Right now I see a lot of discussion over the strength of conditions. Some builds are really powerful (burn ele) while others are in a bad spot (condi mesmer strong in pvp, but weak in pve). While I’m not sure if my suggestion will help fix specific short-term issues, I think it will begin to make the game in general easier to balance in the long run concerning conditions.
I’ve seen some people claiming that conditions are too strong because they only rely on one stat. This is simply untrue. Conditions rely on 3 stats, just like berserker builds:
- Condition Damage for damage
- Condition Duration for more ticks and higher stacks
- Precision for more rapid application
My suggestion is to make these three stats into a gear set (armor, trinkets, weapons, etc.) Right now we can get 2/3 of these stats, but one of them is conspicuously missing: Duration. Where is duration? On traits and food, and in very large quantities. I think the distribution of the Duration stat should be equivalent to other stats which berserkers take for granted on their gear. I’m not saying “double” or “triple” the duration of conditions. Not at all. I’m saying redistribute the stat to other available sources. This would make it more consistent with other types of builds.
Additionally, the scaling of Condition Damage should be similar to Power. All players start with a base of 1000 power (at level 80), and a base of 0 condition damage. Here is the wiki page for attributes. 2/3 stats for berserkers is considered a primary character attribute and treated with different scaling. Only 1/3 (precision) is a primary for conditions. I suggest making Condition Damage a primary attribute for all characters. Here is a comparison of the suggested equivalency between berserker and condition:
Berserker——————————-Condition
Power —-————————————> Condition Damage
Precision —-——————————> Precision
Ferocity —-——————————-> Condition Duration
Characters would have a base of 1000 at level 80 of Power, Precision, and Condition Damage. Duration would be treated like a % modifier, similar to Ferocity.
The last step is to take a good long look at every profession-specific ability in the game (both traits and skills) and make sure that, assuming they are wearing a full set of the new condition armor, they can apply no more or less condition damage than a berserker could apply power damage.
Personally I think it’s fine for elementalists currently to be able to reach 19k burning. That burn only lasts 1 or 2 seconds because it requires using a lot of abilities in a certain order. It’s no better or worse than a thief getting 20k backstabs, or warriors getting 30k with Hundred Blades. Classes which are supposedly know for their condition ability (necromancers) should be able to pull those numbers through bleed, poison, etc. Those numbers are clearly PvE numbers, yes. So the stats of this new gear in PvP would need to be lowered.