Guild Wars 2

Perhaps we should start considering establishing alternative damage builds. Toughness being specifically mentioned is a high indicator of mobs having ‘Husk-like’ armor, so Sinister might be an option.

Precision is tricky, and if push comes to shove, one solution is to have a profession or two run high weakness application to negate criticals from foes. Ala, That Warrior be putting on Mace…

You know the RNG-cursed Engineers will disagree with you, right?

In agreement for many reasons:

- Thematically, we are a master of martial weapons. You could say this is covered by our capability of being able to use the most weapons of any profession (right now) but having the proficiency to use many weapons is just one half, to be able to swap and weave them majestically in combat should be its counterpart.

- Balancing the Warrior becomes easier. A single trait on a functional mechanical level altering the playstyle of a profession is something NO one else has, to a degree Discipline can be considered an Elite Specialization as Weapon Swap on a vastly reduced cooldown does impact how every build around it plays. Certainly, Grandmasters define the build, but when a Minor Trait defines the Warrior, it’s not really minor is it?

At this moment in time, Rampage definitely needed the nerf.

…But we got issues, and it either can be fixed through helping us out (which I think isn’t the way to go) or bringing other power-house professions down another notch. Relative power is important.

….Ah!

So, you know all those brutal nerf-bat swings at other FOTM profession instances?

The ‘ill-playing’ players in that video might be the cause of it. Oh man…

Especially for roaming in WvW…

Shield Master over Dogged March, shield builds are almost requiring it given all the lovely perks you will have when blocking things (or more amusingly, reflecting things). Dogged March you would see in the typical GS/Ham builds. Your food and Hoelbrak will handle chills and cripples just fine, and immobilizes will never stop you thanks to Warrior’s Sprint.

For preferences in playstyle, Last Stand and CI determine how you play. Last Stand allows your critical Berserker Stance to last longer and hopefully kill that condi guy within the timeframe, otherwise you will be relying on absorbing some heat and dodging the large condition bursts. CI is useful at removing the conditions however a single well-timed blind on your bursts will be unfortunate. Good news is that Sword Burst is actually a bit easier to hit anything with given its channel.

I would really insist on Shield Master overall though, you can’t miss out on those might stacks especially with Hoelbrak runes.

Tempest looks flashy, though some of the overload animations are a bit too stiff (Earth).

I think I know what they wanted to do with Tempest, however I can tell there will probably need to adjust quite a few numbers and potentially even effects to make the Tempest work, even I can see the overloads value will rely on effectively pulling off many of the channels in full.

Of course, if there is enough feedback, as Arenanet showed with the updated Revenant changes, it is possible the current incarnation of Tempest can get tuned up to a better degree.

ronpierce.2760:

Sykper.6583:

, toughness itself needs buffs.

This. Everything cuts like butter, so only defenses such as blind/block/evade really shine anymore. I think if Damage across the board got toned back down a bit and people got shaved of all of their blind spams that have gotten out of hand as of recently, you’d find, Warriors would actually be in a great spot. Their damage is there, if anything it can be a bit overwhelming, but being bulky just doesn’t mean a kitten thing right now.

Also poor Shouts/Banners kinda got a swift kick, I’m not sure it was deserved, but I’ll reserve some of that judgement in hopes they reduce global damage. (sPVP)

It’s honestly Toughness at 3k+ that could use something like 10%+ more damage mitigation across the board.

Berserker builds are the glassiest they have ever been, and honestly between two zerker builds duking it out, one of them getting 1-2 shot makes sense.

I don’t want things to turn into what it was before with pseudo-bunkers everywhere, but without any sort of Protection and Toughness being the weakest it has ever been, it’s plain to see why Warriors rely on Rampage so much.

PvE? Couldn’t be in better shape.
WvW? Shouts got hit leaving the sustain to be desired in large scale fighting, though they still do well on the front-line. Warriors and roaming have never mixed well.
SPvP? Rampage is the only thing keeping us around, we have definitely fallen out of grace a bit.

Overall: We were better pre-patch, post-patch we definitely don’t need any real nerfs outside of maybe an increased CD on Rampage. Need buffs, heck, toughness itself needs buffs.

It might be a bit biased being a Warrior main, but I do believe Warriors are very close to a spot where they probably do not need any real adjustments. Rampage is what is keeping us in matches and netting us kills.

Nerfing the CD to 144 from 120 would be a decent start…however there are other professions that could be toned down as well.

Nier.8741:

Okay, let me check this guy’s credibility.

If I get a level 2 skull crack off on someone, how many AXE auto-attacks can I do before he recovers and dodges the next stun?

It’s Five. Six if they aren’t spamming dodge as soon as the 2 second stun ends. You won’t finish the last hit in Triple Chop (the full auto-attack rotation is 1/4, 1/2 and 1 1/2 so 2.25 seconds) because triple chop swings take an extra quarter second per swing to land.

The better question is why you are running MacSh/AxSh. Though you could be running off-hand Sword for hybrid damage but that hasn’t seen play in a while.

I thought I was going to laugh at where Ele was placed.

I then saw Warrior and I fell out of my chair.

Exedore.6320:

If the score is tied, then the winner is the team with the highest individual score.

Is that confirmed?

I’m actually curious about what a Ranked Tie does exactly?

Does it perhaps just leave the ranking as is and give everyone a win?

I have an issue with a lot of things on the Warrior right now, but I will vehemently disagree with nerfing Berserker’s Stance as a means to handle the damage meta. You don’t fix a problem by introducing a new one elsewhere, making Berserker’s Stance into Resistance will not make all Warriors hit less hard, but they will be put back in the state they were at Release which was dying literally all the time.

x Charlie.4820:

20 seconds being the time it takes to get through zerker stance, healing signet and appying any type of condition pressure….

Popping Healing Signet (can be interrupted) which is our only form of healing (Don’t even mention Adrenal Health)? If you get the Warrior to do that you have likely won the fight given in SPvP plenty of time has passed to have someone come support to finish off said warrior, or your cooldowns have nearly come around to absorb some more punishment. Death Shroud is a thing you know.

My assumptions are on the current meta, which is DPS Warrior, which has a very useful elite to counter the heavy power damage other professions are doing right now. When you said 20 seconds that matched its transformation duration, not the 14-16 seconds of supposed ‘Resistance up-time’ a warrior will have and use every-time against every Necromancer.

x Charlie.4820:

Threads been mostly about necro then you come out with this. Whos the funny guy now.

You are by far the funniest still. I kneel before your hilarious and ridiculous plights to ruin a profession’s viability because of one single build from another profession not working out too well against it.

x Charlie.4820:

Yeah i mean kitten , Why would anyone want to use their profession mechanic defensively.

Let’s go Shield Burst! Wait, we don’t have defensive profession bursts? We are forced to be attacking someone to make use of their effectiveness?

x Charlie.4820:

“Months ago” the damage wasn’t this high, Hence it was easier to deal with. That point is moot.

Hey guys! Did you know that with other abilities doing so much damage, Warrior’s Berserker Stance which wasn’t touched at all needs a nerf? We will take the blame for the unbalanced Burning Damage, and ridiculous % scaling of damage in full trait lines! I can’t honestly believe you think Berserker’s Stance needs a nerf, a utility untouched by the balance changes, because the damage across the board is higher than normal! What kind of argument is that?

x Charlie.4820:

No, It’s not. NEWS FLASH, i didn’t come into the forums and post a balance suggestion on berserker stance because i thought rampage was OP. Theres just not logic to support that and again your making assumptions (Not even assumptions now, apparently you’re just a mind reader.)

It doesn’t take a mind-reader to figure you out. You are spinning ‘How broken’ Berserker’s Stance is, JUST because your potentially unique condition necromancer build or YOURSELF can’t handle one utility from the profession. One balance patch that severely spiked damage ACROSS the board, and you think a DEFENSIVE UTILITY is an issue, that speaks for itself. Rather than take your atrocious idea to ruin the only escape from future condition pressure (meaning, further application) from the Warrior, instead I propose:

- Toughness needs a buff, Power Builds across the board have gained massive increases in damage, backstabs hitting my Soldier’s Gear Warrior for 7k shouldn’t be happening.
- Burning definitely needs to be tuned down…slightly.
- Resistance and Taunt (both in general) couldn’t be in this game sooner!

x Charlie.4820:

Your endurance bar will regen before zerker stances comes off cd again. It’s not that valuable.

If I manage to negate a whole Signet of Spite with Berserker Stance which also allows me to keep a higher Adrenaline bar than normal, I can keep my dodges for your responding teammate who may or may not be there.

?? lol. Have you been reading what you are typing…

I never pop it at the start until I confirm the opponent’s build is one I can beat. Nor will I pop it at the start when I know the opponent knows I am running it. Oh boy here comes the mind-games. Do I pop it knowing how trigger happy this P/P engineer is or wait until a bit of time has passed with my dodges off CD? I won’t say that other lesser Warriors will do it all the time regardless of the build the opponent is running just because they can’t read what buffs the other guys have, but with the duration and CD of Berserker Stance top Warriors will make the best choices when using the stance at an appropriate time.

x Charlie.4820:

Or dying first, since you have to save your dodges for the burst…

Going to be very direct here, if you die to a Warrior who did not use a single Burst on you, without having a single dodge for after Berserker Stance ends, then you got outplayed… Enough said.

x Charlie.4820:

Not true, Resistance is close to useless against all power builds and only 1 condition build will be able to remove.

I can already tell you the meta will shift immensely in a negative way to ensure Warriors will never see any PvP again, meaning boon-strip will be more apparent. Hell, in Top-Tier Play if someone is running a Warrior the other team will change to completely nullify the resistance the Warrior will deploy to ensure he loses every fight.

x Charlie.4820:

Your functions on how zerker stance currently affect adrenaline are a bit off too.

You mean the 3 adrenaline we gain every second from the duration? Where did I say it operated differently?

x Charlie.4820:

Because every class has stealth and 1200 insta blinks.

One actually does, and your changes will affect how we handle that class. Go figure, not only would you make us weak against condition necromancers we become weaker as a whole against other professions!

x Charlie.4820:

You can equally sheathe weapon. Congratz you’ve just baited a dodge out.

Yep, good ol Sheathing. Doesn’t quite work with Bursts though.

x Charlie.4820:

Slightly offtopic but over the course of 30-35 seconds mesmers can output 6 stuns, all of which will aoe daze too…

Yep…really hoping that gets nerfed. I have talked with mesmers and they have literally pointed out Lockdown Mesmers destroy every Warrior build. I cry every-time.

x Charlie.4820:

You basically just said yourself, We have to pop it and then do bulk of our damage and end the fight.

I said some more along the lines of ‘Hope to end the fight’ because if the warrior doesn’t end it there, you win. That might speak volumes of how broken Warriors are than anything else, we need more bursts and more complexity! /rages off

x Charlie.4820:

What? This is conquest not a dueling event.

So then Berserker Stance could possibly be on cooldown right? If the warrior is stupid enough to go in without it against a known condi-bunker he will lose everytime.

x Charlie.4820:

Interesting that they’re worthless now but should zerker stance be converted into resistance they’re too strong…

Funny thing, it was a joke on ‘all signet builds suck’, especially for Warriors (5 Signet Warrior). My original argument was ‘Why the condition-user didn’t have at least 1 or 2 defensive utilities for encounters instead of full offense’. With concern to utilities being too strong, may I complain about Mesmer Portal, or Shadow Refuge? They provide immense utility and defense much like how Berserker Stance provides an immense defense against incoming conditions only!

x Charlie.4820:

You can avoid both of them by dodging once. You don’t have to run around in circles for 10 seconds.

Difference is that if you mess-up against shatter/backstab thief you either die or take nearly all of your life. If you run around the Warrior he isn’t killing you instantly with each blow, and depending how whether he or you have swiftness, how you maneuver, if you are running spectral walk, etc. You stand a solid chance at surviving and retaliating. Mind you, if it is the full 10 second Berserker Stance, that guy isn’t running Cleansing Ire, you will WIN after those 10 seconds. If it is an 8 second Berserker Stance, respond with conditions, have at least 1 dodge at the end of the stance available and dodge the Burst in its brilliant animated glory and you will win again.

x Charlie.4820:

Yes. As i said earlier condi bunkers tend to counter all glasscannon specs EXCEPT warrior…

Oh, you didn’t want me to say mesmer, sorry it’s a thing. But we can have a discussion over profession mechanics beating other mechanics another time. Let’s talk about what you are implying here. A bunker does two things, they must absolutely hold the point against 1 or potentially 2 enemies, and conditions win through attrition (unless they are Burst condition, looking at you Burn Guardians). Ideally the Bunker would do well against only 1 opponent. However, if you are a condition bunker attempting to stay on point against a Berserking warrior, it would be wise to pull off the point to wait out the duration, and return to the fight and kill him after. The point-per-tick will be made up with his death, or if he somehow gets away, he can’t come back for 50 seconds and is weakened against conditions in other fights for the time.

The only way a Warrior in SPvP will win positively for his team in SPvP is if he kills the Condition Bunker on the point. Let him decap, or chase you off the point, we are literally talking seconds here.

x Charlie.4820:

Not trying to be funny, Just assuming you would be using it when your condi cluttered and not at the start of the fight…

The conditions will last though, because you can continue to stack them after resistance, and I hate to say it, but with the dynamics of a 5v5 in SPvP you mean to tell me there won’t be one teammate running over with a boon-strip for an easy kill. In a complete 1v1 fight though, given the Resistance change the Warrior will be running CI, meaning they will only have 8 seconds of ‘ignoring the conditions’. Dodge the bursts and you win.

x Charlie.4820:

Nobody can “Spam” them. Even if they do rack up a high amount….

kitten , basic auto-attack from all condition class stack at least a couple stacks of bleed, or torment, what do you mean there isn’t such a thing? They also changed how condition clear works, with it being Random rather than the last condition applied so we have the luxury of accidently clearing up the 3 second cripple rather than the several stacks of bleed, poison, torment, confusion, etc. Not to mention Dogged March only applies to movement-based conditions, and Hoelbrak is a rune outside this discussion as it applies to all professions.

x Charlie.4820:

Everything is balanced. confirmed…

Totally, don’t need to run any sort of defensive skills, I mean my build can hold out against Warriors Rampaging or Lich Form but my necromancer build being countered? Forbid it.

x Charlie.4820:

Yeah just dodge the burst and then he will only use autoattacks. Forgot warriors only have 1 anf f1.

Do you stand in Hundred Blades? I literally think you can walk out of it without taking the last hit…

x Charlie.4820:

In which case you would have just taken one of the most useless weapons on the necro profession to deal with 1 class…

One off-hand weapon to completely beat every Warrior that comes your way? Hell, as a Warrior I have access to the most weapons of any profession and I would LOVE that. Though I imagine at some point Warriors would realize that the profession balance has flipped to their disfavor and now instead of running something other than Berserker Stance…They would reroll, Warriors have finally achieved Arenanet’s “Original” concept of them being weakest to conditions.

x Charlie.4820:

Please do explain…

So you do know of them, good that makes it easy then. Aside from the full 10 seconds of cripple from Spite, Grasping Dead lasts 5 seconds. Mind you this is all within the case of the condition Cripple and not anything like Chills you can save or bleeds you can rack up towards the end of the first 10 seconds.

x Charlie.4820:

Well you honestly don’t expect…

How as a Necromancer are you not complaining about Glass Thieves and Mesmers who can activate their burst abilities from Stealth at a mere quarter second activation time then? And why aren’t those moves giving a ‘huge flashy’ animation with them?

x Charlie.4820:

…Said one random guy on the forums.

We share one thing in common then.

x Charlie.4820:

Nobody runs without it currently…

In this current meta? Everyone Warrior has gone Zerker Stance, Balanced Stance, and either Frenzy or Bull’s Charge with Rampage? Shoutbow is GONE, wiped out for better builds that actually bunker against the high damage spread.

x Charlie.4820:

So by playing certain classed you got “Outplayed”…

NO, by playing certain builds you can get outclassed by certain OTHER builds. That’s how it works right now, rock-paper-scissors.

x Charlie.4820:

Well necros actually have wurm but it’s still just running away regardless.

And coming back after the duration to contest the point? Perfect, all the warrior did was push you off, yet not even capture the point himself since 8-10 seconds ISN’T enough to flip the point around. In fact he runs the risk of dying to conditions now since at least 50 seconds is more than enough time for a Necromancer to wreck said Warrior.

x Charlie.4820:

Dodges are limited, We don’t have access to vigor…

If it comes down to it, yes if your build is countered. And yes, I am well aware of the fake ‘CC’ capability of Fear against a warrior. Ultimately, my own personal opinion? Warriors will have an innate advantage against necros. However Mesmers will have an innate advantage against Warriors, Thieves demolish all glassy guys, Warriors fair well against thieves….balance between professions is pretty much the worst right now.

x Charlie.4820:

Endure pain 4 seconds, zerker stance 8 seconds..

Yes, until you know every single Warrior is running Defy Pain on their bar, so they could potentially swap out Balanced Stance for a 2nd Endure Pain (Something like a Last Stand Build as opposed to Cleansing Ire). But without Last Stand, Berserker Stance only has 8 seconds, and that will never change, there won’t be a second proc.

x Charlie.4820:

Leave it out. Only bad players can’t tell most classes by their weapons…

That…wasn’t the question? Odd since you responded to it in full below.

x Charlie.4820:

Not the warriors fault, Unless he is the one doing the balancing.

Still didn’t answer my question, with how long the current Berserker’s Stance has been in the game and why you are raising a fuss right NOW after such a period of time, is it on a Warrior Utility to be an issue than the player fighting the warrior?

x Charlie.4820:

I feel like they have counters like blind, reflect. Hell you can even root the lich and stand behind it…

Because not only do the elites provide a plethora of new extremely practical, damaging skills, they actually affect your overall stats. Berserker Stance only affects one kind of damage for that kind of damage APPLIED for a duration. However your response has me scratching my head, you admit you can easily counter the elite skills that are consider ‘game-breaking’ by many yet you have trouble with a single utility on the longest CD possible FOR a utility?

x Charlie.4820:

FGS eles that do damage? Squishy…

I only brought them up to prove a point. Going by how you want the conversation to end, you want the potential counter to condition necromancers to be nerfed, even though you have a fair enough time against many strong builds (Though, an ele running FGS isn’t among those). Right now, Berserker Stance isn’t trashing on every single condition build, nor is it beating up every single necromancer build.

x Charlie.4820:

Lol. 3 conditions. One pistol #3 from an engineer will usually apply 4 conditions…

So the talk has shifted a bit after the first sentence, and now we are talking about Rampage? Nice form.

x Charlie.4820:

How your conditions work with adrenaline is irrelevant and is just more general warrior balance QQ.

It actually does matter, as that’s another advantage a condition user has, and it’s the likely reason why Berserker Stance has adrenaline gain to begin with. It’s sole purpose is to both remove condition pressure and grant adrenaline, maybe just maybe it was intended for Warriors to handle dealing with condition pressure since they can’t get adrenaline from damaging conditions anyways? /shocked

x Charlie.4820:

I responded to them with a counter argument and mostly got repeated the same thing back. If the warrior misses his skills, puts them into invun or refuses to count dodges. Then he is being outplayed…

Or they have a point, that perhaps there are is a ridiculous amount of active defense that professions can do? Which goes back to my previous point that Warriors were a predictable profession? Take the two together and you can see why Berserker Stance is needed as it currently is, it allows Warriors the freedom to utilize their Bursts offensively within any point during that small period of time, rather than being FORCED to use them defensively and likely towards the end of Resistance.

The biggest reason why Tao and myself are being so up and arms about this is because this is deja vu for at least myself right now, catered back when Berserker’s Stance was changed to its current iteration (MONTHS AGO). It’s alarming to think players still haven’t grasped at how to handle it, its a passive buff, sure, but that doesn’t mean it is passive play, a Warrior is anything BUT passive when it comes to fighting one. He just changes the mechanism to fight against one up a notch since they lack the utility of ‘more Profession skills’ that other professions have, except for Thief in a way.

x Charlie.4820:

Warriors do fine against most things (But mesmer, has it’s own problems.)

However, Glass warrior is the only glasscannon who can directly counter a condi bunker class.

Strictly from a SPvP sense, the meta will be in flux for a while. It’s entirely realistic our Rampage (which is the REAL reason you are up in arms right now) will get its duration nerfed in line with other transformation elites and Peak Performance will get tuned down.

Conquest, on its own, is a huge bane on balancing. Because only a small vacuum of builds prior to the balance changes were viable, and thus it was a balancing nightmare when you adjusted things for there, which impacted things elsewhere like in PvE (WvW I believe has a much smaller influence).

Regardless, a LOT of things need to get toned down, but hopefully not to the point like the CeleLOL meta back then. I like the damage the Zerkers are doing to one another, but as you pointed out Bunkers have been given no love. IMO the Toughness Stat needs to be adjusted further at high levels (3k+ needs more buffing).

x Charlie.4820:

Head start to what? Everything else already functions this way…

Your math on the cleansing is a bit off. If we miss even 1 Burst our Adrenaline resets to nothing. We have to physically hit you and take physical (not DoTs) damage matching up to 30 strikes before we can do another attempt at clearing 3 conditions, otherwise we clear up less conditions. That’s huge, not every CI clears for the full 3.

The application immunity is there to remove pressure (since we do not have stealth or immediate 1200 range blinks) from one source of damage for those 8+ seconds onwards at the start or the middle of a fight. CI is literally there as a means to remove a moderate amount of conditions at a time as any other clear we have either removes 1, or all of them, no other ‘in-between’ clears.

Lastly, your point about ‘racking up’ conditions as a way for a Warrior to land his burst in the middle of their casts would only apply if attacks couldn’t be sheathed or canceled for another utility, likely a defensive one. All the decent condition fighters I have run into do NOT let themselves get interrupted with all these Lockdown Mesmers around.

x Charlie.4820:

But you don’t get punished for the next 10 seconds even if you do this…

Sure we do, popping Berserker Stance at the beginning means we still have to close the gap, and hopefully do our damage within the time-frame before the pressure comes in. Given that its the very start of the fight and our opponent is likely to have all his defensive cooldowns up, there’s a massive risk that he will run out the 8-10 second duration easily if his condition build is good and not just a bunch of worthless signets. The Warrior Stances can be considered the ‘preemptive’ set-up for his rotation, much like Mesmer Shatter builds set-up their rotations in stealth or Guardians look to blink in with a burn and a LOT of blocks. If you can avoid it, you get an pretty resounding advantage the rest of the fight.

x Charlie.4820:

I would say dodging is much better on both them occasions but each to their own…

Endurance generation got nerfed so dodges got a bit more valuable. And there’s nothing passive about Berserker Stance, as the Warrior has to literally pull the stops to beat his rather high condition-based user to a pulp before the red icons tally on his buff bar.

x Charlie.4820:

So your now complaining you have to melee…

My point was, that aside from Blind with the massive indications that a burst is about to go off you can dodge, blink, interrupt/CC, block, invulnerability, or worse case move out of melee range of the Burst in question. If the change to Resistance went through, the only thing you will have to worry about from a Warrior is to have something ready for the Burst, that’s IT. Or if you have but a single boon-strip, you win the fight since the warrior will have to pop healing signet which removes all his healing and now he’s got 6 seconds to win or he loses.

(Walls of Text Inc)

x Charlie.4820:

Such as? All classes lost condi duration…

I doubt it. Just off the top of my head comes Cripple, an easily stacked skill due to its natural high duration application anyways. Do I have to run through all the ways a Necromancer can apply Cripple?

x Charlie.4820:

Not irrelevant at all…

So two builds (Not Warrior or Necromancer) that can exploit a condition to help keep themselves mobile with all their movement skills means Movement skills as a whole were buffed?

x Charlie.4820:

Probably because they have some of the biggest hitting skills…

Oh MAN that’s good, tell me what Warrior skills with the highest hitting skills in the game take under 3/4 seconds to use. Also bear in mind we don’t have the luxury of swapping our Bursts tied to our weapons, so when you say ‘choosing to play with’ its not really a choice.

x Charlie.4820:

I disagree…

Don’t worry, your suggestion to turn Berserker Stance into Resistance would ensure every Warrior would never run it again, and take up Signet of Stamina instead.

x Charlie.4820:

Just seems like a salty post about your bugs…

Yep, there was a bit of salt there I admit. It just really sucks when a skill tied to something so important as condition clear fails on the smallest grassy knoll.

x Charlie.4820:

What if you have no blocks, invuns or stealths?…

…Then you got outplayed? Can you blink (Or in necromancer’s case Spectral Walk), pop a CC (not fear), apply protection, DODGE? If you truly don’t have means to avoid taking heat for 10 seconds when your condition build gets temporarily unusable for the duration, then I wonder what build you might be running. Pretty sure Power builds deal with Endure Pain just fine.

Here’s my question, why is it when Warriors pop a utility on a long cooldown (so sacrificing another practical utility) to help them fight against an opponent who he may or may not know is stocked on conditions, that it is the Warrior’s fault for being too OP with one skill, and not the intended target for having enough mitigation to avoid the Warrior for 8-10 seconds? That’s what this entire conversation is, I am curious how you feel about Lich Form and Rampage? Heck, what about FGS Eles? Those examples I have listed have their capabilities change for a much LONGER duration…

x Charlie.4820:

Unless your a necro or a p/p engi.

So my next question is do you think there is such a thing as Builds that counter other Builds, and should there be? Could it be perhaps all builds have some innate weaknesses?

x Charlie.4820:

Name some hard hitting stacks of condi that last over 10 seconds…

Funny guy, there aren’t any hard-hitting damaging conditions that immediately apply for 10 seconds. There are many hard hitting damaging conditions that can be applied at once, but you shouldn’t be expending those or any conditions on a Berserking Warrior. However, if you changed Berserker Stance to Resistance, the damaging conditions might be pointless, but if you as a profession can spam cripple and chill (Not immobilize, Warrior’s Sprint is extremely common to take as a Warrior) then once the Resistance falls off said Warrior is an even slower mound of metal. Soft CC is amazing to use on Warriors now, and if you get the Warrior to attempt to pop his Healing Signet (can be interrupted!) you have probably put him at the brink of dying regardless of his health pool. All you have to do, literally as the opposing player is avoid his Bursts, that’s it. If you have to take some damage from silly auto-attacks, that’s better than having the Warrior land his CI and remove all the counter-pressure you have set up on this Resistance Warrior.

…Or you can just Spinal Shivers the Resistance, which is a 20 second cooldown to deal with a 30 second Berserker Stance (talked about earlier if it got changed).

x Charlie.4820:

Hes using the arguement that he still cant use CI to cleanse because he would still be getting blinded with resistance on him. That’s incorrect.

That’s fine, but can you address how my point on how dealing with duration-based conditions?

x Charlie.4820:

It was mostly a buff in pvp with d/d ele, Engi running around with a ton of chill uptime.

Irrelevant to warriors.

x Charlie.4820:

The point about being blocked or hitting invun targets applies to every single class….<Snip>

I think you are routinely missing my point. Warriors have the biggest ‘tells’ in this game on what they are going to do next, it’s absurd. If a Warrior needs to get rid of his conditions within the conditions burst (which is any given time where he is just layered with conditions) the condition applier can predict it, regardless of how many times the Warrior counts dodges, blocks, invulns, etc. This isn’t a Learn to Play issue, its an issue with our profession.

x Charlie.4820:

I don’t think it’s fair to use a (Bug?) to justify the balance of a skill. Earthshaker is a big aoe stun, It needs a decent animation.

Perfectly fair when it’s been a huge problem for us since 2012. I am OK with the animation, but I was expressing simply another side of how little effect CI has on our other skills.

x Charlie.4820:

What is the purpose behind berserker stance? To stop enemies applying conditions to you…<Snip>

Why isn’t there anything the condition user can do? You said it before, why can’t they just dodge, block, pop an invulnerability, go into stealth, etc.? There are a myriad of ways to deal with Berserker Stance, it’s not immune to CC either! It’s 8 to 10 seconds (Last Stand traited) long on a minute cooldown! Your point about ‘using it after their hard-hitting conditions’ does not apply here for the following reasons:

- Conditions that stack duration will last well beyond Resistance.
- Conditions that stack intensity will be given a nifty head-start in burst condition damage once the boon falls off.

Berserker Stance popping before a fight is one which a Warrior does when he knows the intended target can’t respond back, either through fighting the player before and seeing how heavy his conditions are and/or finding his kiting capabilities are poor. It gets popped immediately for things like spotting a Signet of Spite animation during combat, or observing the obvious tells from a Burning Guardian.

x Charlie.4820:

I do. I also however don’t think it’s fair to balance your utility skills based sololy on hammer. Greatsword burst isn’t hard to land with it having bladetrail which can literally remove the blind right before you use it. Whirlwind and 100b are also easy ways to remove it.

Sword is almost instant aswell.

Blind isn’t the only thing that stops both those bursts, and both those weapons require a really close proximity to use. If you managed to let the warrior get close after peppering him with 3+ conditions either you messed up, or he had to pop some intense cooldowns like Balanced Stance and maybe a Bull’s Charge. Mind you, you should be dodging or blinking or whatever it is to get out of that mess.

x Charlie.4820:

Whilst i already think without the lifeforce gain it would be stupidly broken, Zerker stance is giving you adrenaline.

Berserker Stance grants us adrenaline (already nerfed) to fuel our adrenaline deficiency. Funny Story, conditions on the warrior that do damage do NOT fill the gauge, that’s a good joke right?

x Charlie.4820:

Baseless assumptions that contribute nothing but intent to insult just weaken your arguement, Fyi.

That’s largely due to the fact you have ignored many other posters who have presented sound arguments about why it has to stay, yet you seem intent on saying the ‘Warrior got outplayed’ argument. We have a hard enough time as it is with our limited skill set as a whole to deal with other professions mechanics, the mind-games we have to do to bait out things like Distortion or get the Guardian to pop his invulnerability at a bad time is startling. It’s not hard to play a Warrior, but its a kitten hell to master one to fight the masters of other professions.

x Charlie.4820:

You seem to be ignoring the fact that resistance stops all conditions…<Snip>

Resistance does stop conditions from functioning, until it falls off or gets stripped.

It also doesn’t deal with the whole ‘Duration Stacking Conditions’ that well either, I would rather not run around with a massive amount of cripple because I can’t clear it at all.

Gap-closers weren’t buffed, all movement skills were normalized. In fact, Rush is actually weaker than it was before due to the clunky pause and the slow travel time being just above swiftness in speed…if the target was standing still and not kiting away. Bull’s Charge, Whirlwind Attack, and Earthshaker are the only movement skills that I can still consider practical.

x Charlie.4820:

Which is why you use CI…<Snip>

Provided ‘Resistance’ is applied, we just can’t miss (not from a blind), be dodged, be blocked, or hit an invulnerable target, with our extremely telegraphed and predictable move-set. CI isn’t an i-win card when players have seen Earthshaker a few hundred times to know when its coming, and heck, go up a slight slope to negate the AoE entirely. CI is only consistent with Longbow, and even that can have its projectile absorbed or reflected.

x Charlie.4820:

1 of our 8 classes will be able to remove it…<Snip>

I’ll agree on the sentiment that Resistance is useful, it’s just not going to work as a replacement for Berserker Stance since we have no means to take off the condition pressure, to create a break in combat like other professions. CC, Stealth (depends on profession and class), and True invulnerability are the only means to cause a break from an opposing condition class.

x Charlie.4820:

Stop ignoring shoutbow…<Snip>

Cut the snide, we all know Shoutbow matched the previous meta to a T. If the balances did one thing right, it was completely toss out the old meta, now we just have to fine-tune the damage and hopefully damage gets put in a better spot than last time, but not so abundant now.

x Charlie.4820:

Firstly have skills as “Must haves” is already telling you there is an issue…<Snip>

Speaking to the choir here, Warriors have a lot of trash skills, we know it. Kind of wish the other physical skills got the ‘Frenzy Treatment’ but whatever. Anyways, how is ‘Berserker Stance’ not skill-orientated? The Warrior makes the call on when to pop it, and if he pops it at the very beginning which both he and his opponent know, the pressure is on the Warrior to do the damage before it runs out. If he pops it too late as in after conditions are tearing into him, it doesn’t make him immune to current conditions. Thus it becomes a contest on how well (assuming the opponent is pure condition) can adjust and either kite or CC the warrior. Because once the stance falls, the Warrior will be taking a LOT of heat.

x Charlie.4820:

Necro transfers are also weak to everything you have just listed. I don’t understand why you…<Snip>

Outside of the unusual case of Longbow, I assume you already know the predictability problems with Warriors and their ranges with their bursts. If you pile on the conditions on one, just from his weapons alone you can predict what TWO abilities you have to look out for and expect them extremely soon, literally seconds. IN FACT, with the fastest bursts lasting half a second you can add Interrupt to the list of ways to deal with CI.

x Charlie.4820:

You have a signet that removes all conditions with an activation of an ability.

And we are fortunate to have it.

x Charlie.4820:

So you would be okay if for example spectral armor got a 100% power damage reduction with an 8 second duration which is unremovable. <Snip>

Sure, if you can’t refill lifeforce while in it! Stop with the profession comparisons, it’s comparing two different environments.

x Charlie.4820:

<Last Part Snipped>

It’s neat that you think Warriors without a longbow have an easy time landing bursts on competent players. It’s also neat that you think we don’t get hammered with conditions, because CI totally clears out all the conditions when you land it right? Oh, sorry being disingenuous here, but only because this entire conversation is really telling me how much you play Warrior.

Berserker Stance operates on the anticipation of taking heavy conditions in a time-frame and negating the threat all together, it is at this time a defensive move against punishment through conditions.

Resistance operates on the other end of the spectrum, retaliating to sudden condition burst or application. These conditions are NOT negated while the boon is active and will persist for their duration regardless of how long Resistance lasts.

I say all of this because there seems to be some sort of impression that Resistance and the current Berserker’s stance could be changed around easily, adding a simple amount of counterplay to the stance.

Even if the stance were changed to something like pulsating Resistance on a 30 second CD, overall the Warrior’s susceptibility to conditions sky-rockets and the profession will get trashed.

The reason for this is that the only reliable methods of condition clear we have as Warriors are:

- Signet of Stamina Active (Most reliable, can be applied to many builds without reliance on any weapons)
- Brawler’s Recovery (Single Condition every weapon swap in Discipline is very nice)
- Shouts, more or less “Shake it Off”, coupled with Trooper Runes (Which isn’t really a capability just for us but hey).
- Cleansing Ire (Unreliable, countered with Blind unless using LONGBOW, and if that projectile gets absorbed or reflected the cleanse fails)
- Mending (Not worth mentioning, heal is pitiful, can be affected by Poison if the poison was not cleansed first by its initial effect)

That’s all. Yep after all of that, of those options, you might see 3 of those at any given time in a competitive build. We can’t radically clear conditions ambient or swap them to someone else or consume them, we as Warriors will end up soaking them up regardless.

The worst part about those options? Over half of them are not reliable unless you run a certain few builds, and sadly enough the balance patch recently more or less gutted those builds to mediocrity. Shoutbow’s healing got destroyed, and the high direct damage flying around makes the formerly ‘beefy’ build a little bit too slim to run effectively.

Ultimately, Signet of Stamina and Brawler’s Recovery are the only real useful capabilities a Warrior has to clear conditions without being interrupted (though, Signet active could get interrupted on that 1/4 second channel, not likely).

Cleansing Ire, I think everyone here knows what makes that one fail when you don’t have a longbow.

Loxsus.3841:

It’s been said before but I’m saying it again in hopes maybe SOMEONE will think about this who is raging about OP mesmers; If mesmers get everything with no downside and are entirely OP, why aren’t more of them showing up in sPVP tournies? Why isn’t it nothing BUT mesmers?

You can’t HANDLE the truth!

…Actually its because Mesmer roles as a whole in SPvP or should I say CONQUEST, are done better by other professions. Now if clones could contest but not capture objectives, that would be a different story, but thieves have more tools out of stealth to handle being pressured quite a bit more than mesmers, like evades and better blind application.

It’s that simple, it’s not that mesmers are bad, they are close to or the best 1v1ers when they are built and played right…It’s just that while they are winning the fight, they are losing the match.

- Add Intelligence to Hammer, swapping out Energy

- Energy goes into Shield, remove 5% damage. Mace Sigil is choice between Impact (perfectly fine, you are hitting hard anyways) or Doom (Poison is such a good utility against sustain builds).

- DotE is nice, but since you are CCing rather intently you shouldn’t be taking conditions too often, NOR should the enemy get a chance to get his boons up. Ergo I would suggest taking Brawler’s Recovery just for the weapon swapping condi-clear, since you are capable of being kited when Zerker Stance is on CD.

- Frenzy is another choice I could swap out for Bull’s Charge for the utility of closing gaps or getting out, as well as utilizing Warrior’s Sprint to break out of Immobilizes.

Overall, I run a very close build to yours, and if you do not have the critical chance to back up your critical hits, you can at least amplify your high-might swings with an Intelligence Sigil on your hammer, as that plus Impact make for a squashed enemy.

As for what role this serves in SPvP, its more used in fights on points with allies rather than 1v1 (it will fair well in 1v1s, but you do better in 2v2s or 3v3s).

It’s serious deja vu right now.

Think we had this talk way back when Berserker Stance got changed, and apparently people eventually grew out of complaining about it either because it was still imbalanced or perhaps they found ways around it.

Either way, should be amusing to read.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Final boss?

Zomorros. His special skill will be utilizing every weapon ever thrown into the Mystic Forge. Gilgamesh from Fate/Stay style.

That’s impressive…

IF Zomorros wasn’t already being manipulated by someone else.

Isn’t that right?

Villian-O-Tron

Decided to go into HotM for some testing purposes.

Stacked 25 stacks might with GS, took Arms for the 5% more damage to bleeding target, Strength to proc a full Berserker’s Power, Tactics for Empowered and Empower Allies.

Mind you, Berserker’s Amulet and Ogre runes caused this, I forgot to apply a Sigil of Force to the GS but that being said, we can more or less consider how a 212% increased critical damage might be affected by the number of % increases we get from traits.

For the record, around 25 stacks of might I looked at Reckless dodge’s trait to see its damage, I got it around 1100 damage on a dodge roll, so factor in the percentages and the critical damage…

Simonoly.4352:

Choppy.4183:

Simonoly.4352:

I was on a mixture of zerk and knight’s at the time. Fully levelled. I have screenshots of all the scenarios I mentioned because they made me chuckle

Please post the screenshots and the warrior IGN if you have it. The damage calc doesn’t allow for Reckless Dodge to proc that high (even criting with 25 might and 25 vulnerability), so it may be a bug.

I got one of my values mixed up with a meteor proc. It was actually just under 7K Reckless Dodge. It was quite the surprise. I had a good laugh about it.

Hmm…

Reckless dodge scales off roughly 1/3rd of the Warrior’s Power. Assuming full might stacks on the Warrior, which adds +750 power or translated an additional 250 damage on Reckless dodge’s base…

I think you managed to get hit with a Reckless Dodge by a Warrior with:

- Berserker’s Power adding 20% damage
- 25 stacks of might
- Potentially running Arms Tree so Bloodlust GM Minor grants 5% damage to bleeding foes (if you were bleeding).

I don’t think Vuln is needed to reach the 7k Reckless Dodge, but its bugging me that the toughness from your Knight’s didn’t do much at all.

TBF, everyone is doing crazy amounts of damage and Toughness never saw any sort of change, that screenshot is a bit crazy though.

Also, that 4.5k Hammer Swing auto-attack is really interesting too…

Vieux P.1238:

My only issue with it is unless you procrastinate you can finish the match fast. I’ve done it with 3 pugs on my team with in 3min & 7sec.

After the last beta I feel like the ‘Rush’ strategy has gotten noticed, and subsequently countered pretty well. Personally I have seen a few guild groups try the strategy (which causes their own gates to get punished as well) only for them to wipe in the lord’s room to the NPCs and to 2-3 defenders. That in turn gets everyone there full supply to cause a massive NPC push that in the end, loses them the game.

Overall the mode is much better than before however…

- The doors could have a little bit more life to help stretch the games a bit more. My games ranged roughly between 6-9 minutes long, whereas Conquest maps typically go for around 10 minutes in a close matchup.

- Archers need to have a smaller leash to their lanes, I still see them go run over to the individual on the treb rather than press the lane to get the guards.

ReaperJr.5967:

Actually, after more testing, I realised the best way to kill a mesmer is to surprise burst him. I’ve been testing a new build with axe/shield gs with heightened focus and it has been working extremely well so far.

I have to agree.

We can’t do attrition against them, we have to take a ‘thief’ approach and wreck them in the first few seconds of the fight, preferably without them aware. They can’t get into kiting us because at that point we already lose (not enough active mitigation and gap closers to counter their kite).

What sucks about this is that the build we have to run to deal with mesmers, can get wrecked by other currently powerful builds like Burn Guardian or your typical D/D ele.

Simonoly.4352:

Mesmer is just the ‘newest’ of the current threats right now and therefore most likely to cause an emotional response which translates to rage kittens on various fora. But really, they just need to branch out with their hate a bit…….like me!

In WvW I had a Warrior dodge roll by me last week and I ate a 7.4K Reckless Dodge from that. Then I dodged a bunch of stuff but got hit by one hammer auto-attack for 4.1K. That’s more than half my health from a dodge roll and an auto-attack. It all felt very pre-ferocity and I hated that this could happen.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reckless_Dodge

Just outlining two things that make this story utterly unbelievable. I don’t even think full zerker with 25 stacks might could land a 7.4k Reckless Dodge, unless perhaps you were uplevel glass-cannon and I can’t consider that scenario likely or relevant.

Because:

Warrior dealt pretty well with Thief.
Mesmer dealt pretty well with Warrior.
Thief dealt pretty well with Mesmer.

Now:

Mesmer absolutely wrecks Warrior (tbf, Warrior is the worst 1v1er and solo roaming, but hey that’s never balanced…)
Mesmer has tools to deal with thief, but not completely as Stealth is a thing that needs a rebalance (Lock-on from engineers is not a real fix.)
Mesmer also got the most things made baseline which has caused massive ire from other professions.

…Also getting Aegis from PU sort of negates counter-playing Stealth. But hey that’s just my personal bias.

Need larger Resistance duration while using Demon Stance, its fine be a condition magnet to spread around but not when you don’t have enough to ensure you don’t get melted by those same conditions.

Also Demon Heal (if I did the numbers right) gets affected negatively by poison. Fix this please.

Staff 5 is pretty much the best skill.

Can’t say much for the auto-attack however…

Staff 2 could use more power, such as granting a 1 second daze plus the current weaken effect if you land Punishing Sweep correctly.

Staff 3 is a neat skill, maybe have it drop healing orbs during its duration?

Staff 4 needs to be mobile while channeling, perhaps it does damage at the end as well to foes?

That’s all I got.

Needs Work.

Which is obvious, but I still dig the profession’s concept and mechanics.

It’s a matter of making them competitive, right now it seems like there’s a huge skill cap with the energy management.

NvN.4321:

Hah July 7 notes. No tuning down mesmers. No changes to warrior mobility. I’ll take a huge break from warrior and just roll necro in spvp. It’s a disgrace what they made with warrior. It was the most balanced class always and ever in gw1 pvp. This here is just sad.

It’s funny you said necro since they just did preemptive nerfs for Reaper with the chill changes. Oh those poor guys…

…What’s got me worried is how ‘OK’ the mesmers are with the changes. Before we had a pretty nice (but obviously stupid) ‘paper-rock-scissors’ with Mesmers killing us dead, Thieves stabbing them hard, and us being not a priority target for thieves since we can fight back. Essentially there was a literal profession advantage going on, and now that things have shifted, Mesmers from the looks of it are having a fairly easier time with thieves than before. Never-mind the fact they still demolish us.

“Just play better, Warriors can beat mesmers just counterplay harder.”

I have tried so many things, both pre and post patch against good mesmers, against power and condition builds that they run. It is disgusting how many ‘outs’ they have, I could play optimally and land consecutive pressure and CC and they would still have 2 or more tools to disengage and either sit-back or punish me for it. When I deal with a thief, I can easily tell when he/she is attempting to go into stealth and stop them, with the sole exception of MI Mesmers have no real setup, or combos they have to perform to enter a state of invisibility. And given how they can engage from range (enabling kiting ability) compared to how thieves will more or less have to engage from melee?

It’s insane. Their profession at this point literally counters everything we do, or can do. It is up to how poorly the mesmer plays that determines if the Warrior wins.

“Oh but we aren’t played at top levels in SPvP tourneys. Thieves and Warriors fit those comps better.”

Well yea, because we have only ever had one SPvP competitive mode which doesn’t favor the Mesmer’s capabilities all too well. Yet we have seen Mesmers played competitively in a few of these tourneys, and we see them prevalent more now than ever before. Not to mention Stronghold which we have yet to see if it can become competitive. Given the mechanic differences, Mesmers will probably be seen more favored in competitive comps there.

We Warriors literally have Rampage keeping us around right now in SPvP, but overall we are slipping pretty kitten fast to the depths. I am just, so happy as you can tell.

Eh, overall given other things and issues with the warrior, GS viability in SPvP is probably the smallest dot on my radar. I certainly use it quite a bit everywhere else where it shines, I was simply making the mention that for the current SPvP modes like conquest and the soon to be Stronghold (which might see more GS use with the movement around the map being a priority rather than point contestion, pure speculation), the Greatsword isn’t all that versatile.

I suppose I came off a bit too critical though. I will say that Rush is definitely ‘sluggish’ and disjointed now.

So it’s been a bit more than a week.

How’s everyone feeling about mesmers now?

……I probably already have an idea though.

lighter.2708:

rush in PvP was never a good mobility skill, unless you are talking about wvw, game is not balanced around wvw balance…

At this point GS probably won’t see the light of day in competitive SPvP given the alternative superior builds and the current ‘types of SPvP’ and Map sizes.

GS would have to go under drastic (perhaps even breaking) changes to be used there, so effectively there’s no point in balancing it around SPvP. Thusly the alternatives are PvE which is its meta, and WvW in which if any balance changes like ‘adjusting # of targets hit’ are an indication, does get factored into balancing.

Purple Miku.7032:

Assuming this mobility nerf won’t ever be reverted, all that needs to be changed imo is to reduce the cast time of Rush to 1.5 seconds instead of 2 seconds, but keep the same distance traveled at 1200. The same should be done for any other movement skill for all other classes that travel a distance greater than 600 (by this I mean, reducing the cast times but keeping the distance traveled).

Pretty much this.

The distance covered won’t be quite the same as the swiftness effect pre-patch, but the speed will actually make the warrior Rush.

Though, I want to add that GS3 can stay as is, to keep the GS mobility from getting too high like before but making it more damaging since GS3 hits more for its smaller distance traveled.

….Then I think the only weak link on the GS is GS4 because projectiles are really really cool in this game.

Rampage could use maybe the slightest touch in damage reduced, but that’s it.

A large factor of why Rampage is doing so well is because of how the scene has gotten so glassy, and the fact a Rampaging warrior can take the burst from a glass cannon or two and then respond.

WTB ability to evade the blind.

Kthx.

Rampage is literally only killing everyone right now because Glass specs are ‘in’ right now, that is it. No other discourse is necessary, as things are still in flux with bunker-attrition builds being all but removed from SPvP (although some are attempting to make a comeback).

Rampage literally counters this fluxed-glass meta right now, as something like 40-50k life is a bit hard to blow up with 1 or even 2 zerkers. It has its perks, but it also has quite a few counters that would have been seen more in the previous meta that rendered it useless before. Blocks (unless the warrior is Arms traited and knocks you down to 50%), blinds, weakness, and torment literally cripple the rampaging warrior, and those few condition builds will laugh at the free win against one.

It’s easy to claim it is broken as it does its job against what is out there right now, but it could easily be said that all damage from all sources is a little bit too high right now, and stats like Toughness aren’t doing their job as they should.

Still not nearly as bunk as the previous meta, and Glass Cannons are still quite a bit stronger to walk around with these days in PvP. The amount of traits granting ‘%’ based increases in damage directly or conditionally increased thanks to merges and reallocations of traitlines.

If anything, Toughness needs just a slight push / buff to make things good, as in Toughness above 2.8k needs about a 10% more damage reduction.

Hello friends, acquaintances, and strangers!

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-kittenVP0f4oKkQ0;9;4dfh;0236036156;4Tw06n;16TsW6TsWN-kKNLX5-VYL8wV1X6Y9ZH4Ma6Z-870H;9;9;9;9;9;9;14N8o

Alright there’s the build, go have fun…
…

Wait what, oh right you probably want an explanation. Fine.

What I have devised and have been using even before last week’s patch is a sort of ‘Do it all’ build catered to what the Warrior does in melee, which is leaving a huge impact. I wanted to make a build that, regardless of solo, group or even zerg-fighting, it could play a role in all of those with..actually decent results.

Before the traits got reworked, I would often go around WvW seeking fights small or large and just go in, with the gear I had set-up I could easily take quite a few hits.

…Of course, back then I had used Dogged March and ran with Signet of Rage, but after the trait changes what was once a fairly fun and ‘duel-tastic’ build to play with, turned into something ridiculous! Let’s talk:

- First, this is an Attritionist/Bursty build. Knight’s Armor gives toughness at the cost of higher critical damage, meaning that unlike the current fluctuating meta of everyone running zerker, I choose to trait some of that critical damage to reduce thief Backstabs down a few thousand points. I admit, Power damage seems extremely appealing, but with everyone and their grandmother running such low health these days without any sort of armor…you tend to punish mistakes immediately. You do have to run with a bit of skill though as in if you know the openings of every single power burst build, you can retaliate and win pretty nicely.
- Conditions are your nightmare, I do not run Melandru or Lemongrass for no reason. Worst case scenario are Dire builds, a Dire SwSh/LB Warrior you probably won’t win against unless he plays poorly for instance. However, you aren’t completely helpless, as some of the more glassier condition builds you could win within the time-frame of a well-used Berserker Stance. Just don’t trust any miracles, and no you are not going to beat a Perplexity Mesmer, just don’t even ask me how. I do hope Burning gets toned down sooner though…

So why do I call it ‘Trick-Ham’? Kindly if you will scroll down to the Sigils. Notice how the Intelligence Sigil is on the Hammer while Axe has a Doom? Guess how many opponents will attempt to dodge your Eviscerate and leave themselves open from a Merciless Hammer/Intelligence/Impact Berserker Hammer? Try a hell of a lot of them.

While engaging the enemy, depending on who or what they are you are going to do your very best to lock them down with all sorts of CCs, you can go in with Hammer or Axe drawn, it doesn’t matter too much. Pressure them hard to bait their escapes, you want to set up the Hammer Burst, Hammer 5 into Hammer 2 for maximum pain, these three hits will end any low health, low toughness player except for a well-timed Deathshroud or a beefier Warrior. If they pop a breaker, keep up the pressure because:

1) If they were glass, they will have no choice but to pop a heal or disengage at a distance, meaning that when they re-engage you have Ax/Sh to back you up on top of Berserker Stance to immune their conditions or Defy Pain if somehow, they manage to get through you enough times to bring you that low.
2) If they were beefy, unless they are condition you and them will have a good back and forth.
3) If they are a Berserker Ranger with a Longbow, Press Shield 5 when you see the stream, and proceed to stomp them.

There are a bunch of other perks with this build that you can probably figure out on your own, but overall, this is what I have run around with quite a bit with a lot of success. Enjoy at your leisure! …And yes I will answer any questions, I do have a rationale for a lot of these.

I get what you are saying OP.

Targetting stunbreaks won’t work against taunt in this regard, there’s a potential it might be too strong once we see more of it on the field.

For now, I can’t say one way or another.