December 2022

Support Druid

Druid is the elite specialization for ranger and has recently become an option to play as a support. Due to the changes made in the october balance patch ranger is a possible option but is not recommended playing over scrapper. The build is best described as a bursty condition cleanser with defensive and offensive capabilities. Druid is able to provide moderate heals and boons, however where it really shines is in it’s ability to spam cleanses and stun break allies within a large radius. Healing and damaging the enemies will grant you life force, you passively gain life force thanks to natural mender so more than likely you will have a full bar before the fight starts. Once the bar is full you can then consume it to gain access to the Celestial Avatar form which lasts for 15 seconds.…

Support Vindicator

Vindicator is the elite specialization for Revenant and is a highly effective support in any squad.  Support Vindicator should not be a direct replacement for all of the scrapper’s, but compliment them allowing two to four per squad. The build is best described as a Healer and condition cleanser that offers support to players that are on and off of tag. Vindicator is able to easily provide huge heals,  cleanses, barrier and some boons either over time or in a burst.  However where it really shines is in it’s ability to heal and it can also do this from 900 range on a very short cooldown.  Vindicator still has access to legends as normal however you will mainly be camping only one, Saint Viktor.  Managing energy, understanding the build and rotating skills correctly will help you successfully support players when…

Power Willbender

Willbender is an elite specialization for the Guardian, it is a highly mobile spec that once combined with specific traits, skills and weapons can provide huge burst damage in melee range whilst being almost un-killable. The build is best described as a mobile DPS, your priorities will be to provide some range pressure during range spikes, but mainly your job is to use massive melee burst damage when needed (i.e on a well bomb call).  Since virtues on willbender are turned into movement-based skills, these changes allow you to engage in melee range very quickly and burst down any unsuspecting foes.  You will need to follow a simple rotation of skills in order to kill without being killed.  Staying alive should be prioritized above all else, you can help to keep your HP above zero through tactful use of skill…

Tempest

Tempests can provide good support with good condition removal, passive healing, and solid burst healing. It also brings some unique utility via auras that buff allies, both defensively and offensively, this build truly shines in GvG and smaller scale encounters! This build allows you to be the main source of healing and cleansing in your party by transmuting auras and using shouts. This build has strong passive and burst healing from multiple sources, for exampleTransmute Frost, "Wash the Pain Away!", Water Attunement, and Overload Water, as well as from granting allies auras, via Elemental Bastion. Additional cleanse is provided by using weapon skills, transmuting auras via Smothering Auras, and using shouts. Each shout will remove a condition from all allied targets affected because of Superior Rune of the Trooper. This build has huge trait synergy with auras. Applying an aura to…

Longbow Untamed

Untamed is a bruiser-style build that takes advantage of ranged damage combined with a melee oneshot and good area pressure. Untamed excels in ranked games due to its versatility and flexibility as a profession. An important note about Untamed: It’s is one of the two classes in the game that has an F6 and F7. Binding these to something that you can easily reach so you won’t have to skill-click in a fight. Untamed is Arenanet’s attempt to take the AI component out of Ranger builds by giving you manual control over all of your pet’s actions. This is great if you’re familiar with ranger since your pet won’t try to cast random auto attacks when you need a cc, but it also means Untamed can’t get carried by random pet abilities. It is extremely important that you know how…

Mercy Deadeye

Power Deadeye is a strong roamer that takes advantage of Shadow Gust and Be Quick or Be Killed to lock down and eliminate targets quickly. Deadeye benefits from the baked in mobility of any thief spec, however is is vulnerable to focus and gets countered by projectile block from builds like Tempest or Catalyst. As a roamer, Deadeye focuses on moving around the map and quickly getting kills. In order to do this, you need to lock down and eliminate your target as quickly as possible. Deadeye relies on a mechanic called malice to do damage. Whenever you mark a target, hitting them with an ability will generate stacks of malice. At maximum malice, your stolen skills will give you Stealth and Death's Judgment will do 75% more damage. Try to build malice as quickly as possible after marking a…

DPS Spellbreaker

Spellbreaker is a strong damage profession in WvW, however it functions best in battles smaller than 30v30. In larger scale fights, it’s recommended to play the offensive support spellbreaker build instead.  However, in the right situations this build does provide large amounts of burst, cleave damage as well as boon removal and soft/hard crowd control. Support SpellbreakerRecommended Offensive Support Select difficulty Hammer Sword & Warhorn December 2022 This build utilizes powerful synergies between crowd control weapon skills, spellbreaker traits and utilities in addition to sigils to produce excellent boon pressure, damage and survivability. You will usually be trying to always remove boons mostly after you cast your Winds of Disenchantment, followed by damage if the situation allows. Placing Winds of Disenchantment  early in the fight is valuable so that you can focus on doing damage for the rest of the…

Power Herald

DPS Herald is a strong part of the WvW Zerg, able to deal high damage at range, as well as perform extremely well in melee range. It additionally provides important boons and some utility to the group. Revenant doesn’t have utility skills like the other classes, your heal/utility/elite skills are all determined based on two stances that you pick. You may swap between these stances every 10s, similar to weapon swapping, but it doesn’t replace your weapon swap. These stance skills provide strong utility and damage options for the DPS Herald, namely Rite of the Great Dwarf, Inspiring Reinforcement, Vengeful Hammers, and Facet of Elements, as well as providing one of the best sources of Fury for your group. Revenant also differs from other classes by relying on energy (different from your dodge endurance) in order to cast both weapon…

Power Dragonhunter

Power Dragonhunter is currently one of the best damage builds in World vs World. This Guardian elite specialization turns their virtues into extremely powerful tools that provide sustain, mobility and crowd control.  With large amounts of piercing ranged damage, high area burst potential from traps and two of the most powerful crowd control skills in the game; Hunter's Ward and Hunter's Verdict combined,the Dragonhunter has the potential to be a truly devastating class in skilled hands! The Dragonhunter is mostly ranged due to wielding scepter/focus and longbow, however many of the skills can also be cast effectively in melee range therefore making it very versatile. Most organized groups will like to coordinate your crowd control Hunter's Ward with Necromancer wells Well of Corruption, and your traps (Test of Faith & Procession of Blades ) with Ghastly Breach so make sure not…

Support Spellbreaker

Spellbreaker can play an important role in WvW, however it functions best in easier fights. It’s recommended to play Scourge or Chronomancer instead, due to them being easier to be effective in the current ranged meta. In the right situation this build does provide large amounts of boon removal, small amounts of burst healing/cleanse and soft/hard crowd control.  The large amounts of boon rip come from the use of Winds of Disenchantment and Break Enchantments combined with Enchantment Collapse.  Support Spellbreaker has the ability to chain crowd control and Immobilize enemy players, locking them down for your team to finish off!. This build utilizes powerful synergies between crowd control weapon skills, Spellbreaker traits and utilities in addition to sigils to produce excellent boon removal, crowd conttrol and survivability.  Rotate "Shake It Off!" and your Warhorn skills to support your party…

Support Scrapper

Scrapper is the main healer and condition cleanser in large scale fights, providing a strong amount of both to its squad. However where it truly shines is in its ability to convert conditions on allies into boons. It also has a wide array of utility, including access to Quickness and Superspeed in addition to the longest group Stealth of any class in the game. Scrapper manages all of this while simultaneously being very hard to kill thanks to traits such as Over Shield, Purity of Purpose, and Rapid Regeneration as well as having access to a long duration block and evade when equipped with a Hammer. Scrapper has access to Gyros and Kits which are the main sources of active healing and condition cleanse for your squad. Kits are skills that you “enter” upon initial activation, entering a Kit replaces…

Support Chronomancer

Chronomancer is an elite specialization for the mesmer class, bringing some of the best utility, crowd control, boon removal and some condition cleanse for large WvW battles. While it is meta class, only a few Chronomancers are needed per squad.  This build is hard to master because of Continuum Split, which gives you a short window to essentially use your key abilities twice! Continuum Split offers incredible combo potential to get the most out of. The build is best described as unique utility, simply put your priorities will be to provide mass stealth for your squad via Veil , burst boon removal via shatters due to Shattered Concentration combined with crowd control thanks to Vicious Expression and your final third auto attack on sword Mind Spike, and last but not least revival of allies with Illusion of Life .  Commanders will…

Boonstrip Scourge

Scourge plays a very important role in any World vs World battle. In large scale fights you provide pressure and break up the enemy squad through area damage, boon removal/corruption, single target bursts and finally support allies by giving barrier and condition removal. Unlike other necromancer specializations you do not gain an additional health bar or gain access to a shroud form/skills.  You do have though access to sand shades with shade skills and a life force bar.  Shade skills are fuelled by your life force except forManifest Sand Shade. These shades strike enemies near you and the shades position, so for example you can hit twice if placed on top of you in melee range.  Each shade skill has a purpose and its important to use them wisely at the appropriate time. Placing Manifest Sand Shade is not instant…

Power Weaver

The Weaver elite specialization allows for a versatile mobile source of damage, crowd control, and utility in a WvW zerg. Due to the high number of ranged skills available, you will be the main source of damage from a distance, and often the highest source of damage overall in the squad. Weavers also perform well in melee range, thanks to frequent evades and access to Conjure Fiery Greatsword. This is perhaps the most challenging DPS spec to play in WvW, however, once mastered you can be sure you will relish its capabilities. As with other damage classes, you’ll have the best overall damage output by casting your skills as close together as possible, and synchronizing your damage with boon removal and CC from the rest of your squad. The order of skill priority is Meteor Shower then Lava Font and…

Power Daredevil

The thief has the most access to Stealth out of any of the classes. This paired with strong burst damage and access to low cooldown mobility skills makes it an amazing roamer. Use your mobility from Infiltrator's Arrow and Shadowstep to rotate quickly around the map and provide value for your team. You can join a 1v1 fight and assist your sidenoder in defeating the enemy’s one, which is known as the “plus one” or quickly “decap” an enemy node (turn it neutral). Keep in mind that going for a full cap is usually pointless as you will struggle to defend the node vs an enemy sidenoder. Your main damage comes from Backstab. You gain access to this when you auto-attack someone while in Stealth. That’s why you should to always stealth yourself when joining the fight. You can blast…

Decap Druid

Decap Druid is great at holding out in outnumbered situations, it can easily decap enemy nodes with lots of sustain and condition cleanse. Build is relatively easy to pick up While this build is mostly a stall build with low kill potential, you can still take down an opponent if make use of Barrage and Jacaranda’s lightning field as it provides mass chip damage allowing you to steadily wear down an opponent. But the key skills of this build are Point-Blank Shot and Glyph of the Tides as they will keep enemies off the point, allowing you to easily decap. To land these more often it’s quite useful if you combo it with Immobilize (via Jacaranda’s Jacaranda's Embrace or Entangle), however Entangle is better saved for after you knock them off the capture point to allow more ticks. Another small knockback…

Protection Holosmith

Prot Holo offers very high sustain and lots of CC. This build gets its value from the boons and Regeneration output it can provide as well as the passive AoE damage that slowly wears down enemies. It is currently not the most common build, as its protection uptime was nerfed multiple times. The utility skills gain the most value when heat is above 50 (out of 150): Spectrum Shield ‘s cooldown is decreased by 25% Flash Spark gains Light Aura, decreasing condition damage by 10% Hard Light Arena ‘s radius increases by 120 and duration increases by 2 seconds Prismatic Singularity ‘s radius and pull is increased by 120 At the start of each match, you should use every skill in Engage Photon Forge to get a head start with heat, allowing you to access these buffs asap. This build…

Power Dragonhunter

Power Dragonhunter can provide very good burst DPS and Vulnerability while possessing multiple options allowing you to mitigate incoming damage. The equipment for this build is easy to obtain, and the basics of Power Dragonhunter is easy to pick up, making it a popular choice in instanced content such as Strikes and Raids. However, mastering this build will take some time since you need to cancel the aftercasts of certain skills such as Symbol of Resolution and Zealot's Defense. Players should pay special attention to learn boss timing to use the build’s burst windows properly to reach the build’s maximum potential. You want to remember that all high damage skills should be combined with Spear of Justice to increase your burst damage via Big Game Hunter. High uptime of Resolution is crucial as you get a 25% critical chance from…