Warrior WvW | Small Group Mace/Shield, Greatsword | Roamer Skull-Cracker's Revenge
Table of Contents
Summary
It's December, and you know what that means: Warriors got nerfed and everyone else got buffed. Our one patch-cycle of supremacy is over! But don't let that get you down. Warriors are still viable, they just take some semblance of skill once again!
The ol' Skull Cracker meta wasn't completely destroyed with the moving of Unsuspecting Foe and the million-year cast time added to Skull Cracker. You just have to work for your damage now. And you have to not make any mistakes! Easy, right? If you've been playing Warrior since launch, you're used to this kind of thing.
But enough whining, let's get crackin'! HUEHUEHEUHEUHEUHEHUEHUEHUE
I. Weapons and Skills
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- Mace Bash½Bash your foe.Damage: 269Range: 130
- Pulverize1Thrash your foe, leaving them weakened.Damage: 538Weakness: 5 sRange: 130
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- Adrenaline RushStop blocking and gain adrenaline.
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Weapon and Skill Details
- Mace/Shield - Your combo-maker and damage-taker. This set is all about controlling your opponent's movement and damage output. The damage output actually isn't terrible, either, it's just slow as heck and highly telegraphed. But that's okay! If they're dodging your auto-attacks they won't dodge your stuns.
The two on the mace functions as a block and the ensuing counter-attack can hit for upwards of 2-3k damage. If you're running Missile Deflection (which I highly recommend) it will reflect all projectiles. Since the projectiles never hit you it won't consume the block. If you're fighting a ranged opponent this effectively functions as a second Shield Stance on a 10 second cooldown. How cool is that?!
Pommel Bash is an insta-cast 1-second Daze at melee range. This can be handy for interrupting Healing Skills or Resurrection attempts. Don't forget you can also interrupt auto-attacks. It's a Daze, not just an interrupt, so it will put everything on cooldown for a second.
As for your shield, you can use 4 as a gap closer/leap finisher on top of it's excellent stun. It will usually lead in your stun combo. The stun lasts 1 second (1.15s with Superior Sigil of Paralyzation) so you can generally get in a single auto-attack before your Skull Crack if you're into that kind of thing.
- Greatsword - Everyone's favorite! You can use this both offensively and defensively in many ways. First: your Rush and Whirlwind can obviously be used both to close and make gaps. Hundred Blades can actually be used defensively as well. If you do it in your opponent's general direction they'll have to back off or at least evade, giving you a very brief period for you to prepare your next course of action. With Healing Signet, every moment you're not being hit is a moment you're gaining health! Just make sure you don't put your Hundi on cooldown when you're trying to set up the Skull Crack.
II. Traits
Strength
Arms
Defense
Tactics
Trait Details
- Arms: It's okay. Tier 1 you can grab Furious Speed, Rending Strikes, or Deep Cuts. Furious Speed is great to keep Swiftness up and Rending Strikes/Deep Cuts will help with your overall DPS. Tier 3 is somewhat optional. If you don't want any of those traits throw 5 more in Discipline and get whatever you like. (Probably Destruction of the Empowered or Warrior's Sprint.)
- Defense: Dogged March is pretty much Warrior standard now. As for Missile Deflection, take it. It'll change your life for reasons described above in the Weapons chapter.
If you know you're not going against ranged players, there are many many other skills in the Defense tree that are very useful. Extended Stance duration, auto-Balanced Stance, Shield Mastery, Mace Mastery, they're all pretty good. Just take what you like!
- Discipline: Since this is a three-stance build, Vigorous Focus will net you the most value out of anything in the Adept tier.
III. Stat Specifics & Effects
Primary Stats
- Health 19912 (+700)
- Vitality 986 (+70)
- Armor 3319 (+1192)
- Toughness 2108 (+1192)
- Attack 2855 (+979)
- Power 1895 (+979)
- Critical Hit 15% (+15%)
- Precision 1231 (+315)
Secondary Stats
- Agony Resistance 5 (+5)
- Burst Recharge 15% (+15%)
- Condition Damage 318 (+318)
- Condition Duration (self) -60% (+-60%)
- Critical Damage 52% (+52%)
- DMG Taken from Guards and Lords -4% (+-4%)
- DMG to Guards and Lords 1% (+1%)
- Damage 960 (+0%)
- Defense 1211 (+0)
- Experience from Kills 20% (+20%)
- Ferocity 786 (+786)
- Healing Power 250 (+250)
- Might Duration 10% (+10%)
Boons
Conditions
Control
Fields & Finishers
Stat and Effect Details
You want to shoot for exactly 30% crit chance unbuffed. This'll put you at 50% crit chance with Fury and 100% crit chance against stunned foes when you have fury. Neat!
Cavalier's Mace on Into the Mists is currently showing about 61% more crit damage than it actually gives, so subtract that.
IV. Food, Armor, Trinkets & Upgrade Items
Food Nourishment
Condition Duration (self): -40%
Vitality: 70
Experience from Kills: 10%
- (30min)
- Condition Duration (self): -40%
- Vitality: 70
- Experience from Kills: 10%
Utility Nourishment
Gain power equal to 6% of your toughness
Gain power equal to 4% of your vitality
Experience from Kills: 10%
- (30min)
- Gain power equal to 6% of your toughness
- Gain power equal to 4% of your vitality
- Experience from Kills: 10%
Armor & Runes
- Defense: 121
- Power: 25
- Might Duration: 10%
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)
- Power: 100
- +20% Might Duration; -20% Condition Duration applied to you.
- Defense: 121
- Power: 25
- Might Duration: 10%
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)
- Power: 100
- +20% Might Duration; -20% Condition Duration applied to you.
- Defense: 363
- Power: 25
- Might Duration: 10%
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)
- Power: 100
- +20% Might Duration; -20% Condition Duration applied to you.
- Defense: 182
- Power: 25
- Might Duration: 10%
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)
- Power: 100
- +20% Might Duration; -20% Condition Duration applied to you.
- Defense: 242
- Power: 25
- Might Duration: 10%
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)
- Power: 100
- +20% Might Duration; -20% Condition Duration applied to you.
- Defense: 182
- Power: 25
- Might Duration: 10%
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)
- Power: 100
- +20% Might Duration; -20% Condition Duration applied to you.
Armor Stat Totals
- Defense 1211
- Power 175
- Might Duration 10%
- Condition Duration (self) -20%
Rune Bonuses
Superior Rune of Hoelbrak- Power: 25
- Might Duration: 10%
- Power: 50
- 25% chance when struck to gain might for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 5 seconds)
- Power: 100
- +20% Might Duration; -20% Condition Duration applied to you.
Accessories & Jewels
- Precision: 5
- Agony Resistance: 5
- Precision: 5
- DMG Taken from Guards and Lords: -1%
- Precision: 5
- DMG Taken from Guards and Lords: -1%
- Toughness: 5
- DMG Taken from Guards and Lords: -1%
- Power: 5
- DMG to Guards and Lords: 1%
- Toughness: 5
- DMG Taken from Guards and Lords: -1%
Accessory Totals
- Power:471
- Toughness:702
- Ferocity:466
- Precision:15
- Agony Resistance:5
- DMG Taken from Guards and Lords:-4%
- DMG to Guards and Lords:1%
Weapon Set Sigils
- Weapon Strength: 895-1010
- Toughness: 120
- Power: 85
- Ferocity: 85
- Weapon Strength: 806-909
- Toughness: 120
- Power: 85
- Ferocity: 85
Weapon Defense: 61
Weapon Set I
Superior Sigil of Bursting+6% Condition Damage
Sigil of Superior HydromancyYou freeze nearby foes for 2s when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)
- Weapon Strength: 995-1100
- Toughness: 239
- Power: 171
- Ferocity: 171
- Weapon Strength: -
Weapon Set II
Sigil of Superior HydromancyYou freeze nearby foes for 2s when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 9s)
- Weapon Strength: 905-1000
- Power: 120
- Precision: 85
- Ferocity: 85
- Weapon Strength: 905-1000
- Power: 120
- Precision: 85
- Ferocity: 85
Water Weapon I
Sigil of Superior BloodlustYou gain +10 power each time you kill a foe. (max 25 stacks and ends on down or weapon change)
Water Weapon II
Sigil of Superior Fire50% chance to cause flame blast on critical hit causing AoE damage. (This effect cannot trigger more than once every 5s)
Upgrade Item Details
Nourishment:
- Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup - Eat it! 40% reduced Condition Duration synergizing with your runes and traits will save your life!
- Master Sharpening Stone - You know what it is!
Armor
- Knight's Gear - Easily obtained by doing Sorrow's Embrace every day, Knight's gear provides a large Toughness boost alongside Power and Precision. Because we're investing 25 into Defense we get very good returns on our Toughness investment, resulting in even higher base damage than you might see with Berserker gear. Buuuut...
- Berserker's Gear - Sometimes you just gotta man-mode it.
Runes
- Rune of Hoelbrak - This will net you more Power and give you some more bang for your Might Stacks, but the real reason we're taking this is for the Condition Duration reduction. Stacked with your food that's a total of 60% duration reduction. Stacked with Dogged March, you will rarely be snared for more than a brief moment.
- Rune of Melandru - A more defensive version of the Rune of Hoelbrak: instead of providing Power and Might duration it will provide Toughness and Stun Duration reduction.
- Rune of Lyssa - Pretty okay for 1v1s against people who aren't condi-heavy.
Trinkets
- Cavalier's Trinkets - Cavalier's trinkets will offer even more Toughness as well as a boost your Critical Damage. Since you get more Toughness from your trinkets than armor, I recommend taking these if you want to go half-and-half.
- Berserker's Trinkets - Again, this build can function on a Berserker's budget. If you prefer to play the more "Get in, boom 'em, get out" style, go full Berserker!
Weapons:
- I chose Cavalier's Weapons here because the extra precision on Berserker's weapons was wasted. Also there is no Cavalier's armor yet.
Sigils:
- Sigil of Hydromancy - If you switch at close-range (which you should be), this will apply Chill to your foe as well as a decent 1-2k damage tick. This can mean the difference between getting a third of your Hundred Blades off and the entire thing. And, y'know, another decent attack for free. I like to run one of these on both sets.
- Sigil of Paralyzation - This will increase the duration of your stuns by 15%. Run it on your Mace to help ensure you land your entire Hundi-Blades. It'll also allow for an extra action if you Shield Bash before Skull Cracking.
It's a Sigil of Bursting in the calculator because I couldn't find the Sigil of Paralyzation.
- Sigil of Impact - Increases damage to stunned foes by 10%. On your Greatsword, this will increase your Hundred-Blades damage and pretty much only your Hundred-Blades damage.
- Sigil of Bloodlust - This will grant you an extra 250 Power when it's stacked to full. You'll really want one of these on one of your weapons, alongside a duplicate weapon without this sigil. Once it's stacked to full there's no need to keep the sigil equipped unless you get downed.
V. Basic Gameplay
- Skull Crack is highly telegraphed now. You are going to whiff it a lot until you get used to the play style. Don't get discouraged. You can set up the combo again fairly quickly if you mess it up! I play a Charr Warrior so my animations are very blatant. One thing I've started doing to help counter this is jumping while I cast Skull Crack. This displaces my model and changes my animation slightly and makes it much more difficult for an opponent to see. Also it's really cool looking!
- Count dodges and cooldowns. As with any control-oriented build, you need to ensure your skills are going to land. Count your opponent's dodges and pay special attention to Stability, Aegis, and Blind. If you see an opponent dodge-roll twice in a row, enjoy your free Hundred Blades, because they just goofed.
- Punish your foes! "Never trinket Kidney Shot!" is what the WoW players used to say. For those of you who have no idea what that means, Kidney Shot was a stun and 'trinket' was a stun breaker. Kidney Shot was typically how Rogues would open their disgusting combos and they would follow it up with another, longer stun almost immediately after. If someone blew their stun breaker on Kidney Shot it would certainly mean death for them. Well it's the same thing here! If someone breaks your Shield Bash stun, punish them for it! If it's a regular stun-breaker, hit them with the Skull Crack. If it's stability, just auto-attack them and as soon as it drops you go into Skull Crack.
- Use those reflects and interrupts! Stop your opponent from dealing the big damage and turn their cooldowns against them! Up against a ranger? Reflecting their shots will knock them back or stealth you. Up against a Mesmer? Reflecting their Scepter auto-attacks will give you clones. Up against a Thief? Reflecting their unload will give you Loot Bags.
- Don't run from D/D Eles. Just don't. They'll catch you and you'll feel really dumb.
Main Skill Rotation
Never blow your Skull Crack early! Make sure you can weapon swap immediately after hitting it!
VI. Counter-Play
- Stun Builds - Save your Stability for when you're in trouble (i.e., another Warrior's Skull Crack into Hundred-Blades or Hammer stun-chain.) Block their highly telegraphed skills or interrupt them with Mace 3. There is nothing more awesome-feeling in this game than Pommel-Smashing someone out of the air when they're trying to Earth Shaker.
- Condition Builds - Probably the hardest build type to counter depending on who's playing it.
Beating a Necromancer just requires you catch them before they kill you, but with extended-duration chills this can be very difficult. Save your Berseker's Stance for when you're ready to put on the pressure. Don't touch wells if you can avoid them. And if they go Plague Form, just kite them out. Trying to attack a plague Necro will just make you feel bad about yourself.
Grenade Engineers can be a pain as well, but for the most part they will not be able to escape as easily as a more projectile-focused Engineer. Stay on the move and they won't be able to burst you. Pay attention to when their Frost Grenades come out so you know when you can zone-in on them without being kited out.
If the Engineer focuses on a projectile weapon, just reflect their shots as best you can as you zone up on them. They'll likely immobilize themselves when you shoot that net right back at them.
Mesmers... okay, I'm not going to lie, I literally have never killed a Prismatic Understanding Condi Pressure build with this setup. I legitimately have a 100% lose rate against Mesmers with this build. Shoot me a message if you have any tips.
- Thieves - You should never lose against a thief with this build. Ever. They might get away from you, sure, but even a full-Berserker backstab bullshit build won't be able to put a dent in you with this as long as you don't panic. If the thief stealths, wait a moment and throw up your Mace 2. This will either block their opening move or force them to wait a bit longer while you continue to Regen.
If they drop a smoke field to try and stop you, you can pop Berseker's Stance to completely shrug off the blind and catch them off-guard.
If they pull out a shortbow, main-hand pistol, or Thieve's Guild. Shield stance will reflect all the damage back to them. If a P/P Thief tries to use Unload on you, you'll pretty much get a free kill from the reflect damage.
The only scary thing thieves can do to you is steal an Axe Whirl and use it in a Smoke Field. This combo is actually deadly. You won't be able to stun them out of it due to the blind being reapplied every half-second and the damage actually hurts. It's very hard to kite, too. If you're up against a thief who is clever enough to do this, be conservative about your cooldowns so you can deal with it.
- D/D Eles: What I assume will be the Flavor-of-the-Month class in this post December-10th metagame. D/D eles are a lot like you: great pressure and great sustain. But their control isn't as robust (but it's still there). So they get like twice as much sustain as you. And high protection uptime because their healing wasn't enough to begin with. I'm not bitter.
To beat a D/D ele you just need to not make any mistakes. They won't be able to kill you and you'll be able to kill them if you manage to counter their healing every time. SO HERE'S HOW IT GOES:
When they're in Flame Attunement, pop either Berseker's Stance or Endure Pain after they drop their fields. This will prevent Flame Grab from gibbing you and negates most of their damage.
When they're in Earth Attunement, pressure them a little to goad out their Stability. They'll usually use Stability so they can get off a Churning Earth. Fortunately this easy to evade. If you suspect they're going to Lightning Flash onto you, use your Mace 2 to block it and counter-attack them if they're close enough.
When they're in Water Attunement, interrupt their Frost Breath Whatever ASAP so they don't heal to full.
Lightning Attunement, feel free to stun them even if they have Lightning Shield up, this will prevent them from zipping around too much and dealing too much pressure on you. Plus your stuns likely last longer than theirs so you can still put on some pressure.
Basically, don't get hit by Fire Grab or Churning Earth and keep them controlled while in Water Attunement and after like an hour they'll be dead. Yay!
VII. Videos
Actual Videos:
Silly Videos:
Comments
kurtosis @ 08:43 AM, Tue December 31 2013
Replykurtosis @ 08:44 AM, Tue December 31 2013
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