Condition Damage in PvE: A Solution

Condition Damage in PvE: A Solution

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: WEXXES.2378

WEXXES.2378

The biggest problem for Condition Damage in PvE: in any content that has 5 or more people, your effectiveness with condition damage drops, to the point of non-existent. Trying to fix it in various ends ends up destroying balance or is just not possible with the limitations.

The Solution
Deal damage when applying conditions over the stack cap. The damage is not based on the 25 stacks of bleed or what not but rather on the stacks that are attempting to be applied. Conditions should no longer replace older stacks, making it harder to maintain max stacks. I call it Overflow Damage.

The system is relatively simple, I’ll use bleed as an example:


If Bleed Condition Cap is already met when trying to apply more bleeds, it will use this formula to deal a set amount of immediate condition damage:

((0.05 * Condition Damage) + 42.5) * Stack Amount * Duration of Condition)

So, 1700 condition damage would cause 4,463 bleed overflow damage immediately if attempting to apply a 5 stack bleed of 7 seconds. The first part of the formula is the same formula for each stack of bleeding.

Burns and Poisons actually have a stack cap of 9, for duration only, and can also be capped.

Confusion overflow follows a different formula as it does not take into account duration of conditions.:


((0.5 * Condition Damage) + 130) * Stack Amount

This is actually about 10% of what 25 stacks of confusion damage using your stats would be.


-Does not upset PvP balance, especially sPvP and small group play. This only applies beyond maximum condition stacks, which is incredibly hard to do in PvP or WvW.

-Brings condition damage closer to the power damage meta, yet keeps far enough behind to make it so hybrid builds are balanced and condition tank builds still do significantly lower damage than berserker, which would be fine.

-Makes doing world bosses and any group activities of 5+ people worth doing as condition damage main, and in some situations, even better.

-Doesn’t violate the cap limits and actually encourages the design of the stack caps. Anything that suggests creating separate instances for players or increasing/removing the cap is not possible due to the server having to track hundreds of stacks per enemy.

-You still need to be applying as much conditions as possible to deal optimal condition damage. Now its just not in vain.

-Because of that, support builds that stack ‘fluff’(low damage, high duration conditions) could be a thing as well to allow high condition damage users to deal high amounts of condition damage.

Bulk post with all my examples are > here <

Any discussion on this is welcome.

Edit: Fixed a formula, it’s correct now.

(edited by WEXXES.2378)