Guild Wars 2

Ok step two of my “learn to play the guard” education. I think I finally got the hang of the hammer and its uses, now to potentate its effects with traits and gear.

Ordinarily re-inventing the wheel doesn’t make a lot of sense, and this particular build I am investigating has been tried and tested like 70x I’m sure. BUT, I like taking the slightly less used road, so here’s what I’m thinking. I want a PvE build, both solo and dungeons/fractals (mostly dungeons and fractals), and a bit of WvW-ing when I’m bored. AND, unlike most AH builds I want it to be hammer and staff focused rather than GS. Who want’s GS, besides everyone and their moms? Not me!

I’m just theorycrafting at this point, my guard is about level 50 right now so I lack the means to actually test this. So let me know if this seems reasonable.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1g.h2|6.1k.h1j|1n.71j.1n.b1j.1n.b1j.1n.b1j.1n.b1j.1n.b1j|1n.61.1g.61.1g.61.1n.61.1n.61.1g.61|0.0.u56b.u3a9.a6|0.0|v.18.10.19.1i|e

In general I’m trying to do a decent amount of DPS while attempting to maintain a good bit of toughness and a little bit of healing/boon duration. I want to have perma protection and retaliation, or as close to it as I can, while always getting heals so my health stays topped off.

Since I drop symbols in my autoattack chain with hammer I want to extend its purpose too, by having it heal allies and make them larger (so they can also trigger the light combo field).

Outside of stand your ground and hold the line, I’m not in love with any of the other utility skills, I chose one at random basically until I can find something that I feel really works.

Finally, there are obviously plenty of questionable choices I made with my gear. It looks good on paper but I have no idea how it would go in practice, I’m hoping to get some great feedback as you’ve all given me in the past to hammer out the details.

Much appreciated!

You won’t do good DPS with a hammer with AH. The 30-point investment into Valor just for that one trait gimps you hard, damage-wise. Hammer also basically requires at least 20 points in Honor for Writ of Persistence (ideally 30 so you can also take Empowering Might in dungeon runs) so you’ve got at best 20 points left to actually invest into DPS. That means you can’t take both 10 in Zeal for Fiery Wrath and 25 in Radiance for Radiant Power, which is a huge hit in damage.

If you do want to run AH and retain DPS, you can go 10/30/30/0/0, but you’ll lose group might stacking and symbol duration, and still not do as much as a 10/30/0/30/0 spread. The benefits of AH without Empowering Might and Writ of Exaltation are questionable at best, but that’s your best option if you feel you NEED the trait.

^ What Guanglai said.

My learning curve went from 0/0/30/30/10 to 0/15/30/20/0 to 25/15/0/25/5 to 10/25/0/30/5 which I’m happy with now. I honestly suggest running the 30/30/10 setup to start but strap on Zerker gear for it and progress into higher dps formats as you get comfortable. It does have a place in groups with less experience and/or skill. I’ll still throw it on if I’m gonna teach new groups Arah or whatnot. Guardian at 80 is quite different from 50, concentrate on getting there first.

Blood~

• Fall in love with Wall of Reflection and Shield of the Avenger and Stand Your Ground. That is not a suggestion, just do it Actually, adjust your utilities for the content you’re running, don’t just pick 3 and let them live on your bar until the end of time.

Thanks Guanglai!

Let me clarify what I have in mind. I want to be THAT guy rushing to the front lines, dishing out sustained DPS but is really really really hard to kill with all the heals blocks and (sometimes) blinds.

So in a spectrum of “bad, medium, good, great” I want my DPS to be medium or, ideally, good. My survivability (I’m combining toughness vitality and healing all together to be what I mean by “survivability”) to be great. I want my support to be great.

Now regarding what you’re saying @Guanglai, I defn see the benefit of empowering might (I might get rid of the healing symbol for empowering might now to be honest), but why is writ of persistance so vital in your opinion?

@ Bloodgruve, haha you’re right the only utility skill that I actually love is stand your ground, I use it as my “oh crap!” skill when I’m in a bind playing solo. I imagine in a dungeon with allies that’s not gonna be as effective.

It’s very interesting how passionate people are about AH, whether they love it or hate it. At first I thought it was universally recognized as the best skill in group play for giving boons to allies while keeping yourself alive. The more I delve into this the more I hear arguments of how it is actually detrimental to group play.

Regardless, whether I eventually opt for a more DPS oriented hammer build or stay true to the AH based one, will my gear choice be the same? (Mostly knight’s gear with divinity, knight’s trinkets with beryl)? I think I really enjoy the front line role and the tankiness so regardless of the build I want to keep that still

I can tell you that I run full Zerker armor and weapons with 4 Zerker and 2 Soldier trinkets and with Hammer and/or AH you are still tanky. With my build I have 15.5k hps and 2300 armor but hammer mitigates a lot of damage, I’ll toss on the 10% signet if things look tough. I haven’t pushed Fractals like I should but at lvl 25 I’m still able to face tank things, can even stand toe to toe with Mossman for a hit or two. I know this will change farther up the tree though. I spent my time building full exotic Soldiers and then spent that same amount of time building Zerker and most of my first set sits in my bank collecting dust. AH helps you recover from a hit but you can do that with Omnom Pie and Sigil of Blood on a secondary weapon.

AH is great and don’t discount it, I like the term ‘Training Wheels’ though as it fits it well. Trait it, use it, get to know the class at 80 with it but realize there could be a time where you outgrow it.

Kill those targets quickly, a dead mob can’t kill you.

*Not to speak for Guan, but Writ of Persistance gives an extra tick on your protection symbol. This means it increases your base protection duration by 25% and also ticks for damage a 4th time. Simply throw 2x Rune of Earth on for another 20% duration and this allows you to move around during an encounter without losing Protection much.

GL
Blood~

Silver.4798:

Thanks Guanglai!

Let me clarify what I have in mind. I want to be THAT guy rushing to the front lines, dishing out sustained DPS but is really really really hard to kill with all the heals blocks and (sometimes) blinds.

So in a spectrum of “bad, medium, good, great” I want my DPS to be medium or, ideally, good. My survivability (I’m combining toughness vitality and healing all together to be what I mean by “survivability”) to be great. I want my support to be great.

Now regarding what you’re saying @Guanglai, I defn see the benefit of empowering might (I might get rid of the healing symbol for empowering might now to be honest), but why is writ of persistance so vital in your opinion?

The symbol at the end of the hammer chain accounts for quite a bit of the hammer’s overall DPS. Simply in terms of optimizing overall DPS, it’s the one of your best options for hammer.

On top of that, it gives you 4s protection (up from 3s) per hammer chain. At 3.75s total swing time on the hammer chain, this means you get 100% protection uptime, which is really good to have in general. In fact, just having that 100% protection uptime pretty much means you don’t need AH or any other defensive stats, at all.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

You won’t do good DPS with a hammer with AH.

You certainly can do good DPS with Valour 30, even with AH traited. It might not be the BEST setup for damage, but to say it’s not good … that’s just not being objective. I hate to be THAT person on the forum but someone is asking for advice here and these statements without context serve no purpose but to limit people’s exposure to the game … not a good thing. Let’s limit our statements based on our experiences as opinion and not fact, even if we feel strongly about them shall we?

I think it’s hilarious you think a class that is getting constant protection on top of already being the tankiest class in the game even before all the potential defensive options you could be getting via utilities and weapon swaps is squishy. I’d hate to see you play a zerker thief or something. Sure, if you’re at the point, skill-wise, where you can’t survive without stacking tons of defensive stats, then fine. That doesn’t mean everyone is in the same place as you, though. Plenty of people do just fine with a “glass” greatsword build (20/30/0/20/0), which is comparable to warrior in raw damage output and much less defensively oriented.

Hammer is good because it gives a very strong party support boon (protection) and retains high DPS. If it was JUST the protection stacking or JUST the DPS (which, I will note, is still lower than greatsword) you wouldn’t bother with it. There’s a reason why you never see anyone running “healer” builds, even though an elementalist or engineer could probably pull it off. It’s just not a good tradeoff to give up all your damage for some questionably useful buff, especially when there’s only five people in one party.

Also, yes, “good” is a subjective term. If your hammer is dealing 5 damage per second, that may subjectively be “good” to you. If I offer you a build that literally does 1000 times more damage, that may not, subjectively speaking, be “better”. That said, it’s probably still a reasonable adjective to use.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.4|2.1g.h2|6.1k.h1j|1n.7x.1g.7x.1n.7x.1g.7x.1n.7x.1g.7x|2v.0.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1g.67|0.f2.u46b.k29.5|0.0|v.19.18.11.0|e

This is what I’ve been running for the past few months. From the AH sticky, this is what I considered the “first” AH build (at least, the 15/30/20/5 Hammer/Staff). Damage is there, Survivability is there, Support is there.

You wouldn’t need to copy this exactly, but I’ve been very effective with it, so I could only assume someone else could get the same use. The armor and trinkets look like they do to maximise the stats gained, as 1% crit damage should equal 10 points somewhere else, but that’s not always the case.

Also, take everything on the forums with a grain of salt. It’s kept me much happier.

Sahfur.5612:

bunch of bullkitten

So basically, your contention is that you die all the time even with a full tank build, so you need to justify it to make yourself feel better.

Let me give you some objective facts, which you may not be aware of:

1) A greatsword guardian with a DPS spec does equivalent damage (~7.8k) as a greatsword warrior (~7.8k), and a sword guardian (7.5k) actually beats an axe warrior (~7k), while a hammer guardian is slightly lower (6.6k), provided both classes are getting 25 might/fury/vulnerability.

2) A scepter guardian far outclasses every other class in the game in terms of ranged DPS, so long as the target is big enough to get all hits of Smite on. Even if the target is small, scepter DPS is still much higher than anything a warrior puts out with that crappy rifle weapon.

3) Guardians get passive regen, passive blocks, instant on-demand blocks and blinds, and permanent vigor on a DPS spec, on top of having naturally high armor. Warriors have a high health pool but don’t get any of the above, without having to take specific weapons or utility skills.

What that boils down to is that you absolutely should run DPS guardian, if you want to get the most out of your class. Warriors and guardians serve comparable roles, except warriors provide “offensive” support (fury, banners, some vulnerability) while guardians provide “defensive” support (basically all the defensive boons). Both are equally capable of dealing damage. Don’t just look at how much damage you deal solo. Warriors look like more damage because they self-stack might and fury better solo, but when you give that might and fury to the guardians, the difference totally disappears. Also, HB has big numbers, and people are easily impressed by that sort of thing. Never mind that it’s a four second channel that barely does any more than the scepter’s Smite in total damage.

If you’re dying, that’s your problem. I don’t die, ever. Especially not when I’m running hammer, of all things, and getting permanent protection on top of all the other stuff I listed. Because YOU die a lot running a build doesn’t make it not efficient. It just means you’re not cut out for that particular build.

Whoa I just got home and evidently a very feisty debate is going on here, oh my!

For a guy seeking advice though this is fantastic, I’m seeing the entire offensive and defensive arguments play out!

Unrelated to the topic as a whole but I humbly disagree on the grounds of guards having the best ranged DPS of all classes, although smite is really great. But from experience I can tell you that with my thief I can spam clusterbomb for higher DPS than smite, without going full zerker. Not to mention the general autoattack of trickshot >> guard’s auto attack. I haven’t played other classes too extensively to comment but my exp with the guard at range feels… how do I say this, it feels like I want to turn this into a melee fight asap lol.

In terms of where my skills are at now, training wheels defn is an adequate description. I’ll use the AH hammer build as a learning experience and tweak as needed, so for the time being I’m theorycrafting and gathering gold/mats I would need for the gear. It’ll probably take me a good 2-3 weeks before I can hit level 80 in the first place so I have plenty of time to ponder and stew!

Regarding empower, I trigger might EVERY time I crit to ALL allies? Does range matter, i.e. do they have to be really close to me for this boon or can they be like 1200 units away and still get the boon? If this boon works the way I think it works I might have to rethink my staff as my offset, sounds like scepter/shield might be the better option. If I have about 50% crit (with food and whatnot), assuming all 15 hits of smite lands thats ~7-8 crits. AH base healing is 69*0.01 (healing power), and since getting AH takes 30 points thats at least 300 healing power, so per activation thats 72 heal.

So, if it works the way I think it works, for one smite that hits for lets say 10 hits on avg, that’s 5 triggers of might on 5 players including myself, and 1 tick of vigor off of vigorous precision for critting, so 26*72 = 1872 heal, per ONE smite?! That sounds so broken, I must be mistaken

First, to the first guy who honestly I’m not that interested in talking to, I’ll just say that if an AH build in full knights gear is the absolute extreme of how far you can go without dying, you’re not as good as you think you are. Seriously, if you can’t survive in zerker on a GUARDIAN of all classes, then there is no hope.

As for:

Silver.4798:

Unrelated to the topic as a whole but I humbly disagree on the grounds of guards having the best ranged DPS of all classes, although smite is really great. But from experience I can tell you that with my thief I can spam clusterbomb for higher DPS than smite, without going full zerker. Not to mention the general autoattack of trickshot >> guard’s auto attack. I haven’t played other classes too extensively to comment but my exp with the guard at range feels… how do I say this, it feels like I want to turn this into a melee fight asap lol.

In terms of where my skills are at now, training wheels defn is an adequate description. I’ll use the AH hammer build as a learning experience and tweak as needed, so for the time being I’m theorycrafting and gathering gold/mats I would need for the gear. It’ll probably take me a good 2-3 weeks before I can hit level 80 in the first place so I have plenty of time to ponder and stew!

Regarding empower, I trigger might EVERY time I crit to ALL allies? Does range matter, i.e. do they have to be really close to me for this boon or can they be like 1200 units away and still get the boon? If this boon works the way I think it works I might have to rethink my staff as my offset, sounds like scepter/shield might be the better option. If I have about 50% crit (with food and whatnot), assuming all 15 hits of smite lands thats ~7-8 crits. AH base healing is 69*0.01 (healing power), and since getting AH takes 30 points thats at least 300 healing power, so per activation thats 72 heal.

So, if it works the way I think it works, for one smite that hits for lets say 10 hits on avg, that’s 5 triggers of might on 5 players including myself, and 1 tick of vigor off of vigorous precision for critting, so 26*72 = 1872 heal, per ONE smite?! That sounds so broken, I must be mistaken

I’ll just go with bullet points. It’s easier.

- One cluster bomb deals 168×3 = 504 base damage, and rate of fire depends on flight time. At max range, it can take as much as 2 full seconds for the bomb to reach the target. The variable flight time makes it somewhat hard to calculate damage potential but suffice to say you get 504 per Cluster Bomb, at the cost of 3 initiative and 1s cast time, which averages out to one Bomb per 4s with natural initiative regen. Trick Shot is approximately 1s (wiki says .95s, let’s go with that) and hits for 185 per shot, twice if it bounces. That’s 370 per .95s on auto (389/s) and 504 per Cluster Bomb. By comparison, scepter is 224 per .83s (270/s) and 1665 per Smite per 6.83s. That means that Guardian Scepter deals 481/s average, compared to Thief Shortbow at 418/s. That’s before traits, of course, but it gives you the general idea.

- AH for beginners is fine. In fact, I recommend it. The problem is that I absolutely do not, and I cannot stress this enough, want you to feel like it is the “optimal” build for guardians. I used to think AH was mandatory for all guardians, too, way back at launch. A lot of the people on these forums are at the same place I was at a few months ago, and that’s not necessarily a problem, but you should also be ready to move on when you’re able.

- EM has a one-second internal cooldown. That means, at best, you will get one proc every second even if your crit rate is 100%. I actually run (and recommend) a build that does that (100% crit rate) but even with that it’s rare to get more than 3-4 stacks of might from EM without boon duration, due to swing speeds not matching up with the internal cooldowns (i.e. sword hits every .83s, so you’ll be proccing it every 1.66s, not every 1s). It is still very good for getting a chunk of healing (350+ per proc) in a group setting, although that’s not actually that different from just using a lifesteal food with a high crit rate (66% chance of 325 per proc).

Sahfur.5612:

Broken records sound bitter to the ears.
Yet again you say I can’t survive on zerker on guardian or other classes, I’ve never stated that and I even stated that I CAN survive on zerker on glass classes and builds and was even proficient at it. Is it so hard to believe that people can move on in the opposite direction because they realize they can do more than just make big numbers? Knights allows -others- to survive on glass builds who are in the party. Your dps does nothing to help them survive in fractals. Don’t fool yourself. You are missing the point and have been missing the point all throughout. The fact you find stating such mistruths and slander necessary really shows you aren’t as good as you think -you- are. Not to mention you act all high and mighty after I previously very succinctly handed you your shattered sense of pride with the last post. I needn’t state anymore because I feel it isn’t necessary. Okietays~

If you can survive with zerker gear, why are you using knights? Simple question. You having less DPS isn’t going to help anyone survive in fractals better either. In fact, it’ll make it harder, since things will die slower.

Also, a 10/30/0/30/0 zerker hammer build gets 3k/s solo. A 0/0/30/30/10 knight hammer build gets less than 1.7k/s. 45% less damage for absolutely no benefit, since now you’re claiming you wouldn’t die even with the higher DPS zerker build.

So on one hand, either you’re trying to convince me that needing a crutch to survive makes you a better player, or you’re trying to argue that a build that grossly overcompensates on defense is the most efficient option.

Pick one, please.

Sahfur.5612:

The point is that the pure glass builds:
Won’t hold aggro.

Toughness isn’t the only aggro mechanism.

Won’t do much more damage than knights. If we did literally 10 times more damage as zerker, it would matter, but the reality is only a small percentage more.

If you have full knights+cavalier backpack just from equipment you have 336 less power nad 65% less crit dmg. Glass builds have ~90%crit chance with gs and >100% crit chance with 1h weapon. That’s quite more than small percentage.

Won’t stay in the fight longer, thus keeping proximity.

It’s better to divide damage you take on whole party than on sole tank.

Will need to dodge/break combat more.

If he won’t hold aggro?

Won’t be able to solo the same amount of content.

Now you made me laugh for few minutes.

Won’t be better at dps -OR- survivability than a similar warrior.

If guardian has access to fury, he will deal similiar damage to warrior (plus reflects) while having much better survivability

Give up support for a small amount of damage.

What has support to do with damage? You’re running with giver’s equipment?

Cause me to have to stop attacking so I can pick them up off the ground, 50% of the time. (worst part is, they are just getting splash damage from the mobs attacking me).

Might be a good idea to actually find better comrades.

Glass is -NOT- comparable to warrior in dps. Even if you go full glass you sacrifice more than the warrior does to do so in such a situation thus crippling yourself. A good defensive warrior would still do better dps than glass guardian while surviving better and gasp providing more support too. You just can’t win.

What has glass to do with support? Is glass taking signets? 3 meditations?

Sahfur.5612:

1. I didn’t at any point say I die all the time. I said I don’t die. Your very first line is a farce and an attempt to discredit me with incorrect facts. You repeatedly use stuff like this in various posts on different threads to discredit us and its very transparent. You are quite transparent. My build is tanky while also doing nearly the same dps as zerker. Why keep saying I die all the time when I am not?

If you had been dying all the time with baby steps build I think we should start talking about something else.

Tanky build doesn’t do even close dps to zerker one. I did solo lupi one week before obal in about 15 minutes using full glass build. He did that in 38 minutes with scepter and than in 30 minutes using sword. If you don’t believe that because I don’t record compare this to this. So yea, tanky does nearly same amount of dps.

@OP – as more or a less a sole Guardianeer, i started off heading towards an AH build. first as 0/15/30/20/5, then i tried 0/5/30/30/5, then 0/0/30/30/10 and i still consistently play AH builds every so often depending on what i’md doing, who i’ll be playign with etc, but i’ve also learnt to branch out and try out different builds going from 30 in valor, down to 0 in valor. and in terms of gear, i started off in pretty much full knight’s. then moving on to mixing in berserker’s, etc.. just experiment, but seems like you’ve decided to start like this and it’s a good place to start : )))

just so you know, i’m a huge fan of the hammer. not just for AH builds. though some may argue it’s not as effective as other weapons. either or though, i just wanted to point out that Empower from the staff is different from the trait in the Honor line, Empowering Might.. just to avoid any confusion : )) many AH guards, might be a in the past thing though, swear by empowering might, but i honestly don’t feel it’s that effective or needed. i’d rather take other traits in that line such as longer or larger symbols for added AoE or more DPS, etc.

whereas Empower from the staff, iirc, stacks 12 stacks of might onto you and 4 other allies. so your math was similar and IS corrcet in that each Empower (Staff #4), you will be placing 12 stacks of might onto 5 peopel total, and each boon / stack heals for 72 = 12 * 5 * 72 = 4.3k heal. plus you get all the might stacks. so it’s not too shabby.

hammer chain #1 followed up by a mighty blow, you have protection ticking, as well as AoE retal boon given to those around you, if near enough. another handful of small heals.

Oooo empower from staff does 12 stacks, for some reason I kept reading 2 stacks and was less than impressed… ok I change my mind again, back to staff offset!

@Gunglai and Sahfur, regardless of how many times you two die, I’m sure if you add the total amongst you two and multiply by 3, I still got that number beat in the amount of times I already died! So lets focus on the important things here shall we, which is my awesomeness.

@Gunglai specifically with clusterbomb, it is never launched from long distance unless you are attacking someone in top of a tower or from a tower in wvw, specifically for reasons you mentioned. CB is almost exclusively used at point blank range, maybe mid range if AoE is desperately needed, w/ 3 stacks of bleed for 4s, and can be exploded in midair and relaunched if spammed. Said another way, you can get off 4, possibly 5 CB’s within the same time it would take for a smite. Using your calculations that’s over 2-2.5k base damage in about 7s, not counting the bleed stacks. I can link you to videos that’s a better estimate on how much damage this would do on a full zerker spec, but this is a thief forum so I digress haha. Reason for trickshot being better in my opinion is the AoE.

Nice kitten contest in here.

Well OP asked for one hammer/AH build that works in all types of the game so here is my contribution.

0/25/30/10/5

The reason why im not investing in zeal would be that in order to have 100% uptime on burns for +10% you would need to sacrifice utilities to reach there. Or be in a team that can provide it for you., Neither is guaranteed or desirable imo.

25 points in radiance is to get crit and ofc 10% from conditions, the condition part can be solved by sigils in you hammer so you have close 100% uptime when soloing in open world. In groups this isnt an issue so then you swap the hammer for a hammer with energy sigils and ofc energy in the staff as well. You can back this up with a third hammer that stack power on kill.

30 points in valor will give toughness and a passive conditionremover and ofc about 5% crit and 30% crit damage which corresponds to approx 18% overall dps.

In pve i find movement and speed to be of essence so 10 points are spent in superior aria and combine that with 2*rune of the pack in your armor. I would not spend points in writ of exaltation since it adds a fourth tick and imo its only in theory that actually increases the dps. Most of the times not all ticks hit (unless a stationary boss). On a stationary boss it would give you 12% increase on the chain but since you need to dodge once in a while you use MB to jump back in so i estimate the true increase to be less that 7-8%. Its just not worth it.

The same goes for elusive power, if you dodge you loose dps and with constant vigor you need to dodge at least every 5 sec to have elusive power active. This trait is only good in pvp imo and it only works reasonable with the hammer due to short cd on MB and ofc with 2 h mastery.

I find valor to be better suited for dps than honor and also adds more survivability. In wvw it also adds support as long as you run with purity and signet of resolve. If so then you can focus on using your shouts on your team for conditions.

If you absolutely want to invest in your symbols i find larger symbols to be of greater value since they:
1. Increase the area of aoe
2. Makes more ticks hit on moving targets
3. Make it easier to get your team and you inside it.

And ofc 5 points in virtues for added support.

armor i would go for 4 different ones.
1. PVT with 6*soldier runes for wvw for more support and condiremoval
2. Berserkers with 4*divinity and 2*pack for pve
3. PVT 6*divinity for dungeons and fractals
4. PVT with boonduration runes (monk/water/major) for when you really want to play supportive.

Utility:
Shelter and mix it up with signet of resolve in wvw so you really can use your shouts for the team.
SyG
Retreat
SY
Renewed focus

Back up i would have:
Hallowed ground
Wall of Reflection
Purging flames
Shield of the avenger (dungeons only tbh)

Stats with this setup and the gear i have is unbuffed:

2010 (+10% from Radiant Power)
50% crit (70% with fury from the team or SY)
95% crit damage
14750 HP
2800 armor

Buffed i run at 2170 power and 55% crit/105% crit damage.

And its possible to get 23 stacks of might on your own with this setup.

Imo Valor is a better dps line than honor and the only thing you really miss out on is fiery wrath (compared with the builds displayed above)which is situational in pve and wvw.

Tbh the berserker boys seem to justify putting points in honor to get dps but in reality you gain very little from it and its infact their need for a health buffert that motivates the investment.

Or the same gear and:
10/15/30/10/5 or 15/25/30/0/0. In the last one you you get conditions from the symbols to trigger radiant power.

If this is enough is totally up to you.

AH has nothing with skill to do, if you use AH correctly you can have some really extreme builds going in some really extreme situations which not a single berserker in the world can handle. Ofc in pvp/wvw, in pve you can use what ever build you want, its just silly easy.

You’re still preaching about valor being better than honour ;p

haviz.1340:

You’re still preaching about valor being better than honour ;p

Nope just trying to help OP and pointing out the weak spots with the line, elusive power is as the name says elusive. You loose dps by dodging and in order to get 10% from it you need to be dodging 20% of the time in combat, given the dodge takes 1 sec.

Adjust the numbers to the reality and tell me the real loss from getting it to contribute with 10%

Honour has better traits not just for dps. You can trait you hammer symbols, shouts, pure of voice, empowering might and 2h mastery. What does have valor? Meditations traits that are mostly for solo play, shield mastery, purity and retributive armor. If you want tank/support it should be 0/0/20/30/20 and if you want dps it should be 10/25/0/30/0 or 0/25/0/30/10 (5 points are free).

If perfect inscription had worked (can’t get it to work outside heart of the mist), 30 points in radiance and signet of judgement (seems it’s 15% dmg reduction traited) would have brought even more damage reduction than 300 toughness.

Havent said anything about the traits in honor, they are great. After 1500h in wvw/pve and about 500h, mainly as a 30p honor guardian in tpvp, i think i have a general idea of their function.

OP asked for a build with AH/hammer and wants to do pve/dungeons/wvw with that build and i provided him with that.

Still, how come is honor better for damage, can you explain that to me? How can it add more than 20,5% dps, which valor contributes with in my current build. Without honor i have 65% crit damage and 45% crit.

A fourth tick SoP (12%, if you just use the chain, versus stationary targets and 0% versus targets that move or think) and elusive power, 10% if you waste 20% of your time dodging.

Regarding tank or dps builds wasnt the issue, i provided OP with a build and you say honor is better for damage than valor. I say its better on paper but in reality its not.

30/30/10 hammer/staff

You need 30 in valor for AH AND the crit dmg increase. The toughness is just a bonus.

30 in honour is a must for hammer users. 2h mastery is a must have as your main dps comes from MB, not hammer1. This also synergies well with staff for swiftness and most importantly empower. Empowering might is also helping on the damage department aswell as survival. Superior aria to synergy with AH.

Knights armour to get the crit chance up. Full berserker accessories for crit damage and crit chance. For runes go for melandru for worry free of conditions or go for more damage orientated runes for more damage.

This covers every area and allows you to wade into a group of 20, AoE the hell out of them AND make it back alive.

Guardian juggernaut.

It might makes you tankier thanks to symbols trait which allows you to grab damage traits from zeal/radiance.

I really want to take 30 in valor for additional crit damage, it’s just I can’t find decent traits except retributive armour and purity when not running meditations. Honour has just way too many good traits to skip it.

@ kensai zen
2h mastery doesnt increase potential dps since the hammer needs 2 chains in each cycle every time and waiting after 1 chain and then use mb lowers dps.

In pvp it will increase dps since people tend to move and hit and elusive power i also worth it in pvp. But only versus skilled people.

@haviz
I dont understand, you say that honor makes you tankier and 300 toughness and 400 hps from ah doesnt.

If its hp we are talking about i could swap som berserker trinkets for valkyrie and with 30 in valor i can still have 15/25/30/0/0 and 15 k health 2k power 3k armor,45% crit and 75-80 % crit damage

This is effective dps in a pvp wvw environment. The most damage you will be doing is from MB.

In PvE he doesnt have much choice since he wants to use hammer as the main weapon. In this case he can swap out 2h mastery for write of persistance or writ of exhaltation.

The honour line is the hammer line.

There are 3 traits for symbols in honour line that might increase your survivability.

@kensai
Just checking, got the impression that it was a general statement and not pvp exclusive.

@haviz
Really there is one and you need two runes to fully compensate, sure you have heals in symbols as well but those arent close to what ah does. Sure they are team wide but the heals are marginal at best.

But you didnt answer my question, how do you match 20,5% dps from valor with traits in honor, sure theoretically you do but in practice i dont get it.

You get zeal and radiance traits instead of valor.

Brutaly.6257:

@kensai
Just checking, got the impression that it was a general statement and not pvp exclusive.

@haviz
Really there is one and you need two runes to fully compensate, sure you have heals in symbols as well but those arent close to what ah does. Sure they are team wide but the heals are marginal at best.

But you didnt answer my question, how do you match 20,5% dps from valor with traits in honor, sure theoretically you do but in practice i dont get it.

You don’t get 20.5% extra damage from Valor. Your crit modifier with 0 Valor and 30 Radiance, full ruby orbs in zerker gear is 57% crit chance, 74% crit damage is 1(.57*.1.24) = about 1.71. Add in 30 Valor and Retributive Armor and you get 59% crit chance, 104% crit damage which equals a crit modifier of about 1.92. 1.92 / 1.71 = 1.123, or about a 12.3% damage increase.

By comparison, Writ of Persistence will increase your auto-attack’s base damage from 1554 to 1739. That’s an 11.9% damage increase. Empowering Might will provide an additional 4% or so from the ~2.5 extra stacks of might. Roll in whatever incremental damage you get from Elusive Power and it’s going to be about equal in terms of overall DPS, and Honor will have better overall DPS unless your group is already capping might without EM’s help, in which case Valor has very a slight advantage.

If you want the actual numbers:

10/30/30/0/0 = 2869/s
10/30/0/30/0 = 2937/s
25/25/0/20/0 = 3217/s
0/25/30/10/5 = 2463/s
0/0/30/30/10 = 2299/s

Feel free to do whatever you want with that information.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Brutaly.6257:

@kensai
Just checking, got the impression that it was a general statement and not pvp exclusive.

@haviz
Really there is one and you need two runes to fully compensate, sure you have heals in symbols as well but those arent close to what ah does. Sure they are team wide but the heals are marginal at best.

But you didnt answer my question, how do you match 20,5% dps from valor with traits in honor, sure theoretically you do but in practice i dont get it.

You don’t get 20.5% extra damage from Valor. Your crit modifier with 0 Valor and 30 Radiance, full ruby orbs in zerker gear is 57% crit chance, 74% crit damage is 1(.57*.1.24) = about 1.71. Add in 30 Valor and Retributive Armor and you get 59% crit chance, 104% crit damage which equals a crit modifier of about 1.92. 1.92 / 1.71 = 1.123, or about a 12.3% damage increase.

By comparison, Writ of Persistence will increase your auto-attack’s base damage from 1554 to 1739. That’s an 11.9% damage increase. Empowering Might will provide an additional 4% or so from the ~2.5 extra stacks of might. Roll in whatever incremental damage you get from Elusive Power and it’s going to be about equal in terms of overall DPS, and Honor will have better overall DPS unless your group is already capping might without EM’s help, in which case Valor has very a slight advantage.

If you want the actual numbers:

10/30/30/0/0 = 2869/s
10/30/0/30/0 = 2937/s
25/25/0/20/0 = 3217/s
0/25/30/10/5 = 2463/s
0/0/30/30/10 = 2299/s

Feel free to do whatever you want with that information.

Sorry for taking so long to answer you and sorry for necroing this thread.

The numbers you mention i fully agree on so there we have no argument.

The thing with writ of persistence is that for it to give you the dps boost the following prerequisites needs to be fulfilled:

1. The target has to stand still so the fourth tick hits.
2. You just spam skill 1. If you do anything else, like dodge and jump back in with mb you wont benefit to the same extent.
3. You cant weaponswap, which is needed in the first place if you want to do max dps, unless you run with mace as secondary. All other weapons will decrease the benefits from WoP

Valor offers, as you say, 12% damage increase with all weapons and under all circumstances. This is imo better than a highly situational boost.

Lets take a look at 1. In pvp this just dont happen, the best dps enhancers for hammer in pvp is 2h mastery (mb is the primary dps tool in pvp) and larger symbols, so you at least can hit with 2-3 ticks or force the opponent to burn a dodge which opens him up for a cc or mb.

In pve there are bosses that stand around but frankly most bosses in fractals are underwater/ranged/mobile or needs to be kited. Once again in theory longer lasting symbols are great dps enhancers but that is in theory.

2. spam skill one. It wont happen. You need to dodge/kite/cc/what ever If its max dps you want you should be swapping weapons every 10th second, even if staff is your secondary weapon. The third (3) thing is that you cant use any other weapon since the dps increase is tied to one skill on one weapon. This is what i call suboptimizing.
Hey i got great dps on stationary targets, spamming skill one and never swap!! Why not achieve the same thing by using two weapons and play with cooldowns?

Elusive power is useless in pve but can be rather nice in pvp and here the hammer benefits more that other weapons since it has a short cd on mb so you can jump back in. But in pve you have failed in your roll as dps if you need to dodge. The whole idea with a zerker set up is to not have aggro or at least share it equally with your team. If you have aggro 20% of the time (5 people in the team) and during that time has constantly less than 100% endurance you will gain 2% damage. First even with aggro 20% of the time you wont have 100% uptime on elusive power since lots of the damage can be negated by skills and positioning so its even less than 2%, if you are not running a tankish build.

Writ of persistence and elusive power is the same as suboptimizing. One requires stationary targets and no swapping and the second one requires you to loose dps in order to gain dps.

The only thing i do agree on is EM, its a great addition to have 2-4 stacks of might running on the team. If the range was a bit longer i would go for but as it is now it got too short range to get the team inside. Frankly is its dps we want i would go for 15 points in zeal to get vulnerability on symbols. 3-5% dps increase and no need for the team to be in distance from you is better.

OP asked for one build that would work for him in all aspects of the game. The build i provided to him do work in all aspects of the game while 25 points in honor as a dps enhancer just works in parts of the game and for a very specific weapon.