Bladesworn - Defense Bladesworn

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Focused on: Strike damage and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Easy

Overview

A PvP Power Bladesworn build that drops Tactics for the Defense specialization in order to gain some new tools such as Resistance on dodge and projectile-reflects on Aegis

Skill Bar

Axe/Pistol

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• Mending - a tech option against condition builds, offers better cleansing in exchange for lower healing. Might want to consider taking Peak Performance on Strength if you want a damage boost. For the record Mending isn't always necessary against every condition build, sometimes your sheer amount of healing and barrier stacking coupled with the few cleases in the build is enough to stand your ground.

Elite

While generally not recommended, the elite can sometimes be swapped out in niche cases like 2v2 and 3v3 offseason where you'd need better rez power or chase/kill potential, or if you're using Mending. Usually however Tactical Reload provides a lot of damage and sustain especially when paired with Combat Stimulant so it's too good to give up.

• Battle Standard - could be useful when you expect to be mostly teamfighting, or during 2v2/3v3 offseasons.

• Rampage - the combination of CC, mobility and damage makes this good in just about any situation from securing kills to disengaging from fights.

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Specializations

Variants

• Restorative Strength works well with Combat Stimulant and has synergy with Might Makes Right, boosting your self-healing.

Variants

• Swift as the Wind increases your mobility and helps with rotating around the map or kiting/chasing targets, but lowers your self-healing.

Equipment

Axe

Pistol

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Sigils

• Sigil of Cleansing over Sigil of Intelligence - trades some consistency on your burst/Axe finishing moves for better sustain against conditions.

Relics

• Relic of the Trooper - better cleansing.

• Relic of Mistburn - both a defensive and offensive pick. The crit chance boost is very valuable and the improved Might stacking could also heal you vie trait synergy.

• Relic of Isgarren - higher burst potential.

Runes

• Rune of Scholar - more offensive version of Reaper rune.

• Rune of Fighter - more tanky option.

• Rune of Lynx - movement speed boost in case you don't want to sacrifice your relic slot or certain traits to grab some extra mobility. Doesn't stack with other options like Wayfinder relic.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Warriors who spec Bladesworn lose access to weapon swapping in combat but gain access to the Gunsaber, which works a bit like an Engineer kit (F1 by default).

• Instead of Adrenaline you build Flow in combat. If you have enough Flow you gain access to Dragon Trigger (F2), which roots you in place and starts consuming Flow when used. Dragon Trigger empowers your Gunsaber skills. The more Flow you consume, the stronger the first 3 skills get. These 3 skills are the main source of your burst damage.

• While swapping in and out of Gunsaber has a 10s CD, this can sometimes be bypassed. Dragon Trigger is on a separate CD and using it puts you back into Gunsaber mode.

General

• Role: your primary purpose is to be a duelist and take 1v1s, but the build has plenty of AoE pressure and even some group utility too, making you useful in teamfights as well in case you'd need to be more flexible.

• Gunsaber isn't a very complicated weapon. 1-4 are damaging skills and 5 is for mobility/ Fury application. Skills 1-3 are ranged, 4 can be both melee and ranged. Spam them in whatever order you wish if they're not on CD.

• The 3 Dragon Trigger burst skills are:
  • Dragon Slash - Force: replaces the autoattack, melee cleave.
  • Dragon Slash - Boost: replaces skill 2, a gap closer/mobility skill with good damage. This is the most commonly used Dragon Trigger skill as it deals high damage and has the reach to hit enemies that are farther away.
  • Dragon Slash - Reach: replaces skill 3, ranged projectile attack.

• While Dragon Trigger is active, Gunsaber skill #5 turns into a ground targeted teleport. While the range is short, this could still allow you to reposition yourself in a way to hit targets who escaped to the highground or are hiding behind a pillar.
  • When playing with Brave Stride this could also act as an instant source of Stability that could help you avoid being interrupted.

• Unyielding Dragon makes it easier to land Dragon Trigger skills by giving you Blind immunity and unblockable attacks.
  • Skill #4's Aegis application could also come in clutch if your timing is good, potentially blocking a CC skill that would otherwise interrupt the channeling.

• Axe/Pistol has plenty of burst damage and Throw Axe could act as a quick finishing move against low HP targets, but it's also an excellent set for barrier stacking (more on that later).

• "For Great Justice!" is both a defensive and offensive skill. You can either use it to heal/cleanse yourself and your team or boost your damage depending on the situation.

• Mobility skills give you Swiftness.

• Shield Master causes Aegis to reflect projectiles. This is way more impactful than it sounds because attacks you reflect don't consume the Aegis, allowing you to block way more than just 1 attack.
  • Skill #4 on both sets (Pistol and Gunsaber) are Aegis sources.

• Dodge rolling grants Resistance which is especially useful against Blind and Weakness spamming specs. With this trait you can keep on pressuring targets by sacrificing a dodge, or end up getting it as a passive bonus anyway when dodging attacks.

Sustain

• Every source of Might application heals you thanks to Might Makes Right, turning otherwise damage focused skills like "For Great Justice!" into healing skills.

• Unshakable Mountain is a very important part of your survival kit, giving you barrier whenever you use the last charge of an ammo skill. This includes your shouts, Combat Stimulant, Gunsaber skills and even Throw Axe.

• Unshakable Mountain heavily encourages you to spam Gunsaber skills to make sure that you don't build up multiple charges. If every charge is your last one, this trait keeps the procs rolling.
  • Skill #3 on Gunsaber is an exception, you might want to consider building up ammo on that one because it makes the skill significantly stronger, even adding a Daze to it.

• Pistol has amazing synergy with Unshakable Mountain, as both of its skills are ammo skills and Dragon's Roar recovers charges very quickly which keeps the barrier rolling.

• Simply chaining Dragon's Roar ⇒ Gunstinger ⇒ Dragon's Roar on repeat as much as you can will give you lots of barrier. You can extend the combo with Tactical Reload, restoring ammo to both Pistol skills, allowing you to use Gunstinger once and Dragon's Roar twice.

• Relic of the Trooper turns every shout skill into a source of condition cleansing.

• Tactical Reload gives one charge to all Bladesworn ammo skills and makes your next Dragon Trigger charge faster. It's primarily a defensive skill best used to recharge your healing skill and Gunsaber #5 for extra mobility. To get full value out of it make sure that all of your Gunsaber skills are on CD and your heal doesn't have more than 1 charge. This is especially important because of the Unshakable Mountain synergy, as going from 0 ammo to 1 will proc the barrier on the next cast, but going from 1 ammo to 2 doesn't.

• Be careful with the timing of Combat Stimulant! The charges don't stack, if you use the second one before the first heal goes off the first one won't heal you.

• Your best source of condition cleansing is also one of your only stun breaks: "Shake It Off!" so plan your CD management accordingly.

Related Builds

• Defense Bladesworn Roamer - WvW version of the build.