Guild Wars 2

I’ve posted in the Engineer forums about the incredible buff that condition builds got this patch and it lies in the tid-bit about fixing condition duration on all items. Now it is possible to get over 100% condition duration for all conditions (double damage). This is the new meta in condition builds. Condition duration is the equivalent to crit DMG %. So do some experimenting and see how much total condition damage you can do.

What is this witchcraft?

yay, I can stack more bleeds, wait, why are there already 25 stacks on the mob?

Seriously, idk what you are talking about with a condition damage buff.

In WvW you essentially double your damage by increasing the duration by 100%. This allows people to stack conditions better.

If you would like an example see my post in the Engineer forums. All professions have access to this buff.

Does this mean that my PvE Guardian burn dmg build is actually viable in WvW?
If so it’s good news because I am retiring my main Zerker Ranger due to it’s latest crippling and not having the items to re-gear it.
Please say it’s so. I haven’t been to the new & improved WvW yet because I didn’t have a viable character to take.

Condition damage is vastly inferior to direct damage, and likely always will be.

25 stack limitation pretty much wrecks long bleeds.

Trash mobs die before most conditions finish proc’ing.

Thieves, shout warriors/guardians, necros shed conditions with ease.

Mesmers just give you your conditions back.

Condition could be a cool thing if they were simplified in application. No more stacks, just give bleed and burning different secondary effects instead of straight dps (ala poison) so that they are differentiated by those secondary effects, not by how quickly they build up to max damage. Remove most of the condition removers and replace with one utility skill per class that acts as the only way to remove conditions. No more thief default heal being condition removal, etc. All subsequent applications of a condition increase both the damage and duration of that condition. So every time someone hits you with burning, it ticks for a couple extra points and one tick longer, etc.

This would greatly simplify balancing condition damage compared to direct damage as well as reduce the CPU load for tracking conditions on the servers.

It won’t happen tho. Too much creative energy was invested in the original system, and its really hard to break that kind of creative inertia no matter how obvious its flaws are.

^^That’s what I thought, but one could hope.
It’s frustrating to make a build based upon an inherent condition to a class only to find it was a waste due to the limitations of conditions. I specc’ed for dmg not duration since so many skills allow guardians to keep burning duration going indefinitely. It’s very fun to play a burn dmg guardian but it’s still not viable in groups.
I shall take my green wearing MF warrior around to PvE events to earn gold for a new set of exotics for the guardian.

Excepting one Necro trait I know of, duration is capped at +100%. So you can’t get over double length. It’s a very risky way to go because most conditions don’t run their course in PVP because of removal, and you lose a lot of DPS.

even if duration is increased
the amount of condi removal is to much
wheres this double dmg you speak of?
thats right it needs to stick for 10 secs first to be doubled…. but waaait
condi’s don’t stick for longer then 2 secs so the dmg isn’t doubled at allll its reduced by 4/5 so uhm where was the double buff again?

I tried a condition necro in WvW for a while and it is terrible. Most conditions are removed before they have a chance to do much damage and it takes too long to put them back on to be efficient. If there were a way to quickly put like a stack of 5 back on it would probably be more viable in WvW. The problem is you can pretty quickly put on 5+ stack of bleed then it is removed, all of your bleed spells are not on cd and all you can do is spam 1 on scepter to try and put some back on. Well by that time you are dead. PvE it is more viable if you are the only condition build in your party.

Condition builds are fun but with the 25 stack limit and how easy it is to remove conditions it is better to go pure damage. As a necro I will never have conditions on me for more than a few seconds. I just laugh it off.

Not sure how an engineer cond build works but I cant imagine it is much diff than necro’s.