Spellbreaker - Defense Spearbreaker

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

Focused on: Strike damage and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on January 05, 2025 and is up to date for the February 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

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

Skill Bar

Spear

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

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

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  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

• Heretic Amulet
  - 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
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  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
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  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
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  , 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.

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  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
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  .

• 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
    ,
    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
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  .
  • 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
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    which renders Blind ineffective, increasing the chance of a successful Cleansing Ire proc.

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  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
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  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.