Guild Wars 2

I was wondering if the new giver shortbow is worth swapping in over another shortbow and someone suggested considering that condition duration only increases bleed duration if it adds a full second (because bleed stacks only do damage every second, anything less than that doesn’t matter), so I tried to do the maths (I hate maths and there is a good chance I got it wrong) and I think I’ve figured out a simple way to approach it. Please note I am terrible at maths and it’s very likely I’ve messed this up and all my numbers below are garbage and incorrect.

The ranger short bow has three sources of bleed. One is Sharpened Edges which I will ignore because it’s only 1 second and easy to calculate (either 100% increased duration or it doesn’t matter). The other two are Crossfire with a 3 second bleed when flanking, and the Superior Sigil of Earth with a 60% chance to inflict a 5 second bleed on critical hit (with a two second hidden cooldown between activations). These last two bleeds will be what I will focus most of my calculations on. In addition you can use Sharpening Stone (5 bleeds spread across your next 5 attacks, each lasting 6 seconds on a 45 second cooldown – 36 when traited – also from a 10 point Marksmanship trait Keen Edge when health falls below 75% – but it will overwrite your utility Sharpening Stone if it activates while the other is still up and it appears to have approximately a 90 second cooldown – from wiki, not my own testing).

There are simple break points for each source of bleeds. My percentages are rounded up, but I don’t think it matters unless you use intervals of less than 5% (which you won’t do unless using unusual set ups on Nightmare runes, cheaper food or unusual marksmanship attributes). I say bleed duration because you can use either condition duration or bleed duration to boost it. For this purpose I am counting condition duration as bleed duration.

Crossfire break points:

• +1 second of bleeding = +35% bleed duration (actually 34%)
• +2 seconds of bleeding = +70% bleed duration (actually 67%)

Superior Sigil of Earth break points:

• +1 second = +20% bleed duration
• +2 seconds = +40% bleed duration
• +3 seconds = +60% bleed duration
• +4 seconds = +80% bleed duration

Sharpening Stone break points:

• +1 second = +20% bleed duration (actually 17%)
• +2 seconds = +35% bleed duration (actually 34%)
• +3 seconds = +50% bleed duration (actually 50%)
• +4 seconds = +70% bleed duration (actually 67%)
• +5 seconds = +85% bleed duration (actually 84%)

This makes it worth targeting break points that they share in common (if running all three):

• 40% for +1 second on crossfire, +2 seconds on earth sigil and +2 seconds on sharpening stone
• 70% for +2 seconds on crossfire and +3 seconds on earth sigil and +4 seconds on sharpening stone
• 85% for +2 seconds on crossfire and +3 seconds on earth sigil and +5 seconds on sharpening stone

Although you can mix and match based on what gear you want to bring, what attribute spread you want and which sources of bleeds you want to have. This is just a base guide to help figure out if it’s worth bringing along more condition duration.

Sources of increased bleed duration are:

• +10% condition duration from Giver’s weapon (a possible +20% when dual wielding, but that means no shortbow – although I suspect 2 handed weapons are bugged and they should have +20% to account for no off hand – it also appears this weapon is bugged and adds no condition duration currently)
• +1-30% condition duration from Marksmanship traits (each point increases duration of conditions by 1% but because of minor traits it would be foolish to do anything but +5 intervals)
• +15% bleed duration from 2 x Superior Rune of the Krait (as well as +28 condition damage)
• +15% bleed duration from 2 x Superior Rune of the Afflicted (as well as +28 condition damage)
• +15% bleed duration from 2 x Superior Rune of the Centaur (as well as +25 power)
• +15% bleed duration (from 4 runes) and +10% condition duration (from 2 runes) from Superior Rune of the Mad King
• +10% condition duration from 2 x Superior Rune of Lyssa
• +10% bleed duration from Superior Sigil of Agony (but it means sacrificing your Superior Sigil of Earth, one of your sources of bleeds)

I’m not sure how this all comes together, but I believe these are the pieces needed to figure that out.

Oh wow, thanks for the numbers. These are a great resource.

BTW Superior Sigil of Agony also adds 10% to bleed duration.

This is quite interesting. I actually wonder if you can maximize damage through condition duration, rather than condition damage itself. I’ll have to look at the opportunity cost of getting condition duration over condition damage though, and do my own calculations…

Thanks so much for the numbers.

Having, 2 sigils of the same type won’t stack, sigils also have internal cool down of 9 seconds before the next sigil kicks in and only 1 sigil can run at a time.

E.g. Run sigil of earth for 30 seconds it procs at the 25second and you weapon swap at 30seconds there is 9 second internal cool down still running before the next sigil kicks in and if its a weapon swap sigil it won’t proc at all.

I didn’t add the Agony Sigil because I didn’t consider it worth the sacrifice of Earth Sigil (I was going to add it in the end of the list with a note but I forgot because my brain died halfway through calculating this).

As far as running two sigils of the same type goes, it doesn’t matter. The short bow is a two handed weapon, it can’t run more than one sigil. Unless you have two short bows the internal cooldown won’t matter either, unless you swap to access a secondary weapon for whatever reason, these calculations assume you want to maximise short bow bleeds and thus you will primarily stay in short bow, or you can accept any temporary sacrifice you make to swap weapons.