#[Prophecies] R/W "Norse Warband" — Axe Beastmaster (early-game + endgame) need help

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merry jungle
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Going for a viking fantasy: war axe in hand, battle wolf at your side. Ranger primary for Expertise + pet, Warrior secondary for axe skills. Below is what you can run right now in early Ascalon, plus where the build ends up.

Note: Asked for some help from claude to make this build and texts since english isn'tmy main language.

Early-game version (Old Ascalon, ~level 10)
Everything here is obtainable in early Prophecies. No elites, no other campaigns required.

Attributes (around level 10):
Axe Mastery: 8
Beast Mastery: 6
Expertise: 4

Skill bar:
Charm Animal (swap out after taming your pet)
Dismember — Axe Attack, applies Deep Wound
Executioner's Strike — high raw damage, no condition needed
Cyclone Axe — AoE on adjacent foes
Feral Lunge — pet attack, applies Bleeding
Comfort Animal — heals/resurrects pet, keeps it following you
"For Great Justice!" — fills adrenaline fast
Troll Unguent — self-heal, essential without a monk

Pet: Tame a Wolf from the Charr areas north of Ascalon (fits the theme). Equip Charm Animal, use it on a wild wolf, keep it alive until the bar fills, then swap Charm for another skill. (Just for the viking fantasy)

Combat loop:
Open with "For Great Justice!" to build adrenaline
Send the wolf in, spam Feral Lunge
Dismember to apply Deep Wound, then Executioner's Strike for big damage
Cyclone Axe when 2+ foes are adjacent
Troll Unguent when you take damage

Final build (level 20)

Attributes:
Axe Mastery: 12 (10+2 from runes)
Beast Mastery: 10 (8+2)
Expertise: 8

Skill bar:
Charm Animal (or another pet attack once your pet is permanent)
Eviscerate (elite) — Deep Wound + high damage (cap from a boss later); use Dismember until you get it
Executioner's Strike
Cyclone Axe
Feral Lunge
Comfort Animal
"For Great Justice!"
Troll Unguent

Do you guys think this works?

dreamy pewter
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The lack of attack speed buff will severely hurt the build. Your pet is also permanent through Comfort Animal as soon as you've capped it.

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Never Rampage Alone from early nightfall would help this build a lot

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for pure proph i'd just run something like frenzy + rush

summer pilot
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Do you only have the Prophecies campaign or can you grab skills from other campaigns later on?

You should definitely drop Charm Animal once you've tamed the pet, it used to be mandatory once upon a distant past to make the pet travel with you, but now having Comfort Animal is enough.

You can also charm a lvl 2 Wolf in Pre-Searing right outside of Ashford Abbey, after getting the Charm skill in Regent Valley.

dreamy pewter
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PSA that the regular Moa Bird has superior stats

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as long as we're not getting fixes to any of the pets with broken stats, I might as well advertise this

summer pilot
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It should just be piercing vs slashing dmg, right?

timber ember
dreamy pewter
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afaik it has 25% IAS alongside the regular IMS

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so I'd run it even over beetle, since that has 33% IAS and no IMS

timber ember
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I wonder when that started

dreamy pewter
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anyway my sercret R/W melandru + dhuum tech is to press Frenzy and then Cyclone Axe into 3 tengus at once that have all activated Riposte

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this was a heartstopper in divinity coast when i rushed to save the surrounded chosen after the long bridge, but luckily nobody important died

summer pilot
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You can also try Rampage as One for elite if you're proph only and want the berserking viking feels.
Then keep Dismember in bar for Deep Wound.
If you have trouble with energy consider Scavenger Strike, or if you want a hard hitting pet skill for enemies under 50% there's Brutal Strike.

Also keep in mind that the pet attack is added as a 'buff' to the pet and is used up on the pet's next attack. You can see it, if you open the pet bar. If you use another pet attack before the previous one was used, it will be replaced.

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And here's info about the effect of expertise if you ever want to tweak your energy management (the suggested 4 and 8/9 are good breakpoints):
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Expertise

Expertise

Expertise is the primary attribute of Rangers.

For each rank of Expertise, the Energy cost of all of your attacks, Rituals, touch skills and Rangers [sic] skills are decreased by 4%. Several skills, especially those related to Energy costs and skill recharge times, become more effective with higher Expertise.

— in-game description

timber ember
summer pilot
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Thew only spot I've seen this mentioned is on the Moa Bird discussion page back in 2008. It isn't noted on the main Moa Bird page, also not under bug or anomaly.
Quote:

I've noticed when training up my Hero's Moas (White and Regular) that the lvl 3 and llvl 5 White Moa/Moa Birds, are attacking almost twice as fast as my level 17 Dire White Moa.

timber ember
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should be an easy prove in Master of Damage, no?

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Let Moa attack for a minute, let a wolf attack for a minute, moa should have ~25% more damage if it does have a 25% IAS

dreamy pewter
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i can see you have clown on speed-dial, but good edit :p

timber ember
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that was 100% an accidental clown lmao

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sad though

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I'd be stoked if it was Black, would be an auto-include

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but piercing is meh

dreamy pewter
warped junco
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Was just about to post that vid 😄

dreamy pewter
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But as for OP's build, i wonder how to improve it without changing the base concept. Evisc as an elite is sadly on the weak side

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but if we're doing oldschool things then I 100% love Apply Poison with Cyclone Axe

timber ember
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Virulenceee

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wait not virulence

dreamy pewter
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Pestilence? :D

timber ember
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Toxicityyyy

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oh but that's NF

dreamy pewter
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Ferocious Strike is a pretty cool pet attack that I wish was stronger, like giving a bit more adrenaline that scaled with bm

north fractal
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note that not all moa evolutions have the ias

dreamy pewter
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do all max level evolutions have it, though?

north fractal
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nope

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only elder, aggressive and dire iirc

summer pilot
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Well... went to test and confirmed it's only happening on the plain regular moa, White/Black/Jingle have the regualr AS.

timber ember
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so disappointing

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but still, neat to have a beetle alternative

summer pilot
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Here's an idea using Minor Runes only to keep your hp high:
Axe Mastery 11
Beast Mastery 8 + 1 (just enough to keep up Rampage as One)
Expertise 11 + 1 + 1 (feels comfy enough spamming all skills with Scavenger's Strike for energy)
Wilderness Survival 3 + 1 (if you'll use troll unguent, breakpoints are even numbers)

Skills:
Rampage as One
Executioner's Strike
Dismember
Cyclone Axe
Scavenger's Strike
Apply Poison
"For Great Justice!"
Comfort Animal

timber ember
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looks pretty good

summer pilot
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Ah... one thing I forgot, since you'll be wielding an axe, you'll probably also have a shield, so it'd be good to have 9 tactics

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Revision, rest same as above, for weapon stats the main thing is that you hit the equipment stat requirements:
Axe Mastery 9
Tactics 9
Beast Mastery 8 + 1
Expertise 10 + 1 + 2
Wilderness Survival 3 + 1

timber ember
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eh, I would drop to 4 tactics max

gilded slate
timber ember
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I wonder how long this has been a thing though

gilded slate
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pi = e = 3

summer pilot
timber ember
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or q3 at 11AR

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That's what I do with my ranger Axe build

summer pilot
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or can go 0 tactics and have 8 AR with a 16 AR shield

timber ember
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yeah, but there's usually enough leftover points to squeak out a few more AR

summer pilot
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If we limit to a req.4 shield, this should work:
Axe Mastery 10
Tactics 4
Beast Mastery 8 + 1
Expertise 11 + 1 + 1
Wilderness Survival 5 + 1

summer pilot
merry jungle
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Yooo, I'm reading all your messages now. Thx for the help. I began with putting frenzy to have more atk speed

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While I don't have any elite skill for it

merry jungle
dreamy pewter
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You want to check the wiki Expertise article for the energy cost breakpoints

merry jungle
strange agate
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Generally 13 Expertise is a great return, because it just squeezes over the hill for turning 5 energy skills from 3 to 2. IA builds for instance go 11/11/8 so the runes get you exactly at 13/12/9 for max bow, 3 seconds of fire, and a 2 energy IA.

dreamy pewter
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usually you'd go 14 expertise for the 10e->4e breakpoint, but for some builds 13 is enough

summer pilot
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the build above just has 25/15/5e