Well I being an engi 100% of the time, have a limited understanding compared, however I have found that when i do condition builds i can easily out-damage power builds, with attack-to-attack count. The difference is time. i.e. i can do 40k+ burn damage with just a few quick attacks, but i do have to wait for the time it takes to burn. Which I find fair considering condition damage bypasses armor and requires something to stop it. And in PvE its very easy to just step back, or switch targets, or dodge and avoid and let them burn to death. In fact i kinda like to do that.
But IMO the real problem i tend to see is the way players tend to build, they go all out for one or the other. A good build should never rely on one thing, whether it be only condition damage, or crits, or whatever, balance is the key in GW2, it has always been that way. They call the power builds Glass Cannons, for a reason, well most condition builds I’ve seen in action have very big weaknesses too. As do crit-builds, and bunkers. The trinity can be forced, true, but again IMO i feel its not the wisest path in GW2.
Rather than trying to build your characters to only fill one part of the trinity, build it to fill all 3. Balance a little and see the strength in everything. My Celestial build, which I affectionately call Champ-Killer, is just that, a nicely balance build that can solo most champs in the game. There’s still a few i haven’t quite succeeded soloing yet, but I’m getting there :P
Now the fix for conditions on targets when dealing with stacks is where I do agree there should be a change. The way I see it the math can be changed to help with limitations and better represent the fact there are more than 25 stacks happening.
1st: Change the base feature of stacks to represent individual players attacking. Each players single stack will adjust to represent duration and damage per tick. This will remove the ridiculous compounded formulas created by the current stack system now, and most likely free up the server computational limits.
2nd: AoE effects. Currently the target limitations are due to the fact the AoE fields (circular ones) mark all targets in field at the same time. Again the math is super complicated for no reason. The circle effects themselves don’t need to be change graphically, just the way they hit their targets. Best idea I can come up with is based off the way that vale, and other such line shaped AoE effects pretty much work well and hit everything that passes through it, this same effect can be made with in the circles, like the minute hand on a clock; the AoE circle would do a sweep of the hand 360 degrees every tick, and all targets with in the AoE can be targeted and effected.
If they insist on the silliness of the AoE effect splits up among the targets still, then this would at least open up the math to increase the number of targets able to be hit, by allowing the targets to be recounted each tick and hit different targets, therefore effecting more with each tick. The servers should be able to handle this, considering they do this already with compounded stack system + multiple AoE’s at same location.
3rd: Rebalance to help even the playing field will be a must if these two steps are met.
Lastly the effects of conditions on structures and such. I kinda like the idea just not the choices of what a structure is. Teq for example should absolutely be immune to several conditions, like poison, confusion, even fire since he lives underwater and maybe to wet to burn? Whatever, just have some logic about it please. Same goes with all critters, like bleed on elementals? They don’t have blood, and love to see fire not damage fire….duh. Finally critters that are counted as structures, need to be seriously reconsidered. The fingers again can be immune to several logical conditions, but they should not be treated like a wall. Its a moving critter. You can still make them tough as nails but lets have some logic to it. Please.
