Guild Wars 2

so its time to make ascended armor and i am having a 2nd thought about it. i have all the material now im just waiting for the time gated one (32 bolt of damask…… kitten thats a lot)
which is better rabid or dire? currently i roll with all rabid (ascended weapon and trinket + exotic armor)

Dire armor, Rabid trinkets and weapons is not bad a combo at all

I was running Carrion Armor and Rabid trinkets/weapons and really liked the extra power but I recently switched to Dire armor and while I miss the power its been very successful.

Honestly, I don’t find a big difference. My suggestion is to make Dire armor, and then you can use Dire or Rabid trinkets to adjust your crit.

Personally I don’t think the ascended armor is worth anything for a condition user (or anyone for that matter).

If you do PVE only, I would definately make Rabid.

I tried to calculate it for my own build a while back and the difference is small, but I would go for dire (even in PvE).

Rabid’s (which you would normally pair with undead runes) only advantage is a higher crit rate (53%), which is severely limited by ICD’s on your most important on crit effects (all except Barbed Precision) and very low direct damage to benefit from the extra crits (results in about 40 more direct dps under base circumstances).

Dire loses some crit (only has 24%), but it’s still enough to reliably trigger your on crit effects. But because dire is better paired with scavenging runes, you actually have significantly higher condition damage (more than 100 more than rabid+undead). All in all, the actual dps more or less evens out (not taking into account the leeching on scavenging, which helps dire take a small edge).

But the most important factor, to me, is that dire also gives you a significant health boost. You may not need it in PvE, but I see no reason to trade it away for no apparent benefit. Furthermore, on a class who’s whole defense is base around ‘just take it to the face’, dire just feels a lot more synergistic to me (which somehow gives me a better feeling ). So I’ve been using dire in both PvE and WvW for a few months now and not regretting it one bit.

Dire imho but u still need some decent Crit% for mainly Sigil Procs and 5pts into Curses (Bleed on Crit)

Barbed Precision benefits pretty weakly from more crit because of how short the bleeds are. Even with say 70% condi duration, its giving maybe 250-275 extra damage every 10 attacks for each 10% of crit added.

Even for procing something like Dhuumfire, if you chart the average attack its likely to proc on, 25% vs 50%, you’re only talking a few attacks, a few seconds difference into the fight. Later might even be better with how some like to cleanse as soon as 2 or 3 condis are on them.

I’m not full conditionmancer, I run 20/30/20/0/0 MM/condition build. For PvP I’ll run with a full bar of minions and Consume Conditions (ofc) for PvE I’ll swap out Wurm for Elidimec and run Blood Fiend.

I’m planning on making a Dire set but I’m low on laurels so my trinks will have to wait. It’s a fun hybrid build, minions do great direct damage and conditions… Well I just really like s/d lol.

Rabid. You don’t need more hp, necro is fat enough.

Stillmoon.6894:

so its time to make ascended armor

._____________.

Since I run with Dhuumfire + Barbed Precision + Sigil of Earth, I think I’m gonna stick with the rabid gear that I currently have. I believe the damage output is higher than dire.
Besides, I’m not having much trouble surviving in PvE on rabid. I also would require to go for a whole new set to switch for something that I might not find to be much different (I haven’t bothered with ascended weapons/armor yet).

Burjis.3087:

Since I run with Dhuumfire + Barbed Precision + Sigil of Earth, I think I’m gonna stick with the rabid gear that I currently have. I believe the damage output is higher than dire.
Besides, I’m not having much trouble surviving in PvE on rabid. I also would require to go for a whole new set to switch for something that I might not find to be much different (I haven’t bothered with ascended weapons/armor yet).

I want power-precision-condi damage gear, like rampage, but with condi main stat.. would be awesome.

I’ve been testing a rabid condi-vampire build. I use the high crit of rabid to reliably proc siphon on crit effects from trait and food plus earth sigil procs. It’s probably not a huge dps gain going that way but I feel like all those little ticks of hp help survivability.

Yes I am using vampire signet for the lulz. At least I got it buffed with Blood II along with my Locust signet.

If you get over 21% (assuming you got at least 15 in curses) or 40%~ (without it… and in that case i must ask why even bother with a condi build), feel free to go rest with dire, but remember a) condition damage and crits dont help on structures and weakpoint bosses b) unlike on carrion, dire makes you pull more kitten since youll end up with more toughness. Math was done ages ago for the earth sigils and barbed precision (so even prior to dhuumfire in case for wvwvw), so it might not be really accurate now, but i think that it was a good rule of thumb.

knbBlackTemplar.3059:

Burjis.3087:

Since I run with Dhuumfire + Barbed Precision + Sigil of Earth, I think I’m gonna stick with the rabid gear that I currently have. I believe the damage output is higher than dire.
Besides, I’m not having much trouble surviving in PvE on rabid. I also would require to go for a whole new set to switch for something that I might not find to be much different (I haven’t bothered with ascended weapons/armor yet).

I want power-precision-condi damage gear, like rampage, but with condi main stat.. would be awesome.

ORRRR get full rabid armor, carrion weapons + trinkets.

Andele.1306:

ORRRR get full rabid armor, carrion weapons + trinkets.

And i still will have useless toughness and vitality

this of my secondary necro. it uses full carion. stats are not effected by food or weapon stacks.
the first one is with rabid sce/dag and second one is with carrion staff.

ah y with full stack/food cond dmg is 2.100 +

For me, dire armor + rabid trinkets/weapons works well… You don’t need that much precision that full rabid offers, but I’m not a DPS-freak glass cannon fan at all.

dire armor with scavenging runes with a mix of rabid and dire/rabid ascended items

Lorelei’s suggestion is the way I prefer, too. One of the challenges of a face-tanking class is restoring the larger health pool. High toughness is very important but so are leaching, LF gen, and healing skills.

I would run rabid and/or cleric in a MM/vamp build, not putting more than 10 pts into precision and focus on ways to proc heals while soaking what I can in DS.