Guild Wars 2

I didn’t know where to put this since theres no “condis” subforum (but with all the hate ppl have towards them it seems it should have a forums of its own) so ill leave this here for further discussion.

" Man if only that was possible. With the way classes kitten out conditions there would never be enough condi removal in this game to deal with it all.
The rebalancing needs to happen at the source of conditions where each class has 1 damaging condition and 2 covers max. If you’ve ever played condi Guardian, it’s probably the most balanced condi class when it comes to this. You have burning as your damage and if you spec into DH you can gain cripple and vulnerability as covers, unlike other condi classes that just look at you and you gain 5 conditions really. Though if the rumors are true, Guardian will be joining the other classes and probably kitten out conditions like no tomorrow come next expansion.
Though the true rebalancing that should happen are with stats in general. All stats, even condi damage and expertise, should start at 1000 and have a base value. Then all condis should all have a scaling factor with no base value to them, so that when you gain 1000 condi damage the damage of the condition doubles just like how 1000 power doubles your power damage. This would solve the problem that occurs currently where when you gear 1000 condi damage bleeds increase by ~250% damage while burning only increases by ~180%. There is a true failure in the stat system when Anet added stats beyond power, precision, vitality, and toughness, but didn’t decide to overhaul it completely.
If they added something like this they could relook at vitality and toughness (as well as maybe adding a resistance stat, cause you resist conditions), where at 2000 toughness you’d reduce damage by 50% and at 2000 resistance you’d resist 50% condition damage as an example. At the same time 2000 vitality should make you have double the health (aka base health scaling x vitality = current health, since Guardians have ~12k health at no extra vitality they’d have a scaling factor of 1.2 x vitality, while warriors would have 1.8 x vitality to get their 18k, and at 2000 vitality you’d have 24k and 36k). In a system where all stats start at 1000 and everything is a scaling factor healing power would become more powerful as well doubling the output for certain terribly scaling abilities.
Yes I know this post took a total tangent, but the problem with condis stems from the core stat system not being universal across the stats and their usefulness. "

This in my opinion addresses the core issue that exists with condis in pvp and wvw (but this could clear out the stats and help in other game modes such as pve) .

Now i know this goes further than just condition but rightfully so since if there was a chance for this to happen it should happen in all the stats that should function similarly.

I take no credit for this since i wasn’t the one who came up with this but i haven’t seen anyone explaining so well the issue so i believe this deserves a thread of its own.
(I will not include the name of who wrote this in fear that the man/woman might become victim of bad behaviour from others that don’t agree).

Well first off bolding everything has the same effect as putting everything in all caps, it doesn’t make people think it’s all important, it makes people think none of it is and causes them to skip over it. I’d recommend putting that in a quote instead of bold if you want people to read it.

That said yes the condition system has always been mechanically broken, it’s a mechanic whose only response is entirely binary and pre-meditated.

I don’t know if you’ve played the MTG card game, but I compare conditions in this game to counterspell. Counterspell was a catch all card which countered any one other thing, but had a very specific cost, built on the idea of being balanced around it having such a specific cost that it couldn’t be used everywhere. Boy were they wrong. It quickly dominated the game well outside the realm that its designers thought its cost would relegate it to. The only thing that directly answered it, was itself, and you needed to be prepared for the enemy counterspell, so everyone ran their own. There was no other way to play around it and eventually it was removed from competitive play.

Conditions are the same way, save in an A-B format instead of an A-A one. If the enemy has conditions, you either have their direct counter, condition removal, or you do not, and have no response to them, nothing to play against or even around them. The exception of course are universal responses like dodging, but those are equal responses to everything, still maintaining conditions advantage comparatively speaking.

And so with no gradation of build choice against the mechanic, condition damage can only be in two states: either it is comparable to other damage sources, and everyone brings condition damage and condition removal as their only choices; or it isn’t comparable to other damage sources, and nobody brings condition damage or condition removal.

EDIT: Should have sai that I DO agree with the OP suggestion of normalizing condition scaling between power and condi-damage, it would do a lot for maintaining balance. However, in my opinion, it wouldn’t stop the binary nature of conditions that makes them flip flop between the two extremes of the balancing scale.

Conncept.7638:

Well first off bolding everything has the same effect as putting everything in all caps, it doesn’t make people think it’s all important, it makes people think none of it is and causes them to skip over it. I’d recommend putting that in a quote instead of bold if you want people to read it.

That said yes the condition system has always been mechanically broken, it’s a mechanic whose only response is entirely binary and pre-meditated.

I don’t know if you’ve played the MTG card game, but I compare conditions in this game to counterspell. Counterspell was a catch all card which countered any one other thing, but had a very specific cost, built on the idea of being balanced around it having such a specific cost that it couldn’t be used everywhere. Boy were they wrong. It quickly dominated the game well outside the realm that its designers thought its cost would relegate it to. The only thing that directly answered it, was itself, and you needed to be prepared for the enemy counterspell, so everyone ran their own. There was no other way to play around it and eventually it was removed from competitive play.

Conditions are the same way, save in an A-B format instead of an A-A one. If the enemy has conditions, you either have their direct counter, condition removal, or you do not, and have no response to them, nothing to play against or even around them. The exception of course are universal responses like dodging, but those are equal responses to everything, still maintaining conditions advantage comparatively speaking.

And so with no gradation of build choice against the mechanic, condition damage can only be in two states: either it is comparable to other damage sources, and everyone brings condition damage and condition removal as their only choices; or it isn’t comparable to other damage sources, and nobody brings condition damage or condition removal.

haha at first i posted it with no darkening or "" and i said “lets make more apparent which part i want ppl to see so they will not get lost” but i putted both sorry on my part (not all that used with the commands to alter text here). Thank you tho for the rest of your post really interesting read. ^^

I think there is more nuance possible than Conncept.7638 is bringing to the table here:

I agree that if condition damage is (far enough) lower than power damage, nobody is going to bother with running it, or contermeasures for it.

If it is approximately equal to power, or even stronger than it, but that damage is spread over time, then there is more nuance than “only condi” involved:

• bring condition cleansing, and use it to purge off conditions.
  * bring healing, and use it to heal through condition damage.
  * bring condition transfers, and use it to move conditions back to the attacker.
  * bring a higher health pool, and tough it out.

…and also, time when you use the condition cleanse. Is it worth absorbing a few seconds of damage, and then cleaning off the last half, or should you instantly remove it, leading to less damage taken now, but also more risk.

Much of what you say applies to power damage identically, too: if it overweighs condition damage, everyone brings power, and you get simple counterplays: use an immunity, or a heal, and apply some damage reductions.

I could certainly see two big things being argued that change the picture though:

First, make protection reduce condition damage as well as power damage. That makes it more valuable, and provides another option for dealing with that source of pain. Perhaps do the same with aegis, absorbing a tick of damage?

Second, slow down the pace of GW2 PvP some. It’s … very, very fast right now. Many engagements are decided in the first six or eight moves, and that is somewhere between four and six seconds of time.

Slow that down and suddenly condition damage is less of a thing, because you have more than two seconds to do something in response to it … just like you do to power damage, which is just as spike-oriented right now.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

I think there is more nuance possible than Conncept.7638 is bringing to the table here:

I agree that if condition damage is (far enough) lower than power damage, nobody is going to bother with running it, or contermeasures for it.

If it is approximately equal to power, or even stronger than it, but that damage is spread over time, then there is more nuance than “only condi” involved:

• bring condition cleansing, and use it to purge off conditions.
  * bring healing, and use it to heal through condition damage.
  * bring condition transfers, and use it to move conditions back to the attacker.
  * bring a higher health pool, and tough it out.

…and also, time when you use the condition cleanse. Is it worth absorbing a few seconds of damage, and then cleaning off the last half, or should you instantly remove it, leading to less damage taken now, but also more risk.

Much of what you say applies to power damage identically, too: if it overweighs condition damage, everyone brings power, and you get simple counterplays: use an immunity, or a heal, and apply some damage reductions.

I could certainly see two big things being argued that change the picture though:

First, make protection reduce condition damage as well as power damage. That makes it more valuable, and provides another option for dealing with that source of pain. Perhaps do the same with aegis, absorbing a tick of damage?

Second, slow down the pace of GW2 PvP some. It’s … very, very fast right now. Many engagements are decided in the first six or eight moves, and that is somewhere between four and six seconds of time.

Slow that down and suddenly condition damage is less of a thing, because you have more than two seconds to do something in response to it … just like you do to power damage, which is just as spike-oriented right now.

Dont forget resistance that should make you immune to direct dps aswell then.

I see i believe pvp is faster new because of condition dmg. Let me explain power builds you either could burst him down and kill him or you couldn’t and there was down time condi don’t have that you can pull of big numbers with condition but theres no real downtime because of the nature they have as dots.

Firstly i believe making it a normal stat will normalise how the dmg increases per condi dmg stats you have and that could also help poorly scaled skills ion classes be more in line.

Secondly i think protection, aegis are fine since not all power classes have burst but rather higher sustain protection is great against that and aegis is for that Big burst or skills that alone will deal half your health bar (according to ppl that is possible in wvw). Condis exist in between they are sustain dmg with low ramp up time (imho) but not mind blowing high burst (well except some poorly scaled conditions and the lack of separate balance is certain area of the game).

Yeah sure resistance fights against that but not everyone has it, or condi cleanses and just handing them for free to everyone is not the best solution imho because it takes what gives uniqueness to some other classes.

Thats why i believe adding a new condition reduction stats while normalising the rest that need it like healing power and after that you go and tweak resistance and make it the equivalent of protection a flat 30 or whatever number would work well with dot dmg.

I agree with SlippyCheese.

Fights tend to be fast, and the zerk meta favored high bursts that could melt almost anyone very quckly, while condition damage was more over time, hence needed more toughness and vitality to reach its full potential. Now that conditions stack intensity, we can also see condition bombs that melt really quick too, and I don’t think that should exist. Issue here is the overall power creep, and the trend to end fights quickly.

Yet, most players don’t want too bunky builds, because fights eventually tend to be boring.

As far as I’m concerned :

• I understand normalizing condi stats would help read them, but setting base dmg to 1000 instead of 0, and keep slopes won’t change anything.
• Resistance stat should reduce ticks frequency (or damage) and provide no immunity.
• Aegis is irrelevant : it’s a block, it can prevent condi application, or not, just like it can prevent damage application, or not.
• Healing stat should provide a reduction of condi duration (so that it’d apply to every conditions, and not only the damage ones)

But in my mind, the core issues are both the combat system and players behaviour that favor ultra fast fights.

ThomasC.1056:

I agree with SlippyCheese.

Fights tend to be fast, and the zerk meta favored high bursts that could melt almost anyone very quckly, while condition damage was more over time, hence needed more toughness and vitality to reach its full potential. Now that conditions stack intensity, we can also see condition bombs that melt really quick too, and I don’t think that should exist. Issue here is the overall power creep, and the trend to end fights quickly.

Yet, most players don’t want too bunky builds, because fights eventually tend to be boring.

FWIW, I think there is a middle ground that is the “sweet spot” between dying in seconds, and dying after a week (eg: can build enough healing and damage reduction that it’s close to impossible to actually kill someone.)

I’d guess that somewhere in the twenty to sixty seconds range was about the right number to aim for, to balance between the two. eg: full glass vs full glass burst builds at the twenty seconds to kill, full defensive vs full defensive builds at the sixty seconds, and most engagements at the middle of the bell curve with balanced gearing, and ~ 30-50 second fights.

Healing power should influence how many condis (or stacks) you can remove with a cleanse. That would bring value to healing and add a new, more flexible way to balance condis.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

ThomasC.1056:

I agree with SlippyCheese.

Fights tend to be fast, and the zerk meta favored high bursts that could melt almost anyone very quckly, while condition damage was more over time, hence needed more toughness and vitality to reach its full potential. Now that conditions stack intensity, we can also see condition bombs that melt really quick too, and I don’t think that should exist. Issue here is the overall power creep, and the trend to end fights quickly.

Yet, most players don’t want too bunky builds, because fights eventually tend to be boring.

FWIW, I think there is a middle ground that is the “sweet spot” between dying in seconds, and dying after a week (eg: can build enough healing and damage reduction that it’s close to impossible to actually kill someone.)

I’d guess that somewhere in the twenty to sixty seconds range was about the right number to aim for, to balance between the two. eg: full glass vs full glass burst builds at the twenty seconds to kill, full defensive vs full defensive builds at the sixty seconds, and most engagements at the middle of the bell curve with balanced gearing, and ~ 30-50 second fights.

I agree. I’m only concerned that desirable middle ground you’re talking about is rare. Even if I acknowledge I got some of those fights.

There’re indeed 2 extreme behaviours :

• Spikes with more or less surprise effect, preferentially with stuns, then bursts or condi bomb
• Bunkers with huge amounts of cleanse, heals, resistance, boons, stab etc. They’re really long to take down.
  Those 2 extremes aren’t desirable to me, and I feel like some current builds manage to unite those 2.

It may be a matter of game balance, but I also think it’s a matter of players not wanting to be bothered fighting or losing…