Great Axe / Sword & Shield PvP Build

A durable brawler that has the one thing heavy struggles with, mobility. This is the perfect build for anyone who wants to dive right into the middle of a fight.

Having two gap closers, multiple hastes, and a Great Axe make this build surprisingly fast and good at hunting down a fleeing target. This build also has an incredibly good block mixed with tons of damage reduction, healing and fortify. In short, it can tank, and then spank.

A huge shoutout to Nyce Gaming for sharing this build with us all! You can check out his YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/@Nyce-Gaming

Since both weapons scale from STR the attributes are pretty strait forward. 200 STR gives this build some pretty decent damage and cover all the important STR damage jump points, especially since Great Axe is the damage dealer of choice and it scales quite well before 300 STR.

310 CON now gives this build access to GRIT during both light and heavy attacks, not to mention all the extra durability you get from all that health! Lots of healing items scale from your max health value so this also gives you better healing.

The resists of this build are pretty even, with a lot of damage being mitigated by the aversion perks on the armor.

Strength

• 50: +10% damage to melee physical basic attacks. +10% mining speed

• 100: +5% damage to melee slashing and strike damage. +20 encumbrance

• 150: +25% stamina damage from melee weapon light attacks. -10% decrease in weight of mined items

• 200: +10% damage on stunned, slowed, or rooted enemies. +10% mining speed

Constitution

• 50: All health consumables 20% stronger. +10% logging speed

• 100: Increase max health by 10% of your physical armor. -10% reduction on durability loss for tools

• 150: -10% to critical damage taken. -10% decrease in weight of logging items

• 200: +10% increase to physical and elemental armor. +10% Logging speed

• 250: -60% damage reduction when full health (60s cooldown). +10% yield increase when logging

• 300: Basic melee attacks gain GRIT. 25% chance to chop down a tree in a single swing

The Great Axe has perfect perks for this build, Thwarting Strikes + Attunement for damage and that huge weaken from Enfeebling Maelstrom for tanking! The Abyssal Gambit Runeglass gem adds more abyssal damage to this build, and is further enhanced by the Runeglass on the armor.

The Sword has great perks for tanking in Lifestealing and Refreshing Move. Nyce does mention that he would prefer Thwarting Strikes over Enchanted here too. The Runeglass should also be Abyssal Gambit instead! All the tower shield’s perks are huge for this build. Reducing block cost, access to more Fortify and that very powerful Accelerating Resolve perk.

The perks of choice on the armor are Freedom, Resilient, and either Physical or Elemental Aversion. Nyce also mentions that crippling reap is a great perk for offence, and Sturdy Energy on the chest helps a ton with Stamina sustain!

All of the armor has Runeglass gems that will increase abyssal damage, which helps increase the damage of all those abyssal procs on this setup!

The amulet has great tank perks on it, upping max health, healing and stamina sustain. The Ring also has great defensive perks in Hearty and Leaching for even more Lifesteal, and Slash Damage will increase the damage of almost all this builds moves! Finally Nyce has that BIS earing, Healthy Toast, Refreshing Toast and Regenerating.

Stoneform is the icing on the cake for this builds durability, offering more damage reduction, more healing, and even a quick escape from a stun!

You will need food to reach the jump points that this build requires, and don’t be shy to use a honing stone too! Remember to use both Health, Mana, and Regeneration Potions in PvP! Both the Oakflesh Balm and Gemstone Dust are great consumables to have slotted incase you need a bunch of extra resists.

Great Axe

Sword & Shield