Warrior needs to be reworked from the ground up.

[Kalthea.4326]

I have seen so many different posts recommending so many different changes and suggestions for Warrior. Here's a list of things I've seen that I can remember off the top of my head:

 

Rework shouts.

Add different abilities to banners.

Buff cc

Buff weapon damage

Rework utility skills

Add elites

Change a specific trait line in this way

Make this trait line more used

Remove features from this trait line and put them into another one.

Move these traits over to here

 

And only one thing has become clear to me upon seeing all of those recommendations. Warrior severely needs to be looked over, in its entirety. We lack cohesion on anything that isn't an elite spec, we aren't able to keep up with other classes in range or CC, or even powerful boons. There's this strange focus on banners, when there are so many other things on warrior that need to be fixed up or changed around. And worst of all, the build options that we have just aren't all that different from eachother. Grab trait lines 1 and 2, and use whatever espec you want. It's no wonder there's trouble with warrior balance.

[felix.2386]

while every class is playing at 2022, warrior is playing at 2017 and is still playing at 2017 after 5 years.

no wonder nobody plays it even when the numbers are ok and it's not hard to play.

 

unlike elementalist which is only not played because it takes too much effort to perform.

when the balance philosophy finally changes and stop being so stupid and allow ele to over perform when played perfectly.

people will flock to it.

 

warrior is probably the only class, so boring to a point, not only it introduces minimum synergy but also have traits/skills that cancel each other.

Edited August 19, 2022 by felix.2386

[Mell.4873]

Its a tricky thing since every new expansion adds a different design philosophy to the game. PoF has the most complex and difficult specializations and rewarded that complexity with better damage and PvP potential. Then ultimately the developers cycled and went back on that philosophy .

I mean the entire reason Warrior was so relevant back at launch was because there was no Trinity and the only performance increase you could get was increasing defence/self-healing. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Mell.4873

[oscuro.9720]

I think this is an overstatement of the problem. A ground up rework is unnecessary and a lot of aspects of warrior are a stone’s throw from being viable. There are certain aspects that need full reworks (at least incompetitive), but warrior’s synergy with might gen, etc. is actually quite high, despite many people’s claims. Does warrior have entire trait lines that are useless? Yes. Does warrior have weapons that are entirely useless? Also yes. But that doesn’t meant he WHOLE class needs to be rebuilt.

 

In fact, I personally play warrior because I like that it plays fundamentally different than all the other classes, relying on core mechanics and good timing rather than a highly spam-based color vomit gameplay. 

[Kalthea.4326]

1 hour ago, oscuro.9720 said:

I think this is an overstatement of the problem. A ground up rework is unnecessary and a lot of aspects of warrior are a stone’s throw from being viable. There are certain aspects that need full reworks (at least incompetitive), but warrior’s synergy with might gen, etc. is actually quite high, despite many people’s claims. Does warrior have entire trait lines that are useless? Yes. Does warrior have weapons that are entirely useless? Also yes. But that doesn’t meant he WHOLE class needs to be rebuilt.

 

In fact, I personally play warrior because I like that it plays fundamentally different than all the other classes, relying on core mechanics and good timing rather than a highly spam-based color vomit gameplay. 

While they do have really good might generation, the fundamentals of that generation make no sense. If I want to generate it with a weapon, I need to run greatsword, but the trait line for greatsword doesn't provide all of the benefits that would help to support my team. On top of that, might generation is very selfish on warrior without selecting a very specific talent, which also fights against shouts being able to heal. So you're given a choice between healing the team or granting what is now one of the most easily maintainable boons in the game. It's a tradeoff that no other class has to make, and in order to resolve that dilemma, they would need to rework multiple trait lines, which at that point is basically a fundamental rework.

[Jzaku.9765]

Literally every profession subforum says this about their class. 

[Kalthea.4326]

44 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Literally every profession subforum says this about their class. 

And? Does that make it less of an issue, or resolve issues that the class has? Just because others are saying it doesn't mean that it's an "up in arms cascade". There are fundamental changes that have been made to the game that are causing baseline classes to have issues, and it's just coming to the forefront now that they're changing things around.

[Vancho.8750]

4 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

I think this is an overstatement of the problem. A ground up rework is unnecessary and a lot of aspects of warrior are a stone’s throw from being viable. There are certain aspects that need full reworks (at least incompetitive), but warrior’s synergy with might gen, etc. is actually quite high, despite many people’s claims. Does warrior have entire trait lines that are useless? Yes. Does warrior have weapons that are entirely useless? Also yes. But that doesn’t meant he WHOLE class needs to be rebuilt.

 

In fact, I personally play warrior because I like that it plays fundamentally different than all the other classes, relying on core mechanics and good timing rather than a highly spam-based color vomit gameplay. 

Warrior is really centered around weapons, but only a few work and even then they have wonky and jank skills on them but can works since they have traits that unlock their viability, there seems to have some ideas started to make some build work at one time but after a while they are forgotten and left.
For example hammer, it seems that there is something going on with Body blow and Merciless hammer but body blow is condition oriented and it doesn't even hit hard while Merciless hammer is really good utility for the adrenaline gain but it is better to run Berserker's Power over it even on hammer build since the bonus damage on the trait is additive instead of Multiplicative, then you have maces which didn't get their trait to have function outside of maces like all other weapon traits, rifle doesn't even have traits that you can say are meant to be in a build for it.

It just seems that the devs just worked on the current build people were playing not understanding why people were playing it, which is being on equal standing as the rest professions and not cause it is fun. This one of the reasons Discipline is so embedded on almost all warrior builds, not cause it is so amazing but because it has basic QoL that makes warrior build work, BS can get away from it but it is mostly due to bug/feature that switches the kit after DT(which is a good thing even though they stumbled on it by mistake) .

Warrior can pull out allot of of different play styles since it heavily based on weapons but it just does not have the traits to support them. Warrior is simple and obvious in its trait synergy, the issues is that the devs can't go along with the dumb lazy mantra "it is dictated by players" since warrior is totally dictated how it can function by the devs, there is not some unintended interactions that spawn on guardian, engi ,ele because of their large kit, they need to have intention with changes on warrior and not throw random stuff on it, since if you pick a hammer and put on some hammer traits you are not gona fly around the map, you are most probably going to CC stuff.     

[Sahne.6950]

Rework is unnecassary.

Add 50% of damage back to their CC skills.

Give them more access to "resistance".

Spellbreaker needs Boonstrips that priorize Stabi on some of the CC skills.

Berserkers Toughness penalty needs to go.

 

The Weakness and blindspam paired with everyone p00ping stabi and them not dealing any damage on CC skills is whats holding this class back.

 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Kalthea.4326]

5 minutes ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Rework is unnecassary.

Add 50% of damage back to their CC skills.

Give them more access to "resistance".

Spellbreaker needs Boonstrips that priorize Stabi on some of the CC skills.

Berserkers Toughness penalty needs to go.

 

The Weakness and blindspam paired with everyone p00ping stabi and them not dealing any damage on CC skills is whats holding this class back.

 

 

That appears to be a PvP perspective, if I'm not mistaken. But these changes seem to completely ignore other aspects of warrior, such as the complete lack of diversity when it comes to utility skills, the lack of weapon diversity and condition builds in PvP, the fact that most of our weapons are melee with basically no options for ranged, inability to chase, and probably a few others that I'm forgetting.

 

At which point, you're starting to rework the class. You can't limit your scope to just one aspect of the game, even if it performs very well in that aspect. You need to look at how the class works in all the different aspects of the game, and how all of that classes features perform.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, Kalthea.4326 said:

That appears to be a PvP perspective, if I'm not mistaken. But these changes seem to completely ignore other aspects of warrior, such as the complete lack of diversity when it comes to utility skills, the lack of weapon diversity and condition builds in PvP, the fact that most of our weapons are melee with basically no options for ranged, inability to chase, and probably a few others that I'm forgetting.

 

At which point, you're starting to rework the class. You can't limit your scope to just one aspect of the game, even if it performs very well in that aspect. You need to look at how the class works in all the different aspects of the game, and how all of that classes features perform.

For the ranged weapons at least, the devs just need to relent and allow warrior to have viable ranged dps/utility.

This would be making Crack Shot's effects apply to all the weapon skills not just the AAs.
Turning Fan of Fire into the burn version of Sevenshot.
Unrooting Killshot.
Making Brutal Shot evade first then fire.
Adding 20% increased damage to Rifle 2, and 30% more to Rifle 3 and 4,

For Utilities, the signet trait needs to allow the passives to remain during the recharge.
The Physical skills are fine in PvE, but need damage returned in PvP/WvW which can be done by turning Body Blow into power damage and not a bleed.
Banners need more range, and Banner of Discipline needs more bleed stacks and pulse weakness on enemies.
Stances need a new trait.
All Meditation skills need massive overhauls.

For Hammer and Mace, the suggested Body Blow change would help them out as well, but Staggering Blow could use a 3/4s evade and Tremor needs to be a non projectile AoE.

Both Riposte and Counterblow need to function like the Ranger GS4 skill.

Beyond that the Tier 2 and Tier 3 bursts can all be stronger to help elevate Core over the Especs.

[felix.2386]

6 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

Literally every profession subforum says this about their class. 

Then you are obviously not reading the forum at all.

there are a clear distinction between wanting to rework certain one weapon set, or wanting to up the numbers, or wanting one elite spec to be reworked and wanting the entire class reworked.

Edited August 19, 2022 by felix.2386

[Nova.4608]

Pretty much. The class is an abject failure at every step, Bladetrash further proves that.

Unfortunately, it's more likely for me to win the lottery than for Anet to even read the warrior forums, let alone rework the entire class. A man can dream I s'pose.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Nova.4608

[Fueki.4753]

13 hours ago, felix.2386 said:

while every class is playing at 2022, warrior is playing at 2017 and is still playing at 2017 after 5 years.

To me it feels more that Warrior is playing at 2010, even though the game came out 2012.

They managed to make it feel worse than it felt at launch.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

9 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

To me it feels more that Warrior is playing at 2010, even though the game came out 2012.

They managed to make it feel worse than it felt at launch.

That would be the Adrenaline decay timer nerf you're feeling.

[Fueki.4753]

On 8/19/2022 at 5:24 PM, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

That would be the Adrenaline decay timer nerf you're feeling.

I wouldn't call that 0.1 seconds delay between leaving combat and starting to lose Adrenaline a timer.

I really don't get why Warrior isn't allowed to keep its resource. Bursts aren't even hitting too hard anymore after repeated nerfs and increased defences on other professions.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Fueki.4753

[Obtena.7952]

14 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

I think this is an overstatement of the problem. A ground up rework is unnecessary and a lot of aspects of warrior are a stone’s throw from being viable. There are certain aspects that need full reworks (at least incompetitive), but warrior’s synergy with might gen, etc. is actually quite high, despite many people’s claims. Does warrior have entire trait lines that are useless? Yes. Does warrior have weapons that are entirely useless? Also yes. But that doesn’t meant he WHOLE class needs to be rebuilt.

 

In fact, I personally play warrior because I like that it plays fundamentally different than all the other classes, relying on core mechanics and good timing rather than a highly spam-based color vomit gameplay. 

Massively overstated. Also completely impractical. Rework a WHOLE class at this point? Some people dreaming too much. The things listed by the OP are so vague they don't have much meaning; they are complaints people have on almost every class, even ones that do well.  

I have no doubt if Anet addressed the top 3 pain points, the class would be fire. I don't see any of those three being issues with weapons either. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

I would call that 0.1 seconds delay between leaving combat and starting to lose Adrenaline a timer.

I really don't get why Warrior isn't allowed to keep its resource. Bursts aren't even hitting too hard anymore after repeated nerfs and increased defences on other professions.

I agree. The decay on adrenaline is just archaic at this point.

[Zekent.3652]

5 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I have no doubt if Anet addressed the top 3 pain points, the class would be fire. I don't see any of those three being issues with weapons either. 

So, you're saying ALL warrior weapons are fine.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

40 minutes ago, Zizekent.2398 said:

So, you're saying ALL warrior weapons are fine.

Don't feed.

[Shinja.3451]

Unfortunately, it would not be possible for anet, maybe for any other yes, but not for anet, less how they are doing things and focusing the game, doing a total rework of something at this point would be so absurdly easy, how to know the game and copy and paste everything in a minimally coherent way, that is, you practically have everything done, the margins, the blessings, conditions, the animations, the mechanics, you have it all done, even the basic knowledge of the game to do such a thing you can get from the wiki and meta margins on other pages, and with minimal knowledge of the game, do a decent rework.
Unfortunately, since anet is focusing on the game, I don't even want to play it anymore...

[Kalthea.4326]

I'd like to point out that this thread is meant to be an observational post that should lead into discussion. We shouldn't be taking this as a defeatist view, or say that everything is perfect. We're mediocre, uninteresting, and need some attention to help get us set on the right track. There are some things that are good, and plenty that are bad, but we should always be focused on how the Warrior fits into the game in its entirety, not in a single game mode, not through a single elite spec, but how every specialization can fit into the game. How does baseline Warrior fit into PvE/sPvP/WvW? How does Berserker fit into PvE/sPvP/WvW? How does Spellbreaker fit into PvE/sPvP/WvW? And how does Bladesword fit into PvE/sPvP/WvW?

 

These are the questions that need to be asked of class balance. It's not a matter of if a class is useful in one aspect. It's a matter of if that class is usable in all different aspects of the game to some manner of effectiveness. It doesn't need to be the best, it just needs to be able to perform. I don't expect Spellbreaker to be great at PvE content for example, but I'd still like to see it have some boon or condition utility, giving it something it can do to perform in PvE. I don't want Berserker and Baldesworn to both be high DPS classes with nothing else to choose from. But most importantly, I want to see Baseline Warrior be cohesive, because once the baseline is good, everything else will come with it.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

23 hours ago, oscuro.9720 said:

a lot of aspects of warrior are a stone’s throw from being viable.

 

This.

There's only a -handful- of things needed. Dont even need to change the damage or give back most of the damage on CC. A couple of cooldowns shaved by 5 or 10 seconds and a splash of resistance / resolution would make it very suitable for play.

That just makes it all the more frustrating when they are willing to make sweeping changes to other classes that already have largely viable playstyles but yknow, that's another story.

Edited August 20, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Kalthea.4326]

1 hour ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

This.

There's only a -handful- of things needed. Dont even need to change the damage or give back most of the damage on CC. A couple of cooldowns shaved by 5 or 10 seconds and a splash of resistance / resolution would make it very suitable for play.

That just makes it all the more frustrating when they are willing to make sweeping changes to other classes that already have largely viable playstyles but yknow, that's another story.

It's a bit more than a handful, I would say. And again, this seems very much like a PvP focused statement, and it's not just PvP where Warrior is having problems.

[Myror.7521]

Just to make warr realy good there need to be something done.... would list my points in here:

 

Banners: Banner of strength and Banner of disciplin both need a damage buff so you get not that a hard dmg loss for take them.

 

Physical skills: might also need to deal more dmg just to see successfull play in gamemodes that arent open World

 

Cc Skill: need to deal at least some dmg in pvp

 

Defence traitline: idk when they finaly will rework those 300 secs cd traits cause this are the reason why this traitline is not even close good

 

Sword/mace: The Block skill of both need a rework to Funktion like rangers gs block

 

Berserker: those spec need its -300 thoughness traitoff to be gone or maybe get its f1 burst skill back to get less of traitoffs.

 

Weapons: there are some weapons that are just obernerfed over time (such as axe burst skill nowdays) so maybe some buffs here and there im terms of numbers would help

 

Soo do all those changes and warrior might be back in the good state of the game..... let it stand as it is and it will never just be rewarded to playing it at all!