Guild Wars 2

I understand that berserker – that means power – build makes PvE contents easier. That’s why most (speed run) dungeons perfer berserker.

I also understand that conditions are not that effective comparing to power in PvE.

But how about a hybrid build? Would a hybrid that, for example, does 75% of a full power set up (factored in crit chance and crit damage as well) and 75% of a full condition set up be better than a full power set up?

I am no good at mathematics. Can someone shed some light on it please?

Many thanks!

You cannot have 75% of both because of stat distributions across gear.

That’s all I can say.

The closest you’ll come to a hybrid build for an optimized character is a grenade engie, who is going to put a fair stack of bleeds on an enemy, but they won’t actually increase their condition damage via gear. A healthy might stack will keep their condition damage reasonable, and their power damage is still superb.

Kaiser.8504:

You cannot have 75% of both because of stat distributions across gear.

That’s all I can say.

Why?

But nevermind that anyway, for arguement’s sake.

I use a hybrid condition/critical build on my ranger.

• 0/5/5/0/4 traits (precision & ferocity, toughness & condition damage, healing power & pet attributes).
• Shortbow and sword/torch.
• rabid gear (condition damage, precision and toughness).
• Ranger runes (precision and ferocity).
• Traps (with the ground targeting trait) and frost spirit with Rampage as One as my elite.

The idea is to get both direct and condition damage coming from me, my pet and AoEs, so that it’s highly unlikely any enemy will be able to block/resist all the damage. And toughness thrown in because it doesn’t kill things as fast as beserkers so a bit of defense is helpful.

It’s not the most efficient build and it’s also not the easiest to play, but that’s deliberate because I have more fun doing that. The important thing for me is that with only minor tweaks (like adding the speed boost signet in WvW) it works for open-world PvE, dungeons and WvW.

(And yes I am waiting for someone to come and tell me it’s the worst build they’ve ever seen, it’d be impossible to play anything with it and I’m obviously an idiot.)

It is possible, at least with some professions, to build a conditions/direct damage hybrid. This is because of traits that allow for bleed on crit, or similar effects. While such builds may be able to generate 75% of each type of damage in comparison to a fully dedicated build, they are not likely to be able to get both at the same time.

Much of the best DPS for either type of damage rely on set-up mechanics. For instance, a hybrid Necro relies on vulnerability stacks along with the high base damage of Life Blast while in Death Shroud. Since Necros don’t have a lot of options to stack Might or apply Fury themselves, they would be team-dependent for those critical direct damage buffs.

Necro conditions rely on stacking bleeds via scepter attacks and the use of Epidemic to spread conditions to nearby targets. A Necro hybrid uses direct damage for single targets (i.e., bosses) and conditions in situations where AoE is the best option. Since the weapon and utility choices are different for those two aspects of the build, you can’t really get full bang for both conditions and direct damage at the same time.

I cannot speak to hybrid builds on other professions, except an observation that I was unable to generate an engineer hybrid build that I felt was worth the sacrifice of full direct damage or conditions. That might be due to the low damage coefficients on engineer attacks. Perhaps others can.

If you want both power and condi damage get celestial gear. Trying to get a build that can do 75% of the maximum of both is impossible. Getting serious condi damage without doing crap power damage is also impossible. Good condi damage requires a complete commitment in build and traits because the returns on condition damage stat is so low. If you build entirely around condi damage you will put up big damage numbers but just adding a little condi damage doesn’t make a difference and replaces stats that could have gone to something else unless your wearing celestial gear.

tldr – return on condition damage stat is looooooow

I’ve been using a hybrid build on my Necro for about a year and I enjoy it very much.

6/6/0/0/2
Scepter/Dagger – Condi
Axe/Focus – Berzerker

With full Corruption stack, bleeds hit for 1000-1200.

Danikat.8537:

(And yes I am waiting for someone to come and tell me it’s the worst build they’ve ever seen, it’d be impossible to play anything with it and I’m obviously an idiot.)

Apparently the powers that be did not appreciate me jokingly fulfilling your request.