XTreme Damage W/N

Normally I work with conditions but now I'm flipping the table and asking for thoughts and advice on this HIGH DMG offensive tank build. It has NO healing though I'm wondering if it should.

Str: 7+1
Axe: 10+2
Tactics: 9+1 [required for shield]
Curses: 10

Disrupting Chop
Eviscerate
Axe Rake
Desperation Blow / Thrill of Victory
Sprint
Weaken Armor
Rend Enchantments
Plague Touch

The tactics also let's me change back to my conditions build with little/no consequence and Des. Blow / ToV seem adequate if we're dealing with high damage and hoping your enemy has less hp than you. I've actually seen Desperation Blow finish off people just before I died due to bleeding. It's quite funny/fitting actually to see my warrior fall down, die, then my target keels over...

I need help tweaking this and if you want me to move tactics to something else, then I'll need to consider getting a 2nd shield [which I'd rather not but I think this build will work.]

Perhaps I should bring a single healing skill for emergencies? [Healing sig comes to mind]

parasitic bond is nice for healing. I run something similar in the team arena/ HoH
9 curses
10 9+1 str
16 12+4 axe
battle rage
exec strike
dismember
disrupting chop
axe rake
rigor mortis
defile flesh
rend enchant

Basically hit a warrior or anything close 4 times cast flesh and rigor on a monk call it battle rage and watch him drop >=]. Could bring lower armor or if you need healing parasitic bond recently got a buff. you get like 87 life back from it now with 9 or so curses and its only 5 energy and 1 sec cast

Damn, I just chose elementalist for my warrior but this sounds better.

Just tested the above build and I gotta say...

HOLY $#!+!!

130 point Thrill of Victory poke to the SPINE!!! Poor running monk was in the middle of casting healing breeze too just as he died lol.

Weaken Armor is definitely da BOMB. Makes every one of my attacks like a penetrating blow in essence. What's more, a 70 point Eviscerate to the face is funny to see.

I'm not bringing healing. Each and every one of these skills points to [kill you SOO FAST] so I'm going to trust that my team monk will keep my hp high enough to keep Thrill of Victory in good standing. And I could switch it out with Desperation Blow. Both are +30 dmg with 10 tactics and that's hot stuff.

Whoa im going to have to get thrill of victory a try sometime.. most ive done is a 100 dmg exec strike to the face of a monk

Can a warrior/ele do Thrill of Victory as well as a warrior/necromancer?

The catch to Thrill of Victory is that you need 10 tactics to make it deal 30 extra damage and ONLY if you have more hp than your enemy. Since the sole purpose of this build is to turn your opponent into pulp in 10 seconds or less, that shouldn't be a problem. 5e. and 10s. recycle for 30+ dmg is hot stuff.

Funny thing, I wear major vigor runes and fortitude items on myself punching my max hp to 551 so if I can get to my target without getting hit, I can OPEN MY ATTACK with Thrill of Victory for a whopping 60+ dmg [yay for WEAKEN ARMOR]

Though it's got a 3s. cast time which could have been used for swinging your axe of DEWM... It's 30 SECONDS OF -20 ARMOR!!! That's a LOT more damage than you'll ever get for just swinging 3 times. That's for sure. At 10 energy and 30s. recycle, I think it's a smart energy investment.

Rend is for obvious reasons. At 10 curses that's 7 enchantments ripped off. yay!

Plague Touch. Yeah, cover ur enemy with poison, bleed, disease, deep wound, and cripple/blind. Fun stuff ^_^

Little note, in the betas, Thrill of Victory used to say "If you kill your enemy with this blow, you gain 200hp" or something to that regard. I could be forgetting.

I definitely like this version of it better.

Quote:

Why dont you eliminate Tactics and go with Blood Magic, I love the como Endure Pain + Life Transfer (Elite) it's abusive and you will get much much HP than your enemy

I generally go

Plague touch
Rend
Battle rage
Executioner's
Disrupting
Dismember
Penetrating blow

Weaken armor is great, but with switching targets often, and cancelling battle rage, I often forgo it. Plague touch cancels too, but being able to poison/disease/deep would/cripple/etc.. on your enemy is too good to pass up being a defensive and offensive spell at the same time.

That's my usual pvp build.

5 in curse
16 axe
Str Rest

Penetrating blow only costs 5 adrenenal, and since you're using rage... that's better than weaken armor IMO, or thrill of victory (10 sec cooldown, and uses an ability line you shouldn't bother with in pvp). Weaken's too slow and too big of a cooldown. Let a necro on your team use that if they want.

There are 3 good reasons why I chose tactics and it works...

Victory is Mine! gives a NICE jolt of energy and hp when it's used. It's my key skill in my conditions build and though it's not in this one, there's also my shield to deal with...

Tactics allows for quite a bit of punishment. What other skill can any class use that does heavy damage and random condition placement? [Desperation Blow]

In PvE, Tactics lets Watch Yourself and Bonetti's Defense last so long that you don't have to keep spamming it to keep it on yourself constantly and it also gives the much ignored healing signet a hearty boost.

Blood Magic. Life Transfer + Endure Pain doesn't deal damage. DoT is not what I'm looking for in this build. Just the heaviest damage imaginable.

To say that using 10 energy for 30s. recycle time and 30s. worth of 20% armor penetration is bad is something I find rather odd. Especially considering that 3 swings can't possibly beat 24+ swings of 20% armor penetration.

I know they could just use 'remove hex' or something but I can counter what anyone says regarding that with some other remark so it's a moot point.

To switch from Tactics to Strength doesn't sound bad to me at all considering that the game allows such things easily. My problem is that I can't find any strength skills to deal MASSIVE damage at low cost. Going 10-12 str. with things like Power Attack vs. 10 tactics for a Thrill of Victory. Someone advise me on this? Please! ^_^

well the thing is, the higher your strength the higher your natural armour penetration. every level you have in strength is 1% armour penetration, so lvl 12 is 12% penetration every time you hit, so that Power attack of +26 damage also has 12% AP. combine with penetrating blow, thats -32% armour. or combine with weaken armour, thats -32% for ages. as you can see, higher points in strength has less skill bonus, more of a general boost to all of your skills. its your choice, as Thrill of Victory does give a nice edge with high tactics, but I personally go with strength (high strength can get you a nice shield anyways)

I hate to say it but what shield gives

14 armor
+30 hp
+2 energy

?

Quote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't strength armour pen only apply to attack skills, not normal attacks? At least thats what the description of the attribute says.

from what I've read elsewhere the AP from strength and penetrating blow do not stack and only the highest AP is used. also its true that strength only affects attack skills and not regular attacks. However depending on your build setup you may be using 1-3 attack skills for each regular attack you make so strength can still into play a lot.

if u really want to see some high damage warriors try a warrior/monk using (got from ensign)

16 axe
10 strength
9 smiting

use

cleave
penetrating blow
frenzy
disrupting chop
sprint
judges insight
strength of honor
restore life

using this in tombs i was able to hit 150+ with both penetrating and cleave on warriors, and using frenzy those recharge so fast only 4 and 5 adren skills

I guess i'll give it a shot at a pure damage W/N.

Axe: 16 (12+4)
Strength: (10+3)
Curses: 8

>> Skills
1. Frenzy
2. Dismember
3. Axe Rake
4. Cleave
5. Penetrating Blow
6. Barbs
7. Rigor Mortis
8. Weaken Armor

Comments: I haven't tested it yet, I think the weaken armor + Barb's would work well for curses. (-20 armor and takes about +6 damage everytime you strike, add that with penetrating blow and cleave alternating with another +2x damage every other strike) Dismember would be used for a quick 20% of hp off and axe rake can cripple those who feel like running away. Rigor Mortis can be used in situations such as a Warrior's tactical blocking or a Ranger's sneaky evasion. A downside in this build like many other's would be a mesmer using a adreniline-blocking skill such as soothing images. Also, you'll often be in energy tight situations if you try to use the hexes all at once (Each is 10, if you try to use all 3 on a opponent then that's 30 energy, not possible even with full gladiator set unless you bump curses to 9 and use some kind of offhand insted of a shield... I'm not even sure if there's a curse offhand).

there is a curse offhand.

heh yukito, i was acting the same way when i first used weaken armor on the last bwe. nice damage.

Doesn't 16 axe mean you're short 150 hp or something? [owch]

I suppose a swift death is the price one pays for extreme damage 150 dmg swing huh? Most impressive.

Weaken Armor... I don't know, I still find it devastating if you take into account that EVERYONE ON YOUR TEAM doing physical damage gains this benefit. So having 2 warriors at least or a warrior with a non-ele striking ranger can do a LOT of damage to this target...