Guild Wars 2

I’m using my warrior mostly for WvW. In PvP I always prefer burst damage, as opposed to sustained DPS in dungeons. To that end I like to line up the biggest Eviscerate (and to a lesser extent Kill Shot) crits I possibly can, but I’m having trouble theorycrafting exactly how to do that. I haven’t been playing warrior that long so I’m a little out of my element.

Weapons wise, as a rule I prefer Axe/Shield and Rifle, or Longbow if I’m in a zerg. So the Dual Wielding trait is out of the question unless I want to pick up a mace at some point, which is an option. Dual Wielding aside, what combination would bring the biggest hit in one shot?

I’m running all Berserker everything, if it matters. I haven’t runed yet though.

1) Berserker Gear
2) Slot ruby orbs as they give the highest crit damage %
3) 30 points in Discipline for +30% crit damage
4) Banner of Discipline utility, for +15% crit damage
5) Axe Mastery for 10% axe damage
6) Berserker’s Power for +12% damage at full adrenaline. As far as I know, it applies the damage bonus before draining your adrenaline for the burst, but you want to make sure.
7) Crit chance/damage food.

Besides that, get as many might stacks on you as possible. It is possible to reach 100% crit chance from equipment/fury/traits/food/etc. The most effective method the Warrior has to build might is from the Greatsword trait that gives a stack of might on each crit (and if you crit 3 people with the same hit, you should get 3 stacks). A common technique is to use the GS’s HB/WW to rack up the might and then swap to the Axe for Evicerate, but this means losing the ranged weapon. It’s commonly done as part of PvE, but greatly limits your options in RvR.

For getting might, Signet of Rage will give you 5 and after that it’s pretty much either shouts, signets, combo fields or buffs from allies.

For a theorycrafted max hit only as the setup is unpractical…

Almost per Sami above:

I would use scholar runes for more base damage for a 2% crit damage trade off.
Trait only 25 into disc so you can go 25 into arms for 10% dam on bleed and 20str for axe mastery.

Sigils: +5% dam on axe, bloodlust on shield

Dump on my mark for 10 more stacks of vuln.

http://bit.ly/ZK1afb

Theoretically the above build with 25 bloodlust, standing in disc banner, food, 10+ vuln stacks, self buffed might (10stacks – 3 fgj+5 rage+2 weapon swap), you could get more if you tried) is ~3k power, ~+40% base damage for 6k attack excl vuln, 133% crit dam (assuming 10% from banner instead of sami’s listed 15%), would about be the highest evis crit build i can create.

Again its not practical for WvW due to its lack of any control or surival but it could cut someone in half if they stood still for you to do it.

In spvp i can buff myself to 20 stacks of might in a few seconds, excluding bloodlust. Might from blocking much more so. I dont know how WvW works so cant give you advice on gear/food/rings/whatever else adds buffs but it all depends on how much time you want to spend on preparing your high crit because if you never get to use it, whats the point. Super high crit used rarely vs high crit on demand is the issue.

I can’t really be of assistance in WvW but in sPvP I have tried evis specific builds before and they aren’t bad.

I’ll warn you though, if you have as much luck as me you’ll end up buffing to the point you have a 80-90% crit chance on evis and you’ll get 10 non crit evis hits in a row….. and I’m not lying or over exaggerating btw! It actually happened and it’s why I don;t use it in sPvP anymore lol

But if you aren’t as unlucky as me then I say it’s a good build and you should stick to it!… I just can’t really help you for WvW building though >.>

This is what I’ve got so far:

20/30/0/0/20

Berserker’s Power, Axe Mastery
Rending Strikes, Deep Cuts, Furious
Heightened Focus, Signet Mastery

Utilities are Healing Surge, FGJ! SIO! and Bull’s Charge with SoR elite.

All berserker everything, with Strength runes. Sadly I saw the post about using Rubies and getting higher crit damage AFTER I bought and socketed the runes, so… alas! That said though at least according to gw2buildcraft the effective power of both of those options is reasonably close with Rubies coming out a little ahead, so I’m not too worried – also, extra might duration is great.

Playing around with it in WvW I’m able to get 10k Eviscerate crits, solo. That’s pretty good but I’m wondering if I can push it even higher. I suspect I could with Rubies, but I don’t want to resocket so soon after making a big purchase like that. :[

I’m considering switching to 20/25/0/0/25 for Might on weapon swap as suggested by Pyles. Losing Furious wouldn’t be that big of a deal since I don’t seem to be having adrenaline problems.

I think 30/25/0/0/15 might be highest, especially since you can take both axe mastery and dual wielding:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/warrior/?8.0|7.1g.h2.9.1g.h1|0.0.0.0.0.0|1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e.1g.7e|2s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0.3s.0.2s.0|p5a.p35.0.0.k5a|39.1|5z.61.69.6e.6m|e

With a Axe/Shield, I suggest you take Unsuspecting Foe in the arms tree.

You will get 50% crit chance when they are stun, combo into eviscerate. The idea is to get eviscerate to crit 100% of the time so that you have a reliable high burst.

You already get another 10% crit chance for burst from arms major trait. You just need another 40% from elsewhere.

Frankly I don’t even really need Unsuspecting Foe because my crit chance is 93% with Fury up, which it is almost 100% of the time. I like having Rending Strikes because it bumps up my vuln applications which means I can usually have anywhere from 5-7 Vulnerability stacks at any given time with Cyclone Axe.

I like the idea of doing 30/25/0/0/15 though, I’m gonna try that next and see if losing all those adrenaline traits is worth it. GW2Buildcraft says I get a little more damage out of it.

Edit: Though if I do 30/25 I lose 3% critical chance, so maybe Unsuspecting is worth it after all!

I totally recommend taking Unsuspecting Foe or anything else you need to make sure your Bursts have 100% crit chance. Spare yourself the disappointment of a non-crit Eviscerate.

Actually I just double checked and I do have 100% burst crit, I forgot about the trait in Arms. So instead of Unsuspecting I think I’ll pick up Furious Reaction or somesuch for the Vigor, since that’s something I desperately need.