Amalgam - DPS Amalgam

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage and Utility

Designed for: WvW Zerg

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on November 02, 2025 and is up to date for the October 28, 2025 patch.

Overview

A melee damage build with high burst

Skillbar

Rifle/Rifle

Utility

Variants

Weapons

• Hammer slightly less damage, but with a great CC and defensive skills
• Spear better skill 5, but loses burst due to lacking Blunderbuss

Heal

• Mitotic State - has a nice instant cast toolbelt that gets reset by Evolve. This and A.E.D. are both about equally good, play whichever you prefer

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Specializations

Variant

• Blast Shield higher defensive value if necessary

Variant

• Hardened Chrome

Equipment

Head
Dragon

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Dragon

Legs
Dragon

Feet
Dragon

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Amulet
Demolisher

Ring
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Rifle
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rifle
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

Variants

Stats

• Feel free to use as much Berserker's gear as you can without dying
  • Swap out Dragon gear first
• The given setup aims for maximum Effective Health
  • You can swap Marauder's to Demolisher's to make healing more efficient in exchange for increasing your chance to be spiked from 100%
• If you want to play around the extra crit from Evolve run more Dragon or Berserker's

Sigil

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Force ⇒ Sigil of Superior Sigil of Stamina - for activating Explosive Entrance

Usage

Overview

• Amalgam is a short range pure DPS with very high burst
• Aim to land as many of your hard hitting skills within as short a time window as possible

Burst Damage Skill List

• Offensive Protocol: Obliterate
• Offensive Protocol: Demolish
• Napalm
• Jump Shot

• Maximize the amount of temporary modifiers you have up while landing those burst skills

Damage Modifier Skill List

• Plasmatic State
• Evolve

• Set up ticking damage effects to increase your burst

Ticking Damage Skill List

• Acid Bomb
• Flux State

• Use Flame Jet to cleave from safety while casting Flame Blast and Blunderbuss when available

General

• As soon as you get the 25 stacks of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bloodlust and get out of combat, swap back to the Rifle without it

Surviving

• This build has low passive defense
• This build has moderate mobility skill access
• This build has low active defenses

Defensive Skill List

• Defensive Protocol: Thorns - Stunbreak
• Overcharged Shot - Clears Immobilize/ Chill/ Cripple
• A.E.D.

• Use A.E.D. when you expect high spike damage to occur inside its duration
  • Otherwise let your group heal you instead of using A.E.D. to heal yourself

Overall Priorities

High

• Burst Damage

Moderate

• Damage

Low

• CC

Detailed Explanations

Burst Damage

• Amalgam has four different ways to burst, listed here in order of priority:
• The Napalm burst:

1. Plasmatic State
2. Napalm

• The Acid Bomb burst:

1. Jump Shot
2. Acid Bomb

• The Morph skill burst:

1. Defensive Protocol: Thorns
2. Offensive Protocol: Obliterate
3. Offensive Protocol: Demolish
4. Evolve
5. Offensive Protocol: Obliterate
6. Offensive Protocol: Demolish

• The Filler burst:

1. Flame Blast
2. Blunderbuss

• If possible you want to combine these bursts into each other as follows:

1. Plasmatic State
2. Napalm
3. Jump Shot
4. Acid Bomb
5. Defensive Protocol: Thorns
6. Offensive Protocol: Obliterate
7. Offensive Protocol: Demolish
8. Evolve
9. Offensive Protocol: Obliterate
10. Offensive Protocol: Demolish
11. Flame Blast
12. Blunderbuss

• The goal is prioritize your higher damage, easier to execute and lower cooldown bursts first, to increase your overall damage and allow you to burst more frequently
• Try to hold your burst and use it at the same time as the rest of your group to more effectively generate down states
• If you can't use the next highest priority burst combo safely, move to the next one
  • If you can't use any of them safely, just swap to sustained damage and wait for a good time to burst
• Don't view this as a strict order every time you burst. The key skills to burst around are Napalm, Acid Bomb, and your Morph skills, as long as one of the them will land effective damage you can go for the burst
• Flux State can be added onto any burst, preferably at the start
  • Make sure you're getting value out of the Pull on Flux State, flexibility for this is why it isn't listed on any specific combo
• Flame Blast combines very nicely into other skills due to its travel time, it can be added before any burst combo if you're in range
• If you aren't in range for Plasmatic State when casting Napalm, just hold it and use it before any other combo
• If you don't need Jump Shot to get in range for Acid Bomb it can be used at any time for a large hit

Damage

Skill priority

• Plasmatic State
• Acid Bomb
• Napalm
• Offensive Protocol: Obliterate
• Offensive Protocol: Demolish
• Evolve
• Flux State
• Jump Shot
• Blunderbuss
• Flame Blast
• Dodge - for Explosive Temper (Explosive Entrance)
• Flame Jet

• Prioritize syncing your burst skills up when possible as described above, but otherwise your main priority is to use Acid Bomb and Napalm as often as possible
• Use Acid Bomb whenever the enemy group will be in the AoE for multiple ticks, the CD is very short
  • The backwards leap must be canceled by using a Weapon Swap keybind during the animation
• Use Stoke the Flames before Napalm if you don't already have Quickness
  • If you ever aren't in range of the enemy for damage but are about to be and you aren't capped on Might or don't have Quickness hit Stoke the Flames. Find any downtime you can to weave it in
• Use Blunderbuss while close to the enemy when possible, but it is still worth casting at range if your group is spiking together
• Flame Jet is a great filler, use it any time your other skills are on CD or you're at range
• Make sure to Dodge for Explosive Entrance and use Flame Blast frequently to keep Explosive Temper stacked

CC

CC Skill List

• Flux State - AoE Pull
• Net Shot - Single target Immobilize
• Overcharged Shot - Single target Launch

• Net Shot and Overcharged Shot are generally not worth casting
• Use your CC when:
  • Your group calls a spike such as Wells (Well of Corruption)
  • On top of enemy downs (while alive enemies are on top of them)
  • Enemy groups move defensively while your group is pushing