Guild Wars 2

Condition damage shouldnt be able to compete with power when it comes to damage output. It’s ridiculous to think that it should be equal to power if that were the case then no one thats number crunching would run power. Too make condi successful all you need is condition damage. Power on the other hand requires so much more to be strong. You need power, you need precision and you need ferocity. If condis do as much damage as power in pvp with more survivability then why would power ever even be a thing? Don’t get me started on wvw dire gear is not well balanced at all. If its not in pvp because its overpowered then it shouldn’t be in wvw for the same reason. Thats like giving zerker builds toughness and vitality along with there damage. Dire gear gives condi builds everything they need to be effective in 3 stats without having to sacrifice any survivability.

Often I see claims about condition damage in comparison to power the I believe to be untrue and/or unhelpful. I’m not going into the exact numbers as I don’t know them and they aren’t quite relevant to the point I’m trying to make here (they may well be relevant in other discussions).

First of all, I believe condition and power should be balanced soldier’s to dire against moderately armored targets and without traits (as at that point you are comparing classes and traits which should be balanced against each other, not against base stats). If in this situation the balance is wrong, blame the numbers instead of resorting to any of the following:

Conditions ignore armor: True, but this isn’t completely in favor of the condition damage users. If power and conditions are properly balanced against a moderately armored target, power would have the advantage against low armor targets and conditions the advantage against high armor targets.

Conditions only need 1 stat, power needs 3: I’d say power gets to use 3 stats that all multiply in a way whereas conditions only get one stat with possibly precision as a secondary which scales worse than with power and needs traits to do anything at all.

Conditions are passive while power is active: The user still needs to apply the conditions making this claim utter nonsense. Just count condition damage as done when the condition is applied and you should be able to understand that (almost all of) the same counters to power also work against conditions.

There are however several downsides to conditions that should be compensated with a higher base damage (against a moderately armored target):

Conditions take time to kill, during which the opponent can still do you damage and maybe even kill you. As well as conditions not doing their full damage due to the target being dead.

Conditions can be cleansed, thereby not doing their full damage.

And finally there’s one complaint I saw somewhere today: Conditions are strong in burst and sustained damage: If this is true, fair enough, conditions shouldn’t do burst damage, at all. Somehow I’m guessing the problem here was burning.

The best formulation of the situation I think.

Exactly my thoughts on all points but one:
I do believe the stats situation is actually a problem. If you want them to be balanced in terms of final damage, then having 2 stats slots free for defense makes everything unbalanced. If you take this defense into account, then you have to reduce the condition damage, but then this kills condition in PvE where defensive stats are redundant.
The only solution I believe is to nerf conditions but allow them to crit on application to make up for it. You thus have a 3 stats combo
-condi damage, precision, condi duration
to get most of the power of conditions.

The true problem often comes from what Silverkey said.

Here is a player who did a thorough video on different build for the same class. Two power build and 1 with Dire stats and condition build. You can look at the description to grasp how the player felt as he played the many different build.

Condition are indeed more of a passive play since your auto attack (combined with the traits/runes/sigil) often becomes your main source of DPS. Also, there is the famous Dire stats that has been a subject of discussion since its release. The stats that Dire provide are 1 offensive and 2 defensive, yet a condi build is still able to deal incredible damage, damage that a person with full PTV (soldier) will never ever come close to. As for the PVE side, I agree that there are many variant for a condi build, yet the impact from the secondary stats (apart from crit on some builds) is inferior to what precision and ferocity brings to a power build.

Some other players played full Dire stats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-d9vGO52E This player got firework banned from WvW.

I still disagree as ppl seem once again bound on comparing

POWER, PRECISION and FEROCITY

vs

CONDITION DAMAGE.

Mind you you will need 3 stats as well for conditions.

CONDITION DMG is like having a POWER build
CONDITION DMG and PRECISION is like POWER PRECISION (might? condi on crit? criticals)
CONDITION DMG, DURATION and PRECISION is like POWER, PRECISION and FEROCITY (max (condi) damage builds)

Problem is though:
Conditions CAN BE CLEANSED. It will cost the caster TIME
(read the time you’ll need to burst him down on power build or die)
To gain TIME you either are a good dodger/ CC-er (power and condi) or you need some mitigation: (Toughness (condi) or Vitality (both)in some cases Healing (both?) can work as well..)

SO RABID+ Condition duration (Read sigils, runes and food) compared to Berzerk + utility and Sigils and runes.

Condition damaeg is nice but getting 50 or 100% condition duration ADDED makes a condi build strong. A warriors flurry may do 16 bleeds but without duration they last 2,5 seconds. which is 4000 damage with duration added they last 4,75 7600 damage it will just take almost twice the time. Actual DPS doesn’t rise through condition duration based upon 1 attack, the number of stacks will rise and therefore the STACKED DOT damage

Oh and just spamming 1 makes you a vbery poor condi stacker comparable as when playing power.

I get your point.

Just to clarify, I do know that to max out the dps on a condi build you need 3 offensive stats. My point is mostly that for a power build with only 1 power stats and 2 defensive stats, he will hit like a wet noodle. The damage mitigation from toughness applies to power build. As for condition, it bypass toughness and apply itself directly to the health. I do agree that to compensate for that, there are condi cleanse. Sadly, the condi cleanse are often so few in comparison (exception to elementalist) to how much condi application a real condition build can come up with.

Basically, a condi build with Dire stats can deal enough damage to kill their enemies at a speed that, while being slower than a full zerker, is still much faster than what a power build with PTV can achieve.

Usually the logic that goes by is to reward the high risk gameplay since it is harder to master.
Just saying that low risk gameplay should not come with such a high reward. If condi builds were also hitting like wet noodle with only 1 offensive stats, I would not even be on this forum. It’s just that most condi builds out there (exception to PVE) will use Dire stats since it is forgiving while dealing enough damage to crush their opponents.

I don’t know if you looked at the videos I posted. The first video shows how 2 kind of power builds are played and it also shows how a full dire build is played on the same class. You can truly see which one contains more risk. Both can down the enemy really quickly while one has the advantage of sitting on 20k+ hp on a thief with high toughness.

I agree that the second video is truly not representative since the player faced people who had no idea what was happening (Dire stats + perplexity runes were new at that time, yet he still got firework banned from WvW).

Full soldiers with sharps and power/toughness food still hits quite decent…
Full clerics if a bit more noodle I agree. but then you accept the power to be a minor stat.

I cannot see stats without foods. running without food its like saying:
“Well I do not care and ppl will flush 170-400 points right down the drain”,
also you cannot compare boths builds without food.
( toxic) crystals and pizza needs to be taken into account in balancing IMHO
If condition builds need the food to be decent do not forget the food on power builds.

There are several things I want to notice:
first is that a lot of pvt users also equip defensive traits and weapons, dropping their dps noticably. Condi builds mostly have one condi weapon, which is their condi dps weapon.
Also lots of condi builds in invest in conditions through utility/elite skills and traits while most power builds invest in defense with their utilities/skills and traits. The two thiefs are a perfect example of it, hell the dire thief didn’t even had a stunbreaker.

Passive is not reserved for condi, a lot of zerker builds rune air and fire sigils which is also a passive.

I have also one weapon comparison on a basic level necromancer scepter vs guardian scepter in terms of autoattack scaling.

The guardian scepter scales 0.666 with power but we have to factor in defense and weapon strength and attack speed. The attack speed is o,8 , average scepter weapon strength is 1000 and a guardians base defense is 2271 resulting in a true scaling of 0,36657859973579920739762219286658 dps/power.

necromancer scepter has 3 second auto attack chain inflicting 10 ticks of bleed and 5 of poison all scaling 0.06 dps/tick resulting in a 0,3 dps/condition damage. While poison may bring utility to the auto attack, guardian scepter has a higher range.

You can argue the point that condi damage takes a bit longer to pump out, while crit builds (not power) can do it far quicker and immediate.

But yeah, condi damage does have that massive benefit.

That’s why condition damage was originally designed to supplement direct damage and not replace it.

Ideally, a pure power build should do minimal condition damage and maximum direct damage, while pure condi build should do respectable condi damage + respectable direct damage. They seem to be moving into more of a purist approach with conditions, but the game isn’t really balanced around that.

Your argument comed off as pretty biased and opinionative. First off, why shouldn’t CD be more effective than power? Not saying it is, but what gives you the authority to declare what should be stronger? Also, pure Cd in a vacuum isn’t stronger than power, CD build clearly utilize many supporting factors to be effective.

condi builds require condi damage as a offensive stat to put out damage with dire gear. Thats one offensive stat and your thinking that they should equal the same dps output as a power build that has 3 offensive stats and no defensive stats?

Condie builds already beats power build in 1v1 before the patch. Their weakness is in team fight where opposing side can have good aoe cleanse

Should … when power stats = condition stats, then the effectiveness should be equal terms of damage? This create a challenging scheme when power stats shine with simple direct damage, while conditions have numerous ways of being effective via bleeding, burning, torment, poison, confusion. On a typical target, should the same amount of Power stats (alone) be just as effective as conditional damage , and vis versa?

If you answer yes, then imbalance comes about when you add in precision and ferocity.

If you answer no, then you are correct in the meta game right now CD is MUCH MUCH more effective than power.

How to balance the two? That’s the question/process that will take trial and error.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Forsaken.7015:

condi builds require condi damage as a offensive stat to put out damage with dire gear. Thats one offensive stat and your thinking that they should equal the same dps output as a power build that has 3 offensive stats and no defensive stats?

Dire gear is to Sinister as Soldiers is to Berserker.

come on man use your head.

What does that have to do with what I said at all? You just like hearing yourself talk?
And soldiers is not even close to a power version of dire. The way condis are dishing out damage. Soldiers use power and power by itself isnt as strong as condis are thats what im saying power requires some precision and ferocity.

I run a full ascended morbachs light set and ive ran it on all 3 light classes its overpowered end of story they know it thats why its not in pvp. The longer a fight lasts against a condi build the more likely they are to win the fight. Dire gives you everything you need without having to sacrifice any damage its broke.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Forsaken.7015:

condi builds require condi damage as a offensive stat to put out damage with dire gear. Thats one offensive stat and your thinking that they should equal the same dps output as a power build that has 3 offensive stats and no defensive stats?

Dire gear is to Sinister as Soldiers is to Berserker.

come on man use your head.

Lmao no.

Only condi builds that need precision is Mesmer and Engineer. Necro, Warrior, and Thief go Dire and if you ever fought one of these three classes you’ll know how broken Dire is. These guys can 1vx easily. All you need for Condition Damage builds is Condition Damage. Power needs power precision and ferocity to be effective. Someone in full Dires can annihilate you as fast if not faster that a zerker can. Condition Damage needs a new stat to spread out it’s damage, like Power builds need ferocity.

Forsaken.7015:

Condition damage shouldnt be able to compete with power when it comes to damage output. It’s ridiculous to think that it should be equal to power if that were the case then no one thats number crunching would run power

Power shouldnt be able to compete with condition damage when it comes to damage output. It’s ridiculous to think that it should be equal to condition damage if that were the case then no one thats number crunching would run condition damage.

/s

One more players who got ascended berserker gear and is afraid to grind another set with different stats. Sorry, buddy, but conditions are the new meta right now.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Kamikazi.5380:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Forsaken.7015:

condi builds require condi damage as a offensive stat to put out damage with dire gear. Thats one offensive stat and your thinking that they should equal the same dps output as a power build that has 3 offensive stats and no defensive stats?

Dire gear is to Sinister as Soldiers is to Berserker.

come on man use your head.

Lmao no.

Only condi builds that need precision is Mesmer and Engineer. Necro, Warrior, and Thief go Dire and if you ever fought one of these three classes you’ll know how broken Dire is. These guys can 1vx easily. All you need for Condition Damage builds is Condition Damage. Power needs power precision and ferocity to be effective. Someone in full Dires can annihilate you as fast if not faster that a zerker can. Condition Damage needs a new stat to spread out it’s damage, like Power builds need ferocity.

You are referring to pvp (or wvw) builds, which is an entirely different ballgame.

A pvp build is only as good as its condi clears if it isn’t just a glass canon spec, and if you can stack even the smallest amount of condi you can wipe out anyone without enough condi removal. (or even bait the condi removal then stack and easily win)

This is why condition damage has been the meta in pvp for so long.

You are comparing apples to oranges by comparing pvp to pve.

DoT in pve is not the same discussion as what kills baddies in pvp.

No one is talking about pve here what you said has nothing to do with his post troll somewhere else.

Forsaken.7015:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Kamikazi.5380:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Forsaken.7015:

condi builds require condi damage as a offensive stat to put out damage with dire gear. Thats one offensive stat and your thinking that they should equal the same dps output as a power build that has 3 offensive stats and no defensive stats?

Dire gear is to Sinister as Soldiers is to Berserker.

come on man use your head.

Lmao no.

Only condi builds that need precision is Mesmer and Engineer. Necro, Warrior, and Thief go Dire and if you ever fought one of these three classes you’ll know how broken Dire is. These guys can 1vx easily. All you need for Condition Damage builds is Condition Damage. Power needs power precision and ferocity to be effective. Someone in full Dires can annihilate you as fast if not faster that a zerker can. Condition Damage needs a new stat to spread out it’s damage, like Power builds need ferocity.

You are referring to pvp (or wvw) builds, which is an entirely different ballgame.

A pvp build is only as good as its condi clears if it isn’t just a glass canon spec, and if you can stack even the smallest amount of condi you can wipe out anyone without enough condi removal. (or even bait the condi removal then stack and easily win)

This is why condition damage has been the meta in pvp for so long.

You are comparing apples to oranges by comparing pvp to pve.

DoT in pve is not the same discussion as what kills baddies in pvp.

No one is talking about pve here what you said has nothing to do with his post troll somewhere else.

troll?

Oh I’m, sorry…

You guys ARE talking about WvW
:O

Even so…. I feel that the culprit is more the toughness in WvW builds moreso than the condition dmg. Condition dmg ignores toughness….. whereas toughness reduces power’s effectiveness.

If toughness was altered to negate some condi dmg i could see balance… but maybe its Anet’s intent to get people out of pvt gear.

Also…. isn’t resistance going to play a big role after the release of HoT?

Test.8734:

Forsaken.7015:

Condition damage shouldnt be able to compete with power when it comes to damage output. It’s ridiculous to think that it should be equal to power if that were the case then no one thats number crunching would run power

Power shouldnt be able to compete with condition damage when it comes to damage output. It’s ridiculous to think that it should be equal to condition damage if that were the case then no one thats number crunching would run condition damage.

/s

One more players who got ascended berserker gear and is afraid to grind another set with different stats. Sorry, buddy, but conditions are the new meta right now.

I actually run ascended dire gear and the current setup plays right into my original play style. That being said I run it because its overpowered and if you want to compete your forced to play whats strong, but from a fan of the game I think it should be better balanced for the overall longevity of the game. I honestly dont know how to fix it but I think kamikaze could be on to something. Adding another stat that you would need to make condis effective much like they did when they added ferocity to precision.

QQ

This is mostly a bitter opinion. Eventually it’ll be balanced where you’ll see bosses will shed condition durations or even apply resistance to themselves, which if you forgot, cancels out condition effects. So hey, at least Aegis just blocks 1 attack

Zevix.1479:

QQ

This is mostly a bitter opinion. Eventually it’ll be balanced where you’ll see bosses will shed condition durations or even apply resistance to themselves, which if you forgot, cancels out condition effects. So hey, at least Aegis just blocks 1 attack

I have no issues with conditions being buffed pve. I get some ppl want to just play alone just for the story mode or whatever, and for pve they should play what they find more enjoyable and it should be just as good regardless of what they choose to play.

The disadvantage of condition gear is that it takes time to deliver the damage, time during which you might no longer be alive.

So I think obviously power should be more difficult to gear for, since it is more noob-friendly and “give me my reward now.”

With lots of talk about the condi changes in sPVP, lets take a look at some numbers to see how imbalanced conditions really are.

Mesmer Scepter in sPVP rabid amulet with Undead runes (and the 10% toughness to condi trait) will be used for this calculation. Torment sigils were used to test how many stacks of Torment I could keep up while auto attacking, but are otherwise unused in the calculations. No other talents or sigils are taken into account.

Warrior Greatsword in sPVP zerker amulet with Hoelbrek runes will be used for this calculation (but their condi reduction is NOT taken into account). No other talents and no sigils are taken into account.

All calculations are done assuming one class is hitting the other. Torment DPS is calculated as if the target was always moving.

Alright, set up aside, let’s look at the auto attacks. We’re assuming both classes standing still eating each other’s auto attacks. With this in mind we’re assuming three clones hitting the Warrior along with the Mesmer. This can reliably keep up 5 stacks of Torment.

The total DPS for the mesmer scepter auto attack is 2,804 DPS. 194 DPS per stack of Torment per second. 1,048 damage for the first and second swings on a .5 second swing timer, and 1,834 damage for the last swing in the chain with a 1 second cooldown.

The total DPS for a Warrior Greatsword is 5,881 DPS. 2,685 for the first and second swing on a .5 second swing timer, and 3,452 damage on the third swing in the chain with a .5 second swing timer.

Greatsword Warrior does over double the DPS. That’s not too bad, considering he’s melee and can be kited.

Now lets look at a burst example. Both Mesmer double shatter and Warrior hundred blades are easy to dodge and block, so I feel it’s a pretty apt comparison.

Mesmer is assumed to have generated 3 clones. She will shatter with Mind Wrack, pop mirror images and a second clone generating skill, and shattering with Cry of Frustration for 3 clones. All shatter calculations also include the Mesmer since shatters go off on the Mesmer now too base.

The Mesmer will apply 10 stacks of Torment (with the torment on shatter trait) for 6 seconds. The Mesmer will also apply 15 stacks of Confusion (with the blind on shatter + confusion on blind traits) for roughly 8 seconds.

With a DPS of 194 on Torment, and 73 DPS on confusion, and 2,286 direct damage on the two shatters this comes to 22,686 total damage over 8 seconds. 22,000 of that damage is able to be cleansed. Since Mirror Images is mandatory for the quick double shatter this can be done on a 36 second cooldown utilizing 4 skills. Note this calculation does not take into account any swings while under confusion.

Hundred Blades will deal 16,148 damage over 3.5 seconds to the Mesmer. Hundred Blades has an 8 second cooldown, and requires only one skill cast to obtain the printed damage.

Both burst damage values, if everything hits, would be enough to kill the other class.

So, a zerker melee Warrior has over double the auto attack DPS, and does 71% of the burst of a Mesmer on one skill cast with no setup on a six second cooldown, and can kill the Mesmer with that skill alone.

The Mesmer has half the DPS of a Warrior on the auto attacks, but is ranged. They do roughly 40% more burst but it requires 4 skills to be cast and a major part of the burst chain is a 36 second cooldown. 90% of the burst damage can be cleansed as it is done over 6-8 seconds.

I don’t see where the issue is with conditions (aside from burning) at all. Dodging and blocking stances affect both the burst and auto attack DPS of the attacks equally. Protection reduces direct damage by 33%, but condi cleanse removes roughly 90% of a Mesmer burst (about 10% less per second it’s left on, so I’d say on average you can catch 70-80% of the condi duration). Mesmer clones can also be killed to reduce their auto attack DPS substantially, and make it hard to get the perfect double shatter off. Overall, I’d say conditions still need a bigger buff (again, burning aside). If you have other arguments like stealth and so on and so forth, then remember your argument isn’t against conditions – it’s against stealth. If stealth + conditions is an issue, then stealth needs to be tuned down, NOT CONDITIONS.

Note – Weapon coefficients are taken from the GW2 wiki. Condition DPS rates were taken from the patch notes. The damage formulas were taken from the GW2 wiki as well. Attached is my math. I won’t explain the excel. If you don’t understand it, read the wiki.

EDIT: Looks like I forgot the last strike of hundred blades. Add in another 1500 or so, not too much, to the Warrior burst. Regardless, if he gets a full hundred blades off the 15,922 HP Mesmer is dead.

Condi skill are generally less avoidable and ignore defense. They really shouldnt be as strong as direct dmg.
Not only that but it essentially guts builds in order to deal with it. When you need like 3 different types of condi clear you eliminate a lot of playstyles.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Forsaken.7015:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Kamikazi.5380:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Forsaken.7015:

condi builds require condi damage as a offensive stat to put out damage with dire gear. Thats one offensive stat and your thinking that they should equal the same dps output as a power build that has 3 offensive stats and no defensive stats?

Dire gear is to Sinister as Soldiers is to Berserker.

come on man use your head.

Lmao no.

Only condi builds that need precision is Mesmer and Engineer. Necro, Warrior, and Thief go Dire and if you ever fought one of these three classes you’ll know how broken Dire is. These guys can 1vx easily. All you need for Condition Damage builds is Condition Damage. Power needs power precision and ferocity to be effective. Someone in full Dires can annihilate you as fast if not faster that a zerker can. Condition Damage needs a new stat to spread out it’s damage, like Power builds need ferocity.

You are referring to pvp (or wvw) builds, which is an entirely different ballgame.

A pvp build is only as good as its condi clears if it isn’t just a glass canon spec, and if you can stack even the smallest amount of condi you can wipe out anyone without enough condi removal. (or even bait the condi removal then stack and easily win)

This is why condition damage has been the meta in pvp for so long.

You are comparing apples to oranges by comparing pvp to pve.

DoT in pve is not the same discussion as what kills baddies in pvp.

No one is talking about pve here what you said has nothing to do with his post troll somewhere else.

troll?

Oh I’m, sorry…

You guys ARE talking about WvW
:O

Even so…. I feel that the culprit is more the toughness in WvW builds moreso than the condition dmg. Condition dmg ignores toughness….. whereas toughness reduces power’s effectiveness.

If toughness was altered to negate some condi dmg i could see balance… but maybe its Anet’s intent to get people out of pvt gear.

Also…. isn’t resistance going to play a big role after the release of HoT?

Thats a interesting take but i think that would just make dire gear more overpowered then it already is. They would have the same damage potential and be tankier then they were before. Resistance could help real in condis but that depends on how relevant it is.

that is not possible con damage can stack to very high numbers also some classes can put up more types of con damage in 1 time

that will make it a very high damage dealer
in my few con damage must always be lower in damage then direct damage

I have no problem with condi damage taking only 1 offensive stat, they were supposed to originally be designed like it was in GW1, where degen builds, be it conditions or hexes, were classified as “pressure” builds that rely on the DoT nature along with a defensive play style to slowly whittle down the other team.

It’s only when condi ticks are actually achieving spike damage status (which they are right now) that we’ve got a problem. DoTs ignoring armor is normal behavior, DotTs SPIKING through armor is broken.

@darknicrofia how do you feel about vulnerbility effecting condi damage now do you think it contributes much to the amount of condi damage ppl are taking? Some classes can stack a lot of it engis dropping 10-15 stacks of it can be done in 2 skills. thats 10-15% more damage taken.

Genlog.4983:

in my few con damage must always be lower in damage then direct damage

Con damage should be lower in BURST then direct… The pay off; con damage or Damage Over Time, should be very strong if aloud to fully play out. If it’s weaker over all then direct damage no matter what, we get the old zerker meta where it’s power/crit/fer or get out.

explanation: Numbers are totally random
Zerker = bursts for 14k in 5 seconds, then runs at 8k for 25 seconds, then bursts again. Over 1 min zerker does 14k + 14k + 8k + 8k = 44k over 1 min

Condition = applies conditions that average at 825 damage per second. by 10 seconds he has done 8250 by 20 seconds 16500k, 30 seconds 24750, 40 seconds 33000 , 50 seconds 41250, 60 seconds 49500 . Over all damage = 49500 over 1 min.

Condition damage appears to be higher over time, while in shorter bursts, power/crit will win. (this is in my opinion how it should work) If condi is ALWAYS lower, why in the heck would you play condi?

The issue that’s causing a balance problem at the moment is conditions appear to be BURSTING as hard as power/crit. Of course, people are still adjusting to the new condition builds aren’t crap mind set (Actually had a guy in a pvp match saying condis take no skill, then he goes on to brag he has literally 0 condi cleanse). Give it some time, and let A-net balance out the condi damage a bit more.

a warrior getting one hit by a bleed is stupid. and broken. Thanks for releasing this before HoT dropped. Because now i’ll wait for you to announce a fix before I start the game again, or buy Heart Of thrones. If i was any player who had already pre-ordered i would be demanding a refund.

I’m going to compare the burst a bit more as I think there’s some interesting analysis to be done there. The Mesmer has to ramp up to three clones before attempting the double shatter. This means when fighting a Mesmer, if you see them generating scepter or staff clones (or really, any clones in general) you need to keep them suppressed. Mesmers are GOING to shatter now. It’s not an if, but a when. To counter their burst before it happens, make sure you drop AOE’s to keep their clone generation down.

Also, the Mesmer is likely now to offensively blink or roll into a shatter. Shatters happen on the Mesmer now too, so offensive shatters are much more likely. The ranged clones have to run in, but the freshly generated ones will pop right on top of you. If you see a Mesmer with 3 clones roll or blink into you, pop defensive cooldowns or dodge.

Lastly, if you do get hit by the shatter bomb full force you still have options. Your best bet is to pop a two condi cleanse. This will remove a HUGE portion of the burst. Try to save your cleanse for this moment. A good Mesmer will try to bait out your cleanses and dodges so when they shatter you go down. Be aware of this. If you can cleanse, you can survive. Also, when the new boon Resistance becomes more common you can just pop that for a few seconds to mitigate about 10-15% of the burst damage per second of resistance. Again, if you can wait try to save your resistance to counter the burst.

By contrast, the Warrior burst has little counter play. They are going to root or stun you into a Hundred Blades. It’s a very simple formula. Save your stun breaks and condi cleanses for this moment. If you eat a stun or immob you’re probably going to eat a Hundred Blades chop or two. It’s pretty hard to eat the CC, insta cleanse and eat zero shots. Don’t get too low as two or three strikes could put you in the dirt. Even if you survive the first Hundred Blades it’s on an 8 second cooldown. Warriors can fish for good Hundred Blade shots quite easily, but they need CC to land more than a hit or two. Shield is common for Hundred Blades Warriors as they advance under the block stance and aim for shield bashes. If you see a Warrior shield up, back up.

NOTE – I said COUNTER PLAY when referring to the Warrior. Yes, I know there are COUNTERS and that is not what counter play means. Counters refer to things that outright trump other things. Counter play, by contrast refers to the complex decision making tree during actions. Look at the Mesmer and her targets decision making during the burst. There are options for both sides on when to strike and how to use their cooldowns. Now look at the Warrior. There is little decisions to be made as you simply try to CC into the Hundred Blades. The difference in decisions to make is astronomical. The Mesmer duel decision process is a great example of counter play.

Problem for many people (I personally do not give kitten after my thief got destroyed) is that;

Power build: Needs power, precision and ferocity for the full build.

Condition Build: You only need condition damage. Other stats can be chosen as vitality and toughness, precision and healing power… so on.

So while a full power build can not add any hp or armor bonus to the build itself if it wants to do the highest damage, a condition build can go dmg + tank together. And with the stats adjusted, and hit points lowered ( 12k on thief and ele for example), people with power builds suffer greately. Most of their builds became burst-or-die.

There are some brilliant people who advices to “not to go full zerker, go soldier etc.” but i guess they are unaware of the fact that there are builds which rely on criticial damage and chance.

I don’t think this matters anymore. Everybody seems to change their main characters to adjust. So after a while it will all be ok. Anet, being a cunning group, will soon buff the leveling up process to help main-changing people. And then the new topic will be new specs for thief and ele. And I will remember my creative thief playing days with a smile on my face, when I see a bloody one-shotter thief.

in WvW most servers had condition roamers before, often using PvP builds, these made roaming in tanky gear useless.

In WvW most zergs have plenty of shout heal warhorn condi cleansing healers, water ele’s shout guardians… purging flames has been improved to be qite powerfull, due to it’s burning effectsif used by celestial builds. Now with all chnages I do not die in WvW by conditions in a zerg.

Conditions have been here,in wvw for a ong time. The only change I made was to check if I could run a power build or shouldnatke a condi build before I enter.

1 solo memser may be very hard to counter (1vs1m, 2vs1m or even 3vs1m), but for me it’s like fighting thieves, They have stealth stealth takes time… time is one of the 3 things you need for a conditon build… As long as you can strip some of the conditions you should be allright, or you RUN, as it is also an option.

(For DOT output you’ll need:
condition damage (skills&attribute points)
condition duration (runes/sigils/food/utility) and
TIME (you can proc everything but most builds can clean the initial burst…., also you might get someone down with your conditions but if you go down as well it didn’t turn out to be a victory (so toughness tend to be very important….)

If it is burning that kills you then yes. The stacking there opend pandoras box for some builds. There it needs either a per player stack limit or some overal soft cap like i suggested:

now: (7.5+(1.55*Level) + (0.155 * Condition Damage) * (Stack count))

new: (7.5+(1.55*Level) + (0.2 * Condition Damage) * (1+ln(Stack count)))

Each stack will add, but not straight and manny stacks won´t do much more.

This will do abot the same damage with two stacks as now. One will do more and stacking will not go off.

Of couse you can balace each class for burning but thats very hard work and not a fast solution.
Otherwise it feels fine. Bleeding should have the slighly buffed version announced.

Ok CondI does seem to be OP in GW’s at the moment, but we don’t know the how the new mobs react to the damage it may be that COND damage will just be able to hold its own in the new maps against the new mobs lets wait n see

Please split overal condi damage and burning… Saying all condi damage is OP when jsut burn stacking got out of control is not good.

I think power / precision / condition damage builds should be comparable to power / precision / ferocity builds. However, I agree that condition damage on its own should not be comparable to power / precision / ferocity builds.

It makes sense for a build with 3 damage stats to compare to another build with 3 damage stats. It does not make sense for a build with 1 damage stat to compare to a build with 3 though.

thats true but condi has drawbacks.
1.) It ticks over time
2.) Its cleansable
3.) It has a duration ‘stat’

This more compensates for the two stats as long as condis don´t burst.
Of course if condi from on player kills on first tick there is something wrong…

Condy DPS should be abble to go above power DPS (damage per second)
after a time of build-up

don’t forget that 1 condy cleanse (Cc) and you go gack to build-up

My point is that if a zerg thief/ele/…. can do 10-15k dps
a condy player shoul be abble do stak 20k dps after a 1min. – or 2 mins of build time
1 min is a lot of time and most Cc will be off-cooldown and a valid counter play.

atm:
by my math
if u have 2200Condy dmg and u attack an enemy whit 25*vuln
and you have 20*bleeds 20*poison 5*burns on him
you do ~10-15k DPS
1) it is inpossible to stack this amount of condis as fast as a power-based build would do 10-15k DPS
2) even if u get to 20*any-condy it takes ~20s to do so and it is easyly Cc

Just nerf burning by 66% and everyone will probably shut up.

Test.8734:

One more players who got ascended berserker gear and is afraid to grind another set with different stats. Sorry, buddy, but conditions are the new meta right now.

The instanced pve meta (the only place ascended is really needed) is still direct damage/zerk as far as I am aware.

a minute is so extreme long, the fight is usually decided befor … Also 2200 condi stat. Are you all using undead runes ?

Many of these opinions are completely biased and are not coming from players who use characters with condition builds. I want to make a few points:

1) Condition builds are hard. Yes, the gear is simpler, but the builds are not, they require many traits, runes, sigils, and food to work in unison with each other. This means that when specced into conditions, you cannot change your build. This is in contrast to Berserker and similar sets where you can run a full support build and still output heavy damage due to your gear (especially after the update).

2) Condition builds are useless against people who condition cleanse alot. For example, warriors who are traited for it can cleanse about once every few seconds, thanks to Cleansing Ire, the endurance signet, Mending, etc. Not to mention that many classes such as thief and warrior have heavy resistance to movement-impeding conditions, limiting your options to mostly just killing them outright as you have a very hard time slowing them down or stopping them at all.

3) Condition damage is a ramp up, while power damage is instant. This has an important meaning to classes such as theives which rely on coming out of stealth with everything they have, immediately. Sure, condition thieves work very well too, but they aren’t going to have the initial advantage in comparison. Using a condition build means giving up your intiial advantage to gain a long term advantage.

4) Condition damage is not a single stat. Stop saying that. Yes, some classes can stack bleeds heavily enough that they can get by without condition duration, but the large majority do not. Some classes such as necro even require full condition duration (reduced to 85% now even with Giver’s weps and Nightmare runes) to bleed out their opponents in any meaningful amount of time. This is even worse in WvW than in PvP due to the use of Melandru runes and lemongrass foods. If you do not believe me on this point, then please check the price of condition duration sigils on the market.

5) Condition damage requires Precision for maximum damage output. When running Dire, you are effectivley running the equivalent of Soldiers’. A simple example is that on warrior, you lose two potential bleed stacks per hit without Precision, greatly lowering the potential DPS that you can do against your enemy.

6) In some battles, conditions can become very dangerous if your enemy starts to convert them into boons, especially for an entire team. Through using conditions, you can actually get your entire team wiped due to overbuffing your enemies.

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I recommend not developing opinions on something unless you’re thoroughly educated about the subject through knowledge and experience.

The only problem I have with Condi damage is how it melts World Bosses. Teq is melting like crazy, worm can easilly be done naked and Jormag is a joke.

I play condi ele and the strong thing is not condi damage itself. Its my sustain from near endles coni cleanse :-). And Hannelore ist fully right.
The only thing that i am unese is the stacking of burning. An ele fire build can dish out burning that kills in seconds. But he is very sqhishy and i have no fear of such a build, i dodge out of the fire immidiately, cleanse and he dies … LoL …

CD ignore armor so you cant say it should be same as power attacks,CD will always be best against heavy armor targets and direct damage will always do better against light armor or what is the point of having damage type if they do same damage

Condition damage should be stronger than power builds due to the ramp up time. Conditions should start weaker, but end up stronger, essentially balancing out with the constant damage done by power builds. Power should be for killing things quickly, conditions should be for increasing long term damage.

There’s not much point saying conditions are OP against world bosses. The fact is that world bosses are badly designed. Give them more health, let them block more, let them condi cleanse, then maybe we can talk about balance for world bosses. Until then they’re just damage sponges, the changes to condi damage just made that more apparent. Before the changes you might have had 20 people running condi, one person could probably reach the cap for most of those conditions on their own, so those 20 people were really doing the damage of about 2 people. So we should really just treat this as if “raids” got bigger and buff the things we’re fighting.

alain.1659:

snip

If you read the post all calculations were done AGAINST each other. This means a warrior was hitting the “tank” and still doing double the DPS and with zero traits more than 33% more burst damage than the Mesmer. You use roughly 33% more stat points in damage stats but do more than 33% more damage than the “tank” with two damage stats. So, all in all, this argument is 100% flawed. Against someone with just base toughness the warrior would do double the DPS AND double the burst listed in the calculations.

Essentially stats still do not compensate for the lack of damage of conditions even after the buff.

I am sorry friend, but the biggest mistake of this forum’s calculation is that it only consists “theory” but lacks “practicality”. Your calculations were made for warrior and mesmer. But consider using thief in this math, who has too few condition cleanse. I think it is the only class that is forced to play burst or die at the moment. But it is not because of the condition changes, but other nerfs.

I was not defending the ones who objects conditions. They are very powerful, and even before patch I could do 1v1 with my condition builds (necro, mesmer, ele and ranger ? have played.)

So are condition damages powerful now? Yes. Should they be more? Hell no. Should they be less? For some classes they should. But remember, if you are using condition damage, your other stats belong to you. You are not forced to go 3 stats together for one build. For myself, I think power builds should be nerfed a little more. No one should be forced to go " brain-dead-one-shot-build" to stay alive.

And I beg you, do not get stuck on this math. there are several variables that can negate/cure/reflect damage by nearly every class. That is why some players are complaining about condition damage, and some really do not care.