Curse

Scaphism · Jun 03, 2005, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Absorption Runes and Knight's armor do not stack, to the best of my knowledge.

I'm definitely a proponent of the Warrior Tank in PVE, but not for PVP. The two things a PVP warrior needs are Damage and Mobility (the third probably being a snare, because mobility often isn't enough). Armor of Earth is a terrific spell, but not for a PVP warrior.

All too often I see people claiming "skill x is the bestest!", but sweeping generalizations like those don't tell the reader anything informative.
Some skills are utter trash, rarely usable in any situation. Ether Lord is an example of a truly worthless skill.
Most skills have some uses, some are very effective in just about any situation, and others are better in very narrow circumstances.

Here's a quick comparison of two popular monk spells:
Healing Hands vs Word of Healing

Both are elite, and both have rabid supporters. At one time Healing Hands was not an elite, and you could pretty much guarantee that anyone invested in healing prayers had healing hands on their skillbar. It became so prevalent that the developers made it an elite skill to try and restrict it's usefulness.

Word of Healing, per point of energy spent, is one of the best heals available in the game. On top of that, it's spammable and it gives you an extra boost when you need it most- the closer your ally is to death, the more it heals.

Situational Comparison:
Solo Monk, traveling in Ascalon.
Assume for the moment his only choice is bringing Healing Hands or Word of Healing. This should be a no brainer. Word of Healing, while powerful, can only heal other allies, it cannot be cast on yourself. Healing Hands, on the other hand, is a great way for 1 person to not just negate the damage being done to them from multiple enemies, but often times they'll be fully healed in the process. This situation is meant to highlight the use of HH, since WOH is useless here.

Situation #2:
GvG battle. Your guild of 8 is matched against another guild of 8. You know there will be large damage spikes being thrown at your teammates, often directed at you.
Which skill is more effective? It's not as cut and dry as before, but as a primary monk you are responsible for everyone's health. Word of Healing will be available far more often than Healing Hands during the course of the fight, allowing you to save multiple people with greater frequency than healing hands.
In addition, when you are fighting a GvG battle, the other team (not AI mobs) will often (usually, I hope) recognize when a character has a powerful enchantment like Healing Hands up. A well prepared guild will either remove the enchantment immediately, or switch targets, and the effect from healing hands is wasted. True, you could probably use it to save yourself sometimes, but it's a relatively simple spell for a human player to counter.

Other counters to healing hands include: Hitting for large spikes of damage and outdoing the benefit healing hands gives, or hitting with non-physical damage. (Healing Hands, while similar to Mark of Protection in it's function, works very differently. With mark of protection, any time to take damage it's reduced to 0, AND you gain X health. With Healing Hands, you still take the damage, but you gain X health every time you are hit with a physical attack. That means if someone hits you for 2 damage and your HH gives +18 health, you will net 16 health each time. With Mark of Protection, you take 0 damage from every attack AND spells, and you are always healed the same amount.)

The point? Word of Healing is generally the more powerful elite.
However, in a limited set of circumstances, Healing Hand will be more useful. (Namely when you can count on a lot people hitting the target with frequent, weak hits. Slower, harder hitting monsters like ettins, giants, etc...will circumvent a lot of the benefit from healing hands).

So let's stop with the "this is the BEST" strat/skill/profession generalizations.

If you are posting builds and you like a particular skill, please include an example of where the skill really shines, and where it fails.

JYX · Jun 04, 2005, 08:01 AM // 08:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by eventhorizen

The Gladiators armour would be good if your heavilly enchanted or plan to unleash a barrage of awsome spells quickly, but if not then REGEN counts more, imo, than capacity.

Dont complain that the armor is bugged, becuase if it was EVERYONE would know by now, and it would have been fixed. Think of the Knights armor as a slightly less protective set of armor, but with a free rune stitched on, meaning more runes you can put on.

Gladiators armour is the armour of choice for flourish builds.

Theres plenty of things wrong with this game that Anet refuses to fix. Also the point is that free rune goes to waste, you get 5 slots to put your runes in, since they do not stack, the chances of you actually getting 5 useful ones are slim. Say for example major sword, minor strength and superior vigor for a typical war/mo, since the other warrior attributes just aren't used. Only in very awesomely rare builds do you really need more than 5 runes. Also its not free, knight's armour is expensive.

Darc.Syde · Jun 04, 2005, 08:18 AM // 08:18

well, this is stupid, why tank with a warrior? you're not going to be focussed unless you run out too far...

Eclair · Jun 04, 2005, 09:42 AM // 09:42

Since the patch, Ensign has confirmed runes of absorption DO stack with knights/platemail.

Hell Marauder · Jun 04, 2005, 10:02 AM // 10:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darc.Syde

well, this is stupid, why tank with a warrior? you're not going to be focussed unless you run out too far...

True, in pvp, the real tanks are not warriors but monks and casters as they're the first targets. Maybe we should start focusing on what skills to use to make a monk a better tank. So, which is a better tank, Mo/E with earth magic, Mo/R or Mo/W with defensive stance?

Minwanabi · Jun 04, 2005, 06:01 PM // 18:01

earth magic makes a better tank. Wards, and armor of earth, as well as supporting heals will keep monks alive. A war should be specced only to do damage, self heals and defensive moves are wastes. By the time you need them, the rest of your party is dead, and you're only delaying the inevitable.

Kazahana · Jun 04, 2005, 07:56 PM // 19:56

protective spirit+healing hands+healing seed so they only take 10%of thier max hp per hit max and every time they get hit they heal for like 48 leave life bond of them and they will over heal every hit DoT can hurt it so can someone removing the enchantments but if noone removes em they cant be hurt

JYX · Jun 04, 2005, 08:10 PM // 20:10

well erm...in that case...

arcane echo/mist form
arcane echo/obsidian flesh

constant 100% protection against melee/spells respectively >.>

Typhoon · Jun 04, 2005, 11:25 PM // 23:25

The best tank in the game, save Monk, is a Ranger.

Greater Conflaguration + Winter + Mantra of Frost maxed + Fur armor = 50% damage absorption, with the other 50% reduced by +45 added elemental armor. Throw in a few evasive stances like Whirling Defense, add a +9 Troll Inguent and you are virtually unkillable.

Minwanabi · Jun 04, 2005, 11:41 PM // 23:41

Quote:

Greater Conflaguration + Winter + Mantra of Frost maxed + Fur armor = 50% damage absorption, with the other 50% reduced by +45 added elemental armor. Throw in a few evasive stances like Whirling Defense, add a +9 Troll Inguent and you are virtually unkillable.

Yeah, but who cares? You've got a ranger sitting there that can't be hurt while your monks and softer targets are being killed. Suddenly, it's you and 2 wamos standing there, your spirits are killed in a second or two, and you drop because you're trying to spend 3 seconds for a self heal. Not only is that going to get interrupted, but the spirits will die, and so will you.

ComMan · Jun 05, 2005, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Why would you play a Warrior without ANY buffs Minawabi? Unless you're one of those guys that charges through hazards and enemy attacks without even spriting, then you should at least have an idea of how useful they can be.

Building your character around surviving is foolish, I agree. However, it's definetly not stupid to buff yourself. If your DPS is slightly higher than someone elses because you can't spare ONE skillslot for self-healing or armor boosting, that's great for you...until you die, and your DPS becomes 0.

On topic: I don't think the gloves will give you the extra elemental defense you want. Like regular attacks, elemental damage is mainly against your body armor.

As people have already said, it's a nice idea, but armor-ignoring spells will still get you just as badly as ever. You're better off using a secondary that can give you some regeneration than one that's just there to buff your armor.

PS, yeah, that ranger tank is just a waste.

Minwanabi · Jun 05, 2005, 12:07 AM // 00:07

No. If I'm playing a warrior in Tombs or GvG with my guild, I will have 8 slots devoted to offense (or if I'm running an enchant on the monks, or a rez, whatever), but NO defense, NO self heals. You don't understand. By the time I'm being targeted by the enemy, that means my monks are dead, my elementalists are dead, my mesmers are dead, and my necros and rangers are probably dead. When we win in Tombs, assuming we're playing a half way decent team, the wars will never, ever take a hit. Period. By the time they do, their self healing or defensive buffs are only delaying the inevitable. You can come up with something, and say, well, what if they attack your wars first??! Then that means my monks are sitting in the back, unmolested, at full energy, dropping heals on the target taking the least damage on my team. Self heals and defensive moves on a DPS character are useless.

ComMan · Jun 05, 2005, 01:55 AM // 01:55

Ah, sorry.

I'm used to Comp. Arena, since I'm not to the HoH yet. When you've got 3 monks out of 8 players it's a little different than having maybe 1.

I thought warriors were not supossed to be a DPS class? Do you not even carry offensive buffs?

Minwanabi · Jun 05, 2005, 04:26 AM // 04:26

A war is always offensive, it can be DPS, or it can be harassment. Either play a hammer knock-lock war, just stick them on a caster and stop them, or play an axe/sword war for DPS, spam the adren skills, and use fear me to harass casters.

wgregory87 · Jun 05, 2005, 07:56 AM // 07:56

YES YOU WILL BE A TANK.. IN THE SENSE OF MOVING EXTREMELY SLOW. Why would anyone want to attack a warrior moving that slowly? Hm, easy solution to win that battle; take out the rest of the handicapped team! But hey, if you say so, go for it and see how effective you still think you are after you realize you're useless.

Aranador · Jun 05, 2005, 10:21 AM // 10:21

A unkillable, slow, low DPS tank is ignorable. Once everyone else on your team is dead, then take all the time you need to interrupt the turtle, get him out of his shell, then lay on the DPS and kill them too.

Your build can only rez once with a signet - at least that is one time useful to the team.

Asrial · Jun 05, 2005, 12:25 PM // 12:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minwanabi

Suddenly, it's you and 2 wamos standing there, your spirits are killed in a second or two, and you drop because you're trying to spend 3 seconds for a self heal. Not only is that going to get interrupted, but the spirits will die, and so will you.

Let's be realistic here.

Weezer_Blue · Jun 05, 2005, 12:42 PM // 12:42

/yawn

if you're going for invincibility, ranger/ele should be your choice. mostly cause half the good dodges are in expertise. i'd say something like

armour of earth
ward against melee
ward against elemenents
escape
whirling defense
dryder's defense
kinetic armour
troll unguent (gotta combat DoT)

or something to that effect... that's just off the top of my head.

Hell Marauder · Jun 05, 2005, 01:48 PM // 13:48

A slow moving, buff-up tank is next to useless as you can't even catch up with your targets. Warriors need to be offensive and damage dealing. In a large pvp duel outcome often decides on 1) how long your monks/casters stay alive, and 2) during that time whether your team can decimate the opponents bad enough to win. But rangers and necro tanks can be important too, as if they stay alive long enough to raise their fallen teammates they just may turn the game around. So armor of earth is useless for warrior but a god send for squishy casters.

rii · Jun 05, 2005, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Why the hell is tanking being discussed? its one of the easiest things to accomplish..... stack muchos enchantmoses on someone with really high armour.... or dodge the hell out of everyone. Whatever happens, after ten seconds the other team gets bored and beats on your monk with 60al.
If your against a really stupid opposition who use all warriors rangers for offense, get life barrier and life bond.... isnt that 100% damage reductionright there>?