Guild Wars 2

Lately I’ve seen way too many of these condi/hybrid guard forum posts that mainly consisted of another weird variation of the same hybrid build and weird video montages of mediocre players farming horrible players with said build.

The builds have been pretty much variations of these two:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxbI8DNR8QZ1HUdAkAP61/wMkDA-TJRHwAV2fIwTAAZZAAnEAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxZI8DNBARlZREhWGARw1hQFsBA-TJRHwABeCAILDA4kAEa/BA

The standard offensive guard builds look like this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApcoVDxbI8DVR8QlZK+i2UVAgz1/QQkDA-TZBFwACuAAEOIA12foaZAAPBAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAS7dlsApcoVDxbI8DRRDRld8df5nN4c9BchBAA-TpBFwACuAAIeAAEOIA12foaZAAHBAA

I’ve seen a lot of people comparing zerker and hybrid guardians and using the weirdest arguments. People said condi guard could hold points better and survive longer than zerker while the only defensive thing that condi has over the standard builds are a bit more HP.

It has no vigor and even if you would trait for it you would barely get vigor procs with carrion. Your autoattacks hit for not very much so you have almost no counterpressure, as soon as your weaponswap is on cooldown people can basicly freecast on you and you’re forced to blow your defensive cooldowns really fast while zerker can put symbols or smite under him and stuff like thieves will get punished really hard for engaging without the guard even using defensive cooldowns.

Also hybrid guard doesn’t really have burst. It kills kind of slow and barely has any impact in teamfights. I saw a few people calling krait runes renewed focus a burst… Just no. You use your most important defensive cooldown to get ONE stack of bleeding, ONE stack of torment and poison on people. You really think that’s worth it and you really think you can call that a burst?

Also one of the things that lets you notice that you have a zerker guard on your team is insane cleave on downed bodies, especially from GS. The best thing condi guard can do is swapping weapons for poison and then do pretty weak autoattacks.

People also bring the argument that condi guard is better in some 1v1 matchups. This is the one thing that is true and that I have to agree with. However that’s barely relevant. You might be able to freekill mesmers and thieves with it but you have an an advantage against that anyways and you might have a slightly better matchup against celes dd ele but you still shouldn’t win against them if they are decent. The only really relevant one is engi because they go from being a hard matchup on zerker guard to being a freekill on condi guard. I got 1st place the last ESL 1v1 cup by 1 shotting engis with condi guard a bunch of times so I should know.

Apart from that zerker is almost always better than condi guard as soon as your 1v1 get’s +1’d and becomes a 2v2 which happens a lot when people call that they are losing their 1v1 against you. Zerker actually has some kind of cc with gs or hammer that your teammate can make use of, your teammate ccing targets does not really doanything for condi guard since you hit your passive burning stuff and instant weaponsswaps anyways while it can mean being able to 100-0 targets for zerker guard which I’ve done a lot in 2v2s together with hambows or rifle engis. Also condi guard neither has a safe stomp nor good cleave on downed bodies which makes it more likely that people can rez against you. Also zerker can support their teammate better since they can afford going into virtues and get the cleanse on f2 or even stability on f3.

In actual 5v5 games condi guard is also pretty much outclassed by condi engi because they both bring burning and geo/doom swaps but engi also brings cc, more defense, utility like stealth, more mobility and better support cuz healing turret op.

tl;dr: Literally the only thing condi guard does better than zerker is killing engis.

Feel free to disagree, feel free to prove me wrong by playing condi guard in any ESL 5v5 tournament and doing well with it. I hope that we can get an actual discussion going and not just people repeating the same stuff they already said in the forum posts I mentioned (dat krait runes burst tho).

I first saw the build some months ago on blasino’s thread (blassino? srry for misspelling your name) and I tried it. Surprisingly it wasn’t bad at all, quite awesome in many situations where the standard medi zerker build failed me. I was literally downing players only with my block rotations. They were burning like crazy. I said to myself, this can’t be that easy. Until I advanced further in rank and got owned so bad even by some thieves. Thing is condi builds, no matter the class require less skill than a legit power build. And I know I took a lot of players by surprise it won’t work against real good ones that know how to adapt in a fight.
Although, if a team knows how to use a hybrid guard well I think it’s way more valuable than a bunker. I dislike bunker so much with the current meta I can’t even tell you. Either you get out sustained by ele’s and CC’ed and condied to death by engies while spamming your shouts like an idiot when u shouldn’t use them to clear condis. I feel like i’m there to delay my death as much as I can, while also supporting them in the meanwhile.
At least with the hybrid build I can apply a lot off pressure on point and let the thieves or whatever finish the job. While the dmg doesn’t have the burst of a direct power build it wins in the fact that positioning is less vital (like almost all condie builds) and your condies tick even if you don’t connect.
I think that’s why this build shine’s in many of the cases. Also it rocks on Spirit Watch for orb carrier.

Edit Just to add, I dislike all condie builds. And I wish celestial was not in the game from the beginning.

for the real discussion and not just qq

i am surely not high tier pvp player rather average one but i like to test things and theorycraft a lot

med zerk states:

power 2.1k
crit chance 43-63%
crit dmg 200%
hp 14.7k
armor 2.4k
as using full meditation the only support skill is F2 which cleanse 3 conditions every 50 sec

my build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApcoVDxZI8DNR8QZ1HUdAkAP61/wMkDA-TJRHwAf2fIwFBAZZAAPBAA
states:
power 2.05k
hp 17.4k
armor 2.4k
condition 1k
base dmg multiplier – 7% (rune)+ 10% symbol + vulnerability 10-15%
PF cleanse 3 conditions every 35 sec

so the main differences are HP and crit dmg+chance and 17%-32% dmg
i have tested it several time with friends with the same skills rotation which build kill faster
result – medzerk 1 sec shorter
but when i tested it when my friends use block/evade/dodge/blind on me the hybrid kill lots faster 5-6 sec
the conditions do 1.2k dmg which ignoring armor and even when cleanse you can put it back up easily and not depends on crit chance

also the defense on the hybrid do lots of dmg while buffing you up
med zerk who use block wont proc burning while hybrid will proc it so while on defense he is doing dmg 800 dps

also my symbols do vulnerability which your group now can hit harder
and my pf bringing nice fire field with some nice combo like 3 stack of might and fire aura and burning for 8 sec

regarding group play you can see hybrid can bring something (else) to the table

if you compare it to other conditions class like engi which got better cc, healing aoe blast, they got less condition dmg as your burning is 33% stronger and proc constantly
and yes their torret are OP atm if you fight on point but my condition are aoe my dmg is higher so… it really depends on the group comp. if i need point holder then torret engi all the way

Keksmuffin.1450:

“Your autoattacks hit for not very much so you have almost no counterpressure, as soon as your weaponswap is on cooldown people can basicly freecast on you and you’re forced to blow your defensive cooldowns really fast while zerker can put symbols or smite under him and stuff like thieves will get punished really hard for engaging without the guard even using defensive cooldowns.”

you know what really make thieves hate you ? conditions. when i block they get burn… while my symbol do dmg so total dmg is higher . and believe me thieves will disengage and use sb on you (the smart one)

Keksmuffin.1450:

“Also one of the things that lets you notice that you have a zerker guard on your team is insane cleave on downed bodies, especially from GS. The best thing condi guard can do is swapping weapons for poison and then do pretty weak autoattacks.”

my auto attacks do 800-1000 dmg with 800 burning (100% chance) bleeding 300, poison 200
medzerk will do 700-900 and if crit 1400-1800 (60% chance)

Keksmuffin.1450:

“Zerker actually has some kind of cc with gs or hammer that your teammate can make use of, your teammate ccing targets does not really doanything for condi guard since you hit your passive burning stuff and instant weaponsswaps anyways while it can mean being able to 100-0 targets for zerker guard which I’ve done a lot in 2v2s together with hambows or rifle engis. Also condi guard neither has a safe stomp nor good cleave on downed bodies which makes it more likely that people can rez against you. Also zerker can support their teammate better since they can afford going into virtues and get the cleanse on f2 or even stability on f3”

as you see i am using gs either so same skill and rotation
instead of f2 i got pf which is on shorter cd

if you down someone from 100-0 he is low lvl player if he didnt dodge/evade etc..
my aoe burning can bring in 1v2 both of them down
my burning and conditions make the enemies use their utilities earlier in the fight while medzek hardly

and some how i find it hard to kill engi on point . but if i just range them its easier but they contest the point while doing so till help comes

so tl:dr i think ppl must to reconsider and test the hybrid build solo and with group
i know i got lots of compliments and whispers how i manage to do lots of dmg and conditions pressure
sure medzerk will still continue to do hard dmg if they crit on low armor while hybrid can do the same on every armor

I wasn’t talking about turret engi, I was talking about healing turret being better support than anything a condi guard would bring.

Saying purging flames would be better than traited f2 is pretty ridicolous. Traited f2 has 5 times the range, is instant and doesn’t take the utilityslot of your stunbreak. Apart from that you can reset the cooldown of your f2 by using your elite.

Also you didn’t get my point about 100-0ing people at all. I said zerker guard can make use of CCs from his team. You can burst people when your partner CCs or imobs people which is another plus point in group play.

Also pretty ironic that you say people who get 100-0’d would be “low lvl players” and then talk about 1v2ing people in the very next sentence.

You say your condi or hybrid guard would have more reliable damage even though you can avoid most of it just by saving cleanses for geo/doom swaps and not hitting into blocks. Good players will just stow weapon when you pop shield of wrath or shelter.

Keksmuffin.1450:

I wasn’t talking about turret engi, I was talking about healing turret being better support than anything a condi guard would bring.

Saying purging flames would be better than traited f2 is pretty ridicolous. Traited f2 has 5 times the range, is instant and doesn’t take the utilityslot of your stunbreak. Apart from that you can reset the cooldown of your f2 by using your elite.

Also you didn’t get my point about 100-0ing people at all. I said zerker guard can make use of CCs from his team. You can burst people when your partner CCs or imobs people which is another plus point in group play.

Also pretty ironic that you say people who get 100-0’d would be “low lvl players” and then talk about 1v2ing people in the very next sentence.

You say your condi or hybrid guard would have more reliable damage even though you can avoid most of it just by saving cleanses for geo/doom swaps and not hitting into blocks. Good players will just stow weapon when you pop shield of wrath or shelter.

you still havent convinced me why zerk med better than hybrid

if its the f2 take cele ele
i dont use shield of wrath when ppl just AA i use it when they burst thus if they stow weapon i wont get burst and i can get few hits on them and burning . if they burst its blocked and proc burning so win win and also it proc on aoe dmg so i can get the block from it too.

and pf is better on point as ppl get in and out from it also conditions duration is 33% shorter which is nice too.

the geo doom for me is just for cover conditions the burning is the main source of condition dmg ticking 750-850 dps

messiah.1908:

you know what really make thieves hate you ? conditions. when i block they get burn… while my symbol do dmg so total dmg is higher . and believe me thieves will disengage and use sb on you (the smart one)

Have you fought any top thief players? On Guardian you have burn, maybe poison. At most you will get 3 conditions on them. That is incredibly easy for a thief to cleanse let alone evade. That small amount of conditions can be cleansed with sword 2, shadow step, entering stealth, hitting 75% hp.

Benjamin.8237:

messiah.1908:

you know what really make thieves hate you ? conditions. when i block they get burn… while my symbol do dmg so total dmg is higher . and believe me thieves will disengage and use sb on you (the smart one)

Have you fought any top thief players? On Guardian you have burn, maybe poison. At most you will get 3 conditions on them. That is incredibly easy for a thief to cleanse let alone evade. That small amount of conditions can be cleansed with sword 2, shadow step, entering stealth, hitting 75% hp.

thief s/d is a meta for a reason . even shatter mesmer will have hard time and medzerk and it wont say that shatter or medzerk are useless build

i cant say i fought elite thieves as i dont look for them . i know to recognize good thief if he know how to counter me
thus most of them when they get burn they use sword 2 after reaching 50% hp and using SS when they get below 25% to get mostly distance for SB
they easy kite is just use SB and evade with poison spamming which guardian hate the most

i can say that the good one who killed me didnt killed me with s/d rather from sb after 2 min fight as most of the fight good thieves will kite . bad thieves try to burst when they shouldnt and coming close to a guardian is a big NO.

and i dont look for 1v1 to prove the build is ok or meta i just say this build works same and better in hybrid

and in group situation i dont look for the thieves rather the necro ele warrior guardian who stand on the point . if i se thief just spamming i use aoe and some conditions so push him back on defense givving my team few seconds of 3v2 while he is on SR SS etc..

Condi guardian doesn’t exist. It’s hybrid, bullet, hybrid.

creepmatic.9435:

I first saw the build some months ago on blasino’s thread (blassino? srry for misspelling your name) and I tried it. Surprisingly it wasn’t bad at all, quite awesome in many situations where the standard medi zerker build failed me. I was literally downing players only with my block rotations. They were burning like crazy. I said to myself, this can’t be that easy. Until I advanced further in rank and got owned so bad even by some thieves. Thing is condi builds, no matter the class require less skill than a legit power build. And I know I took a lot of players by surprise it won’t work against real good ones that know how to adapt in a fight.
Although, if a team knows how to use a hybrid guard well I think it’s way more valuable than a bunker. I dislike bunker so much with the current meta I can’t even tell you. Either you get out sustained by ele’s and CC’ed and condied to death by engies while spamming your shouts like an idiot when u shouldn’t use them to clear condis. I feel like i’m there to delay my death as much as I can, while also supporting them in the meanwhile.
At least with the hybrid build I can apply a lot off pressure on point and let the thieves or whatever finish the job. While the dmg doesn’t have the burst of a direct power build it wins in the fact that positioning is less vital (like almost all condie builds) and your condies tick even if you don’t connect.
I think that’s why this build shine’s in many of the cases. Also it rocks on Spirit Watch for orb carrier.

Edit Just to add, I dislike all condie builds. And I wish celestial was not in the game from the beginning.

You spelt it right the first time haha.

You know what the bigger weakness of my build is in team fights… don’t attack me haha!

Since all of the burning it primarily applied with the blocks, kinda hard to keep up massive amounts of burning when people don’t attack you 0.o. And yes good players will figure out how to easily beat a condi guardian.

But the build does own in spirit watch lol!

Overall, Hybrid/condi guard really only has a place in duels or just to have fun (which is the most important thing, FUN).

But when it comes to a serious team environment, condi guard is an insult. No one on this forum has shown otherwise. It’s been a lot of talking a big game with some ok vids.

the hybrid concept is good . what bad is the team comp which make your build useless but again also the medzerk.
if i see ele,guard,engi in the enemy team i reroll another class if my team dont need bunker

Keksmuffin.1450:

The builds have been pretty much variations of these two:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxbI8DNR8QZ1HUdAkAP61/wMkDA-TJRHwAV2fIwTAAZZAAnEAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxZI8DNBARlZREhWGARw1hQFsBA-TJRHwABeCAILDA4kAEa/BA

The Better Build is this

I swap between Vigor and Blind constantly. lol

Krait Runes are for Cover and Bleed Duration. I actually like Guardian Runes in this case, as you double up on the Defender Flame Trait.

As Holl stated, it’s HYBRID, not condi. Hybrid… w/ Might Stacking.

The reason people are talking about it is because it is a ~fun~ build: people have to try to take the point, while you can just spam symbols, blocks, blinds and do a really good amount of PASSIVE Damage w/ ~pretty good~ self sustain.

It’s just different and as anyone who has played Guardian knows, we’ve been stagnate for a really….really….REALLY, long time.

I made some condi builds/video’s a very long time ago (mid 2013) but condi/hybrid as a Guardian has been a joke until AW…. which isn’t to say it still isn’t… just playable at least, now in sPvP.

Radiant Retaliation is 100% broken right now, so there are no decent condi damage builds at this time.

So for a proof of concept I went in some unrated pvp testing a 100% burning focused build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRApd8flsApcoNDxSI8DNR8QZdH8CpQ1BQC8oXNDA-TJhAABws/A0PBgxKDAwJBAA

Not trying to be effective, just seeing what burning can do.

1002 burning per tick in game (although from build calc it should be 1008?)

Not relying on passive VoJ for burns, but more on aoe on skills. Torch, JI, and Purging Flames.

Utilized blocks and blinds on sword/mace to delay damage and let burns tick.

The pressure is noticeable, there was not enough condition cleans by opponents to keep up. Damage ticks took huge chunks out of their life.

Downside, yeah I was able to down a lot of people left and right due to passive burning, I was squishy and downed as well. Not a total failure as I was just trying to see if burning could do decent damage.

Other downside, is since my damage is slow (15-20 seconds to get a kill) my lack of sustain ability was highlighted even more. There is no burst. With allies I can keep pressure up, but just like our bunker spec, it works best with allies near by. Just like our damage specs, it works best with allies near by…everything works best with allies around. The curse of the guardians.

1v1 maybe it is fun, group play, it adds some pressure at the sacrifice of EVERYTHING.

The other crux of the guardian class. If you want damage, you give up defense, if you want defense you give up damage, if you want conditions you give up both.

I think condition guardian could be better solved by better management of our trait synergy and putting them a tier or two down in various trees.

Hell, why do we even have Kindled Zeal anymore, that trait lasted maybe a month and they upgraded to Amplified Wrath. Trash Kindled Zeal and reorg our traits pls.

TLDR
Sacrifice everything to gain good burns, not ready for mass play until trait lines get cleaned up.

From what I’ve read on this subject, it kind of seems like the condi-hybrid build isn’t actually bad. It’s just more situational than the normal builds, and it serves a different purpose.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Lately I’ve seen way too many of these condi/hybrid guard forum posts that mainly consisted of another weird variation of the same hybrid build and weird video montages of mediocre players farming horrible players with said build.

The builds have been pretty much variations of these two:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxbI8DNR8QZ1HUdAkAP61/wMkDA-TJRHwAV2fIwTAAZZAAnEAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApcoVDxZI8DNBARlZREhWGARw1hQFsBA-TJRHwABeCAILDA4kAEa/BA

The standard offensive guard builds look like this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7dlsApcoVDxbI8DVR8QlZK+i2UVAgz1/QQkDA-TZBFwACuAAEOIA12foaZAAPBAA

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAS7dlsApcoVDxbI8DRRDRld8df5nN4c9BchBAA-TpBFwACuAAIeAAEOIA12foaZAAHBAA

I’ve seen a lot of people comparing zerker and hybrid guardians and using the weirdest arguments. People said condi guard could hold points better and survive longer than zerker while the only defensive thing that condi has over the standard builds are a bit more HP.

It has no vigor and even if you would trait for it you would barely get vigor procs with carrion. Your autoattacks hit for not very much so you have almost no counterpressure, as soon as your weaponswap is on cooldown people can basicly freecast on you and you’re forced to blow your defensive cooldowns really fast while zerker can put symbols or smite under him and stuff like thieves will get punished really hard for engaging without the guard even using defensive cooldowns.

Also hybrid guard doesn’t really have burst. It kills kind of slow and barely has any impact in teamfights. I saw a few people calling krait runes renewed focus a burst… Just no. You use your most important defensive cooldown to get ONE stack of bleeding, ONE stack of torment and poison on people. You really think that’s worth it and you really think you can call that a burst?

Also one of the things that lets you notice that you have a zerker guard on your team is insane cleave on downed bodies, especially from GS. The best thing condi guard can do is swapping weapons for poison and then do pretty weak autoattacks.

People also bring the argument that condi guard is better in some 1v1 matchups. This is the one thing that is true and that I have to agree with. However that’s barely relevant. You might be able to freekill mesmers and thieves with it but you have an an advantage against that anyways and you might have a slightly better matchup against celes dd ele but you still shouldn’t win against them if they are decent. The only really relevant one is engi because they go from being a hard matchup on zerker guard to being a freekill on condi guard. I got 1st place the last ESL 1v1 cup by 1 shotting engis with condi guard a bunch of times so I should know.

Apart from that zerker is almost always better than condi guard as soon as your 1v1 get’s +1’d and becomes a 2v2 which happens a lot when people call that they are losing their 1v1 against you. Zerker actually has some kind of cc with gs or hammer that your teammate can make use of, your teammate ccing targets does not really doanything for condi guard since you hit your passive burning stuff and instant weaponsswaps anyways while it can mean being able to 100-0 targets for zerker guard which I’ve done a lot in 2v2s together with hambows or rifle engis. Also condi guard neither has a safe stomp nor good cleave on downed bodies which makes it more likely that people can rez against you. Also zerker can support their teammate better since they can afford going into virtues and get the cleanse on f2 or even stability on f3.

In actual 5v5 games condi guard is also pretty much outclassed by condi engi because they both bring burning and geo/doom swaps but engi also brings cc, more defense, utility like stealth, more mobility and better support cuz healing turret op.

tl;dr: Literally the only thing condi guard does better than zerker is killing engis.

Feel free to disagree, feel free to prove me wrong by playing condi guard in any ESL 5v5 tournament and doing well with it. I hope that we can get an actual discussion going and not just people repeating the same stuff they already said in the forum posts I mentioned (dat krait runes burst tho).

^ This 100%

Condi guard works vs bad players and the first time vs good players.

Engies, D/D ele and even shoutbow warriors bring so much more to the table that its not even funny.

If you want to play something new, by all means go ahead, but if you want to be competitive in todays meta, look at a different class.

As far as i know, guardian is dead in sPVP, celestial killed it.

I can’t think of many scenarios where a hybrid will outshine a full zerk meditation guardian. Even in most 1v1s I see the advantage going to zerk. A hybrid relies on drawing the fight out to try and out sustain the enemy while a zerk will burst it down quickly. They fundamentally play different. Take thief for example. They melt after being pulled in with greatsword > WW and a few auto attacks. Against any zerker class I would give advantage to the zerk meditation guardian. Beyond that, like a celestial d/d ele, I could see a hybrid having a better shot in a sustained fight.

The biggest problem, besides the lack of conditions and burst, is that they don’t have any sustain beyond what a zerker meditation guardian brings. Literally just a few extra thousand HP from the carrion amulet. They’re still vulnerable to being burst down by zerker classes, especially the one they’re being compared to.

I did make a condition guardian build myself for fun though! I enjoy theory crafting even though I doubt I’ll ever play it or it will ever have a place in pvp.

The Medi Hybrid has its place. Like some other pvp focus people have said, I probably wouldn’t take it into organized pvp, but soloq is perfect for it, as well as roaming or havok in wvw. Many builds and players can’t handle the one-two punch that hybrid can bring. Your average hybrid build should really just need to trade crits for conditions, which Guardians can actually manage. You trade the burst from zerks for more “guaranteed” burn damage when you can’t stay on target. Which one you need in a fight will depend, but generally the better players can play with a higher risk/reward, and that is zerks.

However, My hybrid medi guard is not only my third Guardian and 12th character, but it is by far the most fun I’ve had playing. Everything from the leveling process, to pvp, to wvw. I never really pvp’d at all, and if I did it was to mess around with my guild. The hybrid medi guard brought me into traditional pvp, and its been a blast. Its a beautiful thing to have 2k power and an effective 2k condition damage for burning. 2.4k armor isn’t terrible considering its hybrid, and 18k or so health is wonderful to have as a guardian. Here’s a link to my build, as its slightly different than what most people have shown, but its my favorite version by far.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR7flsApaolDxbI8DNR8QZVIUdA0AP61/wMkDA-TVSEwAIUCKS3AAzcAVmta/hYq/04JAw4iAMVpBpAgYMA-w
GS just seems to fit well with Medis, the trait selection, and its been my go-to condition weapon due to all my testing with Permeating Wrath. I don’t have it here, but its a relic of familiarity and burning all the things.
Scepter for range. Smite also works well, due to the fast attack speed, proccing passive VoJ quickly, as does Whirling Wrath
Torch for even more burning all the things. #4 lets me replace purging flames for my non-voj burning application, and it’s very nice in general.
For pvp its Carrion Amulet, for WvW its as listed. The backpiece is the crafted one, so the stats are slightly different, but meh.

Shanks.2907:

I can’t think of many scenarios where a hybrid will outshine a full zerk meditation guardian. Even in most 1v1s I see the advantage going to zerk. A hybrid relies on drawing the fight out to try and out sustain the enemy while a zerk will burst it down quickly. They fundamentally play different. Take thief for example. They melt after being pulled in with greatsword > WW and a few auto attacks. Against any zerker class I would give advantage to the zerk meditation guardian. Beyond that, like a celestial d/d ele, I could see a hybrid having a better shot in a sustained fight.

Disagree. Even the OP stated condi is better in 1v1. Thieves are already easy vs guardians so that’s a mute argument. Condi guards make better node defenders. Period.

my fav guard right now is meditation cele s/f/ham. tons of damage, tons of sustain with the extra hp, and tons of condi cleansing. burns are plentiful and tick for 450, which is an awesome way to supplement your hammer damage. this is about as close as I would get to running anything condi-based on the guard. leaves zerker meditation builds in the dust. similar damage, much higher sustain.

mistsim.2748:

my fav guard right now is meditation cele s/f/ham. tons of damage, tons of sustain with the extra hp, and tons of condi cleansing. burns are plentiful and tick for 450, which is an awesome way to supplement your hammer damage. this is about as close as I would get to running anything condi-based on the guard. leaves zerker meditation builds in the dust. similar damage, much higher sustain.

What kind of build do you use? I’ve tried running something like 0/0/6/4/4 with empowering might/absolute resolution. Battle sigils for more might on swaps and strength runes. Biggest downside being the lack of swiftness, so sometimes I’ll try running it with a hammer/staff.

Meditation builds with strength runes/staff are interesting. I’ve tried it out with a friend before. Each of us had a staff, one with greatsword the other with sw/f. Load up an instant 24 stacks of might and a good amount of swiftness. Works surprisingly well in a team fight, really funny how it renders mesmers useless when staff spamming.

This is the condition build I’ve been using. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf5dlsApaolDxbI8DNR8QZVHUdAkAP61zwPkDA-TphAwAw2fYyJAgzBBgcZgNHBAAPAA

Rabid amulet. Sword/torch and mace/shield. Meditations. 6/2/6/0/0.

It works well in unranked, but I don’t think its good enough for ranked. I open with sword/torch and swap to mace/shield when I’m under pressure. It’s tough to beat real condition builds because I don’t have enough condition cleanse, so I have to try to avoid conditions as well. It doesn’t have much corpse cleave, and it can’t kill trebuchets or gates. But I have found it works surprisingly well, and I can stay alive pretty well in most situations. It beats many people in 1v1s, so I try to hunt ranged characters or thieves on the edges of team fights or take points solo.

Holl.3109:

Condi guardian doesn’t exist. It’s hybrid, bullet, hybrid.

^This for pvp and the same goes for thief,you only skip rabid if your HP is too low and lack on crit condi traits. In this case skill solidifies the build like it does with most, don’t compare it to most turret specs. Celestial guard is a thing even traditional med guard is kind of hybrid.

so basically what most of you saying is that guard not needed in the current comp meta
maybe bunker guard but again turret engi can hold point better even in 1v2 scenarios

and most of you compare the hybrid guard to engi role

what is the current comp?
2 engis, saff ele, thief, ranger (condi or power)?!

messiah.1908:

so basically what most of you saying is that guard not needed in the current comp meta
maybe bunker guard but again turret engi can hold point better even in 1v2 scenarios

and most of you compare the hybrid guard to engi role

what is the current comp?
2 engis, saff ele, thief, ranger (condi or power)?!

If that. It’s usually 2 ele’s, engi, thief, war or necro or (big maybe) bunk/shout guard.
All of which are Celestial with the exception of thief and warrior.

The hybrid guardian has been a thing since Amplified Wrath was added. The only reason why it’s as effective as it is right now is because people are just now starting to realize that the build exists, and they still don’t quite yet know how to effectively counter it.

It’s mostly just a fad, essentially. It’ll go out of style once people learn how to fight it.

i dont want to start an tpvp thread in the guaridan forum
but from what i have seen from the esl fights that the thief job is to manly decap or steal points and hardly do dmg rather going stealth or run away. thus the meta build for it is around more evades and not dmg
the cele meta is hard kitten. as it provid good sustain to class who can proc boons rapidly like ele and engi
there is still no specipic way to counter hybrid as its act same as medzerk . you just need more cleanse thats all.
so if medzerk is out of the meta the same goes for hybrid. but if somehow medzerk will be back again (when cele nerf will come) then i think hybrid will get its place

as most of the gw2 player not in the top tier tpvp i think still hybrid is useable (fun) but if you team against meta comp just reroll

Actually S/D thief does a lot of damage due to its boons stealing. If you play with/against a skilled one its pretty kitten devastating.

Also, Euro’s best comps run bunker guards, with shatter boon stripping mesmers. This counters d/d ele’s pretty hard and if you throw in a skilled s/d thief its pretty deadly.

A big reason for the celestial comp’s rise in NA are two things 1) the buff to the celes ammy and 2) takes less coordination and rotating and its more forgiving to play. With a bunker guardian comp, you must rotate. If you guardian is sitting on a point by himself you aren’t doing your team justice. A bunker guardian shines with people around him. That is why you need to rotate points which takes great communication and trust.

Blasino.3128:

Actually S/D thief does a lot of damage due to its boons stealing. If you play with/against a skilled one its pretty kitten devastating.

Also, Euro’s best comps run bunker guards, with shatter boon stripping mesmers. This counters d/d ele’s pretty hard and if you throw in a skilled s/d thief its pretty deadly.

A big reason for the celestial comp’s rise in NA are two things 1) the buff to the celes ammy and 2) takes less coordination and rotating and its more forgiving to play. With a bunker guardian comp, you must rotate. If you guardian is sitting on a point by himself you aren’t doing your team justice. A bunker guardian shines with people around him. That is why you need to rotate points which takes great communication and trust.

i know sd does lots of dmg but if you check sizer group fight you will notice most of the time he is looking for the decap/free cap and not engaging in some 1v1 which just lose some time for his group where he could help maybe in 4v3

i know some ppl think if your team has a bunker guard he can save it alone and its so untrue as 1v2 he will die left alone or even 1v1 versus condi engi/necro

The burning on block enables you to play like a proper tank. This game is based a lot on Moba combat. And you become like a properly built Moba tank able to really punish people for attacking you.

Any good player will dodge your medi burst leaving you on cd. Any time they try to damage you they cop burning with a hybrid. And it just gets stronger the more you block.

Sometimes I 1v2 and win. And when I lose I dish out so much burning that anyone who rotates to help can quickly mop up.

The hybrid really punishes beserker classes. You can kill zerkers in under 10 sec.

@Keskmuffin

You’ve been looking at the wrong condi guard builds.

Relentliss.2170:

The burning on block enables you to play like a proper tank. This game is based a lot on Moba combat. And you become like a properly built Moba tank able to really punish people for attacking you.

Any good player will dodge your medi burst leaving you on cd. Any time they try to damage you they cop burning with a hybrid. And it just gets stronger the more you block.

Sometimes I 1v2 and win. And when I lose I dish out so much burning that anyone who rotates to help can quickly mop up.

The hybrid really punishes beserker classes. You can kill zerkers in under 10 sec.

Depends on the type of Zerker. A slow hitting Zerker could easily make you look silly for trying, like someone who depends on big spaced out hits and has a lot of CC.

Black Box.9312:

The hybrid guardian has been a thing since Amplified Wrath was added. The only reason why it’s as effective as it is right now is because people are just now starting to realize that the build exists, and they still don’t quite yet know how to effectively counter it.

It’s mostly just a fad, essentially. It’ll go out of style once people learn how to fight it.

It’s very hard to “know” how to fight it. A good condi guard player who knows how to play mind games can really turn the tables on you. And if you pressure a good condi guard, you’re probably going to go down as well unless you’ve got some top notch condi removal.

so far in tpvp with group i see more usefulness with the hybrid then the medzerk

in 1v1 both builds are fine and may be equal
but in group the hybrid shines

you dont have to target your enemy to do aoe dmg to others so in 3v3 you may hit 3 enemies lets say trying to cap or hold a point . so doing 700-800 dps on them while hitting your target for 1.8 dps is really good pressure

several fights i had against turret engi bunker guard and dd ele we manage to win this meta comp while he were ranger, hybrid guard, bunker guard just because i manage to pressure 3 of them all the time with burning and cleansing while the ranger pew pew the ele from range and the bunker buff me while i was using PF on the point so each time the ele rotate inside it and out he got burn and the engi with poor condi removal just died from me even i target the bunker to pressure him to cleanse early in the fight

you may say if i used other class we could manage to do the same like turret engi or mm/condi necro . but against bunker guard with stability rotation condi works best while i can dish out good direct dmg as well

other fight we had against 2 turret/kit engi and bunker guard it was really hard as the constant kd but still we manage to do nice

maybe its me but i hope more ppl will try it in group fight and maybe in higher ranks so they can comment and not just theory explain why other comp/build/class are better

Shanks.2907:

mistsim.2748:

my fav guard right now is meditation cele s/f/ham. tons of damage, tons of sustain with the extra hp, and tons of condi cleansing. burns are plentiful and tick for 450, which is an awesome way to supplement your hammer damage. this is about as close as I would get to running anything condi-based on the guard. leaves zerker meditation builds in the dust. similar damage, much higher sustain.

What kind of build do you use? I’ve tried running something like 0/0/6/4/4 with empowering might/absolute resolution. Battle sigils for more might on swaps and strength runes. Biggest downside being the lack of swiftness, so sometimes I’ll try running it with a hammer/staff.

Meditation builds with strength runes/staff are interesting. I’ve tried it out with a friend before. Each of us had a staff, one with greatsword the other with sw/f. Load up an instant 24 stacks of might and a good amount of swiftness. Works surprisingly well in a team fight, really funny how it renders mesmers useless when staff spamming.

i don’t bother much with might stacking, I just try to maximize celestial damage the best I can without giving up survivability. 2/1/6/1/4 is my build. but 0/0/6/4/4 sounds good too. . I like the extra aoe blind, I like the near-perma vigor, extra damage on burning targets, and I like the condi cleansing. pack runes.

I will say, however, is that my friend is using a 61601 condi/hybrid (or it’s equivilant) build of mine and it took her to the top 250 in the leaderboards (or what ever put her in Llama gift status)

She’s doing consistently well. They mainly have her roaming between home/middle and can take on most people in 1v1’s (at home/far). She does well enough in zergs to be the bridge between ‘full team wipe’ or ‘we just wiped them’ status.

Just food for thought.

Saiyan.1704:

I will say, however, is that my friend is using a 61601 condi/hybrid (or it’s equivilant) build of mine and it took her to the top 250 in the leaderboards (or what ever put her in Llama gift status)

it’s just so hard to see this build doing well. your friend has zero condi clearance. you can get to top 250 by just playing a lot.

mistsim.2748:

Saiyan.1704:

I will say, however, is that my friend is using a 61601 condi/hybrid (or it’s equivilant) build of mine and it took her to the top 250 in the leaderboards (or what ever put her in Llama gift status)

it’s just so hard to see this build doing well. your friend has zero condi clearance. you can get to top 250 by just playing a lot.

I run 6/2/6/0/0 and have no trouble with basic condi removal. Condi build necros and engis are trouble, but then those are troublesome for any offensive guardian build.

mistsim.2748:

Saiyan.1704:

I will say, however, is that my friend is using a 61601 condi/hybrid (or it’s equivilant) build of mine and it took her to the top 250 in the leaderboards (or what ever put her in Llama gift status)

it’s just so hard to see this build doing well. your friend has zero condi clearance. you can get to top 250 by just playing a lot.

They have plenty of condi clearance. And I don’t think any player should focus on one particular combination of utilities for every single fight. Sometimes you just need Contemplation of Purity, other times you just need that SYG. Believing that the end all be all build is stagnant and can’t change depending on the situation is short sighted. If I know I’m coming up against a Necro, I’m definitely packing that CoP and Smite Condition.

Black Box.9312:

mistsim.2748:

Saiyan.1704:

I will say, however, is that my friend is using a 61601 condi/hybrid (or it’s equivilant) build of mine and it took her to the top 250 in the leaderboards (or what ever put her in Llama gift status)

it’s just so hard to see this build doing well. your friend has zero condi clearance. you can get to top 250 by just playing a lot.

I run 6/2/6/0/0 and have no trouble with basic condi removal. Condi build necros and engis are trouble, but then those are troublesome for any offensive guardian build.

Well no offense buf if you have problems with engis I won’t believe you that you’re doing halfway decent with this build. There is barely anything that counters condi engi harder than this hybrid/condi guard build.

Well in general I’m kind of disapointed in this thread, the same weird arguments that I’ve seen before, the same few hybrid-fanboys as in all the other threads.

You really think a build with barely any active damage excels in teamfights and is better than a build that has a ridicolous ammount of AoE burst? The fact that a big part of your damage comes from blocks and a passive skill makes it way worse in everything that is not 1v1, yet you claim the oposite and talk about “AoE burning”. You say that zerker burst is easily avoided and then claim that purging flames and blocks are a great reliable way of doing damage even though it’s obvious and easy to avoid as soon as you know that they are condi/hybrid.

And just a few offtopic things:

If you are using a condi mainstat amulet, a condi rune, half of your traits have burning in the tooltip and you’re using geo/doom I’m gonna call your build condi since that’s obviously the focus of your build and just because your autoattacks still do more than nothing doesn’t mean that you’re a “hybrid”

The meta is dd cele ele/cele rifle engi/teef/smth/smth. Turret engis are completly irrelevant, I don’t know why you keep mentioning them.

Also I don’t know why you keep saying that condi/hybrid guard would be better at defending a point or even compare it to bunker guard. Literally the only defense it has over zerker is that carrion has 3180 hp more than zerker.

So yeah… all in all there was nothing new in this thread, just the people who kept creating all these condi guard hype threads defending their standpoint. I’m gonna say it again: If you want to give your arguments any credibility play in one of the streamed tournaments, ESL, mistpedia or whatever and do well in them.

you know who put out the s/d 2,0,0,6,6 build ?
i tell you a secret. its not sizer build . rather ppl who tried out and post out builds while some expert players took it, improve the rotations and learn how to be useful with it and went with it to the ESL.

its a fact regarding dmg you keep saying its not . carrion hybrid (power and condition) guardian does more dps (dmg over time) and sdps ( sustain dmg over time) than the zerkmed meta

now its a fact ppl dont use it in the meta comp right now as the cele meta rules with some meta comp

if you look at my videos (and others) you will the dmg which is higher or equal and sometimes lower than the medzerk as zerk depends on hitting and crit dmg

i dont say hybrid guard is bunker or should be defending points. but if the came to this they can do it better than medzerk /mesmer/thief/engi/ranger and can sometimes handle 1v2 till help comes

if some higher lvl players could take it and maybe in the future they will i am pretty sure they will see some benefit from it

this build excel in counter and pressure the cele meta and thief very well as it got both nice direct dmg and condit pressure

i know we can convince you till we or other fight in the ESL and win with it (remember the condi ranger…. now you can see it in some ESL …. )

Keksmuffin.1450:

So yeah… all in all there was nothing new in this thread, just the people who kept creating all these condi guard hype threads defending their standpoint. I’m gonna say it again: If you want to give your arguments any credibility play in one of the streamed tournaments, ESL, mistpedia or whatever and do well in them.

Just to add to what Messiah said, there a tons of builds that were said to be “not on par” or “aren’t competitive” till some almost famous person plays it in a tournament and everyone is like “best build evar!!!!”

Just look at Rom’s new build. I wouldn’t play that on my Warrior in a million years and yet a lot of Warriors are swearing by it.

Five things that prevent me from being convinced condi guard is as good as you say:

Burn on Block
Aegis and protector’s strike are the primary “repetitive” blocks, with a long cooldown between burns (15s and upwards of 30+ if you use retreat). This will only net you about 2-4s of burning on a target doing maybe 2k dmg every 15 seconds. Shelter can provide a lot of burns, but then you are left without a defensive cooldown/heal

Radius of Permeating Wrath
240 range from the player restricts a lot of potential burn effects, especially when a majority of opponents in pvp are ranged (engi, ranger, mesmer, necro) Even ele and thiefs kite in and out and will not be in melee too long. This leaves warriors and other guardians who will melee you.

This is saved “somewhat” by point defense needing people to stand on a point, but often it is ranged aoe that wins that point not standing inside of it.

Torch to Burn Targets
If torch is used as a primary way to burn instead of VoJ/Permeating wrath, it can only burn 3 targets at a time. This is not horrible, but it limits your aoe potential. Also has a radius of 180, even worse than permeating wrath. Better burn duration than blocks and VOJ though.

Survival to see Burns
Guardian’s use blinds more so than blocks to survive damage as they have more of that available. After that they rely on a lot of dodging. Without crits you lose out on vigor. This can be made up for with energy sigils and/or intellect sigils. After that they rely on self healing either via meditations or AH if near allies.

If you do not have precision or 6 down valor, then you lose out on survival. But now you lose 6 points that you could use for virtues and zeal.

so now your burning build either does aoe burns but at regular damage, or you do single target burns at 33% extra damage. (I wish they would make both more accessible maybe like 4/0/6/0/4 and you could have permeating wrath and amplified wrath achievable)

Time to burn
This comes up time and time again, but there is no burst with burning. So a direct damage build can front load damage and get a kill, while a burning build needs time. The more time you give an opponent, the more time they have to either heal through your damage or kill you before you can finish your damage.

It was already shown that while condi builds can do as much as zerker builds theoretically. It will always be “12 seconds” behind. (another post showed how much burning damage they could do with whirling wrath stacking 12 seconds of burning, but in 12 seconds you could get a second whirling wrath off and doing double the original burning damage)

I “WANT” a burning/condi build to work and I keep theorycrafting them and testing them out, but they are not ready yet.

messiah.1908:

its a fact regarding dmg you keep saying its not . carrion hybrid (power and condition) guardian does more dps (dmg over time) and sdps ( sustain dmg over time) than the zerkmed meta

You say it’s a fact so convincingly. I have a really hard time believing that. You’re basing that on the fact that some direct damage can be dodged while burning is constant, right? That doesn’t automatically make it do more damage though.

The damage scaling from power/precision/ferocity on top of damage multipliers exponentially gets larger. They don’t add up 1+1 like burning and base power damage do. Without any type of math I don’t see how you can say this.

messiah.1908:

if you look at my videos (and others) you will the dmg which is higher or equal and sometimes lower than the medzerk as zerk depends on hitting and crit dmg

I really didn’t want to touch on this but you keep bringing it up like your videos prove a point. I’m sorry, but I watched your videos. I honestly think you could have contributed more with either a condition class on other professions or a different guardian build. Some fights were good, but there were others I just wondered why you even put them in the videos.

Again, I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but making a video and killing a few people doesn’t show a whole lot. In fact it kind of proves the opposite of why you shouldn’t run that build.

messiah.1908:

i know we can convince you till we or other fight in the ESL and win with it (remember the condi ranger…. now you can see it in some ESL …. )

I’m not sure what you’re implying. The condition ranger is a legitimate build. They have a multitude of options in weapons that apply conditions, traits that synergize with it and the sustain to match. A 2/0/6/6/0 s/d a/t condition ranger would mop the floor up with most classes, to mention it in the same post as condition guardian is just silly.

CMF.5461:

I “WANT” a burning/condi build to work and I keep theorycrafting them and testing them out, but they are not ready yet.

^My thoughts exactly.

CMF.5461:

Five things that prevent me from being convinced condi guard is as good as you say:

Burn on Block
Aegis and protector’s strike are the primary “repetitive” blocks, with a long cooldown between burns (15s and upwards of 30+ if you use retreat). This will only net you about 2-4s of burning on a target doing maybe 2k dmg every 15 seconds. Shelter can provide a lot of burns, but then you are left without a defensive cooldown/heal

Radius of Permeating Wrath
240 range from the player restricts a lot of potential burn effects, especially when a majority of opponents in pvp are ranged (engi, ranger, mesmer, necro) Even ele and thiefs kite in and out and will not be in melee too long. This leaves warriors and other guardians who will melee you.

This is saved “somewhat” by point defense needing people to stand on a point, but often it is ranged aoe that wins that point not standing inside of it.

Torch to Burn Targets
If torch is used as a primary way to burn instead of VoJ/Permeating wrath, it can only burn 3 targets at a time. This is not horrible, but it limits your aoe potential. Also has a radius of 180, even worse than permeating wrath. Better burn duration than blocks and VOJ though.

Survival to see Burns
Guardian’s use blinds more so than blocks to survive damage as they have more of that available. After that they rely on a lot of dodging. Without crits you lose out on vigor. This can be made up for with energy sigils and/or intellect sigils. After that they rely on self healing either via meditations or AH if near allies.

If you do not have precision or 6 down valor, then you lose out on survival. But now you lose 6 points that you could use for virtues and zeal.

so now your burning build either does aoe burns but at regular damage, or you do single target burns at 33% extra damage. (I wish they would make both more accessible maybe like 4/0/6/0/4 and you could have permeating wrath and amplified wrath achievable)

Time to burn
This comes up time and time again, but there is no burst with burning. So a direct damage build can front load damage and get a kill, while a burning build needs time. The more time you give an opponent, the more time they have to either heal through your damage or kill you before you can finish your damage.

It was already shown that while condi builds can do as much as zerker builds theoretically. It will always be “12 seconds” behind. (another post showed how much burning damage they could do with whirling wrath stacking 12 seconds of burning, but in 12 seconds you could get a second whirling wrath off and doing double the original burning damage)

---

I “WANT” a burning/condi build to work and I keep theorycrafting them and testing them out, but they are not ready yet.

you looking on it so wrong

burn on block – focus – 3 block 36 cd, aegis at the start of the fight and 50% hp, shelter use it when need heal and prevent burst on you, virtue of courage 2 times with elite .
thus only playing defensive you can get 8-9 seconds blocks while AA is on average 0.5 sec its 16 stacks of burning for 1 sec , 16800~12k dmg
now you can say ppl will stow weapon and stop attacking – great they lose dps on you while some of your burning still ticks

permeating warth – dont use it as it not good at all imo as it only for melee (good for wvw zerg)

torch – great against thieves and melee classes . focus just better for any situation . dont forget cure conditions on allies
in some build can be used sw/t+scepter/f with 100% burning duration

vigor – yes you lose it but you gain condi pressure . thief will evade and spam #2 on sword to cleanse thus not hitting you so your endurance will be ok. also you got blocks

time to kill – medzerk kill golem in 6-8 sec depends on crit, hybrid kill in 8-10 sec , full condi kill in 12-15 sec . but in real fight medzerk will be blind, blocked, evades, dodge, while if you burning hit it will tick if they dodge/evade so in real fight both can kill at the same time while medzerk can burst 1 enemy nice if unpressured while hybrid will do good aoe dmg

so far i have tested with friends who fight against several classes as medzerk and hybrid build . most of the the time hybrid kill sooner then medzerk

also you forget to mention that hybrid guard can get 20 stack of vulnerability on enemy which is 20% more dmg (average will be 15%) also flame rune 7% more dmg , burning 10% more dmg , symbol 10% more dmg
while medzerk only got 10% dmg when burning

build tested 6,2,6,0,0 gs+sc/f

Lets be generous and say you are doing 700 damage a tick, so 16800 damage in burning is 24 seconds. 24 seconds is a long time to wait in a fight.

Focus, is fine, but again, long cooldown = long gap in useful application of burning. Torch again is nice but seems lacking.

Vigor is not only useful against thieves, so your example on thieves not doing damage to you is lacking in reasoning. Doing more condi pressure versus DD damage pressure is the crux of this discussion in the first place, so you can’t use what we are arguing about as your reason. You need to justify the point in the first place.

Time to kill is still an issue. you say that people will avoid/dodge/block a medi zerker…………BUT you need to land a hit to even apply burning in the first place. So if medi zerker isn’t landing hits, neither is the condi guard → in turn applying no conditions again.

Again, I have been testing and running all of these specs. My first interactions on this forum was trying to make a burn on block build since release day. I am involved and invested in your ideas, but they have yet to prove effective.

I really feel we need a trait tree reorg and some more looks to our skills sets.

i.e. meaningful change to the class.

some maths (hope i get it right from the gw2skills)

build used 6,2,6,0,0 carrion flame runes gs versus 2,1,6,1,4 gs medzerk traveler runes

gs AA with hybrid
662 dmg 1.071.1*1.15 assuming 15 stacks vulnerability (blind and scepter#3 focus #4 and gs#4 (can be 20 stacks)
thus dmg 896 dps
assuming burning its another 780 dps
assuming weapon swap bleeding and poison its another 500 dps
so total 2176 dps (without vulnerability it drops to 2k)

medzerk
643 dmg
assuming fury so 60% crit chance with 200% crit dmg so average dmg is 1.6
642*1.1*1.6 assuming burning its 1129 dps
assuming sigil procs its another 2k every 3-5 sec so 4 in average which is 500 dps
so total 1629 dps (no fury its drops to 1.4k +sigils procs)

now take it all in combo rotation you will get perma burning proc also gs#5 does 329 dps for 10 sec

now the medzerk got sow from focus which does huge dmg if hits 4-5k while hybrid got blocks for 3-4 sec of 780 dps so 3.5*780= 2.7k burning +direct dmg 1-2k …almost the same just not as burst

so the main difference is medzerk will burst . but if miss their dps drop down fast . while hybrid keep their sdps

also dont forget that the conditions pressure make enemies to use utilities early in the fight giving you more advantage

also thanks for watching my vids. one of them shown medzerk does 1.7k crit dmg while with the same skill i did 1.8k (no crit) and 800 burning 2 sec . maybe i was lucky …

i put videos of my testing build and games . i am not trying to prove build is op or i am op . and you r not rude at all and i like criticism

CMF.5461:

Time to kill is still an issue. you say that people will avoid/dodge/block a medi zerker…………BUT you need to land a hit to even apply burning in the first place. So if medi zerker isn’t landing hits, neither is the condi guard -> in turn applying no conditions again.

if ppl see/know medzerg build on you they will be prepare for your burst from JI ,scepter immobilize, sow burst and gs leap combos. thus they will dodge some of your hits

as hybrid i use some scepter AA at the start which hardly enemy dodge as they save the dodges for the burst thus burning procs . if they pushed me i sue focus to block while swapping weapon on them and start GS rotations

again the difference is the approach and game style . if you play hybrid like medzerk you are doing it wrong and yes your dmg will be much lower

Your math assumes 100% uptime on burning/poison/bleeding. Yet in your showcase videos it highlights the fact that you will not have 100% uptime on those three conditions.

So the numbers will be lower in effective gameplay than your showcased math.

On initial engagement you get about 5 seconds of burning on your targets with JI. Then you fight for a bit and utilize Purging Flames for a condi cleanse/burn for about 8 seconds.

Between that, every 4 hits you apply a second of burning.

So for every 4 strikes you get 1 burn, so you can average out your burn damage to something like 195? (780/4)

Giving you about 1585 dps with the burning build.

On initial engagement with JI you have a higher amount of “burst” since the burn is ticking consistently.

So your auto attack dps is 1585 and your burst dps is 2176 if we want to look at it that way.

I don’t think math is helpful here because PVP targets don’t stand and let you beat on them like PVE ones do.

I’ve always been fond of the condi (or whatever label you want to give it) Guardian … NOT because it’s superawesome pWNSTAR damage but because no one knows what to do with it when they encounter it. The win isn’t what kind of DPS you get from it or how much condition cleanse your opponent has. The win is imagining your opponent’s mouth gaping wide open when you beat him with it. It’s not an IWIN button; you need to know how to play against various people. I don’t even think there is such a thing as it’s ‘better’ than something else; it’s all situational.

It does excel at melting bunkers … it even excels at beating cleanse builds. When used correctly considering a TEAM effort in PVP, it’s a game changer. Nothing applies this kind of condition damage as frequently irregardless of your opponent’s cleasning capabilities as this does.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Black Box.9312:

mistsim.2748:

Saiyan.1704:

I will say, however, is that my friend is using a 61601 condi/hybrid (or it’s equivilant) build of mine and it took her to the top 250 in the leaderboards (or what ever put her in Llama gift status)

it’s just so hard to see this build doing well. your friend has zero condi clearance. you can get to top 250 by just playing a lot.

I run 6/2/6/0/0 and have no trouble with basic condi removal. Condi build necros and engis are trouble, but then those are troublesome for any offensive guardian build.

Well no offense buf if you have problems with engis I won’t believe you that you’re doing halfway decent with this build. There is barely anything that counters condi engi harder than this hybrid/condi guard build.

I was just making an example about how an offensively built guardian generally struggles against builds that have a high condition damage output. And to be fair, a good engi will know how to exploit a hybrid guardian’s weakness to disables as well as condi pressure.

CMF.5461:

Five things that prevent me from being convinced condi guard is as good as you say:

Burn on Block
Aegis and protector’s strike are the primary “repetitive” blocks, with a long cooldown between burns (15s and upwards of 30+ if you use retreat). This will only net you about 2-4s of burning on a target doing maybe 2k dmg every 15 seconds. Shelter can provide a lot of burns, but then you are left without a defensive cooldown/heal

Radius of Permeating Wrath
240 range from the player restricts a lot of potential burn effects, especially when a majority of opponents in pvp are ranged (engi, ranger, mesmer, necro) Even ele and thiefs kite in and out and will not be in melee too long. This leaves warriors and other guardians who will melee you.

This is saved “somewhat” by point defense needing people to stand on a point, but often it is ranged aoe that wins that point not standing inside of it.

Torch to Burn Targets
If torch is used as a primary way to burn instead of VoJ/Permeating wrath, it can only burn 3 targets at a time. This is not horrible, but it limits your aoe potential. Also has a radius of 180, even worse than permeating wrath. Better burn duration than blocks and VOJ though.

Survival to see Burns
Guardian’s use blinds more so than blocks to survive damage as they have more of that available. After that they rely on a lot of dodging. Without crits you lose out on vigor. This can be made up for with energy sigils and/or intellect sigils. After that they rely on self healing either via meditations or AH if near allies.

If you do not have precision or 6 down valor, then you lose out on survival. But now you lose 6 points that you could use for virtues and zeal.

so now your burning build either does aoe burns but at regular damage, or you do single target burns at 33% extra damage. (I wish they would make both more accessible maybe like 4/0/6/0/4 and you could have permeating wrath and amplified wrath achievable)

Time to burn
This comes up time and time again, but there is no burst with burning. So a direct damage build can front load damage and get a kill, while a burning build needs time. The more time you give an opponent, the more time they have to either heal through your damage or kill you before you can finish your damage.

It was already shown that while condi builds can do as much as zerker builds theoretically. It will always be “12 seconds” behind. (another post showed how much burning damage they could do with whirling wrath stacking 12 seconds of burning, but in 12 seconds you could get a second whirling wrath off and doing double the original burning damage)

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I “WANT” a burning/condi build to work and I keep theorycrafting them and testing them out, but they are not ready yet.

Why do you keep focusing on one build? There’s isn’t just one build for the Condi Guard. Also why do you think that you can actually figure out how this build works using just theory? You actually have to play it to figure it out.

And about “Time to Burn”, do you truly believe that no one can evade burst multiple times? Conditions on the other hand, when you apply them in so many ways, will always catch your target. And recently I decided to merge a spirit spec to my condi build, just to see how it would pan out. I have faster TTKs (Time To Kill) now because CC is king.

I could show you buildssszzzzzz that “theoretically” shouldn’t work, but just end up working. One of which is my very crazy version of the condi guard.

CMF.5461:

Your math assumes 100% uptime on burning/poison/bleeding. Yet in your showcase videos it highlights the fact that you will not have 100% uptime on those three conditions.

So the numbers will be lower in effective gameplay than your showcased math.

On initial engagement you get about 5 seconds of burning on your targets with JI. Then you fight for a bit and utilize Purging Flames for a condi cleanse/burn for about 8 seconds.

Between that, every 4 hits you apply a second of burning.

So for every 4 strikes you get 1 burn, so you can average out your burn damage to something like 195? (780/4)

Giving you about 1585 dps with the burning build.

On initial engagement with JI you have a higher amount of “burst” since the burn is ticking consistently.

So your auto attack dps is 1585 and your burst dps is 2176 if we want to look at it that way.

ok even so you see the avergae dmg is higher between 1.6k-2.1k
also my burning uptime depends on the enemy cleanse abilities. against bunkerguard its 50% , against mesmer or low cleanse abilitiy is 80%-100% . so not 25% (1/4 as you wrote)
and also its aoe most of the time

and i agree its all fall the the part how you play it . and yes ppls not know yet how to handle hybrid guards. if you attack they block so you get burned , if you dont attack them they hits you and burn you . so win win