What Needs to be Done With Warrior in PvP

[Yerlock.4678]

 

It just goes to show that the dead specs were so dead that even an attempt to resuscitate them with buffs failed. 
 

We need buffs in Strength, Tactics, Arms, and Berzerker and Bladesworn specs to make these two specs viable in pvp again.

 

These are just a few examples and many many more are needed. But suffice to say there is plenty worth balancing and addressing with warrior in general to catch it up to other specs. While power creep is always a factor and concern, keep in mind that reworks do a massive amount of the heavy lifting, as number changes can always be more easily implemented and changed.

 

• Let us store our bullets in combat while in dragon trigger so we don't have to be as insanely vulnerable. This will add to the low skill ceiling for the spec and add more interesting gameplay. You did this sort of idea with Berserk mode (which was very good and warranted) and now we need a similar change with our F2.
• Buff the baseline damage of all the Dragon Slashes.
• Buff Might Makes Right so that BS can get more healing (also would encourage Strength sb's which are lacking now as they all favor Defense).
• Decrease the cd of Shrug it Off to 45 seconds (33 when traited) and removing 3 condition's instead of 1.
• Increase the range of Dragon's Roar to make pistol more viable.
• Decrease the cd of Dragon Spike mine to 30 seconds.
• Increase the range of Flicker Step to 350 at least.
• Overcharged Cartridges should be buffed so that explosions also have an increased blast radius by a certain amount (in addition to their other effects).
• Update the cd for Dragonscale Defense so that it has the correct display of 8, not 15. Also increase the duration of protection to 5 seconds.
• Daring Dragon should be reworked to where the subsequent Dragon Slashes happen immediately after following the first one. No more charging up every single time. It would happen back to back to back immediately until adrenaline runs out.
• Flow Stabilizer needs a buff. 
• Tactical Reload should reload 3 ammo on the users pistol instead of the current 1. That way it'll again incentivize pistol use and also could lead up to big pistol explosion combinations.
• Brave Stride in Strength should be buffed so that we have more Stability access.
• Sword 2 and 3 skills should have their animations cleaned up and slightly sped up. This is especially needed with sword 3.
• Flurry needs a massive increase in speed and/or dps, as right now it feels lackluster and inconsequential.
• Many Berzerker Primal Burst skills feel outdated or underwhelming. Some sort of pass on these to make them more effective would help.
• Berzerker Rage skills also need more love. Skills like Sundering Leap and Outrage need another pass to make them more viable.
• Signet of Rage should get a buff of some kind. I recommend increased passive adrenaline from 2 to 3, and granting 10 adrenaline on use. Also increasing the might and fury/swiftness duration to about 8 seconds. In truth, the swiftness duration could easily come up to 15-20 seconds without any worry.
• Dolyak Signet should have its healing on use increased to 2100 as opposed to 1600.
• Balanced Stance should have its cd reduced from 50 to 45 seconds.
• Last Stand should have vigor increased from 6 to 8 seconds. The barrier should go from 1700 to 2000. This is a Grandmaster trait and should be a strong option for stance users.
• Berzerker’s Stance should have its cd reduced to 30 seconds, and also grant resolution as well as resistance. 
  Arms needs massive swaths of changes/reworks to make this spec more viable in competitive. Too much to list.
• Warrior’s Cunning and Double Standards should be swapped. This would allow support builds to use banners without the need for Discipline.
• Banners in general need a rework. This could take a variety of forms but in general they need to be more fun/exciting to play.
• Heightened Focus needs a slight rework in my opinion. This should grant quickness upon using a burst skill. This would make bursts faster followed by a few seconds of quickness afterwards for a few seconds.
• Eviscerate needs a slight damage increase.
• Mace 5 should have its shockwave slightly spread out as it travels at range. This would make it a more viable ranged ability. Right now it tends to not hit the opponent some of the time due to the lack of coverage.
• Featherfoot Grace should also grant Resolution.
• Frenzy should have its cd reduced to 30 seconds.
• Stomp should have a faster animation speed and/or be given with aegis.
• Level 2 and 3 adrenaline skills for core warrior should have more bonus effects other than just “more damage”. For example level 2 eviscerate could have more damage and range, and level 3 even further range and damage.
• Berzerker’s Power should grant the damage bonus upon using the burst skill, as well as a few seconds afterwards. This would allow burst skills to show their strength and have still more damage tied to it afterwards as a result. If it was too overbearing you could reduce the damage bonus to a slightly smaller amount after the burst hit, which would have the full damage increase effect.

Edited February 28, 2023 by gmmg.9210

[Infusion.7149]

Do you honestly think a wall of suggestions is going to be the course of action?
Modifying so many things at once means you do not have a control in your experiment. The very least that could be done is making Dragon Slash - Force actually do damage on par with core burst.

Likewise your modification to banners affects PvE so it could be potentially upsetting PvE balance as it forces tactics.

[eXruina.4956]

i agree, think they've had tons of suggestions by now, and pretty much know by now the things people find wrong with warrior. i think they want to and should do this their own way, instead of being force fed changes and designs from the forums.

 

just look at the new eternal champion, it was very well thought out, an excellent trait and design. there will be hits, and misses, but i feel we're in good hands and going in the right direction. better than we had for years over the last quarter.

 

despite this, i still don't think they understand the warrior struggle, i think they should really, really play warrior extensively to understand how unrewarding it is to play warrior compared to the other 8 classes in today's game.

Edited February 27, 2023 by eXruina.4956

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

45 minutes ago, eXruina.4956 said:

despite this, i still don't think they understand the warrior struggle, i think they should really, really play warrior extensively to understand how unrewarding it is to play warrior compared to the other 8 classes in today's game.

And this is why detailed feedback remains (or should be) important.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Some things that I would do:

Strength:

• Building Momentum applies per foe struck, reduced to 10 endurance gain per foe struck.
• Brave Stride now grants 2 stacks of stability for 3s. CD is unchanged. When you have Stability gain 1 might per second.
• Restorative Strength now activates Lesser For Great Justice when a heal skill is used. Lesser For Great Justice is a copy of the PvE version in all game modes.
• Body Blow now applies weakness, slow, and cripple when connecting with a CC. Deal 5% more damage to a foe for each of these conditions they suffer from.

Tactics:

• Unlink Marching Orders from Soldier's Comfort and Martial Cadence.
• Soldier's Comfort now heals for 250 HP in an area around the warrior and and extra 500 HP per tier of Burst used. Scaling on the added healing is 0.5/1.0/1.5 per tier. There is no longer a CD.
• Shrug it Off now heals if any condition is removed, and it removes 3 conditions instead of 1.
• Marital Cadence now grants 1.5s of quickness plus 1.5s more per tier of adrenaline spent. These amounts are reduced to 0.5s if the Bladesworn Specialization is selected.

Arms:

• Wounding Precision now inflicts 1 stack of torment for 3s when inflicting bleed. No CD.
• Stacks of Signet of Ferocity from Signet Mastery no longer disappear when using a mount or skiff.
• Opportunist no longer grants fury. You now gain 10% increased critical strike chance if the opponent is suffering from a movement impairing condition. Inflicting movement impairing conditions now grant 2 adrenaline with no CD.
• Unsuspecting Foe now inflicts 3 stacks of confusion for 5s when you strike a foe with a CC in addition to its previous effects.
• Bloodlust now heals the warrior for 50 HP (0.1 scaling) when they inflict bleed on a target in addition to its previous effects.
• Burst Precision no grants +50% critical strike chance for 1s plus 1s more per adrenaline bar spent.
• Dual Wielding: You now grant boons to nearby allies on a critical strike (10s CD) based on your OH weapon:
  • Sword: Fury, 5s
  • Mace: Protection, 5s
  • Axe: Quickness, 2s
  • Warhorn: Regeneration, 5s
  • Shield: Resistance, 2s
  • Dagger:  Might x2, 5s
  • Pistol: Aegis, 1s
  • Torch: Resistance, 2s

Berserker:

• Bloody Roar no longer grants resistance. It instead Taunts in an area for 2s when entering or leaving Berserk Mode. You deal 5% more damage, doubled if you are in Berserk Mode.
• Burst of Aggression now grants 2s of Resistance in addition to its previous effects.
• Smash Brawler now grants 3 might for 5s whenever Berserk Mode is extended in addition to it's previous effects.
• The ability to exit Berserk Mode is removed from Eternal Champion and made baseline.

Spellbreaker:

• Guard Counter and Revenge Counter now grant their boons in a radius around the Spellbreaker.
• Magebane Tether now grants Might around the Spellbreaker in all game modes. The might granted has been increased from 1 stack to 2 in all game modes.
• Dispelling Force now triggers regardless if the foe has stability. This ability now has a boon rip priority similar to Bountiful Theft (obviously not counting Aegis here).
• Meditations now grant their effects to allies in the area where applicable.

Bladesworn:

• The aftercasts added to the Gunsaber skills after their projectile rework are removed. the projectile portions of these skills deal  20% more damage in all game modes.
• Pistol 5 now has 600 range.
• The Master tier of traits now activate when hitting with an explosion.
• Daring Dragon now pulses stability for 1s while in Dragon Trigger in PvP/WvW. In PvE it cleanses 1 condition  per  bullet charged.

[Hotride.2187]

10 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Dispelling Force now triggers regardless if the foe has stability. This ability now has a boon rip priority similar to Bountiful Theft (obviously not counting Aegis here).

This means 1 CC ability that connects (but didn't CC) rips all stacks stab, I doubt this will ever be a thing neither in spvp nor in wvw; it will be obscenely OP on spb. Maybe boon removal priority on breaching strike though its already overloaded. Dispelling Force removing boons regardless of stability on its own would be a good buff, just make it unable to rip stability.

Quote

Meditations now grant their effects to allies in the area where applicable.

IMO this will drive the CD of featherfoot grace up. It might be great for a support build (if you even find a free slot for it) but for a dps build you'll be back to endure pain (if you even ran featherfoot grace).

Edited February 28, 2023 by Hotride.2187

[Myror.7521]

What need to be done .....

 

Well gues what Finaly Nerf ele ..... Thats litterly everything xD

[Zuko.7132]

Defense spellbreaker is still solid, even if it’s not meta. What needs to be done is buffs to Strength to compete with Defense, Arms because it sucks, give tactics some better support, and buffs to Berserker and Bladesworn. I don’t care if we’re meta, so long as all the options are solid.

[Dahkeus.8243]

That's a meta of 4 builds.  The problem is not warrior.

[Peacekid.1463]

guys ask boyce or drazeh on what to do with warriors lol

[Dr Meta.3158]

I looked at the link and spellbreaker is on the list as meta. I'm a bit lost here.

https://ibb.co/R3w9bH3

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

19 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I looked at the link and spellbreaker is on the list as meta. I'm a bit lost here.

https://ibb.co/R3w9bH3

 

Websites can change in time you know.

[Dr Meta.3158]

11 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Websites can change in time you know.

Sorry, missed the balance patch between yesterday and today.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Dr Meta.3158

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Just now, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Sorry, missed the balance patch between yesterday and today.

Or Metabattle's site changed between yesterday and today.

[Dr Meta.3158]

2 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Or Metabattle's site changed between yesterday and today.

They must have just looked over the balance patch yesterday. 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Lmao the "lose meta position" speedrun only applying to warriors is so goddamn funny.

If only other classes would get corrected in 30 days or less. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[CalmTheStorm.2364]

26 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

They must have just looked over the balance patch yesterday. 

More likely they waited to see how the MAT would play out. The classes listed on the site are (probably not coincidentally) the ones used on the winning MAT teams from NA and EU.

 

Back to the topic at hand, SpB is certainly still competitive in the meta. The bigger issue is likely that elementalist remains overpowered and is gatekeeping a lot of other specs out of the meta. Pruning back cata and tempest some more would probably open things up quite a bit. For instance, I bet you'd see a lot more ranger specs if ele's and all their damnable reflects weren't so prevalent.

 

Warrior specs that aren't SpB certainly aren't vying for spots in the meta, though, so the OP's list of suggestions is still worthy of consideration.

[Yerlock.4678]

20 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Do you honestly think a wall of suggestions is going to be the course of action?
Modifying so many things at once means you do not have a control in your experiment. The very least that could be done is making Dragon Slash - Force actually do damage on par with core burst.

Likewise your modification to banners affects PvE so it could be potentially upsetting PvE balance as it forces tactics.

Support warriors have to go tactics for shouts. Putting banners in tactics means freeing up a trait line for something else if wanted. Regardless, banners need reworks.

 

this isn’t a “all at once” change I’m recommending but a list of ideas. I know they would never do this many changes at once.