Sword and Shield Greatsword Solo Guide

Introduction

Welcome to our Sword and Shield Greatsword solo guide. In this guide, we’ll go over our recommended way to set-up the Sword and Shield Greatsword weapon combination for Solo Farming. This set-up is primarily used in Abyss Dungeons in the Open World.

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 defensives and Greatsword Skills.

Skill Specializations

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

These particular Specializations provides a comfortable set-up for farming mobs in large quantities. Your survivability allows for massive pulls and the Greatsword brings 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 30 Wisdom while farming – gear depending. Below is our recommended baseline Stat allocation:

Dexterity – 22 Points
Wisdom – 13 Points
Strength – 12 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.

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.

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.
Green Ranger Elowen – Green Ranger can help bind and blast down packs of mobs due to the increased Critical Hit.

How to Play The Sword and Shield Greatsword Solo Build

Our Sword and Shield Greatsword Solo 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, as a Tank, handling the damage of multiple targets and provoking them is your strong point! As a result, this build heavily focuses on gathering many mobs and clearing them fast with defensives and a “spin to win” playstyle.

Skill Rotations

The standard large pack pull rotation is as follows:

Buff yourself with DaVinci’s Courage
Use Willbreaker to weaken the mobs in AoE
Provoking Roar to taunt the mobs and activate Spectrum of Agony
Gaia Crash (Frost Cleaving)
Annihilating Slash
Devastating Tornado (Ice Tornado)

The above rotation is simple to pull off and is quite forgiving. The most important thing to keep in mind is to save your Strategic Rush for after the rotation is over. This is because you’ll reduce the cooldowns of all your rotation thanks to the “Morale Boost” Passive. Most packs of mobs in the game, especially in Abyss Dungeons only require 1-2 of this rotation to clear them all. Finally, try to hold onto your defensives for dangerous situations where you may have over-pulled.