Warrior feels bad at all points in the game and it doesn't get better
lvl 89 Titan, 75% block, 80% all res, 9k armor with +7% additional pdr from shield, 3700 life. These are my stats for a reference point before I get into the post.
I play a bleed focused build with Sunder/HOTG, the damage itself is not an issue and understandably the gameplay is sluggish by design, as it fits the thematic concept of a hulking brawler.
However, these increases to attack timers are downright ridiculous. The cast time of my Sunder is 2.22 seconds. This amount of time is enough for every mob on my screen to either a) finish their cast/ranged attack or b) run to me, and if enough mobs are present on screen, to surround me and therefore avoid the attack.
Now, while normally this does not pose a problem as I can tank the vast majority of these instances, there are certainly situations where this makes the gameplay absolutely horrible. For example, there are many unblockable ground aoe attacks. I can start casting my sunder in a relatively safe position, and during this cast these ground aoes can spawn under me and finish their delayed explosion before my sunder goes off, which means that I need to be constantly interrupting my attacks and kiting mobs in order to start casting my sunder before these mobs even appear on my screen to be able to finish attacking.
Secondly, what is up with the mana costs? My 5 link sunder costs 252 mana, when my entire mana pool is 350 mana with added mana from gear. I have mana leech and mana on kill from gear to specifically to be able to play without pumping out mana flasks every pack, and in normal mapping this works out fine. However, it is an entirely different thing when bossing. Last night I was doing the 4th trial of Sekhema and I arrived at the last boss. I am not joking when I tell you I was at that boss fight for over 20 minutes because if I missed even one sunder on a boss that constantly teleports around, he would regen his energy shield back to full while I had to watch it happen while being unable to do anything while out of mana (bleed does not apply if a target has energy shield). This cannot be the intended design.
Comments
I played two handed mace titan until act 3 and it was painful.
Switched to a ranged build and it was night and day.
How much they hyped up the melee improvements I really feel mace based skills have missed the mark.
I feel the biggest issue with warrior is all the flat attack time added to a lot of skills. I get the idea of slow hard hitting attacks but when ranged can do the same amount of damage without the slow down and at range, melee fails.
I've since gone back to my titan and made him a crossbow build using flash grenades and it's 10x better imo.
Its not warrior. Its mace that sux
Corrupting Cry warcry build has been my smoothest build so far, only in T13 right now but I'm mostly face tanking everything and just yelling at the mobs. 11/10
I haven’t played warrior so can’t really say much but someone pointed that both weapons (axes and flails) around warrior are still missing so maybe warrior weapon/build variety is simply very limited on current state of EA
Post about that image where someone mentioned that isolation warriors currently have with available weapons near them: https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExile2/s/lcAlsginrB
Warrior is fun in a way but armor is too weak and the game too fast for its super slow animations.
When my sunder animation takes sometimes longer then the time the enemy is stunned i dont know what to say.
Meanwhile my act2 cruel sorc is BLASTING and has 1k life + 1.5k es at lvl 50.my 85 wareior 3k life.
In short warrior is hardmode. Fun but hardmode. Armor + life is just way worse then other options and animation locks too long.
I play Titan with a BOW I have fun with it Level 81!
It’s crazy to me they nerfed armor explosion. God forbid we have good ass clear in maps. I’m only at 12/13’s maps. Bosses tend to be pretty easy cuz hammer for the gods. I assume they’d be super annoying if we didn’t have that ability. I invested in that new cultist hammer build. But it requires A LOT to really be super good and replace how good armor explosion was feeling. Stampede was still chill but it just feels so slow. I agree with the post that was made the other day, or maybe it was a comment. Warrior when you get a speed shrine is how it should feel closer to endgame. Getting a speed shrine is like the only time I feel like, “hell yeah, I don’t feel like a complete slug”.
I started playing on a mercenary and used Plasma Blast.
Imagine my surprise when this skill didn't do much damage on bosses (although I wanted to make it a one shot and start upgrade crit. chance), even after that the maximum I got was 600k damage (lucky with crits, I think).
Now in poe2 it's very hard to sustain crit chance, I got 17% with sup. gems, maybe I could get 25%.
Why am I writing all this? To shoot this wonderful skill I need about 5 SECONDS.
How can you make a skill specifically for bosses and think that I will have 5 seconds to fire it.
The problem is that the base charge of the skill is 2 seconds and it cannot be reduced + attack time, but even getting close to 3 seconds, I think, is impossible.
Sunder looks like it should be a skill for clearing but it just isn't. It's too slow. It's more of a combo finisher, esp with the armor break synergy. It's tough to find anything that's actually good clear on warrior though. There was the armor break explosion basic attack build but that got nerfed for some reason. There's the dual wielding magma strike build, if you dual wield and use scattershot you will throw 6 magma orbs, and you can also enhance it with fork support. That's probably the next best for clearing density but it will do nothing against high hp units. Stampede is like the next next best clear from my experience.
I think the reduced attack speed nodes are only for a weapon swap setup for when a rare/boss is heavy stunned and it's safe to go in for a big swing. You want your clear setup to be focused on attacking fast, stunning stuff fast and staying alive, then you can drop a bunch of armour nodes for the 2nd tree and take more damage nodes. You can use a fast weapon for tree 1 and a slow one for tree 2. My 2nd tree for instance has an extra 537% increased damage from nodes I can't justify taking on my clearing setup. I clear with earthshatter and oneshot i81 bosses with HotG.
Still, some mob types are overtuned and it makes mapping very rough despite investing a lot into defense. I use 4 of my jewel slots for extra max cold res and freeze threshold because there is no reliable freeze immunity.
I was curious on trying bleed but Warrior has been pretty painful for sure. I genuinely would like to see GGG lower the movement and attack speed of all enemies by 20-40%. The biggest issue in all content for Warrior is how slow I am compared to the enemies. I feel a lot slower in this game than POE1, which I prefer over really fast gameplay. But the enemies feel just as fast as POE1. Warrior play style almost doesn’t fit in this game.
Just a thanks to those who have dedicated your time to the warrior. I’m playing the witch and having an absolute blast!
That being said, I really do appreciate these posts. From a casual dad gamer that really doesn’t have a ton of time to spend trying stuff out only to feel underpowered with a lack of enjoyment, posts like yours save the absolute day?
Silver lining maybe?
Not warriors fault it's maces.
Yea i play warrior but corupting cry build so its kinda fast and i dont have slow attack time, just spamming and running. Ima 71 on t3 maps so idk endgame yet but for now i love it and its fun
Yes, warrior feels fucking bad now. For reference I'm a 89 titan, 29% block, 600 Str, 4.1k hp and 15k armour, near endgame gear and res capped (except chaos, but close)
Playing a stampede hotg build. Sometimes I can clear t18s, sometimes I can't.
Situationally I get fucked over by the skill speed and the mob clear abilities that warrior has. Press a button and the damage arrives only 2-3 seconds later.
The lack of clear speed when compared to other classes, along with the lack of proper wave clear damage, and the innate clunkiness feels VERY FUCKING BAD.
I've played enough warrior to gear up a howa/pillar build, that's how much I played it.
I stopped playing warrior because it feels fucking bad got party play with a lot of tanky mobs. Dps sustain feels lacklustre, speed feels abysmal.
Wait, I thought bleed was supposed to go through energy shield as per the tool tip? I thought it was our counter to all those bosses that have energy shield?
They probably want mana to be a consideration when making a build, some supports increase mana costs more than others
And if you have good life regen there are warrior nodes that shift part of the mana costs to life instead
But yeah, it might also still need some tuning
pretty sure you're not 'supposed' to use Sunder as your main clear skill. It's one of those super slow but powerful skills to use for certain circumstances.
I dont play melee for moment. In poe1, for melee build, 9k Armor is nothing, before 30 or 40k with a lot of pdr, and a lot of res (chaos res too) et 4k or 5 life, you die a lot.
Just play shouts or totems, never use melee skill yourself.
Meele needs a pass for sure and it also needs another weapon or two I think
I think the problems are with other classes except for Merc. Merc and Warrior are properly designed for ARPG while the other classes are designed for hack & slash. Why doesn’t Ranger have a motion time of placing an arrow from the quiver to the bow before releasing it? Ranger can have its core game play if each arrow is more carefully aimed and shot instead of spamming lighting rods for AoE damages from lv 3.
Monks...Sorcerers...Witches.... completly obliterating screens in T15+...Sonic the hedgehog gameplay...one tapping Uber bosses...and its Warriors who get nerfed 24/7...its already a meme!
This game has the worst class balance I have ever seen and by the patches we have been receiving its only getting worst.
- Ranger LA 1-click blows the screen instantly while moving freely around.
- Warrior expode part of the screen after a 3 seconds very-clunky almost uncontrolable stampede windup (on top of getting blocked by trash mobs).
- Insta-nerf armor explosion.
Why are you doing this ggg? Supposed to fix melee yet makes the archetype available the worst by far.
And Johnatan was recommending warrior for new players haha...
Don't get me wrong, you can kill stuff and be totally fine in t16s but the clunkyness and effectiveness compared to others is abysmal. I'm more tanky with my ranger because I'm far away, constantly moving and blowing stuff than with my 3K HP, max block 80 all res 75 chaos res warrior... with a fraction of the investment.
It really seem like they started POE 2 development with warrior and got the feel-the-weight kinda feeling they wanted the game to become. Mandatory slow combos to do dmg (build-up stun mechanic! breaking armor mechanic!), unable to move with slow windups, ... Then they implemented other classes and they forgot all about the original ideals. Probably because time ran out and maybe some of their views changed.
Now you have essentially two different games depending on if you pick the warrior-mace archetype or not.
I knew something was up when I couldn't beat the Devourer first boss lol
As far as i know Skill Speed bonuses affect +Total Attack Time penalties to make these skills more viable, but there are not enough Passive Tree nodes of buffs to boost it properly.
I dont know who played with the slam skills or all the mace skills in general, but the slams, good god. Youre in the air longer than bugs bunny on space jam.
Like, wtf.then it misses completely because the hit box is garbage.
The cemetery boss has a move where it slams the floor with his hands and thought the game would offer something similar to maces so i was looking forward to dual wielding two hand maces. The disappointment was immense.
Gotta admit, one of the first critique posts I don't immediately face palm at. Wind-up time on Warrior Skills has been absolutely miserable. I'm only level 75-ish on my Titan. I am dual-wielding 1Handed maces and using a juiced up Mace Strike as my primary source of DPS. Use Herald of Ash as my "AoE" clear. Everything I hit goes down in 1-2 seconds except Rares and bosses (Which are like 10-15 seconds.) I find it's just way, WAY, faster to use Mace-Strike as my primary....everything really. I have HoTG for dealing with River Hags or other troublesome casters, and armor break for making bosses go down more easily.
But so far I am just not liking 99% of the skills available to me. Doesn't help that for some reason, whenever I use the Totem that uses Slam Skills I crash repeatedly. If I don't use that skill I don't crash. I wanted to try Fissure/Sunder combo and see how that worked, just can't do it. I think they need to lower the fixed cast time on a lot of the slam attacks by 20-40% honestly. Shouldn't be the case that my Weapon Skill is significantly superior to all my other skills.
I’m only level 50 and have been playing mainly with totems/earthquake and for mobbing it shreds but whenever I come to a boss it’s a struggle. Like it’s still fun I just gotta break armor and use perfect strike and I get through it.
That being said I’ve been stuck on this forge master guy for a few days and it apparent I’m gonna have to change the entire build just to beat him. At this point I’d rather just start a new character that doesn’t move like molasses, who’s capable of landing an attack before any enemy in the game can land 10.
Replace trying to hard cast Sunder with Stampede. Socket sunder with 6s CD gem and other damage and only use it against stunned enemies.
Stampede will clear all trash, and can deal good damage to rares and bosses. HotG off cooldown against big rares/bosses, Sunder strategically or against stunned enemies for big damage. This will make your build far more viable. I also am 90 Titan, similar stats, and easily do t15 maps + 16s with irradiated + bosses buffed 4x with boss books. (the bosses can still be tough and i die occasionally). When I was leveling up, I used Sunder a lot more. I found myself dying constantly because of the cast time. Before that it was rolling slam, same deal.
I do agree there's a problem currently with the abilities like this that are forced to have a long cast time. If they aren't going to remove the restrictions on having 1.5+ seconds added to the attack that can never get faster, then they really need to tinker with a defensive mechanic to attach to them. Guard is a mechanic that gives temporary HP. I think that's a good idea for abilities like sunder/rolling slam (rolling slam especially). If you're going to be stuck in place dealing damage, you need to be very tanky because you ARE going to get hit. These abilities need to compensate for that in some way.
My big complaint about mace is that Hammer of the Gods has a very finnicky window where you can complete the animation for casting it but still cancel the ability if you roll a microsecond too soon.
Why would they waste their time if there are cool builds to play with as well as an EA was about to be released? :D
I just leveled a warrior to 61 and completed the campaign. I did buy a juiced mace at lvl 16 and lvl 38. I did monk first, then ranger, and now warrior. Warrior was the easiest and smoothest I'd say. The monk was my first play through at launch so it was rough with shit gear. The ranger and warrior both had a nice weapon and another piece or two of solid items for lower levels.
Warrior was using very low level gear until act 3 cruel where i bought an "OK" pair of gloves and boots. I felt extremely powerful and just destroyed everything. A juiced weapon and good damage makes all the difference.
We'll see how it goes in maps, but it was fun as hell during campaign.
My Warbringer feels good the 1st few maps right after he got his ascendancy.
That's right after I crafted a 2h mace and slotted in mana leech just so I won't run out of mana pots like the 1st time I did the trials. Great mana costs. Much chug.
Does it?
Granted I’m only lvl10 on my Warrior but I love how 2H warrior feels. Definitely liking it more than Mercenary, i got to 20 with my merc and the class just feels off to me. Every single ability being a different ammo type is boring and makes them all feel too similar
Warrior has a big problem, and its the fact that its default attack is competing to be its best skill.
DEFAULT ATTACK. Ive been using it all game on bosses. Basically bosses are so dangerous you need to be swift and agile. So I use the only skill that doesnt have windup.
I like the idea of slow hulking brutes. But, I need 50% damage reduction for that to happen. Which will never happen because warriors will be invulnerable. So.... Basically warriors will suck forever, same as poe1. They dont know how to balance the damage you take as a melee without creeping into being invulnerable. And you cant.
Well, actually you could, you could fix the entire game, by making max resists hover around 50%, instead of 75 (and really I mean 90%).
But that will require an whole rebalance, which will never happen.
I understand the concept and trade off but having such long windups is clunky and just does not feel good
I feel like I’m having an opposite experience. I’m also 89. My stats are 3.7k life, 25k armor (no shield and around 40k armor with scavenged plating up)85/80/80/75 for resists. I’m using Mace Strike/Boneshatter for clear (has worked throughout endgame for me and currently in t15+ way stones). For bossing I try to get offa stun and get double HOTG and sunder with seismic cry. The bossing at max maps has slowed down but I’m planning on setting up a weapon swap for bleed.
I would highly suggest trying to find a different skill than sunder for clear. It has such a large attack time that im not surprised you are getting chunked while using it. I’ve not really followed a guide (although many are using the same com o for clear as me). If you want further info about my set up let me know.
I told a warrior and quit before the Miller fight. I know it was very quick, but figured I'd hear about the class before I decided to spend much more time on it. Ty for the confirmation. Will let them cook on it a little longer it seems
Can we stop doomposting about classes that there are loads of people/resources proving its success?
Play molten strike or a different build if you don’t like the attack speed issues. Also spec into attack speed. I have more life, resists, and EHP than you and i am crushing all content.
I still think the biggest problem with melee is that there's only the mace, melee in general has less variety/options right now than any ranged weapon on its own xD
What i did to fix my warrior was go giants blood and get 20% attack speed on both weapons with a min of 400pds and strength req of 370-440. Get attack speed on gloves and get rage and attack speed on being hit by enemies. Now when i walk into a juiced t15 map on my relatively tanky character as i get hit i get mega buffed and then do a much smooth and fast ability cast and screen clear in 1-2 hits and i have perfect strike setup for 1 banging rares. Also turning mana cost into life cost with 10% life regen per sec makes it so i spend no resources. I know sunder is not really affected by attack speed so that sucks. It should get a speed buff cause it does feel awful.
Sunder does feel bad. Stampede with 25% speed allows for quicker charge so you can dodge the incoming projectiles in time.
What i do, i usually stampede then roll at the end to adjust for my next stampede or other skill. Depending on the monsters and map mods, i play more aggresively or carefully.
I have totems, sunder and slam as 2nd skills depending on the situation. And hammer of gods for boss deletion.
I do have 450÷ hp regen, so that helps a lot in sustaining smaller hits.
Stampede feels boss. Boneshatter was pretty sick for all of cruel.
Sunder blows ass dont use it, anything with a huge attack time will always suck ass because you need to react to things within one second, and if you dont have an attack rate if about 0.7 seconds or less, you will not have a good time. If you are playing titan I would suggest trying aoe boneshatter, with aftershock supports. This will feel much much better and get a high attack rate high pds weapon. Idk if you can build that bleed but eh. Sunder is kinda crit focused with its crit on consuming armor break, good for multi proccing armor explosion by putting it on a totem but not much else. You can also do a corrupting cry titan, that might be very good if you are strength stacking. You could also do EQ + stampede for bleed, would probably feel a lot better.
Warbringer with armor break, then breaking armor further and beyond. Take nodes that do bonus damage with heavy stun and broken armor. Feels so good, stuns happen so fast even during stun resist
Hey , the warrior feels bad but to make it bearable use hp to cast skills. My sunder right now take about 1.76 seconds to cast and it does around 30k dmg I'm a lv 80 titan.
Yeah titan is kinda screwed for survivability. Warbringer with the block nodes is just so much better for staying alive.
Im just using blood magic node + berserk aura to keep my hp topped up, otherwise my 200 cost earthquakes would suck me dry in milliseconds