Curse

Arri · Aug 13, 2005, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Im going to say this once, and forget this topic even exists

Ready for it?

I doubt Neo-LD and all thsoe that are trying to back him up have EVER played a Ranger primary, they would rather be a hammer W/Mo and not try anything else, end of discussion

Neo-LD · Aug 13, 2005, 06:37 PM // 18:37

You kidding? Im a ranger junkie. Ranger was my first char. Currently its my fav class. And its the one I know the most about. Call me arrogant, but I consider myself a ranger expert.

I think what is more likely is that most R/W guys here are too proud to admit they miscalculated when they started their character.

Tuna · Aug 13, 2005, 06:59 PM // 18:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by ICURADik

Ok.. so 10 energy? I see no point. Chain Lightning cost 10 energy, along with numerous other spells.

The point is that you can't spam a 10 energy skill for very long. The melee char will out last the monks energy supply.

Quote:

With the same high level people, you never see R/W?

No

Honestly, I play warriors myself and don't pay attention to what melee characters others are running. Though I can't say that I've ever heard my teams monks complaining about the effectivness of some r/w.

Quote:

Chain hits for 170+ on a hammer warrior using Frenzy. I could do the math for you and/or post a SS if you like.

I'll take your word for it.

Quote:

I don't know of any skills that physically moves an enemy.

Don't fight by their wards. Have your entire team move to a different location, usually retreating does this best. But the whole point of wards is really void when discussing r/w vs w/x

Ender Ward · Aug 13, 2005, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arri

I doubt Neo-LD and all thsoe that are trying to back him up have EVER played a Ranger primary, they would rather be a hammer W/Mo and not try anything else, end of discussion

So very wrong.

Indeed, starting with the E3 for everyone event, through the beta weekend events, and since then in retail, Ranger primaries have seen the most of my play time.

By the way, I'm not on any crusade to stop R/W melee attackers. I only read the very last page of the thread when I made my first post here. I decided to reply due to seing some very funny assertions. Never expected to be drawn into a ridiculous quote fest (and I'll be damned if I ever let it happen again).

bwookie · Aug 14, 2005, 08:20 AM // 08:20

This argument is going in circles. Both sides have good points. However when you come up against heavy anti melee in terms of wards/guardian/aegis faster attack speed and spamming of irresistable blow for hammer melee a Rgr/War is better than the slightly more dmging Hammer War.

Rgr/War
Builds adrenaline comparable to a Hammer War
Can spam energy skills like Irresistable Blow which is damn useful
TF is better than frenzy
Can be considered an alternate to drop the all so useful spirits that most of the top builds have now. Leads to greater flexibility in the entire team build.

A hammer war will have frenzy up less. TF can be up 24/7 this mitigates the less dmg. But the key to taking down any monk swiftly is interruption. So KD is all that matters Knockdown gauntlets while useful is not as important as the interruption that you get with KD. An R/W can kill in a 5 hit combo. A Hammer war in 4. Not that big a deal.

Look a melee is just meant to do dmg and kill soft targets thats the entire purpose. So a R/W is not wasting it's abilities by having Ranger for Tiger's Fury. Attack speed and adrenaline are all that really matter to a hammer build. Nothing else matters as much. So taking Ranger for hammer is perfectly fine.

Hexes and enchantments are not much of a consideration anymore due to the BS NR and QZ spam that needs to be nerfed.

So most of the war secondaries that would make a Hammer War better suck under NR or QZ.

Wars are better using Axe and Sword. Mainly cause of the strength skills and the faster swing rate on these two weapons makes TF less important.
No question that a Hammer war can kill a person out of wards or aegis or guardian faster than a Hammer rgr. But the rgr is just better for sustained DPS which you need when you come up against decent melee defense.

Ender Ward · Aug 14, 2005, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by bwookie

But the rgr is just better for sustained DPS which you need when you come up against decent melee defense.

I guess this point needs repeating:

Sustained damage certainly does matter, but not from melee attackers, who have too many counters.

It's one thing to set up conditions favourable to an adrenaline chain (from a Hammer W/X) that lasts 6-7 seconds. But it's a whole other order of magnitude of complicated, to set up conditions where melee attackers are free to deal sustained damage continuously, without getting countered (while your monks go dry trying to counter the counters).

Sustained damage from a bow Ranger is far less easily countered than sustained damage from a melee attacker. So why would one bring a melee attacker for sustained DPS?

Eet GnomeSmasher · Aug 14, 2005, 08:15 PM // 20:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I think what is more likely is that most R/W guys here are too proud to admit they miscalculated when they started their character.

Miscalculated when starting a character? Call me crazy, but don't people start characters simply because they thought it might be fun or they just want to try something different?

And what's there to miscalculate? Is there some mystical thing that prevents R/Ws to not be able to function at all in the game? I don't get it. I don't get the fuss over this R/W debate. It's a different build than a warrior one. You don't see people comparing Monks to Mesmers do you? How about I start an equally stupid thread titled "Disproving the Mesmers" and compare them to monks?

What's the whole point of this? To prove that one is better than the other? That's fine and all but why the hostilities? Does it bug you that much that there are R/Ws out there? If so, maybe you need to learn to be more tolerant.

bwookie · Aug 14, 2005, 11:18 PM // 23:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ender Ward

I guess this point needs repeating:

Sustained damage certainly does matter, but not from melee attackers, who have too many counters.

It's one thing to set up conditions favourable to an adrenaline chain (from a Hammer W/X) that lasts 6-7 seconds. But it's a whole other order of magnitude of complicated, to set up conditions where melee attackers are free to deal sustained damage continuously, without getting countered (while your monks go dry trying to counter the counters).

Sustained damage from a bow Ranger is far less easily countered than sustained damage from a melee attacker. So why would one bring a melee attacker for sustained DPS?

You seem to be trying to overargue your point. First of all we're just talking about hammer wars. Why are you bringing up Ranged builds when we're discussing hammer builds.

As I've already stated the difference between Hammer war and Hammer rgr is relatively negligible. The key difference is being able to spam irresistable blow and keep up tiger's fury while having better armor against elemental dmg than a hammer war.

ICURADik · Aug 15, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ender Ward

People don't have instant reactions. The time it takes to identify the targets of spikes, the time it takes to cast Protective Spirit on these targets, works in the hammer warriors' advantage. This is why you need a disrupter/killer for every monk. It's more difficult to co-ordinate against multiple spikes at different targets. It also, if goes well, disrupts the sources of Protective Spirit.

Whether it's 2 other Hammer Warriors, or Choking Gas Rangers, or energy drain Mesmers, as long as you co-ordinate attacks on all OpFor Monks, it's very hard to defend against.

And you know what ... why am I trying to explain to you our tactics? Who are you, that I should continue to bother?

And why would I do that?

Three disruption characters are an integral part of a well designed team, made to fight against a standard of 3 monks on the enemy team. You don't "rely" on them. You use these characters to accomplish a needed goal. I'll repeat again. Sometimes it's 3 warriors, sometimes it's a mix of Warriors and Rangers, sometimes it's mix of those and Mesmers, depending on who's online. I haven't changed my statement, no matter how much you'd like to present it that way.

Also, what "plan"? I haven't even begun to discuss our tactics here. You aren't aware of "the plan".

I agreed my own statement was "bull"? *laughs* I've just repeated the same statement. "Bull" my arse. Come up with a real counter argument or stop wasting my time with these quote fests.

15% less damage based on attribute level difference.
Less damage from skill boosts (8 less, to be exact).
No armor penetration.
Twice shorter knockdown duration.

Hmm, I seem to be repeating myself, and you seem to keep ignoring these inconvinient facts in your conviction of R/W superiority. Ok then, I'll stop repeating myself, and you can keep your opinion.

And yet, nobody attacks our warrior during their adrenaline chains. It's a miracle! Or perhaps it's because OpFor is too busy trying to figure out how to save their monks, that all come under brutal attack at nearly the same time.

But guess what, if our warriors suddenly do become the targets of attacks while unloading our adrenaline chains, we'll start putting protective spirits on them as standard procedure. It's called adapting. Imagine that ...

Haven't had a need so far though.

Healing Seed (yes, even under NR).

Protective Spirit.

Shielding Hands.

Like I said. Damage over time is easily healed away. Spike damage that happens within the space of 4-5 hammer attacks, is healed much less easily (particularly when the healers are in trouble themselves).

Hmm, did I say that? Nope. It's precisely because Monks on good teams are set up to protect each other, that you need the ability to disrupt all of them simultaneously.

And yet, so far, it's been a recipy for success. Perhaps because it's easier said than done, to co-ordinate a defense against attacks on every monk on your team, within the space of a few seconds.

Holy hell ... those are huge numbers. Don't recall taking that much damage playing my warrior in a looong while.

In order to do such damage, you'd have to predict exactly when I'm going to spike, you're going to have to co-ordinate your own spikes in those precise moments against multiple warriors, who will end frenzy the second they start taking damage.

In order to do the above, you have to be watching our warriors like hawks, and that means we already partially won, as you're playing defensively in trying to predict our actions, as opposed to initiating your own offense.

We initiate, OpFor reacts. That's why it works.

Then you haven't seen the Aegis + Guardian Spamers. When some 88% of your attacks miss, it's not pretty, and you have to find ways to deal with it, or your warriors and rangers become neutered.

You don't 'rely' on anything. Making a build that requires the enemy to play along in order to work, is a disaster waiting to happen as soon as one steps outside of random arena. I already illustrated (though not in detail) how to deal with wards. And I already explained why I won't go into detail. Read the sentenses after the one that talks about finding a target (not a team, just a target) outside a ward. 'Cause I don't feel like repeating myself.

Hmm, here's a thought. Perhaps you had a bad build, or a bad team, or both?

As far as R/W having more success, that's laughable. You think being able to punch through Aegis/Ward once in 4 seconds (2s under QZ) is a good use of a character? That's pathetic damage output. I'll stick to a TEAM strategy of neutralising Aegis/Wards and use real Hammer Warriors.

Heh, I'm forced to repeat myself again, as I've already pointed several "somethings" several times now:

15% more damage based on attribute level difference.
More damage from skill boosts (24 vs 32 damage).
Armor penetration.
Twice longer knockdown duration.

...

And no more, as it's clearly not getting through.

Great, congradulations. Did you know that a good hammer warrior only needs 5 energy for 1 skill in the chain to kill a monk?
Scaring a Warrior with energy drain is like scaring a Monk with Blindness.

Power Drain on a Monk? Oh things are starting to become so clear all of a sudden ...

Oh sustained damage certainly does matter, but not from Warriors, who have too many counters. It's one thing to set up conditions favourable to an adrenaline chain that lasts 6-7 seconds. It's a whole other order of magnitude of complicated to set up conditions where melee attackers are free to deal sustained damage without getting countered (and your monks go dry trying to counter the counters).

Next, a Hammer using R/W is far, far from the ideal DPS machine. A properly buffed QS Ranger does it way better, without the need to worry about ward against meele/foes or about chasing the target around. A disrupter Ranger will ignore the effects of wards, Aegis, Guardian, even blindness and weakness.
An energy drain mesmer simply takes away Monks' energy, preventing Aegis/Guardian spam in the first place.

But a R/W can get through with an attack once in 4 seconds (2 if under QZ), and is unable to stop targets from casting ... woooooow, I'm impressed (/sarcasm).

All NR does is increase JI cast time from 2 to 4 seconds, which is stil not nearly long enough to lose adrenaline. It does nearly nothing to affect the playstyle.

One, I haven't posted a "build". I posted my character's attributes from memory. Two, oh, my, god, I was off by one rank on Smiting. Fictitious build! Fictitious build! *rolls eyes* Three, fictitious is your claim that I've never played the Hammer W/Mo I was describing.

*Snicker*

Constantly ... as in once every 2 seconds under QZ, or once every 4 seconds normally? That's some definition of 'constantly'.

Heh, perhaps you should play some with Quickshot. When you're using a good quickshot build, you end up with one value that hits anywhere from 50-80 damage per arrow. In that case, this value is reduced once for the value of the Shielding Hands' damage reduction.
Only if your damage arrives in seperate 'packets' (i.e when you're using Kindle Arrows as your praparation, or using Conjure element) does Shielding Hands apply damage seperately to each 'packet'.

A Quickshot R/X is so far beyond a Hammer R/W in terms of damage output and attrition, that it is frankly laughable to compare the two.

Lastly, what the hell is Dual Shot doing in a Quickshot build? QS is a more efficient, faster Dual Shot.

Man ... why am I even bothering?

Think I might be done. Getting sick of it.

I'm not going to bother quoting your every line.

I find it ironic that you claim a 1/4 second cast time is almost unusable in this thread. Then go on to say Melandru's is wasted in another thread because of Prot Spirit. It takes the same amount of time to identify targets as it takes for all your warriors to start running twords one target. Contrary to popular belief, good prot monks watch battle. Prot Spirit has less than 10% chance of being hit by Chocking gas. Certainly not reliable.

And then you go on to say prot spirit is an effective counter to an instant spell on frenzied warriors, but not a 5 second chain of adrenal attacks, that requires your warrior to run to the target first as previously stated.

Prot Spirit and Shielding hands both work in the R/W's favor. What are you trying to point out?

You keep talking about neutralizing Aegis/Wards, yet you don't use Warrior's Cunning. You know wards can be recast right? It's not like... 1 ward.. then game over. Attacking characters outside of the ward will only lead to you hitting warriors. Not too useful(unless of course they are silly hammer warriors using frenzy). This is also where Energy Drain comes in. If a monk can pop one energy drain on you and prevent or delay you from getting of that necessary Warrior's Cunning then your spike will be illtimed and less effective.

I don't see what is wrong with Power Drain. 21 Energy is nothing to sneeze at. Everyone complains that Energy Drain is useless once your enemy is low on energy. Power Drain get's around this problem rather well. And yes, I do target a warrior if he is chasing me. I will switch to heal a teamate if necessary, but if I am the one being spiked I target the warrior chasing me and use TS to tell my team if he is using frenzy.

You are not doing 50-80 damage with Quickshot. You may be doing 25+19+12 or something of that nature. The only way to get 50-80 damage is with Melandru's.

Dual Shot allows you to spike a target more effectively. I'm suprised you neglect it. Using one Dual Shot immediately followed by 2-3 Quickshots is the most powerful method to spike a target with a Quickshot Ranger.

ICURADik · Aug 15, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by bwookie

Wars are better using Axe and Sword. Mainly cause of the strength skills and the faster swing rate on these two weapons makes TF less important.
No question that a Hammer war can kill a person out of wards or aegis or guardian faster than a Hammer rgr. But the rgr is just better for sustained DPS which you need when you come up against decent melee defense.

Wars are mostly better with axes imo. Sword is more of a tossup, similar to Hammers.

Having an extra 15 armor and -2 damage also does a great deal in being able to use frenzy on sword/axe war, with a Zealous String, it works almost too perfectly.

Aug 15, 2005, 12:26 AM // 00:26

Prot spirit has a 100% chance of being hit by CG is the prot monk was hit by a previous CG arrow.

Ender Ward · Aug 15, 2005, 12:29 AM // 00:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by bwookie

You seem to be trying to overargue your point. First of all we're just talking about hammer wars. Why are you bringing up Ranged builds when we're discussing hammer builds.

As I've already stated the difference between Hammer war and Hammer rgr is relatively negligible. The key difference is being able to spam irresistable blow and keep up tiger's fury while having better armor against elemental dmg than a hammer war.

Bow Rangers > Hammer users (W/X or R/W) for DPS.
Bow Rangers > Hammer users (W/X or R/W) in terms of counterability.

This is why I brought up bow rangers, when you brought up overall DPS.

A Hammer build is not used for DPS. It's used for spike disruption killing. It's used to, as somebody put it well in this thread, to solo a Monk from full health to dead in a few seconds.

If DPS is what you're after, then you dont want to use a hammer at all. Hammers suck for sustained DPS because even with a 33% speed boost they attack slowly. So a Hammer using R/W is very, very far from the optimal choice for sustained DPS. There are better options, far less easily countered.

I'll provide an example. What does Soothing Images (with a bunch of cover hexes) do to a Hammer using R/W or W/X? At best, it taxes your team's energy supplies removing those hexes. At worst, it leaves your R/W or W/X one attack, Irresistible Blow, ever 2 (under QZ) or 4 seconds.
What does Soothing Images do to a bow Ranger? It does absolutely nothing. And that's just one of many examples.

As I kept trying to explain in previous posts, it's easier to set up favourable conditions for melee attackers for 6-7 seconds (the time of one adrenaline chain), than to keep these conditions up continuously (what R/W need to remain useful).

Quote:

Originally Posted by ICURADik

I'm not going to bother quoting your every line.

But you seemed so fond of it ...

I wonder exactly where in this thread did I ever say that a 1/4 second cast time spell was unusuable. Putting words in my mouth again, are we?
And yes, unless Protective Spirit is removed, Melandru's Arrows is wasted. Different discussions, different situations. This thread talks about breaking down a target's enchantments for 6-7 seconds, while the other talks about sustained attacks over a period of time on an enchanted target.

*rolls eyes*
If the metagame develops to the point that our Hammer Warriors immidiately come under attack while they spike under Frenzy, then we'll start covering with Protective Spirit before they start spiking. I guess the concept that Protective Spirit has a 19-20 second duration and can be used before a certain action is alittle difficult to comprehend, huh?
If OpFor actually goes as far as trying to remove PS from our warriors ... that's great, +1 for our side (do I need to explain why, or is this concept simply enough?).

Prot Spirit and Shielding hands both work in the R/W's favor?! Oh, you mean the already weak damage you are 'constantly' outputting is getting reduced even further through Shielding Hands? Hmm, I find it hard to see the benefit to the R/W here ...

Warriors cunning is crap. Waste of a skill slot. I repeat, I gave vague hints as to how to deal with Aegis/wards and why I won't go into specifics. Are you actually reading the post you're replying to?
And I'll repeat again. Scaring a Warrior with Energy Drain is like scaring a Monk with Signet of Midnight.

Do I seriously have to explain what is wrong with using Power Drain on a Monk (as opposed to Energy Drain)? I don't see why people would complain about enemies having no energy to drain. There is always somebody in range with ~15 energy; player, spirit, NPC.

Yes, I am doing 60-80 damage with Quickshot. If you're doing "25+19+12' then frankly you have a crappy QS build and need to work on it.
Or, if you want the answers given to you on a silver platter, Read this thread.

Dual Shot is good on a Melandru's Arrows build.

Dual Shot has no place in a QS build. In the time it takes to activate DS and fire, you can fire off normal/QS and already begin loading the next normal/QS sequence. At 14 Expertise, dual shot with a zealous bow costs 2 energy. At 13 Expertise, a normal/QS sequence with a zealous bow costs 0 energy. Dual Shot loses in actual application.

bwookie · Aug 15, 2005, 01:37 AM // 01:37

I don't think you get it. R/W is just a choice for hammer. It has its tradeoffs. there is no clearly definably better hammer build than all others. It all depends on the situation/environment.

I've already explained why the R/W can be considered a worthwhile choice if you don't like the reasons thats cool. But it is better in some things than a w/x and inferior in others. However the differences between the two aren't that great.

Especially in the QZ and NR fotm that we find ourselves in atm.

ICURADik · Aug 15, 2005, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Since you seem to not understand this very well, I'm going to link you afew video's from another forum.
http://www.guild-hall.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23463

BBQ is ranked 13. They run a R/W with nearly every build, largely because they have QZ and NR up constantly. I don't partcularly like most of their monk setups and their R/W uses Crushing Blow which I don't like either. But it is easy to see why the R/W works. He can constantly use Irresistible Blow and Tiger's Fury. With QZ up, FGJ! recharges much faster allowing the R/W to use many more knockdowns, despite their shorter duration.

In one video where they lose to NegativeZero, it is intresting to note that n0's Hammer Warrior gets off several very high damage hammer attacks. The BBQ monk has Prot Spirit right there on his skill bar, but chooses to instead use Guardian/RoF and subsequently dies. Guardian also seems particularly slow and cumbersome with NR up. Subbing out healing touch and dwayna's for boon and a higher level DF could allow those many, many Reversal's and Guardian's to heal as well as protect. Anyway, this is how you use R/W. It is a battle of attrition. A few knockdowns along with some consistant impressive damage is what's needed to break their monks once they get low on energy.

Edit: Your example of soothing images only goes further to prove the point.. What IF a Hammer Warrior and a Hammer R/W both have soothing images? Which will do more damage? It's fairly obvious.

Also, where did I advocate using Power Drain over Energy Drain. You use both, duh. In the very same post I say to Energy Drain a warrior and prevent Warrior's Cunning.

One more thing.. Dual Shot +2-3 Quickshots will do more damage in a very short time frame(2 seconds for 5 arrows) than any other combo. I don't know what you don't understand about that. You can use your QS/Normal combo to regain energy, then once your team calls a target to spike you use Dual Shot first.

Neo-LD · Aug 15, 2005, 03:08 AM // 03:08

Top guilds are not be-all-end-all. Them using a R/W in every build does not make me think higher of R/Ws, it makes me think less of BBQ.

The comparison of W/** or R/W vs soothing images (or any other anti-war hex) ends undeniably in favor of the war. Wars do more damage per attack, and are thus not terribly crippled if they cant use their skills for a while. Even better, they can use their secondary for getting rid of those nasty hexes.

Im not sure why R/W guys are so intent on focusing on the tombs meta-game as their specific area to argue, perhaps its cus they recognized they cant fomulate a good argument in any other combat arena) But if we are going to bring in the meta-game, you have to realize that these characters are not fighting in a vacuum. They can rely on teammates to rid nasty chants and hexes, allowing them to focus entirely on damage. Who is better for DPS? A warrior. Who is better for spike damage? A warrior. Specifically relating to hammers, who is better for extended knocklock? Oh right a warrior.

Warskull · Aug 15, 2005, 03:27 AM // 03:27

One of the most fearsome builds I have ever seen is a well played hammer R/W. He used stances to constantly chase down our monks and have very impressive damage output with irrestable blow. If you ran he would activate storm chaser, if you stopped running he would activate tigers fury. Absolutely relentless at hunting down and disrupting our monks/casters. The biggest advantage I see with a R/W is sustainable use of stances which is downright scary if used right.

ICURADik · Aug 15, 2005, 03:46 AM // 03:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Top guilds are not be-all-end-all. Them using a R/W in every build does not make me think higher of R/Ws, it makes me think less of BBQ.

The comparison of W/** or R/W vs soothing images (or any other anti-war hex) ends undeniably in favor of the war. Wars do more damage per attack, and are thus not terribly crippled if they cant use their skills for a while. Even better, they can use their secondary for getting rid of those nasty hexes.

Im not sure why R/W guys are so intent on focusing on the tombs meta-game as their specific area to argue, perhaps its cus they recognized they cant fomulate a good argument in any other combat arena) But if we are going to bring in the meta-game, you have to realize that these characters are not fighting in a vacuum. They can rely on teammates to rid nasty chants and hexes, allowing them to focus entirely on damage. Who is better for DPS? A warrior. Who is better for spike damage? A warrior. Specifically relating to hammers, who is better for extended knocklock? Oh right a warrior.

So a warrior who simply doesn't have the energy to use Irresistible Blow is going to out damage a Ranger/W who does? You guys aren't realizing how relatively small 15% more damage is.

R/W: 1.38*(19-35) = 26-48 Crit: 68
W/?: 1.38*1.15*(19-35) = 30-56 Crit: 78

That's 4 damage on the low end, 8 on the top end, and 10 on crits(which supposedly happen 1.25% more per level of attribute). The additional crit% can normaly be ignored because you will very often be chasing opponets and crit automatically 50+% of the time.

Irresistible Blow adds +24 damage and with QZ can be used every other attack. That's the equivalent of +12 damage per attack. The Warrior can use it about every 4th attack for +32 damage. Adding +8 damage on average.

Now let's consider Ward Against Melee. They both will miss 1/2 of normal attacks. Allowing the Warrior to hit 5/8 tries(62%). The R/W will hit 3/4 tries(75%). Every 8 attacks the warrior misses an extra over the ranger.

When all is said and done, the R/W is doing very similar amounts of damage to the Warrior per hit, and possibly more considering miss rate. Then you have to consider Tiger's Fury/FGJ. Both those skills drastically tip the scales in favor of the R/W. It is easy to see why people are playing R/W.

The only true advantage I see in a W/? would be the knockdown duration. But relying on a speed buff that will get you killed against good teams is what makes my mind up in the debate.

Ender Ward · Aug 15, 2005, 05:38 AM // 05:38

BBQ running a Hammer R/W is not enough to convince me of it's usefulness (since my own experience tells me R/W is sub par at best). If anything, it shows that a good guild can stil win with sub par character builds.

My example of Soothing Images illustrated a point very clearly, yes, the R/W and the W/X are both screwed, while the bow Ranger is not. So if you want sustained, less easily countered DPS, why bring either the Hammer R/W or the W/X?
I disagree with Neo, the Hammer R/W is more useful than the W/X under Soothing Images, because the R/W stil has access to (reusable) Irresistable Blow. However, this misses the point that both characters are out of the game anyway.
While Irresistible Blow every 2-4 seconds is better than just normal attacks, that's stil a neutered character. That damage output doesn't justify a character slot on a team. Meanwhile a bow ranger would laugh at the same counter ...

However, it is possible, for a short time, to create conditions favourable to Hammer Warriors. During this short time, a W/Mo with a Hammer shines, like nothing else. And a R/W unfortunately doesn't come close. It doesn't matter that the R/W can keep up his offense forever. Outside that small window of opportunity, he simply gets countered, like any other melee attacker.

I'll just have to disagree with you on Power Drain and Dual Shot and leave it at that. A discussion about this would generate another thread, and I'm in no mood for it.

So as I said in that other thread, the question becomes:

Do you bring a less easily countered ranged character that has the same DPS, but doesn't have to chase the target (and can use distracting shot to boot) and can fire outside spell range. Or, do you bring a much more easily countered character, that needs to chase his target and is by nature in quite abit more danger?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ICURADik

The only true advantage I see in a W/? would be the knockdown duration. But relying on a speed buff that will get you killed against good teams is what makes my mind up in the debate.

If you're that worried about using Frenzy, get a W/R and use Tiger's Fury instead. I used to do this (had 16 Hammer, 10 Strength and 9 Beast Mastery). You get the 2x knockdown time and you keep a 33% speed boost without taking double damage. Hell, get a team-mate smiter to cast Judge's Insight on you for the best of all worlds.

But the simple reality is that if I want knock lock followed by death on a monk, I'm bringing a Warrior primary with access to Stonefist Gauntlests and harder hitting attacks. And if I want sustained DPS, I'm bringing a Quickshot Ranger, not a hammer R/W.

ICURADik · Aug 15, 2005, 06:25 AM // 06:25

A W/R still can not cast Tiger's Fury every 10 seconds for 13 energy , FGJ! every 27 seconds for 13 energy, and Irresistible Blow every 2.24 seconds for 6 energy.

A Ranger on the other hand has an extra pip of regen along with a 7 energy TF, 7 Energy FGJ!, and 3 Energy Irresistible Blow.

In a build focused on attrition, I would rather have a character that can do effecient, maintainable damage, with deadly knockdown when the time comes.

Ender Ward · Aug 15, 2005, 07:39 AM // 07:39

A W/R only needs to cast Tiger's Fury once per target, while spiking, not constantly. He also needs to use Crushing Blow (a must on any hammer warrior), once per target, while spiking and not constantly. Both fit perfectly fine in the Gladiator's armor energy pool. I've done this many times when I stil played a Hammer W/R.

"For Great Justice!" while very nice, is unnecessary. I long since stopped using it. When one realises all you care about is one 6-7 second spike, instead of trying in vain for sustain DPS, FGJ becomes alot less useful.

Irresistible Blow, is also used once per spike, either as a "test" attack, to see if the target is behind an Aegis/Guardian or stance, so you don't waste your Devastating Hammer. Or it is used as a finisher in an adrenaline chain, after your second knockdown. Or not at all, if target dies on the second knockdown, which is what usually happens to my W/Mo with JI.

Yes yes, the R/W does have expertise and an extra pip of regen. But he doesn't have Stonefist Gauntlets and his attacks, during the adrenaline chain, are substantially weaker.

And in a build focused on attrition, I would never bring a hammer R/W. As stated in the other thread, I'll bring a QS Ranger with Kindle Arrows and Favourable Winds.