Curse

King Kong Monkey · Jul 06, 2007, 09:58 PM // 21:58

Like the title said it, what do you guys think is better in a GvG build with the following slots:

2 Frontliners
1 Gank slot
1 BSurge Ele
1 MoR Mesmer
1 RC
1 LoD/Infuse
1 Runner

Frontline:
1 Earthshaker/1 Eviscerate
or
1 Crippslash/ 1 Eviscertate
or
1 Backbreaker/ 1 Devastating Hammer

Gankslot:
BA Ranger
or
R/P with Spear and Stunning Strike

Runner:
SoR Water Runner
or
Rt/E Runner with Weapon of Shadow and Caretakers Charge

Please choose you preferance and also explain why he is better.

Thanks in advance!

Radiant Dawnstar · Jul 06, 2007, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Frontline:
1 Earthshaker/1 Eviscerate
or
1 Crippslash/ 1 Eviscertate
or
1 Backbreaker/ 1 Devastating Hammer

IMO take 1 Backbreaker, 1 Shock Axe. Backbreaker is a very efficient shutdown and Shock Axe has a great spike.

Quote:

Gankslot:
BA Ranger
or
R/P with Spear and Stunning Strike

BA Ranger. Stunning Strike sucks.

Quote:

Runner:
SoR Water Runner
or
Rt/E Runner with Weapon of Shadow and Caretakers Charge

SoR. Better survivability, great at stand. Caretaker's Charge isn't great IMO.

Seamus Finn · Jul 06, 2007, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Kong Monkey

Frontline:
1 Earthshaker/1 Eviscerate
or
1 Crippslash/ 1 Eviscertate
or
1 Backbreaker/ 1 Devastating Hammer!

Complete preference on the hammer warrior, in my opinion. I might lean towards a shock axe for the second over a dev hammer simply because axe bars tend to be mor ecompact and you can slot a heal sig for splitting easier on the axe guy. But any of those combinations can be very effective. I might also suggest a melandru derv since it gives the build some constant AOE at the stand, which is very strong at VOD.

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Kong Monkey

Gankslot:
BA Ranger
or
R/P with Spear and Stunning Strike!

No contest. BA ranger. Simply the most well-rounded template in the game. The only competition for this slot could be a crippling shot ranger, since he would provide some nice stand snares, but then you would probably want a strong-splitting war to accompany him since crip shots have trouble killing much these days.

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Kong Monkey

Runner:
SoR Water Runner
or
Rt/E Runner with Weapon of Shadow and Caretakers Charge!

Honestly? I don't know where this caretaker bar comes from and I can't exactly be sure what the other 6 slots on his bar would be besides a run skill. TO be honest, most SoR water runner are very weak stand characters. They are run often because it is very difficult to kill even a bad player who has this bar since they all bring SOR and mend touch. His water snares are minor leaguers most of the time and end up doing little more than annoying warriors. This leaves him as a great skirmish character that doesn't require much player communication to run in flags. Also, the current block-way version of balanced, which uses your skeleton, favors the water ele as well, since he can run aegis very easily and help keep the chain up. My favorite defensive runners right now are channeling/resto rits since they can bring much more utility to the stand while still being a tough runner since with ancestors and splinter slotted they add a great deal of power to the stand come vod and have many slots to bring party heals, skimish skills, or whatever else you might need. Of course, you usually need to find the snares somewhere else in your build, cause it can be tricky for this guy to spam freezing gust like a water ele, so you would be stuck with some of the worst snares in the game.

assassin of the god · Jul 07, 2007, 03:05 AM // 03:05

Earthshaker/evis.

ranger.

SoR water ele.

Relambrien · Jul 07, 2007, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by assassin of the god

Earthshaker/evis.

ranger.

SoR water ele.

You say that when our own frontline always seems to have a crip slash in it.

Frontlines are pretty versatile with two Warriors, provided you don't run two of the same thing. As a a general rule, Earth Shaker, Shock Axe, and Crip Slash each pair well with one of the other two. Just play around with it and see what you like best, but we've been running Conjure Crip Slash/Conjure Evisc lately. Makes RoF pretty ineffective :P

If we don't run conjures, we bring d-blow or something, maybe a heal sig if we want more survivability on a split.

But yeah, we've gone through combinations of Axe/Hammer, Sword/Hammer, and Sword/Axe and didn't real feel that any combination was noticeably better than another. But if I had to choose a combination for a variety of situations, here's what I would do:

If you want a very strong spike, Shock Axe/Earth Shaker. The combination allows for a bunch of damage but it's difficult to spread that much pressure, since the Axe skills take a while to build up and are mostly suited for spiking. Best used if you're going to be spiking a lot, and don't care that much for pressure spread throughout the enemy team. This also has a lot of knockdowns available for you.

If you want a lot of pressure that's easy to spread around, Crip Slash/Shock Axe. This is what I would call the jack of all trades. Has a decent spike with two sources of deep wound, along with +damage from Gash and Sun and Moon (especially when running Conjure), and also has a good amount of pressure in the form of bleeding and damage from Crip Slash+Conjure. The axe can pressure too, but isn't quite as well suited to the task.

If you want a weaker spike, but with a variety of pressure plus knockdowns, Crip Slash/Earth Shaker. Not a very good spike, but still manageable. There is limited +damage on the Earth Shaker, and the Crip Slash can't compensate for it very well, but with enough support from the midline, spikes are still doable. This is a great pressure combination though, with cripple, bleeding, two deep wounds, and a lot of kd's. Add in the obligatory Burning Arrow/Crip Shot and you've got yourself a great amount of pressure if you can get through all the defense that's out there right now.

No contest on the question of the Ranger. Definitely BA or Crip Shot. Crip Shot is *great* for harassing enemy flaggers and keeping them delayed; BA is more suited to splitting offensively. Just decide what you want to do with the ranger based on what your overall team build is going to do. If you want a nice split option open, then put in a BA. If you want more pressure at the stand, some defense in the form of cripple, and the ability to keep enemy flaggers delayed, it's Crip Shot. Your choice.

Runner's easy too. Never heard of the rit bar, but Caretaker's Charge is a damage skill I beleive, which is kind of unnecessary on a flagger. You're going to want defense and snares on the guy, so what better than water with SoR? Just watch out for the odd Rending Sweep Assassin that you're bound to face eventually. Not too powerful at the stand, but an amazing defensive split choice. Once again, I don't know anything about rit runners, other than a lot seem to carry splinter weapon. So I don't know just how effective they are.

King Kong Monkey · Jul 07, 2007, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Thanks for your opinions so far!

For those who asked the Rt/E runner build ill post it now so you can have a more objective look at it.

Weapon of Shadow
Wielders Boon
Soothing Memories
Blind Was Mingson
Caretaker's Charge
Renewing Surge
Channeled Strike
Storm Djinn's Haste

It is an run build designed by my guild leader and he thinks this runner is much better than the current runners that are used.

assassin of the god · Jul 08, 2007, 01:23 AM // 01:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Relambrien

You say that when our own frontline always seems to have a crip slash in it.

Frontlines are pretty versatile with two Warriors, provided you don't run two of the same thing. As a a general rule, Earth Shaker, Shock Axe, and Crip Slash each pair well with one of the other two. Just play around with it and see what you like best, but we've been running Conjure Crip Slash/Conjure Evisc lately. Makes RoF pretty ineffective :P

If we don't run conjures, we bring d-blow or something, maybe a heal sig if we want more survivability on a split.

But yeah, we've gone through combinations of Axe/Hammer, Sword/Hammer, and Sword/Axe and didn't real feel that any combination was noticeably better than another. But if I had to choose a combination for a variety of situations, here's what I would do:

If you want a very strong spike, Shock Axe/Earth Shaker. The combination allows for a bunch of damage but it's difficult to spread that much pressure, since the Axe skills take a while to build up and are mostly suited for spiking. Best used if you're going to be spiking a lot, and don't care that much for pressure spread throughout the enemy team. This also has a lot of knockdowns available for you.

If you want a lot of pressure that's easy to spread around, Crip Slash/Shock Axe. This is what I would call the jack of all trades. Has a decent spike with two sources of deep wound, along with +damage from Gash and Sun and Moon (especially when running Conjure), and also has a good amount of pressure in the form of bleeding and damage from Crip Slash+Conjure. The axe can pressure too, but isn't quite as well suited to the task.

If you want a weaker spike, but with a variety of pressure plus knockdowns, Crip Slash/Earth Shaker. Not a very good spike, but still manageable. There is limited +damage on the Earth Shaker, and the Crip Slash can't compensate for it very well, but with enough support from the midline, spikes are still doable. This is a great pressure combination though, with cripple, bleeding, two deep wounds, and a lot of kd's. Add in the obligatory Burning Arrow/Crip Shot and you've got yourself a great amount of pressure if you can get through all the defense that's out there right now.

No contest on the question of the Ranger. Definitely BA or Crip Shot. Crip Shot is *great* for harassing enemy flaggers and keeping them delayed; BA is more suited to splitting offensively. Just decide what you want to do with the ranger based on what your overall team build is going to do. If you want a nice split option open, then put in a BA. If you want more pressure at the stand, some defense in the form of cripple, and the ability to keep enemy flaggers delayed, it's Crip Shot. Your choice.

Runner's easy too. Never heard of the rit bar, but Caretaker's Charge is a damage skill I beleive, which is kind of unnecessary on a flagger. You're going to want defense and snares on the guy, so what better than water with SoR? Just watch out for the odd Rending Sweep Assassin that you're bound to face eventually. Not too powerful at the stand, but an amazing defensive split choice. Once again, I don't know anything about rit runners, other than a lot seem to carry splinter weapon. So I don't know just how effective they are.

Actully, we tend only to run cripslash/evis when your on war, as far as I know when eb/mighty are on wars they are axe/hammer.

I personally don't feel cripslash is that effective since you are basicly trading all your adren/dps for 5 energy of the monks (RC).At first, the only reson to use crip slash was to be able to fit alot of utility(snare, interupt, heal, self removal,ect.) on a sword bar without dropping the sig. Also, sword and axe/hammer are also compleately different pressure styles, crip slash is hard dps aided by deep wound spam, and axe and hammer use powerful spikes and knockdowns/shutdown. However, now with more teams carrying sod , crip slash is becoming more and more attractive, for the quick-switching dps that SoD forces you into.

For the rest I agree. If you want a ranged dps slot, take a paragon. If you want by far the most versitile template in the game, take a BA/crip shot.

rit runner is baed.

But then again, I'm just a bitch monk whose only useful opinion is interupting humility, right?

Yue · Jul 08, 2007, 01:57 PM // 13:57

Earthshaker/evisc. Cripslash tends to be RC fodder unless you have a build with alot of conditions. Earthshaker's AoE KD provides alot of versatility, since it also stops warrior trains and applies pressure to bodyblocks.

Relambrien · Jul 08, 2007, 06:21 PM // 18:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by assassin of the god

Actully, we tend only to run cripslash/evis when your on war, as far as I know when eb/mighty are on wars they are axe/hammer.

I personally don't feel cripslash is that effective since you are basicly trading all your adren/dps for 5 energy of the monks (RC).At first, the only reson to use crip slash was to be able to fit alot of utility(snare, interupt, heal, self removal,ect.) on a sword bar without dropping the sig. Also, sword and axe/hammer are also compleately different pressure styles, crip slash is hard dps aided by deep wound spam, and axe and hammer use powerful spikes and knockdowns/shutdown. However, now with more teams carrying sod , crip slash is becoming more and more attractive, for the quick-switching dps that SoD forces you into.

For the rest I agree. If you want a ranged dps slot, take a paragon. If you want by far the most versitile template in the game, take a BA/crip shot.

rit runner is baed.

But then again, I'm just a bitch monk whose only useful opinion is interupting humility, right?

Wait, EB still plays Warrior? ><

But yeah, I agree with you. Each of the three weapons has their own pressure styles, so it's up to preference to determine which combination you want to run. Considering that a standard balanced build already has blind, poision, and burning/dazed/cripple, I think there are enough conditions to keep the RC and draw busy so that Crip Slash is effective. Hopefully there's enough shutdown that the RC can't keep up with everything while the Draw is busy with getting blinds off, but of course that relies on everyone on the team being good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by assassin of the god

But then again, I'm just a bitch monk whose only useful opinion is interupting humility, right?

I take it you heard Leak's impressions :P
I'll tell you more in-game, but know that he was talking about when you were tactics caller for a guild you and he were in.

Patccmoi · Jul 08, 2007, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by King Kong Monkey

Thanks for your opinions so far!

For those who asked the Rt/E runner build ill post it now so you can have a more objective look at it.

Weapon of Shadow
Wielders Boon
Soothing Memories
Blind Was Mingson
Caretaker's Charge
Renewing Surge
Channeled Strike
Storm Djinn's Haste

It is an run build designed by my guild leader and he thinks this runner is much better than the current runners that are used.

1) No snare. Not ABSOLUTELY necessary, but it's very often a part of flag runners, and if your flagger doesn't have any you better have some very good ones on at least 2 other characters

2) If there's a monk or a warrior / assassin / BA Ranger with Mending Touch, how do you prevent him from totally tearing you appart once your Weapon of Shadow is on recharge? Wielder's Boon becomes a bad heal (no other weapon), Soothing Memories is slow and so-so mostly just good for energy efficiency, and if you have to drop your BwM your full bar becomes aweful.

3) What do you do if you actually get crippled? no condition removal will make a Cripshot laugh at you pretty hard. And interrupt all those 1-2s casts quite easily too.

Basically, any offensive split with condition removal (read, all of them) would absolutely tear this flagger appart once Weapon of Shadow runs off. You have no snare to run away from them either should they snare you.

I used Caretaker's runner a long time ago when Caretaker's was actually emanagement and you could use it to power more expensive utility if needed, but now i don't really know what you'd do with it. And a runner with no snare or self-condition removal is just not really viable in the current meta imo. An offensive split character would just snare you and make your life hell, and blind as only defense just doesn't work when every single one of them has Mending Touch, or in the case of SP sins often a ZB Monk running along.

Farin · Jul 08, 2007, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Let me quote myself from a different thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RaZoO

Eviscerate
Executioner's Strike
Bull's Strike
Shock
Distracting Blow
Frenzy
Rush
Resurrection Signet

Best warrior bar ever.

I don't know how people can not run this bar.

I Brother Bloood I · Jul 09, 2007, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

1) No snare. Not ABSOLUTELY necessary, but it's very often a part of flag runners, and if your flagger doesn't have any you better have some very good ones on at least 2 other characters

2) If there's a monk or a warrior / assassin / BA Ranger with Mending Touch, how do you prevent him from totally tearing you appart once your Weapon of Shadow is on recharge? Wielder's Boon becomes a bad heal (no other weapon), Soothing Memories is slow and so-so mostly just good for energy efficiency, and if you have to drop your BwM your full bar becomes aweful.

3) What do you do if you actually get crippled? no condition removal will make a Cripshot laugh at you pretty hard. And interrupt all those 1-2s casts quite easily too.

Basically, any offensive split with condition removal (read, all of them) would absolutely tear this flagger appart once Weapon of Shadow runs off. You have no snare to run away from them either should they snare you.

I used Caretaker's runner a long time ago when Caretaker's was actually emanagement and you could use it to power more expensive utility if needed, but now i don't really know what you'd do with it. And a runner with no snare or self-condition removal is just not really viable in the current meta imo. An offensive split character would just snare you and make your life hell, and blind as only defense just doesn't work when every single one of them has Mending Touch, or in the case of SP sins often a ZB Monk running along.

Lol ok so lets run blurred vision and water snares in our hex builds and abuse all the bs we can sounds good to me. Just run weapon of remedy rit with pious haste because storm djins blows maybe u can throw in splinter weapon essence strike and wielders strike. Weapon of Remedy, Weapon of Warding, Wielders Boon, Splinter weapon, essence strike, wielders strike, insert spirit here,pious haste.

Seamus Finn · Jul 09, 2007, 03:50 AM // 03:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Brother Bloood I

Just run weapon of remedy rit with pious haste because storm djins blows .

I always wondered why players choose to save the oppossing team's mesmer's shatter enchant by removing their own prots on an incoming flagger with pious haste...

Robster Lobster · Jul 09, 2007, 06:36 AM // 06:36

On a Rit runner going /A with Dash is pretty nice. You can also run Dark Escape, or, if you really need a snare you can run Siphon Speed, it's not great, but at least it can easily match its recharge. The bonus is also alright sometimes.

I Brother Bloood I · Jul 09, 2007, 12:43 PM // 12:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seamus Finn

I always wondered why players choose to save the oppossing team's mesmer's shatter enchant by removing their own prots on an incoming flagger with pious haste...

Hes got weapons. But storm djins does blow its an enchantment and its costs alot mroe nrg compared to pious. U can still run it i just dont like it.

Burton2000 · Jul 09, 2007, 03:56 PM // 15:56

Our guilds been running a YAA warrior runner alot recently. The idea is we get ahead of the flags early on so we can pressure the main team with 3 warriors. It really owns on splits as well with our crip shot.

The only problem we have had is against 2 sin + monk split but weve sorted that one out now with different tactics.

-Pluto- · Jul 10, 2007, 08:00 AM // 08:00

Hammer + evis in my opinion. Axes deal more damage in general than swords. Sure, the cripslash can theoretically do more by beating on snared targets... but when 5 energy heals 130 hp and removes it (almost 200 if you've used gash on the guy), that really doesn't matter much.

And besides that, you can make the axe warrior splittable now with a Cripshot ranger and still have the same utility as a burning + sword split.

Kaon · Jul 10, 2007, 08:26 AM // 08:26

Let me just get a few misconceptions out of the world.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

1) No snare. Not ABSOLUTELY necessary, but it's very often a part of flag runners, and if your flagger doesn't have any you better have some very good ones on at least 2 other characters

I think snares have a necessity level of 95%. You can win against a split without (sometimes) but it gets very hard, takes a long time, and becomes boring.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

3) What do you do if you actually get crippled? no condition removal will make a Cripshot laugh at you pretty hard. And interrupt all those 1-2s casts quite easily too.

Actually, a SoR runner has the same problem, don't tell me mending touch is a solution to cripshot, because its not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Basically, any offensive split with condition removal (read, all of them) would absolutely tear this flagger appart once Weapon of Shadow runs off. You have no snare to run away from them either should they snare you.

You're right, but they dont even need condition removal.... they can just wait till weapon of shadow's over.

sidenote: An axe warrior warrior without a healsig is like a _______ (WTF since when is this word offensive?) without a crime history.

However, this does not count for americans, because they don't split anyway.

Seamus Finn · Jul 10, 2007, 08:37 AM // 08:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

I think snares have a necessity level of 95%. You can win against a split without (sometimes) but it gets very hard, takes a long time, and becomes boring.

.

A split response without a snare is pretty useless unless you are jsut rolling the stand and send an inadequate response to stall. Usually, you counter split to kill the enemy split. You probably won't do that without snares. At the same time, you dont necessarily need the snares on the runner. There are good spots for snares on stand characters that can respond to splits(crip shot), so it isn't mandatory on runners as long as it is somewhere.

samcobra · Jul 10, 2007, 01:14 PM // 13:14

1 snares.. 2.. don't take out the mesmer unless you have some other way of shutting them down, like splitting or something. Otherwise, you'll waste 20 minutes of not killing shit.