User:Soldier198/Rebalancing IAS Skills for PvE

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The release of the Eye of the North expansion introduced the skill Drunken Master into the game. This skill is not only one of the strongest IAS skill in PvE but it's mere existence invalidates the majority of IAS skills in PvE because it is permanently maintainable, non-elite, not tied to any profession, and grants a 33% speed boost in addition to the attack speed increase. The only caveat to Drunken Master is that it requires the player to be under the effects of alcohol in order to gain its conditional bonus. Because stacks of alcohol items are relatively cheap in the current game, it is not difficult to achieve the 33% bonus from Drunken Master. Consequently, Drunken Master has replaced the majority of IAS skills in PvE, with only a few exceptions.

This page is intended to rebalance IAS skills in PvE in order to give players more variety. All of these changes will be restricted to PvE on account of the different balancing standards between PvE and PvP. Namely, skills that grant an IAS in PvP are intended to have drawbacks or other limitations that restrict the players performance in exchange for a significantly increased damage output as well as to provide enemy teams with means to exploit players who use an IAS (i.e spiking a Warrior under Frenzy).

A universal change that will be given to all skills which increase attack speed in PvE is the removal of their drawbacks. This is necessary because Drunken Master has no drawbacks, and its introduction came with the implication that Arenanet no longer considered basic IAS skills as requiring any form of tradeoff or limitation in PvE. Additionally, because Drunken Master also increases movement speed, IAS skills that offer only an increase in attack speed also need to grant a secondary beneficial effect, otherwise they will remain strictly inferior to Drunken Master.


  • Flail Flail Changed functionality to: Stance. For 1...12...15 second[s], you attack 33% faster and you gain an additional 5...17...20% critical hit chance against stationary foes. This bonus is doubled against knocked down foes.

Will expand later.

Quick note Keeping the adrenaline boost while removing the drawback probably would've made this skill much better than the rest of the warrior IAS skills here and it's duration couldve been made permanent with dwarven stability.

  • Burst of Aggression Burst of Aggression Increased recharge to 15; changed functionality to: Stance. For 1...12...15 seconds, you attack 33% faster. When you first activate this skill, you gain 1 strike of adrenaline for each attack skill you have (maximum 0...2...3 adrenaline).

Will expand later.

  • Frenzy Frenzy Increased recharge to 15; changed functionality to: Stance. For 4 seconds and 1 second for each rank of Strength, you attack 33% faster and gain +10 armor.

Will expand later.

Will expand later.

Will expand later.

More to come later