Curse

Vermilion · Dec 24, 2006, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Yeah, great guide. This is something I wish I had when I first started.

I've been running the same thing I have been in Pve for a while..updated to NF.
Dblow, flail, evis, executioners, 2 sig of cap, lions might, res sig. Hopefully its obvious why running lions might isn't advisable with 3 other signets on that bar, and how 2 SoCs gimp your effectiveness. Anyway, <3.

Rera · Dec 24, 2006, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesh

Furious Axe is an energy based move, otherwise I'd agree with you. The damage it deals to 1 target may be higher, but if you hit 3+ target it easily wins out on damage, even though it provides less AL ignoring bonus on the skill.

The way I see it, this is what makes an axe worth carrying in PvE, how easily you can wipe out mobs with Cyclone and Triple Chop. A sword can take down a single target faster, but not 3 or more at once like an axe can. This is mostly because Hundred Blades sucks.
Cyclone Axe is also a better way to boost adrenaline for spamming Dismember. Trying to find a foe to fill the conditional bonus from Furious Axe doesn't compare.

Axe is more efficient in lower-level (15~20) areas for the reason you stated. In higher-level areas (24~28), Triple Chop doesn't recharge fast enough and Cyclone Axe doesn't do enough damage to really be worth it. The constant +42 from a DS warrior will outperform an axe warrior by a tremendous margin unless you are absolutely swamped by enemies.

If you were going to run Cyclone Axe on the bar, you would also want to take as many adrenal skills as you could, but aside from Executioner's Strike, there aren't really many solid adrenal axe attacks; Penetrating Chop/Blow are about the best you can do. A Cyclone bar would look something like:

Flail
Triple Chop
Cyclone Axe
Executioner's Strike
Penetrating Chop
Dismember
Distracting Blow/Disrupting Chop/Penetrating Blow
Res

I also don't see why Dismember is something you would want to spam.

gobla · Dec 24, 2006, 10:46 PM // 22:46

Why all the damage skills?

It's not like warriors will be able to outdamage eles, necros or other offensive casters. I do hope I won't need to give hard facts to back this up.

For PvE I would say the following template works far better.

- Adrenaline Building skill
- Attack Skill
- Deep Wound Skill
- Interupt
- Defensive Stance
- Health Boost
- Armor Boost
- Rez

So this could be:

- Enraging Charge/For Great Justice ( no IAS, you want your stance for defense )
- Cyclone Axe/Executioner's Strike
- Eviscirate
- Disrupting Chop
- Soldier's Defense
- Endure Pain
- "Watch Yourself!"
- Sunspear Rebirth Signet

or a personal favorite wich imho is even more effective:

- Mokele Smash/Enraging Charge/For Great Justice
- Devastating Hammer
- Crushing Blow
- Heavy Blow
- Soldier's defense
- Endure Pain
- "Watch Yourself!"
- Sunspear Rebirth Signet

This build can prevent even more damage by causing weakness on enemy melee, and lots of knockdowns. This combined with soldier's defense makes up for the shield loss if you ask me.

If I'm a party leader and want damage I'll take an ele. If I want single target damage I'll take a mesmer or curses necro. If I want healing I'll take a monk or resto rit. If I want support I'll take a paragon or communing rit. If I want a tank I'll take a warrior build for tanking.

Now in PvP I agree, warriors are great at doing damage. Simply because they have constant and high pressure coupled with great spikes, all for hardly any energy.

But in PvE you can count on AoE being highly effective, you can count on monsters attacking and casting through hexes. This makes other classes far more able to deal great damage. In addition to that PvE features enemies of lvl 24 and 28 wich have great amounts of armor. Now eles make up for this reduced damage by hitting 3+ monsters at the same time. Warriors simply don't do that. That doesn't make warriors useless, it just means that warriors should change their skill selection.

And sure, PvE is really easy. You can complete it with the most crappy skill bars. But it goes so much faster if you use good builds. And keeping your backline alive by saving your monk energy since he doesnt have to heal you, giving your whole party an armor boost and interupting enemy key skills gives the rest of your party a far easier time allowing them to spend less time resting after the battle, less time kiting damage and less time dying. All this time you save your allies more then makes up for the damage lost by you going for a more defensive approach.

Rera · Dec 25, 2006, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Warriors don't need defensive skills outside of DoA. Your natural AL is enough damage reduction for monks to keep you up with no effort. Therefore, there's no reason not to go full damage.

It doesn't matter how much damage other classes do in comparison, because warriors still represent an extra 60~100 DPS, and they can do it forever. That kind of damage matters.

Nexus Icon · Dec 25, 2006, 12:08 AM // 00:08

If things die quicker, your monk won't need to be healing you for long...
And Endure Pain makes monks cry.

As for caster classes out-damaging warriors, please, enlighten us with these "hard facts".

Also, anyone who even remotely suggests that a "One size fits all" warrior template should NOT include an IAS is just begging to be ignored.

Akhilleus · Dec 25, 2006, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by gobla

Why all the damage skills?

It's not like warriors will be able to outdamage eles, necros or other offensive casters. I do hope I won't need to give hard facts to back this up.

For PvE I would say the following template works far better.

- Adrenaline Building skill
- Attack Skill
- Deep Wound Skill
- Interupt
- Defensive Stance
- Health Boost
- Armor Boost
- Rez

So this could be:

- Enraging Charge/For Great Justice ( no IAS, you want your stance for defense )
- Cyclone Axe/Executioner's Strike
- Eviscirate
- Disrupting Chop
- Soldier's Defense
- Endure Pain
- "Watch Yourself!"
- Sunspear Rebirth Signet

or a personal favorite wich imho is even more effective:

- Mokele Smash/Enraging Charge/For Great Justice
- Devastating Hammer
- Crushing Blow
- Heavy Blow
- Soldier's defense
- Endure Pain
- "Watch Yourself!"
- Sunspear Rebirth Signet

This build can prevent even more damage by causing weakness on enemy melee, and lots of knockdowns. This combined with soldier's defense makes up for the shield loss if you ask me.

If I'm a party leader and want damage I'll take an ele. If I want single target damage I'll take a mesmer or curses necro. If I want healing I'll take a monk or resto rit. If I want support I'll take a paragon or communing rit. If I want a tank I'll take a warrior build for tanking.

Now in PvP I agree, warriors are great at doing damage. Simply because they have constant and high pressure coupled with great spikes, all for hardly any energy.

But in PvE you can count on AoE being highly effective, you can count on monsters attacking and casting through hexes. This makes other classes far more able to deal great damage. In addition to that PvE features enemies of lvl 24 and 28 wich have great amounts of armor. Now eles make up for this reduced damage by hitting 3+ monsters at the same time. Warriors simply don't do that. That doesn't make warriors useless, it just means that warriors should change their skill selection.

And sure, PvE is really easy. You can complete it with the most crappy skill bars. But it goes so much faster if you use good builds. And keeping your backline alive by saving your monk energy since he doesnt have to heal you, giving your whole party an armor boost and interupting enemy key skills gives the rest of your party a far easier time allowing them to spend less time resting after the battle, less time kiting damage and less time dying. All this time you save your allies more then makes up for the damage lost by you going for a more defensive approach.

it is a F A C T that warriors have the highest DPS in the game...try to dispute this argument, and you will lose very, very badly. the math has been done a thousand times over by people who know what they are talking about.
the fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of considerations; for onstance, a warrior can slash away for pretty much eternity, building adren and spiking with high-damage skills (and MANY warrior hits will do more than a spell from an elementalist...ESPECIALLY if they ahve high strength). eles, while they have hands down the highest AOE dmg, and are more or less tied with necs and rangers for the kings of spiking, do not have something that warriors can benefit from; sustainable damage.
if an ele is spamming skills constantly, indipendant of an outside source of energy regeneration (such as a BiP nec), and even WITH such a case, the elementalist will almsot always eventually run out of energy. there are very, very few exceptions to this.
a warrior, on the other hand, does not suffer form this. both anet, and the GW player base, realize the absolute domination of DPS possessed by warriors, which is why there are a slew of skills dedicated soley to shutting them down...blind, SV, soothing images, etc.

blood necros, will also out-dps an elementalist, because a good blood necro will almost never run out of energy (with the build i run using my main nec [whom ive had for 17 months] i cannot recall once running out of energy. when using curses or death magic, yes, but when using shadow-damage blood spikes and the propper setup, i honestly do not believe my necros bar has ever hit zero for but a moment (in pve or pvp; with, or without e-denial).
necros, however, dont have the AoE power of eles, but do have the advantage of armor-ignoring attacks, making them equally effective against caster and warrior alike.

and the fact that you suggest warriors take along so many defensive skills tells me you ahvent experienced their full effectiveness.
endure pain, for instance, when used propperly, can be quite useful, or watch yourself alone in more enemy-heavy pve areas.
but, there is no reason a warrior should eb taking more than 1 (or 2 AT MOST) defensive skills on their bar in PvE, unless the TEAM BUILD demands otherwise.

gobla · Dec 25, 2006, 10:11 AM // 10:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Akhilleus

it is a F A C T that warriors have the highest DPS in the game...try to dispute this argument, and you will lose very, very badly. the math has been done a thousand times over by people who know what they are talking about.
the fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of considerations; for onstance, a warrior can slash away for pretty much eternity, building adren and spiking with high-damage skills (and MANY warrior hits will do more than a spell from an elementalist...ESPECIALLY if they ahve high strength). eles, while they have hands down the highest AOE dmg, and are more or less tied with necs and rangers for the kings of spiking, do not have something that warriors can benefit from; sustainable damage.
if an ele is spamming skills constantly, indipendant of an outside source of energy regeneration (such as a BiP nec), and even WITH such a case, the elementalist will almsot always eventually run out of energy. there are very, very few exceptions to this.
a warrior, on the other hand, does not suffer form this. both anet, and the GW player base, realize the absolute domination of DPS possessed by warriors, which is why there are a slew of skills dedicated soley to shutting them down...blind, SV, soothing images, etc.

blood necros, will also out-dps an elementalist, because a good blood necro will almost never run out of energy (with the build i run using my main nec [whom ive had for 17 months] i cannot recall once running out of energy. when using curses or death magic, yes, but when using shadow-damage blood spikes and the propper setup, i honestly do not believe my necros bar has ever hit zero for but a moment (in pve or pvp; with, or without e-denial).
necros, however, dont have the AoE power of eles, but do have the advantage of armor-ignoring attacks, making them equally effective against caster and warrior alike.

and the fact that you suggest warriors take along so many defensive skills tells me you ahvent experienced their full effectiveness.
endure pain, for instance, when used propperly, can be quite useful, or watch yourself alone in more enemy-heavy pve areas.
but, there is no reason a warrior should eb taking more than 1 (or 2 AT MOST) defensive skills on their bar in PvE, unless the TEAM BUILD demands otherwise.

I fully acknowledge the damage capabilities of a warrior. I think that for PvE however a warrior should center on defense.

Sure you can depend on your monk to do all the defense. That's what everyone is doing. And to complete PvE this is fine, your party will have a few deaths. Maybe even a wipe now and then. No big deal.

But I found a party with a defensive warrior who knows what he's doing is just far more effective. If a warrior can round up a bunch of mobs, gather them around him without requiring healing from the monk so that the mobs won't switch agro. And after that the mobs get hit by 2 SS, SF spamming and some barrages they'll be blown to very tiny bits. And with your ele hitting 5 mobs at the same time in such a situation he'll do over 150 DPS even with 50% damage reduction when only spamming SF ( 5 mobs, AoE burning on all of them dealing 42 dmg every 3 seconds + 59 damage from SF every 3 seconds. 101 damage per mob, 505 total every 3 secs. 505/3= 168,3333. ) And sure his damage will not be everlasting. But with this kind of damage the fights will end soon enough to regain it.

Now if you take a warrior like you're suggesting then the monk will need to cast a healing spell on him in the first 5 seconds of the fight. The monk gets in the agro range of the mobs and often they will switch targets. half the enemies will be running at your backline. You're flailed so unable to move fast and with the tunnel vision of most warriors you'll only notice anything has happened once you're dead yourself. Monsters start bashing on your casters. Casters will have to kite making them unable to do any damage. Thus reducing party damage overall far more. 1 of them might die if we're fighting a boss or hard mob thus reducing overall party DPS even more and not only for that fight since the caster also has 15% DP now.

It's not just about warriors doing less damage then some other classes. It's about warriors being able to radically increase the damage of their party members with a defensive build.

And a very good warrior can do most of the things a defensive warrior can do with the build you're suggesting. But let's face it, most of the warriors out there simply aren't very good warriors. Their elite is tunnel vision, their spammable skill overextend and their rez "Blame the monk!" ( this is a slight overreaction

. )

But anyway. Most of the warriors playing GW wouldn't do their primary job as a tank very well with a build like you're suggesting. And in addition to that most of the monks aren't extremely good. For a general PvE template like you're suggesting I really say include more defense. The general PvE group simply isn't 'pro'.

Rera · Dec 25, 2006, 01:06 PM // 13:06

I'm not going to give someone sub-par build suggestions just because I don't think they can play it well. Whether or not the majority of the GW population could play an offensive warrior effectively is none of my concern. My aim is to put the best advice out there, and it is the job of the player to learn how to play correctly.

Again, the DPS of other characters is completely irrelevant to the discussion. No matter what kind of damage your other characters can do, a warrior is significant DPS on top of that, and it doesn't cost the warrior anything to do. The defense is entirely unnecessary in any but the most difficult areas, so there's no reason not to take an offensive bar.

The Last Cruzader · Dec 26, 2006, 02:03 AM // 02:03

Very nice guide I went and bought flail and enraging charge ASAP after I read how good they are for PVE

martialis · Dec 26, 2006, 02:41 AM // 02:41

Quote:

But let's face it, most of the warriors out there simply aren't very good warriors. Their elite is tunnel vision, their spammable skill overextend and their rez "Blame the monk!" ( this is a slight overreaction . )

But anyway. Most of the warriors playing GW wouldn't do their primary job as a tank very well with a build like you're suggesting. And in addition to that most of the monks aren't extremely good. For a general PvE template like you're suggesting I really say include more defense. The general PvE group simply isn't 'pro'.

Quote:

The defense is entirely unnecessary in any but the most difficult areas

I think what he's saying is that for some people, every area is extremely difficult. (THK for example) So should you give advice for those people? Your guide is intended for new players, without advice on how to play well beyond choosing good skills. You have to assume that people's abilities improve at the same rate, and this is a PvE guide, so staying alive is important.

The only question is will Dolyak Signet and Healing Hands make a mission easier, or harder?

Thom, thanks for being polite.

I really think that if you look at adrenaline gain for an average sword warrior, you'll agree that Final Thrust does crappy damage and is a bad skill. Doing twice as much damage as Galrath Slash doesn't make up for its cost. Spiking skills are almost always worse than damage skills, regardless of Dragon Slash.

Stormlord Alex · Dec 26, 2006, 02:43 AM // 02:43

No Mending?

Awesome guide... My new warrior is just about to set out, and shall appreciate the wisdom.

Rera · Dec 26, 2006, 04:13 AM // 04:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by martialis

I think what he's saying is that for some people, every area is extremely difficult. (THK for example) So should you give advice for those people? Your guide is intended for new players, without advice on how to play well beyond choosing good skills. You have to assume that people's abilities improve at the same rate, and this is a PvE guide, so staying alive is important.

If you handed me a newbie and told me, "This guy has no idea how to play warrior, give him a build", I would give him the same build as I would use myself. As I said before, I believe it's couterproductive to give bad players bad builds. I prefer to give them good bars and have them learn how to use it. If I say something like, "it's okay to take a bar full of defense if you suck at GW", it would just be handing players a crutch that they might never get off of. As gobla said, you can beat PvE with almost any build, and that becomes a serious problem when most players couldn't tell a good build from a bad one if their lives depended on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by martialis

The only question is will Dolyak Signet and Healing Hands make a mission easier, or harder?

That's definitely the key question, and the answer is, "harder". A defensive build allows you to overextend and overpull more safely, but neither is something you want a warrior doing unless that's how the team build is supposed to work (ie. farming builds, where you want to run around and aggro as much as possible to improve nuking efficiency). As such, I don't see any advantages to running a defensive build over an offensive one, even if you suck at warrior. At least a moron running a DPS build is doing damage. A moron running a defense build is just deadweight.

As I've argued many times in the past, the best defense is usually overwhelming offense. If you want to save your monks energy, the right way to do it is to kill the ****er that's nuking you. Nobody takes damage if the enemies are dead. You can see this in the different kinds of DoA builds. A lot of builds focus too heavily on defense - they bring 3 monks, bonds, Mantra of Frost + ranger spirits, etc. These builds tend to be slow and inefficient because they waste too many skill slots on keeping people alive. The fastest builds tend to be those with the absolute minimum defense they can get away with, opting instead for overwhelming damage capability. If you can spike down an enemy group in the first 5 seconds of an encounter, and they are KD'd for 3 out of those 5 seconds, is there really any point in spending excessive effort to mitigate their damage?

As a final reassurance, take it from someone who has monked a lot: warriors are hard to kill and easy to heal. Your natural armor and a shield are enough damage reduction for all but the most severe damage, and monks have several ways to prevent 'severe damage' from being a problem.

Effigy · Dec 26, 2006, 06:15 AM // 06:15

Sound advice all around. And one more point: beating the hell out of things is more fun than chaining stances. People stuck in the "tank" mentality will never truly realize the power of a warrior.

Nexus Icon · Dec 26, 2006, 08:54 AM // 08:54

The reason I play warrior and enjoy playing warrior is that the most fun and effective way for me to play the class comes down to one simple statement of fact:
"I hit things".

As soon as you stop hitting things, you stop having fun and you stop being as effective as you could be.

So all you mending wammos with defensive stances and gimped damage output, take a chance and dump the survivability skills for a while, and revel in the simple, visceral, primitive fun to be had by hitting things.

Thom Bangalter · Dec 26, 2006, 06:19 PM // 18:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rera

Warriors don't need defensive skills outside of DoA. Your natural AL is enough damage reduction for monks to keep you up with no effort. Therefore, there's no reason not to go full damage.

It doesn't matter how much damage other classes do in comparison, because warriors still represent an extra 60~100 DPS, and they can do it forever. That kind of damage matters.

truth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by martialis

Doing twice as much damage as Galrath Slash doesn't make up for its cost. Spiking skills are almost always worse than damage skills, regardless of Dragon Slash.

Agreed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by martialis

Thom, thanks for being polite.

No one has said anything that was mind blowingly retarded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Globla

Now if you take a warrior like you're suggesting then the monk will need to cast a healing spell on him in the first 5 seconds of the fight. The monk gets in the agro range of the mobs and often they will switch targets. half the enemies will be running at your backline. You're flailed so unable to move fast and with the tunnel vision of most warriors you'll only notice anything has happened once you're dead yourself. Monsters start bashing on your casters. Casters will have to kite making them unable to do any damage. Thus reducing party damage overall far more. 1 of them might die if we're fighting a boss or hard mob thus reducing overall party DPS even more and not only for that fight since the caster also has 15% DP now.

Playing the game this way is only workable in two situations. 1) your team sucks and no one knows how to play, and 2) the mobs are insanely challenging. If doing this in the majority of any of the 3 chapters, there's something significantly wrong with everyone you're playing with. You do touch on something I want to adress, which is flail. While amazingly good against non-moving foes, when you have to deal with any ai designed to run from you it becomes a real pain, which is why you should at the very least swap it out if it's becoming a hindrence during a certain mission.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexus Icon

Also, anyone who even remotely suggests that a "One size fits all" warrior template should NOT include an IAS is just begging to be ignored.

Agreed, although I can think of one bar which is fairly effective in pvp without an IAS, and revolves around perma-rush and prot strike+bull's strike.

Jeff Highwind · Dec 26, 2006, 07:17 PM // 19:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexus Icon

The reason I play warrior and enjoy playing warrior is that the most fun and effective way for me to play the class comes down to one simple statement of fact:
"I hit things".

As soon as you stop hitting things, you stop having fun and you stop being as effective as you could be.

So all you mending wammos with defensive stances and gimped damage output, take a chance and dump the survivability skills for a while, and revel in the simple, visceral, primitive fun to be had by hitting things.

In the 4 missions I diddn't Henchway in Nightfall so far, I've only had one guy yell at me for not being a tank and holding aggro. After he got all the standard "noob" insults across, I calmy explained why I advertised as a "Shock Axe War"

Besides, Wars can't hold the full aggro anymore can they?

Nexus Icon · Dec 26, 2006, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Well, it IS possible...
To "hold aggro", you have to be outside the aggro radius of your teammates, and they have to cast / shoot from just outside of aggro.
This obviously makes things a bit more complicated.
A lot of DoA teams rely on this tactic, and you have to ensure that your casters know how to maintain this before starting for it to be effective.
But as soon as aggro breaks, the enemy will head straight for the monks now.
So in the average pug in the average area, you're best off killing those things that are trying to kill your squishies.
And that means hitting things, and being really good at it.

It's the main reason I'm not enamored of DoA.
There's no way in hell I'm gonna stand around being a damage-soak instead of hitting things.
Talk about yer buzz-kills.

Ajantis · Dec 27, 2006, 10:35 AM // 10:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rera

Devastating -> Crushing -> Heavy -> Fierce is ridiculous damage and includes two knockdowns

Heavy loses all adrenaline so might want to swap the latest 2 around

Rera · Dec 27, 2006, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ajantis

Heavy loses all adrenaline so might want to swap the latest 2 around

Good catch, edited.

Akhilleus · Dec 28, 2006, 04:27 AM // 04:27

Quote:

Now if you take a warrior like you're suggesting then the monk will need to cast a healing spell on him in the first 5 seconds of the fight. The monk gets in the agro range of the mobs and often they will switch targets. half the enemies will be running at your backline. You're flailed so unable to move fast and with the tunnel vision of most warriors you'll only notice anything has happened once you're dead yourself. Monsters start bashing on your casters. Casters will have to kite making them unable to do any damage. Thus reducing party damage overall far more. 1 of them might die if we're fighting a boss or hard mob thus reducing overall party DPS even more and not only for that fight since the caster also has 15% DP now.

this is an indication of the lack of the skill on the part of the theoretical players you've proposed...it has NOTHING to do with the damage output of the warrior.
if your parties' monks are too unskilled to keep up a warrior using an offensive build, they should not be monking (and no, i do not mean frenzy+healing signet).

Quote:

It's not just about warriors doing less damage then some other classes. It's about warriors being able to radically increase the damage of their party members with a defensive build.

or, instead, that same offensive warrior can hold aggro just as efficiently as a warrior with 8 defensive skills on their bar (in 99% of cases), and provide some additional SUBSTANTIAL killing power?

Quote:

And a very good warrior can do most of the things a defensive warrior can do with the build you're suggesting. But let's face it, most of the warriors out there simply aren't very good warriors.

i rest my case.
your argument has nothing to do with the warrior class, it has everything to do with the idiots who manage to screw them up.

Quote:

But anyway. Most of the warriors playing GW wouldn't do their primary job as a tank very well with a build like you're suggesting. And in addition to that most of the monks aren't extremely good. For a general PvE template like you're suggesting I really say include more defense. The general PvE group simply isn't 'pro'.

i half agree and half disagree.
i agree in that most people who play GW dont know what they are doing.
i disagree with you that you should make a template catering to this.

the first step to turning shitty players into good ones, is to let them know what the hell they are doing wrong and subsequently how to do it right.

this is my reasoning in full:

Quote:

If you handed me a newbie and told me, "This guy has no idea how to play warrior, give him a build", I would give him the same build as I would use myself. As I said before, I believe it's couterproductive to give bad players bad builds. I prefer to give them good bars and have them learn how to use it. If I say something like, "it's okay to take a bar full of defense if you suck at GW", it would just be handing players a crutch that they might never get off of. As gobla said, you can beat PvE with almost any build, and that becomes a serious problem when most players couldn't tell a good build from a bad one if their lives depended on it.