Guild Wars 2

There actually isn’t a reason. Arenanet has actually never said why, they have also never said why poison and burning do not stack in intensity.

They actually did say it is for performance reasons. Their engine couldn’t handle uncapped conditions in it’s current state. It sucks and is a problem though I agree.

In 6 months for now, Anet will fix this problem and everyone will love it.

Anet have the best time for everything.

How about bursty conditions…

- Change the formulas for how confusion/bleed/torment are calculated and increase the damage done.
- Lower the amount of stacks to 10.
- Get rid of condition duration.
- Modify the base duration of all confusion/bleed/torment (some durations need to be reduced/increased)
- Modify the number of stacks given out on skills for confusion/bleed/torment

I believe making conditions do “burst” damage will make them a lot more threatening depending on how ever much your invest into condition damage. There’s too much focus on trying to make conditions last as long as possible in addition to being another stat to gripe about. It also opens up for more hybridization with power/precision/condition builds which is sorely needed.
This is about all I can think about, but feel free to expand on the idea of “bursty conditions.”

The dps mechanic for the game is silly. It’s an extremely ambiguous system which needs improvement. This along with the light blob on bosses were the two main problems I was hoping would be addressed in the April update but sadly this will not happen.

Jasher.6580:

I’m not sure if you play high end spvp extensively… but condition builds don’t do very well. That is a fact. So saying that Confusion is a “lethal player killer” is a bit laughable when placing it in a competitive arena. Control and high burst damage is the name of the game.

Good joke, my friend.

ANet has been “telling” us via their silence on this issue that condition damage is just for PvP.

I sure wish they would have announced that condition damage was “meant for PVP” when I was busting my tail in PVE dungeons to get the gear I was getting or picking the class I picked.

No worries though. I’m taking my talents to Tamriel. Maybe 1 day ANet will get their kitten together so their servers don’t “explode” from people using a mechanic they hard coded into some classes. Maybe next time they won’t develop a technical limitation into their combat system.

Jason Segel.2908:

Not VERY long, and this is just analyzed for PVE bosses and champions/dynamic event bosses or whatever.

Why is there a bleed stack limit in PVE?

…..

That is insane, how can you allow condi users to be shoved to the back of the bus and have us deal 65%-76% less DPS, the only reasonable thing to do now is add more health to bosses to compensate for the extra damage conditions will now be doing, and take away the limit on bleed stacks on bosses. Or even possibly bump it up to 50 or 75 stacks? or possibly make poison/burning stack? that would go a long way in making us condi builds happy.

They actually did explain the reasoning, evaluating every single dmg tick per second per player is taxing on the server. When spread over a great many people at once.

Thats an overworld problem, comparing it to people in dungeons, sorry but to be honest you should not be doing as much damage as somebody with every single stat dedicated to dmg, in fact you are doing better than you should be imo, because while they have 3 dmg stats, you have 1-2 and can get pretty competitive numbers

Not to mention your formulas assume constant DPS over 10 minutes from DPS players which is not accurate, they have to dodge, move, use defensive skills etc. (and will have to do this more if they make AI better) in which case their dps drops to extremely low, while condition players remains high.

Condition damage is not suppose to do burst dmg like direct damage, its supposed to be constant pressure and attrition, i would say in dungeons and small group play it is in fact over performing. And keep in mind it only requires 1-2 stats to get full benefit.

In large scale pve, they may have to come up with something, but i dont really now how the server deals with the data, so i dont know the solution, just dealing with what they said awhile back.

So its easy to track pet damage, turret damage, and player damage, but damage from conditions break everything? Seems legit.

So why is it even in the game if it can’t be executed properly? Clearly if the OP can take the time to do the math, the people who developed this mess knew that condition damage builds would cap and ruin peoples builds in groups as well.

Why does Twilight Arbor gear even exist then? Why do Engineers have condition damage rammed into many of their their skill sets?

I’m sorry but that’s ineptitude to me, or maybe a lack of caring. Then they turn around and penalize people who decide to go full zerker gear and stats. I don’t get it.

phys.7689:

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Jason Segel.2908:

Not VERY long, and this is just analyzed for PVE bosses and champions/dynamic event bosses or whatever.

Why is there a bleed stack limit in PVE?

…..

That is insane, how can you allow condi users to be shoved to the back of the bus and have us deal 65%-76% less DPS, the only reasonable thing to do now is add more health to bosses to compensate for the extra damage conditions will now be doing, and take away the limit on bleed stacks on bosses. Or even possibly bump it up to 50 or 75 stacks? or possibly make poison/burning stack? that would go a long way in making us condi builds happy.

They actually did explain the reasoning, evaluating every single dmg tick per second per player is taxing on the server. When spread over a great many people at once.

Thats an overworld problem, comparing it to people in dungeons, sorry but to be honest you should not be doing as much damage as somebody with every single stat dedicated to dmg, in fact you are doing better than you should be imo, because while they have 3 dmg stats, you have 1-2 and can get pretty competitive numbers

Not to mention your formulas assume constant DPS over 10 minutes from DPS players which is not accurate, they have to dodge, move, use defensive skills etc. (and will have to do this more if they make AI better) in which case their dps drops to extremely low, while condition players remains high.

Condition damage is not suppose to do burst dmg like direct damage, its supposed to be constant pressure and attrition, i would say in dungeons and small group play it is in fact over performing. And keep in mind it only requires 1-2 stats to get full benefit.

In large scale pve, they may have to come up with something, but i dont really now how the server deals with the data, so i dont know the solution, just dealing with what they said awhile back.

Yeah that’s an issue. Having to throw all your eggs into the basket to maximize both condition duration and damage.
I’d rather have the stacks reduced, throw out condition duration, and increase the damage of conditions. That way condition/power/precision builds can come out for more hybridization or you can focus all into condition damage and stacking various conditions to keep hard, consistent pressure on enemies. It would also make them viable in PvE since it doesn’t take long to max damage, hitting the reduced stack cap.

The reason for the 25 stack limit performance of the server. Keeping track of ONE stack on the world boss being fought is not a performance issue (tho keeping track of a zerg applying conditions would be taxing). You need to understand that the server has to do it’s computations and tick tracking on ALL stacks across the entire zone at once. In a relatively low population zone this would likely not be an issue, but situations like the Scarlet Invasions would require the tracking and computations on THOUSANDS of condition applications going on at roughly the same time (it’s not just players applying conditions, but enemies as well). Some of those Scarlet Invasions involved half a dozen Zergs across the zone with each of them going up against over a dozen enemies at times (if not more). The potential for condition stacks in such a situation is mind-boggling.

The assumption that Anet has no good reason for putting that limit in place lacks a credible explanation as to why there is a limit unless a technical one existed. I’m sure some of the tin-foil hats in the forum could come up with something but I’m talking about a reason that would be plausible.

The claim that condition damage is useless is only feasible in one aspect of game play. Large scale world fights (Zergs). In small scale encounters, Condition Damage can provide a potential form of damage (over time) that results in pressure to the enemy that direct damage cannot always consistently provide (i.e. it certainly has it’s place and can be quite effectively used). Discounting Condition Damage (and even berating it for even existing) because one single aspect of game play (Zerg) does not allow it to be fully effective is just ignorant of the myriad of other types of game play GW2 offers.

Even though their reason is a technical one that’s not an excuse to keep things as they are. If anet can’t make condition damage work with their current technology they should rework the system into something their engine can handle or scrap it. The current implementation is kitten and doesn’t work.

It is important to note that it is not a design decision nor question of balance so arguing about this in those terms is pointless.

Except condition damage is only one stat. Condition damage is more comparable to soldier’s gear.

Morsus.5106:

Except condition damage is only one stat. Condition damage is more comparable to soldier’s gear.

Maybe they should just drop condition damage as a stat and make conditions use power. Conditions are already affected by might. This would make condition builds more viable (and simplify gear, which apparently they may soon make more complex anyway with new stat combinations.)

I’m talking PvE of course…

I recall hearing something about a change to the condition system, not idea what happened to that.

Condition damage can be good in PvE if used right but as you get into groups they get worse as you add more people.

phys.7689:

Jason Segel.2908:

Not VERY long, and this is just analyzed for PVE bosses and champions/dynamic event bosses or whatever.

Why is there a bleed stack limit in PVE?

…..

That is insane, how can you allow condi users to be shoved to the back of the bus and have us deal 65%-76% less DPS, the only reasonable thing to do now is add more health to bosses to compensate for the extra damage conditions will now be doing, and take away the limit on bleed stacks on bosses. Or even possibly bump it up to 50 or 75 stacks? or possibly make poison/burning stack? that would go a long way in making us condi builds happy.

They actually did explain the reasoning, evaluating every single dmg tick per second per player is taxing on the server. When spread over a great many people at once.

Thats an overworld problem, comparing it to people in dungeons, sorry but to be honest you should not be doing as much damage as somebody with every single stat dedicated to dmg, in fact you are doing better than you should be imo, because while they have 3 dmg stats, you have 1-2 and can get pretty competitive numbers

Not to mention your formulas assume constant DPS over 10 minutes from DPS players which is not accurate, they have to dodge, move, use defensive skills etc. (and will have to do this more if they make AI better) in which case their dps drops to extremely low, while condition players remains high.

Condition damage is not suppose to do burst dmg like direct damage, its supposed to be constant pressure and attrition, i would say in dungeons and small group play it is in fact over performing. And keep in mind it only requires 1-2 stats to get full benefit.

In large scale pve, they may have to come up with something, but i dont really now how the server deals with the data, so i dont know the solution, just dealing with what they said awhile back.

The reason I quit playing Guild Wars 2 is actually close to the exact same reason I quit SWTOR. They added in too many stuns in SWTOR just like the ranger can stun the EFF out of people in GW2 in a 1 v 1 and win easily, not to mention other tanky classes knocking people down. So the people who are the tanky class can kill you everytime or live forever. GW2 had more stun breaks and dodge yes.

No one ever said condition damage is supposed to be burst damage. But in scenarios where there is mass condition removal by multiple enemy players, the conditions are useless. The conditions need to be there for a little while before they even start to really do anything. As someone who played a lot in free tournaments and also did paid tournaments(maybe like 20?) and I had friends who were at one point ranked number 1 in paids and on the number one team, you do not know what you are talking about.

High competitive play, low competitive play, PVE condition damage does 65% to 75% less overall avg DPS than direct damage. PVE is flat out horrible for condition damage. In events where there are 30 + people and 10 people are on condition damage that means basically 8 of those people are doing on average 100 to 300 DPS with the default scepter swing attack. PVE it is horrible to do condition damage for group events and most teams didn’t want you there.

Not to mention necromancer minion AI is horrible. The DPS you could do as a necromancer would far surpass any other class if minions worked correctly. I assume 2 years later they still don’t.

The stats I talk about are tried and true in my dealing as playing 80% as a necromancer. Maybe 400+ hours of game play. Many different builds. Direct damage if far superior as a necromancer for the majority of anything you are playing. It is near impossible to keep conditions on good players in pvp. Yes you can spread them with corruption but the mass condi removal + passive condi removal + runes +sigils + other traits that remove condi + abilities make conditions not viable. Don’t get me wrong I used conditions and sometimes they can help out, but using a well build and building a necromancer for DPS + POWER + CRIT is far superior for team play as it is burst.

Time to understand that conditions are slow, ramp-up personal additional damage over time, and this doesn’t fit pve at all. Conditions are a solo thing, period. All group content is burst (=direct) damage.
tl;dr: buff condis over the top and it’s still not optimal in pve, and op as hell in pvp.

The only thing they need to do with condition damage is remove the fact that another player can overwrite your condition damage on a mob your attacking

didn’t read the whole thing but here is why, i think, condi dps < direct dps:

1st point : once your condi are on the mob, you can run/skip to another mob and still doing damage on the 1st one. harder on a direct dps build (but still possible by using aoe/bouncing skill/cleave)

2nd point : to optimize your direct dps you have to get power, crit chance and crit dmg, so 3 stat, to optimize your condi dps you have to get … condi dmg. a bit of crit chance can be good on some condi build (like stacking bleed on crit on the war) :BUT not always. So in the worst case you have to stack 2 stat to deal dmg on condi build. The last stat is a tanky one most of time, wich mean condi-tankyness>direct damage tankyness. (here i’m just talking about stats, not about classes)

3rd point : about stacking condi, maybe it’s just a realistic features, like you can’t burn a boss who’s already in fire, you can’t stack more bleed cause he’s already got too many cut on him (in fact I don’t have a true argument on this point, i just trying to find reasons)

4th point : here it’s not a pve argument so sorry for it. But condi are a huge power against ppl, if you’re playing condi and stacking torment : a wise player will not move or dispell, so you’r penalizing his movement. if you’r stacking confusion : a wise player will dispell or he’ll do nothing ‘til he got no more confusion on him, so you penalize his ability to hit you and so to kill you. To resume this point some condi are huge control even if it’s not a real cc.

Tl:dr
1st condi do damage even if they don’t focus
2nd condi more tanky most of time
3rd rp reason (and a bad one)
4th pvp reason, but it’s out of theme here

I have been trying out a condi mesmer in PvE lately and honestly the only thing that bothers me is the fact that structures take 4 years to destroy. Bosses are a pita too, due to the fact that conditions are overwritten to often, but the structures are a real game stopper. I don’t see why ANet just doesn’t add a “rot” modifier to all conditions so that structures could be damaged in the same way as creatures are.

As I see it we already suspend belief when we see an elemental take “bleed” damage, why not allow those of us that use conditions to do this content as fast as even a poor power based build.

Shinzan.2908:

There actually isn’t a reason. Arenanet has actually never said why, they have also never said why poison and burning do not stack in intensity.

They actually did say it is for performance reasons. Their engine couldn’t handle uncapped conditions in it’s current state. It sucks and is a problem though I agree.

Yup, I remember someone from ArenaNet stating this. I believe it was in a topic about WvW and the discussion on why “blopping” and zerging was the winning strategy.

Jason Segel.2908:

Why is there a bleed stack limit in PVE?

There actually isn’t a reason. Arenanet has actually never said why, they have also never said why poison and burning do not stack in intensity.

Actually, there is a reason why the cap is 25, and they have stated why.

It’s because each individual condition and all timers associated with each stack need to be individully handled. This makes handling conditions require a lot of resources on the back-end, seeing as condition handling can’t be done client-side due to the very real possibility then of people hacking the damage/stack values.

For example:
A mob receives a stack of bleeding each auto from a condition user.
Therefore it needs to calculate, for any given attack:
1.) The autoattack damage. This is some kind of function call based upon the attacker’s stats and the mob’s toughness, with a function for determining if it’s a critical attack, passed as a boolean.

2.) Condition damage applied. Another function call which needs to gain the attack/condition information and the number of stacks applied.

3.) Looping/timer for each individual tick, which doesn’t occur during one universal tick, therefore increasing the amount of resources needed to tick linearly for each stack. Additionally, there is almost definitely a get method used to determine the target’s condition duration modifiers, as well as the attacker’s, therefore requiring two additional function calls as well for each application to modify the expiration time.

4.) Any extra bookkeeping associated with these functions or passing variables, etc. I can tell you now there’s substantially more compution going on as well.

So really, maintaining conditions themselves is a demanding task on hardware, especially when operating under the pretense that function calls require better hardware and are inherently slower.

As to why poison and burning don’t? That’s just because that’s how the conditions were designed. Instead of adding stacks of intensity, the duration stacks. Burning is meant more for a DoT than bleeding, and Poison is designed as a utility condition for its heal cut.

The thing is, the only way to let conditions work in PvE would be to remove the cap. But we can’t do this, and with how incredibly strong they are in PvP environments, just buffing them is out of the question. An engi yesterday within seconds and not even needing to actually try hitting me placed seven stacks of confusion, nine bleeding, and extended burning on me. When your condition removal is on cooldown, which is easy to have happen when so many people use it, just being in the vicinity of some classes can actually just straight up kill you. Condition styles, as well as the gear itself, are also inherently stronger than normal damage sources in small groups due to the dependence on only two stats with greater than if not superior burst damage in PvP. They’re not used on the basis that conditions are not a scalable form of combat and therefore fall off in GvG/PvE.

Don’t believe me that condition gear and builds offer a little too much? Watch the video. The thief has tools to deal damage via utilities, but so do most other classes. Engies are the same, if not better.

How does the damage compare to armor penetration? I understand the stack problem, and agree there should be a way to address this. However, condis that damage ignore armor. I haven’t done the math but if I show a direct damage hit for 3500 points is that before or after the armor reduction?

mulch.2586:

The moral of the story is good players don’t condition-build.

Was the same way before launch.

Go ahead and make one. Play a Mantra Mesmer. Play a Signet Ranger. For most of the game, you’ll be fine, cuz the game’s just not that dependent on dps. Your choice.

But it’s absurd to complain about your choice. Cuz you’re the one wot made it.

Congratulations on missing the point entirely.

wow thread should have been allowed to die the first time it got necro’d

Hybrid builds are good. Condi + Direct damage. Especially necro, mesmer and elementalists, but elementalists are worst on condi damage of the light armor classes.

HeliaXDemoN.1208:

In 6 months for now, Anet will fix this problem and everyone will love it.

Anet have the best time for everything.

Well, wouldn’t that have been nice

Easy fix for condition problem, LET THE MOST DAMAGING ( more condi damage ) OVERWRITE THE LESS DAMAGING , fast fix, easy to implement ( even i could program this) , condition spec are now at least usefull in open world content and dungeon, and Not much more stress for the server than now…
Ooooook now you can hire me anet?! Is it even possible this isnt came out of any develeper mind in this year? Im Not the only one supporting and promoting this feature

mulch.2586:

The moral of the story is good players don’t condition-build.

Was the same way before launch.

Go ahead and make one. Play a Mantra Mesmer. Play a Signet Ranger. For most of the game, you’ll be fine, cuz the game’s just not that dependent on dps. Your choice.

But it’s absurd to complain about your choice. Cuz you’re the one wot made it.

I don’t even know what to say at this comment. I really don’t.

AndRec.3496:

Easy fix for condition problem, LET THE MOST DAMAGING ( more condi damage ) OVERWRITE THE LESS DAMAGING , fast fix, easy to implement ( even i could program this) , condition spec are now at least usefull in open world content and dungeon, and Not much more stress for the server than now…
Ooooook now you can hire me anet?! Is it even possible this isnt came out of any develeper mind in this year? Im Not the only one supporting and promoting this feature

It’s not that simple. Take Burning for example, the Guardian’s only damaging condition.

If there’s more than 1 person using a guardian condition build in a group, it just doesn’t work for the second person. The way burning is designed just doesn’t work for a MMORPG because there’s going to be other people playing with you.

I think ANet pointed out that the condition limiters are there because it would cause serious lag issues to calculate every player’s stacks…
Also thinking another way: Can you make container leak(!) faster than it’s possible…

For PvE:
Direct Dmg is superior, due to mobs having almost no armor.

Conditions, like healing, control, boons and boon/condition manipulations, are not designed for mobs that barely does anything and dies in 1-3 seconds.
Instead these effects are designed for mobs that cannot be killed fast and are capable of dealing damage and effects, “long duration combat scenarios” or “Drawn out combat scenarios”…

Well, not to mention that 99% of mobs barely do anything (due to spending alot of time with their “attack cooldown” of 3-5 seconds and having abilities that barely do any damage or effects at all), giving superiority to DPS builds…
(Not to mention that when huge majority of mobs perform the same way, combat is pretty much bland and active defenses like dodging is not used at all either)

With 1% of all mobs (boss monsters with more potent abilities and resilience like Tequatl and Claw, Veteran Karka, Mordrem and Giant Beetles), is where all builds begin to exhibit equal chances…

Xae Isareth.1364:

AndRec.3496:

Easy fix for condition problem, LET THE MOST DAMAGING ( more condi damage ) OVERWRITE THE LESS DAMAGING , fast fix, easy to implement ( even i could program this) , condition spec are now at least usefull in open world content and dungeon, and Not much more stress for the server than now…
Ooooook now you can hire me anet?! Is it even possible this isnt came out of any develeper mind in this year? Im Not the only one supporting and promoting this feature

It’s not that simple. Take Burning for example, the Guardian’s only damaging condition.

If there’s more than 1 person using a guardian condition build in a group, it just doesn’t work for the second person. The way burning is designed just doesn’t work for a MMORPG because there’s going to be other people playing with you.

You are right, like i have poster in other topic, this would be a bandage, at least untill something could be done to remove the problem insteste of dodgerolling it…. Buuuut, that solution let at least welcome 1 condi spec in dungeon/ fractal, and can work better than now in open world… But yeah in the end im with you..