Guild Wars 2

(Posted this in the Hammer Time topic, but realized I really wanted some individual input on this build)

“Level 80 with full exotics and using Hammer as mainhand.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQNAS8elUgKDHFSLEm4EhlCAKQMFYE+XPo4EZIA
Prioritize Of the Knight gear (power/tough/precision) with runes and trinkets involvng a healthy mix of vit and more precision.

The point of the build is to crit. Although damage isn’t really the main point of the build, the nature of this beast means you WILL do damage.

With my current spec and gear set, 16.5k health, 2000 tough, 45 percent crit chance with hammer equipped. My 2 ability crits for 4k regularly, without added might buffs.

Think about it. Boons you give heal allies. You apply a boon on crit. You have 45 percent crit chance. Your number 2 ability has the radius of an atomic bomb, which means more things will be hit for a chance to proc a crit. In a dungeon, you will almost never die, even while face tanking most bosses.

The healing in this build is absurd. The crit damage afforded by valor is a HUGE bonus, as is the healing power and vitality provided by Honor.

I suggest everyone try this out. It really is a beast, and allows for some serious damage along with fantastic longevity.

(btw, the trait setup is for pvp. take the 90 toughness and replace with hammer trait. I run the shield trait in dungeons however for when I need that extra toughness in a pinch)"

So far, I have been able to run into full on zergs and stay alive while downing at least 2 people before my team runs in using this build but with these utilities.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQRApe8elUgKCXFSLEfIFS2DDMBXQbB1CueoQSEDB

Trash mobs in explorable mode are a joke, since the more there are, the more often I crit and the more healing I get. Bosses are a bit more difficult, but I still manage to facetank most of them with no problem by switching between blocks, blinds with sword/shield and VoJ, and dodges.

Suggestions, tweaks to the build?

Marthiarn.8107:

btw, the trait setup is for pvp. take the 90 toughness and replace with hammer trait.

Replace with what hammer trait? There is nothing in the Valor trait line that pertains to hammers.
I really like Altruistic Healing and it’s usefulness is immense, I just don’t know if it makes up for taking filler traits all the way there and losing out on genuinely useful stuff in other trait lines.

Syrek.3708:

Marthiarn.8107:

btw, the trait setup is for pvp. take the 90 toughness and replace with hammer trait.

Replace with what hammer trait? There is nothing in the Valor trait line that pertains to hammers.
I really like Altruistic Healing and it’s usefulness is immense, I just don’t know if it makes up for taking filler traits all the way there and losing out on genuinely useful stuff in other trait lines.

The website has not updated it, but a patch last week gave a new ability which gives hammers a 50 percent chance on crit to chill a target for 4 seconds (45 sec cd)

Not only that, but the line itself gives two stats that scale insanely well with the build.

Toughness is always nice, and with that naturally high toughness, the toughness into precision talent, and the added crit damage the line gives, it allows me to build tanky and with precision.

Doing this I can forego some power and still hit like a truck due to the high crit chance and high crit damage

Marthiarn.8107:

Syrek.3708:

Marthiarn.8107:

btw, the trait setup is for pvp. take the 90 toughness and replace with hammer trait.

Replace with what hammer trait? There is nothing in the Valor trait line that pertains to hammers.
I really like Altruistic Healing and it’s usefulness is immense, I just don’t know if it makes up for taking filler traits all the way there and losing out on genuinely useful stuff in other trait lines.

The website has not updated it, but a patch last week gave a new ability which gives hammers a 50 percent chance on crit to chill a target for 4 seconds (45 sec cd)

Right I forgot about that.
In it’s current implementation, while it’s better than nothing, it’s still pretty much garbage. I hope that they change it into something more useful along the line.

Actually when you use sigil of ice with glacial heart, it makes the trait pretty good.

Note that Empowering Might appears to have a 1s internal, unstated cooldown, so even if your Mighty Blow hits 5 enemies and crits on 3, you’ll only get 1 stack of Might (and thus 1 heal).

Aza:

I currently use sigil of ice on my hammer and sword and the one sigil that causes freeze on weapon change (forget the name atm) on my shield. Those in combination solve my ability to keep people in range in pvp.

Gulbrandr:
I am aware of the CD, the main point was that with so many aoe attacks and 45 percent crit, at least one of my attacks on every swing almost always crits, causing almost every swing to heal.

I also find that I am getting healed for every tic of the protection buff that i apply to allies who are in my symbol. I can literally stand and auttoattack a keep tower through almost anything if I choose to follow the zerg, while applying almost constant protection buff to attackers using the ram and hitting the doors

what runes do you use on the armor?

I can’t believe I failed to notice the synergy between Empowering Might and Altruistic Healing. Thank you for opening my eyes.

I wouldn’t use the hammer though, still quite lacking, considering that GS 1 skill does the job better and faster. (without even mentioning wearling or symbol)

Hammer is an awesome weapon, but for PvP, it has 3 skills with nearly no use in PvE.
The blast is awesome I agree, and works great in combo fields with it’s short CD, but it’s simply not enough to replace the GS.

All in all, thank you for making me think of a new build, and the build itself isn’t bad.

EDIT:
I can’t remember if the first trait in Virtues applies these boons to the whole team or not (I barely party). Anyone willing to shed some light on this?
If it does, then drop 5 off Radiance and dump it on Virtues instead, take Renewing focus instead for greater effect.

i’m wondering too. the boons, do they only affect the ones on me? or all parties that i’ve applied boons to?

assuming that it won’t affect boons applied by other party members on themselves.

mrsmiles.8943:

what runes do you use on the armor?

Right now, just runes of Divinity. However, I am working to get a full set of the inquisiter crit damage/precision/power gearset and pop in runes of the soldier for its tough/vit and seemingly amazing 6th set bonus, which makes all shouts remove a condition.

With it, I won’t have to really worry about wasting a utility slot to make sure I have a valid form of CD removal, and can then just run full shouts on shorter cd’s to make full use of Altruistic Healing.

I like the build but i think instead of going 20 Radiance, you could go 15 and spend the other 5points into inspired virtues (Virtues traits tree).
Inspired Virtues: Whenever you activate a virtue,it will buff everyone around you for ~6seconds with of one of the following boons might,regeneration or protection depending on the virtue which is quite significant i would say.

This means you will get 3-4extra heal ticks in addition to the other boons and with our elite skill Renewed Focus you can double that.
I think Virtue of courage will add 2 extra ticks since it adds 2 boons at once but i’m not sure about that.

Love the hammer builds, I geared pure tank and the damage doesn’t seem to be a problem. I can still down people 1v1 and I dish out a ton of reflection/retribution damage.

Gulbrandr.9047:

Note that Empowering Might appears to have a 1s internal, unstated cooldown, so even if your Mighty Blow hits 5 enemies and crits on 3, you’ll only get 1 stack of Might (and thus 1 heal).

The point is that for each might you apply you get >70 heals PER teammember you apply it to. Its a groupboon not for the guardian alone.

J
Just to clarify something about altruistic healing

Assume three allies inside the symbol and my build where AH heals for 73.

A hammer chain+symbol hits in total 6 times on a single target. Thats 3 crits (50% crit) generating 3*73. Total of 219hp from vigorous precision.
You get in average 3 hits from empowering might as well but those also hit the teammates and give you 219*3=657
The symbol generates 3 ticks of protection, with 3 allies inside that is 9*73 which in total is 657 hp.
And when you trigger retal you apply retal to 3 people once, which gives you 3*72=219
219+657+657+219=1752 heals to you.
With two allies:
219+438+438+146=1241
Soloplaying:
219+219+219+73=730
Sorry for any miscalculation, doing it on my iphone and adding in my head but the math shows that the more targets and allies the stronger altruistic healing becomes..
Im not saying those figures are 100% accurate, i have 700-1400 hp as a safe bet and then i know im well inside what the hammer actually produces. A parser would be really nice in these kinds of discussions but as of right now we have to settle for looking at clips to determine stuff.

Inspired Virtue would be better than Searing Flames.

I would, personally, swap your Shield trait for Purity.

Also, I’d drop Purging Flames for another Shout, since you’re traiting Shouts. This would be expecially beneficial with the Soldier rune 6 set bonus.

I discovered a similiar built a while ago ^.^
The only differendes are that I amde it 10/10/30/20/0 for the 10% more damage, when an enemy is burning. I really like that one ^.^ The built also works well with Power/vit/tough equip and knight jewelery… Depending on the situation I switch between a pow/vit/tough hammer and a berserker´s. I mean fully switch, not weapon switch x)

got 1900 pow, 40% / 34% crit (depending on hammer x) ), 1900 or 2000 Toughness and 17,5 or 16,2k hp…

Can almost tank everything with it XD

Question.
Trait Pure Voice: Allies affected by a shout convert one condition to a boon.
Does this convertion also apply a tick of healing, with Altruisting healing?

OneManArmy.5617:

Question.
Trait Pure Voice: Allies affected by a shout convert one condition to a boon.
Does this convertion also apply a tick of healing, with Altruisting healing?

Yes, note that it stacks with rune of the soldier so shouts remove two conditions on the team and give one boon back which heals the guardian. Once again, this is what i seen on my clips, a proper combatlog would answer 100% correct.

Virtues in the start of the fight, when conditions stack use your shouts, then pull renewed focus and reapply the virtues. All while hitting away with the hammer and giving protection and retaliation. Its a boon machine and great dps in the same package.

This is the build I am using and I really enjoy it so far in SPvP

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQNAS8elUgKDHFSLEm4EhlCAKQMFYE+XPo4EZIA

Will try tonight and report back. Looks fun!

@tobeyeus
may i suggest that you consider a switch from shield to focus, the blocks builds more might and also move points into virtues from radiance. In combinations with renewed focus you get 9 stacks of might and an additional 1-3 stacks from empowering might.

With sigil of intelligence you will hit for about 5k with mighty blow on swap with berserker.

And btw, even if you allready know it, you wont be able to burst as often with that build since it lacks 2h mastery and also lack synergy between combofield and finisher.

I’m torn between these two PvE builds for my hammer.
Both are focused on shouts and signets and boon healing like the op has.
(Secondary Staff is for might/heals/speed buffs only,but ignore that):

• A. 0/15/30/20/5:
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQJASWlYg67mFyIEmIFRuA7DEETBGh/1DK6QGC
  The above build is similar to the op but with 5points into virtues.

• B. 0/10/30/30/0 :
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fUEQJASWlYg67mFyIEm4EhVBCi9Ajw/jXPooDZIA
  This build is more flexible than the first one.
  You lose around 4.5-5% crit chance but gain more health and healing in return.
  Can swap at any time the 30Honor trait to either Pure of the Voice,Writ of the Merciful or Two Handed Mastery,depending on the situation.

Which do you guys think is overall more useful for Solo and group PvE?

Much thanks to Brutality for answering these questions while I am away. Our builds are quite similar, and we seem to share the same belief in the power of tough/precision/crit damage builds.

4/6 pieces on my CoE set with the berserker stats. Once I get 6/6 I will be testing how well rune of the soldier works with going a pure shout utility build.

I would pop the Rune of the Soldier on my armor right now, but my current exotic set had all pieces of divinity on it. Hard to justify overwriting them with runes of the soldier due to the cost of Divinity runes atm.

Not to say the build isn’t great, but wouldn’t a crit-heavy build work better on a weapon with more chances to attack? I think you could toss this on a GS/Sword combo and have better results, no?

But, while I abhor the Valor line I’m gonna give this a go in WvW this weekend. =)

@one man army
Both builds will work out just fine.

One thing though, personally i think inspired virtues should be in every build and i mean every build.

Look what you get for 5 points in virtues. 3 new boons!!!!

It has the same effect as if you have 4.5 skillslots for utility instead of 3 and use 1.5 extras shouts.

Imo this one is a part of the metagame. You just cant ignore using it using it, its just to good.

@Draeka.
Both yes and no but in general you are right.

But the thing is that hammer actually hits an awful lot of times. The chain hits 6 times, three times from the chain itself and 3 times from the symbol.

Then add in that both the symbol and mighty blow are “real” aoe which crits more often due to more targets in the area.

Last but not least, the gs symbol just produces one boon and it forces you to be stationary while placing it.

honestly the only time people use symbol of wrath is tagging targets and as a prestep to use binding blade, the effecive cd of symbol of wrath are is by binding blade imo.

Add the casting time of the gs symbol to the gs chain and then imagine that you are forced to stand still when executing step three.

So in short, the hammer actually hits very often.

Update:

Just about done with the Berserker set and rune build. After changing out a few pieces of jewelry, I managed to obtain 50 percent crit chance while keeping relatively the same amount of defensive stats (give or take a few stat points)

With that, I decided to drop 5 points from radiance, and put that in 5 for the virtues. I still sit at 45 percent crit chance now, and find the added boons very helpful.

Thanks for the builds, Marthiarn and Brutaly. Last night I gave the hammer a try again and I was surprised at how effective it is: not only in terms of sheer power, but also on killing speed. The fact that you can remain mobile during the chain (look for the backs of people) and that the finisher has a jump on it make battles engaging and with a lot of tactical options (yay, clever playing!).

The links to the builds don’t seem to be working, but if I undestand this correctly, the build should look something like this (0/15/30/20/5):

- 0: no power, but stack in gear (knight’s or berserker’s?)
- 15: Justice Is Blind and Renewed Justice are key to keep up momentum. Throw in Healer’s retribution or Blind Exposure depending on situation.
- 30: Altruistic Healing is the build’s ‘engine’, just needs constant boon application to keep it fueled. On the way there, Retributive Armor works wonders with knight’s and Glacial Heart for jaw-dropping of other players and more CC.
- 20: Again the ‘intermediate’ traits are better than the expensive ones. Vigorous Precision and Selfless Daring keep the thing going and you alive (twice at the press of a button!). Writ of Exaltation because bigger is better and the more the merrier and the icing of the cake lets you choose between Writ of Persistence, Empowering Might and Two-Handed Mastery depending on the situation.
- 5: Because inspiration is a boon and I hear two for the price of one (3 actually if you factor in the extra healing) is a good deal.

For maximum effect, Knight’s and Berserker’s gear. Slot/Accesorize to compensate for stats in armor/weapon.

Did I get this right? With so many synergies and pious names it can get really confusing. It is a shame that below lvl 60-70 for solo levelling it is not as effective (Hammer still awesome, though :P ). But I think I’ll give sPVP a go just to try this, even if I don’t find it paricularly compelling. On a side note, I propose this build to be dubbed “Pound of Valor” (PoV… see what I did there?) or “The Tenderizer”, just for kicks XD

Almost spot on, but i use signet mastery from radiance to get the heal up more often.

In valor i use purity and retributive armor, besides altruistic healing. Purity isnt that important in pve and can be swapped for something else as you also did.

And as you also pointed out in honor there are multiple choices. I go for writ of exaltation and 2h mastery.

mandatory traits in an altruistic build being:
Altrusistic healing
2h mastery
Vigorous precision
Inspired virtues.

in short, you got it.

PS test this one out as well, note that the runes and pure of voice stack, this is really nice in spvp.
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#1|0|3527|3410|3406|1311|3411|0|0|0|0|5|0|0|0|30|2281|2175|1395|30|866|1400|884|5|0|0|0|2|17|0|28044|28016|53498|53498|53498|53498|53498|25790|21080|0|0|0|0|

Thank you very much! I’ll try both of them tonight. I plan to make a working build out of this as soon as I ding 50… not sure if I’ll succeed, but I will try for sure

how well does this crit hammer build actually work in a dungeon?

extremely well. You just need to move and position yourself.

Dodge in middle of the chain, dodge out of reach and jump into the symbol and trigger retaliation and a couple of other stunts like keeping the team very close to you for boons on them and heals on you.

The gameplay is different from the other weapons but it definitely works very well once you get the hang of it and its a very active gameplay, you wont get bored..

right now i have a set of berserker and the vigil armor which is power/toughness/vitality which would be worth keeping/using?

scratch what i just said, so at this point is it knights over berserker? or a mix of the two?

I run a full set of Power/Vit/Tough with runes of the soldier. Using the hammer while traited for symbols and heals from buffing allies 0/0/30/30/10 pretty much breaks dungeon content. Signet of judement, Stand your ground, and hold the line for abilities. 43% damage mitigated 100% of the time, constant healing from symbol of protection and retaliation from blast finisher, heal yourself every time you use a virtue because of inspire virtue(virtue of justice = 15 heals), and 10 heals from both of your shouts which also double as aoe cleanse.

This spec will carry an entire party of bad players through any exp path that actually stays on land, and do it while almost never having to use the dodge mechanic.

Berserker, if you want all the benefits from altruistic healing, you need crits.

Vigil, until you get used to the playstyle the hammer demands.

Vigil, if you are against bosses that cant be positioned or outmanouvered.

So both.

I took my vigil set and transformed it onto my berserker since its one of the best looking set in the game, and bought me a knights set instead and use accessories for vit/pov.

So save both and get a feeling for things but play with the berserkerset as much as you can, you will do yourself a favor doing that.

Okay, so I tried to follow this build as best as I could as it seemed very similar to my current build only the build posted here gives much more utility to a group. However, when I equip my gear and with the new trait setup, i’m exponentially lower in all stats compared to OP. 39% crit, 1657 toughness, 1668 power, and 14.7k health. Not sure what went wrong, lol.

I changed all accesories to the Emerald prefix, which for armor would be “Knights” and I am now at 50% crit, 1907 toughness. However, my power fell to 1586 and health dropped to 12.8k. Not sure if the 300 toughness will make up for 2k health.

unless i missed something during all your posts have you mentioned what sigil you use for the hammer?

are you using knights or berserker for the hammer?

mostly sigil of energy in pve and sigil of intelligence in pvp, if the question was directed towards me.

What utility skills are you all running with this build?

Hammer #5!?
I’m overall loving my white-dmg/fire hammer build, but am constantly frustrated trying to use the number five skill effectively. It only casts while standing still, and it doesn’t root, so when I move too soon I get a self interrupt, and the victim gets away. My mobility is fine given my utilities (instant meditations ftw) but the time it takes to cast the #5 means that everyone has more than enough time to walk out outside.

I just would like to be able to cast it on the move like the #4 skill, also a long cast time but I can at least have a chance to land the launch.

Alside from some issues letting players teleport out of the ring, it’d be perfect if it was usable in dynamic combat. Particularly in sPvP.

@Pyrite, #5 Ring of Warding can be used well right after #3 Zealot’s Embrace or after your Glacial Heart chills your target. Most people don’t react fast enough to break out in time.

—

When I use hammer I usually do: Bane Signet + Judge’s Intervention > Ring of Warding > Mighty Blow > Banish > Zealot’s Embrace (Chain)

Most people won’t notice the Ring of Warding after being suddenly [female dog]slapped and they will run into the line which gives time for Mighty Blow, but sometimes I skip right to Banish. Ring of Warding acts like a wall for Banish, so Banish bascially becomes another knockdown.

If I’m feeling extra mean, I’ll bring along Hammer of Wisdom ;P

edit:

or: Zealot’s Embrace > Mighty Blow > Banish > [wait a sec for them to stop, use a heal skill, etc] > Bane Signet + Judge’s Intervention > Ring of Warding

Thank you for all this info!
Also Soldier rune for the gear I guess right?

to the OP. how exactly are you getting those kinds of stats? I’ve tried to get as much hp/prec as I can and got no where near 16.5k and crit chance.

Not neccessarily. Rune of the soldier does what i need, i need condition removers. Othe players might need more group boons and go for dwayna instead. Dwayna gives both regeneration to the team and ofc altruisitic healing AND regen to you.

Play around, find the hammersetup that suits you, and then invest in the expensive stuff, like superior sigils.

There are a lot of good stuff out there, soldier runes is right for me but it might be very bad for you.

I’m running a slight variation on this build with 34%+5% (superior sigil of accuracy) crit and 17k~ hp. Running a full Knight set with all Beryl accessories. I don’t have exact figures on hand, but it’s a good build and it revived my guardian for sure. Only thing I’m missing is a gap closer, unless I want to lose the only crap ranged alternative I have. Can’t chase people worth a kitten since Zealot’s embrace is so easy to evade.

Not sure if it’s just me, but the links to gw2skills aren’t working (weren’t yesterday either). Anyone got a version of this build on another site you can linky so I can take a look at this, sounds interesting!

yeah the site seems down atm.

head over here and read thru if you are interested in the crithammar concept (its not a build) that OP in this post also promotes.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Crithammer-one-way-of-playing-with-it/first#post308278

Its a wall of text and the reason for that is that its not only one build, its infact a concept which you can tweak and customize to your wanted playstyle/objecitve on the playing field.

its also a mix of gear and we are just beginning to discover what the crithammer is all about.

Brutaly is this build performing good when you don’t have many people around?
I might want to combine it with GS in such case, for the extra killing power.