Guild Wars 2

People seem to underestimate how much damage conditions really do because they don’t see big numbers on their screen. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to demonstrate.

This thread is a counter to the following post:

Geff.1930:

Geff.1930:

What people don’t realize is that a 10 stack bleed or a high condition build burn does more damage than eviscerate in the same amount of time it takes for eviscerate to land. Ofcourse, they don’t see the big numbers on screen and therefore do not QQ.

In high condition dmg builds:

Burn = ~700 dmg/sec
Bleed = ~120 dmg/sec/stack

Eviscerate = instant cast 300 range leap

Now if you’ve played recently against a warrior with boon hate and were playing a boon heavy build then you know Eviscerate will take anywhere from 6k to 10k of your HP in a single shot.

So now, can you please tell me how a single tick of burn damage or even 10 ticks of bleed damage equates to 6-10k worth of damage in a single second?

The argument was going off-topic from that thread(related to dodging), so I made this new thread.

Condition damage over approximately 3 seconds (using Burn, Poison, 10 stack Bleed):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWvpUjadA2M

Eviscerate (takes approximately 2 seconds to connect from the time the key is pressed):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAR5cjA_188

Side by Side comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTI7trZGyQc

Stats:
[img]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b272/Geffrey/statcomparison.png[/img]

Builds:
Warrior: 10/30/0/0/30
Ranger: 30/10/30/0/0

Remember:
-Condition damage cannot be blocked.
-It cannot be avoided if you are invulnerable.
-Cannot be dodged if already applied.
-Does not miss if you are blinded.
-It persists on your target if you are CC’ed, dodging or otherwise preoccupied.
-Persists if the target is out of line of sight.
-Does not trigger Retaliation.
-Most sources of conditions are persistent ground AoEs, often unavoidable by melee characters.
-Most characters can easily stack 10+ bleed stacks almost instantly just by auto attacking (the auto attack itself puts a stack, and traits allow crits to add an additional stack per attack).
-Is not mitigated by Toughness.

Condition damage can be cleansed and it can be avoided just fine, you simply avoid it when it is applied and it’s pretty much the same kitten really, heck it basically fails every last point in your “Remember” list.

1) Condition damage can be blocked and dodged at application.
2) It’s application can be avoided if you are invulnerable
3) Dumb point really – I was not aware you can dodge direct damage after it already hit you.
4) Application misses if you are blinded.
5) Direct damage already “persists” on target if you are CC’ed, dodging or preoccupied, because you ALREADY took off their HP to begin with.
6) Application triggers retaliation, it is even worse, considering said ranger needs to pump out quite a few autos to get those stacks, while one hard DD attack can do just the same damage and only get retaliated once.
7) Hardly “most”. On the flipside, can be avoided entirely or greatly reduced by leaving the area for a couple of seconds.
8) Most characters carry condition removal which can remove/transfer/convert said stacks as easily.

Really, the only benefit of going condition heavy is the fact that you don’t really need mostly to invest into critical stats and can use those for defense instead.

In my opinion, condition damage is worse than direct damage, just because the condition removal is easily available and sometimes comes in AoE form too.

^Actually I believe if you invulnerable thanks to skills like Endure Pain you still can get more condi applied to you.

If you trigger invulnerability, you still take condition damage, but you can’t have conditions applied to you.

Endure Pain is an exception because it’s not actually an invulnerability; it just lowers all direct damage to zero.

People that claim condition damage is too weak are the same people who wants “their” class to be buffed.
Condition deal insane amounts of damage, and frankly are incredibly easy to apply.
This is also why we have a meta that consists of massive condition cleansing.

Conditions are something that should be applied strategically. Let’s hope that the renewed weakness will be closer to that.

Are people really saying conditions are not good? I haven’t seen any significant topics complaining that condition damage was too low.

To throw a counter-point out there, however, condition damage can be almost completely neutered by certain builds, whereas you can only mitigate high direct damage so much, and over the course of long fights, it can often win out. This does not normally apply to the current tPvP situation, however, because in team fights, you have your condition builds AND direct damage all smacking each other around, but in a 1v1 situation, there are lots of builds out there that can basically shrug off even the most insane condition damage if the player is smart with their cleanses.

The reasoning behind the OP isn’t really true.

1. In the video you dealt 110*10 stack*2s=2200 bleed damage + ~700*2s = 1400 burning damage + ~300*2s = 600 poison damage for a total amount of 4200, which is still less than a single eviscerate which applies all the damage in a fraction of a second. Axe autoattack will pretty much deal the same damage of an eviscerate in the same time. The main advantage of eviscerate is that the damage is bursty, which is HUGE compared to sustained/DoT.
2. To build that amount of condition, you took at least 4+ seconds. The conditions can be cleansed it said time, completely removing all of its potential.
3. As direct damage can be avoided, so the condition applicating skills can be avoided. Dodging the torch will reduce the damage of 1400, so will swapping on water attunement for an elementalist. The main difference is that you can avoid the condition application skills, but once you fail to avoid them, you’re still able to cleanse the condition. Condition damage is, in fact, more forgiving to your enemies compared to direct damage.
4. It isn’t true that most profession can build 10+ stacks of bleeding only thanks to autoattack and “almost instantly”. Only rangers can, but still not “almost instantly”.

Everything else has been said by Gaidax.

If anything Conditions deal too much damage or are too easily accessible, especially with things like Grenades applying mass conditions to a large area.

Poison Grenades can easily stack 1 minute of Poison in 2 seconds if they land at an opponents feet.

Whenever I build anything on any Profession I think about Condition removal more than Toughness by far.

The issue is mostly how soon Conditions can be reapplied to you after using your Condition removal, and then having to wait for a long duration before you can remove conditions again.

When auto attacks can easily build long duration stacks it also becomes rather difficult to try and negate it with cool downs and dodge rolls, dodge rolling the auto-attacks to miss 1 bleed is silly, but after 10s you find yourself with 10 bleeds taking 1200 DPS and while waiting for a large stack to build up that’s worth Cleansing you took a huge amount of damage over time from 1..2..3.. ~ 10 stacks.

one of my all time favourite warrior combos is longbow F1>pindown>weapon swap (with quickness or poison rune)>shield bash>flurry.
it gives them burning and takes them to 25 stacks of bleed for a couple of seconds (and they’re immobilized and stunned) its LETHAL

aydenunited.5729:

Are people really saying conditions are not good? I haven’t seen any significant topics complaining that condition damage was too low.

To throw a counter-point out there, however, condition damage can be almost completely neutered by certain builds, whereas you can only mitigate high direct damage so much, and over the course of long fights, it can often win out. This does not normally apply to the current tPvP situation, however, because in team fights, you have your condition builds AND direct damage all smacking each other around, but in a 1v1 situation, there are lots of builds out there that can basically shrug off even the most insane condition damage if the player is smart with their cleanses.

Added to the original post that Condition damage is not mitigated by Toughness or Armor.

Geff.1930:

aydenunited.5729:

Are people really saying conditions are not good? I haven’t seen any significant topics complaining that condition damage was too low.

To throw a counter-point out there, however, condition damage can be almost completely neutered by certain builds, whereas you can only mitigate high direct damage so much, and over the course of long fights, it can often win out. This does not normally apply to the current tPvP situation, however, because in team fights, you have your condition builds AND direct damage all smacking each other around, but in a 1v1 situation, there are lots of builds out there that can basically shrug off even the most insane condition damage if the player is smart with their cleanses.

Added to the original post that Condition damage is not mitigated by Toughness or Armor.

Then also add in that Conditions dont scale with flat %-dmg modifiers. Such as, but not limited to, Vulnerability.

The best conditions in the game don’t even do damage. Weakness for endurance drain, vulnerability for increased damage, chill for heavy movement restriction and recharge reduction, immobilize to stop dodge and movement, and blind for defense.

The biggest advantage to damaging conditions is how easily they are applied in an AoE. Engineers and necromancers reign supreme in the condition department because of this. The AoE damage nature of conditions lets them do very high damage over time while still allowing for defensive builds, and against multiple targets there is plenty of time for the conditions to be applied. I’ll take Mark of Blood for example.

In WvW, Mark of blood on my necro does three 16 second bleeds, and does this to 5 targets. At full corruption stacks this does 135 damage per tick (1850 condition damage), coming to 32,400 damage in an AoE every 4.8 seconds. Yes, you can cleanse the conditions before they do full damage, but they’ll just be right back again (along with everything else the staff does). It is low risk, unblockable, in a large area, and at great range. If you have multiple condition necros while defending on the wall, it is a living hell to anyone trying to attack the place from all the bleeding.

The second thing conditions need to do is be applied rapidly. Conditions applied only in burst or very slowly aren’t effective since they are just wiped away, negating all of their damage. It is for this reason that condition mesmers can be very dangerous: their damage comes from conditions with short durations but applied so rapidly that cleans doesn’t do anything against them.

But, all in all, direct damage is more reliable and more powerful. Condition damage usually has to fulfill a niche, which is usually bulky AoE DPS + support. If you can’t apply conditions in an AoE in PVE, or if you can’t reapply conditions quickly in sPVP, then don’t bother with conditions.

Terrahero.9358:

Then also add in that Conditions dont scale with flat %-dmg modifiers. Such as, but not limited to, Vulnerability.

Also, add that Direct Damage can’t be almost cancelled with lemongrass and Melandru runes in WvWvW.

No, this is the sPvP discussion forum.
We don’t need WvW mechanics clouding the issues here.

WvW is unbalanced by design.

Ezrael.6859:

No, this is the sPvP discussion forum.
We don’t need WvW mechanics clouding the issues here.

WvW is unbalanced by design.

There are traits and runes that reduce the duration of conditions in sPvP aswell. By contrast, there are no runes that for example reduce Crit Dmg taken.

You have block/invulnerable/protection/blind/dodge to protect against crit damage.

sorrow.2364:

4. It isn’t true that most profession can build 10+ stacks of bleeding only thanks to autoattack and “almost instantly”. Only rangers can, but still not “almost instantly”.

On my Ranger I can autoattack to get 11 stacks in 3 seconds. Force that high cooldown cleanse and 3 seconds later they have 11 stacks again.

Ezrael.6859:

No, this is the sPvP discussion forum.
We don’t need WvW mechanics clouding the issues here.

WvW is unbalanced by design.

Melandru runes are in PvP too.
So, where is the 35% less burst damage rune?

Geff.1930:

On my Ranger I can autoattack to get 11 stacks in 3 seconds. Force that high cooldown cleanse and 3 seconds later they have 11 stacks again.

This is a flat out lie.

Let’s say we don’t want to consider the aftercast delay.
Crossfire has 1/2 casting time, so you can hit your target only 6 times in 3 seconds.

So, assuming you succed to trigger the Sigil of Earth two times in 3 seconds and you manage to hit your target all the times on the side or on the back, you still can’t stack 11 bleeds only with autoattack, but only 8, plus you can’t stack more due to the bleed duration.

Also if you have quickness on (25% less casting time), you still can’t stack more than 10 bleeds in 3 seconds.

sorrow.2364:

Ezrael.6859:

No, this is the sPvP discussion forum.
We don’t need WvW mechanics clouding the issues here.

WvW is unbalanced by design.

Melandru runes are in PvP too.
So, where is the 35% less burst damage rune?

Melandru runes were heavily nerfed going into open release. They used to grant a significant reduction of 50% condition duration, which made them a meta balancing choice against condition heavy builds. Making things like 5s bleeds only last 2.5 is far better than the now worthless reduction that only shaves off 1.5 of the same duration today. The only way those runes become viable is if you have another condition duration reduction effect on you.

sorrow.2364:

Geff.1930:

On my Ranger I can autoattack to get 11 stacks in 3 seconds. Force that high cooldown cleanse and 3 seconds later they have 11 stacks again.

This is a flat out lie.

Let’s say we don’t want to consider the aftercast delay.
Crossfire has 1/2 casting time, so you can hit your target only 6 times in 3 seconds.

So, assuming you succed to trigger the Sigil of Earth two times in 3 seconds and you manage to hit your target all the times on the side or on the back, you still can’t stack 11 bleeds only with autoattack, but only 8, plus you can’t stack more due to the bleed duration.

Also if you have quickness on (25% less casting time), you still can’t stack more than 10 bleeds in 3 seconds.

You forgot the bleed on critical trait that would be present in the same build.

Condition damage is really good due to how safe it is. With the exception of a handful of builds that are build to keep themselves clean all the time you overwhelm people. The drawback is obviously you have no actual damage compression to ‘race’ with in a fight and you don’t score bonus damage against squishy targets. But your damage is consistent, generally unavoidable, and constant. This means you can focus more on avoiding attacks rather than landing them.

Warriors have a hard time largely due to condition spam that’s common now. They simply do not have the removal, or the raw healing to mitigate being bogged down with conditions.

Numot.3965:

Melandru runes were heavily nerfed going into open release. They used to grant a significant reduction of 50% condition duration, which made them a meta balancing choice against condition heavy builds. Making things like 5s bleeds only last 2.5 is far better than the now worthless reduction that only shaves off 1.5 of the same duration today. The only way those runes become viable is if you have another condition duration reduction effect on you.

Still 35% condition time reduction is, in fact, 35% reduction to overall condition damage.
I still fail to see any rune with 35% direct damage reduction.

Numot.3965:

You forgot the bleed on critical trait that would be present in the same build.

Condition damage is really good due to how safe it is. With the exception of a handful of builds that are build to keep themselves clean all the time you overwhelm people. The drawback is obviously you have no actual damage compression to ‘race’ with in a fight and you don’t score bonus damage against squishy targets. But your damage is consistent, generally unavoidable, and constant. This means you can focus more on avoiding attacks rather than landing them.

Warriors have a hard time largely due to condition spam that’s common now. They simply do not have the removal, or the raw healing to mitigate being bogged down with conditions.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sharpened_Edges

Do you really want to add into the calculation the 1s bleeding on a 66% chance?
Still you don’t reach the 11 stacks claimed by the OP.

Actually, Condition Damage isn’t safe. You have to constantly apply your conditions to have a considerable amount of pressure, that means that you are more exposed to your enemy attacks because you NEED to keep attacking your target if you want to overwhelm their condition cleansing and be an actual threat, while burst damage can be easily done at intervals, giving much more space to focusing on defenses rather than damage, without hamper your DPS that much.

To be on par with any burst build’s DPS (just the Thief dagger autoattack, for instance), you need to mantain at least 15 stacks of bleed and burning.
15 stacks of bleed aren’t easy to mantain. You need to constantly unload all of your bleed skills.

sorrow.2364:

Geff.1930:

On my Ranger I can autoattack to get 11 stacks in 3 seconds. Force that high cooldown cleanse and 3 seconds later they have 11 stacks again.

This is a flat out lie.

Let’s say we don’t want to consider the aftercast delay.
Crossfire has 1/2 casting time, so you can hit your target only 6 times in 3 seconds.

So, assuming you succed to trigger the Sigil of Earth two times in 3 seconds and you manage to hit your target all the times on the side or on the back, you still can’t stack 11 bleeds only with autoattack, but only 8, plus you can’t stack more due to the bleed duration.

Also if you have quickness on (25% less casting time), you still can’t stack more than 10 bleeds in 3 seconds.

Here is video proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7vHZL1ZzE8

Note I did not use haste or sharpening stone, just normal basic attack.

The whole point of conditions isn’t to match burst damage, its just to score “free damage”. Its safer cause most of your damage comes from auto attack bleeds, and your additional pressure skills are on short cool downs. You don’t really care about blocks and you bypass protection. That’s why condition builds are strong. The only thing you really need to pay attention to is the target’s ability to keep clean and application is more plentiful than removal.

The strongest condition builds don’t aim to just stack on something as high as 15 stacks of bleed. You just stack as many damaging conditions at a time for max effect.

As for a 35% damage reduction rune for direct damage, the closest we have is the now nerfed runes of earth via granting protection. Those were used in 100% protection uptime builds. Why are you so defensive about condition builds? This thread isn’t going on about them being too strong, it’s just pointing out its alot of damage.

Geff.1930:

Here is video proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7vHZL1ZzE8

Note I did not use haste or sharpening stone, just normal basic attack.

Those are 4 seconds. I bet the 11 bleed stack will surely vanish an instant after you ended the video.

sorrow.2364:

Geff.1930:

Here is video proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7vHZL1ZzE8

Note I did not use haste or sharpening stone, just normal basic attack.

Those are 4 seconds. I bet the 11 bleed stack will surely vanish an instant after you ended the video.

Here is the rest of the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceXrxaU-V08

Geff.1930:

Here is the rest of the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceXrxaU-V08

Didn’t know rangers were capable to mantain that amount of bleed stacks only with autoattack. I’d like to know your gear and trait setting.
Guaranteed it is not possible on other professions. As I said, SB ranger is an exception.

there is a reason why only 2 out of 8 professions play condition builds competitive and its not all just popular perception or fotm ppl have tried it, tested it, and in this point in time the meta isnt ready for it no one thinks the dmg is bad but alot of things are.
i can try and pinpoint why.
the condition builds sucks (slot skills needed,traits,def needed to survive long to melt someone down).
condition removal are too common with guards and ele`s in every match they spam it aoe, add to that things like null field, healing spring ect and its hard to really apply any pressure.
this 2 things you can see in practice with necro`s, the builds sucks and the limit to bleeds and low duration poison and weakness (and low duration lond cd chills)makes it very easy to stop any pressure from them and if they dont stay and cast from range they are easy targets to down and they give little benefit outside of big group fight meaning 2v2/1v1 they don`t hold as good as say a wall necro.
same for thiefs tho they can outlive a kittenroach.
now lets look at whats strong and why:engineers (lots of different types of condition,can apply and reapply them fast,good direct dmg,very good condition burst aka burn,somewhat good survivability,) same for trap rangers.
if every profession had all or -1 of this things condition builds will show up more but every condition build need alot of different types of condition and for it to be easy to reapply them to be effective atm.
last thing are nerfs just take a look at mesmers,staff=nerf,confusion=nerf and the supposed condition weapons works better when you don’t stack condition damage.
this can be said on more professions.
and only 25 stacks of bleed meaning 2 condition players on a point are overkill 90% of the time.

my two cents.

Geff.1930:

People seem to underestimate how much damage conditions really do because they don’t see big numbers on their screen. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to demonstrate.

This thread is a counter to the following post:

Geff.1930:

Geff.1930:

What people don’t realize is that a 10 stack bleed or a high condition build burn does more damage than eviscerate in the same amount of time it takes for eviscerate to land. Ofcourse, they don’t see the big numbers on screen and therefore do not QQ.

In high condition dmg builds:

Burn = ~700 dmg/sec
Bleed = ~120 dmg/sec/stack

Eviscerate = instant cast 300 range leap

Now if you’ve played recently against a warrior with boon hate and were playing a boon heavy build then you know Eviscerate will take anywhere from 6k to 10k of your HP in a single shot.

So now, can you please tell me how a single tick of burn damage or even 10 ticks of bleed damage equates to 6-10k worth of damage in a single second?

The argument was going off-topic from that thread(related to dodging), so I made this new thread.

Condition damage over approximately 3 seconds (using Burn, Poison, 10 stack Bleed):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWvpUjadA2M

Eviscerate (takes approximately 2 seconds to connect from the time the key is pressed):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAR5cjA_188

Side by Side comparison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTI7trZGyQc

Stats:
[img]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b272/Geffrey/statcomparison.png[/img]

Builds:
Warrior: 10/30/0/0/30
Ranger: 30/10/30/0/0

---

Remember:
-Condition damage cannot be blocked.
-It cannot be avoided if you are invulnerable.
-Cannot be dodged if already applied.
-Does not miss if you are blinded.
-It persists on your target if you are CC’ed, dodging or otherwise preoccupied.
-Persists if the target is out of line of sight.
-Does not trigger Retaliation.
-Most sources of conditions are persistent ground AoEs, often unavoidable by melee characters.
-Most characters can easily stack 10+ bleed stacks almost instantly just by auto attacking (the auto attack itself puts a stack, and traits allow crits to add an additional stack per attack).
-Is not mitigated by Toughness.

While I think a thread like this is long overdue, a large majority of your post is either blatantly false or misleading.