With the trait overhaul, I wanted to test the viability of a few ideas on Warrior:
-building around Shield Master
-building around Quickness as a boon
-building around Axe Mastery for adrenaline generation
-building around high DPS during a stun
My preliminary build used things like Shield Master, Mace/Sword + Axe/Shield, Sigil of Rage+Frenzy, Signet of Might and a few other non-optimal choices. After some tinkering, I settled on the following M/A+A/Sw build , to play towards the following combo:
Axe 4 -> (Signet of Fury if needed) -> Skull Crack -> Axe 5 -> Eviscerate -> Quickness Axe 1 to kill.
To function as a Skull Crack Axer, it hinges itself upon Axe Mastery, passive stances, Heightened Focus and Signet of Fury to play towards the combo (using Fury for a quick opener to kick-start the Axe 5/Axe 1 adrenaline loop).
The combo works beautifully… in a vacuum. In practice, the build suffers from three very common problems that, while it has some options to abate, it lacks the capacity to counter in any long-term fashion:
1) It is very easy to kite.
2) It is weak to condition bombs and blinds.
3) It is too reliant on Skull Crack for proper lock down.
For 1), the build may have two ranged attacks and two blocks, but it’s nowhere near enough to solve kiting problems in ways that a longbow would. I tried swapping out Axe/Sword for Rifle but Kill Shot is so laughably unreliable that it was nonsensical.
For 2), the build deals with conditions mainly via Berserker Stance and Healing Signet’s Resistance boon. It’s enough to get 16 seconds of freedom, but not much more… and again, a longbow would summarily solve the issue of blinds.
For 3), patience is usually enough to land that Skull Crack, especially if used with Axe 3(cripple) and Mace 3(daze), but its range is troublesome and you only get a real chance to land it once every 7.5 seconds (adrenaline is completely trivial in the build — you can use your burst skills at all times, refueling with Axe 5 and Axe 1).
In terms of improvements, I’m not seeing too many options left to tap into beyond swapping out multiple weapons or building around the typical Longbow+Axe/X. Shield Master was most useful versus Rangers, which were already easy to kill; Sigil of Rage and Frenzy were utterly superfluous and ate away at defensive options like Dogged March with Hoelbrak Rune.
The build is a stupid amount of fun and works plenty will in small-scale fights, and what it does do right it is doing amazingly so— drowning in adrenaline, outputting enough damage to kill in a stun, using Quickness to stomp, et al… but, it still doesn’t quite feel strong enough to be even a “Good” build for MetaBattle. I worry that its weaknesses make it too irrelevant for serious play.
Is there anything left to try with this build’s basic idea (4s Skull Crack -> massive damage)? Is the build viable as-is despite its flaws, assuming you play it as a team fight or +1 lock down build (similar to Hammer Guardian)? Is there anything to learn, or take away, or incorporate into another build from this one?
Thanks much for any and all future assistance.