Curse

Racthoh · Dec 05, 2005, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Profession: Warrior/X

Name: Efficiently Simple

Type: PvE

Category: Tank/Damage Support

Attributes:
Strength: 10 + 1
Sword: 12 + 1
Tactics: 8 + 1 + 3

Skills Set:
Ressurection Signet (Unlinked)
Flurry (Warrior, Other)
Hundred Blades (Swordsmanship) {Elite}
Watch Yourself (Tactics)
Galrath Slash (Swordsmanship)
Final Thrust (Swordsmanship)
Healing Signet (Tactics)
Dolyak Signet (Strength)

Summary: Simple tank that doesn't require a lot of thinking, and allows you to take down foes while maintaining yourself with little support. Dolyak Signet and Watch Yourself can be maintained almost indefinately providing a combined boost of +54 AL. Even when using Healing Signet to restore lost health, you're still enjoying a +14 AL bonus over normal warriors. Your normal attacks may not hit for a lot of damage, but the +damage bonus from constant Galrath Slashes and Final Thrusts more than makes up for it. In the long run, you will be dealing more damage than a warrior without Flurry. Not to mention that you will gain any bonuses that your sword and shield may gain from stance.

Fighting isn't too complicated, just use Flurry whenever it fills along with Hundred Blades. When Watch Yourself first fills use it right away. Then, when all three of your adrenaline skills are filled, use Galrath Slash then Watch Yourself followed by Final Thrust. You can refill the adrenaline for Final Thrust by the time Watch Yourself fades allowing you to execute the same attack pattern constantly. Doesn't take long to get the hang of it. The only thing that can throw off this pattern is when you need to stop and heal.

Your defense has few counters, therein lies the beauty of it. Rust will hinder Healing Signet, Ignorance is the only way to stop Dolyak Signet. Watch Yourself can be stoped by Soothing Images and Sympathetic Visage. The number of enemies that use these skills are slim which is what makes it so efficient overall.

Notes & Concerns: To maintain Flurry constantly while using Hundred Blades whenever it fills, you are required to use a Zealous upgrade for your sword. This build is best used in more organized group as Dolyak Signet can sometimes be more of a burden than a blessing in a frantic group. You are meant to take the aggro with this build, so when playing in groups with more than 1 warrior you need to identify that you want the lead. In areas such as the Fissure of Woe and the Underworld I would advise taking monk as your secondary to replace Ressurection Signet with Rebirth. In normal areas there will be bosses that can recharge the Ressurection Signet several times as opposed to those two areas.

Typically, I use an Ascalon helm and my gauntlets have the Superior Tactics rune in them. However, I also carry along a Duelist's Helm (the one with +1 Swordsmanship) and another set of gauntlets with a Superior Swordsmanship rune. This way, I can switch my attributes to have a 16 in Swordsmanship against groups with multiple monk enemies. This ups the damage from Final Thrust by about 20 damage if the enemy is below 50% health which can greatly assist in battles that would otherwise drag out and drain your monk's energy.

Credit: Those countless hours in FoW along with the many PUGs that showed me that this build can safely allow for the party to retreat while I play hero.

Akhilleus · Dec 05, 2005, 02:37 PM // 14:37

good damage with a good tanking ability, a great sword build for a more heavily defensive player, as dolyak signet, like you mentioned, kind of limits what you do. unfortunatly if in the middle of its substancial duration you decide you want to switch targets, plan on arriving there some time the next day, cuz dolyak is gunna hold you up.
on the opposite end, against a KD/AS warrior you would be invulnerable (granted they should be killing casters first).
it does lack chasing skills, so i wouldnt use this build on a disorganized team, other than that it seems kosher.
i would suggest changing out the sup tactics for sword though, and go with an increase in damage.

what i mostly like is the mix between tank and damage, which seems like it would work well in pve, though in my experience anti-knockdown on a warrior is pretty usless in pvp unless you're at the CA and maybee tvt arenas.

ToMTeMoR · Dec 05, 2005, 02:38 PM // 14:38

Looks nice, been looking for a good tank. Thank you!

ps. been using your W/N UW Solo build too, it's a little hard not dying (lost 35 plat already lol) but it's very powerful! Thanks for that one too

Yukito Kunisaki · Dec 05, 2005, 04:07 PM // 16:07

The effective cookie cutter... I like it...

Still, if I wanted to tank, I'd have put some form of secondary in there to help me tank AND a ressurection skill. Sure warrior skills are tanky, but no reason not to add a secondary to help it.

8+1+3 Swordsmanship
9+1 Tactics
9+1 Strength
10 Protection Prayers

with a slight modification of stats here:

Riposte
Deadly Riposte
Bonetti's Defense
Gladiator's Defense {E}
Watch Yourself
Dolyak Signet
Protective Spirit
Rebirth

Your sword will do maximum damage and your skills are all double digit stats backing them up for a nice level of synergy. Your idea of stacking buff upon buff is awesome, although adding an enchant on top would definitely help.

Gladiator's Defense {E} + Riposte + Deadly Riposte + Watch Yourself + Dolyak Signet + Protective Spirit = nearly invincible tank...

Stance + 2 skills + Shout + signet + enchantment. I think only a spirit could be added to buff that even further but yeah, you get the idea.

And Rebirth is the PvE king of resurrects, hands down...

Shwitz · Dec 05, 2005, 04:30 PM // 16:30

I'm just wondering Rac, have you considered a slightly different attribute arrangement? It seems that you could get more bang for your buck if you did the following:

10+1 = 11 Strength
11+3 = 14 Swordsmanship
10+1+1 = 12 Tactics

That comes out to 1 extra point in your Swordsmanship attribute with all others staying the same. It would require swapping your superior Tactics for a Superior Swordsmanship, but you'd get a tiny bit more out of your sword attacks and sword skills. Is there a reason you use the 12-10-8 arrangement over an 11-10-10 one?

Racthoh · Dec 05, 2005, 04:49 PM // 16:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shwitz

I'm just wondering Rac, have you considered a slightly different attribute arrangement? It seems that you could get more bang for your buck if you did the following:

10+1 = 11 Strength
11+3 = 14 Swordsmanship
10+1+1 = 12 Tactics

That comes out to 1 extra point in your Swordsmanship attribute with all others staying the same. It would require swapping your superior Tactics for a Superior Swordsmanship, but you'd get a tiny bit more out of your sword attacks and sword skills. Is there a reason you use the 12-10-8 arrangement over an 11-10-10 one?

Short answer, I'm cheap. Long answer is that I need 16 tactics to solo UW, so constantly swapping back and forth between Superior Swordsmanship and Superior Tactics became a hassle. And actually when I did use that, I went 12Strength, 13 Sword, 12 Tactics for an extra +2AL on Dolyak and +1 duration.

I've found that AL > Evasion/Blocking as a warrior, whether it's more effective or less effective, matter of preference I dunno. Just seems like it's easier to take no damage than a chance to take no damage. Don't get me wrong, they're great for farming and being a pure tank. But if a situation goes wrong I feel obligated to make sure I can still take something down. I also have a tendency to stray away from enchantments. Shatter Enchantment I hate the most, as it deals a substantial amount of damage from enemies that use it in the later stages of the game.