Guild Wars 2

So first things first, in Guild Wars 2 all I do is WvW, and mostly I just roam. I mainly play warrior, and therein you already see my dilemma. I’m posting this in the general discussion forum because this also applies to sPvP, which I do not do. So, instead of telling you all of the horror stories I could about the cancer that is condition Mesmer (being moa’d then nuked) or double pistol Engineer, or condition thieves… I will just get right on to the point.

Yes, I’m asking for a nerf to condition damage, but in a way that doesn’t necessarily strip it off its damage potential, just the ability to mitigate it with toughness. As a warrior, I have a lot of toughness, aside from looking cool that’s what heavy armor is for. Roaming condition builds, especially Mesmers, destroy anything and anyone in a 1v1. They can just as well deal with more than 1 person at a time if they’re good and doing so is far easier than handling a situation like that than with any other class I believe.

So that’s my piece, if you have any other suggestions as to how better to nerf conditions or if you agree that conditions should be mitigated by toughness (probably not the same ratio to how direct damage mitigation is applied) please leave a comment.

PS: I understand if you condition players out there hate this idea, but no one enjoys fighting you, especially against Mesmers.

Have you tried a resistance build? I’ve been experimenting with one lately, and it’s kinda fun to ignore all conditions all the time.

~EW

Yes conditions are ridiculously out of control in wvw and pvp because they are not properly and separately balanced from pve.

Condition damage relies on only one stat to boost its damage, leaving a lot more room for build diversity, whereas power builds basically need 3 stats. Conditions hit through invulnerability. Several conditions also have secondary effects like cripple, chill, immobilize, fear, vulnerability, poison, slow, taunt, blind, weakness. There are just too many kitten conditions that can be tossed around and spammed, and there is just not enough cleanse to deal with it. What good is a cleanse skill that can remove 1 or 2 random conditions with a 20s cooldown when you can be constantly spammed with a bunch of conditions that do thousands of damage per second. Conditions can also be extended in duration and stacked. Also there are very few options to mitigate actual condition damage, whereas there is protection and invulnerability to negate or mitigate power based damage.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Have you tried a resistance build? I’ve been experimenting with one lately, and it’s kinda fun to ignore all conditions all the time.

~EW

Unfortunately not every class has that option.

To be honest I’m not sure if a balance is possible in this. it would be nice if it were more balanced but that would have knock on effects in PvE and sPvP.

Yea, they’re just broken. WvW’s pretty much in a horrible game-state at the moment and in all seriousness GW2 as a whole is due to just how broken the game balance is. Pretty much play cheese or GTFO.

First, condition clears are not designed to clear all conditions. In a pvp setting the idea is that a condition player needs to do some damage in order to kill people. So complaining you can’t clear ALL the conditions and be immune to condition damage with one button press isn’t a convincing argument.

Second, many people either do not carry adequate condition clears or cannot carry adequate clears because the class cannot carry enough clears vs the class/build they are fighting.

Third, condition builds often build for survivability because longer sustain is necessary to apply and reapply enough conditions to win. For this reason a lot of “zerker” type builds that fare poorly against this kind of spec in general do not do well against condition builds.

My response can be summarized as 1) individual class balance is always something to improve on, 2) carry more condition clears, 3) understand how the class you are fighting achieves sustain. I’ll use warrior as an example: resistance signet and condition clear signet is pretty strong, and fighting warriors the key is not letting them hit with their burst in order to avoid adrenal health.

I play vanilla hammer/greatsword for pvp and wvw, and condi-necro spam for wvw only because on pvp condi necro sucks. And see no reason to nerf anything. Condi classes are most glass-canons, u can destroy Mesmers with greatsword/hammer swapping. The warrior have a infinite condi clear on discipline trait Brawlers Recover.

Necros dont have much stability options without sacrifice dmg, so warrior hammer demolish them even on reaper shroud. if they have stability traits on reaper, they dont do much dmg.

Being a roamer warrior in WvW It is a different story. Roamer WvW is a specific type of game where classes take advantage of the surprise factor, as Mesmers and Thieves have advantage. U need to learn how to take “surprise advantage” a positioning here.

i use this meta build, still great, the only class who scare me on 1vs1 is the well skilled guardians ou well skilled dare devils.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Warrior_-_GS/Hammer

No, conditions are not OP. People that go full glass cannon or builds with no condition removal struggle against it. I can’t speak for PvP because I don’t waste my time there, but in WvW it’s fine.

Serious.7083:

Unfortunately not every class has that option.

Lol, I know that. But, he specified he plays a Warrior, so that is an option he can explore for his needs.

Unfortunately not every profession can be as awesome as the Warrior.

~EW

As people pointed out, Warriors can be pretty much immune to some classes condition builds if they’re builded for resistance. Let’s take a condition Guardian/Dragonhunter as an example : if you pop your resistance when he hits you with his high CD (but high damaging) conditions applying skills, you’ll be immune for the duration of the burning stacks. He’ll be off his high burst potential and he will be left with white damage and a burning stack every few attacks. Once he used his high CD attacks, he’ll try to kite you until he can try again… which, if you’re using a two-handed sword, is unlikely to happen.

Sure, longer and lingering conditions can be a bit harder do deal with even for a warrior, but a lot of classes have ways to deal with condition heavy opponents and warriors are within the best IMO… as long as you build you character for it.

Conditions are somehow easier to deal with if you do not go full glass cannon as Ubi said. You must have time to react if you’re being hit and pack plenty of dodge or defensive abilities/boons.

in WvW, you can take that food that reduces condition durations, but I wouldn’t suggest it on a warrior.

X T D.6458:

Yes conditions are ridiculously out of control in wvw and pvp because they are not properly and separately balanced from pve.

Exactly. They should separate PvE from PvP/WvW and adjust skills accordingly. Conditions should be less painful in PvP situations and “PvP skills” like Necro’s Spinal Shivers should be more useful in PvE, etc…

I think that people are just unable to cope with the fact that something that doesn’t kill them instantly is still supposed to kill them. You’re not supposed to be able to clear every condition you take, just as you’re not supposed to be able to block or evade every hit. And just because your character is still moving and fighting doesn’t mean they haven’t taken a lethal blow.

I’m a decent warrior, I know how to use the healing signet, and I run plenty of condition clear, such as cleansing ire, and brawlers recovery. I do think warrior has the most source of condition mitigation in the game, (guardians have the most clear) what happens for me, is that I’m constantly getting blinded, so half the time my burst skills miss, and when it DOES hit, I typically clear the most useless of the conditions because I believe the way condition clearing works is the last one applied to you is the first one to clear. While the damaging condition is still there. So that’s another problem.

For most people, including myself, condition classes are just too difficult to deal with. 90 % of the time what happens to me, is that the class tries to nuke me, then stealths to get away. By this time I’m popping my signet of health if I failed to block or dodge, which last 6 seconds. This is not enough time. So now I’m getting kited, trying to clear using cleansing ire on perhaps the Mesmer’s clones, or constantly switching my weapons, but by then, the condition class just has to wait it out, then reapply. You make one mistake, you’re dead, this is the same for good or bad players when playing against condition classes. The difference being “good” players probably have clear.

I’m a tanky warrior, not a zerk, though I certainly do plenty of damage, that is one of the warriors strength. What am I to make of it when one of my main stats, toughness, is completely bypassed? Sure, I could build more damage then, sure I could swap out endure pain for berserker stance, but my point is an entire stat is being made completely irelevent. There are a lot of times where I’m just nuked out of existence and there is nothing I can do. In the literal sense, sure, but in a game where I would like to enjoy my time? Not saying I don’t, I’m a chill dude, but when I see a problem that can be easily fixed, I’d like to at least take a crack at it.

PS: I’m not trying to talk theoretics about how to fight condition classes, or anything like that. What I’m saying is that when they DO land, you’re usually dead.

Xyppi.8061:

For most people, including myself, condition classes are just too difficult to deal with. 90 % of the time what happens to me, is that the class tries to nuke me, then stealths to get away. By this time I’m popping my signet of health if I failed to block or dodge, which last 6 seconds. This is not enough time. So now I’m getting kited, trying to clear using cleansing ire on perhaps the Mesmer’s clones, or constantly switching my weapons, but by then, the condition class just has to wait it out, then reapply. You make one mistake, you’re dead, this is the same for good or bad players when playing against condition classes. The difference being “good” players probably have clear.

That’s not about conditions, however. It’s the ability to reset the fight through stealth that is a problem for you here. And that problem existed since the beginning of the game, well before condi builds were a thing. You wouldn’t have had such a problem against condi Necro, for example, even though their condi damage is much, much higher that those from thieves and mesmers.

Xyppi.8061:

…
PS: I’m not trying to talk theoretics about how to fight condition classes, or anything like that. What I’m saying is that when they DO land, you’re usually dead.

Your point seems to be that you do not want to improve your own play against condition classes or adjust your utilities to something more suitable, instead you wish for conditions to be changed in a way that would benefit you personally (change the high toughness you already have to lower condition damage on top of everything else that it does?).
But that is like asking for healing power to function like a life line that brings you up again when someone 100-0 instant bursts looking at how irrelevant healing power is against a burst thiefs when you do not run any defensive gear or traits or even utilities.

Condition damage is there to outlast burst damage in longer fights. It is especially good against tanky strength builds as those lack the damage to take down the condition player while his conditions tick away.
I am not saying condition builds do not need to be looked at. Some readjustment might be required.
Still, your proposed toughness change would put it completely over the top. I am sorry, it sounds to me like you are simply allowing them to play their game. Taking fights you can not win or refusing to adjust to what is needed. There is nothing wrong with disengaging someone who keeps stealthing to do just that.

Condition damage and builds do more than just outlast you in fights, it can do as much burst as thieves, look at condition guardians. I’m always looking to improve myself and expand my knowledge on how to better fight, matter of fact I take offense on what you’re implying, not that I dislike you for it, I see your point.

Perhaps this seems biased, seeing as I play warrior, and yes, it’s how I got the idea, but this would apply to all classes. Like I said, it would have to be applied in a different ratio. What you said about it being best on tanks? Sure, but it makes tanks seem like toys. I’m not a tank, I’m just tanky, I have plenty of condition clear, again, like I said. I’m asking to keep the subject on the damage potential for conditions because I want to focus on the issue here.

Honestly I don’t encounter many condi necros, and I don’t play one. I do know however, that their potential for condi damage is massive. Perhaps I would be able to better handle them because there more of a solid target, but like someone mentioned above, most condition players build survivability. Seeing as necros have a lot of health, condi necros are definitely viable.

As for disengaging, you can’t disengage from a thief or a Mesmer, especially if they have the upperhand. You won’t be able to get out of combat because of all the condis, they’ll just run you down. It’s either stay and fight, or die. Of course, you’ll probably die anyway.

Another thing, I don’t want to have to build simply to accomodate for condition classes, then what about when I have to deal with burst thieves? Or other warriors? I’m already depriving myself of quite a bit of damage and survivability by taking cleansing ire instead of rousing resilience, or brawlers recovery instead of destruction of the empowered. I will admit, situationally rousing resilience is probably a bit overpowered, so conditions existing is a good thing.

So on that note, how about a compromise, because I definitely do seem biased and selfish here. How about instead of condition damage being mitigated by toughness, what about the introduction of another stat instead? I’ve heard talk of something like this in Gw1? Never played it, anyway, something that scales off of toughness, or is a stat of its own altogether. From what I read, someone called it Malice?

Like someone mentioned, I dislike how conditions require two stats whereas direct damage takes three (condition damage and duration). Alas, however that’s why I would prefer it to scale off of toughness in some way. Perhaps not adding scaling to the extra toughness we apply. Because like I said, rousing resilience would be very overpowered if so, and I think I should apologize. I was being rather warrior-centric here, that’s the only class I play aside from guardian, whom I only run with zergs.

Xyppi.8061:

For most people, including myself, condition classes are just too difficult to deal with. 90 % of the time what happens to me, is that the class tries to nuke me, then stealths to get away. By this time I’m popping my signet of health if I failed to block or dodge, which last 6 seconds. This is not enough time.

Which is again why I suggest trying your hand at a resistance build. 100% resistance uptime is plenty of time.

~EW

Your misunderstanding here come from the idea that power damage and condition damage max out at the same level.

A soldier build and a dire build will do similar levels of damage. What dire lacks is the ability to do more damage than that. That is the ceiling for condition damage. Critical damage, using precision to gain access and ferocity to increase the total multiplier, is a bonus on top of power damage. The “I need three stats” argument is based on a misunderstanding of the total damage that is available, on average, to both types.

A solider build will do more damage than dire if the target is heavy condition clear. If the target has low condition clear the dire will do more damage because the conditions will tick for full effect. Note that an individual class will do or take more or less damage based on class balance issues which always will need work. I’m all for reasonable class balance discussions about specific abilities/traits.

Beyond explaining this I do want to be helpful. You mentioned blind. Assuming the patch does not nerf resistance specing for it will allow you access to a window where blind won’t work on you. I would also emphasize the need to learn when to dodge various class’s mechanics. A mesmer needs to have clones up to shatter so AoE cleave on greatsword can go a long way to cutting down on the shatter spam condition application.

And some personal advice for fighting condition builds. Don’t stop attacking and cleaving. Condition builds need time to kill so you just need to kill them first. Play aggressive. The difference between a warrior that I kill easily and a warrior that is tough to beat is often decided only by the aggressiveness of the warrior.

I have to agree with some above who say that you are essentially asking for conditions to be nerfed in order for you to more easily prevail against others without change from you.

I am a condition player and in order to be effective, my direct damage taking ability is limited. Your warrior hits me two or three times and I could be in serious trouble.

There are intentional trade-offs to what type of build you desire to play. I have to learn to avoid direct damage and what it does to me if I do get hit. You need to learn to mitigate condition damage in order live and be able to hit me effectively.

I think the real problem is that condition builds are finally becoming as effective as direct damage builds and the direct damage dealers don’t like it.

If you nerf condition damage in general, you should also increase toughness of raid and fractal bosses and reduce their vitality. No one wants a pure zerker pve meta again.

I’m not sure what’s more amusing, a warrior having problems vs condi builds, a warrior saying he can’t get away from a condi mesmer, or just all the pve player comments about wvw balance.

The issue with condi isnt damage in itself, its dire type stat, plain and simple. Could argue trailblazer as well. They give you all the condi damage and all the survivaility, especially on classes that dont rely on critrate to stack condi. Even good old soldiers have drawbacks since you are missing 2 important dps stats.

Like others say, if someone miss a condi burst (say burn guard) they are weakened and can be countered by power dps. Well yes, except not only could they tick 5000 burn/s on you they also have strongest defense against both power and condi by having toughness and vitality.

Conditions are not OP . Specific skills on specific classes might be, but that not an issue with Conditions in general.

Secondly the suggestion that toughness mitigate Conditions is quite self serving. It helps the classes in heaviest armor the most and in many builds conditions are their only weakness.

Third Dire as a problem is simply put overstated. I have no issues killing Dire users with power builds. I can spike far more damage using a power build than I can on a Condition build. Given Conditions need to do DOT the Condition user needs higher armor and vitality to survive. If this taken away then my power builds will find them easier to kill.

The major component of those builds that provide that added sustain is not the DIRE armor. It as passives, blocks, evades , immunities and invulnerabilities. Put a Condition Zerker warrior as example in dire and have him NOT take Adrenal or the healing signet and he will be killed in short order by power or conditions. I in fact use Settlers on a Condition warrior and find it has more staying power than one would using Dire and can still pull off huge burn bursts.

By the same token a thief in dire as example, that neither stealths or evades will be demolished by any power build even in Dire. All of those listed mitigation measures are available in equal amounts to a power user.

That added armor and vitality certainly helps in those cases where none of these mitigations methods currently available, but they had better given a single hit from a power attack can do over 10k in damage. Once that 10k+ damage hits there no way to recover save through a heal. This contrasts with a Condition application which can still be cleansed before a heal used or with some classes in fact be transferred back to the enemy or converted into boons.

The problem is not that conditions do too much damage but that there is no “armor” equivalence for the damage they do.

For direct damage we have toughness/armor that scales the damage down, and invulnerability or blocks that ignore all physical damage for a short time.

For condition damage we have resistance that ignores it for a short time. Condi cleanse can remove a stack of one or more conditions but they are not necessarily all cleared, and can be easily reapplied, in multiple forms.

So I would like to see a stat that scales condi damage down like armor does for direct damage. It could be either:

• a new stat, perhaps called Constitution, as a “toughness” style stat that reduces condi damage. Bring it in on armor, weapons and accessories like the others.
• or Anet could use Healing Power (your ability to heal the conditions you have on you) or vitality (your general constitution or health making the conditions less effective).

It should not be armor, because no stat should protect against both types of attack. Players should have to choose: do you want full protection against one or part protection against both, or max damage? This is no worse for builds than selecting Soldier against Zerker. The new bunker meta would become Toughness, Vitality, Constitution – all defence and no offence unlike Dire etc.

An effective “armor” that reduces condi damage would mean conditions can be left as they are while giving players a chance to build to reduce the effect of them.

Xyppi.8061:

I could about the cancer that is condition Mesmer (being moa’d then nuked) or double pistol Engineer, or condition thieves…

Double pistol engy is how condition builds should be, if you lost to them then you just got outplayed, for a p/p engy to kill you (unless you are mega glassy with virtually no condie removal/resistance) they need to hit certain skills, so if you dodge, block, etc pistol 4, pry bar if they use toolkit, etc, really on most builds you should not lose.

I think that this is more l2p issue. Of course everybody thinks that they can play and they only lose because enemy using some op spec. I lose against condi specs and when i play condi i lose against all specs.

Yuffi.2430:

Condi cleanse can remove a stack of one or more conditions but they are not necessarily all cleared, and can be easily reapplied, in multiple forms.

Direct damage can also be reapplied in multiple forms.

Yuffi.2430:

An effective “armor” that reduces condi damage would mean conditions can be left as they are while giving players a chance to build to reduce the effect of them.

If you want to put condi damage at the same level as direct damage, you need to increase it across the board to compensate for the need to build it up over time (and to make up for the ability to have it just plain cleansed or transferred back/converted to boons).

Astralporing.1957:

Yuffi.2430:

Condi cleanse can remove a stack of one or more conditions but they are not necessarily all cleared, and can be easily reapplied, in multiple forms.

Direct damage can also be reapplied in multiple forms.

Yuffi.2430:

An effective “armor” that reduces condi damage would mean conditions can be left as they are while giving players a chance to build to reduce the effect of them.

If you want to put condi damage at the same level as direct damage, you need to increase it across the board to compensate for the need to build it up over time (and to make up for the ability to have it just plain cleansed or transferred back/converted to boons).

Well, the issue is the aoe/cleave spam, of both condi+phisical damage, that is the issue where game gets borked and made pvp ugly to watch, add in some easy skills that have low CD with high damage…

Just a few things to add.
Condition still pass trough guardian domes, while the phisical range damage is aborved.
Invunerability condition still tick, while phisical damag eis negated.
Condition on reflected damage dont go back to source.

As i said, aoe/cleave spam is the issue in this game…that happens whe u design a pve game based on spam and smash keyboard, and make those same mechanics to pvp.
A decent game needs to bedesigned for pvp skills and then adapt the game for those mechinics on the pve side…

I think the main issue, other that a couple builds with stupid amounts of condi application, is the way cleanse works.

Its so easy to puke out condis atm that cleanse can’t get to what’s really killing you. Even worse if you have multiple people puking condis on you. That 3k burn tic should be about managing cleanses but it’s actually a roll of the dice.

Fix cleanse and a lot of the issue disappears. Condi will still be way too easy to apply but at least people would have a better way to manage it instead of hanging out with mallyx revs and other bad crowd people.

Reh.5986:

I think the main issue, other that a couple builds with stupid amounts of condi application, is the way cleanse works.

Its so easy to puke out condis atm that cleanse can’t get to what’s really killing you. Even worse if you have multiple people puking condis on you. That 3k burn tic should be about managing cleanses but it’s actually a roll of the dice.

Fix cleanse and a lot of the issue disappears. Condi will still be way too easy to apply but at least people would have a better way to manage it instead of hanging out with mallyx revs and other bad crowd people.

that 3k burn is easilly covered with a 1.3k 2xaegis heal :\ the issue is that damage output builds are far to effective being the phisical damage or condi ones when stacked.
Warrior, guardian, engie/scrapper, elementalist have decent to good condi removals.
Players just build for max damage output and expect to melt targets at first, resistance and boon share needs to be changed, but so does the aoe and cleaves spam on this game.

As some have noted, one issue is that toughness is a passive defense against power damage, but we have no universal passive defense against condi, generally condi defenses have to be triggered with a skill, and good luck triggering them when you are being interrupted or otherwise blocked from using those skills.

I like the idea of Constitution, which goes all the way back to D&D, though there it applied to overall health pool as well as resistance to disease and poison (conditions). However, a new stat like that would require a lot of tuning in many parts of the game, so I don’t think it is likely to be implemented over an existing stat, trait or mechanic that we already have in place that could be modified to achieve a similar result.

Aeolus.3615:

Just a few things to add.
Condition still pass trough guardian domes, while the phisical range damage is aborved.
Invunerability condition still tick, while phisical damag eis negated.
Condition on reflected damage dont go back to source.

This is not true. Conditions are applied through attacks, just like direct dmg (with very few and barely relevant exceptions). If you negate those attacks, which is possible with exactly the same means as negating power based attacks – evade, block, invuln, blind, interrupt and so on – no conditions will be applied.
Guardian’s domes will prevent condis from projectile based attacks just like direct dmg. They won’t prevent any form of dmg from non-projectile attacks. If you use an invuln skill after getting hit by direct dmg it does as much as using it after getting hit by a condi attack – nothing. And if you reflect condi applying projectiles, those condis will applied to who ever gets hit by the reflected projectiles.

Problem is conditions+stealth.

The amount of power damage mitigation in the game now compared to condi definitely is skewed. Protection for starters which most groups have in abundance is a straight up 33% reduction ignored by condi dmg. Then with HoT you have things like rite of the great dwarf and bulwark gyro to further reduce dmg. And of course the in game counter stat, toughness.

This is without discussing invulns, blocks, evades. Invulns that lock you out of your skills can actually be detrimental vs condis rather than helpful. You can easily die from condi ticks whilst your invuln is up.

Resistance outside of the boonshare meta is hard to come by for most classes. Warriors and Revs have access to it in abundance, outside of this the access is minor or none at all. And of course as a boon it can be stripped.

Ans the best synergy for countering the boonshare meta is condi due to banish enchantment and corrupt boon.

Add to this you can execute your damage with full dire/trailblazer gear, rocking around with 3k+ armour and a bucket load of health.

We switched our group comp to condi dmg for our havoc squad ages ago and havnt looked back.

Alright, I’m understanding what you’re all saying, some of it irritating, some of it helpful. I want to first bring up what someone said about condition damage being equivelent to direct damage, or at least, that’s what I took from the post. So here, dire stats is equivelent to soldier stats. Ok, well in terms of stats, yes, that is true. In practice, again, due to the lack of mitigation that is no longer true. Let’s say a full soldier kitted warrior, guardian, whatever. Let’s say he went up against a full dire necro, mesmer, etc. Who would win? Firstly, the person with soldiers has no precision nor ferocity, just power. Even with fury, the crit chance isn’t enough. So obviously the dire stats would win out. Ok, that was fairly obvious, right?

Moving on, someone mentioned direct damage being easily reapplied just like condition damage, alright. Now let’s say a condition thief, nuking me while I’m trying to “reapply” my direct damage to his face hole. Is that going to work? No, why? Well because of the reason some of you continue to bring up he knows how to play, and evidently I don’t. Let me explain, from what I can tell, it takes one hit to apply a kitten ton of conditions from my experience. I’ve never played a condi build, not saying that’s because I’m trying to act noble or some kitten, but because I don’t enjoy it, simple.

Now the problem I have comparing direct damage, is not the raw output, and yes, contradiction detected, I know. It’s the ease it takes to apply the conditions, one mistake, you’re dead, like I said… Perhaps the same can be said for direct damage? Well, not really. Every class, especially after HoT has stun breaks, A LOT of stun breaks. So unless that person is just standing still, I’m not going to get off my damage spikes. Getting my spikes is just about timing. I’m not saying it’s impossible to beat a condition class with a direct damage class, I’m just saying it doesn’t seem like an even fight. Maybe now you’re thinking just follow him or her around and auto-attack or whatever, you don’t need cc. Well yes, I do, to land my eviscerates, hundred blades, etc etc. Warriors have plenty of cc, so I don’t mind all of the stun breaks, otherwise we’d be gods. All I’m doing is pointing out the difference in difficulty between condition builds and direct damage. Am I saying condition builds are easier? I suppose I am, but it’s about playstyle, so perhaps that opinion is biased. Direct damage destroys “noobs” faster than condition damage for sure, but against more advanced players it’s a “tad” more difficult.

To those who say my proposal as to help ease the issue that is conditions and I quote “self-serving”, I think it’s far more self serving to allow conditions rampage on as it is in this game for those who play condition builds. So what if it benefits the heavy classes the most? The heavy classes are meant to be just that, heavy, go in deep, be aggressive. To do that we need to be able to survive, and there’s not much you can do against unmitigatable damage. I’m seeing far less suggestions than I hoped for aside from the one post I read and I will mention by name Yuffi, he or she makes very good points and I advocate this kind of response.

PS: Why would a condition build, namely with Dire stats do less damage, ever, do less damage assuming he or she is running the proper weapons and utilities against the soldier stat person with the proper weapons and utilities? Because of a difference in condi clear? I don’t understand.

PSS: I got outplayed by getting nuked from 100 % at 22 k health to 0 with one short combo. Sure. Granted I wasn’t paying attention for approximently 1 second, and the fact that my initial reaction was to pop healing signet but then got interrupted. This last part I will admit is a misplay, I should have popped stab first, but I honestly don’t remember if I had it up, I just finished up a fight.

PSSS: I’m not saying condition builds take no skill, I’m saying those with the skill have an easier time with it than direct damage.

What makes conditions so unbalanced is not just the damage, its the mechanics of conditions which I outlined in my first post, and others have as well that make it so frustrating for people to have to deal with.

I’m guessing this is purely on a 1v1 basis. As soon as the multiplicative effects of multiple AoE cleansing come into play conditions become swiftly irrelevant. It’s a strange matchup because the resistance uptime on Warrior is pretty lengthy but the Mesmer can almost always wait it out. Your success will mostly depend on how much kiting room the Mesmer has and also how patient the Mesmer is. Although rifle Warrior does pretty well against condi Mes and I recommend giving it a go.

Xyppi.8061:

Let’s say a full soldier kitted warrior, guardian, whatever. Let’s say he went up against a full dire necro, mesmer, etc. Who would win? Firstly, the person with soldiers has no precision nor ferocity, just power. Even with fury, the crit chance isn’t enough. So obviously the dire stats would win out. Ok, that was fairly obvious, right?

Lets say, a soldier lb ranger fights a dire necro. Who would win? The ranger, even though soldier is far from optimal for this kind of build. And if we compare zerk vs sinister/viper builds, the power variant would have the upper hand most of the time And if we compare zerk vs dire it might look different again. And in all cases it will be more a matter of the specific builds and not a general power vs condi thing.

Xyppi.8061:

Let me explain, from what I can tell, it takes one hit to apply a kitten ton of conditions from my experience. I’ve never played a condi build, not saying that’s because I’m trying to act noble or some kitten, but because I don’t enjoy it, simple.

“From your experience” which is zero, because you have never played a condition build, right? So please name all those condi skills, that apply " a kitten ton of conditions" with one hit. Most condi builds have to hit you a lot with different skills, to stack enough condis, that don’t a) get outhealed, b) don’t get cleansed immediately.

Xyppi.8061:

I’m not saying it’s impossible to beat a condition class with a direct damage class, I’m just saying it doesn’t seem like an even fight.

Yes, power ranger/druid vs condi necro is indeed not an even fight. And not in favour of the condi player. And the same is true for many other matchups. It is always a matter of specific builds, nothing else. Many condi builds suck and get countered by power builds and vice versa.
Just because there are a few op builds, doesn’t mean, you have to nerf tons of already bad builds too, but exactly this would happen with a general condi nerf, regardless of how this nerf would look like.

Xyppi.8061:

The heavy classes are meant to be just that, heavy, go in deep, be aggressive. To do that we need to be able to survive, and there’s not much you can do against unmitigatable damage.

The heavy classes are not meant to facetank everything. And condis are not unmitigatable. You can avoid them and you can cleanse them, if you fail to avoid the application. Of course both requires you to know which skills to avoid and when to cleanse, or with other words, you have to learn, how the different condi builds work and how to counter them.

Xyppi.8061:

PS: Why would a condition build, namely with Dire stats do less damage, ever, do less damage assuming he or she is running the proper weapons and utilities against the soldier stat person with the proper weapons and utilities? Because of a difference in condi clear? I don’t understand.

Condi clear can reduce the dmg that is dealt by condis massively. And sometimes the soldier user can have better ways to avoid the dire user’s dmg than the other way arround. Like in my necro vs ranger example.

Ok for the last part I mispoke, of course the conditions would do less damage if they weren’t there at all. I meant if the necro had the clear and the soldier gear had the, well lack of. I may have misread that. I will definitely reply to all of your points Umbra Noctis, for example I will reply to one now. What I meant by “my experience” and as you so astutely pointed out as none, is fighting them. What I meant by “kitten tons” of damage, is in fact that, large amount and very high damaging condis being applied in very short combos or just one hit like a thief can do. Feel free to correct me on that as I don’t play condition classes, am I at fault for that? You can call it ignorance if you want, all I ask is we keep this civil and mature. So right now I have to go, as I said I will respond in due time, maybe today, if not definitely tomorrow. Thank you for taking the time to post, all of you. Apologies if I come off as a little, aggravated.

Condi thief – especially the d/d evade spam one – it is pretty much the last condi build i want to defend. But since you mentioned it …

There exist completely different condi thief builds, with different playstyles, strengths and weaknesses …

Most common are the d/d evade spam build and to a lesser extent the d/p trap build.

The first one relies pretty much on one single skill – Death Blossom – which applies 3 stacks of bleeds for quite a long duration and is an evade skill. Total dmg can be pretty high, 7k+, but it will take up to 20 seconds for the full dmg. It means you will take about 400 dmg per second. Almost all this dmg from a single hit can be outhealed by your healing signet. A single hit isn’t going to kill you (or any other player). Same for the second hit. Problem is, DB can be spammed pretty much non stop (with a few dodges in between), which allows this build to stack lots of bleeds while being invulnerable almost permanently. A few additional condis can be applied with steal and eventually Lotus-Training or a second weapon set, but DB remains the main dmg skill. Only weakness compared to power thief – it is worse at ganking due to less burst and lower mobility, which makes it a bit easier to run away. I definitely think, this build deserves some nerfs.

The second condi thief build i mentioned is the d/p trap thief, also known as “ghost” or “perma stealth” thief . Main dmg will come from a combination of needle trap, steal and caltrops. Non of those attacks apply direct dmg, which allows the build to stay in stealth permanently – pretty much the only defense this build got. With mentioned combo it can apply a lot of different conditions at once, but not very high stacks, unless you can’t get rid of the immob, which will force you to stay inside the bleed stacking caltrops. This build lacks constant pressure, so with a few cleanse and/or healing skills and some experience at avoiding traps it is quite easy to counter. The perma stealth thing is a bit stupid design imo, but overall i don’t consider this build op.

As you can see, condi thieves can’t really burst you with a single hit, regardless of the build. Even after multiple hits it will take some time until you would take letal dmg, even if you don’t try to defend yourself. And you should always have enough time to defend yourself with cleanses, heals, resistance or simply by running away. Killing them can be quite hard due to spamable defenses (stealth/evades), but this is a class/build specific issue and doesn’t has anything to do with condis in general.

Burn burst builds (guard/engie) are the only true bursty condition builds. They have to land multiple skills for their burst, and can be usually countered quite well, if you know what you are facing (and don’t run arround with zero cleanse).

And as somebody already mentioned – if you want to be able to facetank condition builds, you can do so as a warrior, if you invest into boon duration and resistance. Much more powerful than any toughness would be.

My own warrior has 11 seconds resistance on a 16 second cooldown off the signet and another 26 some seconds of the Berserker stance on a 60 second cooldown. he does not need healing off signet if fighting a condition build because the condition build can apply little damage which is outhealed by Adrenal. He then gets plenty of cleanses with his zerker traits.

He can then cleanse conditions using leadership runes just by using headbutt.

Conditions should not be an issue to any warrior and if they are it was a decision made by that player to be weak to them.

I don’t know about everyone else, although I feel like I do, but I tend to get bursted down by conditions pretty quickly. I probably will start running berserker stance and I will get more damaging gear, but enough of that. Alright I’m going to go in order from first to last.

1. Ok, I initially didn’t know much about rangers but reading up on them they seem to have plenty of condition clear if you go down Wilderness Survival and maybe take signet of renewal. If you don’t go down that tree, you’re probably screwed, but maybe it’s like the defense tree with warrior whereas most of us see that one as mandatory. Again though, the ranger would have no precision or ferocity with full soldier’s and in my opinion would lose in an even match. Feel free to link me a video or two on this as I could not find any specific to this. As someone mentioned, most condition abilities do not only apply condition but also apply some direct damage, while if not built for this it can be rather miniscule, it adds up. Maybe not the game changer, but it is a factor. Against full soldier gear though, not much at all.

2. Well I already sort of replied to this, but to add some depth which was lacking from the previous post due to being rushed yes, no single condition will kill you, if it does, well you probably messed up. You’ve mentioned what condition thieves are capable of, I appreciate that. Ok, so a lot of different skills? I guess, but they can all be applied in a rather short combo, like mesmers with their clones, condi thieves with venoms, engineers with their dual pistols and wrench kit. I do my best to try dodging and blocking all of these things, but it’s hard. I’m sure most of you can sympathize. If you can’t tell, my main issue is with mesmers and thieves, and yes, partly because of stealth. So to give myself breathing room, I will be taking berserker stance.

3. My main issue isn’t with condition necromancers, I don’t see nor fight them enough when roaming. I can’t say with certainty that a power ranger will beat a condition necromancer, druids certainly have the kitability but vanilla rangers, they only have their greatswords. This example sounds pretty situational, like is the necro trying to face tank the ranger as warriors oh so like to do? I dunno. Like I said it’s not impossible to beat condition builds, it just feels impossible against mesmers 1v1. Good ones? Forget it I’m out. Bye. Has gone offline

Hasn’t precision builds (all direct damage builds) been nerfed in the past? Instead of a flat critical damage modifier they instituted ferocity in an update. How many bad builds did that effect? Were they keeping those bad builds in account? Or were they just trying to balance out the classes and the stronger builds? This affected everyone, the change I’m asking for isn’t all that different, I guess most of us have just forgotten.

4. I’m not saying I should be able to tank everything and win, that’s stupid. I’m not saying I go up to people and expect to live through ALL of their damage by just taking it up the butt. Way to stereotype warriors btw, some of us have.. depth. Like I said in a previous post, no matter how tanky I am, I am like paper to conditions, it makes a stat completely irelevent, toughness, whereas no other stat is like that. As a warrior, that affects me most, wheras yes, I would stand to benefit most, or at least the heavy classes would, by what I’ve suggested. I need to be in the front, I need to be aggressive, in their faces or I’m just not doing my job. I dislike the killshot rifle build, not my playstyle. If you call that stubborness or failure to adapt how bout you play a game just to win and not enjoy it.

5. This last one I already explained myself, if someone is willing to provide examples, I’d be grateful.

Ok, as for your last post I will respond to probably in the morning, as I would like to actually play the game now haha.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

The second condi thief build i mentioned is the d/p trap thief, also known as “ghost” or “perma stealth” thief . Main dmg will come from a combination of needle trap, steal and caltrops. Non of those attacks apply direct dmg, which allows the build to stay in stealth permanently – pretty much the only defense this build got. With mentioned combo it can apply a lot of different conditions at once, but not very high stacks, unless you can’t get rid of the immob, which will force you to stay inside the bleed stacking caltrops. This build lacks constant pressure, so with a few cleanse and/or healing skills and some experience at avoiding traps it is quite easy to counter. The perma stealth thing is a bit stupid design imo, but overall i don’t consider this build op.

Well thats a lie if I’ve ever seen one since they run dire/trailblazer with very high toughness and vitality and will unquestionable equip shortbow to teleport at will. They are the complete opposite of defenseless. Therein lies the problem.

The “but condi isn’t affected by toughness!” argument is old. If you actually sat down and looked at the amount of condition damage being put out by condi builds you’d realize two things:
1) condi builds do 20% to 30% of their damage in power damage
2) the condition damage deal is lower than what power builds do in power.

Condis aren’t affected by toughness and prot because if they where they would have pitiful damage output.

Also Soldiers is higher DPS than Dire because condi builds are dealing 20% of their dps in power damage and dire does not have power on it, while the 1200 power on Soldiers affects all of a power build’s abilities.

Eh I can still land a single skill to cleave 17k burn on engi. Some guy in PvT isn’t going to be near that dangerous or at least will have some telegraph on the dangerous skills. You want to dish that kind of dmg on power you start trading survivability.

When I run warrior I tend to run heavy boon duration…means stupid high resistance uptime. I rarely have to worry about condis at all unless there’s a boon corrupter running around. If there is that’s the one with lousy stab, no blocks, invulns or extra evades.

Don’t worry they will probably introduce more conditions in the future…. something like the warlock unstable affliction back in the days, when you cleanse it you get silenced and take massive damage, then they will make that condition spammable

and then people will say bring resistance, but then .. then we will need a condition that deals damage when resistance is on =D

Seriously conditions are not fine, many cleanses but not enough can never have enough cleanse for them.

babazhook.6805:

My own warrior has 11 seconds resistance on a 16 second cooldown off the signet and another 26 some seconds of the Berserker stance on a 60 second cooldown. he does not need healing off signet if fighting a condition build because the condition build can apply little damage which is outhealed by Adrenal. He then gets plenty of cleanses with his zerker traits.

He can then cleanse conditions using leadership runes just by using headbutt.

Conditions should not be an issue to any warrior and if they are it was a decision made by that player to be weak to them.

26 sec from berserk stance….What are you even smoking ?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Berserker_Stance

Caedmon.6798:

26 sec from berserk stance….What are you even smoking ?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Berserker_Stance

Boon duration exists. I see some warriors with concentration sigil as well so that would extend it even further. It’s not unreasonable to have a ridiculous amount of resistance, paired with Cleansing Ire/Leadership Runes you could cleanse or immune conditions all day as long as you can hit something (and with Berserk bursts, it’s not hard).

Xyppi.8061:

1.

The reason, why ranger with either lb and/or staff counters necro/reaper is, that it can just kite arround and attack from range and the necro can’t really do anything about it. Necros lack defenses and sustain to deal with the ranged pressure and cc a ranger can provide. Of course i’m assuming, the ranger is using some condi remove, either from the WS line or from druid. Common druid builds with druidic clarity and signet of renewal can facetank a condi necro (almost at least).

I don’t know if there are videos somewhere from a soldier ranger, i can just talk from my own experience. I used my lvl 80 boost on a ranger and was playing this char a bit in wvw with the gear i got from the boost – full soldier exotics. And had no issues against any necro, despite using core ranger with “bad” gear. Of course i wasn’t killing them very fast, especially if they had full shroud, but because they have weak healing, it doesn’t need that much dmg to kill, just time. Btw, full dire isn’t optimal for condi necro either, because it benefits a lot from at least some precision.

Xyppi.8061:

2. Ok, so a lot of different skills? I guess, but they can all be applied in a rather short combo, like mesmers with their clones, condi thieves with venoms, engineers with their dual pistols and wrench kit. I do my best to try dodging and blocking all of these things, but it’s hard. I’m sure most of you can sympathize. If you can’t tell, my main issue is with mesmers and thieves, and yes, partly because of stealth. So to give myself breathing room, I will be taking berserker stance.

Both types of builds have skills, that you should avoid – and that you can avoid for the most part if you would play perfectly – which ouf course nobody does. And against both types of builds you don’t have to avoid all dmg. How much you can tank and how much you have to avoid, depends mostly on your build. If you got lots of toughness, protection, passive procs that protect from direct dmg and so on, your build will be much more forgiving against power builds. If you take lots of condi remove, condi duration reduction and/or resistance, condi builds will have a hard time at killing you, even if you get hit by most of their attacks.

It is not surprising that your main issue are condi thieves and mesmers – because those are the strongest roaming condi builds and because you refuse(d) to adapt your build to counter them (which is true for many players that complain about condis).

Xyppi.8061:

3. I can’t say with certainty that a power ranger will beat a condition necromancer, druids certainly have the kitability but vanilla rangers, they only have their greatswords. This example sounds pretty situational, like is the necro trying to face tank the ranger as warriors oh so like to do? I dunno. Like I said it’s not impossible to beat condition builds, it just feels impossible against mesmers 1v1. Good ones? Forget it I’m out. Bye. Has gone offline

I already mentioned, why ranger – even core ranger with lb – counters necro. The necro has not much alternatives other than trying to facetank or hide somewhere behind a rock, in which case a stalemate is the best he can achive.
And yes, condi mesmer is one of the strongest builds in 1vs1. And as a warrior you have the tools to counter it, by adapting your build.

Hasn’t precision builds (all direct damage builds) been nerfed in the past?

Anet has killed tons of different builds on multiple occasions, but this doesn’t mean, they should continue to destroy build diversity even more.

Xyppi.8061:

4. Like I said in a previous post, no matter how tanky I am, I am like paper to conditions, it makes a stat completely irelevent, toughness, whereas no other stat is like that.

Tankyness is not only a matter of stats. Traits and skills are even more important when it comes to survivability (Just try to play your warrior without defense line and you will see how much your toughness alone will do for you even against power builds). And as a warrior you have pretty much the best defense against condis available, you just have to use it. And you won’t even have to give up your favoured “in your face” playstyle.

Personally i prefer to play a full melee core ranger build (GS + S/A). A build that is probably similar to your warrior – decent toughness and dmg, some condi remove, but still rather weak vs condi builds. But i simply accept, that this is a weakness of the build i have chosen and i have learned to deal with it. I have a very hard time at winning vs many condi builds, if they know, how to play – but i rarely die against them in 1vs1, because i know, what attacks to look out for and when to use my few cleanses. And if i really want to kill them, i can change my build and pew pew them to death.

Caedmon.6798:

babazhook.6805:

My own warrior has 11 seconds resistance on a 16 second cooldown off the signet and another 26 some seconds of the Berserker stance on a 60 second cooldown. he does not need healing off signet if fighting a condition build because the condition build can apply little damage which is outhealed by Adrenal. He then gets plenty of cleanses with his zerker traits.

He can then cleanse conditions using leadership runes just by using headbutt.

Conditions should not be an issue to any warrior and if they are it was a decision made by that player to be weak to them.

26 sec from berserk stance….What are you even smoking ?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Berserker_Stance

I have high boon duration. That 3 second app can turn to 6. Last stand then allows another app for a potential of 30 seconds total. I can get that full 30 if I swap weapons as it applied to the Concentration set.

Due to that high resistance uptime, I found cleansing ire not needed as I get enough cleanse with the elite and the zerker trait savage instinct.