Beginner Power Dragonhunter Build - Guild Wars 2

Skill Reference Guide

Greatsword	Default Keybind
普通打击 → 复仇打击 → 愤怒打击	Auto Attack
愤怒回旋	2
信仰之跃	3
决心符印	4
束缚之刃	5

Spear	Default Keybind
拂晓挥砍	Auto Attack
日光奔袭	2
闪耀圆转	3
太阳风暴	4
	5

Step One: Procession of Blades, Spear of Justice, and Whirling Wrath

Power Dragonhunter is a bursty DPS build that relies on stacking several buffs and skills together to maximize damage during its burst windows. If you understand how the build works and correctly prioritize your skills during a burst phase, you will be rewarded with satisfying DPS numbers!

The Radiance variant rewards you for actively blocking enemy attacks by reducing the Cooldown of 正义之矛 through 防御信条.

Big Damage Buffs

Prioritize using the following two skills off Cooldown:

利刃狂舞:

• Deals high damage and triggers 猎龙者古物.
• Each tick of this skill will refresh the duration of 猎龙者古物, so the actual burst window for this buff works out to be about 7.5 seconds.
• Your traps grant you Aegis thanks to 猎人感应. In real fights, successfully blocking an attack in any way will trigger 防御信条, reducing the Cooldown of 正义之矛.

正义之矛:

• Significantly bolsters overall damage by triggering 巨兽猎杀.
• When 正义之矛 is active, the skill icon will flip into 猎人裁决. Do not use this skill, as it will end 正义之矛 early, resulting in a DPS loss. You will know that the effects of 正义之矛 (and thus 巨兽猎杀) have ended when this skill flips back into 正义之矛 and shows that it is on Cooldown.
• It will also ensure your target is Burning to upkeep 光耀力量 and 炽热之怒.

If both skills are off Cooldown, use 利刃狂舞 first. Because there is a delay before the trap starts dealing damage, using 利刃狂舞 first will guarantee more damage during your 正义之矛's burst window.

Casting both 利刃狂舞 and 正义之矛 together at the start of a burst will stack these buffs and create a ~7.5-second window for big damage. After the initial casts, the two skills will drift apart in your rotation, but make sure you are still casting them off Cooldown. Only delay casting these skills to align them for a guaranteed burst opportunity, but don't delay them for too long!

On Greatsword, cast 愤怒回旋 off Cooldown.

• Pay special attention to learn its cast time; even once the cast bar finishes, continues to damage during its aftercast, and this can be easily interrupted.
• 's projectiles move in random directions; be inside the target's hitbox to ensure they all hit. Any projectile you see fly away is damage lost.

This skill will be one of your biggest damage sources, so get make sure you get comfortable with the timing before moving onto the next step.

Step Two: Weapon Skills and Weapon Swap

For this step, add in Weapon Swap and a simple combo of skills on both Greatsword and Spear. The loop for each weapon set is "wrapped" by their respective skill combos; that is, the Cooldown of those combos will dictate the timing for your Weapon Swap.

Greatsword

Symbols hit multiple times and trigger for a nice consistent damage increase. Specifically, will help you maintain Resolution uptime for and .

Greatsword Loop:

• → →
• Fill with Auto Attacks
• → → → Weapon Swap

Spear

Meeting certain criteria on Spear skills 2 3 4 5 will cause your next Spear skill 2 3 4 5 to be Illuminated. Using an Illuminated skill consumes the Illuminated buff and grants a bonus effect, usually in the form of more damage.

Spear Loop:

• →
• Fill with Auto Attacks
• → → Weapon Swap

For optimal damage, hover over a UI element (e.g. skill bar) with your cursor while casting so the movement portion of the skill keeps you in place.

Remeber to keep prioritizing and when available and do not cancel the aftercast of . This is your last reminder.

Step Three: Additional Weapon Skills

For this next step, we will add in additional skills from each weapon, but they won’t line up as nicely as in the last step. The key takeaway from this step is to learn to pay attention to your buffs in order to maximize damage output from these new weapon skills.

Whereas the previous step listed a set skill order, this step introduces skill priorities.

Greatsword

Additional skill priorities:

• while and are active
  • Like with , you will want to cast this skill inside the enemy's hitbox to ensure all the projectiles connect.
  • spawns a projectile per foe in range (up to five).
  • The flip skill is a cc, but it does not deal damage, so don't press this button unless you need it for cc.

Updated Greatsword Loop:

• → →
• Additional skill priorities:
  • while and are active
  • Auto Attacks
• → → → Weapon Swap

Spear

Additional skill priorities:

• Illuminated while and are active
• , but save one Charge for comboing at the end of the loop

For simplicity, you can pair and together as they can both only be cast once per loop. The order does not matter as long as is Illuminated.

Note that if is at one Charge, it has the lowest priority; use other skills first if possible.

Updated Spear Loop:

• →
• Additional skill priorities:
  • Illuminated while and are active
  • , but save one Charge for comboing at the end of the loop
  • Auto Attacks
• → → Weapon Swap

Step Four: A Solid Opener

For all Power builds, mastering an opener will help your damage skyrocket as you will use it multiple times in nearly every fight. This is due to many encounters having phases that interrupt your rotation for long enough for your key skills to be off Cooldown.

To begin with, use this simplified opener, starting on Spear:

1. →
2. → → →
3. Weapon Swap

Note that will not be off Cooldown the next time you Weapon Swap to Spear, but still follow the same priority listed in the previous step once becomes available.

Step Five: Traps and Sword of Justice

Lastly, we will fill the time between prioritized skills with Traps and .

Traps

Use and to maintain . Since most of your skill usage will be centered around Weapon Swaps, using a Trap skill before each Weapon Swap ensures you get the damage buff for the last skill combo in your current weapon set and the first skill combo in your new weapon set.

Greatsword Loop:

• → →
• Additional skill priorities:
  • while and are active
  • Auto Attacks
• Trap → → → → Weapon Swap

Spear Loop:

• →
• Additional skill priorities:
  • Illuminated while and are active
  • , but save one Charge for comboing at the end of the loop
  • Auto Attacks
• Trap → → → Weapon Swap

should still be used off Cooldown, but it will occasionally align with a Weapon Swap, in which case you are good to go! If it will not, then use one of your other two Traps. A priority list is:

Whichever Traps you use, make sure to spread them out as will not stack duration. Any overlaps in activations will be damage lost.

Like with certain skills listed in Step 3, we will want to maximize the damage of by casting it while and are active.

Similar to , has a delay before it starts dealing damage, so make sure you use it sooner rather than later to get as many hits as possible under your big damage buffs.

has multiple Charges and a relatively short Recharge time, so it will almost always be available. It will add a decent chunk of damage over the course of the fight, so don't hold back!

You can even use it in the simplified opener above.

Transitioning to the Full Build

If you made it this far, you are ready to head off to the full Power Dragonhunter (Radiance - Spear / Greatsword) build for a complete overview of the build and rotation.

Be aggressive and use skills off Cooldown, but also think about how to maximize damage during your burst windows. Skills should only be held if aligning them will provide a strong burst during a damage window. Getting the hang of this will take lots of practice and experience in real fights, so don't give up! You got this!