Spellbreaker - Greatsword Spellbreaker Roamer

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Strike damage, Control and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on March 15, 2025.

Overview

A high damage Power Spellbreaker WvW roaming build with great mobility, featuring the Greatsword. This version of GS Spellbreaker takes the Strength specialization for maximum burst damage while relying on Staff for sustain. Not playing Defense makes it a bit harder to play than other builds.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Weapons

• Dagger/Shield over Staff - GS/Dagger is the more traditional way of playing Spellbreaker in WvW, but it's currently being overshadowed by Staff. This is a way higher pressure set with unblockable boon removal and more CC, but your sustain will be considerably lower on it. Going for Defense to make up for the loss of Staff is worth considering.

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Specializations

Variants

• Peak Performance
  offers even better damage, but as a Warrior you should grab any Resistance source you can get so blinds don't destroy you. Taking Peak Performance is yet another cut to your Resistance uptime.
• Take
  Might Makes Right
  if you want to have a bit more sustain.
• Aggressive Onslaught
  can make it easier to land your burst.

Variants

• Brawler's Recovery
  gives you more condi cleanse but makes it harder to kill some of the high sustain, boon focused builds. Without Dagger's boon removal that could soften up enemies, you rely a lot more on raw damage to overpower other roamers in WvW.

Specialization Variants

Defense over Strength also works. This is a more sustain focused version of the build:

Equipment

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Accessory
Dragon

Amulet
Demolisher

Ring
Demolisher

Ring
Demolisher

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Stats

• You can replace the Dragon pieces with Marauder for higher crit chance, improving your consistency but lowering your burst potential slightly.

Runes

• Superior Rune of the Reaper
  - mix of defense and offense.

• Superior Rune of the Deadeye
  - higher crit chance, lower burst potential.

• Superior Rune of the Brawler
  - better sustain without sacrificing much damage.

Relics

• Relic of Rivers
  - CD reductions give you more of everything, especially sustain.

• Relic of Isgarren
  - passive damage boost that's easy to maintain.

Consumables

Food options

• Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak
  - passive damage mitigation and great stats.

• Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew
  - a very strong defensive option which improves your endurance regen and adds a bit more damage. Even has synergy with dodge related traits.
  • Budget version:
    Bowl of Meat and Winter Vegetable Stew

Utility

• Superior Sharpening Stone
  or
  Tin of Fruitcake
  .

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Full Counter
  (FC) recharges your Burst skills
  Arcing Slice
  and
  Path to Victory
  . Try to use it FC when you can reset their cooldowns, 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, etc.

• FC is both the best defensive and offensive skill in the build as it blocks, evades, grants Stability and performs an unblockable AoE damage/CC attack when triggered.

• Both burst skills and Full Counter cost adrenaline. If you only need a little more till you can use them then
  Versatile Rage
  can get you there.

General

• Settings: disable auto targeting, otherwise it'd be impossible to use skills like
  Rush
  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, 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
    .
  • Whirlwind Attack
    ,
    Arcing Slice
    , and
    Path to Victory
    are your main damaging skills, everything else is basically a filler or something that's used to set up burst / survive enemy burst.
• 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.

• CCing a target removes a boon and deals damage/grants adrenaline via
  Loss Aversion
  .

• Thanks to
  No Escape
  whenever you Daze or Stun a target you also Immobilize them. This is especially useful with
  Full Counter
  which dazes targets and then recharges your burst skills, perfectly setting up your followup.

• All movement skills remove the Immobilized condition - list of movement skills in the build:
  • Greatsword:
    Whirlwind Attack
    and
    Rush
    . These two skills also provide excellent mobility both in and out of combat.
  • Staff:
    Valiant Leap
    and
    Line Breaker
    .
  • If taken Dagger/Shield:
    Aura Slicer
    ,
    Shield Bash
    , and the burst skill
    Breaching Strike
    . The Dagger skills are also excellent gap closers.
  • Rampage:
    Kick
    ,
    Dash
    , and
    Seismic Leap
    .
  • Utility:
    Bull's Charge

Burst combo examples

WvW builds don't really have rotations, how you use your skills always depends on the circumstances. These are just a few ideas for sequencing that maximize damage while minimizing your window of vulnerability in melee.

GS to Staff:

1. Bladetrail
   from outside melee range.
2. Dodge towards the target in order to safely get into melee range, or to get rid of Blind by making
   Reckless Dodge
   consume the Blind insead of it causing the next step to miss.
3. Arcing Slice
4. Whirlwind Attack
5. Weapon swap into
   Snap Pull
6. Path to Victory
7. Valiant Leap

CC focused:

1. Arcing Slice
2. Full Counter
   for the Immobilize and to reset Arcing Slice.
3. Bull's Charge
   while the Immob lasts.
4. Arcing Slice
5. Weapon swap into
   Path to Victory

Staff to GS

1. Valiant Leap
   for Fury
2. Snap Pull
3. Weapon swap
4. Arcing Slice
   while the Quickness from
   Superior Sigil of Agility
   lasts.
5. Whirlwind Attack

Conditon cleansing & general survival

• Mobility is a major part of your survivability. Both sets have several mobility skills, then there's also
  Bull's Charge
  (which is especially great because it's also evading attacks while building distance) and even your elite skill. Whenever damage is starting to overwhelm you or you don't have your defensive CDs at the ready, feel free to leave melee range until it's safe again.

• Almost every Staff skill has some healing attached to it, making this set excellent at recovering your lost HP especially while you're briefly outranging your opponents. It's fine to use your Staff skills including
  Path to Victory
  just to heal up, even if you don't hit an enemy.

• While
  Line Breaker
  can cover quite the distance, you don't always want to aim it far even when running away. The healing and boons are only applied upon reaching the destination - on low HP you might even get killed by a ranged build or conditions before the skill could end. The closer you aim it to your feet, the sooner you'll get healed and protected by boons.

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

• "Shake It Off!"
  (SIO) is both a stunbreak and a source of condition removal.
  • You can use it more as a cleansing tool as long as your other stunbreak is not on CD.

• Mending
  cleanses 5 conditions and should be used pretty much on CD, assuming you're missing a large chunk of health or need to deal with conditions.
  • In condition matchups you should consider holding onto Mending for longer, especially when SIO is on CD. Use it mainly as a source of cleansing, unless you get dangerously low on health.

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.