Guild Wars 2

I don’t believe for a minute that zerker is going anywhere. GW2s combat style supports and enables it too well.

It will always be better to kill things quickly than to drag out a fight. It will always be better to evade or block damage than it will be to heal that damage back.

Long live zerker meta.

Count me in as another Warrior who is jumping ship for Revenant.

I find the theme and aesthetics of the Berserker way cooler than Revenant, but the Warrior is just plagued with trait problems and lack of build diversity. I really want to play Berserker, but the entire Warrior class needs sweeping changes before it can become viable. Revenant is in a much better spot, so close to release.

Before even mentioning existing problems with the Berserking mechanic and the mostly bad Rage abilities, I don’t think Berserker will even get a chance to see play because of poor trait design in the vanilla Warrior. Until a dev takes a serious look at Warrior traits, Discipline, Defense, and Strength are all better than Berserker.

Warrior has a serious problem with “mandatory” traits.

Want to deal damage? Strength is mandatory (so, basically all builds take it).
Want to stay alive? Defense is mandatory (again, all builds).
Want to play Warrior the way it is designed (swapping weapons frequently)? Discipline is mandatory.

And hell, pve players are even worse off! Strength AND Tactics are mandatory, to shoehorn you even further! There is literally only one viable group pve build, and Berserker will not change that.

Please look at our traits, Anet.

People have been saying that Fast Hands should be an acknowledged Warrior class mechanic forever.

Anet has no doubt heard these suggestions but has been very careful not to comment on it. I don’t understand why. There should be no trait in the game that literally every single build – regardless of gametype – WANTS to use. Hell, even the PS warrior would take it if they could.

I think it’s just bad design that restricts creativity and build diversity.

What if Dragon Hunter’s F1 spear ability pulled an enemy to you? Drop your traps, pull someone into them, they can’t get out.

Or would that be too gamebreaking / un-fun for the person on the receiving end?

I agree. I was expecting at least a few more lines of dialogue, and none of this ridiculous grunting nonsense.

Maybe one day there will be a Ritualist elite spec for the Revenant. I think it’d be sweet. Summon a bunch of chained up spirits, cast some lightning magic…

Please remove the “growling.” Absolutely HORRIBLE and not worthy of a legendary dragon.

Azumi.9572:

Casuals strikes again.

Raid players beware. They are applying pressure on Raids already.

aNet will break.

The thing is, I barely see ANY players calling for nerfs??

Currently there are like 3+ threads on this forum begging for a difficulty increase. What is going on?

From the specs I’ve spent the most time on —

Herald is looking amazing, in my opinion. Favourite elite spec so far. Managing upkeeps is fun and rewarding, and the effects / utility provided are great.

Druid might be useful in group content, but that is yet to be seen and honestly I don’t expect healing to actually work in GW2 once people figure the content out. Preventing damage will always be better than healing it. Healing power also scales horribly and gimps your character. Contributing less DPS to the group = monsters staying alive longer = group taking more unnecessary damage than if the monster had just died already.

Dragonhunter, meh. Traps are not useful in PvE and dungeons. The bow feels better this BWE, but is that really enough to justify taking the traitline?

Berserker, meh. Just more of the same dps oriented stuff warrior already had. The class has serious shoehorning issues with existing traitlines / mandatory traits, so the only way Berserker will be played is if it edges out Arms or Discipline. Regardless of viability, it just doesn’t feel any different than an existing warrior, which is disappointing.

Haven’t played the others enough to comment.

I’m really upset that some of the difficulty was nerfed. I remember there were many threads from the first beta predicting this would happen, and almost EVERYONE was begging ANet not to nerf the open world. Once builds and gear are figured out it will naturally nerf itself.

These are endgame, level 80 zones. They should be THREATENING! ANet knows we want more difficult content, so what gives?

Ventari and Glint go well together.

I’m using Sword/Shield + Staff. Weapon swapping frequently to utilize healing on weapon swap sigils and energy sigils. With staff you have healing auto attacks, a bit of CC, and a healing blast finisher, and then you swap to sword shield for a nice evade on 3, as well as heals on 4 and 5. Getting the most out of both weapon slots defensive and healing abilities is very hectic and a lot of fun. Staff 4 followed up by shield 4 can bring someone back from the brink immediately, especially if you’ve got your tablet healing near them.

Using Glint with Ventari also gives you permanent access to Facet of Nature, which can be “detonated” for a bit of boon spam in between healing. When there is no need for healing you swap to Dragon stance and spam group might, swiftness, protection, etc, and when things get real you can swap back to Centaur stance to heal.

As far as your third trait line, you can really take anything. Retribution is good for some passive defenses, Invocation is good if you’re skilled with stance swapping, and Devastation gives access to a bit more dps and life stealing.

An option to disable Revenant effects is the best solution. Everybody is pleased by it and nobody would complain.

Some actual feedback:

The Soothing Bastion trait seems self-defeating. It auto-casts Crystal Hibernation when your health gets low. I found this was actually killing me more often than saving me, because the skill would root me in a really bad area and I was unable to do anything about it. As soon as the skill ended there would be mountains of AOE on top of me and I’d instantly die. I think the concept is good, and I want to take the trait for it’s boon duration perks, but I don’t like losing control of my character. I think it should be reworked. Skills rooting you are fine when it’s your choice to activate them, but NOT when it’s outside of your control.

I think that moving Ventari’s tablet around shouldn’t interrupt resurrects. I would frequently be trying to help a downed ally, and I’d instinctively try and move the tablet onto us while resurrecting someone, and it would interrupt my healing. I feel like this is very unintuitive, as the other tablet abilities do not interrupt it.

I also think that the initial summoning of Ventari’s tablet should be instant cast. The tablet doesn’t really become useful until you start moving it around – which has a good cast time – but it just feels clunky to swap stances, try and summon the tablet, then hit a delay before you can even begin to move it somewhere useful. There is so much movement in this game’s combat that having small unnecessary delays like this just leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

I’ll post more feedback as I spend more time in the beta, but so far I’m really enjoying playing Ventari/Glint support in dungeons.

The groaning noise Glint makes when activating Dragon Stance needs to go. It sounds like a constipated old woman, and it’s way more annoying than cool. I run a build that swaps stances frequently and it got old real fast hearing that every 15 seconds.

I’d like to see Healing Power removed all together and combined with Vitality.

I’d just like to echo what many others are saying:

PLEASE CHANGE STAFF STANCE AND ATTACK ANIMATION.

I also think Torch could be included in the Dual Wield trait. It is an offensive offhand, after all (unlike shield and warhorn). It would encourage a bit of lacking traitline synergy with the Berserker.

My biggest problem with the Berserker is an indirect problem. The issue is that Discipline STILL feels way too mandatory! I can’t come up with any fun Berserker builds where I am able to mix up trait lines because every build consists of Berserker – Discipline – Something Else.

To help with this, Fast Hands NEEDS to become a baseline, acknowledged warrior mechanic. The class is designed to be played with a short weapon swap in mind, and every warrior build in the game wants to take fast hands. Essentially every single pvp and solo pve build takes Discipline. This is bad design that severely limits creativity.

There is one other trait problem I would like addressed – I strongly believe Phalanx Strength should be moved to the Strength line.

Currently, if you want to play a warrior in group pve content, you are required to take Strength and Tactics for your might stacking utility. Beyond that, you have a choice of Discipline or Arms. Berserker is unlikely to beat out arms for dps, or discipline for quality of life. So if this doesn’t change, I really feel like we will NEVER see Berserker warriors in dungeons or raids.

Yes, if Phalanx Strength is moved to Strength you will have to take it over Berserker’s Power in raids. I view this as a GOOD trait choice – personal dps vs group utility. However, keep in mind that you will no longer be shoehorned into the mostly useless Tactics tree, and you will actually be able to run builds like Arms – Strength – Berserker, or Arms – Strength – Discipline. You will gain back some of the lost DPS there, and more importantly you will actually have a bit more build diversity and personal choice.

TLDR – please ANet, baseline Fast Hands and Phalanx Strength moved to the Strength tree. Those two small changes would open up so many new build options and make Berserker viable in your new raids.

I think this is going to be a big problem for druid players in WvW. Your pet is not a reliable way to tag enemies, and you’re going to be focused more on keeping your team alive than trying to get the odd hit in on an enemy. How will I receive loot bags and compensation for my help?

These changes are good, but I still think we need two main things to happen before Berserker is viable.

- Baseline Fast Hands. This should be an acknowledged profession mechanic, honestly. A perk to playing Warrior, the master of weapons. We rely on weapon swapping more than any other class, and as a result of this the Discipline tree is basically mandatory in solo & pvp content. This severely limits build options for players wanting to try Berserker.

- Phalanx Strength moved from Tactics to Strength. Right now, if you are a warrior who wants to do group pve content, you are required to take both Strength and Tactics. This cripples build diversity and group eligibility. Berserker is very unlikely to see play because of this, and if it does somehow see play over Arms (for example) you are still extremely restricted in what you can do with the class because your other two traitlines are locked in already.

Warriors have been calling for these changes for a very long time. I think it would make the class a lot more dynamic and open up many new options that are currently underutilized, as well as making the Berserker much more viable. Just buffing the crap out of everything in the Berserker’s toolkit is not a proper fix. Correct the underlying problems, ANet!

If you play 3-4 hours a day you are a hardcore player, not a casual. I play 3-4 hours a WEEK if I am lucky, and I have crafted full ascended gear without much effort. I don’t understand this post.

I think the general consensus is that the warrior has too many mandatory traits (Defense & Discipline for solo play and pvp, then Tactics+Strength if you’re doing group pve…) to fit in another line. Our build choices are extremely crippled and limited because of this, making the Berserker feel rather subpar.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i think the 30/30 three full adrenal bars to activate berserk is fine.

you don’t need to activate berserk if you are soloing a weak mob.

True… but is that fun?

Imagine this scenario: You’re running around doing events, killing mobs along the way. You’re fighting them 1 or 2 at a time, and they die quickly. Because adrenaline empties so quickly after combat, there is no momentum from fight to fight.

You basically never activate Berserk in this scenario – there’s no point.

…So what’s the point of taking a tree that’s all about going Berserk, then?

In my opinion, it shouldn’t really matter if you’re just running around fighting small mobs or whatever – you should still want to utilize your cool new elite spec. That’s FUN. I think going Berserk should be encouraged and rewarded, rather than some extra pointless bothersome thing that’s only worth doing against tough enemies.

So I’ve done some more playing around with the class, and the more I think about it, I really think that the biggest problem with Berserker is the way our trait lines are put together.

The bottom line is this: Discipline – and to a lesser extent Defense – both feel MANDATORY for just about every build. Further, most traits across all warrior lines are designed to synergize with traits in OTHER lines (Phalanx Strength + Forceful Greatsword, for example). This combination is severely limiting what we can actually do with the class.

This is nothing new; people have been calling for things like a baseline Fast Hands for ages. The big problem now, though – and the reason I think Berserker feels underwhelming – is because this issue is being highlighted by so many people trying new Berserker specs. We just can’t make them work. The traits aren’t enabling it.

I don’t think Berserker can be fixed with numbers. Sure, you can buff torch damage, reduce some cooldowns, etc… but that does not solve the root issue of the class. We need our traits moved around and adjusted logically.

Some others have also mentioned this, and I’ll echo their suggestions:

— Baseline Fast Hands. Weapon swapping is a major warrior mechanic, moreso than other classes. I think having a 5sec CD should be one of our acknowledged class mechanics, similar to attunements or kits. This will help ease people out of the Discipline tree where necessary.

— Phalanx Strength moved to the Strength tree. This trait is ONLY ever taken with Strength/Greatsword. Why force people who want to play group support to specifically take Tactics/Strength? This limits them to a choice of one other trait line, meaning it’s unlikely we will actually see Berserkers in group play.

— Clean up bad traits. This should have been done when the new trait system was implemented. Warrior has a surprising number of borderline useless traits. Things like Burst Precision (might be good in a tree other than arms) and Thick Skin (strictly bad). Axe Mastery is basically useless as a grandmaster. Empower Allies arbitrarily has a smaller range than all other similar effects – why? Etc.

There’s so much more I could add, but this post is long enough already and I’m not a developer.

Overall, I think we need the devs to sit down and really look at the warrior traits, and make a few changes. This will allow the Berserker to actually see some use and varied play.

I’ve also noticed that everything seems way easier this time around. Very disappointing. It should be a challenging, dangerous experience going into the deep dark jungle!

I’ve been playing berserker all day, and while it’s fun… I tend to agree. I think the existing stuff is much stronger. There are just too many “mandatory” traits spread throughout the warrior lines that it makes it very hard to fit everything you need into a new build, leaving the entire new trait line feeling weak.

So far I’m enjoying the Berserker! It feels really good thematically, and I like the skill effects.

I have a couple small observations.

— First, I don’t feel like I’m spending enough time in Berserk mode. Getting enough rage to activate it isn’t the issue, it’s more of a problem with the cooldown. I feel like Berserk should have a shorter cooldown, and be enabled mostly through your ability to generate adrenaline, rather than a timer.

It just feels lame to me “only” going Berserk for 15 seconds, using a couple bursts, then waiting 15 seconds to use it again. Overall, I think the spec should allow for much higher uptime on Berserk while in a prolonged combat scenario. Why am I only mad half the time? Traits could be adjusted to suit, if necessary.

— Second, I believe the devs intended for you to choose which type of burst abilities are suited for the scenario you’re in, and play accordingly. You either use regular burst, or go berserk to utilize primal bursts. In practice, I don’t think this is really working.

You’re more incentivized to use Berserk on cooldown to gain it’s various benefits (passives, traits, etc) in basically any combat situation. Then you wait for the timer to end so you can do it again ASAP, as I mentioned previously. Because of this, I find myself either pooling adrenaline as the cooldown nears completion, or if I’m in a situation with lots of adrenaline generation, I just use my regular burst as normal and I don’t even think about it.

There is no real strategy here. I’m just hitting whichever F1 is available to me at that time, or holding off for a few seconds until I can go Berserk again to gain it’s benefits. The burst abilities are not different or impactful enough for me to strategize around. I’d rather just use berserk right away to burn, taunt, bleed, increase attack speed…. you get the idea.

— Third, I feel like the Torch is a bit clunky. The abilities are awesome and I have no complaint about their actual effects, I just feel like they are very slow. The Berserker is supposed to be a fast, hectic brawler, but when I have to stop what I’m doing to activate Torch 5 in the heat of combat, it just feels bad. Simple combos like torch 5 into sword 2 feel really “meh”. I think both torch abilities should have shorter activation times.

I also think Torch could be added to the “Dual Wield” trait in the arms line, to enable a few more build options. We’re using that torch offensively, after all! The “Furious” Grandmaster is good too, but I don’t think it should be so clear cut which one you take if you’ve gone down the Arms tree as a Berserker.

Overall, though, the spec feels like it could become something really fun. It isn’t quite there yet — but the good news is that fixing that is the point of these tests.

I don’t feel like they’re too strong. I would like to see them more powerful, in fact. Challenging content is GOOD. It’s not like there is any penalty for dying, so forcing you to learn how to play and utilize game mechanics in order to succeed is a good thing.

Facerolling through content is not fun.

I feel similarly. I was thinking about posting a similar thread, but I couldn’t really find the right word to express how I felt about VB.

“Aimless” feels about perfect.

Not really sure what I could suggest to improve it; this is just my initial impression.

The problem with axe is that the auto attack is better than all the other skills. The only one worth using is the axe throw when you aren’t in melee.

The spin does less dps than the auto attack, and they both can hit 5 enemies… so what’s the point of the spin? The fury chop is useless, and the vulnerability chop is rarely worth using because it interrupts the axe chain. You are highly incentivized to let the axe chain complete itself uninterrupted for the third part which does the highest damage.

The axe grandmaster really sucks. Reducing the CD on these abilities is quite pointless. The ferocity gain is nice, but not as good as the 20% flat damage GM its competing with.

I think the axe could use some work. Mainhand seems fine, but offhand axe skills are garbage.

Seems boring

To be expected playing an incomplete class. The biggest thing for me (right now) is I just don’t really like the abilities I’ve seen. Sure they can amp up the dps, but I still wouldn’t like the (current) play style.

The traitlines also feel like they need A LOT of work.

Of course, more weapons and stances can fix that.

Absolutely. I’m drooling at the thought of running around on a “Berserker” warrior with a sword in one hand, and a torch (pls anet) in the other.

Raiding villages, setting fire to their homes, salting the land, destroying the men in brutal combat, enslaving the women and children…

There’s people on both sides of the spectrum; some of us want realistic armor, some of us want skimpy fantasy armor.

For me, personally, I just wish there were more pants that weren’t skirts. The amount of people in this thread wearing Aetherblade pants is proof enough that I’m not alone.

I’d also like to see some more cool revealing sets, like the Gladiator and Barbaric sets, for two reasons. One, I like playing a kitten warrior girl in a plate bikini… and Two, I think “lighter” plate armor suits the more arid “hot weather” zones in the game. I think wearing Gladiator style while running around in SW adds immersion to the game for me.

It’s not just men who want skimpier armor sets, too. My girlfriend plays, and she complains that there aren’t enough revealing options. One of the main parts of MMO’s that she likes is making a sexy fantasy character that she can play as, and outfitting them in all sorts of cool outfits she could never wear in real life. Same reason some guys roll giant, ripped male norns. Play as Conan the Barbarian.

Anyway, pls no more skirts anet

BobbyStein.2315:

Tipper.6973:

The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.

Here’s what I think happened in your case:

• You logged into GW2 sometime between January 13 and January 27 (the date when episode 8 released and the end of the two week “free unlock” period)
• You completed your Personal Story six months later
• The content guide looked for the next available story in your Story Journal. Since you probably don’t have any other episodes from Season 2 unlocked it put you on Episode 8.

I’d need to see a screenshot to be absolutely sure, but that’s likely what happened.

The good: You got a free episode
The bad: You played that episode out of linear order and it confused you

We certainly can message this better in the game, so I’ll be having some conversations about how to change this behavior.

Okay, glad to hear this is an isolated case! I don’t recall if I had GW2 installed during that time period (I purchased GW2 at release, but only just got around to playing it a month or two ago… I know, I know), but it would make sense for that to be the cause.

Here’s a screenshot of my story tab, if that helps you at all.

The thing that I don’t get, is why would they bother to give me the final chapter of Season 2? I didn’t even get the parts before it, just the ending. This makes literally zero sense to a player who doesn’t supplement the game with forums/wiki/youtube. It feels really bad.

I would have been happier if the story just “ended” at Zhaitan, with a pop-up that directs me to the store page for purchasing the living story episodes (BOTH of them…) if I want to continue. “Prepare for Heart of Thorns here!”

Now, I’m just confused, and the ending of season 2 is spoiled for me. I don’t even /want/ to go spend gems on the rest of the living story now, because it will be told out of order.

What kind of ridiculous idea is limiting the living story to seasons, anyway? Like, I can’t imagine the devs sitting in a board room somewhere and coming to a consensus that it is a good idea. What were they thinking? Would ANYONE protest if they allowed you to buy season 1? It just seems like easy money for Anet, and happier players who enjoy lore.

I’m a new player and I just beat Zhaitan for the first time. I thought that would be that for the personal story, but then a new green indicator appeared on my map. Nice! More to do!

Except, nothing makes sense.

All of the sudden, I’m whisked off to the Durmond Priory base, talking to all these people I’ve never seen before. There’s some Dwarf guy I remember from GW1 (but I’ve never met him before in GW2… what is his purpose?), and some girl calling me “boss”. I have no idea what I’m doing here but okay.

Next I’m summoning some ghost guy and doing a throwback quest to ascension (which I also remember from GW1, but if I hadn’t played that game I REALLY wouldn’t have a clue what is happening).

After that, all of the sudden I’m sent to dry top in search of some dragon egg? What? What egg? Why is Destiny’s Edge here searching for Caithe?

Who are all these people calling me boss?

Oh cool I guess I found Caithe in a cave. But why is she hanging out with Faolain? I did TA while levelling and I thought they were enemies?

Why do these people keep calling me boss?

WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING??

….

This game has THE WORST story telling I have ever seen. Now, I understand that I have missed out on some living story stuff… but this is just really, really bad. With a sudden influx of new players who may not be reading the forums or wiki page, they will simply not understand this broken quest chain. They will be so confused. It ruins immersion and weakens the games overall plot & feel.

Gah. I can’t even go back and purchase Season 1 to figure out what is going on, so I guess I’ll spend the next hour reading quest dialogue on the wiki, instead of… y’know, enjoying the game.

Sorry for the rant. I’ve just spent the last couple hours of my game thoroughly confused and disappointed. This is a really bad way of handling introducing new players to the expansion.

Oh, one more thing — Who is this Mordremoth, anyway? The game still hasn’t told me.

You guys have to keep in mind that we still don’t have our elite spec. Many of the current changes are obviously preparation for it (including some seemingly missing traits — guess where they’re ending up?). The traits don’t make sense right now because the class is missing that entire trait line. This will be fixed when the expansion is released.

My theory: torch offhand, some kind of “battlefield commander” archetype. It would make sense that this commander could utilizes banners to great effect, as he leads the group into battle.

Yeah, two of my friends just bought the game a couple days ago at full price. Now they have to buy it again??

My room-mate has already told me she isn’t going to bother to continue to play, due to the huge cost. She’s abandoning the game before even reaching level 80. Great. We were having fun running around trying to 3-man all the dungeons… ugh.

Current patch is a bunch of incomplete changes, from the look of things. I’d expect things to make more sense when the expansion & new specialization is out. In the meantime, it kind of sucks.

Pandeh.5248:

Tipper.6973:

A lot of the changes in the current notes feel very incomplete. Warrior seems to have been hit the hardest by this, but other classes are scratching their heads about a few “missing” or questionable things too.

My suspicion is that a lot of the stuff we were expecting – but didn’t get – will come with the expansion / elite specs. This patch almost feels like a beta test for condi stuff, and they’ll add the rest later.

Still, that seems like bad business practice. Don’t half-kitten a balance patch… are we going to be stuck with incomplete traits and abilities for 6+ months?

We probably will.

And HoT will launch in 3 ish months, not next year.

I hope it’s that soon!

I’m just assuming longer since a release date hasn’t been announced yet (as far as I know). There’s very little class info or beta info out so far. Shouldn’t it take longer than three months to balance everything?

The thing that confuses me, is that it seems like the devs are fairly active in communicating with the community (at least compared to other games I’ve played). So with that in mind, how in the world do traits like Thick Skin even exist??

It’s laughably bad, it’s not fun, and there’s very little flavour. Players don’t like it or want it. This is evident in every thread where the trait comes up. I suspect the only people who are “okay” with it are people who don’t understand just how negligible the toughness is.

Meh.

A lot of the changes in the current notes feel very incomplete. Warrior seems to have been hit the hardest by this, but other classes are scratching their heads about a few “missing” or questionable things too.

My suspicion is that a lot of the stuff we were expecting – but didn’t get – will come with the expansion / elite specs. This patch almost feels like a beta test for condi stuff, and they’ll add the rest later.

Still, that seems like bad business practice. Don’t half-kitten a balance patch… are we going to be stuck with incomplete traits and abilities for 6+ months?