Guild Wars 2

TheGuy.3568:

A small chime in. I do not think condi both CC and Damaging are bad for the game. The issue is that they are easy to spam and are too capable of building defensively. There are many solutions but the easiest would likely be adding in more skills in like Berserker Stance where there are opportunitites not to be snared to death and fight back.

We do not need to do away with conditions as they are inherently part of the game. I think P/D and DD Death Blossom are pretty much what condi specs should be. Annoying but not the most potent dps out there. I think when you add in all the Malboro level bad breath spamming it feels like an uphill battle.

I think Dec 10th’s balance changes might help but overall condis probably need to be reworked require both condition duration and condi damage for any sort of strong DPS. If they add in diminishing returns on all CC then I think we might be on the right path.

so you want condition builds to suck is that it? condition builds (meta condition builds) are over the top, but those you mentioned completely suck.

ahuba.6430:

TheGuy.3568:

A small chime in. I do not think condi both CC and Damaging are bad for the game. The issue is that they are easy to spam and are too capable of building defensively. There are many solutions but the easiest would likely be adding in more skills in like Berserker Stance where there are opportunitites not to be snared to death and fight back.

We do not need to do away with conditions as they are inherently part of the game. I think P/D and DD Death Blossom are pretty much what condi specs should be. Annoying but not the most potent dps out there. I think when you add in all the Malboro level bad breath spamming it feels like an uphill battle.

I think Dec 10th’s balance changes might help but overall condis probably need to be reworked require both condition duration and condi damage for any sort of strong DPS. If they add in diminishing returns on all CC then I think we might be on the right path.

so you want condition builds to suck is that it? condition builds (meta condition builds) are over the top, but those you mentioned completely suck.

Sigh…. what do you play condi bomb engineer or necro? My guess is you have never touched a P/D thief or fought one.

In a team fight you see your big aoe condi build that burns down player in a sec and think, “Wow what a great build that completely dominated my opponent while they could do little or nothing to stop me.” A P/D thief (and DD for that matter) may not be meta but in theory they are what condi specs should be. Stack up stupid numbers of one condition, are innately defensive, and have access to other conditions (to cover) however, they can not bomb. They can toss a few thing quickly but that is about it. No huge chill or burning. It is simple but effective and most of all they tick damage vs burst it. Instead of Fire Bleeding Poison Torment Fear (terror) and managing to soft CC you too it is just a little bit of chill, some poison and easy application (but a ton of) bleeds. Their is actually counter play to those builds they have relatively weak aoe (but they do have it) and require pushing into melee range (vs anything but ranger) to maximize condi damage.

Before you get up in arms consider the context of the post and read exactly what I said. And if you are going respond all angrily to this pointing out how much you think condi thief sucks don’t bother. My post isn’t about that and I am in no mood to argue ie your response will be ignored.

TheGuy.3568:

In a team fight you see your big aoe condi build that burns down player in a sec and think, “Wow what a great build that completely dominated my opponent while they could do little or nothing to stop me.” *A P/D thief (and DD for that matter) may not be meta but in theory they are what condi specs should be. Stack up stupid numbers of one condition, are innately defensive, and have access to other conditions (to cover) however, they can not bomb.

Another issue is that Anet is pumping up anti-condition abilities so classes can deal with bombers like Necros and Engies, but it’s also an indirect nerfing to more balanced condition builds. Why couldn’t they just go to the source? Like, make Dhuumfire and Incendiary powder only proc when no damaging conditions are present on target. It would be nice to see condi eles/thieves/guards viable some day without them being pumped up to necro/engineer/spirit ranger levels.

roamzero.9486:

TheGuy.3568:

In a team fight you see your big aoe condi build that burns down player in a sec and think, “Wow what a great build that completely dominated my opponent while they could do little or nothing to stop me.” *A P/D thief (and DD for that matter) may not be meta but in theory they are what condi specs should be. Stack up stupid numbers of one condition, are innately defensive, and have access to other conditions (to cover) however, they can not bomb.

Another issue is that Anet is pumping up anti-condition abilities so classes can deal with bombers like Necros and Engies, but it’s also an indirect nerfing to more balanced condition builds. Why couldn’t they just go to the source? Like, make Dhuumfire and Incendiary powder only proc when no damaging conditions are present on target. It would be nice to see condi eles/thieves/guards viable some day without them being pumped up to necro/engineer/spirit ranger levels.

Because it is the easy way to deal with it. When they nerfed quickenes they hit warriors much harder than theives and they knew it. that is how blancign goes some builds get hit harder than others. Fact is though they have steadily been buffing P/D thief over the past months. The issue is nothing they could really make it competitive.

I main engineer bur even I find the bunkering a bit shameless. That being said I feel all types of builds should have place. The main issue is that AoE condi builds have gotten so strong that player really cant outright counter them and they can not let them go due to bunkers.

The best bet would be to lower the AoE, the duration of conditions and placement of traits (which they are doing).

I’ll tell you what a P/D thief is. It’s a useless spec for your team, that takes 30sec+ to kill its targets meanwhile whoever the opponent is manages to cap the point because P/D is always in stealth. There you go. That is the reason P/D has never worked and will never work in tpvp. A single target, attrition build (30 seconds + to kill whoever) that gets stomped by anyone with half a clue what they’re doing.
And I’m not even gonna talk about your mention to Death blossom builds lol the apex of bad, poorly designed condition builds. Pure Attrition builds have never worked in tpvp.

Edit: I play d/p thief and shatter mesmer. And played P/D extensively till december on wvw till I realized it sucked and that i was only killing scrubs.

Some good discussion, thanks for keeping it civil and reasonable everyone.

TheGuy.3568:

I think Dec 10th’s balance changes might help but overall condis probably need to be reworked require both condition duration and condi damage for any sort of strong DPS.

Almost all of them already do require both of those.

The thing with condition buikds is that thy only need a single wtat (condition damage) to do nearly 100% damage, the rest can go to survivability.

Some condition builds will use precision, in which case rabid is perfect for them, giving them 100% possible offense while still being tanky with toughness.

To get the same damage on a direct damage build, youd have to go berserker, which leaves you with nothing for defense.

For example condition necro… Believe it or not, but it has an extremely low skill floor. You can literally go 12345 with a staff and do massive aoe condition damage, which is also really difficult to avoid.

That same necro is also too tanky… If I make a single mistake on shattet Mesmer, I get overloaded with conditions that will eat half my hp away in up to 5 seconds.
That happens while the necro facetanks my full burst and is left with 60ish% hp. After that im completely defenseless, and conditions are still eating me away…

Warrior is even worse x.x

• high escapability
• high condition damage
• high direct damage
• high healing
• high tankiness

NevirSayDie.6235:

Some good discussion, thanks for keeping it civil and reasonable everyone.

TheGuy.3568:

I think Dec 10th’s balance changes might help but overall condis probably need to be reworked require both condition duration and condi damage for any sort of strong DPS.

Almost all of them already do require both of those.

You can achieve strong DPS in a condi spec even without heavy investment into condition duration due the constant application. Base times are long enough to apply pressure and condis are very cheap to apply.

I could run HGH engineer and just use the base investment in explosives and do some damage. However, if I go 3 kit then application constant and varied I do not need to invest heavily in condi duration. That being said you invest in it and yes your DPS will go up the problem is it is high to start with even without it.

Additionally due to the randomness of application (lots of on crit proc etc) it is very hard nigh impossible to dodge a spike. I still think condi should always have place but much like the idea of not tossing in too much CC with DPS many condi builds are getting the best of both worlds too cheaply.

Alissah.9281:

The thing with condition buikds is that thy only need a single wtat (condition damage) to do nearly 100% damage, the rest can go to survivability.

That’s why I asked for settler’s amulet builds, since it’s the only amulet with two defensive stats + condition damage.

I understand the point about rabid, since there’s no direct damage amulet that’s similar (except maybe valkyrie, and that’s only useful to a couple of professions). I wonder if adding a power/prec/toughness amulet would be a big deal? Alternately we could remove toughness on any amulet that’s two other stats were offensive (valks and rabid) so that it became impossible to build a “bruiser” that had decent damage and decent survivability at the same time.

TheGuy.3568:

You can achieve strong DPS in a condi spec even without heavy investment into condition duration due the constant application. Base times are long enough to apply pressure and condis are very cheap to apply.

I could run HGH engineer and just use the base investment in explosives and do some damage. However, if I go 3 kit then application constant and varied I do not need to invest heavily in condi duration. That being said you invest in it and yes your DPS will go up the problem is it is high to start with even without it.

Additionally due to the randomness of application (lots of on crit proc etc) it is very hard nigh impossible to dodge a spike. I still think condi should always have place but much like the idea of not tossing in too much CC with DPS many condi builds are getting the best of both worlds too cheaply.

I meant that very few working condi builds exist without 30% duration. Theoretically you could make a 3-kit condi engi without 30 in explosives, but in reality a build like that doesn’t exist, at least not in any tournament team. There are condi necros without dhuumfire, but most have at least +fear duration an 30 in spite. I simply meant that what you were asking for—that the most effective condition specs would need a lot of +duration—was already true.

Random conditions from procs could theoretically be a problem. However, there are only four that are commonly used: IP, dhuumfire, and the necro 5-point trait, and a chance to proc fear on being hit (can’t remember the rune name atm). Dhuumfire is something like 100 extra damage per second over time, if always landed on a player character (which is actually very hard to do); IP is 200 with the same problem. Both traits are in the neighborhood of sigil of fire in terms of free damage.

The primary reason why condi nuke classes are bad for the game: Spam

Here

Instead of timing poisons for reduce healing %, co-ordinating immobs, or cripple, or chill, or whatever with your team, people just need to spam to be effective.

You know what, here’s another question? What’s the time to kill that people want from a Condition playstyle? Because if it’s too long then you get people dropping them for Power specs instead. Is it possible to have a balance?
Edit: Changed “short” to “long”. What a typo.

I know what you are saying Never, but for example I have a guardian build that has condition removal/reversal on all utilities and heal, but I still get overwhelmed with conditions.

Sometimes its not just the conditions themselves but the way they are applied- aoe on places you have to step on, difficult or impossible to dodge etc.

Then as mentioned above, many (most/all?) condition builds are also tanky, dishing out big aoe damage through conditions.

A suggestion to make conditions part of a more risk-reward style of gameplay:
Tone down condition duration all around and tone down condi damage a bit. Then provide a new set of armor with the stats: precision, condition damage, condition duration. If ran with these stats condi builds should do more damage and maintain longer duration than now but ones not picking condition duration in stats won’t be able to stack conditions that fast and therefore will do less damage that is in line with direct damage builds.
Any opinions?

DanyK.3842:

A suggestion to make conditions part of a more risk-reward style of gameplay:
Tone down condition duration all around and tone down condi damage a bit. Then provide a new set of armor with the stats: precision, condition damage, condition duration. If ran with these stats condi builds should do more damage and maintain longer duration than now but ones not picking condition duration in stats won’t be able to stack conditions that fast and therefore will do less damage that is in line with direct damage builds.
Any opinions?

But to compensate the nerf of every other condition build, every condition imunity/-remove needs to go too

As said multiple times in this thread, there shouldnt be armors with condi-dmg main stat and thoughness, as long as there is no armorstat like condition-duration.
Thoughness main and condi secondary would be ok or condi main and vita secondary.

I think we should have some sort of trinity what builds are effective against each other.
direct damage is countered by tanks, tanks are countered by condi damage and condi builds countered by direct damage. With some hybrid builds in between.

As long as conditions stay single target they’re fine. They’re not fine when people spam AoE conditions without any thought.

Either nerf AoE conditions or make them “tick”. Ele AoE does dmg over time so should necro marks imo.

I do believe AoE number of targets should be uncapped not only max 5 but make the animations more obvious or make the damage “tick”. It’s our fault if my team is not smart enough to move out of AoE which is too obvious in Gw2 due to red rings.

What’s the point of going glass when you can go tanky DPS?

I think this game should have tanky DPS. But the builds should always be playing on the same footing as what they are fighting.

Example: glass vs Tanky DPS = fight can go any which way at a moments notice and don’t last very long (as opposed to out lasting significant hits with no real risk)

And Bunker vs tanky DPS = longer drawn out war of attrition trying to bait doges and force early heals ect. Ect. Ect. (As opposed to hard pressure fighting like glass vs bunker)

(These numbers are not indicative of anything just a general x/10)
If glass is 2-4 in survivability and 9 in damage, while bunkers are 6-8 in survivability and 3-4 in damage. Tanky DPS should be 4-5 in survivability and 5-6 in damage.

should Not be 6 in survivability and 7-8 in damage.

@Daishi: you are right. This is exactly what is amiss in this game (along with AI builds and AoE spam), tanky DPS builds need a slight toning down in terms of their damage.

I find conditions in a nearly perfect spot!

I dont wanna start a qoute aria, but most of the complainings in here are pretty weird:
Some are complaining that they dont have enough condiremove, even with 3 or 4 of them. Of course you havent! There should never ever be anything that completly counters a source of damage. Its like yelling for more heal to outheal every burst.

Others compare condition specs to glass cannons. Compare them to a power build(i.e. soldiers amulett). Glass cannons are supposed to kill fast or die hard, thats what glass cannon stands for. And its a good thing they can be easily get countered by good players(commonly by dodging the stun). Seriously, how sad would a meta with glass cannons be? Its building/negating pressure that makes a fight a good one, stun and kill isnt very exciting in my point of view, nevertheless requiring any sort of “huge skill”.

Just tone done the necros sligthly and remove the only really op trait engies have, “automated response”. Because it exactly does what should never be: Countering a complete source of damage, making him unkillale to certain specs. Then im perfectly fine with the balance between condi and power.

I do really like the way conditions are implemented in this game, though I do admit they need toning down.

Being able stack near a minute of poison on someone, 12 second burns (That can kill some classes by itself) is a little ridiculous.

Cutting condition duration back a bit would probably be one of the best places to start toning condis down.

Mister Fluffkin.7358:

I dont wanna start a qoute aria, but most of the complainings in here are pretty weird:
Some are complaining that they dont have enough condiremove, even with 3 or 4 of them. Of course you havent! There should never ever be anything that completly counters a source of damage. Its like yelling for more heal to outheal every burst.

Others compare condition specs to glass cannons. Compare them to a power build(i.e. soldiers amulett). Glass cannons are supposed to kill fast or die hard, thats what glass cannon stands for. And its a good thing they can be easily get countered by good players(commonly by dodging the stun). Seriously, how sad would a meta with glass cannons be? Its building/negating pressure that makes a fight a good one, stun and kill isnt very exciting in my point of view, nevertheless requiring any sort of “huge skill”.

Just tone done the necros sligthly and remove the only really op trait engies have, “automated response”. Because it exactly does what should never be: Countering a complete source of damage, making him unkillale to certain specs. Then im perfectly fine with the balance between condi and power.

Thanks, that’s essentially what I’ve been trying to say. A guardian should die eventually to heavy sustained damage. An attrition spec should kill a glass cannon if the glass cannon can’t finish off the attrition spec quickly.

An attrition spec should lose to a glass cannon if he can’t survive more than a few seconds. Anyone should die if they eat multiple large damage cooldowns in a row, whether they are power or condition damage.

Yes, there are a few specific skills that are out of whack, such as HS+CI on warrior making s/s longbow too difficult to bring down, or signet of spite on necro. But we should be lobbying for changes to those skills/traits.

Silferas.3841:

… Or getting owned by a spirit ranger that has a ratio of shortbow skill usage of 98:2 in favor of his auto attack….

ever watched the skills on shortbow on a ranger? he has only 1 attack that only bleeds from non-frontalattacks. the rest are utilities.

@all
i think they should just remove the condition from autoattacks. so the reapplication would be reduced and it becomes manageble.

@nevir
no conditions are not manageble on the current state. even the big hitter are reapplied to fast or the big stacks are covered by spamed condition via autoattack.

one of the best conditionweapons is axe on ranger, no condition on autoattack but 2 on the others.

hooma.9642:

@all
i think they should just remove the condition from autoattacks. so the reapplication would be reduced and it becomes manageble.

Then they should remove the damage of autoattacks too. Conditions are another source of damage. And they are needed.

whyme.3281:

hooma.9642:

@all
i think they should just remove the condition from autoattacks. so the reapplication would be reduced and it becomes manageble.

Then they should remove the damage of autoattacks too. Conditions are another source of damage. And they are needed.

lol u thinked about that post? i hope u know autoattacks do dmg+conditions. and the build u play decide what doing more dmg. in gw1 wasnt 1 autoattack that spamed conditions by nature. there was condition spam too, but that was coordinated and with skillusing and not possible to maintain 24/7

The problem with condition builds is that they are apex builds right now, and they should never be.

1v1 masters, Team Fight Best friends, Expert Point assaulter and great Point bunker ALL at the same time..

This is why Engi/Warrior/Ranger are so overpowered atm and imho Anet needs a bigger bat.

hooma.9642:

whyme.3281:

hooma.9642:

@all
i think they should just remove the condition from autoattacks. so the reapplication would be reduced and it becomes manageble.

Then they should remove the damage of autoattacks too. Conditions are another source of damage. And they are needed.

lol u thinked about that post? i hope u know autoattacks do dmg+conditions. and the build u play decide what doing more dmg. in gw1 wasnt 1 autoattack that spamed conditions by nature. there was condition spam too, but that was coordinated and with skillusing and not possible to maintain 24/7

why? he is right with that. If you remove all conditions from autos, you have to remove all damage as well.

Compare the direct damage of a condi build with the damage of a power build. A Zerker should be able to deal like 2-3 times more damage with an autoattack (probably more, haven’t done the math). A condition build has conditions attached to the attack to compensate to that damage gap.

Autoattacks with conditions are not a problem at all. Conditions are just an other form of damage, that’s all. The damage is just time based and not applied instant.

except u only has a low number of real burst skills and 1000000000000000000000000 of other skills except autoattacks that apply conditions. thats why u need autoattack? with autoattack its just spamming conditions.

yeah a zerger hits harder with autoattack. but unless a conditionuser that zerker pays for that with 0 defense.

Darnis.4056:

The problem with condition builds is that they are apex builds right now, and they should never be.

1v1 masters, Team Fight Best friends, Expert Point assaulter and great Point bunker ALL at the same time..

This is why Engi/Warrior/Ranger are so overpowered atm and imho Anet needs a bigger bat.

Respectfully, that’s not really the definition of an “apex.” Apex means the top of the food chain, nothing able to compete with it. You’ve described all-purpose or jack-of-all-trades builds, but not Apex builds. Midpoint bunker guardian is an apex build—nothing can do its job as well as it can. Other apex or near-apex builds would be hambow warrior, s/d thief, and spirit ranger.