Guild Wars 2

Could someone out there do me a HUGE favor and crunch the numbers to indicate the difference in damage between a FULL condi Ranger vs a FULL power Ranger after the buffs to condition damage?

I would love to know how viable condi builds will be, and what the disparity would be like between the two specs.

Thanks in advance.

Bear with me, incoming theorycrafting. Since you asked for “pure condi builds” I went ahead and crunched numbers for a build using Rabid equipment with nightmare runes, since that is an easy set to calculate for. Sinister will do more damage, but I’ll leave that number crunching to someone else.

ASSUMPTIONS:
25 might
25 vuln
Warrior Strength Banner
Sigils: Malice (10% condi duration) & Bursting (6% condi damage)
Food: Pizza (70 Condi Dmg, 40% duration)
Utility: Toxic Sharpening Stones (100 Condi Damage, 10% Duration)

This gives us the following personal stats:
2463 Condition Damage
+75% Condition Duration

We are missing 30% condi duration from traits after the patch, so it’s worth speccing into that.

I tried starting with some kind of shortbow trapper, like Nike used for some of his sinister ranger solos, but found the following to be quite nice:

The Build

A/T x2
Yes, that’s right, we’re actually using the same weapons for both sets. This is to take advantage of the new Quickdraw trait. A/T produced bigger numbers for a pure condi build compared to Shortbow, if using sinister it’s probably the other way around.
Usage is simple, spam splitblade off cooldown, same for Throw Torch, use Bonfire every 10 seconds after weaponswap.

Important trait choices:
Ambidexterity (over Refined Toxins) seems to net larger numbers
Poison Master (Wohoo we found a use for it!)
Trapper’s Expertise (over Sharpened Edges, maybe sharpened edges procs often enough to warrant taking it over this, but I’m not going to use it for these simple calculations).
Quickdraw
Hidden Barbs over Spotter. But since this is supposed to be a group build, I’ll include the numbers with Spotter intead at the end.
For the last trait line you can basically take whatever you like, probably something that beefs up your pet or marksmanship with remorseless for vuln stacking.

I’m not gonna calculate rotations at the moment, just pure Stacks * Duration / Cooldown for an average number of stacks.

Bleeding

Splitblade: 5 Stacks of Bleeding for 10.5s → 8.75 Stacks
Spike Trap: 6 Stacks for 12.5s → 3.75 Stacks
Entangle: 5 Stacks for 14s → 1.167 Stacks

Total: 13.667
Total DPS at 297/Tick: 4059
Total DPS with Warrior Banner at 315/Tick: 4305

Poison

Viper’s Nest: 3 Stacks for 10s every pulse, 3 pulses → 5.625 Stacks

Total DPS at 240/Tick: 1350
Total DPS with Warrior Banner at 254/Tick: 1429

Burning

Flame Trap: 1 Stack for 5s per pulse, 3 pulses → 1.25 Stacks
Throw Torch: 2 Stacks for 10.5s → 1.75 Stacks
Bonfire (with Quickdraw, to maximise Damage, effective cooldown 10s): 1 Stack for 5.25s per pulse, 9 pulses → 4.725 Stacks

Total: 7.725
Total DPS at 544/Tick: 4202
Total DPS with Warrior Banner at 572/Tick: 4419

TOTAL
Overall Condition DPS: 9611
Overall DPS with Strength Banner: 10153
With 25 Vuln and Banner: 12692
With 25 Vuln, Banner, but Spotter instead of Hidden Barbs: 11346

NOTE: This number does NOT include pet damage or any kind of power based damage. A cat adds at least 1.5k dps to this, putting it at over 14k dps without and just under 13k with spotter. If you want to use Frost spirit, use it instead of Flame Trap, resulting dps is 10.5k alone and around 12k with the pet, ignoring power damage.

I do not have the exact numbers for a power build, but an S/F+LH ele pumps out around 14k dps fully buffed, just for comparison.

So yeah, there it is, have fun. This build is really far from optimal and sinister probably gives better numbers, but I’ll try to do that another day.

Well… For the power build? We have some calcs by Tragic Positive in this thread. But while useful, those calculations only apply when comparing our old physical damage builds to our new physical damage builds.

Comparing condition builds to power builds? While attribute bonuses have been boosted by ~30% supposedly, there’s some stuff below I’ll be using I’d like to test the mechanics on come June 23rd and the condi build is likely to gain an overall damage boost from Giver’s weapons. I’ll give it a go anyway, I’m making some guesses of builds though.

Relevant spreadsheet

Assumptions:
Crit% = 100%, both builds should obtain the same precision anyway.
Vulnerability application is noted, but its effects ignored.
Someone better informed than me can consider consumable items.
25 might, especially relevant for the condi build.
Pet dps is not calculated, though condi has a minor advantage in expertise training
Gear gives ascended stats +30%

To begin, the power build. Assuming Tragic Positive is correct, the simple rotation for a power ranger is to open with barrage and rapid fire, swap into a double path of scars and slash kick pounce ’til you can swap back to longbow for another double rapid fire.
Assumed traits
Based on the damage output over 18s worth of attacks against a 2000 armour target, it comes to a total DPS of:
9728 DPS for Power builds
475 in condition damage
9253 in physical damage
This build additionally applies decades of cripple and 20 vulnerability with quick draw rapid shot.

For condition damage, things are a bit harder, but the trap buff looks delicious and depending on how scaling works, spirits could be nuts. Water spirit scales off of the healing power of you or your supported ally, whoever’s is higher, if Sun spirit scales like that… Well… You can see it in my calculation spreadsheet. A decent DPS rotation would be double splitblade, torch stuff, switch to shortbow,
Assumed traits
This comes to a total DPS of, under the same conditions:
10154 DPS for condition builds
8721 of which is condis (only boostable by quickness on shortbow)
1432 of which is physical
Provides a blind that sacs sunny I guess? And a fire field power can provide out of combat.

With Sigil of the Wild and Quickening Zephyr, I wager the physical build could keep up, but kitten . That’s with Sinister gear and still a massive portion of the damage is just through conditions alone. Neither build is in no way fully refined either, so… Yeah, condis are looking like they could be in a pretty good spot. Oh and if you don’t need spotter? Look at that delicious +33% bleed damage trait I didn’t calc about at all.

im very excited to run a condi ranger in pve. we can go 0/6/0/6/6 and have our pets do beastly damage.

You don’t need to do the math in one type of situation. In core-game dungeon groups of 5, condis will never come anywhere close to the power of berserker. No where close. The enemy will be dead before you can get the condis on it.

lol what? maybe some trash, but rest is fair game. pretty sure we’ll need to go beyond zerker in HoT, youre basically talking out your kitten .

mistsim.2748:

lol what? maybe some trash, but rest is fair game. pretty sure we’ll need to go beyond zerker in HoT, youre basically talking out your kitten .

There are no dungeons in HoT. Like I said “in core-game dungeon groups” condis will never be able to compete.

Also you’re talking out of your kitten if you think berserker won’t be meta in HoT, because Anet hasn’t talked about it at all.

Actually condis will outperform in boss fight but get put to shame vs trash mob. The ramp up is what make it bad. But with quick draw and the major condi buff we will get, boss has to be ready to get killed by our dot.

Klonko.8341:

Actually condis will outperform in boss fight but get put to shame vs trash mob. The ramp up is what make it bad. But with quick draw and the major condi buff we will get, boss has to be ready to get killed by our dot.

There is definitely a PUG consideration. Like if you take 4 minutes to kill the boss at the end of CoF, where an organized group kills it in 10 seconds. I’m not joking about the 4 minutes timer, I’ve seen worse even.

CoF is not a real boss fight. I talking about the boss Fractal.

Klonko.8341:

CoF is not a real boss fight. I talking about the boss Fractal.

And yet PUGs can make CoF a real boss fight.

I remember a couple years ago I was in a group where CoF P1 boss was OUTHEALING OUR DAMAGE. I almost ate a fork in rage.

So the consensus is that there is a huge possibility that condi Ranger will do better in boss fights but Power will do better on trash mobs?

Condi could finally be viable?

My pants are getting tighter!

Jasher.6580:

So the consensus is that there is a huge possibility that condi Ranger will do better in boss fights but Power will do better on trash mobs?

Condi could finally be viable?

My pants are getting tighter!

To be fair condis have always done better in the long term under certain conditions. What you need are 1) a lot of time so the enemy doesn’t just die to power and 2) enough room for condis to shine.

For example berserker mesmers have always had ridiculous condi damage if you let them stack it up over time, it’s just that never really had a chance to show up.

We still need to see what sort of “challenging content” anet is providing in HoT. If it’s anything like the content of the core game, condis are 100% useless. I have a bad feeling their “challenging content” is just an excuse to stack a bunch of condis and wait for the boss to die though.

Fluffball.8307:

If it’s anything like the content of the core game, condis are 100% useless.

That’s not the impression I’m getting from some of the posters. If that is the case though, I’m pretty kittened off.

Jasher.6580:

That’s not the impression I’m getting from some of the posters. If that is the case though, I’m pretty kittened off.

Posters?

Fluffball.8307:

Jasher.6580:

That’s not the impression I’m getting from some of the posters. If that is the case though, I’m pretty kittened off.

Posters?

People posting on the thread.

Jasher.6580:

So the consensus is that there is a huge possibility that condi Ranger will do better in boss fights but Power will do better on trash mobs?

Condi could finally be viable?

My pants are getting tighter!

It’s not that condi will be viable, but that I welcome our new hybrid overlords.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Jasher.6580:

So the consensus is that there is a huge possibility that condi Ranger will do better in boss fights but Power will do better on trash mobs?

Condi could finally be viable?

My pants are getting tighter!

It’s not that condi will be viable, but that I welcome our new hybrid overlords.

Well according to the math so far, Sinister may be optimal but Condi will still be viable, it looks really close to Power.

I was just talking to Nike from DnT. I asked him to check out this thread. He said the problem he has with the build is that it doesn’t have Frost Spirit or Spotter so he said the personal DPS might be good but that wont matter in the grand scheme of things.

He also said the power build used for comparison doesn’t use the best rotation possible and probably wont even be the one used after the patch.

He said it may be a good idea for boss solos but he is unconvinced that it will be good in a group setting.

Thoughts?

Jasher.6580:

I was just talking to Nike from DnT. I asked him to check out this thread. He said the problem he has with the build is that it doesn’t have Frost Spirit or Spotter so he said the personal DPS might be good but that wont matter in the grand scheme of things.

He also said the power build used for comparison doesn’t use the best rotation possible and probably wont even be the one used after the patch.

He said it may be a good idea for boss solos but he is unconvinced that it will be good in a group setting.

Thoughts?

Is that not you simply misquoting him? For both of our calculations in this thread, we’ve included the relevant numbers for taking both spotter and frost spirit. Did he not mean that condi builds, especially when they have numbers like in my calculations, do not benefit much from frost spirit and spotter?

He may have just ignored our calcs entirely and been basing his assumptions off of calculations made by other people. DnT supposedly has someone who just does tonnes of DPS calcs on their own forum and even I’d be trusting what they’ve calced over myself.

i don’t see how crap like spotter and frost spirit matters when our bleeds will be doing +33% damage and there wont be a condi stack cap. we should be able to maintain a ton of bleeds, poison and burns permanently, in addition to our pets hitting much harder. 0/6/0/6/6 with Quickdraw, 3 traps, and full rabid or something. that’s what i’ll be running anyways.

I think what he means is that the loss of utility may amount to overall loss of DPS for the group when attempting to put together a relevant speed clear comp.

Personal DPS is useless in the greater scheme of things.

Well that is my interpretation of what he is saying. The tool below is really good at figuring out optimal comps.

http://gw2dps.david-reess.de/

Thoughts?

mistsim.2748:

i don’t see how crap like spotter and frost spirit matters when our bleeds will be doing +33% damage and there wont be a condi stack cap. we should be able to maintain a ton of bleeds, poison and burns permanently, in addition to our pets hitting much harder. 0/6/0/6/6 with Quickdraw, 3 traps, and full rabid or something. that’s what i’ll be running anyways.

Spotter and Frost Spirit boost the party’s power dps and are pretty much the only reason at the moment a ranger has at least a bit of a place in PvE groups.

Also Spotter is in the same trait slot as Hidden Barbs, so if you want Spotter you lose out on the +33% bleed damage.

where any calculations done on the comparison between rampagers and sinister using a hybrid weapon like SB or A/x? I know i’m curious as to which one will have the better dps and then compare that to zerk.

edit: whether using rampagers, sinister or zerk gear should we be using zerk trinkets to pump up the crit dmg somewhat?

If you want to compare condition damage to power damage, you want to look at:

• Damage per cast
• Duration of fight

The duration of the fight will dictate which conditions will get their full durations and which will be “clipped short”.

Damage per cast matters because if you can do 2,000 damage from a 0.5s cast or 1,000 damage with that same cast time, you’ll do more overall damage with the 2,000.

If the meta actually moves to conditions, I can see spotter not being as mandatory. Otherwise, that extra precision for the entire party caters well to the zerk meta.

Has anyone done any calculations since the patch?