Guild Wars 2

In this post I hope to get some feedback on realistic ways we can bring conditions more in line with the current zerker meta. Reading through the posts I have seen devs comment on the Berzerker meta with simple “We are looking into this” understandable as there are some changes coming up and im sure the details are fuzzy.

I would also love to here the dev team briefly discuss there thoughts on conditions in current PvE, what are the roadblocks when implementing change, how do you feel about current condition performance ect.

Now here is my thoughts on conditions in PvE and my idea for a solution.
The issue with conditions in PvE is twofold as i see it, the first issue is PvE content itself. Balancing a game with out the “trinity” is quite hard and lets face it Anet has done a great job so far but the content is pretty easy for experienced players. The current PvE promotes glass cannon & dodge play and conditions don’t have a chance to shine. This issue is more difficult to fix and honestly probably wont change as it gets intro game marketing and overall goals (cant touch this!)

The Immediet issue is the way conditions stack at the moment there is no priority or value placed on higher damaging conditions. A necromancer with 1600 condition damage and +100% condition duration will have there bleeds overwritten by a warrior with 200 condition damage and 20% condition. I propose a Value system be places on conditions the Value would be determined by factoring in condition damage and condition duration giving a higher priority to higher damaging conditions. PvE content would remain in balance because the cap is still in place, Power builds would only be effected slightly, and condition builds would be able to preform at maximum effectiveness without receiving an overt buff.

The only 2 negatives i can foresee with a change like this would be underleveled players in Open World PvP would have a harder time ranking Gold on Meta Bosses ect. To balance this you could simply give them a higher Value based on how underleved they are so there conditions would still rank over all but the best geared condition specs. The other group that will be effected would be Hybrid classes and they would be no no better or worse position than they are now.

Sorry for the text wall, i tried to keep it concise but its a big subject. Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions.

Also note that this change is aimed at PvE, if it has adverse implications in a PvP environment it would be easy enough for Anet to exclude PvP from the change.

I wrote too much didn’t I?

this will solve nothing. The cap can barely be reached by one player.

The problem lies in the fact that 2 condition players cannot do twice as much damage as one condition player. Balance is not an issue here.

The annoyance with weak bleeds (bleeds of a low Value) take on the slots of the strong bleeders (bleeds of high Value) only exists due to the cap. If the cap didn’t exist no condition user would care about weak bleeds.

Another problem which I didn’t see the OP mention, is the reduced effectiveness of conditions on bosses. I can understand the idea of making bosses more tough than normal enemies. But if you them resistant only in regards to one combat mechanic, but not the others, you make boss fights biased towards direct damage. This ultimately leads to the DPS meta that we have right now.

Is there any good reason not to allow us to blind a boss? Because I play a necromancer, and this is one of the things we do really well, spreading blind. But by eliminating blind from boss fights, I feel one of our core profession strengths has been devalued, while DPS focused classes are perfectly fine.

By making bosses resistant to conditions, you make them favor DPS classes over condition-focused classes like the necromancer.

Well to some extent balance is an issue here.

With 2000 condition damage which is pretty difficult to get 25 Stacks of bleed comes out to around 3500 DPS. Lets say you also apply burning and poison and your up to around 4500 DPS.

Now even if you are on something like a warrior /w sword which hits reasonably hard, you wont get more than ~2-3k more DPS from your attacks with having to go so heavily into condi damage. So a full condition damage spec is netting you 6500-7500 DPS at 25 stacks.

Then take into acount that it can take 20 seconds to get a 25 stack, and most boss fights last just a min or so and we can just say that if you aim to do DPS, conditions are at best 20-30% less effective than direct damage no matter how you slice it.

ANet fears us CC locking bosses. But we are already locking them in other ways by luring them around corners and melee stacking to limit the number of moved the AI can use.

Honestly i find being able to lock a target in place by good skill timing and rotation more impressive than DPS spam, kiting and dodging. The latter to me is a sign of failure and panic more than fun.

The best would be if the game allowed both. But as long as Defiant exists, kite and DPS is king.

As for condition stacking, how about simply making newly applied conditions “pop” if the stack is maxed out? Meaning that the DOT is converted to instant damage at some ratio.

This because anything, at least in PVE, that racks up a max stack of bleed (never mind several minutes of burn or poison) are already so thick skinned that it won’t make a huge difference in the kill time anyways (and likely have a thicket of blades carving it to pieces).

@DHK where are you getting 6500/7500k DPS?

With a base of 2000 cond damage and if you get 25 bleeds, and even at the highest stacks of might you get around 6060 DPS (bleed 4650 / burning 1047 / poison 368).

Without might would be 4680

I don’t understand why in PvE there can’t be a 25 bleed stack cap per person

Nor do I understand why any and all conditions don’t stack per person, for that matter.