User:Masel/DPSBuildGuideLines

Introduction

Guild Wars 2 offers two main playstyles to deal damage; Strike damage and Condition damage. There are some builds that make use of equal shares of both, but most builds focus on one of them. This holds true for both full dps builds and Boon dps builds.

Boon dps builds are a mix between a support role and a full dps build, since they sacrifice some of their damage to be able to provide one of two essential boons:  Quickness or  Alacrity. On top of that, they're there to supply additional boons that a healer might not be able to provide. The great thing is that every Profession has at least one  Power-DPS, one  Condition Damage-DPS, one  Alacrity-DPS and one  Quickness-DPS build that are viable for instanced content (keep in mind that viable is not equal to competitive). So regardless of the Profession you chose, you will be able to fulfil all damage-focused roles!

Before we start, I want to point you to trustworthy sources for builds (aside from mine of course!):

• Snowcrows - This is the go-to hub for fully optimized rotations, also called benchmarks. I simplify the rotations to make them more digestible, at the cost of a few % of damage. Which source is better for you depends on the time you want to put in to learn a rotation and your skill level in general.
• Metabattle - The folks from metabattle work hard to supply builds for all game modes, including open world PvE. Their builds are awesome and they often have builds I don't have (and vice-versa :P) . They share the same build philosophy as I do, so make sure to check them out!

The following sections are meant to prepare you for your journey in Group PvE in Guild Wars 2 by covering the following topics:

1. Build Basics & Damage Calculation
2. Getting Cheap Starter Gear off the Trading Post
3. Special Forces Training Area Preparation

 Power Build Basics & Damage Calculation

If you want to dive into instanced content, it's important that you know how your build works.  Power builds focus on Strike damage, which usally entails higher burst damage, as it is inflicted directly. That makes  Power builds very suitable for burst-friendly encounters with smaller mobs and shorter phase times.That doesn't mean that the sustained damage of power builds is low; it just means that they can inflict more damage over shorter timeframes. Then, they often wait for their cooldowns to come back to repeat the burst cycle. That playstyle gives  Power builds a typical wave-shaped damage graph, moreso than  Condition Damage builds.

Interaction of  Power,  Precision and  Ferocity

Another part of understanding the choices for gear, traits and skills lies in the stat power they provide. Power builds mainly utilize three stats:  Power,  Precision and  Ferocity:

•  Power has a base value of 1000 and increases the base damage of your skills. How large the impact of  Power on your damage is depends on the scaling coefficients of the skills you use.
•  Precision adds 1% to your Critical chance for every 21 points you have of it. Critical chance has a base value of 1000 and starts at 5%. Aside from  Precision, there are flat %-modifiers: a prominent example would be the Boon  Fury.
•  Ferocity adds 1% to your Critical damage for every 15 points you have of it. Critical damage has a base value of 150%. Akin to  Precision, there are %-modifiers to Critical damage. These are multiplicative to your Critical damage.
• There are additional %-damage done & taken modifiers that affect all  Power damage. Damage done multipliers can be additive or multiplicative, damage taken multipliers are all multiplicative (as one could easily reduce damage to 0 otherwise). The damage done modifiers are on the player (e.g. Relic of the Thief), the damage taken modifiers are applied to the target ((e.g.  Vulnerability). A full list of all damage modifiers can be found on the Damage Page.

A simplified formula to calculate your average damage would look like this:

Average Strike Damage Formula

Damage Component	Formula
Base Damage	Power * Average Weapon Strength * Scaling Coefficient / Target's Armor
* General Modifiers	* (1 + Sum of Add. % Damage Done Modifiers) * (1 + Mult. % Damage Done Modifier 1) * (1 + Mult. % Damage Done Modifier 2) * ... * Total Target Damage Taken Modifier
* (1 + Critical Chance * (Critical Damage - 1))	* (1 + Min (5% + ( Precision - 1000) / 2100 + Sum of % Critical Chance Modifiers , 100%) * ((150% +  Ferocity / 1500) * (1 + Mult. % Critical damage Modifier 1) * (1 + Mult. % Critical damage Modifier 2) * ... ) - 1)

Maximizing your average damage thus means maximizing this formula within the constraints given by the game. This might seem complicated, but the implications drawn are quite simple:

1. the impact of  Power on your damage is linear and neither depends on  Precision nor on  Ferocity,
2. damage gains from  Precision and  Ferocity are mutually dependent. The more Critical damage you have, the more beneficial an increase in Critical chance will become and vice-versa.
3.  Power builds usually have a lot of  Ferocity built in, which makes  Precision the number 1 priority for power builds. For obvious reasons, it is capped at 100% (Critical chance is a probability, and probabilities cannot exceed 100%).

DPS Build Tenet 1
  Precision first. Make sure to reach 100% Critical chance on  Power builds! 

After reaching 100% Critical chance, the break-even point between  Power and  Ferocity varies per build and the calculation of the breakpoints is quite cumbersome. The difference is minor and often not statistically significant in actual gameplay, so don't worry about that for now.

Weapon Strength

If you paid attention to the formula for damage, you recognized that Weapon Strength is a part of it and linearly increases your damage just like  Power does. It is also responsible for the variance in  Power damage, as the damage for each hit is randomly taken from a fixed range that varies for each weapon. Most importantly, the item quality increases your weapon strength, so that having Ascended weapons is priority number 1 on  Power builds over the other gear pieces. As we will see later, it does not affect  Condition Damage at all, making it (almost) negligible on  Condition Damage builds.

Here's an example using a greatsword on various qualities (Legendary is equal to Ascended stat-wise):

Weapon Quality	Minimum	Midpoint	Maximum	% Increase of Midpoint
Rare	882	929	975
Exotic	995	1048	1100	12.8%
Ascended	1045	1100	1155	5.0%

So on average, replacing your Exotic weapon with an Ascended one will increase your damage by up to 5%, simply via the increased Weapon Strength. The "up to 5%" is important there, as non-weapon skill sets use their own weapon strengths, some of which are shared with weapons while others are unique. This includes Kits, Bundles, Conjures, Healing Skills, Utility Skills, Trait skills, Elite skills et cetera. So the actual increase will be lower than 5%, but still noticeable.

DPS Build Tenet 2
 Weapons First on  Power builds. Getting Ascended Weapons will increase your damage noticeably just via the increase in Weapon Strength!

 Condition Damage Build Basics & Damage Calculation

The second DPS build type you can go for are  Condition Damage builds. These apply damaging Conditions in larger amounts, dealing damage over time. In turn, they have a tendency for a slower damage ramp-up compared to  Power builds, but more consistent damage per second. Nonetheless, they can still accumulate high damage quickly with the right build and always retain a smaller share of  Power damage.  Condition Damage builds excel at encounters where you have dps downtimes, as the conditions will keep ticking their damage once per second for a while even when dealing with mechanics, roleplaying as a Choya or using the Bobblehead Laboratory.That also makes them excellent picks for solo gameplay in open world; more details on that in the other write-up.

 Condition Damage builds mainly utilize two stats:  Condition Damage (duh) and  Expertise.

•  Condition Damage increases the damage per tick of conditions and
•  Expertise adds 1% to Condition duration for every 15 points you have. This caps out at 100%, doubling the duration.
• Just like for  Power damage, there are additional %-damage done modifiers that affect  Condition Damage. In this case, any modifier that affects one particular condition is multiplicative with general  Condition Damage done modifiers. A full list of all damage modifiers can be found on the Damage Page.
• On top of the damage modifiers, there are also condition-specific duration modifiers. Duration modifiers are all additive, but there are modifiers that increase the base duration of particular skills, such as  Chemical Rounds or  Lingering Curse. These are then affected by duration increases normally.
• Most condition builds also benefit from a decent amount of Critical chance (and thus  Precision), as they include traits or sigils that trigger on Critical hits:

 Sharpened Edges on Ranger -  Bleeding (33% Chance)

 Burning Precision on Elementalist -  Burning (33% Chance)

 Arcane Precision on Elementalist -  Burning or  Bleeding (33% Chance)

 Sharper Images on Mesmer -  Bleeding (100% Chance for Illusions)

 Jagged Mind on Virtuoso -  Bleeding (100% Chance on Blades)

 Bloodlust on Warrior -  Bleeding (33% Chance)

 Furious on Warrior - 15  Condition Damage (Max. 25 Stacks)

 King of Fires on Berserker -  Burning (on Fire Aura detonation)

 Sharpshooter on Engineer -  Bleeding (33% Chance)

 Incendiary Powder on Engineer -  Burning (33% Chance)

 Barbed Precision on Necromancer -  Bleeding (33% Chance)

Superior Sigil of Earth  Bleeding (100% Chance)

Superior Sigil of Torment  Torment (100% Chance)

In order to understand the choices made for gear, skills and traits on particular builds, let's have a look a the calculation for total damage dealt by conditions. This formula is the same in structure for all damaging conditions, just with varying inputs per condition for base damage, scaling coefficient and modifiers for damage and duration:

Total Condition Damage Formula

Damage Component	Formula
Condition Damage per Second	Condition Damage * Scaling Coefficient + Base Damage
* General Modifiers	* (1 + Condition-Specific % Damage Done Modifier) * (1 + Sum of General % Condition Damage Done Modifiers) * Total Target Damage Taken Modifier
* Duration in Seconds	* Base Duration in Seconds * (1 + Min ( Expertise / 1500 + Sum of % Condition Duration Modifiers , 100%))

If you want to maximize your damage, maximize this formula. For condition builds, things become a bit more complex, as they usually include a mix of several conditions. In turn, you have multiple instances of the formula running simultaneously. Luckily, the main implications drawn from this are quite simple:

1. Both  Condition Damage and  Expertise linearly increase the total damage dealt by a condition.
2. The breakpoint between  Condition Damage and  Expertise depends on the scaling coefficent, base damage and the condition duration modifiers for the respective condition. For a detailed calculation of the breakpoints, see here.
3. Condition builds care less about Weapon Strength, as it only affects the small share of  Power damage they deal. Since some  Condition Damage builds have larger shares of  Power damage (up to 25%), it still matters, just way less. Using Exotic Weapons is thus not a big deal on them.

Here's a list of the the base damage, scaling coefficients and breakpoints for each condition:

Condition	Formula	Inflicted	Condition Damage /  Expertise Breakpoint
Bleeding	0.06 * Condition Damage + 22	per second	1133
Burning	0.155 * Condition Damage + 131	per second	655
Poisoned	0.06 * Condition Damage + 33.5	per second	942
Torment	0.06 * Condition Damage + 22	per second (moving foe)	1133
Torment	0.09 * Condition Damage + 31.8	per second (stationary foe)	1146
Confusion	0.035 * Condition Damage + 10	per second	1135
Confusion	0.0625 * Condition Damage + 49.5	per foe skill use	997

The breakpoints for most conditions are quite low, meaning that most builds will bypass them easily (25 stacks of  Might alone provide 750  Condition Damage). For that reason, you will usually prioritze reaching 100% condition duration on the important conditions. After that, any additional condition duration modifiers or point of  Expertise is wasted.

; DPS Build Tenet 3
: Condition Duration First! Prior to maximizing  Condition Damage, it is usually ideal to go for Condition duration modifiers (like  Expertise).

But which conditions should your build prioritize? A good indicator are the amplifications for Condition Damage and Condition Duration per Profession. These typically conincide with Weapon, Trait and Skill options that apply the boosted conditions.

; DPS Build Tenet 4
: When a Profession or Elite Specialization includes damage or duration modifiers for particular conditions, there usually are Endgame DPS builds making use of them.

Here's a table with the modifiers per Profession and general modifiers embedded in Sigils:

Condition-Specific Damage () and Duration () Modifiers

Getting Starter Gear

If you're looking to gear up a new character for instanced PvE, the first hurdle to take is to get gear that is somewhat useful there, but doesn't cost you a fortune. Getting Ascended gear always takes a bit of time AND/OR lots of money to acquire, so you won't be able to get it right away after reaching level 80. Fortunately, the difference in stats between Exotic and Ascended is not that large:

Note 1: This image is as of June 2023, but the general tendency doesn't change!

You'll notice that  Condition Damage builds lose less damage compared to  Power builds here, which is the logical consequence of the impact of Weapon Strength. The gap becomes smaller once you use Ascended weapons on the  Power builds.

DPS Build Tenet 5
 Using Exotic gear is fine for all content aside from High-Tier Fractals (and that only doesn't work because of Agony Resistance).

In the following sections, I'd like to show you good enough gearing options that are very cheap and purchaseable from the Trading Post, so you don't have to wait to get it. I'll guide you through this for both  Power and  Condition Damage builds seperately, as gearing them is fundamentally different. In any case, using starter gear is completely fine for all instanced content aside from higher-tier Fractals of the Mists or Challenge Mote Raids/Strike Missions.

My recommendation is to...

1. get Starter Gear as listed below,
2. unlock your Elite of choice with it and
3. start farming Ascended gear with that, in various content types (Open World, Fractals of the Mists, Strike Missions and/or Raids). For more details on the easy options for that, take a look at Tanetris' Extensive Gearing Guide.

Along the way, make use of any useful gear piece you acquire to improve your Build!

If you're playing a Boon DPS Build, you often include some  Concentration to maintain either  Quickness or  Alacrity reliably. The budget gear for  Condition Damage builds includes  Concentration by default through the Ritualist's Prefix.

Starter Gear for  Power Builds

• As mentioned above, the three stats that matter for  Power builds are  Power,  Precision and  Ferocity (with added  Concentration for Boon DPS builds). There are six Prefixes that include all three: Berserker's, Grieving, Diviner's, Dragon's, Marauder's and Celestial (Major Stats in bold).

Possible Prefixes for Power Builds

Prefix	Stats (Relative to a Major 3-stat Attribute)	Total  Power Stats (Sum of Percentages)	Total Offensive Stats (Sum of Percentages)	Total Stats (Sum of Percentages)
Berserker's	100 %  Power 71.31 %  Precision 71.31 %  Ferocity	242.63 %	242.63 %	242.63 %
Assassin's	71.31 %  Power 100 %  Precision 71.31 %  Ferocity	242.63 %	242.63 %	242.63 %
Dragon's	85.66 %  Power 47.01 %  Precision 85.66 %  Ferocity 47.01 %  Vitality	218.33 %	218.33 %	265.34 %
Diviner's	85.66 %  Power 47.01 %  Precision 47.01 %  Ferocity 85.66 %  Concentration	179.68 %	179.68 %	265.34 %
Marauder's	85.66 %  Power 85.66 %  Precision 47.01 %  Ferocity 47.01 %  Vitality	218.33 %	218.33 %	265.34 %
Grieving	85.66 %  Power 47.01 %  Precision 47.01 %  Ferocity 85.66 %  Condition Damage	179.68 %	265.34 %	265.34 %
Celestial	47.01 %  Power 47.01 %  Precision 47.01 %  Ferocity 47.01 %  Condition Damage 47.01 %  Expertise 47.01 %  Concentration 47.01 %  Healing Power 47.01 %  Vitality 47.01 %  Toughness	141.04 %	235.06%	423.11 %

The largest stat density for  Power builds comes from using Berserker's or Assassin's, as they are a 3-stat Prefixes that do not trade a share of one of the three stats for a fourth stat. Assassin's is used on builds that do not reach the Critical chance-cap to trade  Power for  Ferocity 1-to-1. Since Grieving is a Prefix that's mainly used on Condition-based damage builds, we're not going to discuss it further here. Marauder's and Celestial are a dps loss compared to other options and fairly expensive, so I would not recommend using them on  Power builds. Dragon's and Diviner's have fairly clear purposes in PvE:

• Dragon's is used on builds that natively reach more than 100% critical chance with a full set of Berserker's to gain free  Vitality. It has cheap Weapons.
• Diviner's is the best way to obtain additional  Concentration on  Power builds, as it does not have a 1-to-1 trade-off in stat (unlike using  Concentration Food or Utility items). The Exotic Trinkets are relatively cheap to buy.

 Power Armor, Trinkets and Weapons

When you want to replicate a PvE build, you can simply replace the Ascended pieces it uses 1-to-1 with Exotic. That usually leads to a loss in stats, as described above. Since  Precision is a) the mathematically superior stat and b) [[Critical chance] below 100% can have mechanical downsides, making up for the difference (usually around 3%) is usually the first priority. The following table shows prices for Exotic gear for the Prefixes listed above aside from Celestial. There are a few main takeaways:

1. The Trinkets for  Power builds all cost roughly the same and are reasonably cheap. Since it is also the most stat-efficient option, Diviner trinkets are a great way to obtain additional  Concentration
2. Assassin's trinkets and weapons can be used to obtain additional  Precision.
3. Any  Power prefix for armor except for Berserker's is quite expensive. You should therefore prioritize other options if you want to change Prefixes.
4. The Backpack in Exotic is very expensive given its low stat density, so I don't recommend buying it. Instead, take a look at Crafter's backpacks, which are very cheap, allow you to select Berserker's stats and put a Ruby Orb on them. Leveling Chef to 400 costs less than one purchaseable backpack ( See this link for a quick guide on it.

Prices for Power Gear

 Power Runes & Sigils

In terms of upgrades, Runes make up for a significant portion of your damage stats. The maximum amount of stats you gain from them on  Power builds is 400, which is roughly equal to what an Ascended Amulet gives you! The following table shows the useful upgrade options for  Power builds. The main takeaways are:

1. Given that most builds reach 100% Critical chance without additional  Precision from runes, the two main runes for damage grant  Power and  Ferocity. These rune are, unfortunately, very expensive to get.
2. If you dont want to spend that much gold for your Exotic gear set, Superior Rune of Rage is 100 stats below those options, which isn't too big of a damage loss (between 2-3%).
3. For builds that need additional  Precision, Superior Rune of the Eagle is the cheapest option you can go for. Since you can calibrate any build to reach 100% Critical chance with any of the runes that include  Precision, simply go for the one that is cheapest to obtain. They are close to identical in terms of damage output (we're speaking of a fraction of 1%).
4. For the poorest of the poor, Chunk of Pure Jade gives around 3% Critical chance and ~150 lower stats comapred to runes, which is around what you need to compensate the difference between Ascended and Exotic.

Prices for Power Upgrade Components

Rune	Price for 6 Pieces	Power	Precision	Ferocity	Vitality	Effective Damage Stats	Notes
Superior Rune of the Scholar	…	175	0	225	0	400	Ideal damage rune for builds with high innate  Ferocity relative to  Power. Examples: , , , , . Difference in damage between this and Superior Rune of the Dragonhunter is marginal.
Superior Rune of the Dragonhunter	…	100	0	300	0	400	Ideal damage rune for builds with high innate  Power relative to  Ferocity. Examples: , , , , . Difference in damage between this and Superior Rune of the Scholar is marginal.
Superior Rune of Infiltration	…	175	225	0	0	400	Damage runes for some builds with low innate  Precision. Examples: , . Can all be used interchangeably together with Food, pieces of Assassin's gear and a Superior Sigil of Accuracy to calibrate a build to reach 100% Critical chance.
Superior Rune of the Ranger	…	0	300	100	0	400
Superior Rune of the Deadeye	…	175	125	100	0	400
Superior Rune of the Eagle	…	0	175	225	0	400
Superior Rune of Rage	…	0	0	300	0	300	Budget rune for builds that don't need additional  Precision.
Chunk of Pure Jade	…	102	54	102	54	258	Budget upgrade that compensates the loss in  Precision when replacing a full set of Ascended armor with Exotic very well.
Ruby Orb	…	120	84	84	0	284	Budget upgrade for builds that need additional  Precision, but not as much as Superior Rune of the Eagle grants.

Sigils on  Power builds are fairly straightforward, as you only have a few options that are relevant for PvE. I will not consider any sigils with niche uses (such as Superior Sigil of Frailty or Superior Sigil of the Night) here, as they don't matter for overall gameplay. The following table includes the relevant sigils for  Power builds.

1. There are a few Berserker's weapons on the Trading Post that already include some of those sigils, which is why they are more expensive than others. Examples are Maw of the Damned or Twin Sisters.
2. It is completely fine to replace the expensive Superior Sigil of Impact with Superior Sigil of Air or a Slaying Sigil of any kind. You can save the money for Ascended weapons, because remember: weapons first on  Power builds!
3. Superior Sigil of Accuracy is a very strong sigil for builds that need additional  Precision, as no other sigil comes close in terms of the overall damage gain. Therefore, it is better than exchanging  Power for  Precision 1-to-1 via Assassin's gear or  Precision Food

Prices for  Power Sigils

Sigil	Description	Price	Notes
Superior Sigil of Force	+5% Damage	…	Bread and butter sigil for  Power builds that is universally useful.
Superior Sigil of Accuracy	+7% Critical Chance	…	Great sigil for builds that need additional  Precision. Equivalent to 147  Precision.
Superior Sigil of Impact	+7% Strike Damage vs Stunned or Knocked-Down Foes; +3% Strike Damage	…	Usually the best sigil to pair with Superior Sigil of Force. Damage gain depends on the frequency of Defiance bar phases on the encounter.
Superior Sigil of Air	Unleash a lightning strike upon critically hitting a foe. (Cooldown: 3 Seconds)	…	Great budget sigil that is often a bit stronger in single target damage than Superior Sigil of Impact, but lacks the cleave potential.
Superior Sigil of Demon Slaying	+7% Strike Damage vs. Demons, Kryptis, and Titanspawn; +3% Strike Damage	…	Demons are en vogue in the latest expansion, and you always get the 3% damage buff. Can be replaced by any other slaying sigil.

Starter Gear for  Condition Damage Builds

As mentioned above, the two stats that matter for  Condition Damage builds are  Condition Damage and  Expertise, with additional emphasis on  Precision and  Power. As outlined before,  Expertise is capped at 1500 effective points per condition. For that reason, Prefixes without  Expertise can be used on builds that would overcap otherwise. Let's compare the relevant prefixes:

Possible Prefixes for Condition Builds

Prefix	Stats (Relative to a Major 3-stat Attribute)	Total  Condition Damage Stats (Sum of Percentages)	Total Offensive Stats (Sum of Percentages)	Total Stats (Sum of Percentages)
Viper's	85.66 %  Power 47.01 %  Precision 85.66 %  Condition Damage 47.01 %  Expertise	132.67 %	265.34 %	265.34 %
Ritualist's	85.66 %  Vitality 47.01 %  Precision 85.66 %  Condition Damage 47.01 %  Expertise	132.67 %	132.67 %	265.34 %
Sinister	100 %  Condition Damage 71.31 %  Power 71.31 %  Precision	100 %	242.63 %	242.63 %
Grieving	85.66 %  Power 47.01 %  Precision 47.01 %  Ferocity 85.66 %  Condition Damage	85.66 %	265.34 %	265.34 %
Carrion	100 %  Condition Damage 71.31 %  Power 71.31 %  Vitality	100 %	171.31 %	242.63 %
Trailblazer's	85.66 %  Toughness 47.01 %  Vitality 85.66 %  Condition Damage 47.01 %  Expertise	132.67 %	132.67 %	265.34 %
Celestial	47.01 %  Power 47.01 %  Precision 47.01 %  Ferocity 47.01 %  Condition Damage 47.01 %  Expertise 47.01 %  Concentration 47.01 %  Healing Power 47.01 %  Vitality 47.01 %  Toughness	94.02 %	235.06 %	423.11 %

Let's look at them in detail:

• Viper's is the main damage prefix, as it includes all four main stats for damage purposes. It would only be superseded by a three-attribute combination with both  Condition Damage and  Expertise, which does not exist.
• Ritualist's is the best replacement for Viper's because it retains the two most important stats:  Condition Damage and  Expertise. It further allows you to play any Boon DPS build you like with it via the  Concentration it brings. With that  Concentration and its large amount of  Vitality, it is also great for open world gameplay. The main downside is that you lose the  Precision, which causes you to trigger the "on Critical hit" interactions mentioned above less. The tradeoff in damage compared to Viper's is fairly small for a starter build on anything that isn't a Mesmer. The most versatile prefix for PvE-purposes, which is why i'd recommend this alongside with Viper's
• Sinister and Grieving are ideal for damage whenever using the two previous options would lead to overcapping condition duration. Which one is better depends on the particular build.
• Carrion is a prefix that can replace Sinister or Grieving 1-to-1 for starters, since the other two are quite expensive. The  Vitality can come in handy for open world gameplay too!
• Celestial deserves an honourable mention here, because it is an insanely good prefix for solo gameplay on condition builds. There are several reasons why I don't take it into account:

1. it is time-gated to craft and expensive to buy,
2. gives a lot less  Condition Damage than Ritualist's or Viper's and
3. includes  Toughness, which can cause issues with Tanking in Raids.

• Nonetheless, if you picked up a full set from a Level-80_Boost, it is a great starting point and an be used as a 1-to-1-replacement for both Viper's and Ritualist.

 Condition Damage Armor, Trinkets and Weapons

The following table shows full sets of  Condition Damage gear you can get directly off the trading post for the prefixes mentioned above. The main takeaways are as follows:

1. Ritualist's armor and trinkets are cheap and a good replacement for Viper's.
2. Viper's has fairly cheap weapons in the form of Abomination weapons.
3. Aside from a few weapons, both Sinister and Grieving are expensive to buy (and craft). You can replace them with Carrion 1-to-1.
4. The Backpack in Exotic is very expensive given its low stat density, so I don't recommend buying it. Instead, take a look at Crafter's backpacks, which are very cheap, allow you to select Celestial stats and put a Chrysocola Crystal on them. Leveling Chef to 400 costs less than one purchaseable backpack (See this link for a quick guide on it.

In turn, you can get Ritualist's armor and trinkets and viper weapons for a reasonable price. This combination gets you started on all non-mesmer condition builds. Mesmer is a special case because all condition-focused mesmer builds scale heavily with  Precision. All condition mesmers use  Dueling with  Sharper Images and Virtuoso has  Jagged Mind on top.

Prices for Condition Gear

 Condition Damage Runes and Sigils

In terms of upgrades, Runes make up for a significant portion of your damage stats. The effective stats you gain from them on Condition builds depends on the mix of Conditions you apply. In turn, you need to calibrate a build around the options you have.

1. Superior Rune of the Trapper is very loaded in stats, with a large amount of  Condition Damage and  Expertise. It is also quite expensive and has to be crafted, you'll have to decide whether you want it on a temporary starter set.
2. Since 1% Condition duration translates to 15  Expertise, it is a more efficient than other stats (Boon duration and {{concentration behave the same way]]). For the condition-specific durations, it depends on how much of your damage comes from the respective condition.
3. Superior Rune of the Afflicted is a good budget starter rune for most builds. Especially good on , and
4. For  Burning-heavy builds (Guardian and Elementalist), Superior Rune of Balthazar is a very good budget option.

Prices for Condition Upgrade Components

Rune	Price for 6 Pieces	Condition Damage	Expertise converted from Condition duration	Other Stats	Effective Damage Stats	Notes
Superior Rune of the Trapper	…	300	225 (All Conditions)	0	525	Ideal damage rune for most condition builds due to the sheer amount of stats it grants. Crafted from Recipe: Superior Rune of the Trapper with Armorsmith, Leatherworker or Tailor on Level 400.
Superior Rune of the Krait	…	175	750 ( Bleeding)	0	175 (All) 925 ( Bleeding)	Ideal damage rune for builds that focus on  Bleeding. Examples: & .
Superior Rune of Balthazar	…	175	750 ( Burning)	0	175 (All) 925 ( Burning)	Great budget rune for builds that focus on  Burning. Examples: , , , .
Superior Rune of the Nightmare	720 Tales of Dungeon Delving	175	300 (All Conditions) 300 ( Fear)	0	475 (All) 775 ( Fear)	Great substitute for Superior Rune of the Trapper that can be farmed fairly quickly in Dungeons by doing Explorable Paths.
Superior Rune of the Afflicted	…	175	150 (All Conditions) 300 ( Bleeding) 150 ( Poisoned)	0	325 (All) 625 ( Bleeding) 475 ( Poisoned)	All of these Sigils can be used as purchaseable budget options to replace Superior Rune of the Trapper. Superior Rune of the Afflicted is usually the best option, as it has more overall stats and Condition-specific duration modifiers on top.
Superior Rune of the Necromancer	…	300	0	100  Vitality	300 (All)
Superior Rune of the Berserker	…	300	0	100  Power	300 (All)
Superior Rune of the Renegade	…	300	0	100  Ferocity	300 (All)
Superior Rune of the Sunless	…	300	0	-20% Incoming Condition Duration	300 (All)

Sigils on  Condition Damage builds are a bit more complex, because their effectiveness scales with condition-specific durations and damage modifiers. It is thus important to look at your build and evaluate which sigil could work for you:

Prices for  Condition Damage Sigils

Sigil	Description	Price	Notes
Superior Sigil of Bursting	+5% Condition Damage	…	Bread and butter sigil for  Condition Damage builds that is universally useful.
Superior Sigil of Malice	+10% condition duration.	…	Sigil that can be useful for builds that need additional  Expertise, but often worse than Superior Sigil of Bursting due to the har cap on condition duration at 100%.
Superior Sigil of Earth	Inflict bleeding for 6 seconds upon critically hitting a foe. (Cooldown: 2 Seconds)	…	Sigil that is very cheap and a great addition to most  Condition Damage builds. Scales with your damage and duration modifiers on  Bleeding, obviously.
Superior Sigil of Torment	Inflict 2 stacks of torment for 5 seconds to enemies around your target upon landing a critical hit. (Cooldown: 5 Seconds)	…	Expensive sigil that is a great addition to most  Condition Damage builds. Scales with your damage and duration modifiers on  Torment, obviously.
Superior Sigil of Doom	Your next attack will inflict 3 stacks of poison for 8 seconds after swapping to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 9 Seconds)	…	Expensive sigil that is strong on builds that have  Poisoned modifiers.
Superior Sigil of Geomancy	Inflict bleeding on nearby foes for 8 seconds when you swap to this weapon while in combat. (Cooldown: 9 seconds)	…	Sigil that is very cheap and a great addition to most  Condition Damage builds. Requires you to weapon swap frequently, so it is only useful on builds that do so enough.
Superior Sigil of Agony	Increase Inflicted Bleeding Duration: 20%	…	Sigils for builds that can make use of the additional duration on the respective condition. Very good for a starter set if you cant afford the more expensive sigils, as they give you more wiggle room for suboptimal gear prefixes like Carrion.
Superior Sigil of Demons	Increase the duration of inflicted torment by 20%.	…
Superior Sigil of Venom	Increase Inflicted Poison Duration: 20%	…
Superior Sigil of Smoldering	Increase Inflicted Burning Duration: 20%	…

Getting Started with Rotation Practice

Starter Tips for Rotation Practice

• Getting overwhelmed with damaging rotations is completely fine if you're just starting the game (or a new build)! There are a few things that can make your life easier though, and I'll try to summarize them here.
• Take rotations on step-by-step. With the right gear and golem setup, even auto attacks will do a considerable amount of damage on their own. Start with getting a feel for them and add skills one-by-one, depending on the build you're playing. You'll be surprised how much damage you can do by focusing on few but important skills!

• All rotations in the game that are optimized by endgame players include a lot of practice. Don't be discouraged by not getting very close to their numbers. You should be able to reach 80-85% of a benchmark just by...

1. learning the basic concept of a rotation,
2. wearing the right gear and
3. setting the golem up correctly.

Setting up the Special Forces Training Area (SFTA)

This area is used to train PvE rotations and allows you to set up a Golem with Boons and Conditions of your choice. The main purpose is to simulate the circumstances in instanced PvE content to test your DPS under ideal conditions without external disturbances. I recommend using it to practice rotations a it before you dive into actual content. Getting there is described here. Over time, the folks from Snowcrows have established certain standards for the SFTA to allow for better comparison of different builds. This is because there are builds that...

1. scale with the number of Boons on them (like  Premeditation in  Deadeye),
2. scale with the number of Conditions on the enemy (like  Modified Ammunition in  Firearms,
3. deal more damage when they have particular Boons on them (like  Object in Motion in  Scrapper),
4. deal more damage when there are particular Conditions on the enemy (like  Radiant Power in  Radiance) and/or
5. have Skills that hit randomly or additional times in larger areas, favouring larger Hitboxes (like   Eternity's Requiem).

Make sure to choose a Golem with 4,000,000 Health and a small Hitbox (Standard Kitty Golem). This is done to make sure that whatever you are testing has good anough sustained damage for longer fights and does not overly benefit from abilities that hit randomly in a larger radius. If you can, install ArcDPS for real-time DPS and Boon monitoring. The standard DPS chat meter is okay to use, but is much harder to improve with. Even though Add-Ons are not promoted by ArenaNet, this one is openly tolerated. The logs created by ArcDPS can be uploaded on DPS Reports and can thus be shared with other players. This also includes a detailed log of your rotation, allowing you to compare yourself to logs from Benchmarks.

Benchmarks use a full set of Stat Infusions, boosting their damage by 2-3%. If you want to simulate that in cheaper but temporary manner, you can use a  Writ of Masterful Malice or  Writ of Masterful Strength instead of the recommended Utility item, respectively.

The general standards for Boons and Conditions are as follows:

• Apply 10 Conditions to the Golem via the Golem Spawner, always including 25  Vulnerability,  Burning,  Bleeding,  Torment,  Poisoned,  Confusion and always excluding  Fear and  Taunt (these count as Disables for some Traits). There are classes where the number of Conditions does not matter (see the list below). For these you can just slap on all of them.
• Apply 10 Boons to yourself via the Arena Console, always including 25  Might,  Fury,  Quickness and  Alacrity. For builds that don't scale with any additional Boons, you can slap on all of them. For  Alacrity and  Quickness DPS builds, you should (evidently) skip the Boon you want to provide.

Special Forces Training Area Setup

Dealing with Defiance bars (aka Breakbars)

• One of the first things you should do is learn where your CC skills are! (Almost) always use Control effects when you have them available and you see a Defiance bar pop up.

They are found on higher rank enemies frequently, looking like this:

Why is that important? The answer to that is twofold:

1. when a Breakbar is broken, the enemy is often stunned for a few seconds, during which it will take increased damage. The Stun gives your group breathing room and allows you to go mad on damage for the duration.
2. the Breakbar sometimes has to be broken to interrupt enemies from completing certain attacks (sometimes one-shot attacks). This is particularly relevant in group events and instanced content.

It is therefore essential that you include some skills with Breakbar damage in your build, both in solo gameplay and group content. Note that you should also be using skills like   Signet of Domination or  Force Signet that have a damage tradeoff, since it costs more group dps to have a Defiance bar up than you can gain by not using it.

The following effects apply defiance bar damage:

Hard CCs apply their Breakbar damage immediately, while the listed Conditions apply their damage over time. Note that the listed Conditions cannot be stacked in intensity, just in duration. Multiple applications of  Fear will not apply more defiance bar damage per second than one instance, but will make it last for a longer duration.

Understanding and Measuring Difficulty

You can download my latest build difficulty scoring sheet here!

• In this section, I'll define what difficulty in a build is and explain why. This is always subjective to a degree, but we'll try and reduce it to a minimum.
• After that, we'll go and try to measure those aspects for an example build and put it into context. The basis for the measurement is always damage logs from ArcDPS, since it includes a lot of neat data.
• Finally, we'll look at the damage resulting from a particular build. It may be that a very difficult build yields much higher damage than a simple one, so you might find it worth learning.
• If you know what defines difficulty and how to measure it, you can assess whether a build suits your skill level.

Aspect 1: Range

Explanation:

• The capability to deal damage from range is a determining factor of difficulty because it gives you freedom; freedom to position yourself and still deal damage from wherever you are.
• This flexibility usually comes at a cost, since melee builds typically do more damage than fully ranged builds for the time they can be in melee range.

Measurement:

1. Range can be measured fairly easily by looking at a share of skills in a build that have a decent range. As a rule fo thumb, anything at or above 600 range can be considered as "ranged".
2. Builds that use only one weapon set have an advantage here, since they can always slot a ranged weapon (or kit on engineer) that one can swap to whenever range is needed.
3. Many builds include at least one ranged weapon set or kit, so you can stay on that for the time where range is needed.

Examples (as of September 2024):

• Condition Virtuoso is a prevalent example of a build that is almost fully ranged. There's little penalty for being at range (like Bladeturn Requiem being melee or some skills hitting with slightly lower damage), so you can move freely at all times.
• Power Reaper is forced into melee range for most of its rotation. While you can slot Dual Swords on one weapon bar without a larger damage loss, Shroud frequently forces you back into melee range.
• Power Scrappper is melee for most of its rotation, but using Grenade Kit and/or Mortar Kit allows it to go into range mode on demand whenit is needed. Many other skills won't hit in that case, but it can at least maintain dealing damage.

Aspect 2: Forced Movement / Animation Locks

Explanation:

• This aspect is important, as restrictions in free mobility can be detrimental, especially if you're a beginner. For someone unfamiliar with a build, having forced movement or animation locks can cause issues in actual content (like the good ol' self-yeet).
• Some builds have very frequent forced movement, while other don't have any at all.

Measurement:

1. This criterion relates to the share of skills that require you to move in a particular direction (such as leap skills) or
2. root you in place (e.g. channels like whirling defense on Ranger's Offhand Axe).

Examples (as of September 2024):

• Daredevil is a build that requires you to dodge every 4 seconds to maintain a damage buff. This can be dangerous in situations where you have limited space, but comes with frequent evade windows.
• Condition Scourge does not include any forced movement. You can freely cast your skills without being forced to stand still or yeet yourself into danger.

Aspect 3: Actions-per-Minute (APM)

Explanation:

• As the name says, this represents the number of inputs required by the player per minute. Frequent player input is "higher maintenance", meaning that actually performing the desired rotation requires more attention comapred to one that includes breaks (usually filled by auto attacks).

Measurement:

1. We can measure this directly form logs, by looking at the "casts" of all items that require player input.
2. That means we'll have to take the total number of casts and exclude auto attacks, relics and similar things that happen automatically or as a byproduct of other actions.
3. Careful: Entering kits on engineer is measure twice in logs, so you need to exclude the button presses on the entrance and only use the weapon swaps.

Aspect 4: Cooldowns to Track

Explanation:

• The more different skills a build uses, the more complex it usually is. Having to organize a rotation with 30 cooldowns is more difficult than one that just uses 5 weapon skills.
• This is related to APM, since a build with a lot of skills typically has few downtimes for auto attacks.

Measurement:

1. We can measure this directly from logs, by looking at the number of different "casts" that require player input.
2. That means we'll have to take the total number of different items in a log and exclude conditions, auto attacks, relics and similar things that happen automatically or as a byproduct of other actions.

Aspect 5: Bar Swaps

Explanation:

• The more different skill sets a build uses, the more abstract and difficult to learn it usually feels. This originates in the presence of invisible cooldowns, since you cannot see all your skills at all times.
• This is indirectly related to APM, since a build with a lot of skill sets typically has few downtimes for auto attacks. More skill sets doesn't always mean higher APM, but they often do.

Measurement:

1. We can measure this directly from logs, by looking at the number of bar swaps. this includes weapon swaps, attunement swaps on elementalist, Tomes on Firebrand, Shroud on Necromancers and the like.
2. This includes both entrance and exit on related items.

Aspect 6: Sustained Damage

Explanation:

• This is pretty straightforward, as it relates to the damage a build can do when it performs its rotation indefinetely.  Power builds usually start high and go down over time, while  Condition Damage builds start low and go up.

Measurement:

1. We can measure this directly from logs, by looking at the final damage number. This is a good measure for the damage you can expect in longer phases.
2. There are builds that scale with allies around them, making a comparison of benchmarks with allies crucial, since that is what you get in group content.

Aspect 7: Burst Damage

Explanation:

• This is pretty straightforward, as it relates to the damage a build can do when it performs its opener and a short part of its general rotation. Again,  Power builds usually have higher burst than  Condition Damage builds.

Measurement:

1. We can measure this directly from logs, by looking at the first damage number from 100%-80% health. This is a good measure for the damage you can expect in shorter phases.
2. Many burst windows are even shorter, so you'd have to consider other timeframes for a comparison when you're looking at Fractal Builds for example.
3. There are builds that scale with allies around them, making a comparison of benchmarks with allies crucial, since that is what you get in group content.