Guild Wars 2

I am aiming for the mistforged mace after the tournament, also, as I have become older, swords become old and busted and maces become the new hotness to me.

Anyways, I am looking at using a mace for my warrior, preferably with a shield, but when I look at the skills you get from both I am not entirely impressed.

Give me opinions on what you think about main hand maces for warriors. Mace/shield? Mace/mace?

While not as popular as it was a few months ago, Mace/Shield + GS is an okay option.

I assume you’re talking about some sort of PvP/WvW mode? Anyway, I don’t like mace MH at all. Skullcrack is hard to get off any more and the damage from the rest of the skills isn’t great. For offhand, too, I prefer the shield.

All of this assumes WvW and sPvP:

I love the offhand shield. It’s great for burst avoidance, and you get a short range CC to help setup your big damage.

I like the idea of main hand mace (CC), and it has great damage modifiers on its skills, but I find the third attack in the chain too slow to be useful, and it completely lacks mobility, so it isn’t something I carry. Having stated my opinion, I’ve seen guys use it to great effect, and if it fits your style, it’s a good weapon.

yeah the assumption is WvW mainly, I don’t really so sPvP

You can always run skullcracker build. Bit meh now but its still definitely viable. (Especially in WvW where people dont know what a dodge key is) the build revolves around using the mace f1 (skullcracker) with a swap to GS while theyre stunned for 3 sec and using 100b. Unsuspecting foe is almost mandatory, as is cleansing ire. Forceful GS, and discipline for reduced burst CD are all good options for the rest of your traits. Build the gear as tanky or glassy as you like.

0/30/20/0/20 is one, 20/30/20/0/0 is another (no fast hands). Basically anything with a base of 0/20/20/0/0

Skullcrack warrior will probably rocket up to the #1 cheesiest build in WvW after the april 15th patch, so yeah making a mace build will probably be worth it.

Skullcrack→100b still works fine if you just pay attention what your opponent is doing.

Also Unsuspecting foe is not mandatory for it (ik carpboy said almost), but you can build it around a mix of knight/zerker/cavalier so you will still do some damage without needing to stun the enemy. My current skullcrack is 15,0,25,0,30 but ill most likely go to 0,10,30,0,30 after the patch and the “fix” of building momentum.

Ok so… what is 100b?

nvm i remembered 100 blades, it’s too early in the morning.

I like the idea of mace, but after using it in pve, pvp and wvw. I just find it frustratingly slow. The only skill I like is #3. The AA attack chain is hard to land (even in pve) with a lot of long pauses. The #2 can be good, when it lands after a block which isn’t as often as I like.

When I push an attack button, I like to see/hear the attack happen, and with mace, it just doesn’t. Perma weakness in nice in theory, but you mainly hit air by that time in the attack chain. Axe and sword MH are better choices IMO, but I hope they speed up maces.

There are so many trait set ups you can go with the Mace-main hand

20/0/30/0/20
10/0/30/0/30
0/20/30/0/20
0/25/25/0/20
0/30/20/0/20

etc....

I could give you all the pros and cons of each, but that would take a lot of time. So let me just talk about the mace in general.

In general, most people run with mace+shield/greatsword, which is probably the best setup you could go with. It has been nerfed in the past but it is still a decent build and deadly if played right. It tends to shine in small group roaming scenarios where you can easily take somebody out of the fight with your 3 second stun.

However it isn’t without its inherent weaknesses. The mace auto-attack chain is fairly slow. The #2, while decent if traited for reflect projectiles and blocking a major hit, you will rarely get off the counterattack although it hits hard. The #3 is OK. The F1 stun is fairly easy to dodge in my opinion and being kited can be an issue. Stability and lots of aegis and blocking, along with stealth and teleports can render this build fairly useless in certain situations. It can be easily countered because too much of this build is reliant on the mace stun. You play this build realizing that you will be countered by other classes like thieves, mesmers, engis, etc.

I think people have realized this and have moved away from this build, although you will see the odd warrior once in a while with this weapon set.

killahmayne.9518:

There are so many trait set ups you can go with the Mace-main hand

20/0/30/0/20
10/0/30/0/30
0/20/30/0/20
0/25/25/0/20
0/30/20/0/20

etc….

I could give you all the pros and cons of each, but that would take a lot of time. So let me just talk about the mace in general.

In general, most people run with mace+shield/greatsword, which is probably the best setup you could go with. It has been nerfed in the past but it is still a decent build and deadly if played right. It tends to shine in small group roaming scenarios where you can easily take somebody out of the fight with your 3 second stun.

However it isn’t without its inherent weaknesses. The mace auto-attack chain is fairly slow. The #2, while decent if traited for reflect projectiles and blocking a major hit, you will rarely get off the counterattack although it hits hard. The #3 is OK. The F1 stun is fairly easy to dodge in my opinion and being kited can be an issue. Stability and lots of aegis and blocking, along with stealth and teleports can render this build fairly useless in certain situations. It can be easily countered because too much of this build is reliant on the mace stun. You play this build realizing that you will be countered by other classes like thieves, mesmers, engis, etc.

I think people have realized this and have moved away from this build, although you will see the odd warrior once in a while with this weapon set.

See, your explanation basically just tells me that the main-hand mace is mainly just used as a set-up weapon and nothing more. The swing is too slow compared to the sword and the combo on the last hit is especially slow. My thing is that I want to actually bash some heads with the mace, I am seeing that isn’t really the case. I see 2-3 different traits for damage against weakened foes and increased mace damage, but it’s INCREDIBLY hard to get that 3rd mace attack to actually hit. I don’t think anet had every fight becoming so mobile as time went out, they figured everyone would bash each other with an occasional dodge. If anything it’s actually really hard to hit any mace skill without some sort of set up.

in pvp I use Mace/shield, Hammer plus physical utility skills exclusivly. I call it the knock knock joke build. Because you can continually cc y’r opponnent making them very annoyed