Here is an intersting build I have thought of for hammer warrior

http://guildwarsguru.com/content/gam...nics-id674.php

Upon reading the ingame mathematics, I have determined that my next build will be based up armor penetration, at the same time, self auto healing:

Str:15(help w/ super str)
Hammer:12(help w/ minor hammer)
Healing Prayers: all allocatable
Tactics:1(minor)
smiting: unused pts.

Skills needed: Mending, Live voraciously, battle rage, bonetti's D, Dolyak, judges insight
Equipment needed: 15% dmg w/ hp > or constant customized hammer w/ perfect vampiric upgrade w/ +30hp

With the above equipments and stats, should give me 50% armor P constantly or until health drops to 50%

With enough pts of LV, should get 7 -8hp per strike along w/ the 3-4hp regen w/ mending(to counter syphons) + 5hp life steal, it should be enough to sustain a warrior w/ super absorb and dolyak(once attacks become focused on warrior) so that the tank will last for a very long time. Bonetti's d is there just incase HP is running low or adrenaline/mana, due to tactics it'll only be there for a while, but enough to buy little time(unless opponents have unblockable/unavoidable attacks.

Anyway, thats just for my defensive part, my offense is where this build will truly shine. 50% constant armor penetration + 20%armor penetration(holy dmg) for the 10secs judge will last. SO the first 10secs of my offense I have doing 70% armor penetration w/ 12hammer mastery + bulls strike(moving target) or power attack should take a huge chunk of HP off anything. Also my normal attacks would do alot of dmg along w/ knockdowns(free hits) + belly smash.

I'll probly look into increasing knockdown duration specifically when targetting healers.

Also,I have already tested this theory on a blade using warrior monk(14-20sword dmg w/ 14% hp >50 + 20% custom +15str) and am already doing more dmg than hammer users per strike(thats w/o using the judges insight), so I realized that the added dmg for hammers would somewhat pwn. Also per strike on a mursaat jade armor was doing about 20-40 per hit(although sword does have an Ice mod so I dunno if it + or - dmg rate, no judges insight used) and about 70+ on power strike.

Anyway, what do you think? I realize this build relies some what more on having a godly/perfect hammer to be fully realized although a 14% dmg mod will cost less and only 1% below desired armor P and that wont make that much difference, just something nice to have. I already have the vampiric hammer haft 5/1(was comtemplating on selling it but got no 100k offers so I'm gonna keep it for this build). So if anyone has done this before, holla and give some advice on improvements, or try it out yourselves.

any thoughts?

sprint sounds good for this build and if you dont have room, i would remove dolyak for it.

also, what skills are you using for knockdowns?

Bulls strike = knockdown + dmg on fleeing monk + belly smash
Counter blow is good too
Battle rage > sprint

Since you are talking about fleeing monks I'm assuming this is a build meant for PvP in which case defensive spells are useless... if you are being attacked, the rest of your team is dead or dying. There is not reason for you to worry about defense. You should be running all offensive skills with the exception of healing with group defense like maybe shouts.

I believe Strength was reduced to 1% per level, so it is only 35% AP with your build. Still pretty good though, I'm not sure if the superior rune is worth it for a mere 2% more AP. Sacrificing 75 health for 2% AP seems bad.

at 10 strength (9+1):
30% AP vs AL60 is +37% damage, 30% AP vs 100 AL is +68% damage
at 15 strength (12+3):
35% AP vs AL60 is +44% damage, 35% AP vs 100 AL is +83% damage

so you gain
1.44/1.37 = 1.051, about 5% damage vs AL60 and
1.83/1.68 = 1.089, about 9% damage vs AL100
by boosting strength from 10 to 15, at the cost of 36 attribute points and 75 health.

If you kept strength at 10 (9+1) and put the superior rune+helm on Hammer Mastery (12+3+1), for example, you gain 15% damage vs any AL at the same 75 health cost, and free up 36 attribute points. Looks like boosting strength may not be the best thing; better to boost your base damage.

I see, Although STR does add in dmg pen when using skills, so haivng 15str means +15% armor p when using skills +base 35 so effectively giving 50% armor P when I do use skills. Still this is an ongoing process, good call on those defensive spells, guess I just want to live long enough maybe to kill 1 or 2 more b4 going down

Question - How have you got base 35 armor pen? I'm seeing Judges Insight, 20%, wheres the other 15?

Strength, the warrior primary gives 1% per level. You can do something very similar to this with a Ranger too, using penetrating attack and Judge's Insight. If I could have Strength and Expertise on the same char I would jump at it.

The only problem I see is Vampiric on a Hammer seems stupid because of the slow speed. But everyone likes vampiric on bows so I guess it has to be alright.

For those oblivious to how I added up to 50% armor P

15% from weapon, 20% from customization and 15% from str +20% if you use judges insight.

You don't get armor penetration from your weapon, you get 15% extra damage. Your armor penetration only comes into play with your attack skills. Which you have very few. Sprint + Bull's Strike is invaluable in PVP. Belly Smash isn't as good as Crushing Blow. You don't need defense skills since you wont be attacked until the end when your team is all dead. You would benefit more from grabbing a superior hammer rune since your normal hits would do way more damage than the damage you get from the occasional 3% extra AP on your attack skills. Judge's Insight isn't worth it if you don't have any points in smiting. How do you intend to keep running Judge's Insight if you have mending and live vicariously up. That's two pips of energy, all that a warrior has. This means that you will have 1 energy to spend after casting both mending and live vicariously (maybe more if you let your 1 energy pip regen your energy before you cast your second enchantment) but you will never regain energy for the entire duration of the fight.

Sorry for the poor paragraph structure.

You seem to have a few numbers confused there. The 15% and 20% numbers that you're adding are damage percentages, not armor penetration percentages. You would only have 15% AP at 15 strength, and only when using an attack skill.

You also have a lot of personal defensive skills, which do you no good in PvP as explained before. Forget healing prayers completely and fill those slots with more attacks or perhaps some sort of enchantment removal/earth magic ward. (If you're already a W/Mo then do the secondary quests in the desert.)

You will want to have 16 in hammer mastery no matter what else you do. Points in your weapon mastery are always better than points in strength. One thing that none of the charts show you is the increased critical hit chances. When you hit 16 skill you seem to crit fairly frequently, although I have nothing but observation to back that up.

Forget Battle Rage and use an elite knock down. If you're not trying to knock an opponent down as much as possible, don't use hammer. If you insist on battle rage and no knock downs, go with axe. You will do so much more damage that you will have to try it for yourself to believe me.

You will want to have sprint even with battle rage.

JI will do no good if you have just a couple of points in smiting. It will only last a few seconds. Even at 10 smiting it only lasts 16 seconds. I am not sure it's really worth the hassle, but if you insist on it then you have to commit the points to it.

I suggest:

Class: Warrior / Necromancer

Attributes: (cost)
Strength: 12+1 (97)
Hammer Mastery: 12+4 (97)
Curses: 3 (6)

Total attribute points used: 200/200

Skills: [Attribute]
1) Devastating Hammer [Hammer Mastery]
2) Mighty Blow [Hammer Mastery]
3) Heavy Blow [Hammer Mastery]
4) Bull's Strike [Strength]
5) Sprint [Strength]
6) Rend Enchantments [Curses]
7) Warrior's Cunning [Strength]
8) Resurrection Signet

Another option would be to go W/E and leave strength at 8+1. Take Earth Magic to 10 for Ward Against Melee (in place of Rend Enchantments). This will help out your healers a great deal.

i switched my hammer w/e from earth to air, to test out air spells and add more knockdowns to my arsenal, it's working pretty good.

10 air
11+2 hammer
8+1 strength
6+1 tactics (ok, so this build has no tactics skills, but i didn't have enough points after switching 10 points to air).

devastating hammer
heavy blow
mightyblow
bersker stance
gale
whirlwind
conjure lightening (just to test out the whole conjure thing)
res signet

i like gale the best out of the 3 air spells. ranged knockdown spell rocks. use it first to interrupt casters necro, mes especially, then get close for hammer time. and use it knock down foes running away. very cool.

AP isn't the best choice for killing soft targets like monks. If you do run an AP build though, I'd suggest just switching to an axe anyway. Hammer has some very good builds, don't let anybody lie to you, but I don't think this is one of them. Try a pure hammer/strength build if you want a good monk killing tank.