Guild Wars 2

I can already see barrier being a problem especially against power specs… which seem to get nerfed every “Balance patch” . So please if you’re going to add this new mechanic to the game could you AT LEAST rebalance protection and fumble(Weakness). Every patch power builds become less effective , at least from a PvP standpoint; forcing people to use condition builds because they’re easier to play and can still dish out a lot of damage.

Barrier is just additional health, so it may favor power builds against condi builds if there is a different toughness/armor scaling for that portion of health, otherwise it is exactly the same and does not bias condi at all.

I agree protection and weakness should affect condition builds too.

Not completely true. Since barrier naturally degenerates on its own, at a pretty quick pace too once it starts, it naturally favors direct damage versus DoT. DoT will be damaging it while it also degenerates on its own, allowing the DoT to start hitting the actual health pool much quicker.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Barrier is just additional health, so it may favor power builds against condi builds if there is a different toughness/armor scaling for that portion of health, otherwise it is exactly the same and does not bias condi at all.

I agree protection and weakness should affect condition builds too.

Weakness and Protection already affect condition builds, and in addition to that there cleanse. and resistance .

Virtually all Condition applications have a direct damage component. On some builds this less a factor but on other Condition builds this a significant portion of overall damage. As example Pistol mainhand thief has a very low power damage component compared to say dagger. It takes about 3 stacks of bleeds on a typical P/d condition build to generate the same amount of damage as a single shot of power damage on the same Condition build. With protection running that means only about 2 bleed stacks needed yet bleed is not putting out more overall damage. With weakness on the physical component would be surpassed by just one stack of bleed. In other words you are going to have to get around three more bleeds to do the same damage.

With other weapon sets having a higher physical damage component, this more pronounced.

babazhook.6805:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Barrier is just additional health, so it may favor power builds against condi builds if there is a different toughness/armor scaling for that portion of health, otherwise it is exactly the same and does not bias condi at all.

I agree protection and weakness should affect condition builds too.

Weakness and Protection already affect condition builds, and in addition to that there cleanse. and resistance .

Virtually all Condition applications have a direct damage component. On some builds this less a factor but on other Condition builds this a significant portion of overall damage. As example Pistol mainhand thief has a very low power damage component compared to say dagger. It takes about 3 stacks of bleeds on a typical P/d condition build to generate the same amount of damage as a single shot of power damage on the same Condition build. With protection running that means only about 2 bleed stacks needed yet bleed is not putting out more overall damage. With weakness on the physical component would be surpassed by just one stack of bleed. In other words you are going to have to get around three more bleeds to do the same damage.

With other weapon sets having a higher physical damage component, this more pronounced.

Sure, it has some effect, but nowhere near the same effect it has on power only builds. If someone builds a trailblazer necro, then the protection and weakness only affects the 1000 power the build has by default. A power build loses 33% of its damage due to Protection and around 25% due to Weakness. As well as that the Power build needs to invest in 3 stats to maximise damage whereas the condi build only need invest in 2.