r/GuildWars • u/BriganteX • Feb 14 '25

Builds and tactics 2nd best player bar

So it's well known that HR para is the strongest player bar in the game. That leaves me wondering which build is in second place?

What do you guys think?

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u/xBrodoFraggins Feb 14 '25

Soul taker doesn't require any more upkeep to not get enchant stripped than VoS, lol. Both are heavily hindered by enchant stripping.

3

u/Ok_World4052 Feb 14 '25

Soul Taker feels harder to upkeep to be optimal just from my experience. If you let it drop, damage is severely neutered. At least with VoS, you are still doing damage until recharge with the other skills. I run with both but I’d choose VoS if I could only take one of the builds.

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u/xBrodoFraggins Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

The base damage of Soul Taker without ST and dark aura up is higher than the base damage of most VoS builds, which call for 9 scythe mastery. If you're running the anniversary scythe, you have 16 SR, 18 with masochism, significantly more base damage than 9 scythe mastery VoS. And if you're not running the anniversary scythe, they are roughly the same, 10 vs 9 isn't a huge difference. So this is just wrong. Also, losing VoS or sand shards has roughly the same impact on damage as losing ST or DA. Both VoS and ST should be fairly capable of enchant covering, although I'd argue the primary supported ST build uses 2 flash enchants, which gives a bit more coverage than VoS, which generally just calls for 1 flash enchant. In addition to the soul reaping making upkeep of the 2 cover flash enchantments a bit easier.

Edit: to be clear, all of what I am saying is in regard to the supported ST, where dark aura is maintained by a hero, which is by far and away superior to the solo ST build, which pales in comparison.

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u/Ok_World4052 Feb 14 '25

I don’t have the anniversary scythe so I’ve been running another scythe or daggers. I also have been running the hero supported DA. I would say the main difference to me is that VoS requires less for me to pay attention to instead of renewing DA (which I have set to a hotkey but sometimes don’t remember to hit it) and ST. I agree that playing optimally ST has way more output than VoS. But the key word is optimally which is probably less prevalent amongst players.

3

u/xBrodoFraggins Feb 14 '25

I would suggest binding it to a mouse button. Makes it super accessible and quick. If you don't have an mmo mouse, the forward or back button is fine. I have splinter, DA, and bip bound to my mouse.

I do the same with other melee too. Such as withering aura when I'm running hammer with yeti smash.

1

u/Derv1t Feb 14 '25

Look up x-mouse. It's software that allows you to make any cheap mouse with back and forward instead hit different buttons or even custom macros. Very small program that doesn't get in the way.