[W/Mo & W/E, Various] PVE Dual Hammer Warriors Build

[Ubermancer]

In my experiences with my Guild (http://p3.forumforfree.com/viewtopic.php?t=10&mforum=rfe) I have noticed alot of people play with a small group of gaming buddies. Its fairly common for these people to make a pair of characters, and have them do the questing missions etc together.

So I thought Id make a duo Warrior build. How this works is you have two Warriors with complenting skills who are used together to greater effect then a single Warrior could.

This particular build is for Hammers, and requires a W/E and a W/Mo.

Warrior / Elementalist

12 Hammer
12 Tactics
10 Earth

1) Counter Blow
2) Heavy Blow
3) Devestating Hammer
4) Aftershock
5) "Watch Yourself!"
6) "Shields Up!"
7) Armor of Earth
8) Ressurection Signet

Warrior / Monk

12 Strength
12 Hammer
10 Smite

1) Power Attack
2) Heavy Blow
3) Devastating Hammer
4) Holy Strike
5) Dolyak Signet
6) Smite Hex
7) Balthazar's Spirit
8) Rebirth

This duo build has something for every occassion. When facing tough opponets, like Mursaat Monks, you can simply have one Warrior knock them down (aka, KD them) then have both Warriors pull off a coordinated Aftershock (AS) + Holy Strike (HS) combo for 124 earth damage, and 80 armor ignoring holy damage... 75 damage of which is AOE. This is well over 200 damage against your target in under 3 seconds, and while they are KD'ed, too. Having two Warriors allows you to pull the combo off twice as often... even certain "Unpleasant" Mursaat bosses cannot stand up to this sort of spike.

The W/E's tactics allows him to buff the armor of him and the W/Mo by 20, which gives you ~21% damage reduction. Stacking this with a Hammer of Defense is ideal (read, defense > fortitude). Armor of Earth (48 armor) and Dolyak Signet (30 armor) allow each Warrior to tank extremely effectively, yet in different ways. So that in enchant removal heavy areas, you still have an effective tank.

Weakness is key to this build, and be sure to ask your Necro if they can bring Enfeeble/Enfeebling Blood (assuming they are Curses) to help with the spreading of Weakness. The more mobs you have Weakened, the more mobs you can easily KD and spike.

Weapons and armor are up to you, but I suggest full Gladiators with Ascalon or Knights boots (for reasons I wont go into atm, but just trust me, make sure your boots have 'reduces damage from attacks' before you rune it). A Furious Hammer of Defense is ideal.

Frankly, youd be stupid not to bring Stonefist Guantlets. They add another second onto your KD time. With the combined KD between the two Warriors, its feasible that any mob you are coordinating your KD's on will not be standing up for very long at all.

Smite Hex allows you to remove particularly nasty hexes (for 60 AOE armor ignoring damage) incase your Monk cant keep up with the hexes or is incompetent.

Counter Blow lets you KD targets who are A) attacking you B) attacking a non-tank quickly. This can be crucial as most soft characters have a hard time standing up against Stone Summit Carvers, Skeletal Berserkers, and the like.

Some other skills which you might want to add in -

For Great Justice - to help charge adrenalin faster, of course
Judge's Insight - truly great vs undead
Mend Ailment - to remove nasty conditions
Distracting Blow - that 'I need it NOW!' interupt for stopping the nastiest of skills
Whirlwind - AOE knockdown, followed by an Aftershock. OUCH.
Bonetti's Defense - mostly for the energy, as this build uses alot of it

You might should even ask your Necro, if hes a battery, to run BIP on you if you ask for it. Be sure to explain that you are set up to deal alot of damage, but need some help with energy. This should give you an excess of energy, if he agrees. Balthazars Spirit, when used discretely, has the same effect.

Keep in mind that this build is meant to be flexible, and should be used flexibly. Change skills whenever you feel its needed, and dont get roped into using skills you find to be ineffective. If strength seems like a waste for the W/Mo, drop it! Same with tactics for the W/E! (though the thought of playing a PVE Warrior without Watch Yourself and Shields Up is disturbing to me)

Have fun, and tell me how this (totally untested) build works out for you :)

[Knightmayre]

Looks very interesting, but two Warr's, one a W/Mo with no Healing? You might want to add that in there somehow.

[Gimpola Y]

it's effective, but unfortunately coordination is something that most GW community seems to lack. With someone you trust it would work well, especially more so in pvp.

[Longasc]

I am trying to find a good Hammer build, maybe yours is a good option.

I can only try this solo atm, so far I just feel I could have done much better with Swords or Axes somehow. :/

It is hard to get used to hammers.

[Zaxares]

This sounds like quite an interesting team build, although it would be very hard to find a good team who's willing to let you and your buddy do this. Probably best suited for guild teams and groups of friends who play together regularly and can afford the luxury of specialising to this degree.

[FireballX]

it's effective, but unfortunately coordination is something that most GW community seems to lack. With someone you trust it would work well, especially more so in pvp.

Precisely.

There's little need for builds like this in PvE anyway. They're not bad builds at all but any generic hammer warrior build will serve the purposes. They may not kill the enemies faster, but in PvE this rarely matters.

As for the eevil Mursaat bosses just keep the bosses flat by taking as much KD as possible, giving the rest of the team opportunities to kill it.

[Iorek Valr]

Like Uber says though these 'dual player' build are more for people who usually go around with the same friend(s) so communication and knowing each others build etc. isn't so much of a problem as it is when scooting off with a random PUG, so it does work well in PvE.

My wife and I often play complimenting builds with our characters (we both have warriors, monks, and now our Mesmer twins!)

Depending on the situation we can kit ourselves out to bring multiple conditions (e.g. I might go axe for Deep Wound and Weakness, while the wife will bring a sword for Bleeding and Cripple), or as in Uber's post above we can bring skills that follow on from the other creating a chain of constant spike hits, KD >> Spike/Condition >> KD >> Spike/Condition etc.

We find this works really well in PvE and can quickly take down most things.

As for their being no need for these kind of builds in PvE, I don't agree at all, why charge into an area with a team full of random builds that might be doubling up on skills or missing out on skills alltogether when you can plan ahead and maximise your team efficiency and strengths.

[Zaro Eros]

i think vent or ts will solve the problem of communication and coordination. my buddies and i became 10 times better in PvP after we all got vent. just goes to show you that communication is key

[Seef II]

No crushing blow? Tsk tsk. Deep wound is key if you want any sort of spike. 2-3 knocklocks, if timed right, can go
devastating/earthshaker -> crushing -> heavy/bash -> AS/HS -> devastating'/earthshaker' -> crushing' -> heavy'/bash' -> irresistible or something. Just coordinate with your buddy and it'll be cool.

I suggest earth shaker on the W/E so aftershock can hit for extra juice on anything that's knocked down. It's only one more adrenaline than devastating and you only need one application of weakness in pve.

Belly smash and crude swing are garbage, so it's great that you didn't include them.

[Buddah]

Belly smash and crude swing are garbage, so it's great that you didn't include them.
In a tandem hammer build for PvE Belly Smash has a few possibilities for keeping multiple targets blinded for 2/3 of the time. Works fairly well when coordination between the two warriors is really synched up. Just in many groups they just can't make it happen because of poor timing.

Myself and a guildie did such a tandem hammer team through RoF, Abbadons, and Hell's. We went with Backbreaker and Hammer Bash and locked down a single target until it was dead then moved on to the next.

[Seef II]

Blind sure is nice - when those jades miss oath shot you know it's gg. However, blinding flash or signet of midnight + epidemic work better, and the latter can really be kept up indefinitely, though the mesmer places himself at some risk.

The only use I can forsee for crude swing is earthshaker and following up with crude, but that's way too situational. If some random mursaat necro is wanding you for 0 you still get interrupted...

[hmishima]

No crushing blow? Tsk tsk. Deep wound is key if you want any sort of spike. 2-3 knocklocks, if timed right, can go
devastating/earthshaker -> crushing -> heavy/bash -> AS/HS -> devastating'/earthshaker' -> crushing' -> heavy'/bash' -> irresistible or something. Just coordinate with your buddy and it'll be cool.

I suggest earth shaker on the W/E so aftershock can hit for extra juice on anything that's knocked down. It's only one more adrenaline than devastating and you only need one application of weakness in pve.

Belly smash and crude swing are garbage, so it's great that you didn't include them.

Yeah, definitely going to have to go with Earthshaker instead. I know the original focus was weakness, but consider this:

Earthshaker, while allowing you to focus on one enemy, allows you to still affect all enemies and maximize's your AOE damage with AS.

Belly Smash IMHO, is not garbage. Having them both carry Belly smash is debilitating at the least to the enemies...90% miss against 50% miss AND it affects archers and wand attacks, where as WaM does not. 9 seconds of blind per hammer is nothing to sneeze at. 18 seconds of blind in the dual mode pretty much is obliteration of the enemies. Belly Smash has a 30 second recharge time, so you have only 12 seconds of non-blindness.

I would also replace Heavy Blow with Hammer Bash. If you are going to use a skill that makes you lose all adrenaline, this one would be it. Guaranteed, non-conditional KD followed by Belly Smash and he rest of the attacks fall into place.

$0.02

[Mog Wai]

Ubermancer Ubermancer
nice build man. Wish I had a guild like that. Really shows you guys try to make the characters better.

[Ubermancer]

Ubermancer Ubermancer
nice build man. Wish I had a guild like that. Really shows you guys try to make the characters better.

Dont worry, I will be starting an Alliance soon :)

[Buddah]

The only use I can forsee for crude swing is earthshaker and following up with crude, but that's way too situational. If some random mursaat necro is wanding you for 0 you still get interrupted...
Could see a Wa/Me get away using just fine with Mantra of Resolve.

[Ubermancer]

Could see a Wa/Me get away using just fine with Mantra of Resolve.

Yeah... but... thats draining your own energy. Intentionally. On a tank. It just doesnt seem to make much sense.

[Buddah]

Yeah... but... thats draining your own energy. Intentionally. On a tank. It just doesnt seem to make much sense.
Bleh, was thinking Mantra of Concentration when I thought it through, just spit out the more commonly used Mantra.

[Ora]

We used a similar combo of a w/ele tank and a w/mo or mo/w smiter.

The w/ele isn't exactly speedy gonzales anyway due to armor of earth. Thus he should use dolyak, too. Your build leaves him wide open to be knocked down himself. Most pve areas have mobs that use KD (herders, shadows, hydras...) Imagine doing Iron mines or SF with your w/ele :wink:

I would also definitely take bonettis, the combo of dolyak + bonettis simply rocks. Since this is for a well organised team, I see no reason to carry res on the w/ele. Thus swap "shields up" for dolyak and the res sig for bonettis.

With all those armor buffs I find there is no need for 12 tactics for the w/ele....my obsidian tank uses this (enough str for a 15 sec dolyak)

Earth 12
Str 9
Hammer or axe 10
Tactics 10


The only reason not to use bonettis: Someone casts soj on the tank (maybe your w/mo) ? Soj causes KD as well and it does so, before your adrenaline is up :wink:

Therefore I would suggest your duo does not aggro simultaneously. Let the w/mo cast balt spirit on the w/ele.
The w/ele aggroes and uses armor o e + dolyak + watch. The w/mo casts soj on him, and than enters the fight himself or uses sprint to break aggro.

When soj is over, the w/ele has enough adrenaline to use bonettis and hammer skills.

You might also want to consider crystall wave. The combo of KD/AS/Crystall wave does more than 250 dmg. Drawback: the targets conditions are removed. But since this is for the initial phase of the fight (KD from soj) or for the coup de grâce, it doesn't matter.

We used this combo a lot in Minerals. The w/mo would carry a +5 energy smiting rod and an energy offhand when casting and he also took sprint to break aggro and bec he is the one carrying res :wink:

[Buddah]

You might also want to consider crystall wave. The combo of KD/AS/Crystall wave does more than 250 dmg. Drawback: the targets conditions are removed. But since this is for the initial phase of the fight (KD from soj) or for the coup de grâce, it doesn't matter.
Sounds like my FoW book tank. Have a monk throw on Balthazar's Spirit and you have one the few times a warrior really is an armored caster.

[tomdanvers]

Blind sure is nice - when those jades miss oath shot you know it's gg. However, blinding flash or signet of midnight + epidemic work better, and the latter can really be kept up indefinitely, though the mesmer places himself at some risk.

The only use I can forsee for crude swing is earthshaker and following up with crude, but that's way too situational. If some random mursaat necro is wanding you for 0 you still get interrupted...

And Yetis smash can be used on multiple foes without the chance of interupption - combined with adrenaline maxing stance can set you up nicely for earthshaker as soon as the group of enemies get up again! Just gets less effective as the number of enemies decrease!