User:Masel/Builds/Spellbreaker

Dagger + Axe / Hammer Power  Spellbreaker

Build Rating (Subjective)

Criterion	Rating
Burst Damage	4/5
Sustained Damage	4/5
Utility Options	4/5
Survivability	5/5
Difficulty	2/5

Power  Spellbreaker is a very strong build for instanced content that excels at providing Breakbar Damage. It's also a great pick for solo gameplay, as it can provide itself with good amounts of the most essential offensive boons:  Quickness,  Fury and  Might. As it uses  Defense by default, it comes with great coverage of self- Stability, strong innate healing and lots of Blocks and Evades to avoid incoming damage.

Link to the Build on the Editor

Playstyle & Skills

Skill Type	Skills
Burst Skills
Dagger + Axe Skills
Hammer Skills
Utility

  Full Counter and Adrenaline Management

•   Full Counter is the key mechanic of Spellbreaker, which gives you access to a short-cooldown Block and performs a riposte when you block, dazing enemies.
• Generally, applying Disables is key to dealing damage on Spellbreaker due to  Attacker's Insight, which gives you 50  Power,  Precision and  Ferocity for each Disable you apply.
• Additionally, when using  Defense with  Stalwart Strength &  Merciless Hammer, each Disable will give you  Stability and Adrenaline, which in turn give you higher damage.
• Your Adrenaline will also be limited to two bars, with each Burst skill consuming only one bar.
• That means that burst skills are generally weaker comapred to core warrior or Berserker, but Spellbreaker compensates that by higher native damage on other skills.

Rotation Concept

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.

• The general rotation concept is simple, but requires fast enough execution to get close to the benchmark.
• In this build we'll apply lots of Disables via Hammer, leading to a lot of stacks of  Attacker's Insight.
• You should always try to anticipate dangerous hits and block them with   Full Counter. It's not a big deal if you get it wrong sometimes, it gets better with practice.
• Always open combat with   "To the Limit!" (for initial Adrenaline) and   Winds of Disenchantment, followed by   Breaching Strike and   Aura Slicer.   Winds of Disenchantment is a Lightning field, in which the Leap finishers   Breaching Strike and   Aura Slicer will apply Dazes for early stacks of  Attacker's Insight.

After that, the rotation consists of two sections: Dagger + Axe & Hammer.

Step 1: Dagger + Axe

• On Dagger + Axe, always open and end with   Disrupting Stab &   Dual Strike (they share the same cooldown length). In between, use the following skills on cooldown and fill with auto attacks:

1.   Breaching Strike,
2.   Whirling Axe and
3.   Bull's Charge - this should be used on Dagger + Axe to reach a more consistent number of stacks of  Attacker's Insight.

You can use   Aura Slicer to cover ground if needed.

Step 2: Hammer

On Hammer, you can follow the priority list below, and you should be able to cast the following skills:

1.   Fierce Blow x 3,
2.   Earthshaker x 2,
3.   Hammer Shock x 2,
4.   Staggering Blow x 1 and
5.   Backbreaker x 1; this should always be cast right after one cast of   Fierce Blow to recharge it.
6.   Hammer Swing,   Hammer Bash &   Hammer Smash x 1,

• With  Alacrity, that creates a fixed loop rotation cycle of the combos mentioned above with a duration of ~21-22 seconds .

Utility Skills

Default Skill	Notes
"To the Limit!"	Used for the free initial Adrenaline, but also grants allies 50 Endurance and thus a free Dodge.
Bull's Charge	Triggers both  Attacker's Insight and  Peak Performance.
Signet of Fury	Just there for the additional  Precision. Should be kept to not create issues with critical chance-based effects.
Signet of Might	Just there for the additional  Power. Can be replaced by any other utility skill you might need.
Winds of Disenchantment	Mainly used for the Lightning field it provides, which can be comboed with   Aura Slicer,   Breaching Strike and   Earthshaker for additional stacks of  Attacker's Insight.

CC Skills for breakbar damage

•   Staggering Blow
•   Backbreaker
•   Bull's Charge
•   Earthshaker
•   Full Counter
•   Disrupting Stab
•   Aura Slicer &   Breaching Strike inside   Winds of Disenchantment

Gear

Important Stats in Hero Panel (descending in Importance):

1. At least 63% Critical Chance:  Fury and  Attacker's Insight give the remaining 37%.
2. Maximize Ferocity
3. Maximize Power

Gear

Armor	Prefix	Rune
Head	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Shoulders	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Chest	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Gloves	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Legs	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Boots	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Trinket	Prefix
Amulet	Berserker's
Ring 1	Berserker's
Ring 2	Berserker's
Accessory 1	Berserker's
Accessory 2	Berserker's
Backpack	Berserker's
Weapon	Prefix	Sigil
Dagger (Main Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Force
Axe (Off Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Impact
Hammer	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Force & Superior Sigil of Impact
Purpose	Item Type	Source
Damage	Ascended Food	Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide Steak
Damage	Non-Ascended Food	Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
Survivability	Ascended Food	Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak
Survivability	Non-Ascended Food	Oysters with Zesty Sauce
Damage	Utility	Potent Superior Sharpening Stone
Survivability	Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Damage	Relic	Relic of the Thief
Survivability	Relic	Relic of Zakiros

• For a budget variant, simply replace all ascended armor pieces of Berserker's with rare/exotic Berserker's.

Traits

Defense
Strength
Spellbreaker

• The default specializations for damage are  Defense,  Strength and of course  Spellbreaker.

 Strength

• In strength, we’ll be using all the juicy damage buffs we can get!
• 5% increased Strike damage and Critical chance, converting Power to both Vitality and Ferocity and finally up to 21% increased damage upon spending bars of Adrenaline.
• Strength will also make your dodges apply  Might and damage enemies, make burst skills restore Endurance on hit and have  Might grant more power to you (40 per stack instead of 30).

 Defense

•  Adrenal Health is a strong passive heal, and you just need to use burst skills on cooldown to maintain 4 stacks of it.
• Your damage with this will scale with  Weakness and  Stability due to  Cull the Weak and  Stalwart Strength. You will cover good uptimes on both of them natively in your rotation.

 Spellbreaker

• With the traits of choice,  Spellbreaker gives 25% higher Strike damage, 15% Critical Damage, up to 250  Power,  Precision and  Ferocity through  Attacker's Insight.  Attacker's Insight and  Stalwart Strength are what makes it so important to apply lots of Disables.

Open World Build

You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.

Link to the Open World Build in the Editor

For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.

Increasing General Survivability

• Spellbreaker has quite a bit of innate survivability, especially when using  Defense. For increased survivabilty, swap out   "To the Limit!" and   Signet of Might for   Mending and   Kick.
• Make use of   Full Counter,   Dodge and   Mending as often as possible.
• For more healing and endurance recovery, you can also use  Might Makes Right and  Forceful Greatsword.
•  Building Momentum restores Endurance whenever you use a burst skill.
•  Adrenal Health heals you passively for decent amounts as long as you keep using your Burst skills.
• You can use  Defy Pain, which makes you immune to strike damage for 4 seconds every 40 seconds upon using   Signet of Rage.
• For soloing harder content, make use   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge. They give 150 permanent Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from  Stability,  Resistance and  Resolution on entering combat every 30 seconds. The long-lasting  Protection from this is another free massive gain to survivability!
• In terms of gear, swap out the Axe for an Off-Hand Dagger - Don't underestimated how strong this can be for defense!
• The dagger will trigger the off-hand effect of  Sun and Moon Style, healing you for 4% of your Critical damage.
•   Bladestorm grants Barrier on every strike, shielding and healing you at the same time.
• Using a Relic of Zakiros provides additional damage-based healing at a small damage loss, but you lose the Relic of the Midnight King for  Fury and  Might coverage.
• On top of that, you can use Bowl of Lemongrass Mussel Pasta for additional  Toughness and 10% less damage taken.

Utility Skills (Open World)

Skill Choice	Notes
Mending	Great short-cooldown heal that also cleanses a lot of conditions.
Bull's Charge	As explained above. This is also an Evade and applies a Knockdown, triggering all "on CC" traits you have. Since this is a movement skill, it will also apply  Stability when you use  Brave Stride.
Kick	Another Disable for  Stability uptime. Since this is a movement skill, it will also apply  Stability when you use  Brave Stride.
Signet of Fury	As explained above.
Signet of Rage	Easy coverage of  Fury,  Swiftness and a few stacks of  Might. Use it on cooldown in combat.

Boon Coverage

• Your Boon coverage is strongly tied to applying Disables. The more you have, the easier covering Boons will become.
•  Might and  Fury are covered by   Signet of Rage,  Aggressive Onslaught,  Magebane Tether and Relic of the Midnight King.
•  Quickness can be covered by  Aggressive Onslaught. This triggers on every Disable listed above, allowing you to maintain it. It is not a large personal damage gain over  Berserker's Power, so you can keep that as well.
• You reach a partial uptime on  Protection via  Thick Skin (and optional:  Guard Counter. Swapping to  Guard Counter costs you Critical Damage (and thus self-healing).)
• To cover more boons, make use of   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge.
• These give permanent 150 additional Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from  Stability,  Resistance and  Resolution on entering combat, with a 30 second cooldown. The  Quickness and  Alacrity from this increase damage noticeably! Use  Berserker's Power in that case for even more damage.
• In case you don't want the hassle of reapplying jade protocols, you can abuse the synergy between Relic of the Cavalier and   Blast from the Skyscale to apply lots of  Aegis,  Resistance,  Might and  Quickness to yourself. It does not have an internal cooldown and applies the boons on every hit of   Blast. This also works with any other mount engage when hitting multiple targets.

Dealing with Conditions and Control effects

• You have lots of different sources for  Stability, allowing you to keep it up permanently, even on your own. That way, you can ignore incoming Control effects most of the time.
• If you need frequent condition cleanses against bosses, swap to  Cleansing Ire in  Defense. That will also increase adrenaline inflow whenever you get hit.
•   Dolyak Signet is a short cooldown Stun break.
•   "Shake It Off!" can be used instead of   Bull's Charge or   Kick; it is a Stun break and cleanses conditions, so it does both. Also affects nearby allies.