hammer/earth magic

can someone help me better my hammer/earth magic warrior by informing me of the best build for this? i want to bring all of my hammer skills (damn you developers for only making 8 skill slots) but dont know which the best for earth magic are and what attribute points i should have ( icurrently have them in str, tacts, hammer, and earth magic) but dont wanna spread myself too thin.

the "best" build depends on the situation and you playstyle...
im assuming you want info for pvp.

as hammer warrior you could work as a normal tank, or try to work as an interrupter...

the "possibly good" ones

-aftershock is nice. much damage for only 10 mana if the enemy is knocked down (wich should be no prob for a hammer wielder ).
it is a very good addition to your knockdown skills, giving a great boost to your potential damage output.
however to be effective you need a relatively high earth skill.
and if you only want to take one elementalist skill with you this might be a waste.

-armour of earth is really good. a long duration buff for only 10 mana.
even at earth 2 it gives already 29 armour class. against everything! thus reducing the taken damage by more than a third.
it is good for tanking, but the speed slowdown makes you pretty... slow. :P
so a caster running away will get away from you.

-magnetic aura can give you some short time defensive boost, to use a signet of healing for example.
however i find it too expensive (or too short) to be of great value.
(and if you tank, earth armour is IMO much better to absorb the -40 AC of the signet)

-ward against melee is much better in that role.
for only 10 energy, you get an un-dispellable, area protection.
it GREATLY reduces the damage output of any melee enemy. not only do they hit less often, fewer hits also mean less adrenaline-> less special attacks.
even at relatively low level of the earth skill this has a good duration...
AND it can benefit your whole group.
AND there are many warriors out there that dont know about its effects, and will continue pounding... at maximum 50% of their original damage output.
AND as already said, there is no way for your enemy to get rid of it, except by avoiding the ward.

-obsidian flame is a dangerous spell.
exhaustion is nasty, even moreso for a warrior/ele.
the damge output is not thaaat great at low earth skill... i wouldnt generally use it as W/E.
but if you already have a high earth skill (for one or two other earth skills) this is a nice finishing blow.
no other skill has the ability to "garantee" such ammounts of damage in a short time (only monk protection spells reduce the damage).

the "bad ones"

-earthquake and eruption are IMO of no use for a warrior.
too costly, and too long to cast them.

-crystal wave is obsidian flames big brother, without the exhaustion.
however it is quite costly too... and you dont want to be a caster anyway.
(in PVE this is a different story though...)

-same goes for stoning. even if you inflict weakness, the mana=effect ratio is just bad.

-iron mist and gasping earth are only of use if you have another char doing other kinds of damage.

-kinetic armour is pretty useless for you, as casting spells constantly makes you a bad warrior.


the "depends on... " ones

-stone daggers...
hmm, hmm... normally a warrior should not use a spam spell such as this, especially as it is only of limited value against heavily armoured foes.
however, it can be a nice "ranged attack" to finish off fleeing casters
(esp. if you have earth armour on you).
you need some points in earth magic for this, but no need to max it.

-ward against elements gives you and your group some elemental protection...
hoewver it is 15 energy, and much less effective then ward against melee is against melee attacks.
if you only want to protect yourself, earth armour is much better.

-ward against foes slows the enemy down.
useful in some arenas...
but it will not offset the earth armour slowdown, as it has only a limited area of effect.


==>>
if you only want to put a few skillpoints into earth, i would advice taking earth armour and ward against melee, making you a MUCH better tank at the cost of mobility.

if you go for a "medium" ammount you can choose between the earth armour and/or ward against melee and/or stone daggers, as tanker with ranged attack.
or go for aftershock and/or obsidian flame and/or ward against melee, as more of a damage dealer.

i would not advice maxing earth, as you dont have the mana to use all the skills anyway.
6-8 points at lv 20 are enough to make most of the cheaper spells worthwhile for you...

thanks for the help. i am currently using only aftershock but will look into armor earth and ward of melee

Use these skills

1. Berseker stance
2. Devastating hammer
3. Crushing blow
4. Heavy blow
5. Aftershock
6. Bull’s strike
7. Sprint
8. Res signet

Use berseker stance to charge up your adrenaline. Once you get enough adrenaline cast devastating hammer, than crushing blow, then heavy blow and then aftershock. In less than 4secs, you will inflict tons of dmg, deep wound and 2 knockdowns(which also interupt the enemy and prevents him/her from healing for example).

Alternative, you could use ward vs foes(instead for lets say bull's strike or sprint), so that the enemies cant run away. Ward vs foes is very good when you have some ally casting smiting enchantments on you, cause enemies usually run/spread when you are hitting them with balthazar's aura. But its also very expensive, so its better to have someone else use this ward.

Dont use defensive skills, they are useless for a warrior. And using obsidian flame as a warrior is idiotic. I suggest you get 10 earth, 12 hammer, 12 strength. You could go for a superior rune, but keep your hammer/strength on 12 and just raise your earth. Hammer/strength dont affect your weapon dmg much after lvl12(they mostly affect your skills).

Quote: Originally Posted by NIB Use these skills

[...]

Dont use defensive skills, they are useless for a warrior. And using obsidian flame as a warrior is idiotic. I suggest you get 10 earth, 12 hammer, 12 strength. You could go for a superior rune, but keep your hammer/strength on 12 and just raise your earth. Hammer/strength dont affect your weapon dmg much after lvl12(they mostly affect your skills). saying some he should use one special build is idiotic IMO.
who says your build is the only option that should be played? (besides you of course...).

not using defensive skills might be your opinion, but warriors are not the best damage dealers anyway.
even your build, mainly focussed on damage will do less damage then many other builds.
and you need to first gather adrenaline every time you want to start that chain...
and you will be easily killed by pretty much anything.

a simple earth armour on your enemy will reduce the damage of your whole chain to 30%.
also, a ward against melee will make you miss half of the skills in your great offensive chain, on all enemies in the ward! and will make you take double the time to gather the adrenaline...

so versus an enemy using both, after 25 seconds of adrenaline gathering and using your abilities you do like 100 or 120 damage... whoopie!

obsidian flame is no spamm spell.
but it easily does 150-180 "nearly garanteed", ranged damage in 6 seconds for 10 energy. perfect for that running foe with 20% or less health.
which is more than your whole chain will do on someone standing in a simple ward against melee, after you gathered adrenaline for half an hour....
two times exhaustion is a bitch for a warrior, but an enemy less is a reward im willing to pay it for.

I didnt say that my build is the only possible build he could get. But i am suggesting a very efficient and tried build which works. There are a trillion other builds which are equally or more efficient. But personally, i cant think of a better hammer/earth build.

Quote: a simple earth armour on your enemy will reduce the damage of your whole chain to 30% Yes this is very useful when you are the last man standing from your team. <---sarcasm. Since 99.99999999% of the time, the enemy will aim warriors only when there arent any other enemies standing.

Quote: Ehm. Obsidian flame does up to 112dmg [...] obsidian flame does 112 damage at earth 12.
we both argued that there is no need to max earth though...

the combo you posted will work on fleeing enemies (although i see the adrenaline as a "unsecurity factor").
but you need a combination of several skills and thus several skillslots.
while obsidian flame is only one skill, able to do the same, without the need to catch the enemy... and further uses to damage enemies far away/behind walls etc.


Quote: Yes this is very useful when you are the last man standing from your team. <---sarcasm. Since 99.99999999% of the time, the enemy will aim warriors only when there arent any other enemies standing. yes, warriors are often ignored.
and why? because their damage output is considerably lower than the output of many other classes.
so i see not much use in it to try to marginally increase the damage output by using 7 of my 8 skills...
but the usefulness of the ability to cut damage to you to a third, by an instant cast, for 30 secs, for only 10 energy is something i find hard to deny.

If you think Warriors don't do damage you are sadly mistaken. Warriors have very good sustained DPS and if you're ignoring a guy who continually is knocking your monks down, its not going to be very much of a contest. In PvP, having Armor of Earth is just plain dumb, as it goes against everything a Warrior should be doing, which is running around from target to target quickly dealing damage and in this case, knockdowns.

Armor of Earth is a Warrior PvE Godsend. Your already ~100 AL becomes 150?! Add in Watch Yourself! and you're warrior has literally wittled all dmg done to him down to about 40% or less!

In PvP, Earth Warriors need only bring one ele skill. Aftershock. I see no reason for a warrior to bring a defensive skill in this game aspect. Unless it's a defensive skill that has repercussions on the enemy. [Plague Touch!]

my hammer earth build is almost cookie cutter, but those builds exist BECAUSE they're so effective. I don't have a w/e hammer type but if I had that option, it'd be this one.

Devastating Blow {E}
Crushing Blow
Hammer Bash
Irresistable Blow
For Great Justice!
Rush
Aftershock
Res Signet

I was debating whether to use bull strike or Hammer Bash and I decided on Bash. No need to chase enemies due to knockdown being it's own snare and hammer bash can be used whenever you feel like it. Since Adrenaline build up is so slow, For Great Justice! is used. I'd never bring Berserker Stance. 20% more adrenaline? That's pathetic. Rush sucks? I'll shoot you with my wand four times then. If you're running that much, and you run away from your teammates, hey, I don't care. But if you stick close to your team, I'll guaruntee I'll have 4 shots land in 6 seconds or so, then I'll be chasing you forever.

W/E probably is the best spiker build a warrior will ever come close too. The other being W/Mo with Holy Strike but Holy Strike ignores armor right? So I guess both builds can be comparable in certain setups.

W/E is also the easiest to shutdown with no hex/condition removal to speak of unless a monk is benevolent enough to be on your team with both those skills.

@white design

oh sure, a knockdown every 20 seconds will REALLY prevent that monk from healing...
especially considereeing the HUGE ammount of healing spells that take ages to cast and thus are easy to interrupt. (sarcasm here...)

warriors do damage. it is a nice bonus, and always usabale without energy.
but the damage warriors do is nothing compared to other damage builds.
the warrior damage is a nice way to split the enemy monks energy and time among several players, but compared to even random teams you will be the char doing the least damage for 3/4 of the fight.

ok, dont use earth armour and run around with your puny little attacks doing nearly no damage to the protected, self healing monk at all, while you are killed by few instant spells that are to fast to interrupt via knockdown (even if you reach the caster with your not slowdowned warrior).
and even if you dont die, you ever decreasing healthbar is distraction enough for your monk to bring him down.
you dont activate earth armour all the time. you do it when you know that you will recieve big ammounts of damage.

the warrior has damage potential, but it is easily shut down by ward against melee, which is able to cripple any ammount of warriors attacking your teammates in the ward, for only 10 energy.

im sure some day your great DPS potential will hit the surface and win you a fight, after loosing 20 in a row because you could not prevent damage done to you and your group.

also i find "running around and knocking down different targets" a very interesting idea...

im in no way the better strategist, or tactician.
my builds surley can easily countered by other builds and better players.
but ignoring ward against melee or earth armour as W/E just cripples yourself.
if you dont like the defensive skills, dont use them.
but saying they suck, because you are not able to use its benefits reduces your potential.

Don't underestimate stoning.

Well, you threw that in nicely. Stoning has a 15 energy cost. In no way can you hope to use Stoning as a staple skill (casting it and using Aftershock) because you'll be at -5 energy without Gladiator's Armor. Even continuously using Hammer Bash is more effective than a Stoning+Aftershock combo.

Quote: Originally Posted by Therlun @white design

oh sure, a knockdown every 20 seconds will REALLY prevent that monk from healing...
especially considereeing the HUGE ammount of healing spells that take ages to cast and thus are easy to interrupt. (sarcasm here...) Good hammer warriors rely on chain knockdowns, or combinations leading from the knockdown. Devestating + Crushing + Heavy + Heavy not only keeps a monk down for an extended period of time, it deals very powerful damage.

Quote: Originally Posted by Therlun warriors do damage. it is a nice bonus, and always usabale without energy.
but the damage warriors do is nothing compared to other damage builds.
the warrior damage is a nice way to split the enemy monks energy and time among several players, but compared to even random teams you will be the char doing the least damage for 3/4 of the fight. I have no idea where you are getting this warriors do no damage fact from. Axe Warriors do as good sustained DPS as you can get, whereas Hammer warriors put in less sustained damage but spike also. Let me think of what you might mean, hm..Smiting? doesn't really matter since Smiting needs Warriors to work, Mesmer? With NR fragility builds take forever to work, not to mention that one hex removal makes the mesmer useless for a while, Ele? Spike damage for sure, but in no way can you dismiss Warrior damage in favor of Eles since they cannot even come close to the sustainability of warriors. Necros? No Comment. Rangers? Solid DPS from spamming skills but hardly a great deal more than warriors.

Quote: ok, dont use earth armour and run around with your puny little attacks doing nearly no damage to the protected, self healing monk at all, while you are killed by few instant spells that are to fast to interrupt via knockdown (even if you reach the caster with your not slowdowned warrior).
and even if you dont die, you ever decreasing healthbar is distraction enough for your monk to bring him down.
you dont activate earth armour all the time. you do it when you know that you will recieve big ammounts of damage. I still don't see why you would care about defense. With Armor of Earth, the enemy monks will run circles around you, and you won't hit anything. Why do you think Sprint is almost universally agreed upon as a skill most every warrior should have? Not only that, Warriors by design have the largest armor, so why would the enemy be stupid enough to attack you?

Maybe you guys are looking at this the wrong way? why play W/E when you can play E/W? sure, you are more dependant on Armor of Earth and Obsidian flesh, but you were going to take those anyhow, right? A little energy storage and 2 more pips of energy regen go a long way here. Take Hammer, and Earth with a bit of Storage, maybe leftover points in tactics. Aftershock, Crystal Wave, Ob Flame, and hammer moves to knock down. No strength - but do you really need armor pen on your hammer attacks? Not when you have 150+ dmg from aftershock, and another 100+ from wave, with 120+ ob flame to finish them.

Nice. I'd love to see an Earth Elementalist tanking with a hammer in hand. I just revently converted my E/Mo to Earth/Protection Prayers and I have to say, I've never seen monks so bored. lol.

Ward Against Mellee
Ward Against Elements
Aegis
Shielding Hands
Shield of Regeneration
Eruption (because it blinds for 10 seconds)
Aura of Restoration (to keep you alive) *OR* Glyph of Lesser Energy (energy managment)
Resurrect/Rebirth

Oops...sorry. I got a little excited and went all kinds of off topic. Hammer weilding W/E. Yeah, they are cool.

Quote: obsidian flame does 112 damage at earth 12 Obsidian flame does 94dmg with 12 earth, 118dmg with 16 earth(which a primary warrior cant get) and 82dmg with 10 earth. Which is half the dmg that you stated. And you can easily kill running flees with bull's strike/sprint.

Quote: yes, warriors are often ignored.
and why? because their damage output is considerably lower than the output of many other classes. No, they do more than enough dmg. But they have more armor than other profs so it isnt a smart thing to try and kill them.

Quote: my impression is, that your build can easily countered by just one skill, ward against melee (one of the defensive skills you dont like...). I didnt say that i dont like ward vs melee. Ward vs melee is 1 of the best skills. But i find it idiotic to have such a skill on a primary warrior. And yes, ward vs melee can counter my build. For everything there is a counter, that doesnt mean that my build isnt good. Ward vs melee can counter all warrior builds. What difference would it make if i had armor of earth on me when the enemy is using ward vs melee? Or even obsidian.

And anyway, if ward vs melee is such a problem, use illusionary weaponry(dont even use a warrior), although illusionary isnt that great lately(too many de-enchantments used in pvp). Warriors are only good as smiting enchantment targets. If you send a primary elementalist to charge in with smiter enchantments, the enemy might spike that and kill him easily. A primary warrior wont be likely get aimed by the enemy and even if he did, he/she wont die as easily.

Quote:

For Great Justice! is used. I'd never bring Berserker Stance. 20% more adrenaline? That's pathetic. For great justice is a pretty expensive skill. And with berseker not only you gain 20% more adrenaline but you also attack 33% faster. This means that you overal gain adrenaline 60% faster. And not only gain adrenaline faster but you do 33% more dmg too. So with berseker stance, i traded +100% adrenaline gaining for +60% but i do more dmg(since i attack more often) and its also slightly cheaper than "for great justice". I am not saying that berseker stance is better than FGJ, i am just saying that it is a decent alternative that you shouldnt diss so easily. FGJ is an awsome skill for secondary warriors though(which IMO are better than primary). Not to mention that berseker has 15secs shorter recharge rate(only 30 secs vs the 45secs). Which is actually 10secs less(cause FGJ lasts 5 more secs than berseker). But its a shout, which means that you can use it at the same time with sprint. Which IMO is the biggest advantage of FGJ(and the reason that i often prefer it over berseker). Quote: but ignoring ward against melee or earth armour as W/E just cripples yourself. if you dont like the defensive skills, dont use them. but saying they suck, because you are not able to use its benefits reduces your potential. I dont diss the skills themselves, i diss their purpose on a wa/e. IMO any wa/e that uses those skills in pvp, should be shot in public. And if you have played more than 5 pvp battles, you would have known that. Quote: Maybe you guys are looking at this the wrong way? why play W/E when you can play E/W? Cause of strength which increases your dmg and the efficiency of some of your skills(sprint for example). But true, x/wa builds work pretty good too cause the larger energy pool/energy regen can offset their lack of dmg(cause of strength). But this post is about a wa/ele and not about an ele/wa, Anyway, as i said and before, warriors are mostly used as target for allied smiting enchantments. Now if you as a ele/wa try to charge in first to the enemy group(acting like a target for your ally's smiting enchantments), you will be most likely aimed by the enemy and die(unless you use something like armor of earth, which isnt gonna do you any good cause your speed will be greatly reduced thus you will become useless). But the enemy wont try to attack a primary warrior cause of the extra armor. Thus you can survive long enough till you reach the enemy team and use the smiting enchantments to dmg them. Then again, any decent group will remove those enchantments from you, which just proves how everything is counterable. Ele/wa is a better dmg dealer by using pbaoe than a wa/ele. But plz try to stick with the topic, which is "what should i do as a hammer/earth warrior?". PS Dont use skills that deal dmg over time(like eruption) in pvp. Most human players are smart enough to walk out of it.

Stoning Problem:

Glyph of Lesser Energy - Glyph
Your next spell costs 15 less Energy to cast.

Stoning - Spell
You send a flurry of stones at target foe. The stones strike for 20-76 Earth damage if they hit. If Stoning hits a foe suffering form Weakness, that foe is knocked down.

Your Stoning now cost 5 mana to cast

Devastating Hammer
Crushing Blow
Heavy Blow
Stoning
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Frenzy
Rush - Sprint - Warrior's Cunning
Res Sig

When you are full charged of adrenaline, buff with frenzy. This allow to speed up your attack speed, also speed up your devastating - crushing blow - heavy blow attack animation which you can add extra attacks between and after knockdowns. Then do Devastating(knockdown) > Crushing > regular attack > heavy(knockdown) > regular attack > regular attack > stoning(knockdown) > regular attack > regular attack > regular attack. your target will be chain knockdown for 12 secs before your target can move also you can burst all these attacks before your target can move. If you want to see damage amount this is how it works, 65(knockdown) > 100(deepwound)+65 > 45 > 75(knockdown) > 45 > 45 > 65(knockdown) 45 > 45 > 45

Iron Mist has a lot of potential, perticularly against a fleeing GvG team. If you bring a lightning hammer haft you could be quite effective. (providing the absence of NR, of course)

Iron mist is easily one of the most underrated skills in the game. Like Tuna said it's awesome for map/flag control in gvg.

Ward against Foes is another superb skill. It can be used effectively both offensively and defensively and is again another important part of map control.

Ward against Melee is in the 'absurdly good' category but it does not by any means make warriors useless or too weak (warriors are simply so powerful without it). Just look at KOR.

Aftershock is meh. It's useful in some builds, mainly a combo starter with backbreaker, but it only belongs on one person unless you're doing a wacko EQ/AS teambuild which is pretty fun to do. It is certainly not a must with a hammer warrior though.

If you want a sample build, this one works fine for hammers:

16 hammer
9 strength
10 secondary

Devastating Hammer
Mighty Blow
Heavy Blow
Crushing Blow
Irresistible Blow
Frenzy
Sprint
Utility skill (I personally like Judges Insight or Ward against foes)

Nothing wrong with being able to solo a monk dead from full health in <7 seconds.

Quote: Iron Mist has a lot of potential, perticularly against a fleeing GvG team. If you bring a lightning hammer haft you could be quite effective. (providing the absence of NR, of course) Ehm, can you say winter? You know, the spirit that all ranger teams use? That turns all elemental dmg into cold dmg. Iron mist isnt a bad skill, i just find it that it lasts too little, has big energy cost and casting time for a warrior. And since a big ammount of the dmg that a hammer/earth warrior does, comes from the smiting enchantments that the allies casted on you, iron mist isnt the most appropriate skill for this build. Not to mention that most of the time, an ally will cast judge's insight on you, thus you will be doing 0 dmg.

Iron mist can work, but only if your entire team does lightning dmg. And then you still have to kill winter all the time(which with oathshot can be casted every 30secs). Iron mist is certainly a very interesting skill, but lets not overcomplicate things.

The way i see it, is that a kd+as warrior is usually needed for smiting teams. Having that in mind, my build is a very good build. Not an original build, but it works. You can do some modifications, but you should always use devasting hammer, crushing blow, heavy blow, aftershock. You need a 2 kd/4 skill chain. Use that chain in coordination with your teammates(do a coordinated "spike" ) and enemies will drop really fast.