Guild Wars 2

Condi’s are being criticised by all 3 player groups right now, PvE, PvP and WvW. It’s clear something has to be done but blanket nerfs to condi is not really a solution imo. I don’t think you’re going to be able to find a balance between power and condi damage with the current design of condi’s. While the changes of the last patch have gone a long way in fixing the problems of condi in this game it fell short of what need to be done. I see 3 major problems with the state of condi.

The first is the way a lot of condi is applied. Traits that trigger on crit like incen powder cause trouble for wvw/pvp as there’s no way to avoid it. Changing that to something like weapon skills that blind now apply burn would solve that(static shot, blind grenade). As well, some builds have a lot of damage coming from skills that have low cd or no cd, referred to as “condi spam”. These builds are not fun to fight against as no matter what you avoid you never feel ahead. They don’t rely on landing skills with any significant cooldown. This is still a problem for players in PvE where ramp up time is a problem(which you didn’t but should have addressed in the patch). Rather then being able to throw medium to high cd skills onto a mob and start doing high dps these builds need to auto attack or cycle a few low cd’s to reach that plateau. Buff high cd skills nerf auto’s/low cd (specific skills not all skills).

The second is condition duration. Right now you focus gear mostly on just the one stat and grab condition duration from food/runes and giver weapons(Where the trade off stat/duration is insanely good). Things like dire gear allow condi to become tank as well as maxed out condi damage. The solution imo is to change condi duration to be like ferocity, fixed stat to percentage, and incorporate it into gear. Take a swipe at the duration of all skills if you still want +100% duration to be a thing. With fixing on-crit traits the use of precision in condi builds might not be so essential but vuln-on crit and small bleed-on crit traits should keep it necessary for high dps builds. In which case c-damage/c-duration/precision would be the zerker equivalent for condi.

Third is just that some skills were way over buffed during the change. Ring of Fire doesn’t need to be 3×5. Don’t want to go into specific skills as that always results the thread being derailed and people trying to defend there class or call another op.

My immediate thought is the separation of PvP and PvE when nerfing/balancing skills.

Please don’t break usability in PvE when nerfing for PvP.

Disclaimer, I haven’t had time to play since the update dropped so I don’t have firsthand knowledge of the exact nature of the imbalances, I’m not claiming everything is perfectly fine in PvE. Just wishing for care not to break PvE for the sake of PvP (I’ve recently returned from a game doing that really badly, would hate to have to deal with it again)

I think many players are pointing out that it’s not so much the conditions themselves that are OP, but some of the skills that apply conditions were mis-tuned. Especially burning conditions.

ScribeTheMad.7614:

My immediate thought is the separation of PvP and PvE when nerfing/balancing skills.

Please don’t break usability in PvE when nerfing for PvP.

I think the necessity for having to separate skills in the past was due to a number of factors:
1. High vital, low toughness mobs <— fixed in some area’s like worm and silverwaste
2. No condi version of zerker gear which meant condi either couldn’t compete with power on damage or was tanky
3. Unavoidable damage in pvp (like old dhummfire/incen powder)
4. Duration stacking caused condi to under-perform in groups <— fixed

I’m certainly not opposed to splitting but I think its not necessary.

yes please! since you don’t seem to read necro forum let it be said here! be careful with my poor necro okay? pay attention please!

People can stand zerker meta for almost 3 years, but when condis go strong it’s all “oh mai gahd nerffzz pl0x”.

Einlanzer.1627:

I think many players are pointing out that it’s not so much the conditions themselves that are OP, but some of the skills that apply conditions were mis-tuned. Especially burning conditions.

This. Some classes can stack ridiculous amounts of Burning, for instance (Guardian) but the condition itself isn’t the problem.

DON’T knee-jerk nerf the conditions; adjust the skills that apply those conditions instead. Burning is SUPPOSED to deal high condition damage; you’re just not supposed to easily maintain a gazillion stacks of it.

idgaf what happens just dont nerf necros more…. :*(

Zalavaaris.5329:

idgaf what happens just dont nerf necros more…. :*(

+1
The only good part about condition Necro right now is that is destroys the OP condition builds other classes have by giving them their OP conditions back.

I think a blanket nerf will fix most of the problems…..

Valento.9852:

People can stand zerker meta for almost 3 years, but when condis go strong it’s all “oh mai gahd nerffzz pl0x”.

LOL! summed up so beautifully!

Valento.9852:

People can stand zerker meta for almost 3 years, but when condis go strong it’s all “oh mai gahd nerffzz pl0x”.

Except that zerker was meta in pve, not wvw or pvp. Failed logic much?

Personally I don’t mind condi builds, but if they start outperforming in all areas of the game, something might be off.

Einlanzer.1627:

I think many players are pointing out that it’s not so much the conditions themselves that are OP, but some of the skills that apply conditions were mis-tuned. Especially burning conditions.

pretty much this. Many skills are still tuned for duration stacking instead of intensity stacking. The cast times, durations and number of stacks on these skills need to be fixed BEFORE any damage formulas are changed.

The problem is not with the DoT.The real problem is with the skills as some people already mentioned.So yea i agree that nerfing things only because they are OP is idiotic.Find the real problem and fix it.

Valento.9852:

People can stand zerker meta for almost 3 years, but when condis go strong it’s all “oh mai gahd nerffzz pl0x”.

People could stand zerker meta because you can dodge the bursts coming at you. You could also burst them down! Those fights often take one exchange of blows to decide the winner, a single mistake often means death.

As for most condi build, they require to run around and fire from afar to apply the conditions that will slowly grind down your enemy. If the enemy ever get close to you, you can still rely on your high toughness and vitality from that full Dire set to survive even the highest of burst that RNJesus allows a zerker will most likely not conclude that fight (even if a really small minority runs some precision, they are still the minority).

It might be slightly exaggerated, but my mind when I face a pure zerker is full of excitement while against a condi I often don’t reach the same battle spirit.

Just look at how each builds are played, look at the way the fights are concluded. The level of adrenaline is clearly not on the same level!

Zerker thief : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdx-ovYCqhQ
Condi thief : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNiwNY4wTtg

So basically I do feel like tuning down condis is not hard to understand.
-I am totally in accord to condis taking a bigger place in PVE since it is what was asked.
-I am totally fine with condis gaining more impact on team battles.
-I am not in accord to boosting conditions damage so it can compete in the dammage a glass cannon build may deal, unless they make it so that this condition build also require 3 offensive stats (thus becoming a glass cannon condi build).

Just…make toughness apply to conditions. Problem solved!

@Phantom I don’t understand your point. In principle, instead of dodging a damage burst, you’re dodging a condition burst. There is nothing broken with conditions in the mechanics per se. On the opposite, condis have one more way to be negated which is condi cleanse.

The problem is when some hard conditions (like burning) are applied on the AA. Hard condi should be on cooldowns and thus dodgeable, while AA should apply weak conditions like small bleeds or so.

+ I also think condi should crit on application (nothing wrong with the idea that you applied a particularly strong condi hit). This way you can nerf the base condi damage but get it back with a high crit chance. This would ensure people who want high condi damage cannot also take a defensive stat. So to get full condi power you should invest in 3 stats:
Berserker: power, precision, ferocity
maxcondi-prefix: condi damage, precision, condi duration

Silverkey.2078:

@Phantom I don’t understand your point.

Hhe’s saying condi builds as a whole are extremely safe and really easy to play with very high reward. This goes along with the whole defensive stat thing, though.

Which is pretty much true. I played P/D dire once with my face (literally, head on keyboard) and still won a large number of the fights I participated in, including some re-matches which Iost initially playing D/D stab which I’ve got a few thousand hours dumped into mastering.

I’m not sure what the stat combination should be, but it definitely shouldn’t be huge damage + two defensive stats.

Silverkey.2078:

@Phantom I don’t understand your point. In principle, instead of dodging a damage burst, you’re dodging a condition burst. There is nothing broken with conditions in the mechanics per se. On the opposite, condis have one more way to be negated which is condi cleanse.

The problem is when some hard conditions (like burning) are applied on the AA. Hard condi should be on cooldowns and thus dodgeable, while AA should apply weak conditions like small bleeds or so.

+ I also think condi should crit on application (nothing wrong with the idea that you applied a particularly strong condi hit). This way you can nerf the base condi damage but get it back with a high crit chance. This would ensure people who want high condi damage cannot also take a defensive stat. So to get full condi power you should invest in 3 stats:
Berserker: power, precision, ferocity
maxcondi-prefix: condi damage, precision, condi duration

Yes, sorry if I was not clear on my point!

My point was simply that auto attack should not become the main threat from ANY profession/class/build. I would love to see condi build with many different type of big ‘’burst condi application’’ with different cooldown that needs to be dodged/blocked (see here the example of the engineer ’’wrench’’).

I understand that you can cleanse conditions, thus there is a need to give enough condi application in order to make cleanse important. A wasted cleanse on a simple cripple could become fatal (like wasting your dodge rolls on auto attack as a zerker f1 from a warrior or a cloak and dagger from a thief arrives for you). As of right now, condi cleanse are generally able to save you from one burst of condi application, but when this application is based on the auto attack of your opponent, it becomes pretty pointless (exception to elementalist which are often considered a hard target for condi build).

My other point was pretty much related to the fact that many condi build still hits really hard in a full Dire scenario while a power build that goes full Soldier (power-vitality-toughness) can’t bring any kind of pressure that is similar to a condi build.

Basically, make the the high risk playstyle more rewarding and the passive playstyle to be less rewarding.