Guild Wars 2

These were my patch wish changes. But some of them still apply post patch.
Original post was in January.

Traits:
1) Baseline fast hands. I really want to shuffle my lines, but discipline is such a hand cuff.
2) Heightened focus icd reduced to 12sec. I would like this to proc ideally everytime I come back to gs set, but with so much pet/clone cleave, I get some wasted quickness. For a GM trait, I would like closer to 33% uptime or greater. Some classes have 5sec 5sec icd boon traits. And quickness is a direct damage buff without actually giving us bigger numbers to worry about. Here 4 ever 12sec is still kind of weak but 20% better.\

3)Now this one might be a little bit of a reach. Reckless dodge removes a boon on hit. As warriors, we just can’t handle boons. Frankly, this would synergize well with stance vigor Grandmaster. Plus removing 1 boons every dodge would not be a lot with the consistency of swiftness, might, fury, regen. And while you are dodge removing, you are not doing dps so its not a powercreep buff.

4) Balance stance needs an CD adjustment of about 20%. At 40secs, its just too low uptime. 30secs would be better, 28secs ideal for about ~38% uptime traited GM or 29% untraited.

5) Stances overall need a cooldown shave, not just balance stance. 60sec is so long. Wells, shouts, etc have AoE utility of boons and have shorter cd than individual stances. Seriously does not make sense.

6) Endure pain needs to apply maybe 1 stack of stability. Currently you cannot stun break with it out of certain skills because they are multiple successive stuns, i.e. gravity well or DH traps. Only 1-2 stacks of short duration to ensure you actually break the stun intended.

8) Thick skin and Adrenal Health still useless.
If my skin is thick, make condi do less damage while above 90% or 85%.
Adrenal Health coefficient needs to be raised. I am giving up a ton of damage and potential trait effects by not using a burst skill. And I got 300health every 3 seconds…
I don’t want heal signet 2.0, but the number does need a tweak.

9) Brawlers recovery should be 2 conditions. That way it could actually be an effective clearer. It is competing with DotE which is can be a 15% damage increase depending on the target.

10) I do not want a teleport. But even with warriors sprint, people just naturally outrun you. Increase eviscerate leap range to 600units.

11) Spiked armor I am on the fence about this one. Seems underwhelming most of the time, but in theory it is nice.

12) Berserker’s Power. This needs a rework. I am not a fan of flat damage multipliers, in an active game. This skill should be reworked into some utility. Burst skills are supposed to be fight changing. I propose the trait work something like this.

Berserker’s Power- When you land a burst skill apply a debuff that reduces healing effectiveness, damage output, movement. One of these three, and maybe it can change with the weapon. So say your pure power bursts can affect healing. Function like a deep wound mechanic. Like hit with eviscerate, debuff all incoming healing is 25% less effective.
Your utility burst skills could affect movement, so like all enemies hit with fire field arrow have 25% movement debuff
This debuff would scale with adrenaline bars used.
Would give your burst some more utility instead of just bigger numbers.

Skills
1) Axe 2 is very underwhelming at 4 stacks vulnerability. Should be at least 5% damage increase.

2) Axe 3 would be nice if it connects to have some pull effect associated with it on connect.

3) GS4 would be cool if the return blade pulled people. I would adjust the cd if that became live.

4) please fix Rush pathing. Could make rush remove movement impairing conditions all together. Need to stick to my target and rush is nice for that when it connects properly but then as soon as the channel ends, I am still impaired and cannot keep up.

5) I actually like the shield cooldowns when traited. 16sc and 24sec fits nicely.

6) Axe auto attack is in a good spot.

7) If GS auto was maybe 10-15% faster, it would be perfect.

This is all I can think of at the moment. Some of these are greedy, but I would love to see Berserker’s Power reworked into more utility and less numbers the most.

Warrior struggles because our traits are just bad. Let’s look at the grandmaster traits for the common warrior builds, using Strength, Discipline, Defense, or Berserker and compare it to other grandmaster traits in used builds.

Strength: “Berserker’s Power”- damage multiplier after burst skill for 8 seconds
Defense: “Last Stand”- stances last 25% longer and give vigor for 6 secs. Plus 1 free balance stance proc on 40 sec cd. or “Cleansing Ire”- remove conditions if you land your burst skill. Key word if.

Discipline: "Gain Quickness when enemy below 50% for 4 seconds, 15sec icd.
Berserker: Gain pulsing stability when you activate berserker, or taunt foes when you activate berserker.

Now let’s look at any other ‘meta’ class at the moment.

Necro: Chill does damage
Critical chance +50% in shroud
Signet icd 20% reduced. gain 3might and corrupt 2 boons on use.

Thief: Improvision 20% chance to recharge a skill group and 2x use of stolen item
Steal 20%icd reduce and dazes
Swiftness on dodge and remove all movement impairment

Druid:
When you receive damage, apply weakness and protection 15sec icd
Gain quickness and might on pet swap
CC a foes causes then to get binding rooted 10sec icd

Engineer:
HGH elixer might 20% duration increase 20%icd reduce
Adaptive armor stacking toughness buff and condition damage 20% reduction
Third is build dependent

Guardian
Meditations heal you and icd 20% reduce
Virtue stun break and shared stability
Long bow knockback and gain stability 10sec icd

So what are the common themes here.

1) Warrior does not get utility cooldown reduction, unless you go into shouts but healing coefficient is low.

2) Warrior traits majority are damage or gated by burst skill. If we keep hitting harder we could win. Except blinding or missing the burst skill negates the trait entirely.

3) No defensive traits. You may argue rousing resilience, but it is gated by stun and stun break utility. Last stand provides vigor, but vigor is reduced so dodge frequency with vigor goes from 10sec recharge to 7.5 sec recharge.

Now, we could sit here and point out all these things I did not write in this post, but my main point is this.

If you took a warrior and gave him any other classes trait lines, he would be 10x better.

Utility Cool down reduction
Defensive traits not gated by utility use
Actual damage mitigation- You could make to the limit heal for 80% of your health and we would still die quickly without actual mitigation.

Proceed with l2p posts now.

Thanks everyone for the input. Although Berserker line seemed to have the added utility of stability and stun breaks, I realized that my reliance on vigor from stances was larger than I first suspected.

I guess I am not ready to drop defense line for berserker line. I will probably switch from axe shield to mace shield though for protection against thieves.

Standard build with a little skull crack. Mace auto while pretty slow compared to axe auto does hit like a truck. And the extra block will be nice.

The fact that every major trait change or trait line change has been associated with the F1 just shows that it really is holding us back.

Ask for condition removal- Cleansing Ire f1
Ask for elite specialization- New F1 skills gated by F2 though lol
Ask for adrenaline recovery- F1 restores adren

K pop here,

So I am trying to design a new build I want to play for the next season.
Currently, I run something like this almost full time. Gs/Ax-Sh power stance rampage build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR3ejMdQXIWFCuhApIGCCKtMq9sAbhaIGsD4CCAA-TpQaABiu/AAlBAA
But in playing it full time I have seen where it is weak. Mainly the Engineer and Ranger encounters.

So to try and overcome the issues, I want to try a berserker build. I think that the most interesting one to me has been the arc divider and the skull grinder. Eviscerate one just doesn’t seen as good in the smaller fights, which is what I kind of want.

Here is what I am thinking in sort of a rough draft. Viper amulet, Gs/ Ma-Sh
This would allow for two sides of play.
The confusion condi side with the berzerker and the mace with arc divider pressure.
The stun lock raw damage side with the standard mace skills and gs skills.
Unfortunately adding in condition damage reduces the critical damage a lot. I do not know yet how effective the build is with just the one condition then.

Anyways, here is the build. Please help me tweak or make suggestions. I am not against changing the main 1 hand weapon. I could go back to axe for example.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAR5ejMdQXIWFCuhApIWICMjAQEon9WcXuVXlvwrbLA-Tpw+AA4+DQZAA

I am looking for help as I want to improve my ranger and engi matchup.

Without damage mitigation, To the limit could be a full heal and it would still be kinda meh.

Heal sig is like passive damage mitigation because you can kite and regen. But just throwing health at the warrior does not solve that part of this issue. The answer is in protection, weakness, and passive defense. Things we lack.

I am not complaining here but just pointing out this fact. Warrior always going to be a damage bot in this state. How you deal the damage is just the flavor of the drink.

The trait works to activate leap finishers twice.
However, most leap finishers generate an aura upon completion. Because aura duration does not stack, but replaces, the trait effectively does nothing for half of the combo fields.

This would not affect dazing strike for example though.

With the berserker stance change, I will be taking the DotE. But I need to see how the boons shape out in the meta.

While I was able to duplicate most of the things in the video, I do have 1 question. About the rush direction change, do I need to have skill retargeting selected in order for this to work?

I will look you up in game. A lot of subtle things there. I am curious to see how I may stack up. Always looking to improve.

As you get closer to finishing a division, you have typically gained enough wins that your MMR is equivalent to the low players of the next division.

This is very common at the edge of divisions. It means that you are getting better.

Another solution is that the diamonds are all mmr tanked to a good ruby mmr

chibbi.3706:

Right now DotE is way better than brawler’s recovery.

1 condi every 5 seconds doesn’t do kitten against the current condi classes, whereas every has a kittentons of boons making DotE effectively a +15% damage boost most of the time.

The most important condi in this game are duration stacked, so having BR for chill, weakness, burn, confusion, or torment is huge.
DotE does nothing for you when you hit protection as its bonuses are all mitigated anyway.
Also, if you are melting from condi, you will not be able to do any damage because you are forced to play defensive anyway.

But if you try brawlers recovery, you may like the cleansing. I was surprised at first how much mitigation it is, with the berserker stance and the heal sig resistance.

Play what you like, but I assure you, there is much benefit in BR

I just did some duels last night and it made me realize I need to redo some key binds as well for better optimization.
This is probably the third time I will redo some binds since my starting binds in 2013. I have found in the gw series that key binds can help break your skill ceiling.

Sometimes you get in a situation and you do not realize what is actually the limiting factor, and it takes some small thing to help you see the light.

Good luck with the binds. Impact gave a lot of good tips.

Only other tip I can give is the prioritize most used skill with the easiest bind. Example is my friend on his Naga put auto attack in the center 5 key so that every other attack could be reached from the central position.

Warlord.9074:

I can say I honestly don’t have that problem Arc Devider is too easy to land. Range is huge and it doesn’t need a target. From my testing its larger than the rated 450 range and it hits targets behind you.

Long bow and gs probably the easiest burst skills to hit reliably.

Amulets define builds just as much as the traits and weapons. Each is 33% responsible for the strength. So instead of balancing builds, Anet is trying to balance amulets this go around.

Choppy.4183:

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

This is exactly why I think CI is only good with certain weapons. BR allows me to be modular in my approach and guarantees 2 conditions removed per 10sec.
The ~10% damage from DotE doesn’t matter if you are dead or can’t reach the target.

Honestly, I would have no problem helping you, but you would have to fight some legendary opponents. That is going to be the main issue with anyone helping you that is above you.

If you see me in game, pm me. Maybe we can figure out something.

Well, it will make dodge counting more reliable. We already have a riable source of vigor. Maybe I will finally be able to drop energy sigil from my bar. IDK what else to take in its place though.

Using DotE when you have Brawler’s Recovery…Do not complain about conditions then.

Bringing this up. Second season balance is around the corner. And I am still looking for 3 more players.

ReaperJr.5967:

Gz kpop! Curious as to whether you were running with a team though?

I did not run a team. At most it was a dual que with a mesmer friend. That appeared to be enough for me to do damage and get the job done.
Plus mesmer rezzes are OP tbh

You can say what you want about necro, but you would not bring a fire type pokemon to face a water type. It is just stupid.

At some point you have to say, I need to maximize my chance of winning. War vs dual mesmer just does not work. Unless one is shatter. You eat shatter for breakfast lunch and dinner easily.

I only duo quo for the diamond tier. Getting five is kinda cheesy in my opinion.

Whether or not you want to believe me or criticize me, the last matches in the screenshot are on warrior and are all in the legendary tier.

People find it easy to sit and poke holes instead of appreciating. I took at break for holiday from December 20th to January 3rd, so I played no games in those approximately 15 days. So yes it took me longer to reach legendary.

Not to mention I had to get out of stupid mmr tier for people who just afk when they see a warrior.
Do not know how to use the mesmer, ele, or druid heals for teammates.
Do not place blinding powder so I can stealth off of it as well.
etc etc

Remember thieves take the pressure off of you. Because 9/10 times when a thief shows up, the enemy team changes their focus to push the thief out of the fight.

My speculation is that the MMR factor is actually showing up now. You can have high mmr in a lower division.
Matches have gotten ‘easier’ since the division is full of amber shopper rank ups. And they are on the same mmr but not actually as good as the mmr thinks.

Warrior sustain. Means one of the following:
More heal signet changes
Gain health while using a stance trait
Burst skills heal you
Some actual health from adrenal health
Activated burst skills give you some damage reduction buff, similar to the damage multiplier buff.
I would even like a defensive f3 like use adrenaline to sustain yourself, recovering health. Sort of like a toss elixir.

The way they work warrior, it is going to be tied to F1 somehow. We live and die by f1 apparently.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Vid of entire reason running berserker or it didn’t happen

XD

My diamond was half warrior, half necromancer approximately. Honestly, I do not run berzerker at all. It does not fit into my playstyle as I prefer random bursts. Charging up 30 adren for the burst form is cool, but then I have to give up one of the 3 trait lines. The bar below is my spec. Gs/ A Sh. Marauder with Durability runes. Strength, Discipline, Defense.

I will start streaming again in legendary.

Against dual mesmers I run necro and against dual ele I run warrior.

Junkpile.7439:

How to make warrior that can run inside enemy zerg, make huge crits and stay alive?

You need alacrity endure pain combo

The satisfaction. I am just showing the glimmer of hope. That next season will be better for us. But all things are possible. With the right teammates classes.

Had one last night as well. Best thief emerald NA lol.

I am excited about the rez changes, but I want to point out that quickness rez while it was a problem, the issue was the on demand quickness.

For example, as a war the quickness rez is on the frenzy cooldown. So it was once a minute, not for every down body.
Now this may be a good chance overall, but the side effects are to my class again. I will be even more vulnerable trying to save teammates since I do not havr an invuln.

Our grandmaster discipline trait is gain quickness when enemy is at 50%. This implies I am supposed to speed up the kill. I can’t quickly finish anymore.
Its not as on demand as a mesmer one. This hurts me more than the meta builds in terms of effectiveness.

I guess invuln stomping will take over again.

Shatter mes is notorious for being squishy.
I commend berserker players. I do not like the specialization, but I give it credit for what it is good at. Making big numbers.

SoulSin.5682:

Argilla.8340:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x912taGC5b0

This video drived me insane.
Why is no one capping the darn point.

Lol I was thinking the same thing. Bleed him out with the rifle I kept thinking.

Plus is that action cam?? Interesting.

While I do not like player abuse, I am not sure what Anet can do about it. You can’t censor people. And I suppose you could short term ban. But idk, maybe if they buff the class, then people will stop verbal abusing.

Mightybird.6034:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Now I worry about my guild mission teams. My guild has 2 diamonds and other ruby, sapphire, and emerald players.
We like to do the guild missions together for the rewards.
But having them effectively scaled up to diamond is going to make this pretty difficult to do missions.
I guess I will have to get an alt account for guild missions.
Or I will not be able to participate in the missions for the sake of skill level.

I do not know how to address this, but now I am worried.
Will guild groups still consider the team rating or will the group have a division?
Or is this just treated like any other premade still?

Do them in unranked?

There is nothing that states you have to play ranked league seasons when you want to play with friends or guildys or do missions.

If you are playing ranked be ready to compete, simple as that.

You know I did not realize unranked counted for the mission. I believe that would solve the problem.

double posted. sorry.

@Chaith

What do you expect? As you go up there will be fewer players on your skill level. Surely you do not enjoy just rolling over groups as much as they do not enjoy being rolled upon.

While I understand you want to play the game, as do I, in this case, you may just be too highly ranked in order to get regular interval fair matches.

Now I worry about my guild mission teams. My guild has 2 diamonds and other ruby, sapphire, and emerald players.
We like to do the guild missions together for the rewards.
But having them effectively scaled up to diamond is going to make this pretty difficult to do missions.
I guess I will have to get an alt account for guild missions.
Or I will not be able to participate in the missions for the sake of skill level.

I do not know how to address this, but now I am worried.
Will guild groups still consider the team rating or will the group have a division?
Or is this just treated like any other premade still?

Longbow skills 3 and 4 can be fired behind the guardian while running forward.
I imagine this is unintended as other weapons cannot fire projectiles backwards.

Note: these are ground targeted skills and not player targets, which may be why it is happening.

This is similar to how the warrior used to be able to throw the greatsword 4 at targets behind the character. The gs throw was patched to just be a cd.

Kuya.6495:

I absolutely despise the solo q heroes who decide to go far at start. That kind of strat is a liability in a team composed of solo qers with no coms. A 1-3-1 or 1-0-4 is something that you do with a organized team, not some random nobodies. Going home and mid at start is basic and simple enough that even a solo qer should know what he’s doing without needing to be on a com.

Go far if you’re loosing mid, but please, if you’re in a team composed of solo qers, do not go far. Only instances where i’ve seen this work is where a druid goes far and wins the 1vs1 before reinforcements subsequently causing a win at mid and leading to a 3 cap.

Far node must be the holy grail to you.

Got to get legendary somehow.

Only 1 person needs to stand on a node at any given time. When I see multiple health bars go down on my team, it can only mean one thing.
Positioning issues.

NightClaw.4758:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

First 2 pages full of threads about terrible balance…
Makes a thread asking about the balance…

Took a look and I didn’t see any, my bad. I suppose I didn’t look hard enough.

I am sorry if I come off as abrasive. In my car forum, people always jumping on someone for not searching. If this was a genuine question, I do not mean to offend.

Sometimes its just hard to tell if someone is trolling or not.

First 2 pages full of threads about terrible balance…
Makes a thread asking about the balance…

brannigan.9831:

It is generally better to work middle and home though from the start. Why would you suggest far and home instead to start? I am a firm believer in working with what you have and if for some reason you end up with home and far you should work with that but why would suggest home and far from the start. Far is hard to hold because its close to there spawn they can wear you down with attrition a lot. This meta is filled with bunker types to act like you aren’t going to deal with one at far is pretty delusional. Most random teams seem to have at least 3 of the follwing elementalist, Herald, or chronobunker. Sure you should adapt to what happens mid match but my experience is the easiest way to win most of the time is holding home and middle.

I can explain this to you in a few points. Typically in a team composition there is a primary team fight bunker and a secondary skirmisher bunker. Team fight bunkers consist of your tempest types or your mesmer types.
Skirmisher bunkers are more so your mesmer types and your druid types.
You are at an advantage if you can get your team fight bunker vs them without a teamfight bunker. So if you give up mid for far, and their team fight bunker stays there, then you are effectively stacking your fights.

Now this does assume equal player skill and recognition. It is not always about numbers. It is just as important about the classes. Sending 1 necro to fight a diamond skin ele matches numbers but does not match classes properly.

So back to the original question, if you can get the enemy tempest to sit on mid while your tempest is with the far team, you should be able to win that fight.
This is still an effective 1-0-4 or lesser split, but with the objective to stack the class fights in your favor.
There is no delusion in class picking your fights. In a match you should be actively attempting to keep the enemy support away from the enemy dps while keeping your support with your dps.

This is the next level of rotations beyond just sending appropriate numbers places.
As a dps spec, should you take that 1v2 against a mesmer and a tempest? YES because that is 2 fewer support specs for the rest of your team to fight.

TLDR: home and middle is a crutch for catering to the lowest common denominator of solo Q, and I accept that. However, that does not mean you should not strive for higher level play. Rotations are > mechanical skill probably like 1.5:1 ratio

This was not an argument. It was a conversation. Usually you can look at your composition before a match starts and determine how well a 4v4 or 5v5 is going to work out. Although I did not mention the comp here, we were at a ele disadvantage for a mid fight.

This was in particular about Forest, which as stated above has 2 exits well positioned for close and far. Does not work for every map.

I just need more players to open their eyes that mid is not the end of the game.

@reaper- I think my war has peaked in diamond. Many more dual mesmer comps here. They don’t even do damage, just take up space and rez/stomp. We will see, 15 days left.

bump. searching for the magic spark. Will you start my fire?

No other node is important ever. Mid or lose guys. Even if other nodes are not defended with the bunker.

Had a nice conversation with someone in game today waiting for a Forest match to start.
I said lets play sides.
He said but we can’t give up mid for free.
I said, but we will give up far for free.

Keep tunnel vision on mid please. If it was mid=win, there would only be one node on the map.
That is why they invented a thing called rotations.

Most high damage skills have an animation lock in. It is a skill balancing point.
100 blades.
True shot
pistol whip
reaper shroud 5

UA certainly does not do less damage than auto attack. Unless you are using it in a large fight.
Using bugs to defend a skill does not take away from the skill’s power level.

Mustafa.7684:

Hit me up, k POP.

Its Sir Noob A Lot

Will do. I have played with you some.

Nick.7621:

You’re a good warrior dude but I would honestly move on from this game. I highly doubt warrior will be anywhere near meta next meta unless they completely rework it, and I honestly think the next meta is gonna be just as bad since most elite traits are sustain oriented. I wish you luck though and would join you, but RIP GW2.

-Mortal Wombat X

Thanks Nick. Maybe you will come back one day.
And I never will put anything past the balance team. We could have another heal signet type buff on our hands.

I checked this in the mist with the sigil of super speed, which is 1sec of quickness.
What I believe is happening is in the initial part of the skill under quickness, the animation and casting are sped up.

However, once the quickness expires in the middle of the channel, the original cast speed takes over. Although the animation looks fluid, the cast time dominates the damage. So the next few hits of the channel are delayed a bit to their normal timed landing.

That is why it appears bunched up.
All 9 hits do in fact land, and you can check this with the combat log.

Similar thing happens with the stomps. Which is why you have to wait.

K pop here

I am looking to put together a team with a sub for AG tournaments. I do not have a reddit account, which is why this is posted here.

Who am I?
Been playing war since the beta. Coached some all warrior class teams back around the class tournaments 2013-2014 ish. Used to host the warrior podcast “Adrenaline Rising”. And I played for SOAC blue team. I left around 2014 and came back summer 2015. I have tangled with some good players. Crysis and I came up around the same time, but I left the game while he advanced. I am sure I could get some references if needed.
Everybody knows K pop.

Prerequisites
1) Willing to play with a warrior. I play warrior a lot, so if it is beyond you, then do not bother. I can play some other classes. Season 2 will bring some changes.
2) Available on Wednesday nights. That is the AG tourney day, so this is the most important. Obviously, every wednesday is not required as real life is a thing, but almost every one is desired.
3) Willing to learn and improve. I am not perfect. We will grow together.
4) Experience in the tournament setting. This is the most subjective, but it will be easy to figure out if you do not have this experience once we get into games.

General organization
I am est timezone, so if you can play around that zone evenings mostly.
Looking to have dedicated practice about 3 times a week.
Mainly looking for willingness to learn and improve.
I am in search of a secondary tactics caller as well, so experience with that is a plus.
Composition is sort of a floating subject but right now I am looking for a thief, mesmer, warrior, elementalist, and engineer. Strange I know, but I got some ideas.

Currently have warrior and elementalist players.

Message me if interested. IGN is next to the post. Hopefully we can get something going. Solo q gets boring after a while.

Let’s get this rolling. I am optimistic.

Alekt.5803:

This also happens a lot with Spear of Justice if you try to Line of Sight in an attempt to get pulled to an object instead of back to the Dragonhunter (which usually means death).

Got stuck in Khylo clock tower because of this. Luckily the DH had the decency to kill me then.