Warmachine's Axe Warrior/Blademaster PvP Guide

dekciw wrote: »

Alright this guide has pretty much everything you need to know to build a strong pvp warrior there is one thing though that I can't teach you that separates the terrible warriors from the good ones, it’s an ability called: having a brain. As a warrior you need to be aware of your surrounding and you need to know what your role really is, I can’t stress enough how important knowing what your role is, I’ve seen countless warriors, high level ones too, focusing heavy armor users or going for the wrong targets. Also this guide is mainly focused on axe warrior as this is the weapon that I use but I also used other weapons in the past and if you're using another weapon there is still some valuable information you can learn from the guide. This is the first guide that I write so obviously it aint perfect and only you can help me make it better, I got tired of reading all the non-sense that some people seem to spread in the warrior section of the forums so I figured I'd write a guide to put a end to the **** being said. So here it goes…



This section is for the terms I'll be using in this guide that I feel you may not understand so I'll provide a little description of what they mean.

DPS: Damage per second
Spike Damage: highest damage possible in one hit
Mass PvP: means group pvp where a decent amount or a lot of people are involved.
Duel: When you right click on the person and click duel and they accept, different from pvp for various reasons one major being that there is no hiero/charm involved.
TW: Territory War
EP or Elven Priest: MY name of Cleric
WF or Werefox: MY name of Venomancer
WB or Werebeast: MY name of Barbarian
WR or Warrior: MY name of Blademaster (blademaster sounds lame imo).


The Armor Type

This one is really easy to understand: it’s heavy armor and nothing else. There is no reason why you would chose light over heavy as a warrior it just makes you squishy like an archer and magic still hurts you. Moreover the people that will actually target you will prob just laugh as you as MG's magic, WF's magic doesn't miss and archer have a pretty good accuracy. So if you're light armor, enjoy being ***** over and over again then maybe you will understand that you need to go Heavy Armor.

Shards for your armor : HP, HP and HP. When you feel you have a really confortable amount of HP at higher level(90+) then you can actually throw in mdef stones for more survivability. ( Your magic sutra + EP mdef buff with those shards will give you quite a nice boost in mdef)


Weapon Choice

Axe: This is the most popular weapon choice for WR as it provides high spike damage, AOEs and your famous STUNS. Axes makes your leveling decent and make you a force to reckon with in pvp as you will hit relatively hard and your stuns are ANNOYING. If you do it right you can prevent your target to move for roughly 15s. That's enough for anyone to die. This guide is mostly dedicated to this weapon ( obviously ). There is a false rumor that says that Axe warriors have terrible accuracy. That is so wrong, this is uniquely dependent of your gear and your stat build.


Spear : This is another good pvp weapon choice as it provides extra range something that Axe lacks and that sometimes makes life hell for you especially in the air unless you can afford a fully upgraded flying mount. The weapon damage is lesser but the skill damage is higher and if you ever put your hands on a berserk spear you will hurt as hell.


Sword : I'm not really a fan of the sword warriors and I haven't really played one at all, I mostly believe that it's a PVE build and the only time they actually have an edge in pvp compared to other weapons is when they 1v1 against another melee.


Fist: PVE weapon. Most people do hate them because of their low damage but you need to understand your role. You are not a pvp class. As a fist warrior you are a pve beast, not in lower levels but in high levels your grinding ability is on par if not higher than Werefox because your DPS is insane. You shine in HH because you have this ability to cancel channeling spell with your shadowless kick. If you’re good with timings your tank will love you because what hurts them the most is the magic attacks and your skill allows you to cancel 1 out of 2 spell most of the time (they can cancel the other one themselves, basically if you and your tank have good communication and timing you can prevent the boss from launching any magic attack). As I said their DPS is very good which makes them decent at duels because there is no hiero involved. The reason why they suck @ pvp in general is because they have absolutely no spike damage therefore they can hardly ever kill their target before the hiero ticks again and because people won't tank you they'll just fly / kite you away and you can't really do anything about it because you can't stunlock.


Shards : accuracy, as high grade as you can afford. You never have too much accuracy.



Stats

As an axe warrior, there is 2 path you can follow : either vit build or dex build. Vit build will make your life grinding easier and you will be one hard bish to kill in TW while dex build will give you more accuracy/dmg/evasion which will make you a damn powerhouse endgame.


Vit build

Str : dual axe req

Dex : dual axe req

Vit : rest

Mag : 3


Dex Build

Str : Dual axe req

Dex : everything else

Vit : 50-60

Mag : 3


When you reach 99 or if youre 90 and you have godlike gear with like 8-9k hp unbuffed then well you can afford putting your vit back to 30 or less and dumping the points into dex for more crit/accuracy. Make sure your dex is a multiple of 20 if you do that tho, any extra points wouldn't make such a big difference.


Equipment

This is the gear you should be looking foward to get and the level requirement of each item.



Weapon :

- Calamity Axes of Blood Also known as XS or Xue Sha. Level 70 axes from FB69 with the berserk effect. The berserk effect will grant you the potential spike damage that you need to kill people through your stunlock. This weapon will last you till 90~ish if you choose to at least +4-5 it and put some decent accuracy stones in it

- Calloused Lionheart Hatchets also known as GX or Gang Xin. Level 90 gold axes from HH(Holy Halls or TT(Twilight Temple -> I hate that name so much)). That's pretty much the endgame weapon for a warrior and if you ever get it, then grats because it's rare as hell and hard to get... make sure you +it as much as you can.

- Star Axes, HH90 green axes, for those who can't get GX.. this is your 2nd option. Don't be too sad though because the Star Axes are actually amazing with the Gloom effect. Fairly weaker than GX but much stronger than XS.



Armor :

- Whatever you can get your hands on... FB79 top/leg molds or hh80 gold set if you're rich then hh90 green set.



Helm :

- Whatever you can get as long as it has decent bonus and a fair amount of base HP, + it a little and put some hp stones in those sockets. It should boost your hp quite a lot



Rings :

- Misty Forest Ring also known as Ling Yun, this is the FB79 mold ring. It's a MUST-HAVE for a warrior, boost your base accuracy by 50% which is quite a lot. Really a must have if you ever want to hit archers.

- Ring of Mastadon's Strength also known as Behemoth ring. HH90 gold ring, 30% accuracy , 2% crit. It's a pretty damn good ring for a warrior but it's also hard to get as obviously everyone wants one. Until you get it though, you can use some 2% crit ring like the ring of heavenly lord or some ring with some accuracy bonus.



Necklace :

- Swindler's Necklace also known has Humbug, this is the hh90 gold necklace with a wooping 5% hp bonus and really good mdef stats. Like the behemoth ring it's fairly hard to get so until then try finding some necklace with decent mdef stats and possibly some +hp bonus.


Belt :

- Demon Slaughter Belt, fb89 belt, it's a pretty good belt with high mdef stats. Until then, just try finding any belt with as high as possible mdef stats and hopefully some +hp bonus.



Cape :

- Cape of Tauran Chieftain, also a MUST HAVE for a warrior, gives a nice +250 mdef bonus. FB69 cape fairly expensive but it's really worth it.


Skills

Tiger Maw - Leave it at level 1, don't bother leveling it any further until level 89+. The damage is **** and it's really not worth it. At level 89 though, you may consider leveling it more if you can get the hell/heaven book because then the skill gets a nice boost in damage and it could be used and included as a skill you spamm between the time you chain your stuns.

Draw Blood - Optional. Useful if you're killing mobs 1by1 or in duels.

Stream Strike - useless, leave it at level 1.

Aeolian Blade- MAX, decent damage and a 50% chance 3sec stun. This skills allows you to stunlock your target.

Drake's Ray - MAX, your only ranged skill as a axe warrior, deals "decent damage" really good finisher if you're target is running away.

Aura of the Golden Bell - MAX, this your awesome pdef buff.

Roar of the Pride - MAX, This is, oh baby, your awesome aoe stun. This is the skill that makes you annoying as hell and makes everyone want to personally kill you. Causes madness in Territory Wars.

Tiger Leap/Leap Back - MAX those when you have the extra SP/Money. These skills are REALLY useful in TW to get out of tricky situations / avoid stuns, for fights in the water ( really makes you faster than swimming) you're actually as fast in the water with those leaps as a WB swimming which makes you perfect for catching up people swimming away.

Ocean's Edge - Level 1, just enough so you can use the slow effect if needed.

Fan of Flames - MAX, when you have the extra SP/Money, don't make it your priority thought. Deals decent damage and it's a QUICK skill, by this I mean it takes close to no time to cast which makes it a really good skill to chain between stuns.

Drake Sweep - MAX, amazing aoe, you will use it A LOT. This is the skill you need to lure in Zhens and it's damage is pretty damn good too which makes it a very good skill to use to chain between your stuns.

Drake Bash - MAX, this is your strongest single target skill as well as a really reliable stun. Cost 1 spark but it's REALLY worth it.

Highland Cleave - MAX, this is your strongest AOE, you will also use it a lot. Really good damage.

Fissure - MAX, decent AOE that slows down your opponent, don't make this your priority though, get a few levels and focus on your other main skills and then max it eventually.

Axe & Hammer Mastery - MAX as fast as possible, obviously I don't think I need to type a long description for this skill.

Heaven's Flame - MAX This is what defines you as an Axe warrior, this is your signature, your "Hasta la vista baby" skill. Deals decent damage as well as fire damage and it amplifie all the damage received by the targets under the effect of this skill by 50 to 100%. This will make killing boss and mobs much quicker. You will abuse it in your AOE leveling. Just an important note, try not using it on single targets, I've seen many warriors do it and it's the most useless thing ever as most of the times you would kill them just as fast with a simple stun lock and you would save a lot of vigor allowing you to score more kills/ save your team mates. The only situations where it would be wise to use on a single target is when you're trying to kill someone with a lot of HP such as a WB or another WR, where a wizard or an archer could really benifit from it and finish the target off.

Cloud Sprint - MAX, this is your sprint allows you to get in the fight and outside the fight faster as you are usually damn freaking slow.

Will of the Bodhisatva - MAX, same thing as Cloud Sprint except that it makes you immune to movement debuffs for the duration of the skill. Really useful in TWs to drop your roar/dragon/aoe combo. Also useful in the air( the speed boost doesn't work in the air but the movement debuff immunity does) against Clerics and Archers that could try to stun/pralyse you to stop you from **** their faces.

Diamond Sutra - Level it gradually, can save your life and allow your hiero to tick again in hardcore situations

Alter Marrow Magical - Level 5-6, Don't level it any further. It will give you a nice boost in mdef while leaving your pdef in a more than resonable state. You can spam it to gain vigor as you fight as well.

Alter Marrow Physical - MAX, This is a PVE skill though, or a skill for 1v1 against WB and other WRs. DO NOT and I repeat, DO NOT use this skill in other situations / mass pvp as it makes your magic resistances close to nothing and makes you pretty much a one shot for every other class. It's only purpose would be to gain vigor but make you sure you the magica sutra AFTER so you're not stuck with pityful resists.


Stunlocking

This is one of the main thing that makes you a good axe warrior or an awful one, I'll try to be as clear as possible as how you can achieve stunlocking but this is something that comes with experience and timing. What is stunlocking? Stunlocking is the ability that you have from the axe warrior skill tree to literally "lock" your target from moving for a set amount of time... about 15 seconds(pre-Hell WR 99 skills) if you're a bit lucky and do it properly.

There are two ways you can stunlock someone : the first way would be to stun, and using your quick reflexes to use your 2nd stun as you see the "stun" effect on your target buff bar fade. The 2nd way would be to figure your own set combo of skills which will perfectly be timed as to when you press your 2nd stun key, the stun effect will fade which will provoke an immediate stun lock. The first one is probably the less effective one as any lag or decreased reflexes ( hello beer or been up for 24+ hours status) will most likely make you fail your stunlock. The first one is still very important to master because sometimes you won't be the first one stunning which means that your combo will then not work so you will need to time your stun accordingly to the type of stun that was landed on your target. It seems very complicated but I'll try to be as clear as possible and remember that practice makes you perfect. I'll call them "Timed stunlocking" and "Combo stunlocking" respectively.

As you probably already know by now, you have 3 stuns ( Drake Bash, Roar of the Pride and Aeolian Blade). Only 2 of them are reliable though : Drake bash and Roar of the Pride. You should never use Aeolian Blade as your first stun as it is not reliable, that skills is meant to close to stunlock loop and to deal some decent damage, nothing else. I suggest using roar instead of bash vs Archers as your first skill, if you're not confident with your accuracy as it rarely ever miss.


Timed Stunlocking

WF stun : Depending how far you are from the target, if you're really close to it : land a quick damage skill then stun right after. If you're a bit farther stun immediately.

Archer stun : If youre close : 2 quick skills, if you're far : 1 then re-stun.

WR stun : Those are the same stuns as your, you should know the timing.

EP Sleep : Just take your time to get close to the target and land 1 good stun and start your stunlock machine.

It's really all about timing and experience, the more you encounter these situations the better you will be at adapting your timing to the different stuns, this is what will make you an amazing warrior compared to a terrible one.


Combo Stunlocking

This one is very simple and it is probably the best and easiest way to achieve stun locking but it only works with WR stuns. You need to figure out a pattern of skills that you can chain to provoke the chain stunning. PRE-89 my pattern was something like this :

Drake Bash - Drake Sweep - Fan of Flames - Drake's Ray - Roar of the Pride - Highland Cleave - Fissure - Aeolian Blade

That skill pattern allowed me to keep my targets from moving forever, as long as Aeolian Blade landed. I put the stuns into Magenta/Pink so you see how I chain them and because being stunlocked is really ****, people will hate you forever which is awesome for you. Now my pattern has changed a bit but it's still pretty much the same, if you're not comfortable with one, you can always figure out your own... either try on mobs, on some friend in duel or by just trying non-stop in your hardcore pvper life.

This should sum it up, if you feel something isn't clear let me know I'll try to explain it better. Have fun pissing people off.

Hell vs Heaven

This is usually everyone's biggest concern as they get closer to the famous level 89 spot. Which side to choose. Remember once you made your choice there is no coming back. Both side have pro's and con's, there isn't really one that is "Better" it's just a matter of preference. I'll list the useful axe warriors skills (basically all the skills I've described earlier) and the effect of hell and heaven on each one of them, and what I think is better and why.

Tiger Maw

Heaven : gives a 25% chance to regain 20 Chi.
Hell : reduces channel and cast times by 0.1 seconds.

I'd have to give the advantage to heaven on that one.. warriors are Chi dependent. The hell version is still alright if you're a timing freak tho.

Draw Blood

Heaven : increases bleeding damage by 15%. ( 5477 over 15 seconds)
Hell : reduces bleeding duration to 12 seconds. (4676 over 12 seconds)

Hell has that one, much better DPS.


Aeolian Blade

Heaven : increases damage bonus to 180%.
Hell : reduces cooldown to 5 seconds.

The heaven version gives a sweet damage increase. While hell reduces the cooldown from 6 to 5 seconds. That one could go either way, I personally never use Aeolian Blade for it's damage, it's mostly the last skill in my stun lock loop because it's not so reliable.


Aura of the Golden Bell

Heaven : grants always grants an extra 90% physical defense.
Hell : gives a 75% physical defense bonus for 15 seconds.

There is a common misconception about the hell version of this skill. The Heaven version grants you 90% pdef for like 30 mins. While the hell version grants you 75 % pdef and another extra 75% pdef for 15 sec (and not simply 75% pdef like most people think). To sum it up the Heaven version of the buff is better unless you're willing to spam the buff every 15 second. Which could seem stupid, but there is actually an effective combo I'm going to talk about later.

Roar of the Pride :

Heaven : reduces Chi cost by 10.
Hell : cooldown reduced by 1 second and always succeeds.

The chi reduction is cool, because the stun can be costly in vigor if you use it a lot. Heaven would actually make it so that if you spam your both sutra, you pretty much just recovered 3/4 of the chi you used. The hell version is nice too, the -1 second cooldown allows you to recover faster (useful for 1v1s) and it never misses ( nice for TWs). Roar never seems to miss, but after being in several TWs I have noticed that the more people you stun, the higher chance that some people won't be stunned in that aoe is. Basically if you stun let's stay 10-15 people, the stun might fail on maybe like 2-3 players.

Drake's Ray

Heaven : reduces cooldown by 1 second.
Hell : increases range by 2 meters.

self-explanatory, Hell has the edge on that one.. WRs need RANGE. The -1second cooldown is still nice if you tend to use it a lot.

Ocean's Edge

Heaven : 20% a chance to freeze the enemy for 3 seconds.
Hell : damage increase by 800.

The heaven version is quite nice because it gives you another skill to expdand your stunlocking, the only problem is that it's 20% so it's kinda unreliable. As for the hell version, I'm not a huge fan of "damage increase by" because it gets reduced anyways but still 800 is a "decent" boost. I'm qualify the skill usage as the following : if you want to use it to keep on your stunlock : heaven, if you want to use it between your stuns for damage : hell

Fan of Flames

Heaven : decreases cooldown to 6 seconds
Hell : doubles range of the spray damage

self-explanatory, the heaven version is nice if you're using the skill in your combo between your stun for stunlock, grants you the possibility to maybe throw an extra skill for damage. Hell would be amazing for TWs and Grinding.

Drake Sweep

Heaven : damage increase by 500
Hell : 20% chance to gain 30 vigor point when struck the enemy.

As I said earlier I'm not a huge fan of the "increased damage by " . The 20% change to regain 30 vigor is nice tho.


Alter Marrow Magical

Heaven : Magic defense gain from equipment increase to 180%
Hell : Only reduce 90% of physical defense from the equipment defense value.

I don't like the heaven version of this skill because it gimps your pdef WAY too much. The hell version is amazing tho. 150% mdef increase, 90% pdef decrease. The little combo I was talking about earlier comes here. The sutra last for 30 seconds. If you spam your pdef buff twice during that 30 secon. You get wooping mdef and pdef boost. In other words your mdef goes skyhigh will still having a more than decent pdef.

Alter Marrow Physical

Heaven : defense gain from equipment increase to 180%.
Hell : Only reduce 90% of magical defense from the equipment defense value.

Only used for 1v1 against wr/wb skill and PVE. So the heaven version would be better.


Diamond Sutra

Heaven : 20% chance to recover an addtional 50% HP
Hell : gives a 10% increase to critical hit rate for 15 seconds.

I'm not sure if the % crit increases works like Highland cleave, if it does then the hell version would be awesome if not then well the heaven version is still pretty good.


Drake Bash

Heaven : 25% chance to cast without using Spark
Hell : extends stun time by 1.5 seconds.

Heaven gives you a chance to save that previous spark, hell makes your stun even more devastating.. boosting it to a wooping 7.5s total stun.


Highland Cleave

Heaven : gives a 25% chance to increase critical hit rate by 20% for 10 seconds.
Hell : gives a 20% chance to increase attack rate by 25% for 10 seconds.

self-explanatory, forced to admit that the heaven version of this skill is freaking nice. ( Basically it's yourcurrentcrit + ( yourcurrentcrit * 20%))

Fissure

Heaven : version reduces enemies Fire resistance by 30%.
Hell : version increases slow effect to 65%

Heaven can be good if used in combo with dragon and a Wizard ulti. Hell is awesome against Hell WF that tend to use that nifty sprint skill that makes them run faster than F1's.

Heaven's Flame

Heaven : increases Fire damage to 2000 over 6 seconds
Hell : increases damage over time to 100% of damage taken and increases duration to 9 seconds.

That one goes to hell. That's a 33,333_ % duration increase, it's rather badass.

Axe & Hammer Mastery

Heaven : increases damage by 90%
Hell : increases damage by 75% and gives 1% crit

This one goes to heaven, 90% dmg is a lot, the hell version still isn't too shabby but I still think heaven has the edge on that one.


To sum it up it really is a matter of preference, I personally chose Hell because I always have 2 spark pots with me so I don't really have vigor issues which means I can fully take advantage of the amazing stuns that hell provides.




Things that need to be done still / will be added soon


- A polished style for the guide with color and decent font and such to make it easier to read and also to give the guide a better look in general.

- Strategy against the different classes

- Mass pvp tips

- Q&A section

- Screenshots / and hopefully videos

- Anything else I can think of

Updates

16/02/09 - Added some color, added the Stunlocking section and fixed a few typos.
27/02/09 - Added Hell vs Heaven Information.

Feel free to leave some comment/questions/suggestions.

dekciw wrote: »

Alright this guide has pretty much everything you need to know to build a strong pvp warrior there is one thing though that I can't teach you that separates the terrible warriors from the good ones, it

raziel0423 wrote: »

I still dont understand wich stats to build.