I've been repeating it for months now, the problem isn't Spirit Blade but
the amount of effective Barrier he can generate over a period of time.
Fade Shield is
not the problem. The Arcane Warrior needs that ratio to keep himself alive in his "melee" role.
Spirit Blade is
not the problem either. Although I agree with removing the bonus damage to Barrier from Spirit Blade. That thing was OP, you hit 1 Wraith with that thing and you got 75% of your max 3500 Barrier... That was really unbalanced. The cost? Hardly, but going for 15 mana would have been more manageable than 20.
Bioware basically killed that build for PUGs, the very people that weren't good enough to actually play him correctly. Now they'll use something else and die even more than they already did... Careful what you wish for...Instead of allowing him to have a 3500+ points Barrier that can be fully replenish multiple times over 10 seconds, lower it to 1500 (1000 base + 50% Strength of Spirits). That way, whenever he auto-generates Barrier over time he won't be able to give himself more than 10k effective Barrier over 10 seconds...
I explain it here in great details:
http://forum.bioware...post&p=19038323 (April 26)
http://forum.bioware...post&p=19035588 (April 26)
http://forum.bioware...post&p=18917710 (April 02)
http://forum.bioware...post&p=18813859 (March 17)
http://forum.bioware...post&p=18676760 (February 24)
http://forum.bioware...post&p=18311501 (January 08)
http://forum.bioware...post&p=18220169 (December 29)
http://forum.bioware...-right-solution (December 02)
Full Disclosure, I do love playing the Arcane Warrior (20 promotes). He's just fun to play, I've tried so many builds with him and he's a beast. I am a bit disappointed to see him nerfed like that, not because it didn't need to be bring back inline with other characters, but because it was done poorly. And before anyone starts with accusation of me being one of "those" Arcane Warrior, I'll say I play just as much with the Assassin which is just as fun but 100x more complicated to play. So no, I'm not one of "those" Arcane Warrior. I just see him as a low level entry character, something everyone can play relatively well with. It doesn't make him the next coming of the Black Death...