Vindicator - Greatsword Shiro

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

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on January 17, 2025 and is up to date for the March 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

A PvP Vindicator power build with high damage, medium sustain and some utility. Suitable for anything from 1v1s to teamfights.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Staff

Utility

Utility

Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

• Vassals of the Empire
  gives up damage to make the build more tanky and add some group utility.

Equipment

Greatsword

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

• - even more tanky option.

Relics

• - more dodges for self-defense and trait synergies.

• - more healing.

• - frequent healing proc for extra sustain and group utility, but the Legendary Alliance heals are channeled and you need to finish the entire cast to get the heal, so one interrupt could deny you the healing.

• - damage boost that can be effortlessly maintained in 1v1s.

Usage

General

• Invoking a legend resets energy to 50, removes 1 condition, procs
  Song of the Mists
  , and could even proc the sigils of your current weapon set if they're no longer on CD. Swapping legends is basically the main resource management tool in the build - swap whenever you're out of CDs, low on energy, or need to cleanse. As the CD on legend swap is 10 seconds you want to plan ahead with your energy pool accordingly.

• Legendary Alliance
  Vindicators have access to 3 legends in a way, but swapping between the Kurzick legend Saint Viktor and the Luxon legend Archemorus does not proc legend swap related traits and class mechanics.
  • You can swap between the two with Alliance Tactics (F3 by default).

• The build works just fine from 1v1s to teamfights.

• Spam
  Nomad's Advance
  for mobility while roaming between capture points. Alternatively if you're on Shiro Turn turn
  Impossible Odds
  on and off every 5 seconds in order to maintain permanent Swiftness through
  Rapid Flow
  .

Shiro

Damage, mobility, CC, minor sustain through evasion and condition cleansing

• Enchanted Daggers
  is a skill with life steal, which means the damage it deals bypasses any damage mitigation including Protection or even
  Endure Pain
  . That being said it still can't go through evasion or invulnerabilities such as
  Distortion
  . It's not a great healing skill, so most of the time it'll be used to boost your burst damage.

• Impossible Odds
  can augment any skill and increase your damage output significantly while active. It's quite expensive though, so don't maintain it for more than a few seconds at a time, use it only for bursts. Note that it's only single target damage, doesn't cleave.
  • Always stop maintaining this skill if you're about to hit 0 energy - turning it off sends it on a 1 second CD while running out of energy results in a 4 second CD.
  • Most Greatsword skills are rather slow, you only really want to use this for
    Eternity's Requiem
    (or autoattack spam with Quickness) before turning it off unless you really need to squeeze out all the damage you can in your situation. Works much better with the faster Staff autoattacks in case you're on your defensive set but need to pressure someone.

• Phase Traversal
  is great for initiating fights from range and immediately starting off with Quickness coupled with unblockable attacks. Quickness can be used to do burst damage or cleave downed targets better through auto attacking, while the unblockable attacks could seal the fate of enemies relying on blocking as their last resource option for sustain.

• Jade Winds
  won't be used often because it exhausts most of your energy pool, leaving you defenseless and with barely anything to capitalize on the CC. This should only be used to set up kills for your teammates, or to interrupt very important channels like a rez or a stomp.

Weapons and damage

• Greatsword is the set you'll be using to pressure targets, but it does have some defensive capabilities too.

• Imperial Guard
  is great for blocking attacks under pressure and
  Phantom's Onslaught
  could be used not only as a gap closer but also a gap builder (just make sure you don't have an enemy targeted). These are not purely defensive skills though, their damage shouldn't be underestimated either. Imperial Guard hits particularly hard once it's charged up.

• Mist Unleashed
  and
  Eternity's Requiem
  are great AoE skills, but the latter deals more damage against single targets. Use these on CD.

• Archemorus in a way acts as your second offensive set in case your GS skills are on CD or you need better range.

• Scavenger Burst
  and
  Spear of Archemorus
  add a bit of extra reach to an otherwise very melee focused build. Use these to poke from a safe distance if you don't want to go melee for some reason. The Spear has a huge delay so you could even precast it in a fight and line it up with other damage sources for burst damage, or burst targets while the spear is charging which forces them to choose between using their defensives to avoid the spear or your other attacks.
  • Swapping legends doesn't cancel
    Spear of Archemorus
    .
  • Scavenger Burst
    applies Quickness which makes it a great setup skill for GS burst combos or it could speed up your attacks when you need downed cleave.

• Nomad's Advance
  does a lot of damage on a very short CD, if your GS skills are not available this is a solid option for pressuring targets at a reasonable energy cost. Being a mobility tool is a nice added bonus and makes it more versatile.

Combo examples

Greatsword/Shiro melee

1. Enchanted Daggers
2. Eternity's Requiem
3. Impossible Odds
   - activate this right before Eternity's Requiem starts dealing damage and maintain it for the rest of the chain
4. Dodge while ER's doing damage, land on top of your enemy
5. Mist Unleashed

Defensive/counterpressure combo

1. Block attacks with
   Imperial Guard
2. Dodge
3. Hit them with
   True Strike
   (IG's chain skill)
4. CC them and gain Stability with
   Reaver's Rage
5. Heal up with
   Selfish Spirit

Disengaging if you're getting chased

1. About face into
   Riposting Shadows
   for moblity, cleansing and to avoid damage while swapping to Alliance Stance
2. Nomad's Advance
   away from the fight, without a target
3. Use
   Selfish Spirit
   if you can afford it, swap to Kurzick and keep running if they're still on you
4. Optional About face once more and use
   Battle Dance
   to build more distance while evading attacks
5. Optional
   Phantom's Onslaught
   without a target to build even more distance
6. Heal up with
   Selfless Spirit

Sustain/Support

• Staff is the defensive set in the build, offering ways to avoid damage via
  Surge of the Mists
  and
  Warding Rift
  or AoE cleanse conditions through
  Renewing Wave
  .

• Dodging removes a condition via
  Eluding Nullification
  .

• Unyielding Devotion
  provides passive damage mitigation, you should aim for a permanent uptime.
  Rapid Flow
  is a big help here, taking care of 40% uptime on its own (assuming you proc it every 5 seconds).
  Impossible Odds
  is a great instant trigger for Rapid Flow even if you get caught in a stun. Another huge help is Regeneration from
  Balance in Discord
  .

• Resilient Spirit
  passively grants you barrier every few seconds for each boon you have (up to 5 boons). You don't have to try too hard to achieve that, but do keep an eye on your boons and try to make sure you're at the cap. Easiest ones to maintain are:
  • Swiftness from
    Rapid Flow
    (using a skill with an energy cost every 5 seconds).
  • Might from dodging (when playing with
    Vassals of the Empire
    ). You get Protection from the same source too but it has a very short duration, whether you'll have it at the right time or not comes down to luck.
  • Fury from various Invocation passives.
  • Regeneration from legend swapping and Kurzick skills.
  • For the 5th you'll have to work a little and get it from much more limited or expensive sources, but several key skills grant boons so usually you'll have more than 4 boons.

• Alliance stance can be defensive on both of its legends, in fact one of the Luxon ones could be better for survival than any of the Kurzick ones:
  Reaver's Rage
  . The CC is great for taking pressure off you even against multiple opponents and the Daze is just long enough to cover a cast of
  Selfish Spirit
  . Even if the CC didn't work the skill itself has Stability to protect your casts. You may also extend the Stability with dodges when playing with
  Vassals of the Empire
  .
  • This is quite an expensive skill, but could make all the difference if you're seriously pressured.
  • If you can choose between using
    Reaver's Rage
    and
    Awakening
    to break a stun, Reaver's Rage is usually the better choice.

• Tree Song
  is your best source of source of mass condition cleansing.
  • Tip: if you need to cleanse a lot of conditions and you're on Shiro, try to use
    Riposting Shadows
    first. This way you'll potentially get rid of a few non-damaging conditions, increasing the chance of
    Tree Song
    cleansing the damaging ones. Proccing
    also works.
  • This is an AoE skill, keep an eye on allies and share it with them if you can.

• Both Shiro and Saint Viktor have tools for evading attacks, these are
  Riposting Shadows
  and
  Battle Dance
  . Quite useful when you've got energy to spare but not enough endurance to dodge and you need to avoid attacks.
  • Both skills can be used to avoid attacks while Immobilized. While
    Battle Dance
    doesn't remove this condition, it will apply Resistance which allows you to move and ignore the immob.

• Try to share
  Selfless Spirit
  with allies whenever you can.

• The Kurzick elite skill
  Urn of Saint Viktor
  offers strong on-demand damage mitigation when you're being pressured, but you CANNOT be healed while it's active! Use it for a few seconds to survive burst damage if you can't avoid it, then turn it off or swap legends as soon as you want to heal back up.
  • This is also a solid support skill that heals allies (but not you).

Related Builds

• Vindicator - Retribution Greatsword Roamer - closest WvW counterpart of this PvP build.