Curse

SparhawkJC · Apr 13, 2006, 03:10 PM // 15:10

PrincessAki do you even pvp? A common thumper build that doesn't use evade/block skill or poison/blind? Hammer Bash, Irresistable Blow, Ferocious Strike, Tiger's Fury, Heal Sig, Comfort Animal, Charm Animal, Res Sig. A couple of the European Guilds use a team full of these to capture HoH so don't even question its viability. Besides what are you going to dodge from a caster? Afraid of being wanded to death?

Crip Shot is still a very good skill. Treacherous Empire and War Machine still have a Crip Shot Blackout ranger in their builds, so um....who are these all these people you're talking about who have dumped Crip Shot? If you're talking about the RA rangers, then that's fine. It's in the full 8v8 where tactics actually count that Crip Shot shines.

Further note, watching PvP doesn't come close to letting you know what PvP is really like. As someone famous once said, "There's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path."

Destruction Exile · Apr 13, 2006, 11:08 PM // 23:08

If you talking about a Hammer head on, a W/R would win due to the higher armor. Reflex skills is kinda worth less when you use Despruting blows.

lzlz · Apr 14, 2006, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparhawkJC

PrincessAki do you even pvp? A common thumper build that doesn't use evade/block skill or poison/blind? Hammer Bash, Irresistable Blow, Ferocious Strike, Tiger's Fury, Heal Sig, Comfort Animal, Charm Animal, Res Sig. A couple of the European Guilds use a team full of these to capture HoH so don't even question its viability. Besides what are you going to dodge from a caster? Afraid of being wanded to death?

Crip Shot is still a very good skill. Treacherous Empire and War Machine still have a Crip Shot Blackout ranger in their builds, so um....who are these all these people you're talking about who have dumped Crip Shot? If you're talking about the RA rangers, then that's fine. It's in the full 8v8 where tactics actually count that Crip Shot shines.

Further note, watching PvP doesn't come close to letting you know what PvP is really like. As someone famous once said, "There's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path."

"Hammer Bash, Irresistable Blow, Ferocious Strike, Tiger's Fury, Heal Sig, Comfort Animal, Charm Animal, Res Sig"

So tell me how you're going to distribute your attributes. You only have two Hammer attack skills (hammer mastery), Healing Signet (tactics), and four skills from Beast Mastery. And what is your pet evolution? I hope your answer is Dire. And your Beast Mastery?

Do you exactly know the tactics and role for a "bunny thumper"? Your build is lack of attack power and interupt skills.

I agree that cripple shot is a good skill but many guilds haven't used it or fully utilized it in their build after it's being nerfed. EvIL used to have two crippling rangers but they didn't even bring a ranger in this new season. I didn't see the R/Me you mentioned in WM. Do you know the player's name and the game he/she played in?

Eaimirth Etaivella · Apr 14, 2006, 01:54 AM // 01:54

I would dump heal sig so one could accomplish a 3 way stat split; and why no brutal strike?

swordfisher · Apr 14, 2006, 02:45 AM // 02:45

I usually run without heal sig, with 9 expertise 14 bm and 12 hammer. In its place goes brutal strike/disrupting strike. The alternate is the tactics thumper, often running charge, possibly shields up (metagame), and gets to bring heal sig. One I can remember is-

Charge!*
Heal Sig
Hammer Bash
Irresistable Blow
Crushing Blow
Distracting Blow
Tigers Fury
rez sig

Hammer at 12, expertise at 7+1+1, BM at 6+3, tactics at 9. That gets 9 seconds out of Charge! and 107 health from Heal Sig. Distracting blow can be subbed out.

By the way, these things do not lack attack power. They can't take down a warrior head to head, but they dish consistent damage to a soft target while offering disruption. Tigers Fury pwns, especially when it's consta-stanced (this build has a 9 second Fury, the one below probably goes for 11).

Point is, don't badmouth the Thumper if you don't want to lose teeth. =)

PrincessAki · Apr 14, 2006, 03:16 AM // 03:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparhawkJC

PrincessAki do you even pvp? A common thumper build that doesn't use evade/block skill or poison/blind? Hammer Bash, Irresistable Blow, Ferocious Strike, Tiger's Fury, Heal Sig, Comfort Animal, Charm Animal, Res Sig. A couple of the European Guilds use a team full of these to capture HoH so don't even question its viability. Besides what are you going to dodge from a caster? Afraid of being wanded to death?

Did I ever say that a Bunny Thumper needs any evade/block/poison/dodge skills? If you have read my posts properly, what I'm saying is that Bunny Thumper isn't as powerful as W/R in PVP simply because it doesn't have any evade/block/poison/dodge skills.

What are the main advantages/characteristics of ranger? Think about it. A Bunny Thumper only utilizes the pet skills without accessing to any other other much more powerful ranger's skills. Comparing to a W/R with pet, and comparing to the crippling+poison+bleeding Bow Ranger, Bunny Thumper is much weaker and less powerful, especially considering a build like yours.

What is that? Healing Signet? Are you kidding me? So are you going to put 12+ on Beast Mastery, 10+ on Tactics, and then...10+ on Hammer Mastery? What kind of build is that?

People love pretending that they are experienced in PVP when they've read those templates in guildwiki and think they will do good. Use your build to play more and then we'll talk.

Thumper is fun to play in PVP, but when you are comparing to W/R or a Bow Ranger (as asked by the first poster), they will certainly have disadvantages.

PrincessAki · Apr 14, 2006, 03:44 AM // 03:44

Comparing the three builds:

W/R (e.g. IWAY Axe Warrior)
- Attack Skill
- Attack Skill
- Elite Attack Skill
- IWAY
- Utility Skill
- Spirit / Sprint (depends)
- Charm Animal
- Rez Signet

Characteristic: High defense (as compared to R/*), High damage/spiking power, High Attack Speed (IWAY), some Self-healing ability (IWAY). Utilize much of the Warrior's advantages with the use of pet.

R/W (e.g. Bunny Thumper)
- Attack Skill
- Attack Skill
- Attack Skill (maybe elite)
- Attack Speed Skill
- Pet Skill
- Pet Skill (maybe elite)
- Charm Animal
- Rez Signet

Characteristic: A lot of interuption (if you use hammer), with pet helping you to attack/interupt, lack of self-healing ability, much lower defense (esp if you use hammer), no self-defending skills (i.e. evade/block), relatively less damage

R/* (Crippling/Interupt/Degen Ranger)
- Degen Skill
- Attack Skill
- Elite Attack Skill
- Interupt Skill
- Attack Skill/Evade/Running Skill
- Evade Skill/Blinding Skill
- Regen/Healing Skill
- Rez Signet

Characteristics: A lot of degen, high damage, a lot of interuption, self-healing ability, self-defending ability, range attack, much more flexible, receive less damage (because of range attack + evade skills)

Sorry, but W/R and Bow Rangers win

Stick with your Healing Signet lol

SparhawkJC · Apr 14, 2006, 09:04 AM // 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by PrincessAki

Show me one single R/W Thumpers build that doesn't have any Evade/Block skills or Blinding/Poison skills, and they can actually fight and survive in PVP/GVG. Then we'll talk.

I'm sorry to say that I can't claim credit for that build. It was a skill list that I remembered off of one of the European Bunny Thumper teams that won Halls over the weekend, so I can't say their att distribution for certain. I was simply quoting it as an example for a Thumper build that didn't use any of your conditions.

WM was using a Cripshot ranger in the first round of the playoffs this weekend. While we're on the topic of the playoffs EvIL was almost knocked out because Te had a good CripShot Blackout ranger who kept the warriors in check and the casters interrupted. If Paladin hadn't been disconnected close to the end of the third match, the win could have easily been in Te's.

One on one, a w/r will rip the face off a thumper. However since PvP is a team sport there are advantages to using a thumper. IWAY requires your whole team to be built around it and has little flexibility concerning party members and skill choices. Thumpers on the other hand can be inserted into a balanced team as a secondary warrior or have a full team build dedicated to utilizing their skills. Another advantage of the thumper is that because of their investment in Beast Mastery their pet is actually a threat. While you can relatively ignore an IWAYer's pet, you have to watch out for the possible pet attacks that the thumper has. Even with pet AI as dumb as it is, having to watch for 2 dangerous attackers on you is a lot harder to avoid that 1 dangerous threat and his sidekick.

This isn't to say that one is inferior to the other, but rather that the two builds have different roles and playstyles. Both are viable but to compare the two would be like comparing apples to oranged.

PrincessAki · Apr 14, 2006, 01:16 PM // 13:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by SparhawkJC

I'm sorry to say that I can't claim credit for that build. It was a skill list that I remembered off of one of the European Bunny Thumper teams that won Halls over the weekend, so I can't say their att distribution for certain. I was simply quoting it as an example for a Thumper build that didn't use any of your conditions.

Have you ever won HA? A Bunny Thumper team won it doesn't mean anything. I can't remember how many times I won with a random and unbalanced team. I know Thumper doesn't use any of those conditions. Did you actually read my posts? I have pointed out why I think Thumper sucks simply because they don't use those more powerful skills like other Rangers.

Quote:

WM was using a Cripshot ranger in the first round of the playoffs this weekend. While we're on the topic of the playoffs EvIL was almost knocked out because Te had a good CripShot Blackout ranger who kept the warriors in check and the casters interrupted. If Paladin hadn't been disconnected close to the end of the third match, the win could have easily been in Te's.

This is one of the most pointless assumptions you can ever made. EvIL has poor teamwork in the matches with Te because they rarely change their playing style and team formation. And most importantly, they have wasted a W/E (Last of Master) to keep capturing the flag tower without really participating in the fight. While on the other hand, Te has an E/Me specifically for capturing flag tower who can also keep using blinding flash and such to assist his team and help shutting down EvIL's warriors. Te has two axe warriors who work very well as a double team in spiking EvIL's monks, mesmers, and elementalists. While EvIL's tactics mainly is to split the warriors into two squads on pressuring from different sides.

It is the most stupid assumptions to say that Te could have won just because they have a ranger with cripple shot. This is a teamwork. Watch the 3 games again. Number the times that the R/Me has used Cripple shot. Can you see that ranger actually uses a lot of poison and blackout to assist his team?

And, thanks for reassuring what I said that W/R and Bow Ranger (uses condition skills) >>> Bunny Thumper

Quote:

One on one, a w/r will rip the face off a thumper. However since PvP is a team sport there are advantages to using a thumper. IWAY requires your whole team to be built around it and has little flexibility concerning party members and skill choices. Thumpers on the other hand can be inserted into a balanced team as a secondary warrior or have a full team build dedicated to utilizing their skills. Another advantage of the thumper is that because of their investment in Beast Mastery their pet is actually a threat. While you can relatively ignore an IWAYer's pet, you have to watch out for the possible pet attacks that the thumper has. Even with pet AI as dumb as it is, having to watch for 2 dangerous attackers on you is a lot harder to avoid that 1 dangerous threat and his sidekick.

Who is going to ask W/R to one-on-one with Bunny Thumper? That is pointless. If Bunny Thumper team is as good as you have argued, then why there isn't one single team using them in the seasonal playoff? And their pet is a "threat"? lol So you mean the pets from IWAY team have a "dumber" AI than the pets of Bunny Thumper? What is the logic behind?

Quote:

This isn't to say that one is inferior to the other, but rather that the two builds have different roles and playstyles. Both are viable but to compare the two would be like comparing apples to oranged.

For sure they have different playing styles. I have pointed it out in my last two posts already. Please read. And I have analyzed very clearly that Bunny Thumper is generally weaker than W/R and Bow Ranger because of all the points I have pointed out in my last posts.

By the way, the Bunny Thumper team you mentioned in HA usually have at least 6 R/W. There are some other variation like VIM R/W + W/R team. They always won HA too. But it's just another special teams like the IWAY, N/E Life Stealing, Me/Mo, Minion Factory...etc. I see it pointless to say a certain build is good if it works as a team. We are comparing the build individually, not a team formation.

Afterall, if you replace the W/* in Te and EvIL with Bunny Thumpers, I'm sure both teams will suck really bad. Bunny Thumper can be hardly utilized in a balanced team like EvIL and Te.

As you have famously quoted "There's a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path", I hope you did really play a Bunny Thumper before and you know how it works.

Don't tell me that you did, the build you mentioned in your last post is just hilarious. Don't blame those European Thumper Teams. You should certainly "know/walk the path" before you try to talk to somebody who walks the path as a routine everyday.