Guild Wars 2

Well not kiting, positioning.

One more thing, dont judge your ability to dodge and trigger the symbol by the symbolanimation. Check your boons instead, the symbol, if triggered, gives you retaliation and the fact is that you can trigger the symbol with MB after the animation is gone.

So be sure to check the boons, that is the only thing that actualy tells you if you trigger the symbol or not.

If you want 100% uptime o protection all you need to invest in is longer lasting symbols, it is as easy as that as long you have inspired virtues.

Those rune are not only good for protection but almost everything out there.

I would use knights gear with 2*water+monk for 30% increased duration on boons. 2*hoelbrak for increased might duration.

Berserker weapons with might on crit sigils on the hammer and either have sword/focus or scepter/shield as secondary set. And in those i would have might on crit and might on swap.

I would use 20% boon duration food and 4% of toughness 2% of vitaly into precision.

Then you would have tons of armor, protection 24/7 great critchance, decent critdamage and heals from vigorous precision and about 15k health with a 0/0/30/30/10.

40% boon duration on the team, 60% on you. 60% might duration 80% on you, 65% retaliation duration 85% on you.
47% critchance
45% critdamage
2700 Attack and you can at least add in 300 more from might stacking which works just great in pve.
3200 in armor

In a pve build i would use empowering might, 2h mastery and larger symbols and ofc in combination with the above mentioned gear. Ofc altruisitic healing, retributive armor (great with knights gear) and purity. In virtus i would in general go for vengeance even though the impact in pve is kind of marginal but its a nice addition.

Vitality isnt the important thing in guardians and as soon as you realise that you will find out why we are one of the toughest cookies to kill in combination with the lowest healthpool.

And yes you need critchance in a crithammer build, a crithammerbuild isnt a bunker, its a dps soldier that builds survivability thru crits and boons and boons thru crits.

Highest is close to 4k attack, ofc with mightstacking but i need a coordinated group for that. But i dont strive for high pov/critdamage, the only stat really worht stacking is in fact toughness. Most other stats has diminishing returns on investment, toughness is the opposite. The more you get the more you gain.

Toughness also has some great synergies with heals, protection and retaliation which makes that stat superior imo. Ie the more toughness you have the more the value of heals. The bigger healthpool you have the less heals are worth.

So you can have both high crit, high dps and tons of protection and great heals, just choose the right gear and traits and its a done deal, this is the beauty of the crithammer.

Finally able to get on the forums, after over a month getting the error accepting the terms! So first thing first, thanks Brutality! You showed me a very nice way to play my guardian!

I started out with the greatsword, but not used it in a long time after I got the hammer. In fact, I think I will continue to use Hammer / Staff instead of the greatsword, just to have that ranged capability and still take advantage of two hand mastery. Plus the staff symbol is rather handy when out and about.

Now, I am only level 65 so far, but I got the most critical traits already, and just started saving for my exotic hammer and still trying to decide on my Runes (going 0 0 30 30 10 I think). So far torn between 3 Rune of the Monk and 3 Rune of the Water for that nice 30% boon duration and some extra healing stats freeing my jewelry for more power/precision/toughness, or 6 Rune of Dwayna. Tough decision, though I am leaning towards the boons, since I got a lot of them in my shouts and virtues.

Nonetheless, great guide, and great inspiration!

OP Build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBkYDbk0p1N5R4hJOggUYFZx5BUsEBoShdUHA;ToAA1CnoAzAmAMLYOwkgtIYQA

or at least one of them though I wounder about the really low power.

@Brutaly

Firstly, thank you for your awesome write up on the crithammer build. It’s given me a very good insight into playing a crit guardian and I’m loving that playstyle.

Now I would like your opinion on which build would be better:

Option A:
0/15/30/20/5
Gear: Knight’s helm, chest, boots, gloves. Aurora (Power/Tough/Vit) shoulders and leggings. All socketed with Beryl Orbs as I’m noticing that my health is extremely low (around 14k) and I’m afraid that it might be a liability in WvWvW. Accessories are all Knight’s.

With that gear I have around 2900 Attack, 53% crit chance, 3000 armor and only 14k health.

or

Option B:
0/5/30/30/5
Gear: Same as above, but socketed with all Emerald Orbs.

Can’t remember the exact stats with this setup as I don’t have access to my character atm (at work now).

I’m hoping that you can shed some light into what the key distinctions are between these two specs and what are the pros and cons of these two.

Thank you!

Ozymandias.5704:

So first thing first, thanks Brutality! You showed me a very nice way to play my guardian!

Nonetheless, great guide, and great inspiration!

Thx, cool that you enjoy the guardian and hammergameplay. I do to, had some marvelous 1vs1 with a frustrated warrior in tpvp yesterday. Even if you he got bulls rush and hundredblades in my back he peeled off 15k of my 17k and then it was payback. Think i killed he 5 times in a row, coming back from really low health.

The dodgeplaystyle i very difficult to counter.

Also cool that you got inspired, it was the intention of OP and im glad it worked out for you.

Kiijj.3594:

@Brutaly

Firstly, thank you for your awesome write up on the crithammer build. It’s given me a very good insight into playing a crit guardian and I’m loving that playstyle.

Now I would like your opinion on which build would be better:

Option A:
0/15/30/20/5
Gear: Knight’s helm, chest, boots, gloves. Aurora (Power/Tough/Vit) shoulders and leggings. All socketed with Beryl Orbs as I’m noticing that my health is extremely low (around 14k) and I’m afraid that it might be a liability in WvWvW. Accessories are all Knight’s.

With that gear I have around 2900 Attack, 53% crit chance, 3000 armor and only 14k health.

or

Option B:
0/5/30/30/5
Gear: Same as above, but socketed with all Emerald Orbs.

Can’t remember the exact stats with this setup as I don’t have access to my character atm (at work now).

I’m hoping that you can shed some light into what the key distinctions are between these two specs and what are the pros and cons of these two.

Thank you!

Thx for the kind words.

First, if played correctly and with the proper shouts, 14k isnt a liability. The effective healthpool in an average fight is well over the double, if played properly. Toughness rules imo, large healthpools are a liability on a guardian since healing becomes relatively worse, with high toughness healing gets relatively better. This suits a crithammer guardian very well.

I assume you allready got the Aurora pieces and if so i would go for option A. Those stats seem to be very nice indeed.

If you dont have auroras yet then a full knights gear with rune of the soldier (remove conditions, vit and tough) in combination with either knights accessories or, this is what i use now, berserkers accesories. Ofc in combination with food that improves both crit and critdamage. That is a monster, despite only having just above 15k health.

Thanks very much Brutaly!

knives.6345:

@Fabsm

I use Beryl for Accessories and Rings, my Amulet is still a mess, but I’m planning to take the one that has Prec/Pow/Crit Damage.

I use Emerald Orb x6 on armor slots.

Also, yes, I use the trait that adds 5% prec from toughness.

I currently have 38% crit chance but I have Sigil of Accuracy. I am planning to use 0/5/30/30/5 build and remove the Sigil of Accuracy but I believe it’ll downsize my crit chance by 25-30, which is very bad.

You can raise that again using 6xRune of the Eagle, or 6xRune of Lyssa if you want funny synergy. It will lower your toughness though. You have to make a choice between stats.

It is more of a personal decision about your survival than an effective improvement, you have to try with lower toughness to see if you can manage the hit (try removing a piece of armor with toughness and see if you die too much ).

Update on lifestealing Build:

I am using Knight exotic + green Berserker Jewels + rare Berserker Hammer + 2*Rune of Vampirism + Sigil of Blood (the other 4 runes i am experimenting with) to try and get off a lifestealing build. Using only 40% lifestealing food (will try and look for other consumables, like whetstone or similar).

Right now, the results are astonishing but erratic. In PvE, when i crit, i get 30% of my hit back. I was stunned the first time, but then i tried with every mob i could find, even veterans, to have a consistent result.

Any Hit that crits (even the symbols!) you steal back 30%. The tempo of the hammer is unbelievably attuned to the internal CD (2s), so in autoattack you can almost guarantee you will get your health back.

You have to be lucky on WHAT crits, however. You will be delighted when a big Mighty Blow crits (and gives you back 1k health+AH), but you will be annoyed when the crit is from your measly autoattack.

I can stand toe to toe with most melee monsters in dungeon, simply hitting them, dodging in the 2s window and healing ca 800, and coming back with Mighty Blow + Area Retaliation + AH + Lifesteal. It usually gives enough health to stay in melee.

The only regret is it happens too randomly to count on it. I noticed the game briefly puts a small icon (lifesteal) in your buff bar when the next hit will leech. However, in the middle of the fight, it is difficult to wait for that icon to do Mighty Blow.

Still experimenting with the other runes to see if there are interesting synergies.

@Fabsm
whats the food called, cant find it.

Been fooling around myself with a 1h build (1h sword+scepter), 0/30/30/5/5 with leech on swap and leech on crit and i would really like to know what food to use with that.

Got a vampire going that seems very interesting.

Brutaly.6257:

@Fabsm
whats the food called, cant find it.

Been fooling around myself with a 1h build (1h sword+scepter), 0/30/30/5/5 with leech on swap and leech on crit and i would really like to know what food to use with that.

Got a vampire going that seems very interesting.

This one
Blackberry Pie

Fabsm – How important is the effect from the two runes? Do you think the food and sigil are good enough to use without it?

And how much do the rune heal for?

@Brutaly and Revanssi:
I wish i had an exact answer to you two, but i haven’t one.
The only way of seeing how much the lifesteal heals you is by watching the screen for the green numbers that appears near you when you crit.

What i have done is using my Virtue of Resolve on CD (to disable Regeneration), removing Altruistic Healing, and trying and NOT doing the third chain hit on hammer (that would activate symbol of protection and heal me).

With one lucky streak of crits against normal mobs, i have guessed that the amount is a fixed % of the critical hit. It should be about 30-40% (cannot be precise because numbers disappear too fast). I should have FRAPsed that attempt.

Runes don’t add to the amount healed, but to the chance of lifestealing (as sigil and food do). The amount stolen doesn’t seem to be affected by Healing Power. I don’t think the effect of the runes to be much useful, to be honest (when you have 40% from food+30% from sigil, another 5% seems irrelevant), but i am putting that in armor to increase chances and do better calculations.

Will keep you updated on my next attempt (i swear i will FRAP it so i can see how much it heals).

Fabsm i tested the sigil in the mists, and it does scale with healing power, but it scales baaaad.. Something like 100 healing power adds 10 healed .. Have the numbers on computer but using phone atm..

So the 5% from the 2 Armor Runes adds to the chance to get a Lifesteal? Or its a separate lifesteal proc entirely? I thought it would be a separate lifesteal, 1 from armor 1 from weapon with a bonus % from the food applied to both.

Thanks alot for the comments/reply’s brutal! Sorry for my late responce.
You did a very detailed write up, and i really appreciate it.

hey Fabsm, that’s a pretty cool build and thanks for trying it out and sharing with us! thanks for the test as well Hjulstad. seems healing power really doesn’t scale well with most of the Guards skills / builds.

personally don’t mind that TOO much though. gives me more room to focus on other stats. ; ))

@Zankou – just to add a bit, i recall you saying you’re trying to pull the combo “combo 1+2, dodge, 3, dodge, MB (back in the action)”. what i usually do is combo 1+2, dodge depending on where i want to go, enemy attack, etc, then 3. and while the 3 is charging up, i’ll repositioning myself, or click on another mob for better placement of the symbol. which can be crucial at times. i look for either where there are more mobs, or more allies. preferablly a bunch of melee allies fighting a bunch of mobs.D crits galore, and boons applied galore – which hugely benefit our build. and then after that, i got straight into mighty blow. i try not to use up both my dodges in one chain. as it does take time to fill for me, even with rigorous precision i feel.

the more you play and practice you’ll get better at utilising your dodges. sometimes i even go 1+2+3, dodgeroll either away or in and then mighty blow and can still trigger the combo. and it looks especially cool when you dodge away, the enemy’s attack misses, and you mighty blow back in!D and Brutaly brought up a good point about keeping an eye on the boon, as that is what triggers the combo. it’s a lot to take in but soon enough it’ll be second nature and you’ll know when you will trigger and when you can’t so in case you want to save mighty blow for missing the window, you can do that too. also know that #5 is a light field which can also trigger AoE retal if you mighty blow with it up. just another little tactic i use to keep retal and boons up.

and another side note, why do i change targets? at least in PvE (and sometimes in dungeons, unless if certain targets MUST be taken out first) i do.. and that’s because i try to lower all mobs health so in case something DOES go wrong, and i get swarmed, or an ally gets swarmed, our chances or rallying are a lot higher if most mobs have lower health. this is just a general rule i follow though, and not all the time. situation depending. plus, the more mobs you touch, the more chance for loot and xp : ))

still loving this build. with halloween going on, haven’t had time to finish building my set yet, but will get on it.D

and just a random question on the side. and i’m posting it here because you guys are most familiar with this build and the synergies different types of gear can create.

so i’m a Norn Guard and down the road, would like to be able to acquire the T3 cultural armor. and they have the stats Power/Tough/Vitality. Which isn’t bad either. So my question is, do you guys reckon this build could still work if slotted with the right jewelry and runes? to make up for the crit chance. If there’s vitality, i wouldn’t need valkyrie jewels which is what i was aiming for for a bit more vitality. so i have more room to play with zerker’s even. however, i feel with the runes i have a lot less room to play with as i’d need to focus on crit % with those. am i looking at the situation correctly?

if not, i can always just transmutate. but i’d rather not transmutate something that’s so costly. although i technically AM getting the armor for the skin alone.. any suggestions / advice? haha thanks fellow hammer smashers.

[added: ooh, al cultural armors are only rare stat-wise, right? in that case, might just transmutate the skin onto exotic stats that i’ll be aiming for :pp although the stats am sure can be still viable with the right runes / jewelry]

@Revanssi:
Man, you really opened my eyes.
Right now, i had a lot of inconsistency in my result, hence the big gap in my perceived % of lifesteal. Sometimes i got alot health back, sometimes not, and i didn’t understand why there was so many difference between lifesteals. I had ranges of 20%-70%!! I narrowed and averaged all results, but still i couldn’t find a good result.

Now i think i have found the answer.
ALL LIFESTEALS CHANCES ARE SEPARATE, AND ALL HEALS FOR DIFFERENT BASE AMOUNTS!

It was so simple, i couldn’t think of it!

So:
- Superior Sigil of Blood has 30% chance lifesteal. It seems to heal for roughly 435 + ??%Healing Power ( i bet is 12.5% like all guardian heals);
- Rune of Vampirism has 5% chance lifesteal. 2/rune effect seems very low (i have to calculate that), while the 4/rune effect after healing seems to steal for 975 and doesnt’ scale;
- Blackberry Pie has 40% chance lifesteal. It steals 325 health and doesn’t scale.

Now all i have to do is run some test to find if this theory is spot right. But i guess so.
Then i will finally try and run theorycrafting to get the best from this build.

@Fabsm

Seems you are testing on NPCs? I got a better suggestion. Go to heart of the mists and to the big group with training dummies, run up the stairs, activate VoR and then jump and attack a mob.. Then you have lost some Heath and Will stay in combat without dieing and you can take it slow and Watch the numbers.. And once you get a procc, open traits and add 10 points in the tree with healing power, and Watch for next procc.. Only thing you cant check is the food, but Runes + sigils can be tested.. If i have Time i Will check it aswell this evening

Hjulstad.6317:

@Fabsm

Seems you are testing on NPCs? I got a better suggestion. Go to heart of the mists and to the big group with training dummies, run up the stairs, activate VoR and then jump and attack a mob.. Then you have lost some Heath and Will stay in combat without dieing and you can take it slow and Watch the numbers.. And once you get a procc, open traits and add 10 points in the tree with healing power, and Watch for next procc.. Only thing you cant check is the food, but Runes + sigils can be tested.. If i have Time i Will check it aswell this evening

That’s a good advice, but i really wanted to try it in a full PvE/WvW environment (Jewels and Food too). I have the items and i play that build so i can try non-stop.

Will check the runes and sigil within sPvP, but i am not sure if that environment is really a carbon-copy of the PvE one. Look at the SY thing, maybe something else, much more obscure, is different.

@ Brutality

Thanks for starting this thread. This is a great playstyle that I have really enjoyed as an alternative to the more common Guardian builds that are going around. I spend most of my time in sPvP/tPvP, and I am wondering where you make sacrifices stat-wise when playing in those modes. It seems that you can’t get more than about 2400 armor without sacrificing too much crit% chance. Is this where you take the hit? Do you use 2x Monk, 2x Water, 2x Hoelbrek and Empowering might? Or do you use something like Ranger runes to get your crit up? Thanks for any advice!

@Fabsm
Thx for testing that for me, post it as soon as you can so i can add the numbers i the guide. I been playing around with it and i agree the runes are a waste of space imo and one is better off with critrunes for instance.

@Akamon
Yes you can use vit/pov/tough gear, i have an ascalonian catacombs set, but you need precision runes in it, 5*rangers and 1*Lyssa to amke it work.

The fact is i dont find this gear to be optimal for crithammer, knights with some berslerker seems to be the sweetspot in health and toughness.

@Westibone
0/5/30/30/5, berserker amulets and rampager jewel.
Rune of the soldier in the gear and pure of voice as major trait.
Sigil of energy in the weapons
I use 1h sword and focus as secondary and 1 on 1 option. Might stacking on crit or chill on crit in the focus btw, i dont remember right now.

Utilities are hold the line, standy our ground and signet of judgement. As heal i use the signet and as eliter renewed focus.

@Everyone
Im writning a guide regarding hammer and AH and hopefully i will post it this evening and there will be a lot more info and and it will be more comprehensive then this thread.

@Everyone
Im writning a guide regarding hammer and AH and hopefully i will post it this evening and there will be a lot more info and and it will be more comprehensive then this thread

Sweet! I look forward to it.

@Brutal

I just purchased a new character slot and have decided to roll a guardian, so I’m fairly new to the style of gameplay. First thing I did was go to the mists and mess around with weapons and builds. Tried everything and really liked the hammer and developed a unique build for consecrations and symbols.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQJAWSlYg6CXGSPEmIFRWBRaVggYP04Hz4lCHSRA;TsAg0CnoixEjIGbMuYkxs+Y8xECA

The idea revolves around reviving teammates. Lots of protection to help get them up safely and prevent stomps. Then just the great synergy with sanctuary, ring of warding, and line of warding used before tome of courage helps me get out those max heals. Also, decent crit/crit dmg so I can still dish out decent damage for being heavy support.

I have noticed that toughness > vit but I can’t get enough toughness without sacrificing prec. And I really, really like air runes. 2-3k proc dmg every 10 sec helps out loads in 1v1 and 1v2.

Anyone have any suggestions or tips to help me out? =]

Darksun.1054:

@Brutal

I just purchased a new character slot and have decided to roll a guardian, so I’m fairly new to the style of gameplay. First thing I did was go to the mists and mess around with weapons and builds. Tried everything and really liked the hammer and developed a unique build for consecrations and symbols.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUEQJAWSlYg6CXGSPEmIFRWBRaVggYP04Hz4lCHSRA;TsAg0CnoixEjIGbMuYkxs+Y8xECA

The idea revolves around reviving teammates. Lots of protection to help get them up safely and prevent stomps. Then just the great synergy with sanctuary, ring of warding, and line of warding used before tome of courage helps me get out those max heals. Also, decent crit/crit dmg so I can still dish out decent damage for being heavy support.

I have noticed that toughness > vit but I can’t get enough toughness without sacrificing prec. And I really, really like air runes. 2-3k proc dmg every 10 sec helps out loads in 1v1 and 1v2.

Anyone have any suggestions or tips to help me out? =]

If your focus is reviving teammates, you really should invest in Resolute Healer (Honor) to avoid stomping.

@Fabsm

Dang, thats kitten nice. But I don’t know what to give up to use it. The writ of exal and merc go hand and hand. And I use 2x 2h =/

Also thinking about getting a stun break in there. Is stand your ground a good replace for wall of reflect? Or have any suggestings?

Fabsm.5897:

Brutaly.6257:

@Fabsm
whats the food called, cant find it.

Been fooling around myself with a 1h build (1h sword+scepter), 0/30/30/5/5 with leech on swap and leech on crit and i would really like to know what food to use with that.

Got a vampire going that seems very interesting.

This one
Blackberry Pie

Blackberry pie is the level 55 version, but there is a level 80 version (can’t remember the name atm). It has an increased chance to proc the leech (I think it’s 60%), but I wonder if it also has an increased healing amount or if it’s just the same.

Omnomberry Ghost: 66% chance to steal life and 70 precision. Testing it now.

Edit: It turns you into a ghost for the duration. Pretty neat.

Really looking forward to giving this a shot; I just finished getting my Death Blossom thief up to 80 and I need a change of pace.. Thanks for the tips! I am especially interested in that lifesteal variant that seems to be starting up, it sounds really entertaining. Looking forward to seeing how it pans out!

regarding lifeleech i played a lot of wvw with it two nights in a row now and i will post a guide, mainly a decompressed version of this thread to morrow, and in that one you will get a review.

I can tell you as mush as sigil of blood and Omnomberry seems to stack additively which means you have a 96% chance to steal life on crit and with only base healing power you get 341 in health on each crit. At least i steal the same amount EVERY CRIT.

Its so silly that it just have to be bugged tbh.

Lol, just facetanked the last boss in the Plinx storyline without even dodging…

I have been doing some new numbers grinding with the addition to food in my daily routine and here are the numbers I’ve come up with. There are some sacrifices that i had to make in order to get these stats(namely Superior Soldier Runes). Heres the stats:

Attack: 3034
Armor: 3057
Health: 15715
Crit Chance: 49%
Crit Damage: 52%

I changed my runes from Superior Soldier to Runes of the Pack for all benfits of more boons with 5% chance for Might,Fury,Swiftness, 165 Power, 100 Precision, and 20% Swiftness boon duration.

I may be making some other changes too like the sigils. Currently I’m using the Sigil of Accuracy to get to 49% but I’m thinking of using Sigil of Perception on the Staff and change the Hammer Sigil to Sigil of Blood since I’m using the Omnomberry Pie already. Sigil of Perception will get me to 55% Crit Chance instead. What are your thoughts on my new Runes/stats/Sigils/etc?

Off topic question. How long does the Omnomberry Pie / food last?

Does it persist through death? Just wondering from a WvWvW perspective since that is typically what I play. And since I’m usually outside the Zerg(s) solo looking for stragglers or inside the puzzles I die often

Well that, and I’m not exactly great or setting the world afire – lol

It last through death and is on a 30 minute timer.

@Brutaly

I’ve finally settled on a 0/5/30/30/5 build (http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQFASlYgqCnFSOEfIFSuAbBYPwI4LjueQRYIDB) while equipping Aurora Shoulders and Leggings and Knight’s everything else, including accessories (all with Emerald Orbs) and Berserker’s hammer + Superior Sigil of Accuracy. This gives me the following stats:

2900ish attack, 54% crit with +45% crit damage, 3200 armor and 14.5k health.

Tried out 0/15/30/20/5 with Beryl orbs but I get slightly more toughness, +40 vitality from traits and +1% crit chance at the expense of losing a little bit of +crit damage.

0/5/30/30/5 is working out very well for me so far as the higher toughness as a result of socketing Emerald orbs gives me a slightly increase in survivability, in addition to having Empowering Might for Might boons to myself and to my teammates which will then result in more self heals as a result of Altruistic Healing.

Looking forward to your guide.

hi brutaly, thanks a lot for this guide very well written and the hell of a build

so i decided to dont go full knight gead, i picked 3 pieces of the “second” AC armor its got the stats “precision/vita/heal” on it i think this fits very well…. the rest is knight except amulett thats berserker (but only green stuff atm)…. i reach about
2,2k attack
44 % critchance,
2,6k armor,
15,5k life and about
700 healing…
kritdmg is 36 so very low, thats cause i also picked the hammer with the vit/prec/heal combination…. i want to change that into a berserker

btw you dont need that mysterious grenth karma set, its the second of AC with that combo

i go with 0/5/30/30/5 cause of empowering might….

on the first page you mentioned a rune which gives 60% mightduration but i cant find that one…. did they nerf it??? or was it fail information ^^

so thats what i wanted to ask/tell you

love the build so far but i need to get that rune so that empowering might really is worth it

sry if its somewhere in the whole thread but english isnt my main language so its very hard for me to read this all, and it would take about a day for me to read it all ^^

thanks for that again

I had some cash and extra tokens lying around so I decided to buy my 4th set. I went with the Soildier stats and mix and match it with some Knights and Berserker. Here’s my new set’s stats:

2977 attack
43% crit chance
54% crit damage
3022 armor
15,839 HP
300 healing power

Gears are socketed with Emerald and Ruby Orbs with Sigil of Strength on weapon. I kinda want to have 3k attack, 16k hp, 40% crit chance, and 3k armor set up to test out some stuffs.

A variation I tried today in SPVP and worked well was 5/10/30/20/5.

Generally I go for Signet Mastery, Meditative Mastery, Retributive Armor, AH, Larger Symbols, and Empowering Might (although will try 2h mastery).

Running GS and Hammer. Sigil of Blood.

Incredibly tanky. The extra symbol of wrath was awesome. Similar damage. But lots and lots of healing coming in.

Trungalung.7850:

Omnomberry Ghost: 66% chance to steal life and 70 precision. Testing it now.

Edit: It turns you into a ghost for the duration. Pretty neat.

I guess this is a Halloween-only recipe.
It uses Candies, and i don’t know if we will have access to them in the future.

Pretty neat to experiment on, though.

Zarovich.7285:

I may be making some other changes too like the sigils. Currently I’m using the Sigil of Accuracy to get to 49% but I’m thinking of using Sigil of Perception on the Staff and change the Hammer Sigil to Sigil of Blood since I’m using the Omnomberry Pie already. Sigil of Perception will get me to 55% Crit Chance instead. What are your thoughts on my new Runes/stats/Sigils/etc?

Just to point out, Omnomberry Pie is for Magic Find, the lifesteal food is Omnomberry Ghost.

I currently run Soldiers Shoulders and Boots, Beserker Chest and Legs, Knights Gloves and Helm and all Knight Jewellery. Runed with 5 Soldiers and 1 Lyssa.

2800 Attack, 46% crit with Sigil, 15975 Health, 3018 Armor.

Is there anything I should tweak to get better numbers or are these OK? I have enough to buy a couple pieces of crafted or a couple pieces of Karma.

My Rampager Hammer has a couple more crit with a little less power.

Think its worth swapping out the Crit Sigil for Blood?

Brutaly.6257:

regarding lifeleech i played a lot of wvw with it two nights in a row now and i will post a guide, mainly a decompressed version of this thread to morrow, and in that one you will get a review.

I can tell you as mush as sigil of blood and Omnomberry seems to stack additively which means you have a 96% chance to steal life on crit and with only base healing power you get 341 in health on each crit. At least i steal the same amount EVERY CRIT.

Its so silly that it just have to be bugged tbh.

Are you sure it stacks ADDITIVELY, and is not two separate chances of proc? While the end result is more or less the same, stacking % is less desirable, because of the internal CD. Two separate % would be much more useful.

I am guessing that they’re two separate proc, because of the internal CD of the sigil. And i cannot be sure, but it could be that the sigil returns a different base amount (or a % of the inflicted hit).

And, did you have 30 Honor at that time (300 Healing Power), or you purposedly brought it down to 0 for the test?

If you had only 30 Honor and no healing power on armor, then lifesteal is treated as Rejuvenation, i.e. healing power is factored by 0.06. With 300 Healing power, that’s consistent with the wiki that says Blackberry Pie steals for 325 hp (+ 0.06 * healing power).

If that’s the case for the sigil, too (i guess so), then Healing power is useless in a Lifesteal Build.

I will test with sigil only to see if the base return is identical to the food.
Don’t become addicted to the ghost food, we don’t know if it would be available after halloween :P

great analysis again guys. really tempted to try out the lifeleech build too. i’ve always been a fan of lifesteal. and so far, seemingly it ups your suvivability even more!

@ Brutaly – you’re right. my knight’s set is workign great right now and will probs stick with it. might just transmutate then ; ))

[added: checking out ur new write-up now!]

Relentliss.2170:

A variation I tried today in SPVP and worked well was 5/10/30/20/5.

Incredibly tanky. The extra symbol of wrath was awesome. Similar damage. But lots and lots of healing coming in.

Really interesting build. Please keep us updated if you stay thrilled by it and i add it to the new guide thread as a plausible build. I would be great if that minor actually turned out to be worth something.

Relentliss.2170:

I currently run Soldiers Shoulders and Boots, Beserker Chest and Legs, Knights Gloves and Helm and all Knight Jewellery. Runed with 5 Soldiers and 1 Lyssa.

2800 Attack, 46% crit with Sigil, 15975 Health, 3018 Armor.

Is there anything I should tweak to get better numbers or are these OK? I have enough to buy a couple pieces of crafted or a couple pieces of Karma.

My Rampager Hammer has a couple more crit with a little less power.

Think its worth swapping out the Crit Sigil for Blood?

Not meaning to be harsh but if you have Lyssa as your 6th rune then you missed the entire point of the soldier runes and its much cheaper to use orbs and get equal stats.

Regarding blood, its nice and especially with food.

Brutaly.6257:

Brutaly.6257:

regarding lifeleech i played a lot of wvw with it two nights in a row now and i will post a guide, mainly a decompressed version of this thread to morrow, and in that one you will get a review.

I can tell you as mush as sigil of blood and Omnomberry seems to stack additively which means you have a 96% chance to steal life on crit and with only base healing power you get 341 in health on each crit. At least i steal the same amount EVERY CRIT.

Its so silly that it just have to be bugged tbh.

Are you sure it stacks ADDITIVELY, and is not two separate chances of proc? While the end result is more or less the same, stacking % is less desirable, because of the internal CD. Two separate % would be much more useful.

Ofc i cant be sure but they procc every second and on every crit which indicates they are additive. If they were cumalative they wouldnt procc as often.

They are OP never the less and i assume they are bugged.

Brutaly.6257:

Not meaning to be harsh but if you have Lyssa as your 6th rune then you missed the entire point of the soldier runes and its much cheaper to use orbs and get equal stats.

Regarding blood, its nice and especially with food.

Yeah, I know what the Soldier Runes do but I am not so sure that stripping off a single condition is worth the effort.

What Orbs give out 165 vitality?

Think it gives you 120 vitality and 2*84 of other stats, im at work and a bit unsure about the numbers and what the other stats are.

That is 450 less in health.

If you carry two shouts you remove two conditions and a couple of stacks of bleeds or burn for that matter definitely hits for more then 450. Having one more rune has more impact effective impact on your healthpool, in condition removal, then what you would loose in using orbs.

Imo as long as you dont look for specifik functions in runes, orbs are just as good or even better since they also have two other stats in them.

At least that how i look on things, i only use runes when i look for certain functions or are in trouble gettting the stats i want within the budget. 5*rangers and 1*Lyssa on my vit/pov/tough is an example of such a dire strait.

These are analysis i leeched from another forum, till i can come back home from work and run some test myself:

Sigil of Blood: 30% chance to steal life on crit (2s ICD)

•Whether applied on mainhand or offhand, it can proc on any attack from either weapon.

•They stack multiplicatively with % chance only, cooldown applies to both and no double procs.

•ICD is actually 5s, tested for nearly 15 minutes and couldn’t get 2 procs in less than 5 seconds.

•For me this hit for 452 damage, regardless of power or weapon damage. Healing power does affect it, but by pitiful amounts.

hmm very interesting. intrigued to see how this pans out. going to do some researc now. might not be able to test in-game for a while, but will be theory crafting for a bit for now.

sorry for posting, unable to edit right now..
have some more questions regarding lifesteal..

hope i didn’t miss anything, but it seems to run the lifesteal you would want 4/runes of vampirism? secondly, regarding the the 4th set bonus. does this mean a 100% trigger of lifesteal after using healing skill (i assume this only means your “#6” skill).

then my question is, what would be most leveraging for the remaining two runes on your gear? since healing doesn’t seem to add much in a lifesteal build we can perhaps rule that out. if using in tandem with blood sigil, maybe focus on runes that raise your crit chance %?