STRENGTH: is it worth the points?

W/Mo huh?

So lets see.. you've got Dolyaks sig, Endure Pain, Defy Pain,
Mending, Healing Breeze, and Resurrect.
Say you're in Sorrows Furnace, you have four Deep Knights beating the
crap out of the monks, the Taskmasters are interrupting the casters, the
warriors had not room on their skill bar for any attack skills, so they're
just chasing things around. Who's supposed to kill things here?
Seems like the only thing you're any good for is to wait until everyone's
dead, run away, wait 'till the bad guys leave, and then rez everyone....
not much of a hero huh?

That's what I was asking, other than a few isolated instances like The
Deep, where is this tanking ability of any real use?

I know what a tank is, I'd already mentioned that I've tried it and didn't
think it was a very effective use of my character. What I was wondering
was what situations other warriors find this "build" to be useful in
general.

If you feel like monks should be "swift" at healing, don't you feel like
warriors should be "swift" at killing. After all, maybe if you could kill
something, there wouldn't be a need for them to heal so much.

My style works for me, yours works for you. I'm 80% thru both campaigns so I'm not doing to bad

I'm not gonna argue and defend my way or debate yours. I really couldn't care less to be honest. It's a game, not rocket science. If youw ant to explain how to retire early and pay all my families bills, and do it legally I'm all ears. Now that is important, not how I fight in game

Since my original question was directed at Stormlord Alex, and you chose to
chime in, I thought you did. But... understood.

That's prety much my thoughts on it too. I crank out 314HP on Endure/Defy each. If you're a tank, this means the world so yeah i'de say STR is worth pumping up for at least this and of course sprint.

My mistake, knee jerk reaction.

I think, he meant meeting the requirement will deal the max damage(the weapon damage range instead of a penalty damage) from the weapon, which is true, the extra damage you dealt beyond the requirement level isn't from the weapon itself but the attribute inherent effect.

You are dealing 100% of the weapon damage at requirement level + the extra damage from the attribute level, so, if you plan on having a higher weapon skill, getting a higher req weap is the same as having a low req weap. so you can get a cheaper weap instead.

Having say that, lets see the following chart and formula from guild wiki, assuming they are correct.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Damage_Level_progression

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Damage

ED = [([RD × DScale× AE ] + DShift) × DMult] + DNeg

RD is the Raw damage, which is the weapon range, it will be used if you have the required attribute level. lets assume DScale and DMult are 1 and DShift and DNeg are 0. so, only things matter the ED from a RD, the damage range from a weapon is the AE.

AE = 2^((EffDL - EffAL)/40)

Lets look at the chart from the first link.

We can see that, at level 20 rank 12, the EffDL is 60, so if EffAL is 60 as well, then 2^0 is 1, AE is 1, you are doing the full damage from a weapon at level 20 rank 12 weapon skill on a EffAL 60 enemy, thats right, thats the BaseAL of a caster at Max armor.

So, if only at level 20 rank 12 and the opponent is a caster with max armor, without any extra armor mod, you are dealing the 100% damafe from the weapon skill, the chance is so rare that both of you dont have an armor mod. So, saying that only rank 12 deal the 100% weapon damage is a moot point.

I think its about time people create a chart of EffDL/EffAL for AE.
EffDL range can be 0 - 80 with a step of 2 or 5
EffAL range could be 20/30-180(180 might not enough to show the max AL situation, but its okay for normal gameplay in PvP) with a step of 5/10

wow i've had a huge reaction thanks all of you! I have just finished reading all of it and i think the information contained here is very important and every warrior should read it to help them understand the game much more, i sure did help me!

~A Leprechaun~

I'm confused by your reply but whatev O.o

Eh first you talk about wammos who really hurt themselves more than heal themselves because shatter enchant, afaik, is armourignoring enchantment stripping damage which is poo and is used by monsters in many locations throughout tyria and cantha.
You're describing an everyday pug situation. Nothing can save pugs X.x

A tanking warrior is not the same as a tank.
A tank brings mutlple defensive skills ranging from dolyak, watch yourself and shield stance to elites like glads defense or defy pain.
A tanking warrior brings 1 or 2 defensive skills and neither of the 2 are elites.

Here's what I would like to see in a PvE warrior:

(I'm not that experienced in the swords line)
Sword:
- Hundred blades (for the adrenaline gain)
- adrenaline damage/IAS (tiger stance to fire off the attackskills more quickly+adrengain)
- dolyak (defense)
- endure pain (emergency switch temporary selfheal for when crap happens)
- res X.x
Attributes: Enough str to make dolyak worthwhile, 14-16 in swordsmanship for the criticals and the extra damages. rest in whatever

I like having a mesmer or ranger on the team so the warrior doesn't have to bring interrupts and put more into damage. If those aren't there then I'd like the war to grab that no attribute interrupt.

Axe:
- Triple chop (for the damage and adrenaline gain)
- adrenaline damage
- IAS for adrenaline and firing off more skills
- dolyak for defense
- endure pain as emergancy switch (hardly ever use it)
- res
Attributes: Enough str to make dolyak worthwhile, max in axe for crits, damage, skilldamage
This may sound weird but I might use sprint on my pve war to get to the enemy faster. I usually activate dolyak pretty late, sprint would allow me to take less damage. Especially with a bulwark.

What I want the warrior to do is run in, grab the aggro and tank it with dolyak and then do masses of damage so stuff dies faster.
If I play monk then I can easily heal a dolyakker non-stop. Nobody else is getting hit so that's good.


A pug usually works like this:
Warrior either moves in and dies or he moves in and moves back. The monk will be screaming for energy because his healingbreezes are poop and all the others will be drawing stuff on the map because they don't know any better.

What I want my party to do is let the warrior move in, let the monk heal the warrior (this is where stuff like dwayna's kiss and inspired hex are sexy) and everybody else does ranged damage.
- Assassins move in after the warrior has done his aggro stuff, the assassins then deal as much damage as they possibly can (YES, I figured out that assassinS are good in PvE even if they're not doing crit barrage. However, the person playing it must be pretty smart at picking targets and they have to come in pairs of 2. 1 assassin will draw aggro on himself, 2 of them will share it pretty well.. With 1 or 2 warriors+2 assassins, the front line will be a major mess but stuff will die so fast, nukers will just /sit there and necros will be like "wtf?")
- Rangers use a BOW, a long-, flat-, horn- or recurve bow. Shortbow has too short of a range. I'm going to advise recurve bow here because it's pretty "accurate" but my ranger doesn't even HAVE a recurve bow yet so if I'm stupid, tell me now.
Touch rangers are crap in pve ok.. "it works for me!!!" doesn't work for everybody else in the party. Rangers interrupt, dagen, support damage, barrage, whatever. Just don't get into range.
- Eles, ranged damage. NO AOE that causes scatter unless it also does knockdown (double/triple ms). I noticed some eles like bringing bed of coals so when a monster gets past the front line, it will go nuts int he backline. Backline will then just beat the monster quickly... it overextended anyway.
- etc etc.

If your party knows what to do then you'll seriously crash through the monsters incredibly fast.
A tanking warrior allows for things like this to happen (but isn't always needed, it gives the monk a lot of room though)
A tank in anything except the high end cookie cutter build teams is ok but they seem to lack damage.

Seriously, if you want to see the real power of a pve warrior, find a team that doesn't suck. Pugs are not the answer X.x

Now why did I type all this again X.x

I think strength is a bit of a passive primary att. But if used correctly in build it'll be pretty darn effective.

Sometimes when going tanking in pve... I'll go with this.
**Sentinels armor for 100AL(chest to boots) ~ strength helmet
Str: 11+1+1
Sword: 9+3+1
Heal Prayer: 10

Heal Hands, server artery, silverwing slash, dolyak, vigorous spirit, heal breeze, *free slot*, rebirth.
Heal hands will negate those nasty melee damage, vigorous basically heal urself for every weapon swipe you do which is nice, and breeze you can use on yourself or party member. Server, Silverwing, Dolyak sig, and rebirth~ self explanatory.

Lol. Anyways each point of strength = 1% armor penetration. *From melee point of view*, on the long run... it'll really count. I mean for instance...

1)A warrior dealing a sword swipe at a 60AL monk with 13 strength = 20 base damage ---> 22.89 dmg
2) Same thing with 0 strength ----> 20 dmg <--- about 3 dmg difference
3) A critical hit ~ Final thrust on monk below 50%hp ---> (22+45)x2 = 134 base + 13% ap = 153.39 dmg
4) Same thing with 0 strength = 134 dmg. <--- 19 dmg difference

So in prolonged fights it'll help a bit... passively*

Oh gee, I would like to hear that too... Although I believe (somewhat) to make big money and legally, the best way is to be a big good investor and invest early in a booming market (maybe we can practice that in GW! Guess what is the next big sell material in nightfall ). Yes, and some luck...

On Topic: The only one I won't use high strength with is sword (as strength only do something about your weapon damage while nothing about the +## from skills), while hammer is the only one I might send my strength to the heavenly high in PvP (16 hammer 15 strength); the hammer at the max can pretty much 1 combo a 60 armor (most of them) to death without anything left of him/her; given no interference in between.

Dolyaks is great for solo farming when everything only has you to hit. Possibly it's ok in a good pve group that doesn't mess up aggro, but I've never been in one of those I guess. Dolyaks in a normal pve pug or with hench is just a good way to slowly chase after the stuff that's killing your backline. (imho)

No, I wasn't so much talking about tanks (Wo/Mo is just the most prevalent) hurting
themselves, as sacrificing their ability to deal damage by loading their skill bar with
self protects.
Take the Sorrows Furnace situation I mentioned. The monks are getting knocked
down, the casters are getting interrupted, the only members that can still act for
the next ten or fifteen seconds are the warriors. You can either go for the carvers
and knights or the binders and taskmasters. If you're a "tank" your loaded down
with self defence skills, you have what?, maybe cyclone axe and eviscerate or
maybe gash and final thrust. What are you going to kill with that. Nothing. Ok, you
probably have crippling anguish or conjure phantasm on you. You can throw up
endure pain and defy pain so you can hang in there for a while, but the casters are
still being beat to death, and you're not being much help to anyone but yourself.

If you had say... a ranger secondary, you could use apply poison, frenzy, hundred
blades, sever artery, gash, final thrust, and protectors strike. You could kill four
summit knights in about twenty seconds with this. The monks can probably hold
out that long.
Or maybe an ele. secondary, you could use conjure lightning to do 12 more damage
per hit. along with cyclone axe, triple chop, swift chop, lacerating chop, and
executioners strike you can do massive damage. If you throw in whirlwind and a
pair of stonefist gauntlets, not only can you do a lot of group damage, but you can
knock down an entire group for three seconds. If I were a monk or an ele. getting
my butt kicked I would say " thank you" and use that three seconds to get my butt
the hell out of there.

I could go on and on with aggressive builds, but you get the point.

Almost all groups have two monks, it's their job to protect and heal. If someone sees
with attack skills in their skill bar, the "n" word pops right up and they get kicked.
So why is it that warriors think it's ok for them to waste half of their skill bar on self
heals? They like to say that they're self sufficient, but it's really a lot closer to self
serving.
Yeah, I'm mainly talking about PuGs, but I've been through more than a few guilds
in my search for one I like, and my experiance has been that most are only a little
better than a PuG.

We might be drifting a little bit off topic here... sorry.

Let's not forget the armor penetration from strength only works when you are using a skill.

Thank god I read this post, I feel less bad about dropping STR for Tactics so I can take a beating a bit more.

It's all about what you like to do yourself.
I used to be sword/tactics
Then I swapped to axe/tactics, then Axe/tactics/earth or axe/tactics/inspiration, then Axe/tactics again, then Axe/str.
I'm thinking of going sword/str now.

You're dropping str for tactics and you feel less bad about it. That doesn't mean high str is bad. X.x