HOT TAKE: Warrior Needs to be OP [PvP/WvW]

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

[Warning: Text Wall Incoming!]

TL;DR:

Warrior has fewer tools than other professions; this necessitates that Warrior's existing tools be sufficiently strong--even "OP"--to compensate.  The relative success of BS in PvP where other Warrior specs have failed offers insights into Warrior's core design problems as well as how they might be addressed.

 

Surveying the PvP landscape, it is clear that Bladesworn is the only Warrior spec that is remotely close to viability.  Bladesworn has --rightfully--garnered much criticism for its clunky design and dependence on shout healing and Unyielding Dragon--two mechanics that most in the GW2 community would consider (again, rightfully) as overpowered.  Yet it is only with this combination of things that BS is competitive--and its overall performance is not overpowered when compared to other high-achieving meta specs.  It's a classic "two wrongs make a right" situation: BS's weaknesses inherent to its design are compensated by its OP healing and Unyielding Dragon trait.  

 

Here's the thing: the other Warrior specs (Core, Berserker, SpB) are just as flawed as BS, just in other ways.  And they underperform because they do NOT have any "OP" mechanics to bolster them.  Here's a non-exhaustive list of Warrior's problems:

 

1.) Warrior has fewer tools than other professions.
We get one F1 ability (2 if your SpB).  Other professions have up to 4-5.  Warrior also has little to no access to pets, kits,  stealth, invuln, teleports, instant cast ranged CCs, second health bar, excessive boon spam (esp access to "high power" boons like protection, superspeed, stability, etc), or auras/combo fields.  Warrior's playstyle is very honest and direct: rush in and smash.  It doesn't have the tools to do otherwise.  This really lowers the skill ceiling for the profession (and raises its skill floor), especially when playing against highly skilled opponents.

 

2.) Warrior has no viable ranged options.
This is really a sub-section of point #1.  Lack of meaningful ranged presence makes Warrior very susceptible to highly mobile ranged classes that can just kite and pew-pew you to death (e.g., mesmers, p/p thief, deadeye, rangers, rifle engis). 

 

3.) Warrior struggles to be mobile.

Note that I didn't say that Warrior "lacks" mobility; it doesn't.  It has fairly good mobility on GS in particular (although Rush will often take you in a direction you hadn't been planning on going).  But the need to be constantly closing with kiting classes as discussed in #2 above taxes Warrior's mobility.  The lack of Z-axis teleports really hurts, too, in certain maps/situations.  Common ways warrior compensate for this are to rapidly cycle between weapon sets (GS and dagger/shield, classically) to chain mobility skills (which has the side effect of making Discipline near mandatory because of FH allowing better access to your movement skills) and slotting Bull's Charge (which locks one of your utility slots for an essentially mandatory skill).

 

4.) Warrior relies on might generation to do damage competitive with other power professions.

This ends up requiring Warrior to run certain lines (Strength), utilities (e.g., FGJ, Sig of Rage), and gear (usually Berserker's) to do meaningful damage.

 

5.) Warrior lacks in damage reduction/sustain.

Warrior often is forced to eat a lot of damage, owing largely to Problems #1-4 above.  Historically, Warrior has compensated by use of lots of dodges and evade frames on Whirlwind Attack and FC, but the powercreep of the game has outpaced this level of damage mitigation.  Nerfs to MMR and Adrenal healing certainly have worsened the situation.

 

For all of its design flaws, Bladesworn has answers (imperfect though they may be) to the aforementioned problems.

1.) BS has 3 different bursts on DT which gives it more versatility.  Unyielding Dragon helps bypass some of the defenses (blind and blocks) other professions use, thus helping to make up for Warrior's lack of tools by negating your enemy's.  

2.) BS has multiple projectiles (which hit pretty darn hard) to counter pressure ranged enemies

3.) BS isn't particularly mobile, but once you have flow you can spam DS-Boost for pretty excellent mobility.  The mobility and CC of DS-Boost provides a replacement for Bull's Charge, freeing up a utility slot.

4.) BS is built around might generating traits and skills, allowing you to maximize your offense while not compromising your defense.

5.) BS's self-sustain is infamous and needs no explanation.  

 

If the other Warrior specs are to gain viability, they need answers to at least some of the Big 5 Problems listed above.

We could talk about a lot of things here, but I will leave that to the Omnibus.  Suffice to name a few: 

1.) Meaningful re-works to weapons like Mace, Hammer, and Sword could go a long way to providing answers, depending on the re-work.

2.) Reworks to Defense and Arms

3.) FH could be baseline

etc.

 

But here's my hot take:  Warrior needs some form of "OP" sustain to be viable.  

The lack of tools compared to other professions is truly a massive obstacle to overcome.  The reality is that, most of the time, Warrior is going to eat a bunch of damage trying to close with its opponents. It needs a way to deal with it.  The simplest answer, IMO, is to boost Warrior sustain (preferably through the Defense line; continue to work on Tactics to make it truly a team-support line rather than selfish healing).  I'm not necessarily saying give adrenal healing crazy numbers; ideally, some form of healing increase as well as improved active defenses would be ideal.  But that's a topic for another thread.

 

GW2's classes are built to be asymmetric, and each has mechanics that could rightfully be called OP (e.g., Guardian/Ele's infinite boon spam, Necro's double health bars, Thief's stealth and mobility, etc).  In order to be truly competitive, Warrior needs one of its own.  ANet seems to have historically leaned toward "ridiculous healing"--see MMR, MM, Adrenal healing, and Vigorous shouts--and that's fine.  I don't mind the Wolverine role-play.  Double-down on the healing, I say, and do so in a way that all Warrior specs are able to benefit from it.  

[Jzaku.9765]

I dont think your final assessment is a hot take at all. Historically a lot of Warrior's period of being complained about in PvP were about sustain they added to the class which they subsequently nerfed. Healing Signet, Adrenal Health, Shouts...

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

10 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I dont think your final assessment is a hot take at all. Historically a lot of Warrior's period of being complained about in PvP were about sustain they added to the class which they subsequently nerfed. Healing Signet, Adrenal Health, Shouts...

Perhaps it's a "re-warmed take"? 🙃

[Zekent.3652]

Since they changed nerfed banners, this is a good thing, now pvers understands how bad the warrior is when it comes to support and resources, it's now just a full melee dps and nothing else.

Remember ANet's words (laugh reacts only pls):

"Bring the player, not the profession."
 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Unnerf AH. Raise the amount of stacks it can get to 5. Add options in each of the traits to gain stacks that don't involve the burst attack. Things like:

Dogged March: gain 1 stack of adrenal health when inflicted with a movement impairing condition (10s CD), such conditions have reduced (-33%) duration on you.

Defy Pain: Gain Protection (4s) and Resolution (4s) and 1 stack of adrenal health when struck in combat (15s cd).

Rousing Resilience: Gain 1000 toughness (8s/4s PvE/Comp split) and 2 stacks of adrenal healing when you break out of a stun. 

[JTGuevara.9018]

25 minutes ago, Zizekent.2398 said:

Since they changed nerfed banners, this is a good thing, now pvers understands how bad the warrior is when it comes to support and resources, it's now just a full melee dps and nothing else.

Remember ANet's words (laugh reacts only pls):

"Bring the player, not the profession."
 

Yup, that's all it has to its name AND it barely competes.

[JTGuevara.9018]

1 hour ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

[Warning: Text Wall Incoming!]

TL;DR:

Warrior has fewer tools than other professions; this necessitates that Warrior's existing tools be sufficiently strong--even "OP"--to compensate.  The relative success of BS in PvP where other Warrior specs have failed offers insights into Warrior's core design problems as well as how they might be addressed.

 

Surveying the PvP landscape, it is clear that Bladesworn is the only Warrior spec that is remotely close to viability.  Bladesworn has --rightfully--garnered much criticism for its clunky design and dependence on shout healing and Unyielding Dragon--two mechanics that most in the GW2 community would consider (again, rightfully) as overpowered.  Yet it is only with this combination of things that BS is competitive--and its overall performance is not overpowered when compared to other high-achieving meta specs.  It's a classic "two wrongs make a right" situation: BS's weaknesses inherent to its design are compensated by its OP healing and Unyielding Dragon trait.  

 

Here's the thing: the other Warrior specs (Core, Berserker, SpB) are just as flawed as BS, just in other ways.  And they underperform because they do NOT have any "OP" mechanics to bolster them.  Here's a non-exhaustive list of Warrior's problems:

 

1.) Warrior has fewer tools than other professions.
We get one F1 ability (2 if your SpB).  Other professions have up to 4-5.  Warrior also has little to no access to pets, kits,  stealth, invuln, teleports, instant cast ranged CCs, second health bar, excessive boon spam (esp access to "high power" boons like protection, superspeed, stability, etc), or auras/combo fields.  Warrior's playstyle is very honest and direct: rush in and smash.  It doesn't have the tools to do otherwise.  This really lowers the skill ceiling for the profession (and raises its skill floor), especially when playing against highly skilled opponents.

 

2.) Warrior has no viable ranged options.
This is really a sub-section of point #1.  Lack of meaningful ranged presence makes Warrior very susceptible to highly mobile ranged classes that can just kite and pew-pew you to death (e.g., mesmers, p/p thief, deadeye, rangers, rifle engis). 

 

3.) Warrior struggles to be mobile.

Note that I didn't say that Warrior "lacks" mobility; it doesn't.  It has fairly good mobility on GS in particular (although Rush will often take you in a direction you hadn't been planning on going).  But the need to be constantly closing with kiting classes as discussed in #2 above taxes Warrior's mobility.  The lack of Z-axis teleports really hurts, too, in certain maps/situations.  Common ways warrior compensate for this are to rapidly cycle between weapon sets (GS and dagger/shield, classically) to chain mobility skills (which has the side effect of making Discipline near mandatory because of FH allowing better access to your movement skills) and slotting Bull's Charge (which locks one of your utility slots for an essentially mandatory skill).

 

4.) Warrior relies on might generation to do damage competitive with other power professions.

This ends up requiring Warrior to run certain lines (Strength), utilities (e.g., FGJ, Sig of Rage), and gear (usually Berserker's) to do meaningful damage.

 

5.) Warrior lacks in damage reduction/sustain.

Warrior often is forced to eat a lot of damage, owing largely to Problems #1-4 above.  Historically, Warrior has compensated by use of lots of dodges and evade frames on Whirlwind Attack and FC, but the powercreep of the game has outpaced this level of damage mitigation.  Nerfs to MMR and Adrenal healing certainly have worsened the situation.

 

For all of its design flaws, Bladesworn has answers (imperfect though they may be) to the aforementioned problems.

1.) BS has 3 different bursts on DT which gives it more versatility.  Unyielding Dragon helps bypass some of the defenses (blind and blocks) other professions use, thus helping to make up for Warrior's lack of tools by negating your enemy's.  

2.) BS has multiple projectiles (which hit pretty darn hard) to counter pressure ranged enemies

3.) BS isn't particularly mobile, but once you have flow you can spam DS-Boost for pretty excellent mobility.  The mobility and CC of DS-Boost provides a replacement for Bull's Charge, freeing up a utility slot.

4.) BS is built around might generating traits and skills, allowing you to maximize your offense while not compromising your defense.

5.) BS's self-sustain is infamous and needs no explanation.  

 

If the other Warrior specs are to gain viability, they need answers to at least some of the Big 5 Problems listed above.

We could talk about a lot of things here, but I will leave that to the Omnibus.  Suffice to name a few: 

1.) Meaningful re-works to weapons like Mace, Hammer, and Sword could go a long way to providing answers, depending on the re-work.

2.) Reworks to Defense and Arms

3.) FH could be baseline

etc.

 

But here's my hot take:  Warrior needs some form of "OP" sustain to be viable.  

The lack of tools compared to other professions is truly a massive obstacle to overcome.  The reality is that, most of the time, Warrior is going to eat a bunch of damage trying to close with its opponents. It needs a way to deal with it.  The simplest answer, IMO, is to boost Warrior sustain (preferably through the Defense line; continue to work on Tactics to make it truly a team-support line rather than selfish healing).  I'm not necessarily saying give adrenal healing crazy numbers; ideally, some form of healing increase as well as improved active defenses would be ideal.  But that's a topic for another thread.

 

GW2's classes are built to be asymmetric, and each has mechanics that could rightfully be called OP (e.g., Guardian/Ele's infinite boon spam, Necro's double health bars, Thief's stealth and mobility, etc).  In order to be truly competitive, Warrior needs one of its own.  ANet seems to have historically leaned toward "ridiculous healing"--see MMR, MM, Adrenal healing, and Vigorous shouts--and that's fine.  I don't mind the Wolverine role-play.  Double-down on the healing, I say, and do so in a way that all Warrior specs are able to benefit from it.  

Right you are, OP. But "hot takes"...sigh...that phrase is SO overused it's not even funny. If everybody says they're "hot takes", they're not really all that hot aren't they?

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

I love that 50% of the comments thus far are objections to the use of the words "hot take."🤣

[Vinny.7260]

4 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

Right you are, OP. But "hot takes"...sigh...that phrase is SO overused it's not even funny. If everybody says they're "hot takes", they're not really all that hot aren't they?

Microwaved Hot Pocket Take.

 

[JTGuevara.9018]

15 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

I love that 50% of the comments thus far are objections to the use of the words "hot take."🤣

It's a buzzword! It's even in the name and its intent!

But back to warrior. Yes on everything. The most immediate thing to get warrior sustainability going is to add a flat (-25%) incoming condition damage reduction to Endure Pain. Point blank. Period. Also, rework Defense to add more incoming condition damage reduction.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

27 minutes ago, Vinny.7260 said:

Microwaved Hot Pocket Take.

 

That's a hotter than lava take good sir 

[KryTiKaL.3125]

43 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Unnerf AH. Raise the amount of stacks it can get to 5. Add options in each of the traits to gain stacks that don't involve the burst attack. Things like:

Dogged March: gain 1 stack of adrenal health when inflicted with a movement impairing condition (10s CD), such conditions have reduced (-33%) duration on you.

Defy Pain: Gain Protection (4s) and Resolution (4s) and 1 stack of adrenal health when struck in combat (15s cd).

Rousing Resilience: Gain 1000 toughness (8s/4s PvE/Comp split) and 2 stacks of adrenal healing when you break out of a stun. 

Honestly Adrenal Health in its current state is not what makes Defense basically dead...its the two 300sec ICD traits, and the other options in the line being some degree of terrible. The only worthwhile ones being kind of Cleansing Ire even though it has been nerfed quite hard and the only way to "cheese" it is using Longbow burst, and Rousing Resilience which is probably the strongest trait in Defense aside from Adrenal Health and that is very situational and requires you to break out of CC to get its benefits.

I don't think Defense should be built around Adrenal Health, while sustain can be in large part a big problem of Warrior other things need to be changed in Defense line that would more specifically bring it more in line with just the entire rest of the game.

Defense needs to focus on stances and other sustain augmenting mechanics and "taking advantage of" active defenses (boons, unique buffs, etc) to be aggressive, which means several things;

• Rework of Last Stand so that it can stop being a 300sec ICD to something similar to other traits of its like; adding reduced recharge to stances being one of them and just the removal of the auto stunbreak since that was the entire reason why it was given 300sec ICD. The Vigor can arguably be removed, and the duration increase can remain. This would put it on par with other skills of its like on several other classes.
• Defy Pain should be retooled in a similar manner to your own suggestion (Protection (4s) and Resolution (4s)) with the caveat being "when struck while a stance is active" and bring that ICD down to 5 seconds and no Adrenal Health stack addition.
• Rousing Resilience while already kind of strong, for a dead Specialization line, should have the healing it provides be changed to 500 and attached to the unique buff it already gives, but have it altered into a pulsing effect that happens once every second over the duration of the Rousing Resilience unique buff (8 sec PvE and 4 sec PvP/WvW) after breaking out of a stun. Of course the 1000 Toughness remains static and doesn't have an additive pulse where you're getting 1000 extra toughness every pulse. Too much.
• Armored Attack's intention for "theme" was sound by ANet, but its just...ehh. Unless there is some scenario over the last literal decade that this trait has just not changed (other than it got buffed from 5% to 10% in 2013) where ANet somehow intended for Warrior to actually fulfill some "tank" role...this trait does not, to me at least, fit design philosophies in the game. If I'm not mistaken, actually, Guardian had a similar trait and it has since been nixed and just as well Revenant has one, however it has other functions aside from converting Toughness to Power. Honestly I think the ideal change here would be to provide a damage increase while affected by Protection, something between 8% to 15%.
• Cull The Weak just feels kind of oddly placed, and is too situational to be consistently useful in really any content. I think it should be removed and replaced with a trait that provides Protection (2s) upon the activation of a stance, and when a stance ends.

Truthfully these are probably the biggest things I would change in Defense, but there are many, many other things across almost the entirety of Warrior that need looking at (weapon skill updates and such being other big priorities) that would also help bring Warrior more in line with other classes just in general. There are a plethora of QoL updates that some skills needs, updates to function that skills need (Banners being the most boring thing in existence in an action/tab target MMORPG being one of the biggest things).

I do agree that Tactics should probably be the party support line, Defense needs to be the "selfish support" line and they each have their own sections of focus in terms of skill type that they interact with. Tactics interacts with Shouts and Banners (in a minor capacity), Defense interacts with Stances.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 minutes ago, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

Honestly Adrenal Health in its current state is not what makes Defense basically dead...its the two 300sec ICD traits, and the other options in the line being some degree of terrible. The only worthwhile ones being kind of Cleansing Ire even though it has been nerfed quite hard and the only way to "cheese" it is using Longbow burst, and Rousing Resilience which is probably the strongest trait in Defense aside from Adrenal Health and that is very situational and requires you to break out of CC to get its benefits.

I don't think Defense should be built around Adrenal Health, while sustain can be in large part a big problem of Warrior other things need to be changed in Defense line that would more specifically bring it more in line with just the entire rest of the game.

Defense needs to focus on stances and other sustain augmenting mechanics and "taking advantage of" active defenses (boons, unique buffs, etc) to be aggressive, which means several things;

• Rework of Last Stand so that it can stop being a 300sec ICD to something similar to other traits of its like; adding reduced recharge to stances being one of them and just the removal of the auto stunbreak since that was the entire reason why it was given 300sec ICD. The Vigor can arguably be removed, and the duration increase can remain. This would put it on par with other skills of its like on several other classes.
• Defy Pain should be retooled in a similar manner to your own suggestion (Protection (4s) and Resolution (4s)) with the caveat being "when struck while a stance is active" and bring that ICD down to 5 seconds and no Adrenal Health stack addition.
• Rousing Resilience while already kind of strong, for a dead Specialization line, should have the healing it provides be changed to 500 and attached to the unique buff it already gives, but have it altered into a pulsing effect that happens once every second over the duration of the Rousing Resilience unique buff (8 sec PvE and 4 sec PvP/WvW) after breaking out of a stun. Of course the 1000 Toughness remains static and doesn't have an additive pulse where you're getting 1000 extra toughness every pulse. Too much.
• Armored Attack's intention for "theme" was sound by ANet, but its just...ehh. Unless there is some scenario over the last literal decade that this trait has just not changed (other than it got buffed from 5% to 10% in 2013) where ANet somehow intended for Warrior to actually fulfill some "tank" role...this trait does not, to me at least, fit design philosophies in the game. If I'm not mistaken, actually, Guardian had a similar trait and it has since been nixed and just as well Revenant has one, however it has other functions aside from converting Toughness to Power. Honestly I think the ideal change here would be to provide a damage increase while affected by Protection, something between 8% to 15%.
• Cull The Weak just feels kind of oddly placed, and is too situational to be consistently useful in really any content. I think it should be removed and replaced with a trait that provides Protection (2s) upon the activation of a stance, and when a stance ends.

Truthfully these are probably the biggest things I would change in Defense, but there are many, many other things across almost the entirety of Warrior that need looking at (weapon skill updates and such being other big priorities) that would also help bring Warrior more in line with other classes just in general. There are a plethora of QoL updates that some skills needs, updates to function that skills need (Banners being the most boring thing in existence in an action/tab target MMORPG being one of the biggest things).

I do agree that Tactics should probably be the party support line, Defense needs to be the "selfish support" line and they each have their own sections of focus in terms of skill type that they interact with. Tactics interacts with Shouts and Banners (in a minor capacity), Defense interacts with Stances.

All fair points, what I posted above were just quick ideas before leaving work. Defense does indeed need a lot of work, including actual defense and not just self healing. I do think raising the stacks on AH is a good idea though, as well as giving more ways to get them.

There also needs to be self protection access in the line and more resolution access, but that can be done entirely through a Defy Pain rework.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

18 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

All fair points, what I posted above were just quick ideas before leaving work. Defense does indeed need a lot of work, including actual defense and not just self healing. I do think raising the stacks on AH is a good idea though, as well as giving more ways to get them.

There also needs to be self protection access in the line and more resolution access, but that can be done entirely through a Defy Pain rework.

Fair point, its just increasing Adrenal Health stacks and access to that healing can be a bit risky as there are other sources of healing on Warrior that can exacerbate the actual amount of overall healing they could be doing to themselves that may give rise to a bunker build on Warrior that may lead to certain sources of sustain getting nerfed into the dirt again and thus making builds outside of said "potential" bunker build getting completely shafted.

Currently Warrior self healing actually isn't bad, as the OP stated its kind of a big reason why Bladesworn is even remotely in the vicinity of viability in PvP, on top of a few other things it has access to in its kit. Mending is a very strong healing and utility skill in PvP, Combat Stim as well, then shout heals being as strong as they are don't need nerfing but the introduction of an increased amount of and increased access to Adrenal Health along with these already existing avenues of self sustain could result in too much self sustain.

I think the approach to Warrior is rewarding active gameplay that flows well together (basically one of the main reasons why Banners are so derpy and annoying mechanically, they interrupt this active gameplay and flow). Its why weapon swapping with Fast Hands on practically all Warrior builds felt so good for the longest time. That flow you felt from landing a bull's charge, then tagging an enemy with Cyclone Axe to then follow that up with Eviscerate into Shield Bash, swap to greatsword and unload Hundred Blades was just...nice, especially if you know you caught them without a stunbreak available. Or GS3 through an enemy, swap to X/Shield, Shield Bash and follow up with other damaging skills felt good. Even defensively in PvP you could swap from Greatsword to X/Shield, use Shield Block and roughly by the time it expired you could swap back to Greatsword and GS3 for mobility and an evade. All of that felt nice and impactful to execute...until it didn't when Warrior just started getting overwhelmed by its own lack of boon access and almost every other classes access to boons or other utility.

I made many of these suggestions keeping in mind that other skills, like most of the Physical Skills, all of the Banners, and even some Shouts need to be retooled. For instance, "Fear Me!" is completely useless. Where is it used? What scenario is it even used in? You want fears, you take Necro, otherwise "Fear Me!" is just a blank spot in Warrior's kit. There is genuinely no reason to take it over Bull's Charge, and there are weapon skills that have better CC and utility than it does. Its why I think it should be removed and replaced with a more GW2 friendly version of "I Will Avenge You!" to bring in some good ol' GW1 nostalgia while also adding more to the group utility/support of Shouts. I'll detail an early version of what I personally think it could do below;

"I Will Avenge You!" || 5 second recharge for ammo
Shout. Grant multiple boons to yourself and allies. Grant an additional stack of each boon based on the number of dead allies to a maximum of 5 dead allies.
Stability (6 sec) / 5 stacks
Regeneration (8 sec)
Protection (8 sec)
Resolution (8 sec)
Radius: 600
Number of Targets: 5
Maximum Count: 2
Count Recharge: 25 sec (PvE) / 75 sec (PvP)
Breaks Stun

This is also taking into consideration another possible rework of Banners that likely still give boons, but they have potentially been altered to provide something like Protection as well, and have ideally been mechanically reworked to just attach to the character hint hint ANet. So like keeping with my previous assertion that Tactics should be Shouts and group support/utility and Defense should be more "selfish" sustain and utility.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Just now, KryTiKaL.3125 said:

Fair point, its just increasing Adrenal Health stacks and access to that healing can be a bit risky as there are other sources of healing on Warrior that can exacerbate the actual amount of overall healing they could be doing to themselves that may give rise to a bunker build on Warrior that may lead to certain sources of sustain getting nerfed into the dirt again and thus making builds outside of said "potential" bunker build getting completely shafted.

Currently Warrior self healing actually isn't bad, as the OP stated its kind of a big reason why Bladesworn is even remotely in the vicinity of viability in PvP, on top of a few other things it has access to in its kit. Mending is a very strong healing and utility skill in PvP, Combat Stim as well, then shout heals being as strong as they are don't need nerfing but the introduction of an increased amount of and increased access to Adrenal Health along with these already existing avenues of self sustain could result in too much self sustain.

I think the approach to Warrior is rewarding active gameplay that flows well together (basically one of the main reasons why Banners are so derpy and annoying mechanically, they interrupt this active gameplay and flow). Its why weapon swapping with Fast Hands on practically all Warrior builds felt so good for the longest time. That flow you felt from landing a bull's charge, then tagging an enemy with Cyclone Axe to then follow that up with Eviscerate into Shield Bash, swap to greatsword and unload Hundred Blades was just...nice, especially if you know you caught them without a stunbreak available. Or GS3 through an enemy, swap to X/Shield, Shield Bash and follow up with other damaging skills felt good. Even defensively in PvP you could swap from Greatsword to X/Shield, use Shield Block and roughly by the time it expired you could swap back to Greatsword and GS3 for mobility and an evade. All of that felt nice and impactful to execute...until it didn't when Warrior just started getting overwhelmed by its own lack of boon access and almost every other classes access to boons or other utility.

I made many of these suggestions keeping in mind that other skills, like most of the Physical Skills, all of the Banners, and even some Shouts need to be retooled. For instance, "Fear Me!" is completely useless. Where is it used? What scenario is it even used in? You want fears, you take Necro, otherwise "Fear Me!" is just a blank spot in Warrior's kit. There is genuinely no reason to take it over Bull's Charge, and there are weapon skills that have better CC and utility than it does. Its why I think it should be removed and replaced with a more GW2 friendly version of "I Will Avenge You!" to bring in some good ol' GW1 nostalgia while also adding more to the group utility/support of Shouts. I'll detail an early version of what I personally think it could do below;

"I Will Avenge You!" || 5 second recharge for ammo
Shout. Grant multiple boons to yourself and allies. Grant an additional stack of each boon based on the number of dead allies to a maximum of 5 dead allies.
Stability (6 sec) / 5 stacks
Regeneration (8 sec)
Protection (8 sec)
Resolution (8 sec)
Radius: 600
Number of Targets: 5
Maximum Count: 2
Count Recharge: 25 sec (PvE) / 75 sec (PvP)
Breaks Stun

This is also taking into consideration another possible rework of Banners that likely still give boons, but they have potentially been altered to provide something like Protection as well, and have ideally been mechanically reworked to just attach to the character hint hint ANet. So like keeping with my previous assertion that Tactics should be Shouts and group support/utility and Defense should be more "selfish" sustain and utility.

The self healing in Tactics is bloated. What it needs is for Mending Might to heal allies (at the current amount) when you grant THEM might (still including the warrior there), and for VS to heal the warrior for less than it heals other allies.

Fear Me needs to be an ammo skill like the others with a 5s CD between uses, but long recharges on each use. I have seen it used (and used it well) in WvW. Nice little way to interrupt an enemy's spike, and good for running people off of cliffs.

I second your elite shout idea.

[oscuro.9720]

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Unnerf AH. Raise the amount of stacks it can get to 5. Add options in each of the traits to gain stacks that don't involve the burst attack. Things like:

Dogged March: gain 1 stack of adrenal health when inflicted with a movement impairing condition (10s CD), such conditions have reduced (-33%) duration on you.

Defy Pain: Gain Protection (4s) and Resolution (4s) and 1 stack of adrenal health when struck in combat (15s cd).

Rousing Resilience: Gain 1000 toughness (8s/4s PvE/Comp split) and 2 stacks of adrenal healing when you break out of a stun. 

I don’t think you need to unnerf it if you increase the stack threshold. Also, you probably don’t have to bake it into the traits of you just make all the stacks refresh with a new application. Might be a simpler way to do it. Though working the whol traitline around Adrenal Health is probably a more fun and interactive setup. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

6 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

I don’t think you need to unnerf it if you increase the stack threshold. Also, you probably don’t have to bake it into the traits of you just make all the stacks refresh with a new application. Might be a simpler way to do it. Though working the whol traitline around Adrenal Health is probably a more fun and interactive setup. 

Well, CTS said to go OP, so I did. But you're right, refreshing all stacks' duration when you gain a new one would alleviate the need to back it into traits. Thank you for reminding me of that!

[JTGuevara.9018]

4 hours ago, Vinny.7260 said:

Microwaved Hot Pocket Take.

 

Eew...hot pockets...typical frozen, fake, playdoh-feeling, lab-made, walking corporate abomination with sauce-like substance pitiful excuse of a TV "dinner".

Go to your local pizzeria instead!

[Myror.7521]

You might have also noticed that warrior get a "mster minor traitline" called harderned armor that procs 10% less dmg by enemys when you get Resolution on yourself (15 sec icd). You also might have noticed that warrior get for Real 0 ways to gain Resolution anyways (besides the said traitline). So why not made it work as those shroud thingy does with its +30 armory per stack? xd. Would help the defence of warr like alot cause the traitline as it actually stand is pretty much useless cause ther is no way to stack Resolution to yourself as warr lel.  xd

[Hotride.2187]

I'm not really buying the argument "it has few skills therefore...".

If you compare core war to core ranger, what exactly is the difference in skills count? They can call their pet back and make it attack? Other than that, 1 flip skill from GS4. Yet core ranger is in a way better place than core war, and is in a somewhat better place than even  spb in conquest. And its not like core guard or core necro are rocket science, only a few more shround skills on necro... Yet both were meta before eod drop. All these just have solid, working weapon and utility options. I wouldn't call any of them OP, just strong where most builds are crap.

And hey, we now all know complexity is no reason to overperform.

I think the no ranged option argument is where things are at. That is the one difference that must make you excel in melee... yet the only reason you are avoided in melee is a) because you can be and b) because you can stunlock in conquest. As soon as you enter wvw, you will be facetanked by professions with high stability and protection uptime. You really should be the horror in melee range.

And your skills mostly don't work due to being big hitters ("bursts" even having resource requirements). At the very least they can be dodged easily, since "obviously" big hitters have to be slow (not so obvious for wb but hey, guard is different). And they are either leaps or melee range skills so... yeah.

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[THE FORGE.7198]

13 hours ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

[Warning: Text Wall Incoming!]

TL;DR:

Warrior has fewer tools than other professions; this necessitates that Warrior's existing tools be sufficiently strong--even "OP"--to compensate.  The relative success of BS in PvP where other Warrior specs have failed offers insights into Warrior's core design problems as well as how they might be addressed.

 

Surveying the PvP landscape, it is clear that Bladesworn is the only Warrior spec that is remotely close to viability.  Bladesworn has --rightfully--garnered much criticism for its clunky design and dependence on shout healing and Unyielding Dragon--two mechanics that most in the GW2 community would consider (again, rightfully) as overpowered.  Yet it is only with this combination of things that BS is competitive--and its overall performance is not overpowered when compared to other high-achieving meta specs.  It's a classic "two wrongs make a right" situation: BS's weaknesses inherent to its design are compensated by its OP healing and Unyielding Dragon trait.  

 

Here's the thing: the other Warrior specs (Core, Berserker, SpB) are just as flawed as BS, just in other ways.  And they underperform because they do NOT have any "OP" mechanics to bolster them.  Here's a non-exhaustive list of Warrior's problems:

 

1.) Warrior has fewer tools than other professions.
We get one F1 ability (2 if your SpB).  Other professions have up to 4-5.  Warrior also has little to no access to pets, kits,  stealth, invuln, teleports, instant cast ranged CCs, second health bar, excessive boon spam (esp access to "high power" boons like protection, superspeed, stability, etc), or auras/combo fields.  Warrior's playstyle is very honest and direct: rush in and smash.  It doesn't have the tools to do otherwise.  This really lowers the skill ceiling for the profession (and raises its skill floor), especially when playing against highly skilled opponents.

 

2.) Warrior has no viable ranged options.
This is really a sub-section of point #1.  Lack of meaningful ranged presence makes Warrior very susceptible to highly mobile ranged classes that can just kite and pew-pew you to death (e.g., mesmers, p/p thief, deadeye, rangers, rifle engis). 

 

3.) Warrior struggles to be mobile.

Note that I didn't say that Warrior "lacks" mobility; it doesn't.  It has fairly good mobility on GS in particular (although Rush will often take you in a direction you hadn't been planning on going).  But the need to be constantly closing with kiting classes as discussed in #2 above taxes Warrior's mobility.  The lack of Z-axis teleports really hurts, too, in certain maps/situations.  Common ways warrior compensate for this are to rapidly cycle between weapon sets (GS and dagger/shield, classically) to chain mobility skills (which has the side effect of making Discipline near mandatory because of FH allowing better access to your movement skills) and slotting Bull's Charge (which locks one of your utility slots for an essentially mandatory skill).

 

4.) Warrior relies on might generation to do damage competitive with other power professions.

This ends up requiring Warrior to run certain lines (Strength), utilities (e.g., FGJ, Sig of Rage), and gear (usually Berserker's) to do meaningful damage.

 

5.) Warrior lacks in damage reduction/sustain.

Warrior often is forced to eat a lot of damage, owing largely to Problems #1-4 above.  Historically, Warrior has compensated by use of lots of dodges and evade frames on Whirlwind Attack and FC, but the powercreep of the game has outpaced this level of damage mitigation.  Nerfs to MMR and Adrenal healing certainly have worsened the situation.

 

For all of its design flaws, Bladesworn has answers (imperfect though they may be) to the aforementioned problems.

1.) BS has 3 different bursts on DT which gives it more versatility.  Unyielding Dragon helps bypass some of the defenses (blind and blocks) other professions use, thus helping to make up for Warrior's lack of tools by negating your enemy's.  

2.) BS has multiple projectiles (which hit pretty darn hard) to counter pressure ranged enemies

3.) BS isn't particularly mobile, but once you have flow you can spam DS-Boost for pretty excellent mobility.  The mobility and CC of DS-Boost provides a replacement for Bull's Charge, freeing up a utility slot.

4.) BS is built around might generating traits and skills, allowing you to maximize your offense while not compromising your defense.

5.) BS's self-sustain is infamous and needs no explanation.  

 

If the other Warrior specs are to gain viability, they need answers to at least some of the Big 5 Problems listed above.

We could talk about a lot of things here, but I will leave that to the Omnibus.  Suffice to name a few: 

1.) Meaningful re-works to weapons like Mace, Hammer, and Sword could go a long way to providing answers, depending on the re-work.

2.) Reworks to Defense and Arms

3.) FH could be baseline

etc.

 

But here's my hot take:  Warrior needs some form of "OP" sustain to be viable.  

The lack of tools compared to other professions is truly a massive obstacle to overcome.  The reality is that, most of the time, Warrior is going to eat a bunch of damage trying to close with its opponents. It needs a way to deal with it.  The simplest answer, IMO, is to boost Warrior sustain (preferably through the Defense line; continue to work on Tactics to make it truly a team-support line rather than selfish healing).  I'm not necessarily saying give adrenal healing crazy numbers; ideally, some form of healing increase as well as improved active defenses would be ideal.  But that's a topic for another thread.

 

GW2's classes are built to be asymmetric, and each has mechanics that could rightfully be called OP (e.g., Guardian/Ele's infinite boon spam, Necro's double health bars, Thief's stealth and mobility, etc).  In order to be truly competitive, Warrior needs one of its own.  ANet seems to have historically leaned toward "ridiculous healing"--see MMR, MM, Adrenal healing, and Vigorous shouts--and that's fine.  I don't mind the Wolverine role-play.  Double-down on the healing, I say, and do so in a way that all Warrior specs are able to benefit from it.  

I was thinking the topic of warrior on the other day and kind of felt same on many things you posted already.

I been thinking lot of the warrior skills themselves lately (or utility/slotskills if you will):

Banners:
We all know the latest balance that happened with Banners in PvE side of things, but Banners weren't -never- even a viable choice in PvP or WvW game modes, which is "fine" in terms of balance, since one can make argument "Engineer turrets in WvW?" so warrior is not alone with one skill category being "useless".

Physical:
When the "big nerf" to all stun related skills landed few years back and took damage away from all physical skills (excluding Throw Bolas). This was nessecary thing in my opinion since I do remember things like elite Rampage "Throw boulder" skill critting like 16k dmg to someone and instant downing them, however...
By removing all the damage from the physical skills caused them to be worthless, outside of the factor of stun, making bursting someone down with power damage be extremely dependant of landing the actual F1 Burst skills (More on that later).
The problem of this kind of "mega nerfing x" has the problem that Anet doesn't put the taken power (dmg from stuns in this case) into anywhere else on warrior's kit. They could had done (remove dmg from stuns, but make all weapon skills and burst skills hit 10-20% harder) etc.. 

Shouts:
Historically shouts had only been part of warrior's kit when they have wanted to play the "group support" warrior type of gameplay, which is fine. However shouts themselves -need- Tactics traitline and Grandmastery trait of "Vigorous shouts" to even be viable in competitive game mode because of the long cds.
Sure, the new elite spec Bladesworn can use them more because of the ammo mechanics, but if we are talking about the core concept of warrior with shouts, it is forcing the player choice into this very small box, instead of giving much choice. What about the 2 other grandmastery traits in Tactics? What if we would like to give Quickness or Might to our allies? Well, too bad. You can't if you want to play with shouts.

Stances:
Now the maybe controversial topic of warrior. Stances have been historically a good tool for survival, even without picking the actual traits from Defense. Now stances in themselves are still good in what they do and what they are meant to do. They give that 4 second window to "trade blows" with the enemy and in general all stances are pretty good of what they do. However what if someone wants to go "all in" on stances? Well the traits regarding to stances it is very boring and passive and arenanet also knows this but hasn't done anything about it. First the middle trait, "Lesser Endure Pain", has 300s cooldown? Just remove that trait and give something interesting and usable there instead. Grandmaster trait? Gives 1 extra second to stances, vigor on stance activation and another lesser version of balanced stance when you get stunned with another 300s cooldown.. I say again, rework the trait and make it more interesting. Remove the boring passive effects.

Signets:

Signets have been popular in the PvE side of things as passive boost for stats, and in competitive a tool for elite spec like berserker to quickly speed up the burst, but in themselves, the signets are lackcluster at the best when comparing to signets that other classes have. And yes, I'm going to make this comparison even when it is elite spec:

Mechanist's Shift Signet has passive boonshare with the pet, (when traited and elite signet) 30% movement speed buff and when activated, it has stunbreak, condi cleanse and long distance teleport.

That is pretty loaded signet with 20s cd when traited and with elite signet. (Why does why does "Shake it off" shout has 60s cd while traited? I don't know, but anet must know).

Anyways, then talking about the actual signet trait. It is in arms. Oh boy. The arms traitline convo again.
Well the trait gives us stacking ferocity when using signets, reduced recharge time and passive lesser version of signet of might with only 25s cd. In a vaccuum, this trait looks great.. However why does every single class, other than warrior, have a trait that allows signet passives continuing while on CD? Surely this means warrior's signet are SO powerful that they must be superior to other classes signets? Well, suprisingly, they are not.

Healing Signet: was nerfed wayback when, and nowdays even if was brought back the way it used to heal, the power creep in damage across the classes wouldn't really make it viable anyways. 

Signet of Might: Might and unblockable attacks for 6s, really powerful in certain situations, but it is that. Situational. Might can be accessed tons from different sources on warrior and does the unbloackable make it -that- good that one would always pick it? Historically, no. Not really.

Signet of Fury: Full adrenaline bar. Factually the most used signet of them all, but it should do more. Why doesn't Signet of Fury give fury? Or something else?

Signet of Stamina: One dodge roll back and remove all conditions ever made. But with 40s cd (untraited)? Not really reliable condi cleanse tool in competitive, where you might need to cleanse often. Dodge is nice but could just pick sigil of energy to weapons instead? Should be reworked to be more interesting. Maybe something like passively reducing movement impairing conditions etc.

Dolyak Signet: Oh Dolyak.. "Reduces incoming damage" by giving tiny ammount of toughness that is generally worthless in pvp and wvw? Why not the raw 10% dmg reduction that other classes seem to have? The active components, 10 stacks of stab with a heal and stun break are fine for 40s cd imo.

So.. Conclusion of all the skills: 2/5 skills on warrior are nearly completely useless and the other remaining require lot of balance or rework, either on the actual skill side of things or at the trait lines. Arenanet has lot of fixing with warrior, simply because of their former balance philosophy of "take take take" and not putting the power back to somewhere else.
This has over the years left warrior to the state where it is now. Lacking behind other classes and a far cry of the initinial idea of the warrior.

Until warrior is seriously reblanced or completely reworked from ground up, the question will -always- be the same, across the game modes: "Why do you bring warrior when you can bring X"



 

[Mungrul.9358]

"Master of Weapons"?

Add a third weapon swap.

That way, you could ALWAYS have access to a ranged option without compromising the need for a defensive weapon set.

For example, you could go Axe/Axe, Mace/Shield, Longbow.

 

Oh, and as has been touted many time before by other players, an offhand burst skill. So two-handed weapons would get a second burst skill, while wielding say Axe/Mace would give you Eviscerate AND Skull Crack.

Separate adrenaline bars for each, so they can be chained.

 

Adrenaline shouldn't decrease outside of combat; it should BUILD outside of combat, albeit slower than in combat.

 

Movement speed should increase based on how much Adrenaline you have, with full Adrenaline giving a higher speed increase than any other speed increase (150% outside of combat, 200% in combat). This means that you'll be able to close the gap on any other profession and deliver a nasty sting upon catching them.

[Fueki.4753]

19 hours ago, Zizekent.2398 said:

"Bring the player, not the profession."

It's been "Bring the player [that performs our preferred professions better than others], not the profession [that we ruined on purpose, because we don't like it]." for a long time now.

That aside, I doubt they will ever give Warrior what it truly needs. They have proven time and time again that they simply don't want to and prefer to do the exact opposite.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Peacekid.1463]

u guys waste ur time NO ONE LISTENS

[Fueki.4753]

14 minutes ago, Peacekid.1463 said:

u guys waste ur time NO ONE LISTENS

They actually read the Warrior forums.

And then they apply suggested improvements to other professions.