Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying, yes. I know conditions are too strong. And yes, like most of you, I know the culprit is most likely burning. However, for the first time in the history of the game, a condition build that focuses on burning is finally viable as a replacement for the zerk meta for a number of classes (ele, engi, guard come to mind) in PvE.

Problem: I think the reason we see them as being “too strong” is mainly from a PvP perspective. And from the perspective of PvP, I agree. Conditions are way too bursty and too powerful (Looking at you instant nuke guardian burning build). However, I see no reason why we can’t nerf burning without absolutely destroying all condition builds again in PvE.

Solution?: I suggest these two things as the solution to condi builds:
1) Make the durations much, much longer but lower the damage of burn and/or lower the number of stacks of burning that most skills apply. Most burning attacks have very short durations but very high damage coefficients that make them incredibly high damage over a short period of time (counter to the attricive playstyle of a condition build; think purity of purpose). If done correctly, the damage of skills that apply burning would not be changed provided the condition was not cleansed, but it would provide much more time for people to cleanse the condition and thus, in a roundabout way, nerf the condition in PvP without affecting it in PvE. This would still maintain a high level of dps for some prolonged PvE encounters (HP sponges in fractals, world bosses, etc), but would give people much more time to react to a condition spike making it more easily countered and thus making them weaker in PvP.
2) The other culprit I see is combos with fire fields. These simply need to be reworked to apply much less burning. Projectile and whirl finishers (unload & whirling wrath in particular) are causing much more damage than they should, especially considering the fact that they don’t even apply burn on their own. By doing this, you can easily stack up to 10~40 burn stacks without even using any skills that apply it without the field.

Result: I feel like if these two things were done, burning would still remain relevant in PvE, it wouldn’t burst people down in PvP, and it would still remain unique as a condition apart from bleeding because it would have a way longer duration.

What do you all think? Or does someone have a different/better solution? Or is everyone content to just nerf conditions to oblivion and continue the PvE zerk meta?

This is totally ridiculous.
I have no issue killing someone who uses burning. It is called playing smarter. Try it.

Tell you what though.
You let kill shot take 15 seconds to reach its target….
You let that macro’d cloak and dagger/steal/backstab take 15 seconds to complete.
You let that ranger volley that hit me for 12k in a few seconds take 15 seconds
You have the zerk shatter mesmers finish their sequence in 15 seconds instead of 3.

You need to realize for once, that the best condi damage out there does match the best direct damage out there when looking at damage per second.

Example. Zerk shatter mesmer can and has hit me for 15k in his 4 second rotation. In the same time i did maybe 5k damage. And you want to nerf condition damage. This is really a learn to play moment.
I took a remove condi skill. Try it.

i’m an engineer so i’m sort of spoiled by condi removal, but i really only have problems dealing with them on my guardian, mainly because of large cooldowns.

I don’t mind being killed by a burn guardian as I encounter them very rarely and thus I’m mostly out-played or not carrying decent condi-removal.

I’m so used to encountering med-guards these days so facing a burn-guard is something at least different.

As for burning in general: I feel like it’s the most unique condition in the game atm… very powerful in short bursts and some classes simply excel at maintaining that dmg output, however, hence saying that I think there is the possibility of ANet stepping in and toning it down a fraction as yes; insta-bursted with massive burn stacks is quite intimidating and OP unless you’re topped with condi-removal.

These are still the early stages of the recent condi-buff-patch and I’m hoping ANet is taking in all the opinions/info/statistics players have provided to make it an overall balanced game soon.