Armsman help!

[Rub]

Hence why I stopped posting as soon as Kag turned up, what he says is as good as Armsman Law.

dont u play an ARSman? :<

 

[Kagato]

The problem with trying to compare in-game damage screen shots, even from several fights, to known game mechanics and tables is that theres simply to many OTHER factors that will come into play.

CL absorbs, warguard, RR5 abilities, ablative chants, soldiers barricade, ablative procs, castable melee absorb buffs, resist procs, stat debuffs, dps debuffs, haste debuufs and metal guard to name just a tiny tiny percentage of them. And it will be different every hit and you will never know what your enemy did or did not use.

I've hit vampires for 200 damage before and i've hit one for over 1200 damage before, and everything inbetween, even if I know its usually nearer to 800 that does not mean I could honestly say i'll hit the next vampire for that amount with that type of pole, you will never be certain.


You'd have to monitor hundreds if not thousands of fights per class to get a realistic view worthy of any possible comparision on a forum and thats not even taking into account standard melee hit variance and spec differances.

Sadly we do not have that luxuary, and the results would still be meaningless. Im not saying you shouldn't care about your damage in game compared to others, and im not saying people shouldn't spec slash if THEY want to use that type of damage.

But to me as an experianced armsman I would never, ever suggest it to someone asking me for honest advice for all the reasons i've already stated. If they still want to, even if its just because they think that pole looks cool, good luck to them, they are perfectly entitled to and I hope they enjoy it, but for effective RvR I will advise people on what I know to be most effective and they can take that advice or they can say thanks but no thanks i'll still try something else.

 

[Sorin]

The problem with trying to compare in-game damage screen shots, even from several fights, to known game mechanics and tables is that theres simply to many OTHER factors that will come into play.

CL absorbs, warguard, RR5 abilities, ablative chants, soldiers barricade, ablative procs, castable melee absorb buffs, resist procs, stat debuffs, dps debuffs, haste debuufs and metal guard to name just a tiny tiny percentage of them. And it will be different every hit and you will never know what your enemy did or did not use.

I've hit vampires for 200 damage before and i've hit one for over 1200 damage before, and everything inbetween, even if I know its usually nearer to 800 that does not mean I could honestly say i'll hit the next vampire for that amount with that type of pole, you will never be certain.


You'd have to monitor hundreds if not thousands of fights per class to get a realistic view worthy of any possible comparision on a forum and thats not even taking into account standard melee hit variance and spec differances.

Sadly we do not have that luxuary, and the results would still be meaningless. Im not saying you shouldn't care about your damage in game compared to others, and im not saying people shouldn't spec slash if THEY want to use that type of damage.

But to me as an experianced armsman I would never, ever suggest it to someone asking me for honest advice for all the reasons i've already stated. If they still want to, even if its just because they think that pole looks cool, good luck to them, they are perfectly entitled to and I hope they enjoy it, but for effective RvR I will advise people on what I know to be most effective and they can take that advice or they can say thanks but no thanks i'll still try something else.

I totaly agree.
but then again, how can you jugde that slash is crap when you got all these other "factors", i mean, sure.. you got the armor tablets to turn to, but they are just things writting down.... i belive i also saw somewhere that there was "NO WAY" a caster could do a spell faster that 1,2"hard cap".. wich is wrong.. i've seen many casters cast faster. "NONE INSTA", hell i even got a movie where a healer spams mezz at a rate of 0.70 secs.

the only way to really find out is actually to test it ourselfs, but since i agree with you on the factor problems we might aswell let it die.

the way i see it, cuz of all the factors, the solution to this is a
"legendary pole" where slash/crush/thrust spec doesn't matter.


go on dogs, flame!!

 

[Sorin]

love to eat cake btw

 

[Borgio Finstermoor]

dont u play an ARSman? :<

Yes...... but its quite close to an Armsman

 

[Kagato]

I totaly agree.
but then again, how can you jugde that slash is crap when you got all these other "factors", i mean, sure.. you got the armor tablets to turn to, but they are just things writting down.... i belive i also saw somewhere that there was "NO WAY" a caster could do a spell faster that 1,2"hard cap".. wich is wrong.. i've seen many casters cast faster. "NONE INSTA", hell i even got a movie where a healer spams mezz at a rate of 0.70 secs.

the only way to really find out is actually to test it ourselfs, but since i agree with you on the factor problems we might aswell let it die.

the way i see it, cuz of all the factors, the solution to this is a
"legendary pole" where slash/crush/thrust spec doesn't matter.


go on dogs, flame!!

I agree on the legendaries, thats why I use them, that and the fact that I like being 'neutral' to all enemy armour types. But even then you need a back up for those occasions when you encounter someone with top resist buffs.

But back on top I did indeed test slash when they changed malice to be a slash pole and the drop in my damage was so bad even alot of the enemies noticed and commented on how crap my damage was now compared to before and not even the malice proc could make up for it.

I agree that you should always take documentation with a pinch of salt but something like the armour resist table is pretty black and white, plain and simple. How much differance it makes is debateable and thats what we are debating here, but the figures and the resist types are pretty solid and standard.

There WILL be occasions when slash will be better, if your fighting sb's or bezerkers for example or if your fighting a hero, but for solo it would still be poor as apart from sb's every other 'common' solo class is reistant, and in a group situration zerkers are either being grappled or the last thing you should be hitting compared to the enemy support.
Thrust on the other hand would see you ripping the enemy support apart and still let you be neutral or good against most soloers, crush is the reverse in being ok for group and great for solo.

But again theres so many factors effecting melee damage you can never 100% tell these days wether its your damage type thats the problem or some other over powered ability the enemy used. Back in old frontiers it was alot more plain and simple to tell.

Of cause legendary weapons have their own inherent problems too, mostly cost

 

[Sorin]

I agree on the legendaries, thats why I use them, that and the fact that I like being 'neutral' to all enemy armour types. But even then you need a back up for those occasions when you encounter someone with top resist buffs.

But back on top I did indeed test slash when they changed malice to be a slash pole and the drop in my damage was so bad even alot of the enemies noticed and commented on how crap my damage was now compared to before and not even the malice proc could make up for it.

I agree that you should always take documentation with a pinch of salt but something like the armour resist table is pretty black and white, plain and simple. How much differance it makes is debateable and thats what we are debating here, but the figures and the resist types are pretty solid and standard.

There WILL be occasions when slash will be better, if your fighting sb's or bezerkers for example or if your fighting a hero, but for solo it would still be poor as apart from sb's every other 'common' solo class is reistant, and in a group situration zerkers are either being grappled or the last thing you should be hitting compared to the enemy support.
Thrust on the other hand would see you ripping the enemy support apart and still let you be neutral or good against most soloers, crush is the reverse in being ok for group and great for solo.

But again theres so many factors effecting melee damage you can never 100% tell these days wether its your damage type thats the problem or some other over powered ability the enemy used. Back in old frontiers it was alot more plain and simple to tell.

Of cause legendary weapons have their own inherent problems too, mostly cost

thats all i wanted to hear m8

thread closed

 

[psyco]

let me get this staight... leg poles, ie the craftible ones, are better, cause they have magic dmg types? so speccing in slash/crush/thrust is pointless?

 

[Sorin]

no no no.. you have to spec in either slash, crush or thrust to get a base damage..
if you intend to use a legendary pole it doesn't matter wich one of the above it is tho.

 

[Kagato]

Im not intentionally contradicting you but actually it does matter alot which you choose.

Although you can craft any of the 4 legendary types in slash, crush or thrust they all have different weapon speeds.

Thrust for example is 5.7 speed, i.e the slowest which is why I chose it, Slash and Crush on the other hand are alot faster, one of them is 5.3 I think, though im at work at the moment so cannot check specifically which is which.

 

[Sorin]

Im not intentionally contradicting you but actually it does matter alot which you choose.

Although you can craft any of the 4 legendary types in slash, crush or thrust they all have different weapon speeds.

Thrust for example is 5.7 speed, i.e the slowest which is why I chose it, Slash and Crush on the other hand are alot faster, one of them is 5.3 I think, though im at work at the moment so cannot check specifically which is which.

thrust: 5.7 spd
crush: 5.6 spd
slash: 5.2 spd

not a big difference between crush and thrust tbh

 

[Kagato]

thrust: 5.7 spd
crush: 5.6 spd
slash: 5.2 spd

not a big difference between crush and thrust tbh

No but if your going to pick one, it might as well be the best 5.7 speed in a spec line that can be auto-trained.

I have no idea why they made the slash one so fast, or why they did not keep all speeds the same, another crazy mythic screw up.

Personally I use a thrust legendary and keep a fast normal thrust pole incase I need to deal with a warden or someone with extremely high magic resists.

 

[Briton_Knight]

as we're on the subject of armsmen anyways what do u guys rekon r the must have RA's for a polearmsman?

 

[Sorin]

as we're on the subject of armsmen anyways what do u guys rekon r the must have RA's for a polearmsman?

well, it depends on if you're a solo arms or a grp arms.

grp arms: DET4+, Soldiers barrier, purge, avoidance of magic maybe.
solo arms: Mastery of pain, mastery of parrying, IP2, aug str/con.

its pretty much up to you

 

[Kagato]

Det for is your top priority if and when you can afford it. Then you will be best to work on your key passives (mastery of pain etc) until you can afford IP2.

After that its a matter of building up your passives as and when you can afford to get them higher.

Soldiers barricade is nice but an expensive luxuary if your low to mid RR, at RR10+ I still couldn't afford it without dropping more important Ra's in my own opinion.

Warguard and Fury give you the same benefit and more for free.

Concentrate on Det 4 and build up from there

 

[BlackrazoR]

As a mainly group-based Armsman I have Det and Soldier's Barricade as RAs and thats best option IMO.

 

[Borgio Finstermoor]

As a mainly group arsman, with some soloing tendancies ive gone for:

Det 4
Mastery of Pain 2
Mastery of Parrying 1
Toughness 2
Aug Quickness 2

I need to respec RA's since doing my new template but thats my basic set up at RR4 summit or other

 

[Kagato]

Soldiers Barricade is an utter waste.

Warguard and Fury cost you nothing and are more effective.

SB only works after all other reductions have been taken into account so it only reduces the minimum damage.

In other words if you hit Fury first it wont stack with SB, fury will take away 50 % and SB will take away 25% of the remainder, in other words you've just wasted 30 RA points by hitting both at same time.

If you really must have more magic reduction then Empty Mind will see you alot further for the same cost and give you a longer duration of it.

Empty mind 3, + Fury + AoM2 + heavy tank resists = 100% magic resists therefore 0 damage for 20 seconds.

 

[BlackrazoR]

Soldiers Barricade is an utter waste.

Warguard and Fury cost you nothing and are more effective.

SB only works after all other reductions have been taken into account so it only reduces the minimum damage.

In other words if you hit Fury first it wont stack with SB, fury will take away 50 % and SB will take away 25% of the remainder, in other words you've just wasted 30 RA points by hitting both at same time.

If you really must have more magic reduction then Empty Mind will see you alot further for the same cost and give you a longer duration of it.

Empty mind 3, + Fury + AoM2 + heavy tank resists = 100% magic resists therefore 0 damage for 20 seconds.

AFAIK Kagato Solider's Barricade is a Group effect spell and Fury/Empty Mind aren't. Hence why I have gone for it similar to my cabalist going for Bedazzling Aura3.

 

[Kagato]

Considering how hard pressed Armsmen are for getting good rps compared to casters i'd say screw them and let them buy their own RA's, can garuntee 9 times out of 10 they will have more to spend then you on.
Spend your points on what keeps you effective.