Torq.4926

I agree with normalizing the damage on path to victory/rampart splitter, since staff isn't really meant to be a damage weapon. However, I don't know about nerfing full counter when other spellbreaker builds are generally balanced or underperforming. If staff needs further adjustments, I think it would be better to reduce the base healing on its skills while increasing the scaling with healing power, that way it remains viable on support but becomes less of a self-sustain stick for power builds.

I'm used to offhand sword, so I don't really press other skills or double press the block. Disabling auto attack seemed to mostly fix it though

Not sure if staff 5 is still bugged but I've had it randomly cancel the block a few times, will test with auto attack disabled

Tested staff mainly in pvp/wvw teamfights and duels, here's some feedback for competitive modes: -Slow auto chain, hard to generate adrenaline using this. Had to disable auto attack for bugged skill 5 so it also felt worse due to being unable to interrupt autos with other skills. -Skill 2 is good, solid mobility/healing/boons. Would make sense as a leap or blast finisher. -Skill 3 looks strong on paper, annoying to use in actual fights because ally targeting is clunky. If you're focused on peeling for someone it works, but mostly ended up saving it for movement. Unblockable seems out of place with otherwise defensive support effects. Enemy target version isn't reliable enough to justify the long animation lock. -Skill 4 is great, you can about face cast to cover the animation in duels. Useful for interrupting revives and setting up weapon swap combos. -Skill 5 not bad, 2s block is kind of short for 25s cd but it comes with healing and resolution. Boon duration while blocking seems pointless most of the time. Currently bugged and will often cancel the block if you have auto attack enabled. -Burst skill is strong, only staff skill that did decent damage on power stats. Had to get used to the range since it uses hammer 3 animation but is 450 instead of 600. Tooltip says this counts as a movement skill for warrior's sprint, probably a bug. -Primal burst feels nice for an offense oriented version of regular burst. Downside is that it's worse support which might mean coping on something like staff power berserker, limited use case. Overall I think staff is one of the stronger weapons in the beta, not sure I like how much mobility/sustain this has, maybe a bit too easy to survive on. The lack of damage on most skills should limit its potential as a dueling/sidenode option though. I agree with the general consensus of reworking skill 3 and bugfixing skill 5.

At this point I'd support changing brave stride to something like movement skills remove blind/weakness when used, similar to wild blow. I still think mending could be unnerfed with a buff to restorative strength, either adding regeneration or increasing the might stacks but reducing the duration as they did for signet of rage. We've seen that splitting traits for elite specs is possible (e.g. dhuumfire), so they can make the buff not apply if you have bladesworn equipped.

The copy happens first, for example if you have 3 conditions and land full counter, it'll copy all 3 to the enemy while cleansing 2 from yourself.

It's been a few months and these traits still need help. Defense spellbreaker's damage feels quite mediocre, especially in wvw now that breaching strike finally got fixed again. I'd like to at least be able to take strength for power matchups without having a dead trait slot.

It's because signet of rage has an aftercast, if you use an auto attack (or any non-instant skill) immediately after pressing it you can cancel the aftercast to get lesser endure pain proc faster.

Now that peak performance is no longer an auto-pick for most strength builds and we've lost the option of low cd mending, it seems like a good time to buff the other 2 adepts so there's more reason to take this trait line in competitive modes. Brave stride should at least get a buff icon to track the effect, as it's often difficult to tell when the icd is up. Alternatively, in the current state of balance I don't think it would be too overpowered if the cooldown was decreased to 2 seconds in pvp/wvw. I also suggest adding regeneration to restorative strength to solidify its role as a sustain option. Assuming you took might makes right, 8s regeneration + 5 might on heal puts the hp/s of mending back around its previous traited value without buffing the likes of defense spellbreaker and berserker. This could maybe get an icd to prevent regen stacking with combat stimulant, though bladesworn would probably use brave stride anyways. With peak performance being the damage choice in pve, this should make all 3 adept traits useful and hopefully keep strength builds other than bladesworn viable in competitive.

With vigorous shouts no longer reducing shout cooldowns, there doesn't appear to be any mention of this trait in the balance preview, meaning that it'll presumably go from 48 to 60 seconds cooldown in pvp. This is a seemingly arbitrary nerf to tactics builds using soldier runes for cleanse, and is a further nerf to strength/tactics core warrior which is already losing cleanse from the increased mending cooldown. Meanwhile engineer's lesser elixir b and lesser elixir c are getting their traited cooldown reductions baseline, so this seems like an oversight.

If anyone wants to see it in action, this bug makes it impossible to hit some champion wurms (e.g. the champion ice wurm under durmand priory) with the ranged projectiles from explosive thrust, blooming fire, or artillery slash.

I was going to suggest adding regeneration to restorative strength for the same purpose, but yeah anything to make up for the loss of sustain would be nice, otherwise strength spellbreaker is probably dead. The only problem I can see with this idea is that it'd also increase bladesworn's healing, so they might need to shave combat stimulant a bit to offset that.

This seems like an unfortunate nerf to strength spellbreaker and core strength/tactics when those builds were already on life support. I guess they didn't want every build to have lower cd mending, but it'd be nice if they at least buffed restorative strength or something to compensate.

In open world you can use something like this until you've unlocked berserker, after that just change strength to berserker 1-2-2, take torch instead of offhand sword, and change the signets to rage skills. Cele damage will be low by pve standards but it should be fine for killing mobs/story bosses.

I agree with @oscuro.9720, traits like cleansing ire and adrenal health would be very strong if they were completely on use, such that I wouldn't be surprised if the effects got nerfed to compensate. However, this would penalize players who are able to land bursts consistently with the current iteration. The skill cap for core warrior originally involved counting dodges, baiting defensive skills, swapping weapons if eviscerate was going to miss, etc. since it had highly telegraphed attacks that were easy to dodge. However, that was compensated by high damage and sustain if you landed bursts, with stacked adrenal health and healing signet. I prefer the design of being rewarded for landing key skills over passive sustain, even if that drawback is unique to warrior. It's also worth noting that core warrior's sustain is actually higher than it used to be, with traited mending and might makes right giving better cleanse and dodges. Resilient roll makes it so that axe is no longer hardcountered by thief blind spam. It just lacks damage on certain skills like eviscerate and hundred blades, aside from that it's in a decent spot compared to other core builds.