Curse

Schmerdro · Sep 05, 2006, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Just schirmishing through these forums, I've seen that people either choose Cleave or Eviscerate, but since axe has so many spike damage skils (two 20% armor pen. + executioner + furious), why get those when Battle Rage will, in a way, halve the cost of all your adrenal skills and provide a constant speed boost.

Frenzy is a bit too risky, flurry lowers damage, and tiger's stance lasts 10 secs out of 20, while Battle Rage can be maintained the whole time. It's an elite stance that can replace two non-elite skills, how can it not be worth it?

P.S.: Yes, I've read all threads about cleave versus evicerate so don't bother to mention them, I only added those two because they're popular.

Neo-LD · Sep 05, 2006, 04:50 AM // 04:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

Frenzy is a bit too risky

Wrong. Learn to cancel with Sprint or Rush. Eviscerate is the best axe elite period. 'Nuff said.

XxForgexX · Sep 05, 2006, 04:51 AM // 04:51

sigh. ditto Neo, i was a minute late

Zui · Sep 05, 2006, 05:04 AM // 05:04

As already said, there's nothing wrong with Frenzy, if you actualy know how to use it anyway...

Schmerdro · Sep 05, 2006, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Yes, any dumbass knows that but it rarely efectively works for me, but ok Frenzy rocks. It will only increase your raw damage by 50%, right? While Battle Rage will give make your adrenal skills be ready twice as fast (which imo is like +75%~100% damage), it costs adrenal instead of energy (sort-of free), it last twice as long, and has a nice lil' speed boost.

A normal axe does a max dmg of 28, and those spiking skills that I mentioned gives it another 30 dmg, which means every skills you use makes you dish out around double your normal damage, so that's why I think Battle Rage is like +75% to 100% damage. But that is considering every attack is a crit hit, so in reality an attack skills gives you ever more than double your normal damage which makes Battle Rage uber-awesome.

What fonderful advice. All you guys are saying is that Frenzy is great but you're not comparing it to battle Rage so you ain't saying a hoot.

Wasteland Squidget · Sep 05, 2006, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

Yes, any dumbass knows that but it rarely efectively works for me, but ok Frenzy rocks. It will only increase your raw damage by 50%, right? While Battle Rage will give make your adrenal skills be ready twice as fast (which imo is like +75%~100% damage), it costs adrenal instead of energy (sort-of free), it last twice as long, and has a nice lil' speed boost.

A normal axe does a max dmg of 28, and those spiking skills that I mentioned gives it another 30 dmg, which means every skills you use makes you dish out double your normal damage, so that's why I think Battle Rage is like +75% to 100% damage. But that is considering every attack is a crit hit, so in reality an attack skills gives you ever more than double your normal damage.

What fonderful advice. All you guys are saying is that Frenzy is awesome but you're not comparing it to battle Rage so you ain't saying a hoot.

You don't get an attack skill on every hit with Battle Rage. Ignoring the fact that you'll be losing all adrenaline every few strikes due to Battle Rage ending, the 2 or 3 attack skills on a warrior's bar aren't charged that often even with Battle Rage. You could bring more attack skills, but then you're giving up some important piece of utility like Bull's Strike.

Frenzy also allows you to quickly spike out a character before the enemy monks can react, unleashing an Eviscerate + Executioners in one concentrated spike that can be over 300 damage. A Battle Rage guy deals his damage much more gradually, so he can't be used to quickly spike targets down.

Even if your build is entirely based around pressure and employs no spike at all, there are still better choices than Battle Rage. Protector's Strike axe builds or thumpers would do better in the slot than a Battle Rage guy.

Thom Bangalter · Sep 05, 2006, 05:30 AM // 05:30

who uses cleave? like, ever? seriously? besides that guy in the closer to the stars mission, anyway.....

Wasteland Squidget · Sep 05, 2006, 05:32 AM // 05:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

who uses cleave? like, ever? seriously? besides that guy in the closer to the stars mission, anyway.....

The sad thing is that Cleave is actually a pretty decent DPS skill. Unfortunately, it's a 'decent' skill compared to the 'retardedly good skill' we call Eviscerate.

Schmerdro · Sep 05, 2006, 05:40 AM // 05:40

Yeah, Squidget is kind-of right... I'll make up some numbers: (don't you quote me on that, I'm half joking!)

A normal attack deals 20 damage and you have 3 attack skills who all give +30 damage and cost 5, 8, and 9 adrenaline.
With frenzy: 20+20+20+20+20+50+20+20+20+20+50+20+20+50 = 370 dmg in [0.8778 * 14] = 12.3 seconds. So that's 30.1 dmg per second (remember these numbers are half-made up)
With battle rage casted once:
20+20+20+20+(Battle rage)+20+20+20+50+20+20+50+20+50 = 350 in [1.33 * 13] = 17.29 (just get your str at 13) and that's 20.2 dmg per second.

Ugh. I really think those numbers are pretty realistic, what do you guys think? That's 80 AL armor.

Alright, one asumption was that you can keep up frenzy ALL the time...that seriously can't be realistic, can it? You guys seem to have more experience with Frenzy (and I don't have flurry since I only have Factions) so why don't you enlighten me on that subject?

P.S.: I've never tried out Eviscerate cause I don't have Prophecies so I wouldn't know which one is better... but from what I read, Eviscerate owns

now pls stop discussing cleave and START talking about Battle Rage. Is spam really this common on Guru?

stueyman2099 · Sep 05, 2006, 05:48 AM // 05:48

If you want to PvP on any kind of competitive level, get prophecies.
Flurry is good for gaining adrenaline faster, but basicly negates any aditional damage it would otherwise do. Frenzy is better, just learn some battlefield awareness and know when the damage is coming your way.

Schmerdro · Sep 05, 2006, 05:52 AM // 05:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by stueyman2099

If you want to PvP on any kind of competitive level, get prophecies.

I know. Please don't remind me that ever again. It's already pissing me off enough as it is.

Now, how often can you use Frenzy?

LightningHell · Sep 05, 2006, 06:14 AM // 06:14

If you aren't being targeted, use Frenzy.

If you're being targeted and you're still going into their backline hitting away, you're retarded.

EDIT:Btw...

Quote:

who uses cleave? like, ever? seriously? besides that guy in the closer to the stars mission, anyway.....

Guild Lord.

Patrograd · Sep 05, 2006, 06:16 AM // 06:16

if you are running axe it is close to criminal not to run eviscerate.

The main reason for this is the deep wound that gets put on unconditionally at the start of a spike.

At 16 axe mastery, eviscerate plus executioners does an average of something like 270 damage. This makes the discussion of any other elite on an axe warrior irrelevant imo

Flurry vs frenzy? Flurry reduces your damage. Warriors are there to do damage. I cant think why you would even think about applying flurry as you spiked, seems rather counter productive to me, a waste of energy.

Schmerdro · Sep 05, 2006, 06:23 AM // 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

Flurry vs frenzy? Flurry reduces your damage. Warriors are there to do damage. I cant think why you would even think about applying flurry as you spiked, seems rather counter productive to me, a waste of energy.

Actually you get around +10% damage

Anyway, thank you guys, I'm good now.

Wait, I mixed up skills... somewhere in his topic, there's something I said that makes no sence and I'm too lazy to find it. Just thought I'd mention it

Wasteland Squidget · Sep 05, 2006, 06:37 AM // 06:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

Yeah, Squidget is kind-of right... I'll make up some numbers: (don't you quote me on that, I'm half joking!)

A normal attack deals 20 damage and you have 3 attack skills who all give +30 damage and cost 5, 8, and 9 adrenaline.
With frenzy: 20+20+20+20+20+50+20+20+20+20+50+20+20+50 = 370 dmg in [0.8778 * 14] = 12.3 seconds. So that's 30.1 dmg per second (remember these numbers are half-made up)

With battle rage casted once:
20+20+20+20+(Battle rage)+20+20+20+50+20+20+50+20+50 = 350 in [1.33 * 13] = 17.29 (just get your str at 13) and that's 20.2 dmg per second.

This works out a bit differently, because the Eviscerate guy has a much more powerful attack skill at his disposal. Most axe warrior builds run two adrenal attack skills, so I'll use that as a baseline.

With 16 axe and critical hits taken into account, average axe damage is 33.55 per hit. In practice you're likely to get more than that from autoattacks because of your conditional 15% mod (which should almost always be active) and free critical hits on retreating characters. This makes for a base autoattacking DPS of 26.66 without Frenzy, and 40 with Frenzy. Credit to Charles "Why Nuking Sucks" Ensign for these numbers.

Now throw Eviscerate + Executioners into the mix. You're getting an additional +42 (plus deep wound) from Eviscerate, and +42 from Executioners. Thus, in 10 strikes (or every 8.778 seconds) I get an additional +84 damage from these skills, along with 100 temporary damage. 10 strikes gives me 419.5 average damage in 8.778 seconds, for a blazing DPS of 47.78. This is ignoring the fact that 251 effective damage can be applied in the space of less than one second to drop a low or overextended target before the enemy monks can react.

Now let's look at Battle Rage Man. He can't use Eviscerate so give him Dismember instead. Let's look at his DPS throughout a battle rage cycle.

The first four hits to charge Battle Rage take 5.32 seconds. Activating the skill causes him to lose one strike of Adrenaline, so he has 3 strikes in each of his attack skills. He gets 13 more hits before his Battle Rage goes down, each hit charging two strikes of adrenaline, except the adrenal skills which only charge one. In 13 strikes this gives him two uses of each adrenal skill before his adrenaline is reset. Dismember adds 100 temporary each hit each hit, while Exec adds +42 actual. He's made 17 autoattacks in this time, dealing 570.35 damage. This gives him 654.32 damage for the entire 22.61 second period, and a DPS of 28.94. Not bad, but it doesn't match Eviscerate man. He does deal two deep wounds in this time, but since he can't attack fast enough to spike it's fairly trivial for a monk to mend them off.

These calculations are simplified a bit, because I left out the armor penetration bonus of strength. This was more for readability than anything, and although it does slightly favor the Battle Rager (giving him 13% more AP on one out of every 20 attacks or so), it's not enough to significantly increase his DPS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmerdro

Alright, one asumption was that you can keep up frenzy ALL the time...that seriously can't be realistic, can it? You guys seem to have more experience with Frenzy (and I don't have flurry since I only have Factions) so why don't you enlighten me on that subject?

You definitely can't keep Frenzy up all the time, you're right. Damage forces you to swap stances, and often it's just more beneficial to activate Rush in order to handle kiting targets. However, you don't need to keep Frenzy up all the time to make Frenzy work at pretty near optimal effectiveness.

In actual play, GvG isn't about your DPS against a dummy. Damage gets mitigated through kiting, smart movement, and warrior hate. As a result, a fair amount of the damage a warrior will actually deal comes in moments of opportunity rather than just randomly autoattacking stuff. When you get a chance to hit an unmoving target without a lot of prot, you take it because it puts massive pressure on their backline. You don't have Frenzy on when you're running around hitting things, but you turn it on when you catch a 60 AL guy in a 6 second Bull's Strike + Shock chain.

Frenzy is great for this because it allows you to quickly focus your damage when you need it. You choose when you Frenzy, so it will be always be on when the need to focus heavy damage arises. Once the opportunity has passed you can switch out of Frenzy and have it ready the next time a chance arises.

Frenzy also excels at quickly dropping targets before the enemy monks can effectively react. If a guy is overextended out of monk range, Frenzy allows you to kill him before he can run back. If your team Gales one monk and Blacks the other out, Frenzy allows you to get a kill before they're able to cast again. Spike is of crucial importance in PvP, and not being able to effectively spike is painful on a warrior.

Greedy Gus · Sep 05, 2006, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Code:

Battle Rage ends if you use any non-attack skills. When Battle Rage ends, you lose all adrenaline.

Battle rage is shit, and don't run an axe war if you're not using eviscerate. The only build where battle rage is not retarded on is on a sever/gash/final sword war, and even then there are much better elites to use like charge, dragon slash, etc.

A comparison of frenzy and battle rage is ridiculous, battle rage should be compared to the other elite you're giving up. And frenzy or other IAS stances are not just for "increasing damage", but also on-demand damage compression. As such, it's beyond compare to adrenaline boosters.

warriorsmiley · Sep 05, 2006, 06:41 PM // 18:41

Greedy Gus said exactly what i was gonna say. Unless you have 2 axe warriors there is no excuse not to take eviscerate which in my point of view is the best elite in the warrior line and probable in the entire game. Just the +48 at 16 axe and the deepwound alone is more or less about 148 damage. Me personally i like battle rage but only if it is placed on a sword warrior as they can charge final thurst in 5 swings instead of 10 making there server, gash, final thurst combo deadly as it is ready to use every 5 swings.

Thom Bangalter · Sep 05, 2006, 10:23 PM // 22:23

battle rage is terrible for a variety of reasons, mostly the blacking out of all adrenaline when it ends. cleave is terrible compared to eviscerate.

However, a more relevant discussion: cyclone axe vs. everything.

Discuss!

The Real Roy Keane · Sep 05, 2006, 11:35 PM // 23:35

There was an excellent article on this issue a good while back,; you can link to it here:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s... e+eviscerate

To surmise, you'll do more put out more damage over time with Cleave, but it's redundant when you factor i the unparalleled spike potential of Eviscerate.

Ensign · Sep 05, 2006, 11:47 PM // 23:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

The sad thing is that Cleave is actually a pretty decent DPS skill.

No one cares about boring DPS skills, let alone DPS elites. If Eviscerate stopped existing people wouldn't use Cleave, they'd use swords.

Peace,
-CxE