W/Me Energy Denial Boogieman

QuixotesGhost

QuixotesGhost

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2005

Well, My guild has decided to start PvPing with Quickening Zephyr so I had too rebuild my Blackout warrior, Blackout is just too energy intensive for a warrior to run with zephyr down. So I decided to use Echo and Fear me! instead to complement the energy sapping ability of zephyr and this is what I'm considering, atm.

Axe Mastery - 10+2 (Hat and Minor rune)
Tactics - 11+2 (Major Rune)
Domination Magic - 10
Strength - 1+1 (Minor Rune) <---- I'm thinking of useing a superior rune of tactics instead to pump this higher.

Echo {Elite}
Signet of Weariness
"Fear Me!"
Penetrating Blow
Executioner's Strike
Sprint or Rush (Not sure which one I want, atm)
"For Great Justice!"
Ressurection Signet

I've never used an axe before so I'm not sure what skills to bring to the table. I just know that Hamstring is a bit too expensive under zephyr and that was the main reason I was packing a sword previously.

Any advice for me?

3LvL20'sROast_Stealer

3LvL20'sROast_Stealer

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jul 2005

River Tale Scad

Mo/W

keep using a sword and disrupt with all mesmer, get a bit of inspiration so energy tap is effective and if your not using an elite energy drain as well.

Iraqalypse Now

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Seattle, Wa

Nuclear Babies

E/Mo

My suggestion is to drop domination and just use echo unlinked, drop signet of weariness, and go with echoed FGJ or Fear Me to darin their energy. my suggestion would be to go 12/10/8 base axe mastery/ tactics/ strength, and have axe hat + minor, sup tactics, minor str rune. Also, that frees up a slot to use another warrior skill, which I would put in disrupting chop or distracting blow.

ICURADik

Banned

Join Date: May 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iraqalypse Now
My suggestion is to drop domination and just use echo unlinked, drop signet of weariness, and go with echoed FGJ or Fear Me to darin their energy. my suggestion would be to go 12/10/8 base axe mastery/ tactics/ strength, and have axe hat + minor, sup tactics, minor str rune. Also, that frees up a slot to use another warrior skill, which I would put in disrupting chop or distracting blow. Hmm, I think Echoing Fear me is the best bet. QZ will already signifigantly lower FGJ recast time. Popping a Fear me every other hit for 30 seconds is some serious shit.

QuixotesGhost

QuixotesGhost

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iraqalypse Now
My suggestion is to drop domination and just use echo unlinked, drop signet of weariness, and go with echoed FGJ or Fear Me to darin their energy. my suggestion would be to go 12/10/8 base axe mastery/ tactics/ strength, and have axe hat + minor, sup tactics, minor str rune. Also, that frees up a slot to use another warrior skill, which I would put in disrupting chop or distracting blow.
I'm a big fan of the Signet of Weariness under the effects of Quickening Zephyr, 8 AOE energy drain every 15 seconds for free. If I echo THAT (I'm still not sure what would better to echo, the Signet or Fear me!) I can dish it out 4 times in ~ 15 seconds, the equivalent of 8 "Fear me!"s while still pumping out a decent number of "Fear me!"s due to FGJ. Plus "Fear me!" spam won't be messing with the other adrenline skills I might be trying to use.

Quote:
Hmm, I think Echoing Fear me is the best bet. QZ will already signifigantly lower FGJ recast time. Popping a Fear me every other hit for 30 seconds is some serious shit. Yep, that's why I went with FGJ, becuase QZ is going to be signifigantly dropping the recycle.

Iraqalypse Now

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Seattle, Wa

Nuclear Babies

E/Mo

The reason I said FGJ or Fear Me is that sometimes it might be better to echo the adren boost rather than the Fear Me. Anyhow, you might have to do some math or modeling to decide which is better to echo, but fear me is probably better.

The disadvantages of signet of weariness is that it takes time to cast giving you less adren and damage, as well as requiring a significant investment into your secondary class skills. The setup using the /mes for unlinked echo allows you to pump axe mastery up to 14 after runes and hat, keeps tactics at 13, and gives you a very respectable 9 strength. That allows you to do more respectable damage in conjunction to your significant disruption.

My suggestion for a skill list would be:
Echo [E]
"Fear Me"
"For Great Justice"
Sprint
Dismember
Axe Rake
Res Sig
Frenzy


This is much less damage oriented, with some good conditions to heap on targets like monks. Its good to cripple people as a war, but you might need to replace axe rake with an interrupt (distracting blow, disrupting chop, and leech sig look good, echoed disrupting chop = ow. --edit-- on second thought, echoed disrupting chop looks really, really, really painful. Probably taking a pair of interrupts instead of dis-M and Axe Rake might be very good, and put the dump points in a stat linked to the interrupt you choose. Insp for power drain or leech sig looks like a good bet for the second interrupt, and disrupting chop is good too. I'd take leech sig for helping shut down a spirit spammer. Echoed disrupting chop and leech sig backup and FGJ on would be a real pain for spirit spam.)

Zeru

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

The good thing with a fear me warrior is that you don't need to be hitting the monks to energy deny them. Most rangers especially won't bother running if your war is pounding on them with weak unbuffed hits; especially if you're using flurry for constant 50%+ adren generation.

Sig of weariness is very good with zephyr on (which you should have if you have an energy denial team build) because you're only missing out on 2 attacks for more energy than you would be giving out with fear me.

sprint
flurry
fear me
for great justice
Signet of Weariness
Cyclone Axe (extra adren potential)
Disrupting Chop/To the Limit
Echo {E}

People will run from warriors who are pulling off extremely high dps or kd'ing them but generally not from warriors who are pulling very low numbers every hit. The snare is too adrenaline intensive to be worth it.

UberRusty

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

amsterdam, where male prostitution is legal

[GGG] Gay Guild Gals

W/R

QuixotesGhost:

In my personal opinion, it would be better to echo Signet of Weariness.

Why?

1. It has range, can be used on runners.

2. Costs nothing.

3. Most groups carry some sort of anti-warrior protection. Aegis or Ward Against Melee makes you half efficient, and those are very common spells.

4. It's a signet ring, not a skill. =) Major advantage and maybe a slight disavantage. Never seen much players use anti-signet skills though.

Yukito Kunisaki

Yukito Kunisaki

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2005

Chicago, IL

W/N

According to the description [though unsure if it's 100% correct], Fear Me!! only works on adjacent opponents. [as in enemies within weapon reach]. I've never run into casters dumb enough to stand so close together as to let Fear Me!! hit all of them... [I'm using this based off description]

I'd vote that to stay on the Energy Denial Route, a W/Mes really shouldn't walk past the Energy Tap/Energy Drain/Ether Lord [yes, Ether Lord] route...

W/Me... A warrior? Let's target something more threatening...

I've never seen a mesmer target a warrior until he notices a serious threat coming out of him asap. [I did Rend once on an enemy monk in gvg and I had 3 enemies down my throat trying to kill me... Thankfully, conditioning me lead to 2 of their deaths but that's beside the point...]

Echoed skills could work I suppose. For long term use vs. short term. But as far as making enemy elementalists wishing they had more energy to use, real energy denial is ripping 50+ Energy out of their sorry hides...

QuixotesGhost

QuixotesGhost

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yukito Kunisaki
According to the description [though unsure if it's 100% correct], Fear Me!! only works on adjacent opponents. [as in enemies within weapon reach]. I've never run into casters dumb enough to stand so close together as to let Fear Me!! hit all of them... [I'm using this based off description] As far as I understand it, going off the account of others on this site, the skill description is mistaken. This Post

Also the point of this build isn't to point at one guy and go "YOU! Yeah You! You have no energy!" It's to spread around the energy denial love to several member of the oposing team to maintain the general presure that QZ is going to be putting on them.

Yukito Kunisaki

Yukito Kunisaki

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2005

Chicago, IL

W/N

I thought the point of this build was to deny energy?

With QZ in there, and Fear Me!'s description being incorrect. I stand corrected and apologize...

QuixotesGhost

QuixotesGhost

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yukito Kunisaki
I thought the point of this build was to deny energy? Yes it is, but the point I'm trying to make is that is that if we wanted to sap a single target of energy, the rangers on my team can do it much more effectively with Debilitating shot. They get 4 Debilitatating Shots (unlinked, 10 per) to every Energy Drain (Elite Skill, ~16,17 depending on how heavily I want to spec into inspiration) I can pump out. I can also use energy tap as well, but with a 3 second casting time... It's not something I'm looking forward too. I'm also not looking forward to using hexes (like ether lord) with so many NRs floating around, especially when I can acomplish my goal in other ways. Though Energy Drain does have the advantage of only taking up a single slot compared to echo and signet of weariness. So if I want to concentrate more on my warrior side it's an option.

Instead of trying to do something that another class can do better, I'll play to my class combination own strengths. That is, effecting multiple people with my energy drains, instead of just one. Something rangers can't do. That said, I may be overspecializing, and it might be helpful to be able pressure both groups and single targets.

When I get a chance to PvP with my guild again I'll probaly try out the following builds.

My original one.

One that takes Yuk's advice and swaps out Echo and Signet of Weariness, for Energy Drain and Disrupting Chop. Or... Swap out axes entirely for swords, becuase energy drain will give me enough to use hamstring again.

One that takes Iraq's advice, repecs towards Warrior, and drops the Signet of Weariness for Disrupting Chop. I've decided I don't like taking deep wound skills (like dismember) becuase another warrior almost always has one and so one deep wound gets wasted.

That said, Since I've never used axe skills before... are Penetrating Blow and Executioner's Strike good skills? And are using those two worth sacrificing the superior base damage of swords? Should I go with Galrath Slash and Final Thrust instead?

Hmmm, Signet of Humility, might be interesting too considering a lot of people use thier elite for energy management. (Offering of Blood, Energy Drain, Ether Prodigy)

Deviant

Deviant

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jul 2005

Austin, Tx

The Furies

Me/Mo

If I were a W/Me, I'd opt to take Leech Signet and Signet of Humility. Leech Signet plays as a free counter, but if you want any countering ability, you'll probably need to take along Power Drain as well due to Leech Signet's long recharge time. If taking a Healing Signet, you could opt for Mantra of Inscriptions, but that does cost you the use of stances. Signet of Humility is great as a lot of builds crutch is that they depend too much on their elite. Another good choice would be Ether Lord as it would greatly increase your energy while hurting theirs, but freeing you up to keep whacking on them.

Zeru

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: May 2005

You need to decide a role based on your team and focus on it. Don't get too spread out.

Signet of Humility is an insanely good skill.

While when people don't really need an 8th slot/secondary they typically go monk for restore life; going mes for sig humility is also an option.

People often make elite skills to be a core part of their build and they can often be a core part of the teambuild. A good example would be BiP. Their monks would be depeneding on it so shutting it down is a very big loss. Add in the fact that you can completely disable someone's elite 100% of the time with QZ makes it a very powerful skill.

I played a Fear Me warrior last night in an energy denial build. I'll be blunt: you NEED echo if your goal is energy denial. I don't understand adrenaline but you have a downtime between single copy fear me uses. I'd have two copies of fear me and I could use one each but not two of one. *shrugs* You definitely need a zealous with QZ on; frenzy might be better than flurry for adren due to flurry's cost. FGJ is very costly if you don't have zealous. There were times when cyclone axe netted me huge amounts of adren/energy as well; it was a solid conditional tombs skill.

Energy Drain is a good skill with zephyr on but it can't compare to a fear me warrior in an altar map.

Here is what I ran:

10+3 Tactics
10 Dom
7+1 Strength
9+1 Axe

Signet of Weariness
Signet of Humility
Bulls Strike/Cyclone axe
For Great Justice
Fear me
Sprint
Frenzy
Echo {E}

Bulls strike is a solid non-altar skill to stop those annoying monks who start running after they get spiked down to low life and just add general disruption. On the altar cyclone axe is really good especially if people try to bb early or are stacking spirits. You gain tons of adren/energy with zealous using it there.

UberRusty

Banned

Join Date: Jun 2005

amsterdam, where male prostitution is legal

[GGG] Gay Guild Gals

W/R

Quote:
Signet of Humility is an insanely good skill. Hell yes, it's good to the point where it should be an elite. Just like Bonetti's Defence and whatnot.