Guild Wars 2

ThomasC.1056:

Not talking about WvW, but in PvE, the meta is still “zerk or marauder or gtfo”. I was yesterday in mount draconis, with air overload eles all over the place, zerk GS warriors and staff DD that were one-shot killing each and every trash mobs all around… I had the hardest time finishing my renown heart with my condi necro.

So I understand that nerf.

Except nobody uses SWS in the open world. It simply isn’t needed. Just because you can faceroll everything in the open world with just about any build – both condi and power by the way – doesn’t mean a thing.

Speaking about PvE, there’s only one sensible measure of balance, and that’s raids. And there power dps was already falling out of favor, because condis are much more reliable. I understand the intent to counter the micromovement play, but it didn’t need to be done in this silly way. If anything, they could have removed the movement condition from SWS. This way it would still give a comparable (still lesser!) boost than the meta condi food and there would have been some sort of balance.

What they made is they’ve further imbalanced the condi vs power conundrum.

Condi players wanted to be viable when zerker was the only way to do anything. Now that Condi is viable the zerker people are mad because they are no longer king.

I do believe that they have maybe tipped the scales for condi but it doesn’t bother me because for years power was the only thing truly viable.

I think things will come to a place where power and condi players will have to learn to deal with each other’s strengths.

I hoping upcoming content may be the key to that.

There are no “power and condi players”. There are power and condi builds. I have characters built on power and others built on condi. What gets me mad isn’t that “power is no longer king”, it’s that they’ve nerfed the underperformer. It makes no sense and it’s bad for the balance.

Feanor.2358:

There are no “power and condi players”. There are power and condi builds. I have characters built on power and others built on condi. What gets me mad isn’t that “power is no longer king”, it’s that they’ve nerfed the underperformer. It makes no sense and it’s bad for the balance.

There are according to anet when they talk about power players using only one type of food and not realizing that most of the condi players are many more and using the same food too.

Power not been king for well over 2? years now to only nerf a food now for pure power dmg players is a heartless kick to some one who is already down.

Here is a PoV from a WvW players. The power dps thats in PvE will not be the same because the power dps seems really strong in PvE raids due to the fact that raid bosses have no toughness or damage reduction. They have a cc bar and a lot of vitality. The condition damage probably seemed lacking in dps because it wasn’t doing as much dps as the power builds. I get that.

Now you bring that balance into WvW. When it comes to WvW a lot of power damage gets mitigated from the face that there is so much passive healing, toughness, vitality and damage reduction buffs/passives. To get power dps out of your build in WvW you literally have to go full glass canon meaning running berserker or marauders.

Then you have condition damage which keeps getting buffed with every patch because it seems in week in raid bosses and that balance is affecting WvW. Condition build literally sacrifice nothing. The only you stat you need to do any sort of damage is just condition damage rest of the stat can be put into toughness and vitality making these condition build super defensive.

I dont have problem with conditions doing damage and being usefull. The only problem I am having is with Arena Net trying to bring condition damage along side power is hurting WvW quite a bit. A lot more players are burning out and leaving the game. Condition damage and stacking is just way too out of control in WvW right now.

morrolan.9608:

Obtena.7952:

BlackDragon.2084:

I like to play Condi and Power builds. But I also think Condi is OP, because I have fun with both builds. I don’t want to make it so that one build is OP but that both have a reason to exist in all game aspects. I like to play a power Thief or Ele but Necro I like to play Condi. But I don’t want to be forced to play my Ele and Thief as Condi to be allowed in Raids or so or to change my Necro to power. I think there would have been better ways to create some sort of balance between this builds.

Good sentiment but unfortunately, the game has never worked that way ever. There is clearly not objective at Anet to make equivalently performing builds. Therefore, it makes no sense to lament something that never was.

Let me get this straight you’re saying anet don’t want class balance. Well that would explain a few things if true but I highly doubt that it is true.

I don’t think that they don’t want it but I do think they are knowledgeable enough to know how hard and fruitless such a goal would be. I don’t think you can come to any other conclusion; have you seen anything in the game that makes you conclude that Anet is working towards overall class balance and equivalent builds in and between classes the last 5 years this game existed? No way.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Here is a PoV from a WvW players. The power dps thats in PvE will not be the same because the power dps seems really strong in PvE raids due to the fact that raid bosses have no toughness or damage reduction. They have a cc bar and a lot of vitality. The condition damage probably seemed lacking in dps because it wasn’t doing as much dps as the power builds. I get that.

You get it wrong. Condi dps outperforms power on most raid bosses. It already did prior to SWS nerf.

Power DPS HEAVILY relies on near, if not 100%, quickness and alacrity uptime. This means, outside of raid instances with good chronos, condi VASTLY outperforms power – condi outperforms power in nearly all encounters as is.

There’s some underlining factors that are cause for major concern when it comes to condi. Some of these include:
1: Condi really scales off of 2 stats – to be honest, it’s really 1 stat because condi application is just that rampant.
2: Power scales off of 3 stats – there’s no way around this.
3: Condi ignores armour.
4: Power is heavily influenced by armour.
5: Condi damage ticks following application are not reliant on external forces.
6: Power damage ticks are heavily reliant on external forces – quickness and alacrity.

Having said that, this has been mentioned for years and ANet has paid no attention to it. So, don’t expect any changes. Balancing has been and will likely continue being terrible.

There is also the fact that the SwS nerf really hit Guardians harder than most other classes. This is because every other class, minus Rev and Ele but Rev got a condi buff and I saw condi ele with the glyph change pulled 38k as condi, has a viable condi build in high end raids. Meanwhile Guardian is the only class without a truly viable condi build so they are forced to go power so the nerf hits them full on. Maybe if anet brought over the sPvP VoJ to PvE (4s burns instead of 2s) and made spirit weapons like necro minions (last until killed) then Guard would actually have a viable condi build unlike now.

Don’t get me wrong, I play condi in Open World on my Guardian, but that is mainly because I can keep 25 might up myself and have easy condi cleanse as well as mass AoE. But for anything that matters, Power is the way to go and for Guardian it got nerfed.

And this is the problem that keeps me in PvE and out of PvP and WvW. I have 7 professions now – Guardian being the most recent to level 80 (a week or 2 old). I absolutely love playing Power Necro in PvE. It is a blast. Taking that to PvP or WvW? Yeah, no. Joy left the building and left frustration in charge.

Asur.9178:

Power DPS HEAVILY relies on near, if not 100%, quickness and alacrity uptime. This means, outside of raid instances with good chronos, condi VASTLY outperforms power – condi outperforms power in nearly all encounters as is.

You will have to excuse me here, but where is power inherently better with Quickness or Alacrity than Conditions.

Applying 1,5x as many conditions deals exactly 50% more damage, too.

Ah, I just re-read, and there’s more factual errors in your post. Nevermind in that case, figured you’re just bitter.

One idea for rebalancing would be to rework vulnerability so that, instead of boosting direct and condi damage by a fixed %, it reduces Armor by a flat amount for each stack. The amount of armor reduction could be scaled by condi damage stat. It would have the benefit of blunting the nerf on condis, since they will become more effective at supplying vuln stacks. However, the DPS boost would go entirely to power builds.

It could further be reworked to reinforce coordinated direct damage spiking, by balancing the armor reduction so that the effective damage increase can go higher than 25%, but at the cost of cutting vuln duration. Since each marginal unit of armor lost provides a larger damage increase, coordinated bursts of big vuln stacks and DD will be more effective.

Donari.5237:

Not being a theory crafter, and being someone that kind of enjoys condi builds without min-maxing them, I’ll answer from my limited perspective.

Before condi builds were made viable, the only build players conceded to be worthwhile was berserker. Talk about boring, you either had to stat up as a glass cannon or take forever to kill things. Now there are two main prongs of building rather than one, and ANet is pushing the second one to keep people from going back to “berserker or gtfo.”

going from 1 extreme to the other is bad

Carighan.6758:

Asur.9178:

Power DPS HEAVILY relies on near, if not 100%, quickness and alacrity uptime. This means, outside of raid instances with good chronos, condi VASTLY outperforms power – condi outperforms power in nearly all encounters as is.

You will have to excuse me here, but where is power inherently better with Quickness or Alacrity than Conditions.

Applying 1,5x as many conditions deals exactly 50% more damage, too.

Ah, I just re-read, and there’s more factual errors in your post. Nevermind in that case, figured you’re just bitter.

Might want to read a third…perhaps a fourth and fifth time until it sinks in.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Condition build literally sacrifice nothing.

That’s factually untrue. Condi bunkers sacrifice as much as PVT builds do.

Asur.9178:

Might want to read a third…perhaps a fourth and fifth time until it sinks in.

Might want to think a bit about what you wrote as well. Condi application (which affects condi damage) is as affected by quickness and alacrity as power damage is.

Astralporing.1957:

CrimeMaker.8612:

Condition build literally sacrifice nothing.

That’s factually untrue. Condi bunkers sacrifice as much as PVT builds do.

Asur.9178:

Might want to read a third…perhaps a fourth and fifth time until it sinks in.

Might want to think a bit about what you wrote as well. Condi application (which affects condi damage) is as affected by quickness and alacrity as power damage is.

There’s nothing to think about. Read carefully next time; if needed, go run your own tests.

To be honest, i don’t understand your point either … power damage is the result of an action. Condition builds are the results of similar actions, and so those actions are affected equally by quickness etc … as they do the actions that bring about power damage. If anything, the advantage for quickness leans to power builds because it’s harder to react to the damage you get from that vs. condi builds where I might lay more stacks, but I still have to wait for that damage to happen to you.

so why is power more affected by speed affects than condition builds? Maybe if there was still caps on condi stacks so more actions didn’t result in more conditions stacking, that would make sense, … but there isn’t anymore.

So … instead of assuming we are all idiots missing the obvios, how about you just explain yourself better?

Astralporing.1957:

Feanor.2358:

Kumouta.4985:

Can’t cleanse all the power dmg someone does, but you can cleanse condi dmg after already being hit by it.

And you can block power damage.

You can block condi applications as well, you know. For the condi to be applied, the attack must hit first.

condi application is often on instant skills, ground skills, auto attacks, channels etc. basically it was designed to be very hard to avoid. it was designed to shift gameplay to an attrition battle.

condi honestly has always been a problem, its just really hard to fit into the game without messing something up. the type of design it should have for pve, isnt a very good idea for pvp

meh

Being hard to avoid is the trade off for having a relatively long time to react to the damage you get from it. I have YET to play an MMO where DoT damage didn’t have that trade off. The primary people I see complaining about DoT’s are burst power twitch guys and to be honest, I think it’s rather stupid for an PVP MMO to have that kind of PVP model.

Obtena.7952:

Here is a dose of reality for people; balance is not something achievable. That’s a fact, especially as long as it’s subjectively measured by players with forum access. That’s not just with GW2, it’s any game where there is class or gear variations.

Now, once you let that sink in, realize why every single one of these OMG NO BALANCE threads have little impact. I don’t even get the problem … condition meta is making people quit? If that’s true, those players are fickle to begin with; the littlest change make them drift away.

If you don’t like condition meta, then leave. If you really want to have the biggest impact to changes you can’t live with, that is your biggest way to influence the direction of the game.

Not entirely true you can bring things closer to the meta and not have such huge gaps, mmorpgs are balanced around group play period and that is where balance comes in.

I would argue that group play is the last place MMO’s are balanced because the number of combinations in a group play vs. individual are orders of magnitude larger and literally impossible to map out and deal with each scenario for balance. The best you can hope for is that there aren’t broken interactions between skills and classes that may allow groups to cheese content.

If you ever played GW2 before condis were fixed (years after launch, btw), the meta was zerker everything. In fact, it still mostly is. Condi represents a break from that trend, as you can be condi with more than purely offensive stats. Whereas, if you took anything that wasn’t zerker, you were clearly losing out on DPS.

The reason they’ve been pushing condi harder is because it encourages more diversity in stat selection.

I played condi even when it was bad. Let me tell you: One condi (bleeds) was the only one that mattered, as the rest were all basically capped at a few stacks (or 1, in the case of burning). If you were a condi player against a world boss, you might never actually deal much damage because your “stacks” were simply added to a timer that might never run out. You couldn’t have more than 1 condi player in a dungeon, or you were wasting people’s DPS.

There’s still remnants of the times when ArenaNet truly despised condi. Many creatures you find in the core game (including fractals) feature some kind of immunity to specific conditions (dredge – blind, fire eles – fire, etc). These are absolutely debilitating immunities that power players never had to (and still don’t) deal with. Heck, the burning effigy in the Molten Boss fractal is still immune to fire, which never ceases to annoy me (on a condi engi).

Obtena.7952:

I would argue that group play is the last place MMO’s are balanced because the number of combinations in a group play vs. individual are orders of magnitude larger and literally impossible to map out and deal with each scenario for balance. The best you can hope for is that there aren’t broken interactions between skills and classes that may allow groups to cheese content.

Considering soloing is incredibly easy in this mmorpg it is indeed balanced around group play, there is no argument.

Vagrant.7206:

If you ever played GW2 before condis were fixed (years after launch, btw), the meta was zerker everything. In fact, it still mostly is. Condi represents a break from that trend, as you can be condi with more than purely offensive states. Whereas, if you took anything that wasn’t zerker, you were clearly losing out on DPS.

The reason they’ve been pushing condi harder is because it encourages more diversity in stat selection.

This is part of the reason I quit playing, no gear diversity.

Ryou.2398:

Obtena.7952:

I would argue that group play is the last place MMO’s are balanced because the number of combinations in a group play vs. individual are orders of magnitude larger and literally impossible to map out and deal with each scenario for balance. The best you can hope for is that there aren’t broken interactions between skills and classes that may allow groups to cheese content.

Considering soloing is incredibly easy in this mmorpg it is indeed balanced around group play, there is no argument.

You can’t draw the conclusion that Anet attempts an impossible task to balance around the huge number of possible groups just because soloing openworld PVE content is easy. That shows you haven’t considered all the other more significant areas where balanced classes impact the game, namely sPVP. In fact, I don’t see how that’s not the MOST obvious choice to balance classes in this game, taking into account the relatively unnecessity of balancing for OW PVE, the insurmountable group instance environment and the already vastly inbalanced due to numbers WvW environment.

It’s laughable with the number of people bringing up the "zerker or gtfo’ meta from years ago and not really having any idea as to why it was the meta. It wasn’t that power was performing that much better than condition damage on an individual basis it was due to the way condition damage worked in the group aspect in the past.

In the past condi stacks were limited to 25 stacks and the were other factors in condition damage due to who applied the condition and what their condition damage stat was at. If you had two people (let’s say necro’s) both using conditions, they were not performing optimally so in order to make sure the party performed to it’s utmost they started the “zerkker” meta since each persons damage was only based on their own application and it mattered not one bit to the other damage in the group.

Anet, listening to the concerns of condition users (and rightfully so), changed the way conditions worked by allowing unlimited (or basically unlimited) stacks and making it that each person’s conditions did the damage of their condition damage stat. This was a good change to conditions in the sense that it made condition builds on an equal footing to power builds at the time. Over time though the amount of changes to curtail the damage from power builds and the increasing damage from conditions builds along with adding more survivability to condition builds has led to the current situation where conditions are now way above where the zerker meta used to be.

In PvE these changes don’t amount to much as each build type (or really any build type) can be used outside of raids or high level fractals as they are cooperative game modes but in the case of PvP and WvW the condition buffs and new stat combinations have caused condition builds to far outshine power builds. This last update addressed some of the issues but “in pvp only” and left the problem in WvW alone. Yeah, epidemic was altered but it’s not just epidemic when it comes to conditions being too powerful in PvP and WvW.

I feel both types of builds should be viable and both types should have some type of risk/reward built into their various builds. Currently the conditions builds have quite a bit less risk compared to the power builds and therefore have a higher reward and have more people gravitating to them only increasing the problem. What type of risk/reward should each have? That’s up to Anet but they need to close the gap between the two types of builds.

Bunter.3795:

It’s laughable with the number of people bringing up the "zerker or gtfo’ meta from years ago and not really having any idea as to why it was the meta. It wasn’t that power was performing that much better than condition damage on an individual basis it was due to the way condition damage worked in the group aspect in the past.

In the past condi stacks were limited to 25 stacks and the were other factors in condition damage due to who applied the condition and what their condition damage stat was at. If you had two people (let’s say necro’s) both using conditions, they were not performing optimally so in order to make sure the party performed to it’s utmost they started the “zerkker” meta since each persons damage was only based on their own application and it mattered not one bit to the other damage in the group.

Anet, listening to the concerns of condition users (and rightfully so), changed the way conditions worked by allowing unlimited (or basically unlimited) stacks and making it that each person’s conditions did the damage of their condition damage stat. This was a good change to conditions in the sense that it made condition builds on an equal footing to power builds at the time. Over time though the amount of changes to curtail the damage from power builds and the increasing damage from conditions builds along with adding more survivability to condition builds has led to the current situation where conditions are now way above where the zerker meta used to be.

In PvE these changes don’t amount to much as each build type (or really any build type) can be used outside of raids or high level fractals as they are cooperative game modes but in the case of PvP and WvW the condition buffs and new stat combinations have caused condition builds to far outshine power builds. This last update addressed some of the issues but “in pvp only” and left the problem in WvW alone. Yeah, epidemic was altered but it’s not just epidemic when it comes to conditions being too powerful in PvP and WvW.

I feel both types of builds should be viable and both types should have some type of risk/reward built into their various builds. Currently the conditions builds have quite a bit less risk compared to the power builds and therefore have a higher reward and have more people gravitating to them only increasing the problem. What type of risk/reward should each have? That’s up to Anet but they need to close the gap between the two types of builds.

This! I couldn’t agree less!

Bunter.3795:

It’s laughable with the number of people bringing up the "zerker or gtfo’ meta from years ago and not really having any idea as to why it was the meta. It wasn’t that power was performing that much better than condition damage on an individual basis it was due to the way condition damage worked in the group aspect in the past.

In the past condi stacks were limited to 25 stacks and the were other factors in condition damage due to who applied the condition and what their condition damage stat was at. If you had two people (let’s say necro’s) both using conditions, they were not performing optimally so in order to make sure the party performed to it’s utmost they started the “zerkker” meta since each persons damage was only based on their own application and it mattered not one bit to the other damage in the group.

Anet, listening to the concerns of condition users (and rightfully so), changed the way conditions worked by allowing unlimited (or basically unlimited) stacks and making it that each person’s conditions did the damage of their condition damage stat. This was a good change to conditions in the sense that it made condition builds on an equal footing to power builds at the time. Over time though the amount of changes to curtail the damage from power builds and the increasing damage from conditions builds along with adding more survivability to condition builds has led to the current situation where conditions are now way above where the zerker meta used to be.

In PvE these changes don’t amount to much as each build type (or really any build type) can be used outside of raids or high level fractals as they are cooperative game modes but in the case of PvP and WvW the condition buffs and new stat combinations have caused condition builds to far outshine power builds. This last update addressed some of the issues but “in pvp only” and left the problem in WvW alone. Yeah, epidemic was altered but it’s not just epidemic when it comes to conditions being too powerful in PvP and WvW.

I feel both types of builds should be viable and both types should have some type of risk/reward built into their various builds. Currently the conditions builds have quite a bit less risk compared to the power builds and therefore have a higher reward and have more people gravitating to them only increasing the problem. What type of risk/reward should each have? That’s up to Anet but they need to close the gap between the two types of builds.

This sums it up thanks for posting

I just think a fast fight that end fast base off of who playing better (power dmg ) and the long fights that gives ppl lots of room to make errors but tends to drag out fights is not better and tends to become unfun to play vs and to play with (condi dmg).

Condi dmg classes players and builds are boring.

Obtena.7952:

Ryou.2398:

Obtena.7952:

I would argue that group play is the last place MMO’s are balanced because the number of combinations in a group play vs. individual are orders of magnitude larger and literally impossible to map out and deal with each scenario for balance. The best you can hope for is that there aren’t broken interactions between skills and classes that may allow groups to cheese content.

Considering soloing is incredibly easy in this mmorpg it is indeed balanced around group play, there is no argument.

You can’t draw the conclusion that Anet attempts an impossible task to balance around the huge number of possible groups just because soloing openworld PVE content is easy. That shows you haven’t considered all the other more significant areas where balanced classes impact the game, namely sPVP. In fact, I don’t see how that’s not the MOST obvious choice to balance classes in this game, taking into account the relatively unnecessity of balancing for OW PVE, the insurmountable group instance environment and the already vastly inbalanced due to numbers WvW environment.

What? That does not even make sense, first of all this was a pve mmorpg first, you cannot expect one and one balance in a pve mmorpg, second of all yes I can considering how long I played this before and how easy open world content is in the first place?

And why are you even arguing with me if anything it proves that they are trying to balance things correctly, if your going to argue that balance it around solo content considering it is the least interesting and less important part of the game outside of exploration then your just making the game balance look worse.

Third pvp is group based as well not just pve considering every class is strong vs certain classes while being weak to others, pvp is meant to be a group activity in the first place.

I just realized your the same guy that disagrees with any criticism what so ever or anything about the game with tunnel vision.

Asur.9178:

There’s nothing to think about. Read carefully next time; if needed, go run your own tests.

Did, and not just after you poked me to do so, because frankly that’d be rather bad if I needed to be prompted to test the DoT vs DD Quickness scaling as a Mesmer applying said Quickness now, wouldn’t it? Now will you finally admit that you misunderstand how skills in GW2 work? Or should I … actually, lemme just go over this again.

I got this AA skill here, it deals:

• 274 damage each attack.
• Scales with 68% of my damage stat.
• Hits a single target
• Casts twice a second

Without Quickness, I deal 548 DPS base, scaling with 136% of my damage stat per second.

I got another AA skill here! It deals:

• 322 damage each attack.
• Scales with 88% of my damage stat.
• Hits a single target
• Casts once a second
• Also causes Vulnerability, but we’re probably at 25 stacks already.

Without Quickness, I deal 322 DPS base, scaling with 88% of my damage stat per second.

The first skill hits 50% more often if I have Quickness, right? I mean it’s just a damage attack, now hitting 3 times per second instead of twice.. Now deals 822 DPS, my damage stat now contributes 204% of itself per second to my outgoing damage (not included in the DPS number, as before).
The second skill, again being just a normal simple attack skill, deals 483 DPS now, hits 3 times every 2 seconds, scaling with 132% per second.

Oh did you notice which of them is the condi skill, due to how differently they work under Quickness? Didn’t think so, because they don’t. Quickness affects condi skills the exact same way it does power skills, they happen 50% faster, applying their conditions faster, and (and this is in fact a downside of conditions) will do the same damage per application assuming the target doesn’t die before they tick out (in which case some of the extra applications and hence bonus from Quickness was wasted compared to direct damage, but the effect is entirely negligible).

Is there any reason you shouldn’t just be reported for trolling?

Asur.9178:

There’s nothing to think about. Read carefully next time; if needed, go run your own tests.

Go ahead, check that at the dps golem, and then go back and tell us how quickness and alacrity have no impact on condi builds dps.

I can only assume you were the one that never ran those tests.

PvE wise I truly don’t care for this “omg condi meta” turmoil because I have come to the conclusion there’s always a dominant build for every profession and a most optimal path for every encounter, balance just shifts the spotlight every once in a while and that’s fine, all MMOs rely on this perfect imbalance, losers and winners constantly. What I didn’t like is the fact they nerfed BiS power food in hopes of eliminating wiggle spam and didn’t replace it with another more desirable mechanic (scholar runes food?, APM food?, etc).

PvP (plat/top250 experience) and WvW (just started playing it daily) wise I can’t imagine any class not reacting fast enough with condi cleanses, disengages, resistance, etc to die to any condi build one on one. Kittens hit the fan once this scales on bigger fights with more players though, and I do agree condi behavior should be different then, not nuked to the ground like most incoherent detractors want it to be but adjusted so counterplay is always present.

There’s always some form of salt with patches, like people telling you condi builds are extremely easy to play (the most complex DPS rotation in game is on a condi build) but their true mistake was not immediately replacing seaweed’s mechanic with something else and/or adjusting power builds to compensate.

Lunateric.3708:

There’s always some form of salt with patches, like people telling you condi builds are extremely easy to play (the most complex DPS rotation in game is on a condi build) but their true mistake was not immediately replacing seaweed’s mechanic with something else and/or adjusting power builds to compensate.

While this is true for engi, it is somewhat of an exception. Condi builds in general used to be easier to play than power ones, not just because of the rotations, but also because power builds generally rely on more conditional modifiers. SWS was one of these and its removal isn’t bad on its own, however the condi trend is real.

Compare this, this, and this.

The condi build is by far the easiest to play and has the highest damage potential.

Feanor.2358:

Lunateric.3708:

There’s always some form of salt with patches, like people telling you condi builds are extremely easy to play (the most complex DPS rotation in game is on a condi build) but their true mistake was not immediately replacing seaweed’s mechanic with something else and/or adjusting power builds to compensate.

While this is true for engi, it is somewhat of an exception. Condi builds in general used to be easier to play than power ones, not just because of the rotations, but also because power builds generally rely on more conditional modifiers. SWS was one of these and its removal isn’t bad on its own, however the condi trend is real.

Compare this, this, and this.

The condi build is by far the easiest to play and has the highest damage potential.

The fire/arcane tempest build Fennec just posted must be something that slipped between cracks like many things do with their testing balance (how epi worked right after patch for example), that damage potential is unhealthy as hell.

It’s not like it’s very different comparing the potential of these power builds with a condi ranger for instance. And it’s not like the ranger build is much harder to play than the arcane burn ele.

That’s a pretty biased comparison, for the sake of it let’s just compare power engi to condi ranger instead, maybe staff thief too. There are easier and harder rotations for every profession and it has nothing to do with if they’re either power or Condi.

Like I said, power builds in general rely on more conditional modifiers and this adds another layer of difficulty. With SWS pretty much gone this is less expressed now, but still exists. Scholar bonus, for instance. And, in general, condi has seen buffs across the board in the recent patches, while power has generally been nerfed. I’m speaking about meta/near meta builds here. Yeah, shatter mesmers got buffed, but it doesn’t really change anything in PvE.

A year or two ago, there were a lot of people asking to make conditions more effective (not stackable then) and there were plenty of complains about berserker meta.

No one really know how far anet wanted to push condi and in what directions. All we know is that anet started by making conditions stackable and also nerfing anti-conditions food for WvW.

Anet continues to push conditions with the release of HOT, it was really obvious especially with the complete meta changes for pvp during the start of HOT. No one really knows why they continue to push conditions.

Was condition that weak in the past? I don’t know but I do vaguely remember I used to play condi necro for pvp and kitten my opponent before all those changes. You might have guessed, they nerfed necro then.

While i don’t agree with everything OP says, i also don’t understand why condi play is being forced down our throats. From thief perspective, the dev team continued to nerf power and buffing condi aspects of the class for years now, even those that are already stupidly cheesy and generate a lot of complains (hello trapper thief). Why not to keep them on same level is beyond me. The gameplay of condi may not be so enjoyable for some players, forcing them into condi will just make them quit. I certainly would if condi build became only option for thief.

Cynz.9437:

i also don’t understand why condi play is being forced down our throats.

Honestly, as someone who has been in MMOs for 17 years now, it doesn’t actually matter all that much.

Being MMORPGs with class-based setups, there are going to be “optimal” setups. As DoT vs DD is just a style choice as far as your role goes (which is damage dealer), it’s really just about how you want the numbers above the enemies’ heads to look specifically.

Usually, this is not entirely left up to player choice though, rather the devs design this. Some classes (traditionally for example a Necromancer) might deal their damage more through DoTs, while others (traditionally something like a Warrior or a Mage) uses more direct damage attacks.

GW2… let’s say it is a bit “underdeveloped” in this area. It doesn’t even get the basic underlying design of DoTs right (higher damage per time spent casting them in return for lower overall pressure because your damage takes time to be dealt to the target). So yeah.

Still, it is merely a change to the way the numbers above the enemy are printed. That’s all DoT vs DD means for a damage dealer in GW2, really.

Carighan.6758:

Cynz.9437:

i also don’t understand why condi play is being forced down our throats.

Honestly, as someone who has been in MMOs for 17 years now, it doesn’t actually matter all that much.

Being MMORPGs with class-based setups, there are going to be “optimal” setups. As DoT vs DD is just a style choice as far as your role goes (which is damage dealer), it’s really just about how you want the numbers above the enemies’ heads to look specifically.

Usually, this is not entirely left up to player choice though, rather the devs design this. Some classes (traditionally for example a Necromancer) might deal their damage more through DoTs, while others (traditionally something like a Warrior or a Mage) uses more direct damage attacks.

GW2… let’s say it is a bit “underdeveloped” in this area. It doesn’t even get the basic underlying design of DoTs right (higher damage per time spent casting them in return for lower overall pressure because your damage takes time to be dealt to the target). So yeah.

Still, it is merely a change to the way the numbers above the enemy are printed. That’s all DoT vs DD means for a damage dealer in GW2, really.

This and as others said they are trying to create more gear diversity clearly, which is we are the community have asked for, anyways the meta will sadly always exist but the meta is not everything and do you honestly believe everyone posts their favorite builds up? No of course not they are not going to give others the advantage, you must remember there are some people out there who outshine the meta because they figured out their own builds and know how to make it work, and it works for them.

The only time when the meta is an issue is when there is such a large gap between the meta and other builds, and I do not mean let me throw a random bad build together and expect effectiveness.

Jojo.8973:

Well either drop Gw2 and play something else, or grit your teeth and find ways to deal with it. I take everything as a challenge, so I’d rather have a handicap than be OP in any case. I make my druid power build work regardless haha, I refuse to ever change it

I also take everything as a challenge. Its just really not enjoyable to play the game when arena net keeps pushing condition damage to this extreme since last 3 balance patch conditions builds only got buffed while power keeps getting nerfed every single patch… The best part is how condition damage works is also completely unbalanced so how do you expect players to enjoy the game?

“forced condi meta”.

I have 8 of 9 classes in zerker gear, and never seem to have problems or get complaints in open world PvE, Dungeons, or Fractals, and even WvW (though I do have a condi build for WvW, however it is from 3 or 4 months after Heart of Thorns hit).

I haven’t felt once that I was being forced to change a build. The only time I adapt builds to the situation is for Raids, which I don’t generally do.

Neural.1824:

“forced condi meta”.

I have 8 of 9 classes in zerker gear, and never seem to have problems or get complaints in open world PvE, Dungeons, or Fractals, and even WvW (though I do have a condi build for WvW, however it is from 3 or 4 months after Heart of Thorns hit).

I haven’t felt once that I was being forced to change a build. The only time I adapt builds to the situation is for Raids, which I don’t generally do.

People are just exaggerating.

Ryou.2398:

Neural.1824:

“forced condi meta”.

I have 8 of 9 classes in zerker gear, and never seem to have problems or get complaints in open world PvE, Dungeons, or Fractals, and even WvW (though I do have a condi build for WvW, however it is from 3 or 4 months after Heart of Thorns hit).

I haven’t felt once that I was being forced to change a build. The only time I adapt builds to the situation is for Raids, which I don’t generally do.

People are just exaggerating.

Yeah, it’s the typical overreaction: OMG, they reduced damage on one ele ability by 7.5 percent, and buffed a bunch of others? They NERFED IT INTO THE GROUND SO FAR IT’S DEAD ZERO DPS ZOMG!

Next day: ele DPS still doing fine.

All the concordance of changes tell us is that power was over-performing compared to condition damage over the last while, and this is an effort to move them closer together.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

All the concordance of changes tell us is that power was over-performing compared to condition damage over the last while, and this is an effort to move them closer together.

What rock have you been living under since the prior balance patch? Condi has been doing better and then power got nerfed.

*PvE raid perspective. No PvP or WvW consideration in this post.

Rev getting condition buffs just made it super strong… like 50 stacks of torment on single target so easily.. its ridiculous

CrimeMaker.8612:

Rev getting condition buffs just made it super strong… like 50 stacks of torment on single target so easily.. its ridiculous

Sry all is lost.

Azoqu.8917:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

All the concordance of changes tell us is that power was over-performing compared to condition damage over the last while, and this is an effort to move them closer together.

What rock have you been living under since the prior balance patch? Condi has been doing better and then power got nerfed.

*PvE raid perspective. No PvP or WvW consideration in this post.

I understand that you disagree with me, but … I’m not going to be convinced by your rudely asserting that I’m wrong. (Just, I assume, as you won’t be convinced by my statement.)

Anyway, you cited a PvE raid perspective, which is cool. Perhaps you can link some of your raid logs, so we can see the real world DPS levels that y’all are hitting?

I mean, it’s still not even remotely enough samples to conclude much about the game balance overall, but it would at least support the idea that you are seeing imbalance, rather than closer balance, in the real world. (and, I promise, I will two hundred percent change my tune if you can show an actual difference like you mention.)