Guild Wars 2

Will we ever get an update on the status of condition damage in PvE?

It’s been over 8 months since we were told you are “working on it”

With the move towards harder content such as open world raid bosses like Teq, the current state of condition damage is a detriment to everyone in the game.

If this trend is going to continue then we need to hear something about condition damage changes.

As a matter of fact, I would like to know more about the current state of a possible update on condition damage, as well. I play a condition dmg necro. In PvE, I have no problem to uphold 25 stacks of bleeding on a champion by myself. Thus any additional condition based group member hardly adds to the groups damage output. This is not a problem, if you face an easy dungeon. But it certainly is if you are trying to find a group for more difficult content.

So basically, conditions are mainly a problem in zerg content, in which there is currently only one encounter that requires many brain cells to finish. I’ve not been to many teq encounters, but perhaps you might want to switch roles to turrets etc. where you will not have to worry about capped stacks.

Or even better, respec, and focus on a build around that encounter. Every single boss type character in the game will need an overhaul to the overhauled condition damage, 5 people with 25 stacks of maxed out bleed will just melt everything in sight.

Fletch.3572:

5 people with 25 stacks of maxed out bleed will just melt everything in sight.

I never get this argument.

My main concerned was directed towards groups of 5 people for dungeons. You lose a lot of dmg during fights against one single champion, if you have two mainly condition dmg dealers in your group. As I expect more difficult dungeon content to be released, I consider this a problem. In the lfg-tool no one wants two condition dmg dealers, but everyone loves groups with two or even more warriors. The thing is that condition dmg builds are possible for pretty much every profession. But you hardly need more than one of them in a dungeon group. This really puts condition dmg dealers in an unfair position to direct dmg dealers (for the process of finding a group). Let me stress this: I don’t want an individual condition dmg dealer to do more dmg than they currently do. I simply want them not to be forced to switch to a direct dmg build, if they want to play in a group which already has another condition dmg dealer.

As for your argument that 5 people with 25 stacks of bleeding melts down anything: Have you ever seen a warrior crit down an enemy? A group of those melt down everything extremely fast. That’s why there are a lot of warrior-only groups in the lfg-tool. However this was not the point of this argument.

Like the OP stated, the developers have mentioned changes to condition dmg months ago. An update on the current thoughts concerning condition dmg would be nice!

As far as I know, condition damage is only limited because that is the way it was coded in the server design and the network protocol – the 25 stack limit. It has very, very little to do with game balance and I even remember a developer saying this. They can’t just fix it because it is a hard coded problem that requires an overhaul to solve.

That said, the stack limit is just fine on players and single mobs. The issue comes from tough trash and bosses (veterans, elites, champions and legendary). If they ever did manage to fix it so that you could add more than 25 stacks, the amount of stacks the mob could handle should be based upon its rank. I see no problem with up to 125+ stacks on a legendary given that people with power builds can be doing anywhere from 20-40k of direct damage to it per second in a mere party of five.

World bosses in particular should be balanced around a minimum of 5 conditioners.

Hannelore.8153:

As far as I know, condition damage is only limited because that is the way it was coded in the server design and the network protocol – the 25 stack limit. It has very, very little to do with game balance and I even remember a developer saying this. They can’t just fix it because it is a hard coded problem that requires an overhaul to solve.

Indeed, that’s my current state of knowledge as well. I am fully aware that any changes of a primal element such as condition damage causes many balance problems. This is also the reason I would like to get an update. The feedback of the community on the possible changes for the December update was really constructive (in my opinion). Since condition damage is relevant for all professions, it might be worth to share an update with the community for discussion.

Hannelore.8153:

That said, the stack limit is just fine on players and single mobs. The issue comes from tough trash and bosses (veterans, elites, champions and legendary).

I completely agree.

Hannelore.8153:

If they ever did manage to fix it so that you could add more than 25 stacks, the amount of stacks the mob could handle should be based upon its rank. I see no problem with up to 125+ stacks on a legendary given that people with power builds can be doing anywhere from 20-40k of direct damage to it per second in a mere party of five.

Mob rank based stack limits are an interesting idea. It has to be handled carefully, though. I don’t want to a group of 5 tanky condition necros to be the new warrior-only group.

Afya.5842:

Fletch.3572:

5 people with 25 stacks of maxed out bleed will just melt everything in sight.

I never get this argument.

You aren’t supposed to. People who make this argument are mathematical ignorant.

I love my necro to death, but I’m a condi spec, and it’s really disappointing on world bosses or event champions that I barely do any damage. I’ve seen a lot of suggestions on these forums about how conditions could be balanced to actually allow us to do noticeable damage, and there are more than a few that would probably fix the issue entirely and wouldn’t require raising the 25 stack cap. If it really is true that raising it past 25 stacks would cause lag (which I’m not really sure I believe), there are other ways to remedy this, but we haven’t gotten any answers on it.

As it is, I usually have to bring my ele to world events in PvE if I don’t want to be the equivalent (or worse) of an power-built autoattacker that uses no skills whatsoever other than 1111111. Condi spec for necros is my favorite playstyle, but I feel so kitten in large groups.

Would like to see condition damage buffed in PvE soon too.

As nice as it is seeing Berserker numbers I would like to be able to vary up my play style with a couple condition builds.

I’ve posted this in other threads but it’s the only solution I can think of which they’ve already completed have of.

Remove the cap on bleed stacks (PvE), make all bleeds combine into one big number as to not lag the system with thousands of tiny numbers flying around (this has already been done for the most part), the player with the highest condition damage would see the damage stacks other players would just be adding to the numbers he sees

Afya.5842:

Fletch.3572:

5 people with 25 stacks of maxed out bleed will just melt everything in sight.

I never get this argument.

Because it is only fair if Direct Damage can kill monsters and players in 2 hits

/sarcasm

Afya.5842:

Fletch.3572:

5 people with 25 stacks of maxed out bleed will just melt everything in sight.

I never get this argument.

Because it makes no sense, five condi-DPS would go through content no more quickly than five power-DPS, in fact it’d probably still be a bit slower.

Trying to make conditions comparable to direct damage in all aspects of the game seems like an extremely difficult task, in which case I don’t think they will do anything.

Condition damage is stronger than direct in PvP and WvW so they can’t just buff/uncap conditions. No one would ever use a direct build.