Curse

Calibretto_9 · Jul 14, 2005, 02:13 AM // 02:13

Alright, some of you might have recognized that lately I've been posting questions about Guild Wars in an effort to get better, and to hear advice from others to support or critize ideas of my own. The wise man seeks the council of many, right? At this point in the game, I have played each of the character classes up until at "least" level 16, finding out not only what I like and dislike about each group, but learning what I am facing in competition. That being said, my most recent character is a, *Drum roll*, Warrior Monk! That's right ladies and gentlemen, I went completely original... Right? No, but seriously, I had to give it a try, because I decided that whether I wanted to play an executioner or knocklock the smiting line seemed to provide me with more. Now, what I'm about to say may step on a few toes, but I assure you, this post isn't to bash any class in Guild Wars, but to merely hear other's experiences so I can learn from that as well. And that brings me to my point.

My beloved warrior... Oh how I wished he were better than he was. I have noticed that in pvp (At least in random and DEFINITELY in team) that warriors can just be outclassed, plain and simple. This isn't a bash on warriors, because I LOVE my warrior character. The points are just this... There are SO many ways to completely shut down a warrior. Let's take my original, and my favorite character for starters. I have a Necro/Warrior - Now don't moan and groan for those who don't like necrowarriors. He completely suits my purposes and has rarely failed in accomplishing his job. The point is, going into a battle with just a basic setup, I consider warriors to be the absolutely LEAST threatening of all my targets.

Now don't start hating yet, because again, I love warriors. But here's the deal - Warriors can be crippled, warriors can be blinded, warriors can be slowed, warriors can be weakened, warriors can have their attack rates reduced, warriors can be soothed, warriors can be made clumsy, warriors can be made empathetic (Hope that's a word), etc. Now before I get the posts I know that are coming (About how casters can be shut down too), let me finish my point. I know that each and every class can be shut down. For quite a long time my necrowarrior did his time as a necromesmer and I learned all about the glories of shutting down. But it seems to me like every class not only has a plethora of spells to specifically kill warriors, but those attacks often make it to the skill bar in pvp. I've played team, and I've played random, and here's the bottom line I've experienced - My warrior can't keep up. If I decided to go straight knocklock with a war/ele, sure I can cause lots of damage, but I am an absolute limp on my monk. A monk's job is to heal, sure, but being a situation where the monk is the prime target, why would you cripple him from the very beginning? And then my war/monk, set with smiting as an axe warrior encountered the same problem. With no real self heals, if my monk was getting hammered, and an experienced aeromancer took notice (While I was preoccupied), well I was spending the rest of the fight with the patented quote, "Res?"

It just seems to me that casters can bring more to the table. They each can carry various warrior shut downs (Which normally have other uses to boot), as well as the fact that a caster carrying a self heal can actually be encouraged. Take for instance, a mesmer using inspiration. Inspiration can be used to heal, as well as used for energy denial. Necromancer's blood magic line heals while hurting the target. Elementals, while they don't have powerful heals persay, have water/earth wards and armors that GREATlY reduce the need for healing while providing other benefits as well. If a warrior is carrying self heals, it either a.) Reduces his armor and sets him up for a nasty hit (Watching my warrior get blasted with lightning while trying to pull of heal sig was depressing), or b.) Costs so much energy it'll run you into the ground. Now, if you want to argue the classic war/monk that uses the healing line, well we all know that's just laughable. A tank isn't too good when he can be ignored while his team is wiped out and then dispensed of by the whole team.

I apologize for the LOOOOONG post, but I thought I had some thoughts worth merit. Let me reiterate this point - This is NOT warrior hate. I love warriors, and this post comes mainly from my desire for my warrior to be more competitive. The fact that he can easily be pushed aside for more prime targets is disapointing. I mean c'mon - A necro slows you with faintheartedness, an aeromancer blinds you, a mesmer casts soothing on you, and everyone knows you're worthless. If your monk (Or in some cases if you run with a monkless team) is getting hammered and needs his energy to keep himself and the rest of the team going, he might not be able to get your conditions of you. I hate that it is so easy to completely undermine a warrior's game. I wonder if you guys have experienced the same problems, and I'd love to hear your advice. Please try to keep it civil, because honestly, this isn't for any other reason than for me to hear what you have to say as well. Who knows, if we're all in agreement, maybe we can reach the developers ears for some warrior skills to allow them to push through conditions or something, making it possible to hinder but not shut down this class.
Thanks so much,
-Calibretto

P.S. - I also realize that casters can be shut down as well, but not nearly to the effect that warriors can, and not to mention that outside of mesmers, a knocklock warrior or any form of disruptive warrior can be easily dealt with and pushed aside by a decent caster. This isn't hating warriors, this is hating that it can be done to them.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 14, 2005, 03:14 AM // 03:14

Ok, Warriors are the easiest to shut down. But if you look back on it, they're also the easiest to un-shutdown. ????

Read two skills, Mend Condition, Remove Hex. If you bring a warrior with these two skills as backup by either a protection monk or heck, bring them yourself, you can deal with most problems dealt to you. Trick is finding the right energy management skills to keep your energy high enough to keep those conditions off you. From what I've noticed, conditions are a lot easier to remove than to place and if the entire enemy team is focus firing your warrior for conditions repeatedly, then you're tanking. Doing your job. But usually, a warrior is only targeted with a few hexes and conditions and then left alone to suffer for the ailment's duration. By using skills and techniques that chop off said duration, u'll stay in fighting form.

My W/N runs one of the best and most sensible Conditions Prevention engine I've seen. Victory is Mine! and Plague Touch. Just spam plague touch till you have 5 energy left [that's 3 conditions]. Do ViM and spam 3 more. If you actually have 6 different conditions on your Warrior, you've just dumped all of them onto a hapless foe. Unless that foe can kill all conditions at once, they'll spend time trying to heal them off one at a time, and if you can disrupting Chop or something, they're screwed without backup.

Raw damage is not the way warriors are killed, usually. Even with the hardest hitting magic skills, your monk can easily outheal the dmg dealt cause warrior armor has a very high defense rating. I heard that Dragon Armor has best magic defense rating and equal physical defense vs. the other armors. I carry a Warding weapon as well. DoT and conditions/hexes kill warriors more effectively so if you can prevent those, then you're good to go.

You're also proving one of my earlier points way before. For people to think Warriors are ignored at the beginning of the fight is a flat out falsity. Warrior's are THE FIRST targeted with things like knockdown, conditions, and hexes. Naturally, theyre in front so they're going to get hit. What would make a warrior REALLY nice would be if he had Spell Breaker {E} backup from a friendly monk and he could cure himself of conditions. Then he's nearly unstoppable... But bah, chance of that happening is very slim.

Self heals? If you're going to use one, don't use Healing Signet. The trade off just doesn't justify the hp healed up. That and that means you have no faith in your monk if you're bringing more than one. Even in random pvp, I still find myself bringing only 1 heal skill, Victory is Mine!. That's all a warrior needs anyway.

If you want to be more effective, find a role and make every skill in your 8 slots available to that role. Don't try to do skills that allow you to do everything [like a certain guildmate I'm aware of] or skills you'd use just - in - case. Those skills don't help.

Find a purpose for your warrior and the rest will fall into place.

Calibretto_9 · Jul 14, 2005, 03:25 AM // 03:25

Hmm... Followed by another hmmmm... Very interesting thoughts. Very interesting indeed. Excellent point in that warriors "are" the first targets as the first ones in, and yes they do get stacked on conditions more often than not. After reviewing what you've said, I think you make a feasible point, more in that they need a specific job. I think that other characters can be a little more lax, for instance, a mesmer can have backfire and know that it will hinder 4 of the 6 classes, but I've always experienced with my warrior a wave of conditions, followed by the battle slowly falling away from me. Interesting to think of tossing those conditions to an enemy. I appreciate the reply, and hope I didn't sound too noob in my post. I think it's easier for me to think of how to shut down a warrior than how to keep them rolling, probably from playing all of my starter characters as casters (Granted every single one had a warrior secondary). I'd really like to drop by the arena and try out some of that condition transfer. Forget doing that in random pvp, because without a monk I'm in trouble, but with a decent monk bringing the necro skill to slough 'em off sounds good - very good. Again, appreciate the reply. Very helpful. Any other replies are more than welcome too. I love food for thought.

Also, would you mind throwing your war/necro build up for me to see? Curious as to how heavy you are in the warrior line and if perhaps I'm overextending myself into my secondary profession.

MCS · Jul 14, 2005, 05:24 AM // 05:24

Oh boy... How do I tell him...

Um... Guild Wars is a team game.

Calibretto_9 · Jul 14, 2005, 06:13 AM // 06:13

I understand that, and that wasn't the point of my article. I was referencing the fact that it seems (in what I've experienced) that casters can bring more to the table. For instance, in team pvp, we had a solid team with a good monk/mes, myself running war/monk (smiting), another war/ele (running knocklock), and an ele/necro. We had good strategies, with our hammer warrior pinning people, our ele spiking, and me keeping sustained damage and finishing kills, all the while monk healing. But we ended up going against a team of all casters, and our team literally got powned, and it was our warriors fault. The hexes and conditions came in fasters on both of us than our monk could remove, followed by the standard caster damage spells, and that was that. Going up against the same team with my caster (and an all caster team to boot), we won. It was a good fight, there were some close calls, but it really made me doubt the warrior's ability next to a caster. I mean, what if an ele just doesn't want to be hit. Throw on a ward, the water spell that keeps them from taking damage, or just boost their armor while piling out their energy damage on you (And normally your blind sorry butt). I understand it's a team game, and despite the fact that it may have seemed like a "newb" post, I'm getting the hang of the game and was merely commenting, and mainly on, the fact that it seems other players bring more to the team.

Tuna · Jul 14, 2005, 06:30 AM // 06:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by MCS

Oh boy... How do I tell him...

Um... Guild Wars is a team game.

Agreed, warrior is typically either very reliant on team mates or not at all. Unfortunately, if the warrior isn't very reliant, he's also not doing any damage. Basically, if you're going to run warriors you either have to a. communicate as to what is shutting you down so team mates can help or b. suck it up and wait for blind to dissipate.

It is completely true that a warrior is the easiest class to shut down. However, most of those shut down skills have decent recharge times, medium energy costs, and long durations. This means if that hex gets removed you're probably not going to be seeing it for a while. Most of the shut downs aren't very spammable which works to the warriors advantage. The two real warrior killers imo are ward vs melee and guardian. Both can be up pretty much indefinetaly and reduce effectiveness by 50% or more. Not only that but they can't really be removed or avoided.

edit: however, if you can overcome these obstacles a warrior can wreak some serious havoc on the enemy team in terms of damage and disruption. warriors also provide something we like to call sustained dps, which means there will be a constant drain on the enemy monks and the attacks can not be foiled by a simple prot spirit.

Zeru · Jul 14, 2005, 06:49 AM // 06:49

The biggest difference between ranger/warrior and ele is energy and type of damage.

Ele's, due to exhaustion and spell costs, cannot sustain their mana over time. Unless they're using something out of the ordinary like ele attune+arcane echo+lightning orb. They deal their damage in spikes and spend intervals regaining energy and just firing their wand. Besides exhaustion, ele's can sustain their mana somewhat with stuff like ether renewal, ele attune, and * attune but those are vulnerable to being stripped in the current metagame with heavy spirits.

Rangers/Warriors on the s weother hand, deal sustained dps and can sustain their energy while doing skills over lenghty amounts of time. This is so for two reasons. Expertise let's you spam skills virtually indefinitely. Warriors rely on adrenaline in most cases and both classes can use zealouapons to further their energy gain. Neither of them can spike very well but they are very solid at dealing consistent amounts of damage which strains the healing capabilities of a monk.

reciprocal · Jul 14, 2005, 09:13 AM // 09:13

I agree with the original poster as I've experienced Wa/Mos as well. I would like to point out that if they are busy removing conditions from themselves then they are not doing damage. If they put those skills in the bar they are losing 1-2 damaging or healing skills which are important because if you can't tank then you've got to do HEAPS of damage.

I think the BIGGEST threat against warriors is Necros. Blinded is usually very short and most mesmer hexes aren't THAT frightening but a necro curse-master will leave you batting like a kitten and it's VERY easy to keep you in that state for a LONG time, not to mention you're dealing with hexes AND conditions.

I sympathize with the poster, and say that perhaps your best bet is purge signet. Either that or hope they do something to make warriors tankable. One idea would be a skill that causes you to be the target of a foe's attack

.

Oh well, sorry, but I agree with the first poster.

QuixotesGhost · Jul 14, 2005, 02:20 PM // 14:20

Quote:

If they put those skills in the bar they are losing 1-2 damaging or healing skills which are important because if you can't tank then you've got to do HEAPS of damage.

Why's that? Personally I think the biggest problem with warriors is that thier too stubborn to take less than 5-6 damage skills on thier bar. Please, just let go of a couple make yourself harder to shut down. And why in the heck do you need heals?!? People aren't going to damage you, they know it's foolish with your 80+ AL. They are going to hex and condition you.

torm · Jul 14, 2005, 02:59 PM // 14:59

Melee don't have an entire prof (mesmers) dedicated to shut them down.

From my experience, warriors are the last ones to die in pvp. They rarely get targeted at all. It is the monk's job to unhex you or what not if you get shutdown. It should be no problem with a good group/monk. A good warrior build does the same amount of damage as any elem in the long run. Elem will evenutally run out of energy but warriors just keep on hacking.

Warriors definately play a key role in pvp. Koreans have used warriors well and look at them. Many of the top guilds use at least one warrior. My guild certainly do. And when we don't, we just bring a mesmer because we know a lot of american teams don't use warriors and are caster heavy.

Zorrander · Jul 14, 2005, 03:42 PM // 15:42

I play a warrior necro myself and have been having pretty bad luck in PVP. The biggest annoyance is what I call the "circle jerk" where a group has at least 2 sometimes 3 healers. I attack one, that person starts running in a circle while the others heal. I attack a different one, same thing. You could use hamstring or something else to slow them down, but you still can't kill them. I don't care what anyone says, if you're a warrior you cannot deal enough damage to overcome healing, it's not even close.

The most I ever really amount to in pvp is harrassment. The opponents are always going to go after the monks while I try to hack away at them with no results due to constant and overpowered healing capabilities. I understand that refilling your teammate's health is an important thing, but in it's current state there is almost no way to get through as a melee character.

Zubey · Jul 14, 2005, 03:48 PM // 15:48

I think the major problem for warriors is that there are several classifications of anti-warrior skills:

* Hexes
* Conditions (e.g. blind, weakness)
* Enchantments (e.g. Aegis)
* Wards (e.g. Ward Against Melee)
* Stances (e.g. Dodge, Bonetti's)

That's a lot of hurdles to jump, assuming that a good 8on8 team can stack these up.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 14, 2005, 04:00 PM // 16:00

Read all the posts and I must say I'm appalled...

Only do damage? Have monk heal your conditions? It's that kind of one-sided thinking that gets teams killed. There's more than one way to play this game and yes, stubborn warriors who bring 6+ damage only skills deserve to get hexed, die, and then complain that their monk sux0rs. They should just stop playing warrior if that's truely all that they think a warrior can do. What's more, anything can be countered so don't bother showing off your major intelligence that you think you can make any warrior weak...

By request, here's my build. His damage can be nigh unstoppable with remove hex from a teammate. He doesn't do the damage that these 'high and mighty' 6skill dmg warriors do but with a teammate with Fragility, oh the dmg flies... My dps never drops unlike these damage only warriors cause things like cripple, blind, etc. are rarely on me for more than 2s.

str: 7+1
axe: 10+2
tactics: 9+1
curses: 10

Swift Chop
Dismember
Axe Rake
Disrupting Chop
Victory is Mine! {E}
Sprint
Plague Touch
Rend Enchantments

This build dies to hexes, but so do most warriors so rely on your monk to take care of those. As far as conditions go, make sure to let your monk know to NOT mend your conditions. Victory is Mine! feeds off of them and Plague Touch works with it to make a very deadly engine.

My previous take on a nearly unstoppable Warrior/Monk Juggernaut: dmg version instead of condition version.

Strength: 9+1
Swordsmanship: 10+2
Protection Prayers: 10
Healing Prayers: 7

Sever Artery
Gash
Final Thrust
Savage Slash
Warrior's Endurance {E}
Mend Condition
Remove Hex
Restore Life

This guy can't catch enemies using speed buffs, but that's fine, some say kiting a warrior is leading a dumb warrior away, but if the enemy's monk is constantly running due to fear of a Savage Slasher NOT stopping or slowing down, that monk can't heal his team. As long as a monk kites far from the battlefield the enemy warrior, he can't save his teammates. Win-win for the warrior. If he's kiting the warrior so that enemy mages have free hits on him, he should tell his team to totally rip the mage's spell casting capabilities while he continues to chase the monk.

Metavirulent · Jul 14, 2005, 04:13 PM // 16:13

I agree with some replies that a cursing Necro 2nd can make a warrior's life easier.

- Plague Touch has been mentioned which is at least good to overcome the odd condition like blind/weakness. Most of the time, they just throw a condition on you and think that they have you covered. It is not suited to counter conditions that come back anyway like poison, bleeding, etc. but they are not incapicating you anyway (you need monk heal to counter those though). Problem is if you get lots of conditions where some are incapacitating, but then they are putting a lot of attention, energy, attack potential/casting time on you.
- Rend Enchantments, don't go out without this. Sure it hurts but it removes all the good stuff and suddenly your opponent cannot rely anymore on all the protections. If you don't use warrior elite, lingering curse is also an option, but it is very harsh on the energy side (need gladiator's and energy focus and rely more on monk for condition removal).
- Rigor Mortis, while Warrior's Cunning has the advantage of 0 cast time and hex removal not working on it, rigor lasts longer, has lower cooldown and can be used by other ppl too. At your discretion but it helps countering blocking/evade skills which are a very popular way of shutting down warriors.
- Weaken armour is worth a 2nd thought as it really boosts your attack potential, just like defile flesh for reduced healing potential. You can't have it all but it is fun to play around with a few.

On the warrior side, you need less skills than you may think. I think 5 warrior/3 necro, sometimes even 4/4 is a good ratio. I use axe for adrenaline based attacks to free energy for N spells. Two offensive skills (eviscerate and exec), a disruptor (disrupting chop) and sprint are enough for me. I'll occasionally take FGJ! if I think I'll have energy left and will be doing my adrenaline junkie thing.

Still, I think hammer is the better choice, but even there, with 4 skills (frenzy, devastating hammer, crushing blow, and heavy blow) you should be doing ok.

Note that you don't have an abundance of mana (who has) but it is still good to bring quite some Necro spells. You won't cast them all all the time but you will have them to counter some shutdowns. With the exception of mass plague touch (which isn't viable), I find long casting times (e.g. weaken armour, lingering curse, ...) to be more of an annoyance than mana costs.

Hexes, snares and knockdowns are still shutting you down pretty well but you cannot (and shouldn't try) to cover all on your own.

Jeff P · Jul 14, 2005, 04:38 PM // 16:38

An excellent post.
As one who loves playing warriors, I can relate to your plight. I've agree with you on several points. I am usually hit with whatever draining spells first off and then get left alone to die and unless I can get face to face with the caster before I get hit with the drains, they can deal more damage through their spells than I can with a sword.
When entering a PvP battle I usually TAB through the opposing players to find the Monk, and lacking one, I'll target the Necros or Mesmers. I've found that in a 1-on-1 battle against an 'undrained' warrior, I lose (check out the post 'Outclassed in Arena' to see my comments on that issue).
See? Even a warrior thinks the warriors aren't the biggest threat in the arena!
I have found there's a fairly successful method to combat the draining we receive, but it's effectiveness depends on those in your group...
IF you can quickly get to the caster and
IF you have used targetting and
IF those in your group follow your lead...

Then just maybe you can wipe the caster out before they can inflict major draining on you.

zorades · Jul 14, 2005, 04:39 PM // 16:39

It is true that W can be easily countered if you are prepared for them ( and only 1 or 2 W can even be ignored), but boy did i learned to hate them last night.

I had made the perfect team ( that’s what i thought) that could deal with ranger, air spike, and smite group easily, and advanced in a series of flawless victories to the vault. I thought victory would be mine considering the way most teams play...but I couldn't have been more wrong. In hall of heroes (5 teams in) we had to play 1st againt a Korean team … leave it to the Koreans to bring an UNEXPECTED team of 4 W, 1 N, 3 Mo

with diverse subclasses …. And they blew my team to pieces ... knockdown after knockdown … horrible … After killing us they took HoH

Yea, we could have brought the skills to deal with it … but then … what about the other builds

The morale of the story is that every class has its counters, but unless you are prepared its still pointless, and due to the 8 skills restriction you can't be prepared for everything .... just hope you won't encounter something that kills you

Thom · Jul 14, 2005, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

The biggest difference between ranger/warrior and ele is energy and type of damage.

Ele's, due to exhaustion and spell costs, cannot sustain their mana over time. Unless they're using something out of the ordinary like ele attune+arcane echo+lightning orb. They deal their damage in spikes and spend intervals regaining energy and just firing their wand. Besides exhaustion, ele's can sustain their mana somewhat with stuff like ether renewal, ele attune, and * attune but those are vulnerable to being stripped in the current metagame with heavy spirits.

Rangers/Warriors on the s weother hand, deal sustained dps and can sustain their energy while doing skills over lenghty amounts of time. This is so for two reasons. Expertise let's you spam skills virtually indefinitely. Warriors rely on adrenaline in most cases and both classes can use zealouapons to further their energy gain. Neither of them can spike very well but they are very solid at dealing consistent amounts of damage which strains the healing capabilities of a monk.

This is the most intellegent post on the tread. Warrior based builds have to be able to overcome an initial spike hump with protection and ward against elements. Then you spread out gain adren and spike, or take teams of 2 on 2 different monk targets and an interrupter on the third monk. This all depends on monks that can survive a sustained battle and several spikes.

Thinks you will want to take with you: Martyr{E}, some enchant removal, a handful of remove hex, wild blow. Augment your damage where possible and don't duplicate run all your support on one character.

Combos that can work in a warrior build:
Barb/Mark of Pain/Rend Enchant (all curses)
Shatter Enchant/Blackout/Hex Breaker (all Domination)
Judges Insight/Remove Hex/(Signet of Judgement or Scourge Heal) (all smite)
Aftershock/Ward a Elems/War a Foes (all Earth)--energy intesive and requires timing.

None of these are new ideas, but I will explain it for the younguns. The idea here is that you can go 11/10/10 in and carry 3 warrior attacks, 1 or 2 secondary enhance ment, 1 or 2 secondary support, 1 warrior support and rez. Bring 5 of these guys with different supports along with martyr and
you will do some damage if you communicate correctly and have solid healing. Make sure someone is a shutdown specialist, blackout works well here, and make sure other warriors are dealing damage.

You can also run a warrior spirit build, but this requires a good bit a awareness. Predatory Season, Fertile season and Sybiosis/Renewal (depending on monks Renewal can be run at 0 Wilderness), add tigers fury and you can drop spirits and attack for a bit. This is concept, haven't seen this run--don't see why not try to use it to kill spikes.

QuixotesGhost · Jul 14, 2005, 05:30 PM // 17:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

None of these are new ideas, but I will explain it for the younguns. The idea here is that you can go 11/10/10 in and carry 3 warrior attacks, 1 or 2 secondary enhance ment, 1 or 2 secondary support, 1 warrior support and rez. Bring 5 of these guys with different supports along with martyr and
you will do some damage if you communicate correctly and have solid healing. Make sure someone is a shutdown specialist, blackout works well here, and make sure other warriors are dealing damage.

I'll second that sentiment. In 4v4 I sometimes play a W/Me Blackout War and if I get a good warrior on my wing we can hit a target, hamstring, blackout to prevent wards/staces/hexes/whatever and drop em before blackout comes back up. It's a huge window of oppertunity deal however, if my teammates aren't on the ball and don't focus fire then it loses much of its effectiveness.

Generally the only people that keep paying attention to the warrior with hexes, conditions, wards, stances, whatever is person who your trying to chop up. Warriors will very rarely get focused fired. So prevent your target from doing that and you've won half the battle. This is why hammer wars are so popular in PvP, becuase they're so damn effective at doing this.

Calibretto_9 · Jul 15, 2005, 12:23 AM // 00:23

I'm not sure how to quote on message boards (Like you guys do so well), but torm here stated this: "From my experience, warriors are the last ones to die in pvp. They rarely get targeted at all."

I don't want to be the last one to die in pvp, and heck, did you ever stop to think why you weren't getting targeted? I mean c'mon, if you were such a threat, then you would be targeted (Much like monks, eles, and oftentimes mesmers). The reason, at least to my experience, is that warriors are easy to shut down, don't provide enough damage to waste time on them, and can easily and quickly be knocked aside. I'd like to go back to my necro, and discuss a little about his build. He's a necro/warrior on most days (on others he's a necro/mes), and I'll give a quick rundown of his lineup.

Going into random pvp, I bring this set up because you never know how to synch with your group. I'll take executioner's strike, life siphon, life transfer (The combo for nasty DoT), vampiric gaze, vampiric touch, enfeeble (Yet another hex), and then I often switch the next slot out for faintheartedness, barbs, frenzy, or sometimes penetrating blow if I don't bring a rez. If I feel lucky I'm inclined to drop any one of those skills for an enchantment remover, but I try to keep that for more organized play. I try to always fit a rez in there. This build has been extremely successful for me, allowing me to stack on hexes, drop the Life Transfer bomb when an opponent gets low on health, and throw off vampiric gaze and touch to finish off weaker opponents. I went with the warrior secondary to make sure I'm always keeping fire on the enemy if my energy is running low, so executioners strike makes for a nice little blow, and with barbs I can really drop an opponent quickly. Here's the point of explaining that build to you - With just that standard necro, nothing specialized, I have no trouble with warriors, even knocklocks. Slow their butts down and weaken them and their just fanning me with that big hammer (Using faintheartedness or enfeeble - together it's even nastier). Sure, he might be able to pull those off him, or the monk might even be able to help, but I'm telling you, they never get it off fast enough that I can't reapply with no problem.
The point wasn't that warriors don't have their jobs or even a place in GW, but rather that casters can fill their spots better. I think that the warrior class needs a serious overhaul, allowing them to push through and overcome hexes and conditions. But back to the quote, that pretty much summed up what I'm feeling in that I encounter 2 problems with a warrior. 1, I'm the last man standing beside my dead comrades (And if you think that's a role to play then you're crazy), or 2, I'm hexed and conditioned outta my mind, and pushed aside as the rubbish I've been turned into. If my monk can clear me, I'm great again, until, oh wait... They start ganking the monk and he has nothing to spare for me. I try to help him out, and anyone takes notice, and they lay those conditions or hexes right back on me and continue with what they were doing. It's disgusting, and it's a problem I don't run into with other classes. Perhaps it's because the arenas are so filled with warriors that it's more common to bring warrior removals, but still, if that's the case than something needs to be done.

In other news, Yukito, thanks for posting the build. I actually whipped one together just like you have it and maybe I just need some practice but I didn't fair too well with it. Just kept catching more hexes than conditions, and I also kept facing this problem which annoying me to know end. The enemy would rush my monk, as we did theirs if they had it. If not, we'd protect ours, but if certain players (Much like I am with my necro) noticed a hapless warrior without a monk's back up, they'd wipe me off the map and continue with my monk. It doesn't make a lot of sense to be able to be shrugged off so easily. When I'm in pvp, I see an ele, I think, "Uh oh, watch for spikes/wards/water debuffs." I see a mesmer, I think, "Uh oh, disruptions/energy denial/casting domination." A necro, I think, "Uh oh, debuffs/DoT/team energy support." A ranger, "Uh oh, disruptions/traps/conditions." We all just sigh when we see a monk, but when I see a warrior? Well, I've got to say, I just tab over him. Not a threat. Not to me, and as long as I run my necro, probably never will be. I felt a little threatened playing an elemental, until I came across the water spell that doesn't allow me to be attacked (I apologize, couldn't remember name and don't feel like cutting game on to find out). With my mesmer I fear everybody pretty much, because it seems like there's a general hatred of mesmers, but that's also because mesmers can bring heck onto someone's game. What do warriors bring? Knocklocks, sustained damage, and disrupts... IF you let them, which nobody does.
Is that a testament to their danger, or merely proof of how easy they are to shut down and cast aside. I'm pulling for the latter, and again, not because I dislike warriors (because even NOW I'm trying to get him better), but because I think the class is lacking seriously.

lanilifar · Jul 15, 2005, 12:27 AM // 00:27

Quote:

But it seems to me like every class not only has a plethora of spells to specifically kill warriors, but those attacks often make it to the skill bar in pvp.

The entire original post is summed up by and are fine examples of this point.

Please allow me to rephrase it:
Warriors are very dangerous opponents. Warriors were very popular when the game was first released. People learned how to counter warriors, and realized that they better do so if they wanted to stand any chance.

Honestly, if warriors were underpowered, you would not see so many people bringing counters to them. I have noticed a trend recently, where more teams and warriors have figured out how to counter the warrior counters.