Guild Wars 2

so 3 of the skills for longbow have burning duration. i assume this means condition damage. so to get the most damage if i plan on making the long bow my main weapon, do i stack power? or do i stack condition? ty for info, is difficult to tell from tooltips etc.

I wonder about the exact same thing. Gonna use a Bow for Ranged Combat but dunno if I should focus on Condition(duration) or raw Power.

If you’re going to be using the longbow as your primary weapon then you want a mixture of condition damage power (with precision thrown in as the third choice for more damage). If you go this route, I honestly suggest taking a sword as your melee weapon as it will benefit the most from the same stats (condition damage also works on the sword bleeds).

If longbow was my ‘main’ weapon I’d get the range increase and pour everything else into power/duration and precision/damage, then just be glassy at a distance.

EDIT: oh and maybe pick up some runes/sigil for fire. But fire tends not to last very long as far as conditions go, so I don’t think I’d bother with the trait to use burning to boost damage from my other attacks.

For longbow you really want to focus on the Burning and using your Burst skill as often as possible because other than FoF, Arcing Arrow, and your burst skill, Longbow is pretty lackluster damage for warriors. Burning benefits from 25% of your condition damage (which is high, every other condition gets less benefit) so you really want to maximize that. Assuming you are using Fan of Fire at point blank so all 3 shots hit and your Burst skill as often as possible you will have no problem keeping up your burning stack without investing in condition duration (although it certainly wouldn’t hurt). Keep in mind using Fan of Fire at point blank and keeping enemies in your combustive shot is very easy in PvE, but it’s not something I’d reccomend relying on in PvP.

I would use something like this Build.

-Shouts will keep your hp and adrenaline high thanks to inspiring and vigorous shouts.
-Perma Swiftness with Signet of Rage and Furious Speed. (to aid with kiting)
-Perma Fury with Signet of Rage and For Great Justice.
-5 stacks of might @ 90% duration with Signet of Rage, 3 stacks @ 100% duration, and another 3 stacks @ 80% duration with ‘for great justice’ averaging out to an extra 346.5 power and condition damage. (with potentially another 3 stacks if you time your Arcing Arrow properly on top of your Combustive Shot for a combo)
-+20% damage to burning and bleeding foes (easily maintained)
-16 seconds of aoe vigor/swiftness from warhorn, again to aid with kiting as well as group support.
-While not central to the design of the build, you will also have 27812 hp, which is a massive pool to work with so that you will have an easier time getting through bad situations and step back and kite them while you heal it off.

-You will have about 1819.5 condition damage to fuel your burning (assuming 25 stacks on your sigil, averaged might stacks, and carrion gear as shown in build (or up to 1963 with maximum might stacks from self)). Burning base damage is 328, with your condition damage that will be bumped up to 782.875 (818.75 at max personal might stacks)damage per tick, more than double. Furthermore your bleeds will be ticking at 133.475 per stack (precise strikes and sword)

I started my warrior’s WvW as a condition longbow first build. I’ve since replaced all my equipment (keep the old just incase the meta changes again). After doing some math, flames as a condition just isn’t as efficient to stack +cond damage items.

example:
Bleed takes 850 (42.5/0.05) +con damage to 2x damage.
poison takes 840 (84/0.1)
flame 1312 (328/0.25).

Reasoning being, that flame is so fast acting most people takes almost full damage from it – by the time you notice it, hit your condition removal and have it trigger, its most likely already (close to) completing its DoT.

However, if you are stacking flame duration, thats a different story. But you know whats even faster than condition damage? Direct damage. I believe the bright stars of the longbow skills are F1 and 3, its AoEs. stacking power, precision & crit gives it a geometric curve, mitigated by enemies armor. Condition damage on the otherhand, is a linear damage, mitigated by condition removal.

Since flame damage is already fairly high without any cond, I believe the front end loaded damage of powerprecision is better for WvW (AoE wins), PvE vs bosses (almost always they have full stack of flame already). The only place where + cond could win out is dungeons.