Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build Guide
Last Updated:March 6, 2025|Changelog
Welcome to the Sword and Shield / Wand PvP build guide. This weapon combination is primarily a tank build that focuses on living as long as possible while keeping allies safe.
This build is all about being as annoying as possible by throwing out constant Crowd Control and self Healing. Not only are you VERY hard to kill, you make everyone else's day worse in the process by combining the Cooldown Reduction you get from proccing Morale Boost with your plethora of CC skills from both Wand (Cursed Nightmare) and SnS (Strategic Rush and Chain Hook). On top of this, you keep yourself alive with skills like Counter Barrier, Blessed Barrier, andSwift Healing which also have low CDs due to Morale Boost.
You get noticeably stronger as you start to acquire your best in slot gear, so as long as you stick with the build you quickly become one of the hardest targets to kill in the game!
Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
If you're interested in PvE, check out our Sword and Shield / Wand PvE Build Guide!
PvP Gear Progression
Acquiring Gear pieces and upgrading them is incredibly expensive and time-consuming. If you enjoy both PvE and PvP content, just use these sets for PvE as well.
If you're interested in PvE Gear Progression, check out our Sword and Shield / Wand Build Guide here!
- Critical Damage Reduction, Attack Speed or Shield Block Chance Pierce
- Critical Damage Reduction counters the Critical Damage Increase from Death Set and other sources.
- Shield Block Chance Pierce counters Sword and Shield Block Chance.
- Attack Speed is self-explanatory.
Going Shield Block Chance Pierce is best if you want more overall damage to players, including tanks. Use the Attack Speed Rune Synergy if you want more overall damage to everyone who is not a tank. Critical Damage Reduction will reduce the damage taken when an enemy Crits. This is great for defense. You can go for any Rune Synergy that best fits your situation. EVERY SERVER META IS DIFFERENT.
- STR, PER, DEX, or WIS
- + PER should also help you hit 70 Perception if you desire.
- + DEX is purely an offensive Rune Synergy effect.
- + STR is helpful to hit 50 Strength or 60 Strength if needed.
Usually, players take runes depending on the stat they need to hit the necessary breakpoints.
Consider the defensive and offensive breakpoints other classes can reach when building your gear.
- Melee
- Fully built Sword and Shield users reach 2000+ base Ranged and Magic Endurance.
- The amount varies depending on Trait Resonances and Runes.
- With the Palace Guard's Plate Armor item set, they will take even less damage.
- Fully built Sword and Shield users reach 2000+ base Ranged and Magic Endurance.
- Ranged
- Bow / Daggers and Staff / Daggers can reach 2000+ base Ranged and Magic Evasion pre-buffed without sacrificing damage. The specific numbers depend on the Runes the player slots and the Trait Resonance they use.
- Support
- If Bow / Wands follow the builds on this site, they can reach 2000+ Ranged and Magic Endurance with 500+ Heavy Attack Evasion. As mentioned above, these numbers differ depending on the Runes and Trait Resonance.
Considering the above, it's hard to find a one-size-fits-all solution. How you gear will entirely depend on the meta of your server.
- Is your server full of high Evasion users? Do you usually target those players? If so, build more Hit Chance.
Active Skill Choices
- Ancestral Armor Solarstone provides a massive temporary Health boost, making you deceptively tanky.
Passive Skill Choices
- Greedseeker Lunarstone boosts your defenses even further with a massive Skill Damage Resistance buff.
Artifact Set Choices
- The 6-Piece Wildlands Protector offers All Heavy Attack Evasion, helping to stack Melee Heavy Attack Evasion.
- For most general use cases, run 2-Pc Ancestral Armor, 2-Pc Greedseeker and 2-Pc Abyssal Beast.
2 Vanguard 2 Palace Guard
2 Elder 2 Vanguard
Archboss
- The ideal build to choose is heavily dependent on your server meta.
- Talandre Gear offers many different gear pieces from which you can choose.
- Use these builds as a base and swap different pieces depending on your need.
- STATS FROM ARTIFACTS, ITEM SETS, AND MASTERIES ARE NOT FULLY IMPLEMENTED. THIS MEANS ENDURANCE, HEALTH, ETC., ARE NOT AS HIGH AS THEY SHOULD BE.
Sword and Shield / Wand PvP
Curse Damage Focus
Sword and Shield / Wand PvP
Livelord Focus
Hover over (PC) or Tap (Mobile) items in the Plannner to see sources for gear pieces.
Stats and Gearing Logic
- This build aims to increase your survivability as much as possible by stacking Endurence with 2-Set Vanguard Leader Set and extra Shield Block with 2-Set Palace Guard Set.
- When combined, the build reaches over 2k of each evasion and near 100% Shield Block Chance.
- The Hit is increased as much can be fit to increase the chance of landing CC.
- You also stack Weaken Chance for the same reason.
- The rest of the stats come together to provide good Buff Duration, Cooldown Speed, and Skill Heal while keeping your Defense and Offense at a good balance.
- Swap pieces in and out to match the server meta you are playing against.
Gear Alternatives
The great thing about Tier 2 gear is that you can swap many pieces depending on your wants.
- For the Livelord build, swapping in both Overture of Eternal Salvation and Giant Cordy's Spore Hand fit seemlessly into the build, only requiring a slight Stat readjustment.
- Bulwark of Invulnerability is also an option to consider for its better Stat spread, useful CC augment to Chain Hook, and increased damage via Skill Damage Boost.
- The ideal build to choose is heavily dependent on your server meta.
- Talandre Gear offers many different gear pieces from which you can choose.
- Use these builds as a base and swap different pieces depending on your need.
- STATS FROM ARTIFACTS, ITEM SETS, AND MASTERIES ARE NOT FULLY IMPLEMENTED. THIS MEANS ENDURANCE, HEALTH, ETC., ARE NOT AS HIGH AS THEY SHOULD BE.
Sword and Shield / Wand PvP
Curse Damage Focus
Sword and Shield / Wand PvP
Livelord Focus
Hover over (PC) or Tap (Mobile) items in the Plannner to see sources for gear pieces.
Stats and Gearing Logic
- This build makes use of 2-Pc Elder Set to pump out considerably more Curse Damage at the cost of Shield Block Chance from 2-Pc Palace Guard Set.
- The rest of the stats come together to provide good Buff Duration, Cooldown Speed, and Skill Heal while keeping your Defense and Offense at a good balance.
- Swap pieces in and out to match the server meta you are playing against.
Gear Alternatives
The great thing about Tier 2 gear is that you can swap many pieces depending on your wants.
- For the Livelord build, swapping in both Overture of Eternal Salvation and Giant Cordy's Spore Hand fit seemlessly into the build, only requiring a slight Stat readjustment.
- The ideal build to choose is heavily dependent on your server meta.
- Talandre Gear offers many different gear pieces from which you can choose.
- Use these builds as a base and swap different pieces depending on your need.
- STATS FROM ARTIFACTS, ITEM SETS, AND MASTERIES ARE NOT FULLY IMPLEMENTED. THIS MEANS ENDURANCE, HEALTH, ETC., ARE NOT AS HIGH AS THEY SHOULD BE.
Good Archboss Choices
- Tevent's Grasp of Withering
- Great for DPS build. Will make a night and day difference in your damage potential.
- Giant Cordy's Spore Hand
- BIS Wand for Healers. Making your entire party CC immune is invaluable.
- Queen Bellandir's Languishing Blade
- Great for creating clumps of enemies with Annihilating Slash.
- All pre-Talandre builds will be revamped once it releases.
- They will use T2 Blue gear instead.
Frontline Collision Res
Archboss Gear
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
4 set Shock Commander
With the addition of Tier 2 dungeons, you are able to fit in new powerful accesories to better highlight the strengths of the build. You also get easier access to Shadow Harvester Boots, a fantastic pair of boots that provides great Stats for your build. The main benefit here is the ability to more freely build Collision Resistance without having to make many sacrifices towards your other stats.
This gear set aims to stack Collision Resistance as high as possilbe. This is due to the strength of abilities such as Ascending Slash, Ankle Strike, and Tornado. Although you are insanely hard to kill, being Prone or Airborn results in your quick demise. While both builds offer great defenses and protection, they both aim to achieve it in different ways. The build featuring 2 set Shock Commander Set / 2 piece Transcended One Set aims for balanced Endurance stats and extra CDR while the build featuring 2 set Shock Commander Set goes all in on Melee and Ranged Endurance and shores up the other defenses using the increased Shield Block Chance.
Hover over (PC) or Tap (Mobile) items in the Plannner to see sources for gear pieces.
Fully trait your blue gear before transferring over to purple gear. A fully traited blue piece will give you 960 Blessings for you to use.
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
Collision
This build aims to update the previous Archboss Collision build into its most effective form by making use of the new accesories. It also includes Shadow Harvester Boots due to it being easier to aqcuire.
With the addition of Band of Universal Power you can make your Stats look cleaner. When utilizing Queen Bellandir's Languishing Blade, you MUST make use of Annihilating Slash to get value out of the Sword's passive skill. This leaves a sand pit on the ground that Slows enemies and after a short delay will Pull them towards its center.
Hover over (PC) or Tap (Mobile) items in the Plannner to see sources for gear pieces.
Fully trait your blue gear before transferring over to purple gear. A fully traited blue piece will give you 960 Blessings for you to use.
Skill Builds and Rotation
Curse Damage Focused
Livelord Focused
- What skill build you use for Large Scale PvP is mostly up to preference.
- Keep in mind that the Curse Damage playstyle becomes a lot more viable with Tevent's Grasp of Withering.
- Quite a few of your skill slots are flexible for the moment.
- Immortal Pride can be swapped out in favor of Cursed Nightmare to lean more towards the playmaking side.
- In GvG and Wargame fights, consider dropping Cursed Nightmare for other party utility. Due to the chaotic nature of these fights, the value of Sleep is quite diminished.
- With Queen Bellandir's Languishing Blade, swapping in Annihilating Slash is a must.
Maxamize Healing and Damage
- The passive effect for Blade of Fiendish Fortitude makes you deceptively tanky during Counter Barrier. Combine it with other tools such as Saint's Oath, Selfless Soul, and
- Try to space out usage of Swift Healing to both not waste Healing and Conserve mana.
- Fountain of Life is best used on multiple party members or when you expect to be CC'd.
Sleep Combo
This combo can be used to engage groups of enemies or disengage for your own team.
- Cursed Nightmare
- Karmic Haze
Bomber Combo
Best used while safe. All animations get faster with more Attack Speed, so the more geared you are the faster the combo becomes.
- Touch of Despair
- Cursed Nightmare
- Karmic Haze
- Corrupted Magic Circle
- Curse Explosion
Something to keep in mind is Karmic Haze can only transfer 3 Curses to a target. Tevent's Grasp of Withering counts for one of those curses. If you want to maximize damage, using Decaying Touch before Touch of Despair and Cursed Nightmare already account for all 3 curses. It may be worth considering the removal of Cursed Nightmare to improve damage further for bombing.
Heal Cut Skills
- The best form of Heal Cut you have access to is using Provoking Roar on the enemy Healer. While Taunted, they can't target allies with any Healing Skills, providing a lot of pressure.
- Use the Large Scale PvP builds for Dominion if there are massive amounts of players.
- This build focuses on being able to pick out and assassinate key targets with heafty Curse Explosion casts.
- Keep in mind that if you take Disciple's Rage you'll gain access to more Magic Damage sources but lose your ability to self sustain, changing your playstyle slightly. Be sure to plan ahead.
Single Target Curse Bomb
- Touch of Despair (as many stacks as you have time for)
- Decaying Touch
- Witching Hour
- Curse Explosion
- Simple bread and butter single target combo.
- For maximum effect, buff yourself with Valorous Barrier and Enchanting Time before casting curses.
- If you know the target doesn't have CC break, consider using Cursed Nightmare to ensure more curse stacks can be placed on the target.
Skill Prioritization
- Use Quality Marind Ore to craft Quality Active Skill Growth Book and Quality Passive Skill Growth Book.
- Use Rare Marind Ore to craft Rare Active Skill Growth Book and Rare Passive 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.
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 this class for PvP situations.
- Use Green Ranger Elowen as your guardian of choice. The mass AOE Bind is a great crowd control tool for group fights, and the extra 500 Crit Hit it provides to Bound targets is an added bonus.
- For a backline healer playstyle, use Lady Knight Kamarshea as your primary Guardian of choice. Not only does it provide a massive HP shield based on your max mana, it also gives you CDR for all of your abilities as long as the shield lasts. This is invaluable when you need to keep yourself alive as long as possible for big pushes in large scale fights.
Summary
- Sword and Shield / Wand is an Endurance tank that focuses on staying alive as long as possible.
- Don't move too far away from your healers to stay alive longer in fights.
- Focus on CC'ing multiple enemies, and locking down high priority targets such as DPS and Healers.
- Try to focus on durability, Strength, Perception, and Wisdom for your gear, with a focus on traits that increase Health, Endurance, Damage, Buff Duration, and Skill Resistance.
- Performance directly scales with gear level, and the difference between a geared tank and a non geared tank is night and day.
Congratulations on reaching the end of the Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build, continue the journey with our PvE or Leveling guides!
Credits
Written by Nymphellas and Tweekz
Reviewed by Yaen and Tenkiei