Guild Wars 2

There where so many enchantments in GW1 that did such a large pool of different things. I personally think that arena net did a fairly good job of translating the feel of many of these enchantments over to GW2. Although there is one thing that I think they over looked that could be a powerful ability.

In GW1 there where several skills that had damage reduction that had nothing to do with armor. Skills like Shielding hands, Union, Stoneflesh Aura and “There’s Nothing to Fear!” would reduce damage from all sources including hexes that would normally ignore armor. We got half of this in GW2 with protection. However we are missing the other half.

My suggestion is a boon that reduces the damage of conditions by 33%. This would give the heavy condition professions a clear counter without having to nerf there power into the ground. Anet seems to be worried about the burst damage of some condition based professions quickly putting people out of commission.

I personally would like to see this effect added to the game. But at the same time, I don’t know much about PvP and would like to hear other people’s opinions on the concept. Do you guys think this is a good idea or bad? Why or why not?

Conditions are already weaker than pure damage.

Conditions are harder to get to deal more damage (they scale really badly).
Conditions have a cap that is not unique to each player, meaning that if you have 2+ condition players in a party, you’re going to waste conditions (either one persons poison/burning will be ticking or 25 bleeds will go off and you’re just overwriting bleeds).
Conditions have a cap on how long they can be (100% condition duration).
Conditions deal their damage slowly and have tons of removal methods.

The only way you’re going to win as a condition damage build is by constantly applying conditions to other players and hoping they run out of removal. They, on the other hand, only have to worry about hitting you, because their damage will do the rest.

Also, if you get, say, a Zerker Warrior in your group that wields a Sword, you’re in for a treat because he’s just going to slide on into your bleed stacks and say “HI, I LIKE TO BLEED THEM, TOO!”

Esplen.3940:

Conditions are already weaker than pure damage.

Conditions are harder to get to deal more damage (they scale really badly).
Conditions have a cap that is not unique to each player, meaning that if you have 2+ condition players in a party, you’re going to waste conditions (either one persons poison/burning will be ticking or 25 bleeds will go off and you’re just overwriting bleeds).
Conditions have a cap on how long they can be (100% condition duration).
Conditions deal their damage slowly and have tons of removal methods.

The only way you’re going to win as a condition damage build is by constantly applying conditions to other players and hoping they run out of removal. They, on the other hand, only have to worry about hitting you, because their damage will do the rest.

Also, if you get, say, a Zerker Warrior in your group that wields a Sword, you’re in for a treat because he’s just going to slide on into your bleed stacks and say “HI, I LIKE TO BLEED THEM, TOO!”

Those objections are perfectly valid for PvE but don’t really apply to sPvP, where conditions are generally as powerful as direct damage. That’s why engineers and necros do so well with condition pressure/burst. The beauty of conditions is, once you get them on your enemy, you don’t have to worry about connecting additional hits – the damage, and its accompanying debuff, will continue without you having to do anything further. That’s why curing conditions is much more common than the direct damage counterpart (blocking attacks).

That said, I do think a 33% reduced condi damage boon is too much. Maybe 20%, but I don’t really think it’s needed. If conditions become too strong, they can introduce more ways of decreasing duration or curing them.

I liked the idea of “Freedom” as a potential new boon, which was mentioned here a while ago. Its effect would simply be, “Immunity from movement restrictions,” though chill would still apply its cooldown increase and immobilize would still prevent dodging.

Alys Florent.1359:

Esplen.3940:

Conditions are already weaker than pure damage.

Conditions are harder to get to deal more damage (they scale really badly).
Conditions have a cap that is not unique to each player, meaning that if you have 2+ condition players in a party, you’re going to waste conditions (either one persons poison/burning will be ticking or 25 bleeds will go off and you’re just overwriting bleeds).
Conditions have a cap on how long they can be (100% condition duration).
Conditions deal their damage slowly and have tons of removal methods.

The only way you’re going to win as a condition damage build is by constantly applying conditions to other players and hoping they run out of removal. They, on the other hand, only have to worry about hitting you, because their damage will do the rest.

Also, if you get, say, a Zerker Warrior in your group that wields a Sword, you’re in for a treat because he’s just going to slide on into your bleed stacks and say “HI, I LIKE TO BLEED THEM, TOO!”

Those objections are perfectly valid for PvE but don’t really apply to sPvP, where conditions are generally as powerful as direct damage. That’s why engineers and necros do so well with condition pressure/burst. The beauty of conditions is, once you get them on your enemy, you don’t have to worry about connecting additional hits – the damage, and its accompanying debuff, will continue without you having to do anything further. That’s why curing conditions is much more common than the direct damage counterpart (blocking attacks).

That said, I do think a 33% reduced condi damage boon is too much. Maybe 20%, but I don’t really think it’s needed. If conditions become too strong, they can introduce more ways of decreasing duration or curing them.

I liked the idea of “Freedom” as a potential new boon, which was mentioned here a while ago. Its effect would simply be, “Immunity from movement restrictions,” though chill would still apply its cooldown increase and immobilize would still prevent dodging.

Arena net is afraid of conditions. I mean, REALLY afraid of conditions. In GW1 Hexes dominated much of the game, making direct damage rather laughable. My suggestion also calls for giving them room to improve conditions without the fear of it being too overpowering.

I personally want conditions to expand. I want some conditions to have increased duration and I want more conditions added to the game. I feel that this can’t happen without a proper safety valve.