Guild Wars 2

Simple question: When ALONE, do you get more damage out of Justice by letting it run on passive or by activating it on CD? Assuming no traits or anything like that.

What about with 2 people? I’m looking for some real math here, if possible. I know that 3+ people means activating it on cooldown. I’m just unsure about 1-2 people.

With the trait renewed justice (15 in radiance tree). Definitely activating. Without activating, sword with it’s fast attack rate and 3rd hit that counts for 3 (so 3 hit-chain means 5 hits, so means every chain gives one Virtue of justice trigger), might take more advantage out of passive. However you must know BOTH the strenght (damage per second) and the duration are worse with the passive as the active. So imo always use active. Especially with 5 in virtue traits, you get even more out of it. The might you get this way, doesn’t work with the passive. So you only get might when using it.

Last, you want to use burning as fast as possible to boost kill speed. By only hitting on 5th attack, it might sometimes come to late, and be of no use at all. While activating it, you will get full use of it most of the time.

So, activate on cooldown, even while solo. Got it. Thank you.

I’m 0/0/10/30/30, so I do get might on activation, so that makes sense.

With 30 into virtues even more certain to use active. Because you get 30% virtue recharge rate bonus. 23 secs around that is now. That goes pretty fast by. Basically you got an extra skill! Also if you got 5 in radiance it counts as a aoe blind (forgot to mention that). So it even gets more use.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

However you must know BOTH the strenght (damage per second) and the duration are worse with the passive as the active.

Wrong information is not just wrong, but an outright atrocity to let spread.

Burn damage is based on level and Condition Damage. The damage tooltip of Virtue of Justice passive and active is the sum over its duration. Passive Justice lasts 1 second while it’s 5 seconds on activation, hence why the damage tooltip of the active Burn is 5 times that of the passive.

personally i activate it whenever it’s up. i only have 5 in radiance so no refresh on kills (which in PvE is awesome, pretty much perma blind + burning + might) if mobs die fast enough), but i usually pop ir right before going engaging so i get the blind, as well as burning on them to maximise if you will

In WvW, i often use it for blindstomping against other guardians, warriors etc. (10 points in Radiance).

Also when we are dealing with lords that still have their 5 min buff.

@lavra – blindstomping, do you mean you blind them before you stomp so they can’t interupt you? i’ve started doing this instinctively, but not sure if blinding worked against their downed skills.

It does work.

There is a brief moment where you see a guardian raise his hand, a warrior stretching back etc before they do their knockdown/knockback/etc.

If you are fast enough, you can then either blind them or activate some source of aegis to block the stun.

You know that it works when you are not knocked back but got no “block” popup.

I use it on cooldown. If you have that trait that refreshes on kills you can basically spam it at times. It’s great with +3 might trait as well and altruistic healing.

If you don’t have ‘Renewed Justice’ trait, then you shouldn’t be using the active right off.

In a group: You definitely want to cast it right away (make sure allies are in range!), since allies apply it to, boosting the number of burns being thrown around.

Against a boss: It’s more efficient too, since you have 30 down Virtues, and the CD will be over before the boss is dead. But make sure to proc the passive burn at least once; that seems like the best way to maximize it.

Alone fighting normal mobs: If you’re up against multiple mobs then use the passive. If you can see there being at least a 10-15 sec lee-way between mobs, use the active.

I’m personally going 0/20/0/20/30. I highly recommend the ‘Renewed Justice’ trait.
It really takes care of my damage-output between always getting to apply the active burn and getting up to 9 Might stacks while fighting hordes of small-fry mobs.

TL;DR version:

If you’re DPS-focused, cast the active AMAP.
If you’re DOT-focused, only use on stuff that take more then 10+ seconds to kill.