Buff Armored Attack Please.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

What? 

Armored Attack needs a buff.

 

Why?  

1.) It woefully underperforms, especially when you compare it to a trait of similar design like Great Fortitude.  GF converts 10% of power into both vitality and ferocity.  Consider also that, if you're a power build, you're probably bringing 2k-3k power on your build, meaning the GF is yielding +400 to +600 of total stat points.  Armored Attack, in contrast, converts only 10% of toughness to power.  Consider that many power-based builds in WvW will probably bring around 1600 toughness, meaning you're only getting +160 stat points.  Even if you run full Knights gear with Rune of the Brawler (which of course means you're giving up a lot of power and ferocity in the first place), you still only have 2600 toughness resulting in +260 power. 

 

The return on investment is even less in PvP, where you pretty much have to take Berserker amulet if you want to do any damage.  Probably the most common gear selection is Berserker amulet + Rune of the Fighter, in which case Armored attack will give you +120 power.

 

TLDR: GF massively outperforms AA.  AA should be brought up par with GF.

 

2.) Defense trait line is already burdened with 2 traits with 300s CDs.  It is therefore imperative that whatever traits have not been nerfed into the ground actually provide good value.  AA is pretty much the default selection because the other traits in the Master tier are either 300s CD or Mace...which almost nobody uses.  Defense could use a lot of tweaks and reworks, but making AA a truly solid trait would go a long way towards making the trait line better, even if the rest stayed the same.

 

How?

There are lots of ways this could be done.  I stand by many of the suggestions in Revitalizing Warrior: Reworking Defense thread.  But in the interest of keeping things simple and creating simple parity between GF and AA, I propose the following for Armored Attack:

 

1.)  +150 toughness.  12% toughness converted to power.  [With full Knights gear (2600 toughness, 2750 with the boost from the trait), max power generated is 330]

 

2.) 12% toughness converted to power AND precision

 

3.) 20% toughness converted to power

 

Is That Balanced?

Yes.  Note that the only way you'll be getting ridiculous stats out of this trait is to maximize toughness.  That strategy is A) not really an option in PvP, as the only power/toughness amulet in PvP is Demolisher, which only gives +500.  And B) maximizing toughness is usually counterproductive because increasing toughness comes with diminishing returns (i.e., the damage reduction does not scale linearly; you get less and less damage reduction per point of toughness the more toughness you have).  So for most builds (running something like 1600 toughness), you'd be getting on the order of 300-400 stat points, which is still very strong, but not overbearing.  And if you doubt that, consider that the buffs to GF (which still give more stats btw) haven't suddenly made Warrior meta in any competitive content.  

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Option 2. We need precision, but knowing Anet it would be ferocity instead.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

9 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Option 2. We need precision, but knowing Anet it would be ferocity instead.

Yeah dude, option 2 would be great... warrior could finally run demolisher amulet without hitting like a wet noodle.

 

In fact, I just did the math, and if you ran Strength Core War with GS, demolisher amulet and rune of infiltration, you would have 2595 power (while on GS), 66% critical chance, and 191% critical damage. While having 1500 toughness. Even with all War's other limitations, that actually might be good enough to be meta.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

On 12/17/2021 at 3:53 PM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Option 2. We need precision, but knowing Anet it would be ferocity instead.

Truth be told, tho, Lan, would getting more ferocity actually be that bad of a thing? If AA gave power and ferocity, you could run mostly Knights in WvW (maybe with rune of the Eagle) and shore up on the power and ferocity you're lacking. And in PvP you could run Demolisher with the same results. Precision might be better, but ferocity might not be too bad after all.

[Zizekent.2398]

On 12/17/2021 at 4:53 PM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Option 2. We need precision, but knowing Anet it would be ferocity instead.

This, warrior lacks on crits, especially the berserk power builds, since arc divider removed the crit gen, while decapitate still gives you might (very little, but still).

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

7 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Truth be told, tho, Lan, would getting more ferocity actually be that bad of a thing? If AA gave power and ferocity, you could run mostly Knights in WvW (maybe with rune of the Eagle) and shore up on the power and ferocity you're lacking. And in PvP you could run Demolisher with the same results. Precision might be better, but ferocity might not be too bad after all.

More is more sure, but that doesn't change the fact that warrior is severely lacking in extra crit chance. I think Ele is the only other class that lacks in it.

 

I'm not counting UF or BP here as those are very tiny windows of effectiveness.