Guild Wars 2

Hey there fellow guardians,

Recently i was messing with the build editor and made 3 builds that on paper look pretty decent, but i haven’t tested any of them, cause honestly I don’t have that much gold.
So i though I’ll get some feedback from you guys.
btw, this is for wvw only!

• FIRST: rabid+rabid/dire (high toughness, low health,decent crit chance, low power, high cond damage)
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAsf7dlUgSCXGSOEf4Ei1j/Bh8nqHxT94hXFUIA-j0CBYhDimWAikOgkIwpoFRjtkJIFPhtCLaKZER1KlYGzFRrWKAYWDA-w

• SECOND: carrion+rabid (lower toughness, higher health, same-ish crit chance, higher power, same cond damage)
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAsf7dlUgSCXGSOEf4Ei1j/Bh8nqHxT94hXFUIA-j0CBIhDimWAikOgkIwZoFRjtkJIFPhtCLaqbY6YER1GzFRrWKAYWDA-w

• THIRD: carrion+rabid/dire(lower toughness, higher health, higher power, low crit chance, same cond damage)
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAsf7dlUgSCXGSOEf4Ei1j/Bh8nqHxT94hXFUIA-j0CBIhDimWAikOgkIwZoFRjtkJIFPhtCLaKZER1KlYGzFRrWKAYWDA-w

you have very high cond damage and apply burning in every possible way, you also get a lot of burning duration.
i mean, only looking at that 26k damage in 7 seconds form zealots flame fires me up!

so what do you guys think? would something like this be viable in wvw? solo roaming mainly, but i think it would be decent in small groups too (maybe with a different elite skill)
any feedback would be great!
thank you!

Hey, nice to see some experimentation.

Here’s a comprehensive Guide to Guardian Burning which was stickied in this subforum for a long time until the devs decided guardian condition damage was something they wanted to quietly sweep under the carpet. It has a lot of useful information.

Generally, in WvW, the biggest issue with our condition damage is our lack of cover conditions. If we had better access to secondary effects like bleed or chill we’d be a lot more viable.

My favorite build for condi was a 10/25/0/5/30 build I had. It was in PvP with Carrion Amulet and a Soldiers Jewel, good amounts of precision power and condi damage. I had about 17.5k hp and 2400 toughness with forge runes. To make up for the low Toughness I used signet mastery with Signet of Judgement and had lots of protection from the forge runes.

Weapons were Greatsword and Staff, both with Geomancy Sigils for aoe damage and the decent duration bleed stacks.

The key for guardian condi damage is sticking close to opponents with lots of quick rapid hits. If you take both Supreme Justice and Permeating Wrath you can apply 2 to 3 stacks of 1.25 second burns every second. This is how you defeat the need for cover conditions, because you will be able to re-apply burning before it even misses a tick. You wont be able to burst condi an opponent down, but your power isn’t bad and with fiery wrath you will have +20% damage almost always on.

Purging flames is great as well, but try to save it for when you really need the condi cleanse and/or the opponent has used up thier condi clear already. My favorite combo is to use Purging flames, greastsword 5, when they run out of the flame circle pull them back in for another dose of long term burning, whirling wrath, and as they try to flee swap to staff real quick for some bleed stacks and boost your condi damage with empower. Sit back and watch the numbers tick as they run.

The above is hardly a competitive build, but it is tons of fun.

No, just. No.

We only have one condition to start with that scales only in duration.

Just… no. It’s a bad stat for guardians that is not even remotely competitive in any area of the game. You’re just setting yourself up to be a bad player.

Rangersix.1754:

No, just. No.

We only have one condition to start with that scales only in duration.

Just… no. It’s a bad stat for guardians that is not even remotely competitive in any area of the game. You’re just setting yourself up to be a bad player.

As much as I dislike closed-minded mentalities regarding build experimentation… he’s absolutely right.

I’ve been bored of the whole zerker meta and tried to make a build similar to yours listed not too long ago OP, but I got nowhere with it. No matter how hard you try to make it work it’s not good in any aspect of the game. It’s really a shame that so much of our class and tree is dedicated to mechanically broken garbage.

I mean, imagine being a new player and looking at the Guardian description on the official Guild Wars 2 page and seeing all this flavor text trying to typify the Guardian like “The Fire of Justice burns!” but only to later come to the realization that it was all just merely that… flavor text. And don’t get me started about Spirit Weapons, look how iconic they are of the class, showing up in all the screenshots and proudly listed as a special skill of the Guardian. What a depressingly misleading showcase of the profession. None of that stuff is remotely good.

Do not, under any circumstances, use Condition Damage gear. It’s just terrible for a Guardian. The rate of return on it is abysmal for us. There are a few reasons, but the most important of which is that we simply can’t saturate an enemy with enough conditions to actually make the amount of damage you lose from not having Power less than the amount of damage you gain by using Condition Damage. Not with Burning, not with Runes and Sigils. It’s a sad state of affairs.

its not, no matter how much condi, even 1635, the burn dot is only 700

its to weak

Rangersix.1754:

No, just. No.

We only have one condition to start with that scales only in duration.

Just… no. It’s a bad stat for guardians that is not even remotely competitive in any area of the game. You’re just setting yourself up to be a bad player.

We also have blind~

That said, a burning condition build wont work. Guards wont have enough coverage and people can just kite and spam /laugh at you.

Possible? Yes.

Viable? No. Not even close.

The condi/condi-counterplay in this game is a complete kittening joke.

Do not go condi on a guardian under any circumstances. Permburn is useful for some builds, but not because of the burn damage – because of the up to +20% damage and debooning per burn application traits. That build is still viable but it uses direct damage amping gear.

Reason being, Burning scales horribly with condition damage. Very horribly. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_damage

For every other condition, damage scaling is along the lines of 8.5 condition damage = +1% damage in that condition. Burning is along the lines of 13.1 condition damage = +1% damage.

That is to say, every other condition will be 54% stronger than you. Or, your max potential as a burning condi guardian is barely two thirds of any other condition type user. That’s like using blue gear compared to an ascended geared player with the same build.

We haven’t yet even gone into the fact that you can’t stack burning more than once by intensity…

By the way, it’s not 26,640 damage in 7 seconds. It applies 4 stacks. That is to say, it does 26,640 damage over 28 seconds. It’s misleading, I know. But we’re talking only 951 dps from burn here.

This doesn’t even begin to compare with the >3500 damage per second rangers can get through bleed alone.

It is possible. Your 26k damage number is flat out wrong though, at 328 + .25*condition damage / second you’d need 13545 condition damage to reach that number. Unless I’m missing something, which is possible since I cant access your builds from the PC I’m on.

I’ve tried a condition build. It costs me 10 bucks for a set of equipment, I tested it out in SPVP first and had success but…

Well lets just say eventually I found out that the only class I consistently lost to was Guardians who were using a great sword. So I finally (I’ve been playing Guardian since launch) gave in and tried to get over my hate of the great sword. I made a guardian with sigils/power/toughness/healing.

My guardian was playable when he was condition based, but he is MUCH better now. My passive healing ticks for over 200, my greatsword attacks heal for 55 each swing, and I do way more damage than before.

You give up WAY to much in order to get the extra condition damage. I did the math. Fire damage has a very high damage floor at 328 / tick. Its better used as a supportive portion of your build, not the main focus. The question should be “healing or condition damage” not “condition damage or power”.

I tried making one in Spvp and it was very underwhelming. I had a ton of burning access but too few of any other condition to bury it. Not to mention with a condi-build, your sustain is pretty much zero. Here’s a link to what I made, it wasn’t terrible just too easily cleansed and if I got focused at ALL, I was dead. Here’s pretty much what I made to make a decent condition build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQRAsf7dlUgqCXGyNEf4ESmCR6AtUAQIU1D8pe8QA-TwAgyCuICTJjTGTYSes8MEYJwujZHA

Possible? Sure. We went to the moon with less compute power under all of our desks.

Does it make sense? Probably not. For many reasons people of already stated.

If you have badges to spare buy some armor and weapons spend a few gold on runes/sigils. Order up some food and give it a try. I have a set based off some conversations and reviewing the sticky here before it went poof. It is what it is at the end of the day but one thing for sure, it isn’t a game changer.

Possible ^^

So OP !!!

no and quit asking.

Zenix.1706:

Possible ^^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRtLkdMQJRQ

So OP !!!

That dmg is pathetic, also… pick better opponents if you want to prove a point :P

pros
-your enemies will always be on fire. guardians apply a lot of burning and apply it well.

cons
-it is your ONLY damaging condition.
-it stacks duration, not intensity
-you have to apply it first, or you will be waiting for someone’s other ticks
-it only takes one condition removal to cancel out your entire build

If you are roaming on map, alone, and come up against another solitary target this will work out for you. The drawback is in order to trait high enough to see the effectiveness, the pressure total from the burning will likely not be enough to take your target down before they take you down.

In my experience the best use for a condition damage heavy guardian build is “you enjoy killing and farming random mobs in a map empty of other players, and you don’t mind the fights taking longer while you catch up on [insert tv show here]”

Kahrgan.7401:

Zenix.1706:

Possible ^^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRtLkdMQJRQ

So OP !!!

That dmg is pathetic, also… pick better opponents if you want to prove a point :P

That’s my troll build LOL. In reality, it is probably the worst idea possible.

I know Anet has been trying to promote the use of non-zerker stuff , i.e. Condition damage and/or Power lately (by nerfing Zerker and change traits to condition damage oriented). For Guardian, all we got is burning for the most part. Given how burning works ( tick per second, duration stack, damage scale with C.Damage), nothing they say would convince me to switch gear.

We should force a few dev’s playing guardian on WvW on roaming, small scale and large scale.

I tried once, I approached it from two points. Why can’t we have access to some other conditions?

Why does the Radiance trait line have condition damage as it’s secondary stat line instead of crit damage.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Condition-Guardian-and-Radiance/first#post3509130

I have seem other write ups and approaches to condition guardian it just seems like the idea is too hard to get off the ground.

It would only be possible if the next patch changes on crit condition sigils to be 100% chance to proc condition on crit. Innate condition effects from guardians are terrible compared to other classes.

DeathPanel.8362:

It would only be possible if the next patch changes on crit condition sigils to be 100% chance to proc condition on crit. Innate condition effects from guardians are terrible compared to other classes.

It’s the ICD that renders those sigils (and runes) uninteresting, not the crit chance requirement.

foofad.5162:

DeathPanel.8362:

It would only be possible if the next patch changes on crit condition sigils to be 100% chance to proc condition on crit. Innate condition effects from guardians are terrible compared to other classes.

It’s the ICD that renders those sigils (and runes) uninteresting, not the crit chance requirement.

It’s one of the things but not the main thing. 33% chance on each crit for example means your chances of proccing it is low even if you focus your build on crit chance especially if you are in a pvp situation where most of your attacks end up getting evaded or blocked anyway. It just so happens that having ICD as well further nerfs it into uselessness.

DeathPanel.8362:

foofad.5162:

DeathPanel.8362:

It would only be possible if the next patch changes on crit condition sigils to be 100% chance to proc condition on crit. Innate condition effects from guardians are terrible compared to other classes.

It’s the ICD that renders those sigils (and runes) uninteresting, not the crit chance requirement.

It’s one of the things but not the main thing. 33% chance on each crit for example means your chances of proccing it is low even if you focus your build on crit chance especially if you are in a pvp situation where most of your attacks end up getting evaded or blocked anyway. It just so happens that having ICD as well further nerfs it into uselessness.

No, it’s the ICD. If you run another sigil with a longer cool down, such as an on-swap, then for the entire duration of that cooldown your on-crit sigil will not function no matter how high the proc rate. In other words if you want to run it at all you have to make sure it’s the only sigil with a cooldown you use. That’s crippling.

If you have 33% chance to apply on crit, and use an attack with multiple hits like Whirling Wrath (7) you are often going to get two procs off on each target. Or you would, if it weren’t for the cool down. They suffer the most from the ICD, more so than auto attacking.

foofad.5162:

DeathPanel.8362:

foofad.5162:

DeathPanel.8362:

It would only be possible if the next patch changes on crit condition sigils to be 100% chance to proc condition on crit. Innate condition effects from guardians are terrible compared to other classes.

It’s the ICD that renders those sigils (and runes) uninteresting, not the crit chance requirement.

It’s one of the things but not the main thing. 33% chance on each crit for example means your chances of proccing it is low even if you focus your build on crit chance especially if you are in a pvp situation where most of your attacks end up getting evaded or blocked anyway. It just so happens that having ICD as well further nerfs it into uselessness.

No, it’s the ICD. If you run another sigil with a longer cool down, such as an on-swap, then for the entire duration of that cooldown your on-crit sigil will not function no matter how high the proc rate. In other words if you want to run it at all you have to make sure it’s the only sigil with a cooldown you use. That’s crippling.

If you have 33% chance to apply on crit, and use an attack with multiple hits like Whirling Wrath (7) you are often going to get two procs off on each target. Or you would, if it weren’t for the cool down. They suffer the most from the ICD, more so than auto attacking.

No. Only way you can get 2 procs off of WW with no CD is if you have near 100% crit chance, which a vast majority of builds will not have. That and the fact that no one with a brain is going to stand there and let you hit them with every single hit of that skill in pvp.

Most zerk builds hover around 50% crit chance. 33% of 50% comes to 16.5%. So only approximately 16.5% of your hits will result in a proc if there was no CD and that’s assuming every one of your hits will hit and not be evaded or blocked which it will be in pvp. So in actuality the proc rate is even lower than 16.5%.

The CD just makes it so you can’t get lucky and proc 2-3 times in a row for burst damage. The actual average dps from the procs is limited in reality by the low proc chance.

I believe I mentioned it already, but I’ve tried a few of the burning builds mostly recently:

1. Full Carrion exotic armor w/Balthazar
2. Full Carrion exotic accessories w/Chrysocola
3. Weapons Carrion various sigils – looks like recently energy/force after checking vault
4. Veggie pizza and tuning crystal
5. 10/20/10/0/30 build it would seem – just checking again
6. Leaves me around 1400 condition damage

Go me. Now go forth and try to survive anything in WvW because to maximize your damage and duration you give up just about all armor or go-to abilities to sustain your poor life Now granted, I’m not the best build master here let alone player so I am sure there are plenty of things that could be tweaked. However, trying to use GS, Sword, Focus, Torch and Shield with it is a bit wonky at best and 99% of the time you will just be a liability.

In fact, that is exactly how I felt when I played with the group I run with or even solo. A big, fat, old, LIABILITY. I feel I provide more running full dps zerk build with 14K health!!!!

I looked at those builds, and there is something important that was forgotten.
Binding blade’s dot scales with condition damage. It does half the damage that burn does, but scales with condition damage almost as well as burn does.
It would also be good to get sigil of geomancy for some aoe bleed.

That means that you get two extra aoe condition damage sources.

I started replying to this thread and the result was an overly detailed build post, so I put it in a separate thread:

Link: Click me

If guards ever get another damage dealing condition then a pure condition build is possible, until then no. The best thing to do atm is use burning to help supplement direct damage. Think of it as added damage, not the main source.