Guild Wars 2

I have asked once or twice about building P/P and each time the answer was add Condition Damage so:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-VRR;2Z;0h0u5NQFx0;9;5T9T;235B1;017A;1aJ0;3cV19cV191FV

Health 24,522
Toughness 1,016
Power 1,610
Condition Damage 1,406

Adventure x6 / Corruption / Earth

How can this build improve for WvW?

Inspired by:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/engineer/RUN-a-WvW-movie/first#post1403017

Personally I think if you want some tankiness you’re much better with toughness vs. vitality. (couldn’t remember if Carrion has toughness lol).

Why? Engineers are really good at applying conditions and removing them. There is 409 talent point and elixir C.

Depends which way you want to go on damage and tank:
If you are going power route, go Knights
If you are going Condition route, go Vatlaaws
If you want a mix and be glass cannon go Rampagers

I really like the Carrion Amulet. That said, you need to be able to apply long durations of Burning as an Engineer in order to deal a healthy amount of condition damage. At bare minimum this usually requires two sources of Burning or some healthy condition duration increases. Ideally it’d be both.

I’m not sure what to do without dramatically changing the build though. Your only other sources of Burning are Precision tied with Incendiary Powder, or Incendiary Bomb. I love the Carrion Amulet, but Rampager’s is another possible route as well. If you always have Pizza on, then you only need +10% duration to clip +50% duration so that’s a possible source to look for as well.

When it’s all said and done though, Mask does very well without seemingly any of this stuff.

The build comes from:

Look at how hard his conditions tick for!

Condi’s in WvW are devastating, there is no doubt about that. I personally think Mask is extremely talented and very good with his build, but I do there are improvements that can be made. Burn uptime is the main one.

Personally condition tick is really important, but the more important thing with condition is Condition Duration.

If you’re doing 800+ burn ticks, that’s cool, but if your ticking another 4 times for 650 damage (2600 damage) your much better off.

I’ll try and give some numbers when I get a chance of an Engineer at 100% Bleed Duration and 100% Burn Duration

:-)

A good build and gear setup will only get you so far. In the end you’ve got to learn how to play it. As you play it, you should eventually get a feel of where you might be able to improve it. It looks like you got a solid base to start.

Why Mask is so successful is really in the player skill rather than the gear. Target selection – knowing who to focus on first, knowing when to stay on target and when to switch targets. Anticipating what they are going to try and do to you. Mobility – knowing when to run to reset/spread them out vs when to stay in the fight. There’s a lot of things Mask does right and when I watch their videos I often go “I would have done X instead Y, and that’s I would have probably died because I would have done the wrong thing.”

Alright so I tested my setup, I’m at 100% duration, with build 30/30/00/10/00 with the following stats with P/P:

Bleed 4s: 122 per tick = 488 damage per stack of Bleed (or when triggered by crit)
Burn 4s: 734 per tick = 2936 damage every 4 seconds (or when triggered by crit)
Burn 4s x3: 734×3 = 8808 damage over 12 seconds
Poison: 3s: ~250 per tick, but only 3 seconds long because Giver’s stats are broken atm
Confusion: 3s: Still only does 2 stacks at 716 , but the confusion effect is only 3 seconds long because Giver’s stats are broken atm

So I would say that the only gains made in damage is from going with non-100% duration is going to be from Poision and confusion since there is only two stacks of confusion that can be applied and both confusion and poision cap out at 50% because Giver’s stat’s are not being applied.

Add in that I am not even running HGH build that’s pretty sick. Once they fix Giver’s gear you will see every skill with a 4s duration and with 11-15 stacks of might verses 2-3 stacks of might from going 20/20/00/30/00

My dilemma is when I post build(s) with duration -either 50% or 100% condition duration- I get told get more Condition damage, when I post a build like Mask’s I get told get more duration

Just find what works best for you.
Here’s the thing for me, and why I dropped condition duration: it is absolutely worthless against those players/classes/builds that present a challenge. While it helps and adds alot of damage against less skilled opponents or players who don’t use condition removal, condition duration won’t help you at all against good guardians/eles/thieves and everyone else who has consistent condition removal.
Also, as I said alot of times, I do not go full out condition damage, I have a decent amount of power as well. If you invest less in power and more in condition damage (or defensive stats), duration becomes more important, which is not true for a more balanced build.
I’m trying a different take on my build atm, I’m still testing it to see how it works out, if it works out well you will see a new vid (and changes to my build) soon.

that’s one nice video … Really enjoyed it.
I can really say that this guy knows very well how to play the class

soooo… i heard u guys like condition damage.

its fun to see burst classes with 10 stacks of confussion when you have over 2k condition damage, had a guardian do 6800 damage per skill of his to himself.

static shot + prybar + concussion bomb

if i understood right, P/P works only with a condition damage build ?

what about pow/prec/crit dmg build with P/P ?
anyone tried it ?

What Mask fails to mention is that burn & bleed duration is on crit proc also. They can only remove so much condition because it keeps piling on. Yes its a risk, but Tbh I’m see much more people running toughness in WvW and PvP so conditions are the way to go.

Incendiary Powder, Blowtorch, and Fire Bomb all have a 2s base burn duration applications. +50% duration gives them that extra tick, and even on opponents with a lot of condition removal the an extra second is going to make a lot of difference. It’s imperative after a condi-removal use that you get that Burn up as quick as possible.

As for the direct-dmg side of P/P, there is a very healthy chunk of it contained within. Poison Volley in particular, but Static Shot and Blowtorch are decent at is as well. It’s not uncommon when you fight a Ranger with Empathic Bond for example to have Poison Volley’s direct-dmg be one of the top 4 contributions to your damage. I personally wouldn’t focus on it though, because when you do the Rifle seems much more appealing. Getting Power alongside the Condi-Dmg though is incredibly smart.

Also Confusion is probably overpowered in WvW, so you can use that if you’d like. As mentioned above, Bomb Kit + Tool Kit can give you some incredible Confusion stacks. It’s not required by any means though, as Burning and Bleed stacks can kill just the same.

One of the biggest proponates to the mixed build such as Rampagers is that Crit damage by default is 150% base, vs condition duration is 100% (base) so yes Rampagers is mighty fine indeed, but when you take a total look at it you will see that either pure Power/Prec/Crit builds will be the highest DPS, then 100% Condition Duration (w/ Vatlaaws [Prec/Cond/Toughness]), then Rampagers with increase 50% duration and with the increased 50% from crit damage.

Until they turn base crit damage to 100% from 150% the non-condition engineer reigns supreme.

BUT, with Vatlaaws:
+100% condition duration with more condition damage than Rampagers (without runes)
&
+50% Crit Damage with less power from Rampagers
&
You gain some toughness and let’s be honest, toughness is pretty sexy for getting nice and close and Blowtorching and Prybaring someone in the face.

Sororita.3465:

soooo… i heard u guys like condition damage.

Are you in full Carrion (Power/Condition/Precision) with the +250 from Sigil and +x from food?

Cempa.5619:

Are you in full Carrion (Power/Condition/Precision) with the +250 from Sigil and +x from food?

Sigil- Corruption
25 stacks of 10 condition damage

Rune-Undead
Condition damage, toughness, +5% toughness becomes condition damage.

Gear-
Its all a mix really, every piece has condition damage on it then either power/vitality or toughness/precision.

food-

Rare veggie pizza
-40% condition duration + 70 condition damage

Master tuning crystal
- condition damage = 6% toughness
-condition damage= 4% vitality

traits-
0/30/10/30/0
-/
-4,6,7
-6
-2,5,11
-/

edit: i must mention ive only been playing a month so take everything i do with a grain of salt lol

Napalm Specialist: Burns you apply last 20% longer.

Is this a complete waste if you have 0 Condition duration? I am assuming the benefit comes at 25% increments, or did I get it wrong?

It’s worse then that, the benefit only comes if you add an extra second.

So for example, a 2s burn needs 50% increased burn duration to get any extra damage. A 1s burn needs 100% extra burn duration to get any extra.

The tooltip will calculate quarter seconds, and list a higher damage….. but it’s lying to you because the conditions only actually ever tick once per second.

Just one more reason condition damage is sad

Maskaganda.2043:

Just find what works best for you.
Here’s the thing for me, and why I dropped condition duration: it is absolutely worthless against those players/classes/builds that present a challenge. While it helps and adds alot of damage against less skilled opponents or players who don’t use condition removal, condition duration won’t help you at all against good guardians/eles/thieves and everyone else who has consistent condition removal.
Also, as I said alot of times, I do not go full out condition damage, I have a decent amount of power as well. If you invest less in power and more in condition damage (or defensive stats), duration becomes more important, which is not true for a more balanced build.
I’m trying a different take on my build atm, I’m still testing it to see how it works out, if it works out well you will see a new vid (and changes to my build) soon.

Carrion is Power+Condition damage but lacks Precision and Toughness which fits in perfectly with your strategy -looking forward to seeing what you are working on!

Honestly, I don’t see how a class that has some great proc on crit talents would go anything without precision. Maybe a healing Engy, but too much DPS is lost without that precision.

Pretty much napalm specialist is good for only 100% condition duration builds. Hitting 50% duration is easy with veggie pizza.

And yes condition duration builds need some love. The new hero panel does not calculate runes that extend duration and Givers gear is broken.

Once Givers gear is fixed all I can say is the 100% duration builds are going to blow away every other condition builds more than they already do.

The problem with going full carrion P/P comes in group play. I discovered this the hard way.

Solo I was a beast. Full EXOTIC Carrion P/P turreteer build I could easily take things most players required small groups for. I was durable, dished out large amounts of damage in the long run, and generally just a beast. And in WvW? I got to the point that I considered any 1v1 fight an instant victory for me. I only got concerned in 1v2s =D. But while grouping in PvE? Oh it was bad news. When Plinx farm was still big, I tried running that build in the group of 50-60 players who were all crammed in there. The problem with the build is that it has almost no burst damage, and is reliant on getting condition stacks… which, in a group of 50-60, you’d be lucky if even 1 of 2 of those conditions on the mob belongs to you. This means TERRIBLE damage.

The result? Even on mobs I would get to first, and dump all my cooldowns onto, if the rest of the group focused it not long after I would get no credit upon its death. The damage I would dish out onto the mob would be so low in comparison to the rest of the group that I wouldn’t even register as a participant in the fight.

So solo, Carrion P/P can be beyond beastly. But in a group? Horrible.

I temporarily switched to a hybrid of power/condition build (equal number of equipment items for each) and have been doing better on that front. My survivability didn’t really take much of a hit, and it’s a little awkward from time to time… but it’s an acceptable placeholder for my stats until such a time as I figure out what direction I want to head in next.

Though I don’t do much PvE I wounder why that is the case since with full Carrion you end up with over 1600 Power.

I’m just lost you guys have completely forgotten about precision. You get DPS from procing conditions and you get an easy 50% crit damage boost just for criting. That 50% crit damage = ~400+ power if not a hell of a lot more. Remember, that 50% is calculated after your tooltip damage is calculated.

You can see how your power dwindles
Tooltip damage = (average weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (level-based Armor value)

Goloith.6349:

I’m just lost you guys have completely forgotten about precision. You get DPS from procing conditions and you get an easy 50% crit damage boost just for criting. That 50% crit damage = ~400+ power if not a hell of a lot more. Remember, that 50% is calculated after your tooltip damage is calculated.

You can see how your power dwindles
Tooltip damage = (average weapon damage) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (level-based Armor value)

Crit is important indeed so:

WvW: Gear/food is mixed -though predominantly Carrion
tPvP: Rabid addressed the issue