Guild Wars 2

Not sure whether to post this in WvW or PvP section, but I guess it applies more to WvW since builds aren’t limited by amulet/rune selections.

Just wanted to say that condition builds needs to be looked at right now.

1. Condition builds without confusion/torment or condition transfers are barely viable right now.

2. We also see that the builds with confusion/torment are incredibly OP (looking at you condi warrs and condi mes) right now. The reason why condition transfer is in the viable list is so that they can counter the confusion/torment spam.

Basically, I think confusion/torment multipliers needs to be looked at. Perhaps the PvE vs. WvW+PvP confusion damage formula split needs to be reintroduced.

Dire and Perplexity are easily the too most OP options in the game. If those didn’t exist, half or more of the condi builds would fold in WvW.

There’s already a complaint thread about boons lasting too long, including resistance to condis…so what’s the real truth here? Is there too much resist or is there too much condi? If we nerf both sides of the equation, we may as well just stand out in the middle of the field fighting with non-magical toothpicks…

Sylvyn.4750:

There’s already a complaint thread about boons lasting too long, including resistance to condis…so what’s the real truth here? Is there too much resist or is there too much condi? If we nerf both sides of the equation, we may as well just stand out in the middle of the field fighting with non-magical toothpicks…

You want the truth? You cant handle the truth!

There is no real balance. Different builds will have a bigger impact on different playstyles.

kiwituatara.6053:

We also see that the builds with confusion/torment are incredibly OP

Everything is OP, if you think direct damage, boon spam, etc, are fine, then well… they powercreeped the game and basically destroyed the combat.

Mmm, as far as “Boon spam” and “Condi spam” go they primarily exist from HoT specs.

The only true imbalance is the increased access to actions per minute (aka Spam) due to the traits/skill decisions in the expansion + balance decisions made in part due to PvE/NPC damage sponges (making every condi stacking like bleed + special damage bonus).

Sorry but this is thread is completely inaccurate. I run a hugely condi build reaper, however, a high power build melee class can take me down fast and a thief using macros from hiding…well, I am not even going to go there, because it’s the weekend and I DON’T WANT TO START IT HACKED OFF!!!

Scamp.5296:

Sorry but this is thread is completely inaccurate. I run a hugely condi build reaper, however, a high power build melee class can take me down fast and a thief using macros from hiding…well, I am not even going to go there, because it’s the weekend and I DON’T WANT TO START IT HACKED OFF!!!

Wait…. You’re having problems with thieves as a condi reaper?

Sylvyn.4750:

There’s already a complaint thread about boons lasting too long, including resistance to condis…so what’s the real truth here? Is there too much resist or is there too much condi? If we nerf both sides of the equation, we may as well just stand out in the middle of the field fighting with non-magical toothpicks…

Boons are not the other side of an equation. Boons in skirmish and large group play are dominating. Condi in small scale is dominating.

Puck.9612:

Scamp.5296:

Sorry but this is thread is completely inaccurate. I run a hugely condi build reaper, however, a high power build melee class can take me down fast and a thief using macros from hiding…well, I am not even going to go there, because it’s the weekend and I DON’T WANT TO START IT HACKED OFF!!!

Wait…. You’re having problems with thieves as a condi reaper?

A necro of any kind is a playtoy for most thief builds but especially D/P.

Puck.9612:

Scamp.5296:

Sorry but this is thread is completely inaccurate. I run a hugely condi build reaper, however, a high power build melee class can take me down fast and a thief using macros from hiding…well, I am not even going to go there, because it’s the weekend and I DON’T WANT TO START IT HACKED OFF!!!

Wait…. You’re having problems with thieves as a condi reaper?

I thought that too as I read. When I use to play reaper for roaming, came across maybe one thief from a lower tier server, think it was IOJ, that knew what he was doing. Probably the best thief I ever came across in 4 years of playing and made up a pretty incredible build that allowed him to control every aspect of fight without using cheese stealth or d/p easy mode.

Majority of thiefs in wvw are appetizers when playing reaper.

Wtf. Guys, please read 1. and 2.

I LOVE playing condition builds, but there is NO DIVERSITY. I am saying that you MUST RUN CONFUSION/TORMENT for a condition build to be viable. I am NOT trying to nerf all condition builds.

Sylvyn.4750:

There’s already a complaint thread about boons lasting too long, including resistance to condis…so what’s the real truth here? Is there too much resist or is there too much condi? If we nerf both sides of the equation, we may as well just stand out in the middle of the field fighting with non-magical toothpicks…

Power creep is the problem. There’s a big difference between things that were designed when game was young and things that were recently added. The balance that once existed is now gone and we have outliers on power scale that focus on certain gimmicks: spamming tons of boons, spamming tons of stealth or spamming tons of confusion. Overloaded kits.

kiwituatara.6053:

Wtf. Guys, please read 1. and 2.

I LOVE playing condition builds, but there is NO DIVERSITY. I am saying that you MUST RUN CONFUSION/TORMENT for a condition build to be viable. I am NOT trying to nerf all condition builds.

Yeah that’s not really true though. As long as you can throw on enough cover conditions you can make any condi work. Hell I was running a hybrid ranger build a month ago that would put 4-5k bleed ticks on people, last week I was running an engi burn build that melted people.

You can make anything work … till you meet good players with good builds. Even if you can use almost anything in WvW with some success (not only condi), there are good reasons, why certain builds are stronger than most others. And both condi ranger and condi engi are fairly easy to counter, especially by builds with decent condi remove and ranged dmg.

Btw, try stacking 30+ bleeds on somebody who is not (brain) afk …

UmbraNoctis.1907:

You can make anything work … till you meet good players with good builds. Even if you can use almost anything in WvW with some success (not only condi), there are good reasons, why certain builds are stronger than most others. And both condi ranger and condi engi are fairly easy to counter, especially by builds with decent condi remove and ranged dmg.

Btw, try stacking 30+ bleeds on somebody who is not (brain) afk …

It was easy until the latest round of ranger nerfs. Crit bleed sb build using concussion shot + a point blank poison volley to proc ancient seeds 5 times. They’d usually already blown their condi clears to get rid of the 2o+ stacks of bleed they just got from entangle + mad king runes.

And of course condi builds are going to be countered by builds with heavy condi removal, just like direct damage builds are countered by tanky builds. If there was a build that was perfect for every situation everyone would be running that.

Almost everybody uses lots of condi remove. Ancient seeds/entangle in particular is countered by many things. And condi ranger/druid relies too much on it.

Again – condi ranger can work. Just like my melee ranger can work. And almost anything else. But other builds are clearly better in most cases.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Almost everybody uses lots of condi remove.

Yes but you can apply them a lot faster than they can remove them. You just have to read the player and figure out just how much condi removal they have and when to bomb them.
And also be aware that no matter what you run, sometimes you will run into a build that simply counters yours. In these situations you can run or fight dirty. For example when I ran into reapers I would kite around like crazy using my pets and staff to keep pressure on them. I’d occasionally hit them with a condi bomb and then run the hell away and swap pets so they didn’t have anything to transfer the condi’s to. I would just keep up this hit and run tactikittenil they died and then I’d mail them humiliation dye when they started in with the hate whispers.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Almost everybody uses lots of condi remove. Ancient seeds/entangle in particular is countered by many things. And condi ranger/druid relies too much on it.

Again – condi ranger can work. Just like my melee ranger can work. And almost anything else. But other builds are clearly better in most cases.

Better is subjective. A melee ranger is brutal in a 1v1 and if your opponent isn’t built for a lot of condi removal then any condi build will be the optimal thing to use when fighting him.
I’m not going to argue with you that rangers/druid need some serious love. But that’s not just condi builds. Their crappy power scaling was bad enough pre hot but now when you have other professions shelling out 10k+ damage in a single ranged hit every few seconds, it really makes you wonder how anyone complained about rapid fire.
Everyone else got power creep, rangers/druids got sustain that doesn’t really work well outside of a 1v1, and new pets that are getting nerfed almost every update because it’s “unfair” that they can actually land their attacks.

That are all things, that iäm saying for a long time now, but Anet doesn’t seem to listen too..

The game is in certain aspects still in the Balance Stage of 2012 when the game got released, because anet keeps on ignoring to rebalalance all aspects of th Combat System that need to be looked at direly by now:

• Basic Health being balanced individually for each Class is by now an absolute MUST
• All Game Modes being balanced seperately is by now also an absolute MUST, I’m personally sick of it when the balance of PvE or especially WvW suffers everytime from it, when ANet wanted to changed something in their eSports spirits for PvP “only”
• CC in this game is totally out of control and that was it already before the introduction of HoT. Breakbars need to be integrated completely into the Combat System for everyone with a rework of the functionality of Stun Breakers as Breakbar Refillers, with getting “Stunned” after being broken working only as a way to significantly reduce temporarely the defense of the enemy, while the enemy shoudl be still able to fight back, instead of becoming able to get stunlocked to death, without that you ever had a chance to do anythign at all. Thats bull*peep* game design and you all know it!!
  This needs to get fixed ASAP finally to make the combats in GW2 again more fun
• Boons as like Conditions need to get reduced, merge them what fits together, this way the Game Performance can get increased as well and Boons/Conditions become at the same time also more important, when they become through merges more effective. Damaging Conditions, especially Confusion, Torment and Burnign need to get rebalanced and CAPPED for WvW so that they can’t get higher that a certain amount of Stacks also.
  If you can get easily spammed with like 14 stacks of burning and 14 stacks of confusion and 14 stacks of torment at the same time, thne its no miracle, that everbody here dies in seconds, before you were even able to recognize, what the hell happens right now, or before you even got the chance to react on this quickly enough with condition removals to get rid of the damaging conditions fast enough, before you are already seconds later lieing dead on the ground and being instant stomped by a thief…

• Attributes need to get merged, they all should provide Dual Effects and Anet needs to add also tor the new created room some more defensive Attributes that help against critical hits and that help by improving your Endurance Regeneration…
  Why the hell is there an attribute, that can increase the chance to dish out criticals, but not also one, that improves the chances for you to receive them lesser?
  Boons like Vigor would be obsolete, if there would be an attribute like agility, that lets us significantkly improve our Endurance Regeneration.
  Boons like Stability woudl be obsolete, if we woudl have finalyl a completely integrated Breakbar in the Combat System, or at least could get reworked, that a Boon like Stability makes it harder for the enemy to break our bars while it is up, or protects the bar from decreasing for a while if thats really needed.
  also Toughness needs especially to be fixed finally, so that it significsantly decreases more the direct damage you take. As Toughness works right now, its an absolute utter joke. You can have maximum toughness basicalyl and take from berserker builds still maximum damage and can get killed in seconds, where you ask yourself, is toughness currently not working at all/bugged?
  A hifh defensive build needs to take significantly lesser direct damage, than a non high defensive builds. Conditions are the solution against high defensive builds, as they already ignore defense!!! But as direct damage build fightign agaisnt a high defense build needs to feel finally like fightign against a Mordrem Husk, where you do drastically reduced damage agaisnt them with direct attacks, unless you use damaging conditions!!

• Runes needs to get finally rebalanced, such overpowered Stuff like Rune of Perplexity needs finally to get NERFED, and that HARD… seriously, receiving confusion when you attack the enemy + receving whopping 5 Stacks!! everytime every 15s for a duration of 8 seconds!! when you interzpt a enemy.
  Has the dev responsible for this crap rune never thought about Thief Pistol 4 skill allowing it a player to literally spam confusion like hell???
  Mix this together with other cover conditions and you can literally keep a player just with constantly spamming only Pistol 4 constantly under high confusion pressure and the player literally does nothing, becasuse just all the confusion kills your enemies easily as a condi build and as condi have thieves easily access to more than enough cover conditions through venoms, traits and as daredevil through evades and caltrops to even significantly boost all the condition damage you receive besides of the way too high confusion.

Nerf Perplexity finally as follows:

Confusion Stacks when struck gets changed to a completely different effect that has nothing to do with Confusions, like for example: Confusion Damage that you take is reduced by 10%

The last 6th effect gets nerfed down from 5 stacks of Confusion to 3 stacks of confusion with only a duration of 5 seconds instead of 8 seconds and the cooldown gets increased from 15 seconds to 25 seconds

• Buff also finally the other 90% of crap runes please, which have no chance to be anything viable due to their useless underpowered effects.
  Remove all those useless Sigils that increaase damage vs. speficif enemies and make out of these things Kill Masteries which you receive so more enemies of certain species you kill

• Merge some Utility Skills of classes to create room for better more useful Skills and give all Classes also Skills for the missing Skill Categories, so that all classes have for all of their Skill Categories also Healing, Utility and Elite Skills, this would increase also again a bit the Build Diversity of this Game, while also making some useless underpowered skilsl that barely anyone would have touched before maybe then more interestign and overall useful, if they would get merged with other skills.

• Same as with Skills for Traits, specially for Thief, this class is a trait chaos …I can personally tell you only to go look at this thread, because the OP of it explains very well how I think the whole trait settign of the Thief shoudl get reworked:
  https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Trait-Shakeup-Version-2/first#post6166041

Under his concept would be finally all thief traits there, where they thematically belong to and thiefs would receive finally abilities, that you expect from a thief to have, like becomingn able to see enemy traps to avoid them and be able to deactivate them for your allies without having to waste dodges for this.

If these thigns would finally get fixed, reworked and get looked at to improve them, then we would have finally a much more balanced Combat System, especially if Anet would take themself finalyl the time to split the balance for all 3 modes seperately.

This is already long overdue.

Resistance is just only a small and lazy band aid fix of Anet to fix the out of control condition design of this game
Under a balanced game with a balanced condition system, there would be absolute no need for this boon and a Boon like Resistance could then be actually used for something better, like for example either:

- while Resistance is active, can#t be other Boons get stripped of from you/be stolen

or

- while Resistance is active, is the Chance to receive Critical Hits reduced by 25%

or

- while Resistance is active do Conditions not ignore your Defense anymore.

or

- while Resistance is active is your Healing Power and Toughness increased per Stack making it this way a little counter to Might.

I personally hope very much that once ANet is done with the great focus on WvW right now, that they give then finally this much focus on Game Balance to do what is needed to make this games combat system fun again.
All game modes would profit from this only, especially WvW!!

Condi builds don’t need confusion and torment. My condi warrior has neither. Poison is important, and cover conditions are important. Everything else is less important when you have burning to make up for it.