Weapons Are Overrated.

We've all heard it. You dont need to spend 100's of plat on the ultimate weapon to be effective but how much is that true in real life. How much do we rely on our +30Hp +1 stat, 15>50 weapons? What difference do they really make?

What would happen if a team went to an area, say for example the fissure of woe with no weapons at all. You could only use only what dropped for the team no matter the bonus's, color or requirements.

Time to find out

Some Guildies and I took an average in composition team to fow to test this theory out.

Some people emptied their inventories of weapons and off hands, others like myself(who has no space in storage) unequiped them.

Starting out



Rastigan cheated, we could'nt persuade him to drop his sword.

The first couple of mobs were tough, the warrior and ranger could'nt attack but made nice meat shields and the casters were limited to only around 30 ish energy.

We did'nt start getting weapons drops until the second from last rastigan tower mobs

Some pictures from another guildie on the trip. Leonore Vengence.

Empty inventory






Then the fissure was turned into a mini Lions arch..



Most of the weapons picked up were non max white,or very weak blue ones. Yet after we had all got some the speed picked up and there really was little difference in between what we were using now and what we normally used.

The main differences was the lack of energy for casters and resistance for warriors. Casters were also more vulnerable due to lack of health buffs and somehow needing to get closer to cast.

Otherwise by a small adjustment in play it was buisness as usual

A gold chest came as welcome relief..



However, things became little boring, so we agreed to sell/drop our newly found weapons and start again after completing the forgemaster.

This is what I was using most of the time..


During this I hit another personal milestone, and it was one of the reasons for the trip. 11 million XP, none of it farmed.



After selling the weapons we cleared the battlefield and did army of darkness with half the team being armed and then proceeded to the forest.

Alas error 7 lost us 1 of our two monks so after clearing most of the forest with 6/8 of us with weapons we were wiped by the huge mob that is triggered at the wailing lord bridge,

Apart from being huge fun, it proved that you don't need high end weapons, flashy skins, greens or to spend loads of money. Melee characters(esp rangers missed them most) but hinded by no energy buffs casters had to choose what and when to use more carefully. But even after the most basic, white non max weapon or sheild had dropped it really made marginal difference between what we normally used.

The reality is, given a good team you don't hardly need weapons at all..

Impressive.

In PVE no but in PVP every point counts imo.

Your not proving that you dont need weapons to play. Your proving that FoW is easy.

Any PvE area is easy with the right people xD . The Point being was how much difference it made in a zone, not how easy that zone is. We had to choose a place where we could feel any differences there. Had we tried Grt N wall for example I doubt we could have found any differences at all. It had to be a high end area with no defined end so we could have a nice long run.

Kinda like test driving a car. Does'nt matter how easy the track/road is, it's how the car handles is what you are looking for..

The results were yes it does make enough to notice with no weapons, but marginal once equpped.

Casters barely need weapons to deal enough damage to wipe a pack, and a group of eight should never face trouble in FoW as it is. As the team was balanced, you might as well have been doing the GNW.

As far as casters are concerned, a random staff brings them up to near-max capacity. Of course, warriors and rangers need things more critically (hence the number of rare skins for them and variety of weapons provided ot the classes).

Now it's correct.

I'd like to see the same experiment with a group of eight in Urgoz's Warren.

Triplefixed.

Jetdoc : I wasn't aware echo nukers, trappers, SS necros and dom spammers needed weapons either.

PvE is kind of like... spiking. So long as you have a good leader, the whole group becomes very good so long as the rest have a basic clue of how to play.

Anyone who didn't already know that is just sad. Looks like a fun thing to do, but really doesn't prove anything that needed proving.

Align is correct in what it proves.

These guys had a lot of time in their hands.

But it is easy, not just with an orginised group. It just shows how bad players are, not how hard the game is.

Well, unless you're a warrior or a ranger (assasins don't exist in PvE :P) you could've just all walked around without weapons at all the entire time.

10-15 less energy and wanding damage is basically irrelevant.

I'm somewhat confused. Isn't all this proving exactly what the OP was saying? You don't need "to spend 100's of plat on the ultimate weapon to be effective."

I for one can say I see high end items selling for lots of money, but if they aren't required because
, then why?

Then again, theres not much else to spend your money on so go ahead, but thats just the way I understood his point.

Well no one needs to spend a lot lol, people just have nothin else to spend on.

Sorry but I agree with a few here. PVE IS easy when you're with an intelligent organized group. Heck PVE is easy in general just because the average player isnt that good.

The "test" here had the right intentions though. Oh and the reason some weapons sell for hundreds of plat has very little to do with how hard or easy PVE is. Some people have turned this game into some overpriced economy game where stuff is supposed to be cheap.

all this thread proves is that pve is a joke

Hey its a fun thing you did good job. People can't enjoy stuff like this though, they too uptight.

I think the purpose of this experiment is to see the difference between having maxed out weapons and not in a high end PvE area. As far as experiments go I think they did a good job at it. Whether PvE is easy or not, or whether a good team makes all the difference are not the parameters tested within the experiment. As far as I am aware of, based on the OP, the only variable is the unavailability of weapons to begin FoW with. Everything else was controlled. So, although the fact that weapons are not that critical in a PvE setting is relatively well known, I think this just lends more credible evidence to that.

So next time a guildie bugs me over what is the best sword/staff/bow in the game I can just tell him to stop bugging me and point him to this thread.

You shoulda tried doing Barrageway in FoW without weapons :P

I think we'd have to rename it headbutway

Incorrect, why do you PvPers constantly bash PvE? I bet I could put a balanced GvG group in the Underworld to farm, they would die before they could even escape the Aatxes. It'd go something like this:

Warrior #1: Frenzy!
Warrior #1: *Dies Seconds Later*
Warrior #2: Same
Warriors: OMG PV3 N00000BS!!!!!!! RIPOSTE IS NOOB!!!!!!
Aatxes: *Nothing*
This repeats for several times until the team is out of ressigs. The Ranger is the next to die:
Ranger: H4x0r!!!!
Elementalist: OMG!!
Monks: OMG h4x!!!
All dead. Align's fix was better.

The pet's might be able to kill them? Maybe not I don't really notice the pet damage myself. As long as you take the smal groups out first and hope for atleast 2 bow drops, you might be ok

Go clear ice dome like that, and then I'll be damned impressed... but fow is pretty much a joke anyways, except for the burning forest. That place is a challenge.

omg i spat my drink all over my keyboard, that was so funny xD.

PvPer's don't bash PvE because they hate it, they bash it because it's not really that hard.

/sarcasm
I'm sure the intelligent PvPers would just run down to UW without doing any research whatsoever and use frenzy to try to kill Aatxes, then wonder why it doesn't work.
/sarcasm off

I know at least one of the people who said, "This just proves PvE is easy" is a PvEer. I also know that I agree with that statement, as does my friend Savio. I'm a PvEer. I think it's pretty easy (for the most part) because you 1)always know what you're facing and 2) can use absolutely anything you want to in order to kill the stuff you already know is going to be there.

My contribution:
This doesn't prove that weapons don't make a difference in the game. This proves that the weapons don't make much of a difference in the FOW, or in more general, PVE.
This is not saying that PVE is easy, thats for every player to define for himself.
The real experiment should be in PVP, but not because of the claim that PVP is harder. In PVP, assuming all players are equally experienced, both teams are equally matched. The only difference between the 2 teams would be the lack of weapons on 1 team, as opposed to the FOW where the differences are much broader: 1 team consists of humans and the other of the AI.
The results in PVP would truly indicate the difference between a team with better weapons, and a team with lesser weapons.

We did'nt stand there adding up average damage, spell duration etc. The idea was to firstly have some fun and secondly see how imperfect/no weapons changed the gaming impressions.

We all want a 15>50 etc, but the reality is that a 14>50 is as good. 15>50 just *feels* better. The majority part of the test was to see how the experience changed as well as the practical side.

Sure we could have done an 8 way scrimmage etc, but that would have removed two key factors we wanted to test.
1. The feel good factor - Never has having a white drop felt so good.
2. The Quality and distribution of drops in that run

For an experienced team Fow is easy. We all knew the mobs, patrols order etc etc so it gave us a degree of control. We did'nt use trick builds, just tried to emulate a normal team build.

we could have spent all night wanding barrels, collecting numbers etc we would have had sheets saying weapon 1 did 10-12 dmg per hit, weapon 2 did 11-22 etc. But then that would fuel 'feel good' factor of any max super weapon, as mentally you would have read that weapon 2 did more. To prevent this, thats why we used whatever dropped.

It would also be hella boring to do and read.

In short, it's not about the numbers it's about the gaming experience underpinned with a practical example. Plus it was really fun, which in the end I guess is entirely the point. Hmm Maybe no spell UW next - lol

all this proves is that finding better equipment is fun, welcome to diablo

Welcome to every RPG created.

I know you were trying to be funny...I think. But If you think PVPers are going to use the same skills they use for PVP for the FOW then you're very much insulting their intelligence. Which, I think you were intentionally doing.

Considering i was running Beastmaster w/ Enraged and Brutal, hitting for +37/74 and +80 almost every hit... its really not that hard to make pets kills things. Not to mention the knockdown/dazed the pet had for casters making them really easy.

"LFG to FoW, i'm rank 8"

Ring any bells? Yup, its retards who think there rank makes em better at PvE.

After substantial time in both 6-8man PvP, and all areas of PvE, I've come to the conclusion that they bash PvE because PvE is easy.

Why do you even bother posting? All areas have a different setup; how ignorant do you have to be to think PvPers, especially those that effectively run balanced GvG, don't know how to PvE? The fact you seem to think anyone would run a GvG build in UW... well, there isn't a point to it. Nobody would, except possibly you.

Anddd Sid beat me to that

It was an interesting experiment.

Tbh Energy on monks makes a difference however i have played as a monk in pve AND pvp with -5 sword dmost of the time or no weapons equipped for Emanagement purposes.

Weapon is important because it gives bonus like 20% chance of halve casting time, gives hp, energy. it makes a huge differents.

I'm not a PvPer. I've PvE'd since I got Guild Wars, and I'm in a PvE guild. gg?

great another pvp vs pve thread.

pvpers don't bash pve because pve is easy, whether it is or not i'm not going to say, i'm not interested in the stupid argument.

What i will say is that pvpers bash pve because all nerds want to feel superior in some way to something. Lets face it, in real life, we hardly ever get to feel that way.

Awesome. Just Awesome

You guys are teh leet.