Open World Low Level Fractal Hammer Brand

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

I heard Firebrand produces tons of Crit so I was wondering if there's a build that works for Hammer, Zerker Trinkets, tanky armor such as Soldiers or Valk, I would hope this would work for Open World, Low Level Fractals, possibly WVWVW.

 

Is Seraphs any good for a hybrid build?

 

I was thinking FB/Radiance/Zeal.

 

What might go good with Hammer, Scepter?

[phor.7952]

Firebrand doesn't produce any crit.

Did you mean Quickness?

 

I played a Zerk/Valk Bow/Hammer Radiance/Virtues/DH with 100% crit rate in HoT and that spec continues to work well in PoF open world.

But Quickness with Hammer is FUN.

So I thought there had to be a way to make a crit Hammer quickness Firebrand.

And I tried about a dozen different iterations before I gave up on it.

 

The problem is that DH Radiant Hammer relies on a lot of Synergies that you lose with Firebrand. For example, throwing Spear of Justice on that DH build would set up Retaliation, Might, Cripple, several stacks of Vulnerability, and about 40% in extra damage modifiers that all come from Justice effects. Tome of Justice screws all that up.

With a Power build you actually want to ignore Tome of Justice, but if you do that then you lose half the reason to take Radiance (Justice resets on kill) and a major part of the reason to take the Virtues as well (virtues apply Might and Retaliation, and 25% duration increase on Retal).

So right off the bat it seems like taking Zeal instead of Virtues makes sense. You pick up Symbolic Exposure/Power/Avenger, but without Virtues, you lose out on Master of Consecrations for Hallowed Ground and the 25% boon duration for Retaliation. So to keep Retal up you have to rely on a lot of cooldowns (Mantra of Liberation 15s, Healer's Retribution 20s, Stand Your Ground 30s, Hallowed Ground 45s).

 

IMHO, Zeal/Radiance/FB is MUCH better with GS than with Hammer because GS gives you two sources of Retaliation in the normal rotation.

 

If you want a Power/Quickness Firebrand Hammer build for open world, give this one a shot:

* [gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQFASnsADFBjtCBGCBEEhl4Bb/lWT7pYXgowWoKAslqXA-jxRBABA8AAwTHA/7PYmSwrU+Rp6PPcBAEFQgB-e](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQFASnsADFBjtCBGCBEEhl4Bb/lWT7pYXgowWoKAslqXA-jxRBABA8AAwTHA/7PYmSwrU+Rp6PPcBAEFQgB-e "gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQFASnsADFBjtCBGCBEEhl4Bb/lWT7pYXgowWoKAslqXA-jxRBABA8AAwTHA/7PYmSwrU+Rp6PPcBAEFQgB-e")

 

Hit Solace and Potence to drop a Symbol and start Quickness/Might for the Auto Chain.

From then on you just try to maintain Quickness.

 

Since we take Loremaster you can use Tome of Resolve and Tome of Courage as situational utility without losing the passives.

They give you access to Swiftness, Condition Removal, a Water Field, Resistance, and even a Projectile Bubble without having to use active slot skills.

 

Even though it's full zerker, you get about as much Healing as Warrior's Healing Signet.

You can also dodge an attack every ~8 seconds for a small heal and re-engage with Hammer2.

Add the Aegis and permanent protection on top of that and it's a lot more survivable in the open world than you'd think.

 

If you absolutely had to have more HP you could use Maruader gear instead of Berserker to trade away some DPS for more health.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

I'm going to try the build on Meta Battle, it's probably not up to date but I don't trust QTFY to ever have any builds except which ever has bleeding edge DPS.