Guild Wars 2

Note: I titled the post [PvP] because thats where I have experience. Its possible these changes would work well in PvE/WvW as well, I just dont have the experience to make that claim

The biggest complaint against condition classes is that their reliance on only 1 stat for damage (Condition Damage) allows them to invest alot of points in survivability while still doing great damage.

My suggestion would be to allow conditions to crit, then rebalance base condition damage to account for the change.

Before everyone goes apekitten, think about. This will enable 2 styles of condition play -

Burst builds- Players who focus on Condition damage, precision, and crit damage. These players will have short duration, high damage condition applications – they’ll be the condition based counterpart to power/crit specs.This will slightly devalue condition removal (since the damage will be delivered in short lived bursts rather than lengthy applications).

Attrition builds – Players who are built as they are now, with condition damage, toughness, vitality and condition duration will do less damage than they are at the moment (since condition damage will now be balanced to allow crits), as they should – these biulds choose to do damage more slowly because they chose to focus on survivability via stats.

Yes, this would be alot of work, but it’s mostly just math. The majority of the mechanics can remain unchanged. The real work would just be changing coefficients to allow/factor in crits.

Yes, you’d probably have to look at some of the current condition removal options/on crit condition procs and tweak them as well, but that’s true of any change to the current condition heavy meta, and most agree that the condition dominated meta needs to change.

I think this would be much easier than looking at every single skill that applies conditions and re-evaluating them.

this would make ranger king/queen of ranged combat AND condition from actualy using shortbow because not only do they proc might on pet from crit but also burn it down with bleed. Its a dangerous hybrid right now and im very concerned about the impact of what would happen should we actualy strenghten rampager that much.

Won’t happen.

If they supposedly can’t raise/remove the condition cap because of ‘technical issues’ I really doubt that they have the processing power to run the computation on every single condition tick to check if it crits.

They do need to do something about conditions. Why not add a stat that acts like Toughness does for Physical damage?

Ahlen.7591:

Won’t happen.

If they supposedly can’t raise/remove the condition cap because of ‘technical issues’ I really doubt that they have the processing power to run the computation on every single condition tick to check if it crits.

The system already checks your Condition Damage for every tick, whats 1 more check per condition tick?

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

They do need to do something about conditions. Why not add a stat that acts like Toughness does for Physical damage?

That’s a much bigger departure than allowing conditions to crit – you’re talking adding a new stat and balancing every existing item for that stat. Additionally, conditions ignoring toughness is part of their design, so you can’t build an all-in-one bunker who’s completely immune to all forms of damage.

evilapprentice.6379:

Ahlen.7591:

Won’t happen.

If they supposedly can’t raise/remove the condition cap because of ‘technical issues’ I really doubt that they have the processing power to run the computation on every single condition tick to check if it crits.

The system already checks your Condition Damage for every tick, whats 1 more check per condition tick?

It’s literally doubling the computational load? What kind of question is that!

evilapprentice.6379:

Burst builds- Players who focus on Condition damage, precision, and crit damage. These players will have short duration, high damage condition applications – they’ll be the condition based counterpart to power/crit specs.This will slightly devalue condition removal (since the damage will be delivered in short lived bursts rather than lengthy applications).

Attrition builds – Players who are built as they are now, with condition damage, toughness, vitality and condition duration will do less damage than they are at the moment (since condition damage will now be balanced to allow crits), as they should – these biulds choose to do damage more slowly because they chose to focus on survivability via stats.

1. Current meta condition builds use condi damage, precision, and some crit damage. Dhuumfire necro is the most obvious (30/20/0/0/20) but bomb/nade engineer, most ss/lb warriors, and most condi mesmer builds use rabid amulet in PvP and have some crit damage from traits.

2. Almost no builds use carrion amulet at all. Therefore, I assume you’d like to nerf builds that use settler’s amulet, since carrion builds are negligible and rabid builds would be buffed under your system. Why not just change or nerf the amulet instead of reworking a core mechanic? A complete rework will always cause imbalance until the math is perfected—no amount of estimating can promise perfect balance when a core mechanic is being changed.

So my question is, why would we want to make balance worse for a while, in hopes that several patches down the road it will get better—all for the sake of nerfing one single PvP amulet?

NevirSayDie.6235:

evilapprentice.6379:

Burst builds- Players who focus on Condition damage, precision, and crit damage. These players will have short duration, high damage condition applications – they’ll be the condition based counterpart to power/crit specs.This will slightly devalue condition removal (since the damage will be delivered in short lived bursts rather than lengthy applications).

Attrition builds – Players who are built as they are now, with condition damage, toughness, vitality and condition duration will do less damage than they are at the moment (since condition damage will now be balanced to allow crits), as they should – these biulds choose to do damage more slowly because they chose to focus on survivability via stats.

1. Current meta condition builds use condi damage, precision, and some crit damage. Dhuumfire necro is the most obvious (30/20/0/0/20) but bomb/nade engineer, most ss/lb warriors, and most condi mesmer builds use rabid amulet in PvP and have some crit damage from traits.

Rabid amulet builds should see a loss in DPS – remember, base damage is being tuned down to allow for crits – without decent crit damage % AND Crit chance, you won’t be seeing a boost. Or it’s possible rampager might need a bit of a rework (They mention discussion about new PvP amulets in todays livesteam, perhaps we’ll be seeing a power precision toughness amulet in the future)

evilapprentice.6379:

Rabid amulet builds should see a loss in DPS – remember, base damage is being tuned down to allow for crits – without decent crit damage % AND Crit chance, you won’t be seeing a boost. Or it’s possible rampager might need a bit of a rework (They mention discussion about new PvP amulets in todays livesteam, perhaps we’ll be seeing a precision toughness power amulet in the future)

I think prec/tough/power would be a great addition. IMO if they had that in from the start, warriors wouldn’t have had it so bad last year and wouldn’t have gotten such massive buffs.

Back on topic: if rabid amulet builds see a small loss in dps, carrion/settler’s would see a gigantic loss of dps. Off the top of my head, I think a dhuumfire necro has something like 45% crit chance, 20% crit damage. In other words, it would take something like a base condition damage nerf of 40% just to leave dhuumfire necro in exactly the same place as it is now. What kind of nerf are we talking about here?

My point is, this is a massive change. Most condition builds already have precision and crit damage. The ones that don’t would need to be nerfed in epic proportions to make this system work. We’re not talking balance tweaks, we’re talking massive overhauls that put even power builds out of balance because of the enormity of the nerf required. Can you imagine playing zerker mesmer, except all your confusion is half as powerful as before? How about glass cannon ele or guardian, except burning now ticks for 180/sec instead of 320/sec? That’s the level of nerfs we’re talking about here. I just want to be sure you understand what you’re asking for.

Edited to make my inaccurate estimations better.

Fundamentally, the whole Condition system is not as flawed as people make it out to be.

• The “stacks” of Conditions gives granularity to the defending player and a good estimation of how fast they are ticking down → Mo’ stacks, mo’ damage. Recent changes to the Condition tickers further enhances the player’s ability to track their status.

• The “last in, first out” mechanic allows tactical play. In theory, you are supposed to bait out opponent cleanses before applying your doom stack of Bleeds or that 10 second Burn, then “cover it” with another separate condition to seal the deal.

• Conditions do take longer to kill than direct damage, despite what people say about instagib Necro fearchains or “forever burning” condi-bomber Engineers. The design decision to allow Condition classes to have defensive stats is sound. You have a duality of playstyles – semi-tanky Condi, or GC Power. Remember that Condition damage stacks linearly while Power damage stacks _multiplicatively. – so your returns on Condi damage come up only when you’ve invested significantly more point for point than when you invest into Power, Precision and Crit damage (unfortunately the current layout of Amulets in no way reflects this).

The “condi meta” is a confluence of several things to form a “perfect storm” as it were. It is not solely due to the emergence of “condi-bunkers”.

• The first was that players realised that even with high stacks of DPS DOTs, lack of condition variety to “cover” stacks meant that even single cleanses had high potency

• The second was that the classes with the greatest mitigation against conditions – Guardian and Elementalist – were nerfed in terms of their survivability against conditions. This eliminated a key predator to condi builds.

• The third was that people started to employ crit-procs more, as well as Sigils of Earth (Engineer) or Hydromancy/Doom (Necromancer). More “junk” conditions → more “covered” stacks.

• The addition of Burning through Dhuumfire on Necros as well as the addition of Torment added to the condi diversity which further reinforced the covering of DPS DOTs by more Junk conditions.

The Condi meta is now in full swing, due to large amounts of condi-applying auto-attacks proccing more condis; high condition diversity to cover DOT stacks; and an immature Condi-counter design

What I meant by “immature condi-counter design” is that up until now, Arenanet had not fully considered the possibility of a Condi-meta taking hold. People had been fully occupied with the Direct damage/quickness meta for so long that the traits, skills and toolset with regards to direct damage for most classes was well developed – Aegis, Block, Blind, Dodge, Port, Weakness

Unfortunately there exist only 2 mechanics to directly counter conditions: Cleansing and converting. This exists across most classes thanks to various traits, utilities and Lyssa runes; however Necromancer also has access to Condi transfer as an exclusive to its class design. Compare this with the 3 against Conditions – Dodging, Block and Blind (Most condi builds have a condi-applying autoattack which negates Aegis; Teleports don’t work when most application is AOE and a single hit can still proc the full effect of condis. Weakness does not affect Condition damage).

Since Dodging is the one thing that all classes have in common, along with Vigor and Sigil of Energy, of course there’s going to be an explosion of professions and builds that abuse it. You have to be able to dodge more than once per 10 seconds to survive in a condi meta where even a single autoattack is potentially thousands of HP left uncleansed.

In my view, addressing the Condi Meta will not come from completely reworking Conditions to crit.

Instead, Arenanet needs to abandon the crit-proc condition application concept altogether

Even if we as players do not consciously notice it happening, Arenanet is in fact moving away from the crit-proc condi application concept

• Dhuumfire implemented the “nerfed” version of Incendiary Powder. At 100% to apply on crit every 10 seconds, the requirement of Precision is essentially abrogated to achieve full uptime of Burning procs. The old version of Incendiary Powder whilst having the possibility of 100% uptime through Nightmare Runes, Sigil of Smouldering and 30 points in Explosives required a crit chance of 40%+ to achieve full uptime. Otherwise your crit rate was just too low to get the most out of the trait; which limited IP to Rampager or Rabid builds.

• Unfortunately, Arenanet still seems to be sticking to it’s core design for now in terms of merely requiring a critical hit. If anything, the Condi meta will end when the crit-proc mechanic is replaced by something else, and not any time sooner.

• Crit procs are easy in terms of implementation and (theoretically) introduces the Precision requirement, which is probably why Arenanet went for it in the first place.

• Replacing the “On crit” mechanic will not be easy. “On Weapon swap” is probably out of the question as it turns an RNG problem into a time-gated problem. Ultimately, a rework will require a critical review of what each profession is good at and starting from there. For Engineers as an example, several Crit procs could be replaced by “on executing Blast finisher in Combo Field” as Blast finishers abound in the profession.

• Similarly, the “condi-counter design” needs to be further developed. In this vein, GW2 devs could look at GW1’s conditional trigger design for debuffs. I’ve yet to see things like “gain a stack of Might for each Condition cleansed” or “deal more damage for each condition on you” – these are triggers that should be further explored.

Cleanse and counter-cleanse is an arms race. It’s a zero sum game. New concepts need to be introduced.

It will be a lot of work and a lot of balancing headaches if we are to move past the condi meta; which is probably why things are as they are right now. It will take a large, concerted effort of changes and I’m not sure that is something Arenanet will be willing to execute right now.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

They do need to do something about conditions. Why not add a stat that acts like Toughness does for Physical damage?

You mean a stat like vitality?