Guild Wars 2

Hi all!

Been trying something different in WvW roaming. I am a big fan of hammer, just crafted Mjölnir. I also recently got lucky and found my first fractal weapon; the sword. This is what led me to design this build.

The build is a hybrid, the first one I found to work for me in WvW. My old attempts to a hybrid always lacked burst in my opinion. Burst is actually the selling point of this build, when it utilises Sigil of Intelligence on Hammer to put the hurt down.

The Leap of Faith;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAS8cjMdUGaVIOewJagjgC9p3BrgxA4mVmFfBA-T1TDABvpuivXAgHeAAtpZ4JlJVpEqLlCOv/Ac6A4UliFUCilSCAMBBxBBQijAAZAYGDA-w

Note that I use some gear that I ‘stumbled’ upon, like the dire ascended. These are just the stats I was aiming for and they seem to work.

Pro’s:
-Good mobility with Sword #2 and Hammer burst and constant 25% movement speed increase. Can opt to take Bull’s Rush for more mobility.
-97% movement condi reduction through Rune of Antitoxin+Lemongrass+Dogged March. 64% on all other conditions.
-Good pressure through various conditions; bleed, torment, confusion, poison all with 20% increased durations. 750 condition damage on swords with guard stacks. Goes up to 1100 easily with 10 stacks of might through runes and SoR.
-A surprisingly deadly burst rotation. Reach 2200 power on hammer with guard stacks in WvW, without might. Add ~200 crit damage, Merciless hammer+Sigil of impact (30% flat damage increase) and sigil of intelligence and you will end fights before your opponent knows what hit ’m. This combination defines the build.
-High base survivability; 25k HP (with guard stacks), 3150 armor. High weakness uptime from Hammer 2 also helps.
-OK condition cleansing through CI with both sword and hammer burst.
-Double stability rocks.
-It feels like hammer when every hit does 4k damage.

Cons:
-No longbow means less reliable cleanse and no burn.
-No burst Mastery, but I feel this build needs that triple cleanse when you do manage to hit with a full bar. Adrenaline production should not be a problem.
-Lacks the raw mobility of GS.
-Blind hurts.

Let me know what you guys think.

well i dun play WvW much nowadays but i think it is good.

No offense but I don’t think you would be able to defeat any skilled person with this setup out in the open unless you caught em on low hp. The only real burst that you have is final thrust on sword MH, because hammer is terrible for damage and only good for cc.

With your build, the only way I feel you could burst anyone down would be for superior sigil of intelligence to activate when swapping to sword rather than hammer, followed by a final thrust. You should not have that sigil on your hammer.

Purple Miku.7032:

No offense but I don’t think you would be able to defeat any skilled person with this setup out in the open unless you caught em on low hp. The only real burst that you have is final thrust on sword MH, because hammer is terrible for damage and only good for cc.

With your build, the only way I feel you could burst anyone down would be for superior sigil of intelligence to activate when swapping to *sword* rather than hammer, followed by a final thrust. You should not have that sigil on your hammer.

Wut.

Hammer does a lot of burst damage with merciless hammer and sigil of impact. Even with his build.

He can easily get a good combo off. Maybe a 3K Backbreaker, 2.5K Staggering Blow, 2K Earthshaker followed by a 3K Fierce Blow, if all four of these attack crit. He will be able to get off a decent 10K combo assuming all of these attacks hit.

For the sword burst to do a lot of damage he needs to get his enemy below 50%. Even then I don’t see him doing more than 6K on a decently armored target. It doesn’t make sense to waste a sigil of intelligence on the sword for one attack, especially when none of his hammer attacks crit which wouldn’t result in a hard hitting Final Thrust anyway.

But on to the build. It feels like with this build that you inevitably run into the same question that most hybrids run into. Why? Aside from being different, why run this as opposed to a full condi build, or a full power build. Does this build shine in a situation where a full power or a full condi wouldn’t? In what situations would it do so?

I feel like against a decent player in 99% of situations, it wouldn’t do better than a full condi or a full power type build.

I think if you possibly hybridized more (if that is a word), like maybe having 800 condition damage and could stack might better, I could see it as a really effective build. The reason why lb/axe warriors and d/d eles who go celestial actually are effective as opposed to other builds are because of their ability to keep up decent stacks of might. This build doesn’t really do that and I don’t really think your conditions would really hurt enough to make a big difference, you just might as well go full power at that point. Why hit for a 10K rotation with hammer + some crappy condition damage when you could go for a 17-18K+ rotation straight up and kill the person?

I also feel like Perplexity runes would be a better option than Antitoxin.

killahmayne.9518:

Purple Miku.7032:

No offense but I don’t think you would be able to defeat any skilled person with this setup out in the open unless you caught em on low hp. The only real burst that you have is final thrust on sword MH, because hammer is terrible for damage and only good for cc.

With your build, the only way I feel you could burst anyone down would be for superior sigil of intelligence to activate when swapping to sword rather than hammer, followed by a final thrust. You should not have that sigil on your hammer.

Wut.

Hammer does a lot of burst damage with merciless hammer and sigil of impact. Even with his build.

He can easily get a good combo off. Maybe a 3K Backbreaker, 2.5K Staggering Blow, 2K Earthshaker followed by a 3K Fierce Blow, if all four of these attack crit. He will be able to get off a decent 10K combo assuming all of these attacks hit.

I don’t know if you realize this but those numbers are pretty low if you put in a sigil and a trait to ’’increase’’ dps of hammer. I can do about 5k back breaker and fierce blow with 4.5ks on staggering and earthshaker. The auto hits from 2k to 4k and this is without the impact sigil and the trait. So you can tell there is no dps increase by wasting a trait slot and a sigil slot. Your target has to be CCed for those things to trigger and with all the stability and if your enemy isnt a kitten and can dodge the KDs you aren’t doing any more dmg than a person without that sigil and trait.

Mosharn.8357:

killahmayne.9518:

Purple Miku.7032:

No offense but I don’t think you would be able to defeat any skilled person with this setup out in the open unless you caught em on low hp. The only real burst that you have is final thrust on sword MH, because hammer is terrible for damage and only good for cc.

With your build, the only way I feel you could burst anyone down would be for superior sigil of intelligence to activate when swapping to *sword* rather than hammer, followed by a final thrust. You should not have that sigil on your hammer.

Wut.

Hammer does a lot of burst damage with merciless hammer and sigil of impact. Even with his build.

He can easily get a good combo off. Maybe a 3K Backbreaker, 2.5K Staggering Blow, 2K Earthshaker followed by a 3K Fierce Blow, if all four of these attack crit. He will be able to get off a decent 10K combo assuming all of these attacks hit.

I don’t know if you realize this but those numbers are pretty low if you put in a sigil and a trait to ’’increase’’ dps of hammer. I can do about 5k back breaker and fierce blow with 4.5ks on staggering and earthshaker. The auto hits from 2k to 4k and this is without the impact sigil and the trait. So you can tell there is no dps increase by wasting a trait slot and a sigil slot. Your target has to be CCed for those things to trigger and with all the stability and if your enemy isnt a kitten and can dodge the KDs you aren’t doing any more dmg than a person without that sigil and trait.

those numbers are against a decently armored target. I don’t count 2000 armour squishies. I’ve hit 5K backbreakers but that doesn’t mean I had a whole lot of damage.

killahmayne.9518:

Wut.

Hammer does a lot of burst damage with merciless hammer and sigil of impact. Even with his build.

He can easily get a good combo off. Maybe a 3K Backbreaker, 2.5K Staggering Blow, 2K Earthshaker followed by a 3K Fierce Blow, if all four of these attack crit. He will be able to get off a decent 10K combo assuming all of these attacks hit.

For the sword burst to do a lot of damage he needs to get his enemy below 50%. Even then I don’t see him doing more than 6K on a decently armored target. It doesn’t make sense to waste a sigil of intelligence on the sword for one attack, especially when none of his hammer attacks crit which wouldn’t result in a hard hitting Final Thrust anyway.

Pretty much agree with this. One sidenote, the numbers you mention on hammer have actually been higher. I also play a zerk/cavalier warrior with 2700 power and 200 crit damage, he crits for 5-6k during a hammer burst rotation. This build lacks 500 power, that doesn’t mean the damage gets halved. I usually get 3.5k-4.5k hits, unless it is the most defensive of enemies. I’ll get back to this.

killahmayne.9518:

But on to the build. It feels like with this build that you inevitably run into the same question that most hybrids run into. Why? Aside from being different, why run this as opposed to a full condi build, or a full power build. Does this build shine in a situation where a full power or a full condi wouldn’t? In what situations would it do so?

I feel like against a decent player in 99% of situations, it wouldn’t do better than a full condi or a full power type build.

It functions better then full power or condi when the opponent specs to outplay one of those builds. For instance, fighting other warriors (who usually spec a lot of stability), the hammer is less strong (as you no doubtedly know playing hammer/gs yourself). If they don’t pack significant condi clear, though, torment from sword 4 really eats them up. Not to mention doom.

I also seem to have an easier time dealing with bunkerish specs. Again, the conditions eat away at them, and if I manage to time an interrupt well that’s usually game. You could say this for a full power spec as well, but if I don’t manage to land the hammerstun, my conditions still apply pressure (and doom reduces healing).

I’d say the strength of this build, as with any hybrid, is that it always performs well, even if it is outperformed by full condi/power specs in certain situations.

killahmayne.9518:

I think if you possibly hybridized more (if that is a word), like maybe having 800 condition damage and could stack might better, I could see it as a really effective build. The reason why lb/axe warriors and d/d eles who go celestial actually are effective as opposed to other builds are because of their ability to keep up decent stacks of might. This build doesn’t really do that and I don’t really think your conditions would really hurt enough to make a big difference, you just might as well go full power at that point. Why hit for a 10K rotation with hammer + some crappy condition damage when you could go for a 17-18K+ rotation straight up and kill the person?

I also feel like Perplexity runes would be a better option than Antitoxin.

This is actually a real weakness of the build, it lacks might stacking. You can get to 10 somewhat reliably through SoR and runes, but those have medicore uptime. The trait in Strength helps against blockers though (warriors, guardians, mesmers, engineers). The realisation is that without longbow, a warrior will not be able to stack a lot of might.

However, I’ve had a blast (literally) when roaming with a D/D or longbow warrior friend of mine. You have a blast finisher and a leap, which can quickly get you up to 15-20 stacks along with their finishers. Also adds burn. In 2-man roaming, this build does incredibly well in my experience.

Again about the numbers, I can land a 11-14k rotation with hammer if all hits connect. They usually crit (or at least 3 of them) thanks to Intelligence. Also, this build allows you to mislead your opponent into thinking you are condition specced, only for them to realise that 65% of their HP is not enough to survive your rotation.

Perplexity would work well with this build, although I already feel it lacks a little mobility. Damagewise it would off course be better. I personally don’t like the nature of the runes, and I do not wish to spec more into conditions. The main damage source in this build is still power. I also feel that due to the rather high cooldowns on perplexity, a single cleanse would remove the confusion and I would still only be applying it through Distracting Strikes.

Thanks for the feedback though.

well done, a build posted on warrior forums i didn’t want to vomit upon reading.

i think you’ve covered all your bases pretty well. i think the only changes i’d make is swap warriors sprint for DoTE. your signet covers most of your incombat swiftness anyways. the other option is to take vigorous focus, since you lack any sort of vigor uptime.

i’d also swap doom sigil or impact for hydromancy sigil instead.

wads.5730:

well done, a build posted on warrior forums i didn’t want to vomit upon reading.

i think you’ve covered all your bases pretty well. i think the only changes i’d make is swap warriors sprint for DoTE. your signet covers most of your incombat swiftness anyways. the other option is to take vigorous focus, since you lack any sort of vigor uptime.

i’d also swap doom sigil or impact for hydromancy sigil instead.

Thanks for that! I don’t like vomit.

On DotE, I will try it again. Probably instead of Signet Mastery though. I really dislike being without extra movement speed when I go full melee.

Vigorous focus also seems like a good choice. Discipline is a good line in general. I do feel I always have dodges when i need ’m, through Sigil of Energy and building momentum (nerfed but still adds some endurance).

Hydro used to be my favorite thanks to the blind cleanse on swap, or the insta burst, or the help with escaping. I won’t need the blind cleanse as much though with BS, the burst on this build won’t match a power build anyway, and being able to escape or not with this build probably won’t change with hydro. Still, it’s cheap, so might as well give it a go. That’d be instead of doom definitely, all other sigils are irreplaceable the way I see it.

I kinda like it because its different. Its too much of an investment to try. Would be nice to see a video of it. I feel like outside of dueling its not very useful. I find that too limiting for a build that is as strange as this one. In the right hands I am sure its very good. I don’t feel that this is a versitile dueling build though good for some professions but not as versatile as a few other builds meaning better against more classes.

Nice post, Old build – you just missed to most important thing – Perplexity runes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsQbe_BPjmk
(not exact same as celest was worst back than)

@ warlord: I don’t think it is as good in roaming as my favorite gs hammer. It is definitely different though, and I do feel it has quite some punch and that surprising effect. Haven’t dueled a lot with it yet. I am getting a new rig soon, will make a vid then.

@ eiland: I don’t see how my build compares to that? A lot of different traits, runes, even the weapons differ for 75%… Also, that’s a condi build?