Guild Wars 2

So even though I have barely set foot into wvw since the HoT launch, I still wanted to come up with what my go to build will be. I previously mained a AH frontline guardian, and love being at the front of the zerg leading the charge. I think that the Rev can excel at all three of the major “placements” in wvw. A shiro/glint will make an obviously good roamer even with the lack of stealth. I also think that a shiro/glint wielding hammer will make a solid backliner. What I wanted to come up with was a frontliner so here we go! (NOTE: ignore the gear portion.)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQJASmn3gWNSuQrJRboBlsP0fS4I6QJ4EdrklZlhNma2RNgEewe6r3G-TBRQwAbU+BY/Bsq/oSJYAgDAnf+5nf+597v/+7v/WKgImaB-e

Glint/Jalis hammer/staff/sword+shield

So herald is being brought for obvious reason, but let me elaborate on why Jalis.

1. Vengeful hammers provide you a ton of upkeep and you get more healing the more mobs you are fighting, this couples with Hardening Persistence and Dwarven Battle Training for aoe weakness and more toughness as well.

2. Soothing Stone: Jalis has, imo, one of the better heals and access to some decent condi removal as well.

3. Inspiring Reinforcement: every push needs group stability and this is how we give it. Also it being a lightning field means it can be used for blasting swiftness, not that we need that much ourselves with herald.

4. Rite of the Great Dwarf: I don’t even think I need to explain this one.

TRAITS:

Rolling Mists vs. Shrouding Mists: I’m on the fence for now. I think I’d rather have the dps.

Herald GM: Depends on what weapons you are using. I like the boon damage buff, but you can make a solid case for any of these three. Still up in the air for me.

WEAPONS:
Hammer: self explanatory, but make sure you try and get a little out front of your pack with hammer 4.

Sword/shield: Solid damage, strong survivability, and boon buffs if running the GM trait.

Staff: Ok so I haven’t actually tried it yet, but on paper it seems like it would be pretty solid in a large group.

RUNES:
I’ll probably use Pack or Hoelbrak.

Anyway this is kinda what I’m thinking. Feedback is welcome.

May be i don’t know something, but hammers even at pvp with 1.2k healing is ~ 60 hp per hit with -7 energy regen. It’s really low, not against 5+ mobs.

I can see some benefits to Jalis, but sadly I think Shiro is the go to front line legend right now.

Inspiring Reinforcement only serves to show the enemy the best spot to put their AoEs. They’re going to apply cc and damage on that spot if people are standing there much faster than the stability is going to pulse.

Shiro + Unwavering Avoidance + Enhanced Bulwark means 2 stacks of Stability whenever you dodge and you get the Shiro shadowstep and stunbreak that also wipes out impairing conditions and gives you endurance for more stability.

I’ve also never had any luck playing front-line full ‘Zerker, but to each they’re own on the gear front. I have liked Hoelbrak runes so far.

Dwarven Battle Training hits one person with a 10 second ICD.

All others traits more useless ,than battle training…
It’s main dwarf tree problem: good last passive, good mandatory passives and bad others…

I really like jalis as well. My only frustration with him are the high energy costs. You can forget ever casting right of the great dwarf.

Xernth.8561:

I can see some benefits to Jalis, but sadly I think Shiro is the go to front line legend right now.

Inspiring Reinforcement only serves to show the enemy the best spot to put their AoEs. They’re going to apply cc and damage on that spot if people are standing there much faster than the stability is going to pulse.

Shiro + Unwavering Avoidance + Enhanced Bulwark means 2 stacks of Stability whenever you dodge and you get the Shiro shadowstep and stunbreak that also wipes out impairing conditions and gives you endurance for more stability.

I’ve also never had any luck playing front-line full ‘Zerker, but to each they’re own on the gear front. I have liked Hoelbrak runes so far.

Dwarven Battle Training hits one person with a 10 second ICD.

The gear is just something I did not change from a previous build i edited over. I would probably run a combo of soldiers and valk.

You may be right about Shiro, but I think Jalis would still be pretty solid. I also don’t think that IR is going to be a red flag for the enemy, because i doubt it will appear like a road to them with how AOE looks when there is a lot of it plus the number of bodies. Also you would drop it as the charge goes, not before hand.

That Said, I have not had the opportunity to test it.

Edit, also the downside to the shiro stab is that its only for you, not the group.

Kirk.3086:

May be i don’t know something, but hammers even at pvp with 1.2k healing is ~ 60 hp per hit with -7 energy regen. It’s really low, not against 5+ mobs.

I haven’t used it in pvp, but in pve I’m getting 58 hp per hit per enemy with no healing power. There is two hammers, so for easy math let’s just drop the healing to 50 hp per hit. That’s 100 per enemy, for 5 enemies that’s 500 hp aproximately every second that deals damage also. Go fight a pack of those pocket raptors in AB and you’ll see what I mean by how much healing you get. It’s not enough to keep you alive by itself, but its a solid supplement.

Think about demon. Mass resist not bad too (but dwarf for short busrt better).

This is my WvW Front Line build from BWE3

Like any front line character you need a group with a Guardian for Hold the Line’s stability. The dodge roll by itself won’t work because you have to preemptively dodge and that doesn’t work against instant Statics on top of your head.

Primarily run Darkness and Nature. Use Strength and Elements actives for AOE damage. Glint active can be used when you’re confident you won’t push people out of a range bomb. If you run into trouble such as low energy you can release Nature after Stabilities have been used, but should be kept on prior to it. This also gives full compliment of boons right before engagement usually.

Staff is the primary melee weapon. If commander leaps, use Surge to leap with them. Evade should see you through most things. Warding Rift if burst gets really bad and you need another CD when going in or getting out. Again, a lot of damage comes from Elements/Strength actives so mostly focus on those. Save Renewing Wave if possible to blast water during refreshes.

Hammer is primarily used for ranged harass or on engagement using CORuin like a shot gun. Field of the Mists is clutch for projectile negation when on the front. Phase Smash can be used to pop necro marks while evading.

Jalis is your “oh !@#$” legend if things went really bad on engagement. After switching, you should immediately do Rite of the Great Dwarf. This will immediately give you and your party -50% damage taken on top of anything else. After that you can heal for a pretty large heal and condi removal. Vengeful Hammers is also useful for damage reduction and tagging if you’re continuing on a second pass through the enemy. Inspiring Reinforcements sounds good, but honestly it’s just more damage cause you won’t be in it long enough to take advantage of Enhanced Bulwark’s good stability.

Trait wise few possibilities. I prefer Cruel Repercussion because you’ll notice on Hammer a lot of times CORuin will get blocked due to Guardian’s Aegis generation. This makes the next one hit like a freight train (make sure not to target anyone to not waste this on an auto attack). Radiant Revival I found a lot of success getting commanders up with because people like to pin snipe a lot. My build doesn’t require Hardening Persistance.

Stats wise we’ll end up with 60% crit, 205% crit damage, 2500 power, 3100 armor and 18k base HP which is more than enough to survive and deal tons of damage.

This build can be used in nearly any setting that requires high survivability yet strong damage. I’ve actually found myself enjoying it’s use in HOT quite a bit as well with a few modifications. If you are in WvW and can’t get a group with at least one Guardian in it (you usually need 1 Guardian to give you initial stab) then I play the same build as back line primarily using the Hammer instead of Staff and just farming bags with CORuin.

I also have some Youtube videos out there under WvW Front line game play as well.

Kodiak, sorry for the late response. I think I like your build better than my initial one. Based off of what you and some others have said i think the extra stab stack is a must.

I also like the flexibility of the build as far as being able to shift from front to back line with no loss of effectiveness. Thanks for the very detailed response!

I wouldn’t use hammer in a front line build if I were you.

The fact that the weapon does not cleave makes it subpar for that role alone. It has 1200 range too… why not use it RANGED and not take damage. The attacks on hammer are all slow long range nukes. The weapon can be used melee range but its just beyond mediocre

EDIT: Hammer #3 basically roots you too, since it brings you back to your positioning after its casted. 9 times out of 10 If the pin moved your probably going to find yourself in a kittenty position after the cast since the damage is going where your frontline just was.

TBH Outside of boon duration increase, a really kittenty stab and a weak targetted heal on shield #4 Revs provide no sort of group sustain. They have no reason to be frontline. They work best as backline in large scale, and best as pick in smaller scale.

That’s assuming you’re not running ventari or some crazy kitten

The hammer is for the ranged option. Up close you’d use staff or sword/shield. I agree Rev can succeed quite nicely as a backliner, but I think they perform well up front as well.

Just go full yolo berserker, locate yourself somewhere behind the meat shields and spam Hammer #2. Success and 12k damage per hit guaranteed.

NP Garimeth.

JayAction.9056:

I wouldn’t use hammer in a front line build if I were you.

The fact that the weapon does not cleave makes it subpar for that role alone. It has 1200 range too… why not use it RANGED and not take damage. The attacks on hammer are all slow long range nukes. The weapon can be used melee range but its just beyond mediocre

Ignoring the fact that we would want to use Staff alongside Hammer to give us cleave, defense and leap the Hammer itself has arguably the best cleave in the game. The reason for this is because of the way CORuin works.

CORuin is 3 forward blasts each of which is capable of hitting 5 targets. That means 15 potential targets with a single ability cast on a 2 second recast. This is in addition to the fact that it’s a ground based attack which means it can’t be reflected similar to a Guardian’s Staff spam attack only with less wide area and far greater distance. When lined up correctly, and the ground not working against you, it’s capable of some tremendous damage per cast.

But, as I said previously, this is more of a stand off scenario weapon. For example if you’re going to feint it makes no sense sitting there with a staff in your hand with no ability to do anything. If your commander isn’t going to commit to pushing the enemy the hammer gives you the ability to absorb projectiles 50% of the time as well as heavy ranged nuke support from the front. However upon engagement it’s likely you’ll want to drop Hammer for Staff (for the leap alone to stay on tag) unless you’re just one pushing them and then the CORuin damage is far superior even up front than Staff can dish out.

Other weapon combos are, generally speaking, inferior. I gave both Mace and Sword a lot of tries (seen in my vids). Mace had a lot of potential cause of the triple blast finisher, but the way it’s done (blast > blast > blast – rather than all 3 in one spot) it makes it hard to aim with the leap and largely impractical short ranged weapon. Sword, while great cleave, offers really nothing else as the Axe and Shield are largely useless in a larger setting compared to Staff. While Mace did have some short ranged attacks, neither option really compared to Hammer during ranged stand off scenarios leaving you to sit there largely useless.

Garimeth.8725:

Kirk.3086:

May be i don’t know something, but hammers even at pvp with 1.2k healing is ~ 60 hp per hit with -7 energy regen. It’s really low, not against 5+ mobs.

I haven’t used it in pvp, but in pve I’m getting 58 hp per hit per enemy with no healing power. There is two hammers, so for easy math let’s just drop the healing to 50 hp per hit. That’s 100 per enemy, for 5 enemies that’s 500 hp aproximately every second that deals damage also. Go fight a pack of those pocket raptors in AB and you’ll see what I mean by how much healing you get. It’s not enough to keep you alive by itself, but its a solid supplement.

The healing scaling on Vengeful Hammers is almost non-existant – it will heal around 58-64 regardless of healing power. That said, each hit on vulnerable targets will proc Focused Siphoning in Devastation trait line, giving even more healing and damage. I put sigil of frailty on my weapon and the sustain from hammers gets pretty crazy.

Rym.1469:

Just go full yolo berserker, locate yourself somewhere behind the meat shields and spam Hammer #2. Success and 12k damage per hit guaranteed.

I mean sure that’s an option, but as indicated in my OP, I previously mained an AH guard front liner, and I like being up front with the charge, hell eventually I plan on buying my tag and being a pug commander, sometimes I do it WITHOUT the tag. I just like being up front. I forsee alot of revs being backline or roaming, but I wanted to do front line and figured I’d theory up a build and get some feedback on it.

That said, if you look at my original build and Kodiak’s they are very similar, so I’m actually rather pleased with myself for coming up with a build and set up that is so similar without really having a chance to test it myself yet.

Also, I agree with Kodiak – in wvw I think you want staff not s/s. You’r big dps is going to come from hammer anyway, and Jalis/staff give you that extra bit of sustain needed to hang up front and give your front line some tasty dps buffs.

I’ve been trying Dismantle Fortifications a lot and I really want to like this trait, but I can’t yet tell if it makes a difference or not. Do you think it would be useful for front-lining to help with stability stripping? If you also traited Salvation and then used an AoE CC elite (e.g. Jade Winds or Release Chaos), you could theoretically strip up to 4 stacks of stability at at time.

So I’ve been running this, which is similar, but a little different:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXin3geNSuQvJRboHlsP0kS4I6SJ4EtrklZlhNmb+RNgCawe6q/G

More focused on damage reduction and control reduction, especially with the extra stab-stacks.

It’s been working ok in limited environments. I wonder about replacing Hammer with Mace/Sword or Mace/Shield, and whether Mallyx would be a better option than one of my existing elites.

I’m struggling to figure out the ‘engagement’ rotation… Glint heal, Glint elite, swap to dwarf, RotGD, Staff3 works ok so far… Damage inversion, enemy control/superspeed, 50% damage reduction then some temporary ‘immunity’ doesn’t hurt.

My only problem with the dwarf is the hammer utility. It cancels itself in every second. You need perfectly flat battlefield to use it…

That’s primarily why I don’t use it over putting my energy into Rite of the Great Dwarf instead. Trying to run Hammers consistently, as you say, doesn’t work because of hills, walls, stairs…hell running through doors you break down cancels it lol.

Kodiak.3281:

That’s primarily why I don’t use it over putting my energy into Rite of the Great Dwarf instead. Trying to run Hammers consistently, as you say, doesn’t work because of hills, walls, stairs…hell running through doors you break down cancels it lol.

I’ve been skipping hammer as well, except during regroups when it’s fun to play with the spell effects.

In dwarf, I usually just use Inspiring Reinforcement in the direction I want to head, Rite of the Great Dwarf, and the heal if I get overloaded with condis. Once all three of those have been used and my energy is low, it’s back to glint for protection and regen.