Spellbreaker - Defense Boonbreaker

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

Focused on: Direct damageControl and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on April 27, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A duelist Dagger/Hammer Spellbreaker PvP build that focuses on CC and boon removal with plenty of high damage finishers to take advantage of stunned and boonless enemies.


Skill Bar

Hammer
Dagger/Shield
Utility


Skill Variants

Utility

Viable choices for the optional slot:

  • - mobility, CC, even an evade frame for sustain.
  • - extra sustain and some group support.


Template Code

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Specializations


Equipment

Hammer
Sigil
Sigil
Dagger
Shield
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet


Usage

Elite specialization basics

  • (FC) recharges your Burst skills and . 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, etc.
  • FC is both one of the best defensive and offensive skill in the build as it blocks, evades, grants Stability 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 can get you there.


General

  • 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 is best used in melee to make it harder to react to.
  • CCing a target removes a boon and deals damage/grants adrenaline via .
  • grants you half a bar of adrenaline on weapon swap. This might not seem like a lot, but it's quite useful especially in situations where you're under pressure and don't have the adrenaline to activate . Instead of scrambling to build some a adrenaline a simple weapon swap could get you there.
  • Movement skills remove Immobilize Immobilize from you. List of movement skills in the build:
    • Dagger/Shield: , and .
    • Hammer:
    • Rampage: , , and .
    • Utility:


Damage

  • Both sets are capable of doing a lot of damage, especially with the proper setup.
  • When it comes to bursts Hammer is all about landing on CC'd foes for extra damage.
  • is the only true ranged skill on this set (not counting Earthshaker which is a melee leap). The Cripple makes it easier to catch up to fleeing targets so it has some value other than just doing great damage.
  • (BS) deals significantly more damage against boonless targets, Hammer and its synergy plays an important part in setting up this skill.
  • While itself removes boons, the bonus damage is calculated before the boon removal, which means if the target has any boons when this skill lands you're not getting the damage increase, even if Breaching Strike removes all of their remaining boons.
  • Going BS second BS increases the chance of getting the bonus damage on the second Breaching Strike and also makes good use of .
  • The two best skills for the proc are and .
  • procs an Immobilize Immobilize whenever you stun or daze a target. This is more relevant on the daze, as dazed targets could still move freely if it wasn't for this trait.
    • No Escape turns into a great setup tool for burst chains, allowing you to immediately go on the offense even if you were being pressured. and are both great followups for the short immob.
  • Landing any Burst skill can chain enemies to you via . While active the tether passively stacks Might Might for you, increasing your damage while also preventing enemies from entering Stealth Stealth. If either of you goes past a certain range the tether breaks but the target gets pulled to you, which makes it a rather powerful CC tool as well.


Conditon cleansing & general survival

  • provides a steady stream of cleansing in combat to help manage condition levels before having to blow CDs.
  • 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.
  • (SIO) is both a stun break and a source of condition removal for you and your team.
  • is great if you want to run away from pressure as it can build quite the gap while providing an evade frame.
  • is the best defensive skill you could have against direct damage but it has to be used preemptively (unless you used it to break stun). Keep in mind that you're still vulnerable to condition damage, CC, and even life steal from skills such as !
  • Even could be used defensively as a ground targeted escape tool. A mobility skill is never a bad thing to have for kiting, and with this you could even jump over gaps in the terrain, forcing some specs to go around or blow CDs.


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.
  • CC skills barely do any damage anymore, most of the damage in this form comes from autoattacks and .
  • is a popular opener, allowing you to CC targets from range and then either follow up with for burst damage or to keep the CC chain rolling.


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Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 3 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
Eddieknj gave this build 5 stars • January 2024
works great with intelligence sigils and dragonhunter rune on hammer. demon king is also nice for anything with sustain.
5 stars
Quanxi gave this build 5 stars • December 2022
Makes sense for warriors to finally go hammer even in a duelist role, as a condi war I was struggling against hammer builds the most in 1v1s. The CC spam is very punishing to play against and they get insane sustain from defense. This right here is prime candidate for a nerf next patch.
5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • December 2022
New month new warrior build. Usual busted Hammer + Spellbreaker toolkit.

Comments

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