Warrior or Elementalist

blackmagick

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Sep 2009

I was thinking about a knockdown warrior with earth magic, or a hammer Ele. Which would you prefer, and any suggestions?

Marty Silverblade

Marty Silverblade

Administrator

Join Date: Jun 2006

You're new to GW? If so, don't try to PvP first thing. You're going to have no hope whatsoever. I know that sounds harsh, but it's the truth.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty Silverblade
In PvP you need to know what you're doing. There are no excuses. The opposing team will be doing everything it can to beat your team. If you have no idea how to go about destroying your opponents, you have no place in PvP.

If you want to PvP, there are two things I recommend you do.

Firstly, complete the PvE content. This gives you an opportunity to understand the profession/role you're playing, be able to distinguish between good skills and bad skills and why this is so (of both your profession and other professions), strengths and weaknesses of the professions, managing energy, battlefield awareness, have the names and skill icons (ideally the energy cost, recharge time, and casting time too) of key skills memorised, etc. Some of your opponents have had 5 years of experience; you're not going to be able to contribute if you don't understand what you're doing.

Secondly, join a PvP guild that participates often and is willing to teach new players. Trying to learn PvP by yourself is hard, and getting into groups with random people is nearly impossible unless you have experience and have the titles to prove it. I post the above because you don't understand one of the fundamental things about GW. You pick a primary and a secondary profession. Warriors are for melee. Eles are for some damage and midline support. Don't go Warrior secondary because and expect to be useful. You're going to do less damage and are going to get killed a lot more. Not to mention you won't have a Stonefist insignia which will make you much much less threatening.

Warvic

Warvic

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2009

The Netherlands

A/W

Unwritten rule: don't fight upfront as a squishie (60AL).
Only Rt/A is pretty good at it. Still a gimmick tho.

But a W/E on the other hand. Is not strange at all. I used that alot. But the bar only had 1 ele skill tho (grasping earth). Because well..

an other unwritten rule is.."Do not use energy heavy skills on a warrior"

Sirius Bsns

Banned

Join Date: May 2010

PonG

W/Mo

I'd go with Mind Shock as the most reliable ele kd/damage spell. You could also run some gimmicky E/A with Shock and Aftershock + other high-damage Earth Magic spells. Gale is also a viable option, but is best used in an 8v8 scenario where there're many others that can deal damage and take advantage of it. In a 4v4 setting though, it's just one less damaging spell to bring, and it's expensive and causes exhaust. Finally, you can run a Stoner Spammer Earth Magic build, especially now that Draw Conditions has been nerfed. Landing Ebonhawk plus Stoning should be slightly easier with the nerfage.

blackmagick

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Sep 2009

Ive been around guild wars for awhile wich is why I asked about the Hammer Ele because Ive seen a video with one and he was doing a pretty good job. I do have a few pve's one is an assassin like i play in RA. Im not saying Im experienced by any means but I have taken out my share of targets and generally survive a decent amount of time. I just thought it may be a fun idea to play with. Thanks for all your comments they all helped.

Boogz

Boogz

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Feb 2008

Variable Speed Farmers[VsF]

Mo/

no, the hammer ele wasn't doing pretty good, he sucked at was a deadweight to his party. Neverr go melee with a 60AL (rits, memsers, monks, eles, necros), you will die quickly, and you will suck.

not even Rt/A or Rt/P builds are worth running, sure, you can have 25% attack speed boost just to be a sin wannabe on rit armor. not worth at all, its bullshit.

If you want to go a warrior, then you go melee or a W/P with spear.
If you want to go ele, you will be a caster
there are no excuses to these rules. if you want so much ele skills on your warriors, you could run Grasping Earth on a hammer warrior or Shock on an axe war, and that's it

Rolain

Rolain

Academy Page

Join Date: Oct 2008

Australia

[Win]

E/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Boogz View Post
no, the hammer ele wasn't doing pretty good, he sucked at was a deadweight to his party. Neverr go melee with a 60AL (rits, memsers, monks, eles, necros), you will die quickly, and you will suck.

not even Rt/A or Rt/P builds are worth running, sure, you can have 25% attack speed boost just to be a sin wannabe on rit armor. not worth at all, its bullshit.

If you want to go a warrior, then you go melee or a W/P with spear.
If you want to go ele, you will be a caster
there are no excuses to these rules. if you want so much ele skills on your warriors, you could run Grasping Earth on a hammer warrior or Shock on an axe war, and that's it Playing a "sin wannabee on rit armor" is much more fun than playing an actual sin. Also, you have 75AL from Ghosteforge insignias. nub.

distilledwill

distilledwill

Forge Runner

Join Date: Sep 2006

Blighty

The Legion of the Blue Blade

R/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rolain View Post
Playing a "sin wannabee on rit armor" is much more fun than playing an actual sin. Also, you have 75AL from Ghosteforge insignias. nub. The Rt/A is a gimmick and whilst it may do a lot of damage in packets, ultimately the energy management is better on the sin, you can take critical strikes to increase critical hit rate, you can spec higher into dagger mastery and it leaves your secondary open for support skills.

If you go Rt/A you are limiting yourself to using Spawning Power which (whilst Spirits Strength is strong) doesn't have any inherant bonus which would aid you to kill, which is why it is outstripped by Critical Strikes (as it serves both as energy management, and to increase your overall damage through crits).

Assassin's kill very effectively with little set up, maybe one enchantment (often not) and then they can just go at it. With a SS Rit you are typically renewing your skills every 20 seconds or so (Spirits Strength, Weapon Spell, Sight Beyond Sight) this will slow down your damage and leaves less room on your bar for an IMS to pursue the enemy which would have kited away by then.

Finally, the base damage on daggers is very low, and being able to spec more into dagger mastery through the use of runes and so increase the effectivity of dagger attack skills, such as an assassin can do, will increase your damage to a higher degree than a rit can achieve pretending to be an assassin.

So, to reiterate what all the knowledgable players above have said. If you want to play a melee go warrior and use warrior skills, if you want to play a caster go ele and use ele skills.

Necromas

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jul 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Warvic View Post
Unwritten rule: don't fight upfront as a squishie (60AL).
You don't have to be a squishie just because you're a squishie class, great dwarf armor alone bumps that 60 up to 84 and gives the target some extra HP as well.

At low levels though it's a lot harder to not be a squishie because you don't have access to as many skills and attribute points and even just the playing experience to make the builds and make them work.

Quote: Originally Posted by Warvic View Post Only Rt/A is pretty good at it. Still a gimmick tho. Being a gimmick is okay, you should switch to a more optimal build for elite end-game stuff but other than that a good gimmick build is still good enough. I've played a scythe necro before, and it might not be spectacular but it's certainly not bad.