Condi Rev Test: I waste gold so you don’t have to!
Since the release of HoT and raids, I’ve periodically encountered people asking about Condi Rev for instanced PvE. It’s always very easy to explain the theory of why it would be bad: Condi Rev’s main sources of condition damage are 1) Torment, which only does appreciable damage to moving enemies, and 2) Burning, from a fire field which only achieves maximum effect if the enemy stands in it. Self-defeating! Additionally, a Condi Rev can spam Confusion, which doesn’t do much to mobs because they don’t use skills as often as players. In other words, Condi Rev was designed around PvP.
Still, there could remain some curiosity about the numerical facts. Is it truly bad? How bad is it? Is there any situation in which it might become viable? Never fear, I am here to sort of answers these questions!
Standard caveats: I am not a PvE hero, so secondarily this means that this was kind of expensive for me, but primarily it means: 1) I may make mistakes in rotations, 2) I only ran a few tests — much of the optimization was through theory-crafting.
- You’re over duration cap on Burning/Poison. This is not a question, but yes. The problem is that you’re trying to cap Torment, which has 33% through traits. Everything else is higher. You could get a 30% Burning rune, but those are Power-based. Mace is such a wet-noodle weapon that power investment is bleh. Everything except Torment has a rune, and Torment duration is your limiting reagent here. It’s the reason for a lot of the gear choices.
- Why Balthazar? To cap Burning. The only other feasible way would involve Sigil of Smoldering and some other Rune, none of which are Condi Damage primary (reducing Torment damage). I didn’t come up with anything better than Balthazar, but I could certainly be wrong.
- Why Sigil of Earth? There aren’t many good choices. The next best bet would be Sigil of Torment, at which point it’s a question of 8.25 seconds of Bleed every 2 seconds vs. 10 seconds of Torment every 5. If your target is moving or you’re fighting a group, Torment probably wins out. The biggest issue, however, was 18g vs. 3s.
- Why Venom Enhancement? It’s the only dps trait in that tier. It also lets you cap Poison, which isn’t much, but free 50% duration is still free 50% duration. (By the way, no, Sigil of Blight still sucks.)
- Why Bolstered Anguish? See above.
- Why Invocation over Devastation? Tested both; Invocation did about 9-10% more damage (it’s mostly the Fury bonus). Devastation gives you nice Power damage bonuses but, again, Mace hits like a toilet-paper tube.
- Why the Staff? In case your group is desperate for hard CC. I did not actually make a Viper’s Staff.
- (Some other question.) Feel free to ask in reply.
The Rotation
There is technically a rotation, but I’m not going to write out a zillion steps, so just treat it as a priority system with regular legend-swaps. Basically, you go:
Glint
Facet of Elements -> Elemental Blast
and
Mallyx
Embrace the Darkness
In between swaps it’s four skills with this priority:
1. Searing Fissure (Mace 2)
2. Echoing Eruption (Mace 3 — if you can land multiple hits)
else Temporal Rift
3. Temporal Rift (Axe 5 — unless Mace 3 will only hit once)
else Echoing Eruption
4. Auto-attack chain
I found interrupting the AA chain for Searing Fissure to be a dps gain. I found interrupting the chain for other skills to be roughly neutral, or possibly a dps loss. In other words, the auto-attack chain sucks.
Popping your Mallyx heal to activate the Balthazar 6 bonus may be a dps gain, but bear in mind that your rotation is very Energy-intensive, so popping your heal on cd in Mallyx could run you out of Energy you’d need to use a better skill. I tried using the heal on two tests and it did not produce noticeable improvement.
The Test
All tests used four boons: 25 Might, Fury, Quickness, +1
All tests used Alacrity, as well as standard buffs (Warrior, Druid (2 GotL)). Golems had 25 Vulnerability.
I tested both stationary and mobile golems. As you know, once you pick mobility, it defaults to 1M HP and you can’t switch it, this means stationary golem dps is probably more reliable. All results are the average of multiple tests.
The Results
Stationary 4M HP: 17,107 DPS
Moving 1M HP: 18,232 DPS
Large hitbox 4M HP: 18,279 DPS
I was regularly keeping up 10+ Burning, 30+ Torment (high 20s to low 40s), 5-6 Poison, and 3-4 Bleed (ok, maybe Earth isn’t any good). After my food ran out I tried dropping Herald for Devastation and running Jalis (for Hammers) as the other Legend. There was no significant gain over pre-food tests with Herald.