Revitalizing Spellbreaker

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

It seems these days that I have almost as much fun thinking about what GW2 could be as I do playing it (a sad state of affairs), in no small part because of my beloved Warrior's sorry state in the game right now.  So here are some of my thoughts on Spellbreaker for your consideration and amusement.  I can't take full credit for all of these ideas, as I have been greatly inspired by many of the posts in this subforum.  Kudos to all of you!

 

What's the Problem with SpB?

There are numerous issues, but chief among them are A.) the Meditation Skills all are underperforming, B.) OH Dagger offers little value, esp compared to Shield or OH Axe, C.) Meditation skills have no trait to buff them or reduce their CDs, and D.) there is very little potential for condi variants of SpB.  In effect, SpB often ends up playing "like Core Warrior with Full Counter," usually running Strength/Discipline/SpB and taking Mending, Endure Pain, Shake it Off, and Bull's Charge--just like most other Warrior builds.  

 

Ideas for Improvement:

 

Disenchantment: 

Currently this effect (incoming boons are immediately removed; lose one boon every second) is only applied by the WoD elite skill.  It is, however, a really neat effect and central to the  very idea of Spellbreaker in the first place.  In other words, we should get to use it more often.  I propose:

 

--Full Counter, Breaching Strike, and Break Enchantments each apply Disenchantment for 3s on hit

 

Change "Loss Aversion" to "Searing Loss":

Keep the adrenaline gain on boon removal, but instead of doing physical damage per boon removed, now apply 1 stack of burning for 1s for each boon removed. 

 

Even with no condi damage in your build, 1 stack of burning does about 130 dmg/s, which is still an increase from what Loss Aversion currently does.  But runes and sigils that increase burning duration and SpellBreaker's ability to stack might quickly could turn this into a meaningful source of damage.  And who knows?  Maybe if they rework sword someday, we could have some legitimate condi SpB builds.  A guy can dream...

 

Make Slow Counter the Meditations Trait:

I'd leave it's current effects (slow and cripple on FC) but just add a rider that meditation recharge times are reduced by 20%.  You could rename the trait "Tranquility" or something to be more thematically appropriate.

 

 

OH Dagger Skills

--Wastrel's Ruin: increase damage vs foes not using a skill from +100% to +200%.
This skill is a cool idea, but it currently just doesn't pull it's weight.  Compare it to Axe 4 Dual Strike, which hits multiple targets, does the same dmg as max Wastrel's Ruin, and does not require the foe to be CC'd to do it's full damage.  Oh, and Axe 4 grants quickness, too.  Wastrel's just sucks by comparison, but this could be fixed by making the payoff for actually landing it better.

 

--Daggerstorm:  Decrease CD from 20s to 12s

Daggerstorm is actually a pretty neat skill that has a variety of different uses--it's got good cleave, has a 300 range, reflects missiles, applies vuln, and grants swiftness.  It's problem is that it just doesn't do any of those things particularly well, kind of a "jack-of-all-trades" situation.  This could be compensated for by allowing it to be more spammable.  This would allow SpB to have another tool to eat through blind spam and aegis more effectively, as well as maintain high swiftness uptime.  And the more frequent projectile block will help offset the loss of defense from not taking shield.

Meditation Skills.   They all suck and need some major love.  Each could be the topic of it's own post, but the TLDR of the rationale is that none of them offer enough value (either offensive or defensive) to be taken instead of a stunbreak like Endure Pain or a CC like Bulls Charge.

 

Natural Healing

Heal 8500 hp over 5s (1700 hp/s).  Interval: 1s

Cure one condition per pulse

Gain one stack of Attacker's Insight for each condition cured this way

DOES NOT REMOVE YOUR OWN BOONS

3/4s Activation time

30s CD (25s if we don't get a trait for meditations)

 

Sight Beyond Sight

Reveals foes (5s), 600 radius

"Sight Beyond Sight" Effect:  Immune to blind, attacks gain 100% critical chance (5s)

Only one charge (no longer an ammo skill)

CD 20s

 

Imminent Threat:

Taunt foes in 360 radius (1.5s)

Gain 3k barrier

Gain Protection (4s)

CD 40s

 

Break Enchantments:

Keep current damage

Removes 2 boons

Applies Disenchantment  for 3s

Unblockable

360 Radius

CD 20s

 

Featherfoot Grace

Stunbreak

Gain 4s each of Resistance and Resolution

CD to 30s (25s if no Meditation trait)

 

WOD is fine; leave as is.

 

Hope you enjoyed my thought experiment.  Looking forward to the discussion!

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Spot on really.

 

I'd turn Bladestorm into a ground target AoE though with 900 range, make it a lightning field.

[oscuro.9720]

I agree with most of the changes. The only differences Is oils make is;

On loss aversion I would rather might or some other boon. However, I never play condi, so it’s mostly just selfish motivation.

For Nature Healing, I think having an area support effect on it, where conditions are removed from allies and boons from opponents within a 130 radius. If a boon is removed from an enemy, gain 500 additional health. That gives you a cap of 11k if you remove a boon from an opponent every tick.

Then I would change revenge counter to transfer conditions instead of copy, and let full counter do a reasonable amount of damage (enough to kill a Mesmer clone on crit). 

Edited November 3, 2021 by oscuro.9720

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

2 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Spot on really.

 

I'd turn Bladestorm into a ground target AoE though with 900 range, make it a lightning field.

Thanks, Lan!

 

Neat idea on Bladestorm. I'm trying to wrap my mind around what that would look like.  Do you envision it working like Ranger's Longbow 5, Barrage?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

20 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Thanks, Lan!

 

Neat idea on Bladestorm. I'm trying to wrap my mind around what that would look like.  Do you envision it working like Ranger's Longbow 5, Barrage?

More like a smaller radius WoD.

[Hotride.2187]

No superspeed on featherfoot grace would be a hit I think. It has to compete with endure pain, and the superspeed lets you at least get out of melee and avoid some hits; or maybe LoS ranged attacks if you can quickly get behind an object. The resolution is going to be a whatever, if you are not cleansing conditions you are dying anyway. The resistance is only good for landing hits without weakness/blind, and not getting feared. Even with 30 sec CD I doubt I'll see anyone else running it in spvp or wvw, at least without the superspeed (I'm already the only spb I see using it, though I got the advice from another player so there must be at least 2 🙂).

Also I'm not really sure the above will fix spb. Maybe in spvp where you do decent damage and your sustain is not too bad (though both are lower than some of the other specs). But in wvw you will still lack the damage and sustain. I doubt the heal will replace mending, even with the changes. Its hps will be lower than mending and it will clear fewer conditions over time. Even in the heat of the moment it will likely be inferior, due to not cleansing as much as mending. And there is nothing in the changes that mentions damage; loss aversion doing slightly more damage is not enough of a buff. Not to mention that you have no slots to put anything other than featherfoot grace from meditation. Even in thief duels I doubt you would use sight beyond sight over it (likely not even against deadeyes).

Personally I think spb must have both the sustain and damage from core tactics/strength/discipline (core on axe/shield+gs, spb on dagger/shield+gs), plus full counter and boon strip/steal, in order to stand a decent chance against other professions. Currently, in a duel, a good ranger, thief, rev or engi will annihilate you. And the only reason you can beat scourges and mesmers is due to outcleansing them and eventually killing them (after minutes of fighting and of being very careful to not get too many condis). Celestial eles you just cant kill, though you also don't die to them.

But I guess you can't fix that in a few changes 🙂

Edited November 4, 2021 by Hotride.2187

[DemonCrypto.6792]

To me spellbreaker should have the "taunt" build as a core gameplay with full counter , serouisly it's really underused and will give a really more smooth gameplay.

[covahlam.6391]

8 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

No superspeed on featherfoot grace would be a hit I think. It has to compete with endure pain, and the superspeed lets you at least get out of melee and avoid some hits; or maybe LoS ranged attacks if you can quickly get behind an object. The resolution is going to be a whatever, if you are not cleansing conditions you are dying anyway. The resistance is only good for landing hits without weakness/blind, and not getting feared. Even with 30 sec CD I doubt I'll see anyone else running it in spvp or wvw, at least without the superspeed (I'm already the only spb I see using it, though I got the advice from another player so there must be at least 2 🙂).

Also I'm not really sure the above will fix spb. Maybe in spvp where you do decent damage and your sustain is not too bad (though both are lower than some of the other specs). But in wvw you will still lack the damage and sustain. I doubt the heal will replace mending, even with the changes. Its hps will be lower than mending and it will clear fewer conditions over time. Even in the heat of the moment it will likely be inferior, due to not cleansing as much as mending. And there is nothing in the changes that mentions damage; loss aversion doing slightly more damage is not enough of a buff. Not to mention that you have no slots to put anything other than featherfoot grace from meditation. Even in thief duels I doubt you would use sight beyond sight over it (likely not even against deadeyes).

Personally I think spb must have both the sustain and damage from core tactics/strength/discipline (core on axe/shield+gs, spb on dagger/shield+gs), plus full counter and boon strip/steal, in order to stand a decent chance against other professions. Currently, in a duel, a good ranger, thief, rev or engi will annihilate you. And the only reason you can beat scourges and mesmers is due to outcleansing them and eventually killing them (after minutes of fighting and of being very careful to not get too many condis). Celestial eles you just cant kill, though you also don't die to them.

But I guess you can't fix that in a few changes 🙂

These are really excellent points regarding the level of sustain necessary to be competitive, but I will say the proposed changes to natural mending would make it viable for non-strength builds. Traited natural mending would heal for ~10% more than untraited mending, factoring in cast times. That plus the attacker's insight procs would mean it's a pretty good heal. While we're at it, though, the name could be changed to 'natural repose' or similar since having 'natural mending' and 'mending' is dumb.

 

Some other thoughts:

- Magebane tether should grant two stacks of might again

- I would drop either the prot or the barrier from imminent threat in order to reduce the base cooldown to 35s (28s traited) or even 30s (24s traited). In general warrior has a problem with high cooldowns and a lower cooldown imminent threat could be a BC alternative on builds running defense

- taunts should proc dispelling force

- featherfoot grace needs to keep the superspeed. The current skill would be solid with a 35s (28s traited) cooldown

- this might be a stretch but swap the bonuses on sun and moon style so that mainhand dagger crits heal

- not spellbreaker specific but at a minimum, it needs the changes proposed in this thread plus SiO's cooldown reduced to 50s, burst traits to trigger on use rather than hit, and maybe even a 20% buff to MMR

Edited November 4, 2021 by covahlam.6391

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Hmmm iirc any proposed ideas for SpB I have posted in the omnibus, including meditation changes, meditation trait, and merge of Guard Counter with Revenge Counter as the GM. 

 

Since most condi reworks on arms and weapons such as Mace and swords have been suggested as well, I wouldn't change much else in SpB. Perhaps the only decent change would regard Slow counter taunting on activation and as was said earlier dispelling force should proc on fear and taunt that's available on warrior, just as body blow can trigger on condition CC. 

 

If no taunt is placed in slow counter, simply add 1 sec to the duration of the conditions it applies plus chill. 

 

Magebane might increase and S&M style doing higher healing percentage. 

 

Loss Aversion is pretty ok. But if we would put a condition on it I'd suggest instead of burning fear on foes with no boons and dmg from fear aka Fear me can become useful for SpB condi builds. 

 

 

[BlackTruth.6813]

Maybe give dagger offhand more damage, seriously it's not instant cast and z-axis teleport just increase it's damage.

 

I'm tired of using shield/off hand axe all the time.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Ah btw, I'm glad many of us agree on the heal over time for Natural Healing. It would really be a heal skill that'd see more use, CD reduction or not, since you know, no Trooper Rune/remove condi on heal skill food, traited "To the Limit" is still not that good of a heal skill and we don't talk about Signet or Blood Reckoning being the only way to do meaningful dmg with Berserker (not heal, but do dmg).

[GoldenPants.1870]

On 11/3/2021 at 9:41 PM, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Wastrel's Ruin: increase damage vs foes not using a skill from +100% to +200%.

That will literally oneshot people in WvW

[Dadnir.5038]

It's not really a matter of improvement but personally I would have liked to have an e-spec that use the off-hand for it's burst instead of the main hand and I think SpB would have been the one that could have this feature. In practice it wouldn't change the burst for most of the weapons the warrior have, yet it would introduce a burst for Warhorn and Shield.

1. Warhorn burst's could deal, within 600 range, base damage (skull crack amount of damage or a bit less) to surrounding foes and provide allies with 1 stack of stability per strike of adrenaline used. Would be enough to allow the warrior to become an alternative to guardian.
2. Shield burst, similarly, could deal cleaving damage (skull crack amount of damage or a bit less) at melee range and provide the warrior with 2s protection per strike of adrenaline used. It might not be exceptional but it would help with survivability which is the job of the shield.

 

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

4 hours ago, GoldenPants.1870 said:

That will literally oneshot people in WvW

Would it? It would be roughly on par with Arc Divider, i.e, very strong, but usually not a one shot unless they're are built for glass. Given all the conditions that need to be met in order to get that damage, it probably wouldn't be that unfair.

 

Also, I'm not necessarily saying that +200% is the right number, only that the damage needs to be significantly increased. Maybe +167% or +175% would be better. Might also need a different split in WvW.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

44 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Would it? It would be roughly on par with Arc Divider, i.e, very strong, but usually not a one shot unless they're are built for glass. Given all the conditions that need to be met in order to get that damage, it probably wouldn't be that unfair.

 

Also, I'm not necessarily saying that +200% is the right number, only that the damage needs to be significantly increased. Maybe +167% or +175% would be better. Might also need a different split in WvW.

It would not one shot the trailblazer and minstrel folks that is for sure.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

31 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

It would not one shot the trailblazer and minstrel folks that is for sure.

That was my thought. If you're going to allow some super tanky gear, you also need to allow some tank busting damage to deal with it. 

 

Moreover, I don't think it's unfair to punish people for running full Berserker. If you wanna be a glass cannon, that's fine, but you should be prepared to be shattered every once in awhile.

[GoldenPants.1870]

1 hour ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Would it?

Considering I’ve been hit by it for like, 9-10k occasionally.. Yeah, warriors do be getting a lot of might so it hits incredibly hard, deceptivly so.

 

Would be good for pve but if Wastrels Ruin and Final Thrust is enough to twoshot someone in WvW..  Imagine what a 200% increase would do to a man.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, GoldenPants.1870 said:

Considering I’ve been hit by it for like, 9-10k occasionally.. Yeah, warriors do be getting a lot of might so it hits incredibly hard, deceptivly so.

 

Would be good for pve but if Wastrels Ruin and Final Thrust is enough to twoshot someone in WvW..  Imagine what a 200% increase would do to a man.

Except that it isn't a combo that is easy to pull off except against core necros and reapers. You'd need a CC to set it up and most peeps will break a warrior's CC quickly since they all know that a heavy burst comes right afterwards.

That and Dual Strike is the same damage with fewer hoops to jump through and cleaves. For being single target Wastrel's Ruin honestly could hit for me, or give some other benefit.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

1 hour ago, GoldenPants.1870 said:

Considering I’ve been hit by it for like, 9-10k occasionally.. Yeah, warriors do be getting a lot of might so it hits incredibly hard, deceptivly so.

 

Would be good for pve but if Wastrels Ruin and Final Thrust is enough to twoshot someone in WvW..  Imagine what a 200% increase would do to a man.

I see your point, but just because something is capable of doing big damage under certain ideal circumstances doesn't mean that it is normally going to hit those numbers. How many people do you see running round with OH dagger anyways? If that wastrels ruin/final thrust combo was actually easy to pull off and get massive damage numbers, you'd probably see it a lot. But in reality, it just doesn't work out that way. And then there's the issue of having substantially less defense because you're not running a shield. If you're going to give up sustain for offense, you'd better be getting some good offense.

 

Also, consider a skill like decapitate. Both decapitate and WR (against foe not using skills) have a base dmg of 734. Decapitate has a coefficient of 2.0; WR is 1.0. Are you going to argue that Decapitate is too strong, too? And remember that Decapitate refreshes on hit, doesn't require the target to be CC'd to do it's max dmg, and has a 300 range.

 

My point is that there are other, accepted skills that do as much or more damage than WR and require fewer conditions to get that dmg. The fact that WR is inferior to Axe 4 in EVERY WAY, for instance, is completely unacceptable. There needs to be some positive tradeoff since you only get to do big damage when the target isn't using skills.  Examples for improvement include increasing the damage dealt (either by increasing the percentage against foes not using skills or maybe increasing the power coefficient), and/or perhaps by letting the skill cleave multiple targets.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

5 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Except that it isn't a combo that is easy to pull off except against core necros and reapers. You'd need a CC to set it up and most peeps will break a warrior's CC quickly since they all know that a heavy burst comes right afterwards.

That and Dual Strike is the same damage with fewer hoops to jump through and cleaves. For being single target Wastrel's Ruin honestly could hit for me, or give some other benefit.

Took the words right out of my mouth. 100% agree

Edited November 7, 2021 by CalmTheStorm.2364

[Mungrul.9358]

I know this isn't really the focus of the post, but I think something needs to be done to make SB better for general open world PvE.

As it stands, the vast majority of mobs in open world don't even use buffs, making a lot of SB's functionality irrelevant (a bit like stability basically providing invulnerability against hammer).

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

2 hours ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

I know this isn't really the focus of the post, but I think something needs to be done to make SB better for general open world PvE.

As it stands, the vast majority of mobs in open world don't even use buffs, making a lot of SB's functionality irrelevant (a bit like stability basically providing invulnerability against hammer).

Agreed. I think the OH dagger changes would help with this as the changes would essentially increase damage output. That, in turn, boosts the sustain you get from Sun and Moon Style.

[DemonCrypto.6792]

i have some ideas who sound op but fun:

This e-spec is based on boon stripping so what if we changed full counter and the elite utility to do boon stealling
Yes this is super op but becoming a boon vampire is a so fun idea to me.

another idea is to change revenge counter  to stole condition from close allies to copie them on the enemies with prioritie on damage conditions  (there is 5 without agoni ) making it a very funny condition "build "

Edited November 11, 2021 by DemonCrypto.6792

[Hotride.2187]

4 hours ago, DemonCrypto.6792 said:

i have some ideas who sound op but fun:

This e-spec is based on boon stripping so what if we changed full counter and the elite utility to do boon stealling
Yes this is super op but becoming a boon vampire is a so fun idea to me.

another idea is to change revenge counter  to stole condition from close allies to copie them on the enemies with prioritie on damage conditions  (there is 5 without agoni ) making it a very funny condition "build "

In wvw you can use sigil of absorption to steal 3 boons on interrupt. The main problem is the usual, you have to land your abilities to do anything with it. So you have to be in the meatgrinder and that you don't have the sustain for.

[Lucentfir.7430]

 

On 11/7/2021 at 6:56 AM, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Would it? It would be roughly on par with Arc Divider, i.e, very strong, but usually not a one shot unless they're are built for glass. Given all the conditions that need to be met in order to get that damage, it probably wouldn't be that unfair.

 

Also, I'm not necessarily saying that +200% is the right number, only that the damage needs to be significantly increased. Maybe +167% or +175% would be better. Might also need a different split in WvW.

Another thing too is they nerfed the base damage of the WR  where it's pretty inferior compared to the other offhand options, unless you're aiming for the niche use of Sun and Moon small crit damage heals.  Crushing blow on offhand mace gives you tons more benefit by being 3 target, hitting just as hard as WR, 3 stacks of might and 6 vuln on targets, double if they're cc'd not to mention might is per target. offhand Axe just gives superior damage over all. Honestly WR should be a huge single target (150% damage maybe) nuke, or at less be a guaranteed crit if it meets the conditions. 

Edited November 12, 2021 by Lucentfir.7430