by Hotstreak - 10 years ago     show comments

Books have often been society’s only bastion of light for passing along knowledge that would otherwise be lost to time or convoluted by the oral tradition. In order to provide new and old adventurers with as much knowledge of what to expect on their journey in Sanctuary, we created this tome of knowledge – Ars Arcanum. We will regularly feature a Legendary weapon or armor piece, discussing its stand-alone powers and capabilities, as well as how it may synergize with new builds or other item

This week we will be going over a new barbarian favorite, The Gavel of Judgement. GoJ got a new legendary affix added to it in the latest patch and it is centered around Hammer of the Ancients. This weapon is giving Barbarian players the ability to go far into Greater Rifts so lets break it down and find out why.

Why is it good?

GoJ is simply the best in slot weapon for Barbarians right now. It’s legendary affix cause HotA to return 20-25 fury when ever it hits three or less enemies. This is an amazing boost to fury efficiency when fighting Elite Packs, Bosses, or Rift Guardians. Before this weapon, fury efficiency on single target encounters was a nightmare and would a lot of the time be the reason for a failed grift. This weapon doesn’t completely fix the issue but it has helped it a lot. So let’s take a look at the Immortal King’s set and see how GoJ synergizes with it’s bonuses.

• (2) Set:
• Call of the Ancients last until they die.
• (4) Set:
• Reduce the cooldown of Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients by 3 seconds for every 10 Fury you spend with an attack.
• (6) Set:
• While both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients is active, you deal 250% increased damage.

The real benefit from IK with GoJ is the ability to keep up your Ancients from the Call of the Ancients skill. Since they last until they die, you can benefit fully from the new Fury of the Ancients

shoulders. These shoulders give your Ancients the effect of the Ancient’s Fury rune (gain 4 fury every time an Ancient does damage) without equipping it on the CotA skill itself, which helps even more with fury generation and also allows you to use a different rune on the skill. The most popular choice is using Together as One which splits the damage taken between you and your three Ancients.

Which gives you a much needed survivability boost for when your pushing harder content or trying to do higher level grifts. Unity is also used for this build so the survivability from TaO is pretty significant, since it’s almost like doubling up Unity’s effect.

Another thing worth mentioning is the 4 and 6 set bonus of IK. The 4 set will allow you to get pretty close to 100% up time on Wrath of the Berserker since HotA is a fury heavy skill. That combined with the 250% damage boost from the 6 set and the 30-40% damage boost to HotA on GoJ, allows you to put out some serious sustainable damage and is a big reason why this build is so popular.

All in all it’s a very solid and fun build to play if you love HotA and I highly recommend trying it out.

Who is it good for?

Since Mighty Weapons are a Barbarian specific item, only they can use it.

Where can I find it?

This is not a season exclusive item so it can be found on any Normal or Hardcore character.

The Fluff

A mighty symbol of Tyrael, the archangel of Justice, though never actually used by him. Stolen from the Courts of Justice in the High Heavens by renegade angels.