Guild Wars 2

@Dempsey: If you noticed, I added a note:
“PS: I didn’t explain it too well anyway, I meant useless in most hard situation aka high level Fractal bosses. If we are talking only about normal instances, then that’s a different story. Personally I think most of them are too easy to discuss about.”
In other words: in common situation they are easy to use and obviously good, but common situation are overall easy (ArenaNet nerfed too much things in this game since launch).
I don’t know your guildmates by I saved SO MANY times the kitten to my mates that I can not imagine going in a party for a hard instance without having healing shouts to save them from death or to remove the condition that is going to kill them.

Inevitable.8920:

I only run fractal 48. So anything I mention is 48.

48 is similar too with a little differnce: at 50+ only ONE arrow is enough to kill a player; not downing, but kill. 2-3 seconds of fire storm is more than enough to down even a tanky player so you can stand near the banner after the fire storm is casted.
So the only way to use a banner is picking it up and moving it. But if you do that, then you can’t attack.

• Dredge fractal? You keep moving from a lava bucket to another, so no banners.
• Hammer fractal? Full of AOEs, with Poison too, so you need SIO and/or SoS, otherwise even if you manage to reach the banner again, it will kill you.
• Harpy fractal? If you have a good kiter for the boss, then YES, the banner is awesome.
• Krait fractal? You keep kiting the Jellyfish around, no banners.
• Ascalon fractal? Again fire storms, even stronger than Shaman with even larger area; no banners.
• Swamp fractal? If you get the Bloomhunger then YES, banners are good. But if the boss is the Mossman then it becomes difficult, especially if your party like to kite him around; situational.
• Snow fractal? Good at elemental and at final boss too, the area is small so you can cover most of it.
• Jade sea fractal? You have to go around for tentacles so again no banners.

Results: 3 yes and 6 noes.
Most of bosses need movement and even if you try to stay close to your banner, your teammates will not risk that only for some Regeneration and a stat buff.

Inevitable.8920:

Well lucky for us, there’s a skill in the game called Wall of Reflection. Stand behind it with your group and put a banner down. Or just stand near the banner dodge and walk back towards the banner. It isn’t hard for any competent player to do.

Try doing that at lvl 50 and have fun. You can not stay in the same place, especially because he casts AOEs and WoE will end soon or later. And you can not rely on other classes to fix your lacks.

Inevitable.8920:

Banners are useless? Congratulations……. You’re an idiot.

Ok, explain me how can you use a banner against a boss in a wide area like the Fire Shaman in grawl fractal.

PS: I didn’t explain it too well anyway, I meant useless in most hard situation aka high level Fractal bosses. If we are talking only about normal instances, then that’s a different story. Personally I think most of them are too easy to discuss about.

Assassin.7890:

How do you gain these might stacks?

• Base stacks: FGJ has 20s cooldown and gives me 3 stacks of Might for 42,5s. So only FGJ gives me 6 stacks (9 for a few seconds). If Battle Standard is not needed I can use SoR which gives 5 stacks for 51s. Till now there are 11 stacks.

• With GS: Thanks to “Forceful Greatsword” trait, each critical gives me kitten Might BUT I have 70% Boon duration, which means that every critical gives 8,5s Might. Critical rate is at 71% so it’s very easy to stack them. With a single target you reach an average of 20, a bit more when using 100B. If you are attacking two targets or more then you’ll reach 25 stacks very fast.

• With LB: I put in my LB a Superior Sigil of Strength which gives at 30% chance a stack of Might for 10s on a critical. Thanks to 70% Boon duration, each stack lasts for 17s, so even if they sigil activation is slower then Forceful Greatsword, Might stacks last longer and you can stack them too. You reach an average of 21 stacks, a bit more when using F1 on large numbers and Arcing Arrow in it (but you need to be close).

You can use Sigil of Strength on GS too, but then you’ll overstack. I prefer a Superior Sigil of Fire on it.

Note: Use only Superior Sigil of Strength and NOT Major, because it has a lower proc rate and (more important) shorter Mights.

@TheMaskedParadigm: Not really because I have permanently over 20 stack of Might without relying on others, that’s how I compensate for damage lack. Permanent Fury and Swiftness too.

@Dempsey: Banners are useless for boss fights because you have to keep moving around to dodge attacks, otherwise you are dead. Mace damage is low because it is very slow and weakness lasts only for 50% on bosses. Sword OH is absolutely not needed, single block and no damage output, shield is better if you need to parry.
If you move correctly and know how to dodge then you don’t need any block.
With your traits and weapons you deal no damage at all: slow and weak auto attacks and no Might stacking.

First of all: are we talking about PVP, PVE or WVW?

• PVP: Not worth. If you want to be a bunker-shouthealer go for Guardian
• WVW: I’m a newbie in that field.
• PVE: Absolutely worth. I’m currently running a build inspired by the “famous” Sonic Boon. I can share it if you want but it is 0-25-15-30-0 with 2 shouts (FGJ and SIO) and SoS for more dodges, HS as healing skill. Berserker jewelry and weapons (GS and LB) and Knight armor. You deal a high amount of damage while being a bit tanky with good AOE support (average 130 AOE HPS plus Might and Fury) and good self-sustain (average 660 HPS).

Defektive.7283:

For the record. I’ve shared a number of builds in the past with the community. The reason I’m not sharing this one is because it isn’t mine, and the friend who made it asked me not to.

@The guy above: True about his build sharing attitude, just check the Warrior subforum and you’ll see.
@Defektive: Too late, this build become public in the moment you used it on a stream XD Any average good Warrior can “read” it by watching you playing. Sorry for your friend :/

Maxhzalot.2301:

I have reviewed other peoples’ threads and find than in PAX Tournament, warrior still are the lowest class to be picked up by Clans, though we have been buffed through three patches.

This can make people both happy and sad. The happy thing is that we can still get buffs in next patches perphaps . The sad this for the current truth….

Meh, it’s hard to lose the bad stigma we have. We still need some more tweaks (ex. more gap closers or skills to keep the range short) and maybe then some top players will pick Warriors and start using them. Only then we’ll lose the stigma.
Patience my friend, patience.

Abraxius.6429:

Wow Just…Wow 0.0 is this really a issue?? I see it now hey A-net nerf asura there too OP. Gezzus Kryst ppl will complain about anything. Alright this does sound fun though let me take a swing at this. I think Charrs should be banned from tpvp cause i was fighting a team of 5 charrs and they all were so big they were taking uo the entire node and i died dude to not being able to see where the enemy necro/rangers were throwing there wells/traps . Hows that does that sound legit or what!?

Do you watch tournaments? I guess not.
Because if you have watched any tournament, then you have seen that ALL players are Asura. And not because they like them, but because their movements are hard to read.
And by the way is VERY AWFUL to see a match of 4 Asuras and a Human vs. 4 Asuras and a Human.
Very.
Awful.

deathTouch.9706:

Yeah you’re right, he did have CI too.

I said DotE b/c I saw increased dmg output when thief had buffs up that corresponded roughly to what would be expected with DotE.

I’m wondering how can you say that: DotE gives 3% damage increase per buff and they are not using steady weapons, so it may be the “fluctuation” of weapon damage.

Absolutely agree. Unfortunately ArenaNet still didn’t implement the option to see all players in SPVP as Humans. Banning Asura characters would be nice. I’m watching semi-finals right now and seeing 6 Asuras running and spamming AOEs is ugly and awful. My eyes are going to bleed…

The third trait is Cleansing Ire.
Not sure about DotE, in normal situation I guess he uses Warrior’s Sprint

VidurrRedhands.1964:

Does sigil of paralyzation cause the stun from shield bash to round up to 2 seconds? Another thing I was taking into consideration, though, is that stunbreakers don’t always help you with knockdowns if used before the animation is finished.

Yes, Sigil of Paralyzation adds 1 full second to all stuns; a second sigils will not help, so put just one.

Defektive.7283:

Thanks!

Working on a build guide, trying to do video clips of different fights etc. Want it to be comprehensive and not just text to read.

Yah, good idea, it’s not easy to make the most of a build without a guide. Looking forward to reading it!

Nice video And you should really rename your team to “Ops! I killed Lord!” XD

By the way, why don’t you post your current build in video descriptions or on your channel? It would be very useful for watcher, both newbies to SPVP and veterans.

If possible, change the cursor to a more visible one, many times I lose in the fight chaos.

@Kentrey
You forgot to mention the option to normalize character in SPVP.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Normalized-Character-Models-in-sPvP/first

Which is a top priority imho.

Latinkuro.9420:

and the D-pad movement

Exactly!! I bought G13 for the analog stick (that’s the reason for me to chose G13 over Nostromo) and I can’t go back. I just can’t imagine playing without using my thumb to move.

Phaeton.9582:

Having played about 5k matches total on my war, one thing I will say is that stances are pretty vital for any melee build.

So here’s my suggestion

..

Move the stances (berserker, endure pain, balance) to class mechanic skills, and give a different F1 ability depending on the stance you’re in?

It’s a fairly standard design approach, but that’s because it works.

Imagine a trait in arms that granted 1 second of quickness on stance swap, for those clutch attacks too.

The stance idea is something already seen on forums and something everyone would like to see, but devs… sigh…

I bought a Logitech G13 a year ago and I simply can’t imagine playing GW2 without it. But there is no reason at all to use macros, simply because there is nothing to automatize. All skills are situationals, so you can’t make a chain of skills that may be generally useful.
Imho if you try to use macros in SPVP it will be even harder to play.

Forestgreen.7981:

You guys don’t know what you’re talking about, the best build atm is 40/30/20/30/30 dual rifle and dual long bow with “for great justice” replaced with “Hasta la vista, baby” and “Shake if Off” with “Get to the choppa”.

Made my day, thank you!

@Harrier

• Banner/Scorpion: The “4 skills of each kind” rule will not be abandoned so we should think how to improve banner mechanics rather than how to get rid of them XD
• GS F2: Yes I know, in fact I like the idea but it needs testing fore sure.
• Sword F2: Forgot to suggest an adrenaline scaling value XD
• Berserker/Heightened: You can’t do that, too many changes involved. Traits hiding each other on different lines is something that probably devs never thought about and never will. Anyway I can’t understand why you are so much worried, even with both traits it won’t be overpowered imho.
• Adrenal Health: But if you remove that then you will ruin even more the possibility of a passive HP regen build (banner+healing signet+adrenal health and so on). Imho there should be two possible “schools”: the adrenaline users and the adrenaline sparers.
• Burst Mastery: That is why I would like to see other classes nerfs together or before Warrior buffs. They should really be toned down.

Thank you for your constructive post! You helped the community a lot and improved overall Warrior image in the eyes of the community! Keep posting your ideas so everyone will be pleased to hear them.

A lot of great ideas, really well done!!
I like almost everything you written but some things are “over the top” or “out of place” (quotes needed).

Utilities

• Mending: removing four conditions PLUS increase the healing by 500 for every condition removed. Imho it is not really need it if devs tune down conditions from other classes.
• Removing banner of Tactis: not possible, because there are 4 skills for each type of skill (4 signets, 4 shouts, 4 stances…) so you have to modify it but not change. The suggested “Scorpion Chain” is basically Thief’s “Scorpion Wire”, it can’t see it fitting Warrior’s “style”.

Weapons

• GS F2 is awesome but giving a Smoke Field to Warriors MAY be game-breaking. I can see stealthed Rifle’s F1 shooting down people. Fun for Warriors but it may bring a giant whining.
• Axe F2: I can’t understand it. Why should an Axe thrown in the ground reduce incoming damage? XD
• Sword F2: Like the evade, but can’t see how can you make it scale with adrenaline. If the evade length rises then it means that the animation is longer too, which may be a bad thing in some cases. Considering its long cooldown, I suggest to put a 1s fixed evade and also fixed range (an inconsistent movement skill may cause problems). It would be awesome to make it with two casts: first time you press you leap to your target, second time you leap backwards (and evade).
• Longbow F2: Incoherent with the name of the skill; if the arrow is heavy, the enemy should be pushed back, not you :P And this is how I suggest it to change: make it a push back and not a “leap away”. Also remove the effect of “remove chill/cripple/immobilize”, it does not fit with the skill.
• Shield F3: Too similar to Engineer’s shield #5. I got an idea but it may be overpowered. Put yourself in a stance that let you absorb all projectiles. When you activate the skill you release all absorbed projectiles on the target. But it does not fit with Warrior, it is too “Engi-style”.

Traits

• Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus: you can’t prevent stacking. If someone has both of them you can’t decide which overlaps the other one. Imho leaving them both will not be overpowered. Maybe reduce their duration to 6-7s.
• Agile Movement: I absolutely love it! But putting something like this ingame MAY be very dangerous, you risk too see burst damage Warriors that evades like a S/D ranger.
• Adrenal Health: I prefer like it is now. I just suggest to change it to “each second” rather than “each three seconds” (obviously with 1/3 of the heal).
• Cleansing Ire: I disagree with the added effect of blind immunity. Too much effects on a single trait will make it a must-have which is a situation that has to be avoided.
• Blood Drinker: Need ICD or lower values to prevent being OP in PVE (and yes, I care about PVE because it is the PVE that is preventing the Warrior from receiving big changes).
• Burst Mastery: The blind immunity should be added here.
• Athletic: I like it but I prefer to see a minor trait that gives 5s of Vigor on crits with 5s of ICD; yes, like Elemenetalists and Mesmers. I really can not understand why MAGES have perma Vigor while FIGHTERS do not. And by the way it is not fair that you have to spend 30 points for a Major trait to have the same effect of a Ranger trait which costs only 5 points and is a Minor trait.

Ok, these are all things that I didn’t like it, which means that I love all other suggested changes Some are really great!! I hope to see them implemented in nearly future ^^

We are really offtopic but it’s becoming interesting :P Please stream that!

People have to understand that is not the Warrior who needs a buff, simply other classes need a nerf (less AOEs, less conditions and [most important] more telegraphed skills).

Warrior needs some tweaks for sure (read as “sustainandconditioncleansing”) but the real problem is the power of other classes. Rather than discussing how to improve Warrior, they should think how to nerf all other seven classes, because if they just keep buffing… it will end very badly.

Being a frustrated Warrior in SPvP is normal and “correct”.
Saying Warrior is the worse class is just half correct.
Saying it is weak is wrong.

As stated by other players in other threads, Warrior is the best balanced and designed class in the game. The problem is the design of other classes and the fact they keep getting improvements where they should be nerfed.

If developers will keep thinking “Warrior needs buffs” they will struggle with PVE team shouting “it’s pve-overpowered!” and nothing will be done.
The real solution is nerfing all other classes down because, right now, their mechanics are deeply unbalanced and, in some cases, broken.

@Interpret Interrupt: Maybe someone already told you but Sigil fo Earth has an internal 2s cooldown, even if not stated in the description. It was introduced some months ago to prevent Bleed-spamming builds.

Khenzy.9348:

samo.1054:

I strongly agree with exactly what Geff and Empathic Fighter said.

Warrior is actually how all classes in GW2 should be. No cheap moves, no cheap AoE, no 1 button miracles. Work for the kittening kill!! That’s how true e-sports should be like.

Tone down aoe, tone down stealths, illusions and all the crap that’s poluting the game, and we might just see some playable spvp then.

I so agree with this. I can’t +1 you enough.
PvP in this game has gotten out of control: blinds all over the place, free access to vigor, low CD on demand invulnerabilities/blocks/evades, etc.
The Warrior is the best designed profession, with well telegraphed skills that allow for counter play and require good positioning, offer a good measure of risk vs reward, they have to balance their traits to have good damage and/or good defense, their weapons have a clear and defined porpuse (ex. every Mesmer taking sword mh due to an OP invulnerability), so do their traits and utility skills.

The balance in this game has already gotten into the Whac-A-Mole way, sticking new stuff out of nowhere (Torment), overbuffing Necromancers, not tunning down certain things enough… instead of balancing what’s already there.

I agree on AoE damage, which has been a little too much for some time now, this includes Warriors as well.

The two quoted posts contain EXACTLY what ArenaNet developers must understand and fix. Thank you guys for pointing it out in such a perfect way.

Well done!! I was waiting for something that can be synched with Google Calendar!!
There should be a calendar for “important” tournaments too but on Google Calendar, not on facebook >.>

I don’t have any problem to buy an arena and maintain it, in fact I have one for my guild and friends.
The point is that PvPers can NOT afford it in any way. And it is absurd too being forced to PvE for SPvP purposes.

Parisalchuk.9230:

Oni Link.4621:

Vena.8436:

Oni Link.4621:

Most online games with “arenas” or “rooms” give the possibility to create own room with no fee at all.
Why GW2 has a fee AND this fee is expensive too?

I can’t, for the life of me, think of a single MMO that has such a feature. Care to enlighten me of any MMO that offers the ability (without a subfee) for one to be able to host their own, custom rule arena? Otherwise we’re just saying other games offer hotjoins… but hotjoins offer hotjoins.

I was not talking about RPGs (if you are saying that with the MMO acronym). But 99% of online FPS, MOBA, RTS or whatever give you the possibility.

FPS – host on your own machine if you want a custom server and need fast enough upload speeds to properly host one, otherwise you pay
RTS – not really servers, one machine hosts or you connect to a central location… that how it HAS to work or you dont have any game at all
MOBA I dont have enough experience with to make a statement on.

Regardless, you basically said that because other unrelated genres have ‘servers’ without fees that this genre needs it too? Why exactly is that?

FPS – normal rooms are hosted on game server, not on player’s machine. And custom server, yes you’re right, but custom arenas on GW2 are not that “custom” to justify the price.
RTS – yes and so? Matches are hosted on the server, why can’t be here the same?

Basically ArenaNet is NOT providing a total customizable arena, it has only basic options. They are just trying to monetarize it somehow.

Vena.8436:

Oni Link.4621:

Most online games with “arenas” or “rooms” give the possibility to create own room with no fee at all.
Why GW2 has a fee AND this fee is expensive too?

I can’t, for the life of me, think of a single MMO that has such a feature. Care to enlighten me of any MMO that offers the ability (without a subfee) for one to be able to host their own, custom rule arena? Otherwise we’re just saying other games offer hotjoins… but hotjoins offer hotjoins.

I was not talking about RPGs (if you are saying that with the MMO acronym). But 99% of online FPS, MOBA, RTS or whatever give you the possibility.

Yea Defektive, but compared to Endure Pain, EP is way more useful. Imho its duration should lengthen and it has to remove all conditions and activations, otherwise I prefer SoS.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Just to clarify:

It’s actually significantly cheaper than a sub fee. The $20 you spend is the initial cost. It could also cost $10 + Gold, or no money at all if you have enough gold.

Once you have a server, it costs 480 gems for 20 days, 960 for 40 days, 1440 for 60 days. That’s less than $10/mo if only one person is supporting the server. Anyone can apply time to servers. Also, don’t forget you can convert gold to gems.

Most online games with “arenas” or “rooms” give the possibility to create own room with no fee at all.
Why GW2 has a fee AND this fee is expensive too?

The change to Berserker’s Stance was a good idea but it has 2 major flaws:

• It does NOT remove conditions when you activate it. This is “wierd” and it makes this skill a lot less worth.
• Compared to Endure Pain, it is not strong as EP but it has same duration and cooldown. Duration should be increased to 6 seconds.
  A minor flaw:
• It is not a stun breaker. Considering it is a “stance”, it should break stun.

Good idea ArenaNet, just a small tweak to make it worth same as Endure Pain.
Oh, considering that all stances have a trait that auto-triggers them, the new Berserker’s Stance should have one too.
I suggest to change “Shrug It Off” effect to “Activate Berserker’s Stance when you have more than 2 condition on you”.

• There is no “bug if less than 4”. We were 3, all of us left the arena and rejoined, the arena restarted in a new map with new applied settings.
• Whitelist is for reserved slots, you have to set 20 reserved slots in order to prevent non-whitelist people from joining.
• You can set the “Ready” button, there is an option for it.

Still there should be a /restartarena command which is currently missing.

4s stun from Mace F1? Good luck landing it XD And if the enemy has Stability then whole idea is ruined. And last but not least, without a MH Sword you lose a lot of mobility :/ I prefer Hammer as second weapon if I want to go for stun-lock. Landing a complete Whirling Axe is only a bit easier that landing a full 100B, no one will have all stun breakers on cooldown, so it is very difficult that the stun will last 4s.

It is obvious that reward are taken away, otherwise you can create “free SPVP rank/achievement farming”.

The problem is simple: until at least one player is inside, the arena is NOT restarted. So if you change settings they are not applied until the next match/restart. So if you can start, you have to ask people to leave and wait for restart.

We need a restart option asap.

Defektive.7283:

Pyriall.5027:

Is this a rush to get as many builds out the door as possible to claim them as yours?

LOL

was waiting on someone to say that

Was waiting for someone to point that out XD

Zenith.7301:

Has anyone checked the DPS on whirling axe? Might it approach 100b now?

It is the same of 100B, so it is better than 100B because it has a bigger area and you can move while doing it. But imho it’s still useless, your movements are too slow, too easy to avoid it with a stunbreaker/cleaner (for immobilize) and dodge out.

PS: You don’t need Bolas or Bull’s Charge if you have a Sword in MH.

Warrior
I already reported 2 tooltips errors (Berserker’s Stance and Leg Specialist) and a bug in Axe skill 1# third attack “Triple Chop” (it works as old version, not as the new).

Finally Burst Damage trait was changed!! 10 months!!! TEN!! Now it is decent, not sure if good, but decent yes.

Unfortunately there are no healing skills cooldown reduction, that was supposed to be a very important improvement but developers changed their mind before the update. Sad story.

EDIT: Still missing cooldown reduction trait for Sword.

EDIT 2: Trait Burning Arrows tooltip is wrong, missing cooldown reduction.

About Warrior: After 10 months they finally change Burst Damage attribute. Now it is decent (not saying “good”, I said “decent”).
No healing skills cooldown reduction though.

• About classes
  ArenaNet said “we want to keep consistency between PVE, SPVP and WVW” but that way the development is ridiculously slow.
  Once for all, break that consistency, and start developing each class differently.
  PVE team will be happy.
  SPVP team will be much more happy.
  WVW team will be happy.
  Players will be A LOT more happy.

• About solo queue, missing team mechanics and ladders and other basic stuff:
  I don’t know the reason, the development is absurdly slow, can’t understand it.

• About GvG:
  In my honest opinion, GW2 needs TvT (Team vs Team), not GvG, because the concept of “guild” is absolutely inexistent in GW2. Why? Because you can join multiple guilds, play with any of them, chat with any of them, basically they are like a big scale parties/chatrooms.
  This was the worst development choice I’ve ever seen.

It doesn’t matter:

• (1.000.000 / 3000) * 2 = 666
• 1.000.000 * 2 /3000 = 666

Both give the same result.

Mine was just an idea guys, don’t rage XD Anyway: yes, Immobilize can be cleansed up, but if the enemy has Stability, then your whole stun lock idea is useless :/

But 4s of Immobilize from Sword F1, charge up adrenaline, 1s from Leg Specialist, one attack for a bit more adrenaline, and then another Sword F1. Repeat XD