After skimming through the doc, I’m impressed by the amount of time this has had to have taken to put together, and while I’m not entirely convinced by a lot of the changes I do appreciate the effort that likely went into this. A few comments of mine:
1: I disagree with changing the greatsword’s primal burst to a condi-based attack. GS is in all other respects designed as a power weapon, and thus the change doesn’t make a whole lot of sense synergy-wise.
2: You have Signet Mastery set to proc when an attack is negated by blind, block, or evade. The problem comes from the fact that signet of might only actually helps against one of those, and thus the proc is incredibly likely to be wasted early in the fight.
3: I appreciate the general changes to banners, though I don’t think the GM trait you’ve given them is going to help all that much. Why? Because the protection requires that you hold onto the banner for a full ten seconds first, and unless I’m really underestimating the boost to the held skills, that’s a hefty requirement. Also, while -potentially- useful I don’t see the damage on summon as being all that helpful in general. I’d personally rather just have regen/CD reduction/radius increase.
4: A buff to merciless hammer is very much needed; however, I feel this goes a bit overboard. Corrupting prot and stripping stability on hammer swings would either be useless against some enemies or absolutely -broken- against others that rely on those boons.
5: I absolutely approve of the changes to “Fear Me!” A taunt is much more useful to warriors and something we really don’t get enough access to. My only gripe? The name: I’d rather not have my fantasy warrior in full plate yelling “Come at me bro!” Would ideally change to something a bit more lore-fitting.
6: The changes to frenzy make it too much a reactive rather than a proactive skill. You have to be both at low health AND use it to break a stun to get full mileage out of it. Frenzy ought to be, in my opinion, a skill used offensively to help land or maximize your burst, not something that only works under precise circumstances.
There are a few other things I’m not really sure are for the better or not, but most of those aren’t ones I have a concrete reason for opposing, and therefor will leave it at that.
Keep in mind, they added the functionality of the old Rifle 4 (namely, just vulnerability) to Rifle 2. I’m pretty sure the intent was to make Brutal Shot a primarily defensive skill, to be used when needed and not whenever it’s off cooldown, and allow 2 to pick up the slack in terms of offense.
New perspective: Warriors are different from every single other profession in that they’re the simplest.
As a Warrior, you use no magical implements, and none of your weapon skills rely on magic; you use only brute force, and your special mechanic (adrenaline-charged attacks, which gain power while you’re in battle and lose it while you’re resting) only drives the point home. Your longbow skills burn foes because you literally light your arrows on fire. The semi-unique skills you use to buff yourself and your opponents are basically just fighting stances, battle standards (okay, so maybe those are a little bit magical…), and rallying cries (your shout utilities, as well as warhorn skills).
TL;DR: Not having to deal with magic is, in a way, awesome. Especially if you’re a charr. :P
That’s thematic uniqueness, yes (though to be fair, that’s also somewhat true of engineers), but I believe the OP was more concerned with mechanical or functional uniqueness. For example, what a warrior is meant to specialize in/excel at above other classes, such as damage dealing, CC, buffs, etc. Aside from offensive buffs, as mentioned above, there’s not much at all we really excel at beyond others. And even then, the offensive buffs are only really useful in certain content.
Toughness is passive defense, should we remove that from the game? Vitality is a passive defense, should we remove that?
It is not a fallacy. Toughness and vitality are both means of increasing your survivability without any active play- the same as a great many of those passive procs being complained about. There are few people who would want both of these entirely removed from the game (though many I’m sure do approve of the trimming of some of the most defensive amulets from pvp). The point I had meant to make, and perhaps should have been clearer about, was that passive defenses are not inherently harmful so long as they’re kept to a manageable level and have reasonable trade off for taking (a comparably effective trait in the same bracket, loss of other stats in the case of toughness/vit).
While I will remain neutral on the effects of passives on the general health of competitive play, as I lack the expertise or information to offer more than an opinion, I do feel the need to point out a few things.
1) Passive procs can be played around, mostly. If you know a warrior is going to go invulnerable to direct damage at 25% health, don’t use up your burst when they’re at 30%. Chip them down, wait it out, and then kill them, or focus on applying conditions/let a teammate with condis worry about them.. An engineer’s elixir S proc prevents cap contribution and offensive action. And so on. Know what your opponent is likely to have at the ready (or what you’ve -seen- them with if you’ve fought before that match) and fight accordingly.
2) A lot of people here are saying that passives promote less-skilled play. Now, this may be true from the perspective of a twitch-based, reflex-focused game, which to some extent GW2 is. However, reflexes are not the only measure of skill- tactics and knowledge of the various classes should play a role in success as well. As I mentioned above, at least some of these passives can be played around or prepared for. A poor player will still typically lose a fight vs. a better one, passives or no, it may just take longer.
3) Passives prevent fights between burstier specs being ended by the first person to land a hit. Now, there’s a place for that kind of gameplay, but (and I fully acknowledge this bit is just opinion) I do not personally believe it suits an MMORPG.
That said, I will acknowledge that there are perhaps too many passive effects available to some classes, and they may have contributed to the excess of survivability in this season’s meta. Some effects of passives are potentially unfair, such as the Revenant’s “Eye for an Eye” punishing you for successfully landing CCs, but extra defenses are not unhealthy by default so long as they do not allow for near-indefinite sustain. Toughness is passive defense, should we remove that from the game? Vitality is a passive defense, should we remove that?
Right now warrior is in a really bad spot competitively, has been since the release of HoT. We lack sustain, a lot of our best attacks are rather easy to avoid, there’s so much sustain in the current meta that our high damage output still can’t effectively burst people down. We melt in teamfights, we lack support, and most of what we do well other classes can do without so many drawbacks- in general, we’re not in a good way.
A few have been able to find some success (Ross Biddle has been peddling his bunker buster rifle build around these forums for a while now, similar to what I’ve been running myself), but we’re certainly at a disadvantage. On the plus side, the balance patch coming on the…26th I believe will likely be nerfing some this meta’s biggest problems while tossing us a few buffs, so it’ll likely get at least a bit better for warriors soon.
Guys, guys, you might want to all calm down a bit. Firstly, while the ideas being tossed around regarding putting stances or extra weapon sets on the f-keys were interesting (and might make a very nice theme for a future elite spec), a change like that is an immense change to warrior’s core mechanics, likely far too much for a balance patch. At no point was there any indication that we were going to get that sort of change, and most of the topics on it were wishful thinking (not that I object to them- there’s no harm so long as you don’t assume the suggestions will be taken).
Secondly, one of the major problems with warrior right now is that many people feel forced to take Discipline primarily for Fast Hands. To fix this, there are two options: give FH baseline to warriors or retool the warrior’s weapon sets so they can be effectively used individually rather than requiring frequent swapping to land any significant hits. A-net seems to be choosing the latter. It does not mean you will -have- to camp one weapon set forever, it just increases the viability of not constantly juggling between them.
Though, we can’t say anything for sure until the patch goes live.
I don’t often say it, but… ya done good A-net, ya done good.
If you’re running non-meta stuff anyway, you might as well try both, experiment, see what gets you better results given how you tend to play.
Anyone who insults you over class pick is not, frankly, someone with anything to say worth listening to. If A-net listens to such people and bans you simply for playing a currently underpowered class (unlikely) then there are 2 possibilities. 1) It’s a mistake, contact their support and try to get things sorted out. 2) If that doesn’t work, A-net deserves the loss of support from another player, and you’re better off finding a less toxic environment to play in anyway.
To those of you insulting the OP for playing thief, you all ought to be ashamed of yourselves. They paid to play a game with an option of nine classes, not seven. Let them play what they like and eventually their MMR will sort out to a level they can play competitively at, UP class or no. If you hate the thought of running with a thief in your party that much, make a premade- if you want to win reliably you ought to be doing that anyway.
While I agree with the general idea (that is, giving physical skills extra utility rather than a pointless-aside-from-rampage damage buff), I think that getting three boons for each, particularly two of the most useful boons in the game, would be a little bit too much. Keep in mind that both kick and bolas are on a pretty low cooldown, and even Bull’s Charge would be near Frenzy in terms of boon uptime, plus a knockdown.
Personally, I feel that a trait that buffs certain skill types should focus on what those skills are meant to control. For stances, that means self-targeted boons. For shouts, group support. Both their traits bolster that particular function. Physical skills, on the other hand, are mostly control effects. Thus, their trait should have some effect focused on landing or improving their CC and interrupts. For example, making the physicals themselves unblockable (to enable you to interrupt a block channel, for instance), or adding a damage proc on interrupt (such as the Daredevil’s), or -maybe- just 1-2 seconds of quickness to better allow you to follow up on the CC. Alternatively, as I’ve seen suggested on this forum before, add some individual effect based upon the particular skill such as adding a daze or 1s stun after kick and stomp, increasing Bolas immob duration, and adding unblockable to Bull’s Charge.
Granted, I still don’t think this would see them widely used, but it would at least allow the trait to buff physical skills’ intended function- and thus be more useful in builds that might see benefit from them-, rather than a very niche and mostly useless damage buff.
So, I’m here to offer my thoughts on the current league system in GW2. I’d like to preface this by saying that I very much like the idea of leagues, a ladder that you climb up by winning games and fall by losing games, with certain rewards attached. I would also like to mention that my knowledge of the MMR system is far from perfect, and as such I apologize for any misinformation this post may contain.
Now, the whole point of a ladder-style league is that you’re attempting to win more often than you lose. Simple and sensible enough- if you win consistently you’ll travel up in the league to compete against better players until you reach some sort of stable equilibrium. This is fine, it encourages improvement and makes higher ranks a sign of prestige.
MMR, as I understand it, attempts to create 50/50 winrates whenever possible. The game will put you into matches intended for you to win or to lose to maintain that approximately 50% winrate. It knows who’s likely to win the match prior to ever starting it. This is also fine, it ensures that matches should for the most part be fair and keep things from getting too frustrating for the typically unlucky.
The problem comes from combining these two systems that function, it seems to me, in opposite manners to each other. The people I’m playing against in the middle of Emerald aren’t any better than the people I was playing against in Amber, and if I should reach Sapphire I’d expect that my opponents would not be much better there either. The game will always attempt to pair me with people of approximately equal experience and talent.
Instead what ends up happening is that people advance based on two factors: being able to form an organized group (which I acknowledge may have been the intent of the current system, but that doesn’t make it any easier on those of us accustomed to queuing solo) or fortune. Victory will typically go to those who are coordinated or lucky enough to fall into the most effective composition. A bunch of random roaming DPS/bruisers is very rarely going to beat a team with two dedicated bunkers and a set of equally capable bruisers backing them, whether the latter team was deliberately assembled or just lucky.
My request to you, A-net, is that you reconsider this system for future leagues. The current system creates little more than a grind and a game of dice for those playing solo. Maybe it will settle out somewhat as people spread more thoroughly through the leagues, and it’ll be easier for players of sufficient experience to push through the lower tiers, but as it is the current ranked system is neither fun nor rewarding for me. I mean to keep at it, but that’s only because I’m monumentally thick skulled, and I’m afraid more sensible players may be leaving entirely.
warrior does have taunt tho..
We have a single, short ranged taunt locked behind our E-spec’s mechanic. To use it as anything more than a burst setup you have to hold off on going berserk- losing yourself 10% damage and other bonuses while doing so, on top of being locked by having 30 adrenaline on standby.
I would be tremendously happy if A-net would, next time they add hair styles, also provide decent full-beard options for humans. Right now we have one (somewhat goofy) choice and a bunch of stubble. Just give us Norn-beards and we’d be golden.
While I agree that GS is generally in a good spot right now, I -would- like to see Rush tweaked so that it actually hits reliably and doesn’t let targets just run right back out of melee range before you can move again. That’s not really a buff, that’s just making sure the skill operates properly in its dual function of gap-closing and damage.
I understand warriors and theives complaints, but instead or asking for nerfs, why not ask for buffs to your class instead? You must love this class, therefore you must know what it needs best.
While I understand and to some degree agree with this sentiment (warriors could use a buff to berserker, and thieves could do with a few buffs to the base class), it does ignore one point. Most of the current calls for nerfs are directed at the elite specializations. As I understood it these specs were not supposed to be superior to the base traitlines, merely an alternative (an alternative that might offer thorough changes to mechanics, but still not a direct upgrade). Many of the elite specializations should be slightly toned down to prevent power creep and allow those without HoT to remain competitive. Elite specs should be comparable to their core classes.
It may not, strictly speaking, be optimal in most cases, but it does have its advantages. With the amount of CC in pvp and used by many of the new mobs in HoT, I find the stability berserker can provide somewhat useful. Furthermore, it may be of help to condi builds.
Also, as a bit of trivia, this isn’t the -only- warrior skill we’ve ever had that had self-inflicted negative effects. The devs probably based this skill on GW1 Headbutt. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Headbutt
Now, I never got that one when I briefly played GW1, so I don’t know how well balanced it was, but there’s a precedent at least.
Olba’s probably right. Throw body blow in there and you’ll be stacking confusion, bleeds, and weakness like nobody’s business. Sadly, I feel somewhat too attached to my greatsword to test out a condi build like that myself, but there’s potential there- if you can land any of the skull grinders.
Hello everyone. Since launch I’ve been fiddling with Berserker in an attempt to find working builds. I’d like to offer my observations on what about the spec works well (regardless of whether it’s worth giving another trait line up for, speaking strictly on its own) and what seems a little lackluster. Please feel free to add your own observations, as I’ve by no means tested everything.
Strengths:
Arc Divide (GS primal burst) is a decent hitter. Very nice on big groups of mobs and for teamfights in pvp thanks to the increased range.
Headbutt, while having a few drawbacks, is a pretty good short CD interrupt and stun. Best used with EC when CCed, to gain stab and negate the stun on use.
Eternal Champion- Excellent source of stability. Not always reliable thanks to berserk mechanics, but approximately 50% stability uptime is nothing to sneeze at, plus stability on stunbreaks.
Gunflame- Another good power primal burst, gives warrior ranged damage a somewhat needed boost.
Weaknesses-
Rage skills- Besides Headbutt (and perhaps Outrage), these are all very lackluster. Most warriors won’t have too much trouble generating adrenaline on their own, and the other effects don’t really add much.
Flaming Flurry- This would perhaps be more useful for a more condition focused player (as is sword in general) but even then I have my doubts about its ability to stack enough burns to be worth it. The projectile destruction seems too situational for a primal burst as well. I’m of the mind that anything you’ll have only temporary access to should be an offensive effect, rather than a defensive move you have to sit on and hope it’ll be useful.
Always Angry- I know it’s just a minor trait, and I understand the purpose: to get you into Berserk mode quicker. However, it’s rendered useless for longer fights, especially so for tankier builds. When compared to other Minor Master traits (Adrenal Health, the oft-demanded Fast Hands, Endurance gain on burst…) it falls somewhat flat.
Personally, I feel Primordus would require a bit more build up before we went after him. Kralk killed Snaff and Glint, there’s payback to be had there. Jormag drove the Norn out of their ancestral home, there’s payback to be had there. Primordus hasn’t really… done anything in GW2 (sure, Eye of the North was about fighting one of his champions, but that was too long ago and doesn’t have the proper setup for use in this game). The destroyers just kind of hang around certain bits of the map being a minor nuisance. Now, that’s not to say future LS couldn’t give them a bit of a prod, it’s just that as they stand now Primordus isn’t set up to be the next big baddy.
Except that would mean the loss of our 1h melee power weapon. For power damage from a distance, we have rifle. Now, I’m not opposed to the idea of having a more mid-range weapon, but it isn’t really a good idea until they put out another expac (and then can give us throwing daggers or pistol or somesuch).
State of Warrior is bad because ANET let people touch it who have no idea what they are doing with warriors.
This. And warrior players crying over how supposedly bad warrior is? Pathetic. Try thief. They’re FAR worse off than warrior. A lobotomized pigeon could crap randomly over the keyboard and still be good at warrior. Especially compared to thief.
EDIT: I take that back; warrior actually does require skill now. JUST like everybody else has for a long time!
“-le gasp- You mean I can’t faceroll the keyboard anymore?! QQ ermagerd, we’z unapowuhed, need buffs, switch class, durr durr!”
I know right? Thieves are annoying, but at least they take skill! Because of their naturally low HP/def they CANNOT make mistakes! They HAVE to get up close. They have to know when to stealth. I played thief back at release, my first character, and I quit because I just wasn’t good at it.
What it is, is that these cry baby warriors have played face roll easy mode for so long, that now that they actually have to think, it feels like warrior is in a bad spot. It’s really not. They just want to be able to win with little to no effort. Seriously, they could give warrior the ability to deal 300k, mobile 100 blades damage from stealth without revealed, with full immunity to damage and control effects, and they’d still find something to whine about.
Why is it that the two professions currently in the worst spots competitively are at each other’s throats? We should both be calling for adjustments to even the playing field, instead of taking potshots at each other.
Warrior and thief right now face different problems as far as PvP is concerned. Warriors, while still typically better in a direct fight than thieves (more in group fights than 1v1 between skilled players), suffer from not really having anything they can do better than another class or without having more drawbacks to building that way. Druid and Tempest support better, Guards and Scrapper engis seem better bruisers, and so on. Thieves suffer from the opposite problem- they have exactly one thing they’re very good at (decapping and +1ing, which I imagine get rather dull quickly), but are more or less terrible in every other respect.
Stop arguing with each other, and instead spend more time pushing for balance improvements to fix BOTH our problems.
Note: I’ve not spent a tremendous amount of time in pvp since HoT launch, so my impressions thus far have been based upon limited data. I apologize if any of these observation are incorrect.
Additional note: I’m referring mostly to PvP balance, as PvE is easy enough right now (even with the harder HoT mobs) that any class can manage fairly well.
The only ways headbutt works currently are:
1. With some source of stability (so, either burn your balanced stance or berserk with eternal champion- which kinda defeats the purpose of the 30 adrenaline gain on Headbutt).
2. With EC, wait until you’re CCed and then use Headbutt to proc the stab on stunbreak. This may have been the intended way to use it (it seems to me as such), but this means both limiting the skill’s offensive uses and requiring EC.
In either case, the skill is a bit lackluster, all told. I like it for flavor reasons, but at the very least it would be nice if it popped the adrenaline gain even on a miss.
I find it a good bit of writing, actually. For those of us who did like him (or didn’t hate him, at any rate), it’s a fairly hard hitting moment as far as Guild Wars 2 stories go. Maybe he deserved better, maybe he didn’t, but either way the scene had a bit of emotional impact (and that is, after all, what a story should be for).
On the other hand, for those who’ve been complaining about him from the start, they get the satisfaction of making the killing blow themselves. Everybody wins! I do find it funny that in an expansion rife with failure to compromise and please multiple groups (the hardcore vs casual arguments you’ve all no doubt seen swarming the forums, all the people calling for pvp rebalancing, etc.) the story managed to find a way.
You don’t have to use the new weapon at all. Now, the traits are likely designed for synergy with the new weapons in mind, but they are by no means required (or even necessarily optimal).
Elite Specializations & Hero Point Feedback [Merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Onlysaneman.9612
Hello there. As I’m sure A-net is presently being bombarded with complaints about this already (and no doubt trying to make sure everything runs relatively smoothly these first few days) I’ll attempt to keep this fairly brief. This post is about why I feel the heavy hero point cost is harmful to myself and possibly many other people playing through the expansion.
Now, as I understood it, the primary selling points of the expansion were:
-Elite Specializations
-New content in the form of new maps, story, raids, etc.
I (and I imagined many others) was greatly looking forward to exploring this new content while testing the different builds offered by the elite specializations, learning their strengths, finding new ways to employ these new skills against new enemies, you get the idea. Instead, what I find is that I’ll likely have to clear most of HoT’s maps before I have access to the full elite spec- and that’s just for one character. Instead of enjoying the expansion at my own pace for the challenge and adventure of it, I’ll have this constant reminder that a full spec is blocked off to me until I progress. In addition, I’ll have to repeat this for every single alt I decide to roll if I ever want to use their new specializations. The expansion stops being a new space for me to play in, and instead becomes a grind or a chore I feel obligated to get done with.
I have one other, minor grievance about this- or rather, in how it was presented to us beforehand. There was a dev post claiming that you could begin using the elite specs with as little as 60 points- this, to me, seems a little dishonest. Yes, you can UNLOCK the elite spec for 60 points, but all that gets you is the base mechanic, a new weapon, and the ability to use skills you don’t actually have any of yet. Very few people are, I’d expect, going to be eager to discard a full trait line for so little until they get through the HoT maps.
That said, I expect no quick response- if any- as devs are no doubt busy with more urgent launch business. I will offer, as a last positive note, that aside from this problem the expansion looks rather promising.
That clears it up a bit. Ah well, I still can’t say I’m happy with the explanation, but I do appreciate the feedback. Thanks guys.
This has been nagging at the back of my mind for a while now, ever since the changes to the trait system. The tactics line used to have two traits for improving banner skills: the first reduced cooldowns and increased range, while the second gave regeneration. When the traits were switched to the new specialization system in preparation for HoT, the regen was moved to the middle of the Discipline line while the cooldown and range buff was cut entirely.
What I want to know is, what’s the explanation for that trait being cut? Most other skill types (at least as far as I’m aware) got their various buffs rolled into single traits, like shouts did. I really didn’t get the impression banners were in any particular need of a nerf, and the cooldown on warbanner is nigh unbearable without the reduction.
As it is, I really don’t see many people running banners (granted, I’ve been PvPing much more than anything else lately, so that’s likely a part of it), and taking them up again myself doesn’t seem too appealing as they are now, particularly given the tiny radius makes them a bit irritating to work with in any situation people aren’t stacking up in.
Thoughts? Answers?