[Which core Warrior build(s) would you use at Ranked PvP before having access to specs?]

5 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Buran.3796 actually i know there is someone around playing a ham/bow build on leaderboard. But also im using this one instead:

Core Axe/Shield, Greatsword Warrior

+1 for something like this.  GS/axe+shield core war is a solid build.  It’s also a really solid build for getting into PvP.  It’s a very straight forward build with a good mix of damage, mobility, and tankiness to allow you to handle just about any situation decently well, even if not optimally.  
 

One option to consider with a build like this is Rampage as the elite for the CC and mobility.

[January 30 Balance Update Preview]

Hmm...this looks very...light.  Kind of a shame because there seem to be a lot of outstanding issues that are unaddressed here.

 

Also surprised to see Relic of the Flock buffed.  It's already a good relic and this seems to just make it more efficient at keeping allies alive. 

[WvW warrior roaming in 2024]

7 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

The thing that really hurt it for me was when they finally fixed the bug that was making Breaching Strike do PvE damage. God forbid Warrior does reliable damage pressure, because certainly other classes don't do double the amount Breaching Strike was doing with half the effort and aren't completely voided by a single blind.

Yea, I feel like damage is what warrior is really missing.  I'm fine with Full Counter needing to hit for it to proc effects, but the lack of damage makes it really disappointing when you counter play everything another class has over and over and still struggling to get their health low.

[WvW warrior roaming in 2024]

On 1/6/2024 at 10:35 PM, Firellis.7954 said:

Mainly cause warriors are one of the easiest to gang up on and can easily lose anything more than a 1v1 (skill level ignored) 
- they cant disengage reliably
- they cant chase reliably ( this and the first one are almost similar in terms of what is lacking in warrior)
- the amount of builds that can do damage and sustain themselves outside a 1v1 is lacking
- probably the only class severely disabled by an enemy that has either blind / aegis (this is mostly because a lot of the skills warrior has only  does 1 hit, doesn't help that most of the adrenaline skills requires stuff hitting to actually trigger their added effects)

I love warrior but i really wouldn't bring this class to solo roaming anymore in the current state of the game, roaming defensively (staying near your objectives) are bearable as a warrior though this rings true for all classes including the slowest class in the game - necros.

Your standard GS spellbreaker build can disengage and chase just fine and better than most out there.  It's pretty mediocre for actual fighting and sub par for flipping camps.  Resistance on dodge is incredibly valuable because of the prevalence in blinds, but it's a shame that hammer builds rely on a different trait in the same line. 

Overall, roaming on Spellbreaker is...fine.  Fights you win will feel earned because of all the counterplay involved in the build, but it's had slight nerf after slight nerf in the past year or so while power creep has edged up some other builds in the roaming meta. 

[Druid Is Fine After July 18th Patch - Shout Out To Druid Community]

On 7/19/2023 at 8:37 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

There are always downtimes on Alac with any Alac class when you're in a boss fight that requires constant disposition & movement due to mechanics. Even something like a Renegade will end up out of position at say the "jump to get orbs phase" and have to wait to recast Alac for when the party regroups into a stack. That's what you're seeing in the video and it's an unfair assessment to call it out like that. Me being able to maintain 85%-90% Alacrity uptime in 99CM is actually a very high Alacrity uptime for that boss fight.

Gonna disagree with this, but I don't mean it in a way that's a hit at you or any of your gameplay.  Your gameplay was solid and the completion of the CM is testament to that, but because you were focusing primarily on using CA when it was needed for healing primarily and keeping up other boons, there was a lot of downtime on the alac and I say that purely from watching how much Alac *you* had, so it's not even counting how much your group may have missed out on alac because of being out of range and such.

 

Compare this to something like an alac renegade and you'll see much, much better alac time, even with the player focusing more on mechanics than their rotation.  Why? Because it's just easier to provide the alac without consequences to gameplay.  You just hit the alac button on cooldown and the only other consideration that gets in the way is you're camping another legend like Jalis because you're the primary provider of stability, which is a bit of an edge case.

 

Druid is a solid class as a healer and can do great with groups, but I think your gameplay clip is really good proof of why the design of alac on CA is bad.

[June 27 Balance Follow-Ups]

I still don't believe CMC has really heard feedback.  You're giving druid a minor increase to alac duration, but it's still going to require druids to constantly go into CA and spam heal skills, **even if no healing is needed** just to keep up alacrity.

 

Meanwhile, a Bladesworn just keeps up alacrity by doing exactly what it did before: focus on its DPS rotation.

 

Devs:  If you take away nothing else from our feedback, please hear this: Keeping up alacrity/quickness should not prevent you from performing your main role of DPS/Healing.  It should be something that comes easily by a single trait swap with a minimal tax on output.

And if you can't balance it right, just get rid of it or make it overly abundant so that we don't need to nit pick at group comp just to be able to kill some kitten.

[So what builds are ppl using now in PVE/fracs/Raids and PVP after update?]

55 minutes ago, Peacekid.1463 said:

seems warriors in strikes and raids tend to do less dmg than b4 

Spellbreaker is bugged (breaching strike misses a lot for some reason), but DPS Bladesworn is unchanged.  Condi berserker also benches at 42k, which is higher than any warrior build per-patch.

[Weaponmaster Training Beta Feedback: Warrior]

Looking forward to Staff on warrior (I know, not this weekend), but for the current weapons, I don't think there's much to test.  I just don't see any reason to use a torch offhand on a Bladesworn or Spellbreaker, nor do I see a reason to use Pistol offhand without cartridges from Bladesworn and I'm still not sold on dagger offhand in any situation.  Should be fun to test stuff on other classes though.

[Lets talk Quickness on Zerker. First impression.]

18 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I'm extremely bothered that Berserker is only one step removed from their crusade against Utility skill spam for boons, yet this somehow causes everyone to lose their minds when this is pointed out. 

• Spam Utility skills => provide Quickness

Is only one step removed from:

• Spam Utility skills => to upkeep berserk => to provide Quickness

I hate having my utility slots permanently spammed off CD, and Berserker's margins are so unbelievably tight you can miss a single one and absolutely tank your own performance.

And before anyone tells me that you can upkeep quickness with Core Bursts - There's 2 sides to being a Quickness DPS. And half of it is literally DPS. 

True and agreed.  However, if I play devil's advocate, I'd say that you'd still need to do this for a pure DPS build, but that's probably one of my beefs with so many builds in GW2.  I personally think every build should be afforded at least 1 utility skill that's not required for keeping up DPS to handle actual encounter mechanics. 

 

I mean, utility skills to bring utility may seem a bit wild...so hot take here, but that's where my head is.

[Lets talk Quickness on Zerker. First impression.]

13 minutes ago, Valate.2594 said:

It's just kind of odd, it feels infinitely worse to play than it did with banners, the ICD just makes it so awkward.

 

Edit: also losing precision messes with fire aura generation, so it will probably do significantly less as you add ritualist gear to try and make it work. I'm just making my warrior pure condi, even SPB doesn't work properly at the moment... I really hope it isn't like this until July.

Pure Condi Zerk is benching 42k, so even with a decent hit to DPS, I doubt DPS will be much of a concern for a quick variant.  That being said, I haven't seen any benches, so I don't have any facts to back that up.  Personally, I am far from SC level at benching, but I did find that I was able to put out some pretty decent DPS for a DPS quick build using a decent mix of ritualist gear. 

 

I do agree that it isn't very fun though.  Feeling forced to use big skills just to keep up a boon isn't fun and that seems like what we ended up with Berserker.  It's not as bad as healers needing to spam heals when they don't need to, but I really wish devs would just handle it like they handle it on other classes with generous base boon durations on alac/quick.  That's probably why Alac sworn is actually pretty fun to play for an alac DPS role.

[Suggested fix to the alac/quick rabbit hole]

Personally, the simplest fix I can think of for Druid, at least, would be to just drastically increase the alac duration so that they are not forced into CA to keep alac up.  I'd say the same for Scrapper, but I'm not close enough to that one to know if it would cause balance issues with bower quickness (although it seems like there are other builds this patch that can provide quick/alac without much DPS cost, so maybe devs wouldn't care).

[Eternal champion]

It looks like it's actually just a tooltip error.  I tested out the skill in game and it's functioning correctly.  I also posted a topic in the Bugs section of the forum since it seems like devs are paying attention there for stuff like that.

[[Bug] Eternal Champion Tooltip Reverted to Old Version]

The tooltip for the trait Eternal Champion on the Berserker Elite Specialization seems to be displaying the old version of this trait.  However, the trait still seems to be functioning as it should be.

[Lets talk Quickness on Zerker. First impression.]

The more I play with it, the more I layer on more ritualist pieces.  Trying to have a perfect rotation to keep up quick without much more than firebrand runes just isn't realistic and ritualist gear is a very small downgrade in DPS for a condi build anyways.  Seems decent, but not as comfy keeping up the boon as alac sworn is.

[Eternal champion]

Yea, this has to be a bug. 

[Heal Firebrand Deserves Nerfs]

Well, Druid is wrecked.  Heal Herald is maybe better in healing output and able to give some stab without Jalis, but still frequently locked out of utility because of the need to legend swap constantly for boon production and still has no aegis/barrier.  HAM also apparently got nerfed with the mace doing less alac and is much more heavily penalized by wandering AI mechs with a 50% cd increase. 

 

So, I don't think we can afford to nerf any more healers, even if they are guardians, lol.

[So what builds are ppl using now in PVE/fracs/Raids and PVP after update?]

I haven't been terribly inspired to play most of the content I used to enjoy after the patch, but that's probably more because of other classes I play than warrior. 

 

For warrior:

Spellbreaker seems to be broken, so that's off the table for now (breach strike seems to be missing frequently from what others have said). 

I'm not practiced enough on condi berserker rotation, but I may play that more and get practiced up on it since it seems to be doing solid damage.

 

Mostly right now, I'm still playing primarily Bladesworn.  It's still solid dps with great burst and can now do alac with just a single trait swap and nothing else if needed in a group.

[June 27 patch discussion]

I feel bad for people that don't have legendary gear or endless sets of ascended gear.

[Warrior's Flurry Is Still Rooted]

18 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Thanks for alerting us--we're looking into it!

Hey Rubi, this only seems to be the case for Spellbreaker.  Core Warrior and Berserker have the animation that lets you move while casting.  Spellbreaker has the old animation that roots you in place.  Thanks for checking on it though!

[From bad to worse! boons!]

Mukluk posted a vid on this topic a few hours ago.  I definitely agree that for some classes the design for boon production became worse instead of better, but I think he put it best:
 

 

[Lets talk Quickness on Zerker. First impression.]

After playing around today, quickness on zerker seems ok, but the mechanics of it, like Berserker in general, seem better for strikes/raids than Fractals since fights there are shorter.  
 

On the flip side of things, that exact nature of Fractals does seem to work heavily in favor of alc Bladesworn.

[Warriors getting Staff in Expansion 4!! Whats your ideas for it?]

I just hope we get some new animation for it.  My biggest disappointment with Daredevil staff was how weird and wonky all the animations looked. 

The bo staff is a beautiful weapon when used in real life.  In game, it is not.

I get that capacity of devs is limited and re-using animations from other melee weapons is an efficient use of dev time, but it's still disappointing.

[Lets talk Quickness on Zerker. First impression.]

5 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

3.5 x 1.4 is 4.9s. Thats not even perma my dude.

Somethin's off with your math.  It is perma, but the rotation is tight.  Realistically, you'll probably want some boon duration on gear to some extent just to give yourself some wiggle room.

[Lets talk Quickness on Zerker. First impression.]

Go condi and takes runes of the Firebrand.  It's good.

[Alac Bladesworn needs 0 boon duration...]

Just now, pninak.1069 said:

the alac gained from it affects the recharge of dt aswell, right? think duration is far too long.

It does. 

 

The last numbers I saw from the SC discord put it around 33k DPS, which is similar to a condi alac Renegade (pre-patch).  If you needed boon duration, it would probably drop off pretty significantly.  I'm sure it will be nerfed, but for now it is nice to know that you can go into Fractals as a standard DPS Bladesworn and if your group needs alac, you just swap a trait with no additional set of gear needed to fill the role.