A lot of press goes to the condition stack cap for bleeds as the primary reason why PvE conditions are bad. That’s true to some extent because it means that in group content, condition damage plateaus, whereas power damage always stacks linearly. However, the real crutch to condition damage is that it is just bad in PvE.
Consider a Necromancer with 2100 condition damage (possible with max stacks corruption, ideal condition damage setup, no might, and 30 points in curses) keeping 15 stacks of Bleed (pretty common) that tick for 150 dps each on a target. That is 2250 dps. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Necromancer can keep up permanent poison on the target as well, for an additional 300 dps. That’s a total of 2550 dps that the Necromancer can do in optimal circumstances after significant build-up and maintenance of his stacks on the opponent. Let’s also assume for the sake of argument that there is no one else applying conditions to the target so we aren’t wasting dps (which is a big hit to condition dps that we shouldn’t ignore for the complete picture). Now let’s consider a berserker warrior auto-attacking with an axe with no might, and you see that this warrior without banners/might/vuln can do something on the order of 3000 dps just by auto-attacking without any prior setup.
The supposed balancing side to this is that the condition dps goes through armor whereas the power damage does not. That sounds nice in principle, but when you factor in that vulnerability offsets a majority of that differential, and the fact that vulnerability does nothing for condition damage, you see that power based damage outshines it still.
That’s how you know something is wrong.
The problems with condition damage that need to be resolved are as follows, and really, these two problems are the key issues with all of the classes that use them as a major component of their damage. These classes, the ones that are universally regarded as inferior for all PvE content, are Engineers, Necromancers, and Rangers. This is primarily because their power builds pale compared to those of other classes like Guardians and Warriors and even Elementalists, while their condition builds are totally worthless.
- The condition cap needs to either be removed or increased to such a level that a 5-man party could never theoretically hit it on a single target (thus wasting dps).
- Condition damage is pitiful compared to power-based dps in PvE
I think one thing that could be done to make condition damage really meaningful in PvE would be to double the condition damage formulae for PvE only (NOT WvW / PvP). So, for instance, that Necromancer which was above dealing 2250 dps after all the preparation and build-up would now be dealing 4500 dps, which is better than a Warrior just auto attacking the target for 3000 dps. The Warrior can augment his dps with vulnerability and other factors, such as burst skills and his 2-5 (100 Blades, for instance, deals 10000~ dps during its burst with proper team support in the form of might and vulnerability). In lieu of this, I believe that condition damage in PvE, were it doubled, wouldn’t be broken, but would in fact validate it as a legitimate means of dealing damage in high end PvE like dungeons. This alone would go a long way to improving the Necromancer/Engineer/Ranger odds of being useful in fast runs of difficult content.
What other ideas do you think they could explore? Do you agree with my synopsis and suggestion? I’d be curious to discuss the matter. Thanks for reading this.
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