Jzaku.9765

I'm disappointed that there's no unique mechanic for this weapon like there was for Thief Axe and Ranger Mace the previous 2 days. If there was any build that needed serious help to get off the ground, it's Heal Warrior, so some more effort put into it's weapon would have been nice. We'll still need to see it's Burst skill (and Primal Burst) to really make a call on it. From what the video has shown, theres 2 different leaps (both Earthshaker and Savage Leap's animations), a dodge roll, and a block on the weapon, so it seems pretty blatant to me that this weapon was designed primarily for PvP/WvW - so I'm pretty apprehensive about how impactful it'll be for PvE Heal Warrior, which would be competing against some of the most insane builds in the game.

I dont see Staff doing any amount of good damage. Keep in mind that Staff exists next to the existing pool of Warrior weapons - we literally have PURE damage weapons, therefore (assuming equal power budget) the overwhelming majority of Staff's budget is allocated into its support and boon capabilities already. (I don't think we should have PURE damage weapons for this reason.)

Never forget CMC making fun of GS5 Rush on stream when revealing Willbender then talking about how they made sure Willbender OH Sword's rush is a straight upgrade by adding a teleport at the end of it.

Then give your feedback regarding the balance patch in the relevant threads - of the discrepancy between "removing the ICD on Heat the Soul because everyone hated it" and "Soldier's Focus existing".

Entirely depends on ICDs and durations. Waiting for actual info.

Just like how people "abuse" the top DPS builds now? Even just looking at support builds, take the Snow Crows benchmark list I posted and sort it by DPS: You will notice that the first build that is actually popular in the sense you are referring to ("people are going to pick it up and abuse it") is qFb at #6 on the list despite #1 benching 2.5k above it. Everything above it would be considered niche at sub 3% play rate according to Wingman stats which is already biased towards tryhards. The most popular build period right now is Power qHerald at #8. If you go to the benchmarks page on Snow Crows you will find a similar situation going on where the "Top DPS" specs are wildly unpopular for one reason or another. In short, you are dramatically overstating the value of DPS. It is just one aspect of the strength of a build, and it is self-evident that players intrinsically understand this. Regardless, your points are at odds with each other. You consistently identify that pZerk is in fact extremely high APM and that the common player will in no way be able to execute playing it benchmark level, then make a huge case about how playing it at benchmark level will give you a 39k DPS qDPS build (only ~3k higher than the current next highest bench for a boonDPS build). It's like, OK? So an extremely small minority of players will get access to a high DPS boonDPS build and everyone else will be casually playing pZerk not landing every burst skill for procs of both Quickness and Rage-Extension, double dipping in performance drops likely evening out into a perfectly normal build?

Quick Condi qUt: 36.3k Condi qHarb: 35.1k Condi qHerald: 34.3k Condi qFb: 33.8k (current) Condi qZerk: 32.8k Power qHerald: 32.6k Power qScrap: 32.1k Alac Condi aRen: 35.5k Condi aSpect: 33.9k Condi aMech: 32.5k Condi aScg: 32.4k (current) Condi aMirage: 31.3k So you're predicting that Power qZerk DPS will pretty much fall right into the band of existing boondps builds? Aren't you overreacting? The new balance team seems exceptionally good at DPS number balance, so the real strength of builds will lie in the value they can provide outside of their respective quick/alac and DPS (e.g., Stab, pulls, stat-agnostic value). And in that aspect, Berserker isn't too hot.

Fundamentally I actually largely agree with you both in terms of (1) no/minimal stat investment for perma boons is bad and (2) no gameplay changes for different "builds" within the same spec is boring. But for (1), Quick Herald has been in the game for about a year now, with minimal stat investment, providing close to every boon in the game and sees no nerfs this patch - so we can unfortunately conclude that it is the new benchmark for what a "good build" should look like. (And regardless of boon duration investment what really matters is how much DPS the build ends up being) and for (2), I'll take it over using utility skills off cooldown - that was equally bad, if not worse, in terms of gameplay. It's quite difficult for Warrior specs too since they're so one dimensional.

GS swap started being significantly better with the rework to 3-hit Arc Divider ~4 years ago, so personally I'd consider that a pretty long time ago. Of course, pug meta took a while to catch up. Nowadays pure DPS axe/axe + GS vs (still pure DPS) axe/- + -/axe is approximately a 3k DPS difference (meaning Mace swap will be ~4/5k) so it's a significant hit. It still boils down to opportunity cost - it just used to be a smaller cost in the past, so people felt comfortable about doing it. For Berserker specifically, using this newly buffed Mace 4 still takes away from spamming decapitate as much as possible (since it won't generate extra adrenaline from [Axe Mastery]) so I have my doubts about the buff actually changing anything at all.

Warrior Notes Feedback: Cool but it's still ONLY going to be taken when people are desperately in need of CC just like how it is now, due to the opportunity cost of it directly competing with pure DPS weapons. What I'm happiest about this change is that it's providing a very accessible source of trickle Adrenaline gain into the traitline available to multiple builds due to how generic it is. This should be moved to be one of the minor traits, mirroring [Versatile Rage] in Discipline. This would make the Minors in Arms more generic too to be able to support both Power and Condi builds. This is the de-facto trait for power builds looking at Arms, but managing to utilize this trait optimally makes all of the Fury and Crit chance increases throughout the line pointless. Considering that the entire traitline combined gives you about 35~45% crit chance consistently including the other changes in these notes, the power level of this trait is deceptively low, especially for a GM trait. Overall Arms Feedback Almost every trait in this traitline reads "do more damage". Please add some utility traits options in here as well. [Might Makes Right] is a fantastic trait exactly because it's positioned in the otherwise damage-oriented Strength traitline. [Dual Wielding] is long overdue for a rework, freeing up a slot. Cool to see focus on Support Warrior, but - You just changed [Heat the Soul] because everyone hated the ICD tied to burst skills. The entire [Soldier's Focus] mechanic (which this trait is tied to) is an ICD tied to burst skills in the EXACT SAME WAY, WITH A 10s ICD. Please get ahead of the curve and update the traits tied to [Marching Orders] and [Soldier's Focus] before it sits for another few years waiting for someone to notice that everyone hated that. I don't really see value in periodically randomly resetting my Burst Skill sub 50%, when I might not even have Adrenaline for it. Great to see that someone on the dev team identified the pain points of playing Berserker. Please note that tying the extra extensions to [Smash Brawler] works great for Power Builds, but it's competing directly with a significantly powerful Condi trait in [Last Blaze] in the same tier so the Condi Builds still have to suffer without this additional QOL. Not sure if intended.

Cool but it's still ONLY going to be taken when people are desperately in need of CC just like how it is now, due to the opportunity cost of it directly competing with pure DPS weapons. What I'm happiest about this change is that it's providing a very accessible source of trickle Adrenaline gain into the traitline available to multiple builds due to how generic it is. This should be moved to be one of the minor traits, mirroring [Versatile Rage] in Discipline. This would make the Minors in Arms more generic too to be able to support both Power and Condi builds. This is the de-facto trait for power builds looking at Arms, but managing to utilize this trait optimally makes all of the Fury and Crit chance increases throughout the line pointless. Considering that the entire traitline combined gives you about 35~45% crit chance consistently including the other changes in these notes, the power level of this trait is deceptively low, especially for a GM trait. Overall Arms Feedback Almost every trait in this traitline reads "do more damage". Please add some utility traits options in here as well. [Might Makes Right] is a fantastic trait exactly because it's positioned in the otherwise damage-oriented Strength traitline. [Dual Wielding] is long overdue for a rework, freeing up a slot. Cool to see focus on Support Warrior, but - You just changed [Heat the Soul] because everyone hated the ICD tied to burst skills. The entire [Soldier's Focus] mechanic (which this trait is tied to) is an ICD tied to burst skills in the EXACT SAME WAY, WITH A 10s ICD. Please get ahead of the curve and update the traits tied to [Marching Orders] and [Soldier's Focus] before it sits for another few years waiting for someone to notice that everyone hated that. I don't really see value in periodically randomly resetting my Burst Skill sub 50%, when I might not even have Adrenaline for it. Great to see that someone on the dev team identified the pain points of playing Berserker. Please note that tying the extra extensions to [Smash Brawler] works great for Power Builds, but it's competing directly with a significantly powerful Condi trait in [Last Blaze] in the same tier so the Condi Builds still have to suffer without this additional QOL. Not sure if intended.

Isn't it a pretty obvious issue that this "CC Weapon" is directly competing with the "Pure DPS Weapons" in the OH slot? Seems obvious that the only time OH Mace will ever see play is when you are desperate for CC. Do they expect people to just completely ignore the opportunity cost and pointlessly take a hit to their effectiveness? The patch aims to lessen the gap but it still remains that e.g., Pistol is mandatory for Bsw because [Fierce as Fire] was intentionally designed to make it mandatory. Or that the people who are engaged in the build aspects of the game won't just randomly take effectiveness hits for no reason. TL;DR Opportunity Cost exists.

Assuming the trigger remains the same - I see very little value in a Trait that essentially randomly procs sub 50% that resets your burst that you might not even have Adrenaline for. You pretty likely won't have enough Adrenaline on Bladesworn - that build is starved enough as-is even with Flow Stabilizer on your bar. The worst part is there will be benchmarks using this trait, rerunning untill they have a good enough scripted run where it procs on time, every time, exactly when they need it, muddying the waters on how good this trait actually is.

Signet of Might is approximately a +~4.6% modifier. Considering ~85% of your DPS on Bladesworn comes from explosions according to the benchmark log (notably and obviously Dragon Slash which is 66.7% just by itself), Overcharged Cartridges might as well read a flat out "Do ~12% more DPS". Sorry to say but it's an unhealthily strong skill stapled to your utility bar on Bladesworn. Just like all the other buttons (exactly [Flow Stabilizer], [Dragonspike Mine] and [Tactical Reload]).

I think the OP was worded badly but I understand the complaint. The power budget of Relic of the Trooper is pathetic - 1 condi cleanse tacked onto 20+ CD skills. Classes that have no choice but to use this relic for condi cleanse support e.g. Warrior is competing with the unbelievably stronger Relic of Antitoxin (which was nerfed by 50% from launch!) where classes with already good innate cleanse from their class shell or trait choices get even stronger. I bet if there was some tool to monitor the # of cleanse attributed to these 2 relics on their respective builds in any encounter, PVE/WVW or otherwise, Antitoxin would completely and utterly blow Trooper out of the water.

In short, anet lacks passion for Warrior. it's fairly obvious.

Headbutt is my favourite Warrior Elite skill. Shattering Blow is a block + reflect + stab and can be used in so many situations even in PVE for an MLG play. Wild Blow USED to be fun before they changed it as one of Warrior's only accessible long-range knockbacks (the other one is on the almost-unplayable Rifle). Blood Reckoning is an immediate full heal most of the time that lets you facetank almost anything in PVE while it's up. You're being too cynical.

They did, and called them Rage skills. I have suggested how they could be reworked into fun skills before, though that thread is now buried under pages of Arc Divider related threads.

I take serious issue with disinformation stated as fact, especially when it presents a situation wildly deviating from reality.

Yes that's correct, the wiki assumes a specific set of values, and the ingame tooltip actually does the calculation on the fly - you can see it go up and down as you gain/lose Might. For most intents and purposes, the coeff alone is an accurate representation of the strength of the skill. (Note that this is only true for power damage - condi damage and healing do actually have base damage/healing values)

I don't where you get off pulling completely imaginary fake calculations from - the wiki has a very clear page on exactly how to calculate damage in this game. The first massive glaring issue in your post is that base damage does not exist in GW2. Skills strength is effectively purely based on the coefficient listed on the wiki. You might be misinterpreting "Weapon Strength" in the formula - please click on the wiki link for it to see what it's actually referring to. Plugging your assumed own values (including the sequence duration which is a big assumption that you have it right including aftercasts) in the actual formula the game uses gives us: Warrior Rifle: (~1150 * 2000 * (1.0) / 1000) / 0.96 = 2395 dps Engi Rifle(both hits calculating damage then dividing by the sequence duration): [ (~1150 * 2000 * (0.45) / 1000) + (~1150 * 2000 * (0.6) / 1000) ] / 1.13 = 2137 dps So the auto is only ~10% worse as opposed to the ~50% your unhinged imaginary formula is giving you. ^ Just FYI.

+: Mending Might is merged into Phalanx Strength and now also heals Allies to provide an alternative to Shout Healing. - : Warrior's Cunning % damage increase adjusted down to 10% to foes above 50% to equalize out Bladesworn's damage curve. bonus: Every % damage increase above 10% (or equivalent) trait has it's values halved and split among the Minor Traits of the traitline to reduce the tradeoff for utility trait picks.

You are definitely right to feel this way. Even the most casual player can be (disproportionately) badly affected by these balance patches depending on how the adjustment is implemented. Even in this very patch, if you casually played a condi Berserker build and didn't properly utilize King of Fire's "detonate fire aura" effect, which is quite a big ask for a """casual""" to execute, you just got absolutely nuked by this patch. Or god forbid, you were using Eternal Champion instead because anet decided to put the QOL of being able to exit berserk on demand on a competing GM trait.

Slept on it and wanted to clarify my concern. I'm fine with the nerf - DPS creep has been insane and it seems like this patch has corrected the outrageous DPS from last patch and brought everything down into the 38~42k range. What I'm not fine with is the nerf relative to it's competing builds. Berserker is a build with an insane amount of playability issues due to zerk extension with almost no QOL. If it doesn't "do more damage" than other builds like cZerk vs Condi Druid (heals and cleanses allies as part of its rotation) or qZerk vs qHerald (everyone should know how busted this build is) then where does the power budget for Berserker go? For what it's worth, preliminary benchmarks seem to put qZerk and qHerald at about the same DPS, ~33.6k.

qZerk was already utter garbage on the effort-reward ratio compared to qHerald, so nerfing both specs equally is just indicative that they have no idea how their own game works. And I don't think they were nerfed equally from the patch notes alone - these halved values look brutal. Condi Zerker is one of the most unpopular builds in the game - Zerker as a whole has a 1.31% play rate compared to Herald's 10.15%. I'd ask what happened to power budget considering just how much better qHerald is compared to qZerk, but I never believed in that balance manifesto stream in the first place.