Guild Wars 2

Hey all. I’m new to s/d (used staff for about a year in WvW). It seems many of the s/d builds are using expensive equipment (e.g. Divinity). I want to start using s/d, but wanted to build something a bit more economical which will allow me to be more flexible versus feeling tied down because I just invested over 60g on Divinity runes.

I used LightningBlaze’s s/d build as a base and changed our the runes for orbs, and adjusted trinkets to compensate. I feel like this is fairly balanced with a focus on high dmg/crit/armor/health while sacrificing some healing power, condition dmg, boon duration, and swiftness.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhImKbyx5gjEIEFmAKMKECiHWgDwhlCzAA-jUzAYLA0FIJCgIAm9KiGbbIa9hg0ICryGT5CodXUt9OYm8FVLFQFjBA-w

Any thoughts on the overall build?

I’m still debating on the sigils…part of me wants Battle over Bloodlust, but just can’t seem to decide. Suggestions?

Your build seems pretty good, although i’m not quite sure if i would take earths embrace and the 10 points in earth without the water trait that grants you regeneration and vigor when using a cantrip. Especially when you have a pretty low boon duration, so the boons from armor of earth itself dont last that long.

As for the sigils, with your boon duration you will get like 6 stacks of might from the battle sigil (it has an internal cooldown of 9 seconds). Thats 210 power and 210 condition dmg. If you manage to max your bloodlust stacks you can achieve up to 250 power. Another option would be to go with sigil of battle and sigil of perception instead of accuracy (10 precision per stack – you need roughly 10 stacks to reach the permanent bonus from sigil of accuracy). As you cannot get two different on-kill stacks, that option would exclude sigil of bloodlust.

There are 4 main aspects you want to consider in order to be very efficient in wvw regardless of the build or what type of roaming you are doing.

1-) A good amount of hp and armor . Here’s my personal preferences. Hp must be at least 16k without wvw buff and 2500 of armor minimum even if it is buffed. You got 17k hp with your build, with wvw bonuses your hp can go way over 18k which is fantastic, You armor reaches over 2600 with rock barrier = great too.

2-) More than one way to remove conditions and one of those ways have to remove multiple conditions at once instead of just one. In this area your build lacks. You have two ways to remove conditions but both ways only remove one condition at a time and highly depend on the water attunement cd. I use Ether Renewal and superior sigil of generosity primarily for this purpose.

3-)At least one stun breaker utility and you pretty much have two. I count lightning flash as if it was still a stun breaker simply because I can still port while i am stun (avoid a lot of incoming dmg) and by the time the enemy tries to get to me after I use LF I’m out of stun and can react.

4-) An escape mechanism. RTl and lightning flash alone won’t give you enough mobility to escape any sudden outnumbered situation unless enemies don’t want to chase you. At this point within wvw I consider Conjure Fiery Greatsword to be a must have elite. FGS provide awesome mobility combined with swiftness and insane amount of damage as well while keeping you actual attunement skills intact.

You are right my build does lack swiftness a bit but I find it sufficient with just the swiftness bonus I get from Arcana trait V, specially combined with fresh air trait. When I don’t feel like using updraft or constantly switching to air attunement while i am running round looking for an opponent I tend to temporary switch mist form for signet of air and before I engage i quickly switch to mist form or battle with the signet.

The sigils you can use on your main weapon without breaking your bank could be superior sigil of air, Purity, fire or Energy. Superior sigil of energy and fire are a bit expensive but nothing you can’t afford without a bit of savings ^^. Sigil of air and purity are pretty cheap below 1g and they are really good. My number one favorite sigil is generosity follow by sigil of fire. I always find it funny when a necro tries to fear me and he gets feared instead or when a ranger is trying to get away while immobilizing me and he gets immobilize haha.

Btw that combination of orbs is superb too!. Before i started using divinity I had a mix of ruby and azurite orbs.

Awesome feedback LB. I’ll test some of your other sigil recommendations and how I might address condition removal. Generosity may just prove too valuable even at it’s current price.

Also, I know scaling on healing power sucks, but is there any reason to increase this stat or is it best to completely ignore?

Sir Erighan.9260:

Awesome feedback LB. I’ll test some of your other sigil recommendations and how I might address condition removal. Generosity may just prove too valuable even at it’s current price.

Also, I know scaling on healing power sucks, but is there any reason to increase this stat or is it best to completely ignore?

When it comes to burst builds, you can completely ignore this stat. However for builds like bunker/healer is the main focus high points within this stat comes very helpful.

I wrote this in another thread so I’ll just re-post it here. The setup here wont break the bank and is easily acquired (well save the legendary, but that’s just for looks). Only 1 Superior Rune of Divinity, and you don’t have to have it.

Raif.9507:

I don’t use celestial gear but instead mix and match a bunch of stats. This is the gear breakdown I end up with:

Soldiers – Head, Chest, Pants, Dagger (Legendary, don’t have a choice)
Knights – Shoulder
Cavalier – Back, Accessories
Berserker – Amulet, Rings, Scepter, Gloves, Boots

I use 2 Superior Rune of the Monk, 2 Superior Runes of Water, 1 Superior Rune of Divinity and 1 Ruby Orb. Weapons have Sigil of Battle and Sigil of Bloodlust.

I end up with the stats shown below in the picture. However, I do sometimes switch my berserker rings for Cavalier rings if I find that there is a lot of damage being thrown around, or I’m playing a little poorly that night. I also use Truffle Ravioli (100 Toughness, 70 Precision) and Maintenance Oils. With the Cavalier rings I end up with another 206 toughness bringing up the total to 2786 armor with Rock Barrier up.

Now, could I end up with more crit damage? Yes. But I would lose some crit chance and some power along the way (while gaining toughness and other stats). I find that specializing in your chosen role is a little more fulfilling than speccing for everything but celestial gear isn’t a bad choice.

Think of this as an alternative to using celestial gear.