Guild Wars 2

Every point of toughness (not armor) should reduce condition damage and retaliation damage by 0.02% per point. This means with 2000 Toughness (not armor.) you would reduce all condition damage by 40%. The cap for this should be 50%, 2500 Toughness.

I would say after that, bring confusion damage back to what it was in PvP.

Will never happen.

Firstly because everyone starts with 916 Toughness, so you would be nerfing all condition damage by 18% from the get-go.

Secondly because even if you tweaked those numbers, you’re talking about a complete overhaul of how conditions function, which would mean re-doing every single condition-related trait, skill and piece of gear.

Thirdly, what’s the point? Conditions get to bypass armor because they are DoT and can be removed.

Or is your point that you want to undo the Confusion damage nerf? Because if so, then this isn’t the way to do that. There’s no reason to mess with Burning, Poison, Bleeding and Fear just because you think Confusion isn’t in the right spot right now.

Olba.5376:

Will never happen.

Firstly because everyone starts with 916 Toughness, so you would be nerfing all condition damage by 18% from the get-go.

Secondly because even if you tweaked those numbers, you’re talking about a complete overhaul of how conditions function, which would mean re-doing every single condition-related trait, skill and piece of gear.

Thirdly, what’s the point? Conditions get to bypass armor because they are DoT and can be removed.

Or is your point that you want to undo the Confusion damage nerf? Because if so, then this isn’t the way to do that. There’s no reason to mess with Burning, Poison, Bleeding and Fear just because you think Confusion isn’t in the right spot right now.

Condition Damage is ridiculous atm. Don’t see why your defending it.

Protection is OP and Toughness is OP and needs buffed. This is a perfect way to buff it.

So toughness should reduce healing? I think condition damage and healing are fifty-fifty.

Currently, there are two active defenses against condition damage:
1) Don’t get hit by condition attacks (dodge/block/blind)
2) Condition removal

Currently, there is one active defense against direct damage:
1) Don’t get hit by attacks (dodge/block/blind)
However, to counter this, there is one passive defense against direct damage
2) Toughness and protection

And naturally, Vitality works against both damage types.

Condition Damage not being reduced by any stats is intentional – it gives classes with poor healing a reason to take vitality over toughness, and it makes up for condition damage being possible to prevent before it’s run its full course. My staff ele might be able to stack 6 bleeds for 24 seconds with eruption, dealing a total of 14.4k damage… but being on the ball with removal means that damage could be reduced to 1 or 2 ticks and not even scrape 2k damage. Maybe this isn’t the best example, but removal can be much more effective against condition damage than toughness is against direct damage.

Dingle.2743:

Currently, there are two active defenses against condition damage:
1) Don’t get hit by condition attacks (dodge/block/blind)
2) Condition removal

Currently, there is one active defense against direct damage:
1) Don’t get hit by attacks (dodge/block/blind)
However, to counter this, there is one passive defense against direct damage
2) Toughness and protection

And naturally, Vitality works against both damage types.

Condition Damage not being reduced by any stats is intentional – it gives classes with poor healing a reason to take vitality over toughness, and it makes up for condition damage being possible to prevent before it’s run its full course. My staff ele might be able to stack 6 bleeds for 24 seconds with eruption, dealing a total of 14.4k damage… but being on the ball with removal means that damage could be reduced to 1 or 2 ticks and not even scrape 2k damage. Maybe this isn’t the best example, but removal can be much more effective against condition damage than toughness is against direct damage.

Some classes don’t have access to that kind of removal, but the classes that do have access don’t really go for heavy toughness, they go for boons and boon duration. Honestly because its just that much better.

If anything conditions are underpowered because almost every class has access to bleed or burning and one or two player alone can stack bleed up to 25 stacks. Meaning you could have a diverse group or you could have a full direct damage group. But you can never have a full condition group, at least not one that sees the full benefit of all the conditions damage they are capable of stacking.

^
That is mostly in PvE and dungeons, I don’t think mobs have access to the toughness stat, only armor. It would not change dungeons at all.

@OP
The very definition of conditions is that they bypass regular reductions. It’s not just doubt, that they’ll make toughness reduce condition damage, it’s the core of their design.

Since you seem to be focussed on PvP, be happy. The balancing team balances the game in YOUR favor, even if you are the minority. Conditions are fine in PvP. They deal ramped damage, which can be cut with any condition removal. The damage of conditions is pretty comparable with direct damage in PvP environments, no need to change its very core behaviour.

And no, all classes have condition removal, all classes have access to condition reduction foods and all classes can use anti-condition runes. Your problem is that YOU don’t want to put them into your slots because YOU don’t want it. And because YOU don’t focus your damage on conditions, anyone else has to suffer.

In PvE everything is different. Retaliation and confusion is 95% useless. Bleeding, Poison and Burning will NEVER catch up to direct damamge, even with high toughness targets. In fact, all conditions should be increased, especially confusion and retaliation.

I think you both have really good points on why it’s strong and why it’s not needed.

Cd’s are some classes core damage output for certain builds. However if they aren’t spec’ed to DEAL that kind of condition damage the default levels are pretty substandard.

Think of it like this

Your burst types beat lightly armored which are your aoe damage/utility/support right
Your Medium types are you bruisers they aren’t walls but they have ways to heal and bruise our heavy armored.
your tanks are meant to take a beating, flat damage aoe spells, they are the front line. So how do you beat them? Conditions, it’s their weakness. Yes it’s really strong because people are exploiting it in masses and ignore flat damage. Guess what….

That’s why thieves are so strong right now. No other class is trying to content their burst. The current meta has it’s flaws. Just a bad time to be the tank, sooner or later though people will get tired of assassins and figure out something else. Meta’s change new strategies arise, buffs nerfs and new content changes things. Don’t over think it, just do what you have to as the tank… if they are bringing cd’s bring removals. Bring gear that helps you get rid of them like generosity etc. The game has all the tools to deal with cd’s it’s not the trump card. It’s just a tool, you have tools to beat it. Go use them.

Dunno, but Toughtness should mean bit more… Vitality just pwns it.

Actually most of those classes don’t actually stack a lot of toughness, they only stack it to a certain point, then stack boon duration and just run protection.

This change would not affect PvE in the slightest, it would just make toughness a more viable stat, since its currently way less effective then boon duration all around.

This makes no sense. How does your resiliance reduce the damage you take from effects that have already bypassed it? You’re already cut open and bleeding, it makes no difference how tough you are. You are on fire, your ability to take a hit is irrelevant. The poison is already inside your body, your firm defiance isn’t going to save you from it in any way.

This is why the only way to combat conditions, besides dropping them, is with protection because it’s magical.

What if Toughness improves the chances of surviving and un-interrupting heals on Downed state?

Toughness reduce condition dmg? …..
No
That is all, have a nice day.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Toughness reduce condition dmg? …..
No
That is all, have a nice day.

Could you explain why this is?

It seems your against toughness being better, remember this isn’t armor its toughness.

no,it shouldnt. vitality is pointless if tough reduce everything. in that case nobody spend points on vit befor he have maxed toughness.

McWolfy.5924:

no,it shouldnt. vitality is pointless if tough reduce everything. in that case nobody spend points on vit befor he have maxed toughness.

Vitality isn’t pointless, it raises your max health to help against burst damage.

IMO Vitality pwns everything. The more HP you got, the more condition/direct/fall damage you can take. Meanwhile tougness only reduces direct damages….well…directly.
There is no other mech. I know on toughnes…

RoyalPredator.9163:

IMO Vitality pwns everything. The more HP you got, the more condition/direct/fall damage you can take. Meanwhile tougness only reduces direct damages….well…directly.
There is no other mech. I know on toughnes…

Condition Damage / Retaliation Damage is out of control atm. Tbh.

Daecollo.9578:

McWolfy.5924:

no,it shouldnt. vitality is pointless if tough reduce everything. in that case nobody spend points on vit befor he have maxed toughness.

Vitality isn’t pointless, it raises your max health to help against burst damage.

So if you have 5k hp more..you get jumped by a thief who backstabs you,hs hs hs …how much longer will you last do you think ? 1.5 sec… ?

If Conditions are Dot’s, then it would seem having toughness would Not stop the condition but would slow the the tick rate down. This is from a natural or logical standpoint. As any person in the real world who is tough, just has a better ability to withstand pain, but they still get hurt no matter how much their ego says otherwise. Is there another stat that slows down the tick rate of Dot’s?

Why is retaliation out of control atm? It hasn’t been touched for months and months.

Nretep.2564:

@OP
The very definition of conditions is that they bypass regular reductions. It’s not just doubt, that they’ll make toughness reduce condition damage, it’s the core of their design.

Since you seem to be focussed on PvP, be happy. The balancing team balances the game in YOUR favor, even if you are the minority. Conditions are fine in PvP. They deal ramped damage, which can be cut with any condition removal. The damage of conditions is pretty comparable with direct damage in PvP environments, no need to change its very core behaviour.

And no, all classes have condition removal, all classes have access to condition reduction foods and all classes can use anti-condition runes. Your problem is that YOU don’t want to put them into your slots because YOU don’t want it. And because YOU don’t focus your damage on conditions, anyone else has to suffer.

In PvE everything is different. Retaliation and confusion is 95% useless. Bleeding, Poison and Burning will NEVER catch up to direct damamge, even with high toughness targets. In fact, all conditions should be increased, especially confusion and retaliation.

Actually was about to write something like this. +1!
Daecollo.9578 I dont see you respond to this at all, but this is how it really is. in other words, I dont see your suggestion to be anything near valid if it is this easy to just respond to it as a player.

Realistically, conditions ignore toughness (not armor) Its a no brainer that how matter how sick you are your armor won’t help you.

It’s also fairly obvious that no matter how tough, strong, or built-up you are, if you are bleeding out of the right vein no matter of muscle or determination is going to save you.

Conditions go through toughness for a reason. It makes sense.

Want to combat conditions? See: Vitality / Boon Duration

Toughness is the answer to direct damage, Vitality is the answer to conditions. If you don’t have the toughness (which becomes armor), you having 20K health means nothing when you’re taking anywhere from 3-12K hits (depending on what’kittenting you) in rapid succession. If you don’t have Vitality, not only will your toughness not suffice, but you’re just leaving yourself open to the condition stacking. I can see where toughness could reduce a portion of condition damage, but let’s be serious here, conditions in general suck already. You already have Condi caps, and over riding with other peoples conditions, toughness would just make it worse.

Kaizz.7306:

Toughness is the answer to direct damage, Vitality is the answer to conditions. If you don’t have the toughness (which becomes armor), you having 20K health means nothing when you’re taking anywhere from 3-12K hits (depending on what’kittenting you) in rapid succession. If you don’t have Vitality, not only will your toughness not suffice, but you’re just leaving yourself open to the condition stacking. I can see where toughness could reduce a portion of condition damage, but let’s be serious here, conditions in general suck already. You already have Condi caps, and over riding with other peoples conditions, toughness would just make it worse.

Tell me you ever play wvwvw right ? Take a look at how “Weak” conditions are…They are so “Weak” that they melt through my endure pain ( the trait sometimes unable to pop at all ),able to kill me off right away at times.Endure pain is direct dmg only,that means im losing around 20k hp in an eyeblink due to conditions.

I swear the logic being used in these arguments are from a different reality sometimes.

But then people never flag if they are talking from a PVE, WVW or SPVP standpoint…

i dont think toughness should do this….but a new stat would be apropriate, would also give more room for new crafting mats and armor combos which would be nice.

Duke Nukem.6783:

i dont think toughness should do this….but a new stat would be apropriate, would also give more room for new crafting mats and armor combos which would be nice.

Yeah, it’s called “Giver’s” granting additional condition duration. And that barely helps the ramp to catch up with direct damage.

In PvP and WvW conditions are fine. As you can’t completely negate condition damage, you can reset it once in a while (cleansening). If you complain that condition damage is too high, get more removal tools in your slots and not go zerker. You can’t reset direct damage, it’s not even a ramp, it deals its damage instantly.

But in PvE perspective, even without mobs cleansening conditions, conditions lose to direct damage. The armor of mobs would have to increase by 50% to make it somewhat balanced. Yet even then Torment, Retaliation and Confusion would still be inferior.

Caedmon.6798:

Kaizz.7306:

Toughness is the answer to direct damage, Vitality is the answer to conditions. If you don’t have the toughness (which becomes armor), you having 20K health means nothing when you’re taking anywhere from 3-12K hits (depending on what’kittenting you) in rapid succession. If you don’t have Vitality, not only will your toughness not suffice, but you’re just leaving yourself open to the condition stacking. I can see where toughness could reduce a portion of condition damage, but let’s be serious here, conditions in general suck already. You already have Condi caps, and over riding with other peoples conditions, toughness would just make it worse.

Tell me you ever play wvwvw right ? Take a look at how “Weak” conditions are…They are so “Weak” that they melt through my endure pain ( the trait sometimes unable to pop at all ),able to kill me off right away at times.Endure pain is direct dmg only,that means im losing around 20k hp in an eyeblink due to conditions.

I pretty much live in WvW. I never said conditions were weak, I said they suck. I take a lot of damage from conditions, but I have a crap load of condition removal, both actively and passively, so I really don’t see them as being to strong. Yes, they can hurt if they stay on you, and I see Endure Pain being along the same lines of Renewed Focus. In WvW, it’s usually better to have straight up damage, since conditions take to long to do their damage compared to straight up damage, but if someone runs away, sometimes conditions will get them. This is what I don’t get about people playing WvW right now, they bring 1-2 condition removals, and then say condition damage is to strong. Then again, I’m a Guardian, so pretty much everything I do removes conditions.

Daecollo.9578:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Toughness reduce condition dmg? …..
No
That is all, have a nice day.

Could you explain why this is?

It seems your against toughness being better, remember this isn’t armor its toughness.

toughness, while not armor, does contribute to the total armor rating, and thus is a counter to direct damage. Condition damage being reduced by toughness would pretty much negate the usefulness of conditions altogether, because then bunkers that stack tons of toughness would be nigh unkill-able. Conditions are the counter to high toughness, and the counter to conditions already exists in the form of health (vitality, if you wanna look at it that way). Conditions cannot crit, so there’s no need for armor to reduce them. Especially with the inbalanced amount of conditions cleanses in this game already. No, leaving it as it is works just fine.

Daecollo.9578:

^
That is mostly in PvE and dungeons, I don’t think mobs have access to the toughness stat, only armor. It would not change dungeons at all.

I imagine they’re coded to ONLY have toughness contributing to their armor value as they don’t wear real sets of armor and the defense stat is a property of gear.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Conditions are the counter to high toughness, and the counter to conditions already exists in the form of health (vitality, if you wanna look at it that way).

Sustained heal per second is the counter to conditions, vitality is just a counter to bursts.

Gummy.4278:

If Conditions are Dot’s, then it would seem having toughness would Not stop the condition but would slow the the tick rate down. This is from a natural or logical standpoint. As any person in the real world who is tough, just has a better ability to withstand pain, but they still get hurt no matter how much their ego says otherwise. Is there another stat that slows down the tick rate of Dot’s?

The only stat that is somewhat similar to slowing down the tick rate of DoT’s is essentially -condi duration, which can be gotten through certain runes and foods.

if toughness countered conditions it would be the win/win/win defensive stat.

It would win vs burst builds (when combined with sufficient vitality)
It would win vs condition builds (see above)
It would win vs long duration fights (when combined with sufficient healing power)

There would be nothing it couldn’t do.

Right now, all three defensive stats have a hole in them… Toughness gets creamed by conditions, Vitality gets destroyed by long duration fights, and healing power gets nuked by burst. If you only bring one to the party you run the risk of getting stomped and that is a good thing. If you plug toughnesses hole, you will need to do the same to the other two to keep things even.

Player Character.9467:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Conditions are the counter to high toughness, and the counter to conditions already exists in the form of health (vitality, if you wanna look at it that way).

Sustained heal per second is the counter to conditions, vitality is just a counter to bursts.

Yeah you’re right, I should have worded more carefully to say vitality/hp is a passive counter to conditions (because conditions are bound by durations, so the more hp it has to eat through, the less effective it could be) but you’re right in that a more direct counter is sustained healing to simply cover the condition dmg. The only problem is healing power in general scales relatively badly (most of the time, but there’s a few overpowered heals in the game) but vitality helps fill that gap as a passive buffer.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Player Character.9467:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Conditions are the counter to high toughness, and the counter to conditions already exists in the form of health (vitality, if you wanna look at it that way).

Sustained heal per second is the counter to conditions, vitality is just a counter to bursts.

Yeah you’re right, I should have worded more carefully to say vitality/hp is a passive counter to conditions (because conditions are bound by durations, so the more hp it has to eat through, the less effective it could be) but you’re right in that a more direct counter is sustained healing to simply cover the condition dmg. The only problem is healing power in general scales relatively badly (most of the time, but there’s a few overpowered heals in the game) but vitality helps fill that gap as a passive buffer.

The issue with vitality is it has diminishing returns with how long a fight lasts. That extra few thousand hp at the start of a 2 minute fight doesn’t mean a heck of a lot unless you literally won by 1 hit and nobody overhealed.

I will say they need to do something with toughness. Getting about the 3k mark in toughness seems to do nothing to mitigate damage against mobs and worst is that it makes you a magnet for mobs… Vitality (with moderate toughness) is in so many ways much better that toughness as it is now.
I’m even starting to believe that mobs and dungeons mobs do all a percentage of your HP cause it doesn’t make any flippin’ sense for an individual to have the highest toughness in your group go down the fastest in the group.

blakdoxa.7520:

I’m even starting to believe that mobs and dungeons mobs do all a percentage of your HP cause it doesn’t make any flippin’ sense for an individual to have the highest toughness in your group go down the fastest in the group.

That belief would make the vit stat pointless too… should go resolve that cognitive dissonance.

Player Character.9467:

blakdoxa.7520:

I’m even starting to believe that mobs and dungeons mobs do all a percentage of your HP cause it doesn’t make any flippin’ sense for an individual to have the highest toughness in your group go down the fastest in the group.

That belief would make the vit stat pointless too… should go resolve that cognitive dissonance.

Thanks for insult I appreciate that you have much to offer to the discussion.
I’m glad you take me seriously though.

Still, taking vitality will trump toughness in PvE vs where having toughness makes more sense in WvW. Toughness really needs saving, in regards to PvE. Like there being actual damage reduction, but not to the point where we have “tanks” again.

blakdoxa.7520:

Player Character.9467:

blakdoxa.7520:

I’m even starting to believe that mobs and dungeons mobs do all a percentage of your HP cause it doesn’t make any flippin’ sense for an individual to have the highest toughness in your group go down the fastest in the group.

That belief would make the vit stat pointless too… should go resolve that cognitive dissonance.

Thanks for insult I appreciate that you have much to offer to the discussion.
I’m glad you take me seriously though.

Still, taking vitality will trump toughness in PvE vs where having toughness makes more sense in WvW. Toughness really needs saving, in regards to PvE. Like there being actual damage reduction, but not to the point where we have “tanks” again.

Your post was in contradiction with itself, if that’s insulting to you then so be it.