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Bladesworn - Defense Bladesworn Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damageControl and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on April 22, 2025 and is up to date for the April 15, 2025 patch.

Overview

A Power Bladesworn WvW roaming build that abandons Tactics Tactics in favor of Defense Defense, picking up powerful new tools such as Resistance Resistance on dodge and projectile reflect on Aegis Aegis.

The addition of

came to the rescue of this build, significantly upping its damage.


Skill Bar

Axe/Pistol
Utility


Skill Variants

Heal


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

  • trades some Resistance Resistance uptime for more Stability Stability.
  • could be a significant damage increase at the expense of sustain, but also requires you to hit highly charged Dragon Slashes consistently - which might be difficult against better players or builds with lots of mobility skills/CC/evade frames.

Variants

  • improves your healing but could make the build too sluggish to chase enemies or disengage from fights.


Equipment

Head
Berserker
Shoulders
Berserker
Chest
Berserker
Hands
Berserker
Legs
Berserker
Feet
Berserker
Backpiece
Demolisher
Accessory
Demolisher
Accessory
Demolisher
Amulet
Demolisher
Ring
Demolisher
Ring
Demolisher
Axe
Berserker
Pistol
Berserker
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic


Equipment Changes

Runes


Consumables

Food options


Utility


Usage

Elite specialization basics

  • Warriors who spec Bladesworn 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 (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. is on a separate CD and using it puts you back into Gunsaber mode.


General

  • Gunsaber isn't a very complicated weapon. 1-4 are damaging skills and 5 is for mobility/Fury 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 this could also act as an instant source of Stability Stability that could help you avoid being interrupted.
  • makes it easier to land Dragon Trigger skills by giving you Blind Blind immunity and unblockable attacks.
    • Skill #4's Aegis 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 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).
  • 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.
  • causes Aegis 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 far more than just 1 attack as long as you don't get hit in melee.
    • Skill #4 on both sets (Pistol and Gunsaber) are Aegis Aegis sources.
  • Dodge rolling grants Resistance Resistance which is especially useful against Blind Blind and Weakness 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

  • 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 Daze to it.
  • Pistol has amazing synergy with , as both of its skills are ammo skills and recovers charges very quickly which keeps the barrier rolling.
  • Simply chaining on repeat as much as you can will give you lots of barrier. You can extend the combo with , restoring ammo to both Pistol skills, allowing you to use Gunstinger once and Dragon's Roar twice.
  • 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 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 ! 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: so plan your CD management accordingly.
  • is the best skill in the build for surviving Power based damage, even allowing you to tank some enemy burst while counter pressuring them. It's also a stun break, so if you're not under any condition pressure you might want to use this first before resorting to later.
    • This skill could also be used offensively, using the Stability Stability to protect your Dragon Trigger casts.


Related Builds


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 1 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • February 2025
Honestly, this might be a 5 with the new relic. The sustain was always good, but it had trouble getting kills after the nerfs. Stormsinger is already a very strong relic, and this build has insanely good synergy with it because of how many movement skills it's got. Mobility, damage and sustain are all top tier. CC is weak and it can have a hard time against conditions, but I think with good use of Cleansing sigil and Shake It Off + all the Aegis and Resistance uptime it's not as bad in condi matchups as it looks. Cele nerfs actually helped this build a lot, I'm mostly facing power specs these days and Bladesworn eats those.

Comments

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