8 replies to this topic

[Biff Rangoon]

Haven't tested this out yet, but wanted to run it past theory-crafters and the like for comment before I do. Particularly because it'd mean a gear investment if I moved from zerk to valk (this should work with zerk too, it'd just have a lot of wasted investment in precision)

Dual Sword + Hammer Warrior

Even with shifting as much as possible to valk, crit chance would still be plenty high due to the trinkets, perma fury, runes and Signet Mastery. It could almost reach 70% crit chance normally and up to 90% on sword due to Blademaster, which is probably too high. Then again, it means there isn't much pressure to forego signet passives in order to maintain crit chance, which would be almost 50% with just Fury up. It's probably fine as is.

Signet of Might is pretty much just there because I didn't know what else to put there. In any sort of dangerous environment, I'd probably use "Shake It Off!" for the short cd stun break, thereby saving Dolyak's for times when there's a lot of cc flying around (the condi removal's a nice bonus).

While this would work well for roaming, my chief interest in it is for small group work. The runes will give 50% uptime of Fury, Swiftness, and Might to allies, the damage and cc is very good, and the high health from valk gear would allow greater staying power in a fight (thereby contributing more to the party). Riposte combined with Shield Mastery  and Blademaster would give might stacking and reflect against every ranged attack for 2.25s every 12s.

Anyway, it looks pretty promising to me, but I'm open to suggestions and completely contrary assessments. Let's rip this up!

[Liric]

The cooldown reduction from Blademaster is currently bugged to not work with Riposte for some reason. The tooltip reads 12s, but the timer won't. Just FYI.

[KaiX]

To be honest I'm not really sold on the offhand sword part of the build.  I would think you might be better served by putting on a shield and putting a impact sigil on the hammer instead of hydromancy.  That way you can stun them with shield 4 then switch to hammer and keep them locked down with earthshaker+the knock down from hammer 5, all the while dealing more damage because they are stunned.  If you do this you should probably also take Unsuspecting Foe in arms as well.  Not to mention the potential setup for coordinated bursts.

On the armor valkyrie could be nice but I don't really think you need the extra hp considering warriors already high base hp pool.  My main concern is where is your toughness coming from?

Interesting concept, not sure about the valkyrie though.

[Biff Rangoon]

Toughness is somewhat less valuable since the patch, which is why I don't even run it now (still full zerk). Vitality has value though, especially for the condis. The arms line makes it so the precision zerk gives for normal builds can be invested somewhere else. If it existed, I'd actually be interested in a Power, Condi, Ferocity set up for a warrior traited in Arms running dual swords (and probably lb).

The main thought with this build was for small groups with an ele holding down the party support. Basically, the vitality should help the warrior stay in combat swinging that hammer, disrupting the enemy and delivering damage.

Shield could be a good (and easy) swap for the offhand sword. In group melee, it's the better defense option by a lot (because a single melee hit will ruin riposte). Shield Bash would probably be better in the combat described above, but the damage wouldn't be as good. Still, you're probably right, especially in light of Liric's revelation that Riposte isn't affected by Blade Master.

[Liric]

The patch apparently fixed the Riposte CD reduction bug.

[matthen]

I ran Hanmer/SS for a bit a long time ago. However, I had better luck with Shield. The shield is better when focused because it blocks multiple melee attacks, and having another stun is always welcome. Eventually I found GS worked better for me than than sword/shield... so you may find yourself going full circle.

One thing you probably know... off hand sword puts out some nice damage with Impale-Rip (or at least it used to...). You could bait out dodges and stun breaks with hammer and then use impale-rip to get them down enough to finish with Final Thrust.

Have fun messing around. However, it is my guess that you'll find yourself back running more "typical" weapon combos.

[Liric]

Not really the direction you seem to be going, but Impale is also absolutely brutal with condi damage and a buffed Torment duration. The way it applies can make it difficult to cleanse; I've found that sticking it into most stealthy/teleporty classes before they vanish often ruins them entirely.

I'm not sure I would still choose to run offhand sword on a physical build. The 12s cooldown now is great, however.

[Biff Rangoon]

Great to hear about the Riposte fix, and it sounds like we're all on the same page regarding the value of the shield over OH sword in a melee group fight. When roaming though, those low cool downs plus the damage on Rip are awfully tempting.

In fact, I generally only find the sword auto to be a laggard when running a direct damage build. I get your point, Liric, and I found the dual use for sword 4 to be dynamite on that hybrid build I tried out. But the cost of working in the condi damage would be too high unless I went for a full sinister build, which defeats the whole quest for strong offensive pressure without having to bail as quickly on ma' homies in a group fight when I get focussed in zerk. Then again, maybe carrion holds some potential... basically, trading up ferocity for condition damage. Not sure.

Anyway, Matt. A big motivation for this was me going over that great south camp fight where we did a lot of things right and worked pretty well as a unit. Though I was pretty good for delivering pain to the enemies and harassing them till they had to flee the fight (and picking up your broke ass, ofc), I felt like I would have been a greater asset if I could have stuck right in the center of combat longer. As soon as I started getting focus from their four(?) mesmers I basically had to bail around a building to shake them. If I could have stood a little more ground, I probably could have pressured them harder and limited their damage to the group.

It could be that I was in the appropriate role already. I mean, we won the fight, but having a strong support ele was a major reason for that even though they had one too.

[matthen]

I haven't spent much time thinking about the warrior's role in the new 5-man havoc. However, I don't think hammer/SS or hammer/SSh is going to be the way it works out. Few support tools. No particular lifting tools. Some lock down (via immob and stun). It looks like a solo/duo build to me.

If we can ever get Zo out of PvP-land, we might get more ideas in the mix. Right now, most of the tough havoc groups seem to be running stealth-gank... so you either have to out-gank them or weather the burst.