Curse

Iskrah · May 05, 2006, 04:20 AM // 04:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by denshuu

Yeah, because Balanced Stance is a staple of any decent warrior build.

If you plan on running the Arena like it's the way to Droknar, I guess it makes sense.

Zui · May 05, 2006, 04:55 AM // 04:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

They are useless against any decent warrior.

21 Second balanced stance, and -5 damage reduction

nullifies andbody who relies on knockdown

Ok, there are so many things wrong with the notion that Warriors should bring Balanced stance into PvP..

First, that's at MAX TACTICS. Are you going for stance tanking in PvP? Seriously, are you planning to use two superior runes? Or just having a weapon mastery that only meets the lowest requirment on your weapon? 15(with LT helm) or 16(with +1 mastery helm) is the best way to raise your DPS. Tactics has some nice support shouts and such, but you can run 16 weapon mastery, 10 str 10 tactics, wow, best of both worlds! You don't need super defense in PvP as a warrior, you're already the hardest target there is.

Secondly, why is the Thumper attacking you? Any compitent player with KD(or any compitent player for that matter) wouldn't go after a Warrior unless there was a very good reason(was pressuring the monk, no other target). Anyway, if this is battle of the noobs why doesn't this warrior just hit Gladiator's Defense and uber pwn the Thumper, infact why is there even a thumper?

Oh and since the Thumper is going to be attacking say your soft targets, how is balanced stance going to aid them in any meaningful way? It won't. It just wastes a skill on your bar, or any bar in PvP for that matter.

nightrunner · May 05, 2006, 05:42 AM // 05:42

I like thumpers, they're pretty much pure DPS. Having a pet is quite nice, it means that even if you're disabled at least your pet is still dealing damage. Having a near-constant IAS as well as spamming a +24 damage Irresistable Blow makes for a lot of damage. Of course, having that DPS means that it doesn't have the adrenaline spike a warrior would have, so it really depends what kind of build you're running.

Kariston The Swift · May 05, 2006, 05:50 AM // 05:50

Good? Yes
Overused? Hell yes

I personally with For Great Justice + D Hammer + Heavy Blow can keep a monk knocked down for....ever? Thats just me though. Although if I'm running a pet they do throw off some very nice DPS hitting anywhere between 30-80 damage on a 60 Armor target.

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Why would you throw pet attacks into a W/R bar? The adrenal attacks would be better because they do not require energy and they have more bonus damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by divineshadows

So why would you not just run a W/R axe with Tiger's Fury and charm animal if you are looking for extra damage from a pet? Or a W/R hammer with frenzy/rush and charm animal? Both of these have better armor and exceed the thumper's damage and the hammer warrior still gets the knockdown. I agree that the damage from a pet is non-trivial, but there are problems with using a pet:

looks like you answered your own question, R/W's can use pet attacks, W/R's not.

BTW: pet attacks are much more spammable then any adrenal attack that does the same. (for example: brutal strike <-> final thrust, or dirsupting lunge <-> disrupting chop)

Quote:

I really do not understand teams that run two melee in team arenas...

Interesting, we always run 2 thumpers and 1 Pblock interrupter, never had problems with anti-warrior (maybe because SS is the ideal skill to block with Pblock). I mean: every build can be countered in extremely much ways, even your perfect balance team.

Anyway: I suggest that you try playing with teams using 2 melee dudes, you'll see that they aren't worse then your builds that can counter everything...

Quote:

When playing against a team with thumpers and you notice that they did not bring comfort animal, then it is reasonable to kill their pets and reduce their damage.

I give you a tip: if you kill the thumpers first, you don't have to worry that they may use comfort animal. I don't see why you want to kill the pets before you kill the thumpers.

BTW: as a monk, I'll heal everybody that does "enough" damage, even pets... (on condition that nobody with less health needs the healing)

Yanman.be · May 05, 2006, 03:09 PM // 15:09

I prefer thumpers without pets..More skills to take: backbreaker, crushing blow, wild blow, irres blow, distracting blow etc...all nice skills...the pet just wastes them... 3 regen and expertise is enough for energy methinks.

suiraCLAW · May 05, 2006, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yanman.be

I prefer thumpers without pets..More skills to take: backbreaker, crushing blow, wild blow, irres blow, distracting blow etc...all nice skills...the pet just wastes them... 3 regen and expertise is enough for energy methinks.

That pet has the same DPS as the thumper if you take call of haste (like I do in most cases), so please explain why you want to get rid of it.

BTW: if you don't like the R/W's pet, go W/R

.

Jornac · May 05, 2006, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zui

Ok, there are so many things wrong with the notion that Warriors should bring Balanced stance into PvP..

First, that's at MAX TACTICS. Are you going for stance tanking in PvP? Seriously, are you planning to use two superior runes? Or just having a weapon mastery that only meets the lowest requirment on your weapon? 15(with LT helm) or 16(with +1 mastery helm) is the best way to raise your DPS. Tactics has some nice support shouts and such, but you can run 16 weapon mastery, 10 str 10 tactics, wow, best of both worlds! You don't need super defense in PvP as a warrior, you're already the hardest target there is.

Secondly, why is the Thumper attacking you? Any compitent player with KD(or any compitent player for that matter) wouldn't go after a Warrior unless there was a very good reason(was pressuring the monk, no other target). Anyway, if this is battle of the noobs why doesn't this warrior just hit Gladiator's Defense and uber pwn the Thumper, infact why is there even a thumper?

Oh and since the Thumper is going to be attacking say your soft targets, how is balanced stance going to aid them in any meaningful way? It won't. It just wastes a skill on your bar, or any bar in PvP for that matter.

http://gwshack.us/fe22a

The thumper was attacking me because i was beating him up while my teammate tied up their monk. He wasn't going to be thumping for much longer if he didn't get rid of me somehow.

Gladiators stance is a waste of an elite skill. Doesn't do anything versus archers or casters. If someone packs wild blow, they will use it then.

Balanced stance ruins assassins damage.
Balanced stance stops horns of the ox
Balanced stance stops Lightning Surge
Balanced stance makes desperation blow a devastating attack
Balanced stance turns on my Crimson Carapace Collectors shield
Balanced stance ruins hammermen
Balanced stance stops crits in general

Its one of the best stances out there. I used balanced stance with drunken blow and desperation blow over the factions weekend. Consistently hitting casters for 110+ twice every 6 seconds. Not to mention a condition. Not to bad.

Cleave and Penblow add to the damage with their low adrenaline costs.

My axe is/was better than yours. I need a 20:20AP then ill be set.

+13% damage always
+30hp
10:10AP (hopefully 20:20 soon).

..

So in short. My warrior is good. Thumpers beware

Divineshadows · May 05, 2006, 09:20 PM // 21:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

Interesting, we always run 2 thumpers and 1 Pblock interrupter, never had problems with anti-warrior (maybe because SS is the ideal skill to block with Pblock). I mean: every build can be countered in extremely much ways, even your perfect balance team.

Power Block? For team arenas? For a 4v4 setting, I find this elite terribly inefficient due to its recharge. What else does this mesmer have on their skill bar? So your mesmer landed a power block on the opposing air ele's enervating charge or lightning orb, now you've bought your two melee time to be free of blind (assuming your monk actually has energy to clean up any residual blindness). However, the air ele is still free to cast heal other on the focused target or use draw conditions to take away deep wound from a focused target and hence save their life. Basically, that power block just forced the air ele to use only their non-air skills in the bar (some pack ward against melee as well) for a little while.

2 thumpers and a Pblock interrupter describes a build that offers exactly no support for your monk (i.e. secondary healing, secondary condition removal, secondary hex removal). You are probably relying on your monk for the only condition removal which means you will have a very difficult time keeping both melee clean. It describes a "monk stomping" build that is likely to win many matches (very quickly) against bad teams, but will only get your monk stomped against good teams. From your description, it also sounds like a build that has no anti-melee making those fragile rangers very vunerable to enemy warriors.

I have played against teams with 2-4 melee all the time in TA. If everyone on my team is a solid player, then we never lose to these types of teams. I have run two melee before in TA, but only for the purpose of having the two melee players practice coordinating their adrenal spiking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by suiraCLAW

I give you a tip: if you kill the thumpers first, you don't have to worry that they may use comfort animal. I don't see why you want to kill the pets before you kill the thumpers.

You have a point about killing thumpers. They are fragile and unlike a warrior can be killed with relative ease. A mesmer with distortion is a far more difficult target to kill than any thumper. The fact that 99.5% of thumper players do not seem to know what kiting means (I am sure there is a 0.5% out there I just have yet to run across them) only makes it easier for a warrior to kill them. Warriors with bull's strike get to have even more fun toying with the thumper when your monk is kiting the thumper. Think of the classic cartoon scene where a dog is chasing a cat which is chasing a mouse.

Where did I ever suggest killing the pet before the thumper? My statement about comfort animal applied to degen teams degening the pet in addition to your team. Even then killing the thumper first goes without saying as the thumper can actually use their wits to make smart plays whereas the pet cannot. The only time I can see a pet dying first is where the pet runs into a ball of traps or when the opposing team has spiteful spirit.

Zui · May 05, 2006, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Ok Jornac..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

The thumper was attacking me because i was beating him up while my teammate tied up their monk. He wasn't going to be thumping for much longer if he didn't get rid of me somehow.

I'm assuming your team had absolutly no warrior hate. If you had that you wouldn't need to be attacking him. It would be MUCH smarter to attack a target with less AL that is a greater threat to your team(curse necro, air ele, mesmer), especialy if you have a compitent player running somthing to disable the thumper. If you take out the secondary support player with a condtion removal(usualy n/mo or e/mo warrior hate, the same guy who disables you), the thumper is worthless. So hopefuly you can see that there are smarter plays than beating on the one target with little to no self support and that has the highest AL.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Gladiators stance is a waste of an elite skill. Doesn't do anything versus archers or casters. If someone packs wild blow, they will use it then.

Dboutful, they'll just stop attacking the target for about 10 seconds. Yes it's a waste of an elite skill for PvP. If you weren't paying attention that was sarcasam when I mentioned Gladiator's Defense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Balanced stance ruins assassins damage.

So does guardian, blind. Assasians massive damage is from combos, which require every attack to hit to use the next one. Decent warrior hate stops this. Usualy in a TA setting anyone who is running an Assasian(very few as of now) won't be madly attacking you as the warrior. Most teams bring sufficient warrior hate to reduce your effectiveness greatly(and yours should have enough to do the same to the assassian).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Balanced stance stops Lightning Surge

It only stops the knockdown. Not the damage. Lightning Surge is also an RA-Quality skill, you'll rarely see this skill used outside of RA, besides maybe in an air spike. By the way, an LT helm stops it from triggering, the damage and the knockdown. Needless to say if you call out this your boonprot can just put a reversal, and prevent the damage, or simply remove the hex. (not the knockdown, but tbh that's not a gigantic problem)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Balanced stance turns on my Crimson Carapace Collectors shield

So does Rush.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Balanced stance makes desperation blow a devastating attack

Umm sure. You do the damage and inflict a condition. Too bad the target can kite you. Too bad if you're running drunken/desperation blow you'll be a bit low on energy. Especialy if you throw Wild Blow in there too...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Balanced stance ruins hammermen

Only if they're attacking you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Balanced stance stops crits in general

Sure, but about 20% of attacks against you will be crits from a warrior. With an assasian that number goes up obviously, but then again there are things like blind, weakness, guardian...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Its one of the best stances out there. I used balanced stance with drunken blow and desperation blow over the factions weekend. Consistently hitting casters for 110+ twice every 6 seconds. Not to mention a condition. Not to bad.

1

Sure, that must own up RA(i'm serious) but then again RA builds are in a class of their own(as in they almost always are sub-par outside RA), and the one you screenshotted to is obviously designed for random arenas. But hey, there are better things you can run in TA/GvG/HA... Especaily since it's a random condition.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Cleave and Penblow add to the damage with their low adrenaline costs.

Search the fourms, I know there's an Evicerate versus Cleave article somewhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

+13% damage always
+30hp
10:10AP (hopefully 20:20 soon).

Please search theese fourms on sundering too. You'll see many other PvPers, saying sundering is crap, with actual numbers to back it up... I'm not even going to comment on the actual axe...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

So in short. My warrior is good. Thumpers beware

In RA, sure.

Iskrah · May 05, 2006, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jornac

Its one of the best stances out there. I used balanced stance with drunken blow and desperation blow over the factions weekend. Consistently hitting casters for 110+ twice every 6 seconds. Not to mention a condition. Not to bad.

Cleave and Penblow add to the damage with their low adrenaline costs.

My axe is/was better than yours. I need a 20:20AP then ill be set.

+13% damage always
+30hp
10:10AP (hopefully 20:20 soon).

..

So in short. My warrior is good. Thumpers beware

I love that forum. Sundering love, self ego licking, 1vs1 thinking (still submitted to conditional opponents)... That's a funny post.
Really I would care less if you were not bragging like a 14 years old. But any opponent who knows how to kite will give his teammates enough time to hurt you bad as you're doing subpar damage.

My Bunny Thumper for TA, with a BoonProt, a G/El aftershock and a changing annoyance-themed caster (e-surge, necro blacklight, even a R cripshot, etc):
http://gwshack.us/350d2

Constant TF, good use of Irresistible Blow, Constant Call of Haste, and use of Backbreaker, Crushing Blow, Brutal Strike as a Spike (in that order) for extremely high DPS and a 4sec shutdown with Backbreaker that can be used every 15 seconds or so, because of TF...

Divineshadows · May 05, 2006, 11:19 PM // 23:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zui

If you had that you wouldn't need to be attacking him. It would be MUCH smarter to attack a target with less AL that is a greater threat to your team(curse necro, air ele, mesmer), especialy if you have a compitent player running somthing to disable the thumper. If you take out the secondary support player with a condtion removal(usualy n/mo or e/mo warrior hate, the same guy who disables you), the thumper is worthless. So hopefuly you can see that there are smarter plays than beating on the one target with little to no self support and that has the highest AL.

If you have a blinder and they have a secondary support player with condition removal, then it is preferrable to attempt to take out that player if possible. Most good caster players have conditioned themselves to kite reasonably well (the really good ones pre-kite you as well). Most thumpers do not. It is often the case as a warrior that you can apply much more pressure to the opposing team by beating on their thumper. If you can get 5x the number of hits landed on a thumper that you would a kiting caster, then why would you not jump at this opportunity? It is hard to measure the effectiveness that forcing a caster to kite has for your team, but burning the opposing monk through their energy on a non-kiting thumper is fatal for their team. When comparing 60 AL and 70 AL the difference in damage is only 16% on the base damage of attacks. Most monks have greater 70+ AL vs physical anyway due to judge's armor and certain weapon sets.

My number one rule for a warrior is to test each target on the opposing team to find their weakest kiter (enemy warriors are exempt except as adrenaline builders) and once located abuse that foe as much as possible. Of course you cannot abuse this foe 100% of the time, because otherwise they would have all prot dumped onto them so target switching is still necessary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zui

Lightning Surge is also an RA-Quality skill, you'll rarely see this skill used outside of RA, besides maybe in an air spike. By the way, an LT helm stops it from triggering, the damage and the knockdown. Needless to say if you call out this your boonprot can just put a reversal, and prevent the damage, or simply remove the hex. (not the knockdown, but tbh that's not a gigantic problem)

Unless they bugged this skill with a new build in the past few days, removing the hex prevents both the damage and the knockdown. Well said on this being an RA skill. Quality is debatable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zui

But hey, there are better things you can run in TA/GvG/HA... Especaily since it's a random condition.

You do not enjoy playing the lottery? Random condition ftw. rofl. This skill is hilarious whenever I see it on anyone's bar and even more funny when they get knocked down when using it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zui

Please search theese fourms on sundering too. You'll see many other PvPers, saying sundering is crap, with actual numbers to back it up... I'm not even going to comment on the actual axe...

Yeah, commenting on your 10/10 sundering axe is one of the quickest ways to discredit yourself when it comes to PvP. Even the new 20/20 sundering is junk when comparing it to a vampiric (numbers shown below are for axe):

1.5 to 7 damage increase to base damage on 60 AL targets for non-crit hits
10 damage increase to base damage on crit hits (24% of hits are crit) to 60 AL

So 20% of the time you are going to get:

(((1.5+7)/2)*0.76) + (10*0.24) = 5.63

Multiply this number by 0.2 and you get 1.126 which is still far behind the extra 3 damage you get all the time. The buff to sundering was a step in the right direction, but it still comes out far behind. When hitting enemy warriors, elemental mods are still going to grant much more armor penetration than sundering.

Zui · May 06, 2006, 04:15 AM // 04:15

Failed to effectively communicate with the hex removal and reversal bit, I should have stated that reversal will prevent the damage(save taking damage from another source first), but not the knockdown, and that removing the hex prevents the damage and the knockdown, since it can't trigger.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

If you have a blinder and they have a secondary support player with condition removal, then it is preferrable to attempt to take out that player if possible.

Totaly agree. Although if their mesmer is pressuring our teams monk too much, then it's definently wiser IMO to put some pressure on their memser and give our monk a break.

As for the kiting or prekiting(which is extremely rare to see in TA), usualy I'll have our blinder(if we're running one) pack Gale, and pre-gale a target, to prevent them from kiting/prekiting until our warrior/thumper can knock them down again and unload. Usualy this will work at least the first time, and once they're DPed it's just that much easeir to drop them a second time. Not immediately once they're up though, since most monks tend to concentrate more heavily on a target that has just died, or taken alot of damage, and of course you'll be waiting for your adrenal skills to charge up again.

Of course what you have to do to win a match really depends on the match its self, since every one will have you up against a different team.

On a side note:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

You do not enjoy playing the lottery? Random condition ftw. rofl. This skill is hilarious whenever I see it on anyone's bar and even more funny when they get knocked down when using it.

Since factions release I've seen a W/E running desperation/drunken with ward of stability in RA. It was absolutly hilarious, as he never once left the ward while it was up.

Condition lottery ftl.

suiraCLAW · May 06, 2006, 09:07 AM // 09:07

Quote:

Power Block? For team arenas? For a 4v4 setting, I find this elite terribly inefficient due to its recharge. What else does this mesmer have on their skill bar? So your mesmer landed a power block on the opposing air ele's enervating charge or lightning orb, now you've bought your two melee time to be free of blind (assuming your monk actually has energy to clean up any residual blindness). However, the air ele is still free to cast heal other on the focused target or use draw conditions to take away deep wound from a focused target and hence save their life. Basically, that power block just forced the air ele to use only their non-air skills in the bar (some pack ward against melee as well) for a little while.

like I said in another post: we run dual targetting, one of us would attack the anti-warrior caster. In other words,

Quote:

2 thumpers and a Pblock interrupter describes a build that offers exactly no support for your monk (i.e. secondary healing, secondary condition removal, secondary hex removal). You are probably relying on your monk for the only condition removal which means you will have a very difficult time keeping both melee clean. It describes a "monk stomping" build that is likely to win many matches (very quickly) against bad teams, but will only get your monk stomped against good teams. From your description, it also sounds like a build that has no anti-melee making those fragile rangers very vunerable to enemy warriors.

his build: http://gwshack.us/87c72.

yesitsrob · May 08, 2006, 10:16 AM // 10:16

Jornac, I mean no offense but I think you really need to start listening to what others have to say about builds, many people are keeping up to date with what is good on a warrior. You are just posting a lot about what is wrong with the vast majority of arena warriors out there.

You've posted some absolute junk in Blow Up Dolls decents Team Arena build thread as well as this one. On a warrior balanced stance is good for getting you past Frost Wurms in Snakes Dance, it is not in a single good warrior build I have seen yet.
_

I like Bunny Thumpers, much like your average hammer warrior they can be extremely difficult for a monk to deal with - I think the last time I ran a thumper was with ferocious strike, which packs one hell of a punch itself, they are really good pressure.

In arenas though, randoms in particular, I think you are better off with a warrior, I feel thumpers really have a specific use in high pressure builds

Son of Urza · May 12, 2006, 05:11 PM // 17:11

Another good thing about thumpers:

If your target is a boonprot, Irresistible spam>Guardian (or aegis if they bring that)

The Real Roy Keane · May 13, 2006, 03:00 AM // 03:00

This has major potential to turn into a serious flaming..don't bother trying to stand in the face of unwavering stubborness. I've tried before, it just gave me a headache.

wreckk · May 23, 2006, 12:09 AM // 00:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Falrow

One skill.

Beastial Mauling.

i used to enjoy that skill with my w/r.

i used it with shove, then poison bite, then maiming strike. after that id just hit em.

if yoru a spellcaster being dazed sucks.

especially when you AND your pet are both constantly attacking.

err.. but back to the subject, um they are ok. but i hate hammers. so.. i dont use them personally.

Eaimirth Etaivella · May 25, 2006, 04:43 PM // 16:43

Just a comment on the "lottery" posts
Lottery: a tax on people who cannot do math.

Back on topic to the Bunny Thumper;
I see it has promise in RA, and maybe TA. On the same scale as the IW mesmer or so to speak.

Divineshadows · May 25, 2006, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaimirth Etaivella

Lottery: a tax on people who cannot do math.

QFT.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaimirth Etaivella

I see it has promise in RA, and maybe TA. On the same scale as the IW mesmer or so to speak.

As strongly as I dislike thumpers (because I feel that hammer warriors are strictly better), it is quite unfair to liken a thumper to an IW mesmer. One is a gimmick and the other is not. One is countered by a simple enchantment removal and the other is not.