Curse

Livingston · Aug 08, 2006, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Even though I expected it, I am still so sick of getting grief for this.

I have been playing in the guild factions battles a lot lately. I've mostly been using my W/E. After having participated in at least 1000 battles I have made some conclusions.

I've played as many W/E and straight warrior builds that I could find or think up of, and I have found that most warriors are simply not very effective in this type of battle. They do provide for a solid damage dealer that will take a bit to put down, but they are not considered a major threat in this type of battle. Most other professions simply stay at range and kill the squishies first, then turn around and take the warrior down fast. The fact that a warrior can stay up long is of no benefit as a group will be able to take them down fast and since shrine capturing is based on number of people present at the shrine, it wouldn't matter if he were able to stay there for the entire battle, as it takes too long to take down the NPCs once they are up.

In any case, even if you disagree with this, which I'm sure many will and I'll get tons of flames for it or other things in this post. That is not the point. It's simply what I found and thus I decided to go with a build that I do very very well with.

I max out my fire attribute and tactics, then put the rest in strength.

My skills are the following:

Charge
Disciplined Stance
Breath of Fire
Fireball
Meteor
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Meteor Shower
Healing Signet

I wield a +10 energy max dmg fire staff with 20% chance of 1/2 time on recharge and casting.

My effective energy is 32

The reason that I use this build is because I can solo a shrine in under 15 seconds with it.

I use my Glyph of Lesser Energy and then cast Meteor Shower
I follow this with Breath of Fire and a Fireball.
I then drop a meteor. At this point my energy is completely gone. However, so are the NPCs and usually any PC that might be on the shrine at the time, with the exception of a tank, and even then they aren't having a pleasant evening.

If there is anything remaining then I switch out my weapon to the following:

Fire Wand
max dmg
Energy +15
Energy Regen -1

Flame Artifact
Energy + 12
Energy + 15
Energy Regen -1
Health +30

This shuts down my regen but all up I have 64 energy when wielding them. Thus I use this to do whatever other damage I need to do to take down anything that might interfere with my shrine acquisition. Then I switch back to the staff when I am done to restore my regen. By the time I hit the next shrine I want to take, I usually have to wait 3-5 seconds at most before my energy is full again, and that's only if I run into trouble that I couldn't avoid. If not, I'm usually completely full again and can once again wipe the shrine out with a single chain of my fire skills.

Now you may say why don't I just use an elementalist then. Well for one my character isn't an elementalist she's a W/E and I like to play with her. Second elementalists are too squishy. My wife will play with me often using her fire elementalist. Of course she can solo a shrine as well, but if PCs show up she's pretty much screwed, as she’s wasted most of her energy taking down the shrine and has little means of defending herself with AoE spells targeting a spread out group. Also she often gets killed simply running from one shrine to another.

That’s where my warrior comes in. With my armor and Disciplined Stance there are very few occasions that I can be shut down before taking out the shrine defenders (usually by F'ing touchers), and I'm never killed running from one shrine to another. Usually due to the nature of the battle, if I am soloing a shrine and a couple PCs show up to stop me I can switch to my high energy set, slap on Disciplined Stance, continue my barrage until the shrine defenders are dead (only a couple more secs in any case), hit charge and speed away. Usually people won't worry about chasing a single player, especially if its a warrior with a speed boost that they weren't able to do any damage to before speeding off, as it wastes time. Thus I can usually wait 5-10 seconds for them to split, then go right back in and convert the shrine to my side.

Could I solo a shrine with a standard warrior build? Of course, but from my experience it takes 2-3 times as long to do so, and has greater chance for failure due to many of the NPCs at shrines using degen as their primary attack, and by the time they are down a standard warrior will be rather low on health, so if any hostile PCs show up it's gg. With my build the spike is so quick and hits all the NPCs at once, so there isn't any time for them to damage me, especially as they spend most of the time on the ground getting hit by meteors.

I cannot count the number of times that I have single handedly captured 3-4 shrines in a row, completely changing the tide of battle and thus getting the win for my side.

Also, if I am in a situation where I am mostly fighting the other PCs, it's usually in one huge group of chaos. Thus though I am limited to my one attack chain or two if I switch to the higher energy mods, my AoE attacks deal enough damage that I will at least take down 2-3 PCs by the time its done. Then I can recharge while I am running to a shrine that no one is defending, wash, and repeat.

Now I am sure that someone on here is good enough to come up with a build and strategy that will be just as effective using warrior skills, but I imagine there would be few if any that are more effective at capturing shrines than my own.

Also if I am fresh and I run into a warrior, and I take them on one on one, I usually come out the victor unless it’s a warrior monk. I can’t damage a warrior monk enough to take him down so I’ll usually run and they will ignore me, because they see that I am a warrior.

Which is another bonus to this build. When other PCs are around and enemy PCs show up, I’m usually the last one to be targeted. As I am a warrior, they focus on taking the squishies out first. Thus while they are otherwise engaged I’m pumping out AoE fire damage and their corpses are left thinking, “But I thought we took down the elementalist first!?!"

Yet I am stuck listening to every player that thinks they are the god of knowledge, calling me a noob or wanting to kick me from the group because I am using a staff. Thus I am constantly forced to spend part of the time in battle calling out "Hey guys see that shrine that just disappeared from the enemies side?" Pause. "Yeah the one that just went up for our side. That was me. I just took it by myself. And yes I was using my little stick." Otherwise I'm booted off teams or blamed if we lose the match. However, if I vocalize all the shrines I take, then I get massive amounts of invites to form a team after the battle is over, whether we win or lose.

I just wish people wouldn't be so quick to call noob just because I'm using a staff instead of a sword. In most cases it may not be very effective, but this is an exception to the rule.

Livingston

Kern Wolf · Aug 08, 2006, 11:07 PM // 23:07

Bravo.
Keep playing the way you're playing...

Livingston · Aug 08, 2006, 11:18 PM // 23:18

The "..." leads me to believe you were being sarcastic. Am I correct?

If so, please feel free to tell me how I "should" be playing it.

If not then thank you.

Livingston

Arkantos · Aug 08, 2006, 11:46 PM // 23:46

But why...there's no point in a warrior using ele fire spells. Play an ele if you want that.

Livingston · Aug 09, 2006, 12:15 AM // 00:15

-_-

..

mitch herbort · Aug 09, 2006, 01:12 AM // 01:12

In pvp there is no way you can know what your up against so you cant really make a build that works everytime

Trylo · Aug 09, 2006, 01:17 AM // 01:17

after trying this build on my own at least 4 or 5 months ago...

I found...
+ Bonettis Defense
- Victory is Mine (no ele spell will allow a profit in energy...anet likes it that way)
+signets
-meteor shower
+meteor
+aoe 10 energy/15 energy

try using a sin primary with shadow arts and a spike or two

stocker25 · Aug 09, 2006, 03:25 AM // 03:25

when i saw this the first thing i thought was "omg you stupid noob" but after reading everything i have to say it looks pretty sweet. Congrat on the build.

Livingston · Aug 09, 2006, 04:48 AM // 04:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by mitch herbort

In pvp there is no way you can know what your up against so you cant really make a build that works everytime

Have you even played in faction vs faction battles?

Quote:

Originally Posted by stocker25

when i saw this the first thing i thought was "omg you stupid noob" but after reading everything i have to say it looks pretty sweet. Congrat on the build.

Thanks mate.

Livingston

ubermancer · Aug 09, 2006, 05:53 AM // 05:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

But why...there's no point in a warrior using ele fire spells. Play an ele if you want that.

I can think of one, and it isnt in this thread: http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10016625

Livingston · Aug 09, 2006, 07:45 AM // 07:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubermancer

I can think of one, and it isnt in this thread: http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10016625

Is that to say that you don't consider mine to be one?

Livingston

Arkantos · Aug 09, 2006, 03:50 PM // 15:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by ubermancer

I can think of one, and it isnt in this thread: http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...php?t=10016625

I meant to say a skillbar of them

Darkgift Risen · Aug 09, 2006, 04:30 PM // 16:30

With all the cookie cutter builds being used its freaking great to see someone step away from that and come up with a decent build for the situation..great job..hope you won't mind if i start using it lol

Dark

ubermancer · Aug 09, 2006, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Livingston

Is that to say that you don't consider mine to be one?

Livingston

No, I consider your skillbar a joke.

Sciros Darkblade · Aug 09, 2006, 05:59 PM // 17:59

z0MGn00blare! using a staff when you could be carrying a sheeld!

No it's a very solid build, it's tuned very well to the sort of play style that wins in AB, and I'm not surprised that it's so effective. My AB War builds tend to be a lot more suicidal; they work but yeah I am stuck with very little life. I'll probably try a variation of your build sometime, although I would need to acquire the equipment for it ^_^

milias · Aug 09, 2006, 08:05 PM // 20:05

How do you deal with exhaustion using this build? The 15/-1 is a temporary fix at best. Alliance Battles require you to move from shrine to shrine quickly in order to cap as many as you can. With this build, you can cap one, but are pretty much out of energy after that. I think this build would work if you're aiming for stealth, capping unguarded shrines, but probably not so good if there're human players involved.

Jimyd · Aug 09, 2006, 08:11 PM // 20:11

This build is decent but can be stopped 110% in its tracks with this 1 build im using.

Here's the 2 skills i'll give you.

Malaise
Wither.

Luxons hate me very much.

Those 2 skills stacked on 1 target renders any player that is mana intensive pretty useless.

JR · Aug 09, 2006, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimyd

Those 2 skills stacked on 1 target renders any player that is mana intensive pretty useless.

Unless of course they are intelligent enough to carry around a negative energy set, which renders your build entirely useless. In Alliance Battles or RA this may work for you, but against anyone decent you will do nothing but make casters laugh.

As for the W/E build, it's sub-par, end of story.

Kern Wolf · Aug 09, 2006, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Livingston

The "..." leads me to believe you were being sarcastic. Am I correct?

If so, please feel free to tell me how I "should" be playing it.

If not then thank you.

Livingston

Not being sarcastic at all. I've gone through Prophecies and Factions as a W/E, and it's good to read about different methods of playing (gets to be tiring reading about the same 3 skills that wammos keep talking about). Looking through other threads, you dont come across a lot of threads about W/E's, and it's nice to see someone doing something "unorthodox" (again, not being sarcastic), and being succesful with it. Lord knows that you can read thread after thread from the "experts" who'll tell you you're doing it wrong, and will try to flame you to death, but they have no comments when you win..

Kern Wolf · Aug 09, 2006, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arkantos

But why...there's no point in a warrior using ele fire spells. Play an ele if you want that.

Plenty of reasons for a warrior to use fire spells.
Could it be that you can't think of any?