Guild Wars 2

I have two variations I am trying to sort out and would love your constructive feedback on these two very similar builds. The objective is to use your 3 stuns, 2 knockdowns, 1 daze, and 1 knockback to interrupt your foe and cause 4 stacks of confusion for 8 seconds. The Master trait in Disc I chose was DoTE and I considered swapping Signet of Fury with Signet of Might to pierce with my CC.

1. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS5ejcOxutQ+OMRCEkCNkLMK+Bx7UQJUKmDAA-jkyAYLBZyCAVAmQAl8KiGbZsIas6HM15iq1nAejioVLDAzCA-w

2. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS5ejcOxutQ+OMxBE0DNkLqCjifQ8UKmDAA-jkyAYLBZyCAVAmQAl8KiGbZsIas6HM15iq1nAejioVLDAzCA-w

Build #1 - Unsuspecting Foe gives you 100% crit on Earthshaker and Skull Crush (which was buffed this patch) on top of a passive 5% crit bonus and a little more damage for confusion.

Build #2 - Cleansing Ire for more condition removal and toughness + 5% more power from toughness.

I need to test Superior Sigil of Paralyzation to confirm it still bugs out to give 1 second more on your stuns.

Your weaknesses? A highly mobile class will be able to get away from you due to the lack of charges and leaps. Warrior’s Sprint is very nice, comparable to the thieve’s Signet of Shadows so be mindful of that. Kiting classes will wear you down over time if they can escape your bull’s charge + your stun lock combo.

Distracting Strikes is counter-productive. You interrupt someone to confuse them, then they must use a skill, but you just interrupted them so they can’t use skills?

Its pretty easy to remove since your main source of damage is bleed/temporary confusion and you rely on RNG and your enemy not running stability.

It’s an interesting approach. The foe can either break stun and get hit by the confusion or they can wait out the stun and get mashed by crits.

Personally, I think the lack of movement is a dealbreaker but who knows…Confusion was nerfed in WvW/PvP so that could also be a strike to your main tactic. I never got a chance to play with Distracting Strikes but I’ve been contemplating it for a new Mace build.

Personally was going to go for Mace/? and Sword/? or Bow and make a hybrid build. Wish I had the g to fully try your build but modified for other weapons.

Leo G.4501:

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Personally, I think the lack of movement is a dealbreaker but who knows...Confusion was nerfed in WvW/PvP so that could also be a strike to your main tactic. I never got a chance to play with Distracting Strikes but I’ve been contemplating it for a new Mace build.

Movement is rough on this build but I haven’t had a lot of issues yet. Most thieves only use the SB for escaping. I’m still waiting on a range class to put me on my butt to start my rethinking process but haven’t had much trouble yet.

I still and probably will always have a problem with healway guardians and bunker eles but I was hoping the CC would allow me to chain an ele to death.

I was Axe/Shield + Hammer before for eviscerate burst and steady dps through axe auto attack. Haven’t tried the new version yet. This was the pre-patch build I had.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS3ejcOxutQ+OMxBE0DNkL2CjiiIIUKmD3A-jkyAYLBZyCAhBiKAn8KiGbZsIas6HM15iq1nAejioVLDAzCA-w

Daecollo.9578:

Distracting Strikes is counter-productive. You interrupt someone to confuse them, then they must use a skill, but you just interrupted them so they can’t use skills?

Its pretty easy to remove since your main source of damage is bleed/temporary confusion and you rely on RNG and your enemy not running stability.

Stability will have a big impact on this build for sure. I’ve had that trouble with boon heavy guardians. Usually, spacing out your interrupts will to keep confusion up was the plan with the option of a stun lock. I see your point of view how confusion would be useless if they can’t even attack back.

I can’t seem to find anything worth while in the Strength tree if Distracting Strikes is a bust. I will just miss that power boost. If it is, I might try http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAS8ejcOxutQ+OMRCEkCNkLOKUilQpYOcjUBxA-jkyAYLBZqCEZBgKAn8KiGbZsIas6HM15iq1nAejioVLDAzCA-w for heavy fury uptime on immobolizes + a leap.