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Offline Beomagi

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Guild wars direct damage class tips and videos
« on: October 01, 2006, 03:13:15 AM »
Mods - if you prefer, i can mix this with the guild wars thread, though I figured i'd make one for tips


Getting into Guildwars
Tips to effective direct damage classes.

A lot of this info is around, but It's not always easy to find, especially info on attack chains through activation time based attacks, or how that +40 on your attack damage factors in, or crits armor etc.

Your Secondary - should not be completely different from your main purpose - dont give your warrior a secondary of elementalist to fire flare for instance. Pick the elementalist line for other purposes. e.g. imbue the weapon with fire, rodgert, close range damage, The necro line for curses to enhance damage - barbs, mark of pain, armor penetration, the monk line has one of the most powerful for attacks - judges insight, but it's cost is prohibitive unless using energy gaining skills. For a warrior, area of effect skills work while farming. If your build is pretty complete without the secondary, don't fret! you really don't NEED a secondary. If you're in this position, and have a free skill slot, try a skill which can benefit you or the group. I've saved numerous groups with my ranger using rebirth, as I can res a character from a distance, pulling them away from the fight. plague touch is good for warriors to get rid of blindness, or weakness. The poison preperation is excellent for warriors basing most of their skills on adrenaline. Consider other ideas too. e.g. gale, gust or whirlwind, which can knockdown foes.

NOTE : for factions, several skills are repeated. These effectively can be used as either spike, or as an effective half recharge effect, at the cost of a skill slot.

weapon damage
every 8 points in weapon attributes, doubles weapon damage
in other words, 8 more points, is like attacking someone with 40 less armor. Damage on the weapon is the damage you'd do with 12 points in that weapon attribute on a standard hit.

Every 40 points of armor, reduces damage by half. Damage described is taken as armor 60.
if your damage is x, the enemy armor is a, the the damage you do is x/(2^((a-60)/40))
e.g.
76 damage against a target with 60 armor
x/(2^((60-60)/40)) = 76/(2^0) = 76
76 damage against 100 armor
76/(2^((100-60)/40)) = 76/(2^1) = 38
20 armor is an effective 30% reduction in damage. (watch yourself, difference between major armor types for warrior)

Rangers can have impressive armor, using Greater Conflagration spirit which turns all physical into fire damage, and Winter spirit which turns all elemental damage into cold damage. Ranger armor is 70+30 elemental. With fur lined armor, that's 115 armor (over 60% less damage). Quite compeditive with warriors. Given expertise, and faster energy regen, Rangers with these spirits can make decent warriors themselves.

Paired damage
paired damage is simply damage from multiple sources. It will show up as 2 numbers on striking. e.g. barbs, conjure skills.
Paired damage does not affect the base damage of an attack. unlike barbs which ignores armor, conjures get reduced along with the base attack. absorbsion therefore can make a high conjure or prep, less effective that it may seem, reducing each souce of damage.

here's an example with rangers.
assume your attack does 50 damage, and your prep is doing 20 - say it's one of the flame based preps.
you hit a target with 100 armor - your effective damage is 25,10.
the target has -5 absorb - your effective damage is 20, 5
now assume your attack does 50, damage, but your prep is read the wind, adding 10 damage
hitting the same target, the damage it reduced as one. 50 becomes 25, then 20 on absorb. read the wind acts like barbs, adding 10 damage reguardless of armor, so you'd do 30 damage.

assume you're using judges insight, or weaken armor hex with a hornbow. That's -30 armor, or 68% more damage.

+Damage on attacks - Attacks that add +damage, simply do that much extra on swinging. It does not matter how much armor the enemy has! Rangers really benefit from this by using read the wind. 10 points more damage with fast attacks really accumulates quickly. Signet of strength is awesome with high str. Especially since it lasts indefinitely if not used. Cast it in advance, and let it recharge. By the time it's used up, you can just use it again immediately.

Critical attacks - hit for max weapon damage * √2. pretty much like -20 armor, or a weapon attribute of +4. Crits occur more frequently with attribute level. Critical hits do NOT affect added damage from skills or preps. Because of this, the most effective weapons, are axes, bows, and hammers, as they have high max damage values.
The assassin critical strike skill adds a 1% chance of a crit per level. Assassin rangers are actually effective. marksman skills would be lax, but damage can be made up pretty well, through crits, each crit doing the damage of a 16 attrib ranger, hitting for the bow's max damage.



weapon speed
daggers, axes and swords - 1.33 sec per attack
hammers - 1.75 (you need to do 32% more damage on average to get the same damage over time.)
daggers can double strike - each rank is +2%, 0 is 2%
so for daggers, effective weapon speed in terms of accumulated hits over time, is 1.33*1/(1.02+daggermaster*0.02)
at 12 mastery, you're looking at 1.06 seconds average between attacks over time - you still attack at 1.33 secs, but this is the effective speed of attacks. This is useful for warriors (hence why I used 12) or warrior secondary (16 ranks give an effective 0.99s) in gaining adrenalin rapidly.

weapon speed modifiers - frenzy, flurry, tiger fury, I will avenge you, berserker stance, lightning reflexes, tiger stance.

frenzy - 8 seconds, 5 energy, spammable make this the main dot modifier. if using frenzy, a big spike against you almost certainly will kill you. moment you get hit, use a second stance e.g. sprint. I definitely can't advise this if you're an assassin.Lower armor + double damage, would be extremely deadly.
flurry - damage reduction can mitigate the benefit, and it's more costly to maintain than frenzy. This works if most of the damage is coming from curses/read the wind - e.g. mark of pain, or from illusionary weaponary (mesmer). Note, the 33% faster operates on the SWING - so instead of 1.33 Seconds, it's 2/3 of that. this is actually a 50% increase in hits over time.
tigers fury - 5-10 seconds, requires high beast mastery, 10 energy. as expensive as a spammed flurry, but this reduces energy for attacks. extremely effective on rangers with moderate or higher expertise, even assassins as they have high regen. non attack skills are disabled, though if you have an attack boon, dont give up on it.
I will avenge you - works on any allies, pets, and party members pets. It's common to see a bunch of warrior with weak pets, letting the pets die, then spamming this skill. deadly effective when done in that fashion. not nearly as effective if not in a group of similar built warriors.
Berserker stance - like flurry, 50% more attacks, swing is 33% less time. can stack with "for great justice" for +80% adrenaline. works best for hammers, but long recharge, and interrupting this skill often using another skill make it difficult to justify.
Lightning reflexes - great on a ranger, weak on a warrior/assassin, very long recharge. I usually skip this skill because while spurts work in pvp, pve requires a more sustained attack. This is excellent for spiking, while being in the thick of the action. expertise needed for duration, also decreases cost.
Tiger stance - 5 energy for 10 seconds make it cheap. if strength is high enough. Can use skills while in this stance making it more useful than berserkers. long recharge though. works well with renewing smash for a 20 second attack speed boost, though this gets expensive costing 20 energy over the course of those 20 seconds.

There are otherways to increase attack speed.
Activation time based attack skills
skills based on activation time, have an independant attack speed to the weapon used.
Belly smash, savage slash, skull crack, protector's strike, distracting shot, concussion shot, needling shot, punishing shot, savage shot, quick shot.
To see the what a difference this can mean, check out this video of a ranger taking down some targets.(9.1MB)


The way these operate is after your standard attack - say you use dual shot, or pure strike or whatever to open, as the attack is being used, prepare the activation timed attack skill - quickshot, protector's strike etc. The moment you're done your attack, you'll see the activation based attack quickly coming up. Examples are dual shot followed by punishing shot, whirling axe, prot, whirling axe standard, or just using quickshot after each attack.

assassin - becasue of double striking with daggers, an assassin with level 16 dagger master can gain adrenaline 33% faster than a warrior simply attacking (each rank in daggers, is a 2% chance of a double). This makes skullcrack very useful, as they can gain adrenaline quite quickly, and use it for a rapid attack. Given the more rapid energy gain, protector's strike frees up the elite slot, and isn't too expensive to manage for an assassin. Touch attacks are usually rather quick. Another very fast attack, is exhausting assault. One possible way to use it, Is after your dual attack, hit with palm strike, which counts as an offhand attack, and would hit immediately afterwards. Then hit with exhausting assault. That's 5 rather quick hits, in the space of time that you normally do a plain attack.

warrior - protector's strike makes a huge difference for a warrior. For a hammer warrior, protector's strike makes an insane difference. Gaining adrenaline is so much easier with protector's strike. belly smash can be used as well, even skull crack chaining attack-protector's-skullcrack-bellysmash for instance, for 4 extremely rapid hits. spells and touches can be used with this as well - e.g. Iron Palm. Just beware of the energy requirement. Protector's strike has a couple advantages over frenzy or berzerker's stance. It first of all, frees up a stance. Secondly, it's not a plain attack. Strength adds armor penetration, but not for standard attacks. For high str warriors, scratching your head, this is why attacks like prot, skullcrack, sun and moon, and other attacks that don't appear to add damage, have a higher average than a plain attack. One combo I use is simply whirling axe (2 adr) + prot strike. Whirling->prot(recharges whirling)->Whirling->standard->repeat.

Ranger - quickshot is meant to capitalize on this attribute. With high expertise, and a zealous bow, this attack is free, even use when biding time to gain energy. Dont spam it. attack-QS-attack-QS-attack-QS. You'll have roughly an attack, another about half a second later or less if timed right(i know the activation is 1 second, but time between is less), then an attack about 1.5-2.0 seconds later. depending on bow.
This makes for effective sustained damage. Punishing shot is better for spikes, but at an 8 second recharge. Quickshot can be immediately followed up by savage shot, needling or distracting shot for a third attack.

Rangers and bows
A ranger's big advantage, is distance. they get to be farthest from the action. Gain the high ground, as it increases attack distance. Some bows have very short attack ranges, some are long. There's 5 types of bows. Short, horn, recursive, flat and long.
these stats are from guildwiki
short - range 1.05, speed 2.0s, flight time - mid
horn - range 1.4, speed 2.7s, flight time - long, 10% armor penetration
recursive - range 1.4, speed 2.4s, flight time - mid
flat - range 1.6, speed 2.0s, flight time - short
long - range 1.6, speed 2.4s, flight time - mid

Right away the bows that stand out are long and flat for range, and hornbows.
hornbows are good for spikes as activation time based attacks dont depend on the weapon type.
you can find collector and general info here.

Flight time is reflected in the bow's arc. Flatbows have the highest flight time, so for moving targets, this bow is not recommended, BUT read the wind, while it claims to double arrow speed, seems to set the arc to plain flat. For a fast bow, it's like double speed arrows, but for a flat bow, it's four times as fast. With this skill, a flatbow, should be your number one choice, having the longest range, and quickest attack.

Adrenaline
Although GW states adrenalin is done via "strikes" adrenaline is a lot more less granular. you can read more here

Shields
while some believe this adds armor only in front you, it does not matter where you're hit. Damage reduction via 16 armor is 24%. If using geoffer's bulwark, which has a permanent +10 armor vs piercing, rangers will do 36% less damage to you.

Farming
If you're a ranger, areas where you can control the time it takes for enemies to come for you - e.g. a cliff, and areas where priests can heal you. Smaller groups are advisable.
e.g. Greneth footprint outside the warcamp(18MB), Using Mhenlo outside sunjiang(groups of 4)(43MB)

If you're a warrior, areas where you are free to attack with taking damage, areas where there's lots of meeles, so you dont waste time running around. i.e. avoid aread where enemies spam clumsiness, use parrys etc. Good places are the elona reach mission, and Crits occur more frequently with attribute level. Critical hits do NOT affect added damage from skills or preps. Because of this, the most effective weapons, are axes, bows, and hammers, as they have high max damage values.
The assassin critical strike skill adds a 1% chance of a crit per level. Assassin rangers are actually effective. marksman skills would be lax, but damage can be made up pretty well, through crits, each crit doing the damage of a 16 attrib ranger, hitting for the bow's max damage.



weapon speed
daggers, axes and swords - 1.33 sec per attack
hammers - 1.75 (you need to do 32% more damage on average to get the same damage over time.)
daggers can double strike - each rank is +2%, 0 is 2%
so for daggers, effective weapon speed in terms of accumulated hits over time, is 1.33*1/(1.02+daggermaster*0.02)
at 12 mastery, you're looking at 1.06 seconds average between attacks over time - you still attack at 1.33 secs, but this is the effective speed of attacks. This is useful for warriors (hence why I used 12) or warrior secondary (16 ranks give an effective 0.99s) in gaining adrenalin rapidly.

weapon speed modifiers - frenzy, flurry, tiger fury, I will avenge you, berserker stance, lightning reflexes, tiger stance.

frenzy - 8 seconds, 5 energy, spammable make this the main dot modifier. if using frenzy, a big spike against you almost certainly will kill you. moment you get hit, use a second stance e.g. sprint. I definitely can't advise this if you're an assassin.Lower armor + double damage, would be extremely deadly.
flurry - damage reduction can mitigate the benefit, and it's more costly to maintain than frenzy. This works if most of the damage is coming from curses/read the wind - e.g. mark of pain, or from illusionary weaponary (mesmer). Note, the 33% faster operates on the SWING - so instead of 1.33 Seconds, it's 2/3 of that. this is actually a 50% increase in hits over time.
tigers fury - 5-10 seconds, requires high beast mastery, 10 energy. as expensive as a spammed flurry, but this reduces energy for attacks. extremely effective on rangers with moderate or higher expertise, even assassins as they have high regen. non attack skills are disabled, though if you have an attack boon, dont give up on it.
I will avenge you - works on any allies, pets, and party members pets. It's common to see a bunch of warrior with weak pets, letting the pets die, then spamming this skill. deadly effective when done in that fashion. not nearly as effective if not in a group of similar built warriors.
Berserker stance - like flurry, 50% more attacks, swing is 33% less time. can stack with "for great justice" for +80% adrenaline. works best for hammers, but long recharge, and interrupting this skill often using another skill make it difficult to justify.
Lightning reflexes - great on a ranger, weak on a warrior/assassin, very long recharge. I usually skip this skill because while spurts work in pvp, pve requires a more sustained attack. This is excellent for spiking, while being in the thick of the action. expertise needed for duration, also decreases cost.
Tiger stance - 5 energy for 10 seconds make it cheap. if strength is high enough. Can use skills while in this stance making it more useful than berserkers. long recharge though. works well with renewing smash for a 20 second attack speed boost, though this gets expensive costing 20 energy over the course of those 20 seconds.

There are otherways to increase attack speed.
Activation time based attack skills
skills based on activation time, have an independant attack speed to the weapon used.
Belly smash, savage slash, skull crack, protector's strike, distracting shot, concussion shot, needling shot, punishing shot, savage shot, quick shot.
To see the what a difference this can mean, check out this video of a ranger taking down some targets.(9.1MB)


The way these operate is after your standard attack - say you use dual shot, or pure strike or whatever to open, as the attack is being used, prepare the activation timed attack skill - quickshot, protector's strike etc. The moment you're done your attack, you'll see the activation based attack quickly coming up. Examples are dual shot followed by punishing shot, whirling axe, prot, whirling axe standard, or just using quickshot after each attack.

assassin - becasue of double striking with daggers, an assassin with level 16 dagger master can gain adrenaline 33% faster than a warrior simply attacking (each rank in daggers, is a 2% chance of a double). This makes skullcrack very useful, as they can gain adrenaline quite quickly, and use it for a rapid attack. Given the more rapid energy gain, protector's strike frees up the elite slot, and isn't too expensive to manage for an assassin. Touch attacks are usually rather quick. Another very fast attack, is exhausting assault. One possible way to use it, Is after your dual attack, hit with palm strike, which counts as an offhand attack, and would hit immediately afterwards. Then hit with exhausting assault. That's 5 rather quick hits, in the space of time that you normally do a plain attack.

warrior - protector's strike makes a huge difference for a warrior. For a hammer warrior, protector's strike makes an insane difference. Gaining adrenaline is so much easier with protector's strike. belly smash can be used as well, even skull crack chaining attack-protector's-skullcrack-bellysmash for instance, for 4 extremely rapid hits. spells and touches can be used with this as well - e.g. Iron Palm. Just beware of the energy requirement. Protector's strike has a couple advantages over frenzy or berzerker's stance. It first of all, frees up a stance. Secondly, it's not a plain attack. Strength adds armor penetration, but not for standard attacks. For high str warriors, scratching your head, this is why attacks like prot, skullcrack, sun and moon, and other attacks that don't appear to add damage, have a higher average than a plain attack. One combo I use is simply whirling axe (2 adr) + prot strike. Whirling->prot(recharges whirling)->Whirling->standard->repeat.

Ranger - quickshot is meant to capitalize on this attribute. With high expertise, and a zealous bow, this attack is free, even use when biding time to gain energy. Dont spam it. attack-QS-attack-QS-attack-QS. You'll have roughly an attack, another about half a second later or less if timed right(i know the activation is 1 second, but time between is less), then an attack about 1.5-2.0 seconds later. depending on bow.
This makes for effective sustained damage. Punishing shot is better for spikes, but at an 8 second recharge. Quickshot can be immediately followed up by savage shot, needling or distracting shot for a third attack.

Rangers and bows
A ranger's big advantage, is distance. they get to be farthest from the action. Gain the high ground, as it increases attack distance. Some bows have very short attack ranges, some are long. There's 5 types of bows. Short, horn, recursive, flat and long.
these stats are from guildwiki
short - range 1.05, speed 2.0s, flight time - mid
horn - range 1.4, speed 2.7s, flight time - long, 10% armor penetration
recursive - range 1.4, speed 2.4s, flight time - mid
flat - range 1.6, speed 2.0s, flight time - short
long - range 1.6, speed 2.4s, flight time - mid

Right away the bows that stand out are long and flat for range, and hornbows.
hornbows are good for spikes as activation time based attacks dont depend on the weapon type.
you can find collector and general info here.

Flight time is reflected in the bow's arc. Flatbows have the highest flight time, so for moving targets, this bow is not recommended, BUT read the wind, while it claims to double arrow speed, seems to set the arc to plain flat. For a fast bow, it's like double speed arrows, but for a flat bow, it's four times as fast. With this skill, a flatbow, should be your number one choice, having the longest range, and quickest attack.

Adrenaline
Although GW states adrenalin is done via "strikes" adrenaline is a lot more less granular. you can read more here

Shields
while some believe this adds armor only in front you, it does not matter where you're hit. Damage reduction via 16 armor is 24%. If using geoffer's bulwark, which has a permanent +10 armor vs piercing, rangers will do 36% less damage to you.

Farming
If you're a ranger, areas where you can control the time it takes for enemies to come for you - e.g. a cliff, and areas where priests can heal you. Smaller groups are advisable.
e.g. Greneth footprint outside the warcamp(18MB), Using Mhenlo outside sunjiang(groups of 4)(43MB)

If you're a warrior, areas where you are free to attack with taking damage, areas where there's lots of meeles, so you dont waste time running around. i.e. avoid aread where enemies spam clumsiness, use parrys etc. Good places are the elona reach mission, and (48.5MB). Zos is great cause the boss has an awesome shield he can drop.
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Carigamers

Guild wars direct damage class tips and videos
« on: October 01, 2006, 03:13:15 AM »

Offline Crixx_Creww

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Re: Guild wars direct damage class tips and videos
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2006, 02:28:38 PM »
very nice

but yu dont mention aeromancy

id like  a nice guide on that build. i tried it myself but found it difficult with my own armor being low.
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Offline Beomagi

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Re: Guild wars direct damage class tips and videos
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2006, 02:46:09 PM »
This was for the direct damage classes - i.e. those that center their capability on their weapon. Prefer their use over casters ;)

If you want make up some caster tips, and i'll change the title to reflect a more general tips thread.
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Re: Guild wars direct damage class tips and videos
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2006, 02:51:06 PM »
i thought when you said direct damage you meant the ability to neglect armor
my bad
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Carigamers

Re: Guild wars direct damage class tips and videos
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2006, 02:51:06 PM »
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