Guild Wars 2

At least the player with the account Mammoth.1975 thinks so:

Mammoth.1975:

[…] peak power damage > peak condition damage, do you want to compare averages now? Because average power damage is also > average condition damage.

I’m actually very sure of the opposite and we had a very detailed discussion in another thread in which also the op addressed how to deal with the said problem (so read if further more interested):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Condition-analysis-and-a-few-options/first#post3056516

But since I’m not without fail I just wanted to ask the rest of the community which didn’t bother to read the whole thread of their opinion. What do you think? What are your experiences? Does power dmg really more dmg than cond dmg under the premise that the conds are NOT CLEANSED???

In optimal conditions, power does. I think PvE proves that considering power builds are almost always superior to cond builds there. But – optimal conditions are rare. Protection? Power damage cut by a massive 1/3rd. High toughness target? Further reduction. Endure pain? All gone. Add to that that conditions can generally be spammed, especially through condition procs and overall conditions can be a lot more damaging in the long run.

tarcheg.4872:

At least the player with the account Mammoth.1975 thinks so:

Mammoth.1975:

[…] peak power damage > peak condition damage, do you want to compare averages now? Because average power damage is also > average condition damage.

I’m actually very sure of the opposite and we had a very detailed discussion in another thread in which also the op addressed how to deal with the said problem (so read if further more interested):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Condition-analysis-and-a-few-options/first#post3056516

But since I’m not without fail I just wanted to ask the rest of the community which didn’t bother to read the whole thread of their opinion. What do you think? What are your experiences? Does power dmg really more dmg than cond dmg under the premise that the conds are NOT CLEANSED???

Power dmg can do more damage in shorter timeframe. But power damage require constant contact with target – target can dodge, use LOS, break distance, etc.
Conditions can be used as “fire and forget”, you pull em out and now YOU can dodge, run, heal, whatever, while your target is melting.

Rednik.3809:

Power dmg can do more damage in shorter timeframe. But power damage require constant contact with target – target can dodge, use LOS, break distance, etc.
Conditions can be used as “fire and forget”, you pull em out and now YOU can dodge, run, heal, whatever, while your target is melting.

Condition damage also needs direct contact, just because there are numbers poping up, doesn’t mean you still do full damage
Conditions can also be dodged, blocked, blinded, … and additionally be cleansed. Its the dame as above just because there are numbers poping up doesn’t mean you hit the target right now

Conditions apply their damage over time, and not instant. So the damage you see their was done “earlier”.

On topic with some math:
A Necro scepter auto attack hits for ~500 crit (could be to high) + 10s bleed + 4s bleed (66% trait ) + 10s (60% sigil) [best conditions] with 130 damage per second per bleed you have a autoattack of 3700 damage. unfortunately we can’t crit all the time and traits and sigils have a proc chance, resulting in much less damage.

lets say we have 50% crit chance we get:
416 direct damage (average) + 10s bleed + 4*0,66*0,5 bleed + 10 * 0,6*0,5s bleed
= 2584 damage per attack
ignoring every internal CD, attack speed and cleanse.

And 2,5k is nothing a Zerker can’t beat. The strength of conditions is their immunity to toughness making them bunker killers, where Power would fail. But on the other hand killing low armor enemies is slower.

This thread is funny. I like it though, it would be good if people did follow the link, might clear up a misconception that is apparently quite common. I suspect this is against the forum rules though >.<

unleashed.8679:

Condition damage also needs direct contact, just because there are numbers poping up, doesn’t mean you still do full damage
Conditions can also be dodged, blocked, blinded, … and additionally be cleansed. Its the dame as above just because there are numbers poping up doesn’t mean you hit the target right now

Conditions apply their damage over time, and not instant. So the damage you see their was done “earlier”.

On topic with some math:
A Necro scepter auto attack hits for ~500 crit (could be to high) + 10s bleed + 4s bleed (66% trait ) + 10s (60% sigil) [best conditions] with 130 damage per second per bleed you have a autoattack of 3700 damage. unfortunately we can’t crit all the time and traits and sigils have a proc chance, resulting in much less damage.

lets say we have 50% crit chance we get:
416 direct damage (average) + 10s bleed + 4*0,66*0,5 bleed + 10 * 0,6*0,5s bleed
= 2584 damage per attack
ignoring every internal CD, attack speed and cleanse.

And 2,5k is nothing a Zerker can’t beat. The strength of conditions is their immunity to toughness making them bunker killers, where Power would fail. But on the other hand killing low armor enemies is slower.

Here’s some numbers from the other thread. Necro scepter average damage = 1109:

Scepter auto = 189 power damage, 42% crit chance, 170% crit multiplier = 245 power damage + 617 bleeding = 862 damage.

Sigil of earth, 0.67s attack speed+aftercast, 2s ICD, 42% crit chance, 60% proc chance = procs every 4.3 seconds (6.4 attacks) applying 721 damage worth of bleeding. 721/6.4 = 113 extra damage per attack. 113 + 862 = 975 damage per attack so far.

Barbed precision 0.67 attack speed, 1s ICD, 42% crit chance, 66% proc chance = procs every 3.3 seconds (4.9 attacks) applying 103 damage worth of bleeding. 103/4.9 = 21 damage per attack. 975+21 = 996 damage per attack.

Dhuumfire 0.67 attack speed 10s ICD, 42% crit chance, 100% proc chance = procs every 11.2s (16.8 attacks) applying 1890 damage worth of burning. 1890/16.8 = 113 damage per attack. 996 + 113 = 1109 damage per attack.

That’s a 30/20/0/0/20 necro with rabid amulet, carrion jewel, 4 nightmare, 2 lyssa, and signet of spite passive.

Nice job, now we’ll have 2 threads with the exact same chain arguments.

I think this is a big no-no.

EDIT: entirely off topic ramblings:

Mammoth.1975:

Here’s some numbers from the other thread. Necro scepter average damage = 1109:

Ignoring the very important fact that the majority of this damage is dealt over 5-6 seconds.

In that time:

• Regen may be running, mitigating the damage.
• You might cleanse, preventing that damage.

You forget to mention that a direct damage auto-attack is capable of critical strikes in excess of 1k damage without taking traits/sigils into account.

In short, I didn’t read the topic!

Brew Pinch.5731:

Ignoring the very important fact that the majority of this damage is dealt over 5-6 seconds.

In that time:

• Regen may be running, mitigating the damage.
• You might cleanse, preventing that damage.

You forget to mention that a direct damage auto-attack is capable of critical strikes in excess of 1k damage without taking traits/sigils into account.

In short, your argument is very flawed.

You should stop and breathe. I didn’t make an argument, I gave numbers. You should also follow the link in the OP. Or in fact, just read the OP. It’s refreshing to see deliberate ignorance displayed via attempts to downplay facts from both sides of the discussion though. Nice change of pace.

Mammoth.1975:

just read the OP.

Good point :P

We’re talking about PvE! /facepalm

Rednik.3809:

tarcheg.4872:

At least the player with the account Mammoth.1975 thinks so:

Mammoth.1975:

[…] peak power damage > peak condition damage, do you want to compare averages now? Because average power damage is also > average condition damage.

I’m actually very sure of the opposite and we had a very detailed discussion in another thread in which also the op addressed how to deal with the said problem (so read if further more interested):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Condition-analysis-and-a-few-options/first#post3056516

But since I’m not without fail I just wanted to ask the rest of the community which didn’t bother to read the whole thread of their opinion. What do you think? What are your experiences? Does power dmg really more dmg than cond dmg under the premise that the conds are NOT CLEANSED???

Power dmg can do more damage in shorter timeframe. But power damage require constant contact with target – target can dodge, use LOS, break distance, etc.
Conditions can be used as “fire and forget”, you pull em out and now YOU can dodge, run, heal, whatever, while your target is melting.

Exactly, that’ the decisive difference between the two.

I can deal 10.000 Power damage every 3 seconds in PvE. You’d need to maintain 30 Bleed stacks by yourself (assuming they all tick for 120) to match that damage.

But they require a constant target up-time while often also putting the damage-dealer at great risk.

Conditions on the other hand deal damage regardless of your actions and often have other beneficial effects. It’s also much easier to spread them.

They also ignore dodges, Protection and other mitigating abilities and are mostly instant-cast and not telegraphed. That’s why Conditions are so much more powerful in PvP than PvE.

The biggest Weakness of Conditions is their low single-target cap, which too doesn’t factor in to PvP much. On the other hand they can be cleansed which makes single Conditions easy to deal with, but Condition bombs very dangerous.

Dee Jay.2460:

Rednik.3809:

tarcheg.4872:

At least the player with the account Mammoth.1975 thinks so:

Mammoth.1975:

[…] peak power damage > peak condition damage, do you want to compare averages now? Because average power damage is also > average condition damage.

I’m actually very sure of the opposite and we had a very detailed discussion in another thread in which also the op addressed how to deal with the said problem (so read if further more interested):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Condition-analysis-and-a-few-options/first#post3056516

But since I’m not without fail I just wanted to ask the rest of the community which didn’t bother to read the whole thread of their opinion. What do you think? What are your experiences? Does power dmg really more dmg than cond dmg under the premise that the conds are NOT CLEANSED???

Power dmg can do more damage in shorter timeframe. But power damage require constant contact with target – target can dodge, use LOS, break distance, etc.
Conditions can be used as “fire and forget”, you pull em out and now YOU can dodge, run, heal, whatever, while your target is melting.

Exactly, that’ the decisive difference between the two.

I can deal 10.000 Power damage every 3 seconds in PvE. You’d need to maintain 30 Bleed stacks by yourself (assuming they all tick for 120) to match that damage.

But they require a constant target up-time while often also putting the damage-dealer at great risk.

Conditions on the other hand deal damage regardless of your actions and often have other beneficial effects. It’s also much easier to spread them.

They also ignore dodges, Protection and other mitigating abilities and are mostly instant-cast and not telegraphed. That’s why Conditions are so much more powerful in PvP than PvE.

The biggest Weakness of Conditions is their low single-target cap, which too doesn’t factor in to PvP much. On the other hand they can be cleansed which makes single Conditions easy to deal with, but Condition bombs very dangerous.

Lol, you have no clue how conditions work. If you dodge an condition atack, than there is no condition applied -> you take less damage. That the condition on you still deal their damage is normal, thats why its called DoT.

Same thing with invulnerability, blocks, blinds, los,…. everything that let atacks miss their target/deal 0 damage.

The only thing that doesnt effect conditions is protection, but the counterpart here is -%condition duration and cleanse

There is no magic behind condition damage, the only thing is, that people dont understand how they work.

Learn how conditions work, if they are on you, then you havent dodged earlier thats the whole point. If you have conditions on you, that will kill you if you dodge or not, then you would allready be killed by a direct damage build, dealing the same damage per atack.

shimmerless.4560:

I’m pretty sure he means that once a condi lands, there’s no defense short of a cleanse that has any effect.

So you can’t defend against them after they’ve already hit you? Kind of like direct damage attacks then?

Mammoth.1975:

shimmerless.4560:

I’m pretty sure he means that once a condi lands, there’s no defense short of a cleanse that has any effect.

So you can’t defend against them after they’ve already hit you? Kind of like direct damage attacks then?

Exactly. The point is that an attack that does 3000 damage instantly and an attack that does 3000 damage over ten seconds are no different in regards to dodging. It just feels different because the badly missed dodges happen before you actually die.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Mammoth.1975:

So you can’t defend against them after they’ve already hit you? Kind of like direct damage attacks then?

Exactly. The point is that an attack that does 3000 damage instantly and an attack that does 3000 damage over ten seconds are no different in regards to dodging. It just feels different because the badly missed dodges happen before you actually die.

This is a very important distinction to understand when discussing power vs condi.

Stat point investment vs frequency of application vs potential damage per successful hit.

Condition damage is still superior. A few anti condi wars with stunlocks don’t really change that.

Leuca.5732:

Stat point investment vs frequency of application vs potential damage per successful hit.

Condition damage is still superior. A few anti condi wars with stunlocks don’t really change that.

Stat point investment: Condition builds also need 3 stats to maximize their damage. Condi dmg, duration and precision and If you want to see you conditions do their job, then you also need toughness and vita.

Frequency of application: No, there is no difference between hitting someone with direct dmg or with condition damage. It could be that the attack speed of some weapons should be tweaked (I dont think so). But then it’s some skills and not conditions in general.

Potential damage per hit: Here we should differentiate how much armor the targets has. I think there should be a sweat spot around 2,6k armor when conditions should start to deal more damage than direct damage. But right now, I think conditions deal less damage vs those targets.

There are some skills that are capable to deal more then 15k damage (over 20+ seconds), but there are direct damage skills that can do this (instant), too.

We can do the math to find this sweat spot, but which skills are comparable?

I have to add

potential damage: direct damage is much better, because of all this little damage multipliers available. Weapon X deals 10% more damage, Vulnerability, deal 10% more damage to bleeding foes, Crit damage, …

the rest is correct.

Let’s take the example of the engineer.

All condi heavy hitters are much harder to avoid than power heavy hitters.

Example: with condi damage, shrapnel grenade can deal up to 4k damage, even more. At short range you can’t reliably dodge a certain grenade (they all look the same).
Poison grenade puts an AoE effect on the ground? You dodge it? Who cares! You get poisoned once you get out of the dodge. Incendiary Power is unavoidable.

Power skills are much more readable/short ranged or on a longer cd. Example: Jump Shot. Grenade Barrage (you have to stand on top of the enemy to deal full damage). Toolkit skills (autoattack is slow, crowbar deals meh direct damage for being a melee skill on a long cd… but has good confusion). Blunderbuss needs you to be CLOSER than melee range.

Conditions skills are more spammable and less telegraphed than power skills, at least for engi.

redslion.9675:

Let’s take the example of the engineer.

All condi heavy hitters are much harder to avoid than power heavy hitters.

Example: with condi damage, shrapnel grenade can deal up to 4k damage, even more. At short range you can’t reliably dodge a certain grenade (they all look the same).
Poison grenade puts an AoE effect on the ground? You dodge it? Who cares! You get poisoned once you get out of the dodge. Incendiary Power is unavoidable.

Power skills are much more readable/short ranged or on a longer cd. Example: Jump Shot. Grenade Barrage (you have to stand on top of the enemy to deal full damage). Toolkit skills (autoattack is slow, crowbar deals meh direct damage for being a melee skill on a long cd… but has good confusion). Blunderbuss needs you to be CLOSER than melee range.

Conditions skills are more spammable and less telegraphed than power skills, at least for engi.

I actually agree with you in general, but that is the worst example I have ever heard

Grenades hard to avoid? Static discharge spikes easy? Reduce your drug intake :P

Mammoth.1975:

redslion.9675:

Let’s take the example of the engineer.

All condi heavy hitters are much harder to avoid than power heavy hitters.

Example: with condi damage, shrapnel grenade can deal up to 4k damage, even more. At short range you can’t reliably dodge a certain grenade (they all look the same).
Poison grenade puts an AoE effect on the ground? You dodge it? Who cares! You get poisoned once you get out of the dodge. Incendiary Power is unavoidable.

Power skills are much more readable/short ranged or on a longer cd. Example: Jump Shot. Grenade Barrage (you have to stand on top of the enemy to deal full damage). Toolkit skills (autoattack is slow, crowbar deals meh direct damage for being a melee skill on a long cd… but has good confusion). Blunderbuss needs you to be CLOSER than melee range.

Conditions skills are more spammable and less telegraphed than power skills, at least for engi.

I actually agree with you in general, but that is the worst example I have ever heard

Grenades hard to avoid? Static discharge spikes easy? Reduce your drug intake :P

Well, you have to spec deep to use static discharge, and chains are on a longish cd. I never went anywhere spamming single discharges.

Grenades are easy to avoid at LONG range. But you should use it at near point blank range.

And, most importan than all, if you are close enough the enemy won’t have time to tell what grenade you are throwing. You might bait dodges with autoattack and then land a chill grenade.

Range has to be used only in wvwvw, to make sure people on walls can’t reach siege weaponry.

redslion.9675:

Mammoth.1975:

redslion.9675:

Let’s take the example of the engineer.

All condi heavy hitters are much harder to avoid than power heavy hitters.

Example: with condi damage, shrapnel grenade can deal up to 4k damage, even more. At short range you can’t reliably dodge a certain grenade (they all look the same).
Poison grenade puts an AoE effect on the ground? You dodge it? Who cares! You get poisoned once you get out of the dodge. Incendiary Power is unavoidable.

Power skills are much more readable/short ranged or on a longer cd. Example: Jump Shot. Grenade Barrage (you have to stand on top of the enemy to deal full damage). Toolkit skills (autoattack is slow, crowbar deals meh direct damage for being a melee skill on a long cd… but has good confusion). Blunderbuss needs you to be CLOSER than melee range.

Conditions skills are more spammable and less telegraphed than power skills, at least for engi.

I actually agree with you in general, but that is the worst example I have ever heard

Grenades hard to avoid? Static discharge spikes easy? Reduce your drug intake :P

Well, you have to spec deep to use static discharge, and chains are on a longish cd. I never went anywhere spamming single discharges.

Grenades are easy to avoid at LONG range. But you should use it at near point blank range.

And, most importan than all, if you are close enough the enemy won’t have time to tell what grenade you are throwing. You might bait dodges with autoattack and then land a chill grenade.

Range has to be used only in wvwvw, to make sure people on walls can’t reach siege weaponry.

You’re suggesting that people will let an engi get close and stay close, which is something I try to avoid doing as much as possible. I think we just have to agree to disagree on this particular example.

I’m thinking about it a little more though, and I’m not 100% sure I can get behind your main point after some reflection, for necros at least. Aside from mark of blood, every ‘high’ damage condi attack from a necro has a huge tell. I think mark of blood could use a really obvious animation btw, as it would remove the ambiguity from all the other marks too, now that reapers is so obvious. Since the other two are primarily used for their utility, the animation is less relevant than the situation. The other one I can see being problematic for necros is tainted shackles, as even if you just land 2 stacks of torment, that’s a significant amount of damage, and there’s little anyone can do about it.

We also disagree on at least a few engi attacks. I find nades and bombs much easier to avoid than rifle attacks, largely due to the CC on rifle meaning you have to double dodge to avoid any of the high damage attacks, and endurance has limits, whereas nades and bombs require you to stick in melee range, and even then bombs have huge delays. Aside from blowtorch, which doesn’t see large amounts of play, pistol condi attacks don’t do much unless you get a good static shot set up either, and once again, this is because the ‘high’ damage attacks are so easily avoided. I keep putting high in quote marks because they’re actually pretty low when compared to DD attacks. Engi pistol auto is a really good example of how crap the damage on condis can get.

The thing about double dodges is actually true for everyone too. If your weapon set has a high damage attack and a form of CC, you’re going to land that high damage attack pretty regularly, because if they want to dodge the high damage attack, they also have to dodge the CC first. Shield bash>eviscerate and so forth (not that axes see a lot of play either, but it illustrates the point clearly I hope).