Warrior Balance 02/10 Feedback Thread

This was a fairly safe balance patch for us Warriors with no unnecessary nerfs or anything like that, something I was pleased about.

The addition of Mending to the physical category was sensible and something people have wanted for a while, I was pleased to see that, it may well see PvE use due to being the only DPS increase healing skill now. It was great to see off-hand Sword get some needed love too, with the changes further cementing it as the hybrid condi/power weapon, although it is this reason that I still doubt it will see any play.

There are some things that missed the boat though, which we should talk about in this thread.

Things like Flurry, which desperately needs the self-rooting removed. There are also many many underwhelming traits, many are so bad it isn't viable at all to choose them. Traits like "Body Blow", "Restorative Strength", "Brave Stride" from the Strength Tree. I also think adding some DPS increase and perhaps even a few seconds of invulnerability to "Vengeful Return" would make this a tempting pick over the popular "Warrior's Sprint".

Mostly I think the trees are quite good right now. Tactics should be even further refined as the support tree. The biggest problem tree right now is certainly Arms, which is a hybrid tree, part of the problem. I think this tree especially needs a new vision, as it has many weak traits with too much random placement.

• Mending is a Physical now = YES!!
• Longbow buffs = Love it. Nothing major but good.
• Sword OH = got 16k on the golem with Rip.
• Hammer = Also good. Hammer 2 could realy hurt. 2400 Base dmg with 2621 Power.

Its ok for me. Lets just hope we get more good stuff in the future.

yeah mending = physical is pretty cool.

edithere are the actual notes

WarriorFierce Blow: In addition to its previous effects, this skill now deals increased damage when striking a controlled foe. Control effects include stun, daze, knock back, pull, knock down, sink, float, launch, taunt, and fear.Backbreaker: In addition to its previous effects, this skill now knocks foes down for 1 additional second if the target is weakened.Fan of Fire: The burning duration of this skill has been increased from 3 seconds to 5 seconds per arrow.Smoldering Arrow: This skill now uses the ammunition system. Maximum ammunition is set at 3 with a recharge time of 20 seconds per charge. Time between uses has been set to 0.5 seconds.Mending: This is now classified as a physical skill.Impale: The projectile velocity has been increased by 66%.Rip: The physical damage of this skill has been increased by 15%.Riposte: The physical damage of this skill has been increased by 100%. The time to complete its attack animation and aftercast has been reduced by 0.25 seconds.

the offhand sword buff is very welcome. pretty much a forgotten weapon.

Happy with this patch. Mending change was long coming. Sword Offhand sounds fun, though I don't think there is any way to fit it into any build.

OH sword is still garbage minus the rip damage boost kind of (which only makes it a t1 eviscerate, 1.75 * 1.15 is 2.0125). Riposte went from a .5 to a 1.0, making it not a damage loss on hybrid instead of a worse Shield 5. Projectile velocity is nice on impale, but it should really just be a melee attack so it can CLEAVE so we can CLEAVE with Rip (differentiating it from a T1 Eviscerate with no might). Sw/Sw or X/Sw doen't need a control type effect, since MH Sw has savage leap, and other mh sets won't be helped by a tiny amount of torment anyways.

Mending change is good, and more of an about time kinda thing.Hammer changes are also good. But what about mace? Mace needs those kinds of changes more since hammer is still good for group combat, while mace is just as slow but gets nothing (also OH mace needs a rework or something).

Longbow change is nice too, nothing crazy.

Backbreaker is a 4 (without the 30% sigil) sec stun on people with weakness? I mean it rarely hits anyway (1 sec cast in melee range is enormous) and even if it does, people will prob have stab/stunbreak ready, but i don't think these super long stuns are good for the game. If someone actually does get hit by a 4 sec stun and does not have stab/stunbreak the player is certainly dead. I don't think that is good game design.

@Ferus.3165 said:Backbreaker is a 4 (without the 30% sigil) sec stun on people with weakness? I mean it rarely hits anyway (1 sec cast in melee range is enormous) and even if it does, people will prob have stab/stunbreak ready, but i don't think these super long stuns are good for the game. If someone actually does get hit by a 4 sec stun and does not have stab/stunbreak the player is certainly dead. I don't think that is good game design.

You said it yourself. It has a condition attached to it and everybody should have a stunbreak, if they waste them then that's their loss. They should be punished. Plus, warrior doesn't have a lot of weakness application. Basically hoping that somebody else will apply it AND that you hit your stun. Besides that it is practically the only hard CC warrior really has.

I just started casually leveling a ridiculously huge hammer-wielding norn (just for skritts and giggles) and I definitely don't mind buffs to hammer. Mending being a physical skill is great too, I rock the trait for it anyway (can't have a huge norn without all the fun of jumping at things from some height and sending 'em flying).

@Kiroshima.8497 said:OH sword is still garbage minus the rip damage boost kind of (which only makes it a t1 eviscerate, 1.75 * 1.15 is 2.0125). Riposte went from a .5 to a 1.0, making it not a damage loss on hybrid instead of a worse Shield 5. Projectile velocity is nice on impale, but it should really just be a melee attack so it can CLEAVE so we can CLEAVE with Rip (differentiating it from a T1 Eviscerate with no might). Sw/Sw or X/Sw doen't need a control type effect, since MH Sw has savage leap, and other mh sets won't be helped by a tiny amount of torment anyways.

Mending change is good, and more of an about time kinda thing.Hammer changes are also good. But what about mace? Mace needs those kinds of changes more since hammer is still good for group combat, while mace is just as slow but gets nothing (also OH mace needs a rework or something).

Longbow change is nice too, nothing crazy.

I agree completely with what you said about mace. I think hammer should be a CC/damage centric weapon, and mace should be less damage but REALLY powerful CC. Mace just needs more and stronger CC (mostly OH).

I think that the one of the biggest problems of MH mace is the F1 and how hard is to land it currently...it would be nice if it had a short leap like evi.What is the issue with OH mace skills?

^ The extra second is when enemy is weakened, not controlled. You're mixing it up with the Fierce Blow damage buff.

@Ariurotl.3718 said:^ The extra second is when enemy is weakened, not controlled. You're mixing it up with the Fierce Blow damage buff.

Oh, you are totally correct, discard what I said about it.

Oh well, it could have been worse of course. Remember that this is small balance patch (except for chrono probably :D yikes )

Now to wait another 1-2 months for big one.The day when they finally remove aftercast on To The Limit will be the day when I can die in peace.

dont worry, warriors will get more nerfs soon..

I like this. I feel like they have actually been listening.

Although I don't know, I want to believe that they are holding off on more substantive weapon changes such as OH mace and Sword Flurry because they will simply take more work and this was a quick win, help the balance of the game now vs later type update.

Ps, I like that they are going hybrid dmg on sword and oh sword . I don't want a straight up Condi sword...its too iconic of a weapon and should maintain some use in power builds.

Nice memes with Sword off hand, some Longbow buffs (unnecessary, can't wait for the nerf next patch when ANet see BS benching for 33k with Discipline)Mending Physical now, that's okay I guess, but the skill wont still see use with 1s cast time

I really wonder what's the balance priority for Warrior. I've returned to the game on March and haven't seen any good/significant changes but nerfsHONESTLY, what is this?

Why this changes when there is 2 lines with significant needs of changeYou keep messing with Sword, with no Arms change to back it up?Remember Tactics? The line that only sees play because it still has EA, and even that is barely worth nowadays

How do we see Signet buffs last balance, but the only Signet trait we have is still on a line where it doesn't belong! It honestly feels more out of place than Jessica Price on Twitter, and we all know how well that went, right?As a Warrior main, balance patch feels like nothing, or feels bad because it's nerfs

@steveraptor.9603 said:I think that the one of the biggest problems of MH mace is the F1 and how hard is to land it currently...it would be nice if it had a short leap like evi.What is the issue with OH mace skills?

OH mace is not bad per se. It's quite clear on what it wants to do in terms, especially with respect to Mace/Mace. Presume that MH mace is about single target lockdown. Obviously the auto chain is terrible, but you get a block on Mace 2 for defense, an Interrupt (1 second daze though) on Mace 3, and a really hard stun on Burst. Mace 4 adds damage boost for when you swap out of x/mace to a real damage weapon, and Mace 5 lets you control your target at range without worrying about body blocks from things like necro minions or ranger pets (6 targets is a weird target number).

Unfortunately, 15 stacks of vuln is pretty much pointless in most gamemodes besides solo pve, and even then you could use Arms for 10+ vuln every burst. Mace 5 suffers from being an actual PROJECTILE (yes, it has a projectile finisher for 0 reasons) in a meta where everyone and their monk destroys projectiles in pvp/wvw. It's also a slow projectile, you can just do a sidestep shuffle at max range and it'll probably miss (unless I missed a change).

So yeah, OH mace needs an update. It can't really get defense, since that is shield's thing (complete with stun btw), but it needs something. Maybe make Mace 4 unblockable, and when striking blocking opponents: it does bonus vulnerability or something. Or maybe it could convert all protection/stability/aegis into weakness.

Also, token buff, but Mace 3 should work like Dagger 3 and do extra effects on Interrupt/Acting Opponents. Vulnerability would be good to work with the trait.

@steveraptor.9603 said:I think that the one of the biggest problems of MH mace is the F1 and how hard is to land it currently...it would be nice if it had a short leap like evi.What is the issue with OH mace skills?

Biggest issues is that vulnerability is usually ridiculously easy to stack so 4 isnt worthwhile. 5 can be hard to land because you cant lead attacks.

4 needs to be changed to something else useful.

5 should be ground targeted like GS 3.

@Opopanax.1803 said:

@steveraptor.9603 said:I think that the one of the biggest problems of MH mace is the F1 and how hard is to land it currently...it would be nice if it had a short leap like evi.What is the issue with OH mace skills?

Just because vulnerability is easy to stack doesn't mean a weapon skill should be changed.Besides, this is the skill that applies the most vul stacks in one hit, far more than any other warrior weapon and it deals good damage as well.I think it is fine as it is.

For the 5, I agree that a ground target like GS3 is needed, as its clunky and unreliable to hit at anything that isn't at point blank range.