FellFalls.3750

So... This ^ !? ... Please ... !?!? It "solves" the issue of not being able to run Staff + Warhorn. AND Gives Bladesworn back an actual cool Grandmaster that was already in the game. Even if you buff / nerf the numbers to make it to where you want it in WvW / PvP there's no denying that people clearly miss is. Then maybe we can even talk about why DT3 didn't get it's projectile pathing fixed, or Bladesworn design / balance in general. Without having the lagging specter of "needing a whole grandmaster to provide alacrity." It even fits with the Warrior Theme of "offensive support" that Supports their allies in Unique Ways. (i.e By a Spellbreaker Cutting' Through the Boons of their Group's Enemies.)

ANet, I get it. Stuff takes development time. And this last patch wasn't about Bladesworn. But there's no reason you can't "work on a new sandwich while we eat the one you already made." *** You already put in the time and it was GOOD. If you can't come up with something in a timely manner, (which you clearly can't / don't have the passion for -- It's been over a year.) The numbers were just a bit off. There's NO REASON that we couldn't have just stuck with the functionality we had. Here: 3-Step Bladesworn Revisal Process: 1) Revert Everything in Competitive (PvP/WvW) to how it was at launch except: I: Give "Tactical Reload" a 120s CD so it's actually "Tactical" and keep the "Only Baldesworn skill recharge" if you have to. That's fine. II: Put the alacrity on [Immortal Dragon] in PvE and have it share the healing/prot to allies. III: Make every "stability" application that Bladesworn would otherwise have only be 1s base. (Similar to Thistleguard on Ranger Maces.) Including: Flow Stabilizer Dragonscale Defense >> Then adjust / scale everything up from here. This also largely solves the issue of "having to balance around [Shield Master] reflecting projectiles when you have aegis." -- Which neither you nor the community can decide is a big or a feature or not. *** Bladesworn is an unplayable dog(swearword) mess. And, Spoilers:, It actually has been for a year even without the most recent "PvP Nerfs that made no sense. But you've already done / paid for the work. Don't waste it or people's time who WERE enjoying / bought / want to play your game.

[Tactical Reload] needs to die so Bladesworn can live.

I just don't get it... The sustain was the problem... Not the actually 1 usable 2 skill. Why not buff the other 2 instead, or just nerf the travel distance, or at the very very least make all of the slashes .5s!?!? The Boost change makes actually negative sense. Heaven forbid you redo Bladesworn and make it not a jank calamity and allow people be themselves and live out their class fantasy as something other than a Fire Wizard.

Bumping this thread because it's ever more apparent that no one on ANet's balance team has any passion for Warrior. Please bring back the fun Daring Dragon slash-reset but with less damage functionality. Or just let elite skills reset your Burst or DTs for 10s. Making Heightened Focus randomly reset burst skills on-sub 50% opponents, on any kind of icd (be it 12, 15 or 100 seconds) as described in my post here IS NOT THE SAME THING.

Copy-pasting this over here because some people seem concerned/confused about how new [Heightned Focus] + Bladesworn would work: To those concerned about double Unlockable' Slashes in PvP: It's basically impossible to get any kind of value out of this because, (even with flow stabilizer,) it's next to impossible to generate the required 100 flow (for a full slash) in less than the 8 second cooldown that Dragon Trigger has even without the proposed Heightened Focus trait. Math: Flow Stabilizer generates: 8 flow/s + a flat 15s base if you already have fury. (So assuming you use a fury generating skill, let's say gunsaber 5 for example: (which has a 1/2s cast time w/ an aftercast of ~1/4s - it puts the fury on after this aftercast) and you IMMEDIATELY double tap Flow Stabilizer and by some miracle of God have it not bug out and actually give you the 30 flow and put +4flow/s for 8s on your bar. You still NEED TO WAIT THOSE 8 SECONDS or via math a minimum of 8 seconds = 40 flow generated (+1 for base-in combat = +5/s flow generation for 8s) and then will need to wait an additional 30 seconds for the rest of the flow. However Bladesworn obviously has other sources of Flow generation. So let's then assume ABSOLUTE IDEAL CONDITIONS for [Flow Stabilizer] as you suggested: + You already have fury on your bar (somehow.) + You have not used any charges of flow stabilizer and have both up w/ Tactical Reload also up. + You have some additional +1s flow at least from a Bladesworn trait + another permanent (again "somehow") + 1flow/s source. This still requires: Double tapping Flow Stabilizer + casting Tactical Reload (1/2s cast time) = 45 base flow + 7flow/s for 8 seconds. = 55 which is JUST enough to get a 2nd dragon slash off. IF you can make all of those stars align. However, this necessitates dedicating both a double-count recharging utility slot as well as your elite slot to just this burst. And, more importantly, YOU STILL NEED TO WAIT THOSE 8 SECONDS TO GENERATE FLOW EVEN WITH THE BOOSTED RATE ANYWAY. And that's not even accounting for the 1s down-time from the cast time of Tactical Reload towards boosted generation. (So in reality you need to wait 8.5-9s.) Which, frankly if you want to do, fine. But that leaves you weak as a kitten after. Plenty of other classes, i.e. Burst mesmer etc. Function in similar ways. But this also presupposes that you have 100 flow built before this entire combo, without blowing any of these buttons for the first slash anyway, you still need to channel the 2nd UD slash to "load the bullets" so there's plenty of time for counter-play, and this still does nothing to take advantage of any potential Heightened Focus reset Heightened Focus Trait by virtue of Flow Stabilizer "simply existing." | The Closest You Could Come: | --------- The absolute ONLY way to get 2 back-to-back full UD slashes off, nearly instantly would be: + Have "To The Limit" on your bar. + Have "Fury Signet" on your bar. + Have "Flow Stabilizer" and Fury Already somehow on your bar. + Blow Tactical Reload for the double Flow Stabilizer proc + faster bullet loading. Blow literally ALL of these ^ after landing the first slash. Hit them again (as the trait as-read in the notes / how it works in the game currently only triggers when you hit someone who is blow 50% health" - again more time off your 8s limit to do this) and charge and land the 2nd slash. And again, that's if, by some miracle you manage to have HF currently ready, (somehow know that - because there's no way for either you or your opponent to know that this is up because it does not add any kind of visual indicator or buff to your bar,) and then have all these stars align and get the 2nd slash off. And that's still with a minimum 0.75s "faster" bullet charging, + working to hit the dude, + 1s cast time for To The Limit + 1/4s cast time for Fury Signet + 1/2s cast time for Tactical Reload. SO MINIMUM: 2.75-3s down time for one slash only AT BEST. | What New [Heightened Focus] Should Do | --------- How new [Heightened Focus] should work imo. The issue with the proposed HF change as I see it, is not WHAT it does but HOW it does it. In theory the trait is for nuking your opponent down below sub-50% and Quickness is quite a good boon for this. So disregarding balance power-level: The new HF trait essentially aims to fill the same function as the old one, but in a cooler way. However: As Cal has stated, many many times, the automatic sub 50% traits, both offensive and defensive are problematic because there's very little both agency/ability to know that these traits are up' on part of the user and very little counter-play on the part of the opponent. Doubly so with something like new HF if it's a) only going to trigger randomly when you hit a sub 50% hp opponent -- resetting a skill that needs adrenaline / flow that you just blew all of your adrenaline / flow to use anyway and thus (see above ^ cannot even remotely capitalize on without HEAVILY devoting your power budget to it) and b) it has a 12s icd. Something that neither you nor your opponent will likely be aware of or be able to keep track of since there's no visual indicator or buff for this. >> Thus: Assuming they would like to keep this trait functionally the way it is, but maybe introduce some of the actually fun functionality from old Daring Dragon that people seem to miss, because tying the trigger to randomly hitting the opponent is stupid, is to either: a) Have it simply reset each burst skill once but make you do 20% less damage on each. (= More Functionality, Less Damage, Since all of Warrior's current power balance AND functionality are on it's burst skills anyway.) OR b) Have it Reset the next 10s of Burst skills after you use after you use an elite skill. (10s Buff similar to the Tactical Reload one for loading bullets faster.) AND/OR Separately: Just give us back the Daring Dragon slash-reset and put that functionality on Immortal Dragon but reduce the healing, like everyone and their cat seems to want. And put something NEW in the [Heightened Focus] slot.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 You know math and time exist right? I swear to God, the people that comment on Bladesworn have neve actually played it in their lives. The point that I believe this FShoppe dude is trying to make (correct me if I'm wrong here) is that You stated Lan, that "it will cause problems in pvp because you will be able to get 2 back-to-back Unyielding Dragon slashes off" but: As he said it's basically impossible to get any kind of value out of this because, (even with flow stabilizer,) it's next to impossible to generate the required 100 flow (for a full slash) in less than the 8 second cooldown that Dragon Trigger has even without the proposed Heightened Focus trait. Math: Flow Stabilizer generates: 8 flow/s + a flat 15s base if you already have fury. (So assuming you use a fury generating skill, let's say gunsaber 5 for example: (which has a 1/2s cast time w/ an aftercast of ~1/4s - it puts the fury on after this aftercast) and you IMMEDIATELY double tap Flow Stabilizer and by some miracle of God have it not bug out and actually give you the 30 flow and put +4flow/s for 8s on your bar. You still NEED TO WAIT THOSE 8 SECONDS or via math a minimum of 8 seconds = 40 flow generated (+1 for base-in combat = +5/s flow generation for 8s) and then will need to wait an additional 30 seconds for the rest of the flow. However Bladesworn obviously has other sources of Flow generation. So let's then assume ABSOLUTE IDEAL CONDITIONS for [Flow Stabilizer] as you suggested: + You already have fury on your bar (somehow.) + You have not used any charges of flow stabilizer and have both up w/ Tactical Reload also up. + You have some additional +1s flow at least from a Bladesworn trait + another permanent (again "somehow") + 1flow/s source. This still requires: Double tapping Flow Stabilizer + casting Tactical Reload (1/2s cast time) = 45 base flow + 7flow/s for 8 seconds. = 55 which is JUST enough to get a 2nd dragon slash off. IF you can make all of those stars align. However, this necessitates dedicating both a double-count recharging utility slot as well as your elite slot to just this burst. And, more importantly, YOU STILL NEED TO WAIT THOSE 8 SECONDS TO GENERATE FLOW EVEN WITH THE BOOSTED RATE ANYWAY. And that's not even accounting for the 1s down-time from the cast time of Tactical Reload towards boosted generation. (So in reality you need to wait 8.5-9s.) Which, frankly if you want to do, fine. But that leaves you weak as a kitten after. Plenty of other classes, i.e. Burst mesmer etc. Function in similar ways. But this also presupposes that you have 100 flow built before this entire combo, without blowing any of these buttons for the first slash anyway, you still need to channel the 2nd UD slash to "load the bullets" so there's plenty of time for counter-play, and this still does nothing to take advantage of any potential Heightened Focus reset Heightened Focus Trait by virtue of Flow Stabilizer "simply existing" as you suggested. | The Closest You Could Come: | --------- The absolute ONLY way to get 2 back-to-back full UD slashes off, nearly instantly would be: + Have "To The Limit" on your bar. + Have "Fury Signet" on your bar. + Have "Flow Stabilizer" and Fury Already somehow on your bar. + Blow Tactical Reload for the double Flow Stabilizer proc + faster bullet loading. Blow literally ALL of these ^ after landing the first slash. Hit them again (as the trait as-read in the notes / how it works in the game currently only triggers when you hit someone who is blow 50% health" - again more time off your 8s limit to do this) and charge and land the 2nd slash. And again, that's if, by some miracle you manage to have HF currently ready, (somehow know that - because there's no way for either you or your opponent to know that this is up because it does not add any kind of visual indicator or buff to your bar,) and then have all these stars align and get the 2nd slash off. And that's still with a minimum 0.75s "faster" bullet charging, + working to hit the dude, + 1s cast time for To The Limit + 1/4s cast time for Fury Signet + 1/2s cast time for Tactical Reload. SO MINIMUM: 2.75-3s down time for one slash only AT BEST. | What New [Heightened Focus] Should Do | --------- How new [Heightened Focus] should work imo. The issue with the proposed HF change as I see it, is not WHAT it does but HOW it does it. In theory the trait is for nuking your opponent down below sub-50% and Quickness is quite a good boon for this. So disregarding balance power-level: The new HF trait essentially aims to fill the same function as the old one, but in a cooler way. However: As Cal has stated, many many times, the automatic sub 50% traits, both offensive and defensive are problematic because there's very little both agency/ability to know that these traits are up' on part of the user and very little counter-play on the part of the opponent. Doubly so with something like new HF if it's a) only going to trigger randomly when you hit a sub 50% hp opponent -- resetting a skill that needs adrenaline / flow that you just blew all of your adrenaline / flow to use anyway and thus (see above ^ cannot even remotely capitalize on without HEAVILY devoting your power budget to it) and b) it has a 12s icd. Something that neither you nor your opponent will likely be aware of or be able to keep track of since there's no visual indicator or buff for this. >> Thus: Assuming they would like to keep this trait functionally the way it is, but maybe introduce some of the actually fun functionality from old Daring Dragon that people seem to miss, because tying the trigger to randomly hitting the opponent is stupid, is to either: a) Have it simply reset each burst skill once but make you do 20% less damage on each. (= More Functionality, Less Damage, Since all of Warrior's current power balance AND functionality are on it's burst skills anyway.) OR b) Have it Reset the next 10s of Burst skills after you use after you use an elite skill. (10s Buff similar to the Tactical Reload one for loading bullets faster.) AND/OR Separately: Just give us back the Daring Dragon slash-reset and put that functionality on Immortal Dragon but reduce the healing, like everyone and their cat seems to want. And put something NEW in the [Heightened Focus] slot.

Can we just get the repeated-slash functionality put on [Immortal Dragon] at this point? (Probably just with reduced healing-on-slash down to maybe 2-3%) 1. Preserves the work they did on the PvE [Daring Dragon] trait. 2. We get our fun trait back. 3. Gives [Immortal Dragon] an actual reason to exist. AND They don't have to re-balance the re-entering Dragon Trigger triggers [Trigger Guard] thing anymore, because the trait just gives Protection when charging DT which will last for longer but do less damage so it's not COMPLETELY REDUNDANT anymore. 3. Profit. Literally everyone wins.

It's weird when they introduce a band-aid to fix DPS (i.e. a 2H weapon that no other spec has which relies on 1 skill for ALL of it's DPS) that that would feel bad to play, where every Grandmaster does the same thing... Odd I know. Fix: 1. Put repeating slash on Immortal Dragon. (For fun / WvW) 2. Make Unyielding Dragon un-root you like Deadeye Kneel. 3. Make Daring Dragon be Judgment Cut from Devil May Cry. (It does 0 damage on-hit.) But puts an unstripable debuff' on the target that detonates and does a bunch of smaller slashes, I'm thinking like 20 just for fun, on the target when you press F2 again. Also chunk the alac duration down to compensate for this. -- That way we can still give alacrity when you're off-the-boss by just detonating the debuff. Or you know. Do nothing for 5 years like you did with Berserker. And then finally "remove" it's 2 TRADEOFFS when someone finally gets in charge that knows how far this spec has fallen from it's original design. That works too. ❤️

Exactly this ^. * Ele has 1/3 uptime on Magnetic Aura alone just by equipping an earth shield (Which is Broken AF itself.) 4s duration - 12s cd. * That's before you even factor in alacrity. Which Temepest is more than capable of over-capping on, since unlike Warrior, it has it's PvE alac durations here. That chunks it up to 50%!? * Plenty of other classes have similar "uptime" on reflects if you spec into it. (Which warrior has to do in this case by giving up the very powerful [Cull the Weak]. -- See Rev Tablet, Firebrand Tomes, Engi Turrets, etc. >>> This Zebulon dude hasn't even logged in since they posted this. Clearly just a dude stirring the pot and watching you morons fight about this. <<< Instead of complaining about how a thing that's pretty much accepted as part of how the trait works at this point, suggest other things that ArenaNet could do to keep the class functional that are less bugged/more "fun." e.g. Better gap closers, Possible Magnetic Aura (less duration on block or aegis application, straight reworks to block skills to just make them also reflect projectiles, etc. If you want to "balance/fix SM" give Warrior better gap closers or other reflects. End of discussion. Stop talking nonsense in circles and getting this thread more attention where ANet's not gonna read it, read the title, and just dumpster Warrior even further.

@Myror.7521 Yup. And yet having an icd with the old functionality would somehow still be less stupid imo. Unless they did something catastrophically idiotic like 20s+ or or a number that didn't line up with Warrior mechanics like burst skill cooldown reductions or DT cooldowns or something. Which they would never, ever do... right...? /s

See above ^ Ideally again: They just hire someone who knows, and gives a kitten about making Warrior fun / good. But failing that I legit just rather it be removed so the marginal development time of designing band-aid weapons can go elsewhere. This is not sarcasm, I'm serious.

I'd really rather they just move the existing trait to the [ID] slot and restore old [DD] or just put an icd on the alacrity timer and restore old [DD] like the tooltip says. We all know they can. Looking at you: [Heat the Soul].

Yup, there's a bajillion other inconsistencies too. Like how Rush & Savage leap only hit 1 target & can't be stow-canceled. How pretty much none of longbow's abilities pierce & how a fully charged DT does less damage than both an Arc Divider and an Arcing slice. I could go on... so I will: It has more than 6 grandmaster traits that are completely useless or just straight inferior to other traits. See [Dual Wielding] and [Heightened Focus] < [Martial Cadence]. Most if not all of the Specialization utilities or traits are completely useless at launch or are later reworked into PvE damage' utilities. See [Dragonspike Mine] and [Daring Dragon] (When they could, and should have just put, and should revert, alacrity on [Immortal Dragon] and kept the existing [Daring Dragon]) and all of the weapons have never been updated or touched. With Off-Sword and the actual Longbow skills being the most egregious examples. Warrior is not a priority for them, it never has been. Believe me I've been playing in hopes that one day they'll ger around to fixing the some 25+ outdated traits or updating literally any of the weapons. But just hoping hasn't worked yet. Play a different class, or play a different game. They're never going to want to, or have the development budget to overhaul and fix it like it needs to be.

I'd settle for the existing tooltip becoming reality. But if they do that hopefully they do something with ID down the line to make it relevant. Maybe 1 burning stack / bullet loaded or something.