Renegade - life stealing build

[Eodh.8529]

Excelsior to you all,

I have a small question to address you all.

I am among the few to actually sincerely enjoy the gameplay of the renegade and the short bow. While I agree that both are underwhelming , they bring me the most fun.This post therefore address PVE only (Open world + low level fractal).

I am playing a mad king version of the renegade / doubled with jalis.As you all know, this rune with renegade's elite and with the related traits for life syphon makes the toon relatively sustainable while providing lots of AoE with bow. (in short, perfect for murdering poor mobs).

I usually play power as... Well... Mobs don't have enough health to allow the ramp up required for the condition damage to make full sense. With this build, I can easily take solo few veterans at a time or a champ.The build is the following:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXlnXMXNSumrJRZz/kst5gSY38QJ4berklNlqNAOgH4/HHyjkNMSj3A-jxRBQBA4UAgH9B9Z/BzoE8KK/ok6P58JAAA-e

But since renegade remains more tweaked toward condition than to power, I have always wondered the following:

• doesnt it make more sense to put Corruption (3-2-3) instead of Invocation and increase the bleeing in Kalla's tree?
• Would therefore full viper be better or a mix (rampager for example) be more interesting?

NOTA : I would like to continue to play the life stealing - renegade, as I like the mechanism.

Many thanks all for your comments and let's have a good discussion.

[Set.7461]

I would stick with vipers as it's more versatile. I've played a vampire renegade and I would make a few suggestions to your build. Put Frailty and Draining on your shortbow. X/Draining on your Swd/Axe. The reason is darkrazor daring procs tons of interrupts and Draining has no ICD so you can steal health on up to 5 targets, 6 times. Frailty gives you a source of vuln on your shortbow with helps your sustain when you take the devestation line.

Stick with invocation. If you want to focus more on single target, drop Jalis and go Shiro. Drop icerazor before swapping to shiro and turn on impossible odds. Icerazer's 20 hits will add a ton of damage coupled with impossible odds. If you want to stick with Jalis, I suggest you slot Agility sigil/Draining. There is a weird .... ahem feature which allows vengeful hammers to work with quickness, but also stay at quickness speed when it ends. Therefore, you can swap to Jalis, instantly turn on hammers, and enjoy super fast hammer spins for insane cleave. Just make sure you're auto attacking the group to keep vuln up. Vampire Renegade is one of the few build where Charged Mists makes sense over Roiling Mists. You can easily drain sub-10 energy on both the single target Shiro/Renegade or the group cleaving Jalis/Renegade.

Edit: Although if you wanted to go hybrid, vipers gear would be good but I've found power to be better for a lifesteal build as the only condition you need is vuln and the only renegade utility that adds damaging condition is Razerclaw's Rage(if you don't count F3). And even that skill is underwhelming. Now if Icerazor's Ire procs chill instead of cripple.... but that's a topic that has been discussed since beta weekend....

[Justine.6351]

I looked over the concept and generally speaking, condi/hybrid/power, you end up with a less efficient build that takes far more effort to perform.

The best synergistic thing I could find that seemed fun was actually power leeching with hammer and dark fields since its AA hits hard and is a 100% projectile finisher and comes with field of the mists. Because of its slower AA it could also trigger assassins annihilation every attack.

The problem I have with the concept of the build is that it has requirements like flanking and vulnerability which are not deal breakers but it just adds to other user complexities that snowball into a not-so-fun gameplay experience.

[Eodh.8529]

Many thanks to the two of you for your respective answers.

To answer a you, Justine, I simply like the bow. I'm fully aware of the subpar level of it. dully noted about not spreading the gear specs.

Seth, many thanks for the long answer & the tips. the feature you mentioned is amazing. I did change the sigils to your recommandations and it is definitely better!

Many thanks!

[LucianDK.8615]

Might you not get more lifestealing out of a power build? Less ramp up too, and power to hit with. Plus hammer is a far better weapon than the piddly shortbow.