Curse

**Marty Silverblade** · Feb 12, 2011, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh Manatee

PI: Instagibs anything that hits aoe, even if those hits are negligible to my party they stack up and are amplified on the target. Ever see abadon lose 1/3 his health in 1 shot of words of madness?
NRA: non stance IAS so I can use battle rage or any number of interesting stances or pet skills.
EVAS: It's an assassin in a can and that's awesome. granted it's less useful then the others but still.

PI... meh. I'd rather take something that I can use frequently to deal loads of damage myself rather than relying on getting hit by AoEs. Things like Whirlwind Attack and AScan.
NRA: Where do I start? 15e, requires a pet (that's an extra slot and skill bar recharge on pet death), and only 25% IAS. Justifying it by saying it's not a stance isn't much of a point because there aren't all that many other stance based skills to use. Sure, other stance skills may be fun to use, but that doesn't mean they're good or justify bad choices.
EVAS: Recharge takes it out of competition unless you're running AP, which you shouldn't be.

Quote:

Asuran scan: it gets intense without auspicious blow or WE, getting an extra scan can be really helpful, same way an extra shock, bulls, or shove can be in pvp.

Zealous weapons solve this problem.

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Assorted norn shouts, vanguard standards and abilities, dwarven abilities, mostly energy required. As said, there's lots of fun out of the box stuff you can do in pve. It's pve, who gives a shit.

Once again, saying radiants are good because they make it easier to use bad skills is a bad argument. If you want to mess around with inferior skills, go ahead (I do it too every now and then), but saying radiants are the best all around because it it is wrong.

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marty, if a player needs the defense insigs to stay alive in pve then either A: You're farming 1 type of mob B: you're playing badly, or C: your whole party is running "inferior skills". I also dispute that PI and NRA are all that "inferior" even on a front liner, and especially PI in a H&H party with minions and spirits, and spamming vanguard sins is hilarious regardless of lack of 'leetpwnness'. I know A-scan gets intense unless as said above you're on a hammer or WE.

Also, It's not that you needs lots of slots for defense, you just need the one or 2 with prot spirit and maybe SoA, I can stick that on a hero, and a few guys who can push the bars.

I never said you need the +AL insignia. It just means you take less damage, which means your party needs to spend less slots and attributes on healing and mitigation, which means more room to pack damage in. You've stated it yourself: 'a few guys to push the bars'. If you take the relevant opportunities to push your armor up you don't need a few guys. You'll only need one dedicated backliner so you can spend the rest on smiters/cursers/spirit spammers/bombers/whatever.

So really, it comes down to:

Use radiants so you can fuel inferior skills OR
Use +AL insignia (an extra 10AL reduces damage taken by 16%, fyi) and have more room for big damage skills on the midliners.

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Let me put this in perspective(and preface this by saying, I'm an insomniac and I play tired and loopy sometimes). I was once in Ice caves HM on my assassin with some buddies, I had just bought shiny new armor and forgot it wasn't infused, it was only until we had slaughtered the giant mob of mursaat eles(and every other mursaat that we came across on the bonus path) that I had realised 2 things, A: I put fire attunement instead of conjure fire by mistake(I had grabbed the first fire enchant I saw), and B: I wasn't wearing my infused armor. We had a laugh that with the new prots and imbagons, an uninfused fire attunement sin still kicked ass.

Your point? PvE is easy and it really doesn't matter what you're running in 99% of situations? I'm not denying that. But running more big damage skills on midliners makes it even easier, and bulldozing through foes is much much more fun than running random skills like EVAS.

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Bottom line, if my average party setup can survive me forgetting i'm infused on a regular basis and still skull screw most pve areas it can definitely survive if I take radiants and a skill or 2 to use them.

Basically if you don't play extremely stupid(IE running off by yourself, over agro, not planning ahead for mobs in the area), and you have a good party set up(SY!, chaff minions, spirits, microable prots and obscene amounts of whupass) and you know what you're doing(i've been at this 5 years and same ol' crap gets boring), you can find new and interesting ways to kick ass even if they are allegedly 'inferior'.

Bleh, I've made my point. Keep in mind you're posting in a thread called 'Best rune and insignia build for Warrior'. Radiants are not the best. Would they help you fuel PvE skills? Yes (a zealous weapon would too, actually). Does that make them the best for PvE? No, definitely not.

A11Eur0 · Feb 16, 2011, 05:37 AM // 05:37

+armor is never a waste of an insignia. Some people aren't understanding the point of passive damage mitigation. Less damage on you = more available spells from your protters/healers to spend on the other party members. + armor on THEM means less damage TOTAL to your ENTIRE PARTY, meaning you can probably cut out one of your support characters and add damage. Yes, this was covered. No, Hugh doesn't seem to be comprehending it. I've ran radiants on my warrior, I've ran EVAS, EBSOH, etc and it WORKED, but after swapping to sentinel's insigs, I cut through mobs just as fast and my healers/protters don't run out of energy nearly as fast.

Using energy builds and pve skills is indeed fun...but it's just as fun to run more efficient builds, saving the pve-skill use for my caster characters. I get the best of both worlds.

Age · Feb 21, 2011, 02:40 AM // 02:40

I still use radiants on my Elite Glads as they always have been.

Hugh Manatee · Apr 07, 2011, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

PI... meh. I'd rather take something that I can use frequently to deal loads of damage myself rather than relying on getting hit by AoEs. Things like Whirlwind Attack and AScan.

cause whirling attack causes abadon to lose 1/4-1/3 of his health, and just about any other big bad to just drop dead instantly.... right... welcome to pve. PI just saves you time at certain places, it lets me run ATFH or imperial sancum in about 2 minutes or less abadon in 5-10, most dungeon bosses go down in 1 or 2 applications,

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NRA: Where do I start? 15e, requires a pet (that's an extra slot and skill bar recharge on pet death), and only 25% IAS. Justifying it by saying it's not a stance isn't much of a point because there aren't all that many other stance based skills to use. Sure, other stance skills may be fun to use, but that doesn't mean they're good or justify bad choices.

It's not that I'm "required" to take the pet, it's that I "Get" to take the pet. Ordinarily I'd just use candy or booze fueled drunk master but I've been leveling pets for the menagery and I'm really starting to like NRA+Brage. I'll have to go beat the crap out of master of damage but every other hit being execute or body blow can't be that bad a choice...

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Zealous weapons solve this problem.

zealous weapon+radiant sigs=win

Also I've started uing the vanguard damage ward, that one is badass, with all the minions running up in it....

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I never said you need the +AL insignia. It just means you take less damage, which means your party needs to spend less slots and attributes on healing and mitigation, which means more room to pack damage in. You've stated it yourself: 'a few guys to push the bars'. If you take the relevant opportunities to push your armor up you don't need a few guys. You'll only need one dedicated backliner so you can spend the rest on smiters/cursers/spirit spammers/bombers/whatever.

I already take "less damage", the extra armor from insignias just doesn't do squat. Either the bad guys have some imba 1 shot kill that you need to prot skills to survive against(and you're insignias arent going to save you from) or their attacks are useless, absorbed by the armor, weapon and shield you already have. By 'a few guys' I meant I stuck like 8 points in resto and put life and mend on the sos rit, maybe put a kaolai jar on the curse backup or heaven delight on a smiter, in addition to the mhenlo hench. In the 4 man areas I used a half curse half resto N/Rt, a SoS with smiting support and a MM N/P where one would work and did just fine. Now with the 7h stuff I can leave the dinky henchmen behind and take some real guns. I need the AL insignias less then ever, and I can use the juice more then ever.

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So really, it comes down to:

Use radiants so you can fuel inferior skills OR
Use +AL insignia (an extra 10AL reduces damage taken by 16%, fyi) and have more room for big damage skills on the midliners.

The skills aren't inferior, you already negate all the damage you're going to need to without prots. 16% off negligible damage is negligible, 16% off a party wiping instagib is still a party wiping instagib.

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Bleh, I've made my point. Keep in mind you're posting in a thread called 'Best rune and insignia build for Warrior'. Radiants are not the best. Would they help you fuel PvE skills? Yes (a zealous weapon would too, actually). Does that make them the best for PvE? No, definitely not.

Keep in mind this is the pve forum, and really, even if radiants aren't "the best", neither are any of the other options, it's because there is no "best" in pve, unless you're farming or using damage converting gimmicks, whupass comes from far to many different sources for any 1 insignia to be "the best" 100% of the time(even blessed or sentry's can get stripped), and they are made irrelevant by certain skills or tactics. If it was PvP hell yeah, way different story, like the guy said I was in RA doing shock axe, forgot to swap the armor off the radiants, went into PvE uninfused with extra energy to play with, was awesome, and realized, screw armor in pve just kick ass.

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+armor is never a waste of an insignia. Some people aren't understanding the point of passive damage mitigation. Less damage on you = more available spells from your protters/healers to spend on the other party members. + armor on THEM means less damage TOTAL to your ENTIRE PARTY, meaning you can probably cut out one of your support characters and add damage. Yes, this was covered. No, Hugh doesn't seem to be comprehending it.

I understand passive mitigation just fine, it's just that, in pve, active mitigation makes your party invincible, whether you have the passive mitigation or not. The so called "passive mitigation" does NOT make you all the way invincible(like the guy said, 16% of the spike borguss's mob can do is not enough to not prot with skills, and 16% of the rest of the negligible damage in the area is negligible), it doesn't aid the active mitigation in any signifigant way(at least it won't till they nerf the hell out of at least a dozen skills I can think of), so why the hell take the passive mitigation to begin with. Ditch it for some extra whupass.

Bottom line, and I think we're all agreed, if you don't suck, you don't need defense as much as you think you'd need, and can replace it with more whupass. My extension on this philosophy, and where the controversy is coming from, is given the former, if you're not married to the defense, or the alleged "optimal" methods, you can find new, creative, and interesting ways to whupass. Radiant insignias can be useful in these methods, the AL insignias, most likely won't be. There fore don't be afraid to push the limits with radiants, or a superior rune for that matter.

Sir Baddock · Apr 07, 2011, 08:18 PM // 20:18

This question comes down to what you want, would you rather take less damage with additional armor or would you rather be able to take more damage with higher health. It's personal preference, I've been using Survivors Insignia's on my PvE Armor for as long as I can remember while friends of mine have been using other insignia options instead.

Outerworld · Apr 07, 2011, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh Manatee

cause whirling attack causes abadon to lose 1/4-1/3 of his health, and just about any other big bad to just drop dead instantly.... right... welcome to pve. PI just saves you time at certain places, it lets me run ATFH or imperial sancum in about 2 minutes or less abadon in 5-10, most dungeon bosses go down in 1 or 2 applications.

Naming a scenario that it may be good in doesn't prove PI is good overall, especially when that scenario is a pretty rare one.

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It's not that I'm "required" to take the pet, it's that I "Get" to take the pet. Ordinarily I'd just use candy or booze fueled drunk master but I've been leveling pets for the menagery and I'm really starting to like NRA+Brage. I'll have to go beat the crap out of master of damage but every other hit being execute or body blow can't be that bad a choice...

Brining the pet is a requirment not a privelage, it's a non max IAS that takes 2 skillslots and costs 15e to use.

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zealous weapon+radiant sigs=win.

Zealous wep = win on its own, so why bother with radients?

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Also I've started uing the vanguard damage ward, that one is badass, with all the minions running up in it....

Fair enough on this one.

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I already take "less damage", the extra armor from insignias just doesn't do squat. Either the bad guys have some imba 1 shot kill that you need to prot skills to survive against(and you're insignias arent going to save you from) or their attacks are useless, absorbed by the armor, weapon and shield you already have. By 'a few guys' I meant I stuck like 8 points in resto and put life and mend on the sos rit, maybe put a kaolai jar on the curse backup or heaven delight on a smiter, in addition to the mhenlo hench. In the 4 man areas I used a half curse half resto N/Rt, a SoS with smiting support and a MM N/P where one would work and did just fine. Now with the 7h stuff I can leave the dinky henchmen behind and take some real guns. I need the AL insignias less then ever, and I can use the juice more then ever.

The extra armour isn't needed, it just means that you take even less damage than before which is still more useful than a higher max energy.

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The skills aren't inferior, you already negate all the damage you're going to need to without prots. 16% off negligible damage is negligible, 16% off a party wiping instagib is still a party wiping instagib.

I'm sorry but the skills you suggested really are inferior on a warrior.

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Keep in mind this is the pve forum, and really, even if radiants aren't "the best", neither are any of the other options, it's because there is no "best" in pve, unless you're farming or using damage converting gimmicks, whupass comes from far to many different sources for any 1 insignia to be "the best" 100% of the time(even blessed or sentry's can get stripped), and they are made irrelevant by certain skills or tactics.

There is a "best" in PvE its just most of the time you don't need it to win.

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I understand passive mitigation just fine, it's just that, in pve, active mitigation makes your party invincible, whether you have the passive mitigation or not. The so called "passive mitigation" does NOT make you all the way invincible(like the guy said, 16% of the spike borguss's mob can do is not enough to not prot with skills, and 16% of the rest of the negligible damage in the area is negligible), it doesn't aid the active mitigation in any signifigant way(at least it won't till they nerf the hell out of at least a dozen skills I can think of), so why the hell take the passive mitigation to begin with. Ditch it for some extra whupass.

Active mitagtion is more important I agree but that doesn't make passive matigation non-important. If there were any serious benefits to running radients then I would use them yeah...but there aren't.

Quote:

Bottom line, and I think we're all agreed, if you don't suck, you don't need defense as much as you think you'd need, and can replace it with more whupass. My extension on this philosophy, and where the controversy is coming from, is given the former, if you're not married to the defense, or the alleged "optimal" methods, you can find new, creative, and interesting ways to whupass. Radiant insignias can be useful in these methods, the AL insignias, most likely won't be. There fore don't be afraid to push the limits with radiants, or a superior rune for that matter.

Again, you don't need the extra armour but Radients are still a worse alternative. When the thread is titled "what's the best", we're going to talk about whats optimal. You can use an inferior skill one more time with radients than normal, thats not exaclty pushing limits is it?

ZephyLynx · Apr 08, 2011, 09:18 AM // 09:18

PI and EVAS should be on a caster bar only. Even then, I'd rather have shutdown instead of taking a lot of AoE damage. PI can shine a few select situation, but not that great as a general skill. And EVAS is mediocre at best without AP.

If you are with 7H, you are much better off with melee buffs on your heroes and just beating the crap out of the enemies, like a warrior should. Every time you stop to cast, you are not attacking, which is what you should be doing pretty much all the time.

Back to OP, It really depends on the area and what I'm running, but it's always +Armor. If I know there will be more elemental damage and I'm running 13 strength, Sentinel's is the way to go. Otherwise, Sentry's is what I run. I'm almost always in a stance, as I'm always in an IAS or IMS. A warrior without an IAS is just plain stupid.

As for runes, Sup Vigor, Sup Absorption, Minor Strength or Tactics, Clarity or Vitae, and on the head piece 1+1 or 1+2 for the weapon of your choice.

If you are running energy bars on a warrior, run WE. If you want to cast spells constantly, +7 max energy will not help you. Make a caster then.

Edit:
If I'm running knockdown, I have a Stonefist insignia on, usually on either my hands or feet.

cataphract · Apr 08, 2011, 12:39 PM // 12:39

Agreed with ZephyLyinx: warriors have no business taking PI and EVAS on their bars.

In reply to OP: I like Sentinel's for more armor vs elemental damage and Stonefist for longer KD. Sup Vigor rune, Minor Strength, Major Sword/Axe, 2 Vitae runes.

The Only Warrior · Apr 09, 2011, 11:56 PM // 23:56

Mine:

Helm: Radient(or Stonefist for hammer) + Minor Weapon rune
Chest:Survivor + Sup Vigor
Arms: Radient + (w/e u want, i use Vigor here and Sup Absorb on chest)
Legs: Survivor + Minor Strength
Boots: Radient + Attunement

Overall Bonuses:
+5en(because energy is something you dont have as a warrior.)
+50+15+10:75hp (480+60(from sword+shield)+75:615hp)
+1str
+2Weapon (helm+rune)
-3 Dmg Reduction for Phys(if u use sup absorb)

i know someones gonna say "your healths too low" and if you do then your Monks hate you, and thats why you fail PvE. if your Health is higher then your Midline/Backline's health (caster health probbably 640~ max) thier just gonna ignore you and go straight for a low Armor target with less Health. that 80+16al(+20vsphys) is there for a reason use it, the monks can heal those -14's and -22's :P

Dusk_ · Apr 11, 2011, 01:37 AM // 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Only Warrior

Mine:

Helm: Radient(or Stonefist for hammer) + Minor Weapon rune
Chest:Survivor + Sup Vigor
Arms: Radient + (w/e u want, i use Vigor here and Sup Absorb on chest)
Legs: Survivor + Minor Strength
Boots: Radient + Attunement

Overall Bonuses:
+5en(because energy is something you dont have as a warrior.)
+50+15+10:75hp (480+60(from sword+shield)+75:615hp)
+1str
+2Weapon (helm+rune)
-3 Dmg Reduction for Phys(if u use sup absorb)

i know someones gonna say "your healths too low" and if you do then your Monks hate you, and thats why you fail PvE. if your Health is higher then your Midline/Backline's health (caster health probbably 640~ max) thier just gonna ignore you and go straight for a low Armor target with less Health. that 80+16al(+20vsphys) is there for a reason use it, the monks can heal those -14's and -22's :P

See, here's a perfect example of useless insignias:

1) Why is your energy dropping below 5 as a Warrior?
2) Why is your HP dropping below 15 as a Warrior?

If the answer to the above is "it doesn't", then you don't need the +5e from Radiant, and you don't need the +15hp from survivors.

Anaraky · May 19, 2011, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Personally I like 4 Sentinel/Sentry + 1 Stonefist (assuming your build has some sort of KD, otherwise 5 Sentinel/Sentry) coupled with Weapon, Strength, Sup Vigor, Sup Absorption runes and one slot with whatever you like. I kinda like Clarity but it is entirely optional.

TheRakeman · May 19, 2011, 08:52 PM // 20:52

I kind of wonder what is better overall, +20 vs elemental damage or +10 vs all damage while in a stance (which should be almost always). I guess elemental since warrior would be weak against it without that.

Ms.Ballantyne · May 31, 2011, 03:12 AM // 03:12

I wonder why people don't like Brawler's insignia? It seems to me that I'm going to be attacking more often than not as a tank, and the extra +10 armor (against all types of damage) will help tremendously.

But maybe I'm just missing something?

TheRakeman · May 31, 2011, 04:06 AM // 04:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms.Ballantyne

I wonder why people don't like Brawler's insignia? It seems to me that I'm going to be attacking more often than not as a tank, and the extra +10 armor (against all types of damage) will help tremendously.

But maybe I'm just missing something?

I would guess it is because that results in lost armor when activating skills, when foes are kiting, when you are moving, etc. +20 vs. elemental at all times or +10 while in a stance (most times) would probably be better. This is just a guess though, since I never actually tried Brawler's.

Ms.Ballantyne · May 31, 2011, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheRakeman

I would guess it is because that results in lost armor when activating skills, when foes are kiting, when you are moving, etc. +20 vs. elemental at all times or +10 while in a stance (most times) would probably be better. This is just a guess though, since I never actually tried Brawler's.

D'oh! I was looking at the armor rating tables, thinking I was going from 80 armor to 90 armor vs. everything, not realizing I was already at 100 armor for physical.

Looking at the tables correctly, ok, yeah, Sentinel's makes as much or more sense now. Time to make a quick change.

**Marty Silverblade** · May 31, 2011, 07:52 AM // 07:52

Also, Brawlers does nothing when you initially aggro, i.e, when the foes use their hardest hitting skills. Sentry's is better because it'll generally be up more often.

PS: Factoring in the shield, you'll be at 116AL vs physical and 96AL vs elemental before armor insignia (not 100 and 80 as you stated above). Both Sentry's and Sentinels are good options.

aspi · May 31, 2011, 08:09 AM // 08:09

After much experimenting i'd take the +armour over + health any day.

TheRakeman · Jul 29, 2011, 05:30 AM // 05:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

Also, Brawlers does nothing when you initially aggro, i.e, when the foes use their hardest hitting skills. Sentry's is better because it'll generally be up more often.

PS: Factoring in the shield, you'll be at 116AL vs physical and 96AL vs elemental before armor insignia (not 100 and 80 as you stated above). Both Sentry's and Sentinels are good options.

Is either particularly better than the other? On one hand, Sentinels is better against the weakness of warriors (elemental damage). On the other hand, Sentry provides an all out armor boost against all damage, although less of a degree (I believe it also affects non-elemental non-physical damage). One is down when you are not in a stance, one is down when you have weakness applied. It seems like a pretty even tradeoff, I've been using Sentry more lately since I realize I am almost always in a stance anyway.

**Marty Silverblade** · Jul 29, 2011, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Not really. It depends on the ratio of elemental damage to other armor affected damage. I'd go for Sentry's until you find that you're taking predominantly elemental damage.

PRO · Jul 30, 2011, 07:06 PM // 19:06

I have a question, does anyone still use superior absorption? in pvp its worthless, i could see it being used in a high armor farm build, but realistically.. it seems useless. I stopped using it when they changed it to reduce meele only

/edit thinking back on it... cant remember if sup absorption reduced all dmg, may have only been knights armor that got changed, bah was to long ago. But anyway still seems useless to me