Guild Wars 2

I think this is an important topic for us to discuss. It was repeated that conditions needed to be shaved down, but I think it needs to happen even further.

Nothing promotes passive play like condition spamming, and it ruins small teams gameplay.

I’d just love to hear everybody’s thoughts on how conditions affect their classes. I know Eles have a very hard time with conditions, but we can combat them.

How does everybody else feel, and who are the culprits? Is it a class balance thing or should it be across the board?

are you talking about pve , pvp or wvw?

Yeah, you need to be more specific.

Condition in PvP is very strong, condition in PvE is very weak, condition in WvW depends, if you are in small fights/roaming it is strong, in zergs it is weak …

Condition damage player vs player wise is fine, it’s the active removal that needs a buff. Traits such as Diamond skin, Empathetic Bond and Automated Response to name a few need changing. The passive immunity or remove random x every x does not promote active play in the slightest. We need more active cleanses, and make them available to weaker classes.

The average engineer user can cleanse 2 every 15s with Healing turret (Elixir Gun) which cannot possibly counter a condi burst, even setups such as Elixir builds can cleanse 1 at a time with 1/2s on each. The Ranger is a second example, every ranger takes EB because it is the most reliable cleanse they have outside of healing spring (30s cooldown, again cannot counter burst).

The strange thing is if you look at this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQJArYCqbJEoH9y7BiRPImgJZA-ToAAzCpIgR5jzHDMyZszMWYGA

You will see that the scepter auto-attack only does 1071+476+1421/10 = 1689.1 condition damage / hit (I slighltly over stacked condition duration so it will be a bit weaker) in a best case scenario, other weapons hit harder then 1689 damage with their auto attack if i’m not mistaken in an optimal scenario. So how are conditions broken?

@Tim

The problem people have with conditions in a PvP environment is that a condition build is essentially lay your damage down and watch it work. Most condition players overkill and play them as if they are playing a power build. Almost every good condition damage build has a good auto attack to go with it also laying conditions. If the enemy is forced to back off or you are forced to back off or use los the conditions are still working where as the power players damage isn’t being applied.

Yet the majority of players still go power. (and complain about conditions)

I’ve mentioned it in the PvP forums, but I’ll do so here as well: A boon that works against conditions should be added to the game and classes that need them, as Torment was added to the game to buff conditions. If it were either implemented in a way that reduced condition duration by 50% or worked like Retaliation except it damaged the condition applier, I would be a happy camper.

Something needs to be done to change conditions in general. Whether that’s a new boon, or adding condition removal to specs that desperately need it, I trust ANet to balance it correctly.

alanis.6094:

Yet the majority of players still go power. (and complain about conditions)

I don’t think the majority of the people complaining are “going power” I just think people are pointing out that going conditions is much more effective then going power. Just about every class can put together a competitive power build in PvP but not every class can put together a competitive condition build.

oZii.2864:

@Tim

The problem people have with conditions in a PvP environment is that a condition build is essentially lay your damage down and watch it work. Most condition players overkill and play them as if they are playing a power build. Almost every good condition damage build has a good auto attack to go with it also laying conditions. If the enemy is forced to back off or you are forced to back off or use los the conditions are still working where as the power players damage isn’t being applied.

Of course it does that’s damage that you have yet to receive that is catching up.
example :
both players hit for 1K on condition damage spread over ten seconds other physical with an attack speed of 1 hit/s. So after 10 seconds the physical damage user did 10K and the conditon user 5~6K with 5~4 K catching up.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQJArYCqbKApCXPpI7vhKsb0DiBIZA-jQCBYhgINA0CApoFRjtgRIq8RjVdDTHjIq2crIa1SBAx0I-e

with this build you max out on your bleed duration with 133%
each auto attach apply a 1 bleed for about 132 per second for 9 seconds for at total of 1188. add the direct damage and its 1318 per auto attack every 9 seconds.

so full auto attack rotaion will do 1318+1318+2006 = 4642 dmg over 9 seconds or 515 dps

now the only way conditions can be somewhat useful in pve is if we can maintain 25 stacks of bleeds on our own.

132*25= 3300 per second

Now a warrior can HB for 50k+ withing 3 seconds while a condi necro with full stacks of bleeds will only be able to reach 9900 damage withing that same time frame.

I intended this to be across the board. Pvp and WvW. I do mostly WvW, and I only do small teams. So conditions are a menace anywhere I go.

Another issue I have with conditions are they are mostly ranged. I feel like if anything, conditions should be melee only, as ranged just gives them an excuse to kite the heck out of players.

Ozii hit the nail on the head. It is obnoxious that they spam, need to take a break, and their damage is still ticking. Of course you can be smart about this, but I think it merits some extra shaving down.

I would love to see virtually all condi clears get an extra condi removed, and their duration decreased by 15%. I’d be ok with the way things were if that were the case.

Mbelch, are you even serious?

Serious troll is serious.

Tim.6450:

oZii.2864:

@Tim

The problem people have with conditions in a PvP environment is that a condition build is essentially lay your damage down and watch it work. Most condition players overkill and play them as if they are playing a power build. Almost every good condition damage build has a good auto attack to go with it also laying conditions. If the enemy is forced to back off or you are forced to back off or use los the conditions are still working where as the power players damage isn’t being applied.

Of course it does that’s damage that you have yet to receive that is catching up.
example :
both players hit for 1K on condition damage spread over ten seconds other physical with an attack speed of 1 hit/s. So after 10 seconds the physical damage user did 10K and the conditon user 5~6K with 5~4 K catching up.

The physical user has to stay connected to target and keep applying damage. With enough investment in condition damage a few attacks and the condition user can kite and reapply when needed.

Conditions are a attrition playstyle of course but most people going condition builds know this.

I have a Necro, Thief, and Mesmer who are classes that I will run condition builds on. When I go out on my conditionmancer I am not expecting to kill people in 5 seconds as if I was running a zerk life blast build. I could care less how fast I kill most people just that they die.

If your main form of decided damage is DOT’s then you already know you need TIME for the damage to happen that is the nature of conditions. You already made that choice when you made your build how you will kill.

In PvE which this discussion wasn’t really around the optimal is to kill as fast as possible which is something conditions don’t do because you have to load them up.

Too much condi clear causes situations where even if you aren’t condition reliant you can’t get some base level conditions like cripple, or a small insignificant 0 condi power amount of bleeds to stick and are just having effectivity drop.

Eg. You are playing elementalist and have a heap load of burning but the second you are out of fire attunment you’ve got no burning, your weakness from air is gone, the chill that already lasts for near nothing is gone because they have more condi clear than you have condi variety and frequency. That’s all cool if they spec for it, but if it’s too easy to grab it’s just going to invalidate certain aspects. Elementalists do have condition damage but 1) they never live to see it out 2) it always gets cleared. An Elementalist can easily put out 30+ seconds of burning on someone in 3 seconds, and get something like 11k damage out of that burn for it’s entire duration, but who can’t clear that? Throw in bleeding and it still gets cleared. Throw in cripple/weakness/chill and it still won’t matter. The Warrior before they got some buffs had trouble with their Sword/X specs keeping any bleeds on a target because it was so easy to cleanse. Which is kind of the problem, some condi clear options are just so strong, they invalidate a lot of things except for absolute whirlwinds of conditions. Some condi cleanse are so weak they’re almost worthless especially in front of condition nukes.

Oh and the Randomish condi proc traits are so lame.
I can take pain response but have it proc on the most useless crap ever and then suddenly find a necro and get condi bombed. Won’t even bother with that trait with the experience I’ve had with it, unreliable to a fault

Then there is being on an Ele, and without Ether renewal its easy to find a wall of conditions on yourself that frequently reapplied due to random procs + extra condi’s on the weapon swap skills or tool kits.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ve mentioned it in the PvP forums, but I’ll do so here as well: A boon that works against conditions should be added to the game and classes that need them, as Torment was added to the game to buff conditions. If it were either implemented in a way that reduced condition duration by 50% or worked like Retaliation except it damaged the condition applier, I would be a happy camper.

Something needs to be done to change conditions in general. Whether that’s a new boon, or adding condition removal to specs that desperately need it, I trust ANet to balance it correctly.

They could call it “Purity.” >.>

Alternatively, increasing the damage scaling but reducing durations and/or reducing availability could also work. The current issue is conditions get re-applied so fast that a lot of cleansing can’t keep up. If conditions showed up with less frequency, not only would weaker cleanses be more meaningful, but we could start looking at condition immunities in a similar light to damage immunities (note how Diamond Skin/Automated Response have no damage equivalent). Also, I think it would make conditions somewhat more active since you couldn’t just frontload all your damage – wouldn’t necessarily be able to rebuild your stacks so easily. Instead, skillful use of conditions would would become a thing since you’d need to watch cleanse timers and save things like Signet of Spite until you’ve baited them.
Additionally, changing durations or availability would add one of two other benefits: (1) changing durations would place some emphasis on getting condition duration, which, while it’s useful now, is not necessarily needed since cleansing is fairly common and reapplication overwrites the need for time extension; (2) changing availability would help alleviate some pressure on stack caps, since unintentional, weaker application via traits or whatnot would be less common.

I actually think it is quite balanced right now, with enough condition duration REDUCTION, I feel quite inferior than my opponent. Especailly when you can stack around (or more) than 60% condition duration reduction. So we can only rely on stacking, which we can’t really stack too high with low duration. Not to mention stacking have a cap on it, and lets not forget normal condition removal means. All this and still I think it is balanced.

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ve mentioned it in the PvP forums, but I’ll do so here as well: A boon that works against conditions should be added to the game and classes that need them, as Torment was added to the game to buff conditions. If it were either implemented in a way that reduced condition duration by 50% or worked like Retaliation except it damaged the condition applier, I would be a happy camper.

Something needs to be done to change conditions in general. Whether that’s a new boon, or adding condition removal to specs that desperately need it, I trust ANet to balance it correctly.

I personally agree with you that there should be a boon that combats conditions. I disagree as to how it should do that. A 50% duration drop effects very low duration conditions much more then long lasting ones. Such as immobilize, chilled, crippling, blind, weakness, and it even negatively impacts vulnerability. My suggestion would be a boon that reduces the damage done by conditions. Lets say 33% damage reduction. This is a significant drop in damage, and combine with cleansing this could work rather well.

Other solutions outside of boons that don’t just completely destroy the condition build would be immunity to some conditions. Lets say, something like a trait like “Frigid Armor: You are immune to burning” or “clear conscience: You are immune to torment”. It doesn’t have to be immunity either. The engineer’s Transmute is a great example of good condition counter design through traits. Or we can go the opposite direction. Such as the more conditions you have on you, your damage is increased. If each stack of bleed was counted to your damage increase as well, we could have a very interesting situation where you are on a clock with the conditions, but able to deal far more damage.

reduction of condition duration should be limited to traits and runes in my opinion. I feel a boon would be a bit too destructive to condition builds especially at a 50%.

Conditions in general suffer from scaling, and before they are overly nerfed or buffed, you have to balance the whole system. Let me explain:

As a single attack, almost every condition attack deals less damage than a critical hit with a power attack, this is as designed since conditions ignore armor, protection, and evades. This is a relevant comparison, since you can fairly easily get over 40% crit on a power specced toon.

In addition, conditions can be removed through condition removal skills. In this way, you have skills that can reduce condition damage by over 50%. However, as many people have noted here, in return you get damage that is virtually unavoidable.

The problem comes from the fact that conditions need to be balanced throughout the game. Many people complaining about them here are running either small ops WvW or SPvP I’d assert. In these situations, removing any active or passive block can remove a significant amount of DR, since smaller ops groups reply on personal skill and mitigation to survive.

However, when you enter larger scale play, conditions are hilariously underpowered. This is due to the vast amount of condition removal play available through well of power, pure of voice, soldier runes, shake it off, and other such party condition removals. In a larger scale fight, conditions are removed within seconds.

So how do you balance the two scenarios? If you grant a new boon for anti-condition duration, you’re encouraging passive play which most people don’t want. If you grant a new boon for anti-condition damage, you’re removing the point of conditions. If you buff condition removal you widen the gap I just described, causing them to be less useful in larger battles, and you also increase the reliance on said condition removal skills.

IF people agree that this is a problem, and IF we want the fix it in a fair and balanced manner, the only way to do so in a reliable manner is to reduce the rate at which conditions are applied, and simultaneously nerf most party condition removal.

The above solution reduces the reliance on condition removal, while making individual condition removals stronger. Nerfing party based removal narrows the gap between the two play styles and encourages more combo play (ala light fields, for example).

@Lily.1935
I really like your idea. There are already mobs like some destroyers, I think, that are immune to burning. Now introduzing skills, as u suggested is a very nice idea. I like funny names for skills like “Hot feet”, where you get quickness, the next time you suffer from burning (just make sure you aren’t confused at this time^^).

You know, the counter doesn’t have to be a direct counter to the conditions, but may give you boons to compensate. I like it.

I think OP keeps getting owned by Necros and doesn’t want to adapt.

Mbelch.9028:

Ozii hit the nail on the head. It is obnoxious that they spam, need to take a break, and their damage is still ticking. Of course you can be smart about this, but I think it merits some extra shaving down.

If you are power specced, then you should be able to kill a condition spec before his conditions kill you. Power/crit is burst, condition is attrition. Of course he will try to kite you, what else can he do? Just bring utilities to break his kiting. Otherwise, if you bring utilities that only maximize your damage at close range, and don’t carry a condition cleansing utility, don’t expect to be able to surive a kiting condition spec. You are basically ignoring all your nemesis’s strenghts and trying to kill it like it was a sitting duck.

Mbelch.9028:

I would love to see virtually all condi clears get an extra condi removed, and their duration decreased by 15%. I’d be ok with the way things were if that were the case.

Yeah, and let’s give additional armor to all condition specs, why not? And the cooldown on your burst skills increased in 15%.

Condition classes belong in the same category as AI builds, in that you are essentially doing nothing and letting the game play for you through complete passiveness. Hexway was a problem in GW1 and its even worse in GW2.

To all posters saying condis are attrition, clearly you are not playing the same game as everyone else because condis in this game have the ability to burst targets down with condition damage. That’s something “attrition” classes should not have. Not to mention all condi classes are ranged and build extremely tank with overall innate survivability. They have the best of everything: is tanky, is ranged, has amazing dps, loaded with CCs.

Get back to GW1’s system.

Wait am I reading this right? People are complaining about condition damage??? We should be complaining about crit damage approaching 115%. Crit and crit damage are the real problem here. Not lol condition damage.

Gnat.9405:

I think OP keeps getting owned by Necros and doesn’t want to adapt.

This is exactly the problem

All I am hearing is ranting about condition damage being able to tick and do damage without los, and that it is easy to do? Keeping conditions up on a target requires some skill, but having the option to be a condi build increases choices on playstyle for a player. Every game has its DoT classes; We don’t want the game to be completely centered around power stacking builds do we? No of course not, conditions are in a good place at the moment and should not be messed with. Every profession has its own way of dealing with conditions. It’s always going to be the same tradeoff; if you focus on condition defense, you’re going to lack in another area. It’s basic economics applied to profession balance.

Star.8401:

All I am hearing is ranting about condition damage being able to tick and do damage without los, and that it is easy to do? Keeping conditions up on a target requires some skill, but having the option to be a condi build increases choices on playstyle for a player. Every game has its DoT classes; We don’t want the game to be completely centered around power stacking builds do we? No of course not, conditions are in a good place at the moment and should not be messed with. Every profession has its own way of dealing with conditions. It’s always going to be the same tradeoff; if you focus on condition defense, you’re going to lack in another area. It’s basic economics applied to profession balance.

Actually condition builds are in a really bad place at the moment, its balanced very poorly. In PvE they are made worthless by bad minor trait placement and 25 stack limit. In PvP you get to play rock, paper, scissors with your builds and just HOPE that you don’t run into your hard counter.

the problem with conditions imo is not even conditions themself but the fact that you can build full tank and do as much dmg as glass build via conditions

if you go power/condi (like scepter necro) it is even worse

i think conditions need to get same threatment as power builds:
- if you want to do dmg with power build you need power/prec/crit dmg, you can sacrifice one of the stats for survival but it is still sacrifice; same should happen for condis, you should lose dmg if you gain survival

- you shouldn’t be able to stack a lot of power and condi at the same time

- condis need to be less spammy; if i run direct dmg build and miss my attack, i lose dmg… condis are more forgiving (cough scepter AA)… that shouldn’t be happening

as far as pve go: i think each player should have his own stack of conditions on target however only in pve

i find biggest offenders are necros and engis

i can’t say much about engis as i don’t play them, but i do play necro: scepter AA + trait is toooooooo strong as an example

Anyone who starts pointing fingers at necromancer is bound to lose em..
Please look at how squish condi necro’s really are. alo look at the Damage conditions do in general and who has acces to what you’ll see necro’s aren’t top dog in sustain with condi’s.

Cynz, please don’t make them take our only real build away! ^^

Necros tend to do well in 1v1, do great in SPvP and are invaluable in medium-small groups.

I think necros need an increase in mobility, but are in an OK place past that. The issue lies with conditions overall..

And tim, several posts back you asked if I was trolling? I’m afraid not my friend. I don’t troll.

But just to respond to some of the ‘downers’.. here are a few responses to feed you.

Gnat.9405:

I think OP keeps getting owned by Necros and doesn’t want to adapt.

I don’t. I did die twice to a necro earlier today. He was quite good. We dueled 6 times and he got me three times. His build chilled me and kited me around, but he was genius with signet of spite. I think necros are in a good place, I think conditions are out of balance. If you disagree, fine. If you want to duel me, contact me in game. Next.

Aenesthesia.1697:

Mbelch.9028:

Ozii hit the nail on the head. It is obnoxious that they spam, need to take a break, and their damage is still ticking. Of course you can be smart about this, but I think it merits some extra shaving down.

If you are power specced, then you should be able to kill a condition spec before his conditions kill you. Power/crit is burst, condition is attrition. Of course he will try to kite you, what else can he do? Just bring utilities to break his kiting. Otherwise, if you bring utilities that only maximize your damage at close range, and don’t carry a condition cleansing utility, don’t expect to be able to surive a kiting condition spec. You are basically ignoring all your nemesis’s strenghts and trying to kill it like it was a sitting duck.

You’re right, that’s what he’s left to do. That’s only some condition builds though. That’s basically a mesmer build and a necro build, there are others that keep in your face while tanking you and applying devastating conditions. Warriors using longbow mace sword can do a devastating 1v1 build in this way. I’m no glass cannon, so I think you’re a little off base. The goal of SOME power builds are to burst, but the goal of others is to put off burst and do enough damage to overcome in that fashion. I do that, and I do OK.

Mbelch.9028:

I would love to see virtually all condi clears get an extra condi removed, and their duration decreased by 15%. I’d be ok with the way things were if that were the case.

Yeah, and let’s give additional armor to all condition specs, why not? And the cooldown on your burst skills increased in 15%.

Well, I’m no warrior, so…. Burst skills aren’t for me. Try again soon. It was a simple proposition. If you have a constructive criticism on it, say so. If you disagree, also say so. I really feel that is an appropriate change. If others don’t, so be it. It’s just a suggestion, and good for you all, I’m not a game designer.

Cynz.9437:

the problem with conditions imo is not even conditions themself but the fact that you can build full tank and do as much dmg as glass build via conditions

if you go power/condi (like scepter necro) it is even worse

i think conditions need to get same threatment as power builds:
- if you want to do dmg with power build you need power/prec/crit dmg, you can sacrifice one of the stats for survival but it is still sacrifice; same should happen for condis, you should lose dmg if you gain survival

- you shouldn’t be able to stack a lot of power and condi at the same time

- condis need to be less spammy; if i run direct dmg build and miss my attack, i lose dmg… condis are more forgiving (cough scepter AA)… that shouldn’t be happening

as far as pve go: i think each player should have his own stack of conditions on target however only in pve

i find biggest offenders are necros and engis

i can’t say much about engis as i don’t play them, but i do play necro: scepter AA + trait is toooooooo strong as an example

I’m going to point out a few problems with your post.

1. Full defensive gear does not get a condi build full damage. There is also no full defensive gear for conditions for PvP. Dire gear is the closets thing to full defensive a condition build can get out side of PvP. And that isn’t full defensive considering that its primary stat is condition not toughness or vitality. For the Full damage part, a Condition build loses about 10 stacks of bleed with “fully” defensive gear. This is close to 1k damage a second in losses.

2. Condition damage uses 3 stats to for its damage scaling. Condition damage, condition duration and precision. Now I know some people don’t consider condition duration as a stat, but it is. This is very important for a condition build and the condition build sacrifices a lot of potential defense in order to get this duration. Also, Condition builds for the most part rely rather heavily on precision as many of their traits and sigils trigger extra stacks of w/e condition they rely on in order to deal damage.

3. Condition builds can’t out damage power builds. Conditions have a static scaling. Which means that no matter what the opponent’s armor is, it will always deal the same amount of damage. raw damage is different. Its damage goes up and down depending on the opponent. Power builds have a much higher damage cap then Conditions do.

4. Conditions need time. Another problem is that conditions deal damage over time. As we all know. But what this also means that a condition might have a potential of 1k damage before it ends. If it is removed right away that is potentially only 100 damage taken. A 90% damage reduction. And you didn’t have to spec full defensive gear to get a 90% damage reduction. You just needed to know what you where doing.

5. I would love a full damage condition armor. I would run it for sure. Condition Damage, precision and Condition duration. That would be absolutely awesome.

This condition meta is powerful enough to scare me off my meditation guardian with 2 condition removing utilities to play on my necro and spend most of the fight just transferring them back. I’ve seen the arguments of both sides, but I honestly can’t agree with the people who say conditions are fine with the state that removal is currently in. Condition damage just reeks of a lack of foresight since most classes’ ability to defend from it is either borderline obnoxious or nonexistent. The way condition damage usefulness falls off or spikes through the roof in certain scenarios (roaming, zerging, pve, etc) also doesn’t help.

I’m honestly in the mindset that conditions need to be reworked and that won’t happen.

There is a way to balance condition specs for PvE without pushing them over the edge in PvP. It has to do with stats on gear mostly, and also the condition “cap”.

Currently even the most dps oriented condition builds in pve have high toughness, yet cannot keep up with the damage of power. If they added a berserker equivalent stat combo for condition users that boosted their damage further at the cost of survival, then perhaps that would make them usable in pve.

Hexer’s Armor: 70 Condition Damage, 5% Condition duration, 40 Precision.

Yes 5% seems low, but when you add it all up from trinkets, armor, etc. it ends up being 40-50% or maybe higher with weapons. The food would probably have to be brought way down for players to want to use this gear as well.

The second issue is the cap. One stack of burning/poison per mob, and 25 stacks of bleeding and torment per mob. On world bosses this just becomes ridiculous, and it is bad enough in 5man dungeons with more than one condition user.

My simple solution to this is either give world(raid)bosses a higher cap. Lets say 100 players are killing Teq, so make the cap for him 2,000 bleeds, 20 burning, 20 poison… you get the idea. I believe this solution could work with their technical limitations, yes?

Another idea would be to shorten the duration of bleeds but make them do more damage… I dont like this one as much, and it has a higher potential to be OP in pvp.

sPvp:

1. Should not be as powerful as zerker while being tanky. – Solution: changes to Amulets and runes.

2. Less cleave/AoE Spam. – Solution: More Single target and disabling effects. (not immobilize)

3. shorter durations. – Solution: Nerf base duration, reduce rune bonus.

Daishi.6027:

sPvp:

1. Should not be as powerful as zerker while being tanky. – Solution: changes to Amulets and runes.

2. Less cleave/AoE Spam. – Solution: More Single target and disabling effects. (not immobilize)

3. shorter durations. – Solution: Nerf base duration, reduce rune bonus.

1. Isn’t anywhere close to Zerker damage output due to the multiplicitive nature of direct damage. Also, needs to be reasonably durable so that they can survive long enough for the conditions to actually work.

2. How is this relevant in 1v1 which is where the complaints are all based on?

3. Feasible, but reducing the rune duration bonus is silly.

I appreciate all the responses. I don’t think I agree with the 50% condi duration armor. I suppose it isn’t any different than crit dmg though.

If that happened we’d 100% have to drop that food from the game..

Monoman.2068:

This condition meta is powerful enough to scare me off my meditation guardian with 2 condition removing utilities to play on my necro and spend most of the fight just transferring them back. I’ve seen the arguments of both sides, but I honestly can’t agree with the people who say conditions are fine with the state that removal is currently in. Condition damage just reeks of a lack of foresight since most classes’ ability to defend from it is either borderline obnoxious or nonexistent. The way condition damage usefulness falls off or spikes through the roof in certain scenarios (roaming, zerging, pve, etc) also doesn’t help.

I’m honestly in the mindset that conditions need to be reworked and that won’t happen.

Haha. I like your response.

As far as conditions go… I think the mess we have now is the product of a series decisions that went down since launch.

At launch, condition cleansing was originally much more powerful. I can’t provide many examples off the top of my had, but one such example is Mantra of Resolve, which used to cleanse every condition you had on a 20 second cooldown, but only once before needing a recharge. A lot of condition cleansing was like this, but as time went on full cleanses were nerfed, and conditions themselves kept getting more and more buffs.

With cleansing taking on a limited approach, spam became much more important. Originally there were no “covering” conditions at first, and dumping them all was more likely to make you lose than anything else. Now, you can spam without abandon, since so many classes don’t have a full cleanse. The ones that do have it on a long cooldown, much longer than their blocks or their dodges.

Personally, I would like to see it go back a bit to how it was around release: more full cleanses on shorter cooldowns.

oZii.2864:

alanis.6094:

Yet the majority of players still go power. (and complain about conditions)

I don’t think the majority of the people complaining are “going power” I just think people are pointing out that going conditions is much more effective then going power. Just about every class can put together a competitive power build in PvP but not every class can put together a competitive condition build.

I want more access to stability on my necro but I don’t have it.

Get what I am saying here?

No class has access to everything – well maybe warriors but that’s it.

If not full cleanses, I’d like to see more targetted and priority based cleanses. The current system of trying to cover conditions just leads to too much UI watching.

Either way, if condition application is near guaranteed, then cleansing needs to be closer to near guaranteed as well.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

As far as conditions go… I think the mess we have now is the product of a series decisions that went down since launch.

At launch, condition cleansing was originally much more powerful. I can’t provide many examples off the top of my had, but one such example is Mantra of Resolve, which used to cleanse every condition you had on a 20 second cooldown, but only once before needing a recharge. A lot of condition cleansing was like this, but as time went on full cleanses were nerfed, and conditions themselves kept getting more and more buffs.

With cleansing taking on a limited approach, spam became much more important. Originally there were no “covering” conditions at first, and dumping them all was more likely to make you lose than anything else. Now, you can spam without abandon, since so many classes don’t have a full cleanse. The ones that do have it on a long cooldown, much longer than their blocks or their dodges.

Personally, I would like to see it go back a bit to how it was around release: more full cleanses on shorter cooldowns.

While I personally wholeheartedly agree, I only want to point out that there will be more balancing issues if we go this route. Condition eles or condition rangers will suffer since burning and bleeding are their main conditions, and at least eles can’t apply much else aside from that.

I think if they just tune down conditions as a whole, the current cleanses would be sufficient.

I will add I thin torment was the worst addition to gw2.

Proven.2854:

If not full cleanses, I’d like to see more targetted and priority based cleanses. The current system of trying to cover conditions just leads to too much UI watching.

Either way, if condition application is near guaranteed, then cleansing needs to be closer to near guaranteed as well.

Yeah I can get behind this. I wish I could pick what was removed first second and third. That should be an option every class can prioritize.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

1. Isn’t anywhere close to Zerker damage output due to the multiplicitive nature of direct damage. Also, needs to be reasonably durable so that they can survive long enough for the conditions to actually work.

2. How is this relevant in 1v1 which is where the complaints are all based on?

3. Feasible, but reducing the rune duration bonus is silly.

lol? Do you have any idea? Ok sure condis won’t thief insta gib or 75% in 5-7 second dual shatter combo.

But doing the same damage if not more over 10 seconds with unmitigated (via stats) damage, that are easily reapplied and stacked up from things like auto attacks AND relatively short cool downs with incredibly long durations. The 30-50 multiplier doesn’t even compare. Then consider these condi power builds all spec into a defensive stats? Lol I’d agree that the tankyness would be valid IF it didn’t hit like a long lasting truck from the get go.

It all comes down to why even bother running glass when you can be just as effective if not more so and carry team fights harder?

The only exception to that is warrior but war is in a similar position in a different way.

just kill zerker critical damage and you just made damage over time support and control 10 time more attractive

The problem with conditions, is that they are in a terrible state for PVE. So if you slap a big nerf on conditions, just to balance them for pvp, you break them for PVE beyond the point of breaking.

I think they either need to come up with a solution that fixes conditions for both pvp (makes them less OP) and for PVE (makes them more useful)… or they need to split the changes between PVP and PVE. But I pray to Grenth that they don’t do another balance patch with one-eye closed, like we had several times before.

Daishi.6027:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

1. Isn’t anywhere close to Zerker damage output due to the multiplicitive nature of direct damage. Also, needs to be reasonably durable so that they can survive long enough for the conditions to actually work.

2. How is this relevant in 1v1 which is where the complaints are all based on?

3. Feasible, but reducing the rune duration bonus is silly.

lol? Do you have any idea?

Do you? My guess is that you haven’t actually run the math.

In PvE, using Exotic Dire armor, Runes of the Scavenger, rabid dagger off-hand, Ascended raibd scepter and all jewelry (trinkets are Dire/Rabid) + back piece, adding in Rare Veggie Pizza and a Grandmaster Tuning Crystal, 25 stacks of Sigil of Corruption and a Sigil of Bursting in a 30/30/0/10/0 build (running both Hemophilia and Lingering Curse) on my necro, the auto attack does about 1.2k damage over 8 seconds. These are numbers that are impossible to achieve in PvP.

Compare to any number of Berserker auto attacks that average 2-4k (and usually hit faster!).

But doing the same damage if not more over 10 seconds with unmitigated (via stats) damage, that are easily reapplied and stacked up from things like auto attacks AND relatively short cool downs with incredibly long durations.

So, what’s the cooldown on a berserker auto-attack? Mitigated by stats, perhaps, but they still hit harder, and, unlike conditions, you can’t cleanse them early to reduce it. When it takes me 2 attacks and another 9 seconds afterward to deal the same damage a berserker does in 1 attack instantly…

The 30-50 multiplier doesn’t even compare.

Up to +25% from vulnerability, likely +103% on a crit, various +5% and +10% boosts from traits and occasional runes, and that’s the PvP sutff (PvE/WvW goes higher). Yeah, it compares. It compares really, really well.

Then consider these condi power builds all spec into a defensive stats? Lol I’d agree that the tankyness would be valid IF it didn’t hit like a long lasting truck from the get go.

The tankyness is necessary. One, there is no Brserker equivalent for condition damage, so it’s literally not even an option. Two, the condition damage build has to be able to survive long enough for their conditions to work and get a kill. In a hypothetical “glass cannon condition” set, the condition user would be dead long before he would ever get a kill unless he outplayed his opponent to such a degree that he literally could win with anything.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Do you? My guess is that you haven’t actually run the math.

The math seems fine on paper, but in practice it’s different. Yes PvE it’s fine, WvW I don’t know but I never thought of it as a balanced part of the game anyways.

In PvP I myself and anyone else can run a engie, necro, or ranger and 1v1 easily outlast and kill a thief, mesmer, or ele.* While chewing away significantly at bunkers,** and carrying team fights with ease and at little risk to myself.

Within the 600-300 bracket*** vs a plethora of 40 - high 50’s/low 60’s and the only real thing that ruins my day is a good warrior, and even then the bad ones still break... Comparing my damage maybe not tick for tick but effectiveness vs any glass cannon who has easily avoidable burst skills, along with damage mitigated by armor. There is no match when I consider my built in survivability and how fast things melt when speccing for damage, even more so when I can just apply the main damage dealer at range with auto attacks or AoE that would keep runners in combat...

It is true in situations like necro you can be out run by the abundance of either mobility or combat mobility but often I have killed people trying to run far off the point as my condis have ticked while capping. Yes those players didn’t have a condi remover but doing that removes burst potental so even if we DO compare a 1v1 scinero with a bursty build except maybe guardian. running removal they make themselves significantly weaker just to deal with the myriad of conditions.

* I realize ele isn’t meta but the few who are around.
** Not so much with Ranger
*** I Only have done Mesmer and Guardian 200+ so I don’t actually know first hand what condi is like against the actually good players xD. But I think the mid to high range is a good enough to use for a reference.

I really don’t think its a class balance issue at all, it’s a system issue. The condition and boon systems are both invisible and lack any play to counterplay beyond slotted hard counters.