Since we've got new faces coming into PvP, the coPvP channel, and the Hero Game's forums (yay! love new players), and many of them have questions on builds, I decided to put this together (and unlike Lady E's guides, this one is actually useful).

First, this guide is not going to be every possible build that is good for PvP. For example, I'm not going to give you Darkened Might's wtfbbq BASH-dueling build or Xeno's old lolsaw build even though I'm really familiar with them and how they work. I'm not even going to give complete builds. Instead, this guide is about giving players the starting point for a number of different builds all of which work very well in PvP. My hope is that from these frameworks, players will be able to come up with their own touches to make the builds their own.

THE TANKS

Defiant Tank
Superstats: CON/STR (bricks) or CON/DEX (martial arts)
Powers:
Defiance
Energy Shield w/ laser knight
Inertial Dampening Field
Unbreakable
Masterful Dodge
Bountiful Chi Resurgence w/ Resurgent Reiki
Resurgence
Conviction

This is a pretty easy build to start with. Just pick one or two attacks to go with all the defenses. You'll usually have time to think about what your doing since nothing (except Eve) is going to one shot you.

One thing to note about this build, you don't want to run BCR all the time as it kills DPS. Instead, it's part of the Masterful Dodge - BCR combo that will heal you to full when you get into the middle of a scrum.

One other thing. If you want to superstat something other than CON, you can replace Defiant with Invulnerable. This actually makes you effectively immune to pets and most munitions attacks, while making you more vulnerable to spike attacks.

Dodge Tank
Superstats: DEX/INT
Passive: Lightning Reflexes
Bountiful Chi Resurgence w/ Resurgent Reiki
Parry w/ Elusive Monk
Molecular Self Assembly
Masterful Dodge
Evasive Manuevers
Form of the Master w/ Storm's Eye Prana
Eye of the Storm

This is a step up in difficulty to play since you're going to have to keep BCR up all the time manually. However, when you get used to it, you can have two stacks of BCR running in most fights healing you every time you dodge, and you will dodge a lot. This is hands down one of the hardest to kill toons in PvP, but it's also one of the lowest DPS since you're running a defensive passive and BCR all the time.

You can substitute Quarry for Lightning Reflexes and get a jump up in DPS while only sacrificing some defense.

Bubble Tank
Superstats: CON/PRE
Passive: Aura of Primal Majesty
Protection Field
Mindful Reinforcement w/ Revitalizing Boost
Conviction
Resurgence

This is the hardest of the tanks to play well because you are constantly needing to keep MR refreshed and PF almost as much. You also have no built-in damage mitigation and instead are going to be counting on effectively having 14-18k worth of shields and hitpoints between you and death along with the ability to always have the energy be able to refresh MR in the face of an enemy.

This framework actually has the most flexibility of any of the tank-ish builds I'm listing. It can DPS if you add enrage and gear for STR. It can heal fairly well. It can take on more active defenses and get even harder to kill. And, since it's SS PRE with AoPM, it makes all your teammates significantly better just by being near them.

SQUISHIES

Squishies are harder to play than tanks. They can also be frustrating as there are a whole host of builds that can one-shot squishies. The flip side is that unlike tanks, you'll rarely see your targets escape. Either they die, or you die.

All of these builds require at least one, and usually more, active defenses. Unbreakable is a good choice as is Masterful Dodge. However, even though they are called "defenses" they are part of your offense. You should pop your defenses when you attack to make sure your target doesn't kill you before you kill them. Trying to save them for "emergencies" just means you never use them as you're dead before they ever activate.

PA Spiker
SS INT and CON or END or STR or whatever
Passive: Electric form
Energy builder: electric bolt or sonic blaster NOT WRIST BOLTERS (they take forever to get started)
Concussor Beams
Chest Beam
Molecular Self Assembly

This is such a flexible build because technology gives you a ton of options for stuff to stick with your core attacks. Toss in a couple active defenses and as many cooldown powers as you want to feed MSA and you're set. The key to fighting will be hitting your target with concussors and while they're shoving the target away, fully charging up chest beam. Does bad things to other squishies and really, really annoys tanks.

Spammer
SS END and whatever
Passive: Electric form
Energy builder: electric bolt
Gigabolt
Lightning Arc
Ionic Reverberation
Hurl with Crippling Strike and Nailed to the Ground

This build is near and dear to my heart. As for playing it, full charge gigabolt then spam gigabolt taps. With SS End and multiple targets, Ionic Reverb will actually increase your energy as you fight making gigabolt into a 100' AoE energy builder. Against dodge tanks and PvE bosses, Lightning Arc is your friend as it doesn't get dodged and does outstanding DPS.

The Spammer build can be tweaked to any of the big hitting ranged attacks. Just replace electric form with the matching damage type (ie Shadow Form and Ebon Ruin or Fiery Form and Defile). Each of the different big hits provides different advantages. As mentioned, gigabolts can be spammed almost forever. Ebon Ruin wrecks healing. Defile does the most damage on tap.

Primal Spiker
SS STR/INT
Passive: Aura of Primal Majesty
Enrage
lots of active offenses (fire sheath, elec sheathe, etc)
Force Cascade or Gigabolt or Defile or Ebon Ruin for ranged

The primal spiker build can hit much harder than the spammer builds. However, it takes time to build enrage stacks which means your damage is suboptimal for approximately four minutes after getting defeated (or watching a really long cutscene in a mission). The build also requires you to maintain enrage which gets a bit tiresome since ranged attacks are sorely lacking in enrage maintain effects.

Primal Melee
SS STR/DEX
Passive: Aura of Primal Majesty
Form of the Tempest
Dragon's Wrath or Dragon's Claws
Mighty Leap w/ Nailed to the Ground and Crippling Challenge
Inexorable Tides w/ Instep Crush

This is an excellent high DPS build since extreme DEX means more criticals, and extreme STR/DEX gives maximum boost to forms. It is also insanely squishy since you have to get to melee range and you have only 5000 or so hit points and no defense once you get there. You can add laser knight or elusive monk, but doing so will lower your DPS.

The fun in this build is wrecking tanks with dragon's wrath or wrecking everything else with claws before you die. Cuz, you will die. A lot.

HEALERS

While most PvP toons end up with a decent amount of self-healing, that doesn't make healers useless. In fact, as anyone who's ever tried to kill Raza or Ironclad in Stronghold when Medikipz or Mobs is backing them can attest, healers are a major force multiplier in team PvP games.

My two suggested frames are also really similar since the decision usually comes down to better heals (Seraphim) or better shields (Primal). Primal is good anti-spike in order to make sure your teammates live long enough for you to heal them. Seraphim is good anti-sustained as it heals much better.

Primal (bubble) healer
SS PRE/CON
Passive: Aura of Primal Majesty
Iniquity (best heal in the game except it slowly kills you)
Palliate (because you really want other players in Stronghold to hate you)
Protection Field
Mindful Reinforcement with Revitalizing Boost
Arcane Vitality (for when you want to heal without killing yourself)

A good bubble healer is also a fairly decent tank with no DPS. They can also turn any of their teammates into a tank by constantly refreshing the bubbles on them.

Seraphim healer
SS PRE/CON
Passive: Seraphim
Iniquity
Palliate
Protection Field
Mindful Reinforcement with Revitalizing Boost
Illumination
Celestial Conduit

Okay, first off I'm well aware of all the arguments about why Illumination sucks. However, for a primarily support toon, you're going to have powers to spare so you might as well, and it allows chaining of your conduit.

Also, even though the bubbles aren't quite up to the level of the Primal healer, they are still worth taking. Heck, if you can sneak them into any build they're okay as a bit of extra defense.

Revitalizing boost, depending on the rest of your build, may not be necessary; you can manage quite good energy management on an AoPM build, and it makes a difference of several hundred points of shields. You're also horribly vulnerable to crowd control and really high spike damage.

Heh. I made it a point to say that these builds were by no means complete or absolute. They're a good starting point.

I like revitalizing boost, even in energy efficient builds simply because I like knowing I'll have the energy to replace it non-stop when under attack by multiple enemies.

And all non-defensive passive builds are horribly vulnerable to crowd control and spike damage.

I would point out that Aura of Radiant Protection is also quite solid; your healing isn't quite as good as a primal healer and is quite a bit weaker than the seraphim build, but the mitigation bonus is substantial. Also, inertial dampening field is perfectly useful on healers.

For all builds, it's worth pointing out the virtue of sigils. Sigils hurt your mobility, but if you can get your enemies to fight in your sigils, they're a huge advantage (or, in the case of arcane sigils, might just instagib your foes). Arcane and primal sigils scale with (ranged) damage bonuses, so they're best for enrage tanks and ranged squishies, ebon and radiant scale with presence and are popular with healers. Conversely, a pvp tactics post might point out the virtues of not fighting in enemy sigils...

Thanks a lot for this, hope it gets stickied. I was curious about the PA Spiker and how it worked, and thanks to you I know!

Malware's Heavy Weapons Giant Mecha PvP Build

Nice post Xavori. (see I spelled it right)

I can see that Trouble is about 2 powers short of your Defiance tank set up. I really like Evasion + stealth, even on the Defiance build.

I have my own Force Cascade Spiker at 33 now, am trying something not on your suggestions though.

thanks for the info Xavori :-)