Guild Wars 2

A very controversial topic, with not too many plans. From a forum moderator (couldn’t find the exact words or moderator name) it was stated that cond builds versus structures like turrets and walls was being worked on, and that they were working on a plan to help conditiion builds but there are two things that are difficult with enjoying them.

1- Conditions stacking intensity have a cap.
2- Condition removal is extremely OP, it removes the entire duration/stacks.

Simple raising the cap wouldn’t fully solve the issue, just push it away momentarily. And weakening cond removal to the ground would be very harmful to several professions who use traits/skills for it not to mention the numerous conditions that are highly effective as is. So now onto the suggestion. Either:

A. Effects upon placing 25 stacks on an enemy or a certain duration. After an enemy receives 25 stacks or set duration from a condition, they will have X seconds to remove that condition or a new effect will consume those stacks placing a un-removable condition on them. So to make things simpler:

-25 stacks of bleed/ if bleed is not removed in the next 3 seconds, you get [Deep wound] ; Unremovable/unblockable. 25 new stacks may be put on, deep wound deals X amount of damage for the next 6 seconds. (A proper formula to calculate an average damage of all the bleeds that added up to the 25 marker initiallly would be the idea. It isn’t pretty, especially if a non-cond build built up that 25 with a specialized cond build, but its something.) Basically those fighting a cond build will need to either stop the 25 stacks from reaching or wait till the 25 stacks are reached and remove the bleed. If someone under the effects of [Deep wound] gets 25 stacks again, same situation and if they don’t remove it another 6 seconds of [Deep Wound] are added (stacks in duration). If [Deep wound] is stopped by removing bleed, an immunity to [Deep wound] will be on that foe preventing them from gaining it again for 8 seconds.

- 30 seconds of poison, if not removed within 4 seconds, the foe will suffer from [Pestilence]. For the next 8 seconds, an unremovable poison will be on the foe. Since poison can stack in duration quite easily, once a foe recovers from [Pestilence] they gain immunity to it for the next 5 seconds (after it wears off, not on placement). Again like bleed, the damage will be the average of all the poisons adding up to the 30 seconds. Additionally, any ally of a target under the effects of [Pestilence] will get poisoned 2 seconds every second they are near the target. Range, perhaps 220 units. Make this a real plague

- 20 seconds of burn, if not removed within 3 seconds, the foe will be [Scorched]. For the next 4 seconds, they take the average of the burns durations stacking up to 20 seconds, and it is unremovable/unblockable, etc. (I’m not too familiar with burn so I’m not sure of an appropriate durations/limits to this. For burn, this is merely what I have knowledge of from watching others.) Upon being [Scorched], 20 seconds of burn are consumed and more burn can be placed. [Scorched] stacks in duration.

-Confusion I believe is fine because if you can actually reach 25 stacks over and over, they won’t really wana use a skill unless it is for condition removal (I bet a cond build stacking confusion can deal quite a lot if the enemy isn’t smart).

-Chill/vulnerability/fear/weakness/cripple/imobillized/ blind are fine as is. They simply don’t last long enough or stack to a point where it gets out of control for condition removal. Plus they are pretty effective anyways so…

B. ArenaNet, please share with us some of your ideas to fixing them. If the remaining condition builds see a light at the end of the tunnel maybe they will gain some hope and continue using them before they lose faith and get comfortable with direct damage.

The game is balanced around the ability to remove conditions and removing conditions is a large part of game play. I think it’s fine the way it is.

Condition stacking is a problem in PvE because it makes groups filled with classes built around condition damage much less effective and therefore less viable.

One simple solution to condition stacking in PvE is to make condition stacking beyond the duration or stack cap simply convert to direct damage. The amount of direct damage done can be tuned to fit the source in order to help find a balance for the new sources of damage.

Well if condition damage converted to direct damage, you still lose damage. Direct damage can be lowered by defensive stats, condition damage has no counter other than condition removal. In the post, no where did I suggest changing condition removal, simply stated it is a problem for some. What I did suggest, is condition removal be more skilled and timed rather than just whenever you want to. Basically you must use cond removals wisely or risk that secondary effect taking place.

I don’t know where this comes from.. the rate conditions are applied in PvP, PvE, and WvW are faster than someone, or some monster, can remove them. Unless you are a class that specializes in condition removal/mitigation (I.E. Mesmer/Guardian), or a build that does so, you won’t get rid of conditions easily. And normally by the time you remove one another five are ready to take it’s place.

I Play a condition based mesmer… and… the amount of chaos I reign with condtions is faster than I can see people removes them. Yet I come nowhere close to a condition based necromancer who has players/monsters bleeding out their ears every five or so seconds…

Well this comes from how many people notice a loss of damage when multiple condition builds are around. Direct damage isn’t capped to 1 person hitting 5k dps (just an example), but condition damage is capped in stacks, and duration. Condition removal completely removes either the stacks of a condition or the duration depending on the condition which is fine, although a bit powerful. Elementalists can easily remove conditions from traits/utility skills, guardian can as well, mesmer can as well, rangers can, almost all professions have very effective means to just make condition builds cry (if they try to atleast). Direct damage can be lowered by building more defensive stats such as toughness and vitality but they can still damage fairly well. Condition damage either does damage slowly, or it gets removed no matter how you wana look at it. I don’t think a set duration/stack effect is the best solution or the only solution, it would need to be expanded on for sure. But it needs to be addressed. The worst example of this is in large scale events where 25 stacks happens in a snap, look at all the damage the other condition builds are missing out on. Could just raise the stacks those bosses can have but that doesn’t address the pvp conflict for condition builds (specifically in wvw, 5v5 pvp isn’t too bad with this imo)