Spell Warrior: A Conundrum

Spell Warrior
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Back when starting wynn I picked up warrior as my starting class, cause I really liked classes/options in games where there are possibilities to soak up a bunch of damage. However before gavel it seemed to be apparent to me and others that warrior was sub-par when stacked against the pros of the other classes before. Archers with their insane damage output with zoning capabilities (especially when the hardest bosses at the time Bob, CoW, and Death had charge/multihit spells both of which could be spaced accordingly iirc), Mages with being the viable source of healing, and assassins with pre-gavel multihit. However I stuck with warrior and still had a fun time with it.

Fast forward to now when the game isn't as broken and there are actually set, diverse ways to play each class. However it seems that warriors, as a class, are set to a specific style of play in any situation that is not PvE, that would be fine if PvB content along side guild wars were the most challenging parts of the game.

Regardless, for the case of this thread that playstyle would be melee. Melee offers a quick way of dealing damage and paired with the many tier stacking, life steal, and agility items, gives a free pass when it comes to almost any boss, without the need for even potion-chugging. It is agreed upon that melee warrior is good, it is viable, and that is okay. What isn't okay is that it is the only viable playstyle especially when compared to the counterparts in hybrid and especially spell warrior.

Just touching on hybrid for a bit, which could be okay but most hybrid weapons I see used are in the case of mythic spears which both use their insane spell damage along side their melee damage to get away with being viable. However this is really only the case of mythics and I know that there are some other hybrid builds that exist but when there are other better alternatives, I see their only use would be to beat LI and make a thread about it.

Now for spell warrior, and in my opinion spell warrior is the absolute WORST way to play the game. Period. This isn't the fault of the damage that the warriors spells output in fact in theory, spell warrior should be dominating the other classes with the main damaging spell uppercut edging multihit, bomb arrow and meteor. The problem comes in with the mechanics of the spells, Every single class when you fire off that R-L-L combo (or L-R-R for nerds) you know you're going to do damage the instant you fire that off and you will continue to fire fingers away until the thing that unluckily is the subject of this arcane magic is dead. However, for every single one of warrior's damaging spells, actually, EVERY SINGLE WARRIOR SPELL sends the mobs across to where ever they feel like. This puts warrior at a significant disadvantage for two reasons.

One, sending mobs away ruins any chance to deal any extra damage, whether it is another spell, or even just hitting the mob. This trait of warrior spells can also put enemies in impossible locations for the player to reach and is also the main reason for mobs getting stuck on barriers or getting forced out of bounds in arena boss fights. This is a skill all other classes have, even assassin when building spell damage output is focused on how high the spin attacks are, not the multihits for this exact reason. Though spin attack is a broken spell, that is not the topic.

Two, it wastes time, time that is spent for the enemy to regenerate its health, time spent potentially wasting a mana bar if you run out of sprint, time spent chasing down an enemy that is barraging projectiles, just time that is overall frustrating for any player that has to deal with the fire boss that runs around in desperate metal.

It is because of these reasons warrior is so underplayed and under
appreciated, not even mentioning warrior has no way to lock/blind the enemy, two of the most broken attributes of any spell. Threads have been posted suggesting ways for warriors to benefit this lack of damage issue. And while most of these threads have great ideas attached to them, I believe a rework of at least ONE of the spells is necessary for warrior. Of course, keeping at least one "crowd-control" spell may be intrinsic in keeping the idea of the character alive but adding a way for warriors to consistently do damage in terms of a spell is necessary to keep the appeal, enjoyment, and flexibility of warrior alive.


Further discussion and feedback is appreciated.

EDIT: As T-flex said below

and upon thinking on this more, just a general rework of all the classes is necessary, as the key mechanics of blinding and freezing break the game as a whole and render almost, if not all challenges useless.

 

i cant agree more

EDIT: heres thread a made a while back, that i thought might be worth it to post here https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/warrior-sucks-in-guild-wars-and-you-cant-prove-me-wrong.226221/

 

The problem with spell warrior is that:
A. it lacks the synergy of Assassin’s Spin-Smoke or Mage’s Snake-Meteor combos.
B. all of it’s CCs are based on knockback instead of freezing or blinding.
C. It lacks an actual good mobility spell
And D. It’s spells lack both the AoE and range to succeed as actual CC

Because of that, the innate defensive bonuses Warrior has are negated by its inability to prevent mobs from attacking it for a long duration, and it’s inability to deal with targets at range. While Assassins have their fair share of problems with ranged mobs, Vanish and Smoke bomb are just straight up better, more consistent ways to close the gap or deal ranged damage than charge and war scream.

Meanwhile, it’s spell’s potential AoEs pale in comparison to Meteor’s and Ice snake’s range and AoE, both of which have their own crowd control benefits (Meteor’s burning ground and Ice snake’s freeze), and ESPECIALLY to archer’s bomb arrow and Assassin’s Spin and smoke bomb.

As well, the spells all have delayed damage and don’t synergize well. Because of this, spell spam ends up decreasing your overall damage output, compared to assassin’s spin spam or archer’s bomb spam

Finally, for a class based around tanking and crowd control, it’s the only class that can’t Blind, Freeze opponents, or negate ongoing damage. Mages have teleport and ice snake for effect based CC, and heal to negate damage, archers have arrow shields to both negate melee mobs and blind enemies, and assassin basically reigns supreme in this aspect with EVERY SPELL in its arsenal either debuffing or controlling the movement of the enemy or negating aggro.

Warriors just lack these effective effect based ccs for whatever reason, without much payoff. This just makes it not worth using spells to deal with mobs, as the damage output of the spells doesn’t outweigh that of a melee build, and the benefits are negligible

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As an aside, remember when people were calling for an assassin buff? Good times

 

Ye the time it takes to do damage is a large part and I didn't even consider how it is counterintuitive to warrior's defence buff in the first place. Regardless another good thing to point to in terms of dps is crukk's melee damage theory where he explains that the time it takes to dish out damage with melee is essencial to the playstyle. Of course in terms of spells that isn't always the case but with all the time waiting for uppercut to finish dealing it's 14k uppercuts, could've been spent pelting the same enemy with 35k damage worth of bomb arrows (more if it is a mythic) without the risk of getting to mob stuck on a roof.

 

It's not just the warrior that needs changing, it's the whole class selection. To expand on that, skill mechanics and item properties needs changing too.
I know it's easy to talk, but the gameplay is held back immensely with years old skill system and class stats. Hopefully, that gets changed in the "near" future.

 

I've mained Warrior from the moment I first joined, and I always stuck with it. Archer has the Escape spell, which rockets me who-knows-where, Mage has Teleport which, though better, doesn't work all the time, and Assassin has only a speed and jump boost unlocked a third into the game. But Warrior has Charge, a very controllable boost with the precision of a grappling hook, and Uppercut, which launches enemies sky-high and it just feels so satisfying. What I'm trying to say is that although the other classes' spells are better in terms of damage, I find the Warrior's spells the most fun. So though I very much agree with your points, all I'd like to say is if they do end up changing the spells, I hope they don't take the fun out of them.

 

The main issue with warrior spells is that imo it's not meant to excel in spell builds, as suggested by it's "spell capability" or whatever in the main menu when selecting a class. Warrior is designed mostly for melee (specifically fire melee because, let's be real, you're practically unkillable using that), assassin is designed mainly for hybrid (due to the nature of always being close to mobs), archer is designed mostly for spells/mobility (single target melees and escape offers the best mobility in the game imo, which we'll get back to later), and mage is also designed mostly for spells (although melee mage is technically the best melee in the entire game due to long range aoe melees and an already self sustaining method outside of lifesteal due to heal) imo.

However, this is not to say warrior's spells are bad either. Warrior arguably has the most effective stunlock in the game outside of maybe assassin (because of spin attack+smoke bomb combo) due to the kb of it's spells. It can easily push a mob into a wall and just spam them to death. If you're going to argue that they can move away from the place you cornered them with spells (such as charge), that is a problem for every other class to catch up to them as well (not as much as archer/mage since they have more range). Mobs getting stuck in barriers due to warrior's spells isn't just specific to warrior and is actually very prominent with arrow storm/shield on archer as well as sometimes even multi-hit for assassins. Imo, the class with the worst stunlock is actually mage. None of it's spells even do knockback, teleport is the only one that blinds (and teleport is already iffy to actually use), and while ice snake does shut down every melee mob in existence till they use a spell, it is useless against ranged.

This unfortunately is only really good for bosses or small groups of mobs that are relatively in the same position, and while the spells make it where groups of enemies will most likely never hit you (and even if you do warrior's sheer natural defense takes care of that relatively well), it is much harder to actually get good dps. Another problem is anti-kb mobs, in which case you can't combo a mob into a wall, but you have to try and be careful that your kb doesn't bring the mob right on top of you or goes skyrocketing across the arena. A primary example of this is trying to use spells outside uppercut against Gale's Spirit, who even if you lightly touch will just go flying like 20 blocks across the arena (exaggeration but you get the point).

I do agree though that charge isn't very good in combat if you compare it with that of other mobility spells. Archer leap not only gives it a buff but also launches you so high that nothing really can hit you (not to mention it has the longest blind duration of any spell if I'm not mistaken, even exceeding that of spin attack), vanish is great in combat if you have the mana since it allows you to run away and recover if needed and/or easily setup a combo, and teleport (while not much better in combat) does at least blind enemies so it can get away effectively if needed. The only real upside of charge is that it seems to get good enough kb to get away somewhat effectively from hordes in a boss or just groups of mobs in general (such as virus doc's minions). Outside of combat, it's actually quite good though. It has better vertical coverage than that of teleport due to teleport being sometimes difficult to use due to blocks and such and vanish is undeniably just a worse version of charge outside of combat. It can technically even rival that of archer's leap, as archer is the only class that can't use a movement spell while in the air (although I would still consider escape the best overall movement spell).

As for guild wars, I am not familiar with warring itself outside of the times I pissed people off by warring in 7 morph aqua as an archer, so I'd assume the part about the groups of enemies applies to it.

tl;dr Basically it has its ups and downs just like any other type of playstyle, and depending on the situation the ups outweigh the downs or vice versa.

 

I have a spell warrior, personally I don't seem much issue with it.
I'm able to solo everything without pots, I be it, its a semitank build.
And I can do it fairly fast.

As for the knockback you speak of, its a none issue with uppercut, becuase it doesn't actual do knockback.
Every other spell I understand, but even then aslong as your used to using them I see no issue.

A few other things, we do have a slowness spell. Bash is meant to fill that in, it however doesn't do the best job.

I can't much compare them to other spell classes, and I know it has no where near the damage output, but I am capable of doing anything in game with my current idol build.

I'm going to remain natural at this point.
My build is largely viable due to it being tanky, but I don't think its nearly as bad as any of you make it to be.

 

Spell warrior works really well if you know what you're doing - my guildmates can put out probably >20k dps on offense with enough lifesteal to sustain themselves with the occasional melee in guild wars. I myself have made an unkillable guildwar build that never runs out of mana to spam uppercuts with (although that's a weirder build :P)

Agree with Jaydon, warrior is so tanky its kinda ridiculous, also uppercut and bash have insane range making it a lot more pleasant against certain bosses compared to assassin. Its base damage is also a lot higher than mage.

I've never played a melee warrior and probably never will - spells ftw :)

EDIT: Charge is also fun although if you try too hard you get kicked for flying :(

 

Only use warrior if there is a glitch to abuse or afk in guild was otherwise it sucks

 

Tank Archer :thinking:

Also, do you think it has a 1 in spells on the class selection screen for no reason?

 

The problem with this is that it is accepting that when you choose the warrior class, you are locked to the single "viable" way to play the game. Which is just bad game design, many other RPGs deal with this issue much better. For example this game called Doom and Destiny is one of my favorite RPGs for multiple reasons, but what I do like is that there are different ways to play with each class your party members are assigned to. And they even cater this idea by for example, putting almost as much skills for a physical mage, than a standard spell mage. Regardless I think that "just some menu says so" is just stunting any further experimentation of a class' other playstyles

While researching different threads, I came across this point you made and I just didn't agree, pushing back mobs is not a "stunlock". Literally freezing and blinding enemies where they are helpless IS a stunlock. Warrior lacks these qualities, and while I do notice some other class' knockback spells cause the mobs to get stuck, those situations for other classes are extremely rare, and those same classes have better damaging options that do not send mobs flying everywhere. Also how does mage have the worst stunlock? In fact mage has the second best stunlock because it is one of the two spells in the game that actually s t u n s.

This quote sums up the problem with the first sentence

And from my experience anti-kb mobs are better in most situations, as it provides all the benefits of other classes in locking the enemy while dealing warriors' innately higher base spell damage.

The only real upside to charge is that it is fun to control, since while mages to struggle with vertical movement outside of combat, they at least have that option. In order for warriors to do that they need to look down and hope they can jump up 2-3 blocks.

It is just that the prominent mobs there have too much health to be taken down by the warrior's spells because of the knockback, while occasionally teleporting to a random location

Like I said the playstyle really only benefits in large group PvE situations, shame that most of the harder content is counter intuitive to the nature of spell warrior.

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Bash and Uppercuts have limited range compared to much better zoning capabilities of the other classes. And the slight range over assassins is neutered by smoke bomb, additionally in boss scenarios, spin attack completely cripples them. With mages, as they do have less base damage, the kb that warriors dish out puts them far below the damage capabilities of ice snake+meteor.

 

I guess you haven't seen a high damage output warrior in action lol

Its kinda scary how you can combo bash/uppercut to do damage, with even tidebinder you could probably match a mage mythic's damage output

Uppercut has a range of 11 blocks and bash 13, basically ranged attacks in my book (vs multi's like 2 or 3), smoke isn't going to be your main dps source (I hope)

 

while i do agree that mage's stunlock is not the worst, note that its stun is teleport, which isn't practical for stunlock. not to mention mage's stun is not exactly long, so you won't have time to do anything else because you have to do a 180 degrees turn then teleport again before they become free again. therefore, its stunlock has no real practical use.

something similar can be said about archer: actual melee builds are general pretty bad, quake and hybrid builds work but not too effectively

mage's teleport actually goes up quite high (like 7 blocks or something)

people have consistently noted that high knockback, which although if you're fighting the same way as an assassin does, it's a negative trait, but you can salvage it by using that high knockback to throw a mob into the wall extremely easily then spam bash/scream (similar to archer's gameplay). if you can't knock them back, then they have antikb anyway so then just spam bash.

now, if you do actually do that, it has a bit higher dps than mage, and no one seems to ever complain about things being impossible to solo because mage's dps is too low.

 

Viable is often confused with optimal. Viable basically means it works consistently and effectively. Optimal means it is the (arguably) best option of said viable options. Spell warrior is 100% viable overall. Optimal? No, I'd say that's probably fire melee as I said before. Just because it is recommended to use another playstyle when using that class doesn't mean the other just straight up doesn't work at all (tank archer can actually technically work if you just get a buttload of hp rather than focusing solely on defenses as an example).

This morley depends on what you consider a stunlock or not. I consider a stunlock somewhat similar, but different at the same time. Imo pushing a mob into a wall with loads of kb is effectively immobilizing them and it does not require blind and such to do so. As said by a few other people, uppercut is really the only spell that doesn't do kb and it is fine as a damage option. Warrior imo doesn't need a blind or stun like ice snake because of the sheer kb of it's spells (not to mention bash already provides slowness anyways).

The reason I say mage has the worst stunlock is, as said before, ice snake is useless against ranged mobs. Tp can blind for only a very short period of time compared to spin/leap/arrow shield (and as said before tp is very iffy anyways). Warrior on the other hand can effectively push enemies into a wall and spam them so it doesn't even need an immobilizing spell like ice snake since it's kb does it for them. It can deal with ranged enemies much more effectively since it can shoot them up into the air with uppercut, making the attacks quite easy to dodge. Thinking about it more, I wouldn't consider warrior to be the second best stunlock (archer would be 2nd due to the fact that it has good kb with 2 spells and can blind with 2 spells), but I still consider it better than mage.

Charge can shoot up a decent height (don't know the exact blocks) when looking down, so it does have the option just like mage. The issue with teleport is the annoying message spam when you're trying to tp somewhere but there's somehow a block in your way, meaning it can take a while to angle yourself to actually move.

Ok.

I disagree. I believe the playstyle of spell warrior can work in many situations outside of large groups (as mentioned before some bosses are an example). If it's not as good in wars I can understand that, but many things that are viable in normal pve aren't as viable for wars either.

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Can relate I used charge once after a cutscene and shot 200 blocks into the air because of lag.

 

Ok, Let me clear some things up for you.... you have an Idealistic outlook on the game, you can never achieve real nirvana and peace of mind until you understand that all things in life are unbalanced and nothing is ever equal. You say that warrior needs a buff/rework but what you don't realize is that after warrior gets buffed, mage will look inferior- then you buff mage and assassin looks inferior; the point is its an endless chain of imbalance that will never be fixed, no classes need reworks because it'll always lead to an endless loop of buffs and nerfs. Just realize that you need to leave this be, You & frankly anyone complaining should go by "Laissez-faire" which means "let it be." Just let it be, nothing is gonna change and being idealistic doesn't help.

 

Neither is abject pessimism. No one thinks that there will always be a perfect balance, but the point is to get as close to it as possible. Just saying everything is fine does not make it fine.

Not even what that guy you quoted just said

By that logic, mages were fine with the ability to instantly heal to full health. Assassins were fine with a 2000% damage multihit or the 320% multihit. you're entire argument is based off of the idea that any change, even the slightest ones, will instantly ruin the game and make all the other classes irrelevant, which just isn't true.

You do know that that's A. an economic policy and B. totally irrelevant? Was the game better back when you needed to draw a bow to shoot it, or when the only viable weapons were Bob's mythics? was the game better without Gavel or Elements? Change is important; otherwise the meta becomes stale and unfun. remember rainbow tanks and AFK grinding builds? were those fine? should those have been left alone?

 

The example you gave is invalid because who is supposed to make new items if there isn't an item team? what I mean is that trying to fix it is ok, but in this situation you're digging into a rabbit hole with no end.

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im just leaving my opinion, that not everything needs to be changed, classes are balanced as is at the moment and don't need changing. complaining about a feature just because you don't like it isn't ok, what if I like the knockback from warriors spells?

Also: shouldn't this thread be in the feedback section?

 

I guess I came off wrong there, I really just mean that un-necessary change is bad, and I view changing warrior is a bad idea because I feel like its already fairly balanced

 

Your not locked, I can solo everything on the following.
Full tank warrior,
Spell spam warrior
Melee warrior
My tcrack worrior,
My nutreal warrior
A poison warrior.

Keep in mind are all without pots.