Curse

mtm · Jul 04, 2006, 02:26 AM // 02:26

He's talking PvE warrior Loki, so there's no premade anet builds.

LoKi Foxfire · Jul 04, 2006, 02:44 AM // 02:44

I also disagree with taking 16 points in your weapon skill. The damage bonus you get from it doesn't justify losing all those points in Tactics (and Strength if you're using Sentinel.. which I believe all tanks should be now)

If anything, the area of skills for tanks only helps so much if you're not going able to actually play your class right. That being said, different areas require different builds as well.

Winstar · Jul 04, 2006, 03:08 AM // 03:08

I don't think there is really any reason to use sentinels other than for giving you a differnt play experience from the game. In Pve it barely matters what you do armour ware, and I'd just rather use the standard glads setup for the energy. I've never found a mission or farming area where glads was a problem. I used to prefer being a tanks tank in pve, but its really not necessary in any part of the game. You can if you want to go that route do so, but for its more fun and I actually find its faster and more effective to go high damage, playing my pve char more like a pvp char. To be honest, i don't think there is a right way to play the class in pve (boneheaded behaviour aside...) its just a matter of the kind of experience you want out of the game, and what skills you want to tinker with primarily.

Aisius · Jul 04, 2006, 04:34 AM // 04:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

Most PvE warriors suck. Tanks aren't very good, yet most people insist on playing one. Here is how to play a decent PvE warrior.

1) Put 16 in your weapon attribute. Your weapon attribute makes you do damage. Just because you payed way too much for that req 8 sword doesn't mean you should only put 8 points in swordsmanship. More points in swordsmanship makes you deal more damage.

2) Take at least 3 attack skills, two of which should be adrenaline based. This is your offensive core. Warriors exist to make stuff dead, fast. If you play a warrior right you can have targets dead before the dumb ele finishes casting his meteor shower.

3) Limit your defensive skills to a few well selected skills. You want your defensive skills to be highly effective and require minimal slots. Wasting 3-4 slots on stances is just plain stupid. As a warrior most of your defense comes from your armor and your shield. Good defensive skills are watch yourself and Bonetti's defense (just turn it on to relieve pressure for the monks for a few seconds or use it as a stance cancel.) Try not to use more than 2 slots on defensive skills.

4) Take a rez sig! TAKE A FRIGGIN REZ SIG! You are pretty darn durable as a warrior so if something goes wrong you probably won't be the first to die. Getting an ally back up on their feet within 3 seconds makes a huge difference. Teams that are fast on the rez are strong teams. Leave the hard rez to an e/mo or something.

5) This will leave you with 2-3 skill slots remaining. You fill these with utility or another attack or two. Increased attack speed stances are good (Tiger Stance is good in PvE.) Some interrupts can be good (distracting blow or disrupting chop.) Heal sig can be good for yourself. Alternatively adrenaline builders such at "To the Limit!" and "For Great Justice!" can enchance your offense. Fill these slots with stuff you imagine would be useful in the mission. If the enemy has a lot of condition plague touch will serve you well.

Bonetti's Defence is a prophercy only skill for one thing. I doubt many players in the Canthan explorers league will be playing prophercies so I'd have to say Defensive Stance which means you'll need at least 9 points in tactics to make it worth while imo.

I think deciding what role you want to play in the pve group is the first thing, then whether being the damage dealer, knock down warrior or tank you can change your armour and attributes to suite. I have two sets of armour one for run of the mill stuff which is glads and the other Sentinels for stance tanking. I have both prophercies and factions and am lucky I can play tank having access to all the good stances. IMO Factions has terrible stances for tanking.

Strength is a must for dolyak sig and Sentinels gear.

Katari · Jul 04, 2006, 05:36 AM // 05:36

Very good advice, Warskull. That is exactly what I look for in a PvE warrior, and just how I play mine. If I wanted nothing but a meat shield I'd have rangers bring pets, or MMs use Bone Horrors.

Warriors are a respected damage sourcein PvP, it's a shame that the majority of PvE PUG-land dosn't see them in the same way.

Stupid Shizno · Jul 04, 2006, 06:47 AM // 06:47

i read some of the posts and i have to say WTF MATE?
warriors suck at damage? and some one said warriors arnt the best for damage? WTF? Warriors are the highest DPS in game. every PvE player needs to watch a gvg match and look at a warrior. thats how its done. high damage output with a knockdown. think how elite your party warrior would be if you picked up a pvp exp player. he rushes in, kicks ass and takes name, messing up all baddies, baddies try to run, sprint + bulls charge, baddie gets kicked in the butt and bam! war is back on him hacking and slashing. give me a break with this tank newb crap. ive played all 8 profs, theres nothing i hate then some W/Mo newb tank when im playing monk. Thus increasing my hate to W/mo and kicking them out of groups.

Tiny Killer · Jul 04, 2006, 09:47 AM // 09:47

To me, the only value to being a "tank" is for a few (very few) solo farming builds. Even there I tend to run almost entirely damage output. I have never figured out a reason to just stand there when I could be killing instead. I run 16 points in my weapon (normally sword), 9 or more in strength (depending on exact build) and the rest in tactics or whatever other attribute it is needed in depending on the secondary I am using. When I have to go PUG, I advertise as "warrior lfg", never "tank lfg". It is amazing to me that so many do not understand the difference.

ilmau · Jul 04, 2006, 10:18 AM // 10:18

i'v played 800+ hours with my PvE warrior, and about 400+ with PvP warriors.
i'v got about 2k famas as w/e and about 600 famas as w/r.
Did 500+ GvG as warrior.

After all this i v found a build you can use everywhere just changing secondary class and getting skills (most not-related with any attrib) depending on the situations.

Attrib
Axe: 16
Strength: 13
Tactics: 4

2x Sentinels Armour + Stone Skin Brachets + Knight's Boats + Executioners Elm.

Distracting blow,
Eviscerate / Dismember,
Executioners,
Tiger Stance / Frenzy,
Sprint / Rush,
EMPTY SLOT,
EMPTY SLOT,
Rezz Signet

EMPTY SLOT = Lyssa Balance, Expell Hexes, Shock, Bonetti's Defence, To Teh Limit, Plague Touch, Echo, Charme Pet, anySpirit, Destroy Soul, Purge Conditions, Holy Veil, Life Bond.

Atm, the only thing i was not able to do with my war is run ppl in the shiverpeak >_<
i really don't deal with Freeze lol

jordie · Jul 04, 2006, 10:30 AM // 10:30

I know this is a canthan explorers area but people do underestimate the power of gladiators defence and its usefull ness in tanking and killing. Drawing the agro towards the tank then using glads is a great way to weaken (if not kill) their melee fighters.

General Surena · Jul 04, 2006, 10:51 AM // 10:51

I almost fall asleep everytime I see a PVE Warrior NOT use an IAS. It's a shame really but not their fault mostly. The full stance tank evolved during the popularity of team-based farming runs where all groups demanded or requested warriors only to bring stances. It doesn't work in the most PUGs anyway as people ignore aggro circles, so concepts like the tanking ele are even older.

Signet of Strength sucks btw....

Kabale · Jul 04, 2006, 12:10 PM // 12:10

What people fail to realise is that, unlike anywhere else in the game (IOW PvP), there's lots of monsters, and they like to ball up. That's why people bring stance tanks to 'aggro' all the mobs and then have Meteor Showers, Spiteful, and all that PvE junk to throw on stupid AI. All this time some gimp warrior is standing there with Glad's Defense.

I guess if you as a warrior like that sort of thing, go ahead and do it. But I don't, and it doesn't make me or my group any less efficient, mainly because I can still aggro everything and stay alive without all the stance fluff while actually killing stuff myself.

AxeMe · Jul 04, 2006, 12:18 PM // 12:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winstar

To be honest, i don't think there is a right way to play the class in pve (boneheaded behaviour aside...) its just a matter of the kind of experience you want out of the game, and what skills you want to tinker with primarily.

I completely agree. Truth is that anytime you try to make 5 rules for this, you're gonna be wrong some of the time.

Think of something - anything - that you know and understand really well in real life. Whether it is golf, baseball or nuclear physics you'll find that things aren't that simple. If you try to boil down all your knowledge into five rules you'll run into so many exceptions based on circumstances that you'll end up junking the rules.

The key seems to be intelligent decisions and the flexibility to adapt to each mission. Understanding the game mechanics and the situation and then being flexible enough to change the way you do things to take advantage of each situation works a lot better than blindly following a set of rules.

phasola · Jul 04, 2006, 01:26 PM // 13:26

defensive stances are for farming
when playing, wars are the primary damage dealers, for both pve and pvp
at least that's how i see it

Vermilion · Jul 04, 2006, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Winstar

To be honest, i don't think there is a right way to play the class in pve (boneheaded behaviour aside...) its just a matter of the kind of experience you want out of the game, and what skills you want to tinker with primarily.

QFT.

During my entire PvE experience on my Warrior in Tyria, I don't remember ever knowing what a "Tank" really was. To me, tank equaled warrior..so during THK I recall advertising myself as a tank. Of course, I had no idea about the concept of stances, just that I was supposed to kill everything up close and personal. And that worked/works well for me still.

The whole Tank mentality is pretty useless in Cantha as well. Take the Dredge for example..groups typically consist of a monk, a ranger, and a war/sins. It makes sense to go after the monk right? Well those playing tanks will do that..and by doing so defy their role by leaving melee classes free to pound on me. (the monk.)

Quote:

defensive stances are for farming
when playing, wars are the primary damage dealers, for both pve and pvp
at least that's how i see it

The problem is that the majority of players I see do not share this view. The people who want the cookie-cutter builds, consisting of Nukers, Tanks, and Healers, believe the Warrior is just responsible for holding aggro. This is especially annoying when you see this mindset diffuse into Alliance Battles.

Paperfly · Jul 04, 2006, 01:51 PM // 13:51

Heh, I saw two "true" stance tanks decide to show how "honourable" they were by duking it out one-on-one just outside the gates of Fort Aspenwood.

...The fight lasted the entirety of the match - and probably would've continued indefinitely, given how little damage they were doing. The rest of us just played on normally, since we were even with one player out of the game on each side.

I've got to echo Vermillion's point here: Tanking is less useful in Cantha. Assassins slip into the back, all mobs are mixed-class (unlike the monolithic groups from Prophecies), and enemy builds are sophisticated enough that you need to pay attention and think about your target priorities beyond just "kill the monk first". The result is that you're never really in a position to just stay in one place holding aggro...

Winstar · Jul 04, 2006, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Solong farming and just doing missions is definately a different ball of wax in Cantha as many have mentioned. In particular the general value of things like ripost/glads etc have gone way down since there are almost no (or maybe none at all) all warrior mobs to fight. If you stand there with your riposts dealing no damage since they aren't trigger by most things your aren't much use to your team or yourself.

Ira Blinks · Jul 04, 2006, 05:16 PM // 17:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMFD

Can't help but completely disagree with the OP

1) Put max in Tactics, not your weapon. In PvE you are in a group to tank, not deal the most damage. Use tactics-based skills thrill of victory and the ripostes for extra damage instead.

QFT.

If you not in the group to tank mobs, then why are you there?
If you have whole bunch of attack skills and 3 slots for defence you'll be wasting heals like crazy... and then you die... and then we back to point #1 - why are you in this group?
If my ele have to take punishment and be interrupted and stipped all over the place, then why take warrior into group anyway?

Who said aggroing more than one group is bad? Of course it bad because you can not tank it!
Truth is good tank can sustain 3 or more groups of high level mobs. Good tank knows how to pull caster mobs into one ball and then pull melee onto them. Good tank knows that amount of mobs on him is irrelevant to how fast they die to SS and nukes, thus reducing time for killing three group by factor of three.

Moral: Yet another good example of something that somehow works but has absolutely no though behind it about the purpose and efficiency.

Winstar · Jul 04, 2006, 06:03 PM // 18:03

^ disagree

The idea that warriors need to run like 6 defnesive skills to be useful in pve is a myth. You can still be a good warrior and hold aggro and not die while having the added bonus of bringing the highest dps in the game to the table. The idea that this wastes heals is off base. If you play more high damage you kill things quicker, which means the mobs are doing less damage, which means less healing over time is required, which also means you finish missions more quickly.

The warrior is there in the front line, but you simply neuter their potential by standing around with a bunch of stances. You can do this if you like, but its just false that the best warriors for your group are the ones who spam self heals and stances the whole time they are out there.

When I first played through the tyrian missions I played as a tanks tank. Since then I have gone back to do all the bonuses only playing as high damage this time. IMO it was much much more effective to go high damage (not to say you can't do it both ways since I did). Thunderhead, Ring of fire missions, southern shiverpeaks, etc were all easier and faster with high damage. I did all of factions on high damage mode and it was a breeze.

I also found it much more enjoyable to to high damage rather than sitting there being a sponge. 16 wep foreva!

Ira Blinks · Jul 04, 2006, 06:37 PM // 18:37

facts:
1) 6 defensive skills >>>>> 3 defensive skills for survivability
2) killing one mob at a time from the group of ~10 is a waste of time
3) team work is complementing abilies of your teamates, not substituting.

Is tank only way to go? No...
Is tank the best way to go? Yes.
I don't even see the room for second opinion here.

Winstar · Jul 04, 2006, 06:55 PM // 18:55

1) You can have 3 defensive skills, for example dolyaks, watch yourself, healing sig while going high damage and survive. The problem is thinking that 6 are required in any way for pve survivability
2) Umm, killing any number of things faster (and much faster) makes the whole thing go faster which means its not a waste of time and is less of a stress on energy than battles that drag out longer
3) Since one can still control aggro and do all the things a warrior should while being a high damage warrior I fail to see how this doesn't fit in with teamwork
4) Since in pve a high damage tank can perform the function of any low damage defensive tank (i've done it both ways) and the high damage tank was far more efficient in getting through missiosns it seems to me that there is a lot of room for a second opinion. 16 wep foreva!