Curse

Katari · May 04, 2006, 11:17 PM // 23:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by glountz

However, by looking your build, I must say that 13 Strenght is a prerequisite to wear the sentinel armor - with a helmet +1 strenght and not +1 Weapon (so you have to build a gimmick build around that value). You have only 7. Hmm, maybe you missed the point of this thread?
Whatever.

...

I you wanted to focus on damage, my point is: don't use sentinel armor! The only reason to use it is for the defense it provides (so I build a rather defensive build who still could kill effectively).
Boost your weapon mastery to 16 (14 is too low), wear Dragons and Battle Rage if you want.
But Battle rage stuck you with attack skills, meaning no flexibility.

That was exactly the idea, and hey, you seem to have missed the point by just as much.

Sentinal's armor requires either a gimmic build, or one that lacks a self-heal, or a build designed for some place besides RA, and really, outside of RA(debatable) and PvE, a warrior shouldn't focus that much on defense. Besides, do you actually find that it is elemental and attack damage that kills your warriors in RA most of the time? I sure don't.

On the topic of strength, unless you are using a rather large amount of strength skills, there is just no reason to boost strength that high. None. Battle Rage, and Bull's Strike might justify a 10-11 str after runes, but that is about it. Bringing a sup str rune to RA is a downright bad idea.

If you really want to weaken your adrenal spike, Swift Chop might be more effective than power attack, since it doesn't require as much of an investment in strength. On that note, I like Exe Strike because it actually helps kill stuff. Having more than two attack skills also helps to kill stuff.

If Rush drains too much adrenaline, then use Sprint.

Yukito Kunisaki · May 04, 2006, 11:32 PM // 23:32

If you're going to use Battle Rage, you're going to need a weapon with no great attack elites...

What's this King Arthur? Yeah, THE SWORD!!!

"I like swords..."

Even in Factions, the sword elite simply doesn't do the raw utility or damage compared to Eviscerate or Devastating Hammer. If I were to make a Sword Elite usable, it'd be:

Disembowel: 8a. If it hits, you deal +40 dmg @ 16 swords and the enemy starts bleeding for 30s. Double the damage if their hp is ABOVE 50%...

At least they could use it with a weapon specific effect... Gash and Final Thrust afterward for the win...

But for now, a sword with Battle Rage can look like this:

Sever Artery, Gash, Galrath Slash, Final Thrust, Battle Rage {E}, IWAY

[hey, there's your IAS with your increased adrenaline input and nasty damage skills, have fun!]

glountz · May 05, 2006, 07:36 AM // 07:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

That was exactly the idea, and hey, you seem to have missed the point by just as much.

Yeah, but the OP wanted to use sentinel armor in this thread, so you're basically stuck with the 13 Strenght if you want to propose a build around this idea or there is no reason to wear Sentinel.

However in serious PvP I wouldn't either wear this armor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beat_Go_Stick

<Snip> less tactics more weapon mastery

Yes but the sentinel's helmet provides you with +1 Strenght. If you use a weapon mastery helmet you're finally wearing only 3 pieces of sentinel's armor on 5, loosing a significant part of sentinel's protection. But it's a choice.

Zui · May 05, 2006, 08:58 AM // 08:58

To answer the OPs question about Mending:

Mending is going to require you to divert points from somthing, on a Warrior that's usualy going to be out of Strength, Tactics, or a weapon mastery. Making your overall damage or support capabilities alittle bit more limited.

Mending also causes your energy to regenerate at 1/2 the rate, with 1 pip you'll gain 1 energy every 3 seconds. So you're screwed on any energy skills, such as sprint(if you're using this over rush), bulls strike, frenzy, only being able to use them at 1/2 the rate of not having mending would allow. If you're using a second enchantment, you're now totaly screwed on energy. You can use a zealous mod if you're just running mending, but what if your target is kiting, especialy under a movement speed buff, or has a block/evade stance or enchant on? Your effect from zealous is recuded, and you're in the same mess with energy.

Essentialy, there are a wide array of enchantment removal skills or skills that revolve enchantments that will severely hurt you, or help your opponent. Monks or Mesmers can run drain enchant, and many mesmers do. Allowing them to get energy, make you waste time/energy, then use the energy they gained to inflict a world of hurt on you or your allies, or heal their own allies. Another, shatter enchantment, nasty stuff. 106 damage at 16 domination magic. Ouch. Strip Enchant is one for necros, they can strip it off you and be healed for 126 points at 16 blood magic. There are others, but for RA theese are fairly common, for TA/HA/GvG you'll see drain enchantment and shatter enchantment more than you'll ever see strip enchantment. The point here is who's a better target than that whammo that has mending up 24/7?

So, now let's talk about the world of good Mending does you, aside from the negative aspects of screwing your energy, wasting your attribute points, and possibly helping your foes.

At 8 healing prayers you get 3 pips of regen from Mending. One pip of health regen is 2 points of health ganed per second. Meaning you gain an entire 6 points of health per second. That's 360 health per minute, at the cost of 20 energy per minute of energy regeneration, and 10 energy, not a horrible trade off? Let's take the monk spell heal other at the same amount of healing prayers(8), for the same energy cost it takes for a minute of mending you can heal someone else for 336 points. Wow, mendnig really is good! Think again.

Healing spells like Heal Other, or any healing for that matter is useful because it is healing on demand, you heal someone when they need healing, not while they're taking no damage, or slowly overtime in combat, not to mention they can be retargeted to anyone except in this case the healer, without having to use additional energy to recast mending and cancel the other one. Slowly overtime is maybe good for miniscule pressure damage, sure. You find alot of that type of damage in PvE, and amazingly mending is good in most areas in PvE.

In PvP you'll see the tencandy lean towards damage compression, not damage over time. Sure there's damage over time, and pressure from that, but that's not all it is, every once in awhile you're going to have a huge burst of damage from that other warrior with his adrenal skills fully charged, or that elementalist that's chaining some nasty air spells. If you're going to take lethal damage in 3 seconds due to damage compression what does mending do? It heals you for a whopping 18 health.

The point is ditch the maintained enchantments, run more support skills, maybe healing signet, maybe more damage skills. The difference you'll make with those will almost always be more than the difference you make with mending(over time, or in a short amount of time). Plus when dropping mending, you usualy are not constrained to being a W/Mo, you can do W/E, and W/N.

If you're really worried about dying due to damage compression or pressure, endure pain is an acceptable skill for PvP, more health for a short burst, and it ending won't drop you below 0(just down to 1 at the lowest). The best thing about it is, it's strength based, and that's better than healing. It'll help your sprint/rush, and your damage. There are other options of course, depends on your playstyle. But even going from w/mo with mendnig to a tiger's fury axe warrior is a huge improvment(but please don't do that).

Hope I got everything in there... Probably missed somthing, but hey it's 5 am... Time to get some sleep.

AtomicMew · May 05, 2006, 02:48 PM // 14:48

I used to play a rage bonder in TA with my guild. It goes like this:

<attack skills>
battle rage
life bond
succor (or b. spirit)
res sig

Notes:
-Bond, succor the monk.
-Enchant removal isn't a problem, since the monk will cover it up with boon.
-B. spirit might be a good alternative to succor nowadays with all the assassins about.
-Your team needs to take hex removal on a non-monk, since CoP is now not an option.

This build is actually fairly common, and with sentinel's, it's even better. However, it's definitely NOT an RA build since it requires a ton of build coordination to work.

Have fun!

holden · May 05, 2006, 07:19 PM // 19:19

[QUOTE=Ruhern]I must say though, that glountz's build does NOT do more damage than my build. Power Attack, Eviscerate, and Frenzy do not meet the damage output of 4 or 5 attack skills with Battle Rage. If you don't believe me, try it out for yourself./QUOTE]

i'm sorry i was thinking more along the lines of you having no way to remove weakness or blind. if you can't hit you can't build adrenaline and you're sunk.

Ruhern · May 06, 2006, 03:17 AM // 03:17

Thanks for all the info Zui. Okay so I've pretty much ditched the Mending thing. I can see where you guys are coming from now, and I tested it out and Healing Sig is much better. Check out my NEW idea though... (still using Sentinel's of course).

Armor
Duelist Helm
Knight's Boots
Sentinel's everything else

Runes
+3 Sword
+3 Strength
+1 Tactics
Superior Absorption
Superior Vigor

Weapon Mod
Zealous

Attributes
Strength 10 + 3 = 13
Swords 12 + 1 + 3 = 16
Tactics 8 + 1 = 9

Skills
Hundred Blades (E) (8 second recharge)
Seeking Blade (4 second recharge)
Sun and Moon Slash (8 adrenaline, attacks twice)
Final Thrust (10 adrenaline)
Sprint
Frenzy
Healing Signet
Ressurection Signet

Seeking Blade can't be blocked, if evaded causes target to bleed and take damage. Sun and Moon Slash, strikes twice, one can't be evaded, the other can't be blocked, also helps gain energy and adrenaline (enough to use Final Thrust right after). Hundred Blades helps with zealous too. What do you think?