Curse

Nexus Icon · Dec 19, 2006, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Sticking to the topic raised by the OP, I honestly believe that Deep Wound has far less of an important role in PvE, therefore making axe less useful than sword.
We've proved that you only want to be applying a deep wound when the target is under 50% health, preferably 33%.
Most PvE warriors are not going to let a deep wound skill sit there until the enemy's health bar is that far down; they're going to fire it off as soon as it becomes available, at which point it's being under-utilised.
Also, I'd wager that the majority of axe warriors would rather take Eviscerate over Dismember any day, and Eviscerate costs 8 adrenaline compared to Dismember's 5.

With a whole group wailing on a target, when it's down to 50% or 33% health, chances are it's going to be dead before you've got your deep wound spike off anyway. So what do you do with that deep wound spike?
Well the natural reaction is to immediately hit the next target with it, and as the next target is most likely going to have health greater than 50%, you've just wasted your spike.

Chances are, it will have been the only thing charged on your skillbar too, so you'll be left plinking away with normal attacks for several attacks after the deep wound.

My sword build allows me to move from one target to the next, maintaining a constant barrage of +42 damage attacks.
Over time, that just works out more efficient.

So for PvE, I'm sticking to the opinion that sword is more useful than axe.
Besides, with each attack doing +42, averaging at about 70-80 damage per hit on a level 24 target, that 100 health penalty inflicted by deep wound begins to look less impressive, especially when you consider that it can be removed very easily (although granted, PvE mobs aren't big on condition removal).

Carth` · Dec 19, 2006, 08:25 AM // 08:25

You are right about deep wound not being so useful in PvE, but I'm not so sure about sword being the best PvE weapon. In somewhere like The Deep, I remember seeing people wanting hammer warriors, because you need knockdowns. Axes have attacks like Cyclone Axe, Triple Chop etc. AoE damage is key in PvE. I still say choose the weapon for the situation, not "this weapon is always the best".

LightningHell · Dec 19, 2006, 09:54 AM // 09:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

Deep wound is very valuable. Even dismember deals more dmg than any other non-elite attack skill

Name one skill that says deals +100 dmg for xx seconds target for receives 20% lower healing.

I solo kill many monsters with just dismember>whirling axe>crit chop>whirling.

Deep wound is the entire reason you take a war. If you aren't using then why are you there besides being a tank.

Deep Wounds are indeed very valuable. However, I couldn't care less if my average PuG Warrior was running Sever->Gash or Galrath/Silverwing on Dragon Slash, I just generally think "Hey, is this guy a complete idiot and tanking or does he have two brain cells and is swinging his sword around?"

Meaning, no, I really don't care, but yes, it does speed things up.

EDIT: PvE ONLY. PvP Warriors without Deep Wound are just waiting to be licked.

qvtkc · Dec 19, 2006, 09:58 AM // 09:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexus Icon

Sticking to the topic raised by the OP, I honestly believe that Deep Wound has far less of an important role in PvE, therefore making axe less useful than sword.
We've proved that you only want to be applying a deep wound when the target is under 50% health, preferably 33%.
Most PvE warriors are not going to let a deep wound skill sit there until the enemy's health bar is that far down; they're going to fire it off as soon as it becomes available, at which point it's being under-utilised.

But the primary use for deep wound in PvE (apart from it being a 100 damage hit) is that it reduces healing by 20%. It is desirable, and supposing you can keep it on all the time, it's good to apply it as soon as possible.

Regarding the deep wound discussion, I found this on some site:

Quote:

Once a Deep Wound is applied, the 20% health reduction is not reflected on the target's Health Bar unless the target is suffering from Health Regeneration/Degeneration or suffers from damage after the Deep Wound is applied. This is why certain skill combos seem to do more damage than they should (for example, Eviscerate followed by Executioner's Strike, the Executioner's Strike will visually do the 20% Health reduction from the Deep Wound of Eviscerate as well as Executioner's inherent damage).

In other words, the red bar is bugged, what really is happening is that health is reduced by 20% or 100, whichever is smallest. The visual effect is only useful for fooling human monks.

Nexus Icon · Dec 19, 2006, 10:00 AM // 10:00

Sorry, yeah, should have made it more clear that for sheer DPS that I think sword is the best.
I think the only way to really resolve how deep wound works and how much damage it does is to get 2 people to meet in a guild hall, have one set up as having 500 health and 100 armour and get someone with an axe to experiment with deep wounds applied at different health levels.
That way the target can record their health on a blow by blow basis.
Repeating the test at 600 health then at 900 (using [wiki]signet of stamina[/wiki]) would be useful too.

Edit: qvtkc, your message wan't there when I replied, and I was responding to Carth.
I initially thought that too, but given the tests Carth and I did earlier, a deep wound spike behaves very differently when the target has less than 50% health than when it has 100%.
Like I say, the only way to see what it's REALLY doing is for someone to be on the receiving end and record the results.
The numeric effect of deep wound is immediate, but the graphical representation would appear not to be.

dont feel no pain · Dec 19, 2006, 06:25 PM // 18:25

sword = good kung foo
axe = sumo's

if you get what I mean

A Leprechaun · Dec 19, 2006, 06:39 PM // 18:39

lol not really ^^

~A Leprechaun~

LightningHell · Dec 20, 2006, 09:34 AM // 09:34

Kung Fu can be used with nearly...every weapon I can think of.

Why would axes be associated with sumos?

Reinfire · Dec 20, 2006, 10:09 AM // 10:09

I would more associate hammers with sumos, but thats my humble opinion

qvtkc · Dec 20, 2006, 10:32 AM // 10:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexus Icon

I initially thought that too, but given the tests Carth and I did earlier, a deep wound spike behaves very differently when the target has less than 50% health than when it has 100%.
Like I say, the only way to see what it's REALLY doing is for someone to be on the receiving end and record the results.
The numeric effect of deep wound is immediate, but the graphical representation would appear not to be.

So I did a test. Scrimmage battle in guild hall, with myself as test subject and an axe-wielding friend as test operator.

Test #1: dismember on fully healthy subject #1 with 476 max health. had 381 health after dismember (which hit for 0 damage because of 0 axe mastery). This means that deep wound hit for 95 health which is 20% of 476.

Test #2: Eviscerate/Executioner's Strike on subject #1 below max health.
408 health (86% of max)
Eviscerate hits for 33 damage + dw
280 health (73% of the new max which is 381. 408-33-95=280 so ok)
Exeuctioner's strike hit for 57 damage
223 health left. (59%)

During this test I took screencaps so that I could measure the health bars.

Health bar full size: 193 pixel
Before Eviscerate:165 (85%)
After Eviscerate: 143 (74%)
After Executioner's: 113 (59%)

I also measured the bar in the party window.

Health bar full size: 174 pixel
Before Eviscerate:149 (86%)
After Eviscerate: 128 (74%)
After Executioner's: 101 (58%)

Test #3: same as above, except let subject #1 drop some more before spiking.

This test was scrapped because I missed the screenshot. It can be noted that subject #1 ended up on exactly 1 (one!) health point. At first we thought this had something to do with that you can't die from deep wound alone, but after Eviscerate the full health was 56, and Executioner's Strike did hit for 55, so it was a lucky fluke I guess.

Test #4: same as above, let subject #1 drop just a little more before spike.

323 health (68% of max)
Eviscerate hits for 43 damage + dw
185 health (49% of the new max which is 381. 323-33-95=185 so ok)
Exeuctioner's strike hit for 66 damage
119 health left. (31%)

Health bar full size: 193 pixel
Before Eviscerate: 131 (68%)
After Eviscerate: 94 (49%)
After Executioner's: 60 (31%)

Party window health bar followed the exact same pattern.

Conclusion: The graphical representation does show the actual health, and the actual health does follow the description of deep wound (which is that it removes 20% of max health).

Look at the percentages. In the first version, my health bar dropped from 165 pixels to 113, which is a 31% drop. In the second version, it went from 131 to 60, which is a 54% drop. The second spike looked much much bigger even though it only dealt 16 more damage (3% of a non-deep wounded health bar. after dw application, since the maximum health is less, the health bar is more "mobile"; if it takes an amount of damage, it drops more than it would without a deep wound). So, conclusion: the sudden health drop from a dw spike looks greater the less health the target has. By extension, a spike on a target with less than 50% health should look quite powerful.