Jump to content
Sithicus

King of Fires - The Condi Warrior [Obsolete 10/2016]

Recommended Posts

I've been running Warrior as condition damage for maybe a month and a half now, due to  a combination of factors; firstly I was very tired of running Phalanx, and only being able to run Phalanx (Phalanx is so insanely powerful that it is nigh on criminal not to use it), and also the poor trait arrangement for Warriors both for a long time, and now since Specializations came out. I had a feeling that Condition Damage was where the true potential of Warrior lies, and damn is it powerful.

First of all, here is the full build link with optimum gear, weapons, skills etc if you want to run it. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQNAT8fnMdA1egdfA+dAElilpA74IEAGZvn2XbtVJIE56BA-TBSFABtr7Rp9DIW5XWKBB4JF0v6P9eRFQ2CiuBDAjACRExMzMTjIiIkCYRlVA-e

56b4715dc1357_BuildEditorGuildWars2Skill

Traits:

56b480c7cf721_Screenshot2016-02-0510.59.

  • Discipline - Warrior's Sprint - Destruction of the Empowered - Burst Mastery

Tier 1 choices are limited, so Warrior's Sprint is basically the best of the bunch, additional mobility with Melee Weapons is favourable however.

Tier 2 choices are also quite limited. Destruction of the Empowered isn't super since you're running condition damage, you have some power and crit though, so it's the best of the bunch. EDIT: You could also go for Inspiring Battle Standard for some party-wide regen, but one Warrior running it is enough.

Tier 3 is where it gets good, Burst Mastery adds damage and free adrenaline, and makes Primal Bursts utterly spammable.

  • Arms - Signet Mastery - Blademaster - Furious

Each of these traits is extremely powerful and utterly invaluable. Signet Mastery must be maintained by using Healing Signet and Signet of Fury and if you're using it, Signet of Rage. Also due to the buff gained from the Signet Mastery stacks, it is a minimal DPS loss to use Signet of Fury.

Blademaster increases sword crits against bleeding foes (which is everything, since Sword auto attacks bleed).

Furious is also invaluable, it gives stacking condition damage, and lots of extra adrenaline. Without Furious you can lose a lot of DPS due to not building Adrenaline quick enough to spam Primal Bursts during Berserk Mode.

  • Berserker - Smash Brawler - Heat the Soul - King of Fires

These are the most important pieces of the puzzle, they unlock the potential of Burning for Warriors and there are simply no alternatives.

Equipment:

  • Longbow // Sword+Torch
  • Ascended Viper's Weapons and Armour
  • Ascended Sinister Trinkets
  • Any Backpiece with Condi (stat choices are... limited)

The reason for the Viper/Sinister mix is one of optimization. Maximum condition duration is +100%, i.e. you can double the duration of your conditions. Annoyingly there is a discrepancy in the build page, it is not displaying condition duration correctly. In reality, bonus condition duration should be +70.26% as seen below, and Food/Utility buffs give up to 30% more, rounding it up to 100%, think of 70.26% as the "soft cap" for condition duration in this instance.

56b47653e9995_Screenshot2016-02-0510.12.

Cheaper Alternatives:

  • Exotic equipment - Requires quite a few Black Diamonds to craft though, and those are pricey... This build really falls down without condition duration.

Runes/Sigils/Infusions:

  • 5x Runes of the Nightmare and 1x Black Diamond. The #6 on Nightmare is worthless, so a Black Diamond adds bonus condi damage and fine tunes condition duration.
  • Superior Sigil of Bursting (+6% Condition Damage). This is effectively the Condi equivalent of Sigil of Force/Night, simply a direct damage boost.
  • Superior Sigil of Earth (Change on crit to apply Bleeding). Crit with this build is fairly decent, no addition condition duration is needed, so Earth is the best bet to actually boost damage. Especially since you will be spending the majority of the time using Longbow, you get muc
  • Malign Infusions (+5 Condi Damage, +5 AR). These are expensive, the diminishing return on cash investment vs DPS boost is painful, but if you want to min max, go for it :D

Runes of the Nightmare offer the best combination of Condition Damage and Condition Duration in order to meet the soft cap on condition duration. The 6th Rune is worthless however, so adding a Black Diamond just adds more Viper stats.

Sigil of Bursting is simply a straight damage boost, much like Sigils of Force and Night are for Power builds. Sigil of Earth is the same, since Bursting Sigils don't stack, and no more Condition Duration is needed.

Sigil of Earth was chosen for the extra DPS from Bleed stacks, and it was chosen over Sigil of Geomancy (applies Bleeds on Weapon Swap) due to the nature of this build's rotation, which is that you don't swap weapons as often as you might with other Warrior builds (see rotation below).

Malign Infusions are incredibly pricey for what you get from them, +5 Condition Damage and +5 AR, this is really only for the min/max-ers out there.

You might be wondering why I haven't included Runes of the Berserker or Sigil of Malice, staples for any Condition Build normally. Sigil of Malice first of all, this is not required because Condition Duration is already optimized, when Food and Utility consumables (see below) are used, Condition Duration is 100%. Runes of the Berserker takes a little bit of Maths.

Credit to Susi and her bf for pointing the idea of Berserker Runes out :)

I wrote a post below replying to Susi about the idea, so I'll summarize here. Susi's alternative swaps:

  • Runes of the Nightmare and a Black Diamond for Runes of the Berserker
  • Sigil of Earth for Sigil of Malice
  • Sinister Amulet for Viper's Amulet

Condition Damage totals:

  • My Build: 1925
  • Susi's Build: 1976

On paper Susi's build is stronger due to higher Condition Damage, however, my build can stack more bleeds due to Sigil of Earth, and as such the output damage is slightly higher (calcs are in the post below). However again, what I have not accounted for is that Susi's build now has higher Power and direct damage than mine, so it really is too close to call, either option is completely viable.

Cheaper Alternatives:

  • 6x Runes of the Berserker (craftable from Runes of the Warrior, which are also craftable).
  • Less Viper's gear.
  • Sigils of Agony and Smoldering to make up for lost Expertise.

This is a loss to Condition Damage and Duration, but it's all relatively inexpensive.

Food Buffs:

  • Rare Veggie Pizza - +20% Condition Duration, +70 Condition Damage. This is the best condition damage food, it just is. 
  • Toxic Focusing Crystal - +10% Condition Duration, +100 Condition Damage. Again, simply the best in slot.

So with these two buffs active, you get an addition 30% condition duration, which bumps up your 70.26% to the 100% cap, with minimal overkill.

Cheaper Alternatives:

  • Super Veggie Pizza

Sadly there is no real alternative to Toxic Focusing Crystal, all crystals before it offer Condition Damage based on Toughness and Vitality, neither of which are stats this build has in abundance. 

Bear in mind with Pizza that crafting them is easily the best option. There are several Crafting Stages before you get to Rare Veggie Pizza, they are as follows:

  1. Craft a Cheese Pizza
  2. Craft 2x Mushroom Pizzas from 1x Cheese Pizza
  3. Craft 2x Fancy Veggie Pizzas from 1x Mushroom Pizza
  4. Craft 2x Super Veggie Pizzas from 1x Fancy Veggie Pizza
  5. Craft 1x Rare Veggie Pizza from 1x Super Veggie Pizza

As you can see, the Pizzas multiply for some reason (that's a sentence I never thought I would say). Up to Super Veggie Pizzas, the materials are fairly inexpensive, but also, even if you stop at Super, you can use them later to make Rare Veggie Pizzas, win-win!

Skills:

  • Banner of Strength + Banner of Discipline
    OR
  • Shattering Blow + One Banner
  • Signet of Fury
  • Headbutt OR Signet of Rage

Alternatives:

If another Warrior is in the team, take only one banner and take Shattering Blow for some extra DPS and minor stability. If the other Warrior(s) have banners covered, you could take one or both of the Defensive Banners (Tactics and Defense). If you are the only Warrior, you're taking both Strength and Discipline, no questions.

If nobody in your party is giving you Fury, take Signet of Rage instead of Headbutt, it helps to maintain Signet Mastery stacks as well as the all important Fury. You don't need Headbutt for the Adrenaline, Furious from the Arms line is sufficient for that. Do keep in mind the CC needs of the group though, Headbutt is exceptionally powerful at melting break bars. 

Battle Standard is never necessary bar exceptional circumstances, such as Triple Trouble.

Rotation:

Firstly a few pointers, a lot of this is more geared around skill priority than an actual set in stone rotation. Just remember the crux of this build is being as efficient as possible during Berserk Mode. Scorched Earth is on a 2.5s cooldown, your adrenaline will recharge in that time no problem, but it also means you don't have much time to do things like replace a Banner. Just make sure that when that 2.5s rolls around, you're ready to fire Scorched Earth again immediately. Getting your timing wrong can be the difference between doing 3 Scorched Earths, to as many as 5 in one cycle. In essence you need to make sure that stuff like Banners are already placed, Signet Mastery stacks are maxed etc, are done before you go Berserk.

  1. Healing Signet
  2. Place Banners at the beginning of the fight.
  3. Get in combat (hit a target etc)
  4. Signet of Rage (if applicable)
  5. Signet of Fury
  6. Shattering Blow (If applicable)
  7. Headbutt (if applicable)
  8. Blaze Breaker
  9. Flames of War
  10. Swap to Longbow
  11. Enter Berserk Mode
  12. Skill Priority - use in this order when off Cooldown:
    -Scorched Earth
    -Fan of Fire
    -Pin Down / Shattering Blow (if applicable)
  13. Berserk Mode Ends
  14. Swap to Sword/Torch
  15. Flurry with whatever adrenaline is left
  16. Repeat Steps 4-14
  17. Replace Banners when necessary
  18. Re-use Signets to maintain Signet Mastery

Pointers:

Here I'll just write down a few tips to keep in mind when using this build.

  • Despite using Longbow most of the time, this is a melee build! Use the Longbow in melee, why?
    - Fan of Fire projectiles hit the same target(s) at close range.
    - You need to be within Headbutt range.
    - You are in range for when you swap to Sword/Torch.
    - Arcing projectiles have no change of missing highly mobile targets.
  • Damage in this build fluctuates, you are at your maximum in Berserk Mode, so essentially keep on spamming Scorched Earth as often as possible, and get others to keep blasting the fields.
  • When Berserk ends, that's your "downtime" so do things like replacing Banners and maintaining Signet Mastery stacks when you're out of Berserk, the reason is that every second counts in Berserk Mode.
  • Stay in your fire fields! Dual Shot fires two projectiles, each with a 20% chance Projectile Finisher, which means you have a 36% chance for at least ONE of those shots to apply Burning to your target.
  • Headbutt is a devastating CC, 3 second stun on a 20 second cooldown is nothing short of insanity, use it often to melt breakbars.
  • After the recent balance patch, Shattering Blow now gives you 2 stacks of Stability for 2 seconds, so use it before Headbutt to mitigate the self-stun.
  • TBD

I think that's about everything I can think of so far. I will update it if I think of anything else to add, or if I have missed something. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions :)

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post

Finally had the time to go through this with bf. :D Overall very well done, clear and understandable guide. 

Only one major thing we would add/change;

The sigil/rune choises. On sigils we would suggest Malice (10% condi duration) and Bursting (6% condi damage) -> this allows you to get rid of the Superior Runes of Nightmare and instead you can run with 6x Superior Runes of the Berserker. This gives you more damage modifiers (just plain more damage) which make the Berserker runes currently the best for all condi classes as long as you can cap your Condition Duration with your gear. You can do this by adding Viper jewelry (the amulet for example is attainable from achievements), and as a Warrior, 1 is enough.

A few minor notes;

On 5.2.2016 at 11:48 AM, Sithicus said:

Tier 2 choices are also quite limited. Destruction of the Empowered isn't super since you're running condition damage, you have some power and crit though, so it's the best of the bunch.

Here (on the Discipline traits) we would add the option of taking the Inspiring Battle Standard instead, which adds the regeneration to your banners, for party support.

Also on your rotation there's just a misspell on 

On 5.2.2016 at 11:48 AM, Sithicus said:

Signet of Precision

I think you mean Signet of Fury. ;) 

But as said, very well done!

  • Upvote 1

Share this post


Link to post

Thanks for the feedback, I had thought about Runes of the Berserker as an alternative, and on paper I think the difference between the two methods is quite small, so the two methods are as follows:

5x Runes of the Nightmare + 1x Black Diamond + Sigil of Earth, vs 6x Runes of Berserker + Sigil of Malice + Viper Amulet, other than these differences, the gear is the same. Adding up total Condition Damage from my version is:

1.06*(Armour (376) + Weapons (216) + Accessories (692) + Malign Infusions (20 total) + Runes (175)+ Black Diamond (17) + Consumables (170) + Torch Trait (150)) = 1924.96

For your version:

1.05*1.06*(Armour (376) + Weapons (216) + Accessories (668) + Malign Infusions (20 total) + Runes (175) + Consumables (170) + Torch Trait (150)) = ~1975.6

So assuming both builds hit the cap of 100% condition duration, the difference is that your version has ~51 more Condition Damage, that's taking into account the deficit from swapping to a Viper Amulet, losing the Black Diamond, but gaining 5% Condition Damage.

In terms of Bleeds, the difference is:

(0.06*1924.96)+22 = 137.5

(0.06*1975.6)+22 = 140.5

For Burning:

(0.155*1924.96)+131.5 = 429.9

(0.155*1975.6)+131.5 = 437.7

Now considering each build is capable of maintaining the same number of Burn stacks, your build is stronger; however if we now consider that my build uses Sigil of Earth, which has an internal cooldown of 2 seconds, but applies bleeding for 5 seconds, I can effectively maintain 3 more stacks of bleeding than your version can, which outweighs the benefits of the 5% bonus from Berserker Runes, up to a point. I worked out that between 25 and 30 stacks of Burning, the condition damage from your build is enough to outdo my extra 3 stacks of bleeding.

HOWEVER, what this doesn't take into account is of course the bonuses to power based damage from Berserker Runes as well. All together, these two are a lot closer than I first thought.

Edited by Sithicus

Share this post


Link to post

As a comment, while yes, the Rune of the Berserker is a really strong rune, I think it's a bit too popular. On builds like Condition Warrior that do a significant amount of Power damage, Rune of the Berserker is good because that +5% direct damage increase actually does something. However, there are some builds that don't benefit as much from it as you'd expect. For example, Condition Reaper does rather low Power damage (and a good deal of that damage comes from minions anyways, who don't get the +% damage buff), but I still see people going for Rune of the Berserker. In my opinion, that's a bit of a mistake, as without the +5% Rune of the Berserker is not that great.

Oh, and Sithicus, consider Superior Sigil of Geomancy. It's ridiculously strong; in fact, in many settings it straight up outdoes Superior Sigil of Bursting (although the two together are often nice, if you don't need Malice). It requires you to finangle your rotation a bit more since you'd ideally want to swap weapon sets every 9 seconds, but it's pretty much worth it.

Finally, YAY PATCHNOTES! Scorched Earth is now "fixed", so you can have two or more Condition Warriors together without their Scorched Earths "competing" with each other.

Share this post


Link to post

Yes interesting point about Berserker Runes, viable in this case simply because the power damage is fairly decent.

I did actually consider Geomancy, though I didn't mention in the original post why I didn't choose it. The thing is with this build is that there is little weapon swapping, you just sit in Longbow for the entirety of Berserk, then swap to Sword/Torch, then back to Longbow when Berserk is ready again, that's why I went for Earth, you just end up getting a lot more mileage out of it. I'll add that into the main post :)

And yes I was dying for that change, I could really feel my DPS getting majorly quashed when another Warrior was there!

Edited by Sithicus

Share this post


Link to post

Hm, yes, after checking the actual timings you're definitely right that you can't make good use of Geomancy here. A few seconds in Sword/Torch -> Longbow & berserk triggers it once, but then you don't switch back until 15s later at the end of Berserk, and won't proc it when you switch back to Longbow due to Fast Hands so it's realistically 20s or more between procs... not that good, then.

Earth is really weak, though, in my experience, so pretty much anything would do much better. Malice builds would inherently be more powerful, at least going by what I know for other classes.

Share this post


Link to post
3 hours ago, Nag said:

Earth is really weak, though, in my experience, so pretty much anything would do much better. Malice builds would inherently be more powerful, at least going by what I know for other classes.

Normally yes, but condition duration is already capped here :)

Share this post


Link to post

Yep, but as Susi outlined you could change the build to include Malice. It sounds stronger, on paper.

That said I think either could work.

Share this post


Link to post

Teamspeak

We have an open Teamspeak, which can be freely used by guests in need of a practical voice communication solution.

Address: ts.theopencommunity.org

×
×
  • Create New...