Guild Wars 2

For the critHammer build PvE(0/5/30/30/5) I find that the 2hand mastery trait(20% reduction to 2hand weapon abilities) and abilities 3,4,5 are unnecessary; you are better off selecting Writ of the merciful(Symbols AOE Heal).
You rarely need to use hammer abilities 3,4,5 and 20% off the 2nd ability just reduces 1second off making it 4seconds cooldown which is unnecessary anyway.

The abilities 3,4,5 have long casting times as well as cooldowns and offer very little utility in a dungeon environment,not to mention most monsters are immune to knockbacks and immobilise/slow effects.
The only situation in which I use ability 5(ward ring),is when i go to help lift someone up,I cast that so that mobs stay outside and don’t hit us while we are “reviving.”

As for ability 2(Mighty Blow) even with the reduced cooldown,you still have to wait for 2 full rotations of your autoattacks before clicking 2,otherwise you cancel the creation(trigger) of the next symbol,which is not worth it.
Mighty Blow(4seconds cd) will be ready to use after a 2nd autoattack hit,but if you activate it you will interrupt the 3rd autoattack hit.Either way you have to wait the full 5seconds before you use Mighty Blow,if you want to be efficient.

Mighty Blow does slightly higher damage than the 3rd attack(instant and symbol total damage) but only counts as 1 hit,meanwhile you get 5 hits from the 3rd attack that can crit and the protection boon,so it’s not worth to ever cancel an autoattack rotation.Of course once the rotation is done,clicking 2 is best,for maximising dps and for the combo field.

TLD;R.It’s better to allow the autoattack rotations to finish before using mighty blow and rarely use the 3,4,5 abilities.In my opinion 2hand Mastery is useless for the hammer PvE build.

My build:
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|5|0|0|0|30|2281|2175|1395|30|866|2274|2171|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Edit: Clarified that Mighty Blow if clicked during an autoattack sequence, interrupts the creation(trigger) of the next symbol,not existing symbol on ground

@Krulz, yeah i heard something but have also seen it work so i dont know if its an official bug or something charachterrelated. I use stand your ground and retreat in almost all my setups and it seems to work for me.

@OneManArmy
You are correct in a lot of stuff here like 3-5 being situational and that you always should finsih the third step since the gain is huge.

I might have misunderstood this part but then correct me.
Whats not correct is canceling the symbol. The symbol isnt cancelled by mighty blow, just the ability to trigger an other combofield.

Check the buffs (protection) on you and the damage, its still the same amount of ticks even if you trigger with mighty blow.

if you do the chain you will have a short gap before MB comes off cd. The gap can be filled with a dodge or the dodge can be inbetween step 2 and 3.

The interesting part is that the 3 step actually hits slightly before the animation ends. So the animation is actually delaying the next weaponskill even though damage and boons are allready out there.
This can be avoided by skipping the last part of the animation and that you can do with a dodge, making the weapon faster, smart!!??

The same thing goes for being “late” with mighty blow, check the buffs even if the animation is gone you trigger retal every rotation, just check it. The effect/combofield is still there even though the animation is has faded.

This takes a lot of practice to time but its worth it and so is 2h mastery.

You can even do the entire chain then dodge, and still trigger the combofield with mb, without skipping the last part of the animation.

The third step does roughly 15% lower damage then mighty blow.

Not having 2h mastery is considerably lower damage then having it.

Every chain should be ended with a mighty blow, both for max boons on the team and max damage.

2h hand mastery isnt useless for pve.

So basically chain (1, 2, 3 or 1,2, dodge, 3) and/or dodge and then mighty blow.

I maintanked the last boss and all adds in AC, first line, in explorermode just a few minutes ago doing the above with my wvw gear, knights and stacked crit. Even thoughthe boss is relatively easy 8-10 adds is hectic to confront while tanking.

And we were only four guys (one dc) and the other three wheer pure dps and low level.

That is how efficient this is when played correctly, damage, avoid damage, heals from dodge, heals from boons, boons on the team and superfun gameplay.

You dont play the hammer to its max by standing face to face trading blow, not in pve and not in pvp, its to slow for that.

Hmm brutaly I like your 0/5/30/30/5 idea, but then if going 30 points in honor, you can’t honestly passup on Pure of Voice. I personally wouldn’t.
so that asks the question: 2handed mastery vs 20% lower cd on shouts?
- 2handed mastery: not really useful due to poor Hammer 4-5 skills. BUT since i use GS too, skill 3-4-5 are not bad (faster whirl, aoe cone blind+damage, aoe pull+damage) so 20% mastery fits more GS.
- 20% lower cd on shouts: if you take hold the line and retreat, faster swifness sure but still too long cd, and hold the line cd reduction is not big enough.

so i think i will go 0/5/30/30/5 and use larger symbol/20%mastery/pure of voice to get the extra heals from shouts when virtues/focus are on cd.
In dungeon, whenever I need to remove conditions, or simply pulling trash together for the party aoe, I’ll switch to GS, otherwise use Hammer 1,2,3 skills.
what ya think?

i would skip larger symbols and get both 2h mastery and pure of voice.

2h mastery is pretty neat both from a boon perspective and a dps perspective, At least how i move and play with the hammer.

Brutaly.6257:

i would skip larger symbols and get both 2h mastery and pure of voice.

2h mastery is pretty neat both from a boon perspective and a dps perspective, At least how i move and play with the hammer.

No I meant I planned to go larger symbol/20%mastery/pure of voice in Honor trait line.
would that be ok?

So is the consensus that Empowered Might is generally not enough of a boon to put points in?

I tried traiting a 0/5/30/30/5 build using Superior Aria, Empowered Might, and Two Handed Mastery, but I am worried that losing Renewed Justice is going to be a tremendous loss.

On the other hand, despite it’s 1s CD, putting constant might buffs on your allies by the second is not only a good buff to your groups damage, it is a steady flow of heals for you.

@Bantapoo
everything is ok, thats the reason i wrote OP, there are a lot of valid choices with the hammer critbuild, especially in that trait line and its not mandatory to trait the shouts even if you have two of them.

@Melizande. Its defenitely valid, with the proper runes and sigils its both the most powerful build and the ones that throws most boons to the team. You can keep this build running with +12 stacks of might with ease.

As i said to bantopoo, there are a lot of god choices to be made and they reflect your style of playing. The guide is there to point out some of the choices.

You can even drop out 2h mastery as long as you do it of the right reasons. Stating its useless in pve ;-) isnt the right reason. Stating i find it useless with my current style of play is.

So i decided to try a crithammer build a few runs in PvP today (8vs8).

I found a problem with the shout’s and buffs to my team. In 2 cases i didnt get any heals. Once it was me and a guardian guarding a point. I used my 3 shouts with a few seconds between ant not one heal.

Another time it was like 5 other on my team on the same point (real Zerg Vs Zerg) and again i poped shout without getting any heals. Anyone had this problem before? I checked my trait if they have been “greyed” out and they havent.

I’ve been using Hammer since the first week of release because I fell in love with the mechanics of it in the first game. (thump thump thack!) OP is right on. There is a lot of uses for the Hammer on a Guardian. I’m 15/30/20/5 right now but plan to go back to 5/30/30/5. (swapping from +heal god set to knights set cause healing stat was really disappointing)

My only disappointment is there is no Elite: Shield of Judgement. If I had that elite skill from the original game, I would be set. Absolutely loved that mechanic. Best elite ever imo.

MysticoN.5068:

So i decided to try a crithammer build a few runs in PvP today (8vs8).

I found a problem with the shout’s and buffs to my team. In 2 cases i didnt get any heals. Once it was me and a guardian guarding a point. I used my 3 shouts with a few seconds between ant not one heal.

Another time it was like 5 other on my team on the same point (real Zerg Vs Zerg) and again i poped shout without getting any heals. Anyone had this problem before? I checked my trait if they have been “greyed” out and they havent.

It’s hard to tell for sure without knowing the situation, but I remember reading that applying a boon that stacks in duration to a player that already has that boon doesn’t trigger Altruistic Healing. So if you use “Hold The Line!” in a situation where all five affected targets already had Protection and Regeneration, you don’t actually get any Altrustic Healing procs.

aah, that might explain it. That also make this build less intresting for sPvP (8vs8) for me. I need to be sure i get the heal when i “ask” for it.

I spec for heal to survive but i guess i need to give it more time before i decide. This build might work bether in 5vs5 when i know my team mates and we work as a team. But its not to often im able to do tourney :/

No it doesnt, this is a common misunderstanding. AH trigger even if you already have the boon. Just try out the staff and empowering.

1. Go to a mob of your choice
2. Let him bring you down to 50% health
3. Then you pull empowering
4. The only skill you used so far is empowering and every new stack of might applies a boon.

Either there is a bug, havent seen one before in AH, or you just missed out on the heals. If you are solo a shout brings you only like 2*70 in heals, can you have missed them?

Shouts isnt the mest powerful source of heals in an atruistic heal build, skills like empowering and the symbols, vigorous precision and empowering might are. Stuff that reapplies boons fast and often and with ease.

Would adding Purging Flames or Judge’s Intervention to the line up be worth it? They are fire fields, but have a fairly long recharge.

pretty sure i didnt miss out of the heal since i was low on hp and shouted my voice off to get some heals ^^

You think shoutS is needed for this to work? Running staff/hammer build, but i struggle to get shouts into it.

I just love Judge’s Intervention to much to let it go, same with smite condition. I struggle between hold the line or retreat for the last skill.

Might go for hold the line since its a lower CD.

Il still get the heal on 2 symbols, 1 shout and when i crit. But is it enough?!

edit:
@High Marshal.2185
Not sure what you mean about fire shield but Judge’s Intervention is not a combo field

For those that don’t know remove the auto attack from Hammer ¹ by using ctrl+right click. As Brutaly said it will help u control position on Symbol of Protection, along with the melee assist tweaks he suggested.

High Marshal.2185:

Would adding Purging Flames or Judge’s Intervention to the line up be worth it? They are fire fields, but have a fairly long recharge.

Oh yes, absolutely, especially in a wvw build or in a might stacking build.

i actually bought sigils for10 g yesterday to try some new wvw setups and i have Purging flames in those builds.

Dont think judges interventions is a firefield.

MysticoN.5068:

pretty sure i didnt miss out of the heal since i was low on hp and shouted my voice off to get some heals ^^

You think shoutS is needed for this to work? Running staff/hammer build, but i struggle to get shouts into it.

I just love Judge’s Intervention to much to let it go, same with smite condition. I struggle between hold the line or retreat for the last skill.

Might go for hold the line since its a lower CD.

Il still get the heal on 2 symbols, 1 shout and when i crit. But is it enough?!

edit:
@High Marshal.2185
Not sure what you mean about fire shield but Judge’s Intervention is not a combo field

Ok might be a bug there which i havent seen. Then you have some reporting to do :-)

No i dont, i just think shouts are extremely nice for the team. My major gripe with guardian was that they were to dependent on meditations for survivability and those pesky egocentric utilities took away from my want/need to support. Altruistic healing and the crithammer build made it possible to use shouts and still have good survivability even though the shouts turn it into great.

JI and smite are really nice for the individual, but they bring close to nothing to the team, that is why i find the altruistic guardian to be so strong. If you have two meditations, dont specc altruistic healing, go for monks focus.

If your just gonna use one shout may i suggest stand your ground for pvp and hold the line for pve. Since you already havethe staff you have less need of retreat.

Yeah i know that JI and smite not are the best for this build, but i love the JI to much to let it go and its a nice “ooh kitten” button (target an enemy that is far away and port out of trouble.

And yes, i do get in trouble sometimes Smite just feel “cool” and have a nice dmg.

you posted this in one of the first posts:
What stats to look for?
40-51%% crit
2800-3200 Attack

You still think its good to go for that “high” attack/power if you stack might? My version of the build stacks might realy good, and i heard that might stack bether with lower power. What is the cap for power btw?

Well, ofc the relative gain per mightstack will be higher if you have low attack then if you have high attack. So if you purely look at it as an investment the trade off might be better else where. But its up to each and everyones personal taste and style.

The thing with stacking might is its very easy to do and to do it reliably.
On a 0/15/30/20/5 build you get:
Three stacks from virtue of justice
9 stacks after 11 seconds of gameplay thru swaps.
3 more if you trigger Purging flames with mighty blow
So basically 15 stacks in a matter of seconds and then mighty blow starts to hit for over 5k on the mobs on cursed shore which is almost 6k on an average opponent in wvw. if you use empowering might you will have 1-3 morr stacks and if you use sigil of strength there will be 1-3 more stacks.

Top this with:
Rune of water*2
Rune of the monk*2
Rune of holbrak*2
And 9 of those stacks has over 30s duration.

So 15 stacks in pvp is valid and in pve i think you can have over 20 durng entire fights.

Add in an ele that adds more firefields in a coorrdinated team

Personal record in wvw is now 5.5k with mighty blow

Might and power is a bit tricky i think, there seems to be differences between skills and how much they gain from more power/might.

Mighty blow seems to scale extremely well but this is me speculating here, i have no facts to back this up with, its just a feeling i get when playing.

No idea if there is a cap but i have about 4k attack in pve on my might build, with 48% crit chance

Thanks for a good answer.

I have abit problem to decide if i should go for
0,15,30,20,5 http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cccM0V9rfxGVmVoqcs
0,0,30,25,15. http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#cccM0V9fxpfoVqcsM

If i decide to go for 2 or more shouts it feels right to go for more points in virtues due to the 15% boon duration. But all in all it comes down to Retaliation. Do you remember how much that ticks at your power level? 20 points in Cirtue gives Virtue of retribution (gain retaliation when you activate a virtue for 3 sec) so thats 9 sec retaliation right there.

is larger symbol worth a skill in PvP? I havent tested it, and if i decide to go for it im going to loose 20% shout CD or my resolute healer.

@Brutaly: " I gone from berserker to knights and will probably go to pov/vit/tuv the day i have a full set."

1/ pov/vit/tuv : what are thoses things ?
2/ i’m a llittle lost between those différent sets armor you speak. Which one should I choose ?
Now, I have 6/6 Power/Vitality/Thoughness from Karma vendors.
I’m going to buy Creuset of eternity Armor sest (Power/Précision/Crtitic Damage) because it look great to transmute. But do you think It could be a good set to play with, if i add 6/6 Soldier runes ? More efficient than a Power/Vita/Thoughness ?

Thanks for your time and advices

Orphanfryar.7694:

1/ pov/vit/tuv : what are thoses things ?

Not really my place to answer for him but I am assuming he meant Power, Vitality, Toughness.

@Orphanfryer
I would go for knights.

There is no yes and no to your second qeustion, just that you need to get critrating for a crithammer build to be powerful. You can solve that in many ways. you need to check the vendors and trader and do some math.

@Melizande
Correct, typed it and now i think its a flashback from beta. Think we called the soldiers amulet (which had those stats) in spvp for that. might be mistaken though.

Hey Brutaly thanks for the guide I’m running a variation that uses hammer/GS with a heavy boon duration focus and I’m able to keep retaliation and might 95%ish uptime. I just take people apart and I’m only really need to watch out for are good hunters and necros.

I read the whole build word for word but I’m wondering if this would work with a greatsword and a full berserker set ?

Then I would go 30 Valor 5 Virtues 10 Power (for the 10% against burning) and 25 in precision?

I got school now so I hope ill get a response here when I get back

thnx

~Saturn

My dilema with Crit Hammer is which traits to use. I’m speced 0/5/30/30/5 and its been tough to decide if I want the Honor traits to be 20% Shouts reduction/Empower Might/Pure of Voice, or go with Larger Symbols/Empowering Might/Healing Symbols.

I use to use 20% reduction on 2Handers but there are too many good traits in Honors that I want and a 1 sec reduction on Mighty Blow was an easier one to cut then any of the 5 listed above.

I’m thinking if I go with the first group that includes 20% shout reduction etc., then I’ll most likely also use three shout skills instead of my typical 2 shouts (Hold the Line, Stand Your Ground) and Signet of Judgement. Between Retreat and Save Yourselves which would be the best shout to use in the third spot? I’m thinking Save Yourselves for all the boons it provides even while solo.

I’ve done the math between the Armor/Runes/Jewerly, my stats should be roughly as follow:

Power = 2900
Crit Chance = 42%
Armor = 2750
Health = 16k
Crit Damage = 71%

Do these look like good numbers? I didn’t want my Health and Armor to be too low otherwise I could of gotten Crit Chance and Crit Damage alittle higher still. Also these number are not based on Spvp gear/runes either.

The Armor is 4 pieces of Knight’s Draconic/2 God temple pieces(Helm with Precicion/Vit/Healing, and Coat with Power/Vit/Toughness). The runes are the Ranger 5 piece with another from a different set that adds +25 Precision(can’t remember the set its from). Jewerly is all Berserker except the Amulet which is Knights.

I haven’t decided on the sigil for the weapons yet. Still debating on which to use. My weapons sets are Hammer/Secptor and Shield.

@Zarovich

I’m with you on sigils. I struggle immensely with which to use. The forums indicate that the static stat (force and accuracy) do not work. I don’t particularly favor the weapon-swap sigils because quite frankly I don’t swap weapons often — my scepter/focus offset is purely for ranged and escape/ocrap moments.

So unless I am going to run with TWO hammers, and specifically make weaponswapping part of my rotation, they serve no purpose.

As for the on-crit benefits, I would tend to stay away from longer cooldown ones, and yet with hammer’s slow attack speed, I’m wary.

@Zarovich.7285

I do not understand how your power is that high, is that with bloodlust sigil and max stacks ?

im in full exotic knight armour, with rare Rubies all which grant power.
in full exotic berserkers accessories, again all which grant power.

I do have alittle more crit chance (56%), but my HP is about 1000 lower, and not sure my armour is at your numbers, and my crit damage is around there, perhaps 76%. but your power is about a third more than what I have.

please enlighten me.

I’m almost done with my armour now(Knight’s with soldier runes) and so far it’s great, I’ll focus now in the jewellery, and I was wondering which one are you using with this kind of “build”.
By the way once you learn how to dodge properly in the chain to time your MB and heal yourself it’s great, as @Brutaly stated early on.

great work! this is very cool and to be honest, i’ve put the hammer down for a bit but always looking to get back in. : )))

strangely enough, my build is actually quite similar to yours 15 in radiance, 10 in virtues and the rest pretty evenly in honor and valor. i might take 5 off virtues to max out for altruistic healing. i love having spammable VoJ so won’t touch radiance. plus, it helps with getting my crit % up so why not keep it there.

love that this isn’t a set “guide” or “you must do this”. offers some room to customize for your own personal play style. thanks for sharing Brutaly!

Zarovich.7285:

Power = 2900
Crit Chance = 42%
Armor = 2750
Health = 16k
Crit Damage = 71%

Do these look like good numbers?.

Yes!

Regarding sigils and swapping, to not swap is alright in pve but in pvp you should swap almost as often you can. The sets do different things and spamming one weapon just makes you predictable.

Why not go for hydromancy, works nice in both pve and pvp or as i do, energy or might. The increase in dps is huge when building mightstacks.

As for the sixth rune, an emerald orb gives you 20 in precision, 14 vitality and 14 in toughness. Just saying that it can be better then 25 precision only.

Immo.9217:

Hey Brutaly thanks for the guide I’m running a variation that uses hammer/GS with a heavy boon duration focus and I’m able to keep retaliation and might 95%ish uptime. I just take people apart and I’m only really need to watch out for are good hunters and necros.

You are welcome. Glad it works out for you.

I read the whole build word for word but I’m wondering if this would work with a greatsword and a full berserker set ?

Then I would go 30 Valor 5 Virtues 10 Power (for the 10% against burning) and 25 in precision?

I got school now so I hope ill get a response here when I get back

thnx

~Saturn

I think the survivability would be to low for a pvp build since you would have very limited resources to fill your HP, when needed.

In pve, why not.

The whole point of a crithammer (GS) build is to live from your crits and your boons and if you excluded those then its not even a topic for this thread :-)

@Zarovich.7285

I do not understand how your power is that high, is that with bloodlust sigil and max stacks ?

Its not his power, its his attack.

I’m almost done with my armour now(Knight’s with soldier runes) and so far it’s great, I’ll focus now in the jewellery, and I was wondering which one are you using with this kind of “build”.

By the way once you learn how to dodge properly in the chain to time your MB and heal yourself it’s great, as @Brutaly stated early on.

I use berserker stats one my jewels and heal stats. I find about 450 in healing power being optimal for me.

Cool that you “discovered” the dodgetrick in the chain and sprint in the third hit. Have you also figured out the timing in aborting the end of the animation on the third hit with a dodge?

akamon.2769:

love that this isn’t a set “guide” or “you must do this”. offers some room to customize for your own personal play style. thanks for sharing Brutaly!

Good, it was the point, instead of pointing out what to do i try to point out what you can do.

Brutaly.6257:

Cool that you “discovered” the dodgetrick in the chain and sprint in the third hit. Have you also figured out the timing in aborting the end of the animation on the third hit with a dodge?

Yeah =) and I’m not pretty sure, but some times if you don’t have enough vigor to roll you also skip the animation.(need to test it further).

Brutaly or anyone else..
Did anyone here actually test the crithammer using a gearset with power/vitality/toughness?

I’m a horribly poor planner when it comes to spending karma and gold on my gear, so atm I’m looking at a
long grind to get new armor.
My current gear is mostly berserker’s and after switching to the hammer I feel that I could use a more
“tanky” gearset.

My question is; Should I just go for Knight’s or is power/vit/toughness better (in sPvP)?

Quds.7403:

Brutaly or anyone else..
Did anyone here actually test the crithammer using a gearset with power/vitality/toughness?

I’m a horribly poor planner when it comes to spending karma and gold on my gear, so atm I’m looking at a
long grind to get new armor.
My current gear is mostly berserker’s and after switching to the hammer I feel that I could use a more
“tanky” gearset.

My question is; Should I just go for Knight’s or is power/vit/toughness better (in sPvP)?

Today I’ve been going over the numbers to work in the Superior Soldier Runes for a build. I figured this would make Pure of Voice/20% Shouts Reduction and a 3-Shout build even more powerful. So what I’ve determined is that Knight’s Armor set would be optimal for this Rune set while using the same Jewerly from my other build listed above which is Knights’s Amulet, 2 Berserker Rings, 2 Berserker Earrings. The only real change from the stats above is Crit Damage drops to 63% and Crit Chance drops to around 35-36%. But Health goes up to about 16.7k and Armor goes up to about 2900.

I could offset the Precision loss by changing weapons from Corrupted Sledgehammer to any of the ones that provide +128 Precision instead. Also a Beryl Jewerly piece could be worked in to offset some of the Vitality loss too.

So my question is: Is the combination of Pure of Voice/Superior Soldier Runes/20%ShoutReduction/3 Shout skills powerful enough to lose 8% on Crit Damage and roughly 5% on Chance Chance?

@Quds
as Zarovich says, i think knights gear is best atm, it has nice damage thru crits and buffed with berserker accessories you also have very good critdamage.

Regarding power/vitality/toughness i dont know, im on my way, got 3 pieces, there to try it out with gear that lack critrating and see if its possible to make it work.

I suspect though that you need to put more points in radiance and then the hammer isnt favourable but 1h sword and scepter might be doable with altruistic healing but i doubt it, meditaitons are probably better.

One combination, which im also going to try, is to mix that gear with orrian gear (grenth??) that has both power and precision but in combination with heal power, this scales extremely well with selfless daring and considering im using energy sigils and a very “dodgy” playstyle it might be superstrong for me. The combination with 40% critrating, 2700 attack and 1k in heals on every dodge is definitely in reach.

Looking forward to 4k hits with mighty blow and dodgeheal for 2k every chain+mb :-)
Think this might be supercool with sigils that gives might on stack and empowering might.

But as soon as i know i will get back to you guys and add to OP.

If someone has experience of the above with the hammer, please post your impressions.

@Brutaly:

Why isn’t this played with increased crit damage?

Im playing this build now with a full berserker set: double hammer with the Battle sigil to jsut weapon swap to have constant 6might + base

And im still not dieing in trash groups at all (in a normal group)

The build heals crazy but on boss fights I do notice I lack the toughness of knights but it’s managable and the damage outweighs the damage you take

Yes, in pve i use berserker mostly, In open world pve there is no need for knights. I havent died once in open world since i got my berserker gear and taking on 10 mobs is definitely doable.

I use knights in wvw and some dungeonfights.

So basically we do the same.

Sorry if i havent been clear about this, the thing is if you play all of the content available knights is more versitile, god knows there is enough firepower in those as well.

so kinda dumb question. i been following this thread and was wondering… where do i get knights armor and beserker items?

And brutaly what exactly do you do with might stacks do you have any might duration inprovements or ?

@bugowt
Check the trader for exotic gear and accessories, people sell crafted exotics. You can also get gear with the same stats thru dungeons and karma.

@Saturn
i would, (im not playing with it atm)use.
2*superior runes of water (15% boon duration)
2*superior runes of the monk (15% boon duration)
2*superior rune of hoelbrak (20% might duration)
Sigil of superior battle (3 stacks of might on swap, 20s+10s)
Purging flames for a firefield and mighty blow to trigger 3 stacks of might (25s+12.5 sec duration)
inspired virtues 3 stacks of might (5s+2.5s)
Empowering might to renew virtue of justice
empowering might, might on crit
focus, might on block
Shelter, might on block
Save yourselves to get one might (12.5s) but fury in particular so i build max from empowering might.
Stand your ground so i wont be interupted when i have fury running

Think thats all.

There are at least two other runes that only improve might duration but i think 10% less duration from monks and water are worth it since those boost all boons and i have plenty in my build to share with the team.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot to add 5% boonduration from inspired virtues.

Ok I did some number crunching to work the Superior Runes of the Soldier into a build in order to get the most out of Shouts with Pure of Voice/20% Shout Reduction etc. Here is what I came up with, someone can double check my figures if they want to verify it.

The Armor set is 5 Knight pieces with 1 Aurora Chest piece with Superior Soldier Runes.

The Jewelery set is all 5 Ruby pieces.

The back slot is the Berseker quest cloak with a Ruby Jewel inserted.

The Weapon has the stats +179 Power, +128 Precision, +9 Crit Damage

The stats for your character should be these roughly if my math was good:

Attack: 2988
Crit Chance: 40% 45% (With Superior Sigil of Accuracy)
Health: 16175
Armor: 2763
Crit Damage: 75%

With all the number crutching I’ve done the past couple days, this seems to be the best combo for stats while being able to get the most out of Soldier Runes/Pure of Voice talent etc.

If you look at the stats, your very tanky with great offensive capabilities and high crit damage at 75%. This build I made with using 3 shouts as skills, “Hold the Line, Stand your Ground, Save Yourselves” for solo play and switch out “SYS for Retreat” in WvW.

Comments are welcome

`@ Brutaly

with those runes you name, wont you lose too much damage? or hmm its onl 10% crit i would lose so ye ill look into it thanks

+ I cannot find a rune of the monk?

Reward from Ascalonian catacombs.

ah cool thnx
But I replaced it with Fire sigils, more duration on might and with +15% protection lasts long enough to keep it up

is longer symbol duration trait any good for this build?

I tried this out last night (crit-hammer) for a little bit after quickly putting some gear together and wasn’t necessarily blown away (my gear choices weren’t great) but it was fun and I started to see the potential!

One thing I am definitely having a brain-block about though is the synergies of the dodging and holding the last hit of the hammer combo and using MB at different times. Could someone please try to explain these things a little more?

Also, am I reading you guys right that you are turning off the auto attack for Hammer1 combo so that you press the button 1x for each part of the combo – therefore allowing yourself to use the 3rd part later? How long can you hold off on the 3rd part?

Thanks!

Hey Brutaly, I know there isn’t an exact build but I’d like your opinion.

What armor do you think works better, Knight or Beserker?

Thanks

I am running full Knight’s (rare), including weapon (exotic) AND jewelry (green) at the moment, to push my crit chance to 46%.

I am hoping that as my jewelry upgrades in quality and I collect more exotic armor, my crit will push higher so I can start swapping some items out for Berserker or otherwise.

At the moment I have:

Attack: 2622
Crit: 46% (30 crit damage)
Armor: 3143
Health: 14,455

So my survivability is fantastic at the moment but I’m itching to push my damage up as my gear upgrades.

I have no idea how some people (like Zarovich) are getting the numbers they are.
I can only assume as everything becomes exotic, and I can swap over quite a few items from Knights to Berserkers, it starts to become more well-rounded.

Melizande.7230:

I am running full Knight’s (rare), including weapon (exotic) AND jewelry (green) at the moment, to push my crit chance to 46%.

I am hoping that as my jewelry upgrades in quality and I collect more exotic armor, my crit will push higher so I can start swapping some items out for Berserker or otherwise.

At the moment I have:

Attack: 2622
Crit: 46% (30 crit damage)
Armor: 3143
Health: 14,455

So my survivability is fantastic at the moment but I’m itching to push my damage up as my gear upgrades.

I have no idea how some people (like Zarovich) are getting the numbers they are.
I can only assume as everything becomes exotic, and I can swap over quite a few items from Knights to Berserkers, it starts to become more well-rounded.

Melizande, In my last post I listed the equipment pieces used which includes all exotic pieces. I guess it helps too that I’m a 400 Weaponsmith/Armorsmith/Jewelcrafter.