Expanded Weapon Proficiencies Beta Feedback: Warrior

[ApaWanka.2698]

I’ve enjoyed this beta a lot…

From PvP/WvW perspective the weapon perform good, great healing, boons and mobility. As a small scale player that ehat you need to support an small group. 

I’ve loved the staff design and skills (even if 3 pathing and 5 stop by AA had to be addressed) we are on the beta so I would say that I’ve like it and will be great as soon as those 2 issues are resolved. I would say that I’m not a big fan of  3 enemy/ally split… I could live with it. Additionally regeneration it’s not needed on burst if is on AA so different boons based on adrenaline levels would be fun. (Maybe one short stack of stability on 3 bars) 

for the people that had issues with Adrenaline generation I would suggest them to go Core. I’m using tactics, disciple and defense if full support or arms if hybrid celestial with staff/ sword+wh and adrenaline flow easy. 

Defense or Arm are great for Adrenaline generation so I’ve found that Core is the option that works best for me. 

It’s good that finally Core have its own spot to shine in front of Elite xpecs 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by ApaWanka.2698

[Jonaman.5470]

This has been said before, but just chiming in that the functionality split between enemy targeting and ally targeting on staff 3 feels very bad

[HeliosMagi.9867]

Gonna echo everyone else sentiment about Staff 3 ally targeting, it should output its boons and healing regardless of whether an enemy or ally is targeted. To take it a step further, I would also like to see the Protection moved off of Staff 3 and onto Staff 2, so that we can save Staff 3 for on-demand Aegis and Healing instead of having to spam it off-cooldown to maintain Protection.

[ZEUStiger.3590]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but staff 3 (in PvE?) only applied 1 stack of Unblockable, even tho its tooltip implies 3 stacks.

[Matt H.6142]

Spellbreakers using their Sunspears again - it's so Lore perfect, but there's zero synergy except a little bit of insight from skill 4.  Support warrior still fairly unsupported trait-wise, but some fairly good green numbers with the new Vengence trait replacement along with Shout Heals.  Does it offer anything other professions can't?  A bit of unblockable I guess.  Give the old Rev staff skill 2 to Warrior.  Daze on hit.

Oh, but don't think I won't be swearing about warrior trolls moving 1500/3000+ ranges without penalty on another weapon with two movement skills on it plus bull's charge.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Matt H.6142

[EphemeralWallaby.7643]

Has anyone checked to see if/how legendaries affect the skill visuals?

~EpWa

[draxynnic.3719]

2 hours ago, Matt H.6142 said:

Spellbreakers using their Sunspears again - it's so Lore perfect, but there's zero synergy except a little bit of insight from skill 4.  Support warrior still fairly unsupported trait-wise, but some fairly good green numbers with the new Vengence trait replacement along with Shout Heals.  Does it offer anything other professions can't?  A bit of unblockable I guess.  Give the old Rev staff skill 2 to Warrior.  Daze on hit.

Oh, but don't think I won't be swearing about warrior trolls moving 1500/3000+ ranges without penalty on another weapon with two movement skills on it plus bull's charge.

I've heard that it works well in sPvP healbreaker, but you're just not going to see a support build in PvE that's not packing quickness or alacrity...

[HeliosMagi.9867]

4 hours ago, Matt H.6142 said:

  Does it offer anything other professions can't?

100% Resistance uptime. Although that's purely through Banner of Tactics and not anything to do with Staff. Really nice on the few fights where it really matters though.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

12 hours ago, EphemeralWallaby.7643 said:

Has anyone checked to see if/how legendaries affect the skill visuals?

~EpWa

On the pull with an aurene staff.

[Wielder Of Magic.3950]

Feedback on Warrior staff

When it got revealed I was a bit hesitant about it and was unsure if it would be able to carve out a niche.  Now that I have played it (for reference: I tried this in full harriers gear with staff+mace/warhorn. People might optimize this to less healing/less BD and more offense but I wanted to see how it looked when pushed a little) I am actually quite positive about it.

The healing on staff, especially in harriers, is bonkers. The staff auto's and F1 give an extremely comfy permanent regen , you have a 5.5k heal on staff 5, a 6.6k heal on staff 3, a 4.4k/3.2k burst heal and another 2.8k heal on staff 2. That is a massive amount of healing and all of it hits 5 targets.

Boonwise for the build I tried  it is permanent regeneration, permanent swiftness (WH), permanent vigor (WH, under alac), permanent fury, permanent 25 might, permanent resistance (tactics banner) and if you go for it possibly good uptime on resolution as well (and with warhorn a nice 5.5k barrier on top). Pretty loaded kit.

Some points however that could still use improvement in my opinion ( it's the Christmas month, so might as well ask for all of it):
 

Protection uptime is something you want on your healer, if possible permanent uptime. Currently I find it hard to do this unless I spam Staff 3 in combination with Soldiers Comfort off CD. I would really prefer an easier access to protection. Is it possible to maybe move protection to staff 2 (and balance protection uptime accordingly)? This will make it easier to maintain while also freeing up staff 3 to be used for aegis when needed (instead of having to spam it and being unable to save aegis for key moments). And while we are at it, ally/enemy targeting split is a pain on this thing. Please just let it trigger its boons no matter who I target.

But to go back to the earlier point, without a reliable staff 3 you are pretty much forced to bring Banner of Defense if you want an aegis you can trigger when YOU want it instead of spamming it from Staff 3 in hopes that it will come at the right time.

Since we are in a month of giving, I'd also like to ask for maybe some stability. I found it very hard to bring any stability in my kit for my team. Maybe other warriors had some ideas but it felt like I had no choice but to bring Banner of Tactics if I wanted to bring any kind of teamwide stab (and just a single stack at that). Luckily that is a good banner to bring for the resistance anyway, but just one source of stab and only one stack feels meager.

Next point which is a big elephant in the room: Adrenaline. I found myself having a very hard time generating adrenaline on staff unless dedicating multiple utility slots to it (and even then it was meh). It would be great if this weapon (or in a support trait somewhere) could get additional adrenaline gain.

Other practical points: Staff 5 seems to be interruptible by auto attacks (not ideal. I also had issues testing if you can block attacks for allies if you use staff 5 in front of them. If it already does that, cool. If it doesn't yet, pretty please?). And like mentioned earlier, please no ally/enemy effect split on staff 3 and maybe move prot to staff 2.

Relevant specs: I think HealQuick Berserker is the big winner for support warrior. AlacSworn can probably be carried by how strong staff is (even without staff bursts) but feels more limited since it cannot weaponswap for warhorn vigor/barrier/cleanse (and thus has to allocate other slots for it it seems). Staff will probably be able to make it work, but if I had to pick I'd take a Healzerker with Quick over a HealSworn with Alac currently.

 

Cool support weapon, but has kinks that need to be worked out.

[feeper.5287]

Hey Anet devs! First off, thank you for all your hard work! I wanted to give some feedback on staff and by extension heal quick zerker and heal alac bladesworn since staff is clearly intended to help flush out a heal warrior build. My feedback is all based around PvE instanced content as that’s my primary engagement with the game and what I have the most experience in to give proper feedback!

 

Staff

* Bonking your allies back to full health is very satisfying and very fun!

* Staff 2 and burst are very satisfying to press

* 3rd auto attack sound effect could be turned down a lot or just not exist as it's very annoying to hear every few seconds. Otherwise they are good!

* Staff 3 needs to apply prot/aegis when hitting an enemy in PvE as well as an ally as it’s extremely clunky to use. Alternatively you could put the prot on the burst skill as needing to use a mobility skill to apply a very important boon like protection is kind of suspect on certain encounters

* Staff 5 block cancels itself early sometimes for some reason and just feels weird to use in general. I think the delay in it flipping over to the heal part of the skill is too long…? When you need a big burst heal I find myself using staff 2/burst instead as it’s quicker but maybe that is intentional

* Adrenaline generation is very low. Regen/boons converting to adrenaline or just adding extra adrenaline to the weapon would be fantastic. Maybe adding healing conversion to adrenaline on Stalwart Focus since it’s in Discipline which has a lot of adrenaline generation already in it would be a good spot for it

* For any support warrior build, stability is very lacking. Tactics banner needs to give at least two stacks, ideally 5 or put some on another shout/another utility. If Stand Your Ground gives 5 stacks, banners can too 😉 

* Vigorous Shouts needs some more healing on it. Outside of staff our healing is very low and feels very punishing if we can’t weapon swap to it

 

Heal Quick Berserker

* As stated above adrenaline generation is a bit of a problem

* I would love to see warhorn 4 get 0.5 or 1 more second of quickness added to it. No other warrior build outside of healers is going to take warhorn and your out of combat quickness generation is very bad

* Heat the Soul needs to apply quickness upon burst skill activation not hitting a target

* Staff primal burst doing roughly the same healing as a tier 1 burst outside of berserk feels a little weird

 

Heal Alac Bladesworn

* Unfortunately this build doesn’t work. Losing your burst skill and an entire weapon set on a healer just feels awful and being stuck in gunsaber unable to help your team outside of utilities makes it worse. I think Bladesworn is very focused on being a pure DPS or boon DPS spec and should stick with those and not have a half-baked healer build thrown into the mix. It would need to be gig-broken in order for it to be viable

* Alacrity needs to be added to Spellbreaker for any viable heal alac warrior build to exist. Alac can be given through some meditations/revenge counter applying it upon activation (just for some examples!)

* Lush Forest and 600 range alac are pretty poggers but not enough to make this remotely viable in any instanced content outside of kiting in HTCM

 

Overall staff is very fun and is a great start! How the two elite specs work as healers is a bigger issue than staff itself as besides the ally targeting, the weapon is in a good place. Thank you again for all your work and trying to make the game better!

[Smoosh.2718]

After a little pvp testing on the staff. 100% get rid of skill 3's target system. it does not work in this game.

I get the idea you were going with, however having it on one skill does not work with any of warriors kit or playstyle.

The game's system will always show enemy targets over allies making it very very hard to use in a pinch to rescue or save someone from a downed state.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Smoosh.2718

[Myror.7521]

I realy enjoying playing on staff rn. Its a realy fun to play weapon so gj on its design! 🙂

[Flapjackson.1596]

Ally targeting is lame and will always be lame in this game as currently stands with our UI limitations.  
 

The staff isn’t bad but feels too much of the gimmick is weighted in skill 3. I also don’t see this lifting up heal Warrior builds enough to make them appealing when the core Warrior kit is still hopelessly outclassed. Core Warrior traits and utility need an overhaul. 

 

I can’t get behind this playstyle when realistically in PVE the staff will only be used by two hyper-focused DPS specs, Bladesworn and Berserker. Design wise and thematic wise that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Anet, rather than stitch together builds that meet boon/healing metrics, how about you first fix the floor of this profession to better accommodate a supportive fantasy. It sticks out like a sore thumb when Anet tries to force things to work and it really pulls you out of the game.

[Myror.7521]

@Flapjackson.1596 for PvP the best way to Play it as a Support is Spellbraker (for more self sustain and CC)or core warr (more raw healing plus immob). For PvE however well I dont know yet i think we might need at least a Support fokused e-spec for that one ^^

[firedragon.8953]

Seems like a good direction.
However, a few things I'd like to see (many pointed out by others as well). 

 

• Staff skills need blast finishers. This allows us to use our banner light fields for condi cleanse and also makes Relic of Karakosa more enticing for a "blast playstyle." This will synergize with a second weapon set with warhorn and help us heal (with warhorn blast) when we weapon swap. I feel this would really help round out the playstyle on beserker. I propose Staff 2, and maybe one other skill? 
• [I'm guessing this is a placeholder, but just in case] Auto-attack chain 3's sound effect seems out of place (as does Defiant roar's). Maybe consider a "shout/roar" style sound effect rather than a strange Druid chime?
• Skill 2 is great! But, want that blast finisher!
• Skill 3 needs the most work. Should not be a "Rush" skill. This kind of animation always bugs out and is too easy to get stuck on terrain, etc. While you're at it, change the warrior Greatsword 5 Rush animation. I propose a "leap" type skill such as Guardian's Leap of Faith. Additionally, having it split between ally/enemy targeting is needlessly convoluted. Have it do all the things it does and allow it to be ally targetable, but do not require an ally to be targeted for aegis, etc. Stun break could honestly be AoE for up to 5 allies.
• Skill 4 is pretty cool. 
• Skill 5 (Bullet Catcher) should not be able to be interrupted by Auto Attack. That Defiant Roar sound effect though...yikes...

I'll be honest, I don't like Bladesworn (it's not that it's bad per say, it just removes most of the reasons I play warrior). But, I may like staff heal-alacsworn. Some things need to be considered to allow for potential, especially since bladesworn loses access to staff's burst skill. There's most likely more tweaks that could be made in traits, etc. But honestly, I don't play enough BSw to give enough critical feedback.

• The trait River's Flow should also increase outgoing heal (not only incoming).
• Gunsaber Skill 2 (Blooming Fire) [possible ranged heal], Dragonslash Skill 2 (Boost) and Dragonspike Mine Should be a blast finisher (to allow healing with Karakosa [can give more reason to bring Electic Fence (or banner) for Light Field). Using Dragonslash 2 Boost is a nice setup for Staff 2 Valiant Leap to return to the group and will be unlikely to be abused in DPS builds which will almost always prefer Dragonslash 1.
• The core shout skill "On My Mark" should provide a stack of stability (at least in PvE) as this skill seems pretty underwhelming and will allow heal bladesworn to heal (vigorous shouts) and provide stab at will. And honestly, warrior needs a quick on demand stab, even if it is only like 1-2s that doesn't rely on long cast banner or proccing traits.

I think these changes could help round out heal builds on warrior and give them a bit of an "explosive" flavor with the blast finisher and Relic of Karakosa healing. Beserker seems more of a banner support/burst build where Bladesworn would be more of a shout/ammo build.

Edited December 3, 2023 by firedragon.8953

[Riot Inducer.8964]

Staff for warrior has been a real delight I got to say. It's got a good amount of boons and heals but doesn't feel completely anemic in the damage and CC department either. Only skill I had some trouble with was Line Breaker which seemed to target a bit oddly and its movement speed seems inconsistent.

This one has been generally positive all around so only a few critiques:

1. Line breaker only providing boons when Ally targeted makes taking advantage of the boons difficult as you need to have an enemy targeted for the burst skill and the heals and boons that spin off from that. Moving the Protection and Aegis to be a universal effect of the skill but keeping the healing, unblockable and stun break as the ally targeted portion would make the skill more overall useful but retain it's niche use in helping stunned allies out of a bind.
2.  An aesthetic gripe but the echoing "boing" sound used for the burst skill and the end of the auto chain gets a bit grating after a time. If it was only the burst skill it wouldn't be so bad but with it on the auto and burst it's going off every other second, especially on a berserker.

[Aamu.3952]

@ANET, not exactly related to staff, but the Relic of the Warrior doesn't line up with Disciple anymore. 3.75s weapon swap, traits require 4s.

I'd also love to see Relic of the Warrior work with Quick Draw on Ranger, which has a 9s ICD instead of just "when weapon swapping".

Give the relic some love, it's a fun one!

[Torq.4926]

Tested staff mainly in pvp/wvw teamfights and duels, here's some feedback for competitive modes:
-Slow auto chain, hard to generate adrenaline using this. Had to disable auto attack for bugged skill 5 so it also felt worse due to being unable to interrupt autos with other skills.
-Skill 2 is good, solid mobility/healing/boons. Would make sense as a leap or blast finisher.
-Skill 3 looks strong on paper, annoying to use in actual fights because ally targeting is clunky. If you're focused on peeling for someone it works, but mostly ended up saving it for movement. Unblockable seems out of place with otherwise defensive support effects. Enemy target version isn't reliable enough to justify the long animation lock.
-Skill 4 is great, you can about face cast to cover the animation in duels. Useful for interrupting revives and setting up weapon swap combos.
-Skill 5 not bad, 2s block is kind of short for 25s cd but it comes with healing and resolution. Boon duration while blocking seems pointless most of the time. Currently bugged and will often cancel the block if you have auto attack enabled.
-Burst skill is strong, only staff skill that did decent damage on power stats. Had to get used to the range since it uses hammer 3 animation but is 450 instead of 600. Tooltip says this counts as a movement skill for warrior's sprint, probably a bug.
-Primal burst feels nice for an offense oriented version of regular burst. Downside is that it's worse support which might mean coping on something like staff power berserker, limited use case.

Overall I think staff is one of the stronger weapons in the beta, not sure I like how much mobility/sustain this has, maybe a bit too easy to survive on. The lack of damage on most skills should limit its potential as a dueling/sidenode option though. I agree with the general consensus of reworking skill 3 and bugfixing skill 5.

[AquaBR.9250]

Theres still time to rework that staff into throwing spears, we won't judge you.

You have:

• Staff skins that look like spears
• Spear throwing animations (wich are not being used by any weapon)
• The paragon concept being a unique GW thing
• Spellbreaker being the spiritual sucessor of paragon

We don't need another melee staff, neither another healing melee staff, you are just releasing rev's staff for warrior.

Theres no throwing spears staff in the game, that would be unique, a melee heal staff is far from unique

[adammantium.8031]

Agree with everyone about staff 3's targeting being pretty horrible. Rush skills in general are just terribad. Otherwise, this felt a lot of fun. Looking forward to it being on live.

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

@Flapjackson.1596 for PvP the best way to Play it as a Support is Spellbraker (for more self sustain and CC)or core warr (more raw healing plus immob). For PvE however well I dont know yet i think we might need at least a Support fokused e-spec for that one ^^

That's pretty much the issue - spellbreaker feels more like it should have a support option than bladesworn, and in competitive it's something I'm actually looking forward to (and early indications seem to be that staff is good for open world as well), but in PvE you provide quick or alac or you're just not support.

4 hours ago, AquaBR.9250 said:

Theres still time to rework that staff into throwing spears, we won't judge you.

You have:

• Staff skins that look like spears
• Spear throwing animations (wich are not being used by any weapon)
• The paragon concept being a unique GW thing
• Spellbreaker being the spiritual sucessor of paragon

We don't need another melee staff, neither another healing melee staff, you are just releasing rev's staff for warrior.

Theres no throwing spears staff in the game, that would be unique, a melee heal staff is far from unique

Ahhh, yes, having all of two of them does mean that neither is technically unique. Warrior needed a proper support weapon if it was ever to really break into the support role.

Spellbreaker isn't the only thing that has paragon roots, and paragon isn't its only source. There are dervish references in there, and warrior staff feels very heal dervish to me.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

8 hours ago, Aamu.3952 said:

@ANET, not exactly related to staff, but the Relic of the Warrior doesn't line up with Disciple anymore. 3.75s weapon swap, traits require 4s.

Go use it in game. Its shorter than 3.75s.

 

[aymnad.9023]

I tried healing berseker in PvE and healing spellbreaker in PvP. I think there is too much healing with shouts and some of the barrier at the moment. I know you said it is not supposed to be a defensive healer but I feel like there is way too much might on warrior whereas protection is a boon hard to provide. I would decrease some healing values and add a 2s protection somewhere.

Edited December 3, 2023 by aymnad.9023

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Just now, aymnad.9023 said:

I tried healing berseker in PvE and healing spellbreaker in PvP. I think there is too much healing with shouts and some of the barrier at the moment. I know you said it is not supposed to be a defensive healer but I feel like there is way too much might on warrior whereas protection is a boon hard to provide.  I would decrease some healing values and add a 2s protection somewhere.

I'd put it on the F1s personally.