Guild Wars 2

Blind/Aegis/other Blocks/Dodge Roll/Invul:
Now this maybe not as clear as the previous stated advantages of cond dmg. Why does missing one single attack (whyever) hurt power dmg just a huge more than a cond attack?
To get to the reason of that we have to analyze where the main dmg of power and cond classes is coming from in the current meta.
Let’s take a bs thief or hybrid/dmg ele. If you blind or get an aegis to block a thief’s bs his whole combo is ruined. He probably used steal, maybe a refuge to get stealthed etc and all for pretty much nothing. Other power example would be an ele. When you dodge his arcane burst or just press randomly an invul the ele has to wait for his arcane skills to get of cd before doing another strong burst like that.
Now let’s have a look at cond classes. One might argue that you can do the same with cond classes. Dodge the confusion bomb, dodge in necro marks etc. But:
first – cond classes in general do not rely on one heavy burst like a bs thief, 100b warrior, ele, mesmer – they are able to have a much higher sustain dmg output to melt targets over a couple second rather than killing it in half a second.
second – and this is the really broken aspect imo: Engis and Necros (the two used cond classes atm) have a trait which gives them their most dmg on a proc. It’s like a thief trait which gives him every 10s a bs on a proc. Burning is the one condition a class needs to have an effective condition spec. Burning is where most of the dmg comes from. And there srsly is a trait which gives you 60% burning up time (4s + cond duration / every nec/engi has at least 50% burning duration) on a proc.
Let me explain why it is op to have your main dmg coming from a proc. It’s pretty simple. Did you ever try to dodge a proc? Or to blind it? Or evade it with anything else??? It’s just not possible. Let’s say you know that the icd of his burning trait is off so you dodge his next attack to avoid the burning application. What does this do? You get no dmg during the time you evade, BUT his main dmg source did not go on a cd and most likely you will be burned for 6s with his next attack. There just is no way to effectively evade the burning. This is a huge different when compared to how power classes do their main dmg and to be honest – this is intolerable in a game in which “skill” is evading the attacks which hurt you the most.
Ofc all necros and engis will say now, that we have cond removal to counter them. But what many people forget is, that some classes just simply have no access to cond removal like mesmer and others just don’t pay off.
Let’s look at the current meta in which cond removal plays a huge part. We pretty much always have a mesmer with 0 cond removal. Than there is most likely an ele with very limited cond removal (see my statement at the top about ele and cond removal) we got an engi with limited cond removal (2 every ~17s ae) and a necro who has 0 cond removal but cond transferring – but transferring does not take conds out of the game. The general feeling of how conds rule the game atm is not reduced by transferring them to the enemy team. On the opposite – the other team will feel even more screwed by conds. Only the guard has atm reasonable access to cond removal with his shout build.
In addition there are very few runes with -cond duration which are almost not used in the current meta.
As it seems, the last patches have shifted the meta in the condition direction a huge step. The contras for pwer classes outshine the contras for cond classes – which is pretty much only cond removal – by far and the meta is representing that fact by team comp consisting of 1 bunker guard, 2 necro, 1 engi and a mesmer (mostly because portal and iol are still just a must have).

I wanna say at the end, that this is not a necro op thread. Or an engi op thread. This thread just wants to outline the general disadvantages of any power class compared to cond applying classes.

Pretty good stuff here imo…too bad devs usually don’t give a kitten about good stuff….

The buff to weakness is one of the biggest reasons DD builds are suffering tbh. The new weakness doesn’t turn crits into half damage crits, it turns them into glancing blows, half damage hits. A little basic math:

50% crit chance.
+50% crit damage.

Half your swings crit and do 200% damage. Half of 200% is 100%.
The other half do 100%. Half of 100% is 50%.
100 + 50 =150.
Total expected damage from any given attack is 150%.

Add weakness.

50% of your swings glance and do 50% damage. Half of 50% is 25%.
25% of your swings crit and do 200% damage. A quarter of 200% is 50%.
25% of your swings hit and do 100% damage. A quarter of 100% is 25%.
50+25+25 = 100.
Total expected damage from any given swing is 100%, down from 150%.

It’s only a 25% damage reduction on builds with zero crit, which don’t exist. The more crit oriented your build, the more it hurts you.

If it remains as is, condition damage will remain stronger than direct damage. One solution would be to nerf condition damage to the level of direct damage, which would have the effect of slowing the whole game down. The other would be to nerf weakness.

Personally I found weakness to be a very strong condition when all you could really count on it for was reducing endurance regen. Now that it affects DD so significantly as well, it’s pretty crazy.

Completely agreed on all points, especially the ridiculous implementation of the burning proc traits for engy and necro.

From one of my previous posts here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Suggestion-for-Dhuumfire-Incindiary-Powder/first#post2322558

“I think these two traits should instead of activating on the first crit that happens to land (which is unpredictable for the wielder and unavoidable for the recipient), they should grant an effect, like the leeching effect you get from Sigil of Leeching, that makes your next attack burn.

This would add a lot more depth to the mechanics of these two traits, freeing the wielder from having to rely on the RNG nature of crits to land this important condition, and give the recipient a slight visual cue, and a chance of avoiding the attack (the previous version of the trait is unavoidable because eventually a crit WILL land and burn you no matter how well you play)."

Kaon.7192:

Completely agreed on all points, especially the ridiculous implementation of the burning proc traits for engy and necro.

Totally agreed.

Good thread and well written posts OP.

I agree with much of this post. And another thing that makes the setup so powerful is that on top of being unable to avoid a proc … this proc inflicts burning … which out of all the conditions is the hardest to counter in the game.

There is no “high risk high reward” with burning. You get it on, you do good damage, and it’s most likely run through it’s short, yet potent duration, before it can even be cleansed, and if it was cleansed, that most likely means you had enough of a duration of it on you that it alone probably would have put you in down state. This does not promote or support counter play, and therefore does not promote true balance of any kind.

Burning should have it’s damage no more than twice that of bleeding, and given perhaps exactly half the duration of bleeds with adjustments to traits accordingly so they don’t become too lengthy (but then again if they actually have a length in which they are able to be countered / removed without doing full damage, then we actually have some possible counter play established!)

Perhaps if they actually gave all classes viable power / condition builds, a good mix of cleanse mechanics and utilities … nevermind. I forgot I don’t have that much faith in Arenanet, besides, they’d probably just end up super homogenizing all the classes so they all play exactly the same, but with one gimmick mechanic to the next to “distinguish” them.

I think it cute you took such time to write a constructive post that will never be read by anyone apart from players. Obviously the 2 people who balance this entire game are too busy at work with the next balance patch designed to create more viability of builds to stop and read forums. As we have all seen, those balance patches are thoughtful, well explained and not implemented under the hood with no footnoting.

Personally for me, another problem seems to be that some of the most powerful or longest duration condition moves are also AoEs. Shouldn’t the strongest conditions be single target only?

tarcheg.4872:

and a necro who has 0 cond removal but cond transferring

Necro usually have their heal that is a total cond cleanse.
Now i’d like to point out that even though conditions are very strong at the moment and we probably some boons similar to prot or aegis to mitigate the damage, power dmg can’t be ignored.
If you’ve for example watched team paradigm invitational tournament, you’ve seem top teams are still playing with heavy power teams and some with no condi profession at all (such as new denial esport ancient tcg).
Indeed power is still a really strong mechanic as it is the only way to spike a high level target et put the ennemy team in a real bad spot.

You are right, my bad – I forgot about the cond cleanse heal from necros.

And yes, there are and probably always will be a minority of players and teams which do not go the “fotm-way” and still will be successful to a certain degree. But that doesn’t negate the fact that condition classes are getting more and more the norm by the day: I read player names which used to be thieves, eles or mesmer which are now necro or engis.

Audiogasm.7643:

Indeed power is still a really strong mechanic as it is the only way to spike a high level target et put the ennemy team in a real bad spot.

You have to realize that they utilize two Elementalists. 90% of their “insta” spike kills came from Hyxo or Denshee for a reason.

The only power spiker you should ever bring to your team right now is an Elementalist, because in order to spike hard they give up very little survivability, have the advantage of dealing respectable burst at range and have a burst spike combo that revolves around auto-crit abilities and insta casts that can not be reliably dodged or neutralized.

Good point, well made.

There are many ways that this deficiency can be accounted for, but it all basically comes down to having some way of proactively countering conditions rather than being forced to cleanse reactively with what are usually long CD’s.

Mammoth.1975:

The buff to weakness is one of the biggest reasons DD builds are suffering tbh. The new weakness doesn’t turn crits into half damage crits, it turns them into glancing blows, half damage hits. A little basic math:

I thought they brought the damage reduction down to 25%?

Audiogasm.7643:

tarcheg.4872:

and a necro who has 0 cond removal but cond transferring

Necro usually have their heal that is a total cond cleanse.
Now i’d like to point out that even though conditions are very strong at the moment and we probably some boons similar to prot or aegis to mitigate the damage, power dmg can’t be ignored.
If you’ve for example watched team paradigm invitational tournament, you’ve seem top teams are still playing with heavy power teams and some with no condi profession at all (such as new denial esport ancient tcg).
Indeed power is still a really strong mechanic as it is the only way to spike a high level target et put the ennemy team in a real bad spot.

Yes, Power/Crit builds are definitely powerful but the power of conditions cannot be denied. Poison, Chill, all those conditions with side effects to them definitely affect the flow of the fight more than people realize.

Dirame.8521:

Mammoth.1975:

The buff to weakness is one of the biggest reasons DD builds are suffering tbh. The new weakness doesn’t turn crits into half damage crits, it turns them into glancing blows, half damage hits. A little basic math:

I thought they brought the damage reduction down to 25%?

No, it’s still 50%.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness

tarcheg.4872:

Let me explain why it is op to have your main dmg coming from a proc. It’s pretty simple. Did you ever try to dodge a proc? Or to blind it? Or evade it with anything else??? It’s just not possible. Let’s say you know that the icd of his burning trait is off so you dodge his next attack to avoid the burning application. What does this do? You get no dmg during the time you evade, BUT his main dmg source did not go on a cd and most likely you will be burned for 6s with his next attack. There just is no way to effectively evade the burning. This is a huge different when compared to how power classes do their main dmg and to be honest – this is intolerable in a game in which “skill” is evading the attacks which hurt you the most.

I agree, you can not avoid the burning proc, you can only delay it by dodging or blinding your enemies every attack, there simply is no counter-play to it.

I suggest making the burning proc on every 5th attack or something similar instead of on critical hits. It should also show as an effect on a player, like a little icon that says “burns every 5th attack”.
This would add a lot of play to this mechanic, since you then would focus on dodging, blinding or blocking every 5th attack while your opponent would focus on making it hit via smart use of cc or by lining up their skills properly, for example forcing you to decide between dodging a concussion bomb to avoid the confusion or dodging the following attack to avoid the burning.

Dirame.8521:

Mammoth.1975:

The buff to weakness is one of the biggest reasons DD builds are suffering tbh. The new weakness doesn’t turn crits into half damage crits, it turns them into glancing blows, half damage hits. A little basic math:

I thought they brought the damage reduction down to 25%?

Nope. I heard before the patch that they were going to, but it didn’t happen.

I laugh when I read this. I find it really funny to see an action game with an active damage avoidance mechanic turn into a “UI fight”.

UI Fight
-conditions applied and removed; players staring at icons on themselves and other players.

I won’t shed a tear for GW2.

@tarcheg: you point out many disadvantages of straight < condi, but imo these are well trumped by other side of the equation: condi is not in the bag when u pop it, it needs to tick aaaall the way. what u have in proactive boons vs straight dmg you have retro counter through condi removal, supposed to be easier. and yes, you have to build in proper removal in any class. if s’one (top team or newbie) goes for glass cannon (greedy for numbers or well thought out), good luck, but that’s their choice and must cost some.

condis procs and removals make mechanics interesting and diverse, just like combos and rotations for straight dmg. they should stay, else game ’ll be drifting to pewpew.

Calae.1738:

I laugh when I read this. I find it really funny to see an action game with an active damage avoidance mechanic turn into a “UI fight”.

UI Fight
-conditions applied and removed; players staring at icons on themselves and other players.

I won’t shed a tear for GW2.

u can have condi in animation if that’s what u prefer (not really). but that has little to do with op point of straight vs condi meta.

+1 for OP.
I want to add that the potential damage of pretty much any condition attack is much higher than of a normal power based skill.
I will do the math from a regular engi pistol auto attack. An engi with 1300 cond dmg (nothing special – just rabbid + cond runes + 20 in cond damage line + zero (= 0) might stacks!) and with 50% condition duration (nothing fancy at all).
Normally such an engi would do his normal low power damage + 3s bleeding which is 3 * 107 = 321dmg.
So when you crit that adds up to maybe 500 total damage. But now add everything else:
Engis currently run with doom sigil = 7s poison (with +50% duration) = 7 * 214 = 1498 damage.
Burning proc = 6s burning = 6 * 653 = 3918 damage.
Sharpshooter = 4s bleeding = 4 * 107 = 428 damage.
All in all we got: 500 initial dmg + 1498 poison + 3918 burning + 428 2nd bleeding = 6344 damage from ONE freaking auto attack.
Try to come up with one power aa dealing that kind of potential damage (no matter what toughness etc…)
And if you try to evade that damage you are able to evade the initial 500 damage but the rest (5844 damage) will be applied on the next attack.

Potential damage – I know you can cleanse it if you have your CD’s…

Condion typed damage is also prone to runes/food/traits that reduce condition duration to which power damage is not.
Also a stealthed bs or an ely insta burst cannot be negated in the same way a burning proc can’t.You speculate it and try to take pre emptive actions.At least when you get the burn you have time to react and negate it even further with a condi removal,or even break a fear chain with a stun breaker.

It’s intersting to see that the whole meta condi cry has escalated frmo just necros to condis in general.

Understand,Adapt,React.

PS:Also i laugh when i see people comparing Cond dmg to Power dmg and say that X atk does 4k power dmg INSTANTLY while Y atk does 6K condi dmg OVER 20 SECONDS.

I have to agree.

Its sort of funny when the very first shot I shoot at an enemy, which is really just to make sure they have no aegis or w/e up before I use real skills, is 50% of the time a crit. Meaning 50% of my encounters with people, the first time I shoot them with just a basic auto attack bullet that they should NOT waste a dodge on…they get burned for at least 4s. Meaning they take at least 2940 dmg. That’s 4s of burn with 735 damage/s from the burn – a very average burn number for a condi build. I’ve had builds where they did almost 900 damage a tick.

It is still possible for an Engi to run weapon setups for extremely high uptime on burning. But at least here you have a bit more counter play. Blow torch can definitely be dodge, you can avoid the firefield, you can see the tool belt buff for FT go up on me, etc.

edit : the carebearness of the forum gets to me sometimes. I had to edit my post repeatedly to fix words that were edited for no reason.

Why was “basikittentle bullet” edited into some kitten stuff? C’mon, chill with the crazy censoring for the weak please anet.

Now with that first part out of the way, where I agree and see how strong that burn on crit traits are.

Strong condi remove professions can be literally impossible to bring down solo if you’re a full condi build. Even with all the burn on crit procs. Some guardians have so much removal it’s absolutely silly trying to bring one down without help.

Why do some of the professions have all the removal stacked so kitten them and easy to get? Necro just grabs consume, staff and dagger OH and they are not only set, but will kill you with your own condis. Guardians get tons of passive and active removal like no one else. Ranger – tons of passive removal and some 50% uptime condi removal field, etc

edit : the stacked so kitten on them is actually = stacked so kitten them.

The word h a r d is in itself censored? Out of control lol.

Uberkafros.5431:

Condion typed damage is also prone to runes/food/traits that reduce condition duration to which power damage is not.

Condition duration reduction food and runes is itself countered by condition duration increase food and runes anyway. Your point is?

@Ceraldor: I completely agree.

Uberkafros.5431:

Condion typed damage is also prone to runes/food/traits that reduce condition duration to which power damage is not.
Also a stealthed bs or an ely insta burst cannot be negated in the same way a burning proc can’t.You speculate it and try to take pre emptive actions.At least when you get the burn you have time to react and negate it even further with a condi removal,or even break a fear chain with a stun breaker.

It’s intersting to see that the whole meta condi cry has escalated frmo just necros to condis in general.

Understand,Adapt,React.

PS:Also i laugh when i see people comparing Cond dmg to Power dmg and say that X atk does 4k power dmg INSTANTLY while Y atk does 6K condi dmg OVER 20 SECONDS.

1. Let me tell you something which might be new to www players: there is no food in spvp.
2. As I said I was at all the time referring to the current meta. I know a warrior has berserker stance and an engi has Automated Response. But do you see any of this used in TPvP? No you do not! You also see very limited use of -cond duration runes as I mentioned in my original post… please read carefully before posting.
To be honest, your post has none constructive feedback – just the usually L2P comment which of course has to be in any thread which is trying to have some kind of discussion. And your food comment made me lose any confident that you actually put any deep thoughts in your post at all.

And btw – Ceraldor was talking about “potential” dmg. If you’re not familiar with that word take a look at: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/potential

stof.9341:

Uberkafros.5431:

Condion typed damage is also prone to runes/food/traits that reduce condition duration to which power damage is not.

Condition duration reduction food and runes is itself countered by condition duration increase food and runes anyway. Your point is?

Compare both numbers of those adding +all condi duration vs Melandru (especially since fear double dips on condi +stun duration) and see which comes on top.

Velron.3729:

Now with that first part out of the way, where I agree and see how strong that burn on crit traits are.

Strong condi remove professions can be literally impossible to bring down solo if you’re a full condi build. Even with all the burn on crit procs. Some guardians have so much removal it’s absolutely silly trying to bring one down without help.

Why do some of the professions have all the removal stacked so kitten them and easy to get? Necro just grabs consume, staff and dagger OH and they are not only set, but will kill you with your own condis. Guardians get tons of passive and active removal like no one else. Ranger – tons of passive removal and some 50% uptime condi removal field, etc

edit : the stacked so kitten on them is actually = stacked so kitten them.

The word h a r d is in itself censored? Out of control lol.

A necro can kill a guardian in 30 secs MAX.

If he brings corrupt boon ( something pretty unusua these days) even faster, as long as he times it after the second shout ( since all guardians run with double shout + sanctuary).

We have condi meta because the necro was overbuffed, because weakness was overbuffed, because protection has NEVER BEEN NERFED and it’s like the strongest and most OP stuff in the game, because Direct damage has been nerfed into the ground, because quickness has been nerfed into the ground, because condi damage has no way to be countered if not via condi cleanse ( and if you go condi cleanse, you lose damage).

We’re on the power creep road.

And as a thief, i’m really sad because right now we’re the most useless class in the game ( yeah, worse than warriors).

Push for a very nice post…These proc traits are ridiculous. I mean I play ele and a engi hits me even when I dodge his first attack. Due to the burning I loose half of my life in a short period of time. I am forced to burst him but he also has access to perma vigor + swiftness , alot of AOE and blocks. Bringing a decent burst is quite hard in a 1vs1 – So if I fail to burst him from 100- 0 (20). He will heal up and I am forced to go into water . Afterwards he will use flamethrower “F” skill and apply burning immideatly again and probably increase duration by using flamethrower knockback – so I am again under huge pressure and if this is not enough he has decent access to combo finishers and to a gamebreaking elite (sorry but this elite is way too strong for a 180CD).
The same is true for necros. In a couple of seconds you will get pressured by Bleeds+ Burning and dodging the fear is almost impossible. Classes with low health pool (and ele was designed with a low health pooly but strong [oh wait nerfed] heal) have almost no chance against these classes because they can condi pressure you to death and evades wont help you.
I dont want to QQ alot but espeacially engi’s are in a too good spot for now (I always call them the new ele’s): They can pressure whole teams with their condis but are also good in 1vs1 and 2vs2, they have great access to CC, they have great access too combo finishers (Stealth + Water combo), they can rezz with their elixir, they have decent survability due to mediocre toughness (1500), stacking water combofield and perma vigor + swiftness, they have the stronges Elite in the game, they are great roamers. I mean something needs to go or other classes should have same access because otherwise you are always forced to bring an engi. Power classes cant kill a good engis (maybe S/D thiefs) – the only way are conditions, which is shifting the meta into even more conditions comps.

Well thank god we have food buffs in spvp and -condi duration trait passives

I stopped reading once you said burning was necessary.

Why? because you see so many viable condition specs in TPvP without any access to burning? Like the necro pre patch which was like a must have in every team comp? … Not.
Burning is by far the strongest damage condition. Only an ele in tornado might fear confusion more.
Burning is easy to apply and does the most damage. You do not have to stack it like bleeding and the damage is insane. Especially when one trait gives you easily a 60% up time.

Shifting meta is not a bad thing in my oppinion.
As Necro I can say that mostly if you as power dmg burster aved fear and weakness you can take necro very fast down (of cource if dont have full DS pool). I understand that atm there is condition chaos in game, but on other hand some classes are “forced” to play this way to be as most effective as they can.

Very good post OP. It pretty much sums up the frustration with this cond meta we are seeing right now.

Imo either nerf or remove those “activate burning on crit proc” traits and also see a way to reduce the damage from burning.

This guy speaks to me
Its like literally everything i had in mind and more :P
About the topic of cond removal. The damage tradeoff actually outweightS the extra cleanses.Also cond removal being rng and you being bombed with 1000 condies makes it very very unreliable.Thats why you see people in streamed tournaments even though they know they ll focus necros/engis they dont stack every cond removal trait/sigil/runes etc..cause its simply worse..
The answer to cond meta is definately NOT stacking every cond removal your class has access too ,and even if you do that dont expect to outsustain even against 1 of them while your damage output loss will definately make it not worth it
A good step imo should be making cleanses work with a last in first out logic which brings more skill to the game than introducing more cond removing abilities.

Velron.3729:

Now with that first part out of the way, where I agree and see how strong that burn on crit traits are.

Strong condi remove professions can be literally impossible to bring down solo if you’re a full condi build. Even with all the burn on crit procs. Some guardians have so much removal it’s absolutely silly trying to bring one down without help.

Why do some of the professions have all the removal stacked so kitten them and easy to get? Necro just grabs consume, staff and dagger OH and they are not only set, but will kill you with your own condis. Guardians get tons of passive and active removal like no one else. Ranger – tons of passive removal and some 50% uptime condi removal field, etc

edit : the stacked so kitten on them is actually = stacked so kitten them.

The word h a r d is in itself censored? Out of control lol.

I agree that condi removal on some classes is outrageously easy and high powered compared to other classes. That kind of imbalance is just too kitten much … especially considering you can passively remove conditions without even thinking about it on a Guardian. It’s extremes like these that warrant the extremes of spammable reapplications of conditions … and then that really screws over the classes who do not have such an insane amount of condition removal.

Kinda reminds me of the extremes in damage needed to take down the extremes in bunkers and how much that affects the meta and limits “build diversity” so to speak.

Also, definitely agree about the kitten system here on the forums. While … cute … and sometimes hilarious … “kitten cannon” for example. Censoring ‘h a r d’ is kind of ridiculous. Some people take offense way too easily if THAT word is freakin’ censored.

The answer is unquestionably yes. The biggest buff that necromancers saw to their condition damage was not burning. It was the large increase the amount of fear they had available, which is now letting terror specs inflict an incredible amount of damage. The addition of torment also helps. Dhuumfire itself is a trait-investment heavy ability that only procs off on crits and has a long cooldown. It has numerous weakness in that it is heavily build specific, contributes little to AoE and can be absorbed by mesmer clones/ranger pets/ whatever, and it is readily overwritten by nearby guardians and elementalists who have not specced into condition damage, making it unreliable in team vs. team circumstances. It only stacks in duration, making multiple sources of burning redundant and easily cleansed away, contributing no greater DPS than if only one person had burning. It is the worst scaling condition in the game, requiring 50% more malice to double damage output.

Necros received about a dozen meaningful buffs in the last patch:
#1: Greater Life Force Generation
#2: Torment + Immobilize in DS
#3: Doom duration increased by 50% at point blank range (fear)
#4: Weakness condition greatly increased with necromancers maintaining high duration.
#5: Spectral Wall now owns everyone who crosses it and makes chain-stunning three times easier (fear)
#6: We received new stunbreakers and all of our bad stun breakers now have shorter cooldowns.
#7: Poison duration from the scepter auto attack was doubled.
#8: Our slow skills are now much faster.
#9: Spectral effects now remain while in Death Shroud.
#10: Signet of Spite now provides a meaningful power boost, recharges 33% quicker, and seriously messes someone up when used.
#11: Blinds now persist until the enemy actually misses their target.
#12: Vampiric now heals for more and does more damage.

And that isn’t even mentioning Power Necro buffs or Dhuumfire. It annoys me how everyone looks at the big bright flame that Necros received and assume it is the problem when Necros have been made so much better in so many different ways.

I duo-main an Engineer and a Necromancer. I tried Dhuumfire for a few rounds in sPVP, then respec out of it since it preformed exactly how I expected to: poorly. So I went back to stacking fear for terror damage, combined now with torment and the fact that I am basically better in every way as a necro.

The secret to effective condition builds isn’t burning: it is the sheer volume of conditions. Necros can layer up poison, vulnerability, weakness, bleeding, torment, cripple, chill, blind, immobilize, torment, and whatever conditions become corrupted and transferred over. Since so many cleanses in the game are limited to a few conditions, this lets necromancers maintain their main damaging condition, bleeding, long enough that they can wear a player down. And then they finish them off by chain stunning with terror, which does 50% more damage than burning while also controlling the opponent.

Engineers work in a similar but different manner. Whereas the necros have long reliable bleeds but little access to burning, Engineers have long reliable burning but little access to bleeds. Engineers have access to every condition but torment, and the condition engineer’s job is to maintain all of them to protect their burning. They receive only one effective method of causing bleeding, and that is with Shrapnel Grenade. Everything else, from the Shrapnel Trait to the Sharpshooter trait, is all a random number generator or it is something like explosive shot where it only lasts for 2 seconds. Playing as a condi engineer, whenever you fight another player you never know if you are going to overload them them with bleeds, or if you aren’t going to get any conditions on them at all (what with how hard it is to aim grenades). So you rely on your burning, and the problem is that some guardian will mess your DPS up every 5th attack, and multiple Engineers won’t make burning any more effective.

You also have to consider that, at this moment, every class is using a condition spec since so many condition specs got buffed. Heck, I went back to using conditions on my thief now that Death Blossom is cheaper, Ricochet is twice as useful, and I get the highest stacking torment with the right build. Rangers were also nerfed and now are relying more on their condition specs. This combination of people having to use conditions and people wanting to use conditions has made temporarily saturated meta where cleanses are the ultimate form of defense instead of protection.

Mammoth.1975:

The buff to weakness is one of the biggest reasons DD builds are suffering tbh. The new weakness doesn’t turn crits into half damage crits, it turns them into glancing blows, half damage hits. A little basic math:

50% crit chance.
+50% crit damage.

Half your swings crit and do 200% damage. Half of 200% is 100%.
The other half do 100%. Half of 100% is 50%.
100 + 50 =150.
Total expected damage from any given attack is 150%.

Add weakness.

50% of your swings glance and do 50% damage. Half of 50% is 25%.
25% of your swings crit and do 200% damage. A quarter of 200% is 50%.
25% of your swings hit and do 100% damage. A quarter of 100% is 25%.
50+25+25 = 100.
Total expected damage from any given swing is 100%, down from 150%.

It’s only a 25% damage reduction on builds with zero crit, which don’t exist. The more crit oriented your build, the more it hurts you.

You forgot the portion of attacks which can crit but glance.

Half your attacks do half damage. How does that hurt more the higher your crit chance is?

50% of all attacks glance, including crits. So if your crit change is 50%:
You will get 25% glancing crits, 25% glancing normals, 25% true crits and 25% true normals.
= ((0.25 * 200) /2) + (0.25 * 200) + ((0.25 * 100) /2) + (0.25% * 100) = 112.5% of your vanilla damage.
Compared with non weakness:
(0.5 * 200) + (0.5 * 100) = 150% of your vanilla damage.

It’s basically a 25% dmg debuff overall, whereas before it was only a debuff on non crit builds. Anet said they wanted it to be a debuff to burst damage.

fadeaway.2807:

You forgot the portion of attacks which can crit but glance.

Half your attacks do half damage. How does that hurt more the higher your crit chance is?

50% of all attacks glance, including crits. So if your crit change is 50%:
You will get 25% glancing crits, 25% glancing normals, 25% true crits and 25% true normals.
= ((0.25 * 200) /2) + (0.25 * 200) + ((0.25 * 100) /2) + (0.25% * 100) = 112.5% of your vanilla damage.
Compared with non weakness:
(0.5 * 200) + (0.5 * 100) = 150% of your vanilla damage.

It’s basically a 25% dmg debuff overall, whereas before it was only a debuff on non crit builds. Anet said they wanted it to be a debuff to burst damage.

A glancing blow isn’t a crit. When a crit is converted to a glancing blow, you do not apply the crit damage bonus. Or at least that’s how I understand it.

My theory:

Engis were the best team-fighting condi class in the game for a few patches running. I’ve never seen someone pick up an engi and play it at a high-tournament level in less than a week. It has a very high skill floor and almost impossible to reach skill cap. There was never more than 2 top condi engis playing at a competitive level in NA.

This last patch necros get ridiculously over-buffed and outshine engis in almost every respect except mobility (and therefore 1v1 potential, although if you try to engage a necro in a 1v1 you may as well log out unless you’re a necro). Necros also have a low skill floor and low skill cap with large access to defensive mechanisms and cooldowns (more-so than the engineer by a long shot).

Everyone then hops on the necro bandwagon and can play the necro like a champ.

Voila! Condis everywhere.

I have stopped playing PvP because of the current meta. I didn’t really like the bunker meta either, but I kept my hopes up a more skill-based meta.
What we got instead was my worst nightmare tbh. Conditions are fine as long as they have to be used strategically and remain as CC. I really dislike the DoT-Spam.
There are some good stuff in this thread, so this post basically functions as a secret bump.
The only hope I have left is “Condition-Hate”. When boons ruled the meta the developers tried to counter it with “Boon-Hate”. If they could somehow implement “Condition Hate” so that spamming conditions would not necessarily always be a good thing I would probably return.
It could be everything from dealing extra dmg with conditions to getting healing pr. second based on the amounts of conditions on you (for a limited time period).

@Ostricheggs
Engineers have a very low skill floor just like every other class in GW2.
I would consider myself much more skilled in CS 1.6 (or CS:GO) than I am in GW2 (with many years of experience), the difference is that I would never stand a chance against any competitive team in CS. In GW2 I made the top 500 by solo/duo-queueing pretty easily.
There is not denying that the way the combat in GW2 works right now, there is very little room for individual skill. The difference between spamming your skills with the right build and actually being a skilled player is incredibly low.
One of the lowest skill floors I have seen in pretty much any game tbh.
I still really like the combat though, it has great potential.

KrisHQ.4719:

It could be everything from dealing extra dmg with conditions to getting healing pr. second based on the amounts of conditions on you (for a limited time period).

“I Will Survive!”

Rengaru.4730:

KrisHQ.4719:

It could be everything from dealing extra dmg with conditions to getting healing pr. second based on the amounts of conditions on you (for a limited time period).

“I Will Survive!”

Excatly. Unfortunately it seems like Anet has forgotten everything they learned making GW1.

Condition hate sounds like an interesting idea

KrisHQ.4719:

I have stopped playing PvP because of the current meta. I didn’t really like the bunker meta either, but I kept my hopes up a more skill-based meta.
What we got instead was my worst nightmare tbh. Conditions are fine as long as they have to be used strategically and remain as CC. I really dislike the DoT-Spam.
There are some good stuff in this thread, so this post basically functions as a secret bump.
The only hope I have left is “Condition-Hate”. When boons ruled the meta the developers tried to counter it with “Boon-Hate”. If they could somehow implement “Condition Hate” so that spamming conditions would not necessarily always be a good thing I would probably return.
It could be everything from dealing extra dmg with conditions to getting healing pr. second based on the amounts of conditions on you (for a limited time period).

@Ostricheggs
Engineers have a very low skill floor just like every other class in GW2.
I would consider myself much more skilled in CS 1.6 (or CS:GO) than I am in GW2 (with many years of experience), the difference is that I would never stand a chance against any competitive team in CS. In GW2 I made the top 500 by solo/duo-queueing pretty easily.
There is not denying that the way the combat in GW2 works right now, there is very little room for individual skill. The difference between spamming your skills with the right build and actually being a skilled player is incredibly low.
One of the lowest skill floors I have seen in pretty much any game tbh.
I still really like the combat though, it has great potential.

the difference in skill over the course of a game is pretty massive. A good player makes good decisions, extends his own life, buys his team team and wins almost every even fight thrown at him.

One bad player can bring a team down in competitive play VERY easily. The difference being that there are 5 players working in tandem with set roles. Unless you play at that level individual skill hardly matters because you can’t work with pugs in a solo queue.

Also it’s good to mention that leaderboards don’t matter for kitten.

Nerf ranger condition crit procs, a 1s bleed 66% of the time on a critical hit is far to powerful and must be nerfed into oblivion. (yes that is the only condition proc rangers get)

But if we are talking spirits…

Psybunny.8906:

Kaon.7192:

Completely agreed on all points, especially the ridiculous implementation of the burning proc traits for engy and necro.

Totally agreed.

Good thread and well written posts OP.

That’s a lie, a well written post would have had more spacing (paragraphs) for readability. But that’s just nit picking :p.

I do agree that there needs to be some kind of boon or condition to reduce condition damage such as there is protection for damage. ATM there is Melendru runes, taking away your runes and 60% cleanse on crit taking away a proc sigil.

I say the condi meta needs to GO!

the worst kind of meta, cast and forget

spoken like a true master of the game!

~I know this may sound dumb, but would it help if we just make Toughness able to reduce the condi dmg? This is a violation to the very origin of condi (un-defendable by armors) but after reading the entire post I had to come to such conclusion