Curse

scruffy · Mar 24, 2009, 11:16 PM // 23:16

that style of play is viable look at nH's build, they just have strength of honor/judges so you dont really need eviscerate to pump somebodies bar down

Seraphim of Chaos · Mar 24, 2009, 11:57 PM // 23:57

about decap

[glyph of sacrifice]->[phoenix]->[decapitate]

Phe Belladona · Mar 25, 2009, 12:06 AM // 00:06

i dont see how you can say Decapitate is good in a pressure build as it basically kills your warrior as soon as you use it, restarting from 0 energy and 0 adren.. seems silly to me

I Angra I · Mar 25, 2009, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by scruffy

that style of play is viable look at nH's build, they just have strength of honor/judges so you dont really need eviscerate to pump somebodies bar down

nH's build still has mels/hunters, smite sigs, and defile that you can pressure spike with at a rapid rate. Therefore you don't need any extra damage on warriors, you just need them to be able to provide deepwound+decent damage fast.

If you think back to the style of pressure in say KGYU's old build, it was all purely condi degen, and had no midline damage really. Even old hex builds only really had degen hexes and maybe a couple anti melee hexes. Now hex builds consist of a ton of damage. VoR, soul bind, buffed empathy, rising bile, etc.

Neo-LD · Mar 25, 2009, 01:06 AM // 01:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Exactly, its the short burst of extra damage. In a pressure build the warrior is responsible for more of that to score a kill, which is why Eviscerate was more important in those builds. The reason WE is seen more often is not that it outclasses Eviscerate strictly, its that it can spike every 3-5 seconds alongside your rangers and midline casters. This is something eviscerate simply cannot ever do. The burst damage from Eviscerate is almost always higher and more compact than WE, it is just that WE can burst at a much increased rate.

At any rate, the burst damage of Eviscerate (and possibly Decapitate) is best used in pressure when the midline are going to be pressuring the whole team down and then a larger warrior burst gets the kill. Really this style of play is almost never seen, were it more common (i.e. viable) I'm rather convinced that Decapitate would see some use.

I'm not sure what to tell you, man. Your basically saying that because a skill has good spike characteristics, goes well in a pressure build. You have everything backwards. WE has superior DPS and a faster spike rate, which are the two most important characteristics for a pressure build. Eviscerate has the most powerful individual spike (Bulls/Evi/Exe) which is the priority for a more spike-oriented build.

Reverend Dr · Mar 25, 2009, 03:16 PM // 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

The extra damage on Eviscerate was a lot more important back when Warriors needed to react quickly to openings and spike vulnerable targets themselves, when there wasn't time to count down a spike let alone wait for 2c assists to come in. Warriors weren't blowing their adren on recharge either, you could watch those old matches and the better Warriors would hold the Eviscerate for up to a minute at times looking for a good place to score a kill. If you were counting down a spike with an assist, you were probably choking on the recharge of Shatter Enchantment, which is usually more than enough to charge any adrenal skill you like.

Now there's no point in looking for an opening, you brute force them with Rend or similar. Your spike assists are all 1c spells on very fast recharges, and the choke point is on the adrenaline. Dismember being 5A now makes it much more attractive for that sort of spiking; it might be better than Eviscerate straight up for 321 builds.

In your modern eurospike build, Primal Rage is ideal *because* of how much it simplifies playing Warrior. It's an easy target to make fun of, but calling and counting down spikes regularly takes a lot of attention, which takes away from, well, playing Warrior. There have been very, very few Warriors in the history of Guild Wars that could count down spikes with regularity without it visibly detracting from their gameplay, with the now-infamous 'Polly dance' being just one example; virtually every Warrior does one. So in the eurospike style of continuous spike counting, Primal Rage simplifying gameplay is a godsend. Warrior is the most micro-intensive class in Guild Wars, and it's next to impossible to play it well while continually directing spikes. Primal Rage makes '321 Warrior' perform a lot more like a Warrior giving his full attention to his own performance, and that's worth an awful lot when the meta calls for spikes faster than you can charge Dismember.

There's his post. Go read the thread's response to it. No, you sir don't know how this game works.

Decapitate would work in those old pressure builds. Look at when any evenly matched team faced each other (hint, pre-nightfall), there would be very few deaths the entire match. Warrior was about more than just spamming attack skills on recharge and lately the general trend is to make warriors that just mash every key on their keyboard every half a second.

Decapitate slows down a warrior for a bit after a spike, but if you get a kill with it, its worth it. Or at least in the old pressure builds it would have been worth it where warriors would hold adrenaline for long periods of time, its not worth it in today's spike every 5 second wars meta. This is about differences the game has taken over the years.

Neo-LD · Mar 25, 2009, 04:03 PM // 16:03

I agree that in modern spike builds where midline assists recharge so quickly that spike density is actually more important than spike quality, Dismember + WE is better than Eviscerate. In fact, I think I said as much on the previous page. I think my words were "WE is strictly better than Eviscerate," as in better for spike, pressure, everything. The issue here is that you still have this strange notion that Evis/Decap is better for pressure.

Listen to me when I tell you that WE outputs far more "pressure" than any version of Eviscerate ever did. It outputs more DPS which requires more energy to heal. It is constantly a threat to spike, which means it requires vastly more energy to prot against. Eviscerate is just plain inferior atm, regardless of pressure, spike or whatever.

As a matter of fact the Euro teams that I watch don't limit themselves to one or the other, they just beat people down and midliners add their assists when they notice things happening. Thats not spike or pressure, thats just good Guild Wars.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Mar 25, 2009, 05:33 PM // 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Thats not spike or pressure, thats just good Guild Wars.

It's very boring button mashing, not guild wars :|

Reverend Dr · Mar 25, 2009, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Look I'm not just going to fanboy Ensign here, but there is a good reason his opinion is so highly regarded: he is legitimately intelligent, well spoken, and knows this game very well. If Ensign says something (Eviscerate is better in pressure builds) then one should probably think on the issue for a bit and if you do disagree it is going to take a bit than one or two sentences for a proper counter argument ("WE is strictly better than Eviscerate,").

Yes WE puts out more DPS, more 'pressure' if you prefer, but what it doesn't do is get kills without large caster support. That is what Eviscerate does, it gets kills in a pressure build. If you just put on more 'pressure' then good teams fall back, split, and otherwise relieve the pressure such that you do not get kills.

IWAY is a pressure build. We rarely call spikes, usually just going until their team snaps and all wipes at once; it is pressure. Normally Eviscerate is run. I have run this many hundred times. I've tried WE in the build and it just sucks (okay it doesn't 'suck', but it is noticeably less effective than the eviscerate [and I got to stack IAS and IMS on the WE, still not better]). I have run decapitate in the build and it works noticeably better than an Eviscerate.

This is not based upon theory or opinions, this is based upon use and reuse in the match and the empirical data that followed.

Phe Belladona · Mar 25, 2009, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Look I'm not just going to fanboy Ensign here, but there is a good reason his opinion is so highly regarded: he is legitimately intelligent, well spoken, and knows this game very well. If Ensign says something (Eviscerate is better in pressure builds) then one should probably think on the issue for a bit and if you do disagree it is going to take a bit than one or two sentences for a proper counter argument ("WE is strictly better than Eviscerate,").

Yes WE puts out more DPS, more 'pressure' if you prefer, but what it doesn't do is get kills without large caster support. That is what Eviscerate does, it gets kills in a pressure build. If you just put on more 'pressure' then good teams fall back, split, and otherwise relieve the pressure such that you do not get kills.

IWAY is a pressure build. We rarely call spikes, usually just going until their team snaps and all wipes at once; it is pressure. Normally Eviscerate is run. I have run this many hundred times. I've tried WE in the build and it just sucks (okay it doesn't 'suck', but it is noticeably less effective than the eviscerate [and I got to stack IAS and IMS on the WE, still not better]). I have run decapitate in the build and it works noticeably better than an Eviscerate.

This is not based upon theory or opinions, this is based upon use and reuse in the match and the empirical data that followed.

your data is gathered from metas that no longer exist and iway, i hate to say it but your testing areas are flawed if you wanna apply the results to "balanced".

i can totally agree that evis is better in iway cause you want warriors to solo the target but you need to understand that WE does allow for great consistant forcing of monk skills and defensive chars need to give continuous shutdown on these chars cause they are ALWAYS able to deal 200damage to target at any given point, unlike the evis which you need to shutdown at key points. im not going to mention your decap stuff cause decap isnt going to be used for obvious reasons.

WE is mindless spam and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the warriors i know but it is still in most situations the most efficient bar in pressure and spike. when it gets nerf'd, monk enchants stop stacking and Lingering/FF RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOs off we might see a nicer meta ^^ (oh pblock could do with a nerf too but not until resolve and the Me/E thats become very popular again these days, i blame YOU spanktank, go away)

Reverend Dr · Mar 25, 2009, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Because IWAY by default means I lose any argument.

This isn't gathered from metas that no longer exist. The switch to decap was made only about a month ago. I last tried WE only a couple of months ago. This is no meta that "no longer exists." (Unless of course you are referring to the prevalence of pressure builds, which I have many times readily admitted are no longer viable, and I have also readily admitted in the current meta of rapid spiking WE is much better)

People always seem to compare WE's dismember + power attack + prot strike to eviscerate's Evis + body blow. This is an unfair comparison. A downed target receive no additional damage from prot strike than a regular auto attack (other than the slight increase from strength) and Evis will eagerly followup. A kiting target will usually force a warrior out of frenzy, less lose all damage, and kiting still always outweight the drawback of the extra +32. The 1,2 of evis is stronger and just as fast as the 1,2 of WE. The 1,2,3 of evis is also stronger than the 1,2,3 of WE, just the 1,2,3 of WE has smaller window (please don't kid yourself, its a savings of about half a second). Again the advantage of WE is a spike every 3-5 seconds.

Saying WE is good in a pressure build is like, well, pressure isn't viable anymore, you figure out the rest. If you are running a pressure build, you have already lost build wars. Pressure builds used to exist during Prophecies and Factions, but they died out right when Eurospike first came around.

Oh right IWAY. Anything that comes from IWAY is inherently flawed and does not ever generalize to regular play.

Phe Belladona · Mar 25, 2009, 10:48 PM // 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

Because IWAY by default means I lose any argument.

This isn't gathered from metas that no longer exist. The switch to decap was made only about a month ago. I last tried WE only a couple of months ago. This is no meta that "no longer exists." (Unless of course you are referring to the prevalence of pressure builds, which I have many times readily admitted are no longer viable, and I have also readily admitted in the current meta of rapid spiking WE is much better)

People always seem to compare WE's dismember + power attack + prot strike to eviscerate's Evis + body blow. This is an unfair comparison. A downed target receive no additional damage from prot strike than a regular auto attack (other than the slight increase from strength) and Evis will eagerly followup. A kiting target will usually force a warrior out of frenzy, less lose all damage, and kiting still always outweight the drawback of the extra +32. The 1,2 of evis is stronger and just as fast as the 1,2 of WE. The 1,2,3 of evis is also stronger than the 1,2,3 of WE, just the 1,2,3 of WE has smaller window (please don't kid yourself, its a savings of about half a second). Again the advantage of WE is a spike every 3-5 seconds.

Saying WE is good in a pressure build is like, well, pressure isn't viable anymore, you figure out the rest. If you are running a pressure build, you have already lost build wars. Pressure builds used to exist during Prophecies and Factions, but they died out right when Eurospike first came around.

Oh right IWAY. Anything that comes from IWAY is inherently flawed and does not ever generalize to regular play.

you're not listening (reading) iway is played in a completely different way than every other build as you need to consider shutdown offense and defense, completely different backlines, the fact that your midline CAN add damage to spikes (pressure builds do spikes too, it forces big prots and use of monk energy and forcing casts to interupt) and frequency of these mini spikes ups the pressure. you dont need to kill with every spike. if you're killing with every spike you're either playing a NOWspike build or vs bad monks and midline or both. i am not saying "Anything that comes from IWAY is inherently flawed" im just saying that you MUST appreciate that it has completely different rules for how you play so cannot just map the warriors and what they do onto any build.

im not suggesting the pressure that exists today is the same as old pressure where fertile drops and the whole enemy team dies from the degen, but it exists in energy pressure and recharge times where they CANNOT afford to keep everyone up so need to make choices and ppl die.

shouting "iz it cause i iz iway" is just trying to create a shield for your arguements that doesnt strengthen them but makes ppl who cant see it think you are being underestimated for an unrelated thing and so sympathise.

evis is still useable, WE is usable, decap destroys your energy and adren and so kills your pressure from that char if it doesnt kill. it has never been meta and ppl who know warriors and the game much better than you or i have decided its not worth it (i think largely based on my stance)

Master Fuhon · Mar 25, 2009, 11:29 PM // 23:29

The term 'pressure' does not refer to damage only; it can refer to forced tempo increases as well (like how 'press' gets used in basketball). Energy-denial was once more effective as a pressure tactic than it is now, because of the effects of Divine Boon. Prior to metas oriented around WE/PR, warriors were not a pressure class solely on their ability to deal damage. Maybe they shouldn't have been classified as a pressure class at all. They are capped at dealing effective damage pressure to one target, and IAS allows one to compress damage. This sounds like a spiking class.

The warrior spikes supplement pressure oriented builds because spiking is a powerful mechanic (an evolution on focus firing). If you remove focus firing capabilities from most of your teammates, you are going to be at a serious disadvantage of having no team burst capacity to produce a kill when a target becomes vulnerable. A spiking character is what makes pressure viable, in a game where perhaps pressure itself is not as viable as spike. Health totals are outclassed by burst damage; in other cases just shutting down the defensive character that provides the greatest health buffer allows a spike to pass through.

Either way, buffing pressure only makes it easier to support a spike, because pressure preoccupies defenses. Instead of only putting out pressure damage (like a degen character would), Warriors had previously pressured defenses to have to spend energy to deal with their spikes (either fear of a spike, or reaction to a spike). The most effective way to do this is to trade less energy/adrenaline than the opposing monk is expending. But given the chance, the objective of a warrior pressuring is to do whatever is necessary to reduce defensive energy reserves. If defensive skills have long recharges, getting them on recharge at the wrong times can be considered another goal of pressure (Weapon of Wardings, etc).

Warrior pressure was arguable in how it needed to be done, because it's arguable on what produces the best ratio of damage/energy wasted to supplement the rest of a build. I have no doubts the non-damage varieties are less effective nowadays in every form; defensive characters are using a more efficient array of spells to deal with it. At this point, warrior pressuring style is diminished and obscene DPS is the most competitive pressure style.

However, it's almost outdated at this point to talk about warrior pressure. Just to try to give a clear distinction of the difference between a spiking warrior style and a pressure warrior style: The spiking warrior is impeded by the protection spells that were just cast on the target he was attacking. The pressuring warrior did something to draw those protection spells so that he could produce vulnerability elsewhere. That's not how things have been working. The effects of pressure are being reduced because offensive oriented characters are expending the energy to defend. When water snares, blinds, or ranger cripples are doing the job; monks aren't using energy and the only pressure that works is damage. Anti-spike skills on the other hand, are terrible enough to allow repeated spiking to out pressure the backline.

Neo-LD · Mar 26, 2009, 12:01 AM // 00:01

The only redeeming quality of Eviscerate is that Bulls/Evi/Exe on an unprotted target can kill from a higher hp level than Power/Dismember/PStrike. By disregarding a rather large pile of contradicting evidence, you take this as conclusive rationale that Eviscerate is better in pressure builds. You put far too much stock in the extra damage per burst that Eviscerate gives, and vastly undervalue the DPS and especially burst refire rate that WE bestows. Since it didn't sink in the first time, allow me to inform you again that those are the two most important properties that a war needs for pressuring.

I don't know why I bothered, but I decided to write you up a more detailed description, and if this doesn't do it for you, I'm through trying. Its not like its my duty to educate, I'm just trying to be helpful. Anyways,

Pressure builds have a process: they typically win by running defenses out of energy, getting hp bars low, and then finishing off low targets with bursts. You are putting all your emphasis on the last part, when in reality thats the easy part that nearly any bar can do. Its in the first two parts that different skillbars really make a difference.

A protted burst is a protted burst and likely wont kill a target. If you are facing a team that plays good defense, a significant portion of your bursts will be protted as long as the monks have the energy to resist you. What matters then is outputting a huge number of bursts that all require some level of protting (the specific level of which the monks will only be able to guess at for every particular spike) to make monks burn energy. Score one for WE. Once energy is low bars start to fall, and they fall faster if you deal more DPS. Another for WE. Once HP bars are low, your bursts can start finishing things off. Well, at least Eviscerate has a stronger burst. But wait, WE bursts more often, which is just as valuable (probably more so given the ratios, but I suppose I'll note that one down as a draw).

Master Fuhon · Mar 26, 2009, 12:42 AM // 00:42

I'm not sure if you started writing that before I posted, but since you haven't edited it by now. Looking at this point:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

The only redeeming quality of Eviscerate is that Bulls/Evi/Exe on an unprotted target can kill from a higher hp level than Power/Dismember/PStrike.

That would be the point of a pressure build based on organizing chaos to keep the opposing defenses preoccupied for a small enough window to allow a Warrior to finish something off. Depending on how effectively the build was able to pressure, you would open up a small window of vulnerability in which you would need the largest spike to burst things down. Depends on how small that window is. If you can only buy one hit: Eviscerate + Protector's strike would probably still beat Decapitate. If you can sneak in two hits: Eviscerate/Executioners.

If you are intending to pressure with the Warrior itself because the rest of your build is designed to stand around and cast defensive skills, then you want the WE bar by far. However big the warrior spike window is; that's limited by game balance.

The basis of the argument that you two are having is that you have a definition of pressure that is limited to modern times; while he references Ensign/IWAY and dominant tactics of the past, something you don't appear to know about. It would probably be more helpful to demonstrate how the changes happened than to just state how things are right now.

Reverend Dr · Mar 26, 2009, 12:53 AM // 00:53

Fine I give up. My experiences aren't worth anything. Keep saying its because of the build I'm running and that my build works differently. That's the point.

Warriors today are nothing more than deep wound on wheels. Any changes they have had have just let them deep wound and wheel better.

And as a closing remark, as the original Primal saw dominance over WE, I really don't see why it doesn't still

[dismember][body blow][no skill][bulls strike][primal rage][frenzy][rush][resurrection signet]

scruffy · Mar 26, 2009, 03:43 AM // 03:43

if you take freny over shock on the PR bar you have the same utility as a WE warrior but your spike skills recharge slower...and do the same amount of damage

its inferior, i dont mind primal rage with the longer recharge though - spamming prot strike and power attack on recharge is just too good to turn down though

also: i agree with neo-ld, the way you pressure right now is by getting their monks to save 9999 spikes in a row, its like old pressure builds minus the pressure part - you can just start bursting away right from the getgo

Neo-LD · Mar 26, 2009, 04:33 AM // 04:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Fuhon

I'm not sure if you started writing that before I posted, but since you haven't edited it by now. Looking at this point:

That would be the point of a pressure build based on organizing chaos to keep the opposing defenses preoccupied for a small enough window to allow a Warrior to finish something off. Depending on how effectively the build was able to pressure, you would open up a small window of vulnerability in which you would need the largest spike to burst things down. Depends on how small that window is. If you can only buy one hit: Eviscerate + Protector's strike would probably still beat Decapitate. If you can sneak in two hits: Eviscerate/Executioners.

If you are intending to pressure with the Warrior itself because the rest of your build is designed to stand around and cast defensive skills, then you want the WE bar by far. However big the warrior spike window is; that's limited by game balance.

The basis of the argument that you two are having is that you have a definition of pressure that is limited to modern times; while he references Ensign/IWAY and dominant tactics of the past, something you don't appear to know about. It would probably be more helpful to demonstrate how the changes happened than to just state how things are right now.

Fuhon, my posts have been directed towards Reverend, not yourself. I did not consider your post relevant, but since you insist, I will consider what you have to say:

It is well documented (Why Nuking Sucks thread, Ensign) that warriors are the primary vessels of damage in this game, due to the fact that their auto attacks yield good DPS, are free, and come on a platform that is difficult to kill. Unmitigated frenzying warriors will kill, period. It is further documented that most types of warriors have historically dealt approximately the same DPS, although technically Hammer > Axe > Sword by small margins, for those who want to nitpick (also documented in Why Nuking Sucks).

The difference in war bars, then, comes in the utility of the skills. We agree that an important role of warriors in pressure builds is to kill targets of opportunity through his adrenal-unload bursts. In fact, this is such an important consideration that it is nearly completely responsible for the pervasive use of the Eviscerate Shock Axe throughout the history of this game.

Before WE, warriors could only burst as fast as they could charge Eviscerate. Fast-recharging energy-based attack skills existed, but mostly sucked and couldn't have been used anyways because warriors did not have infinite energy. Now, however, those skills are rather powerful, and WE does bestows the energy necessary to constantly use them. Thus in today's game a warrior's burst is only limited by how fast he can charge dismember. The reason why WE is used is not that the primary consideration has changed, but that burst frequency is just as important as burst power in that discussion, especially when you consider that each one demands monk prot to safely survive. Note that we haven't even begun to take into account WE's inherently higher DPS as compared to regular war builds due to the vastly more frequent use of +dmg skills.

This is why I've been saying that the reason Eviscerate not often used today is NOT that pressure is dead. Pressure is still alive and well, so far as I can tell. Its just that WE is better at it.

P.S. please skip the ad hominem attacks. I have been around since before day 1, and am knowledgeable about all important tactics that have been used since then. I had assumed that it was most useful to talk about the present since it is, well, the present. However since you desired some past perspective I tried to include it in this post.

Snow Bunny · Mar 26, 2009, 05:17 AM // 05:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

[dismember][body blow][no skill][bulls strike][primal rage][frenzy][rush][resurrection signet]

That hurts 2 energy regen

Reverend Dr · Mar 26, 2009, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by scruffy

also: i agree with neo-ld, the way you pressure right now is by getting their monks to save 9999 spikes in a row, its like old pressure builds minus the pressure part - you can just start bursting away right from the getgo

3,2,1 Pressure

R-Pressure