Guild Wars 2

Hi folks,
finally taking the plunge and decided to level a warrior. Really a fan of the 1h sword; however, it seems to be primarily focused on bleeds/snares.

Can a power build be effective with a 1h sword build, or do you pretty much need to build with condition damage? Thanks!

Its always been more of a power weapon,

I’m using Sword/Shield with a power build (knights armor + berserker trinkets) and doing just fine. Final Thrust crits for up to 6k damage in WvW against non-upscaled players. Sword 1 crits for 1.4k average but hits really fast.

You can do whatever you want, try it if you want, sword its more of a condition weapon, but it depends, it will not be maybe your main source of damage, the thing that excels in sword its “savage leap” many just run a sword for that, pair it with another weapon that have real punch like a hammer, axe or gs and maybe it will work, but its more like you need to try it out and find out whakittens more your playstyle.

Power, the bleeding is just a extra damage..

If you spec for conditions your bleeding will do more damage but your normal auto-attack sucks, also final thrust aint critting that high (a 2-3k crit issnt a burst on a almost 1sec cast time.. thats 2 auto-attacks from sword on power build)

Power, your auto-attack will hit much harder.
Still nice bleeding (yeah les damage but still nice)
5-7k crits from final thrust. (depending ofc)

F1 from sword sucks on both condition or power build.. just apply it for the immobilize.. (i use it also to get fury from: Opportunist.. second weapon is a longbow so thats also + fury from pin down/Opportunist)

I’ve been using a sword/shield, bow war since beta, and I still haven’t decided which way to go (mostly can’t decide between sigil of bloodlust or corruption, and how to finalize my trinkets).

I normally run pretty a high crit, tanky build (0/30/30/0/10, in knights gear), using both weapons bursts to help stack conditions. My auto attack hits for garbage though, at ~440 or so. But without any condition dam trinkets my bleeds hit for ~100/sec (with FGJ and SoR) and it’s not to hard to keep them in the 18-22 range. I think my final thrust hits for ~4-5k crit.

I did some retraiting for the crown pavilion with some new zerker gear (with no runes) (30/10/0/0/30) and my auto attacks went up to ~1.2k on a crit, don’t remember anything about the bleeds or final thrust though.

My suggestion comes down to two things.

1) What is your other weapon going to be? If it’s a power weapon then it may be best to just use the sword bleeds as an extra bit of damage and not worry about buffing them. If you want to use another condition weapon, go with that. The LB burn is pretty good for either damage, might stacking, or area control, plus the extra bleeds are nice. [to a less extent what kind of build do you want to play, what traits you want to grab can help determine what kind of sword focus is better for it]

2) Are you going to be going solo or in a group? If one of your friends will also be stacking bleeds then you really start to cut each others potential damage down. (Not that you won’t be if he’s heavy condi and you’re just using a sword, but at least then you’re less likely to be using the sword burst or be traited to have longer bleeds)

1h sword is more a power weapon than condition:

sword 1: direct damage; additional bleed damage for 2 of 3 hits
sword 2: direct damage
sword 3: direct damage

As you can see only 2/3 of the anytime chain benefits from condition damage, the rest is all power.

Depends on the off-hand weapon.
If Sword, then condition.
If anything else, then power.

I disagree i have a condition build ( more of a hybrid) i use in pvp and my bleeds do alot more damage then a power build i was running. And because i still have some power sword# 3 hits between 3-5k damage. Sword auto attack #3 (traited immobolize targets enabling me to stack bleeds easyr.

Before every one discounts bleed damage on sword try making a hybrid build with higher condition damage as it is right now my war bleeds are alot stronger then my necro.

I believe in a 50-50 approach. Get the zerk to do damage with each attack, but have some condipow to get that second layer of damage thru conditions ( that works while you’re not hitting a guy too )

One setup which worked out great for me in the past is rabid armor with zerky acessories. Right now i’m evaluating base celestial armor for hybrid builds and it’s looking very good.

alamore.1974:

I disagree i have a condition build ( more of a hybrid) i use in pvp and my bleeds do alot more damage then a power build i was running. And because i still have some power sword# 3 hits between 3-5k damage. Sword auto attack #3 (traited immobolize targets enabling me to stack bleeds easyr.

Before every one discounts bleed damage on sword try making a hybrid build with higher condition damage as it is right now my war bleeds are alot stronger then my necro.

ranged bleed stacking > melee bleed stacking you also probably have burn on crit and enough cover conditions. Every class can stack bleeds pretty much if they want to necro’s condi damage is strong because you have cover conditions not because you have to try to hit the bleed cap at 25 and a warrior doesn’t. My thief has condi gear and more condi damage than my necro does but it won’t kill stuff with condis faster than my necro it even has the runes of perplexity on him so he can get confusion and it still won’t kill faster than my necro.

I think 1h sword in hybrid build can be good but I would personally run it in power because at most you would get bleed, poison if you put sigil of doom on it and if you have a off hand sword torment. Pretty much every class has 1 skill on their bar that can wipe 3 condis though the torment is really nice on offhand sword because it can’t truly be cleansed.

My vote goes to Power or Hybrid I am not a fan of a full condition warrior unless your just doing it as a change of pace cause your bored of power.

I recommend conditions if you run with a longbow. Off-hand sword is a must-have. Yeah, direct attacks and final thrust hits softly but that’s not what it’s about. Full condition warrior WILL wreck people if you play it right. But try both and see what suits you best. Good luck.

Maelwro.7562:

Hi folks,
finally taking the plunge and decided to level a warrior. Really a fan of the 1h sword; however, it seems to be primarily focused on bleeds/snares.

Can a power build be effective with a 1h sword build, or do you pretty much need to build with condition damage? Thanks!

You can go either way with swords.

skill #1 for conditions. (Dual swords or sword/warhorn)
skill #3 for zerk builds. (Sword/Shield)

Thanks for the replies folks! I already have a condi engi, so if at all possible I would prefer to go the power route on this character. I’m also a fan of the hammer, and would likely pair the hammer with the sword + x. Appreciate everyone’s input!

Power is nice, but don’t underestimate the power of those bleeds. You can stack bleeds pretty quickly and they do a ton of damage. And after they’ve blown all their cleanses you can stack em on again relatively easily and watch them bleed out. I’ve become somewhat sadistic and don’t even bother spiking people anymore, just laugh and watch them bleed numbers, struggling to rally. Try both and see what you like. you probably have a ton of badges anyway, if you don’t care about looks just buy gear with both stats for badges and test it out.

teg.1340:

1h sword is more a power weapon than condition:

sword 1: direct damage; additional bleed damage for 2 of 3 hits
sword 2: direct damage
sword 3: direct damage

As you can see only 2/3 of the anytime chain benefits from condition damage, the rest is all power.

How is that logical?

The Auto-chain scales poorly compared to Axe, Greatsword or Hammer. Your second ability is a utility skill (cripple/leap)! If you use savage leap for direct damage you are doing something wrong! And Final Thrust, the latest joke makes 1 of our precious weapon abilities for any builds different from Berserker uselesss, and even so it is only “usefull” 50% of the time sinds you won’t use it on a target unless it has bellow 50% health!

But no! Because people run power builds with sword and can deal damage it is officialy declared a power weapon while you can dish out way more DPS with Condition or Rampager builds. When a weapon does pale direct damage compared to the vast selection the Warrior has to offer, when its traits are in the precision and condition traitline and around procing bleeds with crits, i’m sorry to inform you, but I don’t call it a power weapon anymore (hybrid is one of the choices, I let you gues the other one)!

But you know what, lets just continue to say it is just fine like a power weapon, one day i’m sure A-net will remove the bleeds completely from it and replace it with something else. And you know what will happen?!? For the first time in history we will be the first profession in the entire game with no condition weapons at all. Because realy, when you look at the bow, it is mostly a hybrid weapon and it couldn’t apply anything else beside burning before the pin down upgrade.

And I realy hope, one day, A-net team charged at balancing skills and professions will wise up and learn about their freaking game for once, starting to read every profession forum would be a good start, and fix and comprehend every issues related to every one of those and balance those ideas around fonctional aspect and not some random gimick coming from outerspace!

Yup, the answer is a ‘balance’ of both.

Not sure what’s up with people’s obsession with being one-trick ponies when it’s likely good to do multiple things well rather than just one thing great. Just look at the advantages obtainable with Sword:
- Nice condition damage through bleed.
- Movement and leap finisher.
- Choice of off-hand for offense, defense, mix or support.
- Good potential for some burst direct damage.
- Traits for crit chance.

With fury and a couple of traits, you can push around 40-45% crit chance with traits. That means you’ve got room to play with stat distribution. Pushing crit chance to over 75% might be really nice, but having bleeds that do 85-100/tick can be way nicer. You could push for might stacking which will boost both direct and condition damage or aim for a defensive edge with some toughness/vit.

I’d suggest playing with a build and weapons you like. I personally aimed for a condition oriented build, using runes for extra condition damage and duration with a blend of power, toughness, condition damage, precision and crit damage with the rest of the gear. Basically Berserker, Rabid and Carrion.

I have a sword/sword build that’s mainly power where auto attack is 1.3k crits and 6-8k final thrusts while bleeds still tick for mid-high 80’s and torment for 60’s using knight’s armor zerker back piece and earrings and condition rings and Ammy with runes of the undead

Once you include the “+50% bleed duration” trait, the value of each bleed goes way up, from 340 base to 570 base (before considering any other source of condition damage). At that point the base damage of the sword chain is about 200 per hit, and the bleeds are worth 570 per hit – zerker can catch up with that, but when you actually start adding condition damage gear, conditions pull well ahead because their base is 2.5 times zerker.

At this point with no runes, sigils, utilities, only 10 trait points spent, the first two hits of the auto chain deal a total of around 1.4k if the bleeds play out fully. If they crit, they have a further 14.3% chance to cause another 4 bleed ticks, or roughly an extra 400 damage from bleeding, plus the extra 100 direct damage from critting.

Let’s take it further with a closer to full build. At this point each hit applies a 16 second bleed which totals 2k damage, plus 224 direct damage. On crit (60% chance to crit) there’s a 60% chance to bleed the opponent for 10 seconds (roughly 1250 damage) and a 33% chance to bleed the opponent for 6 seconds (750 damage). The damage goes up another 12% or so with Sigil of Corruption maxed out, and up to a total roughly 25% higher with 10 might stacks (for example, FGJ, SoR, maybe a blast finisher inside Longbow’s fire field). At this point a full chain of the autoattack deals roughly 6k damage (for 2 seconds’ worth of attacks) before taking crits into consideration. The full damage is just delayed 16 seconds, but it’s there.

Let’s take it to the logical conclusion.

This build has little difficulty in maintaining the following: 25 bleed stacks; Burning; Poison (7.5 seconds added on weapon swap every 9 seconds, plus 22.5 seconds per minute provided by radiation field to cover the rest of the uptime); 5 torment stacks; 8 might stacks with a spike to 13 from Signet. It has 2546 condition damage with that, and 170 more while the banner is active for 2716. This is entirely self-provided at this point.

With 2716 condition damage:
Bleeds deal 179 damage per tick (x25 = 4475)
Torment deals 134 damage per tick (x5 = 670, or x10 = 1340)
Burning deals 1014 damage per tick
Poison deals 358 damage per tick

For a sum damage from conditions alone of 7187 per second on a moving target; direct damage adds in around another 400 per second. Subtract 670 if the target isn’t moving. This doesn’t take into account might from other players or additional direct damage added by vulnerability, so it can go higher.

The warrior condition build is one of the strongest condition builds out there for PvE. I certainly don’t see a direct damage sword build hitting around the 7k damage per second mark. Condition damage also fares much better when downscaled, as the crit damage stat is heavily reduced when downscaled (other stats are reduced so the damage multiplier from them is roughly the same; crit damage already is a multiplier, but is downscaled anyways, so it has a reduced effect in comparison – flip side, it’s also upscaled for low-level characters in living world content)

Then some necromancer comes along and halves the warrior’s effective DPS by applying their own bleeds and poisons, because of the condition cap; and/or the mob dies before the warrior maxes out all his conditions. Or maybe the warrior’s attacking an object and is only dealing 300 damage per hit. Conditions still have issues.

But warrior’s one of the best professions for them.

Dingle.2743:

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For a sum damage from conditions alone of 7187 per second on a moving target; direct damage adds in around another 400 per second. Subtract 670 if the target isn’t moving. This doesn’t take into account might from other players or additional direct damage added by vulnerability, so it can go higher.

Umm….I think you need to look at the math again. You are not doing > 7k damage PER SECOND. Based on your numbers above, you’re doing 1685 damage per second max from conditions. Still a very good number, and it is amazing how fast it drops people (I run a S/S LB condi warrior), but 7k p/sec would be a bit OP.

And to the OP, yeah, it depends on your play style and other weapon. I run S/S LB so I’m full condi, but it’s laughable how long it takes to destroy things like siege (rams, etc) that aren’t affected by condis. My direct damage is like being hit by a 4 week old kitten. Paint will dry before I will kill a trebuchet. Sad. But against players, 1600+ DPS just from condis is nothing to sneeze at, and the condis are so easy to apply it doesn’t matter if they cleanse round 1, because round 2 is coming at ’em.

Thanks for the input folks!

Sword = condition.

Raw damage of sword is the lesser of all classes, sword don’t have sustain, and only final trust ins’t enough.
Raw damage with f1 is poor, and #4 and #5 are condition based.

Do not run power, and use something to grants some sustain like sheld or warhorn.

Go power, sword shield / hammer.

Sword not for damage its for movility, your main source of damage its hammer.

Thorson.9218:

Dingle.2743:

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For a sum damage from conditions alone of 7187 per second on a moving target; direct damage adds in around another 400 per second. Subtract 670 if the target isn’t moving. This doesn’t take into account might from other players or additional direct damage added by vulnerability, so it can go higher.

Umm….I think you need to look at the math again. You are not doing > 7k damage PER SECOND. Based on your numbers above, you’re doing 1685 damage per second max from conditions. Still a very good number, and it is amazing how fast it drops people (I run a S/S LB condi warrior), but 7k p/sec would be a bit OP.

And to the OP, yeah, it depends on your play style and other weapon. I run S/S LB so I’m full condi, but it’s laughable how long it takes to destroy things like siege (rams, etc) that aren’t affected by condis. My direct damage is like being hit by a 4 week old kitten. Paint will dry before I will kill a trebuchet. Sad. But against players, 1600+ DPS just from condis is nothing to sneeze at, and the condis are so easy to apply it doesn’t matter if they cleanse round 1, because round 2 is coming at ’em.

Took me a few seconds to figure out how you came up with the 1685 number.No condition spec not even warrior will ever just have 1 bleed on a target.While i really dont think many people will ever come close to the 7k from the post you quoted they will certainly be higher than 1.6k

I run condition, and take 150 – 170 per second with a single bleed.

sword = condition

Try the sword-shield / hammer berzerker, its very fun, you dont feel grounded for having the hammer because the sword movility and earth shaker, also you can do very good combos with that set.

Fenrir.5493:

Try the sword-shield / hammer berzerker, its very fun, you dont feel grounded for having the hammer because the sword movility and earth shaker, also you can do very good combos with that set.

That’s exactly what I run. 0/10/30/0/30

hammer.9721:

Thorson.9218:

Dingle.2743:

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For a sum damage from conditions alone of 7187 per second on a moving target; direct damage adds in around another 400 per second. Subtract 670 if the target isn’t moving. This doesn’t take into account might from other players or additional direct damage added by vulnerability, so it can go higher.

Umm….I think you need to look at the math again. You are not doing > 7k damage PER SECOND. Based on your numbers above, you’re doing 1685 damage per second max from conditions. Still a very good number, and it is amazing how fast it drops people (I run a S/S LB condi warrior), but 7k p/sec would be a bit OP.

And to the OP, yeah, it depends on your play style and other weapon. I run S/S LB so I’m full condi, but it’s laughable how long it takes to destroy things like siege (rams, etc) that aren’t affected by condis. My direct damage is like being hit by a 4 week old kitten. Paint will dry before I will kill a trebuchet. Sad. But against players, 1600+ DPS just from condis is nothing to sneeze at, and the condis are so easy to apply it doesn’t matter if they cleanse round 1, because round 2 is coming at ’em.

Took me a few seconds to figure out how you came up with the 1685 number.No condition spec not even warrior will ever just have 1 bleed on a target.While i really dont think many people will ever come close to the 7k from the post you quoted they will certainly be higher than 1.6k

Ah, you’re right. I was looking at his numbers and didn’t register the x25 as 25 stacks, which I think is what you’re talking about. So yep, I was wrong, and the real number will be somewhere between the min I posted and the max Dingle posted. Thx for catching that.

Sagramor.7395:

Fenrir.5493:

Try the sword-shield / hammer berzerker, its very fun, you dont feel grounded for having the hammer because the sword movility and earth shaker, also you can do very good combos with that set.

That’s exactly what I run. 0/10/30/0/30

I dont go that deep in the discipline line with this build i like the 10 points in streght so my heals removes another 4 conditions + 3 of mending 7 conditions on healing, a lot of help on this condi meta.

For the first time in history we will be the first profession in the entire game with no condition weapons at all.

Guardian beat you to it.

Never build Condi on the Warrior.

Also, never use Flurry, cancel it immediately to get the Immob and move along.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

For the first time in history we will be the first profession in the entire game with no condition weapons at all.

Guardian beat you to it.

Oh yeah, completely forgot about you!

WELL, we will be second!!! :P

YuiRS.8129:

Never build Condi on the Warrior.

Also, never use Flurry, cancel it immediately to get the Immob and move along.

Well it depends how you play, my previous Marauder build with 100% bleeding duration was puting between 16-19 (4sec) bleeds with a single Flurry dealing around 105dmg with no might buff, and no corruption stacks. Thats around 10K dmg with a single flurry if you take both direct and condition damage into consideration, and this every 8sec. So there is nothing wrong with using Flurry on hybrid or condition builds. Even if you they get cleansed, you’ll just reaply them as fast as they went away, making it futile for your foe.

Ambrecombe.4398:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

For the first time in history we will be the first profession in the entire game with no condition weapons at all.

Guardian beat you to it.

Oh yeah, completely forgot about you!

WELL, we will be second!!! :P

Probably, and it would suck. Guardians only condition is burning, and they only have that because of how the trait system works. Guardians had to get a condition damage line, and a condition duration line. They had no conditions though, so burning was added as a way to cut down on the anger. It sucks, and yeah no condi weapons at all.

Back to the OP I’ve made some conditions work on warrior in pvp with a shamans amulet sw/sw lb. I don’t feel as comfortable with it as I do with say a necro though. It all relies on two conditions, that are generally easily cleansed. It’s strong, I won’t deny that. With the above I rely on heavy regen with pressure. Outlasting most things isn’t too hard as long as I move. It does require mobility against mesmers and stuff though.

I wish Anet would get their heads out of their butts and just decide about weapons. Either a weapon is a condi weapon, or a power weapon. I get why they do it, so that even if you are condi you can still do some damage. Then even if you are against a heavy armored target you can still do some damage with condis.

edit
I am not trying to kitten anyone off, but I don’t think some people understand how dps relative to condis works.
Bleeding with 1000 condi power deals exactly 92.5 damage per second at level 80. Say you have a bleed then that lasts 10 seconds. With 1000 condi power that will deal 92.5*10 =925 damage over the duration. Here is the problem. Most of you are calculating this not over time. Say you get a trait that increases bleed duration by 50% so your bleed goes to 15 seconds. That would put your new damage at 92.5*15=1387.5. Which looks like a big number, but it’s still only 92.5 damage per second. Now if you managed to get a full 25 stacks of bleeds, at 1000 condition damage, you would deal 2312.5 damage per second from bleeding damage.

The formula for bleed damage
(0.05 * Condition Damage) + (0.5 * Level) + 2.5 per stack per second
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding

Also if my math is correct, and it may not be, you will need 2730 condition damage in order for bleeds to reach the 179 mark. That’s quite a bit of condition damage.

More edits:

The reason condi damage isn’t so great for the sword is that your major condi is bleeding. Bleeding only has a .05 ratio. So at 1000 condi damage you will end up doing 50 extra damage. It’s an incredibly low ratio. It is in fact the second lowest ratio next to torment when a target is not moving, the other condi provided by sword. When a target is moving torment has a better ratio than bleeding, but not by an incredible amount. While Fear/Burning have the highest ratio, and Fear has the highest if it’s traited in the necro line.

Now this isn’t to say that condi warriors suck or anything, all I’m doing is provided information so that people can make an informed decision.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

edit
I am not trying to kitten anyone off, but I don’t think some people understand how dps relative to condis works.
Bleeding with 1000 condi power deals exactly 92.5 damage per second at level 80. Say you have a bleed then that lasts 10 seconds. With 1000 condi power that will deal 92.5*10 =925 damage over the duration. Here is the problem. Most of you are calculating this not over time. Say you get a trait that increases bleed duration by 50% so your bleed goes to 15 seconds. That would put your new damage at 92.5*15=1387.5. Which looks like a big number, but it’s still only 92.5 damage per second. Now if you managed to get a full 25 stacks of bleeds, at 1000 condition damage, you would deal 2312.5 damage per second from bleeding damage.

The formula for bleed damage
(0.05 * Condition Damage) + (0.5 * Level) + 2.5 per stack per second
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bleeding

Also if my math is correct, and it may not be, you will need 2730 condition damage in order for bleeds to reach the 179 mark. That’s quite a bit of condition damage.

From how I’ve been reading things, that is exactly how people are explaining things.

The idea of stacking the bleeds is much easier when they last 10sec or longer which is the point of the bleed/condition duration and stacking bleeds = doing more damage per tick. You seem to be pointing out the obvious there…like to get a crit you have to press the attack while in range.

But thanks for the clarification, I suppose.

As for the other points, I wouldn’t suggest aiming for condition damage higher than 1200. 1000-1200 condition damage gives you around 100 dmg/bleed and if you can manage max might, you can get around 150 dmg/bleed and this boosts other damaging conditions. If you have condition duration to boost those bleeds, you’ll also boost other conditions like immobilize, weakness, chill, cripple, etc. With the rest of your stat points, boost direct damage, boons, defense, whatever.

Leo G.4501:

As for the other points, I wouldn’t suggest aiming for condition damage higher than 1200. 1000-1200 condition damage gives you around 100 dmg/bleed and if you can manage max might, you can get around 150 dmg/bleed and this boosts other damaging conditions. If you have condition duration to boost those bleeds, you’ll also boost other conditions like immobilize, weakness, chill, cripple, etc. With the rest of your stat points, boost direct damage, boons, defense, whatever.

To reach 150 damage bleeds you need 2150 condi damage. The formula to find out how much condi damage is needed to reach a certain point is

(150-42.5)/.05=2150. Let’s say you are maintaining 10 stacks of might that means you need a base 1800 condi damage to reach the 150 damage bleed mark. If you had 20 stacks of might you would only need 1450 condi damage to reach that mark. So with 20 stacks of might and 1450 condi damage you will get 150 dps from a single stack of bleeding. If you managed to get all 25 on a target you would get 3750 dps from bleeding. Which is pretty kitten nice. How likely that is to happen though is not something I could accurately discuss.

As for me pointing out the basics, yes it may seem silly to do it. However there are people on these forums that do not understand the basics of how things are calculated. It might seem very elementary to post the calculations for bleed damage, or the ratios for conditions, but there are people who read these forums that don’t know those things.

edit:

I mentioned the ratio about the bleeding damage, but forgot to include the ratio on the basic sword attack. Assuming 1000 power the sword AA gets 600 bonus damage per AA.

Assuming 1000 condi damage and 1000 power, no might as both can stack might easily enough.

The sword attacks three times every 1.25 seconds if I recall correctly and has a .6 ratio on each AA. It stacks 1 stack of bleeding on each of the first two Akitten you will apply 2 stacks of bleeding every 1.25 seconds.

Assuming 1000 base condi damage the bleeds will deal 92.5 damage per stack. While the sword base attack will deal 802 per AA. You will deal 12 attacks over a 5 second period, and stack 8 bleeds.

Anyway you need roughly 21 stacks of bleeding in order to equal out to the AA damage.

I’ve made some heavy assumptions, but I didn’t want to cherry pick one way or another. I don’t really care which one proves better because the only time I use a sword is in pvp and that’s because I run a bunker build based around it. In PvE/WvW I run a mace build because that shiverstone looks so kitten sweet ,it’s got snow flakes =).

Also I didn’t include any crits one way or another, or any crit damage. I also didn’t account for armor though. Again there are ways you can sway this one way or another. I think it’s probably better to just look at the raw damage and see if it’s something you like, and then build around it.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

I’ve made some heavy assumptions, but I didn’t want to cherry pick one way or another. I don’t really care which one proves better because the only time I use a sword is in pvp and that’s because I run a bunker build based around it. In PvE/WvW I run a mace build because that shiverstone looks so kitten sweet ,it’s got snow flakes =).

Also I didn’t include any crits one way or another, or any crit damage. I also didn’t account for armor though. Again there are ways you can sway this one way or another. I think it’s probably better to just look at the raw damage and see if it’s something you like, and then build around it.

It’s not about which is better than the other (or it shouldn’t be).

Each has advantages which is the point. For instance, you can’t auto-attack while you’re dodging or using other skills like heals, utilities or closing distance while conditions can. Armor doesn’t affect condition damage while conversely conditions can be nullified by cleanses. You can do both at the same time, that is auto-attack, crit and bleed a target.

I mentioned the ratio about the bleeding damage, but forgot to include the ratio on the basic sword attack. Assuming 1000 power the sword AA gets 600 bonus damage per AA.

Which is sort of the point. 1000 condition damage will cause 92 damage with a bleed while 1000 power will add 600 damage per auto-attack. All you need is 7 bleed stacks on a target to equal that which is easy with sword to surpass. But neither is exclusive to the other.

Which is sort of the point. 1000 condition damage will cause 92 damage with a bleed while 1000 power will add 600 damage per auto-attack. All you need is 7 bleed stacks on a target to equal that which is easy with sword to surpass. But neither is exclusive to the other.

Bleeds tick once per second, while sword AA is twice per second. So you would need 1200/92 13 stacks to equal the AA. It’s actually more because of the way the last one is only 1/4 second instead of 1/2. You get 3 auto attacks over a 1.25 second period, but only one tick of bleeding. Now over 6 attacks it’s 2.5 seconds and you get two tics of bleeding. At 5 seconds y ou get 12 AA, and 5 tics of bleeding.

So 12*600 = 7200 so for bleeding to equal that you would need (7200/5)/92.4 = 15.6 stacks of bleeding on them from the start to the 5 second mark. Now I’m not including the base damage because both sides get that, nor am I including base power/base condi damage because again both sides get that.

Anyway this isn’t really part of the discussion I guess. I just wanted to clear up where I got my numbers from. Honestly I think I’ve skewed things towards the bleed build. I haven’t included crits, or crit damage, or final thrust etc. That bothers me, but I will leave it to other people to work that out. I know how you guys get on this forum when we start doing math. Not in the mood to deal with death threats because I can add.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Which is sort of the point. 1000 condition damage will cause 92 damage with a bleed while 1000 power will add 600 damage per auto-attack. All you need is 7 bleed stacks on a target to equal that which is easy with sword to surpass. But neither is exclusive to the other.

Bleeds tick once per second, while sword AA is twice per second. So you would need 1200/92 13 stacks to equal the AA. It’s actually more because of the way the last one is only 1/4 second instead of 1/2. You get 3 auto attacks over a 1.25 second period, but only one tick of bleeding. Now over 6 attacks it’s 2.5 seconds and you get two tics of bleeding. At 5 seconds y ou get 12 AA, and 5 tics of bleeding.

So 12*600 = 7200 so for bleeding to equal that you would need (7200/5)/92.4 = 15.6 stacks of bleeding on them from the start to the 5 second mark. Now I’m not including the base damage because both sides get that, nor am I including base power/base condi damage because again both sides get that.

Anyway this isn’t really part of the discussion I guess. I just wanted to clear up where I got my numbers from. Honestly I think I’ve skewed things towards the bleed build. I haven’t included crits, or crit damage, or final thrust etc. That bothers me, but I will leave it to other people to work that out. I know how you guys get on this forum when we start doing math. Not in the mood to deal with death threats because I can add.

Firstly, the cast times are not the entire cast + aftercast. There’s some period of time after a skill finishes before another can begin which makes nearly every skill in the game slower than listed, and it’s not uniform across all skills. You’d need to properly time it to say that the chain takes precisely 1.25 seconds. Secondly, the first and second attacks in the chain proc bleeding, not just one – it applies 2 bleed stacks every 1.5 seconds, roughly, before taking critbleeds into consideration. With 100% duration, 16 seconds in the autochain maintains 21 stacks of bleeding by itself, again before considering critbleeds. That’s a decent amount for not having to do anything else, but optimally the warrior would be using Impale, Riposte and on Longbow Pin Down, Combustive Shot and Fan of Fire whenever possible.

Thirdly, a condition build can initiate with a DPS spike from Flurry + Riposte + Impale that power builds can’t make use of effectively (at 100% bleed duration, 8 stacks for 4 seconds, 4 stacks for 24 seconds, and 5 torment for 18 seconds at 50% duration), and will also be getting benefit from critbleeds. Heck, a Longbow + S/S build could initiate from range with Pin Down + Impale and have 6 bleeds and 5 torment before the power build reaches melee range. Condition warrior can accelerate to a high number of stacks in a relatively brief period of time.

If we go purely by cast times (though we should because aftercast…) then:

1. Pin Down – 0.25 seconds, 6 bleed
2. Impale – 0.5 seconds, 5 torment
3. Flurry – 0.5 seconds, 8 bleed
4. Riposte – 0.5-2.5 seconds, 4 bleed (cast time variable, there’s a half-second slakitten the moment a melee attack is blocked)

Worst case scenario, that’s 18 bleeds and 5 torment in 3.75 seconds before resorting to auto-attacks (best case scenario, 7 or more of the 11 hits crit and proc critbleeds, but that’s, well, unlikely). With the “Critical hits grant triple adrenaline” trait, flurry pretty much pays for itself. Additionally, as far as a condition setup is concerned, it’s no less effective with only 1 bar… the short duration of the bleeds means it’s only good for an initial burst of conditions, though following attacks replace them relatively quickly (if Flurry’s the last part of the initial burst, 5 of the stacks are replaced by auto-attacks before they expire). With sigil of doom and some lucky crits, the condition build is already around 4k DPS within 4 seconds. Not the worst acceleration ever. Certainly not the slow ramp generally associated with condition spec.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Bleeds tick once per second, while sword AA is twice per second. So you would need 1200/92 13 stacks to equal the AA. It’s actually more because of the way the last one is only 1/4 second instead of 1/2. You get 3 auto attacks over a 1.25 second period, but only one tick of bleeding. Now over 6 attacks it’s 2.5 seconds and you get two tics of bleeding. At 5 seconds y ou get 12 AA, and 5 tics of bleeding.

I doubt you get 3 auto-attacks in less than 1 and a half seconds but aim is to balance potential and swords is a hybrid of two damage applications. And while the hypothetical comparisons can bring perspective, don’t rely on them. Vacuum comparisons are often times incorrect (mostly due to their attempt at precision and being ‘close’ doesn’t cut it).

So 12*600 = 7200 so for bleeding to equal that you would need (7200/5)/92.4 = 15.6 stacks of bleeding on them from the start to the 5 second mark. Now I’m not including the base damage because both sides get that, nor am I including base power/base condi damage because again both sides get that.

You’re also not counting time and opportunity which isn’t something easily taken into account, i.e. the fact you might not be using your auto attack for 12sec straight because your attack missed/out-of-range, you clicked a heal, you were stunned, etc.

That’s the advantage of using condition damage and you wouldn’t be capable of decently exploiting said advantage if your condition stats are low.

Anyway this isn’t really part of the discussion I guess. I just wanted to clear up where I got my numbers from. Honestly I think I’ve skewed things towards the bleed build. I haven’t included crits, or crit damage, or final thrust etc. That bothers me, but I will leave it to other people to work that out. I know how you guys get on this forum when we start doing math. Not in the mood to deal with death threats because I can add.

Well thanks for insulting on your way out.

But whatever, it might have seemed you were skewing things if you assume you were saying things people hadn’t already said. You’ve basically stated what’s been said already. And if my perspective held any value to the discussion (you don’t seem to value my perspective which is okay) then one would take away that both stats, power and condition damage, are valuable for sword because of the possible flexibility.

Stepping away from that point, when considering ‘direct’ and ‘condition’ damage, it usually goes without saying that direct damage is important and effective while condition damage has its own slew of problems such as bleed caps, burn/poison only stack duration, cleanses and nothing else boosts the damage conditions directly do unlike % boosts from traits, gear, vulnerability, etc. But again, conditions come with their own slew of advantages and when choosing gear for a playstyles, remember and play to those advantages. For example, if you decide to go full-on condition damage, know you will destroy objects very slowly.

I doubt you get 3 auto-attacks in less than 1 and a half seconds but aim is to balance potential and swords is a hybrid of two damage applications. And while the hypothetical comparisons can bring perspective, don’t rely on them. Vacuum comparisons are often times incorrect (mostly due to their attempt at precision and being ‘close’ doesn’t cut it).

It’s actually 1.6 attacks per second, I was using those numbers to give a general idea of what to expect. You get 16 attacks over a 10 second period. Over 1.5 seconds you would get 2.4 attacks. Over 5 seconds you get 8 attacks. Over a 10 second period you cause 11 bleeds from attacks sever artery/gash. So 1.1 bleeds per second.

While I do agree that looking at things in this fashion isn’t ideal, I think you are missing the point. This isn’t a theory crafting discussion. My posts have been to provide some concrete numbers to the discussion. It isn’t to say one option is better.

You’re also not counting time and opportunity which isn’t something easily taken into account, i.e. the fact you might not be using your auto attack for 12sec straight because your attack missed/out-of-range, you clicked a heal, you were stunned, etc.

That’s the advantage of using condition damage and you wouldn’t be capable of decently exploiting said advantage if your condition stats are low.

I’m pretty sure I’ve openly admitted in my post that I’ve made several assumptions. I’ve assumed that both the tot, and the ttk, were static. You can’t get a general idea if you start changing those variables though. In that case you would need to calculate for certain fights, and I’m pretty sure that is beyond the scope of this thread.

Well thanks for insulting on your way out.

It isn’t intended to be an insult. Have you seen how theory crafters are treated on this sub forum. This is the absolute worst sub forum when it comes to theory crafting. There is a reason for the absence of the same kinds of threads you will find in every other sub forum.

And if my perspective held any value to the discussion (you don’t seem to value my perspective which is okay) then one would take away that both stats, power and condition damage, are valuable for sword because of the possible flexibility.

So far this is the only thing I take issue with. To my knowledge I’ve not once even implied I don’t value your perspective. Why I would even do that makes no sense to me. I even agree with you.

Stepping away from that point, when considering ‘direct’ and ‘condition’ damage, it usually goes without saying that direct damage is important and effective while condition damage has its own slew of problems such as bleed caps, burn/poison only stack duration, cleanses and nothing else boosts the damage conditions directly do unlike % boosts from traits, gear, vulnerability, etc. But again, conditions come with their own slew of advantages and when choosing gear for a playstyles, remember and play to those advantages. For example, if you decide to go full-on condition damage, know you will destroy objects very slowly.

I think the big problem with condition damage is that in pve it’s much harder to kill with it. NPCs have much higher health than human players. Players in PvE can also build full zerker and just learn the fights to avoid the damage. This means in PvE you end up with much higher direct damage, and conditions not being as valuable.

Those are just my opinions on it though.

Sagramor.7395:

Depends on the off-hand weapon.
If Sword, then condition.
If anything else, then power.

Basically this. Sword off hand brings Torment. So run condis if you run OH sword. Works very nice with LB as well.

Otherwise I’d run power.

Sword is both, it all depends on what you carry in your off hand. If you got another sword there then build it for condition damage. If you have anything else then the sword is better as a power weapon.

Helps to see some builds if people are going to read through this thread for suggestions. Here’s my example of a S/S LB condition build for reference. The credit goes to someone else however, although I did change out some Apothecary gear for Rabid.

Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAscTjkO1uxQGPMxBE0DNsK2iThkQ9YOsj4A-jkyAINBRaBI5BgABlDhyjEZslxioxqZwUpER1elioVLDAzaA-w

Original topic:

A few weeks back after watching Logi’s WvW movie I was impressed by how much sustain his build had. So, I went into the mists to test it out and found that with the passive healing in the build you can almost literally facetank the forest NPCs.

So, I dropped some coin and crafted the warrior to 80 to give it a shot in WvW. Keep in mind, I am quite literally a noobie warrior. I’m still building muscle memory and learning the animation timing of the abilities to avoid clipping abilities. Mistakes will be made.

I opted for 30 in discipline rather than going with banner regen as Logi did in his video. So, this build is a bit more offensive in nature. Build and gear is at the start of the first movie below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEMxajr1mrA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH2Qf3dNtAk