Guild Wars 2

I posted this build in the main build thread in the stickies, but did not get much feedback, so now I am trying here.

OK this is my take on a PvE solo S/S bleed build for levelling and farming. I haven’t seen something similar before, and I’d like to hear some feedback if possible, please.
Secondary weapon will be Sword/warhorn for more mobility between quests, or longbow.
The build (2 different calculators, so take whatever works for you)
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mMRkmkV9MoGRkmoGRnmax9MxVcRqVkb
http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/warrior#2|2|60|3903|65|4198|246|10|836|0|0|30|1525|1523|2413|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|30|1109|1059|1105|0|0|2|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

The idea of this build is high crit and thus as much bleed as possible.
Standard combat would be:
4 (throw sword). 2 (jump charge), 4 pull out sword. Then just go with 1 until adrenaline is at 3/3 and use Flurry. So much bleeds.
If not dead yet, change to sword/warhorn or longbow to gain Adrenaline and Might. And change back to sword/sword when possible.

Thoughts on the traits:
10 Strength to get berserker’s power. Since I will have some adrenaline most of the time (especially since it never goes completely away because of Adrenal reserves) this seems justifiable. However, since I will be using flurry often (and thus reducing adrenaline), one could disagree.

30 Arms:
10: Deep cuts gives 50% longer bleed. But for standard mobs this might not be necessary, as they will die quickly. So Furious speed for Swiftness, or Rendering Strikes for Vulnerability might be better.
20: No-brainer here.
30: We will be getting plenty of crits and with Furious we will be getting adrenaline faster for even more bleeds

30 Discipline:
10: Heightened Focus. As above this can be justified, but Thrill of the Kill for more Adrenaline, Warrior Sprint for more movement, or Signet mastery for faster signet use are also viable.
20: I have chosen Sweet Revenge as it makes our Revenge ability actually useful. If you are a total kitten and never go down, you can go with either of the 3 alternatives from 10 above.
30: Adrenal reserves: Means you will still have some Adrenaline in reserve for Heightened Focus and berserker’s power. And you will quickly built up for another Flurry.

Skills were a bit tricky for me.
I took Healing signet because I like the regeneration, but Mending for curing conditions or healing surge for more adrenaline isn’t bad either.
Signet of Stamina for removal of all conditions. Sould also have been Shake it Off for removing only one condition but more often.
For great Justice gives us the extra crit we like for bleeeeeeds.
Battle Roar also gives extra crit. Alternatively you can take Endure pain if you die too much or is not a Charr. (Also Battle Roar is kinda weak, so you might just not like it all even though it adds our needed crit).

For gear Precision and everything critty is nice, and of course bonuses to condition damage. As always you can’t ignore Toughness and Vitality either.
As I said all feedback is a appreciated.

Berserker’s Power and Heightened Focus emphasize keeping a full bar of Adrenaline and not using it in order to maximize damage; this is at odds with a Bleed-based Sword build, since Flurry is the best Bleed stacker you have, even against multiple opponents.

Adrenal Reserves is kinda wasted if you’re not planning on using Flurry often. And if you are going to use Flurry a lot, BP and HF are wasted. See where I’m going with this? :)

Works with Rifle + Long bow too.

Your build in my eyes is a very niche build. It lacks the survival stats/traits/slot skills to survive at close range with powerful mobs and large groups of mobs but has no ranged weapon. It would be effective for running around the open world killing normal mobs and some veterans but will be much slower than a direct damage build.

Where condition damage really shine is against bigger mobs in longer engagements because if the fight is longer than the duration of the longer bleeds they will do more damage overall than a crit build.

This build could have some viability in dungeons, but only if you have a much tankier guardian/warrior to keep the mobs busy while you jump in and out stacking bleeds.

Also if I was to play your build I would trade Adrenal reserves for quick bursts because there are so many ways to build adrenaline that even without that trait I am often (7/10 times) back at full before the burst cooldown is done. I would also trade heightened focus for Signet Mastery so that Signet of Rage is on a 48 second cooldown giving it a lot more up time of its buffs.

Also note that points down the Tactics line add 1% boon duration/point which further helps to keep fury and might stacks up longer increasing damage.

But at the end of the day if the build works for you and you enjoy playing it that is really all that matters, especially for open world PvE where no one else opinion matters.

^
Last time I checked anything works in PvE as long as you actually do work.

Berserker power does not affect condition damage. None of the “increases damage” traits do. Adrenal reserves is wasted. Unless you are running a soldier set or something, you will have 3 bars of adrenaline back long before the 10 second CD on flurry is over.

Either put it into quick burst, or what I like to do is put at least 15 into defense, for the regeneration and embrace the pain. Helps a lot with survival.

Make sure you leave the sword in untill the last moment, it adds bleeds and it can not be removed. It will add a total of 4 bleeds, but I recommend taking it out before then for the burst of that move.

I went for a more defensive spec, taking advantage of the toughness on condition armor. The theory being you are killing them slowly, you need to stay up longer also, the trait in defense tree “gain adrenaline when hit” is a must, as flurry is an incredible burst skill, and with that trait, you will be popping it often.

Another thing to point out, pve specific, you will get a ton of aggro. I am not sure if this is 100% true, but from what I have seen using arrah, I gain much more aggro from condition/defensive than full tankish healing shouts (mace/sheild) or half crit half tank axe/sheild.

Added bonus to this spec, rifle auto attack becomes worthy, longbow burst skill becomes insane and will make zergs move out of it in wvw.

Overall the build is good, but as a personal recommendation, I would say try out something like 20/25/25 strength/arms/defense. Gives you defense, crit, and all the bonuses to bleeds that are a must, especially 10% more damage to bleeding targets and 33% to add bleeds.

It is a very fun spec bleed, fun to see an enemy not realise why their health is draining away because they think you arent hitting hard.

TYVM for all the feedback.
@JunkyardWolf: I am planning on using Flurry often, but I regain the Adrenaline so fast that Flurry is not ready for a long time after. So I figures BP and HF could be justified. But see below
@Gaspera: Yes, I do need survivability. I was hoping to get enough from gear, but it seems like it may nor be enough. And yeah, you are probably right about changing HF for SM. I mentioned it too in my description, but was kinda hooked on the added crit.
@Schwahrheit: I think you are implying this would be a better build wit LB/R? And, yeah, the build DOES work (in pve at least), but I would like to improve on it
@Servanin: I do not feel that AR is wasted as it help build up Adrenaline fast so I get the bonuses from HF and BP, but I do recognize that there are redundancies here. Should I remove AR I think I’d remove the entire Disc line (which I jut might)
@Bish: TY for the advice. And yeah, I DO like bleeds. We all have our preferences and I just like bleeds

But when that is said, I keep feeling that damage is wasted with bleeds because they will always have some bleeds going when they die (then again high damage build will also waste a bit of damage with overkilling strikes).

Finally, my arguments for my choices, does not mean that I disagree with what any of you said. I was just explaining why I chose the way I did.
Please, if there is more advice keep it coming. Until then I will try running a bit more with this build to see how it works. Maybe change it a bit for rifle use.

I’m saying it works with EITHER. You can just adapt to whenever Rifle +Long Bow or Sword/Sword + Long Bow is better depending on the situation.

Fair enough, this games all about your playstyle, if what you play works, then its a good spec for you.

I had this build for a long time before switching over to something with more survivability in dungeons. I used dual sword, focused on adding bleed stacks first, and then condition damage. PVE it worked pretty well though at level 80 soloing in Orr was tough.

In WvW, in one on one fights I usually died first, but the other guy died soon after unless they were smart enough to remove conditions. Its difficult to survive 25 stacks of bleed. In zergs it wasnt as useful, though.

Having played around as I said I would I now have to agree that AR was a bad choice. QB was a much better idea. So ty for the advice people
And I am still trying to find something to replace HF and BP. Maybe I should just dump Strength and take Defense instead. Although 10 Defense seems too little, and I can’t see where I would get the last points from. Unless I completely dump Tactics too and then I am doing a totally different build

At least this isn’t a one-build-only-game

Not sure if this was said before but I did a condition build also w/ Bleeds. I did 30+ Critical Hits and instead of 10% Crit hit w/ Sword I did Fury when I immobilize w/ +20 in Tactics to get Leg Specialist (They synergized very well, I’d recommend this for a sure source of fury which is 20% crit.) Then I did Banner at 20 because you can use the 2 banners, one that acts like might and the other one that gives Crits. & Since I used hammer I put the other 20 into Defense but those can be changed if you like, but since it also had a cripple it gave decent fury. Embrace the Pain helped out a ton with constant Flurry. I mostly did a Toughness, Condition Dmg build.

Edit: If you’re a charr, I’d use Sharpnel Mine for the 3rd utility skill, really great for bleeds

Interesting, but I am not sure I fully understood what you wrote there, Xyger. Could you post your build please?

Flurry does the same dmg and bleed stacks at one level of adrenaline that it does at three the extra adrenaline only increases the immobilize time. So you don’t really need anything to grant extra adrenaline as you’ll be waiting on the cooldown more often then not if you pop it at one bar. This means you can drop the discipline traits if you want and I would recommend taking tactics for healing shouts and condition removal on warhorn skills make it great for groups and more survivalable for solo. I would also recommend that you take Leg Specialist(I tactics) which causes immobilize when you cripple and Opportunist (IX Arms) which grants Fury whenever you immobilize. If you time your cripples right you should have 100% uptime on Fury which means more crits =more dmg and more bleeds=more dmg. I believe that this is what Xyger was getting at.

Just tested it out and at full adrenaline I got 11 bleed stacks and at one bar I got 7, so you do in fact get more bleed stacks at full adrenaline.

Are you traited to cause bleeds via crits or sigils ? I could be wrong though too maybe it’s just the damage thats the same either way your better off using it at one bar instead of three espcecially in pve.

Italyguy is right. This is from GW2 wiki:
Notes
Cannot move during channeling
More hits at higher adrenaline levels. 32 damage and 1 stack of bleeding per hit.
Level 1: 8 hits
Level 2: 10 hits
Level 3: 12 hits

So you actually get 50% more bleeds in when adrenaline is at 3 compared to 1.

But yeah, removing Disc-line could certainly be used to improve survivability. However, healing shouts only heal around 2k per shout. I am not sure it is worth going that deep into Tactics. Perhaps the points would be better spent on Defense?
Also, I can’t see how Leg specialist+Opportunist by themselves can give 100% uptime (I am not saying you are wrong, I am just asking for clarification). As I see it Hamstring has 15 sec CD, and cripple is applied for 7 secs, and Immobilize is 1 sec. And Fury is applied for 3 secs. Even in a perfect world you would still have 4 secs without Fury, right?

However, I am beginning to see Xygers point with a hammer, as I assume crippled and immobile both counts as “disabled” for 25% extra damage. That is sizeable. Obviously it is also no longer a true bleed build then, as hammers do not apply bleed by themselves. I kinda like the twist, but it is hard for me to see how it can be effective – I guess I will just have to try it

Yeah sorry been a while since I played my warrior didn’t mean to be misleading I would still try popping it at one bar though that way you get it on sooner and it makes your bleeds more effective or less likely to be wasted. As for the fury uptime I used rifle / sword + warhorn so I used cripple from rifle then closed while firing Volley or weapon swapped and leaped in then used hamstring autoattacked then popped flurry. Do whatever you like though just throwing ideas out there.

hmm, just had a crazy idea for your build, rune wise i don’t know how viable this is but hey, you could go with 2x centaur runes, 2x krait runes and 2x afflicted. That way, bleed duration is increased like 45%

chaosmesmer.9857:

hmm, just had a crazy idea for your build, rune wise i don’t know how viable this is but hey, you could go with 2x centaur runes, 2x krait runes and 2x afflicted. That way, bleed duration is increased like 45%

Wow…. this actually stacks. Good find.

EDIT: It only stacked well on my Necro, I don’t know why the bleeding duration is insignificant on my Warrior.

Haha thanks, i’m kinda testing that atm, similar to the OP but a bit different, im trying out a S/S build + shouts.

Edit: if it doesnt stack that well, then i guess just go for 3x krait runes and 3x afflicted. Plus, remember food, (cant remember the name) – you can get up to 40% increased condition duration.

Also, not so sure if this stacks but 2x sigil of agony on swords. If not, then earth + agony

Again, thanks for all the input. It is much appreciated.
I have decided to change my original build, but I am still not sure to what.

However, about bleed duration, I was thinking that duration wasn’t too important because most mobs are dead relatively fast anyway.
But would you guys, who have tried experimenting with this say that high bleed duration is important?

Sorry, i’m not too sure but for a bleed build imo higher bleed duration is important as long as you also have strong condition damage. Agreed, mobs do die fast but in cases like dungeons, it becomes more important then.

I personally dont value bleed duration highly, cause it doesn’t increase DPS, only Damage per attack.

I would rather get more condition dmg if i can. i have not found many situations where longer durations work out better.
- for solo, mobs die quick
- for group DEs, mobs die even quicker and champions usually have 25 stacks, I want my conditions to matter even more for the short duration that is on them
- dungeons may be useful but only if there are no more than one other profession doing bleeds to be fully effective
- pvps or W3, conditions are usually cleansed, rarely do they last the full duration

In short, I prefer my bleeds to be short but deadly.

Having said that, I’ve moved on from playing bleeds to axe/horn now, cause of the limitations of bleeds.

hartmoore.9632:

In short, I prefer my bleeds to be short but deadly.

^
This (and the reasons he gave for why as well)

hartmoore.9632:

Having said that, I’ve moved on from playing bleeds to axe/horn now, cause of the limitations of bleeds.

I’m still struggling through it, hoping there is light at the end of the tunnel someday when a dev goes “OMG! Guys, hey guys! I just realized that our design for condi warriors is pretty bad. How can we fix/buff them to be viable?” and does it.

*I do get frustrated and swap over to GS + x/horn though at times because I’d like to feel viable for a little bit on the battlefield now and then in W3

Braxxus.2904:

hartmoore.9632:

In short, I prefer my bleeds to be short but deadly.

^
This (and the reasons he gave for why as well)

hartmoore.9632:

Having said that, I’ve moved on from playing bleeds to axe/horn now, cause of the limitations of bleeds.

I’m still struggling through it, hoping there is light at the end of the tunnel someday when a dev goes “OMG! Guys, hey guys! I just realized that our design for condi warriors is pretty bad. How can we fix/buff them to be viable?” and does it.

*I do get frustrated and swap over to GS + x/horn though at times because I’d like to feel viable for a little bit on the battlefield now and then in W3

I know what you mean..:/ I don’t want to be the cookie cutter spec when this game has so much variety of options you can spec into for pvp instead being limited.