Guild Wars 2

Spreading functionality among your characters is wise.
OF course there is always need for different builds and uses.

After 2.5 years I have,
Heavy: 5 chars. 4 DPS. 1 using Hybrid / Condition Gear
1 Zealot Guardian Support/( Zerk Guardian DPS) (M+F/Stff) GS/S+F
1 Nomads/Clerics Guardian WvW Tank Support M+Sh/Stff
1 Zerk Warrior DPS (pug carrier)
1 Soldiers Warrior WvW Support / (1 Zealot warrior) DPS Support (hammer/shouts)
1 Sinister/Rabid Warrior Hybrid S/S&LB

Medium: 4, 3 using Hybrid or Condition gear
1 Zerk Ranger DPS LB&GS
1 Sinister/Rampager Ranger PetMaster Hybrid A+T & A+D or SB
1 Sinister Ranger Trapper, SB & A+T
1 Zerk Thief DPS / (Rabid Thief Conditions) P+P/ S+P

Light: 6 chars, 4 using Hybrid or Condition gear
1 Celestial Ele (WvW) Hybrid Stff /Zerk Ele DPS Stff, Scepter/Dagger, D/D
1 Zealot Ele DPS/Support Staff
1 Rabid Mesmer Conditions PU Condi Stf/ Sc+T
1 Zerk Necro DPS A+F / D+D
1 Sinister/Rabid/Rampager Necro Hybrid A+D, Stff
1 Clerics Necro WvW Support D+D&Stff /(Apothecary Necro Condition&Support /Rabid Conditions) Sc+D & Stff

I notice I’m playing more conditions nowadays (used to have 3 coandition characters when I hav 8 characters, but I tend to level all as zerk as it proves fastest, Conditions scale horribly with level, also often “hearts” require destruction of objects which is annoying. if not frustrating. conditions shine @ lvl 80 in small groups or solo play.

Having a wide spread of “solutions” it gives a lot of versatility. DPS or Condi is a choice…

I doubt the release of the condi cap will destroy gameplay, It will destroy the meta sure, but SO WHAT?

oxtred.7658:

Creating a condition damage offensive set? You mean sinister? Done.

Who would have guessed that a high ramp-up time damage tool would get shifted out of a speedclear meta.

Except that sinister increases condition damage just as much as rabid gear does. The primary problem is that conditions only scale with 1 stat, while zerkers scale with 4 stats.

The only thing that increases condition damage is condition damage.

Condition duration: capped at 100%, achievable solely through food traits and runes, no gear needed. Additionally not useful anyway due to condition cap.

Precision: conditions don’t crit so no effect. Most classes have an apply condition on crit trait, but again due to condition caps has no practical effect except in solo play.

Weapon damage: No effect on conditions
Power: No effect on conditions
Ferocity: No effect on conditions

This leads to zerker scaling VERY strongly with stat increases, while conditions don’t scale at all. Remember unlike power based builds, condition damage only adds 1 dps for each 20 condition damage stat you get. If you increase your condition damage by 19 you do NO extra damage.

Hybrid builds do benefit from the other stats, but pure condition based builds do <300 dps from direct damage and gain next to no benefit from anything that isn’t condition damage.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

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and their damage passively ticks so they don’t always need to land something.

If they don’t land something, they don’t tick. Funny, that’s the same as with Power builds.

What’s ticking isn’t their latest attacks, it’s what they already hit you with. Just like the damage you’ve already taken isn’t affected by future events.

You know what I meant. The condi damage class, if given mobility/sustain can keep their damage ticking while a zerker class cannot. It’s easier to mitigate normal damage than condi damage for most classes, not everyone main necros like us.

I think condis are fine in spvp and in small scale wvw. Terrible in large scale. Bad in pve.

The main problem in wvw is that the aoe condi clears are too abundant and -40% duration food.

We cant nerf personal condi clear or condi builds become god mode 1v1, but the AoE condi clear could be toned down a bit. Stuff like shake it off, purging flames could remove only 1 condi from allies but dont change the self condi clear.

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PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I’ll reflect on zerk should do greater dmg thn rabid.I disagree. With the rampup time in mind I could safely say condition characters should be able to dish out 20% more damage with conditions and then they still could be outdamaged by zerks by using a clean at certain moments, cleansing ire warriors can clean 2-3 conditions every 7-10s, without using additional cleans, Each clean resetting the damage output for a condi build to 0 , new stacks heve to be applied, a new rampup is started.

Saying DPS should outweigh DOT in max damage is saying i do not want any condi builds in game IMHO.

The problem is the condi tank gears like rabid and dire. Zerker you need 3 offensive stats, and condi you only need 1, so they can’t be more tanky and do more damage. And giving cleansing ire war as an example is not a good representation of all classes condi clearing capabilities.

You keep saying Condition users only need 1 stat. It keeps being wrong. They need condition damage, condition duration, most classes need precision to trigger conditions on crit, then, because it’s DoT instead of direct, they need toughness, so that the conditions have time to do damage.

Self:

There is still alot of triggers on crit, and you have need for 2-4 attributes depending on how you look at it.

- Condition damage (damage/tick)
- Condition duration ( amount of ticks)
- Toughness (you will need to stay alive while damage is ticking)
- Precision (to trigger crits for application of (well mostly bleeeds, but also vulnerability or weakness and so on.)

And there are differenceS in condition potential for the proffessions, yes, as there are in DPS as well.

I stated this before, Considering people saying condition damage is 1 stat only and rabid or dire are comparable to zerk makes me wonder…

If we consider Zerk:

Power = main damage scaling
Precision = Critical chance, amount of times there is multiplications by 1.5x the damage and the amount of critical chance added by Ferocity (former critical damage)
Ferocity = helps scale the multiplier for criticals. (50 base-115%)

If we’d consider “Condition” Zerk

Condition damage = main DOT damage scaling
Precision= critical chance, amount of times certain conditions get procced (mostly by traits)
Condition duration = multiplier for condition time (adding 0-100% duration (capped))

It is based on multiple stats already… And there is a considerable “primer” it is time itself.

It is impossible to stack the full 25 stacks of bleeding in 1 go, if you look back to page 1 to the details regarding my S/S warrior, it can do almost 6000 condition damage/ tick but it will take 10-18 seconds minimum to get it all up….

If you’d check you’ll see me mention ramp up time, it is the time you will need before you can utilize your full potential regarding DOT, when stacking damage warriors will stack 4 maybe 5 conditions, being cripple, immobilize, bleeds, torment and burning. Problem is I need adrenaline for flurry to cast a lot of bleeds (of a SHORT duration) or I can apply 2 bleeds for every autochain, each autochain takes about 1.5 sec so I’ll be at 25 stacks in 18 secs, If I proc my traits I’ll have some short duration bleeds in between.

If I’d look at an optimal cycle I’d start longbow, FGJ (3 Might), (if I’d have any adrenaline i’d use F1 burstskill (firefield/buring), and use banner first(3 Might) , banner #5(3 Might) use LB skill #3 (3 Might),) start cycle: #2 fan of fire (burning for a few seconds close range, use #5 pin down (6 bleeds, immo), switch swords, (skill 2 savage leap (fire armor)), skill 4 “Impale”, auto, auto, auto till 4 stacks torment, Skill 4"Rip", auto till adrenaline is 1,2,3 and Flurry, then choose if I remain in sword or need to switch, due to disengagement of enemy. problem is I’ll get everything up but this cycle will be 15 seconds easily, and at start my damage will be not so big, If I’m forced to engage in sword ramp up will be higher and stacking might considerably more difficult. My main build doesn’t have fast hands which makes everything easier though…
One major overlooked fact: CONDI CLEANSING
Just as a small remark, You can reset ramp-up time being my enemy, by just removing my stack… This is the inherent weakness of condition builds and it’s strength, you can allow me to stack more conditions and clean more, increasing my ramp up considerably OR you can clean fast and make sure you do not get damage at start… It’s about choices…

stale.9785:

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PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I’ll reflect on zerk should do greater dmg thn rabid.I disagree. With the rampup time in mind I could safely say condition characters should be able to dish out 20% more damage with conditions and then they still could be outdamaged by zerks by using a clean at certain moments, cleansing ire warriors can clean 2-3 conditions every 7-10s, without using additional cleans, Each clean resetting the damage output for a condi build to 0 , new stacks heve to be applied, a new rampup is started.

Saying DPS should outweigh DOT in max damage is saying i do not want any condi builds in game IMHO.

The problem is the condi tank gears like rabid and dire. Zerker you need 3 offensive stats, and condi you only need 1, so they can’t be more tanky and do more damage. And giving cleansing ire war as an example is not a good representation of all classes condi clearing capabilities.

You keep saying Condition users only need 1 stat. It keeps being wrong. They need condition damage, condition duration, most classes need precision to trigger conditions on crit, then, because it’s DoT instead of direct, they need toughness, so that the conditions have time to do damage.

They also need one thing that is not a stat: Time. You need some time to stack condis and make the enemy start felling the pressure. In the other hand direct dmg is intant dmg.

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Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

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and their damage passively ticks so they don’t always need to land something.

If they don’t land something, they don’t tick. Funny, that’s the same as with Power builds.

What’s ticking isn’t their latest attacks, it’s what they already hit you with. Just like the damage you’ve already taken isn’t affected by future events.

You know what I meant. The condi damage class, if given mobility/sustain can keep their damage ticking while a zerker class cannot. It’s easier to mitigate normal damage than condi damage for most classes, not everyone main necros like us.

Since when has Power= Melee and Condition= Range? You have Melee Condition specs (Sword/sword Warrior, Ranger condition specs work best in melee though using ranged weapons) and ranged Power specs (Life Blast focused Necros, staff Eles, S/F Eles, longbow Rangers, Greatsword Mesmers).

I don’t know why people try to treat kiting as some condition-exclusive strategy. It’s a ranged strategy, which has nothing at all to do with Condition Damage vs. Power

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

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Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

L Step.8659:

and their damage passively ticks so they don’t always need to land something.

If they don’t land something, they don’t tick. Funny, that’s the same as with Power builds.

What’s ticking isn’t their latest attacks, it’s what they already hit you with. Just like the damage you’ve already taken isn’t affected by future events.

You know what I meant. The condi damage class, if given mobility/sustain can keep their damage ticking while a zerker class cannot. It’s easier to mitigate normal damage than condi damage for most classes, not everyone main necros like us.

Since when has Power= Melee and Condition= Range? You have Melee Condition specs (Sword/sword Warrior, Ranger condition specs work best in melee though using ranged weapons) and ranged Power specs (Life Blast focused Necros, staff Eles, S/F Eles, longbow Rangers, Greatsword Mesmers).

I don’t know why people try to treat kiting as some condition-exclusive strategy. It’s a ranged strategy, which has nothing at all to do with Condition Damage vs. Power

I guess I’m just not explaining it well. It takes more skill to play a power spec, in pvp/small scale. In zergs condis suffer due to mass clearing, but they’re comparitively broken to an extent the smaller the fight. Most condi specs rely on passive auto attack procs which in general aren’t fun or skillful. And yes most condi specs are ranged. P/d thief, scepter/staff mesmer, scepter/staff necro, pistol/almost every kit engi. Warrior and ranger are the only classes that remotely have to get into melee combat and warrior still has a longbow that basically is a huge area denial which can melt you.

I don’t think even if there was a glass cannon condi set (with no power) let alone the sets we have now creating the very annoying condi tanks should be more or equal dps to a power build. Landing damage is much easier in general with condis, much more passive, much safer due to stats available atm, I don’t see why it should be rewarded as much. I’ve always thought they should remove it as a major stat anyways and have it as just an add on feature to skills, and remove the damaging proccing ones from traits.

This is all just my opinion of course, I’m not claiming I’m right, it’s just the way I see it.

I respect your opinion, I do not know If I’m right either, I do know and will repeat toughness is needed to make sure DPS builds will not slaughter me before my conditions eat you. Without toughness I’ll need somethig else to speed up kills (power!)

Power Ferocity Precision = Condi DMG, Condi Duration, Precision (and TIME!)
TIME can be created by using toughness, invisibility, evades, distance, blocks and so on…
TIME can be lost by condi cleanses, dodges, heals, evades, invisibility, distance ,CC’s and so on.
If you fail a hit you’ll miss damage, If I miss a sword attack on my warrior I miss dps 2k, and I’ll miss 6k condi dmg as well problem is though that your miss is a single hit mine has influence for 20 or even 30+seconds.

Both types of play take the same skill landing hits, but the effects are radically different.
Your skill should be in the choices of removing conditions, heals and dodges and mine in dodges and heals as your conditions IF they are there are hollow. You and I play glass, so there is no difference as well…

IMHO you shoudn’t compare a rabid or dire user to a glass player, You will not carry a useless stat as toughness vs my conditions, so you are actually having an advantage compared to knights and soldiers dps players. you can start with your highest spikes I need to conserve health all the time, I expect you to attack me and keep comin, I hope you do not expect me to use blocks, Sword #5 for example and keep your distance. When I get low health I’ll run for a while leaving you with torment and cripple just before I set off. I’ll try to regain health before reattacking… Your power lies in the fast attack and fast kill, Mine lies in your health deteriorating and you you forgetting your health or cleans, If you have nocleans or healing I’m at an advantage being able to pressure you. I’ll count them. When you have cleans and healings I’ll be at a disadvantage, you being able to pressure me.

I do not expect you to be running zerk GS dungeon meta in PvP (to stay at warriors), I expect you to be running hambow (when warrior) or something else which is build on durability traits with shouts and cleansing ire to not get left without cleans, having fear me, FGJ and shake it off as a warrior, next to cleansing Ire And Mending allows you to clean 21 conditions every 40 seconds.. if I’m right…

I do not play PvP however, only WvW, and in WvW I win only an average percentage of encounters when solo (running rabid) mostly because my stack is mainly bleeds and my stack is therefore easily cleansable. If people do not have stealth or invisibility I tend to win 60-80% of the engagements (implicitly implying I fail at fighting PU’s and Thieves)

The game should be reasonable balance so any condi build should have the same chance of killing you as you should have at killing them, if you are ignoring the fact:
condi-users are hardcounters vs High toughess builds, and
Zerk builds are hard counters vs condi, and
High toughness should be hardcounters vs zerk.. (Doubt you’ll have a pleasant fight vs my nomads/clerics healing tank… It has only 1640 power but almost 3750 armor, and can heal with a lot of skills… running ~2000 healing and 25k health…, But the guardian will die in 15-20 seconds vs my Sinister S/S though)

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Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

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and their damage passively ticks so they don’t always need to land something.

If they don’t land something, they don’t tick. Funny, that’s the same as with Power builds.

What’s ticking isn’t their latest attacks, it’s what they already hit you with. Just like the damage you’ve already taken isn’t affected by future events.

You know what I meant. The condi damage class, if given mobility/sustain can keep their damage ticking while a zerker class cannot. It’s easier to mitigate normal damage than condi damage for most classes, not everyone main necros like us.

Toughness reduces incoming damage, vitality gives more health, and heals can fix the health lost. it’s true, there’s a lot of ways to reduce normal damage.

however, condition clears can mitigate condition damage before it even happens
I mean, you literally take a damage over time stat, and then make it bad over time.
(I know that most classes have condition clears – heck, humans get a nice in-built one – and quite a few high level enemies in PvE have them too. (not that the cap didn’t mess that up already.))
or, kill the CD user before they can get their stacks up.

I would vehemently argue that conditions are much easier to mitigate condition damage than normal damage.

just gonna point out again that I’m more or less exclusively talking PvE here, I don’t do much WvW or PvP, and I recognise that these issues aren’t apparent in those spheres.

another complaint I’d raise is how hard it can be to actually do conditions. every weapon does normal damage on most of it’s skills, and all normal damage skills also inherently do crit damage. however, it’s difficult to find weapons with more than a couple of damaging conditions.
take my main for example. a Thief running Dagger/Dagger and Pistol/Pistol (though I am looking at the shortbow too)
the D/D combo gives two damaging conditions – the first skill gives poison at the end of its 3-part chain, and the 3 skill – death blossom – lands a nice 3 stacks of bleed on the enemy. however, that’s it. the 2 skill does vulnerability, but since that doesn’t affect conditions, it’s only good in a hybrid build. the 4 skill provides a ranged attack, as well as a cripple. but then again, that’s normal damage. finally, the 5th skill is a stealth – appropriate for a thief, but still only normal damage. in total, I have two damaging moves, assuming I build conditions, one which does slow damage over time (since poison stacks duration) and one which, while doing decent damage (3 stacks of bleed per use is nice) can be hampered by the jump that goes with it (death blossom has sent me off of far, far too many cliffs.)
in the end, not a particularly great selection of condition damage.

it’s now late and I’m worried that I may have strayed from my original point into a rant, so I’m gonna leave it there.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

I stated this before, Considering people saying condition damage is 1 stat only and rabid or dire are comparable to zerk makes me wonder…

(post trimmed for length)

There are a few problems with this from a PvP standpoint, though.

Again, people fail to recognize condition damage IGNORES ALL FORMS OF DEFENSE. Your condition damage = your tick. Period. There is nothing your opponent can do, actively or passively, to reduce this once it has been applied unless very specific abilities are used. If the tick happens, it will always deal its maximum damage, no matter what. This is why in my previous post I stated condition damage should never in any environment perhaps outside of sinister come even remotely close to berserker gear – PvE mobs have low toughness and thus very little mitigation against direct damage. Claiming conditions should do equal damage to low-defense targets just makes no sense as then it means it will deal far superior damage to high-defense targets, which only reverses the roles and makes conditions always more preferable.

And such, like I said in another post, if the content is designed to split the time, a meta will be established which will likely be based on the faster of the two possible extremes, further either moving the problem or accomplishing nothing.

Let’s examine some numbers shall we? Well, my WvW data on my thief, which btw, is the highest-bursting build in the entire game on a given attack, has hit a maximum of a 26k backstab on a glassy target.

But a friend of mine had a duel recently. He’s using a zerg-based full tank guardian.
Do you know what I stabbed him for?

4k.

We couldn’t kill each other, although he came close on me many times.

Do you know how much health he has?

29k.

You know what happened when we fought again and I used my S/S bleed warrior?

He died in around a minute and couldn’t even come close to touching my health bar due to the innate high defense of condition builds.

Sinister gear hits HARD. In fact, it can closely match berserker, and depending on the weapon sets and classes, it actually can beat it out. Condition duration isn’t equivocal to ferocity; its power scales entirely on the number and effectiveness of cleansing the opponent has. If the opponent has limited cleansing, condition duration is MUCH more powerful than any amount of ferocity available in the game. The fact that food exists which boosts effective condition damage by 40% is unreal. In fact, it’s so potent, that despite WvW blobs have ample cleanses and water fields, condition duration reduction food is the primary choice above all else due to just how off the charts % modifiers are to DoT bombs and control conditions.

Remember that conditions encompass more than just DoT. Condition users which use % modifiers on durations also get extended utility and control conditions over their physical damage counterparts.

Cleansing potency depends entirely on the builds used. My thief build has one cleanse which can only remove burning, poison, and bleeding, once every 20 seconds. My warrior build on the other hand, can shed them very easily every few seconds. Even if I run maximum condition cleansing potential on my thief, the warrior with little investment has a much easier time. And don’t even try to compare these to guards and eles as these classes have amazing cleansing potential.

Like I said, conditions need a huge rework to be balanced properly between the formats. Anything done to currently improve conditions across the board would basically break the game harder and create more strict metagame strategies than just removing DoT conditions altogether. You can’t bring in cleanses into the mix, either, as I’ve also previously iterated that condition builds actually in most cases get more damage per hit than berserker builds. Healing negates physical damage, and as such, should probably also shorten currently-applied condition durations generally speaking for it to be balanced in relation. Again, more reasons why condition builds are pretty much unanimously agreed upon as better damage dealers in PvP environments outside of WvW blobs; the reward per hit is better than berserker and forces opponents to make deep sacrifices to their builds. Berserker speedrun PvE builds often only do such substantial numbers due to a lack of condition cleansing in their builds by trying to optimize traits and skills for raw DPS. PvE greatsword warrior does not even run Cleansing Ire or Sigil of Stamina, two of the best cleanses in the game on the basis that while almost necessary in PvE, are just not useful for PvE content. If you look at a berserker PvP build it’ll be traited to deal drastically less damage and have much better access to condition cleansing. This holds true for all classes and builds focused on DPS.

People who are using DPS sometimes thing their damagepotential outweighs their survival. Dead people do no damage. The balance between damage and survivability in PvP and PvE will be different as the amount of conditions will be higher.

Most tanky users use armor vs DPS and condition removal vs DOT to stay alive
Most condi users use armor vs DPS and condition removal vs DOT to stay alive
Most DPS users seem to ignore both and forget in PvE they also use Dodges to stay alive vs DPS and do not spec into condi removal at all…. and consequently die vs conditions.

Looking at conversion of DPS builds:
Runes of Strength can be replaced by runes of Hoelbrak denying a conditions user 20% of thier damage. 20% in 1 change, Alternatives are melandru (still the summum vs condition builds)and the rune of antitoxin….
For condition removal through sigil there are also different choices, purity on hit, generosity to transfer, on swap.
Traits also allow for a lot of options.

If you know the meta to be condition heavy why do you not arm yourself and make your build allow for more or even an OP amount of condition removal.

The fact you do not want to add more then 1 condition removal is your choice. If it is not succesfull make sure you adapt. Armor is a hard counter vs DPS, removal is a hardcounter vs conditions.

As a Thief you’s almost always spec into condi clear on stealth, having acces to 3+ options for stealth allows for way more removal… then 1 skill, which can be used as you are out of stealths (while runner dagger?) having a last resort….

In wvw usage of lemongrass and poutry soup is standard for all zerging on our server, this food giving 70 vitality als removes 40% OF CONDITION DURATION! Of course condition users can offset this by Super veggie Pizza, or the bowl of cactus salad (if i’m right)

Running Zerk-Meta means you invest all and everything in DPS ignoring any chance to repair or clean, and thus suffer an extreme high chance of dying vs any damage source for as long they can degrade or avoid your spikes. It doesn’t show you are highly skilled IMHO, it shows you want to go all in for a fast kill, and forget you are vunerable….. very vulnerable! Not conditions are the problem The fact you want to ignore all options to remove them is. and that does remove the only counter vs condition damage….

I want to tell you 1 thing I run a guardian with runes of hoelbrak, I used lemongrass and poultry soup during a AC run just for the fun of it, and I noticed you can facetank the spider with zealots gear…. You will do less damage yes… but you’ll stay alive quite a while longer just due to the -60% condition duration, having only afew seconds of poison and can heal whenit’s gone makes you somuch more powerfull… and the loss of damage is minor….. especially if you use zerk armor it will remove 60% of all potential damage, but the DAMAGE during this time will be the same. The only mitigation for the actual damage per tick is regeneration or other forms of selfhealing (signet of healing), Virtue of resolve, healing on invisibility, The Ranger signet…. The fact the auto-regens remove all damage from 2-3 bleeds OR a poison should show it is quite potent…

Of course Light fields will allow for condi removal, and waters and blasts or other aoe healing will extend your time being alive (water staff ele spamming 1, when needed 5, or 3 with blasts?

But solo yes… your options are limited… and if you do not get a condition in a while you tend to get anxious to go back to your meta DPS…..

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Running Zerk-Meta means you invest all and everything in DPS ignoring any chance to repair or clean, and thus suffer an extreme high chance of dying vs any damage source for as long they can degrade or avoid your spikes. It doesn’t show you are highly skilled IMHO, it shows you want to go all in for a fast kill, and forget you are vunerable….. very vulnerable!

Extreme high change of dying? In new content for the first few try ya. But otherwise I look at animation and time my stuff right and I have no problem. That’s the beauty of the game, you can survive with passive stats or use your active ability. I prefer running zerker because the game become funnier when I need to dodge every single attack, while going way faster.

But no problem if you can’t run zerker, I don’t judge you.

You guys have gotten way off track. No one is denying that condi specs are useful in PvP, this thread was solely about PvE. They have no correlation at all. The devs are perfectly capable of splitting the way conditions behave in PvE vs PvP vs WvW since they have already done it with confusion.

Except they’re clearly not in a lot of regards when it comes to splitting PvE from WvW.

And again, simply buffing conditions does nothing to actually solve the problem since one option will always be the most favorable. Even if the numbers are similar – the option with the highest DPS will reign as what is demanded for speed clears and that’s just a fact.

I wrote 6 or 7 posts now about my vision in PvE, If people cannot avoid damage in PVE and do not care to take a condi remoavl I do not mind them needing to respawn.

And Even though I tend to have some sort of condi removal If I think I migt need it, I do my dungeons on my Pug Carrier following meta. (which equals no clear). dodging tends to keep you very much alive in PvE, If we would get a condi heavy dungeon I’d survive as well. due to many characters which are build for DPS WvW or just being plain WvW condi builds themselves. (running a condi buld and getting a reflect can be very nasty, as is roamer vs roamer. It’s a bit opener then PvP but the end results ten to be the same )

In PvE I’d still prefer a heavier condition load, more durations, more armor. The shift towards more armor has begun, now see what will happen next.

In PvE it’s not even the damage balance. I don’t mind putting the current damage balance to one side. Everyone knows condition users generally enjoy higher survivability stats, they can inflict damage while doing other things, their control conditions generally enjoy much longer durations and shouldn’t be underestimated (some bosses/mobs are so much more easy for the zerkers to melt with perma-chill/cripple/weakness/poison on them).

The biggest problem in PvE is the condition stack limit as is. Either non-condition focussed players interfere with your damage a bit. Or a second condition focussed player renders you utterly ineffective, or you do that to them. There is plenty of room in PvE for a single condition user in a party who isn’t watching a stopwatch. There is no room for two. And that is the biggest problem.

ANet stated that another player joining in should be a welcome thing. Conditions as they stand oppose this guiding principle.

2 condi users is possible though as long 1 is a mesmer, their focus on confusion and toment tends to leave space for others mainly focussing on bleeds poisons and burning, I agree they can overlap now and then but the mesmer has exremely short duration of the other users conditions anyways (staff: auto, chaotic storm/armor) and while in scepter only fire could be a little bit of a tug of war if the mesmer insists on torch.

It is the ONLY possibility though.

I agree the caps still prove problematic. There have been threads suggesting alternatives before and They have been speaking about an overhaul, and untill we get an X-pac I doubt we will see improvements,…. sadly.

But also the nerfs and the fact condition duration hasn’t apppeared on amors is a shame. I used a rampagers S/S warrior at launch, and it had 16+ sec bleeds on auto…. Those have been nerfed, the bleeds on skill 4 and 5 (skill 4 was later convested to much shorter duration torment) lasted 24 secs base. now we have 10 and 15 seconds…if I’m correct, The firefan could just permaburn people its 3x 1 sec now….

All those nerfs were made with PvP in mind and the fact all modes of ply should be similar, showing A-net didn’t unhinge PvE from PvP (mostly due to concerns about WvW, where conditions didn’t matter too much in the first place due to runes and food)

Thus leaving PvE mesmers with an almost useless confusion as most enemies have a very slow RoF, causing subpar damage for a LOT of work. The damage could have been raised for a higher tick when new armors and gear appeared ,and it wasn’t done, Both power and conditions were buffed, but while power became OP, and had to be nerfed even more people turned away from condi dmg… There are more cleans now, during the toxic tower a skill was introduced to clean poison and torment, and even though it’s no OP it was another indirect nerf.

I hope condi dmg will be buffed and It should to bring certain classes and gear back on track.

I’m not sure condition damage needs to be buffed outright, but there has to be simple solution that lets us use our conditions more while reducing server load.

One possibility would be to reduce things down to a single stack of each condition per player. Re-application would buff that stack instead of applying a new one. It would take some heavy math ahead of time to balance out how that works, but I think standardized multiplied durations could stand in for a player’s stacks.

For example, Bleeding could multiply at a 1 second rate. If you’ve applied just 1 second of Bleeding, damage for your tick will be normal. If you reapply and get your current remaining duration of Bleeding on the target up to 25 seconds, the damage of your next tick for that one stack will be equivalent to 25 stacks on the current/old system. If you don’t reapply after this, then the following tick would be 24, then 23, etc.

Whatever happend to “don’t bring a knife to a gunfight”?

Everyone has five character slots. Just accept than not all builds are useful in all circumstances.

Would it help if they did something like double the condition cap, but only in dungeons and other instances?

I’d think that would keep server work down and wouldn’t touch PVP at all.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

But also the nerfs and the fact condition duration hasn’t apppeared on amors is a shame. I used a rampagers S/S warrior at launch, and it had 16+ sec bleeds on auto…. Those have been nerfed, the bleeds on skill 4 and 5 (skill 4 was later convested to much shorter duration torment) lasted 24 secs base. now we have 10 and 15 seconds…if I’m correct, The firefan could just permaburn people its 3x 1 sec now….

All those nerfs were made with PvP in mind and the fact all modes of ply should be similar, showing A-net didn’t unhinge PvE from PvP (mostly due to concerns about WvW, where conditions didn’t matter too much in the first place due to runes and food)

Currently, a s/s war can get 24s bleeds without needing to use any condition duration traits or giver’s weapons. This comes from the food, and is why conditions are so ridiculous in WvW. It still has a 17s base duration with Krait runes, agony sigil, and properly traited with Deep Cuts. Duration is not the answer as I described above.

Impale was blatantly overpowered before the nerf. There’s literally no way to possibly and properly defend the skill before the nerf as being balanced. The fact someone could press 4 and deal 14k damage at range that ignored armor and bypassed a lot of traditional DoT cleanses while already sporting 25s bleeds on autoattack and an instant 11 stacks on a sub-10 second cooldown + immobilize was just way too strong as it forcefully baited huge cleansing and then just allowed the war to press one button and win a given fight. I want to point out that hits harder than most glass cannon thieves using 20-might signet builds that run close to zero condition cleansing in their entire build, anywhere. It’s not like these nerfs weren’t unjustified in the slightest.

DeceiverX.8361:

Currently, a s/s war can get 24s bleeds without needing to use any condition duration traits or giver’s weapons. This comes from the food, and is why conditions are so ridiculous in WvW. It still has a 17s base duration with Krait runes, agony sigil, and properly traited with Deep Cuts. Duration is not the answer as I described above.

Impale was blatantly overpowered before the nerf. There’s literally no way to possibly and properly defend the skill before the nerf as being balanced. The fact someone could press 4 and deal 14k damage at range that ignored armor and bypassed a lot of traditional DoT cleanses while already sporting 25s bleeds on autoattack and an instant 11 stacks on a sub-10 second cooldown + immobilize was just way too strong as it forcefully baited huge cleansing and then just allowed the war to press one button and win a given fight. I want to point out that hits harder than most glass cannon thieves using 20-might signet builds that run close to zero condition cleansing in their entire build, anywhere. It’s not like these nerfs weren’t unjustified in the slightest.

Fighting S/S warrior only entails 1 thing: distance, When outside melee you only watch for crippling attacks, Impale, and Pin Down. And you can kill him, reasonably safe negating Flurry, Sword auto, not having to worry about 25 stacks of bleeding. Still need cleans for Impale though…

Now back to topic:
First
Like I wrote for any condition duration food there is condition reduction food as well
Second
If you run 0 condition removal you shouldn’t complain about conditions being OP anyways, AS taking 0 condition removals shows you are willing to eat the damage.
If you cannot it was your choice to ignore it.
Third
In WvW in zerg you’d be protected, you’d run passive removal in food and Gear anyways (runes) and if not see point 2
Fourth
Durations in PvE are to everyones benefit. The durations will be negated anyways due to the caps involved. And trust me: however OP sinister may be, I need to withdraw from fights regularly just because I’m glass as well, eiter due to conditions OR due to Physical damage. S/S isn’t stacking to cap and running away… At least not for veterans and higher….. but playing DPS is the same: you cannot facetank world bosses, or can you?

Other good examples of condi builds as they can be used:
A krait-runed ranger, also availabe in hybrid
with A&T / SB, a lashtail devourer, a trapper build, and entangle can put 20 bleeds, poison, torment, burning, cripple, immobilize and stun on you in 3 seconds… leaving all those bleeds behind te other conditions, leaving you standing to die… without using food or anything… most people do not have a clue about power and weaknesses of condition builds, the weakness being it is unable to reapply a spike for 20-50 seconds depending on how hard you want the spike to hit next time…

Perplexity runed mesmer PU SC/P &/or SC/T (&/or Staff) , also available in hybrid
Confusion, and torment, witout backup and clears killing you due to the highest condition damage ingame, combined with might 3000+ (wich they CANNOT selfstack) making burning tick for 1100 and leaving someone interrupted and confused with a decent problem dealing with 13 stacks of confusion able to do 4k+ damage on skill activation (including condition removals and/or heals) and the huge amount of torment (10+ stacks dealing 2700 dmg /tick while moving,,,) shutdown and terminated.

previously mentioned S/S warrior, I prefer not to retype.

Condi thief (P/D & SB), also available in hybrid
Applying conditions from stealth, running in and stealthing, SB giving acces to bleeds and poison, caltrops on dodge, Caltrops as skill, venoms applyable from range. condi removal each stealth. (traps?)

Terror CondiNecro…., also availble in hybrid
Yes, terror necro… classic…. and still very dangerous, also available in hybrid

If they’d ever make a dungeon and put these builds in as enemies we’ll have hard mode.
If they’d make ‘m all rabid or dire based you’d need to resort to conditions as well….
AS CONDITIONS are the HARDCOUNTER VS TOUGHNESS.
Oh and do not forget your condi cleanses& coni reducing food… just as a reminder

Condition duration bonus/negation food shouldn’t honestly exist. They counter each other perfectly such that condition users would in most cases be better off just having better +condi damage foods which would increase DPT and remove some of the ridiculousness behind condition application in WvW. 40% increase in damage on the high end is pretty nutty.

I’m not complaining about conditions being overpowered in PvP formats with the bias of my thief lol. Being the inventor of the build I am aware of its counters and readily admit to them. That said, there should not be a one-button one-shot with no risk. That was my reasoning behind why impale alone was overpowered before it was nerfed. 14k off what is a lower-priority condition on one skill was total BS and was something nobody could adequately defend as “fair.” Even now, S/S warrior is extremely potent. My S/S war build which I use in sPvP runs nine cleanses. There are still problems with getting bombed too easily by teams of all-condition players.

S/S war is fairly effective at maintaining the distance and does reasonable damage at range via the longbow. This is especially notable through the use of Carrion gear, allowing good scaling from the power-based attacks and very high condition ticks from longbow F1, 2, 5, utility on 4, and a power-based burst on 3.

but taking condition buffing food for roaming in wvw tends to be very unwise in theory, you -could- negate some condition reduction, by making yourself overly vulnerable vs condition users… then again, you will find it works vs ppl running towards the zerk, and all other condi specs will use it, AFAIK, making condi vs condi a game of clears & heals….

It is part of the game and 40%? When running carrion or sinister 50% is more common, using toxic stones or crystals…

A simple suggestion that I’ve seen a few times, is to convert excess stacks of conditions to direct damage rather than simply losing them. So if your ability would apply a 26th stack of bleed it’s instead converted to direct damage (multiplied by some appropriate coefficient, as needed).

I would say that should apply only in PVE the current behaviour should remain in PVP.

Anyway, to my knowledge there has been zero movement on this issue so I don’t think that they really consider it a problem at all.

Well I’d approve seeing overflow damage being applied direct….
bleeding would trigger heamoraging
burning would trigger immolation
poison would trigger fatal dose
torment would trigger haunted
confusion would trigger panic
terror would trigger horror
dropped/overwritten stack woul be applied direct….

Damage could just be applied as physical (imagine a 24 second stack of high condidmg bleed being released 24*150…3600 dmg hit…) It would fit… at least for PvE

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Well I’d approve seeing overflow damage being applied direct….
bleeding would trigger heamoraging
burning would trigger immolation
poison would trigger fatal dose
torment would trigger haunted
confusion would trigger panic
terror would trigger horror
dropped/overwritten stack woul be applied direct….

Damage could just be applied as physical (imagine a 24 second stack of high condidmg bleed being released 24*150…3600 dmg hit…) It would fit… at least for PvE

I like those names. Even if it only caused half that damage it’d be brilliant (1800 damage is worse than 3600, sure, but it’s a whole lot better than 0).

I’m kind of surprised they haven’t done something like this, but as I said, I don’t think they consider it that important: imagine if there was a bug where only the first 25 sources of direct damage were processed each second, these condition caps are like that, just not as obvious.

It would involve retuning the mob health/scaling algorithms but that’s not a bad thing, IMO.

Pifil.5193:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Well I’d approve seeing overflow damage being applied direct….
bleeding would trigger heamoraging
burning would trigger immolation
poison would trigger fatal dose
torment would trigger haunted
confusion would trigger panic
terror would trigger horror
dropped/overwritten stack woul be applied direct….

Damage could just be applied as physical (imagine a 24 second stack of high condidmg bleed being released 24*150…3600 dmg hit…) It would fit… at least for PvE

I like those names. Even if it only caused half that damage it’d be brilliant (1800 damage is worse than 3600, sure, but it’s a whole lot better than 0).

I’m kind of surprised they haven’t done something like this, but as I said, I don’t think they consider it that important: imagine if there was a bug where only the first 25 sources of direct damage were processed each second, these condition caps are like that, just not as obvious.

It would involve retuning the mob health/scaling algorithms but that’s not a bad thing, IMO.

Meshing condition stacks into one doesn’t quite work, since each contributor needs to have their portion marked, especially for traits like the HP-gain on condition ticks for Necro.

Best I could see right now are:
1. Each player gets their own portion of the stack. Stack strength and duration get adjusted with each new application by the player. I’ve done some half-kittened modeling on it, and it looks okay. The idea is terrible for PvP/WvW though, and would best if only applied to Elite and higher enemies in PvE.
2. Removed stacks do a portion of their damage when replaced. OR Stacks applied after the stack cap do a portion of their damage immediately. Less of an issue in PvP/WvW, since condition cleanses are prevalent. Might take some balancing tweaks, but it could work.
3. Rebalance PvE enemies for greater Toughness and less HP. It increases the value of condition damage without raising it in PvP/WvW. It doesn’t solve condition stack problems and players getting credit, and it’s also a hefty investment for a balance pass.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

but taking condition buffing food for roaming in wvw tends to be very unwise in theory, you -could- negate some condition reduction, by making yourself overly vulnerable vs condition users… then again, you will find it works vs ppl running towards the zerk, and all other condi specs will use it, AFAIK, making condi vs condi a game of clears & heals….

It is part of the game and 40%? When running carrion or sinister 50% is more common, using toxic stones or crystals…

Condition duration food is always preferable to condition damage modifier food. It helps clear camps faster and allows for utility conditions like cripple and immobilize to extend far beyond their intended durations and thus have an even greater impact on the small scale due to limited cleansing.