Guild Wars 2

As a necessary evil for the way conditions are designed, they’re capped at 25 to reduce the overall bandwidth load. Reasonable enough, but that also challenges individual and group mechanics that seek to utilize stacks of conditions beyond that, especially in the case of large scale events.

I propose a remedy to this by adding a condition that parallels each of the intensity-stacking conditions (Bleeding, Confusion, Torment, Vulnerability), wherein once the current cap of 25 stacks of x condition is met, the condition then becomes a new, duration based condition that acts similarly, but compounds the effect of 25 stacks into a single duration-based condition.

In a case like bleeding, 25 stacks would equate to, ideally, the damage of the 25 stacks of bleeding under a single condition that would have the same damage potential under a much shorter duration—something around 5 or so seconds. This would both utilize the efficiency of the stack of damage, while allowing players to continue to add on more of the same condition, until that as well hit 25 stacks, and adds to any remaining duration of the ‘overflow’ condition.

The same idea could be applied to vulnerability—allowing up to a 50% armor penetration when the time based condition is combined with the intensity based stack. Confusion would work comparably to bleed: massive damage (equal to 25 stacks) upon attack, and likewise for torment.

Lastly, any condition removal would remove both the intensity stack, and the duration stack of the given condition.

That said, have at the idea, ye masses. What’s wrong with the idea, how might it be improved, etc?

Funny, I thought the cap on conditional damage as to prevent bosses from being “nibbled to death by cats”.

http://youtu.be/PZ66wHRhe2U?t=18s