Guild Wars 2

This is difficult.

Right now two things need to happen with AM, it either needs to be buffed to make it favorable to run over BP with axe setups or it needs to be moved.

But I don’t see any strong traits in the Strength Tree that could take the GM slot, which leads to moving traits cross-trees and that’s something I would have to look into deeper to find a good balance (For example, flipping Axe Mastery and CI would be an insane nerf).

So…I got an idea.

Axe Mastery: Critical Axe hits gain extra adrenaline. Gain Might (10 seconds) for each Axe Skill used in combat. (ICD: 2 seconds) Reduce recharge on axe skills.

Originally I thought to not have an ICD, but then I suddenly remembered auto-attacks would count. With consistent might stacks coming in Axe might start competing (Might actually be really nice for PvE, PS gets a buff with GS / AxMc) in might stacking.

Just a couple of thoughts, honestly 150 Ferocity isn’t that great.

Honestly, we get wrecked the most in 1v1s against a mesmer, we don’t have enough active capabilities to negate what mesmers can do.

No offense, but any mesmers who lose against warriors probably misplayed terribly one after another. It takes quite a bit more luck to catch a mesmer in stealth as opposed to a thief.

EvilSardine.9635:

L2P issue for those that complain.

I duel hammer warriors running rampage on my engineer with ONE stun break and no stability and I still win. Just kite, use invis, blinds, blocks, dodges until it runs out.

This is true.

Blinds and Blocks are the real active counters against a Rampage, and right now with conditions ticking rather strongly you can pop condition burst after the first 6 seconds (if said smart Rampage Warrior pops healing Signet just before Rampage to negate condition effects) and that 50k goes down fast.

Treat it as a melee Lich Form with CC.

Doth thou anger consume you? Your allies die in mere seconds before your banner lands? Signet of Rage not grant you enough?

Rampage.

Right now, run it if you have any power in your strikes. It is so, so good to use in almost any situation.

50k health is a huge health bar to burn through, and with Melandru runes you are pretty much invincible until the full extent of a 25 man zerg focuses you only.

It is the Lich Form of Warriors right now with everyone running squishy glass builds, your auto-attacks and CC deal HEAVY damage to anyone and anything.

Run it, embrace it, love it. (Seriously though, Peak Performance makes this elite an absolute must.)

We are pretty much in the middle, don’t touch us!

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Alright, you guys know the drill! How are the changes so far? Either answer these questions for me or just talk about what you feel is important to mention for Warrior.

Specific questions:

1. Have you tried actually using healing signet for the resistance at all?
2. Have you found any builds that are extremely distinct in playstyle from builds before the patch?
3. Have you been able to have any success with shoutbow since the patch? It’s seemed like it has been having trouble with all the burst specs going around.

- Honestly, I been so trained not to pop the Healing Signet that I often forget how useful it can be in certain situations. I can think of at least…3 cases over the past couple days where it might have come in handy to winning a fight.
- My personal AxSh/Hammer build was buffed to an unbelievable degree. I don’t post it as I would rather it not get used against me, its pretty solid.
- Shoutbow isn’t what it used to be, and it has to do largely with Toughness not really doing a good job against power/condition buffs.

So, given at some point down the road Conditions are gonna get tweaked down a few notches (being a bit strong after all), overall I think we can all agree that melting each other has been more or less interesting.

For Glass cannons facing one another, the damage couldn’t be more perfect. Talk about the thrill of who makes the first mistake loses…my god its amazing.

For anyone running more bulkier builds though, seems like the damage is a little too high to warrant running any amount of toughness. Nothing says disregarding your 3000+ armor like being blown up in 2-3 shots rather than around 4-5, and that is rather disappointing.

BUT.

Let’s keep the direct power damage where it is, and bump up Toughness at higher levels. Change the formula, make it so a tankier spec can at least make 1 or 2 attempts (3 is a crowd) to turn around a fight against a glass cannon.

Yes, I am aware of 1 or 2 professions capable of doing this already (very specific builds in fact, I am looking at YOU Elementalists…actually I like you guys its always a fun fight against you) but there is kitten here overall.

…No, I do not want us to return to the previous meta of thre- erm I mean twenty minute long duels between bunker guardians. Rather, with the current state of damage and how much more impactful conditions are and the number of traits that amplified damage and utility, even a bump of about 10% more damage mitigation at higher toughness levels would help balance out more builds.

Just saying, I like things now since traits are extremely meaningful these days, but there’s a lot of work that could be done right now.

Thanks!

I was contemplating 06606 Rifle/SwSh build with Valk Armor and a mix of trinkets ranging from Zerker to knights, there needs to be a bit of toughness somewhere…

Signet Mastery, BladeMaster, Burst Precision
Shield Master, Defy Pain, Last Stand
Crack Shot, DotE, Heighted Focus

Rifle runs Air/Fire, Sword is Choice while Shield is Energy.

Giving thought to utilities as with Last Stand, Defiant Stance becomes useful though Healing Sig is hard to pass up.

This warrior is backline sniper in Roaming/Zerg, capable of blowing up anyone dropping to 50% or less with Signet Mastery’s Sig of Might Proc and Heightened Focus. The Sw/Sh is for defensive retreat although given the build’s nature melee isn’t necessarily bad while waiting for the weapon swap back to Rifle.

Arms is still tricky to work with though.

I take it all back.

I have been made aware of some ‘chat codes’ of certain pieces of gear, and well, I am extremely curious how it will blend with the ‘Berserker’ tag.

Not going to spoil anything here, if you really want to know the word will spread quickly I imagine.

So, I been giving this a lot of thought, since ‘Berserker’ doesn’t really tell us anything specific much like how ‘Forge’ is with Engineer.

Given the information we know about Specializations and how they ‘adjust’ the way we play our professions and from everything seen thus far, I am going to make an educated guess on what ‘Berserker’ means for us.

We are aware of how Dragonhunter, Chronomancer, and Reaper have their profession abilities tweaked or outright changed in their utility with the elite specializations, no?

Let’s assume then that the Warrior profession skill changes as well, let’s also assume Arenanet are clever at throwing us off ever since the reveal of Dragonhunter (Guardian with traps? Yea I think 1 person called it on a whim).

So..ahem.

Our Elite Specialization, on key with ‘Berserker’, gets a ‘Greataxe’ for a weapon.

However, it is not an actual weapon but the Greataxe IS our profession skill.

We build up Adrenaline, and when we activate our Greataxe it replaces what we are wielding with 5 new weapon skills catered to it, the Greataxe using the stats of our last equipped weapon as a base (Amplified of course, its the profession skill).

As we use the Greataxe skills we deplete Adrenaline regardless of hit or miss, however effects like Cleansing Ire which grant adrenaline when we get hit will still apply in this Berserker state. Weapon-swapping will take us out of the Greataxe form but keep the adrenaline at that level, but since it is our profession skill it carries an 8 second CD before we can activate it again.

So, this means we have three weapons, and our burst skill is us wielding a greataxe.

Boom.

Fairly minor character, and the conversation was quite subtle.

If there wasn’t already a whole ‘discourse’ with TG on the forums, no one would have really given any larger thoughts to the subject.

I like the change since it wasn’t implemented in an overbearing and forced manner.

Pretty sure using a weapon more leads balance devs to think either the weapon is too powerful or other weapons need boosting.

Spread the word and let players know Rifle is bad for Warrior, and to tell them to run a rifle for the stronger DPS.

Unless Rifle becomes the king of Ranged Burst (which it does not quite reach without more utility) it should hang on the mantles of our warrior homes.

Otokomae.9356:

What you linked there, as far as I can tell, is an article saying that GW2 is the 3rd most profitable B2P/F2P MMO on the planet (per user), making 3 times as much money per account as League of Legends! Was that part of your argument about how we should just pay the $50 and get on with it already?

Not really, I was more or less attempting to show just how little the average GW2 user will spend on GW2, how it measures up to other games and genres matters little to me.

Xeno Mezphy.3145:

Kudos for the source, though that does claim it’s per 12 months, so that’s more like $12 per user since launch (assuming constant numbers over the timeframe). I’m probably close to the $100 mark in total, but I wasn’t buying an additional character because I’ve never played an MMO before (with limited character slots) that didn’t give you a slot when a new class comes out. I’m sure it’s happened, but that doesn’t really make it terribly reasonable. It’s like a parking garage asking me to pay them to drive my new car into the lot and then once I’m inside making me pay for a parking spot.

It’s a bit of an stretch for an analogy but I can understand. I want to point out something however. Like you I am also probably over $100 as well put into this game, all of it in the hopes of funding a very good game that makes nearly all of its content free (Again, I’ll say that the Season 2 unlocks with Gems are a fee, but that’s content us veterans got as a perk for staying since the beginning and logging in). So when GW2 has given myself and many others thousands of hours of entertainment and fun, I can personally look at $50 for an expansion as nothing more than a minor thing, a character slot even less than minor, its trivial.

olTThreelo.6710:

It’s a shame that in today’s gaming community we still have people who pre-order and accept any price a gaming company asks of them without knowing if the game, or in this case, expansion is worth it. You are part of the problem, not the solution. Anet made a great game, but asking $50 for an expansion and not including even a character slot is too much and reason to move on. Don’t care about your core players, then I’m no longer going to support you or any company that treats it’s customers like they mean nothing more than $$$.

I’ve been around the block before, hearing things like this since early WoW. And I’ll say the same thing back then now. You don’t know how I value things so you can’t just say I am part of the problem. You can take that illicit high-horse and apply it elsewhere, my pre-purchase is not just a aimless money-sink, its also a sign of my faith in a company to deliver on their promises. I didn’t need to see the rest of the content after the Guild Halls to see $50 as being worth it, and if you have gotten to the point where you have lost faith in GW2 then there will be nothing I can say that will convince you otherwise.

For the record, this is probably the 3rd game I have pre-purchased or pre-ordered like this. And I have played a lot of games.

Xeno Mezphy.3145:

Sykper.6583:

…
That being said, I am going to stand firm against people who are complaining about the price, attempting to compare it to other games (including GW1) or demanding freebies when clearly all the content between Core and now has been cheap at the very most in cost, given the average player in GW2 might have spent something like $5 (I read this from an article somewhere, it was a comparison between MMOs). I still feel a bit down about the individuals without a case demanding some sort of entitlement for playing the game, and there have been quite a few of those that I have read.
…

You can’t support your points with evidence that you can’t cite. As far as I can tell you made that number up and used it to justify your perception. Anyway, technically your overarching point is correct. Time will fix all of those problems. Entropy is a hell of a drug. Regardless, if you’re going to denigrate people and try to use supporting evidence, at least make sure it exists before you post it.

Unfortunately, everyone is getting screwed on this, bar none. Every single person is now stuck behind some kind of paywall. New players will have to pay for old living story. Old players will have to pay for character slots. The hidden fees system of income generation that has been established is a bummer and will only make people trust Anet less. That, more than anything, is a terrible business move.

Found it, though I thought I read a different article than this one that was more recent but I don’t think the numbers would inflate or deflate by a terribly high amount (March 2014 from March 2013):

https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

It wasn’t $5 as I thought but $3.88 average per user.

New players paying for old living story isn’t a new thing, its one of the things we as Veterans get for sticking around for as long as we did. As for the character slot I can’t really say one way or another, I have had a free character slot for Revenant ever since it was announced, maybe Arenanet assumed more people would save a slot as well and didn’t factor in the concept of allocating a new slot for a new profession? Subjectively on the line for me but I can acknowledge if they do decide to grant that slot after the fact.

Like I said, the shenanigans were disappointing to say the least. And time will definitely help. Though, what the next move should be is a huge announcement that rivals or even beats out the Guild Halls one, like an in-depth description of what ‘Difficult PvE Content’ is and if it answers all our expectations. What really pushed me to getting the pre-purchase was that I fully expected Guild Halls to be maybe half of what I just saw from the trailer given how ‘on the side’ that project sounded like it was.

Seeing Arenanet pull through and then some with the Guild Halls raised the question whether or not they might have done something even more profound for the actual features of HoT.

Question Josh!

Can you confirm or deny if Warriors are going to be ‘Guns a-blazing’ in HoT?

:D

Given a lot of thought on the whole debacle.

Honestly, there are only a few good points and criticisms I can accept from those against the pricing:

- Not enough information to make the purchase
- Not enough cash on hand

These are really the only two excuses, and ultimately both are solved with time. The pre-purchase is simply setting yourself up for HoT early so you don’t get caught in line at the retail when it launches for real. It makes sense to want to see more information, or start saving up money now rather than feel pressured to buy like so many people continue to harass and suggest.

I’ll be honest, at first I felt an immense disappointment in the community, I was dumbfounded on why so many people were complaining when they knew for months the expansion would be paid, and many at that time complained about the hypothetical pricing and what it would be at. I suppose I expected more people to be adequately prepared to make the pre-purchase and be thrilled about things moving forward.

I don’t doubt many of you who aren’t making the purchase fall under the above catagories, and I can definitely agree on those two points of contention.

That being said, I am going to stand firm against people who are complaining about the price, attempting to compare it to other games (including GW1) or demanding freebies when clearly all the content between Core and now has been cheap at the very most in cost, given the average player in GW2 might have spent something like $5 (I read this from an article somewhere, it was a comparison between MMOs). I still feel a bit down about the individuals without a case demanding some sort of entitlement for playing the game, and there have been quite a few of those that I have read.

Overall, I can’t say I am too happy with the shenanigans, but at least I have made my pre-purchase already, and given what I saw from the Guild Halls trailer, if everything else beyond that is going to be that kind of quality then $50 is a terrific deal.

Yep, feel perfectly fine actually, thanks for asking!

Turns out paying for something like an expansion to a game that was giving out free content before isn’t really hurting my wallet.

Honestly though if anything is getting on my nerves, its how close this situation was to when Burning Crusade was announced ‘price-wise’. Good news is that people will buy the expansion regardless despite their ‘almost entitled’ whining.

If this is all that is being fixed, I am ok then.

But so help me if we get nailed hard, I will find a way to invoke a new Greatsword skill called Slap and hit everyone from here to Magumma Jungle.

These are going to pop up everywhere huh?

The expansion is $50 regardless of new or veteran players. The new players will have an opportunity to join the rest of us veterans by purchasing HoT for the full price which comes with a ‘Free’ core game. It would be really unfair for the new players if they charged $20 on top of $50 for the expansion.

Drakonath.7096:

Why is the core game included in the HoT Xpac? That means everyone who’s been playing since launch and helped support the game from the start is paying extra when compared to someone who just preordered HoT right now. This makes no sense ?

Making the people who believed in this game from the start pay more is a slap in the face honestly

There needs to be a different offer for players who already have an account. Or else we should be able to purchase each tier of the Xpac Preorder minus the cost of the core game.

Can’t believe they pulled something like this

Or, it could be that the expansion itself is $50, but in an attempt to attract new players the core game comes ‘free’ to them if they bought the expansion at the same price as the rest of us.

It’s a common marketing and economic tactic that works wonders, not a single quality MMO hasn’t done something like this before.

skowcia.8257:

Gryph.8237:

Dev’s love engies, eles, Warriors, and guardians. in contrast they hate Necros. Rangers are loved but still not top tier.

Engi is definitely #1 on love list. But warrior? He got nerfed.

Wasn’t just a ‘slap on the wrist’ either, we straight up got kidney-punched.

Whatever was left of Rifle is gone now (Mobile Strikes shared) and from what the wording on our Burst skills suggest, both share the same cooldown (meaning no back to back bursts)!

Someone throw in the white towel! TKO! TKO!!

WE HAVE BUT ONE HOPE.

Calling it now, our specialization involves Pistols, and that traitline specifically promotes guns both small and large!

CLEARLY, clearly that is why they made Rifle worth less than dirt! Because its going to be SO broken when we get that traitline!

….I can only dream.

Aomine.5012:

Yeah trait revamp will be coming in a week or two. I’m totally going to drop Disp and go for the new Strength, Arm, and Tactic. (20% dps after using burst skill? count me in please! ) Add that with the classic Arm, Tactic Phanlanx Strength, I can expect many people give-up fast-hand for that. It’s nice to finally have a high dps Phanlanx Strength build. People are exaggerating the 9 sec CD swap because all the other classes (except maybe engi?) have to adapt to this. Currently Warrior use FH to trigger 4 sigils, switch weapon to blast for mights, and gain free Adrenaline through swapping, and relying on adrenaline to cleanse too. That’s why it’s most used in PVP. But in PVE this feature is not really needed.

It’s…possible after the revamp that Arms might be taken up as the Phalanx Build if it can beat out Str, Tac, Disc. Precise Strikes / Attacks of Opportunity, Berserker’s Fury, Rending Strikes, and the Arms Grandmaster (would it be Burst Precision or the new Furious? I can see Furious for the Adrenaline Gain to max out for a full 3 bar synergy with Berserker’s Power in Strength.) would end up competing with All three of the Discipline Minors (Which have synergy with Strength and Tactics on their own), and the Discipline Grandmaster (Burst Mastery is probably the correct choice to keep up the Adrenaline to compete.)

It can’t be crunched right now, but just from the Weapon-swapping Versatile Power in Discipline will probably take the might-stacking crown away from what you suggested. What the damage between the two specs will come down to testing which I HOPE is in 2 weeks, but I could see it being the end of this month going into July.

Aomine.5012:

Sykper.6583:

silentnight warrior.2714:

Aomine.5012:

Sykper.6583:

Hello friends!

Please do not give the OP any more attention than he needs, aside from the extreme profession bias towards Warriors and Elementalists (He’s been over there too) the threads listed are simple Warrior balance discussions among us of the profession. Many of us in those threads have already vouched our opinions on what has merit or not (CI minor? Oh lord that’s horribly imbalanced, no thank you).

Thank you for your understanding.

Haha, I actually posted in all professions threads. I have only responded 2~3 threads in Ele and Warrior during this month, and suddenly you think I’m specifically targeting Warrior and Ele.. LOL

While many people cry for a nerf to thief and ranger, Warrior actually go the other way round of asking for more buffs than ever. They misunderstand the reason of why Anet makes things baseline. Anet makes things baseline because some skills are TOO WEAK without the trait, but Warrior is actually pushing the best traits to be baseline because every warrior uses it, it’s too good not to use it! It’s killing our diversity!" The funny thing is every professions have the same problem if they want to be top tier efficient in PVP. So does that mean every professions should get everything that’s too good not to pick as baseline? Is that what you guys want?

The bold lines are very interesting.
The answer is there.

There’s that, hilariously ironic catch.

I also want to know one other thing:

- Prior to the trait revamp, is there any other profession out there which consistently uses a single 4/6 point traitline in all their viable builds? All of them, across all modes in this game?
- If there is a profession and a line other than the Warrior Discipline, can you tell me how much you enjoy having to go into that line? Be honest.

Yep, no-one runs CI in PVE as Warrior. So it’s not going to be baseline or minor.

Fast-hand is not needed too in any PVE content, just that the ferocity bonus is nice. Post patch ferocity is going to be removed from discp, so no need to pick disp either. I can play Strength, Arms and Tactic post patch as GS War no problem. So fast-hand not needed as baseline now because it’s not all game mode and not all Warrior builds right??

Agreed on CI, Defense is primarily orientated towards taking hits (which leads us to why its abundant in PvP/WvW).

FH not being used in your argument implies that 0-2 points would be put into Disc for a build. Too bad it’s extremely critical in many a PvE Warrior build which says to me you are blowing hot air.

Right now, before the trait revamp, Warriors are forced into Discipline in all viable builds, ALL of them. This is where it gets really funny, because this means Discipline as a whole is better than any other line we have out of sheer utility, it has a use everywhere unlike our soon to be revamped Arms line. That’s scary in a lot of ways, because it means we won’t see too many changes once the revamp hits, unless we do something about this tree alone Warriors are going to get stale fast.

silentnight warrior.2714:

Aomine.5012:

Sykper.6583:

Hello friends!

Please do not give the OP any more attention than he needs, aside from the extreme profession bias towards Warriors and Elementalists (He’s been over there too) the threads listed are simple Warrior balance discussions among us of the profession. Many of us in those threads have already vouched our opinions on what has merit or not (CI minor? Oh lord that’s horribly imbalanced, no thank you).

Thank you for your understanding.

Haha, I actually posted in all professions threads. I have only responded 2~3 threads in Ele and Warrior during this month, and suddenly you think I’m specifically targeting Warrior and Ele.. LOL

While many people cry for a nerf to thief and ranger, Warrior actually go the other way round of asking for more buffs than ever. They misunderstand the reason of why Anet makes things baseline. Anet makes things baseline because some skills are TOO WEAK without the trait, but Warrior is actually pushing the best traits to be baseline because every warrior uses it, it’s too good not to use it! It’s killing our diversity!" The funny thing is every professions have the same problem if they want to be top tier efficient in PVP. So does that mean every professions should get everything that’s too good not to pick as baseline? Is that what you guys want?

The bold lines are very interesting.
The answer is there.

There’s that, hilariously ironic catch.

I also want to know one other thing:

- Prior to the trait revamp, is there any other profession out there which consistently uses a single 4/6 point traitline in all their viable builds? All of them, across all modes in this game?
- If there is a profession and a line other than the Warrior Discipline, can you tell me how much you enjoy having to go into that line? Be honest.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Sykper.6583:

Another thing I forgot to mention was Taunt, which will be another condition to be coming out of the woodwork. The same arguments apply to taunt like they did slow, we don’t know how prevalent or how many professions have it, but if it is out there, it can ruin a disengage outright. We will have to see..

Taunt is not a condition. Seriously, why do people keep saying this? It’s a control effect like Stun or Daze. Condition duration will have zero effect on it and Runes of the Trooper cannot help you out of it.

Whoops!

Yep, just checked the wiki, I made a large error and I apologize.

I still believe Taunt will have an effect though, in fact if it runs in the same vein as Stuns and Dazes, with Stability as it is now it could be more impactful as I were under the impression Resistance would resist it but it will NOT.

Hello friends!

Please do not give the OP any more attention than he needs, aside from the extreme profession bias towards Warriors and Elementalists (He’s been over there too) the threads listed are simple Warrior balance discussions among us of the profession. Many of us in those threads have already vouched our opinions on what has merit or not (CI minor? Oh lord that’s horribly imbalanced, no thank you).

Thank you for your understanding.

Sorry got delayed in giving a response back a bit ago-

Harrier.9380:

Sykper.6583:

If my thoughts are right about this, Slow might be an even bigger danger to leaps than Chill or Cripple ever were since movement skills are now forced to move the same distance rather than a reduced one.

That’s still pretty big IF. Maybe they’ll be immune to slow as well.
And if not, it still remains to be seen how many classes will actually be able to apply it.

I extremely doubt it, purely based on how Slow works. All animations like Savage Leap or RTL take time to finish going their distance, Quickness will speed up the animation and distance achieved (hence you go the same distance faster).

Slow is the opposite, where you will still be going the full distance but at half speed. That means that the overall rate of which the leaper is moving with a slow is cut in half, so that means in the instance of say a Warrior’s Rush which moves 1200 units over its 2 second channel, will be going 1200 units in 3 seconds (Slow applies 50% animation increase).

You do have a good point, we don’t know who else will have Slow other than Chronomancers, but at least from one angle, WvW, and even so far as SPvP, I would be surprised to NOT see them being used to ensure enemies do not make a break for it.

Lord Kuru.3685:

I was wondering whether slow would affect movement skills. If so, then it’s likely Anet’s “let’s make a new condition that has enormous overlap with current conditions” forced them into this in order to make the new condition more unique (and to push people to get HoT).

Looks like really bad/lazy development to me

Yes and no. Thinking back to the original design of boons and conditions it likely seemed a bit imbalanced to have things like Quickness exist but not Slow. What I see from the changes going forward is an ‘ease to balance’. For instance, we already have traits that increase ranges on certain abilities or weapon skills or the like. With swiftness being a sort of ‘broken’ way to disengage or engage with a long distance using leaps, adding a trait that would boost a leap range would upset everything.

Now that swiftness, cripple and chill no longer affect Movement skills, not only can leap skills perhaps see a new trait come out to help, but since the numbers will always be stagnant, balancing becomes so much more impressive.

AKA, when this launches, if things like Warrior Rush show to be going just a bit too far, they can tweak the range and the channel time to be less and boom, instant balance. It could be considered lazy, but it can also be considered practical from a balance standpoint.

Another thing I forgot to mention was Taunt, which will be another condition to be coming out of the woodwork. The same arguments apply to taunt like they did slow, we don’t know how prevalent or how many professions have it, but if it is out there, it can ruin a disengage outright. We will have to see..

Choppy.4183:

I disagree with where you landed with FH because it doesn’t deal with the more pressing build diversity issue, but your EtP fix at least reduces the dependency on Defense which does helps a bit.

I have high hopes for the physical skills, personally. They’ve made them into a solid alternative to shouts and stances, and should provide a viable path to skip both Healing Signet and Cleanisng Ire too (especially if EtP actually dies go baseline). Hell, even Rampage may see more use outside of PvP.

And the small changes to Signet Mastery may even give us another good utility choice.

True, they didn’t change much about how warrior works and wet still a highly telegraphed class, but the payoff if you can work within that seems in balance when compared to less obvious classes.

I actually think Anet’s done a very good job overall with their changes. Just a couple of tweaks would be great to help the diversity problem.

More or less, I am thinking about how massively expanded other professions (Mesmers, Thieves, Elementalists) gained with their revamped core lines compared to us and in some regard, Necromancers and Engineers (Those poor souls).

With concern to build diversity, my suggestion for Disc was simply a direct nerf to the line, in anticipation that somewhere down the road Strength and Arms might see some sort of benefit that would override the competing FH or Burst Mastery.

The more I reflect upon it, with 3 full trait lines I think it would be extremely unlikely to see any viable warrior build not run Disc (Even if there was an Rabid-based build where Arms, Defense, and Tactics would seem like the right choice, I think overall the build being created there would give up Arms or Tactics for Disc).

BUT, its all up in the air, as we aren’t even aware of what sort of Specialization is in store for our profession. I am extremely curious about what they come up with…

— The following suggestions go by the Specialization AMA trait reveal —

1) CI and Embrace the Pain split once more, Embrace the Pain goes Baseline

When you hit things, you get adrenaline, when you get hit by things you get adrenaline. That sounds about right, and given the previous utter decimation of Adrenaline out of combat by the last time it was touched, having something like this will be an absolutely nice buff that doesn’t really extend too far. From an aesthetic stand-point, someone punches you and you should feel something build up. From a balancing stand-point, it takes away a part of CI that made it so kitten appealing.

Certainly, the condition clear is all too real on it, but that’s only due to the fact that other lines don’t have that kind of condition clear with Mending being well, so-so.

That being said…

2) Fast Hands becomes Grandmaster Major, Brawler’s Recovery becomes Master Minor, Merciless Hammer becomes Master Major.

Yep, Fast Hands and Burst Mastery are now a choice between the two. Honestly, this one was tough to sort out but ultimately something has to go. At least with this sort of change Merciless Hammer gets a nice bump from what the devs came up with.

— End of suggestions —

The thing is, with all the changes coming out really soon the meta and professions will be in a flux for months. However, what has me worried about the Warrior profession is that although there will be a specialization coming out and quite a few merged traits…

…Our core specializations aren’t giving us any real new tricks. Save the ‘yet to be tested’ physical skills, Warriors are looking to be very similar to how we work now once the trait changes go through, and that’s BAD. We are already predictable and our combos and capabilities are known almost instinctively at this point, so if we stay the same while every other profession grows further…

You know. This is the big problem with these kinds of announcements with long breaks in between. The movement and condition one today SHOULD have been coupled with the announcements of ‘Slow’ and ‘Resistance’.

…Why do I bring up those two? Clearly because if Movement Skills like Leaps were to remain as is with the release of Slow, then every single one would have been garbage-tier useless to even attempt. What we have here, is the dis-connect of information and everything not being brought together.

Barring the fact that we will be getting a new profession and new specializations.
Barring the fact that we will be getting a reworked trait system.

Just the new condition and new boon alone would ruffle anyone’s feathers. I am putting my bets down on the fact that Slow will do the job both Cripple and Chill did towards movement skill animations. Units closed or opened mattered in some manner, but the biggest reason why Cripple and Chill were so effective was that while doing the movement skill under either one you were also subsequently ‘moving’ slower.

If my thoughts are right about this, Slow might be an even bigger danger to leaps than Chill or Cripple ever were since movement skills are now forced to move the same distance rather than a reduced one.

Besides, Resistance would have made Chill and Cripple pointless anyways. There is just so much going on I don’t think anyone can really criticize until we see what actually breaks apart in a negative manner.

Going to echo ‘Bomber Suicide’, that’s a critical incentive for middle supply to be all the more enticing and for more fights to break out.

Elite Skills and channeling is fairly broken at the moment. I would recommend elite skills preventing channeling rather than damage breaking it, CC would still be a thing.

I feel like the door guards are still a bit low on the health pool despite not doing anything to anyone but the bombers, maybe extend their health a touch more…

I would provide more feedback, but ultimately the meta isn’t quite set in stone yet. Rushing through gates though is really killing the ‘PvP’ aspect at this time.

nicknamenick.2437:

BlackTruth.6813:

This guy is literally crying about Necro GS? They don’t have evades, they don’t have mobility, they have higher casting times, they are ALL-IN.

GS Warrior atm is fine tbh, it’s just that the lack of creativity and mechanics on the Warrior forums is ridiculous.

And this guy can’t read, if you have read my topic you would have also read this:

(not saying Necro GS skills are better due.. just find it lame its 170 range compared to the REAL weapon master warrior..)

So blacktruth dont reply with this or why not go back to your stream.. i also remember something you said about necro.. evade spam? wassnt it?

Disclaimer: I am not eluding the silly points Blacktruth made, he might have a few things wrong (I feel bad for Necros and their lack of Vigor), but I will stay on his side for Greatsword because it already fulfills a role.

But Nick, I do appreciate many of your ideas for warrior, but I must object to your reasoning. Compared to Guardian and Mesmer, I personally feel our greatsword is at an appropriate place for what we do. In fact, the only facet of our Greatsword that could use some love would probably be GS4, the projectile is absurdly a failure. Everything else, including our improved burst, is much more in-line with a warrior’s speed with a greatsword.

…This is all regardless of his claims of Necromancer /evade…of which I spent about an hour on the floor laughing about. Even idiots can be correct for once.

Depends on how patient you are.

Honestly, its a blessing that we can actually convert in-game currency to a means to server transfer! Even if the exchange rate right now is rather high, it is still something that could be worked towards like everything else in this game.

Greek.4396:

It Reminds me of Dark Souls, so noo, I like the scythe

Oh you mean those enemies with the absurdly long reach that is just outside your halberd’s range?

Yes, yes I loved those so much…

Pointless to compare.

Ultimately, Warrior GS both thematically and mechanically gives us what we want from a Greatsword. Mobility and Damage. Fighting against a GS warrior gives everyone the natural assumption that they will take a bit of heat from faster swings and sudden onslaught Whirlwind Blade (with an actual F1 finisher).

Necromancer GS does not even compare with mobility, however again, it shares that same ’Don’t be next to that guy swinging that sword around’ feel. Instead, with necromancers being as slow as they are, they compensate by being able to make their enemies as slow as them ala chilling them to the bone. They also command the dead to bring their soon to be reaped closer.

Both are, as far as I can tell, fine weapons for their respective professions.

However Juba made a good point, Warrior GS being able to cleave 5 probably wouldn’t be such a bad change.

I actually think it is fairly reasonable.

The pole and scythe itself are extremely thin, thinner than the staffs in this game.

Not to mention being an embodied death god, you are allowed some luxury in your tool for reaping.

Rym.1469:

JonPeters.5630:

• Time Marches On – You move 25% faster. The duration of incoming movement-impairing conditions is reduced by 25%. (Cripple. Chilled, Immobilize)

Adept

• Delayed Reactions – Interrupting a foe slows them. (3s of Slow)

Master

• Danger Time – Gain additional critical hit chance against slowed enemies. (30%)

Grandmaster

• Lost Time – Every 3rd critical hit will slow your target. (2s of Slow)

What the hell, ANet?

I mean, Greatsword perma slow, perma bonus 30% crit chance without fury and interrupts giving slow as well? And enchanced Dogged March and Traveler runes as a MINOR?

How am I supposed to fight this?

Comparing traits of Dragonhunter and Chronomancer…. The gap is so incredible that…aa..eh…

Oh its ok man.

Pretty sure everyone will get wrecked by Mesmers, we are all in the same boat!

I actually can’t think of a more balanced profession in terms of how well it moves around than the Warrior.

Hell, if any profession should get looked at for Mobility issues, then Necromancers are the top of my list, and that’s because I have watched slugs move faster.

Going to lend my support for the prospect of the larger scale 15v15+ combat.

However.

I am going to place some concerns and issues that I have with making it a reality. Many of the ‘naysayers’ have brought up relevant points that I hope those who want it to happen can address, while there are other thoughts I have come up with that probably need to be addressed as well. Ultimately, I would love to see full guilds compete, but looking at it from a larger scope, I see more flaws than just ‘popularity’ come into play:

- Cost: Gold? Gems?

Honestly, a big factor here is cost. If this were to pan out as we want, this ‘GvG’ type of arena would be a mode separate from WvW, PvE and SPvP. Why? Because it fits neither of those types, meaning that it would have to be an entirely new system put into the game just to fully allow the game-type to flourish. If we want expansive, competitive GvG on a large scale, it would be separate from all the rest.

That takes time and resources, and even if there were say, 100 guilds spanning all the versions of GW2 actively participating with 20+ competitors, that is only at least 2,000 players total that would take up the scene. Personally, that number might be a bit small for the actual number of guilds who might be interested but my point still stands, the game-mode is not at all the majority, it probably will never match the other game-types. Which means that in order to compensate for the resources put into that game-mode, it will come out of the pocket of A-Net in the hopes that the guilds who actually WANT the mode to prosper will sink in either gold or gems to do so. And this number won’t be a laughing matter, I would not be surprised if to create a 15v15 arena for a month cost 2000g with something like 60g a day purchases (Go ahead, do the gem conversion).

- Toxicity: Try putting 30+ people in a room and not leave a bad impression.
Anyone who has gone into SPvP or WvW…and in some cases any high-profile PvE map can attest that Elitism, although it can inspire players to better themselves, often will lead to back and forth vile spewed from the nether. Now imagine if the elite got together to pummel each other into oblivion, without any sort of group organization or professionalism involved? You got yourself a way to ensure no one ever wants to come play Guild Wars 2 because their first impressions of the game from watching that one 15v15 go sour gave them the answer.

That can’t happen. I actually have a simple fix for this, because of how bad it can turn out to be. For every 5 players on a team, only one of them can speak during any match. Yep, 3 people in a 15 man guild team can chat while the rest are muted. Which should be fine, 3rd party communications are essentially the backbone of these fights. But I must insist that not only can the team’s be mostly restricted, but the toxicity be toned down quite a bit. Reserve yourselves for the ‘locker room’ if you will.

- Mechanics? Cameras? Are there Llamas?
There will be no llamas (I can presume) however I do want to address another point. How can spectators actually keep track of what is going on? Fortunately, that previous point I made with the restrictive chat also comes into play here. Given the example prior with 1 player per 5 having chat active, that player also will act as a camera for the fight. Alongside a few stationary cameras to view the entire complex of insanity that happens with everyone shooting off everything at once.

One of the biggest hurdles I imagine for this game-mode aside from cost will be how to cater it to spectators in a fashion that makes it clear on what is going on. If this were ever to take off as an ‘E-Sport’ which many of you disagree with but can serve as a platform to illustrate how amazing GW2 is to potential customers, then it should not be terribly bogged down. Is it the job of the shoutcasters? The Cameras?

There is one other thing that needs to be addressed. I mentioned before that this does not fit any of the other game-types. That means that it will be its separate entity, which means that players who go into this mode will not be actively participating in the other modes. Do you understand what I am implying by this? There is not just a gold/gem cost here…

My final query is how do you intend to address the cost of players from the other game-modes that move straight to this one?

choucs.4507:

rotation is not everything, both builds are easy to pick up, hard to master

Also warrior’s fun factor has always been determined by the enemy skill level.
because warrior itself doesnt have any cool trick, only reacting to enemy cool tricks make warrior fun.

I can’t even emphasize this enough.

The thing about warriors is that while facing them they do in fact have a lot of power right out there, you know exactly what every warrior will be like essentially at any skill level.

Playing the Warrior is a different story, you are given a set of powerful skills, and you have to somehow make them work against just about anything. And there are times where there is feasibly no way you can work around it. That’s why there’s a huge disconnect with the community sadly enough.

With the livestream a bit ago talking about how ‘Physical Skills effectiveness is affected by endurance’ we might start seeing an actual change in how Warriors play, in terms of depth and tricks.

I am hopeful.

nicknamenick.2437:

Sykper.6583:

I wouldn’t say that, as from my understanding the physical skills only get buffed when your endurance is at 50% or more, whereas Stick and Move relies on not having full endurance.

Ergo, I assume Warriors can have both traits working if they float their endurance at a single dodge, but not two. Ala, good warriors will attempt to keep that single dodge available anyways and not needlessly bring themselves down under 50% unless kitten hits the fan.

It is fine to look at what negatively impacts us, but taking a step back and looking at just how much we gained (which is still TBD, it can change!) I can have a bit more optimism now.

Yeah but if you dodge 1 time your at 50% does that still counts for physical skill (as 50% AND above or 50% above)

Btw i aint complaining that we dont get enough but these 2 just sounds so opposite in a bad way

@Zietlogik.6208 sorry i changed my topic text so its more understandable.

I believe it was stated 50% and above, but when you dodge you will get a single tick of endurance which will ensure it stays above 50%.

It would have to be tested when it releases.

hobotnicax.7918:

But who in their right mind would trade Dogged march for Shield master.
As Juba said above, replacing Thick skin (or just removing it cause no one uses it) with Dogged march would be wise. You either use Adrenaline health or Dogged march for your minor, regen vs. condi dur reduction seems logical to me.

I am thinking there might be something going on with Mending Builds that might sway things out of Dogged March.

I am more concerned about whether or not Armored Attack will see use, maybe in PvE but eh.

I wouldn’t say that, as from my understanding the physical skills only get buffed when your endurance is at 50% or more, whereas Stick and Move relies on not having full endurance.

Ergo, I assume Warriors can have both traits working if they float their endurance at a single dodge, but not two. Ala, good warriors will attempt to keep that single dodge available anyways and not needlessly bring themselves down under 50% unless kitten hits the fan.

It is fine to look at what negatively impacts us, but taking a step back and looking at just how much we gained (which is still TBD, it can change!) I can have a bit more optimism now.

Man, you got a point…

It should have been AoE Llama transformation.

fellyn.5083:

BlackTruth.6813:

The bad players get to have their wish. That’s all I have to say.

What is that even supposed to mean? You have supplied literally no context.

Don’t put any thoughts into what he says.

So, saw the stream, essentially every profession got completely tweaked and buffed meaning the meta will be adrift for a time. Some of these traits are insane and we get to go down three full lines? Color me impressed.

Before I even go into traits, Mending and Healing Surge are actually seeing some love, with Mending being a physical skill and coupling it with the ‘Physical Skills are more effective when you are at 50% or higher Endurance’ are we going to see some actual depth with healing at times? How much more effective will Mending be? If it turns into an actually decent heal we will start seeing builds that do not take Cleansing Ire anymore and actually be viable! I actually think I recall some of these healing changes being discussed months ago as well by us, so I want to believe they listened! Healing Surge being a shout I believe puts it as the ‘go-to’ in shout builds, as that 20% reduction is huge for its HPS over the course of a minute! Healing Signet changes I am still pondering. Oh and naturally Defiant Stance users now have to take Last Stand and go into Defense Tree with that automatic Spiked Armor, mmhmm.

So, Berserker’s Power was made to give its effect for a duration while you continue to use a burst skill, I will be dancing in place for a moment as this trait prior completely reduced our options in combat for active gameplay. Heck, 20% increase in damage for 10 seconds? That’s going to be used in some PvP builds too (Condition ones have Improved Distracting Strikes, lololol)!

Honestly, I could spend all day coming up with potentially viable builds that work in all circumstances.

I will say that PvE builds for Warrior as a whole probably won’t see too much of a shift until we know the specifics for how HoT PvE encounters work. Ultimately, all the changes we see for these trees will revolutionize the PvP/WvW metas, I am so completely pumped.

These are my favorite posts. Mhmm~

kdaddy.5431:

I honestly can’t help but chuckle at people who think this is better than conquest. A few things if I may.

1) We’re going backwards build-wise:
At what point is playing only defense or offense with similar types of builds a good thing? I understand that people trying to learn how to play high-risk, high-reward builds which sucked for them because 90% of the gw2 players aren’t even any good at pvp. I can just see people coming up with pure bunker characters again to defend and pure dps characters to kill npc mobs.

This is literally the first day of public testing. You do not know exactly how the builds will turn out in the end, people are still trying to grasp even the most fundamental concepts of the map like the mechanics, timers, gate health, lord health, etc.

Unless you are psychic or perhaps can see into the future in which case I question why you would be on a gaming forum posting and not solving crimes and saving the world or something to that regard. But I am going to assume you are neither.

kdaddy.5431:

2) PvP strategy?
I’ve had a few matches go the distance and I sit there and wonder how, simply because everyone who tried to 1 vs 1 me lost. The thing bothering me the most is it is not pvp anymore, its who can play the role best. It’s no longer who can hold points longer or win a fight it is about who ran the npc quicker with the better escort. You have all these people talking lack of builds and here we go back to more traditional trinity system mostly because people weren’t very good at pvp so this makes it simple.

What bothers me about this part is that you seem to define PvP, if I am reading this correctly, as what Conquest is, and is only. If you think PvP should only be about who holds the points better then of course you are going to be confused about the PvP map, it is an entirely new PvP mode. That means there will be new builds, new strategies, an entirely new kitten Meta associated with this PvP game-type.

Just because it does not fit what you are so accustomed to does not mean it is not PvP. What’s hilariously worse is that you complain about who can play the role best, yet I am fairly certain that idea in of itself was the entire IDEA of Conquest too! Who roams better? Who bunkers better? That’s what PvP IS. And once again, more ‘clairvoyant’ conjecture on how the builds will turn out. Good news friend, some of the current meta-builds in Conquest work quite well here!

kdaddy.5431:

3) It’s neat:
I will say it is fun at times but I also find deathmatch fun and wished for a few more maps for that. What impressed me most about this game was that it did take skill, understanding what to dodge and what attacks were coming as well as watching my opponents boons/auras. Now I find myself either running back and forth to to grab a npc or escort a npc to fight a npkittenill a players comes over to stop me.

And the end of all that is this really what the gw1/lol/moba players in gw2 looking for? The guys who prefer that style of pvp with the freedom of the gw2 style of fighting? Its a fun side game but seriously it doesn’t show the same ability or skill as conquest. You will have people literally do the same thing the whole match and be pounding their chests because they run faster to supply and then avoids fights to help elsewhere which can be good strategy if we were fighting other people as oppose to npc.

I truly hope we get another map for this cause it’s fun but pray to lyssa that this doesn’t become the “it” thing for pvp.

I uh…was having fun attempting to make the post more readable for my eyes, but that line I italicized made me do a double-take and I skipped over it. I think I got the gist though.

Here’s the thing, a lot of the things you are complaining about seem very hypocritical for one reason. That is the fact that you are attempting to compare Stronghold to Conquest, and Conquest itself has got the same issues you are talking about Stronghold with. Allow me to illustrate: “Conquest isn’t even real PvP! It is all about who has the more bunkered classes, and who has the better roamer, its not even balanced! People won’t even fight half the time cause they are going for the capture points!”

I noticed you talked about how much you liked Deathmatch, and you definitely are not the only one who enjoys that mode. In the purest sense Deathmatch is probably the least ‘objective-based’ mode of them all, it is literally whoever kills more wins. Of course there are a few issues with it that I won’t get into here, but it is a different steed than either Conquest or Stronghold.

Ha, its funny because that would put it in line with Healing Signet, the Ratio would be extremely nice for Warriors who want to build into Healing Power for support builds.

Pretty sure that idea was tossed way back when to, or at least when Warriors didn’t have any sort of relevant power in the game. Good ol days.

This one again? Ngh, just gonna paste an idea for Rifle that would really help the Warrior overall in the long run:

“One idea would be Powerful Banners and Leg Specialist Swap, Tactics will get a 3rd trait for banner build, and Rifle gets a much needed trait in Strength tree.”

On a different note, I am still thinking that the rifle has the potential to be the best ranged weapon a Warrior has for PvP Power builds if they tweaked the numbers more. I don’t think we will see it outclass the LB in PvE, but as long as it is used SOMEWHERE, I would be happy.

Knighthonor.4061:

with 10 vs 10

break down of group:
1 on Treb
2 of Lord Defense
2 on Supply run
1 on Mist
1 on NPC escort/Horn finder
3 on offense push

thats fits for Stronghold map well.

Here’s the thing though, if you set up a PvP mode where your team can adequately attack or defend all objectives, it becomes a touch stale. Scarcity leads to strategy, if you brought that number down from 10 to 8 people, you will end up forcing actual Rotations much like what occurs at high rank play in Conquest, you create a better avenue not just for player skill but team skill!