Condition Catastrophe
My personal favourite is this method.
- When a mob is hit with a condition that would take it over the cap for that condition (eg another Bleed when the mob is at 25 stacks or 5 secs of Burn when the mob is already at 21 secs or higher) then the incoming condition is compared against the ones currently on the mob.
- The stack with the smallest damage (for Bleeds, this is generally the shortest duration one, but this can vary based on WHO applied the stack) is instantly removed and converted to direct damage. This can either be a stack currently applied to the mob, or the new one that is trying to apply.
- The damage can be the direct amount, or it could be a slightly lowered amount, say anywhere from 70-90% instead of the full damage that stack would have done. The important thing is that the condition be doing SOMETHING once the stack limit for said condition has been reached.
Similar setups can be used for Burning, since we KNOW that the game tracks each “stack” of it separately, since both conditions and boons that stack duration will be limited to five “stacks” in the upcoming balance patch. Just check which stack has the lowest damage, and convert it to direct damage.
To show this in action, say an enemy has 15 Bleed stacks that are all 10 sec duration, and 10 stacks that are all 5 sec duration. An incoming attack applies 3 stacks of Bleed for 7 secs. Assuming no ConDam, this setup removes 3 of the 5 sec stacks, converts them to direct damage, and we now have the following. 15 of the 10 sec stacks, 7 of the 5 sec stacks, and 3 of the 7 sec stacks.
As another example, let’s say that 22 secs of Burning are on a mob, and an attack attempts to apply 5 secs of Burning. This would convert 2 secs of Burning to direct damage, and apply incoming condition to give 25 secs Burning.
This setup would work pretty well IMO, and could be used for just about every damaging condition to ensure that condition builds aren’t left out.
PvErs: "Please make conditions stronger!"
sPvPers: "Please make conditions weaker!"
ANet: "Balanced!"
Kayku
[CDS] Caedas
Sanctum of Rall
[CDS] Caedas
Sanctum of Rall
Interestingly enough, the Oct. 15 patch is supposed to give a few classes new ways to remove conditions.
The thread in the Tequatl Rising forum on conditions will disappear soon but as it raises issues pertinent to the rest of the game I felt it worthwhile linking to it (and possibly continuing the discussion) here.
In short, the way in which conditions are treated within the game mean that condition builds become less desirable the more characters are present. In boss fights (or fights against structures) condition builds become largely redundant. Isn’t it time that this shortcoming was moved to the top of the “things we need to fix” list?
It’s overdue it’s way past time but the ADHD manager over there with the calendar of things to be fixed in this game seems to think that hairstyles and fixing salads are more important. Seriously we’ve all been talking about this since head start!
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
Can we just have a little info on your plan to fix this? I hate the silence on this topic so much :[
I loved the GW1 system of degeneration/regeneration, when conditions (and some hexes) didnt deal damage in ticks per seconds, but had various number of arrows slowly or quickly seeping and draining away health and energy. It reflected the pressuring nature of condition/hex builds so well. Even though the arrows had a cap of their own.
I wonder if something like this could be transfered into the GW2 engine and if it could be a potential fix for these issues.
condition for pvp
zerker for pve
tada problem solved
Desolation EU
Fractal lvl 80 – 126 AR
Fractal lvl 80 – 126 AR
condition for pvp
zerker for pve
tada problem solved
Yep. Condition builds own PvP.
Time to start, I dunno, trying different builds or something instead of hoping for condition damage build to be viable across the board no matter what situation. I can tell you my healing/boon dur guardian would get owned in PvP and doesn’t cut it in Teq fight compared to Zerk. You don’t hear me whining about it.
I won’t stop because I can’t stop.
It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….
It’s a medical condition, they say its terminal….
condition for pvp
zerker for pve
tada problem solved
Yep. Condition builds own PvP.
Time to start, I dunno, trying different builds or something instead of hoping for condition damage build to be viable across the board no matter what situation. I can tell you my healing/boon dur guardian would get owned in PvP and doesn’t cut it in Teq fight compared to Zerk. You don’t hear me whining about it.
Again, it’s not whining to be consciencious paying customers who expect what’s advertised to be exactly what you get in the product.
The problems with their combat system are numerous, pet AI stupidity, lack of even the Anet trinity, pet weakness and instakills, really poor scaling for support, boss immunities to CC but no CD immunities to CC in PVP or PVE once stunned, max stacking in condi builds, no scaling in some of the conditions, no real damage bursts when conditions actually crit on a tick especially in PVE… the list is long. All we’re asking for is that the product match the advertising.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
condition for pvp
zerker for pve
tada problem solved
You just described the problem. How does that solve it?
Being in a big fight and feeling worthless is so boring. What terrible design.
Well I invested to much into condition items, just to change them to something else. And frankly playin non-condition necromancer is not really fun.
The problem with conditions is that while concept is cool, they just haven’t predicted how big perfomance impact it would have on servers.
The problem with conditions is that while concept is cool, they just haven’t predicted how big perfomance impact it would have on servers.
that’s the question. Why is there a cap of 25 bleed on one target, but what if there is a overflow full of condition clases, everyone atacking different enemies, would the server crash? I dont think so.
The other question is, why is condition damage calculated every single pulse? If you get might, all your conditions, that are on your enemie get stronger, why? This is serverload, that nobody needs. An it doesnt make any sence, that your bleed allready on your enemie get stronger, if you get might.
I’m not sure it matters if it makes sense — it also doesn’t make sense that someone is gushing out blood and burning alive for four minutes — but I would easily give up updating the strength of currently applied bleeds for no bleed cap.
I hit bleed cap while I’m just duoing… How is this still possible?
I honestly don’t know how this couldn’t be a top priority unless no one at ArenaNet plays a condition build in PvE.
It’s nice skill lag is getting attention, but this should too.
I find the whole excuse of ‘server limitations’ rather idiotic, since pretty much every mmo out there seems to be able to handle a bucketload of dots on a target just fine.
More importantly, if it was a hard limitation, they shouldn’t have designed the game in such a way that hands out conditions like they’re candy. Take main hand warrior sword; here’s a weapon that, with it’s burst skill, can stack over ten bleeds BY ITSELF. I’ve personally been able to get up to 22 bleeds by myself— and that’s part of the problem.
Most games don’t give everyone dots, and when they do, they’re not spammable dots.
I don’t think anyone at Anet plays a condition build. If they did, they would see how urgent this needs to be fixed.
2 people hitting bleed cap easily, objects taking 4x as long to kill… It’s a major play-style they’re just neglecting in the worst way for a really long time.
PvErs: “Please make conditions stronger!”
sPvPers: “Please make conditions weaker!”
ANet: “Balanced!”
Oversimplified.
The problem is not that conditions are strong or not 1v1.
But that in group vs boss, conditions hit a limit while direct damage keep scaling with the number of people present.
All well and good if we could take one step back, hit a icon, and go all in with direct damage.
But we need to run back to a racial capital, pay a trainer, redistribute our trait tree, perhaps even replace our whole wardrobe of gear.
Gw2 is the most homogenized mmo ever created.
Ascended gear also makes re-traiting a bit of a pain. I actually have the gear for it, but I don’t like having to do it.
Earlier this week, I posted in another thread on the topic of conditions…
And I still feel the need to share the history.
I and others have posted on the condition cap issue for more than a year (you can review my posts if you want <g>).
A-Net has acknowledged it is an issue:
John Peters in October (2012): “Condition damage is an issue we are looking into.”
John Peters in February (2013): “Condition damage is an issue we are looking into.”
Original Posts:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/No-love-for-condition-builds/page/2#
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Comfirmed-Nothing-being-done-re-conditions/page/4
It is SO frustrating that this has not been addressed.
Ulari
Ulari
And what I (and others) want addressed is…
I want my condition character to do the same damage in a group that I do when I am solo.
It is stupid that I do less damage if there are more people fighting.
Direct damage dealers can count on always doing the same damage no matter how many people are attacking their target.
Ulari
Ulari
It is SO frustrating that this has not been addressed.
Yes it is.
I kinda get the idea GW2 was TRYING to go with; that they wanted players to be able to stack conditions with each other to try and promote cooperation and coordination.
But it clearly isn’t working the way it was intended.
My solution would be:
1) Each player gets one stack of a condition, reserved to them. You get one bleed, one burning, etc…
2) Further “stacks” increase the duration, not the intensity or frequency of ticks. Yes, it would require reworking of the damage and base duration as well as lot of tweaking to current traits and sigils among all classes. That WOULD take a lot of time to sort out.
3) Increases to base condition damage is only checked when a condition is applied, rather than with each tick, cutting down on the number of checks it makes to the server.
If Arena.net is considering a complete overhaul of the condition mechanics in this game (like the above would be)… yeah, that would take a LOT of time to square away.
Posting here to show my support for this. I feel 100% useless on my necro in open world bosses.
In dungeons, I feel okay if there are no other condition users… even though my bomb bleeds get knocked off by crappy ones from power build auto attacks and procs. If there are more than one condition user, I feel useless yet again.
The system is flawed, period. And it is such a huge issue that it is embarassing that it still exists.
Why even have condition specs in the game? Honestly.
2x 80 Necro, 80 Ranger, 80 Thief
It’s kind of interesting how the philosophy of the game is supposed to be “play with anyone you want,” but conditions clearly violate that rule. If I play conditions in a dungeon, I have to ban other condition builds and even most rangers and engineers. Even if I play power, I’m better off banning condition builds to avoid the risk of bleed cap.
+1 for the “fire and forget” condition damage calculations. Seems the obvious compromise to fix the damage per tick at the time of application rather than polling every player every second to update the numbers. OK it might not be so accurate but it’s a kitten ed sight better than the ridiculous situation we have now, especially when non-condition builds spam conditions like there is no tomorrow to further exacerbate it.
[TaG] – GH
I kinda get the idea GW2 was TRYING to go with; that they wanted players to be able to stack conditions with each other to try and promote cooperation and coordination.
But it clearly isn’t working the way it was intended.
My solution would be:
1) Each player gets one stack of a condition, reserved to them. You get one bleed, one burning, etc…
2) Further “stacks” increase the duration, not the intensity or frequency of ticks. Yes, it would require reworking of the damage and base duration as well as lot of tweaking to current traits and sigils among all classes. That WOULD take a lot of time to sort out.
3) Increases to base condition damage is only checked when a condition is applied, rather than with each tick, cutting down on the number of checks it makes to the server.
If Arena.net is considering a complete overhaul of the condition mechanics in this game (like the above would be)… yeah, that would take a LOT of time to square away.
An alternative to 2, make things stack in intensity but use the intensity as a simple multiplier to the base damage. Meaning that at max stack, the damage would be base damage * 25. This in contrast to the current system of “base damage + X – Y” repeated 25 times.
+1 for the “fire and forget” condition damage calculations. Seems the obvious compromise to fix the damage per tick at the time of application rather than polling every player every second to update the numbers. OK it might not be so accurate but it’s a kitten ed sight better than the ridiculous situation we have now, especially when non-condition builds spam conditions like there is no tomorrow to further exacerbate it.
I really want to know if this is even being considered.
yeah, the situation is pretty horrible with condition builds alone, but then we have power builds with a ton of attacks stacking crap bleeds to make it even worse.
Rangers in particular make no sense. It seems they didn’t take bleed cap into account at all when they made it so shortbow, which can act as a power weapon, capable of maintaining 10+ bleeds.
how about dividing the 25 stacks depending how much condition damage someone has. Like the 5 stacks for players with <500 condition damage, 10 stacks for players <1000 condition damage and 15 stacks for the rest.
How about a real dev give us a real solution that they’re planning because we deserve some info on this issue…
On the bright side, Chris Whiteside said in another thread that he’ll give a response about condition builds in PvE. I hope that happens soon.
Just add a new condition that affects bosses only, that make a condition to do more damage when more than one player is applying the same condition (only if condition is already at 25 stacks), and of course, don’t make enemies immune to all conditions (aka. don’t force people to change builds)
On the bright side, Chris Whiteside said in another thread that he’ll give a response about condition builds in PvE. I hope that happens soon.
Condition damage is an issue in PvE, WvW, and PvP since two characters can easily hit the cap in in any environment (for bleeds and also for burning). Designing a solution that only affects one environment (PvE) is not what we want/need.
I would like to imagine that PvP teams could field two or three condition characters to burst down high toughness targets. It may not be ‘the best’, but it would be a build option. Right now the condition cap make this idea impossible/stupid.
Ulari
Ulari
Just remove condition stacking and rework conditions to work more like hexes from GW1 with each condition reworked for a specific effect.
On the bright side, Chris Whiteside said in another thread that he’ll give a response about condition builds in PvE. I hope that happens soon.
Condition damage is an issue in PvE, WvW, and PvP since two characters can easily hit the cap in in any environment (for bleeds and also for burning). Designing a solution that only affects one environment (PvE) is not what we want/need.
I would like to imagine that PvP teams could field two or three condition characters to burst down high toughness targets. It may not be ‘the best’, but it would be a build option. Right now the condition cap make this idea impossible/stupid.
Ulari
As a top 100 PvP player, I can confidently say that you are wrong. Unlike PvE, players in PvP and world vs. world have so much condition cleansing that one, two, three or even four players can’t maintain 25 stacks of bleeding. That’s why raising the bleed cap would have absolutely no effect outside of PvE.
We’ve known about this since the game was released. The only response we received from developers is that they are working on a solution. We haven’t heard anything concerning this for over a year.
What this usually means is they probably haven’t decided what to do and how to do it.
We’ve known about this since the game was released. The only response we received from developers is that they are working on a solution. We haven’t heard anything for concerning this for over a year.
What this usually means is they probably haven’t decided what to do and how to do it.
They said that condition damage is going to be summed up and pop as one big number every X seconds instead of multiple smaller numbers.
Then again… that fixes absolutely nothing but its not like we believe they play their own game.
Zerk is the average Joe build. Don’t pat yourself in the back too hard.
How about we just remove condition damage all together? That is my vote.
Main – Laaz Rocket – Guardian (Ehmry Bay)
Johnny Johnny – Ranger (Ehmry Bay)
Hárvey Wallbanger – Alt Warrior (Ehmry Bay)
Johnny Johnny – Ranger (Ehmry Bay)
Hárvey Wallbanger – Alt Warrior (Ehmry Bay)
We’ve known about this since the game was released. The only response we received from developers is that they are working on a solution. We haven’t heard anything for concerning this for over a year.
What this usually means is they probably haven’t decided what to do and how to do it.
They said that condition damage is going to be summed up and pop as one big number every X seconds instead of multiple smaller numbers.
Then again… that fixes absolutely nothing but its not like we believe they play their own game.
Their engine can barely handle the calculations right now. Every condition has to be broadcasted to all players in the vicinity. This also includes boons. Stack amount and duration on all boons and conditions broadcasted to all players.
I don’t know why arena net engineers agreed to program this computational power consuming non sense.
Step 1: Figure out the dps of a rubber stamp 30/0/0/10/30 zerker warrior over a lenght of time equal to the average silver mob in a dungeon.
Step 2: Boost the dps of other damage-focused builds/classes such that they can roughly equal that dps over that length of time. Seem inelegant and arbitrary? Too bad, numbers is all anyone cares about.
Step 3: Make sure the dps lost by someone going into a support build does not horribly tank the whole team’s dps, by boosting the effectiveness of might, fury, condition removal, and other boons, as well as non damaging conditions like vulnerability and weakness.
Ok now you just need to figure out how to make CC not suck balls.
In PVE, make bleeding, poison, burning, etc, cause a self buff instead of stacking on the target to cause damage. “Your next attack bleeds the target for extra damage,” “Your next attack burns the target for extra damage,” etc. The target still gets a debuff for a certain duration every time it gets bled, burned, or poisoned, like vulnerability. Poisoned would still do what poison does. Burned could cause an increase in damage taken from fire attacks, explosions, and burning damage itself. Bled could cause an increase in crit damage on the target and eat away at stacks of Defiant every second or every other second. Accordingly, give more enemies the ability to heal themselves, resist crit damage, etc to compensate.
Every time you do an attack that would stack bleed on the target normally, you would instead stack yourself with a “causes bleeding” buff. The buff adds a tail of damage after each hit based on your bleed damage, or it could all count up at once. Condition duration remains the same, so in this case it would act like boon duration. Epidemic still spreads conditions to all enemies, with the addition of hitting them all with the full ticks of the bleed buff damage (you have 10 stacks, it ticks for 10 bleed damage on each target whenever you make a strike.)
Burning would work the same way, you do an extra tick of damage for a “burn” while the burn condition duration/buff is up for you. Same with poison. These buffs also apply damage to structures, even if the debuff part of the spell wouldn’t be present.
While this does remove the “damage over time” aspect of conditions, it makes the bleed cap on targets a non-issue. It also keeps the spirit of flat and steady damage based on building stacks. Condition duration would extend the length of these self buffs. The change would also diversify the current dungeon meta, possibly make crowd control more effective on bosses, and give condition users a way to gain credit on world bosses, and do damage to structures. I don’t believe it would “increase bandwidth usage” by as much as removing the bleed cap altogether, but I’m not a technology expert.
Problems with the idea that I see:
Needs a mechanic for removing condition buffs from the player, possibly, to increase the difficulty of PVE for condition users. I think there may need to be more enemies that strip boons in general.
Radical shift from the mechanics of PVP.
Edit: Maybe an additional mechanic to limit or increase the amount of stacks you yourself can have, to favor condition users (i.e., non-condition specced or geared players can only generate 10 bleed buffs or less.) This might add a mechanic similar to crit damage % for condition users without the RNG. It would also give people who use Rampagers and other hybrid specs a supplement for lacking in crit damage %.
(edited by senoph.2930)
We’ve known about this since the game was released. The only response we received from developers is that they are working on a solution. We haven’t heard anything concerning this for over a year.
What this usually means is they probably haven’t decided what to do and how to do it.
You’re probably right. But an update would be nice after roughly six months of not hearing anything.
Just think about it. At this point, one of the developers has seen the thread about the issue, yet they haven’t responded at all. That’s worrying.
We’ve known about this since the game was released. The only response we received from developers is that they are working on a solution. We haven’t heard anything concerning this for over a year.
What this usually means is they probably haven’t decided what to do and how to do it.
You’re probably right. But an update would be nice after roughly six months of not hearing anything.
Just think about it. At this point, one of the developers has seen the thread about the issue, yet they haven’t responded at all. That’s worrying.
Correction, nine months.
The thread in the Tequatl Rising forum on conditions will disappear soon but as it raises issues pertinent to the rest of the game I felt it worthwhile linking to it (and possibly continuing the discussion) here.
In short, the way in which conditions are treated within the game mean that condition builds become less desirable the more characters are present. In boss fights (or fights against structures) condition builds become largely redundant. Isn’t it time that this shortcoming was moved to the top of the “things we need to fix” list?
ArenaNet is fully aware of this and other condition related issues.
In PvP, conditions dominate the meta. If you are out necromancer’d in solo queue you might as well give up.
Give it time, there will be a condition buff in PvE and nerf for PvP.
Are conditions really the meta in WvW because, I am well aware of many guardians in my guild who would then be effectively Anti-meta considering we turn conditions into boons on shouts.
Anyway on the note of conditions in PvE, in world boss fights yes but if they handle it wrong we could see every boss becoming even easier. I think personally the conditions should be tracked on the server as an increase to their maximum damage aginste Objects. Problem is then how does the server calculate the damage from Vulunerability and other similiar debuffs that do not damage something directly.
Q&A from Bill Freist in the optimization thread:
“Q: My Second question is : Wasn’t all these problems caused because you have to broadcast every single condition/buff to everyone which is currently pushing your systems and servers/internet to its limits ?
“A: This is a good question. Buffs are a large part of Guild Wars 2 and at first glance you’d definitely think that telling everyone about them would be really expensive. In reality, this is only a hit with server→client traffic, which has been significantly improved with the handful of bandwidth optimizations that have already gone out. As far as server processing, its pretty minuscule (thankfully).”
Interesting. Could this apply to conditions? He left that part out of his answer.