Guild Wars 2

I’ve been testing the newly added assassin’s amulet and together with strength runes (4/4/0/0/6 build), I do so much more damage than berserker’s due to increased bleeds from clones, ferocity/crit damage and sigil procs.
I felt that the amount of power you got with berserker’s was in a sort of soft cap anyway due to only 44% crit chance. With assassin’s amulet we get that up to 58% and crit damage to 207% from 193%. They also fixed shattered strength to work properly with IP (you don’t need to hit anything with your self-shatter to proc might) so that just makes it that much stronger. The downside to the amulet is that you lose around 3k health. Not a big deal in my opinion as long as you can prevent from being one shot by thieves.

I’ve been playing with it as well and have noticed a positive difference in damage output. You’ll see it in standard shatter where you can maintain around 6-10 stacks. I run an alternate more tanky 0/4/4/0/6 shatter with BI and the new MoD for more lockdown shatter. Fully decked 25 might is insane with sin amulet. The biggest thing about it to me is the mind wrack crit rate, but to your point I’ve definitely noticed a large increase in bleeds because of it, in addition to the IE fix (I use GS/Staff).

I’m pretty sure many higher tier mesmers already use strength runes (or traveler it seems). I personally use hoelbrak.

I’ll definitely be playing around a bit more with them, but ultimately may end up reverting back to zerker due to the vitality issue.

The damage is definitely there, esp if you take BI like skcamow said, but I am not sure about the uber low vitality =\ 1 backstab can kill you if they get procs as well

For me, going from 18k hp to 15k is quite a big deal, actually. I will try it out when the ennemy team has no thief though (or one).

The meta shatter does’nt do it for me. Tried it. & it’s ok but it’s not awsome. The only build that works well in spvp in my book is the PU condi or PU dps build. I’ve even added a little twist in it so it kills more efficiently. Keeping that for my self. ;P

Confirmed, assassins amulet is awesome. significant DPS increase.

Stupid question, but do you get the sin amulet from the new achievement boxes? If so, what one?

Now back to the awesome new amulet stats

rabidsmiles.5926:

Stupid question, but do you get the sin amulet from the new achievement boxes? If so, what one?

Now back to the awesome new amulet stats

You get the sin amulet in pvp by unlocking it with 10 gold in the amulet section of your PvP Build tab.

Str runes or Scholar, this decision just got so much tougher

Neptune.2570:

Str runes or Scholar, this decision just got so much tougher

Hoelbrak xD
You still get might duration, might proc on hit, power bonuses, plus some passive help with conditions. This is probably well known information, but the only difference between hoelbrak and strength is:

• An extra 5s might duration with hoelbrak on the 25% hit proc (didn’t realize this until recently).
• The 5% damage boost with strength when you have might.
• An extra 15% might duration with strength.

So really you’re only giving up the extra damage modifier and 15% might duration, and even then might probably won’t last that long in PvP. I just prefer the passive condition help.

Scholar – all ham, go kill stuff! Don’t see many people running this though.

skcamow.3527:

Neptune.2570:

Str runes or Scholar, this decision just got so much tougher

Hoelbrak xD
You still get might duration, might proc on hit, power bonuses, plus some passive help with conditions. This is probably well known information, but the only difference between hoelbrak and strength is:

• An extra 5s might duration with hoelbrak on the 25% hit proc (didn’t realize this until recently).
• The 5% damage boost with strength when you have might.
• An extra 15% might duration with strength.

So really you’re only giving up the extra damage modifier and 15% might duration, and even then might probably won’t last that long in PvP. I just prefer the passive condition help.

Scholar – all ham, go kill stuff! Don’t see many people running this though.

I didn’t know about the extra 5 seconds from hoelbrak either :o but when weighing the two up I personally think I’d take str (I have good communication with my teams bunker guard for condi clears).
I was using scholar pre patch and I imagine it would be even more effective of a playstyle with assassins. But str/hoelbrak looks mighty tasty with the extra might from IE/IP.