First Attempt at a KD/AS Warrior

I usually just play a W/N axe spiker with Rend, but I wanted to try out a KD/AS W/E as I've never really played one before. I came up with this:

Hammer Mastery: 16 (12+3+1)
Strength: 9 (8+1)
Earth Magic: 10

Frenzy
Sprint
Devastating Hammer (E)
Heavy Blow
Mighty Blow
Irresistible Blow
Aftershock
Res Sig

Constructive criticism is welcome. I would try Crushing Blow instead of Mighty Blow, unless you expect to have someone else on your team applying deep wounds to your target.

One of the main reasons why I wouldn't have W/Mo running JI is simply the cast time. That's what put me off of the idea of JI. The extra damage is good, but a two second cast during a fight isn't ideal. I guess ideally I would go full hammer and forget about AS if I'm backed up by some decent spikers.

BTW I was thinking about a build using an elemental haft and conjure "element".
Would the extra damage (11 dmg at 10 air/water/fire) be worthwhile?

Ditch heavy blow for hammer bash... Both lose all adrenaline but at least bash is unconditional. Ensign showed me the light... Yeah, bash is unconditional, but you don't get the +30 damage from heavy blow. If he wants more KD on different targets, bash is better. If he's going straight combo damage, heavy will work much better.

The build looks good, except for Mighty blow. Getting 6A might be hard with heavy/bash being a key skill. If you really want +30 damage, Irr should fill it just fine. I'd switch it out for crushing for the +20 damage and deep wound on KD, just in case they some how survive your intital attack.

The combo you would want to go for would be Devestating->Crushing->Heavy/Bash->AS. Finsih with an Irr if needed. You can probably see why I favor Heavy over Bash as the +30 can really be a table turner. Then again, if Dev misses the whole thing dies. Although, if you miss with Devestating hammer I wouldn't really expect Bash to do much better.

By the way, you have a ~1s. window between devastating and crushing blow to remove weakness, and I find it hard to believe a monk can consistently remove the condition within that timeframe. I can!! with my N/X and X/N!! i can also remove deep wound from ME/N to make their Virulence piece of crap against me to make them yelling at me!!

Hammer Bash is pretty counterintuitive if you ask me. Yeah, you're gonna get more consistent knockdowns with hammer bash, but your damage spike will be significantly weaker. And one of the prime reasons of keeping a target knocked down is to deliver a powerful spike that can kill the target. The damage spike is the primary reason to run a hammer warrior, the knockdown is secondary.

By the way, you have a ~1s. window between devastating and crushing blow to remove weakness, and I find it hard to believe a monk can consistently remove the condition within that timeframe. Actually, you're wrong twice. The reason to run a Hammer Warrior IS the knockdown. Axe spikes do about the same damage but in a much shorter timeframe and are therefore harder to defend against reactively. A Hammer knockdown chain takes at least 4 seconds to execute. A Frenzy axe spike using three skills takes a little under 3 seconds.

If you Frenzy the Hammer knockdown chain, you can get 2 hits in while they're down from Devastating Hammer and leave only about a 1/3 second window for them to get a spell off before Hammer Bash or Heavy Blow hits. I don't really feel the Hammer KD chain counts as a "spike" because it takes so long to execute. Hammer knockdown chains somewhat make up for their slowness with the lockdown and prevention the knockdowns cause.

Furthermore, you fail to take into account cross-healing and condition removal from another source. Yes, the knockdown chain will prevent the monk you're attacking from removing the weakness, but it doesn't prevent one of his allies doing it. There's about a 3 or so second window for someone else to remove the weakness before your Heavy Blow hits. That's well within the scope of even my failing reflexes.

Conclusion: Hammer Bash for the win.

Actually, you're wrong twice. The reason to run a Hammer Warrior IS the knockdown. Axe spikes do about the same damage but in a much shorter timeframe and are therefore harder to defend against reactively. A Hammer knockdown chain takes at least 4 seconds to execute. A Frenzy axe spike using three skills takes a little under 3 seconds.

If you Frenzy the Hammer knockdown chain, you can get 2 hits in while they're down from Devastating Hammer and leave only about a 1/3 second window for them to get a spell off before Hammer Bash or Heavy Blow hits. I don't really feel the Hammer KD chain counts as a "spike" because it takes so long to execute. Hammer knockdown chains somewhat make up for their slowness with the lockdown and prevention the knockdowns cause.

Furthermore, you fail to take into account cross-healing and condition removal from another source. Yes, the knockdown chain will prevent the monk you're attacking from removing the weakness, but it doesn't prevent one of his allies doing it. There's about a 3 or so second window for someone else to remove the weakness before your Heavy Blow hits. That's well within the scope of even my failing reflexes.

Conclusion: Hammer Bash for the win. Some pretty bold statements.

No, I don't fail to take into account cross-heals/removals. The KDed monk has no chance to remove weakness, so it's obviously up to the others. 2 mend ailments (yes, there's also a deep wound on top) from 2 other monks within 3s. is uncommon, to say the least.

And axe spikes, while slightly quicker, are quite less hard hitting than hammer spikes. If your build is lacking in snares, then hammer bash might not be a bad choice, but far from this "you're wrong, hammer bash is right" stuff. I'd rather not sacrifice extra damage for a slightly better effect. If I miss devastating, it's likely I'm gonna miss most of my other attacks too, so it's gg and on to another target to rebuild adren. Whether or not I immediately get a bash knockdown and half-decent damage on that other target isn't anything too critical.