Greatsword

(Primal Burst) Arc Divider: Revert the cast time nerf; Change the cast time to half second.

Why: Compare this to holographic shock wave. will also launch you, crit 100% of the time, and has a 600 range. compared to arc divider's 450 range. Also holosmiths can enter photon forge with less restriction than berserk mode. Apples to oranges, but this skill really needs the nerf reverted as it's no longer considered 'op".

Hammer

(Primal Burst) Rupturing Smash: Change the AOE to a full circle instead of a quarter circle.

Why: The unusual hit box makes this awkward to lead hits with its 3/4 second cast time. Giving it a full AOE circle will make this more usable.

Bow

(Burst) Combustive Shot / Scorched Earth: Make it so when this doesn't hit an enemy, it doesn't proc adrenaline traits.

(Bow 1) Dual Shot: Increase projectile speed.

Why: You shouldn't be given adrenaline use benefits if the bow burst doesn't hit a target. Keeps it in line with other burst abilities.

Rifle

(Burst) Kill Shot: Allow movement

(Rifle 1) Fierce Shot: Divide the damage across 3 shots, change it to a 3 round burst. Gain bonus adrenaline if all 3 rounds hit your target. remove bonus adrenaline when striking vulnerable targets.

(Rifle 2) Aimed shot: Make this a damage a small aoe around your target, reduce vulnerability stacks.

(Rifle 4) Brutal Shot: Reduce cast time to a quarter second, give this skill animation priority instead of queuing behind current active skills.

Why: Rifle's kill shot is supposed to be a hard hitting high risk skill. The power creep over this game made it so other attacks are capable of dealing the same damage with less risk. Rifle also suffers from poor adrenaline gain because it's mostly a single target hitting weapon (with exception of rifle 3 piercing multiple targets). Making rifle 1 a multi hit attack and rifle 2 an attack to strike multiple enemies will give rifle more options on adrenaline gain. Rifle 4's dodge is just too slow to use reactively.

Axe

(Primal Burst) Decapitate: Reduce cast time to half a second, reduce aftercast. Remove the might gain, and fire the shockwave effect even if the axe doesn't hit a target.

Why: Eviscerate is a better burst attack, the shock wave is a gimmick and awkward to hit other targets out of position. Even skull grinder is better than this.

Mace

(Primal Burst) Skull Grinder: Undo the splits and normalize it to the PVE specifications.

(Burst) Skill Crack: Add a small 300 distance lunge prior to striking, like berserker's skull grinder

(Mace 2) Counterblow: Make this skill have animation priority over other skills instead of queuing behind so this can be used reactively instead of predictively

(Mace 3) Pommel Bash: Give this 2 charges. Increase cooldown.

(Mace 5) Tremor: Make this ground targeted

Why: General usability update for mace. The small lunge for skull crack will reduce misfires, animation priority for counterblow allows it to be used reactively, ground targeting for tremor allows players to lead shots because this projectile travels too slow to be reliable. Mace 3 Pommel bash changed to match how effective disrupting stab (dagger 3) is.

Sword

(Burst) Flurry: Allow movement while casting. Remove the immobilize, reduce number of hits to 3 / reduce cast time, increase damage / condition per hit to compensate.

(Sword 5) Riposte: Make this skill have animation priority over other skills instead of queuing behind so this can be used reactively instead of predictively

Why: Self rooting yourself to root a target is not a good tradeoff because your target can cleanse the condition and you'd be a sitting duck out of a burst attack. Sword 5 change for same reason as mace 2.

Dagger

No changes at this time

Why: Has functional and distinctive utility.

Shield / Warhorn / Torch (berserker)

No changes at this time

Why: Has functional and distinctive utility.

Healing

To the Limit: Add a voice line. remove adrenaline gain, halve the healing/endurance and give 2 charges.

Why: giving to the limit 2 charges will be benefitial for shout builds.

Utility

Frenzy: Rework this. Make it so burst attacks don't use up adrenaline and burst recharge is halved while this stance is active. Pulse alacrity and quickness. Does not break stuns or grant might. 45s cd, 6s stance duration.

Fear Me: Give this 2 charges, reduce + normalize fear duration.

Outrage: Change it so this uses the charge/ammunition mechanic, increase cooldown.

Wild Blow: Increase the launch to 900, increase damage by a lot.

Sundering Leap: Change it from vulnerability and cripple to torment and burning. Reduce cast time to half a second.

Sight beyond Sight (Spellbreaker): Change it so you gain an effect that allows you to see stealthed targets instead of revealing them for a short period of time, increase damage to stealthed enemies. Enemies you strike during this period are applied disenchantment for a second.

Imminent Threat (Spellbreaker): Give it 2 charges, reduce taunt duration. Apply Disenchantment for 5 seconds.

Why: Will take time to evaluate the changes made to the other utility skills to see if more updates are necessary, but the change to frenzy was largely underwhelming. Low uptime, and doesn't contribute damage itself makes this a low priority skill. Having a burst themed stance will give this some identity. Wild Blow doesn't appear to have much utility other than it's gimmick. Fear me and imminent threat will be more usable with charges, sight beyond sights is useless due to the amount of blindness and stealth that is thrown around (designed to counter stealth yet there's ingame mechanics countering this skill)

Elite

Battle Standard: Remove the pulsing might/fury/swiftness. Pulse healing in the area, have the compassionate banner trait increase the heal amount.

Signet of Rage: Rework this. Passive: fill adrenaline and refresh burst when you kill an enemy. Active: Prime your next burst attack to deal double damage/double condition damage (10 seconds before expiration)

Why: The banner and signet updates neglected elite skills. Battle standard and signet of rage have been made obsolete over time due to power creep.

Strength

Brave Stride:: Rework this. Successfully landing a burst attack grants stability.

Merciless Hammer: Increase damage bonus to 50% and cause a aoe blast finisher when you inflict a control effect with a hammer with a short cooldown, have the bonus daamge affect any attacks that apply and control effect rather than have the effect apply on enemies that are controlled.

Why: Brave stride is useless once you enter battle, Merciless hammer weak compared to MMR and Berserker's power, window of opportunity too limited for the benefit.

Arms

Opportunist: Rework this. Gain increased critical hit chance for a short time after landing a burst skill.

Unsuspecting Foe: Rework this. Attacks that inflict disable effects have an increased critical hit chance and deal increased critical damage.

Dual Wielding: Rework this. Wielding a weapon in your offhand that's the same as your mainhand halves burst cooldown and adrenaline used on burst.

Why: No one uses opportunist, window of opportunity too small for unsuspecting foe, dual wielding conflicts with quickness.

Defense

Sundering Mace: Rework this. Your mace attacks are uninterruptable. Deal bonus damage if your target has stability. Reduce incoming damage from foes 600 units away from you while wielding a mace. Reduce cooldown on mace skills.

Last Stand: Change it so this only activates and go on cooldown when you don't have stability already

Why: This trait is in a very poor position (vs defy pain and Armored attack). Too specialized, little benefit. This needs to provide more benefit to a mace user than a mace user with defy pain selected.

Tactics

Leg Specialist: Cripples and immobilizes you apply have longer duration. Inflict immobilize when you cripple a foe, inflict cripple if you land a critical strike. (mutually exclusive)

Shrug it Off: Increase condition removal count or update tooltip.

Why: No one uses leg specialist, shrug it off has either an incorrect tooltip or it's using an outdated shake it off.

Discipline

Crack Shot: Rework this. GIves rifle 2 Aimed shot 3 charges, reduce cooldown on rifle skills.

Vengeful Return. Rework this. Deal more damage when your health is low, even more damage while in vengeance. Gain 100% chance to rally when you sucessfully kill while in vengeance.

Why: Reworked rifle to gain adrenaline more easily without need for trait, vengeful return too specialized.

Berserker

General: Make it so after activating berserk mode, primal bursts are no longer limited by both adrenaline and cooldown, instead, limit it with only a cooldown. Keep berserk mode's cooldown and 3 bar adrenaline cost. Make smash brawler baseline.

Smash Brawler: Make current trait baseline, rework this. Critical hit chance and critical damage is increased against burning enemies.

Why: If primal bursts are going to be treated as level 1 bursts, smash brawler need to be made baseline because of warrior doesn't gain much after transforming besides hindering their own survivability with the adrenal health nerf.

Last Blaze: in addition to its current effects, Primal burst attacks inflict burning. Can only occur once per interval per target for multi hit burst skills.

Why: Berserker being a condi oriented spec should have their primal bursts inflict more condi as a trait option. No such option exists.

Savage Instinct: In addition to its current effects, primal bursts are now able to break stun.

Why: Current trait places too many restrictions to make this beneficial (effectively a stun break on a 30 second cooldown and it requires adrenaline to use). Need 3 bars of adrenaline to enter berserk mode, and limited by a cooldown with a subpar benefit. Making primal bursts capable of breaking stun will breathe new life into this trait.

Dead or Alive: Rework this. You are now able to leave berserk mode to put it on cooldown early by pressing F1 while in berserk. Evade and gain super speed for 1 second when entering berserk mode, gain barrier and vigor when leaving berserk mode.

Why: Current dead or alive trait is ineffective due to the requirements of being in berserk mode. It's also a passive boring trait. Make this an active trait.

Fatal Frenzy: Increase boon duration to 15 seconds

Why: Always angry is a better trait and has a lower tier. can't even do anything with 3 seconds of quickness.

Eternal Champion: Rework this. You are no longer able to gain stability if you take this trait, but your primal bursts also become uninterruptible. Any incoming stability you gain is immediately converted to retaliation and resistance. Gain resistance + convert blind/weakness/cripple into fury/might/swiftness when you break a stun.

Why: This is to make a frontline berserker more viable in WvW while embracing the specialization's theme around breaking stun.

Spellbreaker

Sun and Moon Style: Increase heal amount for offhand, change it so mainhand auto attack strips a boon.

Full Counter: Make this skill have animation priority over other skills instead of queuing behind so this can be used reactively instead of predictively. Scale attacks based on the attack it countered.

Why: Unused trait, and to update usability of full counter so it can be used more reactively. Full counter damage too weak, a better idea would have been to scale it based on the attack it countered to make it less effective against aoe cleave and more effective against strong attacks.

Bucket Knight Espec confirmed!!!

i like most of your changes,but the change to longbow burst would make the sole advantage of longbow (pretty much a guaranteed burst hit) useless (longbow burst is a super slow projectile). this would only be ok if you would still be granted those adrenal health stacks/ stab (from your new strength line) retroactively (after the burst skill already hit the ground) when enemies walk back into your f1 firefields.

i also think that 100b on gs should be reworked or at the very least altered as this skill is simply outdated.

it's the same with offhand sword. even if the #4 skill would have 2 charges this skill is far to clunky and useless to be taken seriously. rev offhand sword was reworked and lost its block because rev already had an offhand dedicated to defense. warrior also has shield for that. and a condi offhand (torch) and an offhand with reflect (dagger) and a pure power offhand (axe) and one for condi cleanse and one for cc. what we do not have is an offhand that grants mobility. but sword offhand could be anything really but the current skills are simply awkward to use and #4 is downright useless.

and axe with reflect (even only projectile destruction) on #5 would be ridiculously op. ranger axe has it, but you can't move while casting it, it only hits 3 targets and has a longer cd even though it's radius is quite a bit larger than warriors axe 5.

i specifically like your proposed change to brave stride. with the ability to gain stability from the strength traitline and mmr you would probably be able to switch strength for defense which would drastically increase build diversity.

and ofc a much needed buff for berserker.

Dagger in PvE most definitely needs a major damage buff.

@otto.5684 said:Dagger in PvE most definitely needs a major damage buff.

Why though? There are already weapons out there for warrior that already does good damage. If you give dagger dps, you're taking away the only distinguishing factor of axe/greatsword (damage).

Daggers (and spellbreakers in general) are effective against boons. If pve mobs had high boon uptime, you would see better use for spellbreaker (especially WoD) in pve. The problem isn't the specialization/weapon. I would argue that pve mobs need to deal more condition damage and have higher boon uptime to match what players are capable of. That way you would see a wider variety of weapons/traits/skills being used in pve instead of a faceroll dps rotation.

@TheBravery.9615 said:

@otto.5684 said:Dagger in PvE most definitely needs a major damage buff.

Why not?! I played axe/Gs for years. Why should they be the only weapons viable for PvE power builds?!

I disagree with To The Limit adrenaline removal. That skill only needs aftercast removed + proper voice line.

Reduce dagger leap aftercasts.

They seriously buffed rifle in the wrong way again.Damage has never been really the issue,its the fact that kneeldown burst does not fit in this 2018 meta.Remove the kneeldown effect as you stated,dont slow down movement speed but keep the charge up animation and maybe make it clear to see it is charging up.

Thank you for typing this up OP, these changes are very sensible and fair, and I agree with almost all of them.

Agree with most minus longbow. Too slow to not let it's bursts not count. It's also more about area control so it makes sense that it counts when the fire field procs.

I also think that dual shot needs baseline 2x 1 sec burning. This needs to be default for Condi builds, and we need longbow to be a Condi weapon since we only have one baseline. Instead, the trait should add more burning % duration, maybe 10% and the cd reduction.

Either that or move burning arrows to tier 1 where it is competing with other selfish traits, not group related traits.

OR even better yet, move it to ARMS.

Ps, I think "Shrug it off" should become a minor trait in tactics.

shoutheal just needs casttime removed or lowered, 1 sec is too long

cripple and torment on sword flurry would swing it harder to a pure condi weapon, make it somehow viable for both types of gameplay, sword/shield gs is atleast somewhat viable right now in roaming

hammer trait buff is nice but probably too strong, perma quickness while zerging with that traitline?the blasts would be very appreciated since warrior has like no fields on their own, so they should get more stuff to blast others

and on a sidenote compare break enchantments with the new traitable necro scepter skill, that thing is nuts

@RedShark.9548 said:hammer trait buff is nice but probably too strong, perma quickness while zerging with that traitline?

Good point. Changed it to fury.

@RedShark.9548 said:cripple and torment on sword flurry would swing it harder to a pure condi weapon, make it somehow viable for both types of gameplay,

Another good point.. changed my suggestion from

• (Burst) Flurry: Remove the immobilize, inflict torment and cripple instead, allow movement while casting

to

• (Burst) Flurry: Allow movement while casting. Remove the immobilize, reduce number of hits to 3 / reduce cast time, increase damage / condition per hit to compensate.

Quickness doesn't make sense on hammer, its combo is already executable without it, and having quickness doesn't add anything besides autoattack hits.

Also, making mace attacks "uninterruptable" doesn't change much except for Skull Crack and the auto chain. The rest are relatively fast enough to basically never get interrupted unless you're fighting a sword mesmer, in which case everything gets interrupted unless you have stability anyways.

It'd be better to merge the Mace and Hammer traits. Instead of confusion on interrupt, or CC duration, make it so Mace and Hammer skills apply a debuff called... "Staggered" which will lockout mobility skills so you can combo without the opponent just rolling or blinking out.

Staggered: Disables all mobility skills, including ones with a stun break attached. Duration is based on the base skill CC duration, between 1 and 3 seconds usually (Level 3 Skullcrack applies 3).

Force opponents to either dodge the really slow Skullcrack/Earthshaker setup, or force them to slot non-universally useful stun breaks, and prevent the usage of Lightning Flash and Jaunt even while CC'd. Makes Mace/Sh/GS actually good instead of braindead Auto-Endure Pain all the time.

@"Kiroshima.8497" said:Quickness doesn't make sense on hammer, its combo is already executable without it, and having quickness doesn't add anything besides autoattack hits.

Also, making mace attacks "uninterruptable" doesn't change much except for Skull Crack and the auto chain. The rest are relatively fast enough to basically never get interrupted unless you're fighting a sword mesmer, in which case everything gets interrupted unless you have stability anyways.

It'd be better to merge the Mace and Hammer traits. Instead of confusion on interrupt, or CC duration, make it so Mace and Hammer skills apply a debuff called... "Staggered" which will lockout mobility skills so you can combo without the opponent just rolling or blinking out.

Staggered: Disables all mobility skills, including ones with a stun break attached. Duration is based on the base skill CC duration, between 1 and 3 seconds usually (Level 3 Skullcrack applies 3).

Force opponents to either dodge the really slow Skullcrack/Earthshaker setup, or force them to slot non-universally useful stun breaks, and prevent the usage of Lightning Flash and Jaunt even while CC'd. Makes Mace/Sh/GS actually good instead of braindead Auto-Endure Pain all the time.

If anet does introduce this sort of debuff, you can almost expect it to carry over to other professions. You sure you want that?

Healing

• Mending: Make this a physical ability to benefit from the 10% damage increase trait and reduced cooldown.
• To the Limit: Add a voice line. remove adrenaline gain, halve the healing and give 2 charges.

Adrenaline gain of "To the limit" will be nice on Mending too."To the limit" should have reduced energy gain with two charges.

Utility

• Frenzy: Rework this. Make it so burst attacks don't use up adrenaline and burst recharge is halved while this stance is active. Pulse alacrity and quickness. Does not break stuns or grant might. 45s cd, 6s stance duration.

The burst stuff sounds a bit to strong, alacrity can be helpful. Personally i want super speed on frenzy!

Strength

• Merciless Hammer: Rework this. Critical hits with the hammer are now blast finishers (1s cd). Blast finishers with the hammer deal AOE damage. Gain Fury when you disable a foe with a hammer. Reduce cooldown on hammer skills.

Arms

• Unsuspecting Foe: Rework this. Attacks that inflict disable effects have an increased critical hit chance and deal increased critical damage.

Never understood the merge of the hammer trait with the confusion trait. A merge with Unsuspecting foe fits much better.Not sure about the blast finisher thing. This would be too strong, because its easy to crit, and needs an icd. But with an too high icd it would be useless, because of the blast finisher of F1.

Berserker

• General: Return primal bursts as lv 3 bursts for adrenaline use purposes.

Unpopular opinion: Don't do that! Berserkers Power and Adrenal Health lasts for 15 seconds, the same duration as berserker mode. It would be more helpful just count the activation of berserker mode as an T3 burst.Cleansing Ire is not necessary for Berserker. Better add some Resistance to Primal Bursts or something like that.

Activation of Berserker mode should be feel more like high risk, high reward. When you play Berserker these days you have that feeling a bit. Well, the reward is missing. But returning the T3 on primal bursts is just an lazy fix. It does not feel rewarding because Berserker is made for burst spam.

An additional idea:Add super speed and faster weapon swap to berserker mode -> Berserker will probably work without Discipline.

All other changes sound more or less interesting. I could deal with them :-)

@"Rettan.9603" said:

Healing

• Mending: Make this a physical ability to benefit from the 10% damage increase trait and reduced cooldown.
• To the Limit: Add a voice line. remove adrenaline gain, halve the healing and give 2 charges.

Utility

• Frenzy: Rework this. Make it so burst attacks don't use up adrenaline and burst recharge is halved while this stance is active. Pulse alacrity and quickness. Does not break stuns or grant might. 45s cd, 6s stance duration.

Strength

• Merciless Hammer: Rework this. Critical hits with the hammer are now blast finishers (1s cd). Blast finishers with the hammer deal AOE damage. Gain Fury when you disable a foe with a hammer. Reduce cooldown on hammer skills.

Arms

• Unsuspecting Foe: Rework this. Attacks that inflict disable effects have an increased critical hit chance and deal increased critical damage.

Berserker

• General: Return primal bursts as lv 3 bursts for adrenaline use purposes.

Thanks for your feedback. the balance from what makes something op or weak can be determined by finer details. I left out damage amounts from the blast finisher on hammer, anet can figure that out.

Good point on to the limit, halved endurance as well.

For berserker, my biggest gripe of it is that i need to build 3 bars of adrenaline only for it to get cut down to 1 for burst based trait activation. That, and they're not much better from the regular bursts (a lot of the bonus damage actually comes from damage multiplyers in the berserker specialization). But I do agree that just making it lv 3 again is a lazy fix..changed it to 2 options, either entering berserk deal pboae damage to trigger burst traits, or remove the adrenaline requirement from activating berserker mode altogether.

I do think.they could update sword bust flurry to be unrooted. All they have to do is take the berzerker animation for flaming flurry and carry it over. I would be much happier with sword of they made that one improvement.

@TheBravery.9615 said:

• To the Limit: Add a voice line. remove adrenaline gain, halve the healing/endurance and give 2 charges.Why: Mending is uncategorized, giving to the limit 2 charges will be benefitial for shout builds.

No, absolutely not. Core Warrior is already the single easiest build in the game to learn and be incredibly effective with with little tradeoff, and this would break it.

@Turk.5460 said:

@TheBravery.9615 said:

• To the Limit: Add a voice line. remove adrenaline gain, halve the healing/endurance and give 2 charges.
  Why:
  Mending is uncategorized, giving to the limit 2 charges will be benefitial for shout builds.

Trying to understand what you mean. Is my suggestion overpowered or underpowered in your opinion because it could be interpreted both ways lol

I am sorry, but I personnaly don't like most of these ideas. I am a big fan of the "Leg Specialist" + "Opportunist" combo as it currently is, and I don't see any reason to make that go away. Bow 4 is something you keep for when you need to inflict blind to make and incoming attack miss, not for actual damage dealing. I also like the current "Frenzy" (and I need that stun break!). I would also rather prefer that Alacrity stays unique to the Chronomancer. Ground targetting for Mace 5 seems more of an anoyance than anything. Don't nerf the fear duration on "Fear me", that it is its best point that any Necromancer envy. I am also against your changes on the two Elites. Honestly, the only two things I would personaly wish for is that they undo the change on Shield 4 (the longer casting time that ruined the animation), and make Revenge actually work in places where it will never trigger (story instances and the like).

@RandomNPC.8714 said:I am sorry, but I personnaly don't like most of these ideas. I am a big fan of the "Leg Specialist" + "Opportunist" combo as it currently is, and I don't see any reason to make that go away.Doesn't mean it's effective compared to other trait options in both specializations

@RandomNPC.8714 said:Bow 4 is something you keep for when you need to inflict blind to make and incoming attack miss, not for actual damage dealing.Ok but is this necessary on a ranged weapon? The benefit of a ranged weapon is the ability to position yourself better than melee to avoid damage.

@RandomNPC.8714 said:I also like the current "Frenzy" (and I need that stun break!). I would also rather prefer that Alacrity stays unique to the Chronomancer.You have other options available if you need a stun break on a much shorter cooldown. I suggested removing the stun break using a 'give and take' appraoch to balance to avoid blatant power creep.

@RandomNPC.8714 said:Ground targetting for Mace 5 seems more of an anoyance than anything.Suggested this because how slow the projectile travels, so I can lead my shots on where my target's moving to. The other option is to increase projectile speed, which I didn't suggest because it's power creep.

@RandomNPC.8714 said:Don't nerf the fear duration on "Fear me", that it is its best point that any Necromancer envy.I would like 2 charges for more uses, but can't have it all now can we?

@RandomNPC.8714 said:I am also against your changes on the two Elites.ok

@RandomNPC.8714 said:Honestly, the only two things I would personaly wish for is that they undo the change on Shield 4 (the longer casting time that ruined the animation), and make Revenge actually work in places where it will never trigger (story instances and the like).The shield 4 cast time nerf was welcome in my book and their explanation for the nerf was understandable at the time when the balance team were reviewing risk/reward benefit of CC skills. The may 16 patch adjusted CC skills for all professions, not just warrior. My opinion though.

Agree to disagree.

I think leg special is should be rolled into opportunist to make opportunist a more competitive choice.

This would also give room for a new trait in tactics. I'd like to see Shrug it off moved there if it isn't made into a minor trait.

@TheBravery.9615 said:

@Turk.5460 said:

@TheBravery.9615 said:

• To the Limit: Add a voice line. remove adrenaline gain, halve the healing/endurance and give 2 charges.
  Why:
  Mending is uncategorized, giving to the limit 2 charges will be benefitial for shout builds.

Well your change wouldn't affect WvW zerg play int he slightest, and I'm not referencing any PvE here, just competitive. Adding charges to a heal, even at halved power, makes an already overstacked dueling build more overstacked. It doesn't take a lot of thought or skill to perform well as Core Warrior to begin with in duels, and that change would further auto-play it. It takes a big burst to take a Warrior down to auto-EP already, which often can be negated by active-EP by an aware player. Coupled with Adrenal Health, more frequent smaller heals would postpone fights against warrior almost indefinitely, regardless of how well you're playing against them.