Guild Wars 2

The recent news about changes to conditions in combat is very smart… from a PvE perspective. World bosses will become a more even playing field. But let’s consider the impact in PvP. In particular, I’m looking at immobilize and torment… also known as the kittening worst enemies of classes that survive by staying mobile.

Currently immobilize is capped at 3 stacks. Even this is enough to stop my (heavily practiced) kiting on my ele, making me extremely vulnerable to any number of otherwise easily avoidable mechanics, like those annoying GS warriors who take the opportunity to use Hundred Blades with impunity, or necro wells… etc. While it’s a valid strategy, especially for team coordination, it becomes tedious with the frequency with which the immobilize condition can be applied. Measured against a build that is designed to counter condition play, immobilize is outright ridiculous at present… and now it looks like that stack cap is going to go up?

The same goes for torment… being subjected to even 25 stacks is a huge pain in the kitten , and if condition play comes full back into the meta (as opposed to just being popular), then absolutely everyone is going to have to start using Antitoxin Spray just to be able to survive, not only elementalists.

I implore ANet to give these issues more consideration before implementing effectively unlimited condition stack caps. The ability to move is so very paramount to effective gameplay, and already the two conditions described above should be automatically removed whenever you heal… even just a few hundred hp off a sigil. Even knockdown is cancelled when you use a stun-breaker or teleport, for crying out loud.

Non-damaging conditions will still keep their stack limit. So immobilize’s duration will still be capped at 3 stacks.

And I’m pretty sure that Anet has thought of this, that’s why the base damage of all damaging conditions are going down. We’ll have to wait to see if their formula is on the money or not. And the numbers between the 3 game modes, PvP/WvW/PvE, are sure to be different.

And condition removal will still work the same, its not like a cleanse will only remove up to 25 stacks of bleed, and you’ll need a second cleanse to rid another 25. So if you’ve survived well against one condi spec’d foe you’ll be fine.

I think you should give Anet a bit more credit. And wait till we have more numbers/facts before jumping to conclusions.

The biggest issue with unlimited conditions would probably be if there are more Condition metas than there are Power metas. If an entire team is spec’d for conditions, then it does not matter how many cleanses you have, it’ll be an endless cycle. But they are shortening the base duration of all damaging conditions, so it might all work out.

I doubt we’ll see something like full condition teams. Mallyx Revenant pretty much directly counters that.