Thoughts on the Upcoming Balance Patch.

1) Goodbye double EP double LS. 300s ICD on the traits is killer. If people run Defense now I expect Cleansing Ire and Armored Attack will get taken more often.2) Warrior Condi did not get touched very much. Longbow or sword might be a good secondary weapon choices.3) Rifle can Pew Pew more often despite hitting for less. Might actually be a DPS increase over the current weapon bar...4) Signet of Rage is now a self heal if you run Strength and Tactics...5) I can see with the new Power-less meta taking Guard Counter and Revenge Counter with boon duration replacing other defense options. These boon durations did not get hit and with Runes of Durability you can keep Protection up fairly often (~18s out 20s if you are a boss at getting FC to proc). In fact Str, Tactics, SpB might be the better choice now for sustain over Str, Def, SpB.

I'm not good at understanding how the changes will affect gameplay but I am hopeful that hammer and rifle will be a fun option now for PvE. I haven't used those on my warrior in years.

@Super Hayes.6890 said:I'm not good at understanding how the changes will affect gameplay but I am hopeful that hammer and rifle will be a fun option now for PvE. I haven't used those on my warrior in years.

Oh for PvE Hammer is going to be a fair bit stronger. Take Merciless Hammer. Knockback -> Earthshaker ->Fierce Blow -> Backbreaker -> Fierce Blow. Big damage numbers.

Rifle will be a more active weapon to use. With Crack shot and Martial Cadence and Rifle Butt you should be using weapon skills fairly often which is one of the reasons that Rifle has been lackluster in PvE. Decent skills, but none of them were available often enough to make the weapon fun to use outside of when you are forced to range something on a power build.

I have been using rifle as my secondary weapon for years now so to me these rifle changes are huge, having two cripples, two evades, and 2 volleys that pierce is big. (ammo system for rifle 2, 3, 4, ) You can now stay on Rifle longer, and if u get pressured you have more potential to counter a threat.

The slower Rifle 5 will be an issue but I am hoping to offset that with quickness. The small forward facing cone of the knockback can be frustrating to use at times. To me thats the biggest weakness of the kit outside of the root on Killshot.

The reset ability on a successful rifle 5 is very nice, and seems like a good reward for a harder to use CC.

It should be possible to run some builds that main the weapon (outside of meme builds) as the primary damage source now, the ability to stay on the weapon longer and get better rotations/combos is huge.

@sneakytails.5629 said:I have been using rifle as my secondary weapon for years now so to me these rifle changes are huge, having two cripples, two evades, and 2 volleys that pierce is big. (ammo system for rifle 2, 3, 4, ) You can now stay on Rifle longer, and if u get pressured you have more potential to counter a threat.

The slower Rifle 5 will be an issue but I am hoping to offset that with quickness. The small forward facing cone of the knockback can be frustrating to use at times. To me thats the biggest weakness of the kit outside of the root on Killshot.

The reset ability on a successful rifle 5 is very nice, and seems like a good reward for a harder to use CC.

It should be possible to run some builds that main the weapon (outside of meme builds) as the primary damage source now, the ability to stay on the weapon longer and get better rotations/combos is huge.

Yeah I can't wait to try out the new rifle bar.

I think gs need big update. Auto attack is too slow, 100b is kinda useless and rush os just missing all time.Im not sure how op connected EP and LS to 300sec cd but i really hope that is not right since both of those are just half supporting due to them not protecting at all vs condi.I hope again for good update but kinda not believing in it.

@ryandeniszorro.6735 said:I think gs need big update. Auto attack is too slow, 100b is kinda useless and rush os just missing all time.Im not sure how op connected EP and LS to 300sec cd but i really hope that is not right since both of those are just half supporting due to them not protecting at all vs condi.I hope again for good update but kinda not believing in it.

I'm referring to taking EP and Defy Pain and Balanced Stance and Last Stand. The traits got 300s CDs and the utility skills are getting longer CDs as well.

Rifle changes look fun, still wish they would've unrooted kill shot and given it a bigger tell to make the weapon less of a gimmick. Hammer is probably going to hit like a wet noodle. Offhand mace will have a 3 second knockdown every 20 seconds, could actually be viable with stunbreak nerfs

Defy pain/last stand are basically getting deleted, no one will use them at 5 mins cooldown. Hopefully they'll be reworked into something more interesting down the line, I'd love to have a useful stance trait.

Shake it off seems iffy at 75 sec cooldown per charge, maybe people will go back to berserker stance or featherfoot. 60 seconds on balanced stance is also rather long, so I'm expecting the standard bar to be something along the lines of bulls charge/endure pain/featherfoot. Not sure how noticeable the healing signet nerf will be, but it's possible that mending will overtake it with builds like condi rev looking pretty strong

• Shield Stance: Increased power coefficient from 25 seconds to 30 secondsNice

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:1) Goodbye double EP double LS. 300s ICD on the traits is killer. If people run Defense now I expect Cleansing Ire and Armored Attack will get taken more often.2) Warrior Condi did not get touched very much. Longbow or sword might be a good secondary weapon choices.3) Rifle can Pew Pew more often despite hitting for less. Might actually be a DPS increase over the current weapon bar...4) Signet of Rage is now a self heal if you run Strength and Tactics...5) I can see with the new Power-less meta taking Guard Counter and Revenge Counter with boon duration replacing other defense options. These boon durations did not get hit and with Runes of Durability you can keep Protection up fairly often (~18s out 20s if you are a boss at getting FC to proc). In fact Str, Tactics, SpB might be the better choice now for sustain over Str, Def, SpB.

How much boon duration do you wa t to run to have such a big protection uptime? Warrior has very few prot sources.

Im very happy about all the passive auto proc traits veing badically deleted, im not happy about HOW they deleted them, tgey just made them as bad as possible, so nobody takes them. Thats lazy balance, give us an actual useful option to pick, right now you just deleted one option completely. If you dont like auto procc traits replace tgen with active, but useful stuff, not that half assed change. Its just sad.

the things that stood out for me aside from the obvious damage nerfs was that balanced stance is now on a 60s cd, mace + ham are gone, shake it off major cd increase, winds now nerfed too hard to be relevant, and those rifle changes. oh and shield might from block is now 1sec l---e---l.

In general some good and some not so good changes:

• Damage reduction are okay
• Reduced damage to 'light' cc, like short dazes, is okay
• Removed damage for 'heavy' cc is also okay. (I'm not a biggest fan of it, because some skills looks really weird, i.e. Throw Pebble. But from gameplay perspective it makes sense, so i'm fine with it.)
• One exception: 100b was by far not the best skill on GS. Would its damage be higher it could be an option for downstate cleave or in combination with cc again. But it will stay just mediocre.
• Another exception i described here: Full Counter
• 300 seconds cd for passive procs are fine, that makes them finally totally useless. In the next step (balance patch 3 months later) they should replace them with traits that benefit active gameplay
• Hammer changes <3
• Rifle changes look interesting, but i still think that 4 is too slow to be used as an evade.
• No bigger changes to condi berserker for pvp. (A bit of condi duration. A lot of reduced sustain from core, but thats fine, it hits every other build too. Outrage... ouch.) Potential comeback in season 21?
• Some nerfs to traits that nobody ever uses, lol (Brave Stride, Heightened Focus...)
• 4 Seconds might from SoR, lol ("Look at my shiny signet I use now! I do it just because my next punch you really hard! Your not allowed to evade or blind or kite it, okay? ... How dare you too move away from for 4 seconds, i'm not able to hit you that way! Come back!")

The nerf to outrage is just.....weird. An inferior version of shake it off now.

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:1) Goodbye double EP double LS. 300s ICD on the traits is killer. If people run Defense now I expect Cleansing Ire and Armored Attack will get taken more often.2) Warrior Condi did not get touched very much. Longbow or sword might be a good secondary weapon choices.3) Rifle can Pew Pew more often despite hitting for less. Might actually be a DPS increase over the current weapon bar...4) Signet of Rage is now a self heal if you run Strength and Tactics...5) I can see with the new Power-less meta taking Guard Counter and Revenge Counter with boon duration replacing other defense options. These boon durations did not get hit and with Runes of Durability you can keep Protection up fairly often (~18s out 20s if you are a boss at getting FC to proc). In fact Str, Tactics, SpB might be the better choice now for sustain over Str, Def, SpB.

Depends on how much uptime you want. But with so much damage reduction on skills I think shifting away from some tankier stats will work. You could as just go full soldiers or sentinels instead and laugh at the tickles.

@"Rettan.9603" said:In general some good and some not so good changes:

• Damage reduction are okay
• Reduced damage to 'light' cc, like short dazes, is okay
• Removed damage for 'heavy' cc is also okay. (I'm not a biggest fan of it, because some skills looks really weird, i.e. Throw Pebble. But from gameplay perspective it makes sense, so i'm fine with it.)
• One exception: 100b was by far not the best skill on GS. Would its damage be higher it could be an option for downstate cleave or in combination with cc again. But it will stay just mediocre.
• Another exception i described here: Full Counter
• 300 seconds cd for passive procs are fine, that makes them finally totally useless. In the next step (balance patch 3 months later) they should replace them with traits that benefit active gameplay
• Hammer changes <3
• Rifle changes look interesting, but i still think that 4 is too slow to be used as an evade.
• No bigger changes to condi berserker for pvp. (A bit of condi duration. A lot of reduced sustain from core, but thats fine, it hits every other build too. Outrage... ouch.) Potential comeback in season 21?
• Some nerfs to traits that nobody ever uses, lol (Brave Stride, Heightened Focus...)
• 4 Seconds might from SoR, lol ("Look at my shiny signet I use now! I do it just because my next punch you really hard! Your not allowed to evade or blind or kite it, okay? ... How dare you too move away from for 4 seconds, i'm not able to hit you that way! Come back!")

SoR gives 20 stacks of might. With MMR, MM, and PS you'll heal for 7k in a Zerg even with the healing reductions. They essentially gave warrior three heal slots with these traits. FGJ will heal for less now though.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:1) Goodbye double EP double LS. 300s ICD on the traits is killer. If people run Defense now I expect Cleansing Ire and Armored Attack will get taken more often.2) Warrior Condi did not get touched very much. Longbow or sword might be a good secondary weapon choices.3) Rifle can Pew Pew more often despite hitting for less. Might actually be a DPS increase over the current weapon bar...4) Signet of Rage is now a self heal if you run Strength and Tactics...5) I can see with the new Power-less meta taking Guard Counter and Revenge Counter with boon duration replacing other defense options. These boon durations did not get hit and with Runes of Durability you can keep Protection up fairly often (~18s out 20s if you are a boss at getting FC to proc). In fact Str, Tactics, SpB might be the better choice now for sustain over Str, Def, SpB.

@"Rettan.9603" said:In general some good and some not so good changes:

• Damage reduction are okay
• Reduced damage to 'light' cc, like short dazes, is okay
• Removed damage for 'heavy' cc is also okay. (I'm not a biggest fan of it, because some skills looks really weird, i.e. Throw Pebble. But from gameplay perspective it makes sense, so i'm fine with it.)
• One exception: 100b was by far not the best skill on GS. Would its damage be higher it could be an option for downstate cleave or in combination with cc again. But it will stay just mediocre.
• Another exception i described here:
  Full Counter
• 300 seconds cd for passive procs are fine, that makes them finally totally useless. In the next step (balance patch 3 months later) they should replace them with traits that benefit active gameplay
• Hammer changes <3
• Rifle changes look interesting, but i still think that 4 is too slow to be used as an evade.
• No bigger changes to condi berserker for pvp. (A bit of condi duration. A lot of reduced sustain from core, but thats fine, it hits every other build too. Outrage... ouch.) Potential comeback in season 21?
• Some nerfs to traits that nobody ever uses, lol (Brave Stride, Heightened Focus...)
• 4 Seconds might from SoR, lol ("Look at my shiny signet I use now! I do it just because my next punch you really hard! Your not allowed to evade or blind or kite it, okay? ... How dare you too move away from for 4 seconds, i'm not able to hit you that way! Come back!")

It might serve as a heal for some builds in WvW, but it's clearly intended to be a pre-burst elite. That said, 4 seconds of might is atrocious... make it 6 seconds at least.

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:1) Goodbye double EP double LS. 300s ICD on the traits is killer. If people run Defense now I expect Cleansing Ire and Armored Attack will get taken more often.2) Warrior Condi did not get touched very much. Longbow or sword might be a good secondary weapon choices.3) Rifle can Pew Pew more often despite hitting for less. Might actually be a DPS increase over the current weapon bar...4) Signet of Rage is now a self heal if you run Strength and Tactics...5) I can see with the new Power-less meta taking Guard Counter and Revenge Counter with boon duration replacing other defense options. These boon durations did not get hit and with Runes of Durability you can keep Protection up fairly often (~18s out 20s if you are a boss at getting FC to proc). In fact Str, Tactics, SpB might be the better choice now for sustain over Str, Def, SpB.

@"Rettan.9603" said:In general some good and some not so good changes:

• Damage reduction are okay
• Reduced damage to 'light' cc, like short dazes, is okay
• Removed damage for 'heavy' cc is also okay. (I'm not a biggest fan of it, because some skills looks really weird, i.e. Throw Pebble. But from gameplay perspective it makes sense, so i'm fine with it.)
• One exception: 100b was by far not the best skill on GS. Would its damage be higher it could be an option for downstate cleave or in combination with cc again. But it will stay just mediocre.
• Another exception i described here:
  Full Counter
• 300 seconds cd for passive procs are fine, that makes them finally totally useless. In the next step (balance patch 3 months later) they should replace them with traits that benefit active gameplay
• Hammer changes <3
• Rifle changes look interesting, but i still think that 4 is too slow to be used as an evade.
• No bigger changes to condi berserker for pvp. (A bit of condi duration. A lot of reduced sustain from core, but thats fine, it hits every other build too. Outrage... ouch.) Potential comeback in season 21?
• Some nerfs to traits that nobody ever uses, lol (Brave Stride, Heightened Focus...)
• 4 Seconds might from SoR, lol ("Look at my shiny signet I use now! I do it just because my next punch you really hard! Your not allowed to evade or blind or kite it, okay? ... How dare you too move away from for 4 seconds, i'm not able to hit you that way! Come back!")

You can make it last 8 seconds if you want to. But yes either as a heal it a pre burst prep. Though if pre burst prep is their goal then make it recharge all bursts and give 30 adrenaline as well.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:1) Goodbye double EP double LS. 300s ICD on the traits is killer. If people run Defense now I expect Cleansing Ire and Armored Attack will get taken more often.2) Warrior Condi did not get touched very much. Longbow or sword might be a good secondary weapon choices.3) Rifle can Pew Pew more often despite hitting for less. Might actually be a DPS increase over the current weapon bar...4) Signet of Rage is now a self heal if you run Strength and Tactics...5) I can see with the new Power-less meta taking Guard Counter and Revenge Counter with boon duration replacing other defense options. These boon durations did not get hit and with Runes of Durability you can keep Protection up fairly often (~18s out 20s if you are a boss at getting FC to proc). In fact Str, Tactics, SpB might be the better choice now for sustain over Str, Def, SpB.

@"Rettan.9603" said:In general some good and some not so good changes:

• Damage reduction are okay
• Reduced damage to 'light' cc, like short dazes, is okay
• Removed damage for 'heavy' cc is also okay. (I'm not a biggest fan of it, because some skills looks really weird, i.e. Throw Pebble. But from gameplay perspective it makes sense, so i'm fine with it.)
• One exception: 100b was by far not the best skill on GS. Would its damage be higher it could be an option for downstate cleave or in combination with cc again. But it will stay just mediocre.
• Another exception i described here:
  Full Counter
• 300 seconds cd for passive procs are fine, that makes them finally totally useless. In the next step (balance patch 3 months later) they should replace them with traits that benefit active gameplay
• Hammer changes <3
• Rifle changes look interesting, but i still think that 4 is too slow to be used as an evade.
• No bigger changes to condi berserker for pvp. (A bit of condi duration. A lot of reduced sustain from core, but thats fine, it hits every other build too. Outrage... ouch.) Potential comeback in season 21?
• Some nerfs to traits that nobody ever uses, lol (Brave Stride, Heightened Focus...)
• 4 Seconds might from SoR, lol ("Look at my shiny signet I use now! I do it just because my next punch you really hard! Your not allowed to evade or blind or kite it, okay? ... How dare you too move away from for 4 seconds, i'm not able to hit you that way! Come back!")

Hell I wouldn't complain about that. Atm I just really want them to increase the duration, 4 seconds is too short for a class like Warrior that can be kited so easily... I can't cast Signet, and then reach the enemy to burst in time to take advantage of that might. I just hope the devs realise this.

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@RedShark.9548 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:1) Goodbye double EP double LS. 300s ICD on the traits is killer. If people run Defense now I expect Cleansing Ire and Armored Attack will get taken more often.2) Warrior Condi did not get touched very much. Longbow or sword might be a good secondary weapon choices.3) Rifle can Pew Pew more often despite hitting for less. Might actually be a DPS increase over the current weapon bar...4) Signet of Rage is now a self heal if you run Strength and Tactics...5) I can see with the new Power-less meta taking Guard Counter and Revenge Counter with boon duration replacing other defense options. These boon durations did not get hit and with Runes of Durability you can keep Protection up fairly often (~18s out 20s if you are a boss at getting FC to proc). In fact Str, Tactics, SpB might be the better choice now for sustain over Str, Def, SpB.

@"Rettan.9603" said:In general some good and some not so good changes:

• Damage reduction are okay
• Reduced damage to 'light' cc, like short dazes, is okay
• Removed damage for 'heavy' cc is also okay. (I'm not a biggest fan of it, because some skills looks really weird, i.e. Throw Pebble. But from gameplay perspective it makes sense, so i'm fine with it.)
• One exception: 100b was by far not the best skill on GS. Would its damage be higher it could be an option for downstate cleave or in combination with cc again. But it will stay just mediocre.
• Another exception i described here:
  Full Counter
• 300 seconds cd for passive procs are fine, that makes them finally totally useless. In the next step (balance patch 3 months later) they should replace them with traits that benefit active gameplay
• Hammer changes <3
• Rifle changes look interesting, but i still think that 4 is too slow to be used as an evade.
• No bigger changes to condi berserker for pvp. (A bit of condi duration. A lot of reduced sustain from core, but thats fine, it hits every other build too. Outrage... ouch.) Potential comeback in season 21?
• Some nerfs to traits that nobody ever uses, lol (Brave Stride, Heightened Focus...)
• 4 Seconds might from SoR, lol ("Look at my shiny signet I use now! I do it just because my next punch you really hard! Your not allowed to evade or blind or kite it, okay? ... How dare you too move away from for 4 seconds, i'm not able to hit you that way! Come back!")

I think its more supposed to be (somehow) hit them with a hard CC -> SoR -> burst skill.

its gonna be a good day for gunflame

could even see hammer and shout warrior coming back to PvP too. exciting times for sure

@choovanski.5462 said:its gonna be a good day for gunflame

could even see hammer and shout warrior coming back to PvP too. exciting times for sure

You're right. Gunflame is probably one of the few hard CCs that avoided getting it's damage negated.

The underwater weapons also did not get touched (even damage wise). So if someone takes a dive, follow and kill them with your spear.