Guild Wars 2

Yeah, condition damage is actually good. You heard it here first. Here’s why:

Overall damage output is comparable or better

Here’s some quick, simplified Guangmath, using rangers as an example (just because their rotation is relatively simple).

A zerker ranger who is full buffed (full might/vuln/fury, banners, EA, Spotter, Frost Spirit, potion, Force/Night, full Ascended, 100% uptime on Scholar buff, etc.) will have a total power of about 2700 (worth about 4x damage). Crit chance will be close to 100% with +80% crit damage from ferocity, so total crit modifier is about 2.3 (i.e. you always crit for 2.3x damage). All the other buffs (vuln, traits, consumables, sigils, utilities, etc.) adds up to about 2.35×. I’m rounding a bit here but you can count it yourself. Sword chain hits 639 total damage at base stats every 1.85 seconds, so it’s worth 345 DPS. 345 × 3 × 2.3 x 2.35 = about 7.5k.

Now let’s make that a Sinister ranger with axe/torch. Same buffs except build modified for a condition spec (Malice/Earth sigils, Balthazar runes, Tuning Crystal, Rare Veggie Pizza). That gives you a condition damage stat of about 2650 which means that bleed ticks 280 (with vuln) and burn ticks 680. I’m going to skip the minutiae of calculating the exact stacks but in summary, Splitblade + Sharpened Edges + Entangle = 15 stacks of bleed, and Throw Torch + Quick Drawn Bonfire = about 7 stacks of burn. So bleed = 15 × 280 = 4200, burn = 7 × 680 = 4760. Total = 8960. Plus you do still deal some direct DPS (about 1k worth) so you’re looking at about 10k total DPS.

tl;dr full buffed zerk ranger = 7.5k, full buffed sinister ranger = 10k.( Yes, I know you can burst with Barrage, use traps, etc. I’m just keeping it simple.)

Direct DPS scales better (and that’s a bad thing)

Remember I said “full buffed”? That’s a pretty kittenumption in the general course:

- Having 100% banner and spirit uptime
- Warrior has EA and ranger has Spotter
- The potion you’re using works on the mob you’re fighting (so it’s not like Arah P2 where you keep switching between Inquest and Undead)
- The dungeon/whatever is considered night
- Your Scholar 90% buff is always up

When was the last time you were in a pug where you had everything? Let’s uncheck some boxes and see what the Zerker number goes down to.

- No EA, Spotter, or Frost Spirit
- Accuracy instead of Night sigil
- Strength instead of Scholar runes

Result: Zerk DPS drops to 5.5k (down from 7.5k, 27% loss)

Now we do the same thing for Sinister (take out EA, Spotter, Frost Spirit),. except Sigils and Runes don’t need to be changed since they’re already universal: You lose approximately one bleed stack (from loss of crit chance resulting in fewer Sharpened Edges procs) so your bleed damage goes down to 4000. You also lose about 20% straight DPS from not having the other buffs so in total your Sinister DPS drops to about 9600 (down from 9.6k, 4% loss). Hell, let’s get rid of all the other external buffs (like banners), and fury too, so it’s just might and vuln. Result: 8.5k DPS (down from 10k, 15% loss).

Tl;dr: Zerker loses damage very rapidly once you start taking away buffs. Conversely, even with the bare minimum, a Sinister ranger still gets 85% of max potential DPS easily.

Ramp-up time isn’t as big a deal as you think

You’ve probably heard some variation of “conditions suck because it takes forever to reach max stacks”. That’s technically true but it’s also not. While some classes do get really long bleeds that can stack up for a while before they start dropping off (necromancer scepter comes to mind), most also have big opening bursts of condition damage that are basically guaranteed to tick for full damage. See: Engineer opening burst with Fire Bomb, Napalm, and Blowtorch for 164 ticks of burn after condition duration is applied, and the longest duration burn on there is Incendiary Ammo for 10 seconds. That means that even before the engie starts any kind of bleed “ramp-up”, he’s already burned the target for 164 ticks of 600+ damage each. That’s at least 100k damage right off the bat.

So I guess the PHIWs won in the end.

Disclaimer: Conditions aren’t great for bosses that are immune to conditions or who cleanse a lot, for obvious reasons. If you’re gonna do Arah P2 a lot, don’t salvage your zerk set just yet.

Congrats. You compared the auto attack chain from a berserker ranger using sword to the Axe #2 with the combination of other skills including the ~60 second elite from a sinister spec’d ranger. Definitely a fair comparison and not to mention inconsistent.

Any condi build with good burning right now is quite decent. Not sure I believe in the better aspect, but they are good no doubt. Loving my Sinister Engi pumping a good 12k+ dps and apparently caps at 15k thanks to the math guys (12k is my estimate reading my combat logs).

I do certainly love that it’s better, but I’m not going to fool myself into beleiving that it’s superior or can even match what I know I can do on Power builds.

I’m sure you won’t be complaining when it’s finally patched in and all the skills have the proper balance tweaks.

Burning is so broken right now. I can down five people at once in PvP with my Guardian. I expect this to get nerfed in the futue. Condi has it’s uses in PvP and WvW… but PvE will always be zerk until HoT proves otherwise.

I will just wait until they balance out everything. Until then, I still will say berserker is still King at the moment because they are killing stuff faster and conditions is just a several seconds slower due to you needing to stack condis on the enemies. Don’t need to do all the bloody match problems to see it.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Yeah, condition damage is actually good. You heard it here first. Here’s why:

Overall damage output is comparable or better

You do realize that this is true and an absolutely basic requirement for DoT effects, right?
You trade in “instant effect” to gain more damage. That’s how DoTs work. That’s their most integral upside, that they do more total damage. And in turn, they cannot bring someone down right away, they need time to deal their damage.

I’m baffled that this is supposedly a bad thing.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

Burning is so broken right now. I can down five people at once in PvP with my Guardian. I expect this to get nerfed in the futue. Condi has it’s uses in PvP and WvW… but PvE will always be zerk until HoT proves otherwise.

I really hope they do one of the splits between PVP and PVE. While they’ve been pretty stingy with it I think this is a perfect example of where it’s needed. Even with burning in PVE Condi’s are still behind, nerf it and condi’s will go back to strictly second class.

In fact I think they need to bring bleeding up a bit, or make % damage modifiers work on them to really make condi’s viable in PVE.

Carighan.6758:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Yeah, condition damage is actually good. You heard it here first. Here’s why:

Overall damage output is comparable or better

You do realize that this is true and an absolutely basic requirement for DoT effects, right?
You trade in “instant effect” to gain more damage. That’s how DoTs work. That’s their most integral upside, that they do more total damage. And in turn, they cannot bring someone down right away, they need time to deal their damage.

I’m baffled that this is supposedly a bad thing.

The issue here is the risk vs. reward. To do decent direct damage you are forced to go melee since that option offers considerably more damage and grants you access to all the needed shared boons (might, fury, etc.) and still forces you to wear glassy gear to pull of your dps.
On the other hand, most classes (most, not all) can stack their conditions from range, making fights considerably easier.
Though I admit, this is no new issue since the rewards for players showing a high skill cap still are laughably low (e. g. same chance to get a pre for killing a yellow moa in queensdale aswell as for soloing lupi).
The only difference was the time they needed to get content done. Now boosting the damage of the PHIWs while still sitting at the same low risk decreases their time investment to get content done, thus lowering the gap between them and those who already tried their best to improve and get better.

Wether that’s a bad thing, well, everyone will have to judge that for themselves.

Now try to get your condi dmg up vs a group containing a shout cleanser… guards can remove 13-18 condidions in 35 seconds. changing a part to buffs.. while doing nice DPS.

Sinister is very powerfull but it has power as a minor stats and without might it isn’t extremely strong, when at 25 might it becomes a bit stronger BUT you need to be able to keep it up, and just spamming 1 to keep might at 25 stacks will cause problems when you want condition dmg… as auto procs only little bleeds if traited.

Nash.2681:

The issue here is the risk vs. reward. To do decent direct damage you are forced to go melee since that option offers considerably more damage and grants you access to all the needed shared boons (might, fury, etc.) and still forces you to wear glassy gear to pull of your dps.
On the other hand, most classes (most, not all) can stack their conditions from range, making fights considerably easier.

That’s a very separate issue from the basic DoTs-vs-DD though, isn’kitten
Some attacks – which are effective – work from range without downside. Some attacks – which are effective – only work from melee, but don’t make up for this requirement.

Mind you I think the supposed part of balance is that the melee attacks cleave, so they have built-in AE, dealing far higher damage to blobs. This is ofc not realistic in sPvP, but then sPvP has so many more and much bigger issues that I really wouldn’t consider it in matters like these. If they want to work on sPvP, making it a separate game so they can fully separate things might be a good first step, and it’d be just the first of a long long road. The game mode is just a mess and misplaced in a game otherwise built for scaling combat from solo to 100+ players.

But tangential rant aside, yeah there might be some re-balancing between melee and ranged needed, granted. It happens that most melee is power-centric and much of conditions are ranged, but that’s separate from the underlying core problem, IMO.

CodeHavoc.7926:

I’m sure you won’t be complaining when it’s finally patched in and all the skills have the proper balance tweaks.

I lolled.

It is nice to see some theorycrafting in this part of the forum, however I wish OP’s title was “Why condition damage is OP (and zerk sucks)…. for rangers”. I am really not sure it is true for every class in the game and then I don’t see the problem if one class’ meta would be sinister rather than berserker.
And I know it is not as easy as it seems to run proper sims but there is maybe an optimal stat setup when you add berserker piece to a sinister set since scaling are different.

Ummm…

you didn’t even use the right condition formulas…

Bleed does 225 damage with your number, not 280…

Just that mistake alone brings you from 10k dps (lol) down to 9k

Then add the fact that your 7 stacks of burning lasts what, 5 seconds and then is on CD for 25s? giving you a 20% uptime? so divide those burn numbers by 5… bringing you down to 4k sustained DPS lol

yep… 4k sustained dps for conditions using maximum potential vs 7.5k dps for auto attack… seems about right.

He said, bleed does 280 damage ticks with vulnerability. Which is the correct value with 25 stacks of vuln.

stof.9341:

He said, bleed does 280 damage ticks with vulnerability. Which is the correct value with 25 stacks of vuln.

Bleed Damage = 0.06*CD+22.5

CD = 2650 → Bleed = 181

Vuln = +25% = 181*1.25 =226

226 !=280

Ok well he applied twice the vulnerability bonus it seems :p

That or he used a ranged with this trait : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Barbs

Worst example of research I’ve ever seen, can I downvote it twice?

1st : You don’t use ranger as a example of comparision between Damage Output x DoT
2nd : You use a auto attack setup for direct damage, and a combo for condition? ‘singleclapforyou’
3rd : Terrible Formatting
4th : DoT takes longer to reach the same damage output of zerk builded groups.
5th : A group in set kitten persons, and not a single ranger : There is were the real numbers interest (Dungeons / Fotm / Pvp).
6th : Even while comparable in overall damage in the end of a cycletime, both would be viable, and not “X Gear Suck” as you described on your title
7th : Laughin Out Loud at ur Zerk damage output of 5k. For serious, its hard to take you serious, while my war hits over 35k in ~2s with hundred blades, or my ranger hits ~28k with longbow rapid shot in the same time, or my ele hits 10x 7k with a combo of lightning storm + Metero shower. Yeah, you “over rounded 10k condition damage outputted in 5s” is real bad.
8th : YOu don’t try to deny/destroy a build setup in order to make another viable. Show better argument for your style of gameplay without trying to break others.
9th : For solo Pve , neither glass zerk, neither condition are viable builds, so useless research around of a solo player with a solo profession.
10 : Fail research, do it right next time, thanks.

stof.9341:

Ok well he applied twice the vulnerability bonus it seems :p

That or he used a ranged with this trait : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Barbs

interesting… does that actually increase bleeding damage by 20% or does it increase damage you do while someone is bleeding by 20%?

I wasn’t aware of anything that actually modified individual conditions outside of condition damage, though I’ve never played a ranger before.

Either way the biggest error is he takes a 3s burn burst and presents it like it is sustainable damage while in reality it only has a 20% uptime.

I just don’t get your math here.

1) Your 345 × 3 is just weird. The auto-attack have 3 strike, but they don’t all have the same damage, nor the same speed.

2) 345 × 3 × 2.3 x 2.35 = 5594.175 but you said around 7.5k

3) 2700 Power? You obviously forget the 1000 base Power dude. That’s like a huge mistake. So now the minimum base dps is 1427, which is very far from your 345 × 3.

4)

When was the last time you were in a pug where you had everything? Let’s uncheck some boxes and see what the Zerker number goes down to.

- No EA, Spotter, or Frost Spirit
- Accuracy instead of Night sigil
- Strength instead of Scholar runes

Wait a second. You compare zerker dps of a RANGER, but you remove Spotter and Frost Spirit? And change Scholar for Strength?? I could see that if you are a other classe than Ranger, but seriously?

I actually agree that condition is close to direct damage right now. But that’s not with that kind of math that you will change the popular opinion.

I think the OP must be trolling. Condition damage has always been less superior to raw damage, and zerker gear is the pretty much the primary armor stat combination for everything unfortunately. And to those complaining about burning damage, I think it is a L2P problem most of the time. This is because:
1. All of the damage is caused by ONE condition.
2. It can only be applied one stack at a time, unlike with a lot of other condi builds that put bleed, poison, torment, burn, and confuse all at once.
3. One condition cleanse negates the burn damage completely.
I’ve never had a problem with this burn buff because I have been able to cleanse conditions from myself before the ticks start doing much damage.

condition damage is for the weak

Condition damage isn’t for the weak, in fact I think it is better than just playing boring power builds all the time, you get a different angle at the game, and I find myself beating a lot of power builds with condition builds.

Timiok.1048:

Condition damage isn’t for the weak, in fact I think it is better than just playing boring power builds all the time, you get a different angle at the game, and I find myself beating a lot of power builds with condition builds.

Thanks for sharing PvP point of view on a PvE discussion.

Yes it is a pve discussion but I was actually responding to what someone besides the OP said, so it is a PvP example, but my statement applied to the whole game.

Thaddeus.4891:

I just don’t get your math here.

1) Your 345 × 3 is just weird. The auto-attack have 3 strike, but they don’t all have the same damage, nor the same speed.

2) 345 × 3 × 2.3 x 2.35 = 5594.175 but you said around 7.5k

3) 2700 Power? You obviously forget the 1000 base Power dude. That’s like a huge mistake. So now the minimum base dps is 1427, which is very far from your 345 × 3.

4)

When was the last time you were in a pug where you had everything? Let’s uncheck some boxes and see what the Zerker number goes down to.

- No EA, Spotter, or Frost Spirit
- Accuracy instead of Night sigil
- Strength instead of Scholar runes

Wait a second. You compare zerker dps of a RANGER, but you remove Spotter and Frost Spirit? And change Scholar for Strength?? I could see that if you are a other classe than Ranger, but seriously?

I actually agree that condition is close to direct damage right now. But that’s not with that kind of math that you will change the popular opinion.

Ayrilana.1396:

Congrats. You compared the auto attack chain from a berserker ranger using sword to the Axe #2 with the combination of other skills including the ~60 second elite from a sinister spec’d ranger. Definitely a fair comparison and not to mention inconsistent.

Fair conclusion to this Archimedes we have in thread head.
Dude, burning got nerfed, relax. With my warrior a barely do 1.7k burning ticks (before nerf they’re 3-4k common nubmers). Lets nerf Bleeding now.
Btw, where can i check patchnotes of it? Link, if you can please. Didnt find myself.

Sinister engineer is slightly better than berserker engineer when solo. In a normal group the berserker engineer is about 19% better DPS.

NikeEU.7690:

Sinister engineer is slightly better than berserker engineer when solo. In a normal group the berserker engineer is about 19% better DPS.

Curious, what is the Engi build you’re using the for the figures I’ve seen?

Jerus.4350:

NikeEU.7690:

Sinister engineer is slightly better than berserker engineer when solo. In a normal group the berserker engineer is about 19% better DPS.

Curious, what is the Engi build you’re using the for the figures I’ve seen?

We used the meta beserker engie build and the condition damage build Element used in his lupi solo.

NikeEU.7690:

Jerus.4350:

NikeEU.7690:

Sinister engineer is slightly better than berserker engineer when solo. In a normal group the berserker engineer is about 19% better DPS.

Curious, what is the Engi build you’re using the for the figures I’ve seen?

We used the meta beserker engie build and the condition damage build Element used in his lupi solo.

While I’m sure that is the best for Lupi, is it the best condi? I mean you don’t really benefit from offhand shield if you’re not taking advantage of the blast for might. And Toolkit prybar is nice, but the burning from FT seems hard to pass up. Just seems to me that there were defensive requirements that could be replaced to push even further? I know I can see regularly throughout a fight 5-11k burns with like 2-6k bleeds of course fluctuating as things stack and drop (and when burns go up bleeds go down so you don’t peak on them at the same time). And that’s in addition to the power/poison/confusion damage.

Raw berserker is in every way better dps than any available condi specs at this current moment. condi is usually better sustained damage, but due to how readily available condi cleanse is on most classes, it’s not a reliable way to sustain damage on anyone, condi also takes a long time to stack to a decent level, and that alone makes it sub-par to straight dps.

Sorry OP, but you’re plain and simply wrong.

Jerus.4350:

NikeEU.7690:

Jerus.4350:

NikeEU.7690:

Sinister engineer is slightly better than berserker engineer when solo. In a normal group the berserker engineer is about 19% better DPS.

Curious, what is the Engi build you’re using the for the figures I’ve seen?

We used the meta beserker engie build and the condition damage build Element used in his lupi solo.

While I’m sure that is the best for Lupi, is it the best condi? I mean you don’t really benefit from offhand shield if you’re not taking advantage of the blast for might. And Toolkit prybar is nice, but the burning from FT seems hard to pass up. Just seems to me that there were defensive requirements that could be replaced to push even further? I know I can see regularly throughout a fight 5-11k burns with like 2-6k bleeds of course fluctuating as things stack and drop (and when burns go up bleeds go down so you don’t peak on them at the same time). And that’s in addition to the power/poison/confusion damage.

i asked dekeyz and she spent a few hours doing the engi stuff. if i remember correctly, if you need defensive tools, condition damage is superior in a solo situation. if you dont, then berserker is slightly superior.

Burning is. Condi isn’t

I figured the DEKeyz figure would come up eventually so I crunched condi DPS based on the 30-second fight figure with ramp-up and it actually does roughly match Nike’s quoted 17% difference. The issue is that it’s basically a best-case scenario for zerkers (100% scholar and banner uptime, potions and night applicable, etc.) and a worst case scenario for the sinister engie (because you’re stopping the clock right before the big burns come back up).

Engie is also the most borderline case because their zerker DPS is so high. Mesmers and rangers are WAY better in Sinister specs by comparison, and warriors and necros can deal competitive damage as well (although their condi specs aren’t quite as OP).

i think you forgot the part where engie is also the most borderline because they are probably the best condition damage class in PvE.

Yeah, makes sense NoTrigger, smaller losses for condi and all.

I was mainly curious because my napkin math using my combat log I was figuring right around 12kish in normal fights (scrolling through and doing quick math between fractals). So I was curious as to the build as the math potential was higher than I expected. Nike said it was the Lupi solo build they based it on which confuses me, if it is that seems like there’s even more potential in condi, but I kinda doubt it and I assume they went with offhand pistol and maybe FT instead of toolkit.

So what build do all you math people use for your calculations? Are you using Aristocracy runes which seem better for solo, but aren’t Balth or maybe even Krait better for group?

I’ve been using this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdEQJAqalUUhSsYtWwPLQ7FLpF14PmGlBYJuiHw3GGANAA-ThhMABlq+DA7PcqyPQfAAheCA9A8oEkUAwssC-e

Didn’t Frifox figure Staff condi mesmer to be better than zerker after the update? Thought I saw him say that somewhere, but maybe he was talking about a specific situation. TBH I haven’t touched my mesmer except once since the update. Spent the whole time seeing red warning flash across my screen… RIP free targetting feedback.

afya.5631:

Burning is. Condi isn’t

Wetfire says hi.

Jerus.4350:

Didn’t Frifox figure Staff condi mesmer to be better than zerker after the update? Thought I saw him say that somewhere, but maybe he was talking about a specific situation. TBH I haven’t touched my mesmer except once since the update. Spent the whole time seeing red warning flash across my screen… RIP free targetting feedback.

Pretty sure it was only during solo runs.

stof.9341:

Ok well he applied twice the vulnerability bonus it seems :p

That or he used a ranged with this trait : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Barbs

And in addition to that, the assessment is SO specific to a build/class/gear that it’s completely irrelevant to such a general statement that Condi damage is OP.