User:Luphom/Zero to Hero: Spellbreaker

Currently a WIP. Need to add hyperlinks and such to everything. Pictures and skill icons too would be nice. Add "I already have the ascended build" DPS goals.

Introduction

This is a guide for my favorite low-effort-high-reward raid DPS build in the game: Power Spellbreaker, using Dagger/Mace and offhand Axe. Everything from the gear to the rotation will be covered.

This guide was written for the April 2026 patch cycle. If it's later than this, be warned the guide might be outdated. Poke me to update it.

By the end of this guide you will be hitting around 40k DPS on the golem if you own Janthir Wilds and can get the Relic of the Claw.

Step 1: Cheap Gear

gw2skills.net link: https://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKCBgmhflZwOYUsJGJO+K2veA-DSIUR0y9VKcRftlAdGCVUAmcngl0nBAA-e

Summary of what to buy from the trading post:

• Buy cheapest Berserker's weapons (Usoku's Needle, Serpentstone, and Maw of the Damned)
• Buy the full set of Berserker's armor from TP (Devona's for Heavy, Nika's for Medium, Zhed's for Light armor)
• Buy 2x Ruby Orichalcum Rings, 1x Ruby Orichalcum Amulet, 2x Ruby Orichalcum Earring
• Buy six Rune of the Eagle
• Buy Relic of the Eagle
• Buy Sigil of Force, Air, and Hydromancy. Put the sigils on your weapons like this: Dagger gets Force, Mace gets Air, and Axe gets Hydromancy.
• Buy some Avocado Smoothies and Superior Sharpening Stones. They last thirty minutes so buy a lot of them!

Then put everything on. Check the gw2skills link for reference. Note we aren't getting a back item because it's prohibitively expensive and the stats aren't that much anyway. Get one if you want, but we'll be replacing it with an Ascended version later anyway.

If you're loaded and just want the full ascended build: https://snowcrows.com/builds/raids/warrior/power-spellbreaker-dagger-mace-dagger-axe

Step 2: Special Forces Training Area

Colloquially known as "the golem", head there via the Lion's Arch Aerodrome. The entrance is at the north east of the area.

We are going to set it up to benchmark on it (called "parsing" in some other MMOs). Note this isn't the "real" benchmark settings, but for simplicity we're going to do the easiest we can.

1. Interact with the Arena Console -> Adjust self. -> Add boons. -> All of them.
2. Interact with the Golem Spawner -> Spawn a golem. -> Average. -> Weak enemy. -> Additional options. -> Add conditions. -> All of them. -> Please spawn my golem.

Step 3: Checking we got everything right

Eat your food and use your utility. Always make sure they are active before benching.

Now, autoattack the golem, nothing else. Use Control + Mouse 2 (Right click) on skill 1 to make it autoattack, or get used to holding down the 1 key.

Current rotation:

1.   Autoattack

Check the chat to see what your DPS is. If you can't see any messages about your DPS, make sure the currently selected chat tab doesn't hide Game Messages by modifying the tab's settings.

You should be getting around 18.5k as the last number once the golem is dead. If it's more than 1k lower, make sure you followed the guide correctly up until this point. Turn back, follow it to the letter, then move on to the next step once you've reached around 18.5k on the golem.

If you are getting higher, that means you jumped ahead of me and got better gear already. Feel free to continue to the follow the guide, but the DPS goals will no longer be accurate.

Once you're reaching 18.5k, head on to the next step.

Step 4: Signet Mastery

Let's learn about your Signet Mastery trait: when you use a signet skill, you gain a stacking buff that increases ferocity.

Use all of your signets and watch your buff bar. With four signets used, it should now be four. Use your special action key to refresh all of your skills in the Special Forces Training Area (referred to as "the golem area" from now on.). Do this before every benchmark from now on; we want to start with maximum Signet of Ferocity stacks.

Now do an autoattacking bench while maintaining five stacks of Signet of Ferocity. Use your Signet of Stamina off-cooldown to do this.

Your new rotation:

1.   Autoattack
2.   Signet of Stamina as soon as it comes off cooldown
3. Go back to autoattacking

Your new DPS goal is around 21k. Once you make it here, move on to the next step!

Step 5: Magebane Tether

Your trait Magebane Tether tethers you to an enemy you hit with a Burst skill (your F1, Breaching Strike, in this case). It increases your damage to your target by 15%. Let's fit it into our rotation.

Your new rotation:

1.   Breaching Strike (F1)
2.   Autoattack
3. Repeat

Remember to still use Signet of Stamina off cooldown.

Goal: 26k.

If you aren't reaching this: are you making sure to keep your five stacks of Signet of Ferocity by using Signet of Stamina off cooldown?

Head on to the next step once you're ready.

Step 6: Time to burst combo!

This is where things get hot. Let's learn part of our burst combo.

The first part of your burst combo:

1. Breaching Strike (Dagger Burst F1)
2. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)
3. Tremor (Mace 5)
4. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)

You want to use these skills as fast as possible. You can queue into them by pressing them early. It takes practice but you'll get the hang of it!

Your new rotation:

1. Breaching Strike (Dagger Burst F1)
2. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)
3. Tremor (Mace 5)
4. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)
5. Autoattack
6. Breaching Strike (Dagger Burst F1)
7. Disrupting Stab (Dagger 3)
8. Autoattack
9. Repeat from top

Your new burst combo is F1 -> 4 -> 5 -> 4. Burn it into your brain because you'll be doing it a lot. Tremor recharges Crushing Blow if it hits, so always make sure to cast a Crushing Blow before a Tremor. We also added a Disrupting Stab in there; it's important later, so make sure you fit it in.

Goal: 29k.

If you want to stop here, good job, you've got a nice low intensity variant of the build. Change everything to ascended, get a back item, and use Scholar runes for a DPS boost and you'll likely be hitting even higher numbers.

For everyone else, let's keep going. We can get way higher than this with more effort. I'm not going to go easy on you now! Get ready, and remember to take breaks when benching; this is intense stuff. Never raid or bench if your hands or fingers hurt.

Step 7: Kick

This won't give us a huge DPS boost (yet!), but it's important to learn. Replace Signet of Stamina with Kick. No DPS goal here, just get used to this new rotation. It's important to notice that Kick activates Peak Performance for 6 seconds, which gives us +10% damage. This is an important buff for our burst combo, so make sure to not skip out on the Kicks.

Your new burst combo:

1. Kick
2. Breaching Strike (Dagger Burst F1)
3. Signet of Fury (now this is used to maintain your signet of Ferocity stacks!)
4. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)
5. Tremor (Mace 5)
6. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)

Your new rotation:

1. Kick
2. Breaching Strike (Dagger Burst F1)
3. Signet of Fury
4. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)
5. Tremor (Mace 5)
6. Crushing Blow (Mace 4)
7. Autoattack
8. Breaching Strike (Dagger Burst F1)
9. Disrupting Stab (Dagger 3)
10. Autoattack
11. Repeat from top

Step 7: Weapon swap

Let's extend the combo and get even faster! You will now be weapon swapping.

Your final burst combo:

1.   Kick
2.   Breaching Strike
3.   Signet of Fury
4.   Crushing Blow
5.   Tremor
6.   Crushing Blow
7.   Weapon swap
8.   Dual Strike
9.   Whirling Axe

This is the real burst combo used in the final rotation. Learn it well. Executing this quickly and precisely is the key to this step.

Your new rotation:

1.   Kick
2.   Breaching Strike
3.   Signet of Fury
4.   Crushing Blow
5.   Tremor
6.   Crushing Blow
7.   Weapon swap
8.   Dual Strike
9.   Whirling Axe
10.   Autoattack
11.   Breaching Strike
12.   Disrupting Stab
13.   Weapon swap
14.   Autoattack
15. Repeat from top

And, you know what? That golem is dying too quickly now... go increase it's HP from 1 million to 4 million by deleting your golem, and respawning a new one with more HP.

Goal: 32k.

The key here is to go faster. You want to press your burst combo as fast as the game lets you. Your skills can be queued one after another. You can't go too fast, or else you'll skip skills, but find the rhythm and get comfortable.

Another thing to remember is you are trying to fit in your burst combo during the time Signet of Fury's bonus Precision and Ferocity you get from casting it are active. This means you really want to do your burst combo fast, with no autoattacks in between skill usage! Ideally, Signet of Fury's active bonus runs out after you finishing casting Whirling Axe.

If you've made it this far, congratulations. 32k DPS is more than acceptable for most raid content!

Want to go further, and hit that 40k? Let's get serious now and get some better gear.

Step 8: Relic of the Claw

If you own JW, go get Relic of the Claw. Gotta do some open world stuff for it. Go have fun in Lowland Shore!

With no Relic of the Claw, I'm afraid you aren't going to hit that 40k, but you can still follow the rest of the guide and get something pretty close with your Eagle relic!

For those who got it: enjoy your free DPS boost. You should be getting around 33k now, or at least higher than you used to be getting.

The main thing to note is Relic of the Claw increases your strike damage after you disable a foe. That's what we use our Disrupting Stab and Kick for. If you're doing the rotation correctly, Relic of the Claw's effect shouldn't drop. Do not forget those Disrupting Stabs in the rotation or you'll face a significant DPS penalty, unlike when using Relic of the Eagle.

Step 9: Ascension

Get ascended versions of everything. Free DPS boost. Big change is the runes are now Rune of the Scholar instead of Rune of the Eagle. Good luck, this can take awhile. Make sure to match your build exactly to the one presented on SnowCrows: https://snowcrows.com/builds/raids/warrior/power-spellbreaker-dagger-mace-dagger-axe

Goal: 37k

Step 10: Practice makes perfect

Congratulations!! You are fully capable of hitting 40k with the correct food (Cilantro-Lime Sous-Vide Steak), maybe some Might Infusions if you feel like splurging, and lots of practice.

One thing I can show you is the opener, as this'll help boost your DPS slightly:

1. Cast all of your signets, saving Signet of Fury for last
2. Kick
3. Breaching Strike
4. Crushing Blow
5. Tremor
6. Crushing Blow
7. Disrupting Stab
8. Weapon Swap
9. Dual Strike
10. Whirling Axe
11. Auto to fill
12. Kick
13. Breaching Strike
14. Weapon swap and continue your rotation as normal

It's similar to the standard rotation with a few things shuffled around to throw in an extra kick.

With food and this opener, 40k is definitely within your reach. Without might infusions it might be slightly difficult, but don't worry about that; 40k is just a fun number to reach, if you've followed the guide up until here you're more than ready to carry.

Step 11: Using it in real raids

Remember what a raid group needs depends on the group. Keep a positive mental attitude, because if you want to clear, you should always think about adjusting your kit to fit the group's needs; you might even want to play an entirely different DPS if your group really needs help in certain areas that Spellbreaker can't really provide.

That said, Spellbreaker has cool options and utility that make you more than just a DPS robot, and on some fights is extremely valuable.

CC

You've got tons of passive CC in your kit; use it! Kick, Disrupting Stab, and Tremor all do CC. You might save these if you know a critical CC bar is coming up. It's alright to sacrifice DPS for CC; if things are off cooldown because you used them for CC, continue your rotation as normal and just skip things that are, or simply auto attack until everything is back online and you can continue the rotation as normal.

Elite skill options

Your elite Signet of Rage is more of a benchmarking utility; bringing it into a real fight is pretty pointless, as your boon providers are giving you the boons it provides, and you generate enough adrenaline without this elite. So, replace it with one of the following options.

Battle Standard

Also known as "banner" in the community, it revives up to five downed players wherever you throw it. Handy, and makes you feel like a god when you hit the five-man revive. I almost always run this. On fights where kiters are standing far away from group, you bringing this can often save the run. Be on the lookout and smack anyone you see dead with a banner.

Winds of Disenchantment

This one has some niche uses. It's a projectile block, it removes enemy boons and prevents them from gaining them. This has one very notable use-case: you can use it to skip killing the Stability pyre on Qadim in W6. If your group asks you to do this for them, wait until Qadim gets his CC bar, then use the elite. His Stability will be removed after a small delay.

I almost always recommend running banner over this because reviving up to five people instantly is too useful, but it's good to keep in mind if your group is struggling with projectile block or enemies gaining boons.

Full Counter

Ah, yes, "Full" Counter. This gives you two seconds of stability and absorbs the next attack you're hit by; sort of like Aegis. There's a lot of things in the game you can Full Counter, and a lot of things you can't. Experiment and see what works!

Defiant Stance

This replaces your Healing Signet. Absorb all incoming attacks for four seconds. This one is actually extremely handy, as it lets you simply stand there and eat damage. Notable places I take it are Deimos for ignoring Mind Crush and ToF CM for making flower strategy really easy to do.

Throw Bolas

A utility that would replace Kick. This one is more niche, as it actually doesn't proc Relic of the Claw, and means less CC you're capable of. However: it's a four second 1200 range Immobilization. This is incredibly useful on certain fights, such as Gorseval on W1 and Escort on W3. It not CCing is also a benefit on certain fights where you need to slow down your CC output, such as Kela in certain strategies, and once again Gorseval if your group's DPS is too low.

Kick is still the better option 99% of the time, but it's a good option to keep in mind.

Aura Slicer

You probably noticed we never touch Dagger 2. That's because it is an extremely long cast time for very little DPS, making it worse than our autos.

That said: it's a leap, and it actually goes pretty far. Use it for mobility, especially so you don't have to waste Breaching Strike for its own leap.

Magebane Tether reveal

A fun thing Magebane Tether does is reveal the enemy. This has one very good use: on W6's Twin Largos, you can keep Kenut revealed, making them not disappear when they do their boonstrip attack. It's really useful and your group will love you for bringing Spellbreaker to Kenut! Ask your squad to let you go to Kenut's side, it really is that useful.

Step 12: Thank you

Thank you for reading my guide to the very end. I hope Spellbreaker treats you well in raids. There's tons of specs to play, so try them all out if you get the chance.