Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if there is a standard path to take when playing in WvW in relation to trait set up.
Is there a “lean” toward either power or condition builds in WvW?
I’ve heard that it is not a good idea going condition base because of players ability to remove conditions easily, also, the max stacks that can be applied by yourself plus other players.

I’ve seen condition builds for Engineers, Rangers, Necros, Thiefs and other professions in WvW, but i’ve been wondering if power base builds is more of the standard when playing in WvW.

I hope this isn’t too much of a noob question/statement, but i’m wondering the communities perspective on this.

Since WvW is very much a larger-scale team-oriented kind of PvP, you can also forego both “Power” and Condition builds and lean towards “supportive” ones, that also allows you to stay alive for longer periods of time (allowing you to keep supporting, both through shared buffs and resurrecting, doing damage and what not). There is a lot of flexibility. Experiment and find something you enjoy to play with.

My personal take on conditions is that I find them too easy to cleanse off (at least when I run around on a “tanky” Thief), but there are of course those with less/no removal, which will suffer greatly from it. Whatever you find fun to play with is what I’d recommend you to go with. In the end, you don’t want to play if it’s not fun, right?

I am stacking both as best I can. Running around 3100 power when I remember my food. My bleeds tick over 100, you can definitely tell who is upleveled or playing a glass cannon build when spamming conditions.

Those numbers seem about average to me after all the playing I’ve done, and watching all the videos I can find and comparing.

To be honest, conditions work fine in WvW, and are generally (like in the case of a necromancer) easier and safer builds to run in WvW because of the ability to stay at range.

There are a few good arguments against using conditions though:

1. Frequenty passive and AOE condition clears ruin and remove even 10+ stacks of bleed, just like it was 1 stack of bleeding. It takes a good bit of work to get all those conditions o to have them cleared so quickly.

2. If you do manage to stack up conditions on someone without a clear, they can run back behind the zerg wall and wait for them to clear. Heal up and come back in.

3. Conditions clear on down, which means if you cannot get in and get a safe stomp in, it is going to take you much longer to down that person with damage, because you have to restack all your conditions.

Consider if someone does get out of position in a 20v20. Being able to burst down 10k HP in a couple of seconds against someone is going to allow your group to quickly bring that person down. In a couple of seconds (at least for a necro) the best you can do is 5-10 bleeds, which do nil for initial damage.

That being said I run a condition build, but that is because Epidemic is amazing, and allows you to spread conditions from other classes all around, making it a very strong zone control skill, and using the poor players to punish the smart players.

1. From a general item investment perspective, it’s rarely a good idea to pick up both power and condition damage. The only item set that does this with any efficiency is Carrion, although Rampager comes close but is crit-centric and has no defensive stats.

2. Conditions are generally good for sustained fights whereas Power is good for direct attacks and burst. Given the general context of WvW where you can have over 9000 players attacking the same target, the damage over time of conditions becomes less impactful for killing players.

3. Conditions are still good for suppression, however this is more oriented towards AOE suppression. Conditions that scale to many players (Mesmer Glamours and Necro Epidemic) can be very potent here.

4. Due to the meta, many players stack a lot of Toughness, which is generally smart. However, Conditions bypass this. Hence, Condition damage can still be a coherent strategy, although not as a go-to for most of the population.

For sieging, it is critical to have low cooldown conditions, since AOE cleanses (and light combo fields) happen with a fair frequency.

I find balanced power/condition is good for mesmers. That way I I can shatter down glass thieves, but still confuse guardians to death. But then confusion is really strong in WvW.

Condition build viability depends on the class / weapon /spec.

For example, if you cant reliably keep more than a few condition stacks on target(s) at a time reliably, then you are absolutely wasting your time running condition damage in gear.

I play a condition necro in WvW and find that it’s best for ZvZ, keep/tower attack and defense or areas like Pang where movement is restricted.

I also play conditionmancer because it’s one of the few good necro builds that don’t suffer from bugged skills or traits.

If only Corrupt Boon wasn’t so glitchy…..

The two problems I see with conditions is that they get cleansed too quickly and I don’t get badges as much as others. On the times I have nailed boon stacked players with Corrupt Boon the conditions get wiped before Epidemic spreads them out.

The good part is I can tell that as I spread conditions with Epidemic I’m putting a lot of pressure on the other side. You can see how the attacks fade after they get hit with 5-6 conditions and people retreat to the back, but it’s rarely enough to down someone.

greyblue.4962:

I find balanced power/condition is good for mesmers. That way I I can shatter down glass thieves, but still confuse guardians to death. But then confusion is really strong in WvW.

Only reason confusion is usable in WvW is some people that run with the zerg(or tunnel visioned thieves) have no idea what confusion does and will spam their auto attack.

Otherwise, Power Prec Toughness is better for most DPS characters and mix in a few soldiers gear(depending on base hp).

It entirely depends on the way you play wvw. For a solo roamer conditions are definitly viable, in the case of a necro even preferable.
In group settings, especially GvG, dots simply don’t matter. Although control conditions (chill, cripple, poison) are very useful, power builds simply can contribute more to the pushes.

EasymodeX.4062:

1. From a general item investment perspective, it’s rarely a good idea to pick up both power and condition damage. The only item set that does this with any efficiency is Carrion, although Rampager comes close but is crit-centric and has no defensive stats.

2. Conditions are generally good for sustained fights whereas Power is good for direct attacks and burst. Given the general context of WvW where you can have over 9000 players attacking the same target, the damage over time of conditions becomes less impactful for killing players.

3. Conditions are still good for suppression, however this is more oriented towards AOE suppression. Conditions that scale to many players (Mesmer Glamours and Necro Epidemic) can be very potent here.

4. Due to the meta, many players stack a lot of Toughness, which is generally smart. However, Conditions bypass this. Hence, Condition damage can still be a coherent strategy, although not as a go-to for most of the population.

For sieging, it is critical to have low cooldown conditions, since AOE cleanses (and light combo fields) happen with a fair frequency.

Good post, thank you.