Guild Wars 2

This is a post about Condition Duration, what it does, what it means, and perhaps a new way to think about it. For those of us who think they know and will hear nothing of this, stop now, you won’t like what comes next.

For those of us who are inquisitive and perhaps considering that they are not seeing the results they expect, read on, because you may find that this correlates with your experiences.

That said, I shall begin, first I would like to discuss the Four Traps of Condition Duration, then how it works for and against you by patterning the values. So the first segment is the Four Traps of Condition Duration.

Trap #1: The product trap.

You have two DoT (Damage over time) effects, which one is better?

One lasts 5s but is worth 110/per second.
One lasts 60s but is worth 22/per second.

The product trap is simply when we take the product of a dot without considering it’s intervals, if you apply the 22/s 60s dot you will get 1,320 damage out of it. If you do the same for the 5s you will a grand total of 550. It doesn’t take a genius to see which is bigger but the final number isn’t the whole story; if we apply our attack repeatedly every stack of 110s dot is worth 41.7% of the whole 22/s compressed into a mere 5s. This brings me to the next trap.

The Interval Trap

Using numbers that are a bit closer together let’s take 150 and 100 and make them 10 and 20s respectively. So 10 × 150 is 1,500, easy enough, and 100 × 20 is 2000. The first question is which does more damage in a shorter amount of time and the second is how effective is the duration of the second versus the first? This is not a simple question, or rather, it takes thinking before you leap to the conclusion. Since it’s multiplication we can divide up the values in any singular segment, so I can actually say that 150 × 10s and 100 × 10s x 2 are the same thing, which means that the 150 compresses more damage in a shorter amount of time (500 more every 10s) but that doesn’t answer our question of how much more is the duration worth?

The third trap presents itself: Expansion.

Expansion answers this question by simply taking the crest and expressing it across the entire period; for instance the 150 × 10s = 1,500 but does that mean you do 1,500 dps? No. No it doesn’t. Since we understand stacking we can say that in second one you do 150, second 2 it’s 300, 3 is 450, 4 is 600, … 10 is 1,500 but accounting for the first 9 seconds actually reduces the dps from the 1,500. Now we can use the mirror technique to discover just how much we do in any amount of time, but I am going to use a basic minute. If you do the first 30s the last 30s are an exact mirror because the same reason you work up to 10 ticks in 1s is why you lose 1 stack in the last ten seconds, not all ten tick through, for example at second 58 your dot applied will only tick twice, seconds 59 and 60, so even though the screen will say “10 stacks” you will only capture 2s within the timeframe.

What effect does this have with condition duration? The longer it takes to get to the crest the greater the loss of damage from the crest. To illustrate with a 20s dot in the course of a minute we do the following:

(1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+(20×11))*2

What this represents is the first 30s and because of the mirror we can just overlay it and multiply it by two. So you don’t have to do the math the answer to this question is 820. Now expansion suggests that you just do 20/s so you would naturally assume 1,200. This means that you are suffering a loss of (820/1200) or 31% on your quoted value. By the way your real DoT is 820. The 10s version is (510/600) or a loss from crest value of 15%.

Now the first thing you have to know about this is that while 820 looks bigger than 510 this is with equivalent condition damage, because expertise requires you to give up condition damage this changes the story immensely! You are extending out damage but getting fewer returns for every single pulse/tick and it does not matter how long the battle is. In essence you are slowing yourself down trying to get to 100% condition duration.

The fourth trap, and not the least, is that of Equivalency.

10 × 20 = 10 × 10 × 2!

This is true. But what is wrong here is that variables are being intermixed. If the 10 is the time and the 20 is the damage then what is missing from the first equation? The duration. The actual equations are:

10 × 20 × 1 = 10 × 10 × 2.

The equations are actually very different, and I have seen people say “you can just multiply your damage by two!” but you cannot, because duration is not damage, nor should it be considered as such, and it is an entirely separate variable! Why does this matter? Well if you’ve gotten this far then you read about expansion and what expansion does is it makes every point worth less by extending out the effect at a weaker rate. It means effectively that not only do you do less damage per tick (ironically, since ticks happen by the second in this game, that means less DPS) but you also do marginally more damage at the cost of extremely wait times to actualize.

Basically ask yourself this question: If you could have a dot that killed an enemy in 15s or 30s which would you take? They both do about the same damage and even at the most extreme cases are marginally different. You just wait longer.

So what does Condition Duration do for and against you?

For: It elongates effects which is great against enemies you cannot hit very often.
For: It stacks allowing for burst condition application when applicable.
For: It ignores armor.

Against: It weakens your overall DPS and slows your fights down.
Against: It easily fools people. The investments made are actually many times weaker than normal because it dampens condition damage.
Against: You have to give up condition damage to take it in some cases.

There is more but I’m not capable of loading up what I wanted.

This feels like a discussion you’ve raised again and again. And each one befuddles me with math. As a simple minded individual, what single-line soundbite can I take from this?

“Do not sacrifice condition damage for condition duration.”

That’s about it. You only slow yourself down when you do.

You certainly typed a lot of words, but in PvE duration is vastly superior to damage. As has been shown by much more detailed analysis in multiple posts here.

In PvP it is more complicated because of numerous cleanses, immunities and the shorter duration of the fight.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

You certainly typed a lot of words, but in PvE duration is vastly superior to damage. As has been shown by much more detailed analysis in multiple posts here.

In PvP it is more complicated because of numerous cleanses, immunities and the shorter duration of the fight.

Have you ever considered that those “analyses” may be … Wrong? Because the four traps are actually cross examinations of those explanations. They all failed to account for most things i mentioned.

By the way this is not “condition duration is bad” but instead “condition damage is better”. You shouldn’t give up condition damage which isn’t the same as you should never take condition duration.

While I can see where you’re coming from, I’d argue that your traps say little to nothing without applying it to actual ingame values.

A whole set of (exotic) armor plus weapons with Sinister prefix gives you about 658 Condition Damage. Viper’s in comparison gives you about 573, which is about 15% less Condition Damage but adds about 22% Condition Duration. Of course at first this makes it look like you just trade stronger DoTs for longer Duration but the thing is that Condition Duration is not that easy to get while increasing Condition Damage is rather easy and the more you gain in terms of self and party buffs, the smaller the discrepancy between Sinister’s and Viper’s in terms of Condition Damage becomes, while the Duration is still at the same value.

My Reaper has Viper’s armor and weapons and Sinister trinkets. By your argument I should not have given up the increased CD from Sinister’s to gain the extra duration. My base CD without any food or party buffs is 1677 (without the Scepter trait giving another +150) at 21% increased Condition Duration ignoring all other factors. A full Sinister’s set would hence give me 1762 CD.

If we look at the different conditions:
Bleed ticks for 22 + CD * 0.06.
Sinister’s: 22 + 1762*0.06 ~128 per tick
Viper’s: 22 + 1677*0.06 ~ 123 per tick

Effective difference in DPS: about 1%.

Let’s add easily attainable buffs in the form of 25 Might stacks and my Scepter trait, which adds 900 CD (25 * 30 from Might and 150 from the Scepter GM trait).

Sinister’s: 22 + (1762 + 900) * 0.06 ~182 per tick
Viper’s: 22 + (1677 + 900) * 0.06 ~ 177 per tick

Effective difference: ~1%.

I’m not going to do that for every condition but let’s look at Burning for the sake of Bleeding and Burning being the DPS conditions.

Burning ticks for 131.5 + 0.155 * CD.

Sinister’s: 131.5 + 1762 * 0.155 ~ 405 per tick
Viper’s: 131,5 + 1677*0.155 ~ 391 per tick

Effective difference: ~.5%.

Let’s add the values again (even though Scepter isn’t really there to apply burns):
Sinister’s: 131.5 + (1762 + 900) * 0.155 ~ 544 per tick
Viper’s: 131,5 + (1677 + 900) * 0.155 ~ 531 per tick

Effective difference: ~1%

While everytime you use Viper’s you gain +20% Condition Duration.

So ultimately you lose what is about 1% Condition Damage in your ticks while gaining at least 20% Condition Duration, which for the individual tick decreases DPS ever so slightly, but once you come to reapplication it can actually increase DPS because your next application is still in the interval of the previous one, not to mention that the overall damage of the skill increases by that amount.

While my ‘analysis’ is very quick and dirty (ignoring what I assume will be diminishing returns the higher your Duration is to begin with due to traits and food) I find myself disagreeing with you. In PvE it’s not always advisable to go for Condition Damage over Duration, simply because one is very easy to come by and further increased by party buffs and the other one isn’t and the actual damage difference is negligible.

While this isn’t actually Vipers vs. Sinister this is perfect for an example. The difference between my analysis and yours is that condition duration is added where it fits. So a 5 second burn.

Using your exotic stats:

658 × .155 x (5 × .78) = 907.711

573 × .155 x (5 × 2) = 888.15

So what Just happened? The 22% I didn’t take in condition duration was subtracted but that doesn’t mean i can’t take the other78%! 8.9s of burning is doing more damage than 10s because condition damage was first.

There’s a stark difference between taking less condition duration and taking none and it is a matter of balance, not absolutes, so you having 100% condition duration isn’t necessarily you doing better. You do less damage with that set up and take longer to do it too!

Like a kick to the crotch that, imagine taking up to a minute longer killing whatever for no good reason.

I realize that i need to explain the dimensions here. Measuring damage is one dimension and time is another. You have to account for both. Even if something looks like it’s weaker on one dimension that doesn’t make it weaker on another. What looks like 1% difference is only 1% relating to one dimension.

For instance the above example with the exotics has a 3% difference in damage, who cares? But also an 11% difference in time! This is huge. How you combine those for an efficiency formula?

Beats me.

And again you look at the difference between the pure armor values. My argument is that the actual difference in Condition Damage diminishes the more you stack it with buffs. And as such, you gain a lot more damage (both DPS and DoT in total) by mixing in some Condition Duration.

You say it’s always better to take CD over CDur, but it’s not.

On that note, where do you get the other 78% Duration without sacrificing CD?

I find your argumentation rather unclear.

Since it looks like this thread is going this direction, if not already, here’s a post that I want to add. Oddly enough that post was directed at the OP in that thread.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I guess I’m going to have to start from basics. For this demonstration, I will give you a few things:

#1: There is a player
#2: Who is attacking once per second
#3: That applies a bleed once per attack
#4: That lasts for 5 seconds, base duration.

So an auto attacking like scenario. Stripped bare and with its most basic premises.. There are few things to look at. First, consider this: if we were to do one attack, that attack would take 1 second, and would inflict bleeding for 5 seconds. Thus, the overall damage that the attack would do is equal to 5 ticks of bleed, and since it takes one second to execute that attack, that is roughly equal to 5 ticks of bleed per second. This may seem a bit odd, but consider this: while that bleed is ticking away, you are capable of performing other actions at the same time, which may add more bleeds or do more damage. This can be considered the “DPS per skill use”, and it is one way of comparing damage.

But there are other ways. Taking into consideration the fact that we can perform multiple actions while a bleed is ticking away, we can use this time to apply more bleeds, using the same “5 ticks of bleed per second”. Over the period of 10 seconds, we would see this happen:

1st second: 1 bleed
2nd second: 2 bleeds
3rd second: 3 bleeds
4th second: 4 bleeds
5th second: 5 bleeds
6th second: 5 bleeds
7th second: 5 bleeds
8th second: 5 bleeds
9th second: 5 bleeds
10th second: 5 bleeds

The crucial part being that, once we reach 5 seconds, the first bleed that we applied has expired, and thus the new bleeds replace the old one. While the overall damage inflicted doesn’t go away, the DPS of this setup is going to be equivalent to the damage that 5 bleeds will do. So, if your bleed ticks for 120, you will be doing 600 DPS, or 120 × 5. This is called many things, such as the stacking limit or the stacking threshold, and it is the average amount of conditions you sustain going through a rotation. You may notice that the DPS we got from the stacking limit is equal to the DPS we got from considering the “DPS per skill” method above. That is not coincidence. The time it takes to reach this peak is the “ramp up time” for conditions.

Now, lets add in a comparison. Lets say that, instead of lasting for 5 seconds, the bleed lasts for 8 seconds. Looking at a 10 second period, we’d get the following:

1st second: 1 bleed
2nd second: 2 bleeds
3rd second: 3 bleeds
4th second: 4 bleeds
5th second: 5 bleeds
6th second: 6 bleeds
7th second: 7 bleeds
8th second: 8 bleeds
9th second: 8 bleeds
10th second: 8 bleeds

See what happened here? The bleed lasts longer, so you get more concurrent stacks of bleeding at the same time. Assuming the bleeds do 100 damage instead of 120, this means that from 8 seconds onward, you will be doing 800 damage per second, which is more than the 600 damage per second that the previous setup capped at.

You can also consider this a DPS per skill use: one attack inflicts 8 ticks of bleeding per second, and even given the weaker bleed, this means that in the long run, you will do more damage and have higher sustained DPS than the 5 second long but stronger bleeds.

Lets take the bleeds in isolation. One 5-second long bleed, and one 8-second long bleed. Lets put their total cumulative damage side by side.

1st second: 100 | 120
2nd second: 200 | 240
3rd second: 300 | 360
4th second: 400 | 480
5th second: 500 | 600
6th second: 600 | 600
7th second: 700 | 600
8th second: 800 | 600
9th second: 800 | 600

The 5 second long bleed stops doing damage at 5 seconds, and the 8 second long bleed stops doing damage at 8 seconds. What happened here is that, at 6 seconds, their cumulative damage became equal, and at 7 seconds, the longer bleed did more cumulative damage. So, even though the 8 second long bleed does more damage in the long run, it has a longer ramp up time, which means that in the short run it does less damage.

Condition damage never diminishes. It’s a linear equation so it cannot produce diminishing returns.

Also I’m not saying take no condition duration. It’s just prioritizing condition duration is unwise. You want as much if both as possible but think if it like the relationship between precision and power. Too much precision and you’re hitting for less even if you have 100% critical hit chance, everyone knows this right?

Turns out the same is true between condition damage and condition duration. Too little and you’re just as bad as too much!

I think this thread is better suited for the question of ‘how much CD can you sacrifice for CDur and what are the returns?’.

The quoted post goes along the same line, putting the damage discrepancy at 20%. But as I said, the difference isn’t necessarily that high. If you lose about 1% damage per tick but gain 20% increased duration, then yes, the individual tick will do less damage and you have higher ramp up until you hit the treshold at which you only reapply and don’t increase the stacks, but you also spike higher for more DPS and also enjoy bigger error frames in terms of rotations.

Without additional factors like condition cleanses, it’s not always better to stack CD over CDur, it can be beneficial to sacrifice some CD for CDur. Up until which point, I won’t theorycraft enough to find out.

If you have trouble putting things into effective formulas you can simply look at the comparisons that were made ingame, which come to the conclusion that Viper’s is just as good if not better than Sinister’s. Your traps may have merit on a theoretical examination, but are ultimately too general and lack, in my opinion, proper application to the given data (i.e. you just look at Sinister Armor vs. Viper Armor and ignoring all the additional sources of CD that make the actual difference so small).

//Edit: I didn’t say that CD has diminishing returns in terms of the gain, I’m saying that the discrepancy between a full Sinister, a full Viper and a mix set diminishes if you apply additional buffs that can roughly double the CD. And your initial argument was ‘you should never sacrifice CD for CDur’, but that’s not true.
As this post said at the beginning, I agree that there’s certainly a correlation and there’s probably different cutoffs for when to stack what.

Ayrilana.1396:

Snip

Interval trap. I already covered this. Won’t do it twice.

DGraves.3720:

Ayrilana.1396:

Snip

Interval trap. I already covered this. Won’t do it twice.

So you created “traps” as excuses to exclude potential arguments against your position? Oh, and that trap you mentioned excluded stacking conditions so no it did not address it.

During encounters where mobs die quickly then the benefits of condition duration would not have reached their full effect. During prolonged encounters, condition duration is better. This has been explained to you several times.

Sourde Noire.5286:

I think this thread is better suited for the question of ‘how much CD can you sacrifice for CDur and what are the returns?’.

The quoted post goes along the same line, putting the damage discrepancy at 20%. But as I said, the difference isn’t necessarily that high. If you lose about 1% damage per tick but gain 20% increased duration, then yes, the individual tick will do less damage and you have higher ramp up until you hit the treshold at which you only reapply and don’t increase the stacks, but you also spike higher for more DPS and also enjoy bigger error frames in terms of rotations.

Without additional factors like condition cleanses, it’s not always better to stack CD over CDur, it can be beneficial to sacrifice some CD for CDur. Up until which point, I won’t theorycraft enough to find out.

If you have trouble putting things into effective formulas you can simply look at the comparisons that were made ingame, which come to the conclusion that Viper’s is just as good if not better than Sinister’s. Your traps may have merit on a theoretical examination, but are ultimately too general and lack, in my opinion, proper application to the given data (i.e. you just look at Sinister Armor vs. Viper Armor and ignoring all the additional sources of CD that make the actual difference so small).

It’s not the damage lost it’s the time.

I just showed you using simple math that you do more damage in less time with less condition duration. I mean literally you do better on both fronts.

And that 78%? Rune (45%) + Traitline (33%). Both never inhibiting condition damage. Not to mention the many other sources like food which isnt inhibiting either.

Worse Berserker runes dont make up the difference.

As for formulas… The game literally gives it to you. I am convinced that people are not as good at math as they think. This is literally using numbers from the game. Can’t get less hypothetical than that.

You just need a stop watch and an enemy to test it.

By the way because ( condition damage x condition coefficient x condition duration ) is linear no matter what condition you use or rotation the efficiency never changes.

This means once the sweet spot it’s found it won’t change either.

DGraves.3720:

Sourde Noire.5286:

I think this thread is better suited for the question of ‘how much CD can you sacrifice for CDur and what are the returns?’.

The quoted post goes along the same line, putting the damage discrepancy at 20%. But as I said, the difference isn’t necessarily that high. If you lose about 1% damage per tick but gain 20% increased duration, then yes, the individual tick will do less damage and you have higher ramp up until you hit the treshold at which you only reapply and don’t increase the stacks, but you also spike higher for more DPS and also enjoy bigger error frames in terms of rotations.

Without additional factors like condition cleanses, it’s not always better to stack CD over CDur, it can be beneficial to sacrifice some CD for CDur. Up until which point, I won’t theorycraft enough to find out.

If you have trouble putting things into effective formulas you can simply look at the comparisons that were made ingame, which come to the conclusion that Viper’s is just as good if not better than Sinister’s. Your traps may have merit on a theoretical examination, but are ultimately too general and lack, in my opinion, proper application to the given data (i.e. you just look at Sinister Armor vs. Viper Armor and ignoring all the additional sources of CD that make the actual difference so small).

It’s not the damage lost it’s the time.

I just showed you using simple math that you do more damage in less time with less condition duration. I mean literally you do better on both fronts.

And that 78%? Rune (45%) + Traitline (33%). Both never inhibiting condition damage. Not to mention the many other sources like food which isnt inhibiting either.

Worse Berserker runes dont make up the difference.

As for formulas… The game literally gives it to you. I am convinced that people are not as good at math as they think. This is literally using numbers from the game. Can’t get less hypothetical than that.

You just need a stop watch and an enemy to test it.

Yes, you gave a very skewed example using questionable numbers (which I’ve pointed to three times by now).

Ayrilana.1396:

DGraves.3720:

Ayrilana.1396:

Snip

Interval trap. I already covered this. Won’t do it twice.

So you created “traps” as excuses to exclude potential arguments against your position? Oh, and that trap you mentioned excluded stacking conditions so no it did not address it.

During encounters where mobs die quickly then the benefits of condition duration would not have reached their full effect. During prolonged encounters, condition duration is better. This has been explained to you several times.

No. Actually they’re “logic traps”.

Math is a tool so fooling yourself with it is easy of you don’t wield it correctly. Those are the things that people tend to do. For instance 10s 100 dmg bleeds equalling 1,000 dps.

In this case breaking rhythm has the adverse effect of distortion. The 8s bleed goes longer at a lower rhythm than the 5s bleed but only intervals that match can be compared.

The reason this is important is ( ironically ) for long term engagements. The longer you stack and build the easier it is to fall for the trap.

The general outcome is the product trap where people multiply out the values over very long amounts of time in one dimension ( damage ) ignoring the more important dimension ( time ) and reach false conclusions.

I would imagine condi damage is king if you expect short fights (you end the fight before the max condi damage/second is reached if you favor duration).

Condi duration I would expect to be king for those who expect longer fights.

For example:

Base attack applies a bleed that does 10 damage/second. It’s the auto attack and you can attack once per second. The bleed lasts for 5 seconds unbuffed.

We’re attacking a dummy that can’t attack back or move so no interruptions occur.

We get a buff that multiples the damage by 1.5

Attack 1: 15 d/s Total damage: 15
Attack 2: 30 d/s Total damage: 45
Attack 3: 45 d/s Total damage: 90
Attack 4: 60 d/s Total damage: 150
Attack 5: 75 d/s Total damage: 225
Attack 6: 75 d/s Total damage: 300
Attack 7: 75 d/s Total damage: 375
Attack 8: 75 d/s Total damage: 450
Attack 9: 75 d/s Total damage: 525
Attack 10: 75 d/s Total damage: 600
Attack 11: 75 d/s Total damage: 675
Attack 12: 75 d/s Total damage: 750

Now instead of the double damage, we get a buff that adds 5 extra seconds of duration (so 10 seconds total)

Attack 1: 10 d/s Total damage: 10
Attack 2: 20 d/s Total damage: 30
Attack 3: 30 d/s Total damage: 60
Attack 4: 40 d/s Total damage: 100
Attack 5: 50 d/s Total damage: 150
Attack 6: 60 d/s Total damage: 210
Attack 7: 70 d/s Total damage: 280
Attack 8: 80 d/s Total damage: 360
Attack 9: 90 d/s Total damage: 450
Attack 10: 100 d/s Total damage: 550
Attack 11: 100 d/s Total damage: 650
Attack 12: 100 d/s Total damage: 750

Any attack past 12, and the duration buff does more damage overall.

So it all depends on whether you’re building for long fights or short fights. If you’re building for short fights, favor damage over duration. If you’re building for long fights, favor duration over damage. But there’s probably a sweet spot of a combination that would work best for the average length of fights you get in due to your playstyle.

DGraves.3720:

Math is a tool so fooling yourself with it is easy of you don’t wield it correctly.

And again:

Using your exotic stats:

658 × .155 x (5 × .78) = 907.711

573 × .155 x (5 × 2) = 888.15

Is wrong because it should be

Sinister’s: 5 * (131,5 + 2512 * 0.155) * 1.78 ~ 4635
Viper’s: 5 * (131,5 + 2427 * 0.155) * 2 ~ 5076
5 times the per tick damage times the duration increase (and that is before stacking in intensity which will increase DPS significantly).
//edit because Maths isn’t that easy.

in total damage while Viper’s has about 1% less DPS (coming from the reduced damage per ticks).

Because you do what you accuse others of doing: cherrypicking numbers. You claim you can pick a rune and traits to increase the duration, which is only partially true because you can do that for select conditions but not generally in such high amounts.
You also completely ignore that CD can come from a greater amount of sources than CDur and as such (as I’ve been saying I think 4 or 5 times now) the difference in CD values between characters running the different sets is so miniscule that the net gain in increased durations is almost always worth it.
You also seem to be assuming that all battles are short and as such going for higher DoTs before reapplying and stacking thanks to skills being off cooldown is favourable, which is not true except against trashmobs.

Again, saying CD is always better than CDur is plain wrong in PvE.

Long duration conditions are weak against things that die quickly or go invulnerable removing the conditions after a short window. This is pretty obvious, yes, and something that people should be taking into account already.

On the other hand, if you’re trying to say that long duration conditions are weaker than shorter high intensity conditions even against things that you’re going to be beating on for a long time, then you’re terribly incorrect.

DGraves.3720:

Ayrilana.1396:

DGraves.3720:

Ayrilana.1396:

Snip

Interval trap. I already covered this. Won’t do it twice.

So you created “traps” as excuses to exclude potential arguments against your position? Oh, and that trap you mentioned excluded stacking conditions so no it did not address it.

During encounters where mobs die quickly then the benefits of condition duration would not have reached their full effect. During prolonged encounters, condition duration is better. This has been explained to you several times.

No. Actually they’re “logic traps”.

Math is a tool so fooling yourself with it is easy of you don’t wield it correctly. Those are the things that people tend to do. For instance 10s 100 dmg bleeds equalling 1,000 dps.

In this case breaking rhythm has the adverse effect of distortion. The 8s bleed goes longer at a lower rhythm than the 5s bleed but only intervals that match can be compared.

The reason this is important is ( ironically ) for long term engagements. The longer you stack and build the easier it is to fall for the trap.

The general outcome is the product trap where people multiply out the values over very long amounts of time in one dimension ( damage ) ignoring the more important dimension ( time ) and reach false conclusions.

Math appears to be a tool that you are not wielding correctly as you still are not understanding the effect of stacking conditions.

Ayrilana.1396:

Math appears to be a tool that you are not wielding correctly as you still are not understanding the effect of stacking conditions.

Actually the reason they are traps is because of this. People dont understand stacking with interval measurement and how to compare compounding effects.

Having the most stacks you can is not actually the best outcome. That IS the product trap in a nutshell. There are times having 8 stacks of higher damage bleed outperforms 10 stacks using the same base. Its truefor all bases as well.

The error comes from single stack assessment. The crest of a bleed equals its product after all.

To be honest I never thought investment management and economic analysis would make for a good game player. I’m amused.

Nevermind. You’re right. I’m bad at math

Onward!

DGraves.3720:

In this case breaking rhythm has the adverse effect of distortion. The 8s bleed goes longer at a lower rhythm than the 5s bleed but only intervals that match can be compared.

For anyone wondering why it is DGraves is doing math from crazy land and refuses to explain what is going on (instead just declaring everything wrong ‘just cause’), this statement right here is the fundamental idea that DGraves has refused to budge from over the whole time he’s been fighting against the plainly understood mechanics of condition damage.

Basically, he is saying that it doesn’t matter if one bleed lasts 30 seconds and another bleed lasts 3 seconds. Because they last different lengths, they can’t be compared, and so that extra 27 seconds of bleed that inflicts damage once per second for every single one of those 27 seconds doesn’t count because reasons. The numbers displayed by the combat log, by the GUI, and in the tooltips are all lies. The system, deliberately designed by Anet to be broken, imbalanced, and deceptive.

This thinking is, of course, nonsensical. It is the equivalent to saying that a mouse is heavier than an elephant, because most of the elephant’s mass doesn’t count and they can only be compared under the same volume, and that volume must be the mouse’s because it is the smallest. You’re probably thinking “but, couldn’t we just choose a volume that encompasses the whole size of the elephant to get an accurate picture of their overall mass?”. Yes. Yes you can. Yes you should. That would be the reasonable thing to do, because that actually has real world implications, like what would happen if each respective animal stepped on you. Or, how much it would hurt if you received a 30 second bleed instead of a 3 second bleed. This “interval” of his doesn’t exist. It is an arbitrary value, and you can pick whatever value you to do whatever you want. Whereas most theorycrafters pick a volume that encompasses the full magnitude of their actions, DGraves has decided to measure a mouse against an elephant by seeing which one has heavier molecules.

I’m not even sure how DGraves has come to this belief. Maybe he believes that condition duration just squashes and stretches a fixed pool of damage that exists regardless of the duration. Maybe he believes that the increase in the number that each condition damage indicator displays is the cumulative damage inflicted by a single condition, and thus repeatedly adding more conditions does nothing. Maybe he’s never tested this idea by inflicting a single condition and seeing that the damage indicator displays the same amount each second. Maybe he doesn’t believe this and is being obtuse for the lols. But whatever the reason, one thing is clear. Discussing this further with him won’t work. It would take a dev to finally tell him that he’s wrong.

So until you see a red post, don’t post.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

This feels like a discussion you’ve raised again and again. And each one befuddles me with math. As a simple minded individual, what single-line soundbite can I take from this?

He was just in another thread trying to argue conditions but the masses wouldn’t agree with him so now he is here with his own cute little thread saying the exact same things lol (hence his 2 paragraph disclaimer)

Thankfully we have fairly accurate DPS meter now. It should be fairly easy to whip up a quick demonstration of your hypothesis for the simpletons in this thread who cannot wrap their heads around your ideas.

It’s hard to take people seriously when it seems that they are trying to accomplish nothing other than to befuddle people with mental gymnastics and nonsensical premises like 8 stacks of bleeding can potentially do more damage than 10.

“The error comes from single stack assessment. The crest of a bleed equals its product after all.”

It’s kitten like this that makes not give a good god kitten what your saying. Get off your kittening high horse and create an example analogous to your premises that people can actually kittening understand. This is a game. Not academic math theory.

Tentonhammr.7849:

Thankfully we have fairly accurate DPS meter now. It should be fairly easy to whip up a quick demonstration of your hypothesis for the simpletons in this thread who cannot wrap their heads around your ideas.

I didn’t want to bump this thread but I want to say that I agree with you. Perhaps a video showing the DPS differences is necessary so we can just link it and end the discussion in all future threads. There most definitely will be more of them whether by a particular poster or someone new.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

For anyone wondering why it is DGraves is doing math from crazy land and refuses to explain what is going on (instead just declaring everything wrong ‘just cause’), this statement right here is the fundamental idea that DGraves has refused to budge from over the whole time he’s been fighting against the plainly understood mechanics of condition damage.

So until you see a red post, don’t post.

At no point have I refused to explain myself.

It is plainly understood though. That’s why it’s so interesting to see how people distort it; I’ve heard people literally say they think that certain bleeds do over 10k dps. This is no joke! And these are people who have influence too which causes me concern.

I just don’t see how people have come to the conclusion that lengthening their own fights is somehow smarter gameplay. But I am sure you are right, and I must be wrong, and hopefully this doesn’t go south sort of like the DPS thing and how damage uptime became a reality recognized by most (not all) the community.

But … if you are wrong … that’s a problem.

It’s not about lengthening fights. It has clearly been stated to you numerous times in this thread and others that longer fights are better for viper armor due to the ramp up of conditions. I specfically told you this in the other thread you made recently. Nobody is saying that vipers is great for trash mobs that die quickly. That’s just you saying it and ignoring that part of what we said. So the only distortions here are from you.

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s not about lengthening fights. It has clearly been stated to you numerous times in this thread and others that longer fights are better for viper armor due to the ramp up of conditions. I specfically told you this in the other thread you made recently. Nobody is saying that vipers is great for trash mobs that die quickly. That’s just you saying it and ignoring that part of what we said. So the only distortions here are from you.

The thing is that having a bigger number doesn’t actually mean doing better.

If you have 7 stacks of bleed at 135 you are doing better than 10 stacks at 100. You want to compress your damage, not elongate it, because then you’re wasting time. It’s just not as simple as “100% condition duration GO GO GO!” unless you can get it without giving up condition damage.

DGraves.3720:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s not about lengthening fights. It has clearly been stated to you numerous times in this thread and others that longer fights are better for viper armor due to the ramp up of conditions. I specfically told you this in the other thread you made recently. Nobody is saying that vipers is great for trash mobs that die quickly. That’s just you saying it and ignoring that part of what we said. So the only distortions here are from you.

The thing is that having a bigger number doesn’t actually mean doing better.

If you have 7 stacks of bleed at 135 you are doing better than 10 stacks at 100. You want to compress your damage, not elongate it, because then you’re wasting time. It’s just not as simple as “100% condition duration GO GO GO!” unless you can get it without giving up condition damage.

How about this. Use the damage formulas with real values and prove your argument. Just like those who have done supporting condition duration. Or make a video measuring DPS with the only variables changed being condition damage and duration. Until then, you are wrong.

When I say detailed I mean detailed. Show your calculations clearly.

And use this build which is the meta:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Engineer_-_Condition_Raids

DGraves.3720:

Ayrilana.1396:

It’s not about lengthening fights. It has clearly been stated to you numerous times in this thread and others that longer fights are better for viper armor due to the ramp up of conditions. I specfically told you this in the other thread you made recently. Nobody is saying that vipers is great for trash mobs that die quickly. That’s just you saying it and ignoring that part of what we said. So the only distortions here are from you.

The thing is that having a bigger number doesn’t actually mean doing better.

If you have 7 stacks of bleed at 135 you are doing better than 10 stacks at 100. You want to compress your damage, not elongate it, because then you’re wasting time. It’s just not as simple as “100% condition duration GO GO GO!” unless you can get it without giving up condition damage.

No, you aren’t. 7 stacks of bleed at 135 damage per bleed is 945 damage every second. 10 stacks of bleed at 100 is 1000 damage per second.

The whole point of condition duration is that, by making each individual attack do more damage in the long run, you end up doing more total damage overall than if you went with shorter but more intensity. Once you get past that initial ramp up time, going for longer but overall stronger conditions wins out. And by “wins out” we mean they have a higher overall DPS and make the fight shorter.

EDIT: found it. I’ve already explained all this to you before.

Seeing how you are deliberate ignoring any sort of argument, even in the form of actual numbers, given to you, I can only assume you are riling up people for no other purpose than amusing yourself.

Abandoning thread.

Different builds have different strategies. Not all builds focus on let’s see how fast we can kill it. Condition builds are not builds for those looking to end fights fast. Those people should be using the Direct damage builds.

Condition damage builds take time to ramp up to their maximum DPS.

Fights against normal foes are so easy it doesn’t really matter if you favor Condition Damage or Condition Duration.

However, in a long fight where you need to do X amount of damage compared to everyone else or there’s a timer on the fight and the fight lasts more than 30 seconds (world boss fights, end boss of a map meta event chain) Condition Duration is king. Because eventually, it starts doing more damage per second than adding Condition Damage.

So to summarize, Sinister is better for shorter fights while Viper is better for longer fights?

“You have two DoT (Damage over time) effects, which one is better?
One lasts 5s but is worth 110/per second.
One lasts 60s but is worth 22/per second.”
You state the first.

If an enemy would take all damage from an attack wouldn’t it be simpler to equate the full damage it would do?
A. 100 damage attack, 1 attack per second, 0% crit. 100 dps.
B. 100 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 100% duration. 100 dps.
C. 50 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 200% duration. 100 dps.

Comparing dps makes the second better. 550 dps vs 1320 dps. There is no trap about it, higher dps is higher dps. Arguing against this would mean dropping condi and going full Zerker since there is no ramp up.

Condi has a ramp up, ignoring it in a final calculation is illogical.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

No, you aren’t. 7 stacks of bleed at 135 damage per bleed is 945 damage every second. 10 stacks of bleed at 100 is 1000 damage per second.

Hence the product trap. 1,000 > 945 but (945/7) > (1,000/10). The ignored dimension is time. The longer the struggle the more time compression matters. The belief that the product is more important is wrong, and I purposefully used an extreme example (22@60s & 110@5s) to show this.

Basic rule of thumb is to want as much damage as possible in as little time as possible.

“The whole point of condition duration is that, by making each individual attack do more damage in the long run, you end up doing more total damage overall than if you went with shorter but more intensity.”

Expansion trap. First you do less damage per tick, not more, when you trade condition damage for duration (or anything else) and by expanding the proposed crest (or max stacks) value incorrectly you basically make an inconsistent model. The easiest way to tell, and how I caught it from other’s claims, is to test ratios.

Since condition damage is linear the ratio between two values shouldn’t change based on condition used but often did. The error was in measuring:

“Once you get past that initial ramp up time, going for longer but overall stronger conditions wins out. And by “wins out” we mean they have a higher overall DPS and make the fight shorter."

This.

The “once you get past” part often failed to account for damage lost during that particular phase. This meant that shorter timers were basically misrepresented. The 7 to 945 for instance actually does more, not less, because you have a whole 6 more seconds during the minute where it’s at crest and during “ramp up” a whole 7s where it does better, 1s where it’s marginally better in interval @800, and then your 900 and 1,000.

Because of the mirroring pattern you only need the first 30s of data to build this which means I’m that 30 you capture 3 more ticks at full for the 745 vs still working up to the 1,000. This greatly effects average values and DPS.
______

EDIT: found it. I’ve already explained all this to you before.[/quote]

And you were wrong then too.

Aro.8275:

So to summarize, Sinister is better for shorter fights while Viper is better for longer fights?

“You have two DoT (Damage over time) effects, which one is better?
One lasts 5s but is worth 110/per second.
One lasts 60s but is worth 22/per second.”
You state the first.

No. The claim would be closer to “At a certain amount of condition duration you do better just going damage instead.” Turns out that was 78% but, meh. In most builds you don’t have to sacrifice condition damage for duration to do well since there are plenty of sources that get you to that mark.

“If an enemy would take all damage from an attack wouldn’t it be simpler to equate the full damage it would do?”

No. The reason is because that ignores the time vertex. It’s not that the enemy won’t take all the damage it is that the player is deliberately doing lower damage over longer periods of time to see shinier numbers.

“A. 100 damage attack, 1 attack per second, 0% crit. 100 dps.
B. 100 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 100% duration. 100 dps.
C. 50 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 200% duration. 100 dps.”

Equivalency. The attack that does 50 damage per second does… 50 DPS. It just does it over twitch as many ticks. This is not 100 DPS. This is why you don’t equate variables.

C. Does half the damage of B. A simple proof is to just use a 60s base.

A, 60 × 100 × 1 (for zero crit)

B. 60 × 100 x. 1 (base condition duration)

C. 60 × 50 × 2 (double duration)

Now wait. DPS is just damage measured in (generally) one minute. C. Is actually 2 minutes long, not one, so to get one minute we divide it by half to get 50. Does this check out?

How much damage does A do in one second (hence the name)? 100. B? 100. C? 50. I mean it’s 50. It’s exactly what it says on the tin. Nothing to calculate actually since conditions tick in seconds. This brings us to:

“Comparing dps makes the second better. 550 dps vs 1320 dps. There is no trap about it, higher dps is higher dps. Arguing against this would mean dropping condi and going full Zerker since there is no ramp up.”

The issue here is that this omits one tiny thing: B vs. C is actually unfair. B can have condition duration too! Why does only C get it? What if B had 50% and lasted 90s? What if B had 80 duration?

The problem here is that in the “all/nothing” mindset this model works but if we quit that nonsense and gave B more than 0 not only are you doing double damage but you’re also doing it without sacrificing damage.

A 20% loss per tick for no reason adds up fast. As with most things it’s what you don’t see that’s actually getting you, doing 80% of what you can for a gain of 23% up time? How does that make sense?

“Condi has a ramp up, ignoring it in a final calculation is illogical.”

Which is exactly my point. People

A. Miscalculate the “ramp up”.

B. Ignore the time aspect shooting for the product.

C. Cannot and do not take measures towards an opportunity cost analysis. “How much condition damage am I losing for condition duration?” I have news for you: That equation isn’t linear, it’s logarithmic, you do really well taking it at first but every percentage point actually is diminishing because even if you last longer you begin to lose more damage than it’s worth at some point.

You know what else is like that? Precision.

Just a reminder: stop feeding the troll. You time is valuable, don’t waste it.

If you take it your way, yes, people are overrating condition damage. But the reason why some people ‘supposedly’ doubles the equation in your equivalency trap is that they count cycles, not minutes.

You state that in a 1 20 second condition, you can put that damage in a heavier hitting 10 second bleeds [double the damage for half the time]. Therefore in any given minute, the 10 second condition will do more damage than the 20 second one. That is true in the sense that in the same allotted time you can put it in on and off. However, what people are talking about is not DPS, its the actual numbers in a fight.

For example, if someone was fighting Sabetha, a relatively stationary boss with no condi cleanses, which one will do better? Sinister or Vipers. For short fights its obviously going to be Sinister but in raid situations its not as simple. All of your logic traps can be rebutted by ‘cycles’ or the application of conditions. Given two builds [Sinister vs Viper] of the same class and playstyle, they will apply their conditions EXACTLY the same. There is no change in gameplay in the differing build. Sabetha has a timer of ~9 minutes so lets take that as an example.

Using an example of a 10 second base bleed, people with 100% condition duration will do 20 seconds. If both builds attack with a frequency of 1 application per second, then the Sinister gear will reach 10 stacks maximum after 10 seconds for these 9 minutes and the Viper gear will reach 20 stacks after 20 seconds. With my understanding of your logic, the DPS of the Viper gear is lower than the Sinister gear as the buildup + the damage you do is less than the sinister gear. And you would be right, if this battle was like 1 minute. Then the next minute comes. Both start of with their full stacks. Who would do more damage?

From the wiki, it states that bleeds do [(0.06 * Condition Damage) + 22 damage per stack per second,]. If you look at the wording, it states ‘per stack’. What does more damage? 1 stack of bleeding that does 100 damage per stack or 2 stacks of bleeding that does 70 damage per stack? 100 vs 140. Your traps become negligible in raid situations because of this. Maintaining 10 stacks for ~470 seconds will do less damage than maintaining 20 stacks for ~450 seconds. This is why people calculate the theoretical DPS. Because in practice it makes sense.

Your traps make no sense in bossing situations because they are countered after 2 minutes into the battle. The product trap is countered by the fact that both builds apply it at the same frequency. Using your example, One lasts 5s but is worth 110/per second and nne lasts 60s but is worth 22/per second. In the first 60 seconds or so, your theory can make sense but after they are fully applied at a frequency of 1 application per second, 5 stacks of 110 ⁵⁵⁰ vs 60 stacks of 22 ¹³²⁰. The ‘trap’ in this doesnt apply as both builds apply the EXACT same frequency of conditions, just a minute later.

This also counters the interval trap you state. Taking the DPS right as the setup is done will result in Viper doing much more damage, since there are essentially double the stacks than the Sinister armor. Sure, the setup stage will do less damage. However, this is less than 10% of the total fight. The rest of the battle is the ‘theoretical’ calculations that the ‘fooled’ people hope for.

The expansion trap is a strong argument in shorter fights such as pvp and trash mobs but does not apply in bosses for the exact same reason above. It accounts for less than 10% of the whole battle. Additionally, the same can be said for a full condition damage build. Are your calculations for full condition damage accounting for the buildup at the beginning of the fight? Try calculating it for an extended amount of time, not for just 60 seconds.

The trap of equivalency is explained above. In the first minute of the DPS calculations, your calculations make sense. But after that minute, Condition duration is superior as you can times the equation by 2 since they are already there. There’s no setup: the stacks are already there.

In conclusion your argument can make sense in short fights/PvP. It makes sense with all of the condition removal/setup time. However, in the places that advocate condition duration over condi damage, the reason is not because of the duration, but the stacks after the setup (which account for ~10% max of the battle).

TL;DR : Condition Duration<Condition Damage<Condition Stacks

You have to take additional aspects into the account. You have to analsye the DPS and the duration of the skill at the same time. Then you have to analyse the duration of the fight/encounter and bind this parameter into your equation. Looking at only one parameter give false results.

The second aspects lies in the higher duration of all conditions. Applied cripples, chill, weakness, etc. In many cases these conditions trigger secondary effects via traits. The longer the condition duration is the longer is their up-time. This can results in higher stacks of conditions or a reduced usage of certain skills to keep certain conditions up. The free slots in a rotation for example can now be filled by other skills or attacks.

A. 100 damage attack, 1 attack per second, 0% crit. 100 dps.
B. 100 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 100% duration. 100 dps.
C. 50 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 200% duration. 100 dps.

C has 50 DPS in the very first sec. In sec. 2 C has 2 Stacks wich deal 50 Dmg each, giving him 100 Dmg for this sec. First sec is ramp up.

Scenario I:
Let’s assume A,B and C hitting three identical Mobs until they die. A and B wins against C (because C deals only 50 Dmg in the first second).

Scenario II:
Now let’s asume A,B, and C hitting three identical Mobs for exactly 5s. A and B deal 500 Dmg but so does C because he hits the Target in Second 6 for another 50 Dmg from the last tic (cool down phase). So the over all DPS in THIS scenario is identical.

Here is what you have to understand: The ‘ramp up’ (wich is a fixed amout of time) gets more and more irrelevant the longer the fight lasts (since you calc dmg/time).

IF the factor for Duration and Dmg is identical the DPS will be almost the same (longer fight -> more convergence ). Hence the factors are NOT the same (~6% more Dmg VS +10% more Duration) the duration will win in the long run.

DGraves.3720:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

No, you aren’t. 7 stacks of bleed at 135 damage per bleed is 945 damage every second. 10 stacks of bleed at 100 is 1000 damage per second.

Hence the product trap. 1,000 > 945 but (945/7) > (1,000/10). The ignored dimension is time. The longer the struggle the more time compression matters. The belief that the product is more important is wrong, and I purposefully used an extreme example (22@60s & 110@5s) to show this.’

This is a meaningless operation. You just did damage per stack x stacks / stacks. You ended up with damage per stack again. This value speaks nothing of the overall damage that is done, and provides absolutely no new information.

DGraves.3720:

Expansion trap. First you do less damage per tick, not more, when you trade condition damage for duration (or anything else) and by expanding the proposed crest (or max stacks) value incorrectly you basically make an inconsistent model. The easiest way to tell, and how I caught it from other’s claims, is to test ratios.

Since condition damage is linear the ratio between two values shouldn’t change based on condition used but often did. The error was in measuring:

You’d have to be less ambiguous. When you say “tick” do you mean the tick of a single condition or the tick of all concurrent conditions? Because if you mean a single condition, then yes you are doing less damage per “tick” of a single condition. But, you get more ticks per skill, which means that eventually you do more damage per skill use. If you mean the “tick” as in the damage of all concurrent conditions, then you are wrong: you do more damage per tick, because the longer duration ultimately stack higher, and this creates an advantage that overtakes the shorter but stronger conditions after some time.

DGraves.3720:

This.

The “once you get past” part often failed to account for damage lost during that particular phase. This meant that shorter timers were basically misrepresented. The 7 to 945 for instance actually does more, not less, because you have a whole 6 more seconds during the minute where it’s at crest and during “ramp up” a whole 7s where it does better, 1s where it’s marginally better in interval @800, and then your 900 and 1,000.

Problem is, I and many others have already done those calculations numerous times. Also, you are abusing ambiguity again, so I’m going to assume you are talking about an auto attack that has a 7 second bleed that attacks once per second. Given an extra 43% duration but a 35% reduction in damage, you get the 10 second 100 damage bleed.

The equation is this: When you’ve gained extra ticks equal enough to compensate for the difference in damage inflicted over the duration of the initial condition. Or for a more algebraic version

(D1 – D2 ) x T1/ D2 + T1 = Equivalence Point for each individual stack (in seconds)

Where D1 is 135, D2 is 100, T is the duration of D1. So, particular example (135 – 100) DPS x 7 seconds / 100 DPS + 7 seconds = 9.45 seconds. This is the equivalence point where the longer condition overtakes the shorter one. So, by 9.45 seconds, the first tick has already outdamaged the second. You know the math is correct when the units match.

Now you’re probably wondering how long it is that one set of continuously inflicted conditions will out-pace the other. This is… not a simple equation. Basically it works like this: When the longer bleed expires, it inflicts an extra 55 damage over the first one. This additional 55 damage can be seen as a deduction in the subsequent advantage gained by the high intensity bleed. So, while in 7 seconds the bleed gains 245 damage, in the subsequent 3 seconds it loses 55 damage. If I were to table the difference between accumulated damage between the two (assuming 1 attack per 1 second inflicts 1 bleed per specified amount of time)

35
105 (+ 70)
210 (+ 105)
350 (+ 140)
525 (+ 175)
735 (+ 210)
980 (+ 245)
1,125 (+ 145)
1,170 (+ 45)
1,115 (-55)
1,060 (-55)
1,005 (-55)

And so on. I’ll skip the rest of the table, since from there it is simple division: at 32 seconds into the fight, the 100 damage per tick bleed will overtake the the 135 damage per tick bleed in overall damage. From that point on, any fight lasting longer than 32 seconds will be shorter with the 10 second 100 damage bleed. Now, the equation for this is a bit… nasty…

(D1-D2) x ((((D1 – D2) x T1/D2 + T1) ((D1 – D2 ) x T1/ D2 + T1 + 1))/2) / (D2T2 – D1T1)

You’re probably wondering what the hell. I’ll break it down. The “table” above is a finite sum that has two actions applied to it. It is in the form of the difference of tick intensity multiplied by the sum from 1 to the equivalence point above, all divided by the difference in the overall product of damage. Now, Sum (i = 1) k to N has the following form:

N(N + 1)/2

Where N is the equivalence point (D1 – D2 ) x T1/ D2 + T1. I’ll substitute this as EQP for now. The difference in intensity between the attacks is 35 (D1 – D2), and the difference in overall damage per application is 55 (100 × 10 – 135 × 7). Putting that into the equation:

35 x (EQP x (EQP + 1) / 2) / 55
= 35 × 49.376 / 55
= 1,728 / 55 = 31.4

Which is the exact time where they have matched. Now, this method is ever so slightly inaccurate, as condition work at solid intervals of damage and are not continuous, but if they were continuous then this would be the moment where the attacks are equal. So 32 seconds (that is, the 32nd tick after applying the first condition) is when the longer condi beats out the shorter condi. From that point on, the longer condi will kill the enemy faster.

You’re probably wondering why you haven’t seen this equation before. The reason why is because this equation is for an unrealistic circumstance. Attack rates are varied, and the sustained rates of conditions are held up by a complex rotation of skills, and not just auto attacks. The rate at which extra ticks are gained varies depending on skill rotation, and in many circumstances a full set of a particular kind of condition can be applied and expired long before it gets reapplied.

This may seem like a lot, but keep in mind that your example was chosen specifically with very little difference between overall damage between the conditions. In my dreaded Sinister vs. Viper thread, I found quite consistently that the intensity between the two sets was actually quite small. Under full sets (exotic) with max might, the difference between Viper and Sinister in intensity was below 10% (I.E. 143 vs. 155 bleed), and the duration advantage was sitting at 39%. If we were to give maximum possible advantage to sinister without assuming redundancy and gave it 61% condi duration and Viper 100% condi duration, you’d get numbers much closer to 11.25 second bleed for 155 vs. 14 second bleed for 143. There, any advantage gained per stack in intensity is immediately consumed and overtaken the moment the longer condition ticks 1 additional time. Going with that 1 second auto attack inflicts 1 bleed model, the total advantage gained in intensity by sinister is gone by the 16 second mark.

I mentioned it in the other post before that the break even points between malice and expertise is around 1.1k malice for most conditions. If you’re running a condition build, expect to see 2k+ malice on a regular basis.

So the moral of today’s story is that whatever basis you’re using has nothing on stoichiometry and calculus.

In an Asura voice

What a bunch of bookahs

NatureNinga.1258:

Abridged to save space no disrespect

Right now, the biggest problem with DGraves is that he is trying to twist numbers around to make it look like intensity always wins out, period.

The nature of duration vs. intensity is something that has been discussed at length for awhile now, and we’ve all come to the same conclusion. You want to take Sinister if

A) The fights are short. Note: the definition of “short” changes between classes. I.E. necromancer condis take forever to tick away, but guardian condis apply and expire in mere moments, so there are enemies where you’d want a sinister necro, but a condi guard.
B) Condi cleanses are a significant factor, such that it is unlikely to get extra ticks from Viper.
C) Your class is mono-condition based and can already get max duration for that condi in sinister.

Take Viper if

A)The fights are longer.
B)The fights are dangerous enough that you need to disengage or heal fallen allies. This gives more time for those extra ticks to roll through.
C)Your class uses a wide range of diverse damaging conditions.

Now PVP is one of those strange cases. While cleanses are a factor, the fights are also dangerous enough that you might have to disengage for a period of time, or the enemy will be invulnerable for a period of time, leading to extra ticks from Viper.

If you’re talking about regular PVE mobs, then Sinister is definitely better than Viper. If you’re talking vets, then Sinister and Viper are probably about equal. If you’re talking silvers or higher, then Viper is definitely better.

Now, personally I’ve always had a certain motto when it comes to gaming: Always prepare for the harder fight. The pushovers, they die in 8 seconds anyway. In that time frame, viper will does 89% of the condi damage of sinister, so that enemy dies in 9 seconds instead. You’re not suddenly going to lose a fight because of that additional single second. But, when you’re fighting a legendary, who can sometimes take several minutes, with Vipers is shaving that time down by 15-20%, suddenly you’ve got a full 30 seconds to spare. Go into a raid, then Vipers can buy you an extra minute on the clock, easily.

DGraves.3720:

“A. 100 damage attack, 1 attack per second, 0% crit. 100 dps.
B. 100 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 100% duration. 100 dps.
C. 50 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 200% duration. 100 dps.”

Equivalency. The attack that does 50 damage per second does… 50 DPS. It just does it over twitch as many ticks. This is not 100 DPS. This is why you don’t equate variables.

You’re either mentally challenged (which would explain all your posts) or this is the dead giveaway that you’re just trolling.

Sourde Noire.5286:

DGraves.3720:

“A. 100 damage attack, 1 attack per second, 0% crit. 100 dps.
B. 100 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 100% duration. 100 dps.
C. 50 condi attack, 1 attack per second, 200% duration. 100 dps.”

Equivalency. The attack that does 50 damage per second does… 50 DPS. It just does it over twitch as many ticks. This is not 100 DPS. This is why you don’t equate variables.

You’re either mentally challenged (which would explain all your posts) or this is the dead giveaway that you’re just trolling.

oO you don’t have to be rude just because someone is wrong. In fact he isn’t. He’s just regarding the first tic or disregard dot-stacking (THAT’S what’s wrong).

dont listen to this troll. stop feeding him.

Aro.8275:

So to summarize, Sinister is better for shorter fights while Viper is better for longer fights?

Generally speaking, yes. Specifically? Depends, a lot. My guardian’s burning build was capable of exceeding 100% duration to burning without even touching viper stats. At that point, why would I bother reducing my damage in favor of a stat who’s benefit is literally non-existent.

Pretty sure we can also ignore dgraves and report his threads as troll threads at this point. I mean, they never actually become discussions in any point of life.

I am going to put this to rest because honestly I don’t want to read all that over a simple linear equation.

I went and grabbed the ascended numbers.
Viper’s condition damage is 1192.
Sinister’s condition damage is 1382.

Taking a 1s bleed & burn I tested for when Sinister’s stacks outperformed Viper’s though this could be done with any trade-off between the two.

1382 * .155 * 1.73 = 370.5833
1192 * .155 * 2 = 369.52

1382 * .06 * 1.73 = 143.4516
1192 * .06 * 2 = 143.04

I did a ratio test, the ratio is 1.002878 for both so it passes as a function. This means that having it be 50s or 50,000s will produce the same result thus the same difference.

Analysis:

Viper’s gives ~42% condition duration at 635 expertise. Of that with sinister outperforming just in the gear (considering nothing else, Optimization in Differences) ~ 27% of that is waste stats which equals 405 expertise that should actually be condition damage when considering double length.

At this exact value considering no additions over the course of a minute you would lose 24.696 damage per stack of bleed by using the doubled value, simply found by taking the base bleed of 143.04 and multiplying it out by 60 to 8582.4 at double length versus 143.4516 at 60 for a total of 8607.96.

Conclusion:

The math is right there. Anyone can do this themselves and get the same results. The effect of stacking doesn’t change this since the crest value is equivalent to the product of a single-second capture of any condition. If you have a higher condition duration than 173% through food, for instance, you are not hurting your damage because Veggie Pizza gives condition damage and is not traded off for condition duration, the same is true of sigils which improve condition damage and duration, any effects which may from your traits or skills, and so forth and so on.

I overestimated that it was 178% when it is truthfully 173% (the actual number is 172.52%).

Anyone who has inquiries and would like to offer a rebuttal please do so with a formula that is fully testable in this format:

( Condition Damage x Base Condition Length x Condition Duration x Coefficient )

I will test your formula. I don’t think it is worthy to discuss a linear formula and truth be told someone in this thread thought that condition damage had diminishing returns so I can’t fathom how riveting a discussion on this would be.

TL;DR: Only wear what you need to in order to get 73% condition duration. Anything more than that is a waste. After that point go full condition damage.

Somehow I think that 1 sec bleed was intentional rather than the duration most bleeds last.

Your condition damage numbers are also low. I have 1595 condition damage using the meta engi build. The damage would be a little higher if I used an ascended backpack and infusions. Condition duration for bleeds and burning are at 94.66% with food/crystal.

You’re missing the point where we said that Condition Duration is better for LONG fights. 1 second does not make a long fight.

Please come back when you test for the length of long fights. Look at the timers for various world bosses and raid bosses for inspiration on how long your trial should last.