Guild Wars 2

Been considering getting Sinister Gear on my engi ever since the condi buff. With the amount of conditions engineers can dish out from dual pistols and utilities, I feel I’d have a lot more fun.

Zerker bores me to tears and I was curious if anyone else runs Sinister Gear, and how well it plays in PvE environments: primarily high-end fractals, dungeons, and world events.

What runes/sigils would I run if I swapped over?

Nightmare runes and Bursting sigil.

Zerk performs better on 80% of the bossfights because of cleansing, invul, or simply the target moving to much to keep your condis running.
It’s fun but you should keep it for a different armor since it’s best to use whichever build works best depending on the situation.

Sinister Engi is highest sustain damage in the game right now according to many of the people that calculate that sort of thing.

I changed all my ascended gear over the other day (love how easy that is), and it’s pretty great. You can stop to revive a teammate or kite the boss around and still do a ton of damage because of all the ticking condis. Condis alone are ~12k DPS in pugs and you still have decent direct damage.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3f5px4/burning_engineer/

If I understand correctly, the best rune setup would be 5 Nightmare runes and then 1 of something else(I’ve seen 1x Rune of Antitoxin or 1x Chrysocola Orb) since the full set nightmare rune bonus doesn’t actually boost your damage, just provides fear.

origin.1496:

Been considering getting Sinister Gear on my engi ever since the condi buff. With the amount of conditions engineers can dish out from dual pistols and utilities, I feel I’d have a lot more fun.

Overall I consider the performance to be much more profitable than Berserker’s. While Berserk has more immediate and noticeable burst damage, Sinister will (almost) always win out in the test of DPS due to the improved condition stacking; the exception obviously being immunity/cleanses.

origin.1496:

Zerker bores me to tears and I was curious if anyone else runs Sinister Gear, and how well it plays in PvE environments: primarily high-end fractals, dungeons, and world events.

Based upon my personal experience, I love it. You will obviously encounter those elitists who will wholeheartedly believe that Berserk is the one and only way to play, but that only holds true to some non-hybrid classes. It takes an inconsequential amount of time for Sinister to meet and beat the DPS of Berserk, while exponentially dealing more following that point. I love the fact that Sinister also allows you to maximize your contribution to the team even while stopping to res a downed player; Berserk clearly fails in this respect and forever will.

origin.1496:

What runes/sigils would I run if I swapped over?

You can find a link from Nike on youtube confirming what many of us expected with the condition overhaul. They have a breakdown of the most mathematically proficient variant of Sinister available with rotations and gear combinations thrown into the mix. Obviously it will be expensive to reproduce this version, but you can easily substitute certain aspects for generic variants that will function almost identical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UeNcqdSJI8

Necrotize.2974:

If I understand correctly, the best rune setup would be 5 Nightmare runes and then 1 of something else(I’ve seen 1x Rune of Antitoxin or 1x Chrysocola Orb) since the full set nightmare rune bonus doesn’t actually boost your damage, just provides fear.

Depends. Are you using best food or not? Are you looking for burst or sustain?

NightmareX5 is 15% + 33% trait+36% food you’re sitting at 84%
NightmareX2 + TrapperX2 is 25% so you’re at 94%

With best food however the nightmareX5 jumps to 98% with the extra 14% from toxic crystal and koi cakes. So you’re already basically max.

Overall, Condi is fun, it’s a little different. However, the play style isn’t all that different from zerker. It’s still tying your fingers in knots as you kit swap and stack all your condi’s. Where on say Ranger the condi build plays quite a bit different than the power builds, it’s just not the same here. Only real notable difference is a little less mashing as you’re not focusing on flame blast and acid bomb, but you’re still swapping bomb kit every 8 or 10s, pistols every 15, and flame blast can still be nice for might production after every firebomb.

To add, Pros/Cons
Pros: Better sustained dps, better dps if you have to pull out some defensive tools (toolkit/shield), and it can be nice having bomb kit on the ready for blinds
Cons: Lower burst damage, Some missing utility/mobility, no built in stunbreak and lower structure damage.

It’s only the highest dps after 14 sec. That’s all. Playing condi is pure damage without the possibility to swap utilities without getting a huge hole in your dps rota. That’s what power / zerk engi doesn’t suffer from. You have more skills who deal much damage than condi. Condi requires like 1 skill per kit and will get outdamaged immediately if you have to take mines, elixier gun, elixier u, s, etc.

It’s great for those 14sec+ brain afk bossfights, but it’s not for higher fotm or the jungle (unless husks ofc). Sinister gear should always be your second gear, not your main gear.

Xyonon.3987:

It’s only the highest dps after 14 sec. That’s all. Playing condi is pure damage without the possibility to swap utilities without getting a huge hole in your dps rota. That’s what power / zerk engi doesn’t suffer from. You have more skills who deal much damage than condi. Condi requires like 1 skill per kit and will get outdamaged immediately if you have to take mines, elixier gun, elixier u, s, etc.

It’s great for those 14sec+ brain afk bossfights, but it’s not for higher fotm or the jungle (unless husks ofc). Sinister gear should always be your second gear, not your main gear.

Boss fights almost always last longer than 14s. Even speed clear groups take them to ~20s or so on average for the fast ones.

Most of this game you don’t need to swap utilities and you don’t need a stun break especially with Reactive Lenses. You certainly don’t need to have Throw Mine or Elixir U/S in PvE… that’s a red herring.

Sinister is top sustain damage, period. How about this, I won’t tell you Berserker should be your second set if you don’t tell me Sinister should be my second set.

origin.1496:

Zerker bores me to tears and I was curious if anyone else runs Sinister Gear, and how well it plays in PvE environments: primarily high-end fractals, dungeons, and world events.

the mindset is what bores you to tears:
scrubs telling you what you can or cannot play and threatening to kitten you over if you dont do what they say.

running sinister is the same as running zerker with different buttons to push. if zerker bores you, sinister will bore you for the same reasons.

that said, i like power better at teq. pretty much everywhere else, sinister feels like its higher unbuffed or partially buffed dps, and of course with full buffs dnt etc have calculated it to be the highest. which means its better in dungeons, because most dungeons are easy and just dps races, so doing mo dps = mo betta. in fractals, you need partywide game knowledge a lot more than dps to be successful (dps is a big component, but knowing what to do at for example grawl shaman will always net a shorter run than simply all party members being glass). especially in high level pug fractals, an engi is prolly better off as power simply because of the useful things that engi can do since most of those useful things are power based and youre pretty stuck on bomb/ft/nades in a condi build or your dps suffers a lot.

having played both a lot recently, condi is fun cuz its different. if its all youre gonna do, itll get boring. so dont let it be all you do.

It’s not better DPS in most dungeons though. It only exceeds zerk after 14 seconds or when you have to take defensives (toolkit/shield). Othwerise zerk wins over.

I’m curious what you run outside of glass that becomes more fun? I’m not in to telling people what they have to run, but I think there are logical reasons why glass is better assuming you can actively defend yourself(or your team).

insanemaniac.2456:

in fractals, you need partywide game knowledge a lot more than dps to be successful (dps is a big component, but knowing what to do at for example grawl shaman will always net a shorter run than simply all party members being glass). especially in high level pug fractals, an engi is prolly better off as power simply because of the useful things that engi can do since most of those useful things are power based and youre pretty stuck on bomb/ft/nades in a condi build or your dps suffers a lot.

While I do still think Zerker is better for some things I actually think Sinister is better in these situations. I can drop my main condi spike and then focus much more on surviving than I could with Zerker gear while my damage keeps ticking. I miss out on far less damage when I have to go revive someone or run out of a certain area than I do in Zerker.

Jerus.4350:

It’s not better DPS in most dungeons though. It only exceeds zerk after 14 seconds or when you have to take defensives (toolkit/shield). Othwerise zerk wins over.

I’m curious what you run outside of glass that becomes more fun? I’m not in to telling people what they have to run, but I think there are logical reasons why glass is better assuming you can actively defend yourself(or your team).

Check out the reddit link that I posted early in this thread. “Only fights longer than 14s” is a red herring because practically all boss fights are longer than 14s and many trash pulls are as well (even though frankly it doesn’t matter what you use in trash pulls that take less than 14s).

Condi is also just as glass as Zerker if not more so. If people want to try something else because Zerker is too glassy then condi isn’t really the answer either. In fact you have more defensive skills available and better utility flexibility with Zerker than you do Sinister.

Xyonon.3987:

It’s only the highest dps after 14 sec. That’s all. Playing condi is pure damage without the possibility to swap utilities without getting a huge hole in your dps rota. That’s what power / zerk engi doesn’t suffer from. You have more skills who deal much damage than condi. Condi requires like 1 skill per kit and will get outdamaged immediately if you have to take mines, elixier gun, elixier u, s, etc.

It’s great for those 14sec+ brain afk bossfights, but it’s not for higher fotm or the jungle (unless husks ofc). Sinister gear should always be your second gear, not your main gear.

the 14s breakeven point is where it passes a Zerker Engy in a group with dungeon potions and force + night sigils active. If you swap out the Night sigil, they pull very close to even around the 4 second mark, then the zerker build jumps slightly ahead again until the condi build pulls way ahead after about 12s.

Good info Knox.

There’s still Ice Bow to consider if you got that.

And while PUG groups might not down things in 14s there are quite a few bosses that just blow up with organized groups in dungeons. If you’re looking to optimize it’s worth considering.

Either way both are options.

I’ve been testing both builds in fractals on a daily basis and it really comes down to the situation. In dungeons I would recommend zerk for sure because of the burst nature of the fights, but in fractals its more dependent on what you get. Sinister is great for bosses like mossman/bloomhunger/imbuned shaman/svanir shaman ect.., however zerker is still high damage anyway. I think sinister pulls ahead in any group which is less than perfect, due to higher vulnerability application/chill uptime ect. Overall I think some of it comes down to player preference, but its certainly worth making a sinister set for higher level fractals

Jerus.4350:

It’s not better DPS in most dungeons though. It only exceeds zerk after 14 seconds or when you have to take defensives (toolkit/shield). Othwerise zerk wins over.

I’m curious what you run outside of glass that becomes more fun? I’m not in to telling people what they have to run, but I think there are logical reasons why glass is better assuming you can actively defend yourself(or your team).

i normally run fractals with a cleric or cele healy guard and we bring as many friends as we can find (who are all typically dps or at least cele and knowledgeable or listen well) and the spots we cant fill with friends get pugged and thats… a pretty big crapshoot.

personally i run sinister or zerk/assassin. i run an energy sigil as about the only bit of nonglass gear in my build, because while piano playing is fun or something, i dont really take active defenses as utilities cuz the opportunity cost of S or tk versus bombs or a blast isnt really worth it to me unless the encounter requires pull/unblockable cc/gear shield/more stealth.

fractals with 1 healy guard are always much smoother. i havent tried with other healy classes to my knowledge. its a lot more fun to run 50 fractals when you only wipe maybe 0-2 times in every run and yet grab 1-3 pugs very often. i have a nomad guard should i ever decide to learn to push f3 on guard and take him into fractals. :p

insanemaniac.2456:

Jerus.4350:

It’s not better DPS in most dungeons though. It only exceeds zerk after 14 seconds or when you have to take defensives (toolkit/shield). Othwerise zerk wins over.

I’m curious what you run outside of glass that becomes more fun? I’m not in to telling people what they have to run, but I think there are logical reasons why glass is better assuming you can actively defend yourself(or your team).

i normally run fractals with a cleric or cele healy guard and we bring as many friends as we can find (who are all typically dps or at least cele and knowledgeable or listen well) and the spots we cant fill with friends get pugged and thats… a pretty big crapshoot.

personally i run sinister or zerk/assassin. i run an energy sigil as about the only bit of nonglass gear in my build, because while piano playing is fun or something, i dont really take active defenses as utilities cuz the opportunity cost of S or tk versus bombs or a blast isnt really worth it to me unless the encounter requires pull/unblockable cc/gear shield/more stealth.

fractals with 1 healy guard are always much smoother. i havent tried with other healy classes to my knowledge. its a lot more fun to run 50 fractals when you only wipe maybe 0-2 times in every run and yet grab 1-3 pugs very often. i have a nomad guard should i ever decide to learn to push f3 on guard and take him into fractals. :p

/s?

Adamantium.3682:

Sinister Engi is highest sustain damage in the game right now according to many of the people that calculate that sort of thing.

I changed all my ascended gear over the other day (love how easy that is), and it’s pretty great. You can stop to revive a teammate or kite the boss around and still do a ton of damage because of all the ticking condis. Condis alone are ~12k DPS in pugs and you still have decent direct damage.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3f5px4/burning_engineer/

According to the above reddit post, I can’t work out which comes out more potent on conditions dps: Engineer or Elementalist?

Can someone explain to me?

THANKS!

Zerker is better only icebow burst, structures and some specific fight in record run.

For most speed run or pugs run the majority if not all bosses die after the 14sec mark and sinister is better.

In the end of the day, they are both great and you should take which one you prefer.

Engineer Sinister sustain is higher than Elementalist, but Elementalist Icebow Burst is higher. Would be interesting to know what is the time threshold when the Engineer become better than a elementalist, but my guess is that it’s very high and that it’s almost always better with an Elementalist with Icebow.

Horus.9685:

insanemaniac.2456:

Jerus.4350:

It’s not better DPS in most dungeons though. It only exceeds zerk after 14 seconds or when you have to take defensives (toolkit/shield). Othwerise zerk wins over.

I’m curious what you run outside of glass that becomes more fun? I’m not in to telling people what they have to run, but I think there are logical reasons why glass is better assuming you can actively defend yourself(or your team).

i normally run fractals with a cleric or cele healy guard and we bring as many friends as we can find (who are all typically dps or at least cele and knowledgeable or listen well) and the spots we cant fill with friends get pugged and thats… a pretty big crapshoot.

personally i run sinister or zerk/assassin. i run an energy sigil as about the only bit of nonglass gear in my build, because while piano playing is fun or something, i dont really take active defenses as utilities cuz the opportunity cost of S or tk versus bombs or a blast isnt really worth it to me unless the encounter requires pull/unblockable cc/gear shield/more stealth.

fractals with 1 healy guard are always much smoother. i havent tried with other healy classes to my knowledge. its a lot more fun to run 50 fractals when you only wipe maybe 0-2 times in every run and yet grab 1-3 pugs very often. i have a nomad guard should i ever decide to learn to push f3 on guard and take him into fractals. :p

/s?

huh?

sorry was i confusing? kind of emotionally rekt atm and only half paying attention to what i post.

I went Sinister Gear.

Much more engaging to me. Love it! Now for a pistol skin…hmm.

Thanks for the posts/opinions.

Curious, what is more engaging about it?

Jerus.4350:

Curious, what is more engaging about it?

After using your aoe skills you can proceed to run around like a headless chicken while your conditions tick.

Actually though, nothing, you swapped 1 kit and 1 weapon, and you still only press 1-2 skills on those anyways, zerk uses acid, blunder, jump where condi uses blow, fire bomb conc bomb. Grenades didn’t change, ft didn’t change, mortar is used as a blind on both builds, heal turret is still used for sustain/blast.

Exactly my thoughts on it. I mean I love it, I like it for mixing things up and another rotation to learn. There’s a reason when I started playing again after the update the first thing I did is made a 3rd Engi specifically for condi. But, it’s still the same play style but just different keystrokes.

I’m using ATM zerk gear , but still thinking about may to go for sinister and pistole but will take some time for me until i got it all ready and so on , but still would be interesting to test it.I used pistoles with rabid/zerk gear and i kinda enjoyed it to play around.

Personally I would use Rabid over Sinister for a purely condition based build as you will have better modifiers for your condi damage, thus wrecking havoc with your burns and confusion. If you do ever move over to WvW too, it would add the needed survivability.

Personally though, I like to have range and bomb from a safe distance, so zerker gear works better for me. I do on average 2 – 4K damage on Teq during the 1st stage, and about 13K on subsequent stages. When mixed with Elixir U and 9s of quickness, the damage output greatly surpasses any condition damage I ever did on him (I’m not even sure if condi damage scales when he’s weak?). Range is also great against other world bosses like Golem, Jormag, Megadestroyer, and to a lesser degree all the other bosses / temple bosses if you want to play it safer, however most range skills lack any useful condition damage so they’re more suited for power builds.

Should we really be judging anything based on world events?

I haven’t done the math but I’m pretty confident that the power on Sinister gear far outclasses any extra condi damage you could get from Rabid + Undead runes (I assume that’s why you say Rabid is better?).

Also as this is a PvE thread what it can do for you in WvW is irrelevant. A set being good in WvW doesn’t have anything to do with max PVE damage.

Nate.8146:

Personally I would use Rabid over Sinister for a purely condition based build as you will have better modifiers for your condi damage, thus wrecking havoc with your burns and confusion. If you do ever move over to WvW too, it would add the needed survivability.

Personally though, I like to have range and bomb from a safe distance, so zerker gear works better for me. I do on average 2 – 4K damage on Teq during the 1st stage, and about 13K on subsequent stages. When mixed with Elixir U and 9s of quickness, the damage output greatly surpasses any condition damage I ever did on him (I’m not even sure if condi damage scales when he’s weak?). Range is also great against other world bosses like Golem, Jormag, Megadestroyer, and to a lesser degree all the other bosses / temple bosses if you want to play it safer, however most range skills lack any useful condition damage so they’re more suited for power builds.

You only have higher modifiers using tuning crystals, and doing so you’re already doing less, but even so I doubt it makes up the difference in power damage from sinister.

Grenades still provide solid condi damage.

Now gaining toughness bonuses can be nice though, so sinister isn’t required at all. I just don’t think it’s right to say it’s better.

I think that i saw knox talk about a 5% lost from using rabid instead of sinister, which isn’t too bad if you need the additional defense. What I dislike the most about rabid is that you are now totally useless on structure.

Changing to rabid is a fairly small drop. I’ll have to check the numbers when I get home, but it should definitely be less than 10% off the sinister values.

Sinister is not a pure condition dmg set. Either you underestimate the power part of “condi” engi, or I overestimate it. But yea … hmmm … it would be pretty interesting how much of the dmg is condi and how much power, with sinister AND rabid.

Xyonon.3987:

Sinister is not a pure condition dmg set. Either you underestimate the power part of “condi” engi, or I overestimate it. But yea … hmmm … it would be pretty interesting how much of the dmg is condi and how much power, with sinister AND rabid.

IIRC you’re looking at <20% being power damage in the optimal build. Something like 3-4k dps out of the potential 21k, so a hit to it isn’t as drastic as one would think. But then there’s structures… the bane of the condi build.

It’s 16%. Around 3.4k dps out of 20.9k total dps.

I used to like Rabid, but Toughness is just not good right now IMO certainly not enough to justify dropping power stats. It was not buffed to compensate for the increased burst that pretty much everyone has right now and its weakness was exaggerated with the massive condi buffs.

Condi/Precision/Vitality would be a much better combo if it existed. Vitality > Toughness right now I think.

Sinister to Rabid is a 6.2% DPS drop with banners and full might stacks.

A fairly small portion of your DPS is physical damage to begin with, so dropping it by 40% or so isn’t a massive change to your overall damage.

That’s fair enough, smaller than I thought. But does this make Toughness really worth anything with the way the game stands right now? I wouldn’t spec Toughness even for a 1% loss. Not because I’m a hardcore min maxer (I’m not) but because I just think Toughness is that worthless right now. You’re still paper against conditions and burst damage is too high right now for Toughness to stop it. Since this is a PvE thread we’ll consider boss attacks instead of PvP spikes. Toughness is not going to help your 16k health pool I don’t think.

Adamantium.3682:

That’s fair enough, smaller than I thought. But does this make Toughness really worth anything with the way the game stands right now? I wouldn’t spec Toughness even for a 1% loss. Not because I’m a hardcore min maxer (I’m not) but because I just think Toughness is that worthless right now. You’re still paper against conditions and burst damage is too high right now for Toughness to stop it. Since this is a PvE thread we’ll consider boss attacks instead of PvP spikes. Toughness is not going to help your 16k health pool I don’t think.

Not worth it indeed, but it still not that big of a deal if you the additional toughness. Plenty of people can’t play full glass even if the percentage seem pretty low.

Going from full sinister to full rabid would net you a 33% reduction in incoming damage. It is equivalent to having a permanent protection buff.

Something that would hit you for 16k normally would hit for 10725 instead.

I’d like to know the difference between fully ascended stats vs exotics. So like full sinister ascended vs full rabid exotic (or just the armor).

origin.1496:

Been considering getting Sinister Gear on my engi ever since the condi buff. With the amount of conditions engineers can dish out from dual pistols and utilities, I feel I’d have a lot more fun.

Zerker bores me to tears and I was curious if anyone else runs Sinister Gear, and how well it plays in PvE environments: primarily high-end fractals, dungeons, and world events.

What runes/sigils would I run if I swapped over?

DO IT !!!!!

I have, and never looked back, and you’re right, its so much more fun. i have 2 armor sets, 1 with nightmare for general condi and 1 with balthazar for my burn build. i love running the burn build.

fractals i found is actually pretty cool, the burn outperforms general condi cause as you know, its nice to have utility other then deeps the higher you go. if you have too many kits you wont have this.

build is pretty standard stuff, p/p, ft, mortar with traited orbital strike. most my gear is sinister, couple misc pieces also due to the fact they’re old ascended jewelry with extra AR in em. only fractal i found it underperforming is the underwater one, for obvious reasons, everythign else works great.

Also, personally trying out both builds, they both have their positives. Keep in mind, I mostly play in semi-organized groups as well as with PUGs. I feel like Sinister does pull out on top of Berserkers in instances where mobs have very high health or toughness and also with longer boss fights. The damage that comes from Burn really does land that competitive upfront burst that you usually will need. On that note, I also find that I do not run into the problem some people are describing when going against bosses who go into phase or cleanse condis. With this build you really can reapply most of your damage quite quickly and the ramp-up time is usually not an issue (I’m looking at you double Ice-bows). I regularly run fractal 50s and the only fractal that really shuts down the build are the bosses at the end of the dredge fractal. So assuming you have an adequate group composition, getting all of your buffs , and are actually landing all of your hard-hitters (Blowtorch, Fire Bomb, sometimes Napalm) you will definitely see the DPS increase with the Sinister build.

In contrast, I actually find the Berserker build to be more versatile and reliablefor the majority of encounters in the game, not to mention more safe (I will get to that). First off, I find that I can more easily swap out Flamethrower for another utility in this build without such a large decrease in damage in comparison to Sinister, which makes a world of difference when you are trying to contribute the best utility you can to a group. Also, I find that you can more reliability land your damage with Berserker from a safe distance. With the Sinister build you really have to get up close to the enemy to land your maximum damage, but not only that you need to keep them in the same spot as well versus Berserker where you can land most of your damage immediately, with the exception of Acid Bomb of course. Though, even when trying to land AB you can quickly do so from a distance by using jumpshot followed by AB putting you back in your original safe position. This won’t necessarily be a problem in dungeons, but at high level fractals, where its sometimes too dangerous to be in melee, I find that it helps tremendously.

So if in unorganized/unoptimal groups I would go with the Berserker build. Or if you find yourself in the position where you need to be switching out a lot of utility and/or need to carry your group, I would also go with Berserker. If you have a solid group, got buffs covered, and utility is provided elsewhere the Sinister is the better bet.

Keep in mind that each build will also be favored better depending which encounter as well such as places that have many structures. Berserker is usually better for those, though you can by with Sinister albeit at a much slower pace.

Jerus.4350:

But then there’s structures… the bane of the condi build.

what does ‘structures’ mean ?

rogerwilko.6895:

Jerus.4350:

But then there’s structures… the bane of the condi build.

what does ‘structures’ mean ?

Non-crit-able entities within the game, such as: burrows from ascalonian catacombs, totems in honor of the waves, ogre houses in iron marches, etc. These entities also cannot receive any type of buff or condition, They are only affected by direct damage (AKA power)

ah… thank you

Xyonon.3987:

It’s only the highest dps after 14 sec. That’s all. Playing condi is pure damage without the possibility to swap utilities without getting a huge hole in your dps rota. That’s what power / zerk engi doesn’t suffer from. You have more skills who deal much damage than condi. Condi requires like 1 skill per kit and will get outdamaged immediately if you have to take mines, elixier gun, elixier u, s, etc.

It’s great for those 14sec+ brain afk bossfights, but it’s not for higher fotm or the jungle (unless husks ofc). Sinister gear should always be your second gear, not your main gear.

I use sinister exactly for 50 fotm because fights last long and with a decent group you dont need to swap utils.
At least that’s my exp