Guild Wars 2

I’m running with pistol/shield and rabid (cond/tough/prec) stats wherever I can.

Up to now I was using full Undead rune set (counting everything in it gives me 253 condition damage and 50 toughness) but now I started thinking about increasing the bleed time.
I have 10 points in explosives, so that already gives me 10% condition duration, but this doesn’t help with my bleeds because I need full seconds.
At first I thought I’d go 4x Afflicted and 2x Krait, this gives me +30% bleed and +15% poison. So now I would have +40% bleeding total which means:
- 2.8 sec bleed on autoattack (so zero improvement over default 2 sec)
- 4.2 sec bleed from the trait (this is 1 bonus damage tick)
- 7 sec bleed from sigil of earth (2 bonus ticks)
The sigil of eath has in ICD, so it’s not a huge difference but from what I noticed the trait has no cooldown and with piercing bullets it procs really often.

But seeing this 2.8 seconds on the autoattack I thought why not go all the way to +50%? I could equip 4x MAJOR Afflicted and 2x Krait, which will give me +40% bleed (no poison duration though) which then totals to +50% bleed duraton giving me:
- 3 sec bleed on autoattack (finally an improvement!)
- 4.5 sec bleed from the trait (still the same as above)
- 7.5 sec bleed from sigil of earth (no change either)

So basically my options are:

Full undead
– 253 condition damage
– 50 toughness
– 10% bleed duration total (no improvement)

Afflicted + Krait
– 111 condition damage
– 40% bleed total (improving two sources)
– +15% poison

MAJOR Afflicted + Krait
– 85 condition damage
– 50% bleed total (improving three sources)

So what are your suggestions? Has anyone tried improving bleed durations? Has anyone gone to 50%? Is improving bleed duration worth it at all for engineers? What other rune combinations would you suggest?

Oh, and a bonus question:
For conditions that stack duration, if I apply a 2.5 second condition (for example poison) twice, would it tick 5 times? Or is each individual application rounded down to the full second?

4x MAJOR Afflicted —- Will not stack together.

Here’s my suggestion – stop trying to use bleed stacking on engineer. It’s okay with supplementary damage sources like Shrapnel grenade, but the base durations are too low to make effective use of it (compared to classes that do it better, like Rifle Warrior or Scepter Necro). Honestly, if you want to stack bleeds, use the elixir gun – it lasts longer and does like 10 less base damage. So, with that said, elixir gun >mainhand pistol for damage. You can’t break 2.5s bleeds on pistol without using a pizza, it’s just a weak weapon overall.

Bleeds scale poorly.
.05 per stack/s. All that effort to add .05 of your condition damage is a poor choice.

Basically forget the bleed duration on explosive shot. its single target(or piercing) and its short duration makes it scale with +duration poorly, as you have noted)

1000 cond damage without runes?
+253=1253 at 2s, 3s, 5s. 125 damage, 188damage(94ave), 313damage.(?)
+111=1111 at 2s,4s,7s. 111, 222(111ave),389(?)
+85=1085 at 3s, 4s,7s. 163,217(108ave),380(?)

Now, you need to consider how frequent each will go.
Direct hit will land every shot. if you have coated bullets, in a line.
Sharpshooters 30% chance on crit. You should be building crit and have a good 60-80%+
18-24% chance on hit aoe for sharpshooter. With coated bullets, this has a chance of applying every hit. so x2 pretty regularly due to exploding on max range for a double hit.
Lets say 50% chance of applying on average. take the second number and cut it in half for average. 94,111,108
Sigil of earth. I don’t know what the idc on this is. But that it has one, means its not aoe.

Discluding sigil.
option 1 is 125 direct, 94 average aoe for 219 ave direct.
Option 2 is 111 direct, 111 average aoe, for 222 average direct. (and more aoe)
Option 3 is 163 direct, 108 average aoe, for 271 average direct, (and barely less aoe)
hrm.. option 3 does seem best. only loosing 3 aoe damage?
I guess my inital thought was wrong. Or my math…

Yes, stacking durations keep their decimals. a 2.5s poison applied twice will add up to 5s poison.

Situations where you are hitting 3 times or more, will increase the value of the aoe hit on sharpshooter. conversely, the lower you crit rate, the less effective it is as well.

The higher your base condition damage, the more valuable an extra tick is. If you are pushing 2k+, then that 3s duration becomes even more valuable.
2s is 10% per shot on pistol 1 base bleed. 3s is 15% per shot on pistol 1 base bleed.

Thanks for your responses
Currently I have 1300 condition damage with the full Undead runeset, but I still have a few non-exotics.
So basically pushing bleed durations isn’t worth it? Ideally I would like to do perma burning and poison as my main sources of damage and just forget stacking bleeds, but between the bugged flamethrower toolbelt skill (it only applies to one attack not three) and my preference of shield over offhand pistol I find it hard to keep the burn up. Maybe this is where I should focus on extending duration? I could swap rifled barrels for napalm specialist and get a total of +30% burning without runes.

Akaterina.4276:

4x MAJOR Afflicted —- Will not stack together.

What do you mean exactly?

He thought you meant 2pc x2. Or 2 major+2 superiour.

Centaur runes give +bleed duration.
You can also get +duration via food.
Or swap the bleed chance sigils for +duration sigils.

You have 10% from traits, 40% from Veggie Pizza, you just need 50% from any combo of sigils and runes.

I’d go:

1x sigil of earth (bleed on crit)
1x sigil of agony (10% duration)

2x krait
2x centaur
2x afflicted
—
45% total

Puts you at 105%. You can save money and not use a Sup sigil of agony or whatever but now you have 100% duration and a chance to bleed on crit.

You have to remember also to keep in mind that duration on conditions only work when you get the duration to the next tick tier.

By that, I mean if you have a 2 second bleed, it will not add one more to the stack unless you have 50% bleed duration, because all of conditions work in 1s duration in one form or another.

I know it may sound stupid but I don’t want to be food dependant
Anyway, to those that actually tried it, is it worth going for +50% bleeding duration? Or is it better to just concentrate on condition damage?

coglin.1496:

You have to remember also to keep in mind that duration on conditions only work when you get the duration to the next tick tier.

That’s pretty much what this whole topic is about

Right, it appeared to be over looked in a few of the post, so I was just laying it out here.

Judging by my numbers +duration was more impactful then +cond damage, in most cases.

*ahem… direct damage is better then either. Even with pistols.
Direct aoe scaling on p1.
.324/hit. could average to .162 if you take an armor vs pistol estimation.
This is aoe. And with coated bullets at max range will double hit. .648 direct, or .324 av versus armor. A triple hit, add another stack.
+5% trait, vul and crit. +65% more damage about(much more if you gear for crit damage). effectively, 1.07, or .5(after armor) scaling.
1 shot every .8s. yes it lies. 24shots in 20s. I’ve tested. obviously base bleed still being applied, as well as sharpshooter.

base bleed is 2s bleed, sharpshooter is 3s. lets use 3s, and 4s.
Direct you will hit twice for 2 3s bleeds. .05×3×2. .3 scaling direct. sharpshooter. 80% crit chance, 30% chance of applying, 24% average per hit aoe. 2 hits. .05×4×2x.24= .096 average.
.396 total direct, .096 of which is aoe for the cond, while the .5 after armor is aoe totally.
P1 scales with power better then cond. (with or without coated bullets) And I was stacking in conds favor with +50% bleed duration, while not giving power +crit damage. Crit chance of 80% does favor power. But again thats the point. of power>cond.

PDV same thing. poison scales terribly. .37×5 direct hits base. Factor armor and crit, etc afterwards.
Static shot and blowtorch get murky. confuse scales well, esp at 2 or 4 stacks per shot. But scales different in pve and spvp, as well is totally dependent on your opponent using skills. If they cleanse it immediately, or stop attackinkittenage.
Blow torches direct is .915 direct base, again crit,etc. vs 1.5 burn over 6s.

This discussion did make me re-evaluate my stance on p/p. Veggie pizza, etc. Cond duration is more effective then I thought.
I do not gear for cond damage, however, level 80 bleeds do 42.5/s by default. Might gives cond. Orbs gave it, but are being removed.
A +100% duration will significantly increase damage per application. P1 and elixir gun1, very notably would gain greatly.

Short duration stacks, +duration is great. But that blowtorch for example. 6s already. Increasing that to 12s, will just be vs dead targets, get cleansed, or not stack with another players burn, as you near 100% uptime. PDV already has 100% uptime with 20% cdr on pistol iirc. or close to it. +duration means nothing for that, save hit and run.

Thanks for the writeup Casia, it looks like I’ll try out getting Afflicted+Krait+Sigil of Agony to reach the +50%.
But I wonder, where did you get the skill power multiplier from? Is the 0.324 for P1 just from tests? I was looking for some info on this but never found it.

yes. damage is calculated as: skill coeff*weapon damage*power/armor

armor is generally 2000-2600. tooltip is based off 2600. players can build tanky and get higher for sure. its rare. and some in poor gear might be below.
knowing the formula, its easy to figure out the skill coeff, when the others are all known variables.

Tooltip damage is also based on max damage.

I know the topic is bleed duration, but how would this play out in respect to burn duration in a pistol/shield 10/30/0/10/20 build?

2x Rune of Nightmare: 4% condition duration, 28 Cond dmg
2x Rune of Lyssa: 10% condition duration, 25 precision
2x Rune of Lich: 4% condition duration, 25 vitality
10 points in Explosives: 10% condition duration
20 points in Firearms Napalm Sepcialist: 20% burn duration
Veggie Pizza: 40% condition duration
2x Sigil of smoldering: 20% burn duration

68% condition duration
108% burn duration

Or doesnt it make sense trying to maximise duration of a condition that ‘only’ procs 33% of all crits?
Anyone care to crunch some numbers?
How much precision would one need to make this worthwhile?

Thanks!

Trying to stack bleed duration on engi is sorta silly. Engi bleeds arn’t long enough duration or a big enough part of engi dps, even for a condition spec, in the first place to make it worthwhile.

Necros, rangers, condition thievse – there bleed duration may make sense. Not for engis though.

Yukishiro.8792:

Trying to stack bleed duration on engi is sorta silly. Engi bleeds arn’t long enough duration or a big enough part of engi dps, even for a condition spec, in the first place to make it worthwhile.

Necros, rangers, condition thievse – there bleed duration may make sense. Not for engis though.

I’m not so sure, if we’re talking single target and I’m nearing 100% burning uptime and already has 100% poison uptime then I can either focus on bleeds or on power. I can’t really boost my power much just with runes and sigils so I am left with improving my bleeds.
Even if extending my bleeds by 50% will cost me 200 condition damage (that currently the runes of undead grant me) I’d say I’m gaining more damage than I am loosing.
Against larger groups the extended bleeds are even more important, piercing bullets+P1+sharpshooter can trigger 4 or more bleeds on a single shot.

I’m currently considering a rather costly (for me at least) option of going:
2x Lyssa + 2x Krait + 2x Afflicted + 10 in explosions + napalm specialist + sigil of smoldering

This gives me +50% bleed and +50% burning, making it easy to keep up burning even at max range. What do you think?

Pannonica.5378:

68% condition duration
108% burn duration

Or doesnt it make sense trying to maximise duration of a condition that ‘only’ procs 33% of all crits?
Anyone care to crunch some numbers?
How much precision would one need to make this worthwhile?

Thanks!

Well considering you also get +68% condition duration overall, it’s pretty sweet, extending just your burns if your only burn is the trait doesn’t seem that good to me.
Also, remember that the rune of the mad king is now available, giving you +10% to all conditions at second tier.

I’m renaming the thread to be a general condition duration one

You need to look pretty carefully at what that % increase in bleed duration actually gets you. If you are using the traditional condition spec (i.e., not grenades) your bleeding sources are so low duration to begin with that you need to do the math to see if each marginal increase is worth it. You seem to do this in your original post.

It seems like the rub is you are getting 1 extra second of bleeding per auto attack going with more bleed duration. So I guess it just really depends on what you give up to get the extra 10%. If you’re only losing ~30 condition damage that is probably worth it.

I am not sure losing 50 toughness and 150 condition is worth it to get the added bleed duration. I would have to do the math on how much DPS that costs you, particularly with 100% uptime on burn, which scales pretty well (compared to bleed, which doesn’t). It would also depend on if we’re talking PVE, where conditions rarely get removed, or PVP, where they often get removed, thereby mitigating the value of +duration.