2mo ago

Early impression of Warrior Rework: +Berserker -Gladiator

It's been a very busy time for me and I haven't played as much as I wanted to, but my runs with Warrior have left me with these early impressions:

Berserker has a lot to gain from regular shielding at low health. Pairs well with Ring of Tenacity, enough that it didn't feel like a meme to run it. I don't think it represents a huge power spike but a setup that allows you to reap the benefits of lower HP actually exists now, which is cool
Gladiator on the other hand feels somewhat worse to me. Typically I played Gladiator as an HP tank, so that passive shielding was more like active HP protection and the lack of cooldown on shield regeneration + permanent uptime meant that after any given fight I'd already gain the benefit of the shield, if I even needed it - if not, I'd just try to maintain combo between encounters. That's been turned on its head now and the shield can actually trigger frequently but disappear after combat, which makes the need to combo kill at the end of every fight is pretty crucial now, so building combo for a good kill feels far more pressing than it used to. You also gain nothing for doing so until you drop to half health, so you're not leveraging a big HP pool anymore.

Low health still feels like a risky way to play and while there's far more reward in it for a Berserker now, the Gladiator doesn't feel like it gains anything from this rework and maybe loses a little something - at least, in the way I always used to play Gladiator, it just doesn't exist anymore.

I'd be interested to hear what some other players have thought about the Warrior changes. My TLDR is I'm a lot more inclined to pick Zerk, a lot less inclined to assume Gladiator, and Ring of Tenacity feels way less like a meme now with regular shielding popping up once you're low enough health to make the shield effectively worth more than it says on the box.

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Reading over these comments, I generally agree that Gladiator already has a lot to deal with and the extra juggling of shield uptime is a bit much. Some of this is intended, but I'm considering softening it a bit by allowing the shield to stay active as long as enemies are near OR the gladiator has combo. This won't affect balance much but should make it feel like the various mechanics are clashing a lot less.
- I’m considering softening it a bit by allowing the shield to stay active as long as enemies are near OR the gladiator has combo
  That is a pretty solid idea, it would definitely make it feel more worthwhile to save your combo up between encounters. It can be a difficult resource to manage effectively given the other extenuating circumstances like environmental hazards and "oops all melee whiffs, womp womp" so feeling less pressure to just spend it at the end of every encounter would take a load off!
- The shield persisting through the Combo would be a great addition, it would definitely feel better. I'm looking forward to that.
  I'm wondering though
  The fact that we can't begin stacking Lethal defense until the passive shield triggers. Is it intended? Would it be too strong if the passive had full uptime on top of the Gladiator talent?
  
  I'm not totally sure what you mean by this. The talent absolutely shouldn't require the shield to be currently active to trigger, and it doesn't from my testing.
- Personally, I don't see it as clashing. The gladiator is the more active sub-class and currently, in the situation where you're about to kill an enemy but your shield is up, strategically, you should not end the combo and be in search for your next fight. Your shield will be in cooldown but you have combo built up ready for a finish and reset. The gladiator should be played differently than the berserker.
  But the change you proposed shouldn't be game-breaking and it'll make some players happy so I'm not opposed to it or anything. It's probably a good change.
- It seems if this specific change was intended as a buff, it may be a bit of a nerf. Now, when you have just a few points of shielding after a fight, you hold a meagre shield rather than going into reset right away. On the other hand, if you had most of your shielding in tact, that means the fight was ideal and minimal damage was sustained. And you would get a reduced immediate cooldown previously. It just seems like the worser case scenario got worse and the better one got rewarded.
  Just thought I'd provide some feedback and I'm not looking for any change or reversal. It was manageable before and I'll manage with the current mechanics.
  
  It's worth noting that the shield starts cooling down immediately after it activates, you are not losing out on cooldown duration if it ends up lasting longer.
Really? The accompanying change to Lethal Defense allows Gladiator to essentially have double shielding every encounter (that's up to 30 HP).
- It's deceptive though, right - Old Gladiator would persist the shield through the next encounter regardless of their life total whereas Gladiator even on -100% cooldown will still lose the shield at end of combat, and if you're storing combo for the next encounter it means you're not resetting your cooldown.
  I think combo is a frustrating currency to manage because it can go sideways for a lot of reasons. Maybe you miss too much, maybe an opponent doesn't die to your melee damage but some other effect (blazing enchant, thorns glyph, toxic/corrosive gas, enemy "friendly fire", any number of things) and so you don't get extended turns to re-engage in melee so the timer runs out, etc. Maybe if combo were less goofy to manage this change wouldn't feel quite as much of a downgrade for Gladiator, idk.
  But now there's an added pressure to keep your shield cooldown as low as possible, which means you're actually killing with combo hits consistently, so you're trying to hit this sweet spot between doing enough melee hits to build combo but not enough to accidentally kill with regular attacks, but getting enough successive combo to kill with your chosen move. And you have to be <=50% health or the shield isn't even in play. So it's the combination of shielding requiring continual cooldown resets, being on low health, and managing an awkward resource in Combo hits to keep Gladiator, uh, gladiating
  It feels like a big change from the old Gladiator, where the shield was already actively managed rather than passively; you could always choose to combo kill and refresh the shield, cooldown not even being a thing. Combo was still awkward but at least you could accrue it at your leisure and spend it when you saw fit to gain all your shielding back at once.
  I will continue to try and refine my approach to Gladiator since it just doesn't function as it used to, this is all still pretty early analysis on my part. I don't assume everyone plays the game like I do, there are a few variants of Gladiator given the way combo hits get their damage, and maybe a different one that's more aggressive and less of a wall of EHP is simply more appropriate now. But my old standard method, where there was less pressure to sustain and use combo and shielding was always present and ready to be refreshed is definitely not in the game anymore.
I've been doing a LOT of intensive testing myself, and I agree with you on so many points. Your analysis of the playstyle shift is spot-on.
For the Berserker, I think it's in a very good state right now. Its shielding from the passive and the Berserker ability stack perfectly, ensuring not a single point of cooldown goes to waste.
Your points on the Gladiator really resonate with me, I know exactly what you are talking about. I've had similar frustrations with Lethal Defense. My testing shows that the Gladiator is in a bit of a weird state right now because its shielding cooldowns fail to stack in an intuitive way. For example, if the Warrior's passive shield is on its default 100-turn cooldown and you've waited about 90 turns, and then you trigger Lethal Defense +3 (which reduces cooldown by a flat 100%) with a combo kill, it just resets the passive shield's cooldown back to 0. All that passive cooldown progress you had, all those 90 turns, seems to go to waste.
This creates some sort of "shackle" effect. You're either waiting for the passive shield to come off its 100-turn cooldown (and for you to be below 50% HP), or you're using Lethal Defense, which then negates any progress toward that passive shield. It feels like you're constantly fighting against your own defensive mechanics, rather than having them synergize.
Also, another issue is that, even if the shield is off cooldown, you cannot stack shielding unless the shield activates at least once. This also puts some unnecessary risk, which is fine in terms of game difficulty, but it's very counterintuitive.
On a positive note, I did confirm that the Crush ability does trigger Lethal Defense for every enemy killed in its splash radius, which is a great way to get to the -100% cooldown reduction.
I'm not sure whether any of this behavior is intended, or if it's not working properly at the moment, but I want to bring it to Evan's attention. I feel this could use some improvements, especially considering how well the Berserker works now.
- It feels like you’re constantly fighting against your own defensive mechanics, rather than having them synergize.
  This is a great way to put it. There's a lot of tension between Gladiator's mechanics right now, I don't feel like they're pulling in the same direction.
I think overall the change is supposed to be a buff in terms of the damage mitigated by shielding; in total. You do have to actively manage it, to leverage the benefits, as opposed to before. It does require a shift in gameplay and tactics. I like the change because it seems more powerful overall; provided you min-max.
I agree with the other comment that the gladiator may be able to better exploit the change through Lethal Defense.
One thing I found interesting is the shielding doesn't degrade over time as long as an enemy is in view. This can be useful if you're farming/levelling and there's a room with a piranha pool in the middle; giving you a bit of control if you disposed of a mob and took minimal damage.
Certain trinkets are more useful now, if say you got them through the random selection. I'm thinking of the vial of blood in particular. At +3, 10 dew gives pretty much a full heal. I imagine 5 would be enough to help hover around 50% health. I haven't gotten the vial on a recent warrior yet so I can't confirm. But 5 is quite easy to obtain.

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