Gamers obviously cannot live without their regular new Guild Wars 2 information fix, so ArenaNet thoughtfully obliged by providing a double dose on the official website. Not only are we finally introduced to the previously confirmed warrior profession, but there’s also an extensive overview of the little talked about traits system and of course some actual gameplay footage of the warrior in action!
As always I’ll be providing a to-the-point list that contains all the new information below, while you should visit the pages linked to above for the full story and tons of new media. And if you hadn’t followed Guild Wars 2 previously (seriously?) then you might also want to check out the previous coverage of the dynamic events system #1 & #2, personal story system, design manifesto and combat system and elementalist profession.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for more Guild Wars 2 information on the official website, ArenaNet Blog and of course those helpful bullet-point lists over here at GameDrone.
General
- Combat is much more spectacular than it was in the first game, with Warriors literally throwing themselves towards enemies and spectacular animations that are more reminiscent of Aion or Cabal Online than Guild Wars.
- Fights seem to be shorter and more brutal, with most bad guys thus far dropping in one or two hits to both warriors and elementalists.
- Boasts definitely seem to be in and situation-dependent. The character will boast/taunt prior to and/or after combat, but not constantly throughout a fight.
Fights look much more intense and brutal than they did in Guild Wars
Traits
- In essence traits are modifiers for your skills and attributes. In this regard it sounds exactly like the traits systems in other MMORPGs such as LotRO and WoW.
- Traits are acquired by completing profession challenges, such as challenging a legendary swordmaster to a duel in Divinity’s reach.
- Professions gain traits in different ways, so Warriors would train physically, fight, eat and drink. Meanwhile an Elementalist would seek ancient knowledge in tomes or powerful elemental locations.
- There are roughly 100 traits per profession, which cannot be slotted all at once.
- Traits are themed similar to profession-specific attributes in Guild Wars. So a warrior can have traits in power, tactics and each of the weapons (s)he can wield.
- It’s possible to slot several traits per trait line.
- There is no in-game cost to slotting traits, so respecs are entirely free, but can be done out of combat.
- The term ‘slotting’ is used so it would seem that the trait system is more similar to LotRO’s than WoW’s in that you’ll probably be able to collect most, if not all, traits per profession. However, this has not been confirmed.
The Warrior: still a big hulking fighting machine, but with a few new tricks!
Warrior
- Still the classic heavily armored warrior type. Anything else would’ve been silly really.
- Adrenaline builds up on every hit, increasing the power of a warrior’s attacks. There are three stages of this adrenaline that require increasing amounts of strikes to fill. Much like Guild Wars, some skills rely on adrenaline to be fired, namely burst skills. There’s one burst skill per weapon set and their effects improve based on the stage of adrenaline the warrior is at.
- It’s been confirmed that warriors can wield axes, greatswords, hammers, longbows, maces, rifles, shields, swords and warhorns. It’s likely that there will be more available types of weaponry that simply haven’t been mentioned yet.
- A warrior can combine these 9 weapons in 19 different ways, with dual-wielding, main-hand/off-hand, etc.
- The warrior profession has two active weapons sets that (s)he can switch between. There is a cooldown to prevent constant weapon swapping.
- A warhorn is a possible off-hand weapon, which provides damage buffs.
- It’s possible to dual-wield swords as a warrior.
- A sword warrior is quick and mobile.
- An axe warrior builds adrenaline quickly and delivers high spike damage, much like in Guild Wars.
- A hammer warrior has slower attacks that deal area-of-effect damage.
- A mace-wielding warrior can disrupt and debilitate foes with stuns and weakening attacks.
- A greatsword allows a warrior to deliver sweeping area-of-effect attacks while gliding across the battlefield.
- A longbow warrior has skills to set his arrows on fire to inflict area-of-effect damage.
- A rifle is ideal for pulling or finishing off single opponents.
Shield Stance is a perfect counter to bad breath
Warrior Skills and Traits
- The five basic skills that come with a sword equipped are the classic chain consisting of Sever Artery, Gash and Final Thrust. There’s a (likely but not confirmed) burst skill in the from of Flurry, which is now a rapid area-of-effect attack. Lastly a movement skill named Savage Leap rounds out the five sword-specific skills.
- There are five skill types that define the warrior profession: stances, chains, banners, shouts and charge skills.
- Stances are toggleable buffs that drain your energy while they’re active. Berserker’s Stance for instance drains energy, but provides adrenaline regeneration.
- Chains are sets of three skills that share a single skill slot. So the previously mentioned Sever Artery, Gash and Final Thrust combo is on a single key and one only becomes available after the previous skill has been successful.
- Banners are skills that provide buffs to attack power for nearby allies. These are physical items that can be picked up and carried around to move the buff. The Banner of Courage increases melee damage of allies within its range.
- Shouts can affect a large area with buffs or debuffs. On My Mark is a skill that lower’s an enemy’s armor and calls a target out to your party members.
- Charge Skills can be held down to power them up for an improved attack. A mace warrior can power up Obliterate for instance, which can be released at four different levels of power to do increasing amounts of damage.
- Healing Surge is a possible heal skill for warriors, which provides both health and adrenaline when used.
- For Great Justice gives a fury and might boon to nearby allies.
- Frenzy is a skill that increases your overall adrenaline gain.
- Battle Standard is an elite skill that provides a variety of powerful buffs for your allies.
- Shield Stance is a skill that can block or reduce oncoming damage.
- Arcing Shot is a lonbow skill that fires long-range fire arrows that do a great deal of area-of-effect damage.
- Stomp is a skill that has the warrior jump into the air to fall back hard onto the ground and stun nearby enemies.
- Dual-wield axe warriors have a skill to throw an axe at enemies.
- Eviscerate is in for dual-wield axe warriors and throws the warrior towards an enemy doing incredible amounts of damage.
- The Power trait line includes traits that increase your strength attribute to allow melee attacks to do more damage.
- The Tactics trait line includes a Weapon Master trait which allows for faster weapon switching. This line also includes traits that increase the number of targets your shouts affect and increase the duration of your banners.
- The Sword trait line has a Swordmastery trait which increases damage per hit, as well as a trait that increases the critical hit chance for the Final Thrust skill.
- The Longbow trait line includes traits that improve your longbow damage.
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