Curse

Iraqalypse Now · Apr 22, 2006, 02:15 AM // 02:15

Wither is total crap, its only possibly good at the beginning of an engagement where the enemies can't focus swap to zero, and perhaps on warriors/rangers. Then again, spirit shackles is much better against warriors and rangers.

Panic is better, but you lose your elite slot on a huge energy req skill (meaning no elite energy management to power it out).

Sha Noran · Apr 22, 2006, 02:47 AM // 02:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

No, no, that's not the reason. I've been thinking about it some more and I'm pretty sure it's just the mentality of western players to be defensive first and worry about victory second. That's where you get these book tricks and stacked enchantments, or the w/mo with mending on the low end. The goal is to create a situation where you won't die first, then add offense so that you can eventually win.

This is reinforced by a long history of MMOs where this was the only way to play. When a raid boss takes a long time to kill, and will kill the players instantly if the defense isn't set up just right, people get accustomed to worrying about that defensive base first.

Sure, you can play Guild Wars that way if you want.

But you don't have to. This isn't a game filled with really tough enemies that you have to be very careful to stay alive against, it's full of paper-mache punching bags that explode when you take a bat to them. Instead of worrying about how to survive all the damage they can deal, you can just *kill them*, and then they won't deal any damage.

I'm not going to say that the tank / buff / AoE model is wrong, or that it's ineffective, because it isn't. But if you think that people approach PvE that way because it's the fastest way to kill mobs you are bluntly wrong. It's done for stability and idiot proofing, for creating easy to follow blueprints that have a lot of failsafes that make it difficult to fail. It's also a much more casual pace which a lot of the PvE population seems to like. Hell, I'll admit, when I'm on a mission that I want to finish I want stability and failsafes to avoid wasting my time. But for power farming? Give me buffed warriors and speed.

Lol... have fun with aatxes.

SaintGreg · Apr 22, 2006, 08:09 AM // 08:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Why's that, out of curiosity? Don't like the style, or don't like how cookie-cutter it has become?

If I go down to FoW with a full group I mostly just want to explore around a little, and kill some time when I can't pvp or don't want to solo farm. If every group that went into FoW was the same, and every group just want down to power farm, clear out all the baddies, get to forgemaster in 30 minutes then leave, it wouldn't really be any fun. The fact that you can have a little bit of diversity in your party makeup makes fighting the same monsters each time at least a little different.

Now if you are trying to power-farm, efficiency all the way. Take the proper people to get through in as little time as you can. You don't waste time and it is much less frustrating. You don't really power farm to have fun though. With tombs the only reason to go is to farm greens. There really isn't anything else it has to offer, besides going and hoping you get the green(s) you need but haven't gotten yet.

Evilsod · Apr 22, 2006, 09:12 AM // 09:12

The only problem with the book trick is its almost impossible to find a group to FoW that DOESN'T run it these days. I want to play my damn warrior and the only groups i can find want me to hold the stupid book! At least with SF its the best method of farming, book trick groups fail all the damn time in FoW because a couple of the damage dealers are too crap/useless to kill a couple of shadow monks.
The problem is they seem to think you can power (ele SS) style through everything. Sure that 1 extra ele could do some extra damage, that or they could be a useless tit. Why not take the interrupt mesmer that most likely knows what they're doing? Because nuking is 1337... I've done pretty well in FoW without an ele nuker (they both left.... we used to SS). This was 1 of the few games where the group actually had 2 warriors. Can't beat a constant damage source away from the book holder w/ Disrupting Chop to hastle casters.

Of course regarding Wither and Panic down there. Wither is useless, you might aswell take Malaise, save your elite and take SS instead.
Panic, you'd probably be much better off using Power Block. 1 thing i've wondered though, the effect of Panic is -2 degen over area, but does the 2ndary effect of damage using signets affect a radius or is that the user only?

Wasteland Squidget · Apr 22, 2006, 07:45 PM // 19:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Of course regarding Wither and Panic down there. Wither is useless, you might aswell take Malaise, save your elite and take SS instead.
Panic, you'd probably be much better off using Power Block. 1 thing i've wondered though, the effect of Panic is -2 degen over area, but does the 2ndary effect of damage using signets affect a radius or is that the user only?

Panic is an AOE hex. Everyone in the AoE takes all the effects of the hex, and the hex has to be removed seperately from each one.

Ensign · Apr 22, 2006, 09:05 PM // 21:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

I'm sorry, I still can't see single damage warriors out-performing aoe.

What you're missing is the support structure that goes into making that AoE effective. AoE effects in this game are not terribly large - you need to herd monsters up to make your AoE do anything. When the mobs aren't all melee that means dragging things into their casters as well. All of this takes time. A significant percentage of the mobs you'll fight aren't all that big to begin with, which further cuts into the value of AoE. Don't forget that you're sacrificing a guy to be a stance bitch and effectively contribute nothing.

Doesn't something like four AoE guys beating on a nicely rounded up pack on a stance bitch kill faster, in theory, than a bunch of warriors? Sure. Now find me four good AoE guys (IMO the depth chart is one deep, that first copy of Spiteful Spirit), and go through the trouble of always setting up the situations where that's effective.

Instead you could just grab 5 warriors and C-Space your way to victory. Enemies explode in around 2-3 seconds, 5 seconds for the tougher ones and up to 10 seconds or so to drop a boss. Plus you don't need to use any fancy tactics, you can just charge into that pack of a dozen ranged guys and chop them all down in order.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

And with only 1 warrior, you limit the # of defensive slots you have to waste, by just putting a few on them and having them retain all aggro.

There are a couple bad assumptions here. The first is that you have to waste a significant number of slots on your warriors to somehow 'stay alive' while chopping through everything. I don't feel that you need to run any defensive skills on a warrior to be a fair tank in PvE - they are naturally so robust that the stances are just a luxury. At most you'd want a single skill, maybe two, per warrior. That doesn't even have a real cost. Why's that? Because skill slots don't have to be equal, what ends up being valuable are your time and energy, and if you can spend that effectively on 4-5 skills then those last few are meaningless. One guy with eight defensive skills hurts your offense *significantly*, while one defensive skill on eight guys barely touches your offense at all. You can't even put eight pure offensive skills on a guy and expect him to benefit from all of them.

Second, that you can flat out ignore defense on everyone else on your team just because you have a dedicated aggro guy. Granted you probably can if you're going to use a keg/book exploit. But if that's not the case you're being suicidal if you're resigning yourself to getting rocked if a pull goes bad or a mob breaks off. I know that random PvE elementalists love their superior energy storage rune but they flat out explode as soon as something even smells them. You're also in a horrible position to deal with these situations because you aren't running durable damage anymore, you're running tricks like Spiteful Spirit guys.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

I take it from the current builds used that barrage and spiteful do not scatter monsters, and I'd think that would still outperform whatever warriors could do.

A single copy of Spiteful Spirit will outperform a warrior on pure damage in AoE situations. It's certainly not a bad character to add if those are going to be frequent but otherwise that guy underperforms because, really, it's all he can do. You almost always see Spiteful Spirit in conjunction with the book trick, stacked with the unbreakable defense on that guy, as a minimal amount of offense - that allows people to farm with smaller groups and concentrate the drops.

Barrage guys are fine, they might be better than Spiteful Spirit guys in a real team actually - they get the Order buffs and will exploit the AoE situations better than anything, and can still deal good damage if AoE isn't rocking. They're definitely better than warriors in new Tombs because they don't get blind on every single hit like a warrior would. I'm not sure they're better than a warrior if you aren't paying attention to controlling aggro though, the AoE just isn't rocking often enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

But the philosophy isn't 'defense first'. It's directing all of the monsters aggro on to only one person, who is built to take it.

That's the problem with the philosophy. This isn't everquest where the entire team will wipe if one main tank loses aggro and doesn't get healed every two seconds. Five warriors = five guys built to take damage + five guys dishing out lots of damage. You're not freeing up anything for more damage by putting all that aggro on one guy, you're giving up another character for defense.

I'll believe that this is the intention when the book groups start cutting monks, because that's what that stance guy's job is - pure defense. If they were running with one monk, one stancer, and six damage guys I would buy the argument. But they don't, they run with three defense guys - the stancer and two monks - plus a minion guy usually who contributes a ton to the defense on his own. A straight damage team has less defensive guys - just two monks. We like to run drain enchants and power drains on our monks as well because, well, you don't need all those monk skills and PvE is easy, but that might just be us.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

Lol... have fun with aatxes.

You Prot Spirit whoever they're attacking and kill them in like 5 seconds? I don't see where you're going with this. It isn't like AoE is exactly good against monsters that attack you 2-3 at a time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

At least with SF its the best method of farming, book trick groups fail all the damn time in FoW because a couple of the damage dealers are too crap/useless to kill a couple of shadow monks.

Well of course they're going to have trouble with the monks, they aren't bringing damage. Warriors or rangers could chop down a shadow monk, but what do you expect Spiteful Spirit or, heaven forbid, "AoE nukes" to do to 'em? If you can drag melee guys to 'em and pop 'em with Spiteful using the book that's great, but if you don't get things to bunch up nicely your lack of damage starts to hurt.

As should be obvious to people paying attention.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

Why not take the interrupt mesmer that most likely knows what they're doing?

Rangers are better interrupters, and warriors can interrupt just fine as well. I like Power Drain on monks too - usually when there's a target that needs to be interrupted we fire like 2-3 interrupts at him. Mesmers are pretty useless TBH, there's nothing important enough that needs to be shut down hard - nothing that a PDrain and Drain Enchant on a monk can't handle - and he doesn't contribute anything to the offense. I guess they'd be moderately useful for stopping elementalist mobs in PvE since those can actually be good (hooray for level scaling!), but I really don't see why they're any good. When we do have a mesmer who wants to accomplish something in our group, he runs Arcane Echo / Spiteful Spirit, because that's the best thing he can do for a team.

Peace,
-CxE

SaintGreg · Apr 22, 2006, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

I'm not sure they're better than a warrior if you aren't paying attention to controlling aggro though, the AoE just isn't rocking often enough.

When the rangers have pets, the pets will go out front, and act as meat shields for the group. The enemies will attack the pets, and by the time they kill them, the rangers have annihilated the enemies. Res pets, and you're back in business right away. The AoE is neat, but the single target damage is nowhere even close to a warrior, so overall if the situation lets you, it would probably be better to have as many warirors as you can. Hell, bring cyclone axe and you can get some aoe as well without lowering your single target offense.

M3lk0r · Apr 22, 2006, 10:53 PM // 22:53

You also forget the monks, no matter how good the wars are, half the PvE monks seem to put healing breeze on the whole team and then shout for a "battery"
And dont even mention condition/hex removal :-(

Rey Lentless · Apr 22, 2006, 11:22 PM // 23:22

Yah, I wasn't really talking about random groups w/ possible idiots.

But, as I said.. I really don't know what the current pve is like. The last pve I've done that wasn't solo farming for exp.. was 2 and 3 man fow groups that involved a warrior and smiter. That was before smiting was nerfed however, and before aoe made anything scatter.. so obviously the damage possibility there was much different than what is available now.

Still, I think barragers can do pretty decent damage, and I don't think I'd rather have cycloners in there than them. SS also ignores armor, and that helps a lot. When you have level 28 aatxes, you aren't just chopping them to death in a few seconds.

Primal rage looks like it would be fun in pve though.

Warskull · Apr 23, 2006, 03:37 AM // 03:37

Warrior can output levels of damage that casters only dream of. Warriors simply put are absolutely monsters. They are extremely durable and anything that goes toe to toe with them will die. A while ago (when orders stacked) we went down to SF with 5 warriors, orders, and 2 monks. The result was that we cleaned the place out with ease in record time.

http://files.filefront.com/howtowinp.../fileinfo.html

As for needing a lot of defensive skills. Here is an example of a skillbar: Sever, Gash, Galrath, Final, Hundred Blades, Watch Yourself, Sprint, Rez Sig. It worked beautifully too, watch the video if you don't believe it. We would trigger a beserker scroll at the start and get all the way to the bottom of the pit before it ran out (basically killing all enemies until we hit a dead end.)

The problem is most warriors and monks in PvE are compeltely and totally incompetent. That and Ensign is right about most of the western players having a hyper defensive mindset.

As for wither, this skill will need a lot of work to be useful. Malaise is very good as it is. With Malaise you don't need wither. My best guess would be give wither a 1s cast and a 4s cooldown for 5 energy. It has to be so incredibly crazy spammable to eclipse malaise.

Loch · Apr 23, 2006, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Interesting, this mindset is in front of us the whole time, yet I don't think most people know it, nevermind the fact that there are alternatives.

The sad thing is, casual PvE players won't change the way they play because it doesn't take much skill nor battlefield dynamics to play uber-defensively. In fact, the hardest thing to kill with that much defense is Monk bosses, which really shouldn't be difficult because they aren't threats by themselves. Now that I think about it, my biggest challenge in PvE was pugging Ring of Fire and busting through the front door - most teams didn't have the offense to smash the dual Mursaat Tower seals before we all died.

To be honest, I don't even think Guild Wars' PvE was designed to be played in an uber-defensive way. I'm confident that all the missions can be completed by a team that focuses on mowing through every single red dot on the radar while saving aggro concerns for extreme patrol situations. I'm not even thinking about a 5 warrior, 2 monk, 1 orders bitch party - hell, having 2 warriors, 2 monks, and the other 4 core classes would probably work well if everyone designed their skillbars to contribute to an aggressive team style. No one has to be experts, but every player would need know what their job is and how to react to different battlefield situations.

As it currently stands, PvE with standard teams is usually a boring grind where one mistake often wipes the entire team because enemy pressure is better than the human team's pressure.

Iraqalypse Now · Apr 24, 2006, 12:15 AM // 00:15

If you are really concerned about elementalist mobs, what you bring is a choking gas + practiced stance ranger with an IAS. Elementalists have such a large cast time that just CG spam that hits 2-3 eles is very easy with the ranger. What you want your mesmer to bring is pretty much me/mo with 2-3 offensive skills and then being a defense bitch. Convert hexes, draw conditions, smite hex, remove hex. Offense would be something like phantom pain + shatter delusions for tearing through a single enemy even faster, smite hex works too, as does power spike. Once the xpac comes through, psychic instability looks pretty nice. Don't forget esurge, its a rather large AoE range and 80 armor ignoring damage.

Happy · Apr 25, 2006, 12:45 PM // 12:45

Praise anet for decreased hex duration on bosses. Wastrels Worry, only reason my pve mesmer has it is killing bosses and that it does. If you want to you could bring ignorance to get rid of heal sig on warrior bosses, though honestly you don't need it. Ad shatter hex/shatter enchant and beyond that whatever you like. (thoug 1 interupt would be a wise choice)

I guarentee the solo-ing with henchies of all end game missions including thunderhead keep.

Ghull Ka · Apr 26, 2006, 05:50 PM // 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iraqalypse Now

If you are really concerned about elementalist mobs, what you bring is a choking gas + practiced stance ranger with an IAS.

I would like to know more about Choking Gas + Practiced Stance + IAS.

Every bit of IAS that a Ranger is capable of is a stance, which would cancel out Practiced Stance. Flurry and Frenzy are the same. "I Will Avenge You!" doesn't seem to fit the bill.

How can you do this?

Ensign · Apr 26, 2006, 06:18 PM // 18:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghull Ka

Every bit of IAS that a Ranger is capable of is a stance, which would cancel out Practiced Stance.

Who cares? Practiced Stance only needs to be up when the preparation is first applied, to set its duration and affect the recharge. If you're not about to put up a preparation Practiced Stance doesn't actually do anything. You don't lose anything at all by using Practiced Stance into Choking Gas, cancelling it for an attack speed boost, then putting up Practiced Stance again right before you re-apply the Choking Gas.

Peace,
-CxE

Jimmy Swaggart · Apr 28, 2006, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign

Who cares? Practiced Stance only needs to be up when the preparation is first applied, to set its duration and affect the recharge. If you're not about to put up a preparation Practiced Stance doesn't actually do anything. You don't lose anything at all by using Practiced Stance into Choking Gas, cancelling it for an attack speed boost, then putting up Practiced Stance again right before you re-apply the Choking Gas.

Peace,
-CxE

OMG now i can use that choking gas build to farm monstrous claws in the desert - in fact you can can bring another ranger with Quickshot, arcane mimicry each other's elite and wammo! You have yourself a hydra farming machine gun build. I gotta find one of the dudes in Droks IDs and try this out. Good bye GW economy.

I can't believe so many people took Tommy's post seriously

- it made me chuckle and the posts in response made me cry....