What is up with Spellbreaker meditation skills ?

[WeshGros.9043]

From a PVE pov, I'm baffled at their uselessness. Wiki.

• Every utility skill is either trash or has a better counterpart in core utilities
• Heal skill removes boon on use which nobody wants
• Elite removes 5 boons on 90s cd (lol). Nice combo field though, but still 90s cd. And a dps loss besides using it at the start of a fight or after a downtime.

I heard it was initially a pvp/wvw spec but since the balance split they are still pretty underwhelming/absolute trash. Am i missing something ? Are some of them staple skills for spb builds in pvp/wvw ? Because looking at the pvp/wvw numbers, they don't seem that appealing. But i don't have much experience in these modes.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 minutes ago, WeshGros.9043 said:

From a PVE pov, I'm baffled at their uselessness. Wiki.

• Every utility skill is either trash or has a better counterpart in core utilities
• Heal skill removes boon on use which nobody wants
• Elite removes 5 boons on 90s cd (lol). Nice combo field though, but still 90s cd. And a dps loss besides using it at the start of a fight or after a downtime.

I heard it was initially a pvp/wvw spec but since the balance split they are still pretty underwhelming/absolute trash. Am i missing something ? Are some of them staple skills for spb builds in pvp/wvw ? Because looking at the pvp/wvw numbers, they don't seem that appealing. But i don't have much experience in these modes.

Meditations have been trash this entire time. They could stand to be reworked along with Spellbreaker.

[WeshGros.9043]

I mean, i get utility skills are just a part of an elite spec, but every one of them beeing useless feels weird.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

2 hours ago, WeshGros.9043 said:

I mean, i get utility skills are just a part of an elite spec, but every one of them beeing useless feels weird.

Yeah thats just the trend on Warrior in general. Particularly in competitive modes. Majority of the utility skills are too niche, majority of traits from Core/Elite Specializations are too niche or not useful.

Its why its rough watching all these other classes have tools when Warrior just...doesn't.

[draxynnic.3719]

Berserker and bladesworn utilities do at least see use, though, while meditations are just bad.

If you ask me, meditations could probably stand to be a bit more willbender-y. Their lore suggests a guerilla fighter role (get in, kill the Awakened spellcaster, get out...), and the spellbreaker stuff is supposed to be essentially a W/Me theme, and mesmers do have mobility. Leaning more into the things that mesmers normally do (apart from illusions) could make spellbreaker meditations much more interesting.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I think it was a very weird choice to make berserker and bladesworn the boon specs, they could have baked some support into spellbreaker meditations and given it one of the boons.

[Cuks.8241]

Well Break Enchantments and Wod were slowly nerfed from staple front line Spb WvW skills to being borderline useless. And Spb kind of with it. That's pretty much the only place they saw play. Yeah maybe OP at some point, especially Wod. But I can't see how anyone can say the current iterations are fine, especially when Necro can do it way better at 900 range. And I am not saying Necro should be nerfed because you can't really nerf boon removal anymore that they did.

[KryTiKaL.3125]

47 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

Well Break Enchantments and Wod were slowly nerfed from staple front line Spb WvW skills to being borderline useless. And Spb kind of with it. That's pretty much the only place they saw play. Yeah maybe OP at some point, especially Wod. But I can't see how anyone can say the current iterations are fine, especially when Necro can do it way better at 900 range. And I am not saying Necro should be nerfed because you can't really nerf boon removal anymore that they did.

The way Necro does it better as well is entirely hypocritical of the nerfs applied to Spellbreaker considering Necro not only primarily corrupts boons, they are doing it on a much higher frequency of application as well as a good number of these skills being AoEs while also applying damaging conditions.

But naw, WoD and Break Enchantments were too strong.

[sneakytails.5629]

I play Core Warrior more because of things like this.

[Zekent.3652]

Natural Healing: it's a meme and always has been.

Sight beyond Sight: it's a meme, had some use for zerg GvGs but no one plays spellbreaker since all these nerfs over the years.

Featherfoot Grace: still useful after some buffs but was hard nerfed without a real compensation since the change of the resistance boon.

Imminent Threat: it's a meme and always has been.

Break Enchantments: overnerfed for both WvW and PvP.

Winds: overnerfed for WvW and no one picks it for PvP.

 

Edited October 27, 2023 by Zekent.3652

[WeshGros.9043]

On 10/26/2023 at 6:23 AM, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

I think it was a very weird choice to make berserker and bladesworn the boon specs, they could have baked some support into spellbreaker meditations and given it one of the boons.

I agree, role distribution wise it would have been better to put quickness on spellbreaker since it is now the only warrior spec with 1 to 1.25 (boon rip) role.

 

14 hours ago, sneakytails.5629 said:

I play Core Warrior more because of things like this.

Just imagine a new player unlocking Spb be like "Great, 1/3rd half with weapon mastery of this elite spec is useless". 😂

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Zekent.3652 said:

Natural Healing: it's a meme and always has been.

Sight beyond Sight: it's a meme, had some use for zerg GvGs but no one plays spellbreaker since all these nerfs over the years.

Featherfoot Grace: still useful after some buffs but was hard nerfed without a real compensation since the change of the resistance boon.

Imminent Threat: it's a meme and always has been.

Break Enchantments: overnerfed for both WvW and PvP.

Winds: overnerfed for WvW and no one picks it for PvP.

 

I think another part of the problem is that a lot of these skills are pretty close to what core utility skills already do. Berserker Stance also gives resistance (and resistance happens to grant blind immunity). On My Mark inflicts revealed (although it can't reveal someone who's already revealed). Core warrior has at least a couple of skills that apply some sort of CC around them. The relevant meditations might offer different mixes of those capabilities, but apart from boon removal, they're just variants on existing capabilities. While on the boon removal side... spellbreaker normally has enough that bringing Break Enchantments isn't likely to be what makes the difference.

Most elite specialisations have utilities that offer something fundamentally different to what the core utilities provide. Spellbreaker, not so much.

[draxynnic.3719]

27 minutes ago, WeshGros.9043 said:

I agree, role distribution wise it would have been better to put quickness on spellbreaker since it is now the only warrior spec with 1 to 1.25 (boon rip) role.

Personally, I had been thinking alacrity. Could have gone with a 'steal your power to recharge myself and my allies' theme.

Edited October 27, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[Aaron.1294]

@WeshGros.9043some meditations were nerfed to the ground because anet wanted them to do specific things... (break enchantments especially). Best thing is - right after they nerfed it's dmg they just put a better and quicker version of it on herald... 

[Dadnir.5038]

They are flavor skills with a sprinkle of forum players' dreams. They are like a cat that want to pet him but always manage to stand just a tiny bit out of your reach (At least that's how my cat behave).

[JTGuevara.9018]

(shakes head)

So many people miss the basic point of spellbreaker. It was designed primarily as a multiplayer spec with boon-stripping abilities. It went a bit beyond what was the established gw2 status quo of the so-called "unholy trinity" of dps/support/cc. For a while, it was the most interesting warrior spec to date.

Reworking it to "support" just to satisfy some rando youtubers is a recipe for comedy. Bladesworn(or the equivalent 4th e-specialization) SHOULD'VE been the support spec instead of the bootleg samurai it actually is.

[Lighter.5631]

even in pvp, all meditations are trash

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

(shakes head)

So many people miss the basic point of spellbreaker. It was designed primarily as a multiplayer spec with boon-stripping abilities. It went a bit beyond what was the established gw2 status quo of the so-called "unholy trinity" of dps/support/cc. For a while, it was the most interesting warrior spec to date.

Reworking it to "support" just to satisfy some rando youtubers is a recipe for comedy. Bladesworn(or the equivalent 4th e-specialization) SHOULD'VE been the support spec instead of the bootleg samurai it actually is.

Most elite specialisations that have been given a boondps role weren't originally designed as such, and enough of the original purpose of the elite specialisation remains in traits and utilities that the elite specialisation is still capable of performing its original function. It wouldn't be a matter of reworking it to support, so much as finding a suitable trait to allow it to grant alacrity. As with some other cases, this could well be a PvE-only thing, with it having a different boon or other benefit in competitive. There's no reason it couldn't have the option for an alacrity role in PvE while also retaining boonstripping in competitive. Alacrity has also generally been portrayed as a more 'magical' boon, so having it on the warrior elite specialisation that deals with magic would have made thematic sense.

Heck, one approach would be to make it so that it gains alacrity when stripping a boon, while in PvE, it gains alacrity when using a boonstrip skill regardless of whether the target has a boon to strip or not. Could then make Phalanx Strength apply to alacrity as well as might, so a boon build would require investing in Tactics as well.

[Fueki.4753]

10 hours ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

(shakes head)

So many people miss the basic point of spellbreaker. It was designed primarily as a multiplayer spec with boon-stripping abilities. It went a bit beyond what was the established gw2 status quo of the so-called "unholy trinity" of dps/support/cc. For a while, it was the most interesting warrior spec to date.

Reworking it to "support" just to satisfy some rando youtubers is a recipe for comedy. Bladesworn(or the equivalent 4th e-specialization) SHOULD'VE been the support spec instead of the bootleg samurai it actually is.

As we can see with Spellbreaker's boon rip having been gutted over and over again, that original design has no point anymore.

At this point, Spellbreaker is just Full Partial Counter and Daggers (if one doesn't own SotO).

Unless Arenanet is bringing the boon rip up to the level of their beloved boon vomit to be able to counter it properly (which I doubt they'll ever do), they ought to give Spellbreaker something else that gives it some kind of identity that is more than just F2 and weapons.

While I don't think boon support should be that something, we all know what kind of player they tend to listen to.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I've said it before, I'll say it again. There is very little needed to give Spellbreaker a support option.

• Guard counter grants protection in an AoE
  • Meditations grant AoE protection at a lesser duration
• Slow Counter now grants AoE alacrity in addition to its previous effects
  • Meditations grant AoE alacrity at a lesser duration
• Revenge Counter now grants AoE resistance.
  • Meditations grant AoE resistance at a lesser duration

Then with Banner of Defense, Tactics, FGJ, WoD, and Warhorn you give the following:

• Protection
• Alacrity
• Resistance
• Resolution via Double Standards
• Might
• Fury
• Vigor
• Swiftness
• Regeneration
• Stability
• some minor quickness
• Aegis
• Barrier

The only thing hold that back then is Tactics healing the warrior instead of allies on Mending Might. Natural Healing's self boon rip would need to be removed so that it can be taken to fill boon gaps as well.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Lan Deathrider.5910

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Natural Healing's self boon rip would need to be removed so that it can be taken to fill boon gaps as well.

In my opinion, that self-boon rip needs to be removed, regardless of any other changes to Spellbreaker. It feels really stupid to me, that boon rip across the board get neutered, except for this one.

Either that, or half the cast time and grant bonus healing for each unique boon removed.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

In my opinion, that self-boon rip needs to be removed, regardless of any other changes to Spellbreaker. It feels really stupid to me, that boon rip across the board get neutered, except for this one.

Either that, or half the cast time and grant bonus healing for each unique boon removed.

Something. Though to be honest just making it an AoE boonrip on others is what needs to happen. I get the flavor, it harkens back to GW1 and Dervish's version of the skill, but Dervish  had benefits to stripping their own enchantments. Attacker's Insight is not strong enough to justify this effect on a heal skill though. Way too onerous.