Guild Wars 2

There are 2 big gripes currently about conditions –
A) They’re far too accessible/spammable by certain classes.
B) They’re entirely reliant on a single stat for damage (as opposed to Direct damage which relies on 3 stats), allowing players to still deal excellent condition damage while having high toughness/vitality.

Let’s ignore point A for now – if a class is built on conditions, it’s going to be very hard to balance condition application and condition removal, and that’s not an easy fix.

For point B, why not just modify base condition damage (IE reduce) and allow conditions to crit? This would put condition users in the same boat as direct damage users – they could go Condi Damage/Vit/Toughness if they wanted to run a sustain/attrtition build, or they could go Condi damage/Crit chance/Crit damage if they wanted a burstier option.

I dont think you would have to lower condi damage across the board it prolly be easier if condi was taxed by things like toughness and other mitigating effects. Some changes or things to discuss about condi could be duration or rate of dmg (how much it ticks for dmg and how fast)

Massive changes that buff/nerf every single build in the game are not wise. Every single imaginable build would be dramatically affected by this. Imagine waking up tomorrow and every currently viable build was trash, and there were 5 new OP builds created.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Massive changes that buff/nerf every single build in the game are not wise. Every single imaginable build would be dramatically affected by this. Imagine waking up tomorrow and every currently viable build was trash, and there were 5 new OP builds created.

I’m not suggesting ANet throw some numbers at a wall and see what sticks – my suggestion takes time and playtesting, but I think overall, it fixes the issues we see with conditions, both before and after the current meta.

It would force condition users to make the same choices as direct damage users (How much do I invest in survivability vs how much do I invest in high burst potential), and I believe would also help balance the current “Conditions are too spammable” vs “Of course they are, condition cleanses are too accessible” situation we’re seeing.

Kline.9561:

I dont think you would have to lower condi damage across the board it prolly be easier if condi was taxed by things like toughness and other mitigating effects. Some changes or things to discuss about condi could be duration or rate of dmg (how much it ticks for dmg and how fast)

Now you’re talking about slow direct damage – if toughness affected conditions, they’d just be backloaded direct damage attacks. I’m not looking to homogenize the whole system (IE, condi burst would still be less bursty then DD burst, but condi sustain/attrition would be stronger than DD sustain/attrition), just something that would force condition users to make the same build choices direct damage players are forced to make.

conditions being able to crit is a horrible idea. hybrid conditionmancers would effectively shut down the meta.

picture 15 stacks of bleeding with 50% crit chance.. that’s over 20 crits in the first 3 seconds… with Barbed Precision that would create an extra 10 stacks of bleeding
on it’s own.

evilapprentice.6379:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Massive changes that buff/nerf every single build in the game are not wise. Every single imaginable build would be dramatically affected by this. Imagine waking up tomorrow and every currently viable build was trash, and there were 5 new OP builds created.

I’m not suggesting ANet throw some numbers at a wall and see what sticks – my suggestion takes time and playtesting, but I think overall, it fixes the issues we see with conditions, both before and after the current meta.

It would force condition users to make the same choices as direct damage users (How much do I invest in survivability vs how much do I invest in high burst potential), and I believe would also help balance the current “Conditions are too spammable” vs “Of course they are, condition cleanses are too accessible” situation we’re seeing.

Let’s think this through. The condi/prec/crit damage amulet would have to hit harder than conditions currently do. All right, but maybe that would be balanced because that build now has zero toughness. But what about carrion amulet? That’s a massive nerf. Same for shaman’s. Rabid amulet dps would have to end up essentially the same: base condi damage is lowered but you’ve got a high crit rate.

So I think the end result of this change is that necros could go full glass and just nuke, or keep using rabid for essentially no change. All builds for other professions using shaman’s or carrion would be nerfed to the ground.

NevirSayDie.6235:

evilapprentice.6379:

NevirSayDie.6235:

Massive changes that buff/nerf every single build in the game are not wise. Every single imaginable build would be dramatically affected by this. Imagine waking up tomorrow and every currently viable build was trash, and there were 5 new OP builds created.

I’m not suggesting ANet throw some numbers at a wall and see what sticks – my suggestion takes time and playtesting, but I think overall, it fixes the issues we see with conditions, both before and after the current meta.

It would force condition users to make the same choices as direct damage users (How much do I invest in survivability vs how much do I invest in high burst potential), and I believe would also help balance the current “Conditions are too spammable” vs “Of course they are, condition cleanses are too accessible” situation we’re seeing.

Let’s think this through. The condi/prec/crit damage amulet would have to hit harder than conditions currently do. All right, but maybe that would be balanced because that build now has zero toughness. But what about carrion amulet? That’s a massive nerf. Same for shaman’s. Rabid amulet dps would have to end up essentially the same: base condi damage is lowered but you’ve got a high crit rate.

So I think the end result of this change is that necros could go full glass and just nuke, or keep using rabid for essentially no change. All builds for other professions using shaman’s or carrion would be nerfed to the ground.

Dev’s are already talking about putting new amulets into the game, you give Condi the same options that Direct Damage currently has.

There would be a change because Rabid doesn’t offer Crit Damage, so you’d be critting alot, with weak crits – they should be roughly as effective as Direct damage with high power and precision but no bonus crit damage.

As for Shamans, why shouldn’t they be? Why should any spec be allowed to do solid damage while stacking toughness and healing power? There’s supposed to be a balance, you shouldn’t be doing solid damage while 2/3 of your stats are focused on survivability, and your primary damage stat is on the lower tier of your amulet. You’re focusing on attrition style stats (high toughness/healing power), you should do attrition strength damage.

I’m suggesting an overhaul of how condition do damage with respects to crit and crit damage – assuming everything else is just going to stay the same is silly. Obviously, other things will require varying level of adjustments. It’s alot of effort, but it certainly isn’t as static and impossible as you’re making it seem.

Conditions shouldn’t have had a dmg stat to begin with.
How available they were should have been entirely dependent on weapons, utilities and traits…

It’d lean more towards split condi builds, and then, with a few tweaks to conditions to make them more ‘short duration debuff’ focused and yweaks to physical dmg stats so they don’t scale SUPER well together, (atm you need high power and to crit allot to deal viable physical dmg, if crits gave a static amount of bonus dmg, that would change) the game would have been soooo much better.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

conditions being able to crit is a horrible idea. hybrid conditionmancers would effectively shut down the meta.

picture 15 stacks of bleeding with 50% crit chance.. that’s over 20 crits in the first 3 seconds… with Barbed Precision that would create an extra 10 stacks of bleeding
on it’s own.

Sigh. I’m talking about an overhaul of the system… with playtesting and these sorts of things in mind. Not just “Make condition able to crit WITH NO OTHER CHANGES AT ALL”

evilapprentice.6379:

There would be a change because Rabid doesn’t offer Crit Damage, so you’d be critting alot, with weak crits – they should be roughly as effective as Direct damage with high power and precision but no bonus crit damage.

As for Shamans, why shouldn’t they be? Why should any spec be allowed to do solid damage while stacking toughness and healing power? There’s supposed to be a balance, you shouldn’t be doing solid damage while 2/3 of your stats are focused on survivability, and your primary damage stat is on the lower tier of your amulet. You’re focusing on attrition style stats (high toughness/healing power), you should do attrition strength damage.

Then why not just nerf shaman’s and buff rampager’s? That would be much simpler and would have the same result you’re going for. My point was that there’s only one condition amulet seeing much use (rabid) and that would be essentially unchanged by allowing conditions to crit while some creative builds would be crushed. For example, BM bunker rangers are still viable, but I see no need to nerf them. Same goes for condi bunker engineer (I don’t play either of those specs, I’m just giving examples of builds that would be hit hard).

Overhauling the entire game (this would change every build, not just “condition” builds) seems a bit much when it’s really just one condition amulet on one profession that’s a bit over the top, and that only because of one poorly-thought-out balance patch that buffed too much at one time.

NevirSayDie.6235:

evilapprentice.6379:

There would be a change because Rabid doesn’t offer Crit Damage, so you’d be critting alot, with weak crits – they should be roughly as effective as Direct damage with high power and precision but no bonus crit damage.

As for Shamans, why shouldn’t they be? Why should any spec be allowed to do solid damage while stacking toughness and healing power? There’s supposed to be a balance, you shouldn’t be doing solid damage while 2/3 of your stats are focused on survivability, and your primary damage stat is on the lower tier of your amulet. You’re focusing on attrition style stats (high toughness/healing power), you should do attrition strength damage.

Then why not just nerf shaman’s and buff rampager’s? That would be much simpler and would have the same result you’re going for. My point was that there’s only one condition amulet seeing much use (rabid) and that would be essentially unchanged by allowing conditions to crit while some creative builds would be crushed. For example, BM bunker rangers are still viable, but I see no need to nerf them. Same goes for condi bunker engineer (I don’t play either of those specs, I’m just giving examples of builds that would be hit hard).

Overhauling the entire game (this would change every build, not just “condition” builds) seems a bit much when it’s really just one condition amulet on one profession that’s a bit over the top, and that only because of one poorly-thought-out balance patch that buffed too much at one time.

I understand what you’re saying, but I’m of a differing opinion.

It’s my opinion that condition builds will have a hard time being properly balanced (they’ll either be UP or OP) while they have one (and only one) stat linked to their damage. I could be wrong, but that’s my opinion. My suggestion isn’t something I’m expecting to see in the next few months, but I think as the game progresses, if we want condition specs to have similar power levels and options to direct damage specs, they too should have to invest in more than 1 stat for the basis of all of their damage.

Bad idea. You can’t just change how every condition spec in the game works and expect it to be balanced. You would probably end up killing condition specs entirely. Condition damage takes a lot longer to apply than direct damage, that’s why they can build tanky… they have to, otherwise there would be no point in playing conditions.

Especially since the stronger condition users have 50% crit on their amulets anyway… so with your ‘overhaul’, what would change about them?

If conditions are too strong, then they just need to adjust class traits/abilities. Shortening the duration for bleeding/burning/poison on abilities is a good place to start… make condition duration more important.

evilapprentice.6379:

Sigh. I’m talking about an overhaul of the system…

They’re not going to overhaul the combat system so there’s no use in theorycrafting changes that are only possible within that scope.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

evilapprentice.6379:

Sigh. I’m talking about an overhaul of the system…

They’re not going to overhaul the combat system so there’s no use in theorycrafting changes that are only possible within that scope.

Overhaul was a poor choice of words.

All they’d have to do is look at, change, and test numerical changes. Granted, the scope of said changes is large, it’s still just changes numbers, and setting the “Can crit” flag = true (presumably).

Then they’d have to look at “on crit” traits, and judge whether or not condition crits trigger them (or just make a blanket decision).

It’s a large change, for a time in the future yes, but its not like changing the games basic engine or rules – you’re just changing the numbers you apply to them.

I just got my dire set so NO.

Condis do significantly less damage without expertise, and proc on crit effects like sigil of earth, incendiary powder, and dhuumfire need precision.

evilapprentice.6379:

I understand what you’re saying, but I’m of a differing opinion.

It’s my opinion that condition builds will have a hard time being properly balanced (they’ll either be UP or OP) while they have one (and only one) stat linked to their damage. I could be wrong, but that’s my opinion. My suggestion isn’t something I’m expecting to see in the next few months, but I think as the game progresses, if we want condition specs to have similar power levels and options to direct damage specs, they too should have to invest in more than 1 stat for the basis of all of their damage.

Sorry if I came across a bit strong—I don’t even really disagree with you, except that I’m pretty sure that making a fundamental design change like that after a game has been released for a year would be a bad mistake. Maybe balance would be better now if it had been designed like that from the start, who knows.

I think that condi ranger, condi engineer (both grenades and other niche versions), condi warrior, and condi mesmer are all fairly well balanced right now. Some are a bit stronger than others, but all are viable and none are dominating the meta. Condi guard is UP, condi thief is okay but not great for tournaments due to conquest/stealth, ele is a hybrid, and one build, condi necro, is OP (but only really because of terror). So I guess I also disagree with you a bit that balance needs a massive change.