Guild Wars 2

Need some help with conditions setup. Firstly I’m curious if adding condition damage and doing major bleeds and poisons in PvE would be worth what I’d sacrifice from damage and crit. I like it so far, but am not heavily invested.

Currently I’m running D/D and P/P, mostly utilizing Death Blossom, dagger 1, and caltrops for damage, as well as pistol, both standard and with stealth 1 skill to stack more bleeds.

For utility, I’ve got the 25% speed boost signet, Caltrops, and Blinding Powder.

Current setup is 10 in trickery and 10 in Critical strikes, with my trait picks being 5% bonus damage to pistol and caltrops on dodge. I’m currently level 30.

Is condition damage like this viable in PvE? I’m noticing with Deathblossom spam, I’m having a much easier time rounding up enemies for aoe kills, and with pistol 5 and 1, blinds have been particularly useful against vets and even champs. How much should I be investing in condition damage vs. other stats? Any thoughts on this?

I personally don’t recommend you using condition damage for PvE, but that’s my personal opinion.

Kurow.6973:

I personally don’t recommend you using condition damage for PvE, but that’s my personal opinion.

Well, any reason why? And in that case, any good specs specifically for a Deathblossom and pistols build?

I’m just going to point out some things:
- P/D is better for condition builds and stacking bleeds than P/P.
- I personally think Signet of Shadows is a worthless utility slot
- Blinding Powder is ok, but I personally don’t think it’s worthwhile in a condition build
- Short Bow is great for condition builds with a poison field and spammable AoE bleed ability
– Deadly Arts increases Power and Condition Duration, specializing in Venoms in particular.
– Trickery increases Condition Damage and can reduce cooldown on Caltrops by 20% among other things.
– D/D is better at AoE bleed but has a tendency to put the user at risk of strong melee enemies. P/D is better at single target bleeds and damage and doesn’t put you at risk as much.

There are a lot of things you can do, don’t just take my word on it though. I definitely think condition builds are good in PvE from personal usage.

If you care to know I could post my build.

Vile.5678:

- Deadly Arts increases Power and Condition Duration, specializing in Venoms in particular.

I actually prefer Acrobatics over Deadly Arts for a lot of situations. Acrobatics lends itself to Might stacking, which can be a potent way to boost your conditons and, IMO, has better traits as well. You’ll miss out on the awesomeness that is Trickery’s Utility Steal + Deadly Art’s Damage Steal.

Tulisin.6945:

Vile.5678:

- Deadly Arts increases Power and Condition Duration, specializing in Venoms in particular.

I actually prefer Acrobatics over Deadly Arts for a lot of situations. Acrobatics lends itself to Might stacking, which can be a potent way to boost your conditons and, IMO, has better traits as well. You’ll miss out on the awesomeness that is Trickery’s Utility Steal + Deadly Art’s Damage Steal.

Indeed. While I think it’s important to have a well synergized solid build, having a build you can enjoy is more important. I prefer my control build because I like the uniqueness, and the pride of making in a time of only heartseeker and backstab about 2.5 months ago. I greatly enjoy the playstyle as well. That’s why I said to not take only my word on it as there are many viable builds out there.

I read about a might stacking build a week or so ago which I commended for it’s synergistic elements. I have no doubts that might stacking is a great path to go.

Also I use my Mug + Steal + Basilisk Venom as protection against any burst class. I’d be afraid to give it up!

Tomkatt.1684:

Kurow.6973:

I personally don’t recommend you using condition damage for PvE, but that’s my personal opinion.

Well, any reason why? And in that case, any good specs specifically for a Deathblossom and pistols build?

Because there is a cap of 25 stacks for any condition(it counts conditions from all ,not just yours),and with the bosses and events(where you will often be with many others) you will find yourself fighting “immune” mobs all the time.

ZLE.8293:

Tomkatt.1684:

Kurow.6973:

I personally don’t recommend you using condition damage for PvE, but that’s my personal opinion.

Well, any reason why? And in that case, any good specs specifically for a Deathblossom and pistols build?

Because there is a cap of 25 stacks for any condition(it counts conditions from all ,not just yours),and with the bosses and events(where you will often be with many others) you will find yourself fighting “immune” mobs all the time.

Only really an issue with big bosses. I run a Deathblossom D/D & P/P build. I don’t go all in on +Condition Damage, the build also has a 35% base crit chance and a decent amount of power. If a boss is maxed on bleeds, there are still plenty of high damage skills to use, D/D auto attack spam with a solid crit rating is nothing to sneeze at. With a smaller group vs. a tough vet or champ, P/P blind spam can often make the difference between success and failure. Since most DB builds look to maximize Initiative renewal, blinds can be spammed almost indefinitely.

I’ll check my build and post it when I can. For 6-10 I use Signet of Malice, Roll for Initiative, Shadow Refuge, Signet of Shadows and Dagger Storm. Prior to getting Dagger Storm, Thief’s Guild was a great situation elite, but the synergy between SoM and DS, along with the fairly low recharge time, makes the combo a no brainer.

Tulisin.6945:

Vile.5678:

- Deadly Arts increases Power and Condition Duration, specializing in Venoms in particular.

I actually prefer Acrobatics over Deadly Arts for a lot of situations. Acrobatics lends itself to Might stacking, which can be a potent way to boost your conditons and, IMO, has better traits as well. You’ll miss out on the awesomeness that is Trickery’s Utility Steal + Deadly Art’s Damage Steal.

Hmm, doesn’t might give +power which is useless for condition? Only condition damage boosts your damage? Or am I wrong?

edamber.1549:

Tulisin.6945:

Vile.5678:

- Deadly Arts increases Power and Condition Duration, specializing in Venoms in particular.

I actually prefer Acrobatics over Deadly Arts for a lot of situations. Acrobatics lends itself to Might stacking, which can be a potent way to boost your conditons and, IMO, has better traits as well. You’ll miss out on the awesomeness that is Trickery’s Utility Steal + Deadly Art’s Damage Steal.

Hmm, doesn’t might give +power which is useless for condition? Only condition damage boosts your damage? Or am I wrong?

might gives power and condition damage

Tomkatt.1684:

Need some help with conditions setup. Firstly I’m curious if adding condition damage and doing major bleeds and poisons in PvE would be worth what I’d sacrifice from damage and crit. I like it so far, but am not heavily invested.

Currently I’m running D/D and P/P, mostly utilizing Death Blossom, dagger 1, and caltrops for damage, as well as pistol, both standard and with stealth 1 skill to stack more bleeds.

For utility, I’ve got the 25% speed boost signet, Caltrops, and Blinding Powder.

Current setup is 10 in trickery and 10 in Critical strikes, with my trait picks being 5% bonus damage to pistol and caltrops on dodge. I’m currently level 30.

Is condition damage like this viable in PvE? I’m noticing with Deathblossom spam, I’m having a much easier time rounding up enemies for aoe kills, and with pistol 5 and 1, blinds have been particularly useful against vets and even champs. How much should I be investing in condition damage vs. other stats? Any thoughts on this?

I am just a few levels above you and having great luck with a Condition Damage D/D build. Caltrops+Death Blossom is amazing! Doing AC Story the other day we had a bad pull in the first room and ended up with 5 mobs at once. We had a Guardian and a Warrior to hold them and I just went to town with AoE bleed damage. I was able to maintain 20-25 stacks of bleeding on all of them for quite a while and the damage was astounding!

For your normal PvE questing its pretty easy to gather up the mobs and DB them down quickly. 6-12 stacks of bleed damage seems to be all I can get on most mobs before they die.

Conditions are my first pick for PvE personally. Reasons being you don’t need Power, Precision and Crit% to do full damage, its all about Condition Damage and Duration which leaves room for Vitality on gear. Secondly, you can lay down a bunch of Deathblossoms then run away and kite your targets till they’re dead if need be. This means that you don’t have to be in melee with your target the whole time. The only thing you have to watch out for is maxing bleed stacks if you run with other bleeders and having your bleeds removed but this doesn’t happen much in PvE.

At 80 I run 0/0/20/20/30 and can maintain 12-15 stacks of bleed which is 24K to 30K rolling damage if my tooltips are right.

Super Veggie Pizza is cheap and good for kicking up your condition duration for lots of damage.

Shadow Refuge is invaluable in so many situations. I use it all the time to pull people off the floor, stealth field over your buddy and pull him up with much less risk. Other than that I will run Hide in Shadows, Blinding Powder, Signet of Shadows/Roll for Initiative/Shadowstep/other and Thieves guild.

@Kindread, I’m not sure how you are able to maintain 20-25 stacks of bleed. I can ‘burst’ 24 stacks with a 0/20/0/20/30 build at 80 and maintain 15-18 stacks. How can you maintain 20 at lower levels? Did you have another bleeder in the group or is there something I’m missing? I will agree however that the damage is impressive.

Blood~

Yes I should not have said “Maintain” … I can burst 20-25 stacks while Caltrops is active. I also use the trait Uncatchable to add a few more bleed effects, but it has half the radious that Caltrops has. I do have a bit of Condition Duration on my gear, but not enough to write home about, I dont think it is necessary though.

I would say on average I can put up 12-14 stacks on a mob that has the health to withstand that much. As I said in my post most mobs die before I can get it to 10.

I am addicted to the damage numbers that flow out of a mob that has that many stacks of bleeding though … it actually looks like they are BLEEDING numbers all over the place lol!