Guild Wars 2

To using arms over discipline in a WvW warrior build.

Fisrt as stated I played Discipline in my warrior ever since I got him. I know how fast hands works and it hardly as powerful as claimed. On swap sigils tend to have cooldowns. Swapping every 5 seconds does not help there. If one uses On swap sigils in lieu of Stacking sigils, on Crit sigils , or sigils like Force , then one generally waits the 9 seconds between swaps to ensure they trigger and the swap not wasted.

Secondly , In a boon duration build I do not find them especially friendly to my power build. I want a boon. In my case It Sigil of strength given it provides 17+ seconds of strength when it triggers allowing me to maintain a steady 15+ stacks in battle which can in fact go higher as it supplemented with the Dumpling might. This means by greatsword is not missing the Strength out of the GS trait.

Next it suggested that Bloodlust hard to maintain with its 5 percent add to ones attacks. This simply untrue. Precise strikes even with a non sword weapon provides a chance to bleed on every crit. Given the build is high crit this means virtually every attack. Added to that as it SW/sh and GS off hand Sword attacks off the AA provide a bleed on two seperate attacks. It is always there and if cleansed back on your next attack.

Added to that the 5 percent always there. It adds on top of 25 might stacks if you capped out. It can not be stolen like Might can. it cannot be corrupted like might can. It vastly superior to the might gained off fast hand swaps.

Next up . Immobiles are some great enemy only mitigated by the discipline line. Simply untrue. I rarely find myself Immobed for any great period of time. In fact when I was in disipline I rarely found the need to use one of those movement skills to break it. If it a concern people can do dogged march though I prefer shield , which by the way is also available when Immobbed.

One needs Brawlers recovery to cleanse conditions. I used to use this in Discipline and the Combination of other cleanses that One can get elsewehre coupled with the cleanse in Zerkers by entering zerker mode meant it was rarely used for a cleanse. It was a redundant skill and the other two in that slot are not of great use.

Lastly there is this. Even IF the person in Disicipline went all Zerker armor and all ZERKER weapons, A person going arms will have access to more precision then that zerker. In other words he will have some 500 more points to distribute into other stats if wished without suffering any loss to power , crit chance or ferocity. If that arms user takes the Sword trait then he gains access to another 400 points worth of stats to redistribute.

There is NO loss to power. No loss to Ferocity. No loss to Crit chance.

This is a means by which a Warrior can load up on more toughness and vitality meaning that when he does face that Fast hands warrior, his damage output is not second best, and he will have more health and armor.

babazhook.6805:

I have seen some of those links to thieves that people consider highly skilled and I do not know many of them that use Condition builds. There might well be a few but the ones I do see tend to be power and they tend to be able to beat people in with the armor and vitality equivalent of dire.

That right there is saying something, don’t you think? For a player to be successful at glass cannon he has to have very good technical skills as well as reflexes.

And for the record, i didn’t say Dire or TB is the problem. The problem is the low risk high reward unbalance on many condi builds. Many of them happen to use TB or Dire, so you can obviously make a link.

The risk/reward thing can be solved in another way then just nerfing or removing Dire/TB.

Cygnus.6903:

That right there is saying something, don’t you think? For a player to be successful at glass cannon he has to have very good technical skills as well as reflexes.

And for the record, i didn’t say Dire or TB is the problem. The problem is the low risk high reward unbalance on many condi builds. Many of them happen to use TB or Dire, so you can obviously make a link.

The risk/reward thing can be solved in another way then just nerfing or removing Dire/TB.

There are a lot of high reward low risk builds in the game with a fairly even mixture between condition and power. Acro staff thief, boon duration power warrior, boon duration/beastmastery druid, and boon duration scrapper are all examples of (while not OP) builds that are largely overtuned for the risk they have.

Any changes made to conditions to “fix” their risk/reward isn’t going to have the impact you wish it has. All a nerf to conditions will do is push people who run conditions to run even tankier builds in order to overcome the nerf with more sustain or it will just push the players to play the low risk high reward power builds/classes.

The language you use here indicates you think there is a fundamental problem with all condition builds regardless of what their armor is. What about viper? What about sinister? Carrion? There clearly is a difference between a necro using full TB and one using full viper right?

In order to “fix” these condition builds apparently a bunch of people have trouble with fighting, an equal nerf would be required for the power builds that have this same risk reward issue. This isn’t an issue isolated to conditions, but a larger issue with some of the balancing since HoT has come out with the 4 stat sets introduced and the min-max ability of WvW.

Cygnus.6903:

babazhook.6805:

I have seen some of those links to thieves that people consider highly skilled and I do not know many of them that use Condition builds. There might well be a few but the ones I do see tend to be power and they tend to be able to beat people in with the armor and vitality equivalent of dire.

That right there is saying something, don’t you think? For a player to be successful at glass cannon he has to have very good technical skills as well as reflexes.

And for the record, i didn’t say Dire or TB is the problem. The problem is the low risk high reward unbalance on many condi builds. Many of them happen to use TB or Dire, so you can obviously make a link.

The risk/reward thing can be solved in another way then just nerfing or removing Dire/TB.

This is an ongoing debate about power versus dire Condition and the ability to deal with the same in particular suggesting the issue as being Dire and TB armors. I have indicated I can deal with it on my power builds and in spite of your incredulity, I know what I can do and what you believe the case immaterial here.

Now let us get just to thieves.

You have agreed at the highest levels of skill most thieves play power. There only a handful I know of that use the “low risk High reward” of condition and dire and I am certain that most of those higher skilled players can deal with these in spite of the skill level of those in Condition builds.

You suggest there issues at lower levels of skill wherein the Risk reward of Dire/condition means the thief using conditions will come out ahead of a like skilled thief using power just because of Risk/reward.

I suggest this not the case. I am not elite and can deal with these. If there less reward/risk on dire condition thief, then I would have an easier time killing said thief. if that the case than every thief power build will dominate over that condition build.

This will lead to more thieves abandoning condition entirely meaning there less diversity. If the same logic applied across all classes than we end with nothing but people bunkering up with high toughness/vitality while maintaining high power output.

There only two builds that are condition warrant looking at. These are the Condition mesmer and perhaps Zerker warrior that uses conditions. The latter I had issues with when they first came out but have been able to adapt to them since so I am not convinced there a real issue with them either.

Some claim d/d condition thief falls into this class but I do not see it. I rarely see these anymore in WvW and in fact the other day while on my POWER warrior flipping an enemy camp solo that also had Dredge one of these guys came in to DB over me and I simply ignored him until all the guards dead. He then used SB to get away as I flipped the camp.

This leaves one class and one build . It not an across board thing with DIRE and TB and it not an across the board thing with Conditions or Condition builds or "Risk to reward "of the same.

Now there certainly some warranted issues over the Epidemic skill, but that just the skill itself more then it is “conditions in general” or “Necromancers in general”. I have no issues with examining these on a case by case basis anymore then I would the ones in Power builds that might be an issue.

The OP suggested that armor be used to directly lessen condition damage. ANY such idea is a terrible one as it gives way to much emphasis to a single trait being a “do it all” when it comes to damage mitigation meaning classes with advantages there gain an overwhelming advantage . In essence i adding another “passive” akill to mitigate damage lowering diversity and need for skill.