Question I keep asking myself is am I doing it wrong but not going into the defense line? I feel like Burst precision, Cracked shot, and the 30 in the bottom line are all pretty mandatory for what I want to do.
This trait could have been nice if…
they didn’t buff Intelligence sigil so much – it’s now 3 sure crits on swap.
Your same build could be better by switching ‘Fire’ sigil on rifle to it, and taking same ol ’bersker’s power’ instead of this trait.
(For a sure crit on Eviscerate you can just attack less then 3 time on the rifle to ‘save’ 1 hit after you weapon swap to axe)
I’ve been running an Axe / Shield / Rifle build for a week now, and have recently wondered whether going for the Burst Precision would indeed be interesting. I’ll try it in PVP soon, but for now here’s what works for me.
For the rifle, I use a combination of “Fear Me” and the sigil of intelligence. You swap weapons when in combat, use rifle #1 to bleed if needed, use fear if the opponent has no stability running, then use your rifle burst (the opponent might break stun, but not dodge or block).
For the axe, I use a combination of the shield bash (to stun), a sigil of paralyzation, (to gain a longer stun) and Unsuspecting Foe (to gain 50% critical chance on stunned foes). The shield bash and the burst must be done in very quick succession though.
In WvW, this build is quite efficient in roaming, has good defense and high damage, although its condition cleansing and mobility are somewhat lacking (fights must be short). In PVP, stats are lower and less balanced, so I have reallocated 5 points from Discipline (removing Warrior’s Sprint because maps are smaller) to Defense (for Last Stand, useful against controlling duelling classes).
To comment on the build itself: I believe that it is interesting and worth trying “as is”. I’d just consider exchanging Great Fortitude for Restorative Strength, to remove immobilization on heal and maintain acceptable mobility (if you take a burst on, you’re done). Also, maybe exchanging Soldier for Knight, as your critical hit chance is a bit low.
Note that you have no condition removal, only the condition duration reduction from the food, so going for Mending could be a good move, too. Or switching Ogre for Hoelbrak. Eventually, putting 20 points back in Defense could become necessary, but that needs testing (losing the Crack Shot and the Burst Mastery would hurt, though).
Thanks for the advice, I’ll look into that. If I do I might just go Axe and drop the rifle.
I have another question, Does burst precision proc every single strike of a burst skill (thinking sword)
Yes it does. It also procs every pulse of the aoe from lb. At least it did right after the patch. I tested this with sword/lb and both got a huge chain of crits. The AOE on lb can actually net you more potential damage because of the size of the aoe. It only pulses like 3 times though, but still it’s great aoe denial. It works with all of the aoe skills as far as I know, making every hit from them an auto crit.
Just tested again and yeah every single pulse from lb aoe will crit on all targets that it affects. I’m not sure if even intelligence can match that. It gives a potential 15 crits in a row.
Not saying it’s the best damage though.
Also makes every hit from hammer burst crit too, just like sword. My favorite test so far was crack shot, rifle burst. So many crits, I know it’s not really that usable, but still.
Thanks for the advice, I’ll look into that. If I do I might just go Axe and drop the rifle.
I have another question, Does burst precision proc every single strike of a burst skill (thinking sword)
Yes it does. It also procs every pulse of the aoe from lb. At least it did right after the patch. I tested this with sword/lb and both got a huge chain of crits. The AOE on lb can actually net you more potential damage because of the size of the aoe. It only pulses like 3 times though, but still it’s great aoe denial. It works with all of the aoe skills as far as I know, making every hit from them an auto crit.
Just tested again and yeah every single pulse from lb aoe will crit on all targets that it affects. I’m not sure if even intelligence can match that. It gives a potential 15 crits in a row.
Not saying it’s the best damage though.
Also makes every hit from hammer burst crit too, just like sword. My favorite test so far was crack shot, rifle burst. So many crits, I know it’s not really that usable, but still.
Wow that is powerful. I need to give more thoughts to this.
Anybody else have ideas for build that might utilize Sword or LB like this?
Thanks for the advice, I’ll look into that. If I do I might just go Axe and drop the rifle.
I have another question, Does burst precision proc every single strike of a burst skill (thinking sword)
Yes it does. It also procs every pulse of the aoe from lb. At least it did right after the patch. I tested this with sword/lb and both got a huge chain of crits. The AOE on lb can actually net you more potential damage because of the size of the aoe. It only pulses like 3 times though, but still it’s great aoe denial. It works with all of the aoe skills as far as I know, making every hit from them an auto crit.
Just tested again and yeah every single pulse from lb aoe will crit on all targets that it affects. I’m not sure if even intelligence can match that. It gives a potential 15 crits in a row.
Not saying it’s the best damage though.
Also makes every hit from hammer burst crit too, just like sword. My favorite test so far was crack shot, rifle burst. So many crits, I know it’s not really that usable, but still.
Wow that is powerful. I need to give more thoughts to this.
Anybody else have ideas for build that might utilize Sword or LB like this?
With the right glyphs/runes it makes it so that your longbow will crit every tic on the aoe. That will cause bleeding with the sigil of earth, maybe strength for the increases in might. You could also do nullification making your aoe crits remove boons/bleed/burn.
I still think it’s just too high in the tree to be useful for a condi build though. It does give you a huge amount of crits, and if you could say catch a group in a choke point it would be death most of the time, but that’s really situational.
