Guild Wars 2

On-line research, forum searches, and personal conversations have left me without clear answers. I’m 30 fire, 20 air, and 20 earth, which I suspect is a common cookie-cutter build. I’m primarily PvE, and yes, some would argue you could put a wet napkin on your head and do fine in PvE, but I want to see numbers.

I’ve read that a fire mage should seek condition damage first with duration being second, although +duration seems elusive. I crafted a full set of exotic berserker’s gear and had someone make a full set of chrysocola orichalcum … of the carrion jewelry thinking the added vitality would matter. I’m not so sure now.

I feel less powerful somehow regardless of the zone I’m in. Is that a symptom of being level 80 with no resolution in sight or would I do well to replace that particular set of jewelry?

Yes, I realize berserker gear is power/crit, not condition. I hoped the jewelry would add enough conditon to matter, just to clarify.

The comparison is really between Berserker’s and Rampager’s, since those are the two full dunk options available.

The exact break-even point depends a good bit on the exact ratios of your skills and what percentage of the time you can spend attacking. Higher ratios and more time spent attacking makes Berserker’s better, more time kiting / using utility skills and lower ratios makes Rampager’s better.

On the upper end, with good ratios and 100% attacking uptime, the break-even point is around 9 stacks of bleeding against squishy targets and 6 stacks against harder targets (and probably even lower against legendary world mobs). Poison is worth ~2 stacks and burning ~5 stacks. The more you’re focused on burst, the better off you’ll be in Berserker’s; similarly, the more time you spend kiting while waiting for cooldowns while your dots tick, the better Rampager’s will be.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Berserker’s doesn’t play well with others, while Rampager’s plays reasonably well with others. If you’re going to be using Berserker’s items you should really go all-in on them, since Precision and particularly Prowess really depend on each other to be effective, and diluting it makes it worse. Rampager’s does have some dependence from the Precision, but not nearly as much since Precision is key for procs, and otherwise plays well with other pieces you might want.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/64113-condition-damage-vs-critical-damage/#entry1950993

Also you feel rather weak because an Elementalist performs badly when going glass cannon and the Fire trait line is weak; it may not be much of a problem at lower levels but from level 60-75 onwards even normal mobs start to fight back and then subpar build and gear choices become more severe.

I play mostly in PvE, especially Dungeons, currently. My armor is a bit mismatched since I decided to Dungeon it rather than buy (one set is dungeon only and the other I liked dungeon skin). I run a 20/20/10/10/10 Trait Build with Staff. I currently have Berserker (Flame Legion Skin) in all slots besides Body and Legs. My Body and Legs are Soldier (Svanir #3, Power Main, Toughness and Vitality Minor). My Jewelry is Emerald, good for Crit+Def.

Personally, I am not a fan of condition damage. On the Staff, fire only has 1 burning skill. Besides that, it is only from my Flame Shield trait thingy. Even for Daggers, Fire is a balance of Burn and Critical Damage (although as my signature hints I am still having trouble deciding if my daggers should have a Condition Damage boost). Condition Duration is near impossible to find outside of trait line, which is Fire I believe.

So it really depends on weapon. For Staff I’d say go for Crit over Condition. For Scepter, I’d say Condition over Crit. For Dagger, it can go either way. The exceptions would probably be if you use Air a lot, since all weapons seem to have few conditions that damage with Air, making it good with Crit.