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[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Josh Davis.7865, once again please extend my thanks to the balance team for their hard work. I realize that the environment after June 28th must have been a hectic rush for them, as well as emotionally taxing.

I think the team has built a strong foundation for banners moving forward. I see lots of possibilities for current use, but also for future improvements.

There are some great things in this rework! And there are some lackluster things. I feel like the team held back somewhat in a few places and that in turn is going to hold banners and warrior back from a meaningful support role going forward, not to mention that the team has made two group quickness sources on Warrior, that they added recently, kind of redundant.

Please, share these with the team. I assume that you all will be tracking the changes and will be making adjustments moving forward, but I'll throw some things on your radar now.
 

Banner of Tactics:

The heavy upfront quickness on Banner of Tactics is a good thing. It allows for the possibility of build diversity. BUT, Bladesworn will end up abusing this. Please be mindful of that build, and when you nerf it, please be sure to focus that nerf on Bladesworn and not core. Core, Berserker, and Spellbreaker are not in good spots right now so please be careful with any nerfs to core trait lines or core utilities.

The Superspeed is nice on BoT. The stability is nice on BoT. The 1 stack of stability in PvE is a whiff. Please merge the Competitive 5 stacks of stability into the PvE version.

Either this or Banner of Defense should be a stunbreak, this is a real missed opportunity.

Banner of Defense: 

This is solid as an active effect. The regen is... lackluster? Though that has more to do with the overall "support" role of warrior being lackluster. Again, either this or BoT need to be a stunbreak, and an AoE stunbreak at that. I'll leave it to the dev team to decide that, but one of these two really should be an AoE stunbreak. 

Banner of Discipline:

This is probably the weakest link. It's just not going to be good as is. I get that you all wanted some offense, and I absolutely agree, but 3 stacks of bleed on a 30s CD when warrior on the whole is not a major condi DPS class is kind of lackluster. We also have lots of ranged cripple attacks, so the cripple is redundant. We also have great AoE fury already from For Great Justice and Warhorn if it is traited. Please ask the team to go back to the drawing board on this skill. I think it would not be OP for this to be an AoE version of Pin Down in the end (6 stacks of bleed at 12s and 3s immobilize in Competitive for reference) with a pulsing weakness in the area of the banner rather than pulsing fury. Double Standards could give increased condition duration on that pulsed effect.

Banner of Strength:

I really like the damage and ranged daze! I see lots of possibilities with it! The pulsing 2 stacks of might are a whiff though. What does that accomplish that For Great Justice, Empower Allies, or any of warrior's might sources coupled with Phalanx Strength not already cover? Like Banner of Discipline please ask the team to revisit this skill.  I again totally agree on the offensive nature of the skill, but the pulsed boon is a miss. This could instead pulse vulnerability stacks, or some other soft condi, again with Double Standards increasing the boon duration. It could also pulse burn stacks, but the interval of 3s would end up holding that back too much.

Other things that I think the team missed the mark on:

The 600 range.

BIG whiff. The support skills should at least be 1200 range. The offensive ones should ideally be the same range, but if that cannot happen then no shorter than 900 range. Warrior really needs reliable ranged damage utilities as well as reliable ranged support.

The uniform 30s CD.

Obviously not including Battle Standard, but some of this as is are not strong enough to warrant 30s CDs. I realize this is in part because of Double Standards being the source of Quickness, but the skills need to be able to stand on their own without that. Banners of Strength and Discipline could easily be 20s CDs and not be OP or break the quickness role as they aren't really support skills in the end as they are right now.

The 3s intervals.

Honestly, I think all of the 3s interval skills in the game should be reduced to 1s intervals and either outright buffed as a result or rebalanced. This is no exception. Please consider this approach on a profession wide scale for October, and in the case of Banners and warrior's core Longbow Burst, just allow them to be buffed as a result.

Warrior Support Moving Forward:

First off you somewhat made redundant recent changes to Charge and Martial Cadence with the new Banner rework. Please revisit these two, as well as the Tactics traitline on the whole.
I think it is worth keeping Quickness on Martial Cadence, but scale it based on Adrenaline used, and make it really worthwhile for Core. Something like 2s per Tier of  Burst used.

For Warhorn I think you need to remove the quickness you just added. Instead make both Warhorn skills give Barrier by default. The same amount, same scaling.

I also strongly recommend that you change Mending Might to instead heal allies that the warrior grants might to (including the warrior themselves) instead of healing the warrior when they grant might to allies at the same base value and scaling. Tactics is not the selfish sustain line. That is Defense. Tactics is the group support line, so Mending Might being such a selfish source of sustain is out of place. This change coupled with Phalanx Strength and warrior's numerous might sources would create a steady source of sustain for the 5 man subgroup. Even without PS, warrior has options for group might and could run Vigorous Shouts for an actual heal build, you can even update some weapon/burst skills to grant their existing might to allies within 600 range.

I also highly recommend that Banner of Defense pulse Barrier instead of Regen, something like 400 base barrier, with Double Standards increasing that by 50%. I also highly recommend moving some of the GM traits of Tactics around. All three GM traits are lynchpins of support where as very few of the Master or Adept traits are. Either Martial Cadence or Vigorous Shouts could easily swap places with Shrug it Off or Warrior's Cunning. Phalanx Strength itself could very easily be merged into my proposed Mending Might change and open up a new GM slot. No, that would not at all be OP.

Please be more bold with warrior moving forward.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

If there is one thing I want to see changed, it's the range. 

600 is really low. Especially in Wvw where 600 is basically melee range. 

What are you gonna do when everyone has minimum 900 range. 

Also annoying in PvE. 

[Geoff Fey.1035]

I would recommend that the on-cast effects affect the Warrior regardless if they are in range of the Banner or not.

This allows a "ranged support" playstyle for the Warrior without the Warrior themselves losing out on their casts. At the moment you have to be in melee range to get the benefits of casting most of the banners which invalidates a ranged playstyle. While this isn't much of an issue for Longbow (i.e. "shotgun"), the Rifle definitely loses out on it.

• Doubled Standards
  • Remove the +50% duration effect. Change to: Banners cast the initial boons at the target location & at the Warrior. Warriors casting on themselves only get the boons once.
  • Edit: Recommend that the blast finisher/damage/conditions apply twice--once at banner, once in AOE around warrior. Ensures Warrior is not over-powered via doubled boons but gives a bit of extra oomph to help shore up the issues with the damage/conditions being low. The drawback tradeoff is positioning.

The +50% boon duration is nice, but since it's only on the pulsing boons it doesn't do much besides the Resistance on Tactics, as Warriors already can easily access Might, Fury, and Regen is just sort of..... eh. The on-cast effects are the mainstay of the banners and it would be a fair tradeoff having access to the on-cast at any distance vs. increased pulse duration.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Geoff Fey.1035
Additional info

[Grand Marshal.4098]

4 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

I would recommend that the on-cast effects affect the Warrior regardless if they are in range of the Banner or not.

This allows a "ranged support" playstyle for the Warrior without the Warrior themselves losing out on their casts. At the moment you have to be in melee range to get the benefits of casting most of the banners which invalidates a ranged playstyle. While this isn't much of an issue for Longbow (i.e. "shotgun"), the Rifle definitely loses out on it.

• Doubled Standards
  • Remove the +50% duration effect. Change to: Banners cast the initial boons at the target location & at the Warrior. Warriors casting on themselves only get the boons once.

The +50% boon duration is nice, but since it's only on the pulsing boons it doesn't do much besides the Resistance on Tactics, as Warriors already can easily access Might, Fury, and Regen is just sort of..... eh. The on-cast effects are the mainstay of the banners and it would be a fair tradeoff having access to the on-cast at any distance vs. increased pulse duration.

Agreed, 900 range with the on cast boons still affecting the warrior is a must do, if a facet route is not to be followed. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

49 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

I would recommend that the on-cast effects affect the Warrior regardless if they are in range of the Banner or not.

This allows a "ranged support" playstyle for the Warrior without the Warrior themselves losing out on their casts. At the moment you have to be in melee range to get the benefits of casting most of the banners which invalidates a ranged playstyle. While this isn't much of an issue for Longbow (i.e. "shotgun"), the Rifle definitely loses out on it.

• Doubled Standards
  • Remove the +50% duration effect. Change to: Banners cast the initial boons at the target location & at the Warrior. Warriors casting on themselves only get the boons once.

The +50% boon duration is nice, but since it's only on the pulsing boons it doesn't do much besides the Resistance on Tactics, as Warriors already can easily access Might, Fury, and Regen is just sort of..... eh. The on-cast effects are the mainstay of the banners and it would be a fair tradeoff having access to the on-cast at any distance vs. increased pulse duration.

Yeah, the +50% duration on pulsed boons is rather useless now. Thanks for bringing up my suggestion from before with the on cast effects happening around the warrior as well as the banner location. I'll disagree on the warrior only getting the boons once for themselves though. We are allowed to have nice things.

[Geoff Fey.1035]

45 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

. I'll disagree on the warrior only getting the boons once for themselves though. We are allowed to have nice things.

It would be nice, but that might make banners ludicrously overpowered. Having it occur twice means a combination of good ^ and bad v outcomes, and ANet would need to revisit the Quickness being provided to compensate. It would make nearly all skills outside of Banners superfluous simply because of the sheer power of Banners.

• BoS - Double AoE daze, double damage
  • v Daze: This means that the Banner does higher defiance bar damage than Headbutt (Elite Skill) or Max Adrenaline Mace Burst (T3) and is 80% of the defiance damage of a fully charged Unyielding Dragon Slash. Plus the fact that it's AoE makes it really over the top for what is essentially a regular utility skill 
  • ^ Damage: This would be kind of nice as a spike skill.
• BoT - Double quickness, double stability, double superspeed
  • v Quickness: This would be kinda nice, but having double-quickness (12s base) basically makes it so Warriors don't need to invest anything into Boon duration. Banner of Tactics would provide 24s baseline and literally any other source of Quickness or Alacrity would cover 100% boon duration. While it would be nice, it would skew things heavily and ANet would probably look at toning down the Quickness in Tactics natively (impacting non-Discipline builds) or the on-cast (impacting Discipline builds)
  • ^ Stability: Having 2 stacks for 20s would be a nice cover for things. 2 stacks is still piddling but we'd take what we can get.
  • v Superspeed: 20s superspeed would be a little over the top, especially considering the 80% Quickness uptime and Stability that this skill would already provide.
• BoDisc - Double Bleed, 20s cripple
  • ^ Bleed/Damage: Would be nice to shore up the issues with low damage & conditions.
  • ^ Cripple: 20s cripple baseline would be a little wild, although largely ineffective. If they revamped Leg Specialist so that it causes Bleed on cripple (or damage per second of Cripple) then this would see a lot of good synergy
• BoDef - Double Aegis, double barrier
  • - Aegis: Double aegis would be wasted since it only stacks up once. Not too much an issue as Guardian already faces "wasted" Aegis due to skill/trait overlap
  • ^ Barrier: Would be an incredible defensive skill that baseline would cover 50% health (barrier cap). Honestly this would be ludicrously good and make for a powerful support build. Would highly recommend this.
• Battle Standard - Damage & Revive
  • ^ Damage - I tested this out with a full DPS build and it's actually a pretty decent spike of damage (higher base than Decapitate). On a 120s CD, it's balanced by the length of time it takes, so I could see having the damage occur twice when using this.
  • - Revive - The current revive cap is 5 targets, so if you are suddenly reviving 10 just having 2-3 Warriors means a lot of WvW fights are going to be insanely more chaotic. I would say it's a good thing (keeps people in the fight) but I'm hesitant as it is ludicrously strong. The long CD and 2s cast time are good balancers for it, and it harkens back to the original Elite skills "being powerful battlefield game changers"

I'm hesitant about it, even though I really like the idea. It would just make Banners insanely better than all of the other skills though. Banners are already leaning towards "better than everything else" due to how valuable Quickness is and the ease that a Warrior can get 100% personal quickness with either minimal gear or trait/skill investment.

ANet would probably need to gut some of the Quickness away so that 1 skill can't provide 100% uptime of quickness for a party of 5 (with alacrity, 0% boon duration).

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

44 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

It would be nice, but that might make banners ludicrously overpowered. Having it occur twice means a combination of good ^ and bad v outcomes, and ANet would need to revisit the Quickness being provided to compensate. It would make nearly all skills outside of Banners superfluous simply because of the sheer power of Banners.

• BoS - Double AoE daze, double damage
  • v Daze: This means that the Banner does higher defiance bar damage than Headbutt (Elite Skill) or Max Adrenaline Mace Burst (T3) and is 80% of the defiance damage of a fully charged Unyielding Dragon Slash. Plus the fact that it's AoE makes it really over the top for what is essentially a regular utility skill 
  • ^ Damage: This would be kind of nice as a spike skill.

The daze duration could be reduced in PvE, however from a competitive side the double daze would be useful for stripping stability from a target and possible securing the interrupt. 

44 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• BoT - Double quickness, double stability, double superspeed
  • v Quickness: This would be kinda nice, but having double-quickness (12s base) basically makes it so Warriors don't need to invest anything into Boon duration. Banner of Tactics would provide 24s baseline and literally any other source of Quickness or Alacrity would cover 100% boon duration. While it would be nice, it would skew things heavily and ANet would probably look at toning down the Quickness in Tactics natively (impacting non-Discipline builds) or the on-cast (impacting Discipline builds)

Yeah, the base quickness would have to be addressed, but 100% quickness uptime builds without BD are possible now because of BoT in it's current state, so your concern here is already an issue.

44 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• • ^ Stability: Having 2 stacks for 20s would be a nice cover for things. 2 stacks is still piddling but we'd take what we can get.
  • v Superspeed: 20s superspeed would be a little over the top, especially considering the 80% Quickness uptime and Stability that this skill would already provide.

Superspeed does not stack duration.

44 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• BoDisc - Double Bleed, 20s cripple
  • ^ Bleed/Damage: Would be nice to shore up the issues with low damage & conditions.
  • ^ Cripple: 20s cripple baseline would be a little wild, although largely ineffective. If they revamped Leg Specialist so that it causes Bleed on cripple (or damage per second of Cripple) then this would see a lot of good synergy

This change would make it decent as is, though I'd say it would be best for them to switch out the cripple for a 3s immobilize instead.

44 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• BoDef - Double Aegis, double barrier
  • - Aegis: Double aegis would be wasted since it only stacks up once. Not too much an issue as Guardian already faces "wasted" Aegis due to skill/trait overlap
  • ^ Barrier: Would be an incredible defensive skill that baseline would cover 50% health (barrier cap). Honestly this would be ludicrously good and make for a powerful support build. Would highly recommend this.

Indeed, one of the things holding warrior back from a solid support role is more access to barrier. This would be a great way to bolster that.

44 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

• Battle Standard - Damage & Revive
  • ^ Damage - I tested this out with a full DPS build and it's actually a pretty decent spike of damage (higher base than Decapitate). On a 120s CD, it's balanced by the length of time it takes, so I could see having the damage occur twice when using this.
  • - Revive - The current revive cap is 5 targets, so if you are suddenly reviving 10 just having 2-3 Warriors means a lot of WvW fights are going to be insanely more chaotic. I would say it's a good thing (keeps people in the fight) but I'm hesitant as it is ludicrously strong. The long CD and 2s cast time are good balancers for it, and it harkens back to the original Elite skills "being powerful battlefield game changers"

I mentioned this when I posted this idea originally in another thread, but it should be assumed that any mention of double procs from banners should not include Battle Standard. I should have mentioned that again in this thread when you brought it back up.

44 minutes ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

I'm hesitant about it, even though I really like the idea. It would just make Banners insanely better than all of the other skills though. Banners are already leaning towards "better than everything else" due to how valuable Quickness is and the ease that a Warrior can get 100% personal quickness with either minimal gear or trait/skill investment.

ANet would probably need to gut some of the Quickness away so that 1 skill can't provide 100% uptime of quickness for a party of 5 (with alacrity, 0% boon duration).

You brought up some valid points. If Double Standards were to be changed to proc around the warrior as well as the banner, then yes the daze on strength and quickness on tactics may have to be reduced in PvE, but for the most part it would all be very good improvements in their usability. Obviously with Battle Standards excluded.

[Katary.7096]

14 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Josh Davis.7865, once again please extend my thanks to the balance team for their hard work. I realize that the environment after June 28th must have been a hectic rush for them, as well as emotionally taxing.

I think the team has built a strong foundation for banners moving forward. I see lots of possibilities for current use, but also for future improvements.

Had they dropped these changes back in June, instead of the stripped down version of 2012 banners, I dare say the reception would have been much less harsh.

14 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Banner of Tactics:

The heavy upfront quickness on Banner of Tactics is a good thing. It allows for the possibility of build diversity. BUT, Bladesworn will end up abusing this. Please be mindful of that build, and when you nerf it, please be sure to focus that nerf on Bladesworn and not core. Core, Berserker, and Spellbreaker are not in good spots right now so please be careful with any nerfs to core trait lines or core utilities.

The Superspeed is nice on BoT. The stability is nice on BoT. The 1 stack of stability in PvE is a whiff. Please merge the Competitive 5 stacks of stability into the PvE version.

Either this or Banner of Defense should be a stunbreak, this is a real missed opportunity.

Certainly will be interesting to see how they will take a stab at this. (Unless they somehow conclude that it isn't a problem because Bladesworn.)

14 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Banner of Defense: 

This is solid as an active effect. The regen is... lackluster? Though that has more to do with the overall "support" role of warrior being lackluster. Again, either this or BoT need to be a stunbreak, and an AoE stunbreak at that. I'll leave it to the dev team to decide that, but one of these two really should be an AoE stunbreak.

Well, of course the regen is lackluster, it is regen after all. Could be adressed by making the Regeneration boon stack in intensity instead of duration, but that could mean revisiting every single regen applying effect in the game, so probably out of the question. Perhaps have the banner pulse an actual heal around itself while it is down? That way they could balance the healing to be more impressive than what regen is capable of. If any banner is to become a stunbreak then it makes the most sense for it to be Banner of Defense.

15 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Banner of Discipline:

This is probably the weakest link. It's just not going to be good as is. I get that you all wanted some offense, and I absolutely agree, but 3 stacks of bleed on a 30s CD when warrior on the whole is not a major condi DPS class is kind of lackluster. We also have lots of ranged cripple attacks, so the cripple is redundant. We also have great AoE fury already from For Great Justice and Warhorn if it is traited. Please ask the team to go back to the drawing board on this skill. I think it would not be OP for this to be an AoE version of Pin Down in the end (6 stacks of bleed at 12s and 3s immobilize in Competitive for reference) with a pulsing weakness in the area of the banner rather than pulsing fury. Double Standards could give increased condition duration on that pulsed effect.

Banner of Strength:

I really like the damage and ranged daze! I see lots of possibilities with it! The pulsing 2 stacks of might are a whiff though. What does that accomplish that For Great Justice, Empower Allies, or any of warrior's might sources coupled with Phalanx Strength not already cover? Like Banner of Discipline please ask the team to revisit this skill.  I again totally agree on the offensive nature of the skill, but the pulsed boon is a miss. This could instead pulse vulnerability stacks, or some other soft condi, again with Double Standards increasing the boon duration. It could also pulse burn stacks, but the interval of 3s would end up holding that back too much.

I agree that the utility banners going forward ought to be either supportive or offensive. Banner of Discipline and Banner of Strength should lose their boons entirely, support Warrior builds have other options to get Fury and Might anyway, as you said. For Banner of Discipline a larger initial application of bleeding (currently it compares poorly to Shattering Blow) along with it pulsing bleeding around itself should cover the condition damage side of things. Immobilize on impact can function as the CC portion of the skill. Similarly Banner of Strength could inflict stun on impact and then pulse significant power damage around itself while it is on the ground.

I think the design for Doubled Standards should be changed to resemble Roaring Reveille, meaning that it adds a unique enhancement to each banner skill instead of providing a flat duration increase for all of them. Also, a new name would make sense, since it no longer doubles anything.

15 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

The 600 range.

BIG whiff. The support skills should at least be 1200 range. The offensive ones should ideally be the same range, but if that cannot happen then no shorter than 900 range. Warrior really needs reliable ranged damage utilities as well as reliable ranged support.

The uniform 30s CD.

Obviously not including Battle Standard, but some of this as is are not strong enough to warrant 30s CDs. I realize this is in part because of Double Standards being the source of Quickness, but the skills need to be able to stand on their own without that. Banners of Strength and Discipline could easily be 20s CDs and not be OP or break the quickness role as they aren't really support skills in the end as they are right now.

The 3s intervals.

Honestly, I think all of the 3s interval skills in the game should be reduced to 1s intervals and either outright buffed as a result or rebalanced. This is no exception. Please consider this approach on a profession wide scale for October, and in the case of Banners and warrior's core Longbow Burst, just allow them to be buffed as a result.

I'd like to see how banners perform with 900 cast range and 450 radius across the board. Instead of bringing down the CD to match the power level of the skills, increase the power level to match the current CD. And the 3s intervals are fine.

15 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Warrior Support Moving Forward:

First off you somewhat made redundant recent changes to Charge and Martial Cadence with the new Banner rework. Please revisit these two, as well as the Tactics traitline on the whole.
I think it is worth keeping Quickness on Martial Cadence, but scale it based on Adrenaline used, and make it really worthwhile for Core. Something like 2s per Tier of  Burst used.

Yes to an overhaul of Tactics. That specialization needs all damage enhancing traits stripped from it and provide more support options instead. That would also eliminate the problem of power DPS Bladesworn builds being able to buff their groups with quickness.

15 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I also strongly recommend that you change Mending Might to instead heal allies that the warrior grants might to (including the warrior themselves) instead of healing the warrior when they grant might to allies at the same base value and scaling. Tactics is not the selfish sustain line. That is Defense. Tactics is the group support line, so Mending Might being such a selfish source of sustain is out of place. This change coupled with Phalanx Strength and warrior's numerous might sources would create a steady source of sustain for the 5 man subgroup. Even without PS, warrior has options for group might and could run Vigorous Shouts for an actual heal build, you can even update some weapon/burst skills to grant their existing might to allies within 600 range.

I fully agree that Mending Might should be the cornerstone of consistent party sustain for healing Warrior builds. That is way better than the Altruistic Healing version of Might Makes Right that it is right now. Make it heal the Warrior for less than other allies, sort of like an "increase outgoing healing" effect.

16 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I also highly recommend that Banner of Defense pulse Barrier instead of Regen, something like 400 base barrier, with Double Standards increasing that by 50%. I also highly recommend moving some of the GM traits of Tactics around. All three GM traits are lynchpins of support where as very few of the Master or Adept traits are. Either Martial Cadence or Vigorous Shouts could easily swap places with Shrug it Off or Warrior's Cunning. Phalanx Strength itself could very easily be merged into my proposed Mending Might change and open up a new GM slot. No, that would not at all be OP.

Hard disagree on the pulsing barrier, as barrier is effectively the comatose version of healing and as such should not be put on pulsing effects. (Looking at you Mechanist.)

So, you are proposing to create a new Tactics minor trait which:
1) Turns all self Might generators into group Might generators.
2) Boosts the performance of group Might generators since the Warrior is also receiving the Might, triggering the trait.
3) Turns all self Might generators and group Might generators into group healing skills.
4) Turns Might application into a self sustain effect.
What number for the healing per 1 stack of Might have you had in mind when you were coming up with this idea?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

17 minutes ago, Katary.7096 said:

I think the design for Doubled Standards should be changed to resemble Roaring Reveille, meaning that it adds a unique enhancement to each banner skill instead of providing a flat duration increase for all of them. Also, a new name would make sense, since it no longer doubles anything.

That would be a way of doing it.

Quote

I'd like to see how banners perform with 900 cast range and 450 radius across the board. Instead of bringing down the CD to match the power level of the skills, increase the power level to match the current CD. And the 3s intervals are fine.

Yes to an overhaul of Tactics. That specialization needs all damage enhancing traits stripped from it and provide more support options instead. That would also eliminate the problem of power DPS Bladesworn builds being able to buff their groups with quickness.

Yeah, stripping the damage traits and putting more group support in is the way to go. I think the immobilize on Leg Specialist should stay though with the damage portion removed. I like the Anti Barrier aspect of Warrior's Cunning, but that can be swapped for Double Standards in Discipline.

Quote

I fully agree that Mending Might should be the cornerstone of consistent party sustain for healing Warrior builds. That is way better than the Altruistic Healing version of Might Makes Right that it is right now. Make it heal the Warrior for less than other allies, sort of like an "increase outgoing healing" effect.

Hard disagree on the pulsing barrier, as barrier is effectively the comatose version of healing and as such should not be put on pulsing effects. (Looking at you Mechanist.)

I think there needs to be more AoE Barrier in warrior's support kit, be it on Bursts, on Charge, or on Banner of Defense. It either needs lots of hard healing or lots of little heals and small barrier amounts.

Quote

So, you are proposing to create a new Tactics minor trait which:
1) Turns all self Might generators into group Might generators.
2) Boosts the performance of group Might generators since the Warrior is also receiving the Might, triggering the trait.
3) Turns all self Might generators and group Might generators into group healing skills.
4) Turns Might application into a self sustain effect.
What number for the healing per 1 stack of Might have you had in mind when you were coming up with this idea?

If PS is merged into MM, then yes that would be a rolled up summary. I think the current healing amount would be fine. That would make FGJ a 828 AoE heal in PvE with no healing power and without VS. Things like Decapitate, Eviscerate, or Empower allies would be half of that. These wouldn't be spike heals with the exception of a traited FGJ, and instead would just be constant positive pressure on the party HP. 

[ArielRebel.3426]

18 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Josh Davis.7865, once again please extend my thanks to the balance team for their hard work. I realize that the environment after June 28th must have been a hectic rush for them, as well as emotionally taxing.

I think the team has built a strong foundation for banners moving forward. I see lots of possibilities for current use, but also for future improvements.

There are some great things in this rework! And there are some lackluster things. I feel like the team held back somewhat in a few places and that in turn is going to hold banners and warrior back from a meaningful support role going forward, not to mention that the team has made two group quickness sources on Warrior, that they added recently, kind of redundant.

Please, share these with the team. I assume that you all will be tracking the changes and will be making adjustments moving forward, but I'll throw some things on your radar now.
 

Banner of Tactics:

The heavy upfront quickness on Banner of Tactics is a good thing. It allows for the possibility of build diversity. BUT, Bladesworn will end up abusing this. Please be mindful of that build, and when you nerf it, please be sure to focus that nerf on Bladesworn and not core. Core, Berserker, and Spellbreaker are not in good spots right now so please be careful with any nerfs to core trait lines or core utilities.

The Superspeed is nice on BoT. The stability is nice on BoT. The 1 stack of stability in PvE is a whiff. Please merge the Competitive 5 stacks of stability into the PvE version.

Either this or Banner of Defense should be a stunbreak, this is a real missed opportunity.

Banner of Defense: 

This is solid as an active effect. The regen is... lackluster? Though that has more to do with the overall "support" role of warrior being lackluster. Again, either this or BoT need to be a stunbreak, and an AoE stunbreak at that. I'll leave it to the dev team to decide that, but one of these two really should be an AoE stunbreak. 

Banner of Discipline:

This is probably the weakest link. It's just not going to be good as is. I get that you all wanted some offense, and I absolutely agree, but 3 stacks of bleed on a 30s CD when warrior on the whole is not a major condi DPS class is kind of lackluster. We also have lots of ranged cripple attacks, so the cripple is redundant. We also have great AoE fury already from For Great Justice and Warhorn if it is traited. Please ask the team to go back to the drawing board on this skill. I think it would not be OP for this to be an AoE version of Pin Down in the end (6 stacks of bleed at 12s and 3s immobilize in Competitive for reference) with a pulsing weakness in the area of the banner rather than pulsing fury. Double Standards could give increased condition duration on that pulsed effect.

Banner of Strength:

I really like the damage and ranged daze! I see lots of possibilities with it! The pulsing 2 stacks of might are a whiff though. What does that accomplish that For Great Justice, Empower Allies, or any of warrior's might sources coupled with Phalanx Strength not already cover? Like Banner of Discipline please ask the team to revisit this skill.  I again totally agree on the offensive nature of the skill, but the pulsed boon is a miss. This could instead pulse vulnerability stacks, or some other soft condi, again with Double Standards increasing the boon duration. It could also pulse burn stacks, but the interval of 3s would end up holding that back too much.

Other things that I think the team missed the mark on:

The 600 range.

BIG whiff. The support skills should at least be 1200 range. The offensive ones should ideally be the same range, but if that cannot happen then no shorter than 900 range. Warrior really needs reliable ranged damage utilities as well as reliable ranged support.

The uniform 30s CD.

Obviously not including Battle Standard, but some of this as is are not strong enough to warrant 30s CDs. I realize this is in part because of Double Standards being the source of Quickness, but the skills need to be able to stand on their own without that. Banners of Strength and Discipline could easily be 20s CDs and not be OP or break the quickness role as they aren't really support skills in the end as they are right now.

The 3s intervals.

Honestly, I think all of the 3s interval skills in the game should be reduced to 1s intervals and either outright buffed as a result or rebalanced. This is no exception. Please consider this approach on a profession wide scale for October, and in the case of Banners and warrior's core Longbow Burst, just allow them to be buffed as a result.

Warrior Support Moving Forward:

First off you somewhat made redundant recent changes to Charge and Martial Cadence with the new Banner rework. Please revisit these two, as well as the Tactics traitline on the whole.
I think it is worth keeping Quickness on Martial Cadence, but scale it based on Adrenaline used, and make it really worthwhile for Core. Something like 2s per Tier of  Burst used.

For Warhorn I think you need to remove the quickness you just added. Instead make both Warhorn skills give Barrier by default. The same amount, same scaling.

I also strongly recommend that you change Mending Might to instead heal allies that the warrior grants might to (including the warrior themselves) instead of healing the warrior when they grant might to allies at the same base value and scaling. Tactics is not the selfish sustain line. That is Defense. Tactics is the group support line, so Mending Might being such a selfish source of sustain is out of place. This change coupled with Phalanx Strength and warrior's numerous might sources would create a steady source of sustain for the 5 man subgroup. Even without PS, warrior has options for group might and could run Vigorous Shouts for an actual heal build, you can even update some weapon/burst skills to grant their existing might to allies within 600 range.

I also highly recommend that Banner of Defense pulse Barrier instead of Regen, something like 400 base barrier, with Double Standards increasing that by 50%. I also highly recommend moving some of the GM traits of Tactics around. All three GM traits are lynchpins of support where as very few of the Master or Adept traits are. Either Martial Cadence or Vigorous Shouts could easily swap places with Shrug it Off or Warrior's Cunning. Phalanx Strength itself could very easily be merged into my proposed Mending Might change and open up a new GM slot. No, that would not at all be OP.

Please be more bold with warrior moving forward.

I agree with pretty much everything beside when you say Banner of Tactics requires nerfing or that bladesworn will "abuse it" as if Bladesworn is OP. It's the other way around, instead of nerfing BoT, other banners need to be brought to it's lvl because, as you mentionned :

->BoDef's regen is pitiful (needs to be much stronger or needs to also convert one/two condition(s) to a boon(s) with each pulse or something)
->BoS's 2 stacks of might per pulse is laughable (we already excrete so much might anyway, we need something different here) 
->BoDiscipline's fury is redundant (we need another pulsating boon like stability or resolution), bleed is sad (nowhere strong enough) and cripple is redundant (needs to be another condi like weakness)

Edited August 3, 2022 by ArielRebel.3426

[Xaylin.1860]

18 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

The 600 range.

BIG whiff. The support skills should at least be 1200 range. The offensive ones should ideally be the same range, but if that cannot happen then no shorter than 900 range. Warrior really needs reliable ranged damage utilities as well as reliable ranged support.

Just curious... why?

Alacrity on neither Tempest, Mirage, Druid nor Renegade is ranged. Quickness from Scrapper, Firebrand, Chronomancer, Herald and at least traitwise for Harbinger isn't really ranged either. Actually, I'd argue that supportive Utilities are at least equally long ranged as they are short ranged (e.g. Wells vs. Mantras), maybe actually even leaning more towards short range (Shouts). Sure, it would be convenient if they where long range. But it is hardly the norm in GW2. I don't see you having a case for supportive Banners here.

For offensive Banners I agree. They could do with a bit more ranged considering that shorter and medium range distance CCs are covered by Physical and Rage skills.

 

18 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

The 3s intervals.

Honestly, I think all of the 3s interval skills in the game should be reduced to 1s intervals and either outright buffed as a result or rebalanced. This is no exception. Please consider this approach on a profession wide scale for October, and in the case of Banners and warrior's core Longbow Burst, just allow them to be buffed as a result.

Again... why? I see at least two issues with this.

First, with an 1s interval, those skills would have to provide at least 1s boons. Which means, BD becomes way less important on them. Taking a closer look, ANet balanced many of those skills to cover the whole interval if investing 50-100% boon duration. Of course, you could argue that BD would still 'overcap' them and therefore provide a benefit. But personally, I don't think that this is the point of skills that pulse effects.

Second, 1s intervals mean fewer to none ways to counterplay. This is probably more important for defensive boons like Aegis, Stability, Protecation and Resolution. Still, boon removal or corruption is already weak against pulsing effects. This would take them out of the equation completely.

 

7 hours ago, Geoff Fey.1035 said:

This allows a "ranged support" playstyle for the Warrior without the Warrior themselves losing out on their casts. At the moment you have to be in melee range to get the benefits of casting most of the banners which invalidates a ranged playstyle. While this isn't much of an issue for Longbow (i.e. "shotgun"), the Rifle definitely loses out on it.

Also... why? I mean... if you cast the skill at range, you don't get the effect. Period. Like with Wells etc. And while you didn't mention it, a related topic: If ANet learned anything from Scourge and sticks to their 'no more 10 target skills' agenda, I don't see the effect happening around the Warrior plus the Banner either.

 

Honestly, I'm a bit confused by some reactions. Banners basically got turned into a superior combination of Wells and Spirits while being indestructable. The boon durations on them are very good and maybe even too high. I'm looking forward to trying them out and they probably are one of the most flexible sources of primary boons (Alacrity/Quickness) we got at this point. And still people complain? About range. Them not being mobile. Having to sacrfice Utility slots. Them not being as strong as selfish Utility skills. Not having a stunbreak build in. Well... welcome to playing a support class. This shouldn't be a suprise after being a Bannerslave for so long?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

8 minutes ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Just curious... why?

Alacrity on neither Tempest, Mirage, Druid nor Renegade is ranged. Quickness from Scrapper, Firebrand, Chronomancer, Herald and at least traitwise for Harbinger isn't really ranged either. Actually, I'd argue that supportive Utilities are at least equally long ranged as they are short ranged (e.g. Wells vs. Mantras), maybe actually even leaning more towards short range (Shouts). Sure, it would be convenient if they where long range. But it is hardly the norm in GW2. I don't see you having a case for supportive Banners here.

For offensive Banners I agree. They could do with a bit more ranged considering that shorter and medium range distance CCs are covered by Physical and Rage skills.

 

Again... why? I see at least two issues with this.

First, with an 1s interval, those skills would have to provide at least 1s boons. Which means, BD becomes way less important on them. Taking a closer look, ANet balanced many of those skills to cover the whole interval if investing 50-100% boon duration. Of course, you could argue that BD would still 'overcap' them and therefore provide a benefit. But personally, I don't think that this is the point of skills that pulse effects.

Second, 1s intervals mean fewer to none ways to counterplay. This is probably more important for defensive boons like Aegis, Stability, Protecation and Resolution. Still, boon removal or corruption is already weak against pulsing effects. This would take them out of the equation completely.

 

Also... why? I mean... if you cast the skill at range, you don't get the effect. Period. Like with Wells etc. And while you didn't mention it, a related topic: If ANet learned anything from Scourge and sticks to their 'no more 10 target skills' agenda, I don't see the effect happening around the Warrior plus the Banner either.

 

Honestly, I'm a bit confused by some reactions. Banners basically got turned into a superior combination of Wells and Spirits while being indestructable. The boon durations on them are very good and maybe even too high. I'm looking forward to trying them out and they probably are one of the most flexible sources of primary boons (Alacrity/Quickness) we got at this point. And still people complain? About range. Them not being mobile. Having to sacrfice Utility slots. Them not being as strong as selfish Utility skills. Not having a stunbreak build in. Well... welcome to playing a support class. This shouldn't be a suprise after being a Bannerslave for so long?

Because unlike the other classes you mentioned warrior does not have very many viable ranged weapons or utilities.

 

For the interval bit, a large portion of the value of banners is in the initial effects, and for competitive play those intervals will end up having little value.

[firedragon.8953]

I think banners are good overall. I can still see playing with them being fun while helping the team with boons.

Only thing I'd really would nitpick to change at the moment is to see the effect on drop boons being an active skill so I can better control when to give stab, extra cc, etc.

This was something I posted a little while ago before the release (slightly edited for clarity), and I still think this would be an interesting implementation for banners.

Quote

Dropped banners function as they do now, but when you pick up one of the banners you extend its time by a minute (from time of pickup) and can use one of the initial drop boons (stab, etc.) as an active skill (wave banner?) on a 20s cooldown while carrying the banner on your back (limited to one). Effectively you'd be trading (delaying) quickness uptime for mobile pulsing boons and more utility. I feel something like this would strike a nice balance for PvE and competitive modes and make banners less passive in general.

I also just watched a MightyTeapot stream where he mentioned just having the banner skills flip over to an active skill after dropping them that would give the on-drop effect on activation rather than on-drop. This seems pretty good too, and much more in line with the current design, at the expense of being able to be mobile and pulse boons of course. 

Honestly, I feel like this may all be getting into nitpicky territory, and from now I'd prefer the devs to focus on updating weapon skills (100B, Rush, etc.), some of the weird (worthless?) traits, etc. I would like to see the Defense line get a bit more love. Maybe seeing Cleansing Ire remove conditions and AoE HEAL on burst and Sundering Mace make it so that the 3rd auto-attack grants AoE barrier.

Honestly I'd love to play a tanky, boon-stripping, shield reflecting, mace/warhorn wielding, shouting spellbreaker (Tactics/Defense traitlines)! 😄

Edited August 4, 2022 by firedragon.8953

[DanAlcedo.3281]

5 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Just curious... why?

Alacrity on neither Tempest, Mirage, Druid nor Renegade is ranged. Quickness from Scrapper, Firebrand, Chronomancer, Herald and at least traitwise for Harbinger isn't really ranged either. Actually, I'd argue that supportive Utilities are at least equally long ranged as they are short ranged (e.g. Wells vs. Mantras), maybe actually even leaning more towards short range (Shouts). Sure, it would be convenient if they where long range. But it is hardly the norm in GW2. I don't see you having a case for supportive Banners here.

For offensive Banners I agree. They could do with a bit more ranged considering that shorter and medium range distance CCs are covered by Physical and Rage skills.

 

Again... why? I see at least two issues with this.

First, with an 1s interval, those skills would have to provide at least 1s boons. Which means, BD becomes way less important on them. Taking a closer look, ANet balanced many of those skills to cover the whole interval if investing 50-100% boon duration. Of course, you could argue that BD would still 'overcap' them and therefore provide a benefit. But personally, I don't think that this is the point of skills that pulse effects.

Second, 1s intervals mean fewer to none ways to counterplay. This is probably more important for defensive boons like Aegis, Stability, Protecation and Resolution. Still, boon removal or corruption is already weak against pulsing effects. This would take them out of the equation completely.

 

Also... why? I mean... if you cast the skill at range, you don't get the effect. Period. Like with Wells etc. And while you didn't mention it, a related topic: If ANet learned anything from Scourge and sticks to their 'no more 10 target skills' agenda, I don't see the effect happening around the Warrior plus the Banner either.

 

Honestly, I'm a bit confused by some reactions. Banners basically got turned into a superior combination of Wells and Spirits while being indestructable. The boon durations on them are very good and maybe even too high. I'm looking forward to trying them out and they probably are one of the most flexible sources of primary boons (Alacrity/Quickness) we got at this point. And still people complain? About range. Them not being mobile. Having to sacrfice Utility slots. Them not being as strong as selfish Utility skills. Not having a stunbreak build in. Well... welcome to playing a support class. This shouldn't be a suprise after being a Bannerslave for so long?

I wanna add to the range part. 

600 Range in Wvw is really bad. 

In a Zerg fight, being in 900 range or below to the enemy means you are in the dmg range. 900-1200 is ranged pressure range. 

If I want to use a banner, I need to account for the delayed effect because of the long Casttime. 

So you wanna drop is at range in front of you so you get hit by it when it finally comes down. 

But with 600 range you are already in enemy Aoe spam. With 900 you can cast it from a relatively safe range to run in. 

Just imagine if a Guardian could only use Stand your ground while in 600 range to a target. Would suck. 

Edited August 4, 2022 by DanAlcedo.3281

[Xaylin.1860]

8 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Because unlike the other classes you mentioned warrior does not have very many viable ranged weapons or utilities.

This might be partly be true which I agree on the offensive Banners probably needing a bigger range. For supportive ones... just no. At this point in time only Wells and thrown Elixirs can do that (let's ignore Glamours like ANet does). However, in contrast to Banners, they don't persist any longer than few seconds. I just don't see how Warriors lacking a huge selection of ranged Utility skills - because let's be honest... it's not like they got significantly less than for example Thief or Ranger - is a valid justification to make Banners even better than they are since the recent patch. Banners can't be the solution for everything. 

8 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

For the interval bit, a large portion of the value of banners is in the initial effects, and for competitive play those intervals will end up having little value.

This applies to any stationary effect in competitive play where positioning is relevant. As mentioned above: A skill doesn't have to be the perfect pick in any scenario. Skills like Wells and obviously Banners as well require at least some planning and the commitment to stay in place. Banners having a powerful upfront effect is already way more than other skills of this type provide.

Again: Yes, what you say is true. But this hardly justifies your suggestion.

3 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Just imagine if a Guardian could only use Stand your ground while in 600 range to a target. Would suck. 

Yeah... that would be utter madness 🤨

Any chance you mixed up skills? Or am I missing sarcasm? Because that's exactly how it works. Just that in case of Guardian the ally won't benefit.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 hour ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

This might be partly be true which I agree on the offensive Banners probably needing a bigger range. For supportive ones... just no. At this point in time only Wells and thrown Elixirs can do that (let's ignore Glamours like ANet does). However, in contrast to Banners, they don't persist any longer than few seconds. I just don't see how Warriors lacking a huge selection of ranged Utility skills - because let's be honest... it's not like they got significantly less than for example Thief or Ranger - is a valid justification to make Banners even better than they are since the recent patch. Banners can't be the solution for everything. 

This applies to any stationary effect in competitive play where positioning is relevant. As mentioned above: A skill doesn't have to be the perfect pick in any scenario. Skills like Wells and obviously Banners as well require at least some planning and the commitment to stay in place. Banners having a powerful upfront effect is already way more than other skills of this type provide.

Again: Yes, what you say is true. But this hardly justifies your suggestion.

Yeah... that would be utter madness 🤨

Any chance you mixed up skills? Or am I missing sarcasm? Because that's exactly how it works. Just that in case of Guardian the ally won't benefit.

Enemy target I mean. 

You need the stab before you go under 900 range to the enemy. Guard can just precast stab without Casttime and aim. 

Warriors version has casttime, needs to aim and you need to be already in the enemies face to get the full value. 

So, 900 range would make banners safer to use. Especially when there is no Aoe Stunbreak on one. 

[RiyazGuerra.9203]

Pardon if this has been already addressed but why in WvW is Banner of Tactics (BoT) only giving 3 seconds of initial Quickness when all the other banners give 7 seconds?  Bring BoT in line with the other banners in WvW with respect to initial Quickness.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

24 minutes ago, RiyazGuerra.9203 said:

Pardon if this has been already addressed but why in WvW is Banner of Tactics (BoT) only giving 3 seconds of initial Quickness when all the other banners give 7 seconds?  Bring BoT in line with the other banners in WvW with respect to initial Quickness.

I think it's a glitch. Tooltip is incorrect, banners apply 3 secs of Quick in WvW. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, RiyazGuerra.9203 said:

Pardon if this has been already addressed but why in WvW is Banner of Tactics (BoT) only giving 3 seconds of initial Quickness when all the other banners give 7 seconds?  Bring BoT in line with the other banners in WvW with respect to initial Quickness.

They don't. Its a tooltip error. I say that and tested it out to verify.

[Xaylin.1860]

4 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

You need the stab before you go under 900 range to the enemy. Guard can just precast stab without Casttime and aim. 

Yeah... I'm aware... which is why you aim the target slightly in front if your group when approaching. Problem of cast time solved. In practice, the outcome would be exactly the same when compared to a Guardian with the only difference of a Guardian pressing the button slightly later. Additionally, Warrior can theoretically at least support from midrange if needed. Guardian can't because Shouts are pbaes.

Instant cast obviously is better than cast time. But so is ranged versus point blanket effects. My point is that the Banner most certainly works and one single skill doesn't have to be best in every scenario. The only argument made here is "It is already very good but still not the best in the game.". Pretty hard sell, imho.  😉

The stunbreak argument is totally irrelevant for the scenario you have described where you want to precast stab. Because you shouldn't be in CC range yet. With this regard Stand your Grounds is better. On the other side, the Banner provides pulsing boons. Again: It is good to not have one skill that is always better. 

[Katary.7096]

18 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Yeah, stripping the damage traits and putting more group support in is the way to go. I think the immobilize on Leg Specialist should stay though with the damage portion removed. I like the Anti Barrier aspect of Warrior's Cunning, but that can be swapped for Double Standards in Discipline.

Well, every major slot has 3 traits to pick from, the specialization could be structured in such a way that there are 2 traits in every tier which provide allies with beneficial effects while the 3rd gives the Warrior more options to debuff their enemies. A reworked version of Leg Specialist could be such an option.
Perhaps have Warrior's Cunning merged with Destruction of the Empowered into a trait which gives bonus damage against targets with mutiple boons and/or Barrier? Not sure where to put it though, except not in Tactics.

19 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I think there needs to be more AoE Barrier in warrior's support kit, be it on Bursts, on Charge, or on Banner of Defense. It either needs lots of hard healing or lots of little heals and small barrier amounts.

I'd rather see less AoE Barrier on everyone else instead of more on Warrior. But you are quite right that there needs to be some form of parity. Banner of Defense as a dedicated "give Barrier" skill works pretty well, but it is hard to find the space to make more of these. If only Warrior had more weapons focused on support than warhorn.

19 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

If PS is merged into MM, then yes that would be a rolled up summary. I think the current healing amount would be fine. That would make FGJ a 828 AoE heal in PvE with no healing power and without VS. Things like Decapitate, Eviscerate, or Empower allies would be half of that. These wouldn't be spike heals with the exception of a traited FGJ, and instead would just be constant positive pressure on the party HP. 

I think that that could work. The downside with that sort of design is, it is effectively introducing another box Warrior support builds would have to check. Sure, most supports are expected to provide 25 stacks of Might, or at least something close to it, but Warrior would be incentivized to generate as much as possible since it also functions as their form of baseline party sustain.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 8/2/2022 at 10:46 PM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@Josh Davis.7865, once again please extend my thanks to the balance team for their hard work. I realize that the environment after June 28th must have been a hectic rush for them, as well as emotionally taxing.

AoE stunbreak. 

Please be more bold with warrior moving forward.

 

I will be more elaborate later but I snipped a couple core things.

 

Thanks. Tactics banner good. Core, Spellbreaker, Zerker still need help, be mindful of Bladesworn. Hopefully the game not exploding when you give core war pulsing resistance will convince you that you can put it on berserker too.

 

A stunbreak on the banner with the least situational utility overall would be nice.

 

[JTGuevara.9018]

It's a solid change. It is a change that gives warrior a different role and makes it more versatile. More importantly, it does not come at the profession's expense.

It not only allows for a boon supporting role, but the banner changes are a net benefit to condi warriors as well.

[RiyazGuerra.9203]

11 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

They don't. Its a tooltip error. I say that and tested it out to verify.

Yes you are right, just checked again. Thank you.

[anbujackson.9564]

Did some testing in raid encounter (1, 4 and 3). 

One thing thats a bit of an issue is when people dont stack, spread too much for mechanics or whatever. 

Since you only have 2 or 3 long applications instead of 2-3 with shorter duration but faster recharge, missing at least one is already an issue. 

Anyway if played accordingly quickness war is solid in w1 and w4. Notable mention to being the best most useful handkite now. On samarog you might want to play herald instead.

Everywhere else is.. not that great I guess. Since you lack utility and cc, you are kind of worse than herald (and cata?) for power and worse than harbringer/firebrand for condi. So far I only saw one other quickness war in pugs. Performance was decent I guess? Still worse than the other hybrid dps damage wise, not to mention the utility.

Having an active flip over skill would be quite nice. As for other buffs/changes.. dunno. Overloading them even more would be another band aid fix just like bladesworns traits/TR are an emergency fix for PvP.