I cannot believe we waited three months for this. If those were the highlights of the patch, this is going to be the biggest disappointment for Warrior ever. As if we haven’t had enough disappointment for the last three years.
My god, the disappointment is so real. I just wasted 45 minutes of my life for the most underwhelming Warrior preview ever.
If those were the “highlights,” they ignored almost every creative and productive solution posted on these forums.
The idea of balance has become just tweaking numbers.
It is likely that they will introduce this as a new black lion skin in the future.
I would rather, they make Underworld and FoW for GW2 and you can acquire it there.
That would be cool, but I think they changed the lore with GW2 to prevent access to UW/FoW.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but because the gods have “withdrawn” from the world in GW2, it prevents us from having access to those areas of the Mists.
At least for the early part of GW1, you couldn’t get into the Mist areas like UW/FoW without the world earning the “Favor of the Gods” buff.
I support all of BurrTheKing’s suggestions. Let’s see how close ANet gets tomorrow with the preview of the upcoming patch.
Vanilla Killshot can work well with some source of quickness, like Frenzy, and the unblockable buff from Signet of Might. But Frenzy is usually a poor choice because of the long cooldown.
lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.
I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.
I personally hope you’re right because then touching our traits to fix core warrior problems will just make more mandatory traits (see: cleansing ire)
Them baselining crap and changing our weapons to be more utility has been something I’ve been dying to hear for YEARS now
My problem isn’t really the traits themselves (except for total garbage traits like Powerful Synergy, Inspiring Battle Standard, Thick Skin, etc.), but the placement of the traits.
For example, having Axe Mastery compete with Berserker’s Power is just insanity. Even axe users will have to take Berserker’s Power, forcing them to forego the reduced recharge time. Same deal with Crack Shot and a couple others.
The problem is that there are mandatory traits, and if ANet doesn’t solve the core issues that make them mandatory, they should at least move them around so not taking them isn’t as much of a penalty.
Fast Hands debate aside, I think we can all agree on one thing:
Reverse the adrenaline nerf.
I highly doubt they’ll do it, but that one nerf has done more damage to the Warrior profession than most of the prior nerfs combined.
Lol @ warlord, you dont know what you’re saying man haha.
Like Dominik Said, I saw rom using it countless times aswell. If you know the rotation combined with the right timing it can save your life.
I agree, Rampage has saved my life more than a few times. It really helps blast down pesky damage sponges like Reapers and Druids in a pinch situation.
No, it doesn’t always work, because a lot of players know how to mitigate Rampage now, but it can still save your life or break a stalemate if you know how to use it.
If some people consider it a “noob” option, so be it. I still consider Rampage viable in sPvP, even after the duration nerf.
Rampage has considerable drawbacks. Long cooldown, no access to utilities, no access to burst skills, no access to weapon skills. It is weaker to slot rampage than to slot headbutt and use for example mace/mace or mace/shield on your second weapon set.
Why because you still retain all of the cc, and you don’t lose out on utilites,burst skills,weapon skills.
Don’t use rampage it’s a weaker choice. Think about using headbutt. Mace/shield or mace/mace on swap. So like GS mace mace. And if you are condi you can just use headbut and slot somthinging like wildblow/stomp etc.
Don’t use rampage its a noob choice.
The only problem with Headbutt is that you have to slot Berserker to use it. If you’re running a non-Berserker build, you have to reshape your entire build around a traitline that you don’t need.
Other than that, yeah, Headbutt would be a better option. It’s certainly a better option if you’re using Berserker.
Are they removing fast hands or just adjusting the some of the weapons cooldowns so they rely on fast hands too much?
Unfortunately, we don’t know yet. Hopefully the “Guild Chat” on Friday will reveal more.
Obviously we don’t know yet if they’ve made a move on baseline Fast Hands, but if they don’t baseline it, I hope they have some miraculous buffs planned for our weapon skills. Right now, waiting out a full nine-second swap on Warrior is a death-sentence.
Aside from skill adjustments, another way we can adjust balance in PvP is by looking at the runes/sigils/amulets that are available for use through the customization panel.
I would be interested in hearing thoughts (with the high-level goals from the blog in-mind) on adding/removing various sigils/amulets/runes. In general, our goal for PvP is to be faster-paced with a higher-level of lethality than what we’re seeing in S1.
I know we’ve had this conversation a few times before, but it’s always important to have this discussion with the correct context in mind.
The main problems with lethality are active defenses. A berserker amulet doesn’t do you much good when your hits don’t even connect. There are too many low cooldown blocks, blinds, dodges, and invulns (especially traited) flying around to even worry about the lethality of stat and item combinations.
Amulets, sigils, and runes are fine. We could use more of them in sPvP for more variety (bringing in PvE/WvW exclusive ones like Perplexity would be nice). If you want more lethality, you need to look at the real culprits of the bunker meta: active defenses.
Dont like what i read about the revenant.
If you go power based, sword damage is the only reedeaming quality.
The class over all is very glassy and its sustain is clunky at best.
Every skill is telegraphed and has very long delays from the click to the effect because of casting times and animations.
To put it bluntly, damage in general is the only that makes the revenant worth it.
I can’t help but laugh at this. If you think Revenant is bad, wait until you try Warrior.
What are you all getting hyped for, slow down
These are just a bunch of empty PR promises – the same ones they made pre-HoT. Until they actually show us traits, skills, and numbers, these write-ups really don’t tell us kitten.
Good PR, bad transparency. Now would have been the time to talk to the community about proposed balance changes so that we can do this together properly. But I get it, Anet knows what’s best. Sure.
You’ll excuse me negativity, but given their track record of class balance and me getting swindled for $50 makes me a little salty.
Agreed. The one word that characterizes this blog post the most: vague. It’s hard to forget the debacles that lead to the June 23 patch and then the HoT beta weekends.
lets wait and see, hope they read what we wrote here.
I hope so too. The language suggests to me that they’ve mostly altered skills, rather than traits. I hope I’m wrong, because the poor placement of traits in the specialization lines has caused half the problems that Warrior faces.
In relation to Warrior: the part about giving Warriors more to play with “in a single weapon set,” strongly suggests to me that baseline Fast Hands didn’t make it. I really hope they prove me wrong on Friday.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/profession-balance-goals-for-the-winter-2016-update/
Here it is. While vague, it appears that they have taken a decent look at Warrior:
“We’ve taken a look at the warrior’s baseline abilities, adjusting cooldowns, damage, and in some cases even functionality. Our goal for this iteration is to give you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set so that the cooldowns feel more active and fun to play around with. Rifle has also seen a bit of a rework, gaining a more defensive nature while retaining its overall purpose of kill-shotting every enemy of Tyria. We’ll also be taking another pass at improving the berserker elite specialization, focusing on increasing its usability in various game modes and promoting more active skill use in trait design. Lastly, we’ll improve the warrior’s ability to sustain themselves in combat.”
Unfortunately, the part about “giv[ing] you a bit more to play with in a single weapon set” leads me to think that baseline Fast Hands is out of the question. At least they recognize that Warrior sustain is in the toilet right now.
Warrior is perfectly viable in PvP…..
in Bizarro world!
Are we really sure they’re going to release the actual patch notes? They just made a vague reference to “sharing some of the details” next week, but that could be a just an outline of what they plan to do, rather than real changes. I still remember the slideshow debacle leading up to the infamous June 23 patch.
Plus some of the most important proposed Warrior changes never even made it to live (Mending). I have a hard time believing anything positive for Warrior is on deck, but who knows.
You would think that the devs would know where their bread is buttered, given that only paying customers can post on these forums.
Do you spend time communicating with the people who have actually forked over cold, hard cash (more invested in the game, and therefore more likely to spend more money in the future), or do you spend time on third-party sites where any anonymous fool can troll, air grievances, and libel the game, all over the F2P portion?
Then again communication means nothing when you don’t actually take action on the underlying problems. The devs already let us know that (there’s the communication) that they’re not going to do anything about the atrocious state of matchmaking and balance in sPvP until after the league season ends. So we know we’re stuck with October’s borderline unplayable, unwatchable bunker meta until at least February. Not to even mention the horrendous population issues with WvW that have festered for years and finally reached the breaking point with the expansion launch.
At this point, the game needs a lot more than communication: it needs actual action. If ArenaNet actually starts solving problems, improved “communication” will occur naturally.
Good footage. Looking forward to more.
For WvW, yolo Gunflame is the way to go.
Still running BurrTheKing’s Skullcracker build for sPvP:
http://intothemists.com/guides/6344-mighty_skull_crack
It can still surprise some of the meta builds floating around out there, if the enemy isn’t very good. I’ve had decent success against some Reaper and Dragonhunter builds. Revenants go down pretty fast if they don’t know what they’re doing, or they aren’t running Herald. Chronos and Tempests are still pretty difficult though.
Of course, if the enemy is playing meta properly, you will encounter the limits of Warrior no matter which build you run.
Kudos to you and Vaans for carrying the Warrior torch after this expansion dropped. At least us Warriors can shine in WvW, given the appropriate conditions.
Yolo killshot vids vs bad players have nothing to do with “carrying the warrior torch”..
It takes so much skill to Killshot and Volley rando pve heroes to death in wvw though.
It’s better than nothing. Without yolo gimmick builds, Warrior is a complete joke. At least we can get our kicks somehow.
Bummer
Without knowing the total file size of the updates I cant even guess at how long this will take. So if I were a new player installing for the first time I would experience the same thing?
Pretty much… if you had installed fresh, it would be about as bad.
The download chunks weren’t too large in the months leading up to the expansion pack, because they dribbled out expansion files within normal updates to accommodate the beta weekend events. Those who updated regularly didn’t need to download much more on launch day.
But because you missed out on the partial updates, you have to download everything expansion-related in one large dose. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the expansion amounts to an additional 11 gigabytes on top of the core game.
I mean I would be ok with getting a offhand Axe over torch.
That’s how bad offhand Axe is… that Warriors actually forget that we have access to offhand Axe!
Obindo, thanks for another great Warrior video. I enjoyed your use of Gunflame and Arc Divider, especially in the fight near Pangloss in more confined quarters.
I’ve been using a variation of the Gunflame Berserker build since HoT dropped, and I find your videos (and Vaans’) timely and instructive. I personally substitute Arms instead of Defense, in order to guarantee big crit Gunflames (Burst Precision). It’s a glassy build, but I see your expert use of Greatsword and the Defense traits help you survive and thrive. I am tempted to switch to Greatsword after watching your videos (I use Sword + Warhorn as my melee set).
Kudos to you and Vaans for carrying the Warrior torch after this expansion dropped. At least us Warriors can shine in WvW, given the appropriate conditions.
I suggested the exact same thing for Eviscerate/Decapitate on the Warrior forums, and people laughed at me. They claimed it would become ridiculously overpowered.
I support “finisher” skills like Gravedigger, Eviscerate, and Decapitate, because they make the high risk, one-shot skills that could get easily block/blinded/dodged, worth the effort.
Super slow, powerful skills like Gravedigger should finish off downed opponents. This would make building for a power-based bruiser Reaper actually worthwhile.
Cue the obligatory “can I have your stuff?” posts.
It shouldn’t surprised anyone that GW2 earnings dropped this year… the game suffered from a total drought of new content from the end of LS2 until the launch of the expansion pack. That meant almost nine solid months of nothing new to stimulate interest in the game.
It also shouldn’t surprise anyone that the expansion pack got released in such an unfinished state. They had to rush it out before Christmas to boost up sales.
I vote for BurrTheKing as well. He knows Warrior inside and out, and he can craft a mean melee build. He always puts forth suggestions that would make Warrior better. Maybe the title “Forum Specialist” going to a reputable player like Burr will finally get the devs to take a second look at Warrior?
Just bad timing. Wait until the weekend, it should fill up again.
And it’s on reddit, as usual.
They should just close this forum and put official on the reddit instead.
So true. This reddit garbage has happened to so many online games in the past few years. Why even bother maintaining official forums?
Secondly, on the note of conditions, they don’t have access to many conditions, they just stack a lot of the same one. [Confusion and Torment.]
Mesmer is made to trick foes and manipulate the target[s]. [Aka, if you get confused and lost in a mesmer fight… You should.]
Now on to certain traits people complain about for some reason:
PU [Prismatic Understanding.]: For starters, it’s a stealth trait made for those wanting to extend fights for an advantage, aka it’s doing it’s job if it’s being annoying.-Feel free to comment more things people complain about and why they aren’t OP at all.
So you justify overpowered mechanics by declaring that “they’re meant to be overpowered!”
warrior has no way to regain health. I cannot come back after spikes. every other meta class can do so easily, or is a necromancer with a second health bar.
my engi and Guardian can heal their health bars multiple times, my warrior can’t even do it once.
warrior is not a viable class at all. only works vs people you eat your combo like an idiot, and honestly anyone who eats combos (especially highly telegraphed warrior combos) will be easy food.
re roll. it’s your only hope.
I done it, an I may miss warrior like hell but at least I get success.
So true. After a Warrior uses up all of his burst-survival gimmicks (Endure Pain, Shield Stance, dodges), he can’t come back from a burst that actually connects. Healing Signet’s active is a joke except for the six seconds of Resistance boon. The other healing skills are just garbage for sPvP, and Vigorous Shouts got devastated in the June 23rd patch. Warriors can’t rely on alternate healing methods (water fields, healing weapon skills) because they just don’t exist for the class. Warrior is the true “kill or be killed” class: if you don’t blast your enemy down with your initial burst combo, you are dead meat.
It’s hard to imagine that things could get any worse for Warriors in sPvP right now, but you’re probably right.
Same as what the others have already mentioned – equip greatsword, trait Strength, Death from Above (surviving falls can help you traverse certain areas faster), Forceful Greatsword, and just mow everything in your way down. Also take Warrior’s Sprint under Discipline, slot Signet of Rage, etc. etc.
Sometimes having a ranged weapon helps for certain hero challenges, but if you’re looking for raw speed and killing power, stick with greatsword + sword/warhorn.
They have your $50. They don’t care anymore.
‘Nuff said. Now all we’ll get is lip-service until they gear up for the next expansion pack.
Imagine if in (American) football, right before a new professional season begins, the NFL announces a new type of play that teams can run on defense. This play is devastating to the opposing team’s offense, offers almost no hope of a counterattack, and is completely legal and within the rules of football. This new type of play is so powerful, that all teams immediately start running it at the beginning of the season.
Predictably, the new play completely destroys spectator enjoyment of football. Game-ending scores plummet to levels of hockey or soccer. Wins or losses boil down to whichever team makes a mistake running the new play first. Many more matches end in ties than ever before. Referees are helpless to stop the situation, because the play is perfectly legal and within the rules of football.
How does the NFL react to this situation that it created? Sit back and do nothing for the entire season? Maybe change the rules to stop this phenomenon after the season ends?
No. Hell no. If the NFL did nothing, fans would give up on football in droves. The league and franchises would lose hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions). Football’s reputation would take an irreparable nosedive. Franchisees would abandon the league and take their money-printing empires elsewhere.
If this situation somehow occurred, the NFL would rectify it immediately. Instant, immediate rule changes would put a stop to this fun-destroying phenomenon posthaste. The damage control would be legendary.
Now, take that analogy, and compare it to what is occurring right now in Guild Wars 2, after the HoT expansion has just dropped and a new sPvP league season has begun.
The “NFL” (ArenaNet), instead of immediately changing the rules and salvaging the remainder of the season, officially announces that rule changes won’t occur until the season is almost over or after the season ends. In fact, they’re going to throw even more money at the teams that decide to run this new, devastating play, to encourage them to run it even more frequently and persuade others to adopt this style of play.
This is the type of counterintuitive, counterproductive decision-making that ArenaNet is engaging in. They’re lucky they have the PvE game to prop up Guild Wars 2, because otherwise, the combination of HoT and this league season would torpedo the franchise harder than the Lusitania.
I’ll quote myself on this one.
I mean, we tried. Both reddit and forums are packed with constructive criticism and legitimate complaints, ANet hasn’t replied to a single one. There’s nothing else to do but sit back and watch their esports dream fail.
can’t be a fail. colin sayd over 400k unique viewers last time which = a win. anet might just be the charlie sheen of mmos. u wonder what they are doing? winning
Just like Charlie Sheen, it’s all fun and games and “winning,” until you contract HIV.
While it’s good to know that they have “something” planned for balance, it’s a shame it isn’t going to happen until after the PvP league season ends.
In all honesty, GW2 doesn’t really have any clear direction right now. Or more like, it hasn’t had one for awhile. Things are constantly being 180’d, and then there are changes that just don’t make any sense. And then the focus keeps shifting all the time. I honestly feel Anet doesn’t know what they want to do with this game. Or they are trying to do too many different things at once, and it just isn’t working.
SpyderArachnid, you got it exactly right. All of this Esports/MLG foolishness is a prime example. This is especially laughable right after an expansion pack drops that completely upends any semblance of PvP balance and throws the meta into chaos.
ANet is trying to do everything at once, and managing to do it all half-kittened. We get an expansion pack with an unfinished story and an incomplete raid, a PvP season with an unstable meta (and missing basic features such as solo queue), and a new WvW map that satisfies nobody (along with the server population problems).
They’re trying to throw everything against the wall to see what sticks… and the customers are paying the price as ANet’s guinea pigs.
I’ve had decent success with a variation of the Gunflame gimmick build both in roaming and zerging. Like you mentioned, the Arms traitline really helps get those unblockable Gunflames out, with 100% crit from Burst Precision. Losing Strength hurts, but I think having a reliable, 100% Gunflame crit with Signet of Might procs slightly edges out Berserker’s Power. Of course you have to run Discipline both for Crack Shot and (of course) Fast Hands. Burst Precision is nice Gunflame booster as well.
Of course the build is essentially pure glass, but if you have comrades taking the heat, well…
Perhaps in some sick, perverse way, “reducing visual clutter” counts as balance to ANet.
This is just a total slap in the face for WvW players… and not surprising, after the massive dump ANet took on us with HoT.
Same here. They’ve been sending so many mixed messages that anyone would have reasonably expected a balance patch today.
This was a monster disappointment, especially for those of us that still play Warrior. I don’t know why they would promise “regular balance updates” when they’re beholden to Esports interests invested in exploiting the current meta.
Another great game sacrificed on the absurd altar of Esports/MLG nonsense. It makes me ill to think of all the time and money ANet has wasted courting these groups, while the rest of us get the shaft.