Guild Wars 2

Hello forum,
a month after the patch we can definitely begin doing the aftermath, can’t we?

I think condition now works, pretty well and are a viable option compared to the usual Zerk everything.
I love my Necromancer and I practically always play this class and while boredom sometimes afflicts me I rarely change class.
Lately I tried some other classes and I was trying to compare our one to the others and… I really have miss something because I don’t feel all the problems, kittenstorm and yells we often read plenty in this forum.

Since I’m not an expert at all I’d like to have your opinion and share your experience about how other classes works well with a Rampager, Sinister or other Condition/Hybrid build.

I have a Guardian but it’s nonsense with those build, I have no Warrior nor Thief so I ask your experiences. I personally tried Elementalist, Mesmer and Engineer and soon I’ll try the Ranger. While the Mesmer is still fun and overall good (I tried mostly an hybrid with Confusion) the Elementalist has returned to Zerk immediately and I almost had the urge to delete my Engineer (please note, fellow Engineers: I like this class, I just don’t get it, so don’t start flaming).

I don’t understand: with my necro I have a median of 5k of Bleed plus other conditions with no food, my highest spike is 11k of Bleed and while it’s almost an exception (reaching 8k it’s not rare) I rarely go below 2k in the worst conditions… with the other classes I gasp to achieve above 3k with max corruption stack and might.

I’m surely have missed some point, and I definitely don’t know how to play other classes so… can I have your opinions and experiences? What’s your average damage and how you deal it? It’s valuable to have datas like how quickly you apply your conditions (because it’s true we are slow but I think we are very good on keeping the damage), and what kind of damage you deal (bleed, burn, confusion, etc).

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

In my experience even a Warrior can do more condi dmg than Necro. I never seem to stack anything very high.

That’s what I heard a lot but I have no slot for a Warrior.
How much can the Warrior stack? Can he keep the stack? What’s the average damage?
I’d like to have these data to understand.

Guardian should be very good with the OP burnings.

necromancers are the masters of transfers not conditions any class can deal more condi damage than a necro

On a mesmer, using the pistol you can stack in theory up to 50 bleeds although right now the duelist’s discipline traits is bugged. Still about 30 bleeds without it.

I literally melt everything I touch. 2,300 condition damage is nothing to sneeze at. Too bad you have to be that high for the bleeds to really rek face.

Brokensunday.4098:

necromancers are the masters of transfers not conditions any class can deal more condi damage than a necro

No other class has epidemic.

xitsLuisx.2480:

Brokensunday.4098:

necromancers are the masters of transfers not conditions any class can deal more condi damage than a necro

No other class has epidemic.

… which is … a condition transfer…

Silverkey.2078:

xitsLuisx.2480:

Brokensunday.4098:

necromancers are the masters of transfers not conditions any class can deal more condi damage than a necro

No other class has epidemic.

… which is … a condition transfer…

it’s technically a copy. Meaning it uses your stats unlike transfers.

Tim.6450:

Silverkey.2078:

xitsLuisx.2480:

Brokensunday.4098:

necromancers are the masters of transfers not conditions any class can deal more condi damage than a necro

No other class has epidemic.

… which is … a condition transfer…

it’s technically a copy. Meaning it uses your stats unlike transfers.

I still think transfers should use your stats if you have higher condi damage and duration than the one that applied them to you and theirs if they have the higher one.

OP: Tell me please how you get 8k+ bleeds. I have over 2k condi dmg without corruption stacks and without might, but even with these I cant get bleed dmg over 6k. Sometimes I do, but only for 1-2 ticks, then it drops back to 4-5k.

8k is an high damage I reach not too rarely but it’s more an exception then normal. As I said I reach 5k as medium damage, normal, damage without being too much buffed.
Anyway no, I can’t reach it without buffes (might+stacks), I mistated: I meant to say that in normal circumstances I can reach it without food and crystal buff (but, of course, with might and stacks).

Everyone state other classes can do better but I want numbers. Here is mine:

Well… you have 25 corruption stacks, 22 might, 25 vulne stacks on the target and you have foods as well. The mob lives long enough to ramp up the bleed to do 11k dmg. In such perfect scenario the 11k bleed dmg is not a big surprise. I thought Im missing something and thats why I have only 5k bleed dmg. I was just counting it under normal circumstances.

Suppose I´d run condi Necro in PvE (which I´m not currently), my build would probably look something like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWn0ICV3gV2AO2A83gjehC20FQAEj6JoCodxYcsA-TxRAABXqEUhDBAAPBArV/BblfEu/g0nAQfQAgDgdrbd3Nw4jP+4jPe7u7u7u7ulCAmlVA-e

Utility skill slots are somewhat flexible and can be adjusted as needed. The only reason for choosing the ones I did is for the might stacking, but the might stacking via popping signets/BiB on CD feels kinda gimmicky.
Regarding damaging conditions, we can only efficiently stack and maintain Bleeds + a bit of Poison and Torment, but the ramp-up on the bleeds is super slow when compared to e.g. Warrior.
The SR Adept traits and Dhuumfire suck. We basically only spec into SR because BM and DM are even worse for PvE condi builds. By speccing into SR we get at least faster recharge of DS skills. Which is fine I guess, because we only want to flash DS for Weakening Shroud, Furious Demise and Tainted Shackles. No Life Blast spamming recommended, although it´d be still decent-ish damage if we, for some weird reason, really had to since we are using Sinister gear.

All in all kinda “meh” in my opinion =/ My guess would be that momentarily both Rangers and Guardians have better condi setups than this. However I´d personally stick to Engineer or Warrior, both classes have very strong and fun-to-play condition builds for PvE currently.

/my2cents

If necros had the ability to apply 5-10 bleeds as a start, for example similarly to how opening strike works for rangers, that would lower the painfully slow ramp up time. This starting bleed should be applied to all targets (only once) which are hit for example by the autoattack. An other idea is to apply more bleed stacks but with lower duration.

well I havent run a condi necro but I can tell you exactly how my Sinister mesmer works, ive been running it a lot especially in fractals.

my usual party in dungeons consist of a warrior, sometimes a ranger, sometimes an ele, sometimes a guardian.

My auto attack with sword will hit between 1-3k.
Blurred Frenzy will hit for 2.5-6k.
my iduelist will hit for 2-4k.

now, most things die before I stack true condition damage on enemies in dungeons, so I get 900-1800 damage in bleeds and about 400-700 in confusion damage.

Now, against champs/fracal/dungeon bosses, with a good amount of might and some vuln stacks

My bleeding willreach between 3500-6000
Confusion 1800-4000

Now, in a good party, these numbers are completely different. With might stacks, an ele with consistent fire fields, and vuln

I get 8000-13000 bleeds
4000-7000 in confusion
2000-11000 in burning

with fire fields, when I dont put up timewarp/nullfields/feedback for the duelist/warden to hit with confusion, the duelist will destroy with burning damage.

I still generate decent-good damage with my aa.

its unlikely, but very possible to rely on burning damage, but bleeding and confusion are easy.

in certain fights like the archdiviner I end up getting torment/bleeding damage as I rely on scepter/pistol.

cheers

Thank you Azure, that is really helpful.
Can you post a screenshot of those number if you can?
And explain me how you reach these values? I’m still new to the Mesmer.

I want to note that 11k was a spike but then my damage normalized to 9k~10k and was stable (until the mob died).
So I’d like to know if you can maintain those number.

@ehajgbo
I want to note the fact that there is not anymore the 25 stack limit except for Vulnerability, not even per each character. This mean we can apply more than 25 and it’s quite possible.
Also I agree with you: having a way to apply a lot of bleed as opening strike would be nice however, as I said, we are good at maintaining high stacks then applying a lot of them.

EDIT: my request was for Arcades Saboth.5139

Arcades, can you please post your build as well? Including the gear, runes, sigils, weapons, foods, everything?
I went to the same champion on sw to test how much bleed dmg I can do.
For 1 tick I reached 7k and at that time I had 25 might, 25 corruption stack, the champ had 25 vulne, I had food and nourishment. Basically I maxed out my condi dmg, however I have only 80% bleed duration. Im really curious, where does your +4k bleed dmg come from on top of my 7k. Probably Im missing something. My guess is that I dont apply enough bleed stacks and thats because of the skill rotation.

Hey sry just saw this. My build is basic. Full sinister gear, sinister trinkets. My back piece is rampager or rabid I’m not sure I have to check. Krait runes, sigil of bursting and agony, although to be honest in think sigil of earth may actually be better than agony but we can discuss that at a later time. Super veggie pizza, quality tuning crystal. Sword focus, sword pistol. Signet to increase condi damage. With this my bleed duration is 100 percent So I don’t need signet for increased condi diration, it helps for burning and confusion but i prefer using mantra of distraction for the interrupts or null field for the ethereal. Iwarden, iduelist, signet of ether, iduelist. Then duelist again.

However, I go back and forth on agony and earth. If you take off agony sigil, but add the signet you’ll still have 99 or 100 percent bleed uptime (sry I’m tired I forget how much duration signet gives) and earth sigil with sword will give another stack of bleeds every 2 seconds.

@Arcades Saboth.5139

I was doing some maths, because I still dont get how you did 11k bleed dmg.
Assuming for example 3314 condi dmg (25 might, 25 corruption stack, food, nourishment, FULL sinister gear, bursting sigil) 1 stack bleed does 221 dmg. Counting the 25 vulne stacks, it will be 221 × 1,25 = 276 dmg for 1 stack bleeding. So to do 11k bleed dmg with this condi dmg, you will need 11000 / 276 = ~40 bleed stacks.
The best I can do is around 25 stacks which matches my previously mentioned peak 7k bleed dmg.
I noticed you are using the charr racial skill (Shrapnel Mine) as well, which can do ideally 4 bleed stacks. Counting that skill as well I can imagine maximum 32 bleed stacks but definitely not 40.
In theory, its possible, to copy bleed stacks from a nearby mob onto the boss, but you dont have epidemic, and there are no mobs on the screen, and in the combat log.

Im still wondering, so Im looking forward for your feedback

Hello,
sorry for the late reply. You did a good math ehajgbo, and to be honest I’m confused too, I don’t really know how I reached it. I have other screens of 10k (like the one I attached), but, for now, I couldn’t pass over that 11k. I wasn’t also buffed by banner so… I don’t know!

Here is my build, which is pretty standard:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRIQNAr4Yn0ICV3g9sBW2As3gDchaO2NxSAv6AYBibdHMCA-TByCABAcQAU4EAc8DAALlfXq+zM7PonehxUCGAABY3kYkYwEn4En4EnYTciTciTciFCYxaA-e
This is the exactly build and equipment I was using when I got the screenshot.

I use two daggers off-hand because I found the Staff useless with my Rabid equipment, I use it on a Sinister build, but not with this one. using two daggers allow me to always have the the scepter which is the main focus on a Rabid. I switch between the two daggers when I have 25 stacks.

Now rotation:
1) Summon or Golem Charge to proc 6th bonus from Krait Runes
2) Scepter #2 Grasping Dead
3) Dagger 5# Enfleebling blood
4) Blood is Power
5) Dagger #4 Deathly Swarm
6) 2x Scepter #1 Blood Curse and Rending Curse but I interrupt Putrid Curse
7) Shrapnel Mine or Signet of Spite
8) Dodge towars my enemy to proc Blood Minor #1 Mark of Evasion
9) Death Shroud, Shroud #2 Dark Path
Note: it doesn’t really matter the order of Dark Path and Mark of Evasion, sometimes I dodge before, sometimes after Shroud #2. It depend if the enemy is aiming at me or not. It’s hard to land a good Mark of Evasion because it is cast at the end of dodge so I use it depending on the case
10) Shroud #5 Tainted Shackles
At this point, after a few autoattacks, Grasping Dead is ready along with Blood is Power and Deathly Swarm

I keep using Dark Path and Mark of Evasion from dodges whenever Death Shroud is ready but in some cases I have to hold and wait for a good opportunity.
Golem Charge can be cast everytime is ready to proc Krait Runes and since it’s the same cooldown of Shroud #5 I always cast this one and Charge at the same time.

I hope these informations help.

Thanks for the detailed build and usage, I appreciate it.

I had almost the very same build, but not with earth sigil for example. I used full sinister gear, but as I can see, condi dmg is higher with rabid, thanks to the nourishment.
The main difference was that I didnt pay enough attention to my skill rotation and that was the key for me for such good bleed dmg. Thanks for pointing out how important the skill rotation is

At the end I was also able to pump up my bleed dmg

You are welcome.

By the way I managed to understand how I reached that damage. I kinda cheated: in Silverwastes it’s full of Guardians and Mesmer which gives you a lot of Quickness. That’s how I reached that damage.

Azure.8670:

well I havent run a condi necro but I can tell you exactly how my Sinister mesmer works, ive been running it a lot especially in fractals.

my usual party in dungeons consist of a warrior, sometimes a ranger, sometimes an ele, sometimes a guardian.

My auto attack with sword will hit between 1-3k.
Blurred Frenzy will hit for 2.5-6k.
my iduelist will hit for 2-4k.

now, most things die before I stack true condition damage on enemies in dungeons, so I get 900-1800 damage in bleeds and about 400-700 in confusion damage.

Now, against champs/fracal/dungeon bosses, with a good amount of might and some vuln stacks

My bleeding willreach between 3500-6000
Confusion 1800-4000

Now, in a good party, these numbers are completely different. With might stacks, an ele with consistent fire fields, and vuln

I get 8000-13000 bleeds
4000-7000 in confusion
2000-11000 in burning

with fire fields, when I dont put up timewarp/nullfields/feedback for the duelist/warden to hit with confusion, the duelist will destroy with burning damage.

I still generate decent-good damage with my aa.

its unlikely, but very possible to rely on burning damage, but bleeding and confusion are easy.

in certain fights like the archdiviner I end up getting torment/bleeding damage as I rely on scepter/pistol.

cheers

I’m curious to know your build, Azure. I’m having a bit of an issue with my Condition Mesmer ATM.

Condi necro is more than viable in PVE. Of course there are some situations where bursts are better esp. when you’re up against bosses that don’t last long enough for condi to finish its full damage. But for the most part, condi is fine. I always use my dire corruption necro in 40+ fractal and give me a few seconds (maybe 10 or 15) I can already keep up 3-4k dmg per tick. Couple that with high burn ele or gd you can do 10k AoE per tick that wipes Lava’s minions in 3 blinks. Not to mention perma weakness that greatly improves survivability of your teammates i.e. more damage.

Just to give a clip of what Engi is capable of for condi build, look after the first bleed to the second bleed, 19kish damage. Now it’s not always that high, burns range basically 5k-12k, bleeds from 2-6k, confusion from like 500-2000 (when they attack it’s nice), and still have decent bit of power damage thanks to sinister. Overall I’m sitting at generally 10k-20k per second flowing up and down as cooldowns come up.

Necro seems to have some potential spikes with epidemic but the consistency just doesn’t seem to be there the way it is for some other professions.

@DavyMcB.1603

Condi Necro is NOT fine in PvE. Most of our damage is either single target or dealt through Epidemic. Mobs die before you can stack up 30+ bleeds on a target and Epidemic those bleeds. And even if they live, you’ll do less than 5 seconds’ worth of bleed dmg once you cast Epidemic. In other words, you won’t have contributed anything meaningful to the group’s DPS on trash and on bosses your DPS will still be subpar to others.

Of course Necro Condi has potential, but not on trivial content where everything dies in a few seconds. What we need is new difficult content where trash mobs stay alive for 30+ seconds in order for us to stack bleeds up and then get an Epidemic or two off.

Honestly I think a first problem of condi necro is that bleeds got nerfed bad in the 23rd june update. All damages got increased, especially burning, but bleeds got nerfed!!! When you watch the recent video of DnT about conditions, the bleeding hardly does anything. And epidemic helped because you transfer 25 stacks of burning.

Zaroua.2714:

@DavyMcB.1603

Condi Necro is NOT fine in PvE. Most of our damage is either single target or dealt through Epidemic. Mobs die before you can stack up 30+ bleeds on a target and Epidemic those bleeds. And even if they live, you’ll do less than 5 seconds’ worth of bleed dmg once you cast Epidemic. In other words, you won’t have contributed anything meaningful to the group’s DPS on trash and on bosses your DPS will still be subpar to others.

Of course Necro Condi has potential, but not on trivial content where everything dies in a few seconds. What we need is new difficult content where trash mobs stay alive for 30+ seconds in order for us to stack bleeds up and then get an Epidemic or two off.

Like, say, most of the assault events in the Silverwaste, many of which include enemies with astronomical Toughness?

Blaine Tog.8304:

Zaroua.2714:

@DavyMcB.1603

Condi Necro is NOT fine in PvE. Most of our damage is either single target or dealt through Epidemic. Mobs die before you can stack up 30+ bleeds on a target and Epidemic those bleeds. And even if they live, you’ll do less than 5 seconds’ worth of bleed dmg once you cast Epidemic. In other words, you won’t have contributed anything meaningful to the group’s DPS on trash and on bosses your DPS will still be subpar to others.

Of course Necro Condi has potential, but not on trivial content where everything dies in a few seconds. What we need is new difficult content where trash mobs stay alive for 30+ seconds in order for us to stack bleeds up and then get an Epidemic or two off.

Like, say, most of the assault events in the Silverwaste, many of which include enemies with astronomical Toughness?

Yes, this is one place where condi necro is more useful than power necro, but also a case where condi engineers are more useful than condi necro…

Look up sinister engi damage, feel shame for your condi necro.

/thread

Zaroua.2714:

@DavyMcB.1603

Condi Necro is NOT fine in PvE. Most of our damage is either single target or dealt through Epidemic. Mobs die before you can stack up 30+ bleeds on a target and Epidemic those bleeds. And even if they live, you’ll do less than 5 seconds’ worth of bleed dmg once you cast Epidemic. In other words, you won’t have contributed anything meaningful to the group’s DPS on trash and on bosses your DPS will still be subpar to others.

Of course Necro Condi has potential, but not on trivial content where everything dies in a few seconds. What we need is new difficult content where trash mobs stay alive for 30+ seconds in order for us to stack bleeds up and then get an Epidemic or two off.

You are invalidating your own reply. DPS is meant to kill trash mobs just as much as condi is meant for long/sustaining fight [There’s a reason why it’s called CONDITION not BURST] which works pretty well in bosses or mobs that can’t be bursted down in a few seconds and there are plenty of those esp. in high level fractals. Even in SW where you can just hit AA to victory, condi is still very useful. For me it’s even more useful than bursting because most of the mobs there have massive toughness and you do WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more damage with epidemic when everyone in zerg is dealing massive condition stacks for you. And that’s quite a no brainer since most harder PVE contents are usually swarmed by zergs. No one gives a kitten about what build you’re running when you kill a non-threatening-whatsover trashmobs while doing heart quests. You can even do that while sleeping let alone what build you’re taking.

And most of necro condi is AOE. Your saying that most of the skills are single target already implies that the only thing you do is AAing scepter and procing that Dumbfire. Staff#2 is AoE, Staff#3 is AoE, Scepter#2 is AoE, Dagger#5 is AoE, Mark of Evasion is AoE, Shroud#5 is AoE, Epidemic has only 12 seconds when traited [which any decent condi necro should do anyway in PVE] which is again.. AoE. The only single targets skills I find on my necro is Scepter AA and Dark Path. Which I never really rely on because when I finish my AoE combo, the CD is already out for me to do another combo… almost all of them is AoE.

Condi necro is FINE. There’s a reason while Anet doubled bosses’ HP to account for the stack change if you already forgot. And complaining about condition taking time to kill is like asking why backstab needs stealth or why ranger has 1.5k range on LB or why mesmer gets to shatter and so on.

@Jerus.4350
Thank you, those are the datas I want to have. It would be nice to have build and rotation to understand how you reach it.

@Charblaze.6958
There are a few thoughts I want to share:
1) I’m not that impressed. Yes, 20k is a huge dps and probably we can’t reach (probably, that is something ArenaNet should think about because it’s unfair that we don’t have access to fire because Dhuumfire is a joke) however Burning has a higher ratio from Malice, a lot higher then Bleed, but you reach “just” 1k above my Bleed. Forgive my lack of modesty but this make my result a better achievement.
Also Bleed is more stable while Burning fluctuate a lot more, which means Bleed DPS is more consistent and less spicky (I admit: it’s not 100% true, every fight is different and everything can happen).
2) Conditions ARE useful and viable but due to their nature they have a smaller acceleration than direct damage. So for speed runs in lower dungeon a Zerk is best, for longer fight Conditions are good.
And in my opinion the Necro is fine both with single target condition damage and with AOE but he needs adjustments. For example: to have more Burning or Terror or Poison: we need another source of damage other then Bleed.

What Charblaze linked is a better version of what I was using then (finding info on condi builds is tough so that was what I threw together initially before seeing some insight on how to do even better, basically swapped my runes).