All-time favorite builds?

[witcher.3197]

Over the course of GW1 hundreds - if not thousands - of builds have come and gone.

 

What are you favorites, and why? A creative gimmick, broken synergy that got fixed, fun gameplay, or something else? PvE or PvP?

 

It's a question to everyone, devs and players alike!

[Pris on Rage.2894]

RTL (ride the lightning) warrior before aftercast delay was added to RTl. Super flashy and lethal. Just super fun to play in PVP, teleport to a foe and immediatly bulls them.

 

And Frenzy heal sig ofc, those 2 skills alone are a build on their own , adding a mending maybe to spice things up, but you need the energy regen to cancel frenzy with frenzy :astonished:

[Cretos.3271]

I personally love the idea of 55 hp builds. It is so counterintuitive in games like these to decrease your hp as much as possible and not care about your armor. I think this does a great job of portraying the creativity and possibilities of builds in original guild wars that no other game has.

 

I also loves B/P teams because I have a fascination with fantasy style archery and whats better than several archers unloading arrows on hordes of enemies?

 

To go with that i loved trapper builds too- i remember watching videos when i was a youngling and being intimidated by the mobs and impressed with killing them, specifically UW, Trolls outside of Droks, and Stygian Veil

 

Favorite PvP build was/is Shock Axe. It is so simple yet effective, idk there is just something about it that i really enjoy.

 

 

[Ithilwen.1529]

I like Dom Mesmer builds and UA monks. Playing a Monk/Assassin with a Discord team of heroes is also fast and fun.

[Joe Kimmes.1357]

My favorite build for personal use is Death Blossom brawling on Assassin - it's such a strong skill and looks great. It took me a lot of learning to survive while doing it though, my friends had to drag my corpse through many of the mid-Factions missions.

 

My favorite build I've seen is a broken one that I had to fix - it's been a long time, but it was something like:

- Player 1 uses Masochism and Dark Aura, then shadow steps to a target with Shadow Walk.

- Player 2 uses some enchantment heal - I vaguely think this was Healing Seed - on Player 1.

- Player 1 spams Death Nova, which fails to cast because of Shadow Walk, still sacrifices health because of Masochism, triggering AoE damage from Dark Aura, and their health is kept stable by Healing Seed as they do AoE damage literally as fast as they can click Death Nova. It was easily 500 damage per second, in PvE or PvP, conveniently starting with a shadow step to the enemy.

 

The fun thing about that is that it's a clever use of multiple broken mechanics - some of the skills involved were bugged in non-obvious ways that make the combo actually work. When I saw the report for it, I was initially saying "nope, it doesn't work that way, this is just conjecture" but then I gave it a try on the test servers and subsequently dashed over to the skills designers to show them.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

I once made an unique Elemonktalist [E/Mo] build around the old [Ether Prism](https://wiki.guildwars.com/index.php?title=Ether_Prism&oldid=736134 "Ether Prism") skill which revolved around spamming Ether Prism to gain unlimited energy while having [Aura of Restoration](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aura_of_Restoration "Aura of Restoration") up (Which heals a lot for 25 energy spells) and spamming high-energy cost Monk heals like [Heal Party](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Heal_Party "Heal Party"), [Healing Breeze](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Healing_Breeze "Healing Breeze") and [Heal Other](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Heal_Other "Heal Other").

 

It was quite fun while defending Fort Aspenwood (Kurzick) especially because nobody expected much healing coming from an Elementalist. It lasted for some weeks until the enemy players learned to interrupt the Ether Prism which totally shut down this build.

 

But my all-time favourite is my Searing Flames build which just worked very nicely in almost any circumstance.


13 Energy Storage, 16 Fire Magic

 

I've tried many other builds many players considered to be better, but they all lack spammability and almost always ran into energy problems or exhaustion. With this build I could just keep spamming and spamming high-damage fire spells which was a must for missions like Fort Aspenwood and general PvE.

[JackassTheX.6351]

Oh boy, where do I start.

 

One of my absolute favourite group builds was the first thing close to a "meta" build that I was part of as a new player, the Barrage/Pet combo with Rangers, Necroes and I think the odd Monk. It was just so fun, cooperative and had just enough risk to keep it interesting. It wasn't hugely profitable (Ectoes were really rare drops) but it helped me with my first max armor set.

 

My de-facto absolute favourite group build has to be one that is (to my knowledge) still used today, the FoW Manly spike. I never liked the tank or T1/T2 perma Assassin builds (see below) but the "main" team was just... insane, and my favourite part is that it used smart Hex placement and Spirit weaponry to deal insane damage spikes.

 

That said, I absolutely ABHORRED the A/E (or E/A) Shadow Form build, even though it's still pretty much the only reason people could speedclear and endgame area like FoW. Why? Because it was what I consider an exploit, plain and simple and it pretty much broke the game at one point - I remember something akin to an economic crisis when Ecto and Shard prices plummeted after people farmed them too much. Also, it just made zero sense to me that a tiny, squishy, burst damage class like Assassin was used as a sort of crazy tank.

 

Going off what I said above might make me sound like a hypocrite, but 55hp builds as someone already mentioned is probably my favourite for reasons also already mentioned, just because of the sheer creativity and counter-intuitive nature of the whole thing. I'm surprised that Protective Spirit never got nerfed to counter this build. What I also liked is that you could run it on other classes (Necro, Mesmer) as well as Monk. While it was similar to the A/E Shadow Form, you really had to work to stay alive and there was no way you could clear an entire part of UW/FoW with it.

 

Yet another solo build that was pretty cool was Vengeful Was Khanhei Dolyak Signet Warrior, a warrior dropping evil vengeful life-stealing ashes, how awesome is that? But I think it got nerfed at some point...? I don't know but I remember I stopped using it, might be because I moved to other builds. But the W/Rt combo was fascinating - a bit of an early Revenant, I guess?

 

Another Monk build, the 600/Smite combo for UW farming. I loved it because it was a two-man job and I had a dear friend I play GW2 with to this day that I dragged into the whole thing and we ended up loving it (that's how I got my Obsidian Armor, mostly). There was a 55/SS Monk/Necro combo that worked as well. Remember when 70 damage per hit was a LOT?! =)

 

Speaking of which, Spiteful Spirit Necro. I mained monk but Necro was my first alt and when I saw that there would be no Monk in GW2 I was gutted, so I went Necro and I loved it nonetheless. Also, I miss the corpse-exploiting mechanic of GW1's minion system. There was nothing more satisfying than a full minion army - because you had to earn it, not pull them out of your... leg armor.

 

I didn't do PvP much, but hot diggety, was Ranger/Necro touch spike fun. Hammer thumper was pretty badass too. And Air Elementalist, I loved annoying people with that.

 

I loved to experiment a lot with my Dervish too - I never ran a meta build save for the Manly Spike, but I loved the idea of Enchantment stripping (kind of close to corruptions on the Necro in GW2) and I had a few variants that I came up with myself. I miss this aspect of GW1 in GW2 - the customization... I mean, sure there are TONS of weapons for some classes and a lot of utility skills, but it just seems to me like there's no potential for someone to go "wait, what if you used Protective Spirit to lower your health so much you'd only need to counter 5 damage per hit?" because the skills don't work that way, sadly.

 

I hate you guys. I'm supposed to be translating and here I am strolling around memory lane. Good times :+1:

[AndrewMcLeod.3857]

The favorite PvP build that I made was my Mo/W infuser back when the GvG meta was dominated by shock warriors. It ran Balanced Stance and Bonetti's Defense along with a fairly standard set of healing skills, and it did an excellent job of countering the knockdown+spike nature of the meta.

 

For PvE, it's probably the Rt/N minion build running boon of creation and explosive growth along with bone minions and death nova- I've always had a hero running it, but it works very well in providing both high damage and good party support- it's the build I based the Stone Summit Summoner's in Slaver's Exile off of, though I usually have them running Spirit's Gift instead of res signet.

[DominiFactum.7103]

I have two builds I enjoy the most . Both are PVE support builds. The first is a N/P Bip Necro and the second is E/Mo Ele ER bonder.

[Raemyi.2968]

My favorite was a Warrior build that centered around cycling between Dragon Slash and other abilities to continually chain damage, healing, or knockdown.

 

The crux was For Great Justice, which doubles your adrenaline gain, and Dragon Slash, which basically deals damage and grants adrenaline. While FGJ is active, a single use of Dragon Slash will refill your adrenaline. For damage, you just keep spamming it - the hit alone refills its own adrenaline requirements.

 

My favorite part though was working in Brawling Headbutt, a PvE-only skill that knocks down the target for an adrenaline cost. So you just cycle Dragon Slash, Brawling Headbutt, auto-attack, Dragon Slash.... and with some stonefist armor, you can keep any non-immune target locked down for 20 seconds. 30 seconds, if you throw in the Paragon skill that boosts shout duration on FGJ. Lion's Comfort, an adrenaline-fueled self-heal that grants adrenaline back, could also be spammed in the same manner to pseudo-tank when needed, or could be used to get back to full adrenaline easier if you miss a hit. Likewise, Enraging Charge was a speed-boost that also boosted adrenaline gain on the next hit, which let the whole cycle get going almost immediately when starting a fight.

 

The cherry on top was "You Move Like a Dwarf", another PvE-only skill that simply knocks down a target at range. With this, those nasty mages casting big stuff at the start of a fight could be neutralized while you set up your combo. And, against immune targets like big story bosses, you could swap in an attack speed boost to supplement Dragon Slash spamming for impressive plain-and-simple damage.

 

 

It was a build perfectly suited to taking out those specific targets that would ruin my day, while my Heroes went to work on the rest of the crowd.

[Thane.5127]

Oh geeze, the shear options was the best part! I messed around with a billion different mobius strike chains in PvE on my main Assassin. The different combo paths in that profession were one of my favourite things in any game. in PvP the Wastrel's Collapse Assassin with Conjure Lighting was sort of the platonic ideal of assassin in PVP for me, just insane at Shadow Stepping in and obliterating a threatening squishy. I never did any serious content with it but Dervish was always so much fun, in a lot of the same ways as 'Sin, where you could build these cool packages of enchants + attacks. VoS Dervish was fun for just shredding huge clumps of mobs super fast.

[Capella.7096]

I loved playing Dervishes and activating the Avatars of the Gods. I would try to find neat thematic builds; very aggressive charging in adrenaline-based Balthazar build, a conditional Melandru build, etc.

 

I also really enjoyed taking a base class and then just using abilities from a second class. For example using a Ranger for the Expertise reduction of skill cost, then giving them all Assassin dagger combos. Making a Scythe Warrior with adrenaline scythe Dervish skills. etc. The thing I miss most from GW1 in GW2 is that kind of ridiculous build/weapon experimentation.

[Deagon.8629]

I loved variety, huge amount of options you had in GW1 when creating a build. I spent countless hours just making and testing builds for pvp/pve, and it still makes me smile when I remember how happy I was just doing that.

I loved all the crazy builds, 55 monk or necro and 600/smite were my favorite of all times, and most fun i had in one mmo. You could do such amazing things with it. I was crushed when you guys nerfed it, and that's when i left. If by any miracle you would reverse it I would be back in those dungeons tomorrow. :)

[rank eleven monk.9502]

In HA & HoH:

Team:

Classic riftspike

EoE bomb, solely for fun reasons

Ranger spikes were also fun

 

My personal favorites:

Melandrus's ranger (gotta love contributing to everything from interrupts, spikes, snares, relic running)

Also PD mesmer (Diversion is just an amazing skill)

And any prot monk builds

[Shailyn Slay.7234]

I mostly played PvP (and from my first character have been main mesmer) and I always loved annoying the hell out of people: I think the first pvp build I payed was energy drain and then later on PowerBlock / Diversion etc.

 

The most fun team builds I played were:

- 'd-way' in the nightfall beta, I think I remember screen shots of this build defeating the NPCs in HA within 5 seconds

- 'Healing ball', 7-8 monks hugging together & spamming heal area - then spike enemies with Smite magic. Worked quite well up to the point where a chiking gas ranger come along ...

- N/Rt Spike shortly after Faction release (i.e. when the ritualist Spirits gave full energy with Soul reaping). Endless energy for ridicoulus spike damage AND healing

[Ok I Did It.2854]

Clearly the only answer here has to be, Frenzy Mending build....anyone?

[Ashabhi.1365]

I played Echo Nuker, MM Necro, and E/A farmer, but my favorite was running UW with my 55 monk solo, or running it duo with a necro friend of mine (forget the proper name for the run, but there was one....)

 

...and then I discovered Spirit Lord Rit.... B)

[Azmaria.1872]

Serious build? I loved playing Mo/W Prot monks in GvG - there was never so much fun as trying to manage the entire battlefield, predicting spikes, and figuring out energy management... while trying to not just get whittled down by the enemy's harrasment.

 

Joke build, though... that's where I had the most fun. Hammer W/E with Conjure Lightning and Iron Mist. Not the most competitive, but if you got 4 of those together in Team Arena, you could make constantly cycle that 90% slow on any player which you wanted to hunt down.

[curse.2310]

Totally hyped, so i installed pawned. However, i dont remember too many PvE builds except for 55HP Farmers and Earth Ele for solo UW. For PvP:

 

We played this with the guild team to our large satisfaction. Lots of burst as you would call spikes nowadays and versatile. Thats my all-time favorite IIRC:


 

Depending on the meta, we had an Earth Shaker instead of Axe, a fast cast snare (Me/E) or a paragon instead of earth ele or rit. Rarely played anything else in, like 2 years? Don't remember.

 

In AB, Axe or Hammer warrior with scorpion wire was hilarious.

 

For Random arenas, a guildmate once dropped in voice chat: "hey i'm playing Signet of Midnight and plague sending". I laughed at him, then tried it, and the upfollowing hate is history.

 

 

[alcopaul.2156]

k i guess all of you hates iway

 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=iway

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dd1wKk1VAAEE5ej.jpg

[Ok I Did It.2854]

> @"alcopaul.2156" said:

> k i guess all of you hates iway

>

> https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=iway

> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dd1wKk1VAAEE5ej.jpg

 

I remember that IWAY team builds back in the HoH days, good times, I also remember the smite way monk teams in HoH too.

[Chrury.4627]

I was quite proud of a hero team comp that I came up with for the last couple years. I called it Mobway.

Me as Ranger/War with Sw/Shield. High Expertise so I can use energy skills more often. Also the FactionsWar skill: "Save Yourselves!"

1 MM Necro with 13 Death Magic. 9 minions

1 Spirit Spam Rit. 5 more

2 Mes

2 Monk. (1 Prot, 1 Heal)

1 variable.

All my heroes (and I did have them all) were specced as x/Ranger and had a Hearty pet.

So I rolled through various maps and dungeons for vaquishing with my own little army. Me plus 7+8+9+5=29 allies? Good times.

 

I also recall one build that paired Glass Arrows with Needling Shot stacked with a stance and Splinter Weapon? More good times.

It was fun making builds in GW. You could start with a good base or concept and then swap a few skills based on what you're facing. Ebon Vanguard skills while vanquishing Ascalon anyone?

I still have my GW builds backed up on a couple external hard drives (buildtemplateswhen). Made quite a few.

 

EDIT: Oh and I had an Ele build that used all four elements long before GW2 was a thing. Used Master of Magic and Elemental Lord to keep elemental attributes at 14 constantly.

[Boro.7359]

> @"Raemyi.2968" said:

> My favorite was a Warrior build that centered around cycling between Dragon Slash and other abilities to continually chain damage, healing, or knockdown.

>

> The crux was For Great Justice, which doubles your adrenaline gain, and Dragon Slash, which basically deals damage and grants adrenaline. While FGJ is active, a single use of Dragon Slash will refill your adrenaline. For damage, you just keep spamming it - the hit alone refills its own adrenaline requirements.

>

> My favorite part though was working in Brawling Headbutt, a PvE-only skill that knocks down the target for an adrenaline cost. So you just cycle Dragon Slash, Brawling Headbutt, auto-attack, Dragon Slash.... and with some stonefist armor, you can keep any non-immune target locked down for 20 seconds. 30 seconds, if you throw in the Paragon skill that boosts shout duration on FGJ. Lion's Comfort, an adrenaline-fueled self-heal that grants adrenaline back, could also be spammed in the same manner to pseudo-tank when needed, or could be used to get back to full adrenaline easier if you miss a hit. Likewise, Enraging Charge was a speed-boost that also boosted adrenaline gain on the next hit, which let the whole cycle get going almost immediately when starting a fight.

>

> The cherry on top was "You Move Like a Dwarf", another PvE-only skill that simply knocks down a target at range. With this, those nasty mages casting big stuff at the start of a fight could be neutralized while you set up your combo. And, against immune targets like big story bosses, you could swap in an attack speed boost to supplement Dragon Slash spamming for impressive plain-and-simple damage.

>

>

> It was a build perfectly suited to taking out those specific targets that would ruin my day, while my Heroes went to work on the rest of the crowd.

 

then you realized that assassins could do the same but better with their jagged-fox-death blossom chains while conveying even more damage via strength of honor and other flat boosts.

 

I have to say, Ether Prodigy AB ele, Gale Warrior and Boon Prot monk. These three were what me and my guildies ran in AB, and unless our team was made of quitters and terrible players, we could regularly break an enemy team of similar size down.

 

Nowadays I'm playing through prophecies as a pure necro, new account, no other campaigns used at all, no rune or material traders used either. My first build that wasn't a necro pretending to be a monk, was this:


 

Dark Aura, Demonic Flesh, Dark Pact and Touch of Agony are so much better than what Prophs necromancer have up to that point. Healing is provided through Dwayna's Kiss from the monk, who was playing a hybrid boonprot, that I acted as a battery for.

[Crey.5263]

N/Rt with Jagged Bones and Animate Bone Minions, then straight Ritualist Resto skills .

Soul Reaping : 12

Death Magic : 10

Restoration Magic: 10

Necromancers were the best healers because they had the all time greatest energy management.

[Benkorah.6048]

I always liked the synergy of the divine boon monk build. It gave a protection monk the ability to heal, and peace and harmony (at least for one of its iterations) made up for the lost energy regeneration. Of course it was eventually outclassed by the HB and UA builds, simply because those 2 elites were so powerful, but it was neat the way all the pieces of the DB build fit together into such a versatile package without any one skill being overpowered.