Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

Edit: I might just make a new post that’s super short because people have a hard time reading huge walls of text

Do you want to be effective using condition damage builds in PvE group content?

I’d appreciate it if you guys could leave an opinion on the matter, maybe even your own ideas (after you read the issues part, so we don’t keep repeating the same stuff over and over again) and what could possibly be done to make it better for our condition damage comrades in PvE.

Here, I have come up with something that may allow such builds to thrive.

TL;DR: My idea is this: Applying Conditions after the cap is reached causes condition damage immediately. This is called Overflow damage.

The rest of the post explains the issues of condition damage, what the suggested mechanic is, actual numbers, and thoughts on other stuff about it. If you don’t care much for numbers and stuff, feel free to skip the 2nd post.

The Issues
With some googling and forum stalking its clear that many people agree or believe that:
1) Condition Damage’s main issue is the cap limit. This includes conditions like burning, which only 1 person could potentially be using at a time. This is the biggest issue on why going pure condition damage in group PvE content a total waste.
2) Increasing the cap limit or adding more conditions will solve the cap limit. Unfortunately, we cannot raise the cap over 25 for server reasons. Even if we could, it still wouldn’t be good enough to cater to content that may potentially have 10+ people. It becomes inconsistent if you make it for only certain enemies and it just isn’t a good solution, explained later down the post.
3) Ramp Up Time (explained a bit here) causes condition damage to be too slow to achieve its peak DPS and will always be much slower than power based builds. This is an issue whose problems can’t be proved: in some cases, for an all-power party we are able to stack bleeds and cap out burn and poison durations to the max in little under 3 to 4 seconds, yet some parties we hardly get any burns or bleeds. For sure, on a smaller scale, it could be a problem, but don’t tell me there’s ramp up time when world bosses are involved.
In that same post linked in Ramp Up Time, the talk about why condition damage can’t have competitive maximum DPS is true. Unfortunately, it is also true that condition damage can’t have good DPS without bonus power, period.
4) Increase the damage for conditions. You can’t do this because the damage curve concerning the amount of people in a group will skew too high the fewer people there are. There are also issues of upsetting balance between PvE and PvP, but as seen with confusion, you could have seperate values. This doesn’t help the issue that in group PvE content conditions are terrible.

Condition Damage in Group PvE Content
Here I use an example of a somewhat fully buffed condition damage user who has a value of 2600 Condition Damage: This is more than achievable through the use of might stacks, exotic gears, weapon stacks, food and utilities. Using the damage formulas for bleed, burning, and poison, the three most common damaging conditions, we can see the bulk of most condition damage.
In an ideal, unrealistic situation where one person has control of the conditions, we are able to achieve decent numbers over a span of 10 seconds: the average cooldown of most damaging abilities. With 20 stacks of bleeding from a single condition damage dealer using those stats mentioned we get 34,600 bleed damage, 9,780 burn damage, and 3,440 poison damage over 10 seconds at its peak: a total of 47,820 condition damage, yielding a bit less than 4.8k DPS. If we include possible power damage dealt while applying conditions, we could tack on about 1-2k DPS, considering we have almost 0 additional power from gear or traits and only have might to work with. But even with the vague power damage bonus, it is nowhere near the competitive DPS of power based builds, nor could you achieve it fast enough to make it really count, but its still decent. Also, this situation is highly unrealistic, as many classes naturally apply conditions, whether they are built for it or not.
Bump the number up to 2 people: now, you must share the stack limit. Again, a highly unrealistic scenario where these people have control over the condition stacks: each person gets either 12 or 13 stacks of bleeding, and basically half the damage of burn and poison assuming they are both equal in condition damage and using the stats shown above. About 12 stacks of bleeding alone gets your around 20,760 bleed damage: about 60% of the potential bleed damage you could have done if you were by yourself. Already, a huge loss in DPS.

(edited by WEXXES.2378)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

As we get more and more people, the stacks need to be split.
A group of 5 buffed condition damage users, might stacks and everything, would yield about 11,300 of 5 bleed stacks (bleed stacks split among the 5), burn and poison over 10 seconds. Add in vague power DPS and you could get around 1.5k DPS in total.
And just to put things into perspective, a group of 25+ people, condition damage or not, your condition damage could potentially be 0. Yes, 0. If conditions are capped 24/7 you will not be able to use conditions, period.
Unfortunately, even if you are by yourself, chances are you will be able to achieve maybe 12-15 stacks of your own bleeding tops, and maybe some burn and poison here and there: still a loss of DPS from an already low competitive DPS. If you are really unlucky, you will have a group of 4 people who apply conditions non-stop, causing you to have the DPS of a 5 man condition damage group.
Strange, isn’kitten why, as a condition damage dealer, should you dread people who help apply conditions of their own? Why should more condition damage dealers cause less condition damage to be done per person?

The Arguments
Power based builds require 3 stats to be effective and achieve their high numbers: power, precision, and ferocity. Condition based builds only really need 1: Condition Damage. While condition damage users could invest in things like precision (for apply conditions on critical hit) or condition duration, most gear allows condition based builds to invest in a defensive stat. With the addition of Sinister, it is more than possible to have pure glass cannon condition damage: unfortunately, as shown, that will never be the case.
Condition Damage is in a hard place to change: in small group PvP, condition damage is in an excellent spot and has strong presence. In larger group fights, most won’t take condition damage because of the mass cleansing that occurs. While I believe a strategically timed condition bomb could achieve max stacks easily, their use is still capped and doesn’t bring out damage fast enough to even matter.
So: We can’t increase caps, we can’t increase damage numbers, and we can’t add more conditions, and if we do any of these: bad things will happen and it won’t truly change anything.
Not looking good at all.

The Idea of Overflow Damage
While I do believe this could potentially make condition damage good in PvE, maybe even meta in some cases, I’m not a god and thus would like any perspective that I may have missed concerning such a mechanic.

What is overflow damage?

This is a mechanic that only takes place when the conditions reach their cap. Normally, if you apply conditions when the stack or duration is capped, it will only replace the oldest stack, causing potential damage to go to waste.
With this new mechanic, it will no longer replace the oldest stack, and instead, deal condition damage directly based on the number of stacks being applied and the duration of it, with confusion being the exception.

For example: if you use an attack that applies 3 bleeds over 7 seconds with 2600 condition damage, that should deal 3633 bleed damage in total. With overflow damage, if you do that same attack on an enemy with bleed stacks already capped at 25, you will deal 3633 bleed overflow damage immediately.

The same applies to burn and poison: These conditions have a stack cap of 9, but only stack in duration. By achieving the 9 stacks, your future burn and poison applications will deal their damage immediately so long as the enemy has their stack capped.
Because conditions no longer overwrite their older conditions, maintaining capped stacks will be a bit harder, but as a result, you can achieve immediate, high condition damage that can be used normally by groups.

Confusion works a little differently: applied confusion stacks after it has capped will cause confusion to proc for 10% of its stack damage per stack applied. This is because confusion does not count duration in its damage, and thus, would still remain useless overflow or not.

As for torment, overflow damage will only increase if the target is moving.
Overflow damage is still considered condition damage and therefore is not hindered by armor or protection. If the target suddenly becomes immune to conditions, overflow damage will not work on it either.

In small group PvP, or any sized group PvP really, achieving max caps and then further applying high stack, high duration conditions is incredibly hard yet without overflow damage it does pretty much nothing. So, PvP wise, it doesn’t do much: if someone is able to cause max condition caps on you that quickly, the problem wouldn’t be overflow damage as that would end up killing most people anyway.
In group PvE, where max condition stacks is more than normal, condition damage users can actually do go damage.

But enough of that, let’s see some real numbers:

(edited by WEXXES.2378)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

Real Examples of Overflow Damage

Using this setup , we have a necromancer with 2784 condition damage, 70% condition duration, 20% bleed duration (edit: non-trait or sigil, I somehow overlooked this), and 33% scepter condition duration in exotic gear. If you put 20 might stacks and full weapon stacks on:

Blood is Power, if done at 25 bleed stacks, would do 22,167 damage immediately, yielding a DPS of 720.88 from that skill alone. Keep in mind, this is an almost fully group buffed necromancer. In an normal situation without these buffs, it drops down to about 16,372.

Scepter auto attacks Blood Curse and Rending Curse would do 2,180 bleed overflow damage.

Grasping Hands 6,844 damage. Corrosive Poison Cloud 1,337 (lol) damage per tick if poison is capped.

Plague Form bleeds would do 1,074 damage per second.

In addition to that, your share of theoretical bleed stacks would do 933 DPS in bleed alone.

So, while fully buffed, you can achieve about 9K peak Condition Damage DPS alone, as a necromancer, provided the bleed stacks are capped immediately. Though realistically, it would be a bit lower, maybe about 7k due to condition stacks and what not. Either way, in a 5 man group, this is a huge improvement and definitely not laughable yet still lower than power as a pure condition build. Ramp Up Time could also be very random due to party setup, so that may further lower your total DPS. As long as you run condition damage as your only offensive stat, this kind of damage is fine. Should you go sinsiter or rampager, you’d probably be able to achieve close to meta DPS.

Also remember that since 25 stacks are harder to maintain now that older stacks are not replaced, these high damage numbers may be lost into the stack, and so its up the player to use their conditions appropriately
.
Some other numbers thrown together from different professions and conditions:
Buffed and Stacked Condition Damage Engineer, about the same stats as the necromancer example but focused on burn duration (53%!):

Pistol offhand Blowtorch: 15,379 burn damage
Rocket Kick: 13,328 burn damage
Incendiary Ammo: 7,177 burn damage for 3 hits
Flamethrower Napalm: 2,051 burn damage per tick
Flame Turret: 5,126 burn damage every 3 seconds
Bomb Kit Fire Bomb: 5,126 burn damage
Concussion Bomb: about 9,117 confusion damage

Buffed Warrior:
Sword Auto: 4,180 bleed damage
Flurry: 9,996 bleed damage
Riposte: 24,718 bleed damage
Pin Down: 32,715 bleed damage

As you can see, pretty high numbers for those who stack condition overflow damage. And lastly, the difference and references to power based builds or non-overflow mechanics:

A fully buffed greatsword warrior’s One Hundred Blades can yield, on average, about 42,582 damage on demand. Their auto attacks can hit to upwards of 4-5k each. I did basic calculation so these numbers are a bit innacruate, but not far off (in fact, I think people can do more damage than that).

*That same 32,715 bleed damage pindown, with overflow, would do 32,715 damage regardless of overflow. The most important fact about overflow damage is that the total theoretical damage dealt is still the same if this were to be applied as a stack and you waited out the duration. *The difference is the DPS: normal use yields a DPS of 1073 provided you can secure 6 stacks of bleeding over 30 seconds, and one is a guaranteed 1,309 DPS in overflow damage.

Overflow Damage is there to reward people to keep attacking with conditions and to make group PvE viable for those who use condition damage builds, while keeping PvP and small scale balance the same. We did not increase condition damage in any way, we did not increase stacks or create new conditions, we gave an option for condition damage builds to keep up with power based builds yet still retain the setups, strengths, and weaknesses of condition damage.

(edited by WEXXES.2378)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

Thoughts and Arguments against Overflow
The nature of condition damage is damage over time by use of debuffs: this just looks like a reskin version of power damage. Keep in mind, you are still utilizing damage over time by maintaining your condition stacks: by capping it, you break the limits and begin to deal massive, competitive damage.

Wouldn’t this make this stronger than power builds in world bosses? A simple solution: Cause overflow damage to deal 50% less damage or something on world bosses, since you cannot crit them and crit essentially doubles your damage when crit capped: if you are condition capped fighting a world boss, you should also equally face the penalty of halved damage.

“Tell me why this wouldn’t be overpowered”. Its still weaker than Berserker based builds. With overflow damage, a condition damage group may potentially be better than berserker in certain fights, especially with new content coming up, but since maintaining stack caps will become harder, its highly unlikely it will outright overtake it. Also remember that a single cleanse of bleed stacks would screw with the DPS, whereas power based builds can keep going with ease.

“This still won’t help condition damage builds achieve as much damage as power based builds”. That depends, actually. With overflow damage, I’m pretty sure Sinister gear would become incredibly strong contenders for an equal to berserker: high power damage mixed with high fluctuating condition damage (you aren’t guaranteed overflow for all attacks due to stacks needing to be maintained), if done properly, may even out DPS berserker in some situations or builds for certain classes (Berserker Warrior and Guardian, definitely going to still be dominant than their condition counterparts).

“Why not just increase the armor on enemies and reduce their HP?” With distributed condition stacks, this won’t help you at all. Your still going to do measly condition damage, only now even the power builds will do measly damage as well. The difference: Power builds damage remain constant no matter how many people there are, whereas if you have a big group of condition damage users, you still become useless. Right now, mobs like Mordrem Husks do die faster to conditions than power damage, but their TTK for condition damage will remain closely the same whether you have 2, 5, or 20 people due to condition stacks, whereas if you had a group of 20 power builds, that husk will probably die much sooner, in which this idea of changing up enemy stats doesn’t help for anything that for larger groups of people: something overflow damage does. A group of 20 condition damage users could spike down a husk with ease if they coordinated a condition bomb for burst overflow damage.

I know I missed some points, and would like to hear from the rest of the community on the faults of condition damage.

Thank you for reading! I will look over this post again and try to fill the holes I may have left.

Edit #1: Removed some of the stuff above for space, it wasn’t too important and if someone asks I can just repost it.

Some have pointed out in other places that there could be abuses to this in PvP. For example, Guardians with their virtue of justice which could potentially apply 5 stacks of burning on a single target. While in a real situation I don’t believe it’ll be that easy and even if they did that would be 5 people or objects(guardians can have spirit weapons) targeting a single person without hitting anyone else, and to me that’s going to hurt regardless of overflow burn or not. Also, a single condition cleanse after receiving multiple burns could basically make that pointless. There are also very few burns in the game for PvP to have long burning durations to cap the stacks out, so only a build with little to no condi cleanse would suffer greatly to a condition build, which would do bad and die fast against condi builds anyway in direct confrontations.

Also keep in mind these high numbers I listed are basically PvE situations only. In PvP, you can’t use food and utilities, plus the actual condition damage would be lower due to PvP amulets instead of PvE gear. When comparing the two, its about 25-40% lower depending on class and sigil choices.

If worse comes to worse, you can always use a separate formula for PvP to reduce the overflow damage by 50% or just not have it in there at all: this is an added mechanic, unlike 90% of the stuff suggested below, that doesn’t change anything important that current exists in the game.

As for world bosses, yea, that could be a bit too much considering you can’t critically hit them. You could make it so that ALL condition durations are reduced by an amount to make it difficult to maintain all full stacks for a zerg as well while keeping the overflow damage reduced (since most overflow damage is based on duration as well.) This is already done with weakness IRC.

(edited by WEXXES.2378)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: Muusic.2967

Muusic.2967

(SNIP)
But enough of that, let’s see some real numbers:

TL:DR

No one is going to spend 10 minutes reading all of that you might want to sum it up a little.

Be who you are and say what you feel for those who mind dont matter and those who matter dont mind
~Dr. Seuss

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

(SNIP)
But enough of that, let’s see some real numbers:

TL:DR

No one is going to spend 10 minutes reading all of that you might want to sum it up a little.

It’s in the the first few lines, lol.

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: Brother Grimm.5176

Brother Grimm.5176

Why are we doing this again? CD simply is NOT a good choice for World Bosses.

If you join a group and add some power to your equipment (Sinister), you will get the reward….move on.

There have been dozens and dozens of threads and suggestions on this getting “fixed” and there does not seem to be an easy one available to Anet (keep in mind they have to balance CD in PvP at the same time).

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s the way that lady luck dances

(edited by Brother Grimm.5176)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

Why are we doing this again? CD simply is NOT a good choice for World Bosses.

If you join a group and add some power to your equipment (Sinister), you will get the reward….move on.

There have been dozens and dozens of threads and suggestions on this getting “fixed” and there does not seem to be an easy one available to Anet (keep in mind they have to balance CD in PvP at the same time).

I think you posted in the wrong post, as this is supposed to make CD useful in PvE and keep balance in PvP, those “dozens and dozens of suggestions” I have ruled out in the post as they don’t even fix the issue.

Nice suggestion with the sinister, but instead why not just go soldiers, since you won’t be doing any condition damage anyway? Trying to share any amount of condition stacks at a world boss results in most people doing almost no condition damage at all.

(edited by WEXXES.2378)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

There is actually a solution to this problem. And, there is no need to invent concepts to account for condition damage. Simply manage condition damage like any other game does it—by player. This is why you can have, say, an affliction warlock in WoW topping the charts in sustained damage (It’s actually happened in the past.) The damage over time there is managed by player, not by some artificial mechanic like condition caps. The only solution, and the simple solution, is to manage all damage, direct or over time, by player where it should be managed.

(edited by Raine.1394)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

There is actually a solution to this problem. And, there is no need to invent concepts to account for condition damage. Simply manage condition damage like any other game does it—by player. This is why you can have, say, an affliction warlock in WoW topping the charts in sustained damage (It’s actually happened in the past.) The damage over time there is managed by player, not by some artificial mechanic like condition caps. The only solution, and the simple solution, is to manage all damage, direct or over time, by player where it should be managed.

There’s a reason why this post is so long: I’ve included a lot of the basic suggestions and such, and why I wrote in the first few lines to read the issues part before saying stuff like this.

No, we can’t do that because it kills PvP. And even still, you have incredibly ramp up time which will become the new problem as people no longer share stacks, and at this point, this is a lot more work and a lot more different than merely using a simple formula to deal a single instance of damage.

No one here has even looked at my idea yet or said anything about it…

(edited by WEXXES.2378)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

There is actually a solution to this problem. And, there is no need to invent concepts to account for condition damage. Simply manage condition damage like any other game does it—by player. This is why you can have, say, an affliction warlock in WoW topping the charts in sustained damage (It’s actually happened in the past.) The damage over time there is managed by player, not by some artificial mechanic like condition caps. The only solution, and the simple solution, is to manage all damage, direct or over time, by player where it should be managed.

There’s a reason why this post is so long: I’ve included a lot of the basic suggestions and such, and why I wrote in the first few lines to read the issues part before saying stuff like this.

No, we can’t do that because it kills PvP. And even still, you have incredibly ramp up time which will become the new problem as people no longer share stacks, and at this point, this is a lot more work and a lot more different than merely using a simple formula to deal a single instance of damage.

It absolutely will not kill PvP, no more than it kills PvP in WoW. Damage over time presents a trade-off in playstyle. I learned about this experientially when I killed an unholy Death Knight in WoW only to die of his dots a few seconds later. There are many advantages, especially in PvP, to damage over time.

However, what we are talking about is sustained damage. Whether delivered front-loaded as in direct damage, or over time, it’s just damage done by a player. Damage by a player, whether direct or over time, can not kill PvP. I know this because I’ve played other games that know how to account for damage. A-net initially agreed with this but cited server performance as the reason they couldn’t do this. The simple fact is that all games with this distinction account for all damage by player—well, except GW2. And, that is the only solution that will work.

(edited by Raine.1394)

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: Sylent.3165

Sylent.3165

I just think remove the cap simple. Either have…..

10 players in all zerkers doing max dps.

Or 10 people using cd not doing any damage.

So by removing the cap you simply let condition players do the zerker damage and be happy.

Sure if 500 bleeding stacks is killing world bosses way to fast simply increase there health. But let everyone contribute not just zerker players

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

There is actually a solution to this problem. And, there is no need to invent concepts to account for condition damage. Simply manage condition damage like any other game does it—by player. This is why you can have, say, an affliction warlock in WoW topping the charts in sustained damage (It’s actually happened in the past.) The damage over time there is managed by player, not by some artificial mechanic like condition caps. The only solution, and the simple solution, is to manage all damage, direct or over time, by player where it should be managed.

There’s a reason why this post is so long: I’ve included a lot of the basic suggestions and such, and why I wrote in the first few lines to read the issues part before saying stuff like this.

No, we can’t do that because it kills PvP. And even still, you have incredibly ramp up time which will become the new problem as people no longer share stacks, and at this point, this is a lot more work and a lot more different than merely using a simple formula to deal a single instance of damage.

It absolutely will not kill PvP, no more than it kills PvP in WoW. Damage over time presents a trade-off in playstyle. I learned about this experientially when I killed an unholy Death Knight in WoW only to die of his dots a few seconds later. There are many advantages, especially in PvP, to damage over time.

However, what we are talking about is sustained damage. Whether delivered front-loaded as in direct damage, or over time, it’s just damage done by a player. Damage by a player, whether direct or over time, can not kill PvP. I know this because I’ve played other games that know how to account for damage. A-net initially agreed with this but cited server performance as the reason they couldn’t do this. The simple fact is that all games with this distinction account for all damage by player. And, that is the only solution that will work.

Nope, still goes with the issues I listed, assuming A-net isn’t lying.

First off, you are pulling an example out of an entirely different game.

Next, you are basically increase the bleed cap, which again, we can’t do. How so?

Imagine two warriors stacking bleeds. If each could apply 25 stacks of their own bleed, then you are basically increasing the bleed cap to 50, except with each and every player you are increasing the potential cap higher and higher, whether or not they use bleeds. At least they get to actually deal condition damage, right?

The part where it kills PvP comes due to healing and cleanses. You’d have to significantly buff cleanses to make it work, but it won’t, because the amount of individual instances of each and every debuff will make it impossible for either the person use condition damage or taking it.

While it may not be an issue for bleed, it will most certainly be with poison and burning. Burning is a strong condition, but only if you are the only person using it. Since it will no longer be shared, be prepared to take 2-3 instances of burn, along with whatever the enemy chooses.

In an additional note, we do not have healing or tank roles in GW2. In WoW, you can have a constant stream of health that out-heals the damage being taken. Also, Affliction Warlocks, if I recall, do not have stacking debuffs: you instead refresh multiple single-instance debuffs.

Lastly, your suggestion still doesn’t help the main problem I tried to address: Group PvE content. There is the issue of ramp up time, which only happens if one person has full control of the conditions (which was also included in my post, which you most likely didn’t read. I covered a lot of stuff.) Ramp Up Time is not an issue in groups because they share the condition stacks. It’s also not an issue in WoW because it takes very little to manage and the fights can be a lot longer. So maybe it won’t outright kill PvP but it won’t do much good either.

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

There is actually a solution to this problem. And, there is no need to invent concepts to account for condition damage. Simply manage condition damage like any other game does it—by player. This is why you can have, say, an affliction warlock in WoW topping the charts in sustained damage (It’s actually happened in the past.) The damage over time there is managed by player, not by some artificial mechanic like condition caps. The only solution, and the simple solution, is to manage all damage, direct or over time, by player where it should be managed.

There’s a reason why this post is so long: I’ve included a lot of the basic suggestions and such, and why I wrote in the first few lines to read the issues part before saying stuff like this.

No, we can’t do that because it kills PvP. And even still, you have incredibly ramp up time which will become the new problem as people no longer share stacks, and at this point, this is a lot more work and a lot more different than merely using a simple formula to deal a single instance of damage.

It absolutely will not kill PvP, no more than it kills PvP in WoW. Damage over time presents a trade-off in playstyle. I learned about this experientially when I killed an unholy Death Knight in WoW only to die of his dots a few seconds later. There are many advantages, especially in PvP, to damage over time.

However, what we are talking about is sustained damage. Whether delivered front-loaded as in direct damage, or over time, it’s just damage done by a player. Damage by a player, whether direct or over time, can not kill PvP. I know this because I’ve played other games that know how to account for damage. A-net initially agreed with this but cited server performance as the reason they couldn’t do this. The simple fact is that all games with this distinction account for all damage by player. And, that is the only solution that will work.

Nope, still goes with the issues I listed, assuming A-net isn’t lying.

First off, you are pulling an example out of an entirely different game.

Next, you are basically increase the bleed cap, which again, we can’t do. How so?

Imagine two warriors stacking bleeds. If each could apply 25 stacks of their own bleed, then you are basically increasing the bleed cap to 50, except with each and every player you are increasing the potential cap higher and higher, whether or not they use bleeds. At least they get to actually deal condition damage, right?

The part where it kills PvP comes due to healing and cleanses. You’d have to significantly buff cleanses to make it work, but it won’t, because the amount of individual instances of each and every debuff will make it impossible for either the person use condition damage or taking it.

While it may not be an issue for bleed, it will most certainly be with poison and burning. Burning is a strong condition, but only if you are the only person using it. Since it will no longer be shared, be prepared to take 2-3 instances of burn, along with whatever the enemy chooses.

In an additional note, we do not have healing or tank roles in GW2. In WoW, you can have a constant stream of health that out-heals the damage being taken. Also, Affliction Warlocks, if I recall, do not have stacking debuffs: you instead refresh multiple single-instance debuffs.

Lastly, your suggestion still doesn’t help the main problem I tried to address: Group PvE content. There is the issue of ramp up time, which only happens if one person has full control of the conditions (which was also included in my post, which you most likely didn’t read. I covered a lot of stuff.) Ramp Up Time is not an issue in groups because they share the condition stacks. It’s also not an issue in WoW because it takes very little to manage and the fights can be a lot longer. So maybe it won’t outright kill PvP but it won’t do much good either.

Ramp up time is the trade-off around damage over time. It is not a problem, it is a trade-off. Let me try this again. Damage can be delivered directly or over time. The amount of damage is the key, that is, sustained damage. If you account for all damage by player you have accurate sustained damage by player (what we are seeking here). No distinctions around healing or cleanses have any bearing whatsoever on this—it’s just damage done by a player. When damage is managed and accounted for by player all the problems around condition damage go away. I don’t know how to make this any more clear.

Condition Damage for PvE: Overflow

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

Ramp up time is the trade-off around damage over time. It is not a problem, it is a trade-off. Let me try this again. Damage can be delivered directly or over time. The amount of damage is the key, that is, sustained damage. If you account for all damage by player you have accurate sustained damage by player (what we are seeking here). No distinctions around healing or cleanses have any bearing whatsoever on this—it’s just damage done by a player. When damage is managed and accounted for by player all the problems around condition damage go away. I don’t know how to make this any more clear.

I forgot to mention: Even if were to be the “solution”, condition damage in PvE would still be too low due to their long ramp up time, only to reach a peak CDPS that is barely half of what power based builds can do for each individual player. Then, in the post linked in the ramp up time section of my post, you have people disagreeing with the suggestions made there to solve that issue.

Unfortunately, individual stacks unique to a player can’t be done anyway. The game would have to track a potential 93 stacks of damaging conditions per player which just won’t happen, and that doesn’t include vulnerability, which also stacks, and boons.

Got any other idea that doesn’t involve ignoring limits?

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

No. Again ramp up time is not a problem it is a trade-off. What we are interested in is sustained damage in a non-trivial fight. And, it should be comparable whether the character is direct damage or damage over time. There is no need to talk about individual ‘stacks’. There is only sustained damage done by a player. If you account for that and manage by that you will have broadly comparable damage whether delivered directly or over time. Again, no stacks here, only damage. That damage is either direct or over time. If you account for it by player, all problems with condition damage go away.

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Posted by: DanteZero.9736

DanteZero.9736

What is there to stop players from attempting to run low damage, long duration conditions rapidly so that other team members can effectively burst down a target with high damage, long duration conditions via condition overflow?

In my head (and please correct me if I’m wrong or seeing it from the wrong perspective), is that with condition overflow, all the possible damage dealt over time could result in massive bursts (spikes). Players could attempt to “game” the system because high damage, long duration conditions mean long ramp up times to reach their full damage potential (the total listed damage over time on the tooltips) and that means it takes more time.

This ramp up time could be circumvented by purposely having other players run low damage, long duration conditions to fill up the cap with “fluff” (my personal term on the action) and then allow the main condi damage players go to town with the now converted direct damage.

(edited by DanteZero.9736)

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Posted by: Hayashi.3416

Hayashi.3416

I’m not sure if you’ve been around long enough to see it, but this idea of a condition ‘burst’ to work around the 25 stack limit has already surfaced. At least twice. With no reaction from Anet. No red post, nothing.

The problem with GW2 conditions is that they are tied to the player’s current state – if you apply 8 bleeds and then buff yourself with might the bleeds’ damage will take into account the might effects. They also take into account the duration, which makes doing this repeated calculations pretty much impossible for the server if 140 players apply 8 conditions each on the same boss. I think the current stack limit of 25 is too low, frankly, but I don’t debate that there must be a limit somewhere.

The other suggestions that have also appeared months ago to be fully ignored include things like cutting all condition duration by 75%, and multiplying damage per condition by 4 to keep things the same in terms of individual potential, but effectively raise the limit to 100 stacks relative to present, though that was presented as a dungeon fix – it still wouldn’t deal with the 140-zerg problem.

I’m getting a pretty strong impression they don’t view this as something they want to bother fixing.

P.S. Condition damage has 2.5 stats. One is condition damage itself, the other is condition duration, and they are synergistic. Precision has a significant impact in certain cases where crit causes a condition application, of which the 10 torment 25-bleed mesmer build using Sharper Images is a prime example – but has no impact on others. It’s why sinister builds with +duration runes/sigils/traits exist. Their potential at the moment is high, but they will never be allowed to be meta because having any more than one in a party makes the other a glorified cheerleader.

P.P.S. Epic-rank world bosses are uncrittable, and for those only the power stat matters – as well as knowing where to stand to cleave more than one hitbox, usually a high-risk high-gain strategy. Condition bursting would necessarily cheese those bosses to hell, so if this ever sees the light of day you can expect epic-rank types to be immune to this. This is not to be confused (as a ton of players do) with ‘structures/buildings/objects’, which are immune to conditions, and do not possess more than one hitbox.

(edited by Hayashi.3416)

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Posted by: Pandaman.4758

Pandaman.4758

Actually suggested something similar to this six months ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Condition-Burst/first

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Posted by: Hayashi.3416

Hayashi.3416

There was another four months ago as well that reached 4 pages, if I remember correctly. But no red post, yeah.

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

What is there to stop players from attempting to run low damage, long duration conditions rapidly so that other team members can effectively burst down a target with high damage, long duration conditions via condition overflow?

In my head (and please correct me if I’m wrong or seeing it from the wrong perspective), is that with condition overflow, all the possible damage dealt over time could result in massive bursts (spikes). Players could attempt to “game” the system because high damage, long duration conditions mean long ramp up times to reach their full damage potential (the total listed damage over time on the tooltips) and that means it takes more time.

This ramp up time could be circumvented but purposely having other players run low damage, long duration conditions to fill up the cap with “fluff” (my personal term on the action) and then allow the main condi damage players go to town with the now converted direct damage.

1) Nothing, that would be a valid strategy. Like support builds, they don’t really pull their weight in damage but rather allow members of their team to do as much as they can.

You also have to remember, in PvE, if you manage to pull out every single condition overflow you still wouldn’t match to tier DPS due to cooldowns and ramp up time, but you could probably get a lot closer.

I don’t see anything wrong with fluff, because with support builds, that’s exactly what they do anyway, such as stacking might and vulnerability without doing much damage themselves. For conditions, it would be stacking might and fluff.

So no, you aren’t wrong, you could exactly do that but unfortunately finding a way to apply that many stacks that last that long is rather difficult.

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

@Hayashi, interesting.

Actually, this suggestion of mine does not kill server load as it uses a direct formula, as follows for bleed:

If Bleed Condition Cap is already met when trying to apply more bleeds:

((0.15 * Condition Damage) + 47.5) * Stack Amount * Duration of Condition)

So, 1700 condition damage would cause 10,586 bleed overflow damage immediately if attempting to apply a 5 stack bleed of 7 seconds.

If there is any confusion: it does NOT use anything that has to do with the stack of 25 ticking down on the enemy. The game simply reads the information, plugs it in, does the damage: simple as that.

I don’t expect a red post either, because for most suggestions and stuff they don’t bother but might read them if enough people get on it.

@Pandaman

I tried searching for similar posts but nothing came up. Hmm.

I read it, but the problem with that is that it digresses from the nature of condition damage, which is basically damage over time.

Also, in that same post, Frost Spectre pointed out the problem with it as well:

“Should it prioritize conditions applied by players with high Condition DMG and Condition Dur. That high powered conditions are more likely to burst.
Should there be a threshold for burst, that prevents lower stat player’s conditions from bursting.
Should it keep the condition stacks still on the target, while weaker (As in, applier has below the trigger threshold cond dmg and cond dur) conditions will never trigger burst, but maintain the stack, and any additional condition with high cond dmg + dur will always burst over them, dealing “direct damage”.”

There’s just too much stuff to deal with and its kind of weird how your stacks just blow up for something that is supposed to be sustainable damage.

What I’ve tried to do is make it as simple as possible without destroying any mechanics and keeping all limits and issues in mind, save the replace old stack effect.

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

@Hayashi, interesting.

Actually, this suggestion of mine does not kill server load as it uses a direct formula, as follows for bleed:

If Bleed Condition Cap is already met when trying to apply more bleeds:

((0.15 * Condition Damage) + 47.5) * Stack Amount * Duration of Condition)

So, 1700 condition damage would cause 10,586 bleed overflow damage immediately if attempting to apply a 5 stack bleed of 7 seconds.

If there is any confusion: it does NOT use anything that has to do with the stack of 25 ticking down on the enemy. The game simply reads the information, plugs it in, does the damage: simple as that.

I don’t expect a red post either, because for most suggestions and stuff they don’t bother but might read them if enough people get on it.

@Pandaman

I tried searching for similar posts but nothing came up. Hmm.

I read it, but the problem with that is that it digresses from the nature of condition damage, which is basically damage over time.

Also, in that same post, Frost Spectre pointed out the problem with it as well:

“Should it prioritize conditions applied by players with high Condition DMG and Condition Dur. That high powered conditions are more likely to burst.
Should there be a threshold for burst, that prevents lower stat player’s conditions from bursting.
Should it keep the condition stacks still on the target, while weaker (As in, applier has below the trigger threshold cond dmg and cond dur) conditions will never trigger burst, but maintain the stack, and any additional condition with high cond dmg + dur will always burst over them, dealing “direct damage”.”

There’s just too much stuff to deal with and its kind of weird how your stacks just blow up for something that is supposed to be sustainable damage.

What I’ve tried to do is make it as simple as possible without destroying any mechanics and keeping all limits and issues in mind, save the replace old stack effect.

In terms of your response to @Pandaman it is actually much simpler. You get that condition damage is damage over time—good. However, there is no need to introduce the notion of stack(s). It is simply an amount of damage delivered over a number of ticks. If you want to introduce a concept around stacks, fine, but it is not inherent in the discussion of damage over time. In a non-trivial fight there is no need whatsoever for there to be a marked difference between direct or damage over time in terms of the amount of damage delivered.. And, if all damage were managed by player we wouldn’t be talking about condition damage here.

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

In terms of your response to @Pandaman it is actually much simpler. You get that condition damage is damage over time—good. However, there is no need to introduce the notion of stack(s). It is simply an amount of damage delivered over a number of ticks. If you want to introduce a concept around stacks, fine, but it is not inherent in the discussion of damage over time. In a non-trivial fight there is no need whatsoever for there to be a marked difference between direct or damage over time in terms of the amount of damage delivered.. And, if all damage were managed by player we wouldn’t be talking about condition damage here.

Before I go any further,

Did you read what my idea was?

Also, the theme of condition of damage is what I was talking about. Damage is damage: the only differences is how it looks and how we deliver it. In GW2, this isn’t the case: damage through conditions are managed per enemy and not by the player. You want it to be the latter but that’s never going to happen since it directly violates the current design. What I’ve suggested keeps within the design’s boundaries.

(edited by WEXXES.2378)

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Posted by: Pandaman.4758

Pandaman.4758

I tried searching for similar posts but nothing came up. Hmm.

I read it, but the problem with that is that it digresses from the nature of condition damage, which is basically damage over time.

Also, in that same post, Frost Spectre pointed out the problem with it as well:

“Should it prioritize conditions applied by players with high Condition DMG and Condition Dur. That high powered conditions are more likely to burst.
Should there be a threshold for burst, that prevents lower stat player’s conditions from bursting.
Should it keep the condition stacks still on the target, while weaker (As in, applier has below the trigger threshold cond dmg and cond dur) conditions will never trigger burst, but maintain the stack, and any additional condition with high cond dmg + dur will always burst over them, dealing “direct damage”.”

There’s just too much stuff to deal with and its kind of weird how your stacks just blow up for something that is supposed to be sustainable damage.

What I’ve tried to do is make it as simple as possible without destroying any mechanics and keeping all limits and issues in mind, save the replace old stack effect.

Yeah, search function on this forum is nonexistent, you can’t find other posts unless you’re already aware of them (and even then you’d be using Google to do the search).

That being said, any modification to condition damage does need to have a lot of restrictions on it, because PvE shares its mechanics with WvW: what seems like a reasonable buff to conditions in group PvE events easily turns into broken mechanics in WvW zergfests.

My original burst suggestion shares the same problem as your overflow idea in that it’s good against the massive health pools of mobs, but player health pools can’t take the nearly same abuse; Frost Spectre raised good points about there being a need for some sort of priority or threshold that only allows people built for condition damage working in tandem on specific target(s) to trigger the extra damage. Theoretically that should make it viable for people to trigger the extra damage on PvE mobs while making it difficult enough to not be worth the effort in WvW.

That being said, condition bursting doesn’t have to wipe the stacks. A relatively simple solution would be to steal borrow inspiration from your idea and maintain the 25 stack cap for conditions, but every 25 stack thereafter causes a burst (which doesn’t wipe the original 25 stacks) in the form of some thematically appropriate organ failure associated with the type of condition in question.

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

In terms of your response to @Pandaman it is actually much simpler. You get that condition damage is damage over time—good. However, there is no need to introduce the notion of stack(s). It is simply an amount of damage delivered over a number of ticks. If you want to introduce a concept around stacks, fine, but it is not inherent in the discussion of damage over time. In a non-trivial fight there is no need whatsoever for there to be a marked difference between direct or damage over time in terms of the amount of damage delivered.. And, if all damage were managed by player we wouldn’t be talking about condition damage here.

Before I go any further,

Did you read what my idea was?

Also, the theme of condition of damage is what I was talking about. Damage is damage: the only differences is how it looks and how we deliver it. In GW2, this isn’t the case: damage through conditions are managed per enemy and not by the player. You want it to be the latter but that’s never going to happen since it directly violates the current design. What I’ve suggested keeps within the design’s boundaries.

My position is very simply stated. In order to solve the stated problem with condition damage it is necessary to actually solve it. And, it has already been solved in every game that maintains the distinction between direct damage and damage over time—except GW2. All you need to do is track the damage done by player, whether direct or over time—problem solved. Anything short of this will not solve the problem.

In terms of design boundaries, A-net has already addressed this issue and they have played the technical difficulties card. They haven’t disagreed with me conceptually as that would not be logically possible. They have agreed but said it’s not technically possible. They may well have painted themselves into a corner technically, but it is obviously possible as this is how all games work that maintain the distinction between direct damage and damage over time. Tracking damage by enemy rather than by player is the source of the problem. Damage needs to be managed and accounted for by player, not by stacks on a mob.

(edited by Raine.1394)

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

Raine’s solution and Wexxe’s are very different. Wexxe’s would require programming additional effects on top of the existing condition stacking system. Raine’s would require a complete rewrite of how conditions work.

DoT’s as implemented in other games are all balanced around skill use and CD’s. GW2 stacks conditions in a huge variety of ways, including FX with little to no CD’s (like auto-attacks, bleed-on-crit, etc.) For a WoW-style approach to DoT’s to work in GW2, all of the skills and procs that currently stack bleeds would need to be reworked. Since we don’t know how or exactly why the server infrastructure would have issues due to massive numbers of stacks in large group content, we also don’t know how many traditional DoT’s could be tracked. I do know that in other games, damage-over-time classes typically only have a few DoT’s, nothing like the number of stacks a fully-pimped condition character can generate in GW2. That is why I say that implementing Raine’s suggestion would require substantial changes to the game’s combat system.

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Posted by: Aidan Savage.2078

Aidan Savage.2078

The main technical limitation to conditions is the amount of processing power needed each second (I believe). Take the triple trouble wurm heads during phase 2 as an example. On a successful map, you generally have up to 50 people there at each head. (we’re going to disregard build logistics for a bit) That means you’re going to have 50 people applying bleeds of various lengths, with various levels of might, various levels of corruption stacks, and various other buffs. At minimum you’ve got 200 different calculations per second, assuming bleeds and might stacks are gained/losted in 1 second intervals. We all know this isnt true, and those things can happen as fast as 4-5 times a second, now you’re looking at 1000 or more calculations per second. Same thing happens with poison, burning, and torment. That’s about 3000 calculations (and this is being overly simplified) per second at a single head. There’s 3 in the fight. That’s 9000. There’s also trash mobs in the fights, so we’ll double the number on a conservatively “low” side, then round it off. 20,000 calculations per second. I’d say that’s a pretty definite technical limitation as a result of the ‘at present’ method of condition damage.

Now, what if condition damage was ‘fixed’? You’d reduce the number of calculations by a lot. For example, instead of calculation condition damage every second, what if the damage was calculated based on your stats at the moment of application? This alone cuts the number of calculations from as little as 50% (2 seconds of damage) to as much as 98% (60 second bleeds, blood is power). If anet does that, it opens up some processing power to add some much needed finesse to conditions. For example, if there’s already 25 stacks of bleed on a target and, assuming condition stacks would be sorted by potency (stack 1 weakest, stack 25 strongest), they would be able to change the system so that for each incoming stack of a condition, it checks to see if the potency (for simplicity this is the dps value) is greater than the lowest current stack (stack 1). If it’s not higher, the condition is ignored. If it is higher, the current stack 1 is purged and replaced with the incoming stack, then conditions are resorted appropriately.

I had more, but a random and amusing discussion in guild chat distracted me.

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

Raine’s solution and Wexxe’s are very different. Wexxe’s would require programming additional effects on top of the existing condition stacking system. Raine’s would require a complete rewrite of how conditions work.

DoT’s as implemented in other games are all balanced around skill use and CD’s. GW2 stacks conditions in a huge variety of ways, including FX with little to no CD’s (like auto-attacks, bleed-on-crit, etc.) For a WoW-style approach to DoT’s to work in GW2, all of the skills and procs that currently stack bleeds would need to be reworked. Since we don’t know how or exactly why the server infrastructure would have issues due to massive numbers of stacks in large group content, we also don’t know how many traditional DoT’s could be tracked. I do know that in other games, damage-over-time classes typically only have a few DoT’s, nothing like the number of stacks a fully-pimped condition character can generate in GW2. That is why I say that implementing Raine’s suggestion would require substantial changes to the game’s combat system.

No argument there. It obviously would require work. Consider an affliction warlock in WoW. Practically everything they are throwing at an enemy is damage over time. But, that damage is managed by player not by stacks on a mob—and it works. If you add 5 affliction warlocks to a group you are actually adding damage. And, regardless of the cost of any given solution, there really is only one that will work. You must manage damage by player as that is the only solution that makes sense—unless you like dealing with the same issue over and over again.

(edited by Raine.1394)

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Posted by: dobri.7820

dobri.7820

So why do You think that you need to do the damage of the new condy directly?
if any I’d say: put the new condy in the stack but get the overriten condy as direct dmg.

so example:
1st condy in the stak will be removed when the stak is maxed and new condy (of the same type) is applyed.
So we have 25 bleeds and the 1st is 10s*100dmg/s so someone is aplyind a new bleed:
this bleed of 100dps(10s) goes in 1000 direct dmg. as simple as that.

(edited by dobri.7820)

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

So why do You think that you need to do the damage of the new condy directly?
if any I’d say: put the new condy in the stack but get the overriten condy as direct dmg.

so example:
1st condy in the stak will be removed when the stak is maxed and new condy (of the same type) is applyed.
So whe have 25 bleeds and the 1st is 10s*100dmg/s so someone is aplyind a new bleed:
this bleed of 100dps(10s) goes in 1000 direct dmg. as simple as that.

Right now, if you add 5 condition necromancers to a group you are not adding any damage, assuming you have one already. That’s the problem. If you account for all damage as damage by player you are adding damage when you add a player to a group regardless of spec. That’s the issue and the solution is to manage damage by player rather than by stacks on a mob.

(edited by Raine.1394)

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Posted by: Aidan Savage.2078

Aidan Savage.2078

So why do You think that you need to do the damage of the new condy directly?
if any I’d say: put the new condy in the stack but get the overriten condy as direct dmg.

so example:
1st condy in the stak will be removed when the stak is maxed and new condy (of the same type) is applyed.
So whe have 25 bleeds and the 1st is 10s*100dmg/s so someone is aplyind a new bleed:
this bleed of 100dps(10s) goes in 1000 direct dmg. as simple as that.

Read my post, then consider the situation I used as an example. Every “solution” in everyone’s post does nothing to fix the underlying problem. Figure out how to fix the technical issues, then you can probably figure some new way of doing conditions.

And, regardless of the cost of any given solution, there really is only one that will work. You must manage damage by player as that is the only solution that makes sense—unless you like dealing with the same issue over and over again.

No, there isnt only one solution that will work. No, you dont need to manage damage by player, like the game ALREADY does. Even if you did, you suddenly increase the server load by a LOT because now it’s multiplied by player in addition to enemies, not just by players like it is now.

Want a workable solution? Go read my previous post.

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Posted by: tigirius.9014

tigirius.9014

You missed two other major issues with Condition damage, if you could update your post please to include them.

Not all classes have the same capabilities when it comes to condition damage, if you play an engineer even if you use grenades you’ll notice that unlike the Engineer the Necro will actually have a small burst of damage when their skills, say runes for example, are triggered. This has been a major problem for some time now for Engis and was never addressed by the balance team, in fact there are several people here who still think this doesn’t happen, all one has to do is record your character fighting something on both classes and you’ll notice a total difference side by side.

Second problem not mentioned on your list, is lack of crit bonus damage. They do have crits but they nerfed them in PVE when they started off the game because they felt they were too powerful on PVP before the balance team actually separated the figures between PVP/PVE so they wouldn’t overlap in their balance patches. The team never went back and fixed their previous nerf in PVE and it’s been like this ever since. When crits occur in PVE on conditions you’ll notice there’s hardly any burst to them, unlike other titles out there (and I do mean all of the other titles) that have DoT heavy classes, this balance team hasn’t balanced the crits properly. You see these other titles recognized that there was this problem with their DoT crits and adjusted the crit damage accordingly so that it would mean something when your DoT actually crit. Not on GW2 however, they employed the head in sand method of balancing this problem in PVE and here we sit.

Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

So why do You think that you need to do the damage of the new condy directly?
if any I’d say: put the new condy in the stack but get the overriten condy as direct dmg.

so example:
1st condy in the stak will be removed when the stak is maxed and new condy (of the same type) is applyed.
So whe have 25 bleeds and the 1st is 10s*100dmg/s so someone is aplyind a new bleed:
this bleed of 100dps(10s) goes in 1000 direct dmg. as simple as that.

Read my post, then consider the situation I used as an example. Every “solution” in everyone’s post does nothing to fix the underlying problem. Figure out how to fix the technical issues, then you can probably figure some new way of doing conditions.

And, regardless of the cost of any given solution, there really is only one that will work. You must manage damage by player as that is the only solution that makes sense—unless you like dealing with the same issue over and over again.

No, there isnt only one solution that will work. No, you dont need to manage damage by player, like the game ALREADY does. Even if you did, you suddenly increase the server load by a LOT because now it’s multiplied by player in addition to enemies, not just by players like it is now.

Want a workable solution? Go read my previous post.

You don’t need to manage damage by player like the game already does? What exactly does that mean? That, my friend, is the issue, the game doesn’t manage damage by player, but rather by stacks on a mob. And, you are worried about a LOT of server load. How, then, do games like WoW accomplish this?

(edited by Raine.1394)

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Posted by: Aidan Savage.2078

Aidan Savage.2078

games like WoW accomplish this?

By their own systems. You want a game that handles DoT like WoW? Go play wow, not try and butcher a game people like by bringing in crap from another one.

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Posted by: TPMN.1483

TPMN.1483

So let me get this right …

This other game has it so GW2 should
Let’s ignore the fact this game is designed for zerker as the most optimal stat for pve.
People want a rewrite of GW2 to be a more DoT game.

We’ll tell you what Papa Smurf – it’s not gonna fly.

[MYTH] The Mythical Dragons -PvX http://mythdragons.enjin.com

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

You guys miss the point: I’m not trying to fix the issue. I’m trying to turn the issue into something new and unique for DoT mechanics in GW2. Of course the simple solution would be to somehow make each condition per player and not grouped up into an enemy: but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I repeat this 398538641 times but no one seems to listen. If you know your suggestion is already attempting to break technical limits, why do you persist on it?

My idea utilizes the cap limit and turns it into its own unique mechanic while greatly boosting group condition damage where it doesn’t exist without changing individual small group play or PvP at all.

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Posted by: Vukorep.3081

Vukorep.3081

some extreme condi builds and skills make extreme high condi damage (10-20k condi damage). Tho it is spread trough out 20+seconds so it only ticks for 1k dmg per second…if this would hit as overflow damage youd expect to deal 20k dmg in 1 hit.

i know some zerker skills hit for 15+k dmg yeah ok, sure…but that damage is physical damage that requires high amounts of power, high amount of crit chance (luck to be able to hit that crit chance as much as possible) as well as a high crit damage % multiplier.

Condi damage ignores all crit % and dmg,it also ignores armor and ignores the level differences and glancing blows…..

in other words… bosses that cant be crited such as tequatl would be better off fighting with a TVCdmg gear. Youll last longer, take less damage, and the entire zerg spams their spammable condi stacking skills till they see the cap hitting the roof. Then they start hiting their 20 seconds bleeding , 30 second poison and 25 s burning skills…and you end up spiking the boss down with masive pure armor ignoring damage.

How about adding a debuff on the target when it gets a condi cap that makes all condi damage 25% stronger against him instead?

so that the new conditions applied deal more damage even tho they will last less since they will get replaced soon after?

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Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

some extreme condi builds and skills make extreme high condi damage (10-20k condi damage). Tho it is spread trough out 20+seconds so it only ticks for 1k dmg per second…if this would hit as overflow damage youd expect to deal 20k dmg in 1 hit.

i know some zerker skills hit for 15+k dmg yeah ok, sure…but that damage is physical damage that requires high amounts of power, high amount of crit chance (luck to be able to hit that crit chance as much as possible) as well as a high crit damage % multiplier.

Condi damage ignores all crit % and dmg,it also ignores armor and ignores the level differences and glancing blows…..

in other words… bosses that cant be crited such as tequatl would be better off fighting with a TVCdmg gear. Youll last longer, take less damage, and the entire zerg spams their spammable condi stacking skills till they see the cap hitting the roof. Then they start hiting their 20 seconds bleeding , 30 second poison and 25 s burning skills…and you end up spiking the boss down with masive pure armor ignoring damage.

How about adding a debuff on the target when it gets a condi cap that makes all condi damage 25% stronger against him instead?

so that the new conditions applied deal more damage even tho they will last less since they will get replaced soon after?

For world boss overflow damage can be reduced by 50% or something through the use of defiance, which all world bosses have. Remember, its a single formula, not some wild mechanic.

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Posted by: Aidan Savage.2078

Aidan Savage.2078

Wexxes, you dont need to be introducing even more convoluted ‘junk’ on top of a subpar system. You need to fix the issues surrounding the current system, then modify the system.

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Posted by: Pikka.6023

Pikka.6023

I have a potentially very simple solution to massive calculation overload from condition damage.

Consider bleeding. Create a ‘bleed queue’, say capped at 90 seconds, with a single damage number for each second. So, bleeding is simplified to tick exactly once per second. In design terms, bleeding is now a managed by a 90 slot circular queue. So, each second you simply apply the single number of damage. When someone applies a new bleed you simply calculate how much damage it is per second and add that to each queue slot for it’s duration.

For example, if I hit something with 8 stacks of 5 second bleeds at 120 damage per second per bleed, then I update the next five slots of the queue with +960.

There’s no need to track each individual bleed and calculate it each time it ticks, or to have “stacks” as we have now.

(Obviously this means people won’t see their individual condition damage numbers popping off the screen, but the damage monitor can be simplified to report duration and damage per second on the initial hit only, so you at least know what your damage potential was, even if you don’t see when the condi was cleansed.)

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

So let me get this right …

This other game has it so GW2 should
Let’s ignore the fact this game is designed for zerker as the most optimal stat for pve.
People want a rewrite of GW2 to be a more DoT game.

We’ll tell you what Papa Smurf – it’s not gonna fly.

Think about what you are saying. You are saying that it is OK to not account for the damage each player does. You are saying, therefore, that it is OK to exclude a class of players from groups, condition players, because they won’t be adding any damage beyond white damage. This has nothing whatsoever to do with some novel way that some other game handles this. I am only suggesting that all damage, regardless of source, should be accounted for. In what alternate reality would you design a system that doesn’t account for each players actual contribution to achieving the goal of combat.

I do agree with you that a rational solution to this problem is not going to fly. If a rational solution were sought it would have been implemented long ago.

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

I have a potentially very simple solution to massive calculation overload from condition damage.

Consider bleeding. Create a ‘bleed queue’, say capped at 90 seconds, with a single damage number for each second. So, bleeding is simplified to tick exactly once per second. In design terms, bleeding is now a managed by a 90 slot circular queue. So, each second you simply apply the single number of damage. When someone applies a new bleed you simply calculate how much damage it is per second and add that to each queue slot for it’s duration.

For example, if I hit something with 8 stacks of 5 second bleeds at 120 damage per second per bleed, then I update the next five slots of the queue with +960.

There’s no need to track each individual bleed and calculate it each time it ticks, or to have “stacks” as we have now.

(Obviously this means people won’t see their individual condition damage numbers popping off the screen, but the damage monitor can be simplified to report duration and damage per second on the initial hit only, so you at least know what your damage potential was, even if you don’t see when the condi was cleansed.)

I’m going to suggest something heretical here. Condition damage, or damage over time, should not result in any kind of ‘overload’. It is simply a set amount of damage, delivered over a set number of ticks. Direct damage is front-loaded, damage over time is a set amount of damage delivered over a set number of ticks. Yes, A-net played the technical difficulties card here, but realistically, how do other games manage to pull this off?

The only actual solution to this problem is to account for damage by player whether direct or over time. It’s almost too simple. At the end of the day only one ‘solution’ will work and solve all the problems the current system breeds. It’s simply to account for all the damage that each player does, regardless of source. It is amusing though to see people argue against this ‘novel’ idea.

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

You guys miss the point: I’m not trying to fix the issue. I’m trying to turn the issue into something new and unique for DoT mechanics in GW2. Of course the simple solution would be to somehow make each condition per player and not grouped up into an enemy: but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I repeat this 398538641 times but no one seems to listen. If you know your suggestion is already attempting to break technical limits, why do you persist on it?

My idea utilizes the cap limit and turns it into its own unique mechanic while greatly boosting group condition damage where it doesn’t exist without changing individual small group play or PvP at all.

So, if you know your solution is going to break technical limits….

What technical limits are those? Are they the technical limits that prevent WoW from accounting for damage over time by player? No, that’s how they do it—they are somehow breaking GW2’s technical limits. My position is that there is no technical reason for NOT accounting for all damage by player. And, since accounting for all damage by player is the only thing that will ‘fix’ condition damage, this is significant.

There are no technical limits here. I do believe that A-net has painted themselves into a technical corner, but they simply need to fix it. ’I’m sorry but the computer can’t do that’ worked well in the 1960’s, but it’s not going to fly in 2015.

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Posted by: hybrid.5027

hybrid.5027

I like the suggestion, I think there is something to it. It’s the one suggestion thus far I’ve read that wouldn’t be a huge problem in PvP. So kudos there.

This debate with Raine is fairly infuriating because you guys are arguing two different things but using the same words.

Raine: ramp up time is the trade off for dots
Wexxe: ramp up time is still a problem

So the issue here is that condition damage is inherently backloaded and direct damage is inherently frontloaded. That’s a given. In almost every other game with viable DoT pve DoT specs, the DoT has a higher top end. You give up a fast start for greater max damage. The problem, as Wexxe points out, is that in GW2 you have the drawback of ramp up time but the max damage is ALSO lower so its objectively worse.

Raine’s point is valid and correct so long as they buff condition damage to the point where a fully min/maxed condition toon with the full time needed to hit his ramp up has higher DPS than a berserker. This is a big change to the current system and hardly a given.

The problem is, as Wexxe described, two-fold. You need to buff condition damage so that a fully min maxed character has greater dps with condition after his ramp up time, and you need to account for groups that have multiple condition classes.

If you want my opinion, I would suggest that the easiest way to buff condition damage is a pve/pvp split where Might stacks granted 30 power (as it is now) and 45 condition damage in PvE. This would be better, in my opinion, than a straight buff to condition damage itself.

I know who I am, do you know who you are?

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

I like the suggestion, I think there is something to it. It’s the one suggestion thus far I’ve read that wouldn’t be a huge problem in PvP. So kudos there.

This debate with Raine is fairly infuriating because you guys are arguing two different things but using the same words.

Raine: ramp up time is the trade off for dots
Wexxe: ramp up time is still a problem

So the issue here is that condition damage is inherently backloaded and direct damage is inherently frontloaded. That’s a given. In almost every other game with viable DoT pve DoT specs, the DoT has a higher top end. You give up a fast start for greater max damage. The problem, as Wexxe points out, is that in GW2 you have the drawback of ramp up time but the max damage is ALSO lower so its objectively worse.

Raine’s point is valid and correct so long as they buff condition damage to the point where a fully min/maxed condition toon with the full time needed to hit his ramp up has higher DPS than a berserker. This is a big change to the current system and hardly a given.

The problem is, as Wexxe described, two-fold. You need to buff condition damage so that a fully min maxed character has greater dps with condition after his ramp up time, and you need to account for groups that have multiple condition classes.

If you want my opinion, I would suggest that the easiest way to buff condition damage is a pve/pvp split where Might stacks granted 30 power (as it is now) and 45 condition damage in PvE. This would be better, in my opinion, than a straight buff to condition damage itself.

The issue is actually sustained damage, ramp up time with DoTs is simply a given and a trade-off. If I may clarify my position, I am not arguing that condition damage needs to be buffed in any way. It may or may not but that is a separate issue. My issue is with condition damage itself, how it is tracked, and why it is a problem in this game. Why can you add 5 more condition necromancers to a group and only realize additional ‘white’ damage? That’s the issue.

And, the solution is simple. Condition damage needs to be tracked in exactly the same way as direct damage already is—by player. The fact that it is not tracked by player is the reason threads like this one continue to pop up over years without a solution. Manage condition damage by player rather than by stacks on a mob and all problems with condition damage go away. That’s really my argument here.

(edited by Raine.1394)

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Posted by: Dadnir.5038

Dadnir.5038

Just a simple tought…

Guardian’s damage would be totally monstuous as they continuously apply and reapply burn.
So, yeah, maybe what you propose may work for bleeds. But for burns at least it would be totally unbalanced.

No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.

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Posted by: Raine.1394

Raine.1394

Just a simple tought…

Guardian’s damage would be totally monstuous as they continuously apply and reapply burn.
So, yeah, maybe what you propose may work for bleeds. But for burns at least it would be totally unbalanced.

No, all forms of condition damage would be perfectly balanced if it were tracked and managed by player. How can I say that? Because conditions can be translated directly to damage—it’s just damage over time, right?. And, that damage over time would be a given amount of damage for a given number of ticks. Nothing mystical about conditions, it’s just damage over time. Whether burns or bleeds it would simply be X damage over Y ticks. Burns, bleeds, poison, it’s all the same.

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Posted by: Pikka.6023

Pikka.6023

(make believe numbers below for conceptual demonstration purposes only)

old model:
hit 3 10-second bleeds for 330 damage per tick
gain some might stacks, bleed on next four attacks four seconds each bleed, 150 damage per tick per stack
game is now tracking 7 bleed stacks and their individual damage and duration

new model: put 330 damage in first 10 queue slots, then each of the next four attacks fills four queue slots an extra +150, so you get a queue like this, starting with the first tick:

330, 480, 630, 780, 930, 780, 630, 480, 330, 330

So, when you apply bleed damage, all the game does is add that damage to the queue slots, then applying the damage on each tick is as simple as advancing the queue and reading the damage number there. No need to track stacks, or tie up tons of memory or computation, and no need to change the current damage model of the game either; just a simplification to make it more efficient for the server.

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Posted by: Dadnir.5038

Dadnir.5038

What i was pointing out is that bleeds have 25 stack that will temper how it will fare in any party play.
Burns have only 1 stack and way better individual damages then bleed which mean this proposition will advantage a lot classes that burn a lot (Guardian, ele and Engi). Burn will become a burst condition with stack ready in second.

No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.