The Least Optimizable Build In Wynn And Why Reworks Are Needed

Okay, guess Agility isn't good for tanking then. Tell that to anyone on the server. You'll get laughed out of the room.

Arrow Shield's range is three blocks. Spin's is four, and it doesn't have directable knockback. It knocks away from the caster, no matter what. Bash deals heavy damage in front of you in a wide area, and debuffs foes you snag with the second hit. War Scream taunts enemies in -all- directions, provides buffs, and has a high-knockback, multihitting projectile. Aside from the knockback they both possess, you vastly oversimplify things.

And let's look at their attack speeds at base. Slow, Slow, Super Slow, and Slow. It's people TIER-STACKING, to take advantage of their high base damage, and +tier isn't endemic to earth in the slightest, it's natural for air and thunder, and the only times you'll find it elsewhere that I can think of are in combination with one of those elements(Centipede is e/f/a, Physalis is e/t, etc.) Earth's natural playstyle tends towards slow, heavy hits. Tier stacking allows you to use fast, heavy hits, but that's how players have broken down builds in the absolute meta. To the vast, vast majority of players who play the game that aren't in the meta(approximately 99%) earth is as stated, slow and heavy.

Your friend also literally described how War Scream is supposed to work, it's supposed to have a 16-block radius, 0-damage hit(with as wide a buff radius) with knockback to taunt mobs. It's broken right now.

 

Agility is about as good for tanking as having 35 dex is for crits.

Arrow Shield definitely has direct-able knockback, certainly the same as bash. On paper, bash does those things, but in a war, all it does is knocks away from the caster. if you think about it, the one time use of arrow shield makes it more directable.

Tier stacking is how people make it useful, and actually deal damage. Why do items like Centipede, Physalis, and Chestplate of Ineptitude exist then if you aren't supposed to speed up weapons. Also, if your numbers are correct, 99% of players are either noobs or aren't doing any damage, often in wars. I can say that i've never seen someone use a full earth weapon without tierstacking in a war. Make me a generalist gaia build without tierstacking.

And you still haven't shown how wind prison is at all useful.

________________________________

And entire classes shouldn't just be exempt from a certain playstyle (except archer melee because its hit is bad). That's what weapons are for, and it's proof that this is true because spell alka used to be a thing, but you nerfed the shit out of it, meaning it's "not meant to be used"

________________________________

Addressing your numbers, that would mean if 10k people play wynn, 100 know how to tierstack and are meta. That would make you a hypocrite, calling me an over simplifier.

 

Literally tell that to most of the rest of Wynn. Agility is considered superior to Defense cause you avoid all damage rather than reducing it, and due to the prevalence of "oneshots" even though this is a total misnomer, has popularized Agility to the point of completely eclipsing the usefulness of the defense stat in most peoples' eyes.

Arrow Shield does not have directable knockback, as it hits in a ring and knocks mobs away in all directions. Bash, however, knocks all enemies in the same direction; away from where you were facing when you casted it.

Tier-stacking, however, as can be plainly seen, is not part of the element's identity. It's part of Thunder's identity. Centipede exists because Salted does weird things like make Pandemonium, and notice how it's only received nerfs since its inception? That's cause it's blatantly overpowered, but he doesn't want us removing the 2 tier. I balked at Silver's suggestion of Physalis, and specified he make it primarily dexterity-based to compensate; notice the requirements. Chestplate of Ineptitude was a mistake born of my inexperience designing items, and now any discussion I have about changing it or adding a requirement or anything tends to fall into "It's too ingrained in melee meta, we can't change it".

I agree that Wind Prison could use a damage buff. Why debate you on a point I generally agree with?

Take out that "except" there. All classes shouldn't just be exempt from a certain playstyle, I totally agree! None are. You're saying that all classes should have perfectly equal effectiveness with any playstyle, and that's a totally different ballpark and should not exactly be the case in every circumstance at all. Also, we didn't nerf Spell Alka, we nerfed Alkatraz's base damage because it was too high. Big difference.

If only a small slice of the playerbase participates in an activity or knows a specific piece of knowledge, you can't really say that it's common knowledge.

 

Just reading through this, I have to agree with Selvut

Honestly, the whole tier-stacking thing is bs in my view, and it’s really frustrating to see people using the same build for earth melee over and over again.. even though considered “meta” and I do think is actually good, just doesn’t seem right.
I think the problem with CoI is no reqs, and no downside when used with centipede (-100000 spell dam anyway).
I rlly dunno how to fix it cause it being non-elemental seems key to it’s identity (is it?). Negative walk speed would make it awkward too, doesn’t go with theme at all, and unless you add -melee damage too it it’s hard to get a direct nerf to it, but it has already positive anyway

 

pending on whether or not base defense affects ele damage)

can confirm, agility is insane

agi vs def:
150 agi vs 150 def
archer: 100% agility.
150 agi: negates 72% neutral damage, 80% elemental damage
150 def: negates 40% neutral damage, 0% elemental damage (might be negative depending on whether or not base defense affects ele damage)

mage:
150 agi: negates 76% neutral damage, 80% elemental damage
150 def: negates 60% neutral damage, 0% elemental damage

assassin:
150 agi: negates 80% neutral damage, 80% elemental damage
150 def: negates 80% neutral damage, 0% elemental damage

warrior:
150 agi: negates a little bit more than 80% neutral damage (i don't know how base def and war scream stack), negates a bit more than 80% neutral damage (see neutral damage)
150 def: negates like 95% (i forgot cap) neutral damage, 0% elemental damage (might be positive depending on whether or not base defense affeects ele damage)

more benefits of agi:
agi doesn't put you in hitstun
say you have 40 agi OR 40 def, and there's a situation where the enemy does so much damage, you die even with 40 def (cybel charge stack, 99% of pvp), agi is better because you have a chance of surviving

(too lazy to quote further posts)

essentially what you said: knockback very situation

me: walls, no joke, i just tried LI like 4 more times on warrior, not a single time did a boss get stuck in a wall (bosses sometimes momentarily clipped into the wall, but escaped half a second later), also in wars walls brings my dps insanely high

essentially what you said: if you have knockback, no point to being able to endure hits

me:
a. in a war situation, you can NOT dodge all hits
b. just because a trait isn't being 100% optimized, it doesn't mean that trait is useless. if you have 150 def on an assassin, would you purposely get hit (ignore endurance) in order to fully use your 150 def? of course not.

essentially what you (guys) said: arrow storm easier to direct knockback
me: absolutely not

essentially what you said: hpr too strong
me: after further testing, no. replacing my current hero build with zephra shredder (https://wynndata.tk/s/429KNu), only 9/4 mr because i use 2/4 memento, there was not a single boss that i found that gave me substantial trouble in the dps department

 

Agility still isn't tanking though. Tanking is taking hits. It's still relying on a chance that you won't get hit. Much like strength, increasing your damage rather than relying on a crit (although high dex is different) is reliable in the same way that defense works. With air and thunder, you're gambling, and that's why you don't really see Thunder + Air builds, rather Thunder + Fire, as you have a fallback if you don't deal enough damage. And Earth + Air is also pretty rare, mainly because you can deal enough before you get hit, also there are no synergies.

And I'm going to call total bullshit on you not being able to remove Chestplate of Ineptitude, as double hive was super ingrained in the war meta, but you removed that, and not even well enough. The element's identity, like the english language, is defined through use. As Earth and Fire generally have slow attack speed and high base damage, they have been used with tierstacking to do actual damage.

I don't believe i'm saying that all classes should be equally effective, i'm saying that warrior currently is becoming more and more exempt with the item nerfs, adding to the way it works, and because the item team in my experience is stubborn as a mule, eliminating the problem from the root seems like a much better way to go about spell warrior in wars. And that alka nerf indirectly made spell useless so /shrug

________________________________

That's the way people make slow attack speed effective /shrug

________________________________

Agility is great with archer because you don't need to try and work agains the shitty negative defense. I have too much experience with knocking mobs into walls or cages etc with knockback. and of course walls in wars get you high dps with like 80x 100s, but not with over 200 anything.

Elemental defense is cool too and not that hard to get. It doesn't require you to fuck over your build unless you have two contradictory defenses, and if you have a good synergy, you'll be fine. And your numbers are from a mathematical standpoint, not from an experimental/experience based one.

 

Honestly, slow attack speed is only part of its identity, maybe we should try and find other ways to use it besides making us swing and shoot faster..... slow heavy hits, but I can see how the dps can never get high no matter how much you add, so the “heavy” hit isn’t that heavy.
The only thing I will say, is why block gaia from spell damage? I vaguely remember gaia being very op with spell years ago maybe, but maybe there is a way to bring that back? Earth has always been easier to melee with, and with gma we even see melee archers (rare somehow).

 

What sounds better:
A defence that cost thousands and thousands of emeralds and all the time to took them, full of nothing but the elite mobs and the famous bosses
1) Needs a party to get past
2) Can be easily defeated by one guy
It takes more than one person to get the guild to the level where they can buy the defence, and that doesn't mention how much more grinding is needed to buy the defences.
And one person should be able to dismantle all that work?

 

haha what gma melee archer?
propose a way to optimize earth without tierstacking besides something like quake rage stinger, i'll wait
when has that happened, ever?

________________________________

Lmao yea for convenience's sake. And this is why people don't use expensive af defenses, and have the deniability of just the mob count. How often do you see a 23k defense, the max possible one?

 

mana steal, friend literally asked 2 days ago for a full gma melee build that I haven’t made

 

experience wise, i could say the same thing. additionally, ask literally anyone whether agility or defense makes you more survivable(?), and i can bet most people would say agility.

also by experience, walls are still a fantastic way to get through higher mob wars (say, for example, level 80 through 100 snipers/honor guards/bishops

 

that's not signature earth thats just manasteal

________________________________

yes, i said that walls are fantastic with high level mobs, but only in certain small amounts.
Because defense is associated with fire, if you have high defense and use fire items, you'll likely have either health regen or lifesteal, which increase your defense already.
I could see someone arguing that air gives agi and ws, but is ws all that helpful when there's a swarm of 1k mobs after you?

 

At least it’s another way to use it

Why don’t we use warcheif more hmm

people also do not - spell gma too like the build my friend asked for

 

I think this is close becoming a flame war. (Arguments, constant posts, long paragraphs of information)
Let's calm down the arguing? I know that spell warrior being good or bad is OBJECTIVE, not subjective and you are trying to say what it is, but as selvut has said a bit ago:
One of the spells (war scream) is broken.
I would not judge a broken clock as a clock. I think we should just wait for what happens when war scream is fixed.
And, since we are on page 5, I think most points have been made, and we are just repeating them. Further arguing will likely do no good.
Oh and?
There's still a chance you have been using warrior wrong. Yes, you likely have hundreds, if not thousands of hours on it, but that doesn't mean you know everything about warrior.
For example, to ignore the knockback, you could bash-charge-uppercut to deal tons of damage and stun the mob while being cheap on mana. (Not a warrior expert)

 

The best way I can think of to fix the whole attack speed thing (which I think is bs in the first place) is probably dumb, but
Instead of making an atatck speed build give the dps buff of like 2k——>20k, somehow decrease it and make it 6k——>16k or something similar
By giving it less effect, a tankier option that can still hit ok damage with sucky attack speed would become a real option for the meta
@Selvut283

 

heatlh regen omega useless in wars
ok yeah lifesteal is pretty hot
well, the ws does have some use, i've found a lot more success with high ws rather than low ws

or, use both :galaxy_brain: heat sink frontliner grillface wait hold on what that might work

 

Health regen won’t be soon, I heard

 

No, they really shouldn't be able to, as guild wars are intended to be a community thing. That's why the mobs are so strong and people STILL rip through them somehow.

Everyone else has essentially said everything there is to be said regarding your other points, too.

 

I usually just sit back and let these kinds of threads pass (as other people have said their points, and I agree with them), but what makes me mad is that here you're obviously implying that tier stacking is bad for the game's melee meta. But nothing has been done to help encourage or buff super slow melee play styles, aside from mythic changes like the recent War Chief buff. All I've seen have been just changes to items like Battleground Dancer and Horizon, which creates more tier stacking items (which isn't bad for the game). There has been so much dislike for people resorting to tierstacking in melee builds, yet I haven't seen anything done to help super slow melee, whether it be on the IM's side of work, or the the inner mechanics of the game that the devs can change. Why not try to do something from your part of the spectrum of CT if you have the power to?

For example, I think Taurus is an item that really encompasses the Earth theme. But the only relevant builds I've seen that use it are ones that use rainmaker. Rainmaker. The bow (an archer item) with like over 100 tier stack bonus. I just really think that it's really bad if you imply that something is bad for the meta but yet don't try to change anything to help it.

As for the rest of the points that you've made, I really feel you need to explore and try to put yourself in other player's experience: like go personally into guild wars and experience how the rest of the player base is playing it. I don't think it's right to just say "oh guild wars and stuff is a different aspect of the game, therefore we have to look at it differently than we do in the overworld". The point of the thread is that Spell Warrior is really bad in guild wars yet from the thread, you've stated that you've never been in a guild war but yet continue to defend the extreme knock back that warrior has.

EDIT: I also don't think that Warrior's "air shout" ability that taunts all the mobs and gains their aggro was ever explicitly explained to the public before this thread either. So I don't think it's fair for you to bring up that point in defending Warrior's current state.

 

Just to rap up my points since really everything I wanted to say has been said.

-Spell warrior is subpar due to the insane knockback on its main damaging spells which do not allow optimal or viable combos from chaining multiple spells out of the situational Bash-Uppercut on certain mobs. Though even then most classes with the probable exception of mage can easily exceed damage output woth their spells. The main way I would say to combat this is something similar to quale to replace uppercut (with an obvious replacement to the earth powder special) or what I think is the best option, cancel the knockback on the second hit of bash

-The reliance of walls is purely situational and the problem is explemified in wars. However due to wall glitches being for the most part patched out, Mobs getting stuck in walls such as LI bosses, Qira, or other bosses is no longer a significant problem.

-Due to the mob aggression chance upon hit being oddly low warriors also fail to do the job some of the spells were intended to do with the excpetion of war scream almost guarenteeing a change, though with how far the mob is knocked back the effect is near useless aside from certain mobs with high walkspeed such as CoW.

Due to these reasons I insist that a rework of at least one of the spells in order to promote higher usage of the spell play style and bring the usability of such a playstyle back into the spotlight, especially in wars where building options are already limited.

________________________________

Also try wars @Selvut283

________________________________

I remember reading it somewhere on the site or the wiki, but I'm not sure if that has changed or not, regardless it wouldn't matter since the mob aggro proc is so low and war scream carries mobs so far, I wouldn't be surprised if no one noticed.