Guild Wars 2

Many people seem to be displeased with the state of the current meta, and I am heavily inclined to agree with these people. That being said, I’m going to reserve my negative comments for another forum board at another time. All I wish to address in this post is the follow—
Why is it that with the addition of the Specializations patch and the inherent buff to the games condition damage, did our characters not also receive a new attribute similar to a condition based Toughness? Rather than handling direct damage, the new attribute would apply directly to lessening Condition Damage.

Rather than nerfing condition damage (which seems to be the solution every is calling for), why not add an additional attribute to the mix that, while offering protection from the now rightfully potent conditions of the game, will require sacrifice (from your other attribute choices) in order to attain?

Without action of any kind, the meta as it sits is currently heavily out of balance. After Death breakdowns rarely show anything other than 35,000 points of burning damage, or 25,000 points of bleeding damage. While I’m sure the theory was to have conditions can serve as a viable alternative to physical damage (something that in the past I did not believe was possible), in reality has gotten to the point where conditions far out pace the majority of physical damage in the game.

Obviously I am prepared to receive the obligatory hateful responses that come alongside a post of this nature, I am genuinely interested to hear from other players as to what their thoughts on this idea are.

Whitetop.7842:

Many people seem to be displeased with the state of the current meta, and I am heavily inclined to agree with these people. That being said, I’m going to reserve my negative comments for another forum board at another time. All I wish to address in this post is the follow—
Why is it that with the addition of the Specializations patch and the inherent buff to the games condition damage, did our characters not also receive a new attribute similar to a condition based Toughness? Rather than handling direct damage, the new attribute would apply directly to lessening Condition Damage.

Rather than nerfing condition damage (which seems to be the solution every is calling for), why not add an additional attribute to the mix that, while offering protection from the now rightfully potent conditions of the game, will require sacrifice (from your other attribute choices) in order to attain?

Without action of any kind, the meta as it sits is currently heavily out of balance. After Death breakdowns rarely show anything other than 35,000 points of burning damage, or 25,000 points of bleeding damage. While I’m sure the theory was to have conditions can serve as a viable alternative to physical damage (something that in the past I did not believe was possible), in reality has gotten to the point where conditions far out pace the majority of physical damage in the game.

Obviously I am prepared to receive the obligatory hateful responses that come alongside a post of this nature, I am genuinely interested to hear from other players as to what their thoughts on this idea are.

I had 20k+ of confusion damage on me at one point but it was the single 12k backstab that downed me.

Going into health instead of Toughness is a way to “counter” conditions… That said, i understand what are you saying, but there are enough condi cleanses in order to make condis even more useless with this condi resistance

I’ve try to compare my guardian max dps with burn and max dps with direct damage.
There’s nothing to say: direct damage deal much more damage. condition damage deal more or less 2/3 of direct damage, cometimes lesser, and can be afflicted by common defensive skills like immunity (like total immunity -engi, ele, guardian-), dodge, aegis, block and blind.
Direct damage is reduced by toughness and protection but also condition damage can be mitigate just by clean the stacks of the conditions.
I play as a condition guardian and really like the burn version why add a new competitive way to deal with my enemy. And I can say that it’s not OP. Not on guardian. On ele it can be because they can stack 25 might easy and reach 2500 condition damage, making them inflict 10k/sec with 15 stack of burn. But it’s a ele “problem”, not a general burn problem.

And condition damage is “high” only to make players able to play with not only direct damage but also with condition damage. Try to reduce the condition damage and you will see only direct damage builds in spvp. Who want to play a build that don’t deal damage and can only protect a little adding toughness or vitality.

There’s a reason why there’s Soldier and Sentinel amulets in spvp but there’s not a Condi-vit-tough amulet. Anet isn’t the best to balance but balance is very hard and that is one of the things that they have done right to make conditions viable and not OP in spvp. There’s not a very bunker condition class, in spvp.

Then, if they want to reduce condition build’s power they can simply reduce a little the condition damage and add a amulet that grant condi damage, precision and condi duration, making all who want to focus on condition damage with no defence.

The reason why they don’t do that is simply: condition damage is high but it don’t burst you down (unless you’re a thief with 10k hp, but everything can burst you down if you’re a thief). Conditions need time to deal they’re damage. If I look at one of my best skills I can read: 3 stack of burn = 5500 damage. It’s very high! But then I can see: 5.5 sec duration. I need 5 seconds to deal that damage. If no one clean my burn before it deal all it’s damage or immediatly when I apply it.

And now there’s a lot of traits and skills that reduce conditio ndamage (necro), make you immune for a X duration (war) or until you don’t drop under a % of hp (ele) (and that ele trait is very OP. I will change it on you can’t be afflicted by damaging conditions, but making him still susceptible to immunity, blind, cripple, chill and daze). And now there’s a new boon that protect you from all the conditions effect (not only they’re damage): Resistance.

Actually a good direct damage team can win against every condition damage team.

Silv.9207:

I’ve try to compare my guardian max dps with burn and max dps with direct damage.
There’s nothing to say: direct damage deal much more damage. condition damage deal more or less 2/3 of direct damage, cometimes lesser, and can be afflicted by common defensive skills like immunity (like total immunity -engi, ele, guardian-), dodge, aegis, block and blind.
Direct damage is reduced by toughness and protection but also condition damage can be mitigate just by clean the stacks of the conditions.
I play as a condition guardian and really like the burn version why add a new competitive way to deal with my enemy. And I can say that it’s not OP. Not on guardian. On ele it can be because they can stack 25 might easy and reach 2500 condition damage, making them inflict 10k/sec with 15 stack of burn. But it’s a ele “problem”, not a general burn problem.

And condition damage is “high” only to make players able to play with not only direct damage but also with condition damage. Try to reduce the condition damage and you will see only direct damage builds in spvp. Who want to play a build that don’t deal damage and can only protect a little adding toughness or vitality.

There’s a reason why there’s Soldier and Sentinel amulets in spvp but there’s not a Condi-vit-tough amulet. Anet isn’t the best to balance but balance is very hard and that is one of the things that they have done right to make conditions viable and not OP in spvp. There’s not a very bunker condition class, in spvp.

Then, if they want to reduce condition build’s power they can simply reduce a little the condition damage and add a amulet that grant condi damage, precision and condi duration, making all who want to focus on condition damage with no defence.

The reason why they don’t do that is simply: condition damage is high but it don’t burst you down (unless you’re a thief with 10k hp, but everything can burst you down if you’re a thief). Conditions need time to deal they’re damage. If I look at one of my best skills I can read: 3 stack of burn = 5500 damage. It’s very high! But then I can see: 5.5 sec duration. I need 5 seconds to deal that damage. If no one clean my burn before it deal all it’s damage or immediatly when I apply it.

And now there’s a lot of traits and skills that reduce conditio ndamage (necro), make you immune for a X duration (war) or until you don’t drop under a % of hp (ele) (and that ele trait is very OP. I will change it on you can’t be afflicted by damaging conditions, but making him still susceptible to immunity, blind, cripple, chill and daze). And now there’s a new boon that protect you from all the conditions effect (not only they’re damage): Resistance.

Actually a good direct damage team can win against every condition damage team.

Coming from a player that also spends a lot of time using a burn guardian, I have to strongly disagree with you. With the proper build, in an even moderately good situation, my burns last 3 seconds and ping for at least 5000 points of damage. I’ve seen several 9000 point burn pings, along with a single 10000 point ping once. That being said, while incredibly high in damage, these burns only last 3 seconds at the max. That’s simply far too fast to react before uncounterable damage is sustained. A good majority of the condition cleanses in the game take at least one second to cast (some even longer), and meanwhile you’re being swallowed by what remains of burn inflicted.

When playing my burn guardian, I’ve seen two classes counter me. That’s it. Just two``
Elementalist, and Necromancer. Only the two STRONGEST anti-condition classes in the game even stand a chance of defeating my ridiculous burns.

Though I don’t want to move the thread towards burn guardian specifically, or even burning specifically. And I certainly don’t want to move towards the idea of nerfing conditions back to their unusable state they were in before the new meta. That being said, physical damage is, as it sits, far inferior to conditions at the moment.

The problem with ele is NOT burning damage. It is the fact that it has too much sustain for the damage that it can deal.