Warrior Banners and what they could be. (SUGGESTION)

[Smoosh.2718]

After seeing the banner changes that are due to be landing with us tomorrow, Which is meant to address banners not being active skills but rather passive, by pressing F every 60 or so seconds. To me this seems very passive by nature and not a creative change that will excite people to play with banners. So I propose a change that will change the way banners will function and become more proactive in their functionality, allowing the use of banner of tactics into serious play ( Raids - Fracs - WvW ).

 

Please see below, and discus.

 

Banners:

 

Banners are now treated as an AOE effect around the caster, this Banner will pulse a buff around to those in the effect radius every X seconds. The banner skill can be reactivated again to provide combat boosting effects with aprpriate cooldowns, replacing the 1-5 skills, (this list will be broken down below). The banner when no longer required can be swapped back out for the main weapon sets, the utilty button can be pressed mmultiple times throughout the duration of the banners effect.

 

Reason:

Banners by nature have been too passive, and the current changes will not change this. The changes i propose will actually see the warrior being able to fulfil a support role as well as a damage role. Currently the warrior class does not have any means of being a supporting class, whilst other classes; Ranger, Guardian, Mesmer, Elementalist, Revenant, engineer and to an extent necromancer can. To me that seems a little odd.

 

So here is what I propose:

 


Banner of Defence

Pulsing fixed stats to all those in the radius Toughness and Vitality ( no change )

When equiped via second press, skills 1 to 5 are changed to boon applying utilities.

 

1 Bunker Down - Grant Barrier to those in the banners radius

2 Brace - Grant Protection to those in the banners radius

3 Inspire - no change grant swiftness to those in the banners radius (SHARED COOLDOWN)

4 Just a flesh wound - Remove 3 conditions and apply a short duration of resistance to those in the banners radius

5 Hold the line - Temporarily provide a further boost to Toughness and a short duration of stability

 

![](https://i.imgur.com/IoNPgA4.png"")

Banner of Tactics

Pulsing fixed stats to all those in the radius Healing power and Concentration ( no change )

When equiped via second press, skills 1 to 5 are changed to boon applying utilities.

 

1 For great glory - Apply quickness to those in the banners radius

2 Compassionate Banner - Remove conditions in addition to healing + regen to those in the banners radius

3 Inspire - no change grant swiftness to those in the banners radius (SHARED COOLDOWN)

4 Despirate cry - increase boon duration to those in the banners radius by 33%

5 Everything you've got - Apply alecraty to those in the banners radius.

 

![](https://i.imgur.com/mHENwd7.png"")

Banner of Strength

Pulsing fixed stats to all those in the radius Power and Condition damage ( no change )

When equiped via second press, skills 1 to 5 are changed to boon applying utilities.

 

1 Lock down - Provides an AOE buff to players in the banners radius that will apply cripple and Slow on their next strike.

2 Furious raise - Apply Fury to those in the banners radius

3 Inspire - no change grant swiftness to those in the banners radius (SHARED COOLDOWN)

4 Make this one count - Provide an AOE buff to players in the banners radius that will apply 30% more damage on their next 2 strikes

5 Explosive plant - Slam the banner on the ground damaging and launching foes away from the effected area. Those who are not launched will be effected by weakness.

 


Banner of Discipline

Pulsing fixed stats to all those in the radius Power and Condition damage ( no change )

When equiped via second press, skills 1 to 5 are changed to boon applying utilities.

 

1 Stay on target - Remove Blind from players in the banners radius and provide a short duration of Swiftness

2 Furious Rally - No change

3 Inspire - no change grant swiftness to those in the banners radius (SHARED COOLDOWN)

4 Hone skills - Provide an AOE buff to players in the banners radius that will make the next 3 attacks critical strikes

5 Charge - Apply superspeed and resistance for a short duration to those in the banners radius

 

 

 

 


Battle Standard

 

TBD

[BlackTruth.6813]

So basically turn banners into a kit? Would be really cool actually to have 3 weapon swaps if I'm reading this correctly.

 

 

[cryorion.9532]

"We considered enhancing the banner skills, but we don't want banners to be alternate weapons that take away from a player's normal weapons."

 

Anet wants banners to remain shallow, boring and with the incoming patch, even annoying.

 

TBH, all they had to do is remove ability for other players to pick up banners, reduce stats, and change cooldowns, if they wanted to nerf banners due to high dps gain from them.

Removing banner skills was unnecessary as they were used situationally and did not make banners alternate weapons in any way.

 

The active and more engaging gameplay would be if banners had only 1-2 skills, that can be used every 20-60 seconds when picking banners in combat for longer lasting buffs. So they wouldn't be alternate weapons with many useful skills (forcing warrior to wield banners for longer time) but more like support kits.

 

Alternative idea (no banner skills): after picking up, banners would make warrior pulse additional effects and/or increased stat gain for short duration. With specific banner mark above their head, indicating that stronger buffs are active (something like facets). Normally banners would provide only 100 stats to each specific attribute, but when comes to burn phases, warrior picks up banner and starts pulsing stronger buffs, e.g. increased bonus to each specific attribute (150-200) and/or pulsing certain boons/conditions depending on banner type, etc, for 5-10 seconds. After the buff expires, banners go on cooldown with 55-50 seconds CD substraction (possibly lower the substraction by xy seconds to properly balance it).

If stacking stronger buffs of more banner types on one warrior would be broken/OP, then just make it so only one stronger buff can be active at a time, and picking another banner type overwrites active one.

 

Currently, there is no reward for actively using banners at all. After today's balance patch, it is still going to remain like that. The "active banner management" will be more annoying than satisfying/rewarding. I thought the main goal of reworks were to make things more fun/enjoyable/balanced...

 

There are a more interesting and fun options, but Anet decided to go with nerf/annoyance way, where banners are nerfed (understandable) and now annoying to manage. Can't wait to actively pick up banners during combat just to make them disappear and then resummon them again... and that's all.

It sounds so much fun and engaging... especially for 5-man content... /s

 

Why warrior has to suffer such plain nerfs and shallow changes :(

If at least trade-offs were good, but in case of warrior... oh well...

[Vancho.8750]

The banners need to do something cool when dropped like the elite one so it does not feel like passive game play. Warrior gets a lot of passive traits to cover for the lack of active abilities but then you have to take the most passive skills and it devolves into bore fest. The active needs actual oomph when used so there is a feeling that you did something. Banners are really useful but using the ability is not impactful, it feels more like a chore then fun to do. It is unrewarding job, people will only notice you if you don't do it.