Guild Wars 2

Well guys, I decided to re-roll some characters and settle for some PVE toons, my favorites as of now being Guardian and Ranger.

I’m hearing rumors about Axe/Torch ranger being as effective, if not more, than Zerker on terms of DPS.

Since I plan on doing High Level PVE content with either character, I was considering starting to save stuff to craft gear for Ranger; however I’ve got to decide if keeping the old reliable Longbow build (which is kinda boring) or trying the new Axe/Torch one, which so far has worked like a charm when I’m surrounded by enemies.

Any ideas?

They’re both good and viable with their own set of advantages and disadvantages

eg. Zerker – better burst, survivability, ranged damage. Better on bosses that take increased damage like the Dredge Fractal final boss since they haven’t fixed it to work with conditions yet lol.

The condi one is a bit more situational, but when the situation is perfect it outshines zerker builds in long fights. It’s a bit reliant on stationary targets. The build is also awful at break bars.

Sinister A/T has way better aoe damage than zerker.

I’d argue that it is much better in HoT content.

if you are going to use A/T ect on a condi set , use a Daze (pink MoA) or Wolf for fear and slot one Muddy terrain then watch the break bars melt , the Pink moa also lets you time a attack from melee or range to trigger Ancient seeds.

(not sure if Ancient seeds its still bugged, thats only spike trap right?)

against stationary targets a/t vipers is better than zerker but it’s also dependent on food for condition duration.

zerker is better against moving targets or in content where you need to move around more, still deals good damage at range and isn’t as dependent on food.

Based on your comments, I’d guess that Zerker stillmoutshines Condi for most of content, it seems. Raid wise, it actually sounds like Zerker is still the Meta on this class.

if you’re going in as dps then yes zerk would be meta, you might want to consider slotting in some vit gear though since there is a lot of aoe damage in raids.

if you’re planning on healing as druid i’d go cleric and add in as much zerk or zealot($$) as you feel comfortable with.

Long Story Short:

Raids – that’s up to you. Both are viable
HoT content > Straight Condi (or hybrids)
Fractals 50+ > Straight Condi
Fractals 10-30 > straight Berserker
Original content > straight berserker

That’s the efficiency scrambled in a second or two. HoT is the only real content where high toughness is held (if I haven’t overslept any changes). If the toughness is Low (like in Raids) then Zerker is better.

Tragic Positive.9356:

HoT content > Straight Condi (or hybrids)

I don’t agree with that. HoT open world encourages you to use both melee and ranged, and condi doesn’t really have a ranged option (SB, meh, bleeds). Also many of the enemies are extremely mobile and torch/traps are a lot less effective in that case.

Fluffball.8307:

Tragic Positive.9356:

HoT content > Straight Condi (or hybrids)

I don’t agree with that. HoT open world encourages you to use both melee and ranged, and condi doesn’t really have a ranged option (SB, meh, bleeds). Also many of the enemies are extremely mobile and torch/traps are a lot less effective in that case.

Point taken.
I had a blast with my Sinister engie and felt a real difference prior to Berserker Ranger. NPCs have lots of toughness but for casual roaming I guess Berserker might just do the job. I mean, if we think about Condi Ranger having few ranged Condi bombing options and plenty of DPS glued to Traps and Sun Spirit.

Sounds interesting. Reason why I’m also trying Condi Ranger is because I got pretty bored of the Longbow Spotter Meta and I wanted to use something new. I’m still gonna hold on to whatever works better for high-end PVE content, since I’m barely lvl 21 but my gear is pushed towards condition damage.

I prefer direct damage for versatility purposes (I like skirmishing with Sword/WH and being able to swap to Longbow for ranged damage), but Berzerker damage over time is lower than Sinister/Viper on stationary targets. For moving targets, you are unlikely to see any difference.

Fractal toughness scaling is going to change in December to be more accommodating for Berzerker builds, so I wouldn’t use high-level Fractals to decide your build either way right now.

Scrimshaw, even though you are right, Raids have completely different Toughness values.
I was doing 3 times the damage of my normal everyday Maguuma numbers.
Scaling like a tiger with buffs further. Conditions just dropped miles behind, even more so because of mobile encounter.

I haven’t seen much of them but Raids basically work on berserker stat again. Conditions are needed because of the split phase (where red guardian is vulnerable to condis only), not because of DPS or efficiency.
Well, if there’s anyone who got further, he might share the knowledge.

I see DnT’s Rager Condi Build is based arround axe, but how effective is it?

Aldath.1275:

I see DnT’s Rager Condi Build is based arround axe, but how effective is it?

It’s not, it’s based around torch. You use torch on quickdraw, just swapping to it on both weapon sets.

Tragic is right though, Brazil was hitting the vale guardian for 11k autoattacks (!!!) on his glass revenant when I watched him kill it. Power seems insane.

Fluffball.8307:

Aldath.1275:

I see DnT’s Rager Condi Build is based arround axe, but how effective is it?

It’s not, it’s based around torch. You use torch on quickdraw, just swapping to it on both weapon sets.

Tragic is right though, Brazil was hitting the vale guardian for 11k autoattacks (!!!) on his glass revenant when I watched him kill it. Power seems insane.

So, in the end, you’d still recomend me going S/A LB Spotter with Zerker gear?
From what I’ve learnt today, it seems Condi is still sub-par compared to Zerker for PVE content, and I guess I could use a Condition Reaper in case I want condis.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Scrimshaw, even though you are right, Raids have completely different Toughness values.
I was doing 3 times the damage of my normal everyday Maguuma numbers.
Scaling like a tiger with buffs further. Conditions just dropped miles behind, even more so because of mobile encounter.

I haven’t seen much of them but Raids basically work on berserker stat again. Conditions are needed because of the split phase (where red guardian is vulnerable to condis only), not because of DPS or efficiency.
Well, if there’s anyone who got further, he might share the knowledge.

Ah, well, I was hoping that they would be comparable, but I also don’t want a Viper meta being created by scaling toughness too high like they did with Fractals. I used Zealot’s stats for my raid attempts in beta (PUG group, we wiped on the last ~25%), and that worked pretty well, but I never tried conditions for comparison since the Guardian moves so much (well, if your tank is leading him correctly). Looks like the successful groups only required maybe 2 glass condi builds total, so…seems like our first raid wing is still best served by Berzerker stats, but that’s still miles ahead of a pure-condi DPS meta for class/build variety purposes at least.

Truth be told, I find raids amazing when it comes to roles.

You need that 1 toughness guy (Knight PS warrior? Nomad guardian? Both work)
You need at least 1 dedicated healer (Druid? A Herald? Even though for slightly different purposes, both work. Moving the Tablet to Green Lightnings is a thing)
You need at least 2 condition dedicated people (Ranger? Necro? Engie? All work)
And that leaves space up to 4-5 Berserker people out of 10.

I mean… that’s not half bad. Whichever way you look at it – I love their design. They made sure that every single role in the world is wanted, while Berserkers haven’t died out by doing so.
Don’t look at me like that. I find the design brilliant.

Whichever role you choose – you have a place. Come on! Am I the only one who is going to praise them for this?