Curse

insidious420 · Oct 09, 2009, 08:38 PM // 20:38

I have minimal Heroes & Hero gear on my Warrior. So far, I mostly do PUGs in NM & HM. NM is super easy & I want to do HM, but am limited to a few Heroes & PUGs.

What is more 'important' for a HM Warrior w/my criteria: damage or survivability? So far, typically I've focused on survivability, as long as I have deep wound (Dismember). I've run a Defy Pain axe tank build for early Proph HM missions (4 player max party size), such as:

[Dismember] [Disrupting Chop] [Cyclone Axe] [Defy Pain] [Enraging Charge] [Res Sig] [Grasping Earth] [Flail]

I know the leetness of "Save Yourselves!", & would probably swap it in Res Sig's place. Also, this isn't the *exact* build I've used (I have yet to try Grasping Earth in HM); would GE even be worth it in HM, considering everything moves crazy fast it would probably only 'slow' them to 'normal' speed...?

Any answers or general advice is appreciated, I couldn't seem to find anything specifically about Warriors in HM on here or elsewhere and if/how they should be played differently.

Martin Firestorm · Oct 09, 2009, 08:44 PM // 20:44

If I was you, I would load up on necro heroes, always take at least one with MM skills and one with curses that will synergize with your and the minions' physical damage like barbs and mark of pain, and focus on damage skills yourself. Those heroes are quite self-sufficient, so other than some occassional flagging you can focus on moving your W from target to target.

Ccat · Oct 10, 2009, 12:25 AM // 00:25

kay, firstly -

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_Discordway

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_Sabway

are recommended for getting a taste of HM, Sabway much moreso. And simply put, Warriors are damage dealers, not tanks. So take Defy Pain off and replace it for a much more useful elite. Disrupting chop is also sucky seeing as KDs are much more useful for 'interrupting', and again Warriors are damage dealers. Other than that I don't see much wrong with the build, though you may want to take Grasping Earth off since I severely doubt they're all going to run for the hills from Cyclone Axe. Try Whirlwind Attack to rotate the two and further support the skill.

**Marty Silverblade** · Oct 10, 2009, 01:36 AM // 01:36

Definately drop Defy Pain. Your job to to kill things asap. Do your job well and leave the Monk to do his (provided, of course, that you don't run around like an idiot or overaggro).

DChop is also unnecessary. You should kill fast enough to make interrupting worthless - why spend a skill slot on an interrupt when you can spend one on one that would kill the opponent? You achieve the same thing but the enemy is also dead. It also is too slow to use reliably in HM anyway. KD's are much better than interrupts (for Warriors, at least), so if you want one go with that.

PS: Arkfenway (I think it's listed as 'Spiritway' on PvX) is much better than Sabway (kinda outdated) and Discord (better for casters, though it can be modified for use on melees).

Lishy · Oct 10, 2009, 03:21 AM // 03:21

A warrior without Save Yourselves if your team doesn't already have SY is (usually) a bad warrior.
Contribute to your team. Synergy is a key to HM.

Nihilim Dhiamara · Oct 10, 2009, 10:37 AM // 10:37

drop defy pain, take WE, power attack and counter attack and asuran scan and disember fill up the rest and use red rock candy for ims/ias

the ruloes · Oct 10, 2009, 12:27 PM // 12:27

In the real tricky moments in hard mode, you'll definitely want to bring "Save Yourselves!", or else you're going to have to bring too many defensive henchmen or heroes. When your entire team only takes 20% of the regular damage, you won't need to bring any survival skills for yourself, since whatever monk or other healer suddenly finds himself with little else to do than take care of you. I easily vanquish areas with an N/rt and whatever protection henchman might be available, while running my D-slash/SY build.

insidious420 · Oct 13, 2009, 05:25 PM // 17:25

Thx 4 all the feedback. I know Defy Pain is a meh skill, but I only switched to it when PUGs couldn't keep me/anyone alive long enough to kill anything. In the early Proph mish's, this worked great.

And I guess I coulda been more clear initially: this is like my 7th or 8th PvE char & I don't have many heroes/gear on him & didn't rly feel like going thru that hassle an 8th time... but I guess I have to. Mainly cuz no one PUGs HM.

What I switched to for a few PUGs & it works great is: [Enraging Charge] [Grasping Earth] ["For Great Justice!"] [Flail] [Dragon Slash] ["Save Yourselves!"] ... and either Sever & Gash, or Sun and Moon Slash & Whirlwind Attack, depending on if enemies are fleshy or not. Super high DPS & party defense, as long as the healers are good (I've had some pretty scary moments w/PUGs so far).

Bobby2 · Oct 13, 2009, 08:06 PM // 20:06

DSlash is awesome. Now just add Brawling-Steelfang and never worry about kiters again.

Sankt Hallvard · Oct 13, 2009, 09:04 PM // 21:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

PS: Arkfenway (I think it's listed as 'Spiritway' on PvX) is much better than Sabway (kinda outdated) and Discord (better for casters, though it can be modified for use on melees).

I keep hearing how phenomenal this arkfenspiritthingie is, but I just don't get it. Mind you I don't playtest this stuff but I theorycraft a lot. This is the build I find on wiki:

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_Hero_Spiritway

Basically it's a MM with some curses, spirit guy with heals and a third spirit guy with no dmg. I add this up to 2 offensive spirit spells(bloodsong+signet of spirits) and 5 defensive spirits. Where's the magic I seem to be missing? It kills with a standard MM and two weak spirits? Someone please enlighten me!

I don't get the idea behind discord either, well I get the idea but I'm not sold. It's pretty similar to sabway only you sacrifice stronger minions and jagged bones for a spammable single-target dmg spell. I guess it's aimed for HM being untyped dmg but does anyone think it's better for NM as well? I see the power of a more sustainable minion army as much more potent in both terms of defense and offense than the ability to take down single targets quickly.

Martin Firestorm · Oct 13, 2009, 09:22 PM // 21:22

Do both. You can run 2 discorders and have your 3rd necro run jagged bones, etc. For spiritway, add more offensive spirits to that rit if you don't like the pvx build. And go with all curses on the necro and you have a pretty good set up for areas without bodies.

the ruloes · Oct 13, 2009, 09:25 PM // 21:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sankt Hallvard

I keep hearing how phenomenal this arkfenspiritthingie is, but I just don't get it. Mind you I don't playtest this stuff but I theorycraft a lot. This is the build I find on wiki:

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Build:Team_-_Hero_Spiritway

Basically it's a MM with some curses, spirit guy with heals and a third spirit guy with no dmg. I add this up to 2 offensive spirit spells(bloodsong+signet of spirits) and 5 defensive spirits. Where's the magic I seem to be missing? It kills with a standard MM and two weak spirits? Someone please enlighten me!

I don't get the idea behind discord either, well I get the idea but I'm not sold. It's pretty similar to sabway only you sacrifice stronger minions and jagged bones for a spammable single-target dmg spell. I guess it's aimed for HM being untyped dmg but does anyone think it's better for NM as well? I see the power of a more sustainable minion army as much more potent in both terms of defense and offense than the ability to take down single targets quickly.

I would actually also like to comment on this spiritway.

I decided to try and give it a go. I did not gear up my heroes optimally, I will admit, I did not buy any runes or insignias in order to simply test out a build, I'm not made out of money. So I guess my experience isn't the optimal, but alas. I found the build to be decent, but not better than my usual Sabway.

I think the biggest pro in this build was the spirit protter, with those it seemed like having a good prot monk, except this was a hero. Prot heroes usually don't work as good as one would hope, so this was one role I thought was pretty solid. In most PvE circumstances, I wouldn't mind swapping a prot monk for this protter.

But that was all it brought to the table, imo. The spirits had their flaws, which are easy to circumvent as a player, I assume, but the heroes were not players. They would place their spirits in odd places, and when we moved on they had to re-cast the entire bundle again, etc. I guess that with careful microing, this can be avoided, but the ideal H/H build should not need careful or extensive microing. When I use my sabway, it usually takes care of itself without any input from me.

So all in all, I still stick to my sabway. It heals (but not prots!) better, it has a better curses necro and just about the same MM. I also feel it has better synergy, as I make things blow up easier with it, and things die more rare with it.