Guild Wars 2

Take the conditions back to the way they used to scale before the PVE intended condition dmg upgrade was implemented. We’re literally suffering out here in PVP You didn’t give us enough tools to deal with this damage the conditions do. Our condition cleanses are only 1 to 2 total on 1 skill and are meant for fights against bleeding/torment/confusion we cannot handle poison, and burning stacking in PVP. Let’s revert condition dmg to how it worked before it was updated for PVP only so we PVPers don’t have to worry about PVE dmg nuking our 15 to 25k health pools!

No, because that limits condi players to one per team. It’s an artificial limit that deserved to die in a fire.

The only two changes needed are Revert the Confusion to no Longer passively proc in Pvp and WvW and Remove the Passive Tick of Torment off in the same game modes.

No! Look here most of the condition cleanse utilities and traits all cleanse 1 to 2 conditions. This does not work if there are 5 damaging conditions that are extremely easy to apply. It is too strong and they need to be toned down so our newest players don’t instantly die and never want to PVP again. You don’t want to buff condition cleanse because that just supports more power creep. The only option is to go into Structured Player vs Player and to nerf the conditions to the original design. The updated conditions were only designed for PVE to open new damage play styles. It’s currently too strong and unfair for any player to fight against current conditions in PVP.

saerni.2584:

No, because that limits condi players to one per team. It’s an artificial limit that deserved to die in a fire.

Saerni, I do not understand what you’re implying. PvP does not have 5 man team queue. You cannot control your composition in ranked PVP. That’s the only logical explanation I can understand you complaining about one per team. Other than that, originally Conditions were designed to damage over a period of time while being tanky enough to live to see your damage kill the target. Right now condition dmg is unblockable instant DPS per each tick that players cannot handle with the current tools at their disposal. I am implying that we bring conditions back to where they use to be so PVPers do not deal with the unfair damage. Burning should not stack in PVP and Poison should not stack in PVP.

Muy.3170:

No! Look here most of the condition cleanse utilities and traits all cleanse 1 to 2 conditions. This does not work if there are 5 damaging conditions that are extremely easy to apply.

If you could cleanse every condi applied, condi builds would deal no damage and be completely worthless.

Also condi builds are across the board worse than power builds for every class except mesmers, and mesmers aren’t even upper-meta. You’re literally trying to get underpowered builds nerfed.

You don’t understand conditions, given your description of condition damage.

Conditions, for example, are not unblockable. Certain skills that apply them may be unblockable for a variety of reasons but conditions themselves are not unblockable. Next, conditions are meant to kill people. You can’t have more cleanse than condition damage potential because that removes all condition classes from effective play. Conditions are applied by using skills which may normally be blocked/evaded/line of sighted or cleansed. Nothing makes those skills more op simply because they apply condition rather than power damage. Rather, certain skills may be overtuned individually and in need of nerfing. Similarly, certain skills may need to be buffed still because they underperform—see all the classes with no viable condition damage build.

Further, while you seem to think that adding more cleanse is the answer it won’t actually help new players, new players won’t actually take the cleanse because they are new or playing bad builds. Plenty of builds have significant condition damage management. Newer players don’t take those builds or use them well and end up dying to condition damage. Adding more cleanse will just remove condition build viability while not doing anything for newer players.

Dont know if reverting is the solution, but right now condition damage is just stupid.

Conditions damage over time. Cleanses should keep up with conditions! You won’t cleanse fast enough before you take damage anyways. In understanding, conditions are unblockable 1 hit debuffs that stay for 8 ticks up to 20 ticks in terms of seconds. They also ignore armor and protection. Currently, they damage over time in numbers as high as base power attacks such as 2,000 to 4,000 over the course of 8 to 20 ticks with multiple stacked conditions; two to three stacks of burning, poison, and bleeding will easily add up to 2,000 and if you push them further it becomes extremely unfair. This is too high of damage for a Player base pool between 15 to 24k HP. They need to tone them down for PvP only.

Crinn.7864:

Also condi builds are across the board worse than power builds for every class except mesmers, and mesmers aren’t even upper-meta. You’re literally trying to get underpowered builds nerfed.

I do not know where you’ve been Crinn but in PVE condition’s damage rivals if not surpasses power damage. You don’t have to worry about hitting something if you know the damage will just tick over time without effort from a successful hit. Look at metabattle sometime for the PVE meta’s, condi ranger, warrior, mesmer (can), engineer. Will out dps their power varients. In PVP Necro’s, Mesmers, Warriors, Engineers work very well vs Players.

I do not know why everyone argues for conditions. They were ment to do damage over period of time. Not kill as fast as if not faster than power damage.

Crinn.7864:

Also condi builds are across the board worse than power builds for every class except mesmers, and mesmers aren’t even upper-meta. You’re literally trying to get underpowered builds nerfed.

Dont know what game you are playing dude, most certainly NOT this pvp.

They need to be nerfed in both pvp and wvw. Its a change they made to make conditions more viable in pve, so I don’t understand why they didnt make it a pve only change to begin with. When they announced the changes they even said something about wanting to make it more viable in pve. And now we have a boring condi meta in both competitive modes and a dwindling population in both modes as well because its become so boring and unbalanced. But hey, pve is doing fine, so GG Anet. But yeah I agree, they need to revert the changes for both pvp and wvw.

Apolo.5942:

Dont know what game you are playing dude, most certainly NOT this pvp.

I’m confused as to what mmr you could possibly be playing at where condi has better result than power.

Like the only time condi is better is a condi necro against a support ele or bunk engi. Every other situation power just going to net better results.

the problem is not conditions build
i see most ppl 1v1 versus mesmer, burn guard, necro and manage to kill them

the problem with pvp is you need 1 support class to help you face them if the fight goes 3v3 2v2 etc.. you need tactic like attack the necro or mesmer fast so they wont do free dmg on your team
when ppl focus on the thief rather the mesmer expect for condi burst …

atm ppl mostly take burst power creep build. yes i see burn guard and hate when i die to them. mesmer are easy to handle if you pressure them fast so they focus on the defense and not offense but still hard match up.

i dont see any other builds beside mesmer and guard so i think we are fine as power builds more potent and valuable to the game

Muy.3170:

Crinn.7864:

Also condi builds are across the board worse than power builds for every class except mesmers, and mesmers aren’t even upper-meta. You’re literally trying to get underpowered builds nerfed.

I do not know where you’ve been Crinn but in PVE condition’s damage rivals if not surpasses power damage. You don’t have to worry about hitting something if you know the damage will just tick over time without effort from a successful hit. Look at metabattle sometime for the PVE meta’s, condi ranger, warrior, mesmer (can), engineer. Will out dps their power varients. In PVP Necro’s, Mesmers, Warriors, Engineers work very well vs Players.

I do not know why everyone argues for conditions. They were ment to do damage over period of time. Not kill as fast as if not faster than power damage.

Conditions do not magically appear on an enemy player. You have to HIT the enemy in order to apply the conditions and if you do not want them just cleansed you then have to HIT the enemy in order to apply cover conditions.

An Arc Divider can hit the enemy for 8000k instantly. In order to get that type of damage with a condition build you have to HIT the enemy multiple times and then hope they do not cleanse that condition as it runs its durations.

If you are HIT by 8k in damage there is nothing you can do about it other then heal. If you get by multiple conditions which run durations in order to get that 8k damage you have all of those seconds to do something about it.

The fact that the conditions continue to tick for damage once applied makes them relatively weaker than power damage which inflicts it up front all at once. The fact that conditions can ignore armor, helps address it being relatively weaker.

Conditions damage over time. Cleanses should keep up with conditions! You won’t cleanse fast enough before you take damage anyways.

Physical damage mitigation should be able to completely keep up with being hit. I mean getting hit for a few hundred here and there is ok until you can heal it all.

I will never understand why being hit by 3 attacks and taking a near instant 15k damage is acceptable but getting hit by 3 attacks and taking 15k over the next 3~5s is kitten.

Also baffling that people still dont get that one of the reasons all damaging conditions were changed to stacking is so nobody inhibits you. Imagine not being able to do any power damage because someone else is attacking your target. They have even made certain changes to some builds that produced a lot of bystanders since people complained that they couldn’t damage their target due to other things eating up the 3~5 cap limit.

Half the reason/problem is the game never teaches you about conditions properly at any stage.

Good luck dueling a Sword/Torch or Shield + Scepter/Shield or Torch condi mes

Abelisk.4527:

Good luck dueling a Sword/Torch or Shield + Scepter/Shield or Torch condi mes

I have a guildmate who plays this and the only way I can beat him is if I use necro and condi transfer everything back to him, or if I play DH and kite around corners and LOS him to death.

Otherwise he just stays invis the entire time as 10 stacks of torment, bleed, and confusion tick away my life.

Animism.9803:

Abelisk.4527:

Good luck dueling a Sword/Torch or Shield + Scepter/Shield or Torch condi mes

I have a guildmate who plays this and the only way I can beat him is if I use necro and condi transfer everything back to him, or if I play DH and kite around corners and LOS him to death.

Otherwise he just stays invis the entire time as 10 stacks of torment, bleed, and confusion tick away my life.

This just hurst my head so much…. Mesmers only real strength is 1v1ing, moa and portal

That being said this build is so much worse then the meta it hurts…. on top of that Mesmer hard counters reaper so bad that when I lose to a reaper I without fail praise them for it.

DH hard counters mesmer so hard I cant see why you would need to kite them….. Mesmer only wins that duel if they can force you to play their game… if they put you on defense as a DH there is a serious missplay going on there.

Condi mesmer is hte only pure meta build atm. There are 2 “off meta” builds that in or against the right team comp can shine (procmancer and condi war)

Condi is labled OP because the vast majority of players don’t understand how to manage cleanses. The amount of time I have seen people insta cleanse the first condis toget thrown on them is baffling. I was in a 2v2 the other day as a mesmer(me) team mate was a thief. Awful 2v2… thief applies poison with auto attack…. instant cleanse…. I no joke was having a field day… they wasted a cleanse on marauder thiefs poision when there was a condi mesmer right there…. didnt even have to moa or f5…. shield 5d and melted them creating a 1v2….

Stuff like that is so common place it makes condis feel over tuned…. buts its a very basic lack of game knowledge.

Oh look, the Bronze players opened up yet another condi QQ thread. How cute.

Shaogin.2679:

Oh look, the Bronze players opened up yet another condi QQ thread. How cute.

Sadly I was in legend every season but this one (took a break to go play a game that didnt want me to throw crap) and the average legend player still thinks condi is OP…. Basic game knowledge is lost on the majority of people who are vocal.

Have to post this again.

Out of 9 professions, you have
Two professions that have about equal condition and power builds(necro and warrior)
One profession that has its meta build being hybrid damage(mesmer).

And that is it. All the other professions have stronger power build than condition build.

Everyone you’re over thinking this. Pre-expansion condition builds worked perfectly fine, The combat was drawn over a longer period a fight lasting easily 20 to 30 seconds depending on how well the condition user outplayed you. But now these days players die over a period of 2 to 4 seconds and they can’t even get themselves out of the hole with spamming their whole utility bar to only partially cleanse what hit them to eat the second wave.

I’m stating since condition damage was directly buffed across all game modes specifically supporting PVE it should be reverted for PVP and if WVW players need it make conditions work differently on a player than on an NPC. Your 20,000 hp bar does not compare to a 200,000 Mob health bar.

Power damage is instant, but you can reduce that with toughness, protection. Condition damage was designed from the beginning to be a kill over time style.

Muy.3170:

But now these days players die over a period of 2 to 4 seconds and they can’t even get themselves out of the hole with spamming their whole utility bar to only partially cleanse what hit them to eat the second wave.

common you die after 4 sec to condi build .

man L2P

sry learn to dodge 2 times and you’ll last for 6 second LOL

BlaqueFyre.5678:

The only two changes needed are Revert the Confusion to no Longer passively proc in Pvp and WvW and Remove the Passive Tick of Torment off in the same game modes.

This ….

And it three builds and a few nice one´s not considered meta.

when i go to pvp i usually encounter 1-2 condi builds which is nearly always war, necro or mesmer.

Do you actually realize how much effort would this require? We’re down to 1 legit balance patch a year and skill/trait splits consist only ofthe occasional minor CD change (before they eventually merge the 2 versions again in the next patch), they can barely care about balancing this game now letalone after a change like this.

NotASmurf.1725:

Do you actually realize how much effort would this require? We’re down to 1 legit balance patch a year and skill/trait splits consist only ofthe occasional minor CD change (before they eventually merge the 2 versions again in the next patch), they can barely care about balancing this game now letalone after a change like this.

Really on CD changes? SoTM 50% damage difference between WvW/PvE and Pvp, Signet of Agility 50% endurance replenishment difference between WvW/PvE and PvP, Infiltrator Strike used to have 33% distance difference between WvW/PvE and PvP, more than just simple CD differences, so it’s reasonable to think they can split the skills to. Shave differently between the game modes.

Another condi L2P thread?

1) Condition damage have to kill you the same way Direct damage do, or you’ll never ever see again a condi build in this game (as it was for two years, where there was only direct damage and no one used conditions, not even necromancers or mesmers)
2) In a burst meta, if you try to play a slow killing build you’ll only die easy and fast, there’s not any way to keep you alive enough to support a condition nerf as you ask to do
3) Conditions have a LOT of counters, you can use: weapon skills, heal, utilities, elite, trait, Resistance, sigils and runes, you just have to chose the better skills to use and you’ll never be bursted by a condi class
4) Conditions are applied by Skills and that skills can be dodged, evaded, blocked, blinded, you can use terrain to block the line of ranged skills. The only thing they do is inflict they’re damage in X seconds rather than when the skill hit.
5) Following the point n°4, a direct damage revenant can spam AA and inflict you 3k/hit (with 90% critical rate and berserker or 2.5k with any other offensive amulet), a necromancer, mesmer or warrior can’t inflict more than 1k but delayed in time. Also there’s skills for a lot of classes that inflict more than 5k, much more than any condition skill can do, with the same problems to hit but much more counters.
Basicly, direct damage inflict better damage and when the skill hit, a condition damage inflict lesser damage and delayed in time. The only problem is that you only see the total damage after a lot of time and not when the skill hit.
learn to see the real damaging skills, block/dodge/blind/invul or clean them and you’ll be able to fight any condition class easier than any direct damage class of this game
6) Condi is Not bunker. Not anymore. Direct damage amulets have more or less the same defensive chances as a Condition one, granting you to survive with more or less the same defensive statistics. back in time there was a huge difference in defensive statistics between direct and condi amulets, now there’s only a little difference.
7) Condition damage Need Expertise but can’t use it. There’s so much condi clean and Resist in this game that is futile chose a similar statistic. It will increase the damage as ferocity do for direct damage but increasing the time the condition last. But there’s only few situations where a condition last for his full duration, expecially in a team fight. That’s the reason why only few players chos amulets with expertise. They need it but can’t use it.
8) Resistance. A simple boon that make a entire kind of damage totally useless. Actually only revenant and warriors can spam it but condi reve aren’t good enough to fight direct damage class then you’ll not see so much of them. But any warrior can kill a condition class easy and fast, reducing all his damage to 0 for up to 16 seconds, with also a lot of block skills and an insane amount of condi clean (in berserker a warrior can clean 3 conditions every 2.5 seconds)
9) Of 9 classes, only 1 play purely as a condition damage, all the others frequently chose direct damage because is better, faster or grant more self sustain (as for necromancer). There’s a reason why 8 classes over 9 use direct damage and don’t use conditions, don’t you think?

Silv.9207:

Another condi L2P thread?

1) Condition damage have to kill you the same way Direct damage do, or you’ll never ever see again a condi build in this game (as it was for two years, where there was only direct damage and no one used conditions, not even necromancers or mesmers)
2) In a burst meta, if you try to play a slow killing build you’ll only die easy and fast, there’s not any way to keep you alive enough to support a condition nerf as you ask to do
3) Conditions have a LOT of counters, you can use: weapon skills, heal, utilities, elite, trait, Resistance, sigils and runes, you just have to chose the better skills to use and you’ll never be bursted by a condi class
4) Conditions are applied by Skills and that skills can be dodged, evaded, blocked, blinded, you can use terrain to block the line of ranged skills. The only thing they do is inflict they’re damage in X seconds rather than when the skill hit.
5) Following the point n°4, a direct damage revenant can spam AA and inflict you 3k/hit (with 90% critical rate and berserker or 2.5k with any other offensive amulet), a necromancer, mesmer or warrior can’t inflict more than 1k but delayed in time. Also there’s skills for a lot of classes that inflict more than 5k, much more than any condition skill can do, with the same problems to hit but much more counters.
Basicly, direct damage inflict better damage and when the skill hit, a condition damage inflict lesser damage and delayed in time. The only problem is that you only see the total damage after a lot of time and not when the skill hit.
learn to see the real damaging skills, block/dodge/blind/invul or clean them and you’ll be able to fight any condition class easier than any direct damage class of this game
6) Condi is Not bunker. Not anymore. Direct damage amulets have more or less the same defensive chances as a Condition one, granting you to survive with more or less the same defensive statistics. back in time there was a huge difference in defensive statistics between direct and condi amulets, now there’s only a little difference.
7) Condition damage Need Expertise but can’t use it. There’s so much condi clean and Resist in this game that is futile chose a similar statistic. It will increase the damage as ferocity do for direct damage but increasing the time the condition last. But there’s only few situations where a condition last for his full duration, expecially in a team fight. That’s the reason why only few players chos amulets with expertise. They need it but can’t use it.
8) Resistance. A simple boon that make a entire kind of damage totally useless. Actually only revenant and warriors can spam it but condi reve aren’t good enough to fight direct damage class then you’ll not see so much of them. But any warrior can kill a condition class easy and fast, reducing all his damage to 0 for up to 16 seconds, with also a lot of block skills and an insane amount of condi clean (in berserker a warrior can clean 3 conditions every 2.5 seconds)
9) Of 9 classes, only 1 play purely as a condition damage, all the others frequently chose direct damage because is better, faster or grant more self sustain (as for necromancer). There’s a reason why 8 classes over 9 use direct damage and don’t use conditions, don’t you think?

+1
couldnt say it better

Silv.9207:

Another condi L2P thread?

6) Condi is Not bunker. Not anymore. Direct damage amulets have more or less the same defensive chances as a Condition one, granting you to survive with more or less the same defensive statistics. back in time there was a huge difference in defensive statistics between direct and condi amulets, now there’s only a little difference.
7) Condition damage Need Expertise but can’t use it. There’s so much condi clean and Resist in this game that is futile chose a similar statistic. It will increase the damage as ferocity do for direct damage but increasing the time the condition last. But there’s only few situations where a condition last for his full duration, expecially in a team fight. That’s the reason why only few players chos amulets with expertise. They need it but can’t use it.
9) Of 9 classes, only 1 play purely as a condition damage, all the others frequently chose direct damage because is better, faster or grant more self sustain (as for necromancer). There’s a reason why 8 classes over 9 use direct damage and don’t use conditions, don’t you think?

Lucky you, you got the mild version of condition imbalance over there in pvp…

As for those who say condition build need 3 stats to deal damage, the same as a power build.

In theory it could be true, yet if you single out a power build with main ’’power’’ as an offensive stats along with minor in toughness and vitality. You will be a wet noodle without much chance to kill anything.

If you use a condition build with main ‘’condition damage’’ (wich is why Dire stats is not enabled in PvP…) as the offensive stats with minor to toughness and vitality, you will still be able to kill quite fast.

‘’Condition damage’’ singled out weight way more than ’’power’’ for a power build.

Expertise (condition duration) is overvalued because it will often not even be needed because a) The conditions got cleared before the +duration took effect or b) the target is dead before the +duration took effect. Only in the scenario where the target survived the duration that include the extra added time does expertise shine.

As for precision, it is a nice cherry on the sunday for some condi builds (see here condi engineer with on crit condition application). For the engineer you basically get 1/3 of your crit chance to proc an extra added bleeding (with no ICD)… Wich is pretty bad. Most condi engi want only a little crit in order to score the extra 2 burn with the same probability as above… but with an ICD of 10 seconds. Since there is an ICD of 10 seconds, you don’t really need that high crit, you only want it to proc when off cooldown. You basically get a fraction of a fraction as a proc. Wich result in maybe a 10% extra added condition damage overall?

Seems like the numbers are so minimal that if a condition player is offered the option to go full dire… The choice is easy. For what I know, the majority in WvW do so. On the other hand, Solider stats for a power build (for duels/roaming/small scale) is pure garbage in WvW. Now… in WvW you also have trailblazer wich is Dire with expertise (wich is also not enabled in PvP). Basically, in PvP, you get a mild version of the condition builds. It is also a huge debate whenever this is brought up. Since WvW view condi like kitten while PvP players can’t see behind the amulet limitation that Anet only implement in structured PvP.

So, is condition easy mode? In WvW they sure are. In PvP? a bit more passive, yet not utterly broken since they banned many set of runes/amulets in order to bring balance to PvP.

As for counters, it is true that you can counter a condition build and this is why every power build that is meta are actually built around condi clear and sustain.

I do agree that reverting torment and confusion to how it used to work would be a good start. For the rest… they probably could make condition build using only 1 offensive stats and 2 defensive stats to deal less dmg and be more in line with a build using Power main and 2 defensive stats…

You wanna revert the changes?

Ok, make resistance die then.

All these condi reverts just yell to kill condi engies, when its a playstile where you kill them or you die, the condi build does more damage than the power version, in practice.

But eles and Warriors have cleansed me so much times that damage that its frustrating to be a condi engi.

Think on the colateral damage you will do to the other condi builds you dont see, for the sake of do something to the condi builds that you see in the meta.

Pretty sure resistance was supposed answer to the condi change. You know, the change might be not good when it results in more powercreep (which happened in condi change case).

Cynz.9437:

Pretty sure resistance was supposed answer to the condi change. You know, the change might be not good when it results in more powercreep (which happened in condi change case).

I’m pretty sure resistance was a just a interesting mechanic for revs, that was later applied to warriors as a fix for their issues.

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Pretty sure resistance was supposed answer to the condi change. You know, the change might be not good when it results in more powercreep (which happened in condi change case).

I’m pretty sure resistance was a just a interesting mechanic for revs, that was later applied to warriors as a fix for their issues.

I see it the same way.

Resistance was added with the trait changes in June 15, not with HoT. But if it was supposed to be THE answer to the condi buffs, they would have given more classes access to it.

Condis got changed, because they were completely useless in any form of group play and they didn’t tone them down afterwards (even though they admitted originally that condis might be a bit too strong), because of the general power creep that was a result of the trait changes. Not the other way arround.

Crinn.7864:

Cynz.9437:

Pretty sure resistance was supposed answer to the condi change. You know, the change might be not good when it results in more powercreep (which happened in condi change case).

I’m pretty sure resistance was a just a interesting mechanic for revs, that was later applied to warriors as a fix for their issues.

Orly?

June 23, 2015 Specialization update:

Resistance has been added to the game.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Resistance was added with the trait changes in June 15, not with HoT. But if it was supposed to be THE answer to the condi buffs, they would have given more classes access to it.

And they did. Wars, mes, teef, guard, engi, necro got it to certain extend.

Actually i take improvisation on my thief for that very reason: it gives me double plasma = extra resistance vs condi mes.

Condi to boon conversion and plasma are very situational and not a reliable way to gain resistance. The main condi counter aside from avoiding application and healing are still cleanses, something that is aviable to all classes without exception. And if used properly those counters are sufficient to deal with most condi builds.

At the start, Resistance was implemented only on the warrior and Only because ANet wanted to “nerf” Berserker Stance, making it “counterable”. It was so strong against any kind of condition build that they made the skill spam Resistance, nerfing it by a Lot. No more immunity to conditions but resistant to it, making the ability susceptible to boon corrupt/remove/steal skills (still with low to none effect because the stance spam it every 3 sec) and making the warrior accumulate conditions, granting a full condi dps or effects to who use conditions to inflict damage or CC/debuf when the boon end, instead of start by zero.
That was not an add on but a Nerf.
Then they added it as a Peronal mechanic for the Revenant, more or less as they did for Alacrity, giving it more or less only to the Chronomancer.

Then, tell that so much classes can use Resistance is a pure lie. They can’t active it, they can’t chose when to use it, they can’t manage a skill cooldown to use it, they only convert it from a debuff, eventually with a lot of luck if they have a lot of conditions. It’s a Side Effect of a skill, not a boon granted to that classes to make them able to use it.
Is the same then as if you say that this classes also obtained Alacrity. they just don’t obtained Resistance or Alacrity, not at all.

Anyway, restore burn, poison and condi stack as it was long time ago would only make conditions die. And we just obtained it after 4 years of pure condition damage classes (with only few condi spam builds immediatly nerfed to the ground, as the dhuumfire necro or the spirit ranger).

Actually conditions are balanced or at last Underperforming for a Lot of classes.
If you look to the amount of classes that truly use conditions. Only 1 class over 9 use it properly.
Engis chose it only for fun, warriors chose direct because is stronger and grant them way better sustain and necro…they are just so bad no one cares of necros, and they play direct damage because grant them better sustain than condi and no risk to be cleaned/resisted and do zero damage.

What folks seems to be misunderstanding is… Condi meta doesnt mean everyone use condi. It means the meta revolve around condi/counter condi.

Look at all the power builds being played in the meta. they are all using a vast amount of condi clear + sustain in order to negate the effect of condis. Thus shutting down condition builds out of the ’’meta’’. It is basically a check and balance.

Sadly, this makes build diversity kinda lacking… Every warrior runs the same boring stance build.

PewPew ranger, trap ranger or bear strike ranger? Nah. Its all about that sustain cleanse druid nowadays.

Chronomesmer… well they are condi themselves or hybrid at best. Rarely see any pure power mesmers nowadays.

Thief, well daredevil did bring a lot more condi cleanse than regular thief but their role is still the same (wich is not a bad thing on itself since that is how a thief/assassin class is designed to be played in most games).

Necro, they were never weak to condis. They can deal with it pretty well and even on a power variant, you still get a good boonstrip into condition tool.

Engineer, well they run a lot of anti condition (cleanse gyro, elixir gun, etc).

Meditrapper, well even during the time of medi guard, they never were weak to condi builds in the first place. On top of it, DH can deal pretty well with one of the meta condi build (chronomesmer).

So yes power build are meta. Yet those are anti condi power builds with many utilities/trait centered around condi cleanse or resistance uptime. I miss beign surprised by a Bull Rush or a Bola Shot into a big combo from a warrior. I miss those power shatter burst. I miss those good old magnet + pry bar into melee grenades combo. Etc. Back when the game was more about reading your opponent and determining wich tools he is running instead of simply looking at the class and you know that there is 99.9% chance hes running ‘’that build’’.

So no condition are not underpermorming. They are just being straight out countered in the current meta.

I would not change how you can apply multiples stacks. This is great if you ask me since no one overwrite the condis of the other guy. But some condi skills could be toned down. Instead of everything applying conditions left and right. Why not make it more skilled play? Similar to how you used to need to dodge that magnet + pry bar from an engineer, wich was a big skill back in the day. Nowadays condi is simply mindless play in comparison. I would tone down the spammability and change (upgrade) a few skills to become their ‘’big skill’’ instead of what we have now.

Look into shatter condi… every shatter apply conditions like you are shoveling dirt on people. Power mesmer is all about f1 burst while condi mesmer (even if f2 is slighty stronger) is basically all about spamming all your shatters to apply conditions and refresh and repeat. Power shatter is a fun mechanic since you know that you need to prep that f1 and make it so the opponent won’t dodge it, you can shift the tide of a duel while a condi mesmer, even if he dodge that f2 skill… you still have a massive load of conditions to unleash without a care in the world.

Maybe I’m alone feeling that the combat was way more interesting back then?

Combat was more interesting back then but it has nothing to do with conditions. It has to do with the fact that most builds have way too much sustain and damage in a single build these days. Also, those builds bring plenty of defense against direct damage as well, so by your logic it is still a power meta, which is no less brain dead to play than condi meta builds. Now could certain skills be toned down? Sure, but this applies to both condi and power skills. It’s not just a condi problem.

I do get your point. But a real power meta (where condi user existed, yet where the builds were not all centered around condi application/cleanse) did bring variety. You can look into my post history as I discuss the power creep wich is another big problem within this game.

If you think those meta builds are really strong vs other power builds. I would have to disagree. They only seems to be strong vs other ‘’power build from the same meta’’ since everyone in pvp run the full condi clear build (wich is more an anti condition than a true power build with tools aimed at killing instead of tanking conditions). If you used those ‘’power meta build’’ vs power builds aimed at killing, they would not do so great. since all their tools are doing the exact same job while before that you would run a few condi clear, a little stability/break stun there and a killer move in there as your utilities.

Power thief is basically the only current ’’power meta build that could still do great in a fight versus power build aimed to kill since they are basically the same.

Sadly the only counter play to a condition increase is to increase the condition clear. The (soft) counter play for torment and confusion got removed. Now those conditions will still deal damage even if you stop moving or cast a minimum amount of spells during the duration.

I have to confess that I mostly speak from a WvW perspective (where there is even more condition builds than the few there is in PvP). I know that in PvP, condition is not on the same level. So excuse me if some of my points seems far fetched in your eyes. In PvP, many condition based runes are disabled along with Dire and Trailblazer stats.

Power meta never bring more build diversity in the past and never will do in the future.
Back in time there was only that 1-2 builds (2 if you’re lucky) and everyone played that build, while everyonelse was just wiped out or unwanted in every single team.

Condition changes made the game more versatile than ever, granting a new source of damage to kill the enemy, where before it was only a funny side effect of some skills, granting a little more dps but nothing good enough to kill someone.

Ask to nerf conditions is ask to remove that single condition build you have for “every” class and that already more or less no one use. Nothing more.
No new shinig builds, no more build diversity, only reduce every class from a meta dps build + a secondary dps build to a only one build and stop.

Also, meta builds have a lot of condition clean skills and traits not to kittener the condition Damage but to counter the condition spam of rangers (that spam immobilize every 10 seconds that last 5 seconds, an insanely Op trait that no one nerfed and I don’t know why), necro (that corrupt boons and then you need a skill to clean fear and weakness, and eventually poison and at last chill), warriors (still if now is a side effect more than a real damage source), thieves, and eventually some random conditions from all the other classes as cripple, chill, slow and other CC conditions.

basicly 90% of the conditions you find in sPvP are CC or side effect condi, not real damaging conditions.
If you’re bursted down by someone (and that game now is based on burst damage) you can be shure that one is not using conditions.

Silv.9207:

*1*Power meta never bring more build diversity in the past and never will do in the future.

*2*Ask to nerf conditions is ask to remove that single condition build you have for “every” class and that already more or less no one use.

*3*Also, meta builds have a lot of condition clean skills and traits not to kittener the condition Damage but to counter the condition spam [of soft CC].

*3*I do agree that there is a lot of soft CC, yet if it was only that. You don’t need that much anti condi tools for soft CC coming out from those ‘’power builds’‘. My 2014 core warrior power build could deal with that much conditions even without elite spec. On top of that, I probably would swap berserker stance out… (thus no resistance) if it was only conditions coming from those ’’power builds’’ (short duration since they invest nothing in condition duration in either traits, runes or gear).

Hell. Core warrior is know for their weakness to conditions… yet I could pull it out and do fairly well without investing massively into anti condition if it was only those soft CC. What class do you play that need that massive condi cleanse while facing those ‘’power builds’‘? I doubt those cleanse are really meant to negate those soft CC application from ’’power builds’’. Not all soft CC need to be cleansed instantly.

*1*Back in the power build meta, I would see many different builds, I don’t know about you but GS/hammer, GS/LB warrior, GS/axe+shield, GS/mace+shield warrior were a thing and even Gunflame warrior build (even if this one was more trolly than practical). Guardian had medi guard and support guard with varying weapon set depending on what they wanted to do. Engi had condi builds and power build with a variety of toolkits in use (agreed that the turret phase was maybe a bit boring, but it did not last long). Mesmer had Staff/GS, Staff/sword+pistol (or the GS variant instead of staff) or sword + torch (or the GS variant instead of staff). Ele had fresh air, cele and support builds (agreed that cele was the #1 in many cases, unless the others were in really good hand), some used D/D and other prefered D/F while fresh air used S/F. Thief had D/P, S/D and to a lesser extent a few D/D (too risky) or P/D (condi thief).

I don’t know man. Back then I would look the scoreboard before a match and be like : Ok they have 1 guard (is he gonna support or medi?), 1 ele (probably cele ele since they already have a thief, going dps build would not be wise at that point), one thief (he will be a dps, condi is less likely so he might be a classic d/p or a really good s/d thief and break our backline?) their engi, better (flip a coin than guess what he will be, but since they have no condition builds, he might be the condition user of their team) and finally they got a warrior (he could be shoutbow or a zerker dps (as in berserker stats and not elite spec). The guessing game was fun because you had to adapt your team comp instead and choice of skills.

Nowadays… I see 2 guard (Ok we have 2 meditrapper here) 1 mesmer (chronomesmer for sure), 1 warrior (berserker, maybe condi even if I doubt it, so he will most likely be power smash em all playstyle) and we got an engi (engineer nowadays are all the same…no need to guess). In this exemple, I even took 2 class where you still have a tiny little bit of guessing… most of the times you don’t even need to guess. But overall we don’t really need to change our comp since every class is able to do pretty much everything anyway (unless you have somethign ridiculous like 3 thieves and the like).

2 I did specify that I am not against condition build nor am I against condition being unpcapped in the limit of stacks. But I would make conditions less spammy and more skilled play (nerf the spammability, yet give them hard combo or hard hitting skills that *you need to dodge as much as an evisc or the steal+backstab of a thief). Revert passive torment and confusion dmg. I would adjust condi cleanse as needed. I prefered when condi build (and power builds) had to actually plan their thing (I would also cut off most passives and auto proc without a real parameter from the game, see here auto elixir from engineer, blinding powder when low health and the like are mostly fine since you can easily play around them without wasting any cooldowns unlike those that proc when you land a hard CC on the target… Defensive stance (the trait) for warrior needs to go, the auto trap on guardian got nerfed, but I still dislike the mechanic involved…). I just want more action induced, adrenaline pumping fights instead of what we have now.

So yes, I would balance further than only condition, yet it is among the changes I think Anet need to consider in order to achieve a great combat playstyle. Instead of limiting gear sets and runes/sigils, I don’t know why Anet doesn’t balance the classes instead.

I like the fact that conditions can burst and dish real damage. But as some have said, the “problem” may be that right now is too easy to spam different conditions making them many times both bursty and sustainable (as you cant select what condition to remove if you have 6 conditions and you can only cleanse 3).

A solution could be an attribute that reduces incoming condition damage, like armor/toughness reduces power damage.

That way both damages could work as burst/sustainable and opens new build options (do you go for anti condi , anti power or a mix?)