Elrathan

+100% is the cap for increasing bleed duration. A bleed will not go for longer than twice its original length except when affected by Lingering Curse, which takes effect after all other duration modifiers. This means that Lingering Curse turns a capped 10-second bleed (Blood Curse) into a 13.3-second bleed.

A figure of +100% bleed duration comes with a few key benefits. The first and most obvious one is that it doubles your bleed duration, which doubles your bleed damage (if the bleed ticks for its full duration). Bleeding only does damage once every full second, so a 5-second bleed does damage 5 times. If you increase the duration to 5 1/2 seconds, the bleed still only does damage 5 times.

If you were to increase your bleed duration by 50%, that 5 second bleed becomes a 7 1/2 second bleed. But because of how bleeding works, it does damage only 7 times. You would have to increase bleeding duration by 60% to get the duration up to 8 seconds for that extra tick. Since bleeds have different default durations, the only increase that you can be sure will never leave you with a fractional time on your bleeds is +100%.

+100% bleed duration is also the only way to get a 1-second bleed to tick multiple times. Specifically, the 1-second bleed granted by the minor trait Barbed Precision. Depending on your gear, you should have between 50 and 70% crit chance. 66% of those crits will trigger Barbed Precision, which now ticks twice per application, doubling its damage.

Under normal circumstances, extended bleed duration benefits shorter bleeds more than longer bleeds because shorter bleeds have a higher chance to tick for their full durations. Barbed Precision will almost always tick twice, but fights that last less than 18 seconds will "waste" some of Grasping Dead's extended duration (see the Bleeding Sources section below for a list of bleed times).

The main point here is to stack bleeding on the enemy, these are all the ways we can do that. Having +100% bleed duration doubles the length of all bleeds and basically allows you to have twice as many concurrent bleeds on your target as you could have before.

Scepter
Skill 1 chain - Blood Curse (1 stack), Rending Curse (1 stack), Putrid Curse (no bleed)
Despite the tooltip, the first 2 skills of this chain apply a 5 second bleed each.
At 100% bleed duration, we're at 10 seconds each
With Lingering Curse - 13.33 seconds

• This is our main source and most reliable way of applying bleeds. In addition to the first 2 skills of this chain which apply bleeds, this chain has a fast attack time which means more chances for crits and thus more chances for bleed-on-crit procs.

Skill 2 - Grasping Dead (3 stacks) 7 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 14 seconds
With Lingering Curse - 18.62 seconds

• This skill is a great opener in a fight. It cripples and applies 3 long stacks of bleeding.

Dagger
Skill 5 - Enfeebling Blood (2 stacks) 10 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 20 seconds

• 2 more looooooong stacks of bleeding and some weakness. Basically use this on cooldown.

Staff
Skill 2 - Mark of Blood (3 stacks) 8 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 16 seconds

• Similar to Grasping Dead's 3 stacks, but these last longer and are on a shorter cooldown. This skill should be spammed when using Staff.

Blood is Power (2 stacks) 30 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 60 seconds
Self bleed (2 stacks) 10 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 20 seconds

• Not only does this apply 2 stacks of bleeding that last a full minute and 2 stacks of self-bleeding that last 20 seconds that can easily be immediately transferred to your enemy, it gives 10 stacks of might! That's an additional 350 Condition Damage (+17.5 / bleed tick) for 12+ seconds. Incredible skill.

Signet of Spite (1 stack) 5 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 10 seconds
Not recommended to use

• A 90-second cooldown for 1 stack... The passive Power gain is tiny, but it could be useful for a quick Blind if you can time out the 3/4 second cast time.

Barbed Precision (1 stack) 1 second
At 100% bleed duration - 2 seconds

• This minor trait is the whole reason this thread exists. It normally has a 1-second duration. The only way to get this to tick more than once is to have +100% bleed duration.
  
• Because of its short duration, this proc will almost always tick for its full length, which cannot be said about longer bleeds

Sigil of Superior Earth (1 stack) 5 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 10 seconds

• Similar to Barbed Precision, this Sigil has slightly less of a chance to proc but does a much longer bleed. 30% of your hits should proc this.

Sigil of Geomancy (3 stacks) 7 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 14 seconds
Not recommended to use

• This one loses out because there are better options. 9 second cooldown. Interferes with sigils of Earth and has a radius of only 240.

Rune of the Krait [4th set bonus] (1 stack) 10 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 20 seconds
Not recommended to use

• You don't want to be getting hit anyway.

Death Shroud!
Dark Path (3 stacks) 5 seconds
At 100% bleed duration - 10 seconds

• Well you've got access to it no matter what, and the chill can be nice for kiting

There are 4 main ways to achieve +100% bleed duration: trait points, major traits, runes, and consumables.

1. Every point in the Spite traitline increases condition duration, called Expertise, by 1% -- up to 30%.

2. The major trait Hemophilia in the Curses traitline increases bleeding duration by 20%.

3. The pizza consumables increase condition duration by 8, 16, 24, 28, 36, and 40%.

4. Your Rune choice should be your starting point (focusing on 2 main options) and they deserve their own special section:



There are a few set bonuses from runes that increase bleeding damage by 15% and these will play an important role and should be your starting point. The three runes I'll be focusing on here are Afflicted, Krait, and Centaur.

With these 4 things in mind, we can plot out some different ways to get to +100%. Keep in mind that these are just some suggestions I have laid out here. There are other runes that increase bleeding / condition duration.

(Expertise is Condition Duration from putting points into the Spite tree)

On the left, signified in blue, are some sample setups using 3 Runes of the Afflicted and 3 Runes of the Krait for +30% bleed duration. On the right, in red, is 2 Runes of the Afflicted, 2 Runes of the Krait, and 2 runes of the Centaur to achieve a +45% bleed duration bonus. Please note that incorporating Runes of the Centaur results in a loss of 110 condition damage, which equates to a 5.5 bleed damage per tick loss (20 points to condition damage equals 1 more bleed damage per tick).

In the above table, I used the lowest level pizza possible to get to (or slightly above) 100% bleed duration. However, it is advisable to use the highest level pizza you can reliably afford because it also adds a Condition Damage buff.

First let's do the Blue Side
The only differences in this side are the amount of points put in to Spite, as you can see, which leads to different pizza minimum requirements. 30 is the most you can put in, and lets you utilize the cheapest type of pizza you can get on this side.

The middle box is included because it is the setup I'm currently using in my hybrid build.

10 points in Spite the minimum you can get by with here unless you use a Superior Sigil of Agony in one of your weapon slots. Using that Sigil allows you to completely forgo Spite, however you must still purchase the most expensive pizza.

As far as this side goes, you can basically add any amount of Spite you want (of course multiples of 5 are best for other reasons) and there will be a pizza you can use to suppliment that choice.

The Red Side
The extra +15% bleed duration from this Rune setup allows for some more interesting variations. As you can see, the 3 examples are headed by the aspect no longer required.

The top box shows a no-Spite setup, the middle frees up a trait slot, and the bottom shows a combination that requires no pizza whatsoever, so long as you equip a Sigil of Agony. This eliminates the need to spend money and constantly re-apply the consumable buff, but it does require a heavy investment into Spite. If you do go this route, you can use Bowl of Truffle Risotto for your food buff, which boosts Condition Damage and Precision.

This side results in a loss of Condition Damage from Runes, but allows for a higher variety of builds.



After you have achieved +100% bleed duration, I recommend you look at Critical Hit Chance, i.e. Precision. Critical hits are important for condition Necromancers because of Barbed Precision and Sigils of Superior Earth. You will already be investing 30 points in Curses which comes with +300 Precision. At level 80, all professions have a base crit chance of 4%, and every 105 points of Precision added increases crit chance by 5%.

After achieving your personal crit chance goal (I suggest between 50% and 60%), the next step is to boost Condition Damage as high as possible so those bleeds hit as hard as they can. When it comes to increasing Condition Damage, we basically have 3 main options: Carrion, Rabid, and Rampager's.

Carrion gear gives Condition Damage, Power, and Vitality.

• Primary boost to Condition Damage, which is good, but has no precision. This gear works best in a hybrid setup because of the increase to Power.

Rabid gear gives Condition Damage, Precision, and Toughness.

• This is a very popular choice for Condition Necromancers. In addition to having both the stats we're looking for, it also increases Toughness, which works well with a build trying to go for max Condition Damage, but not necessarily duration ( it synergizes best with Runes of the Undead). This set leans more toward Condition Damage boosting rather than Duration. See Lopez's excellent guide.

Rampager's gear gives Precision, Power, and Condition Damage.

• Like Carrion gear, this setup works best with a hybrid build. Because its primary stat boost is to Precision and not Condition Damage, I recommend only using this gear to reach your Crit Chance goal and then supplementing it with gear with a primary boost to Condition Damage (like Carrion).

Bolded is the line to reach 50% crit chance, a great baseline to shoot for. As you can see, we need to add 966 Precision, and we already have +300 Precision from filling out the Curses line, so we need only 666 (teehee) points from gear.

You can decide for yourself how high of a crit chance you like. Remember, Barbed Precision has a 66% chance to proc a (now) 2-second bleed on critical hits. Additionally, Sigil of Superior Earth has a 60% chance on critical hits (2-second cooldown) to apply a 5-second bleed, which becomes a 10-second bleed because of our increased duration.

Here is an example of my Exotic gear setup for 50% crit chance which uses Rampager's and Carrion gear:

Note that the above setup is for a hybrid build. If you choose to go full Exotic Rabid gear you will end up with 697 Precision, which gets you 51.48% crit chance.

I started by seeing the stats from full Rampager's gear, which put my Precision higher than my goal of 666. Then I began replacing Rampager's gear with Carrion until I removed exactly enough Precision.

Precision is slightly more important for hybrid builds because they gain the additional benefit of the direct damage component of crits, whereas straight condition Necromancers need it only for triggering Barbed Precision and Sigil of Earth.

With Superior Sigil of Corruption fully "charged" (+250 Condition Damage) and a 60 Condition Damage buff from Super Veggie Pizza, both of which should always be up, I have 1571 Condition Damage from this setup, which gives me a 121 damage bleed tick. By using Blood is Power and gaining 350 Condition Damage, I get up to 1921 which results in 138 bleed tick damage.

You can find more information about gear numbers here.

Spite boosts Power and Expertise (condition duration). A lot of Condition Necromancers ignore this line because it does not synergize very well with pure condition builds, aside from Expertise.



Curses is the trait line that you will almost invariably be filling out completely, so we get access to all 3 minor traits and the Grandmaster Major trait, though you'll probably end up choosing Lingering Curse for that one anyway. This line gives Condition Damage and Precision.



Death Magic gives Toughness and Boon Duration. Unfortunately, all the minor traits revolve around minions. You're most likely in this line to get the Staff major traits.



Gives Vitality and Healing Power. This line is about health and daggers. This line doesn't necessarily have any direct synergy with a conditions build, but it does offer survivability in any situation.



Gives Critical Damage and increases Life Force Pool.



More trait stuff
Coming Soon!

Every new character in GW2 starts in a story mode instance based on the selected race. If this is your first time playing GW2, you should use this opportunity to check out the game options, display settings and key bindings before heading off towards the opening quest objective. Soon enough you'll encounter your first enemy or "mob". You only have one attack unlocked, Ether Bolt, so use it. The basic auto-attack on the scepter has a 3 step chain. On every third attack, it creates a clone that looks like you and attacks your mob but doesn't really do any damage. Now that you have a clone, let's use F1 or F2 to shatter him for some extra damage. If the mob is attacking your clone or not attacking at all, hit F1 for Mind Wrack which deals direct damage to the mob. If the mob is attacking you or an ally, use F2 for Cry of Frustration which causes a condition called confusion that causes damage when that mob uses a skill. Try both of them out and get a feel for how much damage they do with a single clone. When you unlock your second skill, Illusionary Counter, you can use it to block an attack and generate a clone or tap it twice to blind your foe instead. Test out both of your shatters with two clones and see how they've improved. If you find yourself taking too much damage, use skill #6 to heal yourself. You may even unlock your third weapon skill which is a hard hitting channelled attack that applies several stacks of confusion.

Eventually you'll get to an epic cinematic and huge boss mob. Look out for red circles or big attack animations and dodge out of the way. If you happen to get hit, don't panic -- you're not dead yet. Start to use the #1 attack in the downed state on one of the low level mobs in the area. You can also use the #2 skill to create a decoy, the #3 skill to summon a phantasm to lay some extra hurt your target, or the #4 skill to heal yourself if you're close to bleeding out. Keep it up until you score a kill and rally. Go back to working on the boss mob until you finish it off and save the day!

After killing the boss, you get another nice cut scene and a quest reward. This includes a bag, some XP, some coin, and your choice of two off-hand weapons. I’d highly recommend choosing the focus from the first quest reward. Not only is Temporal Curtain great for travelling, but it’s also great for snaring melee attackers so you avoid getting hit and acts as a light field. The Illusionary Warden gives you some AoE damage -- which the scepter is lacking, provides defense against projectiles and doubles as a whirl finisher. This means that once you've unlocked both of the focus skills you can do your own skill combos! Start with using Illusionary Warden on a mob then place a Temporal Curtain on top of him. The resulting combo shoots Cleansing Bolts in different directions and remove conditions from allies that they hit. While testing this out, you may observe that the Illusionary Warden is a stationary phantasm, and won’t move until you use a shatter skill. I’d also recommend that you have at least one clone up before summoning the Warden so he doesn’t get killed right away.

Against melee attackers, you want to open with the scepter auto attack and use Temporal Curtain to cripple them. Your goal is to get at least two clones up before the mob gets close to you. When the mob starts to get close, use Confusion Images. While channeling, use Cry of Frustration. Depending on how many clones you had up, the mob should have 8-9 stacks of confusion. and should be just about to swing at you. Use Illusionary Counter to block the attack, and watch the mob take massive confusion damage while you get away scratch free! If that didn’t kill it, go back to auto-attacking, use the dodge roll to avoid the next two attacks, then use Mind Wrack when you get enough clones.

In dynamic events with lots of people, don’t be stingy with your shatters. The odds of you getting 3 illusions up in such a situation are pretty slim unless you're fighting a champion, so don't hestitate to do a single illusion shatter if that's all you can get off before the mob dies. If possible, try to summon your Warden on a target in the middle of a group with high health, let him do his attack once, then shatter him. He’s going to die when your target dies anyways, so you may as well get the most out of it.

Once you've reached level 5, you'll unlock your first utility skill. There's a lot of really great skills to choose from here, but the one I would recommend picking up first is Blink. This is a ground targeted skill that teleports you to the selected location while breaking stuns. The reason I suggest this skill first is that it will help you get around the map a little bit faster when out of combat, while also helping you keep your distance from melee mobs. Look for skill challenges on the map, marked with the blue chevron, and complete them to unlock some other utility skills of your choice. My personal favorites on the 1st tier are Null Field and Signet of Domination. If you're unsure of how a particular skill works, you can always use the PvP menu to go to the Mists and test it out on the target dummies there.

Eventually you'll start to encounter some ranged attackers. Against these mobs you can open with Confusing Images and Illusionary Counter since they’ll generally start attacking right away. Since you get a clone on counter, this will give you a distraction to summon an Illusionary Warden on them and block their projectiles. Once you get a few more skill points, you can combine confusion with the Feedback utility skill to quickly take down ranged attackers.

I’d recommend sticking with scepter/focus until at least level 7 when you unlock weapon swapping. Weapon swapping really opens up a lot of play-style options for the mesmer. It’s much easier to survive as sword mesmer when you can weapon swap to a staff for Phase Retreat after blowing your defensive cool-downs. Likewise, the greatsword benefits from a weapon swap once enemies get close. You may want to keep the scepter/focus on a weapon swap until you unlock all the skills on your weapon of choice. These are just my opinions of course, so if there’s a weapon combination you really want to play with go right ahead! Regardless of what you choose, you should always keep a focus in your bag so that you can switch to it when you're not in combat for the swiftness buff.