Shadowpeixera.2918

I don't disagree. I hate sustain-less builds, because i play a lot of open world, but the problem is that Warrior is so prone to just eating mobility-disabling conditions that it feels painful when you need two traitlines to make your weapon work. I do like LS with Hammer Shock, it's good. I just find the lack of sustain besides the shouts to be really weak, like, even with MMR, lately, i found FGJ with VigShout to be weak. But i'll try that build down the road, see what i think. I might end up just making a Cleric Hammer build ( i always liked that gear stat combo because of Mediguardian back in the day, but i know it's really really bad ) and just play for green numbers while hammering down HERESY.

So, been thinking about this for a bit, it has been plaguing my showers and sleep schedule, and no more! It needs to be documented so i don't go another moment without sleeping well. Basically, these are simple changes that border more on theme and concept, but that i think would be functional enough to apply to the game. Anet are the designers, not me 😛 They can figure it out ( altho the Warrior forums are kinda proof they can't ). The whole idea here is to make the weapons fit the theme/concept they already have, while being somewhat functional. I'm going to try to use Axe/Axe as my threshhold. Every Warrior weapon performing near Axe levels would already fix a lot of their issues. Anyway, let's have some fun. SWORD: - Concept: A balanced weapon, the pinnacle of melee warfare, created to be versatile. You won't ever find yourself complaining with a Sword in your hand ( unless you're a GW2 Warrior, then you will find yourself complaining "why didn't i roll Axe" ). This becomes the Hybrid option for us. The power coefficients in Sword are actually really good. The main problem to solve is it's traitline: Arms is a condition-based traitline, and several of it's power traits aren't bad but they don't compete with the real meat of the traits. Arms also suffers from lack of good synergy. I've never been able to just feel good with Arms while choosing other traits. And no, Opportunist isn't enough. I'm adding A LOT more Torment to the weapon, to give us more condis, i thought about Poison too but for now i'm not humoring it. - Autoattack chain: Keep 1 and 2 as it is. Rework Hamstring visuals to a quick cast spin and improve it's effects: "Quickly spins around, dodging attacks and crippling, bleeding and tormenting your foes". Hits 5 targets. Apply Bleeding and Torment. The whole idea here is to make Hamstring more appealing to finish it's autoattack chain. Hamstring is a ok utility move, but Warrior is already full of Cripple, so, the chain loses worth. The main reason the chain has any value is because our condition application is actually quite weak, so we depend on autos. If that's the case, make the autos better. - Savage Leap: Remove the small animation lock the skill has ( for some reason, the skill doesn't respond well? Feels clunky ), add some Bleeding to it. Other than that, keep it as it is. It's not a bad skill really. - Reworked Flurry: Now on 3rd slot of Sword. "Slows your foes with a flurry of bleeding, tormenting wicked strikes." Cast time gets reduced to 2 seconds. CD increased to 10s. Increased power coefficient. Applies Torment in addition to Bleeding. The skill doesn't root the Warrior anymore. - Impale/Rip: Impale stays as it is, it's not bad at all, besides being a projectile. Rework Rip: "Quickly blinks to your sword, ripping it out of your enemy, bleeding them." Give it a teleport range limit, and make Rip apply a decent ammount of Bleeding. You're literally ripping a sword from someone, after all. - Riposte: Make it apply Cripple. Switch Bleeding for Torment, now that Rip gives Bleeding. Buff Adrenaline Rush to give Swiftness and Might. - Final Thrust: Reworked to the Burst Slot. The skill now always apply Bleeding, and deals increased damage and Bleeding when below the Health threshhold. To compensate, the base power damage of the skill gets reduced a bit. Something around 4/6/8 normally to 8/12/16 Bleeding stacks when below 50% according to Adrenaline level feels ok to me. It's a pure damage skill. - ( Primal Burst ) Burning Spiral: "Pierces your enemies with three flaming thrusts, sending fireballs while blocking missiles in front of you." The idea is to make a piercing skill that behaves kinda similarly to Flaming Flurry, but better for melee and aoe, while still keeping the fireball mechanic. MACE: - Concept: Maces are powerhouses, used to break bone, flesh and cause so much damage that even without penetrating armor, they would still be devastating. They were cheap to make, thus they were quite popular with lower class combatants and peasants. And unlike Anet wants you to believe, they are not that slow. YOU are. So much for master-of-arms, eh? Honestly, it's kinda hard to give a theme to Mace in specific, because the weapon would actually fit the Power role, while Axe should be the condition spot. Axes were brutal, clumsy weapons, that were known for extremely damaging, hemorrhagic and tormenting strikes. That fits way more with the condition fantasy. But i won't really reinvent much of the wheel here, even because this text it getting too long. Let's just go with Anet's design and keep Axe as Power. Mace becomes our de-facto Condition option and the whole idea here is to fit the weapon with lots of Confusion, some Torment, and maybe some other cover condis. - Autoattack chain: Mace Smash and Mace Bash now apply 2 stacks of confusion per hit. Pulverize now applies 3 stacks of Torment and 6 of Confusion. If the whole idea is the weapon to be slow, then make it eating the chain be rewarding to us. Also, Torment adds cover condis, since our main damage source will be Confusion. Also, the weapon lacks good damage skills, so having a good autochain makes a lot of difference. - Counterblow: Confuses and Vulnerability on hit. Switch Adrenaline Rush for Protective Rush: Gains Adrenaline, Swiftness and Protection. - Pommel Bash: "Daze your foe with a mace to the face. Interrupting a skill torments them." Add some Confusion and if interrupting, Torment. - Crushing Blow and Tremor stays the same. I'm still struggling with Offhand Mace. - Skull Crack: Add Confusion to it. Like 3-6-9 stacks or something like that. The more, the better. For more experimental things, i tried this: - Added Functionality: Body Blow - Crushing Blow and Tremor now become Blazing Blow and Rend Earth. Blazing Blow: "Blazes your oponent armor from the inside with a fiery strike. making them Vulnerable and Burning them". Rend Earth: "Sunders the Earth below your target, knocking them down, and creating a area that Slows and Bleeds them" ( I'm still struggling with offhand mace and if such trait would be better on Merciless Hammer ). Offhand Mace is actually a really good weapon, just highly situational, and it kinda hurts to rework it without a second thought. -------------------------------------- Honestly these exercises are good for the soul. Those are just some ideas i had nagging in my head, and i wanted to write them. I'm not the most skilled Warrior, and this isn't even a suggestion to Anet, i'm just conceptualizing. Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Blamesworn. ( no, but really, looking back now, that patch was all kinds of stupid )

Hammer traits seem to synergize really well with each other, but the main issue is that the weapon still lags behind, and it's a heavy investiment for little benefit. I'm starting to believe that it's a weapon that's supposed to be camped ( it's autos are deceptively strong with quickness ), so Discipline does become a bait. But like you said, it's hard to make a non-swap build work ( only Axe/Axe, really ). I've been trying to make a solo LI Hammer build for ages now, and it's has been an absolute pain. If you go anything but Berserkers, you lose too much damage, if you go Berserkers, your sustain isn't enough, even with VigShouts. I thought about mixing and matching some Healing Power ( but i don't know Warrior coefficients for that stat, and the stat seems weak ), running full Celestial ( which i did, and i didn't like the result, bodyblow doesn't make your condidamage worth it ), or foregoing Ferocity. I thought also about Marauders, but it just doesn't feel good. Lately i was thinking about trying for Cleric gear with zerker or diviner trinkets, and running Brave Stride instead of PP since i wouldn't use physicals and would use Healing Signet. Other thoughts was to just scrap the whole Strength tree altogether, and live without the quickness, and get another traitline there. Be as it may, it's a hard weapon to work out. If you go full DPS, the weapon doesn't pay off enough, if you go anything else, the weapon lags behind greatly. Whatever you find out, please let us know, i'm really interested. Quick Edit: What about not running Tactics and running Arms for Unsuspecting Foe/Sundering Burst and Burst Mastery? And Opportunist? It might be a huge sacrifice but at the same time, it kinda pigeonholes you into this absolute damage unit. Might be worth taking a look? Specially with the Defiance changes coming, might be a good glasscannon build i guess?

- "The game was always been fast paced." Yes, but not to the extent it is right now. You actually had some applications of slower, hard-hitting weapons. The problem isn't that they were always bad, the problem is that the game got powercrept to oblivion, and now the fast paced options are outpacing the rest of the game by extreme margins. GW2 has a huge issue with power disparity between builds. This is not a problem with the game's design itself, this is a problem with the design that was ADDED to the game later. Hammer didn't got bad because it deals low damage. Hammer was bad because it dealt low damage for it's speed in a game powercrept by excessive ammounts of stability and stunbreak access. It's no wonder Hammer requires quickness/superspeed to output coherent damage for today standards, and it just took us...around how many years? to get that. Also, it demands heavy investiment in around two traitlines to deal such coherent damage. Axe doesn't need that. It'll deal coherent damage for today standards even on a Strength/Tactics/Spellbreaker solo LI build. - Quickness effectiveness have been halved since the early days (yes it used to increase attack speed by 100%). Yeah, because when you make such a powerful boon more common, you kinda need to bring it down a notch, because else it destroys what little balance the game has. It is still a powerful boon, and Anet's mistake was to make it common, not to nerf it. It should be GW2's version of Bloodlust: A prohibitive CD that gives everyone a extremely powerful speed steroid. Any class/spec that gets superspeed as a core mechanic should have it's mechanics reworked and superspeed should be a trait that gives powerful benefits but with a huge drawback of a pretty long cooldown, or extremely conditional conditions ( maintain 25% health for instance, just as a hypotetical ). - PvE end game used to be everyone in berserk gear, only fire fields allowed in fight. And boss fights ended very quickly (I've seen lupicus die in less than 10s). The way to remedy that is to improve the game as a whole, not just to embrace the full DPS meta and pretend that Alac DPS or Quick DPS are anything beyond DPS. The game lacks ROLES. It always lacked roles. It will always lack roles. Anet should have embraced the role system and expanded upon it. As it is right now, people are honestly deluding themselves if they think Alac/Quick/Might uptime is any sort of meaningful support compared to other support classes in other games ( except WoW, but Blizzard couldn't design a support class to save their studio from a meteor ). - The game is built in a way that specialized tanks and healers aren't really needed and, in fact, can be seen as counter productive by an experienced team. And the game was also built in a way that the meta for 1.5 years after launch was 4 warriors and one mesmer exploding CoF P3 over and over and over again, doesn't mean it's good. What is counterproductive is giving Anet a pass for bad design decisions when these design decisions hurt the game as a whole, and hurt specific classes more than others. Like, i get that the game doesn't need tanks ( Healers are needed, but they are required to bring more than just healing, which isn't much of a problem to me, i like classes to be versatile ), but you STILL have issues of classes being denied spots in raids or such because they don't bring specific boons or good boon uptime on the role they perform, or they sacrifice too much in order to achieve that. And thus, you have the same issue that every other MMO has. And now, every single class/spec needs to be balanced around bringing Alac/Quick/Might uptime/Damage, or it isn't worth it. And it's constraining their design decisions. Anet didn't solve the trinity "problem". They just created another set of problems by getting rid of it.

We should literally be stomping grounds and summoning earthquakes, volcanos and deep fissures. Why is that Engineers get to launch rockets from procs but we can't "EARTHSHAKER" and actually crack the earth so strongly that cripples and damages everyone in an area for a while? Petition to make Peak Performance physical skills crush your insides so hard that they explode in flames 3s later. Better than the boring trait it is right now. Make Body Blow deal a delayed earth spike on the feet of the target that throws him back to the Warrior. If we move, the earth tremble, if we raise our weapon, explosions occur, if we tense our muscles, women pass out, as it should be.

It should be, simply because while the throw isn't supposed to break the stun, the parent skill Elixir U is. Engis get two skills for the price of one, while Warriors, whom are already constrained by utility slots, have to deal with another clunky mechanic. Make the banner stunbreak the Warrior when he starts the cast, and then stunbreak again on banner landing. That will make the banner a really good stunbreak, competing with Shake It Off, instead of forcing us to have SIO on our bar to cast the banner. If you want Stability, you use Dolyak Signet, if you want controlled, on demand stunbreak, you use Shake It Off, if you want teamwide support stunbreaks every 30s, you use the banner. Sounds like decent balance to me.

Signet mastery and SoMight is really good for WvW when you need to actually hit things with Bow. There's a "Chinese Berserker" build in metabattle that uses arms for Signet mastery so you can actually unblockable the projectile hate with the Bow primal burst. It's a really cool build.

You have a cast animation where you raise your hand for the banner to get down, right? I've been stunned out of that ( and i also dodged and cancelled it ) before. Throw Elixirs animation is quicker and more fluid.

Personally, i want us to go back to when slow, hard-hitting skill would be the norm for damage output. I just dislike how fastpaced ( and boon vomiting ) the game became as a whole. Things like Quickness/Alacrity should be extremely rare, and should be tied to extremely long cooldowns ( like WoW's Bloodlust for instance ), but when Anet designed themselves into corners with their Elite Specs NEEDING to have weird changes in gameplay, they made those specs bloated. I think it was Scrapper that had a insane output of Superspeed, and then Anet bit the bullet and said "we need to give everyone this, or it'll be unfair", when to me, it should be REMOVED from Scrapper except in specific moments. I think the game should go back to it's roots where reading animations was the main way of seeing how things would fare. I would like to have the option of hard-hitting slow weapons competing with fast weapons. I would like the game to be less bloated around yelling FGJ all the time to keep up 25 might stacks, and instead, it had a measure where damage between builds n ever oscilated around 50%-100%-150% damage. That would make characters less dependant on boon generation, which would make solo play more rewarding, and gearing more tailored to what you want to do. It would still reward top end players with their glasscannons, but i REALLY dislike the system right now where if you don't play a Axe/Axe Warrior, you're just griefing because the difference between Axe and the other weapons is massive. We can either speed up/change all other weapons to bring them to Axe levels ( which is ok to me ), or we can tone the entire game down to a more balanceable approach and Anet start using metrics to keep builds within arms reach of each other, because this game is IMPOSSIBLE to balance as long as something performs on 6x better than something else. And maybe, for the love of god, can they add roles in this game already? This "quickDPS/AlacDPS/PureDPS/Healer" thing doesn't work. Go Tank/Healer/DPS/Support, for the love of god.

I think the comparison to Elixir U is apt but...honestly? I don't know. Banners just feel clunky to use. Back when i mained Engineer, tossing Elixirs wasn't perfect but it didn't feel iffy. Maybe the banner summon animation is desync'd, maybe it's just me.

If feb 20 was the "CC doesn't deal damage anymore" patch, it kinda reinforces my point that Anet is more incompetent than they are malicious. That patch was a unmitigated disaster, because it's effects should have touched only some classes/specs, not every one of them. I don't think they *want* Warrior in a bad spot. I think they are terrible at balancing, worse than ESO devs are, to the point where they stay away from the Warrior forums until they stop hearing our painful wailing at night while trying to sleep. I think they "were" triggershy with feb 20 in that it was a blanket solution that they felt was long time coming ( and to be fair, some classes DID need those nerfs, WE didn't ), but it was the limit of their attempts. It was also a polarizing patch, and several of their other Warrior "reworks" were met with backlash, except the last Hammer improvements that were decent ( still met with skepticism ), albeit not enough ( it also removed from us some of our good talents, like Rousing Resilience ), since it demands two bad weapons, Hammer and Mace. Game needs a weapon pass urgently, Warrior needs a trait pass urgently, when we sacrifice all of our 3 utilities, two/three traitlines and have to make a bad decision between Peak Performance or Restorative Strength to make a kitten solo play sustain build ( D/D or A/A Spellbreaker ), and IT STILL DOESN'T COMPARE TO GUARDIAN SUSTAIN. I also want to be able to get my sustain out of one trait and reserve the other two for utility or damage. kitten. It's been 10 years. If i knew it was going to be like this, i would rather have the old talent system back and them improving upon it.

I think that's a cool idea. Make FT the Burst. Make it increase in damage, bleed stacks and range for each level of Adrenaline. Make it's primal burst a torment-applying thrust in front of the warrior that hits 5 enemies. Put Riposte on the third slot, make the counter-hit be a sped up Flurry with the immobilize. Remove the cast time from Savage Leap. Change the awful animation on Hamstring ( 3rd auto chain ) for a quick spin that hits 5 people for the same effects. Make the 5 skill be Adrenaline Rush, where you gain adrenaline, swiftness and fury and you reset the cooldown of your burst skill, on a 30/40s cd. Might be bloated, but hey, we're still not Guardians so it's ok.

Didn't also the new changes affect several of the other classes that are known for boon uptime too? Firebrands got a sizeable nerf, and i haven't really read anything about elementalists, but they also seem to have gotten some changes. I would like Anet to move towards a more "selfish" way of boon application, where you bring your own boons, and if any character wants to play a support boonbringer build, it needs to spec that way in it's entirety and do NOTHING else. But i do think we are moving in a good direction, even if they are moving really kitten slooooooooooooooooow

I mean, sure, but then to make use of the opportunist trait you need arms, and to make use of the peak performance trait, you need strength. What do you play this with, then? Maybe a wonky Sword/Sword core-build that spams movement impairing conditions? Sounds fun but i don't know how it would work. Also, you pick bolas, what else do you pick? You need SIO, you probably need Bull Rush too, so your utilities are locked. Maybe a Hammer-Sword/Mace build with bodyblow/quickness and merciless hammer/stalwart strength? The build lacks stability, and your utilities aren't that open. My building game isn't good, enlighten me Lan-sensei

I'm not joking i was looking at the skill thinking that it might have had a weird interaction with Leg Specialist? But it doesn't, it's not a cripple, it's a direct immobilize. There's the Opportunist synergy but it's in Arms. And you need to take Strength to get Peak Performance. Sooo...it's a Arms Strength build? Yikes.

Physical. Throw bolas to immobilize your foe. Damage: 66 (0.25)? Immobilize (4s): Unable to move. Maximum Count: 2 Count Recharge: 20 seconds Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile Range: 1,200 Uh.

I don't really buy this. I don't think they feel the need to keep Warrior down out of malice. I rather just tie to incompetence and being trigger-shy with radical changes, which is more like Anet.

I'm an Asura.

Again, i think this is more out of their philosophy with updates than anything. Anet tends to like to "put the good carpet" in preparation for their updates. If they have a boon update in the works, common sense dictates that Spellbreakers should be nerfed AFTER the update hits, not before. Instead, they keep these absolutely wonky approaches that keep the game in a balance limbo until they feel comfortable with releasing their updates. And this is all aggravated by the fact we don't have a PTS. Any company worth two damns has a PTS to their MMOs.

There is a chance they're actually doing these wonky changes because they do have a more "sensical" ( not that i trust them to ) approach to boon-application, as mentioned previously with the Sigil of Absorption. That being said, it's really weird that they change SpB into this weaker state when their changes are still not implemented. It's just asking for the boonballs to get stronger in the meantime and the frustration to rise. We're Warriors. We depend on CC to deal damage, and i don't think any Anet dev has ever tried to Earthshaker a zerg that craps out stability out of the wazoo. This is honestly a issue with their balance philosophy in itself. Changing class performance for a "future update" without the update being implemented first is just really backwards design decision. Can they just get a kitten PTS already?

And Warriors use their oversized weapons badly.

On the note of stability: I was soloing some dungeons and yes, the ragdolling is a pain ( Warriors are awful against immobilize/chill/poison ) and that make me take Dolyak's Signet. I know DS is a meme, but the 10 stability came well in a pinch. Maybe that's not as bad of a pick as we think it is? Not having CDR for it's 40s is a pain ( the signet trait just isn't good and it's in Arms ), but i can't say i dislike it's passive effect either. Any thoughts?

I am a bit optimistic, they gave core some nice buffs ( if a bit boring ones ) this patch, and they seem to be doing their changes slowly, so i would argue they will do the same next major patch. The problem i have with this is how careful they seem to be to "not hurt the balance of the game" like that ship hasn't sinked already. There is no balance to this game. They should just start doing major reworks without fear, and actually get a PTS to gather better feedback.

Truth. Which is why Core would also need to follow it's own set of buffs to make the "outside zerk" version playable and decent enough. I just dislike this new Berserker a bit. But i do get the point that in GW2, it's hard to make specs that have roller coasters as their performance graph to be too useful. I just wish they kinda gave a shake-up revamp in their whole boon-condi system to make things less buff-prone, and made specs better sidegrades. Sigh.