As a rule, I agree that hth is one of the weaker spec. But as with all rules, there are many exceptions. You have to look at the whole package you are getting - and how the different aspects of your build work together.

In this case (pre-legacy choice), the build does not really excel at anything except for dropping maladictions. But you will have the deadliest set of stat-dropping tools out there available to you. Not the most powerful perhaps, that award goes to mace/dagger or assassins, but the best for landing you kills.

The reason for this is the seemingly small fact that hurl, artery and vital are all 1-round skills. This means that if you time things right, you will always have the first move after dropping their strength.

For example, let's assume you open the fight with hurl, enemy responds with a dirt kick. Now you can follow up with an artery, and then decide what to do next. If you successfully drop his weapons, you can go imperial offense and start bashing. Otherwise, you can just berserk or something and see what he does next. If, then, he does another two-round skill (let's say that he is silly and disarms you.) Now you drop a vital area, and then have the option to go into offensive bash mode again. (Note here that if you had been a mace spec instead, you would at some point have to boneshatter your enemy and thus creating a situation where he has the next command, and if your boneshatter turned the fight heavily in your favor which will often be the case, he will just run off.)

Also, hand to hand deals with some very specific threats that warriors have a hard time countering otherwise. Entwine/bloodthirst, ranger ambushes (cannot flee safely because of snare), cutoff specs and quicksand come to mind.

Lastly, when you go into imperial offense mode, you will be very deadly as your opponent's tanking will be quite screwed - you are definitley comparable to a charged up stsf spec against a heavily maladicted opponent. You lose the cutoff from stsf, but you have bash and superior strength (which is important for crushing blow and pummel) - plus dern eq means you will usually have a really high damroll.

Also, you can make good use of the resist holy shield to soak up damage while handing out maladictions.

Good legacies would be:
- Bash legacy - needs no explanation
- Cry of thunder - juice that damage rush even more
- Forsaken thoughts - helpful against the wrath vuln and communers (fort+outlander has plenty)
- Hour past midnight - if you really want a lagging opener.. you are hth spec so you will have space for weapons
- Gates
- Riddle
- Enigma - offensive wands + stun
- Harmonious equilibrium
- Calming the tempest
- Whispers (not for imperial, but nice for a berserker version of the build

the reason is so longish is because i really want to play but...

Ping statistics for 66.85.154.235:
Packets: Sent = 100, Received = 86, Lost = 14 (14% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 212ms, Maximum = 1928ms, Average = 549ms

and this is on a good day :p