Guild Wars 2

This isn’t really a rant, and the title is more of a conclusion I’ve come to through WvW gameplay.

I main a ranger and I know some of you are thinking “conditions should be a problem for you”. I wish you were right, I really do.

So I’ll give you the build I went with for this little test.

Melandru runes + lemongrass.

Pet: Brown Bear

Traits of interest: Keen Edge, Empathic Bond, Shared Anguish, Wilderness Knowledge, Evasive Purity, Survival of the Fittest

Skills: Healing Spring, Lightning Reflexes, Quickening Zephyr, Signet of Renewal, Entangle

So I’ve pretty much spec’ed full out condi removal. In most 1 vs 1 fights, there isn’t an issue. The conditions go on, they come off. Except for Condi Engineers who can spam them faster than I can remove them. Now ignoring the Engineers for a moment, facing just 2 or more opponents and the conditions can not be removed fast enough.

So vs 1 I’m good but vs 2 and they get put on faster than I can take them off. Except when it comes to Engineers, it sounds pretty even right?

Well, it’s not.

There are three stats when it comes to physical damage. Power, precision, and ferocity. There are only two when it comes to conditions. Damage and Duration.

But that isn’t the root of the problem.

Taking the runes and food into consideration, it works off of . So the longer the duration (in seconds), the more the condition is shorted by (in seconds). If condition damage could only be increased by increasing the duration, then the 65 reduction to the time is a direct 65% reduction to the damage.

So rather than stack duration, stack damage instead. This greatly minimizes the reducing effect of the runes + food. It also mean more damage is done between the time it is applied and the opponents ability to remove it.

But wait, it gets worse.

There is no stat on gear for condition duration. There is just condition damage. This leaves two more stats to choose from. So you can take Toughness and Healing Power if you like.

The real issue is with the numbers than can be achieved via condi vs physical. I’ve seen bleeds doing 500 to 750 dmg per second. Poison doing another 250 to 500. Plus torment, burning, etc. All coming from one person. Easily adding up to ~1.5k to 2k damage per second. To get that kind of dps for physical, you are looking at two maybe all three stats for physical. Leaving just one free stat or none at all.

There isn’t an equal trade off. Physical has to trade off damage with tankiness, while condi builds get to do the damage while being tanky.

My suggestion is to reduce the base damage of conditions, and add a ‘condition duration’ stat to the existing gear stat combinations. This way, if they want to get back to the overall damage they were doing before the reduction, they’ll have to pick gear with the ‘condition duration’ stat as well as the ‘condition damage’ stat. Meaning they’ll have to give up some tankiness or physical dps (if Condi/Prec/x).

Conditions have been overpowered for nearly 2 years now, and they’re pretty much unavoidable damage. Really makes the game unfun in PVP.

It’s one of thise things that’s just crazy wonky in Guild Wars 2: Conditions are super powerful in PvP, debatably decent in WvW (depending on what it is you’re doing), and utter trash in all but Solo, Open Map PvE.

While their are a lot of potential bandaid fixes (with thousands upon thousands of the like suggested throughout the forums), it sorta seems like the system needs a complete overhaul (on both the application/damage side as well as the cleansing/reduction side) to make it… Not ridiculously wonky across the board.

And unfortunately that’s the type of thing that Anet doesn’t really like to do to much

It came out in late 2012 and we’ve had astonishingly few balance changes over the years, so I wouldn’t count on it.

Other games are completely foreign after about half a year, while the majority of abilities and traits have been the same since launch here, mostly getting “skill facts” in patches.

Wouldn’t go with taking away the spare stat slot for conditions though – Thats the main thing it has over Berserker in PvE. You deal less damage but are a lot more survivable.

OP… wth??? You are a Ranger, go glass LB and you do 6k-10k #2 and 2k-4k auto attacks. How long does it take condition damage to match that? Expecting to be completely impervious to condition damage is ludicrous.

You forgot precision to be able to actually stack conditions properly.

And then the fact you can out damage a condi-spec with power pretty easily.

Vitality is the defense stat against conditions, and toughness is the defense stat against power damage. There are skills for mitigating condition damage (removal) and also skills for mitigating power damage.

Sounds like you are complaining over nothing. You shouldn’t win an outnumbered fight unless your opponents are really bad.

And the trade-off for power-based builds are really class dependent, with a class like Warrior you can have both armor and attack close to 3k.

Shiyo.3578:

Conditions have been overpowered for nearly 2 years now, and they’re pretty much unavoidable damage. Really makes the game unfun in PVP.

No, they haven’t and they aren’t unavoidable damage either.

Not sure if serious…

If you are serious, then why do you think you should be able to negate 100% of condition damage? That is a nonsensical argument. Of course you should take damage from conditions, and of course you should lose a 2v1.

gf left me coz of conditions

No class should win in a 1 v 2 or that class IS op. A player can win 1 v 2 but not a class base more of skills or the lack of them. At the end of the day though this game is not 1v1 aimed some classes are simply better at singling out one person and doing a lot all at once where other classes are far better at doing AoE dmg effect etc.. making them weaker in 1v1 but very good in x v x.

Condi does less damage than burst. The thing is, condi cannot be dodged, blocked, etc. in the same was as burst can because condi is applied by auto-attack in many cases. Thus, the counter-play is cleansing.

So, I’ll ask this. Should a skilled player be able to completely mitigate the damage of two skilled players using burst? Or should the duo be able to draw out the solo’s invulnerability frames, leaving him vulnerable to burst? Since some bursts kills can be avoided via mobility, there’s also the issue of avoiding CC or timing stun break.

Condi removal is at least half passive. It takes less skill to counter condi, and it takes less skill to apply it. That’s what I see as the issue.

First misconception: Toughness is for physical and Vitality is for condition. While the first part is true, toughness does reduce physical damage, the second part is deceitful. For the reason vitality is effective vs conditions, it is just as effective vs physical damage too.

Second Misconception: Precision for conditions. The only time precision will help a condition build is if that build makes use of ‘on crit’ condition sigils. Too niche to count.

@DeWolfe: I went with this build just to test it out. There are more condi builds roaming around in WvW than there are physical builds (a sign in itself) and I wanted to see if there was a counter build I could go with. It was a test and not my usual build. Speaking of counters…

@Zudet: Because every build should have a counter build. It’s called balance. An anti condition build should counter a condition build and my pretty much did in 1v1. Except for a condi built engi. An anti condition build doesn’t prevent them from putting the conditions on you thus you don’t negate anything. You only mitigate.

As for 2v1, this had nothing to do with winning or losing. It had to do with being able to remove conditions. In fact, in most 1v1 encounters it often resulted in a stalemate. They can’t damage me with their conditions faster than I can heal myself back up and I can’t do enough physical damage to them as they are to bunkered. That was the whole point. Condi builds can have the benefit of both. Sounds like some didn’t bother to read and just skimmed. I even stated that being able to remove the conditions vs 1 but not being able to vs 2 or more was balanced when I said…

“So vs 1 I’m good but vs 2 and they get put on faster than I can take them off. Except when it comes to Engineers, it sounds pretty even right?”

Condis overpowered? Maybe that is why all the core wvw meta is power based. Warrior, guardian, necro, ele, thief and mesmer all running power based builds. Good luck trying to apply condi when the zerg has shouts, purging flames, warhorn, -40% condi, hoelbrak, etc….

@Deam

Every class but guardians has a bleed on crit trait. A fairly significant amount of bleeding comes from that + the earth sigil – A single weapon on it’s own tends to only sustain about 6-7 stacks of bleed, before sigils, traits, swapping and utility.

So i would say that precision is pretty important to condition builds.

First of all, I think it’s reasonable that you should lose when outnumbered by two condition users.

Second, condition mitigation is possible even against an Engineer, as I main one and I find people constantly cleansing them/turning them into buffs immediately and then bursting me down in two seconds despite my high toughness. We may have a little power, especially with Sinister gear, but usually due to the other stat combos, all we have is our condition damage. If being able to completely mitigate it and burst us down is “fair” then we have a problem, because I can’t completely mitigate huge burst physical damage.

Jonii.6285:

First of all, I think it’s reasonable that you should lose when outnumbered by two condition users.

Second, condition mitigation is possible even against an Engineer, as I main one and I find people constantly cleansing them/turning them into buffs immediately and then bursting me down in two seconds despite my high toughness. We may have a little power, especially with Sinister gear, but usually due to the other stat combos, all we have is our condition damage. If being able to completely mitigate it and burst us down is “fair” then we have a problem, because I can’t completely mitigate huge burst physical damage.

Honest question as I have not yet played an engineer; does that class not have access to blind, interrupt, dodge, stealth, Aegis, etc? Any of those has the potential to negate a huge damage burst.

If things are balanced you should ALWAYS lose a 1v2, bringing that up is irrelevant.

Ashen.2907:

Honest question as I have not yet played an engineer; does that class not have access to blind, interrupt, dodge, stealth, Aegis, etc? Any of those has the potential to negate a huge damage burst.

They do have access to most of that, though often walled behind different kits that must be switched to, aimed, and cast (or set up over several seconds in the case of stealth) all while getting interrupted and burst down ourselves. If you’re fast and can keep distance for a few seconds, it works well, but if the conditions keep getting taken off or turned into buffs, we aren’t doing much damage while we mitigate physical damage.

I’m not saying condi’s underpowered, but I don’t believe for a second that we’re out of control or can’t be easily controlled one on one. The OP even says that ze has no problems one on one with beating a condi user.

Terrahero.9358:

Shiyo.3578:

Conditions have been overpowered for nearly 2 years now, and they’re pretty much unavoidable damage. Really makes the game unfun in PVP.

No, they haven’t and they aren’t unavoidable damage either.

They’re 100% unavoidable damage, whenever you die in in any PVP mode 95% of the damage you take is always from conditions because you can’t avoid 100% of it’s damage with dodges/evades/etc like you can with obvious easily telegraphed power based/burst attacks. Condition removal doesn’t help vs real condition classes either.

xDudisx.5914:

Condis overpowered? Maybe that is why all the core wvw meta is power based. Warrior, guardian, necro, ele, thief and mesmer all running power based builds. Good luck trying to apply condi when the zerg has shouts, purging flames, warhorn, -40% condi, hoelbrak, etc….

Oh really…

Guardians are for condi cleansing (why would that be) and might stacking (which increases both physical and condition damage). They offer group healing as well as speed buffs while on the move. You want them tanky because a Guard that drops on the first push isn’t doing anybody any good. Ok, they do the opposing zerg good by being a rally bag.

Warriors are for shouts and banners. Shouts heal and can also remove conditions while the banner is to get the downed back up. Warhorn for swiftness. Again you want them tanky for the same reason as Guardians.

Necros are wanted for the wells. Not because the damage the wells do but rather for Well of Corruption to turn the boons on the enemy into conditions and well of Power to convert conditions on allies into boons (as well as give stability).

Mesmers are for Time Warp, Portals, and Veil.

Ele’s are for water fields and taking out siege, providing icebow and fiery great sward, and static fields for swiftness while moving.

Thieves and Rangers are often asked to rez downed allies and stomp downed enemies. They are also asked to scout for the enemy and to flip nearby camps while the main zerg focuses on the tower/keep/castle.

Engi’s….I’ve never heard any commander call upon engi’s for anything. They basically lob nades into the fray. When traited, can be a good way to stack bleeding.

Our server groups up to better distribute buffs, etc. Despite the constant cleansing (which is an absolute must), every member of every party I’ve been in, in the middle of a zerg v zerg, has had a constant application of conditions. What really keeps people alive is all the shared heals which out heal the damage being done from both physical and conditions alike.

Sorry but as someone who is experienced in WvW and ZvZ, your ‘physical damage meta’ in ZvZ just isn’t there. The weapons of choice for the warriors and guardians when in a ZvZ is the hammer. That’s the ZvZ meta and has been for a while. It’s called the ‘Hammer Train’ for a reason. A zerg is often called a train and everyone that can use a hammer does so because the cc spam is another issue on it’s own. When you have 30+ players cleaving you, they each don’t need to do a lot of physical damage, they do enough combined to kill you in less than a second if it were not for the heals, buffs, condition cleansing, etc.

That’s why putting pressure on the back line is so important.

Krestfallen.8025:

It’s one of thise things that’s just crazy wonky in Guild Wars 2: Conditions are super powerful in PvP, debatably decent in WvW (depending on what it is you’re doing), and utter trash in all but Solo, Open Map PvE.

The basic issue is that mobs and characters are not the same, but the limitations of the engine and server code is set based on character vs character (aka PVP) fights.

This then throws the whole attempt at balancing PVE and PVP as one out the window.

Frankly all the major issues with PVE can be traced back to how the mobs violate just about every hard set limit on character capability.

It’s fun to slap a Koi Cake on my necro and watch the power difference due to the condition duration win battles for me.

Deamhan.9538:

xDudisx.5914:

Condis overpowered? Maybe that is why all the core wvw meta is power based. Warrior, guardian, necro, ele, thief and mesmer all running power based builds. Good luck trying to apply condi when the zerg has shouts, purging flames, warhorn, -40% condi, hoelbrak, etc….

Oh really…

Guardians are for condi cleansing (why would that be) and might stacking (which increases both physical and condition damage). They offer group healing as well as speed buffs while on the move. You want them tanky because a Guard that drops on the first push isn’t doing anybody any good. Ok, they do the opposing zerg good by being a rally bag.

Warriors are for shouts and banners. Shouts heal and can also remove conditions while the banner is to get the downed back up. Warhorn for swiftness. Again you want them tanky for the same reason as Guardians.

Necros are wanted for the wells. Not because the damage the wells do but rather for Well of Corruption to turn the boons on the enemy into conditions and well of Power to convert conditions on allies into boons (as well as give stability).

Mesmers are for Time Warp, Portals, and Veil.

Ele’s are for water fields and taking out siege, providing icebow and fiery great sward, and static fields for swiftness while moving.

Thieves and Rangers are often asked to rez downed allies and stomp downed enemies. They are also asked to scout for the enemy and to flip nearby camps while the main zerg focuses on the tower/keep/castle.

Engi’s….I’ve never heard any commander call upon engi’s for anything. They basically lob nades into the fray. When traited, can be a good way to stack bleeding.

Our server groups up to better distribute buffs, etc. Despite the constant cleansing (which is an absolute must), every member of every party I’ve been in, in the middle of a zerg v zerg, has had a constant application of conditions. What really keeps people alive is all the shared heals which out heal the damage being done from both physical and conditions alike.

Sorry but as someone who is experienced in WvW and ZvZ, your ‘physical damage meta’ in ZvZ just isn’t there. The weapons of choice for the warriors and guardians when in a ZvZ is the hammer. That’s the ZvZ meta and has been for a while. It’s called the ‘Hammer Train’ for a reason. A zerg is often called a train and everyone that can use a hammer does so because the cc spam is another issue on it’s own. When you have 30+ players cleaving you, they each don’t need to do a lot of physical damage, they do enough combined to kill you in less than a second if it were not for the heals, buffs, condition cleansing, etc.

That’s why putting pressure on the back line is so important.

Are you trying to say hammer is a condi weapon now?

Cleaving dms is phisical dmg. The discussion is between condi dmg vs direct dmg. No one said you cant heal, cc, or etc and be direct dmg at the same time. Think before posting a text wall that is irrelevant to the topic

Some weapons have some dmg condis here and there but they are just a side effect.

Mesmer, thief, warrior, necro, ele, mesmer main source of dmg is direct dmg.

No I’m saying that they use a hammer (physical damage) for the cc and not for the damage. The physical damage is inconsequential. You’re the one that made up the existence of a physical damage meta in WvW zergs. Which is exactly that, something you just made up since such a meta doesn’t exist. The meta is hammer for the cc and not damage.

The bulk of the damage is physical because outside their utility roles, it’s a cleave fest. Just spam 1. It’s not the focus by any means.

Deamhan.9538:

No I’m saying that they use a hammer (physical damage) for the cc and not for the damage. The physical damage is inconsequential. You’re the one that made up the existence of a physical damage meta in WvW zergs. Which is exactly that, something you just made up since such a meta doesn’t exist. The meta is hammer for the cc and not damage.

Still the stats of preference is power based. Or do you run around with dire/carion/rabid instead of soldier/zerker/etc ?

The Guards and Warriors will often run Soldier or Clerics for the survivability (Clerics to increase the effectiveness of their shared healing). Not sure why you used it as an example of a physical damage build along with zerker. Knights yes but Soldier is for a tank build. You know, that trade off that condi builds get the best of both of… Knights gives decent physical damage with some survivability vs physical damage. If you want more physical damage, you have to give up the survivability by switching from knights to zerker.

Regarding the other classes, they can run dire/carion/rabid if they wish. It doesn’t diminish their role within the zerg and it’s actually better for them when they are not with the zerg.

Mesmer meta is condition based
Thief meta is condition based
Engi meta is condition based
Necro meta is condition based
Ranger meta is condition based

Deamhan.9538:

The Guards and Warriors will often run Soldier or Clerics for the survivability (Clerics to increase the effectiveness of their shared healing). Not sure why you used it as an example of a physical damage build along with zerker. Knights yes but Soldier is for a tank build. You know, that trade off that condi builds get the best of both of… Knights gives decent physical damage with some survivability vs physical damage. If you want more physical damage, you have to give up the survivability by switching from knights to zerker.

Regarding the other classes, they can run dire/carion/rabid if they wish. It doesn’t diminish their role within the zerg and it’s actually better for them when they are not with the zerg.

Mesmer meta is condition based
Thief meta is condition based
Engi meta is condition based
Necro meta is condition based
Ranger meta is condition based

Again you are avoinding the topic. The discussion is condi vs direct dmg. Not how much you focus in offensive or not. Cleric, zerker ,soldier, knights, etc are all power based.

Necro meta is condi? By that statement I know you have 0 experience in wvw. Necro and mesmer if in a zerg are power based. Engi is not even in the meta.

Look at the nonsence that you are spreading in the forums. You just said that "they can run dire/carion/rabid if they wish. It doesn’t diminish their role within the zerg ". So for you running the complete wrong gear is not diminishing their permance? Good luck trying to run with no zerker necro and ho with all dire ele/mesmer/thieves vs any competent guild group.

There is no place for damaging conditions in zerging.

I almost exlusively play in WvW and I have a lvl 80 warrior, necro (oldest char), Thief, and ranger. One of each class. Darkhaven, driven by the zerg busting comm Tryden in EB.

Yes the discussion is condi vs physical but how much you focus on offensive or not is very much part of that point.

Hey. I think there is one additional problem with conditions. The lost quarterseconds. I am not a fan of exactly calculating the duration, not any skill inflicts the condition for thesame time anyway. If the guardian has + 50 % burning duration, but has only the passive virtue, the two quarterseconds are useless. If a Thief has +24% bleeding duration on Pistols, the bleeding of the auto ist not affected, if it is 25% longer, you deal also 25% more damage…

Chris.6105:

Hey. I think there is one additional problem with conditions. The lost quarterseconds. I am not a fan of exactly calculating the duration, not any skill inflicts the condition for thesame time anyway. If the guardian has + 50 % burning duration, but has only the passive virtue, the two quarterseconds are useless. If a Thief has +24% bleeding duration on Pistols, the bleeding of the auto ist not affected, if it is 25% longer, you deal also 25% more damage…

Not quite true. All conditions applied to a character tick at exactly the same time (save Confusion). If a person has a 5 second poison on them, then .95 seconds in, get a 1.1 second bleed, that 1.1 second bleed will tick twice (at the 1 and 2 second marks). If it were applied .5 seconds in, it would only tick once.

Technically an impossible situation, since no bleed lasts less than 2 seconds, but it illustrates the mechanics.

Didn’t know this, but I think the situation doesn’t change that much. One second more or less Iis on second more or less

Chris.6105:

Didn’t know this, but I think the situation doesn’t change that much. One second more or less Iis on second more or less

It basically means that, on average, a 25% increase in duration results in a 25% increase of damage, regardless of how long the base duration is.

Honestly, it’s my belief that people just don’t know which skills are the heavy-hitters with conditions. The reason? Those skills tend to have low direct damage numbers, so people don’t recognize them as the nasty ones.

For example, Blood is Power drops two, 30 second base bleeds. The direct damage? Very low, even in Zerker builds. Usual damage dealt by just the bleeding in a (non-optimized) condition build? ~9k.

Knowing this, would you dodge it?

People that know and avoid the hard-hitting condition skills or save their cleanses for after them don’t see them as OP.

Deamhan.9538:

…An anti condition build doesn’t prevent them from putting the conditions on you thus you don’t negate anything. You only mitigate…

..They can’t damage me with their conditions faster than I can heal myself back up and I can’t do enough physical damage to them as they are to bunkered. That was the whole point…

This game isn’t and shouldn’t be about hard counters. It’s bad enough that BS traits like Diamondskin were put into the game.

And if your intention was to be able to defeat condi builds and not just bunker/stalement then you took too much condi removal. Condi builds win by attrition and you beat them by taking just enough condi removal and DPS (good DPS, not bunker DPS) them down quickly before they can gain the advantage. The only class that can win against condis by bunkering as far as I know is elementalist, because they can might stack like crazy over the course of the battle.

The biggest issue really with WvW roaming is the ridiculous +40/-40 food and not condi builds themselves.