Guild Wars 2

LumAnth.5124:

You realize that…

(WvW) Only 1 or 2 Mesmers are needed for WvW. And no one wants to WvW as a utility bot.

(PvP) the only viable spec for Mesmer is being a glassy built shatter. How many counters? Lots. Thieves are a hard counter to Mesmers and are way better roamers. Conditions hard counter shatter Mesmers. AoEs counter shatter Mesmer.

(PvE) Even our PvE builds have been nerfed! Wow! It takes a very spiteful development team to nerf an average PvE build that made Mesmers OK for PvE. So what if we have Time Warpz!12!11!! Mesmer DPS is now so weak it’s better to have another Elementalist, Guardian or Warrior.

Only “noobs” would take a well built and skilled Ranger for granted in PvE or even dungeons. My Ranger ckittene Frost Spirit, Spotter and even Warhorn to help my group.

But don’t worry. The people who don’t play Mesmer will always have an excuse:
BUT U HVAE PORTALZ AND VEJLZ!!1121!1!!

And how is any of this relevant to Rangers getting a buff?

So WvW, how many mesmers does a skill group have? 1-2. How many Rangers? 0.

SPvP: As posted above, EU qualifying Memsers: 4, Rangers: 1.

ONLY in PvE does the Ranger have a edge, but only as a utility bot. No one would take a Ranger for the dps they do (which is terrible, even your ‘nerfed’ mesmer dps is better).

So, why don’t you guys just like, wait for your darn turn instead of jumping all over the starving kid who finally got tossed a piece of bread.

I say to every single mesmer claiming they are in a ‘worse’ position as if this were some sort of ‘woe is me’ kittening contest…who has representation?

Mesmers do, Rangers don’t. You don’t see Rangers in top end Spvp or WvW teams. The only place you see Ranger is in pve and in that situation we are in the same boat as mesmer: utility kitten. Even there, how many times do you see pug groups with ads saying “no mesmers” and how many with “no rangers”?

…

Really though. No class should be wanted only for it’s utility. Necro’s are only wanted for their boon strips. Mesmer is only wanted for it’s veil. Ranger is only wanted for it’s spirits.

All three of these classes need to be made to be made desirable outside of being mere utility kittenes.

The longbow isn’t getting that big of a buff to overall dps. 10% more attack speed(with gm trait) and Rapid Fire doing same damage in half the time. Since they aren’t lowering Rapid Fire’s cooldown time or raising its base damage, its damage over time remains the same. It’s just a bit more bursty now. So if we’re talking a 20 second span of fight time, the actual felt damage over time difference is going to be 10% more, coming from the buffed RtW trait.

Also remember quickness is a percent function. A 4 second channel with quickness becomes 2 seconds. A 2 second channel becomes 1 second. So the difference this change makes when quickness is factored in is only 1 second.

My solution is to run P/P and D/P. I use unload+ricochet against zergs so I can stay out of the zillion red circles. I use D/P in solo combat where I don’t have to worry about red circles. Yes I give up two trait slots to make P/P decent. Pistol mastery and Ricochet. Giving up Vital Persistence and Bountiful Theft isn’t that bad.

P/P is also strong against certain builds. Particularly shatter mesmers and perma stealth thieves. Ricochet kills clones and Unload tracks through stealth just like Rangers rapid fire.

One weird thing, sometimes ricochet affects shadow shot. I actually teleport and stab 2-3 more targets if there are other enemies nearby. Thankfully this is as disorienting for my enemy as it is for me.

This is a complaint in the mmo community as old as mmos have been around. Unfortunately it seems most developers think that there are no girls on the internet. To be fair girls aren’t the only minority anet ignores. RPers, Rangers and wvw.community are just as unimportant. The lich armor is kinda weird on girls. If you want BA armor I recommended cof armor + achievement armor. Also dry bones bottom + named exotic top is pretty intimidating. The sorrow dungeon armor is pretty gnarly looking too. Hope this helps!

He is right, in Open World PvE Condi necros are…utterly useless. If you roll a full condi necro and go do temple fights or whatever you are just a leech.

But to say we stack bleeds slowly…is a half-truth. We stack bleeds slower…then a warrior or Ranger…but we’re faster then every other class, even Engi’s! More importantly we provide much better cover condi’s. Condi warrior has no cover condi’s at all.

Also comparing a condi thief to a necro is ridiculous. Because a condi thief is useless at everything except trolling stragglers. No real aoe dmg (aoe poison? woop de doo, ranger, necro and engi can do that too!) no utility, insta dies to a meteor storm, and truthfully does not have enough condi output to break even 1 decent bunker in a timely fashion.

I take it you are some kid who couldn’t handle the necro’s complex rotation and high skill cap required to not die like a fool. So you rolled a condi thief and face rolled some pugs in wvw or maybe finally got a decent score in yoloQ and now suddenly necros are the worst profession ever.

Sorry, but no. In fact I cant wait for your post about condi thieves when the reality about them hits you in the face, too!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW4Yjc0UZbLN20whbCchSqfA6FIAiWqbj04ZB-TlCEABwpD4NNBFt/AIaE2SJoBPEAtU+Jj6PAcEAc+CAEAABYmzMdGgCdml5OLFgfKjA-w

My hybrid variant. It uses the staff as primary weapon to apply conditions and build life force, then drop wells and pop into DS for the extra crit and DS 5+4. Also, nothing funnier then hitting a thief for 5k lb crit, and then setting them on fire for another 2k dmg. That’s generally the idea of the build, load a enemy with bleed, poison, and torment, and burning, then start hitting them with life blasts. Two sources of dmg ticking away at them at the same time (condi+LB) will provide more burst then 1 source of dmg that hits harder but in easily anticipated intervals.

Our main problem is our DS mechanic doesn’t provide enough protection. Usually due to LF starvation.

It doesn’t matter if every single skill on your bar produces life force, if your enemy is constantly evading, blocking or in some way making it impossible to hit them they’ve simultaneously destroyed both your offense and defense.

For instance, we could gain life force on damage all the time. Like 1% gain on a 1s cd as part of our mechanic. Perhaps make vampire signet play into this, adding a extra 1% life force on hit on top of its normal healing.

The alternative would be to allow incoming heals to heal our DS bar if we are in DS. Also allow us to use our util, elite and heal skills from DS. This would be my preferred fix, as it would make vampire builds finally sync with Death Shroud.

Lastly, regardless of which approach they take, I would like to see LF degeneration while in DS go away completely. We’ve long since passed the design era where DS was just something we popped in and out of very briefly.

I run hybrid myself. I have about 2000 power 40% crit and 1600 cond dmg.

While only few of the scep/dag+Staff setup skills scale with power nicely, they all scale to some degree. Since DS is part of the condi rotation, you can also squeeze in a few lifeblasts as well as DS 5+4. All that extra upfront physical dmg followed by a hefty cond stack breaks most people. Most importantly you don’t suddenly become nonexistent if you run into a zerg with a lot of condi hate. You can do modest dmg still.

Another nice thing about condi dmg in wvw is siege. When you man siege in wvw, those condi attacks like mortar burning, ac/cannon bleeds and treb poison all scale with your Cond dmg.

Greatsword

Auto Chain:
Reaper’s Slash – swing your sword in a sweeping arc.
Reaper’s Return – swing your sword back, sweeping upward over the shoulder.
Reaper’s Fall – Bring your sword crashing straight down, gaining 4% life force and chilling all nearby foes for 1 second.

#2. Death’s Call: Spin around with your sword once damaging nearby foes. At the end of the spin, stab the sword into the ground and yank all nearby foes toward you. Gain 1% life force for each foe yanked and place 1 stack of torment on them.

#3. Reaper’s Generosity: Lay down a Putrid Mark at your feet.

#4. Death’s Horror: Lay down a Mark of Horror.

#5. Reaper’s Consumption: Lay down a mark that when triggered will summon a swarm of black birds to attack the target (similar to hunter’s call). Does physical damage and bleeding. When the skill completes, the birds fly back to you, morphing into black and red orbs as they do, and replenishing your health.

By using marks this weapon could use the same traits meant for staff. Staff Mastery becomes 2 handed mastery. Greater Marks stays the same.

This could set up a vicious combo, by laying down all staff marks, then swapping to GS and laying down 4 and 5 (putrid mark would over write), then GS 2 for the yank. This would apply 11 guaranteed bleeds + whatever the minions do. 1 torment, poison, chill, + conditions currently on you and of course plenty of physical damage.

If you say OP, I say “Why didn’t you dodge?” You can see this combo coming a mile away. The Necro laying a bunch of marks at his feet, then the sword spin, dramatic pause as the sword lifts into the air, and theeenn the sword comes down and yanks you. That’s like all the time in the world to move away, or dodge, or block, ect.

Disease is a very broad term. Malaria is a parasite, Influenza is a Virus, Salmonella is a Bacteria. Mad Cow is simply a misfolded protein that causes other proteins to misfold (aka the Luigi effect).

It would not be a stretch then for a disease to have a magical basis. Since we are necromancers, a caster class, it should be a non issue to do. It would be something like a self-spreading curse. This would eliminate any lore issues regarding cross species interaction.

NeXeD.3042:

Nothing will ever replicate the glory days of ultima online pvp. It was a magical run.

You make kitty sad. :c

All you have to do is win the powerball…then buyout Ultima Online…and a game with a more up to date graphics system and marry them. Easy

My Zerk Rangers build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEqUyaHLusw1agAha5AEAMv3Lw9TsDh9AqA-TlCBAB7pJAjjAgg7PolSvzUCilyAJeAA4o+DAXCg80BQKg8UGB-w

A good all around build that can handle most wvw situations.

I ran this build a long time ago. Except I used staff traits in DM, and Soul marks in SR. Was a pretty solid 1v1 build. However having to leave out so many juicy traits just out of reach was too frustrating for me, so I moved on. I like to explore new horizons, which is why I am experimenting with corruption and hybrid stats currently.

Balance has always been one of those onerous issues. You tweak one class to stop over performing against another and now unexpectedly it is completely vulnerable to a completely different class.

Which is why I hate class-based systems. They’ve been flawed since their inception. If friggin wow hasn’t gotten it right in 10 years…and older mmo’s have outright died…while games like Eve, UO, Elder Scrolls, ect live on is testament to this. Which is the reason every hard core, crowd funded, enthusiast mmo is skill based. Too late now…

Pseudo Hybrid Build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7djc0UZb5Ne2wfbiehS6aoEOBoCgofgE4dB-TFCGwABuCArU/Zpyga7PA4hAYUpXbdDTVCSKA/kGB-w

My current necro setup. The primary purpose of this build is corruption. Hence Focus, Path of Corruption and Corrupt Boon. In a team setting I can swap locust signet for Well of Corruption if needed.

The power isn’t high enough to justify using power weapons. It does however make using certain skills better. Namely Focus 4, Every DS skill, Scepter 3 and Staff 1. This way if I run into a diamond skin ele or rampaging warrior I don’t have to just sit on my hands…I can modify my attack pattern and deal with it.

No not without some way to actively remove condis while in DS. Otherwise you are going to get overloaded with conditions too fast.

I thought the biggest problem with AvA was that it was bought out by Aeria Games?

I think we need a better marketing strategy. I suggest we start by giving ourselves a easily recognizable title. Similar to magswag or beastgate…

My vote is ‘The Big Crystal D’

That’s pretty hip hop sounding I bet it will get us some street cred. Yo.

That may be true in gold league but silver and below do not see large golem armies very often.

If wvw offered decent rewards we would see a surge in casuals. Same as spvp saw with the reward tracks. Andy won’t do anything that will take away from their precious spvp esport pipe dream.

Naw not mad. Amused. I’d be even more amused if the leet pro roamer servers got merged with those ‘no skill zerg’ servers.

Itt Asura conditions thief’s and pu Mesmer roamers beat people with team oriented builds and claim they are ‘no skill zerglings’.

I like the idea of a shield on necros. Personally I think it should be defensive. Ideally with a aoe fear skill and a block that generates lf on block.

Could you elaborate please? What isn’t true? Why is it little benefit? I understand that it’s usefulness is very situational. I think that its value as a trait goes up the more you stack vit.

I brought back my old d/d 000266 soldier’s build this trait plus the new runes of the wurm made for a surprising buff to a build that was already pretty strong. In a 15v15 gvg with 2 guards in my party I had pretty much infinite life force. I only dropped DS to well bomb when driver called for it.

What I visually saw was a condi appearing on my bar and then immediately being wiped clean by some external condi clear. So when paired with vital persistence I just floated in DS 90% of the match.

The other thing I saw was it was usually just a trash condi, like vuln or cripple. Of course its hard to say what I’m picking up via trait and what I’m being hit with directly. I think this trait picks a condi off the top of the stack though, so usually you will only be taking a non damaging condi.

So with good party comp, this can be a great source of sustain. Works very good in zerg fights where there are lots of external condi clears.

Another thing, the reason this trait doesn’t pick up a condi right away is because it’s assumed you have 100% lf when you enter DS. So picking a condi right away would give you no life force and put a condi on you. Sounds counterproductive to me.

Just allow us to see a normalized human model in pvp. Please.

Zerg penalties are ridiculous. Its saying that a bigger army should lose because its big. That’s completely flies in the face of logic. Only people who live in fantasy land where huge armies of trained from birth storm troopers lose to rodents armed with rocks believe that. Get over it. Drop the ego fueled desire for small fights where _everyone _ will see you for the amazing player you think you are. The 111 argument is completely cooked up. You use all of your skills in a zerg fight that’s even remotely close. If there is such a blob that just 111 and doesn’t use fields and utils and elites please point them out. Free bags are always appreciated!

Just geared a pp + dp thief zerk thief . Very fun. Sit back and unload till they almost dead then swap and use shadow shot then heartseeker. Ricochet plus sigil of fire gives good aoe too. I also use withdraw and initiative on heal trait.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Lorelei.3918:

If you want to play a lb ranger…then no. Lb just does not do enough damage to down a good player. Worse the amount of defense you give up to have a functioning Longbow is absolutely not worth the paltry damage. Pets fail at CC and the Longbow has no snares of its own so you wind up mostly fighting with your GS.

This might be true in spvp where you are fighting in an area the size of a closet, but longbow is pretty fantastic in WvW.

With all the buffs you can get from foods, guard leech, etc., the longbow becomes a nail driver and you can take down a lot of people without ever having to get in melee range.

As long as you stay with the zerg and don’t draw any attention. Go out by yourself in wvw and see how long it takes for melee to get on top of you.

Funny thing about thieves…how sensitive they are…

Had that other post been about banning warriors or elementalists…they wouldn’t start a thread like this. They’d be like ‘meh, whatever.’

But not thieves…thieves always gotta get that last word in.

Maybe Rangers would react this way too… Except instead of a snarky single paragraph it would be a 1 page essay on why zergs need to be banned because in the 4th patch of the 3rd expansion of guild wars 1 a side character said something about quality over quantity so clearly the LORE would support the banning of zergs.

Personally I hate thieves because this game isn’t suppose to have any rock/paper/scissor system yet…Thieves/Mesmers beat GWEN at roaming, and GWEN beats TM at zerging and TM and GWEN beat Ranger at everything.

There is nothing wrong with going Hybrid on a warrior. Warrior skills are well suited to a hybrid approach. Longbow is a perfect example of a weapon with good condi application and good power coefficients on one weapon. Sword is another. In fact with the ferocity nerf, going power/pre/condi may net a greater yield in dps then a power/pre/ferocity build now, assuming you got the right weapons.

Now as for your build, my biggest piece of advice is drop the mace/shield for hammer, and drop the physical utils for stances, and invest in stances in your defensive line.

Hammer is just too good of a weapon in organized wvw. Having multiple blasts for water fields plus AoE hard cc is going to help your team a lot better then a pair of stuns and a block. Team play is what wvw is all about. You could even go S/W + Hammer for even more team support.

My personal preference for solo roaming is

0/5/5/0/4 Knights/Zerker gear, Spectral utils, Runes of the Pack, D/F and D/D

Solid balance of toughness and damage output and lifeforce regen. I’m also learning to love shrouded removal. Getting that one long duration condi off of you (without burning your heal) so you can reset your life bar is pretty nice.

NeXeD.3042:

The rustling of jimmies is strong in this thread.

That it is

Buffing the staff is a pretty good idea. If they did that and gave us a Greatsword (with melee cleave, kitten.) I’d be happy.

Andele.1306:

ACTUALLY NO, necromancers unlike engies or eles, were designed and created by the arts of the human gods, all other necros in game which arent new races/races which worked with the gods like the forgotten and got their powers from em, were demons/shadow beasts from the underworld.
They got clear cut rules (same as ritualists and dervishes, second one now no longer possible to exist) which are set up by lore, examples:

Sentient and powerful enough minions require blood upkeep, tho mindless ones/not nearly as strong can be kept up without any real problems.

Wells and Symbols (Marks in GW2) require either power from a fresh corpse, from the underworld or from the casters blood.

Turning lich requires you to set up a phylactery, turning part undead.

Using Death shroud and manipulation of the spectral arts, while allowing a easier to abuse connection to the underworld, keeps a part of you in it.

While actual worship of Grenth is not required, a connection and affinity to the mists (and more importantly, the underworld) is, races (like the asura) with a weaker connection preform worse at their max potential than others (tho said asura make up for it, with tech aka golemancy; oola being the to date still best golemancer was for example the only necro asura influencing the storyline).

Objects used during combat must be able to physically channel a connection, non-magical projectiles dont work.

Necromancer magic disrupts/ignores deceptions/the UW and grenth dont like liars (nor did Dhuum before him).

P.S. Ways of learning magic being different =/= each person has their own rules of it
Its like saying Person x learned from a game that 2×22 is 6, but if person y sees it in a book he can say that 22×2 is 8… it doesnt work that way.

Sarrs.4831:

Lorelei.3918:

The rule of cool

Rule of cool is no justification for anything.

You wanna know what’s really cool? An internally consistent universe!

Interestingly enough, most of the stuff Andele just rattled off isn’t applicable in GW2.

Marks, wells, ect require nothing to cast except a CD timer.

Using Spectral spells doesn’t seal off part of your soul. You can spam these skills forever. If your soul is somehow involved it is neither implied nor relevant to the game itself.

You don’t have to bother setting up a phylactery in game to go into lich form. (And in the greater lore of necromancy – once you go lich, you Don’t go back.)

There is no variation between Human and Asura Necromancy. Neither race is stronger or weaker at any part of it and there is no variation in how the spells or cast or set up.

And lastly, and Oh I wish it were true…our magic is farrrr from ignoring/disrupting ‘deceptions’ (aka Mesmers). If anything our lack of consistent aoe and gap closers makes fighting mesmers harder for us then other classes.

So….yeah….that whole consistency thing has already been thrown out the window imo.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW7Yjc00ZbjNW2wfjiehSya4EmqIgKAi+BSg3F-T1xCABAcBAEa/hjfAAAqDwT1fSUJYWK/IFwkSjA-w

It’s kind of ridiculous that we’re worrying about how magic ‘works’ inside a video game. The rule of cool trumps all of this nitpicking and the suspension of disbelief is more powerful then any fanboys nerd rage.

Seriously andele who appointed you master of necromancer lore? You don’t feel like you’re being just a little closed minded? Also bhawb I would be happy either way. I would prefer ranged power for gvg/wvw where its usually too dangerous for us necros to go melee.

I know Longbow doesn’t have a chance. Anet loves their greatswords. I even made a ascended gs for the occasion. I’m a lb advocate though. Regardless of whether n/r actually used b ows..they could have. So therefore its incoorrect to say a necro “can’t” use a bow. Also further reference In east Asian cultures the bow is a ritual tool. I think if arguing against necrosis getting Longbow it should be less about style or lore and more about game mechanics. What does the necro need more? Melee cleave or ranged power?

If you want to play a lb ranger…then no. Lb just does not do enough damage to down a good player. Worse the amount of defense you give up to have a functioning Longbow is absolutely not worth the paltry damage. Pets fail at CC and the Longbow has no snares of its own so you wind up mostly fighting with your GS.

I do archery IRL. I even make my own wooden bows. Now a 70 lb bow is good. However why settle for the mundane in a game with matchlocks, elementalists and giant robots in one world? Ranger should be using a 120 lb warbow with ease. Our shots should have hard CC. Knockdowns and piercing should be inherent.

What is this nonsense that Necro’s “can’t” use bows. Ranger/Necro was a viable combination in GW1 and vice versa. Not to mention Ritualist/Ranger… Also WoW has dark rangers. UO has Necro Archers.

But most importantly, GW2 needs a class that doesn’t suck with their longbow. (Warrior doesn’t count since they only use their longbow as a setup tool, not a primary damage dealer)

The necro is the ‘warrior’ of the caster classes. Everything we do is a magical variation of the warrior. Our class mechanic builds up a resource, and then uses it. We have the same HP pool. We actually have a melee weapon set. We’re the only caster that uses a friggin axe (albeit in a very stupid way). So if we get Longbow or GS we will still fit inside that Death Knight esque theme that Anet has given us.

Axe is terrible. A long channel that can be canceled by simply running through the necro. Not hard to do when the range is only 600. It’s dps isn’t even that good, dagger is better and dagger works even if the enemy is trying to hide inside your character (oh myyy).

Now put that same channel on a 1200 range weapon, and then we might have something there. I’m all for Longbow myself though I totally expect us to get melee cleave GS.

solrik.6028:

Lorelei.3918:

Pets are irrelevant in open field pvp.

Take the teleporting condi theif. he stealths. the pet stops and starts scratching himself. He teleports back and forth. The pet runs back and forth like its a game of fetch. The theif runs away, the pet misses his lunge.

Extreme example, but every class with the exception of maybe necros have the ability to keep your pet running in circles doing jack squat to help you.

Pets ARE Irrelevant.

Building a Longbow Ranger for PvP is Lunatic mode difficulty. Your weapon dmg is already penalized, and your pet adds nothing. You have to figure out a way to get around this double penalty.

The pets are not only used for dealing damage.

Pet’s primarily apply their effects via attacks.

Pets are irrelevant in open field pvp.

Take the teleporting condi theif. he stealths. the pet stops and starts scratching himself. He teleports back and forth. The pet runs back and forth like its a game of fetch. The theif runs away, the pet misses his lunge.

Extreme example, but every class with the exception of maybe necros have the ability to keep your pet running in circles doing jack squat to help you.

Pets ARE Irrelevant.

Building a Longbow Ranger for PvP is Lunatic mode difficulty. Your weapon dmg is already penalized, and your pet adds nothing. You have to figure out a way to get around this double penalty.

Being a Necro, the first thing I do when I walk into a undefended cap point is look for the flesh wurm, and if present; kill it. But we’re talking hotjoins here so…yeah flesh wurm is great. idiots stand right next to it thinking they got a free cap and then poof; there you are.

I despise the idea of using a melee model as a ranged sorcery weapon. I hate the Axe for this reason and the Mesmer GS. It’s about as stupid as sword chucks. Now having a mix of melee and ranged attacks like our D/D set is different. Ele D/D is tolerable in a similar sense.

I’ve always liked the idea of Necromancer with Longbow. There needs to be more Longbow classes and not many classes can fit the bill. I think there is enough fantasy and mmo lore behind the idea of it. For instance WoW’s Dark Rangers or UO’s necro archer builds.

My idea for a Necro Longbow would be to make it minion orientated. That is, it has skills that summon and command minions. The minions would be our ‘pets’, tying in to that Dark Ranger lore. Perhaps a 5 skill that summons a flesh golem. A 4 skill that does a barrage type skill, and where the arrows land, rat minions pop out and start attacking anything nearby. A 3 skill that commands all minions to attack a certain target, and immobilizes that enemy. Attack 2 could be a life force building channel and attack 1 could be condition oriented chain attack like bleed bleed poison.

I forgot about this post and I come back to find its taken on a life of its own. Good! We need to seriously discuss the issues with the Longbow Ranger; the most laughed at build of the most laughed at class.

So you know what…

Here’s a simple fix you could make.

First, make the longbow only have two stages of damage. 0-600 and 600-1500+

Second, Make the longbow auto attack the inverse of the Necromancer’s Lifeblast. So at close range, the Longbow would have the power coefficient of a 600+ range lifeblast. At long range the Longbow autoattack would have the power coefficient of a close range lifeblast. Adjust Rapid Fire damage accordingly.

There ya go. Of course once the Longbow actually becomes a threat, you are going to have to deal with people actually focusing you and going out of there way to kill you.

Conditions builds are cheap and effective so long as you are the only condition character in the group.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNAW4Yjc00Tb1Nu2whbinhS6IIAaWoCSqzhdIUB-TZBEwAJeCASOIA23fAwFAgaZAA

This is what I use in sPvP. I focus on power primarily and fight from DS. Don’t focus condi with celestial, it makes the ferocity a waste.

I do things differently. I prefer to use Staff so I can better leverage the condi element of Might stacks. Also marks are very flexible. You can use them like a minefield, or combo with spectral grasp for a nasty burst. You can take soul marks and actually get LF while in DS as the enemy sets off your precasted marks. In WvW you also get more free condi from Guard Stack. Run some celestial and theres even more, plus ferocity which is more valuable then power after a certain point. (you will have so much power from Guard/Might/Bloodlust stack that going Celestial for the ferocity and condi is a dps gain instead of a loss)

I run dagger/dagger as my 2nd set, further reinforcing the hybrid dmg approach.

I also don’t run Sigil of Strength. I run travelers. So I give up perma might, but I gain 15% duration to all my other boons and a utility slot. That free utility slot gets Well of Power, which will synergize with my 45% boon duration nicely. Also fits with my celestial approach to damage.

So I got 3 condi clears and Well of Power. High armor, high power, modest vit, ferocity, condi and even a bit of healing power for my Sanctuary, near perma regen and ofc my primary heal.

So yeah, this build has been working very nicely for me.