Guild Wars 2

Sorry for my ignorance on this subject, only been playing a month, but id like some confirmation on conditions and their application.

If i apply two of one type of condition to a target, does the stronger of the two override the other or do they both tick for their durations separately? In other words, is it better to pile them on both at once or should i wait for one to finish before i start another.

You will never have 2 applications of the same condition where one is stronger. If the damage shows up as more, it’s typically because the duration is also greater.

Placing them both on an enemy will stack their durations, therefore the damage will be greater (over time, of course). The only exception to this rule is Bleeding and Vulnerability which stack to 25 each and each individual stack has its’ own damage (Bleeding, not Vulnerability). In this case, try not to override stacks of Bleed with weak Bleeds if the mob is near the 25 cap.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention that the first sentence of this post is wrong in regards to Might and buffs in between casts.

Sororita.3465:

Sorry for my ignorance on this subject, only been playing a month, but id like some confirmation on conditions and their application.

If i apply two of one type of condition to a target, does the stronger of the two override the other or do they both tick for their durations separately? In other words, is it better to pile them on both at once or should i wait for one to finish before i start another.

There are two types of conditions, ones that stack in intensity, and ones that stack in duration. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

For example we’ll take bleed and poison. You apply bleed on a target that has a duration of 3 seconds, it starts pinging its damage every second. You apply bleeding again 1 second later. Now you have 2 stacks of bleed with a duration of 2 seconds. You will notice the bleed damage pings every half second now, aka 2x damage per second. The maximum stacks a target can have is 25.

From before…1 second later you apply poison that lasts 5 seconds. Now the target has 2 stacks of bleed for 1 second and poison for 5 seconds. 1 second later you apply another 5 seconds of poison, now you have 1 stack of bleed for 1 second (because your first stack of bleed finally expired) and 9 seconds of poison. 1 second later you have 0 bleed stacks for 0 seconds (expired) and 8 seconds of poison. Then so on and so forth until all your conditions expire on your target.

You should be able to pick out that bleed stacks in intensity and poison stacks in duration.

So what about this… (all numbers are easy on the eyes)
A thief with no +condition damage applies poison/bleed to a target and it ticks for 50dmg /sec. A 2nd thief with tons of +condition damage also applies poison/bleed that ticks for 100dmg /sec. With both toons attacking, does the first thief with no +condition damage just add to the duration of the 2nd thief conditions or what?

Labyrinth.7201:

So what about this… (all numbers are easy on the eyes)
A thief with no +condition damage applies poison/bleed to a target and it ticks for 50dmg /sec. A 2nd thief with tons of +condition damage also applies poison/bleed that ticks for 100dmg /sec. With both toons attacking, does the first thief with no +condition damage just add to the duration of the 2nd thief conditions or what?

With this situation, since bleeds and poison stack differently, the bleeds from Thief1 ping for their damage and their duration. Thief2’s bleeds ping for their damage for their duration. Total bleed damage would be Thief1 + Thief2.

For the poison its just a simple duration addition. So Thief1 applies poison, then Thief2 applies his poison which the duration is added to the duration that was applied from Thief1. However, I’m not sure how the damage works, it might work by just taking the latest application’s damage (Thief2’s damage in our case), or it might go with whoever’s damage the duration is burning through (Thief1 for X seconds, then when Thief1’s poison expires, Thief2’s damage kicks in).

I’m not sure of a maximum duration, but the highest I have seen on myself is 1min from the spider boss in AC. The highest I have applied to an enemy is like 40ish seconds. Both occurrences have been with poison.

I should also point out that you can modify the damage mid duration. So if Thief1 does 50 damage with poison and then someone buffs him with a stack of might, the damage will increase even if the thief does not apply poison again.

Another important note is that when a target reaches 25 stacks, the newest stacks replace the oldest stacks (FIFO first in first out queue)

Poison – Me and you both rapidly apply poison to a target using (for example) Thiefs shortbow Poison Aoe. We apply psn at the same time for a total stack of 30 seconds. My shot stacks 5 seconds, and your shot stacks 5 seconds so on…. My poison damage will ping the target for 30 dmg with no +condition, then after my 5 seconds are up, your 5 seconds kick in with the +condition damage? Is there a cap on the duration of conditions? If so, it would seem like the +condition toon is getting gimped because the no +condition toon is taking up time on the condition.

Bleeds – Your explanation of bleeds makes sense. What is the cap on bleed stacks? How many players can take part in this Thief1 + Thief2 + etc of bleed damage?

Edit I looked up conditions on wiki and saw the bleed formula. I know how they work now. Poison still seems kinda fishy though

25 stacks of bleeding.

this is true for anything that stacks (confusion, might, vuln, etc…)

everything else just stacks in duration. the condition is either ON or OFF.

Labyrinth.7201:

Poison – Me and you both rapidly apply poison to a target using (for example) Thiefs shortbow Poison Aoe. We apply psn at the same time for a total stack of 30 seconds. My shot stacks 5 seconds, and your shot stacks 5 seconds so on…. My poison damage will ping the target for 30 dmg with no +condition, then after my 5 seconds are up, your 5 seconds kick in with the +condition damage? Is there a cap on the duration of conditions? If so, it would seem like the +condition toon is getting gimped because the no +condition toon is taking up time on the condition.

Bleeds – Your explanation of bleeds makes sense. What is the cap on bleed stacks? How many players can take part in this Thief1 + Thief2 + etc of bleed damage?

Edit I looked up conditions on wiki and saw the bleed formula. I know how they work now. Poison still seems kinda fishy though

Yeah, like I said, I’m not sure how the damage for poison is calculated when two people work together to stack it.

As above, the maximum stacks a single condition (bleed, confusion, vulnerability) is 25. Up to 25 players can take part in stacking intensity conditions (bleed, confusion, vulnerability) because once the 26th person enters and adds their application of the condition, the oldest application of the condition is overwritten.

Say Thief1 attacks first, then Thief2…and so on…until Thief 26 attacks. Once Thief26 attacks and assuming all the other Thieves’ conditions are still in effect, Thief26 overwrites Thief1’s condition stack. Even if Thief1 has +a ton of condition damage and Thief26 has no +condition damage, it will still overwrite. This kinda sucks for people who spec into condition damage and fight large dragon fights. The max stack is still 25 and more often than not you will have people like me who could care less about condition damage overwriting the condition stacks from people with a lot of condition damage because I just go for pure damage from my auto-attack skill.

Cool. That makes a lot more sense. I’m not one for +condition damage, but it’s good to know. I think we have answered the OP’s question and +some.

Labyrinth.7201:

Cool. That makes a lot more sense. I’m not one for +condition damage, but it’s good to know. I think we have answered the OP’s question and +some.

Yeah, I hope everything is clear. The GW2 wiki isn’t up to par with GW1’s wiki. GW1’s wiki was ridiculously accurate and always had loads of information about every little detail. Then again, GW1’s wiki has been around for years.

I haven’t tested this but I think duration based conditions like poison and fire work like this.

Player A applies 5 second poison with +condition damage
Player B applies 5 second poison with no condition damage

The poison now lasts 10 seconds on a target and each player deals their own tick of poison damage based on their condition damage stat. This is great because you’re helping other players keep their poison up longer than if they were alone yet not overriding their damage even if its lower.

kokocabana.8153:

I haven’t tested this but I think duration based conditions like poison and fire work like this.

Player A applies 5 second poison with +condition damage
Player B applies 5 second poison with no condition damage

The poison now lasts 10 seconds on a target and each player deals their own tick of poison damage based on their condition damage stat. This is great because you’re helping other players keep their poison up longer than if they were alone yet not overriding their damage even if its lower.

I really hope this is correct.

The absence of a detailed combat log(especially one that doesn’t record condition damage) makes it impossible to test what other players see in damage.

I agree. Only way to know for sure is Dev intervention.

from what I can tell the duration stacks, but not the intensity of each player’s stacks.

I set poison for 5 seconds, I have + cond damage. (= 10 dmg per sec)
2 second pass
You set poison for 5 seconds, you have no cond damage buffs. (= 5 dmg per sec)
it should look like this:

Second 1: 10 damage
Second 2: 10 damage
Second 3: 15 damage
Second 4: 15 damage
Second 5: 15 damage
Second 6: 5 damage
Second 7: 5 damage

OR, your duration is stacked on mine, and they are played out in order entirely, meaning:

Second 1: 10 damage
Second 2: 10 damage
Second 3: 10 damage
Second 4: 10 damage
Second 5: 10 damage
Second 6: 5 damage
Second 7: 5 damage
Second 8: 5 damage
Second 9: 5 damage
Second 10: 5 damage

you get the same total damage either way but, its interesting to see how they interact. does anyone know which it is?