Bully Build
First published in Season 4. Return to the Build Hub.
Landi's super-stunner bully build
This is a really solid, safe build to play, that helps ground any group in content that is a bit challenging. It’s not huge damage, although it is decent against Ancients and Lost. It just feels awesome to keep bullying a mob so they can’t get up and hit you. You don’t need really fast reflexes or anything to play this build and it is quite forgiving of mistakes while still being effective.
Build Summary
Weapons:
- War Hammer
- Spear
Best for:
- PVE – Ancients and Lost
- Expeditions, Open-world
Main Attributes:
- Strength
This includes things that prevent damage such as blocks, stuns, roots, staggers.
This includes things that strengthen the team and mitigate damage, such as healing, buffing and debuffing.
This is pretty self-explanatory and covers raw damage output, including damage over time.
Difficulty: Easy
Weapon Ability Trees
This build focuses on Crowd Control, so has 5 abilities that can incapacitate the enemy – Shockwave, Wrecking Ball and Clear Out on the Hammer, and Sweep and Vault Kick on the Spear. You could do the unthinkable and try Javelin instead of Perforate for another knockdown.
View my full gearset on nw-buddy.de. This is still a work in progress but it’s important to note that you can still play effectively without completely optimised gear. I’ve got Blooddrinker in there for maximum survivability but usually wear a Strike or Lightning damage ring instead.
Update: I’m currently using Spark of Mjolnir, which means swapping Clear Out for Mighty Gavel. Here’s the build I use for that on nw-buddy.de.
Attribute distribution
Even though Spear scales more with Dex than Strength, I consider this a Hammer build so skew my stats toward Strength. I use the Attuned Leather pants and pick up the 25 bonuses on every attribute as well. You can play around with more Dex if you prefer. I’ve put 102 Con for safety but usually run with 50 or 52, so that I can eat a Roasted Rabbit to hit 100 or 150 if needed, otherwise I’m eating Banana Bread.
Important perks
Weapons
You want Sundering Shockwave and Sundering Clearout, just to keep up the utility value. One on the weapon and one on armor. Trenchant Strikes is also good on the hammer, or Trenchant Recovery if you’re going to be playing solo and want more survivability.
I also like all the Spear weapon ability perks and currently use Bleeding Sweep on my spear, with Keen Vault Kick and Fortifying Perforate on my armour.
Gems: if you think you won’t take any damage, you could use Diamonds, but since I know I’m going to make mistakes, I prefer to use Emeralds.
Armor
In general, Enchanted Ward, Elemental Aversion, and Health are good armour perks. Make sure you have your 4/4 Refreshing across the set for cooldown reduction but don’t overstack it.
You shouldn’t be getting hit too much with this build, so could afford to use an elemental gem in your weapon and harnessing on your gear instead of a defensive perk. For example, a Topaz plus Lightning Harnessing, plus a Lightning damage ring would be good against Ancients. Although this works better on a Spark of Mjölnir build, with one of the abilities swapped for Mighty Gavel.
Jewelry
Amulets are generally swapped out depending on content. For mutations, you should have your set of four Protection+Health amulets.
Your ring should have a damage perk, Strike damage usually, or an elemental type if you have gone that way. Hearty is essential, and for your third perk you can either put one of your Refreshing quota here, Keen Awareness for extra crit chance, or Leeching for a bit more sustain. If you have Blooddrinker, you can use it to stay alive quite effectively but remember it will reduce your damage output.
For earrings, I just have a set of Lifeloops that I use across all builds, each one with a different mutation gem, so I can swap the earring instead of the gem each time. This probably takes a long time to pay off, but it feels better 🙂 I like Refreshing Toast and slot lower level mana pots for the extra heal from Healthy Toast.
Build in Action
I went to Helios to see whether I could survive the first room with the archers and the four Psychopomps on my own. Just ignore my mistakes, like using Clear Out on two perfectly knocked-down mobs. In my defense, I’ve been using Spark of Mjölnir, so I’m used to Mighty Gavel on the Clear Out button. When I used to do solo chest runs, I would avoid Stairs of Tefenet because I’d often end up dying, so I went there too and found out how easy it is with this build.
My advice
This build has five forms of crowd control, so the main way to play is to manage your cooldowns so when the target recovers, you’re ready to knock them down again. What I try to do is alternate charged heavy autos with the special abilities, and by the time I get through my rotation, the first cooldown is done. I run the Quick Recovery passive that provides cooldown reduction on heavy attacks, but others might choose to use light attacks and Acceleration instead.
On the spear, I try to do Perforate then Sweep, ending in the Coup de Grâce. By rending the target first, I maximise my big damage on Coup de Grâce. When in a group, that Rend also helps everyone else’s damage so it’s good to get it on there at the beginning. I then use Vault Kick to reduce my cooldowns and add another stagger
With the hammer, I try to save my Shockwave for when the target goes into grit, as it’s my only ability that stuns through it. I have Sundering Clear Out on my hammer so I’ll try and lead with that, although I need to be careful if we’re in the Open World. In expeditions, Clear Out doesn’t move the mobs very far. I mostly enjoy opening with Wrecking Ball, because running up and smashing a mob down to the ground immediately is a lot of fun. But it depends on how hard the content is and whether I need to maximise my debuffs or not.
I use Light Armor because I find the juxtaposition between the light dodge roll and the massive hammer a lot of fun, but if you really wanted to be safe you could go Medium. Actually, I used to like medium for this build when it got more dodges but haven’t used it since they changed that.
My final advice is that if you’re not awesome with the controls but want to try some more difficult content, this is a build I recommend for you. I make a lot of mistakes, accidentally face the wrong way or get between the tank and the mobs (oops!). In this build, I can usually dodge and stun my way out of it. Even if I’m playing a higher damage weapon, I feel safer when someone in the group is running a bully build like this one.
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