Luminary - Radiant GS Luminary Roamer

Stats

• On this set you should have ~87% crit chance with 决心 (assuming full Ascended quality gear). You gain another 10% against 燃烧ing targets via traits, but that's not going to be active all the time. Our goal was to achieve consistency without overcapping crit chance in most situations while leaving some room for other buffs, but you might still overcap occasionally when we factor in things like Borderlands Bloodlust and other WvW buffs. Since you can't have permanent uptime on Burning or 激怒 and WvW buffs are largely out of your control, we believe that a higher crit chance like this is better, but replacing a few Marauder pieces with Dragon stats for lower crit chance (until 80% or so) and slightly higher Ferocity is also a viable option. That way you'll have a bit higher burst damage if things go well, but also less consistency when the other buffs aren't active.

• Luminary - Radiant Greatsword - sPvP version of this WvW build.

Skill Variants

Weapons

• Offhand Sword over Focus - better mobility and damage at the expense of survivability. Requires the Secrets of the Obscure expansion.

Utility

The optional slot should be a stunbreak of your choice:

• 裁决纹章
• "坚守阵地！"
• "冲着我来！"
• 纯净沉思
• 忠诚姿态

Food

• 黑胡椒粉真空烹调肉排 - strong mix of sustain and damage.

• 碗装柠檬草贻贝意粉 - cheap defensive option.

• 碗装甜辣冬南瓜汤 - non-ascended offensive option.

• 碗装欧尔松露鲜肉煲 - active damage mitigation via more access to dodging.

  • 碗装鲜肉冬菜煲 is a cheaper version of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew and sufficient enough in most cases.

• 巨龙甜甜圈片 - cheap crit chance boost (brings you up to 90%) with armor ignoring damage procs that also heal you.

Utility

• 强效超级磨刀石 or 罐装水果蛋糕

Luminary basics

• You can access a new set of weapon skills with 进入光辉熔炉.

• The time you get to spend in the forge is limited, you start running out of energy gradually.

  • This isn't a resource you can build or manage. You always start with a full bar upon entering the forge. It's more of a timer.

• The minimum recharge for the forge itself is 5 seconds. If you use 2 or more weapon skill, the recharge goes up.

• Skills 2-5 have flipover chain skills. The chain skills don't add extra recharge time.

  • You lose the chance to use chain skills if you cast another skill before using the previous one's chain. For example if you used skill #2 then went straight to skill #3, you can use skill #3's chain skill now, but #2's is no longer available.

General

• 决心 increases your critical strike chance by 25% via 正义本能, pushing it near the crit cap while you have this boon. Always try to maintain Resolution or at least apply it before bursts.

  • The 2 most important sources of this boon are Virtue skills and 光明光环 detonations via 光明君主.

• Your healing skill 决心姿态 isn't just for you - all of its healing is shared with nearby allies! This gives you an extremely potent support tool, and you should always try to heal next to allies if you're roaming in a group.

• Try to burn through all of your virtues before resorting to 专注复苏. RF is a great skill to use if you're being focues by the enemy team and you don't have any CDs left. Just keep in mind that this skill makes you lose capture point contribution for its duration - this can be relevant when you're contesting a camp.

  • Since your virtues are instant, you can also just use them towards the end of Renewed Focus to make sure they aren't wasted. They'll be recharged even if you active them a split second before RF goes off.

Sword/Focus

• This is more of a defensive secondary set, but still offers plenty of damage.

• is both defensive and offensive, dealing solid damage while destroying enemy projectiles. Note that the damage of this skill can be very unreliable in anything but melee range.

• has many uses: vertical mobility via teleportation, symbol for cleaving, to make an important skill miss, or a combo field which can be used to combo with a leap finisher.

• isn't very powerful but makes up for it with its versatility. The , cleanse, heal, boons and damage make it useful in just about any situation.

• is a highly valuable defensive skill if used correctly. Having instant access to a blocking skill could save your life if you get caught in a CC with no available stunbreaks, but it could also cover important casts like your healing skill or allow you to pressure enemies while tanking hits.

  • If the 3 charges aren't consumed, the shield explodes for heavy damage. In combat this is a rather unlikely scenario, the only reliable way of getting the explosion off is casting this skill at a safe distance and jumping in with a teleport just as it's about to expire. When combined with other heavy hitting skills (especially on Greatsword) and for an instant teleport, the shield can add quite a bit of burst damage to your opener.

Greatsword

• is the main burst skill on this set, make sure that it lands - do an unexpected ranged burst with , or use it after pulling targets in with .

  • Using your F1 virtue for the before casting WW is highly recommended. However this isn't necessary when you're using WW after a weapon swap, as you can get Quickness from too. If you swap in melee range and hit an enemy with , you can immediately proc Rage with it and proceed with WW.

• When in combat, always try to combo in a Light field such as for . Few things to note when using this for mobility:

  • If you're OOC (out of combat), swap weapons just before the leap finishes in order to cancel the final part of the skill which would otherwise bring you to a halt.
  • In combat this can be used for jumping away from the fight to avoid damage. To do that simply just detarget (click anywhere on your screen that's not an enemy player) before using the skill, and make sure that auto-targetting is disabled.

• is useful even when the target has and thus cannot be pulled. The damage over time part of this skill is decent, and you could time it in a way that the target's stability runs out before Binding Blade does, allowing you to pull them in later. Note: while the initial projectile itself can be dodged, once the blades are attached you can pull targets out of any kind of evade frame! The blades also seek out enemies even if they are ed.

Burst combo examples

PvP is an unpredictable environment, so builds don't really have rotations. These are only meant to give you some ideas for sequencing, you don't have to follow them all the time.

Melee GS burst

4. enemies onto the symbol
5. for and to detonate the Light Aura of Effulgent Stance
7. - if you did it well, Symbol of Resolution should still be active, granting you another Light Aura.

Hammer Burst Rotation

1. Use a symbol from either weapon sets, you'll want to stand in it for Dazzling Spin. is especially good for this as it teleports you into melee range and drops the symbol right at your target.
2. - this grants
3. (F1) both to detonate the aura and to reapply
4. for damage and to detonate the aura. Standing in a symbol reapplies
5. for damage and to detonate the aura
6. Optional: if you end the chain now and drop out of the forge, you can reenter it in 5 seconds

Extended Burst Rotation (without symbol precast)

1. - this grants
2. (F1) both to detonate the aura and to reapply
3. for damage and to detonate the aura
4. Optional, if you have it: for
5. for damage and to detonate the aura
6. to place a symbol, which is a combo field
7. inside the symbol to combo
8. (chain skill of Gleaming Blade) to detonate the aura

Sustain

• can be used to block attacks even when you're stunned.

  • It's also a blast finisher, always try using it inside a symbol - you'll cleanse 1 condition for you and nearby allies.

• Condition cleansing in the build is exceptionally good. Sources include:

  • on Focus.
  • is your strongest cleanse by default (unless you took ), followed by . Radiant Resolve cleanses 5 conditions thanks to your traits.
  • Any source of .
  • inside the forge.
  • on Sword/Focus.

• If you plan on chaining multiple smaller cleansing tools together, start with . It has a lingering bonus that heals you for each condition removed while it's active.

• There's plenty of strike damage mitigation too, especially when it comes to stances. Every stance gives you on activation, and those that interact with enemies in any capacity apply too.

• While is often used in burst combos, it has plenty of defensive value too. It applies , barrier and when activated, and + when it ends. While not a stunbreak, it can be used while stunned.

• You should have at least 2 utility stunbreaks + .

• Every Virtue skill can be used defensively, including which s in melee. Blinds are an important part of your survival kit and can be found on both weapons as well as the forge.

• Every forge skill can be used defensively:

  • CC's enemies.
  • and its chain skill apply boons, heal you and remove conditions.
  • can help you build distance and its chain skill has .
  • blocks attacks and its chain skill CC's targets.

• is also a stunbreak but most of the time it'll be used to execute burst combos from range. Worth holding onto for defensive purposes when every other stun break is on CD though.