Guild Wars 2

This suggestion to change the way that the “burning” condition works will help to increase the DPS of the Elementalist. Basicly the big complain on the Elementalist is its lack of good DPS.

Now i understand this affects ofcourse way more classes besides the Elementlist, the engeneer for example would be affected by this grately aswell, now i’m not sure how the engeneer is doing on the balance front in way of damage.

So what do you guys thing of this suggestion would you like to see it or do you think its a terrible idea?

~Discuss!

But bleeding already does that… Those two condition would bocome identical O_o

No.
Burning already applies a VERY fast DoT. Its downside compared to Bleeding is that its rate caps out due to it stacking duration rather than intensity, allowing Bleeding to be capable of faster, better sustained DoT, but requires a lot of stacking to do so.
Burning stacking intensity would turn an already powerful short-term condition into a massive spike damage, especially in situations where burning is rapidly applied repeatedly (like Drake’s Breath, an Engineer with Flamethrower for Incendiary Ammo, or a Burning-specced Guardian with a Torch using Cleansing Flame)

Thinking on it, I’m going to have to say no, actually. Let’s first look at the equations involved, comparing it to bleeding.

BURNING: 4.1 * Level + 0.25 * Condition Damage per second
BLEEDING: 2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage

Examine the numbers, and we get a few observations:
- Burning, related to condition damage, is 5 times more powerful than bleeding.
- Burning, related to level, is over 8 times more powerful than bleeding.

Let’s plug in numbers. Assuming max level (80) and 1500 condition damage:
BURNING: (4.1*80) + (0.25*1500) = 703DPS
BLEEDING: 2.5 + (0.5*80) + (0.05*1500) = 117.5DPS

Now, let’s assume 25 instances of 1-second burns are applied immediately, along with 25 instances of 1-second bleeds.
BURNING: 703 damage/sec * 25 sec = 17575 damage
BLEEDING: 117.5 damage/sec * 25 sec = 2937.5 damage

Unless the formulas for each of these conditions were changed, bolded because that’s a very important factor, making burning stack in intensity rather than duration would make it an incredibly powerful burst mechanic that isn’t mitigated by toughness, since it’s a condition. Take, for example, an engineer’s blowtorch ability. That’s an instantaneous 6 seconds of burning from 3 stacks. That’s 4218 damage over 6 seconds. If it were to stack with intensity, that would be 4218 damage over 2 seconds, instead. So, instead of having a DPS of 703, it now has a DPS of 2109. See where I’m going with this?

25 stacks of bleeding for 2 seconds would deal 5875 damage, or 2937.5 DPS. That’s with 25 stacks, as compared to the burning’s 3 stacks.

So, repeating in summary, burning would only be able to stack in intensity without being horribly broken if the underlying formula were changed considerably. And since burning and bleeding are essentially no different mechanically (all they do is deal direct damage over time), they cannot share a stacking mechanic without leading to balance issues.

I hope this was informative.

HakkaiRequiem.5130:

But bleeding already does that… Those two condition would bocome identical O_o

This is true, but what is the problem in that? I think only rangers would benefit from it really since they use both burning and bleeding.

Another option is just to make it more damage because well, i’m not really happy whith the dps’s the “burning” condition does.

Also Mesmer can inflict both, not only Rangers.
The problems would be “thecnical” ones (Quote DF Anton here) and “roleplaying” ones.
Keeping the mechanics different makes them “feel” different. 

DFAnton.5304:

Thinking on it, I’m going to have to say no, actually. Let’s first look at the equations involved, comparing it to bleeding.

BURNING: 4.1 * Level + 0.25 * Condition Damage per second
BLEEDING: 2.5 + 0.5 * Level + 0.05 * Condition Damage

Examine the numbers, and we get a few observations:
- Burning, related to condition damage, is 5 times more powerful than bleeding.
- Burning, related to level, is over 8 times more powerful than bleeding.

Let’s plug in numbers. Assuming max level (80) and 1500 condition damage:
BURNING: (4.1*80) + (0.25*1500) = 703DPS
BLEEDING: 2.5 + (0.5*80) + (0.05*1500) = 117.5DPS

Now, let’s assume 25 instances of 1-second burns are applied immediately, along with 25 instances of 1-second bleeds.
BURNING: 703 damage/sec * 25 sec = 17575 damage
BLEEDING: 117.5 damage/sec * 25 sec = 2937.5 damage

Unless the formulas for each of these conditions were changed, bolded because that’s a very important factor, making burning stack in intensity rather than duration would make it an incredibly powerful burst mechanic that isn’t mitigated by toughness, since it’s a condition. Take, for example, an engineer’s blowtorch ability. That’s an instantaneous 6 seconds of burning from 3 stacks. That’s 4218 damage over 6 seconds. If it were to stack with intensity, that would be 4218 damage over 2 seconds, instead. So, instead of having a DPS of 703, it now has a DPS of 2109. See where I’m going with this?

25 stacks of bleeding for 2 seconds would deal 5875 damage, or 2937.5 DPS. That’s with 25 stacks, as compared to the burning’s 3 stacks.

So, repeating in summary, burning would only be able to stack in intensity without being horribly broken if the underlying formula were changed considerably. And since burning and bleeding are essentially no different mechanically (all they do is deal direct damage over time), they cannot share a stacking mechanic without leading to balance issues.

I hope this was informative.

Nice feedback thanks!

I did not konw about those formula’s and i have to say they are really intersting. They could put a reduced stack amount for fire ofcourse, just to be able to stack to about the same or maybe a bit more then the bleeding cap damange.

The thing is tho, so many skills inflict buring as an elementalist that there is allot of overlap in the time of burning. I think adding a stack even a small one mabye 5 – 10 would help reduce the amount of burning time that goes wasted and boost the dps of the elementalist by a significant ammound.

But then again other classes might get way to much dps.