Is there any competitive power spec/build?

[Ryouzanpaku.1273]

And by competitive I mean "wanted in the format" :)

[Lanhelin.3480]

What do you mean with "wanted in the format"?

[FaboBabo.3581]

Which Game Mode?

[Ryouzanpaku.1273]

I play mostly PvE/WvW - but question was meant to be generic - are there any competitive power builds?

[obcan.1470]

Spell breaker is most cancer spec in wvw and spvp, power weaver is top dps on big hit boxes, other than that condis are better.

[mygamingid.5816]

The less health your target has, the better power will be due to its initial burst damage. The more health your target has, the better condi will be due to its long-term DPS. That's by design and it sounds like ArenaNet would like to push that even further by trading condi damage for condi duration to blunt condi burst damage and allow players time to clear condis. If you go condi, keep that in mind.

As a general rule, players (PvP & WvW) and most PvE content are low-health targets and bosses (raid, fractal, legendaries, champions, open world event, etc.) are high-health targets. Some freak circumstances allow power to buck the trend against high-health (e.g. Staff Weaver vs. large hitbox), but this normally holds true if you're looking only at best-in-class examples.

Personal DPS is kind of a trash statistic, particularly compared to the DPS you bring others on your team. If you have a pocket Druid/Warrior/Chrono combo dedicated to keeping a Power Staff Weaver alive and boon-bloated against a large-hitbox target, then that Weaver will do great. However, you've got three much weaker characters eating up spots on the team and the Weaver does sweet kitten all for any of them.

Put another way, if you're not going to help anyone but yourself, then your damage better make up for damage lost supporting you. Stop paying so much attention to golem DPS charts and pick builds that make your team better.

[knyy.6427]

@mygamingid.5816 said:The less health your target has, the better power will be due to its initial burst damage. The more health your target has, the better condi will be due to its long-term DPS. That's by design and it sounds like ArenaNet would like to push that even further by trading condi damage for condi duration to blunt condi burst damage and allow players time to clear condis. If you go condi, keep that in mind.

As a general rule, players (PvP & WvW) and most PvE content are low-health targets and bosses (raid, fractal, legendaries, champions, open world event, etc.) are high-health targets. Some freak circumstances allow power to buck the trend against high-health (e.g. Staff Weaver vs. large hitbox), but this normally holds true if you're looking only at best-in-class examples.

Personal DPS is kind of a trash statistic, particularly compared to the DPS you bring others on your team. If you have a pocket Druid/Warrior/Chrono combo dedicated to keeping a Power Staff Weaver alive and boon-bloated against a large-hitbox target, then that Weaver will do great. However, you've got three much weaker characters eating up spots on the team and the Weaver does sweet kitten all for any of them.

Put another way, if you're not going to help anyone but yourself, then your damage better make up for damage lost supporting you. Stop paying so much attention to golem DPS charts and pick builds that make your team better.

While this about power cable condi is how it is intended to be, right now, you can burst with Condi almost as well as power.But the devs already said they want to bring that Condi burst down.

[mygamingid.5816]

@knyy.6427 said:While this about power cable condi is how it is intended to be, right now, you can burst with Condi almost as well as power.But the devs already said they want to bring that Condi burst down.

Right. I should answer the question a bit more clearly, too. Basically, most power builds are competitive. They’re better against low-health targets and worse against high-health targets, but always useful. If ArenaNet implements plans to weaken the initial burst of condis, then power will be a bit more attractive.

[RedSPINE.7845]

I don't understand the meaning of competitive in an environment free of competition ... There are plenty of builds that are both fun and powerful. If it was for raids, I'll understand the try hard behaviour but here I just don't know how your question could be answered.

[Sasooka.5148]

Thief, Guardian, Warrior and Engineer all have competitive power builds. Elementalist as well if you go staff, but honestly... I wouldn't recommend it.

[dusanyu.4057]

@obcan.1470 said:Spell breaker is most cancer spec in wvw and spvpGood thing this is a pve game

[Issette.3248]

@dusanyu.4057 said:

@obcan.1470 said:Spell breaker is most cancer spec in wvw and spvpGood thing this is a pve game

Where spellbreaker is completely useless.

[Klowdy.3126]

@dusanyu.4057 said:

@obcan.1470 said:Spell breaker is most cancer spec in wvw and spvpGood thing this is a pve game

I wouldn't call it a PvE game. There are PvP leaderboards, and just as much focus on PvP as PvE. This is the only MMO of this sort I know of that lets you completely skip leveling and go straight into high level PvP.