635 damage in 2.33 seconds - NOT too good to be true!

I am always amused by people who say that W/E's are bad. Or that the only use they have for their secondary is Shock and Gale for PvP and Armor of Earth for PvE, etc. Luckily...



...I know better. Glyph of Essence is what Id call a bit overpowered. I love skills like that, especially when they look so innocent and have a cute drawback like 'lose all energy'. This skill is awesome, you can precast the glyph, do an attack skill spike, then instantly throw off a powerful spell in <1/4 sec, casting time despite.

Theres a specific reason I said attack skill spike, and thats because of a mechanic thats been nerfed once before but still going strong in this regard. It used to be that Ranger interupts had no aftercast, so they could fire off four 1/4 sec cast interupts in one second... preceed that by a Dual Shot and its no wonder RSpike caught on so fast. They now have a standard 3/4 sec aftercast, same as most spells.

Now, when I think spiking with attack skills I think of Hammer warriors. Hammer Warriors can KD a target for 3 seconds, and get in 2 attack skills (assuming an IAS like Frenzy) before they get back up. Now, unfortunately its difficult to chain adrenal skills as quickly as energy skills because after each one you have to wait for the server to inform the client that the attack hit and you got the adrenalin before the client can tell the server to use another adrenalin skill. Its easiest instead to use an adrenalin, energy, then adrenalin again. Thats why I came up with this chain:

Glyph of Essence + Frenzy + Devastating Hammer + Crushing Blow + Fierce Blow + Phoenix

Its a bit energy intensive so you will have to wait a bit after using Glyph of Essence before you open up the rest of the chain. If you use those skills in proper succession, you will hit your target with Fierce Blow (+42 dmg) and Phoenix (166dmg) simultaneously, and while your target is STILL ON THE GROUND. Keep in mind the attack prior dealt +21 damage and inflicted Deep Wound.

I recommend a Zealous weapon to help you regen your energy. Theres all sorts of other tricks I use with this build to keep my enemies guessing, but youll have to play against me in RA/TA/AB/FA before you get those out of me.

And in case your wondering, the 635dmg I boasted in the title is possible vs a 60 AL target. Base weapon damage is 83 damage on a crit, 102 when Sundering procs on a crit. Add the 100 damage from Deep Wound, 166 from Phoenix, the combined 63 damage from attack skills... and you get an impressive 635 damage. Its much more likely youll average 40 or so points less per hit, so thats roughly 500. Respectable by anyone's measure.

Thoughts, improvements, innovations, complaints, etc? You just gave me an idea for a double rip-gash-IWIN sword build.