A few condi questions...

[Cjam.8634]

Hey all,

 

I just wanted to ask a few questions regarding condition DPS

1) why do you (if you play condi) choose condi over power?

2) why vipers over sinister gear?

3) are there numbers anywhere to put vipers over sinister?

 

Some stuff ive been thinking about, right now I mainly play guardian (power DH) but I know that guardian has a pretty good condi spec in FB and I would like to be versatile in my class. I have dabbled in condi fb recently but using mainly sinister gear...honestly I didn't give it too much dedication to get an honest opinion on whether I like condi or not. but I went with sinister because to me seeing higher condi damage is almost like "bursting" but with condi damage instead.

 

Any info/input from you all is appreciated!

 

[Mea.5491]

1) why do you (if you play condi) choose condi over power?

Because I've always liked damage-over-time abilities in MMOs, fun stuff.

 

2) why vipers over sinister gear?

Condi duration is valuable in PvE, most mobs can't get rid of conditions. Longer duration = more damage.

 

3) are there numbers anywhere to put vipers over sinister?

You mean something like [this](

"this")?

 

Also, I see you're interested in Firebrand, I main a Celestial Firebrand (no condi duration on gear) but you can easily get **85% Burning duration** with traits, Balthazar runes and Sigil of Smoldering so in my opinion, FB/Burn Guard doesn't really need Viper gear, it's mostly important for classes with many different conditions. Some people might disagree with me, though. :P (Edit: typo).

[Seteruss.4058]

Full berserker: Dragon hunter/core guard(working everywhere)

Full vipers: Firebrand(working in open pve/fractals/raids)

Full dire: Burn core Guard/burn firebrand(face tanking everything)

Full cele: Jack of all trades/ master of none

[Cjam.8634]

Yeah I’m interested in exploring firebrand (Condi and even heal/support) but to stick with Condi conversation for now...so I understand that long fights such as raids and higher end t4s the Condi duration is a boost to dps numbers because the longer your condis are hitting the higher the dps you’ll get. I guess my argument is that sinister provides higher Condi damage as a stat...so if in a full party of Condi dps and all had sinister instead of viper (so very plainly condis hit harder opposed to longer) wouldn’t that equate to around the same if not less fight time?

 

I don’t really run tests like this I just come up with questions and see if other people did the work for me in all honesty lol

[InsaneQR.7412]

1) most if tge time i decide the dmg type depending on weapon. I like playing MH and OH playstyle no two handers.

Lately got a fable for hybrid builds (my fav builds for open world).

 

2) Condi duration gives you more time to apply conditions, more time means more stacks - more stacks means more dmg. Dmg depends on profession but you can take Sinister with duration runes and sigils for decent/comparable dmg. Vipers is generally better though.

 

 

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Cjam.8634" said:

> Hey all,

>

> I just wanted to ask a few questions regarding condition DPS

> 1) why do you (if you play condi) choose condi over power?

> 2) why vipers over sinister gear?

> 3) are there numbers anywhere to put vipers over sinister?

>

> Some stuff ive been thinking about, right now I mainly play guardian (power DH) but I know that guardian has a pretty good condi spec in FB and I would like to be versatile in my class. I have dabbled in condi fb recently but using mainly sinister gear...honestly I didn't give it too much dedication to get an honest opinion on whether I like condi or not. but I went with sinister because to me seeing higher condi damage is almost like "bursting" but with condi damage instead.

>

> Any info/input from you all is appreciated!

>

 

1- Condi, depending on game mode, has different dynamics. Power damage, across all modes, has an upper limit, and delivers all its damage in distinct bursts. The advantage is that it can deliver it instantly, but it also means every strike mitigated loses a huge portion of its total damage. Power damage was meta for a long time due to its simplicity compared to Condition damage. However, this has become inverted with PoF due to 2 Especs...... Firebrand and Scourge. Prior to Heart of Thorns, Condi was designed as a higher DPS build, but has a much longer ramp up time to reach that point. Because so much of the game revolves around active defenses, and using those defenses would break rotations, Condition damage builds took forever to reach threatening DPS levels, and were very easy to disrupt. Compare that to power damage builds that drop 30k+ damage in the span of 5 seconds.... more then enough to take out the majority PvP players, PvE enemies, and turn zergs in WvW into Lawn mowers. So the norm became to burst as much damage as possible, then to back off and kite until the next burst is setup.

 

1b - The shift in PoF came about because of 2 Classes basically being a direct counter to the current WvW Meta. Prior to PoF, Boon share and AOE stun locks were the main way WvW blobs would fight. These 2 are direct oppositions to each other, with Boon Share developed to keep Stability up against AOE stuns; and further sources of CCsand Boon strip brought in to try and counter Stability. Scourges were developed explicitly to destroy this meta, and current has 5 times the number of Boon removal then the next closes classes (Mes/Rev) and all of them AOE. Adding insult to injury, most of those can be made into, or already is "Boon Conversion" which turns boons into a Conditions. This made everything a Scourge does another source of Conditions, on top of its just insane ability to keep applying Torment, Cripple, and Burns with its skills and traits. To counter act this, Firebrands are so ridiculously over speced right now to apply huge amounts of area healing, condition removal (and conversion in some cases), and reapplying boons lost from boon striping (mostly caused by Scourges).

 

1c - The culmination of a lot of PoF specs has been an attempt to make Conditions more prominent across all game modes. Its mostly been successful..... but largely due to the 2 classes I mentioned above. In WvW and PvP, Firebrands can pretty much counter any kind of incoming damage or controls, as long as their standing. In PvE, their access to burning is one of the Strongest Condition builds in the game's history. This is on top of their existing support performance in Core (which can still be used as Firebrand), AND the burst healing allowed by Tome of Resolve, without having to invest much (if any) points into Healing.

 

2 - Why Vipers over Sinister? Its not clean cut, but essentially Pwr/Prc/Fer are the compounding Trifecta for power damage, while ConD/Exp are what compound ..... (tbc)

[rng.1024]

> @"Cjam.8634" said:

> Yeah I’m interested in exploring firebrand (Condi and even heal/support) but to stick with Condi conversation for now...so I understand that long fights such as raids and higher end t4s the Condi duration is a boost to dps numbers because the longer your condis are hitting the higher the dps you’ll get. I guess my argument is that sinister provides higher Condi damage as a stat...so if in a full party of Condi dps and all had sinister instead of viper (so very plainly condis hit harder opposed to longer) wouldn’t that equate to around the same if not less fight time?

>

> I don’t really run tests like this I just come up with questions and see if other people did the work for me in all honesty lol

 

This is actually quite easy to calculate: Depending on how much condition damage you have, you can easily see whether or not increasing duration gives a return of investment. I will use 1500 as a theoretical max value here, as it's about what you can get from gear alone. If you then have say 900 condition damage, the damage compared to max value is 900/1500 = 0,6*100 = 60% and the damage lost is 100% - 60% = 40%. Since 15 points of expertise is required for a 1% increase in duration, you would need 40×15 = 600 expertise to do the same damage as you would with 1500 condi dmg, although over a 40% longer time period. The closer you are to max condi dmg, the less expertise you will need to reach that value. As you probably already can see, a full viper set will theoretically be able to do more dmg than a full condi no expertise set with sufficient expertise, but it will do so over a longer period and therefore won't burst as hard and in the case of other players they will have an easier time cleansing condis resulting in you getting 0 damage in. For the funsies let me compare: Dire gives about 1500 condi dmg. Viper gives 1050 + 560 expertise. This means 560/15 = 37,3% longer duration. Damage wise you will be looking at 1050 * 1,373=1441,6 effective total condi dmg, which is very close to the dire set. But you also get 1050 power, which actually counts for alot if you are on a hybrid weapon.

 

Tldr; Go full condi dmg for a damage burst and to give your opponent less time to cleanse (which is why full condi no expertise will always tick for most against npc's). So in Pve sinister is the way to go ^^

Gear: 1380 condi dmg

Rune: 175 condi dmg

Traits: ?

Sigil: There is a +7% dmg and a +10% duration one

Food/utils: ~ 250 condi dmg

Infusions: 90 condi dmg

 

With all of these you are looking at around 2000 condi dmg, with maximum damage pr tick. You will burn through npc's which is great for speed runs. For more defense swap in a few pieces of dire for absolutely no damage loss condiwise. And again - your weapon skills decide whether an investment into power and precision is worth it, as some don't deal direct dmg at all making it a waste of stats.

[Yannir.4132]

It's hard to assess the damage difference between the two choices without going into full golem testing but I'd hazard a guess that Sinister wastes stats on Precision at least when it comes to raiding. You get 25% crit chance from Radiance alone, and then there's Fury, Banner of Discipline and Spotter. Overcapping crit chance does nothing, and with full raid buffs you easily reach 100%. But this is just min-maxing, a relaxed raid group will likely accept either stat combo.

[starlinvf.1358]

Ugh.... internet got dropped before I could finish my whole shtick.

 

Anyway...... in the matter of Viper vs Sinister; Viper is objectively better in Raids and Fractals, because Condi duration is incredibly potent when the target doesn't cleanse them. Its less effective in PvP due opponents more actively mitigating conditions, nullifying extended duration as a vector. With WvW, Condition duration is more useful for what it does with controls, but given the choice, you'd much rather front load the damage or constantly reapply it to overwhelm their support players. But due to WvW having much greater emphasis on sustained survival, most condi classes will run Trailblazers in lieu of Vipers, or a mix of the 2.

 

Sinisters has its place in certain builds, but in nearly all cases its used to bolster peak damage once other criteria or soft caps are in the build at met. Per gear slot, 4-stat combos give you a higher total of points in exchange for slightly less peak in the major stats. Since condi only needs 2 vectors to scale (dmg and duration), precision is used to attain trait procs, while power is just additional damage on top of your main condi output. Since you can duration bonuses from sigils, runes and traits, many builds will use that vector first given their higher returns, and then fill the gap to 100% duration via Expertise. Once that cap is reached, any excess points can be allocated to something else (usually support stats or extra damage). For instance, the burn guards don't need a lot of expertise, because all of their traits tend to focus on Burning, with higher values due to boosting only one condition. Another example is a Sigil of Malice boosting only 10%, but applies to ALL conditions; where as a Sigil of Burning boosts just burning by 20%.

 

 

if you sat down and did the math, Sinister is almost never used as a primary stat due to Power damage relying heavily on Ferocity and crit hits to reach peak damage. Since Sinister is Power Primary, but has Condi instead of Ferocity, power damage suffers heavily from the low Crit multiplier, and only has roughly 67% of the Condi Dmg of a condi primary. Since most skills are power balanced toward either power damage or condition damage, Sinister loses out but not having either of the more difficult to obtain compounding stats for either damage type (Fer and Exp)

[Cjam.8634]

Wow thanks for the input all it is much appreciated! Some stuff I’ll be looking over for sure. So all in all...would sinister stat be the more “burstier” form of Condi? Maybe used in open world pve where mobs don’t last very long? And vipers be more t4 and raids form of Condi? Where fights can drag out and due to mechanics, maybe you can’t be hitting the boss all the time so having the longer duration helps out then?

[steki.1478]

> @"Cjam.8634" said:

> Wow thanks for the input all it is much appreciated! Some stuff I’ll be looking over for sure. So all in all...would sinister stat be the more “burstier” form of Condi? Maybe used in open world pve where mobs don’t last very long? And vipers be more t4 and raids form of Condi? Where fights can drag out and due to mechanics, maybe you can’t be hitting the boss all the time so having the longer duration helps out then?

 

Not worth getting 2 sets that do essentially the same thing. Just go with vipers, why burst with condi when you can cast skills, move on and watch enemies burn?

[Cjam.8634]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > @"Cjam.8634" said:

> > Wow thanks for the input all it is much appreciated! Some stuff I’ll be looking over for sure. So all in all...would sinister stat be the more “burstier” form of Condi? Maybe used in open world pve where mobs don’t last very long? And vipers be more t4 and raids form of Condi? Where fights can drag out and due to mechanics, maybe you can’t be hitting the boss all the time so having the longer duration helps out then?

>

> Not worth getting 2 sets that do essentially the same thing. Just go with vipers, why burst with condi when you can cast skills, move on and watch enemies burn?

 

yeah I made up my mind today and went full vipers minus a few pieces of sinister lol

[Eramonster.2718]

> @"Cjam.8634" said:

> Hey all,

>

> I just wanted to ask a few questions regarding condition DPS

> 1) why do you (if you play condi) choose condi over power?

Condi is required or more effective in specific encounters (monsters with absurd amount of armours for example etc). Could be simple reasons such as personal preference/choice.

> 2) why vipers over sinister gear?

> 3) are there numbers anywhere to put vipers over sinister?

In term of damage (condi) - Expertise (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition_Duration) is the top priority stat (but again, damage wise; overall and provided the condi ran the full duration).

> Some stuff ive been thinking about, right now I mainly play guardian (power DH) but I know that guardian has a pretty good condi spec in FB and I would like to be versatile in my class. I have dabbled in condi fb recently but using mainly sinister gear...honestly I didn't give it too much dedication to get an honest opinion on whether I like condi or not. but I went with sinister because to me seeing higher condi damage is almost like "bursting" but with condi damage instead.

Probably get it by now any class profession going for full condi will cater into expertise (vipers/grieving) to fully maximize damage. If I'm not wrong grieving is slightly above vipers for FB (around 8%, give or take)