Luminary - Radiant GS Luminary

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 Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build is beginner friendly.

This build was last updated on November 19, 2025 and is up to date for the November 18, 2025 patch.

Overview

A burst-focused Power Luminary build for PvP.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Sword/Focus

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

For the optional slot you should pick a stunbreak of your choice:

• Contemplation of Purity - mass cleanse, great option against condition-heavy comps.

• Signet of Judgment - passive direct damage reduction and a very low CD.

• Stalwart Stance - medium CD, good mitigation on the active, synergizes well with various Luminary traits.

• "Save Yourselves!" - lots of defensive boons along with a minor group support angle and some extra damage via Inspired Virtue.

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Equipment

Greatsword

Sigil

Sigil

Sword

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Amulet

• - higher sustain but lower consistency due to the loss of crit chance. Take Rune of Ranger to compensate. Power for Power can be considered for the 1st slot of Willbender, since you don't need the extra HP from the other trait - you do lose some healing though.

Usage

Luminary basics

• You can access a new set of weapon skills with Enter Radiant Forge.

• The time you get to spend in the forge is limited, you start running out of energy gradually.
  • This isn't a resource you can build or manage. You always start with a full bar upon entering the forge. It's more of a timer.

• The minimum recharge for the forge itself is 5 seconds. If you use 2 or more weapon skill, the recharge goes up.

• Skills 2-5 have flipover chain skills. The chain skills don't add extra recharge time.

General

• Resolution increases your critical strike chance by 40% via Righteous Instincts, pushing it near the crit cap while you have this boon. Always try to maintain Resolution or at least apply it before bursts.
  • The 2 most important sources of this boon are focus skills and Light Aura detonations via Sovereign of Light.

• Your healing skill Resolute Stance isn't just for you - all of its healing is shared with nearby allies! This gives you an extremely potent support tool, and you should always try to heal next to allies.

• Try to burn through all of your virtues before resorting to Renewed Focus. RF is a great skill to use if you're being focues by the enemy team and you don't have any CDs left. Just keep in mind that this skill makes you lose capture point contribution for its duration.
  • Since your virtues are instant, you can also just use them towards the end of Renewed Focus to make sure they aren't wasted. They'll be recharged even if you active them a split second before RF goes off.

Mobility

• Use Gleaming Blade for mobility when roaming the map.

• Stay in forge mode for at least 10 seconds to maintain the mobility boost. After 10 seconds you can drop out, the speed boost will be refreshed for another 10 seconds, which should cover the recharge of the skill.

Sword/Focus

• This is more of a defensive secondary set, but still offers plenty of damage.

• Zealot's Defense is both defensive and offensive, dealing solid damage while destroying enemy projectiles. Note that the damage of this skill can be very unreliable in anything but melee range.

• Symbol of Blades has many uses: vertical mobility via teleportation, symbol for cleaving, Blind to make an important skill miss, or a combo field which can be used to combo Light Aura with a leap finisher.

• Both focus skills grant Protection and Resolution via Focus Mastery.
  • Shield of Wrath doesn't give you the boons right away, the shield must first explode for the boons to be applied.

• Ray of Judgment isn't very powerful but makes up for it with its versatility. The Blind, cleanse, heal, boons and damage make it useful in just about any situation. Focus skills in general are an important source of Resolution in the build, so you should pretty much use this skill on CD.

• Shield of Wrath is a highly valuable defensive skill if used correctly. Having instant access to a blocking skill could save your life if you get caught in a CC with no available stunbreaks, but it could also cover important casts like your healing skill or allow you to pressure enemies while tanking hits.
  • If the 3 charges aren't consumed, the shield explodes for heavy damage. In combat this is a rather unlikely scenario, the only reliable way of getting the explosion off is casting this skill at a safe distance and jumping in with a teleport just as it's about to expire. When combined with other heavy hitting skills (especially on Spear) and Judge's Intervention for an instant teleport, the shield can add quite a bit of burst damage to your opener.

Greatsword

• Whirling Wrath is the main burst skill on this set, make sure that it lands - do an unexpected ranged burst with Judge's Intervention, or use it after pulling targets in with Binding Blade.
  • Using your F1 virtue Radiant Justice for the Quickness before casting WW is highly recommended.

• When in combat, always try to combo Leap of Faith in a Light field such as Symbol of Wrath for Light Aura. Few things to note when using this for mobility:
  • If you're OOC (out of combat), swap weapons just before the leap finishes in order to cancel the final part of the skill which would otherwise bring you to a halt.
  • In combat this can be used for jumping away from the fight to avoid damage. To do that simply just detarget (click anywhere on your screen that's not an enemy player) before using the skill, and make sure that auto-targetting is disabled.

• Binding Blade is useful even when the target has Stability and thus cannot be pulled. The damage over time part of this skill is decent, and you could time it in a way that the target's stability runs out before Binding Blade does, allowing you to pull them in later. Note: while the initial projectile itself can be dodged, once the blades are attached you can pull targets out of any kind of evade frame! The blades also seek out enemies even if they are Stealthed.

Burst combo examples

PvP is an unpredictable environment, so builds don't really have rotations. These are only meant to give you some ideas for sequencing, you don't have to follow them all the time.

Ranged AoE combo

1. Optional: use Shield of Wrath and wait a bit. Proceed with the chain when it's close to running out, as you want it to explode shortly after jumping in with Judge's Intervention. The better your timing is, the higher the chances are for it to explode in melee. It only blocks 3 attacks, and any random damage could consume those, in which case the shield won't explode.
2. Optional: use Effulgent Stance in a similar way to SoW, but a bit later. While you want it to explode shortly after jumping in, you also want to give yourself enough time to land all the hits from Whirling Wrath in order to charge up the damage bonus of Effulgent Stance.
3. Pre-cast Whirling Wrath from a distance.
4. Judge's Intervention to teleport to the target right before WW starts doing damage (WW has a cast bar, jump in as the bar's about to fill up).
5. Radiant Justice for Quickness. If you don't trust your timing, use it before jumping in with JI, that way your Whirling Wrath is guaranteed to reap the full benefits of this skill, but you lose out on a Blind.
6. Whirling Wrath
7. Symbol of Resolution
8. Leap of Faith
9. Any Luminary skill in order to detonate the Light Aura you got from doing Leap of faith in a symbol

Melee GS burst

1. Binding Blade
2. Symbol of Resolution
3. Effulgent Stance
4. Pull enemies onto the symbol
5. Radiant Justice for Quickness and to detonate the Light Aura of Effulgent Stance
6. Whirling Wrath
7. Leap of Faith - if you did it well, Symbol of Resolution should still be active, granting you another Light Aura.

Hammer Burst Rotation

1. Use a symbol from either weapon sets, you'll want to stand in it for Dazzling Spin. Symbol of Blades is especially good for this as it teleports you into melee range and drops the symbol right at your target.
2. Enter Radiant Forge - this grants Light Aura
3. Radiant Justice (F1) both to detonate the aura and to reapply Light Aura
4. Dazzling Hammer for damage and to detonate the aura. Standing in a symbol reapplies Light Aura
5. Shining Spin for damage and to detonate the aura
6. Optional: if you end the chain now and drop out of the forge, you can reenter it in 5 seconds

Extended Burst Rotation (without symbol precast)

1. Enter Radiant Forge - this grants Light Aura
2. Radiant Justice (F1) both to detonate the aura and to reapply Light Aura
3. Dazzling Hammer for damage and to detonate the aura
4. Optional, if you have it: Effulgent Stance for Light Aura
5. Shining Spin for damage and to detonate the aura
6. Luminous Staff to place a symbol, which is a combo field
7. Gleaming Blade inside the symbol to combo Light Aura
8. Lucent Thrust (chain skill of Gleaming Blade) to detonate the aura

Sustain

• Shield of Wrath can be used to block attacks even when you're stunned.
  • It's also a blast finisher, always try using it inside a symbol - you'll cleanse 1 condition for you and nearby allies.

• Condition cleansing in the build is exceptionally good. Sources include:
  • Ray of Judgment on Focus.
  • Radiant Resolve is your strongest cleanse by default (unless you took Contemplation of Purity), followed by Resolute Stance. Radiant Resolve cleanses 5 conditions thanks to your traits.
  • Any source of Light Aura.
  • Restorative Glow inside the forge.

• If you plan on chaining multiple smaller cleansing tools together, start with Resolute Stance. It has a lingering bonus that heals you for each condition removed.

• There's plenty of strike damage mitigation too, especially when it comes to stances. Every stance gives you Protection on activation, and those that interact with enemies in any capacity apply Blind too.

• While Effulgent Stance is often used in burst combos, it has plenty of defensive value too. It applies Protection, barrier and 24px Light aura when activated, and Daze + Blind when it ends. While not a stunbreak, it can be used while stunned.

• You should have at least 2 utility stunbreaks + Radiant Courage.

• Every Virtue skill can be used defensively, including Radiant Justice which Blinds in melee. Blinds are an important part of your survival kit and can be found on both weapons as well as the forge.

• Every forge skill can be used defensively:
  • Dazzling Hammer CC's enemies.
  • Luminous Staff and its chain skill apply boons, heal you and remove conditions.
  • Gleaming Blade can help you build distance and its chain skill has Blind.
  • Radiant Bulwark blocks attacks and its chain skill CC's targets.

• Judge's Intervention is also a stunbreak but most of the time it'll be used to execute burst combos from range. Worth holding onto for defensive purposes when every other stun break is on CD though.

• As long as you have Renewed Focus you're somewhat safe. It's an incredibly powerful defensive skill which grants you immunity to incoming damage and CC (other than fall damage) when under heavy pressure, and refreshes all of your Virtues which could either help you stay alive longer or run away.

Related Builds

• Luminary - Radiant GS Luminary Roamer - WvW version of the build.