Guild Wars 2

Hey,
So some months ago, Anet stated that they were working on the condition system (how conditions are handled).
The main problem is in PvE, mainly dungeons, with the stack limits, making it useless to have more than 1 condition spammer (if one is already spamming burning for instance, all burning applied by others is totally useless).
This also included the problem of absolu uselessness against structures.
We were told that it was impossible to raise the stack limits but another solution was being worked on.
I wanted to know if there was more about it : is a global solution found ? Is it under testing ? Is it being tweaked ? Or global solution still not found ?
Just knowing that would be cool, thanks

Other than a new condition being implemented, I’m not sure anyone knows. =)

I just thought it was quite cheeky of them to come out and say stack overlap is an unsolvable problem due to server limitations, only to then add in a new condition altogether (torment).

Compounding the problem ftl. I wouldn’t hold my breath for them to sort it out anytime soon, sad to say.

As a condition necromancer, I would like to know this too. I would love a situation where conditions were considered necessary for a good group in PvE. Don’t think we’ll get an answer though. It’ll be done when it’s done if it’s being done!

I wouldn’t hold my breath either to see it soon but I just wanted to know the advancement (maybe we can hope for this 2d half year)

I doubt it’ll arrive this year. First this is a technical issure, not the usual balancing. Given it takes them couple months to do the upcoming balance patch, I would expect the condition fix taking 3 times the time to do.

Sorry to tell you. Condition builds being bad have nothing to do with condition stack as rarely do stacks hit 25. Maybe warrior teams with 25 vuln, but removing that would make encounters only more lulz. It has everything to do with power being way better than condition damage. So removing the 25 limit would do nothing to change the meta.

I am curious..there seems to be a ton of people doing condition damage out there. So, why do you think the current pro/con of Power damage vs Crit damage vs Condition damage is so far off?

I’d say there are some conditions that need nerfed(Confusion and Retaliation are still really badly designed/balanced). And some that are really bad (Burning?)… but overall I think any major condition love would also have to come with some nerfs….since there seems to be a lot of people going for condition builds in the current state?

Dangerkips.6035:

I just thought it was quite cheeky of them to come out and say stack overlap is an unsolvable problem due to server limitations, only to then add in a new condition altogether (torment).

Compounding the problem ftl. I wouldn’t hold my breath for them to sort it out anytime soon, sad to say.

A intensity stacking condition even, meaning 25 more timers for the servers to handle pr mob.

Condition is bad because:

1) It’s slow to apply, thus slow to get to it’s max damage.

2) At “max” damage, it is not any better than direct damage build. So you are basically doing more work for equal/less damage.

3) Condition cap limiting the number of condition users.

4) Kind of relate to (2). Condition’s strength should be it’s ability to ignore armor. However, there isn’t anything having insane toughness in PVE that makes condition useful.

5) Boss often remove conditions so the dps is down to 0 once in a while.

6) Condition DAMAGE doesn’t benefit from vulnerability.

Well, I agree it will be very slow since just finding a solution is not easy.
Raising/removing stack limit has been excluded.
The next “easy” idea seems to be : lower duration, raise power. Problem : would make them OP in PvP and would destroy builds based on +X% damage when target is burning/bleeding …
If only finding a solution, development for it should be even longer …
But still would like the state of it :P

Actually, there IS an easy solution…give enemies more toughness. For dungeons, more toughness for bosses and certain mobs and less vitality would give condition builds their chance to shine while keeping the berserker classes from becoming useless.

If you use the right skills and traits, I have calculated 1000 power to be as efficient as 1000 condition damage on a 2600 armor target.
But if you factor in the precision and the critical damage, that synergise so well with power, you get at least twice the direct damage.
And then comes the stacks limitations.

I don’t know, but this might be a bright idea, so hear me out.
Why not, and this is just a tought that i am sure has only surfaced in my cringeworthy mind, why not, balance the damage that a power spec does with the damage a cond.dmg player does and let stacks be personal for every individual player?
I really don’t get it why that would be such a big problem if they do the same amount of damage.

Server workload…

So I guess if we have no news, it was probably abandonned or will be in a very long time …

let conditions crit, let conditions work on objects, most of the problem solved. Took me 10 seconds.

It doesn’t solve the more then 1 condition user, but at least it fixes most of the problems.

JJBigs.8456:

Sorry to tell you. Condition builds being bad have nothing to do with condition stack as rarely do stacks hit 25. Maybe warrior teams with 25 vuln, but removing that would make encounters only more lulz. It has everything to do with power being way better than condition damage. So removing the 25 limit would do nothing to change the meta.

My mesmer alone can very easily hit 15 stacks of bleed on its own in PvE (precision – cond damage – toughess gear, illusions apply bleed on crit + phantasms get fury which gives them 20% extra crit chance), and before the nerf on the underwater trident autoattack bleed, I could reach 25 underwater from time to time, and when doing open world bosses seeing all conditions capped all the time is the norm. I do agree it’s several things that currently make the conditions weaker than direct attack, but the cap does take a big toll, specially in dungeons if you have more than one condition applier.

I have done a few calculations..
Well it’s just a matter of looking at coefficients:
I play an elementalist, with no traits the coefficient of my best weapon skill is:
Lightning whip: 1.4 (1.15 sec cast) = 1.22 p/s (power per second)
to reach such coefficient with bleeding you need: 1.22/0.05=24 stacks of bleeding, which is unattainable without a dedicated spec & build

Then factor in the precision and crit damage:
From zerker gear alone (no traits), the damage augmentation is 1.47, so the direct damage coefficient of lightning whip becomes: 1.47×1.22=1.79 p/s which is the equivalent of 12 additional bleed stacks, unattainable.

But direct damage is reduced by armor and augmented by weapon damage (x985/amor), while bleed damage is unaffected!!
How big is this?
for a 2400 armor target, lightning whip direct damage coefficient becomes: 1.79×985/2400=0.73
And this is just 15 stacks of bleeding!

So as an elem, with no traits, if I can maintain 15 stacks of bleeding on my target (a few +duration runes) I deal as much damage as a full zerker hitting a medium armored target.

Note that these calculations are based on builds with no traits and disregards base damage (unaffected by power/condition damage).

A somewhat easy way to make conditions more viable would be reversing the toughness:vitality ratio for about half of the mob types in dungeons so they have more toughness than vitality. This makes DPS less viable for those mobs and conditions more viable. Hell, they could also 50/50 the ratio of toughness to vitality for the bosses so both sides deal about the same amount of damage.

RyuDragnier.9476:

A somewhat easy way to make conditions more viable would be reversing the toughness:vitality ratio for about half of the mob types in dungeons so they have more toughness than vitality. This makes DPS less viable for those mobs and conditions more viable. Hell, they could also 50/50 the ratio of toughness to vitality for the bosses so both sides deal about the same amount of damage.

The viability is not about whether conditions on their own deal fine damage.

The viability is about whether having more than 1-2 condition damage dealers makes any sense. Which it currently doesn’t, since 2 people can easily keep bleeds capped at 25, so adding a third one does nothing.

Making conditions deal more damage in dungeons would make more people play condition specs, which would result in the above issue being more prevalent, which would result in everyone getting the short end of the stick. Especially the condition specs, as their “allowance” would be that 2/5 members in the party.