Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed a lot of engis mixing power and condition damage in their builds, may i ask why? Personally i run Rabid, and i don’t believe i’m losing damage since a very big part of Engis damage is condition dmg, is it worth it dropping toughness for power ?

I don’t believe that we depend on direct dmg in our condi builds, except maybe Grenade Kit condi build, and even in that build i’d prefer more toughness over power.

Anyone care to explain to me ^^? Might change my mind on the subject

Well it’s mostly cause P/P, Bomb kit, and grenade kit, all got awesome condition damage skills, that on the same time benift a lot from power!
Take Prybar ect, it’s got brutal direct damage and confusion as follow up, or blowtorch, brutal burst power and followed by burning! Personal I run a mix of rapid gear and Carrion gear, I feel confident at 40% crit chance, more then that feel like a waste for me, since I only want the crit chance to proc my sigil and incendairy powder, which both got an internal Cooldown, so I don’t need to crit all the time, hence I throw more into power.

Also, the hybrid damage (Power damage and Condition damage) make you able to put pressure on people in two differnt ways, which often can result in the enemy making stupid mistakes. This is also one of the reason why our condition damage build benifit so much from might, because our skills we use to give condition deal good raw damage aswell

Hope this make some sense, atleast it does to me?

Amadeus once again said what I thought, even better that I could.

Good explanation!

Its like Amadeus has said, we mix power and condition damage because most of our kits benefit from both. It’s a good idea because in some cases a party member might step on your toes when it comes to applying conditions.

I run rabid armor as well, but mix in some trinkets with power (either knight or cleric) just so I don’t fall too far behind in the damage area. I agree that toughness/vitality are necessary in some builds, but if you choose the right gear you can get a little of everything.

I run full rabid as well with P/P and elixir gun. I do both WvW and PvE. Condition damage is nice and stable damage, but it takes so long to kill that most can either cleanse or heal long enough to either kill you first or get help from friends. Our big damage source is burn and since it doesn’t stack we need to find other ways to deal more. In between reapplying poison and burn, I use explosive shot and have noticed much higher damage output by switching from toughness tree to power tree even though I don’t use explosives. I think a good mix would be to use rabid armor and carrion trinkets. There’s condition damage in both and each offer survivability in toughness and vitality. Toughness only mitigates direct damage and vitality helps with conditions. The extra power and precision help with all direct damage and crit procs.

It’s exactly what everyone else has been saying. Our condi builds have great direct damage coefficients and diversifying the damage output has inherent advantages.

To answer if you in particular need power or not, we should know what weapons or kits you use.
I’m guessing p/p and no grenades, after reading your post… but that doesn’t help on what you do use instead of grenades.

It’s not that you ‘need’ power in a condition build.
It can help, but it’s not a must.

I’m a 4 kit engineer, no way I can rely on one form of damage alone.
I use pistol with either shield or second pistol, and Elixir gun… those scream condition damage (but still have a large pure power component too).
But I also use flamethrower often and tool kit… those scream power (except the minor burning of FT and the awesome confusion of prybar).

My gear tends to aim for 1500 power, 1500 precision, 1000 condition damage. So not a lot of either, but a decent mix for a more tanky player.

To be honest: when using the shield, and the Elixir gun mostly as defense… I go full out soldiers gear on pow-vit-tough.
Depends on my mood and the setting of the fights.
My runes of grenth and my 30 traits in explosives are the only cond damage and precision I have left than…

Honestly for ascended gear I am going for all stats, because we are one of the few classes that really benefit from every stat in almost every spec. I wish they would come out with generalized armor/weapons.