Guild Wars 2

I am still not convinced about melandru/hoelbrak with Food and Dogged March :-P
Is it that better compared to Lyssa?

With melandru/food/trait you get
-98% condition duration to cripple/immob/chill
-65% condition duration on others

With lyssa you can remove all conditions every 48sec.
And still get the -40% food

My problem is when figting against condition build class they WILL always run with +condition duration food and often +condition duration runes/traits/sigil.. because why not?? its easy to get so they will get also atleast +65% condition duration

So basically your melandru/food doesnt do anything against the base condition damage/duration.. makes the melandru/hoelbrak runes trash..

So where melandru/hoelbrak + food and dogged march can do good against cripple/chill/immob it wont do any good against the other conditions..
With lyssa you can still run with food (so undo the +condi food from your opponent)
And remove the conditions every 48sec.

opponent does 5stack of bleeding for 10sec
+40% from food
+25% from trait/sigil/runes
Making it a 16,5 sec bleeding

With melandru build:
-40% food
-25% runes
You still get a 10sec bleeding

With lyssa build:
-40% food
You get 12,5sec bleeding
But you can remove it every 48sec..

In both ways you wont let it bleed for 10sec ofc.. so you try to remove it due to using skill/burst+ire

But without burst ready, or used skill, you cant remove it, with lyssa you can in those panic situations.

So basically melandru/hoelbrak doesnt do that much.. can someone convincing me?

another issue with melandru/hoelbrak:

Lets say you can remove the conditions you get 7 out of the 10 times you get it.

So lets say opponent does 10 times of bleeding for 10sec
+40% from food
+25% from trait/sigil/runes
Making it a 16,5 sec bleeding x10

You removed the bleeding 7times with your burst or skill.
So you still get 3x bleeding for 16,5sec – 6,5 sec(-65%food/runes) = 10sec
So you get a total of 30sec bleeding (lets say its 30000 damage :-)

With lyssa you can remove 8 of the 10
So you still get 2x bleeding for 16,5 – 4sec(-40%food) = 12,5sec
So you get a total of 24,5 sec bleeding (lets say its 24500 damage )

What i try to say is, you will always try to remove your conditions using your burst attack.. if you do that there is almost no point for using -% condition duration runes.. because you will remove them if possible.. and if not possible you get less duration but i think it would be better to remove it in those panic situations compared to let it bleed for just slighty less duration..

Obviously nothing beats raw and direct condition removal and having - condition duration only negates half of the problem that conditions pose.

That is why I usually take shake it off on my utility bar, gives you an extra condition removal on a 25 second cooldown. That and cleansing ire gives me decent condition removal.

However, having melandru runes can significantly reduce movement impairing conditions like immobilize, chill and cripple. Even if it is just 1-2 seconds less it can make a huge difference. Even reducing poison duration on healing signet by a few seconds can mean a lot.

And melandru also has the -25% duration on stuns which is very helpful.

Combined with decent condition removal options melandru runes are still really good. Hoelbrak as well too but there might be better options.

@nicknamenick the problem I see with you analysis is that it seems to assume your fighting a necro or condi warrior I don’t know many classes with bleeds that long especially the base of 10 sec.

If the base duration is already long before +duration then of course the melandru setup isn’t as effective as it is against lesser base durations.

I have a warrior and necro and I can permachill a warrior no matter his setup.

Condi builds will apply as much as possible as fast as possible. After you wipe with lyssa you will probably get condi spiked before it is up again.