Spellbreaker - Defense Spearbreaker

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 was last updated on September 15, 2024 and is up to date for the August 20, 2024 patch.

Overview

A high sustain Power Spellbreaker duelist build for PvP using the recently introduced Spear.

Skill Bar

Spear

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• Mending over Defiant Stance - more consistent skill but harder to use under pressure due to the long cast time.

Utility

For the optional slot:

• Signet of Stamina - the passive endurance regen not only gives you higher sustain, but also better Alacrity uptime from the relic.

• Bull's Charge - a more traditional setup with good defense and offense as well as some mobility.

• Banner of Tactics - great anti-CC tool but it has to be used proactively, as it doesn't break stun for the user.

• Banner of Defense - could act as a second healing skill with barrier sharing and defensive boons.

Weapons

• Dagger/Shield over Staff - better damage, lower survivability. Use Sigil of Intelligence/Savagery on the Dagger set and Sigil of Energy/Cleansing on Spear.

Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

• Brawler's Recovery lowers your damage but makes you much more durable in condition matchups. Take this trait if you're having trouble dealing with condi builds in your games. It's also a more forgiving option in general.

Equipment

Spear

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Sigils

• Sigil of Purging over Sigil of Revocation - better cleansing.

Amulets

• - better healing, especially on Staff.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Full Counter (FC) recharges your Burst skills Path to Victory and Harrier's Toss. 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, cast it in the middle of an enemy's attack animation, etc.

• FC is both one of the best defensive and offensive skill 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 with a weapon swap can get you there.

General

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

• Playstyle: this build is all about weaving hard hitting skills into chains of block and evade frames while tethering yourself to the target with Magebane Tether as often as possible. The combos aren't set in stone, rather you'll need to adapt based on what CDs are available. 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.

• Any burst skill can proc Magebane Tether, including Full Counter.

• Staff is your defensive set, the only truly dangerous ability with good damage here is Path to Victory.

• While Spear is the more offensive set, it's also fairly high on sustain thanks to multiple evade frames and CC skills.

• 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.

• All movement skills remove the Immobilized condition - list of movement skills in the build:
  • Staff: Valiant Leap and Line Breaker.
  • Spear: Spear Swipe.
  • Rampage: Kick (Rampage), Dash, and Seismic Leap.
  • Utility: Bull's Charge

Survival

• Almost every single Staff skill has some healing attached to it.

• Spear is great at evading attacks. Harrier's Toss ⇒ Full Counter ⇒ Harrier's Toss ⇒ Spear Swipe gives you 4 evade frames in a row while doing damage and CC.

• Condi cleansing isn't great, mostly limited to burst skills cleansing 1 condition if they hit. Past that you have to rely on bigger CDs like "Shake It Off!" or Signet of Stamina.

• Burst skills cleanse conditions whenever they strike thanks to Cleansing Ire.
  • Getting Blinded could make your Burst skill miss and thus the condition cleansing won't happen which is rather awkward. Dodge rolling however grants Resistance via Resilient Roll which renders Blind ineffective, increasing the chance of a successful Cleansing Ire proc.

• Balanced Stance isn't just an anti-CC skill, it also mitigates direct damage by giving you immunity to critical hits.

• Defiant Stance can bail you out against any type of damage you're facing, but it's more of a last resort option.
  • Try not to overlap it with Balanced Stance, as the damage reduction from DS can result in less healing, and overlapping 2 damage mitigation tools in general is just a waste of CDs. Granted you can't actually use Defiant Stance while stunned, so if Balanced Stance is your only available stunbreak then using both is better than dying.

• Adrenal Health provides a steady stream of healing as long as you're landing those Burst skills (F1-F2).

• "Shake It Off!" (SIO) is both a stunbreak 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 an evade frame.

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 autoattacks 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.

Related Builds

• Spellbreaker - Spearbreaker Roamer - WvW version of the build.