Guild Wars 2

I know that condition damage directly increases the damage of bleeds burns and poisons. I also know that condition duration affects how long they last as well as how long chills stuns confuses etc. last as well. what i am wondering and what i am struggling with is how to balance the two. for example: x bleed does 80 pts of damage per tick for 5 ticks, if i up my condition damage it will jump to 100 pts of damage. if i instead up the duration will it then add another tick or more ticks in general?

so if i get 5 ticks of 80=400 5 ticks of 100 is obviously better equaling 500 but if i can stack my duration to get 2 extra ticks then 7 ticks of 80 is more than 5 ticks of 100: 560>500

what are people genearlly doing? are they going for more bursty conditions or longer conditions for more damage overall?

perhaps longer duration is more for pve and higher condition damage is for pvp…any ideas or thoughts would be welcome.

also if you have a condition damage build as well as other conditions such as confuse does condition damage(the stat) increase the damage per attack the opponent uses or does it not apply(making condition duration more appealing fora confuse based build.

again any thoughts or ideas would be welcome!

thanks in advance!

1) For short duration fights, +Condition Damage should be superior.

2) There is a cap of x25 stacks of any specific Condition. As a result, running +Condition Damage is going to be more beneficial when you’re running with other Condition players (while at a large Dynamic Event boss or in a dungeon).

3) If you’re doing some PvE soloing and really aren’t at risk of hitting the Condition stack cap, then +Condition Duration may be better for long fights.

4) If you’re doing a lot of Poison or Burn attacks, it’s probably better to go with +Condition Damage since re-applying these attacks just increase the Condition’s duration (instead of increasing their damage stack count).

In general, I’d personally say that +Condition Damage is going to be superior if you have a choice between the two. While I wouldn’t turn down trait choices that extended Condition durations, my gear choice will normally focus on +Condition Damage.

The only exception to this rule would apply to specific character builds. For example, a Guardian can be spec’ed to gain +% damage against foes with the Burn Condition. Similarly you can make a Warrior who gets +% damage against foes with the Bleed Condition. If you don’t have enough ways to consistently layer your opponents with your chosen Condition type, then the +% damage increase from your traits could make it worth your while to use +Condition Duration gear when you’re soloing.

I wish I understood the mechanics of conditions better than I do, but as a rule of thumb, I only look at extending my condition duration to enable me to achieve higher stack counts. The longer they last, the more stacks I can get in before they start to get dropped. Overall, that equates to more DPS output. I can’t really say what the optimal balance between condition duration and condition damage is though, since it varies according to build.

EDIT: But as Wiser with Age just showed, adding stack counts don’t help that much with Poison or Burning since maintaining them constantly isn’t much of an issue for most condition builds, without the benefit of +duration. I generally use it only for dumping massive bleed stacks. Should have been clearer about that.