Preface: I am by no means claiming this as fact. These are just the opinions of an (almost exclusively) Warrior main who spends most of his time in PvP. I am by no means a top player, but I do have a lot of experience regarding this class.
TL;DR, NOT EVEN THAT ACCURATE OF A REPRESENTATION EDITION:
Unless you've actually played it a LOT, nobody knows what's really wrong with warr; Other classes have amazingly bull mechanics when it comes to risk-reward; developers too timid to make any significant changes to warr, and when they do give small buffs, they feel the need to buff other classes, keeping Warrior at the bottom of the pile.
What do you take away from a fight with a Warrior? Most probably something along the lines of: “He did a lot of damage.” “Wow, he died fast.”
This lack of understanding of how Warrior works, from a perspective of other classes, leads to the main topic, misinformation. What makes a warrior tick? Why do they die so easily? You don’t know, because 8 out of 10 times you’re going to easily defeat a warr on any other class. It wasn’t even challenging or engaging! This problem is only made worse by how over time less and less decently skilled players run warr, even in hotjoins, so the ones you DO run across are terrible.
And thus, this leads to the spreading of misinformation. “Warriors are just a step away from becoming an unstoppable beast!” “Warrior’s only problem is condition cleansing.” “Warriors do so much more damage than other classes.” “Warriors are perfectly viable, you just need to babysit them!” “Warrior’s condition removal is fine as it is, you just need to run traited warhorn, 3 shouts, and soldier runes!”
Some people claim that warr is the “most balanced profession”. This is true! If you were looking at warr in a vacuum. High risk, high reward design? Check. Tells and animations you can react to and skillfully dodge? Check. Substantial loss in damage if you spec for survivability and vice versa? Check.
But what happens when you compare warr to other classes? You realize that the other classes don’t remotely follow this “balance philosophy”. Take Mesmer for example.
A GC warr’s most infamous burst combo would be to:
1) Pressure the opponent and bait out all their dodge rolls
2) Frenzy(Utility) to speed up 100b
3) Bull’s Rush(Utility) to controls the opponent and a gap closer
4) Endure Pain(Utility) if this was a teamfight to prevent melting due to Frenzy’s increased damage side effect
5) 100 blades (weapon skill) for frontal arc cleave burst damage
6)Whirlwind (weapon skill) for AoE medium damage
Now look at a GC mes’s most infamous burst combo:
1) iDuelist for a ranged volley, high damage, bleeds (weapon skill)
2) Dodgeroll for a clone
3) iLeap for another clone (weapon skill)
4) (Optional) Magical Bullet for a daze (weapon skill)
5) Swap for an immob and gap closer(weapon skill)
6) Shatter for AoE burst damage(Class Mechanic)
7) Blurred Frenzy for frontal arc medium damage(weapon skill)
Immediately there’s already something appallingly wrong with this comparison. Almost everything required for the Mesmer burst combo is built into the class on low cooldown weaponskills. Not only does their combo leave them free to choose whatever utilities they wanted, but what should be the most high-risk portion of their combo that roots them on the spot leaves them invulnerable 2 seconds. Both combos take approximate the same amount of time to execute, why is one practically cost and risk free?
