Guild Wars 2

Some balance needs to be brought to conditions.

With the latest changes to sigils and ferocity, they now nearly dominate small scale fights. The biggest problem is that players can stack a tremendous amount of spike condi-damage and maintain a high bunker or evasion capability. There is very little risk for a lot of reward.

Then we have large scale fights, where they are under powered thanks to a bevy of condi stack removing devices.

Personally I think condi damage should route through toughness and have no cap. It should be a DOT (Damage Over Time) with an additional mechanism (immobilize, chill, etc). Condi removal would then remove a fixed amount of condition but not entire stacks. This is just oone suggestion and there are many routes to address these imbalances but something should be done.

aren’t conditions already a DoT? And aren’t immobilize, chill, etc, conditions also?

Is your class a condi class?

Vitality should provide some sort of inherent resistance to condition damage in the same way that toughness helps mitigate power damage.

Andrew Clear.1750:

aren’t conditions already a DoT? And aren’t immobilize, chill, etc, conditions also?

Is your class a condi class?

Condi damage bypasses toughness and while it acts like a DoT it is removed by entire stack and has a cap unlike direct damage. My suggestion is to treat condi damage like all other damage only it applies itself over time and has no cap. I would also change condi removal to remove X amount of conditions stacks but not the entire condition. This means if you have 20 bleeds and 5 confusion then popped an ability that removes 10 stacks, the player would still have 15 condition stacks going. Currently condi is an all or nothing situation. This makes it difficult to manage in small fights since condi application greatly outstrips condi removal. In turn it makes it weak in large fights where condi removal is prolific.

As for my class. I have all of them at 80 and fully geared including a condi-bunker mesmer, necro, engi, ranger and an evasion condi thief. I know how both sides work.

But every rpg out there has ways to remove DoT spells before they tick all the way down.

Most people think Condi damage is already insane.

Andrew Clear.1750:

But every rpg out there has ways to remove DoT spells before they tick all the way down.

Most people think Condi damage is already insane.

Don’t think any of my suggestions change this point. Condi damage in small scale fights is OP because it routes around toughness and can be stacked on bunker classes. If it was treated like direct damage, it could be better mitigated and managed. Direct damage has a nice balance since a player that wants to output more damage sacrifices a proportional amount survival.

If condi goes through toughness, they can change condi removal to be more difficult in large scale fights. IMO the easiest way is to stop removing entire condi stacks. Instead removal skills would remove X amount of conditions. These two changes could easily balance conditions out. Remove the condi-cap and suddenly condi builds could finally contribute in boss fights as well.

GW2 is the only game I have ever seen that works this way and simply put it doesn’t work well.

That’s why it’s ruining my game… Why when i play as an condi thief, having realy nice defence and acces to stealth and condiremoval can kill some guy in few sec? I’m using only one stat to do that, being able to go full bunker and still burst down opponent? Crazy, unbalanced, can’t be countered by stats. This game is constantly going to a point – be condi bunker or zerg bunker.

Finding a solution for this condition disease is more complex than that because the problem is multifaceted.

1. Conditions are near useless in PvE, due to the stack limit and due to having a limited effect on mobs.

2. They dominate small scale fights and are massively overpowered in skrimishes as they allow for defensive play-style (kiting, stealth, avoidance) combined with defensive stats (Dire gear) while still putting out a lot of pressure and CC.

3. They are very easily mitigated in large scale fights because most zergs dedicate a significant portion of their resources toward AoE condition removal. Note here is that conditions aren’t weak in large scale fights, they are just constantly being removed by cleanse spam.

4. Conditions get 40% more duration from food alone. No other food or stat gets anywhere close to the same benefit from food. The difference between food and non-food is immense.

5. Conditions become harder to cleanse the more different types you have. All condition builds benefit from applying a large variety of different conditions, rather than focusing on a few.

6. Conditions are CC – Some conditions are just straight-up damage (Bleeds), other a hybrid between CC and damage (Torment, Confusion). Others again are just crowd-control (Cripple, Chill) or both (Terror). When you build for condition damage you are also enhancing your crowd-control abilities, which exasperates the imbalance.

7. Most conditions are AoE. So many conditions are applied by fields and AoE. Every Illusion a condition Mesmer detonates applies conditions to all surrounding targets. These types of conditions are abundant and impossible to avoid.

8. May conditions come from poorly telegraphed, ranged combat skills. Case and point, Engineer Pistol 1-3 all apply different conditions with roughly the same animation. To most players they are virtually indistinguishable. Signet of Spite doesn’t have a projectile or anything you can actively dodge. Impossible to avoid if you haven’t got the Necro in target.

Most power damage is melee, which means any time you’re taking damage you’re painfully aware of it because someone is punching you in the face. Most conditions come from ranged attacks and fields that you barely notice in a hectic fight and are difficult to avoid.

9. Condition counters rest almost entirely on class mechanics, not active combat. While 100 Blades can be easily avoided by all classes with a simple dodge or stun-break, countering Signet of Spite falls almost entirely on whatever condition removal your class may have. Good for you if you have a full cleanse, bad if you rely on passive removal from stuff like Shadow’s Embrace or similar.

Condition damage should goes through Vitality it help to increase its usefulness. With that cap on condition can be remove. This also help increase the type of build we currently have.