Base Warrior Profession mechanic idea

[Arewn.2368]

The recently announced Weapon Master system being rolled out to all professions is pretty exciting, but it is also encroaching on what little identity Warrior has. Which got me thinking, Warrior's profession mechanic itself is pretty indistinct and lacking, so what can we do to address this?

Fast Hands baseline has been a popular idea for a long time, and fits the theme. So I decided to run with that idea as a starting point... by removing it altogether.

Hear me out, here's the idea:

Fast Hands has been removed from the game.

F1 is now your front-bar weapon's Burst skill

F2 is now your back-bar weapon's Burst skill

F3 is now for elite spec skills

Both burst skills are available at all times, regardless of what weapon is currently active. Using a burst skill now weapon-swaps to the corresponding weapon. This effect has no cooldown and does not trigger the weapon-swap cooldown. 

You don't have to worry about an internal swap cooldown or anything funky. The only limiting factor is the cooldown of the burst skills themselves. Every time you use a burst skill, you swap to that weapon.

Regular weapon swapping still exists, and has the standard 10 sec cooldown.

This would hugely increase the frequency at which we can swap between weapons, make our burst skills more readily available, and I think feels like a more distinct and on-theme direction for Warrior's profession mechanic.

 

I would also take this opportunity to add a little something to signet of rage. Perhaps have it refresh all burst skills when activated.

For Berserker: this would obviously apply to Primal Bursts in the same way.

For Bladesworn: You removed our second weapon set, so stop pretending weapon swap is there. Remove the cooldown of Sheath/unsheath gunsaber altogether, and disable the weapon swap button.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Point of interest. If this were to happen, then I say you'd have to make Bursts usable at 0 adrenaline with obviously a T0 level of a burst and only grant 1 stack if the relevant trait buffs/condition cleanses.

[Arewn.2368]

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Point of interest. If this were to happen, then I say you'd have to make Bursts usable at 0 adrenaline with obviously a T0 level of a burst and only grant 1 stack if the relevant trait buffs/condition cleanses.

Hm I'd almost say the opposite. The only thing functioning as a limit to how frequently you can weapon swap using this mechanic are the limits on how frequently you can burst. I'm proposing this with the idea that it would have no internal cooldown, so as a balancing factor I would posit that Bursts can't be free. 
Keep in mind that in addition to this mechanic, you still retain the standard weapon swap button on a 10 sec cooldown.

I absolutely support the removal of adrenaline decay though. Or at the very least, a floor to adrenaline decay (for example, it stops decaying at 10). You should be able to open combat with a Burst skill if you want to.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

24 minutes ago, Arewn.2368 said:

Hm I'd almost say the opposite. The only thing functioning as a limit to how frequently you can weapon swap using this mechanic are the limits on how frequently you can burst. I'm proposing this with the idea that it would have no internal cooldown, so as a balancing factor I would posit that Bursts can't be free. 
Keep in mind that in addition to this mechanic, you still retain the standard weapon swap button on a 10 sec cooldown.

I absolutely support the removal of adrenaline decay though. Or at the very least, a floor to adrenaline decay (for example, it stops decaying at 10). You should be able to open combat with a Burst skill if you want to.

The bursts themselves still have CDs so with your proposal there is still a limit. Some setups would bypass that in certain ways, but those two situations would setup skill combos with warrior's limited available arsenal that it would be a good thing.

[TyrantPuppy.1893]

I like a lot of this tbh. & It can be fine-tuned ofc as needed. Fast Hands has needed to be baseline forever, burst mastery should actually affect Dragon Trigger stance cooldown, not the slashes slashes, which is doubly irrelevant now that old Daring Dragon is gone.

To that point ^ we need more fun Traits like old, fun [During Dragon] (please bring it back,) not fewer. But like, on other specs too. [Eternal Champion] was a good step, but then DD was nuked from orbit because PvE people thought it sucked and complained (it didn't.) So 1 step forward 2 back if you count having 2 Bladesworn utilities exclusively for PvE because they don't want to redo the Bullet Scaling calculation for DPS.

>> What we really need tho, is someone on the balance team who actually knows what makes Warrior fun, & gives the remotest care about making it fun. Not just punishing people who used a fun skill (arc divider) by taking it away instead of just nerfing the damage. <<

I really like the energy of the Warrior section here. Mostly amazing ideas, a lot of which (like making Fast Hands baseline,) would be simple to implement and go a LONG way towards modernizing Warrior play for 2023+. But it's never gonna matter if someone at ANet doesn't start giving a sh*t about the class. And if the above ^ doesn't indicate their current attitude of apathy towards it I don't know what will. We're not even true weaponsmasters' anymore since literally all of our weapons are outdated, the other classes are getting wayyy cooler layouts, and we're not even getting what Cal acknowledged as our true last spec's weapon (Gunsaber.) It's only gotten worse in the last 10 years & isn't going to start improving now.

Tbh you might as well just delete your Warrior now and play a Guardian, since they're getting pistols anyway. Or take all that amazing amount of positive energy & build something useful. Or, just play another game.

[Leo G.4501]

I like this too. There are several utilities that grant full adrenaline too so weapon swapping can using a combo of weapon swap and burst would make this pretty keen. I don't have a huge issue with some limitations on this, like needing to get to tier 1 burst. I had a different idea on another thread about adrenaline decay giving you accelerated cooldowns (that are on cooldown) rather than just disappearing. Overall, I don't have a problem with adrenaline decay, it's the ramp up to get started that's trouble...but again, we have utilities for that IF you take them...it's a build choice there.

If this were a thing, the new Fast Hands could be something like reduced weapon skill cooldowns for a period of time after triggering a weapon swap. Could be useful if you coupled it with shield off-hand to swap into and cut down on its cooldown, for example. If that's even possible (limit the cooldown redux to only weapon skills) I have no idea.

That and I'd want more and greater effects for Discipline that specifically target the trigger of weapon swapping. This spec needs an attack on weapon swap or something. There's only 3 traits that trigger on weapon swap. Make that the core feature of picking Discipline.

[Arewn.2368]

1 hour ago, Leo G.4501 said:

I like this too. There are several utilities that grant full adrenaline too so weapon swapping can using a combo of weapon swap and burst would make this pretty keen. I don't have a huge issue with some limitations on this, like needing to get to tier 1 burst. I had a different idea on another thread about adrenaline decay giving you accelerated cooldowns (that are on cooldown) rather than just disappearing. Overall, I don't have a problem with adrenaline decay, it's the ramp up to get started that's trouble...but again, we have utilities for that IF you take them...it's a build choice there.

If this were a thing, the new Fast Hands could be something like reduced weapon skill cooldowns for a period of time after triggering a weapon swap. Could be useful if you coupled it with shield off-hand to swap into and cut down on its cooldown, for example. If that's even possible (limit the cooldown redux to only weapon skills) I have no idea.

That and I'd want more and greater effects for Discipline that specifically target the trigger of weapon swapping. This spec needs an attack on weapon swap or something. There's only 3 traits that trigger on weapon swap. Make that the core feature of picking Discipline.

Oh I really like your point about weapon swap traits. That would be a great focal point of a revised Discipline line.

And yeah, we have a fair few options for generating adrenaline. Those utilities skill that give full adrenaline could be made all the more valuable based on how burst skill are being used. I'd like to see Adrenaline be something important that we pay attention to. But one way or another we really need the flexibility of being able to use burst skills,  even if only at T1, right off the bat when entering combat

[DanAlcedo.3281]

If core Warrior would get F2, I would be so happy.