Guild Wars 2

Advent.6193:

Eh. I would’ve voted for Confusion … y’know, the “signature” Mesmer Condition? But, that’s just me. I also would have not tossed it on the first part of the AA chain. /shrug
Then again, my “Scepter Wishlist” was simply speeding up the AA chain and Confusing Images.

Me too

But it already had confusion in beta, and that was removed real quick. Confusion is just a naturally problematic condition, it really needs a rework and a whole lot of good suggestions have been made on the subject, but Anet has pretty much said they won’t consider such a large change post-release and players just ’don’t understand our design goals’. Which in my opinion is really stupid, if the only way you can allow something in game is in a state where it’s completely nonviable, your design goals be kittened, it needs to be reworked.

ill take a random condition that is anything other then bleed so it is harder to cleanse bleeds off. i dont even care what it is. id be happy if it just randomly applied a choice of 5 things.. which makes it very unreliable .. but it really dosent need much.

Conncept.7638:

Dirame.8521:

I think they should put it as a Phantasm created with illusionary counter.

Please no, most people that actually like the scepter like it specifically because of the clone factory feel, that has to stay regardless of any other factor. If they take that away they might as well take the scepter away from the mesmer completely.

You can create clones on the auto so it won’t be removing anything.

And I thought Mesmer lacks serious power specs. Now they get ridiculous condi spam…

Raise Awareness: Helseth on Mesmer RU

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

My question: why was yet more Torment given to Mesmer when the condition was designed for Necros?

The condition was designed to counter/punish mobility.

Conncept.7638:

Usagi.4835:

Conncept.7638:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Perhaps it might be best if the first attack didn’t inflict Torment so that the clones wouldn’t be applying it? Increase the duration on the second hit of the chain to compensate.

They specifically stated during the stream, and many times before, that they wanted the scepters clones to apply a condition, just like the clones from every other weapon. It has to apply something.

No it doesn’t.

‘No it doesn’t’ what? I didn’t give my opinion on whether it needs the changes I just repeated what the developers stated in the livestream and on the forums. It applied confusion on auto-attack and from the clones in beta, but that was removed without a replacement, putting it in limbo as neither a condition or power weapon. And they stated clearly that they wanted it to have a condition again, as mesmers undoubtedly need another condition option. There’s no debating whether or not it will have a condition, it’s useless without one, it’s just a matter of which condition.

No, it doesn’t need to have a condition. I read a comment saying “This is how ArenaNet makes people use weapons”. Well, that’s not entirely true IMO.

The scepter is a weapon used for condition specs; people were already using it, and the lack of condition application on the auto attack wasn’t stopping people from choosing it. It’s not in limbo. It never was. There is a trait that defines it as being a condition weapon.

How can you say mesmers “undoubtedly” need another condition option? It’s not as if access to torment was lacking. Quite a few Mesmer players, myself included, don’t believe this change is needed. That might not mean much, but it’s reflective of the opinion that condition-based mesmer builds are strong enough as they are.

That’s what balance is about. If it’s not broke, why fix it?

Ross Biddle.2367:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

My question: why was yet more Torment given to Mesmer when the condition was designed for Necros?

The condition was designed to counter/punish mobility.

Yes, because necros are intended to be unable to escape, but be really difficult to get away from, hence Torment’s design to punish people that try to escape.

The condition was designed primarily for Necros. Not exclusively for them.

I think the clones should not put up Torment, let just the 3 Autos do 2,4,4 sec of torment or confusion.
That would promote the idea of a active shatter condition Build with some like 0/4/2/0/6+2 because you would gain something if you destroy you clone fast with shatter and shatter works kinda bad with PU because you need the clone on dodge traid to make shatter work good.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Yes, because necros are intended to be unable to escape, but be really difficult to get away from, hence Torment’s design to punish people that try to escape.

The condition was designed primarily for Necros. Not exclusively for them.

Except for the fact that every other class that can use torment currently has better access to it than necro, like way better access.

Nischana.2036:

I think the clones should not put up Torment, let just the 3 Autos do 2,4,4 sec of torment or confusion.
That would promote the idea of a active shatter condition Build with some like 0/4/2/0/6+2 because you would gain something if you destroy you clone fast with shatter and shatter works kinda bad with PU because you need the clone on dodge traid to make shatter work good.

+1
/15 characters

Usagi.4835:

Conncept.7638:

Usagi.4835:

Conncept.7638:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Perhaps it might be best if the first attack didn’t inflict Torment so that the clones wouldn’t be applying it? Increase the duration on the second hit of the chain to compensate.

They specifically stated during the stream, and many times before, that they wanted the scepters clones to apply a condition, just like the clones from every other weapon. It has to apply something.

No it doesn’t.

‘No it doesn’t’ what? I didn’t give my opinion on whether it needs the changes I just repeated what the developers stated in the livestream and on the forums. It applied confusion on auto-attack and from the clones in beta, but that was removed without a replacement, putting it in limbo as neither a condition or power weapon. And they stated clearly that they wanted it to have a condition again, as mesmers undoubtedly need another condition option. There’s no debating whether or not it will have a condition, it’s useless without one, it’s just a matter of which condition.

No, it doesn’t need to have a condition. I read a comment saying “This is how ArenaNet makes people use weapons”. Well, that’s not entirely true IMO.

The scepter is a weapon used for condition specs; people were already using it, and the lack of condition application on the auto attack wasn’t stopping people from choosing it. It’s not in limbo. It never was. There is a trait that defines it as being a condition weapon.

How can you say mesmers “undoubtedly” need another condition option? It’s not as if access to torment was lacking. Quite a few Mesmer players, myself included, don’t believe this change is needed. That might not mean much, but it’s reflective of the opinion that condition-based mesmer builds are strong enough as they are.

That’s what balance is about. If it’s not broke, why fix it?

It is broken, the weapon scales practically not at all with power, and its only abilities that apply conditions only do so against completely inept opponents. Who on earth has ever been hit with more than 1-2 stacks of confusing images? And what skilled player has ever fallen for illusionary counter more than once? It’s never being used as a condi-mesmer weapon, it’s been used as a bunker weapon solely for the auto-attack, and rarely at that. Well and the cheese-clone death builds, thank goodness those were killed. It needs the ability to regularly apply a condition in order to be a condition weapon, I don’t think that ability necessarily needs to be in the auto-attack, but it needs to be somewhere. And its clones need to have some effect, like every other clone.

And how could you say we don’t need another condition option? What else do we have? The staff, period. Every other mainhand slot is power based, as are the majority of skills for the offhand.

The staff fills a certain roll as the chaosmancer but it is NOT a pure condition weapon, it is condition/support, and it is not sufficient condition coverage for the entire class no matter how good it is. I don’t like the staff, tons of players want to play condi-mesmer and don’t like the staff, it doesn’t give off the condition trickster vibe that the scepter is supposed to, but hasn’t since confusion was removed.

Personally, I also don’t like this change much, I always wanted them balance confusion and then see the scepter to return as a confusion weapon. Additionally, torment really doesn’t thematically fit the class or the weapon, and this change is very likely to be imbalanced. But I don’t see how anyone could say no changes are needed, the scepter is NOT by any means okay in its current state.

Conncept.7638:

Advent.6193:

Eh. I would’ve voted for Confusion … y’know, the “signature” Mesmer Condition? But, that’s just me. I also would have not tossed it on the first part of the AA chain. /shrug
Then again, my “Scepter Wishlist” was simply speeding up the AA chain and Confusing Images.

Me too

But it already had confusion in beta, and that was removed real quick. Confusion is just a naturally problematic condition, it really needs a rework and a whole lot of good suggestions have been made on the subject, but Anet has pretty much said they won’t consider such a large change post-release and players just ’don’t understand our design goals’. Which in my opinion is really stupid, if the only way you can allow something in game is in a state where it’s completely nonviable, your design goals be kittened, it needs to be reworked.

how is torment any better then confusion? a Mesmer will try to stay at range.. you cant reach said Mesmer unless you chase them hence move and get heavy damage from the torment, its either chase and die or stand still and die now.

unlucky.9285:

how is torment any better then confusion?

Torment still tics when you do nothing. Confusion does not.

unlucky.9285:

Conncept.7638:

Advent.6193:

Eh. I would’ve voted for Confusion … y’know, the “signature” Mesmer Condition? But, that’s just me. I also would have not tossed it on the first part of the AA chain. /shrug
Then again, my “Scepter Wishlist” was simply speeding up the AA chain and Confusing Images.

Me too

But it already had confusion in beta, and that was removed real quick. Confusion is just a naturally problematic condition, it really needs a rework and a whole lot of good suggestions have been made on the subject, but Anet has pretty much said they won’t consider such a large change post-release and players just ’don’t understand our design goals’. Which in my opinion is really stupid, if the only way you can allow something in game is in a state where it’s completely nonviable, your design goals be kittened, it needs to be reworked.

how is torment any better then confusion? a Mesmer will try to stay at range.. you cant reach said Mesmer unless you chase them hence move and get heavy damage from the torment, its either chase and die or stand still and die now.

It isn’t by much, torment punishes people for running away and chasing, confusion on the other hand punishes everything but running away, including chasing.

I’ve never said I think adding torment is a great idea, in fact I’m pretty sure it’s going to blow up in their faces just like confusion. I just stated that firstly, the scepter needs regular condition application to be a condition weapon, as it’s current condition application skills are dependent on your opponent being willing to walk in to two incredibly telegraphed high CD skills. And second, that it’s clones need to have a themed affect like that of every other weapon to make the weapon feel complete.

The ideal solution would be for them to just fix confusion , since confusion is mostly strong themed with the mesmer, and they have no confusion themed weapon. But for some strange reason ANet doesn’t seem to consider that an option.

Scepter Clones don’t need some extra effect. The benefit of Scepter Clones is that there are a LOT of them. Anything you could want quantity over quality for, Scepter is your weapon of choice.

Torment on the auto is fine. Torment on the clones is not. Solution? Remove the Torment from the first strike of the chain (the one clones emulate) and increase the duration on the second strike so that the mesmer himself could reach the same stacks.

Because of the huge buff to scepter, many mesmers will be running condition shatter or PU clone death builds. Maybe 50%? Then the 40% will be PU phantasm and mantra builds. This 40% includes all the hybrid builds. Now the rest 10% will be shatter players. This is because, if the current meta is going to be condition damage, maybe people will run rabid/dire gear which is very tanky. Now shatter mesmers, even with full glass won’t be able to handle condition bombs.

Power shatter has the most highest skill cap for mesmers. Will it still be viable after the next patch?

dancingmonkey.4902:

unlucky.9285:

how is torment any better then confusion?

Torment still tics when you do nothing. Confusion does not.

confusion hits way harder and has the added benefit of being a “soft shutdown”. if mesmers could spam confusion, they would just break the game.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

How is condi-spamming autos any different from direct damage spamming autos? The damage is comprable between the two, all that’s different is which stat it scales off of and how long it takes for that damage to actually happen.

Condition damage scales from one stat and cannot be mitigated. You can protect yourself against direct damage with things like armor, protection, and weakness, but once you’re out of condi removal those 800 dmg/sec burn ticks will deal 800 dmg/sec no matter how defensively built you are.

This game needs to eliminate DPS conditions on autoattack having a 100% chance to proc. Condition damage is not balanced well enough to be so prevalent in PvP combat.

Black Box.9312:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

How is condi-spamming autos any different from direct damage spamming autos? The damage is comprable between the two, all that’s different is which stat it scales off of and how long it takes for that damage to actually happen.

Condition damage scales from one stat and cannot be mitigated. You can protect yourself against direct damage with things like armor, protection, and weakness, but once you’re out of condi removal those 800 dmg/sec burn ticks will deal 800 dmg/sec no matter how defensively built you are.

This game needs to eliminate DPS conditions on autoattack having a 100% chance to proc. Condition damage is not balanced well enough to be so prevalent in PvP combat.

Two stats (condition damage and condition duration) with precision a tertiary stat. Conditions have no damage multipliers in either a positive or negative direction (all those traits, sigils, runes, and Vulnerability that give you X% more damage? None help conditions). In addition, they can have their damage reduced after the attack has already hit.

So, again, what is so wrong with having conditions on auto attacks? For every point you can come up with to say that they’re o erpowered or broken, I can come up with one or two more that show that they’re balanced.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Two stats (condition damage and condition duration) with precision a tertiary stat. Conditions have no damage multipliers in either a positive or negative direction (all those traits, sigils, runes, and Vulnerability that give you X% more damage? None help conditions). In addition, they can have their damage reduced after the attack has already hit.

So, again, what is so wrong with having conditions on auto attacks? For every point you can come up with to say that they’re o erpowered or broken, I can come up with one or two more that show that they’re balanced.

Duration is completely unnecessary with the frequency with which conditions can be applied, and it also does nothing to increase DPS (and the vast majority of WvW builds just run the +40% food anyway, which in itself is a staggering value). Precision is also not necessary because condition weapons don’t rely on critical hits to proc; thief pistol, necro scepter, engineer pistol, and now mesmer scepter will all apply the condition even if you have a 4% crit chance.

Also there are indeed damage modifiers for conditions. Sigil of bursting adds 6% to your condition damage value, which makes it even stronger than its counterpart, the sigil of force. One of the rune sets (undead I think? I don’t know for certain) converts a percentage of vitality to condition damage, making for another conversion stat. And finally there are traits like the GM minor trait in the mesmer’s chaos line, which converts 10% of toughness to condition damage. They’re there; it’s just not as plainly written as the ones for direct damage. As for reducing the actual damage of them while they’re applied? I honestly don’t know of anything in this game that does that, so if you’d be willing to enlighten me with an example that’d be wonderful.

Conditions were never balanced to be a standalone source of damage. Things like 100% proc on auto and dire gear are throwing conditions far off balance because of how little there is that can actually counter it.

Black Box.9312:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Two stats (condition damage and condition duration) with precision a tertiary stat. Conditions have no damage multipliers in either a positive or negative direction (all those traits, sigils, runes, and Vulnerability that give you X% more damage? None help conditions). In addition, they can have their damage reduced after the attack has already hit.

So, again, what is so wrong with having conditions on auto attacks? For every point you can come up with to say that they’re o erpowered or broken, I can come up with one or two more that show that they’re balanced.

Duration is completely unnecessary with the frequency with which conditions can be applied, and it also does nothing to increase DPS (and the vast majority of WvW builds just run the +40% food anyway, which in itself is a staggering value). Precision is also not necessary because condition weapons don’t rely on critical hits to proc; thief pistol, necro scepter, engineer pistol, and now mesmer scepter will all apply the condition even if you have a 4% crit chance.

Also there are indeed damage modifiers for conditions. Sigil of bursting adds 6% to your condition damage value, which makes it even stronger than its counterpart, the sigil of force. One of the rune sets (undead I think? I don’t know for certain) converts a percentage of vitality to condition damage, making for another conversion stat. And finally there are traits like the GM minor trait in the mesmer’s chaos line, which converts 10% of toughness to condition damage. They’re there; it’s just not as plainly written as the ones for direct damage. As for reducing the actual damage of them while they’re applied? I honestly don’t know of anything in this game that does that, so if you’d be willing to enlighten me with an example that’d be wonderful.

Conditions were never balanced to be a standalone source of damage. Things like 100% proc on auto and dire gear are throwing conditions far off balance because of how little there is that can actually counter it.

Again, wrong on every point.

Duration matters. It matters a lot. +100% duration literally means +100% potential damage. More duration means higher stacks are possible. Precision matters to proc traits (Barbed Precision, Incindiary Powder, Sharper Images, etc.) and sigils (Sigil of Earth, Torment)

There are ways to increase your Condition Damage stat (same as Power), but no multipliers. Sigil of Bursting increases your Condition Damage stat by 6%. For every 1,000 condition damage you have without it, the sigil adds 3 damage/bleed tick, 6 damage/poison tick, and 15 damage/burning tick. Sigil of Force multiplies your total damage by 1.05. If you hit for 1k normally, you get 50 damage out of the sigil. 2k, an extra 100 damage.

Reducing the damage of a condition after it landed is called “cleansing,” something you can’t do with direct damage. Although, if you didn’t know about cleansing, that explains a lot about your post.

Conditions were, in fact, balanced to be the primary damage on some auto attacks. Those same attacks have horrid scaling with Power. For example, in sPvP, a Necro Scepter with no trait points, sigil, or runes, but wearing a Zerker Amulet still has about half of the damage on the auto attack come from the 0 condition damage bleeds.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Again, wrong on every point.

Duration matters. It matters a lot. +100% duration literally means +100% potential damage. More duration means higher stacks are possible. Precision matters to proc traits (Barbed Precision, Incindiary Powder, Sharper Images, etc.) and sigils (Sigil of Earth, Torment)

There are ways to increase your Condition Damage stat (same as Power), but no multipliers. Sigil of Bursting increases your Condition Damage stat by 6%. For every 1,000 condition damage you have without it, the sigil adds 3 damage/bleed tick, 6 damage/poison tick, and 15 damage/burning tick. Sigil of Force multiplies your total damage by 1.05. If you hit for 1k normally, you get 50 damage out of the sigil. 2k, an extra 100 damage.

Reducing the damage of a condition after it landed is called “cleansing,” something you can’t do with direct damage.

Conditions were, in fact, balanced to be the primary damage on some auto attacks. Those same attacks have horrid scaling with Power. For example, in sPvP, a Necro Scepter with no trait points, sigil, or runes, but wearing a Zerker Amulet still has about half of the damage on the auto attack come from the 0 condition damage bleeds.

Everything you’ve just said about the multipliers is completely irrelevant first of all, because those were simply meant as counterexamples and serve no purpose for my original point. Moving on though:

Duration does nothing for DPS. It does not help you kill faster. It’s nice to have if you can fit it into your build, but it does not increase your damage, just prolongs it. Precision helps with on crit condi procs, but you can still stack conditions without it and your conditions will deal the same damage with or without it. Your DPS with a condition build is increased by one stat: condition damage. Compare that with power builds where you need 3 stats, and it’s clear which one is more beneficial.

As for condition cleansing, that should be proof in and of itself of how poorly conditions are balanced. It creates a binary system where if you have too many conditions and too few ways to remove it, you will succumb to conditions no matter how skillfully you play; and if there’s too much removal and too few application methods, conditions become irrelevant in the first place because people can just shrug them off entirely. Right now we’re dealing with the former, and it just rewards easy builds like PU condi that can literally deal damage passively by spawning clones to apply conditions while sitting in stealth receiving very powerful defensive boons.

And finally, I said conditions are not balanced properly enough to work as a primary source of damage. Being balanced as primary damage and being meant as primary damage are two different things entirely. Your example with the necro scepter shows that it is meant to be a primarily condition based weapon, but it’s still not balanced properly for it; and until they add more ways to actually reduce the damage received from conditions as opposed to just removing them until you can’t remove any more, they never WILL be balanced. Knowing that Anet will never actually care enough to do that, I believe the right way to go would be to reduce the application output until it can match a good enough balance with the removal output so that it can be viable, without being too strong.

No, the multipliers are a very relevant point. Not having those multipliers is a balancing point to ignoring armor, weakness, and protection. Getting damage multipliers, but not divisors would be imbalanced, as that would make them purely better than direct damage. Likewise, if they obeyed divisors, but not multipliers, direct damage would be superior in every way. Obeying both means that Knight’s gear becomes the best in the game because it simply provides more survivability than anything else.

Condition Duration very much affects your DPS The difference between being able to stack 10 bleeds and stacking 15 bleeds is massive for your damage output, but duration boosts make such a thing possible. Even if you choose to look at it from a “the attacks I land in this time frame will do a total amount of X damage”, Condition duration is still important. An attack that normally applies a 5 second bleed will deal less damage than the same attack landing a 7 second bleed, but the time spent using that attack is identical. The only way that condition duration doesn’t affect DPS is if you say “in this specific time frame, which is less than the total DoT duration, how much damage will one attack do?” This is a very, very screwed up and terrible way of calculating DPS.

Okay, if cleansing is a problem, then how do you handle Power-based attacks? Go ahead, I’m listening. I’m willing to bet you’ll say something along the lines of “block, blind, or dodge,” which is funny, because you can do the exact same thing with condition-applying attacks. Or you’ll say “stack toughness,” which as I pointed out, is an advantage to counteract the disadvantage of not having any damage multipliers. Or maybe you say “heal through it” which works just as well against conditions. But, if you have something else in mind, I’d be happy to hear it. I’m sure it will be very enlightening.

As it is, condition application must surpass removal or else the entire strategy is doomed to failure. All of those death logs people keep prancing about showing how much damage they took from conditions fail to look at the fact they spent a minute or more bleeding That’s a loooong time, and it doesn’t even take into account the time that they had no bleeds on them due to cleanses. This isn’t a case of conditions being overpowering, this is a case of conditions doing exactly what they were designed to do and wear someone down over time.

So it wasnt hard enough to fight condition PU-Mesmers with thier uber “press 1 to 5 swich weapon and reapeat” tactic?

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Condition Duration very much affects your DPS

It’s quite clear to me now that you don’t understand the concept of damage per second, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

My question: why was yet more Torment given to Mesmer when the condition was designed for Necros?

Why can an engi use confusion more reliable than a mesmer when the condition was designed for mesmers?

Black Box.9312:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Condition Duration very much affects your DPS

It’s quite clear to me now that you don’t understand the concept of damage per second, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Please, explain to me how I don’t get it?

Damage dealt/time period in seconds = DPS. This is the very definition of DPS.

Condition Duration means you can have higher stacks. More stacks equals more damage dealt in the same time frame. Ergo, the nominator in the DPS equation is increased while the denominator remains the same. Result: higher DPS.

Alternatively, we could alter the time period we’re measuring instead. Taking a condition application and increasing its duration means that for any duration over the base, the condition is ticking for more of it. Same damage/tick, but a higher percentage of the time where it is actually ticking= higher DPS.

There is literally no respectable definition of DPS where increasing condition duration does not increase condition DPS. Possible circumstances, perhaps, when factoring in cleanses or caps on stacks or duration (+100% is max, anything higher has no effect).

@Me Games Ma: Most reliable confusion is still the Mesmer’s domain. Better stacks (duration and quantity) is another story. For Torment, Necros are actually on the bottom for reliability as well.

Black Box.9312:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Condition Duration very much affects your DPS

It’s quite clear to me now that you don’t understand the concept of damage per second, so I’ll just leave it at that.

if each stack ticks for longer, than it deals more damage. i’m not sure i get what you’re trying to achieve saying condi duration doesn’t boost DPS.

here, quick example:

P/D thief with bleed ticking for 100, vital shot hitting for 200 damage. no condi duration means he can keep 4 bleed ticks at a time. so 600dps.

add 50% condi duration, and now he can keep 6 stacks, so the DPS goes up by 200, since every second the enemy loses 200 more health than the estabilished baseline.