Curse

The Daemon Warrior · Feb 26, 2007, 09:26 PM // 21:26

Hey guys! (Woop! 1st post here

)

This is my Warrior Build for AB. Works best in 1v1 (unbeated so far

), not that good vs. Necro/Mesmer shrines

Skills
1. Dragon Slash
2. Galrath Slash
3. Silverwing Slash
Sun and Moon Slash
Bonetti's Defense
Healing Signet
Vigorous Spirit
Live Vicariously

Equipment
Vampiric Sword
non-vampiric sword (for outside combat)

Usage
@ the start of the battle cast Live Vic. When u approach an enemy cast Vig Sprt and switch 2 Vampiric sword. This way u can heal yourself while attacking. Once you've got enough Adrenaline use Galrath/Silverwing Slash---> S&M Slash ---> Dragon Slash and repeat (u should be able 2 keep on using the skills very fast after eachother cause of the Adrenal bonus from Dragon Slash) Should u get into trouble cast Bonetti's and Healing Signet 2 regain health faster

Counters
Mesmers! Soothening Images can ruin ur day, as well as those enchantment breaking spells. Also watch out when attacking the necro shrine, those bastards use Defile Enchantements, so make sure u havent got the enchantments equiped when going 2 attack mesmer/Necro shrine

That's the build. If any1 sees something that could be improved please tell me

Riotgear · Feb 27, 2007, 03:56 AM // 03:56

I really hate to do this, but this is an iconic example of a bad build. I'll be constructive later in the post, but first, the bad:

1.) Tank builds are bad. If you can't present enough of a threat to kill someone, then they can just as easily pick one of your buddies and mow them down instead. Warriors are low-priority kill targets, so you rarely need to "tank," and taking forever to kill someone just gives their teammates more time to engulf you, and then you die anyway.

2.) No Deep Wound. I'm going to assume you're running 16 SW here. Deep Wound generally makes the bottom 100HP of someone's health bar disappear. That means Gash has the effect of bringing someone 121HP closer to dead than a regular attack. Galrath and Silverwing combine to 86.

3.) Bonetti's Defense is bad for several reasons. First, the only thing it'll help you against in this case is avoiding physical damage during Healing Signet. Realize that this is mostly irrelevant. Almost any threatening amount of physical damage will have armor-ignoring mods attached, and base physical damage is too low to worry about it when you need to heal yourself. If you're getting nuked, then a stance isn't going to save you anyway. And perhaps most importantly, it's adrenaline-based, so it's not dependable.

4.) You rarely ever need to pack more healing on to a warrior bar than Healing Signet, if you do, then you need to learn when to take a few steps back from a disadvantaged situation.

There are better ways to keep yourself alive. Mending Touch, for example, will get rid of conditions that either make you gimpy or make you die. That's an indescribably better way to spend 5 energy than Vigorous Spirit. It also frees up more attribute points to spend making Healing Signet better and letting you kill things.

5.) Dragon Slash is an awesome elite. But not in AB. It takes forever to build adrenaline on it, and then it'll expire before the next confrontation. Better to just bring Final Thrust and punch someone in the face with +86 damage, and use your elite for something else.

Now, I'll be constructive. If you want a good place to start with an AB build, most GvG ganker builds actually work terrific.

[wiki]Build:W/A_Lone_Ganksman[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/A_Shove_Hammer_Spiker[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/E_Charge_Sword[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/E_Shock_Axe[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/Mo_%22You%27re_All_Alone%21%22_Paladin[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/Mo_Magehunter_Strike_Spiker[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/N_Bull%27s_Charge_Sword[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/any_Charging_Anti-Kite[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/any_Charging_Executioner[/wiki]
[wiki]Build:W/any_Crippling_Slash_Sword[/wiki]

If you want to make a good AB warrior build, you only need a couple things:
- Something to dump conditions (Plague Touch, Mending Touch, YAA+Signet of Malice). Do not bring Purge Conditions, its 20-second recharge sucks.
- A speed boost, if possible. They let you get away from losing fights, and let you deal with kiting much more effectively.
- Healing Signet.
- Stuff that makes people die. DW is key.

Bull's Charge, Charging Strike, "You're All Alone!" accomplish several of those goals at once, making them good starting points for good builds.

Personally, I usually run the sword variant of [wiki]Build:W/A Lone Ganksman[/wiki] with Frenzy instead of Shadow Walk. Despite having Frenzy and no self-heal except Healing Signet, most games I'll walk out of without a single death. Why? Because extremely high mobility and fast condition removal are better survival tools than anything in Healing Prayers

The Daemon Warrior · Feb 27, 2007, 12:33 PM // 12:33

k, thanks for the feedback

I'll try out one of your build sometime (first need 2 get the skills :P).
The Build starts a lil slow indeed, cause of the adrenal building, but after that it's pretty strong imo, you can just keep on using the adrenal skills very quickly after eachother.

Riotgear · Feb 27, 2007, 06:41 PM // 18:41

Just another tip:

Generally-speaking, the best time to use adrenaline skills is when you can unload one nasty combo into somebody's face, rather than just using them as they become available. This is obviously different with Dragon Slash, but since you generally can't kill someone without running through the full series anyway, you may as well wait until you can chain them together to be a bit more surprising. Or maybe your target will die to something else and you'll be fully-loaded for the next poor bastard.

For example, I could do the sever-gash-final series as they become available, but that winds up being very predictable, people realize are more likely to respond to it. The lack of responsiveness from a fast delivery is so important that it's often a good idea to build adrenaline on one target and then unload it on another.

Some players can respond by trying to kill you. This happens with curses necros, for example. Some can respond by trying to get away from you, and often lead you closer to their teammates. Reducing the confrontation length means they're probably going to die, and you're probably not.

Another consideration is that you often don't need to autoattack someone as many times as you need to build adrenaline. A 60AL dummy, for example, will die to sever-gash-final and only 4 autoattacks. Heals obviously will raise that, but the point is that the damage you lose by not hitting someone during your adrenaline buildup is not going to be gamebreaking.

Now, Dragon Slash is designed for the opposite, it's really there to be spend powering out attack skills. But it's not really a great skill in AB because it expires too much. Every time it expires, it needs 10 hits to build itself back up, you only need 6 to build it back up after you actually use it, which is what it's really designed for. To that extent, Quivering Blade may be a better choice if you really want steady damage output, because AB is not exactly loaded with block stances. (And if it does get blocked, it'll take the same amount of time to rebuild as a blocked Dragon Slash anyway).

The Daemon Warrior · May 03, 2007, 08:06 AM // 08:06

Thanks for all feedback Riot, got a better build now

Skills:

1. Dragon Slash (yes it's still here, read on 2 c what i've found on high cost)
2. Sever Artery
3. Gash
4. Silverwing Slash
5. Enraging Charge
6. For Great Justice
7. Healing Signet
8. Optional

Now for the high Adrenal Cost from Dragon Slash, Silverwing Slash and Gash:
Enraging Charge serves 2 purposes here: 1. the running, 2. Adrenal Building.
When you charge towards an enemy activate Enraging Charge and For Great Justice! This Way you'll start off with a lot of adrenaline and it only takes 1/2 hits for Dragon Slash 2 charge up! So just use: Sever artery--->Gash--->Silverwing--->Dragon Slash--->Repeat and they tend 2 die pretty fast

Now for the Optional slot you can pick condition removal like Mending Touch or Plague touch, or maybe Enchantment removal (lot of Earth Ele's lately

) like Inspired Enchantment (i love that skill, funny 2 use, cause u use their own enchantments against them (not very effectively, but still fun). Or maybe Hamstring for pinning down the enemy before he runs off.

Div · May 03, 2007, 08:43 AM // 08:43

I'd take something like rush+mending touch instead of for great justice and "optional". Mobility is where it's at in AB.

The Daemon Warrior · May 03, 2007, 08:56 AM // 08:56

You've already got Enraging Charge for mobility

Arabian_Night · May 03, 2007, 09:47 PM // 21:47

I still prefer sprint or rush over enraging charge, as they do not end upon hit, which lets you deal with kiting better.

Riotgear: None of your links work anymore, guildwiki took down its builds section.

Riotgear · May 04, 2007, 01:41 AM // 01:41

Yeah, I posted it before they took it down. IMO, there's only one war build you need for AB anyway:

12+1+3 Swordsmanship
3+1 Strength
12+1 Tactics

[skill]Sever Artery[/skill][skill]Gash[/skill][skill]Final Thrust[/skill][skill]Frenzy[/skill][skill]Dash[/skill][skill]Healing Signet[/skill][skill]Signet of Malice[/skill][skill]"You're All Alone!"[/skill]

Skill template: OQcTEHKX5xvAYCMalJYAgBSYBA
Gear template: Pk5hnORjkkakkpWVqKh5IPxSj5I/Cni5I9Ujg5IRhzh5IDL

-20% cripple is probably a better choice on the shield, but that's an old template and I'm lazy. I've tried numerous Warrior builds for AB, and I always wind up coming back to that one. It's just too mobile, survivable, independent, and invariably gets lots of people killed.

Syntonic · May 04, 2007, 07:27 AM // 07:27

Just wanted to add a quick note - purge signet removes hexes (and hex stacks!) which is the main benefit of it. That necro with all those anti-melee hexes (price of failure and reckless haste as an example) with degen from corrupt enchantments or reaper's mark/faintheartedness (more melee hate!)/parasitic bond etc. will become annoying for you and your team fast if the necro is halfway decent.

Then again, most necros go SS and insidious parasite or include life stealing skills like life siphon instead of using a hex inhibitor due to PvE influence or whatever. I don't blame them for doing so in pugs as they are in AB but I digress.

Cassius Brutus · May 12, 2007, 03:48 PM // 15:48

If i want to use a sword i ususally run something like:
1. Sever Artery
2. Gash
3. Sun and Moon Slash
4. Dragon Slash
5. Healing Signet
6. Savage Slash
7. Sprint
8. Mending Touch
Usually works pretty well, skills 6/8 can be swapped around for any other similar things, plague touch etc...

Mekkakat · May 12, 2007, 03:59 PM // 15:59

not bad comments at all. good builds and constructive help. i agree with Riotgear on just about everything he said though. The YAA build, whether sword or axe is a great starter build. its easy, effective, and keeps you having fun. someone also said how important mobility is. i couldnt disagree more. i use dolyaks+flail 24-7, and i... im totally kidding rofl, make sure you can keep up with your enemy bro, thats the key in AB, people scramble all over the place. Rush, Sprint, and Charging Strike are some good choices. (although the proper use of Charging Strike takes some practice.) gl man!

Riotgear · May 12, 2007, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syntonic

Then again, most necros go SS and insidious parasite or include life stealing skills like life siphon instead of using a hex inhibitor due to PvE influence or whatever.

No, it's because of the monk shortage, mainly. If any physical attacker is beating on you, then all of the attacks are going to go through whether they've got Faint on them or not. Faint does a terrific job of stopping adrenaline buildup and slowing attack chains to a crawl so that your monk can react on the cheap.

AB warriors are clueless, however. That and attacks are going to go through whether they take twice as long or not, and if you don't have a monk, they're probably going to kill you. That's why SS+Insideous work so well, because not only are people dumb enough to attack through it, but because they will make your opponent die before you do, which Faintheartedness will not.

Faintheartedness is a great skill. Against bad players with no monk support, there's better.

i.e. my scrub-killer necro:

Skill template: OANEY5xd+zkHEanh9wYwulXBAA
Gear template: Pk5hbscUSTeMvKSVGsEpnWXsEZYJRsEJUKBsEZYdLsEZHA

9+1 Soul Reaping
12+1+3 Curses
9 Healing Prayers
3 Protection Prayers

+5 Energy +30HP axe.
20/20 Curses focus.

[skill]Spiteful Spirit[/skill][skill]Reckless Haste[/skill][skill]Price of Failure[/skill][skill]Insidious Parasite[/skill][skill]Parasitic Bond[/skill][skill]Restful Breeze[/skill][skill]Mending Touch[/skill]

Tack on rez sig or rend enchantments to the end of that. Don't use Insidious and Price+Reckless on the same person. There, go get your glad point or faction or whatever. Oh yeah, and if you want an example of how bad AB players are: I killed two people with p-bond last night.