Guild Wars 2

A serious question. What competitive builds are using torch? I know it’s fun to blow fire at people but you get so much offensive capability with main hand, what is the need for more on the offhand? Through my playing, I have yet to find a genuine purpose for this weapon that adds value to my playing. Do we really need another way to apply burning and remove conditions?

Two things I get from this thread:

1. It’s our ‘burst’. That’s actually a pretty good. I believe classes should have access to a bursty damage combo. I think in this case it’s unfortunate that our burst would be such an easy read “Oh look, he’s got a torch … BURST INC”.

2. People think torch is needed for a condition damage build? A condition damage build can use VoJ as the method to apply the burn as well without the need for torch.

Anyways, thanks for the replies. These experiences confirm some thinking about Torch I have been doing.

First of all it looks friking awesome and second, it’s the matter of game style. Some may prefer GS for AOE fights but then switch to scepter/torch for harder boss fights. It is also a must if you want to run a condition build.
It is an offensive offhand weapon and our only one at that (even though focus #5 is an awesome burst skill). Your main-hands skills do go on CL when you use them and torch gives you some great damage and cool skills meanwhile. I personally used torch when leveling and I loved it. One should level their character how they want. Only at level 80 it makes a real difference.

Torch with Focus and JI + Smite Condition, without considering mainhands, give you a highly telegraphed but condensed, hard-hitting burst. Torch is known to crit for ~6k or more on 1800 armour.
You rarely see burst Guardians though… they do exist in tournaments.

To seriously answer your question though, Torch has been lackluster for a long time. It offers almost no utility and unimpressive burning (unless you spec for it).

just mentioned in another thread, torch 4 is great. and like Ralkuth mentioned, torch + focus + JI and the sword 3 or mace 3 allows you to drop amazing burst in a split second.

torch 5 i guess has it’s uses but i rarely use it. i’ve used it to down fleeing foes with a smidget of health left before. and it’s fast hitting allows for crit procs / burn procs. but the damage you get is too low for the duration of the cast. and you need to watch out for retal obviously. never use it for condition removal. too unreliable for my take it doesn’t cleanse yourself. you have to be careful about what you’re targeting so you can properly aim it at your allies if so.

torch 4 really is great though for burst damage.

Torch 4 applies a good burn, but the coefficient on the actual damage part is only 2.25.
Torch 5 has a .33 coefficient over 10 hits

Akamon I’m not sure if you know, and please don’t take this as me being a prick, but auto attacking actually has a higher coefficient than sword 3. That and the fact that it’s skill info is a flat out lie make it kind of suck. For those that don’t know it says it blocks ranged attacks, but if I recall correctly it only absorbs. That means the traits for blocking that give might/burning don’t apply.

For comparison though focus ray of judgement has a .5 coefficient per bounce (if I recall correctly), and a 2.5 for every hit on shield of wrath.

Comparing the two for damage is a waste though, because they are your off hand and there to augment your main hand. That and each one has a different purpose. The reason so many burst builds run focus is because of the utility it brings to a build. Not so much the damage, though a precast shield of wrath is a huge amount of burst.

For anyone not familiar with the burst setup you use shield of wrath, count about 1 second, Switch to gs, then ww/ji at the same time. What happens is you actually teleport to them dealing damage, block the first attack they make, cause burning, then your shield detonates all while you are top of them with ww going.

It’s pretty awesome to kill people in a few seconds that way.

haha, no worries mang, no offense taken at all. here’s confirming that sword AA does MASSIVE damage. i havent’ done the hard math, but i’ve read others saying under the same amount of time, the sword AA chain will outdamamge sword 3’s full duration, and given all the hits hit.

i used to use sword 3 only cause it was one button press and it usually forces a dodge if anything. then i use 2 to follow up and AA away (and that is, if they weren’t downed already after the initial combo).

with torch 4, i almost always just double tap it in PvP, since my goal is to burst as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. another way of using torch 4 is to have scepter/focus as another set. precast SoW (focus 5), and then do the following pretty much at the same time:

• chains of light (scepter 3)
• switch to torch set, double tap Torch 4
• (as fireball is flying) hit JI

then use mace 3 or sword or what not. the idea is that JI+Torch 4 fireball+shield of wrath all hit at the same time.

Note that Torch has a travel time and immobilises will set you up for a hit if target is unsuspecting. That is why you would usually have sceptre (also a good ranged option for Right-hand Strength).

Sword Auto really is no joke. The last chain is 3 hits and, hitting the Light Armour Golem in the sPvP Mists area with a 0/30/30/5/5 Zerker Trip Med Guardian setup, you can do around ~2600 damage (upwards of 800 if each crits). On squishy 1800 armour burst roamers, the sword goes up to 3k.
Not to mention you will almost always proc fire sigil and burning with sword auto. The sword is perfect for finishing off enemies with low health after a burst. Not to mention the blind can help your team stomp a target.

I have a friend that is playing dps condi hybrid and he uses torch+scepter with sword+focus….

ya, immob to set up torch 4 is nice to have. though i used to JI into peolpe’s faces, light them up and them toss flame to proc extra 10% if i have fiery wrath. XDD

ooh @Lord – does your friend mind sharing? ; )) i tried a condi hybrid build and went with the two one handed weapons as well.

@akamon Probably but I don’t think so but he is able to talk about his build veeery long (with added some philosophical things like “people are arguing that condi guardian is weak but he isn’t for example I have…..” and many more something like that

I use it on my still leveling guardian. Who cares about competitive, it’s a game and I find torch fun to play with.

Channeling area cleansing every 15 seconds is amazing. The channeling even sometimes forces double dodges because it’s a kitten scary sight to see it in your face.

Torch 4 is like a Kill Shot for Guardians. Even with low crit chance, you can put Sigil of Intelligence. Staff 4 to stack might, swap to torch for 100% crit, pop Retreat! for Aegis and traited +20% dmg under Aegis, and you have yourself a sniper.

Is there a way to increase damage on burning to tick for over 1k? I have a build I am working on to get over 2k condition damage after 25 stacks but to achieve 1k tick you’ll need 2700 condition damage. So my question is, is it more effective to get condition damage to x amount then work on condition duration so that an additional tick would be more effective?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUMQNAR8flUgSDHHSFEg4Eh1DBiQ/VVIeXPUIFbIA-jUyA4MBZaBMVBi8AkCLiGb1sIasaGMVKRUtHpIa1SBAxaA-w

I had an idea to go down the Virtue to pick up aoe burn and 4 attacks instead of 5 but I really kill my survivability without monk’s focus.

@Artemis actually for some moment there is better to pack condi (but that is much lower thatn 2k condi dmg) and after that packing into duration MIGHT be better (to have next tick from VoJ Passive You need to have 100% condi (burning) duration)

Lord Trejgon.2809:

@Artemis actually for some moment there is better to pack condi (but that is much lower thatn 2k condi dmg) and after that packing into duration MIGHT be better (to have next tick from VoJ Passive You need to have 100% condi (burning) duration)

This is what I thought. That I would need burning to last twice as long to be effective. Thanks.

So then the next strategy would be to get Condition Damage as high as possible, not focus on condition duration, and look at increasing my survivability so that I can outlast my target and let my burning damage do its work.

So either we go 30 in to Valor for more toughness and monk’s focus or I focus on 30 Virtues for AoE burns.

Torch is easy burning. I’d use it again on a levelling build, since you won’t have access to the really good methods of high AoE burning application yet. Also, burning is really good in low-mid level PvE.

It’s just overkill on a full build though, and burning just doesn’t scale into ‘overkill’ territory as well as power / precision / prowess does.