Curse

martialis · Mar 17, 2007, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Quote:

I heard that Whirling Axe is actually decent in PvE in areas with no block.

[skill]Echo[/skill][skill]Mending[/skill]

Riotgear · Mar 18, 2007, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfernalSuffering

You can and should cover the hexes.

So basically, you need to be running around with Holy Veil on you in case someone feels like casting blurred or price of failure, you need to use Sight Beyond Sight so you don't get blinded and miss, and you need a necro casting Rigor Mortis on your targets, and if you fail to do any of these things, you cast Signet of Humility on yourself.

A skill that needs so much support just to be usable is garbage, especially when the bonus is just a minor boost in DPS. Remind me again, why would you ever take Whirling over Cleave?

EDIT --
To further emphasize the problem of constantly spending adrenaline on WA, I wrote a little program to simulate WA+Executioner's alongside Cleave+Agonizing Chop+Executioner's, and determine how much more damage that would be doing over just autoattacking. All skills used on recharge.

After a million hits:
Cleave: +11272695 damage
Whirling Axe: +11399962 damage

So in other words, even for just powering out DPS, WA's supposed purpose, it only beats Cleave by about 0.1 damage per hit, which could probably be recovered by running Penetrating instead of Agonizing. And Cleave doesn't disable itself. Is there anything left to discuss?

Div · Mar 18, 2007, 04:37 AM // 04:37

This build doesn't do nearly enough spike damage to even warrant attention as being spiked. Whirling+dismember is highly inferior in spiking capability compared to executioners+dismember (and the latter doesn't even use an elite). Pressure-wise, that combo is not nearly as good as other suggestions, such as dragon sword or even cleave.

twicky_kid · Mar 18, 2007, 07:15 AM // 07:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

A skill that needs so much support just to be usable is garbage, especially when the bonus is just a minor boost in DPS. Remind me again, why would you ever take Whirling over Cleave?

EDIT --
To further emphasize the problem of constantly spending adrenaline on WA, I wrote a little program to simulate WA+Executioner's alongside Cleave+Agonizing Chop+Executioner's, and determine how much more damage that would be doing over just autoattacking. All skills used on recharge.

After a million hits:
Cleave: +11272695 damage
Whirling Axe: +11399962 damage

So in other words, even for just powering out DPS, WA's supposed purpose, it only beats Cleave by about 0.1 damage per hit, which could probably be recovered by running Penetrating instead of Agonizing. And Cleave doesn't disable itself. Is there anything left to discuss?

Do in game test not something a program is going to spew out to you. One wrong character in any of your line of code could throw everything off.

I've done the in game testing and whirling beats them all for dmg. Do the test over 100 hits and look at the results. Its wins in dmg done and avg dmg.

The reason you take whirling over cleave is you do twice the dmg in half the time. It also allows you take more utility and energy attack skills unlike Dragon Slash or cleave. The only other adrenaline skill you would take is dismember for DW.

Even without the block side effect whirling would still be unused. Its not strong enough to be a spike skill so the only other thing it could be is a pressure skill. The problem as a pressure skill is it just does dmg. Pressure builds have more utility than raw dmg. Pressure builds are designed for wear down the defense of your opponent. The most affective way to do this is with interruptions. During season 2 we saw a lot of KD and ranger interrupts. Pressure is always going to chose an effect over raw dmg for wearing down the defense of the opponent. Whirling doesn't fit this role but it does open up the rest of your bar to fit in the tools that you need.

Will it see use if its block side affect is reduced or removed? Hard to say. Pressure is mostly dead outside of hex overload.

Riotgear · Mar 18, 2007, 08:32 AM // 08:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Do in game test not something a program is going to spew out to you. One wrong character in any of your line of code could throw everything off.

http://icculus.org/~riot/cleavetest.c

Read for yourself. It's hard to make a mistake in such a stupidly simple program that doesn't produce severely skewed results.

Quote:

I've done the in game testing and whirling beats them all for dmg. Do the test over 100 hits and look at the results. Its wins in dmg done and avg dmg.

Yes, if you just spam nothing but cleave and whirling, then whirling will win. The point though is that your adrenaline gain rate goes up by 50% when you use Cleave, and that extra adrenaline allows you to pump out damage through other skills to the point where it actually evens out.

(Executioner's Strike makes the average damage of BOTH cycles go up. Agonizing Chop makes WA's cycle go down, and as such, I excluded it.)

Franco Power · Mar 18, 2007, 10:00 AM // 10:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfernalSuffering

You can and should cover the hexes. While pure dps doesnt get you any kills like spiking does eventually monks will run out of energy if the dps is high enough and then they will collapse. If you actually read what RH, Spirit of failure, and blind did you would notice they all cause you to MISS with attacks and dont BLOCK them. Aegis is specifically countered by expose and rigor...

Relying on your Warriors to be casting Expose defenses and worrying about covering hexes while they should be doing their job is highly not recommended, The point is, no decent monk is going to run out of energy because of whirling axe, you got the theory that the monk is just going to stand there and let you spam whirling, kite > you, not to mention prot spells like Shield hands/absorption and even rof, you missed my point about those hexes, not only they make you miss attacks but also, the only source of damage you have which is whirling axe is not enough to kill anything, if you get hexes then you become even more useless then that build already is, I see lots of people argueing here about this being a good skill in PvE, This is not the PvE forum

TheOneMephisto · Mar 18, 2007, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Pure, predictable DPS doesn't kill people. Fairly high DPS with other shutdown/pressure with unpredictable spikes kills people.

Shmanka · Mar 20, 2007, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

Pure, predictable DPS doesn't kill people. Fairly high DPS with other shutdown/pressure with unpredictable spikes kills people.

Tell Anet to stop nerfing every single viable spike then... I like them they make the game fast/easy/competitive no one wants 20 minute matches of WA warriors wacking each other and hoping one of the monks goes AFK to Timmi's and grabs a coffee and donuts.

twicky_kid · Mar 22, 2007, 12:58 AM // 00:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riotgear

Yes, if you just spam nothing but cleave and whirling, then whirling will win. The point though is that your adrenaline gain rate goes up by 50% when you use Cleave, and that extra adrenaline allows you to pump out damage through other skills to the point where it actually evens out.

(Executioner's Strike makes the average damage of BOTH cycles go up. Agonizing Chop makes WA's cycle go down, and as such, I excluded it.)

Now do a test with whirling and energy attacks instead of adrenaline. Guess who wins?

It doesn't matter if it eats your adrenaline. With whirling the only adren attack skill you bring is dismember. With cleave you will bring multiple adren attack skills. Whirling and cleave's bar set up is completely different. Whirling is also more versatile because of the energy attacks. If you your adrenaline is being denied you still have options with the energy attacks.

The only instance where whirling will lose is when you have a full adren bar which you will never set your bar up that way with whirling.

The main point is it wins as a damage dealer and an overall great skill yet will never see use in pvp because of the disable effect.

zling · Mar 31, 2007, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by zakaria

it just piss me off that eviscerate still in my bar for near 2 years with no chance of changing it to any another elite axe attack..sigh!!

perhaps you could fit in Charging Strike, "Coward!" or "You're All Alone!" as those seem to be the only other elites besides Eviscerate that wouldnt be a complete joke, but than you need to adapt your build to using any of these...

Thomas.knbk · Mar 31, 2007, 04:30 PM // 16:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by zling

perhaps you could fit in Charging Strike, "Coward!" or "You're All Alone!" as those seem to be the only other elites besides Eviscerate that wouldnt be a complete joke, but than you need to adapt your build to using any of these...

........charging strike?
Cleave is OK now.

jummeth · Apr 04, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Now do a test with whirling and energy attacks instead of adrenaline. Guess who wins?

It doesn't matter if it eats your adrenaline. With whirling the only adren attack skill you bring is dismember. With cleave you will bring multiple adren attack skills. Whirling and cleave's bar set up is completely different. Whirling is also more versatile because of the energy attacks. If you your adrenaline is being denied you still have options with the energy attacks.

The only instance where whirling will lose is when you have a full adren bar which you will never set your bar up that way with whirling.

The main point is it wins as a damage dealer and an overall great skill yet will never see use in pvp because of the disable effect.

With on average a 15 second blackout every other WA, I doubt WA will be much better than auto-attack.

Energy attacks require you to use zealous weapons which decreases your DPS further. 5en skill requires 7.5seconds of natural e-regen.

WA *may* give a slight DPS increase on target dummies, but where it counts, the DPS will probably be similar to autoattack in GvG and HA where aegis chains are so rampant.

Its partly the reason I hate running DragonSlash because each time you miss/block it feels like you lose 15 adren =P