Guild Wars 2

So I like to run my power berserker setup, but it appears the condi berserker is warriors flavor of the month. I like their presence both for the counters they provide, and the roles they play. The thing I’m wondering is, in a power vs condi head to head matchup (war vs war), who’s the winner? My experience tells me power wins hands down, but then I don’t know that my limited experience is enough to go on. A lot of players are picking up condizerker right now and they might just be inexperienced. So what can the pros tell me, and as a second question, how should that effect it as THE pick on a team?

Here’s the build I’ve been running since it’s relevant to my perspective.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJAURnMdAlki1dAWhAEliFlA7ILEA+dIhuRwF4N3+bTuA-TpBCQBA4IAkv9HG2hAohlBuwDAweXAAA

That’s an easy question! If the fight lasts under 20 seconds, power warrior wins. If it lasts between 20 and 50 seconds – condi warrior wins. If it lasts even longer – either can grab the win.

Steelo.4597:

That’s an easy question! If the fight lasts under 20 seconds, power warrior wins. If it lasts between 20 and 50 seconds – condi warrior wins. If it lasts even longer – either can grab the win.

What’s your reasoning for the time windows?

Thit should be an interesting discussion as I am also not a warrior main but I really enjoy playing both builds.

Also Both power and condition builds will differ depending on personal touch and prefrences on warrior

I believe it should be more in the power warrior’s favor since you can bypass shield and mace blocks and with stab you will negate lethal doses of confusion and could trade blows if they use a bow/sword on swap. GS3 is good to move out of their zerker’s flurry/scorched earth. The condi warrior still haz a deadly burst if they land a single combo when zerker mode/stace are not ready. Also going for more stab/stunbreaks makes the matchup even easier for power war.

For a team pick i would choose condizerker as it will generate kills faster in a team fight and will force cooldowns quicker from the other team in a big fight. Also it can easily overwhelm tempests and revs if you land your headbutt into mace burst skill as diamond skin cant clear a condi burst. The condi weapons a condi zerker chooses could help your teammates land their skills more reliably too with the single target lockdown cc and immobs. Problem with condizerker is that it is slow without traveler or warriors sprint and that it might not be able to afford picking signet of might to deal pesky mesmers and guards and fellow warriors. This is of course my personal perspective based on unranked and early season 2. I have been playing power war lately and i do enjoy it much more than condi.

Sorry for grammar/spelling mistakes, writing on phone isnt fun.

Ross Biddle.2367:

So I like to run my power berserker setup, but it appears the condi berserker is warriors flavor of the month. I like their presence both for the counters they provide, and the roles they play. The thing I’m wondering is, in a power vs condi head to head matchup (war vs war), who’s the winner? My experience tells me power wins hands down, but then I don’t know that my limited experience is enough to go on. A lot of players are picking up condizerker right now and they might just be inexperienced. So what can the pros tell me, and as a second question, how should that effect it as THE pick on a team?

Here’s the build I’ve been running since it’s relevant to my perspective.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJAURnMdAlki1dAWhAEliFlA7ILEA+dIhuRwF4N3+bTuA-TpBCQBA4IAkv9HG2hAohlBuwDAweXAAA

Hi Mr Biddle.

My general rule of the thumb (imho) is – I think a very well-played Condi-Warr ( with Vipers gear specifically ) has an advantage due to the dual layering of damage application.

Having said that, fighting against an equally skilled zerker berker GS/Axe Shield Warr can be your worst nightmare as a condi warr due to class/skill awareness ( headbutt-cleansing ire – happy days ).

I enjoy playing both however I favour the vipers / condi warr set-up. The excitement is still there due to being glass like zerberker.

This is coming from someone who’s made a name for himself playing a giant charr cheeseball condi warr prowling on FA/TC and YB :P

Mercenary should win easily against power warrior if you play properly simply because you get free adrenalin heal with bow while power warrior does not get it

dominik.9721:

Mercenary should win easily against power warrior if you play properly simply because you get free adrenalin heal with bow while power warrior does not get it

Doesn’t it still require the hit to land? This also assumes the power fails to hit with his bursts. Also, in my build at least, part of the condi wars defense is in blocking which is mitigated by the presence of unblockables. Also, if the condi war is relying on conditions for much of his damage, and the power war is running a good amount of resistance, he’s going to be regenerating most of the time when the condi should be dealing damage. With all that in mind, the power war is even less reliant on the passive of healing sig (which I run traited anyway, so 16s cd) and can still draw on other sources.

So am I missing something?

Ross Biddle.2367:

dominik.9721:

Mercenary should win easily against power warrior if you play properly simply because you get free adrenalin heal with bow while power warrior does not get it

Doesn’t it still require the hit to land? This also assumes the power fails to hit with his bursts. Also, in my build at least, part of the condi wars defense is in blocking which is mitigated by the presence of unblockables. Also, if the condi war is relying on conditions for much of his damage, and the power war is running a good amount of resistance, he’s going to be regenerating most of the time when the condi should be dealing damage. With all that in mind, the power war is even less reliant on the passive of healing sig (which I run traited anyway, so 16s cd) and can still draw on other sources.

So am I missing something?

Nope, longbow burst and primal burst proc cleansing ire/adrenal health regardless of whether it hits or not. Not to mention power warr, assuming non-berserker, burst skills are usually somewhat more telegraphed or have less range making them harder to land, and the cost of missing one without weapon stowing/swapping before you waste the adrenaline is a much larger punishment.

Power warr is also actually MORE reliant on healing sig as it takes longer to build up 30 adrenaline and wait 7.5seconds on a missed burst skill for another shot at full cleansing ire, whereas condi zerker can easily maintain and renew cleansing ire every 2.5 seconds if they take smash brawler. Once berserker stance runs out a power warr might have to pop healing sig and further cut his healing, the condi zerker on the other hand has absolutely no reason why he should be popping his healing sig.

A major game changer is also Rousing Resilience coupled with the fact that most power warr burst favors the use of CC to set it up which practically benefits the condi zerker since he can proc Rousing Resilience and the heal that comes with it much more often than the power warr. Not to mention the toughness gain from RR is a major hamper to power warrior damage output, its veeeeeeeeery bad to fight a condi zerker who has RR running and also runs mercenary so he has the same or higher health pool than you (if you run berserker amulet on power warr, I always do), combined with more toughness from RR.

Now, if you play a power berserker warr you have a much better shot, you should definitely take cleansing ire and smash brawler, I always take those on berserker greataxe, they’re simply too good put together: I can literally get rid of a condi bomb nearly instantly by using arc divider swapping and popping outrage to get me to full adrenaline then use decapitate, that’s 7 condis removed when coupled with brawler’s recovery. I don’t even bother with RR since I run pulsing stab. So imho power berserker has a much better chance vs condi berserker I think there’s actually very good chances of it coming out on top if the warr runs eternal champion and pretty much renders body blow and distracting strikes useless (if the other guy uses a mace). I first ran a custom version of the berserker greataxe on metabattle since HoT but swapped to non-rampage vanilla hammer/gs a few months ago, after running into multiple condi zerkers last weekend and not having a very good time I tried greataxe again and I pretty much didn’t lose a fight if I managed my stances properly.

I’ll attempt to answer with arithmetic.

• Maximim Damage Negation Condi*
• Shield Stance: 3 sec
• Defy pain: 4 sec
• Endure Pain: 4 sec
• Defiant Stance: 3 seconds

Maximum Condi Negation Power

• Berserker’s Stance: 9 secs
• Healing Signet: 6 secs
• Condi Cleanse with Bursts (3 per burst)

Maximum Healing for both

• Adrenal Health x3
• Healing Signet Passive
• Healing signet active
• Both will have between 2500-3100 armor

Okay so laying all of thsi out, a power warrior and a condi warrior are pretty equal. A fight between the two will come down to skill. but thats a 1v1. In a team fight, the Condi warrior will provide more support for his team, and so identical team compositions with a condi warrior on one side and a power warrior on the other, i’d give the edge to the condi warrior’s team because while the fight between the warriors will be pretty even in the begging, there are more condies effecting the power warrior’s team. so what will (or should theoretically) happen is that the power warrior’s team will go down quicker and the power warrior will end up outnumbererd

This is assuming both teams have the identical skill in the game of course.

Maximum Condi Negation Power
Condi Cleanse with Bursts (3 per burst)

Maximum Healing for both
Adrenal Health x3

You just assume that the powerwarrior is getting at the same way access to cleansing irse and adrenal health like the condition warrior which simply will not be the case if your opponent plays properly.

The fight is not equal.

I specified maximum for both i could easily have averaged them. I assumed similar skill levels for both condition and power warrior. I did specify that the condi warrior has an edge in team fights. but 1v1 it comes down to who makes the first mistake.

What’s the point then to say that the power warrior and the condition warrior have both access to adrenal health and cleansing irse ,while in fact it’s only the condition warrior.

Especally in a 1v1 power warrior is in a disadvantage because in a 1v1 he has so much less access to adrenal health and cleansing irse. Conditon warrior is superior in pretty much every aspect at the moment.

Sigh. I’m going to have to do this point by point arn’t I?

Fight starts, First 10 seconds

• Assuming equal skill levels
• Power Warrior: Ignores the first burst of Condi
• Power warrior will spike Condi warrior down to bellow 50% (Defy pain kicks in)
• Both warriors will be baiting out the stability buffs to take advantage of headbutt if they have it.
• both will get off a burst at the appropriate time, gaining at least AH x1

10-20 Seconds

• Both Get of their headbutt’s at the right time if they have it.
• Both will get into berserk if they have it
• Condi warrior will get off a condi burst or two
• Power warrior will cleanse at the right time either by swaps, or burst
• Power Warrior will be trying to bait out Endure pain, and will succeed (because we are assuming equal skill)
• Defy pain should proc around here somewhere on the power warrior (but will not help with condis.
• If the Power warrior knows he’s going against a condi warrior, he may have shield mastery. If he does, the fight ends here. because he will bait out a burst, then shield block and kill the Condi warrior with his own Condis. If not, ignore that)
• Condi warrior will spamming his Bursts.
• Power warrior will pop resistance through Signet

30-40 sec
Here is the deciding point in the fight. both are at around 50% health, though the Power warrior may be higher simply because he has ignored several condi spikes. both have proked Defy pain, endure pain will not help the powwr warrior.

• Power warrior has resistance
• Condi warrior cannot take another Damage spike.
• Power warrior cannot take another Condi burst. He has 6 seconds to finish the Condi warrior. (thats when Resistance from signet wears off)
• Condi warrior has 20 seconds to finish the warrior before the warrior’s berserk er stance resets.
• In the first 6 seconds of this section the Power warrior will get off a damage spike. (again, assuming equal skill levels, and no mistakes. a good warrior who has 6 seconds where his opponent cannot hurt him significantly will finish his opponent)

• Lets assume that somehow, the Condi warrior survives. maybe with just a sliver of life.
  may the power warrior did not crit or the condi warrior had weakness on him. Anything really. So the condi warrior survives, and now has 14 seconds to finish the power warrior.

40-60 seconds

• At this point the Power warrior only has one thing they can do to reverse their situation. The have shield block. (assuming they are axe/sheild, GS)
• Again if the warrior has sheild mastery, they still have a chance to insta kill the condi warrior by reflecting a flaming flurry. If not Sheild block can eat one flaming flurry, but it cannot eat Scorched earth.

• Headbutt comes up during this section of the fight (if they have it)

• Sheild block eats a flaming flurry

• One or the other sheild bashes. It is evaded, blocked, or misses.

• If a sheild block does not miss it is countered by headbutt

• headbutt is countered by headbutt

• Whoever wins that exchange wins the fight. If condi warrior wins the exchange they get off a condi burst. But if the power warrior lands a headbutt or shield bash the fight ends because the damage from either of those will end the condi warrior.

• But lets assume that for some reason they both play so well that they both know how to body hug to make attacks and bursts miss, they both know how to time evades, read attacks, and have managed to perfectly counter CC, break stuns, evade attacks, block the right attacks etc. This is very unlikely but it’s possible.

The Very Unlikely 60-90 Seconds

• Both have Defy pain off cool down.
• Power warrior has berserker’s stance off cooldown.
• The power warrior has one huge advantage at this point. His very next hit against the condi warrior is going to proc Defy pain on the condi warrior.
• Defy pain procs on both
• Berserker’s stance goes up.
• 4 seconds later the condi warrior dies, because the power warrior still has 5 seconds of pulsing resistance.

overview by time and spec advantage

• Power warrior’s advantage
• No advantage*
• Even odds fight ends
• Condi Warrior’s advantage
• Power warrior’s advantage

I did not include killshot/gunflame warior, but that does not change anything. Killshot is just your main damage spike.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Steelo.4597:

That’s an easy question! If the fight lasts under 20 seconds, power warrior wins. If it lasts between 20 and 50 seconds – condi warrior wins. If it lasts even longer – either can grab the win.

What’s your reasoning for the time windows?

hehe – well the serious answer is it comes down to skill… because its actually a pretty equal fight. but my reasoning was this: zerker warrior will use his stances/resistance to carry survivability over the first 20 seconds. during this time the power warrior is more or less invulnerable and has all the skills ready to bring home a nice burst and finish off the condi warrior with a few last swings. if condi warrior doesnt dodge CC or something he is basically dead because cant even get weakness on power warrior. after 20 seconds resistance runs out and since condi warrior survived up to this point he will prolly survive even longer because he has the same tools available all the time – dodge and leap and weakness (which now also actually does something..). so 20-50 seconds is the condi warrior’s time where he can actually do damage and if he lands a burst early the other guy probably cant recover untill stances are up again. if zerker warrior carries through this phase – props to him, both players are able to avoid the others danger moves – so now kitten comes down to who makes the first mistake.

Fight starts, First 10 seconds
Assuming equal skill levels
Power warrior will spike Condi warrior down to bellow 50% (Defy pain kicks in)

So we assume a skill lvl below garbage?
ok.

Also this game is not like Pokemon where you can say – that one is doing this and this guy is reacting with that.

Fight starts, First 10 seconds
Assuming equal skill levels
Power warrior will spike Condi warrior down to bellow 50% (Defy pain kicks in)
So we assume a skill lvl below garbage?
ok.
Also this game is not like Pokemon where you can say – that one is doing this and this guy is reacting with that.

Below garbage in what what way? the power warrior has 9 seconds of impunity with which to spike the condo warrior down. any reasonable warrior would be able to do this. the damage stops at just below 50% because defy pain procs at that point. so no neither player is garbage. I simply assume that if a warrior has the skill and their opponent cannot stop them they will succeed as well as the possibly can.

As for the Condi warrior. they could stop the power warrior from doing this, which is why I kept the "fight’ going for over 60 seconds. i took into account each spec playing a perfect fight to the best of their ability. if you don’t like it i really don’t care. this thread was asking people’s opinions. i gave mine, and it looks like people agree with me.

As for the pokemon reference…actually its surprisingly like pokemon. Your character has a set of abilities, you have to choose how to use them, and your opponent has to know how to counter them. sooooooo yeah exactly like pokemon, its just more active.

Saying you burst the warrior within 10 seconds to 50% is just ridiculous. I can kite, I can dodge, I can block, I can do whatever I want at the start – this isn’t pve where I have to tank your gretasword- rush, whirlwind,eviscerate, arcing slice or what not so. Even with rampage you wouldn’t get me to 50% in 10 seconds…..

pls stop

dominik.9721:

Saying you burst the warrior within 10 seconds to 50% is just ridiculous. I can kite, I can dodge, I can block, I can do whatever I want at the start – this isn’t pve where I have to tank your gretasword- rush, whirlwind,eviscerate, arcing slice or what not so. Even with rampage you wouldn’t get me to 50% in 10 seconds…..

pls stop

But for the purpose of the theoretical matchup, taking the best case scenario of both sides and playing out the mock fight can tell us something. It’s the same basic concept that leads to theorycrafting builds XD

You dont assume the best case scenario if you say the condition warrior would get bursted to 50% hp within 10 seconds.
Thats a pathetic assumption and would only happen against people below garbage

dominik.9721:

You dont assume the best case scenario if you say the condition warrior would get bursted to 50% hp within 10 seconds.
Thats a pathetic assumption and would only happen against people below garbage

^This. All the more so when the power warr has zerker stance up and the condi warr has an obvious tell that he should not waste his burst and should instead play defensively. And even if he doesn’t play defensively the post makes it sound like by the time the power warr has taken the condi warr to 50% the condi warr hasn’t done kitten. kitten is far from true since mercenary amulet still gives you a very significant amount of power damage. After that there’s another similar claim where the power warr can burst the condi warr in a healing signet’s resistance duration from nearly 50% hp to zero, once again unrealistic. The skill levels in that post are far from equal, if anything the power warr is significantly more skilled than the condi warr.

I also love how everybody conveniently forgets what I mentioned above about Rousing Resilience screwing over the entirety of the power warrior’s damage output but affects the condi warr much less. This is by itself something that can severely affect the fight, especially given that to deal decent damage the power warr will have to use a much glassier amulet than Mercenary, like marauder, demolisher or berserker, given how pretty much every other choice including paladin results in you hitting like a noodle. Making it so that in the end, before we even factor weapon skills and traits, the condi warr already has access to better mitigation of the power warr’s damage.

As things currently are Mercenary on condi warr has higher damage potential than roughly all power amulets, even berserker, simply because it also gives you a significant amount of condi damage and zerker condi warr just happens to be able to stack insane amounts of 2 of the 3 most broken condis in the game (assuming mace shield, idk who will run longbow in a warr v warr duel since you can just step out of scorched earth).

Power War just got a buff with the removal of Mercenary Amulet.

That nerfed Mesmers, Necros and Condi Wars.

Go Demolisher Amulet GS X/Shield and smash the enemy.

I always go viper or sinister when I play Condi. And I go berserk for power warrior. As long as I have 2500 armor I’m gappy

Condi wins easily over power, the amount of condis applied by the war is simply too much for the power-war.

Power-War really isn’t that strong in 1v1’s anyways; I think it’s better than condi in teamfights, but the biggest benefit of condi war is IMHO that it has moderate to high advantages in basically every 1v1 matchup, while still being useful in teamfights.

@Spartacus: I don’t think condi-war will have big problems switching over to wanderer. Also, Power-War actually was pretty good against Condi-Mesmer and Necro’s, so it’s not really that good that those builds might be played less for the demo-war. ^^’

The warrior in general has more than enough Condi cleanse. Maybe I just noticed more because I run malandrus on every build I run. Berserker’s + Malabar gives sufficient damage and gets you to the 2500 armor you need. Viper’s + malandru’s does the same and has the added benefit of extending Condi durations. So maybe when I say that warrior has enough ways to deal with condi I’m actually saying that I have enough ways to deal with it.