Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”
What do you think of this build?
I’m not huge into PvE, but I’m skeptical of the condition damage as well. I can see how it would be useful with the traps and the torch for clearing groups, but is that such a large part of PvE?
On a different note, I run a build with similar traits to this in WvW and find that celestial armor and trickets work better. You’ll have about the same amount of stats on the skills you’re trying to max, but more of everything else, and another 20% crit damage to boot.
From the looks of it you’re going for a primarily condi damage build, just keep in mind that condi damage is generally seen as “inferior” in PvE because PvE is too easy so everyone can sit there and faceroll with zerker.
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
Considering you’re using condition damage and critical damage so much, you may want to swap out the longbow for the shortbow (more conditions and as far as I remember, hits faster so it’ll crit more)
As for your traits, I’d swap 5 from skirmish to wilderness survival, for a 10% damage bonus when flanking you’re missing out on empathic bond or bark skin (both are great for survivability)
Also, I’d swap the masters bond training for speed training and change your moa for another cat to make good use of your crits (speed training will allow the cats to use their range of attacks more)
Otherwise, it looks good for PvE, not sure how well it would do in WvW or PvP (bunkers usually fare better) but it looks good.
Brotherhood of Blub [blub]
Wrong weapon sets or wrong gear stats. If using condis you must use the shortbow and the axe, offhand is up to you but preferably either the torch or dagger. If you’re not going full condi don’t touch condi at all. Conditions have a stack limit – if someone has even 1 more condition damage than you on Burning or Poison, your condition damage is ZEROED. It’s one of those things about the game that I don’t like… an innate nerf to condi builds in general.
As a ballpark figure, you should be around 1500 condition damage, preferably higher, when you’re using a condi build.
If keeping the weapons, stack power instead of precision/condi. Critbleed trait is still useful, add on Spotter to it for party buff.
As it is your direct damage is poor (critdmg and crit isn’t enough – some targets are uncrittable, and a high power low crit always outdamages a low power high crit because a minor gear stat generally gives double the amount of damage% in power (9.16 power = 1% damage) than it gives in +%crit) and your condition damage will very likely be overwritten by another user’s for not being high enough. In solo you’d kill a bit slower, but it’s probably going to last you long enough to complete most champs and whatnot, though you have insufficient damage and will thus fail to kill all world bosses solo before their timer ticks down. In groups you’d be a liability as you don’t have the healing or tanking abilities of support rangers, your conditions will be overwritten by full condition necros and rangers, and your direct damage will be lower than even the Guardian tank’s.
MIKAZUKI - [Aura, MES, WvW CapCOM] [Ishigaki, GUA, WvW DefCOM] [Yumiya, RAN, WvW Sieger]
[Shinigami, NEC, WvW Condinuke] [Rekka, ELE, Fracs] [Tora, PS WAR] [Kageoni, THI] [Hayako, ENG]
[Shinigami, NEC, WvW Condinuke] [Rekka, ELE, Fracs] [Tora, PS WAR] [Kageoni, THI] [Hayako, ENG]
(edited by Hayashi.3416)
There’s nothing wrong with splitting your condi and direct damage so long as your group is designed for it (let’s face it no one uses condis in PvE because they’re “bad”) or it’s in PvP…
Granted if you are going for top damage possible you gotta min max, or if you’ve got an actual condi user in your group you better be stacking bleeds/torment/confusion or just swap builds….
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
. My aim is to have a mix of direct damage, critical hits and condition damage coming from both me and my pets. With some toughness thrown in for defence (and Signet of Renewal for condition removal).[…] I mainly do *PvE *…
Incompatible.
First of all, PvE and PvP are two completely different beasts entirely. With very few exceptions trying to use a PvE setup for PvP or vice versa just results in one of them, or both, sucking.
For PvE you want neither condition damage or toughness. PvP is an entirely different beast.
Lastly, and again, with very few (even less than before) exceptions hybrids just do both things poorly. Stick to conditions or white damage.
Since you said you were mostly PvE we’ll go with that. Gear is berserker. Completely. Regardless of other issues. Build depends. If you want something that also uses traps I’d suggest longbow and sword/warhorn (greatsword if, like me, the Sword’s mainhand animation becomes unbearable to you). At least 30 points in Skirmishing to get the juicy precision and critical damage. Also get Trapper’s Expertise and Quick Draw OR (if you find that you don’t use longbow skills all that much and mostly rely on the auto-attack) Trap Potency. As the adept trait try Companion’s Might. Put 30 more points in Marksmanship, simply because everything else kinda sucks more for PvE. Grab Piercing Arrows and either Spotter (probably better for PvE) or Eagle Eye (1500 range isn’t all that in PvE, but it’s funny and you get some damage for free) and Steady Focus.
Your last 10 points go to either Beastmastery with Master’s Bond or Wilderness Survival.
As far as skills go Healing Spring is all the condi removal you need for PvE for the most part. You can ditch it for Signet of the Hunt for MS bonus (surprisingly useful) or Lightning Reflexes.
As for traps, the most important is Fire Trap. Ditch the generally underwhelming Viper’s Nest. Flame trap is the best trap for people with low condition damage. First, Burning is the highest base damage condition in the game (iirc?). Second, it’s on a minimal 15 second cooldown, so you can spam it. Third, it gives you the best combo field in PvE: Fire! Fire field + Blast Finisher (warhorn #5, or someone else in your party) = Might stacking! You can keep Spike Trap for additional tagging in big events and some CC while you’re on your own (bosses and champions aren’t immune to immobilizes or cripples).
End result is something like this
That’s pretty much the best PvE build you can get in the “trapper” line you were talking about.