Guild Wars 2

So, I’m thinking of making a sword/sword condition build for WvW. I know most people dislike swords, but I find them to be pretty fun, and I’m determined to make this build.

Now, I’m having a little trouble deciding on which runes to put in my armor (Rabid gear fwiw). I can’t seem to decide on either 3 Afflicted/ 3 Krait or 6 Undead.

The Afflicted/Krait combo will give me +166 Condition damage and +30% Bleed duration, while the 6 Undead will give me +183 Condition damage, +50 Toughness and 5% of Toughness will be converted to Condition damage.

Now, I’m leaning toward the Afflicted/Krait combo for the extra Bleed duration, but I’d like to hear some opinions from other Warriors.

So, any thoughts?

Bleed duration is capped at 100%, so you could always use Rare Veggie Pizza to cover the loss from not using the runes, along with Deep Cuts.

Go for undead runes and use the Geomancy Sigil for weapon swap to keep the pressure up on your opponent and trait towards tactics for quick breathing. Use Sword / Sword and Sword / Warhorn.

Edit: Get Dogged March trait for reduce impairing and trait for last stance. If you want to sacrifice some condition for more survivability then Rune for Melandru. This may make warriors become even more nasty, but I don’t care. We need to represent our class since we are the underdogs in Spvp / Tpvp.

I’m not a fan of constantly eating food. I know that may hinder me a bit, but I find it tedious and expensive. I was planning on taking Deep Cuts anyway. I was also planning on slotting Dogged March and Last Chance, as Brutalistik recommended.

As for Sword/Warhorn as a secondary set, I was actually planning on using a rifle and maybe taking Crackshot. I like to have a decent ranged option in WvW. I’m all ears for why Sword/Warhorn would be better, though.

Brutalistik, if you don’t mind, why do you suggest Undead runes over Afflicted/Krait?

SLuG.3085:

I’m not a fan of constantly eating food. I know that may hinder me a bit, but I find it tedious and expensive. I was planning on taking Deep Cuts anyway. I was also planning on slotting Dogged March and Last Chance, as Brutalistik recommended.

As for Sword/Warhorn as a secondary set, I was actually planning on using a rifle and maybe taking Crackshot. I like to have a decent ranged option in WvW. I’m all ears for why Sword/Warhorn would be better, though.

Brutalistik, if you don’t mind, why do you suggest Undead runes over Afflicted/Krait?

Oh you’re doing WvW with this okay then that changes the warhorn idea unless you want the extra speed boost / vigor. Undead gives you more condition damage since you want to be a condition build. You wouldn’t need krait or afflicted runes because you already have a trait that increases it’s duration. The other addition is using DW sword your duration of bleeds will always still up with the support of Geomancy Sigil.

How would I get the best use of the Geomancy Sigil? I would have to constantly switch between rifle and swords? I imagine I would roam with my rifle out, and then switch to swords when I get into melee range, one of which would have the Geomancy Sigil?
My initial thought was to put a Sigil of Agony and a Sigil of Earth on my swords.

I’m just trying to understand it all a little better, though I’m probably overthinking a bit.

Bleed stack increases each time you swap weapons. It keeps the pressure up so close when you’re about to switch to sword. You don’t need agony for bleed duration because you already got a trait for that. Sigil of earth is okay if you want to use that, but use it for rifle.

Any suggestion for what sigil I should use on my other sword?

SLuG.3085:

Any suggestion for what sigil I should use on my other sword?

Minor corruption if you want more condition damage.

Sounds good. Thanks for your help, Brutalistik. I appreciate it. If anyone else has any additional suggestions, I’d love to hear em.

I love using the long sword, the problem is that in WvW it’s only really useful as a movement boost.

Bleeds take time to do their damage, and being in melee range you will be taking a lot of spike damage, while needing time to do your damage… it’s a mess.

…and condition duration is almost worthless in PvP. Just think of it this way, the class you are most likely to face is a thief. Their heal cures bleeding, if they spec for it, their stealth cures a condition every three seconds.

…and while you are trying to get your bleeds to stick, their cutting you down in 4-5 hits.

So if you are set on using long swords , try to mix in some direct damage. Going all bleeds just isn’t as good as it should be.

It’s sad, but as long as thieves rule WvW, you have to build to counter them.

Ezeriel.9574:

I love using the long sword, the problem is that in WvW it’s only really useful as a movement boost.

Bleeds take time to do their damage, and being in melee range you will be taking a lot of spike damage, while needing time to do your damage… it’s a mess.

…and condition duration is almost worthless in PvP. Just think of it this way, the class you are most likely to face is a thief. Their heal cures bleeding, if they spec for it, their stealth cures a condition every three seconds.

…and while you are trying to get your bleeds to stick, their cutting you down in 4-5 hits.

So if you are set on using long swords , try to mix in some direct damage. Going all bleeds just isn’t as good as it should be.

It’s sad, but as long as thieves rule WvW, you have to build to counter them.

Any suggestions as to how to go about mixing in more direct damage in order to be more viable?

Should I go with Carrion instead of Rabid?

SLuG.3085:

Ezeriel.9574:

I love using the long sword, the problem is that in WvW it’s only really useful as a movement boost.

Bleeds take time to do their damage, and being in melee range you will be taking a lot of spike damage, while needing time to do your damage… it’s a mess.

…and condition duration is almost worthless in PvP. Just think of it this way, the class you are most likely to face is a thief. Their heal cures bleeding, if they spec for it, their stealth cures a condition every three seconds.

…and while you are trying to get your bleeds to stick, their cutting you down in 4-5 hits.

So if you are set on using long swords , try to mix in some direct damage. Going all bleeds just isn’t as good as it should be.

It’s sad, but as long as thieves rule WvW, you have to build to counter them.

Any suggestions as to how to go about mixing in more direct damage in order to be more viable?

Should I go with Carrion instead of Rabid?

Now that’s a tough question because you do get both direct and conditions damage with Carrion having more vitality, but no defense.

Rabid however loses vitality, power, but not conditions additional to toughness and precision. The support of the precision will work well with Sigil of Earth

I was actually thinking of trying to mix Carrion and Rabid, with a slight edge in stats to Carrion. It seems like having a bit more health AND defense might be a good thing, plus with the Power from Carrion, I won’t hit like a small child. This will also save me a bit of gold, since I can just get the Rabid from the Temples via Karma, while buying crafted Carrion.

I’m a little worried that this might spread my stats a little too thin, though. I don’t really mind wasting Karma to try this out, but I don’t want to waste gold. What do you think?

SLuG.3085:

I was actually thinking of trying to mix Carrion and Rabid, with a slight edge in stats to Carrion. It seems like having a bit more health AND defense might be a good thing, plus with the Power from Carrion, I won’t hit like a small child. This will also save me a bit of gold, since I can just get the Rabid from the Temples via Karma, while buying crafted Carrion.

I’m a little worried that this might spread my stats a little too thin, though. I don’t really mind wasting Karma to try this out, but I don’t want to waste gold. What do you think?

I’ll use karma imo than gold unless it’s reasonable price.

Brutalistik.6473:

SLuG.3085:

I was actually thinking of trying to mix Carrion and Rabid, with a slight edge in stats to Carrion. It seems like having a bit more health AND defense might be a good thing, plus with the Power from Carrion, I won’t hit like a small child. This will also save me a bit of gold, since I can just get the Rabid from the Temples via Karma, while buying crafted Carrion.

I’m a little worried that this might spread my stats a little too thin, though. I don’t really mind wasting Karma to try this out, but I don’t want to waste gold. What do you think?

I’ll use karma imo than gold unless it’s reasonable price.

Haha yeah. I was actually asking what you thought about mixing sets like that. Gold is much more precious to me than Karma, that’s one of the reasons I was wondering if mixing would be viable, since it could potentially be easier on my (in game) wallet.

SLuG.3085:

Brutalistik.6473:

SLuG.3085:

I was actually thinking of trying to mix Carrion and Rabid, with a slight edge in stats to Carrion. It seems like having a bit more health AND defense might be a good thing, plus with the Power from Carrion, I won’t hit like a small child. This will also save me a bit of gold, since I can just get the Rabid from the Temples via Karma, while buying crafted Carrion.

I’m a little worried that this might spread my stats a little too thin, though. I don’t really mind wasting Karma to try this out, but I don’t want to waste gold. What do you think?

I’ll use karma imo than gold unless it’s reasonable price.

Haha yeah. I was actually asking what you thought about mixing sets like that. Gold is much more precious to me than Karma, that’s one of the reasons I was wondering if mixing would be viable, since it could potentially be easier on my (in game) wallet.

I wouldn’t worry about direct damage too much coming from if you’re going to be condition damage. I say just go precision toughness and condition so in pve you’re a tougher to kill and less squishy. You’ll get more condition if you’re using the undead runes set.

I’ve been playing a condition warrior for six months. After much experience in WvW, I prefer to run a hybrid direct/condition damage build. I use Longbow and Sword/Shield. My armor is Berserker with Undead Runes. My weapons are Valkyrie with Earth and Accuracy Sigils. My trinkets are ascended Rabid.

Without Might, my bleeds tick for 99 damage and my burns tick for 608 damage. The Deep Cuts trait and 30 points in Strength are enough condition duration (80% bleed duration). My ticks aren’t as high as a pure condition damage build, but I have more power and critical damage to take advantage of my high precision.

enLight.1695:

I’ve been playing a condition warrior for six months. After much experience in WvW, I prefer to run a hybrid direct/condition damage build. I use Longbow and Sword/Shield. My armor is Berserker with Undead Runes. My weapons are Valkyrie with Earth and Accuracy Sigils. My trinkets are ascended Rabid.

Without Might, my bleeds tick for 99 damage and my burns tick for 608 damage. The Deep Cuts trait and 30 points in Strength are enough condition duration (80% bleed duration). My ticks aren’t as high as a pure condition damage build, but I have more power and critical damage to take advantage of my high precision.

I’ve been using Sword/Shield and Longbow with a heal shout and condition removal build for a long time now. I’ve had tremendous success with it, but I’m looking to move away from that weapon combo and try something a bit different.

I’ve actually decided to go with full Rabid armor with Undead runes and Carrion trinkets, while using dual swords. I haven’t had a chance to test it out yet, but I’m hoping I get some decent results. Either way, I haven’t lost much. I used Karma for the armor (except the shoulders), and I already had Exotic Carrion trinkets.

I’m gonna go play around with it later tonight in WvW.