Dragonhunter - Radiant Greatsword
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Contents
Overview
- A Power Dragonhunter build for open world. This build deals extremely high burst damage and has excellent defensive capabilities. This is an alternative to Guardian - Radiant Greatsword.
- This build can easily solo open world content, such as hero points, while also being able to farm large meta events and worldbosses with ease.
Skill Bar
Weapon Variants
- Your second weapon set is flexible. Sword/Focus is suggested because it provides a good mix of defense, AoE damage, and mobility. Depending on what you need, you can run Hammer (crowd control), Scepter (ranged and high damage on bosses), and/or Shield (crowd control and projectile defense).
- For tagging a large number of mobs very quickly, such as in the Specimen Chamber event, use a Longbow and Staff and swap between the two as often as possible, using all the AoE skills at your disposal.
Skill Variants
- Healing Skills
- - defensive option. You can cancel the animation but keep the block by stowing your weapon during the cast. However, you won't receive any healing if you do this.
- - passive option. Use this when you don't need much healing.
- Utility Skills
- - more burst damage. Use this when tagging from range.
- - grants more retaliation for boss fights where you can't proc much.
- - more crowd control.
- - if you need condition cleanse.
- - if you need to reflect projectiles.
- - alternative projectile defense option.
- - long-lasting swiftness while running.
- Elite Skills
- - defensive option.
Specializations
Build Code
- Variants
- - if you're dying to lots of damage and/or conditions that you can't dodge. This sacrifices a signifcant amount of damage but provides excellent defense.
- - This will sacrifice a considerable amount of damage but provides good survivability.
Virtues Variant
- In fights where avoiding damage is easy, Virtues provides a significant damage increase over Zeal. You must be able to keep
Aegis up for a significant period of time before Virtues becomes worth using.
- - use this if running or .
Honor Variant
- When soloing extremely dangerous enemies such as Heart of Thorns hero challenges or Queen's Gauntlet bosses, it's sometimes worth running Honor instead of Virtues / Zeal. This is a significant damage loss but allows you to dodge more often. Note that you will need to avoid using to maintain the passive. It is heavily advised that you run Scepter and Focus with this variant.
Equipment
- Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats.
Standard Equipment
- The Standard Variant uses similar gear to the Dragonhunter - Power DPS build for fractals and raids. This makes it a good general-purpose gear set.
- Variants
- Sigils - , ,
- Offensive Runes - , , ,
- Defensive Runes - , , , ,
Marauder/Valkyrie Variant
- For a tankier option you can run the Marauder Variant. You will lose some damage but gain a moderate boost to health. This variant is recommended for most Open World players.
- Variants
- Sigils - , ,
- Offensive Runes - , ,
- Defensive Runes - , , , ,
Consumables
- Food
- Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions.
- - Use for general farming.
- - Use for when you need to max out magic find.
- - more sustain (requires crit chance)
- Anything - Any food is better than none, but you should prioritize the food above before using any other food.
- Utility
- ,,- general farming
- - good damage option with +karma
Usage
Damage
- Note that to play this build optimally you must turn off "Melee Attack Assist" in your Options menu.
- Your main damage skills are
- Never interrupt your Greatsword or Sword autoattack chains as all the damage is loaded in the last hit.
Retaliation is a massive damage boost so you should try to have it up as much as possible. Your main retaliation sources are , , and . If using the Virtues variant, will provide an enormous boost to your
retaliation uptime.
- If using Virtues, resets off every kill thanks to . You should use it whenever possible.
- In long fights you should bring instead of for increased
retaliation uptime.
- If running Zeal, fight enemies in your symbols to get the damage buff from .
- If using , try not to get hit (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง ... No seriously. This is extremely important.
Defense
- is a powerful defensive skill. If you stand on top of an ally while this is active it can block attacks for them as well.
- , , and blind enemies.
- and can be used against projectiles.
- is a block that also gives aegis, protection, retaliation, stability, and a stun break.
- You can run for more active defense. You can also run but this comes at the cost of one of your best burst damage skills.
- Remember to always dodge and sidestep attacks if possible. Don't get hit by anything you can move out of.
Sustain
- This build doesn't have much sustained healing unless you have , so avoiding damage is extremely important in long fights. You can run healing food, such as in these situations to relieve some pressure.
- is a powerful heal and condition cleanse. You can also use in the light field from your symbols to cleanse conditions.
Crowd Control
- Virtue: Burn foes every few attacks.
Activate: Hurl a spear of light that passes through foes. Enemies struck become tethered and receive conditions periodically. - (as a last resort)
This build deals insane AoE burst damage which makes it great for farming. It's also a fast, fun build for soloing group events thanks to its mobility and many defensive cooldowns.