Condition Burst and Burning Problem

Condition Burst and Burning Problem

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Posted by: Reax.1806

Reax.1806

Seriously, condition burst is a concept that should not exist. You can be very tanky and have lots of DPS as a cond semi bunker class. You need power precision and ferocity to do good power damage, but seriously, you only need condition damage to condition damage. how fair? Condition should be a Damage over time concept: you have cleanse, ok you are safe for now, you dont have cleanse??? take damage!! But not this way that someone that have lots of vit and toughness can hit you for a huge amout in seconds!! oh wait!! And it AoE, i repeat, AoE!!!! What is happening to this game

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Posted by: Helly.2597

Helly.2597

No dire amulet in spvp means the condi class can’t go truly full tank anyways. Condi burst is fine, especially when you look at it in the perspective of teamplay. If you’re not playing team queue, acknowledge the limitations of your build and either move on or change the build to overcome these limitations. Coming onto the forums to incoherently rant about your issues with the game isn’t going to help.

People call me Hobo.
Violent Tendency [vT]
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Posted by: Reax.1806

Reax.1806

Yes. “Be one of them or go away” proves that what i’m saying is true, thanks

And if I not in the forum, where I’ll expose something I think is wrong and unbalanced? You tried something, but ended up being incoherent

(edited by Reax.1806)

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Posted by: Elegie.3620

Elegie.3620

Hi,

First, sorry for the long post. It aims at bringing you some perspective about conditions, so that you can bounce and have more fun when meeting condition users.

Yes. “Be one of them or go away” proves that what i’m saying is true, thanks

And if I not in the forum, where I’ll expose something I think is wrong and unbalanced? You tried something, but ended up being incoherent

Well, I did find coherent the post you’re referring to, and not as manichean as you put it. I understand that conditions cause you pain, but I do not believe that rejecting people’s advice is the most efficient way to ease that pain, even if you find that advice confusing. Just my 2c.

I play many classes, switching regularly between physical, hybrid and condition setups. I do feel condition users have it easy, not because conditions are overpowered, but rather because their opponent misunderstand and/or ignore them.

One possible way to analyze the issue is to use some sort of magic quadrant: the first axis refers to the awareness of people to conditions, and the second axis refers to the condition mitigation means included in players’ builds.

As such:

  • You find people that do not understand conditions, and include no condition mitigation in their builds. These are the kind of people that get 10 stacks of confusion and keep spamming their skills, or 5 stacks of torment and move as much as possible. Against condition users, they logically stand no chance, and unfortunately end up blaming conditions rather than their own shortcomings.
  • You find people that do no not understand conditions, but use builds which contain some condition mitigation tools, some being passive (like Cleansing Ire, Shadow Embrace, Empathic Bond…) or random (sigils of purity…). These players can do better than the first category, yet their lack of knowledge can lead them to serious, possibly deadly mistakes during fights. Similarly, these players tend to blame conditions for their own shortcomings, not understanding that making the effort to trait against condition is not enough to fight them efficiently.
  • You find people that understand conditions, but use builds that have little to no condition mitigation (for instance, the meta shatter mesmer). These people shift their focus from dealing with conditions after they have been applied, to dealing with their application itself. They use active defense, line of sight, target confusion to make sure they avoid condition bursts (still taking some secondary conditions). They know when to engage and disengage, accepting that not having condition mitigation make them vulnerable, in exchange for more things (more damage, more mobility).
  • Eventually, you find people that understand conditions, and decide to fully trait against them. Doing so, they willingly sacrifice other aspects of their builds (such as damage), because they understand that a single build cannot have everything, and prioritize condition fighting above all. I’ve played against such players with condition setups, and most of the time I’d had to accept they were unkillable with my current build.

If you would like to share your build, either here or in the specific profession forum, then I’m sure you’d find fellow players willing to review it in regards to conditions management, and maybe provide improvements or tips.

HTH.

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Posted by: Loki.8793

Loki.8793

Snip

I feel your post only exemplifies the problem with conditions in this game. There are 2 primary issues with conditions:

  1. Condition based builds only need a single attribute to define their damage, which is condition damage, whereas any other build requires at least 3: power, precision, and ferocity. Because of this, condition based specs can build themselves to be extremely tanky and still do an unreasonably high amount of damage, whereas if you want to build a similar damaging build around raw damage you need to spec for power and ferocity, and also precision if you don’t have reliable means to crit, leaving raw damage builds extremely squishy and easy to kill.
  2. There is no inherent counter-play to conditions. To defend against conditions, you must specifically build yourself to deal with them, sacrificing options you otherwise would have. On the contrary, there IS inherent counter-play to raw and burst damage. No matter how you are built, if you avoid the attack, be it through dodge-rolling (which every player has), line of sight, blinds, blocks, evades, or other means, you mitigate 100% of the damage. You don’t NEED to build to your character to defend against raw damage because there are integrated methods in the gameplay that can counter raw damage. There is no such thing for conditions, and that’s what makes them strong.
    To add on to this, the primary method of applying damaging conditions is through auto attacks, aoe skills (many of which are instant and have no travel time), and passives that no one can control or predict. There’s no real consequence if a condition spec misses one of their condition-applying moves because most of their damage comes from auto attacks and aoes. There no risk-reward mentality in the spec, whereas raw damage specs are built upon a risk-reward mentality. It’s completely unbalanced and backwards from a design perspective.

(edited by Loki.8793)

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Posted by: GoogleBrandon.5073

GoogleBrandon.5073

It is incorrect to think we as players do not have to build into mitigating raw damage…

Ever thought of;

  • Protection
  • Vigor
  • Invulnerability (Obsidian Flesh says hi)
  • Projectile Reflect (Wake up buddies, this is raw damage)
  • Regeneration
  • Blinds
  • Aegis
    I think there are some more but I forgot

Unless you decide to facetank all the incomming damage, it is insane to think you can just run a freeby by doing nothing more than dodging, and in case you did not know, most Condition skills can very well be dodged – think about Warrior sword, Ranger Shortbow and Axe, Engineer Grenades, bombs, Pistols, Necromancer’s Marks and autoattacks (but who would dodge an autoattack?), and Thief Pistols (Or D/D if you feel adventurous)
Not even that, but you can LOS these skills, outrange them, cleanse them etc etc.

There is a huge misconception between players that they think it is unfair for Condition Classes to even exist, when it is not… It is a source of damage with a way of mitigating it, like any other source of damage within this game…
I cannot play a naked Elementalist or I will get one-shotted by Thieves – my own kitten fault for not protecting mysellf against this kind of burst…
Getting killed by conditions? Your own fault for not either taking it into account for your own build, or for not having a reliable teammate cleansing…

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Posted by: Loki.8793

Loki.8793

It is incorrect to think we as players do not have to build into mitigating raw damage…

Ever thought of;

  • Protection
  • Vigor
  • Invulnerability (Obsidian Flesh says hi)
  • Projectile Reflect (Wake up buddies, this is raw damage)
  • Regeneration
  • Blinds
  • Aegis

My point was that you don’t need to spec specifically to deal with raw damage because there are inherent methods in the game that can counter raw damage. Of course, you CAN spec to deal with raw damage better, such as the methods you gave above, but they are not necessary. The only thing that is needed is to avoid the big attacks.

With conditions, it is different. Yes, you can avoid some condition-applying attacks, but when the majority of damaging conditions are applied through auto attacks (most of which are projectiles and ranged), ground-targeted aoes that don’t have a travel time, and passives you can’t predict, the only RELIABLE means to deal with conditions is to specifically spec for them.

When playing without armor on, I last a lot longer fighting against a raw damage spec than I do against a condition damage spec. And that’s because there are a plethora of ways to deal with raw damage. You can mitigate the damage using the methods above, or you can completely negate the damage by avoiding the attack altogether, proactively and reactivity. Yes, thieves can do a lot of damage, but any thief will die when sneezed on, and that’s because they are built with risk-reward in mind. You can’t say the same for a condi spec.

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Posted by: GoogleBrandon.5073

GoogleBrandon.5073

My point was that you don’t need to spec specifically to deal with raw damage

I stopped you there… Can you see your flaw in your arguement? I will tell you, people do spec into raw damage mitigation, otherwise Hambows and Axe Warriors would not be running Soldiers and Celestial respectively…
Same with Elementalists, most take Celestial as well – why? I mean, you don’t need to spec specifically to deal with raw damage right?

Of course, you CAN spec to deal with raw damage better, such as the methods you gave above, but they are not necessary. The only thing that is needed is to avoid the big attacks.

With conditions, it is different. Yes, you can avoid some condition-applying attacks, but when the majority of damaging conditions are applied through auto attacks (most of which are projectiles and ranged), ground-targeted aoes that don’t have a travel time, and passives you can’t predict, the only RELIABLE means to deal with conditions is to specifically spec for them.

When playing without armor on, I last a lot longer fighting against a raw damage spec than I do against a condition damage spec. And that’s because there are a plethora of ways to deal with raw damage. You can mitigate the damage using the methods above, or you can completely negate the damage by avoiding the attack altogether, proactively and reactivity. Yes, thieves can do a lot of damage, but any thief will die when sneezed on, and that’s because they are built with risk-reward in mind. You can’t say the same for a condi spec.

The thing I feel highly with your comment is inexperience against Condition Classes – I see you are a thief, and out of my experience I know thieves in general cope with classes who can do large AoE attacks – and these are mostly Conditions…
But did you try to facetank a Staff Eles AoEs? Trust me, you would likely be crippled from that as well, since they hurt more than you think…

Also, the only class that has a condi AoE without tell and passive condi procs are Necromancers – you should not expect to be on equal ground with him, since this is just how it works… Are they unbeatable as a thief though? Nope, you can beat them, and I have seen it happen before
Sadly, those Passive Procs are what annoys me by a mile as well, and Necromancer is one of my most played characters… Funny enough, I play power more than Condition nowadays, since the viability against teams has majorly decreased with that spec since most people do spec for condition removal

I think you are capable of a somewhat better understanding of classes, so I invite you to play some others… Learn their weaknesses, and turn it against them… Trust me on this, there are more options of dealing with Condition Damage than you think
And on “Risk and Reward”;

There is also the thing with people wanting to have “High risk, high reward” builds to be able to shut down many builds that do not require the same effort, while in reality we all know that this is impossible – if this came to be, then all the “pros” would run the same high risk build and shut down any less comptent player, thus ruining the player experiences for novice and new players… I agree that High risk and reward should be a thing, but quite frankly, I think it is… S/F Elementalist when freecasting is the best example imho, leave him for one moment and you will be dead, however they can, luckily, be killed by not just running the same build or class, but by clever play as well…

- from this thread

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(edited by GoogleBrandon.5073)

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Posted by: Loki.8793

Loki.8793

Please don’t patronize me. I play every single class and their respective metas, have spent over 3000 hours in PvP and tpvp, and have played since the betas. I’m very well educated in the mechanics of the classes and the game.

I stopped you there… Can you see your flaw in your arguement? I will tell you, people do spec into raw damage mitigation, otherwise Hambows and Axe Warriors would not be running Soldiers and Celestial respectively…
Same with Elementalists, most take Celestial as well – why? I mean, you don’t need to spec specifically to deal with raw damage right?

People don’t use celestial for the toughness or vitality. They use it so they can be a hybrid of raw and condition damage. This is why you only see axe/sword longbow warriors and d/d eles use celestial in PvP. And hambows use both zerker and soldiers. The more experienced ones use zerker because they don’t need the stat padding soldiers give.

You are arguing that some people spec specifically to deal with raw damage therefor you need to build to deal with raw damage. That is flawed. My argument is not that specing to deal with raw damage is useless, or that speccing a certain way makes it easier to deal with raw damage. I’m saying it’s NOT necessary in order to counter a raw spec, whereas it IS necessary if you want to counter a condi spec (unless you just plain outplay it, but that scenario is unrealistic and irreverent.) This is because there are significantly more ways to deal with raw damage than there is with condi, and many of these methods are inherent in the gameplay and are skill-based.

Let me illustrate.

Methods to deal with raw damage:

  1. dodge roll *
  2. evade *
  3. block *
  4. invulnerable *
  5. blind *
  6. line of sight *
  7. move out of range *
  8. blinks *
  9. protection
  10. regeneration
  11. retaliation
  12. aegis *
  13. projectile reflection/destruction *
  14. vigor
  15. confusion
  16. cripple (if melee)
  17. chilled (if melee)
  18. weakness
  19. toughness
  20. vitality
  21. endure pain

From that list, the ones with an Astrix (*) will negate 100% of the raw damage that would have been inflicted.

Methods to deal with damaging conditions:

  1. condition removal
  2. regeneration
  3. vitality
  4. berserker’s stance

Now, you may say that this list isn’t fair because you can avoid conditions being applied the same way you avoid raw damage. That is, through dodge rolls, evades, invulnerability, line of sight, out of range, etc. I would say it isn’t the same. It’s not the same because of HOW conditions are applied in this game.

With raw damage, you don’t avoid auto attacks, you avoid the big, damaging burst attacks and set ups. Most auto attacks don’t deal significant amount of damage, and if they do they are melee attacks, which are fairly easy to deal with. With condition damage, you MUST avoid the auto attacks because that’s the primary method of applying conditions. Additionally, many conditions are applied through passives, meaning even if there is reliable means to counter-play condition based auto attacks, there isn’t for the passives, which is arguably where most of the condi damage comes from.

Tell me, how do you counter play a terrormancer’s fear chain when the first fear is triggered by you hitting the necro and proccing its nightmare runes? Condi clear or stun break. How do you deal with an engi’s incendiary powder, which procs on a critical hit? Condi clear. How do you deal with the burning from a ranger’s spirit? condi clear or kill the spirit (which gives the ranger a free opportunity to stack a lot more conditions on you). How about the burning from a guardian, which triggers every fifth hit he lands on you? Don’t get hit 5 times? How about a PU staff mesmer where every clone is dealing condis with auto attacks, and every time they die they give you conditions?

Tell me, how do you reliably deal with the conditions applied from auto attacks on necromancer’s scepter, engineer’s pistol, thief’s pistol, mesmer’s scepter and staff, elementalist’s scepter and dagger earth attunment, and (previously) a warrior’s rifle? Do you dodge every auto attack, even though they’re all ranged? Do you stay out of their range and line of sight them, even though you can’t damage them while doing this? Do you condi clear, despite them not using any cooldowns to apply those conditions and can immediately put them back up? No. You deal with them by killing them first.

THIS is what I mean when I say that condi specs don’t have a risk-reward mentality. When a great deal of their damage comes from auto attacks and passives, there is no reliable way to avoid the damage, meaning the only way to deal with it is to specifically build to deal with it. And even then many times it isn’t enough because condi specs have the ability to build tanky, as well as having 20 distinct ways to deal with raw damage.

You want to argue that there’s nothing wrong with the picture here? Please, do go on.

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Posted by: Aqualung.6324

Aqualung.6324

You can Block Raw damage, you can’t block Condi it ticks through your shield! SHIELD NEED BUFF. NO1 CARES ABOUT SHIELD!

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Posted by: GoogleBrandon.5073

GoogleBrandon.5073

Please don’t patronize me. I play every single class and their respective metas, have spent over 3000 hours in PvP and tpvp, and have played since the betas. I’m very well educated in the mechanics of the classes and the game.

My bad then, I did not mean to insult you or put you in a negative spotlight – however this is what I got from reading it, I cannot tell one’s experience simply for a post in a thread, so bear with me for the time being

Celestial and soldier quote

Though the Celestial arguement might be true, though again there is also the health Regeneration aspect of it, the Hambow one almost holds no ground… Looking back at the history of ToL and ESL games, I have seen little to no Hambows without a soldier amulet… Maybe not a good indicator for the overal play within PvP, but in my opinion a good way to see how well teams fare with certain “meta” specs.
Saying that these Warriors are inexperienced is rather insulting to them… I would consider myself an inexperienced Warrior, and not the likes of R O M

Countering raw damage versus condition damage quote

Have you seen this though? You are pointing out the ways to nullify an attack against an attack over time that has been dealt… Condition Damage attacks indeed last after they are applied, it is how they work, but you can very well use a lot of the said methods for avoiding Direct Damage to counter Condition Damaging attacks – For example, a Necromancer’s Scepter applies Bleeding on autoattack with a range of 900, this means the attack itself can be outran, LOSed and so forth… I am well aware that most other methods, such as confusion, does not deal with this kind of an Attack, but that is sadly how Anet decided to unify the punishing hexes that were apparent in GW1
To be fair, I kind of want a “debuff” for “casters”… Would be an awesome thought actually… but how?

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Posted by: GoogleBrandon.5073

GoogleBrandon.5073

Dodging burst

Not any power class uses immediate burst, and mind you, not all burst classes have the luxury to be dodgable – hence why S/F Ele is a spec able to do so well, it is an instant burst class from range (when switching to air) which can likely only be countered by lucky dodges, or even more clever play
This being said, you would not avoid say a Power Necromancer being up close and hitting you with his Dagger constantly? Trust me, that weapon is more vicious than one might think, and getting caught in an immobilize and then an autoattack chain can chip you down faster than most Condition classes can dream off… Are you being more in risk for playing the build? Maybe, I honestly cannot tell anymore, but I personally have less issues running a power Necromancer over a condition one

And about most autoattacks for condition classes being a problem is quite frankly something I agree on… However, I’d argue that it is more of a RoF issue with some classes, Mesmer Scepter and Ranger Shortbow (when facing the wrong way), since they can apply pressure fast… The thing about Necromancer’s autoattacks on Scepter is that, though possible, you do not want to just spam 1… Maybe a weird example, but compare it to say the Guardian’s Scepter – you want to utilize any of the skills on it, since one is a burst and one an immoblize, this is the same for the Necromancer’s Scepter, staying there Autoattacking without utlizing the cripple (Feast of Corruption is quite a lackluster imho) is not something you want to do, especially not if an enemy comes close…
This however is a discussion far beyond my area of balancing… I remember a huge discussion going on (I think pre-launch) about this game being biased towards ranged damage (direct damage), but I cannot remember this ever being an apparent issue later game

Tell me, how do you counter play a terrormancer’s fear chain when the first fear is triggered by you hitting the necro and proccing its nightmare runes? Condi clear or stun break.

A design flaw, and to be fair, one of my biggest gripes with Condition Necromancer’s most popular build altogether… Most of the hate it’s facing is indeed these passive procs, which imho need to be rebalanced immediately… I am not going to defend this, you are right on this
(read the history of my comments, I am generally outspoken against this)

How do you deal with an engi’s incendiary powder, which procs on a critical hit?

Same deal

How do you deal with the burning from a ranger’s spirit? condi clear or kill the spirit (which gives the ranger a free opportunity to stack a lot more conditions on you). How about the burning from a guardian, which triggers every fifth hit he lands on you? Don’t get hit 5 times?

Thing is, with both these classes, their burning is tied to attacking and not “random” procs (to some extend they are)… Sadly, my knowledge about Ranger’s is lacking as I just recently picked them up and never had an issue with them before, and Condition Guardians are such a rare breed that I cannot even possibly think of what can be done differently…

How about a PU staff mesmer where every clone is dealing condis with auto attacks, and every time they die they give you conditions?

You’d be surprised how many Mesmers hate on this spec – it is one of the most ill-designed specs ever, relying on AI, Stealth, Conditions and random procs within stealth – you got me here again, this is not something I enforce

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Posted by: GoogleBrandon.5073

GoogleBrandon.5073

Asking me how I deal with them

My experience as a thief is rather limited, but I can tell you how I would deal on the other classes side Necromancer I played;

Warriors had huge benefits from Cleansing Ire Berserker Stance and Signet of Stamina – this alone ensured me that I could collect a lart portion of the condition Damage to eventually be in the face of a Condition Class and indeed spike them down…

On my Elementalist, I, shockingly, always had Evasive Arcana, and depending on my spec, cleansing fire… With /F, I got condition cleanse in Earth, together with an invuln in the same attunement, granting me enough time to land most bursts – this is almost no differently than how I would face direct damaging classes

My Guardian was specced for shouts, so no comment there…

Engineers… Well, are funny enough part of the “problem” but also the ones not capable of dealing with Condition Damage overload

My Mesmer is unique in the sense that I do not come close to Condition Specs, rather, I’d stay on range, let my illusions widdle them down, and force them into a stunlock to burst them down whenever I see fit – I only use Null Field to cleanse conditions, though I mostly use this utility offensively to get rid of boons

You want to argue that there’s nothing wrong with the picture here? Please, do go on.

And thus I did… Now I can see a huge problem you did state very well, and that is the “ease of acces” to random condition procs thanks to (overpowering) sigils, runes and traits… I will give you that, I am no fan of it

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Posted by: Loki.8793

Loki.8793

You want to argue that there’s nothing wrong with the picture here? Please, do go on.

And thus I did… Now I can see a huge problem you did state very well, and that is the “ease of acces” to random condition procs thanks to (overpowering) sigils, runes and traits… I will give you that, I am no fan of it

I might as well start off with this comment of yours. Because it seems you ultimately agree with my position, I won’t spend as much time nit picking your points.

First

Looking back at the history of ToL and ESL games, I have seen little to no Hambows without a soldier amulet…

This is because of the format the warrior is in. Berserkers is for damage, soldiers is for sustain. In team fights, hambow is more efficient with soldiers due to all the aoe and prolonged sustain. When playing solo, or you’re in solo situations, zerker is superior. I was being a bit aggressive with how I worded my comment. Both are viable, it just depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

As a side note, I just want to reiterate that my point is not that speccing to deal with raw damage is useless or not helpful, but rather that you don’t need to specifically spec a certain way to deal with raw damage due to the large amount of inherent counter-plays in the game to raw damage. This is why you can have complete glass cannon thieves, for instance, that can obliterate hambow warriors or burst specs reliably.

You are pointing out the ways to nullify an attack against an attack over time that has been dealt… Condition Damage attacks indeed last after they are applied, it is how they work, but you can very well use a lot of the said methods for avoiding Direct Damage to counter Condition Damaging attacks – For example, a Necromancer’s Scepter applies Bleeding on autoattack with a range of 900, this means the attack itself can be outran, LOSed and so forth

I brought up this very issue in my comment.

Now, you may say that this list isn’t fair because you can avoid conditions being applied the same way you avoid raw damage. That is, through dodge rolls, evades, invulnerability, line of sight, out of range, etc. I would say it isn’t the same. It’s not the same because of HOW conditions are applied in this game…

With condition damage, you MUST avoid the auto attacks because that’s the primary method of applying conditions. Additionally, many conditions are applied through passives, meaning even if there is reliable means to counter-play condition based auto attacks, there isn’t for the passives, which is arguably where most of the condi damage comes from.

The core problem here is while you can use the same methods to avoid attacks that deal conditions as you can with raw damage, it is no where near as effective given how conditions are applied. Yes, you can use line of sight and stay out of range just as you could any other attack, but in an overwhelming majority of the time you are doing nothing to your opponent. The only situations where this is actually useful is if you need to peel off to live (meaning you were already losing and have conditions on you) or you are stalling (primarily because you have conditions on them).

Dodge rolling, evading, blocking, and invulnerability are not even 100% effective either. There are many passives and utilities that can break though these and apply conditions anyways, such as traps and marks if specced. This is why I didn’t list these options. And because of the nature of how conditions are applied, most cases you can’t deal with conditions until AFTER they are applied because there is no reasonable or reliable way to prevent them (such as them being caused by auto attacks, passives, random procs, or other means). The 4 methods I listed are the ONLY reliable way to deal with conditions in this game currently (not counting line of sight and out of range). Whereas there are at least 19 reliable methods for raw damage.

This being said, you would not avoid say a Power Necromancer being up close and hitting you with his Dagger constantly?

I also addressed this in my comment.

With raw damage, you don’t avoid auto attacks, you avoid the big, damaging burst attacks and set ups. Most auto attacks don’t deal significant amount of damage, and if they do they are melee attacks, which are fairly easy to deal with.

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Posted by: Loki.8793

Loki.8793

The thing about Necromancer’s autoattacks on Scepter is that, though possible, you do not want to just spam 1

I understand this. I was attempting to illustrate a point. That being said, a rabid necromancer with an earth sigil can stack up bleeds super quickly with auto attack that last a long time. It’s not the meta, but it’s in the game and used to be prominent until terrormancer and dhumfire came along.

And finally,

Warriors had huge benefits from Cleansing Ire Berserker Stance and Signet of Stamina – this alone ensured me that I could collect a lart portion of the condition Damage to eventually be in the face of a Condition Class and indeed spike them down…

On my Elementalist, I, shockingly, always had Evasive Arcana, and depending on my spec, cleansing fire… With /F, I got condition cleanse in Earth, together with an invuln in the same attunement, granting me enough time to land most bursts – this is almost no differently than how I would face direct damaging classes

My Guardian was specced for shouts, so no comment there…

My Mesmer is unique in the sense that I do not come close to Condition Specs, rather, I’d stay on range, let my illusions widdle them down, and force them into a stunlock to burst them down whenever I see fit – I only use Null Field to cleanse conditions, though I mostly use this utility offensively to get rid of boons

This only exemplifies my point. Those professions are able to deal with condition damage only because they are specced specifically for them. When you don’t spec to deal with conditions, you NEED to keep your distance or else you’ll lose. If you use melee to deal your damage, you’re simply SoL.

(edited by Loki.8793)

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Posted by: GoogleBrandon.5073

GoogleBrandon.5073

Seems like we are both a bit getting exhausted by the discussion of this, so I will not reply to all of it, in any case, from what I derrive from your comments the most is that the core of the problem is mostly the passive procs on sigils, runes and traits…
Autoattacks are part of the problem, but this needs to be looked at differently, namely redesigning such, and making the other skills on the weapon (those with a cooldown), somewhat more stronger in that respect… This, however, is only true for all the autos which apply a condition without any caveat to it (Ranger’s one for instance requires you to shoot an enemy in the back)
And maybe just that is a perfect solution for the skills, giving them caveats somehow… But that again is sadly out of my area, I find autoattacks really difficult to balance on paper…

I understand this. I was attempting to illustrate a point. That being said, a rabid necromancer with an earth sigil can stack up bleeds super quickly with auto attack that last a long time. It’s not the meta, but it’s in the game and used to be prominent until terrormancer and dhumfire came along.

Gotta be honest then, I am part of a dying breed that actually gets most of it’s damage from doing this since I do not run either Reaper’s Protection or Nightmare Runes to get a suitable damage output… Sadly though, without these, your damage drops like an idiot, while you sacrifice sustain rather than power somehow… This is also the reason I run Power rather than Condition damage

And finally,

This only exemplifies my point. Those professions are able to deal with condition damage only because they are specced specifically for them. When you don’t spec to deal with conditions, you NEED to keep your distance or else you’ll lose. If you use melee to deal your damage, you’re simply SoL.

Actually, the Water trait, EA and a celestial sigil will ensure some spike heals as well – I do not exclusively use those to cleanse conditions, but also to heal back to a reasonable level of health… Same with /F Earth, Magnetic Wave does clear conditions, but it also reflects projectiles – which is extremely strong and highly underestimated up untill now that Rangers came back

With Warriors, you are also suspicable to soft CC, cripple, chill and immobilize, so running things like Cleansing Ire, Brawler’s Recovery, Signet of Stamina and Berserker Stance are actually “needed” to stay in the fight as well…

And my Mesmer hates conditions as much as it hates burst, trust me
I am quite serious actually, this class is the least potent of many of the classes I play to keep and hold a point – sure I can dodge a few, but get a Staff Ele nuking the point with devestating AoE attacks, and I am long gone…

Most of my builds exist out of 1-2 stunbreaks and 1 condition cleanse for my utilities, and anything else I get for free on my weapon setups… Safe to say, I am not more worried about condition builds than I am for power setups – it all depends on what class I am playing, and what enemy I am facing; I am not going to 1v1 an Elementalist or Warrior with my Necromancer despite my corruption skills – it takes too long to kill it, and I cannot even ensure a victory, however, give me an Engineer as an opponent and I will take care of him, while on the flipside, I would never try to face one as an Elementalist (unless I run staff)

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Posted by: Elegie.3620

Elegie.3620

Hi,

  1. Condition based builds only need a single attribute to define their damage, which is condition damage, whereas any other build requires at least 3: power, precision, and ferocity. Because of this, condition based specs can build themselves to be extremely tanky and still do an unreasonably high amount of damage, whereas if you want to build a similar damaging build around raw damage you need to spec for power and ferocity, and also precision if you don’t have reliable means to crit, leaving raw damage builds extremely squishy and easy to kill.

I think that this statement is a bit too simplistic, because physical damage is instantly applied, while condition damage, to reach the same level of a physical critical hit, needs a few seconds, possibly more than 10 if you consider burst levels.

If you suppose that classes can regularly purge conditions (given passive abilities), then I don’t think the damage inflicted by condition can ever reach the one of a full critical physical attack. In other words, I believe it’s perfectly possible to use only power, power/precision (benefiting from the base critical damage) or power/ferocity (if you have access to critical chance increase), and still perform damage equivalent to conditions.

  1. There is no inherent counter-play to conditions. To defend against conditions, you must specifically build yourself to deal with them, sacrificing options you otherwise would have. On the contrary, there IS inherent counter-play to raw and burst damage. No matter how you are built, if you avoid the attack, be it through dodge-rolling (which every player has), line of sight, blinds, blocks, evades, or other means, you mitigate 100% of the damage.

Well, if you avoid an attack (using the means you have proposed), you mitigate all of its effects – be it physical damage, condition damage, control or whatever. I don’t understand why you believe this is not applicable to condition damage.

To add on to this, the primary method of applying damaging conditions is through auto attacks, aoe skills (many of which are instant and have no travel time), and passives that no one can control or predict.

On my condition warrior, besides the AA of the sword (because the AA of any other weapon does not work), I can:

  • If I have a sword: use Flurry (F1), Impale (#4) or Riposte (#5),
  • If I have a bow: Fan of Fire (#2), Pin Down (#5), previously nerfed because people were whining about it being too hard to dodge, Combustive Shot (F1),
  • If I spec with Distracting Strikes, to inflict confusion on interrupts: Pommel Bash (Mace #3), Skull Crack (Mace F1), Shield Bash (Shield #4),
  • If I spec to inflict burning on block, using the runes of the guardian: Counterblow (Mace #2), Riposte (Sword #5), Shield Stance (Shield #5).

Granted, some builds can optimize the damage of their Auto-Attack (like a shortbow ranger), but stating that the AA (or AoE – only one for the warrior example cited above) is the primary means of applying conditions looks a bit exaggerated to me.

Regards.

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Posted by: manveruppd.7601

manveruppd.7601

I emphatically disagree about the majority of conditions being applied through autoattacks. A berserker thief’s autoattack can crit a clothie for 2k , more if you get a fire/air proc, and does so instantly, and with various secondary effects depending on the weapon. By comparison, a scepter necro’s autoattack will apply 1 stack of bleeding, which, EVEN IF ALLOWED TO RUN ITS FULL DURATION, will barely do 500 damage! Even if you crit and get a 2nd bleed proc from barbed precision that’ll add less than 200 more damage, and the physical damage of the attack itself is frankly pitiful (in rabid gear you might get a 300 crit).

So, honestly, that part of the OP’s argument doesn’t hold water: sure, the damaging conditions add up, but any condi player who does nothing but use their autoattack can be taken down by a direct damage class before they’ve even gotten you to half health. Yes, even if you’re a thief and they have a full death shroud. Rather, the truth is that even condition classes rely on burst damage – which the OP himselkittennowledges through the thread title! As someone who mains a necro I rely on Terror damage, opportunistic use of Corrupt Boon, or, in extremis, Signet of Spite to actually down people – my weapon skill cooldowns won’t cut it. Now, I agree that Reaper’s Mark (and the other marks) needs better telegraphing. Corrupt Boon too, even though it’s had its cast time increased, also needs better telegraphing. A guy waving their arm across their chest is NOT sufficient telegraphing, especially if you have to spot it at 1200 range across a capture point with a billion glowing spell effects on it. Signet of Spite would also be better if the decal appearing over the necros head did so at the start of the cast time rather htan just before the end. But my point is, while they could be better signalled, delivery of these skills can be blocked, dodged, evaded, or blinded, and THOSE are the things that kill you, not autoattacks.

Moreover, I also disagree that condition builds are something you specifically have to build against, whereas power builds aren’t. Not only for the reason discussed above (that condition burst skills can be mitigated against by anything that mitigates physical burst – with the exception of Protection), but also because, more and more, physical burst professions rely on crowd control effects to help them deliver their burst. Among these, the so-called “soft” CCs are ALL conditions, whether they’re snares like cripple and chill or Weakness to reduce their target’s dodging capacity. And while the hard CCs include conditions (immobilise and fear) as well as non-condition effects like knockdowns and stuns, you’ll find that most “break stun” skills in the game also remove conditions or can be traited to do so. My point being, if you genuinely make a point of going into a fight without any condition cleanses, you’ll be just as vulnerable to physical damage dealers as to condition builds!

That said, I completely agree about passive procs (Sun Spirit, Reaper’s Protection, Incendiary Powder, pre-April Dhuumfire etc). They’re just lazy and bad design. You can’t dodge every autoattack, so if the majority of someone’s damage comes through passive procs it basically devalues the dodge. That in turn forces devs to give other classes ridiculously long-duration invulnerabilities (Berserker Stance, Elixir S etc), many of them proccing automatically (I’m looking at you, pre-April Automated Response…) to allow people to deal with the passive procs! Eventually it just ends up in an arms-race of who has the biggest and baddest passively-proccing trait and can play with his hands off the keyboard the longest! ALL passively-proccing traits need a redesign. I was the first to cheer when Dhuumfire died, and I hope Karl realises he’s balanced himself into a corner here and just takes a sledgehammer to all similar ones. TBH I don’t think Reaper’s Protection is even the worst of the lot these days, because at least that one has counterplay: just proc stability before CC’ing a necro. (I know that suggestion isn’t much use to the OP since he mains a thief, but I’ve had so many warriors get caught out by this when they could’ve activated Berserker Stance or Balanced stance before jumping me with their hammers it’s not even funny!)

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

Oh cool another post about how conditions are OP even though we haven’t actually been in a condi meta for ages.

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Condition Burst and Burning Problem

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Posted by: Loki.8793

Loki.8793

I think that this statement is a bit too simplistic, because physical damage is instantly applied, while condition damage, to reach the same level of a physical critical hit, needs a few seconds, possibly more than 10 if you consider burst levels.

I’m not claiming that condition based specs do more damage than raw based specs. That would be outrageous, that’s all raw damage builds have. They sacrifice survivability and utility in order to get as much damage as possible. If conditions could deal more then there would be no point in running a raw damage build.

The point here is that while conditions don’t do more damage than raw damage, they do comparable amounts of damage for less effort while also having a lot of survivability (speaking in a stat sense).

Well, if you avoid an attack (using the means you have proposed), you mitigate all of its effects – be it physical damage, condition damage, control or whatever. I don’t understand why you believe this is not applicable to condition damage.

I addressed this is my comments above. Namely, the methods I named are not effective for countering conditions because of how conditions are applied. With raw damage, you avoid crucial attacks such as bursts, stuns, and set ups, most of which have distinct animations and slow wind ups. With conditions, however, most are applied through auto attacks, aoes, and passives. There’s no risk in using these skills because if you miss them, you can just use it again immediately. You can’t expect someone to dodge every auto attack, predict and react to every passive proc, and avoid every aoe (that may not even be targeting you).

On my condition warrior, besides the AA of the sword (because the AA of any other weapon does not work), I can:

  • If I have a sword: use Flurry (F1), Impale (#4) or Riposte (#5),
  • If I have a bow: Fan of Fire (#2), Pin Down (#5), previously nerfed because people were whining about it being too hard to dodge, Combustive Shot (F1),
  • If I spec with Distracting Strikes, to inflict confusion on interrupts: Pommel Bash (Mace #3), Skull Crack (Mace F1), Shield Bash (Shield #4),
  • If I spec to inflict burning on block, using the runes of the guardian: Counterblow (Mace #2), Riposte (Sword #5), Shield Stance (Shield #5).

Granted, some builds can optimize the damage of their Auto-Attack (like a shortbow ranger), but stating that the AA (or AoE – only one for the warrior example cited above) is the primary means of applying conditions looks a bit exaggerated to me.

Warrior is the oddball here because he deals conditions with the sword, a melee weapon. All other professions deal conditions using ranged weapons and passives. Go look at the other professions and tell me my claim is wrong.

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Posted by: Elegie.3620

Elegie.3620

Hi,

The point here is that while conditions don’t do more damage than raw damage, they do comparable amounts of damage for less effort while also having a lot of survivability (speaking in a stat sense).

You compare stats, stating that the damage is the same – something I haven’t bother checking, so I’m willing to concede that you are right, since you’ve actually put the effort into comparing the actual figures. But the nature of the damage differ: do you consider that 6k physical instant damage is equivalent to 6k condition damage over x seconds?

Warrior is the oddball here because he deals conditions with the sword, a melee weapon. All other professions deal conditions using ranged weapons and passives. Go look at the other professions and tell me my claim is wrong.

I was responding to your assertion about the auto-attack being the main way to inflict conditions, and used the warrior class because it was a good example to illustrate my point.

Conditions can be applied from melee or range, target or AoE, controlled or AI skills, mirroring physical damage. If you state that conditions are only applied through ranged skills, and suggest that the warrior is a particular case, then what about the Mesmer’s scepter #2 or torch #5, the Ranger’s sword #3 or dagger #4, the Guardian’s torch #4, or the Elementalist dagger #2?

Regards.

Condition Burst and Burning Problem

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Posted by: Loki.8793

Loki.8793

You compare stats, stating that the damage is the same – something I haven’t bother checking, so I’m willing to concede that you are right, since you’ve actually put the effort into comparing the actual figures. But the nature of the damage differ: do you consider that 6k physical instant damage is equivalent to 6k condition damage over x seconds?

It depends on how the damage is applied. If that 6k raw damage was caused by, say, a warrior’s eviscerate, who had to count dodges, be aware of any boons, set up the skill, and time it well to land that eviscerate is compared to an engineer’s incendiary powder that proced on the very first auto attack he landed with his pistol, then it’s very clear that the engineer was superior. There was no risk in his play and no skill involved, he simply had to press 1 and wait for a critical and he got the same exact results as a warrior who outplayed his opponent to land his eviscerate.

If 4k raw damage was caused by a ranger’s rapid fire, which he can use from 1200 range every 8 seconds is compared to a necromancer’s grasping dead, which can be used from 900 range every 10 seconds, then the ranger’s is superior because the damage was instant.

However, you also have to take into consideration what the professions sacrifice to obtain that damage. A class that can land 6k damage in a single hit is clearly specced entirely for damage and almost nothing for defense. This means that often times that 6k damaging attack is very critical to land, because missing it could mean losing the fight. On the other hand, when you have conditions that can deal close to the same amount of damage with less, or about the same, effort but also have a superior advantage over raw and condition damage, then that damaging attack isn’t as crucial to land.

You also have to take into consideration that one type of damage is instant while the other takes time to deal its damage. However, consider the ranger/necromancer example. The ranger is able to do 4k damage with rapid fire every 8 seconds, giving the ranger an average of 500 damage/second with that one skill. If a necromancer can do 4k damage every 10 seconds with grasping dead, then that’s 400 damage/second with that one skill. The ranger is superior because the damage is instant and does more overall damage, but the necromancer is comparable because it can do around the same amount with the same effort while also having more survivability.

I was responding to your assertion about the auto-attack being the main way to inflict conditions, and used the warrior class because it was a good example to illustrate my point.

Conditions can be applied from melee or range, target or AoE, controlled or AI skills, mirroring physical damage. If you state that conditions are only applied through ranged skills, and suggest that the warrior is a particular case, then what about the Mesmer’s scepter #2 or torch #5, the Ranger’s sword #3 or dagger #4, the Guardian’s torch #4, or the Elementalist dagger #2?

I believe you are pulling the words out of my mouth. I never said that auto attacks were the main way to deal condition damage. I specifically said that damaging conditions are mainly dealt with auto attacks, passives, and aoes. Auto attacks are only part of the picture.

As for the specific skills you listed:

  • Mesmer scepter 2 has 3 functional uses: a block, a clone, and confusion. The damaging part is only 33% of the skill, and is often times not used for the confusion at all.
  • Mesmer torch 4 is similar because it also has 3 uses: to blind, to create stealth, and to generate aoe burning for 3 seconds. I would argue that the skill is used more defensively than offensively.
  • Ranger sword 3 deals poison, which is used for healing reduction, not for damage. You use ranger 3 for the evade, not the damage.
  • ranger dagger 4 same thing.
  • Guardian torch 4 is horrible. There’s no such thing as a condition guardian. It’s a gimmick, nothing more.
  • Elementalist fire dagger 2 is a very powerful burn. You are right with this.
  • Elementalist earth dagger 2 is used for raw damage and destroying projectiles. Saying it is used for the bleeding is like saying churning earth is a well used condition based skill.

(edited by Loki.8793)

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Posted by: Elegie.3620

Elegie.3620

Hi,

But the nature of the damage differ: do you consider that 6k physical instant damage is equivalent to 6k condition damage over x seconds?

It depends on how the damage is applied. <snip examples>

Yes. Since conditions are damage-on-time, they represent max potential damage, not actual damage – because the opponent can cleanse the conditions, convert them into boons or send them back on their originator before they expire. This is why I think that comparing damage for their values only, disregarding the nature of the damage, is not a valid approach.

However, you also have to take into consideration what the professions sacrifice to obtain that damage. A class that can land 6k damage in a single hit is clearly specced entirely for damage and almost nothing for defense.

On a side note, you’d have to increase the damage by at least 50% (i.e. 9k) for this claim to hold. As a matter of fact, many hybrid builds – celestial with might stacking, valkryie with intelligence stacks – can easily achieve a 6k level of damage, while still retaining good defense. The first time I tried the celestial warrior, I hit an evisceration at about 9k (but I know that you don’t like my warrior example!).

I believe you are pulling the words out of my mouth. I never said that auto attacks were the main way to deal condition damage. I specifically said that damaging conditions are mainly dealt with auto attacks, passives, and aoes. Auto attacks are only part of the picture.

It was my misunderstanding, then – sorry about that.

  • Ranger sword 3 deals poison, which is used for healing reduction, not for damage. You use ranger 3 for the evade, not the damage.
  • ranger dagger 4 same thing.

Thank you for your analysis of the skills. I think I better understand your point, and will take the condition ranger to better explain my position (it’s actually a comment on the magic quadrant I presented in my first post).

Consider the following condition ranger :

  • Sword #3 does 2.1k poison damage over 6s, with a CD of 15s.
  • Dagger #4 does 3.5k poison damage over 10s, with a CD of 10s.

If I understand correctly, your point is that these skills should be used for healing reduction and defense, and not for their damage. My understanding from your previous posts would be that since they’re reactions to the opponent’s actions, they do not require planning ahead, but only observation skills, and therefore are less demanding than actual physical skills with equivalent damage.

I understand this opinion, but I happen to hold a different one. Basically, the amount of damage of these two skills is significant to me, so:

  • The ranger simply using these skills to evade is misusing the build. He needs to bait the opponent into a situation where he’ll be using the skills, benefiting from both evade and damage. This is the way I play, and I’m just an average player.
  • An opponent to this ranger focused on thinking “ah, these bloody evades…!” when encountering one of these two skills will receive up 5k damage and not even be aware of it. This unawareness about how conditions are applied, the actual work there is behind their application, is what make conditions more successful that they ought to be.

Regards.

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Posted by: Pollution.8703

Pollution.8703

Seriously, condition burst is a concept that should not exist. You can be very tanky and have lots of DPS as a cond semi bunker class. You need power precision and ferocity to do good power damage, but seriously, you only need condition damage to condition damage. how fair? Condition should be a Damage over time concept: you have cleanse, ok you are safe for now, you dont have cleanse??? take damage!! But not this way that someone that have lots of vit and toughness can hit you for a huge amout in seconds!! oh wait!! And it AoE, i repeat, AoE!!!! What is happening to this game

That is not true. Play warrior or ele and give yourself 20 stacks of might. Now you are tanky and do good power damage.