Guild Wars 2

Lordrosicky.5813:

I just don’t understand how it can take so long to make the warrior playable. I mean its been out ages now this game.

We need about 4/5 gap closers added to some of our weapons like hammer, increase range of shield 4 – stuff like that.

We also need some way to remove conditions. I mean come on. Give us something to work with. Otherwise we wont be viable.

Thats because to hold/cap points you have to stand in a defined circle which makes you an easy target for aoe conditions from necros and rangers or just aoe spam from eles.

There is loads more I could suggest such as:

-making warriors sprint a 20% buff to speed,
-giving us 3 weapons to swap between NOT just 2.
-Making endure pain 5 seconds and reduced cooldown.
-Reduce cooldown of fear me.
-Improve the base heal of mending or make it cure 3 conditions or reduce its cooldown.

Any 2/3 of these combined changes would still leave the warrior as the worst class in the game. So I dont see what the problem is.

This is not a constructive post…

As a long time warrior player I can tell you that most of this stuff is nowhere near the problem

Warrior Problems:
-Condition Removal is not good enough.
-We do not have access to protection.
-Endure Pain should make you immune to conditions for its duration.
There are other issues, but these are major offenders. Reducing cool downs for things like endure pain / fear me would just be horribly imbalanced as there is already a trait to reduce stance cd and shout cd by 20%

I won’t go into how to do these things because I and many others have stated how in several other posts.

on top of all this warrior is not the weakest class in the game, by far, they are just substantially less flashy. Warrior needs some buffs and tweaking, mostly in defensive traits and utilities (as well some utility overlap). Go play an engineer in PvP and tell me its better than a warrior, please.

Giving us 3 weapon swaps is just absurd.

JUST TO PROVE A POINT.
(Gap closers)

Trait(Leg Specialist i think): All cripples immobilize for 1 second (Substantially improves closing ability)
Sword: Savage Leap, Hamstring to stick.
Warhorn: Swiftness, Vigor buffs.
Longbow: Immobilize, soft gap closer
Axe: Cripple, Immob with trait. Adrenaline skill = Leap
Mace OH: Tremors / Knockdown, same principle as immbolize
Shield: #4, yeah the range could come up but it does its job
Rifle: Cripple, Immob with trait.
Bolas: Immobilize
Bull Rush: Charge
Hammer: Adrenaline skill = leap
All Banners: Swiftness / Charge on #4
Trait: increases movement speed while wielding a melee wep
GS: 2 closers with #3 and #5 AND a cripple.
ETC.

Mace mainhand and axe offhand do not help with closing distance, that i will grant to you…

So where are these weapons that dont let us close distance?

Archaon that doesnt address any of the issues objectively.

We all know there are counters, this doesnt mean the ease of being able to land BS and the complete lack of telegraphy for any defense isnt bad. Give CnD that shadow animation and let us see it coming. Major problem solved.

furthermore their burst is extremely easy to land and steadily available

this is the main issue, as to my animation change it would help this a lot…

This goes bad to the telegraphy of the attack and the suggested animation change that hasnt been commented on lol

I agree that backstab is too rewarding for how easy it is to land.

This goes back to the animation change ive suggested for cloak and dagger that no one seems to have read.

This would allow time to reaction and make the thief think about using it or not against someone who can dodge / block

Maybe backstab could have its initial damage reduced, im not sure that is the main issue though. I believe it is more the low risk and the high frequency at which this combo can be executed that needs to be addressed rather than the actual damage of the singular stealth attack

therefore i believe it is more a mechanical problem and less a number problem

Thieves could use some more survivability i suppose but i really dont see that as the main problem (IE AoE damage and bunkers/Spikes meta). It is more a meta issue than a class issue. i dont agree with people who say thieves die instantly because they usually are just glass cannon builds.

This post is far more about the issues of telegraphed burst, not a proving ground to argue, lets stay on topic.

it doesnt do 2500 x4 it hits for totals under 4k usually. Yes it is an aoe, which is what i suppose you’re getting at with the x4 and not on a single target. I don’t see how you expect to be hitting 4-5 people repeatedly. That damage is not from a single trait and it is all on one person. It is also HEAVILY countered by aoe and all clones die extremely easily, especially in glass cannon builds. Aside from aegis what is the counter to mug? Dodge? i’d love to see u time a dodge on mug.

Dont know where you are getting your numbers from unless you’re assuming straight 4-5 targets all the time. You are comparing apples and oranges with completely different functionalism and mechanics, your example is flawed. Only thing even getting anywhere near 10-18k are from macro/shatter bug double shatters. Not to mention mug is instant and near impossible to avoid on purpose where shatters are not and any player worth their salt knows to dodge into them to avoid all the damage 99% of the time.

Burst is ok with a wind up, that is one of the main points of this thread. Granted it should be scaled to some number for balanced but the numbers you are using for shatters are just not true without a bug.

HOWEVER

That is not what this thread is about, please stay on topic with the thief. Really no one has anything to say about the CnD Animation idea?

That mind wrack damage is a bug and you know it.

We can’t talk balance about a skill that is bugged, is known to be bugged, and has been said that it will be fixed

and yeah 5kdmg is TOO MUCH for a TRAIT. It is a TRAIT remember that. Not even a tier 3 one

…i find it interesting that no one has said a thing about the animation change which i think would be REALLY helpful and good.

the heart of that problem isnt the macro, its the culling. It needs to be immediate and there is no excuse for it not to be.

yeah Farzo, as i said the damage is fine. Mug does too much, CnD does too little imo. So shift the 33% nerf over and revert CnD. Damage isnt the main problem but the CnD nerf does make s/d really meh

I dont think “backstab” is the problem. Its damage is fine.

I will say if you feel other stealth skills arent up to par maybe they need to be buffed.

Sword blinds/dazes which i think works really welly with its kit and i love, wouldnt mind it to do more damage. Pistol is good for condition builds but it makes pistol a little too schizo since pistol mainhand doesnt know what it wants to be.

the bow is…meh. Id rather have it deal burning so we can have a true condition build with it. “Shadow flame arrow” Blind / Burn small aoe on target

As to heartseeker, i think its crit ratio of bonus dmg needs to be reduced and its damage above 25% needs a reduction. It should be a finisher and a gap closer and only those 2 things. Currently, even tho it is scruby, HS spam works far too well (mainly in non tpvp)

Alright so I was reading a post “Why burst fails in GW2” and i had an idea. Couldn’t find where i was reading the thread so I’m posting it here.

The main issue with thieves is that their burst seems relatively unfair and difficult to avoid, especially to new players. Mesmers also have this problem but someone aware of what they’re doing can easily see a mesmer setting up their shatter combos and react with some experience.

Thieves on the other hand are usually invisible and the animation for cloak and dagger, while lengthy, can be circumvented through steal-closing (which is fine) or is just very hard to see in the heat of combat. There is also almost no downside to the burst combo because of the severe lack of cooldowns and the fact that they have tons of options to increase their initiative regeneration.

All this being said I think the issues of QQ and the issues of it actually being unfair can be solved by a few things.

1: Understand the damage is NOT the unfair part. Culling in stealth makes it very difficult to fight thieves at times and this absolutely NEEDS to be fixed.

2A: Revert the 33% damage reduction from CnD and instead apply it to Mug. Mug is really the issue here and we do not need to stifle S/D builds because of one burst combo where CnD is not the culprit

2B: (Edit: Other changes) Increase the damage of Body Shot by 15%, Increase the damage of Unload by 7.5% but lower its critical modifier by .25. Increase the damage of flanking strike by 12.5% and reduce the delay between hit1 and hit2.

3: Biggest change that will make the most difference IMO. Big hits need telegraphing (Churning earth, dragon’s tooth, Eviscerate etc list goes on) and although CnD isnt a “big hit” it does set up the big hit that cannot be telegraphed due to stealth. It is the punishable offender. SO the idea is this. As you use CnD a large animation of swirling shadows begins to spin/be drawn into your dagger OH. This animation is a “HEY IM GOING TO STAB YOU AND GO STEALTH” give away. It allows for reaction instead of how currently you can barely see what the thief is actually doing in melee due to similar animations.

4: Change reveal timer from 3 seconds to 5. Let the trait that gives u 1 more second of stealth reduce the reveal timer by 1 as well *(4 seconds then). I think 4 or 5 will suffice for punishing a bad play by a thief and promoting precision over keyboard rolling.

Stability when you dont want something stunned works just as well to solve the issue you’re talking about

While that is true I don’t believe that this is anything but a poorly implemented mechanic that is also counter-intuitive.

My suggestion does the same things, forces thoughtful careful cc, and doesnt rely on u dealing cc to strip defiant so that u can cc the boss. It doesnt make sense mechanically

Healing power scales incredibly poorly with most spells, especially ones that have many stacks/hits or are heals over time.

This suggestion is to normalize healing while keeping it from getting out of hand.

Treat healing power like precision. I believe every 40 precision = 1% to critically strike at level 80. This math could be wrong as I haven’t looked at it in a while and could be forgetting but for the same of this argument let’s assume It’s correct.

My suggestion is to having healing power convert into Percentage% increase of healing across all healing abilities rather than simply having each individual ability have its owning scaling ratio. The reason for this is that adjusting bases and allowing percentages to scale from there is much easier and more stable than adjust ratios that run an extremely wide array of stats at level 80 (up into the several thousands at maximum).

This will buff weak abilities, probably nerf stronger ones, and allow for much more flexibility in stats while also allowing players to have a hard defined number that they can say I am effectively increasing my healing by this much (%) instead of guessing per skill. Also since we already have poison (33% healing reduction) there is already a counter in play.

Example math

Levels of healing power: Here are some quick calculations to show you what investing into healing power could get you. (assuming 40 healing = 1% like crit)

250 = 6.25%

500 = 12.50%

750 = 18.75%

1000 = 25%

1500 = 37.5%

2000 = 50%

If it were 1% per 50 healing

250 = 5%

500 = 10%

750 = 15%

1000 = 20%

1500 = 30%

2000 = 40%

50 per 1% might be a better number given the strength of regeneration but i think this is solid. Diminished returns could also be a thing as it stacks higher, as many stats normally have this “soft cap” placed on them.

the 6 slot healing skills would possibly need a lesser percentage but honestly I don’t mind the numbers id be seeing.

thoughts?

So… any way we could change it to this?

Unshakable: When struck by a disabling effect (Daze, stun, fear, KD, KB, Launch, Blowout, ETC.) This unit becomes immune to CC for 20 seconds.

Defiant: This unit is immune to crowd control / disabling effects for 20 seconds.

This change serves the same purpose with far superior design, reliability, and stability across all unshakable monsters. It allows for CAREFUL AND THOUGHTFUL CC USE to be implemented without trying to spam down some artificially beefed up mechanic.

This allows for interrupt mechanics to be put into bosses since they have a reliable timer on crowd control immunity. Many times, especially in pugs we have accidentally activated defiant simply by trying to get rid of defiant stacks. It is unintuitive and just poorly designed.

thoughts?

lol well i guess there’s that.

Honestly the warrior overlap is just a little disconcerting

Skipping kind of undermines the whole point of the dungeon. Comparing apples to oranges to discredit a “Fix/idea” isnt constructive or useful.

Try talking about what I actually said and saying why you dont like it.

reducing the cast time to .50 would be much better, the range would be good too.

Id really like the #4 to be a .25 second cast time.

I have also noticed the shortness in PVE

Let us start with the simple stuff.

-Lodestones and the like as token rewards. It’s been said, it should be done. Simple enough.

-Unique skins for dungeon content (Armor/weapons). This is separate from the token rewards and drop from chests.

-Better mechanics in fights. Kholer is a GOOD simple mini-boss(though he needs a health reduction). Think SE path 1 first boss, Giganticus Lupicus, fractals have much better mechanics than normal dungeons. Use those examples and revamp old encounters.

-Hard mode option. This doesn’t mean MORE HP MORE DAMAGE. Hard mode should give the bosses more skills that require attention and maybe even interrupts (IE a heal skill or something). Drop rates in hard mode will be higher, you get 10 more tokens, offers a challenge.

-Disable waypoints while dead. Use the check point system for party wipes like i fractals, stop wp zerging and make players think about what theyre doing. Make failing a punishment that matters, not 50 copper.

-Fix all exploitative spots. As a quick fix make it so that if a monster cannot deal damage to you it begins to evade and resets. WoW did this quite effectively and it really stops exploiting in most cases where it is in effect here.

-Environments that work with the encounter. Self explanatory.

-Scale down health on most of the trash / bosses. Scale down auto attack damage. They should use 1-2 heavy attacks/skills each that define them as a unit and have THOSE be the abilities to look for and dodge. Constant high auto attack damage doesnt emphasize skill, its just cheap (granted dungeons arent hard but making them more skill based is what im getting at)

NOW FOR THE IDEA TO FIX SKIPPING

At the end of a dungeon the party gets a display of the following:

Enemies killed / Enemies total:
Time Cleared:
Times Wiped:
Bosses 1 shot:
ETc…

The above stats will be used to EVALUATE the run and reward extra karma / coin / tokens / bags of wonderous goods / random chest with high rare / exotic drop rate or what have you. People will want to clear trash because not only is it no longer tedious due to previous changes listed but a higher clear number with a faster clear rate (emphasizing efficient tactics) will get you a higher rating (A, B, C ,D ,F) etc.

Then in addition to that display you also get
“Under Each Player’s Name”

Direct Damage Dealt:
Conditions applied / Damage Dealt:
DPS Total(in combat):
Healing Done(to Self):
Healing Done(to Others):
HPS Total(in combat):
Boons Given to allies:
Conditions Removed from allies:
Boons Stripped:
Successful Disables:
Damage Mitigated:
Damage Taken:
Time spent idle:
Units of measurement (feet / yards) moved:

This works like l4d, lol, dota2, or many other competitive games that allow you to have a depiction of your performance after the game.

This needs a few more things in the list but u get the idea. It would not be a “damage meter” to distract you during play so much as an end of dungeon wrap sheet that allows you to access your build and the effectiveness of the people you have run with. Now you cannot see this BEFORE the run so the thought of elitism being a concern isnt even on the table. This shows all builds and how they are doing and lets YOU as the player see how your build is performing against others and maybe other builds you have tried previously, maybe this info is saved in a log (last 10 runs are saved or so)

I think this “Run assessment” will really help thwart the massive popularity skipping if it is implemented with the other changes i’ve suggested.

What do you guys think?

Condition removal according to many people, tpvp pros, and the devs is weak. It is actually the weakest of any profession.

“We have all the same abilities as every other class minus stealth and being able to get another full bar of hp on a whim. I think you need to change your weapons and spec to see the true power of the warrior.”

We have 1 combo field
We have no protection
We have minimal regeneration
We have no aegis (we do have blocking skills tho which I’m fine with)
We have 1 blind
We have weak condition builds (save sword/sword)
We have weak bunker builds
We have no poison, which is HUGE in spvp at least
We do not have everything available to other professions, and indeed this is okay but we really are missing too much. Warriors can be powerful in lower rankings but they are too narrow and in tpvp are kind of jokes. Lack of protection, blinds, and combo fields makes us less complex, less interesting, less mechanically deep, and less viable in high level pvp at the very least.

Toughness scales poorly. Without protection it is near useless.

Id love to have protection as a warrior, have protection be 25% instead of 33%, and have toughness scale better to compensate that 8% dip… but im a dreamer

You realize that we arent OP? I think we are very narrow in our gameplay and have the least versatile and simple (boring) style out there right now.

That being said…
I love the warrior, i just think they could be jazzed up a bit and would have MUCH more in depth and cool gameplay with just a few of these changes. Also our complete inability to strip boons is pretty bad in spvp, but that is more a problem with spvp.

“Every skill you listed here is balanced and working properly yet you’re saying that pretty much every skill a warrior uses should blind an opponent to make it even more unfair. I don’t need blindness, I need big numbers, which I already have.”

I didnt say that every skill should. Id be happy with just the signet and the combo field changes. At most i said 3 skills… hardly every single one dont you think?

Also, “Even more unfair”? To who would this be unfair and how is it already unfair? The warrior is already very pidgeon-holed in pvp and pve builds when it comes to effective play beyond simple dps.

“We don’t need anymore blindness than what the Longbow offers, we are not a utility class first, we are damage.”

The longbow is great and i love it. Blindness is one of those things that is important for a melee class though, especially a damage dealer, as it lets them stay in the midst of combat without being punished (especially since we dont have protection or an overabundance of regeneration like the guardian, although the regen is there to some degree). You say we are a dps class first but this isnt true. Every profession has to ability to perform multiple roles equally, or at least that is the idea. We can be a very effective damage class and much of our support comes from boosting the damage of those around us, however, this is a very narrow minded view of the scope of the warrior.

“You’re basically asking to make warriors more powerful and be able to have an easier time in both PvE and PvP where we already have the easiest play style of any class.”

Easiest, i dont agree, most simple and borderline boring at times, yes we do. I really do like my warrior but they lack subtle capabilities that make them less interesting and impactful, mainly the soft CC of blind and the group utility of reliable combo fields.

Smoke fields work for us, in the the force at which we hit things can certainly knock dirt into the air. I dont really think this would automatically make everything insanely easy, or even change our difficulty curve at all. It would however allow us to be more fun and interesting mechanically.

“I don’t need blindness, I need big numbers, which I already have.”

Good for you. We don’t all want to just mindlessly run signets and GS. Don’t force your play style onto me. Also this is a super narrow view, again, of what the warrior is capable of and what it could be with just some small changes. Warriors are already laughably easy to wreck in high level tPvP and these changes would allow them to be more competitive as well as more useful / interesting in dungeons and groups.

Again, I’m GLAD that YOU are okay with just LOLOLOL FAT NUMBERS, but some of us would like a bit of depth. Unless you actually have a constructive or put together response please dont dumb down this thread with your flat views

I
Hate
This
Crap.

The skipping culture is terrible, however, if they made the content of dungeons WORTH clearing or not stupidly exploitable then we would do it.

I cringe every time i skip a pack of mobs… but there are reasons it happens

We have a severe lack of blind, protection, and combo fields. This tends to make them a little less interesting/impactful i think. Here are a few modest suggestions to help that.

Berserker Stance: Have it give swiftness as well.

Warhorn: Remove weakness from the 5, give it a blind.

Signet of Fury: (Active) Your next attack blinds for 6 seconds. We have plenty of adrenaline gain, we dont need more in this signet. and it overlaps with Berserker stance, heavily overshadowing its usefulness.

Counter Blow: (mace block) The attack after blocking with this skill blinds for 5 seconds. If you dont block you gain regeneration. (increase the sword 5 block to give an actual useful amount of adrenaline if it isnt hit).

Banner of Defense: #2 changed to grant 4 seconds of protection. 12 second cool down.

Remove stability from Dolyak Signet, add a 5 second protection and reduce the cooldown to 50 seconds. Balanced stance, juggernaut (even tho its bad), and war banner give enough stability.

Kick: Strip 2 boons

I dont expect ALL of these to be in at the same time. These are just a lot of suggestions to choose from. I think any of them would help make the warrior more interesting mechanically and also give us some needed attention.

EDIT: I took out the smoke field suggestions because i realized it would give the warrior the ability to stealth and not only do i NOT want that I always think it would be OP and not be Warrior-like.

Fixed for better suggestions.

Thieves are very obviously not balanced. You can disagree with the community, the “pros”, and the devs if you want but no profession is balanced right now. There are 1 or 2 who are close but we all have our problems.

Thieves need tweaks badly because they have about 2-3 viable specs and everything else is laughable. They are far too strong in some areas and far to weak in others. This system allows for better balance to be reached without cooldowns because that is the main issue with balancing around initiative

Fjandi would you care to actually explain why this wouldnt help?

Alright this is something that ive been mulling over.

Revert Cloak and dagger and dancing dagger to their prior form
Nerf mug damage by 35-40%… its a trait and does stupid dmg for being one.
Possibly give steal a .25sec cast time… although with the mug nerf this may not be needed.
Buff unload damage by 12.5%
Buff Headshot damage by 12.5%
Buff Sword #2 damage by 25% (name escapes me atm)
Make flanking strike’s second hit a much faster animation.

Reduce 95% of their weapon skill initiative costs by 1. There would be a few very small exceptions.
Heartseeker, Pistol Whip, Unload, Death Blossom in my opinion being the only exceptions.

Each time the SAME skill is used consecutively its initiative cost is increased by 1 until another different skill is used, at which point it reverts to its base cost.

This promotes combo versatility and allows the buffing of “spamming” skills (since you have no cooldown) while making them more costly to spam and discouraging spamming all together.

That’s all for now. Thoughts?

The idea that burst and bunker builds need to brought it line is known and has been talked to death but I would like to express some ways i think this can be done that I havent seen talked about.

Protection: This is an incredibly powerful boon, arguably the most powerful boon. Since it has a % damage reduction it is always effective and it only becomes MORE effective the more damage an enemy builds against you. Even with vulnerability there is no real counter to protection beyond boon stripping (a point a will bring up in another paragraph). My idea would be to move protection down to 25% damage reduction. 25% is still a VERY sizable chunk of damage but this would make it far more manageable. Also give protection to warriors…they’re the only class without it in some form. I would also improve the scaling of toughness a little more since it can be controlled much easier than protection.

Boon stripping: I believe a large problem with the current meta is that while every profession has access to a wide variety of cleansing skills that remove conditions very few have reliable ways to strip boons. While this is largely less important in PvE it becomes utterly amazing in pvp if utilized correctly. While there are professions with boon stripping it is nowhere near as prevalent as condition removal. This sets a precedent against damage (with conditions at least) and an advantage for defenses. If every profession were able to reliably strip a boon once every 10-20 seconds with a skill(s) spread widely throughout builds you could pick apart this bunker meta.
Warrior(Kick): Strips 2 boons in addition to its current effect.
Elementalist(Cleansing Fire): Strip up to 2 boons, you remove 1 condition per boon stripped. This one is probably op… but you get the idea.
ETC. ETC.

Regeneration: This is a tough nut to crack. The easiest answer is to change how regeneration stacks. Move it from being duration to intensity, but the intensity has diminishing returns. This will promote CAREFUL use of regeneration while making people who are spamming it liable to heal for less overall. I’m still working on how to tweak this but i think this is a good start.

Damaging conditions: (improving performance / functionality)

Bleeding: Fine the way it is. I would love for each individual to be able to apply it uniquely from others but this could get hairy unless the stacks are reduced.

Burning: I would love this to not stack duration. Instead stack intensity, however unlike bleeding, Burning would not tick faster. It would always tick at say once per 2 seconds or so (obv 1 second burns would be 1 second) and the damage each time is increased by the amount of burning. Sort of a nuke dot that is predictable and hard hitting. Duration based conditions are easily removable and in pvp are naturally weaker.

Poison: Fine as is. Duration stacking suits this as its effect is not for damage but to retain the low health of the target as much as possible. Id love to see its damage scale as the targets health gets lower but thats just me.

Confusion: This condition is tough for me because it hits REALLY hard and is tough to notice immediately. I think that confusion should start at 1/3 its normal damage and each time a skill is used the damage is increased up to and beyond its current damage in this fashion: 1/3 > 1/2 > 3/4 > 1/1 > 3/2 > 4/2. The idea is to punish if they spam skills.

Again these are just ideas. There are obviously builds that need changing, skills and traits/runes/sigils that need adjustment but I dont think anyone has really spoken to the boons / conditions and removal of them and how that REALLY does have an affect on things.

Jay.3284:

Stop playing signet warrior and you’ll find that Warriors have great support in dungeons.

I dont play signet warrior.

Your immediate jump to conclusions based on FOTM builds is stupendously ignorant.

Thanks for your useless and completely unproductive comment

I dont think i ever said that I wanted to be a great dpser and supporter at the same time. I just feel like our supporting options are extremely linear / stringent in comparison to other professions.

And we do have weak WEAK weak condition removal… this has been supported by top tpvp teams and the devs so stop trying to make arguments to the contrary… anyone trying to say we have great removal has never played another profession thoroughly.

Also there has yet to be 1 person to actually comment on the proposed fixes. This thread is meant to be a discussion about the profession, not something where you go HERE IS WHAT YOU’RE DOING WRONG.

I made no build statements nor did i say this was what i was running. I’m just stating observations and dev supported facts and trying to address them

im aware of all this.

Slight rebuttal:

Condition removal is very poor (this is also an opinion shared by spvp top teams and is considered to be the main issue with warrior). We seem like we have a good deal, but once you realize shake it off is borderline mandatory in many situations you’ll see how wrong that assumption is.
Banners are clunky and counter-intuitive, especially in pvp, but also in dungeons since you cant be mobile with them without losing your weapon skills.
Shout builds are solid

Does anyone else feel like they have no real team utility? Keep in mind im mostly talking about dungeons.

On my ele i feel like i can support/help my team in tons of ways with a lot of different builds.

On my engi i feel like i can support/help my team in tons of ways with a lot of different skills and kits.

On my necro i feel like i can support/help my team in tons of ways with a lot of different combo fields and soft cc (chilling blinding fear) conditions.

As a warrior i feel like i can… not really do any of those things. I feel like i do damage and i enhance the damage of my party with FGJ and maybe a banner but i really dont feel like my utility skills bring very much… utility. I understand it is hard to design something for a truly brute force physical class to be uniquely inventive and utilitarian but i just feel like our skills (utility ones) have SO much overlap and dont bring very much to a team.

Healing shouts and the #2 on banners are both useful but they just bring extremely linear support paths that dont feel like they REALLY influence combat.

I mainly feel this way in dungeons, although in pvp our lack of condition removal just gets us crippled and kited. Since knockaround is much more useful in spvp unless stability is up we have more utility there

Banners are kind of… bad
Physical skills have 3 hard ccs Knockdown, knockback, blow out (which are near useless on bosses).

I just look at a lot of my utilities and kitten so…. i dont feel like any of these make me much more useful to the team with the exception of my banners which are clunky and barely functional.

Here are some suggestions:

Traits!
-Each time you block an attack you gain 3 seconds of protection.

Skills!
Berserker Stance: Remove 1 condition per NOT full bar of adrenaline you have at the time of use.
Stomp: Leave a smokecombo field due to dust/dirt being blasted up into the air. Do the same for our Hammer Burst ability

Place a blind on Warhorn #4 in combination with the swiftness like the #5 has a defensive / offensive application (vigor/weakness).

Kick: Strips 1-2 boons (a little more cool down to compensate?)

To Generally improve banners: (increase aoe radius by 30%, banners can be picked up and placed on your back, being the new #2 on all banners to carry it while wielding weapons. This drains its active time 25% faster)

These are in addition to the buffs they already provide.
Power: Pulses (3% 5 sec)Vulnerability when summoned and once per 10sec in an aoe.
Discipline: Pulses Blind on summon and once per 10 seconds in an aoe.
Defense: Pulses (3sec) Protection on summon and once per 10 seconds in an aoe.
Tactics: Heals and grants (6sec) regeneration on summon. Pulse regeneration once every 10 seconds.

GREATSWORD:
Move 100 blades to our adrenaline burst ability. You now move at -50% move speed while casting it but you can move while using it. Cripple / chilling effects stack with this. For every bar of adrenaline used you move 10% faster (capping at a max move speed of -20%).

Scrap arcing slice. We have SO much fury… we REALLY dont need this. Now that 100 blades is a burst ability and therefore can be used less frequently give us back Uppercut to replace the missing skill on the bar. It was so much fun and made the GS more inventive and interesting. (uppercut works like singed’s fling in LoL)

people focus on DAMAGE too much in the phrase damage meter…

in reality this meter should measure all tracks of the game like i said previously and be called something like a performance meter or stat tracker to minimized ignorant hatred.

nachtnebel.9168:

No.

Most people don’t know how to read a Damage Meter correctly and tend to rate other players by nothing else than their DPS which is poisonous for the community.

I would love a damage meter for my own personal use.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a damage meter as long as it also can display healing done, boons given, conditions removed, damage mitigated and other things like this. So it wouldnt be a DAMAGE meter so much as a Numerical device to access functionality of builds and how well performance is.

The problem with implementing a damage meter is that is tends to emphasize damage for obvious reasons. How about a performance meter that shows these things:

Damage each skill used did(in depth breakdown):
Favorite Boon:
Weapon Swaps:
Combo Fields Created:
Combo Fields Used(How finishers happened in my fields):
Combos Finished(how many combo finishers did i do):
Damage Done / Condition Damage done:
Healing Done:
Damage Shielded/Evaded:
Boons Given:
Boons Stripped:
Conditions Given:
Conditions Stripped:
Damage Taken:
Damage Mitigated (armor/tankiness):
Players Revived:
Times Downed:
Times Rallied:
Hard CC Applied(Stuns/ Daze/ Fear/ Knockdown / blowout):
Soft CC Applied(Blind, Cripple, Chill, Immob):

Honestly bad people are the only people who should be afraid of some sort of implementation like this. This would just have to be very high quality and not some thrown together affair

I know that toughness scales like crap because of how good protections is.

Make protections 25% damage reduction. This is still plenty noticeable and effective as a buff.

Make toughness scale better to combat burst builds.

Also why is the warrior the only class without toughness…
Should be implemented on banner of defense or as a trait (3 seconds of toughness each time you block) Etc.

#4: This is my proposition to fix #3. This is also not expected and is my ideal system.
Dungeons weigh your party as you enter and scale to provide the best challenge.
Paths are reworked to be more engaging and inventive, have an easy (40 token), Med (60 token as difficulty is now), and Hard (75 Token) path. Have story give the same as easy.

-When you complete all 3 paths of a dungeon ELITE MODE is opened for 1 week before resetting. this is a fourth and unique path from the other 3 paths, not a rehash. It is VERY HARD and the drops are SIGNIFICANTLY greater with chances to drop the dungeon set items of exotics and lots of skins.

-Monster stats (dmg / crit / toughness / NOT health) are weighted against each individual player as damage is exchanged between them. This is not hard to program, just a variable system that requires quick arithmetic. This way each player is being scaled to the monster and each monster is being scaled to the player dynamically as combat goes on. Use variable toughness to manage player damage, health should be constant. Have a pool of 12 abilities per enemy, 20 for bosses. Each enemy has a random 3 assigned to them (+1 per difficulty above easy path or to accommodate better players.) Bosses are treated the same but have a base of 5 randomly chosen from the pool of 20 instead of 3 from 12. At least 1 for monster and 2 for bosses(per phase for people like lupicus?) of these abilities should be automatically chosen as a constant to provide for mechanics, preparation, and stability in a boss fight (IE AC Path 3 last boss always has scream and falling rocks / lupicus always has grubs / aoe barrage etc).

If you complete ALL exploratory paths and elite modes in a week 1 final dungeon is opened up with 3 paths. They are all elite level and after beating them all there is 1 final boss fight where the reward is a large chance at a precursor and a guaranteed exotic piece from this new dungeons set (which will have to be created). The theme of this dungeon set is dragons, bosses are dragons, the armor has dragons on it etc… you get the idea. You should have to enter it through killing one of the world dragons, a portal will spawn for your party once you have done it or you all get a unique stone from the dragon chest since you will all have cleared all the exploratory dungeons for that week or two weeks, whatever the reset timer will be for this thing. Either way you will be teleported into the “Dragon’s Den” (i know the name is stupid but this is conceptual stick with me). This gives a constant progression, a reset of that progression through time limit which makes it an achievement in itself, real doable goals that help you in dungeons to get to the elite dungeons, and makes “farming dungeons” more active and fun. This will also make ALL dungeons wanted to be done since you will have to do them to open up the content.

I know this is a lot of stuff…

Thoughts?

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’d love to hear from you folks about this thread

I’d also love to post in the thread about what some of our plans are, but there is a time and place for everything.

#1: I’d push for using the checkpoint system in all dungeons that is currently being used in fractals. It makes it more dynamic, skillful, and intense simply by not being able to wp zerg. Just put a checkpoint where every wp is (sometimes add some more please like in ARah for example, maybe after each boss/miniboss) and allow people to teleport between them only when alive and out of combat.

You die you stay dead until wipe or rez, period.

#2: I would love to actually feel like im getting loot in dungeons… i never have. Having tokens drop from bags is great but I’d love to see the dungeon sets drop from boss chests, (I say chests so that we have extra incentive for people like Kholer and also so Magic Find doesnt matter) on occasion, a rare rare find. Also add more unique dungeon skins. For a game with almost solely horizontal progression there are a depressingly low number of models for each weapon and piece of armor, especially in the basic ones just leveling up. I used the same model sword through almost the entire game on my warrior while leveling.

#3: This is controversial but i think it would improve the game a lot. Vertical progression, or rather the lack of it, keeps MANY people from coming back to the game. I’ve seen 3 guilds fall apart because people just dont see a reason to log on with pvp in its current state and nothing to keep them there once they get a set of exotics. A scale within each item tier would be nice since all lvl 30 masterworks are the same in terms of stats they provide numerically / value for example. Maybe it is just me but i dont understand how horizontal only progression can sustain an mmo that doesnt have esport support or playerbase in its pvp. You either have one or the other, without both there is going to be a LARGE exodus from the game and we’re already seeing it.

I dont want massive leaps in power or infinite gear treadmill, i want stuff to be based more off of skill than stats but at 80 you hit an abrupt wall after getting full exotics because ascended stuff is minimal and legendary is a huge time and money sink. I just dont see what we’re are supposed to do when the incentive to keep playing isnt there.

I for one find the game extremely fun and have leveled several characters but i feel my interest draining, something i fear and hate because i love this game and was excited about it for a long time. I would like to see a constant stream of improvement as a gear treadmill would provide, without the necessity of it. I know this is hard to execute but unless we start seeing TONS of new models then it just isnt going to be worth it for long.

^ agree with carighan… half the fun of the conjure is changing up your gameplay. I just want them to be able to swap with your normal weps and to have either the axe or gs changed to be arcane instead of fire so we represent all the trait lines.

Is that too much to ask?

that would be way way way too powerful

i agree that forcing in ele to stand still in 99.9% of situations is bad. My main beef with the axe, as i said in the first post is mainly aesthetic and that we have 2 fire weapons and no arcane weapons. The skills themselves were secondary to that problem(mainly just for fun) and in terms of job i was merely speaking of damage but yes there are very concise and noted differences between the two and advantages of the axe.

While i understand where you’re coming from you have nailed the inherent problem of the ele, something this post is trying to address, lackof build variety. My main problem with conjures is the get close to no attention in the traits when we have MANY redundant and useless traits that could be combined/removed for more interesting and effective ones, and that they completely negate a lot of builds while they’re active, they are counter-intuitive to use as quick casting functions (although it can be done) and their inability to be swapped out/to makes them counter-intuitive to use as a functional weapon to rely on as a secondary apart from your main set.

Given the state of how the elementalist operates they are poorly designed in their function.

P.S. The only skill that locks u in place with FGS is #2… so ive never really had an issue with it on that front but i understand where #3 and #4 being mobile but on a set track could be annoying

Those are both true, however, my point is that a conjure build id non-existent in terms of viable builds. They are a gimmick utility. While DD does benefit from the axe the most i use 30/0/25/15/0 atm and love my signet build because of aoe blind, and the immob signet. I can dance in melee all day long and be fine, there is no need for the axe it just slows me down since i rely on shocking aura / frost aura to grant me protection at times.

I also fast cast

My issue with conjures is that they restrict you from using the weapon skills that all ele traits are centered around and that all build are generally built around. Your weapons go away and you have no way of regaining their use without destroying your conjure.

I know how to use conjures, i have used them to a certain level of effectiveness that they allow and they are fun to use and snazzy looking. The issue comes from viability, not ignorance.

Please tell me, and im not trying to be abrasive, how weapon swapping with conjures wouldnt fix large amounts of their problems in terms of build viability? This isnt a thread to educate one on the use of conjures, it is to make suggestions and talk about how to best fix an unviable and gimmicky utility.

Weapons swap, combine some stacking/redundant/useless traits (IE 5% dmg in melee or to bleeding, why cant this be 1 trait, the several useless traits in fire, the weapon specific traits in arcana while are just laughable) and replace them with conjure specific traits and i think it would make them a build-worthy utility.

I am forming an elite small guild based in dungeon running and pvp teams. Several members are also interested in WvW.

Would you consider yourself an active and elite player? If so contact Rhengorne / Vryi.

The guild already has pretty much every upgrade and stacks of buffs / wvw catapults to use.

i use them as a weapon for a specific purpose IE:

Axe: pretty much never cuz i usually run d/d and dont need the extra mobility

Lightning Hammer: Awesome melee wep with blinding, allows me to set up vulnerability fields and stay in melee with the frequent blind to tank normal mobs / fight heavier classes in pvp and hve some cc

Bow: usually to throw down some aoe or kite / support (Also kill burrows and the like)

Shield: Defensive, stay alive, interrupt.

I would like these things to just not be 1 hit wonders and then dropped. Being able to swap between them and have some conjure specific traits would make them so much more able to be a smart choice and not just highly situational or gimmicky uses. being able to swap to it means i dont have to PRE-DETERMINE the usefulness of the weapon. I can have it on the ready when i need it.

im glad conjures work for you the way they are…

they doesnt make them good, viable, or worth while in a build

Hello from Isle of Janthir,

I am here to try and form a small (25-40 members), very active, elite (skilled), and disciplined guild. I want to create a place where skill, activeness, and knowledge thrive and those of us who are serious at becoming the elite of GW2 can come together.

Voice chat is available, the website is in the makings, and members are wanted. Equal opportunity to earn an officer / class leader position is available and there will be no favoritism, just merit based on skill, knowledge, and maturity.

If you or a small handful of you are the only person(s) in your current guild who is “good” and always tend to run dungeons with each other.

If you know the professions and meta of pvp and want to form a tpvp team.

If you love gw2 and play regularly, log on almost daily, or want a group of people who are up to par with your level of play.

I invite you to seek me out, post here, and show your support. I want to bring the best members from waning guilds or solitary players under one banner.

I am currently gathering members and once I have a strong number (15 or so) I’ll bring everyone in. The guild name is Kinsmen of Abaddon, we have everything almost completely upgraded and have been waiting for this movement.

If you’re interested in this new guild initiative for an elite band of members please post here or get in contact with:
Wjggles
Vryi
Rhengorne

Swapping attunements doesnt block 15 other abilities, u can swap to them at will without losing the attunement u were just in (cool downs aside because they are short and are up soon enough, especially with arcana)

If i have a conjure i lost 20 skills for the duration of that conjure, or i switch off and waste the utility. Without being able to swap to and from it the conjure is VERY limiting. This is exacerbated when you take into account also losing the utility slot.

Thats a pretty cool idea galrond but i dont think it would be feasible as it would force the creation of 4 more utilities that are an entirely new sub-set

Encaladus.5291:

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Lava axe is still overshadowed by fiery greatsword

this is because greatsword is an elite, while lava axe is a noraml utility

Yes but it still does its job better where the same isnt said for the other weapons. My main point on that though is that they are both fire, purely an aesthetic issue, since we have 2 fire weapons and no arcane one while both air and water are covered.

also yes conjures do WORK, but they are severely limiting to the user and have also NO traits to go with them besides the one in fire where they gain more charges. Conjure builds, for those reasons, are simply non-existent in any viable way.

Allowing the ele to weapon swap while wielding a conjure would almost fix the problem all together, although id still like so see some conjuration based traits like:

Trait 1: Conjured weapons deal 10% more damage and their the cooldowns of their weapon skills are reduced by 20%

Trait 2: Conjured weapons grant a boon to allies near the summon/impact site
Fire: Might (3 might for GS)
Air: Fury ( or swiftness?)
Water: Regeneration
Earth: Vigor

Trait 3: Your conjuration utilities have a 30% chance to summon an additional weapon

Trait 4: Upon using the LAST charge of your conjured weapons they will apply a skill centered on you.
Axe: Flame Burst
Hammer: Updraft
Bow: Cleansing Wave
Shield: Ring of Earth
GS: Burning Retreat

When you conjure a weapon you gain the ability to weapon swap between it and your main weapons (IE your staff, daggers or whatever).

The conjured weapon will retain its charges while it has been swapped out.

I understand how this could be used to exploit cool downs on conjuration utilities but i think the weapons themselves have an internal summoning time where the only last that long right? If not that can be easily implemented.

The main reason i don’t use conjure stuff is because it stops me from using 20 skills in favor of 5… If i could swap back and forth with the conjured weapons they would be so much more viable and earth shield would see a LOT more play.

Lava axe is still overshadowed by fiery greatsword, but i have a fix for this

Remove lava axe, change to Arcane Axe (although id rather have a 1h sword but w/e)

Skill 1: Bouncing ranged attack, Projectile finisher.
Skill 2: Aoe pulse on self, friendlies fury, weakness enemies. 10sec c/d
Skill 3: Cone attack, cripple. 15sec c/d
Skill 4: Targeted Aoe high damage/ confuse. 25sec c/d
Skill 5: Single target leaping daze (2sec). Leap finisher. 30sec c/d

(This next part is off topic but has buffs id love to see)

Glyph of Elemental Power:
Fire: Blinding (we have FAR MORE than enough burning)
Rest: Stay the same

Armor of Earth: Reduce c/d to 75 sec. or at least 80. 90 is too high for what it does.

Frozen Burst: I would love to see this Dag #3 ability gain a significant dmg buff… but its water so w/e water is strong as is for what it does.

Lightning Whip: Now has a 20% chance to grant fury for 4 seconds. 5 second internal cool down. This would make dag air actually useful to stay in.

Ride the Lightning: Increase dmg by 100-125% (1400-1750 total) so it acts as a nuke. Honestly this wouldnt be imbalanced with the low-ish nuke potential we have and would fix the several problems with S/D Air and D/D air crit/crit dmg dps builds.

Just some thoughts. What do u think?

Banners really should have some better benefit for how clunky they are. I really do think the vulnerability, weakness, protection, and healing/regen on summon is the best way to go about that with recasts on the 5. Their pick up also needs to be instant. Being able to throw banners ocne theyve been picked up instead of slam them down would be good too.

Protection wouldnt be op. Toughness is great but is almost nothing as a bunker or tanky build without some method of adding protection at clutch times. Toughness’ poor scaling doesnt allow it to act as a true defense against burst or as a true damage soak. It doesnt do its job particularly well, even if you’re fully dedicated to it. Protection is needed to be a truly defensive character. This is why rangers, engineers, guardians, elementalists, necromancers, and mesmers all have it. Thieves can also GET IT but they have stealth which can be used very defensively to avoid damage. So why is warrior the only one who doesnt get that capability?

Banners need that buff imo, or to act something akin to ranger spirits with a passive proc chance on some sort of effect

Swiftness with signet of rage is good, but i dont think you should be confined to using 1 elite if you want to move quickly as a largely melee class. Swiftness of berserker stance fixes a lot of problems, even with the swiftess proc in arms trait and the movement speed increase (which is not defined as a percentage) in discipline.

I know we are supposed to be a combo finisher class but we have the opposite problem of the necro who has tons of fields and extremely constraining finishers (and limited in number). It just feels clunky to have half a mechanic without being able to reliably complete that mechanic when it is a global/game-wide thing. This is just my opinion and it isnt like it would make us insanely OP to have 1-2 combo fields other than burning arrow.

In the same way i think the necro dag #5, axe #3, and DS #2 should all be finishers. It is just a difference in design ideals i guess.

also to the person who said we arent a tactician we have A TACTICS TRAIT and a BANNER OF TACTICS. We are a warrior not a mindless berserker

1) Protection: Trait in defensive line:
Defender’s Resolve: Whenever you block an attack you gain 3 seconds of protection. For shield stance the 3 seconds of protections begins after the channel ends.
Redoubled Defenses: When you are critically struck you gain protection for 4 seconds. This effect has a 10 second cool down.

I wouldnt say do both of these but 1 would suffice. Also thick skin in the minor traits for defense is terrible and should be:

Your toughness is increased by 300 against the next 1 attack. This recharges only if you go 8 seconds without taking damage or upon dropping combat.
There is also another application of this to banner of defense under the section where i address banners.

2) Banners: Banners should do their #2 ability in an area when they are thrown down. All #2 banner abilities should be replaced with the spinning knockback that the defensive banner has since their previous #2 will be on summoning. Banner effects on summonr will be(keep in mind banners still keep their auras):

Banner of Strength: All enemies within 600 range of the target area are afflicted with vulnerability (5 stacks) for 15 seconds. This can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d)

Banner of Precision: All enemies within 600 range of the target area are blinded(or) weakened for 8 seconds. This can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d).

Banner of Tactics: All allies within 1000 range of the target area are healed for (current #2 heal) and are given regeneration (as the #2 does now) for 15 seconds. This can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d)

Banner of Defense: All allies within 1000 range are given protection for 6 seconds. The protection can be redone by picking up the banner and using its #5 ability to slam it back into the ground (45sec c/d)

These changes to banners make them actually good on their own merit and worthy of their cooldown and hassle of pick up / use / throw down.

1. Overlap efficiency/ swiftness fix.

-Berserkers stance should grant swiftness for 4 seconds plus 2 seconds per EMPTY bar of adrenaline. This will make it useful and keeps in theme with the warrior. Increase the cooldown by 10seconds.
-Signet of Precision should grant fury and increased critical damage on use. Remove its adrenaline booster… thats what berserker’s stance is for.
-Kick: Removes 2 boons (more professions need effective boon stripping).
-Rid us of self roots… these are terrible ideas on ANY melee ability.
-GS #5 skill is useful but slightly redundant… i’d love to see Uppercut come back in as our #5… or make arcing slice the #5 and make uppercut the adrenaline ability. The second charge isnt needed and promotes less than intelligent play.
-Make healing surge a stance and mending a shout. I understand the implications of this.

1. Nothing at the moment, something to look into in the future

Lastly NEW SKILL:

Utility> “Seismic slam”: Push back all enemies in front of you. You create a barrier of rock spikes in front of you in a line (from left to right) that denies enemies movement tthrough it and stops projectiles. Lasts 6 seconds, 45sec cool down. This isnt a super viable thing to give us right now since it would offset the balance of utility skills numerically but id love to see something like this in the future