Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone.

I feel like there is no other way to play a profession efficient than full Zerker or maybe a bit kitten. Simply because Power + Crit Chance + Crit Damage (+ vournability) multiplies the damage much stronger than Con. Damage + Con. Duration. Also the max. 25 Stacks of bleeding are a total fail design and a pain for every condition spammer. And last but not least – I feel almost no difference building some Vit., Tough., or Healing Power.

Fast suggestion:

• Bleeding stacks increase
• Conditions need to get buffed their scalings
• Toughtness should become stronger (passive buff to Con.Dmg. compared to Power)
• Vitality should grant more HP
• Healing Power should be SO MUCH STRONGER

Keep in mind -> PvE

1. Vulnerability
2. Condition cap has technical reasons, not set by design
3. Condition damage should get increased more by malice than it does now. Power scales directly, condition damage only x + y * malice. Furthermore, all weapon skills get bonus damage from weapon power and player power (multiplied), malice ignored weapon power.
4. Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power (and boon duration) are weak stats, indeed. Vitality and Healing power follow similar formuals as condition damage, but toughness would be hard to change. Toughness gets weaker the more you get it. I still prefer reduction formulas with toughness as exponent ( dmg * 0.994^toughness ; instead of dmg/toughness )
5. PvE ? This game does not support such puny things.

They will change the PvE meta, when everyone has ascended zerker gear.

This will keep the gear farming alive and will give the hardcore people something to do… ^^

Nretep.2564:

1. Vulnerability
2. Condition cap has technical reasons, not set by design
3. Condition damage should get increased more by malice than it does now. Power scales directly, condition damage only x + y * malice. Furthermore, all weapon skills get bonus damage from weapon power and player power (multiplied), malice ignored weapon power.
4. Toughness, Vitality and Healing Power (and boon duration) are weak stats, indeed. Vitality and Healing power follow similar formuals as condition damage, but toughness would be hard to change. Toughness gets weaker the more you get it. I still prefer reduction formulas with toughness as exponent ( dmg * 0.994^toughness ; instead of dmg/toughness )
5. PvE ? This game does not support such puny things.

1) A quick fix is to either have vulnerability also increase condition damage or introduce a new condition (maybe toxin?) that increases condi damage on a target. (Though there’s still a bit of a problem, doing 25% more damage of a 3K direct damage attack is 750 extra damage. 25% more of a 100 damage bleed, is only 25 more damage (even at max stacks it’s only 625 extra damage).

There are also many +x% damage traits, but those don’t do anything currently for conditions.

2) for PvE (excluding WvW) conditions do need to do more damage. The pros of condition are they they go around armor, and can do damage while you aren’t attacking. But the cons are that they take longer to do that damage. But currently condition damage still has the ramp up time and the smaller DoT but doesn’t do more damage in the long run.

Also you are wrong.

Toughness gets weaker the more you get it.

That is not true. In the damage formula toughness plays the same role as power (or is as equally true as saying “power gets weaker the more you get it”).

If you ignore critical hits.
Damage done = (Weapon Strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Here an attack with 100 power vs. 100 toughness, will do the same damage as 1000 power vs 1000 toughness.

Toughness itself scales linearly, like power. It’s when you add in crits, that you end up taking more damage/toughness can’t keep up because there are 3 stats that contribute to damage and only 1 that contributes to mitigating damage.

Don’t give bad people the opportunity to surivive more with Tank Gear which they shouldn’t use already. It’s cool that some bosses one shot you no matter what gear you use, a terrible player still dies even with 30k hp and 3.5k armor which is great because it forces them to learn to play correctly.

Xyonon.3987:

Fast suggestion:

• Bleeding stacks increase
• Conditions need to get buffed their scalings
• Toughtness should become stronger (passive buff to Con.Dmg. compared to Power)
• Vitality should grant more HP
• Healing Power should be SO MUCH STRONGER

Keep in mind -> PvE

1) I agree about the stack increase. I understand that there is some technical limitation, but can someone explain to me what that is? All I understand is having to send the condition damage/sec info to everyone in the area (which to my knowledge is not much more than sending an updated hp to everyone in the area every X sec). Plus they have added torment. What is the technical difference between sending 25 bleed stacks and 25 torment stacks worth of info, vs. 50 bleed stacks info? (My point being that they are either working on fixing that bottleneck or it isn’t as extreme as advertised). Though there are already some lag issues during some world boss fights/big zergs in WvW, so if increasing the stacks will make that worse, I understand them not doing anything about it.

2) I agree about increased scaling in general (though if the cap was fixed it’d be less of an issue). Also don’t forget that power/precision/toughness/vit all get a “free” 916 points compared to all of the secondary attributes. Now I’m not saying all of them need a boost, but condition damage most likely does.

3) While I won’t complain to that, as I run knights/rabid gear. But you need to be careful. If you make it too strong, then you have a “tank”, but right now being 3 hit in knights gear instead of 2 hit in zerker gives you very little reason to use knights, unless you like to.

4) Maybe, not sure how I feel about that one.

5) Also you need to be careful here, or you’ll start making “healers.” Also some people are already complaining about certain builds already being able to heal too much, buffing healing power would make them complain even more. Plus if you end up increasing toughness and healing power at the same time, you can create the same problem that already exists with power/precision/crit damage.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Also you are wrong.

Toughness gets weaker the more you get it.

That is not true. In the damage formula toughness plays the same role as power (or is as equally true as saying “power gets weaker the more you get it”).

If you ignore critical hits.
Damage done = (Weapon Strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Here an attack with 100 power vs. 100 toughness, will do the same damage as 1000 power vs 1000 toughness.

Toughness itself scales linearly, like power. It’s when you add in crits, that you end up taking more damage/toughness can’t keep up because there are 3 stats that contribute to damage and only 1 that contributes to mitigating damage.

Damage done = (Weapon Strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor(defense+toughness)

1000 weapon damage, 1000power, 1.5skill coeff. 1800 armor.

base.
1000*1000*1.5/1800=833.3
+100power and 100 toughness.
1000*1100*1.5/1900=868.4 4.2% increase in damage.
+1000power and 1000 toughness
1000*2000*1.5/2800=1071.4 28.6% increase in damage.

Power out scales toughness. the reason for this is toughness ADDS into armor. Power multiplies into weapon damage.

Remember the “attack” stat listed on your character sheet is completely meaningless.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

2) I agree about increased scaling in general (though if the cap was fixed it’d be less of an issue). Also don’t forget that power/precision/toughness/vit all get a “free” 916 points compared to all of the secondary attributes. Now I’m not saying all of them need a boost, but condition damage most likely does.

You forgot the base damage a bleed deal, thats ~850 Condi damage. Base burning is worth 1280 condition damage. The damage a condition deals is not bad, but there are too many things that effects direct damage, like traits.

I don’t understand those technical limitations on condi caps, too. There is no difference in the data send to an client. The only difference is the calculation that needs to be done. And this could be simplified, no check on might every second, only at the time, the condition is applied.

I think toughness and healing is fine, maybe only increase their effect by 20%. In my oppinion, its the enemy design, that makes them ineffective. In PvE we see slow attacking, hard hitting stationary enemies. In PvP we have fast attacking, low damage enemies with high movement. This imbalance makes defensive stats more ineffective and any change to it, would effect PvP too. So its more the boss design, that needs to be adressed, to make defensive stats more viable (faster attacking more moving enemies, like bandits).

Boon duration and the effect of boons should be adressed too. Right now, every boon that is applied, is equally strong (except regeneration). This makes stats like boon duration more or less useless. Some changes here, that would make healing power effect every boon. This could give the game some more depth and would increase build variaty, but with the risk of an “healer”. But as long as this “healer” is no must have in a party, I dont see any problems. Same thing for “tanks”, making them viable, without making the game impossible for a DPS group would be a huge step.

Well, it’s a difficult question, but I’ll try to explain.

First – as said by Casia – Armor is the addition of defense plus toughness. So doubling toughness does not equal doubling defense. But that’s the case for power (at least for weapon skills).

The equation ( dmg = wpnAtk * power * skillCoeff / defense ) is limited to weapon skills, not generally present – especially not for minions, kits or conjured weapons. But even there defense and power lose in strength the higher they get.

Imagine a base attack of 100,000 damage hit you and you had 500 armor. It’d be reduced to 200 damage.
You get 100 toughness by various means. The damage now gets reduced to 166. Effective reduction of 16.7% for 100 toughness.
You get another 100 toughness by various means. The damage becomes 143. The effective reduction is 14.3% for the second 100 toughness.
If you have 1500 defense and get another 100 toughness, that bonus only brings you 6.25% less damage.

Saying:
The more toughness you got, the less effective further toughness becomes. But that’s basically the case for all stats in GW2. But with direct damage, you can always compensate the reduction of effectiveness with three other stats: Power * WeaponAttack * Precision * ~CritDamage.

Casia.4281:

Damage done = (Weapon Strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor(defense+toughness)

1000 weapon damage, 1000power, 1.5skill coeff. 1800 armor.

base.
1000*1000*1.5/1800=833.3
+100power and 100 toughness.
1000*1100*1.5/1900=868.4 4.2% increase in damage.
+1000power and 1000 toughness
1000*2000*1.5/2800=1071.4 28.6% increase in damage.

Power out scales toughness. the reason for this is toughness ADDS into armor. Power multiplies into weapon damage.

Bleh, of course the simple numbers I pick in my head are just a special case to make my point easy. But then again, I am biasing my numbers to be the same, you are biasing them to be different.

weapon damage =1, skill coeff = 1 (for ease of numbers)

1000 power vs. 1000 toughness
1*1000*1/1000 = 1 damage
1100 power vs. 1100 toughness
1*1100*1/1100 = 1 damage
2000 power vs. 200 toughness
1*2000*1/2000 = 1 damage

See? I am increasing my power and toughness both by the same number and the same percentage. It has nothing to do with “Power out scales toughness.” That is wrong. Of course 2/5 will not be the same number as 3/6, but 1/1 is the same as 2/2. But 2/5 is the same as 2.4/6 (a 20% increase in both stats).

So yes, technically I am still correct that toughness and power scale linearly, but you are right about weapon power*power vs. toughness + armor, which effects damage.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Casia.4281:

Damage done = (Weapon Strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor(defense+toughness)

1000 weapon damage, 1000power, 1.5skill coeff. 1800 armor.

base.
1000*1000*1.5/1800=833.3
+100power and 100 toughness.
1000*1100*1.5/1900=868.4 4.2% increase in damage.
+1000power and 1000 toughness
1000*2000*1.5/2800=1071.4 28.6% increase in damage.

Power out scales toughness. the reason for this is toughness ADDS into armor. Power multiplies into weapon damage.

Bleh, of course the simple numbers I pick in my head are just a special case to make my point easy. But then again, I am biasing my numbers to be the same, you are biasing them to be different.

weapon damage =1, skill coeff = 1 (for ease of numbers)

1000 power vs. 1000 toughness
1*1000*1/1000 = 1 damage
1100 power vs. 1100 toughness
1*1100*1/1100 = 1 damage
2000 power vs. 200 toughness
1*2000*1/2000 = 1 damage

See? I am increasing my power and toughness both by the same number and the same percentage. It has nothing to do with “Power out scales toughness.” That is wrong. Of course 2/5 will not be the same number as 3/6, but 1/1 is the same as 2/2. But 2/5 is the same as 2.4/6 (a 20% increase in both stats).

So yes, technically I am still correct that toughness and power scale linearly, but you are right about weapon power*power vs. toughness + armor, which effects damage.

you are ignoring a key factor of the damage equation to make your statement true.

Defense stat exists, and adding into toughness means power will outscale toughness, since power is NOT 1/1 with toughness.
Power is 1/(1+1) with defense+toughness.

Why this is, I can not say. A design change? a design oversight?

The fact that your charactersheet STILL lists “attack” as weapon damage+power is rather confusing. how many UI changes and this WRONG, and meaningless stat is still listed?

Is it SUPPOSED to be, coeff*((power+weapondamage)/(toughness+defense))?

Casia.4281:

you are ignoring a key factor of the damage equation to make your statement true.

Defense stat exists, and adding into toughness means power will outscale toughness, since power is NOT 1/1 with toughness.
Power is 1/(1+1) with defense+toughness.

Eh, yes you are right, that effects damage. I wish it was a Monday so I could blame my simple math error on that, but you’re right.

this may not be a popular opinion, but i think stacking toughness should have a noticeable effect on the amount of threat you generate on a mob.

So, if you build tanky you should be able to play tanky, as well. Aggro is seemingly random now, so you have nothing to lose by going all damage and dodging a few times when it’s your turn to be aggroed by the mob.

Buff condi damage in pve and you would see some changes to optimized groups.

a t s e.9614:

NO, there is no tank in gw2 and no healer there’s only DPS. stacking defense has no effect you still get one shotted by the boss, why it’s that hard to understand. Nobody can facetank a group of mobs in GW2 and arenanet don’t want this to happen. IF you like being a tank you can try playing warrior regen troll build, nobody will kill u in PvP.

a tank doesn’t necessarily have to be a damage sponge. the most important job of a tank is to control aggro and pull things off squishies.

I don’t think enemies should be completely manipulable, but also i don’t think every fight should be random aggro “every man for himself” or “stack on the boss.”

Scrambles.2604:

this may not be a popular opinion, but i think stacking toughness should have a noticeable effect on the amount of threat you generate on a mob.

So, if you build tanky you should be able to play tanky, as well. Aggro is seemingly random now, so you have nothing to lose by going all damage and dodging a few times when it’s your turn to be aggroed by the mob.

While I only have empirical data. I swear some mobs do target higher toughness people (or at least target them a greater % of the time).

I’ve two maned fire shamman before, me, a knights/rabid war and a zerker ele, and in every phase, the fs would just follow in a circle, while the ele pounded him with x3-x5 the damage.

In AC path 1/3, I’ve had the final boss just run after me in a circle while the rest of the group pound him with damage.

In the aetherblade dungeon, when there were just 2 of us left. She’s run directly to me every time to attack me, even if she had to run across the entire area and ignore the thief standing next to her (didn’t know she tele’d to the farthest person at the time).

I even got pulled into one of the TA paths to help “tank” the vet oak harts. And I kept 3-4 of them on me running in a circle 75%+ of the time.

Then again, I’ve seen other enemies ignore me completely. In the new TA path, sparki never attacks me. I’ve mainly only see her attack thieves and eles first.

But I don’t think every enemy should target high armor people. As it stands, there are times when I see my hp is the only one going below 80% from mob attacks, while mine is ~40% (including using block, and dodge skills). Toughness would need a big buff if it actually drew all the agro, and then we’d be at a tank.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Scrambles.2604:

this may not be a popular opinion, but i think stacking toughness should have a noticeable effect on the amount of threat you generate on a mob.

So, if you build tanky you should be able to play tanky, as well. Aggro is seemingly random now, so you have nothing to lose by going all damage and dodging a few times when it’s your turn to be aggroed by the mob.

While I only have empirical data. I swear some mobs do target higher toughness people (or at least target them a greater % of the time).

I’ve two maned fire shamman before, me, a knights/rabid war and a zerker ele, and in every phase, the fs would just follow in a circle, while the ele pounded him with x3-x5 the damage.

In AC path 1/3, I’ve had the final boss just run after me in a circle while the rest of the group pound him with damage.

In the aetherblade dungeon, when there were just 2 of us left. She’s run directly to me every time to attack me, even if she had to run across the entire area and ignore the thief standing next to her (didn’t know she tele’d to the farthest person at the time).

I even got pulled into one of the TA paths to help “tank” the vet oak harts. And I kept 3-4 of them on me running in a circle 75%+ of the time.

Then again, I’ve seen other enemies ignore me completely. In the new TA path, sparki never attacks me. I’ve mainly only see her attack thieves and eles first.

But I don’t think every enemy should target high armor people. As it stands, there are times when I see my hp is the only one going below 80% from mob attacks, while mine is ~40% (including using block, and dodge skills). Toughness would need a big buff if it actually drew all the agro, and then we’d be at a tank.

yeah if anything has an effect on aggro it’s toughness (so says conventional wisdom), which is why i think it should be improved to the level of “toughness DEFINITELY influences aggro” to the point where if you want to pull aggro you should be able to, within reason.

And again, i don’t think you should be able to stack toughness and facetank bosses. but a player built for defense has more flexibility to mitigate/avoid damage than a glass cannon/dps specced player, so the tankier player should also be given the ability to use his resources to benefit the team, instead of chasing after a mob as it randomly picks it’s targets.

Interesting point about toughness + armor vs power * weapon strength.

It inspired me to do some math, the basis of which was my first attempt at calculating all this months ago when I calculated that vs direct damage vitality > toughness when vitality < toughness + armor.

(Co-Eff * Power * Weapon Strength)/(Armor+Toughness) = Damage

But in order to incorporate things properly we’re going to takea look at this instead:

(Co-Eff * Power * Weapon Strength)/(Defense * Health)

Because:

Damage / Health => Percentage damage, and Frist Formula / Vitality => second formula.

I’m ignoring critical for now, I think we’ll see the results without another multiplying factor, just assume it is 0% for now.

So if you have 1000 weapon power, 2000 power, co-eff = 1, 2000 toughness, and 10000 vitality

10% damage.

Increase power by 100: 10.5%
Increase vitality by 100 (1000 health): 9.1% damage.

The problem then becomes putting this (and the values I’ve ignored) into a chart to consider all potential iterations and variables. The forumlas get more and more complex when you try to consider different skill exponents, critical rates, etc.

The real problem isn’t the numbers, the real problem is how they’re used. Killing faster means you take less damage. What happens to the numbers when both people are in groups? What about healing? Dodging? I’m not that much of a math pro! Intuition tells me:

-Dodging favors damage, since it doesn’t scale with defense, but you also can’t do direct damage and dodge at the same time…
-Healing is so situational and skill dependent, who knows?
-Groups would amplify the more damage = less damage effect I would think?

edit: Just so everyone knows I’m not bias on this, if you make the co-efficient 4, the damage becomes 40%, and increasing power by 100 increases that number to 42%.

The same could be said about how precision and critical damage work with power. The more you increase the effectiveness of not only power, but weapon damage, and your coefficient. Its almost easier to ignore these factors, but when comparing % effectiveness of various stats, you simply CANT ignore them.