Welcome to the Greatsword / Crossbow PvP Build Guide. At first glance, Greatsword / Crossbow synergies seem non-existent. However, with the added Skill Damage Boost and Heavy Attack Chance gained from Greatsword skills like Vital Force and Cold Warrior increases the damage of the Gale explosions with Annihilation Barrage Shot substantially!
If you ever wanted to play an off-meta Assassin build, this may just be the weapon combination for you! With the ability to engage from over 24m away, Greatsword / Crossbow can leap into fights with an AoE stun and spin around the battlefield like a Beyblade! Annihilation Barrage Shot gives stacks of Gale which explodes at 10 stacks. Against a single target, Gale Explosions may not do much, but when many people are grouped in a small area, each player takes damage from all nearby Gale Explosions. This damage can also be increased exponentially!
End Game Greatsword / Crossbow PvP Build
If you're interested in PvE, check out our Greatsword / Crossbow PvE Build Guide!
- High Hit
- High AoE
- High Mobility
- High Survivability
- High amounts of CC
- No Stealth
- Lower Critical Hit
- Lower base Critical Damage
Skill Builds
In large scale PvP the goal is to dive the backline and try to pick off as many people as possible with Annihilation Barrage Shot. Coordinating pushes with your guild and party members is key!
Active Skills
Damage Skills
- Quick Fire - Paired with Mother Nature's Protest, this skill is great for single target damage before getting in Melee range.
- Annihilation Barrage Shot - THE AoE skill! Whenever you see a clump of enemies, jump in there before they can expect it. The closer everybody is together, the more damage you do since Gale Explosions can do damage to everybody in the surrounding area.
- Guillotine Blade - Heavy hitting single target damage skill. Be sure to CC the target before using this skill.
Buffs/Debuffs
- DaVinci's Courage - This skill can be used offensively, or saved to act as a big defensive heal.
- Mother Nature's Protest - Having this on when you use Annihilation Barrage Shot further increases the amount of Gale stacks you put on the target.
- Mortal Mark - Ideally, you'd use this before starting your burst.
CC + Mobility Skills
- Devastating Smash - This is your core Ranged Engage as it can land an AoE stun. Using Nimble Leap before this skill increases the range you can use this skill by a little bit.
- Stunning Blow - This is an important skill because even if the target immunes the stun, you shock them and gain the bonus damage from your passive skill.
- Nimble Leap - With the Skill Specializations, this skill is usable twice and also gains CC immunity for 0.5s on use. Use it sparingly when kiting or trying to avoid CC.
- Nimble Leap's Whirlpool allows you to gain additional Gale stacks so be sure to use it right before Annihilation Barrage Shot to increase the number of explosions you do.
- Precision Dash - While being an unblockable Bind with the Skill Specializations, you can re-use it a 2nd time if activated again within a few seconds. This makes it a big engage tool.
- Selfless Infiltration - While you can use this offensively, it's best to save this to break CC's. This is similar to a "trinket" from other MMO's that acts as a partial CC Break.
- You cannot get up from Prone, but you can use it to break Stuns.
- Ascending Slash - Using this after Precision Dash is fast and hard for players with higher ping to react to.
Passive Skills
- Vital Force - Combined with Adentus's Savage Blade you get a ton of additional damage.
- Cold Warrior - Important to increase your damage on CC'd targets.
- Victor's Morale - This allows you to maintain your Mana when divebombing the backline.
- Robust Constitution - More Health = More DMG + Survivability.
- Ambidexterity - This is a strong passive that increases your Crossbow damage.
- Nature's Power - With access to two mobility skills that have low enough cooldowns, you are almost able to permanently keep this buff up if stacking high enough Buff Duration.
- Detection - This skill procs quite often in large scale, so it helps if you are stacking Evasion.
- Piercing Strike - Your main Crossbow Skill does many hits so the bonus damage should increase overall DPS.
- Raging Frenzy - You can replace this skill with Piercing Strike whenever you're doing more Small Scale PvP content.
Skill Prioritization
- Use Quality Marind Ore to craft Quality Passive Skill Growth Book and Quality Active Skill Growth Book
- Use Rare Marind Ore to craft Rare Passive Skill Growth Book and Rare Active Skill Growth Book.
- Prioritize getting all these skills to blue first before getting them to purple. These are universal skills you always use.
- Upgrade the rest of your skills as you play the game.
PvP Gameplay and Skill Rotation
Greatsword / Crossbow has multiple different ways of securing kills. Your playstyle doesn't change between Large Scale and Small Scale PvP. The only real difference is that in Large Scale you can take advantage of the chaos and land an AoE stun with Devastating Smash easier. In Small Scale PvP it's a bit easier to spot the animation for the AoE Stun so you tend to be more successful using other engages like Precision Dash.
Ranged AOE Stun Engage
- DaVinci's Courage
- Devastating Smash
- Nimble Leap
- Annihilation Barrage Shot
- You can increase the engage range by using Precision Dash before Devastating Smash.
- You can save DaVinci's Courage and use it defensively if need be.
- Damage from Gale Explosions scale with the amount of players in the area.
- For example, If 5 people get hit and proc an explosion of each person, that's 5 explosions worth of damage dealt to all the users in that area.
Single Target Combo
- Mortal Mark
- Quick Fire
- Nimble Leap
- Quick Fire
- Precision Dash
- Stunning Blow
- Cruel Smite
- Ascending Slash
- Quick Fire
- Devastating Smash can be used instead of Precision Dash and Stunning Blow. However, it's easy to see coming so there are higher chances of the enemies Perfect Blocking it.
- Lightning Arrow would do higher single target damage compared to Gale Arrow.
- Nimble Leap has great utility as it can be used to reset Quick Fire or be used as a short burst of CC Immunity.
- Use Nimble Leap based on what the situation calls for but keep in mind you only have 2 charges.
Stat Priorities
Use the following stat priorities when using this Greatsword / Crossbow PvP Build Guide:
- Primary Stat
- Strength
- Secondary Stats
- Dexterity and Perception
You have 49 Stat Points to distribute however you see fit, and gear gives additional stat points that you cannot change. It's free to reset the Stat Points so that you can "respec" whenever you need to as you progress and swap out items. Above are the main Stats you should prioritize with the given builds in this Greatsword / Crossbow PvP Build Guide.
Greatsword / Crossbow gains a number of buffs when stacking HP. The Greatsword's skills and passives also allow you to reach high amounts of Heavy Attack Chance. Due to these reasons, Strength is one of the most valuable Stat Attributes to stack.
Mid-Game
Your first goal is to hit 60 Dexterity and 40 Strength. As a Greatsword / Crossbow user, you care mainly about increased Heavy Attack, HP, Critical Hit, Attack Speed, and Maximum Weapon Damage. First, put points towards Dexterity to gain the additional Critical Hit to ensure high damage on your Crossbow skills. Secondly, place points into Strength for the added HP.
End Game
With Purple Gear in the End Game, we can reach all of our desired Stat Breakpoints. 60 Dexterity grants increased Critical Hit, Bonus Damage, and high amounts of Attack Speed before using our buffs. Getting to 60 Strength grants even higher HP and 100 Heavy Attack which can give you higher chances at doing double damage. 40 Perception increases Hit and Buff Duration to ensure you're able to maintain your buffs and always land your debuffs.
Gear Progression
If you're interested in PvE Gear Progression, check out our Greatsword / Crossbow PvE Builds!
Story Gear for Greatsword / Crossbow PvP Build
- Do not sacrifice your Green Gear for your Blue Gear during the Early Game while leveling. Most often, it's easier to trait out Green Gear instead of Blue Gear during the early stages of the game.
Mid Game Greatsword / Crossbow PvP Build
As you progress further into the game, you gather more gear with flat Stat buffs and Dexterity to boost your raw damage. It's also more costly to trait due to the low supply in the early game.
You might find yourself still using green accessories and know THAT'S OK.
Slowly transition to Blue Gear as you play the game.
- All of these items can be farmed either in the Open World, or Co-Op Dungeons.
- As soon as you're level 50, you should prioritize farming Dungeons to get your weapons as soon as possible.
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
With Rune Synergies and Resonance
- This set makes use of increased Critical Hit Damage while maintaining high amounts of Ranged and Magic Evasion.
- Detection procs more frequently than you'd think when you go in, so this build can net you around 2000 Ranged and Magic Evasion, while also having over 17000 HP.
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
- This build's goal allows you to PvP without using the Auction House or attending Guild Bosses.
- Everything here can be found or crafted yourself.
- You can get drops by going to Field Bosses but chances to get drops from Bosses are pretty low.
- You can get Tycan's Bloodlust Belt from Substance Transformation.
WARNING - The following content is from the Korean version of the game, there is no release date for this content for the Global version. If you want to see what you need for the future, peruse at your leisure.
(**Read the warning!**) T2 Greatsword / Crossbow PvP Builds
Guardians
Guardians are special transformations that add offensive or defensive buffs or attacks to your character for 30 seconds. These are the recommended Guardians for Greatsword / Crossbow.
- Lady Knight Kamarshea is a useful Guardian that gives you a shield on engage.
- Shade Revenant Stheno - This guardian launches projectiles every second and can Crit and Heavy Attack! The projectiles also synergize well with Mother Nature's Protest because each projectile launched also shoots another with this skill!
Summary
- Greatsword / Crossbow allows you to Dive Bomb groups of enemies with an AoE Stun followed by a "Spin to Win" type of move attacking all enemies in the area!
- Greatsword's skills and passives allow you to stack high amounts of Heavy Attack Chance, Hit, and Skill Damage Boost!
- Stacking HP not only gives you increased survivability but also grants increased damage!
- While having high offensive stats, you feel pretty tanky with the amount of HP and Evasion/Endurance you gain with these builds.
Gameplay
Credits
Written by Bloo
Reviewed by Dredscythe