Guild Wars 2

I just wanted to highlight why players hate condition spam.

1) You are punished harder for not dodging it.

If you read a condition skill tool tip you will see the thousands of damage the enemy takes from just getting hit by the skill if the condition is not removed.

2) It is annoying to be dying when you not being hit.

Condition damage is the holy grail of passive game play. One hit and they die without you doing a thing besides sitting their. It is worth saying that if a player faces power they have dodge allot more to survive. Verses conditions A few hits means your death unless the conditions are removed.

3) Some conditions cover other conditions.

When you need to remove 20 stacks of bleeding and you remove vulnerability you get pretty upset.

Condition damage should not be the alternative to power it should be a suppliment. That way condition damage classes use both attacks and conditions to win while power classes rely solely on power.

The game Treats conditions like the equal alternative to power but this is not true. Condition damage is significantly easier to use and harder to defend against. This is why player call every condition build cheese.

I say these things in hope GW2 pvp rises to a more competitive level.

Zelulose.8695:

Condition damage should not be the alternative to power it should be a suppliment. That way condition damage classes use both attacks and conditions to win while power classes rely solely on power.

I disagree here and this is why evrything else is percieved by condi haters.
I only agree that mesmer is quite anoying and strong with conditions ;-).

Wolfric.9380:

Zelulose.8695:

Condition damage should not be the alternative to power it should be a suppliment. That way condition damage classes use both attacks and conditions to win while power classes rely solely on power.

I disagree here and this is why evrything else is percieved by condi haters.
I only agree that mesmer is quite anoying and strong with conditions ;-).

I could care less about mesmer. I’m talking about conditions accross the board now that this game has a competitive pvp platform. Most competitive Esport games limit DOT damage significantly.

Things that annoy me about conditions in GW2:

1.) Ignores armor, isn’t effected by weakness.

2.) only really requires one offensive stat to be reasonably effective.

3.) Confusion does damage no matter what, torment does extra damage when you move.

4.) Cleanses don’t prioritize the way a player does.

5.) Condis can burst as well as wear down

6.) Too many attacks in this game have some sort of condi application built into them on top of their power effect.

7.) Too much passive application built into traits

8.) Still think burning is a little too strong

Israel.7056:

Things that annoy me about conditions in GW2:

1.) Ignores armor, isn’t effected by weakness.

2.) only really requires one offensive stat to be reasonably effective.

3.) Confusion does damage no matter what, torment does extra damage when you move.

4.) Cleanses don’t prioritize the way a player does.

5.) Condis can burst as well as wear down

6.) Too many attacks in this game have some sort of condi application built into them on top of their power effect.

7.) Too much passive application built into traits

8.) Still think burning is a little too strong

Oh I did forget to mention some of these like the ignoring of armor.

Edit: I can add to that. Condition damage is not affected by protection, weakness, armor, aegis, blocks, retaliation (I really wish retaliation proceed per condition dot type), Distortion, evades, many damage immunities, and generally can burst as much as 10k in one second or more. This is Dot damage per second. I wish power was that strong and had no mitigation.

Condition mitiation =

1) removal (hope they don’t reapply)
2) Resistance (Hope they don’t steal/remove this)

There is no contest comparing condition damage to power

I agree.

The condition and control systems are only good in pve. They are not good in pvp settings.

When will you learn… when will you learn, that your actions have consequences!

Its funny that they buffed condition to take down the immortal sustain they created.

I went up against a ranger build one or two days ago where he applied around 20 bleeding and poison (He was pretty good att skill rotation and I was unprepared) not only did I get these two condition but I got everything else too, I manage to remove 2 conditions root and cripple and since it was a ranger I managed to dodge once and then I got rooted and crippled again, guess what conditions I removed? Yea, not long after the i was laying on the ground bleeding and puking to death while the ranger carefully pewpewed me from afar.

I agree with OP, these are atleast reasons to why I hate conditions and it is boring and requires little skills do good with most condition builds.

Israel.7056:

Things that annoy me about conditions in GW2:

1.) Ignores armor, isn’t effected by weakness.

2.) only really requires one offensive stat to be reasonably effective.

3.) Confusion does damage no matter what, torment does extra damage when you move.

4.) Cleanses don’t prioritize the way a player does.

5.) Condis can burst as well as wear down

6.) Too many attacks in this game have some sort of condi application built into them on top of their power effect.

7.) Too much passive application built into traits

8.) Still think burning is a little too strong

- Ignores protection boon
- Ignores retaliation boon
- Hits through blocking (not invulnerabilities)
- Has other nasty effects other than damage (poison, chill)

I wonder if condi lovers would be happy if ANet introduces a stat for CC duration and you can stack 10 secs of CC if you build for it. I’ll be here telling them they can run stunbreaks (just like they tell me i can run condi cleanses)

Oh wait … moa is already kinda like it and they can even move. We all remember the massive QQs xD oh well

Gw2 is a aoe spammy game, imo that is the one of the issues that imbas the game.
To much aoe, to much cleaves variables floating arround… easy spam.

Israel.7056:

Things that annoy me about conditions in GW2:

1.) Ignores armor, isn’t effected by weakness.

2.) only really requires one offensive stat to be reasonably effective.

3.) Confusion does damage no matter what, torment does extra damage when you move.

4.) Cleanses don’t prioritize the way a player does.

5.) Condis can burst as well as wear down

6.) Too many attacks in this game have some sort of condi application built into them on top of their power effect.

7.) Too much passive application built into traits

8.) Still think burning is a little too strong

This is something that many people forget but i have to remind it:
9) Condi cleanse skills require cast time, wich means the more you are focused on cleansing the less offensive you are. Instead, against a full power you either dodge/block/kite or go offensive, but you never lose cast time.

About the 6), i would remove any sort of condi applcation on autoattacks.

Well I disagree with the OP completely. You have to realize that some classes have really weak physical attacks and are supposed to attack with hybid or full condi builds. This is true for ranger. We have the weakest physical attack of any class, so we must use conditions in all but the current meta build, if we want to be competitive.

Don’t fool yourself and say that direct damage ranger, not using Menders, can compete with other classes. If I see the opposing team has a few revs, and/or thieves, I will certainly switch to condi Ranger and farm them for trying to cheese me. (Then they come to this forum and complain)

It’s paper rock scissors. Menders Druid will even get rekt vs pure direct damage builds in a group fight. Even noob Revs will destroy vet Rangers if they don’t use conditions.

Zelulose.8695:

1) You are punished harder for not dodging it.

If you read a condition skill tool tip you will see the thousands of damage the enemy takes from just getting hit by the skill if the condition is not removed.

Most condi skills deals less than 5k dmg in total (often only 2-3k dmg), only few exceptions can reach more. And this is the maximum dmg from those skills and it usually takes 5-10 seconds or even more for the full effect. If the condis get removed, the actual dmg dealt is often less than 1k.

Power skills can hit way harder and you get the dmg immediately, which gives the enemy less time to react. Not avoiding important powerskills is often more dangerous, because you can’t remove or outheal the dmg afterwards.

Zelulose.8695:

2) It is annoying to be dying when you not being hit.

Condition damage is the holy grail of passive game play. One hit and they die without you doing a thing besides sitting their. It is worth saying that if a player faces power they have dodge allot more to survive. Verses conditions A few hits means your death unless the conditions are removed.

Conditions don’t come out of nowhere. The enemy has to hit you, and he has to hit you with multiple skills. If you just let the enemy hit you while doing absolutely nothing yourself, then yes, you will die – against everything.

Zelulose.8695:

3) Some conditions cover other conditions.
When you need to remove 20 stacks of bleeding and you remove vulnerability you get pretty upset.

This point is true. The randomness of condi cleanse can be pretty annyoing. Not the best design.

Zelulose.8695:

Edit: I can add to that. Condition damage is not affected by protection, weakness, armor, aegis, blocks, retaliation (I really wish retaliation proceed per condition dot type), Distortion, evades, many damage immunities, and generally can burst as much as 10k in one second or more. This is Dot damage per second. I wish power was that strong and had no mitigation.

Condition mitiation =

1) removal (hope they don’t reapply)
2) Resistance (Hope they don’t steal/remove this)

There is no contest comparing condition damage to power

Everything which prevents you from getting hit (blocks, evades, invuln, …) works as well against condibuilds as it works against power builds. Retaliation works against both types of builds too.

Armor and protection work only againt power, right, but it negates less dmg than well timed resistance and cleanses, which counter only conditions, and can negate up to 100% of the dmg.

And no condibuild can burst 10k in one second. To reach this high condi ticks you have to stack a lot of conditions, which takes time. Even max dps PvE condi builds would need several seconds, and it requires a target which facetanks everything like those dumb mobs in PvE.

Non of the meta condi builds is very bursty and more bursty condi builds like burnguard or burnengi (even those won’t reach 10k in one second) are not meta for good reasons. If you are dieing against a condibuild in a few seconds you are doing something wrong.

I don’t think i had condis ticking for 10k on me ever. Not even in WvW and against multiple enemys. If i die to condis, which of course happens, i usually die to 1-2k ticks at maximum.

Shala.8352:

This is something that many people forget but i have to remind it:
9) Condi cleanse skills require cast time, wich means the more you are focused on cleansing the less offensive you are. Instead, against a full power you either dodge/block/kite or go offensive, but you never lose cast time.

About the 6), i would remove any sort of condi applcation on autoattacks.

Many cleansing abilities are instant or passive. And even if you have to cast something, that’s 1 second at max, where you aren’t attacking. Won’t make much of a difference. Blocking, evading, kiting, … usually cost you more time. And again – you can avoid many condi skills just like many power skills.

I have to agree that condi is out of control right now. It can melt most classes with very little effort, like condi nec. I played thief for a while and went to rev, but goofed around with condi nec for a bit too and it was completly broken. All I did was spam marks, scepter attacks, transfers and corrupted every boon anyone had, shroud for extra health and stab ect. Only people that didn’t melt were thieves using EA and scrappers that specced every cleanse possible, and it turned into a stalemate. Mes is the same way. Everyone on the mesmer forum always says ‘l2p’ against mesmer, and ‘mesmers are bad if you die against one then you’re bad’, and then I watch a guildy who runs condi mes in our arena and smothers anyone, some with legendary division ranks.

Condi, as a whole, is out of hand. Anyone who still doesn’t think so is either naive, a liar or just doesn’t want their precious crutch toned down like it needs to be.

Zelulose.8695:

I just wanted to highlight why players hate condition spam.

1) You are punished harder for not dodging it.

If you read a condition skill tool tip you will see the thousands of damage the enemy takes from just getting hit by the skill if the condition is not removed.

Yes, some skills can do high amounts of damage, those exist in both power and condition versions.

Zelulose.8695:

2) It is annoying to be dying when you not being hit.

As opposed to already being dead by that point because the damage happened instantly rather than over time?

Zelulose.8695:

3) Some conditions cover other conditions.

When you need to remove 20 stacks of bleeding and you remove vulnerability you get pretty upset.

would you rather not be able to cleanse it at all? Like power damage.

Israel.7056:

1.) Ignores armor, isn’t effected by weakness.

And therefore doesn’t hit harder on low armor characters.

Zelulose.8695:

Edit: I can add to that. Condition damage is not affected by protection, weakness, armor, aegis, blocks, retaliation (I really wish retaliation proceed per condition dot type), Distortion, evades, many damage immunities,

It is affected by aegis, blocks retaliation, distortion and evades; unless you’ve found some way of using conditions without hitting the person you’re trying to kill.

Zelulose.8695:

and generally can burst as much as 10k in one second or more. This is Dot damage per second. I wish power was that strong and had no mitigation.

Is that 10k worth of conditions applied in a second or conditions you’ve already allowed to hit you?
And conditions have no mitigation?

Zelulose.8695:

Condition mitiation =

1) removal (hope they don’t reapply)
2) Resistance (Hope they don’t steal/remove this)

Oh, right, and that’s in addition to most of the same things that work against power damage, which is mostly not getting hit in the first place.

Zelulose.8695:

There is no contest comparing condition damage to power

Which is why with a quick look on a build site, out of 6 PvP builds listed as “meta” 2 use a hybrid amulet (any amulet with equal power and condition damage) and the remaining 4 a power one (any amulet with power but no codition damage) and the 6 builds listed as “great” are 3 power and 3 hybrid?

To say that condi is out of hand really has 0 sense, as power is out of hand and sustain too. How is kitten cd skill that hits you for 8k more acceptable than any condi skill? Are builds that out-sustains the power builds of necro/warr/mesm, which are the comdi users and some not even meta, while still doing similar dmg fine? you’re fooling yourselves if you believe that condies are out of hand.. Everything is out of hand.

It wouldn’t be all that bad if condis weren’t bound to so many autoattacks, aoe and passives and condi cleanses didn’t prioritize stupid crap like cripple instead of those 20 stacks of torment.

The core problem is that the don’t love pvpers.

I can agree on part of the OP but there is a point . If you nerf or modify conditions you have to change heavily some classes otherwise you do better to delete them . Take mesmer for example. It is really good with condition .. .but without condition, imho , it is far than viable . So it is not so easy to modify condition becouse if you want to put them as and add to direct damage and not as a replace… you have to redesign some classes or some part of them

Something I suggested in another thread:

“I think some of the conditions are balanced: confusion and torment seem in a good spot, because they do not damage you a lot all the time. Confusion requires you to stop using skills, torment requires you to stop moving. These are things that can be countered and therefore are good for strategic play. Poison is also a good example: decreases heals when applied, so promotes strategic play (e.g. first cleansing the poison, then healing up). Imo, the permanent tick damage on poison, confusion and torment could even be decreased to 0, so long as their other effect is more effective.

The problem is with conditions like bleed, burn, chill that do excessive amounts of damage and do not have counterplay other than condi cleanse. If all conditions worked as a ‘conditional’ rather than a ‘damager’ that would add a whole new dimension to the combat."

I never said that other things weren’t out of hand, but condition spamming -is-. Balance in general is bad, but this topic is about -conditions-, not power, anyone with any sense would tell you that they are out of hand.

What exactly is Condition spam?

In order for a condition build to work, the player in question has to keep applying conditions. If they can not apply conditions on an ongoing basis than they will be unable to inflict enough damage to prevail in a given matchup.It then becomes a contest of that enemy player trying to remove or avoid those condition applications as they themselves inflict their own damage.

Now in my power build thief I can use mug and steal to an opponent for 2K plus damage. I can cloak and dagger for an additional 4 to 5k damage, then immediately backstab for 6 to 8 k damage. This is followed up by an AA chain to get some 8k more damage.

Why is this not considered “Power spam”? Why is it ok to have multiple attacks that apply damage via power used in a row and it not ok to have the same with conditions being applied?

I do not believe “condition spamming” out of hand. I believe there certain skills in very specific builds that are overtuned. I believe perplexity runes are overtuned. I believe this can all by addressed via tweaks rather than wholesale do over.

I also believe that when words like “cheese” and “spam” tossed around in order to denigrate a build or game style, it more an example of that persons personal bias towards a style of combat than it is one about balance.

^ Oh look, someone who actually understands the game. Quick catch it in a poke ball so we can use it against the next “<insert thing> spam” complaint thread.

babazhook.6805:

What exactly is Condition spam?

In order for a condition build to work, the player in question has to keep applying conditions. If they can not apply conditions on an ongoing basis than they will be unable to inflict enough damage to prevail in a given matchup.It then becomes a contest of that enemy player trying to remove or avoid those condition applications as they themselves inflict their own damage.

Now in my power build thief I can use mug and steal to an opponent for 2K plus damage. I can cloak and dagger for an additional 4 to 5k damage, then immediately backstab for 6 to 8 k damage. This is followed up by an AA chain to get some 8k more damage.

Why is this not considered “Power spam”? Why is it ok to have multiple attacks that apply damage via power used in a row and it not ok to have the same with conditions being applied?

I do not believe “condition spamming” out of hand. I believe there certain skills in very specific builds that are overtuned. I believe perplexity runes are overtuned. I believe this can all by addressed via tweaks rather than wholesale do over.

I also believe that when words like “cheese” and “spam” tossed around in order to denigrate a build or game style, it more an example of that persons personal bias towards a style of combat than it is one about balance.

Good post.

Heres food for thought.

Power builds are mitigated by things like toughnes, weakness and protection and flat damage mitigation. Not to mention it takes 3 stats to make your hits hurt Pow/Fero/Prec. So normally your left glassy. Being glassy and having active defense are okay in my book.

Block, evades, dodges, invulns affect both condi and power, though for condi if you have them on you already it does nothing.

The condi side, it only takes 1-2 stats to make your condis hurt, 3 if you’re willing to sack defense for condi duration. You can counter condi with Resistance, clearing and very specific mitigation traits on certain profs. Though really the only class with really high uptime on resistance, is warrior and Mallyx Rev. Also clearing is not a guaranteed way of removing damage condis, since any real condi build runs Sigil that will layer additional condis aka condi covers. So it’s not guarantee, a example of this would be I have 5 unique condis two of them are damage conditions with a moderate stack amount, I have a condi clear that clears 2 condis. So it’s a toss up 2/5 odds I’ll be able to clear the damaging ones. The way condi operates too is if I know you don’t have any more good mass or consistent removal I can load you up with condis and just run around you once I know it’s sufficent enough to kill you.

Though I think what really ticks people off about condi builds are that on top of of good stat defense, and damage unmitigated by armor/protection/weaknesss and less stats to make work efficently. SOME classes have access to loads of passive and active defenses.

Edited: Because the first bit was posted early.

Basically what babazhook said hits the nail right on the head. People love using the word “spam” to make themselves feel better. If you call something spam, you’re essentially saying it takes no skill to use – you can spam it in any order you wish and you’ll still get the same effect… and this couldn’t be farther from the truth. I play power builds, condi builds, support builds and bunker builds and all of them “spam” equally. I don’t do any more “spamming” with a condi build than I do with a power revenant or ranger or elementalist or guardian… but it’s the whole “I died to condis, therefore enemy has no skill because he uses condi therefore I don’t suck and I don’t need to learn to play because it couldn’t possibly be me. No. I rock. I died cuz… it’s just condi spam.” which is kinda funny.

As for the above post – power damage hits like a truck, instantly. watch a streamer using a power build play (say – a Revenant) and watch the massive, massive damage they dish out in AoE. Then watch how survivable they are, and how much team support they also have in terms of boons. Then look at good druids play who do nothing but “spam” CC and heals and let their pets do the rest while at the same time being tanky as hell. Condi gets a lot of hate because for some reason people don’t know how to react to it (after so many years). And the hate is just a bandwagon and nothing else.
I also don’t understand why people don’t use a shout ele to cleanse the team, for example, if the enemy team is condi heavy. Auras = regen, regen = cleanse. But the meta tells you to use aura share so just stick with that instead of cleansing water. /shrug
Or use sigil of generosity and cleansing.

Personally, I’d much rather fight a Reaper than a revenant, druid or scrapper. If you ever made a reaper, you’d see how predictable and easy to kite they are.

MethaneGas.8357:

Basically what babazhook said hits the nail right on the head. People love using the word “spam” to make themselves feel better. If you call something spam, you’re essentially saying it takes no skill to use – you can spam it in any order you wish and you’ll still get the same effect… and this couldn’t be farther from the truth. I play power builds, condi builds, support builds and bunker builds and all of them “spam” equally. I don’t do any more “spamming” with a condi build than I do with a power revenant or ranger or elementalist or guardian… but it’s the whole “I died to condis, therefore enemy has no skill because he uses condi therefore I don’t suck and I don’t need to learn to play because it couldn’t possibly be me. No. I rock. I died cuz… it’s just condi spam.” which is kinda funny.

As for the above post – power damage hits like a truck, instantly. watch a streamer using a power build play (say – a Revenant) and watch the massive, massive damage they dish out in AoE. Then watch how survivable they are, and how much team support they also have in terms of boons. Then look at good druids play who do nothing but “spam” CC and heals and let their pets do the rest while at the same time being tanky as hell. Condi gets a lot of hate because for some reason people don’t know how to react to it (after so many years). And the hate is just a bandwagon and nothing else.
I also don’t understand why people don’t use a shout ele to cleanse the team, for example, if the enemy team is condi heavy. Auras = regen, regen = cleanse. But the meta tells you to use aura share so just stick with that instead of cleansing water. /shrug
Or use sigil of generosity and cleansing.

Personally, I’d much rather fight a Reaper than a revenant, druid or scrapper. If you ever made a reaper, you’d see how predictable and easy to kite they are.

It is true sustain is an issue. And it is true necromancer is an undead punching bag right now. But necro stacking is still pretty strong due to condition transfer and aoe application. Toning sustain down will help the necromancer kill its enemy before it is killed. A condition nerf Would not help necro much after the sustain nerf but it would allow greatsword necromancer to rise assuming they actually nerf sustain and conditions.

Powerwise: I am however keeping an eye of pulminary strike thieves after this patch as I have a feeling they are going to be absurdly strong when chronomancer and druid get toned down due to d/p 4 spamming.

Power usually needs utility along with it to be effective. CC and conditions like immobilize help power builds out. Also the conditions have to be right. You can’t have weakness on you and you cant face a tanky opponent. Conditions lack any inhibition. In fact, conditions like slow, chill, and poison make it harder to last against conditions. Poison is the only damage dealing item in game that has only two damage mitigation forms (Resistance and removal) while being able to deal unreduced damage otherwise and reduce enemy healing. Even worse, this poison now stacks.

What I don’t want to see are low skill fixes like resistance stacking to have characters immune to conditions like what has happened to warriors. The game has gotten easier. Players no longer remove conditions actively they just put on a boon and are safe and I fear that rather than fix conditions, the balance team may opt to increase resistance availability or condition removal availability reducing the point of avoiding attacks in the first place.

Any pvper experienced enough knows the condition system is a mess in pvp modes… What’s worse is a dev acknowledged the issue, but nothing has been done.

One of these days the devs will put professions and combat on the priority table, but until then all of these are wasted words.

We are moving out of the condi meta anyways. I expect to see more power and bunker based builds in s3.

I did suggest a partial solution to rampant conditions more than a week back. Here’s the thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Development-idea-A-new-boon/first#post6143948

I honestly don’t believe conditions are the problem, rather than the lack of defenses we have against them. The system is incomplete, and requires some form of condi-mitigation. Maybe several.
The following are not in order of importance or anything:

Firstly: See the link I provided.

Secondly: Prioritizing cleanses. It would be infinitely more useful to know which condis are cleansed first. And that’s from both perspectives. This can only be an improvement.

Third: Change Resistance to a condi denial boon, preventing application rather than preventing effect. That would promote skillful play.

The fact to take notice of is that things are going to change. One way or the other. You may be able to factor into where those changes are going but endless nerfs are not going to cut it. Toning down conditions now would make build diversity even lower.

What bugs me the most isn’t the amount of conditions someone can give. It’s that that many builds can be very tanky and do massive damage.

Mostly a l2p, Mesmer, confusion, burn thing. Resistance, cleanse, blocks, evades can mitigate up to 100% of condi damage. What I get from it is people just don’t want to screw with the extra complexity of learning to deal with condis.

Power builds get more per button push unless the target likes to face tank stuff or can’t manage condi pressure. Some condi stuff could use tuning for sure. Passive proc condis on hit (perplexity runes) among other things.

Reh.5986:

Mostly a l2p, Mesmer, confusion, burn thing. Resistance, cleanse, blocks, evades can mitigate up to 100% of condi damage. What I get from it is people just don’t want to screw with the extra complexity of learning to deal with condis.

Power builds get more per button push unless the target likes to face tank stuff or can’t manage condi pressure. Some condi stuff could use tuning for sure. Passive proc condis on hit (perplexity runes) among other things.

Still the point is not that conditions can do damage, atleast not my point but it is that a condi build can be very tanky at the same time as being a very viable damage dealer.

^the same can be said about power builds. Glass revenant is almost a bunker, druid is a tank with high burst cuz #HoT pets, pre-nerf scrapper was a tank with high damage, etc….

And what condi builds are there? Reaper, Mesmer and Warrior. Biggest issue out of those is Mesmer but they were carried by Moa because Moa disables everything. And with Mercenary removal… everything will be jumbled.

babazhook.6805:

What exactly is Condition spam?

In order for a condition build to work, the player in question has to keep applying conditions. If they can not apply conditions on an ongoing basis than they will be unable to inflict enough damage to prevail in a given matchup.It then becomes a contest of that enemy player trying to remove or avoid those condition applications as they themselves inflict their own damage.

Now in my power build thief I can use mug and steal to an opponent for 2K plus damage. I can cloak and dagger for an additional 4 to 5k damage, then immediately backstab for 6 to 8 k damage. This is followed up by an AA chain to get some 8k more damage.

Why is this not considered “Power spam”? Why is it ok to have multiple attacks that apply damage via power used in a row and it not ok to have the same with conditions being applied?

I do not believe “condition spamming” out of hand. I believe there certain skills in very specific builds that are overtuned. I believe perplexity runes are overtuned. I believe this can all by addressed via tweaks rather than wholesale do over.

I also believe that when words like “cheese” and “spam” tossed around in order to denigrate a build or game style, it more an example of that persons personal bias towards a style of combat than it is one about balance.

Another +1 from me. Very good post

MethaneGas.8357:

^the same can be said about power builds. Glass revenant is almost a bunker, druid is a tank with high burst cuz #HoT pets, pre-nerf scrapper was a tank with high damage, etc….

And what condi builds are there? Reaper, Mesmer and Warrior. Biggest issue out of those is Mesmer but they were carried by Moa because Moa disables everything. And with Mercenary removal… everything will be jumbled.

Hmm… Not 100% right, atleast in my opinion. I played and still play Power engineer and yes they where OP and I agree that there is way to much sustain or atleast blocks, evade and invuln skills in the game now so that staying alive as a glass build is pretty easy but on the other hand it is the same for almost every class now. For a glass build you are pretty dead as soon as your blocks, evades and invulns are gone but as a, let’s say mercenary rune user you have a good amount of def and HP and your attacks do pretty good direct damage and you do massive condition damage and on top of this you still have all the blocks, evades and invulns.

I play my Scrapper with Paladin rune, the damage I do is nothing compaired to the condition builds, even if someone cleanses the conditions the damage has already been made. If I should come close to the damage of most condition builds atm I need to go Berserker, assasin or anything with Pow, prec and Ferocity. There are some classes with traits with high crit chances so you could make it with only power and ferocity but still I can’t go with both thoughness and vit and do massive damage. oh yea and Conditions are not affected by armor, thougness and iether so what do I need to do to kille condition classes? Use conditions to get through their ammount of protections and thougness.

As I said, my opinion and no way near facts.

Defensive traits and skills are more important than defensive stats. Toughness, vitality and healing power alone doesn’t do much. And some condi builds have to give up those defense from skills and traits. Engi/Scrapper is a very good example. Power scrapper invests a lot into defense via traits , weapon and utilities, which makes the build quite tanky even with marauder stats. If you want to go condi you have to give up a good amount of those defenses. Even with tankier stats, condi engi is easier to kill and the dmg is not reliable enough because it gets countered by cleanses or simply outhealed. Of course this is not true for all condi builds, but it is one reason, why condi builds are far from being superior in general, even if the can deal decent dmg with tanky stats.

Having only one important dmg stat means not only the ability to use tanky stats while maintaining decent dmg, it also means, condi builds gain much less by going full glass (stat wise). A marauder/zerk power build gets much more dmg from those stats alone. Most viper/sinister condi builds will deal significantly less (burst) dmg than zerk builds – with the same or even less survability.

So for many condi builds those tanky stats are not a needless bonus – they are a necessity.

I don’t want to say, all condi builds are balanced. They are not. But it is always a matter of certain builds, traits and skills. Not a issue with condis in general. Same for power, sustain and pretty much everything else.

What is the difference between condi spam and burst?

If an ally goes down and I go to revive, Rev, DH, Mesmer, Berserker, and thief can remove all my health in a matter of seconds with a few button presses. If I am on condi Druid, I can do the same to them with a few more button presses and maybe a few more seconds. Why is my way bad and their way ok?

I’ve played debuffing classes in every single game that I could. Some that come to mind are affliction lock and unholy dk in wow, necrolock in rift, condi necro here.

I think where some of the hate stems from is power players don’t really understand the role of a debuffer. Our role is to supply reduced effectiveness to the enemy team and spread pressure.

Our role is supplemental by its very nature and is the exact opposite of buffers. Without debuffers you’ll have buffers pumping up their team to extraordinary strengths, and then it turns into a game of who can apply the most boons the quickest. Debuffers are the direct result of buffers and are necessary to promote healthy gameplay.

The problem at the moment, is the fact that everything is out of hand. This is because of power creep and bad design, nothing else.

And the reason that condi only really needs one stat to perform is because our damage takes time. Precious time that could have enemy players arrive to help their friend being debuffed. This means we need defensive stats to stay alive against the aggressive power players, toughness and vitality are necessary in order for a debuffer to be truly effective.

And onto the argument that condis aren’t affected by boons like protection? Well condis are also not affected by damage increases like Close to Death. This is a fair trade-off, I’ll happily have my condis affected by boons like protection if it means they’ll be affected by damage multipliers as well, I can always boon rip or transfer to condi, you can’t stop my dots ticking harder when you’re under 50% apart from cleansing and resistance, and my condi application is always going to outperform your cleansing.

Now I think where a lot of the hate and “condi spam” mentality comes from, is the fact that no one likes to be weakened. Everyone likes being stronger, more effective, as this marks progress. Debuffing takes that away. And the mentality that condi takes no skill, probably comes from the thought process of, “he’s making me 50% less effective, if i were at full effectiveness id be able to kill him, he must be a bad player because he needs the crutch of making me weak to win”.

That’s where the hate comes from, it’s not that condi players are bad or whatever, it’s the thought that we need condis to put ourselves on the same level as the enemy, which is simply untrue. Personally, if I can destroy someone using a condi build, I can certainly destroy them using a power build.

I’m sorry if this is hard to follow or if I missed some things, I’m writing this on my phone so it’s difficult to keep an argument coherent. For me anyway.