To be fair, I didn’t expect ANet to drop a meta-shattering balance patch right as the season started. Esports LOL.
Still disappointing that Warrior suffers another patch without a single token change. Not even a measly bug-fix.
In response to OP:
I think it much more effective to buff underperforming weapons than to nerf the decent ones.
But, I would support your suggestion of taking might on crit off Forceful Greatsword, if, as you suggest, might on crit gets added to Phalanx Strength for ALL weapons.
Thanks again for this great montage. It inspired me to turn the “Camera Shake” feature back on… because melee combat feels so lifeless without it. It’s been so long since I’ve used “Camera Shake” that I forgot how much of an impact it makes.
Good intro and great footage. This made me feel pride and honor to keep playing Warrior, even after all the hell this profession continues to go through. I especially liked the duel against that Daredevil.
Confirmed, I crashed right after logging in. It usually takes a couple hours in Maguuma to crash me.
@Thuggernaut.1250
Hey there, I probably could have made it more clear that I didn’t mean to say that these are super amazing combos, just that they do exist and that saying that Berserker doesn’t fit with base Warrior (I’ve seen it said multiple times by different people) isn’t really true.
Most of the time, where these synergies fall short is as a result of the failings of the bade Warrior. Baseline Fast Hand? Suddenly a hybrid build using the first combo becomes pretty scary, the only huge weakness being the lack of Warrior’s Sprint (I feel that Strength + Defense + Berserker is optimal), and that’s fine. Every build should have some sort of weakness.
I definitely see the condi synergies with Berserker, but other than that, it seems pretty self-contained. One could dream up some pretty insane Strength + Arms + Berserker YOLO-Condi builds on paper, but like you had mentioned earlier, giving up Defense and Discipline really hurts.
As nice as baseline Fast Hands would be for all Warriors, I still think giving up Discipline is a hard pill to swallow for Berserkers, because they can take advantage of Burst Mastery more frequently (you mentioned Burst Mastery + Smash Brawler). But Defense is still critical for sPvP, so I can’t countenance giving that up.
The end result brings me to Defense + Discipline + Berserker. But for sPvP, I can’t justify substituting Berserker for Strength, because in the damage department, you lose out on the superior power option without Strength, and you lose valuable condi synergies without either Strength or Arms.
I see the synergies, but problems with both core Warrior and the mostly self-contained nature of Berserker hold them back.
You can get that much gold from a single full run of Silverwastes, because right now many materials that you get from salvage, like silk and leather, are worth alot of money, so just do event maps, salvage and sell and there you go.
Silk prices are in the toilet right now compared to the last few months. You could always get over 2 silver per scrap over the summer, and the prices peaked over 3 silver per scrap in September. Thick leather sections are up (they were almost worthless before the expansion), but they’re still well below 1 silver each.
Now, after the expansion dropped, you’re lucky to get 1.5 silver per silk scrap. T5 mats really went down the drain; you could easily get over 1 silver each before; now you’re lucky to make .5 on most of them.
For the average player farming the Silverwastes as is customary, cash flow has gotten a lot tighter.
Hey BurrTheKing, I agree that there are some “hidden” synergies within the Berserker specialization, but I think they’re so niche that it’s hard to argue in favor of them over the meta build.
(1) Distracting Strikes + Body Blows + Skull Grinder (or Gunflame):
I agree this is good for condi builds, but think of the opportunity costs. You have to give up Berserker’s Power and Forceful Greatsword for this combo, which together amount to +30% damage (multiplicative). I just don’t see the merit of this synergy for anything but pure condi builds. which we already knew would benefit from Berserker (a condi-focused specialization).
(2) Rousing Resilience + Outrage/Headbutt/Savage Instinct:
I think this is the most gimmicky of synergies from Berserker. Sure, if you manage to break three stuns in a row, it might be a nice combo, but again, look to the opportunity costs: you have to give up Last Stand + triple stances to enable this build. If you were running the typical meta build, you wouldn’t have to worry about stuns in the first place (Balanced Stance), and you would get both Endure Pain and Berserker’s Stance (anti-condi) to boot, on longer timers.
(3) Burst Mastery + Smash Brawler:
Usually the timers on the primal bursts exceed the rate of adrenaline (10) for Berserker mode anyway, so I don’t think this is that mind-blowing. Especially considering how Burst Mastery helps any Warrior build, Berserker or not.
As one of your fans, I still use your Skull Cracker Omega/Mighty Skull Crack build to better effect in sPvP than any Berserker build. I agree with you that unorthodox synergies exist with Berserker, but I don’t see any of them as superior to core Warrior.
Pretty good dueling, glad to see you experiment with Berserker a bit for duels.
Skull Crack and Skull Grinder can still wreak some havoc. Especially now with everyone carrying around fancy elite specialization skills, they tend to carry fewer stun-breaks… stability is a bigger problem though.
It feels great when you can get the gunflame off
Unfortunately if they have an inkling of knowledge about the build you’re worthless
fun for a few matches though
True, if anyone realize what you’re trying to do and focuses you, you become a free kill/rallybot.
The Gunflame law of the jungle: kill (first) or be killed.
If you have crafting boosters, those should help reduce the costs. Also if you have HoT, the Pact Mastery Level 2 upgrade supposedly gives you bonus experience from crafting, but I don’t know if anyone has tested it yet…
I’ve scored more than a few cheap and dirty kills from Gunflame lately in WvW. Spamming Gunflame in WvW does have its advantages, both in small-group roaming fights and in big zergs. Just make sure you have someone else taking the heat for you, and you can down enemies surprisingly fast (with Signet of Fury for surprise Gunflames, of course). How ironic that Warrior, the original melee bruiser class, is reduced to sniping cheese kills like those obnoxious Rangers.
I still wouldn’t bother with a Gunflame gimmick build in sPvP though.
“Truth” is pretty hard to come by. We can give you more opinions though…
Before HoT, Warrior always had a place in the dungeon meta as a Phalanx Strength/Banner bot. Greatsword still does excellent damage with tons of might stacking in PvE. You really can’t go wrong with Warrior for general PvE, and it probably still has a place in most dungeon meta groups that don’t have a Herald.
That said, Herald does what Phalanx Strength/Banner Warrior did, and better. That doesn’t make Warrior any less “powerful” for dungeons and PvE content, but generally speaking, Herald is going to be more desirable to most groups.
If you’re just playing PvE, I wouldn’t discourage you from leveling a Warrior. Just know that you will only be able to run one shoehorned build (Phalanx Strength meta), and if there is a Herald floating around, that player will probably get a spot on the team before you.
As for Berserker, I haven’t tested it extensively, but generally condi builds are hated by the dungeon meta “community” (I use the word community loosely). Berserker gets the most mileage from condi builds, so if you run a power or hybrid build with Berserker, you will probably catch flak from dungeon groups.
I’ve had great fun spamming Gunflame as a Berserker in PvE, but it probably won’t win any DPS awards. If you’re looking for super competitive PvE DPS numbers, don’t bother with Berserker at all.
Shinryuku made some of the same points the rest of us have been making, but don’t forget that he justified and praised the adrenaline nerfs last year:
Start watching the video at about 1:30. He basically responded to us Warriors that when we miss a burst and lose all our adrenaline, we need to “git gud,” in his humble opinion. Yet now, he complains about all the blocks, dodges, blinds, and stuns getting handed out like candy.
Shinryuku is part of the reason we’re in this mess, because he actually justified and praised the nerfs that helped put us in this position.
I am tired of it too. I tried dueling with it but… It is only good for fun gameplay if you don’t mind dying all the time because of no sustain… and that is all.
I am really disappointed, they buffed the damage and that is exactly what warrior does not need…And there lies the true problem with warrior. No sustain. it does not healp that there are so many interrupts and stuns flying about now. does anyone remember when stuns were something that showed up once in a blue moon? yeah they were scary because the took skill to pull off. The warriors main strength is combos off their skills. Earthshaker+Backbreaker+Hundred Blades for example. But now I get blind/interrupted/stunned in the middle of the combo chain every time. now not only is my combo chain broken, but i’m stun locked. Dogged march or not, my skill skill go on cool down and I cannot move. And sure, I have stun breaks…on 30-60 second cooldowns!
Take a good hard look at the warrior utility skills. look at their cool-downs. and to make maters worse, the ones we use the most cannot be reduced. Thats right, you cannot reduce the cooldowns on stances or banners. Hell, you cannot even make banners do damage anymore!
Anet has made a huge mistake with the warrior.
Perfectly stated. If you don’t carry at least two stunbreaks, you’re finished with so much stun flying around. But if you blow all your cooldowns on hammer trying to CC the enemy (especially Eles, Mesmers, and Guardians, the typical suspects), they carry limitless low-cooldown stunbreaks to disrupt your combos.
Even after continuous nerfs, Warrior always used to be the king of CC. Now, after the expansion dropped, Warrior is the prime victim of CC.
Warrior would be much easier to fix, if not for all the insane powercreep that happened to most other classes in this game in the past year…
Again, I don’t want warrior buffs. I want warrior stuff to function and I want other classes toned down.
Powercreep ruins the fun in this game.
Buffing Warrior now isn’t “power-creep,” it’s just restoring Warrior to some fraction of its original power.
People were dropping 27-30K+ Hundred Blades easily at launch, unleashing insane Frenzy Killshots and unbelievable Eviscerates. Nothing you could do to Warrior now would even bring it close to how powerful it was at launch.
Even if you undid every nerf to Warrior from launch onwards, it still wouldn’t be as powerful, because of the conversion of the old Critical Damage % stat into Ferocity.
I’m getting tired of these spurious “power-creep” arguments, because anyone arguing that Warrior buffs now are “power-creep” have forgotten how many nerfs led up to this point.
If you want to see real “power-creep,” read the June 23 patch notes on how many Mesmer traits got baselined into the class. Justify those buffs, and then somehow justify keeping all of the Warrior nerfs intact at the same time.
All we’re asking for is to undo a nerf. Adrenaline decay is so rapid that it cripples Warrior and doubly cripples Berserker.
This would not even be a “buff.” We’re just asking for the reversal of an absurd and unjustified nerf that only got through because a whiner schmoozed the devs in person in Vegas.
Listen to this fool (yes I know he’s “respected” in some Warrior circles) justify the adrenaline nerfs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH4raYMmXVI (starting at about 1:30). When these nerfs dropped, he and many others defended them as “balanced.” How “balanced” is Warrior now when you have a new class (Revenant) that does every single thing Warrior does, but far better? And how balanced is an “elite” specialization that gets totally crippled by nerfs to the core class mechanic?
These nerfs have crippled Warrior hard, and they’ve only gotten worse with the release of the expansion exposing how maimed Warrior is right now. Plus losing all adrenaline on a missed burst is straight-up punishment, especially because it doesn’t even proc Cleansing Ire anymore.
We don’t even need a buff: we just need all these crippling nerfs from the last three years reversed.
There’s traits to make it give you stability pulses while berserk, and if you were to ‘die’ while berserk you get a 5k heal instead…..how is that not enough?
The stability trait isn’t much… you get the same thing from popping Rampage (actually you get more stability from Rampage). Anyone can tear through the traited stability of Berserker with so much CC flying around.
The Dead or Alive trait is still a total joke. If you’ve reached the point of death, your enemies won’t have much of a problem hitting you for another 5K and finishing you off, especially after you’ve popped all of your stance cooldowns. Dead or Alive = too little, too late.
The Berserker “buffs” were better than nothing, but they were like shoving chewing gum into the gaping holes of a sinking ship. They made PvE Berserker slightly more palatable, but they do nothing to solve the core problems of Warrior and Berserker in PvP and WvW.
I’m beginning to think half my frustration with playing warrior in HoT is warrior itself. Or how every mob seems hellbent on countering warrior (and melee in general). The accusations of “Range Wars 2” aren’t wrong by any stretch.
(The other half of my frustration is shoddy layouts in portions of the map design.)
Could be that part of my combat frustration is choosing hammer, for the sake of murdering Defiance bars (and squishing pocket raptors :P), instead of the “more acceptable” greatsword and longbow. But that’s kind of the point in saying it. If you’re not using Phalanx Strength/Greatsword or ShoutBow, there aren’t any decent builds to tackle HoT content.
My non-Chrono mesmer walked in and wrecked shop, effortlessly. My ranger sails through most of the enemies. But my warrior has to close massive gaps in order to deal subpar damage, while enemies either leap-stealth away or charging-knockdown with no-cooldown skills.
So, I’m not sure if I regret HoT itself, or just experiencing it with a warrior.
Good observation… I too noticed that melee is at a severe disadvantage in HoT PvE, with all the mobs constantly spamming knockdowns and other CC attacks.
Three years of nonstop nerfs and a bogus elite specialization. That about sums it up.
Anyone criticizing the Gunflame build: go play a couple rounds of PvP or roam WvW as a vanilla Warrior.
Then, after you get demolished by overpowered Reapers/Chronomancers/Dragonhunters, you will see that the only thing left for Warrior is to spam Gunflame for cheese kills.
Hell, even Daredevils and Tempests laugh at Warriors right now.
I would argue that Valkyrie stats are better than Berserker for the YOLO Gunflame Build. All of the precision of Berserker stats is wasted because you rely on Burst Precision to drop guaranteed crit Gunflames on your enemies, so you might as well redirect the precision to something else.
I haven’t laughed this hard at a topic in a long time. Thank you, lordhelmos, for bringing some levity to our situation.
While I love Warrior as well, I don’t see things getting better anytime soon. We’ve gotten whittled down by continuous nerfs for three years, and the bottom finally fell out when the expansion pack dropped.
Go ahead and reroll; you may as well get your money’s worth and actually enjoy the game on a playable class (i.e. anything but Warrior or Thief). ANet has totally forsaken Warrior.
Warrior has taken nerf after nerf for three years… the expansion pack served as the final nail in the coffin. I’ve moved on to Ranger/Engineer/Necromancer (Reaper).
Warrior has just gotten totally eclipsed in every possible department by other classes… it has become the gold standard of mediocrity. “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
One can only hope that the devs are merely recovering from massive hangovers from Halloween, rather than willfully ignoring us.
Like you, I’ve moved on to greener pastures (Ranger and Engineer) for now.
Right? It’s downright brutal…like what gives? Was it a stealth nerf? To warriors or just toughness all around? I mean, of course someone is gonna say “Run full zerker.” But, honestly i’m pretty sure that’s a death sentence going full on glass considering how hard some of the jungle mobs hit.
I wouldn’t say Warrior took a direct nerf, it’s just like you said: the mobs are more damaging and numerous in HoT. Toughness isn’t as valuable when you get hit more frequently, as a lot of the mobs in the new zones seem to do. It’s all about evades, blocks, and invulns. Plus, the mobs seem to cc a lot more: tons of knockdowns and stuns flying around in PvE, which is new.
The other professions got elite specs that offer more survivability and new tricks to compensate. Unfortunately for us, Warrior got Berserker…
Nerf Warrior dmg buff utilities. or let Warrrs EQ 2x GS so they can use 200blades!
Jokes aside, Warr weaps if hit they HURT, HURT alot, and is till belive that with good player and high amout of practice good warrior can land those hits. Its not like thief that cant rly win vs anyclass, its more like everyone ealse know how to counter warrior.
Fast hands should never be baseline! Most warriors using this trait doesnt even know thier autoattack animation cuz they just burn every spell – swap – burn every spell- swap.
Fun addition to warr would be 3rd weapon(more powerfull version of normal nerfed ones) in form of kit(f3) that you can toggle anytime you want, Master of Weapons! Give him more weapons! Less no brain lucky 10k crits with GS less cc+insane dmg, more fun with a ways to chose utilities and ways to chose 3 weaps.
So basically, you want a neutered Engineer.
Topics like this are why we need dishonor back, and fast.
My Warrior seems pretty glassy as well. I run Valk/Berserker, and I’ve never had problems before… taking Endure Pain in PvE has become a requirement for HoT.
Either it doesnt have any sustain and literally dies faster then any sort of elementalist could ever die. (This is an achievement seeing ele is the most glassy of glasscannons because of the lack of active defenses)
While I understand your frustration with Tempest, I don’t think this is an accurate characterization…
Like many things in this expansion, Scribing and guild-halls were released half-finished. Like the OP said, the grind is there just to buy some time for ANet to fix the mess.
Of all the obnoxious, juvenile, and melodramatic members of Destiny’s Edge to kill off, Eir was the least offensive. Zojja should have been number one on the “die an ignominious, screaming death” list.
Other than that, the story wasn’t perfect, but it was a strong improvement over the original personal story and LS1.
The Guild Wars were a series of military conflicts between the human kingdoms of the northern continent that finally ended in 1070 AE. When considered separately, they are known as the First, Second, and Third Guild Wars.
You’re welcome
This guy doesn’t understand what scare quotes signify.
Great suggestions, I really like the sinister implications of your proposals. Especially proposal #2 up there, leading to some kind of “redemption” plot for the player after getting “indoctrinated” (oh boy another Mass Effect reference) by the Elder Dragons. It would be a really interesting way to reincorporate the Six Gods and some of the old locations from GW1.
I agree that the whole “kill dragons one by one” story arc is way too simplistic. It feels like going down a list and checking the boxes.
I agree that it ended pretty abruptly, with a glaring cliffhanger… especially considering the way all the GW1 campaigns ended; with a special resolution/story instance that wrapped up loose character ends.
The whole thing gives off a strong “rushed to market” impression, leaving us with the promise of a Living Story Season 3 to conclude the actual plot of Heart of Thorns and resolve character threads.
Still, it was a good improvement over the original story and LS1. It greatly reduced the influence of the juvenile and clichéd Destiny’s Edge and “Biconics” subplots. The final boss fight impressed me, and it gave us the fanservice that we all wanted: the chance to
Strong Spoilerkill Trahearne. Not that he was really that obnoxious (especially compared to Destiny's Edge), but he was a thoroughly uninspiring roadblock to character development that inexplicably took up a great deal of real estate in the original story. He needed to go. The only problem is that we couldn't get rid of the rest of Destiny's Edge in the same stroke! The fact that Eir, the least obnoxious of the entire bunch, got killed rubbed me wrong. At least we got rid of Faolain, ending the insipid "Caithe's divided loyalties/ex-lover" melodrama.
The voice acting (especially Nolan North) was spot on, and the visuals were very impressive. I think ANet took a step in the right direction with the HoT storyline, it just ended up rushed and incomplete. What we need is more of this, just complete and polished before it goes live.
I’ll save the gripes about gameplay mechanics for another topic. The whole elite specialization fiasco left a sour taste in my mouth.
I don’t think they stack… someone mentioned that only the highest attack speed bonus applies. Anything else gets canceled out.
Not only are Revenant attacks stronger, they can channel quickness on demand for absurd lengths of time (Impossible Odds). Plus they get extra might, on demand, when traited (Nefarious Momentum).
Warrior looks pretty meek in comparison.
Unfortunate and true… Warrior got shafted again on “active” defenses. Hence why we have to slot all stances just to survive.
No aegis, no protection, and only mediocre blocks and vigor. No wonder we’ve had to slot Endure Pain/Defy Pain since June just to survive.
I would extol the virtues of Gunflame spamming in WvW, but WvW is so dead right now that I haven’t found a decent fight since the expansion dropped.
I strongly agree with the changes on this list. Good work.
The only use I’ve found for Berserker: Gunflame spammer. It gets some laughs in (what’s left of) WvW, but is pretty much worthless in sPvP.
Like everyone else has said, the worst part about GW2 has been the writing. It doesn’t help that Rytlock, in the expansion, immediately bursts into the scene with the subtlety of a talking Chihuahua in a Taco Bell commercial, with zero logical explanation or exposition.
GW1 got it right. The plotlines were simple, straightforward, compelling, and included a few genuinely surprising twists and turns.
Slap in the face #2: New Patch notes xD
rollseyes its almost getting sad now
It’s reaching the point of absurdity now… patch after patch, Warrior/Berserker gets absolutely nothing. If they’re doing this on purpose, they have a pretty sick sense of humor.
This is the best kitten thing they’ve done in relation to this expansion. They originally promised that we would unlock our elites if we had map completion, and this pretty much delivers on that promise.
Thank you ANet.
Thank you ANet. This saves us quite a bit of grinding on multiple alts.
No he said it might change, he confirmed nothing. And it’s not a moot point, it’s integral to the argument that you can’t complain about the change to AF because it’s not comparable to adrenaline.
Nobody here is complaining about the changes to Astral Force. More power to you. I think I might grind out the Hero Points for a Druid now myself.
We’re complaining that Adrenaline isn’t getting the same treatment.