Guild Wars 2

For most of my solo PVE I’ve used GS and staff, and two-handed mastery has been awesome. Most GS dps comes from skills, so THM means 20% more dps.

So I’m just getting to level 80 and I’ve been doing some group content for the first time. GS+staff still seems to rock, and so I’m still using THM. However, from reading on the forums it appears that few people use Honor, and those who do use Empowering Might rather than THM for their Master-level trait.

What am I missing? Do people just not like GS, hammers, and staves? Or is THM not as good as it appears?

intently.4502:

Or is THM not as good as it appears?

This, u have your answer.
20% more DPS only if u´re not using autoattacks.

Where can u read that your DPS is 20% higher with Two-Handed Mastery?

Two-Handed Mastery reduces the CD of your skills or am I wrong?

With Empowering Might you increase the DPS of your whole group.
Nevertheless I also always can’t decide between these 2 traits. ;-)

Bamboocha.8129:

Where can u read that your DPS is 20% higher with Two-Handed Mastery?

Two-Handed Mastery reduces the CD of your skills or am I wrong?

It’s 20% reduction of CD and since he’s relating skills to DPS, it’s 20% higher because of the reduction.

It doesn’t quite work up that way because you gotta figure other factors in, but if you look at the CD alone, it sorta makes sense.

Empowering Might is preferred for a lot of reasons. The DPS it contributes to the party will quickly outstrip the DPS it gives you.

My solution (don’t know if it is correct!?):
solo content: Two-Handed Mastery
group content: Empowering Might

Well, EM seems like it could give at most 4 stacks of might even if you crit every hit, and the radius to affect teammates is only 240, which is the size of a large symbol. In most group fights I’ve done it seems like people run around a lot and don’t stand that close together. So, in actual play do you get more than 0-1 stacks of might on any given person other than yourself?

I see THM give +20% dps with GS especially because most of the GS damage comes from skills. So usually I will use all GS skills, switch to staff and use all those skills to damage and buff, and then switch back to GS and the cooldowns are done. Rinse and repeat.

This approach is very tolerant to errors by myself and my teammates and doesn’t require any coordination.