Bladesworn - Defense Bladesworn Roamer

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

Focused on: Strike damage, Control and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on October 31, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Power Bladesworn WvW roaming build that abandons Tactics in favor of Defense, picking up powerful new tools such as Resistance on dodge, Stability on CC and projectile reflect on Aegis.

Skill Bar

Axe/Pistol

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• Mending - better condition cleansing. However both Restorative Strength on Strength and your elite skill Tactical Reload lose some value if you take Mending.

Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

• Brave Stride trades a bit of damage and healing for more Stability.
• Berserker's Power could be a significant damage increase at the expense of sustain but also requires you to hit highly charged Dragon Slashes consistently, which might be difficult against better players or builds with lots of mobility skills/CC/evade frames.

Variants

• Cleansing Ire offers better defense against conditions.

Variants

• River's Flow improves your healing but could make the build too sluggish to chase enemies or disengage from fights.

Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Amulet
Assassin

Ring
Assassin

Ring
Assassin

Axe
Berserker

Pistol
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Relics

• Relic of the Defender - better healing thanks to the many Aegis sources in the build.

• Relic of Isgarren - higher burst potential.

• Relic of Speed - better mobility.

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Durability - more tanky option.

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Brawler - a middleground between Pack and Durability, offering both defensive and offensive stats.

Consumables

Food options

• - passive damage mitigation and great stats.

• - extra Precision and armor ignoring damage procs that also heal you. It's cheap too.

• - a very strong defensive option which improves your already great endurance regen. Even has synergy with Might related traits and the Strength line in general.
  • Budget version:

Utility

• or , whichever is cheaper at the moment.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Warriors who spec Bladesworn lose access to weapon swapping in combat but gain access to the Gunsaber, which works a bit like an Engineer kit (F1 by default).

• Instead of Adrenaline you build Flow in combat. If you have enough Flow you gain access to Dragon Trigger (F2), which roots you in place and starts consuming Flow when used. Dragon Trigger empowers your Gunsaber skills. The more Flow you consume, the stronger the first 3 skills get. These 3 skills are the main source of your burst damage.

• While swapping in and out of Gunsaber has a 10s CD, this can sometimes be bypassed. Dragon Trigger is on a separate CD and using it puts you back into Gunsaber mode.

General

• Role: your primary purpose is to be a duelist and take 1v1s, but the build has plenty of AoE pressure and even some group utility too, making you useful in teamfights as well in case you'd need to be more flexible.

• Gunsaber isn't a very complicated weapon. 1-4 are damaging skills and 5 is for mobility/ Fury application. Skills 1-3 are ranged, 4 can be both melee and ranged. Spam them in whatever order you wish if they're not on CD.

• The 3 Dragon Trigger burst skills are:
  • Dragon Slash - Force: replaces the autoattack, melee cleave.
  • Dragon Slash - Boost: replaces skill 2, a gap closer/mobility skill with good damage. This is the most commonly used Dragon Trigger skill as it deals high damage and has the reach to hit enemies that are farther away.
  • Dragon Slash - Reach: replaces skill 3, ranged projectile attack.

• While Dragon Trigger is active, Gunsaber skill #5 turns into a ground targeted teleport. While the range is short, this could still allow you to reposition yourself in a way to hit targets who escaped to the highground or are hiding behind a pillar.
  • When playing with Brave Stride this could also act as an instant source of Stability that could help you avoid being interrupted.

• Unyielding Dragon makes it easier to land Dragon Trigger skills by giving you Blind immunity while also making it more threatening by adding a Stun.
  • Skill #4's Aegis application could also come in clutch if your timing is good, potentially blocking a CC skill that would otherwise interrupt the channeling.

• Axe/Pistol has plenty of burst damage and Throw Axe could act as a quick finishing move against low HP targets, but it's also an excellent set for barrier stacking (more on that later).

• "For Great Justice!" is both a defensive and offensive skill. You can either use it to heal/cleanse yourself and your team or boost your damage depending on the situation.

• Mobility skills give you Swiftness.

• Shield Master causes Aegis to reflect projectiles. This is way more impactful than it sounds because attacks you reflect don't consume the Aegis, allowing you to block way more than just 1 attack.
  • Skill #4 on both sets (Pistol and Gunsaber) are Aegis sources.

• Stalwart Strength gives you Stability whenever you CC a target. This is one of the reasons why building up 2 charges on Gunsaber #3 is a good idea - at 2 charges the skill has Daze, and you could us this trait synergy to follow up with a Dragon Trigger cast that's now protected.

• Dodge rolling grants Resistance which is especially useful against Blind and Weakness spamming specs. With this trait you can keep on pressuring targets by sacrificing a dodge, or end up getting it as a passive bonus anyway when dodging attacks.

Sustain

• Every source of Might application heals you thanks to Might Makes Right, turning otherwise damage focused skills like "For Great Justice!" into healing skills.

• Unshakable Mountain is a very important part of your survival kit, giving you barrier whenever you use the last charge of an ammo skill. This includes your shouts, Combat Stimulant, Gunsaber skills and even Throw Axe.

• Unshakable Mountain heavily encourages you to spam Gunsaber skills to make sure that you don't build up multiple charges. If every charge is your last one, this trait keeps the procs rolling.
  • Skill #3 on Gunsaber is an exception, you might want to consider building up ammo on that one because it makes the skill significantly stronger, even adding a Daze to it.

• Pistol has amazing synergy with Unshakable Mountain, as both of its skills are ammo skills and Dragon's Roar recovers charges very quickly which keeps the barrier rolling.

• Simply chaining Dragon's Roar ⇒ Gunstinger ⇒ Dragon's Roar on repeat as much as you can will give you lots of barrier. You can extend the combo with Tactical Reload, restoring ammo to both Pistol skills, allowing you to use Gunstinger once and Dragon's Roar twice.

• Relic of the Trooper turns every shout skill into a source of condition cleansing.

• Tactical Reload gives one charge to all Bladesworn ammo skills and makes your next Dragon Trigger charge faster. It's primarily a defensive skill best used to recharge your healing skill and Gunsaber #5 for extra mobility. To get full value out of it make sure that all of your Gunsaber skills are on CD and your heal doesn't have more than 1 charge. This is especially important because of the Unshakable Mountain synergy, as going from 0 ammo to 1 will proc the barrier on the next cast, but going from 1 ammo to 2 doesn't.

• Be careful with the timing of Combat Stimulant! The charges don't stack, if you use the second one before the first heal goes off the first one won't heal you.

• Your best source of condition cleansing is also one of your only stun breaks: "Shake It Off!" so plan your CD management accordingly.

• Balanced Stance is the best skill in the build for surviving Power based damage, even allowing you to tank some enemy burst while counter pressuring them. It's also a stun break, so if you're not under any condition pressure you might want to use this first before resorting to "Shake It Off!" later.
  • This skill could also be used offensively, using the Stability to protect your Dragon Trigger casts.

Related Builds

• Defense Bladesworn - sPvP version of the build.