Guild Wars 2

Alright so linked below is my current set up. I normal run in pug zergs that can range from just a few people to a big ball of folks, the only time I solo roam is when I am getting to where I need to go so I am not concerned with 1v1 effectiveness. Basically my goal is to be a front liner, charge in and wreak cc havoc with the hammer. I use hammer + sword/wh (for mobility + blast finisher). Right now I try to balance survivability and a little extra damage by mixing in berserker gear with my soldiers. What I want to know is if the little extra crit chance/damage is worth it or if I should just go for pure defense (especially since I am about to burn some laurels on ascended gear for my warrior). I could also use some advice on what weapon sigils to use, I am just using some I had already. Also which heal ability, I switch between the signet and surge and not sure which is better.
Edit: Had a wrong trait slotted in the build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBiYDbk0J5t5RGCHOggeohcRVoKMHpHiBakGA-jEzAoLBZCCEBCmQAk8AyeMasV2ioxqdwUlK16yA5xDk3YZ1yAwsAA-w

Thanks

BardaTheHobo.9752:

Alright so linked below is my current set up. I normal run in pug zergs that can range from just a few people to a big ball of folks, the only time I solo roam is when I am getting to where I need to go so I am not concerned with 1v1 effectiveness. Basically my goal is to be a front liner, charge in and wreak cc havoc with the hammer. I use hammer + sword/wh (for mobility + blast finisher). Right now I try to balance survivability and a little extra damage by mixing in berserker gear with my soldiers. What I want to know is if the little extra crit chance/damage is worth it or if I should just go for pure defense (especially since I am about to burn some laurels on ascended gear for my warrior). I could also use some advice on what weapon sigils to use, I am just using some I had already. Also which heal ability, I switch between the signet and surge and not sure which is better.
Edit: Had a wrong trait slotted in the build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNBiYDbk0J5t5RGCHOggeohcRVoKMHpHiBakGA-jEzAoLBZCCEBCmQAk8AyeMasV2ioxqdwUlK16yA5xDk3YZ1yAwsAA-w

Thanks

I like the shout/heal build with hammer and s/shield. I was going to suggest going mace/shield and hammer, but I didn’t notice you were running WvW. Warbanner is great for zerg buffing on-the-go and rezzing allies. I might suggest using longbow instead of sword/wh, because it offers more aoe capabilities and is more effective in WvW…though WH is
Take out Merciless Hammer for Last Stand. the chance you’ll be hitting stunned players in WvW zergs is slim.
I don’t personally know a whole lot when it comes to WvW, aside from stacking buffs on zergs (especially swiftness,) staying together for the most part…basic stuff like that. But I do know that zerker and defense don’t necessarily blend real well. If i were you, go defensive. Don’t worry about you being able to kill people. Plenty of other people in the zerg will rip your targets apart. All you have to do is land at least 1 aoe attack on a few enemies, watch your zerg down them and you get plenty of credit from it.
Switch out one of your utilities for Stomp if you want to stack a lot of aoe might. Firefield + F.G.J, Arc Arrow, EarthShaker, Warbanner = 15 stacks of might.
-Don’t just spam might buffs in a zerg.
-Maintaining 25 stax of might is difficult to do, but it’s easily accomplished with timing and even voice coms.
This is the best advice I got for ya.
(p.s. use healing surge rather than signet in WvW zergs, and if you have the money for it, id recommend getting the superior sigil of renewal (aoe heal on wep swap))

I would use surge over signet because you healing stat is only 300. If you stacked healing to 1500+it’d be a different story. As far as shout healing goes, you have to consider this: do i want to have that relatively meager amount of healing at some interval, or do k want to have those shout buffs at the most opportune time in battle? I’d go with the latter.

The build on my signature I consider to be extremely high DPS with high survivability for my playstyle , which may or may not work for you. Also, I have been theory crafting this build for a while and haven’t gotten a chance to run it yet, but on paper it looks great.

Hammer of God

Try one of these instead:

0/10/30/30/0 (better solo or in disorganized/pug zergs)

0/10/30/0/30 (better in organized guild groups with all the frontline guards and wars running Shout/Soldier Rune builds)

Some notes:

1. You get the optimum amount of stat points with Ascended gear by getting pieces with Crit Damage on them – Berserker, Berserker/Valkyrie, Cavalier. If you have any desire to fight in large zerg battles, Cavalier is best.

2. Merciless Hammer + Unsuspecting Foe is an awesome combo in WvW. The way stunning abilities work (Earthshaker, Shield Bash, Skull Crack), is they apply the stun first, then get any buffs that proc against stunned opponents, then apply their damage.

So as long as the target doesn’t have Stability or Invuln, then Earthshaker gets +50% Crit Chance and +25% damage. Backbreaker gets +25% damage (it’s not a stun so no UF).

Just watch enemy buffs and when Stability drops, Earthshaker into them for 3500-4000 damage to up to 5 players each (with the 0/10/30/0/30 Hammer Train build).

3. For zerging, aim for 25,000 Health, 3200 Armor, 2 stun breaks, and 2 Stabilities (Dolyak Signet + Balanced Stance is good). Put everything else into Power, Crit Damage, and Precision (or get Precision from traits like Unsuspecting Foe and Heightened Focus and Fury).

4. You can switch either of those builds to a roaming 1v1 build just by swapping the Sword/Horn to Mace/Shield, then you’ll have a WvW version of the sPvP Skull Cracker 3.0 build.

Thank you all for the responses, I have been running a 0/10/30/0/30 build with a mix of knight & Cavalier gear since yesterday and it seems good so far. CMstorm, I use a bow every now and then for keep defense/attack but usual unequipped for out in the open fights just becuase I need my leap escape from time to time heh. Also the stomp + firefield is interesting. Assassin x , that hammer build looks very deadly I will have to give it a try. As far the heal goes yes, I usually prefer surge I used healing signet twice so far but everyone seems to think it is great so I had to ask, ill just save it for my high healing CD build. Also on the shouts I just view the healing as a bonus I never use them for a quick heal unless im basically dead, I save them for condition cleansing usually and just see the healing as a added bonus. kurtosis those two builds are nice, I am currently running the second one and it is going smoothly, i might edit my gear a little bit though to get it closer stat wise, but not too much due to money. The first build I really want to try, just have to buy some of the Valk. armor to go with my PVT stuff. Also thanks for the heads up on the Ascended stuff, I only have ascended gear on my engineer so far (I only use laurels not really a fractals person) So I will keep that in mind. Also the UF trait is great I sometimes ran with it before, but now that I know it stuns then damages (thought it was the other way around) I will now always use it with hammers. Also with the mobile strikes I did not think it worked with earthshaker but now that I know it does I will not be able to live without it haha. Warrior is not my main so there is all these little things that I do not know that would have made quality of life so much better so thank you!

Thanks again guys

Hey Barda, I would encourage you to check out my build listed on intothemists. Here’s a link:

http://intothemists.com/guides/322-dreary_yews_hammerstorm_dps_warrior

For a short summary, your Earthshaker is going to be your primary source of damage. Since Earthshaker applies the stun BEFORE the damage is dealt, it benefits from traits such as Unsuspecting Foe (50% crit chance to stunned enemies) as well as Merciless Hammer (25% damage to disabled foes). My build focuses on PTV armor with Valkyrie weapons, and Valkyrie/Cavalier/Berserker trinkets just to attain the base 15% crit chance. With 15% base crit, the traits, and fury, you will have a 100% crit chance on Earthshaker, and you have 75%+ increased crit damage, all while maintaining 24k HP and nearly 3k armor, and that’s with my setup which only has one ascended trinket.

As for the swap I have listed, I run sword/horn just because it is so useful out of combat, but if you can switch fast enough, axe/shield will help much more in combat, though sitting on hammer 24/7 isn’t a problem. Just keep hitting F1