Greatsword Staff Solo Build Guide

Introduction

Welcome to our Greatsword Staff solo build guide. In this guide, we’ll go over our recommended way to set-up the Greatsword Staff weapon combination for Solo Farming. This set-up is primarily used in Abyss Dungeons in the Open World. The weapon combination forms the “Sentinel” Class.

Skills

Below is our Skill set-up for Solo PVE farming:

This combination of Skills allows for large mob pulls and plans to AoE everything down with Fire & Lightning Skills and Greatsword Skills. You also have the joys of Crowd Control at your disposal.

Skill Specializations

With 100 total points to play with once you hit Level 50, below is our recommended Specializations for the Greatsword Staff Solo build:

These particular Specializations provides a comfortable set-up for farming mobs in large quantities. This allows for massive pulls as the Staff and Greatsword bring consistent AoE damage. See our Skill Specializations guide for more information.

Weapon Mastery

This guide assumes you are at least in the range of Level 13-16 Weapon Mastery. However, if you’re below this threshold, it’s not an issue. Simply spec into the mastery trees that provide the most damage first.

Stats

Stats once you reach Tier 1 Epic gear can vary frequently due to stats built into gear. As a result, try to push for at least 60 Strength and 60 Perception with the stat distribution below – gear depending. Below is our recommended baseline Stat allocation:

Dexterity – 12 Points
Perception – 19 Points
Strength – 18 Points

However, seeing as we’re farming PVE, you can take all the points out of Perception and move them into Dexterity and Wisdom for more Max Damage.

Gear & Equipment

The gear loadout largely, if not entirely, stays the same across all content once you reach Tier 1 Epic. Our Tier 1 Epic set assumes that most of the base content has been unlocked with the Milestones completed.

Early on, make use of your Rare gear you acquired through MSQ. It is totally fine and expected to be in Rare gear for quite a long time – so don’t worry too much! Most of the time, your PVP gear is perfectly fine in PVE.

Archboss weapons are a bonus. However, you do not require them. As a result, do not worry too much about obtaining them!

For progression gear and the basic 1-50, check out our leveling guide.

Guardian

Guardians are a unique transformation on a 10 minute Cooldown that gives powerful bonuses to you for 30 seconds. Some Guardians work as an additional “Active” Skill, while others provide buffs. We recommend the following Guardians for Solo Farming:

Shade Revenant Stheno – Stheno is the most offense-heavy choice in PVE. This Guardian dishes out consistent damage dealing projectiles to multiple targets.

How to Play The Greatsword Staff Solo Build

Our Greatsword Staff Solo build guide not only aims to teach you how to put it together, but also how to play it.

The main objective of playing this build solo is to be able to manage multiple mobs alone and efficiently clear them. Fortunately, with a mix of ranged cleave attacks and melee Crowd Control plus AoE/cleave, clearing Abyss Dungeon mobs is straight forward. The standard approach to playing this weapon combination is to use your ranged rotation and then move in to clean up with your melee Skills.

Skill Rotations

The standard large pack pull rotation is as follows:

High Focus
Serial Fire Bombs (Focused Fire Bomb – Fully Charged)
Judgment Lightning
Chain Lightning
Devastating Smash
Willbreaker
Gaia Crash (Frost Cleaving)
Valiant Brawl (Cruel Smite)
Guillotine Blade (Charged)
Inferno Wave x2 if re-procs

This rotation makes the most of ranged pulling and cleaving down targets. Sometimes, you’ll kill your targets before they even reach you. However, in Abyss Dungeons, the mobs are quite tanky. As a result, once they get into a clumped up pile, use your AoE Stun, Devastating Smash followed by the melee combo above to nuke mobs in AoE.