Basics of Designing a GvG build - 30 May 2006
By Jonathan Sharp
At its core, Guild Wars GvG is a struggle over a few main resources—Hit Points, Energy, NPCs (archers, footmen, and bodyguards), flag control, and morale boosts. All GvG builds are designed to compete for these main resources, and to this end they utilize offensive, defensive, utility, and healing skills. Teams use offence to take away enemy hit points, and defence to protect their own hit points. Energy, NPCs, and utility aid friendly offensive and defensive measures through indirect means.
Most GvG builds include the five following components: offence, defence, utility, healing, and flag running.
Offence
When it’s all said and done, GvG is primarily about killing your opponents before they kill you. This may sound simple, but it means that a strong offence is absolutely essential to a successful GvG build. Your GvG builds must have enough defense to protect any Monks, but if your team pours too much into defence and not enough into offence, you will probably lose the battle. A highly defensive build may be able to outlast enemy attacks for a time, but offence will usually prevail in the long run.
The offensive aspects of most GvG builds can be broken down into one of three types—Spike, Pressure, and Degeneration—and may include elements of all three.
Spike
Spiking involves having one person, the “Caller,” call a target over a voice chat system such as Ventrilo or Teamspeak and then count down “3, 2, 1, spike!” At that cue, all team members attack the same target with damage skills or with Monk interrupt skills. This is where utility comes in. During a spike, a Mesmer may cast Gale 
or Blackout on an enemy Monk, rendering that Monk unable to heal his teammates.
Pressure
Pressure builds can spread damage to multiple targets, which keeps enemy Monks under an obligation to heal multiple targets. Pressure can be combined with spiking as well as degeneration, and most builds benefit from mixing different types of offence. Pressure is usually found in the form of Warriors, or any class that can dish out a substantial amount of DPS (damage per second).
Degeneration
There are two major types of degeneration in Guild Wars—Hex degeneration and Condition degeneration. When using Hex degeneration, make sure that your team has Hexes with very low recast times. 
This will allow you to “spam” the Hexes, and as soon as they’re removed, you can cast them again. Some of the most popular Hexing character builds include Necromancers with Life Siphon, Parasitic Bond, and Faintheartedness; or Mesmers with Conjure Phantasm, Migraine, and the new Factions skill Images of Remorse.
Condition spreading is powerful, because it creates chaos for your opponent. Skills like Martyr and Restore Conditions help to control Conditions, but a good Condition build can still overpower these elite skills if they are not used correctly. The three most common character builds to use to spread Conditions include a Sword Warrior with Sever Artery and Gash, a Ranger with Apply Poison or Melandru’s Arrow, or a Necromancer with Tainted Flesh
or Rotting Flesh.
Defence
Warrior Defence
Warriors offer the most sustained DPS in Guild Wars, so make sure that your build can defend against them. Some of the most useful and popular skills to use against Warriors include Ward Against Melee, Ward Against Foes, Aegis, and Blinding Flash, and Enervating Charge. Defensive Hexes such as Shadow of Fear, Faintheartedness, Blurred Vision, Ice Spikes, Deep Freeze, Spirit of Failure, and Price of Failure are also extremely useful.
Ranger Defence
Rangers don’t offer as much pressure damage as Warriors, but they have spiking and degeneration capabilities. To counter this, try using Shields Up!, Aegis, Blinding Flash, and Gale. Hard interrupts (meaning any interrupt that can stop both spells and skills, as opposed to a soft interrupt, which can only interrupt spells) like Cry of Frustration also afford a good chance to defend against Rangers.
Caster Defence
Casters can be used to spike just like Rangers. The most popular types of spiking builds include Necromancer Blood spikes and Elementalist spikes. Try countering these with Gale, Shock, Blackout, and Cry of Frustration. Keep in mind that most spike builds carry counters to these skills, such as using Ward of Stability
to counter Gale and Shock, and Mantra of Resolve to counter Cry of Frustration. By combining interrupts, Blackout, Diversion, Infuse Health, and Protective Spirit, you should have a strong line of defence against a spike build if you play correctly.
Utility
Enchantment Removal
There are many powerful Enchantments in Guild Wars, and dealing with them effectively is a key aspect of any build. Mesmers are essential for Enchantment removal, and most teams will carry Enchantment removal in the form of Drain Enchantment and Shatter Enchantment. A Guild Wars Factions skill that is starting to see some use in this area is the elite Mesmer skill Shatter Storm
. When using spike builds, you’ll want to ensure that the spiked target has no Enchantments; in this situation, the Necromancer skills Rend Enchantments and Gaze of Contempt are ideal.
Hex Removal
Hex removal is usually found in the skill sets of Monks and Mesmers. Holy Veil and Inspired Hex are popular Hex removal skills for Monks, and Mesmers use the Monk skill Remove Hex due to its quick recast. This skill is usually a slow cast for a Monk (it takes two seconds to activate), but coupled with the Mesmer Fast Casting skill, it is much easier to use. The Factions skill Expel Hexes controls Hexes extremely well and has found its way into many GvG builds.
Condition Removal
Martyr and Restore Conditions are both excellent choices for countering Conditions, but both require elite slots. The key non-elite skills that counter Conditions are Extinguish, Plague Touch, Draw Conditions, and Mend Ailment. It’s usually best to spread your Condition removal around so that multiple characters can assist in keeping Conditions under control.
Healing
Most builds rely on two primary Monks for healing. Boon Protectors, the Protection Monks that rely on the Monk skill Divine Boon
, are very powerful and are the Monk template of choice for most guilds. Once Monks are established within a build, skills such as Infuse Health, Heal Party, and Heal Other are spread out to other classes, most typically to Elementalist/Monks. Self heals can also be important, such as Troll’s Unguent for Rangers and Healing Signet for Warriors, as they take pressure off of the primary Monks and allow them to stay out of harm’s way.
Flag Running
Flag running is absolutely crucial for any GvG build. By controlling morale boosts, teams are able to renew their Resurrection Signets, giving them a huge advantage. A morale boost occurs if either team is able to hold the flag stand for two consecutive minutes. When a team receives a morale boost, all of their skills are recharged, and they get a 10% boost to Health and Energy as well as the aforementioned Signet recharge. The most popular versions of flag running characters have speed buffs and self heals. A sample of an excellent runner might be an Elementalist/Monk with spells such as Windborne Speed, Heal Party, and Healing Breeze. Some builds do not have a dedicated flag runner and instead share the responsibilities among multiple characters in the build.
Jonathan Sharp has been playing competitive online strategy games since Warcraft 2 and StarCraft. In Guild Wars, he has been a member of two top-5 ladder teams: Club G and Negative Zero. He recently worked as a multiplayer game designer for Stainless Steel Studios in Boston and has a B.A. in Philosophy. Currently, he’s pursuing two of his passions: game design and writing. Find him in-game as Chaplan Observant.
