So a little while back I read that the devs where talking about trying to improve condition builds for PvE. I’m right on board with this considering my favorite team build in GW1 was a condition based team and my favorite set to play in GW2 is a condition necromancer. However, there is a serious problem with conditions in PvE. The first problem being stacking. Conditions don’t stack properly leaving many players who decided to run conditions end up doing very little damage to a boss or mob. And from what I found out recently, means you wont get credit for that. I don’t know if that’s new or what, but I found it frustrating after attacking a Champion with a large mob triggering all of my skills against it and not even getting EXP for it after attacking it from the beginning.
Another problem with the condition set up besides stacking is the dedication part. Where as a power build can use a full set of their favorite exotic rune, the Condition build needs to run 2 of 3 different types of runes and use consumables in order to maintain 25 stacks of bleeds on their own most the time. This shows that PvE supports Power over condition far more then it should and puts players in an awkward position.
A third problem which relates to the first is that you don’t usually want more then 1 person running a condition build for a dungeon because you compete for condition space. Which isn’t good.
The Forth problem is how much tougher it is for some professions to stack conditions themselves. This becomes a problem when Zerkers can just face roll into a mob and win while a Condi user needs to set up most the time and doesn’t always get the chance. This also becomes a problem when bosses just mass cleanse conditions off themselves setting the condi player back to square one.
With all these problems, its no wonder condi builds don’t work very well in PvE.
So some Ideas to help fix these problems.
1. Indvidual condition cap. Make it so that each person using conditions sees the conditions they apply so that 2 people could use burning and each of them would be applying the damage. I know this sounds like it could be a bad idea. However, even with this the condi builds wont out damage the Zerker builds. Considering what people are doing this would more likely change how some people play.(Note that I feel this should only apply to damaging conditions and not things like vulnerability)
2. Adjust the condition duration so that each condition using profession can apply a decent number of stacks without having to over invest in duration alone. Some major examples of this is bleeding and confusion.
3. Improve condition application. In some cases I’ve found my efforts to stack conditions completely negated by boss phases, condition control or just zerkers in the party melting down foes too fast. I don’t feel this is a problem with how bosses, mobs, condi control, or other players. The problems lie with the condition application itself.
These are some adjustments that I personally feel need to be improved on. Even with chances, some professions just can’t get there in terms of damage. For example, the Guardian couldn’t apply enough conditions that deal damage. They would require a more drastic change in order to work with a condition build. Either they would have to be given a damaging condition, such as bleeding, change the way burning functions, or add a new condition entirely.
Bleeding could work for the guardian. There really isn’t anything in the lore that says they could bleed people. Considering their practices mostly come from Monks and Paragons from the first game, they could cause bleeding. Although the Monk never caused bleeding, the Paragon did. So this would be the easiest option for them.
The second option shouldn’t be an option. Changing how burning functions shouldn’t happen. Its quite good where it is.
The third option of adding new conditions is an interesting one. Considering there is still untapped space here that the guardian or other professions could use. Such as A condition that triggers bonus damage when a foe is struck with an attack. Basically a condition version of Barbs(http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Barbs) from GW1.
There is a fourth option that I’ve been toying with and I’m not quite sure how it would effect the game. The option of changing the scaling of Damaging boons to scale with condition damage rather then Power. Retaliation being the only one currently. However a new boon idea I had that would deal damage to foes within 180 range when you make an attack. A Guild Wars 2 version of Hundred blades or Vow of strength(http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vow_of_Strength http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hundred_Blades)
I hope to hear from all of you. I hope to hear your thoughts on the matter.