Rokeb.3815

Trying to finally finish this and get my ascended great sword. It seems that with the price of Mystic coins these days, the Mystic claymore is quite expensive to make.

If I can make it and sell it while still getting credit for the collection, great. If I have to spending nearly 60 gold to make an ascended weapon I can craft for significantly less, then what's the point? (Other than the look).

Thanks for the comments, analysis and insight.

I've put together a bit of cheapo condi set of gear for my renegade to see how it worked and get a feel. Mostly trail blazer armor with a Viper helmet and chest piece along with a grieving bow. I've borrowed nearly a full set of trailblazer trinkets from my condi Firebrand, and put the traveler runes in the armor as they are dirt cheap anyway dire mace and axe to try them out - total investment about 4 gold and some airship parts.

To compare to my power renegade - all beserker weapons and armor with a beserker amulet and soldier gear for the rest of the trinkets. Running pack runes and +5 dmg sigil and sigil of bloodlust.

First impressions are decent - damage is slightly higher for the condi build with better total armor and health. some of the damage increase comes from Invoking torment however which has a limited range.

Fixing the gear hower, seems like it will only continue to make the damage better and the health/armor stats higher. The power build is pretty much capped at damage, I can certainly improve it but it will cut into the damage a bit.

One big 'quality of life' difference is important to note:

Jallis's whirling hammer is like a weed whacker for Pocket Raptors while running the power version - it's like they run into a blender. Triple pack? No problem. They just turn into a red mist.

The condi build will kill them, but much more slowly, a quick glance indicates only about a third of the damage of my power setup.

Thanks for the very detailed insight. it's good to hear from someone who's tried both.

I've watched and learned from all those videos - all the builds seem very good - it is nice that both Power and Condi are valid options for Renegade.

Paper roll has published a new condi renegade build, quite similar in some respects to his power one. I'm a bit surprised he didn't make more comparisons to his old build.

I think I am going to have to try out mace and axe and see how I like the feel of them vs sword/sword in melee combat. I hated sword/sword for a long time, but now I'm enjoying it.

I am having a blast with a shortbow renegade currently - inspired originally by the Wooden Potatoes build. I have recently been running a more sustain setup with all Battlescar traits.

Currently I'm equipped with a fairly decent set of exotic power gear - berserker with some soldier and running pack runes.

As I prepare to start building a set of ascended gear I am left wondering - should I be going condi??

Unlike with other classes, the play style really isn't going to change much - I'd still run Kala and shortbow. (currently using Jallis as the other legendary as the whirling hammers are just so much fun on pocket raptors!)

How much difference is there really - and will I actually notice it? I have been using sword/sword a bit more lately which is fun, but I still tend to spend 90% of the time in short bow.

For condi I'd be running mostly trailblazer gear (mostly exotic armor with everything else ascended). Thanks to our crazy crit chance bonuses, I can freely add Soldier, Cavalier or Valkyrie or even Wanderer or Crusader gear to add some toughness and vita as it's easy to hit the crit cap with double fury bones.

Runes of tormenting are very expensive (for me) and I'll be honest, I'll never bother getting nightmare runes, so I'd be left with Runes of the Undead or Krait runes as the more obvious options if I go condi.

I haven't managed to find any straight up comparisons of the two build types in open world play. Any thoughts from anyone who has tried both???

> @"mtpelion.4562" said:

> I wouldn't say that PoF mobs are difficult. Rather, I would say they are antagonistically annoying.

>

> Between the long lasting conditions that they can instantly reapply, the plethora of blinds, the thick goopy mob density, and the alarming respawn rate, playing solo on PoF maps is a chore. The amount of tedium involved in even basic activities compared to the potential rewards is a scale tipped all the way to "hard pass".

This sums it up very well. There is a difference between challenging and annoying. Add into the mix that the distance between waypoints is often very large and making any progress in a PoF map can be (but isn't always) rather glacial. If you do actually die, it's doubly annoying as it can take to so long to get back to where you were.

A *little* easier on the respawn and the aggro distance would make a big difference.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say most of the people responding here have no idea who the original poster is...

To make a long story short.. he's mostly well known for soloing fractals and group events.

10 pages of this? Seriously?

There are a small (vocal) group of people who want the game to be hard. Grrrr!!

There are a small (vocal) group of people who want the game to be fun and easy. Waaaaah!

Then there is the rest - how are quite happy with both fun and hard - but the problem right now in the game that the jump from fun to hard - ie end of core Tyria into Heart of Thorns is a big one. This is important because that is how NEW PLAYERS are going to see the game - because that's what you get when you buy the expansions now.

No one cares how it used to be - it doesn't matter. New player experience is going to suddenly matter a lot with GW2 coming on Steam soon.

GW2 doesn't have a gear grind - but it does demand you get better at playing.

Going from the end of the core story to HoT is a big jump - in a number of ways - and a lot of them can be frustrating.

For a better player experience, GW2 needs to better prepare people for HoT - because right now it doesn't at all. You can quite easily get all the way through the core story without really understanding breakbars and how to dodge - I certainly did when I started again back in June.

Toss in a horribly confusing map (with the lack of height indication on markers currently making it even worse) and the wave of angry rage-quit posts a few months after the Steam release is going to be epic. Is that really what we want for the game?

You shouldn't have to spend hours watching youtube videos and reading wikis in order to play a game. If you do, then that's a failure on the part of the designers.

That's what need to be addressed. There is no need (and most people aren't calling for) nerfs or to make things even more punishing.

Enough with the hyperbolic pontificating.

I think I understand the philosophy behind "Power builds" - you do lots of immediate damage. You focus on Power to boost that and Precision and Ferocity help by boosting your chance to critical hit and the damage you do if you are successful.

I assume that a 'Condi' build focusing on stacking damage over time? I assume this is good for 'boss' type enemies where over time you end up doing more damage (in theory) than a 'power' build.

hybrid therefore is a bit of both. From a practical point of view - how much does the hybrid 'lose' vs the Power vs Condi builds? Does the flexibility help?

Ie is the hybrid better vs bosses but not quite a good vs 'regular' mobs? How much does the Hybrid type build give up to be a bit of both?

In my case I'm looking at my new Renegade with a short bow. What are the pros/cons of pure power vs hybrid vs condi damage in general??

I am also a 'casual' player, I've recently returned to GW2. I did buy it shortly after launched, but my first character was an engineer and I didn't every figure out what I was doing so ending up giving up.

A lot of the veteran players commenting have completely forgotten what it like for newer players.

Yes, HoT is MUCH harder than the core game that you've likely just come from. Core Tyria is no where near as punishing for small mistakes. HoT forces you to become much more of a 'twitch' player - as positioning and dodging are suddenly much more important (I'm looking at you Mordrem Snipers! )

The farcical complaint that 'HoT isn't even hard with mounts!' is equally naive - so you have to skip the first expansion - start the second expansion and come back and THEN play the fist expansion? What kind of game play design is that?

HoT is totally playable - even enjoyable eventually. However, in terms of game design - the leap from core Tyria to HoT is a huge one - and often needlessly frustrating.

Invisible 'gating' of areas - ie you need to have masteries to get to a certain point, making the hero points group content (sure vets can solo them with ease - but a potential new player??) If I didn't find a nice hero point train early on in HoT, I probably would have quit the game again.

Don't even get me started on the last chapter of the story.. still trying to complete that. Casual players (like me) don't have HOURS to time to do one mission.

From the wiki "The final fight with Mordremoth features mechanics that can lead to instant death and a reset of the long boss fight if you make an error"

Spending hours on the same mission over and over with no progress isn't challenging or rewarding - IT's TEDIOUS. I swear if I get a server disconnect AGAIN during that fight I'm going to rage quit for sure.