Guild Wars 2

Apply the 50% crit chance on the Earthshaker attack itself, or just the subsequent hits while they are stunned?

I’m having a hard time justifying this trait’s proclaimed usefulness since I only get like 2-3 hits after an earthshaker, less if opponent stunbreaks immediately afterward, over something more all-around useful like swiftness on crits.

And this is on the sPvP end; I can see UF having more merit when you have a WvW hammer train going and can more easily combo it off other people’s stuns as well.

Edit: For a post-patch build as well with 20 in Arms.

Earthshaker gets the 50% crit bonus from UF since the stun is applied before the damage. The same applies to Merciless Hammer, which gives Earthshaker a 20% damage boost whereas other hammer skills do not get the bonus unless the target is already disabled (KD/KB is applied after the damage).

Edit: The merits of UF are as follows:
1) Shield bash + Eviscerate for guaranteed crits with Berserker amulet.
2) Skull crack + 100b for guaranteed crits on every hit (deadly).
3) Usual hammer chains
4) Shield bash + Final Thrust for similar effects to eviscerate combo.

As you can see, UF has more uses than just for hammer.

Cool, thanks. I haven’t tried some of those other combos yet….