Guild Wars 2

In testing in the mists, MH Axe + Traps seem pretty strong for condition damage.

What is the communities opinion on the PvE meta? Should Rangers still be running Power Zerk with MH Sword, or go Condi Sinister with MH Axe?

I’ve been running condi for 2+ years. I run a dire setup with only survival skills (gives me a lot of condi cleanse on demand, fury, and low cds) and it’s stronger than ever. I personally think power is viable (haven’t tested it post patch) but condi ranger has always been where the rangers that want to excel go.

The change to traps bothers me. I’ll test them later but I’m unsure if they are even worth the time. Especially now that spike traps has an insane kitten cd.

Indoles.1467:

I’ve been running condi for 2+ years. I run a dire setup with only survival skills (gives me a lot of condi cleanse on demand, fury, and low cds) and it’s stronger than ever. I personally think power is viable (haven’t tested it post patch) but condi ranger has always been where the rangers that want to excel go.

Clearly the thousands of people who played a Ranger over the past 2 years were all wrong, and you’ve got it all figured out.

Bovan.9481:

Clearly the thousands of people who played a Ranger over the past 2 years were all wrong, and you’ve got it all figured out.

Ok A) condition damage was actually quite useful pre patch provided you were the only one doing it. This made a Condi meta impossible.
B) you’re a jerk and just because you lack the ability to think creativity and innovate doesn’t mean you should attack others. Try working on your obvious deficiencies rather than covering them up with baseless sarcasm.

As for the op’s question, my (untested) gut feeling is sinister is good if you’re actually making use of the power. The typical axe/torch is very light on direct damage and gets most of its mileage out of bleed/burn Condi bursts. If youre going with trap utilities, power matters even less AND you’ve got to be really close to do your damage. It’s better, I feel, to go with a rabid or dire set then. Also, Quick Draw is Splitblade/bonfire’s new best friend.

That said, sinister seems to work really well with a high mobility short bow build that survives by keeping some distance and dodging like mad. That’s what I’m running now and it’s doing very well even in high scale fractals.

Valderius Rex.4108:

Bovan.9481:

Clearly the thousands of people who played a Ranger over the past 2 years were all wrong, and you’ve got it all figured out.

Ok A) condition damage was actually quite useful pre patch provided you were the only one doing it. This made a Condi meta impossible.
B) you’re a jerk and just because you lack the ability to think creativity and innovate doesn’t mean you should attack others. Try working on your obvious deficiencies rather than covering them up with baseless sarcasm.

Thank you for that! I see now how my wording may have seemed elitist. What I meant originally was what you said in that if you are the main person applying conditions, it worked quite well and that in sPvP you feared the condition ranger much more than the power ranger back then (power was incredibly weak for at least a year and a half after launch).

Valderius Rex.4108:

Bovan.9481:

Clearly the thousands of people who played a Ranger over the past 2 years were all wrong, and you’ve got it all figured out.

Ok A) condition damage was actually quite useful pre patch provided you were the only one doing it. This made a Condi meta impossible.
B) you’re a jerk and just because you lack the ability to think creativity and innovate doesn’t mean you should attack others. Try working on your obvious deficiencies rather than covering them up with baseless sarcasm.

A); reply;
Not even close. Bosses were able to melt in seconds. Which means tens of thousands of DPS per second per person. Any idea where would you scrap the damage in conditions that have no multiplying boosts?
B); reply;
exaggerating. Ability to think realistically is far superior to think creatively or innovate. He didn’t attack others. He made a sarcastic comment rightfully since the poster is clearly behind in knowledge.
Which leads me to:
The guy might work on his behavior and try to be polite to everyone just because… Well just because you expect it. But by requesting it – you put yourself into a state where the same might be expected from you. Both game-knowledge and behavior (calling people jerks, questioning behavior – that is far worse than a sarcastic comment)

Kain Francois.4328:

In testing in the mists, MH Axe + Traps seem pretty strong for condition damage.

What is the communities opinion on the PvE meta? Should Rangers still be running Power Zerk with MH Sword, or go Condi Sinister with MH Axe?

Sinister was able to outDPS a Zerk even before. The meta is definitely going to turn around this time but it’s still too early for me to say for sure.

The Weapons are most likely Axe+Torch… And Shortbow probably? Not sure about this, yet.

Abilities: Flame Trap, Sun Spirit, Snake Trap.
And you’d want to run Poison Master in traits.

I don’t see how my comment could have been considered an attack. Anyway more to the point, things go down before conditions are able to deal enough damage to surpass a power based build like Tragic Positive already explained.

Now if this was regarding soloing or open world I wouldn’t have said anything. The post annoyed me because the topic creator specifically mentioned a PvE meta which to me is quite clear means dungeons or fractals. If it was for open world, I think the wording could have been different since just about anything works in the open world.

It’s just the last sentence that annoyed me really. It’s more or less implying that whoever isn’t playing the same or same sort of build as the person I responded to is incompetent. I would never claim to be a high end speedrunner or anything of the sorts. But I have the feeling Rangers from the top guilds who are speedrunning and spending hours and hours of perfecting their character and strategies are using a power based build for a good reason.

Carrion armor for World Boss Events then, rather than Soldiers.
Sinister is pretty kitten good, I was theory-crafting with one build earlier that could hit 2400 power and condition damage with no external sources of might (15 stacks). Crazy good.

Once they fix the condi bugs where burning hits for tens of thousands per tick, condis will still be significantly slower than direct damage for dungeons. Things just die too quickly, yes even bosses. With condis you need to apply them and then wait for the tick, but enemies are dead before the tick.

That said, I don’t think you’re going to ruin a dungeon run if you use condis anymore. It may increase the time by 50% or so, but that translate into like 4 minutes.

Burning for 10k is not a bug.
It’s intended. But they said it’s not really enjoyable so they are going to do something about condis. They are aware of the issue.

I know it’s not technically a bug… I’ve seen screenshots of people hitting over 20k per tick with no allies around. It’s definitely not intended.

For a do what you want pick up group, condition damage definitely has the advantage. I’m just sad there’s no Condi damage/precision/healing set I can go for those situations.

In a “speedclear” team, run condi damage and make surviving the boss easier and less punishing.

In a real speedclear team, we’ve just gotten the groundwork that allows condition builds to exist in them. For Rangers at least, condition damage sacrifices the absurd vulnerability application from remorseless (or a huge portion of personal damage), so it’s just not worth it.