All good points. For me, finding a build that fits me well comes down to trying tons of variations, recording a lot of video, and then playing it back to see why certain fights went certain ways. I’ve spent somewhere around 4000 hours roaming in wvw and have tried dozens of different builds – this one seems to fit how I like to play.
So in terms of staff, while phase retreat is really nice, I just don’t find it stacks up to scepter plus torch or shield. Scepter auto attack creates clones. The block is available about every 4.5 seconds, includes an evade, creates a clone, and puts 5 stacks of torment that last a long time. Confusing images hits pretty quickly with malicious sorcery slotted. I think chaos armor on staff is really weak for defense compared to shield block or stealth from prestige. The staff phantasm is nice because it does power damage, but I find the attack slow. The staff aoe is pretty good, but I’d rather have tides of time for stunning a thief.
In terms of balthazar runes, I agree it’s not really intuitive. With the runes, you have 3 burning sources that are all AoE. If you use the burn skills with continuum split, you can put 12+ burning stacks on a foe. Most people don’t expect it, and if you get a couple of 4000 – 5000 burn ticks, it can take someone down quickly. I did this little video to show some examples (first fight is the best burst)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa1vwgpnZdU
So slotting balthazar is mostly about testing and just finding them most effective. But here is the build theory question: what is the most valuable thing to add to a condi build that has many sources of torment and confusion and a base 50% condi duration?
When I looked at that question, I didn’t see the value of extending duration for either confusion or torment. Confusion is already over 80%, and most players will cleanse. So you want more different conditions to provide cover for your condis and you want damaging ones because that’s how the build kills. I don’t have a lot of great sources for poison damage (I actually did test the asura radiation field). The doom sigil is okay, but it’s only one stack. It could be fine to tradeoff with draining sigil, but it’s not going to do a lot of damage. In this build, I also don’t have a ton of bleed sources (just the geomancy runes). The geomancy bleed already lasts a long time, so it didn’t feel like extending bleed duration had a ton of payoff. I also experimented with undead and scavenger runes, and they both have their good sides.
The final cool thing about balthazar runes is the 5 seconds of quickness when you’re below 20% health. I try a lot of foolish fights (1v3, 1v4, in enemy camps, etc). There’s a nice example at the 30 second point in this video where that quickness saves me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbdnY_tV9uI&t=17s
Thx for the questions. I like getting new ideas to test out, and I’m confident this build is not for everyone. It is a lot of fun for me, so I just share it to see if others will have fun as well. Cheers!
