Guild Wars 2

Hi all! I would like to share my pvp build here for discussion. =) I really enjoy this build as I feel I can fight/survive rather well. Without further ado, here is the build:

Traits:
0/10/30/0/30

10 – Skirmishing

• Agility Training – Pets move 30% faster.

30 – Wilderness Survival

• Expertise Training – Pets deal extra condition damage.
• Oakheart Salve – Gain regeneration for 5s when you suffer from bleeding, poison or burning. This can only trigger once every 20 seconds.
• Empathic Bond – Pets periodically take conditions from you.

30 – Beastmastery

• Speed Training – Pets recharge their skills 10% faster.
• Rending Attacks – Drake, feline, devourer, and shark pets bleed on critical hit with their basic attacks.
• Natural Healing – Your pets have natural health regeneration.

Runes:

• 2 Superior Runes of the Afflicted – +28 Condition Damage, +15% Bleed duration
• 2 Superior Runes of the Centaur – +28 Power, +15% Bleed duration
• 2 Superior Runes of the Krait – +28 Condition Damage, +15% Bleed duration

Trinkets:

• Rabid Amulet with Rabid Jewel

Weapons:

• Shortbow with Sigil of Superior Agony (Increased Inflicted Bleeding Duration: 10%)
• Greatsword with Sigil of Superior Geomancy (Bleeding upon Swap)

Utilities (slots 6-10):

• Troll Unguent – You and your pet regenerate health over time.
• Sharpening Stone – Bleed foes with your next five attacks.
• Signet of Renewal – Passive: Cures a condition every ten seconds. (Stun Breaker)
• Signet of the Wild – Passive: Grants health regeneration to you and your pet.
• Entangle – Entangle your foe. They are immobile until the vines are destroyed.

Pets:

• Lynx – Rending Pounce (Leap at a foe and make them bleed.)
• Jaguar – Stalk (Gain stealth.)

Explanation:
This build revolves around a single concept: Bleeding.
From the runes and sigil of agony, all bleeding duration are increased by 55%, and bleeding comes from multiple avenues:

• Crossfire (Shortbow auto attack)
• Sigil of Geomancy when swapping to GS for melee
• Maul (Greatsword #2)
• Sharpening Stone utility (next 5 attacks bleed)
• Entangle (immobilize and bleeding roll into one)
• Feline’s Maul ability (Slash a foe multiple times and make them bleed.)
• Lynx’s Rending Pounce
• BM traited pet’s Rending Attacks (bleed on crit)

Heal:
Taking Troll Unguent over Healing Spring is because the main condition removals come from 2 passive avenues: Signet of Renewal and Empathic Bond, and if need be, Signet of Renewal active acts as an instant condition cleanser as well as a stun breaker. Thus Troll Unguent with irremovable healing and highest heal is superior in this case.

Traits:
Agility Training over Sharpened Edges because Sharpened Edges apply only 1 stack of bleeding for 1 second (albeit buffed to 1.55s) proccing on 66% chance (wiki) as well as only apply on critical hits (which this build has 37%) is simply inferior to the 30% movement speed buff. And pets (cats in this case) do require that extra movement speed to catch up on enemies. (you can test this easily on the moving golem in HoTM)

Speed Training is simply because most of the time when I’m deeply concentrated on the dueling (dodging, healing, apply bleeds, utilities etc.) I simply forget to activate F2 many times. (I know. You can say that I’m simply unskilled, but this is what I observed) Due to this negligence, I simply prefer to let my cats run wild. And with Speed Training, Agility Training and 30 points in BM, my pets hardly need my attention. For those of you who prefer more micromanaging of your pets, Commanding Voice or Mighty Swap are great alternatives too.

With 300 healing power from 30 in BM, Signet of the Wild gives 80 passive heal per sec and as you might notice by now, I’m incredibly lazy. (2 passive condition removals, ignoring dear Lynx and Jag) the passive healing is more than welcome an addition to my utility belt. The only thing I need to worry in battles are focusing on weapon attacks, dodging, and that Sharpening Stone utility which I only need to use every 45s. Of course, Entangle as an elite has such a great synergy with this build that Rampage as One is simply ignored. (I also notice I hardly use RaO as compared to Entangle when I’m in a tight spot)

Of course, as per all builds, this build is very suitable and comfortable for me to use, and I think the main thing in finding the right build for you is that sweet spot where you like what you use and can survive well in it. (You can see why I dislike trapper build. 2 or 3 traps to use every 16-20 secs is O.O complicated. Also, GC (glass cannon) builds has such low survivability I find myself trying to survive more than dealing damage. A dead ranger deals no damage >.>)

Feel free to trial and error with this build to your liking, and I hope you enjoy this build bleeding people as much as I do! =)

Cheers!
Eisteria

Just skim read this, looks promising, will have to give this a try in a bit. Really wanna move away from the traps and try something new :P

Thanks! Do try it out and let me know how it feels! =)

I still think you’re losing DPS by not taking Sharpened edges. You attack roughly 2 times to every 1 of your pets attack, and an opponent, even with agility training, is still going to be kiting the pet pretty effectively. Against a moving target, I’d say that you would probably gain DPS from sharpened edges.

That extra bleed is going to cause the auto attack, on crit, to do roughly 45% more damage. You’re crit rate is at ~40% and the bleed proc is 66%, which puts you at proccing the bleed 26.4% of the time. Since you fire ~2 shots a second, the chance of you proccing 1 bleed every 2 seconds is high.

You can be the judge whether you’re hitting the target more with arrows or with your pet, and even then, don’t let me sway your preference if my choice doesn’t suit you. Having these choices are the most fun parts about these games.

Hmm, yea I didn’t do the math but yea, 1 bleed every 2 seconds do sound right. I’ll try it out tonight! Sounds pretty good to me. =)

I don’t know why but I can’t seem to edit my original post.. But anyway, here is the skill calculator link.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJAVRjAVZ29VKWo2Bi2DK1fMxKoo3jWp+2fxSpJB;TwAAzCpomxAjAGrPuZk+s8YEwJgXAA

Sigil of agony does nothing for shortbow because of how the game rounds condition duration.
Sharpening stone isn’t competitive.
Extra pet condition dmg isn’t competitive.
30% more pet dmg on crit in TPvP is better than 30% faster.
Last I checked ‘natural healing’ in the beastmaster tree ticked for less than regen every 2-3s.
Greatsword with rabid isn’t competitive.
A bird tends to be better than lynx (a little more towards preferance though).
Signet of the wild is great in really tanky more healing power specced setups.
Yours is missing a few things to really fit in that place.

garethh.3518:

Sigil of agony does nothing for shortbow because of how the game rounds condition duration.
Sharpening stone isn’t competitive.
Extra pet condition dmg isn’t competitive.
30% more pet dmg on crit in TPvP is better than 30% faster.
Last I checked ‘natural healing’ in the beastmaster tree ticked for less than regen every 2-3s.
Greatsword with rabid isn’t competitive.
A bird tends to be better than lynx (a little more towards preferance though).
Signet of the wild is great in really tanky more healing power specced setups.
Yours is missing a few things to really fit in that place.

From wiki:
Please Note: as for all condition damage, it applies on every second a specific condition lasted. fractional durations do not get benefit and is wasted.

From what I understand from this, it means that if I have a 1 sec condition duration, it will only proc once. If I have a 1.2s condition, it will proc only once a sec, until it is applied 5 times, which brings the duration up to 6s (the next whole number) so since Sigil of agony totals up to 1.55s, (based on a theoretical 1s duration) every 2nd application of bleed will bring up to 3.1s instead of 2s right? If that’s the case I still believe it helps. Anyone please correct me if I’m wrong though. And crossfire applies a 3sec bleed actually.

For sharpening stone, it’s more of adding on to bleeds. If you feel it’s not competitive do you have any suggestions to make it better? =)

I feel that extra pet condition damage synergies better with the build. If its not competitive, maybe I would suggest vigorous renewal? O.o but that would be a defensive trait right? And thus even less competitive lols. Would you suggest anything else?

30% pet dmg on crit would definitely be helpful, as long as the pets catch up on the enemies… Which they fall behind on if they can’t catch them as effectively with the 30% movement increase actually.

Natural healing (according to wiki) heals 133 every 2s in combat.

Greatsword is here simply because I prefer it over sword =) I love the defensive utilities it brings and the swoop or block wins over sword in my opinion. =) so.. It’s not really meant to be competitive haha.

I use felines exclusively mainly because of the trait Rending Attacks..

As I explained, signet of the wild helps with surviving on the field, and it’s a plus point because I don’t need to care about it =P would you suggest anything else to replace it?

Sorry if I sound defensive haha, but these are choices I make because I felt it makes sense. Lols. That said, if you dislike this build maybe it’s not for you, or maybe you can give some suggestions to make it better? =)

Adding to the compilation thread!

Also, I’m curious, can you reach 100% bleed duration with food? And if so, can you test if you can get 2s bleeds using the Sharpened Edges trait (bleed on crit)?

The problem with focusing on one condition and increasing its duration is when you run into classes with several forms of condition removal (elementalist, guardian, etc.). Particularly several forms of "remove condition every X seconds (guardian).

Atroras.9481:

garethh.3518:

Sigil of agony does nothing for shortbow because of how the game rounds condition duration.
Sharpening stone isn’t competitive.
Extra pet condition dmg isn’t competitive.
30% more pet dmg on crit in TPvP is better than 30% faster.
Last I checked ‘natural healing’ in the beastmaster tree ticked for less than regen every 2-3s.
Greatsword with rabid isn’t competitive.
A bird tends to be better than lynx (a little more towards preferance though).
Signet of the wild is great in really tanky more healing power specced setups.
Yours is missing a few things to really fit in that place.

From wiki:
Please Note: as for all condition damage, it applies on every second a specific condition lasted. fractional durations do not get benefit and is wasted.

From what I understand from this, it means that if I have a 1 sec condition duration, it will only proc once. If I have a 1.2s condition, it will proc only once a sec, until it is applied 5 times, which brings the duration up to 6s (the next whole number) so since Sigil of agony totals up to 1.55s, (based on a theoretical 1s duration) every 2nd application of bleed will bring up to 3.1s instead of 2s right? If that’s the case I still believe it helps. Anyone please correct me if I’m wrong though. And crossfire applies a 3sec bleed actually.

For sharpening stone, it’s more of adding on to bleeds. If you feel it’s not competitive do you have any suggestions to make it better? =)

I feel that extra pet condition damage synergies better with the build. If its not competitive, maybe I would suggest vigorous renewal? O.o but that would be a defensive trait right? And thus even less competitive lols. Would you suggest anything else?

30% pet dmg on crit would definitely be helpful, as long as the pets catch up on the enemies… Which they fall behind on if they can’t catch them as effectively with the 30% movement increase actually.

Natural healing (according to wiki) heals 133 every 2s in combat.

Greatsword is here simply because I prefer it over sword =) I love the defensive utilities it brings and the swoop or block wins over sword in my opinion. =) so.. It’s not really meant to be competitive haha.

I use felines exclusively mainly because of the trait Rending Attacks..

As I explained, signet of the wild helps with surviving on the field, and it’s a plus point because I don’t need to care about it =P would you suggest anything else to replace it?

Sorry if I sound defensive haha, but these are choices I make because I felt it makes sense. Lols. That said, if you dislike this build maybe it’s not for you, or maybe you can give some suggestions to make it better? =)

Bleeds don’t stack in duration each application runs on it’s own timer, your 55% increased bleed duration only gives your shortbow bleed 1 single extra bleedtick from this if you dropped down to 35% it would still give this 1 extra tick so essentially these 20% are just wasted into nothing here, a better idea would be to get sigil of earth wich would give you 2-3 extra bleedstacks and having a 45% increased bleed duration (wich would give the earth bleed 2 extra ticks per application)

jubskie.3152:

Adding to the compilation thread!

Also, I’m curious, can you reach 100% bleed duration with food? And if so, can you test if you can get 2s bleeds using the Sharpened Edges trait (bleed on crit)?

You can if you have increased condition duration on your weapon too and veggie pizzas ontop of the setup in the OP but you’d be sacrificing alot of stats to bump a tiny bleed from 1tick to 2 it’s simply not worth it, stack more condition damage instead to make the bleeds you have tick for more.

Actually, while I understand the argument, I don’t believe that stacking bleed duration for a ranger is as strong as stacking condition damage.
Some math:
rangers base bleed is 3s. With the rune choice and sigil choice you used, I get bleeds doing 426 damage every 4+3/4s (the 3/4s doesn’t tick, so I’m doing damage per bleed). So, per second, that comes to 106.5 bleed damage, and the game doesn’t seem to have a consistent rounding mechanism, meaning that sometimes they will tick for 106, others 107.

With runes of the undead in the same setup, your auto attack bleed only ticks for 3s, but it ticks for 118 per bleed.

Meaning that as long as you are consistently applying bleeds, you are going to be doing more DPS with the runes of the undead. Albeit, it isn’t much, but you will see the damage output increase from all the conditions you apply as well, where as currently the only focus is bleeds. Meaning the poison will also do more damage, so as long as you are applying that consistently, the damage would overall be greater.

jcbroe.4329:

Actually, while I understand the argument, I don’t believe that stacking bleed duration for a ranger is as strong as stacking condition damage.
Some math:
rangers base bleed is 3s. With the rune choice and sigil choice you used, I get bleeds doing 426 damage every 4+3/4s (the 3/4s doesn’t tick, so I’m doing damage per bleed). So, per second, that comes to 106.5 bleed damage, and the game doesn’t seem to have a consistent rounding mechanism, meaning that sometimes they will tick for 106, others 107.

With runes of the undead in the same setup, your auto attack bleed only ticks for 3s, but it ticks for 118 per bleed.

Meaning that as long as you are consistently applying bleeds, you are going to be doing more DPS with the runes of the undead. Albeit, it isn’t much, but you will see the damage output increase from all the conditions you apply as well, where as currently the only focus is bleeds. Meaning the poison will also do more damage, so as long as you are applying that consistently, the damage would overall be greater.

Increasing bleed duration is definetly a good idea aslong as you don’t overdo it at the expence if pure stats, with your example here 107×4 is better than 118×3, with undead the dps is only higher per bleed but since bleeds stack you can keep a higher number of bleeds consistently with increased duration wich will result in a higher dps.

I would say if you do it on a shortbow get sigil of earth and and just get over 33% extra duration for the extra tick and stack the rest on condition damage.

edit: I was thinking in the context of pve, for pvp it’s often not worth it because of cleansing.

Atroras.9481:

For sharpening stone, it’s more of adding on to bleeds.
I feel that extra pet condition damage synergies better with the build. If its not competitive, maybe I would suggest vigorous renewal? O.o but that would be a defensive trait right? And thus even less competitive lols. Would you suggest anything else?

30% pet dmg on crit would definitely be helpful, as long as the pets catch up on the enemies… Which they fall behind on if they can’t catch them as effectively with the 30% movement increase actually.

Natural healing (according to wiki) heals 133 every 2s in combat.

Greatsword is here simply because I prefer it over sword =) I love the defensive utilities it brings and the swoop or block wins over sword in my opinion. =) so.. It’s not really meant to be competitive haha.

I use felines exclusively mainly because of the trait Rending Attacks..

As I explained, signet of the wild helps with surviving on the field, and it’s a plus point because I don’t need to care about it =P would you suggest anything else to replace it?

Sorry if I sound defensive haha, but these are choices I make because I felt it makes sense. Lols. That said, if you dislike this build maybe it’s not for you, or maybe you can give some suggestions to make it better? =)

Pet condition dmg, the idea of it is not bad, a buff to it surely, if any build, would help yours. The thing is the actually effectiveness of the buff… how much it actually buffs the pets condition dmg by, is rather small…

In server hotjoin, the 30% movement speed is pretty necessary. In tournies you can get away without it if you play well.

Natural healing, as a minor trait at 15~ or 25 points… it could be considerable going for… but as a tier 3 major…. no way in hell.

In a 30s fight, saying everything else in your build is working flawlessly, signet of the wild would only heal for 1.8~k, which is roughly 10-15s of regeneration or a leap threw a water field. A utility slot for that amount of healing doesn’t tend to be worthwhile when you don’t even have regen up most of the time or you aren’t a SUPER defensive/evasive build looking to scrounge out a bit more survivability.

You’re in a tough situation though, focusing on condition dmg with greatsword and shortbow is a hard place to theorycraft. If you want to stay on that path I would seriously require having geomancy on both sets of weapons, the extra bleeds are pretty much necessary. Sharpening stone… ugh I would drop 10 points in beastmastery, put them in marksmen for the sharpening stone proc at 75%, drop signet of the wild for lightning reflexes if you are comfortable with your dodging skills (the vigor and stun break evade is clutch), then the last slot, its really up to you I would put muddy terrain since its wonderful in TPvP, it ensures that your pet can sit on the guy, gives you an immobilize to set up your own attacks (landing a maul is like getting most of a sharpening stone proc) and your allies. It’s a pretty nifty ability.

If you want the build to scrap a lil bit of the playstyle, I would drop the focus on condition dmg and run a more power setup, keep the good pet dmg but also decent power based dmg of your own with greatsword.

jcbroe.4329:

Some math:
rangers base bleed is 3s. With the rune choice and sigil choice you used, I get bleeds doing 426 damage every 4+3/4s (the 3/4s doesn’t tick, so I’m doing damage per bleed). So, per second, that comes to 106.5 bleed damage, and the game doesn’t seem to have a consistent rounding mechanism, meaning that sometimes they will tick for 106, others 107.

With runes of the undead in the same setup, your auto attack bleed only ticks for 3s, but it ticks for 118 per bleed.

Meaning that as long as you are consistently applying bleeds, you are going to be doing more DPS with the runes of the undead. Albeit, it isn’t much, but you will see the damage output increase from all the conditions you apply as well, where as currently the only focus is bleeds. Meaning the poison will also do more damage, so as long as you are applying that consistently, the damage would overall be greater.

Its a 33% bump in dmg threw duration verse a 10% bump in dmg threw condition dmg.
Duration definitely nets more raw dmg, there is no question there, you will get up more stacks on a guy at one time netting more condition dmg/sec, the only thing is cleansing can hurt your spec more. The bonus dmg to non-bleed conditions is pretty much negligible on his spec since his only attack in those regards is a poison volley.

When it comes to shortbow, people don’t tend to waste much cleansing on shortbow spammable attacks so the difference between 3 and 4s of bleeding is only good.
When it comes to sigil of geomancy and maul and sharpening stone… it’s a bit up in the air; against thieves, mesmers and if well timed against other setups it will net you allot of dmg, but yeah it is on the fence against most other classes. Especially if you don’t have that many conditions.

I still do run condition duration, just because completely kittening up most non-ele non-HGHengi players day is pretty cool.

I mean, I was only commenting on the context of cleansing and DPS, not DoT. It’s the difference between condition burst and pressure.

Let me actually post something that damage is better for; Sharpened Edges. Because as I posted earlier, there is only around a 26.4% chance of a bleed, that is ideally at about 1 bleed every 4 arrows, which is 2 seconds. When coupled with Sharpened Edges ICD of 1s, that means that if Sharpened Edges procs, 1s will go by where it can’t. Which means that Sharpened Edges, at that 26.4% probability, with the ICD, can at most only proc once per second, and the rate that will happen at is only 7%.

That 7% chance is the only time duration is going to matter if Sharpened Edges is being used. Otherwise, condition damage matters more. Condition Damage is what I consider the “safe” choice, because you don’t always enter an environment where you know if your opponent has cleansing or condition duration reduction runes.

jcbroe.4329:

I mean, I was only commenting on the context of cleansing and DPS, not DoT. It’s the difference between condition burst and pressure.

Let me actually post something that damage is better for; Sharpened Edges

Sharpened edges is terrible for one.
(not as a trait, but as a notable source of dmg, it ends up being like a 5~% dmg bump in most precision/condi setups)
For two, it is a 1s bleed so no amount of reachable condition duration in TPvP will ever make it reach 2s. So by default, no matter what condition dmg did, it would still be better for it.

jcbroe.4329:

I mean, I was only commenting on the context of cleansing and DPS, not DoT. It’s the difference between condition burst and pressure.

Let me actually post something that damage is better for; Sharpened Edges. Because as I posted earlier, there is only around a 26.4% chance of a bleed, that is ideally at about 1 bleed every 4 arrows, which is 2 seconds. When coupled with Sharpened Edges ICD of 1s, that means that if Sharpened Edges procs, 1s will go by where it can’t. Which means that Sharpened Edges, at that 26.4% probability, with the ICD, can at most only proc once per second, and the rate that will happen at is only 7%.

That 7% chance is the only time duration is going to matter if Sharpened Edges is being used. Otherwise, condition damage matters more. Condition Damage is what I consider the “safe” choice, because you don’t always enter an environment where you know if your opponent has cleansing or condition duration reduction runes.

Sharpened edges doesn’t have an internal cooldown I’ve tested it and managed to get several stacks of bleeds with it that wouldn’t be possible if it had an internal cooldown, it’s still kitten and not worth using though regardless of what other stats you have.

Manekk.6981:

jcbroe.4329:

I mean, I was only commenting on the context of cleansing and DPS, not DoT. It’s the difference between condition burst and pressure.

Let me actually post something that damage is better for; Sharpened Edges. Because as I posted earlier, there is only around a 26.4% chance of a bleed, that is ideally at about 1 bleed every 4 arrows, which is 2 seconds. When coupled with Sharpened Edges ICD of 1s, that means that if Sharpened Edges procs, 1s will go by where it can’t. Which means that Sharpened Edges, at that 26.4% probability, with the ICD, can at most only proc once per second, and the rate that will happen at is only 7%.

That 7% chance is the only time duration is going to matter if Sharpened Edges is being used. Otherwise, condition damage matters more. Condition Damage is what I consider the “safe” choice, because you don’t always enter an environment where you know if your opponent has cleansing or condition duration reduction runes.

Sharpened edges doesn’t have an internal cooldown I’ve tested it and managed to get several stacks of bleeds with it that wouldn’t be possible if it had an internal cooldown, it’s still kitten and not worth using though regardless of what other stats you have.

That’s my fault, thought it did have an ICD.

garethh.3518:

jcbroe.4329:

I mean, I was only commenting on the context of cleansing and DPS, not DoT. It’s the difference between condition burst and pressure.

Let me actually post something that damage is better for; Sharpened Edges

Sharpened edges is terrible for one.
(not as a trait, but as a notable source of dmg, it ends up being like a 5~% dmg bump in most precision/condi setups)
For two, it is a 1s bleed so no amount of reachable condition duration in TPvP will ever make it reach 2s. So by default, no matter what condition dmg did, it would still be better for it.

True, but its purpose SEEMS to be to help keep up pressure even when not flanking.

@Manekk, Garethh; sorry, thought it had an ICD for whatever reason. Still only a 7% chance to apply back to back bleeds though so at least I didn’t fudge the math up lol.

Not sure why people seem to think it isn’t a good trait, because if it was anything higher than a 1s bleed, with the shortbows autoattack speed it would actually be pretty OP.

Manekk.6981:

Sharpened edges doesn’t have an internal cooldown I’ve tested it and managed to get several stacks of bleeds with it that wouldn’t be possible if it had an internal cooldown, it’s still kitten and not worth using though regardless of what other stats you have.

Sorry to be off-topic for a second, but could you please send proof of this for use in the other thread, Manekk?

Also, I think 5 bleeds can be quite powerful if you have enough condition damage / condition duration in your build. 5 bleeds at 100 damage per tick (trivial to get) is 500 damage a second. Give that for the default 6 seconds and you have +3,000 damage to your foe.

Sebrent.3625:

Manekk.6981:

Sharpened edges doesn’t have an internal cooldown I’ve tested it and managed to get several stacks of bleeds with it that wouldn’t be possible if it had an internal cooldown, it’s still kitten and not worth using though regardless of what other stats you have.

Sorry to be off-topic for a second, but could you please send proof of this for use in the other thread, Manekk?

Also, I think 5 bleeds can be quite powerful if you have enough condition damage / condition duration in your build. 5 bleeds at 100 damage per tick (trivial to get) is 500 damage a second. Give that for the default 6 seconds and you have +3,000 damage to your foe.

I swear I thought it was you, but maybe not; who had created a chart for condition duration, where it showed the durations from 5%-100% and then the amount of seconds up to the longest lasting player induced condition in the game, and the effect it had on it. Then there was another chart after that one that basically summarized and said stuff like so +duration for this amount of seconds results in x% increase in damage.
Maybe I’m wrong about the creator, but I remember seeing it and wanting it stickied for how useful it was lol.

I didn’t, but I could :-)

I did the boons for Ranger as well as one for Mesmer (by two fav classes).

Sebrent.3625:

I didn’t, but I could :-)

I did the boons for Ranger as well as one for Mesmer (by two fav classes).

That’s up to you lol.

Logically, what we would see is that the longer the inherent condition duration, the less %duration it would need to reach a higher overall damage output.
As well as the opposite, the lower the inherent condition duration, the more %duration it would need to reach a higher damage output.

The actual interesting chart would be the second one I mentioned, so that people could instantly compare what 10% does for a 3s condition versus a 4s, for example.

I would do it but my charts aren’t pretty lol. You would see a piece of notebook paper and barely legible writing, and it would be a picture obviously taken by a camera phone haha. The only thing I can do well is manipulate numbers, if you can’t tell by the rest of the thread, I sometimes ignore minor(extremely important) details and get too caught up in the math, then solve a problem or do a calculation for something that doesn’t exist.

Oh well.

Back on topic (a little): I guess the choice comes down to either Pet’s Prowess or Sharpened Edges. Which is like choosing between pressure or burst. Against a non-moving target, Pet’s Prowess for sure. Against a moving target, my opinion would be Sharpened Edges.

I don’t like Sharpened Edges because the bleed only lasts for 1 second. That’s pretty horrible in my mind.

Sebrent.3625:

I don’t like Sharpened Edges because the bleed only lasts for 1 second. That’s pretty horrible in my mind.

And I understand that entirely. But it is supposed to be there (I believe) for a way for a ranger to continue to pressure while not meeting the flanking requirement. Also, I think that longer than 1s would be broken with a shortbows autoattack speed.

Assume even a 2s bleed for instance. With Manekk being right (again, my fault) and there not being any ICD, and with the ability to stack duration up to 50% to make that a 3s bleed, there would be the potential to keep a constant stack of bleeds, potentially as many as you get from flanking (8 or 9?). Because of the high refire rate of the ranger shortbow, you would also be able to stack faster and maintain the high stack.
It would actually make ranger one of, if not the best classes at bursting high stacks of bleeds at range, because that is only without the flanking. If you were flanking on top of this, I can imagine rangers being able to stack 20-25 stacks of bleeding without quickness, AND faster than any other class at range in the game with quickness (and maybe even without).

So yeah. Of course that’s also my opinion on balance as well, and by no means fact.

A very nice build. It’s simple, beastmastery, condition damage and bleeds in as many places as possible as well as agility training to put as much pressure on a single target as possible. I don’t think there’s anything that could beat this build in a prolonged fight either. Between your signets’, Troll Unguent’s, Oakheart salve’s and Empathic Bond’s regenerative abilities and the sheer number of bleeds… Yikes.

My only qualm is the lack of AoE. Aside from Greatsword’s cleaving and the shortbow’s poison spreadshot, you have no realistic way to fight multiple opponents (which is a big deal in teamfights). You could in theory trade out some points for the piercing arrows in marksmanship. But it’s 20 points and I can’t think of anything worth trading for it.

jcbroe.4329:

Not sure why people seem to think it isn’t a good trait, because if it was anything higher than a 1s bleed, with the shortbows autoattack speed it would actually be pretty OP.

Not even close.
Engineers and warriors both have better versions as 5 point minor traits.
Warriors is a 3s bleed 30% of the time and I believe engi’s is the same.
Better trait.
Minor slot.
Engi’s have nades which can hit 3~ times a second blowing shortbow’s auto’attack out of the water and then some.
Engi’s also get a major trait that causes 30% chance for a 2s… BURN… on crit…
Yeah…
Better in literally every way and then some.

Sharpened edges doesn’t compare.
Yeah it, a third of the time, adds a 100~ dmg tick to an attack even when you can’t get flanking with the shortbow spammable. No that isn’t a wonderful thing.

And I honestly am not sure where you are going with the math behind it proccing back to back, yea that is the chance it happens, but where does that fit into condition dmg verse duration?

garethh.3518:

jcbroe.4329:

Not sure why people seem to think it isn’t a good trait, because if it was anything higher than a 1s bleed, with the shortbows autoattack speed it would actually be pretty OP.

Not even close.
Engineers and warriors both have better versions as 5 point minor traits.
Warriors is a 3s bleed 30% of the time and I believe engi’s is the same.
Better trait.
Minor slot.
Engi’s have nades which can hit 3~ times a second blowing shortbow’s auto’attack out of the water and then some.
Engi’s also get a major trait that causes 30% chance for a 2s… BURN… on crit…
Yeah…
Better in literally every way and then some.

Sharpened edges doesn’t compare.
Yeah it, a third of the time, adds a 100~ dmg tick to an attack even when you can’t get flanking with the shortbow spammable. No that isn’t a wonderful thing.

And I honestly have no idea what you mean by the math behind it proccing back to back, yes that is the chance it happens, but what does that have to do with condition dmg verse duration?

It didn’t, it was just reassurance that I didn’t screw my numbers up somewhere.

And yeah you’re right, I was only factoring in autoattacks, not the skill variants. That being said though, Engis and warriors can’t stack bleeds as high as rangers on autoattack, can they? I honestly wouldn’t know. But I thought rangers already had a higher maintainable bleed stack (minus the warriors sword, but melee is supposed to be stronger in GW2 from how I interpret some of the things devs said).

There’s really no denying that with the right setup, engi pistols (single or double) are better at condition output through traits and variety though.

Also, I’m curious, am I talking to the same Garethh from the Guru forums or no?

jcbroe.4329:

It didn’t, it was just reassurance that I didn’t screw my numbers up somewhere.

And yeah you’re right, I was only factoring in autoattacks, not the skill variants. That being said though, Engis and warriors can’t stack bleeds as high as rangers on autoattack, can they? I honestly wouldn’t know. But I thought rangers already had a higher maintainable bleed stack (minus the warriors sword, but melee is supposed to be stronger in GW2 from how I interpret some of the things devs said).

There’s really no denying that with the right setup, engi pistols (single or double) are better at condition output through traits and variety though.

Also, I’m curious, am I talking to the same Garethh from the Guru forums or no?

Engi’s can get good condi stacks from grenades alone, burning is 6~ stacks of bleed worth of dmg, that along with the 2-3 from the minor trait procs along with 2-6 from shrapnel grenade…. its a good deal of condition dmg.
Their pistol is decent for it, the confusion and poison are nice, not great but nice since its auto attack is slow only throws out like a 2s bleed…

Rangers have traps and pets (good noncondition dmg even on a condition spec). I’ve gotten up to 22 bleed stacks from my ranger in one 4~ ability spike during a pet CC, so I would think rangers still the better raw condition dmg class by a good deal (short of confusion), but that doesn’t mean that sharpened edge trait is at all worthwhile.

And yeah, same guy

garethh.3518:

jcbroe.4329:

It didn’t, it was just reassurance that I didn’t screw my numbers up somewhere.

And yeah you’re right, I was only factoring in autoattacks, not the skill variants. That being said though, Engis and warriors can’t stack bleeds as high as rangers on autoattack, can they? I honestly wouldn’t know. But I thought rangers already had a higher maintainable bleed stack (minus the warriors sword, but melee is supposed to be stronger in GW2 from how I interpret some of the things devs said).

There’s really no denying that with the right setup, engi pistols (single or double) are better at condition output through traits and variety though.

Also, I’m curious, am I talking to the same Garethh from the Guru forums or no?

Engi’s can get good condi stacks from grenades alone, burning is 6~ stacks of bleed worth of dmg, that along with the 2-3 from the minor trait procs along with 2-6 from shrapnel grenade…. its a good deal of condition dmg.
Their pistol is decent for it, the confusion and poison are nice, not great but nice since its auto attack is slow only throws out like a 2s bleed…

Rangers have traps and pets (good noncondition dmg even on a condition spec). I’ve gotten up to 22 bleed stacks from my ranger in one 4~ ability spike during a pet CC, so I would think rangers still the better raw condition dmg class by a good deal (short of confusion), but that doesn’t mean that sharpened edge trait is at all worthwhile.

And yeah, same guy

I figured it was you, speaking from a competitive standpoint and still correcting my theorycrafting errors lol.

Yeah I just tested it and on my HGH engy I can only get up to about 10 bleed stacks before the test dumbies drop dead. I had to constantly switch between the nades and pistol to get that high. I’m sure I could stack higher using purely nades, but the timeframe would triple for what I felt like testing.

On my ranger (using gasmasks trap build but with 6x undead over 4 nightmare 2 lyssa) with a 49% crit chance and the 66% proc chance, it means that that I’m proccing a bleed at about a 32% rate. The bleed ticks for 118 damage, meaning that 32% of the time I’m increasing my base auto attack damage by 49% through a 1s bleed.

I wish I could easily compare that to the pet with Pet’s Prowess, but the tooltips for the damage are SO off.

Edit: Nevermind I just quickly tested it ingame. With 0 BM my wolf/dog hits for an average 750, 1k on crits without Pets Prowess. With Pet’s Prowess, it hits for ~1300 damage on crits (kind of obvious calculation, I really didn’t need to test that but I did lol). So it really depends on that pet and the precision of the pet. The higher the precision on the pet, the more valuable pets prowess is over Sharpened Edges.

Sebrent.3625:

Manekk.6981:

Sharpened edges doesn’t have an internal cooldown I’ve tested it and managed to get several stacks of bleeds with it that wouldn’t be possible if it had an internal cooldown, it’s still kitten and not worth using though regardless of what other stats you have.

Sorry to be off-topic for a second, but could you please send proof of this for use in the other thread, Manekk?

Also, I think 5 bleeds can be quite powerful if you have enough condition damage / condition duration in your build. 5 bleeds at 100 damage per tick (trivial to get) is 500 damage a second. Give that for the default 6 seconds and you have +3,000 damage to your foe.

How can I prove this? take my word for it I guess as it’s easily repeatable by anyone, just remove anything that could apply bleeds and shoot a golem the second you see more than 1 stack of bleed will show it can’t have an internal cooldown or atleast one that is lower than 1s wich would seem kitten it will never reach 5stacks though I think I could get 3stacks with increased condition duration when I did it and they also quicky run off into 0stacks for periods, it’s garbage.

jcbroe.4329:

garethh.3518:

jcbroe.4329:

I mean, I was only commenting on the context of cleansing and DPS, not DoT. It’s the difference between condition burst and pressure.

Let me actually post something that damage is better for; Sharpened Edges

Sharpened edges is terrible for one.
(not as a trait, but as a notable source of dmg, it ends up being like a 5~% dmg bump in most precision/condi setups)
For two, it is a 1s bleed so no amount of reachable condition duration in TPvP will ever make it reach 2s. So by default, no matter what condition dmg did, it would still be better for it.

True, but its purpose SEEMS to be to help keep up pressure even when not flanking.

@Manekk, Garethh; sorry, thought it had an ICD for whatever reason. Still only a 7% chance to apply back to back bleeds though so at least I didn’t fudge the math up lol.

Not sure why people seem to think it isn’t a good trait, because if it was anything higher than a 1s bleed, with the shortbows autoattack speed it would actually be pretty OP.

I disagree increasing it to 2 seconds would make it viable not OP, or perhaps 3-5 seconds and give it an internal cooldown wich to me would make the most sense.

Manekk.6981:

Sebrent.3625:

Manekk.6981:

Sharpened edges doesn’t have an internal cooldown I’ve tested it and managed to get several stacks of bleeds with it that wouldn’t be possible if it had an internal cooldown, it’s still kitten and not worth using though regardless of what other stats you have.

Sorry to be off-topic for a second, but could you please send proof of this for use in the other thread, Manekk?

Also, I think 5 bleeds can be quite powerful if you have enough condition damage / condition duration in your build. 5 bleeds at 100 damage per tick (trivial to get) is 500 damage a second. Give that for the default 6 seconds and you have +3,000 damage to your foe.

How can I prove this? take my word for it I guess as it’s easily repeatable by anyone, just remove anything that could apply bleeds and shoot a golem the second you see more than 1 stack of bleed will show it can’t have an internal cooldown or atleast one that is lower than 1s wich would seem kitten it will never reach 5stacks though I think I could get 3stacks with increased condition duration when I did it and they also quicky run off into 0stacks for periods, it’s garbage.

jcbroe.4329:

garethh.3518:

jcbroe.4329:

I mean, I was only commenting on the context of cleansing and DPS, not DoT. It’s the difference between condition burst and pressure.

Let me actually post something that damage is better for; Sharpened Edges

Sharpened edges is terrible for one.
(not as a trait, but as a notable source of dmg, it ends up being like a 5~% dmg bump in most precision/condi setups)
For two, it is a 1s bleed so no amount of reachable condition duration in TPvP will ever make it reach 2s. So by default, no matter what condition dmg did, it would still be better for it.

True, but its purpose SEEMS to be to help keep up pressure even when not flanking.

@Manekk, Garethh; sorry, thought it had an ICD for whatever reason. Still only a 7% chance to apply back to back bleeds though so at least I didn’t fudge the math up lol.

Not sure why people seem to think it isn’t a good trait, because if it was anything higher than a 1s bleed, with the shortbows autoattack speed it would actually be pretty OP.

I disagree increasing it to 2 seconds would make it viable not OP, or perhaps 3-5 seconds and give it an internal cooldown wich to me would make the most sense.

Fair enough, its only my opinion. I agree on the 3-5 with an ICD, I would love to see that.