Curse

Lloyd6770 · Jan 10, 2006, 01:38 AM // 01:38

I am new to PvP in Guildwars, and I was curious to see what people think are better and why. I have noticed that hammers seem to be recommended more often for warriors, is that because of pure damage? With a sword/axe and shield, can you actually block attacks without using a stance etc. like in Diablo, or do you just consistantly take less damage?

In my opinion, I think that +hp mods are the best. With respect to caster, yes, faster casting and faster regen mods are always a good thing, but with less hp, casting speed doesn't matter if you die faster. Like I said, these are my opinions. I am looking for your opinions. Don't tell me I'm wrong.

Injektilo · Jan 10, 2006, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Hammers can do a ludicrous amount of damage in a single hit as well as being somewhat distracting with the knockdowns, axes have the greatest capacity for damage over a short period of time, then swords have a terrible elite but seem to serve very well as a utility weapon with Final Thrust dealing significant damage and the ability to apply several conditions.

+HP mods aren't that good IMO, in almost any circumstance +armour will be superior, what's the difference really between being on 30hp and being dead? A couple of wand attacks will finish you, if the swing was more than 60hp at most with double upgrades then I'd agree with you, but as is, armour which can negate the amount of damage you're suffering in the first place is always handy since there are many circumstances where you'll never die or be near death in a fight but your extra armour has subtly helped out the monk by causing you to take less damage per hit. Of course, if we're talking Warrior then I never take any defensive upgrades whatsoever.

Lloyd6770 · Jan 10, 2006, 02:22 AM // 02:22

I agree with the no defensive upgrades for warriors. They already have massive defense, and generally a bunch of HP. The difference between 30hp and dead, can, but not usually, make a big difference. That extra 30hp can mean one more attack on you, saving that 1 attack from someone else on your team, making them live just that much longer. It may not end up making a difference, but in the right circumstance, it can mean a world of difference. Having that little amount of HP can also mean just that split second longer for the monk to heal you. I've never used a hammer because of the fact that you don't have a shield. Can you block an attack with a shield without using a stance or skill or anything? Thanks for the input.

Injektilo · Jan 10, 2006, 02:44 AM // 02:44

No, the shield just gives you some extra armour (Sorry I thought I'd replied to everything in my post but I missed the bit about shields

), I'm unsure as to the mechanics of this: Whether this benefit is global and so on. Another perk of shields is the little bonuses you get, the +45 to health (if you meet x condition) as well as the -2 damage can be handy at times.

In truth, axe is my preferred weapon since the Eviscerate > Executioner's Strike combo is immenseley damaging, personally as someone who plays mostly Monk in random arenas I can say that no single character is as capable of keeping consistent pressure on me as one of these guys. Axes also deal more damage to fleeing opponents (Automatic criticals or something? I know there's a mechanical perk to axes). The primary concern for me if I am playing a hammer warrior is my relatively slow attack speed, 50% chance to miss is rough on any warrior, but an axe or sword wielder can pop up an IAS stance and still be dangerous. I've just realised that my argument is becoming less coherent now so I'll stop.

Basically the best way to familiarise yourself with PvP is to... well, play PvP. Random Arenas are actually a helpful thing for warriors in particular in my opinion, as it will teach you many of the basics such as when to put Frenzy on, how to deal with kiters, target prioritization and suchlike. It's also a handy forum to mess about with different weapons since a loss there is utterly irrelevant really. One snippet of advice though: Don't go in there loaded down with defensive stances, the abuse you will receive will be terrible and you won't be of great help to your team since warriors are targetted last anyway.

NatalieD · Jan 10, 2006, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Injektilo

NAxes also deal more damage to fleeing opponents (Automatic criticals or something? I know there's a mechanical perk to axes).

All melee weapons get automatic criticals when you hit a fleeing opponent from behind. Axes just benefit from this more than swords because crits always use the maximum damage of the weapon, and axes have a wider damage range.

Lloyd6770 · Jan 10, 2006, 02:54 AM // 02:54

Thanks for all the advice, very helpful. One thing I don't understand is... in your post you put how warriors with the right stuff can deal decent damage. If that's so, they why are they targeted last? If someone is standing right in front of me doing big damage, im going to target him.

Yes, those are some nice perks with shields, but the fact that they don't standardly block x% off attacks kind of steers me away from them.

6950 · Jan 10, 2006, 03:10 AM // 03:10

if you are a caster and you are getting beat up by a warrior, then u kite. You target warriors usually after the monks, mesmers, and sometimes necros are down, because any damage you do to them is either A. negated/healed
B. You are degened and shutdown anyway C. The warrior regens it back because of some necro skill. essentially it is a cut of the arm that grows back, or cut off the head and kill the beast situation... warrior bieng the arm, monks etc. the beasts

Injektilo · Jan 10, 2006, 03:42 AM // 03:42

Warriors have probably the most formidable damage output in the game, but it's also the easiest damage output to negate or mitigate. Kiting, conditions, hexes and enchantments can all but nullify even a good Warrior's output. It occured to me a while ago that anti-melle hexes are far more energy efficient than anti-caster hexes. If I plop a Backfire on an Air elementalist then he can happily sit for ten seconds until the duration is over whilst regenning energy and then happily go back to blowing stuff up, if I put Empathy on the Warrior then barring outside interference he's got a tough choice, unlike an elementalist who's going to have big downtimes anyway, the Warrior has to constantly pressure, so either he neglects to do his job or he kills himself. But with good monks you don't have to worry about this hopefully. (Although hex removal is startlingly uncommon amongst random arena monks and even team arena monks)

Since we're using analogies, warriors are the artillery, the big guns, but whilst it's the gun itself that's killing you it's also a big hunk of metal, is it not more sensible to kill the gunnery crew (The monks who're keeping you free of conditions and hexes and allowing you to kill stuff) than the gun itself?

JR · Jan 10, 2006, 05:14 AM // 05:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Injektilo

+HP mods aren't that good IMO, in almost any circumstance +armour will be superior, what's the difference really between being on 30hp and being dead? A

In the current metagame of armour ignoring spike (RSpike with orders/Obs flame) and a lot of hex/condition degen builds, I think the +60hp you can get from a weapon set is very valuable. However, if it shifts towards more warrior heavy pressure builds, +armor might again be usefull.

qwe4rty · Jan 10, 2006, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lloyd6770

Thanks for all the advice, very helpful. One thing I don't understand is... in your post you put how warriors with the right stuff can deal decent damage. If that's so, they why are they targeted last? If someone is standing right in front of me doing big damage, im going to target him.

Because warriors are the hardest class to kill. They have a base armor of 80 or 85, and then between 10 and 20 bonus armor depending on if they meet a certain condition.

Let me explain a bit about the mechanics of armor.

If a target has 60 armor, things do full dmg to them. If your spell says deal 114 dmg, it is 114 dmg to targets w/ 60 armor.
Every 40 armor past 60 effectively halves the dmg. So that 114 dmg spell doesn't look so nice doing 57 damage.

I'd rather kill a weak target, who will fall much more quickly and hope to turn the tide by giving a 8v7 advantage, etc.

Calibretto_9 · Jan 12, 2006, 02:06 AM // 02:06

Haven't been to the board in ages, and haven't played the game in awhile, but I'm I finding myself sliding back after 1,500 hours played in excitement for the new installment. I happened to come across this thread and can give you a few pointers from my experience.

A few of the comments above really hit the nail on the head about warriors, which is where this post seemed to focus on. I myself, started a necromancer and then played a warrior, and found both to be incredibly formidable in PvP. As far as warriors go, I would have to say that these guys are plagued by their own power. In my opinion, warriors are the most powerful class in the game, simply because they carry high hp, extremely high damage, easily maintained damage (Energy regen isn't a necessity), and through their secondary have many ways of ridding themselves of certain problems (Plague touch, hex removals, etc.). On the other hand, this is in fact their own curse as people have learned of the danger of warriors and therefore most players or teams carry sufficient warrior shut downs to make a warrior's life hell.

Answering your hammer/axe/sword question, I'm going to go ahead and say I think hammer's are a waste. I know, I know, certain hammer lovers out there might flame, but through night after night of PvP'ing, I never saw a hammer compare to an axe's performance. For one, hammers are extremely slow, meaning if something happens and you miss that oh so crucial knockdown, you have effectively wasted a good portion of your time. Axes, on the other hand, are fast, keep a consistent and high amount of damage on the target, and are much more deadly. Not to mention you can find some sick shields out there. I for one found a gold shield that is +29 HP all the time and max armor, which is a nice little boost considering I'm still doing sick damage.

If you want to shut down a character (A hammer warriors claim to fame through knockdowns), roll a disruption ranger, a mesmer, or just carry two of the axe disruptions. In my experience, my hammer kept them knocked down when I was lucky. My axe on the other hand... Well, it just killed them.

Entropius · Jan 12, 2006, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lloyd6770

Thanks for all the advice, very helpful. One thing I don't understand is... in your post you put how warriors with the right stuff can deal decent damage. If that's so, they why are they targeted last? If someone is standing right in front of me doing big damage, im going to target him.

Yes, those are some nice perks with shields, but the fact that they don't standardly block x% off attacks kind of steers me away from them.

You're talking about defensive targeting: attacking someone to disable them (sometimes by killing them). Warriors aren't necessarily targeted last in this sense. It's true that in general a team attempts to kill warriors last, simply because they're harder to kill; members with killing skills will generally go after someone else.

However, when "someone is standing right in front of [you] doing big damage", you've got to address them somehow. There are many things to target warriors with besides damage: blind, cripple, and many hexes, and against a team packing these, warriors are often the first targets.

Also, warrior counters tend toward the defensive side. That is, many of the best counters to warriors involve doing something to your teammates, rather than to the warrior himself. Examples include aegis, ward vs melee, shielding hands, guardian, healing seed, and healing hands. Much of the time the warrior threat is addressed with skills like these rather than with something targeted on the warrior. (On the other hand, the threat from, say, an Elementalist is usually dealt with by attacking the ele himself and by using hexes like migraine on him.)

So, warriors may be killed last, but they're often not targeted last, and they certainly aren't addressed last.