimes I actually feel that I ’ve picked a Greatsword and equipped it with a Warrior.

Other than that there are Hammer builds (H+Sw/Wh usually).

In general Axe is mostly used to supplement GS dps (w/ skills #F1 and #1), Mace to buy GS’s 100b some more time (w/ skill F1) and Sword for the mobility (w/ skill #2) in GS or Hammer builds and immobilize (w/ skill F1) and sometimes DPS when foe<50% HP (w/ skill #3) and GS skills on CD.

No other weapon can surpass GS’s overall damage while GS still is a great all-arounder with skills that apart from acting as gap-closer, evade, soft CC… they still deal very good damage (in a zerker build ofc).

Spartacus.3192:

Its kinda funny how people say its just X build with trait and sigil and elite changed.

I mean come on, ANET drastically reduced the flexibility of builds in the JUNE 23 update. Pretty much every build is going have a base setup with minor tweaks. You only have 3 choices per slot now and some of them will never ever ever be taken by anyone. Most often there is really only 1 really viable choice in a given slot.

What were you expecting? A brand new talent line that no one had seen before and TapDatMouse had unlocked?

Oslaf Beinir had it right “speaks volumes about your build variety though….which is too limited”

Actually its not TapDatMouse fault apart from posting the “almost only” warrior viable build with the “NEW” tag. Its just a revamped version of his Legendary v3.0 build.

The concept is the same and people already know it.

Its Arena.Net’s fault that, although warrior can use axes, maces, swords (which all are damaging weapons) and when combined can produce 9 (if i am not mistaken) unique weapon combos you barely see 2-3 of them and mostly as supplementary weapon sets.

Changing that would be something NEW!

The current state of game balance requires you to admit and constantly keep one thing in mind…

“Burst others before they burst you.”

To break this down…

1) GS overall is the most hard hitting weapon even when untraited. If you trait it using Strength spec, you boost its damage even more and be able to burst anything in a few seconds “window of opportunity”

2) This “window of opportunity” is being given to you in the form of Stances mostly. Use Berserkers Stance (8-10sec condi ummunity), Endure Pain (4-5sec direct dmg immunity) and if needed pop-up Healing Signet (6sec Resistance).

3) If you fail to have a result (dead or half-dead opponent) during the “window of opportunity” you can pray for the ground to swallow you but since this won’t happen, you can use Shield block, passive Defense traits (Defy Pain, Last Stand) and Disc Warrior’s Sprint to save ur @ss while you skills are on CD.

Other than these, unfortunately, requires double skill to have mediocre results.

DrDivine.5378:

I actually like there nos no traditional dps healer tank because it allows more variety and I’m not forced into one spec. I think with a few adjustments warrior could be fixed, perhaps buffing bleeding and reworking awkward traits that have no real use such as the finishers activating twice.

The absence of a traditional dps-healer-tank alone doesn’t tell much alone. The current state of game balance and warrior in particular dictates that the only viable warrior builds are burst-dps ones. Currently 90% of warrior use GS/? or Hammer/?. This goes for some other proffs as well.

When you say “buff bleeding” many people would think you want a change in Bleed damage-calc formula. Still, this isn’t right to a large extent. What actually needs buffing is not Bleeding itself BUT :

1) the Bleed inflicting skills/traits of warrior
2) the hybrid nature of swords (increase direct damage when using sword MH/OH)
3) increase the dual-wield damage potential (Axe Mastery / Dual Wielding aren’t as appealing as Berserkers Power)
4) rework some 1h weapon skills (like Axe #5)

Powerful Synergy trait isn’t useless. Gaining double leap finisher results in 10sec, instead of 5, of Fire Shield or Chaos armor which is really good in a fight. Its only that it requires some team coordination since warrior is lacking most fields. Maybe change the trait a bit to give the same buff to party members and not only to self.

Just some info…

1) For someone that maintains Condition Damage ~1200-1300 Bleed does approx the same damage as before patch. What was nerfed was the Bleed base damage (from 40 to 22) which actually weakens the Bleed damage output when u got between 0-1200 condi damage. The closer you are to zero, the bigger the nerf. So, given the stat changes on gear, for someone whos specc’ed into condi dmg, Bleed is more or less what it used to be. Though changes on Arms bleed-related traits is another thing.

2) Warrior’s burning, even when you fully trait LB and use the appropriate sigils/runes to maximize its damage, is inadequate to be a basis for a build compared to other classes that can burn. Warrior can apply so many burning stacks and for such duration. Only combustive shot is worthwhile but thats an AoE skill (that smart players will simply avoid) and its burst (F1) thus can’t always have it. Guard, Engi, Ele are professions with access to lots of Burns.

3) If you want to use your Sword(s) to its maximum damage effect you mainly need 3 attributes : precision, condi dmg and power (the balance between these 3 attributes is another thing). Especially if you check Sword MH skills you can easily realize that totally forfeiting either precision (crit chance), condi dmg or power will reduce the damage output of a sword. This goes, to lesser extend though, to sword (OH) as it’s only power based skill is Rip (Sword #4/2).

My opinion on condi warr builds…

Especially for PvP (due to the fixed attribute stats of ammys) a Hybrid build that I could feel comfortable with is too hard to get. Especially due to lack of certain attribute combos I feel that Condi/Hybrid warr is not in a good place compared to other professions condi builds (no condi bomb concept for warrior) and condi warr damage output is by far less compared to the typical warrior’s Burst power builds. Something else that indirectly, but seriously, affected the Condi/Hybrid warr performance is its survivability. What does this mean?

With all these damage numbers around, in both burst and condi builds, the survivability of warrior (which mostly relies on passive defenses) isn’t what it used to be. So, when condi/hybrid warr requires time to wear down his opponent, the opponent can kill a warrior faster than before. As a condi/hybrid warr you need to put more effort to survive than before, while with the same effort/skill you can perform better with a power-burst build.

I just hope that A.Net will see this and will change something in an effort to put more option in the “warrior’s viable builds”.

@TheNatural

Did you mention any significant benefit from running a so high toughness/armor build? With all this damage around does it worth the effort to get armor well beyond 3000?

Yeah, build is really great as it uses the current balance state.

Still, what saddens me is what Nhymz call “fight fire with fire” in the videos. Its just another testimony of how a warrior is pigeon-holed to what most people already know and use. GS superior DPS, that no other weapon combo can reach, utilizing at least Zerker Stance and Endure Pain to gain that 10sec window of opportunity to kill your opponent. Elite skill of choice is Rampage of course. Yep, most of the time the 10sec window is enough.

This build works great, forfeiting Cleansing Ire for Last Stand isn’t a big deal since Cleansing Ire with either Hammer of GS is somewhat unreliable. You capitalize on Warr’s GS damage output and the whole build sees how you can deliver it with no interruption.

Great build just not something new…

Very good try and more importantly using a build that is a scarce sight these days.

Try to leap more often into your fire field! Fire shield is something that will help you a lot.

I still encourage you to try Blademaster instead of Deep Strike. This way you ’ll be able to easily maintain ~92-93% crit chance at any time. In such case I think going a bit more into power at the expense of some condi will make up the loss.

(try these in pvp… its cheaper)

Somewhere in there I saw a GS as well…

I used pure condi builds in the past with good success and I am running condi builds on Warrior from quite early, well before the implementation of Torment condition. Back then the game was rather different as there were less ways to clear conditions.

As you already mentioned in a previous post, my intention is to point out that picking a sword while using either a Zerker or a full Condi build actually puts you in a place like fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

As a personal opinion, I would definitely go full condi if I was running a mesmer with Staff+Scepter/Torch. I wouldn’t do it with warrior anymore, at least not with one that uses Sword(MH).

Judging DPS, the main reason every Warrior picks GS is simply that GS overshadows all the rest weapons sets by retaining great DPS while maintaining good mobility and an evade skill. Guardian has lot more active defenses which are better than Warrior’s passive ones thus letting Guard invest heavily on offensive gear without getting him in a “shoot & kill or miss & run” concept the burst Warrior is.

Banners aren’t something that extraordinary. Having Engi turrets in mind there is a general advice that you should fight an Engi near his turrets. Same should be for Warrior and Banners but it isn’t.

I don’t support full condi builds on Warrs. I do support them on Engies or Mesmers but not on Warrs. I can start a whole wall of text why I don’t but I think its not the purpose of the thread.

In general, Warrior needs more variety. The overall concept that as a warrior you either go GS or Hammer with an additional supplementary weapon set is simple wrong cause warrior is the single profession that can use such a large variety of weapons. Whats the use of a large variety if 3/4 of the possible weapon combinations are overshadowed by the rest 1/4 ?

darkaheart.4265:

what build did you used Ilias?

What I rejected a week ago was like this ->

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAT8cjMdQVIW2BehAnIGmCs7IEAGZaQo21DyPwJoAC-T1iAABXcEAgZ/hrVa8lyMAuAAyoTYPNBAp+THHEgNeAAspEkQALWDA-w

Tried variations of rune sets and utility skills but the results weren’t that good…

Elegie.3620:

@Ilias

I think actually it’s possible to have bleed / torment / burning / confusion in the same build. …

Its possible to gain access to conditions using the special effects of various rune sets and the use of certain sigils. Still, in such case some of the conditions that come from sigils and/or runes will be rather weak or unreliable (I mean that you may not be able to inflict the condition you want when you want it cause of rune/sigil ICD or proc rate).

I find such solutions good to add more conditions to my kitten nal that work as “masking conditions” or have some supplementary effect (like poison from Sigil of Doom).

Regarding Arms specialization :

Arms isn’t bad or uninteresting specialization. It has some really good traits like Signet Mastery or Furious and others that work OK but could be somewhat tweaked like Bloodlust and Blademaster.

Arms is a specialization that, among others, augments Sword use. Sword in general isn’t that popular as damaging weapon for Warriors partially because most are judging its performance under a Zerker perspective (where GS and Axes shine) or judging the Sword’s performance in a pure condi build compared to a Zerker build. Pre-patch Arms was used mostly for the its GS traits This makes Arms less popular than, lets say, Strength or Defense.

And since we are talking about Arms and Sword, although the later is considered to be among the lowest DPS weapon, if you spec it accordingly and use gear with appropriate stats, you ‘ll realize that its damage doesn’t fall short to the rest of 1h weapons. Ofc some sword skills were tuned-down in the past and now there is no reason to remain this way while some Arms traits, in fear of turning some weapons too powerful, were tuned-down but actually hampered sword’s damage potential.

Where I found pure condi builds lacking is that Warrior, by design, can’t “condi bomb” his target like other professions can. The only condition that Warrior can stack in larger quantities is Bleeding, which happens to be the weakest of all, and requires the warrior to stay at melee range.

Other than that, the warrior (damaging) condi variety is rather limited. In general Warrior profession has access to bleed/torment/burning/confusion. Problem is you can’t have access to all of these in the same build.

Torment is only accessed through Sword #4 (every 12secs at best) and Consusion requires a skill interrupt. So, you either go Bleed/Burn+Torment or Bleed/Confusion+Torment or simply Confusion/Burning (no torment). In all these cases the rate of condi application isn’t the fastest one nor the quantities of condi stacks (except Bleeding).

Another thing that pure condi builds seem to “ignore” is the hybrid nature of all condi-capable weapons the warrior has. Sword and Longbow both have power based skills (sword #3, lb #3) that you shouldn’t simply ignore. No need to mention the Mace and Hammer (for Confusion)…

Sword in particular won’t unleash its full damage potential in neither a Zerker build nor a pure Condi one. Its easy to find out yourselves if you check the numbers in the combat log.

@Elegie :

The reason I am reluctant to rely on Longbow’s burning potential is that atm even when fully traited and burning duration is buffed, Warrior can’t burn that efficiently as other professions seem to do. Sure Burning is welcomed but I see it more as an additional damage source rather than the main damage source of a warrior’s condi build. Eles/Engis/Guards can rely on Burning, Warriors atm simply can’t. Combustive shot is really good and using it for its Fire field is even better but a smart player can easily stay out of it. Overall, although I used LB extensively as part of condi/hybrid build, at the moment it mostly shines in team fights (as fire field and supplementary burn dmg).

I tried this but seems not have worked, at least for me.

@Foverine :

Tried Axe Whirl finisher but never achieved 10 stacks of burning even on NPCs even at melee range.

The concept of the ideas are good, still I think that some of the functionalities you suggest would be “too much” for the game and will clearly be OP’ed.

Ofc these won’t be the only not the most OP’ed stuff in game but still, I am up for not implementing more OP stuff into the game before fixing the existent ones (an approach that clearly Arena.Net doesn’t follow).

For a start we could use a trait that reduces banner CD by 20% and increase the radius by 33%. Pulses with some effect per banner would be great to create a “kill-zone” that enemies shouldn’t stand on so “light heartily”.

LostBalloon.6423:

Actually, unless you intend to pre-PURCHASE prior to the release date, you will not be getting that character slot. So anyone that pre-ORDERS is also NOT getting it. At least that is what ANET’s official response was last time they said anything about it. They tried to be as clear as possible about this.

Thats the point… The pre-purchase offer is stated under ** that you need to click on and read. It would be lot easier if they stated under the HoT edition details.

Apart from this, its still silly that old GW2 players doesn’t get an additional character slot no matter when they purchase HoT. Instead you receive digital goods (GW2 core game) you already own and is of no use to you!

Librascythe.3152:

You do know they changed that to include a Character slot for Veterans of Guild Wars 2 right?
So now even the basic gives one you just have to wait a week or so since they do it in batches.
And the more costly choices actually offer 2 now.

I was alright with the price, it was expected not happy but expected the only thing I hate was the no character slot.

Now i’m just debating on if I want the gems for the that price and really need to make my choice soon for beta weekend.

Actually I didn’t knew since last time I ’ve checked (today) I ’ve seen (core GW2 game included) and nothing regarding you say.

Now if this is correct I am a bit more happy (still I don’t know why not clearly state such news). Now my only concern is the quality of the expansion and the quality of the game in the near future..!

denis.9487:

Pretty funny since the healing signet is better now. Glad you found the humor.

HS active effect is actually useful now due to Resistance and due to the high condi damage potential some professions have. The passive effect, which remains the same as before, is actually of lesser significance now that certain profession burst/condi damage went significantly higher.

For 3 years the same issues plague WvW. For 3 years WvW is much unchanged.

After 3 years, instead of fixing stuff, you made balance decisions that were rushed out almost untested and harmed build diversity by creating huge performance gaps not only between professions but between builds of the same profession. All these as a sign of the “dedication” and seriousness you show to one of the main game aspects with a huge of audience.

After lots of earlier promises you send another man to make another promising post! Instead of talking about what you are planning to do, just plan and do it (no promises this time, just actions). If you want to talk about something let us know why older promises never got off the design table…

P.S : Marketing requires you guys to make some statement that will somewhat “please” the audience that is or feels ignored. We know that! What we do not know is if there is something more than this… promises.

(Just a few thoughts)

For your sword…

1) Since u are using Arms/Tactics/Disc I would recommend to drop the shield. Blademaster in conjunction with a second Sword off-hand will give u more frequent blocks and additional condi damage.

2) Personally I would pick SoR elite along with Signet Mastery (will give u Fury + additional Fury). Benefits more a condi/hybrid build.

3) If you do #2 think of switching to another banner (Strength for +power/condi OR even Tactics for +healing)

4) Try out Rampagers ammy

Whatever attempts I did with condi/hybrid build it feels really ineffective against today’s top professions.

The only professions I can have chances to deal with is actually us, Warriors! Mesmers are ofc out of the question, D/D Eles as well, Medi Guards will do more damage to you with their burning alone that you ’ll inflict them with all your condis, Engis are out of the question as their condi surpasses our capabilities by far… Thieves can cleanse easily and return!

Only a few professions remain which you have fights with possible positive outcome for you.

Overall, our condi mix is too poor compared to other profs, condi damage is rather slow and easily cleansed and our survivability is less than it used to be with all this damage around!!!

I am really concerned about the price policy A.Net have adopted.

(the prices listed below are in Euro currency as I am living in EU)

So, I am playing GW2 since launch. I already own the game and here are my purchase options :

1) HoT (Standard) priced 44.99€ – This will grant me access to HoT and will give me the core GW2 game which I obviously already own. Problem is that, as a GW2 player for 3 yrs, I have used all available character slots. Standard Edition doesn’t give me a character slot which means I have to either get one using Gems (cost of 20€) or deleted one of my level 80 characters.

2) HoT (Deluxe) priced 74.99€ – This edition will grant me the much desired character slot for an additional 30€. Of course you get some additional vanity in-game items that I am not really interested in.

Both these approaches are somewhat wrong… Instead :

Standard Edition should be 44.99€ and for new players (who doesn’t own core GW2) should include the core game. If you are an old player, instead of the core game you should be granted one additional character slot (same as in GW1).

As things are right now, in my eyes HoT cost ~65€ (game+char slot) and I have so little info about the actual PvE content that comes with it. No way I pre-order this!

On the contrary, I will wait patiently to see what people who purchased it have to say and how the game balance will be.

Valik Shin.9027:

Axe use to out dps gs. People complained that axe was to strong so the nerfed it. Then people still said it was to strong so the back loaded it making the final strike deal more damage while the frist couple r wet noodle

Actually Axe #1 skill-chain still deals greater damage compared to GS #1 skill-chain. The change to Axe #1 (moving the most damage to the 3rd hit) didn’t make the Axe auto-attack worse than GS.

The GS is ahead in terms of damage not only cause of 100b (which can easily surpass 12k) but because the rest of the GS skills deal respectable damage as well (4-5k mostly).

No other weapon can pack such a punch in each weapon skill. No wonders why Warr DPS builds include a GS.

That being said…

…after a while you might mention that almost every warrior around you is running on Zerker gear (with an exception to WvW zerg raids).

With all these huge dps that are running around and the heavy condi builds your best chance of survival in small scale WvW and PvP is to “burst down others before they burst you down”. Large Scale WvW vitality and toughness matter more but going too high toughness is useless as well, as others mentioned before me.

While the general concept of remove the connection between a trait and a specific weapon is really nice there are certain issues that cannot be over-looked. I am partially surprised that no one pointed out so far. What I am talking about?

There are huge disparities between weapon damage potential that a warrior can use. I mean GS can deal really good damage even with simple skills, other than 100b. Using zerker gear and while in combat u can easily see 5k from Whirling alone, 4k from Rush alone even 4k from a fully successful Bladetrail (2 hits). 100b alone can easily surpass 10k. Even auto-attack gives 1,5k-2,2k (ALL the numbers given w/o any exaggeration and above all WITHOUT Forceful Greatsword trait). – Please keep these in mind!!!

Axe can’t reach these numbers, no need to mention sword…

With such HUGE gaps between weapon damage capabilities, if you give +5% damage, and +20% crit chance to bleeding enemies to any weapon then why someone not use solely the GS? I mean, GS has the best damage already, +5% more will be even better! And +20% crit chance against bleeding foes? With Arms and Sigil of Earth you can maintain bleeding 95% of the time! Actually with zerker gear and using Arms(signet precision) you can be almost to 100% most of the time… Why not use GS again and be virtually on 100% crit all the time even easier? (maybe even get some valkyries pieces and still be 100% crit chance?)

In the end… you propose some effects on daze/stun/cc/etc foes. Not every weapon has the means to daze/stun/cc/etc. Axe and GS have the less means to do so!

Pls don’t misjudge my post. I am not saying that this idea isn’t a good one. Its good but needs to be part of “a bigger picture”. As long as you keep weapons with such huge disparities, having traits will global effects will lead you sooner or later to the same weapon choice (GS).

Last but not least… No one mentioned the overall “extinct” possibility to play warrior using condi/hybrid builds. The disparity between power builds and condi/hybrid ones led us to forget that warrior could play with condi by design. This also narrow down our choices. Its a huge disgrace for Anet to design something and make it worse and worse over time that no one even bothers to mention.

Mesmer for example can wreck havoc with both power and condi builds (condis being easier to do so than power). Why we forgot this aspect of warriors?

It really depends on the thief I am against…

I use a typical GS-A/Sh or Sw/Sh build utilizing zerkers stance and endure pain plus bull’s charge.

Because warrior can deal massive damage sometimes there is a good chance to kill him (or reduce his health significantly) if he makes a single mistake or unfortunately stand on my Bladetrail path.

Now I got what you meant @OP.

Double Axes PvE… what you can do right now is :

Strength … go 3-3-3
Arms … 1/2-1/2-3

If you are wondering why Axe/Axe isn’t as good as GS the simple answer is that A.Net made it that way!

Reason? No reason! Like they recently chose to make the gap between power build damage and condi/hybrid build damage even wider. Its just that GS design is superior to others. Should it be like that? No, definately not!!! But its how they did it and every succeful build revolves around the same 2 weapons. GS in particular… 100b damage is by far the greatest, GS has mobility and an evade (that deal lots of dmg), has a cripple skill, a rush skill and a burst skill that if traited makes all the rest even more powerful. No other weapon set packs all these.

Same goes for professions as well. Currently mesmers and thiefs have greater trait and weapon synergy. Like they were designed by another, superior, team.

In the end, what makes me not happy with GW2, is that (at least with certain professions) you can’t play as you like and be effective (i don’t say optimal). So, A.Net gives you many choices but most of them aren’t actually viable cause designers screwed trait synergy, or they screwed weapon skills… for some reason you are being led into using mainly a GS or a Hammer. Rest weapons are complimentary and/or utility.

What do you mean that warrior has “trait at inconvenient places”?

A few examples:

1) Axe = mainly Strength and it can benefit from some Arms traits as well
2) Mace = mainly Defense and Strength (or condi) or Arms
3) GS = mainly Strength and some Arms traits
4) Sword = mainly Arms and some Strength traits
5) LB = mainly Tactics

List goes on… So, in order to fully spec for a weapon u can do it with 2 Specializations (the 3rd usually is Discipline). These two Specialization will let u trait at least another weapon as alternate

I checked it out… Flurry currently works as description says.

At 3 Adrenal bars the bleed stacks inflicted are 11 instead or 12. Afaik they didn’t changed Flurry. (or it was a ninja-nerf).

I ’ve run for quite long with swords. In the past as pure condi build but in the recent months as a hybrid build.

No matter what, anyone who brings a sword alongside a GS or Hammer as part of a power build can’t claim that he is using the sword as a damaging weapon in equal degree with GS or Hammer. In such cases sword is a supplementary dmg source and/or a utility weapon. A sword surely can deal respectable dmg in a fully Zerker build but you won’t see its full damage potential.

In my opinion post-patch sword remains more or less at the same place as it was pre-patch and THIS is the actual problem. I consider this to be the main problem since that many things in game (condis other than bleed, skills & traits of other profs) got boosted post-patch leaving sword behind. So its not actually “sword’s fault”, its that A.Net didn’t boost or didn’t boost it enough.

If you want details coninue below….
_________________________________________________________________

Having in mind that certain professions got their burst dmg boosted and/or having access to ridiculous amounts of Burns left the warrior’s ability to soak up damage lacking. This indirectly affects the Warrior’s sword builds which, as relying partially to long condis, requires more time to kill an opponent.

The weapon skills remained the same with a bug on Sword F1 skill described here (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Warrior-Sword-burst-skill-Flurry/first#post5345920). The Arms specialization is better designed with some buffs and some slight nerfs (bleed duration buff, dmg on bleed foes) that makes it not exceptionally effective.

In particular:

Sword #1: It still inflicts a single and somewhat unnecessarily long bleed stack. It starts with 8secs which easily reach or surpass 16secs if you take the appropriate sigil, runes & food. It would be better to inflict 2 stacks of bleeding for 4 secs.

Sword #3: The Final Thrust is OK but what I think would make it better is a slight faster activation time (1/2 sec instead of 3/4).

Sword #4/1(Impale): Impale, although having a good concept (reapplication of Torment), its not what it seems (at least not what Skill description says). It has a pretty weird way to function and there are 2 things that plagues it. First, as a physical projectile, its rather slow thus easily avoidable (not to mention that sometimes it seems to be obscured by even …thin air). Second, which is a bigger issue, is that the Torment damage isn’t what the skill description says. Althought skill description says you apply 5 stacks of Torment, the stacks actually escalate from 1-5 (sometimes 1-4) and the 5 stacks stays for maybe ~5secs (with no +condi duration buffs). The whole amount of damage isn’t delivered in 8secs, as description says, but in 11secs instead. The “reapplication” is for 4 secs which means that a smart player will remove the condition after 4secs and will actually get approx 1/4 of the damage in the skill description. So the torment effect is rather long (11secs) but it doesn’t deliver additional damage due to the escalate and fade-out effect. It would be better to start out with 5 stacks and all of them actually last for 8secs. The reapplication should occur for 4secs (1sec interval) with a 5 stack cap.

Sword #4/2(Rip): Good damage but 3/4sec activation makes it too easily avoidable (though dodge/evade and blind in some cases)

Sword #5/1 (Riposte): A block that will apply a good 4 stacks of Bleeding for rather long (12sec) if it blocks a melee attack (end when block a single melee attack). The bleeds are easily avoidable if opponent is using area blind or aegis.

Sword #5/2 (Adrenaline Rush): The extra adrenaline effect will only occur if you you this skill. Canceling with another skill, switch weapon set or dodge will grant you nothing. Not that fair imho.

Arms Specialization : The most notable nerfs are the bleed duration reduction (+50% -> +33%) on Bloodlust, which maybe somewhat justified. What I don’t get is the +5% damage buff against bleeding enemies which was originally +10%. Maybe a solid +10% on any bleeding foe would be too much if conbined with Strength traits (could easily be used by power warriors wielding GS or Axe), but at least they could give this “missing” +5% on Blade Master trait which would further promote sword as a hybrid weapon without letting warriors having enormous damage boosts with every weapon.
__________________________________________________________________

Sry for the long post but I think someone should mention these.

There is something I ‘ve witnessed lately regarding Warrior’s Sword F1 skill Flurry.

When at full adrenaline (3 tabs) the number of bleed on skill description says 11. Afaik it should be 12.

At 1 and 2 adrenal tabs the hit seem to be correctly 8 and 10 respectively.

I dunno if its only the description that is faulty or the skill actually applies 11 bleeding stacks instead of 12. I ’ ll try to further test it…

Reverence.6915:

ANet keeps listening to the PvE players and buffed conditions for some reason when it should’ve been hard nerfed instead.

Once more I have to point out that its not the conditions themselves BUT its the condition inflicting skills and traits of certain professions.

Go try out a S/S+LB condi Warrior….

He CAN’T by ANY means deal these amounts of damage through conditions. He can’t stack so many bleeds, his torments can go up to 6-7 at most and I achieved 8 burning stacks using fully traited LB with 100% burn duration only on NPCs.

Another example that they aren’t really knowing what they are doing… They nerfed bleed damage per stack and at the same time they nerfed Warrior Arm’s bleed focused traits! End up warrior S/S being weaker that it used to be (and wasn’t powerful for quite some time).

A.Net broke the already imperfect and biased balance. They buffed conditions without having in-check the capabilities of specific professions and builds.

For quite some time I felt that A.Net runs seperate teams for each profession balance that they aren’t permitted to talk to each other!

If you use Axe instead of Sword as you are using a power build, with given mobility due to GS, and you don’t sprec sword(Arms specialization)… Axe will give you even more DPS.

Stick to the Sword if its what you prefer but know you are somewhat lacking cause you don’t use Axe.