Dilemna: Warrior/Monk or Elementalist?

I finally got around to registering here, it was getting to the point I was checking the frontpage everyday for new articles

Anyway, I've played a warrior/monk with sword/shield for all the BWE's since E3 until Febuary. In february I toyed around with a hammer W/Mo and I really found him to be alot more effective than the sword warrior.

Now I know I'm going to get comments saying that I should dump my hammer and get a sword, and that the added attack speed is a huge advantage for gaining adrenaline and stacking damage skills. I know all that, but I love my hammer too much to drop it, tell me you would think twice about salvaging this hammer if you had it in your inventory:

Cold Damage: 19-35
Damage +14% (while health over 50%)
Damage +20% (customized)

After calculating all its bonus' (and my hammer mastery of 12) the hammer's damage comes out to: 26-49 Damage. That's 24.63 DPS.

I have hit a couple times for 140-150 damage in GvG with this hammer after using a Hammer Bash. I don't know how I did it, (critical hits? armor penetration?) But I never even came close to doing that kind of damage in one hit with my sword warrior, even with final thrust.

Now onto my dilemna, the goal of my warrior is to annoy monks with knockdown till they start running. Getting them to run may not be as effective as killing them, but at least it achieves the same effect: they no longer heal their team. I have a choice between a W/Mo Smiter or W/E Water.

For my W/Mo Smiter:

Hammer: 12
Strength: 10
Smiting Prayers: 10

-Counter Blow: [4Adren] If this attack hits an attacking foe, that foe is knocked down.
-Hammer Bash: [6Adren] Lose all adrenaline. If Hammer Bash hits, your target is knocked down.
-Berserker Stance: [C5, A0, R30] For 9 seconds, you attack 33% faster than normal and gain 50% more adrenaline each time you hit in melee. Berserker Stance ends if you use a skill.
-Sprint: [C5, A0, R20] For 12 seconds, you move 25% faster.
-Mighty Blow: [7Adren] This attack deals 24 more damage if it hits.
*or*
Power Attack: [C5, A0, R4] If this attack hits, you strike for 22 more damage (before armor).
-Bull's Strike: [C5, A0, R8] If this attack hits a fleeing foe, you strike for 22 more damage (before armor), and your target is knocked down.
-Scourge Healing: [C10, A2, R5] For 30 seconds, every time target foe is healed, the healer takes 15-67 holy damage.
-Judge's Insight: [C10, A2, R10] For 16 seconds, target ally's attacks deal holy damage and have +20% armor penetration.

And now the alternative W/E Water Build:

Hammer: 12
Strength: 10
Water Magic: 10

-Counter Blow: [4Adren] If this attack hits an attacking foe, that foe is knocked down.
-Hammer Bash: [6Adren] Lose all adrenaline. If Hammer Bash hits, your target is knocked down.
-Berserker Stance: [C5, A0, R30] For 9 seconds, you attack 33% faster than normal and gain 50% more adrenaline each time you hit in melee. Berserker Stance ends if you use a skill.
-Sprint: [C5, A0, R20] For 12 seconds, you move 25% faster.
-Mighty Blow: [7Adren] This attack deals 24 more damage if it hits.
*or*
Power Attack: [C5, A0, R4] If this attack hits, you strike for 22 more damage (before armor).
-Flurry: [C5, A0, R5] For 5 seconds, your attack rate is increased, but you deal less damage.
-Conjure Frost: [C10, A1, R60] Lose all enchantments. For 60 seconds, your attacks strike for an additional 11 cold damage.
-Water Trident: [C5, A1, R3] Send out a water trident at target foe. Water Trident strikes for 50 cold damage if it hits. If it hits a moving foe, that foe is knocked down. This is an elite skill.


Now, healing scourge is a great spell, and I found that the first thing monks did when they get back up from a knockdown is heal themselves, (does healing scourge activate everytime healing hands heals?) so it would be a good spell to reduce the effectiveness of a monk healing themselves.

Water trident on the other hand is something that I've badly needed, a way of snaring people who run away from me. Bull's Strike along with sprint is ok for handling that but its only successful about 40% of the time. So water trident is the perfect alternative.

Now conjure frost and judge's insight both boost my damage, its hard to say which one will do a better job, does holy damage and +20% penetration give me more than +11dmg?


If you can help me with deciding which sec class to choose, and maybe even suggest some alternative skills I would appreciate it.

I'm not a fan of hammers but I'm not going to beat people over the head with my bias if they don't want to hear it.

The major difference between Conjure Frost (or Flame or Lightning) and Judge's Insight is the energy cost. The difference in damage is negligible, but Judge's Insight costs 3-4 times as much energy. (10 energy every 60 seconds vs 10 energy every 15-18 seconds.)

Against low armor targets (casters) Conjure will be slightly better by about 2 points of damage. Against warriors, Judge's Insight will add about 5 more damage than conjure.

Having said that, I wouldn't base my decision in this case on damage numbers. I'd look at what else a secondary class offers, and when you get down to it, a Warrior Monk has a lot more versatility than a Warrior Elementalist will ever have.

You may not think about it now because it may not suit your current build, but a monk primary or secondary has a ton to offer any team. Backing up your warrior with elementalist skills doesn't leave you with any options, because any elementalist skill over 10 energy is effectively out of reach.

Some thoughts for what you can do with your Monk secondary:
Restore Life
Remove Hex
Mend Condition
Shielding Hands
Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Signet of Judgement {E}
and as you pointed out, Judge's Insight and Scourge Healing.

All of those spells can be used on yourself or on teammates to help them out as the situation dictates. On top of that, many of those require only a few or no points in their respective attributes to be effective.

Elementalist brings, as you mentioned:
Water Trident
Conjure Frost

Beyond that, there really isn't much you can afford to bring along, and most of it isn't all that useful anyways.

----------
A few specific build criticisms.

Hammer bash and other adrenaline skills do not mix.
Berserker Stance does not mix with any skill.
You don't have an elite on your W/Mo.

In all seriousness though, berserker stance is only up 1/3 of the time at max (10 second duration, 30 second recycle) and you can't use any skill while you're using it. That's when you need to be using your Conjure or Judge's Insight. But if for some reason you need to knock your target down asap (they run away, a monk is about to cast Divine Interventon, etc..) you can't use Counter Blow, you have to use Hammer Bash, and all that adrenaline you've spent building up is gone, POOF.

I strongly recommend bringing Frenzy over Berserker Stance. With a good monk on your team, and keeping targets on their backs (i.e. not attacking you) the double damage drawback isn't nearly as bad as it looks.

I also strongly recommend ditching Hammer Bash unless it's the only adrenaline skill you bring. If you want to use Counter Blow and Mighty Blow, Hammer Bash does not belong on your skillbar.

As I mentioned before, you have no elite on your W/Mo. I'd catiously recommend Backbreaker (and possibly Earth Shaker for when you get swarmed in PvE). It does cost 10 adrenaline to charge either of those, but you can use Counter Blow and Mighty Blow without worrying.

I'd say stick with /Monk rather than go to /Elementalist. As said above, while a /Elementalist can be very useful, it's not as versatile. What do you get from it? A conjure? Maybe some Earth-Armour spells like the Wards or perhaps a low energy cost spell like WT. But I'm not an expert on either... And even less so with warriors... I just know you kicked ass last weekend.

The only Hammer Warrior I can really endorse right now is a Backbreaker lock Wa/Mo:

Backbreaker
Frenzy
Life Bond
Balthazar's Spirit
Restore Life
etc

Or slight variations on that theme.

Basically, put a low level Life Bond on your favorite Monk. Every time they get hit, you gain adrenaline. Since Monks are focus fire targets, that translates to a bunch of damage for you, and a bunch of adrenaline, too. Backbreaker with Stonefist Gauntlets is worth 5 seconds of knockdown - plenty of time for you get pick up another ten strikes of adrenaline.

Hammer W/El doesn't do what you want it to do - Conjure + hammer just isn't as good as JI + hammer, and you don't have a whole lot of depth either. Basically I'd only play a hammer Warrior if I could set up knocklock combos and keep someone out of the game, otherwise you're better off using a sword or axe for the superior damage.

Peace,
-CxE

Now that you've mentioned it, berseker stance definately could be replaced, last BWE I was casting it constantly and it would always top up all my adrenaline skills. But the recharge and skill lockout really limited it.

About frenzy, I've tried that skill before and it was pretty good, but I'm worried that if an angry elementalist decides to launch a phoenix at my face, that's over 200 damage that I don't know if I could handle, and would immediately make me a ripe target for any adjacent enemies. Compared to frenzy, how would Flurry [C5, A0, R5] (For 5 seconds, your attack rate is increased, but you deal less damage) compare to it? Does anyone have numbers as to the speed boost flurry provides? I read recently that using flurry sparingly does increase DPS, although that may only apply to swords. I'll add Flurry vs. Frenzy on my todo list this BWE. In the end I think I'll choose whichever is faster, but if they're the same I'll definately go for Frenzy.

As for the discussion about hammer bash, it was probably my most used skill, since the casters I attacked were 90% of the time just standing there casting and not actually attacking, preventing me from using Counter Blow. The only time I would use counter blow was when I had to snare an enemy warrior that was becoming too much trouble for one of our casters, allowing them time to run away, but fortunately that doesn't happen often. You guys also got me thinking about Backbreaker, originally I was scared of its huge adrenaline cost, but with life bond it really looks plausible to use. There's no way Backbreaker and Hammer Bash can live together, and even if I would cast hammer bash right after the enemy gets up from a backbreaker, I would lose all the adrenaline I gained while they were knocked down, which is a waste. So hammer bash is definately getting replaced by Back Breaker.

Now given that I have lifebond on me, I think mighty blow would be more plausible to use than power attack, since I won't want to be spamming an energy skill when I only have 1 pip of energy regeneration.

I think I'll be adding smite hex [C5, A2, R15] (Remove a hex from target ally. Foes near that ally suffer 50 damage.) From all my screenshots from PvP I always have some kind of hex on me and since I'm almost always beside an enemy the added damage is a plus, not to mention I can help out the monks with it as well. The amity/pacifism builds I encountered were annoying as hell, dancing around like a monkey for 10 seconds hoping that someone will take pity and damage me so that I can attack again

Now here's where I need help again. I didn't quite accentuate the fact that casters run away from me alot and all I had to deal with this was sprint and Bull's Strike. Bull's Strike works very rarely. They run, with me behind them, and suddenly stop to use a skill, at which point I get into range and hit them with Bull's Strike which does nothing since they were standing still. The enemy has to run for quite some time until sprint allows me to get into melee range and hit them with Bull's Strike while they're on the move. And with this build, I won't have time to chase someone in circles because I'll lose my precious adrenaline. So if someone runs from me, sprint is all I have, is it wise to include bull's strike in the build, despite it failing about %60 of the time?

So after taking your advice I ended up with this build:

Hammer: 12
Strength: 10
Smiting Prayers: 10

-Back Breaker: [10Adren] If Backbreaker hits, you strike for 1-16 more damage and your target is knocked down for 4 seconds.
-Mighty Blow: [7Adren] This attack deals 24 more damage if it hits.
-Frenzy: [C5, A0, R4] For 8 seconds, you attack 25% faster, but take double damage.
-Sprint: [C5, A0, R20] For 12 seconds, you move 25% faster.
-Smite Hex: [C5, A2, R15] Remove a hex from target ally. Foes near that ally suffer 50 damage.
-Scourge Healing: [C10, A2, R5] For 30 seconds, every time target foe is healed, the healer takes 15-67 holy damage.
-Life Bond: [C10=>, A2, R0] While you maintain this enchantment, whenever target other ally takes physical damage, half the damage is redirected to you. The damage you receive this way is reduced by 3 points.
-Balthazar's Spirit: [C10=>, A2, R0] While you maintain this enchantment, target ally gains adrenaline and energy after taking damage.


It looks alot better than what I had in my first post, and I definately feel that this build has more direction and is a lot more specialized. Life bond and balthazar's spirit can be put on together when one of my teammates is getting gang banged, at the cost of losing all energy regeneration, so that I can spam my adrenaline skills. Sprint is in there if I need to make a quick getaway or chase after someone. Scourge healing can be used on a monk after they get up from a 5 second nap caused by backbreaker, and hopefully lessen their healing efforts. And smite hex can be used for some extra damage as well as getting rid of pesky hexes.

Flurry

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ead.php?p=8180

It has little value except to build adrenaline or indirect Conjure aid.

Ahh thank you, silly me I should have done a forum search. Well looks like frenzy is the skill to use in this build.

The first character I created was a W/E. It sounded really appealing at first. But once I got it into it, I found out there isn't much to do. I was just a warrior that gained little if any benefit from my secondary. And even though /monk is very common, there is such diversity in the skills that you won't just be a cookie-cutter build. I agree with Scaphism on the rest.

And it seems to me that Flurry and Frenzy are the same speed, at least when I used them. I could be wrong. Maybe they have changed it. I use Frenzy now as I find it better.

I don't know how much affective Smite Hex will be. Doesn't seem like the best decision for a warrior to switch focus from foe to ally (unless of course it was to heal them or something of that sort). Maybe replace it with a low cost skill to rake up some easy damage (especially with Frenzy).