Better for stats to be balanced or lopsided?

For instance, my Reaper has Power and Condi roughly equal at around 2000. Would it be better to allow one to drop in order to pump up the other? I also have an elementalist with Heal bonus around 1000. Does it need to be any higher? I'm concerned about being so weak in dps that I can't handle simple mobs. In general, is it better to hedge your bets or go all-in on your strengths?

@Biff.5312 said:For instance, my Reaper has Power and Condi roughly equal at around 2000. Would it be better to allow one to drop in order to pump up the other? I also have an elementalist with Heal bonus around 1000. Does it need to be any higher? I'm concerned about being so weak in dps that I can't handle simple mobs. In general, is it better to hedge your bets or go all-in on your strengths?

If you're talking about open world PvE or PvE in general, it's better to have more power as Reaper as the specialization excels at close ranged combat and it hits really hard which is why it's better to have power with it rather than condition damage. As for healing power, don't put too much of it on your gear. It's not worth it. You can add a little bit, but I would never add healing power on my gear.

For open world it depends on playing style. Mixing DPS types does not work very well though. It would always be better to either focus in power or condi only. It also depends on the class and elite spec. Some are better suited as support or a specific dps type etc.

The rule of thumb though when you solo open world is that it is better to focus on dps and be able to kill the mob before they can. So it is better to focus fully on offensive stats. Now if you find it too difficult to keep your self alive then just use gear with a few defense stat combinations (adding a bit of toughness or vitality) and you should be alright. Do not bother with healing power. If you need to be a bit more defensive add toughness or vitality.

You can check metabattle.com open world builds for some ideas.

Most players will go for the 'unbalanced' builds, focussing on raw DPS, tankiness or healing. This is also the current consensus among the community and the current metagame. If you stay alive, this is the best option. If, that is.

Having said this, I'm currently getting much enjoyment out of my balanced, Celestial Elementalist build, which is focussed around maximizing the amount of attribute points with decent survivability with decent damage. 20075 health, 2655 armor (more in earth), 1834 power (more in fire), 1125 condi, 1603 precission, 603 ferocity, 603 healing. (Without food bonusses) Sure, DPS is a lot lower than a pure zerker or condi build, but survivability is important as well and when you're dead you don't have much DPS either. And when I'm the only one surviving in some T1 and T2 fractal PuGs, it seems to make sense to me.

As other people have said most players will go for 'lopsided' builds. This is an approach commonly called 'min-maxing' - literally minimizing the stats you don't want in order to put the maximum number of points into the ones you do. It's the standard practice in traditional 'holy trinity' RPGs where your character is either a damage dealer, a tank or a healer and focuses (almost) exclusively on stats related to that role - so a tank would have very little damage and little/no healing skills, instead focusing on drawing aggro and absorbing damage. It still works in GW2 even though this isn't a trinity based game, it just means the builds you're choosing between are different - for example a common choice is between power (for direct damage) and condition damage.

But that's not the only choice and it does have downsides. Another name for a pure damage dealer is a glass cannon - which is exactly what it sounds like: they hit like a cannon but shatter like glass if anything hits them*. Some players prefer hybrid - or balanced - builds which offer a mix of damage and survivability, especially when you're playing solo and can't rely on other players to protect or help you. For example I use equipment which gives toughness as one of the secondary stats on my ranger so that I don't have to play at my best all the time - if I mis-time a dodge or don't get out of an AoE in time it doesn't matter too much because I'll probably survive. It does mean I don't kill things as quickly, but I'm ok with that because I'm generally not in a hurry when I'm playing that character and I sometimes prefer longer fights because you get to see more of the enemies mechanics and use more of your own skills.

In general choosing between power and condition damage is fairly straight forward: What weapons and skills are you using? What type of damage do they do? If you're not applying a lot of damaging conditions (like poison and bleeding) then condition damage is useless and you should focus on power. If you are applying lots of conditions then chances are those skills don't do as much direct damage as others and the benefit from power is minimal so you're better off with condition damage.

I actually tend to find it easier to think about whether I want each stat, and then narrow the list down to 3 or 4 (and then rant about how that specific combo doesn't exist - like condition damage/power/toughness and then pick a different one) rather than starting from 'do I want pure damage or a hybrid'? But then I almost always play hybrids of some description in most RPGs.

*It's not a perfect metaphor because a real cannon made of glass would probably explode when fired, destroying itself and killing or injuring anyone around it, and of course a damage dealer in a game (usually) doesn't want to do that.

As a counter-example to "add some defensive if you are having survivability problems," remember the age-old war-cry of trinity-MMORPG healers everywhere: "Don't Stand In Stupid," meaning that you should be practising avoidance rather than absorption to survive. If they don't hit you, they do no damage. So dodge-roll out of that incoming attack (bonus: stops e.g. Ettin knock-down from knocking you down) or dodge/run out of the launched AoE's red circle, and so on.

In fact, that's why the GW2 "meta" concentrates on "glass cannon" builds. (Berzerker, Assassin, Viper, etc. all make you very fragile but very, very dangerous, and you mitigate the fragility by avoiding damage.)

Thanks for the tips - to clarify I'm not asking if I need defensive stats. I'm only asking if it's better for dps to focus on either power/condi or to combine them. I gather the concensus is one or the other. The healing isn't for me to not die (I'd hardly need it to be at 1000 for that). I don't have a problem staying alive. It's to make the toon a healer. Just wondering if I should go full-tilt or keep it relatively balanced so it can also be used individually in open world.

@Biff.5312 said:Thanks for the tips - to clarify I'm not asking if I need defensive stats. I'm only asking if it's better for dps to focus on either power/condi or to combine them. I gather the concensus is one or the other. The healing isn't for me to not die (I'd hardly need it to be at 1000 for that). I don't have a problem staying alive. It's to make the toon a healer. Just wondering if I should go full-tilt or keep it relatively balanced so it can also be used individually in open world.

Hybrid dps/support builds work, but only in groups that are expecting such builds, and are thusly built around them. A group composition that's expecting a fully dedicated healer will expect a character with a specialized build (full healing power, boon duration, etc.), and will very likely play differently and use different strategies than one that is built around multiple hybrid builds. The former scenario is the general outlook of PUGs, so your team will likely struggle if you should bring a hybrid build.

@"Biff.5312" said:Thanks for the tips - to clarify I'm not asking if I need defensive stats. I'm only asking if it's better for dps to focus on either power/condi or to combine them.

Generally, focus on one, because the maximum damage for each depends on additional stats: power loves precision and ferocity, while condi loves condition duration, and it is very hard to get significant amounts of all of those secondary stats. The same is true of supporting trait lines: most of them require the choice between condition and power damage, either by selection of the line, or by selection between the choices within it.

It isn't that it doesn't work to have a hybrid, it is just that it is hard to the maximize damage of both at the same time, and those supporting secondary stats do literally nothing for the other type. (condi damage can't crit, power damage doesn't have duration.)

The only commonality is that having some amount of precision is a "nice to have" for condition builds, because of the "on crit" traits, sigils, etc, that can add benefits from that -- but they exist only to support those, not because the crit significantly increases the damage.

Finally, weapon choice usually is fairly biased. Weapons with condition application in their skills usually have very low power multipliers for their direct damage. (For example, the necro scepter is 0.2 * power for direct damage scaling, making it ... not exactly good.)

Those are not all true all the time for all classes, builds, and weapons, but they are generally true for almost all of them. So, unless you have a very clever, and uncommon, build, you are almost certainly not going to benefit more from the combined effects than anything else.