An alternate way to play organized group PVE fractals/dungeons

Direct damage has been the conventional wisdom for organized group play for just about ever. Since the most effective direct damage got essentially nerfed across the board, now more than ever, alternate approaches might be more viable. I have enjoyed hybrid play, be it hybrid condi/direct damage, or support/damage. I be curious to find out how this bizarrely min-maxed, condi/support group performs for high level PVE content. Some of the thoughts that went into this composition are follows: Two characters running half spec'ed healing hybrids seem to be rewarded stat wise based on the results I'm getting from gw2 build editor. See how much benefit can be made from Dragon's Revelry starcake and Superior sigil of the stars (featured in almost all the builds). Use every offensive passive AoE team buff (Empower allies, spotter, pinpoint distribution and assassin's presence). Design a group play for more than just ideal conditions. This team should be able to excel at stacked boonsharing output, but also not suck at range, or when problems happen. Most of these builds might lean one way or the other into condi/DD hybridization, but at least all have respectable condi damage.

Soulbeast poison specialisthttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwAUh/lRwkYTsHmJWqP7v3SO3FA-zRZYVBZaG1cBFBhdIJIEqZCEiKwpHERoL5J7BZDV2K-e

Major contributions: Stance sharing (leader of the pack with Vulture stance, One wolf pack) lots of self sustain with life on poison. Spotter. decent CC, flexibility offered through different pets.

Holosmith burn specialisthttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?PegAoqlZw6YasFWJOULlvbA-zRZYVhIy8LaQBmh2DLMSSgwCw+gEIbgvyWB-e

Major contributions: high condi and DD output. lots of flexibility in CC. Pinpoint distribution. smoke fields for skips

Spellbreaker burn Mightshare http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PKwAMlflFw4YdMMGJm6XVvdA-zRxYBBBWFkxWEDfRBwGWRQZnSCKgAlARIEqZEYjDiYMG0PT2AHwUZrA-e

Major contributions: High CC output. Mightshare passively. Banners strength and discipline, Empower allies. Condi output with bow, High DD output with axe off hand

quickbrand heal/burnhttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAYd7lRweYTMKmJWST2PTA-zRpYVBZiGioA3oEeDpGGcERROkqlAprCqZII2DiAMGCOkpsB6pbuyWB-e

Major contributions: Perma Party haste. Great AoE healing through Tome of resolve/force of will (20% outgoing)/sigil of transferance(10%outgoing). Quickfire (burning proc on group). Group DD burst through Bane of Signet and Perfect inscriptions.

condi/heal Alacrigade http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAUlfllQLMKajNRasKKjFSjsBygn915TD-zRRYvhUHOqpKHS6ShaGBhoA01BRAS4PZPcHQltC-e

Major contributions: Good up time on alacrity. lots of healing. Soulcleave's Summit. Assassin's presence.

I don't for a second this could surpass other DD theorycrafted team comps in the hands of highly skilled teams, but I wonder how far behind the meta curve this could achieve, and where this type of comp would live on the fun to play/ forgiving curve related more to simple game enjoyment.

thoughts?

Okay, i only looked at Renegade but you literally threw a bunch of stuff against a wall and if it doesnt stick you took it anyway.

You dont run Mallyx even though its THE Legend for a Condi Renegade.Your Soulcleave Summit is worse than that from a Harrier or Diviner Renegade. Its scales with power and you have less cause you run Plaguedoctor.Your Condition Damage, Condition Duration and your Critical Hit Chance is just bad. Tbh, your Healing Power isnt much better.You are trying to achieve too many things at once.Then you run Devestation. Devestation on Condi is just so bad at the moment. Theres is no point in running a hybrid build if you dont even try to support one side of your hybrid. The only thing that supports the Condi side atm is the Condi Stat on Plaguedoctor.Why do you run Vndication in the Renegade line. You say that this team should excel in boon stacking, but having might is too much to ask for?You also dont take Staff, which has the best CC skill in the entire game. You just took 2 condi weapon sets that dont get any support from your gear/traits.

On this build you will basically just auto attack. You wont have the energy in Ventari since you probably want it to heal people and you also wont have the energy in Kalla since you want to upkeep Soulcleave Summit.

Since the most effective direct damage got essentially nerfed across the board

Said who?

@Booksinger.9532 said:Direct damage has been the conventional wisdom for organized group play for just about ever. Since the most effective direct damage got essentially nerfed across the board, now more than ever, alternate approaches might be more viable.You might want to rethink the assumption you're making here. Especially in Fractals, where power damage is still the king, and things die way too fast for condi to be a good alternative to it.

Sorry, but all of those builds are mediocre or strait up bad. Takes only 1 look at the stats at the end (1,300 condition damage with 28% condition duration on a burn specialist build, and you consider this high damage? No.)

First off, please take a moment to understand WHY and how group synergy works in this game:1.) The first step is to assure all boons and as many class mechanic buffs are covered by as few classes as possible. Or in some very rare cases, by as little sacrifice on multiple classes. Most often it is ideal to have dedicated classes provide these supports so others don't have to.2.) The second step is to find how much actual healing is needed for success per boss. This will often get rolled into step 1 on classes if possible since losing performance on 1-4 classes is beneficial to the alternative of more classes going hybrid. High performance groups cut this down to as little as 1 class on a hybrid build.3.) Finally see which builds, classes and damage type benefits a boss the most, then design the setup around this.4.) Understand that damage ratio and multipliers in this game are multiplicative, meaning stacking them as much as possible on fewer classes will yield better results than across the board hybrids (even if hybrid setups are more than capable of clearing content).

Simply throwing together hybrid builds in a build editor without accounting for the aforementioned points is useless. At most, given stat constraints, it is advisable to not specialize into more then 2 roles (healing and boons or boons and damage are the most common ones).

this perfect biulds !! ofc they work only if you use is whit yours giuldmates. Try use that outside will stack toxic at you.

I am disappointed not to see Grieving Minion Reaper on this list as minions and melee nature of Reaper act as a shield for the rest of your team, while the build is able to cover vulnerability along with lots of situational utility like boon-strips, blinds, and strong CC.

The reason why not to hybridize like you did is due to damage modifiers for power and conditions that stack multiplicatively. In addition, generally people don't hybridize power builds since there isn't a stat that has both ferocity and healing power (except celestial). Diviner's gear has boon duration and ferocity which is why support renegade uses it ; heal renegade is on harrier's for PVE. That's also why in the past before diviner's stats were introduced people ran commander's gear chrono , which wasted ferocity for toughness.

If you really wanted to go hybrid the best option is probably healing+burning firebrand due to the low ramp time of burning and the lower damage of a healing firebrand in general. You'd still want at least 1500+ condition damage with close to 100% burn duration ; a typical burn firebrand is over 1900 condition damage and 100% burn duration. Right now you have less than 1000 condition damage and <25% bonus duration which is less than a third of the condition damage. There's no ranged condi weapon for guardian so you're relying on symbols for burning damage from the virtue of justice procs.

The other main burn builds are condi weaver and condi berserker which have bleeding making up a portion of the condi damage unlike firebrand which is 70-80% burning.

There is no reason to run a condi soulbeast of any kind when it's fractals; heal druid with emphasis on healing + conditions is marginal (which isn't great since Celestial Avatar uptime isn't that high), condi rev of any kind (it has high ramp time), or a condi holo with pistols in fractals unless your idea of fun is taking the "safe" route of unnecessary added sustain and range at the cost of most of your damage.

If you just want range on your soulbeast , have a weapon swap in your bag for axe+axe (or longbow even); for holo it's an easy swap to Photonic Blasting module rifle holo or you can just use the grenade kit which has 900 range.

Also not sure why you have a hybrid spellbreaker warrior build , that should be purely power. The reason people run berserker specialization is for torch, without that it's bleeding from sword and maybe some burn from longbow.

The reason why people run direct / power damage is most things die in 3 seconds unless it's a boss. If it's a boss with phases you simply cannot wait for your ramping bleed/poison/torment conditions to tick. The only place confusion really shines is probably Mai Trin due to the attack rate , but then you still need to deal with the added mobs and clones die to the cannons.

If you look at the common power builds, the condi variants or hybridized variants aren't very promising:

• Power soulbeast (GS and sword+axe) ---- condi ranger is out of the question ; dagger has low cleave and shortbow stacks bleed
• Power sword weaver / power fresh air tempest --- condi weaver doesn't bring much advantage (~50% burning , some portion bleeding and power)
• Power sword holo / rifle PBM holo (bomb kit used) ---- condi holo doesn't compete and relies on a multitude of conditions outside of Flamethrower + Photon Blitz's burning , so unless you plan on camping flamethrower and dropping fire bomb + using photon blitz it's going to be more work for not much benefit
• Power berserker (axe x2, mace x2) --- condi berserker doesn't bring much advantage (~50% burning , some portion bleeding and power)
• Power DH (GS , sword+focus or scepter+focus) --- condi quickness FB would replace a power quickbrand
• Diviner Renegade / Power herald --- condi ramp is very slow on torment and bosses don't move much unless it's Mai trin (who shadowsteps/teleports) so it's a poor idea ; burning come from mace 2 (searing fissure) only ---> Diviner renegade is supposedly ~ 80% of the damage of a power herald (which has perma-fury which you can just get from a firebrand dropping symbol on axe or a DH using sword)
• Power staff daredevil --- there's no viable condi thief for fractals really and due to deadly ambition changes you technically need to run pistol or double dagger with very low cleave
• Power reaper --- condi scourge has a slow ramp time due to torment/bleed except for the incidental burning from dhuumfire/demonic lore
• Power chrono / core mesmer --- even the power variant isn't common , the condi mirage variant can work for boss fights with high attack rate and not much else

Also unless you are unaware, PVE coefficients have not been hit at all in the February 25 update. It was strictly PVP+WVW (competitive modes).

Hope that helps.

@"Infusion.7149" said:If you look at the common power builds, the condi variants or hybridized variants aren't very promising:

• Power soulbeast (GS and sword+axe) ---- condi ranger is out of the question ; dagger has low cleave and shortbow stacks bleed

i know all the yada yada, but i am still gonna throw this in there. its not as bad as you think it is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/gc9s99/hybrid_soulbeast_dps_37499/

@skarpak.8594 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:If you look at the common power builds, the condi variants or hybridized variants aren't very promising:

• Power soulbeast (GS and sword+axe) ---- condi ranger is out of the question ; dagger has low cleave and shortbow stacks bleed

@skarpak.8594 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:If you look at the common power builds, the condi variants or hybridized variants aren't very promising:

• Power soulbeast (GS and sword+axe) ---- condi ranger is out of the question ; dagger has low cleave and shortbow stacks bleed

Please check the actual build. It's full viper... That build is as much hybird as a full minstrel chrono is a damage dealer.

It makes use of the high damage bonus of condition duration to keep condi damage adequate, while stacking power damage buffs to increase the power output. From a gearing perspective it's a full condition build which sacrifices nearly all condition damage bonuses for power damage. Many classes are not able to do this.

@Cyninja.2954i guess you did not read the thread at all, nor checked the log.

Condi Soulbeast build has a ratio of 13%/87% power/condi damage with around 18 seconds ramp-up time until it reaches a stable overall DPS.Hybrid Soulbeast build has a ratio of 42%/58% power/condi damage with around 6 seconds ramp-up time until it reaches a stable overall DPS.

...also viper itself is already a hybrid stat, or are you now going to tell me that power and precision are no power stats?

from a gearing perspective there is only one thing: a missing equal to berserkers in the condition damage playing field.

@skarpak.8594 said:...also viper itself is already a hybrid stat, or are you now going to tell me that power and precision are no power stats?

I know what you mean, but considering that on crit traits exists for conditions, i wouldnt call precision an only power stat.

not denying any synergy. x)

@Infusion.7149 said:

Also unless you are unaware, PVE coefficients have not been hit at all in the February 25 update. It was strictly PVP+WVW (competitive modes).

This. Was wondering when someone would mention it.

@skarpak.8594 said:@Cyninja.2954i guess you did not read the thread at all, nor checked the log.

Condi Soulbeast build has a ratio of 13%/87% power/condi damage with around 18 seconds ramp-up time until it reaches a stable overall DPS.Hybrid Soulbeast build has a ratio of 42%/58% power/condi damage with around 6 seconds ramp-up time until it reaches a stable overall DPS.

Yes, exactly Viper IS a hybrid stat which sees predominant use in condi builds (due to the nature of how stacking damage co-efficients works in this game). If there was a pure condition stat set, ideally 2 stat Condtion damage and duration or Condition damage, duration and precision. That set would outperform Viper as condi build.

You're not seeing any power Viper builds now are you? It's the best condi set there is, which unlike power, is not the cap potential for condition builds.

The issue here is not that hybrid builds work (in this specific case), it's that there are no ideal stat combination for condition builds, which makes hybrid builds with different focus on condi or power possible. If there was a pure condition damage option, there would need to be a re-balance, in which result these hybrid builds would likely fall flat again (if the design sticks to multiplicative effects for maximum damage).

@skarpak.8594 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:If you look at the common power builds, the condi variants or hybridized variants aren't very promising:

• Power soulbeast (GS and sword+axe) ---- condi ranger is out of the question ; dagger has low cleave and shortbow stacks bleed

Bleeding damage in PvE is (0.06 * Condition Damage) + 22 per second , with 33% bonus you get around 144 to 171 per second per stack depending on merge. 20 stacks of boosted bleeding is under 3.5K damage a second (whereas a Greatsword swing is 1/2 a second or 3/4 second for maul before quickness) even with the trait bonus. 25 might would only add around 1K damage a second. Most of those base durations are 6-8s and using every skill on the axe or dagger mainhand would still not get you to 20 stacks reliably unless you have One Wolf Pack. Five or six stacks (at under 200 damage per stack) is not going to compare with power damage and the cooldown on Splitblade (axe mainhand) and Double Arc (dagger mainhand) are higher than maul. Given that One Wolf Pack is on 60 base cooldown and Mad King Rune's birds have 45 second internal cooldown, I would be very wary of its ability to keep up with Power soulbeast overall.

Burning damage is much higher and doesn't have the conditional nature of confusion or torment. Firebrand's Amplified Wrath ups burn damage even further by 15% and most applications are under 4 seconds long.Burning scaling is (0.155 * Condition Damage) + 131 per second , with the 15% bonus and 1900 condition damage you get 425 per second per stack so with 4-5 stacks you can make up a ferocity deficit especially as firebrand axe's power coefficients are rather high overall and so is weaver's sword. Considering you get 2 stacks of burning from searing slash on the full auto chain it isn't as far fetched especially with Virtue of Justice interaction with hits rather than attacks. Additionally the symbol on axe provides fury for people playing power builds and despite the skill only listing bleeding you will get burning from virtues if it hits more than 1 enemy (no critical hit required). Weaver is in a less potent situation with burning if you are even looking at that route as burning precision is only 33% chance on critical. You end up relying on dual attack skills , signet of fire, and the 2 stacks of burning from sunspot /fire aura on swap to fire attunement (4s recharge on attunements for weaver) because you won't be autoing only on fire attunement. Berserker is going to rely on primal bursts and longbow. Unless you can manage high uptime to enable the primal bursts on sword and longbow there isn't large amounts of stacked burn short of Fan of Fire (longbow #2) ; dual shot traited is one stack. If you don't have adrenaline and use sword it's similar to the ranger bleeding situation but worse since you don't have the 33% bleeding damage boost.

I would advise looking past the overall DPS number on a 4 million HP stationary golem and how much time it actually takes for the damage to be realized. If it's over 8s base duration you can basically forget about it in most fractals.

ofc its not remotly the best build you can play in fractals. i know that bursty power will remain king, i am not the one you have to tell that.but to still answer your question (was that one ? -> "If it's over 8s base duration you can basically forget about it in most fractals.") since you apparently did not read the thread or check the log: 6 seconds.

maybe this build will find its niche one day, you never know. but its definitly not bad for what its trying to accomplish (being a hybrid build). you should look into it before writing it off without checking. for what OP was looking in terms of "hybrids" this is doing the job way better then anything he came up with.

that it will performt worse then any meta stuff that is flying arround right now especially in fractals with phase times where you get 2 skills out and thats it is pretty clear to me. but that is also not the reality for most of the goups running.

@"skarpak.8594" said:ofc its not remotly the best build you can play in fractals. i know that bursty power will remain king, i am not the one you have to tell that.but to still answer your question (was that one ? -> "If it's over 8s base duration you can basically forget about it in most fractals.") since you apparently did not read the thread or check the log: 6 seconds.

maybe this build will find its niche one day, you never know. but its definitly not bad for what its trying to accomplish (being a hybrid build). you should look into it before writing it off without checking. for what OP was looking in terms of "hybrids" this is doing the job way better then anything he came up with.

that it will performt worse then any meta stuff that is flying arround right now especially in fractals with phase times where you get 2 skills out and thats it is pretty clear to me. but that is also not the reality for most of the goups running.

In that case ANY build is an alternative, if we are going to bypass the infrastructure which is the basic foundation on why we construct a build, and why everyone else follow.

In short, builds require investment, and I don't see that his personal preferences will convince the most of us to spend for it, even for the sake of fun.

If you're going to run heal burn firebrand, you should go seraph (maybe a bit of plaguedoctors) if you're afraid of dying. Celestial is garbage and belongs nowhere. Marshals gear is doing too much.

Also you're really not doing any actual healing with the build; ditch Force of Will for Writ of Persistance and Signet of Judgement for a healing skill. Empowering Might over Staff because camping staff will hose your dps. You should also use Balthazar runes. You're way overcapping quickness duration especially if you factor in fractal potions.

You also want torch unless the boss is mostly projectiles. Otherwise, there's no point in doing burning damage at all.

Finally, have you actually seen what Quickfire does? It does nothing. It also restricts your tome 1 usage-- you always want to be doing the passive burns too.