Guild Wars 2

So before I begin, I’m just going to say I know nothing about WvW status of conditions. From what I’ve read they dominant, which is funny since they’re useless outside of solo play in PvE.

However, from what I understand, a big issue with conditions is that it just scales off damage. Duration scales as well, but considering it’s rather easy to just clear the long duration ones, an extra second isn’t much.

On the other hand, direct damage uses Power, Crit chance and Crit damage.
What if instead, Condition DoTs scaled off of damage, the speed in which they tick and the duration as well?
It may not be possible with the game engine, but it the best damage with something HAS to scale off of at least two things to be effective, surely that is a better way to create balance.

Condition Duration doesn’t only affect damaging conditions, it also affects the controlling conditions. A big portion of their value is that they also increase the duration of Immobilize in particular.

sPvP and WvW already have condition damage as a viable source of damage. This could disrupt the balance even further there.

A big part of why condition damage isn’t viable in PvE is because of the limited stacks. You can’t really fit more than one condition user into a group without causing you to overbleed your enemies.

Crit damage is getting knocked down a peg. Let’s wait for a bit and see how it goes.

Actually the easiest fix for condition damage in PvE is to increase stack count for dungeons or separate particular condition stacks to individual rather than party wide (bleeding particularly).

I get where the OP is coming from though. It seems like crit has two multipliers, where as condition damage only has one, but condition damage also has condition duration as stated by Sarrs, which is less noticeable than crit damage but still very prevalent, especially in pvp and wvw.

I wasn’t meaning that it “seems” that condition only has 1 multiple, but more so that conditions don’t have to scale their damage off 3 things, where has direct damage does, and as a result you have things like zerker, which is pure direct damage.

It’s rather confusing, so I’d like to see what change the Ferocity has on the meta. It just seems at least in end game content, conditions are useless in PvE (besides being supplementary assistance), even if you ignore the cap as you only really have bleeds to work with for reliable damage.

Technically there are 3 stats for condition user.

1. Condition damage. This is the one most people know about and use, no explanation needed.

2. Condition duration. you can effectively double your condition damage if you get to 100% duration increase because it means you can have twice the number of stacks of conditions on people. This however is effectively useless due to the 100% hard cap, the hard condition cap making more stacks do nothing and the fact that 2 of the major damaging conditions (burn and poison) don’t stack in intensity but only duration which is useless once you hit 100% uptime.

3. Precision. Every condition class has some ability that makes crits apply bleed. Basically the more times you crit the more stacks of bleed or other conditions you apply. Combined with sigil of earth and certain rune sets you can get even more bleeds applied by crits. This is an indirect stat however since you need both the applicable trait and the correct sigils/runes to get full use out of this.

Of course due to the issues with condition duration, condition users can never get even close to their full potential and there is currently no CDam/CDur/Pre gear which would be the condition equivalent of zerker gear.

Fix the issues described above, introduce the above gear set and bam, zerker equivalent of condition gear.

I’ve not noticed but is there such a thing as haste with condi damage where one can cause them to tick faster with a higher rating? If not that would help fill the gap between burst crits and condi damage easily.

This is an interesting idea, but it totally changes the purpose of condition heavy builds.

I burst on my thief full precision and uh.. ‘ferocity’ I guess so I can do heavy damage quickly and get out of the way. I go full condition on my necro for overall pressure, not spike, because I know my necro can handle it.

I feel like this would get rid of pressure as a damage type, and completely negate several play styles. A condition heavy pressure build is like an easy mode for me. Its more relaxing to play and there is less risk for the same reward. The only cost is more time.

This is also viable only for roaming around on your own or in small groups in PvE or WvW play. Get more than 3 people together and you notice your effectiveness drop. That being said, a way to change how quickly your conditions actually damage may be a way to help the stack limit problem.

It doesn’t need to be a stat really, we have too many of those in the game already.

I do have an idea for something that can affect all conditions and boons.

It would be neat though if Anet would Introduce two new Boons, that take conditions and boons into account. These boons have very short durations (2-4 seconds), but affect the entire duration of any condition or boon you apply, so Timing is key.

- One Boon allows Damaging Conditions you apply to be 50% more effectve

• Bleed, Torment, Poison, and Burning Tick 50% faster but keep the same duration, or they could deal 50% more damage.
• Confusion deals 50% more damage.
• Poison reduces healing by 50% instead of 33%
• Crippled reduces movement speed by 75% instead of 50%.
• Vulnerability increases damage taken by 1.5% per tick, up to a maximum of 38%
• Weakness makes 75% of all hitsglancing blows, and reduces Endurance regeneration by 75% instead of 50%.
• Chilled shouldn’t be affected, since a 99% reduction in movement speed and skill recharge seems way too overpowered.
• Inflicted Blindness should force the next two attacks to miss instead of one.
• Can’t think of a way for Fear to be affected.
• Same thing with Immobilize.

- (example) a Burning does 500 Hp per second in damage. With the boon, it does 500 Hp damage every .75 seconds. Or, for the alternate idea, it just does 750 damage per second.

- Another Boon causes Boons you apply to be 50% more effective.

• Regeneration Ticks 50% faster, but keeps the same duration, or they could heal 50% more health.
• Aegis blocks the next two attacks.
• Fury offers a 30% Critical Chance increase.
• Might at level 80 increases Power and Condition Damage by 53 instead of 35.
• Protection Reduces Damage taken by 50% instead of 33%.
• Retaliation Reflects 50% more damage.
• Swiftness increases speed by 50% instead of 33%.
• Vigor increases Endurance Regeneration by 150% instead of 100%.
• Can’t think of a way for Stability to be affected.

- (example) Regeneration at 2000 healing power heals for 380 hp per second. With the buff, it heals 380 hp per second every .75 seconds. For the alternate idea, it just heals for 570 hp per second.

To Signify the Change in effect. Conditions can be a Green Icon instead of Red, and Boon Icons can be Blue instead of Orange. For Visual effect, things like the Aegis shield could be larger.

Boons and Conditions that disapear after their intended use (Blind and Aegis), could overwrite the original Blind or Aegis, so you benefit from the better effect.

This would only affect the applied stack of any condition or boon, even those that stack in duration. The game can already track and remember the difference in the damage dealt by various stacks of burning or regeneration, even though it only stacks in duration, so the same thing could be applied to this as well.

Every profession could have access to both boons in some way

There, no new stats that do anything wierd, just a new, very short duration buff that you need to apply ahead of time. This promotes more active play with both Condition builds and Support builds, and still leaves an option or two open for other builds to take advantage of them too (glass cannon builds could especially benefit from a smart application of the boon before giving themselves Might or Fury)

There, what do you think of that?

how about for the boon that effects immobilize:

if you try to use your movement keys while under the effects of immob you take small ticks of damage. ( a poor man’s torment )

and the inverse for stability (while you move under it’s effects, you tick heals instead at the same rate

Lediath.7593:

Actually the easiest fix for condition damage in PvE is to increase stack count for dungeons or separate particular condition stacks to individual rather than party wide (bleeding particularly).

I get where the OP is coming from though. It seems like crit has two multipliers, where as condition damage only has one, but condition damage also has condition duration as stated by Sarrs, which is less noticeable than crit damage but still very prevalent, especially in pvp and wvw.

This isn’t an easy fix with the current server software. They’re stated it’s simply because there would be too much data transfer/processing that the server wouldn’t be able to handle it if the cap was raised. It isn’t a deliberate design choice by the devs to have a cap at 25.

roachsrealm.9284:

how about for the boon that effects immobilize:

if you try to use your movement keys while under the effects of immob you take small ticks of damage. ( a poor man’s torment )

and the inverse for stability (while you move under it’s effects, you tick heals instead at the same rate

That could work. I was also thinking that it could make those last 50% longer too since none of those last very long anyways (….except for Rampage as one and other long lasting elite skills, I can get stability from that to last 38 seconds with the proper boon duration, which is kind of insane as it is…a 57 second Stability?…good god…..)

I think having abilities that can force bleeding and/or burning to tick off an extra second when the ability lands could be something to consider. The ability could proc for any class though traits or be integrated into some weapon abilities. Groups would use the abilities to try keeping stacks of bleed below 25 and make stacks of burning not get pushed into a 2 minute duration where it’s mostly wasted.

I wouldn’t apply it to any other damage conditions, though. They have more purpose than just damage that knocking seconds off them would interfere with.

I like the idea that there is a new stat to invest in that increase the effectiveness of boons and condis.
I think its better then introducing 2 new boons.

As I understand it (and yes, I could easily be wrong), there are “beats” where the server dishes out condition damage to everyone, based on what conditions are on them.

What you’re talking about would have every bleed/poison/ect working at a different speed, which is simply not how the game works when figuring out condition damage.

Even if I’m not right about that, this would require the game to take each speed of a condition and track it separately from all others to get the damage right. Even if there’s a very limited range of speeds you can reach, the amount of new data the game has to track is huge. Let’s say that there’s only three possible speeds you can get your conditions going at. Speed 1 (normal), Speed 2 (faster), and Speed 3 (fastest). That’s now three different types of each type of condition damage that the game has to keep track of for everything that can take condition damage.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be able to have my ranger start slapping anime-level bleeds on my targets. I love the idea. I just don’t think it can work with the core mechanics of the game engine.