Which class to play as condition dps?
While condi reaper and condi berserker are valuable members to a party, from my understanding the highest dps condition professions are engineer (difficult rotation) and ranger (easier rotation). both use medium armor if you get ascended at some point so can be shared. I’ve heard condition revenant is coming into its own but dont think it still compares to engineer or ranger.
‘Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.’
As far as I know, if you want to be viable then ele > ranger have the highest condition DPS. The other options are pretty situational which would be engineer > reaper/rev.
This depends on what game mode you are playing as well. What condition builds work in PVP won’t work in PVE or WvW. Each has its own unique builds because the conditions you have to plan for are different.
Necromancer (reaper): Decent condi dmg. Very tanky and survivable. Not particularly outstanding in raids as its single target dps is rather lackluster, but does fractals and open world pve very well because of its epidemic ability. Epidemic makes necro slam into groups of enemies/adds like a freight train.
Engineer (base class): One of the top condi dps specs. Valuable in raids, fractals because not only does it do very high dps/cleaves, it has a class specific buff that boosts your party’s condition damage by 150. The caveat is that condition engineer is a very difficult class to play well. Also because a lot of its dps relies on fire fields, its effectiveness is drastically reduced on targets that move around a lot.
Ranger (base class): Does slightly less dps than condi engineer, but still does terrific dps and has a very easy rotation. Doesn’t really bring anything to the group in terms of buffs because those will be handled by druids. Due to how easy it is to play condi ranger, it is a solid dps choice for all modes of pve.
Elementalist (tempest): Condi ele is also a very high performing dps spec. On large hitbox targets a condi ele absolutely wrecks (highest dps benchmark), but on small hitbox targets or targets that are highly mobile, its effectiveness is drastically reduced.
Thief (daredevil): Condi thief absolutely wrecks. Even higher dps than condi engineer. Also it is very easy to play. Has a ton of dodges and is very mobile. And because condi thief is built around venoms which are shared by default with your teammates in a small aoe, it helps boost your team’s dps a bit. IMO the venom share is not as potent as the flat +150 condition damage buff you get from an engineer, but is still a welcome addition to any dungeon or fractal group as there are so many condi players these days.
Revenant (base class): Clocks in at the lower end of the dps spectrum, but it has some situational uses. Can be potentially good for raid bosses that are highly mobile because condi rev dishes out torment for days. Had a pug Matthias group where a lot of people didn’t seem to understand his aggro mechanic so Matthias was just moving all over the place like a schizophrenic hamster on Powerthirst. We had a condi rev who actually did pretty good because of that.