Guild Wars 2

For a reminder, warriors have a 10 point trait that increases damage by 3% per boon on themselves. They could very easily make this include boons on target. It’s the simplest and most likely approach to whole boon hate thing. Things like brawn making your burst ability strip boons are a bit too extreme for ArenaNet.

shimmerless.4560:

I think the devs are going to find Warriors very difficult to balance with a single spec (the ideal situation). They’re already pretty ridiculous in PvE and easily the most desirable endgame class. I think it’s the same reason they’re struggling to get Eles just right (only for Eles it’s the reverse).

They are able to balance PvP and PvE separately. Example: Save Yourselves.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Seezungenschleuder.8319:

I’d like to see a change to Hundred Blades to move it from burst to sustain, while encouraging condition builds:

The direct damage of Hundred Blades is reduced by 50%. Each strike adds one stack of bleeding, 9 stacks in total. In addition, the ability can now be used while on the move.

That is just too good. Why would anybody then select sword over greatsword?

Greatsword is already by far the most popular weapon for warriors. The least common weapons need buffing 1st. Making 100blades non-rooted and giving it potential for 9 stacks of bleeding would make that weapon extremely overpowered, since 100blades has just 8 sec cooldown.

One-hand weapons offer versatility. In turn, they are also typically going to be slightly weaker than two-hand equivalents. Hammer vs Mace for example. While hammer is probably the stronger of the two, you can take a warhorn or shield with a mace mainhand.

Not that I disagree, but that’s the general philosophy behind it.

Seezungenschleuder.8319:

Yes, fantastic idea. Let’s add condition damage to our burst weapon.

It’s not a burst weapon. It’s a mobile weapon. Look at those two gapclosers. To build on that, you have to remove the standing-still component, which can’t be done without reducing the direct damage.

It’s both.

There’s no sense in adding a random bleed component to a completely direct damage weapon. Unless you can find a DoT that scales off of power, it’s completely useless for that weapon’s niche.

Seezungenschleuder.8319:

I’d like to see a change to Hundred Blades to move it from burst to sustain, while encouraging condition builds:

The direct damage of Hundred Blades is reduced by 50%. Each strike adds one stack of bleeding, 9 stacks in total. In addition, the ability can now be used while on the move.

Yes, fantastic idea. Let’s add condition damage to our burst weapon.

This is the case for most classes. Mesmers are forced to go into shatter, warriors are forced to go into greatsword, eles are forced to go into d/d…

It’s not that other builds are bad, it’s just that these specific builds are better. If they simply nerf all the current builds that people use (within reason), then lesser used builds would actually have a place. Look at necromancers. They don’t have a single shining build, so they have a lot of possible variety. MM, Wells, condi, and variations of those.

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

Defektive.7283:

Interpret Interrupt.3824:

I am wondering what EU things of the warrior? I have a good sense of the NA view, but if it is better in EU I may have to transfer

triple banner mace mace rifle builds dominate the ladder.

Triple banner quadruple mace is much better

I dual wield asuras dual wielding greatswords.

Powazappa.6937:

Larynx.2453:

Expect some buffs to underpowered builds. Don’t expect any features, with the exception of leaderboards coming “soon” after the patch.

For mesmer specifically, they’re buffing scepter and greatsword by making the autoattack go through 2 extra targets, and nerfing shatters. I didn’t pay much attention to that part though. For eles, they’re making scepter AoE, but otherwise just described the class back to us.

Oh ,and someone made this: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1070-gurus-spvp-state-of-the-game-w-tyler-bearce-jonathan-sharp-and-karl-mclain/

it seems to be missing the talk about the basilisk vemon bug, anyone remember waht the devs ahd to say about that?

They weren’t aware of the bug, so it probably wont be fixed this patch.

Xae.7204:

Their focus on buffing Warriors every patch is reaching levels of parody at this point.

Guys. Guys, listen. Listen. Listen guys, okay. So, we buff banners.

Med.6150:

If you guys think that every developer on a team is supposed to know every single ability, then you haven’t played any MMOs before this one or just haven’t been involved enough.

I expect the PvP developers to know the classes they are balancing. I apologize if this is an outrageous and unrealistic expectation.

Scotto.3609:

weakest class……… 14.5k evis…………yeah no.

Well, throw in the towel fellas. We can hit 14k eviscerates.

Red Falcon.8257:

At most I could ask for Mobile Strikes or dodging to remove Chill/Cripple but that’s about it.
Those are the only 2 conditions that a good Warrior should ever be worried about.

That is exactly the point. That is what people want.

ProxyDamage.9826:

NDHWAR.4853:

successful 100b […] (on average and without quickness)

Yeah… Goodluck with that.

Max DPS that you’re gonna land on anyone in PvP/WvW is Axe/Mace. Unless you account for the Bullcharge > Quickness > 100b gimmick which is both easy to avoid, burns 2 utility skills at least, and requires quickness. And even then you only get more damage out of it if you land almost the entire thing.

Yet not a single person of any decent skill seriously uses Axe/Mace in sPvP. Warriors are already incredibly immobile even with a greatsword. If you take Axe/Mace, you’ll be shut down instantly in any sort of tournament group fight, on top of you already being very squishy.

Sorry, but don’t expect anyone to take a build that works in hotjoin serious. I can run a sword/sword rifle condi warrior and do well in hotjoin.

Heck, I once went into a hotjoin match with nothing but an offhand axe and still killed people.

Zinwrath.2049:

Zodian.6597:

Ganadorf.3460:

And which do you guys find fun, and good in PvP?

The 100 nades engineer does the most dps in the game, with over 25k burst if rotation is landed properly. I had the chance to sit down with the creator of this build and do a guide video if you’re interested in checking it out just click here.

Why suggest a build that they just announced they’re nerfing?

Knowing ArenaNet, it’ll be a superficial nerf in about 4 months.

It really is sad how ignorant the developers are of their own game.

Pretty sure milo summed it up perfectly.

The only reason sPvP is alive is because of how accessible it is to get into it. Adding a level and gear requirement will just kill any sort of population and whatever hopes of being a competitive game ArenaNet had.

IMO, i’d be fine if they kept downed state but removed all offensive abilities. All you’d have in sPvP is bandage.

Things like mesmer damage, or ele vapor form, or warrior vengeance are all just stupid and unfun mechanics.

Siva Mira.3546:

Wait until you fought an 5 men team Asura and dye themselves all black. Until then you haven’t seen a true nightmare yet.

My favorite is when people have identical asura with bar code names (LlllllLll) and they’re all MM or mesmers.

Brigg.6189:

chrisk.4320:

You’ll have all dps teams blowing each other out of the water in seconds.

Full DPS teams get blown out of the water in WoW arenas too.

Luckily WoW, and GW2, have these things called healing and damage mitigation that serve to increase survivability and lengthen fights. Rocket science, really.

Team deathmatch would work fine in GW2, it’s just a matter of ArenaNet not being lazy on innovation.

because healing in gw2 is just as viable as in wow amirite?

I still remember the early claims that staff ele in water attunement were going to be pure healers.

Ah, pre-release. Back when rifle warriors and greatsword rangers were a thing.

You know what would be interesting, if every hit the warrior reduced the duration of boons on the target by X seconds. Brawn can be replaced by this, so at 30 it can be something like 3 seconds per hit are removed from boons.

If that’s confusing, here’s an example:

Stability is on a target for 30 seconds. The warrior attacks, and stability is now 29 seconds. With 30 discipline, it would be 27 on attack. So each hit reduces the duration.

It would be more interesting than X% more damage per boon, offer group support, and thematically fit the warrior archetype where boon stripping does not.

Obviously 3 seconds would be OP without some sort of cooldown. This is just the concept.

LordSlack.4685:

Is there a link to this SotG?

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1070-gurus-spvp-state-of-the-game-w-tyler-bearce-jonathan-sharp-and-karl-mclain/

Jzaku.9765:

Larynx.2453:

“We’re buffing kick, rampage, and banners. We’re aware of warrior’s vulnerability to conditions.”

Look at the past patch changes to warriors. This is like going to the moon and back for ArenaNet with warrior changes.

Oh yeah, I think I just blocked that whole part about rampage out of my brain.

Do take note of how they just glossed over “warrior’s vulnerability to conditions” like that was a granted thing. I don’t think they see it as a problem, despite clearly being one to anyone who gives a cat.

It’s most likely an intentional design decision. The warrior archetype is typically something like having really heavy armor/defense, hitting really hard, but being very immobile and having limited ability to deal with magic (conditions, in this case).

Thematically, vulnerability to conditions is perfectly fine. The problem is, warriors aren’t any of the above either. They hit hard, but not harder than anyone else. They have no mobility, so they can never hit hard in the first place. They’re easily the least durable glass cannon since they have no way of disengaging and limited defensive capabilities.

Honestly, the only thing GW2 Warriors excel at is having a lot of access to control effects. That’s a first for me, honestly.

In other words, it’s an intentional issue on ArenaNet’s part. There’s two correct choices they can do. Either they can forsake the entire idea I just described and make warriors able to cleanse conditions and whatever, or they can buff them in other ways. I don’t like the first, since it just leads to class homogenization. It makes the game a lot more boring, and there’s no reason to start so early in GW2’s life. But it’s the easiest solutions, since the other would just make warriors an outlier and might not fix the fact that they’re undesirable since everyone else can do fine by themselves. Warriors are really bad 1v1 since they rely on team support, and what I’d prefer to happen would just exaggerate this more.

“We’re buffing kick, rampage, and banners. We’re aware of warrior’s vulnerability to conditions.”

Look at the past patch changes to warriors. This is like going to the moon and back for ArenaNet with warrior changes.

They only barely hinted at the real problems with warriors. The entire segment was just disturbing. Buffing kick, really? OH BOY THAT’LL SURE HELP.

Razor.6392:

Larynx.2453:

Razor.6392:

Dang, thanks.

I can’t believe they won’t touch the trouble builds. Balance is usually done slowly but when patches happen every month instead of bi-weekly… you gotta take risks.

With 1 minimal ‘fix’ (they aren’t even accurate on what needs fixing) every month it will surely be balanced by 2016.

The first GW2 eSport tournament, coming to a high school auditorium near you in the future!

fix’d .

We’ll do it when it’s ready. Don’t worry, we’re aware of it and looking into the issue. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.

“Fair enough.”

Razor.6392:

Dang, thanks.

I can’t believe they won’t touch the trouble builds. Balance is usually done slowly but when patches happen every month instead of bi-weekly… you gotta take risks.

With 1 minimal ‘fix’ (they aren’t even accurate on what needs fixing) every month it will surely be balanced by 2016.

The first GW2 eSport tournament, coming to a high school auditorium near you 2014!

Expect some buffs to underpowered builds. Don’t expect any features, with the exception of leaderboards coming “soon” after the patch.

For mesmer specifically, they’re buffing scepter and greatsword by making the autoattack go through 2 extra targets, and nerfing shatters. I didn’t pay much attention to that part though. For eles, they’re making scepter AoE, but otherwise just described the class back to us.

Oh ,and someone made this: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/1070-gurus-spvp-state-of-the-game-w-tyler-bearce-jonathan-sharp-and-karl-mclain/

Jacobin.8509:

I agree with the sentiments above about how its fairly pointless to go on and on about balance.

The reality is that GW2 has to also balance for PVE and WvW which have a completely different gearing stats system and mechanics. They also have WAY more players so sPvP is always going to take a BACKSEAT when it comes to class development.

As much as people are unhappy with the warrior in spvp, it is probably the strongest PVE class so giving it buffs will just make it even more broken in PVE.

If tens of thousands of PVE players are happy with warrior (most popular class) and only a few dozen sPvP players are unhappy, then who do you think takes priority?

This effect is the same across all spvp development. I think more of us just need to accept that a competitive game / esport can’t really happen in an environment when it has to take a backseat to PVE and WvW.

Separate PvE from PvP.

It’s not exactly a radical idea, ArenaNet has said they would do it, ArenaNet did it in GW1, and ArenaNet has already done it in GW2.

Nor would the changes required to make warriors more viable necessarily carry over into the PvE world. Warriors are good in PvE because they’re completely damage powerhouses. Buffing mobility, buffing defensive capability, and being able to deal with boons would do nothing to change the PvE meta.

Other than like, doing more damage per boon or just negating the protection bonus, I don’t see how they can thematically work in magehunter type abilities without it being clunky or OP. Boon stripping makes little sense for a warrior, and so does something like converting boons into conditions. Maybe knockdowns, but that would have to be on something like an adrenaline skill, and we all know how useful arcing slice is. So we’d have to weapon swap to do it. Admittedly, combustive shot + 5 people falling on their butts would be pretty funny.

Can’t wait for this fictional eSport thing to happen, and all 10 players are asura.

Issues with warrior mobility stem from its vulnerability to conditions, specifically in this case cripple and chill. Gap closers are completely trivial when you have a snare on you, and warriors have very few ways of removing them. It’s not as huge an issue for other classes, because they have other options. Warriors are inherently squishy, lack a lot of the defensive mechanics of other classes, and require constant uptime on a target to do damage. Most of their abilities as well are very easy to avoid for their importance. Bola, bulls charge, eviscerate are all game changers and a lot of warriors rely on those and similar things to win a fight. The same isn’t as true for other classes. Either they lack this big moments, or they can fall back on something else. On top of this, warriors have an incredibly difficult time disengaging from a fight. They’re like guardians without the bunker.

All of this is just summed up as “they’re not mobile.”

And all of this, or at least the snare part, has a stupid easy fix.

Mobile Strikes now cures cripple, chill, and immob, or Reckless Dodge now damage targets around you and cures cripple and chill.

They have very little condi removal, but they aren’t hard countered by these specific two. Now they just need a solution to defensive capability and boons. For boons, boon removal is really out of the question I think. Warriors are sort of meant to just power through those, but the only solution I can immediately see is either just increasing the damage of warriors, or adding something like “Do X% more damage per boon on target and ignores protection”.

For defensive changes? I think a lot of it would come from being able to deal with snares better, but they could really easily just change some things around, like Shield Stance having a lower CD, Endure Pain actually lasting 5 seconds, having a lower CD, and maybe cleanse/immunity to conditions.

Personally I also think they should change around 100B and Arcing Slice. Arcing Slice is just awful, since warriors have no issue with fury anyways. An idea I’ve played around with a lot is moving arcing slice to the 2 ability, and making 100B the burst ability. Then add a component like, 100B immobs the target for X seconds per adrenaline bar or you move faster for each adrenaline bar. Such as moving at 30/50/70% speed during 100B. This would make 100B easier to land, free up one utility slot (which would go with buffing defensive capabilities), and also make them a bit more independent.

Nope, let’s buff banners!

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Valkyriez.6578:

Nexon? You mean NC Soft?

I think Nexon have a majority of NcSoft shares or something?

Nexon has like, a 15% share in NCsoft. They’re the largest shareholder, but they aren’t a majority.

edit: Here’s about 10 seconds worth of research: http://www.bizjournals.com/prnewswire/press_releases/2012/06/08/NY21443

I think you overdid it a bit..

EDIT: Holy god you actually filled all of them. +1

One more change to add to the stack.

It’s like I traveled back in time to September.

No, what we need is to be able to wield asura dual wielding greatswords.

Anyways, I wish GW2 had a physical DoT that was benefited by Power. GW2 is so shallow with all the homogenized effects. You really can’t do interesting things with this combat system.

Psybunny.8906:

I know the bug you’re referring to Larynx, I heard some talk that they might have a fix for it in the future patch. For me a quick strafe before swapping usually helps canceling channel skills more reliably.

EDIT: about leg specialist, it’s true beauty mostly lies in bladetrail imo, skillshotting and doing a double-immobilize on someone is just wonderful. :’)

I do enjoy that “perfect” bladetrail where it comes back and reapplies immob right as the last one ended. It’s just long enough to land 100B.

As for the strafing trick, that’s a decent solution if it bugs out. I’ll keep it in mind.

I just did about 30ish tests. Here’s the results:

Bugged
Bugged
Bugged
Bugged
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Bugged
Bugged
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Bugged
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Bugged
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Bugged
WORKED
Bugged
WORKED
WORKED
Bugged
WORKED
Bugged
Bugged
WORKED
Bugged
Worked but weird spazzy graphical glitch
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Froze for 1 second then worked
Bugged
WORKED
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Bugged
Bugged
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Froze for 0.5 seconds then worked
Bugged
WORKED

There’s a higher success rate the longer you wait to switch, as well. Instantly switching almost never works, but waiting about 25% through the animation works most of the time.

This would be on a stationary test dummy as well.

I was specifically looking for changes to class balance. I played the beta, so I’m aware of things like the map change. Coefficients and range changes I’m not.

Empathetic Fighter.2065:

You don’t use sword to burst, you use it for imbolize. If you do it right then you hit 100% of your 100b even without frenzy. Second thing is you have an additional movement skill (nr. 2) on sword.
Sword / GS is a weapon set-up played by high-end players. If you observe them you will see how effective it is.

Yes, and then it bugs out half the time and freezes me for the duration. It’s effective if it works, but it doesn’t most of the time. I’m literally just repeating what I already said.

Sword burst is clunky as hell. Half the time my character just freezes in place for the duration when I GS swap.

Plus I don’t like going 20/20/0/10/20, which you’d be a fool not to with sword. Either I have to sacrifice 10% crit damage + rally on vengeance or the quickness and 5% crit, to get the 1s immob. eh…

The wiki archive only goes back as far as October. Does anyone know where I can find the list of changes for each BWE?

Valkyriez.6578:

Psybunny.8906:

Lbow is so-so and it’s good for AoE pressure when you’re offpoint in a teamfight, gameplay with it mostly resembles thief sbow clusterbombing. It requires you to focus more on lbow when playing like that and keeping GS mostly for mobility/extra finisher burst. I think quite a few NA warriors play with GS+lbow, not so popular in EU.

Rifle seems to be pretty horrible in a closed setting like spvp, since the hard hitting killshot is easily avoidable by enemies, even by accident when they go behind terrain/object.

Warrior meta has pretty much made 0 changes since beta, only noticeable thing is that people run even more glassier, since the extra survivability from defense tree didn’t count for much. Axe/mace/sword+shield is what 99% of warriors here in EU use, you’ll sometimes see the occasional hammer warr and “wtf clearly from PvE” signet users. Main hand for 2ndary set depend on if you want damage/CC/mobility, it all depends on enemy team setup and map.

I strongly recommend grabbing leg specialist trait from tactics 10, dropping the arms 30 (you have quickness there I assume?) to 20 and using mobile strikes in discipline 20 if you don’t already have it. I strongly suggest grabbing some sort of stunbreak (balanced stance and endure pain are the most popular). Balanced stance is the overall every-situation choice and endure pain is used mostly against thief/burst heavy opponents.

If you need heavy condition removal you could swap bull’s charge for signet of stamina or have a look at lyssa runes. Lyssa removes all conditions/give all boons if you use your elite.

Overall warrior is a team fighter and needs other people to patch his downsides, else he is very squishy. He has better AoE pressure than a thief, very good rez denial and can stay in midfights a bit longer. Not a very good duelist though and most of the 1v1s you encounter you’re practically playing with a handicap unless you caught the enemy with his pants down. There are a lot of times when you have to disengage and run and refocus on other point or regroup with a teammate, since there are a lot of professions/builds you will never win 1v1 against a equally skilled player.

Well done. Post of the week.

I learnt something, and aspiring warriors did aswell. I suggest you copy paste this into the warrior forums, it’s good info for aspiring warrior players.

They’d just tell him he’s wrong and a skilled player has no problem in 1v1s, how warriors can bunker and how killshot is the most OP thing ever.

Anyways, to prove Psy’s point about the warrior meta, here’s a video from April 28, 2012:

muscarine.5136:

When playing my sin i do 3 times as much than with my warrior.

Some classes give me trouble (trap rangers, condi necros) some classes are just plain boring to fight because of how forgiving they are (shatter mesmers, bunker eles) and so on. But in the end, within the match as a whole no matter which classes i’m thrown against i still do 3x more with my sin than with my warrior.

Simply because, if i have troubles against one class with my sin (and i’m probably the only living soul out there rolling 2xpistols mind you) then it’s a no go for my warrior.
There is currently no rock paper scissor in GW2, there is only can do with some classes or can’t do with some others.

Lower duel efficiency, lower cap rate, more time spent respawning and rejoining the fight.
This is where 1on1 balance takes its meaning.

You can’t achieve perfect balance of course but then again even 5on5 is impossible.
The current pvp dynamics demands that kind of balance, 5on5 + cap + mobility + bunker = lots of duels or 2v2.
If pvp was about hotjoin 8on8 then team balance would probably be a better way to go.

Now that’s said, there is still the multiple class issue which they should at least try to disable for a month or so, see how it goes. Can’t balance a game around anything when you allow 4x Eles + 1sin.
It’s like full necro Grenth’s balance rush all over again.

Those GW2 Assassins sure are OP…?

SwickHobo.5096:

2: And plans to make boons worse then they currently are. Maybe longer duration longer Cd’s to make strips more meaningful in a fight. And so they can’t reapply them instantly after every strip.

This is it right here. Long duration, long CD. Boons shouldn’t work like conditions. It would make boon stripping far more useful and make classes and builds that can’t rely on boons to be viable.

I don’t know whether to like it because of how ridiculous it is or hate it for the same reason.

Miko.5726:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

also think of this. With 3 points when do you ever really encounter 5v5? It’s been pretty kitten rare in my experience. I think it’s a little naive to balance strictly for 5v5 when MOST fights are nowhere near being 5v5.

Blizzard has tried and failed magnificently. So yes, in the first step, Anet must balance the game around 1 vs 1 , 2 vs 2 , 3 vs 3 and so on.

I main a warrior, and there is (still) no COUNTER-Build on the market.

Btw. Shortbow/Pistol Thieves are a pest and must be toned down. Thanks!

Only issue with Pistol is culling.

@Yasha

SWTOR was a ridiculous grind fest. For equivalents in GW2, imagine something like, getting to level cap, getting to rank 30, and then getting all your gear from the random loot chests you get every time you rank up which have only like a 10% chance to even drop a piece, let alone the one you need. It was terrible.

The BGs were fun as hell pre-level cap. Huttball especially was just an amazing map, but the game at level cap was probably the worst experience I have ever had in an MMO.

The only reason I bought GW2, and the only reason I still play GW2, is because of the gear/grind factor. Rift, WoW, WAR, SWTOR, ESO, Neverwinter, Tera, any MMO released in the past 10 years, they are grindfests where gear is more important than skill. I hate any sort of vertical progression system, which is why I i’m scared for the FPS genre, and why I still think SC2 is a better eSport than LoL. If you need me, i’ll go play Allied Assault or some kitten.

Iove.3902:

If they add an axe what will the abilities be that are not already covered by sword or hammer?

Gotta do something here people… all this would do is make a weapon set with abilities of two other sets.

Rifle: Direct damage and minor condition damage
Longbow: Hybrid AoE direct damage and condition damage

One-hand sword: Conditions and direct damage
One-handed mace: Stuns and damage damage
One-handed axe: Heavy direct damage

Two-handed sword: Heavy direct damage, mobility
Two-handed hammer: Stuns and direct damage
Two-handed axe: Conditions and direct damage

There is a niche. Two-handed axe can have heavy AoE bleeding damage, as well as cripple, and possible weakness. Warriors are lacking a melee 2h condi weapon, so there you go.

1. Swift Chop: Inflicts X damage and cause bleeding
-> Lacerating Chop: Inflicts X damage and cause bleeding
-> Dismember: Inflicts X damage, and cause bleeding and cripple

2. Cleave Inflict X damage and bleeding in a 360 cone

3. Axe Rake Inflict X damage, and cause cripple and 1s immobilize

4. Furious Axe Inflict X damage, cause bleeding, and build 10 strikes of adrenaline

5. Disrupting Chop Inflict X damage and daze the target for 2 seconds

Burst ability: Decapitate 600 range, leap at the target and cause 2-3s immobilize and heavy bleeding damage (minor direct damage)

There’s an axe concept for you.

I find most people ignore the big red target symbol anyways. Like in the middle of GY, “ok, targeted the warrior. Guys… guys why are you attacking that guardian?”

Hotjoin teams just melt away if people focus fire. It’s nice, but that only happens 1/20 games.

Useful tip: 8 people on a point does not make the point cap faster, nor does using shadow refuge on these 8 people.