Fast Hands Must Be Baseline

[covahlam.6391]

17 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You can mix main/offhand weapons. So no, what you've said isn't true any more than it is for other weapons/classes.

I literally covered that in my post. Shield is really the only viable offhand for most builds (warhorn works for support), and it provides neither damage nor enough mobility to compensate for the one-handed weapons' weaknesses. Taking offhand mace, axe, or dagger means having a weapon set with no defensive skills. Try camping such a set for ten seconds in pvp and let me know how it goes. Offhand sword is ok on paper but too clunky in practice to actually work well.

Also keep in mind that most warrior weapon skills have a range of 130, so mobility is extremely important. Range actually compensates for a lot on other classes, be it in the form of an actual functional ranged weapon like say ranger axe or in the form of increased melee hit range like rev s/s.

Edited December 2, 2021 by covahlam.6391

[Lonecap.4105]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

That's a reasonable question. A contention (not sure it's the main one) is that Fast Hands is a meaningful choice as a trait and should remain so because ... that's the point of traits. If Warrior is so broken without choosing it (that's debatable BTW), then the answer is to determine alternative ways to fix that without downgrading trait choices. 

So the question back at every here is ... what makes Warrior so broken if they don't have FH?

I  already said. You can't remain in combat in a fight as Warrior with that 10 second weaponswap lock due to lacking the range and mechanics that other professions have. Fast hands will be changed to something else - something like 1 second of Quickness on a ten second ICD would be appropriate.

[Obtena.7952]

9 minutes ago, ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

I  already said. You can't remain in combat in a fight as Warrior with that 10 second weaponswap lock due to lacking the range and mechanics that other professions have. Fast hands will be changed to something else - something like 1 second of Quickness on a ten second ICD would be appropriate.

You're not understanding my question. I'm not asking why FH is important ... I'm asking why it should be baseline instead of a choice you can make. Even if what you say is true, you can choose FH AND making FH baseline isn't the only solution to the problem of remaining in a fight due to the reasons you gave. It's been discussed before ... if FH is THIS meaningful that it's a goto trait, it's not out of the question ... it's TOO good and should get a nerf. 

The fact is that Warrior isn't as unique in those aspects of gameplay as you say ... yet for some reason 5 second weapon swap should be baseline on warrior when other classes deal with the same issues without even having access to a reduced weapon swap ... or some classes no swap at all. 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[covahlam.6391]

7 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That's a reasonable question. A contention (not sure it's the main one) is that Fast Hands is a meaningful choice as a trait and should remain so because ... that's the point of traits. If Warrior is so broken without choosing it (that's debatable BTW), then the answer is to determine alternative ways to fix that without downgrading trait choices. 

So the question back at everyone here is ... what makes Warrior so broken if they don't have FH? How does FH being baseline resolve with the idea that the trait system is founded on the idea of giving players meaningful choice and variation?

Actually, no one has discussed nerfing or removing FH if it's such a go to trait ... because that indicates it's too good. That's not off the table right?

I covered your first point already. Much more development time would be required to rework everything that is currently built around fast hands than would be required to simply make fast hands baseline and replace it with another trait. It's not a question of fast hands being too good, it's that warrior is too bad without it. I have yet to see anyone provide a real example of how this is not the case. @ProverbsofHell.2307provides clear examples of why warrior is broken if it's locked into one set for ten seconds. Can you provide a build that works consistently or even footage of competitive play where a warrior is succeeding without fast hands?

As far as removing fast hands goes... that would be one of the hardest kicks imaginable to the class that is already on the brink. Might as well consider deleting warrior at that point.

[Obtena.7952]

34 minutes ago, covahlam.6391 said:

I covered your first point already. Much more development time would be required to rework everything that is currently built around fast hands than would be required to simply make fast hands baseline and replace it with another trait. It's not a question of fast hands being too good, it's that warrior is too bad without it. I have yet to see anyone provide a real example of how this is not the case. @ProverbsofHell.2307provides clear examples of why warrior is broken if it's locked into one set for ten seconds. Can you provide a build that works consistently or even footage of competitive play where a warrior is succeeding without fast hands?

As far as removing fast hands goes... that would be one of the hardest kicks imaginable to the class that is already on the brink. Might as well consider deleting warrior at that point.

No you didn't cover my point because you don't know how much time alternative solutions would take. You don't even know if the problem it solves is one that Anet agrees that needs solving. You're just assuming it's less to dismiss the question which BTW, is REALLY relevant here. I have NO DOUBT that Anet wants players to make meaningful choices when interacting with the trait system so removing meaningful choices as traits is not some trivial issue that we can just hand-wave away because people want special considerations on certain classes. There IS integrity in this trait system. 

Again, the problem of 'being locking into 10 second weapon swaps" is already solved by the fact that you choose FH with the trait system. The question here is why it should NOT be a choice as a trait just to make it baseline. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Lol

 

Meamingful choice is to pick Berserker's power in strength, which contends with MMR. Sustains vs Dmg.

 

Fluidity of gameplay SHOULD NOT be a matter of choice, because more fluid gameplay = greater potential. 

 

Just because you can pick to not use DIscipline, it doesn't mean you can do stuff without it. Just because FH is in Discipline, it doesn't mean that removing it will not make the traitline still strong (which is why I propose for Arms to take the mantle and share some non-game changing traits with Discipline, like attack speed, might on swap, burst dmg increase).

 

Warrior's main mechanic revolves around bursts. Around the weapon that's used. You don't always need to swap to use a burst (if it's on CD), you may need to utilize a means of ecape. You may want to bait an attack. Thief is excellent at this cause of Initiative for example. 

 

 

[Obtena.7952]

14 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Fluidity of gameplay SHOULD NOT be a matter of choice, because more fluid gameplay = greater potential. 

Actually it should be a matter of choice then. I mean, basically you are saying you should have not have to make choices to increase your potential. Like ... do you honestly think that Anet would agree with that given how they have created the trait system? Probably not. You absolutely should need to make those choices because there are relevant tradeoffs to have more access to 'potential' and as a player, that makes choices meaningful.

Quote

Just because you can pick to not use DIscipline, it doesn't mean you can do stuff without it.

Well technically, you can do 'stuff' without Discipline so ...  ?

Again, if Discipline/FH is SO clutch as a goto choice ... it's not off the table that it get a nerf instead of the royal baseline treatment. I mean, almost every argument boils down to the fact that these choices are not meaningful because they are default for lots of players ... taking that choice away doesn't fix that problem because traits SHOULD be meaningful choices. Nerfing OP'ed choices does fix that problem. What I don't get is how people conclude that Anet won't consider this in the arguments being presented ... like somehow they wouldn't figure this out for themselves?

Quote

Warrior's main mechanic revolves around bursts

And yet, somehow people think weapon swapping effects should be baseline instead of burst resource management. Genius. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[covahlam.6391]

56 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

No you didn't cover my point because you don't know how much time alternative solutions would take. You don't even know if the problem it solves is one that Anet agrees that needs solving. You're just assuming it's less to dismiss the question which BTW, is REALLY relevant here. I have NO DOUBT that Anet wants players to make meaningful choices when interacting with the trait system so removing meaningful choices as traits is not some trivial issue that we can just hand-wave away because people want special considerations on certain classes. There IS integrity in this trait system. 

Again, the problem of 'being locking into 10 second weapon swaps" is already solved by the fact that you choose FH with the trait system. The question here is why it should NOT be a choice as a trait just to make it baseline. 

Heh. I have some idea actually because I am willing to use common sense plus rely on actual corporate experience. A trait swap is guaranteed to be less time consuming than reworking a bunch of weapon skill effects, animations etc.

You're right in the literal sense that I don't know if anet agrees. However, myself and countless others have made arguments to hopefully persuade them to agree. As I pointed out previously, one condition that is present now that was not prior to feb 2020 is that cc skills do no damage. This condition increases the need for fast hands to the point where the meaningful choice of whether to take fast hands has been eliminated. Given the state of warrior weapons, builds without fast hands don't work. Full stop. See my example about alternatives to warrior's sprint. Those involve meaningful choices, especially when each competes with good alternatives like shield master in the case of dogged march and lynx runes vs say fighter runes.

You also ignored my question about demonstrating a competitive build that doesn't take discipline.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

As someone who permeates through builds routinely out of boredom I can attest to the fact that non-Discipline builds suffer from the lack of Fast Hands. Discipline itself is okay, it's more utility than anything else, but most of the value of it lies in FH itself.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, covahlam.6391 said:

 

You also ignored my question about demonstrating a competitive build that doesn't take discipline.

You're right .. I absolutely did ON PURPOSE even, because it's absurd to make something baseline for all warrior builds because "benefits to competitive builds". Why is it critical that FH be made baseline if ONLY competitive builds NEED it to be competitive? That doesn't make sense. Making something baseline is NOT ONLY about some subset of builds that you want to focus on to justify your argument. Baseline is about ALL builds, even the terribad ones. 

Again, making FH baseline is NOT about making something available that isn't ... because we already have access to FH as a choice for whatever build you want, EVEN competitive ones. Do not pretend that making FH baseline is solving a problem if we already have the ability to choose it as a trait. So far, FH is obviously intended to be a meaningful choice as a trait and so far, I haven't seen anyone with an argument why it shouldn't be a trait choice. If anything, the argument that it's SOO good that it's always chosen is an argument for a NERF because it debases the value of other choices if that's true. That's a WAY more significant problem for ALL of warrior players. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Well, I guess IP should have been nerfed then instead of being made baseline since it was so integral to so many Mesmer builds back in the day 🙄

Meanwhile Warrior is in a great place with strong support, power, and condition builds that are successful in all content...

 

[Obtena.7952]

11 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Well, I guess IP should have been nerfed then instead of being made baseline since it was so integral to so many Mesmer builds back in the day 🙄

If that had anything to do with this conversation, you might have a point. I'm not saying Anet shouldn't make things baseline. Making something baseline is a specific consideration based on the class ... just because Anet made IP baseline doesn't mean FH should be for warriors. That's illogical. 

PS ... my favourite part of your example is that making IP baseline for Mesmers was related to a SPECIFICALLY mesmer class mechanic. Making Fh baseline for Warriors is NOT related to a specifically Warrior class mechanic. I mentioned this before. Baseline considerations aren't about just dolling about some effect to improve a class. It's to adjust the class mechanic. IP is just a really GOOD evidence of that. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[covahlam.6391]

36 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

You're right .. I absolutely did ON PURPOSE even, because it's absurd to make something baseline for all warrior builds because "benefits to competitive builds". Why is it critical that FH be made baseline if ONLY competitive builds NEED it to be competitive? That doesn't make sense. Making something baseline is NOT ONLY about some subset of builds that you want to focus on to justify your argument. Baseline is about ALL builds, even the terribad ones. 

Again, making FH baseline is NOT about making something available that isn't ... because we already have access to FH as a choice for whatever build you want, EVEN competitive ones. Do not pretend that making FH baseline is solving a problem if we already have the ability to choose it as a trait. So far, FH is obviously intended to be a meaningful choice as a trait and so far, I haven't seen anyone with an argument why it shouldn't be a choice. IF anything, the argument that it's SOO good that it's always chosen is an argument for a NERF, not a baseline implementation. 

So by competitive, I meant builds for competitive modes lol i.e. spvp and wvw. That was pretty clear in my original statement. Additionally, you have simply repeated yourself and refused to engage with my argument that the 'choice' to take fast hands has effectively been removed because the trait is so critical that there is simply no viable alternative. Btw critical doesn't mean OP. Again, I am speaking practically and not in the literal sense of being unable to equip a different trait. Some need that clarification as reasoning is hard, apparently.

 

Think I'm done here.

Edited December 2, 2021 by covahlam.6391

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, covahlam.6391 said:

So by competitive, I meant builds for competitive modes lol i.e. spvp and wvw.

Yeah I know what you mean ... that doesn't change what I said ... you want to justify making FH baseline for all builds, even though you are only talking about builds for competitive modes. That doesn't make any sense. If you want to improve performance in competitive modes, then limit the changes to competitive modes. It's absurd to hand out a whole bunch of global buffs to a class to address a not-general class problem. 

Quote

Additionally, you have simply repeated yourself and refused to engage with my argument that the 'choice' to take fast hands has effectively been removed because the trait is so critical that there is simply no viable alternative. 

No I actually haven't ... if the choice to take FH has debased the value of other choices ... then that is an argument to NERF FH, not hand it out like free candy. You don't realize this but giving out FH baseline makes Discipline at LEAST as attractive a traitline as it is now or moreso when they add the trait to replace FH. 

The effective remove of choice because of a 'critical trait' was not actually fixed. The critical trait still acts effectively in the same manner when baseline as it was when it was a trait. 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[oscuro.9720]

5 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

hah "if you don't play only this one class, you can't speak about it", mkay indeed.

Players playing one class want that class buffed no matter what, color me surprised. 🙄

Why would you say that fast hand should not be baseline? (I’m genuinely curious, not just being snarky I promise 🙂 )

[cryorion.9532]

15 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Why would you say that fast hand should not be baseline? (I’m genuinely curious, not just being snarky I promise 🙂 )

The burden of proof lies on you, the one who wants this change to be implemented. You have to convince opposing side about the change being good for the game and not just "because I want it". However, no matter what you say, these people won't be convinced because they simply don't want to be. So good luck with this Odyssey.

Edited December 3, 2021 by cryorion.9532

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

Just as a side note, it's not just competitive that relies on fast hands. It's pretty crucial to high end PvE as well. It means more weapon swaps which each burst skill has a different CD and is ready by the time you swap back to it from your other weapon.  Other classes don't have that on their profession mechanic bar, they get additional profession mechanic buttons while warrior has 1 for core, and berserker, an F2 for spellbreaker and then whatever monstrosity BS is they had to give it's burst a ~20 damage modifier because you probably won't be able to capitalize on fast hands very well. So a world without fast hands sees warrior bursts having to get 10x more damage modifiers to keep up DPS wise but with it's design it probably won't see too much play time.

[Vancho.8750]

20 hours ago, Red Haired Savage.5430 said:

Just as a side note, it's not just competitive that relies on fast hands. It's pretty crucial to high end PvE as well. It means more weapon swaps which each burst skill has a different CD and is ready by the time you swap back to it from your other weapon.  Other classes don't have that on their profession mechanic bar, they get additional profession mechanic buttons while warrior has 1 for core, and berserker, an F2 for spellbreaker and then whatever monstrosity BS is they had to give it's burst a ~20 damage modifier because you probably won't be able to capitalize on fast hands very well. So a world without fast hands sees warrior bursts having to get 10x more damage modifiers to keep up DPS wise but with it's design it probably won't see too much play time.

Well BS is wnat@Obtena.7952 was talking about about Fast Hands/ Discipline not being needed and weapons working without it but Arenanet managed to kitten that one up too and you still need Discipline even more cause you can't do bursts outside of gunsabre. Personally I would have put the Gunsabre on 5 second swap by default like Holo forge so it wouldn't need a weapon swap trait on a one weapon spec. 

Also @Obtena.7952 people are bargaining for the simplest solution, cause at this point no one is expecting arenanet to fix weapons and traits and maybe more build variety will come out of having fast hands baseline, we have thief with necro shroud I think we are past the point of  "this is not balanced", the goal post have been moved long time ago.  

[Sobx.1758]

On 12/2/2021 at 5:10 PM, ProverbsofHell.2307 said:

Lets do this.

Tell me your main contentions.

There were many long threads about it in the past, go read through them if you still didn't.

Quote

Warrior isn't comparable to other professions, so saying "other classes would also benefit" from fast hands is pointless

It's not pointless if you understand the context of that response. The claim is ~"fast hands should be baseline because playing warrior with it feels better/stronger".

The response here is: "it feels better/stronger NOT because it's warrior, but because of how weapon swap works in this game". It's strong NOT because warrior makes some insanely extra use of it [outside of disci], but because it lets you pick out of 10 skills instead of 5 more easly/frequently. This is the case for any other class in the game with in-combat swap available. This is not some "warrior specific gameplay improvement", this would be a significant improvement to any other [weapon swapping] class in the game. Because -again- it's not somehow "strong based on the class", it's "strong based on what weapon swap does in this game class-wide".

Quote

Other classes have more range, more function-key skills, and ways that they simply don't require fast hands like Warrior does.

No, that's pretty obivously not true as a general rule. But it was also already discussed in the previous threads, which is why I keep telling you to just go read it instead of repeating everything for 5th time.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Sobx.1758]

On 12/2/2021 at 5:19 PM, covahlam.6391 said:

I literally covered that in my post. Shield is really the only viable offhand for most builds (warhorn works for support), and it provides neither damage nor enough mobility to compensate for the one-handed weapons' weaknesses. Taking offhand mace, axe, or dagger means having a weapon set with no defensive skills. Try camping such a set for ten seconds in pvp and let me know how it goes. Offhand sword is ok on paper but too clunky in practice to actually work well.

Also keep in mind that most warrior weapon skills have a range of 130, so mobility is extremely important. Range actually compensates for a lot on other classes, be it in the form of an actual functional ranged weapon like say ranger axe or in the form of increased melee hit range like rev s/s.

It wasn't about "viable" (btw you're clearly using "viable" wrong, it doesn't mean what you apparently think it means), it was about "needing to swap weapons because one weaponset does only one thing!", which is obviously a wrong claim, since you can mix-and-match. So you """covered it""" by pretending mixing and matching isn't worth it for warrior because you don't like it, so you need a buff. 🙄

Edited December 3, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Mesket.5728]

Warriors have little to no access at all for a lot of buffs because as a general rule it was always a "physical-non-magical" class.

It is only fair having at least Fast Hands as baseline.

[covahlam.6391]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

It wasn't about "viable" (btw you're clearly using "viable" wrong, it doesn't mean what you apparently think it means), it was about "needing to swap weapons because one weaponset does only one thing!", which is obviously a wrong claim, since you can mix-and-match. So you """covered it""" by pretending mixing and matching isn't worth it for warrior because you don't like it, so you need a buff. 🙄

You know, I had typed up a thoughtful response to this but decided not to bother given the silly ad hominem you led with. I hate to have to be this pedantic, but given that viable simply means "capable of working successfully", I did in fact use it correctly btw. Go spend some time playing a few matches as a warrior with those mixed weapon sets I 'glossed over' and you'll see that I'm right about shield. That's the beauty of this being a game. We all can actually test things for ourselves.

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

Well we are the only class in the game that weapon swap changes our profession mechanic. The only other profession that has any trait that weapon swap affects their profession mechanic is thief and that just refunds some initiative, so that's like our versatile rage trait that gives adrenaline. And thieves start with full initiative, we have to earn our adrenaline. Of classes that have traits that do anything with weapon swaps warrior has the most so to me it's pretty obvious that warrior was designed to be swapping weapons often.

[Vancho.8750]

13 minutes ago, Red Haired Savage.5430 said:

Well we are the only class in the game that weapon swap changes our profession mechanic. The only other profession that has any trait that weapon swap affects their profession mechanic is thief and that just refunds some initiative, so that's like our versatile rage trait that gives adrenaline. And thieves start with full initiative, we have to earn our adrenaline. Of classes that have traits that do anything with weapon swaps warrior has the most so to me it's pretty obvious that warrior was designed to be swapping weapons often.

Well both Weaver and Holo have weapon swap special mechanic and fast hands baseline.

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

23 minutes ago, Vancho.8750 said:

Well both Weaver and Holo have weapon swap special mechanic and fast hands baseline.

Yes and no? I believe @Lan Deathrider.5910 said they operate like bundles?