Guild Wars 2

I’ve been working on a few variations of the skull crack builds that are floating around and would appreciate some feedback.

Basically I wanted to find out if Axe can become an alternative to sword because eviscerate would be on half the cd of Final Thrust and you would hit like a below 50% FT on every hit. (It’s also slightly harder to dodge) The obvious trade-offs are that loss of mobility and control (cripples, immobilize, knockdown). However I find the damage increase makes up for that.

So the main setup is Ax/Sh and Ma/Ax. So far I’ve come up with a few variations depending on runes and traits. The first build has the perk that as long as you have fury up every hit on a stunned or dazed opponent is a guaranteed crit. While testing it I’ve noticed that Unsuspecting Foe works with the daze of Mace 3 as well. (Tested it on a dummy with fury up (50% crit chance) – every attack during the daze crits. Easiest way to check is using dual Strike. If Unsuspecting Foe wasn’t proccing you should get roughly half of them be non-crits. Instead when I tested it, both attacks did crit every single time.)

With this in mind here is the first variation.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQRAne5XjcOpwtQyQMxBAkirq6oQJqUPmzt4A-TwAA1CnIwRhjDHDOScs4MIYRwGhJCA

The ideal rotation would be:

Pommelbash (-> Dual Strike if you don’t have Fury up) -> Skullcrack -> Whirling Axe -> WS -> Shieldbash -> Cyclone Axe -> Eviscerate -> a few autoattacks to gain adrenaline till WS is back up -> Skullcrack -> Mace auto

I’m aware that most people think Ax oh is useless in PvP, in this scenario however it serves multiple purposes and thus I think it’s worth considering. With the combination of the crits and the stacks of vulnerability you apply you can get over 7k from whirlwind. It also fills up your Adrenaline bar and the vulnerability stacks remain long enough for eviscerate to hit even harder.

Thanks to the Sigil of Paralysation Pommelbash and Shieldbash give you a 2s window. So when you hit shield bash you can throw in Cylcone Axe to stack more vulnerability and then Eviscerate. After that you still have the Axe auto attack critting about half of the time, giving you decent damage and adrenaline gain until you swap back, to hit another skull crack.

The downsides of using 20 in arms and eagle runes is that you get less base damage and less survivability. In exchange you get the 100% crit chance on dazed/stunned opponents. I’ve tried it with Valkyrie runes as well to get higher Crit damage, but found that Soldier Ammy increases your survivability drastically and thus is the better option for me.

Now another version with more base damage and higher survivability, but with 13% less crit chance (-5 from 10 points less in Arms, -8 from not using precision runes), less crit damage and no vulnerability stacking is this one:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQRAne5XjcOpwtQyQMxBA0jrqarTBlUPmzt4A-TwAA1CnICSFkLITQygsBNIYRwGhJCA

Armored Attack actually gives you 89 power (94 with traited shield) which is a nice bonus. At the same time you can invest in defy pain for another 4 sec of invulnerability. The benefit of Hoelbrack runes are the additional might and obviously the condi reduction.

Alternatively you could go for Melandru for even more tankyness and survivability. (I haven’t tested this one yet):

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQRAne5XjcOpwtQyQMxBA0jrqarTBlUPmzt4A-TwAA1CnIMSZkzIjRSjsGNIYRwGhJCA

The traits that are essential imo are Unsuspecting Foe, Cleansing Ire, Axe Mastery and Burst Mastery. The optional ones are Defy Pain, Rending Strikes, Shield Mastery and Warriors Sprint.

If you prefer to run Signets instead of stances (bar endure pain which I think is essential, since it’s a melee only build), than Signet Mastery would spring to mind. You could also go Vigorous Focus, however I feel warriors sprint makes you much more mobile when SoR is on a 60 cd.

Shield master could be switched for Missile Deflection, Dogged March or even Sure Footed if you go all stances.

Defy Pain relies on the initial setup and would be an alternative to rending Strike (which seems the best option for the Arms master trait for me.)

In terms of utilities battle Standard would be an alternative if you run with an organised team instead of solo-queuing. In that case you might need another reliable source of fury though (Furious Reaction springs to mind). So far I’ve been going with Healing Surge, because you can gain Adrenaline fast enough to get the full heal in most cases, it might work better with Healing Signet if you go for Signet Mastery, but I’m not sure there.

In terms of Sigils, the Paralysation ones are mandatory imo, the Accuracy are there to achieve the 100% crit chance, it might be more beneficial to go for something else since 95% is still really high and the burst skills would be at 105% anyway due to Critical Bursts. (that is only on the first version of course). Maybe Sigil of Fire on Axe and Bloodlust on Mace would be better, or Minor Accuracy on version 2 and 3 as 25 stacks would bring give you back another 12% crit chance.

Anyways thanks for reading and I’m looking forward to your feedback.

PS: I’m aware that the sustained crit chance is not as high as above, but I have the ideal situation in mind, i.e. fury and dazed/stunned foe, because that’s where the build would be akittens best. In also chose this for ease of comparison.