Curse

thripston · Nov 11, 2014, 04:54 PM // 16:54

I've decided to start Prophecies with a warrior and go the hammer route for high damage, knockdowns/CC and AOE. I'm going to be just soloing PVE and keeping to the Prophecies storyline. I will sideline briefly to unlock the early Nightfall heroes but just those.

I'm weighing up the pros and cons of different secondarys for Warrior. From what I've read either Necro, Monk or Elementalist would probably suit best. Depending on a few things.

Monk gives me the best weapon buff and hex/condition removal, plus extra resurrects. But after I get Dunkoro not so useful.

Elementalist gives me weapon buffs and some CC (slows movement).

Necro gives me condition removal/reflection (Plague Touch), CC (slows attacks) and health boosts (life drain) and some melee buffs. Conditional removal maybe not so useful after I get Dunkoro. Will he not mess up Plague Touch by removing conditions before I get to use it?

Keeping my NPC healers alive is obviously my biggest concern and anything that can block, interrupt, intercept etc is a big factor in the 2ndry I choose. Any abilities that link me to an NPC and transfer damage or a condition are also worth considering.

I also want abilities I can pick up in Prophecies and without having to cross over into another campaign. Obviously a lot of guides are slanted for level 20s with access to EotN etc and they suggest abilities I likely won't even see with this toon in Prophecies.

So any old hands see a clear solution for what I'm trying to do?

**Marty Silverblade** · Nov 12, 2014, 12:34 AM // 00:34

So you've played through Nightfall... with what? A warrior? I'm a little confused as to your intentions here. If you're going to move that character over to Prophecies you'll jump in some way through the story, meaning you'll have more things available to you (skill trainers and such) and you'll retain all the things you got in Nightfall (namely, heroes and skills). If you make a new character you'll need to get the heroes again, though you can pick up Dunkoro and Tahlkora (and Koss and Melonni) by quickly popping over to Elona and a third Monk + Ele + Mesmer by briefly venturing into the EotN content. Those will have you covered pretty well if that's what you're doing.

Picking a secondary isn't a huge deal as once you get past a certain part in the campaign you'll be able to change it whenever you like. With heroes you don't need to include hex and condition removals yourself so that stops being an issue. Other things like crowd control you ought to take care of by pulling and aggro management - like corner blocking - rather than by using skills. This is how you take care of your team, not by fussing around with specific party members or things like that (which you seem to be much more concerned about than you should be). Only exception is "Save Yourselves" which is so ridiculously overpowered it's hard to not run it (though it'd be overkill in normal mode). Your job is to smash things in the face, so you'll want to spend as much time doing that as you can. Meanwhile, your Necros/Mesmers/Rits/other midline casters will be taking care of debuffing/interruping/whatever because that's their job. Life stealing and degeneration skills go nowhere because they tend to be terrible. If you want something to help keep you alive, Lion's Comfort is your best bet, though if you're depending on it you're likely doing something wrong elsewhere and ought to fix that instead.

For what it's worth, I'd probably go Ele, though Warriors are probably the most self-sufficient profession so you'll likely find yourself using all Warrior skills most of the time. Conjure Flame is available at Lion's Arch, though if it or the Cold/Lightning equivalents have been unlocked you should be able to buy them from Ascalon City. Once you start building up a collection of PvE-only skills (generally from EotN, which you ought to avoid until you're ready, except to pick up heroes) you'll find they fill in any gaps the Warrior skill set might have so the need for a secondary profession drops further.

thripston · Nov 12, 2014, 10:36 AM // 10:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade

So you've played through Nightfall... with what? A warrior? I'm a little confused as to your intentions here. If you're going to move that character over to Prophecies you'll jump in some way through the story, meaning you'll have more things available to you (skill trainers and such) and you'll retain all the things you got in Nightfall (namely, heroes and skills). If you make a new character you'll need to get the heroes again, though you can pick up Dunkoro and Tahlkora (and Koss and Melonni) by quickly popping over to Elona and a third Monk + Ele + Mesmer by briefly venturing into the EotN content. Those will have you covered pretty well if that's what you're doing.

Picking a secondary isn't a huge deal as once you get past a certain part in the campaign you'll be able to change it whenever you like. With heroes you don't need to include hex and condition removals yourself so that stops being an issue. Other things like crowd control you ought to take care of by pulling and aggro management - like corner blocking - rather than by using skills. This is how you take care of your team, not by fussing around with specific party members or things like that (which you seem to be much more concerned about than you should be). Only exception is "Save Yourselves" which is so ridiculously overpowered it's hard to not run it (though it'd be overkill in normal mode). Your job is to smash things in the face, so you'll want to spend as much time doing that as you can. Meanwhile, your Necros/Mesmers/Rits/other midline casters will be taking care of debuffing/interruping/whatever because that's their job. Life stealing and degeneration skills go nowhere because they tend to be terrible. If you want something to help keep you alive, Lion's Comfort is your best bet, though if you're depending on it you're likely doing something wrong elsewhere and ought to fix that instead.

For what it's worth, I'd probably go Ele, though Warriors are probably the most self-sufficient profession so you'll likely find yourself using all Warrior skills most of the time. Conjure Flame is available at Lion's Arch, though if it or the Cold/Lightning equivalents have been unlocked you should be able to buy them from Ascalon City. Once you start building up a collection of PvE-only skills (generally from EotN, which you ought to avoid until you're ready, except to pick up heroes) you'll find they fill in any gaps the Warrior skill set might have so the need for a secondary profession drops further.

I'm starting Prophecies with a fresh character I'm not using my Nightfall toon for this (was a Dervish btw). I will grab the early Nightfall heroes but I don't think I'll bother with the EotN ones. So that also means I won't have access to all the abilities you were expecting I will. Maybe that's a bad decision.

As far as I understand the option to switch secondary is in the Crystal Desert which from what I remember of my first playthrough of Prophecies is after covering quite a lot of ground. Though I guess that is worth considering if I decide to make this my EotN toon rather than my Dervish or whatever I go for in Factions (probably A/?).

I also remember from my first playthrough and also doing Nightfall with a melee class that I spent a lot of time chasing the healers around trying to get things off them. So I thought it might make things a little easier on myself (and my ham fisted play style) with a class that had abilities to help with that. Hammer warrior knockdowns being a good start maybe.

I understand that lifesteal/degeneration is going against what warriors should do anyway. Necro does still give some good melee buffs (Barbs/Mark of Pain) and Plague Touch must be pretty destructive against certain enemies. So I'm still tempted. Using LC seems like a waste of a slot for face smashing tbh.

I only will have maybe 1 or at most 2 abilities from my 2nd on the bar (as like you say most of what I will need Warriors can handle alone) so I understand that after weapon buffs there isn't much else of any use. Monks have extra resurrects (kinda meh) and Ele isn't really bringing anything else (as Hammer warrior has decent AOE CC). The Ele buffs rely on a lot of weapon swapping and prep whereas the Necro and Monk buffs are equally good on any weapon.

I'm still leaning for Necro I think. My only major concern there is that the NPC monks will remove conditions on me too soon and I won't get to spread them.

**Marty Silverblade** · Nov 12, 2014, 11:40 PM // 23:40

Not grabbing the EotN heroes is fine. They (and heroes in general) are far from necessary. Even a single monk hero (and you'll grab two in Elona) will make a significant difference. From a pure efficiency point of view, you've got cleanup and Strength of Honor covered and that's basically all you need. I recommended /E because Conjure X is a vastly better option for damage than the alternatives. Mark of Pain and Barbs really ought to go on a midliner, especially the latter: 2.75s cast time is painful, not to mention 10e (in other words, the weapon swapping and prep time arguments you bring up towards the end are in favour of Eles, not against them). At the end of the day, GW is a game and is ultimately for your enjoyment. It sounds like you're keen on /Necro, so go with that.

Some other asides:

-You are correct in remembering that the secondary profession switch unlocking part is in the desert.

-Plague Touch tends to be used purely as a cleaning mechanism. If there are conditions that you want to spread to foes you'll want to fit them into your team build. Not all conditions are really that impressive anyway - the degeneration ones are more annoying than dangerous - and of the rest, Deep Wound is easy for a Warrior and Weakness (via. Enfeebling Blood) can be fit in on pretty much any midliner bar. In any case, conditions and hexes can be translated into damage via Smite Hex/Condition and Shatter Hex.

mauirixxx · Nov 17, 2014, 08:32 PM // 20:32

Man this brings me back to my first year in Prophecies. Honestly, I used all warrior skills, and my secondary profession was a monk, using all of 1 skill - rebirth. And that was because I'm a terrible GW player.

Before hero's were available, I made due with just the henchmen when I didn't feel like grouping with humans (which was a very viable option until ... 2009 or so). Anyways, the point being that as long as you play smart as a Warrior, your secondary profession is almost a non-issue, especially if you're sticking with an all Prophecies skill set - you can literally fill your skill bar with 7 Warrior skills and a res signet and kick total ass.

And KD Warriors are just fun as hell to play