Introduction

Welcome to our Sword & Shield Greatsword Build guide for Throne and Liberty. This guide focuses on the PVP set-up for Sword & Shield and how to play it. This weapon combination forms the “Crusader” Class.

Skills

Below are the Skills and Specializations we recommend for the Sword & Shield Tank Build in PVP. This includes Large Scale and Small Scale:

Large Scale PVP “Protector” (PVP Boss, GVG, Castle Siege)

The protector set-up focused around protecting your party and keeping them alive through buffs. The most important cooldown of this set-up is Blood Devotion, as a result of Blood Devotion providing insane survivability for the team.

Large Scale Specializations

With 100 total points to play with once you hit Level 50, below is our recommended Specializations for the “Protector” Sword & Shield Greatsword build for Large Scale PVP:

Every Specialization helps towards keeping yourself as hard to kill as possible, while protecting your teammates.

Small Scale PVP “Bruiser” (Arena, Dominion, Night PVP)

This set-up focuses on smaller scale skirmishes. As a result, you can play much more aggressively and look to combo enemy players for kills. Your largest kill source is Guillotine Blade.

Small Scale Specializations

For Small Scale, picking more single-target damage Specializations and selfish defensive Skills is the most efficient.

See our Skill Specializations guide for more information.

Weapon Mastery

This guide assumes you are at least in the range of 130+ Mastery Level. However, if you’re below this threshold, it’s not an issue. Simply spec into the mastery trees that provide the most damage/utility first.

Sword and Shield Mastery

Greatsword Mastery

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 Perception and 60 Strength while participating in PVP – gear depending. Below is our recommended baseline Stat allocation:

• Dexterity – 20 Points
• Wisdom – 13 Points
• Strength – 13 Points
• Perception – 3 Points

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.

We also recommend picking up Nirma’s Sword of Echoes. Finally, Queen Bellandir’s Languishing Blade is the ultimate S&S to obtain. However, it is incredibly rare, as a result, do not expect to see it for quite some time.

Tier 2 (T2) Talandre Gear

Tier 2 Gear is only obtainable from the Talandre Expansion patch onwards. The gear can reach level 12 and provides much stronger benefits than Tier 1 gear in Throne and Liberty. If you prefer PVE, this gear set-up is optimal as a Melee player or Tank to get the job done.

We recommend not worrying too much about Archboss Accessories or Nebula Accessories as they’re very rare and expensive.

Artifacts

The Artifact System is another source of power for your build that provides stats, an Active and a Passive. We have crafted a general starting point for players to use and adapt to their liking below:

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 PVP:

• Green Ranger Elowen – Green Ranger is the ultimate Guardian for a Sword and Shield player in the frontline. Once you’re deep into the enemy forces, activating Green Ranger Elowen Binds all nearby enemies. Also, the bound enemies have an increased Critical Hit Chance on them. As a result, this Guardian is a fantastic engage tool.

How to Play the Sword & Shield Greatsword Build

The Sword & Shield Greatsword build is heavily focused around frontline tanking in PvP and sports a “bruiser” gameplay style and a “protector” style. The build plays off of an incredibly high Health pool while dealing considerable amount of damage and Crowd Control.

Bruiser Rotation

The Bruiser variant of the build relies heavily on using combos that burst targets after crowd controlling them. As a result, you can use this rotation below (and even break it up into smaller bites if needed!):

• Precision Dash to engage
• Stunning Blow
• Gaia Crash (Frost Cleaving)
• Ascension Slash (to Prone the target)
• Guillotine Blade (Charged to full)
• Devastating Smash
• Piercing Attack
• Death Blow (Charged to full)
• Chain Hook
• Piercing Attack

While there is many moments any of these skills can be woven into a rotation, this general rotation is enough to catch out a player and lock them down. However, this combo can kill certain players too, due to the huge amount of damage you deal. The amount of damage you can deal as a tank with this build is far higher than expected.

It is important to note that you can also begin this rotation with Chain Hook and then Prone a target with Ascension Slash. This is due to Chain Hook binding the target once they reach you. Only pop your defensives when you’re about to take heavy damage or believe you’ll be a prime target.

Protector

Protector is much simpler to play, while also being massively impactful for your team. Your main priorities are:

• Peeling for your teammates that’re being harassed with Skills such as Strategic Rush or Chain Hook
• Slowing enemy clumps with Annihilating Slash
• Using your defensives on an engage, such as Blood Devotion to soak your teammates damage and tank it as your own
• Engaging with Devastating Smash

Your job is solely to soak damage, protect your teammates and engage for the team.

Finally, remember to time your Defensive Skill (your block) with enemies engaging on you. The chances are, you’ll defend a Fury Attack, giving you a shield and more survivability.

Conclusion

That Concludes our Sword & Shield Greatsword Build! For more Throne and Liberty content, news and guides, be sure to check out our Throne and Liberty Home Page