Guild Wars 2

I currently have a GS/Staff combo ankittenhinking of switching to a Hammer/GS combo because, frankly I just want to hit stuff. Currently I’m speced 0/0/30/30/10 and am in knight’s. I’m thinking of going 10/0/30/30/0 and going over to soldiers. Thoughts?

I can’t imagine why anyone would put points into Zeal. But that’s just me.

Full glass cannon build. Guardians can burst pretty hard

That’s at the expense of dying to a feather tho.

Oh and some spirit weapon builds require it. Other than that it’s generally a terrible terrible line.

Teamkiller.4315:

…That’s at the expense of dying to a feather tho….

Which is why I love this game, you can be glassy, but still live if you know how to play. I am full out dmg build, a bit of my own mix up and my death/kill ratio is pretty good when I do not consider myself that good of a player. And even had a thief call me tanky when he kept on trying and failing at taking me down, I did not have the heart to tell him I was a glass cannon build. There is allot more to surviving in this game than just pure number stats.

On a side note, I ran a hammer for a while, it was not to bad, but I found it to be very situational and if I was running hammer/GS I had no range and many classes would just kite me. It was also very slow, not that big of a deal in zergs, but I play on a lower tier because I enjoy smaller battles or even 1v1/1v2 fights, and always found the hammer to easy to get away from as the holding skills it has are slow casting and you can see from a mile away by a good player.

Hammer/GS is perfect with meditations. ^^

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I can’t imagine why anyone would put points into Zeal. But that’s just me.

You’re joking, right? Ten points in zeal is bog standard for any damage build. Fiery Wrath is a massive damage boost.

Five points in Virtues is extremely useful.

it’s just my opinion, but i don’t like the hammer because of mobility issues.

mobility is king in wvw

Thanks for the input. I’ve been playing around with both myself and I’m actually pretty happy keeping the GS/Staff combo and my current traits.

If you’re concerned about mobility, a 10/10/30/15/5 build w/ GS + S/F is absolutely the best roaming build I’ve found, for myself, to date.

This is also a solid build for Hammer / GS too: 10 stacks of Vuln (10%), 10% dmg on fire, dodge heal, Mediations and 5 in virtues. using it in combination w/ Knights + Sapphire Jewelry and zerker weapons, can make for some really strong play and I’ve done 1v3-4’s before.

As for the Zeal line, it does lack a bit. For the extra dmg it gives, I’m still on the fense as to weither or not the sacrifice for defense makes up for it….

Zeal is a decent tree… but the 5% xtra dmg and +26 healing is very lackluster for GS is, well…. don’t get me wrong, every little piece adds up, and when you take +26 healing per GS attack + Omnom Pie (or composte in zergs) + AH (or mediations) + Reslove… it can turn out to be around +550 hps…. which isn’t anything to scoff at…. so long as you’re hitting something and not being kited all over the place.

As to the OP’s specific question:

Soilder’s is ok, but add in a Knights Chest / Leggings. Soilder’s will kill your +crit.

As for the build… I’ve found this to work well, and I’ll just put it out there as it’s what I’ve been running lately:

10/5/30/20/5 — standard stuff

Soilders’s w/ Knights Chest/Leggings
Celestial Amulet
Zerker Back
Sapphire Rings/Earings
Zerker Weapons
Melandru Runes + Lemongrass Food
~Mediation Build~ (AH will work).

It’s a solid build, I’ve found. It works in zergs and it works in small roaming.

The build you can run whatever, it is not dependent on the other… The gear makes for nice stats and the -65% condition duration removal is incredible. I love it.

Actually, soldiers is not that bad. Just use it in conjunction with knights or zerker. I use 6 pieces of soldiers in my gear with zerker weaps and 6 ascended zerker jewelry. My stats right now are about:

3200 attack
44% crit
2700-2800 armor (cant remember on top of my head)
18 or 19k health
83% crit damage (93% with crit food)

I run GS/staff with standard AH build. This is unbuffed afaik.. Cant login right now to check facts. I usually play in a guild strike team of 15-20 ppl per session, we wipe 60+ zergs and survive very well

I suppoos if you are a roamer, meditations works even better then the standard AH build.

Hope this helps

Zackie.8923:

it’s just my opinion, but i don’t like the hammer because of mobility issues.

mobility is king in wvw

Hammer’s kitten good at controling enemy mobility, which is just as good. A good hammer #3 or ring of warding works wonders with getting free hits in, or forcing your opponents to use dodge rolls and/or utilites to avoid them.

Tried it and don’t like hammer for 2 big reasons.

1. Hammer has many slow heavy hitting skills (Mighty Blow). If they don’t crit often or plain out miss, you can find you lack decent damage output.

2. Blinds wreck the hammer so badly it will make you cry. I found the greatsword offers much more benefits due to weaker but quicker skills that allow for consistent crits. The only downside being retal, but after the pve nerf it isn’t really an issue.

3. (Personal Preference) Blowout should hit up to 3 targets like and other basic attack. That would really help the hammer out in terms of ZvZ.

I would suggest a gs/sw&f build that utilizes heavy blind spam while staying in your enemies face very well. I personally run gs/sc&f because I fin some ranged is essential in wvw and the immob is pretty awesome for setting up burst with the gs.

For WvW I think Staff is pretty much a given – it just has too much upside and no downside.

I usually go with Hammer as secondary since it has some nice damage, good symbol, won’t get you killed if someone uses Retaliation, and because Banishing someone off the edge of a cliff or in the JP is pure lulz.

But yeah, it’s kind of slow – best in a crowd on enemies with cripple/daze. Start with Staff, finish with Hammer. Not good in low-numbers where you need mobility – under those conditions I stick with Staff until finishing move.

Sandra Martino.3870:

Actually, soldiers is not that bad. Just use it in conjunction with knights or zerker. I use 6 pieces of soldiers in my gear with zerker weaps and 6 ascended zerker jewelry. My stats right now are about:

3200 attack
44% crit
2700-2800 armor (cant remember on top of my head)
18 or 19k health
83% crit damage (93% with crit food)

I run GS/staff with standard AH build. This is unbuffed afaik.. Cant login right now to check facts. I usually play in a guild strike team of 15-20 ppl per session, we wipe 60+ zergs and survive very well

I suppoos if you are a roamer, meditations works even better then the standard AH build.

Hope this helps

It’s true, soilders isn’t bad. But if you’re wanting DPS you are then forced to go all zerker/knights in your jewelry. That’s all.

Yea i know, but i often come across people saying soldiers is some evil thing. While soldiers alone would indeed make your dps kitten, using it in combination with zerker it makes a perfect balance – like one achieved with full knights.

man, sometimes i wished i didn’t read so much, so that i don’t have to rebuild and rebuild again… i just kittening bought a knight’s ascended

now i have to go get a soldier’s