Lunacy Polish

Oh savvy and kind knowers of yon circuitry, I beseech thee for I am dumb, about to spend a lot of money, and am sans computer and the sooner I replace it the better.

The aging laptop computer I bought when I was a poor grad student (it was an absolute beast I spent too much on) that I play GW2 and other games on has finally given up the ghost.  I took it to a repair place and after what I heard there plus with some help from a tech savvy friend I've decided it's time to get a new computer.  I was going to replace it soon anyway but right now I'm without a personal PC and that's really inconvenient.

I have a monitor, mouse, keyboard, headphones etc. so I don’t need to buy any of that.  I want to make this simple with one order from one vendor on one shipment, etc.  I went with Newegg.  I do need the OS, and I have a budget of $1600.

I want things to just be simple as possible too and am trying to get a lot of expandability and good basic components with the possibility to add options like SSD later.  One of the NewEgg DYI combos was perfect, it has a ton of RAM, lacks any “extras” while still offering good basic features, and it has the exact motherboard and processor my internet research says are good choices.

I showed the build to a much savvier friend of mine who advised me of the benefits of the aftermarket heat sink and how to apply it, and he talked me into it the argument sounded reasonable.  But he also advised me the one that comes with the combo is not one he thinks very highly of.  It’s still cheaper to buy the combo anyway despite the one redundant part.  The wireless adapter is a luxury I want, there’s nothing more to it than that.

http://www.newegg.co...t=Combo.1244448

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130768

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827129074

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16833320074

http://www.newegg.co...Item=35-100-007

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835103099

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16832116992

That clocks in at $1608 after discounts, so it’s just the tiniest bit over, I can handle another $10 but that’s my absolute limit.  Again bear in mind I have monitor, etc.

Anyway I will be placing the order very soon out of personal anxiety and necessity, but I will also check this before ordering to see if I got lucky with any responses.  I did get one good opinion but it never hurts to get more, I’m mostly just hoping someone can confirm this isn’t a disaster waiting to happen here.  All thanks are a thousand fold and in advance.

"Uptime” is for purposes of this discussion how long your character can partake in a PvP fight at or near peak effectiveness before having to slow down or change behavior to something less effective.  For example if you are using auto attacks because literally everything else is on cooldown, you’re not engaged in combat in a truly effective capacity until such time your other abilities come back.

Since the March patch I'm overall having a lot more fun with my Warrior, but I've noticed a certain behavior emerging now.  I don’t seem to have very good “uptime”.  The best way I can try to describe this thing I’m experiencing is to contrast it with what I experience as other professions.

Necromancer -  I have many  options once I engage.  With my death shroud, plague elite, wide variety of effects and abilities, I can hang in a mass battle for a very long time sometimes.
And the thing is I do it by attacking constantly to keep my Life Force where it needs to be.  If I make the right decisions, I can stay up in a mass battle indefinitely or at least be among the last to finally die.  It’s engaging.

Thief - People are complaining, but to be honest my thief hasn't suffered a lot.  The thing with the thief is I have lots of powerful attacks, some more AE centered, some more single target, which I can switch between easily, and I can repeat the attack I need 2-3 times.

The trick with the thief is to not overextend.  The irony is despite being squishy and not having two life bars or heavy armor or 26,000 hitpoints, my thief lives longer in combat than any of my other characters even post nerf.  I can really hang in there.

Guardian - Bear in mind this guy is new, his gear sucks, etc.  This guy just hangs in there though.  Some kind of aid or recovery is constantly refreshing, and the best part is everyone around me is getting the same stuff as I am when I hit it, so those people can stay in the fight longer too.

I have to manage it and am still learning how, but the options are there.  I can twist my weapon skills, virtues and utilities into flexible and effective solutions for the situation.  But that’s not the best part. All these things I do benefit players around me too, so they stay in the fight with me!

So what’s the problem?

Well as the Warrior, I seem to find myself in a weird cycle in combat where my downtime is sometimes greater than my uptime.  To put this in very general terms so I can talk about it at all, I generally rush in and drop all the hurt I can in the best way I can gauge in the moment.  But what happens after that?  I have to run out almost immediately.  

Now understand I am STACKED.  Toughness on every piece, All Soldier Trinkets, Endure Pain, as much condition removal as I can get, something silly like 20 seconds of Stability, etc.  The thing is that's all great, but the reason I'm so stacked like that is this is what it takes for me to be able to go drop 5-6 attacks and then rush out and not die.

My other characters don’t have all this crap, and can stay in the fight longer.  It’s sometimes not as engaging either because it’s all GRRRR Smash Buttons then GRRRR Smash Other Buttons.

I get kills, I contribute, etc. but when a spellcaster can stay in a mass melee longer than a Warrior can, something is off.  Now at least part of this is on me, I do believe at least part of this is me realizing what's actually going on out there now that culling is no more.  The situational awareness I have now shows me what I’m actually doing.

The problem is I can't really think of a way to have that consistent "rolling" recovery I seem to have on my other characters.  These guys are constantly attacking and constantly recovering, it’s like a smooth harmonic motion.  It's all spikes with the Warrior, I either have tons of defense and recovery up, or none at all.  With the others it's much smoother once I get the rhythm down.

It’s like I can take a ton of hits, I can take a ton of abuse, but then I’m done.  It's like the Warrior can sprint 100 yards faster than anyone alive out of the starting gate, but then can't finish the marathon.

It's just that if it's a skill issue, I play the Warrior more than all those guys combined, it's the same player, why can't I do the same thing on this character?  It’s just really weird to me that playing other classes I don’t play as much, I can really prolong my combat engagement time so much longer.

Thoughts?  Am I alone in this or has anyone else experienced this problem?

So here's a WvW build I'm working on that is not complete yet.  Amaze me you purveyors of all things Warrior.  Warning, this is long, because no one can give me specific pointers without specific information.

Still there's TL DR At bottom.

I repeat this is for WvW.  I don't think I'd try this in sPvP at least not without considerable changes.

Purpose:

Famous investor Warren Buffet famously quipped "Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful".

In Guild Wars 2, I think of the "Greedy" as the DPS machines, be it via conditions or burst (mostly burst here lately it seems).

I think of the "Fearful" as, well, the opposite of that to the extent it's possible to be in GW2 (damage and condi mitigation).

Most of the opponents I run into in WvW fall into "Greedy".   I've noticed as I've gone through my own version changes I have slowly become more "Fearful" with more defensive utility choices, so I thought it was time to take things to the next level of Fearful.  The idea is to go against the grain and negate the abilities of most commonly encountered opponents, and to screw with expectations while still having a plan for dealing with opponents.

The purpose is not uniqueness for its own sake however, let's keep that in mind.  I hate hipsters.  Any uniqueness is incidental and with limited combinations of things in the game no one is a snowflake. Also I'm still trying to refine this concept, so I present an incomplete build for critique and suggestions.

Core concepts in order of priority:

1. This build is anti burst first and foremost.  This will probably be a function of dodging and invulnerability bursts most likely.

2. We also can't Dodge all the bursts all the time due to the game's mechanics limiting how many rolls we get, so we're going to stack gear defensively and over conservatively.

3. This build is anti conditions.  Duh.

4. I believe movement speed is essential in the game now due to recent patches giving most characters a 25% movement signet (not that it's not a boon so they can never lose it).  The Warrior doesn't have this unfortunately.

5.  We're going to carve out the best damage support system we can after these three bases are covered.

6.  Lastly, we're going to try to work in elements not typical of Warriors to screw with our opponents psychologically, and make them face something not commonly encountered so they will be less prepared to deal with it.

The (Incomplete) Build:

http://www.gw2db.com...0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

At the Heart of this build is the following set of mechanics:

1) The Traited Warhorn

The Warhorn is pretty much what I started to build this whole setup around.  It's the best source of vigor we have (core concept 1) and it's our speed (core concept 4).
Additonally the Trait Quick Breathing makes it better still, and also allows us to address core concepts 3, 5(the weakness it inflicts helps if we go as shown) and 6 (not a lot of horn warriors around).

2) Mainhand Mace with Traits

While the Mace itself is not a great weapon, it looks like the right tool for the job.

Mace 1 by itself is just an auto attack but with the Traits selected we are getting what we can out of it (core concept 5), plus we are spreading around a lot of Weakness.  Weakness Spam is conducive to core concept 6.

So the auto attack is not great on its own but I think it fits the overall mission, I hope the whole is more than the sum of its parts in the end.

However the Block and Daze (2 and 3) are perfect.  They both relate to core concept 1 (negate hits and keep people from attacking at all) and 6, because who uses a mace?

3) Shouting, Boon Duration and Empowered

I noticed at this point the WH is spamming buffs.  I think the Warhorn + the Shout + Boon Duration ought to keep a lot of boons up.

Yeah I know Necromancers.  There's always a counter to everything I can think of though and most people are not a necromancer.

So you might as well get some extra damage for having boons up with a trait.  Individually these things aren't that good perhaps but I'm hoping the sum total will address purposes 4,5, and even 6 because most of these boons are going to spill out and hit other players too.
It's sort of an accidental support function.  A happy accident, Bob Ross style.

4) Gear

With purpose 2 and 3 in mind, I'm going to get at least half Soldier stuff, probably Orrian karma accessories with Soldier Crests.

I normally like to mix in more offensive things, but I think I'm going to try something new and stack very defensively.  I don't believe you need to stack Vitality past a certain point, I think the bonus from all Soldier accessories will be plenty.

I'll avoid any more Vitality bonus.  Condition damage gear doesn't seem to fit here and I need something with Toughness. I won't have enough natural precision otherwise to justify crit damage, therefore I will go with Knight's.

I could do my usual approach of Knight's/Beryl instead, but that's pretty much what I do now and I'm looking to be more defensive than that; I need +Toughness on every piece.
I may have to eat crow due to what I've said in the past about the conservative Knight's/Soldier's setup.  Well pass the salt.

Alternatively, I could go straight Knight's/Emerald and that would probably be viable too.  That wouldn't be as anti condition but it's a thought.  Right now I think it's going to be Knight's/Soldier since karma is easy to get, then if that's too defensive I will just throw on some Knight's Accessories.

Probably sigils of Force and Debility on the Mace and Warhorn, not sure about the other set yet.

Runes would probably be 2xMonk's, 2xWater, and probably 2 Emerald orbs.

With the shout bonus and general goodness they offer, Runes of the Soldier isn't a bad idea either necessarily, but with the Warhorn and the potential to have other condition removals and the high Vitality (remember the Trait gives me a lot too), do I really need that?

So here's some (big) problems.

1)  The build revolves around mace and warhorn and as such isn't going to depend on the rest as much, but the best way to play sometimes is to blow everything you have, switch and do it again.

I have no idea what the switchout should be.  

Ideas:
A. Rifle.  I am just used to it and it's the best thing we have for an opener, and against stragglers trying to escape.
It really does nothing great in this build though.  It's still situationally good.  I wouldn't use it the majority of time though.
B. Longbow.  Just a thought, adding some AE around and screwing with expectations again, but the Longbow just continues to fail to impress me and I don't want to Trait for it.  It might fit though, it does add some capabilties I don't otherwise have.
C. Shield.  Blow the Warhorn, put up the shield.  Gives another stun and another block.  Problem is traiting for the shield means losing Ignore Pain (could be a fair trade though).
D. Axe and shield.  Could switch out to say Axe/Shield, which I think would add some more diversity.
E.  Hammer.  Another source of Weakness.  Old favorite of mine, a lot of control spam.
F.  Offhand Mace.  It has cool skills.

I'm leaning A so far, but I'm really not sure.

2) I have no idea what to put in the Elite slot.  The Signet is usually the best answer, and if I'm going to stack boon duration I might be able to consistently but not always have 8 stacks of Might going.  It's kind of a waste in the sense that the horn should give swiftness, but more Fury uptime is always good.

I like the banner in concept but in execution it's just too fiddly for me.  Juggernaut might be an interesting choice here, but the problem with transformation effects is people instantly target you.  It's the same reason I don't use Lich Form, how good it is doesn't matter if everyone attacks you for it.

3) I am not sure what to do with the last 10 points.  Strength 10 for Restorative Strength perhaps?  Maybe Arms 10 for Unsuspecting Foe since I would have the mace stun burst, and the occassional bleed proc.

Discipline has some interesting choices too however:  Mighty Defenses could work with this really well especially if I go with a shield on the switchout.  Inspiring Shouts would be pretty solid.

Signet Mastery could be quite interesting if I go with the Elite Signet.  With 60% boon duration and For Great Justice that 8 stacks of Might all the time with a lot of Fury too.

It kind of makes the Swiftness on the WH redundant though.  Also I might be tempted to swap Dolyak Signet (which normally sucks) for Balanced Stance if I did that since the CD on Balanced Stance basically makes it a "once a fight" thing anyway.  I know the passive reduction isn't that much but it's a thought.

4) I am not sure which Heal to use. If I used the 10 points to get Restorative Strength, Mending would be the obvious choice and I'm kind of leaning that way just for that.  However the other two may be better depending on my other choices.

Related to 3 above, I could potentially use Strength 10 to get Berzerker's Strength then take Healing Surge, that could be effective.

5) I am not sure what Defense 10 trait to take. The one that enhances stances seems potentially good since I am doing the dual invulnerabilities, but I may need adrenaline from Embrace the Pain.  Just not sure about this really.

6) I'm not sure there's not another alternative to MH Mace/WH that I'm not seeing to accomplish all those things better.

TL DR

So there's a link to part of a pretty defensive build I've made, I highlighted some problems I see above and I'm not sure quite how to finish it up.  Well there it is, tear it apart or complete it as you see fit ladies and gentlemen!

This has happened to me several times, and I'm trying to figure out what I can do differently.

TL DR down below.

The conditions are:

- I'm a warrior.  Rifle and Hammer.  In WvW.
- Endurance is too low to dodge roll.
- I run Signet of Stamina and Mending with Restorative Strength and Balanced Stance also.  When this happens all these are on cooldown and unavailable.

What happens is:

A theif shadowsteps to me or approaches stealthed or just runs up in all the confusion.  The point is I don't see it coming to hit them first.

Sometimes they Steal, so if I have Swiftness or stability up or something that's gone or I just take some damage or both. 50% of the time this happens.

The theif applies either the petrify, immobilize or chill poison, but it's only been the chill effect once it's usually the immobilize and petrify.  Again the exact combination of steal and venom isn't consistent here, but some elements of all these things always occurs.

The theif uses Cloak and Dagger.

The theif can usually backstab me twice.

At least one of these hits in all this mess will be a critical or a high damage condition will be applied early on for the same general effect.

Now at this point, even if my CDs come back after this all happens, I'm generally screwed.  I can't run away from a thief very effectively at all, my best bet is nearly always to fight him.

If he only got one backstab in, a couple times I've managed to make him run away because my defenses come back and it's a more even fight and not worth a thief's time.  A couple times I've even managed to capitalize on his mistake and win so it's not like this is 100%, but relying on your opponent to be less than perfect is not a counter.

But more often when that happens, even though he messed it up, the thief just resets the altercation with stealth and waits until other players put me back in the original situation.

The thing is if my utilities are down, my weapons are usually up, so it's not like I have nothing to work with here.  The problem is all the stealth and lack of mobility in the very early phases this situation.

Now some of you are going to laugh at me but I got so flustered with this I have built my own theif alt who basically does this.  While I'm not 100% with it yet I'm learning the mechanics involved from the attacker's side to see if that helps, and it has a little bit.  I can see while how it's easy to mess it up, it's still relatively easy to do.  It's not a skill maneuever on the theif's end.

It seems the only direct counters to it are abilities which my warrior does have but I run into the problem of them all being on cooldown as outline above.   The only idea I've come up with is to have "Shake it Off!" as my 3rd utility, surely with 3 condi removals and Stability one of the condi removals would always be up.  But that seems ridiculous, and there's other situations besides this one out there.  This is fairly common, but it's not the only situation.

Hoping the thief makes a mistake isn't a solution either.

TL; DR how does a warrior counter the Cloak and Dagger then dual backstab combination manuever when it is properly executed and augmented by Steal and/or Venoms without using conditional removal abilities or boons?

How did the Ultimate Warrior used to greet his fans?  Was it “WARRRIORS!” or something like that?

Regardless what this thread is actually about is I’m close to capping 80 on my Warrior, who I’ve played since the headstart.  I know, it takes me a while.  Anyway I’m by no means done with my Warrior at all.  I haven’t done nearly as much WvW or PvP and I still have so many dungeons and Orr, and I do like the high level PvE content, the hard stuff I guess, so I intend to keep doing little bits of everything with the Warrior.  Push crafting to 400, etc.

Anyway I don’t like exploring zones and doing hearts constantly (which is basically what I have been doing for the most part) but I want to do it sometimes, so I’m going to start a little “side project” character or alt.  I don't know if I should do something tottally the same or tottally different, etc so I thought I'd ask.

Now the problem is Guru has this idea, which is somewhat correct, that you’re either a PvE player or a PvP player like there’s no one out there who’s a bit of a mix.  So I’m putting this in the PvE forum since I feel things here get a wider consideration than just the specialized situation of sPvP or WvW, but those are considerations too.

Now bear in mind too I play a little bit of an oddball warrior, I use a rifle and a hammer and I don't run the signet build, I use a mixture of things.  I'm not saying it's better it's just what I do.  It’s not “unique” because lots of people do that but I haven’t had the experience of pure DPS machine either.  That also might give you a clue about my playstyle.

What I want to ask other Warrior players, what else have you played that’s like the Warrior but different in one or more key aspects, and what have you played that’s just totally different?

I’m considering a thief because I want to use a sword and pistol and be a pirate.  XD

Also I have trouble with thieves in PVP, and I want to play it to learn about it.  I know that’s stupid but it’s just how my brain works.

I’m considering a Mesmer too, basically for the reason I know very little about it and I tend to have PVP Trouble with them.  I mean a lot of trouble, I know they’re supposed to be easy kills but not for me.

I do like the Guardian, have played it some, but I just leveled a Warrior.

I like the Engineer, not sure what I’d do with one though other than be an Engineer.  I do have some problems with them in PVP too.

I also considered the Elementalist, mostly because it looks neat.  Apparently according to many of the threads I read here people who play a Warrior or Ranger are too “basic” for this class though, so I may not be eligible.  XD

Finally I’m also considering the Necromancer.  I know they have PVP problems right now but they’re a survival oriented character and I want to play one that doesn’t summon minions anyway. They look interesting and I have a cool looking character model for one

The only thing that might be off the table is the Ranger, I can’t get excited about one right now.  Nothing against the profession.

Anyway what did you do after you leveled your Warrior, if you started another character?