Warrior Build - Bladesworn - Repeating Dragon

[Apheleion.8572]

Hey Peeps  I like to come up with some weird builds, here is one I have been trying out. Bladesworn build that uses daring dragon to proc weakness over and over again. Build provides a ton of might for the squad, has decent health sustain and decent damage output. 

 

We use Cull the Weak to get weakness on Burst and we use Daring Dragon to spam the weakness which then triggers Aristocracy runes giving us Might which then triggers Mending Might for some healing and Phalanx Strength for squad Might.

 

Using Flow Charge once gives us fury putting crit at 100% with some food

 

Healing, Berserker Stance and Flow Charge are used to upkeep our flow to spam Daring Dragon over and over again.

 

Any and all comments or critiques are appreciated http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAIdrlFwUZgMKmLeeT+xcA-zxQYhom+ybHCswyIiKoiUw9FZUAA-e

Edited January 18, 2023 by Apheleion.8572

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Is the focus OWPvE, or to be a might bot for instanced groups?

[Apheleion.8572]

honestly haven't tried it in pvp just yet or wvw, its been fun in fractals and strikes and open world content. Build was mostly about trying something new and see what i can get from it. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

16 minutes ago, Apheleion.8572 said:

honestly haven't tried it in pvp just yet or wvw, its been fun in fractals and strikes and open world content. Build was mostly about trying something new and see what i can get from it. 

I do that a lot myself. Aristocracy Runes are great might generators for warrior, sadly it's a condi rune set, so there is some missed potential in taking them.

[Infusion.7149]

If it's just for PVE I would be running Warrior's Cunning. You're already taking a 10% damage loss by running Soldier's Comfort meaning you're better off shoring up an essential boon (quickness) if might is covered for other people so I would consider Martial Cadence as well. Note Soldier's Comfort actually isn't that strong here due to the 10s internal cooldown on Soldier's Focus, if you do the math it is 970 per burst with 10s cooldown so at most below 100 per second (regen without healing power is 130 per second).

Since each burst you output 3 stacks of might from Soldier's Focus which has a 10s cooldown, Empower Allies only allows for an additional 5 or 6 stacks and you are bursting to trigger Aristocracy runes anyway. (With zero boon duration from gear or traits Discretize claims Empower Allies is 8 stacks of might.) I'd also strongly reconsider using Cleansing Ire outside of fractals with bad instabilities as the number of conditions incoming should be cleansed by a firebrand, mechanist, druid, or any meta healer. Getting adrenaline from being hit should not be considered a reliable source of adrenaline in strikes or raids.

It does beg the question, wouldn't Pack runes with "For Great Justice" and a Sigil of Strength be more effective than trying to get might from bursts? The might applied from Aristocracy Rune is a mere 4 seconds according to the build editor. If you aren't partial to bladesworn if I had to venture a guess you could achieve a much easier application with Sigil of Strength and Forceful Greatsword , or simply using axe berserker with decapitate.

That is just based off my cursory observation of the build.

EDIT: I suspect the main reason people don't run the Daring Dragon trait outside of trash mobs is the damage isn't there. Since Dragon Trigger scales as a polynomial and not linearly, 5 charges instead of 10 is not half it's far less than that. I think it's something akin to 6 or more casts to equal one Unyielding Dragon cast in PvE meaning you are generally better off with berserker or even core warrior.

Edited January 18, 2023 by Infusion.7149

[Apheleion.8572]

This was actually some fantastic feedback really appreciate this stuff. Those were some excellent points that i didn't even think about. I wasn't sure how the charges scaled exactly with bladesworn. True on the might being short would possibly switching to some diviners gear change up the equation a little? Tried bladesworn because it seems really like a one trick pony.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

6 minutes ago, Apheleion.8572 said:

This was actually some fantastic feedback really appreciate this stuff. Those were some excellent points that i didn't even think about. I wasn't sure how the charges scaled exactly with bladesworn. True on the might being short would possibly switching to some diviners gear change up the equation a little? Tried bladesworn because it seems really like a one trick pony.

The most you would get is 8s per proc. But if you are chaining DS then you could get rather high stacks, but you can get more efficient might production from FGS and FGJ.

[Infusion.7149]

Power bladesworn with Martial Cadence is actually an excellent choice on some raids (most notably Keep Construct and Vale Guardian) and strikes where there is phasing. It isn't as good as power spellbreaker in fractals in my opinion due to a variety of factors, the most obvious being the boon rip you get from spellbreaker spec (which helps with No Pain No Gain and Vengeance) in addition to a general lack of CC which is a fractal necessity for breakbars. If you run the meta dagger+axe with greatsword variant of spellbreaker (not the new defense hammer variants) you more or less have what you want (might sharing and high sustain) without having to jump through hoops : dagger outputs might on autoattack in AoE as of the last patches and all it would take to amplify that might is a swap from the default Martial Cadence to Phalanx Strength (that isn't including the personal might from Magebane tether either).

It isn't so much that bladesworn is bad in PVE but it takes a bit of effort with respect to positioning due to the Dragon Trigger charge time. (The difficulty doesn't lie in the skill rotation.) You don't have that luxury in fractals sometimes with the flux bombs and random AoEs but it is less an issue in 10 man content with a healer. On the flip side, most targets outside of bosses in fractals will die even if Dragon Trigger isn't charged fully.

I would not invest into diviner gear on warrior in general but especially if you don't have the funds to experiment with it. If intent on applying might to others in 10 man content where people will scrutinize you (as opposed to fractals and openworld where people generally don't) I would probably just change course and swap builds to spellbreaker (and maybe change the rune to something like eagle or pack runes to shore up crit chance) since you already have a hammer.

The main thing to remember here (for this scenario) is Soldier's Focus has an internal cooldown of 10s which limits the usefulness of chaining Dragon Triggers. That is compounded by the wonky scaling on Dragon Trigger skills (it is second order polynomial or some sort of exponential scaling , not linear).

Edited January 18, 2023 by Infusion.7149