Spellbreaker - Strength Quickness Spellbreaker

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Burst damage, Boon removal and Mobility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on August 23, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A more glassy duelist/teamfighter Power Spellbreaker build made to quickly burst down cc'd targets and use mobility to its advantage.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Endure Pain over Balanced Stance - Both of these skills can be used to mitigate strike damage and break stuns. Balanced Stance is a bit weaker as a damage mitigation tool but helps way more against CC.

• When using you could swap Balanced Stance for Featherfoot Grace for a low cd stunbreak that grants Superspeed and much needed Resistance. Another option would be Banner of Tactics. Note that you might want to consider Brave Stride if using either of these.

Heal

• Mending over Defiant Stance - a more consistent healing skill, but easily interrupted.

Weapons

• Staff provides utility and additional control options at range, making it a versatile choice for both defensive and offensive plays. It's mobility adds to it's kiting potential.

• Greatsword is for damage, bursts and even more mobility to help with both disengaging and engaging opponents.

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Specializations

Variants

• Peak Performance offers higher damage output, also synergizes with Mending if you're taking that heal.

• Brave Stride could be considered for a bit more Stability, but it's not a popular pick.

Variants

• Brawler's Recovery can be taken instead of Destruction of the Empowered for better condition cleanse at the expense of damage.

Equipment

Greatsword

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Amulets

• amulet provides more toughness and survivability at the expense of damage.

Relics

• Relic of Antitoxin - Helps in condition matchups with good synergy from Brawler's Recovery, if you decide to take that trait.

• Relic of the Daredevil - Improves crit consistency and allows for potential sigil changes. Great if you prefer a more reliable burst.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Full Counter (FC) recharges your Burst skills Arcing Slice and Path to Victory. Always try to use it when you can refresh their duration, except if you're under heavy pressure in which case you can use FC purely for defensive means.

• Always try to make sure Full Counter goes off: briefly move into hostile AoE spells, tank Mesmer clones or Ranger pets, etc.

• FC is both one of the best defensive and offensive skills in the build as it blocks, evades, grants Stability, and performs an unblockable AoE CC attack when triggered.

• Both burst skills and Full Counter cost adrenaline. If you only need a little more until you can use them then Versatile Rage can get you there.

General

• Settings: disable auto targeting, otherwise it'd be impossible to use skills like Rush for disengaging. For more tips check out our settings guide.

• Playstyle: This build is all about cc'ing opponents into massive bursts using Aggressive Onslaught. Quickness is useful both for damaging and mobility, as it increases movemnt speed. You will want to move around in and out of fights as much as possible to both survive and deal damage.

• Your most important damaging combo will be Snap Pull ⇒ Arcing Slice and Bull's Charge ⇒ Hundred Blades. Remember to set up these combos and time them well in order to effectively burst targets.
  • Full Counter, when the opponent is cc'd by it, and Magebane Tether, when the opponent is pulled, also activates Aggressive Onslaught. These setups help you maintain Quickness, whicn increase damage output and speed.
  • Minimize melee contact whenever you can't outdamage your opponent, dodge/block/evade as many things as possible, and spike targets when an opening shows.
  • Example: Bladetrail from outside melee range ⇒ dodge to your target ⇒ Arcing Slice ⇒ Whirlwind Attack
  • Any burst skill can proc Magebane Tether, including Full Counter.

• Fast Hands reduces the CD of weapon swapping to 5 seconds, which keeps gameplay rather fast-paced with minimal downtime. As a result, you won't be auto-attacking much unless you're cleaving a downed enemy.

• Despite its range, Bull's Charge is best used in melee to make it harder to react to.

• CCing a target removes a boon and deals damage/grants adrenaline via Loss Aversion.

Condition cleansing & general survival

• Brawler's Recovery and Warrior's Sprint will be used to manage condition levels before resorting to mass cleanses.

• Defiant Stance absorbs all incoming damage for a few seconds and converts it to healing when the duration ends. Use it strategically when expecting a big spike in damage, especially if outnumbered.

• Bullet Catcher has a block duration with a flip over skill Defiant Roar that heals you and allies and grants Resolution.
• Other Staff skills, like Path to Victory, Valiant Leap, and Line Breaker have defensive boons and healing as well.

• Restorative Strength grants Resistance which can help negate conditions like Blind, Chill, Slow, Weakness, and Immobilize.

• "Shake It Off!" (SIO) is both a stun break and a source of condition removal for you and your team.

• KITE, A LOT. You want to run out of harm's way using mobility skills as much as possible before resorting to major defensive CDs.

• Bull's Charge is great if you want to run away from pressure as it can build quite the gap while providing some evade frames.

Rampage

• Rampage is what you use when you quickly want to burst/CC a target, or desperately need mobility to either chase down someone or run away from a fight. Bonus points if you manage to attach Magebane Tether just before using your elite.

• CC skills barely do any damage anymore, most of the damage in this form comes from auto-attacks and Dash.

• Throw Boulder is a popular opener, allowing you to CC targets from range and then either follow up with Dash for burst damage or Seismic Leap to keep the CC chain rolling.