Curse

Gaidax · Jun 03, 2007, 09:13 PM // 21:13

Greetings, friends...

TLDR Version:

I am currently trying to decide what to be as a main - short said I like DPS'ing stuff in melee and not dying in 3 hits myself...

I got a level 20 newbie paragon and think of going warrior, so need your assistance in making a descision.

What to do? Go warrior/whatever or paragon warrior?

Before you go "lol melee paragon" or any other immature responces - think of:

P/W + Focused Anger + 10 Leadership + GFtE + Warrior strikes and weapons = huge energy and adrenaline recovery = skill spammage = omgwtfbbqDPS from inside 80 AL and shield

So what do you say? Will such P/W succeed or I better go primary warrior before I get to far (and thus possibly waste time) with paragon.

Long Version

I am quite much of a newbie in GW barely having it for like about half a month or so, pretty much clueless to anything with all the experience coming from crawling to Vabbi, observing some games, starting a few characters and heavily reading forums.

After a bit of basic newbie island crawling and trying the following: Dervish, Assasin, Warrior and Paragon, I ended up bringing a Paragon to level 20 and continuing with him. Reason may be that I am fond of durable characters with good survivability and Paragon is obviously a king of survivability (in PvE at least, can not say about PvP, but I suspect they outlive many there as well).

I like inflicting pain on things as well... Paragon has a very nice DPS for my taste with an absolutely amasing neverending IAS echo and a high amount of good spear attacks supported by spear's initial respectable DPS.

But with all that said I feel chucking spears at things is not as enjoyable as getting a bit more "personal" with them by employing a melee abilities.

I like the concept of melee characters but in GW they seem to be quite lacking... Warrior is the best of all melee with great armor and respectable damage (best for me that is, ofc, Dervishes and Sins shine in their ways too), but it seems that a warrior is intentionally (kind of obvious why) made to be energy "starved" and thus unable to unleash really huge chains of damage power due to that - 2 pips of 20 base energy and no effective way to gain it back as well as dependency on the ever depleting adrenalin.

So I thought to myself... I wonder what kind of armored DPS monster would be born if warriors would have some better energy and adrenalin...

And then I got a revelation... Or more correctly: a sudden strike of laziness which led to revelation... sucks to start over when you already got something to 20...

Why not to take paragon primary, who happens to be heavily armored (and thus well suited for the horrors of melee), extremely energy efficient (Leadership + random adrenal Shout spam), with a powerful adrenaline gain skill (Focused Anger), with a permament IAS (Agressive Refrain) and give it warrior's "expensive" melee strikes to create an amasing damage powerhouse of it?

So basically:

Take paragon

Give it 10-12 Leadership
Give it 12 *insert random melee weapon of choice* weapon mastery
Pump all the leftovers in command (make it 9 for max shields)

Rig it with Focused Anger, Agressive Refrain and Go for The Eyes

Add warrior leet damage skills and some utility things like anti-kiting and condition removal or whatever you feel nessesary...

Profit?

2x Adrenaline gain + Go for the eyes (which serves both as raid wide crit buff and energy battery for you) + Warrior strikes and weapons = zomgwtfdps

And all this from behind a near warrior armor...

Will this work for making a good armored DPS beastie? Or better go warrior main there?

Stormlord Alex · Jun 03, 2007, 10:56 PM // 22:56

Warrior main will always be better at melee DPS than a P/W, simply because 16 Weapon Mastery is insane higher base damage, combined with higher critical chance and more damage from attack skills leads to higher damage overall.
If adrenaline's being a problem, [skill]Enraging Charge[/skill] gives a decent amount to start the battle, then an IAS such as Frenzy or Flail will increase attack speed, thus increasing adrenaline gain (and overall damage output, too!)
There's also skills such as To The Limit!, For Great Justice! and Rage of the Ntouka to give adrenaline, and there's the awesomesauce Dragon Slash to keep adrenaline high.

However, if the Paragon sticks to his spears, he'll have the advantage of a much higher base DPS than the warrior. I can't remember the exact numbers, nor can I truly be arsed to pull them up, but an auto-attack spearthrower has significantly higher DPS than an auto-atack axe warrior or swordsman.
I believe if you throw skills into it, the warrior will come out slightly ahead still though - Bull's Strike is a powerful utility KD, and skills such as Executioner's Strike and Standing Slash hit harder than whatever the paragon throws out, however, the Para's strength lies in it's ability to support other fighters, and buff them whilst doing good DPS of their own.

Try taking some offensive stuff, GftE! and Anthem of Flame, for instance, with you, as well as Koss and Melonni, and go tear stuff apart.

Long story short, Warriors > Paras at melee, even despite the potential adrenaline gain from the Paragon side.

Paras > Warriors at range, with the ability to buff the other physicals to Timbuktu.

And EDIT: Warrior's really shouldn't rely on energy to fight, there strongest skills are all Adrenal, most energy-based warrior stuff sucks. So, the energy capabilities of a para over a warrior really is a moot point.

Nekretaal · Jun 04, 2007, 07:47 PM // 19:47

A P/W (using warrior weapsons) does have some advantages. You can get an attack speed buff taht you can keep up for a long time. You can get a "For great justice" that lasts basically forever with a certain paragon elite... basically giving you a supercharged adrenaline Warrior. You can keep an attack speed buff up for a long time.

You dont see P/W as often in pvp.. but you sometimes do as Steady Stance "Fear me" spammers.

Also, the Paragon skill "Awe" is an almost spammable daze that combos great with something like hammer bash.

And P/W's using spears are just great. Watch yourself and "Shields up" combo great with defenive anthem and are themselves better than most all warrior shouts.

Rich_Izy · Jun 04, 2007, 11:52 PM // 23:52

Well...paragons will still be throwing spears at you even if you cripple shot, ice shackle, deep freeze, grasping earth, imagined burden, etc.

As a warrior, your chance to hammer bash/deep-wound or eviscerate/exe. strike or even sever/gash has just been temporarily denied.

But, speed debuffs aren't much threat in PvE....so get the Warrior primary :P

bungusmaximus · Jun 12, 2007, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Heh some dude in TA asked me to help him to test a build. It was 2 spear para's and 2 para/warrior 'fear me' swordsmen. Spamming fear me went well with aggressive refrain and watch yourself, but all the good warrior speed buffs are in strength. The build failed at mobility as people would just kite (we got off a few wins though).