Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone! I’ve been messing around on the build editor a lot since it was updated with the new specializations and ever since I saw Berserker, I knew right away that I wanted to try a Celestial Greatsword build with it. So here’s my result so far!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAsfRnMdAVhglkCehAEliliATpLE9yCGDgHQA4t4ucnuA-TRSHwA1VC2RfwH1fKcCAaq8LwRAAwhAg0+DCeAAkCwPxWA-e

(For pvp just use Celestial Amulet, obviously)

Food is optional but basically, I feel like this build will be really powerful. You use Greatsword to stack might to increase your overall damage and you can go Berserk to burn a ton of enemies. Sword+Torch gives you even more condition application plus Final Thrust hurts and Torch gives you some nice condition cleansing as well.

You get access to 3 rage skills(one being going Berserk) allowing you to apply even more burning with the trait setup. Your elite will stun you but thanks to Outrage, you can break the stun very easily and gain stability. I felt with that in mind, Balanced Stance wasn’t as necessary. Also, I chose not to run King of Fires as I felt that 20% burning would probably be better on a full condition build and giving you access to a 10 second stun break that also applies burning and stability was much more preferable for me.

Runes of Strength are obviously good to have for the might stacking and as for the sigil choice, Energy and Battle on Sword+Torch lets you recover your dodge for survivability AND damage on dodge and you can stack might while not on GS. Geomancy and Doom on Greatsword lets you have some cover conditions on greatsword to keep the burning on your enemies as well as nerf their healing.

Anyway, I’m just sharing this to hopefully stir up the pot, so to speak, and hopefully get a viable build out to the public! If you decide to try this build out this weekend, let me know if you enjoyed it and what changes you made, if any! Hope you guys like it

Actually Rampager’s and Sinister are both more power damage than Celestial, and of course more condi damage too. Celestial is really bad for power damage.

I’m not a fan of Celestial at all since I learned that. You really need to use the healing power in addition to the other stats for it to be good.

Khristophoros.7194:

Actually Rampager’s and Sinister are both more power damage than Celestial, and of course more condi damage too. Celestial is really bad for power damage.

I’m not a fan of Celestial at all since I learned that. You really need to use the healing power in addition to the other stats for it to be good.

Yeah but then you miss out on the Ferocity+Toughness+Vitality that Celestial gives. I think especially on this build where you lack blocks, hammer cc, double endure pain, and cleansing ire, having as much vitality+toughness as you reasonably can is essential. At least to me. I prefer having a balanced playstyle as opposed to full offense.

Rain.9213:

Khristophoros.7194:

Actually Rampager’s and Sinister are both more power damage than Celestial, and of course more condi damage too. Celestial is really bad for power damage.

I’m not a fan of Celestial at all since I learned that. You really need to use the healing power in addition to the other stats for it to be good.

Yeah but then you miss out on the Ferocity+Toughness+Vitality that Celestial gives. I think especially on this build where you lack blocks, hammer cc, double endure pain, and cleansing ire, having as much vitality+toughness as you reasonably can is essential. At least to me. I prefer having a balanced playstyle as opposed to full offense.

The ferocity on celestial is a trap. It doesn’t make up for the extremely low power.

There just isn’t a stat mix that changes that. Power is always the strongest stat for damage unless you’re already in full berserker’s, both armor and trinkets. In order for ferocity to be equal to power you need to have very high base power and pump your crit chance very high too.

I was doing math comparisons to see which trinkets to put on a character that I wanted to be semi tanky and I found that there’s never a case where celestial would give me as much damage as soldier’s. It was always berserker’s > valkyrie’s > captain’s > knight’s > cavalier’s > soldier’s > celestial.

So if you want that armor and health go soldier’s. If you only want armor go captain’s or knight’s. If you only want health go valkyrie’s.

I think it makes your build awkward if you want to get tankier than base warrior stats because the greatsword is going to lose most of its damage if you go celestial.

Well feel free to change the armor stats however you’d like! I, personally prefer not to rely too heavily on one form of damage with this build. With the amount of condition damage you will be putting out combined with raw power as well as above average toughness and a large health pool, I don’t think having low power will be an issue. This is a hybrid build after all meant to emulate a Celestial Engineer/Elementalist. I do find it interesting how good Sinister is though. I’ll have to experiment with that in a separate build.

The problem with this is twofold.

You will lack defense. Just one EP and Zerk stance won’t save you. No auto Endure Pain, not even Dead or Alive, and you don’t have shield to absorb damage.
As soon as you get focussed, you will die. You can run, but you are still susceptible to soft CC. If you get interrupted while leaping/rushing, you just don’t have enough defenses.

The other problem is that you lack burst. Where you will have incredible sustained damage, your burns and heavy direct attacks will not deal high damage. You will have 0 chance against anything that can heal a lot and often, like guardian, elementalist, engineer or ranger.

I don’t think S/T GS will be good enough. You don’t have ways to abuse the mobile fire field enough with these weapons, only the sword leap. A hybrid becomes good when you can stack a lot of might, because that allows you to deal burst damage.

Sword/GS has always been a hit and run spec. The thing is, the shield variation allows you to survive just long enough to deal insane burst damage and get out.

Cygnus.6903:

The problem with this is twofold.

You will lack defense. Just one EP and Zerk stance won’t save you. No auto Endure Pain, not even Dead or Alive, and you don’t have shield to absorb damage.
As soon as you get focussed, you will die. You can run, but you are still susceptible to soft CC. If you get interrupted while leaping/rushing, you just don’t have enough defenses.

The other problem is that you lack burst. Where you will have incredible sustained damage, your burns and heavy direct attacks will not deal high damage. You will have 0 chance against anything that can heal a lot and often, like guardian, elementalist, engineer or ranger.

I don’t think S/T GS will be good enough. You don’t have ways to abuse the mobile fire field enough with these weapons, only the sword leap. A hybrid becomes good when you can stack a lot of might, because that allows you to deal burst damage.

Sword/GS has always been a hit and run spec. The thing is, the shield variation allows you to survive just long enough to deal insane burst damage and get out.

Actually this guy is right. The damage won’t be good on either weapon because of two reasons.

1. Cele hurts the GS damage.
2. Sword primal burst is mostly condi damage, but this build is half zerk/half cele. Not amazing at either power or condi.

I think you have to focus on one weapon or the other if you go sword and greatsword. Sword can be used for the mobility and final thrust in a power build where you rely mostly on GS for damage, or the new primal burst makes sword a good weapon for a condi build. But you have to set up that burst with immobilize and/or stun. The GS does not support the sword because it has no CC to help set up the primal burst, so I don’t think the GS fits if you’re focusing on condi damage.