Guild Wars 2

@insanemaniac

Isn’t that the best way to do this sort of test? Testing Zerker Scepter Necro vs Condi Scepter necro is unpractical. I understand to get the most accurate test but it isn’t what people will run.

I guess using uniform specs and just changing the gear would be a much easier time to determine condi vs power dps.

I would be interested in the DPS full rabid vs full dire I think like you said the criticals will make a big difference and dire is the tankier option of the 2. I know on my engineer with very low power pry bar hits for around 2k on a crit hiting a light or medium target. That is a substantial boost in DPS over a full dire set that might not crit pry bar at all.

oZii.2864:

@insanemaniac

Isn’t that the best way to do this sort of test? Testing Zerker Scepter Necro vs Condi Scepter necro is unpractical. I understand to get the most accurate test but it isn’t what people will run.

I guess using uniform specs and just changing the gear would be a much easier time to determine condi vs power dps.

I would be interested in the DPS full rabid vs full dire I think like you said the criticals will make a big difference and dire is the tankier option of the 2. I know on my engineer with very low power pry bar hits for around 2k on a crit hiting a light or medium target. That is a substantial boost in DPS over a full dire set that might not crit pry bar at all.

right but i think theres a major disconnect that we arent really acknowledging… the people that believe condi is flat out better believe because theyre comparing an optimal condi build w/ full dire to an optimal power build w/ full soldier… or perhaps a mixed dire/rabid with just enough crit to keep the procs proccing. but full dire is a lot closer to optimal than full soldier… like in an optimal defensive power build you have 0 pieces of soldier, and all knight/cav/zerk/valk. but full soldier is legit, its optimal for large groups — it has marginally more survivability from the vit your investing in instead of crit, and you can depend on everyone focusing fire for burst instead of critting big hits.

so how should I proceed with the tests?

Carighan.6758:

hooma.9642:

3. how i said in my post. dodging bullsrush destroys the whole burst combo. the same goes for a lot of raw dmg bursts but for this example its the easiest to show. on the other hand dodging 1 aa just negates the condiapplication of that aa, but not the condiapplication via trait or sigills or runes. if the attack isnt hitting, the traits ( some have no cooldown) and runes dont go on cooldown. as example you could fight against a necro with dhuumfire and dodge 90% of his attacks. u would still get burned.

There is absolutely no difference in dodging/blocking/immunity-avoiding direct damage and conditions.

AA deals direct damage -> you dodge the damage.
AA deals condition -> you dodge the condition -> you dodge the damage.
Attacker deals 5-6 attacks of direct damage burst -> you dodge the damage.
Attacker deals 5-6 abilities to apply conditions -> you dodge the applications -> you dodge the damage.

Seriously, there’s no difference. Conditions don’t magically appear on you, they’re applied by attacks. The same attacks which would apply direct damage if you don’t dodge them.

sure, cause power builds only kill with aa.. thats why dodge is equal in both dmg parts.

/sarcasm

yeah sigills dont trigger on powerbuilds too if u dodge the attack. unless condibuilds these sigills only inflict a small part of the dmg the power build can dish out whereas on condibuilds the are devasting and a big part on the dmg..

after all that reading i now understand u both think dhuumfire and all the other firetraits on crit are a good idea. apply a hard hitting not avoidable condi. lol

to blind from condis to think properly i guess.

hooma.9642:

Carighan.6758:

hooma.9642:

3. how i said in my post. dodging bullsrush destroys the whole burst combo. the same goes for a lot of raw dmg bursts but for this example its the easiest to show. on the other hand dodging 1 aa just negates the condiapplication of that aa, but not the condiapplication via trait or sigills or runes. if the attack isnt hitting, the traits ( some have no cooldown) and runes dont go on cooldown. as example you could fight against a necro with dhuumfire and dodge 90% of his attacks. u would still get burned.

There is absolutely no difference in dodging/blocking/immunity-avoiding direct damage and conditions.

AA deals direct damage -> you dodge the damage.
AA deals condition -> you dodge the condition -> you dodge the damage.
Attacker deals 5-6 attacks of direct damage burst -> you dodge the damage.
Attacker deals 5-6 abilities to apply conditions -> you dodge the applications -> you dodge the damage.

Seriously, there’s no difference. Conditions don’t magically appear on you, they’re applied by attacks. The same attacks which would apply direct damage if you don’t dodge them.

sure, cause power builds only kill with aa.. thats why dodge is equal in both dmg parts.

/sarcasm

yeah sigills dont trigger on powerbuilds too if u dodge the attack. unless condibuilds these sigills only inflict a small part of the dmg the power build can dish out whereas on condibuilds the are devasting and a big part on the dmg..

after all that reading i now understand u both think dhuumfire and all the other firetraits on crit are a good idea. apply a hard hitting not avoidable condi. lol

to blind from condis to think properly i guess.

actually I want dumbfire removed lol
it only promotes spam which is not how I personally play, but since dumbfire bring the optimal damage output and it is also the most complained about trait a condi class has I used it in examples.

Brando.1374:

so how should I proceed with the tests?

i think you really gotta do a full ptv vs full dire. im interested in rabid/dire vs knight/cav, but i dont think youll really be able to put it to rest with that.

people just dont wanna think. we say “its best to focus your gear to do something really really well” and they say “tell me the easiest way to do that” and for an optimal build there isnt really a simple answer, because we have to juggle a gear piece or 3 depending on what traits we want. like a good pvp build has 1.6-1.8k toughness, 2k power or 1.3k condi, 33%+ or ~20% crit rate, and 45-75% crit damage if its power. but its easier to just say “go full soldier so you never die” or “dire armor / rabid trinket” than it is to spend 20 minutes pondering. so weve burned soldier gear into our collective memories as the go-to power gear. and dire is too obvious as soldier’s condi counterpart to resist comparison.

well I might not be able to get full ptv anytime soon.

hooma.9642:

sure, cause power builds only kill with aa.. thats why dodge is equal in both dmg parts.

/sarcasm

When was the last time you fought a condition build that only auto-attacked? I’m dead serious here, because I highly doubt you ever have. Likewise, when was the last time you fought a power build that didn’t auto-attack?

No build types only spam 1 in a fight (PvE mobs don’t count). None.

And yes, power builds can kill you with just their auto-attack. Faster, in fact.

Brando.1374:

well I might not be able to get full ptv anytime soon.

wish i could help ;/

might be able to get a new comp in like a month or 2… might

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

hooma.9642:

sure, cause power builds only kill with aa.. thats why dodge is equal in both dmg parts.

/sarcasm

When was the last time you fought a condition build that only auto-attacked? I’m dead serious here, because I highly doubt you ever have. Likewise, when was the last time you fought a power build that didn’t auto-attack?

No build types only spam 1 in a fight (PvE mobs don’t count). None.

And yes, power builds can kill you with just their auto-attack. Faster, in fact.

well obv. aa isnt the only source of condi-application. but usually its enough with its high freq. of no cooldown. crit-sigills and traits trigger on all attacks. yeah condi user use more skills (either cause they are on cooldown or to manage the “fightback” of the enemy) but unless aa and his high source of conditions its readable and avoidable.

and yes powerbuilds use aa too. but in a lesser freq. and only as time filler or for a little sustained dmg to soften the target. compare the amount of aa used and how many conditions are based on autoattack. u will see even with higher baseconditiondmg or more application on non-aa and no condis on aa they would not be such a great problem like now.

hooma.9642:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

hooma.9642:

sure, cause power builds only kill with aa.. thats why dodge is equal in both dmg parts.

/sarcasm

When was the last time you fought a condition build that only auto-attacked? I’m dead serious here, because I highly doubt you ever have. Likewise, when was the last time you fought a power build that didn’t auto-attack?

No build types only spam 1 in a fight (PvE mobs don’t count). None.

And yes, power builds can kill you with just their auto-attack. Faster, in fact.

and yes powerbuilds use aa too. but in a lesser freq. and only as time filler or for a little sustained dmg to soften the target. compare the amount of aa used and how many conditions are based on autoattack. u will see even with higher baseconditiondmg or more application on non-aa and no condis on aa they would not be such a great problem like now.

This is a l2p problem if you are running a direct damage build and aren’t using auto’s as part of your dodge bait setups then you are fighting noobs and using rotations to win.

To use a fighting game term footsies using your jab and light attacks from sometimes full screen to bait your opponent into a mistake.

Why wouldn’t you use your auto on a direct damage build to bait dodge rolls and defensive abilities? This is just digging deeper into the fighting system and playing on the human aspect of the fight.

I’m not saying more cleanses is the answer I’m saying that better cleanses are the answer. Something that works over time but doesnt remove entire stacks or 10sec+ of a condi.

I don’t have a strong opinion either way on this subject. I don’t like using conditions because I like seeing big single numbers rather than many more smaller numbers. I think people’s main complaint is that conditions start out better for the passive survivability, but fall short in terms of speed once you add in crit rates and damage (when speaking about power builds).

An example: Soldier War vs Dire War

The Dire war has bigger numbers (base) per attack than the Soldier war does, but if the Soldier War trades some PTV armor for some zerk, he could outpace the condi war pretty easily.

The following are examples of (incomplete/non viable) PTV and Dire war builds that are as close to the same defensive stats as possible. A full zerk war could certainly out-DPS the dire war, but he would have to start trading passive survivability for speed.

PTV : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAscTgMdCEmHGZIF58gKTh8A-z0BBofCiEEgUBBK1sIasVNFRjVZDT9iIqOAwBwv9tv/G48zP/8zPvf/93f/93A-w

Dire: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAscTgMdCEmHGZIF58IJTh8A-zECB4iCiUAA0CgkAQZqFRjtqpIasKZER1KlYBAOA2tu1d3AjP+4jP+4t7u7u7u7GA-w

Tl;DR: Condis hit their full potential damage with a higher passive survivability, while zerk builds have a higher potential, but have to trade more passive stats for it. People get their panties in a bunch on both sides because of this.

oZii.2864:

hooma.9642:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

hooma.9642:

sure, cause power builds only kill with aa.. thats why dodge is equal in both dmg parts.

/sarcasm

When was the last time you fought a condition build that only auto-attacked? I’m dead serious here, because I highly doubt you ever have. Likewise, when was the last time you fought a power build that didn’t auto-attack?

No build types only spam 1 in a fight (PvE mobs don’t count). None.

And yes, power builds can kill you with just their auto-attack. Faster, in fact.

and yes powerbuilds use aa too. but in a lesser freq. and only as time filler or for a little sustained dmg to soften the target. compare the amount of aa used and how many conditions are based on autoattack. u will see even with higher baseconditiondmg or more application on non-aa and no condis on aa they would not be such a great problem like now.

This is a l2p problem if you are running a direct damage build and aren’t using auto’s as part of your dodge bait setups then you are fighting noobs and using rotations to win.

To use a fighting game term footsies using your jab and light attacks from sometimes full screen to bait your opponent into a mistake.

Why wouldn’t you use your auto on a direct damage build to bait dodge rolls and defensive abilities? This is just digging deeper into the fighting system and playing on the human aspect of the fight.

i quote me: “soften the target”! now start to think what i was meaning.

Conditions have the same function they had in the first months of yhe game . The mechanism of the conditions is good. The problem comes from some build that can apply to many or powerful conditions in a short period of time and / or passive effects (@ on crit) .

Conditions should be " applied " not spammed

Actually, dodging physical damage is of greater benefit in a small fight because time to kill matters more.

If you dodge, physical damage, you can often avoid a large spike.
If you dodge a condition, you may avoid more damage but that damage is over time. There are often other ways to deal with the condition where the physical damage spike would be sudden and tip the fight from your being on the offensive to defensive.
Many times in a small fight, death occurs well before the DOT is finished.

To counter, condition damage builds. So if the fight drags, if I can dodge and evade your physical spikes, advantage condition.

Quite balanced at the moment really.

One of the big problems is that the meta has melee smashing into other melee. Well, frankly physical damage should typically try to get rid of the build over time condition damage. If you don’t (and often these days I see people ignoring condition casters upfront), you obviously pay.

Bombsaway.7198:

Actually, dodging physical damage is of greater benefit in a small fight because time to kill matters more.

This is more because the direct damage deals more total damage than relative value of the avoided attack. A wasted cooldown is a wasted cooldown, regardless of who used it, and both condition and power builds are heavily reliant on skills other than their auto attacks.

But I agree that I often see people ignoring condition users in a fight, and they pay dearly for it. The reason is that they don’t see the huge numbers popping up right away, so they think they aren’t taking as much damage (to a point, they’re right, but they are actually getting hit pretty hard).

I think there’s only 2 problems with conditions:

- Some builds that can apply tons of them and continuosly.

- Stat combinations allows condi builds to have very high condition damage while also having high defensive stats. However, power builds have to sacrifice defensive stats to reach good numbers, as the rely on burst.

Apart from that, condi cleansing is fine. Maybe eles and mesmers need to have more reliable cleansing. That doesn’t mean they don’t have it, just they need to invest a lot of traits and skills to have decent amount of cleansing.

Ansau.7326:

I think there’s only 2 problems with conditions:

- Some builds that can apply tons of them and continuosly.

- Stat combinations allows condi builds to have very high condition damage while also having high defensive stats. However, power builds have to sacrifice defensive stats to reach good numbers, as the rely on burst.

Apart from that, condi cleansing is fine. Maybe eles and mesmers need to have more reliable cleansing. That doesn’t mean they don’t have it, just they need to invest a lot of traits and skills to have decent amount of cleansing.

I think this is the most sensible thing said in a long time in this thread. Lol.

Ansau.7326:

I think there’s only 2 problems with conditions:

- Some builds that can apply tons of them and continuosly.

- Stat combinations allows condi builds to have very high condition damage while also having high defensive stats. However, power builds have to sacrifice defensive stats to reach good numbers, as the rely on burst.

Apart from that, condi cleansing is fine. Maybe eles and mesmers need to have more reliable cleansing. That doesn’t mean they don’t have it, just they need to invest a lot of traits and skills to have decent amount of cleansing.

- some builds can apply tons of stuns and on a fairly regular basis Nerf then as well, Keep things balanced you know.
- would you prefer to see a Hi condi damage class with no toughness/vit. we wont even survive being sneezed on.

Ansau.7326:

I think there’s only 2 problems with conditions:

- Some builds that can apply tons of them and continuosly.

And here is what is wrong with the inaccurate perception that folks approach this with. Because the same can be said by changing the term conditions with direct damage. Direct damage is just as spammable. Why is it a downside to conditions but okay for direct damage attacks. For example, in extremely defensive soldiers gear, a warriors hammer can easily spam 1200+ direct damage that is AoE, with no cool down. This is just the auto attack. I am sorry, but condition auto attacks cannot do that.

Clearly your not basing your comments on facts in any way, shape or form.

Ansau.7326:

- Stat combinations allows condi builds to have very high condition damage while also having high defensive stats. However, power builds have to sacrifice defensive stats to reach good numbers, as the rely on burst.

Got a fact to support this inaccurate statement?? Did you even read this thread. It is documented fact that soldiers gear, with the exact same defensive stats, do generally slightly more damage then the equivalent dire builds.

The problem is, posters such as this, never actually testing anything for themselves to be aware of actual facts or the truth of the matter, they simply regurgitate what they have read from other posters.

Mbelch.9028:

I think this is the most sensible thing said in a long time in this thread. Lol.

Now if it only, actually made sense. Unfortunately, your jumping on the band wagon again here, simply because their mis-informed perception, aligns with yours. Unfortunately, this band wagoning is purely perception based, and completely devoid of fact and information. Balancing the game on a groups perceptions verses actual comparative fact, is bad for everyone. Post such as this hurt the game in every way.

Ansau.7326:

I think there’s only 2 problems with conditions:

- Some builds that can apply tons of them and continuosly.

- Stat combinations allows condi builds to have very high condition damage while also having high defensive stats. However, power builds have to sacrifice defensive stats to reach good numbers, as the rely on burst.

Apart from that, condi cleansing is fine. Maybe eles and mesmers need to have more reliable cleansing. That doesn’t mean they don’t have it, just they need to invest a lot of traits and skills to have decent amount of cleansing.

I agree with the first point (though i am not saying it is a good or bad thing) but disagree partly with the second point.

I mean if we compare dire and soldier gear, dire gear may do more damage than soldier gear simply for the fact that condition damage is not effected by armor. But in the other hand if condition removel is used, soldiers gear may do more damage than dire gear (well this also depends on armor). Please note, i used many may’s..

What i want to say is that we should not simply compare gear but should look at it from a more general standpoint. Comparing power vs condition is in my opinion really difficult to do objectively as they work differently and have different counters. Heck some stats scale even better with some professions than with others.

So i think, it is better to compare the builds themselves.

You guys go from white to black.

First of all, I didn’t mean to nerf condi damage, just some of those builds need tweaks as they can easily be very stong in all ways.

I don’t give a kitten about maths and theoretical numbers. What really matters is what you see in game. And there, soldier not always out-dps dire. You put a warrior, I put a mesmer. No way a full soldier mesmer has more dps than a full dire. Just don’t.

Then, you cannot compare conditions spamability with direct damage ones. Just because direct hits are consecutive, you hit with a skill and then with another, but not both at the same time. However, conditions can be applied at the same time, both by stacks and by different conditions.
And here is what I find some issues. There’re build that can abuse from this fact as they have tons of ways to apply conditions, it just becomes a condition flood.

Also, I don’t see the point to compare full 1 stat combination builds. We can mix, and here is where condi builds take an advantage. All maxed condi stat combination have, at least, toughness or vitality.
When mixing gear, a direct damage build has to look for power, precision and critical damage, while condi builds only have to boost condi damage and some precison. Also, defensive lines normally boost condi builds and condi stats. That allows condi builds to have way more survivability than direct damage builds without the need to lose offensive stats.

Then, if we pair a power build vs condi damage build, it’s much easier for the second to counter the strengths of the power build. First because with such stats combinations, they stack toughness easily. And also because defensive lines have good synergy with conditions and those builds can obtain condi cleansing or boons to counter direct damage in an easy way.
But power builds, first they aren’t able to maximize the damage while also upgrading the defensive stats. Also, or they lose some skills and traits to have a better cleansing, or they invest massively on defensive lines to get those benefits. In both ways, these builds end up loosing pressure and burst.

And that’s why I said there’re 2 big problems with condi builds:
- Some of them have no counters, cause they can put a lot of pressure while having counters to both incoming direct and condi damage.
- The stat combination allows some condi builds to have maximum condi damage while having very high defensive stats.

For example, PU mesmer build is not the king just for the boons, neither just for the clone-death mechanic, neither just for being tanky. It’s because in a single build you have tons of condition pressure with high condi damage, high toughness, decent critical chance, being able to gain defensive boons such aegis or protection, high passive healing and good condi cleansing.

Simply there’s no power build (apart from warrior power builds) that can boost so much its offensive stats, while being tanky and having such amount of counters to other builds, as this one or another condition flood build.

PD: Warriors are not the best example to put here. In fact, this truly is a biased argument, as they are extremely well rounded, with an advantage of stats to other professions that actually allows them to bypass my second point. They can push a lot more with power build cause they have a much better base defensive stats.
BTW, a good SS/LB condi warrior build beats a tanky power hammer one.

You’re confusing yourself. Stop it, take a step back, and breathe.

Direct damage is just as spammable as conditions are. Condition stacks do not amplify each other, they just occur at the same time. Each condition attack deals the same amount of damage each time the skill hits, exactly the same as direct damage attacks. The only difference is the time it takes for that damage to happen.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Furienify.5738:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Cleansing Ire Warriors actually surpass necros on the cleansing front. Necros just frequently have ways to take advantage of the conditions you put on them instead of just removing them.

… Which baffles me, as last I played, warriors were one of the weakest vs. condi classes in the game (unless running shouts), potentially by design. Is there anything they’re bad at, now?

Not really, no.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tXb9L8LW4XI#t=269

I think it would make much more sense if the current OP condition spamming builds were nerfed and to compensate for the spamming capability nerf the dmg of conditions could do could be increased by longer duration. This could force less mindless condi spams and more tactic instead. Just a thought, real balancing obviously takes extensive testing.

Conditions ignore the armor, isnt this enough?

Ansau.7326:

I think there’s only 2 problems with conditions:

- Some builds that can apply tons of them and continuosly.

- Stat combinations allows condi builds to have very high condition damage while also having high defensive stats. However, power builds have to sacrifice defensive stats to reach good numbers, as the rely on burst.

Apart from that, condi cleansing is fine. Maybe eles and mesmers need to have more reliable cleansing. That doesn’t mean they don’t have it, just they need to invest a lot of traits and skills to have decent amount of cleansing.

Your second point.
This argument makes no sense whatsoever. I have heard this said over and over and over. What makes you think its a good idea to take away the toughness increase? Seeing as a condi user has A LOT less potential burst. Why would anyone bother using condis if it was impossible to survive long enough to see them take effect?

If burst > condies > bunkers > burst is true, why do burst builds have to build a lot of counters against condies (cleanses)? By the time you’re build against condies with those counters you’re no longer using a burst build and condies still have passive tankiness. In other words, to counter burst you have to pick proper trait and skills (most of it is active defense) while in order to counter burst you need to get more toughness (strictly passive and always “turned on”).

I don’t know how it’s in wvw but in pvp I find it infinitely easier to play condition builds than direct damage one. So they are either easier to play with similar reward and lower risk or just stronger by design.

@Ansau
I think as a required step before we can evaluate condition setups, we need to remove “condition spam”.

And by that I don’t really mean Necro Scepter 1, not at all.
I mean the plethora (every class has 1-2!) of condition-on-crit procs. And the amount of trash conditions thrown into other traits/skills seemingly “just because” (the necro AA bases it’s damage off the bleed, so that’s fine IMO, unlike Elixir Gun AA which I’d do as Weakness + damage, not Weakness + Bleed + damage).

Once these are removed, we can then evaluate the actual condition damage of condition builds because no longer do you get 20-50 conditions just from being attacked, independent of the attacking team’s specs.

And then we can maybe actually buff individual conditions.

Mbelch.9028:

The gameplay from a dire perplex thief to a S/d damage thief goes from immensely easy to a relative challenge.

The gameplay for condi warrior vs zerk warrior on any build goes from very easy to a relatively easy level.

The gameplay for engineer is roughly the same either way, but is made imbalanced by supply crate and perplex runes

I truly accept that you 4-5 guys don’t want condis changed, but repeating it isn’t going to make what you say true… You say you back all your stuff up with facts and figures but you never really do. You are ignoring in most of your responses any level of the depth of the game. Just scratching the surface of combat.

I have no desire to continue discussing this, and I’d really prefer this thread be closed, as I view your responses Coglin and Drarnor as toxic and false.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Perplexity
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Confusion

“Confusion is a condition that deals damage each time the affected target begins to activate a skill. Confusion stacks in intensity. "

gr8 b8 m8

edit: before another mod will jump on me

Try to think about what you said. You talk about a rune set which base itself on Confusion, a condition that forces your opponent to not do anything beside cleanse, howevery if they do anything else, basicly they kill themselves. It’s learn to play or #nerfconfusion2014, nothing more. Next please!

edit2: arguing with cheesy builds isn’t a best thing to do. How about backstab? Or killshot? Or Churning earth bombing?

Grimreaper.5370:

I think it would make much more sense if the current OP condition spamming builds were nerfed and to compensate for the spamming capability nerf the dmg of conditions could do could be increased by longer duration. This could force less mindless condi spams and more tactic instead. Just a thought, real balancing obviously takes extensive testing.

Here we go with this illogical perspective again.

How can condition skills be called spam in relation to direct damage skills????

What conditions are you claiming as OP????

Your post is the definition of a community completely uneducated on the subject,who is regurgitating what was read in previously uneducated post.

When it is proven that direct damage skills as whole, do more damage then condition damage skills, in equivalent gear, and the skills have congruent cast and cool down times, what irrational path of logic leads you to claim they are spam, yet the direct damage skills are not?

Black Teagan.9215:

Conditions ignore the armor, isnt this enough?

Well it could be if direct damage didn’t do more damage, thus negating the effects of armor on a flat damage comparison to conditions, not to mention cleanses.

haviz.1340:

If burst > condies > bunkers > burst is true, why do burst builds have to build a lot of counters against condies (cleanses)? By the time you’re build against condies with those counters you’re no longer using a burst build and condies still have passive tankiness. In other words, to counter burst you have to pick proper trait and skills (most of it is active defense) while in order to counter burst you need to get more toughness (strictly passive and always “turned on”).

That is not true. In fact, on this thread alone we have videos of equivalent defensive and offensive gear, showing that direct damage builds do more damage.

You guys are regurgitating all of the mis-information from page one that was corrected, explained, and laid out by page 3, and spewing it back on page 4 of this thread.

@coglin

I think this is largely a cognitive issue.
Players see direct damage attacks taking 50% off their health in 3 hits. They react, they heal, they shield, whatever.

Players see a condition damage attacker apply conditions. Their health pool is – at that moment – ok. So they don’t do anything until their health drops to 50%. However unlike direct damage, the moment you need to react is once again when the damage is applied, not after it has given the enemy the momentum they want.

So basically, we as players don’t take conditions serious enough.
I did however like the idea of giving condition/regen markers to the health orb. Show as a shaded red the amount of health you’d be at if all conditions currently on you run their course, and show as another green shade the amount of health you’d gain if regen effects + currently casting healing skill finish.

That might help newcomers take conditions much more serious the moment they’re applied, instead of when it’s too late.

Carighan.6758:

@coglin

I think this is largely a cognitive issue.
Players see direct damage attacks taking 50% off their health in 3 hits. They react, they heal, they shield, whatever.

Players see a condition damage attacker apply conditions. Their health pool is – at that moment – ok. So they don’t do anything until their health drops to 50%. However unlike direct damage, the moment you need to react is once again when the damage is applied, not after it has given the enemy the momentum they want.

So basically, we as players don’t take conditions serious enough.

Got it in one. This is, in fact, the actual problem.

I started the game playing a condition build primarily (this was at launch), and as such, I do take conditions seriously at the moment I need to, because I recognize when the defenses against them should be used. As such, I don’t have any more problems with condition builds than power builds, no matter what build I am using or on which class.

coglin.1867:

Black Teagan.9215:

Conditions ignore the armor, isnt this enough?

Well it could be if direct damage didn’t do more damage, thus negating the effects of armor on a flat damage comparison to conditions, not to mention cleanses.

That’s right, but this was not the point from the OP.

coglin.1867:

That is not true. In fact, on this thread alone we have videos of equivalent defensive and offensive gear, showing that direct damage builds do more damage.

You mean that soldier will win against dire? I don’t play wvw so I never tested it but in pvp condition damage is strong and very easy to play. It’s a passive gameplay with high reward that most if not all top players hate. If you like it, fine, but a vast amount of people playing this game at the high level do not. It’s not fun to play against condition bunkers.

haviz.1340:

You mean that soldier will win against dire? I don’t play wvw so I never tested it but in pvp condition damage is strong and very easy to play. It’s a passive gameplay with high reward that most if not all top players hate. If you like it, fine, but a vast amount of people playing this game at the high level do not. It’s not fun to play against condition bunkers.

You mean bunkers in general?
Condition specs really aren’t some mythical thing. You can dodge conditions just as well as direct damage, they gain piercing toughness in return for taking time to do damage and being susceptible to an additional type of active defence (while still being deflected by everything which works against direct damage).

In other words, apart from stat-scaling (which isn’t the same as conditions themselves being a problem!) there’s no real difference.

This argument again.

I want one person who is arguing that conditions are broken/OP to admit that the application of conditions can be dodged. Just one. Any one, really.

Please?

Conditions can be dodged. This is very true. It is just that many major condition skills deal a high amount of damage, can be stacked effectively and don’t have the best tells.

Culprits of these highly damaging power skills are well telegraphed. That’s all..

By “many” you must mean “a very select few”……..On the same note, there are some select equally high damage, direct damage attacks. By your definition, those select few direct damage attacks justify claiming that direct damage needs a nerf. You would have been okay, had you said “X skill” needs to be toned down, but instead you took the path of demanding all damage types of that skill must be nerfed, based on that skill alone. To make it worse, you stuck to that illogical line of thinking.

By the way, how many times have you sworn the post you were making at the time was the last one you would ever make on this thread?

So you die on condi, so what. Oneshot from thief way worse because you cannot see it coming and cannot cleanse it with condition removal.

That bolded text is annoying bud. I didn’t demand everything. While I think some skills like killshot backstab and a handful of others do need scaling back, I think there are more condi skills to be looked at. But yes power is getting a nerf already mate. They’ll talk about that today

Sutek.3189:

So you die on condi, so what. Oneshot from thief way worse because you cannot see it coming and cannot cleanse it with condition removal.

I don’t personally get one shotted by thieves.

I think another issue is people just don’t know what skills they should and shouldn’t be avoiding. I am not saying everyone should level all classes to 80 but it does help knowing what your facing.

Smart thieves in WvW running lyssa runes save their basilisk until they need it and cleanse when I fight them on my engi or necro bad thieves use it at the beginning. You can tell those that know what they are fighting vs those that just have no clue.

I’m fighting a mesmer he just blurred frenzy whats the mesmer probably going to do after blurred frenzy?

Knowing what your fighting is really important fighting a necro using scepter auto’s is a necro waiting to bait dodges out of you so he can blow you up. Knowledge is power and you need it against power and condition builds.

oZii, I think that has partially to do with a very serious problem right now in that both boons and conditions are too many and too weak. We need less of them, but more powerful, same total power.

Maybe do away with critprocs as a whole ,too (for boons too).

The idea would be that it’s easier to associate where you got these 5 stacks of bleeding from because you aren’t suffering 1-2 stacks every second, rather 5 every 3 seconds or so.

Mbelch.9028:

That bolded text is annoying bud. I didn’t demand everything. While I think some skills like killshot backstab and a handful of others do need scaling back, I think there are more condi skills to be looked at. But yes power is getting a nerf already mate. They’ll talk about that today

Yes, yes you did. You demanded all attacks of a certain damage type be changed based on a single solitary skill.

Mbelch.9028:

all conditions need a reformation.

BTW what is wrong with kill shot? It is like the most telegraphed skill next to churning earth. That was very specifically the tradeoff they added to it.

It appears your answer to everything, is to nerf its damage. Perhaps you should broaden your scope some.

Mbelch.9028:

Conditions can be dodged. This is very true. It is just that many major condition skills deal a high amount of damage, can be stacked effectively and don’t have the best tells.

Culprits of these highly damaging power skills are well telegraphed. That’s all..

I’d argue that Backstab isn’t telegraphed at all. In fact, it’s almost anti-telegraphed, because you don’t even see anything when it happens. The only counter is doing a head count and prayer-dodging.

I think many of the condition-applying abilities are better telegraphed than people think. They just don’t immediately associate an animation with the amount of damage they took because, as someone else pointed out, there’s no “oh shi-” moment that really captures your attention. The enemy moves a bit, not much happens, then suddenly seconds later you notice your health is dropping.

In order to get a sense of these animations, you have to hop on the class or otherwise specifically watch for them. Then they aren’t bad (at least the Necro ones I’m thinking of. The Warrior Impale is a pretty short cast but requires a projectile to hit, and Pin Down is either getting more telegraph in an upcoming patch or already has it. I haven’t played in a little while).

Mbelch.9028:

Sutek.3189:

So you die on condi, so what. Oneshot from thief way worse because you cannot see it coming and cannot cleanse it with condition removal.

I don’t personally get one shotted by thieves.

Try playing Ele on any speck. If both have maximased gear it will still be oneshot from thief to Ele. Ele even can wear power/toughness/vitality gear…still oneshot. Not to mentation the perma hide thiefs.

These slugfest tests aren’t remotely meaningful. Players aren’t going to stand next to one another and use one skill until the other keels over. This isn’t the Mists. Without any kind of context or consideration it’s a completely pointless endeavour. In this type of test, a Berserker-geared player will die before a Soldier-geared player will. Should all roamer specs re-gear to Soldier’s? There isn’t even any context given to all the different classes and means of delivering damage and defense there are. Will a Mesmer or an Engineer get as much value out of Valkyrie gear as an Elementalist or a Thief? Who is harmed more by weakness, chill, immobilize, or by the foe’s protection uptime, a power or a condition player?

Conditions are often random (on-crit) and ramp up powerful control effects. Almost all are ranged and many are saturation AoE (bombs are not even ground-targeted). It forces players’ hands in a way that no other attack angle does (many popular bomb-
nade specs run without any stun-breaks to this day). Some reward good positioning (Ranger shortbow) but most do not.

I have had someone whose opinion I deeply value suggest the issue is with burning, which he believes ticks too hard for its prevalence in the game. I’m not completely convinced, as I think conditions fall into the miasma of nebulous risk-reward that’s a curse on the game right now.

Something that I thought about the other day in this whole Condi v Power debate.

Many people say that condition players don’t have to sacrifice anything whereas the power players do sacrifice. A Power player gets a 916 stat headstart on a condition player. At 80 no traits no gear you have 916 power and 0 condition damage. That 916 power you start with effects how you build if you throw any defense gear on your build at all. Everyone has thresholds that they like for certain stats imagine your build -916 power. You would probably move some of your defense stat points toward power to compensate.