Curse

striderkaaru · Mar 06, 2006, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Level: Beginner

Background Info
This guide is a follow-up of Part 1 of the series, which can be found here. Those who were able to create their own builds that withstood the level 24 charr have improved their game and walked away from the experience as better warriors. However, there are some who still struggle with it, as well as some who are newer to the game. Thus, instead of writing a more advanced guide, I will be taking a step back and will go through an in-depth walkthrough of build creation.

Lesson 1: Know Your Enemy
The first part of creating a build almost always involves evaluating what you will be up against and deciding how you will counter it. As a point of reference, we will be tackling the level 24 charr once again, since those mobs include a good mix of all classes. Once again, I will list out the relevant skills we will be facing, as well as some of my own thoughts on them.

charr axe lord
- dismember - deep wound will cut hp down, but it shouldn't be much of a problem
- axe twist - weakness will reduce damage output, but +dmg from skills is unaffected
charr flame lord
- mark of rodgort - burning is a potentially dangerous condition
- fireball - will need to reduce this dmg
charr ashen lord
- life siphon - a few pips of degen is nothing too major
- putrid explosion - armor ignoring damage
- rend enchantments - probably shouldn't rely on enchantments
charr mind lord
- ether feast - could out damage this, but it might be better to interrupt it
charr stalker lord
- ignite arrows - will need to reduce this damage
- dual shot - will need to reduce this damage
- greater conflagration - will be dangerous if mark of rodgort is on you
- troll ungent - should interrupt it
charr shaman lord
- zealot's fire - can't be helped
- some heals *shrugs* - out damage it with force

Overall, we will be facing a potentially dangerous combination of conditions, but no blind. We will want to reduce damage from their normal attacks, attack skills, and spells. Lastly, there are a few skills we will want to interrupt.

Lesson 2: Build Creation
A good build template to start from takes the following form:

<attack skill 1>
<attack skill 2>
<attack skill 3>
<utility skill 1>
<utility skill 2>
<damage reduction 1>
<damage reduction 2>
<healing>

This build structure offers a very balanced offense, defense, and self healing. A lot of the good solo builds that have been shared publicly take some variation of this template. Using our notes from the previous section, we can start to fill the build out. Keep in mind that you don't have to get it perfectly right the first time, and there should always be room to test and tweak it.

I will be creating a build for a W/R, since it is a less common combination in pve.

First off, let's deal with damage reduction/healing. Let's see if we can handle not dealing with the conditions for now. However, we will still need to reduce damage from their attacks and spells. A good way to do this is to raise your armor level. As a warrior, a common way to do this is by using the combination of Dolyak Signet and "Watch Yourself!" Healing Signet is also a pretty common self heal to use for a warrior. So, this is what we have:

<attack skill 1>
<attack skill 2>
<attack skill 3>
<utility skill 1>
<utility skill 2>
"Watch Yourself!"
Dolyak Signet
Healing Signet

Next, we need to decide what weapon to use. To be a perfectly versatile warrior, you should never limit yourself to a single weapon and should know the advantages/disadvantages of each. Most solo builds don't use a hammer because you lose the additional armor and additional mods from a shield. We will need to interrupt key skills, and axes have a better interrupt than swords. Because of that, let's pick axes.

So, we will be adding in Disrupting Chop to interrupt key skills like Troll Ungent, Mark of Rodgort, Ether Feast, Life Sypphon, etc. The next step is to choose an elite. Most people prefer Eviscerate for the deep wound effect, but I will choose Cleave for it's constant dps and spammability. I'll also add in Penetrating Blow and Power Attack. So, now we have:

Penetrating Blow
Power Attack
Cleave {e}
Disrupting Chop
<utility skill 2>
"Watch Yourself!"
Dolyak Signet
Healing Signet

What should we add as a last skill? Taking equipment into consideration (which you should also always do), I will most likely use an axe with an in stance damage mod and the collector's Crimson Carapace Shield (+45 hp, -2 dmg in stance). It would be good to add in a stance to take advantage of those, but defensive stances won't be as effective since the damage doesn't just come from attacks. How about an IAS stance? Frenzy would be bad because of the increased damage intake. We could use Flurry, but we also have Tiger's Fury available from our secondary. Let's go with TF to add in variety to the build, which is:

Penetrating Blow
Power Attack
Cleave {e}
Disrupting Chop
Tiger's Fury
"Watch Yourself!"
Dolyak Signet
Healing Signet

Now, let's set our attributes. We want to keep Axe Mastery relatively high since it is the source of our offense, while keeping Strength and Tactics balanced for our damage reduction skills. Any leftover points can be put in to increase TF's duration. Let's try out this attribute spread:

Strength - 10 + 1
Axe Mastery - 10 + 1 (helm) + 3
Tactics - 9 + 1
Beast Mastery - 7 (8 sec TF)

Before we head out, let's take one last look at the build and consider its synergy. You should always take into consideration how well the skills will work together and what kind of energy/adrenal load it will place on you. The attacks are balanced with 2 adrenaline-based attacks and 1 energy-based attack that won't cut into the adrenaline pool. All 3 attacks are spammable, as Cleave and Penetrating Blow have relatively low adrenal costs and Power Attack has a low cooldown. Tiger's Fury might be a bit too costly to maintain at 10 energy, but let's give it a try and see just how much of a load it places on the energy pool. The defensive skills both don't require energy and are unstrippable. Heal Sig also does not require energy, but it does have a -40 armor penalty. However, if we use this while under Dolyak and "Watch Yourself!", it shouldn't be a problem. It's a pretty balanced build in terms of offense/defense and adrenaline/energy load.

Lesson 3: Testing and Tweaking
I could post the build on the forums and ask for feedback from people, but the best thing to do would be to actually test it myself. During your first few test runs, learn how to time your skills properly to make the most of them. Always be attentive and take notes on what is effective/ineffective, as well as what could potentially go wrong.

After a few test runs, I discovered that the build I created above works.

However, the defense was just enough to hold off against small, carefully pulled groups. Against the wrong mix of the larger mobs, the build is quickly overwhelmed. Deep wound and weakness from the axe lords reduced hp and the damage output. Burning from the Mark of Rodgort + Greater Conflagration combo, as well as Life Syphon from the ashen lords created constant high degen. The build wasn't enough to take on these larger mobs, and needed to be tweaked accordingly.

So what can we do? The conditions and hexes are what overwhelm the build. We could try to figure out how to counteract them, or we could potentially use that to our advantage. Melandru's Resilience might be a good elite to add in, as it provides +3 hp regen and +1 energy regen per condition/hex. We will have to sub in another attack for Cleave, since MR will be taking the elite slot. We can drop TF, since the trial runs showed that the 10 energy cost was a bit expensive to keep up. MR will be our new stance, and we don't want to spread attributes between too many lines. So, the new tweaked build should be:

Penetrating Blow
Power Attack
Executioner's Strike
Disrupting Chop
Melandru's Resilience {e}
"Watch Yourself!"
Dolyak Signet
Healing Signet

Let's now redistribute the attribute points to get a good duration time out of MR. Our new point spread should be:

Strength - 8 + 1 (helm) + 1
Axe Mastery - 10 + 3
Tactics - 9 + 1
Wilderness Survival - 9 (15 sec MR)

After going out to test this new build, I discovered that it worked marvelously.

Final Notes
Is this the best build possible? Most likely not, but it is just a good example of how to actually go about creating one. The same process of thinking through it, testing, taking in feedback during testing, and tweaking the build should be repeated until you are satisfied with your build. And in pve, if it works and works well, why fix it?

Here's a few Strider tips to keep in mind when creating new builds.
-A very effective and generic way of boosting your defense as a warrior is the Dolyak Sig + "Watch Yourself!" combination. With the right attribute spread, it's +50 armor that cannot be stripped. However, keep in mind the most time, Dolyak Sig is only effective in a solo build. It works fine in team situations as long as you are with a trusted group that understands how aggro is controlled. However, in most PUG situations, Dolyak Sig is a self snare that may be a bad idea to bring. Also, don't forget to fit in a Res Sig in team builds.

-Stances are good for damage reduction, but only when the majority of damage you are taking is from attacks. When you have spells and degen mixed in, most defensive stances will just be wasted on your skill bar. This is the reason why I will continue to assert that going in as a stance tank isn't a good idea in FoW.

-If the mobs you will be facing are primarily or all melee, it is a tried and tested fact that Gladiator's Defense {e} + Riposte + Deadly Riposte are good combinations to use.

-Similarly, if most of the damage you will be taking is primarily either physical or elemental, using a /mes secondary for the Physical/Elemental Resistance stances are a good idea. They provide good bonus armor and will activate any stance mods you may have on your equipment.

-Sword vs. Axe vs. Hammer? I use all 3. I will never pick a favorite, and neither should you. Learn the advantages and disadvantages of all 3 to be a well-rounded warrior.

-Don't be afraid to mix in skills from your secondary. This game should be fun, and the wide variety of skills available allows for that.

Well, that's it for now. I hope this guide helped those who needed it. Keep in mind that the most important aspect is to have fun. If you are having trouble finalizing a build, feel free to post it in the build forums to receive feedback and critique from others on the board.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Building a Better Warrior Series!

Skuld · Mar 06, 2006, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Good advice! *runs off to cap MR* that is a great skill for a warrior, ta for pointing it out

Soul Torn · Mar 06, 2006, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Wow what an incredible post!
That was very informative for me to read. I tend to go w/me for the high armor the resistance stances give, but melandru's resilience is a skill that I never really looked into. Im gonna have to experiment with that skill now. (yay something new to try!)

One thing I think that this post has that should be re-iterated is the following:
attack skill 1
attack skill 2
attack skill 3
utility skill 1
and so on

Using this method of building your skill bar makes it very easy to think of how to create a skill set that will work wherever you go. I see alot of people that just jam in a bunch of skills that look good but dont think about how they work TOGETHER or put 5 attack skills and 3 skills that do the same thing.

If you look at HOW he built that as opposed to what he used, you will be able to make your own builds very easily. I know Im going on but I just really like what you did here. It gives me hope that I will be able to play with other people in the game that have an UNDERSTANDING of making builds, not just copies off the forums.

Anyways, thumbs up to Strider for a very well thought out and informative post!

Edit: I vote for a sticky or something to keep this available

Skuld · Mar 06, 2006, 08:59 PM // 20:59

I usually use something along that line, im afraid i've never taken advantage of disrupting chop before :/ I'm buying up all the skills i've never even looked at, warriors rock ^^

Mr.H.Mishima · Mar 06, 2006, 10:03 PM // 22:03

$0.02

Couple of things I would add to this:

Weapon mods.

Defense, defense, defense.

With Sword I would go with Barbed + Defense
With Axe I would go with Cruel + Defense

With the above two, you are coupling with a shield. If you add up the extra armor you have with the pommel/grip and the shield you get +21 - a PERMANENT non-skill-spot-using "Watch Yourself" - for free.

With the Hilts/Hafts, you are extending the main DoT by 1/3, which means faster deaths for your enemies in most cases. When facing Necro's with Plague Sending (Sand Giants come to mind) do not use conditions.

Use a shield with -/- stance/hexed or stance/enchanted. Dual damage reduction triggers are better than health, imho. You can watch 30 or 45hp's wipe right off your bar to a degen attack in seconds. You can probably heal though it, but you are still taking damage physically. However, if you have a dual damage mod shield rather than a +HP one, the reduction applies to each attack. You take less physical damage, allowing you to much more easily heal through the degen. This applies even when taking elemental damage.

So now, at this point with the weapon + your shield, you have +21 armor, -4 or -5 damage (couple with a Superior Absorption and Knights/Ascalon for -10) against each attack and lengthened your DoT skill. Much better than elemental mods or HP's if you ask me. Of course, there are always enemies that don't bleed, but your damage output should be high enough to counter that, and you defense is certainly high enough to last long enough to kill them.

With Hammer I would go with Cruel + Defense

Crushing Blow should be on your bar after any KD, so this is valuable to add.

As for Melandru's Resilience - It's a stance, activating your shield. Add a 'while hexed' shield for a -2 stance/-3 hexed, and in the scenario given against the Char, you are taking hardly any physical damage and greatly reducing your elemental damage, leaving mostly the degen to fight though, but MR should easily counter that.

Nice work. I hope I added something without stepping on any toes.

Farcry Deathblade · Mar 07, 2006, 01:21 AM // 01:21

Probably my number one build(for taking on hydras...LOTS of them...as well as everything else) Dismember, Penetrating blow, Executioner's strike, Dolyak Signet, Healing Hands, Healing Breeze, Mending, Balthazzars Spirit.

In case you're dealing with enchantment pullers, healing breeze and healing hands work well as guards...

HawkofStorms · Mar 07, 2006, 05:21 AM // 05:21

The idea of a utility/attack/heal skills used to work together on a build is vital, not just to warriors, but all classes.

Only difference between this with warriors and casters is an energy management skill is usally a good idea for them.
I always carry
3 spammable spells/hexes
an interupt or kd (leech sig, shock, etc)
an energy management skill
a conditional skill (blind, weakness, enchant stripping)
self heal
and an 8th "freebie" slot (res, SoC, another conditional, etc).

torquemada · Mar 07, 2006, 08:19 AM // 08:19

Good post, nice thoughts & general guidelines.

I recently made a warrior char and I'm thinking to take necro blood (or curses)secondary for some life sucking/regen/degen. Hehe like the scarabs! Only worried by energy managment....

Cirian · Mar 07, 2006, 01:51 PM // 13:51

I use a similar sort of template to create my CA warriors - 3 attack slots, 4 utility/healing slots, res sig.

I really liked seeing Melandru's Resilience in this build, because I recently used it in CA and loved it. It was doing a bunch of things for me - I'd built a condition heavy W/R using Hamstring, Gash, Sever Artery and Apply Poison. I knew I'd run into plague touch, turning my offence against me, and there's always lots of conditions and hexes in CA, plus I wanted to use a stance shield. MR just covered so many bases right there. I decided on 12 Wilderness Survival to max MR and give me a +9 regen Troll Unguent for a 180 point heal-over-time. I brought Antidote Signet for blind. That turned out to be a really really good setup.

Sure enough I met a W/N at one point and had crippled/bleeding/deep wound and poison on me from plague touch... which meant he was running out of energy, and I was on 5 pips of life regen and 6 pips of energy regen! MR was shining.

I got into a gritty stale-mate with a really good trapper ranger too. Everyone but us were dead, she didn't have an interrupt and I didn't have wild blow, which was what we needed to beat the other... and to get near her I was getting hit by knockdown, bleeding, crippled, blind, on-fire... what would be -10 degen, under MR is +2 regen

Even though I could cure blind, I was perma crippled or knocked down (from spike trap), so even my own cripple/bleed/poison/deep wound combo wasn't quite enough to overcome that lot plus block/evade stances and a +10 regen troll unguent. I had to bow out gracefully with a /salute in the end, it was going to go on forever! I was super impressed by the new and improved Melandru's Resilience

milias · Mar 07, 2006, 05:24 PM // 17:24

Hmm, no res sig?

A quick res can save a mission if the monk happens to go down...

capitalist · Mar 07, 2006, 07:38 PM // 19:38

I rarely bring a rez sig when I am testing a solo build.

Jetdoc · Mar 07, 2006, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Excellent job, striker. Teaching us to fish adds some true value to the site, versus just giving out builds.

Unfortunately, I hope this thread doesn't turn into a "wow, Tigers Fury and Melandru's Resilience, them's some good skillz. Gotta copy his build and go farming."

A few points on your base theory that I'd love to debate with you/others:

1. Utilizing a superior weapon rune. I noticed in your attribute allocation that you have applied a superior rune to your primary weapon attribute. With adequate defense you should be able to pull this off, but I tend to err on the side of caution and sacrifice those two attribute points for the extra 75 health. When soloing, that health boost can make the difference between completing areas and fighting through DP.

2. Utilizing four attack-based skills. Although this gets the job done a lot quicker, I find that utilizing just two attack skills and an interrupt skill is more than adequate. Saving that extra slot for additional healing or defense can be invaluable and can add a lot more diversity into the various creatures you can handle with your build. Again, flexibility is the key, as you noted above, based on who you expect to face.

3. Testing your skills. Make sure that when testing your skills, don't just look at what skills work great against your opponents - you also need to consider (1) energy management and (2) adrenaline management when mixing those skills. Putting a bunch of high-energy cost skills (i.e. above five) in your skill bar is not going to be effective, as well as putting mostly adrenaline-based skills as well. This can be trial and error as well, but in the end it likely will result in a nice mix of energy/adrenaline based skills to keep the constant attack flowing.

milias · Mar 08, 2006, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by capitalist

I rarely bring a rez sig when I am testing a solo build.

Doh...didn't realize it was a solo build...

striderkaaru · Mar 08, 2006, 07:04 PM // 19:04

thanks for the feedback, guys.

@hells
you bring up very good points about equipment. however, even though equipment mods should be taken into consideration, it is often a separate issue. i may go over it in more detail later, and it could be the subject of a future installment of the bbw series.

@jetdoc
1 - i agree that sometimes it is wiser to not use any superior stat runes to keep that 75 hp. personally, i have armor pieces with minor and superior runes for each weapon. if i wanted, i could have opted for the minor rune and can switch to it during the run. however, previous runs have shown that i could do without the extra hp. when starting out, i agree that erring on the side of caution is a good idea. once one is comfortable, then he/she should push to the limits and find a balance of offense/defense.
2 - i don't really consider an interrupt as an attack, since you aren't doing it for the damage output. but like you said, flexibility is the key and being able to adapt a build is what is important.
3 - very good points regarding energy/adrenaline management. i can't believe i left that out of the guide. suprafyre touches upon it too, as it is important to make sure the final build has good synergy and works well together. i will be editing the guide and adding in a section on that.

cvspro · Mar 09, 2006, 07:21 AM // 07:21

nice 2nd part of your guide ... it has made me a better warrior

Dazzen · Mar 10, 2006, 12:08 PM // 12:08

This is an incredible topic really nice work strider

I have run the same W/R build (MR is an incredible skill in high level areas) before this thread, but with TF. Though i'm spreading attributes in 4 categories so it may not be as good as yours.

Regarding equipment, i would prefer a zelous mod over anything in such builds. The -1 energy regen is nothing compared to what you gain. TF plus a zealous mod is like a 4 pips energy regen warrior for me ^^ (but okay it is conditionnal on hitting your target). Even if you're not running TF, you're having like 3 energy pips all the time when attacking.

Nice to see that the warrior comunity has good build creators so that we can break out from the W/Mo staple ^^

Congrats to SMS for putting so much interesting threads on these boards (hiya ractoh^^).

striderkaaru · Mar 13, 2006, 06:49 PM // 18:49

edited the content to contain a section on build synergy and balance.

Don Zardeone · Mar 19, 2006, 06:57 AM // 06:57

I don't know where to put this but there's a mistake in the guide on the site.
In the second builddescription it says this:

Strength - 10 + 1 (helm) + 1
Axe Mastery - 10 + 3
Tactics - 9 + 1
Wilderness Survival - 9 (15 sec MR)

That build uses 218 attribute points which is impossible.

This mistake is corrected here on the forum but on the site it's still wrong. It confused the hell out of me the past 2 days O.o

EDIT: when's the 3rd part coming? =P

CKaz · Mar 21, 2006, 09:27 PM // 21:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Zardeone

I don't know where to put this but there's a mistake in the guide on the site.
In the second builddescription it says this:

Strength - 10 + 1 (helm) + 1
Axe Mastery - 10 + 3
Tactics - 9 + 1
Wilderness Survival - 9 (15 sec MR)

That build uses 218 attribute points which is impossible.

This mistake is corrected here on the forum but on the site it's still wrong. It confused the hell out of me the past 2 days O.o

Really? You couldn't work this out for 2 days?
10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 55
9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 45

55+55+45+45 = 200

Not sure what to tellya...

I'd also chime in a big fan of Zealous here, particularly when mixing in any IAS and/or multi-hit (cyclone axe, 100sword) attacks.

striderkaaru · Mar 22, 2006, 05:59 PM // 17:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Zardeone

I don't know where to put this but there's a mistake in the guide on the site.
In the second builddescription it says this:

Strength - 10 + 1 (helm) + 1
Axe Mastery - 10 + 3
Tactics - 9 + 1
Wilderness Survival - 9 (15 sec MR)

That build uses 218 attribute points which is impossible.

This mistake is corrected here on the forum but on the site it's still wrong. It confused the hell out of me the past 2 days O.o

EDIT: when's the 3rd part coming? =P

my apologies for that mistake and the resulting confusion. i didn't realize until after inde had already posted it on the site. since he is the only one who can update that and he's always busy with other things, the forum version would be the best place to get the most updated one.