Guild Wars 2

Reading through the “Full Condition Gear” thread, I hear a lot of guardians complain that Burning isn’t a viable way to spec your character.

According to the devs, 5 days ago in this video (at 42:37) Guardians;
*have a lot of specs available to them and
*can deal heavy burning damage
I’m not 100% convinced, please convince me.

(Please don’t address the statement, “Guardians are expected to get into a fight and keep going” here).

I’m afraid I personally can’t convince you as I’m also not convinced. I will say that burning from VoJ’s active effect is acceptable. The passive? Not so acceptable.

Relying on a single condition does not make a condition-based spec viable. You really need to have at least 2 conditions constantly applied to really make it worthwhile.

Really at a best case scenario, your burning will only be doing ~800 or so condition damage per second with all condition damage gear. Your direct damage attacks will be very weak as a tradeoff. This will never match up to a power/crit-based direct damage build.

For guardians, burning damage should really be looked at as a means to boost your direct damage (through traits) and just additional supplemental damage.

Yeah, kinda laughed at that Idea. Burning as a whole does not do enough damage to kill someone without a large amount of extra damage added in. One of my old builds tried adding in some condition damage (Through food buffs/runes of the undead) and It honestly was not good enough to make it that worth it. The only time it is is for people that like to run such as thieves, mesmers, and eles, and eles have enough cleansing to make it pointless anyways.

“Heavy” burning damage is kind of a misnomer.

Even fully stacked with maximum possible condition dmg burning will never do enough damage to be considered ‘heavy’.

I think the devs aren’t being specific enough though I do think from their perspective ‘heavy’ is the appropriate wording. I think we all need to keep in mind that burning is a secondary damage effect; it should be very hard to make it comparable to damage we do with weapons.

That being said, I am disappointed that there isn’t an acknowledgement of the limited usefulness that burning has for a Guardian regarding the content in the game.

I have thought a little about how to improve burning without invalidating the basic ‘non-stacking’ rules. There is a small improvement if burning ticked more often (still maintaining the DPS). Currently, only increments of 20% will give you another tick. If they change it to 1/2 second, then increments of 10% will benefit you. That gives burning damage a little more mileage if your condition duration increases fall on the ‘odd ten’s’. Still, it’s a weak fix.

For burning to be more attractive, there needs to be a way to increase it’s upfront damage. Maybe a strong first tick with diminishing returns on subsequent ones?

It sorta can work, its just not the most optimal build out there. If you use sword, the auto attacking chain will always proc the passive justice combined with a torch 4 passive skill effect, you could add up the burning. Another method is using staff in a group setting and then take Permeating Wraith and you can somewhat make your enemies feel the burn. But overall i feel like the burning guard viability is more for the pve aspect in the game. If they maybe change the trait Supreme Justice to every 3rd attack and the activating justice causes 10 seconds of burning, things could go a different route.

leave supreme justice at 4 hits but make the activation burn the area around you as well.

i see potential in the trait like searing flame. removing a boon every 20 secs is just too long of a cool down to use it effetively. Reduce that to 3 seconds for each target individually and it could open up a lot of new builds. but maybe there are other ideas of effects that trigger when you apply burning like pbao 1 sec fury

oh, and the ticks from binding blade deal condition damage so maybe they factored that in as well – its not on the same multiplier as burn though

Asmodal.6489:

leave supreme justice at 4 hits but make the activation burn the area around you as well.

i see potential in the trait like searing flame. removing a boon every 20 secs is just too long of a cool down to use it effetively. Reduce that to 3 seconds for each target individually and it could open up a lot of new builds. but maybe there are other ideas of effects that trigger when you apply burning like pbao 1 sec fury

oh, and the ticks from binding blade deal condition damage so maybe they factored that in as well – its not on the same multiplier as burn though

Nah, it would open up just one build and that’s guardians being the new boon reapers when Necros and Mesmers should be the ones in that position.

Burning is stronger than 6-7 stacks of Bleed depending on the amount of Condition Damage your character has. The problem is that Bleed can be easily applied by most classes to the point where it passes Burning or completely destroys it. On the other hand, Burning is a single condition that constantly applies additional duration rather than more damage, so one condition removal would affect Burning much less than Bleed. Burning feels more of a secondary means for the Guardian to deal damage rather than something to invest in. With 10 in Zeal and 25 in Radiance, however, you can deal +20% damage to any target that is Burning making it a viable condition to focus on solely for application, not damage. That more or less may be what the developers are talking about as they mention having specs or traits for “heavy burning damage.”

You can do decent burning damage without putting any stats into condition damage if you let your spirit weapons do the burning.
They use their own condition damage stat when applying burning which seems to be 800 so they burn for 528 damage.
All you have to do then is decide if you want to achieve this by activating Virtue of Justice or using the trait A Fire Inside.
You can use both if you want since it only takes 20 point in the Radiance trait line which some people put 15 points into just to get the Renewed Justice minor trait anyway so it’s only 5 more points.

The best thing about all this is that you won’t have to put a single point into condition damage so your normal damage will not be reduced.

The spirit weapons will do 528 burning damage without any boons, 554 damage with the 3 stacks of might they’ll get when activating Virtue of Justice if you have the minor trait Inspired Virtue and 659 damage if you use the staff skill Empower before attacking your target.

Viralseed.9362:

Burning is stronger than 6-7 stacks of Bleed depending on the amount of Condition Damage your character has.

no… because bleeding is also increased by CD. so it will stay pretty much at the same ratio until 1400 CD at which point 6 stacks of bleed become even stronger

Viralseed.9362:

The problem is that Bleed can be easily applied by most classes to the point where it passes Burning or completely destroys it. On the other hand, Burning is a single condition that constantly applies additional duration rather than more damage, so one condition removal would affect Burning much less than Bleed.

well put. although i wouldnt see burn and bleed in a competition. both really are a group effort to maintain. a constant burn on a boss mob is actually harder to achieve then 15+ stacks of bleed. because most classes that could burn constantly spec diffrently and/or are not common (engineer).

Viralseed.9362:

Burning feels more of a secondary means for the Guardian to deal damage rather than something to invest in. With 10 in Zeal and 25 in Radiance, however, you can deal +20% damage to any target that is Burning making it a viable condition to focus on solely for application, not damage. That more or less may be what the developers are talking about as they mention having specs or traits for “heavy burning damage.”

you can boost burn damage to be about 30% of your dps if you focus on maintaining it while still beeing able to get the 20% damage boost. I did a calculation in the other burn hate thread and it leaves you short 6,6% damage(sporting sigil of geomancy) in terms of dps compared to full zerker gear but with 20% more HP.

i run a condition damage burn build and it works very well.

still: heavy can only mean continously

Well burn actually is kinda viable. You’ll notice it if you run heavy offensive builds. Viable not in the sense that it does a lot of damage with it’s ticks, but with how it synergize with the zeal and radiance line.

Like mentioned above u can get 20% more damage from burn with 10 in zeal and 25 in radiance. Get some flame legion runes and it becomes 25%.

The burn mechanic is very strong especially in pve for these type of guardians. Since justice is pretty much an aoe blind, vulnerability, might and group wide burn which increases your damage by 20%. Which also renews everytime you kill something. It actually feels very Op when I’m in Orr mowing down groups of mobs like any respectable seeker guard should and spamming my F1.

In wvw I guess I’ve also been spoiled with the 20% damage and I feel i would feel useless if it got removed.

It doesn’t do much damage by itself. But at the same time it’s just such a vital mechanic for guardians which spec heavily in zeal and radiance. It’s like most offensive guardian builds will be rendered useless without that crappy 300 damage burn tick.

Well increased burn damage+condition damage traits and bleed on crit/AoE bleed on weapon swap should cause some damage. Question is if its enough to be usefull.

Got to remember to try that in pvp sometime, lol.

What happens when that other guard or ele comes in with more condition damage and loads up burning. Yours gets knocked back and could potentially just not do damage if more higher damage burn comes in. I don’t like how damaging conditions stack in this game. Your personal DPS is dependent on your group or zerg makeup. I don’t want to have the potential to do lose my damage output because someone else applies the same condition. Reason I no longer play bleeds on my thief also, too many rangers n warriors out there

Blood~

well either full condition damage or nothing. condition damage is not to be very popular across the board for all classes because of the reasons you mentioned. luckily eles rarely invest in condition damage and engineers are jsut rare.

- just stay away from other guardians or outdamage them :p

Burning is a damage booster. Not to be used as a primary source of damage. Swords and staff are the best weapons for this as they proc burning very often. If traited to burn the area around you, the staff is a mega aoe weapon.

But by going deep into burning you aren’t actually getting much back for it. The extra damage is only viable in an AoE situation i.e against 5 or more mobs. If under this number it would not be more efficient then just mighty blow the crap out of everything.

A decent farming spec, but not that powerful. Rubbish in WvW.

Heavy? hmm hard to say. Burning alone I’d probably pass. But trait burning, use flame legion runes, seems ok enough. Guard is pretty flexible, so you are at least not stuck with it on every encounter.

KensaiZen.3740:

Burning is a damage booster. Not to be used as a primary source of damage. Swords and staff are the best weapons for this as they proc burning very often. If traited to burn the area around you, the staff is a mega aoe weapon.

But by going deep into burning you aren’t actually getting much back for it. The extra damage is only viable in an AoE situation i.e against 5 or more mobs. If under this number it would not be more efficient then just mighty blow the crap out of everything.

A decent farming spec, but not that powerful. Rubbish in WvW.

Oh, it’s rubbish in WvW? Based on what?

numerous tests have shown that small but continous flying numbers regardless of your own actions or state like dodges, knock downs, dazes, chill have no significant impact on the leet factor of OMGLOOKATmah18KcritROFL screenshots and are therfore rubbish

mathras.2450:

Oh, it’s rubbish in WvW? Based on what?

Based on how easy it is to remove (or ignore it), how infrequently you can apply it, how difficult it is to boost the damage, how relatively uneconomical it is to focus gear into improving it over other stats.

The only applicable approach to burning in WvW is with small group tactics using boosted passive VoJ (Virtue 20 at least) with sword/GS sporting Carrion gear. That’s a very narrow application. I would love to tell you burning was worth the effort in PVP.

Obtena.7952:

mathras.2450:

Oh, it’s rubbish in WvW? Based on what?

Based on how easy it is to remove (or ignore it), how infrequently you can apply it, how difficult it is to boost the damage, how relatively uneconomical it is to focus gear into improving it over other stats.

The only applicable approach to burning in WvW is with small group tactics using boosted passive VoJ (Virtue 20 at least) with sword/GS sporting Carrion gear. That’s a very narrow application. I would love to tell you burning was worth the effort in PVP.

I dunno about you but I can keep my target burning for most of the fight, and it’ll die pretty quickly… that’s using sword and shield.

I don’t think being able to keep a specific target burning for a whole fight really qualifies it as being viable in PVP. I know targets you won’t ever keep burning for most of a fight as well. Skilled opponents will not be concerned by damage from Guardian burning.

Obtena.7952:

I don’t think being able to keep a specific target burning for a whole fight really qualifies it as being viable in PVP. I know targets you won’t ever keep burning for most of a fight as well. Skilled opponents will not be concerned by damage from Guardian burning.

Hahahaha, people still use this argument? Okay then. Obviously everyone I’ve killed just needed to “learn to play” or whatever.

You probably think warriors who don’t use greatswords/axes are doing it wrong too, right?

The thing I don’t like about burning builds is you require heavy specialization in traits and gear to get it to work.

With the Greatsword you equip it, get the 20% reduced cooldown trait, and you’re good to go.

If you like burning go for it.

But against a skilled opponent you won’t kill them with a burning build guardian.

Mathematically, a condition build guardian doesn’t touch a burst guardian in terms of damage. Its not even close.

Blasino.3128:

If you like burning go for it.

But against a skilled opponent you won’t kill them with a burning build guardian.

Mathematically, a condition build guardian doesn’t touch a burst guardian in terms of damage. Its not even close.

It’s a troll thread XD

Blasino.3128:

Mathematically, a condition build guardian doesn’t touch a burst guardian in terms of damage. Its not even close.

true but it is also the complete opposite intend. yet guardian burst damage is not that superb that it will knock somebody of their. against a skilled opponent you won’t kill them with a burst build. ^^ we ar not warriors or thiefs.

really most build comparison is just paper gw2. i ran the numbers on burn effectiveness and have loads of data on it.

dps advantage berserker vs. carrion on a dps oriented build is around 16% assuming 100% uptime on burn. seems alot yet dps is just a statistical optimized number. direct damage is decreased by a lot of factors especially for guardians.

if the target dodges or simply gets out of reach you dps drops. protection on target hits you with a 33% dps loss.

burn on your target however stays the same and i argue that most opponents will not remove it actively when facing a guardian. simply because they do not expect it to hit hard and because they do not want to waste a condition remover on a 1 second condition.

on a condition damage heavy build GS-5+burn hits for more then 1000 damage per second on top of you normal attacks toss in sigil of geomancy for another 300 and it gets intresting really fast. especially in spvp.

i use a burn build for four weeks now and i find it it extremly rewarding in solo pve, spvp and wvwvw and i have direc comparison to my 2nd lvl 80 guardian in zerker gear.

Something that I learned using a guardian in sPVP a long time ago is that you don’t need a single point in condition damage for burning to add pressure. 328 damage per second is pretty good, roughly equivalent to 7.7 bleeds at 0 condition damage. The biggest thing that guardians can accomplish is how easily they cause permanent burning single-hand. There’s only a few classes that can do this, and even if they can do this they don’t do it as reliably or as often as the guardian does. The best way for a guardian to burn other players is through rapidly applying short duration burns. Doing this makes it so condition curing doesn’t do a thing to the burns, because they just come right back. With VoJ’s ability to recharge with every kill, enemy forces will find themselves constantly on fire because of it.

In PVE and in parts of PVP there is a big diminishing return, though. Applying burning has a finite threshold where it is permanently on, after which applying more burning doesn’t do any good. In PVP there is more flexibility with condition curing and enemy evasion and all, so it is still worth it to invest in condition duration. In PVE it is a giant brick wall that gets closer and closer for every member who adds burning, and it is so bad that a single extra player who applies burning becomes redundant in a dungeon. It also becomes a contest of condition damage, since whomever applied the previous burn has their damage used, making it so one player will be overriding another player’s effectiveness in burning.

So, if someone was obtuse enough to want to make a condition build guardian, there is only two things to do. Either A) they never play with another player who uses burning ever, or Focus on AoE burning. Burning on multiple enemies doesn’t have a diminishing return that approaches quicker than a hungry lion, so that would be the way to go. There is a bit of a problem with that, though, too:

The two other classes that apply big burns (elementalist and engineer) do it better in AoEs. Rocket turret + flame turret is enough to apply a permanent burn to enemies in a group, and can be used alongside of fire bomb (AoE), Blowtorch (Cone), and the flamethrower (cone). The elementalist has too many to list. Those two classes also have many more conditions available for a condition build. All in all, my recommendation with condition guardians is to not make one unless you want to be really defiant, are running with a static group of friends who are playing neither an engineer or elementalist, and/or accept the fact that pretty much anyone else using a guardian or a condition build will be doing better than you.

I have been using Burn to decent effect, but I also don’t expect it to win the fight. I know my greatsword is the big decider. Luckily, burn and power greatsword both key off the same trait line, with short hops into other trait lines to get burns from aegis.

mathras.2450:

Obtena.7952:

I don’t think being able to keep a specific target burning for a whole fight really qualifies it as being viable in PVP. I know targets you won’t ever keep burning for most of a fight as well. Skilled opponents will not be concerned by damage from Guardian burning.

Hahahaha, people still use this argument? Okay then. Obviously everyone I’ve killed just needed to “learn to play” or whatever.

You probably think warriors who don’t use greatswords/axes are doing it wrong too, right?

Bottom line is that you can’t get enough burning damage/duration AND bunkering in the same build to support the claim that you can do significant and constant burning on an opponent to kill them without significant risk to yourself, provided your opponent isn’t completely devoid of any PVP skills or PVP focused build. Even if you can (or your opponent is stupid enough) to burn constantly, the 320 DPS you get is not much when you consider other damage-specific builds make up for that with crits and higher power and STILL get some amount of burning as well.

I would love to hear about how you do it though, just to tell myself I’m wrong. I would love to go with confidence in purchasing gear for a burning build in PVP.