Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

I’ve mostly settled on a highly defensive PD/DD condition build (0/0/30/20/20) that I plan to use for WvW, with some PvE and a variant for sPvP. I’ll be using either dire or carrion gear (actually have both right now as I try to figure out which I prefer). But I can’t seem to decide on runes and sigils.

I was using runes of the centaur to save a utility slot but frankly I find it a nuisance and the rune boosts aren’t that useful. I was looking at maybe scavenging or perplexity.. though the latter are pricey and I’m not sure how well they synergize with this build.

For sigils, this build has low crit so I’ve been looking at swap runes like doom, battle, energy, geomancy, etc. But it’s hard to tell how much impact each has, at least in the case of the ones that apply conditions. I also like the sigil of leeching in the limited PvP testing I’ve done so far, and it fits with my defensive/“tanky” theme.

Thanks for your thoughts!

ETA: Was also looking at runes of bursting, either superior ($$$) or major.

undead
afflicted
krait
rata sum
nightmare
scavenging
mad king
etc

agony
venom
malice
bursting
debility
peril

really any rune/sigil that has +condition damage/duration will benefit you. i guess its just up to you to find what sort of style you’d like to play. 5 in deadly arts for the poison on steal is a nice cover condition and I’d be hard pressed to play without it now.

You can not go wrong with scavenging. They are UBER cheap and as you get used to your thief you can consider changing to ones with lower overall condition damage at a latter time.

Other very good ones are tormenting. perplexity or Anti_toxin.

Undead are ok but you will get more a bonus from scavenging to condition damage when you consider your build. 7 percent of vitality will be more then 5 percent of toughness.

Sigils you should have a corruption one on one weapon set for the stacks then can swap from this. Bursting is a considerable boost and almost a must have on at least one weapon on each hand.

Once corruption stacked , I tend to like battle and energy on each off hand weapon. Any that add duration or even bleeds or poison on swap are also useful.

What I like on Battle is the 20 seconds of might which is in essence 105 more condition damage along with 105 more to power which helps on your direct damage a tad. I just find that more useful then 10 percent more duration on a bleed. With your boon duration another 20 percent you will have 24 seconds of might on weapon swap. You can swap every 10 seconds so you can build up some nice might.

The key is you want to get as many types of conditions on as possible so as to act as cover for the conditions that do the main damage which is generally bleed.

Hey thanks for the replies! I actually have some scavenger runes and I’ll give them a try. Wish there was a way to try perplexity runes without the high cost. Maybe someday.

This will mostly be for PvP/WvW and I doubt I’ll stay up long enough for corruption to be worthwhile. But I’ll look at battle sigils.

Question.. if I’m running PD+DD, can I equip a single dagger offhand, and have the sigil activate when I swap the mainhand weapon? That would save me an inventory slot.

Sigils of Fire or Torment. Low crit chance doesn’t matter in a p/d d/d condi build since the rate at which you attack is high. Each little hit on your sneak attack or death blossom counts as a hit.

Also if you’re like me, you run the ascended Vit/Tough/Condi/Precision accessories which should boost your crit chance to ~15%

You can use sigil of torment on both carrion/dire sets, but only run sigil of torment on dire, since your power low.

@doomdesire

pls explain why sigil of tormenting is good on dire with 8-15% crit chance? it has 3% to procs (30%*10%)

@Qaelyn
if you wanna be pioneer as me go runes of balthazar – it will give you aoe burning dmg which will be cover so 4k dmg in 5 seconds

I run:

Sigil of Doom – on demand poison every 10 seconds.
Sigil of Bursting – +6% condition damage.

Currently running Runes of the Traveler. An extra utility slot is nice. You could go with Runes of Speed if money is an issue. Scavenger and Perplexity are great options.

Runes of Grenth are surprisingly decent, coupled with a Sigil of Hydromancy, although kind of a niche build.

Edit: I’d prefer a sigil of earth over torment. 2 second CD and a 60% on crit, compared to 30% for torment.

I tried Grenth and would consider going back to them if that chill happened BEFORE the roll on withdraw. That actually added more direct damage then a sigil of fire going off as I recall and with it also slowing opponents and increasing skill cooldown rates by 66 percent who would not consider it? They are another of those runes that I feel has more bang for the buck then many of the others that cost more.

I played with Grenth briefly in PvP and found it always proced when I wasn’t near anyone. That might be me using them incorrectly, but to be frank, I have enough to coordinate without worrying about that.

Messiah, I looked at Balthazar, but they’re power runes and I’m not sure they really synergize that well with the build. Unless that burn is a lot better than it looks on paper. And again, I’m going to have the issue that I generally try to stay out of melee.

The thing I’m not sure about with the sigil of earth is that since I’m always applying bleed and my opponent presumably always clearing it, it seems that its extra bleed would get lost in the shuffle.

Bursting seems like a no-brainer but they’re quite expensive.

Qaelyn.7612:

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Messiah, I looked at Balthazar, but they’re power runes and I’m not sure they really synergize that well with the build. Unless that burn is a lot better than it looks on paper. And again, I’m going to have the issue that I generally try to stay out of melee.

if you playing p/d you need cnd thus melee combat
i thought the same of you about rune of balthazar. but after doing small calculation they are better in some cases than condition runes
condition runes give 165 more dmg which give your conditions the following: bleed more 8 ticking per second, torment more 6-12 per second, poison plus 16 per second

so overall more dmg is 30 per seconds. assuming 10 seconds and 5 stacks so more 860 -1160 dmg done
while burning will do 3k-4k dmg in 4 seconds and adds up more condition to clean every 15 seconds (i use withdraw) and also gibe bit more power to your attacks.

i dont use it always just as opening strike with withdraw forward and cnd and sneak attack and middle of the fight also so if i manage to do 2 time burning its always 8k dmg = OMG !

i am always try to think out of the box and getting nice results
check my vid of my panicond build testing balthazar rune
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKvjbPTO8kc

now you see

i still dont understand why ppl use crit sigil when the crit chance is low

Hey messiah,

I tried them a bit in sPVP yesterday.. largely because most of the other options mentioned here (scavenger, traveler’s, perplexity etc) are not available. The jury’s still out for me at least.

Part of the difference between us is that our builds are both condition-based but are different. I’m running a defensive 0/0/30/20/20 build and I do most of my damage from a distance, avoiding melee most of the time. I use my initiative largely for PD #3, DB and HS.

I don’t CnD all that much because I’m not very good at landing it, and my BS damage isn’t all that hot regardless. I don’t think I have the experience/skill necessary to run your panicond build.

I use stealth-on-steal most of the time and combine that with utilities for stealthing.

messiah.1908:

i still dont understand why ppl use crit sigil when the crit chance is low

I think the theory is that in this build you are just spamming so many hits that it doesn’t matter. I’m not really sure how the math works out though.