Couple of questions

[phalen33]

I just my lance wielding elf warrior to 25, mastered berserk and got into metal breastplate. I'm starting to feel pretty durable. However, I still find spell casters annoying. I use berserk to break stuns/web and the plate means they only half kill me with earthen fury. However, I still have to deal with lost time breaking stuns, healing and getting my spells dispelled while trying to hack away at a turtled caster.

So my question is, what is the best way to handle casters? Either get them out of defensive or stop them from casting until I can hack them down. Should I pick up feint, work on my tackle, get war cries for growl, spell cleave, or some other cman? Wondering what makes the most effective setup move for casters.

I am also curious what the best bonding flare is mechanically? I have rank 4 at the moment and still using the first effect as I hate when things block or parry me.

[Wrathbringer]

I just my lance wielding elf warrior to 25, mastered berserk and got into metal breastplate. I'm starting to feel pretty durable. However, I still find spell casters annoying. I use berserk to break stuns/web and the plate means they only half kill me with earthen fury. However, I still have to deal with lost time breaking stuns, healing and getting my spells dispelled while trying to hack away at a turtled caster.

So my question is, what is the best way to handle casters? Either get them out of defensive or stop them from casting until I can hack them down. Should I pick up feint, work on my tackle, get war cries for growl, spell cleave, or some other cman? Wondering what makes the most effective setup move for casters.

I am also curious what the best bonding flare is mechanically? I have rank 4 at the moment and still using the first effect as I hate when things block or parry me.

Master warrior tricks for feint. Kill spell casters.

[phalen33]

Would you say that feint is more effective then growl? Seems a nice quick setup move, but you can growl an entire room right?

I just remembered my third question. So far I have been using my table picking rogue for rank 4 armor evasion. When I was in chain that gave me +8 to maneuver rolls. Now that I am in plate that is down to 4. Would armor support be more effective then armor evasion? I always rest when I hit 10% encumbrance. Was trying to decide between armor support or going into puncture protection for frozen earthen fury and thorns.

[Viekn]

I'm sure there are some things you can do to help, but don't forget about being selective about what you hunt. Quite a lot of people have to stay away from certain classes until the upper levels (75+). You may just have to try and avoid hunting spell casting creatures as much as possible until your skills reach a certain level.

[Tyronebiggums]

You may just have to try and avoid hunting spell casting creatures as mush as possible until your skills reach a certain level.

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/20140429/5026792/bronx-tale-mush-o.gif

[Viekn]

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/20140429/5026792/bronx-tale-mush-o.gif

LOL, Mush. Just re-watched that last week. So good. Good catch.

[Androidpk]

Master warrior tricks AFAP.

Feint all the things.

[Mohrgan]

Like they said: Feint is the answer for casters. That and picking your battles.

Some advantages of feint: short RT to activate (3 seconds vs tackle which is 7 seconds and only prones -50, vs potentially a lot more DS pushdown from defensive to offensive), low stamina cost vs warcries with antiquated vocal cords mechanic. Spell cleave is going to be a huge waste of time for the purpose you are looking for. Stance is going to be a bigger DS factor than cleaving off one random spell at a time. There are other CMANs that you can use too, but none so reliable as feint. Any of your knockdown CMANs are going to be at least 5 seconds RT (feint is 3 seconds).

Tackle used to be amazing...like 15 years ago, back when it was the ONLY knockdown maneuver, there were no CMANs and stamina didnt exist. Now it is a relic that nobody ever uses because of its 7 seconds of RT.

Growl works okay but warcry mechanics/vocal cord stress are too restrictive to make it a primary reliable skill. Also Growl does not inflict RT on the target, just the stance push down. Open growl against the whole room is going to burn up your vocal cords in a handful of uses, even with Griffin's voice stance, you won't be able to use warcries for a whole hunt in that way. Crowd control has always been a challenge for warriors, and as was suggested, picking your battles is a key tactic for warriors, and the tried and true "divide and conquer" tactic (ie, step a room away, wait for them to wander apart and pick them off one by one).

Shield Trample if you are a shield user is the new E-wave for warriors option in a crowd, but can't do that with a lance and no shield.

Feint inflicts more RT on the caster and is more reliable for stance pushdown, and stamina regenerates a lot faster than vocal cords do. Feint, aim for the head/inflict head damage so they can't cast anymore (or you head crit them). Then you can berserk if you want when the caster is disabled. Berserk is awesome, but you can't just use it in all situations, particularly, when you have casters around who turtle up.

Feint is a must, it is the skill you will use most as a warrior to cap and beyond.

As to your second question, I use the double strike bonding flare (rank 5).

[Archigeek]

What everyone else said. The exception being if you have some other way to solve the problem like a hunting partner or a special weapon that helps in some way, and it's apparent that you don't. So feint it is.

[Jeril]

Another thing you can do if you have the points is get 20 ranks of shield use, get 4 ranks of shield bash and use that. It would only take 40 ptps training points and getting 40 ranks of shield use at 1x cost for 4 ranks bash/charge is something I highly recommend.

[Orthin]

building on the shield bash and shield trample. Could pick up a cheap-o trident and shield combo for the trample and have a macro to swap between the gambit since you can one hand grip the trident

[phalen33]

Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up picking up 3 ranks in feint through cman. I'm up to 11 in warriors tricks, but I'm capped out on guild ranks at the moment. So i'm going to use the cman version until I can catch up in guild ranks.

So far so good. Feinting my targets has really increased my kill speed. Only getting boiled about once an hour instead of 5-6 times.

[Larkan]

Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up picking up 3 ranks in feint through cman. I'm up to 11 in warriors tricks, but I'm capped out on guild ranks at the moment. So i'm going to use the cman version until I can catch up in guild ranks.

So far so good. Feinting my targets has really increased my kill speed. Only getting boiled about once an hour instead of 5-6 times.

Sounds like a good solution to the problem, feint really is the way to go. Most spellcaster are quite squishy so feint, leg them and hit them on the head normally works quite nicely...

Not sure whether you are set for perfect stats at cap but I noticed a big difference when I set my warrior for this as you get a lot more protection against spells with high wisdom and aura. Cman Combat Focus is helpful too but probably not more helpful than weapon spec and bonding which I imagine your getting now.