Guild Wars 2

A fun build I’ve been playing with in SPVP:

BIRDKILLER

The point of this build is massive condi and physical pressure. You hit very hard and have good survivability. Once you get your opponent down past the 60% health marker, they will be poisoned for the entire match fighting you and will NEVER recover. You actually have so much poison you can deny their entire team sustain.

Success of this build relies on good pet management.

TRAITS/SKILLS

OFFENSIVE VARIANT (Higher Damage, Lower Sustain and Condi Removal)

Skirmishing: 2
-Pet’s Prowess
Wilderness Survival: 6
-Shared Anguish, Offhand Mastery, Poison Master
Beast Mastery: 6
-Mighty Swap, Vigorous Training, Invigorating Bond (Zephyr’s Speed is good as an offensive choice and Natural Healing is good for pet sustain)

DEFENSIVE VARIANT (Recommended, more reliance on poison, higher sustain and dependability)

Wilderness Survival: 6
-Shared Anguish, Offhand Mastery, Poison Master
Nature Mastery: 4
-Nature’s Protection, Evasive Purity
Beast Mastery: 4
-Mighty Swap, Vigorous Training (can be dropped for 1 more point in nature for bountiful hunter)

Troll Unguent, Signet of the Wild, Signet of Renewal, Signet of the Hunt, Entangle

WEAPONS

Axe (Sigil of Generosity/Purity)
Dagger (Sigil of Doom)

Sword (Sigil of Generosity/Purity)
Torch (Sigil of Doom)

Pets: Owl, Raven

Armor: Settler’s Amulet
Runes: Orr

(Cont.)

STRATEGY:

With this setup you have a large array of poison applications. 1 each time you pet swap and it attacks, 1 from weapon swapping, 1 from the enemy just hitting you due to Orr runes, Serpent Strike (Sword), and Stalker’s Strike. Your poison deals 50% more damage so your enemies are going to burn the entire match fighting you and will never be able to heal. You can swap targets frequently to poison the entire enemy team and deny them sustain.

The bird itself does massive damage with F2. I send my bird in first while my team engages the fight or when solo. The enemy will have no choice but to burn dodges on your pet or die, the F2 can hit for upwards of 5-6k. When the enemy does engage you or uses a teleport immediately weapon dodge and move to the point, controlling the area with bonfire. Keep the bird on squishy targets and swap pets on CD if you are in melee with your pet.

KILL COMBOS:

DOUBLE BARREL BIRD DESTROYER:

Place bird in melee > Stalker Strike/Serpent Strike > Signet of the Hunt > F2 > Pet Swap > F2
-10k + massive poison damage. If someone eats both F2s from your birds one after the other, they are dead. No questions asked.

ENTANGLE SUREFIRE KILL:

Bait dodges with the birds > Entangle while in sword > Bonfire > Swap Axe > Split Strike > Bird F2 if you have it.

ADVANCED STRATEGY:

FINISHING:

Secure stomps with Signet of the Wild. Practice the timing as not to interrupt the cast time before the enlargement actually takes effect. Sometimes in team fights its better to leave your bird on the downed guy or stick a bonfire on him to discourage team rezzzers.

SIGNET OF RENEWAL:

Winning fights depends on your timing with your full clear. REMEMBER THAT IT HAS A RANGE CENTERED ON YOUR PET SO DO NOT BURN IT IF YOUR PET IS OVER 600M AWAY! SWAP FIRST THEN USE! Use signet of renewal vs. the following:

Signet of Spite (Necromancer): Never break the first fear, they always chain. Wait for the condi bomb THEN clear.

Entangle (Ranger): Drop bonfire first or sword auto to break the root before you burn your signet otherwise you will waste it.

Point Blank Shot (Ranger): Break this if you are hit by it, the rapid fire will 100% come right after. Go straight into a weapon dodge after the break.

Basilisk Venom (Thief): Break this fast, chain weapon dodge then pet swap F2 to punish the thief with an instant spawn bird. If a blind field is down, drop bonfire to pressure the thief off you.

Scepter Immob (Guardian): You will get medi bursted if this hits. Break then retreat out of the area as soon as the Judge’s Intervention comes.

Magic Bullet/Sword Clone Swap (Mesmer): Do not eat the shatter spike, break and GTFO because the area is going to be a kill zone once blurred frenzy starts.

ABOUT THAT STEALTH:

You might no know where the enemy is, but your pet always does and will always engage the correct target once the stealth ends. Trust the bird, keep hitting that F2. You can literally sick your bird on a P/U mesmer and it will destroy the guy all on its own without your help.

(Cont.)

DON’T GO INTO THE BLENDER:

If the team fight is crazy don’t rush in. Send your bird in first to pressure a soft target and stack might on it with axe throws until the balance swings. Then jump in with sword and wreck shop.

Against turret engineers you can really shine. Axe bounce off turrets turns your pet into a killing machine, the poison will ruin engis with their crappy condi removal. Send the bird in and swap for poison. Choke them up with poison and bird burst them to force them into a panic and out of the turrets. Just don’t let the turrets kill your pet.

THINGS THAT WILL KILL YOU:

-Letting your pets die
-Not breaking the above stunlockers
-Burning Signet of Renewal when your pet is a mile away

THINGS YOU WILL DESTROY:

-Warriors. They stand no chance, your poison damage and weapon dodges are a 100% hard counter. I send most warriors running in fear, even hambows. Heal sig? My poison melts them like acid on tissue paper.

-Guardians. Again, as long as you dodge right and keep them poisoned no amount of medi healing on the planet will save them. Do be careful with your pets, whirling wrath can take them out quickly so be sure to swap them out of danger.

-Anyone without condition removal (Glassbow rangers/mesmers). Poison alone will destroy them. If they don’t have rapid removal, it will just stack and they can run all the way across the map and still die.

HARDCOUNTERS TO YOU:

-Regen ranger with evasive purity. Since your build relies heavily on poison damage, this trait screws you pretty hard. It’s difficult to eat through their sustain alone with pet damage but can be done. But if they are running this build they pretty much have no killing power (unless its ROM’s survival build, this will wreck you). Other than this, there are no other real hard counters.

HARD MATCHES:

-Necros: They can take time to kill and can really mess you up with fearlock. Send the bird in first and waste all their dodges and life force. Slow fat necros can’t do much to escape your bird, you can literally burn out their entire bar before you engage them. Remember that your condi removal is limited so timing is everything. You really need to save your signet for when you are really in trouble, you can outheal some of their less devastating degen. When the spite signet hits you have to clear asap.

-Eles: Take forever to kill due to massive cleanses. Your birds physical damage will destroy them if you can land your F2s. In a prolonged fight, poison usually wins out but you can be forced off point if you allow them to sustain too long and overstack might.

DOWNED IS NOT THE END:

If you are downed note that you are very potent in downstate because your pet is very powerful. If your stomper is not safe stomping and has less than 50% health you can usually destroy him with the bird, pet rez, then get up and smash him. Time your stun well and use your pet while downed. I’ve literally had a match where I was downed and killed THREE people with my pet while I was sitting downed in an ally’s shadow refuge.

WEAKNESSES:

You have a lack of hard CC, if you find yourself in need of them swap the raven out for a wolf. Problem solved.

If you need more condi removal empathic bond is an option. However, by taking it you lose ALOT of damage from poisons and some of the key aspects that make the build work (such as pet poison on swap)

VIDS:

http://youtu.be/lzOmEQtwIGI

^I’ll post something higher quality with a better resolution later. This is just a quick example I uploaded for now.

Looks like a nice counter to direct damage high armor opponents. I’ll give it a try, thanks for posting!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAsf3YjMqUxaDL+rQ1agDhqdJ8rTNrA4dxus3cBPSA-TJRHwAQLDYc/BEnEAAPBAA

I play an hybrid version of this build in hotjoin spvp for awhile now. This is my take on it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJAVRjEq0ya/KWsQ1agDhq9K0uTNrA4dxus3cBTOA-TpBFABAfIAa7BAkwRAAqyAAcBAGZ/BA

Very strong build, wins 90%+ 1vs1 in hotjoin.