Guild Wars 2

Is it generally considered better to go a precision route for grenade builds or does a Power/Cond/Vit build work generally well for damage output still? I want to keep my survivability up but also capable of dealing out damage at least somewhat decently.

Build here
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McMM9czmRvaMmRvaMx9Mxaokqoabo

All tips/info/criticism welcome

Grenades will benefit greatly from Precision and investment in the Tools tree (which increases critical damage). Consider that with each chuck of your grenades, you are making three attacks—three chances to crit. I use food like Ghost Pepper Poppers (40% chance on crit during the day to stack Might) and with my high crit build it becomes absolutely silly.

I run the following, though I mostly WvW and I will occasionally sub out the Firearms and Tools talents for Rifle range and Swiftness on switching, or Elixir S for U.
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McMM9czmavGMmavoMxf9MpVkqVMs
For standing there like a schmuck and never dodging, this puts out some absolutely ridiculous damage. Dungeons and other content where you can’t reliably afford to stand still will weaken the usefulness of this, but with proper utilization of your Rifle’s Net and Overcharged Shot you may as well grow roots and never be touched in melee anyway.

Its generally a good idea to go for power and precision, the condition damage element can be big, but the direct damage element is much bigger.

Precision is better in my opinion. Especially if you are deep into tools.

Also, if you pick up the on-crit traits, precision is better in that respect too.

The power scale on grenades is like 20 for one point of damage. That means even at low levels of +critdamage its still better to stack Precision.

I also like to stack +Cond, as I like the way the damage from bleed/burn/poison can sneak up on someone. They will stick around and let you stack it up a lot longer than if you take it all off in one chunk.

Ive killed LOTS of people that have backed off at 20% health, and then they die to the stacked up bleeds.

Without that +condamage, theyd have lived.

Bezerker for power/prec/crit damage is the go to for grenade builds.

A grenade/elixir build gets “free” power from might stacks, and the explosives trait line.
It also, scales less with power due to using a normalized weapon damage that is lower then exotics.

You can’t crit vs siege/doors though.

You can use a knights power/prec/vit if you really want though.

Thanks for all the input. I forgot to mention that I was looking for a primarily pvp specific grenade-elixir build. I often run using the Centaur rune set so that I’ll have a constant swiftness if I’m using Med Kit.

In pvp, since I’m not in a sPvP guild yet, or ever, I often find myself having to fend off enemies without support or attempting to guard a point solo. So, I figured I may as well try sacrificing the precision side of my damage and go solely for the power, condition, vitality and toughness to make it so that I could use grenades at a closer range while surviving against most melee combatants.

Also, what is everyone’s opinion on a weapon compliment for grenades? I like the Rifle for it’s range, immobilize, and knockbacks. I used to run Pistol Shield but I started to really miss the low cooldown knockback and net from Rifle.

As you said rifle is really good for its control element. The pistol works really well in the condition builds but unless you are going to run pistol shield and stay in melee range throwing nades at your feet (works well actually), you aren’t going to use it’s cc as much as you would the rifle. That being said pistol/shield and rifle are pretty evenly matched for CC with the slight advantage going to rifle for it’s two range cc and one optional jump (if you use it opposite of what it was made for to run away). I am not sure if wielding mh/oh weapons gives you the chance for two sigil procs/stats or if it is based on mh/oh skills but that could be something to take into consideration as well.

The short of it:
For your build I would say Rifle > pistol/shield > pistol/pistol

Power if you take grenadier trait.

@BakBakaa, Proc sigils share the internal cooldown, and I believe your MH will always take priority on procing. So it’s best to have, say, Air and Accuracy instead of Air and Fire/Earth, as the two proc sigils will never proc at the same time and have a shared cooldown. For Rifle, I just tack on Accuracy or an Air.

If sigils ever decide to work with weapon kits, I’m probably going to use Earth for added bleeds from grenades.

@Kriaser: Ahhh I see that helps some. Thanks for the update!

Definitely roll with rifle if you’re getting power+crit, and as you mentioned the immobilize and knockback have glorious synergy with nades. Also, make sure to use grenade barrage with your rifle out. Since kits don’t receive damage from weapons, if you use it while your kit is out you will sacrifice a ton of damage. I like to nail them with net shot then rip out barrage for maximum effect when I can.

If you use goggles and pop an analyze on them along with the fury, the damage is just lols .. Completely skews any 1 vs 1 if you can land it.