Curse

mf2 · Jan 05, 2010, 04:13 AM // 04:13

I was considering a Warrior/Necro or vise versa, but since I'm new to both professions, I'm not sure which obstacle is harder to overcome: being primary necro and dealing with bad armor, or the energy problem that being primary warrior presents. I came up with a sample build, hopefully it's not TOO Bad:

Attributes: 10 Strength, 11 Swordsmanship, 10 Death Magic (base without any enhancements/runes etc.)

Skills:

Dolyak Signet - Shield Bash - Steelfang Slash - Final Thrust -
Deathly Swarm - Animate Shambling Horror - Soul Feast - Warriors Endurance(E)

The idea basically would be use the signet to boost armor and prevent knockdown, get 8 strikes of adrenaline, use shield bash, once opponent gets knocked down, use steelfang slash which will give me 4 more adrenaline, once i get to 10, finish them off with final thrust. animate horror is to try and help me not get swarmed too bad, soul feast for healing, and warriors endurance to help energy management.

i was thinking of using a different elite, but i'm not sure i want to use a zealous sword to help me with energy, since sundering or vampiric seem like really good options. it's wierd not really using anything from tactics but i dont wanna spread my skill points too thin. i will admit that blood magic and curses also have some attractive skills that seem to complement warrior well, but this seemed like a doable build so i figured i would get some feedback before tinkering with it more.

MisterB · Jan 05, 2010, 04:22 AM // 04:22

The low armor of a primary necromancer represents a larger obstacle for a melee character than the low energy pool and regeneration rate of a primary warrior. A warrior has many adrenaline skills available that consume no energy, and there is always Warrior's Endurance.

No comment on the build presented.

AtomicMew · Jan 05, 2010, 04:54 AM // 04:54

The choice is between warrior and necro, not W/N or N/W. You can always change your secondary later. As far as which is better, it's mostly subjective. Both are strong and have their own roles.

Winterclaw · Jan 05, 2010, 05:36 AM // 05:36

Seeing that you are new to both, learn the primary then start adding in secondary class skills.

Take shield bash, it only works for knockdown when someone uses a melee skill against you, not an autoattack. That means if a mob is wailing on your monk or your minions it's useless. It also takes 20 seconds to reuse. In practice that means you aren't going to do that many knockdowns or get the +ade from steelfang. Yes doylock gives you more armor and prevents knockdown, but you also won't be moving very fast. Final thrust is okay as a combo finisher, however steelfang isn't a combo. It's also going to take you longer to build ade because you don't have an IAS to speed up your auto attacks.

Deathly swarm has a longish cast time that stops you from attacking (gaining ade). Soul feast is energy expensive and requires a corpse (ie the things you use to make minions which don't really belong on a warrior's skill bar to begin with). Most people will also argue that you should have a self heal as a warrior and if you do, it should be Lion's Comfort.

Warrior's endurance is fine, but it's really meant to fuel melee attack skills that need energy.

My thoughts are you are trying to do way too much with this build, especially for someone who is new to warriors. Warriors make poor casters in general and most of the time, there's only a few skills from each secondary that belong on a warrior's bar. My advise is to read the sticky, play around as just a warrior (maybe 1-2 low energy skills from your secondary) and then slowly start playing around with it.

JaeMi · Jan 05, 2010, 09:30 AM // 09:30

Keep in mind that Necros primaries can't put points into Strength.

prey monkie · Jan 05, 2010, 11:07 AM // 11:07

u do not wanna run that build. if u made that build up, stick to pvx dude

rkhanna · Jan 05, 2010, 11:17 AM // 11:17

Everything I have learnt of GW so far suggests that it is best to concentrate on the primary benefit of a particular class, as trying to hybridise is rarely effective. For instance, Necromancers get Soul Reaping as a pro, but low armor and long cast times as a con...so playing a midline or backline role is preferable to standing around in the frontlines & getting beaten up.

Vice versa for the warrior of course.

Yasmine · Jan 05, 2010, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Personally, i'd say you should make a choice first: if you like summoning minions, go necro and forget about running around hitting things with a sword/axe/hammer/scythe and if you prefer to hit foes with sword/axe/hammer/scythe go warrior and forget about making minions. Though if you wish to be able to do both things (not at the same time) imo you should go necro (but let the melee build for later and excusively - or almost - for H&H).

mf2 · Jan 06, 2010, 07:55 AM // 07:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winterclaw

Seeing that you are new to both, learn the primary then start adding in secondary class skills.

Take shield bash, it only works for knockdown when someone uses a melee skill against you, not an autoattack. That means if a mob is wailing on your monk or your minions it's useless. It also takes 20 seconds to reuse. In practice that means you aren't going to do that many knockdowns or get the +ade from steelfang. Yes doylock gives you more armor and prevents knockdown, but you also won't be moving very fast. Final thrust is okay as a combo finisher, however steelfang isn't a combo. It's also going to take you longer to build ade because you don't have an IAS to speed up your auto attacks.

Deathly swarm has a longish cast time that stops you from attacking (gaining ade). Soul feast is energy expensive and requires a corpse (ie the things you use to make minions which don't really belong on a warrior's skill bar to begin with). Most people will also argue that you should have a self heal as a warrior and if you do, it should be Lion's Comfort.

Warrior's endurance is fine, but it's really meant to fuel melee attack skills that need energy.

My thoughts are you are trying to do way too much with this build, especially for someone who is new to warriors. Warriors make poor casters in general and most of the time, there's only a few skills from each secondary that belong on a warrior's bar. My advise is to read the sticky, play around as just a warrior (maybe 1-2 low energy skills from your secondary) and then slowly start playing around with it.

i guess i just focused to much on smacking stuff around and being able to heal myself. either way, good to see people genuinely trying to help as opposed to "do this build or you suck" type of stuff. i guess maybe i'm trying to buck the cookie cutter stuff too much, maybe trying to be too creative lol. thanks to all for the feedback and i'll try to do better at looking at recharge times, etc. more than wow this skill would go good with that and automatically assuming it will be a good idea. one thing that did flag me when i was putting this together, is that it seemed adrenaline expensive. i thought about trying to go with 1000 swords but through my limited experiences as a ranger, i'm not a huge fan of skills that are contingent upon the 'adjacent' factor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by prey monkie

u do not wanna run that build. if u made that build up, stick to pvx dude

i hear ya. but u dont learn anything by copying someone else's stuff.

Trader of Secrets · Jan 06, 2010, 08:55 AM // 08:55

True that you dont learn anything from just copying right off of pvx, but pvx gives you a good idea of what direction to go at, then you can start tweaking on your own. There is no shame following the crowd and using builds directly off of pvx, but some builds are highly efficient.

Back to the top, your build seems to branch to melee and caster roles, which is completely seperate from each other, and the point of your build is lengthy and inefficient way for damage output. Hi damage output with a sword war can be accomplished with just 2 skill spam, dslash and FGJ.

If you're trying to be creative, think of skills that have synergy and skills that have a more feasible use. Take final thrust, its not that feasible to quickly build up to 10 adr for each enemy in a group and waste it on what is not really a spike dmg.

Page Down Warhammer · Jan 06, 2010, 09:32 AM // 09:32

If you insist on being a warrior and a caster on the front line my suggestion some helpful spells, Mark of pain (its like 100blades, it costs a little more and takes longer to cast, but can help deal decent aoe damage, and if it and 100B where your only energy skills you would be fine.) Spinal shivers with an icy weapon is a nice choice for when targeting monks, also you might want to look into just some self heals on the necro line. Specifically skills that steal health. Also an IAS is almost a must unless you bring rock candies and essences wherever you go lol

mf2 · Jan 06, 2010, 06:26 PM // 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trader of Secrets

True that you dont learn anything from just copying right off of pvx, but pvx gives you a good idea of what direction to go at, then you can start tweaking on your own. There is no shame following the crowd and using builds directly off of pvx, but some builds are highly efficient.

Back to the top, your build seems to branch to melee and caster roles, which is completely seperate from each other, and the point of your build is lengthy and inefficient way for damage output. Hi damage output with a sword war can be accomplished with just 2 skill spam, dslash and FGJ.

If you're trying to be creative, think of skills that have synergy and skills that have a more feasible use. Take final thrust, its not that feasible to quickly build up to 10 adr for each enemy in a group and waste it on what is not really a spike dmg.

Good point about the spam. If u r using like 4 skills to damage something is wrong. Maybe I just need to keep it simple. What exactly do u mean by synergy? I have for example a ranger that uses kindle arrows to make fire dmg and haas bonus damage, then I use conjure fire to inflict even more damage and spam incindiary arrows. Is that the sort of thing you're referring to?

_Nihilist_ · Jan 06, 2010, 08:56 PM // 20:56

The Kindle + Conjure + Incendiary is a good example of synergy.

For a Warrior, an example of synergy is Warrior's Endurance + Asuran Scan + Power Attack + Protector's Strike : WE allows you to spam Power Attack and Protector's Strike on recharge which pumps out damage while insuring that you have enough energy to use Asuran Scan on each target (which increases the damage you deal even more).

Karate Jesus · Jan 06, 2010, 09:03 PM // 21:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by mf2

i hear ya. but u dont learn anything by copying someone else's stuff.

Actually, yes....you do. That's how a lot of people learn the basics.

By the way, your question should be which primary profession do you want to use more, not whether or not to use a N/W or a W/N. Secondary professions can be changed easily

Div · Jan 06, 2010, 09:27 PM // 21:27

You'd do more damage taking power attack over deathly swarm. With a sword, each power attack hits for ~50 damage. You can power attack twice in the time/energy it takes to use one deathly swarm. Then again you'd do more damage getting rid of death magic altogether, but that would kill the death knight idea

mf2 · Jan 07, 2010, 05:30 PM // 17:30

The death swarm is just in there as a ranged attack really. Basically the idea was to fire that off and then start beating on them when they run up to me. This way they're already somewhat damaged when we get into melee. I downloaded a skill planner thing, guess I'll just tinker with that tonight. I'd like to use a diff elite, but that's the only way I see to reliably regen energy.