Guild Wars 2

The mace is a lower damage weapon, and I have rarely found times when I’ve thought “Boy, I should really use a mace here”. Aesthetically, though, I’d love to try to make some of the maces work, and I like the idea of combining the regular healing in the weapon on top of other AH-oriented build heals. I see value in using it as a defensive off-set, though I am curious if it can be used as a main set as well. When and where, then, can a mace be used to the best of its potential, and are there any builds that would likely maximize this potential? Pve/Pvp/whatever…

Mace is a boss tanking weapon for dungeons.

it is too slow and short to be used effectively in www .

it can be tactically used in tPVP for protectors strike psychological effect on your opponent if you’re already running a bunker build.

I use a mace in wvw, but I’m a lazy old guy.

As Lala. said, mace has a few flaws. Reach is only 130 as opposed to 150 on sword. There is also a short cast 1/2 second cast time on base attack as opposed to none on sword

Mace works best with healing gear, larger symbols and symbols heals allies. Might not be an optimum set-up, but there is some synergy there. Mace symbol 2 with large symbols helps make conditions a minimal problem for you and helps others, as there is often a ranger, warrior or other class tossing a projectile through your symbols. Mace 2 also for some reason makes people wary of you – I guess they see the red mark and slow down a bit. Mace 2 and 3 are AE type abilities, so they aren’t too bad in WvW though ability 3 is pretty slow.

For me, using a shield is the fun part as you get to run into some enemies and pop shield5. I prefer mace over sword, but I might change at some point.

Yeah it’s mostly for dungeon boss/champ/vet fights. Paired with a shield it’s really nice for those fights with a GS on swap. Mace doesn’t seem to do a whole lot to keep the attention of the boss, but for some reason the shield gets them ticked that I’ve noticed and I keept 20% recharge on that as well. Also pulling out the GS for a couple hits gets you noticed too. Slot with whatever fits you, but you can probably load one with an AOE, blood, +5 or +10 since you are using 1h so benefit both. Two night sigils would be interesting, but I mainly just use blood and water, then various GS’ with different sigils.

Samis.1750:

As Lala. said, mace has a few flaws. Reach is only 130 as opposed to 150 on sword.

I believe its only the last hit of the sword that has 150 in range and when using it at 150 not all three projectiles will hit the opposing player. Most of the times its just one hit out of three. For it to be effecive you need to be closer than 130 to guarantee to hit with all three projectiles.

The first two steps of the mace/sword chain has the same reach.

Mace second step also do considerably more damage then the second step of the sword.

Not saying its a great weapon but its definitely usable in wvw to kill people. Just pair it with a offensive alternative.

Brutaly.6257:

Samis.1750:

As Lala. said, mace has a few flaws. Reach is only 130 as opposed to 150 on sword.

I believe its only the last hit of the sword that has 150 in range and when using it at 150 not all three projectiles will hit the opposing player. Most of the times its just one hit out of three. For it to be effecive you need to be closer than 130 to guarantee to hit with all three projectiles.

The first two steps of the mace/sword chain has the same reach.

Mace second step also do considerably more damage then the second step of the sword.

Not saying its a great weapon but its definitely usable in wvw to kill people. Just pair it with a offensive alternative.

The first two AAs are 150, the third attack is 300 range.

Brutaly.6257:

I believe its only the last hit of the sword that has 150 in range and when using it at 150 not all three projectiles will hit the opposing player. Most of the times its just one hit out of three. For it to be effecive you need to be closer than 130 to guarantee to hit with all three projectiles.

The first two steps of the mace/sword chain has the same reach.

Mace second step also do considerably more damage then the second step of the sword.

third chain sword is AOE 300 range (hit three opponents)
last mace chain attack is 130 range for single target, on double animation duration.

the comparison between sword to mace in terms of DPS is skewed towards the sword.

I know what the tooltip says but if you go to LA and test it on the dummies they seem to have the exact same range on the first two steps. At least i couldnt find any difference in range during BWE and after launch and if there is any difference its really minimal and not worth considering.

tested this on my lunch and both weapons have the same range. or at least as far as i can test, just tested by quickly tapping “back” until the mace missed and then swapped to sword, which also missed. Repeated it a couple of times and they seem to have the exact same range

It was reported in BWE as a typo in the tooltip and it seems as its still there.

I switched to using a mace/shield with staff secondary because I was a little bored with greatsword (which is still king).

The mace/shield combo is awesome at tanking in dungeon/fractals boss fights. However, to have any sort of damage output you have to up the critical chance + critical dmg stats. Which for guardian is easy because the precision and toughness lines work well together.

This website doesn’t show the PvE trinkets so stats are a bit off. However skills and traits are correct: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQNApeWlYgKCXFSLEf4EhlCCaQMFYE+XPooEZIA;T4AAyyvEaJ9StlSLqsMZJyymlLLZWDCmFA

In short I aim for:
- 3200 armor (~ 43% damage reduction)
- 16-17 k vitality
- 41% crit chance + 54% crit dmg
- roughly 2500 attack
- 100% magic find (from pirate runes and celestial trinkets + food)
- 500 healing power

The build makes use of ‘altruistic healing’ + ‘empowering might’ + ‘shouts’ to give constant healing. Also on staff swap the nr.4 skill ‘empower’ will give you roughly 15k health back (that’s a full heal on 20 sec cooldown) when 5 allies are empowered. The staff will crit at roughly over 1k/hit so when you swing it at a bunch of grouped enemies you do 5-7k damage effectively per swing.
Obviously this is not a min/max build but it’s great for dungeons where you have a lot of survivability, party support and still output moderate damage to be useful. However, your role will be to keep the heavy hitting mobs from engaging your party mainly.

Some people will say magic find is useless, and it might be true to some extent, but I’m testing it out now. The last lvl 20 fractals I had 7 rare drops + cores + globs + 5-6 rare mats + ascendent ring. On average I still see better drops than without MF. I have 4 other toons which don’t use any MF and I honestly notice a difference in drop quality.

I think Mace/Shield and Staff is good if you’re the type of person who likes support and hybrid playstyle…. yes, currently it’s underpowered and underappreciated in this game where combat is mostly Keystone Kop chase scenes and almost entirely glass cannons.

But, assuming the game continues to exist, I think it can only get better as people start to ask for combat that goes beyond crazy levels of kiting, DPS rotations and an occasional bunker?

I’ve been messing around with a 10/30/30/0/0 build with RHS and Monks. It’s built for Sword/Torch and its squishy. When things get tough I’ll throw on Mace and go. If you view Protectors Strike as a DPS ability you can get some real good numbers out of mace. It won’t sustain damage like Sword but its not too far behind honestly. Mace gives that mitigation that can complement a glassy build. Mace also has better AoE than Sword. Start thinking of it as a DPS weapon and you can make it perform like one with the right build and good PS timing.

Blood~

Works nicely on Symbol Bomb builds for PvP and WWW. I currently use mace/focus in a symbol build and use it as my main weapon set for most of the fight. Only time I use Greatsword is to burst down an enemy.