Guild Wars 2

I’m currently running a Conditionmancer, and I’ve been putting focus towards Condition dmg/Precision. The only Condition duration I have is from ‘Lingering Curse’ (33% Cnd duration from Scepter) and ‘Haemophilia’ (20% bleeding duration).
I’ve heard that Cnd Duration is important as it allows you to stack more bleeds onto a target in a set time, hence increasing dps. But how important is Condition duration in the long run?

I run a full set of Superior Rune of the Undead to maximize Condition dmg and Toughness for Survivability. But, should I switch it out for a 2 Superior Runes of the Krait?
I’ll lose appx. 160 Condition dmg, but gain 15% Bleeding duration.

So… it’ll be about 68% Condition duration w/Scepter. Is the tradeoff worth it?
What do you think the sweet spot between condition duration and condition damage is?

Condition duration > condition damage after you reach 1000 condition damage.
http://gw2.hazno.net/

Also you might want to check out my conditionmancer build which is pinned in the tutorials on these forums, might help you figure out even more little tips.

Hahaha, I was just watching your videos actually ^^
Love your hybrid and tank build, good job!

So, if my Conditionmancer has 1600 Condition Damage, switching out a couple of Superior Runes of the Undead for SR of the Krait is better right?

this is the formula for bleed dmg:
0.05 * Condition Damage + 42.5 per stack per second at level 80

so… if you have 1600 cond dmg now, that means you bleed enemies at 122 per tick per second. losing 160 from the runes means -8 on the bleed-ticks, so 114. that’s a ~6,5% decrease.
on the other hand: prolonging duration from an extra 53% to 68% means that you extend bleeds by ~9,8%.

bottom line: yeah, it’s worth it IF (!!) your opponet doesn’t remove the stacks. so, pve: almost never, therefore definitely worth it. pvp: depends… blood is power probable rarely ticks out its entire 30-60 seconds. but shorter ones, maybe…

Damage>>>>>>>duration

Does duration even work? Last time I checked, it didn’t even work if it came from gear… and just to show how unpopular condition necros are, no one even complained.

Anyway, nothing in this game lives very long, and if it does, then odds are it has condition removal. Event bosses live the longest, but have massive bleed removal, as in someone else is gonna knock off your bleeds after two ticks anyway.

Playing conditions is just like playing anything else. You want to do as much damage as possible, as fast as you can.

Ezeriel.9574:

Damage>>>>>>>duration

Does duration even work? Last time I checked, it didn’t even work if it came from gear… and just to show how unpopular condition necros are, no one even complained.

Anyway, nothing in this game lives very long, and if it does, then odds are it has condition removal. Event bosses live the longest, but have massive bleed removal, as in someone else is gonna knock off your bleeds after two ticks anyway.

Playing conditions is just like playing anything else. You want to do as much damage as possible, as fast as you can.

You should check my some of my tutorials, especially the one in which i explain the hidden mechanic of bleeding duration.

Ezeriel.9574:

Damage>>>>>>>duration

Does duration even work? Last time I checked, it didn’t even work if it came from gear… and just to show how unpopular condition necros are, no one even complained.

Anyway, nothing in this game lives very long, and if it does, then odds are it has condition removal. Event bosses live the longest, but have massive bleed removal, as in someone else is gonna knock off your bleeds after two ticks anyway.

Playing conditions is just like playing anything else. You want to do as much damage as possible, as fast as you can.

1. Increasing duration works. The only thing that doesn’t is the tool tip, which only works for the spite trait line, but other than that duration is increased correctly, always!

2. Bosses rarely remove anything, and if they do… then certainly not after just 2 seconds.
As to the not-so-long living mobs: Zul is using the scepter, the untraited/-prolonged bleeds on blood curs is 5 seconds, rending curse: 4sec.
So you are telling us that every non-boss you encounter dies in less than 5 seconds?! With a condition build??

3. “You want to do as much damage as possible, as fast as you can.”
… true! But since you DON’T kill everyone in less than 5 seconds, condition duration averages more dps over the duration of a fight.

Zul.1506:

Hahaha, I was just watching your videos actually ^^
Love your hybrid and tank build, good job!

So, if my Conditionmancer has 1600 Condition Damage, switching out a couple of Superior Runes of the Undead for SR of the Krait is better right?

Getting 100% Bleed duration is easy with Pizza, 30 Spite, Hemophilia and Scepter/Dagger being Givers weapons, if combined with Rabid gear with Undead Runes and the Vit/Tough to Cond Damage effect you get as close to optimal as you can (getting about 3-6 free damage each tick). But going for a Bleed rune with cond main weapons and condition damage food with 25 points in spite results in pretty much the same thing, only with a minior loss of condition damage if ascended trinkets count, the loss from the weapons and rune condition damage is 235 in the first build, but the gain from the runes is between 260 and 290 depending on ascended or exotic trinkets. Essencially the difference between setups is 1-5 damage pre tick, really not worth investing to change.

It is really important to keep in mind that if you are talking PVP, people do remove conditions, so traiting specifically to maintain 100% duration is a tough call if you have to sack 200+ condition damage.

It should also be noted that in PVE you are constantly fighting a bleed cap against incidental bleeds from other players. In that scenario (or any scenario where there are two bleeders or more), your condition duration is completely wasted.

Hemo also shares a spot with other really nice traits, like terror and chilling darkness. Not being force to take hemo is pretty nice. I personally concluded that for PVP I would continue to run full rabid with undead, in a 10/30/10/0/20 build, which with hemo lets me maintain 70% bleed duration, which seems okay.

In PVE I have found I get more mileage out of rampagers gear, with krait/afflicted and a 30/30/10/0/0 build. I may not always get the full duration because my bleeds get pushed off, but if the party setup is right it works out well, and if it isn’t, my hybrid damage is still good enough to not feel like a drag on the party because my bleeds are getting overridden.

Givers are still bugged.

Duration is important if you’re not in an area with lots of cleanses.

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Givers are still bugged.

Duration is important if you’re not in an area with lots of cleanses.

Tooltips are, all condition durations (gear and traits) do apply on the actual condition….

Condition duration is worth only if you gain a full second as conditions thick only every second (all but confusion that thick for every action), so you need a full second to do more damage.

Fractions of a seconds are worth only:
-for conditions that stack in duration (for example: having 0.4 more seconds of poison will give you an increase of damage only after 3 attacks)
-to gain more overlay for conditions that stack in intensity
-to counter Runes of Melandru and/or food like Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup that decrease contition duration

Andele.1306:

SupahSpankeh.8452:

Givers are still bugged.

Duration is important if you’re not in an area with lots of cleanses.

Tooltips are, all condition durations (gear and traits) do apply on the actual condition….

I didn’t mention tooltips….

anywho, after that last major patch someone noticed that runes (like krait) weren’t doing anything. So I got out my stop watch and tested it, and sure enough they were right. The agony sigil on my staff was worthless as well…. the only thing that worked was traits.

So I went pure +damage and haven’t looked back, I find it to be much better in every way, and yes, I find that most mobs die in less than 5 seconds in any large group setting, like events. So if you want to tag mobs you’d better front load your damage, and not worry about how long it will last.

Does +duration work now? I have no idea since I don’t have any, and I’m not about to spend the time to test it.

Tiborb.1453:

Condition duration is worth only if you gain a full second as conditions thick only every second (all but confusion that thick for every action), so you need a full second to do more damage.

Fractions of a seconds are worth only:
-for conditions that stack in duration (for example: having 0.4 more seconds of poison will give you an increase of damage only after 3 attacks)
-to gain more overlay for conditions that stack in intensity
-to counter Runes of Melandru and/or food like Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup that decrease contition duration

Not entirely true. It depends on if the target is already afflicted with a damaging condition. If the damage tick timer for conditions is running, and you apply a bleed that lasts for 1.5 seconds, it can tick twice depending on when it is applied.

The easiest way I have been able to describe it is to say that if a bleed has 12.4 seconds of duration, it WILL tick 12 times, and has a 40% chance to tick one additional time if the target was already bleeding when you applied the 12.4 second bleed.

Agreed that duration is great to counter the condition duration reduction food.

+ duration on at least some runes wasn’t working as of a few days ago still. The link:dev post was 11 days ago.

Rennoko.5731:

Tiborb.1453:

Condition duration is worth only if you gain a full second as conditions thick only every second (all but confusion that thick for every action), so you need a full second to do more damage.

Fractions of a seconds are worth only:
-for conditions that stack in duration (for example: having 0.4 more seconds of poison will give you an increase of damage only after 3 attacks)
-to gain more overlay for conditions that stack in intensity
-to counter Runes of Melandru and/or food like Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup that decrease contition duration

Not entirely true. It depends on if the target is already afflicted with a damaging condition. If the damage tick timer for conditions is running, and you apply a bleed that lasts for 1.5 seconds, it can tick twice depending on when it is applied.

The easiest way I have been able to describe it is to say that if a bleed has 12.4 seconds of duration, it WILL tick 12 times, and has a 40% chance to tick one additional time if the target was already bleeding when you applied the 12.4 second bleed.

Agreed that duration is great to counter the condition duration reduction food.

Oh, my example btw was not 100% true even for this reason:
Duration of conditions, when increased by Condition Duration, is rounded to nearest quarter of a second in skill tooltip’s list of effects (0s, ¼, ½, ¾ and 1s)

For solo play I go for duration, for groups I choose damage.

zainey.5021:

+ duration on at least some runes wasn’t working as of a few days ago still. The link:dev post was 11 days ago.

huh… thanks, didn’t even notice. had a quick look around the forum and tested ingame:
only the “+condition duration” is affected, not “+bleeding duration”, i.e. rune of the mad king (which inceases both bleeding and all conditions) will only give you +15% bleeding atm.

btw @Ezeriel: when you move the cursor over the condition icon under the targets name, the remaining time shows up… so no need for stop watches.

For PVP, yes duration is more risky, but even if your long durations run half their time, damage is competitive with precision or power.

What people underestimate though is that duration really helps your non damaging conditions as well. Chill, cripple, weakness, poison, all this stuff is good in PVP, and makes life hell on enemies the longer its on. It also helps hide your bleed stacks longer, and gives your more damage too (target the weak & feast of corruption).

Doesn’t become duration pretty much useless with a cap of 25 bleeds? Doesn’t matter how long the bleed sticks to the mob, it gets overwritten anyway.

You need to realize that for a necro, our conditions are a lot more involved than just stacking bleeds. Like Pendragon said, longer conditions like chill, poison, weakness, etc. all really hurt the enemy in PvP, especially since no one has enough cleanses to be able to cleanse everything; you have to choose what to cleanse, and few people choose to cleanse non damage conditions because of the threat of damage.

There really needs to be some overarching optimization post with math that supports all of this. I don’t care much for the back-and-forth that constantly happens where one or the other is always better in someone else’s eye.

Let’s get a bottom-line with a graph of the optimization, if possible.

I have some thoughts about the min/maxing of condition dps and net damage that one would need to keep in mind when doing this math.

• Keep in mind that changing runes would negate the 6th bonus on the Rune of the Undead, which adds a significant bonus to condition damage. 1844 Toughness or around there is typical using ascended gear and Rabid stats, which means Undead runes add 92 condition damage.
• Keep in mind that condition damage boosts all condition damage, not just bleed. Runes for bleed duration do nothing to help the damage on poison.
• Some variants with different assumptions would be nice, like 100% condition uptime (never removed), 50% uptime (condition removed when 50% done), etc.
• Assume that all condition boosters in-game work.
• Some other stuff I likely am not thinking about.

This would be more useful than word-of-mouth confirmations.

For the condition damage, you need to remember that we only have access to 3 damaging conditions (fear, bleed, poison) without the help of another class.

Right can’t forget fear. As an example to what Rising Ducks is after, right now I’m using Undead Runes (about 330 condition damage) since duration runes are bugged, but according to my figures 30% more duration in runes is going to give me more damage just on fear on average, since more fears will tick a second time.

Barbed Precision is going to favor duration as well, and will rarely ever be cleansed at 1 or 2 seconds, though the difference is not much. Maybe 100 extra damage over 20 procs at 10% duration, vs 100 cond. damage.

You can do these sort of comparisons fairly easily in the Mists. Killing the golems and veteran sPVP mobs you can get an idea of how much of your damage is coming from conditions by subtracting the direct damage from your combat log out of the HP.

Killing Svanir on average, I’ll put about 5-6k direct damage on him, and about 22k in conditions. That equates to about 200 individual bleed ticks (a few less as some are poison). But even if half those were cleansed, they’d have done about as much as an equivalent amount of power or precision would give me.

Duration vs Damage, if you figure your stacks get cleansed on average after 5 seconds, then condition damage is going to be better straight away. But if an 8 second bleed becomes a 10 second bleed and runs the course, duration is better, even at 300 less condition damage. The break point is somewhere in the middle. So I think its more about how much you value the other conditions.

But there is no figures that will 100% accurately represent PVP. There its going to depend a lot on how much removal you run into. Also, if you use epidemic a lot, I like for those other non damaging conditions to get spread as long as possible, rather than just the bleeds hitting a little harder.

Pendragon.8735:

Also, if you use epidemic a lot, I like for those other non damaging conditions to get spread as long as possible, rather than just the bleeds hitting a little harder.

When epidemic is used, the remaining time of each condition is copied, the duration wont refresh and start from scratch with the individual condition duration of the necromancer.
However, condition damage applies to every condition, even to the ones inflicted by other players.

flow.6043:

Pendragon.8735:

Also, if you use epidemic a lot, I like for those other non damaging conditions to get spread as long as possible, rather than just the bleeds hitting a little harder.

When epidemic is used, the remaining time of each condition is copied, the duration wont refresh and start from scratch with the individual condition duration of the necromancer.
However, condition damage applies to every condition, even to the ones inflicted by other players.

Right they don’t start from scratch, that’s why you want them to be longer in the first place, so something is left. As you get into zerg size battles then yes, most of the conditions might be from allies and not you, but most other profs aren’t going to have condition duration, so theirs tend not to last real long. I don’t like being in the zerg that much. Epidemic is still great for small scale encounters.

zainey.5021:

+ duration on at least some runes wasn’t working as of a few days ago still. The link:dev post was 11 days ago.

I know that Grenth, Svanir, Mad King, Ice and Lyssa work and did work, Givers weapons were bugged on release for a short amount of time, but they fixed it pretty fast.

for all the Condition duration haters:
try to use x2 runes of afflicted, x2 runes of the krait, x2 runes of centaur.
+45% Condition duration is huge, I can get anywhere from 12-15stacks of bleed on anyone in a few secs. 107condi dmg and 123 with corruption
and here is the build I am using:
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=V-_-34;0kHFG0p3gJkJ0;9;5TJ-J;115A17;228-U-F4a;1dZm9fRk02Vy

Andele.1306:

zainey.5021:

+ duration on at least some runes wasn’t working as of a few days ago still. The link:dev post was 11 days ago.

I know that Grenth, Svanir, Mad King, Ice and Lyssa work and did work, Givers weapons were bugged on release for a short amount of time, but they fixed it pretty fast.

As has been stated before: only “+condition duration” doesn’t work. grenth, svanir and ice increase frozen duration, so naturally they work…
I’ve tested both mad king and lyssa today… and nope, atm they don’t work, except for the +15% bleeding duration on (4) Mad King.

Rising Dusk.2408:

There really needs to be some overarching optimization post with math that supports all of this. I don’t care much for the back-and-forth that constantly happens where one or the other is always better in someone else’s eye.

Let’s get a bottom-line with a graph of the optimization, if possible.

I have some thoughts about the min/maxing of condition dps and net damage that one would need to keep in mind when doing this math.

• Keep in mind that changing runes would negate the 6th bonus on the Rune of the Undead, which adds a significant bonus to condition damage. 1844 Toughness or around there is typical using ascended gear and Rabid stats, which means Undead runes add 92 condition damage.
• Keep in mind that condition damage boosts all condition damage, not just bleed. Runes for bleed duration do nothing to help the damage on poison.
• Some variants with different assumptions would be nice, like 100% condition uptime (never removed), 50% uptime (condition removed when 50% done), etc.
• Assume that all condition boosters in-game work.
• Some other stuff I likely am not thinking about.

This would be more useful than word-of-mouth confirmations.

Using this build as a reference, we can do two things:

1. Maximise Condition Damage – 6/6 Runes of the Undead (2151 Condition Damage; 150 Bleed/(StackSecond), 295 Poison/Second)
2. Maximise Condition Duration – 2x Lyssa, 2x Krait, 2x Afflicted (1926 Condition Damage; 139 Bleed/(StackSecond), 273 Poison/Second)

So let us set some parameters to simplify our evaluation:

1. PVE (to allow relevant food buffs)
2. No cleanses
3. Single target
4. Single Necromancer attacking with optimum rotation
5. Maximum Corruption stacks

Then we are left with one variable:

1. Average Bleed stacks (taking into consideration Superior Sigil of Earth and Barbed Precision)

Note: We’re not concerned with Poison because the Poison duration is exactly the same on both builds (Putrid Grasp: 3.46s vs 3.66s), therefore we know that the difference in DPS is 22.

We know from Nemesis’ video that build #2 can maintain 23-25 stacks of Bleed. Question is how many can build #1 get to?

Condition damage for pvp

Condition duration for pve.
—————-
Assuming the player you are versing is a decent player, he will remove the bleeds.

In pvp its better to have burst than duration, if you think the guy won’t cleanse, then go duration. If he will, go dmg(wow d a m a ge ) censored?)

Either way, its pretty much the same outcome and necro’s conditions are aoe mostly so they still fall short to lets say…..ranger.

Bhawb.7408:

For the condition damage, you need to remember that we only have access to 3 damaging conditions (fear, bleed, poison) without the help of another class.

Even if not so much used, a necro can do confusion too with combos involving Spectral Wall.

flow.6043:

As has been stated before: only “+condition duration” doesn’t work. grenth, svanir and ice increase frozen duration, so naturally they work…
I’ve tested both mad king and lyssa today… and nope, atm they don’t work, except for the +15% bleeding duration on (4) Mad King.

Having both 2 Lyss and 2 Mad King, 20 into Spite on my Necro and then using the basic Cheese Pizza, i got 7 seconds on Dark path, so nope, they do work.

Andele.1306:

flow.6043:

As has been stated before: only “+condition duration” doesn’t work. grenth, svanir and ice increase frozen duration, so naturally they work…
I’ve tested both mad king and lyssa today… and nope, atm they don’t work, except for the +15% bleeding duration on (4) Mad King.

Having both 2 Lyss and 2 Mad King, 20 into Spite on my Necro and then using the basic Cheese Pizza, i got 7 seconds on Dark path, so nope, they do work.

I also tried both runes (2 lyssa, 4 madK), but with blood is power. With an additional 10 in spite, i got 37 secs… not 43.

flow.6043:

Andele.1306:

flow.6043:

As has been stated before: only “+condition duration” doesn’t work. grenth, svanir and ice increase frozen duration, so naturally they work…
I’ve tested both mad king and lyssa today… and nope, atm they don’t work, except for the +15% bleeding duration on (4) Mad King.

Having both 2 Lyss and 2 Mad King, 20 into Spite on my Necro and then using the basic Cheese Pizza, i got 7 seconds on Dark path, so nope, they do work.

I also tried both runes (2 lyssa, 4 madK), but with blood is power. With an additional 10 in spite, i got 37 secs… not 43.

Definately use BIP for testing…. its much easier to see the small changes. Dark path is very short duration, and when you see 7 seconds, it could be 7 seconds, or 7.9 seconds…

I wanna point out that Bleed Cap and how fast your enemies die are also factors.
If you have two Necros using tons of Condition Duration on a dungeon party that’s enough to hit the Bleed cap all the time.

Meanwhile two Necros using around 10 Bleed stacks each won’t hinder each others damage output at all.

Also if you have insane Condition Duration but mobs are dying in 10 Seconds flat that duration isn’t really doing much good for you.

Of course if you are looking to solo farm something then duration is way superior.
The damage it outputs is way higher, even if takes a bit longer to occur.

Andele.1306:

flow.6043:

As has been stated before: only “+condition duration” doesn’t work. grenth, svanir and ice increase frozen duration, so naturally they work…
I’ve tested both mad king and lyssa today… and nope, atm they don’t work, except for the +15% bleeding duration on (4) Mad King.

Having both 2 Lyss and 2 Mad King, 20 into Spite on my Necro and then using the basic Cheese Pizza, i got 7 seconds on Dark path, so nope, they do work.

Lyssa and Mad King’s “+condition duration” do not work. I’ve also tested both with Blood is Power and by comparing number of ticks with condition duration gained from traits to those gained from such runes (i.e. Lyssa, Nightmare, part of Mad King’s, etc.)

For example, go to Heart of the Mist with a scepter and 30 points in Curses line to get Lingering Curse. Do not get any other Major Traits and do not put points anywhere else.

Case 1: 5 points in Spite and 2 Lyssa runes. Should be 15% condition duration. Only 7 ticks of bleed (make sure to not count the ticks if Barbed Precision procs.)

Case 2: No Lyssa runes. 15 points in Spite. Should also be 15% condition duration. 8 ticks of bleed (also making sure to not count the ticks if Barbed Precision procs.)

Some, if not all, condition duration you get from gear doesn’t work. I know it for a fact for the Giver weapons. Anyway, I go full condition damage with pizza now. Also remember that increasing a 5sec bleed with 10% adds absolutely nothing. And cleansing and/or max 25 stack bleed is also a pretty big deal.

And you could use BIS for testing, but using scepter skill 1 (non auto-cast, non crit) and counting ticks (after calculating the expected number of ticks) works better imo, as that is the most important.

Only on the first attack. Any subsequent attacks, if they happen to fall in the last half second of the bleeding tick (before the next tick) will then give you an extra damage tick. It is a misconception that you MUST have a full second to get the extra tick. In reality, you need only have a bleed that is applied XX partial second before the condition damage tick, and have sufficient duration to overlap that second.

0 second
.
0.25 seconds
.
0.5 seconds – you attack with sceptor, and it puts on an 8 second bleed, then stop attacking
.
0.75 (bleeding x1)
.
1 (bleeding x1)
.
1.25 (bleeding x1)
.
1.5 – Bleeding damage ticks (x1)
.
1.75 (bleeding x1)
.
2 (bleeding x1)
.
2.25 – A bleeding attack lands that has a duration of 1.5 second (say an axe barbed prec. crit)
.
2.5 – Bleeding damage ticks (x2)
.
2.75 (bleeding x2)
.
3 (bleeding x2)
.
3.25 (bleeding x2)
.
3.5 – Bleeding damage ticks (x2)
.
3.75 (bleeding x1 – barbed bleed falls off here)

So partial seconds are not useless for bleeding, they are just less apparent. Since you attacks and skill are used at random times throughout the bleeding and damage cycle, it can be said that each partial bleed tenth represents the % change that you will get an addition tick. 8.9 second bleed would tick 8 times, with a 90% chance to tick 9 times, as long as the target was already afflicted with one of your damaging conditions.

Does Nemesis have a leveling build vid?

I just get +condition damage. With 20-30 in spite, hemo, lingering curse and rare veggie pizza i have both duration and damage.

I just tested in spvp against heavy golem some condition duration vs damage from runes:

I used traits 0/30/20/0/20 (hemophilia and +33% duration)
I used rabid amulet with rabid jewel
I used stable scepter and dagger without sigils

The runes I tested was Superior Runes of The Undead (x6)
and the other set was Afflicted (x2), Krait (x2) and Centaur (x2) for +45% bleeding duration

I found out that when using only scepter chain 1 it takes about 15 seconds (starting from when I start casting first time and ending on golem death) to kill a heavy golem with both rune sets. All test times were between 15 and 16 seconds.

When using 1 time scepter 2 and off hand dagger 5 and then using only scepter 1 chain to finish the golem it took 13 seconds from both runesets to kill the golem.

My conclusion: Yes, condition duration makes you stack more bleeds and will make your bleeds do more damage (specially short ones) than condition damage, but poison will get a big boost from condition damage so if you are having it up almost always on your opponent condition damage is the way to go. At least with full rabid the bonus percent you get from your toughness with 20 points in death magic will equal the amount of damage you will get from +45% bleed duration.

Condition Duration, for increasing the damage from short duration bleeds
Condition Damage, for dealing the damage in shorter time and increasing poison (necros don’t have any other damage boon)

(I also tested the terror trait and I don’t find it useful, even with +50% fear duration it tics only 1 time for about 1200 damage, = 1 second of 8-9 stack bleed on my build)

Also Runes of The Undead will increase your survivability

I think alot of you are also forgetting condition duration makes chill and criple last longer which helps alot to keep your target from being very mobile. Longer weakeness on the target = less damage on you and less endurance for them to dodge. For poison it not just about damage but making them much less efefctive at healing them selves.

food + spite is 70% all condition duration. 20% bleed traite 10% bleed sigil puts bleed at 100%. 33% master sceptor now puts bleed at 133% and poison around 93%.

since bleed is capped, and poison at 93% is usullally always applied (stack duration)

I would go with the undead rune set and rabid gear. your 6slot rune will gain a big cond damage bonus from the rabid gear toughness stat, the gears precision stat is better than power because it will make your bleed crit procs go off alot more

I don’t like doing a lot of math and prefer common sense… so here it goes (from WvW-point of view):
-Condition duration, in a way, is like doing a certain % more dmg. So from an overall damage point of view, condition duration is stronger (of course your build will consist of a fair bit of condition damage ALONG with condition duration, as opposed to simply condition duration).
-Every profession, especially if built defensivelly, will have condition removal
-Many professions have the ability (and they use this) to remove conditions from allies
So… you can put a bleed on an enemy that lasts 10000 seconds and gets removed in 5 seconds, or you can put a really strong bleed that lasts for a shorter amount of time, does more damage per “tick”, and won’t get removed as easily.
In WvW, condition damage, in my opinion, is better – ( I barely have any condition duration) .

Condition damage is better if you are aiming for damage. Condition duration is more useful for conditions like cripple or fear.

Overall I would say condition damage for wvw.

I agree on that. I like to think that my all my conditions will get removed once every 10 seconds (that beign the cooldown of passive removals) because almost all professions will at least try to get some sort of condition removal. That said I’m not a fan boy of condition (bleeding) duration in spvp and wvw, but I do understand the benefits of it in pve (though this means you need to be the only one, who is using bleeding as a main source of damage) where boss fights do last long.

In pvp environments conditions get removed quite often so you want to re-apply them and make them hurt as much as possible in the time you are given, and you don’t want to make a fight last for ages.

Condition damage has more overall uses in terms of damage.

I know that this is a necro forum, but this is a discussion that the Engineer faces as well. The most important thing to realize is: (1.) How long is my base duration? If its a short duration, duration is best. If its a really long duration duration will just get removed.
(2.) How easily can you reapply the conditions? If its almost instantly then Duration still wins. If its slow then that’s a real risk.

(3.) Non-damage conditions such as chill, cripple get removed first so that can leave themselves open to thee conditions.

if your reappling the condition constantly then duration becomes a moot point, if you have 25 stacks of bleeds that last for 20 seconds each but your applying that stack every 5 seconds then thats 15 seconds of duration wasted.

Then you got to throw in how much duration boost you need to make a difference, if the conditions last for a base of 2 seconds you need 50% duration boost just to get 1 more tick of damage but if they last for a base of 10 seconds a simple 10% boost is 1 more tick.

Then you have conditions themselves, some lends themselves to different stats in different situations, the prime example being confusion (which granted very limited to who can actually apply it) in pve it gains more from duration due to mobs slow attack rates while in pvp it gains more from damage due to the faster nature of players skills.

Personally I’d say in general for damage gain go condition damage first, then gauge how useful the duration boosts would be to the content your doing and how your applying your conditions.

Lately I’ve been coming around on the idea that bleed duration in specific might be overrated, but not so much duration for our other conditions.

If you look at our non-bleed conditions, stuff like Poison, Chill, Cripple, this stuff usually lasts under 10 seconds, and any duration gained has a good chance to run before the target is dead, or in PVP, before it gets removed.

But most of our bleeds are already fairly long to begin with and most are not likely to run an extra 100% duration I think. Scepter base attack is only 5s and can be helped by duration but I don’t think most of our bleed stacks come from that in a given combat.

With the knowledge that you don’t even need 100% extra bleed to get a second tick on barbed precision, that was the one big damage boost that might have made it worth it.

Ironically I am using bleed duration runes atm, but only because general duration are bugged. I’d far rather have 20% all condition than 30% bleed which is a choice available.

How much duration, of any kind, you want is also going to be dependent on your build. Even among conditionmancers, there are variations. If you are running more tanky stuff like rabid gear, longer durations will fit your more attrition based stat setup. While if you are going for rampager, beserker, something like that, you should probably focus on front end damage instead of duration, since you need fights to end fast.

DarnDevil IV.2143:

I just tested in spvp against heavy golem some condition duration vs damage from runes:

I used traits 0/30/20/0/20 (hemophilia and +33% duration)
I used rabid amulet with rabid jewel
I used stable scepter and dagger without sigils

The runes I tested was Superior Runes of The Undead (x6)
and the other set was Afflicted (x2), Krait (x2) and Centaur (x2) for +45% bleeding duration

I found out that when using only scepter chain 1 it takes about 15 seconds (starting from when I start casting first time and ending on golem death) to kill a heavy golem with both rune sets. All test times were between 15 and 16 seconds.

When using 1 time scepter 2 and off hand dagger 5 and then using only scepter 1 chain to finish the golem it took 13 seconds from both runesets to kill the golem.

My conclusion: Yes, condition duration makes you stack more bleeds and will make your bleeds do more damage (specially short ones) than condition damage, but poison will get a big boost from condition damage so if you are having it up almost always on your opponent condition damage is the way to go. At least with full rabid the bonus percent you get from your toughness with 20 points in death magic will equal the amount of damage you will get from +45% bleed duration.

Condition Duration, for increasing the damage from short duration bleeds
Condition Damage, for dealing the damage in shorter time and increasing poison (necros don’t have any other damage boon)

(I also tested the terror trait and I don’t find it useful, even with +50% fear duration it tics only 1 time for about 1200 damage, = 1 second of 8-9 stack bleed on my build)

Also Runes of The Undead will increase your survivability

Thanks for the test. However, with your set up, the Condition Duration spec had, at best +65% Bleed duration, +0% Poison Duration and +33% to relevant Poison and Bleed from Lingering Curse. My question is this: given that PVE/WvW has access to Rare Veggie Pizza for an additional +40% Condition Duration, would we see a DPS increase for this spec? For that matter, would a Condition Damage spec benefit more from a different food buff?