Guild Wars 2

Posting again because the topic disappeared. Someone fix rhis please.

From personal experience, a power based melee will deal more damage than a condition based melee/range, a condition-based melee/range may deal more damage than a power-based range and having two condition based character is of little to no synergical advantage.
In addition to that, I feel that most combofields are rendered useless if they cause a condition to the target, ether being the only exception because the odds of having 15 confusion stacks is very unlikely.
I am not entirely sure regarding your solution, especially since some conditions, burning especially, could be devastating should you put a combo field fire that everyone may interact with. Furthermore, the illusionary warlock could be exponentially more powerful should his damage scales with other peoples condition stacking.

Nice effort but I will disagree on that one.

Where do I suggest that Warlock scales with other people’s condition stacking?

Burning is weak. The only advantage it has atm is the fact it is usually applied in short bursts, making condition removal less effective against it.

Conditions are penalized on all fronts due to an inexistant problem.
All the arguments against this idea rest on impossible theoretical scenarios.

In order for Combo Field: Fire to be “devastating”, there need to be alot of Condition users
If there are alot of Condition users, their combined output is inferior to the combined output of power users.
Builds that have Projectile Finisher: Projectile are usually Power based, wich means they contribute minimally.

Essentially, Combo Field: Fire and Combo Field: Poison would be exactly as devastating as they should – wich does NOT happen at the moment.

Currently, Combo Field: Fire/Poison is only useful Solo.

In term of comparison, burning is 8 to 6 times as powerful as a stack of bleed as condition damage increases and poison is twice as strong as bleeding for equal duration. Both can be produced through combo fields. Therefore, per combo fields in a group of 5 person, one could produce the effect of potentially 40 to 30 stacks of bleeding should burning stack. Again, other than confusion with combo field: Ether, no condition damage or healing over time was meant to stack in a manner that you propose.

In addition to that, you have to bear in mind that not only condition damage stacking characters would deal combo based conditions, making the power-based characters even more valuable than before.

Furthermore, about half of the auto-attack projectile finishers have a condition component, meaning a projectile built may be condition-damage based.

I agree that the current method of inflicting conditions is not lending itself to a great synergy, but having more stacking would go to the other extreme.

I find it strange that the game has been out for 3 months and ArenaNet still hasn’t fixed this. I would have thought that this issue is one of the most important ones.

You can’t deal with stuff you don’t recognize.
I’m afraid ANet may be unaware, and that these kinds of threads never reach them.

@Deltanium
A few major points you seem to have missed:

1. Poison and Burning only stack in duration, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s 1 or 10 people throwing Burning at you, you can use a condition removal 5 seconds later and all the combined effort goes to waste.
2. Combo Finisher: Projectile is either mostly used with weapons that focus on Power builds OR only has 20% chance, wich means you aren’t going to be doing crazy condition damage because of a 5-second Combo Field: Fire/Poison.
3. Currently, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 10 seconds of Burn
   With my idea, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 5 stacks of 2 seconds each. Both the damage and the durations stack individually.
   With my idea, if a player applies 2x 2 seconds of Burn, the duration stacks to 4, but the damage remains the same.

It is not fair for players to be penalized for using the same type of condition damage, whether it’s Bleed, Poison, Burn or Confusion.

It obviously is not a huge problem as Anet has not adjusted it once.
Therefore it is obviously causing enough damage that they are happy with it.

Remember that once a condition is applied it deals it’s damage without any mitigation unless it is cleansed. Most PvE mobs do not cleanse (which is where so many of you complain about this cap). Dungeouns are ment to push teamwork, this means knowing how to build with who you are with, or knowing to not focus the same enemy that your other condition teamate is working on.

Also for note, if you keep stacking poison on a mob that has poison, and someone else outdoes you on possible poison damage, you may not be the root cause of the damage but you pushing it’s duration farther along does get added to your total contribution. The same way it does for burning.

Once again, you are still getting credit for the fight. All this focus on personal damage to me screams of people wanting to stroke their own ego.

As for pvp, if you are condition based, you can re-apply them so fast that a cleanse is barely a speed bump.

Add all participants’ condition damage scores together to determine burn, bleed and poison damage. Each participent would receive damage credit equal to the damage of their contribution and ‘flares’ they cause. Flares would be a point on which new poison and burns are applied on a opponent already suffering from it, as well as every bleed over 25. Flares cause the next tick to deal double damage, with the flare causer to deal 2x-5x the contribution damage for that particular tick.

@Runiir, condition damage already accounts for the fact it is not mitigated – it’s balanced around that.
Condition builds aren’t stronger than Power builds in solo play, or dungeons or anything, wich automatically means using them in a big group makes them underpowered.
They are avoidable by any means Power-based damage is avoided.
They are avoidable by means Power-based damage isn’t (removal/conversion).
They take time to act.

You know those 5 seconds it takes for you to die because you’ve got full conditions?
You would’ve died 3-5 seconds ago if it was raw damage instead.

I’ll say again in case anyone is missing – each stack has an individual duration. Stacks are constantly falling off while new stacks are applied.
That’s why you see the number of stacks go up and down all the time.
It’s not like WoW where effects reset their duration to max everytime you apply a new stack.

I think ANet didn’t change anything yet because:
a) they haven’t really found a sollution
b) don’t pay as much attention to forums as they should, even though they’re super fast at locking/moving Topics
c) as they aim for e-sport status, they are probably focusing their mechanics on sPvP where teams can organize themselves to minimize build conflicts, and this issue is not noticeable

@Iarkrad
The purpose of keeping individual stacks is to facilitate tracking who owns/contributed what
In addition, conditions update their damage as your stats change.
So if you gain Might, you will suddenly see a Condition you ALREADY applied ticking higher, and when you lose Might you will suddenly see the Condition tick lower.
How would you handle this if it was all one big messy stack?
If you make conditions use the stats you had when you apply them, it’ll only lead to the predictable WoW gameplay style: pop cooldowns, unload conditions, enemy cleanses them, you cry.

If your Flare is meant to be an “instant damage burst” for applying Burn/Poison over another Burn/Poison, it’s an interesting concept.
I could see it as a Trait or Trait Line bonus.

But for the sake of pure condition damage, a coherent, clean condition stacking system needs to be implemented.

Each player needs to own his own Stack and only update his own Stack.
Confusion and Bleed stack damage and weighted durations.
Burn and Poison stack duration.
No complications.

Nurvus.2891:

You can’t deal with stuff you don’t recognize.
I’m afraid ANet may be unaware, and that these kinds of threads never reach them.

@Deltanium
A few major points you seem to have missed:

1. Poison and Burning only stack in duration, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s 1 or 10 people throwing Burning at you, you can use a condition removal 5 seconds later and all the combined effort goes to waste.
2. Combo Finisher: Projectile is either mostly used with weapons that focus on Power builds OR only has 20% chance, wich means you aren’t going to be doing crazy condition damage because of a 5-second Combo Field: Fire/Poison.
3. Currently, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 10 seconds of Burn
   With my idea, 5 players applying 2 seconds of Burn each result in 5 stacks of 2 seconds each. Both the damage and the durations stack individually.
   With my idea, if a player applies 2x 2 seconds of Burn, the duration stacks to 4, but the damage remains the same.

It is not fair for players to be penalized for using the same type of condition damage, whether it’s Bleed, Poison, Burn or Confusion.

1. Yes, I know. The aforementioned scenario of stacking intensity relatively to bleeding was meant to illustrate the application of your theory and how it goes out of hand pretty rapidly given a focus and a combo field. 5 being the nominal group size in dungeon.
2. Combo finisher projectile and whirl may inflict burning and poison. The same projectile/whirl on water in regards to regeneration. If it’s attainable through a combo field, stacking its intensity will result in a far stronger damage/healing output to be reasonably countered. Furthermore, stacking poison duration is intentionally to prevent someone from receiving full healing for a longer period of time. The damage is rather irrelevant.
3. Yes. I understand your idea. You want everyone to get 1 stack of condition that stacks in duration so that their damage output does not suffer as a result of the stronger always being the only one contributing since the effect of the others will only occur later in the one and only condition duration. I understand all that. I play a condition-based spec and fundamentally dislike having rivalry because of that. However, I still disagree with you because of the combo field exploit mentioned earlier. It’s still somewhat manageable in small group, but consider the impact in WvWvW where every field may be used by about 50 people at a time.

Also, confusion is fine.

Runiir, I completely agree with you on this. I do not see this as a huge problem.

Nurvus, no offense. I appreciate the amount of time and thought that went into your suggestion for this. With that said, you have really attacked anyone that doesn’t agree completely with your idea. Two others offered a ‘middle of the line solution’ (which I agree with more)

@deltanium
1. See 2.
2. I think you may be going into theoretical extremes that do not occur in practice.
If you consider what players would do if my suggestion was implemented, you must also consider what they wouldn’t do.
First, if everyone is going to focus with a combo field to stack conditions, they will be mostly auto-attacking and simply won’t all be doing their usual rotation that applies their Bleed.
Second, are they all Condition users? Power users won’t be very threatening with conditions.
Third, a Combo Field focus has a huge problem: predictability. Anyone can save a condition removal/conversion and/or 50 Endurance to survive the Combo Field focus.

Suddenly you see all your effort go to waste, or even end up seeing your enemy with 25 stacks of Regeneration.

Plus, if there would be more focus on Condition builds, there would be less focus on power builds, and there would be more organized use of condition removal.

Condition Damage isn’t out of hand in PvP or W3.
Behind every condition there is also a bunch of people shooting and AoE’ing.
So the speed at wich you lose health is rarely due to conditions alone.

The skills with Projectile or Whirl finishers usually either (or both):
a) belong to mostly Power-oriented weapons
b) have 20% chance

Poisons already have decent durations even if you apply them solo, so making each player stack duration separately won’t be an issue regarding the intention to use poison as a means to prevent healing.

@Samoto
I’m sorry if it seems that way, but I’m just discussing the arguments I don’t agree with, and presenting my logic behind my thinking.
I don’t understand how that can be called attacking.

Or maybe you think I’m attacking them because you agree more with their idea than mine?

I think replies like “If you can’t see what’s wrong with this, then something’s wrong with you.” are more attacking then constructive. I personally don’t see anything wrong with the system as it is now in relating to this area. If there was an improvement or modification to it, then the other suggestion about a ‘super’ would make more sense to me.

I believe that what is missing here is that the conditional damage can be area based, where as the attack methods are more single target. Even for the ones that do area it is a far less Range then it is on some other coniditional. Also take into account that melee jobs can also land conditional based, hat means they get more too. If you wanted to ‘even’ it out. Maybe ignore the stack of conditional from the melee since they are doing more direct damage then the ranged is. Just my thoughts, but again, I don’t see a problem with how this is working now, only that people want to claim they can do more damage to a mob.

When I make an extensive, thought-out suggestion, and then the only thing you bother saying is “I personally don’t see anything wrong with the system as it is now in relating to this area.”, that is an attack. It’s making fun of my effort.
You aren’t giving examples, you aren’t presenting any argument.
You’re just dismissing what I wrote.

Plus, your opinion on the matter is only possible if you are not informed as to how Conditions really work.
If you choose to post against a constructive suggestion without informing yourself, you are asking to be attacked.

1 player does full direct damage; 10 players do full direct damage; 100 players do full direct damage.
1 player can stack 25 Bleed; 10 players can only stack 25 Bleed; 100 players can still only stack 25 Bleed.

How can you say there’s nothing wrong with the above?
- Condition damage isn’t stronger than direct damage
- Condition damage isn’t mitigated by Armor, but takes time to act
- Condition damage doesn’t crit and doesn’t get amplified by crit damage
- Condition damage can be removed halfway

If 3 players nuking 1 player with direct damage can kill it in seconds
What’s the big deal if condition damage could do almost the same?

I went to check how conditions work before making this thread.
I suggest others do the same before they reply.

A few other notes:
- Condition removal is also often Area based.
- a Guardian can pull a bunch of players around him, and then guardian+warrior spam whirling wrath + hundred blades in a massive AoE mayhem and destroy everything.

Essentially you’re still trying to dismiss simple facts with gimmicky examples.

Here’s an example of how the game currently is:
- Player A takes 5 seconds to stack 25 Bleed, and then enemy dies in 5 seconds due to Condition Damage (10 seconds total). Enemy can remove the conditions to prevent getting killed.
- Player B kills enemy in 8 seconds with direct damage due to crits and crit damage multiplier. Enemy can’t do anything about it once the damage has been dealt.

- 5 players take 1 second to stack 25 Bleed, and then enemy dies in 4 seconds due to Condition Damage plus mediocre direct damage. Enemy can remove the conditions to prevent getting killed.
- 5 players kill enemy in 2 seconds with direct damage due to crits and crit damage multiplier. Enemy can’t do anything about it once the damage has been dealt.

I have discovered the one flaw in this suggestion with the help of a player in game.
While the damage per second would remain roughly the same, there would be a loss of burst.
Example (currently):
If you add a stack of 200 over 2 to a stack of 800 over 8, you’ll do 400 over 2 while the 2 stacks overlap, and then the remaining 600 over 6.
Example (suggested):
You’d do 200+800 over 2*0.2 + 8*0.8 seconds = 1000 over 6.8, wich would have similar damage per second, but lower burst.
So in the first 2 seconds, you’d do 312.5 damage, instead of 400, since the damage is spread across the full duration rather than concentrated in the start.

Very good suggestion. I hate how things get buried in the suggestion forum, though

Was directed to this from a different forum.

Seeing as how I’m still forced to play a direct damage role thanks to bleed cap in dungeons I think this thread needs another ride to the top of the list. Some thought needs to go into conditions. When playing solo they work well and are an enjoyable aspect of the game. When used in groups they are worthless as most classes apply bleeds passivly and cap out the stacks causing any player specced for conditions to lose most of their dps and contribute very little to the group.

Indeed, Spencer.1386.
That’s precicely what I attempt to address.

It also affects more than just Bleeds and Confusion – Burning and Poison are affected by the current situation as well, because if 2 apply Poison, they queue after each other, and you may never get your part of the poison to deal its damage at all (enemy dies, or dispels)

Vorch.2985:

Very good suggestion. I hate how things get buried in the suggestion forum, though

Was directed to this from a different forum.

Wich forum, might I ask?

The biggest problem with conditions stacking that I see is how other condition builds are penalized severely whether it be from unintentional bleed/poison/burn from just a skill that happens to apply those or from other condition builds. On my cond thief between caltrops and DB I can hit 18-20 stacks of bleed and maintain. Add dagger storm and I get over 20 stacks just on my own. Now bring 1 other condition build either being weak or strong and try having them stack along side me. They get crippled for trying and thats the brick wall we hit as a condition build. Necro’s are the king (or queen) of conditions and they show that off in spvp and wvw being very useful. But for things that stack in intensity anyone else running a condition build is doing just about nothing.

Allowing your own stacks would not only harm the servers more (they take bandwidth) but also make condition builds too strong. But reading this thread and I think this idea is very plausible. It ups their damage based on intensity mixed with duration and atleast 25 (a reasonable amount) players can stack their bleeds and confusion and w/e else.

Now if only thieves had access to a burn….O.o

It’s simply a bad mechanic at the moment.
Condition damage seems designed for soloing, dungeons and to some extent sPvP – but that’s it.

My suggestion, even if not perfect, would be an improvement.

8 months ago and still no changes. I am sad panda.

Spencer.1386:

Seeing as how I’m still forced to play a direct damage role thanks to bleed cap in dungeons I think this thread needs another ride to the top of the list. Some thought needs to go into conditions.

Yep. Arenanet does not have to use the suggestion of this thread, but they have to recognise the problem and they’ve to offer a solution.

NinjaEd.3946:

Allowing your own stacks would not only harm the servers more (they take bandwidth) but also make condition builds too strong.

If conditions stack proportionally to the number of players applying them and each individual application is limited to 5 targets, it’s not imba, it’s the same way direct damage is handled.

And bandwith is not an excuse, if there is a will, there’s a way (e.g. don’t update a bleed tick with the current condition damage of the source, that would save bandwith, no?). And if necessary, overhaul the entire system . And if there’s no obvious solution, split the system for pve and the rest, so that I can bring a condition build into a dungeon group and to a world boss without worries.

My suggestion is an obvious solution.
If they can’t find a better one, just implement mine. There are no meaningful downsides to it, neither from gameplay nor coding perspectives.

This may sound arrogant, but it’s the simple truth.
If anyone sees flaws in my suggestion, please share them.

But don’t start with hyperbole crap, please.

Simplicity.7208:

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How would your solution work with burning or poison that can only have one source? In the case of two people using burning/poison, the one with the higher condition stat erases all damage done by the person with the lower condition stat. It removes their burning/poison damage and simply puts theirs in its place. The only reason I think this isn’t the #1 problem is because bleed is a more common type of condition than burning.

Also, you realize that a great number of DD builds have bleeding as a secondary effect? Warriors bleed on crit 33% of the time (my warrior bleeds on crit 100% of the time due to weapon runes) and my warrior has a 70%ish crit chance. So my DD warrior gets a condition slot in your solution, even though her conditions barely hit for any damage and have a very short duration? What about the other 20 people that may proc conditions with their own DD builds? They all get condition “slots” as well? Capping at 25 condition sources has many problems and ignores confusion, burning, and poison. But it’s the best solution I’ve seen yet.

EDIT: A thought occurred…How about this; if you hit a monster that’s at 25 stacks of bleeding then either all or some portion of the condition damage you would’ve done from your “blocked” bleed is dealt immediately? This would mean excessive amounts of condition users wouldn’t be working against each other as your bleed damage would be converted to DD until the stacks start to go down, at which point you start applying conditions again.

EDIT2: You misspelled “solution.” Thought I’d bring that up.

Assuming the stack cap is 25, then a single creature can 25 stacks of each condition at any given time (we are talking about damage conditions):
25 stacks of bleed
25 stacks of confusion
25 stacks of burn
25 stacks of poison

- Each player can own 1 stack of each condition.
Assuming I apply all 4 damage conditions, it means that among those 4×25 stacks, I own 1 bleed, 1 confusion, 1 burn and 1 poison.
- Your own Bleed and Confusion stacks grow in potency as you apply more stacks to them – wich are combined into the 1 stack you own, in the way I suggest.
- Burn and Poison merely grow in duration as you apply more stacks to them – wich are combined into the 1 stack you own, in the way I suggest.

Nurvus.2891:

My suggestion is an obvious solution.
If they can’t find a better one, just implement mine. There are no meaningful downsides to it, neither from gameplay nor coding perspectives.

This may sound arrogant, but it’s the simple truth.
If anyone sees flaws in my suggestion, please share them.

Yeah … simply the truth. You’re definite. Everything is as you say.

Talking about flaws.

Nurvus.2891:

Suggested Mechanics

1. There is still a maximum number of stacks (can stay 25).
2. Each player owns 1 stack, wich makes it fair for everyone when there happen to be multiple condition builds

So, the 26th+ player is not allowed to cause conditions …

Nurvus.2891:

Example:
- You apply a 20 damage over 5 seconds bleed.
- It does 4 damage per second
- 3 seconds later (3×4=12 damage done), 8 damage and 2 seconds remain.
- At this point you apply another 20 damage over 5 seconds bleed.
- It will add the remaining 8 damage to the new 20 = 28.
- Since 8 is 35% of 28 and 20 is 65% of 28, it will add 35% of 2 seconds to 65% of 5 seconds = 3.95 seconds.
If it simply added the durations, you’d lose Damage per Second everytime you applied a new effect.
If it simply used the the new duration, you’d gain Damage per Second by applying a shorter duration effect.

Current system:

• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• 2s @ 8 dmg each
• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• total of 8s with total of 40 dmg

Your suggestion:

• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• 5.95s @ 4.706 dmg each
• total of 8.95s with total of 40 dmg

So … inflicting bleeding while the target bleeds gives a penalty. … Let’s exaggerate it a bit: Imagine you deal 10x a 10s bleed of 1000 dmg (10 skills x 10 ticks x 100 dmg) at the very same time.

Current system:

• 10s @ (10x 100=) 1000 dmg
• total of 10s with total of 10000 dmg

Your system:

• 3811.65s with total of 10,000 dmg, so @ 2.624 dmg/s
• total of 3811.65s with total of 10000 dmg

Flawless system. It’d just decrease your D/S by factor 381. And btw. its not just exponentially, even the factor slowly increases. If you’d manage 20 skills (20 times 1000 dmg over 10s), you’d reach a duration of 3,892,934 seconds … 45d of bleeding with a summed damage of 20,000. Be patient my necro.

And at the same time, it’d increase the stress of the server due to recalculating the duration and the additional stacks once there are more then 25 players. (and for duration stacking increased stress for more than 1 person).

I didn’t mean to say my idea is flawless, merely that it’s a clear improvement.
Your sarcasm just makes you look bad.

Nretep.2564:

Talking about flaws.

Nurvus.2891:

Suggested Mechanics

1. There is still a maximum number of stacks (can stay 25).
2. Each player owns 1 stack, wich makes it fair for everyone when there happen to be multiple condition builds

So, the 26th+ player is not allowed to cause conditions …

It’s better than the 3rd player not being allowed to cause conditions.
25 stacks is hypotetical – I am merely assuming a limit is needed for the sake of server performance.

Nretep.2564:

Nurvus.2891:

Example:
- You apply a 20 damage over 5 seconds bleed.
- It does 4 damage per second
- 3 seconds later (3×4=12 damage done), 8 damage and 2 seconds remain.
- At this point you apply another 20 damage over 5 seconds bleed.
- It will add the remaining 8 damage to the new 20 = 28.
- Since 8 is 35% of 28 and 20 is 65% of 28, it will add 35% of 2 seconds to 65% of 5 seconds = 3.95 seconds.
If it simply added the durations, you’d lose Damage per Second everytime you applied a new effect.
If it simply used the the new duration, you’d gain Damage per Second by applying a shorter duration effect.

Current system:

• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• 2s @ 8 dmg each
• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• total of 8s with total of 40 dmg

Your suggestion:

• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• 5.95s @ 4.706 dmg each
• total of 8.95s with total of 40 dmg

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So … inflicting bleeding while the target bleeds gives a penalty. … Let’s exaggerate it a bit: Imagine you deal 10x a 10s bleed of 1000 dmg (10 skills x 10 ticks x 100 dmg) at the very same time.

Current system:

• 10s @ (10x 100=) 1000 dmg
• total of 10s with total of 10000 dmg

Your system:

• 3811.65s with total of 10,000 dmg, so @ 2.624 dmg/s
• total of 3811.65s with total of 10000 dmg

Flawless system. It’d just decrease your D/S by factor 381. And btw. its not just exponentially, even the factor slowly increases. If you’d manage 20 skills (20 times 1000 dmg over 10s), you’d reach a duration of 3,892,934 seconds … 45d of bleeding with a summed damage of 20,000. Be patient my necro.

And at the same time, it’d increase the stress of the server due to recalculating the duration and the additional stacks once there are more then 25 players. (and for duration stacking increased stress for more than 1 person).

It looks like you flawlessly misread my suggestion.

You presented a situation that is in no way affected by my suggestion, since – in your example – the various stacks are applied only after the previous expires.
Furthermore, you even changed the rules between the “current” and “your suggestion” examples.

Current system – Here you assume you mean they add one after another:

• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• 2s @ 8 dmg each
• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• total of 8s with total of 40 dmg
  This example doesn’t “overlap” stacks so it has no bearing on my suggestion.
  It simply does damage like so: 4-4-4-8-8-4-4-4.

As for your interpretation of my suggestion:

• 3s @ 4 dmg each
• 5.95s @ 4.706 dmg each
• total of 8.95s with total of 40 dmg

Here you suddenly somehow assume the 2nd and 3rd stacks applied simultaneously, and you even calculate it wrong. How did you do that?

How about you present a situation where stacks actually overlap?
I presented one in my suggestion.

Read it properly this time?

Nurvus.2891:

I didn’t mean to say my idea is flawless, merely that it’s a clear improvement.
Your sarcasm just makes you look bad.

Yeah, and even discovered flaws must be “mistakes”. Your system must be flawless, by definition.

Nurvus.2891:

It’s better than the 3rd player not being allowed to cause conditions.
25 stacks is hypotetical – I am merely assuming a limit is needed for the sake of server performance.

Indeed, even two players can reach the current stack limit, but they don’t completely cancel each other out. Even the 5th necromancer can manage to deal some conditions. With your system, the 26+th players is not allowed to deal any condition. So if the first 25 players are zerker warriors without any condition, even the 26th player is not allowed to deal them.

Nurvus.2891:

It looks like you flawlessly misread my suggestion.

I looks like you flawlessly ignored your own flaws. And you didn’t even notice the “how the current system works” and instead complained that it’s not what you suggested … You didn’t even realize that the new stack only has a single tick. Two bleeds combine and cause a single tick of doubled damage. They do overlap …

But yeah, you are right, I made the % values from the durations, you explained them from damage. So correction my miscalculation in the second example (the first is still right), you’d get 10,000 bleeding damage over 2833.2s instead of 3100. And with 20 times the skill, it’d be 23.9 months instead of 45.

Your suggestion is, that the stack is based on “source”, “damage left” and “duration left” instead of the current system “source” and “duration left” for each stack. (Let’s ignore that in your system the condition damage is not live, but static.) You add the “damage left” from the new skill and portion the old “duration left” with the new “duration left”. As you correctly said, using the old “duration left” would drastically increase the D/S of durations and using the new “duration left” would drastically lower your D/S as long as you keep stacking. If you’d stop the stacking or insert a limit, you’d get the same D/S as the current system (given infinite time).

To explain your own example with my notation

• Start with 0 bleedings, so “0 damage left” and “0 duration left”

1. inflict bleeding with 20Dmg and 5s, so the stack goes “20 dmgL” and “5 durL” – dmg per tick is DmgL/DurL = 4 d/t
2. three seconds later, it becomes “8 dmgL” and “2 durL”, since it ticked for a total of 12 damage and 3s
3. you inflict another bleeding with 20Dmg and 5s, the stack has to be recalculated:
   the new “dmgL” is the sum of the current and the new, so 8 + 20 = “28 dmgL”
   the new “durL” is the sum of the old and the portioned new (2s + (8dmg/28dmg * 2s) + (20dmg/28dmg * 5s) = 2s + 0.571s + 3.571s =) 6.143s
   Note to myself: Don’t trust Nurvus when he’s doing simple divisions. 8 is 28.5% of 28 and not 35%.
4. So the stack’s new properties are “28 dmgL” and “6.1 durL” which means d/t is 4.56
5. for the remaining 6.1s the stack ticks for 4.56 dmg/tick dealing total of 28s
6. the whole scenario took (3s + 6.1s =) 9.1s and dealt a total of 28 damage. The current system also deals a total of 28 dmg, but within (3s + 5s =) 8s.

To calculate the 10x example for you, since you didn’t understand it.

• Start with 0 bleedings, so “0 damage left” and “0 duration left”

1. 1st bleeding with 100 d/t and 10s duration; stack has “1000 dmgL” and “10 durL”
2. 2nd bleeding with 100 d/t and 10s duration; stack has “2000 dmgL” and “20 durL” – fine for this
3. 3rd bleeding with 100 d/t and 10s duration; stack has “3000 dmgL” and “36.67 durL” – something happend. Because the old stack had higher “dmgL” the new stacks get a bigger part of the 20s than the new 10s …
   combined_durL = old_durL + old_durL * old_dmgL/(old_dmgL + new_dmgL) + new_durL * new_dmgL/(old_dmgL + new_dmgL) = 36.67s
4. 4th bld; stack has “4000 dmgL” and “66.67 durL” – it happend again. The old stack has 3000 dmgL which is three times more than the new bleeding, so the old duration means more.
5. 5th bld with 100 d/t and 10s duration; stack has “5000 dmgL” and “122 durL”
6. 6th bld; stack has “6000 dmgL” and “225.3 durL”
7. 7th bld; stack has “7000 dmgL” and “419.9 durL”
8. 8th bld; stack has “8000 dmgL” and “788.6 durL”
9. 9th bld; stack has “9000 dmgL” and “1490.6 durL”
10. 10th bld; stack has “10,000 dmgL” and “2833.2 durL”

Now please tell me how you didn’t say “add the both portions to the previous ‘duration left’”.

20 damage over 5 seconds.
3 seconds later, 8 seconds left and 2 seconds left.
Another 20 damage over 5 seconds is added.
The duration will become smaller than 5 seconds.

Because I said the new duration is the PROPORTION of the Old + PROPORTION of the New.
You don’t add the full Old duration. Where did you read that?

Here’s how it goes:
8 damage is truly ~28.6% of 28, my mistake there.
20 is also ~71.4% of 28.
You add 28.6% of 2s = 0.572s
and 71.4% of 5s = 3,57s
for a total of 4,142s
So you get a new stack that deals 28 damage over 4,142s = ~6.76 DPS

I hope this helps correct your incredibly hyperbolic calculations.
A small misinterpretation somtimes leads to extremely wrong conclusions.

I’m pretty sure I read it at least thrice. You said you’d add both portions to the new one. I didn’t understood why you did this. Pretty much to not overpower conditions, that’s why I read it multiple times.

Well, with your “new” suggestion, I’ve simulated my exaggeration. If you have the same properties (10x 10s @ 100 dmg/tick) you get the same result as the current system. Regardless of duration and damage you always get an acceptable result as long as you inflict them all at the same time. Then I moved the time of infliction to 5s after another and after the fifth infliction, you get somewhat steady results. Meaning the damage becomes constant and you add 5 seconds every 5 seconds.

Example, you inflict 20x bleeding. Start with the first at t=0 and continue to inflict one every 5s. Each bleeding has a 10s duration and a raw damage of 1000.

Current system:
- duration: 105s; damage 20,000.

Your suggestion:
- duration: 102.5s; damage 20,000.

I suppose the difference is negligible. This way you’d have a system which only needs one stack. But since you need to credit the damage to a player, each player would need his own one. The management of the stack would be quite heavier, but the application faster. Fractions of seconds are still not discussed, but probably in favor with your system.

But it doesn’t completely solve the issue. While the management is heavier, you’d need to lower the stacks to like 20. So 20 players can cause bleeding (and shift accordingly) but what about the others?

In short, your system:
- limits bleeding to ~20 players
- doesn’t solve duration stacking conditions
- would overpower vulnerability
- would overpower Epidemic (as every suggestion)
- would make condition damage static – means only calculated upon infliction, not “live”
- would make confusion slightly weaker due to duration leaks
- wouldn’t lower server stress

But would probably give those 20 players a bit fairer chance to deal damage.

My system does solve duration stacking conditions.

As I said:
1 – Each player owns 1 stack of each damage condition type.
1.1 – This means 1 burn and 1 poison per player
1.2 – The poison “heal reduction” does not stack.
2 – The calculation I use for the new Stack is called Weighted Average.
2.1 – What you were doing wrong in your calculations was that you were indeed weighting the new duration, but using the full old duration.
I didn’t change my suggestion after you posted.
You did misread that little bit.
3 – Not everyone knows this, but every stack of every condition is handled individually. This means the game tracks the timers of up to 25 stacks of each condition, and dynamically calculates to reflect your stats at all times.

My suggestion doesn’t increase the number of stacks being handled. It merely adds a quick calculation.
The stacks could be lowered to 20 per creature – it would still be a massive improvement over what we currently have.

Currently, 1 player can max out 25 stacks of bleed for a few seconds.
Two players easily maintain 25 stacks, but already penalize each other since a single player can easily maintain over 15 stacks.
This means the 3rd player and beyond are completely screwed.

3.1 – Even less people know this – Burn and Poison are also handled in tiny stacks “queued” one after another, each stack with its own duration.
So if you apply 5 times Burn, the game is handling 5 stacks of Burn, each with its own duration.

With my suggestion, since each player owns a single stack of Burn and Poison, whenever you add more Burn or Poison, it merely adds duration to your own stack.

4 – With my suggestion, without increasing the number of stacks or timers being handled, I multiply the amount of players that can fully cooprate in terms of condition damage without penalizing each other by more than 10.

However, practically speaking, it’s not likely for there to be 25 players applying burn, poison, bleed and confusion – even with the help of Combo Fields.

Wich means that in most situations, there will be less stacks of damage Conditions being handled by the server at a time, than we currently have.

5 – I’ll tell you what the main flaw – in terms of gameplay – of my suggestion is.
It doesn’t offer the same burst damage that the current system does.

Currently, if you apply a 6s Bleed and 2s later (4s left) another 2s Bleed, your new 2s Bleed will take 2s to deal its full damage – ending 2 second before the 6s Bleed – while in my suggestion, it would “mix & dilute” into a duration somewhere between 4 and 2.

But it might not entirely be a flaw, as that “burst potential” that condition damage has might – arguably – be one of the problems that needs to be solved.
If such is the case, what I consider a potential flaw, might actually be a quality instead.

It’s a more drastic change compared to the current system than you think.

Burning and poison would deal multiple times more damage then, since it’d tick for each player. It’s a design choice to allow this or not. And probably even worse with vulnerability.
I’m not sure if a single source dealing 10x 1s of burning will be treated as individual stacks or added in duration. The later one would reduce the stress without any drawback.

Yes, duration stacking have their own stacks even if not shown. Pretty much like you said, it can be described as “time slots”. But we don’t know if a single player uses up multiple of those. Your system would also require more management here.

No, your system does not allow dynamic malice. Once you add one bleeding the malice will applied once and the “duration left” and “damage left” will be calculated. While it’s ticking, there can’t be a refresh. This is also a design choice, unlikely to be wanted by the developers. As discussed in another thread, simply making the current system to a static malice system would reduce the stress and allow more stacks.

Conditions aren’t meant to deal burst damages. While your system would negate the “overlapping bleedings add”, it would reduce the total time of bleeding by a small amount (given finite time) – as I explained earlier.

As I said before, I don’t like systems which would increase the stack size a bit, since it’d just make you hit the next wall. In that future other players will also complain about the cap and make further suggestions to “slightly optimize” the condition stacking. The main problem “server can’t handle it” or “limited by technical difficulties” will not go away.
Yes, your system might make it a bit better, but not solve the main problem, especially once you have 21 bleeder on a world boss. I’d agree with making burn and poison the way you suggested, so everyone can deal his own damage (not being pushed around by stronger ones), but that’s also a design choice. Developers might not like that, since it’s duration stacking for a reason.
Your system might slightly optimize the bleeding, but would just hit the next wall. There are other suggestions which would make the whole cap problem void. Like I suggested before, to turn a full stack into direct damage. Period. It’d also only work with a partial static malice system and would be difficult with confusion, but would solve the rest.

My suggestion only applies to damage conditions and Regeneration.

Adding more effectiveness to the damage portion of Poison and Burn is not a bad thing, as currently both the Fire COmbo Field and the various Burn skills are extremely lack luster.
No one truly focuses on Fire – it’s always a secondary damage source, and a blanket condition for PvP.
Guardians that bother with fire is mostly for the Runes/Traits that grant extra damage against enemies with condition/burn.

The purpose of my suggestion is simple: Make condition damage system solid, intuitive and reward teamwork, rather than penalizing it.

Just throwing it in there, condition damage is not supposed to burst, and it is not the same as direct damage. Please stop comparing the two as they are the same.

Spectre.6452:

Just throwing it in there, condition damage is not supposed to burst, and it is not the same as direct damage. Please stop comparing the two as they are the same.

Stop misreading, then.

I said the way condition damage works NOW, actually is somewhat bursty.
If you don’t understand why, sorry but I’m not going to explain again, read above.
My suggestion removes whatever burst there is from condition damage.

Nurvus.2891:

Spectre.6452:

Just throwing it in there, condition damage is not supposed to burst, and it is not the same as direct damage. Please stop comparing the two as they are the same.

Stop misreading, then.

I said the way condition damage works NOW, actually is somewhat bursty.
If you don’t understand why, sorry but I’m not going to explain again, read above.
My suggestion removes whatever burst there is from condition damage.

I was referring to something I read earlier, someone mentioned that condition damage is inferior to direct damage, as conditions can be cleansed. Direct and condition damage kills enemies in different ways, therefore it is harder to compare them.
But I agree on your points that condition damage is not satisfying enough in some ways.

As for what you said now, I don’t think I’m following you. I have played condition specced thief for quite a while now, and never have I bursted someone down with bleeds. After my own experience bleeds are a constant flow of damage.

Oh, I see you were commenting on someone’s suggestion to make 25 stacks just deal a bunch of direct damage in one go.
My apologies, then.

As for what I said about current Conditions being bursty, I meant that when you apply them, they all act simultaneously, instead of coalescing into a single DoT.

An example – 5 stacks of Bleed are applied to you:
0:00 – 20 over 5s
0:01 – 8 over 2s
0:02 – 8 over 2s
0:02 – 20 over 5s
0:03 – 20 over 5s

As a result, this is the damage you see – assuming 1 tick per second:
0:01 – 4 = 4
0:02 – 4 + 4 = 8
0:03 – 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 16
0:04 – 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 16
0:05 – 4 + 4 + 4 = 12
0:06 – 4 + 4 = 8
0:07 – 4 + 4 = 8
0:08 – 4 = 4

This means you have periods of high damage, based on the different durations of the various stacks.

My suggestion doesn’t do that.
Instead, it goes more like this – since the damage adds and spreads evenly across the new duration.

0:01 – 4
0:02 – 7
0:03 – 13
…
Essentially, everytime a new stack is added, its damage and durations are adjusted into a new stack with evenly spread damage.

And Nretep, the “wall” you speak of is always there, in one way or another.
Either you get a somewhat broken system, with no “apparent” wall – and the fact that it is broken, is the wall itself; or you get a balanced system with walls that may (or not) slightly affect you in specific situations.

I suppose all of this problem only exists because ANet wants to track the contribution each player has towards each enemy, in order to determine rewards and threat.
So unless you throw that out the window, and risk breaking other parts of the game, then the solution to condition stacking isn’t that easy.

I just believe my solution works, and doesn’t require huge changes – neither to the game itself, nor to the way players use condition builds .

Nurvus.2891:

Oh, I see you were commenting on someone’s suggestion to make 25 stacks just deal a bunch of direct damage in one go.
My apologies, then.

As for what I said about current Conditions being bursty, I meant that when you apply them, they all act simultaneously, instead of coalescing into a single DoT.

An example – 5 stacks of Bleed are applied to you:
0:00 – 20 over 5s
0:01 – 8 over 2s
0:02 – 8 over 2s
0:02 – 20 over 5s
0:03 – 20 over 5s

As a result, this is the damage you see – assuming 1 tick per second:
0:01 – 4 = 4
0:02 – 4 + 4 = 8
0:03 – 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 16
0:04 – 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 16
0:05 – 4 + 4 + 4 = 12
0:06 – 4 + 4 = 8
0:07 – 4 + 4 = 8
0:08 – 4 = 4

This means you have periods of high damage, based on the different durations of the various stacks.

My suggestion doesn’t do that.
Instead, it goes more like this – since the damage adds and spreads evenly across the new duration.

0:01 – 4
0:02 – 7
0:03 – 13
…
Essentially, everytime a new stack is added, its damage and durations are adjusted into a new stack with evenly spread damage.

And Nretep, the “wall” you speak of is always there, in one way or another.
Either you get a somewhat broken system, with no “apparent” wall – and the fact that it is broken, is the wall itself; or you get a balanced system with walls that may (or not) slightly affect you in specific situations.

I suppose all of this problem only exists because ANet wants to track the contribution each player has towards each enemy, in order to determine rewards and threat.
So unless you throw that out the window, and risk breaking other parts of the game, then the solution to condition stacking isn’t that easy.

I just believe my solution works, and doesn’t require huge changes – neither to the game itself, nor to the way players use condition builds .

I understand what you mean now. But it does not change the fact that bleeds and other conditions will always be a constant flow of damage, if reapplied constantly. But you are still right in some way. 25 stacks of bleeding will empty someones health pretty quickly if not dealt with(but still, this is constant compared to direct damage).

I agree that conditions needs some rework, as long as it is not by just increasing the bleed stacks.

The whole idea isn’t to buff condition damage from any single source but to allow multiple condition users to apply their damage. If 5 players attack a target with direct damage all of them deal 100% of their damage to the target. If 5 players attack the same target using only condition damage then only 1.5 of them actually deal any damage due to the bleed cap and the way poison and burning work. Nurvus is just trying to level the playing field by making both damage types viable.

Luisedgm.2375:

I don’t even care how it is fixed, i just want to have a viable condition build!

yeah me too as a mesmer i have now with 1.7k condition dmg…a condition that tickles the enemy and doesnt stack due to bb nerf and he socalled bugfix…bye bye confusion and the rest of conditions is pretty much rng based…anet, sry but change it. this is terribleand i think EVERY single class should have a viable condition. and with viable i mean strong enough, so i don’t need to be forced into a dps with a little bit condi build, i wan A REAL CONDITION BUILD!

selan.8354:

Luisedgm.2375:

I don’t even care how it is fixed, i just want to have a viable condition build!

yeah me too as a mesmer i have now with 1.7k condition dmg…a condition that tickles the enemy and doesnt stack due to bb nerf and he socalled bugfix…bye bye confusion and the rest of conditions is pretty much rng based…anet, sry but change it. this is terribleand i think EVERY single class should have a viable condition. and with viable i mean strong enough, so i don’t need to be forced into a dps with a little bit condi build, i wan A REAL CONDITION BUILD!

I’m starting to get this feeling, that it is not condition builds in general that are unviable, but certain build paths on certain professions. I have tried condition damage thief for a long time now, and with much success(it was fun too). Most people who complain on the conditions being underpowered are usually necromancers or mesmers. I think the problem is within those two classes, rather than the conditions themselves.

I’m not sure where you are getting at, because confusion still stacks in intensity. Confusion was nerfed with good reason. And what do you mean conditions are rng based?

Spectre.6452:

selan.8354:

Luisedgm.2375:

I don’t even care how it is fixed, i just want to have a viable condition build!

yeah me too as a mesmer i have now with 1.7k condition dmg…a condition that tickles the enemy and doesnt stack due to bb nerf and he socalled bugfix…bye bye confusion and the rest of conditions is pretty much rng based…anet, sry but change it. this is terribleand i think EVERY single class should have a viable condition. and with viable i mean strong enough, so i don’t need to be forced into a dps with a little bit condi build, i wan A REAL CONDITION BUILD!

I’m starting to get this feeling, that it is not condition builds in general that are unviable, but certain build paths on certain professions. I have tried condition damage thief for a long time now, and with much success(it was fun too). Most people who complain on the conditions being underpowered are usually necromancers or mesmers. I think the problem is within those two classes, rather than the conditions themselves.

I’m not sure where you are getting at, because confusion still stacks in intensity. Confusion was nerfed with good reason. And what do you mean conditions are rng based?

it dosent stack well at all. as bb was nerfed and that was 1 of the major traits that mad confusion stack.then with rng based i mean stuff like chaosstorm that applies something random which i cant control, traits that cause a random condition when shattered and a sigil that applies a random boon. mesmers have nothing apart from confusion. thieves have poison and i have seen a pretty good bleed build. if u spec into glams as a mesmers u have no power and or anything else that will hit viably, but that was a choice we made. we gave up power to deal condition dmg.

selan.8354:

Spectre.6452:

selan.8354:

Luisedgm.2375:

I don’t even care how it is fixed, i just want to have a viable condition build!

yeah me too as a mesmer i have now with 1.7k condition dmg…a condition that tickles the enemy and doesnt stack due to bb nerf and he socalled bugfix…bye bye confusion and the rest of conditions is pretty much rng based…anet, sry but change it. this is terribleand i think EVERY single class should have a viable condition. and with viable i mean strong enough, so i don’t need to be forced into a dps with a little bit condi build, i wan A REAL CONDITION BUILD!

I’m starting to get this feeling, that it is not condition builds in general that are unviable, but certain build paths on certain professions. I have tried condition damage thief for a long time now, and with much success(it was fun too). Most people who complain on the conditions being underpowered are usually necromancers or mesmers. I think the problem is within those two classes, rather than the conditions themselves.

I’m not sure where you are getting at, because confusion still stacks in intensity. Confusion was nerfed with good reason. And what do you mean conditions are rng based?

it dosent stack well at all. as bb was nerfed and that was 1 of the major traits that mad confusion stack.then with rng based i mean stuff like chaosstorm that applies something random which i cant control, traits that cause a random condition when shattered and a sigil that applies a random boon. mesmers have nothing apart from confusion. thieves have poison and i have seen a pretty good bleed build. if u spec into glams as a mesmers u have no power and or anything else that will hit viably, but that was a choice we made. we gave up power to deal condition dmg.

So the problem lies within the mesmers class, which does not have any viable condition damage builds. But I don’t know, maybe Anet don’t want mesmers to have a huge condition damage build outside confusions. For example, Guardians do not have a viable condition damage build either. But of course as Guardian that’s not something you would want to spec into. I guess if you want a viable condition build on mesmer you need to make posts in the mesmer forum.

Anything to break the PvE meta away from Berserker>All is a welcome change in my oppinion. In PvP conditions are in a good shape because they only need 1 stat to get maximum damage. That leaves the rest of the stat allocation open for defensive stats.

So if this suggestion is not taken into consideration at least change the way condition stacking works in PvE.

Allow me to correct you, JorneMormel.

You are correct when you say direct damage has more available stats for damage dealing.

Condition Damage, however, for quite a few Professions, uses Precision as means to proc Bleeds – wich is one of the main damage dealers among Conditions.
So Condition Damage has 2 stats, rather than 1.
Still, it means you can be more defensive than direct damage dealers while dealing your maximum damage.

That being said, I believe all Professions should have access to stackable Conditions – I’ve suggested the Forsaken condition in another thread, wich would be available to Guardians, Mesmers and Necromancers.

Nurvus.2891:

And Nretep, the “wall” you speak of is always there, in one way or another.
Either you get a somewhat broken system, with no “apparent” wall – and the fact that it is broken, is the wall itself; or you get a balanced system with walls that may (or not) slightly affect you in specific situations.

[…]

I just believe my solution works, and doesn’t require huge changes – neither to the game itself, nor to the way players use condition builds .

As I said, just make a full stack deal its damage instantly. It’d even encourage teamplay in a five man team, like “common, we’re at 23, just dish out your bleeds”. It’d barely interfer with the current system (dynamic malice) and it’d greatly reduce the stress for parties. It’d keep the stress at world bosses, since you have to convert the stack and continuously reapply bleeds from players, but it wouldn’t limit anyone.

Yet, for all systems Epidemic needs to be changed. It’d not be completely overpowered for my suggestion (as it would with any other), but still be.

Spectre.6452:

I’m not sure where you are getting at, because confusion still stacks in intensity. Confusion was nerfed with good reason. And what do you mean conditions are rng based?

Originally Confusion was set to be balanced between PvE and PvP. But later the balancing team decided that it’s too strong in PvP and nerfed it there. But … were’s the balancing in PvE ? Confusion is horribly underpowered there …

Nurvus.2891:

That being said, I believe all Professions should have access to stackable Conditions – I’ve suggested the Forsaken condition in another thread, wich would be available to Guardians, Mesmers and Necromancers.

I don’t think any class should be able to do everything. I prefer systems where you specialize classes, but ANet doesn’t want that. Only zerker shall be viable.

I simply disagree with your “burst damage” idea as a fix.
It’s alot more than a healthy encouragement to teamplay – it heavily encourages build stacking.
Condition Damage is usually higher than direct damage, but dealt slowly.
With your idea, you’d eventually see everyone stacking Bleed builds and exploding targets from afar in a couple seconds.

It would certainly be awesome as a specific profession’s perk – like your Elementalist able to cause a Conflagration for X% of your current Burning stack’s total damage, every time the stack reaches Ys – or a multiple of Y, or something.

My suggestion doesn’t change the way players use conditions.
It doesn’t change the way players use the UI.
It doesn’t change almost anything, while allowing more than 10 times the current amount of players from contributing with condition damage, and allowing players to actually focus on burn or poison.

“I don’t think any class should be able to do everything.”
I sympathize with the notion, but that’s not what I suggest, anyway.
I am merely saying all classes should not only have access to but be competitive with all damage archetypes (condition and direct damage) – that’s not the same as doing everything.

You can put into a game 50 builds focused in the same type of damage, and they can all have fundamentally different playstyles and flavors.
So it’s irrelevant whether a profession has access to condition damage and/or direct damage – it is not directly related to its flavor or uniqueness.

Zerker is the strongest because it’s the only combination of 3 stats that multiply each other.
You have power multiplied by crit, wich is then multiplied by prowess.
Other combinations of stats often have 1 multiplicative stat, and 2 additive (example: power+condition damage + precision).
This also means Berserker is weaker at low gear tiers – since the exponential growth curve means exponentially weaker startup.

That’s why I suggest – in another thread linked in my signature – that they change a few things regarding stats.
Make sure to check it out.

Nretep.2564:

Nurvus.2891:

That being said, I believe all Professions should have access to stackable Conditions – I’ve suggested the Forsaken condition in another thread, wich would be available to Guardians, Mesmers and Necromancers.

I don’t think any class should be able to do everything. I prefer systems where you specialize classes, but ANet doesn’t want that. Only zerker shall be viable.

If dondition mesmer stacked 25 confusion (and a little bit of other conditions), condition necro stacked 25 torment (and a little bit of other conditions), and condition thief 25 poison (and …) and so on, at least different professions could team up without interference. Would need a rework of current skills though. But would be cool if condition builds would be different accross professions by focusing on different conditions more strongly.

Anyway, simplest solution would be to remove the caps in PvE. Any problems with that?

Spectre.6452:

I’m starting to get this feeling, that it is not condition builds in general that are unviable, but certain build paths on certain professions. I have tried condition damage thief for a long time now, and with much success(it was fun too). Most people who complain on the conditions being underpowered are usually necromancers or mesmers. I think the problem is within those two classes, rather than the conditions themselves.

I’m not sure where you are getting at, because confusion still stacks in intensity. Confusion was nerfed with good reason. And what do you mean conditions are rng based?

I play Condition Warrior and Necro. I would not say my damage output is too low, well only if I compare it with a full damage zerker, because that damage is ridiculous.
But that is said when I am running around solo. If you have ever played your thief in a group with two or more Condition DD you would know that you miss a lot of damage, because even the second one in the group loses damage. The rest of the condition DDs will only deal damage with autoattaks there are no stacks left for them.

I think Nurvus System isn’t that bad, well everything is better than what we have right now
Even in PvP and WvW this should be applied, because there we have the same problem with the stack limits. But you can have at least more than one Condition DD per team and be still effective. Right now, as mentioned, they stand in each other’s way. I think Conditions won’t be OP in PvP because of that change, because right now, they deal much less damage than a direct damage spect player. Yes it is constant damage without burst spikes and it will still hit you when the fight is over, but you need some time to get your full potential and beside Conditions can be blocked, dodged and missed (well, the skill that applies them) they also can be pretty easily removed.

Skills that multiply Conditions (i.e. Epidemic) would not be OP, because the will copy only the one Stack from one player and not from all. Yes I know that would be a big nerf because it will copy only a theoretically 10-15 Stack Bleed instead of 25, but it will be still very strong.

One thing that has to be balanced with Nurvus method is the condition remove. Is it fair to remove one Stack of bleed, in other words the Camage of 25 players or should it just remove 3 randomly selected stacks. Other method would be to reduce the stack damage by x%, …
This will be the hardest part to balance here.

@joules: I don’t like that idea to specialise classes to special conditions, because then you still have people blocking each other. And what about the Ele? What condition will he get?

I would like to see this implemented…or something. It’s shameful that Anet still won’t fix this.