Thanks for your reply, Cygnus, it all makes sense. It’s a pity the rune isn’t available in pvp, would have loved to test it there, too.
As you mention Skull Grinder, a strong argument for the berserker version is that it brings more options than just trying to land a Skull Crack > 100b combo. Headbutt is another threat and Skull Grinder and Arcing Slice are also both worth using. But somehow that was also my problem with the build: what is priority in which situation? Probably didn’t play it long enough, but I just didn’t develop an intuitive playstyle. Can you go a bit more into detail here?
Nice one, Cygnus! Thanks for sharing that rune info, guess it will be used a lot now.
I was trying a Skullcracker berserker in pvp but felt like berserker didn’t really add to the build. Headbutt was just a less useful alternative setup for 100b on a longer CD than Skullcrack and with one or two more buttons in between the stun and 100b (tried both Savage Instinct and Smash Brawler where you need to use Outrage after Headbutt) .
In your build, berserker mainly adds low CD stun breaks and even a self stun to trigger RR. Did you also try a Strength/Defense/Discipline build with the same runes and Balanced Stance or Frenzy as replacement for Outrage? You could trigger RR only 2 times per minute but your burst damage would be a lot higher (plus damage on dodge).
Fought a warrior with the same weapon setup in PvP yesterday. He was extremely tough, I critted him for 2.5k only with Arc Divider in a burst damage build I ran for testing. Maybe Rabid amulet and Rousing Resilience? How would you run your build in PvP without Perplexity runes?
Some people use F2 to help increase energy drain to zero prior to swapping legends to Shiro.
Isn’t F2 the only reason to drain energy to zero prior to swapping?
The end result brings me to Defense + Discipline + Berserker. But for sPvP, I can’t justify substituting Berserker for Strength, because in the damage department, you lose out on the superior power option without Strength, and you lose valuable condi synergies without either Strength or Arms.
I’m not so sure that Berserker is really worse than Strength regarding pure power damage.
+30% damage from Stick and Move and Berserker’s Power + 10% damage (for GS only) + Might stacks from Restorative Strength (and GS crits)
vs.
+7% damage from Always Angry, +7% Ferocity and while in Berserk another +7% Ferocity, +10% damage from Bloody Roar (if taken) and +15% attack speed + Fury and Quickness (although relatively short durations)
Without doing the math I’d assume Strength is better if Berserker’s Power is up, but not when the burst misses. On the second weapon set Berserker may be better anyway.
Picking both Strength and Berserker makes it much easier to have Berserker’s Power constantly up due to bursts on short cooldowns and easier to land/longer range. Combine it with Defense to also make best use of CI and you have a pretty nice synergy. No Fast Hands though…
Thanks for the reply!
I’m not understanding how running down energy affects the cooldown of One with Nature, can you explain further?
You want to turn on facet of nature while in glint. You will want to run out of energy before swapping back to shiro so facet of nature turns off instead of you having to use one with nature making it so that you can’t use facet of nature for 25s. If you swap to Shiro before running out of glint energy facet of nature will still be on and you won’t be able to use impossible odds unless you use one with nature.
To run out of glint energy close to when shiro comes back up you activate all but the prot facet, sword3, axe4, and elemental blast (when you have around 4 energy left). You can use sword2 to help run out of energy if need be.
Running out the energy is no loss in dps and you get to have 50% boon uptime every time your in glint which is goal.
Does that also count for soloing or is there another approach when you only buff yourself?
Great guide, thanks for that and sticky please!
Cleansing Ire and 3s cooldown bursts sound like a good idea as well to constantly remove conditions. But again you have to give up either Strength or Discipline to get it and Last Stand is probably more useful anyway, especially with double EP.
Headbutt would solve the adrenaline issue pretty well if had better chances to actually land in PvP.
It’s only some days after the expansion, do you really think Anet could come up with a fundamental change to the class at this point? I see it as a huge boost to power build dps which is a quick response to “I don’t see a reason to play berserker, it does not add enough damage to pick it over another line.”
The damage modifiers added are huge. I haven’t done the math, but together with Ferocity, Fury, Quickness and the general speed boost in Berserker it’s probably not weaker than Strength.
I think this opens up new build options. You can drop Strength without a dramatical dps loss (especially in none-GS builds), you can drop Defense to greatly boost your damage instead and you can drop Discipline to have both huge dps and sustain at the cost of less flexibility and mobility.
Tried some berserker builds in PvP, failed hard due to a) no experience with the new builds of other classes and b) not being good with my own new build. Considered playing with my old build to learn what opponents do now, but what’s the point of buying an expansion when you don’t use it at all?
PvEing a revenant now to learn the class. First time I play a class other then warrior.
I love Rev hammer. I finally get to show off my Juggernaut that’s been collecting dust on my Guardian.
I love Rev hammer. I finally get to show off my Juggernaut that’s been collecting dust on my Warrior.
;)
And with the self-stun you can make great use of Rousing Resilience. The idea is good, it’s just a problem that you miss it too often and that RR can hardly be taken with Last Stand and CI as alternatives in that tier.
It totally depends on armour/health pool and ress speed of the ressing player. I’ve experienced both scenarios often.
Me too. Tried axe once after the patch in pvp and Eviscerate hit like a wet noodle. I switched back to mace and din’t think about it anymore. But reading this now I also assume there is some kind of bug because damage should be good according to tooltip.
Eviscerate was a threat before the patch, so now with the higher damage modifiers it should be even more so.
I see what you mean now, but Holl said “first fight” and there’s that 12k WW at 0:30 that cannot be anything else.
Hmm, I don’t see him acitivate any 100b there (ranger fight at 0:30). He’s using sword #2, swap, GS #3 (3 impacts for 3114, 6101 and finally 12162 damage) then GS#4. And he always moves, no chance for a partial 100b.
I’m also playing it with strength runes and Last Stand, but with air and fire sigil on GS, paralyzation and battle on mace/shield. The vigor on stance use allows enough dodges I think, and air/fire is a huge damage boost.
I also run Frenzy instead of Balanced Stance most of the time and only switch it when the other team has too many CC-heavy classes. It adds a second threat to the build so you don’t rely on landing skull crack too much (or helps landing it a lot). And of course it’s great for rezzing and channeling the important buffs in Temple of the Silent Storm.
WW attack should hit up to 4 times only. Skill tooltip says “number of impacts: 4”. Wiki says:
“A stationary enemy in its path will be hit 2-4 times depending on their size and distance from the starting point. Starting in melee range (130 units), player characters and smaller enemies will be hit 2-3 times, while bigger creatures will be hit all 4 times. The size of a creature usually matches their selection circle.
Used against an obstacle in an angle that prevents advance or while immobilized will allow you to deliver all 4 hits to enemies in range."
If you were hit 6-7 times by a single WW attack you should report it as a bug.
There’s a thread in the pvp forum that was linked here in another thread about how toughness and strength stats scale differently. It says basically that strength has linear impact on damage while toughness has diminishing returns. Thus if you trade strength for toughness, you decrease your effectiveness. I know this is not debated here, just wanted to add the info for those who are not aware of that fact.
Precision is a stat that can be enhanced above average by sigil and traits. E.g., if you land 12 hits per 2 weapon swaps, you increase your average crit chance by 25% with sigil of accuracy. That equals 525 points in precision (for comparison, sigil of force adds damage equal to 150 power at 3000 power).
Therefore in a duel of equally skilled warriors, the full berserker should lose against one
giving up precision in favor of some toughness (not too much because of diminishing returns) and vitality, compensating precision by sigil of accuracy.
However, that does not imply this would always be the better choice against other classes.
Thanks for the tips! Will have to pratice more with the build. I played H/GS again for a few days and things are so much easier. It feels like with H/GS there’s always something ready to keep up the pressure while on M-Sh/GS there’s always something missing to land your combo (adrenaline, swap cd, opponent dodges/stunbreaks, distance…).
Well.. you know stun duration depends on how much adrenaline you have, right?
@all: Anyone up to date on the Para sigil? What does it do exactly these days? I know it used to round up to next second.. is it exact now / rounding down? Only want confirmed infos, no guesses..
Of course. I always make sure to use it at full adrenaline not only to max out the stun duration but also Berserkers Power.
Duration with Para sigil on max adrenaline feels like ~ 4 seconds. The rare moments when someone is stunned for the full duration seem to be very long indeed.
I’ve been playing this build for a while now and need some advice on when to attempt the Skullcrack/100b combo against the different classes. I’m landing Skullcrack much better now, but even if I do most of the time opponents escape the stun immediately or after 1-2 seconds. Some classes can also easily tank the 100b damage, even with Quickness, or immediately heal back to full health after the stun wears out. I never played any other class than warrior, so understanding what the opponent can/will do is my greatest weakness.
I tried axe instead of mace and still prefer the mace, not so much for the Skullcrack though but because of the block . Do you guys regularly kill opponents with the combo? How do you do it?
Rampage didn’t involve timing and skill pre patch, it just did less (but still enough) damage and was on 30s longer cooldown. It was actually easier to use because players weren’t used to deal with it.
Rampage needs either a reduction in damage output and interrupts or a longer cooldown. Like Battle Standard can also turn around a fight but you can use it only 1-2 times per match.
That warrior can quickly solo the lord in Foefire, even with defending player, should also be adressed. You can actually win almost every match as long as you don’t trail by too many points.
The idea is nice, combining shout and banner heal wasn’t possible before the patch so this should definitely be tested. The low base crit chance is nicely compensated by precision from banner/sigil and the high Fury uptime. Crusader is the better choice for this build I think.
The problem I see right now is the huge burst potential of so many classes both by power and condi damage and that this build has no instant immunities to counter that. Stance build has double EP against power burst, Berserker Stance and Healing Signet against condi bombs. With Skullcrack build you even get 2 blocks on top.
Your tests will show if it’s viable. I don’t play in full teams so my point of view is always that of a solo player. If damage gets turned down in future the build may become more valuable.
Defiant Stance can be fantastic. It changes your playstyle (be aggressive when you would otherwise try to escape) and thus can cause surprising turnarounds. But when I ran it it was interrupted too often when I needed it so I switched back to HS. With no activation time I would definitely run it.
Hammer is definitely easier to play and more foregiving than mace/shield. Earthshaker is more likely than SC to hit something and thus procc CI and BP and can even be used from range. Interrupting multiple rezzing players requires only one button. Hammer can close the gap from 600 range with 2 skills while Mace cannot and Shield only from 300.
I don’t play in organized teams but for now I feel Hammer brings more team support through AE CC and AE damage. It’s more likely to turn a fight around on mid point. But that’s where I usually go for and maybe that is wrong when you’re playing Skullcrack.
Skullcrack is personally more challenging and rewarding. If you win a fight by successfully executing your combo you know you did something right and weren’t just lucky or carried by your build.
I try to be patient with the SC into 100b combo cause I’m still learning how to land it. That was exactly why I skipped CI: if I don’t use a burst on cooldown or even miss it I don’t get much condi cleansing anyway. I swap constantly for condi cleanse through BR but don’t use SC every swap. That way I had enough adrenaline through attacks and Versatile Rage. I agree, however, that adrenaline may be an issue when you are better at landing SC and thus use it more often. CI then makes more sense of course.
I tried the build with Last Stand instead of Cleansing Ire last night, Sigil of Rage instead of Energy (vigor from Last Stand allows enough dodges anyway), Berserker Stance, Balanced Stance, Frenzy. The high stability and quickness uptime is great and – although I was really doubtful – I didn’t miss CI much.
It definitely also happens when I use Frenzy just for the stomp and activate it just before channeling. Quickness from Frenzy is 6s, regular stomp channel is 3.5s, in that case the issue can’t be caused by Quickness running out before the channeling ends.
I have experienced the following when finishing a target with Quickness from either HF or Frenzy:
1. Finishing animation (character movement while channeling) is faster, Finisher animation follows without delay, target is finished
2. Finishing animation is faster, Finisher animation follows with delay, target ist finished
3. Finishing animation is faster, Finisher animation follows with delay, target ist NOT finished
1. is what it should be as I suppose. Now when 2. happens it’s irritating because when the channel is over and nothing happens you are unsure what to do for a second. Really annoying is 3. though.
Am I the only one who has this problem? I first thought maybe I’m moving too early after channeling, lag causes the delay and thus the channel is not recorded as 100% complete. But then why is the Finisher animation shown?
With the speed changes to Rush I’ using it more often as a damage skill instead of saving it for disengaging (talking about pvp). I noticed a lot of problems like running straight trough the target then turning left or right. It happens while fighting on the point, so terrain shouldn’t be the cause of this issue.
Rush seems to work when used from range, even if the target moves you follow and hit. But in close combat it’s sometimes totally weird. Feels even worse than before it got fixed. Are you experiencing the same?
If Defiant stance was insta cast it would probably be used way more often. Could also be a solution.
warrior finally is a melee dps class again,
Not even close.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMNsVVW7YVI&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YK78ShnCp8&feature=youtu.beBtw did you know that my ranger with swoop olny can keep up on par or even outrun gs+sword war? Crazy stuff
And what exactly are you saying with these videos? Warrior can be played for melee dps in spvp now. Before the patch you were forced to play Shoutbow if you wanted to win the match.
Would be way to early to make balance changes now. People are trying out new builds, reacting to new threats obviuosly take some time. It will take some more time until we will know where we really stand, what needs to be changed and what is fine as is.
Rush is slow now, but is that really a reason to retire your warrior? Everything else is much faster now, warrior finally is a melee dps class again, not a group support bot. I don’t mind about a minor movement setback when everything else feels better now.
Related question: how can a downed necro fear you while you stomp him with stability? Happened to me several times lately, sometimes in group fights where someone else might have stripped my stability, but at least once it happened in a 1vs1 (not 100% sure though).
One more reason is that Eviscerate needs a setup as well. If – as you mentioned – you use it as a gap closer, opponents will likely dodge it.
I like GS-Axe/Shield in sPvP (playing only solo) because it’s a totally different feeling/play style than Hambow (so slow), Axebow or Shoutbow. I need the GS for the extra evades and mobility when going full Zerker. I’ve tested several builds with that weapon combination, 60404 is what works best for me. I rarely use 100b against someone who actually fights me, but it’s often useful to support other players or make people move when rezzing. With 6 in Strength it can’t just be ignored and tanked.
Great work Cygnus! For a player like me who never played another class it’s very helpful to learn more about opponent’s actions, what animation to look for, when to dodge etc. You could consider commenting your fights by voice and thus provide even more insight.
You do a great job at managing a lot of informations simultaneously, something that requires a lot of experience and awareness. If I try to watch for important animations, I will always lose sight of something else that is important like enemy buffs, conditions on me, my own cooldowns or good positioning. Do you have routines like checking your conditions every X seconds or so?
65003 GS/LB with berserker armor and sinister accessories works pretty good for me, better than pure melee/pure power build and still mobile.
Whirlwind is very reliable, if it throws you off ledges and stuff you need to practice more how to use it. It’s the best ability you get with a GS in PvP, a major source of damage output and mitigation plus mobility.
100b should be used very situationally. Your problem with GS may be that you thought 100b was the main attack to use. If you do so, opponents will have an easy game.
Hambow with Soldier amulet is probably much easier to play for a beginner. You can stand in your fire field and don’t need to care as much about positioning and movement to avoid damage as you need to with a pure melee Zerker build.
Other useful advice for survival:
- Bring a ranged weapon (I run GS/LB in SW all the time).
- Shake it off is useful for both condition removal and stun breaking. Mobs will knock you down and immobilize you a lot. If you can’t counter that, you’re dead even in full ascended.
- Stay out of hot spots if you are on your own, e.g. don’t stand inside a fort and try to defend it solo while under attack.
I honestly don’t understand why anyone would want to use one build for everything. Changing traits takes less than 10 seconds and costs nothing. Why would someone not want to spend this little time? Running around with a non-ideal build will make you less effective and cost you a lot more time while playing. Not to mention the possible frustration if you lose a duel or die in an encounter just because you didn’t have the ideal build.
PvP has it’s own build anyway, so you don’t even have to spend time to respec for that.
I can understand some new players may not yet be able to afford different equipment sets, but whatever you do in this game usually gives you money so it’s just a matter of time. And once you have enough resources to buy a second set, again why would someone rather keep his money then become more effective?
Adrenaline will be an issue, yes. You would have to save it during the fight and only spend it for Flurry when you want to land a full 100b.
The idea behind RR was to have it as a bonus with three other useful utilities. Frenzy has always been nice with 100b, but you have to use it together with EP or you will likely be dead. And if you use it without stability you might get CCed. So in the end you need to use 2 or 3 utilities to make use of it. Now with RR you compensate for the 25% incoming damage increase (as you said, mitigation would be ~45%: (100%25%)*0,55=68,75%, that’s even less than 100%0,75=75%). And if you use it after being stunned your oponent won’t use this stun again soon, so less need to pop stability for Frenzy.
You usually pop BS for a Flurry → 100b combo that roots you in place and makes you eat a lot of attacks, but then as well you will have the extra mitigation.
SIO is rather weak without Trooper runes and for yourself only (talking about solo roaming), but it has a low cooldown and (in theory) allows for ~30% RR uptime. Under perfect circumstances you could have 39,2 seconds of RR per minute with the three utilities (or even more if you take Lung Capacity over Leg Specialist). But of course Dolyak signet could be used instead, to have an offensive Stability (BS) and one defensive/reactional, or you could use a non-stunbreaking utility, e.g. Berserker Stance or Bull’s Charge.
As I said, nothing tested so far. I now saw that Elegie runs a very similar build, but with both CI and BR and with only BS as stun breaker. I’m curious what he/she can report.
More theory build discussion welcome!
Ideas behind the build:
- condition removal via Brawler’s Recovery/Sigil of Cleansing/SIO (over CI cause both Sword and GS burst skills are used more situational)
- up to 24 seconds of Rousing Resilience
- use Frenzy when stunned, Rousing Resilience will make up for the 25% incoming damage
- Leg specialist to prevent being kited and just be annoying
- Missile Deflection for priceless moments
Just an idea so far, but since this has been a very constructive thread I thought I could throw it in, too.
Thanks, for the answer and the link. The sigil stacking rule problems were also new to me, good to know about that as well.
Related question: hero panel shows rounded value for crit chance. Is the real number or the number shown used in combat calculation? In other words: does it make sense to add precise infusions until the number shown increases by 1% or not?
Thanks for your answer Paavotar. I’ve used the combo in some situations and found it nice, but obviously I didn’t have good opponents then cause what you say makes definitely sense.
I have a question regarding the meta builds. Main build has 4 in Arms, so already higher crit chance and uses Heightened Focus at Grandmaster in Discipline. The other build called “Most Offensive Variant” has lower crit chance especially for burst skills (no Critical Burst) but uses Burst Mastery at Grandmaster tier. Does that make sense?
The combo Shield Bash into Eviscerate brings most enemies below 50%, so with Burst Mastery you can just follow that combo with Arcing Slice, especially since Arcing Slice’s damage does not benefit from higher adrenaline levels.