Guild Wars 2

Will this be a viable stat choice for current zerker Mesmers in WvW/PvP?
I think it might be great for the double ranged Staff/GS with IE builds.

What is the stat?

+Condition Damage/ Power / Precision

… We in there!

I guess I don’t see how much more beneficial it would be than rampagers, which isn’t largely used. Might be another option to play with for folks who roll hybrid.

As much as the idea of Sinister sounds pretty darned cool, you’re still glass. Glass on a condi build isn’t the greatest choice, due to the nature of Damage-over-Time attacks.
Although, I could see it working extremely well on classes with higher overall Condition
setups. For example, Engineer or Necro, since they pack a buttload of tossable Condis.

Of course, I could be wrong, and one of you guys pulls a mean Sinister Maim build.
/shrug

Pretty much the same as rampagers I guess, but with a focus on condition damage. Same problems, you’re glassy like a zerker build but you don’t burst like one.

From my tests, rabid actually gives you more dps than rampagers. I wouldn’t be surprised if rabid would outperform sinister as well but I can’t vouch for that just yet.

frifox.5283:

From my tests, rabid actually gives you more dps than rampagers. I wouldn’t be surprised if rabid would outperform sinister as well but I can’t vouch for that just yet.

What is the thought on this? the extra toughness being converted into more condi damage?

I can see where the more condi damage could be better than the power on rampager vs rabid maybe, but curious where the logic of toughness > power would come in?

frifox.5283:

From my tests, rabid actually gives you more dps than rampagers. I wouldn’t be surprised if rabid would outperform sinister as well but I can’t vouch for that just yet.

That’s actually nearly impossible imo, because the reason why Rabid apparently provides more dps than rampagers is, that the increased precision and the additional power just don’t make up for the loss in condition damage. But since Sinister is like Rabid, just with additional power, it would be very very, VERY weird if it would do less dps than Rabid. Even with something like Runes of the Undead… the additional power will provide more dps than a few hundred more condition damage (that you would get from the toughness with Runes of Undead). This might maybe be different for a Necro auto-attacking with scepter (because Necro scepter scales terribly with power afaik), but for Mesmers, that’s a whole different story.

Saturn.6591:

frifox.5283:

From my tests, rabid actually gives you more dps than rampagers. I wouldn’t be surprised if rabid would outperform sinister as well but I can’t vouch for that just yet.

That’s actually nearly impossible imo, because the reason why Rabid apparently provides more dps than rampagers is, that the increased precision and the additional power just don’t make up for the loss in condition damage. But since Sinister is like Rabid, just with additional power, it would be very very, VERY weird if it would do less dps than Rabid. Even with something like Runes of the Undead… the additional power will provide more dps than a few hundred more condition damage (that you would get from the toughness with Runes of Undead). This might maybe be different for a Necro auto-attacking with scepter (because Necro scepter scales terribly with power afaik), but for Mesmers, that’s a whole different story.

Here’s a potential difference. Rabid gear allows you to tank multiple hits in PvE, which allows you to maintain maximum dps even in more dangerous situations. That’s the entire reason why it outdamages zerker gear – zerker loses damage when you can’t stay 100% melee. This sinister gear will have the same potential damage as rabid, but squish like zerker. You get the worst of both worlds.

Note: only in solo situations.

The reason Rabid won was because of the Chaotic Transference and the Tuning Crystal. The trait convert 10% (197) and crystal converts 6% (118) of toughness into condition damage. That’s about extra 315 condi dmg (9 extra might stacks) just from the conversion. This makes Sigil of Bursting even more potent, which is a flat 6% condi dmg boost.

Ability to tank hits and not break your dps pressure due to your naturally high toughness is a nice bonus.

Advent.6193:

As much as the idea of Sinister sounds pretty darned cool, you’re still glass. Glass on a condi build isn’t the greatest choice, due to the nature of Damage-over-Time attacks.

Basically this. I was briefly considering it, but I feel glassy enough as it is.
I suppooooooose if you max out Chaos and got some points in Inspiration, you could go partial~full Sinister since you can get your defensive stats from traits.

But other than that, conditions and squishy character rarely mix, even though as a condi user you ofc love enemies which only have toughness and nothing else. :P

One thing I’ve noticed about 4/4/6 is that despite the meaty burst, it’s pretty heavy on condition damage. Granted, most of the conditions are control-condis (Chill, Blind, Immob, Weakness, ect.) but I’m thinking this may be a nice boost for something like Pistol.

@Frifox: Would you happen to know a % of how much power damage you lose going from Zerk to Sinister? Its mostly the ferocity loss that scares me.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Frifox: Would you happen to know a % of how much power damage you lose going from Zerk to Sinister? Its mostly the ferocity loss that scares me.

I believe you’d want to compare assassins and sinister, which makes the comparison slightly simpler. The power between the two is the same, but the precision is lower. In assassins’s you’ll have (and this is without traits or other things) about 56% crit. In sinister, you’ll have about 53%. Not a big difference, we can go ahead and call that even. The difference is in critical damage. Sinister will have ~50% lower critical damage than assassins will.

Doing a really rough numbers comparison, this is going to be a net loss of about 20% damage overall, more when you consider things such as reflects ignoring power and only taking into account crit + crit damage.

Assuming everything is ascended, zerk has 342 more power than sinister. How much % that would be will depend on your might stacks and your build.

Anyways, did some calc for a condi build (0/4/6/0/4, staff, 3 clones up):

• 4,612 dps – Berserker
• 5,380 dps – Rampager
• 5,752 dps – Rabid
• 6,070 dps – Sinister

And for a power build (6/4/0/0/4, sword aa, 2x Swordsmans + 1x Duelist)

• 5,869 dps – Berserker
• 5,843 dps – Assassins
• 4,756 dps – Sinister

All calc assume solo situations. Looks like Sinister is the “zerk” of the condi build – glassy as ****** but delivers awesome dps output.

so maybe Sinister armor and dire/rabid trinkets could be interesting to test out then

Ty again frifox – for sharing your knowledge If there now just would be a way for conditions to survive in PvE – even necros would be cool then Maybe xD … no they wouldnt… but the husks in silver wastes really give me hope for some condition builds in future. And we are on the top of single target dps ye?

Not sure but think standart 4/4/0/0/6 shatter with Sinister stats with Torment trait instead of IP will be not bad

Yes you can go for an ip build and swap maim in with some sinister armor on and still do a lot of damage.. I already posted a build about this that got kitten on and ignored but thanks anyway…