Guild Wars 2

Just looking for opinions about what stats are best for PvE after the updates.

I know Zerker is the base line DPS, curious if Rampager is still viable and how to optimize it. Also curious if anyone has played around with Sinister.

I mostly use bombs and grenades for vuln and might stacking and general support, with Giver weapons and condition duration, so I was thinking a more condition heavy build might make sense. I’m not sure if I want to take the full plunge into conditions though, considering blending either Zerker/Sinister or Zerker/Rampager. Thoughts?

Thankis

I run Carrion with Scavenger runes. I know the vit must be sacrilegious as an evil non deeps stat, but the scavenger runes turn vit into some more condi damage.

Been playing a sinister engi for the last few days. I don’t think givers is worth it but I honestly haven’t sat down to do the math.

I don’t think blending will be beneficial, as your big hitters are kinda one side or the other. Nades and some of the more baseline sustained tools have a nice mix, but I really wouldn’t recommend mixing, either get your condi damage maxed out or go all power. With that I don’t think Rampager is a good idea either, yes we have some “on crit” stuff that makes that nice, but again, if you’re going condi damage go full condi damage. I can tell you it’s pretty noticeable even when I just forget my food/tuning crystal.

Right now I’m using:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQJAqalUUhSsYtWwPLQ7FLpF14PmGlBYJuiHw3GGANAA-TxhMABlq+DA7PEjSpTV2A6DAI0TAoHgHlgECQxcA-e

The Rabid there is just because I hate the LS stuff and haven’t gone back to finish out achievements to complete my sinister set.

Then I just do a rotation like: Incendiary Ammo → Orbital Strike → Fire Bomb → Blowtorch → Static Shot → Napalm → Flame Blast → Shrapnel Grenade → Poison Grenade → Freeze Grenade → Big Ol’ Bomb → Fire Bomb → Flame Blast … then kinda grenade spam rotating through to get the big guys

Of course Orbital I only really use if I can drop it as I run up and I might put napalm first if I don’t think I can catch the blast in time with a firebomb. And I only use BoB if there are defiant stacks such that I don’t throw things around… and yeah all that.

Finding it a lot of fun, it’s not as good as power builds which can hit up to high 17kdps on paper over 30s though I don’t think I actually do that but I don’t think I’m too far off. I haven’t done math for it but looking through combat logs after fights it seems I bounce between like 8k-16k DPS looking at like 2s increments at a time so right around 11-12k sustained DPS on a fight if I do things right. Not bad for a fun screw around build. Fun seeing 11k burning ticks with 4k bleeding along side 1k confusion and like 700 poison all as I have a shrapnal nade crit for 1.5k each when things line up just perfect but that’s not something to expect regularly.

Marthkus.4615:

I run Carrion with Scavenger runes. I know the vit must be sacrilegious as an evil non deeps stat, but the scavenger runes turn vit into some more condi damage.

If that’s what you’re after, you’ll get more out of Undead runes. The lifesteal is pretty weak.

Jerus.4350:

Been playing a sinister engi for the last few days. I don’t think givers is worth it but I honestly haven’t sat down to do the math.

Condition duration helps a lot, actually, though there might be better ways to get it than Givers weapons. 20% is pretty good, but the stats are a little weak otherwise and there’s no ascended version. I do it mostly for vulnerability stacking (25% increased damage for everyone!) but it helps just as much other conditions. An extra second or two of a condition is nice for the extra ticks, but it also helps get your stacks consistently higher for bigger ticks, effectively multiplying the benefit of condition damage.

You talked me out of Rampagers for sure, just doesn’t seem to make as much sense anymore. I’ll have to give Sinister a shot for sure

Ohh I understand, why I use condi food, duration Sigil and duration runes. If you’re rich and want to throw away money you can even get a duration tuning crystal.

Problem I see with Givers is you’re sacrificing 2 offensive stats to get it. Condi Damage, Condi Duration, and Precision stat weapons would be kitten sweet though

Then there’s also the burst issue, condi already suffers a bit in that area, so I’ll take any benefit I can get and condi damage > duration when talking burst. That said I can get up to my 7k+ burns in about 4s, not terrible. And there’s some power damage, bleeds and what not in there.