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.
Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
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!
If you're interested in PvE, check out our Sword and Shield / Wand PvE Build Guide!
- Healing
- High CC
- High AoE DPS
- High Durability
- Low Cooldowns
- Gear Reliant
- Low Damage
- High Mana Cost
Skill Builds
- This build is geared around fighting on the frontlines while keeping yourself alive as long as possible.
Active Skills
The block we use is Shield Survival Technique. The max heal shield from Perfect Blocking Fury Attacks alongside the extra Damage Reduction make this choice a no-brainer.
DPS Skills
- Piercing Attack is your main damage tool on the frontline and is spammable thanks to Counter Barrier.
Utility Skills
- Strategic Rush is a great tool for repositioning both yourself and your enemies.
- Cursed Nightmare and Karmic Haze are fantastic tools for both starting engages for your team and preventing enemy engages.
Defensive Skills
- Take Counter Barrier to provide a large boost to Shield Block and also reduce the Cooldown of Piercing Attack.
- Stalwart Bastion provides great defenses to both you and your party.
- Use Immortal Pride when being heavily focused to massively boost your durability.
- Blessed Barrier and Invincile Wall are great damage mitigation tools.
Healing
- Rotate Swift Healing, Clay's Salvation, and Fountain of Life in order to keep yourself alive and on the front line.
Passive Skills
- Aegis Shield, Impenetrable and Gerad's Patience are all taken to drastically increase the defenses available to the build.
- Take Wraith's Beckon strictly to increase the duration of Cursed Nightmare.
- Saint's Oath and Devotion and Emptiness help to round out the build's self healing capability.
- Resilient Mind provides all of the Mana sustain for this build.
- Full of Corruption provides a large Base Damage boost and a small amount of Mana Regen as well.
Alternatives
- This setup aims to make better use of CC with a slow on Strategic Rush and a ranged pull on Chain Hook. Thanks to the addition of Morale Boost your healing and defensive cooldowns are up much more often!
- The goal for this build is to be an extremely tanky healer for the backline, with access to Damage Reduction as well as Healing for both yourself and allies.
Active Skills
- The block we use is Shield Survival Technique. The max heal shield from Perfect Blocking Fury Attacks alongside the extra Damage Reduction make this choice a no-brainer.
DPS Skills
- Touch of Despair is used to proc the passive Full of Corruption.
Utility Skills
- Take Enchanting Time. With proper Buff Duration you can keep this up almost 100% of the time making it a great tool for increasing your healing and shields.
- Karmic Haze is used to spread Cursed Nightmare.
- Cursed Nightmare is taken as a mass AOE CC tool when combined with Karmic Haze.
Defensive Skills
- Counter Barrier is taken for a large increase to your Shield Block Chance and some retaliation damage.
- Take Stalwart Bastion to provide Damage Reduction to yourself and your allies.
- Immortal Pride provides a good health and defense boost to the build.
- Invincile Wall is taken for the large AOE health shield.
- Take Blessed Barrier for a large boost to the defenses of yourself or an ally.
Healing
- Swift Healing is your best single target heal and is up quite often thanks to your Cooldown Speed.
- Clay's Salvation is a solid AOE heal option.
- Take Fountain of Life as a great ground AOE healing option that also serves to scale Selfless Soul.
Passive Skills
- Aegis Shield and Impenetrable are taken to drastically increase the defenses available to the build.
- Saint's Oath, Selfless Soul, Noble Revival and Devotion and Emptiness all drastically increase the healing capabilities of the build.
- Resilient Mind provides all of the Mana sustain for this build.
- Full of Corruption provides a large Base Damage boost and a small amount of Mana Regen as well.
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.
PvP Gameplay and Skill Rotation
Your main goal in PvP is to stall as long as possible. The game plan is to rotate your Cooldowns to keep yourself alive while being as annoying as possible. On top of this, you are constantly looking to heal allies and control the enemy with Karmic Haze and Cursed Nightmare.
- Try not to dive too deep. You are durable, but without a proper healer or a VERY large gear difference, you die after all of your Cooldowns are gone.
- Save Blessed Barrier for when you get low HP to help you survive and massively heal yourself in combination with Swift Healing. It's important to rotate your Cooldowns for maximum effectiveness.
- Use Strategic Rush on as many targets as possible to get the best use out of the Morale Boost passive.
Sleep Spread
- Cursed Nightmare
- Karmic Haze
This is a very simple combo. Make sure your location is safe before you cast and you know where to safely reposition afterward.
Always target a Wand / Longbow or SnS user with Cursed Nightmare, because they don't usually stack Evasions, so it's more likely your Sleep and Karmic Haze would not miss on them.
After you cast Cursed Nightmare on a target, you must use Karmic Haze on that same target to spread Sleep.
Note: The tooltip for Karmic Haze is incorrect and you can spread any DoT or Sleep to as many targets within skill's AoE radius.
CDR Reduction
- Chain Hook
- Strategic Rush
This isn't so much a rotation as it is just a guideline for proccing Morale Boost to lower the CD of your other skills. You must use these as much as possible to stay alive and/or CC as many people as possible.
Defensive Options
- Stalwart Bastion
- Shield Survival Technique
- Counter Barrier
- Blessed Barrier
- Invincile Wall
The key thing to remember when fighting in large scale combat is you MUST properly manage your Cooldowns. If you spam all of these defensive cooldowns at the same time, you WILL die faster. Rotate each skill as needed so that you can maximize the duration of the buffs.
Healing
- Blessed Barrier
- Invincile Wall
- Fountain of Life
- Clay's Salvation
- Swift Healing
- This isn’t a rotation as much as it is a use order of skills to use keep you and your party at full Health.
- You may not have all these skills equipped depending on your party role. However, use the order of skills to help you determine how much healing you can provide. This ensures you use the right ability for the right situation to manage resources.
- When someone is at death's door, use this skillset from top to bottom to fully heal anyone in the game. Lastly, with tools like Fountain of Life and Clay's Salvation you are also more than capable of healing your entire party as well.
Stat Priorities
- Primary Stat
- Strength, Wisdom, and Perception
You have 49 Stat Points you can freely allocate to any of the 4 primary Stats. Once you put 20 points into an individual Stat, it takes 2 points to increase the Stat by 1. Do not put more than 20 points into a Stat unless absolutely necessary.
You get bonuses for every 10 Stat Points you invest from 30 to 60. Invest your points based on acquiring these bonuses.
The goal for the Stat spread in this Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build is to have as much Wisdom and Perception as possible to ensure you have high Cooldown Speed and high Hit Chance. The secondary points in Dexterity are mostly for defensive reasons but do also provide a bit of damage as well. The most important breakpoints to hit are 40 Strength for the extra Health and Damage Reduction and 60 Perception for the extra Hit Chance.
Mid Game Gear
Once you start slotting blue gear pieces into your build, your Stat Points spread is going to look quite even compared to most builds. Aim to get 30 in all Stats, with priority towards Wisdom for the CDR and Mana Regen, and Perception to greatly increase your Hit Chance as well as giving you a small boost to your Buff Duration. Next in the priority is Strength for the extra 750 HP and then Dexterity for the Evasion and extra Critical Hit.
End Game Gear
With optimized end game gear, you can hit very powerful Stat Point thresholds. Aim for 50 Strength for the extra 750 HP, Damage Reduction, and Heavy Attack Chance, and the 40 Wisdom threshold for a massive increase to your Cooldown Speed and Mana Regen. The most important stat for you at this stage is Perception, which you pump to 60 for the massive increase to Hit Chance and a large increase to Buff Duration and Range. The remainder of your points go into Dexterity for a small bump to our Evasion and damage.
Gear Progression
These are the recommended gear sets for the Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build as you continually progress through the game.
If you're interested in PvE Gear Progression, check out our Sword and Shield / Wand Build Guide here!
Early / Mid Game Gear
Early Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
Fresh out of the story, you should be prioritizing Mana Regen and survivability over most other things when selecting gear, and more often than not you keep green items to trait out for your mid-game so that you don't lose too many stats when swapping over to your blue gear.
Mid Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
Mid-game, you are trying to slowly phase out your green gear for blues, and replacing some of the story blues with better options. Keep in mind that an item with traits is better than an untraited item in most cases. Don't be afraid to hold on to your greens if you can't afford to start giving traits to your blues. Your stat spread with this gear should be 44 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 30 Wisdom, and 30 Perception. Conversely, you can drop your Strength to 30 and pump Wisdom to 40 for the extra Debuff Duration Decrease.
End Game Gear
End/Trans Set
Healer
Cherno Healer
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
With Rune Synergies and Resonance
For end-game, this gear takes you a LONG time to get. Don't be discouraged by this though, just take your time. As most of your gear drops from world bosses it takes even longer if you aren't in a high level guild to do guild raids. Your stat spread with this gear should be 60 Strength, 13 Dexterity, 39 Wisdom, and 60 Perception, and you also have over 90 Damage Reduction, 20% Cooldown Speed (30% when using Wand skills) and 600+ Melee, Ranged and Magic Endurance. The build also makes use of Cooldown Speed with the 2 piece Transcended One Set to keep our buffs up as much as possible.
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
This alternative gear set aims to ease the pain of having to farm several different world bosses for your gear while also maintaining respectable defenses. Your stat points do end up taking a hit, but you still hit the most important breakpoints. Your stats with this setup are 50 Strength, 17 Dexterity, 46 Wisdom and 60 Perception
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
With Rune Synergies and Resonance
For end-game, this gear takes you a LONG time to get. Don't be discouraged by this though, just take your time. As most of your gear drops from world bosses it takes even longer if you aren't in a high level guild to do guild raids. Your stat spread with this gear should be 50 Strength, 30 Dexterity, 40 Wisdom, and 40 Perception, and you also have over 90 Damage Reduction, 23% Cooldown Speed (33% when using Wand skills) and 600+ Critical Hit Chance.
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
This alternative gear set aims to ease the pain of having to farm several different world bosses for your gear while also maintaining respectable defenses. Your stat points do end up taking a hit, but you still hit the most important breakpoints. Your stats with this setup are 30 Strength, 30 Dexterity, 50 Wisdom and 50 Perception
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
With Rune Synergies and Resonance
For end-game, this gear takes you a LONG time to get. Don't be discouraged by this though, just take your time. As most of your gear drops from world bosses it takes even longer if you aren't in a high level guild to do guild raids. Your stat spread with this gear should be 50 Strength, 30 Dexterity, 52 Wisdom, and 40 Perception, and you also have over 100 Damage Reduction, 32% Cooldown Speed (42% when using Wand Skills) and 600+ Critical Hit Chance. This build also aims to get as much Cooldown Speed as possible by combining two piece Transcended One Set with the Breath of Mother Nature Hat. You make some sacrifices to your Endurance but more than make up for it with the extended Buff uptimes. Keep in mind you can spread the sleep from Chernobog's Beheading Sword with Karmic Haze.
End Game Sword and Shield / Wand PvP Build
No Rune Synergies or Resonance
This alternative gear set aims to ease the pain of having to farm several different world bosses for your gear while also maintaining respectable defenses. Your stat points do end up taking a hit, but you still hit the most important breakpoints. Your stats with this setup are 40 Strength, 30 Dexterity, 50 Wisdom and 42 Perception
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
Reviewed by Yaen and Tenkiei