Knock Down Warrior Questions

ok i have been told by many people that each of these are the best for damage output and knocking down. what build do you think is best and why (if you dont like any post your Warrior KNOCKDOWN build, if you dont like warriors dont post). In case you cant tell, Build 3 and 4 are the same except #4 has Superior Strength and Hammer Mastery Runes, with -150 health.

Hammer knockdown builds are NOT for power.

The big difference between hammer and sword/axe is that the latter two require buffs to really be useful in a dps setting. Whereas hammers constant KD ability makes it solid when you can't buff stack (i,e now due to renewal).

I personally like this for a standard knocklock build.

12+4 Hammer
8+1 strength
10 smiting

Frenzy
Sprint
Irresistible Blow
Mighty Blow
Crushing Blow
Heavy Blow
Judges Insight
Devastating Hammer

Able to solo a monk fairly quickly.

The backbreaker/aftershock setup is nice when you need a ward, but otherwise it's really not special. I like running BB when I'm the combo starter/target caller because of the horrendously long kd.

And Beserkers Stance is terrible compared to frenzy. You can't use it for spiking purposes and 1 more adren every 5 hits isn't that attractive. And of course the recharge is awful.

well with the first build i have taken down a monk in one round of knocking him down and using AS, works well on ganking the priest. judges insight is always being striped, and with frenzy you take double damage which is not good because i often find myself fighting other teams warriors one on one with us all thats left. the recharge time is not that bad...

A generic hammer build usually looks like something along the lines of...

Frenzy
Hammer Bash
Crushing Blow
Irresistible Blow
Devastating Hammer
Sprint
-Open slot-
Rez Sig

You can throw in anything you want from your secondary in the open slot, but the first 6 skills listed are pretty much essential. A lot of people like to use heavy blow, I don't. If your devastating happens to be blocked, or evaded, you're not going to be able to do your knock-lock, and you've just wasted 7 adrenaline. There's also the chance of weakness being pulled by an off monk, or even the monk you've just koncked down (depending on when you use crushing blow), thus resulting in no knock down or bonus damage. That's why I use Bash instead, I like having a guaranteed knockdown even if my devastating gets blocked or evaded. Also, berserker stance is trash. If you want to be doing good damage, bring frenzy.

Hammer should be at 16.

Hammer warrior is all about burst damage. Which is when you get full charge of adrenaline. If you do it right you can kill a caster or a ranger even at 100% of health. Hammer warrior is all about hammer damage, they don't need elemental damage, even aftershock. If you go pure hammer dmg, you will figure that pure hammer dmg do way more then aftershock, but that's only if you are a very experienced warrior that does not look at one big number/damage. An expert hammer warrior will do anything to burst his dmg during the 2 chain knockdowns. Hammer warriors must need something to protect him from neg condition mainly blind, Also they must need something to get ride of target's enchancements. Because if the target is full of enchancements, Hammer warriors are not any close to hurt the target unless the target's enchancements get remove.

@Meimei

And here is the problem, there are so many thinks that can make a pysikal warrior nearly useless: entanchments, Ward aganist melee, conditions etc. So he need defnetly support by an other player, for example Necro to remove entanchments or a monk to remove conditions. An Aftershock build can do a bit dmg even if he has negativ conditions and can do an amount of dmg as long he dont suffer from them.

@Zeru

Resurrection Signet essencly dont tell me that one of ur skills can replace a teammate.

I like to use Warriors Cunning that i can be sure that devasting hammer, Crushing Blow, Mighty Blow or Heay Blow will hit the target. Sure it got a high delay but i think its worth it. As Subclass you can choose Monk to remove conditions by ur own.

Frenzy
Sprint
Warriors Cunning
Devasting Hammer {e}
Mighty Blow
Heavy Blow
Ment Aliment
Resurrection Signet

Maybe Replace Mighty Blow with Irresistible Blow but you need mana, and cunning/Sprint/Frenzy/Ment Aliment also need mana...

12 Hammer Mastery (+1/+3)
12 Strenght (+1/and maybe for a very offensiv Build +3)
3 Protection Prayers

Thats just my way to play a knockdown Warrior, please comment.

Enchancements problems
Rend Enchantments - Spell. 2 seconds casting, 20 seconds recharge
Target foe loses 2-8 Enchantments. For each Monk Enchantment removed, you take 40 damage.
My warrior has this spell

Evasion and block problems
Warrior's Cunning - Skill. instant, 60 seconds recharge
For 5-10 seconds your melee attacks cannot be blocked or evaded.
My warrior has this skill

Neg condition problems
Plague Touch - Skill. 3/4 seconds casting, no recharge time
Transfer a negative "Condition" and its remaining duration from yourself to target touched foe.
My warrior has this spell

Enchancements, neg conditions, evasions and blocks are never a problem for me, and i never run out of energy for using them.

Mends a waste. Monks job :-/

Res sig is very overrated. When you have your entire team with one your just wasting slots for a lost cause. Having a couple people with them in tombs is always nice in case of emergencies due to ganking or mistakes but overloading your team with res capability is a mistake (it would be interesting to use a heavy offensive gvg build with res sigs and emphasis on flag control). Some builds don't 'really' need all 8 slots, others do. I find hammer warriors do in most cases. If your team has a problem where too many people 'need' 8 slots then yeah, take it, but not every person or non-monk needs a res sig.

Irresistible Blow is the staple of any hammer war. The KD ability and damage through a ward or aegis/guardian is a huge help. Mighty blow is an essential part of the combo as well.

Last slot is more or less utility or buff. With smiting builds prevalent, a ward against foes is a huge help both to keep your casters alive and your foes easier to hit. I generally like either that or Judges Insight for the extra punch, though the latter is not as effective anymore with a 4 sec cast under renewal.

Warriors Cunning is honestly a bad skill, even with QZ being used quite often. 8-10 secs out of every 30 is hardly good. However, if ward v melee or aegis/guardian spam were to be so prevalent, this would be an excellent choice. Play to the metagame, it's not a skill you need to always use; not many people use wards, and with lots of qz, people can't keep up aegis/guardian without proper energy management. It's not really that useful now (besides with putrid being so widely used, necros are popular, and necros have lots of open slots. stick your necro with rigor mortis. while it does scream enchant me it's not 'too' bad at the current moment).

Aftershock is overrated even more than res sigs. It has it's uses, but it's hardly a must-have and generally does not belong on a hammer warrior.

Well there are 2 times I have seen aftershock be great on a hammer warrior. The first time is i saw a team of 3 monks and 5 W/Es, one person knocked the target down and they all used aftershock, the target died instantly. The second is when we were trying to take the alter that had the whole team on it, then use Earthshaker and Aftershock and kill 3 people at once. I personaly prefer #2 because smiting ignores armor, its weaker against spellcasters that arent using winter + mantra of frost but its a lot more effective against warriors and rangers. The last time i used #2 Build we fought a spirit spammer group and their last ranger used throw dirt then ran away, instead of chasing i used banish, he died and i laughed. from the looks of it most of you prefer the pure physical hammer warrior not caring about the secondary. on that note, is it worth it to use superior hammer and strength runes and have -150 health? i was testing this with my pve war and on an average hit, the base damage did only about 5 more damage then usual when i switched from 12 strength 12 hammer to 16 strength 15 hammer. so you may do more damage over time, but if its more spread out then it is more easily healed compared to hitting a few then times, knocking em down, then using AS and doing a lot of damage at once, not giving them a chance to heal.


as for self reliant warriors, this is a team game, rely on team members to strip enchantments, remove hexes and conditions. i dont use frenzy at all anymore, it hurts way too much to do that. usualy it works out well to use berserker stance. although it last for 10 seconds and has a 30 second cool down time, by the time its over all your skills are charged, you can go through a series of mightyblow, if they are attacking counter blow, devastating hammer then use Aftershock/Holy Strike/Crushing Blow then another mighty blow and by the time you need adrendaline again, berserker stance has been recharged.