Guild Wars 2

ok, so i tried posting this in warrior area and not even one answer.

if a profession, like a warrior, is trying to increase their damage with a weapon that does mostly condition damage(burning) such as the longbow, what is a good way to maximize damage.

i am maybe kind of starting to understand that the power of the attacker is looked at versus the toughness of the defender and this affects how much damage is done correct? and possibly does condition damage ignore toughness? although condition damage does not critical hit?

so even if i was a character trying to maximize my bleed or whatever, in this case trying to maximize burning, would i stack +power? or do i stack +condition?

i hope a moderator might leave this question in this area as it applies to more than just warriors. seems that almost all the professions have some kind of way to do condition damage. and ty much to anybody with information. i have been trying to understand and figure out the tooltips

*Power increases non-condition damage done with attacks. Condition damage increases…well, damage from conditions (fire, poison, bleeds).

*Toughness reduces non-condition damage taken.

Take into account that most attacks HIT the target and then apply a condition. That HIT benefits from power while the burning benefits from condition. Also, condition damage might be a lot higher but has all the cons of a dot (no up front damage, can be healed/removed/inverted). So, while condition damage can do 8k damage vs a 3k hit, condition damage can be healed or removed before reaching 1k in damage. Also, many classes in GW2 can revert that back to the target or turn in into boons.

Find the balance that fits your play style and play type (WvW, tournament, Events, questing, dungeons) and have fun :P

The only way to min/max your way to an optimal build is to run extensive simulations and compare results. A simple analysis just doesn’t work. To explain:

+Power might, by the numbers, give a better gain than +Condition damage. However, this is limited by your ability to swing and hit the target. If you are being kited, condition damage from that occasional hit you manage to land might be significantly more.

Conversely, in an environment where conditions are being stacked up the wazoo, power most likely would be the better choice since a target that is already burning until dead and at 25 bleeds won’t take any more damage from your contribution.

+Critical damage might work well if you have a high-precision build, which also works well with on-crit effects. But this is further complicated by stacking of effects, ability to land hits, survivability, etc.

Spike vs. steady damage is also a factor and the relevance varies based on what you are fighting.

The only advice I can really give (and the advice I follow myself) is that you need to look at what skills are successful and build synergy from that. Be aware of how much defensive capability you need and maintain that as well. If you need two sets of armor for two separate situations, then always bring a spare set. No one solution is always right. Over-specialization is posible.

A friend and I both run near-identical warrior builds. Our gear and playstyles are completely different, but we manage to run neck-and-neck most of the time, since we’ve matched our gear to our playstyle.

In short, experiment, and use what you find works best.