Curse

The Red Knight · Jul 27, 2005, 10:21 PM // 22:21

dismember + cleave makes the baby jesus cry eviscerate for the win

. also on the rend on the warrior comment. Yeah sometimes I hate when i only remove 1 enchant but then I remove 3 and im like WOOT so its really a gamble but it helps killing monks alot easier when they run life bond or seed etc

Phades · Jul 27, 2005, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yukito Kunisaki

That would be crazy. Having warriors running around with hammers and axes and swords simultaneously...

Weapon Mastery to me is the most common 'sense' ideal for using the weapons. Being able to use any weapon without consequence is just crazy in my eyes. It could very indeed be broken.

It would have to be broken up in two different ways for the sake of balance, but allow weapons of any type to fall under either skill requirement catagory allowing for crossover. I realize you are envisioning the worst case scenario, but there are alot of different elements from each that would be nice to be able to transition between, just like how elementalists can have 2 element lines reasonably mastered or a necro mixing blood and death or curses or whatever. I mean, imagine if part of marksmanship and expertise were split up into a 3rd skill line for only short range bows, while the rest were long range bows only splitting up the interupts from the damage lines and forcing one type of bow to use one style over another. That is about the same situation you have with the different weapon skill lines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tuna

The major problem with running battle rage is that you can't use frenzy. That in itself makes it worth it to run something else (as axe/hammer warrior) A warrior typically doesn't use much or any energy so running frenzy + fgj is completely viable.

Its not so bad if you break rage to initialize fgj, because you will have an overlap in skill use making the gain cumulative.

Battle rage, like many warrior skills and elite skills, force limitations on use rather than expand on the warrior's ability overal. Only misnomer appears to be with frenzy and warior's cunning, which i cant understand why they combo together while others do not.

LockerLoad · Jul 28, 2005, 04:58 AM // 04:58

I'm prepared for the flames, but here goes neway

I tank all warriors w my axe-monk/war like this:

Axe 12
Prot 14(head+sup rune)
the balance in smiting for adrenaline(I know it's not much)

Res sig(of course)
Prot bond,
Balth spirit
Mend ailement
Frenzy
Dismember
Eviscerate

Oh yea, a zealous haft and offhand focus

The only weaknesses of this build are hexes and enchant rippers, but with a good healer or prot monk it's almost unstoppable.

Frenzy breaks even on energy cost and keeps the damage high enuff for the prot bond to kick in on most attacks. Wands and double shot are the main problems believe it or not(though i harvest extra energy from these weak weapons). I seldom run low on energy due to zealous/balth spirit(substitute essence bond for zealous if u wish)

Deep wounds start to stack up even on heavily armored and buffed warriors. I've killed them doing rediculously low dmg before, usually followed by the incredulous "WTF!!??!".

Casters are a piece of cake =)

Mend ailments handles blindness and bleeding.

Switch targets if defensive stances prevent hits.

Other skills which can swap in for an axe attack are swift chop, axe rake or distracting chop. Mix and match to your needs.

I've experimented w various armors and like the tatoos best. I've omitted chest armor altogether with pretty impressive results although energy can run out if your gang-banged and blind.

Give my build a try. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Tuna · Jul 28, 2005, 06:17 AM // 06:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by LockerLoad

I'm prepared for the flames, but here goes neway

The only weaknesses of this build are hexes and enchant rippers, but with a good healer or prot monk it's almost unstoppable.

Thats a pretty freaking big weakness you got there buddy

Also, you are doing substantially less dmg than a warrior with that setup.

Zeru · Jul 28, 2005, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Why on earth would you run a warrior with protective bond on yourself?

Only reason I could see would be to be to remove your armor and be a decoy and hope the enemy is dumb enough never to switch targets.

You're just wasting your time.

Howling Wind · Jul 28, 2005, 12:51 PM // 12:51

If Cleave was down to 2 or 3 Adrenaline it would easily be in my opinion the best axe elite and highly spammable but sadly the higher ad cost makes me look towards evisecrate but I guess its still a matter of opinion and choice.

Battle rage in my opinion is a really nice skill, and the loose all adrenaline shouldn't be too much problem if you can spam alot of skills while its running, flurry helps alot.

Phades · Jul 28, 2005, 12:58 PM // 12:58

Can't use flurry with battle rage.

rii · Jul 28, 2005, 01:12 PM // 13:12

A good tactic i find is to use all my adrenaline before refreshing battle rage. Its shockingly simple, but using something like final thrust before recasting doesnt end up in me saying:
"OMG WatF wheres my adrenaline all gone!?"
which seems to be the problem with battle rage (sorry for the exaggeration). And the 25% increase in speed seems more useful to me. People running away is always a problem, so this sorts it out dam well. a 33% increase in attack speed.... i can live with the sacrifice. I think ill wait until an expansion, im sort of expecting a shout of aoe increased attack speed...

Whatsmore, warriors dont really need elite attacks..... most are just two skills combined. Look at eviscerate, its just power attack and dismember put together. So yes, it is more efficient to take that over those two seperatly, but i would argue that battle rage increases efficiency more than that combination.
With battle rage, and with those two skills (power attack and dismemeber -although i concede power attack isnt the best choice since its energy based, but the point remains) I could do more deep wounds to more people in a shorter space of time. Evis is a 7 adren attack , so thats 8 hits to put it into place.
Now the two skills. For a start, i can cast power attack twice during these eight hits, which increases the overall damage (since you only get one evis). Then dismember takes 7 adren also, but this is reduced to 3/4 (im not sure how the rounding works, but lets say 4 for the heck of it.
This means that with evis,
8 hits to do +24 damage and a deep wound.
The combo:
8 hits to do 2 deep wounds and 2 power attacks.

It seems battle rage has doubled the effect, albeit at the cost of two things:
1) attack speed
2) skill space on your bar

lets take 2) first. a dedicated axe-r would probably run strength, axe, and say smiting (my favorite)

Warrior/Monk

Strength:11+3
Axe: 10+3
Smiting:10

Battle Rage[e]
Power Attack
Dismember
Disrupting Chop
Executioners Strike
Axe Twist
Strength of Honor
Ressurect
I Will Avenge You!

Nothing special here, but as we can see there were plenty of spaces left over, so i dont think its really a problem, unless your wanting to do more than hit people. :/

now for point 1), attack speed.

Axes attack at once per 1.33, incresed to 0.87 by say, frenzy.
That means that evis takes 7.022 seconds to do those eight hits, whereas battle rage man takes 10. 64. So a fair increase. However, there is of course the two points that, a) battle rage will be using many more (twice as more lol) skills as evis, so will probably level his dps from that. Whatsmore, the inclusion of frenzy means that evis is using two skills to match the two skills that battle rage had to take the put the evis combo together.

So in the end....... it doesnt matter. Battle rage might get about 5dps more :S

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 28, 2005, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Switch Axe Twist with Axe Rake and Power Attack for Penetrating Blow and DAMN that's one of the smartest dmg output builds I've ever seen for a warrior.

But WTF is all these 'self-proclaimed' non-noobs saying warriors with self-mending rocks at lvl 20 arena?

Just ends up with me giving awesome reasons for "I told ya so".

rii · Jul 28, 2005, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Its just the preconception that in the arena noone is there to heal you, so your gonna have to do it yourself....
I use;

Warrior/Monk

Strength: 11
Swordsmanship:10
Smiting:10

battle rage [e]
Sever artery
gash
galrath slash
final thrust
judges insight
strength of honor
res signet

its a converted paladin premade, and i occasionally hit 5 second kills. (woo). With dps like that in the arena you dont need self heals half the time.

Red Locust · Jul 28, 2005, 06:03 PM // 18:03

The biggest problems with battle rage are the availability of frenzy and awesome elite attack skills.
As a hammer warrior, battle rage is out of the question, you're always gonna go with devastating hammer (or maybe even backbreaker) over BR.
As a sword warrior, battle rage is excellent, definitely one of the top choices. High adren cost attacks, no decent elites, BR stands out here.

As an axe warrior, it's very questionable. Cleave is a good choice (forget Eonwe), so is Eviscerate. But then, being able to spam penetrating/executioners like a madman is pretty good and arguably comes close to matching the damage output from cleave/eviscerate.

Also keep in mind the speed boost battle rage gives you. I often bring sprint and bulls strike (it has its flaws, and its uses) with me if I'm not running battle rage, and rage pretty much frees up a skill slot there.

rii · Jul 28, 2005, 06:14 PM // 18:14

As i said in that quite long post, battle rages loss of attack speed buff is more than countered by its own buffs.
Battle rage.

.

Nexx · Jul 28, 2005, 06:16 PM // 18:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by rii

Its just the preconception that in the arena noone is there to heal you, so your gonna have to do it yourself....
I use;

Warrior/Monk

Strength: 11
Swordsmanship:10
Smiting:10

battle rage [e]
Sever artery
gash
galrath slash
final thrust
judges insight
strength of honor
res signet

I used the same exact build when I started out awhile back but condition totally pwns warriors especially blind when my build had no condition removal.

Rey Lentless · Jul 28, 2005, 06:34 PM // 18:34

The problem with frenzy, is the loss of sprint. The best way to counter frenzy is just having someone move on you. Battle rage gives you the buff, without making you switch out of it consantly to chase, or as an emergency stance ender to get out of the 2x damage. And you don't need any other stance with it, and don't have to bother with other supporting skills like FGJ. It allows you to fill up your bar with adrenal skills.

Once you start rage (after 3 hits), you can pretty much non stop spam skills. Triggering your armor penetration almost consantly, and obviously getting all of the bonus damage. It also opens up the door to spamming disrupting chop. Since you continue to gain adrenal even when you use an adrenal skill, you're always gaining adrenaline which is a huge difference. The ratio between regular attacks and adrenal attacks is a giant difference when using battlerage. Going the other route eats up 3 skills.. frenzy, FGJ, and sprint, and while you can spike better with frenzy, your overall dps is going to be much better.. and it requires your target to be stationary. That's not the best use with the axe.

Zeru · Jul 28, 2005, 08:17 PM // 20:17

It takes some really unideal situations for BR to become even near the offensive level of frenzy/cleave or eviscerate. The tradeoff is that a BR build is much easier to use whereas a frenzy build either requires heavy concentration or good player skill.

With BR you can continue to pursue the same target consistently until he gets enchants thrown on him or runs into a ward v foes. With frenzy you have to switch targets constantly, which is often just as effective if not moreso, because you are forcing them to waste enchants (if your axe/sword warrior isn't buffed why on earth are you running it?) or take a lot of damage very fast. That is the major playstyle difference between these two setups; the frenzy setup is much harder to use effectively. Vs good teams you have to know when it's safe to turn on and have to be fast to cancel it out if you're focused on.

An advantage for battle rage people should not be ignoring is the energy it frees up. Frenzy/Sprint is somewhat taxing on energy, add in JI or another energy skill and you will have issues without zealous. On the other hand BR builds can involve practically no energy needed, which frees up your 2 pips of regen for support setups. A very basic example, throwing succor on two monks. They get their badly needed +1 energy regen which you don't need.

And like I've said multiple times, the lose all adrenaline is a very big penalty and should not be downplayed. If an opportunity becomes apparent and you want to adren spike someone who say, just used infuse health or bip, and your BR runs out right then, you're rather screwed. If you've been building up adren to spike with your team and it runs out, oh well too bad. This isn't a big deal if your sole goal of using BR is an easy to play build (better for target callers) where you are dealing a constant stream of dps and never spiking but if the latter becomes necessary to break the enemies healing BR will not be your friend.

btw fgj is hardly a necessity on a warrior build. it's ok but it's not a top tier skill by any means.

Rey Lentless · Jul 28, 2005, 08:52 PM // 20:52

Quote:

It takes some really unideal situations for BR to become even near the offensive level of frenzy/cleave or eviscerate.

The situation you're describing is having someone.. move. I don't find that a rare situation, and I don't like the other team forcing my hand that much. While I do think switching targets often is a positive thing for a warrior, you should have the ability to do well on one target as well.. not just if it decides to stand still. I seriously doubt in a normal battle, that a frenzy/cleave (or worse eviscerate) user can outdamage a battle rage axer. The extra adrenal skills freed up, and the ability to still be at very high effectiveness against moving targets means an overall increase in dps. Having the ability to string together attack skills almost constantly.. again means you're getting the armor penetration and bonus skill damage. Being able to chase well is very important for a warrior considering all the bonus damage you do while chasing. Having to rely on skills that can't be used while doing that is not optimum.

Frenzy is more of an ideal situational skill, albeit very powerful. Your target has to be stationary, and you can't be targetted. While that situation certainly isn't non-existant, it isn't exactly the norm either.

If you're getting help from other people on your team with snares and knockdowns, then great.. go with frenzy. But for the usual fight, battlerage is going to do more for you.

Iraqalypse Now · Jul 28, 2005, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Battle Rage is simply amazing. While you can't use frezy, the damage output you should have with battle rage is still very good. A war/mo with battle rage, res sig, succor, and 5 adrenal attack skills is very strong... Its vulnerable to adrenal shutdown, but thats not very important as warrior-centered builds are the exception in tombs.

When I play in the 4 v 4 arena, my war/mo build is like this after runes:
12 str
12 axe
10 smiting

Battle Rage
Disrupting Chop
Dismember
Axe Rake
Penetrating Blow
Executioner's Strike
Strength of Honor
Watchful Spirit

It does pretty well, considering that most opponents don't start running until i have my adrenaline up and start doing very large damage skills combined with disrupting chops, whereupon i drop a deep wound + cripple on them combined with the speed buff of battle rage. Its kind of low on self healing, but after ramping up the damage is rediculous.

Right now the no-energy succor war/mo sounds like a really good idea, especially since it frees up att points to go 12/12 base axe/strength.

rii · Jul 28, 2005, 09:38 PM // 21:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

It takes some really unideal situations for BR to become even near the offensive level of frenzy/cleave or eviscerate. The tradeoff is that a BR build is much easier to use whereas a frenzy build either requires heavy concentration or good player skill.

With BR you can continue to pursue the same target consistently until he gets enchants thrown on him or runs into a ward v foes. With frenzy you have to switch targets constantly, which is often just as effective if not moreso, because you are forcing them to waste enchants (if your axe/sword warrior isn't buffed why on earth are you running it?) or take a lot of damage very fast. That is the major playstyle difference between these two setups; the frenzy setup is much harder to use effectively. Vs good teams you have to know when it's safe to turn on and have to be fast to cancel it out if you're focused on.

An advantage for battle rage people should not be ignoring is the energy it frees up. Frenzy/Sprint is somewhat taxing on energy, add in JI or another energy skill and you will have issues without zealous. On the other hand BR builds can involve practically no energy needed, which frees up your 2 pips of regen for support setups. A very basic example, throwing succor on two monks. They get their badly needed +1 energy regen which you don't need.

And like I've said multiple times, the lose all adrenaline is a very big penalty and should not be downplayed. If an opportunity becomes apparent and you want to adren spike someone who say, just used infuse health or bip, and your BR runs out right then, you're rather screwed. If you've been building up adren to spike with your team and it runs out, oh well too bad. This isn't a big deal if your sole goal of using BR is an easy to play build (better for target callers) where you are dealing a constant stream of dps and never spiking but if the latter becomes necessary to break the enemies healing BR will not be your friend.

btw fgj is hardly a necessity on a warrior build. it's ok but it's not a top tier skill by any means.

If you look slightly above your post ^^^ youll find a post where i went through a comparison between battle rage and eviscerate (or insert any other warrior elite axe attack). Battle rage won on dps and overall usefulness. If you have trouble timing adrenal spikes when the max times you need to hit someone to charge any of your skills is 4 times then

battle rage is better than attack elites, unless your fighting a warrior with wild blow, in which case your screwed.

Phades · Jul 28, 2005, 09:49 PM // 21:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rey Lentless

The problem with frenzy, is the loss of sprint. The best way to counter frenzy is just having someone move on you. Battle rage gives you the buff, without making you switch out of it consantly to chase, or as an emergency stance ender to get out of the 2x damage. And you don't need any other stance with it, and don't have to bother with other supporting skills like FGJ. It allows you to fill up your bar with adrenal skills.

Once you start rage (after 3 hits), you can pretty much non stop spam skills. Triggering your armor penetration almost consantly, and obviously getting all of the bonus damage. It also opens up the door to spamming disrupting chop. Since you continue to gain adrenal even when you use an adrenal skill, you're always gaining adrenaline which is a huge difference. The ratio between regular attacks and adrenal attacks is a giant difference when using battlerage. Going the other route eats up 3 skills.. frenzy, FGJ, and sprint, and while you can spike better with frenzy, your overall dps is going to be much better.. and it requires your target to be stationary. That's not the best use with the axe.

The problem with relying on battle rage like that is that you become quite vulnerable to things like blind and any block/evade condition. So, instead of your opponent moving to defeat you, they just stand there and laugh at you. Soothing images and sympathetic visage do it just as well, in addition to any run speed hex. It only really takes 1 anti-warrior skill of any flavor to really mess with any kind of warrior centric synergy originating from himself.

Zeru · Jul 28, 2005, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Quote:

If you look slightly above your post ^^^ youll find a post where i went through a comparison between battle rage and eviscerate (or insert any other warrior elite axe attack). Battle rage won on dps and overall usefulness. If you have trouble timing adrenal spikes when the max times you need to hit someone to charge any of your skills is 4 times then

Okay, in an ideal situation, Frenzy/Eviscerate or Cleave (Eviscerate is the same damage as executioners strike not power attack I believe) DESTROYS Battle Rage in terms of dps. There's absolutely no contest. If you don't believe that you need to recheck your math. Whether BR is better or not depends on actual circumstances. Your team is going to be snaring the enemy, the enemy will be snaring you. When you have something like Ice Prison or Iron Mist on you you can't do anything Battle Rage/Sprint or not so it's not a big improvement. When you aren't snared, monks are going to be kiting quickly. However, enemy teams are not going to be very spread out; indeed if they are using wards they are going to be huddled close and a monk will not leave a ward v melee/harm vs a buffed axe war. So even if they kite away you can quickly shift to another target that is closer and pound on them until they run. You can keep frenzy up a large portion of the time and you don't need to use sprint.

To be as plain as I can be:

BR axe pros:
-2 pips of energy regen to go to whatever kind of support you want. I used succor as a basic example.
-Easier to play than a frenzy warrior, making it better for a target caller.
-Have the option to stay on a target constantly (though even with the speed boost you won't be able to land every hit)
Cons:
-Can't adren spike well
-Can't take advantage of opportunities every time they come up due to the lose all adren fnction.

Frenzy/Cleave or Eviscerate Pros:
-Far more damage than the other setup
-Good for adren spiking
-Is much better versus Ward against Melee/Aegis/Guardian (this is a HUGE plus as a majority of good teams will have ward against melee).
Cons:
-Very hard to play. It takes a very skilled warrior to know when they can get away with frenzy and when they can't. Requires lots of concentration to get around kiting monks.
-More energy intensive.
-You are forced to switch targets more often than you might like.

Quote:

battle rage is better than attack elites, unless your fighting a warrior with wild blow, in which case your screwed.

Battle Rage is very inferior to Backbreaker or Devastating Hammer. You don't go Battle Rage as hammer warrior period.