Guild Wars 2

Why must I invest a minimum of 3 stat lines in an amulet in order to play power effectively and only 2 stat lines to play condi effectively? Power you generally need Power, Precision, and some Ferocity. Condi you need Condition Damage with either Toughness or Vitality. What the kitten? Not to mention there’s more aoe condi pressure whereas power consists more of single target. I’m so sick and tired of fighting conditions in this kitten kittening joke of a pvp game. Like, atleast if I’m fighting someone who isn’t running a condi build I can kite and dodge, but God forbid that if a condi mother kittener lands a burst on me and I used my sources to cleanse I can’t kite or dodge since the conditions already applied will do dot damage. Not to mention that condition specs are more defensive. What a joke. Hire me as a dev and I’ll save this game Kappa.

#Make condis dots again

That’s why i play condi on almost all my professions: because as you mentioned condi builds don’t require 3 dps stats. I just take condi as main stat, power or precision and toughness or vitality as secondary stats.
Condi builds have better survivability and easier playstyle. I play condi Necro, condi Thief, condi Mesmer and condi Guardian (ok, sometimes i switch to Power guard), now i have also be thinking to drop my power Warrior for condition one. My only non condi class is Elementalist but he is a healer/support Staff spec so that’s another option.
Now tell me, why would i play a power Mesmer and Power Thief, if condi is so much stronger on both? I would really like to play Power builds but they need a huge buff.
I would say that condi is the best for almost every profession, support/healing is second the best and Power is on the bottom in my hands.
My question is: why would i spent months to make power builds any good if i can learn condi in a few days and be super effective?

I don’t have time to learn Power builds (you need to invest too much time to make them work with a few exceptions), i play this game for relaxation and only condi and support builds allow me that, sorry to say that but it is truth. So left conditions as they are for us, casuals, and keep power for hardcore players, is that ok?

Condition damage is a way to inflict damage, as the same level of Power.

You counter them in different ways.

At higher levels Power is much better than Condi because everyone know how to fight a condi spec and power are seriously better for Burst down people doing a Focus. Better is your rank lesser condi spec you find.

L2P

Silv.9207:

Condition damage is a way to inflict damage, as the same level of Power.

You counter them in different ways.

At higher levels Power is much better than Condi because everyone know how to fight a condi spec and power are seriously better for Burst down people doing a Focus. Better is your rank lesser condi spec you find.

L2P

No matter how many times people say that, condi is never going to be ok for certain specs.

That’s the keywords. Can we do everything you say against condi? Sure. Burst them with power. Equip more condi cleanse. Outwit them. That works against many condi specs but not certain specs.

But condi stacking is all condi all day on certain specs. They overload your cleanses to the point it become impossible to cleanse no matter what you do and you counter-spec. You can be a class that cleanses a condi on every skill use, every dodge and have multiple 2-3 condi cleanses… you still wont keep up with the condi application of certain specs. Generally speaking this is why for example condi engie or condi guard arent considered that strong against eqvivalent power builds. They got great burst with a ton of damage yes, but in practice we’re talking 1-3 conditions that’s within cleansing capacity. Not 6+ that certain specs vomit out like there’s no tomorrow.

That’s a balance issue, not a L2P issue.

Look at the bright side – at least sPvP got kittening deathly chill nerfed, unlike WvW.

Silv.9207:

At higher levels Power is much better than Condi because everyone know how to fight a condi spec and power are seriously better for Burst down people doing a Focus. Better is your rank lesser condi spec you find.

L2P

And why should we only care about high ranked matches? I mean there is maybe 5% of playarbase represented at higher levels and you want to balance PvP around them? Around 5%? Really?

Power burst can be mitigated through armor, protection, blind, weakness, all of which bypassed by condi ticks. You can negate condi dmg by cleansing, but you’ll never have enough cleanse. Condi dmg can be mitigated through resistance, but all class do not have access to it, and it can be stolen/corrupted.

I think the best way to balance things out is to introduce a condi restistance stat. At 1000 you’d have maybe 33% dmg reduction. That would be an investment and you’d have to sacrifice something else for it.

Dawdler.8521:

No matter how many times people say that, condi is never going to be ok for certain specs.

That’s the keywords. Can we do everything you say against condi? Sure. Burst them with power. Equip more condi cleanse. Outwit them. That works against many condi specs but not certain specs.

I know what you mean but Anet has deliberately designed classes to be weak against certain things( even though some classes are better at dealing with those weaknesses than others). Rev being weak to condis is one example I remember a dev mentioning on the forums around HoT launch(sadly I don’t have the source to back that one up so take it how you want). This game has always been a bit of rock/paper/scissors. Learning how to deal with counters is a skill in pvp. You may or may not agree with that but that’s how it is.

Dawdler.8521:

But condi stacking is all condi all day on certain specs. They overload your cleanses to the point it become impossible to cleanse no matter what you do and you counter-spec. You can be a class that cleanses a condi on every skill use, every dodge and have multiple 2-3 condi cleanses… you still wont keep up with the condi application of certain specs. Generally speaking this is why for example condi engie or condi guard arent considered that strong against eqvivalent power builds. They got great burst with a ton of damage yes, but in practice we’re talking 1-3 conditions that’s within cleansing capacity. Not 6+ that certain specs vomit out like there’s no tomorrow.

That’s a balance issue, not a L2P issue.

Look at the bright side – at least sPvP got kittening deathly chill nerfed, unlike WvW.

If you could cleanse every condi you get conditions would be useless and no one would use any condi build. Imagine if people were complaining that you can’t outheal/protect against power builds. If someone did that they would think that they are stupid because if that was true no one would ever die to power.

Conditions might not be 100% balanced but many points these threads bring up is random statistics without context and statements they can’t properly back up with better arguments than “I don’t like this”. Power builds are not 100% balanced either. The point you make about certain builds is true but the same things can be said for powerbuilds and they can be equally cancer. By knowing when to cleanse you can make a massive difference in how hard it is to kill you with condies but they should always be able to kill you in the end if you can’t kill the one/-s attacking you first.

Sifu.9745:

And why should we only care about high ranked matches? I mean there is maybe 5% of playarbase represented at higher levels and you want to balance PvP around them? Around 5%? Really?

Because you can’t balance a game properly arround players that have no idea what they are talking about and no idea, how the game works. It is simply not possible. And because all of those players have – at least on paper – the chance to improve and L2P. Nobody is forced to stay a clueless noob …

Dawdler.8521:

No matter how many times people say that, condi is never going to be ok for certain specs.

But people don’t complain about certain specs. They complain about condis in general. And that’s a L2P issue without doubt.

Sifu.9745:

That’s why i play condi on almost all my professions: because as you mentioned condi builds don’t require 3 dps stats. I just take condi as main stat, power or precision and toughness or vitality as secondary stats.
Condi builds have better survivability and easier playstyle. I play condi Necro, condi Thief, condi Mesmer and condi Guardian (ok, sometimes i switch to Power guard), now i have also be thinking to drop my power Warrior for condition one. My only non condi class is Elementalist but he is a healer/support Staff spec so that’s another option.
Now tell me, why would i play a power Mesmer and Power Thief, if condi is so much stronger on both? I would really like to play Power builds but they need a huge buff.
I would say that condi is the best for almost every profession, support/healing is second the best and Power is on the bottom in my hands.
My question is: why would i spent months to make power builds any good if i can learn condi in a few days and be super effective?

I don’t have time to learn Power builds (you need to invest too much time to make them work with a few exceptions), i play this game for relaxation and only condi and support builds allow me that, sorry to say that but it is truth. So left conditions as they are for us, casuals, and keep power for hardcore players, is that ok?

What players find easier to play is highly subjective as certain playstyles compliments a player’s skillset. Without anything to prove your point that is a pointless argument.

I think they did a moderately better job with the Engi and Condis. Ideally for engi you need high precision for condi. This is because the trait line that synergizes to make Condi’s effective relies on a critical hit mechanic. It’s not mandatory, but its sorta there. They could try doing this for the other classes, make Condi’s get more effective with crits and tone down the non-crit application of them.

shion.2084:

I think they did a moderately better job with the Engi and Condis. Ideally for engi you need high precision for condi. This is because the trait line that synergizes to make Condi’s effective relies on a critical hit mechanic. It’s not mandatory, but its sorta there. They could try doing this for the other classes, make Condi’s get more effective with crits and tone down the non-crit application of them.

Ranger works the same through an adept trait(Sharpened Edges) in skirmishing and necro with a minor trait(Barbed Precision) through curses. Rev has a minor trait(Rampant Vex) in corruption which works the same way but for torment and ele has an adapt in fire(Burning Precision) that is for burns. Warrior has a minor in arms(Bloodlust) with bleed on crits and mesmer has a minor in dueling(Sharper Images) that is crit from illusions does bleeds. Guardian kinda does through a major trait in Radiance(Radiant Fire) though that one has 10sec cd.
For all of these classes crits and condies are merged into(though not exclusive to) the same traitline. The only class that doesn’t work like this is thief.

Precision is already factor to increase condi dmg though it does not impact conditions as much as it impacts power dmg. To get most dmg out of most condi builds precision is needed but it’s not mandatory in the same way precision is for power. I would like to see a way for condies to actually crit like power instead of using it to apply more through traits as this would make it more interesting to have high precision, like let the numbers be lower per stack but crits when condies are applied doubles the stacks could be one way. But that would require a lot number and skill tweaking which I don’t think Anet is willing to do.

Yea condi is much easier….

Plaguelands + epidemic = win.

2 buttons, win point against 3+ people.

Play Ele, use about 29 skills through 4 elements and 2 rotation cycles, still holding point waiting for allies to down something.

Those “applies condi on crit” traits are secondary, really. They’re quite lackluster, if you can isolate them (say equip a power weapon on a condi build and see how much dmg those “applies condi on crit” traits actually do) you’ll notice this.

Conditions are cheap, period. I don’t play conditions because it feels godkitten cheap. It’s a question of covering conditions or waiting for cleanses and gg, there’s no skill involved. Granted, this doesn’t apply to all professions as some are quite slow to apply conditions, which is how it ought to work really. It’s gradual, slow, then painful; as opposed to power which is just burst. But more and more, and especially in the demo weekend, I saw instant applications of 6+ conditions, which is impossible to work around. Even if you spam your condi cleanses, you’ll be down to 50% health and left with nothing to counteract future applications after than initial “burst”. That is absurd. Conditions are already absurd as a mechanic (“I win” vs “Cancel I win” buttons), but 6+ conditions being instantly applied… no true game of skill would allow this to become a thing.

My suggestion would be to split conditions into damaging and non-damaging to prevent condition application without the counterplay possibility. They could be named conditions and afflictions and cleanses reworked so that “removes 1 condition” becomes “removes 1 condition and 1 affliction”. That alone would make conditions manageable given the current amount of cleanses and it can still be a valuable addition to any team without it being a question of: “oh, did you run out of Cancel I wins? I win now!” Struts his skill

Dawdler.8521:

Silv.9207:

Condition damage is a way to inflict damage, as the same level of Power.

You counter them in different ways.

At higher levels Power is much better than Condi because everyone know how to fight a condi spec and power are seriously better for Burst down people doing a Focus. Better is your rank lesser condi spec you find.

L2P

No matter how many times people say that, condi is never going to be ok for certain specs.

That’s the keywords. Can we do everything you say against condi? Sure. Burst them with power. Equip more condi cleanse. Outwit them. That works against many condi specs but not certain specs.

But condi stacking is all condi all day on certain specs. They overload your cleanses to the point it become impossible to cleanse no matter what you do and you counter-spec. You can be a class that cleanses a condi on every skill use, every dodge and have multiple 2-3 condi cleanses… you still wont keep up with the condi application of certain specs. Generally speaking this is why for example condi engie or condi guard arent considered that strong against eqvivalent power builds. They got great burst with a ton of damage yes, but in practice we’re talking 1-3 conditions that’s within cleansing capacity. Not 6+ that certain specs vomit out like there’s no tomorrow.

That’s a balance issue, not a L2P issue.

Look at the bright side – at least sPvP got kittening deathly chill nerfed, unlike WvW.

First off all, balance those specific specs and not wholesale nerf all conditions.

Second of all, you should never be able to out-cleanse conditions. That’s like saying you should be able to counter all power damage.

Just look at meta battle and see what all the meta builds have in common. Can you see it? Every single meta build has traits or trait lines that deal with cleansing conditions. How come this is the case, but not the case for other traits like stability? Well, its because curently condi cleanse plays WAAAAY too important of a role in pvp. Fight against a power or condi build and don’t have stability, you can still win if you play right. Fight against a power build without toughness, you can still win if you play right. Fight against a condi build without condi cleanses, good luck. Condi cleanse should help you play against condi builds, just like protection helps against power. However, cleanses should NOT be the end all and be all. If you are a much better player than your opponent, you should still have a fair chance with a power build against a condi build even if you don’t bring a single condi cleanse. What people say about if people use condi builds, they should still be able to win against a opponent traited with a lot of condi cleanses is also true. If you lower the impact/importance of condi cleanse you both open the door for more build variety since condi cleanse isn’t as important, and you make condi play more skillful as you are not just trying to out condi their cleanses.

There are probably lots of ways to lower the importance of condi cleanses. However, two of my favorite ideas that I really think should be implemented are

1. Make it so toughness gives you benefits against condi damage as well. There is no reason for it to only benefit against power. This than gives you another option against condis. Don’t have a condi cleanse? Well you can also get some toughness to lower the damage against condis. It probably won’t be as beneficial and a cleanse. However, its still another option.

2. Split condi damage between the first tick and the following ticks. Make it so condi damage only increases the damage of the first tick and then make another attribute that only increases damage of the latter ticks. Basically, this makes it so that more of the damage is front loaded in the first hit so the following ticks (that are typically dealt with by cleanes) are not as important. Of course, you can still put more damage in the following ticks. However, to do so you need to invest in another attribute. Power, precision, and ferocity will then be the equivalents of condi damage, condi duration, and the new trait that increases latter tick condi duration. Increasing your condi duration will than increase your produced damage from latter tick condi duration kinda like how precision increases your damage with ferocity. The two attributes will play off of each other.
Of course more balancing will be needed after such changes. However, this is what I believe they should have done a long time ago.

ANet made a silent decision that condi damage should compete directly with power as opposed to supplementing it. In order to make that work, they’ve been buffing conditions and adding more condition application to scads of abilities.

IMO, that was the wrong choice. Condition damage should have been a supplemental alternative to precision, not a primary damage form like power.

ANet’s decision has started an arms race in PvP where condition application grows in power and condition removal grows to counter it. You now need to take multiple forms of multi-condition removal/immunity in order to deal with the chance that you’ll run into a condition damage build. It also limits builds and freedom because because certain weapons becomes “power only” or “condition damage only”.

Savvy.3258:

Those “applies condi on crit” traits are secondary, really. They’re quite lackluster, if you can isolate them (say equip a power weapon on a condi build and see how much dmg those “applies condi on crit” traits actually do) you’ll notice this.

Conditions are cheap, period. I don’t play conditions because it feels godkitten cheap. It’s a question of covering conditions or waiting for cleanses and gg, there’s no skill involved. Granted, this doesn’t apply to all professions as some are quite slow to apply conditions, which is how it ought to work really. It’s gradual, slow, then painful; as opposed to power which is just burst. But more and more, and especially in the demo weekend, I saw instant applications of 6+ conditions, which is impossible to work around. Even if you spam your condi cleanses, you’ll be down to 50% health and left with nothing to counteract future applications after than initial “burst”. That is absurd. Conditions are already absurd as a mechanic (“I win” vs “Cancel I win” buttons), but 6+ conditions being instantly applied… no true game of skill would allow this to become a thing.

My suggestion would be to split conditions into damaging and non-damaging to prevent condition application without the counterplay possibility. They could be named conditions and afflictions and cleanses reworked so that “removes 1 condition” becomes “removes 1 condition and 1 affliction”. That alone would make conditions manageable given the current amount of cleanses and it can still be a valuable addition to any team without it being a question of: “oh, did you run out of Cancel I wins? I win now!” Struts his skill

If this is targeted to me I’m sorry but didn’t say they they weren’t lacklustre and they are pretty minor but the argument was that more classes should be like that to incentivize the use of precision in condi builds, where I responded that it already is if you want to minmax condi output but also said that it wasn’t mandatory.

Your argument for why conditions are cheap is a very weak one. If that is your opinion sure but your argument is flawed. I’m not gonna discuss the new elite spec because they were all out of wack in some way or another. Every skill has to hit to apply conditions and they can be blocked/evaded/blinded/ignored in the same way as any other skill. There are plenty of counterplay to conditions. If you get hit by a skill condi or power you deserve to take the consequences of that. Neither power or condi dmg appear out of nowhere.
Resistance is also a 100% counter to some classes if they want to run condi as they have no reliable way to deal with it.
The only way I can agree with that feels a bit_ cheap is that some skills lack tells or has very short cast for it’s effect but is also true for power. Also very few skills can apply that many condies at by themselves, it’s usually a few skills used in quickly in succession. There are ways to cleanse what you want already and it’s not random but it’s not something you have full control over. Powerbuilds also use conditions though they generally only use the non damaging ones.

I do however agree with you on splitting damaging conditions and non-damaging ones and rework cleanses for that system. That would make the system more clear and could potentially make buildmaking more interesting as you could choose between cleanse more damaging ones or non damaging ones depending on what skills you take.

Granted, this doesn’t apply to all professions as some are quite slow to apply conditions, which is how it ought to work really. It’s gradual, slow, then painful; as opposed to power which is just burst

Just because you think it should work this way doesn’t mean it has to work that way. Anet seems to have decided that they want conditions to compete with power as another form of damage and that’s what we get.

Condition damage is a primary form of damage. The change towards burst meta away from bunker meta is why conditions and power both burst now. Either advocate to remove all cleanse and rebalance condition damage around that or stop complaining about burst meta for condi but not for power.

Seriously, you can achieve combo bursts of 10-20k on power. All these people who claim condi bursts with just two buttons are clearly wrong. Every time they are challenged to produce real numbers they move the goal posts and suddenly its 10 skills and movement combos. And the claim condi magically can’t be stopped by block or evade are laughably wrong.

Cleanse is:

• 1) Not meant to remove all conditions because condi is a primary source of damage and has been for YEARS.
• 2) A supplement to the same avoidance techniques as power (dodge, block, invuln, and positioning).

Power gets mitigation through protection and toughness. Condi is mitigated more strongly by resistance (33% vs 100%).

saerni.2584:

Power gets mitigation through protection and toughness. Condi is mitigated more strongly by resistance (33% vs 100%).

Oh ya forgot, resistance should also be pushed from 100% down to 33% and then toughness should work against condi damage as well. That way protection = resistance

Toughness should never be a factor in mitigating Condition damage. It a bad idea all round as it leads to only one build type.

To a stat lessening the effects of conditons it should NOT be toughness. I find it odd people would argue that Condi overpowered because it only needs “one stat” and then suggest as a fix that both power and condition damage be mitigated by one stat. It makes no sense.

Cleanses are in fact that mitigation and already exist. There is nothing like a cleanse to lessen power damage already applied.

babazhook.6805:

Toughness should never be a factor in mitigating Condition damage. It a bad idea all round as it leads to only one build type.

To a stat lessening the effects of conditons it should NOT be toughness. I find it odd people would argue that Condi overpowered because it only needs “one stat” and then suggest as a fix that both power and condition damage be mitigated by one stat. It makes no sense.

Cleanses are in fact that mitigation and already exist. There is nothing like a cleanse to lessen power damage already applied.

“Toughness should never be a factor in mitigating Condition damage. It a bad idea all round as it leads to only one build type.”

So, you agree that a greater variety of ways to deal with condis is a good way to go and would lead to more build variety? Thats great, I believe the same thing. However, also believe that your view that adding condi damage to toughness would lead to less build variety is somewhat tainted. First of all, toughness isn’t really the only attribute to help against condis. There is also vitality. How does adding another atribute to help deal with condis lower build variety or create one build type?

“I find it odd people would argue that Condi overpowered because it only needs “one stat” and then suggest as a fix that both power and condition damage be mitigated by one stat. It makes no sense."

Your view of ‘one stat’ is flawed. ‘One stat’ does not equal ‘one way’. For now, lets just take vitality out of this. Right now there is ‘one way’, condi cleanse. Toughness would be another way, a second way. Adding condi to toughness would not create ‘one way’, it would create two (condi cleanse and toughness). We are not going from ‘one way’ (condi cleanse) to one way ‘toughness’. We would be going from ‘one way’ (condi cleanse) to ‘two ways’ (cleanse and toughness). To look at it another way, we would be going from 0 stats available to deal with condis to 1 stat to deal with condis (0<1). If you count vitality, we would be going from 1 stats to 2 stats.

This would be good because condi cleanses are too important. With the right balance, this would help lower the value of having condi cleanses.

On the other hand, you could also say that the attribute ‘condi damage’ is too important. If you created another stat for condis than it would also lower the value of the attribute ‘condi damage’.

“Cleanses are in fact that mitigation and already exist. There is nothing like a cleanse to lessen power damage already applied.”

I know its obvious, however, that is because power damage doesn’t do damage over time that is unavoidable without a cleanse. I would also be ok if they completely took out condi cleanses and rebalanced. That would also obviously decrease the value of condi cleanse. I mean, it wouldn’t be around anymore. However, right now I feel like Anet is too invested in cleanses for that to happen.