Curse

Patccmoi · Oct 19, 2006, 07:02 PM // 19:02

If you play pressure, the ability to mass DW all the time is quite powerful even if you don't have +damage related to the skill. It weakens Healing and makes people more susceptible to a spike. And Wearying Strike actually does significantly more damage than Crushing considering Scythe damage is higher and +damage goes up to +33 (Evis? Ya, Wearying Strike is a 2s recharge Evis for 5E). The weakness can easily be rid of by yourself (Plague Touch to cover dw or Sig of Malice for free instant removal) or a draw cond support. Ofc there's still possibility of rebalancing before release, but atm, that's exactly what Wearying Strike is, a 2s recharge Eviscerate that puts weakness on yourselff. If you use Avatar of Melandru, half the time you don't even get the Weakness drawback and you can spam AOE Eviscerate every 2s. If that's not a significant DW advantage, not too sure what could be out of a ranger preparation adding deep wound to every attack (which would be quite retarded!). In Avatar of Melandru, Wearying Strike + Mystic Sweep is basically Evis-Exec on a scythe with 4s recharge, and you can't get conditioned.

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Warrior chains are also interuptable, but doing so is far more difficult than interupting assasins. With assasins, there are recharges you can count, and the combo has to come in a precise timing and order, he cant delay falling spider after a shock for the purpose of making you miss an interupt. There are often 3 or more skills used in order, at predictable times, making it easy to interupt. With warriors, there are no set recharges, just the variable rate of adrenaline gain. Often, only one skill, like bulls strike, will be used at a time. In the cases where warriors are using a chain, it usually begins more unpredictably and ends much faster than an assasin chain. This makes it much more difficult to actually pull off. Lastly, interupters dont watch warriors often because denying chains does not shut them down. Warriors are amazing pressure machines even without their skills. Assasins, on the other hand, get watched more often, because they ARE their combos. Without them, you'd almost be better do better by wanding.

I'll agree that they are more predictable in order, but that's about it. A good Assassin won't necessarily start his combo the instant skills are recharged, you do it when the timing to get a kill is right (for example when your warriors are unleashing their adrenal on someone else, or your Mesmer is Diversioning a monk, etc.). And out of using Falling Spider, you can pretty much delay your combo as you want to. I will often do my lead/offhand on someone and wait a bit before doing the rest. For example if you want to Horns a caster and he's adjacent to someone else, you use your off-hand, auto-attack on him so he kites a bit (and they all do, no matter how good the guild, they're too used to kiting) and do the rest of the combo there. Sure, it means people can prot the target, but it's the same as a warrior waiting to continue his chain. As for auto-attack, that's another badly underestimated thing. An Assassin's auto-attack damage ranges between a sword and axe (axe being higher cause of crits damage). It's far above wands, and if you have some +damage buff the double strike allows it to actually reach higher than an axe with the same buffs. Yes, they're more frail and more likely to auto-attack on midline people than backline, but it's still sustained pressure. I got my combos shutdowned before and got kills Flurrying people with a Brutal Weapon on (35-45 damage swings with the double strike critting for a total of nearly 100 on casters, and sometimes you get lucky and chain 2-3 of these for like 250 damage in 3 sec just swinging...). It's another misconception of sins, but meh there's so many of them anyway and with Nightfall coming in i don't expect people to ever change the way they look at them.

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

1) Please elaborate on "skill or build examples." In this chart I simply used common warrior builds as compared to my best guess at what a melee dervish would be. How would you like this to be different?

I think people need a little time before assuming too much of what melee dervish will be like. In the last preview all dervishes or nearly were built like Tactics warriors with tons of survivability and no pressure/damage skills or nearly.

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

2) Dervish AoE spells are trash. AoE auto-attack is only useful against opponents who wont spread out (e.g, bad people who you'd beat anyways). Their damage is kinda like hammers only with crappier attack skills.

Trash like Mystic Twister doing 100 Area AOE damage at 11 winds with 12s recharge? Yes, it's elemental, but if you're in the backline of a team or they're sitting in a ward, you can strike a couple of people there hard. People aren't often spread so much that Area can't strike a couple if you position yourself correctly (since it's around you, not a target, you can put yourself wherever you want to have the maximum chance of striking a couple of them)

Just like the AoE auto-attack isn't just useful against opponents who won't spread out naturally cause they suck. Spreading out has its limits too. People kite, and they won't kite without ever getting adjacent to each other. It's just a bonus too considering that the damage on skills seem balanced against a single target. Earthshaker is used by quite a bit of top guilds hammer players, and they wouldn't if the aoe kd never happened. It doesn't happen most of the time, but when it does it's devastating. Same goes for D Scythe attacks, except that on them it's natural every swing. It's very possible that someone will kite you and that suddenly when you throw your DW you'll get him and someone else who just happened to be adjacent. If people were never adjacent, Horns would work 100% of the time for sins, and it doesn't if you're not careful. There's also classes like warriors who tend to be adjacent quite often whenever they want to focus on a target, and with skills like Sandy Grip the adjacent AOE matters a lot.

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

3) Elemental armor is inferior in almost all cases to physical armor. Warriors have Heal Signet, Paragons dont.

Care to explain why, in PvP at least? If i see someone with physical armor (like warriors...), i just switch to elemental weapon. Eles can't switch to physical spells. Hammer warriors in glad's are truly not much more resistant than an assassin if you just switch to elemental damage on them since the nerf to absorption. Just like an Axe warrior that you combo in the back with a sin so he doesn't get his Shield bonus will die very quickly.

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

4) Assasin spikes suck.

Won't get into that much more... GPS-Death Blossom outdamages more or less any 2 swings warrior spikes even in Flurry. At 16 DM, it does 125 armor ignoring damage + 3 dagger swings (with pretty high crit rate), with 94 armor ignoring damage that is AOE (sometimes you're lucky and that matters!). If you go 3 swings there is tons of assassin combos outdamaging any warrior one. If you want a DW, GPS-Twisting is quite similar to Evis-Exec especially since Exec's nerf.

We ran with Dark Apostacy sins in GvG before (not much atm since there is too many ranger teams in the current meta not using enchants) and they worked very well. All we gave them for combo skills was GPS-Crit Strike-Twisting Fangs, and they spiked along with warriors just like an adrenal spike doing GPS-Twisting or GPS-Crit Strike depending of what the warrior use and what target had (like if he was enchanted, GPS-Crit Strike took out 2 enchants on top which includes RoF without procing the reversal). You don't have to do a huge 4-5 attack combo chain with no utility on your bar to play sin in combat.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 19, 2006, 07:27 PM // 19:27

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

The 'chart' that I posted is not be-all-end-all, and not all of you have to agree with it. I personally think its fairly accurate, tho it is of course very general.

You shouldn't have made a chart if it is based on personal opinion. One make chart with fact, not opinions.

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That being the case, it is easy to nitpick little things that might sway certain comparisons one way or the other, but almost everything that was mentioned here as an argument against, I was aware of and took into consideration. The nature of the chart, of course, means that all you see is a x > y, but there is of course alot of reasoning behind all of my decisions. Also, I should note, many of these comparisons will soon be rendered outmoded since many of these things will have changed between the preview and the release of Nightfall.

So, you were just bored as you post it anyway knowing that it can be nitpicked with inaccuracy. So, why backing up the inaccuracy?

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Warrior chains are also interuptable, but doing so is far more difficult than interupting assasins. With assasins, there are recharges you can count, and the combo has to come in a precise timing and order, he cant delay falling spider after a shock for the purpose of making you miss an interupt. There are often 3 or more skills used in order, at predictable times, making it easy to interupt. With warriors, there are no set recharges, just the variable rate of adrenaline gain. Often, only one skill, like bulls strike, will be used at a time. In the cases where warriors are using a chain, it usually begins more unpredictably and ends much faster than an assasin chain. This makes it much more difficult to actually pull off.

All of sudden warrior spike aren't suppose to chain? What kind of spike is that? An irrelevant argument. If you are not talking about spike, why are you even comparing assassin to warrior?

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Lastly, interupters dont watch warriors often because denying chains does not shut them down.

You know why interupter don't watch them? Because ele blind bot watch them. Also, why is your interrupter wasting time interrupting assassin? I would use my interrupt on the opponent caster that was trying to shut down my monk instead.

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1) Please elaborate on "skill or build examples." In this chart I simply used common warrior builds as compared to my best guess at what a melee dervish would be. How would you like this to be different?

2) Dervish AoE spells are trash. AoE auto-attack is only useful against opponents who wont spread out (e.g, bad people who you'd beat anyways). Their damage is kinda like hammers only with crappier attack skills.

3) Elemental armor is inferior in almost all cases to physical armor. Warriors have Heal Signet, Paragons dont.

4) Assasin spikes suck.

1) If people aren't even aware of the potential of dervish, why the hell are you even trying to make an argument? It is like saying elementalist can use heal party without ether prodigy.

2) How can you rule out dervish AoE in the sake of arguing DPS? You think warrior get to hit a target standing there all day long? DPS is pressure, and dervish AoE spells all have damage and bonus effect. While just being able to hit multiple target with auto-attack already give you an edge (by 3x) in potential DPS. Why do you use such imbalance comparison? Ruling out what one class has, and give the other class everything. You are suppose to use a class that you chose to the fullest, do you play necro like a warrior? I don't think so.

3) That elemental armor is inferior statement is crap (do you not switch weapon depending on the target you hit?). While warrior may have healing signet, paragon got range. Here is an example of why listing example is important: Even hammer warrior have more survivalability than a paragon?

4) I have seen more monk drop to a assassin that slipped through more often than a warrior that muscle his way through. Warrior spike is ALOT more saveable than assassin's if both got surprise factor (as obviously, you see the warrior running to someone) and if it wasn't because of spike, then what killed the monk? 8/10 times warrior can kill something is because of someone at the back of his team shutting the monks or blindbot down. Although this apply to assassin as well, the only reason warrior would be chosen over assassin for a team is because assassin got horrible DPS, while warrior can DPS and spike; however, don't mistaken that as assassin spike sux.

Edit: just saw the above post @_@ I think I will leave everything to pattcmoi now, don't want to bombard one person twice (with the same reasoning) for no good reason.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 19, 2006, 08:33 PM // 20:33

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Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

All of sudden warrior spike aren't suppose to chain? What kind of spike is that? An irrelevant argument. If you are not talking about spike, why are you even comparing assassin to warrior?

You know why interupter don't watch them? Because ele blind bot watch them. Also, why is your interrupter wasting time interrupting assassin? I would use my interrupt on the opponent caster that was trying to shut down my monk instead.

1) If people aren't even aware of the potential of dervish, why the hell are you even trying to make an argument? It is like saying elementalist can use heal party without ether prodigy.

2) How can you rule out dervish AoE in the sake of arguing DPS? You think warrior get to hit a target standing there all day long? DPS is pressure, and dervish AoE spells all have damage and bonus effect. While just being able to hit multiple target with auto-attack already give you an edge (by 3x) in potential DPS. Why do you use such imbalance comparison? Ruling out what one class has, and give the other class everything. You are suppose to use a class that you chose to the fullest, do you play necro like a warrior? I don't think so.

3) That elemental armor is inferior statement is crap (do you not switch weapon depending on the target you hit?). While warrior may have healing signet, paragon got range. Here is an example of why listing example is important: Even hammer warrior have more survivalability than a paragon?

4) I have seen more monk drop to a assassin that slipped through more often than a warrior that muscle his way through. Warrior spike is ALOT more saveable than assassin's if both got surprise factor (as obviously, you see the warrior running to someone) and if it wasn't because of spike, then what killed the monk? 8/10 times warrior can kill something is because of someone at the back of his team shutting the monks or blindbot down. Although this apply to assassin as well, the only reason warrior would be chosen over assassin for a team is because assassin got horrible DPS, while warrior can DPS and spike; however, don't mistaken that as assassin spike sux.

most important point to discuss: elementalists can use heal party without prodigy. In an nr tranq build, have him run second wind. It's not as spammable, but it's certainly more than manageable. requires a bit more mitigation from your teammates so they don't need to power spam it, but it works well. (this is mostly for natures renewal builds, where a lot of your mitigation where you'd need hp comes from interrupting hexes).

The thing that makes warriors scarier than sins is that warriors can run around pounding on things in the midline/backline without worrying about them getting insta-killed when a warrior comes and touches them. Plus, aegis chains make a solo-sin spike pretty worthless, where an assisted warrior spike can get drains/shatters on a target.

As for everything else, I'd probably have to agree with you.

Neo-LD · Oct 19, 2006, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Vermillion's and Patccmoi's posts make basically the same points, so I will adress them at once. I thought Vermillion's was slightly more organized relative to the points Im going to make, so it is his words that will be quoted. But to be sure, this is equally in response to Patccmoi.

Firstly, I was not the one who started this topic about fantsizing about the future of pvp after Nightfall, when Nightfall has not even come out yet. I simply replied a surprisingly presposterous assertion that warriors will somehow be replaced by paragons and/or dervishes (Ironically, this required me to talk about Paragons and Dervishes, or at least what little we know about them atm. Who woulda figured) Anyways, If you have a complaint related to speculating about Nightfall before its out, take it up with the OP, not me.

The chart I made is not based purely off personal opinion - its not like just sat down and made it up based on who I thought smelled better. As far as Im concerned, it IS based on fact. Again, the nature of the chart makes it general, if you have specific complaints against it, I will try to deal with them individually, as I am now. But its not like Im forcing anyone to agree with me. You can spike with assasins or replace warriors with dervishes if you really want. You'll suck, but its not my responsibility to stop you.

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All of sudden warrior spike aren't suppose to chain? What kind of spike is that? An irrelevant argument. If you are not talking about spike, why are you even comparing assassin to warrior?

You know why interupter don't watch them? Because ele blind bot watch them. Also, why is your interrupter wasting time interrupting assassin? I would use my interrupt on the opponent caster that was trying to shut down my monk instead.

Warrior spikes, are, of course, a chain. Evi/Exe and Deva/Crush/Fierce are two common ones. But my point is that warrior spikes come out of no where unless the warrior sucks and gives away that he is full and setting up for a spike (characterized by not attacking but inching conspicuously towards a target). Anyways, good warriors disguise their intentions, and the spikes come out of nowhere. Assasins, on the other hand, are incredibly predictable. You can see them coming a mile away, you know exactly what skills they are going to use, when, and in what order. It doesnt really matter how good they are, they could be the best in the game as far as Im concerned. They are obvious, regardless. My main profession is monk, but when I also play alot of crip shot and warrior. When Im a CS, interupting assasins is easy. Interupting warrior chains isnt because you dont have a good idea of when to look for them.

Assasins are just as good a target to interupt as a caster because interupting their skills makes them useless, just like any caster. Once their chain is down, switch to other people and count the recharge, then jump back to the sin. Rinse and repeat.

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2) How can you rule out dervish AoE in the sake of arguing DPS? You think warrior get to hit a target standing there all day long? DPS is pressure, and dervish AoE spells all have damage and bonus effect. While just being able to hit multiple target with auto-attack already give you an edge (by 3x) in potential DPS. Why do you use such imbalance comparison? Ruling out what one class has, and give the other class everything. You are suppose to use a class that you chose to the fullest, do you play necro like a warrior? I don't think so.

I did not say that the aoe is useless, more like, 'not that great'. People earlier in the thread were hailing the aoe as if it were amazingly awesome... which it clearly isnt. Sometimes youll get lucky, sometimes you wont. Youll get some extra dps, but nothing huge, really. The aoe really doesnt outweigh the disparity between attack skill quality, spike threat, more power to play aggressively, and lack of frenzy. Warriors just look better. We'll see when NF comes out, tho.

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3) That elemental armor is inferior statement is crap (do you not switch weapon depending on the target you hit?). While warrior may have healing signet, paragon got range. Here is an example of why listing example is important: Even hammer warrior have more survivalability than a paragon?

I think we already agree that elemetal damage from an elementalist is already a non-threat, so thats already one strike in favor of +physical armor. Then you have warriors, who normally deal physical. Warriors are the main offensive threat in this game, so theres another strike for +physical. You may say that they might swap weapons to get around it. They might get around your armor, but they just turned off their vamp / zealous. Not such a great trade. Then you have the problem that the art for factions armor is completely independent of its stats. That is, the +hp, +e, +physical, +elemental, everything, looks exactly the same. Say you see a monk in full 15k canthan armor. Still confident about switching to that elemental grip?

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4) I have seen more monk drop to a assassin that slipped through more often than a warrior that muscle his way through. Warrior spike is ALOT more saveable than assassin's if both got surprise factor (as obviously, you see the warrior running to someone) and if it wasn't because of spike, then what killed the monk? 8/10 times warrior can kill something is because of someone at the back of his team shutting the monks or blindbot down. Although this apply to assassin as well, the only reason warrior would be chosen over assassin for a team is because assassin got horrible DPS, while warrior can DPS and spike; however, don't mistaken that as assassin spike sux.

Perhaps I should be a little more specific. Assasin spike probably deal more damage, and they are still within a somewhat short timeframe. Those properties make them excellent for taking down targets that are alone, with no monks. A single combo from a pair of assasins can fell a target in seconds. Unfortunately, when monks are present, 'seconds' is several seconds too long. Sins just cant outpace a monk. Therefore, in a full battle, sin spikes do suck.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 19, 2006, 10:20 PM // 22:20

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I did not say that the aoe is useless, more like, 'not that great'. People earlier in the thread were hailing the aoe as if it were amazingly awesome... which it clearly isnt. Sometimes youll get lucky, sometimes you wont. Youll get some extra dps, but nothing huge, really. The aoe really doesnt outweigh the disparity between attack skill quality, spike threat, more power to play aggressively, and lack of frenzy. Warriors just look better. We'll see when NF comes out, tho.

I will overlook other things you had posted (although there are still many point that can be argued about), and take this as your main intended purpose/meaning of all your post together.

I agree that warrior will not be out of place, and they are the most balance melee class damage dealer there is. That is what make them great.

Sin relies on spike, hence predictable; but no way spike less than warrior.
Dervish relies on AoE and pressure (which defintely over warrior), but their spike ability are somewhere down at the bottom (a hammer without KD?).

As it is pointed quite clearly as of this moment. The new exclusive classes are all niche classes, as they specialize their line to do a certain something really well. Due to their extreme side nature, people who use them generally slide into one line of purpose. Assassin spikes, dervish pressures. Warrior do both, while not as great as both; in that, warrior created their own door of surprise, as their intention are easier to hige.

Of course, we still got paragon left over, while they seem quite godly as of this moment. However, how did paragon ever get put to compare with warrior? They have a completely different job (do people compare rit monk to warrior?). (That may have to be trace back to a few posts to find the answer) Having andrenline skill doesn't make something as main damage dealer.

Your chart is wrong, but your idea of what warriors are is not.

Neo-LD · Oct 19, 2006, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Like I said, its not my responsibility to change your mind. All I can tell you is to try to play an adrenospike with sins instead of warriors and see the difference for yourself.

You seem to be in denial of the simple facts that sins dont spike as fast as warriors, and dervishes, if left in the same state as they were in the preview, cant measure up to wars at all.

By the way, who exactly are you to 'overlook' things that I say? I've built a reputation for being knowledgable about guildwars, the metagame, and the overarching strategy and tactics behind it through more a year of posting consistently correct opinions and information on this forums and others, and by playing with several of the other respected players. Being talked down to by some random guy that I dont recognize, with no ID stats under his name, who could, for all I know, be some thrteen year old in a rank 4000 guild, is extremely annoying. Mind your manners and keep your paragraphs focused on the arguments.

note: someone close this thread please. clearly no ones learning anything from it, and (if it already hasnt) will soon be a mindless flamefest. its all just a whole bunch of speculation on classes that arent even released yet, anyways.

Shmanka · Oct 19, 2006, 11:35 PM // 23:35

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Originally Posted by tomcruisejr

comparing paragons and warrior is like comparing apples and oranges so i wont even attempt.

You already won the thread, why are people still posting?

Patccmoi · Oct 20, 2006, 12:18 AM // 00:18

Not too sure what is this about flame fest... anyway, as far as i'm concerned i don't see anyone flaming others here (unless someone edited something i didn't see). Opposing facts and not agreeing isn't flaming, it's arguing. I don't think i did personal attacks on you if that was addressed at me anyway!

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Warrior spikes, are, of course, a chain. Evi/Exe and Deva/Crush/Fierce are two common ones. But my point is that warrior spikes come out of no where unless the warrior sucks and gives away that he is full and setting up for a spike (characterized by not attacking but inching conspicuously towards a target). Anyways, good warriors disguise their intentions, and the spikes come out of nowhere. Assasins, on the other hand, are incredibly predictable. You can see them coming a mile away, you know exactly what skills they are going to use, when, and in what order. It doesnt really matter how good they are, they could be the best in the game as far as Im concerned. They are obvious, regardless. My main profession is monk, but when I also play alot of crip shot and warrior. When Im a CS, interupting assasins is easy. Interupting warrior chains isnt because you dont have a good idea of when to look for them.

I kinda disagree with that. I played in-fight Ele quite often in GvG and you get used to warrior attack chains. Maybe you're just not keeping an eye on them with your CS to interrupt it. If warriors are adrenal spiking, they converge on a target and nothing is easier to notice. When you see a warrior use Shock and it isn't to interrupt someone, you throw a BFlash and most of the time you'll make his Exec miss. I BFlash in the middle of attack chains tons of time on warriors, getting their first or second skill with it. It's actually very obvious and it doesn't come out of nowhere at all. You notice the pattern of warriors after 1-2 spikes, like they'll do Shock before spiking, or Bull's Strike before spiking, or build on separate targets then converge and spike, activate Frenzy, etc. I found it quite easy to 'interrupt' chains with BFlash, and if you watch them in the same way with a ranger it's also quite easy to interrupt, especially on hammers with kinda slow attacks.

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Assasins are just as good a target to interupt as a caster because interupting their skills makes them useless, just like any caster. Once their chain is down, switch to other people and count the recharge, then jump back to the sin. Rinse and repeat.

That's kinda ignoring all i said about good Assassins picking the best timing to spike and not spiking the instant their skills recharge and about them having an auto-attack dealing damage between sword and axe so it's not actually useless...

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I think we already agree that elemetal damage from an elementalist is already a non-threat, so thats already one strike in favor of +physical armor. Then you have warriors, who normally deal physical. Warriors are the main offensive threat in this game, so theres another strike for +physical. You may say that they might swap weapons to get around it. They might get around your armor, but they just turned off their vamp / zealous. Not such a great trade. Then you have the problem that the art for factions armor is completely independent of its stats. That is, the +hp, +e, +physical, +elemental, everything, looks exactly the same. Say you see a monk in full 15k canthan armor. Still confident about switching to that elemental grip?

I think that's a huge exageration of what was said. Elemental damage from an elementalist is NOT a non-threat, elementalists spike very hard. LOrb-LStrike will hurt a caster a damn lot. A Fire Ele doing Incendiary Bonds-Fireball on a caster will hurt. Eles do not pressure as much over a fight, true (Channeling Rt can though, they're just ignored atm). But it's their DPS in the long run that is lower. Saying they are non-threat is a bad way to look at it.

Losing vamp/zealous is usually not a big problem (Zealous can be sometimes required for some builds, but not that many truly rely on it). Vamp damage doesn't make up for 10AL on someone, and +3 damage is not all that much. I agree that it's a nice bonus to have, but you're still much better switching to elemental and losing that 3 and hurting a lot more.

As for the armor look, if you pay any attention as warrior, sin, etc. you'll know after 10s of hitting on them what armor they have and you remember it for the rest of the game. I played so often with my sin that i know exactly how much i deal on average, on crit, etc. I'll know right away if an ele has a Battlemage armor or any +elemental and just switch to the best weapon for the situation.

Just imagine if Rangers had 100 vs Physical and 70 vs Elemental. You think they would be better off like this? They would be as easy to take out as sins. Imo, armor vs Physical is the worse armor type in the game because in PvP no one will ever bother hitting you with physical damage if you have that because any physical attacker has the option to turn to elemental.

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Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Perhaps I should be a little more specific. Assasin spike probably deal more damage, and they are still within a somewhat short timeframe. Those properties make them excellent for taking down targets that are alone, with no monks. A single combo from a pair of assasins can fell a target in seconds. Unfortunately, when monks are present, 'seconds' is several seconds too long. Sins just cant outpace a monk. Therefore, in a full battle, sin spikes do suck.

I have to disagree here again considering i played Flourish Sin in dozens of GvG games against a lot of good guilds. Against Ace, i had their warrior DPed out at 7 min in game and their monks aren't that horrible, and they had a blindbot mid fight. The thing is, you must coordinate your spikes with your team. If you have 2 warriors pushing the monks back and an enemy warrior is suddenly overextended, spike him. A sin with any +damage buff can take out a warrior in 4-5s on his own. If your Mesmer is using Diversion on a monk, spike. Intelligent target choice and good timing is what you need as sin to spike efficiently midfight. If monks save your targets, they let someone else die or lose a skill, etc. Or lose lots of energy overhealing (and Flourish Assassin can just spike at will). If you spike any caster, the second hit of your Twisting Fangs will be a kill from full health, so they must react NOW no matter the situation, which puts a lot of pressure on them. It's a different type of pressure, but from our experience with Flourish Assassin it's not at all inferior to a warrior pressure if used well. But it doesn't REPLACE warriors, it goes well ALONG warriors.

I'm not at all saying that warriors will become useless come NF, warriors are a great class. But i do disagree with quite a bit of what you're saying too.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 20, 2006, 12:47 AM // 00:47

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Originally Posted by Patccmoi

I kinda disagree with that. I played in-fight Ele quite often in GvG and you get used to warrior attack chains. Maybe you're just not keeping an eye on them with your CS to interrupt it. If warriors are adrenal spiking, they converge on a target and nothing is easier to notice. When you see a warrior use Shock and it isn't to interrupt someone, you throw a BFlash and most of the time you'll make his Exec miss. I BFlash in the middle of attack chains tons of time on warriors, getting their first or second skill with it. It's actually very obvious and it doesn't come out of nowhere at all. You notice the pattern of warriors after 1-2 spikes, like they'll do Shock before spiking, or Bull's Strike before spiking, or build on separate targets then converge and spike, activate Frenzy, etc. I found it quite easy to 'interrupt' chains with BFlash, and if you watch them in the same way with a ranger it's also quite easy to interrupt, especially on hammers with kinda slow attacks.

See, you could go back and forth in this line forever. If the eles' good enough, he can see that the warrior is about to spike. If the warrior's good enough, he can hide the fact that he's about to spike. It comes down to a content in player skill between the warrior and the warrior hate.

Assassins have no such luxury. The best assassin in the world still has his combo telegraphed, because it's so many attack skills long. Even a crappy elementalist can blind an assassin combo, and against a good one the sin has no chance of getting through.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

I think that's a huge exageration of what was said. Elemental damage from an elementalist is NOT a non-threat, elementalists spike very hard. LOrb-LStrike will hurt a caster a damn lot. A Fire Ele doing Incendiary Bonds-Fireball on a caster will hurt. Eles do not pressure as much over a fight, true (Channeling Rt can though, they're just ignored atm). But it's their DPS in the long run that is lower. Saying they are non-threat is a bad way to look at it.

I think you two are using a different meaning of 'threat.' I think the point Neo was making is that you should not be devoting too much team effort to shutting down or countering the enemy elementalist. Certain an elementalist doesn't require as much team attention as a warrior, mesmer, or monk. You draw their blinds and maybe interrupt a ward here and there, but your disruptive efforts are better focused elsewhere.

The only team it's really worthwhile to disrupt an elementalist is if their team is in desperate need of Heal Party. They just got caught in a bunch of AoE, they have a bunch of characters degenning, ect. Interrupting Heal Party can be key to breaking a defense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

I have to disagree here again considering i played Flourish Sin in dozens of GvG games against a lot of good guilds. Against Ace, i had their warrior DPed out at 7 min in game and their monks aren't that horrible, and they had a blindbot mid fight. The thing is, you must coordinate your spikes with your team. If you have 2 warriors pushing the monks back and an enemy warrior is suddenly overextended, spike him. A sin with any +damage buff can take out a warrior in 4-5s on his own. If your Mesmer is using Diversion on a monk, spike. Intelligent target choice and good timing is what you need as sin to spike efficiently midfight. If monks save your targets, they let someone else die or lose a skill, etc. Or lose lots of energy overhealing (and Flourish Assassin can just spike at will). If you spike any caster, the second hit of your Twisting Fangs will be a kill from full health, so they must react NOW no matter the situation, which puts a lot of pressure on them. It's a different type of pressure, but from our experience with Flourish Assassin it's not at all inferior to a warrior pressure if used well. But it doesn't REPLACE warriors, it goes well ALONG warriors.

Yeah, this is exactly the way a Sin needs to be played at the flagstand. When we ran a build with a gank-based sin he'd sometimes be forced into 8v8 combat, and his role was spiking an off-target. The warriors would spike one target while the sin spiked a monk or warrior. The other team's defensive attention would have to be split and we'd often force a kill one way or the other.

Also, there's nothing quite like hitting someone with an assassin combo exactly as they infuse a warrior spike.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 20, 2006, 12:59 AM // 00:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Like I said, its not my responsibility to change your mind. All I can tell you is to try to play an adrenospike with sins instead of warriors and see the difference for yourself.

so why are you still going at it? You are replying like a good boy as if this is your responsiblity. Very contradicting.

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By the way, who exactly are you to 'overlook' things that I say? I've built a reputation for being knowledgable about guildwars, the metagame, and the overarching strategy and tactics behind it through more a year of posting consistently correct opinions and information on this forums and others, and by playing with several of the other respected players. Being talked down to by some random guy that I dont recognize, with no ID stats under his name, who could, for all I know, be some thrteen year old in a rank 4000 guild, is extremely annoying. Mind your manners and keep your paragraphs focused on the arguments.

Although it was not a big deal to use the word overlook, but I will tell you why I used that word. Due to your post's scattered ideas, and not focus on your argument, I was overlooking the scattered idea that was not revelant to your topic and your point. I could careless about your reputation, but I say you are wrong about many aspect of that chart; that I will hold true even now.

And if you are wondering why I have almost no info around my name, that is because I prefer to have no reputation, and no need to think highly of myself. While people will not be able to recongnize me from a bunch of post with just a picture as my avatar. I would really dislike people taking forum problems and bother me in the game, and doesn't matter for good or bad, I just don't want to have someone random messaging me inside the game. Though the chance is unlikely, I would prefer no chance at all. I just play the game. While I visit forums to discuss the game mechanics that I don't do in the game.

I do see your reason to attack me personally. If "overlook" offended you, I am very sorry (honestly!). Will be more careful using such word next time.

Quote:

You seem to be in denial of the simple facts that sins dont spike as fast as warriors, and dervishes, if left in the same state as they were in the preview, cant measure up to wars at all.

It appears that you are the one that need to hold up your reputation, not me. In this sense, the person who is in more of a denial will be you. I can agree if you bring me some real fact to the table, but not only you didn't point a legitmate reason, you tried to deny our facts. Assassin spike harder than warrior, peroid (after all, we are talking about numbers). After we said assassin spike harder with more damage, then you jump to "warrior spike faster", as if you don't consider assassin's potential to spike fast. Taking up facts that only benefit your argument, and not taking a fair and balanced argument, that's what make holes in your argument and drag it even longer.

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note: someone close this thread please. clearly no ones learning anything from it, and (if it already hasnt) will soon be a mindless flamefest. its all just a whole bunch of speculation on classes that arent even released yet, anyways.

I agree with that. There was no reason for this thread to begin with, while the posts continue only because of the topic was swayed off. However, there are still things people can discuss and benefit from this topic, just not us.

TheOneMephisto · Oct 20, 2006, 01:08 AM // 01:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

It appears that you are the one that need to hold up your reputation, not me. In this sense, the person who is in more of a denial will be you. I can agree if you bring me some real fact to the table, but not only you didn't point a legitmate reason, you tried to deny our facts. Assassin spike harder than warrior, peroid. After we said assassin spike harder with more damage, then you jump to "warrior spike faster", as if you don't consider assassin's potential to spike fast. Taking up facts that only benefit your argument, and not taking a fair and balanced argument.

I've run the numbers before, and IIRC, a standard shock-falling-twisting combo does slightly more damage than an eviscerate-executioners hit (not counting some degen). The difference is that the warrior's spike is 2 hits while under frenzy, compared to ~3 hits (counting shock) while not under an IAS. The warrior's deepwound also comes first (important for the spike on the red bars), and it also doesn't make the bar turn a big nice green before the main spike comes (not that important, but it's easy to notice the green when monking). Also, warriors have more KD power (stoneskin, bull's + shock) for the spike. I think the last thread that this came up on, we mostly agreed that sins are better for solo-spiking (BB/Dev chain warriors are actually best, but are hard to build adren for and have slower attacks), while with any sort of supported/multiple character spike the warrior is the superior option.

Vermilion Okeanos · Oct 20, 2006, 01:22 AM // 01:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I've run the numbers before, and IIRC, a standard shock-falling-twisting combo does slightly more damage than an eviscerate-executioners hit (not counting some degen). The difference is that the warrior's spike is 2 hits while under frenzy, compared to ~3 hits (counting shock) while not under an IAS. The warrior's deepwound also comes first (important for the spike on the red bars), and it also doesn't make the bar turn a big nice green before the main spike comes (not that important, but it's easy to notice the green when monking). Also, warriors have more KD power (stoneskin, bull's + shock) for the spike. I think the last thread that this came up on, we mostly agreed that sins are better for solo-spiking (BB/Dev chain warriors are actually best, but are hard to build adren for and have slower attacks), while with any sort of supported/multiple character spike the warrior is the superior option.

I agree with that (I remember seeing that thread, but don't remember what it was exactly). It is also extremely easy to telegraph the assassin spike, but to me, warrior aren't that much better. Warriors are warriors, you need to shut them down at all time regardless of them spiking or not. Which one you like is based alot on personal preference, actually, more like what build you are running instead of personal preference. (however, don't confuse windows of opportunity to fast spike) For personal opinion, I never liked shock-spider-twisting combo, but who cares.

If assassin is ele, warrior is necro. They have a reversed damage graph (ele and necro have reversed energy graph), where warrior would slowly climb, the assassin would have a high begining and slowly drop lower. (I remember posting this exact same thing before)

However, for the sake of the numbers. Assassin do spike harder, and can be just as fast. I believe no one have argument about this on numbers. Do you see warriors spike dead by another warrior? What about assassin spiking a warrior? Amor ignoring x2 = very nice.

While for tactics, we can argue all day long, and it would still be determined by the tactic you use. No one is wrong, no one is right (thats what is great about GW).

Then there are the opponent builds. That would argue another day.

Patccmoi · Oct 20, 2006, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

See, you could go back and forth in this line forever. If the eles' good enough, he can see that the warrior is about to spike. If the warrior's good enough, he can hide the fact that he's about to spike. It comes down to a content in player skill between the warrior and the warrior hate.

Assassins have no such luxury. The best assassin in the world still has his combo telegraphed, because it's so many attack skills long. Even a crappy elementalist can blind an assassin combo, and against a good one the sin has no chance of getting through.

Well, goes back to the last thing you said. Good target picking and good timing will make the Assassin able to complete his spikes. From playing in-fight sin so often in GvG, i can say that combat awareness is by far the most important skill to have. And work with your team, for example if an ele keeps trying to BFlash you midcombo (happened a LOT of time) say when you combo and ask Mesmer to Diversion the ele or a Ranger to dshot his BFlash. I know the same can be done to support warrior, but hell it's a team game. If you use an Assassin in combat, make sure you have a team build that can support it. Warriors need their own kind of support, but Assassins need a different type. And if their Ele is sitting your sin because they consider you a bigger threat (and this happens a lot once you scored 2-3 kills) and letting your warriors bash their team, well you're still doing something by just being there. If the ele sits a warrior, he'll catch every spike too just by seeing the skill being used.

I agree that sins as a whole are easier to interrupt their chain than a war depending on what you use (an Assassin can also just spike with something like GPS-DB or GPS-Twisting and you won't see it coming any more than a warrior spike and it's just as fast), but it is far from 'easy' if the sin knows what he's doing and his team works along. If it was that easy and trivial i wouldn't get so many kills against some top 100 guilds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I think you two are using a different meaning of 'threat.' I think the point Neo was making is that you should not be devoting too much team effort to shutting down or countering the enemy elementalist. Certain an elementalist doesn't require as much team attention as a warrior, mesmer, or monk. You draw their blinds and maybe interrupt a ward here and there, but your disruptive efforts are better focused elsewhere.

The only team it's really worthwhile to disrupt an elementalist is if their team is in desperate need of Heal Party. They just got caught in a bunch of AoE, they have a bunch of characters degenning, ect. Interrupting Heal Party can be key to breaking a defense.

This whole part is about Elemental armor being inferior to Physical armor, not about Eles vs Warriors as pressure char (i fully agree with the Why Nuking Sucks thread). I don't agree that Elemental damage from Eles is a non-threat at all and i think it's a very bad way to twist what is said in that thread, because it still spikes very high. They might not be constant pressure, but when a LOrb-LStrike hits you, it doesn't matter if it's the first time that ele nukes you and if he won't damage your team for 10 more seconds after, if you're a caster you're still receiving 200 damage in the face and if it kills you you're just as dead no matter the overall DPS the ele had.

It's not about Eles needing to be shutdown or Ele threat vs warrior threat in a fight, it's about Ele damage not being able to switch to Physical to bypass armor. If Rangers had 100AL vs Physical and 70AL vs elementals, they would tank as good as a sin because all warriors/sins/rangers would switch to elemental weapon and bash their face, and eles would nuke them at full strength (well nearly). I just don't see AT ALL why +AL vs Physical is more beneficial in PvP than +AL vs Elemental. During a spike, if you have +AL vs physical (which should be noticed by any attacker hitting you for more than 5s and remembered for the rest of the game), all warriors will switch to elemental weapon and spike you full strength (which is why since Absorption change Hammer warrior in glad's actually only tank slightly more than Assassins unless warriors hitting them are stupid). Sure, they might lose 3-6 damage during the spike from not having Vamp, but let's say that in most cases this is a non-issue. On the other hand, if Eles assist in the spike, which happens quite often with LOrb-LStrike (or are the spike as a whole for Ele spike teams like Mind spikes), +10/20AL vs their spell can save you from 50-60 damage, which can easily be the difference between staying alive or not. And the big difference is that Eles CAN'T switch their spells to Physical, it will always be elemental. This is why i really think that +AL vs Elemental is quite better as a whole than +AL vs Physical.

On top of that, you have Block/Evade coming from Wards, Aegis, Distortion, etc. that can also help you against any Physical damage (since it all comes from attacks) but that won't do anything about eles spell damage. So i think it's better to have +AL vs Elemental considering other things can protect you from Physical on top of Physical damage always being able to switch to Elemental (unless the attacker is using a PvP char and didn't consider to bring an elemental weapon... but then that guy was kinda dumb cause you should always have elemental to hit warriors and ignore absorption).

So no, i can't agree that Elemental damage from elementalists is a non-threat considering Eles can actually spike very hard even if their overall DPS is low and if their main role doesn't even include damage out of spike assist.

EDIT: Just a note about Mephisto's post. This is one big thing about Assassin spiking/infight power that needs to be cleared somehow. Shock-Falling-Twisting is a BAD combo if you're not soloing/NPC ganking. It has just no place in fight because it's slow and very easy to save. Comparing Evis-Exec to Shock-Falling-Twisting and saying Assassin should go solo is just not considering Assassin potential at all. If you build an Assassin to be spiking mid-fight, you don't give him Shock-Falling-Twisting for combo, and you bring an IAS. I could also compare Shock-Falling-Twisting to a warrior having for only spike Sever-Gash-Galrath Slash with no IAS (and the bar turning light red before the spike!), but the thing is you don't bring a warrior like that in fight and expect to spike with it, just as you shouldn't ever bring a Shock-Falling-Twisting assassin with the intent of using him to spike midfight. You're gimping yourself, the class isn't. If you wanna consider short 2 hits spikes, compare the damage with something like GPS-Twisting Fangs, GPS-Death Blossom, GPS-Critical Strike or GPS-Nine Tail Strike which all do quite comparable damage to what warrior can do in 2 hits (GPS-Death Blossom at 15-16 DM outdamages anything warriors can do if you don't consider Deep Wound, which you don't need if you're spiking along with a warrior doing Evis-Exec. Ofc you can carry GPS-DB-Twisting so you can spike with him or on your own). And none of that is using an Assassin elite skill so they have a lot of versatility in what they can do with it, especially since they have 4 pips of energy and crit strike acting as emanagement. In fight assassins need to be designed as such.

Neo-LD · Oct 20, 2006, 01:33 AM // 01:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vermilion Okeanos

so why are you still going at it? You are replying like a good boy as if this is your responsiblity. Very contradicting.

Well for one thing, my GW has been failing to connect for the past hour or two, so I dont have much else to do but debate you. Secondly, Im worried that some poor unwitting nub who wants to learn this game will read this thread and absorb all the false information in your posts.

Quote:

Due to your post's scattered ideas, and not focus on your argument, I was overlooking the scattered idea that was not revelant to your topic and your point...

I do see your reason to attack me personally. If "overlook" offended you, I am very sorry (honestly!). Will be more careful using such word next time.

And yet, you insult me yet again within sentences of that. If my posts seem scattered, it may be because I am trying to adress so many points at once since both you and Patccmoi are making long-winded posts with several different points each that need be refuted. Add to that the fact that neither of you guy's posts are particularly organized either, to the point where I have to spend 10 minutes reconstructing whatever the hell you said before I can even begin to post back... you may understand if my post is a little scattered. But I doubt that. My english skills are excellent.

Quote:

It appears that you are the one that need to hold up your reputation, not me. In this sense, the person who is in more of a denial will be you. I can agree if you bring me some real fact to the table, but not only you didn't point a legitmate reason, you tried to deny our facts. Assassin spike harder than warrior, peroid (after all, we are talking about numbers). After we said assassin spike harder with more damage, then you jump to "warrior spike faster", as if you don't consider assassin's potential to spike fast. Taking up facts that only benefit your argument, and not taking a fair and balanced argument, that's what make holes in your argument and drag it even longer.

I take all facts into consideration to form my own conclusion. If Im arguing, I will present the facts that support the conclusion that was reached from all the facts as a whole. Thats just good debate practice.

I never said that assasin spikes dealt less damage. I only said they didnt spike as hard. Clearly I made the incorrect assumption that you would interpret 'hard' to mean having a high chance of scoring a kill; meaning fast. Spikes have to be fast, correct? Im not responsible for your incorrect interpretation of my diction. I did not change my argument, or leap from one thing to another. I just stick to the facts and the truth.

As far as Im concerned, none of the elements of my apparently controversial chart have yet been disproven, only contested. Really I thought we were all beyond such small thinking as believing that sins or preview-dervishes can measure up to wars.

Neo-LD · Oct 20, 2006, 01:48 AM // 01:48

If theres one thing that really needs to be set straight in this thread, its that armor vs elemental is garbage. Pure, utter, trash. A while ago, someone asked, would a ranger with 100 vs Phs and 70 vs Ele be better? Hell Yea! Warriors are threats. They deal damage all the time. They are the best damage dealers in the game. They rock. They do physical damage. Elementalists are crappy damage dealers. No one uses them for pressure. They throw out maybe one or two attack skills per 30 seconds. They do not rock. They deal elemental damage.

Simple, no? Apparently not.

"Ohh, but warriors can change to an elemental weapon"

Lets take a look at the choices.

1) Take armor vs physical. IF the war brought an ele weapon, and IF he is smart enough to realize you are wearing vs phs armor, then he cuts through to your normal armor level, and loses his vamp / zealous.

2) You take armor vs elemental. Every warrior, brainless or otherwise, deals full damage to you. And still gets to use his vamp / zealous.

End of argument.

Patccmoi · Oct 20, 2006, 01:53 AM // 01:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

If theres one thing that really needs to be set straight in this thread, its that armor vs elemental is garbage. Pure, utter, trash. A while ago, someone asked, would a ranger with 100 vs Phs and 70 vs Ele be better? Hell Yea! Warriors are threats. They deal damage all the time. They are the best damage dealers in the game. They rock. They do physical damage. Elementalists are crappy damage dealers. No one uses them for pressure. They throw out maybe one or two attack skills per 30 seconds. They do not rock. They deal elemental damage.

Simple, no? Apparently not.

"Ohh, but warriors can change to an elemental weapon"

Lets take a look at the choices.

1) Take armor vs physical. IF the war brought an ele weapon, and IF he is smart enough to realize you are wearing vs phs armor, then he cuts through to your normal armor level, and loses his vamp / zealous.

2) You take armor vs elemental. Every warrior, brainless or otherwise, deals full damage to you. And still gets to use his vamp / zealous.

End of argument.

So, basically your argument is that AL vs Elemental is worse than AL vs Physical because some brainless warriors don't switch weapon set?

I don't think it's a very healthy way to think to go play competitive GvG with...

If rangers had 100AL vs Physical and 70AL vs elemental, most brainless newbs would hit them with Elemental weapons. But most importantly, absolutely every single high end warrior would and that +30AL vs Physical would be 100% useless.

Neo-LD · Oct 20, 2006, 01:57 AM // 01:57

At best your argument leaves elemental armor as = physical armor. But, as I said,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

1) Take armor vs physical. IF the war brought an ele weapon, and IF he is smart enough to realize you are wearing vs phs armor, then he cuts through to your normal armor level, and loses his vamp / zealous.

2) You take armor vs elemental. Every warrior, brainless or otherwise, deals full damage to you. And still gets to use his vamp / zealous.

End of argument.

Symbol · Oct 20, 2006, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Quote:

I take all facts into consideration to form my own conclusion. If Im arguing, I will present the facts that support the conclusion that was reached from all the facts as a whole. Thats just good debate practice.

It may be "good debate practice", but ignoring (or at least failing to address) facts that directly refute your argument is intellectually dishonest.

Quote:

I never said that assasin spikes dealt less damage. I only said they didnt spike as hard. Clearly I made the incorrect assumption that you would interpret 'hard' to mean having a high chance of scoring a kill; meaning fast. Spikes have to be fast, correct? Im not responsible for your incorrect interpretation of my diction. I did not change my argument, or leap from one thing to another. I just stick to the facts and the truth.

Next time be more precise with your language and you won't have this problem.

The main advantage of warrior spikes is that they have easy access to IAS. You can take /W secondary on a sin and not lose much, so I find that argument a weak one.

I mentioned several two hit sin combos that are comparable or better to evisc/executioner's, which is pretty much the gold standard for wars-the fact of the matter is warriors do NOT spike harder or faster than a sin, unless you're comparing a warrior with IAS to a sin without IAS. The fact that the standard NPC ganking shock-falling spider sin can't compete is neither here nor there and I wish people would stop pretending they are the only sin build in th e game.

Quote:

As far as Im concerned, none of the elements of my apparently controversial chart have yet been disproven, only contested. Really I thought we were all beyond such small thinking as believing that sins or preview-dervishes can measure up to wars.

Lol, "I thought we are all beyond thinking things that I disagree with". Lame.

Neo-LD · Oct 20, 2006, 02:10 AM // 02:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Lol, "I thought we are all beyond thinking things that I disagree with". Lame.

Prove me wrong. Show me a sin build that does just as well in an adrenospike archtype as a warrior would.

Patccmoi · Oct 20, 2006, 02:28 AM // 02:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Prove me wrong. Show me a sin build that does just as well in an adrenospike archtype as a warrior would.

This is wrong. This is why people keep thinking Sins suck midfight. Put an Assassin on his own to replace a warrior in a traditional adrenospike archtype and you're not doing something intelligent, because sins != warriors. They don't have the same role, they don't need the same support, etc. Replacing a warrior by an assassin straight lead people to think that Warrior > Assassin. The thing is, Warrior > Assassin in a warrior role (backline pressure/disruption + adrenal spike). But Assassins can have other roles in fight, such as doing side spikes, defense removal with Dark Apostacy/Wild Blow (which can easily include something like GPS-Twisting Fangs or GPS-Crit Strike to spike along warriors), or high maintained pressure/kd with Coward! sins. If you take out a warrior from a build DESIGNED for warriors and put an Assassin to do a warrior role, you're using Assassins bad, that's all. I mean i could pick an E/Mo for primary healer and say that E/Mos suck and Monks are da bomb, but that's simply cause E/Mos aren't monks, they are E/Mos.

And i'll drop the argument about elemental AL vs physical AL... if you think that losing Zealous/Vamp is worth 20AL, then fine, but i don't and i won't rely on opponents being stupid. The thing is, during spikes Zealous/Vamp doesn't matter at all though because any intelligent warrior will switch to what deals the most damage for that spike. And if all you have is bonus AL vs physical, they'll spike you with elemental. I know that as sin i consider Hammer wars as softie because a simple switch to Elemental dagger allows me to spike any Hammer warrior down very easily if they overextend in the least.