There isn’t nearly enough boon hate in the game in general, the kind that really punishes players for spamming and running specs built around them. Necro has it and Rev has a little. The rest is just boon removal which just works well against rarely applied boons like stability, but other boons get reapplied quickly.
If Warrior got some nice anti-boon abilities I think it might find better place in pvp. (inb4 ele/guard players come in and complain about their boon reliance, as if they aren’t strong enough already)
IMO the rewards shouldn’t come from thin air in WvW. It should be a “put your money where your mouth is” type of gameplay. For example blue team puts 100g down that they’ll take SM in the next hour and red team puts 100g down that they’ll defend and the side that wins pulls out 200g. WvW needs somekind of zero sum risk/reward system IMO to keep it really interesting.
HoT is definitely not perfect and a lot of flaws shine through. Some examples:
1) Overflow system doesn’t seem to be working optimally as IGN pointed out.
2) Some adventure challenges seem overtuned, too difficult to get gold, where the real challenge should be getting high on the leaderboard. Tangled Depths map event seems out of tune as well.
3) Unfinished/rushed content – like HoT legendaries that will be tapered out in time as will raid content. WvW took a big hit and content involving it feels like an afterthought, fractal rewards got destroyed for some reason. Elite specs are not balanced. Precursor quests are bugged.
4) A lot of skin rewards involved in horizontal progression, but Anet chose to stick with the horrible transmutation system. When you have one nicely skinned ascended armor set that you spent a lot of time making, the system just makes it discouraging and frustrating to play around with new skins and looks.
Biggest thing Warrior needs is more utility. The range of Warrior utility was pretty much reduced to just banners when shoutbow was nerfed. One thing there is room for in the game is more boon hate. The only class that really punishes boon spam is Necro, I think Warrior could also do similar. Warrior could also use a way to clear out/destroy ground targeted things like traps/wells/marks/etc.
Other than that it just comes down to nerfing the power creep in other classes and fixing minor things like offhand axe/mace, making GS Rush reliable again like it was pre-specialization patch, etc.
Shin has some points but I think he’s been just too used to Warrior being OP and pines for the old days.
I’d rather see other classes nerfed before Warrior getting buffed into the stratosphere to match all the chronomancers/dragon hunters/eles/heralds/scrappers out there.
If raids are balanced around ascended gear (meaning that %5 extra performance over exotic might make a difference), and if combat boosts are allowed in said raids (like Strength/Armor), then yes it will be a P2W scenario.
The biggest design mistake is a horizontal progression system that largely rewards skins coupled with the restrictive transmutation system.
Well what else could possibly be rewarded with a horizontal progression system if not skins? Obviously better stats is vertical, so what’s left?
If you are against horizontal progression in general then what the heck are you doing playing GW2 lol
Im not against a horizontal system at all, the problem is that Anet is shooting itself in the foot with the way the rewards are designed. When I get skins I’d love to be able to use them all and make different looks/char designs around them. But destructively overwriting old looks on my ascended armor by burning transmute charges? Bleh! What’s that? Make another ascended armor set to waste bank/inv space just so I can swap looks? No thanks.
Anet really needs to get its head out of its butt on this issue. I even wouldn’t mind paying gems to buy outfit templates to apply skins to with transmute charges if it means I can freely swap looks over gear.
Blaze Breaker would be good if it had some boon hate, either removing boons or extending the duration of the conditions per boon on the enemy.
Flames of War would be cool if it granted immunity to blind for its duration.
Projectile blocking is so boring and the Shield already fits that bill. Another potential effect could be the ability to block and clear traps and ground targeted aoe.
Personally I don’t think Warrior’s should be touched until the other classes are sufficiently nerfed. I fear that if Anet jumps in right away then they’ll take the easy way out and buff sustain and create the same problem when they originally buffed Healing Signet.
Most of the tweaks that I would like to see are minor, like perhaps adding an evade to sword f2 and somekind of condi component to Final Thrust. Warrior could also use something like Rev’s Dismantle Fortification since stability is much more common, and boon hate for the Warrior in general should be buffed.
A good improvement but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s always been the classes and builds at the heart of the issue and less so the food (i.e. condi Mesmers are still cancer)
So this change is thanks to DH and Ghost Thief? On a rune set that seemed to be tailor made for Ranger traps? Can we at least get something for it since no one in their right mind would run traps on Ranger without these runes?
How about tweaking LoYF trait so that Superspeed applied to the Ranger lasts an extra second?
P/D has been dead since the specialization patch. There is a reason most condi thieves out there don’t even use their weapons anymore, just traps and stealing in permastealth…
Thief pistols in general need a nice overhaul (particularly Pistol #2 attack, Sneak Attack, and the weak auto attack)
I think the big maps would be fun in evenly matched, packed servers. But that’s not the case for most of the matchups.. (instead there should be a compact version of the map for low tiers)
I’m disappointed with the guard stack changes, before I wouldn’t mind fighting an NPC to get buffs but now I recoil at the sight of worthless PVE’ing in WvW. It doesn’t help that the time that went to leveling those things in WvW feels wasted now that they’re gone.
The nerf to the +-condi food hasn’t really done anything, the issue has always been about specific classes and builds (Mesmers are #1 cancer out there where condies matter, small group battles)
It’s also disappointing that the Mastery system was inspired by WvW, but so little went back to improve WvW leveling. I’d love to at least see reward tracks like in sPvP.
The auto-upgrading is neat but it should depend on incoming doylaks ALOT more so offpeak roamers can actually mean something, otherwise structures can just sit and upgrade themselves without opposition.
Unless they fixed it, the Sic’em buff on the pet gets removed the moment you issue a command to the pet or use another shout. So no, Sic’em does not work fine.
I really like the idea of changing the 3s swiftness on SB to super speed. And while they’re at it, change/add to Light on Your Feet trait, so that it extends all super speed duration.
I’d like to see something that negates or clears all non-boon buffs for a few seconds. It would be nice if abilities like Berserker’s Stance had more counterplay.
D/D Ele OP, Mesmer kind of OP. A single Thief still mandatory on competitive teams. The rest of the classes kind of blend together in terms of balance. Also, burning stacks in intensity and is particularly strong.
If there wasn’t any hard-ressing, there might be a chance for a smaller group to coordinate and pick off a zerg’s commander. But I dont think Anet wants to touch anything that might make zerglings complain, we’re all just PVE’ers in their eyes after all.
Have you seen the Berserker notes? Warrior is going to get a trait that does almost exactly that, it might not even have an ICD if the tooltip screenshot is an indication.
Potential mirror uptime is also pretty ridiculous. It’s bad enough that clones body block projectiles if they dont pierce. It would be nice if Mesmers had some sort of Achilles heel.
Survival Ranger has some nice condition clears through survival skills. Unsure if its the best condi removal class/build but i like it. Saved my kitten tons of times getting condi showered.
I’m sorry, but while Ranger can get ok condi removal, it’s outclassed by nearly every profession except Engineer..
The most optimum you can get is Mesmer with Inspiration traitline, taking the mantra heal, and topping off with whatever else you want.
If you want to go more extreme condi-mitigation but less optimal roaming, go for Diamondskin Elementalist or signet Necromancer.
I think it would be good for the game in an ideal world to have F2P PvP. But in reality, you’d have the problem with cheaters/hackers. Ban them and they’ll just make new F2P accounts.
People acting like Phantasms from stealth are gonna oneshot you… Seriously, if they’re just camping in stealth and summoning phantasms, you’d have to be brain dead to die to that
You’d have to be braindead to die from a Thief spamming choking gas in stealth but they nerfed that anyway.
Well 100 less power and 100 less condi is a big nerf for dmg. Also the nerf to hp has higher impact in people running full zerker. A thief will drop from 13.5k to 11.5k, maybe that will make some swap a couple pieces of gear into more defensive ones, thus reducing the dmg…
And then the thief will just go and pick up the +10% damage shrine buff in the new map.
It took a massive uproar and giant CDI thread to get anything done with the class and come the Specialization patch Rangers are back to square one. GG Anet.
Mirror/projectile deflection uptime is also potentially waay too high. I don’t understand why they buffed this aspect of Mesmer so much. With just the clone body blocking, stealth, invuln shatter, etc they had plenty of stuff to deal with projectiles.
Celestial used to work nice for Ranger pre-Specialization, but they took out some of the flat damage modifiers and things like the passive Sharpening Stone proc that made hybrid work without might-stacking.
If you can find a way to fit might-stacking in then maybe you’ll find something that works. So far I haven’t found anything flexible enough.
Yeah, would be OP in some aspects. EB wouldn’t be so bad currently if maybe a -% condition duration or damage was tacked on it, but that’s a band-aid fix.
Good fix for EB would be for the pet to gain 2-3s of Resistance per condition pulled.
You didn’t mention flexibility, you stated they can get enough condition removal without much sacrifice. Nowhere near the same thing.
I agree that Ranger needs more options for condition removal outside of WS, but saying that other classes can manage with no sacrifice is just plain wrong. Unless they have baseline passive removals, they need to make sacrifices as much as we do. Their removal may be better at the end of the day, but that is also a different discussion.
You dont see the connection between flexibility and sacrifice? Not taking WS is a huge sacrifice for Ranger, but a class like Warrior can still find decent condition removal if they don’t take Defense. And I compared Cleansing Ire GM to EB, where Rangers literally weaken their profession mechanic to cleanse while Warriors enhance their mechanic. L2readingcomprehension please.
It’s bad enough that it was gutted both from SA and Acro.