Condition Specter

Strike from the shadows with our Guild Wars 2 Condition Specter build.

Published Mar 8, 2022 Updated Mar 9, 2025

Raids - February 2025 Balance

Seisan meta team

Condition Specter Condition Specter Scepter

Skills Gearset Build Template DPS Report

Thief Builds

Skills Gearset Build Template DPS Report

Thief Builds

Condition Specter is a high-damage, well-rounded build that has some innate utility and sustain via Shadow Shroud. Your skills have multiple interactions—as you master this build, you'll execute and improvise combos faster.

You'll need a good sense of timing to succeed with this build: tracking Revealed as it ticks down, refreshing the damage modifier from , and correctly sequencing your Spear skills as they flip from one to the next.

Pros +

Plenty of CC Short ramp-up Lots of cleave Defensive options High damage

Cons -

Fast paced rotation Easy to cancel skills High mastery curve

Attributes

Power 2172

Toughness 1000

Vitality 1297

Precision 1633

Critical Chance 35.14%

Ferocity 0

Critical Damage 150%

Condition Damage 2016

Healing Power 133

Expertise 944

Condition Duration 77.93%

Concentration 0

Boon Duration 0%

Benchmark History

Last Benchmark Max

46018

Last Benchmark Average

45400

Gear

Item	Stat
	Viper'sHelm
	Viper'sShoulders
	Viper'sCoat
	Viper'sGloves
	Viper'sLeggings
	Viper'sBoots

Item	Stat
	Viper'sBackpiece
	Viper'sAccessory
	Viper'sAccessory
	Viper'sAmulet
	Viper'sRing
	Viper'sRing
	Relic

Primary Weapon Set
	Viper's SpearMain Hand
Secondary Weapon Set
	Viper's SpearMain Hand
Other Items
	Infusionx18
	Food
	Utility
	Jade Bot Core

Traits & Skills

Skills

Skill Notes

Use for personal mobility and good subgroup Healing.
grants you and allies instant Stability.
is your strongest self-Heal; it also provides substantial subgrouphealing.
Swap out for when you need additional Defiance Break.
Against highly mobile bosses, you can swap to ().

Skill Reference Guide

Spear	Default Keybinds
	`1` (Stealth Attack)
	`2` Lead Attack
↳	`2` Follow Up
↳	`2` Finisher
	`3` Lead Attack
↳	`3` Follow Up
↳	`3` Finisher
	`4`

Scepter & Dagger	Default Keybind
	`3`

Shadow Shroud	Default Keybind
	`2`
	`3`
	`4`
	`5`

Trait Notes

Don't bother using , as the healing output in Viper-prefix gear is very meager.
can help ramp and sustain party boons.
can steal enemy boons or help sustain party boons.
You can use in the Specter Traitline to grant Resistance from your Well skills.

Equipment Notes

Ignoring the Weapon Swap after each Shroud loop and using a single Spear with and will cost you aproximately ~1500 DPS.
Non-SotO Relic alternatives:
- as a powerful alternative in encounters with long phases and incoming boss damage. The arena's pulsing damage aura in many encounters is attributed to the boss!
- to cleave in encounters with multiple targets, at the cost of a small (aproximately 500) dps loss against single targets.

Rotation & Extras

The pulsing damage of or can Reveal you while in Stealth. You must practice your timing around to avoid this problem.

It is strongly advised that you disable Auto Cast on Spear skill 1, by holding CTRL and Right Clicking the skill. If that setting remains enabled, then any skill can interrupt your Stealth Attack. If you want to queue into your next skill while the Stealth Attack is channeling, then Auto Cast must be disabled!

Opening

Precast up to five minutes before the fight, as it Recharges while armed. You can reset its cooldown with Mushroom King's Blessing when practicing.

Precast as combat starts, except when practicing on the golem.

(+ + during this cast)
Weapon Swap

Rotation Concept

Spear skills 2 and 3 are each a sequence of 3 skills: Lead Attack Follow Up Finisher. Using a skill from either sequence will progress both sequences.
After using a Finisher:
- grants a damage modifier
- grants 4 Initiative (on the final, delayed strike)

While outside Shroud, loop through the following steps. If you don't have any Filler skills available, skip step 1.

Filler

You will do a Shadow Shroud Loop when Weapon Swap is just about to come off Cooldown (around 1 second away), regardless of what step of the Spear loop you are in:

Weapon Swap

, , or a Shroud Loop may count as Filler skills. They should be used off Cooldown, except for a Shroud loop, which will be paired with Weapon Swap.

If a Filler becomes available after a completed Step 1, weave it into your Spear combo, then continue through the loop until back at Step 1.

should replace if either:

The enemy is above 90% health.
You are using as your only filler skill in step 1. (Otherwise, you may still be Revealed before your !)

Example Loops

Example of Filler placement:

Shroud loop

Example of skipping step 1 in the loop:

(skipped)
Shroud Loop

Rotation Notes

Cast Venoms with allies nearby, after combat starts so they don't get removed by the boonstrip at the start of most encounters.
, , and can interrupt other skill casts.
Weapon Swapping and Shroud both activate and .
Spear combos have a very generous reset timer of 4 seconds. Thanks to this, you can cast skills between your individual Spear skills without resetting your combo sequence, such as in the opener.

Crowd Control

Skill	Defiance Break	Source
	150	Spear
	180
	150
	750	Optional elite skill

Comments

awetea51011 month ago

Thanks! It's really solid, i tuned it for myself for OW and i am unbeatable. I can solo everything now. But one thing bothers me. I just got the spear and perfected (not exactly perfect but quite good) the spear rotation and i always end up doing less damage than with the scepter...?

The spear rotation is yours as seen here. My scepter rotation would be: All CDs, then spam 3 until initiative is gone, then shroud clowning until my inititative is full.

Is that because i try it in celestial gear mostly? My guess would be that because i lack vipers and only have the runes and fractal relic, i probably have not enough condi duration to make the relic pop off enough on spear, because the spear is so bleeding heavy.

Can someone please check that in full ascended vipers gear and all that? It can't be that spamming 3 on the scepter is THAT good that it can compete with that masterfully crafted rotation, i can not accept it.

THanks!

Iskarel1 month ago

Getting good value out of Scepter is a lot easier than Spear, so without seeing a log of your Spear play, it's hard to really pinpoint the problem. Spear has no downtime in the rotation and the input requirement for Stealth Attacks is a little unusual (you need to hold down the input, because queueing into a skill that isn't available is impossible, e.g. usually after weapon swap), so it's easy to lose DPS even when following the rotation structure.