Guild Wars 2

Do condition builds benefit from “damage increase” traits?

Several classes have traits that list a “damage increase”. I understand that a long time ago, this excluded conditions. Is this still the case? Searching around, I’ve had difficulty finding a clear answer.

Thanks!

In general “Increased Damage by X%” only includes Physical damage, not conditions unless otherwise stated.

Example:
Runes of the Scholar, Bonus 6:

• +10% Damage while above 90% health
  (is only Physical damage)

opposed to

Runes of the Berserker, Bonus 6:

• +5% Damage, +5% Condition Damage
  (which is both)

That’s a big minus for this game: Anet just doesn’t offer enough info about many combat “things”. For example I still have no idea how Weakness and Blindness affect my opponents: sometimes it seems that i get killed in 5 seconds no matter if my opponent is affected by Weakness and Blindness or not. I guess many people have no idea how do conditions stacks and so on. I need to find all these answers on google, they are not in the game.

But to answer your question: no, conditions are not affected by “damage increase” Traits, only those who specified that increase goes both way: for example: “You do 10% more dmg and condition dmg”. If you don’t see “and condi dmg” part that dmg increase works for physical dmg only.
But the best way is to check it by your self on training dummies.

Sifu.9745:

But the best way is to check it by your self on training dummies.

Or visit the wiki. If the information isn’t where you expect, use the “leave feedback” button. Sometimes info is present on the wiki but compartmentalized (so it might be on a different article that you didn’t think to check); sometimes it’s written in a way that’s unclear to some of us; and sometimes it’s missing because no one thought to add it yet. Leaving feedback ensures that these gaps can be filled.

Correct. When “+% Damage” is involved it only applies to raw damage, not condition damage. The only time it applies to condition damage is if it either explicitly states “condition damage” or has reference to a specific condition, e.g. Burning. “Superior Sigil of Bursting” modifies condition damage; “Superior Sigil of Force” does not.

Thanks for the help! Man, I wish tooltips would find a less…generic term for physical damage (perhaps “physical damage”) so it’s clear what they’re buffing. I’ve clearly misunderstood how I specialized more than one of my characters.