The new meta

[Alashir]

Howdy ya'll!

What's the most powerful spec in the game you ask? Well I'm here to answer that question once and for all:

1) LIGHT ARMOR MASTERY - https://gswiki.play.net/Light_Armor_Mastery

2) SHIELD USE/ SHIELDED BRAWLER - https://gswiki.play.net/Shield_Specialization#SHIELD_.28verb.29

3) UA MOTHER F#####C

4) SMALL RACE IS BEST RACE

5) ALTOGETHER NOW


1a) With the recent addition of light armor mastery to warriors, rogues, and monks, it's now possible to obtain a maximum CvA reduction of -18 when in robes. Used to be +15, now it's possible to go -18. Yes, it's awesome.

1b) Light armor mastery increases your bonus to offensive manuevers! Why is this important? Because dying sucks and this is another giant leap on the road to immortality.

1c) At rank 2 of light armor mastery (a minor investment of 50 armor ranks, around level 15 for warriors) you qualify for evasiveness. When evasiveness procs it blocks/evades one attack or spell. It will then block/evade another spell before triggering the internal CD which is a measly 10s. TLDR evasiveness good, proc chance goes up in lighter armor.

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2a) Shields are another great stepping stone on our path to divinity. Any shield is an automatic +20 DS regardless of stance. AWESOME. A 4x shield is another 20 DS. AWESOME. The goal for this build is small shield and to train in shielded brawler (will explain why below).

2b) https://gswiki.play.net/Shield_Focus will give us a maximum of 5 CvA per rank in addition to bonuses to offensive shield attacks and the ability to thwart some offensive maneuvers that can only be blocked with shields.

2c) https://gswiki.play.net/Shielded_Brawler is achievable after getting 3 ranks in shield focus. This minimizes the penalty for using a shield while also using UAC. Anecdotally I don't notice a significant difference when using a shield as far as hunting effectiveness goes. Numbers wise 2x shield use with a small shield and 5 ranks of shielded brawler will result in only a 5 point loss to your MM when using shielded brawler. It's inconsequential relative to the massive increase in survivability you gain.

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3a) https://gswiki.play.net/Unarmed_combat_system is stupidly fun and has excellent synergy with voln (step 8 in voln grants the passive effect of permablessing your UAC gear). You have no risk of losing equipment as there's nothing to be disarmed, and training the CMAN "unarmed specialist" gives you the ability to disarm weapons with your fists.

3b) UAC is excellent versus any armor type and has precisely 0 ##### to give about heavy armor.

3c) It's fast. Not only are the individual RT's low (2s jab, 3s punch, 3s grapple, 4s kick), but more importantly, the mstrike RT is abysmally low. When combined with quickstrike, it's pretty easy to pull off 1-2s mstrikes with high agi/dex races.

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4a)https://gswiki.play.net/Roundtime Because only half the equation for the ability to hit critters with UAC is strength (the other AGI), we're not crippled by going with a small race. In fact, as I mentioned above, it's a strength because of the ease with which we can pull of fast mstrikes.

4b) https://gswiki.play.net/Halfling get absurd TD bonuses

4c) https://gswiki.play.net/Burghal_gnome have the BEST maneuver bonuses and the best Logic (rate at which you learn)

4d) Halflings have hairy feet and burghal gnome sounds like burger gnome

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5a) We're going light armor because of the new light armor mastery skill which now lets us have huge CvA bonuses whereas before it gave us nothing. It also grants evasiveness which lets us evade 2 attacks every time it procs with a 10s internal CD.

5b) Robes is our go to armor. It's going to grant us the largest CvA bonus of all the light armor types in addition to penalizing us the least when it comes to reducing our DS from dodging and the ability for us to avoid maneuvers.

5c) We're using shields (small shields at that) because shields give huge DS bonuses, guard against specific maneuvers, and warriors have great options in shield training to become true juggernauts.

5d) Anytime we use shield they decrease the amount of DS we get from training in dodge. Using small shields minimizes this as much as possible in addition to having the smallest impact on MM which is the way we do damage with UAC

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TLDR: Warrior + light armor mastery(robes) + shield use/shield brawler (small shield) + warrior shield training + UAC + small race = Top tier damage and god tier defense. Learn 101/102, throw on 102, rub a statue, grab a 4x shield, smash everything while hanging out in offensive and don't worry about spells.

TLTLDR: Special thanks to GM Naijin who made this possible. Hope this helps you out Baniktin and Vef!

[Alashir]

Have more details to add: Need to flesh out warrior shield skills, mention that UAC now works with berserk, UAC still not compatible with wspec and bond, mention the benefits of frequent knockdowns of UAC as both a boost to attack and defense.

Probably other stuff.

[Zarston]

Just one thing, I think you're reading the CvA reduction from Light Armor Mastery wrong. You're going to get a maximum of -18 from the starting point of robes with Full Plate training, leaving you with a CvA of -3, not -18.

[Alashir]

Just one thing, I think you're reading the CvA reduction from Light Armor Mastery wrong. You're going to get a maximum of -18 from the starting point of robes with Full Plate training, leaving you with a CvA of -3, not -18.

You are correct. Thanks for pointing it out. Lol I'd love to say that's what I meant but ...it wasn't

[lexbubba]

Change my view - I would still much rather wear plate as a warrior

[JHarris]

This is a really interesting idea. A few thoughts to better flesh out the comparison:

Encumbrance: I see this is as a big advantage for platemail. If you are full trained for full plate (75lbs) and are wearing significantly lightened full plate armor, you get a huge increase in your carrying capacity. Robes are 8lbs - really not gonna get a lot of benefit from lightened armor there.

CVA: Plate still wins out here (full plate -21, robes with light armor mastery -3)

Maneuvers: Clearly robes with LAM wins out, no question. Very cool upgrade here. But I'm not sure how much impact it will end up having on, say, bandits using maneuvers on you. Anyone have a sense of numbers here, in terms of cunning defense ranks? If it gave 15 on defense to all maneuvers too, that'd be great. I think it'll be lower. The fact that improves our offense maneuvers (maybe I could finally feint radicals consistently?) is pretty cool. Maybe I'm misunderstanding improving offensive maneuvers, though.

DS: Robes with LAM should get a big boost (AP on full plate with 280 armor ranks still -23 which decreases your dodge DS by 11.5%) but don't forget that full plate has much better AvD against basically every weapon (by a factor of, on average, 20) than robes.

Taking hits: Let's face it, you are still going to get hit. With warriors' hard RT, lack of instant nearly fool proof crowd control, bantha poo-doo open rolls on maneuvers, and general GS malarky happening, you are going to take a hit. Plate DF / crit divisors are a god send. Redux, even at cap, only hits about 40%.

Cman/armor point cost: This is such a cool part and I didn't realize - light armor mastery is an armor spec, not a cman!

Overall: This is really cool and seems like a viable pathway. I'm concerned about taking hits and encumbrance. For any non tiny race, I'd also be concerned about loss of TD. I'd love to see more discussion.

[rolfard]

What's the benefit of robes over double leathers? This from a rogue using uac, buckler, and full plate.

You've overtrained armor so much, the AP penalty would be half (could go to zero with armored evasion).

Robes cannot take warrior resistance, leathers is the lowest you can put them on (ranger resist can be used on robes or any armor now).

Conversely, iron skin (1202) is common enough in scrolls a far post cap warrior with transformation could get into scale or chain (with enhancives) wearing a robe.

[Methais]

Howdy ya'll!

What's the most powerful spec in the game you ask? Well I'm here to answer that question once and for all:

1) LIGHT ARMOR MASTERY - https://gswiki.play.net/Light_Armor_Mastery

2) SHIELD USE/ SHIELDED BRAWLER - https://gswiki.play.net/Shield_Specialization#SHIELD_.28verb.29

3) UA MOTHER F#####C

4) SMALL RACE IS BEST RACE

5) ALTOGETHER NOW


1a) With the recent addition of light armor mastery to warriors, rogues, and monks, it's now possible to obtain a maximum CvA reduction of -18 when in robes. Used to be +15, now it's possible to go -18. Yes, it's awesome.

1b) Light armor mastery increases your bonus to offensive manuevers! Why is this important? Because dying sucks and this is another giant leap on the road to immortality.

1c) At rank 2 of light armor mastery (a minor investment of 50 armor ranks, around level 15 for warriors) you qualify for evasiveness. When evasiveness procs it blocks/evades one attack or spell. It will then block/evade another spell before triggering the internal CD which is a measly 10s. TLDR evasiveness good, proc chance goes up in lighter armor.

------------

2a) Shields are another great stepping stone on our path to divinity. Any shield is an automatic +20 DS regardless of stance. AWESOME. A 4x shield is another 20 DS. AWESOME. The goal for this build is small shield and to train in shielded brawler (will explain why below).

2b) https://gswiki.play.net/Shield_Focus will give us a maximum of 5 CvA per rank in addition to bonuses to offensive shield attacks and the ability to thwart some offensive maneuvers that can only be blocked with shields.

2c) https://gswiki.play.net/Shielded_Brawler is achievable after getting 3 ranks in shield focus. This minimizes the penalty for using a shield while also using UAC. Anecdotally I don't notice a significant difference when using a shield as far as hunting effectiveness goes. Numbers wise 2x shield use with a small shield and 5 ranks of shielded brawler will result in only a 5 point loss to your MM when using shielded brawler. It's inconsequential relative to the massive increase in survivability you gain.

--------------------

3a) https://gswiki.play.net/Unarmed_combat_system is stupidly fun and has excellent synergy with voln (step 8 in voln grants the passive effect of permablessing your UAC gear). You have no risk of losing equipment as there's nothing to be disarmed, and training the CMAN "unarmed specialist" gives you the ability to disarm weapons with your fists.

3b) UAC is excellent versus any armor type and has precisely 0 ##### to give about heavy armor.

3c) It's fast. Not only are the individual RT's low (2s jab, 3s punch, 3s grapple, 4s kick), but more importantly, the mstrike RT is abysmally low. When combined with quickstrike, it's pretty easy to pull off 1-2s mstrikes with high agi/dex races.

----------------

4a)https://gswiki.play.net/Roundtime Because only half the equation for the ability to hit critters with UAC is strength (the other AGI), we're not crippled by going with a small race. In fact, as I mentioned above, it's a strength because of the ease with which we can pull of fast mstrikes.

4b) https://gswiki.play.net/Halfling get absurd TD bonuses

4c) https://gswiki.play.net/Burghal_gnome have the BEST maneuver bonuses and the best Logic (rate at which you learn)

4d) Halflings have hairy feet and burghal gnome sounds like burger gnome

-------------

5a) We're going light armor because of the new light armor mastery skill which now lets us have huge CvA bonuses whereas before it gave us nothing. It also grants evasiveness which lets us evade 2 attacks every time it procs with a 10s internal CD.

5b) Robes is our go to armor. It's going to grant us the largest CvA bonus of all the light armor types in addition to penalizing us the least when it comes to reducing our DS from dodging and the ability for us to avoid maneuvers.

5c) We're using shields (small shields at that) because shields give huge DS bonuses, guard against specific maneuvers, and warriors have great options in shield training to become true juggernauts.

5d) Anytime we use shield they decrease the amount of DS we get from training in dodge. Using small shields minimizes this as much as possible in addition to having the smallest impact on MM which is the way we do damage with UAC

------------------

TLDR: Warrior + light armor mastery(robes) + shield use/shield brawler (small shield) + warrior shield training + UAC + small race = Top tier damage and god tier defense. Learn 101/102, throw on 102, rub a statue, grab a 4x shield, smash everything while hanging out in offensive and don't worry about spells.

TLTLDR: Special thanks to GM Naijin who made this possible. Hope this helps you out Baniktin and Vef!

In before Simu finds out and nerfs.

[Alashir]

Change my view - I would still much rather wear plate as a warrior

No offense but I'd rather not! I think plate is stupidly effective. I'm largely being tongue n cheek about the new meta but I do love having another viable pathway

[beldar17]

WTB Change to Warrior certificate

[Alashir]

1)What's the benefit of robes over double leathers? This from a rogue using uac, buckler, and full plate.

You've overtrained armor so much, the AP penalty would be half (could go to zero with armored evasion).

2) Robes cannot take warrior resistance, leathers is the lowest you can put them on (ranger resist can be used on robes or any armor now).

Conversely, iron skin (1202) is common enough in scrolls a far post cap warrior with transformation could get into scale or chain (with enhancives) wearing a robe.

Hey Rolfard,

1) The biggest benefit to using robes vs leathers would be the CvA which when trained for full plate is a max of -3 with robes and +5 light leather or +3 with double leather in your example. There's also a bonus to offensive manuever rolls and proccing evasiveness that decreases as your armor group goes up. I'm not one with the maths so I don't have those exact numbers. Of course there's penalties to dodging associated with higher armor class, encumbrance, and shields as well but most of those are fairly minor if we're discussing robes vs double leathers. I'm not very knowledgeable on rogues, but I think they get hiding bonuses for lighter armors and bonuses to certain cman's as well?

2) SK 1202 or scrolls would be a super fun way to augment yourself as a spell slinging warrior with the ability to buff yourself up before you go into the field ewaving and berserking. I'm excited to see the how the dev's further differentiate post cap monks from warriors with ascension. I really like monks and I'm in love with UAC, but berserk/ewave/shielded brawler is impressive.

[Alashir]

This is a really interesting idea. A few thoughts to better flesh out the comparison:

Encumbrance: I see this is as a big advantage for platemail. If you are full trained for full plate (75lbs) and are wearing significantly lightened full plate armor, you get a huge increase in your carrying capacity. Robes are 8lbs - really not gonna get a lot of benefit from lightened armor there.

CVA: Plate still wins out here (full plate -21, robes with light armor mastery -3)

Maneuvers: Clearly robes with LAM wins out, no question. Very cool upgrade here. But I'm not sure how much impact it will end up having on, say, bandits using maneuvers on you. Anyone have a sense of numbers here, in terms of cunning defense ranks? If it gave 15 on defense to all maneuvers too, that'd be great. I think it'll be lower. The fact that improves our offense maneuvers (maybe I could finally feint radicals consistently?) is pretty cool. Maybe I'm misunderstanding improving offensive maneuvers, though.

DS: Robes with LAM should get a big boost (AP on full plate with 280 armor ranks still -23 which decreases your dodge DS by 11.5%) but don't forget that full plate has much better AvD against basically every weapon (by a factor of, on average, 20) than robes.

Taking hits: Let's face it, you are still going to get hit. With warriors' hard RT, lack of instant nearly fool proof crowd control, bantha poo-doo open rolls on maneuvers, and general GS malarky happening, you are going to take a hit. Plate DF / crit divisors are a god send. Redux, even at cap, only hits about 40%.

Cman/armor point cost: This is such a cool part and I didn't realize - light armor mastery is an armor spec, not a cman!

Overall: This is really cool and seems like a viable pathway. I'm concerned about taking hits and encumbrance. For any non tiny race, I'd also be concerned about loss of TD. I'd love to see more discussion.

1) Heh, I was also surprised light armor is an armor spec and not a cman

2) I'd be curious to see scenarios of a post cap warrior with maxed skills going through bandits and DR with different setups: LAM/Shielded Brawler/UAC, LAM/UAC, LAM/TWC, full plate/shielded brawler/UAC, etc.

3) Without a doubt at some point you're going to get hit as you said and in those cases plate will always win out. All this does is make me more excited for ascension talk where we get to see further specializations unfold.

[LOL BRIELUS]

So I've been trying this build out on the test server and can't see how this is viable. Any hit I take in robes is almost a multiple round stun and a ton of blood compared to minors or nothing in plate. Berserk with UAC just didn't seem as good as berserk with a maul or Lance. It's interesting to use uac and ;combo but I think I'll keep current thw build

[Alashir]

So I've been trying this build out on the test server and can't see how this is viable. Any hit I take in robes is almost a multiple round stun and a ton of blood compared to minors or nothing in plate. Berserk with UAC just didn't seem as good as berserk with a maul or Lance. It's interesting to use uac and ;combo but I think I'll keep current thw build

Small shield, shielded swiftness, tortoise stance, Parry mastery (with naijins gauntlets) and triple dodge/shield should be giving you a stupidly high percentage to avoid attacks altogether (in addition to robes + LAM obv) plus 500 ish DS in offensive (this is without spells). Disablers + spells would make it that much more unlikely. Can you post a shot of what's hitting you?

[khorpulent]

This build just sounds like a shitty monk with no 1202 and 1213.

[drumpel]

New meta.

Giantman.
Maxed Strength.
Decent AGI/DEX (enough to equal +23 bonus)

2x in the following:
Armor Use
Shield Use
Physical Fitness
Throwing weapons
THW
Perception
CM

1x in the following:
Brawling
Dodging
First Aid

Do what you want with the left over TPs.

Get to level 10, put 4 ranks into Shield Bash. Drop 3-4 ranks into CMAN wspec1 for bastard sword.
Have Shield Bash be your setup for knocking things down. Then pull out your bastard sword, grip it with two hands and HURL it at the target.

Yeah! Retarded mutant build for the win!

Granted you don't need the THW ranks if you're hurling, but you don't want to be standing there with a THW in your hands, no shield and have shit for DS if something gets a chance to swing at you.

Go in. Shield Bash, whip out your big sword and throw it!

[LOL BRIELUS]

I'll post something later. but a question - tortoise appears to take away from your UAC AS along with having 102 up. that seems to affect attacks a lot. What spells are recommended?

I threw on MBP and that seems much better. instead of getting 6 round stuns, that went away.

[Alashir]

This build just sounds like a shitty monk with no 1202 and 1213.

I agree so long as shitty monk = 500 DS in offensive without spells, shield swiftness, deflection, parry mastery, tortoise, berserk, etc.

I think with the addition of new shield cman's favoring larger races you're probably better off shield and (insert favorite 1 hander here) and returning to large races with high health, str, enc, etc. This was written before shield cman's and ascension.

IMO the biggest downside is losing out on bonding. If I were a new warrior I'd be interested in shield/1hander. IMO Kerl got huge buffs.

[Alashir]

I'll post something later. but a question - tortoise appears to take away from your UAC AS along with having 102 up. that seems to affect attacks a lot. What spells are recommended?

I threw on MBP and that seems much better. instead of getting 6 round stuns, that went away.

Tortoise drops as/uaf in exchange for extra change to block attacks. Most people have a plethora of extra UAF which is why it's usually a non-sequitur.

You keep mentioning 6 round stuns and high armor is better (which is always true anytime you're getting hit), but with 500 DS, what's hitting you?

[LOL BRIELUS]

Lol! My character is not capped. So I'm just playing around on test server. Even when I cap the character I only have mid 300s DS with robes, 3x shield, 2x dodge. Only 4x gear obvi because that's what I could find.

How do you get to 500? I am not a whale so 10x gear is not realistic

[Alashir]

Lol! My character is not capped. So I'm just playing around on test server. Even when I cap the character I only have mid 300s DS with robes, 3x shield, 2x dodge. Only 4x gear obvi because that's what I could find.

How do you get to 500? I am not a whale so 10x gear is not realistic

500 is not even 7x gear. It's society + 5-7x gear, triple dodge and shield. This assumes swiftness and a small shield.

[Alashir]

Wanted to re-visit this thread as said build actually feels stronger with the loss of light armor mastery in the wake of PSM3. Post PSM3 this build would look something like this:

1) Level 30 Feat: Armor Proficiency
All armor proficiencies are granted automatically.
Light Armor Proficiency (requires cloth or leather, AsG 2, 5-8)
+20% evasion DS
10% evade chance
Perk: The base CvA of your armor is reduced to 0.

2) Evade Specialization
Renamed to “Specialization” instead of “Mastery”
Available to all squares.
Can only train in one of Block Specialization, Evade Specialization, or Parry Specialization.
Adds +5% to evade chance per rank. This bonus is now flat, and does not depend on Armor Group. (Note additional evade chance has been added to Light and Scale Armor Proficiencies.)
While in an aggressive stance, you have a (10 + (5 * rank))% when evading an attack to gain Evasiveness for 20 seconds. 10 second cooldown, which starts after the effect ends.

3) Level 40 Feat: Combat Mastery
You gain +10% to block and parry chance.

4) Level 25 Feat: Weapon Bonding
1 rank per level, maxing out at level 29
Ranged weapons are able to be bonded to.

---------------------------------------------------------

TLDR you get a big evasion chance coupled with excellent block/parry and all the fun new shield maneuvers. Choose your poison for weapons and ranged weapons can now be bonded to (small shield + hand crossbow = good).

[LOL BRIELUS]

I really have to disagree with light armor or shield/hand crossbow on a warrior. It could work, but it doesn't play to the professions strength.

[Orthin]

I really have to disagree with light armor or shield/hand crossbow on a warrior. It could work, but it doesn't play to the professions strength.

does berserk work with a hand crossbow? That to me would be a major deal breaker IMO

[Orthin]

removed accidental double post

[Alashir]

does berserk work with a hand crossbow? That to me would be a major deal breaker IMO

Yea works with ranged and the UCS system.

[Gelston]

Yea works with ranged and the UCS system.

Got any logs of it with ranged? I vaguely remember them changing it, but I don't think I've seen ranged. Which sounds silly.

[LOL BRIELUS]

Berserk is one of the cornerstones of warrior. With a HC, you are talking about multishotting unaimed with a weapon worse than a scimitar against plate. I dunno... Just really trying to reconcile the dodgy rogue stuff when Dmg padded full plate, redux, and ensorcell basically makes you invincible