#Warrior
Awakening Warrior PvE: the problems and the solutions.
Apr 7, 2023, 09:52 (UTC)
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Last Edit :
Apr 9, 2023, 11:50 (UTC)
# 1
Title: Awakening Warrior PvE: the problems, the solutions.
Family Name: YberDC
Region (NA/EU): EU
Suggestion/Comments:
THIS THREAD FOCUSES ON CHANGES THAT DO NOT AFFECT PVP IN ANY WAY, OR DO SO MINIMALLY.
TLDR; 30-50% PvE damage increase on most skills across the board, reworked Frenzied Strikes (doesn't affect PvP), buffer 3 skill cancels (potential small impact in PvP).
Awakening Warrior's status as one of the top 3 absolute worst PvE (Player vs Environment) classes in the game is not unknown. There are, primarily, 3 reasons for this, from most to least important:
THE PROBLEMS.
1- Very low DPS (Damage per second).
2- Very high APM (Actions per Minute, or player inputs), with extremely small timing windows.
3- Very few "main DPS" skill with very long cooldowns.
I advice, if you have never player Awakening Warrior, that you take a look at this 1 minute clip.
In most cases, missing the timing of any of the cancels means my clear time is doubled (Gyfin mob can attack twice instead of once).
There are a large amount of problems derived from this:
a) Unrewarding gear progression. In most scenarios, we'll still need one of the 2 main DPS skills to clear a pack, and having that skill on cooldown means we'll have the same clear speed next pack, regardless of upgrades.
b) Need for specific PvE Core skills for PvE. It is absolutely mandatory for Awakening Warrior to use Core: Frenzied Strikes to gain a forward guard (going from 1 forward guard skill to 2), not just for grinding zones that require protection (Hexe Sanctuary, Olun Valley), but also to avoid crowd controls (Star's End, Hystria, Kratuga). This means we're missing a Core for PvP, on top of meaning we need a Book of the Old Moon if we want to PvP and PvE on the same character (Frenzied Strikes is a completely worthless skill in PvP that is never used).
c) Commitment to a combo punishes our clear severely. Using 1 skill too many leads to either being unable to move to the next pack quickly, or not having our main DPS abilities available, in many cases doubling our time to clear a pack. We have no proper damage filler, and we need movement skills to help clear packs because of this.
d) New players are driven off awakening warrior. I answer the same questions on the daily: Is Awakening Warrior good a PvE? What's a good combo for X spot? And very often after an answer, the player rolls to succession warrior or a different class entirely.
e) Too much class knowledge for too little benefit. As I upgraded my gear, from PEN Tuvala all the way to PEN Blackstar, I needed to change my combo to grind in a remotedly efficient way, removing or moving around damage filler skills and testing skill rotations constantly, because often times, the combo I was using for a particular grind spot didn't kill the mobs any faster after gaining 20+ monster ap, but it was possible to remove some damage filler from it, and finish on the same skill (circling backto problems a) and c).).
f) Too much APM to still make less money can easier classes. I like that Awakening Warrior is highly demanding, it makes it clear who's a good player and who's not, and I firmly believe it should be the case for all classes. I do not believe however, that the absolute majority of other classes should be able to make between 20 and 50% more money on every spot, with a fraction of the APM, class knowledge and generally, effort, which is the case currently.
THE SOLUTIONS.
1) Increase damage output in PvE.
Change the following skills this way:
Frenzied Strikes III: increase PvE damage by 30%, remove 3rd hit, remove PvP Bound, gain forward guard by default, improve hitbox of attacks 1 and 2.
Bound on last hit -> Bound on last hit (PvE only)
Forward guard during the skill.
Cooldown reduced from 6 to 5 seconds.
Attack 1 and 2 hit damage: 1221 x 4 -> 2777 x 4
PvP damage reduction -50.4% -> -61.83%
Attack 3 removed.
Attack 1 and 2 hits gain Attack 3's larger hitbox.
Solar Flare IV: increase PvE damage by 33%, increase hitbox upon succesful hit. This skill is part of the evasion shred for the class, and being single target means we can't strip mob evasion properly in spots like Hexe Sanctuary.
Attack damage: 1430 x 5 -> 2145 x 5. 10725 7150
PvP damage reduction -61.9% -> -74.6%
Hit damage radius increased.
Balance Strike III: increase PvE damage by 50%, increase critical hit rate to 50% (PvE only).
Attack damage: 1250 x 3 (PvE only) -> 1875 x 3 (PvE only).
Critical hitarte: 0 -> 50% (PvE only).
PvP damage reduction unchanged.
Hilt Strike: increase PvE damage by 50%.
Attack damage: 1300 x 3 - 1950 x 3
PvP damage reduction -63.4 -> -75.6%
Realistically, Balance Strike should gain Flow: Hiltstrike's stats and Hilt Strike should be removed, but that'd affect PvP.
Merciless IV: increase PvE damage by 70%. This skill is one of the only 2 spammable ones we have, and we avoid it like the plague because it's extremely slow and low damage.
Merciless IV: increase PvE damage by 70%. This skill is one of the only 2 spammable ones we have, and we avoid it like the plague because it's extremely slow and low damage.
Attack 1 and 2 hit damage: 1753 x 4 -> 2980 x 4
PvP damage reduction -61.8% -> -77.53%
Grave Digging IV (and its flow Flow: Slashing the Dead): increase PvE damage by 40%
Spin attack damage: 1320 x 4 -> 1848 x 4
Smash attack damage: 1389 x 6 -> 1944.6 x 4
PvP damage reduction -50.5% -> -64.6%
Pulverize IV (and it's flow Flow: Tempest): Increase PvE damage by 30%.
Attack damage: 1174 x 7 -> 1526.2 x 7
PvP damage reduction -42.8% -> -56%
Flow: Reckless Blow: increase PvE damage by 100% when fully charged.
Attack damage: 1420 x 10 when charged -> 2840 x 10 when charged (PvE only).
PvP damage reduction unchanged (PvE only change)
Flow: Armor Break: increase PvE damage by 35%.
Attack damage: 1347 x 5 -> 1818.5 x 5
PvP damage reduction: -63.3% -> 72.8%
Chain: Heaven's Cleave: increase PvE damage by 50%.
Attack damage: 1356 -> 2034
PvP damage reduction: -55% -> 70%
2) Buffer certain skill cancel inputs.
This is a very controversial change, and certainly takes from the skill ceiling of the class. That said, with the game working the way it does now (hitbox acceleration and deceleration, desync, frame inconsistency due to poor texturing and skill effects), it is unexplainable that we have 0.1-0.3 second windows of time to cancel skills into eachother, specially considering that if we don't, we're often locked into uncancelable skills. The notoriously problematic skills and their cancels are:
Balance Strike to avoid Flow: Hilt Strike using Greatsword Defence (Q cancelling).
Flow: Hilt Strike to avoid Chain: Heaven's Cleave using Greatsword Defence (Q cancelling).
Stance Swapping (Cswapping) out of Supply Stab Severing Thrust back into awakening. If you miss the very small timing, you're locked into slow swapping your weapons (2+ seconds of standing still in front of mobs unprotected).
All of this would not be problematic if the cancels were consistent. They're not due to the external factos mentioned before, and the only realistic way to fix this is by buffering the input of these skill cancels, or deleting low: Hilt Strike and giving all of its stats to Balance Strike and improving Severing Thrust -> cswap transistions.
3) Filler damage skills need to be better.
I tackle this in the changes of point 1). The alternative is to reduce the cooldown of the main DPS skills (Slashing and Gravedigging) but this unavoidably affects PvP.
That said, Merciless desperately needs a faster animation. Even with the massive PvE damage buff, I would still avoid it.
____
As one of the most well known Awakening Warriors in the community in the PvE side of things, I firmly believe all of these changes, and particularly the ones addressed in point 1), are an absolute necessity to allow for the enjoyment of the class, and for it to keep up with the horrendous PvE power creep we've experienced for over a year.I also firmly believe that said changes would only make Awakening Warrior competitive with the current PvE scene, NOT better.
The class is currently unfun, unrewarding and most importantly, abandoned, and the last Global Lab patchnotes demonstrates this, as I reported the Flow: Overwhelm bug 4 months ago, and naively assumed the change was being held to go in tandem with the changes the community has been begging for for over a year.
Until these changes or equivalent are seen through, I too roll off Awakening Warrior. There is no reason that a class should purposedfully be left in the dump PvE wise for years.
Last Edit :
Apr 7, 2023, 11:12 (UTC)
# 2
These seem like well thought out changes, maybe even underwhelming compared to some of other classes buffs that went live.
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SixSamuraiSwords
Last Edit :
Apr 8, 2023, 04:21 (UTC)
# 3
Great post, 100% agree, we are being left behind in the dust compared to all the newer classes and PA isn't doing anything about it because certain people still think we are OP from back in the stone age days.
I vote we also get full Super Armor for Reckless Blow for the whole duration of the skill and not just the charging portion, it feels like crap charging up and then getting knocked on your ass before you even get a chance to deal damage.
Last Edit :
Apr 8, 2023, 12:49 (UTC)
# 4
Yep, awa Warrior PvE needs SOMETHING alright.
Hopefully PA won't decide to do something silly and based purely on KR feedback.
I don't want range buff on my greatsword, I'm OK with pulling mobs close to me and I want to melt them.
Mechanically, I would not mind for Q buff and Shift+SPACE to go away. It was somewhat acceptable for a while but now we've seen decent QOL tweaks to other classes clunk and there's no reason for Warrior to be awkward just for the sake of it.
Last Edit :
Apr 8, 2023, 17:09 (UTC)
# 5
On: Apr 8, 2023, 12:49 (UTC), Written by Rekkuzan
Yep, awa Warrior PvE needs SOMETHING alright.
Hopefully PA won't decide to do something silly and based purely on KR feedback.
I don't want range buff on my greatsword, I'm OK with pulling mobs close to me and I want to melt them.
Mechanically, I would not mind for Q buff and Shift+SPACE to go away. It was somewhat acceptable for a while but now we've seen decent QOL tweaks to other classes clunk and there's no reason for Warrior to be awkward just for the sake of it.
That's another thing I agree with, I hate the whole mechanic of constantly Q- BLOCKING for an AP BUFF. Like, I block when I want to take less damage, not get a damage buff. It's awkward and clunky constantly blocking like an idiot before every pack just to make sure you constantly have that AP buff up. I'd rather they just moved that AP buff to either an attacking skill, or as some kind of passive.
Last Edit :
Apr 9, 2023, 11:48 (UTC)
# 6
Did small modifications to the original post regarding "merging" balance strike with hilt strike. The idea we had (it's been brought up by many people multiple times, I'm not the first) is to remove/rework Hilt Strike and give balance strike hilt strike's stats (accuracy rate included). Naturally this is a change that would impact PvP and not just PvE.
Last Edit :
Apr 9, 2023, 19:02 (UTC)
# 7
Buff this so I can feel like I'm not griefing myself by playing the only class I enjoy in this game. Well thought out post, buffs are even mediocre compared to other buffs and damage from other classes. Warrior is a true melee class, we deserve the damage output to equalize the risk vs. reward for not playing ranged.
Last Edit :
Apr 10, 2023, 00:44 (UTC)
# 8
it's kinda sadge that every class getting buffed and Awakning warrior still untouched even forcing or thinking that i have to grind it's frustrate me
Awk Warrior Reboot : Changing VFX of Awk skills it's soo funny 🤣🤣🤣
This was hidden by admin due to the reports it has received.
Last Edit :
Apr 10, 2023, 20:42 (UTC)
# 10
On: Apr 9, 2023, 19:01 (UTC), Written by Zurg
Buff this so I can feel like I'm not griefing myself by playing the only class I enjoy in this game. Well thought out post, buffs are even mediocre compared to other buffs and damage from other classes. Warrior is a true melee class, we deserve the damage output to equalize the risk vs. reward for not playing ranged.
Warrior received considerable buffs during the reboots, there's a star contrast PvE wise before and after, as well as many QoL changes to cancels for both PvE and PvP. The problem is that, pre reboot, awakening warrior was mediocre in PvE, and, because every other class received equal or greater buffs, it remained mediocre or worse than before. Add to that that every single class in the game since reboots (over a year ago) has received buffs except for Awakening Warrior (you can verify this, I find it hilarious) and you end up with one of the top 3 absolute worst PvE classes in the game (and also a pretty bad one in PvP outside 1v1).
If you're curious the other 2 are Succession Nova and Awakening Ninja. No surprises here.
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