Guild Wars 2

Goals for condition damage/duration? I seem to remember (returning player, got to about 35 on an engineer around launch time) from warriors that bleed wants lots of duration to get the counter higher, but condition damage doesn’t hurt right? What about Poison? Which helps poison more?

Will the +X% pistol damage trait help my bleed damage?
What about +X% damage ‘if Y condition is met’ traits?
Bleed/Poison damage too, or just the basic attack damage number?

I like the sound of a lot of the spammy little heals. Signet of Malice, Assassin’s Reward, and Leeching Venoms. Do these give decent HP returns and/or Scale well with the healing power stat?

I’m looking at this on the character builder (read: NOOB THEORYCRAFT ALERT) and I’m not sure where to go. Basic idea being an evasive / leaching duelist with the highly synergized spider venom trump card for a burst of damage when I need it.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VeR3R3BBZw-d0;0VOVd08EFP;1N5JP;4J-JJ-34;248-19;287H1XZF1dZm9fRk0;0FL

A few tips for the aspiring P/D thief:

Condition Build: 20/0/30/20/0
Physical Build: 10/30/0/10/20 (last 30 are up to you really, I like to go steal heavy, lots of Fury, lots of might on dodge, then either quickness build, or signet build— both of which are in crit strikes tree)

I’ll concentrate on Con build, since its the easiest to get in to and very powerful:

Tip 1: If you are short on cash, buy 79 exotic Duelist Carrion set. The stats are like 1 point less than 80 exotic, and you can pick these up for 70s-1.5g each.

Tip 2: Bleed duration

Runes— take your pick, cheapest are Centaur/Krait. Mix and match

Superior Rune of the Afflicted (rank 2 – increases duration 5/10/15%)
Superior Rune of the Centaur (rank 2 – increases duration)
Superior Rune of the Krait (rank 2 – increases duration)
Superior Rune of the Mad King (rank 4 – increases duration)

Sigils—

Sigil of Superior Agony (increases duration)

Food—

Rare Veggie Pizza

Tip 3: Unload

Take Hide In Shadows over Signet of Malice. You want to duck in to stealth often to get bleeds from unload

Tip 4: Cloak and Dagger + Steal

Start your cloak and dagger, before the animation finishes, use steal. You will teleport to them and cnd.

Tip 5: Survival

Take the heal on venom skill from Shadow Arts
Also take the Blind on stealth skill from SA, OR, put 15 points into acrobatics for more dodges. You will spend a lot of time going back in to range to do your Cloak and Dagger, you need them to miss their swing at you, do this with the blind or the dodge.

Final pro tip: If you have the skill slots for it, think about using Infiltrators Signet for another “cheap” steal which you can combo with CnD.

Woaden.9425:

Tip 2: Bleed duration

Runes— take your pick, cheapest are Centaur/Krait. Mix and match

Superior Rune of the Afflicted (rank 2 – increases duration 5/10/15%)
Superior Rune of the Centaur (rank 2 – increases duration)
Superior Rune of the Krait (rank 2 – increases duration)
Superior Rune of the Mad King (rank 4 – increases duration)

That’s a very easy way to waste a lot of money. Bleeds only tick on even seconds, so unless the durations give out an additional second of damage, you’ve just wasted the spots.

Also, since we’re talking increased duration, you need to compare it to the alternative, which is increasing your condition damage rather than duration.

Sigils—

Sigil of Superior Agony (increases duration)

Superior Earth where?

2 Centaur Runes and 2 Krait runes are super cheap. That paired with Rare Veggie Pizza is a enough bleed duration to matter (and helps with getting 25 stacks of bleed without caltrops)

Agreed that it needs to be compared to higher condi damage. It’s a good tip for the OP to try out both options (I was just addressing their bleed duration Q)

Personally, I compared the two. As have you (I assume). You like one I like the other.

With full carrion gear, plus might on dodge, plus might from venoms, you have plenty of condi damage.

When comparing stacking still more condi damage vs throwing bleed duration, i felt bleed duration helped me more at that point. To each their own.

You just have to break down the numbers on what is better the argument over which is better damage or duration is all in this thread.

here you go

Taken from this thread: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/72711-khalifs-bleed-build/

The formula to calculate the dmg done by bleed ticks, at level 80, is this -> 42.5+(0.05*condition dmg); lets use 43 instead of 42.5

For this,ill assume full condition equipment, lets use carrion set with the above runes, to total 1434 condtion dmg:
43+(0.05*1434) <=> 114.7,lets round up to 115 dmg bleeds, this in 10 secs will do 1150 dmg, with 15% more duration (wich will add only 1 second), ull have a total of 1265 dmg;

With MY proposal, ill switch the 5 afflicted + 1 other condiotn rune with 2/2/2 (krait+afflicted+lyssa) and sigil of agony, for a grand total of:
43+(0.05*1279) <=> 107 dmg bleeds, 107*15=1605 dmg total, 1605-1265=340, wich means i do 26.88% MORE dmg…
Now lets see the P/D weapon set:
Above build from OP: 115*4 (no extra ticks, you need 25% extended duration for another second) -> 460 dmg;
MY build -> 107*6 (50% extended grants you 2 more secs of bleed) --—-> 642 dmg; 642-460=182, wich is 39.57% MORE dmg…

Also why would you go superior sigil of earth if you really have no crit chance? You are better of with superior sigil of geomancy 3 stacks of bleeds on weapon swap base duration is 7 seconds. I have 75% duration so my geomancy is 3 stacks of bleeds for 12 seconds on weapon swap.

To simplify you want to go for durations in 25% increments. 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% durations are all extra ticks on your bleeds from pistol. So just shoot for those with your runes and if you run food factor that in.

Example I have 2x Krait 2x Afflicted and 2x Mad King atm moment. That 40% duration on its own just from runes. I use the veggie pizza for +40% condition duration which brings me to +80% bleed duration. I get benefit from 75% of that bleed duration. To get more benefit from bleed duration I have to go up to 100% anything else is wasted.

So from there you can start to see where you should spend to get more out of your bleeds. I run sigil of corruption atm but I am going to drop it soon because I have access to might pretty easily which is +35 condition damage per stack. So by dropping the corruption sigil and replacing it with agony That will allow me to go 3x krait and 3x afflicted for an additional 110 condition damage at the beginning of a fight

I get my 75% duration from 3*Krait and 3*Afflicted (Having 3 of each gives a great increase on condition damageof +110 that you don’t get with 3 pairs instead of 2 trios), 25 DA points and 2 sigils of agony.

When I use foods I go for Fire Flank Steak as it’s super easy to farm (1 Ghost Pepper and 1 Red Meat, that’s all you need) and gives you power and condition damage to go with your Carrion equipment bonuses and Deadly Arts and Trickery points.

Best advice I can give you is to watch videos, see what P/D thief styles you like best and start out by copying what they are doing and how they are playing. After you get it down, then start experimenting with your own touches to the build and style. Most thief vids show you what gear/traits they are using.

I run with a 20/0/30/20/0 build currently. It includes venoms and has great survivability.

Lokheit.7943:

I get my 75% duration from 3*Krait and 3*Afflicted (Having 3 of each gives a great increase on condition damageof +110 that you don’t get with 3 pairs instead of 2 trios), 25 DA points and 2 sigils of agony.

When I use foods I go for Fire Flank Steak as it’s super easy to farm (1 Ghost Pepper and 1 Red Meat, that’s all you need) and gives you power and condition damage to go with your Carrion equipment bonuses and Deadly Arts and Trickery points.

Hmm interesting 25 in da I havent tried that yet. Whats your condi damage?

My guess is your 25/0/30/0/15 right?

thats what makes me like p/d so much is that you can really get weird with your traits and points alot of flexibility to mess and tinker.

I mostly run 0/0/30/20/20 sometimes ill run the venom build as I like spider venom alot.

You know what else is good put hyromancy sigil on one of your weaponsets and pump up condition duration a 5 sec chill on weapon swap is really good for a thief and you can proc ice drake venom with the weapon swap and about 20 points in da with food your looking at about 8 secs of chill.

P/D <3

30 in Shadow Arts… the rest kind of up to you. I run this -

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VeV-R3;0RwkZ0N5FOFd0;9;4E9T9-2;05;037A1W (copy/paste)

as it provides a little more upfront damage from the short bow (my primary wv3 weapon).

It’s not as tanky as some of the other builds, but it can put some hurt on.

oZii.2864:

Hmm interesting 25 in da I havent tried that yet. Whats your condi damage?

My guess is your 25/0/30/0/15 right?

You guessed right

I get very high Cond. Damage with the full Carrion 150 from Trickery, plus 2*3runes doesn’t hurt the cond. damage as much as 3*2runes (that set up sacrifices 110 condition damage).

I’m a Venom Sharer so it’s natural for me to go DA too for the traits, and that 5 extra for 25 DA is great to get an extra bleeding tick, plus 10% direct damage (and Carrion gives you decent direct damage too).