It's wrong to think tanks are left alive untill the very end. The days of running down just support are over. Any defensive quality is a bonus. Savage's enormous evade rate, blocking/parry for heros/bms/mercs/whatever is not redundant.

and they tend to go for my hero before they go for the healer/mage im guarding. they know they waste their time unless im dead/cced.
with 50 shield i block almost all direct frontal attacks against me, and a big big part of the attacks on my sheep, which gives us a couple more seconds standing time before i catch a snare/stun.

you have to try it for yourself, if you really just slam you can do with 42, but a hero is expected to have max guarding abilities if needed.
most bms these days do a composite spec and can slam just fine on their own.

and we have such a big amount of BMs that hero is considered defense by default.
even if he can easily outdamage the bms.

its easier and faster to switch from s/s to 2h then from s/s to cd.

BlackCougar wrote:its easier and faster to switch from s/s to 2h then from s/s to cd.

Easier, sure, but that doesn't mean it can't be done nearly just as fast (aka: before the next swing).

Zarkor wrote:

BlackCougar wrote:its easier and faster to switch from s/s to 2h then from s/s to cd.

Easier, sure, but that doesn't mean it can't be done nearly just as fast (aka: before the next swing). ;)

well that was just a sidenote, not the main point of the argument^^

It is true, not everyone is going to ignore the hero or who ever is guarding the healer or caster, which in those situations having good block and parry would be useful. Since if its just one target, and he/she is using 2h, that will cut your parry, while if its a duel wielding enemy it will cut your blocking, making having decent parry importent. Now yes the healer or your group will be assisinting you , by healing and killing that enemy, but if you have no defenses or little to defend yourself, your just making everyone have to work harder. So a smart spec is importent, even if your job is just guarding.

Zarkor wrote:

Razzer wrote:Someone tried:

50 Spear
50 LW
rest parry

max 2h bonus
max WS
thrust/slash/crush damage

You can do nothing but damage but could be nice

As also said by Blackcougar before, I do think this is a very interesting spec for a solo or offensive Hero.

In general you will just use Annihilation as your main stun and possibly damage style, even if you're solo it shouldn't be that hard to land. After that you pick the weapontype of choice and start dishing out some serious damage. Since you will always be able to (if quick enough) switch to a damage type where your target's armor weak against is, that might actually work.

I wonder why suggest a fully offensive hero instead of a BM?
Aren't two handers kind of gimped compared to dual wielders, damage wise? What advantage does hero have vs. a blademaster?

BM's get:
¤ dual wield, which apparently does more damage than 2h
¤ attacks halve enemy evade/block rates
¤ shield for defense and slam, without losing any damage
¤ evade 3
¤ tripple wield
¤ charge

Heroes get:
¤ annihilation (still slam is better)
¤ slightly higher HP
¤ moose form
¤ scale armor


Am I missing something? Why would anyone choose a hero in this scenario, except for some "fun factor" (say, someone REALLY likes heroes)?

I'm not trying to bash the class. I never played a light or heavy tank on Uthgard, so I'm just trying to grasp this. I'd like someone to prove me wrong, actually.

well, on uthgard your completly right as of this moment since bms can easily outdamage 2h heros.

with the same damage values as on live though a fully offensive hero should be very very able to outdamage a styling-his-fingers-bloody-bm even with basicly the taunt.

ive been behind both chars in all possible reasonable specs and except for a parry/shield hero i could not outdamage any of my heros with any of my bm. just not possible.

we had 1 bm in our groups for prevent flight/charge, thats about it. the rest where 2h heros just for the massive damage we did.

got 3 bms on you? just heal it off, its easy.
got 3 heros on you? save the mana for a rezz, cheaper.

reversed here.

without celerity, CD should perform better than LW. Now or originally on classic.

Hi all!

I like to play an Luri-Hero!

Trying out Catacombs i got these Build:

Shield - 50
Piercing - 35
Celtic - 44
Parry - 12

Any suggestions? (like higher Parry?, lesser CS?, more Piercing?)

Thx a lot in advance!

42 shield is pretty much all you need.

you could have 50celtic, 20parry if you drop pierce to 34 and shield to 42.

42shield
50celtic
34pierce
20parry

Grpspec: 50 CD, 50 Shields, 28 Blades, 6 Parry
Hybridspec: 50 CD, 42 Shields, 39 Blades, 6 Parry

Blades is just my fav, because of the snare/hinder by side styles, weapontype is changeable.

CD is doin' the most dmg, with high shield spec you can be a good guard bot, beside to your dmg. Side snare/hinder is perfectly useable while guarding, if your grpmembers are kiting you can backsnare with Spear.

Hybrid is for a bit less guardability, but if you want to solo it is quite good to be able to 1h as well.

CD? :]

CS I guess.

But he's terribly wrong on the damage. CS only does "decent" damage on chain when you use lvl 44/50 side styles, terribly hard to execute on a moving target with a very slow weapon. Even then you'll hardly ever break the 400 damage point. LW is so much better if you want to deal damage, flexible damage type combined with better growth styles and doesn't require you to use side chain for optimal dpsing.

i beg to differ^^

the growthrate dont differ much, you have a lot more versatility and utiliy then with LW and CS = thrust = bonus on chain, LW = Slash/Crush = not so good^^

LW is if anything easier, just spam Annihilation and get a stable .88 gr backed upt with a 0.59 taunt
LW has a frontal snare, usefull if ppl try to outrun you going backwards.

Annihilation effect is redundant due to slam, which even offer various speeds, from close to cap small shield slam to almost 2h damage large shield slam.
that is only a little damped thanks to Annihilations very high attack rating.

in Comparison, with CS you get a rear snare with 0.62 gr that you can follow up with a 0.88 gr bleed and a 0.88 slow effect.

or a 0.77/0.88 sidechain with a strong bleed (which of course doesnt reall matter for frontload, but its nice and annoying to them if they manage to outrun you despite the following sanre spam.

and you still can slam just fine.


if anything, CS you at least an additional CC tool and a bonus on some of you main targets.

over time, your Annihilation spam wins out a little in total growth rate, but that is only if you can keep up with the one your Annihilating.

and on uthgard you wont break 400 damage with any 2hander on a regular basis in the first place.

The backsnare is the only advantage CS has over LW. But if you're backsnaring you want to use a fast weapon (4.6 spear) thus hindering your damage. Bleeding styles are never a good idea since they break all kinds of CC, even your own snare.

LW owns and I get 400 + hits on savages and berserkers (your most common enemies in groups on uthgard lol) all the time. Note that i'm celt with 10 str in stats and no aug str.