Guild Wars 2

There’s a quick and dirty fix to the condi issues in PvE which doesn’t require fixing what should but cannot be easily fixed (condition stack caps), and it’s been suggested by me and other people before:

To all non-player characters in the game, all damaging conditions do +33% more damage. Or rather, all players have a permanent “condition resistance” of -N% (like 33%).

Here, I fixed it! Suddenly, running condi builds in PvE makes some sense!

The Confusion buff set a precedent and showed that it can be done and is worth doing. (Unfortunately, this negligible buff will still change nothing – apart from the fact that officially the issue has been addressed and something has been done.)

We can even go further and convert conditions applied to Structures to a universal Magical Degradation debuff which turns all applied conditions into a single damage over time effect. It can still be less efficient than direct damage, but wouldn’t exclude condi builds completely from content involving structures (especially since there are no “condi only” counterparts in the game whatsoever).

That doesnt fix the underlying issue of how conditions stack. Thats literally putting a bandaid on something that has had its stomach cut open.

Plus, it doesn’t reflect that even if you were to do that, Confusion (and to a lesser degree Torment) still need some special help in PvE due to the PvE-mechanics.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

That doesnt fix the underlying issue of how conditions stack. Thats literally putting a bandaid on something that has had its stomach cut open.

Between nothing at all for most likely ever, and a giant bandaid very soon, I prefer a giant bandaid.

There’s one guy locked in a meeting room at ArenaNet. He’s been there for a long time. He’s put wigs fashioned from chair stuffing on the potted plants and sat them at the table. A large, bold “25” covers his face in black marker ink. He’s turned the AC off and put the thermostat to max in order to hear the voices better.

Staff passing by the door with the aging sign “Conditions Redesign meeting” blu-tacked on catch glimpses of their wild, marked colleague making furtive glimpses between closed venetian blinds. In the dead of night, a rhythmic drumming can be heard as he bangs his head against the whiteboard. Some say the banging spells out “server load” in morse code.

Making all conditions more powerful doesn’t fix the basic problem that they are damage over time and nearly all enemies can be burst down very quickly. Conditions will be more useful when encounters last more than 10-15 seconds.

Perhaps someday we’ll have raids and conditions will be very important.

Also, go play WvW or PvP. Your condi builds will really shine.

the problem is simple

1. all players share the same condi debuff on a target

e.g 25 bleed stacks. I apply 20 some 1 else can only apply 5.
if I apply 5 secs of burn and some 1 else is able to apply 10 + and it does slightly more dmg. their burn overrides mine and my burn extends the duration of their burn

2. anet refuses to add separate condi stacks for each player as it will

1. take up so much server resources calculating the condi dmg it would lag the game in larger zones (I know don’t laugh)

2. as they don’t have the sub base system like WoW has, they are unable to have the types of servers that can support 40 + separate debuffs from players per target per instance per zone per battle ground etc.

so just accept the fact that condis are made for PVP small group combat.

this also pushes ppl to zerk meta + to make condis viable in pve would cause them to be extremely powerfull vs players and need to be reworked to have 2 formulas. one for pve and one for players.

krixis.9538:

so just accept the fact that condis are made for PVP small group combat.

The entire game mechanics was built for that not just condition.

Overall, Conditions are NOT weak, they are just ineffective against single targets in group events. In terms of PvP and WvW it could be argued that some conditions are TOO strong (this is why the Confusion change was not applied to those modes).

Those players that imply the changes required to “fix” the stacking issue in Open World PvE as being “easy” do not understand the root of the problem and their statements that Anet “refuses” to fix it are unwarranted. I feel pretty confident that Anet has looked into HOW to fix the issue and has concluded that there is no EASY fix with the current condition system. Players “believing” there is an easy fix does not make it so..

This change was made to specifically help buff a quite weak (in PvE) condition to improve the option of using Confusion in PvE. (yes, mostly for Mesmers). Anyone that wants to argue that Mesmers were somehow OP in PvE will have a tough time doing so.

Brother Grimm.5176:

This change was made to specifically help buff a quite weak (in PvE) condition to improve the option of using Confusion in PvE. (yes, mostly for Mesmers). Anyone that wants to argue that Mesmers were somehow OP in PvE will have a tough time doing so.

I don’t really take my direct damage mesmer to group content anymore since it can be easily replaced with way more efficient ele and guardian, and some minor CD reductions on TW and defensive utility won’t change anything. More so that confusion improvement, an unnoticable buff to a pointless non-existent PvE build.

So you consider your Dungeon runs the definition of what makes a PvE build pointless?

Good to know.

Outside your narrow view of the game, Mesmers can run these pointless builds and not worry about being disregarded by nitch-only players.

Brother Grimm.5176:

So you consider your Dungeon runs the definition of what makes a PvE build pointless?

Good to know.

Outside your narrow view of the game, Mesmers can run these pointless builds and not worry about being disregarded by nitch-only players.

Ah, so in open world group world bosses or solo heart completion condi mesmers are shining?

Actually, I started the game as a mesmer with a condi build because I really liked the concept. I tried enjoying it for some time, but whatever I did, I saw how astonishingly inefficient and slow I was; for one, killing one mob in Orr took ages, and that’s after analyzing all the options through wiki and tailoring the build; other players running past me just mowed those down.

I finally scrapped that idea, grinded some gold and rolled a direct damage phantasm build. From that moment, I never ever went to condi builds in PvE.

dace.8019:

There’s one guy locked in a meeting room at ArenaNet. He’s been there for a long time. He’s put wigs fashioned from chair stuffing on the potted plants and sat them at the table. A large, bold “25” covers his face in black marker ink. He’s turned the AC off and put the thermostat to max in order to hear the voices better.

Staff passing by the door with the aging sign “Conditions Redesign meeting” blu-tacked on catch glimpses of their wild, marked colleague making furtive glimpses between closed venetian blinds. In the dead of night, a rhythmic drumming can be heard as he bangs his head against the whiteboard. Some say the banging spells out “server load” in morse code.

Between reading this and your short story “Diving Goggles” from the release of the NPE, I feel like subscribing to a mailing list that sends me your posts.

Cheers.

The problem isn’t how much damage conditions do its how easy they are to apply and how fast bosses reach max condi stacks for zerg content. I don’t think conditions will ever be viable for zerg content unless access to conditions is severely limited and the damage is buffed by a huge amount, which would require a complete overhaul and isn’t likely to happen.

I think they could make some changes to make conditions more useful for dungeons and other small group content, but it would have to be changes mechanic wise. Conditions are already highly effective for WvW roaming and lots of solo content so straight up buffing the damage isn’t a solution.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

Conditions are already highly effective for WvW roaming and lots of solo content so straight up buffing the damage isn’t a solution.

It’s almost as if the game is balanced across a variety of modes and narrow-minded players insist that balance should be perfect for their mode, to kitten with everybody else…

(Note: I play instanced PvE, open world PvE, WvW, and sPvP. I have 80s of every class. The balance in this game isn’t perfect, but most classes perform well in most content. Necro is probably hurting the most, but Mesmer is my “Anet fix plz” class of choice.)