Guild Wars 2

thnx

there is no way they are going to remove dire.

runes of perplexity, about all they can do is trim its stacks to 2&3. Increasing the CD on them would do little for people who are eating condi bombs and stand their like noobs with no condition removal cause they wanted MOAR dmg in their build.

Honestly perplexity isn’t as bad as it once was, purely because it’s been overtaken by the HoT power creep. I can’t think of a single build I’ve encountered recently where perplexity runes alone made it work.

Dire isn’t an issue at all anymore – toughness and vit are just about dump stats. If you don’t have condi clear and regen it doesn’t make any difference how much HP and armour you have anymore.

Ben K.6238:

Honestly perplexity isn’t as bad as it once was, purely because it’s been overtaken by the HoT power creep. I can’t think of a single build I’ve encountered recently where perplexity runes alone made it work.

Dire isn’t an issue at all anymore – toughness and vit are just about dump stats. If you don’t have condi clear and regen it doesn’t make any difference how much HP and armour you have anymore.

Dump stats? Gee I wish I could build max tank stats and still do as much damage as a zerk build. Oh wait I can just roll condi.

QQ guild lives up to its name.

you’re a revenant, just take the traits and skills that let you stack resistance and send the confusion back

if you’re playing against dire+perplexity and it’s common in the meta just run a build that either spams cleanses or sends it all back or both

Perplexity rune isn’t OP on the: ranger, necro, revenant, guardian, ele, engi.

I think condi mes and condi warr are the problem.

They don’t exist in spvp for a reason.
They can’t take them out of wvw cause it’s tied to pve, but they should have never been introduced to the game, just like celestial which has also been removed from spvp.

Celestial isn’t that big of a deal in WvW.

Honestly, perplexity runes aren’t that bad, either, however the passive is total overkill. It’s confusion having the baseline DoT which is too strong in WvW, and dire builds being virtually unkillable depending on the class using it.

Dire really never should have been added. Perplex is manageable with a nerfed passive, but the combination of both on top of the passive confusion application is just ridiculous.

We can’t see any balanced adjustment until both conditions and boons are reworked significantly, though, as we have issues now with permanent all boons in the game, including resistance.

Instant 20+ confusion now ticking damage regardless you use a skill, or not. Yeah this rune can go already.

Offair.2563:

Instant 20+ confusion now ticking damage regardless you use a skill, or not. Yeah this rune can go already.

The problem is with the passive tick they added for PvE. They just need to quit kittening around and balance the game modes separately.

….and yeah, dire isn’t really that big a deal anymore. The HoT power creep brought skills that make dire armor feel like zerker used to and they introduced new stats like trailblazer which is simply better dire armor.

Perplexity rune is to strong on mesmer and durability rune should never have area effect….

people still use dire?

trailblazer is strictly better.

time to complain about that instead.

Or, just nerf Confusion itself???

DeWolfe.2174:

Or, just nerf Confusion itself???

It got boosted. Ticking damage even though you don’t use ANY skill.

The problem is and always was the pairing of confusion with torment.

Get torment on you? Cleans or heal through it but limit movement.

Get confusion on you? Run away, LoS, cleanse, wait for cleanse or wait it out.

Get both on you? Well son, you are what we call screwed without lots of cleanses.

Dire is only really a pain imo on mesmer and thief due to the ability to rapidly pop in and out of stealth, with the ability to reset completely.

Is there a change recently that I was unaware of? Because last I check 5 stacks of confusion on interrupt (15s ICD) and 3 stacks of confusion on hit (25s ICD) can’t kill any decent player.

Sarrs.4831:

you’re a revenant, just take the traits and skills that let you stack resistance and send the confusion back

if you’re playing against dire+perplexity and it’s common in the meta just run a build that either spams cleanses or sends it all back or both

You ’ve been misinformed, revenant mallyx cannot send condition back.

You can run rabid or any other half decent condi stat and manage to do the same.Condis are the issue here,although i would love to see perplex nerfed,asking for the removal of stats isn’t a good thing.Class imbalance and condi’s being over the top in general is the real issue here.

insanemaniac.2456:

people still use dire?

trailblazer is strictly better.

time to complain about that instead.

only good in small fights and costs 10x more to craft. not worth it at all.

Perplexity isn’t the problem so much as the builds that can spam interrupt and achieve very high amounts of confusion combining the runes with their regular abilities. I’ve heard of mesmer/chrono builds that can stack 50+ stacks of confusion if the person stands there and eats it.

That is an unreasonable amount of confusion application. Personally confusion should be shorter term, like burning, given the high DPS potential. I also think the cooldown on perplexity seems a bit low for the advantage it offers.

One option would be to cap confusion stacks. Another option is to reduce the base time to require more rapid reapplication. I favor the second merely because rapid reapplication is, like the condition itself, confusing or disorienting. Confusion should be flashy, like attacks coming from every direction at once. That way rapid reapplication still matters but a person can fight back more often/consistently. Confusion should be about rewarding players who pick the right skill to use—even though it damages them—and punishing those who spam.

Likewise, torment is fairly good now because it rewards people who move as tactically as possible and punishes those who mindlessly run away. Burn, usually applied in fields, also reflects the “don’t stand in the red circle” and rewards those that don’t let multiple stacks easily build up. These are “tactical” conditions. Same with poison to prevent effective healing. Bleed is the only real “generic” condition that provides baseline dps without a tactical element other than generally “don’t get hit.”

As to Dire armor, without it or soldiers one-shotting becomes a lot more common and that would be a problem. I’m not talking endless bunker builds that can tank four people at once (like pre-nerf scrapper), but a well played “tank” build is a vital role. WvW Commanders need survivability. Roamers need survivability. The only people who don’t are classic backline fighters who lay down cover fire or pick off reinforcements/backliners for their team.

As a roamer, I can 1v1 versus good players. 1v2 versus ok players. 1v3 versus bad players (or good players having a really bad day). I can do 1v2 because I have the HP/armor to survive long enough to put one of the two into downstate. If you can wait out their blocks and invulnerability and resistance, etc. you are much better able to fight when outnumbered.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Is there a change recently that I was unaware of? Because last I check 5 stacks of confusion on interrupt (15s ICD) and 3 stacks of confusion on hit (25s ICD) can’t kill any decent player.

No, but the rune + tank stats + condition damage that bypasses all toughness and can DoT to ridiculous amounts (6k burning ticks, 1k PASSIVE confusion tick that procs 5k on skill use) allow anyone to play with their feet and out sustain power builds.

I personally think that WvW should have it’s own Armor/Runes, that are geared towards the WvW Environment.

Not quite like sPvP with runes, but, to have WvW Specific Gear/Runes Etc.

Just nurf dire to be as effective as Soldiers instead of being as effective as full zerk but having the toughness and vitality of soldiers. Problem solved. Conditions need rework, it isn’t news.

Even sinister/viper builds have usually less (burst) dmg than zerker, stop exaggerating the dmg of full dire builds.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Even sinister/viper builds have usually less (burst) dmg than zerker, stop exaggerating the dmg of full dire builds.

No kitten, it is the comparable damage + allowance of tank stats that is the problem.

XTR.9604:

Just nurf dire to be as effective as Soldiers instead of being as effective as full zerk but having the toughness and vitality of soldiers. Problem solved. Conditions need rework, it isn’t news.

Condition duration should have been heavily nerfed across all skills when Expertise was introduced in order to make Expertise more required. Now it is just a fluff stat that few take.

Im not too sure Anet will ever do much about this as it doesnt affect large scale fights overly much which is the focus of WvW. You will only notice it in smaller scale encounters.

It is horribly broken as far as some matchups go, condi chronophantasma’s application is nuts, clear the first wave of condis, they just keep on coming. Funnily enough they also have great access to condi clear to deal with condi spam in WvW.

You can get good uptime on resistance as a warrior to ignore the condis and thieves now have a boatload of condi clear if they spec for it. Some classes though you are just kittened in this matchup. I run Hoelbrak runes and saffron bread on my scrapper for -40% duration, i run adaptive armour for 20% less condi dm, the alchemy line for alchemical tinctures and e.Gun.

Pretty much if you’re going into WvW spec for anti condi is how the game is atm. Take every traitline/skill available to you that clears condis.

doesnt help that condi builds are full tank stats to accompany their offense.

Again, nerf Confusion itself. I don’t care if a Condi Shatter hits me with 20 stacks if they tick reasonably. Problem is the stacks hurt, a lot. Then remove burning from a Mesmer completely. Also, remove confusion from a Warrior completely.

Dire, Durability and Perplexity are certainly some of the more powerful options in various types of game play. Dire/Plex are particularly potent in small scale. Durability is spectacular on most bunker builds. Its only downside is the minimal grinding needed to get it.

I noticed my condition damage went down with HoT. I added in some trailblazers to bring it back up. So it was adjusted.

Comparable damage to zerkers? What? Like, an example on comparable weapons.

P/P I can get 20k+ damage in about 4-5 seconds. That’s two unloads. A total of 10 initiative. This isn’t full zerkers, this is a mix and match of armor.

P/D, assuming I use all my utilities to increase my damage, and assuming the target is standing completely still, and assuming they don’t have passive traits that proc condition clears, I can tick maybe 6k? for a couple of seconds. Assuming I used two sneak attacks, it probably took me around 5-6 seconds and involved 12 initiative.

I compare these because they both are the same mainhand weapon. Likewise I would compare D/D builds, or D/P builds on both condi and zerker. I doubt the zerker is lacking for damage over the condition build (assuming one is zerker and the other dire).

saerni.2584:

I noticed my condition damage went down with HoT. I added in some trailblazers to bring it back up. So it was adjusted.

False. All in your head.

saerni.2584:

I
P/P I can get 20k+ damage in about 4-5 seconds. That’s two unloads. A total of 10 initiative. This isn’t full zerkers, this is a mix and match of armor.

P/D, assuming I use all my utilities to increase my damage, and assuming the target is standing completely still, and assuming they don’t have passive traits that proc condition clears, I can tick maybe 6k? for a couple of seconds. Assuming I used two sneak attacks, it probably took me around 5-6 seconds and involved 12 initiative.

I compare these because they both are the same mainhand weapon. Likewise I would compare D/D builds, or D/P builds on both condi and zerker. I doubt the zerker is lacking for damage over the condition build (assuming one is zerker and the other dire).

That’s great testing and all on target golems, but try real players next time. It is not the raw damage, it is the stats and survivability with comparable damage that is the problem.

This everyone gets a trophy generation lol

Also P/D is one of the weaker condition sets in the game since bleeding and torment got nerfed.

Two unloads is 12 initiaitve. Unload currently is also the hardest hitting skill on the thief and if traited for pure damage, capable of reaching what I do believe is the hardest-hitting skill in the entire game. It has close to 30% more damage than backstab and Vault, which I personally reach close to 20k with against squishy targets.

Thing is, this is burst damage. P/P has substantially lower DPS than Staff or MH dagger on the thief. Why? Because its autos are awful. If you burn 12 init for unload spam, that’s great, but the difference between staff AA and dagger and even sword MH versus the pistol are roughly five times better when the dust settles.

Run D/D condi. I personally get around 11k damage per Death Blossom. Shortbow CG spam enables 4k poison ticks easily if you build for it, not to mention they’re unblockable and AoE.

You’re comparing apples to oranges in your anecdotes, sae.

Again, you need to clarify what you’re talking about. Raw DPS, yes, power does more. Especially berserker. I said this multiple times above. Apply protection, and even the numbers you stated fall close to a tie in optimal environments. Since power scaling is exponential while condition damage isn’t, remove some of the modifiers, and power suffers bigger penalties, and the gap further closes.

Let’s look at a dire burn Berserker running Def/Tactics/Berserker with a longbow.

AA: 1k Burning (4 stack uptime, 2k ticks) – On the lower end compared to say a glassy GS build that might crit around 3k. Soldier’s gear is no contest. Advantage: Dire

Fan of Fire (5s CD including cast time) – 6453, 6 second duration, permanent stack maintenance on average: 4 (roughly 8k damage). For a .25 cast time ability on a 4.75s cooldown, this thing hits HARD. A full glass cannon Guardian can’t even touch this on 8s Whirling Wrath, with perfect hits on the full channel. More than berserker-built mesmer’s Blurred Frenzy (highest-hitting mesmer skill) except for maxed stacks on Ferocity from Fencer’s Finess on a 9.5s cooldown. Same as full glass 25 might stack Reaper’s Ghastly Claws, also on a higher cooldown. You get the point.

Cover condition/Blind on Arcing Arrow, also on a low cooldown of 9.5s

Pin Down (20s), built-in immob which for me had close to 20% uptime, 13k bleeding damage per cast. Now that’s a cover condition if I’ve seen one.

Combustive Shot (10s) – 16k damage minimum, permanent uptime with TTL and SoR.

Scorched Earth: (10s) 12k damage application per tick, up to four ticks. 5s Cooldown, two casts per Berserk, 66% uptime.

This is also assuming no Corruption charges, and this build features a passive proc heal for 5k, and heal on shouts.

HP: 27732
Armor: 3411

That’s a crazy amount of damage per skill in a given encounter, and there’s no way most builds meant to take on most other builds (I.E., diversity in the kit to handle condition builds, power builds, get mobility utility, offensive utility for kill security, etc.) can handle this kind of damage output. And this isn’t even competing for top condi damage. A perplexity mace build or generally just a mesmer can pump out significantly better numbers with more utility and defensive options.

Those are numbers against people. Some people do just stand there and take the damage, surprisingly. 20k, more or less. Obviously a full toughness build will take less—as will dodging/avoiding some of those hits—but so few people run tanky because they like the big numbers (and taking big number damage apparently).

It’s not “in my head” I saw the damage numbers on the tooltip go down as compared to pre-HoT. It wasn’t much, but it also wasn’t the case that the HoT armor increased my damage significantly either. It was minor adjustments, but it was there. I checked because I wondered how the HoT stats would effect the balance. I saw I needed TB stat weapons to maintain my old damage.

And you admit that some condition weapons sets aren’t overpowered, and then point out specific builds you think are overpowered. Again, this is about builds/classes and not about the armor set itself. As I said before. That said, I have rarely had a problem with a burn zerker. I wouldn’t mind fighting one, it would be interesting, but I just don’t see them often. Those that I have fought recently have died…but that seems circumstantial to me.

And you say 11k per death blossom. Really? I have never taken 11k from a single death blossom. Then again…I actually have condition clear. Which is what I have been saying is necessary from the very beginning. DB is a long term bleed. The longer term the more likely it is to be cleansed. Short term is the real “effectiveness” number for me, because if I keep ticking on a target I know they effectively went glass against condition builds and are going to lose.

Given Anet likes to balance with smaller changes, the idea of removing an entire armor stat set seems extremely unlikely—see my earlier comment about balancing with the sledge hammer.

As aside, I saw a Dire zerker dueling today. Well, it could have been dire, I don’t have affirmative knowledge of that. He was dueling longbow though. He didn’t seem overly tough and he took a while to down the thief he was fighting. Normally, outside of a duel the thief could probably have disengaged. I’d like to see the max DPS on burn-zerker now that you posted about it, real DPS numbers against real people mind you.

I pointed the hypocrisy in your post when discussing damage comparisons between two builds which feature overall sub-optimal damage output on one (P/D condi thief is good if played well, just it doesn’t deal that much damage relative to most other condition sets) versus one which has one of the best damage per skill uses in the game. To be talking about damage, that’s a huge disparity that ignores even the scope of dire gear.

Burzerker got nerfed because it was dealing 20k burn ticks early on. It’s a middle-of-the-road condition build as it is, which is why I pointed it out.

Yes, some conditions have a long term attachment. I played a condi S/S war extensively around a year ago. I have and “play” a separate D/D condi thief (I find it too easy in most cases and prefer the style of play of power). That said, there are very few classes who can keep up with the condition application of these builds. I’ve single-handedly stacked 30 stacks of bleeding on people. There’s some setup time, but everyone runs out of cleanses. There’s not one class in the game currently that can withstand pressure from a high-frequency condition build like D/D condi thief or interrupt M/M war. I don’t care what you play or how many cleanses you run, you’re not sustaining against those. Hell, there are even some which can facetank and out-sustain berserker damage outputs from a plethora of classes/builds.

There are a LOT of classes/builds that can sustain against a soldier’s-built anything, though. And that’s what this whole thread is about. The killspeed is lower, objectively. It’s less consistent, objectively. It’s often less durable due to condition trait lines often providing more defensive bonuses inherently. There’s so much to say about the Dire/Soldier’s split, and how the damage distribution is totally unfair.

I’ve moved my S/S war to a burn mix and frequently get 6-10k ticks on people after they pop their cleanses. Usually such skills have 40-60s cooldowns, and it takes only 10s to provide enough pressure from FoF alone to force two cleanses, which is often what people run at most, since they need to also run stunbreaks and other utility in their kit to account for fighting against power-built players, ganks, etc. It isn’t as bursty as raw power, but that’s kind of the point of conditions: DoT. If it conditions could burst so hard, then we would see zero purpose at all for playing power anywhere except raids for PvE, and in all seriousness, the PvP would be dead in this game. If you enable the long-term bleed, you can force your opponent into a no-win position and get the full value from conditions.

Honestly, Daredevil actually has some of the best cleansing if played properly via EA. Core thief is garbo, but DrD fares quite well. This shouldn’t be the case, however, since as we should all recall, elite specs are not supposed to provide innate superiority to core, so we shouldn’t be looking to solve the problems of condition imbalance through elite specs, either. This also creates more disparity per build, which as I also mentioned above, is not something that’s healthy for the game at all.

I ran dire once, for a day, on an older thief. It was pathetically easy. Virtually free kills. I played with my elbows and then literally my face towards the end, and still managed to kill some people. Granted, this was pre-nerf SA, but the point still holds. People have done similar feats, but with playing with no weapons, etc (this is more of a dire + perplex thing exclusively, though).

I still do not understand why you consider the possibility of normalizing condition damage and power-based damage to be unreasonable.

Perplexity runes need a big nerf (to much confusion spam). Im fine with dire or condition builds in general. (power builds can just be as cheesy). I also liked the confusion that only did damage on skill use beter (now you get punished no mather what you do).

DeceiverX.8361:

I still do not understand why you consider the possibility of normalizing condition damage and power-based damage to be unreasonable.

You can either nerf condition dmg in general and make most condi builds useless or you can change how conditions work and basically make them the same as power builds. Why don’t just delete condis then?

You can also look at specific builds, figure out what skills and traits makes them so strong and nerf those. Because balance is not only about pure numbers. For example i haven’t seen a burnzerker yet in wvw. The few condi warriors i have met were not running tactics (PvP meta build doesn’t use tactics either – probably because it isn’t even that good as your numbers might suggest). Condi warriors are slow. Easy to kite, easy to outnumber, easy to run away from. And that’s actually true for many condi builds. Typically condi builds shine in straight up 1vs1 where the opponent fully commits to the fight and doesn’t try to disengage/reset/call for help. If you take away this single strengh – what is left for condi builds that would justify running condi over power?

Well a chnage (nerf) to confusion would propably solve it …

Wolfric.9380:

Well a chnage (nerf) to confusion would propably solve it …

Reverting it back to a damage on skill use would help but given you can stack a lot of confusion now as mesmer with relative ease with chronophantasma and illusionary reversion I don’t think it would completely stop the complaints.

A reduction in confusion application or torment but with it being compensated by a significant buff to burn from torch, burn and bleed from staff, clones and pistol might help Mesmer in PvE and stop being super cheesy in WvW.

Two problems that you highlight: (1) because players run sub-optimal condition cleanse, soldier’s fare less well comparatively to Dire builds, and (2) some classes have overpowered application of burn/confusion/torment.

I think we will have to disagree on number 1. It is not the responsibility of the condition build player that their opponent isn’t running enough condition cleanse. it might be a balance issue for their class—Anet might need to increase cleanse access to certain classes—but again that is not the fault of the person using conditions.

I also think we will have to disagree on the source of the problem for number 2. Again, I’d love to see how over-powered burn-zerker can be…but I haven’t seen it yet. All of your examples come from individual classes/builds that can use the high powered conditions (confusion/burn). So either the classes are unbalanced or those specific conditions are unbalanced.

That P/D can run Dire and not be over-powered shows class-side balance is the way to address your concerns. That I don’t see burn-zerker dire as a roaming spec shows it isn’t over-powered enough that people will choose it over other specs.

A final note—I don’t think posting more after this will be productive—sometimes a condition build will be superior to the power variant for a lot of non-armor reasons. Some classes/builds will beat others. Perfect balance isn’t possible. What is possible is relative parity which gives player skill/preparation an opportunity to make up the rest. If they took Dire out of the game they would have to take Soldiers with it. And Trailblazers/Wanderer. I merely suggest the balance I’m talking about is possible without removing four entire armor sets from the game.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

saerni.2584:

I noticed my condition damage went down with HoT. I added in some trailblazers to bring it back up. So it was adjusted.

False. All in your head.

saerni.2584:

I
P/P I can get 20k+ damage in about 4-5 seconds. That’s two unloads. A total of 10 initiative. This isn’t full zerkers, this is a mix and match of armor.

P/D, assuming I use all my utilities to increase my damage, and assuming the target is standing completely still, and assuming they don’t have passive traits that proc condition clears, I can tick maybe 6k? for a couple of seconds. Assuming I used two sneak attacks, it probably took me around 5-6 seconds and involved 12 initiative.

I compare these because they both are the same mainhand weapon. Likewise I would compare D/D builds, or D/P builds on both condi and zerker. I doubt the zerker is lacking for damage over the condition build (assuming one is zerker and the other dire).

That’s great testing and all on target golems, but try real players next time. It is not the raw damage, it is the stats and survivability with comparable damage that is the problem.

Incorrect. My P/P thief has 2800+ armor , a 42 percent base crit rate 18k vitality and a crit of over 200 percent base. This is marginally less then a thief in dire and he pumps out way more damage than that thief in dire. Those 10K unloads happen in WvW.

That armor/vitality certainly adds survivablity but he still dies just because other classes can pump out enough damage to overcome that armor in short order. This p/p thief outdamages any thief using conditions in Dire and has marginally less armor.

Go to that dire thief relying on conditions. In order for him to kill that power thief he needs to get a LOT more attacks off utilizing INI. His 200 extra armor is not going to save him or make that much a difference. Three+ unloads that hit he is dead whereas my power thief can easily take 3+ of the condition builds most powerful attacks.

Dire armor is not an issue. Enough power can be generated by most any build to eat through its advantage in short order and it has no more added survival against conditions than a power build in Valkyrie.

If, as claimed, Condition builds rampant what advantage does an person wearing Dire have over a person in Valkyrie against those conditions?

Dire armor is not an issue.

I am going to have to agree, it’s not any single thing, like it’s not just Dire, just as it’s not just Elite Spec, or Just the Sigil, it’s how we can mix this stuff together to get insane combos that is where things go wonky.

i think that confusion should go back as it was before they changed it.

doesn’t deal damage in pve? ok so put the same damage not 100 for skill use and 200 over time! what???

the game in itself has boosted up conditions for pve, but, if before only bleeding and confusion was stack intensity now all are.

if before 10s of poison was 100 a second of damage,
now 10 stacks of poison 10s it has become so its 100 × 10 × 10 hours, every second is -1k!

with cooldowns – traits-sigils-whatever condition removal same as before!!

Effects 4 and 6 on perplexity are a bit too strong. The on-interrupt effect should be the 25s cool down, and the passive on-hit effect should be one stack. Even with this change the rune would still be a very strong choice for condi-mesmers, condi thief and certain necro builds.

Just a small anecdote about perplexity rune:

I dueled a necromancer friend of mine in wvw nine times a few months ago (right before the condi-necro meta in pvp became big). We dueled 4 times (he was running a condi build + nightmare runes), and I definitely won all 4 times on my DH roamer (who has more condi-clear than you can shake a stick at). Then, a few hours later he bought a set of perplexity runes and we dueled 5 more times. The fight went from being completely in my favor to actually being slightly in his favor. Of the next 5 duels, I won twice (barely). I don’t know what else to chalk this up to other than those runes being op. On paper they don’t sound bad, but confusion can do too much damage too quickly if you are just a tad bit unlucky.

I concur that Perplexity runes. relative to all of the other runes that favor a specific condition, are overtuned.

I really disagree that dire should be removed. The reasoning is far too oversimplified, and doesn’t seem to hold up to scrutiny.

Dire/Trailblazer is an issue on Mesmers and Thieves because of how easily they can reset. Besides that, the high toughness and health are hardly an issue. With the amount of damage that came with elite specs and other buffs, no degree of health or toughness can save you at this point. Sure, you might be able to tank a few more hits if you’re not full glass, but it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be.

I run a full Trailblazer core Corruptomancer and although I have a heap of health (28k) and 3.2k armor, Warriors, Heralds, Mesmers, Thieves, Tempests and Dragonhunters, can cut through me like butter if they’re built for DPS.

Again, it’s really only an issue on Mesmer and Thief because of how easily they can reset if they mess up. On anything else, you shouldn’t be having a problem with them unless you’re built heavily in to defensives. In which case, you probably shouldn’t be roaming since roaming is pretty much about who’s gonna burst who first. Full offensive or GTFO.

As for Perplexity, I agree with some of the others. It’s not as bad as it used to be. I do however think the change to how Confusion functions was a poor choice. It does pretty significant damage even when you’re not attacking and I don’t think that’s fair considering it’s supposed to be a more strategically used condition.

What ever the case, I don’t think either of them need to be nerfed. Perhaps Confusion should have it’s functionality reverted but besides that, they’re both fine. You’re not going to be able to kill everything you encounter, some things aren’t worth your time simply because they have too much of an advantage. I don’t have much sustained condition removal on my Ranger for example (because I don’t use Druid) so I do my best to avoid 1v1’s against condition heavy opponents unless I have no choice. Avoiding a fight with someone who you know has a large advantage isn’t cowardice, wrong, bad or what ever else you want to call it. If Perplexity and Dire are giving you trouble, re-think your build to better deal with it or do your best to avoid it.

babazhook.6805:

Incorrect. My P/P thief has 2800+ armor , a 42 percent base crit rate 18k vitality and a crit of over 200 percent base. This is marginally less then a thief in dire and he pumps out way more damage than that thief in dire. Those 10K unloads happen in WvW.

That armor/vitality certainly adds survivablity but he still dies just because other classes can pump out enough damage to overcome that armor in short order. This p/p thief outdamages any thief using conditions in Dire and has marginally less armor.

Go to that dire thief relying on conditions. In order for him to kill that power thief he needs to get a LOT more attacks off utilizing INI. His 200 extra armor is not going to save him or make that much a difference. Three+ unloads that hit he is dead whereas my power thief can easily take 3+ of the condition builds most powerful attacks.

Dire armor is not an issue. Enough power can be generated by most any build to eat through its advantage in short order and it has no more added survival against conditions than a power build in Valkyrie.

If, as claimed, Condition builds rampant what advantage does an person wearing Dire have over a person in Valkyrie against those conditions?

Dire armor is not an issue.

Agreed with this. As I’d said in the comment above, health and toughness aren’t much of an advantage anymore. It used to be more problematic but with the damage you can pump out on just about any profession, no amount of health and toughness are going to save you unless you’re full bunk. Even then, you can get destroyed. I was running a full bunker Druid a few months ago and this glassy Tempest obliterated me so fast I may as well have been naked.

It does sound unbalanced that Dire/Trailblazer can pump out so much damage while also having a lot of health and toughness but their damage isn’t instant. It has a wind up and most power builds don’t need that wind up time. As always, it’s about not playing shot for shot with condition builds. You should be going fully aggressive to chew through their defenses before they can chew through yours. If you’re using an offensive build, it shouldn’t be hard to pressure them.

Think of it like your opponent has a small razor and light armor and you’re naked with a sword. You can let your opponent slash at your bare skin a bunch until you bleed out while you decide where you want to stab them or you can just cut them the hell in half.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Think of it like your opponent has a small razor and light armor and you’re naked with a sword. You can let your opponent slash at your bare skin a bunch until you bleed out while you decide where you want to stab them or you can just cut them the hell in half.

I think I’d go full berserker a lot more often if I had this image in mind all the time haha!