Warrior class is getting useless

I'm realizing that for a few months now , warrior is getting completly useless in both PvE and PvP in comparaison of assassin or dervish, and this is in my opinion due to several reasons ( i'm going to talk about whole game in general , not a specific format):

- Not anything to maintain attack faster + move faster at same without any negative point... Sins can do with WotA + Djinn haste , Dervish can do thanks to recent update... Even Ranger can with rampage as one....
Primal rage is the closest , but you have a big handicap

- Not enough damage in comparaison to other classes... I realized that axe warrior isn't really nice.. Warriors are good when used at teamplay , with easy deepwound for spikes , but otherwise it's not necessarely good... Dervish and Sins just have to spam skills to deal more damage and even many conditions , whereas an axe warrior can't do anything....

- People are bringing big counters to heavy damage sins and dervishs , thus warriors suffer of this even more.... You most of time can't even charge adrenaline when opponent has bonnetis/balanced , bsurge , empathy spam ( this part concerns RA , especially when you have 0 monk and then , warrior is totally useless)... Taking enchants such as conjure is also good for sword warrior

- In PvE , warriors could be used as tanks , yet today people prefer shadow form for obvious reasons , spirits or minions that tank bad IA mobs better . Even in SC builds , people can still afford replacing a 100b warrior by a 100b sin or a dervish..... Earlier i was pugging fow , and i was really looking ridiculous compared to other 2 sins in team...

- Meta isn't really changing. I'm not going to talk about BB warrior since the problem wasn't at all about the warrior in itself , but in both HA and GvG , meta builds have been the same for years now... Axe Warrior and Hammer Warrior for HA , standard triple melee for GvG... The problem here is that too many elites are useless , or are better by an other profession.....

My general opinion is that the most dervish and sins will get buffed , the most warriors will suffer from it from everyway..I also believe that warrior should deal a bit more damage , but that would require thoughts... What do you guys think??

Past that, every class has their strength's weaknesses and they have ebbed and flowed over time, it is part of the "balance" process that is any online game with multiple professions.

Warriors by and far have been the bellwether for frontline play since gw's inception so to take the backseat for a short time cant be a horrible thing.

I have a feeling this is more about pvp then pve. My pve warrior does not feel useless at all even with all the melee hate in some parts of the game.

I think they need some more oomph, really.

Hammers, especially. They should be reworked like scythes, to normal attack speed (it's ridiculous how Anet made hammers slow. Lose the armor from shields, mods from shields, use low +XX damage numbers in skills AND make skills mainly adrenaline based? And then they make it strike slower than normal...) so the adrenaline would be more manageable.

Swords are nice, but only with a few skills (Hundred blades and Dragon slash).

Axes are supposed to be AoE, which they lost to Hundred blades. Why exactly?

seriously? have you played Earthshaker KD ?

Drunken Master - though provided you need lvl5 alcohol

hmmm not my playstyle if that's the case

In missions (focusing on zaishen missions with pugs), i don't dare to invite a sin. Mission is about time (esp. in factions), you're not going to sit and wait for the sin to ball mobs and spike. I prefer to have someone like warrior's 80AL , go in and absorb the initial spike dmg.

Yesterday in Tahnakai Temple zaishen mission, this sin that the party leader invited was utterly useless. This sin died the most, just going in to get slaughter.

SC is another story. Sin obviously dominates.

Let see..
1) Dragon Slash
2) 100b
3) Earthshaker for Utility Knockdown

Dmg wise in PvE, most casters does that for you (Mesmers, Necros, SoS), each profession has their own respective role. IMO, Warrior's role is not really about doing the (over 9000 dmg), but to do act as frontline (absorb dmg, attract aggro) and let the mid-line (aka. casters) do the work.

nah, i wouldn't worry, HA will soon just be the 40 or so hard core bbwayers and gvg will be only for the very patient, i'd give up worrying and find another game

Swords are the only weapons that could be considered for a buff, hammers and axes are still raping everything they encounter. The damage of warriors is absolutely wicked sick and even their primary attribute gives a damage boost. They have a large arsenal of highly efficient knockdowns with an insignia giving them 3 sec kd. And whats wrong with costing adrenaline? its only good and every warrior carries a furious spear! buffing hammer attack speed is out of the question, the dervish buff was completely over the top and not to say the least the idea to buff scythes which already was a incredibly powerful weapon. Hammers hurt seriously and as such do a shock axe warrior tearing you a new behind. Assassins do not have the durability of the warrior and is even easier to shut down not to mention that they do not output as much pressure.

Yes dervishes was more used during this period but thats because they were ridiculous and thankfully we are now seeing more warriors in the meta again and everything is settling down into normal again.

Don't get me wrong, warriors are easily countered but its still that the matches seems to resolve around keeping the other teams three warriors from killing your party members that ensures that your teams warriors can kill their teams party members which keeps their warriors clean so they can kill your party members helping their warriors to kill and etc. They are the killing power.

I love to have the warriors back on the field and boy, have we been missing them! But they do not need a buff, dervishes needed a nerf which they got. Warriors are the number one pvp profession.

Warriors are tons of fun to play but to be honest if you buffed them offensively any more they would shatter the atmosphere and the sonic boom of their hammers would daze everyone within miles.

Swords on the other hand is more deserving of a possible buff to keep them more in line with their fellow warrior weapons counterparts but not better than them. The problem is where to begin with swords? Any suggestions?

I wouldn't mind seeing warrior updates in some areas where they've been replaced, but they certainly still have a place. They are probably one of the more "balanced" classes, the problem is that several other classes have reached OP status in many areas (while others are clearly underpowered in comparison). It would probably be better to nerf some of the OP things (like shadow form) or make them easier for a warrior to use. Swords could definitely use a PvP buff, Sword warriors are a joke over there. Axe could use a small buff too but it isn't quite as desperately needed.

I think the problem is that swords will be inherently worse than the new scythe unless you make sword attack skills REALLY good. You could change the sword to do more damage but that will throw off the balance with axe.

On the PvE side of things, warriors certainly arn't useless. They are a very versatile class, bringing many different viable playstyles to a party. Probably the thing that makes them stand out most from the dervish and the assassin is their KD capabilities. Dervs have very few options for KDing, and assassins only have a few as well (all of which have relatively long recharges). Warriors have plenty of options for KDing, have a powerful AoE KD, and have many skills that operate off KDs by producing large sums of damage or additional conditions.

Warriors are still pretty powerful at AoE attacks. Each weapon line has their own methods for producing AoE.

SY is still rediculously OP, and along with paragons, warriors are better at spamming SY than dervs, rangers, or assassins.

Warriors, like dervs and assassins, can produce many different conditions.

Warriors still have the highest amount of inherit armor.

While I agree that the roles of dervs, assassins, and warriors have somewhat merged, warriors are still perfectly viable and in no way useless in the PvE setting.

The only thing I'd complain about is the fact we don't have enough good non adrenal attack skills. Power Attack is the only thing that I'd bother with and I rather have a condition giving non adrenal skill that isn't Tactics based because who the hell uses tactics.

I was going to say this. My PvE warrior regularly causes mobs of monsters to evaporate under his Mark of Pain + Hundred Blades or at least Hundred Blades + Whirlwind Attack. Given a good ball of guys, which is pretty easy to do, and he's doing a couple hundred points of damage per second.

If I know I'm going up against a small number of tough foes, Dragon Slash + For Great Justice and I'm probably doing around 120 damage per second, with a good chunk of that ignoring armor due to high strength. Swords rock, IMO, and I could squeeze another 20% DPS out of him if I customized his sword.

I actually hold the opposite opinion from the OP ... a correctly played warrior feels almost comically overpowered. I've been playing Guild Wars for around 7 months and I've been playing warriors almost exclusively, and I'm JUST starting to feel like I'm getting the hang of it. It's an easy class to play suboptimally.

I've started to dabble in Earthshaking, and it's a lot of fun but I feel I need some more work before I'm really good. I haven't tried axes yet outside of messing around in Presearing. Maybe for my dude's first birthday I'll get him an axe

I would say this too .... But maybe it's not about the warrior class in itelf , but about how the game has turned to... When you got perma sins who can tank and do stuff alone, warrior lost a bit of utility ( don't see this as a start for a nerf shadowform thread)... When most of the game came easier along months , you don't really need to tank anymore except on a very few areas .... Sins and Dervishs got some love too , but warrior didn't get really....

I would say the game didn't adapt very well to warrior class maybe ...

@ dudemonkey : i agree with that idea , but i want to say that the warrior isn't unique anymore at his job... Sure dragon slash is big damage , but so is a 123 sin( which can also kill all balled mobs easily )

I was getting bored with my warrior until I discovered Earthshaker.

That **** is FUN! Anywhere!

...but especially farming minotaurs in Anvil Rock.
Those dudes just clump up so nicely, I can't help but snicker as I knock-lock them again and again and....watch them die en masse.


I also enjoy playing W/P spearchucker.

Posted right after dervs have virtually vanished from the meta, how Ironic.

The only problem with PvE warriors is that dervs and assassins have key overpowered skills split for them. FF/DB spam is not supposed to exist, neither is derv's ridiculous IAS, but there you have it.

Dervishes were nerfed recently, give it a while for the dust to settle before pointing fingers.

RaO is trash in PvP and in PvE your better off with NrA (even though its 25% and not 33%, it is much less stressful on energy, and does not rob you of your elite, the IMS is negligible). However if we are gonna compare W/ to R/, W/ are much, much better off because of the str attribute skills.

Warriors have always been balanced around the idea that if they have constant IAS, they will [email protected] so they added downsides to the IAS skills. What they did to Dervs was lulzy and it just proves that if you give a physical constant IAS, it will get out of hand.

GW is a team game if you do not have a healer in your RA, too bad your pretty much required for a healer to get a high streak anyway

PvE tank and spank has always required sins since Ob Flesh warriors were nerfed, if GW is a tank and spank game there would be a problem, but if your worried that you or your friends' warrior will not be invited to an SC to tank, reroll a sin and reap the profits, PvE was not meant to be balanced around SCs.


If anything the warrior has stayed relatively the same, but the other frontlines have changed dramatically (IE: powercreeped) since their inception. I can admit that many of the warrior skills feel outdated and useless compared to Sin and Derv alternatives, but they are by no means absolutely overshadowed.

People always brought big counters to melee in RA, if they were stupid enough not too bring heavy physical counters when warriors were "the thing" then they were bad players.

The issue with an unchanging meta should not be attributed to warrior design, but to Anet HQ, since they control the code defining skills in GW.

If it truly bothers you write a letter or email, take a break, or at least provide an original post that provides a sensible solution instead of just pointing out flaws.

You're wrong.
Caster damage only rules when you stack a lot of them on a lot of balled up foes (your lol-SCs). Otherwise, physicals supported by casters dominate.

He is partially right. While warriors are effective at damage, like you say, when supported by casters, they also make effective frontline aggroers. Since mobs die so fast with the powercreep we have nowadays, the most critical time for the monk(s)/healer(s) of a party are the initial aggro. A well armored prof like a warrior is far more proficient at running in and taking the initial "spike" (thus making life easier on the monks than if, say, a mesmer took the initial aggro).

correct response.

Most of the warriors I see seem really happy and content with Defy Pain and Healing Hands builds. In dungeons they're always the one with LoD for the treasures and to spam its "awesome" AoE damage. Their high armor and skills that provide even higher armor+health give them the advantage of being the last one to fall from all the foes wiping the mid/backline.

It's not so much that warriors are useless but that they aren't asked for in virtually anything. Sure, you could use a warrior, but let's be honest...how often do you see LFG need warrior in this game? Since the early days of terratanks, that hasn't been the case.

The problem is simply that whatever a warrior can, another class can do it better or more efficiently. KD is certainly nice but a class should be more than a one-trick-wonder. The warrior doesn't have a real role. When you want to do damage, you could use a warrior but people would prefer an ele or SoS Splinter/Barrage etc. Healers are Monks or N/Rt. Tanks...well that can be done by dervishes, sins and even minions. God knows that when I build a team for a mission I only ever use Jora because she looks hot and when I don't care about that I don't even use a warrior....because you don't need one. Anything a warrior can do can basically be done better by another class.

So to me, it's not that the warrior is useless...it's just that every other class can perform the needed roles better. Sure, there may be one or two exceptions to this but not enough for people to worry about having a warrior.

Their durability is not so much to enable the rest of the team to 'not die', but to allow the Warrior to dish out his damage.
Remember that; the post I was responding to clearly forgot.

you're missing the point.

Having a strong frontline increases the survivability of the group, taking the attention of the mob and focusing it on only the warrior/frontline, rather than the squishies.

Sort of; Protection Prayers allows anyone to tank any flurry of hits on initial aggro if you require that. After that, it's simple enough to keep everyone alive so long as less than half the team are taking note-worthy damage.
Properly constructed caster balls also pack a lot of inherent mitigation; mitigation typically absent on melee characters (not quite true in PvE with Save Yourselves being around).

The 'tanking' aspect of a Warrior certainly helps, but it's not why you bring him.

Untill other profs are addressed [para (both pve and pvp)..ranger...ele (pve)] warriors deserve to be on the back burner..i.e. not worth harking over

I think a lot of people underestimate the curve of playing a warrior well. Warrior seems to have an interesting learning curve - very easy to play, very difficult to play well. I too have been playing almost exclusively warrior lately and am still surprising myself with all the subtleties that make quite a difference when you figure them out, and still refining certain things like perfect timing for KD chains. Axe could definitely use some help in PvE, it's lame that Warriors Endurance Axe is really the only effective Axe build (although admittedly, it is quite the build for AoE damage, and being able to spam power attack all day is enjoyable).

Maybe warriors should get an inherent benefit from Tactics, or something to make Tactics worth using. The only problem, of course, is that anything you do to tactics might get abused by a warrior secondary, which wouldn't be the goal. Maybe some synergy with strength, I don't know. Or just leave it dead because warriors are fine without it (and then I wont have to go buy 8 tactics shields )

Well said. If a warrior is sacrificing damage for tanking ability, he is most likely a bad warrior (unless the team has some reason they really, really want a warrior tank, but I can't think of one).

Paragon should stay unused in PvP. I can't imagine many PvP players would disagree with that. They are an inherently flawed concept and would need a near total rework, which Anet said they wont do anymore. In PvE, they have the imbagon, and I can't see paragons possibly getting a build better than that unless you make the paragons blatantly overpowered in every way.

Ranger and ele definitely need something though, no arguments at all there.

I would suggest that Warriors could use a 'tweek' but not an over powering rebuild.

Keep in mind that the AI has changed a great deal from when GW first came out. Now most mobs will simply ignore a war and focus on low armor casters, saving only blocking or blind/hex skills to use versus wars.

In normal mode play few monsters live long enough for a war to build adren, so as each mob is cleared the war feels like he hasn't done anything.

In hard mode the anti melee hate tends to pop up more often not to mention kiting which can be a problem for wars in PvE that are not used to requiring snares.

Some minor tweeking could make a better war for PvE, though I don't know if these would need to be split for PvP.

Frenzy = For 5 seconds you attack 33% faster. Recharge 10 seconds.
(this makes it both useable but not permanent and will not require any further penalty. Adding in PvE only skills and you can keep it up full time in PvE.)

Decapitate - remove the penalty of loosing all energy.

Flourish - Add in - Removed 1 condition and 1 hex for each attack skill recharged.

Hamstring - Reduce cost to 5 energy and make unblockable ( max duration at 10 seconds)

Primal Rage - change penatly to only effect physical damage taken.

Shove - remove condition on stance removal and bonus damage.

Warrior's Cunning - reduce recharge to 20 seconds, limit it to next 1-5 attacks.

Change Strength to add 1 second to any stance duration for every 3 ranks in Strength. Change sundering bonus to effect all attacks rather then just attack skills.

Not sure if these would be concidered over powered but I think most of them would be justified and usable.

I think they should give the PvE Warrior a better IAS, and thats about all I would change.

In PvP the Warrior is one of, if not the most, balanced class in the game and the Dervish and Assassin should be tweaked to a similar standard. (ie. consequences for IAS, punishment for miss timed skills, etc.)

Aside from a few seemingly dartboard buffs/nerfs, I doubt the Warrior will recieve any skill updates. More than likely you will see changes to non-Imbagon Paragons, Smite Monks, and hopefully Ranger and Ele Buffs.

Completely agree, even though i love my warrior! Warriors are still good in pve and pvp! You just have to know how to use them

I would consider this a nerf.


Warrior's have two fully maintainable 33% IAS, both are effective in PvE and both are well balanced (one is frequently regarded as the best designed skill in the game).
Absolutely nothing needs to be done with regards to these skills. If anything, a similar principle (risk vs reward) should be followed when balancing other professions for PvE as well as PvP. PvE is already mindless enough.

I think physicals in general are highly underrated in general by the average GW player. It shocks me how many warriors are running around with discord teams. If you get your hero bars set up right you can unleash some pretty devastating combos. Heck, I honestly think that in NM PvE (which assuredly most people play) even casters will ultimately bring more to the team as a physical (daggers for example).

Can't comment on PvP (though I'd imagine they remain useful), but in PvE they are one of the best professions, second only to the assassin.

I run Frenzy in PvE, and it is awesome.

Warrior is fine in PvE, it's probably the only well designed and balanced class really. Assassin and Dervish end up being one trick characters relying on a couple broken PvE only skills, and casters are still support.

The biggest issue is that it actually has a skill req; your random pug warrior with Defy Pain is a joke and close to worthless. The value of something like SoS is that it's super mindless and you can play it well drunk.

Assassins have Shadow Form, Dervishes have Dwayna; outside those tricks I prefer a Warrior over what the other classes can offer.

Warriors will never be useless, they have just been overlooked by most players...
Who doesn't remember iway? Who doesn't like seeing a tank making the PvE ele mobs waste the most dangerous spells on him?? And who doesn't like seeing the enemy getting knocked out continuosly??

Warriors make the best front-liners in Non-SC elite runs like urgoz, deep, DoA.

Aggro the entire room, ball up against the wall, mop+100b. Warriors don't need a buff.

Earthshaker is fun, but its practically useless imo. Why KD when you can kill them before they get a spell off. KDs are a waste of time.

oh i'm sure in hard mode they cast faster than you can kill them. Don't forget KD automatically shuts down that foe, unless they can cast/attack while KD-ed (which is not possible).

Mesmers. Try them.

In PvE it seems that there are ever only two useful classes: the one with the best damage spikes and the one with the best HPS. Every other class always needs a buff because they are useless.

Thanks to this logic, we have the PvE of today. Rejoice.

Then, Anet gets the silly idea to let PvE buffs trickle into PvP. Because that Derv update totally improved PvP.

Hello, my name is Ranger. I have no role on the team. I can spam AoE attacks with Splinter Barrage, but a Warrior with Hundred Blades or a Dervish with spammable aoe on auto-attacks can do it better. I can use Infuriating Heat and try to maintain Save Yourselves!, but a Warrior, Paragon or Dervish can do it without wasting a slow-casting, immobile and otherwise useless (besides adrenaline) elite skill that is a double-edged sword. I can throw spears, spam sword, axe or hammer attacks or take a scythe, but besides having a pet as an extra meat shield, primary professions for those weapons do everything better.

I hope you're kidding right ? Last sentence especially is quite a joke , considering people did run R/A , R/P , R/D in Heroes Ascent or other PvP formats for months....I'm not even going to argue about dshot/savage/magebane... Even in PvE , due to better energy management , perma poison,easy perma IAS/IMS , easy blocks and other stuff a ranger using warrior weapons is easily twice better ( and i know what i'm talking about....)

Rangers got less useless elites than warrior for sure( and 99% of them are spirits )