Curse

zoozoc · Oct 20, 2006, 02:55 AM // 02:55

I agree with everything Neo is saying except the fact that elemental armor is trash. It does have a very narrow usage, but can still be useful. One such build would be the recent obsidian spike builds. Which even then, it isn't too useful due to obs ignoring armor, but it's still more useful then +physical.

But for the most part elemental armor is trash.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 20, 2006, 04:28 AM // 04:28

you contradict your own statement. The only thing it would help against would be the stone daggers afterspike, which, let's face it, isn't going to save you. However, armor vs air is nice for fc air spike, though it isn't run. Personally, there are only two sets I use, playing elementalist: +health, and +physical.

Neo is right about the warrior losing his zealous or vamp. He's really not trading too much off. Of course, in the grand scheme of things the armor you're wearing doesn't make a huge difference (well, kind of, like physical vs health), unless you're in a split or something. Armor swapping mid match is a really micro-manage type thing that is encumbering. Early match armor swapping is priceless though.

LoyalSoldier · Oct 20, 2006, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Wild throw can become a rather mean skill. The ability to remove stances from range could be a real nice asset.

Thom Bangalter · Oct 20, 2006, 05:19 AM // 05:19

agreed. Makes spiking a dark escape monk slightly more practical, and allows you to interrupt trapper with whirling up.

ogami_ito · Oct 20, 2006, 06:52 AM // 06:52

Amazing how this thread got so off-topic.

Ok...

1. I have never Gvg, never went to HA. Never did AB. I'm not in a guild. I live in China. So I can't get into a guild in my timezone (at least, not until GW comes out in China). Yeah...so say that RA is not reall PvP and therefore I don't know anything.

2. About sins, I was thinking of this build:

1.Expose Def or Siphon Spead (10e hex)
2.Black Spider Strike(5e, against hexed, +30 damage + poison)
3.Shattering (10e, "Must follow an off-hand attack. If it hits, target foe loses one Enchantment. If an Enchantment was removed in this way, you deal +15...63 damage" at 16MD, this will do about +150 against a foe with two enchants
4. Black Lotus Strike (10e, against hexed. adds back energy +30 damage)
5. Twisting Fangs (10e, deep wounds, +40 damage)
6. Death Charge or something that shadowsteps or helps escape
7. something else
8. Res Sig

This is for spiking Dervishes and Monks that use Enchants. Use skills in order, or switch #2 and #4. Will do around +250 damage + poison + bleeding + deep wounds + weapon damage against an opponent with 2 enchants. Note that Shattering removes the enchants before damage is added, so Reversal of Fortune will not heal anything. This seems a lot bigger spike than Evic+exec.

Against a Dervish, (which will definitly have 2 or more enchants), you would take between 50 - 100 damage from Dervish end-of-enchant effects, and be blinded / crippled / weakend or something. So maybe skill #7 should be Plague Touch.

This is what I mean by in NF, A>W spike.

3. About P I'm thinking...
1.Merciless Spear (e)(7a, +40 damage, deep wounds against non-moving target)
2..Depleting Assualt (3a, +40 damage, cause self weakness)
3.Disrupting Through (5e, 1/2 cast, interupts foe with condition)

4.[If P/N, Plague Sending (to remove weakness from self and cover the DW condition)... otherwise...]
[Purifying Finale + Go for the eyes] or [Lyric of Purification + Signet of Aggressoin
Res Sig
2 other skills.

You can chain 3 attacks together that do +80 damage AT RANGE, + DW, + interupt. Seems just as good as Axe warrior combos, while helping out teamates.

A P/N would do combo 1>2>4>3. This covers the DW with weakness.
A P/W would activate an IAS, then go 1>Purifying Finale>3>Go for the Eyes>2. This would require 0 points in motivation and would increase party DPS. (puting points in Motivation will allow moving Prurifying Finale to the front, thereby making this combo faster)
A P/whatever can do combo Lyric of Purification 1>2>Signet of Aggression>3>2

To me, this looks like Spike P>W.

Thom · Oct 20, 2006, 07:48 AM // 07:48

Few notes:
Warrior issue largely comes down to flexiblity. A warrior can spike nearly as well as an assassin with two skills. These same skills translate better to a pressure environment. Warrior utility is diverse and synergizes better. Assassins carry a dual handed weapon which requires two attributes too fully utilize. Warriors require two attributes, but strength can spec lower and has some standard utility skills (sprint, bulls strike). Warrior armor is flexible and includes a shield.

Assassins suffer the disadvantages of both warriors and casters since they are energy based melee relying on enchantments as well as sances. While assassins shine in some very important situations, they are hurt by the overspecialization of the skill set.

Dervishes will have an extremely high critical hit, much like hammers. While average DPS will likely be similar to other weapons, they will hurt kiters and balling teams to a greater degree.

sir lockt · Oct 20, 2006, 07:50 AM // 07:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by ogami_ito

...

I dont follow your approach in proving your point... you are showing us a sin build to take out monks and dervish, and conclude that its better then Warrior, but you need to see it in the greater picture...

First there is a backline...that will heal out the monk...most balanced teams have a draw somewhere... dark escape will limit the damage on monks.

Then there is a midline support...blinds, slows, etc... one miss and the sins combo is gone...

Then there is the offensive line... sins are rather fragile... they would die quickly in a 7vs7 situation...

Warriors have weak points and strong points. To point them out:
-high AL...damage mitigation is extremely important in the long run
-high dps... not only adren spikes, but also high pressure dps
-extreme powerful "support platforms" to illustrate some examples: orders, smite etc... also the paragon will introduce some nice shouts that will improve attacks of the warrior

Of course a war has its weaknesses, but a sin certainly do as well... in general a sin cannot take down a monk 1 on 1 in a fight...if that was the case everybody would have 2 to take out the backline... its a bit more complex then that... you have to deal with a full other team...

Warriors will certainly have their use... and only time will tell how much of them are sacrifised... for me I believe at least one will be present in balanced team always...

ogami_ito · Oct 20, 2006, 08:14 AM // 08:14

OK. Forget about the sin. It seems that Sins are generally looked down on, except in certain situations as used by certain guilds in certain arenas for certain purposes.

What about my comments about the paragon though? That's really the focus of my original post...that paragons and possible Dervishes can DPS and almost spike better than warriors. In the paragon built I described above, it does around +80 - +120 damage, plus interupt, plus deep wounds (and if P/N + weakness), at range, while also providing support benifits.

sir lockt · Oct 20, 2006, 08:49 AM // 08:49

I certainly agree that the paragon will be implemented and replace the warrior to some extend, as it will do with support/monks. I dont have a good overview of his strike potential yet. Still warriors are not around in balanced builds for spikes only...

so to your OP... yes warriors will be used still after NF, but they might lose terrain to other options, since there are many... still I believe it depends mostly on what you want and what you can...

Same discussion can be made on the weapon of a war: hammer is far more devestating then everything else, but his heavy, slow and less flexible... in spike oriented builds this is the way to go... in pressure sword comes in picture... same will count for the paragon... I think the values for paragon lies mostly in his supporting action, but if you can pull out a decent spike support with 2-3 skils..you have a strong versatile profession in your build.

Finally one remark on the sin: the sin is very powerful when played delicately...its not a melee char, its a strange form of caster... if you use it like that, force 1 on 1 situations, ganking possibilities etc its extremely usefull... its manouvrebility is awesome... and for that you see sin used in sec profs often...

latbec · Oct 20, 2006, 12:19 PM // 12:19

Warriors won't be replaced by anything. Some people will stick to the meta of "2 warriors, 2 somethingelse, etc.." while others will try to replace them with the new professions. So you will run into alot of different builds until a little genius find out a lucky broken combo that makes his guild jump the charts, ending eventually with a third of the people copy-and-pasting it. Then after people adapt to this broken thing, they will revert to the traditional "2 warriors, 2 somethingelse, etc.." game. Welcome to GW. Welcome to GvG.

Spura · Oct 20, 2006, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Yep. Also anet is very protective of warrior and monk primaries. Just look at all the skills in strength and divine favor. Ranger primaries' position is protected by expertise.

Symbol · Oct 20, 2006, 07:41 PM // 19:41

Quote:

Prove me wrong. Show me a sin build that does just as well in an adrenospike archtype as a warrior would.

Don't put up strawmen. I'm claiming that warriors do not spike harder than a sin. I didn't claim that sins were a replacement for warriors. As Patccmoi said, they're different. You can't stick a sin in a standard two war build and expect it to work well, but they do have greater capability than people give them credit for. I see three roles mainly.

1) NPC and flagrunner ganking. What everyone uses them for.
2) Off target spiking (with IAS). Since four hit sin spikes are extremely high damage, continually spiking with IAS with something like flourish (or even moebius strike) can be very dangerous-
3) Exerting pressure via spamming quick combos over and over again together with utility that warriors usually can't take. Coward sins are a good example. In NF I also see possibilities with the dervish and paragon skillsets. Sins generally have better attack skills and energy management than dervishes, and they have the regen to take advantage of useful dervish enchantments. Considering something like harrier's haste + harrier's grasp on a sin-punish kiters with constant cripple and extra damage per strike (which adds up very quickly given dagger attack speed + double strikes).

Neo-LD · Oct 20, 2006, 08:42 PM // 20:42

If your argument is that sins simply have different roles than a warrior, then I will make the assertion that those roles are 90% less useful than warrior's roles. Ganking is their specialty and Im not about to deny them that. I cant see the justification for a sin being that he can spike off targets, since off-target spiking is generally less useful than on-target spiking, and I could just get another warrior to spike the off target just as well. As for exerting pressure... pressure and assasin dont belong in the same sentence. Coward sins, Shove sins, pick-an-elite sins, none of them are in the same league as warriors.

All of this is complicated by the fact that sins that try to be better at spiking or pressuring lose many of the tools that make them excellent gankers. So Im really, really not buying this 'sins are as good as warriors just different' argument.

Symbol · Oct 20, 2006, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Proof by assertion is a shitty argument.

Neo-LD · Oct 21, 2006, 02:16 AM // 02:16

Semantics. Prove it wrong, if you can.

Wasteland Squidget · Oct 21, 2006, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patccmoi

Well, goes back to the last thing you said. Good target picking and good timing will make the Assassin able to complete his spikes. From playing in-fight sin so often in GvG, i can say that combat awareness is by far the most important skill to have. And work with your team, for example if an ele keeps trying to BFlash you midcombo (happened a LOT of time) say when you combo and ask Mesmer to Diversion the ele or a Ranger to dshot his BFlash. I know the same can be done to support warrior, but hell it's a team game. If you use an Assassin in combat, make sure you have a team build that can support it. Warriors need their own kind of support, but Assassins need a different type. And if their Ele is sitting your sin because they consider you a bigger threat (and this happens a lot once you scored 2-3 kills) and letting your warriors bash their team, well you're still doing something by just being there. If the ele sits a warrior, he'll catch every spike too just by seeing the skill being used.

You can make these kinds of plays to a degree, but disruption does not come free. If I have my mesmer trying to divert the enemy's Ward against Melee, that's a mesmer I don't have screwing with the enemy monks. If I have a Ranger trying to D-shot Blinding Flash, that's a D-shot I don't get on Heal Party or some other crucial skill. If I have an ele blinding their Ranger so my assassin can get off his combo freely, my ele isn't blinding their warriors or casting Heal Party during that time. In short, I'm focusing my disruption on hating out their non-threatening characters, which leaves their threatening characters free to walk all over my team's face.

Of course, it does depend on the assassin build we're discussing. A Flourish assassin can combo frequently, so he's going to require a lot more attention to consistently get combos off. A Coward assassin is recharge-limited, so he doesn't take as much focus off of your team's other jobs.

But the real question - what's so great about an assassin combo that it merits all this effort to actually get the thing off? Even if you assume that you'll never get blinded or D-shotted assassin combos really aren't that much scarier than warrior combos. I've yet to see anything in an assassin combo that's more of a threat than a Prot Strike hammer warrior. If I'm going to put that much effort into making my combos happen, they'd damn well better pull their weight when compared to warriors. Right now, they simply don't.

This is all ignoring passive defense, which is much harder to beat through disruption. Aegis and wards are both popular in nearly any metagame, and they single-handedly annihilate assassin combos long before the Deep Wound hits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

1) NPC and flagrunner ganking. What everyone uses them for.

Agreed. The movement control of their teleports combined with decent skirmish skills makes them exceptionally good at this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

2) Off target spiking (with IAS). Since four hit sin spikes are extremely high damage, continually spiking with IAS with something like flourish (or even moebius strike) can be very dangerous-

I've said that assassins have their use in off-target spiking and I stand by that. It's really the best place to put them if you must have an assassin at the flagstand - if their disruption isn't on top of things their monks will try to save both spikes at once and almost inevitably end up taking a death. When we've run builds with gank assassins and we have one forced to the stand, off-target spiking is what we'll have him doing every time.

The real question is whether off-target spiking is worth bringing a character for. If that's all the assassin is there to do, you've basically restricted your offense to getting kills exclusively through spike, which is going to give you trouble against teams with effective countermeasures. The assassin is also going in instead of a character who can provide some actual utility to the party - you're sacrificing a lot of defense or disruption in order to bring this guy along, so how is he pulling his weight?

When we've met teams doing spikes on two characters at once, we normally just roll through them because they're lacking in utility. At best they can bring two casters (plus monks and a runner), which is hardly enough to provide sufficent disruption or defense. We either survive their spikes because they're not disrupting us and eventually kill them, or we take a few deaths to spike and break them quickly because they're relying exclusively on monks for defense. Not really a compelling reason to bring a character exclusively for off-target spiking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

3) Exerting pressure via spamming quick combos over and over again together with utility that warriors usually can't take.

Er, what? What utility does an assassin bring to the table that a warrior somehow can't take?

Assuming you're not using Shock, the standard assassin combo is GPS+Horns+Falling+Twisting, which is four skills already used up on your bar. Since you're a low AL target that wants to run around the enemy midline, you'd also better pack some skill that will keep you alive until the monks get there - Dark Escape, Recall, or something similar. Don't forget the res sig either. This leaves you with two skillslots for utility, and you're still missing a lot. You don't have a speedbuff and you don't have any anti-kiting other than your one KD.

So really, the 'utility' you're talking about is two slots, at least one of which needs to be spent on making sure you don't get kited around all game.

Meanwhile, the warrior can still deal effective damage with only two attack skills, which leaves him a hell of a lot of room for utility. He can afford to pack Bull's Strike to punish kiters, D-blow for extra disruption, Healing Signet so he can go off and solo, Shock for KDs, plague touch...you get the idea.

Basically, a warrior can pack a lot more utility than an assassin, and his utility is almost universally better. Healing Signet outclasses Shadow Refuge in every concievable way. D-blow is almost unquestionably better than D-stab because of the casting time. Granted an assassin can dip into his secondary for utility, but what is he really bringing that's better than the warrior alternatives?

Bear in mind, a template can be anywhere from "decent" to "retardedly good" and it still won't see play if there are better options available. For flagstand damage and pressure a properly built Sin isn't terrible, but warriors simply outclass them in almost every respect. You say yourself that assassins are not a replacement for warriors, so what are they? What role does the flagstand assassin fill that another template cannot fill better? I've never seen a convincing argument that such a role even exists.

Patccmoi · Oct 22, 2006, 02:10 AM // 02:10

I think you're limitating your views on what assassins have to bring. I mean, the 'standard' assassin combo of GPS-Horns-Falling-Twisting (or BLS in the case of a Flourish Assassin) is only useful if you plan to do off-target spiking, and then you sacrifice utility for it. A Flourish Assassin for example is pretty low on utility, but then again BLS-Horns is a KD, and Siphon Speed is a cripple-quality hex snare that is 5/1/5 that doubles as a speed buff. For utility, we've got very nice use out of it, constantly snaring warriors with it between combos, it's harder to remove than just using Draw because most of the time it will require monks to remove it. And you can make solid Assassin builds with just 2-3 attack skills bringing more utility (kd/interrupts/degen/etc.).

But i honestly don't understand how you can compare a warrior combo to BLS-Horns-Falling-Twisting with some +damage (i agree that without +damage it's not as impressive. Something like +8 damage will allow you to cross the border of near kill to straight kill, which makes a world of difference in the ability to save the spikes. And don't say 'you can also give the warrior +damage', i know, but there's a difference because all the dual attacks make that +damage much more efficient). This combo, by the time the first damage is taken on target, is done in around 3s (.87 for Horns, .87 for Falling, .87 for TF, but with skills sometimes it's slightly slower than with auto-attacks) and you will sometimes need 1-2 auto-attack to finish target before they have DP, so let's say 4s on average at the start of combat.

With Str of Honor +8 (one of the easiest to include in a build. Lately we use +16 Brutal Weapon, which is insane, but few team builds include it), BLS-Horns-Falling-Twisting at 15 DM-13 CS deals +207 damage ignoring armor, Deep Wound (so 307 ignoring armor), 6 dagger attacks with around 35% crit rate (in Flurry, let's say 4.5 dagger attacks, which is on average over 100), and puts the target at -7 degen, in 4 seconds. A caster dies straight after 4 seconds, a warrior requires 1-2 extra auto-attack sometimes, and if they die once DP makes them as easy to kill as casters. Show me any warrior combo that can deal around 400-450 damage in 4s to nearly ANYTHING, even with Str of Honor on them. That's the big big difference between Assassin combos and Warrior combos : Assassin combos can take out warrior nearly as easily as casters. Warrior combos are close to useless vs other warriors because a large part of the damage comes from their base damage. It also makes the efficiency of the combos more reliant on crits.

The big difference is that if you compare a 450 damage combo to a say 350-400 damage combo (Devastating-Prot Strike-Crushing-Fierce should be close to that with some crits), you can't just say 'it's only 50 more damage'. The difference is that this 50-70 extra damage allows you to cross the straight kill combo border (sometimes before target dies once you will need 1-2 auto attack to finish them, which isn't too bad in Flurry with daggers, but once they have any DP you straight kill. Brutal Weapon allows you to cross the border even if people have no DP as the combo does 355 armor ignoring damage + 4.5 dagger hits in 4s, which with high crit rate very often kill people right away including warriors).

It's not just theory, i played this build in tons of HA and GvG games. I have never played or saw any warrior build that comes close to the killing power of this Assassin mid-combat for single target spiking. And even if they save 2/3 spikes, that's still one kill on your own every 30s. I talked about all the possible support your team brings to insure the spike, but you don't actually need all that, it just helps if you have it. Honestly even against top teams i nearly never got into the kind of trouble you say (constantly interrupted in my combos, etc.) because my main targets are warriors and i have a good sense after many games of when and who to spike to insure my kills. Even when they fail, it's often 15-20E used on monks to heal the target back because monks overheal when a guy is at like 10% health.

Blow Up Doll · Oct 22, 2006, 09:06 AM // 09:06

I agree with Neo-LD here. Warriors and Mesmers are the current metagame. How many top guilds run warriors? -unless it is a gimmick build i would be very had pressed to find one.
As for assn's - they a really good unlike some people here seem to think - many top guilds run them and they are now gaining popularity in tombs... but they are not frontline spike characters for gvg. They have split written all over them.
Warriors are simply too good for people to stop using them.
Some people seemed to think that, with the release of factions, healing rits would takeover from monks...and that has happened...hasn't it? NO
Rit's aren't common in gvg anymore due to shifts in the metagame and thier lack of mobility. The proudest hour of the average rit was fighting vs thumperway. Yes they are nice vs warriors but a balenced team with wars is more diverse than thumpers and can split if having problems.
Out of dervish and paragon i see dervish coming out as a gimmick character and paragon as a support character (but not very common) or run as secondary.
If the two new proffesions become popular it will be through thier roll on secondary proffessions. As primarys, they will be rare in good teams and only run in very specialised rolls. As secondaries they are much more likely to be used...

Thom Bangalter · Oct 22, 2006, 07:50 PM // 19:50

I disagree on your statement about paragons being very specialized characters that will be rarely run. Not running a paragon is going to be like not running an ele with heal party. Unstrippible party wide buffs and gobs of energy to fuel it? Yes plz. As for Dervishes, I have no idea. they are a strange creature. Not a ton of mobility, aoe melee, some conditions....I don't really get them.

Neo-LD · Oct 22, 2006, 08:08 PM // 20:08

Primary paragons look very good, but more because of their shouts/chants/buffs etc than because of anything in spear mastery. Except Wild Throw. Wild Throw is hot.