Guild Wars 2

Yea I’m going there. But here me out before you bring the flames.

I’ve played as condi guardian since I hit 80 and first started pvping. Having gone through multiple iterations of pure raw damage, or condition damage and even some weird hybrid of both, these are my conclusive differences between condi and the current meta zerks.
Condi
-1v2 (and some 1v3’s) are more rewarding than not.
-Higher chances to beat any d/d Ele’s, bunk engis and any other tanky classes.
-Excels better against most meta build
-Everyone thinks you’re med
Cons
Heavy condi cleanse classes: med guards, minionmancer, are most difficult.
Can easily trait against the build itself.
Heavy weakness in cc
High dependancy with Elite’s rune of krait.

Meta Zerks
-Higher burst output
-More team support
-kitten fun
Cons
Whirl is a hit or miss.
Getting kited effects us more.
Tougher time with Ele’s, rangers, Engi’s and most sustain metas.

I’ve had my share with meta pvp guardian builds, but kept coming back to condition due to the inability to 1v2 certain thief’s and rangers. I could have extremely high burst damage, especially in group fights but heavily lack the anti-kiting tools that warriors and thief’s have (that’s guards in general) It doesn’t feel as rewarding with a condi build especially when roamin (or not roaming) as a condi guardian.

I could never beat a d/d ele with the current guard meta. With condi I’ve had my share of 1v1 victories in tpvp and even 1v1 duels where people aren’t normally traited for team oriented roles. Necro’s for some reason are the most difficult. Including turret Engi’s. However, some Engi’s rely on their turrets so much they’re actually very easy to down. Both are very time consuming to say the least.

In Conclusion:
There many more instances of condi build being more rewarding than the current meta guardian. Most meta builds aren’t an issue but you’re heavily dependent on certain skills when faced against them. I’ve 1v2 and 1v3 classes a lot easier than med zerks, especially against classes who are ranged from each other.

Build in video: 20606
Reason; Team cleanses + Higher proc burn.
Offers near perma retaliation & perma burn.
Weak against range/kiting.

61601 (and its equivalent builds) isn’t as effective in zerg scenarios, due to the lower proc rate (besides JI, 1 person gets the burn). That said, the build is still more superior in 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios and node defending. Much better than zerk medi hands down, in that aspect.

Hybrid/Condi Zerk Medi Comparison
Video Time 1:17 Example of perma burn/burn proc rates. Regardless of cleanse, see how often the burn is reapplied.

Video Time 2:03 Example of trying to survive while having low health while other CD’s are down. Equivalent to Medi Zerk having his surprise burst on cd; or not being able to burst due to trying to surviving. Condi is more rewarding in that aspect.

Video Time 3:06 Example of being CC’d yet still causing (aoe) damage. (Ignore the crappy TS3 talk.. I suck at video editing.)

Video Time 5:52 Example against dodging classes and negating their attacks while doing damage. All honesty, I think the thief thought I was zerk dps… he wasn’t that good but still offers a good example of deliberately blocking big attacks & causing damage, even when you can’t hit a target.

Video Time 6:19+ Example of huge zerg scenarios. All honesty Supreme Justice + Permeating Wrath (global aoe burns) would have been 2x more effective. Regardless of losing Absolute Resolution, I would have done 3x more damage in zergs.
It’s the build I’m currently using accross the board.

Full Video
Video has no sound, apart from a clip or two of TS3 (because i suck at video editing). So ignore those clips with sound. Otherwise play your own music and enjoy :P

Condi guard barely has any active damage apart from burning and sigils/runes. In everything that is not 1v1 condi guard will have way less damage output than zerker. In teamfights your burning will keep getting cleansed and you can’t rly focus targets since most of your damage is burning on block and burning from the passive f1. It has less support as well because it is forced to go 6 points into zeal.

The only things condi is better at than zerker is killing engis. It kind of freekills thieves and mesmer but you already have an advantage against them on dps guard anyways. It has a better chance against dd ele but it still shouldn’t beat it.

Welp, looks like those videos will really be needed to convince people even a little bit. Mind throwing the build out at the same time? Always interested in this subject

There’s always the Burning Med guard. Why not both?

Here is what I run. It probably will be considered not the best, but I have fun with it.

6 (II, VIII, XIII)/2 (III)/6 (I, II, XII)/0/0
Rune of Balthazar/Carrion Amulet
GS (Sigil of Doom/Sigil Bloodlust)
Mace (Sigil of Ice)
Focus (Sigil of Hydromancy)
Skills
Shelter
Smite Condition
Purging Flames
Judge’s Intervention
Renewed Focus

OP, I’m assuming you’re talking about a medi hybrid guardian, which is NOT a full condi build.

6/1/6/0/1
Zeal: II, IX, XIII
Valor: I, II, XII
sword/scepter
doom/geomancy/rune of the krait
smite/judges/contemplation
Carrion amulet

Against heavy cc/condi teams I usually go
4/0/6/0/4 and run GS/Scepter.

Side Note:
Forgot to add that guardian condi, unless a hybrid, is completely worthless against Diamond Skin Ele’s… I’ve noticed that you can actually use the first build and simply switch to Zerkers against these Ele’s… but not really a requirement in tpvp..
Or you can keep the same build but switch Contemplate with sHammer…and hope to get ur condis in when the hammer knocks the ele down pass 90%. That strat has proven to be most difficult and utterly unreliable..

I mainly used the first build because if you’re not up against a heavy condi/cc team, placing 4 in Honor is a complete waste if you never utilize them. I usually wont switch unless i see 2 necro’s on one team.

I want to know what Guards have the most trouble with and start comparing builds. Or why meta guards are still better. I’m going to record more videos and make a collage of notable fights that I probably wouldn’t have won using the current meta.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Condi guard barely has any active damage apart from burning and sigils/runes. In everything that is not 1v1 condi guard will have way less damage output than zerker. In teamfights your burning will keep getting cleansed and you can’t rly focus targets since most of your damage is burning on block and burning from the passive f1. It has less support as well because it is forced to go 6 points into zeal.

The only things condi is better at than zerker is killing engis. It kind of freekills thieves and mesmer but you already have an advantage against them on dps guard anyways. It has a better chance against dd ele but it still shouldn’t beat it.

The sad thing is almost every d/d Ele I go up against are probably not skillful players because I’ve been beating most Ele’s, in tpvp and 1v1 alike. If they don’t trait Diamond Skin odds are they aren’t going to win. I’ll try to post a gameplay video within a week or so.

Some random montage in which you beat mediocre/horrible players in duels won’t come close to convince me. Play and do well in one of the weekly tournaments with this build and I might start taking you srsly.

Keksmuffin.1450:

Some random montage in which you beat mediocre/horrible players in duels won’t come close to convince me. Play and do well in one of the weekly tournaments with this build and I might start taking you srsly.

You just saved me a whole lot of editing and footage time. And a goal to work towards

Black Box.9312:

OP, I’m assuming you’re talking about a medi hybrid guardian, which is NOT a full condi build.

Semantics. A condi guard is said to be a condi guard because it focuses on applying condi damage, not direct damage. Direct damage is just a by-product of the nature of the build.

Video of me playing a full match with Condi Guard. From a while ago but still relevant; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOETY-QY67Y

Playing my YOLO spec Maxing out the condi damage.

Condi guard hmmmm….. are you serious we lack conditions we have one ONLY 1 and even that its just a light up of the opponent for 1-3 sec burning 1K in total while other classes have near 5 condi access, yes we have chains for it but there all spread in the trait system and we cannot access it to use the full potential of it

Saiyan.1704:

Keksmuffin.1450:

Some random montage in which you beat mediocre/horrible players in duels won’t come close to convince me. Play and do well in one of the weekly tournaments with this build and I might start taking you srsly.

You just saved me a whole lot of editing and footage time. And a goal to work towards

Nice to hear I guess.

AGGabriel.9230:

Condi guard hmmmm….. are you serious we lack conditions we have one ONLY 1 and even that its just a light up of the opponent for 1-3 sec burning 1K in total while other classes have near 5 condi access, yes we have chains for it but there all spread in the trait system and we cannot access it to use the full potential of it

Geo/doom is a thing. Also guardian has a bunch of ways of aplying burning. Burning from passive f1, burning on block, JI, torch 4, balthazar runes and potentially even purging flames. If you add all these together you have a bunch of short burning ticks that aren’t easy to cleanse since you keep reapplying 1-4 seconds burning ticks that hurt pretty badly if you’re running amplified wrath.

I still think it’s not good for anything but dueling since most of the damage is just too slow and too passive while you’re not really gaining a lot of defense over the usual zerker meditation build.

Ive been running a Hybrid Medi/Burning guard for the past week in WvW and love it. With GS Scepter/Torch. It works for small group or large zergs. As the OP said most people think im just a regular medi guard but the burns are really useful.

I also use Supreme Justice so i dont give a crapp if they have condi cleanse since i re-apply burning so often with the scepter auto attack from range.

The torch #4 skill when thrown can do good ranged burn damage too.

The thing I like about condi builds is that burning is applied so often that even if people cleanse it gets reapplied quickly. With the build I use, every time I block I apply 800+ burning for at least 5 seconds. It is a given most classes can escape from a fight, with burning builds if my teleport is on cd, and they run burning will get them.

Mysticjedi.6053:

The thing I like about condi builds is that burning is applied so often that even if people cleanse it gets reapplied quickly. With the build I use, every time I block I apply 800+ burning for at least 5 seconds. It is a given most classes can escape from a fight, with burning builds if my teleport is on cd, and they run burning will get them.

OH BINGO! Glad someone pointed this out. Everyone thinks you need 5 conditions and huge durations for a condition build to work. My build uses passive VoJ … CAN’T be cleansed ever AND does quite high damage on well mitigated targets. Yes, it suffers on already-squishy targets … I don’t care, I let my Direct Damage team mates handle them.

Like the OP says, it’s strengths are ignoring the traditional defenses as well as some of the common cleansing strategies.

Keksmuffin.1450:

I still think it’s not good for anything but dueling since most of the damage is just too slow and too passive while you’re not really gaining a lot of defense over the usual zerker meditation build.

The only big difference, defense wise, between the zerk meditation build and the first build I posted is Absolute Resolution. Which may or may not get utilized fully.

In terms of damage, you’re looking at a sustaining 800 per second, not including 300 from bleeds and 170 from poison and about 300 from your other misc skills. Rune of krait does about 4k damage, mainly used as a finisher/burst move.

Zerks autos can have a spike damage of 2-3k every 1.5-2 seconds. A full hit from whirl is about 5k damage. Smite Condition can hit for an additional 2-3k. Not counting your occasional 300 burn ticks.

Assuming I’m not getting cleansed and you’re not getting kited/cc’d/blocked/protection, I’ll do about 6k dmg per 5 seconds in conditions alone (with out krait) while meta will do 8k in 2 second with whirl and smite and sigil procs. Then continue to auto for about 4.5k in 5 seconds

Defenses such as focus, shelter and elite are the same except it’s more rewarding for me in zerg scenerios, causing perma burn from shelter and additional damage from elite.
If I got zerks damage wrong please let me know, it’s been awhile since I used a zerk build.

Obtena.7952:

Mysticjedi.6053:

The thing I like about condi builds is that burning is applied so often that even if people cleanse it gets reapplied quickly. With the build I use, every time I block I apply 800+ burning for at least 5 seconds. It is a given most classes can escape from a fight, with burning builds if my teleport is on cd, and they run burning will get them.

OH BINGO! Glad someone pointed this out. Everyone thinks you need 5 conditions and huge durations for a condition build to work. My build uses passive VoJ … CAN’T be cleansed ever AND does quite high damage on well mitigated targets. Yes, it suffers on already-squishy targets … I don’t care, I let my Direct Damage team mates handle them.

Like the OP says, it’s strengths are ignoring the traditional defenses as well as some of the common cleansing strategies.

So not contributing with anything ( i like that ) you let your ’’teammates,, do your work ,and then what you face and oponent 1v1 what do you do (run) knowing that you have 1 condition and the base dmg is dead slow while the the vs has 5 condition acces and a larger base dmg . And defence what defence you go that path you just play with him while other come to mow you down ( from long range most of the cases)

A condi guard works better as a support either defending home where you can get consistent 1v1 or taking far where you can either get a 1v1 or draw a 1v2 to give your team an advantage. No a condi doesn’t do well supporting group battles, except for laying down fields, but to my knowledge med guards are rather selfish too, so I don’t see this as a major problem.

Saiyan.1704:

Keksmuffin.1450:

I still think it’s not good for anything but dueling since most of the damage is just too slow and too passive while you’re not really gaining a lot of defense over the usual zerker meditation build.

The only big difference, defense wise, between the zerk meditation build and the first build I posted is Absolute Resolution. Which may or may not get utilized fully.

In terms of damage, you’re looking at a sustaining 800 per second, not including 300 from bleeds and 170 from poison and about 300 from your other misc skills. Rune of krait does about 4k damage, mainly used as a finisher/burst move.

Zerks autos can have a spike damage of 2-3k every 1.5-2 seconds. A full hit from whirl is about 5k damage. Smite Condition can hit for an additional 2-3k. Not counting your occasional 300 burn ticks.

Assuming I’m not getting cleansed and you’re not getting kited/cc’d/blocked/protection, I’ll do about 6k dmg per 5 seconds in conditions alone (with out krait) while meta will do 8k in 2 second with whirl and smite and sigil procs. Then continue to auto for about 4.5k in 5 seconds

Defenses such as focus, shelter and elite are the same except it’s more rewarding for me in zerg scenerios, causing perma burn from shelter and additional damage from elite.
If I got zerks damage wrong please let me know, it’s been awhile since I used a zerk build.

dont forget that while playing zerg, you already burn for 300-400. in my full zerg build my burn ticks for 403 whitout any might.

I would also add the often overlooked damage over time from binding blade which scales well with codi damage (I think around 0.2) which can not be cleansed. With this build you can sidestep the low engaging potential of a guardian. sticking to an enemy to burst him down is quite hard if you fail to set it up right which is even harder and you need to read the game very carefully.

I would love this to be a viable option but I did my fair share of condi guard – i love it – but there are too many counters to it while being absolutely vurnable to conditions yourself. A good opponent will not be fooled twice and pretty much ignore you, time the cleanses right and stay away from you while keeping the point.

so I imagine its really a point defense build but I sure like to be proven wrong.

AGGabriel.9230:

Obtena.7952:

Mysticjedi.6053:

The thing I like about condi builds is that burning is applied so often that even if people cleanse it gets reapplied quickly. With the build I use, every time I block I apply 800+ burning for at least 5 seconds. It is a given most classes can escape from a fight, with burning builds if my teleport is on cd, and they run burning will get them.

OH BINGO! Glad someone pointed this out. Everyone thinks you need 5 conditions and huge durations for a condition build to work. My build uses passive VoJ … CAN’T be cleansed ever AND does quite high damage on well mitigated targets. Yes, it suffers on already-squishy targets … I don’t care, I let my Direct Damage team mates handle them.

Like the OP says, it’s strengths are ignoring the traditional defenses as well as some of the common cleansing strategies.

So not contributing with anything ( i like that ) you let your ’’teammates,, do your work ,and then what you face and oponent 1v1 what do you do (run) knowing that you have 1 condition and the base dmg is dead slow while the the vs has 5 condition acces and a larger base dmg . And defence what defence you go that path you just play with him while other come to mow you down ( from long range most of the cases)

After I descrambled this mess of a sentence, I came up with an appropriate reply:

No one implied these kinds of builds don’t contribute. Stop being obtuse.

I was hoping no one would figure this out…

please dont get my alt spec nerfed before medi guards..
thanks..

it wont dont worry, its not half as good as a zerk medi build in high end pvp:P

The “worst” part of a condi build is the time it takes to kill.

Specifically, burning stacks in duration and not intensity. So most fights with pure burning will last about 25-35 seconds.

In comparison with burst damage that can do that in a range of 1-8 seconds.

Having multiple layers of conditions or stacking conditions, like confusion, bleeding and torment help provide burst opportunities with condition builds while maintaining pressure with conditions such as burning and poison.

Burning alone is the condition equivalent of direct damage auto attack. Sure if someone stays still long enough and lets it happen, it will kill them.

Side topic:

I used to run key farming when I had way too many black lion chests in my bank, I went through a few iterations of different builds and classes, and I noticed that I had an easier time against higher level targets when I used attacks with secondary condition damage associated with them, because “ding ding ding” it supplemented my damage and it was not mitigated by armor.

So our built in class mechanic of burning with virtue of justice, is a way to add 400-600 damage to our attack rotations with no extra effort.

Downside is now lost in how conditions are applied, condition caps and priorities, and balance pure burst versus hybrid condition application with stats being lost or ineffective as well as “weak” class mechanic in passive virtues and arguable usage on on use virtue effects.

Good idea, but a lot of holes as it pans out.

Condi Guardian definitely works. People will deny it, people will cry, but such is the reaction to new builds that upset the established order. As someone who’s been playing condi guard since the April feature pack, I’ve been trying different guardian condition builds to find something that works in both 1v1s and tpvp. Here’s the build I use:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DNBARl5VEhWGARw1hQFsBA-TJRHwABeCAILDA4kAEa/BA

As people have mentioned, it sucks in team fights since condi cleanse is often shared. So, a condi guard should focus on engaging 1v1s by protecting home or pushing far. Most of the time, you find yourself against high mobility classes such as thieves/mesmers (at home) and high bunker ability classes dd ele/turret engineer (on far), and typically those classes can’t cleanse conditions too well.

D/d ele melts if played against correctly: once they’ve used cleansing fire and just left water attune, hit them with krait runes, flame burst with f1, and land your weapon swap. It’ll apply a ton of pressure on them which they won’t be able to cleanse easily.

Avoid team fights at all costs since your damage will be negated by group cleansing. The downsides to this build are the lack of cleave and the low mobility. Other than that, it functions just as well as any other classes and much better on the condition front.

Raze Guard

Ah how can I say this … I’m sure this will shock some of you but … Condi Guard doesn’t work, as Bullet Puntch said already. Any Medi Guard will kill a Condi Guard so you will never supercede Medi Guard. Medi Guard can’t kill D/D Eles and if a Condi Guard kills it that Ele is terrible. Condi pressure will never be big enough, unless to classes that doesn’t have any cleanse, and even Thieves have some, and to do some you will allways be dependent on Sigils, and which by what I’ve seen here, will only apply 2 more conditions to the target. 3 conditions is pressure enough for a kill? Hell no, and if they do the player is terrible.

Till we have most condi traits in the right trees (Supreme Justice makes sence in Virtues, but it would help a lot more for condi if it was in either Radiance or Zeal), and some get improved you will not see Condi Guards on competitive lvl.

3 conditions? You clearly haven’t tried condi guard extensively enough to be criticizing it. Let me draw it out for you in crayon:

Condition 1, Blindess: Flashing blade, VoJ, RoJ
Condition 2, Vulnerability: Upon blinding, enemy receives 3 stacks of vulnerability
Condition 3, Burning: If this needs further explaining…
Condition 4, Poison: Weapon swap, 60% uptime
Condition 5, Bleeding: Krait runes give this 100% uptime, 3 stack minimum
Condition 6, Torment: Krait rune elite activation; timing is everything.

6 conditions that stack in intensity, duration, and have nearly 100% uptime. Just because one guardian insists it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that it won’t work. By the same token, although I say it works, maybe it won’t work for someone else. It all depends on play style, skill level, etc.

Condi guardian does work, and I beat 95% of the players I come across in 1v1s- especially zerker guardians. If you’re not winning with this comp, the problem’s with you, not the build.

Raze Guard

Mysticjedi.6053:

Here is what I run. It probably will be considered not the best, but I have fun with it.

6 (II, VIII, XIII)/2 (III)/6 (I, II, XII)/0/0
Rune of Balthazar/Carrion Amulet
GS (Sigil of Doom/Sigil Bloodlust)
Mace (Sigil of Ice)
Focus (Sigil of Hydromancy)
Skills
Shelter
Smite Condition
Purging Flames
Judge’s Intervention
Renewed Focus

Why bloodlust of all choices on a condition build? I’d think you’d be better off with geomancy or literally anything else but power that’s removed every time you die.

This thread is missing two things to support the claims of condi guard:

1) Great Math
2) Videos

I have a WWW condi guard build and a thread dedicated to it. It works in 1v1s very well, but really that is it. The reason it works so well is I run Defender’s Flame and Runes of the Guardian. So I apply a lot of burning when you attack me. But in small mans I don’t get targeted very often, so I’m useless. I might as well go full burst or run support, I do the later.

PvP is a little different as condi’s are a bit stronger, running a hybrid build while fighting on point is pretty nice, but bunker/support guardian is still our best build in a strong tpvp team. As a hybrid guardian what role do you fullfil? At least with a zerker medi you can burst someone down quickly when they aren’t expecting it. There are classes who can do this better, but celes engie’s, ele’s, and warrior’s are far better hybrids and sustained fighters.

To the OP, you probably should post those vids and as always, if you are winning 1v2s or 1v3s it is because they were bad players.

Eclipse.5912:

3 conditions? You clearly haven’t tried condi guard extensively enough to be criticizing it. Let me draw it out for you in crayon:

Condition 1, Blindess: Flashing blade, VoJ, RoJ
Condition 2, Vulnerability: Upon blinding, enemy receives 3 stacks of vulnerability
Condition 3, Burning: If this needs further explaining…
Condition 4, Poison: Weapon swap, 60% uptime
Condition 5, Bleeding: Krait runes give this 100% uptime, 3 stack minimum
Condition 6, Torment: Krait rune elite activation; timing is everything.

6 conditions that stack in intensity, duration, and have nearly 100% uptime. Just because one guardian insists it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that it won’t work. By the same token, although I say it works, maybe it won’t work for someone else. It all depends on play style, skill level, etc.

Condi guardian does work, and I beat 95% of the players I come across in 1v1s- especially zerker guardians. If you’re not winning with this comp, the problem’s with you, not the build.

Raze Guard

When talking about damage potential of condition builds, you shouldn’t try to include control conditions such as blindness. Also vulnerability is a condition that increases direct damage, not condition damage, so that should be off your list as well.

Lets talk about Burning, Poison, Bleeding, Torment.

Burning we already have established.

Poison is mostly an anti heal condition with fairly low damage output.

Bleeding is a good example, but the stacks are low. Three stacks will only do around 300 damage. When bleeding becomes threatening is when you start doing 10+ stacks for short durations.

Doing a 600 damage burn and maintaining a 300 damage bleed is pressure.

Ramping up the bleed to 10+ stacks becomes burst. Some classes can even ramp up to 20 stacks for decent amount of time. That is going from 900 damage a second to 1600-2600 damge a second. In almost every pvp game, kills are obtained by timing burst appropriately. This game has faster and more frequent windows of burst, but it is still there and utilized.

Torment is an interesting one that allows for low stacks to be as effective of high stacks of bleed “if” the target is moving. This has great potential at low stacks, as everyone tends to keep moving anyway. I have never seen anyone stop moving and stay still cause they have torment on….more dangerous to stay still and let yourself get hit even more than to keep moving.

Last damaging condition we didn’t mention is confusion. Another great condition, and I like how it is inline with the defensive nature of guardians. I also like how it has synergy with retaliation.

Retal will handle the fast multi hitting attacks while confusion punishes the heavy hitting single hit attacks that retal is ineffective with.

Mysticjedi.6053:

Here is what I run. It probably will be considered not the best, but I have fun with it.

6 (II, VIII, XIII)/2 (III)/6 (I, II, XII)/0/0
Rune of Balthazar/Carrion Amulet
GS (Sigil of Doom/Sigil Bloodlust)
Mace (Sigil of Ice)
Focus (Sigil of Hydromancy)
Skills
Shelter
Smite Condition
Purging Flames
Judge’s Intervention
Renewed Focus

Why bloodlust of all choices on a condition build? I’d think you’d be better off with geomancy or literally anything else but power that’s removed every time you die.
[/quote]

Thanks for the suggestion.
http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRAsf7dlsApaolDxbI8DNBARl5VEhWGARw1hQFsBA-TJRHwABeCAILDA4kAEa/BA

I do like the condition build a lot. I have fought against dps mediation guards with this build, I can’t say I win consistently, but I can’t say I lose consistently either.

I do want to point out that Mace is really great for building some sustain against burst builds. It gives a short regen, and an extra block that does either 800 burn damage or explodes for damage.

It was asked what role a condi guard plays. In the absence of a bunker it can hold home. If a bunker exists I feel the build works well at harassing far or any other point that you can get a 1v1 match. Ideally, you’re 1v1 will draw another player or two giving your team the opportunity to easily cap some additional points or take out the other 3 players.

Just my opinion, and it could be a terrible one.

Blasino.3128:

This thread is missing two things to support the claims of condi guard:

1) Great Math
2) Videos

PvP is a little different as condi’s are a bit stronger, running a hybrid build while fighting on point is pretty nice, but bunker/support guardian is still our best build in a strong tpvp team. As a hybrid guardian what role do you fullfil? At least with a zerker medi you can burst someone down quickly when they aren’t expecting it. There are classes who can do this better, but celes engie’s, ele’s, and warrior’s are far better hybrids and sustained fighters.

To the OP, you probably should post those vids and as always, if you are winning 1v2s or 1v3s it is because they were bad players.

They were most definitely.. especially the 1v3’s. That should never happen. But what’s curious is no one else said they could do the same.. in any situation. I guess splitting raw damage to multiple people, unless they’re right on top of each other, is more difficult.

I wasn’t going to post videos because of a previous post, but I guess it’s needed. I’ll try to duel “good” people in koth for the sake of showing rotations…and grab footage in tpvp/rank so you can see for yourself.

Edit:
Getting footage in rank pvp is proving to be most difficult… the 1v2’s I’m doing is an utter joke and I can’t even find a decent team to play against that shows what the build is capable of. It’s going to take a while to find worthy enough clips against good teams. Because of all the newer players and spvp merging with tpvp, I’m desperately trying not make a montage of baddies so bare with me.

Videos are just a way for someone to tell you how your builds don’t work because you’re killing noobs … wait for it.

Having used both forms of the guard, I will say the hybrid guard is far more rewarding than meta medi guard (say that 3 times fast). If you time your blinds and burns correctly it shreds through most meta builds. That said, it does have a few hard builds it’ll come across. Thieves are no longer whack-a-mole as they generally are w standard meta medi, as they can cleanse before you do a large bulk of the damage and are not as squishy ( seemingly of course ). Engi is still a pain if they are camping a siege point. Warriors still have a LOT of HP, so it’s mostly winable ( The blinds go a long way ) but it will be a long fight.

Shrapnel.7249:

Having used both forms of the guard, I will say the hybrid guard is far more rewarding than meta medi guard (say that 3 times fast). If you time your blinds and burns correctly it shreds through most meta builds. That said, it does have a few hard builds it’ll come across. Thieves are no longer whack-a-mole as they generally are w standard meta medi, as they can cleanse before you do a large bulk of the damage and are not as squishy ( seemingly of course ). Engi is still a pain if they are camping a siege point. Warriors still have a LOT of HP, so it’s mostly winable ( The blinds go a long way ) but it will be a long fight.

I have found a camping Engi and bunker eles the only real struggle against this build. Otherwise, all other builds are consistently beatable as long as you time your blinds and blocks correctly. Granted none of the fights will be short. The trick is knowing when to do what. However, I might be so low in pvp that people just suck.

Saiyan IF I find some decent players I will help you with videos if you want. Though my build is a little different than yours.

Mysticjedi.6053:

Shrapnel.7249:

Having used both forms of the guard, I will say the hybrid guard is far more rewarding than meta medi guard (say that 3 times fast). If you time your blinds and burns correctly it shreds through most meta builds. That said, it does have a few hard builds it’ll come across. Thieves are no longer whack-a-mole as they generally are w standard meta medi, as they can cleanse before you do a large bulk of the damage and are not as squishy ( seemingly of course ). Engi is still a pain if they are camping a siege point. Warriors still have a LOT of HP, so it’s mostly winable ( The blinds go a long way ) but it will be a long fight.

I have found a camping Engi and bunker eles the only real struggle against this build. Otherwise, all other builds are consistently beatable as long as you time your blinds and blocks correctly. Granted none of the fights will be short. The trick is knowing when to do what. However, I might be so low in pvp that people just suck.

Saiyan IF I find some decent players I will help you with videos if you want. Though my build is a little different than yours.

I appreciate that.

What do yall want to see as far as in the video? 1v1’ing d/d ele’s in tpvp/duels? Overall success holding nodes at far/home? Or just going against top meta builds in general?

I’ll tell you right now that any users with 0 condition cleanse, like most thieves and rangers, will die instantly. Even meta condi rangers (if there’s meta condi rangers?) are easy. I’m not going to trouble myself posting any videos taking these classes out… or any videos of 1v2’s… unless I’m against an ele and a thief comes in and insta dies cause that’s just hilarious.

Eclipse.5912:

3 conditions? You clearly haven’t tried condi guard extensively enough to be criticizing it. Let me draw it out for you in crayon:

Condition 1, Blindess: Flashing blade, VoJ, RoJ
Condition 2, Vulnerability: Upon blinding, enemy receives 3 stacks of vulnerability
Condition 3, Burning: If this needs further explaining…
Condition 4, Poison: Weapon swap, 60% uptime
Condition 5, Bleeding: Krait runes give this 100% uptime, 3 stack minimum
Condition 6, Torment: Krait rune elite activation; timing is everything.

6 conditions that stack in intensity, duration, and have nearly 100% uptime. Just because one guardian insists it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that it won’t work. By the same token, although I say it works, maybe it won’t work for someone else. It all depends on play style, skill level, etc.

Condi guardian does work, and I beat 95% of the players I come across in 1v1s- especially zerker guardians. If you’re not winning with this comp, the problem’s with you, not the build.

Raze Guard

Of all those condis, only 4 do damage, and thats what I meant when I said 3 condis. kitten I know very well the condis Guardian has by deafault and I thought it wasn’t needed to mention those.
Lol you will apply torment every 72 and possibly waste a life saviour to do it, boy thats a good trade off for sure, and if you don’t waste it you don’t apply torment and then stay with the same 3 condis, burning every 24 secs, bleed and poison every 10, THIS if you hit them, thing that with Medi Guard with some CC is already hard with this will not be much easier. Not to mentions of those 3 Condis only bleed will stack significantly.

For sure if you have been killing ppl with that, they are plain out terrible or blind :/

mPascoal.4258:

Eclipse.5912:

3 conditions? You clearly haven’t tried condi guard extensively enough to be criticizing it. Let me draw it out for you in crayon:

Condition 1, Blindess: Flashing blade, VoJ, RoJ
Condition 2, Vulnerability: Upon blinding, enemy receives 3 stacks of vulnerability
Condition 3, Burning: If this needs further explaining…
Condition 4, Poison: Weapon swap, 60% uptime
Condition 5, Bleeding: Krait runes give this 100% uptime, 3 stack minimum
Condition 6, Torment: Krait rune elite activation; timing is everything.

6 conditions that stack in intensity, duration, and have nearly 100% uptime. Just because one guardian insists it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that it won’t work. By the same token, although I say it works, maybe it won’t work for someone else. It all depends on play style, skill level, etc.

Condi guardian does work, and I beat 95% of the players I come across in 1v1s- especially zerker guardians. If you’re not winning with this comp, the problem’s with you, not the build.

Raze Guard

Of all those condis, only 4 do damage, and thats what I meant when I said 3 condis. kitten I know very well the condis Guardian has by deafault and I thought it wasn’t needed to mention those.
Lol you will apply torment every 72 and possibly waste a life saviour to do it, boy thats a good trade off for sure, and if you don’t waste it you don’t apply torment and then stay with the same 3 condis, burning every 24 secs, bleed and poison every 10, THIS if you hit them, thing that with Medi Guard with some CC is already hard with this will not be much easier. Not to mentions of those 3 Condis only bleed will stack significantly.

For sure if you have been killing ppl with that, they are plain out terrible or blind :/

You obviously don’t play condi guard so let me show you exactly how often we apply the most damaging condi in game.

My Build – can’t vouche for others
Zealot’s Flame alone gives 12 seconds of burn. 4s on activation. 4s towards it ending. 4s when you throw it. Yes it’s pretty easy to throw it before it ends but that’s a l2p issue for most.

4s judge’s intervention, every 36s. Usually used twice per fight since it’s popped early on for the most part.

Then you have the sword auto that hits for 5, causing burn.
Cleansing flame: Burn applied within 2 seconds on contacts.
Zealot’s Defense: Burn applied in half a second on contacts.

Then you have scepter which is self explanatory. Smite in conjunction with Ray of judgement and auto triggers burn quite frequently

Not to mention burn on hit from block. Aegis triggers burn 5 times in 1 match.
Shelter’s block can offer up to 5-7 seconds worth of burns depending on how many time’s you’re hit in that period.

Bleed and poison every 10s. You got that one right. It’s pretty much every instance since I time dodge rolls and switching while sword teleport and JI. Again a l2p issue for most. Rune of krait is indeed a huge hit or miss factor in the build but it offer’s incredible amounts of Burst damage people don’t expect.

Elite as a life savor..?
With this build you’re suppose to use elite when certain opponents health are at 30-40% like Ele’s and Warriors. Being able to burst them down past that threshold is essential or else they’ll come right back up with all their heals. How often do you get zerged down? I’ve never been caught in a zerg where my elite wasn’t up to absorb said damage.

When you say “Guards apply burns every 24s” I have no idea wtf you’re talking about.

EDIT
Interesting fact: The mod from king of the hill custom matches completely ruled out Rabid and Carrion to be used on Guardians. tinyurl.com/gasmkoth

Saiyan.1704:

Mysticjedi.6053:

Shrapnel.7249:

Having used both forms of the guard, I will say the hybrid guard is far more rewarding than meta medi guard (say that 3 times fast). If you time your blinds and burns correctly it shreds through most meta builds. That said, it does have a few hard builds it’ll come across. Thieves are no longer whack-a-mole as they generally are w standard meta medi, as they can cleanse before you do a large bulk of the damage and are not as squishy ( seemingly of course ). Engi is still a pain if they are camping a siege point. Warriors still have a LOT of HP, so it’s mostly winable ( The blinds go a long way ) but it will be a long fight.

I have found a camping Engi and bunker eles the only real struggle against this build. Otherwise, all other builds are consistently beatable as long as you time your blinds and blocks correctly. Granted none of the fights will be short. The trick is knowing when to do what. However, I might be so low in pvp that people just suck.

Saiyan IF I find some decent players I will help you with videos if you want. Though my build is a little different than yours.

I appreciate that.

What do yall want to see as far as in the video? 1v1’ing d/d ele’s in tpvp/duels? Overall success holding nodes at far/home? Or just going against top meta builds in general?

I’ll tell you right now that any users with 0 condition cleanse, like most thieves and rangers, will die instantly. Even meta condi rangers (if there’s meta condi rangers?) are easy. I’m not going to trouble myself posting any videos taking these classes out… or any videos of 1v2’s… unless I’m against an ele and a thief comes in and insta dies cause that’s just hilarious.

I would make a video to justify your statement about a hybrid/condi medi guardian being better then a medi zerk. In what pvp game mode would you consider Hybrid Medi > Zerker Medi?

tpvp?
pvp Duels?
spvp?

For example if you wanted to showcase it being better in tpvp:

Usually, a medi zerks job is to surprise and blow someone up in less then 2 seconds when they have wasted a majority of their dodges/defensive skills or they are caught unaware regardless of health (if everything hits correctly should do 15-18k damage). I wouldn’t think that would be a hybrid guardians job (I don’t know I don’t use my build in tpvp), so you would have to show in the video what your job is and doing it well.

Saiyan.1704:

mPascoal.4258:

Eclipse.5912:

3 conditions? You clearly haven’t tried condi guard extensively enough to be criticizing it. Let me draw it out for you in crayon:

Condition 1, Blindess: Flashing blade, VoJ, RoJ
Condition 2, Vulnerability: Upon blinding, enemy receives 3 stacks of vulnerability
Condition 3, Burning: If this needs further explaining…
Condition 4, Poison: Weapon swap, 60% uptime
Condition 5, Bleeding: Krait runes give this 100% uptime, 3 stack minimum
Condition 6, Torment: Krait rune elite activation; timing is everything.

6 conditions that stack in intensity, duration, and have nearly 100% uptime. Just because one guardian insists it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that it won’t work. By the same token, although I say it works, maybe it won’t work for someone else. It all depends on play style, skill level, etc.

Condi guardian does work, and I beat 95% of the players I come across in 1v1s- especially zerker guardians. If you’re not winning with this comp, the problem’s with you, not the build.

Raze Guard

Of all those condis, only 4 do damage, and thats what I meant when I said 3 condis. kitten I know very well the condis Guardian has by deafault and I thought it wasn’t needed to mention those.
Lol you will apply torment every 72 and possibly waste a life saviour to do it, boy thats a good trade off for sure, and if you don’t waste it you don’t apply torment and then stay with the same 3 condis, burning every 24 secs, bleed and poison every 10, THIS if you hit them, thing that with Medi Guard with some CC is already hard with this will not be much easier. Not to mentions of those 3 Condis only bleed will stack significantly.

For sure if you have been killing ppl with that, they are plain out terrible or blind :/

You obviously don’t play condi guard so let me show you exactly how often we apply the most damaging condi in game.

My Build – can’t vouche for others
Zealot’s Flame alone gives 12 seconds of burn. 4s on activation. 4s towards it ending. 4s when you throw it. Yes it’s pretty easy to throw it before it ends but that’s a l2p issue for most.

4s judge’s intervention, every 36s. Usually used twice per fight since it’s popped early on for the most part.

Then you have the sword auto that hits for 5, causing burn.
Cleansing flame: Burn applied within 2 seconds on contacts.
Zealot’s Defense: Burn applied in half a second on contacts.

Then you have scepter which is self explanatory. Smite in conjunction with Ray of judgement and auto triggers burn quite frequently

Not to mention burn on hit from block. Aegis triggers burn 5 times in 1 match.
Shelter’s block can offer up to 5-7 seconds worth of burns depending on how many time’s you’re hit in that period.

Bleed and poison every 10s. You got that one right. It’s pretty much every instance since I time dodge rolls and switching while sword teleport and JI. Again a l2p issue for most. Rune of krait is indeed a huge hit or miss factor in the build but it offer’s incredible amounts of Burst damage people don’t expect.

Elite as a life savor..?
With this build you’re suppose to use elite when certain opponents health are at 30-40% like Ele’s and Warriors. Being able to burst them down past that threshold is essential or else they’ll come right back up with all their heals. How often do you get zerged down? I’ve never been caught in a zerg where my elite wasn’t up to absorb said damage.

When you say “Guards apply burns every 24s” I have no idea wtf you’re talking about.

EDIT
Interesting fact: The mod from king of the hill custom matches completely ruled out Rabid and Carrion to be used on Guardians. tinyurl.com/gasmkoth

Burn every 24 sec from Virtue of justice. If you don’t use it to get burn every kittens you will miss: 3 stack of might, a blind so 3 stacks of Vul too and a stronger burn but shorter.

Great then, use Celestial. But I still don’t aprove this build and all Condi variants I’ve faced in Guard got steam rolled by me, so I still want to see someone pulling it off if it is that good….

You don’t use the active f1 unless you know that your target has no cleanse anymore and he’s gonna die from the burn tick. Passive f1 is way more damage if you can constantly hit stuff.

Also I never doubted that condi guard is a good dueling build. But you won’t convince me with videos of random duels that it’s viable in 5v5 games with decent people.

My point still stands. As long as I don’t see a condi guard doing well in some weekly ESL tournament or smth similar I won’t agree with the statement OP made in the title.

hey guys
i have played condi guard even before ppl knew it
yes it works just fine
but does it really works in any situation?
in tpvp – hardly used as better classes/build out there like engi/ necro/ which gives better group aoe
in wvw – works fine in 1v1 and with group not at all the time as your conditions will cleansed easily

There are situations where it’s effectiveness is diminshed but that’s the great thing … if you are up against a cleanser, you can simply NOT F1 and have a more frequent application of burning. Cleansing is not an issue if you play correctly.

Condi build may sounds viable in 1v1, however I don’t think condi guard possessed any threat in a group fight. ( And yes, i have tried myriads ways of condi. build ) Condi build just sacrifice too many CC and support skills (SYG) in order to get the Burn, just don’t worth it imo.

yLoon.5289:

Condi build may sounds viable in 1v1, however I don’t think condi guard possessed any threat in a group fight. ( And yes, i have tried myriads ways of condi. build ) Condi build just sacrifice too many CC and support skills (SYG) in order to get the Burn, just don’t worth it imo.

Main purpose of the thread is to compare condi build (my build, condi in general) to zerk medi guards, like the title says. Neither of which has much CC and support skills, we are no shout bunkers. Not talking about any x/x/x/6/x guards.

I’m curious as to which ele builds does or should kill condi guards, or guards in general. I’d like to duel anyone who has a solid ele, or can support that claim… or if you just want to duel that’s fine too. It can be completely anonymous, I don’t mean to call out anyone since it’s mainly for experience purposes.
-Preferably builds that you would bring to tpvp or top tier players would use.
-Not Diamond Skin since it’s pretty much a direct counter to my build without respecting to something else.

Eclipse.5912:

3 conditions? You clearly haven’t tried condi guard extensively enough to be criticizing it. Let me draw it out for you in crayon:

Condition 1, Blindess: Flashing blade, VoJ, RoJ
Condition 2, Vulnerability: Upon blinding, enemy receives 3 stacks of vulnerability
Condition 3, Burning: If this needs further explaining…
Condition 4, Poison: Weapon swap, 60% uptime
Condition 5, Bleeding: Krait runes give this 100% uptime, 3 stack minimum
Condition 6, Torment: Krait rune elite activation; timing is everything.

6 conditions that stack in intensity, duration, and have nearly 100% uptime.

Wow, 100% uptime on torment? Where can I get that?! /sarcasm

Torment doesn’t even come close to having 100% uptime. If you just said, in a match where you have condi cleansers the ability to reapply burning even after it has been cleansed repeatedly is the key, then only people who don’t understand that fact will argue with you.

SilkySmooth.1574:

it wont dont worry, its not half as good as a zerk medi build in high end pvp:P

Opinion not fact.

yLoon.5289:

Condi build may sounds viable in 1v1, however I don’t think condi guard possessed any threat in a group fight. ( And yes, i have tried myriads ways of condi. build ) Condi build just sacrifice too many CC and support skills (SYG) in order to get the Burn, just don’t worth it imo.

Even Medi-guards don’t need to sacrifice SYG. It’s just a choice. If you want to play with SYG, you can.

And it’s hilarious that you think condi guard doesn’t pose a threat. 3 people tried to focus me in a fight the other day, the mesmer got downed by passive burning, the Warrior that tried to stomp me got downed and the Engineer who tried to rez the mesmer got downed and I got rallied off the mesmer only to stomp the other two so yea…. not effective at all.

thats the thing. this will never happen in higher tier ranked matches..

Dirame.8521:

yLoon.5289:

Condi build may sounds viable in 1v1, however I don’t think condi guard possessed any threat in a group fight. ( And yes, i have tried myriads ways of condi. build ) Condi build just sacrifice too many CC and support skills (SYG) in order to get the Burn, just don’t worth it imo.

Even Medi-guards don’t need to sacrifice SYG. It’s just a choice. If you want to play with SYG, you can.

And it’s hilarious that you think condi guard doesn’t pose a threat. 3 people tried to focus me in a fight the other day, the mesmer got downed by passive burning, the Warrior that tried to stomp me got downed and the Engineer who tried to rez the mesmer got downed and I got rallied off the mesmer only to stomp the other two so yea…. not effective at all.

Again I’ve yet to see anyone replicating such a feat with a zerk medi build. I’ve seen Hammer do extraordinarily amounts of aoe damage where it’s possible, but not nearly at the level and consistency that condi is. These types of 1v2’s comes every other day, if not more frequently so.

Blasino.3128:

In what pvp game mode would you consider Hybrid Medi > Zerker Medi?

tpvp?
pvp Duels?
spvp?

SPvP
Because of these reasons I’m going to say condi is a better alternative to zerks in spvp due to being a) better node defender and b) more likely to 1v2 and 1v3 successfully.

PvP Duels and Node Defend
Condi is notorious for being successful in 1v1 matchup scenarious. Unless a roamer is completely covered in condi cleanses for some reason, condi guard will always be a better node defender. There are several instances of condi taking on Celes ele’s and tearing up bunk engi’s.

SilkySmooth.1574:

thats the thing. this will never happen in higher tier ranked matches..

I also find it funny that you think a situation like that couldn’t happen in higher tier matches. I’ve been watching higher tier matches, they are quite prone to making mistakes as well.