Guild Wars 2

I’ve been trying to find a build that fits my playing style, and one thing I know for sure is that burning is going to be an important part of it. One thing I’ve been debating about is whether or not condition damage is better than condition duration for burning.

The GW2 wiki says that burning “stacks duration”, so I figure that condition damage is probably the way to go, because if I apply multiple burns the duration will keep increasing anyway.

A second question as well, this thread says that spirit weapon damage/burning is fixed. If that’s true, I’m guessing a spirit weapon burning build just wouldn’t work, would it?

EDIT: Also, I am going greatsword and scepter/torch for now.

Sounds like we have similar thinking because I have went through all those questions before. I’m at the point where I have a all Power/Vit/CD gear with the single exception of ruby amulet. I’m not a huge fan of crits and I don’t think it will allow you to get the most from a burning build.

I didn’t ignore duration either though … I use 6 flame legion runes which gave me +15% burning but that wasn’t enough to get the 6th second tick from VoJ so I added sigil of smoldering to a hammer. It’s probably not the best choice to max my damage but it’s a burning build so it fit with the theme.

GS is nice for the might (those add to your condition damage significantly). I haven’t really liked the sceptre/torch combo but that might be a nice approach if you want to use VoJ passively. I haven’t actually used spirit weapons. I think they stink.

i’ve been “theorycrafting” in my head as well for a build that utilizes burns and extra dmg, etc. if you wanna go for more duration, you can always mix and match with Rune of the Flame Legion, Balthazar (iirc), Forge as well as Baelfire. although the 6pc bonuses of the Flame Legion are nice too for the extra 5%.

@Obtena – do you feel you’re lackign in toughness if you’re using all pow/vit/CD gear?

I’d advise you to go to Sceptre+Torch and either Sceptre+Focus or Staff as secondary weapon.

You are going Down the path what I call the Zealot. Just go 30/20/0/0/20 or 20/30/0/0/20-it’s not Like you need Valour or honour anyhow(you ever heard of brave Zealot? How about Honourable one? Thought so!).

Carrion equipment is nice. Runes would be: 2x Baelfire+2xBalthazar+2xFire(for whooping+45% Burning duration).

In general, Expertise(condition duration is used) more for those utility conditions(such as Chill, Cripple and/or Weakness) and Malice(condition damage) for the damage conditions(Bleeding, Poison, Burning, Confusion). Keep in mind tho, you can have very useful utility conditions even with absolutely no points into malice. But, you MUST invest into Expertise if you intend to get the most kicks out of dmg conditions.

So:

Malice(Condition damage) if your conditions supplement your attacks.
Expertise(Condition duration) if you plan to use your conditions for control, not the damage.
Both, if you are turned on by the DoT centred combat.

Thanks guys. This helps quite a bit.

i have 278 condition damage and no duration and i do plenty of condition damage.

Neither. The guardian isn’t built for condition damage.

Chi Malady.2015:

Neither. The guardian isn’t built for condition damage.

True, there probably are better options, but people have made it work with condition damage. I’m not aiming for the best build; I just want to make a suitable build for my playstyle, and guardians are best suited for the way I play.

As much as i wanted to make a burn build, I ran the numbers and it just didnt seem very viable. even at 1000 condition damage your burning only does 700 damage per second. Which might seem like alot but it really is rather slow. The issue with burning is that it only stacks duration and not damage, so no matter what you are always going to be limited to that number per second. granted, it can be higher than that, but also it can not crit, and can also be removed. My personal opinion is that it was added to guardians more as a bit of added damage than a main focus of damage.

If however you are going a burn build, I would have to say stick with fast hitting weapons. scepter,torch,GS,1h sword all have decent fast hitting attacks which lets you activate VoJ faster. Also, make sure you use the 40% condition duration +70 condition damage food. It wont help with the passive VoJ, but every other skill we have it will add on a good chunk of burning duration, and helps with our damage as well.

@Bash – i’ve been trying to come up with a build that is focused on burns as wel and too, doesn’t seem very viable. so sort of been trying to tweak it so that it hits hard still, and when burns do proc, it’s an added bonus, supplmentaing my normal attacks.

quick ques – so you’re saying the passive VoJ effect (every 5th hit causes burning) doesn’t benefit from + condition duration or dmg?

@akamon – I think what Bash meant was that conditions tick every second so unless you can stack 100%+ burning duration (for anoter second on passiveVoJ) it is not going to benefit from condition duration. It does benefit from condition dmg.

I think burning condition damage is meant to be used as additionsl damade to the guardians overall damage and not to be used as a standalone damage type.

700 per tick is quite considerable if added to normal damage takes you easily over 1k per tick.

Pretty good damage considering you dont need wait 10 seconds for a substantial smount of damage.

If you go into con dmg for guardian i highly recommend using the sceptre/torch. Just practice kiting and mitigation.

Leshay.5801:

@akamon – I think what Bash meant was that conditions tick every second so unless you can stack 100%+ burning duration (for anoter second on passiveVoJ) it is not going to benefit from condition duration. It does benefit from condition dmg.

Yeah, that is what I meant. Though it is possible to get to 100% burn duration, the tradeoffs are just like the frozen duration build I tried before, just not worth it. (you need the food, 3 sets of 2 burn condition runes, and 20 in zeal to get the 100% you need) I actually tried a burn build in sPvP and wasn’t a fan of it at all, the damage just felt horribly lacking. I might come back to it as some point but for now im just going to keep tweeking my normal build since it works best for me.

I think people like the OP and myself don’t make condition damage builds because they do the most damage. I recognize that there are much better ways to get huge damage numbers on Guardian. The challenge here for me (and I suspect the OP) was to make a decent burning build, not prove it’s the best DD you can get. Why? Because the idea that you burn stuff is pretty cool.

akamon.2769:

@Obtena – do you feel you’re lackign in toughness if you’re using all pow/vit/CD gear?

No, because I’m running a typical 0/15/30/20/5 build and my primary weapon is hammer. My toughness is low but I make up for it with alot of protection. I could have a build like 30/30/X/X/X to increase my damage, but I find it has a more narrow scope of application.

My approach to weapons is as follows:

1. I use hammer with active VoJ for PVE events. I don’t think anything beats it’s ability to tag a lot of mobs, not even GS
2. I use GS with active VoJ for general PVE farming in Orr, etc … the added might is good and I still maintain enough defense with multiple adds
3. I will use sword/torch for veteran/champion mobs along with passive VoJ.

I will admit, I don’t find burning a very good approach for dungeons or WvW. I have separate builds for that kind of content.

Burning funnily works best with 1h sword. On the lasr chain it will trigger a burn you dobt need to go heavy inti con damage to make ut effective either as its an extra damage to your melee damage

Bakitten291:

As much as i wanted to make a burn build, I ran the numbers and it just didnt seem very viable. even at 1000 condition damage your burning only does 700 damage per second. Which might seem like alot but it really is rather slow. The issue with burning is that it only stacks duration and not damage, so no matter what you are always going to be limited to that number per second. granted, it can be higher than that, but also it can not crit, and can also be removed. My personal opinion is that it was added to guardians more as a bit of added damage than a main focus of damage.

If however you are going a burn build, I would have to say stick with fast hitting weapons. scepter,torch,GS,1h sword all have decent fast hitting attacks which lets you activate VoJ faster. Also, make sure you use the 40% condition duration +70 condition damage food. It wont help with the passive VoJ, but every other skill we have it will add on a good chunk of burning duration, and helps with our damage as well.

Yeah, it is more added damage. I’m trying to make a build that fully utilizes that added damage, though. I have a few ideas to try that might work, but I might have to give up a lot in other areas to make it work, which might kill the build. I’ll have to see.

KensaiZen.3740:

Burning funnily works best with 1h sword. On the lasr chain it will trigger a burn you dobt need to go heavy inti con damage to make ut effective either as its an extra damage to your melee damage

Burning is definitely good with a fast 1H weapon. I think people underestimate how much passive burn you can get from the hammer chain as well because the symbol also counts towards hits to VoJ.

I do agree. I was comparing kill speed with hammer and sword and both were pretty equal using my build.

Its nice extra dmg.