Guild Wars 2

Currently using D/D with Sigils of Corruption and Agony.

When I reach 25 stacks, would it be better to switch out the Corruption dagger to another Agony dagger for increased bleed duration, or to Air or Fire for straight damage (crit chance is currently 22%)

At 25 Corruption stacks it’d be best to swap it out for:

Agony (10% Bleed duration)
Earth (60% chance on crit to Bleed for 5 seconds)
Strength (30% chance on crit to gain Might for 10 seconds)

With your crit chance I’d say Agony would be the most beneficial.

Air/Fire could work, but the damage they deal is based off power rather than condition damage.

It depends if that extra 10% agony would bump you to 25%/50%/75% duration etc.

If you only have a total of 10% condition duration, another 10% won’t make much, if any difference. You need to hit the 25/50/75/100% increments to see any benefit.

If that +10% won’t get you to that next threshold, then you have two choices, get more duration in addition to hit it, or use something else. If you’re primarily a condition build, don’t bother with an air or fire sigil. You’ll see damage of around 500-700 or so at most.

If you can’t get more duration, try a Chrysocola Orb (these can be placed on weapons – 20 condition damage. 14 power, 14 vitality)

Fade.7658:

It depends if that extra 10% agony would bump you to 25%/50%/75% duration etc.

If you only have a total of 10% condition duration, another 10% won’t make much, if any difference. You need to hit the 25/50/75/100% increments to see any benefit.

If that +10% won’t get you to that next threshold, then you have two choices, get more duration in addition to hit it, or use something else. If you’re primarily a condition build, don’t bother with an air or fire sigil. You’ll see damage of around 500-700 or so at most.

If you can’t get more duration, try a Chrysocola Orb (these can be placed on weapons – 20 condition damage. 14 power, 14 vitality)

Incorrect, 10% can have an effect depending on the base duration of the bleeds, as they are using dagger/dagger condition build their bleed base duration is 10 seconds meaning 10% is a 1 second gain to their bleed durations

Dasorine.1964:

Fade.7658:

It depends if that extra 10% agony would bump you to 25%/50%/75% duration etc.

If you only have a total of 10% condition duration, another 10% won’t make much, if any difference. You need to hit the 25/50/75/100% increments to see any benefit.

If that +10% won’t get you to that next threshold, then you have two choices, get more duration in addition to hit it, or use something else. If you’re primarily a condition build, don’t bother with an air or fire sigil. You’ll see damage of around 500-700 or so at most.

If you can’t get more duration, try a Chrysocola Orb (these can be placed on weapons – 20 condition damage. 14 power, 14 vitality)

Incorrect, 10% can have an effect depending on the base duration of the bleeds, as they are using dagger/dagger condition build their bleed base duration is 10 seconds meaning 10% is a 1 second gain to their bleed durations

I run P/D, so I tend to think in terms of Vital Shot. Sorry, bad habit.

Fade.7658:

It depends if that extra 10% agony would bump you to 25%/50%/75% duration etc.

If you only have a total of 10% condition duration, another 10% won’t make much, if any difference. You need to hit the 25/50/75/100% increments to see any benefit.

The 25/50/75/100% Plateau’s are for 4 second duration conditions (Such as those from P/D condition builds)

For D/D the Bleeds from Death Blossom are 10 seconds long so have 10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90/100% Plateau’s for additional seconds.

For Caltrops the bleeds are 3 seconds so has 33/66/100% Plateau’s for additional seconds.

This means that for a D/D Condition Thief the only time a 10% increase will do little to nothing is when already at 100% duration, where it will do nothing.

Not heard that it caps at 100% before (though I tend towards not bothering with duration that much) you sure about that?

Dasorine.1964:

Not heard that it caps at 100% before (though I tend towards not bothering with duration that much) you sure about that?

Yeah.

Condition and Boon durations can get to a maximum of 100% bonus (Double the length of base) any points above this are not used.

The only case in which something can achieve higher than that is Necromancers with their Grandmaster trait that increases the duration of conditions from their Sceptre by 33% which for some unknown reason allows them to go up to 133% condition duration with their Sceptre skills.

Brullyra.1592:

Currently using D/D with Sigils of Corruption and Agony.

When I reach 25 stacks, would it be better to switch out the Corruption dagger to another Agony dagger for increased bleed duration, or to Air or Fire for straight damage (crit chance is currently 22%)

just go with another 10% bleed OR get one that refils stamina or hydromancy. imo you shouldnt run crit items/gear with a bleed build. they dont mix well. hope this helped. if u need questions ask me ingame ive 12k+ kills on thief and one of the better duelests.

actually crit mixes quite well with bleed builds, not only do crits mean your attacks applying bleeds hit for at least 50% more damage it also allows you to maximize on crit procs such as on crit extra conditions or on crit heals etc etc.

Travlane.5948:

imo you shouldnt run crit items/gear with a bleed build. they dont mix well.

When it comes to Bleed builds you have 2 main options for gear:

Carrion – Condition Damage, Power + Vitality.
Rabid – Condition Damage, Precision + Toughness.

Now, the Vitality and Toughness both work as a defensive stat (How well they work can be saved for a different discussion) leaving the additional stats to compare being Power and Precision.

Power – Increases the damage of attacks that apply the Bleeds (Sneak Attack, Vital Shot, Death Blossom)

Precision – Increases chance to do additional damage on attacks that apply Bleeds (A pseudo damage increase) in a way that also bypasses Weakness and also allows “On crit” procs to occur such as Sigils of Earth (Extra Bleeds), Strength (Might = 35 Power and Condition Damage per stack), Generosity (Condition Transfer) and if traited for it Opportunist (Chance for extra initiative, which is highly valuable for Death Blossom spam)

Meaning that Crit Bleed builds actually have more synergy than the Power Bleed builds do.

Thanks for the answers, giving me some to think about.

I’m now level 50 (added a screenshot to show stats) and am wondering how much benefit the Corruption sigil is providing.

I’m wondering if I already have enough condition damage, and would maybe be better using another sigil such as Venom or Restoration, maybe even Bloodlust to up power?

Due to the way that Conditions work, each point of Condition Damage will give the same increase in damage no matter what level you are or how much condition damage you have.

For Bleeds the formula is:

0.5 * Level + 2.5 + (0.05 * Condition Damage)
For damage per tick

Meaning that each point of Condition Damage will add 0.05 damage per tick (For a 10 second Bleed that’d average out at 0.5 damage per Bleed for a single point of condition damage)

This means that for condition builds (Especially ones like D/D that can stack up multiple bleeds (25 Bleeds = 1.25 damage per tick per point of Condition Damage)) there is no “Cap” on Condition Damage where it becomes less effective, each additional point has the same effectiveness increase as all the previous ones (A linear scaling)

The only other way to increase Condition Damage output would be to get Condition Duration which will increase the damage each application does (As long as you hit a plateau)

For example:

Bleed for 10 damage per tick over 10 seconds = 100 damage total
Bleed for 10 damage per tick over 15 seconds = 150 damage total

This is made even more effective by additional Condition Damage (It’s rather easy to get 100% duration in PvE/WvW without having to give up much Condition Damage to get it) as the stronger the tick, the better the damage gains are from additional ones.