Guild Wars 2

So when I hit max level, I went straight for a condition based Sword and shield build, focused mainly on stacking toughness with undead runes.

My goals aren’t too high, I’m just aiming to stay as a viable asset in wvw, and pve.

I typically go
10 arms
30 defense
30 tactics.

I also use a longbow on the side. Is a power build with a sword much stronger and worth swapping over entirely?

One thing I can say is, a power build with a Longbow will be much more successful than it’s Condition counterpart. For the sword, I can’t say much but I’d stick with power. That given, try giving the 10 in Strength instead of Arms and using more defensive runes instead (Melandru or Soldier if you are going for a Shout build.)

Neither. It’s enough for its utility therefore gearing up for it is usually pointless. And yeah if you go Berserker with a Long Bow, it does more DPS.

I am running healing shouts. Should I go for knights gear straight up, or should I go for the rurik set with power, toughness, healing?

and thank you.

John Widdin.9618:

I am running healing shouts. Should I go for knights gear straight up, or should I go for the rurik set with power, toughness, healing?

and thank you.

Probably the Knight’s set. The healing shouts are just to help keep you alive until you can shove your sword down the enemy’s throat. :P

If the question is about traits, the extended bleed in Arms will give you way more than 10 points in Strength. If it is about stats on gear, power and condition damage are pretty even (though it might change depending on other stats like condition duration).

Warrior condition damage builds are just gimmicky. Can’t apply conditions terribly fast unless you use sword burst and/or offhand sword (which you aren’t)

Go for power instead. That way if you decide to use a different weapon along the line you won’t have to farm an entirely different set of armor as well.

I personally am running Sword/Board 0/30/20/20/0 with Rabid Weapons/Gear w/Undead Runes. My 2ndary is Longbow with Heavy ConDam with perks to the Longbow from the 20p in Tactics.

Focused on bleed stacking and control, It’s highly effective in PvP and PvE for me. Also, I enjoy this build a LOT. The high Toughness makes me very very durable and high ConDam makes my bleeds (with Sword, Burst, and Bleeding perks. You can get 10 stacks of bleeding in a few seconds and maintain them very easily for lots of consistant damage and it’s a great way to maintain aggro in Dungeons) tick for 100+ consistently.

My Utilities are all Stances with the Trait that increases Stance Duration by 25%, I use Balanced Stance, Frenzy, and Endure Pain. My elite is SoRage for the might that adds ConDam.

This is my preferred build and of my own creation.

Bleeds only have a 5% return on your condition dmg stat; meaning 100 cond dmg = 5 dmg/sec/bleed. That isn’t a good return. Burning is better, but we can’t maintain it reliably in a pvp setting AND simultaneously apply heavy bleeding, which is our main condition. I ran an Apothecary Sword/Shield & Bow shout build for quite some time. After some testing in the mists, I’ve moved towards a high crit/crit dmg build which focuses heavily around the use of adrenaline. I haven’t looked back.

Tried condition build in wvw, it was pointless. Too easy for your conditions to be removed in a 1v1 and pointless in a zerg.

rancidstick.2704:

Tried condition build in wvw, it was pointless. Too easy for your conditions to be removed in a 1v1 and pointless in a zerg.

What were you using ?
The only reason i can fathom is that you got burst down before being able to do anything. Else, i never had issues reapplying conditions on anyone.

Sword = Constant bleed/Cripple = heavy pressure
Rifle = Constant bleed/Frequent Vulnerability = constant bleed and keep away
War traits -> Frequent Vulnerability/More Bleed

To be honest, 1 vs 1, in wvw, i’ll just let my conditions kill the other dude while i hang back and my health ticks up.

spvp is another story.

power sword builds are stupid, idk why anyone bothers.

the sword hits like a wet noodle and most of its damage comes from its bleeds, so why make the wet noodle slap a bit harder instead of make your main form of damage do more damage? i thought the answer to that would be obvious to everyone :P

however in a PvP scenario most players will simply remove your bleeds as soon as they get to any decent stack, making it seem like youre doing no damage at all, cause youre not. but the sword in a power build still wont hit hard enough to make any difference, seriously its quite useless without its bleeds (which is why bleed warriors are pointless in sPvP). so if youre having trouble keeping your bleeds up then just use an axe, it hits harder and more often, plus its not reliant on bleeds.

but if you HAVE to go sword then always go condition or youll be useless.

For conditions warriors in pvp..I can say the best amulet for them Rampager’s Amulet. To make conditions harder to take if even though that can be done easily depending what profession they are..use the Rending Strike trait instead of Blade Master trait. Having the Rampager’s Amulet we don’t really need the 10% extra critical percentage for sword because our critical percentage is already high with that amulet.

If you’re going for a condition warrior build then use sword/sword so bleeds will always stay on your opponent. Opponents hate when they’re impale because even if they remove it bleed stick..it will reapply until impale duration disappears.

Use Longbow for groups and for immobilize control especially if you have bolas as one of you skills.

Use rifle for mainly bleed stacking, kiting and knockback control. Never use kill shot as a condition warrior because it hits very weak compared to a burst cannon rifle type*

Clyne.9038:

rancidstick.2704:

Tried condition build in wvw, it was pointless. Too easy for your conditions to be removed in a 1v1 and pointless in a zerg.

What were you using ?
The only reason i can fathom is that you got burst down before being able to do anything. Else, i never had issues reapplying conditions on anyone.

Sword = Constant bleed/Cripple = heavy pressure
Rifle = Constant bleed/Frequent Vulnerability = constant bleed and keep away
War traits -> Frequent Vulnerability/More Bleed

To be honest, 1 vs 1, in wvw, i’ll just let my conditions kill the other dude while i hang back and my health ticks up.

spvp is another story.

For wvw it was sword/warhorn. 1v1 and 2v1 was okay, anymore I just ran away since I did not feel like dieing.

No one ever got a burst off on me since I always had a stun break/counter/stun with my second weapon set.

How bad warriors are at applying conditions was very obvious when I fought against someone who tried to remove them. Even with vuln from other weapon/burning/confusion it was pointless against a decent player. One they removed the conditions it just became slow and drawn out fight where I kept on spamming immobilize and won with my toughness & regen.

It was just overall boring and slow compared to other builds.