Curse

Greedy Gus · Jun 10, 2006, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Blackout = build down?

Byron · Jun 11, 2006, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Blackout would hurt any warrior, but I think swords are the least vulnerable due to their fast attack speed. What is more irritating and effective is blacking out a hammer warrior, and what is most irritating is blacking out a backbreaker hammer warrior. As a warrior, though, I'd rather absorb a blackout than have a monk take it. But I still curse you clever mesmers.

Greedy Gus · Jun 11, 2006, 06:19 PM // 18:19

My point is that your average axe guy can go right into bull's strikes, distracting blows, etc. when a blackout ends. Your hammer guy can get back to spamming around irresistable blow.

But you bring a sword war with 4 adrenaline skills to the fight, who has a back-loaded adrenaline machine, you're asking to get hit with a 7 second blackout and be out of commission for a good 13-18 seconds, at which point you're ripe to be blacked out again.

Ensign · Jun 11, 2006, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Old sword builds were hurt less by Blackout than other templates...however, Dragon Slashers are crippled by Blackout. It breaks up their entire chain of fast adrenal recharging forcing them to recharge the Dragon from 0.

Peace,
-CxE

Red Locust · Jun 12, 2006, 12:42 AM // 00:42

I think not having final thrust (and even charge) on a sword warrior is a mistake. That's practically their best use. DPS is much better with some form of hammer build.

Byron · Jun 12, 2006, 04:19 PM // 16:19

If blackout is going to be a popular counter to dragon slash warriors, then it may be necessary to go with a spammable energy-based attack slot. Protector's strike is an obvious candidate, bull's strike is always amazing (but the cooldown is relatively severe), and even seeking blade with its "cannot be blocked" clause has some appeal at +21 damage and 4s cooldown. Other skills are interesting in that slot - distracting blow, or hamstring (despite its high cost, it is a decent snare, which can be used effectively when you are being continually blacked out)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

DPS is much better with some form of hammer build.

I'm not so sure about that... the dragon slash warrior, I feel, would at least be competitive with a hammer build so far as DPS is concerned.

DieInBasra · Jun 12, 2006, 08:12 PM // 20:12

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(despite its high cost, it is a decent snare, which can be used effectively when you are being continually blacked out)

Not really. 15e and a 15 second recharge isn't really worth a slot. Why not have bulls strike, optimally putting them down for 3 seconds every 8. That's 6 seconds every 16, alot better then maybe crippled for 15 seconds.

Quote:

the dragon slash warrior, I feel, would at least be competitive with a hammer build so far as DPS is concerned.

The question I'd like to ask is how much DPS are you getting out of a charge sword if you have other warriors around? I'm willing to bet it's pretty high, though it's hard to cacluate stuff like that. It lets them frenzy instead of speedbuff vs a kiteing target, or just have a 33% speed buff instead of 25%. It also adds alot of mobility and utility to the character and group. I think this is a better use of an elite slot then Dragon Slash.

Symbol · Jun 12, 2006, 09:03 PM // 21:03

Quote:

I'm not so sure about that... the dragon slash warrior, I feel, would at least be competitive with a hammer build so far as DPS is concerned.

There's no question a dragon slasher sword guy is better than a hammer warrior for dps. What's a common hammer combo nowadays? Devastating - crushing - fierce ? You get +42 damage from the fierce every 9 hammer strikes and some indeterminate amount from Irresistable Blow spam depending on energy which is markedly worse than a dragon slasher.

Greedy Gus · Jun 12, 2006, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

There's no question a dragon slasher sword guy is better than a hammer warrior for dps. What's a common hammer combo nowadays? Devastating - crushing - fierce ? You get +42 damage from the fierce every 9 hammer strikes and some indeterminate amount from Irresistable Blow spam depending on energy which is markedly worse than a dragon slasher.

I'd say it depends on the environment. The hammer pulls a lot of DPS from non-adrenaline attacks, both with the much higher damage of a single regular attack and the addition of irresistable blow; it's not really fair to shrug that off as minor.

If you're dealing with a decent amount of block/evade skills, displacement, etc., your dragon slasher's DPS will drop significantly if he misses with dragon slash, while the hammer guy can keep spamming his irresistable blow with relative ease. Similar problem if you're getting harassed with blinds and/or blurred vision; you miss that dragon slash and you're down for awhile, while the hammer guy shrugs off a missed irresistable blow.

Now hammer wars do seem to get hit harder by decreased attack speed hexes. I'd say they both have pros and cons, and are both nice DPS chars in general. Personally I've gotta go with the hammer war though, who can keep up a nice DPS while still providing shutdown/disruption, over the dragon slash war. Whereas the hammer guy seems to thrive more in difficult situations, the sword build seems to have been created with destroying target dummies in mind.

Red Locust · Jun 13, 2006, 01:09 AM // 01:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

There's no question a dragon slasher sword guy is better than a hammer warrior for dps. What's a common hammer combo nowadays? Devastating - crushing - fierce ? You get +42 damage from the fierce every 9 hammer strikes and some indeterminate amount from Irresistable Blow spam depending on energy which is markedly worse than a dragon slasher.

There's forceful/fierce hammer builds, irresistible blow thumpers, and enraged smash (which looks pretty damn good although I've not gotten much playtime with it). Plus the base DPS of hammers is higher than that of swords, and they crit for a lot more on runners.

edit: and like Gus said, if Dragon Slash goes down (miss or blackout), your DPS goes down the drain.

Symbol · Jun 13, 2006, 01:40 AM // 01:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

I'd say it depends on the environment. The hammer pulls a lot of DPS from non-adrenaline attacks, both with the much higher damage of a single regular attack and the addition of irresistable blow; it's not really fair to shrug that off as minor.

Ok let's actually look at this a bit more carefully. IIRC when under frenzy a sword does a base of 38 dps and a hammer does a base of 44 dps. So to compensate for the lower base damage output you have to squeeze an extra 6 dps out of skills with sword. With dragon - sever - gash, you get exactly that from bleeding.

Consider. Sever - Sun and Moon - Gash - Dragon can be done every 7 attacks and will give you 21 + 34 (average sword hit) + 42 = 97 extra damage, which comes out to +15.5 dps. So you get a total of +21.5 dps, or 59.5 dps.

For devastating + crushing + fierce you get +42 from fierce and +21 for crushing every 9 hammer attacks, so +6 dps. Irresistable blow can be spammed at most every 4 + 1.167 = 5.167 seconds for another +6 dps, but you can't actually do this since that will cost you almost 3 pips of regen, it's not doable even with zealous.

Zealous = .86 E/sec + .33 E/sec = 1.19 E/sec
Frenzy = .625 E/sec

You get a net of .565 E/sec to play with (discounting the cost of crushing). IB every 8.85 seconds adds another 3.6 dps. That's a total of 53.6 dps for the hammer guy.

Of course this is a ridiculously unrealistic calculation for both builds, since it assumes a constant IAS and targets that don't move, but it does show peak output and IMO it's not clear that the hammer guy is going to degrade any more gracefully under less than perfect conditions (see below).

Not a huge victory for the dragon slasher, but it's certainly not "hammers are much better" as one poster claimed.

Quote:

Now hammer wars do seem to get hit harder by decreased attack speed hexes. I'd say they both have pros and cons, and are both nice DPS chars in general. Personally I've gotta go with the hammer war though, who can keep up a nice DPS while still providing shutdown/disruption, over the dragon slash war. Whereas the hammer guy seems to thrive more in difficult situations, the sword build seems to have been created with destroying target dummies in mind.

Well pretty much all warriors will provide "nice" dps so that's not saying much. Anyway I don't think it's as clearcut as that. Hammers don't do as well in the face of kiting (slower attack), and swords now have a tool to get through block/evade (sun and moon) that combined with dragon slash can be used more often than irresistable blow with no cost to energy. Hammers are also have energy issues with irresistable.

Missing your dragon slash hurts, but you can take steps to mitigate that by not using it on a target that you're likely to miss. Meanwhile there's not much you can do about the energy issues and slow attack speed of hammers.

I think dragon slashers have a pretty clear niche as maximum dps + quick spiking. They may not be as valuable as a hammer warrior in the end, but it's certainly debateable, it's not some garbage template that you can't compare to a charge war or something without laughing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

There's forceful/fierce hammer builds, irresistible blow thumpers, and enraged smash (which looks pretty damn good although I've not gotten much playtime with it). Plus the base DPS of hammers is higher than that of swords, and they crit for a lot more on runners.

Well if you'e going to all out dps there's absolutely no comparison to dragon + fgj + galrath + sun and moon/silverwing or something similar. I'm restricting myself to templates with DW, but if you really want that +damage you can go nuts with dragon slash.

Byron · Jun 13, 2006, 04:43 AM // 04:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by DieInBasra

The question I'd like to ask is how much DPS are you getting out of a charge sword if you have other warriors around?

That is an excellent question, as a hammer warrior with consistent KD or an axe warrior with eviscerate makes final thrust a force to be reckoned with. Clearly the dragon slash guy is the better stand-alone damage dealer. However, there is certainly more utility and probably more killing power in a final thrust warrior.

I'm just happy that a sword can at least hold its water in a DPS battle with axe and hammer, now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Symbol

Not a huge victory for the dragon slasher, but it's certainly not "hammers are much better" as one poster claimed.

In a good DPS dragon slash/sword build, there isn't much room for KD (bull's strike, perhaps), and that is really the only reliable warrior defense against kiting. Hammer probably can't put out as much damage in a GvG environment, but it does get some reliable KD, albeit at a slower attack speed. Everything seems pretty well balanced there, so I can't complain.

Red Locust · Jun 13, 2006, 07:44 AM // 07:44

I don't think dragon slash is as good in practice as it is on paper. Probably its biggest strength is that it can spam deep wound, and that's where a lot of the pressure comes from. But if you face the all too common draw conditions or extinguish, a lot of it falls flat and all you're left with is an expensive +42dmg elite. It might work in spikes, but final thrust works better, whereas hammer offers better unconditional DPS.

Dragon Sword also practically forces you into using 4 attack skills, which severely limits the use of utility skills. It's not a bad build, but I think it's fairly limited in what it can do and when it can be successful.

pah01 · Jun 13, 2006, 09:22 AM // 09:22

I kind of agree. Warriors are a significant eneogh threat as it is and since you still may want to run two of them elites like Charge still seem runnable on sword warriors.

I would place abet that Charge would increase your own and your partner warriors DPS more than having an individual increase from dragon slash. This would have to be tested however.

Sam

Dzan · Jun 13, 2006, 06:50 PM // 18:50

Why are people debating whether hammers or swords are better for pressure? While its true that unaided(read: not real world senarios) hammers have the best dps, the only reason to take hammer is knockdowns, and the only really convincing reason to use knockdowns is for adrenal spikes. And if youre good enough to chain Shock/Gale without the target getting a 1/4th second self heal off, you probably don't even need the hammer.

Kabale · Jun 14, 2006, 08:30 AM // 08:30

Quote:

Hammers don't do as well in the face of kiting (slower attack)

I would think the critical hits would make up for the slower attack though...

Thom · Jun 14, 2006, 11:05 AM // 11:05

I have a hard time thinking about Hammer dps without thinking about Enraged/Irresistable cycle. That is an incredibly rough dps combo, regardless of the situation. Kiting from this hammer here is absolutely brutal since you hits will average around 100 damage.

The dps math is a bit complicated because it depends on adren charges of your entire bar, but if you are just looking at in battle DPS it would be difficult to find a more consistant build. Obviously it is a niche build, but sometimes the game calls for harassing DPS. I also like that fact that the build isn't condition dependent, considering the plodding nature of hammer buidls.

JR · Jun 14, 2006, 12:08 PM // 12:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

I have a hard time thinking about Hammer dps without thinking about Enraged/Irresistable cycle. That is an incredibly rough dps combo, regardless of the situation. Kiting from this hammer here is absolutely brutal since you hits will average around 100 damage.

If DPS is all you are after, I would be more tempted to look at Forcefull - Fierce - Irresistible. I've played about with it a fair bit myself and the damage is fairly formiddable, and both Forcefull and Fierce have relatively low adrenaline costs.

As with Enraged/Irresistible it is probably a niche build, as a Hammer Warrior with no KDs or Deep Wound isn't going to be hugely usefull. The damage is definately there though.

holden · Jun 14, 2006, 02:05 PM // 14:05

that's a fine autosig

Symbol · Jun 14, 2006, 04:05 PM // 16:05

I did the math for enraged a while back, IIRC in peak conditions it still couldn't beat the dragon slash + FGJ build.

Now dragon slash is superficially more fragile, but IMO it really isn't.

Enraged smash requires you to have three other adrenal skills on the bar, which you basically can't use if you want to get your full damage output. So while it hurts if you miss dragon, you're constantly going to be losing damage from your enraged if you actually use those three skills with any degree of frequency.