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Warrior Global Lab Update Review

Come March, I have been playing Warrior for 10 years. I have played in every form of content BDO has to offer. These are not guess-changes, these come from an informed place from not just myself but many veterans of the class. The intent is to improve the warrior class so it performs at a competitive level with current classes, and makes the class more accessible to new players of the game. I would love to be able to recommend warrior to new players of the game once again, especially with the upcoming hype of Crimson Desert fast-approaching.

In nearly every change PA does, Warrior gains SA movement in exchange for loss of CC opportunities. In most of these proposed changes, this is an acceptable trade-off. At this point, however, Warrior has lost too many CC opportunities and is left feeling very reliant on a single CC. That CC is grab. After the grab changes, this has proven to be very detrimental to the class in every form of player versus player combat.

Many of the changes proposed in the Global Lab are absolutely necessary, however, there needs to be some reconsideration with some abilities, and these changes alone are genuinely not enough to fix the class's problems.

HEAVEN'S CLEAVE

In the case of Heaven's Cleave, this ability should be an SA with a Float. Losing the float on Heaven's Cleave removes Awakened Warrior's ONLY moving CC. No other awakened warrior skill has CC in motion except this one, and it's a single-tick float. Seraph, by comparison, has a stiff on Impelling Thrust (The identical skill to Solar Flare) by default. Awakened Warrior can only achieve this by utilizing a core skill, which takes away from other critical shortfalls of the class that core skills need to close up.

This is a crushing blow for warriors when it comes to moving CC. Please reconsider this, allow Heaven's Cleave to have Super Armor with the Float so that we may become competitive in the current meta where all classes are rapidly moving with protection. This will allow us to punish failures in movement from other players, as it should always be punishable.

It also puts warrior on a similiar playing field to Seraph as this skill is identical to Impelling Surge which also is an SA with a CC attached.

BURNING MOXIE

This ability needs to be changed from 1/3/7 to 1/3/5 nearby enemies. That would make this ability and feature much more viable in both large-scale PvP and Guild League. 7 enemies is simply too many for the changes to have a significant impact. If it is changed to 5, it is far more reasonable. Awakened Warrior is classified as a "Super Armor" class, this change (along with the other changes) would make it align with the vision of a Super Armor class. 5 player is a significant amount of players. It is literally an entire party. An entire party of players who can belt out damage or CC a warrior fairly easily. This change is fair and aligns with the numerical growth of the ability (1/3/5)

Also, the effective radius of what is considered "nearby" must be doubled. Currently they mist be packed so tight that every enemy fits within the range of a gravedigging attack.

SLASHING THE DEAD

Add an iframe to the "Jumping" animation part of slashing the dead, then revert it to SA during the attack portion.

By the "Jumping" part of the animation, I mean the first few frames of the attack where we leap into the air, before we begin flipping with the sword. This is actually how it exists on BDO mobile, and it's honestly very fair given how verticality on many classes turns SA's into iframes due to the fact that no attacks can reach them. With slashing the dead, the jumping portion of the animation would give us a second very short iframe that we could use to get out of very bad spots, especially given that the jumping portion of the animation is stationary. This iframe can transition back into Super Armor during the attack animation of the ability.

SEVERING THRUST

Add Frontal Guard to Severing Thrust

Severing Thrust is the Warrior Magnus ability. This ability is extremely unfavorable to warriors as it is totally unprotected and most warriors lock this ability or do not even learn it, to include the #1 Warrior globally, Bobobuddy. Adding frontal guard to this ability would make it viabled and I believe many more warriors would become interested in using this ability in PvP, because it is a fun one to use!

ARMOR BREAK

Add a Frontal Guard to Armor Break

Armor Break is a necessary debuff for Warriors to use in combo chaining in both single and group PvP. It is also completely unprotected. This ability is a very fast ability, and should at least have a frontal guard on it so that a well-positioned warrior can use it to punish enemies who have been CC'd. This would help warrior performance tremendously in AoS & small scale PvP, as well as in PvE. It would also add an interesting catch for predictable attacks such as grabs. It being a frontal guard would be perfect in this scenario.

HEAD CHASE

Add a second iframe charge to head chase to be used within the same cooldown timer.

This would still be far less impactful as Seraph movement. Seraph's version of head chase is called Vanguard chase. It has an iframe every 2 seconds, and has a follow-up ability that is 2 charges of Super Armor within those two seconds.  Currently, without attack speed increases a Warrior can execute 5 headchases within the time frame of the cooldown. Having two charges would allow less than one second of protection.

Giving Warrior a second iframe charge would make it similiar in functionality to seraph, but different enough in it's functionality to feel distinct from Seraph, as it does not move nearly as far and must be used strategically.

FLOW: KNEE KICK

This skill needs to just go. It is a terrible skill, nobody uses it, nobody wants it. It is permanently locked on every warrior who has played the class for more than 3 minutes. Replace this skill immediately with a with a frontal cone attack with good PvE modifiers & strong PvP down attack modifiers. This move would behave as a heavy damage dealer in PvE, and would serve in PvP as a finishing move for a target laying on the ground. The animation for this ability already exist in the game, and could be added immediately with no additional animation cost from Pearl Abyss. The ability's animation would be an exact replica of the current Warrior ability "Elvia: Divided Will". This new ability could have a really cool name, such as "Devastating Sunder" or "Soul Rend" (which I like most). This is a slower ability, but it is perfect in PvP for punishing ground targets, and it having a high PvE modifier would make it a valuable assett in PvE. The reason I recommend down attack modifiers is that it does not do substantial damage unless the target is on the ground. Keep the cooldown and the speed of the new ability in line with Divided Will.

BALANCE STRIKE / HILT STRIKE:

Remove Hilt Strike Immediately. Roll the effects of Hilt Strike into Balance Strike. Keep the SA on Balance Strike, but make it a 3-hit multi-tick stiff, and speed up the skill significantly. This would mimic warrior's shield charge for awakening spec. This being a Super Armor would be in line with Awakening Warrior being classified as a Super Armor Skill. make the Absolute: Shield Charge a Prime skill instead, and leave it as is. This way Awakening Warrior & Succession warrior have two distinct versions of this same skill.

GRAVEDIGGING 

I can't stress this enough. DO NOT CHANGE THE CORE SKILL. Currently it is a knockdown. The proposed change would remove the knowndown in place of a bound. The original version of this skill had a slow and a bound on it by default. The core version of this skill makes it worth adding it to a core, it is a stationary,  defensive catch. This is incredibly important for combo chaining and CC counts. A badly timed version of this skill hurts the warrior. A well timed version of this skill is an incredible force multiplier & unique form of skill expression.

The Seraph version of this skill has Knockdown on it by default with no core skill required. Warrior has to core this skill to achieve even a similar level of output, and this has belonged to warrior for a year now.

This change is very harmful, I can't say it enough, *DO NOT TOUCH THIS SKILL*.

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In Summary, if you enact these recommended changes in addition to what is proposed on global lab, warrior is immediately fixed overnight and it requires no additional animation development cost from Pearl Abyss. This would immediately make warrior competitive in the current meta, without making it overpowered. Especially when compared to Seraph, which is a designed to be comparable to warrior but is currently substantially stronger. It would also make warrior far more accessible to new players and veteran alike. A new player will come in, try warrior, see it has so many issues & gaps, and immediately leave the class. This would make taking the time to learn warrior feel much more rewarding.

I'd also like to end on this note; old class original players are your longest-standing and most loyal players to the game. We've dedicated years to playing it. Disrespecting these classes through unwarranted nerfs or even in just the lore is so bad for this game & community. Please consider this when you write lore for future classes.

This seems like a good change!

PLEASE PA. I BEG. 

BUFF WARRIOR.

These would be good changes. Every friend I have on the game thinks Awakening Warrior is a meme. I play an entitely different class during group PVP content because Awakening Warrior is just not as valuable compared to most other classes.

PA I agree with this. Adding  a skill, ability but then removing another skill or ability to compensate is not working. Mostly because it seems to always be skill that warrior needs to be viable in PVP or PVE. Please Zeroden's suggestion consideration/implement. We are not asking or wanting you to nerf all classes. But to have all older class to have the skills to compete. Because right now warrior is not able to compete.

Please PA i want to play this class so bad BUFF WARRIOR!

Definitely agree on the Heaven's cleave change. It was not needed to make the CC of it only PvE.

Alternatively leave Heaven's cleave as it is now.

I remember Armor Break once had a FG many years ago. I'd also want it back. :)

Pretty much everything you said is what the class needs in the current state of the game. I think most of our fellow Warrior mains agree with most if not all that you say. Thank you Zeroden for putting in the effort and standing up for our class that needs more attention.

Stop asking to become broken. Please.

We don't need warriors dashing around with SA FG-pen floats. We need seraphs getting nerfed.

LOL. Read the first post again.