I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
(edited by Blood Red Arachnid.2493)
A Designer's viewpoint: Condition Caps
1. The fact that “zerkers can solo lupi” or that seasoned zerks don’t drop like flies due to active mitigation does not in fact address the issue that condi builds often have greater base “survive” and are in less direct danger then melee glass cannon builds.
2. I am aware how dps works and I am also aware of the “need for speed”.
3. With the correct wind up, against boss mobs, condi builds (some) can have a comparable dps and kill speed rate to direct damage when considering the solo environment. That is with greater survive. Without the cap the encounters would be ridiculous.
Now in a group situation that is not the case but should the dps cap be removed, then the damage in relation to the survive given by the gear/build would simply be too great, hence OP.
1. The fact that “zerkers can solo lupi” or that seasoned zerks don’t drop like flies due to active mitigation does not in fact address the issue that condi builds often have greater base “survive” and are in less direct danger then melee glass cannon builds.
2. I am aware how dps works and I am also aware of the “need for speed”.
3. With the correct wind up, against boss mobs, condi builds (some) can have a comparable dps and kill speed rate to direct damage when considering the solo environment. That is with greater survive. Without the cap the encounters would be ridiculous.
Now in a group situation that is not the case but should the dps cap be removed, then the damage in relation to the survive given by the gear/build would simply be too great, hence OP.
Why would the encounters be ridiculous?
Condition specs do not have “base” survivability over zerker specs. The only difference in survivalbility is from gear. A condition user in Dire gear can not reach and maintain 25 stacks of anything. They sacrifice bleeds from crits in order to maintain higher defenses. Dire based condition users would be unaffected by a cap removal. They would do the same single target DPS that they do now.
Rabid based condition users can in some situations get to 25 stacks of bleed. They can not maintain this over several minutes, the base they can maintain is about 20 stacks, with brief surges to 25.
If the condition cap was removed then Anet could also implement a Condition damage/Condition Duration/Precision gear set which would be the zerker equivalent of condition damage. Then with a slight adjustment to duration of conditions they would deal the same dps as power builds and have the same survivalbility.
Why would the encounters be ridiculous?
Because you could spam constantly ticking damage whilst actively mitigating damage/running about and from a base of decent base survivability.
Condition specs do not have “base” survivability over zerker specs. The only difference in survivalbility is from gear.
So gear and the ability to apply constant pressure outside of melee range. i.e. greater base survive than someone in full glass gear, with a full glass spec, in melee range.
There is a reason people who struggled with Liadri as zerk warrior often cheesed it to death via a condi spec. It is because you could apply plenty of damage whilst running about like a loon.
Rabid based condition users can in some situations get to 25 stacks of bleed. They can not maintain this over several minutes, the base they can maintain is about 20 stacks, with brief surges to 25.
Rabid users can do significant damage, if you had a group of them pushing the condi damage past the current cap, then boss encounters could potentially be even more trivial than they already are.
If the condition cap was removed then Anet could also implement a Condition damage/Condition Duration/Precision gear set which would be the zerker equivalent of condition damage. Then with a slight adjustment to duration of conditions they would deal the same dps as power builds and have the same survivalbility.
If the condition cap was removed and other mechanisms brought in to counter any issues then I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But introducing the above mentioned gear would not work like that. The dps potential in relation to survivability would still be greater given the fact that the damage would be constantly applied even when the players happened to be out of range of the mob/actively mitigating damage.
Maybe if you made all conditions as duration instead of stacking? But then how is damage calculated?
This was Guild Wars in a nutshell which is another reason imo that it had the better make up. So many builds. Standard gear. Conditions had basically a set amount of damage, and you could only stack/increase duration from build to build.
^That would make things even worse. Lets say you do 500 DPS with your build, another character comes with his 500 DPS build, you both together would still do 500 DPS, which is essentially the problem with condition caps but made worse through now that 2 condi users are definitely useless in any case.
I have also thought about how to deal with the hard-cap on bleeds, specifically (because I am a weird guy who plays condiwarrior. I am not kidding).
In my view, a mechanic that ignores defenses like bleeds obviously requires a ceiling, since it is a supplement to the reduced direct damage that condi characters can do already. However, applying said supplement should feel great for the player. After all, that condimancer is working really hard to keep up that bleed stack. Furthermore, the mechanic should reward multiple players for using the same build. If a group of Direct Damage builds work together, things die faster. If a group of Condi Builds work together, things…don’t.
Like OP said, conditions should be synergistic and promote cooperation. And here is my idea (warning: long post incoming):
All bleeds should contribute to percent health damage per second…
Wait, wait. Don’t touch the pitchforks yet. Let me finish.
But with an asymptote and a deceleration factor.
Say what?
I am saying bleed stacking should be a race-of-time mechanic. An application (not stack) of bleed by a skill should do a small percent health damage over time, determined by Condition Damage. Additional stacks of bleed increases that percentage, to a maximum (the asymptote I mentioned earlier).
So how is that different from what it is now?
It isn’t, yet. Here is where the deceleration factor (let’s call it Staunching for now) comes in. Instead of duration for each bleed, the intensity (percent health per second) of the bleed decreases over time, and the rate at which the intensity decreases will increase as intensity goes up. In other words, it is harder to reach the max percent health damage the more bleeds you apply. To keep up the bleed damage, then, requires applying more bleeds to maintain the intensity and fight the Staunching.
So it takes multiple characters to work together and constantly apply bleeds in order to bleed enemies at the fastest possible rate. The maximum percent health per second is now an asymptote (something you can get really, really close), and bleeding is now a synergistic race against time.
For example, if a group of condiwarriors walked up to a champion, they would:
1) Begin building bleed intensity with #1 Skill chain
2) Cap out on the bleed intensity due to staunching
3) Build up their adrenaline
4) Presse F1 all at the same time (Sever Artery everywhere),
5) Bleed the poor champ at the, let’s say, max rate for a brief moment,
6) Lose bleed intensity because they can’t apply bleeds as fast
7) Maintain initial bleed intensitySo what percentage health damage per second should be the max? 1? 2? 3? 5?
Well, depends. Let’s have a hypothetical example (all numbers are made up):
Here we have a champion monster.
It’s been mobbed by 10 Direct Damage warriors.
Same gear, same trait, same stat. For Direct Damage.
It dies in 180 seconds.And here we have the same champion monster.
It’s been mobbed by 10 Condition Damage warriors.
Same gear, same trait, same stat. For Condition Damage.
Oh no. the game’s bugged. No one can apply any bleeds (like I said, hypothetical).
How much health did the champion lose in 180 seconds?
80%
That means Condition Damage Build is dealing 20% less Direct Damage in 180 seconds.
Which means bleed have to make up at least:
20% of health / 180 seconds = 0.111% of health per second
Then, the maximum cap for bleed intensity can be a little higher, like 0.15% of health per second, to reward good coordination in bleed application among multiple players.Remember all numbers are hypothetical
This structure opens up balancing options for different situations too, as the amount of bleeds faced by World Bosses, Dungeon champions, Personal Story champions, etc. are all different. The number can be tweaked accordingly.
Since Condition Damage will affect the intensity increase by each application of bleed, investing in said stats will feel powerful and effective. The deceleration factor will make applying bleeds feel exciting and synergistic. Having multiple people applying bleeds will now work together, instead of getting into each other’s way.
What do you think? Am I full of bull? Do I have something going here?
I like this idea. Its elegant. But 1.) not sure if its too taxing to the system, and 2.) if it makes things for the casual player too complicated.
Folks arguing about balance and how overpowered uncapped conditions would be are missing the issue, which is:
1 zerker = 100% damage 2 zerkers = 200% damage 10 zerkers = 1000% damage
1 condi = 100% damage 2 condi = 100% damage 10 condi = 100% damage
Anet admitted the caps exists for technical limitations so arguing about balance is pointless.
Mind you, in the interest of a fair and balanced discussion, do mention the major downside DoTs have compared to DDs: They take time to deal damage.
Beyond the obvious case of the target dying later (this is what armour is supposed to offset), this causes a much bigger cost in opportunity. If you have 4000 HP left, and your heal has 2s left on CD and 1s cast, and I hit you for 2200 effective damage once every 1s, you’re dead. But if I apply 5000 HP worth of conditions to you and they tick for 7 seconds, you’ll survive that burst of damage.
DoTs are a strategic investment. They trade the tactical ability to kill an enemy here and now for an increase in total win percentage concerning the entire fight.
That is to say, balance-wise if one group is entirely built on DD, they can freely assist-train one target who has 0 chance to retaliate. But, a group entirely built on DoTs is (should, in GW2) in turn able to win the entire fight by loading everyone up and waiting while half of them fall to the assist train, then the enemy team keels over entirely.
GW2 currently has two specific balance issues with that:
- The multiplicative nature of condition cleanses (most aren’t self-only) in groups.
- The condition-caps.
In return, it also has something in favour of conditions:
- A Toughness-based metagame of builds, as without toughness DD-specs would just completely rip everything apart.
Just to reiterate: Conditions are strong because direct damage is strong. It forces players to – necessarily – defend against direct damage. Due to the overspecialized way our specs work, this leads to people being open to attacks with DoT then. But they can’t go back either, as at least against DoTs they still have a fighting chance, due to the time it takes.
Against DD, without Toughness, they’d just be dead right away.
What I see at the root of the problem is mostly the overspecialization, however.
Someone set up entirely for burst damage is too bursty and too glassy.
Someone set up entirely for tanking is too tanky and deals too little damage.
Someone set up entirely for DoTs relies too much on DoTs while their direct attacks are too weak. And vice-versa.
Reduce this, bring people more towards the average by a margin of 25%~33%, and we’ll see a much healthier gameplay as each individual extreme cannot be as extreme any more.
This in turn makes fully hyper-specialized offence less problematic, as you never are quite hyper-specialized.
The strength of heart to face oneself has been made manifest. The persona Carighan has appeared.
Why make this more complicated than simple DPS?
2000 damage per second from direct damage the same as 2000 damage per second from conditions.
Both have pros and cons. Direct damage can be avoided by moving out of the way, or skills that mitigate direct damage. Condition damage can be cleansed or converted. Neither is really better than the other in the macro scale. We can discuss the meta-game once condition damage is viable, but right now there’s no room for that discussion because no one is using Condition damage anyway.
The only problem is the Condition damage cap. A single person can build to stack all damage condition stacks at full right now. This means that if there are two people built for condition, their combined damage is the same as a single person.
2000dps Direct + 2000dps Direct = 4000dps
2000dps Direct + 2000dps Condition = 4000dps
2000dps Condition + 2000dps Condition = 2000dps <—- This is the problem.
Even if they just double the Condition cap from what it is now, it will at least make condition damage somewhat viable in dungeons and 5-man skirmishes.
…Ok, so bleeding should be able to stack from multiple sources to the point it can kill you in 2 seconds?
Yes. If people can stack that many bleeds, the same amount of people could kill you in 2 seconds if they were full DPS.
Except you can apply those conditions whilst having more survive and being in a less precarious position than those going full glass melee.
People are going to have a far harder time landing melee dps on you than people dropping condi bombs on you from distance.
I’m not entirely sure quite how people think a situation in which we could regularly see 50 odd stacks of bleed, burn, poison and torment would be a good idea.
They wouldn’t have more survivability if ArenaNet required you to have 3 stats to keep up with Berserker. If the person/zerg was Berserker, by the time you are hit 50 times you will be dead. I don’t see a problem in it no.
Perhaps he meant that as people upkeeps the stacks, at one point the damage increases.
Or perhaps that everytime condition stacks hit 25 stacks, the damage is inproved by x%, and give contribution to all casters.
Other thing that could use a fix would be cross appliance of condition, so that all condition casters get contribution.
Perhaps a PvE only feature, for every time a condition effect is applied x stacks, foe would be inflicted with a secondary condition that stacks up as players apply more full stacks.
Example: “For every 25 stacks of Bleeding, target foe will be inflicted with 1 stack of Deep wound, that increases Bleeding damage by x% and lasts for 5 seconds. Stacks intensity.”
or
“For every 25 stack of poison, target foe will be inflicted with 1 stack of Gangrene, increasing Poison damage by x%, reduces healing effectiviness by 1% per stack and lasts for 5 seconds. Stacks intensity.”
I’m a casual PvE adventurer, I enjoy combat, adventure and helping, but not farming.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
Changing conditions to “fire-and-forget” so that they tick damage according to the applier’s stats at the time of application (as opposed to rechecking the applier’s stats every single tick) would enormously reduce computation and data transfer costs almost certainly allowing greater condition stack limits.
OP here to clarify some stuff. I’m not advocating additional stack limits. I’m advocating a new mechanic that rewards consistency (you know, that thing that DoTs are known for) while not increasing server load.
I’ll explain the intensity idea again:
Let’s say you have 5 guardians, all applying burning. Under the current system, you get a hodgepodge of burns, interfering with each other. Under the new system, this happens:
Player 1 applies 2 burns
Player 2 applies 2 burns
Player 3 applies 2 burns
Player 4 applies 2 burns
Player 5 applies 2 burns, but the cap is 9. That 10th burn triggers “Immolated”, a new condition that ticks upward in intensity as long as it is maintained. To maintain it, the previous condition (burning) must remain capped at 9.
This rewards cooperation (keeping the stacks capped), shouldn’t increase server load (there is already something in place to discard excess stacks, and this is using the same condition trigger as the previous system), and makes condition builds MORE useful the larger the HP pool is on an enemy.
End result:
• In a small party of very few condition builds, they do their full damage without interference, and get a decent bonus if they manage to stay capped during boss fights.
•In a large group, overlapping condition users can cover each other during downtime (dodge, downed, boss mechanic, etc) to keep the stacks running and steadily increase damage over the course of the fight.
•In PvP, you would almost never cap your stacks, much less maintain a cap. This is a good thing, since condition builds are effective vs players already.
EDIT: Note that applying new stacks of burning would not increase calculations, it just resets the burn timer as usual. Immolate meanwhile only cares that burns remain capped, not the math behind them. [If Burning=9, then +1% Immolate damage per tick]
(edited by Desthin Sinkropht.4123)
@ OP That actually makes sense. Thank you. However, with the variations of condition damage, in say bleeding, how would that work in the upgraded condition? If I understand correctly, in a group of 5, say player 1 (or p1) adds 3 stacks of bleed at 50 dam/sec/stack, p2 adds 2 stacks of bleed at 100/dam/sec/stack. p3 adds 10 stacks at 60/dam/sec/stack, p4 adds 5 at 115/dam/sec/stack and p5 adds 5 at 140/dam/sec/stack. Now “Hemmoraging” or whatever is proced. What would be the damage/sec for the new condition? Also would any new stacks applied by p3 override those done by p1 or just his own as the duration runs out?
I’m not trying to be dense, but I just don’t see how it all comes together.
“You know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”
It’s the chain I beat you with until you
recognize my command!”
Pretty much what I thought…
Stack to reach certain stack to inflict a “power up condition” that improves the damage of the condition and counts as if inflicted by all players who inflict conditions.
Stuff like “Deep wound” (Bleeding), “Gangrene” or “Necrosis” (Poison) and “Immolated” (Burning).
“Suffering” (Torment) too perhaps, tho it’s rather strong condition…
I’m a casual PvE adventurer, I enjoy combat, adventure and helping, but not farming.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
I rarely do PvP or Hard PvE, unless it’s organized.
Personally condi damage has been kitten compared to direct damage. There’s three major benefits to DD:
- Damage is calculated the instant you deal damage
- Damage is subject to cumulative synergy with other DD builds
- Damage is only limited to your ability manage proper rotations
Meanwhile, Condi Damage has three major issues that are in immediate opposition to DD:
- Damage is calculated every single tick of the condition instead of being fore-loaded
- Damage is subject to cumulative dissonance based on 100%/N, where N equals the number of classes in your party that apply stacking conditions
- Damage is limited by the direct arbitrary limits to stacks and durations
On top of all that, Anet’s already stated the caps are a result of technical limits, so condi builds are already being wrongfully impacted. So instead of finding ways around stacking limits, it may be more beneficial to find ways around those technical limits, which would then allow Anet to increase condi caps.
There is actually a good fix. Have players only be able to apply a single stack. Where if a skill would normally do a stack of 5 bleeds, it would equal the tick count of one. This would mean that 25 players could contribute various tick damage to one condition type.
[TAO] Founder/Owner and Administrator for the NSP Server Website
There is actually a good fix. Have players only be able to apply a single stack. Where if a skill would normally do a stack of 5 bleeds, it would equal the tick count of one. This would mean that 25 players could contribute various tick damage to one condition type.
This does kitten all to fix anything. Instead, your solution basically says “go kitten yourself” if you’re a condi build.
^That would make things even worse. Lets say you do 500 DPS with your build, another character comes with his 500 DPS build, you both together would still do 500 DPS, which is essentially the problem with condition caps but made worse through now that 2 condi users are definitely useless in any case.
I’m not saying it should be instituted here. That ship has sailed. I’m saying that it was anet’s decision to even add condition damage to gear and that was a mistake in my eyes.
Had they kept the same formula from the previous game that started in 05’ and is still being played today we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Conditions in Guild Wars was never the primary source of damage in a build. It was the plus. Not to mention many skills had other effects if a player had particular conditions on them which many times is what you built around.
For an example: First skill, hit for dd and apply poison. Second skill, hit for dd, if subject is suffering from poison then do double damage or apply weakness or knockdown or blind or anything the skill says.
Guild Wars entire skill system was made up that way, not just conditions. Enchantments/Hexes/Offensive/Defensive skills were made up that way too.
Why would the encounters be ridiculous?
Because you could spam constantly ticking damage whilst actively mitigating damage/running about and from a base of decent base survivability.
Condition specs do not have “base” survivability over zerker specs. The only difference in survivalbility is from gear.
So gear and the ability to apply constant pressure outside of melee range. i.e. greater base survive than someone in full glass gear, with a full glass spec, in melee range.
There is a reason people who struggled with Liadri as zerk warrior often cheesed it to death via a condi spec. It is because you could apply plenty of damage whilst running about like a loon.
Rabid based condition users can in some situations get to 25 stacks of bleed. They can not maintain this over several minutes, the base they can maintain is about 20 stacks, with brief surges to 25.
Rabid users can do significant damage, if you had a group of them pushing the condi damage past the current cap, then boss encounters could potentially be even more trivial than they already are.
If the condition cap was removed then Anet could also implement a Condition damage/Condition Duration/Precision gear set which would be the zerker equivalent of condition damage. Then with a slight adjustment to duration of conditions they would deal the same dps as power builds and have the same survivalbility.
If the condition cap was removed and other mechanisms brought in to counter any issues then I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But introducing the above mentioned gear would not work like that. The dps potential in relation to survivability would still be greater given the fact that the damage would be constantly applied even when the players happened to be out of range of the mob/actively mitigating damage.
If you’re “Running around” as a condi spec, you’re not applying condi stacks. Likewise, a ‘zerker isn’t always in melee. A zerker Gun or Bow warrior, or any Zerker Elementalist has all the kiting power of a condi build, but the damage of a Zerker (Well, almost. But ranged DPS is on par with condi DPS).
Also, there are a lot of condition builds (Such as Sword+Sword Condi Warrior, and Burning Guardians) that also requires all the risks of melee while being kitten as Condi.
If you’re “Running around” as a condi spec, you’re not applying condi stacks. Likewise, a ‘zerker isn’t always in melee. A zerker Gun or Bow warrior, or any Zerker Elementalist has all the kiting power of a condi build, but the damage of a Zerker (Well, almost. But ranged DPS is on par with condi DPS).
Also, there are a lot of condition builds (Such as Sword+Sword Condi Warrior, and Burning Guardians) that also requires all the risks of melee while being kitten as Condi.
Condi necro doesnt have to stop moving to apply condis. Not one single condi skill a necro has is a channel skill broken by movement.
This is not about melee vs ranged, nor stacking vs not stacking. Its about direct damage vs condition damage.
Just because the holy grail of direct damage is 5 warriors stacking with their greatswords doesnt mean it is the norm. Nor should it be.
This is not about melee vs ranged, nor stacking vs not stacking. Its about direct damage vs condition damage.
Just because the holy grail of direct damage is 5 warriors stacking with their greatswords doesnt mean it is the norm. Nor should it be.
Except that the holy grail of direct damage, if you exclude fgs “trick”, is just one warrior.
You do know that people solo Lupi in melee range in full zerker gear, right? Once you get good enough, enemies don’t drop you in melee range anymore.
Lupi is easy because of his telegraphed and slow attacks. Do you know how people solo bosses like Mossman? Impale (warrior sword4) to get torment and kite. That’s in zerker gear.
I don’t think anyone ever mention that but if anet ever removed condition caps (will not happen without rebuilding whole computational complexity) they would have to remove might stacks cap. And that would make direct damage dealers (which stack might much more easier than condition damage dealers) even more powerful.
If the two limits are connected in a technical level. As discussed before, bleed stacks are quite a drain on computing power that might be the reason why it has a cap of 25. However, Might only increases two stats by a standard, static amount per stack for x duration. It might be an actual balance decision to draw the line somewhere, and the 25 stacks limit of the bleed stacks was thought to be a fine number for the might stack limit.
I don’t think anyone ever mention that but if anet ever removed condition caps (will not happen without rebuilding whole computational complexity) they would have to remove might stacks cap. And that would make direct damage dealers (which stack might much more easier than condition damage dealers) even more powerful.
They wouldnt have to do anything to might stack limits. They are not the result of an arbitrary limit put in place due to technical reasons. Stick to the topic at hand.
For those that still dont understand: 2 direct damage builds = twice the damage, 2 condi damage builds = half the damage.
They wouldnt have to do anything to might stack limits. They are not the result of an arbitrary limit put in place due to technical reasons. Stick to the topic at hand.
For those that still dont understand: 2 direct damage builds = twice the damage, 2 condi damage builds = half the damage.
Every stack of might is being tracked by game engine so it does matter whether you and your team mates have 25 stacks or 250. So how’s that not a technical limitation?
Condi necro doesnt have to stop moving to apply condis. Not one single condi skill a necro has is a channel skill broken by movement.
Ele staff lava font spammer doesn’t need to stop either, and will outdps that condi build easily.
Actions, not words.
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Remember, remember, 15th of November
Condition warrior has similar dps as full dps build.
I posted this back in December 2013…
I am posting again so the history/context is not lost.
Huge flaw in the game that has been known and acknowledged since October 2012.
—————————————————————————————-
John Peters in October (2012): “Condition damage is an issue we are looking into.”
John Peters in February (2013): “Condition damage is an issue we are looking into.”
Original Posts:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/No-love-for-condition-builds/page/2#
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Comfirmed-Nothing-being-done-re-conditions/page/4
—————————————————————————————-
It is not ‘hard to balance’.
If one Direct damage character can sustain 1500 DPS for a ‘boss’ fight.
And one Condition damage character can sustain 1500 dps for a ‘boss’ fight
Then 10 of either characters should be able to sustain 15,000 DPS for the ‘boss’ fight.
There is no balance reason that conditions are capped and direct damage is not.
And if it is a technical issue… Blizzard, with their glacial development pace, was able to solve the issue in their ancient WoW engine back in 2008.
Sad!
Ulari <— disappointed
Ulari
Condition warrior has similar dps as full dps build.
Are you sure about that? I recently read an evaluation on the damage output of necros and warriors, and the conclusion is that DPS warriors can output anywhere from 7k to 12k DPS.
1. The fact that “zerkers can solo lupi” or that seasoned zerks don’t drop like flies due to active mitigation does not in fact address the issue that condi builds often have greater base “survive” and are in less direct danger then melee glass cannon builds.
2. I am aware how dps works and I am also aware of the “need for speed”.
3. With the correct wind up, against boss mobs, condi builds (some) can have a comparable dps and kill speed rate to direct damage when considering the solo environment. That is with greater survive. Without the cap the encounters would be ridiculous.
Now in a group situation that is not the case but should the dps cap be removed, then the damage in relation to the survive given by the gear/build would simply be too great, hence OP.
#1: That is pretty much true of every kind of gear that isn’t assassin/zerker/rampager. This also isn’t a problem. At all. There’s nothing wrong with being more durable than the least durable gear set up in the game.
#3: The windup is a severe limitation of the condi build which prevents condis from ever having the same DPS as direct damage builds. Removing the cap won’t ever change this. I fail to see how letting everyone do less damage and less DPS in more survivable gear will be “ridiculous”.
The reason why the zerker meta works is because passive defenses are useless in many regards. I already said that zerker (and by extensions, assassin and rampager) has less damage per effective HP than soldiers gear. This isn’t a problem, because currently the higher effective HP of soldier’s gear contributes nothing to the fight.
Also, the peak condi set everyone mentions is the Warrior, but the warrior causes its condi damage at melee, not range.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.
Glad to see such a vigorous and thoughtful discussion. (A wee bit tl;dr for me just jumping in, but here goes.)
First, the idea of mega-conditions is sound, but it’s problematic with some traits, like necro condition-healing, unless it’s coded very specifically to account for that. Then consider what happens to the mega-condition if the stack cap is met again. Still lots of calculations.
The big problem with the condition cap is mostly on the boss/mega-boss end. And there’s a somewhat simple fix, based on a tag/status that already exists. Since the primary PvE concern for conditions are those creatures with Defiant, I’d suggest an addition to the status.
Just like how Defiant reduces Blind and Weakness durations (a set of calculations already in place, certain damaging conditions should be altered to reduce their duration, probably by half, but double the damage. Or make it a quarter duration and quadruple the damage. …which sounds like a good idea until it hits me that many conditions are 1-second bleeds. (I wouldn’t propose this for confusion or torment. I rarely see those go up to 25, even in large groups.) And when I think of poisons and burns, I’m more inclined to take this back to the drawing board.
If it’s purely a technical issue, then my thought becomes: system checks for condition cap. If true, apply a percentage of condition damage immediately. That percentage could be 100%, it could be 50%. As it is, condition builds need something to accommodate their actual damage output.
Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
Also, the peak condi set everyone mentions is the Warrior, but the warrior causes its condi damage at melee, not range.
Rifle. Arms.
Granted, if you’re using a rifle as a warrior, then you’re fighting one of the game’s many, many melee-hating bosses.
Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
Are you sure about that? I recently read an evaluation on the damage output of necros and warriors, and the conclusion is that DPS warriors can output anywhere from 7k to 12k DPS.
Example of the boss fight with condition warrior where you can easily avoid most if not all of the damage: https://youtu.be/zyanxgG4bX4
This fight takes about 3 minutes as full dps build as well. Another example would be lupi. Fastest necro solo was achieved with condition build, not direct damage. Condition dealers lose their potential in group setting not only because of cap but also because direct damage dealers have more offensive buffs like vulnerability. It’s counter balanced by armour ignoring mechanics of conditions but only in pvp – mobs rarely use protection or have increased armour.
To reiterate, in solo settings or average team settings, one condition damage dealer isn’t far behind direct damage dealers. But if their potential was increased, pvp would be completely destroyed.
Also, the peak condi set everyone mentions is the Warrior, but the warrior causes its condi damage at melee, not range.
Rifle. Arms.
Even traited, the rifle doesn’t stack bleeds fast enough.
Are you sure about that?
As it is relevant I’ll add a quick answer to that one, yes. In certain situations (as is the case of solo condi warr) the dps and kill speed is closer than you seem to think.
#1: That is pretty much true of every kind of gear that isn’t assassin/zerker/rampager. This also isn’t a problem. At all. There’s nothing wrong with being more durable than the least durable gear set up in the game.
The point I made was that you stating that “zerkers can solo lupi” is not really a reasonable counter point when someone points out that condi users more often than not have greater survive and put themselves at less risk than zerk users.
Again, those warriors unable to melee zerk down Liadri could easily cheese her to death via a condi spec. Why is that? It’s because it is easier to use whilst also offering a great deal of damage.
You are right, it isn’t a problem tha other gear/builds have more survive than full glass melee zerk. There is though clearly a problem when people are suggesting changes to damage potential or otherwise recommending a dps increase for such builds.
#3: The windup is a severe limitation of the condi build which prevents condis from ever having the same DPS as direct damage builds. Removing the cap won’t ever change this. I fail to see how letting everyone do less damage and less DPS in more survivable gear will be “ridiculous”.
You seem to be overstating the amount of wind up needed and understating both the amount of damage condi can do (hence the original “yes” answer at the top of the post) and the risk/survive profile compared to zerk. Just removing the cap and increasing condi damage would indeed make it “ridiculous” from both a pve and especially from a pvp perspective.
The reason why the zerker meta works is because passive defenses are useless in many regards. I already said that zerker (and by extensions, assassin and rampager) has less damage per effective HP than soldiers gear. This isn’t a problem, because currently the higher effective HP of soldier’s gear contributes nothing to the fight.
I understand the zerk meta, I main zerk meta builds. I’m unsure why you keep bringing PVT type gear up, I have at no point been talking about the merits of lolfacetank sponge builds. Condi is able to apply dps when actively defending, far more so than the others. See the Liadri fight again, people do not stand in her face and whale on her because they have the extra toughness from their condi gear, they run around whilst at the same time applying massive dps pressure.
Whilst at the same time that added passive defense is an additional crutch safety layer regardless as to how negligable it might be.
Also, the peak condi set everyone mentions is the Warrior, but the warrior causes its condi damage at melee, not range.
The primary bulk of your damage comes in at melee range but you can apply significant condi pressure at range and more importantly you are constantly damaging your enemy (for large amounts of damage) when both actively dodging and also moving outside of melee range. Moreover you are able to achieve high damage and good kill speed with greater base defense than a full glass melee zerk has.
(edited by Fenrir.3609)
Also, the peak condi set everyone mentions is the Warrior, but the warrior causes its condi damage at melee, not range.
Rifle. Arms.
Even traited, the rifle doesn’t stack bleeds fast enough.
I wasn’t proposing it as a bleed build, actually. I think sword is more for that, anyway. I think the bigger point is, a rifle warrior, even with Arms and Strength training, is likely to tick on bleeds that don’t count for as much, given the condition caps.
Many alts; handle it!
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
“I’m finding companies should sell access to forums,
it seems many like them better than the games they comment on.” -Horrorscope.7632
Hello,
I’ve read the whole thread and I think that there have been some pretty good ideas. However, arguing that conditions doesn’t need any change because they are fine in solo battles is useless. The problem is conditions in group. The goal here isn’t to know if conditions need a boost, I think they don’t. The point is that the cap mechanic handles the situation of a condi group really really badly.
I think that the idea of super condition is pretty good. Averaging (or something) the 24 or 8 conditions already applied and creating a new one on this base could be a good problem fix.
They already added torment so I don’t see why they can’t add conditions to overcome the caps limitation. These super conditions wouldn’t be much of a problem in their stacking because being able to stack up to 625 (=25×25) bleeding would make condi build viable in dungeons, in small pve group or even for some of the open world bosses.
I also think that once the cap is reached for a super condi, the condi damage could burst the damage of the last super stack because at this point it doesn’t really matter if the damage stays over time or not because if your target resist that much, you won’t see any difference.
Anyway, this what I thought after reading these pages. (And sorry for my english as it isn’t my native language)
If what your saying is to increase the cap on condi’s/no cap at all….its not going to happen (i hope)
say you’re in a zerg, going into SM lord room, at the same time so is the other server defending it. You get to the lord and your zerg autos the hell out of it. Chances are it has 25 stacks of bleed now. Now if there was no cap….this would be way more than 25 stacks and 1 simple epidemic would kill anyone it affected. caps are needed condition damage is overpowered for armor and boons will not help you. there is just not enough condition removal.
My suggestion is: Get rid of intensity stacking conditions.
all conditions should work like Poison, give each a tick damage and a secondary effect
Poison: Reduce Healing
Burning: Reduce Armor
Bleeding: Reduce Endurance regen
Confusion: fine as it is, but make it stack duration instead of intensity
Torment: fine as it is, but make it stack duration instead of intensity
Chill: add a damage factor
Weakness: not sure about this one
Vulnerability: fuse it with burning?
Blind: fine as it is
Cripple: fine as it is
Immobilize: fine as it is
this, obviously calls for an adjustment on how much damage per tick those can do, remove all condition duration stats and reduce base duration, so now conditions gameplay would be about keeping your conditions up and each player could have their own stack without taxing the client too much(I used to play with DoTs in WoW and that’s how it worked and it was quite fun) also make sure that side effects don’t stack
As having a condi necro, im very happy to have Epidemic, but seriously, if that single skill is the only arguement on the balance aspect of the stack limit, how about just adjusting Epidemic as well instead of letting the entire condition mechanic stagnate in an unfinished unrefined state?
If what your saying is to increase the cap on condi’s/no cap at all….its not going to happen (i hope)
say you’re in a zerg, going into SM lord room, at the same time so is the other server defending it. You get to the lord and your zerg autos the hell out of it. Chances are it has 25 stacks of bleed now. Now if there was no cap….this would be way more than 25 stacks and 1 simple epidemic would kill anyone it affected. caps are needed condition damage is overpowered for armor and boons will not help you. there is just not enough condition removal.
I am not saying that there should be a decharge at 25 stacks, but at 625 and I think that at this point, it wouldn’t really matter for pvp because no player can take 625 stacks (I think)
So with my proposition, in your situation, people will maybe have the equivalent of 25 to 50 (at maximum) I think stacks of might. This is far from the 625 required for the condi burst.
^That would make things even worse. Lets say you do 500 DPS with your build, another character comes with his 500 DPS build, you both together would still do 500 DPS, which is essentially the problem with condition caps but made worse through now that 2 condi users are definitely useless in any case.
I’m not saying it should be instituted here. That ship has sailed. I’m saying that it was anet’s decision to even add condition damage to gear and that was a mistake in my eyes.
Had they kept the same formula from the previous game that started in 05’ and is still being played today we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Conditions in Guild Wars was never the primary source of damage in a build. It was the plus. Not to mention many skills had other effects if a player had particular conditions on them which many times is what you built around.
For an example: First skill, hit for dd and apply poison. Second skill, hit for dd, if subject is suffering from poison then do double damage or apply weakness or knockdown or blind or anything the skill says.
Guild Wars entire skill system was made up that way, not just conditions. Enchantments/Hexes/Offensive/Defensive skills were made up that way too.
You got it here as well. Guardians do 10% more damage to burning targets. Thieves apply weakness when they apply poison. Necro does some weird stuff with conditions and cutting their wrists or something, I don’t play one so I don’t know but its there.
The problem is that I’m sure of Anet just goes ‘right, massive overhaul, screw conditions, we messed up. Taking all condition damage away and removing conditions as a primary source of damage from the game’, there would be a riot.
yeah but the glasscannon berserker will die cause s/he needs to be upclose and personal and thus incuring damage while dealing damage. The necro does not. s/he can can focus on interrupting/dodging/fearing etc and still do maximum damage.
This is what attrition play-styles are supposed to be like. In theory, the ability to apply and kite should be balanced by lesser damage. The play-style provides greater safety but means longer time-to-kill.
In other games, the ability to apply DoT’s is also balanced to a greater or lesser degree by CD’s on skills that apply those DoT’s. Not so GW2, where condi application is often tied to auto-attack, which is happening all the time. This is unlikely to change, as it would require a major overhaul of combat.
The anti-condition complaints in PvP modes center around two things: “lack of counter-play” and “does too much damage.” While I don’t hold with the idea that there is no counter-play, I do believe that counter-play does require a build commitment that ensures one cannot have max anti-condi along with max anything else one wants. You can’t divorce damage done from counter-play, and I’ll leave the PvP pundits to decide if condi counter-play is balanced versus condi damage.
However, in PvE, mobs use condi counter-play somewhere between “very seldom” and “not at all.” In such a mode, too much damage can be measured against what direct builds can provide and be adjusted. If condi damage is considered to be “in a good place in PvP,” such an adjustment might be inadvisable — to avoid mode split. If that’s the case, Defiance could be given some ability to reduce the damage from condition stacks. Alternatively, a different boss buff could do so. There are often many ways to arrive at a desired sum via different equations.
In other words, “Does too much damage.” should not be countered by poor mechanics that mean, “You don’t get to do damage at all.”
Part of the counter-play complaint is the inability of some classes to be effective at condition removal. For example, condi removal on an Engineer requires 3 points into the elixir line and the turret and even then it’s weak compared to Rangers/Guards who have automatic removal without even using skills.
Also condi damage on this game is a joke compared to other titles say like WoW for example, where condis actually increase dramatically on crit so one can build a condi DoT build with heavy crit and it actually matters where here it barely does any bonus damage at all. Also in titles like LOTRO there are abilities on DoT classes that allow a player to lower the resistance to damage types like the LM ability that tosses out Tar which then dramatically increases enemy weakness to his fire abilities. (which is one of the things I suggested they add a trait for on Engineers when they nerfed Condi damage early on because we already use globs of gunk to slow or stop enemies).
These mechanics and others (like pet immunity to AOE) haven’t just been thrown together, they’ve been developed over years of problems in PVP and the problem with this title has always been that history hasn’t been taken into account. Every game has these pains when they first launch but hardly after so many great examples have seasoned players had to wait for developers to realize everything a title is missing.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
A lot of people are still fixating on the concept of a solo condi player. Solo is fine right now. There’s nothing wrong with them. The problem appears when ANOTHER person shows up that inflicts conditions as well. The result of that, is the condi build’s damage is halved because of that other player’s arrival. The more people that deal condi damage in a given fight, the worse ALL of their damage is. That is the issue being raised. It’s also the reason I made the suggestion to increase the duration/stack caps by 2x for champions and 3x for legendaries. Yes, the cap can still be reached, but it’s less of an issue, and can be the first step on improving condi damage.
A second solution is to fore-load the damage of condis. Instead of the damage constantly changing as your stats change, a stack of bleeding deals damage based on the stats you had when it was applied. For example, with 3k condi damage, a stack of bleed ticks for about 200, but with 2k, it ticks for ~150. So if you apply a stack of bleeding for 10 seconds at 3k condi damage, it ticks 10 times for 200 regardless if your condi damage drops. If you apply a stack for 10 seconds at 2k condi, it ticks for 150 regardless if your condi damage increases.
And the so-called “mega-conditions” are a good idea for any class but necros. Any necro with Parasitic Contagion heals off damage inflicted by their conditions, but with mega-conditions, who’s the owner of that stack? Everyone? No one? Random person? Either way it goes, the necro will suddenly lose a lot of healing.
edit: And with enemy rank based caps, pvp and wvw are left alone entirely.
I think one easy way to overcome condition caps without actually removing them is to create a burst damage effect for conditions when they are applied to an enemy that is already capped out. This damage would be caused immediately and directly, like normal damage.
One formula you could use for the amount of burst damage is (a pure, thumb-sucking example):
Burst damage = (20% of damage per second) * (amount of stacks added) * (condition duration)
So, in other words, if you normally do 100 bleed damage per second for each stack, and you use a skill that adds 3 stacks of bleed at a duration of 10 seconds, then the amount of burst damage you’d do is:
20 * 3 * 10 = 600 direct damage. This would be added to the physical damage your skill already does.
If you did, for example, 700 burn damage per second, and inflicted a 5 second burn, then it would work out to:
140 * 1 * 5 = 700 direct damage.
This way, you can keep the cap ceiling for the actual conditions themselves, thus ensuring they don’t get out of hand in PvP, while still allowing players who attack someone with full condition stacks to do a good amount of damage that will be dependent both on their condition damage stats and their condition duration, which gives the incentive of increasing both.
Anyway, that’s just a very rough example. Obviously it would have to be balanced out so the damage scales properly and doesn’t become too OP or UP, but that would be fo the devs to work out.
Has everyone here already read this? I think it’s relevant for the current discussion:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Effect_stacking
And I’d like to present an alternative solution for the stacking problem: Infinite stacks with diminishing returns. Everyone deals damage for all stacks they’ve applied, but the total damage increases at a diminished rate according to the total number of stacks applied.
There are a few problems with this solution, though:
- Increases processing load for the servers
- The formulas would have to be very well designed in order to properly reward (instead of hurting) people with condition damage builds
An Appeal for Better Design Policies: http://goo.gl/v19OAc
(edited by Ehrotic Avenger.7426)
stuff
Bloody hell, man. The reason why we number things is so we don’t have to fight with quote tags while nitpicking everything.
#1: The problem is that the assertion that survivability means something in regards to PVE balance is utterly false. PVE is balanced around mean kill speed and reward speed. If you want to factor in survival, then every single set in the game is already better than zerkers. Your nightmare of people running around killing things with tankier gear with more defensive tactics has been true since day one of the game.
The only difference is that, with dire gear the player has a heavy arbitrary redundancy factor, and in soldier gear they do not. Players “putting themselves in risk” is not an issue. At all.
#3: I am not understating the windup. Here’s a fine example particularly 1:26 in, where the team drops the boss in 11 seconds. This isn’t even a particularly good speed run group. When you are in a team where regular mobs die instantly, vets and silvers die in 5 seconds, and legendary mobs live for 20 seconds (or 12 with time warp), there is nothing more useless than a condi build. You get 4 attacks before an enemy is dead, and you can’t unload a full set of 25 bleeds + burn + poison + torment +confusion in 4 attacks.
Also, removing the cap doesn’t increase condi damage. It just makes condi damage fair, I.E. no more tyrannical oppression of a playstyle through unexplained mechanics, and no more discrimination based on coincidence alone.
The remainder of the post proves you don’t understand conditions: Conditions don’t “do” more damage because they tick away through active defenses. The difference between one attack that takes 0.7 seconds to activate and does 4000 damage immediately vs. another attack that takes 0.7 seconds to activate and does 1000 damage immediately with 3000 additional damage over 10 seconds is actually very little. The time you spend running around thinking “Oh look, I’m doing damage while running away! That makes me better!” is all really spent trying to catch up to the damage that direct DPS already did.
Likewise, you also can’t diagnose the problem. You’re spending all of your time hiding behind the cap due to an impractical and unfounded fear of conditions would somehow ruin the game, happy that players are randomly discriminated against in their playstyle. Never once have you thought “Gee, maybe if conditions are imbalanced, then we should remove the caps and balance conditions individually. That way, condi specs don’t get castrated for being in the same room as another condi spec”. No, instead you spend your time under the fallacy that getting 50 stacks of bleed at range is somehow more dangerous than getting hit 50 times at range.
You, sir, have no idea what is going on. I demand proof that you actually understand the issue, otherwise there is nothing more to gain from talking to you.
I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.