Oh Noes! A Farming Build thats not 99% monk?

Well, came up with this build a few months back. Searched the forum, found a similar build (though it was buried in another thread). Time to bring it out into the open

Warrior (Who cares about secondary? :P)
Glads Def (E)
Defensive Stance
Shield Stance
Bonetti's Defense
Riposte
Deadly Riposte
Galrath Slash
Healing Signet

10+1+1 Strength
11+2 Swordsmanship
10+1 Tactics

Knight's helm and boots, glads for the rest (major vigor, major absorb)
15 over 50 short sword from Droknar's Weapon crafter
Collector shield with stance bonus

The place to be? Why Riverside Province of course.
Why? Lots of melee (justiciars, zealots, knights) and archers.
Tough stuff? Empathy, searing heat, and reversal of fortune (goddam damned clerics lol).
Extra Goodies? 4 chests that drop items from ANYWHERE in the game - that's right, i found a Shadowy Husk (usually dropped by worm things in FoW during Wailing Lord quest).

Notes: You should never run out of mana (i've never even gotten below half), you should have enough defense and blocking capabilities to stay always over 50% (use signet in conjunction with stances that allow it, i.e. glads/shields).

How to do it:
With 4 stances, you simply cycle them. I use Defensive stance to aggro them (since i can't use any skills, so i aggro and attack the caster). You can pop the caster for about 50 dmg per hit (try to kill b4 the stance runs out, you'll see why in a second). With defensive stance on, your army should be enough that any knights hitting you do 0 dmg.
With the caster dead, or not, cycle on gladiators defense. Now, if the caster is dead, you have two knights casting shouting IWAY. Now they attack faster - meaning they get hurt more by glads def. At this point, u can use galraths, but dont use ripostes yet (it takes dmg away from glads).
Next, put up shield stance, and spam ripostes and deadly ripostes and galraths and normal attacks until they drop. Usually, they're not dead yet. By this time, glads should be back up so put it on. If not, fall back on Bonetti's (also good if mana is inching down). Heal if you have to, but don't use it during bonettis or defensive unless you're desparate, otherwise you cancel the stance.
Problems: Try not to aggro too many priests. They cast a really, really annoying spell that a la Divine Intervention. Look it up. You'll understand immediately. Don't worry too much about empathy, just hack up the mesmer, while in defensive, toss on glads, and signet yourself back to full.
The 2 damned clerics I find on the path i usually use are pains in the ass. Best plan? Just run, they can't hurt you much and takes too long. If you're a perfectionist, wait for their RoFs to time out, hit them, they cast RoF again, wait, etc.... If you see bosses, it's probably not a good idea to engage. I did manage to kill the Necromancer Necrid Horseman boss, but it took a little while.
Groups of ghouls, hellhounds, and executioners are easily dispatched using the aforementioned method.

Hint: Avoid the marshes like the plague, they reak of poison archers and bone dragons that don't draw on your skills. Try not to attack the towers directly too since your sword isn't quite that long (though the knights guarding it are tasty targets :P).

So, this sounds pretty boring? Well, it's a change in tactics (pun intended), and the cash haul in is decent (you can either sell the tons of armors you find to the merchants, or salvage them for cloth, iron, steel, and linen). And the staffs are a good source of wood lol.

Happy Tanking

Might have to try this out.. seems somewhat stable...

Shouldn't you be after giants? They are extra melee and the stances would own them

Where can those giants be found? I have an melee-farm-ele (it rimes )

You have my salute oh NON-MONK farmer!

Giants are bad for four reasons - they have knockdown, they have conditions such as poison and bleeding, they dont drop salvageable armor in even a comparable quantity, and there aren't nearly as many giants as mantle knights/zealots/justiciars.

I'm assuming you're talking about the giants in the crystal desert. The ones in shiverpeaks are bastards with their knockdown shots.

And yes, knockdown is easily countered, but why waste a slot on balanced stance when the other stances work so much better vs. the plentiful mantle.

PS, this build could theoretically work vs. a pure W/R IWAY group, since the mantle are basically IWAYers at heart. Try it out, 16 warriors on the field in a full out melee would be fun :P

Just like to say this idea of the 'untouchable warrior' is very cool. I'm working on a similar one now but with less str and adding smiting for a bit more dps. i.e. I'll take out single-target killers like riposte and deadly riposte for balth's aura and symbol of wrath. Will help own the undead in riverside for sure. Shield stance is fantastic for farming too. (excellent duration, can use skills, etc)

And yes I know this is not <1% monk but warrior stances keep you alive longer than healing IMO.
The secret to farming (i.e. tanking) is reducing damage to yourself.

You can either still get hit and reduce the damage. (worked very well for the 105 monk till the nerfs)

Or you can not get hit-my choice

Or you can try to out-heal the damage but most of us know how that ends up going.

I prefer:

Gladiator's Defense
Riposte
Deadly Riposte
Shield Stance
Galrath Slash
Bonetti's Defense
Healing Signet
Purestrike

Tactics: 12 + 4
Sword: 12 + 3 (or + 1)
Strength: 3 + 1

Farm outside of Port Sledge killing all the grawls. Occasional gold armor, lots of purples, just takes a while.

Stances are much better at 14+ because you get 11 seconds on Gladiator's, Shield, and Bonetti's (the only three you need). And as a side note, the stance collector's shield no longer exist. You'll have to get the green one (Grognars).

Edit: I've been informed the shield does exist, however the original location that I was familiar with was outside of Camp Rankor.

Quote:

yep bleached shells now instead

Um... Where do you get the shield?

And riverside is the mission before Sanctum, right?

Not able to play 'till the 1st

This is something me and Racthoh got into a brief discussion about in another thread (I think started by Life Infusion?). He's hitting the nail right on the head - You only need Gladiators, Bonetti's, and Shield Stance. Pump your tactics way up and the recharge time will be almost perfect to keep a constant stance on. This is a lot of fun to run, and it kind of makes you feel cool farming without "/Mo" beside your name.

While granted for the most part War/Mo's (or Monk anything really) farm faster and more efficiently than Tactics based warriors, if you want to farm Grawls like Racthoh stated, you'll quickly find they Ulodytes/Crones strip enchantments like nobody's business. So, this is a handy build to keep on hand for those annoying and increasingly more popular areas where enchantments don't cut it.

yea, ive done farming with the grawls, and its not too bad. this is more of a beginners guide, and cuz of that the riverside is much better (grawl shamans are a pain in the ass cuz their attack can't be blocked and there are tons of them).

As for defensive stance, you could swap it out for an attack skill, or become part smiting. Just based on preference i guess.

Happy hunting

The shield still exists! Hurrah.

Thanks for the info.

The grawl shaman's (or whatever they're called now) attacks can be block with stances.

I used this on grawls a few months back. But instead of sword, I use axe.

Quote:

nice stuff

lol, a few days ago i made the same build, but i used an axe. it diddnt work as well as my old w/mo adrenalin build. but now that zealots is fixed i cant use it anymore.

well nice post, I used that build some time ago in arena (thus I dont play warrior a lot). Working pretty well.

I used to use a build very similar to this to hunt drakes outside elonas. Handy because you can't HIT the silly things.

I found a fun build for farming while trying to find a use for 100 blades:

Swords: 16
Tac: 10-12
Str: everything else

Basically only three skills are required: Bonetti's, Hundred Blades, Healing Sig the rest are optional depending on the situation, but deadly riposte, galrath and an emergency defensive stance all make things easier.

When faced with 2 or more enemies, you can pretty much keep bonetti's up all the time with a 100 Blades - Bonetti's - (wait for 100 blade to almost recharge) - healing sig - 100 Blades cycle. Throw in whatever extra skills you want (and can survive) right after the healing sig.

One of these days I've got to chuck my str points into a second profession. The bonetti's is just calling out for some high-damage spike skill to use between the cycles.