Guild Wars 2

so I was talking to Dub yesterday about condition soloing, and it had me thinking – if you’re using a condition build with rabid gear you’re tankier which means you can soak more boss hits, one of your condition weapons might be ranged, and conditions are always ticking even if you’re trying to evade a boss which means you never really lose damage uptime whereas with a power build if you’re trying to get away from damage you’re basically doing zero during that time. Also in the case of warrior, the might stacking is absolutely insane which means it doesn’t even matter that you don’t have a forceful greatsword equivalent.

when I was looking at my condition ticks too, when I had torment, burning and was reaching the bleed cap I had basically bypassed the berserker DPS I was capable of in that same solo setting.

now bearing this fact in mind – pugging. I don’t want to promote a generation of players rocking condi builds in pugs saying “hey this guy said it was good kitten you zerker elitists and then ragequitting their group” – but the DPS is on par with direct damage. since pugs normally do pretty bad damage, they’ll be using power builds if they go for a “tanky” build and their condition application is probably going to be all just as a side effect of them mashing skills rather than intentionally applying them – may it even be worth it going condi in a pug? you’ll basically be doing solo DPS, which is on par with your berserker DPS, except … you have more survivability.

also – condi is hella fun to play after playing power for so long.

shameless plug – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyanxgG4bX4 condi abomination solo

Im on another league, but I d like to share the folowinf: I started soloing somecontent few days ago. Just easy things so far… like ac story. I m still choosing my sprt shoes so I tried different classes. The smother run was with my minion condition necro…by far (just respec when dealing with structures).
On the other hand, no, even in a pug setting, conditions are not worthy ( my first toon was a condition thief, then a phantasm mesmer and then a condition necro… I tried hard)

I didn’t know this was, uh… revolutionary. I recall a condi necro rocking in his solo against lupi. Nobody cared. I recall myself doing well with condi necro against dungeon bosses in a solo setting… super easy and they were melting. Just have to see for yourself.
It’s not news that some classes with condi do fine damage.
But throwing the word “meta” around kinda made me raise my eyebrows.
And in pugs? Lal. Yeah, maybe just a necro…

Some issues…

1. Only like three professions have viable pve condi builds (warrior, necro, engineer)
2. even in mediocre pugs your bleeding and burning will get overwritten which wrecks your DPS.
3. Some bosses would suck to solo on condi (alphard)

But yes, condi warrior is pretty fun and OP for pve solos.

lol no. Solo’ing some bosses as a condi spec can be on par or maybe even better, but calling it a new meta and advertising it as PuG efficient is a stretch.

I thought non-condi spec players overriding condis was just some myth people spread around? I honestly have no idea how condis work in this game when multiple people are applying them

Hmmm. Well we know things like bleed work in a FIFO like manner, yes? Once you hit 25 bleeds, if you add a new bleed, it pushes the oldest bleed out of the stack. /shrug

Also, no clue on how damage is handled for “stacks in duration” conditions. (If you burn a mob, and then someone else burns it… how does it determine how much damage is dealt?)

Here’s a scenario:

• You put Burning on with your Warrior
• The heroic Staff Guardian comes along and uses Virtue of Justice
• Everyone applies their own burning, yours goes away.

Same with bleeds, they just go on in the order they are applied. You’ll be competing for bleed stacks with everyone else.

THIS IS WHY CONDITION DAMAGE BUILDS ARE NOT VIABLE IN GROUPS

I think in theory the higher ticking condition in case of burning or poison should be the one working on the target.
But I admit that I have absolutely no Idea how this is handled in case of bleed stacks for example. Might be first come first served, might be that stonger bleeds overwrite weaker, might be a combination of both.

As a sidenote: I am also not sure wether the two trait modifiers from rangers and guardians are factored in when it is determined which condition actually is stronger or if only the condition damage value is used.

Silberfisch.3046:

I think in theory the higher ticking condition in case of burning or poison should be the one working on the target.

Sadly, theory doesn’t account for much until tested (as much as some people might like to believe).

Silberfisch.3046:

But I admit that I have absolutely no Idea how this is handled in case of bleed stacks for example. Might be first come first served, might be that stonger bleeds overwrite weaker, might be a combination of both.

I don’t think that stronger bleeds overwrite weaker bleeds. Consider this: If stronger bleeds overwrite weaker bleeds, then if you have a world boss with let’s say 2-3 condi built players attacking it, then what happens when a non-condi specced player puts a bleed on the stack? Does it just not go in? Does it go in, then immediately disappear soon as one of the condi-specced players puts a bleed on the stack?

From observation of world bosses, you can see that even non-condition specced players will usually get a few bleed ticks in. This means they’re hanging out in the stack long enough to get ticked.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Silberfisch.3046:

I think in theory the higher ticking condition in case of burning or poison should be the one working on the target.

Sadly, theory doesn’t account for much until tested (as much as some people might like to believe).

Silberfisch.3046:

But I admit that I have absolutely no Idea how this is handled in case of bleed stacks for example. Might be first come first served, might be that stonger bleeds overwrite weaker, might be a combination of both.

I don’t think that stronger bleeds overwrite weaker bleeds. Consider this: If stronger bleeds overwrite weaker bleeds, then if you have a world boss with let’s say 2-3 condi built players attacking it, then what happens when a non-condi specced player puts a bleed on the stack? Does it just not go in? Does it go in, then immediately disappear soon as one of the condi-specced players puts a bleed on the stack?

From observation of world bosses, you can see that even non-condition specced players will usually get a few bleed ticks in. This means they’re hanging out in the stack long enough to get ticked.

I realized to late that you already posted the part about bleed stacks pushing older stacks out and replacing them (was still writing my comment while you posted yours). As I said I don’t know how they actually work and I have never tested it myself to that extreme.

As for the “in theory part” that’s why I wrote “it should”. I used the subjunctive for exactly that reason. I have no empirical value to back this up (though the wiki states the same).

Aside from that: As far as “viable” condition builds are concerned, wouldn’t thief be an option as well? With a dagger/dagger and pistol/dagger combination and the right utilities you gan generate a decent amount of bleed stacks, torment and poison. You do however lack burning, unless you get “lucky” on your steal.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Here’s a scenario:

• You put Burning on with your Warrior
• The heroic Staff Guardian comes along and uses Virtue of Justice
• Everyone applies their own burning, yours goes away.

I am pretty confident that’s not how it works. I’ve done a lot of testing with this, and I’m fairly confident that the strongest burn is applied first in the duration, then the second strongest, and so forth after that. Note that I don’t want to pretend this is 100% true and would want others to correlate this, but it is how it appears to function when I try to PvE condi because yolo. Poison also appears to function in this manner, while Torment functions like Bleeds (below).

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

Same with bleeds, they just go on in the order they are applied. You’ll be competing for bleed stacks with everyone else.

This is certainly true. Bottom level stacks are dropped in favor of top level stacks regardless of strength/duration, just like how Might application works.

From my experience the only time condi build is viable is when you can’t kite and avoid damage even with a ranged weapon. I don’t think there are many of such fights in the game so every condi build should be evaluated on individual basis. Generally speaking power builds will be better 99% of the time, even more so on classes that can’t sustain high condi dmg.

I often wondered about this concept.

Speaking with Spoj and the relating work done by Dub, Specifically Lupi solo’s. For whatever reason, You can wreck Lupi in phase 1 and 2? with condition and then power your way through with power for 3 and 4.

For what it is worth I think that in a SOLO situation Conditions can be very usefull and offer some very solid DpS. Allowing a constant flow of damage.

in a group setting? well we already know how that is…

so theory craft/thoughts….
in my personal opinion Warriors, thieves, Necromancers, and Engineers. are classes that can get away with a high damage condition spec. That in a SOLO situation can do on par damage with a power spec. I hear rangers don’t do to bad at it but i have only even played a power based one and dont know enough about it.

putting myself up as an example. If I were to be applying to a " high level PvE " guild and i sent a video of me soloing Arah 2 with a condi spec… would you be impressed? Or would it be one of those things that you would then ask for the power based one and then be amused??

(( random thoughts are random. I have multiple classes these days. the trait swapping on the fly kinda screwed me out of having mutiple toons with multiple specs. but thats just me being odd. ))))

Bleeds overwrite the oldest stacks. They work just like might stacks. Burn and poison should use the latest applicants condi damage but some people have reported strange behaviour with duration conditions.

The theoretical maximum dps 6/5/0/0/3 solo against a test dummy is around 7xxx dps. The theoretical maximum condition damage a 2/6/0/0/6 warrior with koi cakes, aristocracy runes and master tuning crystals is 6,768 dps. That does not take into account the direct damage which is probably around 1k per second, though I haven’t calculated that precisely.

This is why for long solos I expect condi builds will have kill times very very close, if not better, than berserker.

Here’s a scenario. Belka has almost 400k health, in a berserker party she takes 5 seconds.
Assuming one profession got 25 stacks of bleed, 5 torment, burning and poison on instantly, that’s 5x ~7k damage, resulting in 35k damage. Thats what a berserker warrior under same conditions deals with like 1/2 100b.

So yeah, conditions builds will never be viable in parties, not even in pugs.

Well you are all talking about damaging conditions, which we all know aren’t viable due to stack limitations, but how about non-damaging conditions?

Most pugs struggle with dodges. What if the new meta for pugs revolved around chilling all foes = 66% more cooldown = 66% less dodge required ?

@Ropechef: you would be surprised what certain guilds ask for entry requirements

Darox.8069:

Most pugs struggle with dodges. What if the new meta for pugs revolved around chilling all foes = 66% more cooldown = 66% less dodge required ?

Does this even work on mobs and bosses?

Dalanor.5387:

Darox.8069:

Most pugs struggle with dodges. What if the new meta for pugs revolved around chilling all foes = 66% more cooldown = 66% less dodge required ?

Does this even work on mobs and bosses?

That’s the beauty with this game, you have tooltips, dev comments, and what really happens. It’s three games in one!

Chill works from what I’ve seen but can’t apply long enough duration on the things that matter.

The problem with stuff like “just go rabid and run conditions if you can’t handle full zerk” is that:

1) The guys who would be running full zerk and tank traits (i.e. healshout warriors, AH guard, GS mesmer) etc. aren’t going to suddenly go “oh hey I have toughness now so I can go full DPS on everything else”, they’ll take the toughness and STILL take the tank traits. So you go from bad DPS to worse DPS.

2) The “conditions still tick when you dodge” thing isn’t wholly true because unless you’re way over the cap, you’re losing condition applications and thus not maintaining all your stacks. It may not happen immediately but you will lose conditions 2-3 seconds later and thus lose ticks. The two classes that can avoid this to an extent are engie and ele because they have very large bleed applications (Shrapnel Grenade and Eruption) that are gated by cooldown rather than how often you attack. The other two “heavy bleed” classes, the warrior and the necro, both have their bleed applications on their auto-attacks so the instant they stop auto-attacking, they start losing ticks.

That’s not to say conditions aren’t fun (sword warrior is actually pretty fun and although there’s no strict reason to take one, their bleed DPS actually puts them fairly close to raw axe DPS) but it’s probably not a solution for pug badness.

Most of necros long duration bleeds are on other skills other than the auto attack. The auto attack just increases the amount sustained. And necros get more bleed duration than any other class. So they are pretty much the best class for single target bleed damage.

spoj.9672:

Most of necros long duration bleeds are on other skills other than the auto attack. The auto attack just increases the amount sustained. And necros get more bleed duration than any other class. So they are pretty much the best class for single target bleed damage.

They’re best at something! Yay!
/pat

Darox.8069:

Dalanor.5387:

Darox.8069:

Most pugs struggle with dodges. What if the new meta for pugs revolved around chilling all foes = 66% more cooldown = 66% less dodge required ?

Does this even work on mobs and bosses?

That’s the beauty with this game, you have tooltips, dev comments, and what really happens. It’s three games in one!

Second this. Chill works beautifully against Arch Diviner in a pug setting. This is also why I vehemently refuse to play Fractal level 38.

Also, it may be a myth but when you chill Lupi, he kicks more and spawn less locusts. I cant vouch for the claim though.

Incidentally, this may not be what you originally had in mind but a Warrior in Zealot’s, Knight’s, or Soldier’s does MORE damage solo with a sword than an axe or a GS without WWA. That’s obviously because the bleed applications don’t scale based on stats at all (since you have no condition damage in zerker) so reducing your stats doesn’t affect the amount of bleed damage you deal.

What this means in practice is that if you’re half-assing it with a so-called “hybrid tank” build because you don’t want to go full zerker, you may actually be better off with a hybrid weapon (in the actual sense this time) like warrior sword, ranger SB, etc.

Iris Ng.9845:

Also, it may be a myth but when you chill Lupi, he kicks more and spawn less locusts. I cant vouch for the claim though.

I can ensure you that claim is made of kitten.

spoj.9672:

Most of necros long duration bleeds are on other skills other than the auto attack. The auto attack just increases the amount sustained. And necros get more bleed duration than any other class. So they are pretty much the best class for single target bleed damage.

Warriors would like to have a word with you.

hendo.1940:

spoj.9672:

Most of necros long duration bleeds are on other skills other than the auto attack. The auto attack just increases the amount sustained. And necros get more bleed duration than any other class. So they are pretty much the best class for single target bleed damage.

Warriors would like to have a word with you.

Hemophilia + Lingering Curse vs Deep Cuts

Lingering Curse ignores the 100% condition duration cap. So if you max condition duration necro can get 133% bleed duration vs 100% on warrior. But warriors have op base duration on sword. So i guess they are pretty equal. >.>

Lingering curse increase the default 4 second bleeds on scepter (and only auto, i guess), before every other modifier, so its not exactly 133%.

It effects both auto and scepter 2. So its a pretty good increase.

spoj.9672:

hendo.1940:

spoj.9672:

Most of necros long duration bleeds are on other skills other than the auto attack. The auto attack just increases the amount sustained. And necros get more bleed duration than any other class. So they are pretty much the best class for single target bleed damage.

Warriors would like to have a word with you.

Hemophilia + Lingering Curse vs Deep Cuts

Lingering Curse ignores the 100% condition duration cap. So if you max condition duration necro can get 133% bleed duration vs 100% on warrior. But warriors have op base duration on sword. So i guess they are pretty equal. >.>

Lol, I didn’t know that. I wasn’t using that trait in my necro solos.

Anyway, warriors still stack more bleeding. 25 permanently solo, no problem.

We know since beta zerk dps ~ condi dps but
a)condition specs maintain 25 bleed on their own,
so a second condition spec is rendered useless.
b)even zerk groups maintain a lot of bleed due to traits bein located how they r
(mesmer/warrior/…)
c) the unbuffed bleed stacks get buffed with 25might to shine
d) till u manage 25 bleed on a trash mob he s dead alrdy
e) 10% multipliers + vulnerability stacks of a full party outweigthn any condi spec

For people asking, yes, Chill affects enemy cooldowns . Every second of Chill adds 0.4 s to the cooldown, up to 166% of original cooldown. For example 5 s of Chill would make a skill with 4 seconds to recharge in 4+2= 6 seconds (caps at 6.64 s).

hendo.1940:

Iris Ng.9845:

Also, it may be a myth but when you chill Lupi, he kicks more and spawn less locusts. I cant vouch for the claim though.

I can ensure you that claim is made of kitten.

This is actually pretty interesting situation.

We know the usually phase 1 rotation but we also know the possibility of double kick. I suspect AI has a very slow clock time. Basically it thinks once/twice every second (haven’t actually tested!). So if AI idles at the right spot, the kick has time to cooldown and Lupicus may double kick (skills are probably used randomly).

Based on this, the cooldowns match pretty well. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but skills go on cooldown after they have been used. So a skill can be used every “animation + cooldown” seconds. Kick, Infection, etc have different animations and cooldowns so Chill affects them bit differently.

This small change might make double Kick more possible which would delay Roar few seconds leading to less Locusts (on top of being affected by Chill). But I have no idea how it actually works, just saying that it might be possible.

I had quite a lot of fun interrupting lupi with Power Block right after a kick and then have him immediately follow up with another kick, making whole party rage wondering why lupi is constantly double kicking them (huehuehue). So yeah, I believe the kick skill CD is less than 3 or 4 seconds.

Wethospu.6437:

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but skills go on cooldown after they have been used.

I can confirm this

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The problem with stuff like “just go rabid and run conditions if you can’t handle full zerk” is that:

1) The guys who would be running full zerk and tank traits (i.e. healshout warriors, AH guard, GS mesmer) etc. aren’t going to suddenly go “oh hey I have toughness now so I can go full DPS on everything else”, they’ll take the toughness and STILL take the tank traits. So you go from bad DPS to worse DPS.

2) The “conditions still tick when you dodge” thing isn’t wholly true because unless you’re way over the cap, you’re losing condition applications and thus not maintaining all your stacks. It may not happen immediately but you will lose conditions 2-3 seconds later and thus lose ticks. The two classes that can avoid this to an extent are engie and ele because they have very large bleed applications (Shrapnel Grenade and Eruption) that are gated by cooldown rather than how often you attack. The other two “heavy bleed” classes, the warrior and the necro, both have their bleed applications on their auto-attacks so the instant they stop auto-attacking, they start losing ticks.

That’s not to say conditions aren’t fun (sword warrior is actually pretty fun and although there’s no strict reason to take one, their bleed DPS actually puts them fairly close to raw axe DPS) but it’s probably not a solution for pug badness.

1) Except unlike power builds, A condi warrior can run shouts and still do good DPS…And the boon duration for more might stacking actually helps them more than it hurts them.
Tank traits? Conditions only need 2 things to work condition damage and condition duration, and minimal amounts of precision and thats only for proc on crit. All other points can basically be allocated anywhere a condi user wants…Condition builds are much much more flexible than power builds. And have a lot more give now that runes give so much condition duration. With the right rune and food your basically now set on your durations. So all you need is condition damage..1 stat. So unlike power builds condi builds do not have to sacrifice everything for damage. Becasue they don’t have to max 3 separate stats to work. And from that standpoint it makes them a lot stronger.

2)Conditions do stick on a mob when you dodge. I don’t think anyone thinks that they dont. You will lose conditions 2-3 seconds later? How long does it take to dodge..And even if you lose a stack or 2 you are still doing damage. Probably a lot of damage because most likely you not only have bleeding, but tormet and burning and maybe even poison as well all ticking on a mob…And in the case this is a warrior who can maintain 25 Stacks your still doing excellent damage even if 5 fall off.

Condition builds are pretty much great now because of one thing runes. Superior runes of the Krait? 45% bleeding duration. Take deep cuts you are almost capped. In fact you don’t even have to take deep cuts anymore. Runes + food + a sigil or no sigil you are basically at what warriors were capable of before the patch but without having to take traits. Which guess what opens up way more build options and flexibility Same goes for other classes..

After using power for so long I dont think I will ever go back to a power build while solo again. Its too good now.

^ lol

why has it come to the dungeon forums?

guanlongwucaii.3162:

why has it come to the dungeon forums?

This forum seems to be attracting a lot of bad math/logic lately 8^)

DnT vs DnT, a must watch?

Warlord ain’t DnT.
…
I hope.

warlord dnt L E L

No no, not Warlord. I was looking at the first few posts and thought of that.

Could you guys suggest a best condi build and power build (traits, gear, runes, sigils) assuming there will be single mob and no wall. I got the dps meter back up working and even more accurate than before (also incl a solution to dps loss when indestructible golem resets hp). Tests will be conducted vs the golem in HotM.

Also, when suggesting a build please lay down an optimal skill rotation to get the best out of the respective builds. If needed I can also incorporate dodges once in a while to simulate real fights in a controlled environment.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

why has it come to the dungeon forums?

Cuz I just find it amusing that PVE people are now just catching on but I still don’t think a lot of people fully understand that condition builds are the new meta atleast for some classes and only solo.

@ firfox..you just max 2 stats. condition damage and duration..
1 of those 2 stats you get 40% from food.
With power builds you need traits like 10% damage those traits don’t boost condition damage so don’t use them.

Its not hard to figure out. Just pick a rune that has condition damage and condition duration get gear that has condition damage. Once you get these 2 stats decently high. traits almost do not matter as much as they do in power builds. Simply because there are not traits that say stuff like booosts condition damage by 15%

I think for soloing it makes sense, sure.

You can’t put meta and solo in the same sentence

Fri,

Nike put up his Condi war for PvE on his youtube. You could Check that out.

i love when it – my new meta threads never seem to fail in causing overreactions, just look at my phalanx warrior new meta thread from a little while ago.

they were both partially serious though – i mean since condi warrior has such good potential (as a benchmark my abom solo best which i haven’t uploaded yet is only 27 seconds slower than goku’s, and I have a 3:37 warrior belka which surprised me considering all the running back out makes all of your condis drop off) I thought maybe, just maybe it could work in pugs. but if the other pugs’ conditions will just go all over mine then i guess there’s not much point.