Playstyle Overview
Gunde is a cooldown based Melee DPS who deals roughly half his damage directly with abilities. The other half is dealt through Rend, a damage over time bleed effect that he applies with his abilities and uses as a resource to deal even more damage based on the amount of Rend stacks on his target(s). Rend stacks accumulate and fall off gradually, making timing and sequencing quite important to play Gunde well.
Rend, Slaughter & Exsanguinate
As stated in the overview, Gunde applies Rend with his abilities. These Rend stacks are useful for 2 things beyond just doing passive damage over time. Firstly they can be consumed with Slaughter, which is an AoE slam that hits everything around Gunde.
Slaughter removes all Rend stacks from targets hit and turns them into a 3 second damage over time effect that does 160% of the total Rend damage on the target. Secondly it can be exsanguinated by Heart Splitter which is a single target strike that does a large flat hit followed by the exsanguinate effect which does 30% of the total Rend damage to the target without consuming it.
Rotation and Cooldown Usage
The main thing to pay attention to while playing Gunde is managing the cooldown and sequncing of his 4 main rotational abilities, Grim Carve, Heart Splitter, Blood Arc and Reaver's Edge. Grim Carve is usually the priority in AoE situations with 3 or more targets. And Heart Splitter is, in single or dual target situations. Meaning that the buff from Blood Arc should be aimed at buffing either of those 2 abilities as much as possible. Reaver's Edge is more of a filler, and should mostly just be used if nothing else is available.
Bloodbound Spirit is Gunde's spirit ability, it calls fourth a raven that circulates dealing 4 large ticks of damage over 6 seconds and applies half of that damage dealt as Rend. It also increases Grim Carve and Heart Splitter damage by 15% for 20 seconds along with granting the spirit of heroism haste buff. You'll want to use Bloodbound Spirit in combination with Reign In Blood, Slaughter and Rupture.
Gunde's major abilities are Reign In Blood and Slaughter. Reign In Blood makes direct ability damage apply an additional 50% of the damage dealt as Rend, allowing for a large amount of Rend buildup which can then be exsanguinated with Heart Splitter or consumed with Slaughter.
Rupture is Gunde's other power ability, but it is used more like a major ability. It does a massive amount of direct damage and applies half of that as Rend, it also applies a debuff called open wounds to the target for 18 seconds, increasing the next Slaughter's damage by 20% against that enemy. Meaning Rupture should be used if Slaughter is going to be pressed within 18 sec on the enemies.
Owed In Blood is an important mechanic to play around as Gunde, it has both a passive and an active component to it. Passively it gives Rend ticks a chance to drop a feather based on the amount of targets affected by Rend, with a higher chance at lower targets. Along with giving enemies that die with Rend on them a 25% chance to drop a feather. Picking up blood feathers grants a stack of Owed In Blood up to a cap of 150, which can be consumed by the active part of Owed In Blood to apply Rend stacks equal to the amount of stacks consumed. You'll want to save your stacks to combine Owed In Blood with both Rupture and Slaughter always, and save as many stacks as possible for overlapping with Bloodbound Spirit as well.
Fated Strike, the weapon ability granted by Fateful Arms grants cooldown acceleration for 6 seconds. During this window it is extremely important that we focus on using as many priority Rotational abilities as possible. Those being Grim Carve, Blood Arc and Heart Splitter at low target count.
Gunde Priority Lists
Base Priority:
- Rupture priority target (if fighting more than 3 targets to avoid consuming the Blood Arc buff with it)
- Blood Arc for the serrated edge buff with Rupture, Grim Carve or Heart Splitter available the next global
- Rupture the priority target if you will Slaughter it within 18 seconds
- Grim Carve
- Reaver's Edge (3+ taragets)
- Heart Splitter
- Reaver's Edge
- Double Strike
Notes:
Slaughter should be used after all main available rotational cooldowns are used, especially Heart Splitter, as exsanguinate's benefits greatly from having Rend stacks on the target. On single target, Slaughter can be saved for up to 10 seconds for having open wounds from Rupture on the target, but in AoE situations you don't want to hold Slaughter more than a few seconds.
If you're playing a Heart Splitter focused build with Oathshatter then Heart Splitter should always be prioritized over Grim Carve no matter the target count.
If you're playing a build with the Carnage talent then make sure that Heart Splitter is on cooldown before using Grim Carve at one or two targets. And Blood Arc is on cooldown at 3 targets and above to maximize the cooldown reduction from the Carnage talent.
Opener:
- Bloodbound Spirit if available
- Reign In Blood
- Rupture (3+ targets only)
- Blood Arc
- Rupture
- Grim Carve
- Owed In Blood + Heart Splitter (ignore if fighting more than 2 targets)
- Weapon Ability
- continue priority system above until Reign In Blood is over
- Owed In Blood (ignore if it was used above)
- Heart Splitter + Slaughter
Utility and Defensives
Outside of damaging abilities Gunde has a few useful Utility, Mobility and Defensive abilities.
Warbound - Leap a short fixed distance in the direction you're currently moving, has 2 charges. Use this to get out of harms way or maintain uptime.
Reckless Abandon - 40% damage reduction for 4 seconds on a 30 second cooldown. Use this to mitigate incoming damage.
Butcher's Hook - An instant pull effect that interrupts both interruptible and uninterruptible casts, however it does not work on cc immune enemies. The hook has a 30 second cooldown. Use this to move enemies and interrupt stunnable targets casts.
UI Import
Here's a link to my Gunde UI over on Wago - https://fellowship.wago.io/fDqs41Chm