Curse

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 21, 2005, 05:56 AM // 05:56

Disclaimer: This build no longer is extreamly effective due to the change of Flourish to a strength based skill...obviously a ranger doesnt have the kind of raw brute strength it takes to wave a sword in someones face...foolish developers

My Duelist Build:
- I have tested this build all day and I think this is the best set of skills/attributes for this offensive whirlwind of abilitys. But feedback is enouraged.

Attributes:
- Swordsmanship: 12
- Tactics: 9
- Expertise: 10 (9+1)

Skills:
- Pure Strike
- Seeking Blade
- Wild Blow
- Savage Slash
- Flourish
- Sprint
- Throw Dirt
- Healing Signet

Equipment:
- Dragonscale Armor
- Hunters Mask
- Sword and Shield

Why destroy the ranger in such a way?
- Beacuse the result is amazing, you have a decent tank, not one that can stand up to more then 1 Warrior/Monk (not many can), but you can take down 1 and survive usualy with about 1/3 life left. As well as an offensive beast. I have been at half life and the only one in my party alive, taken down 2 full health elementalists, and one was half monk.
- The key to this build is to spam your attack skills and then flourish, and spam again...rinse and repeat as needed to destroy your target, you will barely ever run out of energy.
- Should you encounter a warrior, pop on your stance at half life or so and heal yourself, continue to destroy him.
- If it ever gets to much sprint away and hopefully they waste time chaseing you, or if they dont you can just heal yourself and run back in.
- Dragonscale allows you to shrug off the fire aoes and spells like they were almost nothing
- Often you will find yourself ignored while they go for the big guys or the casters never realizing just how much dmg your throwing out.

Problems:
- This is a high lvl build. Until you have a good amount of points in expertise you cant go more then 2 rounds of flourish. Not to mention Druids Overlook, the only place you can currently learn flourish is in the jungles...have fun getting there.
- Savage slash is your inturrupt, and unfortently when faceing the charas with monk somewhere in their name (that like to run/heal/run/heal when in trouble) have enough time to cast their heal before you catch up and use savage slash. Sprint helps a little, but only every so often and only for about 1 mabey 2 hits.
- Mesmers: watch the energy drains...

EDIT: Switched Disaplined stance to Throw Dirt:
- better defence (90% miss to 75% block)
- more versatile (they dont have to be attacking you to miss)
- faster recharge (45 compared to 60)
- less energy (5 compared to 10)

nicosharp · Mar 21, 2005, 06:36 AM // 06:36

that sounds like a solid build. Ill prolly give it a try

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 21, 2005, 06:40 AM // 06:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by nicosharp

that sounds like a solid build.. however if possibly it may be nice to include 1 adrenaline skill, but im sure you tested it out already.

True it would work if you switched Wild Blow with Final Thrust. But I hate when a person throws on a stance and suddenly your attacks arnt hitting them, I love removing Lightning Reflexes from a ranger once I close distance with them, It changes the fight by a lot. Also the ability to spam skills is lost with adrenaline related skills, I think 4 and flourish is the perfect number, I can usualy hit all four, then hit the 1 or 2 that have refreshed, flourish and hit them all again. although Final Thrust does 64 dmg to a target below 50% health, I think the dmg from spaming comes out to about the same.

EDIT: he edited out his coment on adrenaline, but ill leave this is as an explination for why they are all energy based.

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 21, 2005, 11:31 AM // 11:31

Another possibility would be to add in Charm Animal, but to be honest I feel that would just make it less effective, I think on average you get more dmg from these attacks being constantly clicked then you would with a pet.

nicosharp · Mar 21, 2005, 02:30 PM // 14:30

wow you read it before i edited it, because i found out wild blow makes you lose all adrenaline. That was quick.

Ya I played it last night before the BWE was over, It was pretty solid but any arena with one protection healer and I was done for. Wouldnt be bad in a 8 man tombs team.

arealous · Mar 21, 2005, 09:32 PM // 21:32

I play a ranger/warrior as well, and love it. However, my character focuses more on team damage dealing and not a "duelist" playstyle. I am a heavy damage dealing and spam snares as well. With various energy sword skills combined with flourish and final thrust, you will have yourself a dangerous class.

Rellok · Mar 21, 2005, 09:55 PM // 21:55

I had thought about a R/W build for nearly the same reason. I'm glad to hear it works out well for you. It would have been even more amazing had HB not been made Elite.

If you could count on healing from another source, I would suggest ditching DS and Healing signet. Lightning reflexes is a better stance and it's already in Exp. If you now don't need a stance to simply be offensive, maybe switch tactics to Wilderness survival and take apply poison (which works on swords) and serpents quickness (flourish recharges faster). Or even Troll Ung if you need healing. What about throw dirt if you are duelist? It lost it's elite tag.

Just a few ideas. It would be nice to augment each hit of your damage, since you are using a sword. Either some sort of armor penetration, or damage added to hits (or poison) would help you kick out even more damage. But it really depends on how self sufficient you need to be, you may need the shield, in which case, are you better served by strength or tactics? I'm not a big fan of healing signet though, I tend to use it only in dire emergencies if I am alone, or after combat if I dont have enough other good skills to fill my bar up with. Then again, I haven't used it with a high level in Tactics, I know healing goes up, but usually so does damage you take

Matt

arealous · Mar 21, 2005, 10:03 PM // 22:03

I definately agree Rellok, the reason I don't use stances is because my char is for GvG. However, if I was to take it to arena or something similar, I would definately add some of the expertise based stances, as they shouldn't be ignored. If you time them right and use them well, you can basically tank in PvE as well.

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 21, 2005, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rellok

If you could count on healing from another source, I would suggest ditching DS and Healing signet. Lightning reflexes is a better stance and it's already in Exp.

LR is +33% attack while DS is +24 armor. I call this chara a duelist and thats how I play him...I rush into combat attack the lead warrior, and then when I am down 1/4th, I sprint away. Warriors are so pridictable

So this guy fallows me past my team to where its just me and him, I throw on DS, cast my healing, and chop him into tiny bite sized peices, heal up and rush back in to destroy the 1 or 2 guys left.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rellok

What about throw dirt if you are duelist? It lost it's elite tag.

I tried that as well. And it works well in the place of DS. Both are good option, weather you want them to miss you, or you to block them. I havent figured out witch makes a better defence yet. Needs to be tested more.

Hirum · Mar 21, 2005, 10:18 PM // 22:18

In my opinion, and especially after this particular beta, this is a very good build.

My Ranger/Elementalist was absolutely demolishing everything, so its refreshing to have a Ranger killing warrior chasing me around.

Cudos, Im giving this build a try, looks like it will deliver.

torry · Mar 21, 2005, 10:37 PM // 22:37

After they switched more skills to 5 Energy, Flourish finally took flight eh? Never saw a good build with Flourish, till this one. Congrats! (I was so disappointed when I found out Flourish didnt work on Adr skills some time ago

)

So how fast can you cycle the skills? You probably have 20 DPS from the skills alone...(whistles). (1 per second?)

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 21, 2005, 10:40 PM // 22:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by torry

So how fast can you cycle the skills? You probably have 20 DPS from the skills alone...(whistles). (1 per second?)

about as fast as I can click them, forget my charas exact energy, but im pretty sure it was 25, so 5 (1 refreshes) attacks at 3 and flourish at 5... comes out to 20, then then after flourish and energy regen im back at 25 and free to reapeat until a mesmer realizes what I am doing...

walder · Mar 21, 2005, 10:44 PM // 22:44

I'm a big fan of R/W but this is one of the first really nice anti warrior ones. Heres an anti caster for anyone who would like to see another build:
R/W
Axe 12
Tactics 10
Expertise 10 (+1 hat/+1 rune)

Distracting Blow
Disrupting Chop
Swift Chop
Excecutioner's Strike
Lightning Reflexes
Whirling Defense
Gladiator's Defense-E
Healing Signet

You pretty much just get in any healers face and disrupt them as much as you can, then throw on the stances and continue to disrupt.

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 22, 2005, 08:16 AM // 08:16

I dont know, disruption is good and all, but Ive always played the rogue/assasin type characters that get in your face and deal so much dmg you dont have time to kill them.

torry · Mar 22, 2005, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by walder

I'm a big fan of R/W but this is one of the first really nice anti warrior ones. Heres an anti caster for anyone who would like to see another build:
R/W
Axe 12
Tactics 10
Expertise 10 (+1 hat/+1 rune)

Distracting Blow
Disrupting Chop
Swift Chop
Excecutioner's Strike
Lightning Reflexes
Whirling Defense
Gladiator's Defense-E
Healing Signet

You pretty much just get in any healers face and disrupt them as much as you can, then throw on the stances and continue to disrupt.

GLADIATORS DEFENSE
Gladiators defense is more like an anti warrior skill?
I tried it against some W/Mo's and they, hehehe, died SO FAST when I hit that GDefense skill button! I did like 150 damage to them in no time and they didnt really saw what hit them

. However, GDefense wont work well on casters will it, as they wont hit you?

MONK DEFENSE
Don't see how your build will kill a monk really..or disrupt them? Quite a number of times 1 or 2 Melee would sic on my monk, and he hardly felt their hits. Watch Yourself + Bonettis & Shield stance & Bonettis again = couldn't care less about melee.

In fact, I would say that Mo/x should definitely do some good investment in defense, as they are primary targets. Reducing that massing incoming damage will aid the total hp gain/loss balance of your group.

And a melee character looses interest in 15 seconds if he can only land 1 out of 4 hits.

SKULL CRACK
Seems to me the only thing that will stop a monk is mana drain or heavy interruption.

Your build would be far more dangerous to said monk if you are able to land Skull Crack on him. On other casters, with more than 1 sec cast times, it will be a killer.

This game is AWASH with damage dealing builds. But it doesnt seem to make a difference as the monk healing power is so much greater.

Scaphism · Mar 22, 2005, 09:57 AM // 09:57

I have a quick question about the original Duelist build:
If you use no ranger skills, why are you a ranger at all?
Expertise does what, reduce your attack skills from 5 energy to 3 energy?
Don't you completely refill your energy bar when you use flourish as it is?
What advantage does this build have over a warrior using the same skills and flourish?
You'd get better runes, better armor, and you could add armor penetration from strength to your skills.
We know warrior energy regen is bad, but wouldn't a zealous sword + flourish take care of your energy problems?

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 22, 2005, 11:35 AM // 11:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

I have a quick question about the original Duelist build:
If you use no ranger skills, why are you a ranger at all?
Expertise does what, reduce your attack skills from 5 energy to 3 energy?
Don't you completely refill your energy bar when you use flourish as it is?
What advantage does this build have over a warrior using the same skills and flourish?
You'd get better runes, better armor, and you could add armor penetration from strength to your skills.
Is the energy management on a pure warrior so abysmal that this same strategy wouldn't work?

Expertise makes this build. A warrior has say 20 energy? He can make 3 attacks and then flourish. Now he has 15, 2 attacks, flourish isnt ready yet so he makes a third attack...So here we are, about 4 seconds into the fight...and we are out of gas already.

A ranger with Expertise on the other hand can continue this cycle of attacks endlessly going from 1 target to the next as needed, taking breaks to go into a stance and heal as needed. This build is not the groups main tank, this is not the person to charge around the corner first and take the worst of the dmg spells...this is the guy who most people laugh at saying...What a ranger with a sword? what kinda newb is that...and ignore him as a mere nuisiance, not realizing that hes doing dmg compared to that of the best nukers...its just all focused onto 1 target.

He takes a bit of strategy and knowing when you in over your head and you need to sprint away to heal, but the shear speed in which he goes through skills is really amazing, I mean...I weaken his potential by not being able to click fast enough, lol.

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 23, 2005, 07:38 AM // 07:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rellok

What about throw dirt if you are duelist? It lost it's elite tag.

After checking out the skills I agree with this complety, and I have eddited my oringinal post to have Throw Dirt in place of Disaplined Stance.

Throw dirt lasts just as long if not longer, and helps even if you arnt the one being attacked...90% miss is much better then 75% and it even causes mage missile spells to miss. It also cost 5 energy less, meaning you dont mess up your skill spaming by casting it, and it has a 15 second faster recharge timer.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Scaphism · Mar 23, 2005, 10:39 AM // 10:39

I was just too lazy to do the energy comparions, it's easy to see how much better it is with expertise. Until there is a major change, expertise will continue to be the strongest primary attribute in the game.

I do have one issue with the build: Wild Blow.
If you were using an axe or a hammer, I could understand why you'd want to use Wild Blow; crits with an axe or hammer are really nice.

Here's a chart I whipped up a little while back, values should still be accurate:

Typical damage on top of the line weapons
6-28 Axe
19-35 Hammer
15-22 Sword

Min/Max/Avg damage values on a customized weapon (+20% damage) on a target at 60 armor. At 12 weapon mastery.
...........Min......Max...Average

Axe......7.2.....33.6......20.4
Hammer..22.8...42.....32.4
Sword...18.......26.4.....22.2

Crit Hits
Axe 50.4
Hammer 63
Sword 39.6

Difference between average hit and critical hit:
Axe 30
Hammer 30.6
Sword 17.4

It should be obvious that crit hits are far more valuable on axes and hammers than they are on swords.
Furthermore, you already have a few attacks that avoid defenses: Seeking Blade can't be evaded, Pure Strike can't be evaded or blocked. Why are you so worried about ending stances?

I'd be far happier with Distracting Blow or Hamstring. Using Hamstring on a normal warrior is really costly, but at it's only 6 energy at 9 expertise for you, and 1 energy after flourish. Flourish is also basically guaranteed to work because of the 15s recharge timer, which is normally a detriment. Distracting Blow doesn't add any to your damage, but a second interrupt could really pull this build in more team-oriented direction. As you said before, you're not going to be able to match the damage of a warrior built purely to deal damage. So why try and win the unwinnable? You should be able to disrupt a lot better, a lot more cheaply, and a lot more often than any warrior using the same skills.

And if you don't want another energy skill, chew on this: Using a Wild Blow with a sword gives you roughly +17 damage per use to a caster target. That will actually be less vs a warrior. That's +17 damage every 8 seconds, at the cost of all your adrenaline. That comes out to +2.2 DPS, hardly earthshaking. I'd much rather run Sever Artery, which will add +6 DPS, ignoring armor, and it continues to damage even if your target runs away. If not sever artery, then both Galrath and Final Thrust are better for DPS than Wild Blow. I'm saying Wild Blow is trash on swords, and you already have 2 attacks that bypass defenses anyways. Time to find a good adrenal skill to bring.

I was going to suggest dropping tactics altogether, but you still want a shield. I can assure you there are a ton of good shields out there, my favorite is an armor 10 shield with a tactics requirent of 3 and quick recovery from dazed mod. But my point is that you can get good armor shields at low tactics, so you can afford to pump expertise or another attribute a bit more at the cost of tactics.

If you drop Wild Blow, you'll actually have a fair bit of adrenaline to use.
Consider Riposte and Watch Yourself, they're both extremely cheap to use. Riposte will basically make you unbeatable in 1v1 situations, and Watch Yourself will reduce damage to you and nearby allies by roughly 25%. Fear me is another possibility. Basically I see no reason to throw away the adrenaline you're already gaining it- especially not now, when they've made a lot of skills adrenal recently and they're waiting to be used.

Here's a list of the skills I'd consider subbing in somewhere in the build:
Adrenal Skills:
Galrath Slash
Final Thrust
Sever Artery
Fear Me
Bonetti's Defense
Watch Yourself

Others:
Distracting Blow
Thrill of Victory
Hamstring
Apply Poison
Dryder's Defenses
Healing Spring
Storm Chaser
Troll Unguent
Tiger's Fury

For your attributes, you could easily run
12 Swords
8+1 Expertise
8 Tactics
7+1 Wildnerness Survival or Beastmastery.

8 Wildnerness Survival will give you good access to apply poison and the stances there.
8 Beastmastery should also give you around +8 seconds of increased attack speed at 5 energy or so, with no real drawback. (At least not anywhere near the drawback on frenzy or flurry.) Tiger's Fury should not be ignored on any character with high expertise using weapon attacks. It might take a tiny bit of practice to use it with Flourish, but it shouldn't be a real problem. Simply use Fury before you start attacking (like you should anyways) and the 5 second drawback will be over before your skills have recharged. Viola!

One last note:
You should really consider getting the +Energy armor and just sticking with the drakescale chest. If you're mostly facing warriors the +armor vs fire doesn't help much, but +Energy combined with expertise is pretty much a no-brainer.

Kyraith Mentara · Mar 23, 2005, 11:07 AM // 11:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

I do have one issue with the build: Wild Blow...
...you already have a few attacks that avoid defenses: Seeking Blade can't be evaded, Pure Strike can't be evaded or blocked. Why are you so worried about ending stances?

To be honest Wild Blow is in there purly because out of the 3 energy attacks left (Hamstring, Wild Blow, and Distracting Blow) its the only one that does dmg, flourish turns your 1 inturrupt ability into 2 so im not so worried about distracting blow, and hamstring does nothing in a toe to toe fight. This build was made to do dmg, so i chose skills that do just that, the stance disruption is a bouns that just means the next time it hits im getting a critical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

As you said before, you're not going to be able to match the damage of a warrior built purely to deal damage.

I dont remeber saying this, this character can out damage any warrior build, even one built purly for dmg, because no matter how many adrenaline skills they can throw out they still have to recharge that adrenaline, my energy is a constant flow

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

I was going to suggest dropping tactics altogether, but you still want a shield. I can assure you there are a ton of good shields out there, my favorite is an armor 10 shield with a tactics requirent of 3 and quick recovery from dazed mod. But my point is that you can get good armor shields at low tactics, so you can afford to pump expertise or another attribute a bit more at the cost of tactics.

Interesting idea, I was under the idea that the higher tactics the better you chance to block with shields, if this is not true and you can leave tactics at 3 and still do well with a shield I would deffinatly trade out healing signet for troll ungent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

If you drop Wild Blow, you'll actually have a fair bit of adrenaline to use...
...Basically I see no reason to throw away the adrenaline you're already gaining it- especially not now, when they've made a lot of skills adrenal recently and they're waiting to be used.

I thought about this for a long time, but adrenaline has to be built up. Energy will be constantly in supply as long as i continue to use 4 energy skills, if I switch one of those energy skills with and adrenaline every time I flourish I will gain back less and less energy until I run out. So do I want to waste energy or adrenaline? and since the skill I chose to keep my energy running at full was wild blow the obvoius choice was to forget about adrenaline alltogether (originaly I had Final Thrust where Sprint is)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

You should really consider getting the +Energy armor and just sticking with the drakescale chest. If you're mostly facing warriors the +armor vs fire doesn't help much, but +Energy combined with expertise is pretty much a no-brainer.

+energy will just give me more energy to not use lol. I have noticed that the number 1 killer of melee fighters is when an Elementalist drops a fire AoE right where the 2 sides of fighters collide, when this happens they dont usally bother to move but just stand there and continue to hack away. My Drackscale armor allows me to really not care, because its doing extreamly minor dmg. On top of that this character really doesnt have any one particular target that it exels against. I mean striaght up physical dmg is going to harm anyone its thrown against, the combined ability to do about 2 disrupts right on top of each other every 10 seconds I have found is enough for most casters.

To be honest I dont even time when I use my disrupts half the time because I just want the energy from flourish. Not until I get that person to the point where they have to really have start trying to get off heals if they want to survive. Only then do I take the time to disrupt their efforts, also usally after those 2 fast disrupts I have done enough extra dmg with my other skills where they will start to run/heal/run/heal, which at that point means they are already dead and are just occupying me in the hopes of their allies being able to aid them.