Build

This article is about a character's setup. For other uses, see Build (disambiguation).

A build is a combination of profession, skills, traits, and equipment that allows a character to play a certain role in the game.

Most content in the game can be played with almost any combination of skills, traits, and equipment. Builds that are considered optimal for specific purposes are called "meta builds" by players. Such builds are shared and discussed on player-made websites. They may include "rotations", or a description of which skills should be used in which order to maximize damage output or efficiency.

Build types

Describing specific builds is beyond the scope of this article, as players' preferred builds change with every change to the game. Instead, this article presents a broad overview of build types and their role in specific game modes.

Offensive builds

Offensive builds (or "DPS" builds, for "damage per second") focus on dealing damage. Most builds are offensive builds.

The quality of offensive builds are often ranked in terms of their damage output in points per second and other considerations such as the difficulty of performing the rotation, optimal use cases, and their flexibility. As of August 2017, the builds with the highest DPS output were benchmarked to provide a sustained damage output of around 30,000 to 37,000 points per second under optimal conditions against an inert training golem.

Offensive builds come in two major varieties:

Power builds

Power builds focus on using skills that have high strike damage or hit multiple times. These builds often have a very high initial burst and their damage will spike occasionally throughout the fight when their main source of damage comes off cooldown. The most important attributes for these types of builds are power, precision (critical chance) and ferocity (critical damage).

The following equipment attribute combinations are often associated with these types of builds:

• Berserker's (Power / Precision / Ferocity)
• Marauder's (Power / Precision / Vitality / Ferocity)
• Assassin's (Precision / Power / Ferocity)

Condition builds

Condition builds (or condi builds for short) focus on using skills to apply as many damaging conditions on an enemy as possible, often over 20 stacks within a few seconds. Unlike power builds, these types of builds deal damage over time and therefore have low damage at the start that gradually ramp up as conditions get applied. The most important attributes for these builds are Condition Damage and Expertise (condition duration), and to a smaller extent Precision (because they often use traits that apply conditions upon a critical hit) and Power (because the skills do a small bit of damage).

The following attribute combinations are often associated with these types of builds:

• Viper (Power / Condition Damage / Precision / Expertise)
• Trailblazer (Toughness / Condition Damage / Vitality / Expertise)
• Sinister (Condition Damage / Power / Precision)
• Rabid (Condition Damage / Precision / Toughness)
• Rampager (Precision / Power / Condition Damage)
• Carrion (Condition Damage / Power / Vitality)

Defensive builds

Defensive builds focus on survivability and damage mitigation through maximizing the attributes Vitality and Toughness, combined with defensive skills and traits. They are often not very popular in PvE because skilled players can avoid most damage through positioning, dodging and using their skills.

These builds are popular in WvW due to the increased survivability.

The following attribute combinations are often associated with these types of builds:

• Minstrel's (Toughness / Healing Power / Vitality / Concentration)
• Nomad's (Toughness / Vitality / Healing Power)
• Soldier's (Power / Toughness / Vitality)

Healing and support builds

Healing builds focus on healing allies and preventing/reducing future damage and mainly focus on increasing Healing Power. Support builds primarily maintain useful boons and effects that can help boost the group's damage output and primarily focus on Concentration (boon duration). A dedicated healer or support role is not necessary or required to clear content, however having one can make things easier.

The following attribute combinations are often associated with these types of builds:

• Harrier (Power / Healing Power / Concentration)
• Magi (Healing Power / Precision / Vitality)
• Diviner (Power / Concentration / Precision / Ferocity)
• Commander's (Power / Precision / Toughness/ Concentration)

Hybrid builds

Hybrid builds are builds that have aspects of two or more of the above types of builds at the same time. Characters boosted to level 80 through a level 80 boost receive a set of exotic equipment with the Celestial attribute combination.

Almost all attribute combinations are hybrid. The following are the most commonly used:

• Marauder's (Power / Precision / Vitality / Ferocity) — A power damage and defensive hybrid
• Viper (Power / Condition Damage / Precision / Expertise) — A power and condition damage hybrid
• Grieving (Power / Condition Damage / Precision / Ferocity) — A power and condition damage hybrid
• Harrier (Power / Healing Power / Concentration) — A healing and support hybrid
• Diviner (Power / Concentration / Precision / Ferocity) — A power damage and support hybrid
• Minstrel's (Toughness / Healing Power / Vitality / Concentration) — A defensive, healing and support hybrid
• Trailblazer (Toughness / Condition Damage / Vitality / Expertise) — A defensive and condition damage hybrid
• Seraph (Precision / Condition Damage / Healing Power / Concentration) — A condition damage, healing and support hybrid
• Plaguedoctor's (Condition Damage / Vitality / Healing Power / Concentration) — A defensive, condition damage, healing and support hybrid
• Celestial (Power, Precision, Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage, Ferocity and Healing Power and concentration and expertise) — A jack-of-all-trades prefix

Build templates

Primary article: Template

Build templates are a tool that allow a character to switch between two or more builds quickly. A character can have 3 build and 2 equipment loadouts by default.

Build websites

Players have created websites to collect and rate builds. See the List of fansites for some of them.