Alternate High-sustain builds for Open World (Post Nerf)

[Kuma.1503]

After the sustain nerfs on EoD launch, a lot of people are understandably upset. Accessible builds in the open world are being nerfed and it has some players wondering what new builds they can play. 

Wonder no longer, here are just some of the builds I've been running for open world content. These are builds that have performed well for me prior to the nerfs, and have been left completely untouched even after the nerfs. 

 

Protection Holo

Starting off strong with my personal favorite of the list. I'm an engineer main, and this is my go-to build for soloing hard content. From dungeon solos, to bounties, to heart of thorns content. 

The gear used is the same gear as the Power Alacrity Mechanist raid build. It is also perfectly serviceable on Power Quickness Scrapper, so you can take this into end-game content no problem. 

The way this build works is simple. Maintain permanent protection on yourself. The damage reduction is increased from 33% to 40% thanks to overshield. You also have easy access to the resolution boon with light field combos. You gain an additional 15% damage reduction in forge. 10% damage reduction with light aura. 50% damage reduction with spectrum shield ( only a 15 second cooldown at <50 heat), and if you're really struggling, you can run iron blooded for additional damage reduction. 

Re-sustain with perma regen + heat therapy + compounding chemicals. You can keep your health high without even touching your heal skill.  

You can maintain permenant 25 might, quickness, and a high uptime of fury on yourself. 

If you can't fight in melee range for any reason, swap to your mortar kit for a 1200 range option. You can also place down an AoE blindness for tackling horads of mobs (useful against pocket raptors), and a water field for leaping or blasting. 

This build has good damage, durability, sustain, mobility, and condi cleanse. You should have an even easier time soloing content than Scrapper pre-nerf. 

Cele Weaver

This is my go-to ele build for open world and WvW. With some minor tweaks, it works in strikes and fractals. Despite being a Cele build, you can still output enough dps to top the charts if you know what you're doing. 

The benefit to running this over glass weaver is less time spent in downstate. Less downs = more damage. 

This build is all about bursting targets down with burning while spamming chunky barriers on yourself. You can easily stand in melee range with things that most people can't thanks to your high toughness, protection, barriers, and sustain. You also have several evades tand on-demand stability to keep you alive in a pinch.

Against harder enemies, use your greater elemental in water attunement to summon an ice golem that heals you. It is a massive heal, but you need to make sure you are near the golem to receive it. it will also help take the pressure off of you in tight situations. 

Cele Catalyst

A build that uses the same gear as my Cele weaver with similar results. What this build lacks in barrier, it makes up for with BOONS. Quickness, prot, resolution, stability, fury, regen. Plenty of cleanse, and even some range. I've tried playing this in fractals/strikes and wasn't upset with the results. I was able to maintain quickness on my group with much greater ease thanks to the high boon duration. recommend giving it a try if looking for an ele build that is less downstate prone

 

Perma Dodge Mirage

This is perhaps the strongest solo build in the entire game. This build dwarfs even the almighty Mechanist in survivability. 

The way it works is simple. 

Are you fighting anything Veteran-level and below? Spam dodge and auto attack until it dies. When one enemy dies, you will instantly refill to full endurance thanks to sigil of stamina. In the unlikely-scenario that something has not evaporated before your dodges run out, swap weapons to take advantage to sigil of energy. 

You are constantly dodging. Constantly reflecting thanks to Evasive mirror (so you can give the middle finger to those annoying harpies and mordem snipers), you have perma regen, perma 25 might, and alacrity. In a pinch you can use distortion with 3 clones to summon 3 mirrors for additional evades and boons. 

Against tankier enemies, you will need to swap weapons on cooldown to take advantage of sigil of energy because you wont be getting your stamina resets. 

I use celestial trinkets in my build because the extra durability helps me to survive any hit I would take inbetween evades. The extra boon duration helps me maintain perma regen on myself, which gives me extra condition damage thanks to the trait Illusionary membrane. 

The trait Illusionary Defense gives you a stacking damage reduction buff every time you summon a clone. 

You can summon clones by dodging, summon 2 clones with staff 3 and 1 clone with staff 2. You should be able to maintain this buff with no problem. 

Just swap out the Celestial trinkets for Viper if you wish to take this into end-game content. If you'd rather not make two sets of trinkets, full Vipers works just fine. 

 

Trapper Druid

A long time ago, a friend of mine told me that he can't kill mobs in OW on his Druid. I showed him this build. 

This is the build I run in both Open World and WvW. 

The playstyle is simple. Run up to enemy. Drop trap on enemy. Spam axe/torch skills until enemy dies. Rinse repeat. 

I run a staff for survivability against tougher foes, but you can swap this out for a shortbow if you're feeling confident. 

Survivability mainly comes from trapper runes and avatar form. If you run staff, you can drop your staff 5, blast it with staff 3, and then blast it again with CA 3. This should be enough to heal yourself to full. If these are on cooldown, you have your heal skill handy. 

Healing spring also provides perma regen on it's own, which helps you build up CA on yourself quickly. 

On top of all this, you have a pet to tank for you. The pet you choose is up to your prefrence. I run a bear because they're tanky enough to take just about anything the game can throw at them. 

 

There are more builds that I can share, but I will cut my post here for the sake of length. I hope this helps some of you. Good luck 🙂

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

 

2 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

have been left completely untouched even after the nerfs.

I honestly don't understand this. It's like there's blatant and obvious class favoritism at work. Condi mirage was already god-mode, same for many cele-gear builds. And those get a pass, whereas already weak PvE classes like thief get the shaft, hard-end. 

Anet, you wanna explain your thought process on this? Maybe just band-aid fix P/P for the time being instead of mauling the entire class?

[Stx.4857]

Yeah the nerfs to scourge and Rev made sense right because those classes had incredible sustain and damage while also being ranged.  They were widely recognized as the best soloist classes.  

 

The nerf to Scrapper and power Thief made no sense to me, because they did not deal much damage and weren't really that great for soloing.  

 

I think they nerfed Scrapper due to wvw maybe?  And power Thief just to be consistent I guess?  It's just wierd because condi builds already had better damage AND sustain, but they smacked power builds.  It's actually hilarious how weak Scrapper feels compared to mechanist, and how weak power Thief feels compared to spectre.  

[SeTect.5918]

4 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

 

Cele Catalyst

A build that uses the same gear as my Cele weaver with similar results. What this build lacks in barrier, it makes up for with BOONS. Quickness, prot, resolution, stability, fury, regen. Plenty of cleanse, and even some range. I've tried playing this in fractals/strikes and wasn't upset with the results. I was able to maintain quickness on my group with much greater ease thanks to the high boon duration. recommend giving it a try if looking for an ele build that is less downstate prone

Cele Catalyst doesn't really have the same results as cele weaver, its worse. Sustain and Damage is both worse.

The only thing that keeps u alive vs harder enemies is the heal from ice Elemental and it dies like a fly. 

Weaver far better for open world. 

Lord Hizen made a cele Catalyst build for open world and i cant count how often he almost died. 

Trailblazers weaver is far better and less reliant on the minion that dies in seconds by aoe dmg, which makes enemies like mushroom queen impossible with catalyst. While Weaver can do it easily. 

Edited April 6, 2022 by SeTect.5918

[Kuma.1503]

1 hour ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Cele Catalyst doesn't really have the same results as cele weaver, its worse. Sustain and Damage is both worse.

The only thing that keeps u alive vs harder enemies is the heal from ice Elemental and it dies like a fly. 

Weaver far better for open world. 

Lord Hizen made a cele Catalyst build for open world and i cant count how often he almost died. 

Trailblazers weaver is far better and less reliant on the minion that dies in seconds by aoe dmg, which makes enemies like mushroom queen impossible with catalyst. While Weaver can do it easily. 

Catalyst definitely has a learning curve. Of every build on the list, this one requires the most effort. 

One tip I can offer is to prioritize earth sphere in harder fights. You'll gain prot from arcane, prot from the sphere, and resistance. 

My build is also deviates from Lord Hizen's. I run Staunch Auras and Evasive arcana. 

If you drop earth sphere and dodge into it, you will blast it for Magnetic Aura and stab on top of the other benefits. After that you can precast Earth 5 into Air sphere for quickness, shocking aura, and more Stability.

Upkeeping Rocky loop and Icy coil also provides you with a refreshable 15 seconds of -15% incoming damage on top of your protection. 

It's a different playstyle, but I haven't had trouble surviving on it. You have all the tools you need, you just access them differently.  

Edited April 6, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Spie.5024]

I have to say I was a bit sceptical about the holo build as I thought the dps would be way too gutted but it actually works dps wise but the toughness is definitely up there. 
good quality of life, easy survival, easy to play, no kits for those against using kits as mortar is just a nice addition but not where your main damage comes from 🙂 . 
I imagine with strength runes it would be even better but works with scholar as well.

 

Edit: Tried it in exotic with strength runes and this build works fine for soloing champions. I think even the most stupid players can solo on this as it’s simply that tanky 🤣 

Thumbs up from my side for the engineer one. 
 

Just like any build, you might have toplay around with skill slots for certain changes as this build specifically lacks stability and stun breaks when fighting for example Mayatl The Fierce. 
 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Spie.5024

[SeTect.5918]

6 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Catalyst definitely has a learning curve. Of every build on the list, this one requires the most effort. 

One tip I can offer is to prioritize earth sphere in harder fights. You'll gain prot from arcane, prot from the sphere, and resistance. 

My build is also deviates from Lord Hizen's. I run Staunch Auras and Evasive arcana. 

If you drop earth sphere and dodge into it, you will blast it for Magnetic Aura and stab on top of the other benefits. After that you can precast Earth 5 into Air sphere for quickness, shocking aura, and more Stability.

Upkeeping Rocky loop and Icy coil also provides you with a refreshable 15 seconds of -15% incoming damage on top of your protection. 

It's a different playstyle, but I haven't had trouble surviving on it. You have all the tools you need, you just access them differently.  

I m not saying it would be bad for openworld, i m just saying that weaver is better. 

[Stx.4857]

There are still plenty of open world builds post nerfs.  They just ruined a few like Scrapper and power Thief.  Condition builds are still all fine.  Rev and necro are still top tier even after the nerfs.

 

As for holosmith, its still my favorite engineer spec and very strong.  I'm glad that all the focus is on mechanist because holosmith is still fantastic.  I would never run a build with both inventions and Alchemy though, that level of defense just isn't necessary and the posted build has 67% crit chance max, could really benefit from gear and rune changes, or just run Celestial holo which is incredible due to the burning, healing scaling, boons, etc.

[Infinity.2876]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlFwcYVMLWKO+TaNLA-e

 

This was a build I created for scrapper you have a mediocre damage output and incredible sustain

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PiwAExzlRwkYQMOGKm2WlvSA-e

Power mirage evasion spam

Edited April 6, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[Stx.4857]

12 minutes ago, Infinity.2876 said:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlFwcYVMLWKO+TaNLA-e

 

This was a build I created for scrapper you have a mediocre damage output and incredible sustain

What gear would you use?  And where are you getting your quickness from?  Even adding a celerity sigil to this build you wouldn't have perma quickness.  And even with perma quickness scrapper damage is at best average.  

 

The problem with scrapper is that aside from having low sustain, it has no damage reduction % traits or skills.  It also has no condi damage, and no range.  It also has low protection access...  Its just so squishy compared to holo and mechanist its insane that they gutted impact savant.

[Infinity.2876]

10 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

What gear would you use?  And where are you getting your quickness from?  Even adding a celerity sigil to this build you wouldn't have perma quickness.  And even with perma quickness scrapper damage is at best average.  

 

The problem with scrapper is that aside from having low sustain, it has no damage reduction % traits or skills.  It also has no condi damage, and no range.  It also has low protection access...  Its just so squishy compared to holo and mechanist its insane that they gutted impact savant.

You can tweak above build to get utilities such as quickness and higher damage.

The sustain comes mostly from barrier also damage reduction traits are mostly bad. Condition damage is not scrappers forte. I did try this build in pvp with beserkers gear and I could do an ok amount of damage although I'm not high on the pvp ladder, around mid silver 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[kenny.7236]

Trailblazer Soulbeast, celestial firebrand, celestial weaver

[AliamRationem.5172]

14 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

 

I honestly don't understand this. It's like there's blatant and obvious class favoritism at work. Condi mirage was already god-mode, same for many cele-gear builds. And those get a pass, whereas already weak PvE classes like thief get the shaft, hard-end. 

Anet, you wanna explain your thought process on this? Maybe just band-aid fix P/P for the time being instead of mauling the entire class?

Torment runes weren't a nerf to condi mirage sustain?

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 hours ago, Stx.4857 said:

Yeah the nerfs to scourge and Rev made sense right because those classes had incredible sustain and damage while also being ranged.  They were widely recognized as the best soloist classes.  

 

The nerf to Scrapper and power Thief made no sense to me, because they did not deal much damage and weren't really that great for soloing.  

 

I think they nerfed Scrapper due to wvw maybe?  And power Thief just to be consistent I guess?  It's just wierd because condi builds already had better damage AND sustain, but they smacked power builds.  It's actually hilarious how weak Scrapper feels compared to mechanist, and how weak power Thief feels compared to spectre.  

I agree with all of this except scrapper.  That much barrier from a minor trait was crazy.  If scrapper requires more sustain, they should have to pay for it like everyone else.  It's for the same reason the nerfs to scourge, renegade, and torment runes made sense.  They were specifically nerfing low-to-no-cost sustain.  Thief is the outlier here because it actually had to give up big damage for their sustain and they weren't overperforming in that area.

[Stx.4857]

35 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I agree with all of this except scrapper.  That much barrier from a minor trait was crazy.  If scrapper requires more sustain, they should have to pay for it like everyone else.  It's for the same reason the nerfs to scourge, renegade, and torment runes made sense.  They were specifically nerfing low-to-no-cost sustain.  Thief is the outlier here because it actually had to give up big damage for their sustain and they weren't overperforming in that area.

And now that minor trait is trash lol.  5% barrier conversion and -180 vitality!  Barrier isnt healing btw.  

 

I don't care so much where the sustain comes from on a spec, moreso how viable and competitive that spec is, and as stated, Scrapper was already squishier than Holo and Mechanist PRE nerf.

[Kuma.1503]

I don't like the scrapper nerf because Impact Savant was the defining trait on the build, but alas. Anet thinks the healing and cleansing from core engineer traits/utilities are scrapper's true identity and nerfed it accordingly. Never mind that heal scrap uses pistol/shield which is a terrible weapon set on scrapper. Pistol has absolutely zero synergy with scrapper and it ends up turning impact savant into a liability because you lack the power damage to make use of it. It's just -180 vitality with no upside on heal/cleanse scrapper, so why is that of all things Scrapper's identity? No one knows. 

Scrapper rant aside, I do have a build for it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlNwsYaMHWKO8T6tUA-zRRYihbAOKQ8lRFFQ6JgaXExYDcHPJhDWC8MC-e

Its not optimal by any means, but it gets the job done. I run pack runes because of build synergies I'll mention later. I just tweak the traits for maximum damage output in group content.

Because i'm using Elixir U on cooldown, I take bulwark gyro to maintain nearly permenant stability uptime. In the event that I still get CC'd I have protection injection to give me prot. 

Fried Golden dumpling has crazy synergy with grenades. Every crit has a 33% chance  you might for 5 seconds (10 seconds with 100% boon duration) Nades can crit 3 times per cast. Against 3 or more enemies it's enough to spike up to 25 stacks of might on this build.

This food effect gives Marauder stats slightly more value because they have higher precision than Berserker stats. Pack rune also gives you +125 precision. 

You also have perma regen, fury, vigor, swiftness, quickness, nearly and nearly perma-stability. Just cast med it 5 on occasion to upkeep regen, swiftness, and vigor. 

That's 6-7 stacks of iron blooded for 12-14% damage reduction. This plus bulwark gyro plus impact savant is enough to keep you alive. 

cleansing comes from med kit 3. It's a water field so make use of that how you see fit. 

Mech and prot holo are undoubtably better now, but if you love Scrapper and want to keep playing it, feel free to give this a try. 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[SeTect.5918]

7 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I don't like the scrapper nerf because Impact Savant was the defining trait on the build, but alas. Anet thinks the healing and cleansing from core engineer traits/utilities are scrapper's true identity and nerfed it accordingly. Never mind that heal scrap uses pistol/shield which is a terrible weapon set on scrapper. Pistol has absolutely zero synergy with scrapper and it ends up turning impact savant into a liability because you lack the power damage to make use of it. It's just -180 vitality with no upside on heal/cleanse scrapper, so why is that of all things Scrapper's identity? No one knows. 

Scrapper rant aside, I do have a build for it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlNwsYaMHWKO8T6tUA-zRRYihbAOKQ8lRFFQ6JgaXExYDcHPJhDWC8MC-e

Its not optimal by any means, but it gets the job done. I run pack runes because of build synergies I'll mention later. I just tweak the traits for maximum damage output in group content.

Because i'm using Elixir U on cooldown, I take bulwark gyro to maintain nearly permenant stability uptime. In the event that I still get CC'd I have protection injection to give me prot. 

Fried Golden dumpling has crazy synergy with grenades. Every crit has a 33% chance  you might for 5 seconds (10 seconds with 100% boon duration) Nades can crit 3 times per cast. Against 3 or more enemies it's enough to spike up to 25 stacks of might on this build.

This food effect gives Marauder stats slightly more value because they have higher precision than Berserker stats. Pack rune also gives you +125 precision. 

You also have perma regen, fury, vigor, swiftness, quickness, nearly and nearly perma-stability. Just cast med it 5 on occasion to upkeep regen, swiftness, and vigor. 

That's 6-7 stacks of iron blooded for 12-14% damage reduction. This plus bulwark gyro plus impact savant is enough to keep you alive. 

cleansing comes from med kit 3. It's a water field so make use of that how you see fit. 

Mech and prot holo are undoubtably better now, but if you love Scrapper and want to keep playing it, feel free to give this a try. 

 

 

doesnt this build have a bit low crit chance? 75% isnt that great now.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlRw0YOMIWKWeT6tUA-zRZYiRBtXIcQGHhICrMioASPBUbA-e

Thats the build I was using.

Tho I couldnt agree more that holo and mech are far better now.

[Kuma.1503]

28 minutes ago, SeTect.5918 said:

doesnt this build have a bit low crit chance? 75% isnt that great now.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PeQAIlRw0YOMIWKWeT6tUA-zRZYiRBtXIcQGHhICrMioASPBUbA-e

Thats the build I was using.

Tho I couldnt agree more that holo and mech are far better now.

In open world, no. It is in group content, but thankfully, that's the perfect sweetspot to crit cap with firearms. 🙂

Also nice build. Cavalier stats are underutilised tbh.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[draxynnic.3719]

16 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

 

I honestly don't understand this. It's like there's blatant and obvious class favoritism at work. Condi mirage was already god-mode, same for many cele-gear builds. And those get a pass, whereas already weak PvE classes like thief get the shaft, hard-end. 

Anet, you wanna explain your thought process on this? Maybe just band-aid fix P/P for the time being instead of mauling the entire class?

Reportedly, it's not that those builds were actually imbalanced (apart from the Tormenting runes stuff), it's just that the current balance guy decided that he didn't like 'get sustain out of attacking' traits generally and gutted them. With a particular hatred for 'heal a percentage of the damage you do' traits, since they paradoxically encourage glass stats for sustain.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

42 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Reportedly, it's not that those builds were actually imbalanced (apart from the Tormenting runes stuff), it's just that the current balance guy decided that he didn't like 'get sustain out of attacking' traits generally and gutted them. With a particular hatred for 'heal a percentage of the damage you do' traits, since they paradoxically encourage glass stats for sustain.

It also encourages exposing yourself, because every second you spend in attack animations is a second you're not dodging, evading, blocking or, in some cases, kiting out damage. Consider how fragile thief is, to boot.

Edited April 6, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, NorthernRedStar.3054 said:

It also encourages exposing yourself, because every second you spend in attack animations is a second you're not dodging, evading, blocking or, in some cases, kiting out damage. Consider how fragile thief is, to boot.

Yeah, one of the things I've noticed myself with those sorts of builds is that while they do often have good sustain, they tend to be a bit of a case of 'you feel invulnerable until the pressure exceeds your ability to heal, and then you're boned'. Since, short of disengaging altogether, you don't have the option to play defensively, as anything short of all-out offense causes your sustain to drop and usually just means you just die faster.

It was a decision made for ideological reasons rather than genuine balance reasons. Some genuine balance concerns did happen to be hit along the way, but by pushing through a philosophy shift without considering the actual state of balance, a lot of options have been essentially murdered.

[Ashantara.8731]

Best survivability option: kill your enemies fast. 👍

23 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Perma Dodge Mirage

This is perhaps the strongest solo build in the entire game. This build dwarfs even the almighty Mechanist in survivability. 

[...]

Hours later... 💤

[Tails.9372]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

it's just that the current balance guy decided that he didn't like 'get sustain out of attacking' traits generally and gutted them. With a particular hatred for 'heal a percentage of the damage you do' traits

Then I have to question if that person even understands the point of having build diversity in an RPG. If something is not actually out of line then it shouldn't be of his concern. If he plays the game and doesn't like it then he can just play one of the many builds which don't involve it. This really sounds like a case of "stop having fun with things I don't like".

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

since they paradoxically encourage glass stats for sustain

Except there is no paradox here, being glassy refers to your "tankiness" (or better lack thereof) while sustainability refers to your ability to "keep on going" meaning that there is no real contradiction here. If you couldn't take a hit before then no amount of re-sustain will enable you to take it. So in the end you're still as glassy as before, all that "% of damage dealt" based re-sustain really does is to make smaller mistakes more forgiving at the expense of having to commit to a more glassy build and a more aggressive playstyle.

Also, singling out and criticizing "% of damage dealt" based re-sustain for favoring offensive builds is just nonsensical because "set value" based re-sustain does the exact same thing for more defensive builds with both having their own unique set of up/downsides.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Yeah, one of the things I've noticed myself with those sorts of builds is that while they do often have good sustain, they tend to be a bit of a case of 'you feel invulnerable until the pressure exceeds your ability to heal, and then you're boned'. Since, short of disengaging altogether, you don't have the option to play defensively, as anything short of all-out offense causes your sustain to drop and usually just means you just die faster.

I mean that "HP regen on hit" requires / pushes the player towards a more active, offensive / risky playstyle and in terms of "% based" healing even punishes other defensive investments should really be obvious but for some strange reason for many people it somehow is not. Some people even call it "passive sustain" which makes no sense whatsoever given that the healing effect has a clear activation condition leading to the aforementioned effect on the players playstyle.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Vigorous Shouts warrior.

Might Makes Right + Mending Might + PS + any spammable (lol) might source on any warrior build.

[The Boz.2038]

16 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

If scrapper requires more sustain, they should have to pay for it like everyone else.

1.8k HP ain't free, bruh.