Guild Wars 2

I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw the update about about conditions; however, I would like to suggest something different regarding fire an poison, which is to leave the “per player” interaction just as is. What I mean by this is that if player one uses a two second burn and then a one second burn, let them stack duration, but if player two then uses his two second burn, then player two’s burn would only last 2 seconds from the start of his skill, but stack in intensity with player one’s burn.

I’m sure that incoming system has been thought out well enough, but I have always been a fan of how the different conditions stacked, and I would be sad to see that creative idea go.

Regarding the interface, if you aren’t burning your target, but another player is, then perhaps a grayed out icon can be displayed instead of the normal one. This would allow you to know weather you are currently doing damage with burning, and also let you know if the target is being affected by burn, this would come in handy for something like a guardian that does more damage against burning foes (and similarly let you know whether a target is getting reduced healing effects from poison).

(This is my first forum post EVER, so I hope I put in the right place as I am completely unfamiliar with the environment)

ANet has to make definetely some changes to the condition system, paired together with fittign changes to the Boon System also for game balancing reasons.

I absolutely don’t get it, why they make such serious changes about conditions and make then as it seems so appriopiate changes to the condition system also too.
They are buffing the condition system clearly for people that play a strong condition build with high Condition Damage (Not, Devs say with CD over 700 you will see later a clear increase of your damage that you deal as condi)

A full condi build can eassily top this, so we will see definetely all Condi Builds gettign buffed and Condi is already in its current state extremely powerful for requiring basically 0 player skills, because all those mind numb damage over time mechanics that you only need to spam like crazy do the job for you mostly and NAet plans to add on top of that even more to increase this BS now with ANOTHER dot effect on Confusion.
As if Guild Wars 2 wouldn’t have already more than enough DoTs to kill people in a matter of seconds if they don#t get rid of the conditions instantly, before they become too strogn or covered by non damaging conditions, where you can#t personally choose, which condition you want to remove.
Thats something, that ANet needs to fix finally to, that you as a player can directly choose out, which condition you want to clean by marking the condition that you want to remove, before you use the condition cleanse, unless its a skill that automatically removes all conditions or only specific ones.

We have currently Bleeding, Poison, Burning and Torment, which deal damage over time. Thats more than enough, the game doesn’t need now Confusion on top of that also too, its just way too much DoT.
The game has currently even with is 4 Dots it has too much DoT, if you get spammed full with all 4 of them constantly.
Having 10+ stacks of bleeding and torment on you while you are posion and burnign is no fun, you die in seconds if you dont get the crap away ASAP.

Vitality in GW2 is too weak to prevent such way too fast kills, therefore would have to increase finalyl ANet the formular of how much health you gaion per vitality point for ridiculous 10HP/point to at least 25HP/point so that players with defensive builds can sustain better and survive longer condi builds after these buffs and to make vitality in general a more impactful stat, because currently its with toughness way too weak.

The game lacks a new Boon like Sturdiness, that should work like a counterpart to Might, so that you have a boon, that will increaase your maximum toughness and vitality. With the comung and planned changes to the Condition system, I absolutely see this boon being needed for game balance.

Retaliation is a boon, that should get removed or replaced with a different effect, like a condition spread effect, when you attack a foe, so that you give nearby foes your conditions if you get attacked with an ICD off x seconds to have a better counter boon against condi spam builds.

I’m absolutely not convinced yet, that what anet plans there will be very good changes. But who knows how all of this will play out in the end, once all changes come together including the specialization changes, all the e-specs, new skills ect. pp
What we can do now is nothing more, than just making only speculations over unlayed eggs

A full condi build can eassily top this, so we will see definetely all Condi Builds gettign buffed and Condi is already in its current state extremely powerful for requiring basically 0 player skills, because all those mind numb damage over time mechanics that you only need to spam like crazy do the job for you

So, your reasoning for thinking this is a bad idea is because players can mindlessly stand there and spam their skills, letting their skills do damage for them? Your argument is no different from a full power build just standing there and pressing 1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,11,3. You’re being intellectually dishonest if you think condition builds don’t require skill. A good, skilled player is able to keep all of their maximum levels of conditions rolling on as many enemies as they can. This takes balance and understanding of your skill options, cooldowns, and appropriate traits/utilities to get the max duration on as many conditions on as many enemies at the same time. This isn’t just “push a button and forget”, conditions take more active play than power builds, they just aren’t strong enough right now to make it reasonable to play.

Condition damage builds are objectively weak compared to power builds, even in PvP. They can be effective against certain classes and builds, but for the most part they are less useful. Outside of PvP, condition builds are useless, save for some very rare encounters. All of these changes will make it viable in the rest of them game.

I was talking also only about PvP and WvW, I know that the coming changes are mainly made only for the condition issue that was there sicne game release for PvE…
Condis in WvW aren’ät useless, as long you do with it small scale battles or 1v1s, they are basically absolutely Op, especialyl with buff food., because the gameplay of the cobmat systenm of GW2 wasn’t ever designed for counterign in combat such condition spammers, the condition removal skills and effects are all balanced around small scale PvP battles, where you have to rely yourself also onto your team mates that they help you out with their skills and aoe removals to support others.

But condition builds in 1v1 situations require no player skilsl, its just spamming your condition rotations through as quickly as you can to overwhelm your foe constantly with DoTs faster then he can remove, while trying to dodge or mitiage self as much attacks fro mthe foe and watching meanwhile, how the dot does the job for you in a matter of seconds, if you are able to keep the stacks high enough together with very high condition damage in your build, so that already low stacks of torment alone together with burnign or bleedign can be a serious life threat for you, espercially if you are panickign at the moment and get kited around, so that torment does significantly more damage per tick

With there being even buff items, that increase condition durations by freakign 40% that allows it for condi spammers to use non damaging conditions much better and longer for cover ups for the significant DoT, while the victim HAS NO CHANCE to directly remove the condition that he/she wants to remove asap by choosing directly out, which condition you want to remove, makes it even much worser in WvW

A power build just pressign only 1,1,1,2,3,1,1,1,4,5,1,1,1,2,3 ect won’t come very far agaisnt a very skilled player, because pressing your constantly your same attack pattern makes you very predictable if you try to do always the same stuff, without changing weapons or making usage of your other class related skills and mechanics.
However, a Condi Spamer doesn’t need to use that.
A necromancer already basicalyl has everythign what he needs for that in his Staff Weapon and if thats not enough, they can quickly swap to another weapon to add more conditions for their condi spam burst, that does also pretty decent direct damage at the same time, where I say, that should get reduced and therfore the condis of those skills should get slightly improved. (in regard of Staff ive also a feeling, some people uses hacks to spam all 4 skills basically in an inhuman speed simultanously)

Example:

Necrotic Grasp: Reduce its base damage from 246 to 145 and add as effect to it Vulnerability Chance of 50%, when a foe is over 50% health.

Mark of Blood: Remove its Base Damage of 73 and add 1 Stack of Bleeding, so that it does 4 instead of 3 Stacks.

Chill Blains: Remove its Base Damage and add Stacks to the Poison (with the change to Poison thats planned no problem)

Putrid Mark: Reduce the Base damage from 444 to 250 and let it also remove 1 Boon

Reapers Mark: Remove its Base Damage and add Poison to it.

So for the remove of base damage, you will then gain increased stacks of bleedign and poison as compromise what should be for this 100% condi build weapon a good change.
If you want to go Power Build with burst damage as Necro, you should use Daggers, Axe or soon Greatsword, but Staff and Scepter/Focus should be clear condi weapons.
Staff currently is too OP to be a clear condi weapon and deals too much direct damage at the same time when you burst with all the marks a target at roughly the same time, what is humanly not possible, but as like said ..hacks peopel abuse … but its hard to proof that.

With the planned changes, I see these condition spammers becoming only far more ridiculously OP in WvW, unless ANet makes also appropiate changes to Boons, to Buff food/potions for WvW and makes it finally possible for players to choose out directly, which conditions you want to remove with your skills and not handle the game that automatically for you after a dumb mechanic that can’t make good decisions for you.

Orpheal, I’m not seeing how condition builds are any different from other builds. You spam your abilities either way, but instead of doing direct damage like in a power build, your damage is over-time. Why are you flipping out? I don’t see how this is as terrible as you seem to be making it.

They might be able to incorporate a way to have what condis do in PvP differ from PvE, but WvW is tough because it is both PvE and PvP. It could still be possible though…We’ll see what they end up doing. Roamers are always going to be a completely different balancing issue than the zerg armies, so if they balance one then the other will be unbalanced.

Timing, positioning, skill order, etc all matter for condi-builds. The tired “no skill” statement is often made by people who forget that condition builds rely on more than just “the same attack / avoidance pattern.”

For one, my attack pattern and choices may differ significantly depending on who I’m fighting. I may have to respond differently to avoid taking damage. Also, I have to make sure to not let them interrupt my conditions. Pistols for example have line of sight requirements and projectiles can be “blocked” by other players. I need to be able to hit the intended target to maintain my dps at a level they find threatening.

It will be interesting to see how a bunch of zerker people who claim “no skill” react when they switch over to try “the new meta” (assuming they feel it is op) and learn they suck at it.

The problem isnt with spamming condis. The problem with condition builds is the fact that power builds have to go precision and power to make it viable, where as the condi kitten spammers get to stack vit, toughness, and condi dmg, ultimately making it skill-less as you can face tank dmg as u spam your condis.

If you really wanna see condi become somewhat skilled.. force condi builds to have condi duration and condi damage both stat-line. Then you can either have your condis hit extremely hard or last longer and stack your vitality and toughness, or take away a defensive stat to have both strong hitting condi as well as longer lasting.

Not sure how i like their new condi system as it will be able to be extremely abused by condi spammers, but who knows until we see it live and how it will play with the new traits/builds of power builds

So I swear I saw someone post some what of the idea I am going to be saying (Im sorry but i cannot remember who or where i saw it )

It would be kind of neat if Condi had more stats that it needed to make it stronger. Just throwing an idea out kind of but for example precision for crits and then possibly have a higher application of conditions per crit. I don’t know if this would make it OP but it could be a neat mechanic aside from just vit and toughness on the side. Possibly lower individual condition damage, but since a crit would mean more stacks, more damage rewarding? I don’t know, just kind of adding the idea that i read and my own thoughts.

Well the problem is, if you put together the resistance boon and its short time frames, they are balancing the condi damage around the resistance boon.

Boosting standard resistance to 10 or 20 seconds to compensate longer condi durations would be too OP when you take into consideration things like immob.

So if they allowed for extended durations they would have to extend the durations of the resistance boon to compensate the balance. Otherwise, resistance would be useless in its current state of 2 and 3 secs.

Obviously youre going to have to use resistance with some thought and cover up the most intense of condi damage. While not really getting rid of those condi’s just negating the damage.

Resistance is also the reason they can raise the condi cap in WvW. Because no matter how many condi’s you have on you resistance negates all damage from them.

I would think resistance would also negate the effect poison has on heals as well.

So all in all, the resistance boon is going to play a big hand in the counter to the new condi specs. I also think it will be more skillfull play as as a condi class you would need to pay attention to how you lay down your condi’s and if you burst too hard too much, everything you have may just get negated. So youre going to have to pay attention and look for resistance.

But yet they took a boost, but at the same time an introduction of a whole new boon to counter it is in place.

EDIT:

Also I might add, you still have access to all condi clears plus the resistance boon now. So once again requiring even more skillful play from condi classes.

Edit 2:
I will add that I think these changes will give mesmer condi classes way too much. Condi’s from clones will need to take on the same scaling damage does to compensate.

Rip WvW roaming and small man’s. As if Condi’s weren’t cancer enough. I often wonder if the majority of devs play anything but PvE because that is the ONLY game mode that this change makes any sense.

Nuzt.7894:

Rip WvW roaming and small man’s. As if Condi’s weren’t cancer enough. I often wonder if the majority of devs play anything but PvE because that is the ONLY game mode that this change makes any sense.

Yeah I dont like thief’s access to resistance at all. I mean you can somewhat compensate with SA, but SA worked with condi’s because of the duration system and not intensity system. I think thief will need some resistance in the SA traitline maybe while in stealth.

Or better yet gain 2 to 3 seconds of resistance when entering stealth to give current SA mechanics time to work some of its magic. So the moment you SR you are immune to condi’s currently on you for a few seconds while you drop a condi. Maybe give it a long CD so youre not able to completely CND out of condi’s and it still makes it competitive.

(Yes I know thief is not the only roaming class but they are the ones I see most affected by it.)

Well a Ranger can put up 25 bleeds within seconds, they can maintain 25 stacks as well. So now instead of maintaining they’ll just throw A repulsive amount of stacks and gg. They will lawl in your face if you clear them, followed by quickly replacing it with more stacks. That’s just rangers, I don’t even want to get into all the other classes.

Nuzt.7894:

Well a Ranger can put up 25 bleeds within seconds, they can maintain 25 stacks as well. So now instead of maintaining they’ll just throw A repulsive amount of stacks and gg. They will lawl in your face if you clear them, followed by quickly replacing it with more stacks. That’s just rangers, I don’t even want to get into all the other classes.

Yeah but if you look they are lowering the overall damage that condi’s can do per tick to compensate as well. Not to mention changing the scaling of how condi damage works with condi’s. So you dont have a power class overpowered with condi’s they lay down.

Now I dont know what those formulas are and therefore cant say whether its balanced or not. That will be the other aspect to it which is currently unknown as most of this stuff is that people are freaking out about. Until we see those forumlas and the actual damage new condi’s will do and how it scales with condi damage, you really dont know what will happen.

They are lowering it if your condition Stat is low, if you actually gear for condition damage you will do more damage then you do currently. That is pretty much exactly what they said.

They also said this in regards to duration stacking condi’s changing to intensity:

“Since both of these conditions will stack intensity, their damage formulas will be adjusted to account for this.”

What Im gathering from this is that condi’s will be closer to damage based builds in that it will be more about bursty damage than duration than long constant duration. And if you have more options to avoid the condi damage or clear it, then timing is everything.

The change in poison being a very big change. No more keeping someone poisoned by stacking duration of it. Allowing for better heals and more access to your better heals.

Believe me Im not saying its perfect and the most immediate class that comes to mind is mesmer, due to clones. They very well may need to nerf it down. If clones gain the same condi damage as the mesmer than thats literally taking condi damage from 4 sources of what would be formulated and balanced for one. Not to mention the additional bounces from staff. Its too much if burning stacks intensity and it scales higher than currently.

Mesmer staff clones will be overpowered and mesmer staff clones need to have a reduced attribute base to account for this.

Like I said, though, I see increases to the access of the resistance boon for many classes is going to be needed. I dont think it will be completely balanced right away and adjustments will need to be made, but certain skills they cant reduce duration like poison durations since they dont stack. Poison can be very friendly to a damage spec just in its affects on heals. (which is a nerf to some damage specs that could stack poison duration as now they cant. Reducing durations even more because it stack in intensity would be even more of a nerf to damage specs.)