Build:Dragonhunter - Power DPS

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

Focused on: Strike damage, Utility and Burst damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on August 10, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Dragonhunter is a heavy burst damage power DPS that excels in short fights (such as fractals) and raid encounters with short damage windows. It has strong CC and good mobility, and provides Vulnerability. In addition, it brings very high defensive support for a DPS class, with a party wide block in Shield of Courage, a strong burst heal in Wings of Resolve, and the ability to bring Guardian utilities such as Wall of Reflection and Hallowed Ground.

Dragonhunter is reliant Resolution for maximum damage. It provides ~45% uptime itself, but ideally will be supported by other Guardians, or Renegades with Spirit Boon.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Sword/Focus

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Shield provides a knockback, which can be useful for helping with pushing (e.g. seekers on VG), at the cost of damage.

Skill Variants

Healing

• Purification can be used to blind mobs that can knockback (Sabetha and Gorseval) or deal a lot of damage (Xera).
• Shelter can be used to help nullify niche mechanics, such as Slothasor's shake attack.

Utility

• "Stand Your Ground!" provides more Resolution as well as a stun break and Stability.
• Hallowed Ground can be used for more Resolution and Stability.
• "Advance!" can be used to Aegis big hits for your group like the knockback from Gorseval, the timed bombs from Matthias or the shockwave from Deimos.
• Hammer of Wisdom provides additional CC if needed.
• Wall of Reflection or Shield of the Avenger if projectile defense is needed.

Elite

• Use "Feel My Wrath!" to help slacking Mesmers keep up Quickness. It can also be nice at bosses where the group is split, such as Sabetha when doing cannons or Matthias in general.
• Signet of Courage can be used for great passive healing for your team.

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Specializations

Specialization Variant

Radiance can be swapped out for Virtues. This deals significantly more damage, but is dependant on being able to maintain high uptime of Aegis, which is unrealistic on many encounters.

• You will need to adjust gear to make up for the lack of crit chance (see below).

Equipment

Head
Dragon

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Dragon

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Dragon

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Berserker

Focus
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Equipment Variants

• Dragon stats gear is a very minor increase in damage over Berserker stats, so running full Berserker stats is totally fine. The optimal balance of Dragon/Berserker will also depend on your buffs so a gear optimiser will be needed to know exactly what you'll need.
• Swap Sigil of Superior Sigil of Force for slaying sigils or Sigil of Superior Sigil of the Night where applicable in fractals.

Virtues Variant

Head
Assassin

Shoulders
Assassin

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Assassin

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Assassin

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Berserker

Focus
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Consumables

Food

Utility

• • is slightly stronger if running the virtues variant.

Usage

Rotation

While the rotation may seem complicated, it can be boiled down to short windows where you have damage buffs from Big Game Hunter and Symbolic Avenger which you try to fill with your highest damage skills such as Whirling Wrath, Zealot's Defense and Procession of Blades.

Opener

1. Precast Shield of Wrath
2. Sword of Justice
3. Procession of Blades
4. Spear of Justice
5. Ray of Judgment
6. Symbol of Blades
7. Zealot's Defense
8. Weapon swap
9. Symbol of Resolution
10. Whirling Wrath
11. Sword of Justice
12. Dragon's Maw
13. Binding Blade
14. Sword of Justice
15. Auto-Attack chain twice
16. Leap of Faith
17. Symbol of Resolution
18. Whirling Wrath
19. Weapon swap
20. Proceed to the Sword Loop

Sword Loop

1. Zealot's Defense
2. Symbol of Blades
3. Auto-Attack chain three times
4. Symbol of Blades
5. Zealot's Defense
6. Weapon swap

• Only cast Ray of Judgment when the tether from Spear of Justice is active.

Greatsword Loop

1. Symbol of Resolution
2. Whirling Wrath
3. Binding Blade
4. Leap of Faith
5. Auto-Attack chain twice
6. Symbol of Resolution
7. Whirling Wrath
8. Weapon swap

• In some intervals towards the end of a greatsword section your cooldowns will line up so that Whirling Wrath is ready but Symbol of Resolution still has a few seconds of recharge and you have nothing but auto-attacks available. In these instances, simply cast Whirling Wrath and then Symbol of Resolution before weapon swapping.

General Tips

• Procession of Blades and Spear of Justice should be cast together on cooldown.
  • You can delay these skills a little to pair them with other high-damage skills for an overall increase in DPS.
• Never interrupt your greatsword autoattack chain.
• Symbol of Resolution and Zealot's Defense can both be cancelled by walking or stowing your weapon. This dramatically speeds up the aftercast of the skill.
• Use Whirling Wrath and Binding Blade (especially if the boss has adds) inside the boss's hitbox.
• When swapping to sword, Zealot's Defense will always be your first and last skill cast.
• Use Sword of Justice with Spear of Justice so it benefits from the damage multiplier. If all charges are full and you don't have Spear of Justice up one charge can be used.
• Renewed Justice will recharge your Spear of Justice. This allows you to have a higher Big Game Hunter uptime when there are adds around. Always try to keep Spear of Justice up as much as possible if it's being recharged with this interaction.

Breakbar

• Bane Signet is your strongest hard CC, but it should only be used in emergencies since it's a considerable DPS loss, unless you are running Perfect Inscriptions which will offset the DPS loss via the sharing of the passive.
• The pulls from Spear of Justice and Binding Blade can be used for CC if needed. However, you will lose the uptime on Big Game Hunter.
• Piercing Light adds Slow to all your traps, dealing 100 more breakbar damage with each second. This is both soft CC and hard CC.
• Dragon's Maw pulls and applies Slow on your target.
• Shield of Absorption deals 150 breakbar damage and knocks back enemies.

Video Examples

• Zeal rotation