Guild Wars 2

Power, Perc, Condition damage gear which gives you higher crit chance but less condition damage, not to mention more power or,

Perc, tough, condition damage which gives you more condition damage, but somewhat less crit chance, and greater survivability?

The first one is easier to get, but I’m not sure it’s worth the weaksauce armor rating or that it causes more damage overall. Thoughts?

Preferable for what?

All 3 are very functional, but your asking an illogically objective and opinion based question.

Preferable as in what seems more effective for a dual pistol condition damage build. I mean, I’m sure somebody has done some tests, I’m just curious which type of gear works best. So far I’ve been running power, prec, condi damage. I’m not really sure how that’s opinion based since it all just boils down to numbers.

They are both equally effective, but in different way, in my opinion. Link or list the type of build you want to use ant that would decide what will work the best.

If your so sure it is not opinion based, and boils down to numbers, then why are you asking us? The formulas to determine the damage from each set of gear are easily available.

The traits you like and the kits/utilities you may want to use. will benefit from one set better then another, depending on what you want.

I’ve often run a combination of rampager’s and carrion gear with the classic elixir-based dual pistol engg build. I essentially take enough rampager’s items until I’m happy with the precision, then fill the rest with carrion stats.

Rampager’s = precision, power, condition damage
Carrion = condition damage, power, vitality

For any ascended gear with this (i.e. rings, back item, amulet) I would use the ones corresponding with rabid stats, such as Khilbron’s Phylactery

Rabid has condition damage, precision, toughness

However, you’d have to test things out to really get a feel for what you prefer. You can get access to rampager’s, carrion, and rabid stats in Heart of the Mists, so I’d suggest spending some time there tweaking the amulet/jewel combinations and seeing which you prefer.

It will also come down to what utilities, runes, and sigils you prefer to use as well.

The sPvP version of the build I refer to above (or at least one of the varieties of it) is here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcQQJAqalspSXHvSfF17IBoH6Nv8V0jHD5J/pAbB;TsAg1Cuo0yolQLrWOtkaNW4UwsCA (will probably have to copy-paste the link in browser to see)

Tbh I’m a little curious about this as well. Currently I’m running around with condition duration runes to get 100% bleed and burn, but I’m wondering if I really need all that crit since condition duration isn’t based on crit, but condition damage. I’m wondering if prec/condition/toughness is the way to go. Only really gaining 15% mitigation, but it might be worth it.

Too long, didn’t read — Don’t stack precision to the detriment of other stats.

So it’s difficult for Engis to stack enough crit damage to make crit% really shine. At 0 crit damage it takes 2 points of crit% to add 1% of damage. (Thought experiment. You have 100% crit for 1.5 times damage so your 100% crit is worth 50% more damage.) At a crit damage of 50 each point of crit% is 1% more damage. (Same experiment but 2 times damage.) It’s 21 points of precision for 1% crit. With 1500 power (pretty high) and pistols you need 25 points of of power to add 1% more damage. (Admittedly our direct damage is nothing to write home about to start but that’s the math.)

My build is carrion/chrys trinkets, 1xcarrion pistol, 1xknight pistol, rabid (hotw set) coat and legs, carrion helm, knight shoulder, gloves, boots, masterwork carrion backpack. I have roughly 1530 power, 1550 precision (34%), 2330 armor, 21,870 hp, and 1260 condition damage. Traits are 0/30/10/30/0. Adventurers runes, earth and corruption sigils. WIth food and tuning crystals there’s both more power and condition damage.

I’m not saying use this setup but it’s one you can start with and adjust to see if the numbers change the way you’d like. http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/ is a nice PvE calculator. Taking the first paragraph into account for how crit% and crit damage work you can play around with it and see where you are happy with the numbers it generates. Then go try it out. Rares are close enough to exotics but won’t break the bank that you can try out just about any idea and see if it fits your style.

@goloith – I think you are giving up a bit too much to get 100% bleed/burn. With Rare Veggie pizza and a build like 10/25/5/30/0 (I play p/p. For grenade/bomb you will want more Explosives) you can get 50% duration and use a Runes set that compliments your main stats. Adventurer for example gives 183 condition damage (plus some power and a 50% endurance boost when you heal).

Goloith.6349:

Tbh I’m a little curious about this as well. Currently I’m running around with condition duration runes to get 100% bleed and burn, but I’m wondering if I really need all that crit since condition duration isn’t based on crit, but condition damage. I’m wondering if prec/condition/toughness is the way to go. Only really gaining 15% mitigation, but it might be worth it.

One of the reasons I’m hesitant to go for exceptionally high condition durations is that this stat is completely wasted when a condition is removed. You can easily make a FT build that can apply over 1 minute of burning to a target within a few seconds, but all that damage potential will get lost once the condition is removed.

So if you’re fighting an opponent that has subpar condition removal, you will probably melt them quite well. But it’s a bit risky since that damage can simply disappear. As such, I try to find a nice spot where conditions can be applied frequently rather than being applied with long durations. That’s where a decent amount of precision comes into play.

The duration increase does allow you to get more bleed stacks easily, but you’re still facing the problem that the high stack of bleeds can get removed. I can’t say offhand if this is the best way to increase damage output in a numerical sense, but I think it will largely come down to individual preference. I tried going the high duration route, and I found it to be too risky and took away from other aspects of the build (i.e. extra endurance and raw damage from runes of the adventure).

It also doesn’t hurt to boost power with the pistol as the pistol is in this odd place off scaling just as well (or better) with power increases.

It’s been my experience that most folks in wvw don’t carry huge condition removal. You’ll bump into thieves and ele-s that sometimes do and that can make the fight both very long and iffy for you being the last one standing but most folks don’t stack enough condition removal to really matter.

That being said stacking 10’s of seconds of conditions hits severe diminishing returns when they are cleared. With pistol/pistol if someone clears conditions I’ve got bleeds back on them next auto-shot (or earth proc). If I really want to keep my 3s burn on them I can follow blowtorch with glue shot which would then be the first cleared (and if they can only clear one burn still applies). Getting to 50% extra duration with pistol/pistol does increase your damage. I switched to this for a bit over a week to try it out and see how I liked it. When I took a camp I could definitely feel that it fell faster. When I was fighting in a zerg it definitely added more pressure. When I was fighting 1vsmall-number (my preference) I didn’t really notice a huge gain. I suspect this is because in small group setting people are much more aware of conditions and tend to try to clear them. I’ve since gone back to Coated Bullets and Invis on Immobilize and while it takes longer to clear a camp I find that I live longer in the 1vsmall-number fights that I enjoy.

So to sum up — what @Yamsandjams said.

Lanny.6987:

Too long, didn’t read — Don’t stack precision to the detriment of other stats.

So it’s difficult for Engis to stack enough crit damage to make crit% really shine. At 0 crit damage it takes 2 points of crit% to add 1% of damage. (Thought experiment. You have 100% crit for 1.5 times damage so your 100% crit is worth 50% more damage.) At a crit damage of 50 each point of crit% is 1% more damage. (Same experiment but 2 times damage.) It’s 21 points of precision for 1% crit. With 1500 power (pretty high) and pistols you need 25 points of of power to add 1% more damage. (Admittedly our direct damage is nothing to write home about to start but that’s the math.)

My build is carrion/chrys trinkets, 1xcarrion pistol, 1xknight pistol, rabid (hotw set) coat and legs, carrion helm, knight shoulder, gloves, boots, masterwork carrion backpack. I have roughly 1530 power, 1550 precision (34%), 2330 armor, 21,870 hp, and 1260 condition damage. Traits are 0/30/10/30/0. Adventurers runes, earth and corruption sigils. WIth food and tuning crystals there’s both more power and condition damage.

I’m not saying use this setup but it’s one you can start with and adjust to see if the numbers change the way you’d like. http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/engineer/ is a nice PvE calculator. Taking the first paragraph into account for how crit% and crit damage work you can play around with it and see where you are happy with the numbers it generates. Then go try it out. Rares are close enough to exotics but won’t break the bank that you can try out just about any idea and see if it fits your style.

@goloith – I think you are giving up a bit too much to get 100% bleed/burn. With Rare Veggie pizza and a build like 10/25/5/30/0 (I play p/p. For grenade/bomb you will want more Explosives) you can get 50% duration and use a Runes set that compliments your main stats. Adventurer for example gives 183 condition damage (plus some power and a 50% endurance boost when you heal).

I wouldn’t ever run with 10/25/5/30/0. That’s pointless. 30/30/00/10/00 or 20/20/30 once they actually apply Giver’s 10% condition duration. The build with my rune set is literally the most condition damage you can get in the game so no, no stat is wasted.

However, like the above mention you do risk alot since condition damage can easily be removed and damage is mostly just condition damage.

It’s hardly pointless if you are running pistol/pistol + elixer. Which I said I was. It’s also is the cheapest way to get 50% condition duration which was (perhaps I did meander a bit) the point of my post.

Perhaps you wouldn’t run that build. The one you posted implies you are running grenade and/or bomb. Good for you. Oddly enough I wouldn’t run the build you posted. I hardly think that fact I wouldn’t run a build makes it pointless. Opinions differ it seems.

My preference is Carrion gear, undead runes, and blood/corruption sigils on p/p. In SPVP, which has considerably less stats, I have a 44% crit, 1.8k toughness, and 1.4k condition damage without sigil buff. Ofc that includes my build, which is in the build sticky.

Lanny I’m usually running a build that is kitless with P/P, but one could change to Elixir in PvE or Wrench kit in WvW. Ya I just re-read your post. Your talking about 50% condition duration so you have a bit more flexibility for other options than power/condition duration talent points.

Makes sense to me now. lol

Rampager’s, Carrion, and Rabid are all possible combos. There are advantages and disadvantages to each, and there is no wrong answer to this question.

Power is useful because a lot of our condi-dmg abilities have decent direct-dmg ratios. Pistol 2, 3, 4 and Nade 2 for example. Damage diversification is also incredibly helpful and it can boost Retaliation if you have it.

Precision is useful to proc on-crit skills for condi-dmg builds. Incendiary Powder is the biggest one, but honestly you don’t need that much crit to make it proc regularly. Sharpshooter and possibly Sigil of Earth make good use of it as well. Once you have enough to proc the abilities enough the value of Precision drops dramatically.

Condi-Dmg is obviously important, since it’s where the vast majority of the damage comes from. The only place you lose maximum Condi-Dmg is in a Rampager’s gear set.

Rampager’s gear honestly has the highest damage output period, but is clearly glass cannon and likely over saturates yourself with Precision. Carrion is incredibly useful if you don’t take Incendiary Powder or Sigil of Earth. Rabid simply lacks any Power in it, which as stated before is useful.

Honestly, if you are doing PvE/WvW my personal recommendation is a mix of Rabid and Carrion attribute sets to balance out Precision, Power, Toughness, and Vitality. If it’s sPvP it really depends on your goals and build, but I like Rabid Amulet with a Carrion Jewel currently. I used to love pure Carrion, but after experimenting with Rampager’s I realized that Incendiary Powder is an extremely strong trait and some Precision is needed to fuel that. Not to mention, having Toughness after not having it for so long feels so nice.

First things first I use P/P with wrench for pull and block.
Actually I roll vatlaaw’s with 100% condition duration and I can strongly say that I’m kicking out more dps than my Ramagers. Your better off with Rampagers at 50% duration, but with 100% no.

So 50% go Rampagers, 100% go Vatlaaws.