Guild Wars 2

Hey all! My main is a level 80 thief in full berserker exotics. As you are all probably aware, berserker is extremely expensive compared to condition sets. Seeing as I’m cheap, which professions can use condition damage as the best PvE spec? I know that “every profession can use conditions effectively”, but I want to know which professions use condition damage more than power to get the maximum DPS.

Stacking condition damage is not really worth it for PvE. You kill trash slower than a pure damage build as your damage has a high start up time. For bosses the moment the comdition limits are hit your damage hits a brick wall, if you have another bleeder/buner in the group/event you lose most your damage.

Thieves, actually. Maybe rangers after that. It sure as hell isn’t necromancers. Yes, necros can spread conditions, but they can’t stack conditions for crap.

Sword warriors can spike up to 25 stacks of bleed. Can’t hold it up there forever, but at least every 10 seconds they can use flurry.

I don’t know if i’d call the damage slow. The bleeds from flurry only last around 3 seconds with traits, don’t attacks like hundred blades and pistol whip take that long to finish anyways?

Thieves are decent bleeders too. Spec for all the initiative returns you can, spam death blossom.

Servanin.5021:

Sword warriors can spike up to 25 stacks of bleed. Can’t hold it up there forever, but at least every 10 seconds they can use flurry.

I don’t know if i’d call the damage slow. The bleeds from flurry only last around 3 seconds with traits, don’t attacks like hundred blades and pistol whip take that long to finish anyways?

Thieves are decent bleeders too. Spec for all the initiative returns you can, spam death blossom.

And Caltrops. Caltrops alone can reach 10+ stacks on a group of enemies with the proper runes and sigils. Then, like you said, add Death Blossom and you can easily reach 25 stacks of bleed on a group of enemies.

I’m surprised no-one has mentioned guardians and ele’s, who have easy access to burning. Anyway, going for a high cond dmg spec will reduce your loot from DE’s as DoT’s are not considered for damage done to mobs when it comes to level of event participation and loot. Your loot from chests will remain unaffected tho.

I’m going ranger with my condition build. currently I can keep at least 10 stacks of bleeds up as long as I’m flanking(which is quite easy thanks to the pet). I use the shortbow and have maxed precision and cond. dmg and use tratis which give chance to bleed on crit as well as superior sigil of earth. Without might each stack does a bit over 80 dmg/sec which would be 800 dmg in total. By using QZ, sharpening stone and skills granting fury I can get up to bleed cap(25) under sertain periods of time.

Don’t know if it’s the most effective but it’s at least effective.

Kravick.4906:

Servanin.5021:

Sword warriors can spike up to 25 stacks of bleed. Can’t hold it up there forever, but at least every 10 seconds they can use flurry.

I don’t know if i’d call the damage slow. The bleeds from flurry only last around 3 seconds with traits, don’t attacks like hundred blades and pistol whip take that long to finish anyways?

Thieves are decent bleeders too. Spec for all the initiative returns you can, spam death blossom.

And Caltrops. Caltrops alone can reach 10+ stacks on a group of enemies with the proper runes and sigils. Then, like you said, add Death Blossom and you can easily reach 25 stacks of bleed on a group of enemies.

There’s a Thief in my guild who does this. His Caltrops can make a zerg die really really quickly.

zargnath.9524:

I’m going ranger with my condition build. currently I can keep at least 10 stacks of bleeds up as long as I’m flanking(which is quite easy thanks to the pet). I use the shortbow and have maxed precision and cond. dmg and use tratis which give chance to bleed on crit as well as superior sigil of earth. Without might each stack does a bit over 80 dmg/sec which would be 800 dmg in total. By using QZ, sharpening stone and skills granting fury I can get up to bleed cap(25) under sertain periods of time.

Don’t know if it’s the most effective but it’s at least effective.

I’m taking notes here as I’m starting to branch out into the short bow after never using it.

( I am a terrible ranger for not doing that earlier.)

I always used Longbow with the alternate set of Axe/Torch. Longbow did better spike damage on the alpha strike (read : the opening few skills) but the Axe/Torch would do better rate of damage. So, mostly I was favoring Power over Condition Damage . . . with a side focus in Precision.

Lately I’ve taken to experimenting so I’ve actually worked on getting Toughness or Vitality on some pieces of armor and using Carrion weapons for the Condition Damage And my Longbow has a Superior Sigil of Life (came with it) which immensely helps my “Heal as One” when I can feed stacks of Life.

Traps are wonderful for Rangers. The burning trap and poison trap can take down a group of trash mobs in seconds if you have high enough CD.

Even more so if you have the trait that allows you to ground target them.

Funky.4861:

I’m surprised no-one has mentioned guardians and ele’s, who have easy access to burning. Anyway, going for a high cond dmg spec will reduce your loot from DE’s as DoT’s are not considered for damage done to mobs when it comes to level of event participation and loot. Your loot from chests will remain unaffected tho.

i think i know why people dont mention guardians at least. Because burn damage has from experience proven to be negligable to me. The difference is between how bleed and burn stacks.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_damage

as you can see in the wiki

Burn stacks in duration. Which means for every tick, youll still be burning for 328 damage. Which is of course like nothing to lvl 80 stuff.

Bleed however stacks in intensity. Meaning they actually well stack. It only ticks for 42.5 per tick. But it could go up to as much as 25 stacks! 25X42.5 = 1000 damage a tick.

3 times the damage that of burn in the same time period

Thus, pretty much why you hardly see guardians make burn builds and go get condition damage,,, ever

I dont need a 10 second 3280 damage burn when my autoattack swing hits for 2000

EndlessDreamer.6780:

Traps are wonderful for Rangers. The burning trap and poison trap can take down a group of trash mobs in seconds if you have high enough CD.

Even more so if you have the trait that allows you to ground target them.

Aaaaand now I might need to reset my Traits to do this. Hmmm.

Confession? Even in GW1 I was never big on traps. I preferred going for a bit more shutdown build and would focus the heck out of casters while a pet tanked.

Crossfire, Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Poison Tip Signet (would swap out “I am the Strongest” if I was up against non-fleshy targets), Broad Head Arrow, Flesh of My Flesh (the best reusable res I could use), Comfort Animal, Never Rampage Alone.

Add in Jora, Ogden, Olias as the first three Heroes constant (save for when minions weren’t useful, then it was Jurah), with Razah and Melonni taking two more slots once I could use more than 3 heroes. Tahlkora for extra monk presence, and the last slot was rotated around who I felt like seeing quotes from. Usually Pyre.

Thats the damage with 0 condition damage. You can have up to what, some 2k in full exotic gear at level 80? That makes each bleed stack tick for 143 damage, or burn tick for 828.

At an easily sustainable 10 stacks, thats 1430 DPS. When you burst up with flurry, that could be 3575 DPS. You might think, “big deal, my kill shot crits for 20k” Well, in the 10 seconds its on cooldown bleeds will have far surpassed it.

Burn and poison are really more supplementary. The idea is its something thats on the enemy all the time as a bonus, while poison suppresses healing in PvP.

Condition damage does have it’s problems but the odd side-effect of the world being dead, is that there is little competition for them. Even with 2-3 other players, unless they are specialized for bleeding its unlikely that they are going to overtake your bleed stacks.

Funky.4861:

I’m surprised no-one has mentioned guardians and ele’s, who have easy access to burning. Anyway, going for a high cond dmg spec will reduce your loot from DE’s as DoT’s are not considered for damage done to mobs when it comes to level of event participation and loot. Your loot from chests will remain unaffected tho.

Do you have a link that confirms this idea you have put forth? I find this idea highly suspect.

my ranger use Prec/Tou/ConDmg set of gear, with the rune of the undead for armors.

traits : 0/10/30/30/0 because i use spirit as well because i want the chance to burn enemy on hit.

weapon : shortbow with the sigil that give give 60% change of bleed on crit.

i get around 112 damage per tick…… when flanking i can get around 12 stack of bleed.. not sure if that’s low stack…

does bleeding by pet counted towards your stack ?

azizul.8469:

my ranger use Prec/Tou/ConDmg set of gear, with the rune of the undead for armors.

traits : 0/10/30/30/0 because i use spirit as well because i want the chance to burn enemy on hit.

weapon : shortbow with the sigil that give give 60% change of bleed on crit.

i get around 112 damage per tick…… when flanking i can get around 12 stack of bleed.. not sure if that’s low stack…

does bleeding by pet counted towards your stack ?

I – think – your pet’s stats are derived from yours. I’d need to experiment to be sure. If that’s the case then its Bleeding stacks would yield a different number since it’d be derivative rather than direct translation.

azizul.8469:

my ranger use Prec/Tou/ConDmg set of gear, with the rune of the undead for armors.

traits : 0/10/30/30/0 because i use spirit as well because i want the chance to burn enemy on hit.

weapon : shortbow with the sigil that give give 60% change of bleed on crit.

i get around 112 damage per tick…… when flanking i can get around 12 stack of bleed.. not sure if that’s low stack…

does bleeding by pet counted towards your stack ?

I’ve thought about doing this as well. The problem is I don’t really have the time to run Arah that much(which is the dungeon with those stats with the coolest armor). So I don’t know if it would be worth it but I’m really temted to do it.

So, how much damage do you do with your auto attack?

zargnath.9524:

azizul.8469:

my ranger use Prec/Tou/ConDmg set of gear, with the rune of the undead for armors.

traits : 0/10/30/30/0 because i use spirit as well because i want the chance to burn enemy on hit.

weapon : shortbow with the sigil that give give 60% change of bleed on crit.

i get around 112 damage per tick…… when flanking i can get around 12 stack of bleed.. not sure if that’s low stack…

does bleeding by pet counted towards your stack ?

I’ve thought about doing this as well. The problem is I don’t really have the time to run Arah that much(which is the dungeon with those stats with the coolest armor). So I don’t know if it would be worth it but I’m really temted to do it.

So, how much damage do you do with your auto attack?

actually my armor are mixed of karma armor + vatlaar…..to be exact 4 karma armor +2 vatlaar ( if i spelled it correctly)..

there isn’t much direct damage, and i don’t quite remember the exact number though…lol

azizul.8469:

zargnath.9524:

azizul.8469:

my ranger use Prec/Tou/ConDmg set of gear, with the rune of the undead for armors.

traits : 0/10/30/30/0 because i use spirit as well because i want the chance to burn enemy on hit.

weapon : shortbow with the sigil that give give 60% change of bleed on crit.

i get around 112 damage per tick…… when flanking i can get around 12 stack of bleed.. not sure if that’s low stack…

does bleeding by pet counted towards your stack ?

I’ve thought about doing this as well. The problem is I don’t really have the time to run Arah that much(which is the dungeon with those stats with the coolest armor). So I don’t know if it would be worth it but I’m really temted to do it.

So, how much damage do you do with your auto attack?

actually my armor are mixed of karma armor + vatlaar…..to be exact 4 karma armor +2 vatlaar ( if i spelled it correctly)..

there isn’t much direct damage, and i don’t quite remember the exact number though…lol

Aye, the Vatlaaw with rabid stats. I will see How I’m going to do, thanks for the help.

Necro/Engineer (pistol) / and Shortbow Ranger are prolly the best condition dmg classes imo atm

I’m surprised no one here mentioned Mesmers
I doubt that they are the best but I find my Mesmer does a ton of CD.
I have a full carrion set with undead runes and sigil of corruption on my staff.
I have a strange build:
0
0
20: v, x
20: v, i
30: v, vii, x
my auto attack on my staff is: 2646
my health pool is: 21 582

All in all I find this very versatile and effective. DoT is obviously better on champs or veteran bosses but I find that I can take down multiple normal mobs without paying much attention to them.
It also helps that I can take a few hits.
ps my other weapon is GS

@ siliconhobbit: it’s in the official guide (which i bought with the game). Whilst it wasn’t the red box i was hoping for, on page 102 it says this-

“HOW TO GET THE BEST EVENT REWARDS

Kill enemies quickly with the most damaging weapons you have. Don’t try to kite or kill single enemies over time unless you can’t win without doing so. Take on multiple opponents at once and storm the area if you’re up to the challenge. This has the added benefit of giving you practice for more challenging PvE content, like dungeons. Learn how much your character can handle, and practice using your skills to their best advantage.

Also, push for higher level events whenever you can. Groups of skilled players slamming through content two or three levels above their characters often rake in the rewards."

Italics mine.

Funky.4861:

@ siliconhobbit: it’s in the official guide (which i bought with the game). Whilst it wasn’t the red box i was hoping for, on page 102 it says this-

“HOW TO GET THE BEST EVENT REWARDS

Kill enemies quickly with the most damaging weapons you have. Don’t try to kite or kill single enemies over time unless you can’t win without doing so. Take on multiple opponents at once and storm the area if you’re up to the challenge. This has the added benefit of giving you practice for more challenging PvE content, like dungeons. Learn how much your character can handle, and practice using your skills to their best advantage.

Also, push for higher level events whenever you can. Groups of skilled players slamming through content two or three levels above their characters often rake in the rewards."

Italics mine.

They’re talking about the notion that enemies will die from AoEs from other people before your conditions can get rolling. That’s not the same thing as condition damage not counting. If they have time to deal their damage, they count.

Sabo- if that was the case how come cond dmg is not recorded in the combat log? This is because cond dmg isn’t considered when it comes to dd vs reward. The guide says not to kill enemies over time, but to burst them down instead- conditions are the opposite of burst. It doesn’t say anything about other people or AoE’s- just to use fast, high-dmg attacks. Not all events require lots of people to complete. Seems pretty clear-cut to me.

On the other hand, if we got an official reply by those in the know, that would be great either way ^^

Funky.4861:

@ siliconhobbit: it’s in the official guide (which i bought with the game). Whilst it wasn’t the red box i was hoping for, on page 102 it says this-

“HOW TO GET THE BEST EVENT REWARDS

Kill enemies quickly with the most damaging weapons you have. Don’t try to kite or kill single enemies over time unless you can’t win without doing so. Take on multiple opponents at once and storm the area if you’re up to the challenge. This has the added benefit of giving you practice for more challenging PvE content, like dungeons. Learn how much your character can handle, and practice using your skills to their best advantage.

Also, push for higher level events whenever you can. Groups of skilled players slamming through content two or three levels above their characters often rake in the rewards."

Italics mine.

This paragraph from the guide gives no indication that DoT’s/Condition damage do not count toward your level of completion for events.

In fact I find the entire notion preposterous.

Siliconhobbit.4361:

This paragraph from the guide gives no indication that DoT’s/Condition damage do not count toward your level of completion for events.

In fact I find the entire notion preposterous.

The reason people claim that it does not is that it is vary hard to make your DoT be the one ticking at a large group event. Only the strongest Burn/Poison Ticks and only the strongest 25 Bleeds tick. So if you are not the top of the pack when it comes to condition damage then you vary well might just get no credit for anything you attack.
This happens on large dragon fights to Condition builds all the time on my server, where they go all out but get no credit or only bronze medal.

Servanin.5021:

At an easily sustainable 10 stacks, thats 1430 DPS. When you burst up with flurry, that could be 3575 DPS. You might think, “big deal, my kill shot crits for 20k” Well, in the 10 seconds its on cooldown bleeds will have far surpassed it.

Do note tho that at any time the bleed can be cleansed, converted to a boon, or sent off of to a target, while direct damage is direct damage. Once it is done, the target has to heal up or expect to die.

And while kill shot is fun if you look for large single numbers, getting fury and going for something fast hitting will be more effective if your kill shot can’t down the target right there. Never mind following up kill shot with some kind of rapid chain or similar to finish the deal.