Spellbreaker WvW Zerg Build

[Zsoak.5409]

Hello folks,

I thought I'm sharing the Spellbreaker zerg build I've come up with lately and had some success (and also fun) with it.It's based on the Metabattle standard WvW Spellbreaker build which I modified a bit to fit my playstyle better.

As I still consider myself a WvW rookie, please feel free to comment / discuss / suggest anything! :)

Disclaimer: I use this for zerging and sometimes small-scale, so the build is definitely not a roaming / dueling / 1vX build.

>Link to the build<

General

Due to the current weapon and skill choices it's a fun tanky 'brawler' type of build which I use very agressively.It combines great cleave damage and sustain during melee pushes but at the cost of limited utility (CC and boon removal).Of course it's perfectly fine for SB's nr.1 job, to place a successful bubble (with diving in if necessary, then getting back to the zerg alive).I chose my rune, food etc. setup to try to counter the current condi meta.

PROS

• Offense - great cleave damage
• Defense - great sustain and defensive cd's
• Good mobility

CONS

• Limited CC - mostly leaving that to backline Revs, but can switch Axe/Axe to Hammer as the Metabattle build suggests (although sacrificing a lot of damage).
• Limited boon removal (outside of bubble) - I find Scourges way more effective than SB's with all their boon corrupt, due to their skill application rate and range, but can switch some abilities to cover that too.

Weapons

• Axe/Axe is my go-to weapon set for damage - the AA chain, Dual Strike and Whirling Axe does amazing cleave after the recent buffs.
• Greatsword is my default swap for mobility and more evades (Whirlwind Attack, Rush, Sigil of Energy).
• Shield is what I'm also keeping in my inventory and occasionally switch to.

Armor, stats

My weapons and accessories are Berserker, and armor is Marauder for a slight HP gain.At moment I'm at 2.4k power, 2.8k armor, 21k HP, 62% crit chance (without Fury) and 226% crit damage.

Skill choices

• Healing Signet - for the passive healing and active resistance
• Dolyak Signet - if personal Stability is an issue due to boon removal, I sometimes switch this to Balanced Stance, otherwise I like the +180 Toughness on Dolyak more (and I also have the passive Balanced Stance traited)
• Endure Pain - since the build has the passive traited version as well, if more boon removal needed can switch this to Break Enchantments
• Berserker Stance - staple stance for pulsing resistance
• Winds of Disenchantment

Rune and food

Currently I'm using Melandru runes with Loaf of Saffron Bread.This might be a strange rune choice as I didn't see it in any previous builds yet. The reason I chose it is because otherwise I build very offensive, so I thought I should compensate it with a defensive rune + food setup.When looking at my combat log, the most damage I get in zergs are from the following sources (not in order): Rev's CoR, some Ele spells and of course various types of condis (mostly from Scourges and burn FB's).Well Melandru runes give +175 toughness which helps a bit with power damage mitigation (e.g. CoR) and the set bonuses also affect incoming condition duration.This is the thing I experimented with - since the current condi spam, aiming for personal condi cleansing as a SB is rather pointless, and after resistance chaining was also nerfed, I decided to try to simply outsustain most of the conditions.Now, with my current setup I have

• -10% incoming condition duration (Melandru 4-set bonus)
• -15% incoming condition duration (Melandru 6-set bonus)
• -20% incoming condition duration (Saffron Bread)
• -33% incoming duration for Immobilize, Cripple, and Chill (Dogged March)

For damaging conditions that's almost like cutting their duration in half, which essentially equals ~ half the damage.For movement impairing conditions the duration decrease is even far more than that.Of course if I eat a whole zerg's condi bomb in my face without resistance then I'm dead anyway, but otherwise most conditions wear off rather quickly this way (especially if coming from a Dire gear user with no increased condi duration), which I just outsustain with Healing Signet and Adrenal Health. I only ever use condi clears / resistance when I notice a rather huge stack on my bar.

[Oglaf.1074]

Honestly, personally, I don't really see the point in giving up the zerg-breaking utility of a Hammer for Axe/Axe.

[Elegie.3620]

@Oglaf.1074 said:Honestly, personally, I don't really see the point in giving up the zerg-breaking utility of a Hammer for Axe/Axe.

Axe #5 is actually pretty fun to play when you're inside a zerg. Aside from the damage, it is also a whirl finisher, so offers interesting combo plays with teammates (cleansing bolts...). However, it can also kill you out of retaliation, something which can only be mitigated by committing to defiant stance. Tactically, I believe that a hammer is better - way less damage, but much better synergy with spellbreaker, and more frequent blast in combo fields.

In the OP's build, rather than main-hand axe, I would consider main-hand sword, #2 offering additional mobility to enter/exit enemy zergs (plus a dazing strike when inside the bubble), and #3 cleaving 3 opponents, with good damage (same as eviscerate) - a nice continuation after axe #5.

[Mirkava.8526]

Axe/axe is a bad choice imo, compared to hammer and the benefit it gives to you and the group u r running with

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

How are you liking the Melandru runes? I've been thinking of swapping to them again.

[RedShark.9548]

@"Zsoak.5409" said:Hello folks,

I thought I'm sharing the Spellbreaker zerg build I've come up with lately and had some success (and also fun) with it.It's based on the Metabattle standard WvW Spellbreaker build which I modified a bit to fit my playstyle better.

As I still consider myself a WvW rookie, please feel free to comment / discuss / suggest anything! :)

Disclaimer: I use this for zerging and sometimes small-scale, so the build is definitely not a roaming / dueling / 1vX build.

>Link to the build<

General

Due to the current weapon and skill choices it's a fun tanky 'brawler' type of build which I use very agressively.It combines great cleave damage and sustain during melee pushes but at the cost of limited utility (CC and boon removal).Of course it's perfectly fine for SB's nr.1 job, to place a successful bubble (with diving in if necessary, then getting back to the zerg alive).I chose my rune, food etc. setup to try to counter the current condi meta.

PROS

• Offense - great cleave damage
• Defense - great sustain and defensive cd's
• Good mobility

CONS

• Limited CC - mostly leaving that to backline Revs, but can switch Axe/Axe to Hammer as the Metabattle build suggests (although sacrificing a lot of damage).
• Limited boon removal (outside of bubble) - I find Scourges way more effective than SB's with all their boon corrupt, due to their skill application rate and range, but can switch some abilities to cover that too.

Weapons

• Axe/Axe is my go-to weapon set for damage - the AA chain, Dual Strike and Whirling Axe does amazing cleave after the recent buffs.
• Greatsword is my default swap for mobility and more evades (Whirlwind Attack, Rush, Sigil of Energy).
• Shield is what I'm also keeping in my inventory and occasionally switch to.

Armor, stats

My weapons and accessories are Berserker, and armor is Marauder for a slight HP gain.At moment I'm at 2.4k power, 2.8k armor, 21k HP, 62% crit chance (without Fury) and 226% crit damage.

Skill choices

• Healing Signet - for the passive healing and active resistance
• Dolyak Signet - if personal Stability is an issue due to boon removal, I sometimes switch this to Balanced Stance, otherwise I like the +180 Toughness on Dolyak more (and I also have the passive Balanced Stance traited)
• Endure Pain - since the build has the passive traited version as well, if more boon removal needed can switch this to Break Enchantments
• Berserker Stance - staple stance for pulsing resistance
• Winds of Disenchantment

Rune and food

Currently I'm using Melandru runes with Loaf of Saffron Bread.This might be a strange rune choice as I didn't see it in any previous builds yet. The reason I chose it is because otherwise I build very offensive, so I thought I should compensate it with a defensive rune + food setup.When looking at my combat log, the most damage I get in zergs are from the following sources (not in order): Rev's CoR, some Ele spells and of course various types of condis (mostly from Scourges and burn FB's).Well Melandru runes give +175 toughness which helps a bit with power damage mitigation (e.g. CoR) and the set bonuses also affect incoming condition duration.This is the thing I experimented with - since the current condi spam, aiming for personal condi cleansing as a SB is rather pointless, and after resistance chaining was also nerfed, I decided to try to simply outsustain most of the conditions.Now, with my current setup I have

• -10% incoming condition duration (Melandru 4-set bonus)
• -15% incoming condition duration (Melandru 6-set bonus)
• -20% incoming condition duration (Saffron Bread)
• -33% incoming duration for Immobilize, Cripple, and Chill (Dogged March)

For damaging conditions that's almost like cutting their duration in half, which essentially equals ~ half the damage.For movement impairing conditions the duration decrease is even far more than that.Of course if I eat a whole zerg's condi bomb in my face without resistance then I'm dead anyway, but otherwise most conditions wear off rather quickly this way (especially if coming from a Dire gear user with no increased condi duration), which I just outsustain with Healing Signet and Adrenal Health. I only ever use condi clears / resistance when I notice a rather huge stack on my bar.

melandru once was meta but alot of ppl went away from it because something wasnt rly working the way ppl think it works, the way the duration is calculated, i think first your reduce is coming in and then the enemies condi duration is calculated in top of that or some weird stuff like that, not sure exactly how it workedanyways, hammer is way better than a/a, you get way more boonrips with hammer, believe me, the minor which rips boon on cc and enchantment collaps just works so good with hammerhammerstun with only 1 stun=6boons gone, fullcounter with 1stun another 6 boons, refreshes hammerstun cd, another 6 boons stripped, makes 18 boon in 3seconds with just that combo, hammer 4 adds another 6 boonrips(hitting 5ppl its happen alot of times that one has no stab and thus you have the chance to rip stab from others around him, making them vulnerable to following cc

ill stick to my worker warri in big blobs, makes more sense to me anyways

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

@RedShark.9548 said:melandru once was meta but alot of ppl went away from it because something wasnt rly working the way ppl think it works, the way the duration is calculated, i think first your reduce is coming in and then the enemies condi duration is calculated in top of that or some weird stuff like that, not sure exactly how it worked

So, its calculated(I'm going to use nice round numbers because its easier, and just stick to bleeding because again easier) which way?

As an example I'm hit with10 seconds of bleeding coming in, we have melandru runes(-25% condi duration) and saffaron bread (-20% condi duration), the enemy is running full trailblazers, rare veggie pizza(+60% condi duration from expertise), with krait runes+agony sigil (+65% bleed duration). I'm also not sure if the percentages of duration reduction are calculated together or separately I will calculate them together. The condition duration in bold is what hits the player vs whats not in bold is the ending result of what ultimately hits the player. I also know there are allot more ways this could be calculated (does condi duration from krait and agony get added with expertise or is it added later), I'm just trying to keep this simple. To me it'd make sense if all the incoming condition durations were calculated before it hits the player, the other way around I'd think would add additional stress to the server on the millions of calculations it's already performing.So numbers we have are:10 seconds of bleeding+60% duration from expertise+65% from krait and agony-25% from melandru-20% from saffaron bread

10sec+(60%+65%)=22.5sec22.5sec-(25%+20%)=12.375sec10sec+60%=16sec16sec-(25%+20%)+65%=14.52sec

Also if someone from Anet could weigh in and let us know what the order of operations is for this that'd be great.

[Mirkava.8526]

This is my personal opinion, correct me if I'm wrong pls:the main purpose of a warrior in WVW other than landing a nice well placed wind, is NOT support, and NOT tank, because most of other classes can support and tank 10 times better than you, so your main job is damage with interrupts/remove boons etc etc, and to do that you need "mobility", i have never seen a worst choice than AXE/AXE in this case, maybe sword axe will work better, but with great sword which is better than both, you are mobile with great AOE dmg from GS 3 and GS burst.Now Hammer should always be a main weapon in WvW zerg runs, cc,slow, mobility and dmg with combos, so technically what u are doing is burst/full encounter/burst > gs3 > swap weapon>hammer 3> burst/full encounter/burst and so on (No place for 100 blades unless there is 2 to 3 downies right on you u might use it, but i rarely do in zergs), AXE is a bad option, + axe burst is lame single target skill in zergs compared to GS and hammer burts.For the gear a warrior should never go more defensive than marrauder (for me berserker is the best option, but still that depends on you and the group you are running with).the problem in Melandru, is that it does not offer vitality much, and it can not compete with Durability (my favourite) which is always a better option that you can easily buy from WvW vendor, another option if u are really confidant with what you are doing will be probably rune of the warrior, more power and vitality and -20% recharge on weapon swap, you can even go strength or scholar if you have nice support in your party, I've seen some great players doing that, and the dmg is awesome.once you stop using axe, change the axe mastery in the talent to burst mastery.for the utilities, I never use "signet of dolyak", because it gets corrupted and gone with no benefit, balance stance is always better because it pulsesLast thing, it is a personal choice, i always preferred "revenge counter" over "enchantment collapse" in the SB talent.

your build is totally playable for me, except for the axe/axe, and the changes in talents when you switch to hammer :)

Any comments guys are so welcomed, I always like to learn from more experienced and skilled playersgood day.

[Red Haired Savage.5430]

I agree with the you're a SB why not bring hammer. As far as the other weapon set being a little brother server I've seen allot of different ways a guild group wants their SBs to run. Some have them using GS, some have Sword/Shield, or Sword/Dagger, or some have Sword/Warhorn. To me your GS is going to provide more DPS at the expense of less sustain. The Sword mainhand brings you a 900 leap on an 8sec CD, the auto attack chain provides a soft cc and a snare on your burst (yes I know it's not widely used a ton anymore). The offhand shield provides you with another hard CC and a block/sustain when you find yourself in a bomb. The dagger offhand provides you with a nice damage on wastrel's if your opponent isn't doing anything which if you just switched from doing a hammer burst would work, and then you go into a sword 3 which gives you 2 very hard hitting skills back to back, and dagger provides a reflect but not a block. The warhorn will provide you and your group with more condi cleanses (I'm not sure if they ditched discipline to pick up warhorn trait, I'm guessing they run it similar to the old throng surfer builds), and more group support at the expense of less personal protection. To me at the end of the day you have to run something that works for you and your group. If you know you're going to have others around you backing you up with heals and condi cleanses you can go a little more damage oriented. If you know your group is going to be lacking a little condi cleanse/support you can ditch a little dps to help pick up that gap, if you don't know what your group is going to need you can say screw that all and go selfish (I usually find myself here). That's the great thing about warrior it's a "Jack of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than master of one."