Needed Utility Buffs For Warrior

[Zuko.7132]

Currently warrior has an extremely limited set of viable utilities. Mending is far and away the best heal with the exception of Combat Stimulant for Bladesworn. Shake it off is mandatory for cleanse. Endure pain is the only stance worth taking due to prohibitive cooldowns or lackluster effects on the other stances. Bulls charge is needed to even stay on top of an enemy. Needless to say we could use some more viable options. Here are some suggested buffs. These are all meant for competitive/wvw, but most could probably apply to pve.

 

Healing

1. Healing Signet should be the strongest heal over time if you don't pop it. It offers nothing but healing. No cleanse. No adrenaline. No damage immunity. As such, it should do healing best.
2. To The Limit should have a bigger heal. It has a 50% longer cooldown then mending and heals for the same amount. Yes it provides adrenaline and endurance, but mending provides cleanse. The longer cooldown warrants greater healing.
3. Defiant Stance should be instant cast. It's meant to be reactive. Being instant would make it much more competitive.
4. Natural Healing should have it's cast time reduced to 1 second and remove boons from enemies around you instead of yourself. I'd reduced the boon removal to three.
5. Blood Reckoning could use a lower cooldown or a bigger base heal.

 

Shouts

1. On My Mark should apply vuln and reveal in an aoe and grant swiftness and vigor to allies. It's active effect is just pathetic right now. It's only ever taken for extra heals.
2. Fear me should always use the maximum fear duration and have it's cooldown reduced to 30 seconds. Turn it into a stunbreak so that shout warrior can run two stunbreaks while using shouts. On my mark would be better healing and endure pain would be better survivability, but Fear me would be a nice mix.

 

Banners

1. Make Tactics a stunbreak.
2. Make strength a 20 second cooldown. Increase might to 3 stacks and have it pulse a bit of damage in a 240 radius.
3. Make discipline a 20 second cooldown. Add swiftness along with fury. Change initial damaging condi to burn. Pulse bleed in a 240 radius.

 

Physical

1. Give kick an evade. Will never be run otherwise. Still probably won't be worth it without damage.
2. Make throw bolas throw a bola at all enemies in range and be unblockable. Probably still won't be run until war has a decent range spec.
3. Give stomp an evade. Currently stunbreaking locks you into the animation so you still get hit by whatever you wanted to avoid.

 

Signets

1. Dolyak Signet should be 35 sec cooldown. Maybe even lower. It has to compete with endure pain and balanced stance both of which are better.
2. Signet of stamina should be a thirty second cooldown and be instant cast. It says it's instant cast but it has an animation. Boost active endurace to 50.
3. Signet of Might and Signet of Fury both have niche uses for berserker and rifle builds, but they're mainly pve. I'm not sure what to do with them.

 

Stances

1. Make Berserker stance give condi damage immunity and reduce cooldown to 30 seconds.
2. Give balanced stance a 45 second cooldown. It's current cooldown makes it unable to compete with endure pain.
3. Give Frenzy a 30 second cooldown. It will never compete with other stunbreak options with a 40 second cooldown.

 

Meditations

1. Sight beyond sight should give blind immunity for 5 seconds and make your next 3 attacks critical hits. Still probably won't be run, but will at least be better. Maybe make it remove a damaging condi as well. Doesn't fit the theme, but it's just a weak skill.
2. Give Break Enchantments some damage back. Doesn't have to be the original value, but it should be something at least.
3. Imminent Threat should taunt for 3 seconds and give protection. It's just way too weak right now.

 

Rage (These buffs are heavy handed, but Berserker needs some help.)

1. Make Outrage a 10 second stunbreak again. Yes, it's an outrageously low cooldown, but Berserker needs it.
2. Decrease Sundering Leap cooldown to 15 seconds and have it inflict 2 seconds of immobilize. Increase Range to 900.
3. Decrease Wild Blow cooldown to 15 seconds so it competes better with bulls charge. It has no mobility or evade. It needs an edge.
4. Allow movement while using shattering blow. Increase block duration to 2 seconds. This will give berserker some decent reactive defense.

 

Armament

1. Make flow stabilizer grant one stack of stab for 4 seconds. This would help cover Dragon Trigger now that stab from trait is gone.
2. Make Detonate Cartridges a flipover skill rather than requiring a second use of ammunition.
3. Change Electric Fence to Electric Dome. Make it a bubble. Apply immob upon landing and then pulse cripple.
4. Dragonspike Mine. Reduce cooldown to 25 seconds. Make it the go to aggressive stunbreak option to compete with the defensive option of Defy Pain.

 

Elite

1. Signet of Rage is way too weak. Reduce cooldown to 25 seconds so it synergizes with minor endure pain in defense. Change Adrenaline Generation to work outside of combat and prevent decay. This way if you run signet you can start combat with full adrenaline.
2. Winds of Disenchantment is useless in pvp. Significantly increase the pulsing damage so that it makes people say if I stay in the bubble I'm gonna die. Increase boon removal per pulse to 2. Make it an incredibly deadly well skill.

 

[eXruina.4956]

yes we do, we are severely lacking in utility, specially given our class limitation of being melee locked.

[oscuro.9720]

If you make kick an instant-cast evade over it’s current channel time, that could actually be quite good. I don’t know if it has a precast, but if it doesn’t (either existing pre is removed or there isn’t one currently) that would essentially give Warrior a pretty high skill cap ability. Damage would likely be unnecessary. 
 

The only question is where you would put it on warrior’s bar. Perhaps instead of bulls? Mobility would drop which hurts, but additional on-demand evades would be a strong utility.

[Zuko.7132]

1 minute ago, oscuro.9720 said:

If you make kick an instant-cast evade over it’s current channel time, that could actually be quite good. I don’t know if it has a precast, but if it doesn’t (either existing pre is removed or there isn’t one currently) that would essentially give Warrior a pretty high skill cap ability. Damage would likely be unnecessary. 
 

The only question is where you would put it on warrior’s bar. Perhaps instead of bulls? Mobility would drop which hurts, but additional on-demand evades would be a strong utility.

Ya, It would have to be bulls. I can't see someone running war with less than two stunbreaks.

 

 

[oscuro.9720]

7 minutes ago, Zuko.7132 said:

Ya, It would have to be bulls. I can't see someone running war with less than two stunbreaks.

 

 

Then you haven’t met me, my friend! I’m am insane and slightly masochistic, and would 100% replace BS, EP, or SIO for a triple evade and send it to wvw. Why? Cause kitten ‘em, that’s why. 

Edited October 24, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[Zuko.7132]

40 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

Then you haven’t met me, my friend! I’m am insane and slightly masochistic, and would 100% replace BS, EP, or SIO for a triple evade and send it to wvw. Why? Cause kitten ‘em, that’s why. 

Don't need a stunbreak if you evade the stun. Fair enough.

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

Outstanding suggestions, @Zuko.7132.  I think you are spot-on with most of these.

 

Personally, I really want to see the Stance CDs reduced significantly.  Berserker stance, even in it's current form, would be pretty good on a 20s CD, especially if you're playing berserker.  Frenzy on a 30s CD would be great, too (although part of me wonders if it should stop being a stunbreak so it could be a low-CD offensive skill, like on a 20s CD).  Balanced stance should absolutely be ~40s CD in all game modes.  These changes would make the new Last Stand trait extremely valuable, and you'd be able to generate quite a bit of barrier and vigor from the low-CD stances.

 

Making Healing Signet, Natural Healing, and To the Limit! good would also do a lot for build diversity.

[Zuko.7132]

28 minutes ago, CalmTheStorm.2364 said:

Outstanding suggestions, @Zuko.7132.  I think you are spot-on with most of these.

 

Personally, I really want to see the Stance CDs reduced significantly.  Berserker stance, even in it's current form, would be pretty good on a 20s CD, especially if you're playing berserker.  Frenzy on a 30s CD would be great, too (although part of me wonders if it should stop being a stunbreak so it could be a low-CD offensive skill, like on a 20s CD).  Balanced stance should absolutely be ~40s CD in all game modes.  These changes would make the new Last Stand trait extremely valuable, and you'd be able to generate quite a bit of barrier and vigor from the low-CD stances.

 

Making Healing Signet, Natural Healing, and To the Limit! good would also do a lot for build diversity.

Ya, it's just so obvious that lots of current cooldowns and effects are laughable next to their competition. I particularly like the idea of having a wide enough selection of equally viable utilities, that one would change their utility options based on a trait. For example, if one runs strength spellbreaker, they'll take mending due to reduced cooldown, but otherwise natural healing would be better. Likewise if one takes the last stand trait, all the stances would actually be good enough to make sense running with it. Likewise with tactics, one would want to run fear me for a stunbreak, while one would choose endure pain or balanced stance otherwise. Just having good options that encourage diversity based on what you run. Perhaps if arms is ever made decent, the stunbreak of choice would even be dolyak signet due to cooldown reduction. However, if all options aren't at least somewhat comparable, it doesn't matter what my traits or build are. I want mending and endure pain. Full stop.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Keep Frenzy with current CD but make it give us the same effect as Soulbeast's Dolyak stance (inability to be soft-cced, fear and taunt included). How can you enter a frenzy and be taunted, crippled and slowed? 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 hours ago, Zuko.7132 said:

Ya, It would have to be bulls. I can't see someone running war with less than two stunbreaks.

 

 

Berserk Mode can be made into a stunbreak, and Headbutt is a stunbreak. My kitten would roll both BC and kick if they were both evades.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

20 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Berserk Mode can be made into a stunbreak, and Headbutt is a stunbreak. My kitten would roll both BC and kick if they were both evades.

 

^ 

 

I run BC and Wild Blow right now. I'm also insane. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

 

^ 

 

I run BC and Wild Blow right now. I'm also insane. 

We can be insane together.

[oscuro.9720]

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

We can be insane together.

This is Warrior forum, everyone here left their sanity long ago. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

46 minutes ago, oscuro.9720 said:

This is Warrior forum, everyone here left their sanity long ago. 

Roughly around Feb2020.

[eXruina.4956]

edit: some furious typing and 💢 gw2 balance. 🔥💪

Edited October 25, 2022 by eXruina.4956

[eXruina.4956]

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

We can be insane together.

boylove. 😱 have room for one more in there? i also a crazy mofo who runs around with only shake it off for survivability. 😉💪

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

12 minutes ago, eXruina.4956 said:

boylove. 😱 have room for one more in there? i also a crazy mofo who runs around with only shake it off for survivability. 😉💪

True man right there.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

I have yet to reach such levels of insanity. Always running 3 stunbreaks in some way. Then again I do fight Deadeyes and Daredevils with Hammer Zerker ☠️

[Zuko.7132]

Just wanted to say that I’m thrilled they used warrior utilities as an example today when talked about improving skills so that they have a viable use. Hopefully that means buffs are coming.