The main complaint with the 100b build besides the pathing issues with movement skills and its predictability, is the fact that is extremely fragile due to the low toughness (and its low condition removal). So i figured i’d try and make a 100b build with high toughness and minimal loss in damage.
I came up with two builds, one offensive and one more defensive, but both use the valkyrie amulet. The main trick to both of these is that they are more situational, and thus require a higher skill level to be effective on. Since this build uses the valkyrie amulet, it will have a much lower critical chance. To supplement this both builds will use eagle runes as well as rely heavily on fury and Discipline V. Another thing to note is the valkyrie amulet gives you a healing bonus as well, so your Healing Surge will be for about 9k at full adrenaline.
To make the most of this build, your main combo will come from shield bash, due to the stun. Both builds will use the arms trait IV, which is Unsuspecting Foe, which gives you extra critical hit chance vs stunned targets.
Your main combo will therefore be frenzy -> shield bash -> 100B since when the target is stunned, you will have around a 75% chance to crit which is on par with glass cannon 100b builds. One thing to note is that the stun on the shield with sigil of paralyzation lasts 2 seconds, and a frenzy 100b is around 1.75 or so, so you have to be relatively quick if you want to get the full combo off without them evading at the end
Your secondary combo, the regular bulls charge -> 100b will still be decent, its just your crit chance will be sitting at around 50%, so it wont do as much damage. I use it mostly to bait out stun breaks, since most people will usually hit their stun breaker when they get bulls charged and will almost always hit it when they get the 100b; you dont have to frenzy, and its best not to since you need it for the shield bash. One thing to note is that without fury your critical chance will be very low, so you have to be smart with your sig of rage.
So anyways, here are the builds, and below i have some graphs showing you how much damage you will lose, and how much damage you will mitigate, compared to a standard high damage glass cannon 100b build. With both of these builds, your armor will be around 3000, for reference a normal 100b build is around 2100 armor or so.
Offensive Build This build is closer to a standard 100b build, but with the valkyrie amulet instead of the berserker’s.
Valkyrie Amulet
Runes: 5 eagle, 1 divinity
Sigils: Greatsword rage. Axe+Shield int, paralyzation
Strength 20 (V, IX)
Arms 20 (IV, VI/X)
Discipline 30 (V, VII/VI/VIII, X)
Utility: BC, Frenzy, FGJ/Balance Stance/Endure Pain depending on the situation; FGJ is nice for fury upkeep, since fury is vital for this build.
Sig of rage
Healing Surge
Defensive Build
Valkyrie Amulet
Runes: 5 eagle, 1 divinity
Sigils: Greatsword rage. Axe+Shield int, paralyzation
Utility: BC, Frenzy, FGJ/Balance Stance/Endure Pain depending on the situation; endure pain and balance stance are better for this defensive build due to the Sure Footed trait.
Sig of rage
Healing Surge
Strength 10 (V)
Arms 10 (IV)
Defense 30 (III, VIII, XI)
Discipline 20 (V, VII/VI/VIII)
As you can see this defensive build does take a bit of a hit in damage, but the gain of endure pain and balance stance, and Sure Footed, as well as the 300 toughness helps mitigate that loss.
IMO, my favorite is the defensive build, due to the built in endure pain and balance stance, higher toughness, and stance duration. The damage loss isnt that bad.
Here are some graphs depicting the differences between the builds. Green is the standard high damage glass cannon 100b build, blue is my offensive build, and orange is my defensive build. Note that the 100b damage only includes the first 8 hits, and not the final strike. For the shield bash test (middle graph) take note of the ESD column, which shows your expected damage over multiple hits.
http://postimage.org/image/yh3kpxcp7/
Edit: Also, you dont necessarily even need bulls charge anymore, but i still find it useful, since it gives you another way to use your 100b combo.
Also the axe can be supplemented with the mace and its skull crack, so if you wanted to try that, you might be able to be less predictable, since you’d have shield bash, skull crack, and bulls charge, all to use your 100b with. Also they probably wouldnt know you need the stun to be most effective, so you could pretty easily bait out their stun breakers.