Condition Shortbow Renegade: pre-season 13 build and thoughts

[Buran.3796]

After playing a non-meta build for the last two PvP seasons (Power Herald with hammer/sword+sword and Shiro + Glint as legends) I chose to change the playstyle a couple of weeks ago, in the rest between seasons. Changing builds doesn’t seem to change my performance, which is usually pretty “meh”, sitting in gold tier 2 or 3 with ~50% w/l all the time.

 

I did start running the usual power Shiro with staff/sword+sword for a pure mele role, which worked to an extent: usually Mesmers deleted me (except ridiculously bad ones). So I changed a couple of things:

 

Retrubution (2/2/1) with Paladin amulet, sigils of cleansing and scape in both weapon sets.

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmnvN2gS6JvQRVlbosryPUYW5IKYs8EllZlx+5r3WNgDWg9lb+B-jJR6gAqlBw2fI/UAA8EAAA

 

This means to lose damage, specially alone, but since power Shiro largely relies on might stacks and is still very easy to reach 25 in teamfight the change wasn’t as bad. In exchange got the 10% damage reduction from range, more endurance recovery, stability and retaliation while succesful evades, less damage under stability and more damage under retaliation. Essentially was better against spamming classes due negated a lot of cc and mitigated some damage. But, probably not a good choice for more skilled players (still, a more safe option for starters).

 

 

But the gameplay wasn’t as different, and I already played mele Herald in the past. So tried another thing: playing condition shortbow Renegade.

 

I only saw a player using Renegade with success (at gold, I mean, take it with a grain of salt), using Kalla + Jalis and short bow + staff. I don’t like any of those legends, they lack mobility so tried my own variant, trying to be as safe and evasive as possible, to enhance my sustain.

 

I started playing Renegade + Invocation + Corruption with Carrion amulet, short bow and staff.

 

Surprisingly the amount of stacks of conditions gathered in match conditions was low, but the damage was strong, so in terms of killing worked well. Sadly this build was very weak vs cc.

 

So I replaced Corruption, takings instead Retribution and ended with this build:

 

Amulet: Carrion

Runes: Leadership

Legends: Shiro/Mallyx

Retribution: 2/2/1

Invocation: 1/2/3

Renegade: 1/2/2

Sigils: agony & cleansing (short bow)/ escape & cleansing (staff)

 

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQJAVmnvNeNS6JvJRVlHlsrykSYW5SJYssrklZli9Fuhf4fBnwMUNAOgFA-jZRAQBA4CAAw9HITZA09EAC5hAAA

 

 

At the begining did use Blood Fury, but ended replacing if for Ashen Demeanor and getting the loss of bleeding duration chosing the sigil of Agony with the short bow. The reason was due the cripple with short bow’s Scochrazor was a very strong argument in both attack and defense.

 

I did play over 20 matches with this build; at the moment I like it more than other condition builds; I found some interesting things playing it and albeit is weaker than power Shiro I had fun. The good thing is that can have decent sustain and mobility, does good damage and didn’t worsened my k/d ratio. The bad thing is that I lost a lot more matches while playing this one, but I don’t known if was about due effectiveness or because oftenly fought conformed teams in off season. Anyway, uploaded some videos and I have some observations about the overall performance:

 

 

* The ideal range of fighting is from 650 to 900 units, at max range of our short bow skills.

* I do play with the short bow 90% of the time; staff is only to defense, mobility or sometimes rez disruption.

* I do play in Shiro 80% of the time: provides the evasions, mobility and damage enhancement I need most of the time.

* The amount of stacks of conditions is low, but the damage rises very fast vs most of the classes, and the variety of conditions makes hard to get full cleanses. Fire and bleeds are the main sources of damage.

* The short cd of Scorchrazor is crucial; it also leads to cripples, which makes easier to land Spiritcrush and Sevenshot. This is a very strong skill in small teamfights.

* I had success fighting all kinds of Guardians, Necros, Revs, Rangers and even Engineers; chances against Mesmers were better than using power Shiro but still hard, as some Eles. Warriors, and most specifically Spellbreakers utterly destroys this build.

* Impossible Odds grants great mobility at the cost of arriving to combat with energy depleted, which is a risky situation.

* The build defends well vs mele fighters as long as has Shiro, the staff and energy on hand; usually can avoid damage forcing enemies to spent skills and evades, which can lead to a swap to short bow to succesfull land #5. But the problem is that handling the staff our damage is almost 0.

* Didn’t have troubles with Holos; evading their ccs is fun; Thieves were a mixed bag: oftenly they die fast, but along with Warriors are the hardest mele fighters to retreat from.

 

That’s all. Mind that this is my firt contact with the spec since the PoF release, so my use of F3 is probably weak. I think that I’ll use this build at the placement matches in Season 13 and then the whole season.