Guild Wars 2

Evening everyone. I know I haven’t been on the forums long but I figured I’d post my build sooner rather then later and see what everyone thinks and what can be done to improve it. Any help would be appreciated. Taking inspiration from the Juggermancer and abomination builds ( and following a severe beating in southsun by the robot during living story) I came up with something I feel can be both tanky and capable of putting out good DPS and overall for the last 7 weeks I’ve had reasonable success.

Presenting the Might-tank
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAodWjQaV6Zaqb87JCZGPDbTP423EH8h3D-jQzAoLhQcW0oAJjEFIqAY2rIasVwioxqkBU2Yq3FVbyVWt5By6DLEggtA-e

The primary purpose of the this build it to survive through any-means neceassry, give some regen support to allies while beating and wearing down your enemies Might enhanced attacks. Thanks to blood is power, rune of hoelbrak and 2 sigils of battle I can maintain 15might for 30seconds out of every minute allowing me to put out nastly levels of DPS will daggers and my wells.

Armour and Trinkets: All soldier bar the amulet which is a condition version of soldier. All runes of Hoelbrak
Weapons: Soldier Dagger and Focus with Sigil of battle and force. Staff With Sigil of battle
Traits: 15, 0, 25, 30, 0

Pros and Cons
+ 1900 toughness and 2000 vitality after nourishment
+ Lots of AOEs
+ Good levels of damage allow me to take on nearly any foe in the game
+ Can get regen from 3 source’s
+ destroys enemies who rely on boons
- Despite the Rune of hoelbraks 6th effect Condition melt me
- Slow and lacks stun breakers
- Cant handle Mesmers and other highly evasive characters.

Overall I think the build is solid but its weakness to conditions and speedy characters is letting the build down. Sorry I don’t have any maths up for those who might want it but any help with this build would be appreaciated

There must be something I can do to improve my build XD. Im considering dropping either droping Ritual of protection for Shrouded removal or switching focus back to dual daggers for deathly swarm just so I can stop condition piling up on me. Tho if I drop ritual of protection supporting allies will be a lot harder.

What to do

The obvious change is to swap Well of Power in for Well of Corruption (or Suffering, if you think the boon-stripping is better than Suffering’s vulnerability and extra damage). That solves both your stunbreaker and your condi problem.

Also, why don’t you have the Well cooldown trait? I’d take that over Mark of Evasion. Two sources of Regen is already pretty good uptime. I’d rather have three of my skills come off cooldown ~8 seconds sooner each than a bit more regen, personally.

This might go against what the build is designed around, but have you considered dropping points somewhere to get Deathly Perception (30 in soul reaping)? That way you would actually get crits while in DS, which would be a massive damage boost especially with so many wells.

Basically, drop wells, enter DS and suddenly your wells have a decent chance to crit. I messed around with a carion build in hot joins a while ago and found out those high hitting life blasts can be handy.

I suppose it really comes down to how much survivability you really need. Where are you planning to use the build?

Blaine Tog.8304:

The obvious change is to swap Well of Power in for Well of Corruption (or Suffering, if you think the boon-stripping is better than Suffering’s vulnerability and extra damage). That solves both your stunbreaker and your condi problem.

Also, why don’t you have the Well cooldown trait? I’d take that over Mark of Evasion. Two sources of Regen is already pretty good uptime. I’d rather have three of my skills come off cooldown ~8 seconds sooner each than a bit more regen, personally.

Since I need to drop a well it’ll be corruption since I see conditions more often then boons and my focuses spinal shivers should be enough to deal with those anyway. Survivability is paramount So I’ll probably just take the well of power Idea. Besides If I need corruption for a specific fight I can always switch over.

Not so sure about droping mark of evasion tho Its another AOE and it combos well with plague but If I can use well of suffering and Blood quicker it may just be worth it.

Thanks for your help

yski.7642:

This might go against what the build is designed around, but have you considered dropping points somewhere to get Deathly Perception (30 in soul reaping)? That way you would actually get crits while in DS, which would be a massive damage boost especially with so many wells.

Basically, drop wells, enter DS and suddenly your wells have a decent chance to crit. I messed around with a carion build in hot joins a while ago and found out those high hitting life blasts can be handy.

I suppose it really comes down to how much survivability you really need. Where are you planning to use the build?

I primarily use this build In PvE and Occasionally WvW (primary reason why I still carried corruption until today). Over-all survivability is my ultimate goal but I don’t want to sacrifice DPS as ultimatly the game center’s around it hence why I use might to make up for shortfalls.

I actually quite like your that Idea but I don’t think it would fit my build unless Anet decides to make 10 additional trait points available but it would make for a good alternate build once I get around to getting a 2nd set of armour so I may still make use of deathly perception yet

Anyway since I’m dropping well of Corruption and likely mark of Blood what do people think of swaping the Sigil of Force for hydromancy?

Quick update on my build in light of the recent patch. here is the link for those interested. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAndWjQaV6daqb87JCZGY7ZTP423EH8h3D-jQzAoLhQcW0oAJjEFIqAY2rIasVwioxqkBU2Yq3FVbyVWt5By6DLDQ1WA-e

Switched mainhand dagger for axe to increase lifeforce generation and get Axe 3 for retaliation and started using orian truffle stew to improve my endurance (and might gain) until I can come up with a better means of defence. So far the improvements and adding well of power as suggested has improved the builds survivability immensely and the might generation ensures My dmg remains adequate for dungeon runs and WvW (15 stacks of might average per minute means Im hitting with about 3000 or so power and 700 Condition damage).

Now the question is I cant decide which is better Axe with its LF generation and retaliation gain or Dagger with its siphon and DPS. Any help in this regard or any other suggestions to help my build would be greatly appreciated.

over time, dagger will generate more life force. Axe is a 12% over 2.25 seconds on a 25 second cooldown and if the enemy dodges or moves out of range, you can lose up to the remaining hits and life force. Dagger generates 6% on it’s basic attack with no cooldown.

Cooldown is actually 8 seconds but I see your point. Tried using it in WvW and it was painful outside Axe 3. At-least siphon health will nab me some healing before they dodge and I could always use the immobilise skill. Back to dagger I go.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQEQNAodWjQaV6daqb87JCZGY7ZTP424EH8h3D-jQzAoLhQcW0oAJjEFIqAY2rIasVwioxqkBU2Yq3FVbyVWt5By6DLEggtA-e

Just a quick update (I’m bumping my post rather then make a new one)
-Droped Orrian truffle stew in favour of steak due to a ridiculous price rise
- Permantly droped mark of evasion in favour of ritual mastery since I don’t have access to the food anymore

The build overall is the same as before. Just more face tanking rather then dodging and perma regen. Still have access to plently of regen tho. However the swtich has led me to a dilemma. Should I stick with(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Hoelbrak) and its condition reduction or switch to (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Fire) and gain the Fire aura for a combo field, Access to burning and even more might generation.
Rune of fire would let me be more offensive but I worry I wouldn’t have enough condition cleansing without hoelbraks 6th effect. What do you guys think will work?

I have a much simpler setup for Might. I just use 3 pairs of 20% might duration runes and take the corruption trait for BiP. There are only a handful of seconds without 10 stacks of Might and I can use whatever else I need in traits and utilities. The bleeds from BiP help with Consume Conditions and Well of Power. That gets me most of the Might while leaving flexibility on the rest of the build and consumables. I can easily trade armor and switch from power to hybrid to conditions to group support so my Might duration armor is one of my mainstays provided my trait allocation is generic enough.

In other words, by not fully optimizing and limiting to just armor with +60% Might duration and 20 points in Curses I can still run several different builds with hardly any time spent changing. I am not criticizing your build, just saying I am getting lazy with mine. I carry 7 sets of armor and a pile of assorted trinkets, weapons and food so changing clothes may be a hassle but I do it pretty frequently. Partially- optimized is becoming good enough for me.

imho you are trying to do too many things at same time.

i would focus on dmg gear and traits if i wanted to do dmg.

it makes difference.

@ Anchoku – The 3 might runes idea for near permanent might doesn’t sound like a half bad idea 80% uptime on might (When you include death magic) sounds awesome actually. I’ll go test that out. Not sure if I’ll adopt it yet as I like the 6th effects on both rune of fire and hoelbrak but I’ll give it ago. I have the gold to do it XD.

@ jalmari – Seems like Im trying to do a bit but this build has worked surprisingly well and its a lot more refined then it used to be. I’m now just seeking to improve it. The builds purpose is tanking first damage second but enough so that I don’t slow people down and nobody I’ve ran with has ever complained about my output. Plus I drop enough protect/regen to keep those who do more dmg alive anyway.

But I am open to suggestions gear wise and I have been think of adding some knights/Valk to improve dmg output tho That would mean having to sacrifice vitality

Anyway I’m still stuck on the queation Rune of Hoelbrak or Rune of fire (Assuming I don’t go with the 3 Might runes for perma might)