Guild Wars 2

For a hybrid damage build for solo/group roaming in wvw would you take Napalm Specialist (33% longer burn duration) or Modified Ammunition (2% more damage for each condition on a foe)?

Personally I would take napalm. I can’t see modified ammunition being that useful outside of trains and dungeons…and lords in wvw.

MA no question with hybrid

Always modified ammunitions. In every situation.

I love Modified Ammo. Especially in a small group where your target is likely to have 4 conditions minimum, that’s a flat +8% damage.

Depends on what you mean by “hybrid”. I often run a hybrid build with all celestial gear. Personally, I feel the investment in Napalm is of more value. Another Couple of ticks of 600ish burning seems much more noticeable damage then the say 10ish% direct damage increase of a hybrid build. Though I admit, I have never done the math on it.

Keep in mind that condition duration maxes out at 100%. You can easily reach that without Napalm Specialist.

If you want my honest opinion, I think 30 points into Firearms is really inefficient for WvW. I tried Modified Ammo with roaming when it was first buffed, but I found myself rolling back to 20/10/X/X/X (bomb kit, tool kit, rocket boots) since then.

True, our specialist seems to be our most useless traitline (no offensive intended)

I run SD with mod ammo and it usually counts for about 8-10% bonus damage but in certain situations it can count for 20%+ bonus damage and its freaking amazing.

Take Napalm if your build focuses on burn… simple nuff

math wise (for hybrids): if you have IP traited and less than 25% condi duration, napalm specialist is a better trait IF it gets you over 50% total for an extra 2 ticks.

when roaming with others, or when able to maintain 4+ conditions, MA deals more damage. sitting duck is also worth looking at if you’re pvping, it’s a small dps loss for a big control gain.

also! the more burning application your build has, the less valuable napalm specialist becomes due to burn stacking in duration. there’s no difference between stacking kitten burn every 5s and a 15s burn every 10s. you’ll still have 1 burn tick/sec.

I use MA for a WvW build with coated bullets. The extra damage can be applied to everyone it hits, so it can be useful for adding damage to several enemies that are all afflicted with conditions.

IMO, NS is only worth it if you have low power and a few sources of burning to keep high uptime.