Guild Wars 2

I am sure this topic has been beat to death, however condition damage changes have completely broke the mechanic. A majority of the players have set up the gear stats to reflect this ridiculous damage tweak to the game. Balance is around multiple stacked damage traits and not who can stack the most in one specific stat.
The best way to correct the imperfection is to increase the time mildly (1 to 2 seconds per tick) to which the damage hits the player. This minor modification will balance the damage out over a smaller duration without having to change the modifier. End result balanced damage mitigation and control.
I am sure those who exploit this broken mechanic will rage over my comments, and not use logic to reason that the game can be much more balanced if all classes and specs rely on skill and not what gear you have set up to what stat is most powerful.

I think such a change could be fair to link to a specific stat (maybe Vitality or something) where increasing it also creates a chance of “skipping” a tic + slightly increasing the tic time…

…but I’m just brainstorming off your idea. What evidence do you have that condition damage is out of hand? And to what degree?

Not sure I get how it’s broken and how your solution solves the supposed problem.

Can you go into more specifics of the problem for those who don’t have the ability to sort out what does what DPS? And then more details into your solution.

It’s unfortunate that gear plays such a major part in MMO game design, but that’s the nature of the beast. MMO’s live due to long-term goals, and gearing up has always been part of that process. Of course, there are side benefits, such as profiting by selling the mats needed to create said gear.

I think the biggest problem with conditions is the need to spam them. Not as in “unskillfully”, but as in keep reapplying them so that things like condition removal become obsolete especially on classes with very limited access to these.

Trying to balance a zerg scenario is not a solution to every game mode, and the stacking conditions are a big problem when trying to balance them with some being able to put out a wide variety very quickly and others taking far to long to put any dent in.

I know they don’t want to split mechanics too much between pve/pvp/wvw but there is no way to balance conditions across all 3 using the same methods.

Sure Im all for the extended time bettwen the ticks, if they pack more punch.

I’m guessing your talking about WvW and PvP? I really don’t see a problem with it in PvE. Nor do i see it as a problem in the other too, It’s a L2P problem.

I don’t know, really. Condition damage, as a whole, isn’t broken.

Some classes/builds can spam them faster than others and some classes only have a minimal amount of conditions removals, and this can be a problem in PvP, but that’s all about class balance.

Some classes/builds do apply more pressure with PvP oriented conditions (Torment and confusion, for example, even if these conditions do not have the same effectiveness in a PvE scenario) and burning can kill you fast enough if you don’t cleanse it. I think that while condition damage could be toned down on some classes in PvP /WvW, it’s in a good spot: with my characters, I rarely get killed by condition players because I’m generally specced against it and dodge/cleanse or resist when necessary.

Condition damage as a whole is fine. There are immunities, cleansing, transfers or stacking more vitality to deal with it. The only part I have an issue with his how much damage burning does over the others. This condition alone could have a longer duration and its damage toned down.

If you think condition damage is too strong, you haven’t played WvW against a zerg made up of a 4+ guardian frontline on top of a couple of front and backline ele.

There’s a reason why staff ele reigns supreme still in WvW zergs, and why the majority of roaming specs (staff/dp thief, zerker GS warrior, zerker DH, power hammer scrapper, power staff/longbow ranger outnumber the condi mesmer and condi necro specs by far) are not condition specs.

As it has been stated by several people, they don’t seem to see a problem with condi damage being a bit over bearing, lets refer to a burn guard as a example this spec can tic for 4+k damage. I’m all for the damage staying the same but if you are able to melt a player in 2-4 seconds that is the issue I am speaking about.
PvE is not where balance is needed in my opinion. I am not sure of the amount of players who choose PvE over WvW or PvP. However if the damage over time was adjusted it would minimally affect the PvE players and bring more stability to PvP and WvW play.
As for it being a skill problem, This incorrect due to the fact that there is not enough clear to remove stacked condi damage. So basically you are left to being roasted instantly with no recourse. If the damage tics were adjusted ever so slightly this would allow the clears to be mildly more effective and make the play centered around who plays the class properly and not who hits who first for the win.

More condition builds are a direct consequence of power damage increasing dramatically and people responding by increasing their toughness and vitality. This in turn leads to classes that can not deliver the same amount of damage via power into using conditions as a way of compensating while at the same time having the ability to survive massive power damage spikes.

This is not because Condition damage is OP or is broken.

There are runes and foods that lessen condition duration by 45 percent. There are more means of removing conditions or becoming immune to them than is being suggested here. People are making a concious effort not to take those mitigation measures because they do not want to.

There are a small number of specific builds or skills in the Condition realm that may be overtuned and that is all that needs looking at. Increasing the tick frequencey to 2 from 1 is a poor solution. It will half the damage of all condition builds and person using the gear that lessens durations by almost half will make condition damage all but non existent.

Just as example , base duration of a bleed off Pistol MH thief is 4 seconds. If the tick happened every 2 seconds we would get 2 ticks rather then 4. If durations lessened by a half there would be one tick which is 1/4 the condition damage before anything like cleanses or resistance even considered.

Given the effective tick rate cut on half basd on time, all existing condition cleanses and mitigation measures such as resistance in essence would double in effectiveness. To thief again but the theory applies across the board, if I am using EA to emove a condition every one second on an evade but now conditions only tick every two seconds , I have just doubled my chances of removing that condition before it does damage.

If there specific issues with "a “Burn Guardian” an “epidemic” or the Condition mesmer than those very SPECIFIC issues should be looked at on a case by case basis rather than these types of fixes which would in effect gut condition builds of all types even as people are pounding out many thousands of damage in single attacks using power. If a “Burn Guardian” is an issue because his burns can kill another in 4 seconds, then so is a power build that can kill another in 4 seconds.

I’m curious as to why it’s okay for a zerker thief/warrior/mesmer/ect to hit 8+k on their power hits, many of which are quite quickly repeated and kill some one in 2~4 seconds flat, and that’s not “unbalanced” but if a burn or bleed stack hits for 3~4k it’s “OMG THIS %*#^ needs to be NERFED” sorry but the whole cry about condi damage is pretty pathetic, if you don’t have the condi clear or resistence or vitality and die to condi dmg tough luck, just like if you don’t have the invuln or blocks or dodge and die to burst damage, tough luck. there’s pros and cons and counters to all, THATS what balance is.

So just two builds out of how many condition damage builds are possibly a bit broken and all condition builds are broken and therefore all condition damage builds need to have a penalty placed on them?

Not seeing how your solution solves the problem.

Two builds have issues. Those two builds should be looked at and fixed if needed. Not every single condition build.

Flawlessness.2061:

As it has been stated by several people, they don’t seem to see a problem with condi damage being a bit over bearing, lets refer to a burn guard as a example this spec can tic for 4+k damage. I’m all for the damage staying the same but if you are able to melt a player in 2-4 seconds that is the issue I am speaking about.

Power builds can melt you in 4 seconds too if you won’t use damage mitigation. And you forgot to mention, that while those burns will kill you that fast, applying them takes time as well.

Flawlessness.2061:

PvE is not where balance is needed in my opinion. I am not sure of the amount of players who choose PvE over WvW or PvP. However if the damage over time was adjusted it would minimally affect the PvE players and bring more stability to PvP and WvW play.

Majority of players play PvE. And the change you speak of would be a massive nerf to condi damage there (which is already inferior to power). Viper reapers, for example, still sore after the last changes, would likely disappear completely.

Besides, as mentioned, there are runesets and consumables that used together can reduce condition duration by 45%. And yet, people do not use them. What do you thing it means?

I’d honestly rather see power builds brought into line before condi is touched.
It’s just as hard hitting, even more so in some cases, and nobody seems to mind those because people seem to be under the impression that for applying conditions you don’t have to hit your target first.

Here’s the thing, if you avoid a necro attack you mitigate the conditions he’d apply in theory too.
And quite honestly, some other overperformance in condi builds, chrono for example, are directly link to the problem that you can equip not only the e-spec but your old class-mechanic-line as well.

The problem is not simply: Herpdiderp, condi is op.
The problem is synergy in traits and skills IF anything.

Flawlessness.2061:

As it has been stated by several people, they don’t seem to see a problem with condi damage being a bit over bearing, lets refer to a burn guard as a example this spec can tic for 4+k damage. I’m all for the damage staying the same but if you are able to melt a player in 2-4 seconds that is the issue I am speaking about.

Aww… I know a lot of power builds based on the sequence stunlock + spike that melt players in 2-4 seconds. So where exactly is condi OP compared to power ? Is it because you can’t melt them before they melt you ? So you’re basically asking to be able to melt a condi user in less than 2 seconds…

There actually are ways to mitigate conditions : foods that reduce condi duration and/or damage. Vitality stat helps a lot, equip cleanse passive/sigils/skills, use healing skill and regeneration. But using them requires players to sacrifice their beloved trinity power+precision+ferocity.

Even if there may be things to tweak with conditions, keeping on posting such nonsense won’t help in any way, because you ruin your own credibility.

you can make builds removing soo much conditions… or invalidating them…

Either active:
(example: AoE shout cleaner warrior (shouts available on necro, ele, warrior, guardian, ranger) :
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQJBHhdyzBU5B25BYKIQHCWIDMlPwkbDkEBCALg3E7iNyC-TRRWwADU+JRJIQ1fIpHAw+DkCoIhWA-e

Passive:
(example diamond skin ele):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XC9XiNYCWYCcYiFTAztsmWjrEHgAQDYg3HA-TBRWwASUCCY/hBK/Aq+DpAKSoF-e

Or just by gear: reducing 45% of conditions and stuns
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNApdSl0AhShYrQwWIQQEHLEEOBLvE3AYA57v/QA-TBhRwAlUCOV9HA7PYR5HpAKSoF-e

Lastly you can send ’m back..
ExampleL: necro/rev, necro minion build, with generosity sigils and staff (#4) and dagger offhand (#4)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNArYWnc0AdbiN1A+1As3glgBT6EkCKBxHxk4UMKpFAiAA-TxxXABzq+zwK/E5JAAw+DjqPYuTBQ2KBJFQRCtA-e

You’ll never have problems with conditions again. You can also just try to make sure you do not get affected by conditions in the 1st place.. dodging, using blinds, reflects or otherwise…. whcih should clear up a lot of the problems conditions need 3 things to be dangerous. 1 stacks, 2 c.dmg and 3 duration. If one of the 3 is missing conditions tend to be way less effective. you be the choice of whcih things to impair or mitigate…

Saying you cannot run these cause you cannot run zerk is being ignorant.

Simply said : ZERK was introduced to outdps all bosses in dungeons so you could kill them before they could kill you…

So if you die with zerk gear you cannot fullfill this simple task, you’ll be stunned, blinded or otherwise incapacitated or made ineffetive in the 1st place (chills/weakness) so you cannot fullfill the basic, I can kill it before I die.

This shows very well in WvW and lesser in PvP but even there you need to have an opportunity to kill someone. CC them, or make counterattacks useless..

so we have dedicatesd heal and/or cleaners to make sure you can stay alive indefinatly
so we have hybrids with sustain and cleansing
so we have aggressive builds whcih can counter the conditions

you should think why you want to be in what group….and how you could get more grip on the problem instead of just saying it’s OP.

This change will change nothing..it just will stretch the problem over a longer duration of its ticks…

The real problem that Anet has to fix with this game is their own ignorance of ignoring over the last 4 years basically 90% of all aspects that play a very important role to the whole game’s combat system balance – keeping basically said 90% of the Combat System in its absosolutely outdated 2012er Game Design State, while the the last 10% are the changes which Anet made shortely before implmentign HoT and shortly after HoT through adding way too rushed for the previous made changes Elite Specs to the Game, before makign first fitting changes to the Game and its overall Balance, when they changed the Condition System.

This Game has to get out finally out of its outdated 2012er Game System Design, that was balanced for a Guild Wars 2 state of the Game, where 90% of all what is GW2 now – DIDN’T EXIST and was part of the game balance and thus, wasn’t included in the decisions and game mechanic designs of certain gameplay aspects, that play partwise the biggest roles in the WHOLE Game Balancing Process and that is NOT Skills and Traits.

Yes, Skills and Traits have a big influence of Class Balance. But Class Balance alone isn’t everything. Combat System Balance is way more important, because it affects ALL CLASSES and that is exactly what anet kept on ignoring for the last 4 years.

The change of the Condition System was their first and yet only real big change in the Combat System of GW2 and ANet hasn’t done since thenvanythign at all about them to rebalance the game, because the game balance has been since the patch of 23rd june 2015 that changed the Condition System TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL and to make thigns even much worser, ANet put oil to the fire by implenmenting Elite Specializations with HoT way too early than it was good for the game, because the whole game balance stay was after the condition change way too unpolished.
ANet should have waited with E-Specs until the second Expansion and shold have focused their ressources with the first expansion to make neccessary greater changes on the games combat system as preparation for the Elite Specs to come after, so that there would have been actually some kinmd of balanced foundation for them, but instead – rushed like Anet always is under the shadow of NCSOft, they just threw them into the cold water without fixing first the outdated combat system mechanics to brign the game finally out of its unfitting 2012er state where everythign has been dsigned around the fact, that there would not exist E-Specs, that there would not exist those massive condition changes, that there would not exist certain conditions and boons that have been added later, like Torment, Taunt and Slow

GW2 needs finally a complete rework of the Condition & Boon System first, to ever get at all the chance to become balanced and overviewable again.
You currently stare way too much at the screen while fighting somebudy, because you have to permanently check which boons and conditions are on your character, because the game has way too much of both – both mechanics need to get toned down and reduced, while the meaningfulness of those boons and conditions that remain should and will increase if Anet makes the remaining boons and conditions more impactful, then this would be a good change for the whole games balance.
The game has to get rid of this iditic spamming mentality of boons and conditions.
In other MMORPGs are boons and conditions alot more meaningful and impactful, because they have much longer durations, so that players can actually focus on the combat and not on having to constantly spam boons and contions and removals of those just to be able to fight as effectively as possible, but in return, receiving those fels also more importful, because you can’t get them constant’ly because of much longer cooldowns that make it also harder to remove conditions or to receive a lost boon back, if it had been corrupted/stolen/removed by your enemy.

Part 2:

Thats something to where GW2 has to return to, so that boons/conditions actually are meaningful for this game and not just stupid constant spamware.
Also in regard of Conditions and Boons – there shouldn’t exist in this games any skills or traits, that allow a class to remove with a skill just “everything”
Skill/trait effects that are for example able to remove for you conditions shold be all designed that way, that they can removed only just specific things, but not “everything”, regardless on what you suffer on at the moment. Rather increase the amount of removale effects by +1 and make somethign affect only very spcific thinggs, than to let that skill/trait remove instantly everything, regardless what it is.
Such mechanics are way more balanced for a game like GW2 and strenghten in fact also the Strengths and Weaknesses of Class Designs that every Class should have towards specific things. Way too easy and lazy “affect everything” mechanics removed these specific strengths and weaknesses that classes should have towards specific combat system relevant gameplay mechanics like boons and conditions especially.

Attributes is another very important factor, that needs to get reworked finalls so that the game can be better balanced, especialyl if Attributes would have finally Dual Effects to implement more synergies for defensive and suportive combat styles that have under the current combat system no synergies, – just only offensive gameplay, which is the reason, why Berserker and other similar very offensive Stat Sets are used so much in GW2, while basically all the rest rots in this game, because its just useless and not viable against offensive gameplay builds, because the game is from begin on designed that way that defensive/supportive gameplay builds are useless, because anet seems to fear, that if they would make all gameplay style equally good, that this could lead to the hated comeback of “the holy trinity” and that we could see in GW2 due to this something like “Tanks/Healers ect” …
With the introduction of Druids basically as “healers”, you can’t deny it anymore, how outdated that way of thinking of Anet has become and that there really is no reason anymore, why they should keep an outdated attribute system that forced the player base to play offensive builds just to be viable in the game and have a place that way in the competitive gamepla formats, because otherwise you’d be just dead weight for your team, when in fact defensive/supportive gameplay styles can be a great addition for your team as well, when somebody can perform their role in that team as "healer/tank/whatever well.

And in fact thats the very essence of this game, that we “PLAY A ROLE”, which defines our characters, as in MMORPG – Massive Multiplayer Online ROLE PLAYING Game

Flawlessness.2061:

I am sure this topic has been beat to death, however condition damage changes have completely broke the mechanic. A majority of the players have set up the gear stats to reflect this ridiculous damage tweak to the game. Balance is around multiple stacked damage traits and not who can stack the most in one specific stat.
The best way to correct the imperfection is to increase the time mildly (1 to 2 seconds per tick) to which the damage hits the player. This minor modification will balance the damage out over a smaller duration without having to change the modifier. End result balanced damage mitigation and control.
I am sure those who exploit this broken mechanic will rage over my comments, and not use logic to reason that the game can be much more balanced if all classes and specs rely on skill and not what gear you have set up to what stat is most powerful.

I don’t get the problem here … like direct damage was any different prior to the condition damage changes? Fundamentally, the design of the game favours the highest offensive setup … if you can’t handle that reality, there are other options for games.

Personally, I think you just want it nerfed because it’s not your favoured style of play and nothing more; a poor reason to suggest such a thing.

Conditions are easily thwarted with Resistance, consumables (duration reduction food), and removal skills.

Glassy, high-DPS, power builds wreck me far more then the condi pressure build-up. If you think about it, no other boon reduces a damage source to zero. Protection is the closest thing which reduces direct damage by 33-40% (depending up class).

resitance is no argument, therefore have way too less classes access to it and therefore does it also not long enough ….

You need as one of the few classes that can use ressistance a good understanding of the class also first to get used to it to be able to find the perfect timing in combat with the class to make out of the short duration of it the best result in regard of its uptime, that the effect is actually there, when you need it the most, while theres also no enemy in the near, which could steal or remove or corrupt you the resistance away, before the ebola kittentail of conditions hits you hard.

there is a way how you can brign direct damage as well directly from 100 to 0, its called BLOCKING and it works exactly like resistance does for conditions, just with the difference, that blocking skills can’t be stopped/corrupted/removed7interrupted, which makes blocking attacks compared to Resistance superior, which is a weak damage mitigation effect due to the chance, that you can remove it or turn it into a condition for your foe or steal it.

Orpheal.8263:

resitance is no argument, therefore have way too less classes access to it and therefore does it also not long enough ….

You need as one of the few classes that can use ressistance a good understanding of the class also first to get used to it to be able to find the perfect timing in combat with the class to make out of the short duration of it the best result in regard of its uptime, that the effect is actually there, when you need it the most, while theres also no enemy in the near, which could steal or remove or corrupt you the resistance away, before the ebola kittentail of conditions hits you hard.

there is a way how you can brign direct damage as well directly from 100 to 0, its called BLOCKING and it works exactly like resistance does for conditions, just with the difference, that blocking skills can’t be stopped/corrupted/removed7interrupted, which makes blocking attacks compared to Resistance superior, which is a weak damage mitigation effect due to the chance, that you can remove it or turn it into a condition for your foe or steal it.

You can block condition applying attacks as well. You can also dodge them. If you fail that block or dodge you then have other means by which you can mitigate said damage such as resistance and cleanses or anti duration foods and gear.

It says enough that 90% of the roamers in WvW run condi…juat give it a few more nonths and everyone will run condi.

I hate condi and dont run it, but there is so much condi around these days it just inst fun anymore.

Just ban it from the game…problem solved

Good to see people still needlessly complain about Conditions as a whole, rather than specific builds that are unbalanced. Good to see people still propose severe nerfs to an entire method of damage, which would sweepingly affect all Condition builds just because of a few builds, if that.

All this started with people using glassy builds, who didn’t want to do what they kept telling everyone who complained about burst damage, which is adept.

Astralporing.1957:

Besides, as mentioned, there are runesets and consumables that used together can reduce condition duration by 45%. And yet, people do not use them. What do you thing it means?

It means people are unwilling to accept the opportunity costs if they change their own build, and have become accustomed to thinking that if enough people complain about things, the developer will make changes to suit their unwillingness to adapt.

As Condition damage really hasn’t been improved since the last time I’ve played and as there are tons of passive and active defenses against conditional damage I see no reason to add this feature at all really.

What I’m seeing in these complaints is people build their specs around glass canon mentalities and choices and then expect free balance options for defense. No that’s not what should be happening. Let me give you an example from another title.

Star Trek online has had something similar to conditions for a long time now. Just like GW2 STO has the options of either making it all about damage or an actual balanced build in their choices for skills. For a long time they’ve actually made it easy for escort tactical players to fight with max damage and get free release from abilities that hold them in place or cause passive damage in space combat. There’s been a real backlash on the forums recently because the developers of STO have finally come to their senses and are making it a requirement to choose defensive options in the skill tree in their recent balance changes in the test server.

I see the parallels here between both games. This game already has the requirements to choose defensive options if you want to compete, it needs no changes when it comes to cleansing or defending against conditional damage.

If anything it could use some work on damage output of conditions because they are still quite weak and do not dish out the crit damage when critting that they should.

tigirius.9014:

As Condition damage really hasn’t been improved since the last time I’ve played and as there are tons of passive and active defenses against conditional damage I see no reason to add this feature at all really.

What I’m seeing in these complaints is people build their specs around glass canon mentalities and choices and then expect free balance options for defense. No that’s not what should be happening.

The assumption in that second sentence is not entirely correct. I’ve always been a fan of tankier classes and went for higher vitality and survivability. But I see a problem. When I have 26k health (I’m aware that 26k isn’t the highest health I can get, but you won’t find this in a glass canon either) and equipped with condi cleanses, but I die in seconds, faster than I can mitigate any damage… There is a problem.

But I wouldn’t say nerf all CD because I think this problem is only consistent with certain conditions, mainly (and not surprisingly) burning. And the problem is within the condition damage’s burst capabilities, wherein in 1 tick out of multiple ticks from a single skill is on par with a single burst of a non-condi attack. Normal damage, you’ll have to cast/attack/land again, while one condi attack often gives multiple stacks. Burn guards for instance who can teleport to you with Judge’s Intervention and within a breath, your health is halved. If they place an aoe burning right after, no mitigation is possible unless you are a full tank. They don’t even have to land another hit… they just let the ticking do the job. At least power based damage can be blocked/evaded/doesn’t ignore armor while condi attacks can’t say the same (yes, aoe attacks with their red circles on the ground can be evaded, but many single target condi attacks are easily placed whether you dodge or not).

Condition damage is supposed to be sustained damage, which is why gears that provide CD provide survivability as well, helping the player survive long enough to see the fight through. But with the state of the burst damage of some of the conditions, that is what most people consider OP (as you pair high dmg outputs with high survivability, very little risks). I’ve come across condi Necros and Mesmers and so forth, and still have been able to fight, condi clear, heal, whatever before I go down. There’s at least a fight there. Burning from Warriors and burn Guards? Definitely no. I just melt before I can even find the button for my heal or condi cleanse.

At least, with Ele’s, the Lava Font’s obvious and their meteor is highly telegraphed while leaving them vulnerable to attacks. There’s just… some tweaking on some things here. Not a full on apocalyptic “get rid of all condi damage”, but the devs do need to look at specific conditions here. In the end, things that negate actual combat should be looked into and revised. I mean, otherwise, what’s the point of having a game mode for “players versus players” if certain builds can’t even fight back?

I can’t help but to wonder, if conditions are fine in pve but tick for too much damage in wvw (burns especially i would imagine), can AN not use 2 different damage equations to calculate how much damage is being dealt based on game mode? We have a few skills/traits for each profession that are modified for the sake of game balance. This would be no different.

Run four condi cleanses in WvW and it still isn’t enough especially against dodge thieves who seem to have infinite dodges dropping caltrops so you take 6-8k per tick, you cleanse, and within two dodges you are taking the same damage. Rinse and repeat until all of your cleanses are on cooldown and because of the constant dodging you can rarely hit them.

so basically, the problem are not condis, but thiefs.

That is some notion I might support.

But seriously, the same people complaining about 5k condi damage per second, are the same glass power people who think it is fine to dish out 8k power damage per second.

Really people. Get a life.