Guild Wars 2

I don’t think that the changes to condi dmg will make it meta, but I can see a rise of hybrid dmg.
A mix of zerker/sinister maybe.
Or are the fights too fast for any condi to be viable?
Would the bosses/elites/champs change to accommodate the changes to condi dmg?

Looks like the best dps for pve could become more of a mixed set.
The thing is where is the min-max point going to be?
How much condi dmg, how much power and crit dmg?
Will it be a new set with power/condi dmg/crit dmg?

Personally I think it could be nice to get a bit more room for different sets for different classes. Classes with more conditions on their skills (engi, ele) can get more condi dmg for increased dps…

The only class which will may use a sinister like armour set in pve groups will be engineer.
I have no idea why the hell you would mix sinister with zerk for ele, I mean since staff is the meta in pve groups your damaging conditions are burning and bleeding from icebow

I doubt mix will be best, either you’re gonna use condi damage or you aren’t going to focus on it.

As Painbow said, Engi is quite likely. Mesmer might see some use? other than that I doubt it.

Warrior has a solid condi damage but with the strength of Phalanx Strength I can’t see them giving that up to gain what might be more personal DPS if the fight lasts long enough.

Ele has so much power damage that I can’t see them using Sinister.

I think a good litmus test would be “which professions utilize conditions in solo situations currently?” Those will be the ones that might gain from Sinister builds…of course Sinister in itself is pretty hybrid with a focus on power and condition damage.

They said in the blog post the break point for conditions doing decent damage is 700, which is 23-24 stacks of Might for someone with 0 Condition Damage. Elementalists have pretty good Burning application, especially with stuff like Burning Speed being multi-hit. One thing to consider is that Condition Duration consumables and rune-set bonuses are over-budget as heck, so it might be worth getting to +100% Condition Duration for Burning at the very least since it’s pretty easy to do so. It might end up being more damage instead of an “equivalent” amount of Power, Precision or Ferocity.

Nokaru.7831:

They said in the blog post the break point for conditions doing decent damage is 700, which is 23-24 stacks of Might for someone with 0 Condition Damage. Elementalists have pretty good Burning application, especially with stuff like Burning Speed being multi-hit. One thing to consider is that Condition Duration consumables and rune-set bonuses are over-budget as heck, so it might be worth getting to +100% Condition Duration for Burning at the very least since it’s pretty easy to do so. It might end up being more damage instead of an “equivalent” amount of Power, Precision or Ferocity.

Even with the reworks to burning, elementalist will still only be able to use burning and bleeding innately, and I don’t see them being able to stack either fast or consistently enough. Even mesmer gets torment, confusion, burning, and bleeding and ways to maintain it much longer over time provided illusions don’t die.

Maybe Nemisis hybrid necro build will be the new meta, and Nemisis will finally get his revenge against the zerk elitists and DnT theory crafters.

Maybe it’ll make sense to run Koi Cakes instead of Truffle Steaks on engineers and some other classes? Not too sure if it’ll be worth the $$$$ going fully into Sinister gear.

I haven’t done any math or anything at all :P

Engis should already be using koi cakes or spicy beans for that extra duration on vuln. Truffle steaks only when your party is absolutely capping vuln 24/7.

I’ve got high hopes for Revenant being good as a hybryd character. It seems like it will be in a similar vein to engi with a “do a little bit of everything” type of character.

Only engineer as it stands could potentially be good as a hybrid build.

i think that well see a new hybrid meta for sure but not just condipower hybrds

anet is defintely startin to make trinty play more viable by adding tank agro mecanics like taunt and venti heal revnent

this means that trinty parties will be better as they add more of this.

but. since theirs not strong agro or heal build type yet it will need to hae hybrid dps/tank and dps/heal

its excitin to see areanet making trinty happen in gw2 so we can play how we want instead of stuk with meta alway

Sinister is basically pure condi as much as it is hybrid. There isnt really a gearset which isnt technically a hybrid. Unless you count dire and rabid. A real pure condi set would be condi dmg, condi duration and precision/boon duration.

But no i doubt people will build “hybrids”. They will build power or condi. And that will be berserker or assassin for power. And sinister or a new fully offensive condi set for condi builds.

Ramp up time of condi builds makes it unlikely that condis will become meta in speedruns. But they could become a staple pick for fractals and casual runs.

Hybrids will never work. Let me explain why.

The weapons that apply the best condis: (necro scepter, warrior sword, engineer grenade kit, ranger axe) all have terrible direct damage coefficients per second. This means that if you take stats away from condition damage on them to buff direct damage you are losing sigificant DPS because the weapon does 80% of it’s damage from conditions.

Conclusion: hybrid will never be good. Either condi builds are viable in which case Pure condi will be run, or condi builds are not viable and full berserker are run. Or both are viable and either can be run. A mix will never work so long as the weapons themselves are biased towards one type of damage or the other.

Fights in fast dungeons will likely stay zerker, while fights in fractal and other places where bosses has a significant health pool could see a full condi meta.

But then someone will likely find a exploitable tactic that works everywhere for a bit when the new classes, skills and items are released.

NikeEU.7690:

Hybrids will never work. Let me explain why.

The weapons that apply the best condis: (necro scepter, warrior sword, engineer grenade kit, ranger axe) all have terrible direct damage coefficients per second. This means that if you take stats away from condition damage on them to buff direct damage you are losing sigificant DPS because the weapon does 80% of it’s damage from conditions.

Conclusion: hybrid will never be good. Either condi builds are viable in which case Pure condi will be run, or condi builds are not viable and full berserker are run. Or both are viable and either can be run. A mix will never work so long as the weapons themselves are biased towards one type of damage or the other.

Actually there might be one exception. Dhuumfire DS camping reaper may be the only working hybrid. But we may still find that even with dhuumfire, berserker is still better.

ForeverAway.5948:

its excitin to see areanet making trinty happen in gw2 so we can play how we want instead of stuk with meta alway

Two things are buging me on this statement. First: How will “Waiting for an tank or healer” be a good way to play how we want. Lets face it, it will be a forced trinity or the “normal” dmg to kill in a few seconds thing. Second: Meta will be Meta, you connot get rid of it. Now its "zerker"meta. If trinity comes in a forced way, it will be "trinity"meta. It is like saying “i do not like jack russel because of the dog-part, so i switch to german sheepherd”.

i never said force metatrinty

it will be optional but more encuraged by design. zerk can still do fight but it wil b more hard. all the new tank and heal builds in HoT are bc the new fight will be complex and benefet from having tank and heal hybrid with dps

u can still zerk but most will hybrid for survive because HoT will be more hard than gw2 now

it s about play how u want with choices

and german sheepherds are WAY bettr than jack russles

I already run full sinister trinkets on my engi and have zerk, cele, sinister ascended armor depending on what I wanna run. I don’t care if it’s super meta but if it’s good enough to be in a casual run that’s fine by me. Currently running pistol sword cuz I PHIW.