Guild Wars 2

One major reason I feel the meta has shifted so largely towards Condi builds, is the inconsistencies in the GW2 Attribute System

There are two primary ways to inflict damage….

Direct Damage: Influenced by Power and Critical, mitigated by Toughness (and invul skills)
Condition Damage: Influenced by Condition and +Duration, mitigated by -Duration (and removal skills)

Power and Critical are both available on Gear. Toughness is available on gear.

Condition Damage is available on gear, and Duration, while not available on gear, can be easily gained from the stat lines, traits, and runes.

-Duration, however, is only available from runes.

I didn’t include WvW food, nor do I feel the need to, as it is neither available in PvP, nor does it have any relevant impact seeing as there is both +40% and -40% food, which cancel one another out

Thus, the source of Condi-meta woes would seem to be the abundance of +Duration and a lack of -Duration.

But what about Condi_Removal?
Here’s the thing: Passive condi removals can help reduce the number of condis slightly, but are a far cry away from being able to hold back a condi spammer. A lot of times, the effect is either too small, removes a useless layered condi (ie cripple with 2s left, instead of a bleed stacked to 15), or just gets reapplied.

Active Removals suffer from long cooldowns relative to the spammable condis that can be stacked up in just a few seconds.

So what’s the solution?
There are a few options that I feel might come into play, helping to mitigate the current effects of the condi-meta, without making condi builds useless. Remember, the goal is NOT to kill off condi builds, or try to FORCE a meta shift, the goal is to bring them more in line with other builds

1. Toughness also reduces Condition damage or Duration by a small amount.

2. Vitality also reduces Condition Duration by a small amount.

I feel like both vitality and toughness are currently not as valuable as many of the other stats, this might help to bring them up in usefulness

3. Condition -Duration available on a stat line

I think Vitality reducing condition damage is a reasonable approach, as long as it’s not to a ridiculous degree, it already lengthens the amount of time you can survive against the builds.

Also, for reference, the 40% +- condition foods don’t cancel each other out, if both are in effect, conditions last 84% as long as base duration. The – Condition Damage is multiplicative, not subtractive.