Guild Wars 2

Is it very powerful or are there other types of damage that outclass it?

Because of the limit of 25 stacks per condition, once there are a few condition classes fighting the same enemy, the DPS they can provide is essentially capped. Condition classes are fine for solo or small group PvE content.

1v1 short fights (regular mob), dps is better
1v1 long fights (soloing a elite/champ/other player), conditions is better
>5v1 fights, good to have a couple condition-appliers, but dps for vast majority is better
for zerg battles, it’s actually better to have a couple players that are pure condition builds then the rest apply zero conditions. because if a dps build applies a bleed, that bleed is not going to deal nearly as much damage as a condition build’s bleed, yet it takes the spot of it.

Mystic.5934:

1v1 short fights (regular mob), dps is better
1v1 long fights (soloing a elite/champ/other player), conditions is better
>5v1 fights, good to have a couple condition-appliers, but dps for vast majority is better
for zerg battles, it’s actually better to have a couple players that are pure condition builds then the rest apply zero conditions. because if a dps build applies a bleed, that bleed is not going to deal nearly as much damage as a condition build’s bleed, yet it takes the spot of it.

This is a very good rule of thumb… but with a caveat that bleed’s not the only condition… other conditions such as poison, fire, radiation, etc from your magic users are additive.