Guild Wars 2

A lot of us know that, for PvE, builds that rely upon Condition Damage for their DPS are very underpowered.

I will suggest that there are two reasons for this:

i) The Condition Caps (I understand technical limitations of 25 max- this is not a post about raising them)

ii) Weapon Strength

iii) Finally – My Suggestion to Fix this

Now I will address those two reasons.

i) The Condition Caps

Many professions that spec for conditions are capable of applying nearly all conditions all by themselves.

Condition-specced Necromancers and Engineers, for example, often have no problem reaching 25 stacks of bleeding on a target, along with maintaining poison, or burning, etc.

Concerning dungeons; having ONE of those in the party will be enough to reach these caps. Adding more party members with Condition builds makes every one after the first nearly useless, as they will not be able to apply many more unique conditions to be their own DPS. They will not be contributing. Consider it as so; imagine that 25 Bleeding is 5000 DPS when maintained. The necromancer in the party can do that easily; his DPS is 5000. If you add an Engineer to the party who can achieve the same, these two characters now share the same “pool” as it were on the enemy. They will eat into each other’s Bleeding stacks, and will be responsible for half each – now their respective DPS is 2500. They are weaker, even though there are two of them in the party!

Concerning world-bosses and the like; you will be totally useless with your conditions – the Boss will be at 25 bleeding, poison, burning, 25 vulnerability, etc etc constantly. You, as an individual, will not be contributing as that mass of conditions is refreshed every second by the zerg. The damage from Power-users, however, does not get “refreshed”.

This is made worse by the fact that even professions that do not spec for Condition Damage will be applying conditions themselves. For example (though not necessarily the meta) the Warrior Rifle auto attack applies bleeding. Many warriors will not be specced for condition damage at all, but their rifles will be overwriting the Bleeding stacks provided by classes that have specced for it. The Warrior, invested in Power, will be doing appropriate damage with his rifle, but will be eating into the DPS of the Condition Damage classes. On another note, Guardians and Elementalists are capable of providing permanent burning, and an Elementalist’s rotation involving Churning Earth can overwrite a large number of Bleed stacks with his own. In this scenario, regarding the hypothetical “5000 DPS” from 25 Bleeding – that was the case when everyone who was providing the Bleeding stacks were specced for Condition Damage. As it will actually be shared out amongst people who haven’t done so, it may end up being that the Necromancer can only be responsible for half the stacks – 2500 DPS, but the other half, maintained by everyone else, only amounts to 1000 DPS. Power-users will, themselves, make Condition Damage nonviable.

ii) Weapon Strength

There is – ignoring the infusion slot – no point for a Condition Damage build to upgrade their exotic weapon to an Ascended weapon.

In comparison, when someone using a power build upgrades in this manner, they experience roughly a 5% DPS increase. This is because the formula for Direct Damage (loosely) involves the product of:

Weapon Strength x Attack stat

EDIT: To avoid further confusion as to what “Weapon Strength” actually affects, I will put the actual formula

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

The Attack Stat is not used; it is purely derived as the sum of Weapon Strength and Power and only exists on the Hero Panel. Damage involves the product of Weapon Strength and Power. The Wiki explains this in detail.

Condition Damage does not use the weapon strength of the weapon equipped. The only difference between an exotic weapon and an ascended one for a condition damage build is the meagre stat point increase (4-9 points). The difference that will make is completely ignorable. So Ascended Weapons provide Power-users with a 5% DPS increase and an infusion slot; Condition Damage-users only benefit from the infusion slot.

We need to provide something so that Condition Damage users are similarly rewarded.

iii) My Suggestion

Firstly, we all know what the benefits of Condition Damage are.

• They usually come on ranged weapons, and so allow you to stay at range, and a Bleeding Stack will be the same whether it was applied by Staff or Dagger. Power-users need to bear in mind the weapon they have equipped, and skills with more effective co-efficients are almost always on melee weapons.

• They ignore armor.

• In [PvE], mobs ignore the fact that conditions are stacked on them (opposed to PvP, where players will cleanse them) – you can apply conditions to enemies, then kite around while your DPS stays mostly constant and is guaranteed. People wearing Berserker need to react and dodge properly so as to avoid any loss of DPS – the moment they stop attacking, DPS becomes 0.

• It only requires ONE stat (Condition Duration, its counterpart, can reach 80% from trait points, food and nourishment alone, almost its cap of 100%) to invest in – Power users rely upon a combination of Power/Precision/Critical Damage (aka, their gear has to provide all 3 – the maximum number of different stats, outside of Celestial gear). Therefore Condition Damage users normally also invest in Vitality or Toughness, and are inherently more survivable.

So I am not suggesting that conditions be made comparable to Power attacks.

The reward of Berserker playstyle is that you risk a lot (no defense, melee) for the quickest kill.

However, something does need to be done to address the fact that parties are limited to one Condition Damage user max (who are made even less powerful by party members who happen to apply conditions coincidentally), and something needs to happen so that they can feel like they’re contributing in Events in open-world PvE.

I suggest that all Conditions – Burning, Bleeding, Poison, etc – have a cap.

This would be 25 for Bleeding (as usual), and some number like 5 for Burning, 5 for Poison – (they will only stack in duration 5 times) – and so forth.

Once this cap is breached – for example, a necromancer uses a skill that applies a Bleeding stack to an enemy with 25 Bleed already – that new bleeding is not applied, it does not “refresh” the oldest stack on the enemy.

Instead, a new pulse of direct damage is applied.

This could be called “Hemophilia” for Bleeding, “Toxic Shock” for Poison, “Nightmare” for Torment – there are better names, but you see the idea.

These apply an instant amount of damage to the enemy.

This damage would depend upon:

• the type of condition that would be applied (for example, Torment is very difficult to keep anywhere close to 25, whereas 5 stacks of Burning would be easily maintainable)

• the Condition Damage stat of the person applying it

• the weapon strength of the weapon applying it

Actual values of how all of those interact would need to be balanced carefully

But I believe this offers a solution to keep Condition Damage valid in open-world PvE, and would allow for a whole lot more diversity with builds in the game.

Berserker Damage can stay King, of course, in its philosophy of “greatest risk, greatest reward”. (that is itself its own problem – that there is little risk in dungeons when the majority of fights involve “stacking” on the same spot to exploit poor AI and everyone can auto attack to victory. This would require its own thread, but essentially the fix would be to make encounters with mobs and Bosses that punish players for not moving, for sticking close together. And when a Zerker party can melt most things in 10 seconds flat because there is no risk, why would anyone ever consider Conditions? Some fractals encounters have been designed with engaging AI and mechanics quite well )

Thank you to everyone that read my suggestion. If I have made any stupid mistakes or assumptions, then I would gladly be corrected.

The only option would be to compound the damage or some kind of control effect for reaching max stacks, yes. The simpler answer might be to just compound the condition damage of the extra people to some degree on top of the stacks already there.

What do you think about my suggestion regarding increasing the relevancy of the “Weapon Strength” to Condition Builds?

This is mostly in light of the Ascended Tier.

I did not think much of this as an issue when Exotic was the top tier.

However this new tier of equipment for weapons I feel just increases the gap between Condition Damage and Power builds unequally.

Creating an Ascended Weapon for a Condition build feels like a waste, because that is a lot of gold to unlock the crafting and make the weapon, or a lot of luck to get the Ascended Box drop with Condition Damage as a main stat, however the only improvement is 4-9 stat points. Power builds however will inherently have the 5% higher weapon strength range.

The other problem, I feel, is condi-spec fights for DPS with non-condi. It’d be like if a dire thief stole DPS from a ‘zerk warrior. The enemy gets loaded with a lot of crappy bleeds and the people actually spec’d to give strong bleeds lose out while they wait for the crappy bleeds to go away.

Ok, so 25 bleed cap is here to stay, but why can’t we push out weak bleeds. Possibly give them % of their remaining damage when they are pushed out. Call it Exit Wounds.

Attack is based additively between your power and weapon strength, not multiplicatively, so theoretically a condition damage build benefits much the same as a power build does by an upgraded weapon because you receive the same boost to your direct damage.

I do agree though that conditions need to be looked at, but as more of a matter for balancing between PvE and PvP game modes, because conditions are currently very powerful in PvP and very underwhelming in PvE and splitting balancing could very easily fix this issue.

Ravious.4269:

The other problem, I feel, is condi-spec fights for DPS with non-condi. It’d be like if a dire thief stole DPS from a ‘zerk warrior. The enemy gets loaded with a lot of crappy bleeds and the people actually spec’d to give strong bleeds lose out while they wait for the crappy bleeds to go away.

Ok, so 25 bleed cap is here to stay, but why can’t we push out weak bleeds. Possibly give them % of their remaining damage when they are pushed out. Call it Exit Wounds.

Yes, I addressed it in the first comment; part of the reason why I believe my solution of “overcharged” conditions (Hemophilia, Toxic Shock, Nightmare, etc) would be a viable solution is because their formula for the instant damage involves Condition Damage and not Power – therefore although the Berserker users can still “eat up” space for conditions with empty damage, this only works to help the Condition Damage users get the chance to “overcharge” their condition attacks. The Berserker user would not be able to “overcharge” their conditions for comparable damage.

In your solution, I am worried that it creates a situation where “more than one Condition Build” becomes obsolete again – if anyone can “push out” a condition and call it “Exit Wounds”, then they still eat a condition with high Condition Damage stat on it, and Berserker Gear becomes just as effective with this form of direct damage. My solution only benefits those with the investment into “condition damage” stat, Berserkers who “overcharge” do not eat up a “high Condition Damage” tick and do negligible damage with the overcharge.

I realise I have only just started using the term “overcharge” but I hope the meaning is still clear as to what I am referencing in my Suggestion post.

To clarify: I don’t think that these “overcharge” attacks should do instant damage that is comparable to Berserker’s using Power attacks, but only to supplement their own dps to bridge the gap. Condition Damage gets “pushed out” of party groups for the reason we have described.

“Regarding PvP”

I am not a brilliant expert on PvP, I would never dare claim to be.

I am also not a big fan of “seperating PvE and PvP mechanics”.

So, despite my admitted amateurism, I am willing to say that I do not think my suggestion would affect PvP balance too much.

This is because of the prevalence of cleansing. Even if it is a condition heavy meta, the “overcharged” effect only happens once-and-while the target is maintained at the maximum stacks for the condition. If someone specced for conditions is able to keep someone at 25 stacks of bleeding, for example, and that person is not able to cleanse that, then (for the damage I have in mind that the “overcharged” effect is able to put out) the “overcharged” effect is likely the least of their worries.

Regarding the other conditions like “Burning” or “Poison” – they stack in duration, and in my suggestion I suggested that they stack a maximum of 5 times or similar before additional applications “overcharge” instead. This could be a good place to split between PvE and PvP – the number of applications that need to be stacked before the “overcharged” effect begins turning new applications into direct damage. This cap could be higher in PvP so that it is more difficult to reach it. I also suggested that each “overcharge effect” have a different base damage depending on its type – kind of like a co-efficient. These co-efficients could be lower in PvP, similar to how “Confusion” has been handled.

In my mind, I would also think that this could extend to other conditions like “Chill” or “Vulnerability” (after the tenth application of “Chill” it is capped, and additional uses create the “ice block” effect or similar on the enemy – that is merely an idea of an idea!). However the problem definitely lies at the moment with the damaging conditions, and – in this line of thinking, not talking about the development of the idea in the game – are the easiest to address (the solution to each is just an instance of “direct damage”).

Black Box.9312:

Attack is based additively between your power and weapon strength, not multiplicatively, so theoretically a condition damage build benefits much the same as a power build does by an upgraded weapon because you receive the same boost to your direct damage.

I am afraid I do not believe this to be the case, the Wiki lists the formula as

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)

Furthermore you are talking about the Attack stat – the sum of Power and Weapon Strength – (I see I accidentally used it in the first post), the Wiki has this to say

Attack is a value that is listed on the hero panel. It is derived from adding the character’s power attribute and the max weapon strength of the equipped weapon (or average of max weapon strength if two one-handed weapons are equipped). This is purely a derived value and is not directly used in any calculations: damage for weapon skills is based on the product of weapon strength and power, while utility skill damage is only based on power.

The assertion that Condition Damage benefits from increasing Weapon Strength is incorrect. The boost to your direct damage is not the same because it involves the product of Power and Weapon strength, and Power in Condition Builds will be very low – the 5% increase will only affect their very low Power investment, and not their Condition Damage.

Well, you’re still getting a boost to your condition damage stat. How much of a percentage is that increased? You’re also getting boosts to your defensive stats as well.

Proven.2854:

Well, you’re still getting a boost to your condition damage stat. How much of a percentage is that increased? You’re also getting boosts to your defensive stats as well.

I am afraid I do not follow. You will have to elaborate.

Example Stats:

An Exotic Sword (lets ignore celestial): 90/64/64 stat distribution. 905-1000
An Ascended Sword: 94/67/67 stat distribution. 950-1050.

As you can see, if you move from an Exotic MH Weapon to an Ascended MH Weapon, you will gain FOUR stat points in its primary stat. Two Handed Weapons gain NINE.

The REAL boost is that weapon strength increase. That is a 5% increase. That ONLY applies to “Damage” (the formula involving Power). It does not help condition builds.

Condition Builds will only benefit from 8 or 9 stat increase to Condition Damage. That really is ALL they get.

The boosts to the defensive stats is THREE (MH) or SIX (2H). That is all the difference.

Most Condition Builds will have around 1600+ Condition Damage. Here is an example.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQFAGmQkUcNPD0D3DXAxIFFTwA-j0BBINA0CAZSFRjtKKs1XDRTJjIqWpETKAYWWB-w

See what difference it makes changing the exotic staff to an ascended one. Condition Damage goes up by 9. That is all the difference.

Roughly 0.005% increase, in that build. This will be even less when Might Stacks are introduced. (atm only corruption stacks are assumed).

A 0.005% increase for getting an Ascended Weapon, for Condition Builds.

A 5% increase for getting an Ascended Weapon, for Power Builds.

To clarify again for anyone else reading, Power should undoubtedly be the quicker way of dealing damage. But that jump is entirely unequal.

EDIT: to make even worse, since conditions begin at a “base damage” (they will do damage, of course, even if Condition Damage is 0), the actual increase in damage you will find from Bleeding, from example, is about 0.003% by upgrading to an Ascended Weapon. 0.002% if your group also stacks Might. Power Ascended Weapons will always be a 5% increase, regardless of Bloodlust or Might or other gear/foods/nourishment.

You’ll never fix the condition cap problem for world bosses. It’s best to concentrate on fixing it for dungeons and smaller groups.

But first, what is the intent of condition damage? Was it originally intended to be the overwhelming majority of damage, or was it intended to coexist with direct damage as an alternative to power, precision, etc? The answer determines the fix. Personally, I think the latter was intended. Someone using 3 offensive stats (power, precision, crit dmg) should do more damage than someone using 1 or 2 and the rest defensive stats (rabid or dire), right?

Exedore.6320:

You’ll never fix the condition cap problem for world bosses. It’s best to concentrate on fixing it for dungeons and smaller groups.

But first, what is the intent of condition damage? Was it originally intended to be the overwhelming majority of damage, or was it intended to coexist with direct damage as an alternative to power, precision, etc? The answer determines the fix. Personally, I think the latter was intended. Someone using 3 offensive stats (power, precision, crit dmg) should do more damage than someone using 1 or 2 and the rest defensive stats (rabid or dire), right?

I am afraid I do not follow you for either parts. My suggestion does not attempt to change the “Condition Cap” and this is emphasised. My solution to fix it provides relief for both dungeons parties (Condition Damage gets a new outlet that can’t be hindered by others, like a second Necromancer or Power users applying terrible Bleeds themselves) and then World Bosses incidentally.

I do not understand your second point. By “overwhelming damage”, do you mean to say that Conditions are not supposed to do more damage than Berserker attacks? Your statement “Someone using 3 offensive stats (power, precision, crit dmg) should do more damage than someone using 1 or 2 and the rest defensive stats (rabid or dire), right?” seems to imply this to be so. However if that is the case, I am confused, because my post explicitly outlines this philosophy – what the benefits of using Condition Damage are, the correct use of “risk=reward” for Berserker – and my suggestion does not advocate that Condition Damage be made as powerful. There is a list there of reasons why Condition Damage has much less risk than Berserker. So I could not see what part of my suggestion you are disagreeing with.

Alternatively, you mean to say that Condition Damage exists only to supplement Direct Damage – that is, it is intentional that builds with just Condition Damage are not viable. This might be the case with your sentence "or was it intended to coexist with direct damage as an alternative to power, precision, etc? " If you mean so, I would have to disagree, because looking at weapons like Necromancer Scepter or Mesmer Scepter etcetc, the damage coefficients are incredibly low, and lend themselves entirely to Condition Damage builds. No amount of power investment will make those skills do comparable damage, that could otherwise be invested into Condition Damage.

Furthermore, and to emphasise this again, having one member in your party that uses Condition Damage is not exceptionally bad. If they reach 25 Bleeds, Burning, Poison etc etc, then they are likely to have a very high DPS themselves. The caveat of that is that it takes time to build up the stacks, and the Damage will (and should) never be as high as someone who is Berserker. In return, they are probably using a ranged weapon, and have stats like Toughness and Vitality on their armour, or maybe even both (probs not both, Precision is very useful), and their helpful Conditions like Chill and Cripple and Vulnerability are likely to last longer and be more useful (as they are likely to have invested into Condition Duration).

My Solution addresses the issue that it only takes one to achieve all this – whether in Dungeons or open world – and after that everyone is suddenly affected by the same diminishing returns as they eat into each other’s DPS. Even a Berserker character can still “take up space” when their attacks incidentally apply conditions. Condition Damage users can be made useless by the rest of the party. Simply raising the cap will not fix this, and I am aware of the technical limitations of that anyway.

Giving them this form of “overcharging” when conditions are fully stacked provides a new outlet for DPS to make up for any hindrance, means more than one Condition Damage user can be in the party, and that Ascended Weapons now have a point for Condition users.

EDIT: To clarify the DPS of a Condition user, let’s say it is a dungeon setting, so there is Corruption and Might stacked for encounters. Let’s say this is a Necro with a staff, just like in the previous example link I gave for a “Condition Build”. They will have around 2600 Condition Damage.

Their Bleeds will have ~170 Damage per tick.

That’s 4250 when Bleeding is at 25.

Dhumfire/other Burning will have roughly 1000 damage per tick.

Poison will have roughly 350 damage per tick

Torment (3 stacks) will have roughly 375 to 750 damage per tick.

Terror will have roughly 1500 Damage per tick.

Confusion (you will apply if running Epidemic) has roughly 500 damage per action per stack.

OP’s idea would work mathematically if the direct damage pulse was

damage of that condition per second/tick * seconds/ticks of duration remaining

and not just some set amount scaled with condition damage. This would also make condition damage incredibly powerful.

Your suggestion introduces an overly complicated rule set that is different in PvE and PvP. It also will probably make condition damage way too good by allowing multiple instances of duration stacking conditions, specifically burning. Adding more condition slots for existing and new conditions is also a drain on the processing resources.

And I did mean that builds with damage from conditions being far and above the largest source of damage were probably not intended, at least for PvE. A few weapons seem to go against that (necro scepter, engineer pistol, etc), but many more have conditions that supplement the direct damage. And even necro scepter #3 favors a healthy combination of conditions and direct damage.

To address the issue, I would rather do a couple things:
- Increase power scaling on some weapons that scale poorly with power.
- Reduce the number of bleeds that players output while making bleed stronger. Increase the damage of a single bleed by 50% or 100%, but then cut the quantity or duration of the bleeds. The end result is that DPS is about the same, maybe a little higher, but each player puts out less bleeds and they don’t last as long.
- Burning is hard to address because it’s the most powerful damaging condition, but also very prevalent in dungeons and many sources are 1 second applications. But address the bleed issue and power scaling should be “good enough”.

Sol Solus.3167:

OP’s idea would work mathematically if the direct damage pulse was

damage of that condition per second/tick * seconds/ticks of duration remaining

and not just some set amount scaled with condition damage. This would also make condition damage incredibly powerful.

Well, I was thinking that it should more mirror the formula for Damage that Power users have, except it gets to ignore armour values. It isn’t “just some set amount scaled with condition damage”.

so like, (Condition Damage) x (Weapon Strength) x (co-efficient)

and the co-efficient depends on the type of condition, like

Bleeding = 0.5

Burning = 0.4

Torment = 0.8

etc etc, you get the drift.

A small part of me probably wants it like that so Conditions would be able to “crit” in a way.

But to the few people who I know are reading this post now with open mouths and horror, of course everything would need to be balanced. (I’m not advocating that Conditions become super powerful and stronger than Zerker!)

With your idea, Sol, I feel like that favours the “Condition Duration” stat more than Condition Damage. We all can see that, replacing a “Carrion” Staff with a “Giver’s” Staff makes you lose the Condition Damage bonus it provides, in exchange for a flat Condition Duration boost. The total damage of your conditions will almost always end up higher by doing this, though each tick gets weaker. This is why I do not think the Duration of the Condition applied should be considered when calculating the hypothetical “overcharge” effect.

Also! The idea of the “overcharge” effect is so that characters running Zerker don’t get an additional source of damage. Thus it uses the Condition Damage stat. If you include the durations of the conditions as in your example, then they get the benefit from +30% from traits alone (many berserker set ups are 30/X/X/X/X – actually I don’t know for sure, I know my Elementalist runs that though).

“This would also make condition damage incredibly powerful.”

:)

Well, it doesn’t HAVE to be incredibly powerful. We can always balance the numbers so that is not so. My suggestion isn’t about making it stronger, it’s about

i) changing the system so that multiple Condition characters can be in the same party and still be effective, and so Zerker characters don’t inhibit them by applying their own “empty conditions”.

ii) Making it so Ascended weapons are appealing, rather than being +9 points to Condition Damage.

iii) Condition characters can still contribute in World Boss fights.

Exedore.6320:

Your suggestion introduces an overly complicated rule set that is different in PvE and PvP. It also will probably make condition damage way too good by allowing multiple instances of duration stacking conditions, specifically burning. Adding more condition slots for existing and new conditions is also a drain on the processing resources.

And I did mean that builds with damage from conditions being far and above the largest source of damage were probably not intended, at least for PvE. A few weapons seem to go against that (necro scepter, engineer pistol, etc), but many more have conditions that supplement the direct damage. And even necro scepter #3 favors a healthy combination of conditions and direct damage.

To address the issue, I would rather do a couple things:
- Increase power scaling on some weapons that scale poorly with power.
- Reduce the number of bleeds that players output while making bleed stronger. Increase the damage of a single bleed by 50% or 100%, but then cut the quantity or duration of the bleeds. The end result is that DPS is about the same, maybe a little higher, but each player puts out less bleeds and they don’t last as long.
- Burning is hard to address because it’s the most powerful damaging condition, but also very prevalent in dungeons and many sources are 1 second applications. But address the bleed issue and power scaling should be “good enough”.

Hi again! I would like to ask for some clarification.

Firstly, what is it that is being found “overly complicated”? To me, it seems quite a simple system of “cast a bleeding spell on a foe with with max bleeding already, do some small straight up damage instead”! It would not have to necessarily be different in PvE and PvP. However a difference could be just raw numbers (like Confusion is split between PvE and PvP, it’s still the same Condition), and so “overcharge” effects are a lot weaker in PvP (it is also, as I said, much more difficult to maintain enemies at maximum condition stacks in PvP because we have access to cleansing – if someone’s consistently sticking at 25 bleeding, then with what I have in mind for the strength of “overcharge”, then the “overcharge” is easily the least of their worries!).

Regarding the “processing”, we are no developers so I would not like to say what the system is likely to be able or unable to handle. This is just a suggestion! And to me it seems similar to when you simply strike an enemy for Direct Damage, except instead of checking and getting a value for their Armour, it checks if they are currently at 25 (or whatever) for a condition. (please ignore my gross attempt there to talk about the way GW2 works).

" It also will probably make condition damage way too good by allowing multiple instances of duration stacking conditions" – well that’s why we balance the numbers so that the aren’t way too good!

I am not sure if the (basic, I am sure) idea of “halving bleeds, doubling damage” is really in the spirit of the game. Every time you shorten the duration and increase the damage, your conditions get closer to being “instant damage”. They also have higher DPS during the “build up” phase, which is an important part of balancing conditions.

It also moves them away from “attrition” style of play. It makes cleansing less powerful, which imo hurts the current PvP meta badly. Before, let’s say you need to spend time to build 10 stacks of Bleeding to start doing considerable damage to an enemy, and that’s where you are able to maintain it. Once they cleanse that, you need to start building up again. After your idea, then it is 5 stacks of bleeding that perform this, and it is much easier to get to that level after your conditions are cleansed.

Finally, with your idea which lends itself to your point that you believe (to paraphrase, forgive me) “that all weapons and playstyles should revolve around Direct Damage/Power, with varying levels of Condition Damage to supplement that only”, I see as inherently flawed. There would be little reason to ever invest into Condition Damage, because it has the same problems of this current system, the one’s my suggestion is trying to address.

Which is basically, that if you’ve invested points into Condition Damage, you’ve got to hope that nobody else is capable of applying and maintaining large stacks of conditions (regardless of gear; Berserkers may apply lots of incidental “empty conditions” and Rampagers people will have chosen that gearset because applying lots of conditions is their goal), because those will eat over your own and nullify them, and make any investment into Condition Damage pointless. It will be the same as before, that having 1 (if ANY) Condition Damage people in a party is the maximum.

This needs a bump on for front page… Conditions are one of the most broken mechanics in PvE and ANet have not advertised anything about fixing the issue.

We all know there is 0 point taking more than 1 bleed spammer in a group and even 1 can be pointless because the other classes in your group can delete your damage making you less efficient.

Something that is really on my nerves at the moment is that 90% of my groups seem to have a mesmer who uses duelists and if they go that spec they will have a forced trait that illusions do bleeds on crit (100% also). If they have 3 of these up duelists will do potentially 24 bleeds (normally somewhere around 15-20 though).

Though that’s 15-20 of my bleed damage deleted by a teammate, this is such a broken mechanic that needs to be fixed and have said this in a few threads now but its just on my nerves. For this reason you shouldn’t bring a condition user in PvE.

Please ANet just give us some info about how you are fixing the problem as it has been over a year now and nothing has been done.

Nijjion.2069:

We all know there is 0 point taking more than 1 bleed spammer in a group and even 1 can be pointless because the other classes in your group can delete your damage making you less efficient.

Something that is really on my nerves at the moment is that 90% of my groups seem to have a mesmer who uses duelists and if they go that spec they will have a forced trait that illusions do bleeds on crit (100% also). If they have 3 of these up duelists will do potentially 24 bleeds (normally somewhere around 15-20 though).

Though that’s 15-20 of my bleed damage deleted by a teammate, this is such a broken mechanic that needs to be fixed and have said this in a few threads now but its just on my nerves. For this reason you shouldn’t bring a condition user in PvE.

Yes this a very well articulated point (shame I took 3 posts to make the same! Sorry “Be Concise” rule )

We are going to be stuck with a hard cap on condition stacks. I do not think this is a fault in the game.

However, as you say, I do think it is a fault when a character that has specced entirely Zerker can take up the space for Condition DPS with any-duration, empty conditions. Sharper Images (I think?) is a good example of having lots of needless bleeds, constantly refreshed on the enemy.

The parallel to this would be, if a Zerker character hit a Champion, he would have to hope that a Dire character doesn’t hit the enemy “too much” or his own damage would be undone. This would send people crazy!

I know it’s a very simplistic parallel because of all the benefits Condition characters have, but at the same time I think it highlights how Condition Damage suffers.

There’s no reason to spec for conditions, because the only thing that can happen is somebody else can apply lots of conditions themselves (like a Zerker mesmer) and they eat up yours, or just somebody else runs conditions themselves and you have to split the pool between you (doing half your DPS each). Nothing can go wrong if you go full zerker (I understand, before anyone calls me out, that full zerker is little defense, whereas Condition gear often comes with Toughness or Vit cos Condition Damage is just one stat… I addressed this above, but it basically comes down to the fact that Zerker has too little risk at the moment. It should definitely remain the “optimal” gear choice, but that’s because “high risk=high reward” makes sense. Reworking dungeon encounters to have more risk is another suggestion in itself)

So it’s like, in a party of 5:

If you’re Berserker (Power)

- Someone else has Berserker, you still both do your full damage
- Someone else is Rabid/Dire, you still do your full damage

If you’re Rampagers/Carrion (Hybrid)

- Everyone else is Zerker; a lot of your conditions will be overwritten anyway
- Someone else is Rabid/Dire; they will be fighting for their conditions to stick on the enemy.

If you’re Rabid/Dire (full conditions)

- Everyone else is Power/Hybrid; a lot of your conditions will be overwritten anyway.
- Someone else (or more) are Rabid/Dire; you’ll be fighting over Condition space and you’ll split your dps in half or thirds or whatever.

There’s no reason to do something other than Zerker, because that’s the only one where you can guarantee your own damage.

It’s kind of like The Prisoner’s Dilemna, lol. Except in the Prisoner’s Dilemna, you still “win” if you’re the only one who chooses the unfavourable option. If you choose “Condition Damage” in this game, even the people who chose “Zerker” can still make you useless with the abundance of incidental conditions.

My suggestion I think should appeal to everyone, even Zerkers who do not think they care because:

• It offers a solution to address the “Zerker meta” in dungeons without “nerfing” Zerkers (I’m seeing all these threads pop up but I can’t actually see any Devs saying that’s an option, haha), by making Hybrid/Condition builds more viable

• Also addresses world bosses/group events

• Ascended weapons have a point for condition users

• Minimal impact between game modes

• Simple system of “hit an enemy with a condition at max stacks, do some small direct damage instead”.

I would love for direct damage to have a cap, like a certain amount of damage per second or couple of seconds. Have that in till they fix conditions and you will see everyone wanting to fix conditions then.

Bleed 3500, Burning 800, posion 270 is pretty much the high average on condition damage person second. That’s 4500 a second with max stacks and high condition damage.

Lets be nice and double that for direct damge at 9k a second a group can do in a second when they reach this and go over that the mob will go immune until the second is up and starts again.

Would love to see this and all the direct damage people cry. Could also fix the zerker meta at the same time and people go more of a survivability spec. I’m just being spiteful but this is what conditions have to live with and worse.

I rewrite here. It would be nice to add a new status to the champion/world boss: PRESSURE (always active). Pressure works like this: when a new condition is applied, depending on how many stack the boss has already, Pressure deals raw damage. For example, if the boss have 15 stacks of bleeding and I am going to put the 16th, PRESSURE deals damage equal to (Raw Damage of Pressure) * (Condition Factor) * 16. In this way the condition damage becomes useful also in situation when we have full stacks, obviously with a good balance in pressure damage.

Nijjion.2069:

Would love to see this and all the direct damage people cry. Could also fix the zerker meta at the same time and people go more of a survivability spec. I’m just being spiteful but this is what conditions have to live with and worse.

;)

It’s not so awful! Condition specs likely also have a high +condition duration, so they’re the only ones who can easily put out large stacks of vuln or stuff like chill on bosses. (yeah i know about ele, engi and thief “vuln on crit” traits, especially with FGS)

If one Condition Damage user can personally maintain 15+ vuln on a boss (that wouldn’t otherwise be there), could you not argue that they make up for it slightly? If the other 4 people are full zerker and they all get +15% damage boost, it’s kind of like, overall, there’s 60% of one more zerker in the party and combined with that Condition Damage it’s

and yeah actually that’s really weak still. oh well. Especially once you start adding more condition users.

Thund.2795:

I rewrite here. It would be nice to add a new status to the champion/world boss: PRESSURE (always active). Pressure works like this: when a new condition is applied, depending on how many stack the boss has already, Pressure deals raw damage. For example, if the boss have 15 stacks of bleeding and I am going to put the 16th, PRESSURE deals damage equal to (Raw Damage of Pressure) * (Condition Factor) * 16. In this way the condition damage becomes useful also in situation when we have full stacks, obviously with a good balance in pressure damage.

Haha, with World Bosses I think you won’t ever see it with less than 25 stacks of bleeding.

It is a good idea, but how would Pressure work with conditions like Burning or Poison?

Zerk engie + giver weapons + grenades = all the vuln you need and you actually benefit from those stacks yourself.

Yeah and eles and thieves have a trait that similarly allows them to apply vuln on crit. Combined with FGS #4, even against bosses that normally have a partial immunity to it you’ll still spike at 25 vuln.

I don’t think it’s a problem that the classes that build for zerker damage have good access to vulnerability.

however, champs have resistance to it so classes that have near +100%dur are the only ones who can effectively build and maintain high stacks of it

and so Condition Users help out the Power Users that way directly!

If one class that hasn’t specced for conditions at all is even better than one who HAS specced for them, then I think something needs to be reworked.

This is a really well thought out thread. I main a condition Mesmer in pve/wvw, and I read your entire post. I have the exact same problems; the condition cap makes it hard in large group play being a condi user. What made me realize that conditions have a problem is pve was when I would farm frostgorge champions; the champion train kills the mobs so fast that I had to swap out a utility for MANTRA OF PAIN to even tag the champs. Mantra of pain is a direct, instant cast damage skill.

My mesmer is rabid main stat (condition damage, precision, toughness) and the more players around, the less effective my build becomes. I have to rely on direct damage from my pistol phantasms sometimes to even tag a world boss because it is a constant fight to apply conditions. At most I will get my conditions ticking 500 or so per second on a world boss with 80 people around…that is ABSURD.

A warrior can hit up to 50k with his one hundred blades skill on the greatsword. 50k…as in…50,000!!!! And they can stack warriors, each doing 50k every few seconds if played correctly. They are not “punished” just because they have more people doing damage…why should condition users be? This is totally unfair. The devs definitely need to do something with conditions in pve…and I imagine it’s hard to do because they are so strong in small scale pvp and wvw roaming.

Your suggestion I think is the PERFECT solution, it won’t affect pvp all that much because conditions rarely stack to the full 25 stacks in pvp. If they do, as you said the “overcharge” affect would be the least of their worries. The 25 bleed stacks would most likely drop them long before the overcharge would even get it’s first hit.

I did not know that condition attacks didn’t scale with weapon damage. I’d assumed it was similar to power. If what you say is true, no wonder condition builds feel so lack luster in pve. It should be a close to equal upgrade for ALL players who invest the time for ascended quality weapon…not just the ’zerkers, who arguably get the most benefit anyways. Your solution would really help pve condition builds, without buffing pvp/roaming wvw condi spec.

I bet if power attacks didn’t scale with weapon damage, they would STILL blow condition dps out of the water in pve.

This is something that really needs to be fixed, but it would probably take a bit of programming work from anet. It will get fixed eventually, but I doubt it is a priority. If this was world of warcraft people would be freaking out because that game has an addon which tracks every little bit of damage people do to compare their dps. Condition builds (called damage over time there) are not punished for there being more than one. It would be absurd in any other game to have condition damage so behind normal…but only when THERE IS MORE THAN ONE CONDITION USER. The dps balance is ridiculous, they should not be punished so harshly for using a build that is different than the standard meta.

Needs to be brought to a devs attention, I would suggest whispering a dev in game and talking to him about it. Really great and well thought out suggestion, but it will probably get buried here underneath all the berserker threads that are popping up. Funny how they seem to be the only ones really getting dev attention, I think condition users should step up and complain more.

TLDR: ops suggestions for an overcharge effect after condi cap that scales with condition damage is a great suggestion. It will be a non issue in pve or roaming because how often do you see one player with 25 stacks of bleed or torment on him? If you ever have it was probably only for a split second when he went into down state.

piffdaddy.8014:

This is a really well thought out thread. I main a condition Mesmer in pve/wvw, and I read your entire post. I have the exact same problems; the condition cap makes it hard in large group play being a condi user. What made me realize that conditions have a problem is pve was when I would farm frostgorge champions; the champion train kills the mobs so fast that I had to swap out a utility for MANTRA OF PAIN to even tag the champs. Mantra of pain is a direct, instant cast damage skill.

…

Your suggestion I think is the PERFECT solution, it won’t affect pvp all that much because conditions rarely stack to the full 25 stacks in pvp. If they do, as you said the “overcharge” affect would be the least of their worries. The 25 bleed stacks would most likely drop them long before the overcharge would even get it’s first hit.

I did not know that condition attacks didn’t scale with weapon damage. I’d assumed it was similar to power. If what you say is true, no wonder condition builds feel so lack luster in pve. It should be a close to equal upgrade for ALL players who invest the time for ascended quality weapon…not just the ’zerkers, who arguably get the most benefit anyways. Your solution would really help pve condition builds, without buffing pvp/roaming wvw condi spec.

I bet if power attacks didn’t scale with weapon damage, they would STILL blow condition dps out of the water in pve.

This is something that really needs to be fixed, but it would probably take a bit of programming work from anet. It will get fixed eventually, but I doubt it is a priority. If this was world of warcraft people would be freaking out because that game has an addon which tracks every little bit of damage people do to compare their dps. Condition builds (called damage over time there) are not punished for there being more than one. It would be absurd in any other game to have condition damage so behind normal…but only when THERE IS MORE THAN ONE CONDITION USER. The dps balance is ridiculous, they should not be punished so harshly for using a build that is different than the standard meta.

Needs to be brought to a devs attention, I would suggest whispering a dev in game and talking to him about it. Really great and well thought out suggestion, but it will probably get buried here underneath all the berserker threads that are popping up. Funny how they seem to be the only ones really getting dev attention, I think condition users should step up and complain more.

TLDR: ops suggestions for an overcharge effect after condi cap that scales with condition damage is a great suggestion. It will be a non issue in pve or roaming because how often do you see one player with 25 stacks of bleed or torment on him? If you ever have it was probably only for a split second when he went into down state.

Thank you very much!

Yes, I’ve re-read it and it is a little messy where I explain the difference between Ascended for conditions and ascended for power. I’m glad you could make sense of it!

I’ll put it concisely here so everyone can see it:

Lets pretend the two people (one power, one conditions) are using 2H weapons.

Power:

• Greatsword (Exotic Berserker): 179/128/9%. Weapon Strength: 995 – 1100

• Greatsword (Asc. Berserker): 188/134/10%. Weapon Strength: 1045 – 1155

• Power Damage Formula: (Weapon strength) * (Power) * (skill coefficient) / (Armor)

So, when they make the jump, they gain 9 Power (ignorable). But Weapon Strength goes up by 5%. So all their damage with that new weapon is 5% higher.

Conditions

• Staff (Exotic, Dire): 179/128/128 Weapon Strength: 985 – 1,111

• Staff (Asc, Dire): 188/134/134 Weapon Strength: 1,034 – 1,166

• Condition Damage Formula: (Base Damage) + (Factor * Condition Damage)

“Base Damage” and “Factor” depend on the type of condition, for example Bleeding has a Base Damage of 42.5 , and a Factor of 0.05.

So when Condition people make the jump, they gain 9 Condition Damage (ignorable). They also get the 5% Weapon Damage increase, but that value is not used in any formulas for Condition Damage. Base Damage and Factor never change. So for Bleeding, you get an extra (0.05 * 9) damage per tick by upgrading. An extra 0.45 damage per tick. Completely ignorable, probably gets missed or rounded down if the duration of the bleed isn’t long enough.

Not much of an incentive for Condition users to go Ascended!

I wouldn’t know how to talk to a dev in game, I don’t think I’d want to disturb them anyway, I bet lots of players try talking to them haha

I think the reason people don’t really know about this is because most if not all serious pve players use berserker. Once the zerker issue is delt with I predict this will become more of an issue as people try out new builds.

I saw another thread on this saying much of the same, we are not the only ones who recognize the problem with conditions in pve.

For bleeds, there is really no reason stacks are needed at all. If I do 5 stacks of bleeding that tick for 100 damage each for 8 seconds, instead of storing that in the form of 5 individual stacks, the game should store 4000 points of damage, 8 seconds and deduct remaining damage divided by remaining time each second until both are 0. If 3 seconds later someone else does the equivalent of 3 stacks of 50 points of damage for 6 seconds, then we do the flowing: The current remaining damage in the pool is 2500, so we add 900 to that. The remaining duration is 5 seconds, we set that to 6 seconds, as the newest duration is longer than the remaining time from the original cast. If it were shorter, we would keep the original remaining duration, and just add the damage to the pool. So, now bleed ticks for 566 damage per second for the next 6 seconds, or until more damage is added to the bleed pool. This is easier for the server to process as it only has to track one bleed stack, add any new damage, adjust duration, and subtract damage as it is applied. Tracking damage for rewards can just be noted when damage is added to the pool. Displaying damage numbers on the client can be handled totally client side, as the client already knows what it sent in.

Unfortunately, this wouldn’t work for confusion because of the way it’s damage is applied.

Black Box.9312:

Attack is based additively between your power and weapon strength, not multiplicatively, so theoretically

Uhm, attack is irrelevant, damage sees weapon strength and power multiplied.

Exedore.6320:

You’ll never fix the condition cap problem for world bosses. It’s best to concentrate on fixing it for dungeons and smaller groups.

You could play around with:

• condition duration
• tick frequencies
• damage per tick
• number of stacks applied

If the cap on the number of stacks is fixed, but you want to increase the number of players able to effectively apply conditions you can:

• reduce the duration and increase the tick frequency *
  With stacks expiring faster there will be more room for new stacks to apply while the damage is essentially unchanged. No effect on +/- condition duration buffs
• reduce the duration and increase the damage per tick
  Again, more room for new stacks, base damage remains the same but the effectiveness +/- condition duration is altered.
• decrease the number of stacks applied but increase damage
• decrease the number of stacks applied but increase tick frequence

… Someone using 3 offensive stats (power, precision, crit dmg) should do more damage than someone using 1 or 2 and the rest defensive stats (rabid or dire), right?

They do, Berserker is more specialized power gear that aids damage output more then Dire and has no equivalent for condition damage. Soldier’s would be the equivalent of Dire, offering a similar boost to damage (in power) and survival (toughness and vitality).

I feel somewhat conflicted about this suggestion. Making overflow conditions into a quick burst damage feels like… not condition damage at all.

Its no longer damage over time. Its not something you build up to be devastating with every second, it becomes straightforward damage because others built it up before you. If i was keen on seeing quick bursts of damage, i would have built for zerker as the rest of the group.

It fixes the numerical issues and unbalance between direct damage bursts that were always so, and condition damage that just became direct damage burst because it wasnt fair before. But in the process, Condition Damage kinda loses its..“thing”.

With the duration and damage over time nature of conditions gone this way, any enemy that might have any cleansing equiped will suffer the full duration damage of the overflow condition without the chance to cleanse. In PvP, parties might be formed to exploit this, spiking a single target with tons of conditions, reaching the caps in half a second and taking down the victim with just the immedietly applied unblockable and unavoidable overflow bursts even faster. In PvE though, there are not enough cleanses. Actually in PvE there are not enough active defenses on mobs, just tons of HP.

So…yeah. Conflicted. Its still much better than what we have now, but…

lakdav.3694:

I feel somewhat conflicted about this suggestion. Making overflow conditions into a quick burst damage feels like… not condition damage at all.

Hello! I would like to call you out on a few things here:

lakdav.3694:

Its no longer damage over time. Its not something you build up to be devastating with every second, it becomes straightforward damage because others built it up before you. If i was keen on seeing quick bursts of damage, i would have built for zerker as the rest of the group.

It still is damage over time, because you’ve got to stack conditions to reach the cap before the overcharge mechanic is effected. The condition count can only drop after that point, because overcharged condition attacks do not apply their condition. It is still something that you build up with to be “devastating every second”. The “quick bursts of damage” are not comparable to Zerker burst, they are there to address the system of a hard cap which is shared by all, regardless of whether they have specced for conditions or not.

lakdav.3694:

It fixes the numerical issues and unbalance between direct damage bursts that were always so, and condition damage that just became direct damage burst because it wasnt fair before. But in the process, Condition Damage kinda loses its..“thing”.

I don’t understand this, especially the second part of the first sentence. I mean I literally cannot understand it.
I am not sure what “thing” Condition Damage has that it loses in this suggestion. It still is the stat for attrition and armor-ignoring damage over time.

lakdav.3694:

With the duration and damage over time nature of conditions gone this way, any enemy that might have any cleansing equiped will suffer the full duration damage of the overflow condition without the chance to cleanse.

I’m honestly not entirely sure what you mean by that point. An enemy that cleanses will not reach (or stay at) the condition caps and will not be affected by overcharge mechanics. Then you say that they would “suffer the full duration damage of the overflow condition” which is very confusing. There is no “overflow condition”. There is an instant pulse of damage. It doesn’t have a duration. They have the chance to cleanse while Bleeding is slowly going up to 25.

In PvP, parties might be formed to exploit this, spiking a single target with tons of conditions, reaching the caps in half a second and taking down the victim with just the immedietly applied unblockable and unavoidable overflow bursts even faster.

I’m not sure what to make of this point. You can form parties that are Power-Based and all 5 of you spiking one enemy will destroy them even faster than a party with conditions. If you are co-ordinated and your whole party is spiking one person then their death is not going to be down to this overcharge mechanic. I thought about this before I made the suggestion but I didn’t think anyone else would try using it. You seem to be making the mistake that other people have made – I haven’t even made any suggestions for the numbers of the overcharge effect and there’s already calls for it to be “nerfed”, lol. The overcharge effect is NOT a “massive amount of damage”, it’s NOT there to make conditions comparable to zerker (for that huge list of reasons why Zerker stuff deserves to be the highest dps), it’s there to FIX the system of conditions being a worthless stat in PvE (as the title indicates, this is about the PvE side).

Furthermore I justified how it would not be a massive problem in PvP anyway because, not only is cleansing super-common in PvP compared to PvE, if you can keep someone at 25 bleeding long enough to get a couple of overcharge hits in, then they are going to die from the Bleeding. Or, if you’re managing to keep them at 25 bleeding because all 5 of you are hitting them, then they are going to die because 5 players are coordinating and purposefully spiking one player. Do you think this can’t happen either with Power or even Conditions the way they currently are?

Cleanses on PvE mobs should be more important, but in its current state there’s no incentive to use conditions due to its “selfish DPS” nature, so cleansing would just be an unnecessary nerf to the playstyle. If they changed it so mobs got more toughness and had more damage mitigation abilities (like Protection or stuff like being able to pop an “Arcane Shield”) conditions would become more valuable, and you could justify mobs having access to more cleanses. This wouldn’t nerf Zerkers because for them it would just make it all the more important that they had ways of stripping boons and applying Vulnerability, instead of just autoattacking in a stack behind a wall.

Hello Kyubi, is this comment in the wrong thread? This is not a suggestion about removing the condition caps, these are the first lines in the first post

“A lot of us know that, for PvE, builds that rely upon Condition Damage for their DPS are very underpowered.

I will suggest that there are two reasons for this:

i) The Condition Caps (I understand technical limitations of 25 max- this is not a post about raising them)"

This is also not a post about the validity of the alleged claims that crit damage is going to be nerfed.