Guild Wars 2

Am I missing something here?

I don’t know how many threads there have been on this kind of subject, but in terms of raw damage versus conditions, there seems to be almost nothing favorable about straight, direct damage. Recently I’ve been running a Zerker-stated meditation guardian, and while it’s fun, it seems to just fall short for a myriad of reasons. I’ve converted to bunker because every game it looks like straight damage is essentially useless.

For one, running straight damage requires a three stat investment: power, precision, and critical damage. Conditions require one, and that’s condition damage. There’s condition duration, but conditions are already so spammable it hardly makes a difference. If you’re going for straight damage, you have to go all in or you see huge losses in your ability to actually hurt people, and once your raw damage is low enough, you’re getting into areas of attrition where conditions are just straight better anyway. Meanwhile, in running a condition spec, you free up one or two stat slots for stats like toughness, healing power, etc. Stats, which I should add, make you more defensible against raw damage builds (healing power and vitality are a good defense against conditions, but toughness does nothing except mitigate raw damage, and the first two also mitigate raw damage).

And that’s just the stats side of things – there’s the mechanics, too. There are so many defensive mechanics that only minimize raw damage, it’s insane. Dodging, blocking, “invulnerability” skills, stealth, they all stop basic attacks and skills from getting through. And while they do prevent condition-applying attacks from hitting, they do nothing to stop conditions that have already been applied. Dodging, Renewed Focus, Engineer’s Tool Kit Shield, Warrior’s Shield, conditions already on you will keep burning you while using them, but they make you invincible to straight damage assaults. And to make matters even worse, not only are these kind of skills and abilities abundant, but conditions themselves come with ways to out-shine raw damage. Weakness only mitigates straight damage, and it reduces endurance regeneration which is so much more valuable to raw-damage dealers who have to invest into three stats to do what they do, giving up other defensive stats. There’s also poison, which reduces healing and is invaluable for preventing all the prevalent self-healing, which a lot of the more DPS-based classes don’t get access to.

Couple these together, and you get a design scheme where the only way to become a bigger raw damage dealer is to spec more intently into less defensive specs, which is not only disfavorable due to how squishy it makes you, it doesn’t actually accomplish much because there are so many mechanics that just flat out prevent damage. You become more squishy, but you don’t actually make yourself any more effective because of all the blocks and dodges, etc.

All things considered, I get that DPS has the advantage of being burst-oriented, as opposed to the over-time nature of conditions, but it just seems like there’s such a ridiculous amount of ways that going raw damage isn’t favored in the spectrum of PvP. Which is a shame, because to me it’s one of the most fun specs available.

Did you get your terminology crossed? I think you mean Direct Damage instead of DPS, because conditions very much do qualify as Damage Per Second.

The advantage to Direct Damage is that it’s applied instantly, and that it scales by multiplying stats together instead of linearly.

As for dodging etc only mitigating DD, that’s bogus. If you dodge an attack that applies conditions, you not only negate the attack, but all the damage from the conditions it would have applied as well.

Rhyse.8179:

Did you get your terminology crossed? I think you mean Direct Damage instead of DPS, because conditions very much do qualify as Damage Per Second.

The advantage to Direct Damage is that it’s applied instantly, and that it scales by multiplying stats together instead of linearly.

As for dodging etc only mitigating DD, that’s bogus. If you dodge an attack that applies conditions, you not only negate the attack, but all the damage from the conditions it would have applied as well.

“Raw DPS” implies straight damage. Conditions are not “raw,” they’re conditions. And straight damage is certainly damage per second, unless you’re somehow blowing your entire skillbar of attacks in less than one second.

I don’t think you really read the post. The multiplicative stats are a disadvantage because in order to make the most of a raw damage build, you have to trait into these multiplicative stats. With condition damage you can get an equally efficient return on your stats by speccing only into condition damage, and leaving open free slots for defensive stats. By the time you’ve allocated enough stats into power, precision, and critical to make the damage markedly more than conditions, you’ve turned into wet noodle that dies in a few good hits.

And in regards to the mechanics, the point isn’t how they mitigate the attack, it’s how they mitigate the effect. The point of damaging builds is to kill the enemy. When someone dodges, for example, they negate your attack and that’s it. You’ve done 0 damage to them. You’re not fulfilling your intended role. When they dodge, but have conditions on them, your attack misses, but they’re still taking damage, which means even if your effect is mitigated, you’re still doing exactly what you intend to. If I use Whirling Wrath and my opponent uses a skill like Gear Shield, I do 0 damage to them. My method of speccing into damage-based attacks is completely negated. But if I apply a bunch of conditions to an Engineer, and then they Gear Shield to prevent further attacks, they’re still taking damage from the conditions that already exist on them. My method of speccing into condition-based damage is not being entirely negated.

And that’s just one way conditions appear the superior choice to raw damage. When you combine it with everything else, we get back to my original point. What’s the point of direct damage, when conditions and condition-based builds have so many more advantages?

well, in theory it was supposed to create “pressure”. Infact that’s where most of their hands-on experience came from for balancing this stuff. Was looking at lots and lots of pressure builds who’s job it was to eventually stack something called a “death penalty” while exhausting Rez Sigs.

umm, thank you, Conquest??

Lazy TL;DR for the best things he pointed out in comparison to Direct Damage to Condition Damage.

Raws DPS/Direct Damage
• Needs 3 stats to be effective: Power, Precision, Crit Damage
• Countered by Weakness and Protection
• Enemy dodges = 0 damage done

Condition Damage
• Needs 1 stat to be effective: Condition Damage. This leaves you free to allocate more points into Healing/Vitality/Toughness
• No condition counters condition damage
• Enemy dodges = conditions previously applied keeps on ticking.

I think he’s got a good point. I think condition ticks on dodge rolls are ok though.

Kyon.9735:

• Enemy dodges = conditions previously applied keeps on ticking.

• Enemy dodges = any damage applied prior to the dodge is negated. – ?

/logic, I guess. Dodging has exactly the same impact on condition specs as on direct damage specs.

Condition cleansing hurts condition builds as much as protection hurts direct damage builds.

Usually PvP teams consist of 1 bunker, 2-3 direct damage specs, 1-2 condition damage specs.

Kyon.9735:

Lazy TL;DR for the best things he pointed out in comparison to Direct Damage to Condition Damage.

Raws DPS/Direct Damage
• Needs 3 stats to be effective: Power, Precision, Crit Damage
• Countered by Weakness and Protection
• Enemy dodges = 0 damage done

Condition Damage
• Needs 1 stat to be effective: Condition Damage. This leaves you free to allocate more points into Healing/Vitality/Toughness
• No condition counters condition damage
• Enemy dodges = conditions previously applied keeps on ticking.

I think he’s got a good point. I think condition ticks on dodge rolls are ok though.

Thanks.

I agree that it makes sense for conditions to tick through block/dodges if previously applied. It’s just a problem when you pile on the other advantages of conditions as well. There’s also very little comparable for direct damage dealers, there’s very few skills which are unblockable, or which make an attack or a series of attacks unblockable or undodgeable.

Condition cleansing hurts condition builds as much as protection hurts direct damage builds.

The difference being conditions are easily reapplied, and are not unique. For example, if I’m in a damage spec, I only get one of X skill (Whirling Wrath, Eviscerate, whatever you want it to be). If it’s blocked, dodged, whatever, it’s gone until it comes off cooldown. If I’m playing a condition engineer and have, say, pistol and grenades, and they dodge my pistol’s poison shot, but I then switch to grenades and apply poison that way, I’ve achieved an almost identical effect. They’re poisoned, and the poison they have now is no different from the poison they might have gotten from the pistol. In the case of important direct damage skills, they’re just gone. That makes conditions more reliable. And reliability is a really big component of balance.

Dub.1273:

Kyon.9735:

• Enemy dodges = conditions previously applied keeps on ticking.

• Enemy dodges = any damage applied prior to the dodge is negated. – ?

/logic, I guess. Dodging has exactly the same impact on condition specs as on direct damage specs.

Condition cleansing hurts condition builds as much as protection hurts direct damage builds.

Usually PvP teams consist of 1 bunker, 2-3 direct damage specs, 1-2 condition damage specs.

Lol I just summarized what he said. I also said that condition ticks on dodges are ok

Darmikau.9413:

For one, running straight damage requires a three stat investment: power, precision, and critical damage. Conditions require one, and that’s condition damage. There’s condition duration, but conditions are already so spammable it hardly makes a difference. If you’re going for straight damage, you have to go all in or you see huge losses in your ability to actually hurt people, and once your raw damage is low enough, you’re getting into areas of attrition where conditions are just straight better anyway. Meanwhile, in running a condition spec, you free up one or two stat slots for stats like toughness, healing power, etc. Stats, which I should add, make you more defensible against raw damage builds (healing power and vitality are a good defense against conditions, but toughness does nothing except mitigate raw damage, and the first two also mitigate raw damage).

This is very wrong. Condition builds also have to take precision in order to be effective, otherwise the condition stacking just isn’t going to be that much. And yes, you do actually need condition duration, as you can not get to high stacks without it. There is a reason why many condition builds, or at least ones that play efficiently, use precision. This is coming from someone that has played a condition necromancer since the beta.

Darmikau.9413:

Am I missing something here?

yes you are.

Darmikau.9413:

For one, running straight damage requires a three stat investment: power, precision, and critical damage. Conditions require one, and that’s condition damage. There’s condition duration, but conditions are already so spammable it hardly makes a difference. If you’re going for straight damage, you have to go all in or you see huge losses in your ability to actually hurt people, and once your raw damage is low enough, you’re getting into areas of attrition where conditions are just straight better anyway. Meanwhile, in running a condition spec, you free up one or two stat slots for stats like toughness, healing power, etc. Stats, which I should add, make you more defensible against raw damage builds (healing power and vitality are a good defense against conditions, but toughness does nothing except mitigate raw damage, and the first two also mitigate raw damage).

Only needs condition damage? Look at this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQJArIiAieAAAAA-TkAgyCuIaS1krJTTymsNNWA
The oh so fearsome scepter auto attack does 511 bleeding damage with only condition damage. Conditions also need three stats they are called: condition damage/condition duration and precision.

Darmikau.9413:

And that’s just the stats side of things – there’s the mechanics, too. There are so many defensive mechanics that only minimize raw damage, it’s insane. Dodging, blocking, “invulnerability” skills, stealth, they all stop basic attacks and skills from getting through. And while they do prevent condition-applying attacks from hitting, they do nothing to stop conditions that have already been applied. Dodging, Renewed Focus, Engineer’s Tool Kit Shield, Warrior’s Shield, conditions already on you will keep burning you while using them, but they make you invincible to straight damage assaults. And to make matters even worse, not only are these kind of skills and abilities abundant, but conditions themselves come with ways to out-shine raw damage. Weakness only mitigates straight damage, and it reduces endurance regeneration which is so much more valuable to raw-damage dealers who have to invest into three stats to do what they do, giving up other defensive stats. There’s also poison, which reduces healing and is invaluable for preventing all the prevalent self-healing, which a lot of the more DPS-based classes don’t get access to.

All defense mechanisms prevent the application of new conditions. The damage you’re still receiving is damage you still should have gotten by being hit. It’s like saying invulnerability should block all my attacks plus a part of the previous six attacks. Also most raw damage weapons get different functions like giving vulnerability, mobility, cripple,evade,… (btw for weakness look thief sword, warrior mace or warrior hammer).

Darmikau.9413:

Couple these together, and you get a design scheme where the only way to become a bigger raw damage dealer is to spec more intently into less defensive specs, which is not only disfavorable due to how squishy it makes you, it doesn’t actually accomplish much because there are so many mechanics that just flat out prevent damage. You become more squishy, but you don’t actually make yourself any more effective because of all the blocks and dodges, etc.

Doesn’t that apply to conditions as well: the more condition we want to do the less defensive we have to spec?

Darmikau.9413:

All things considered, I get that DPS has the advantage of being burst-oriented, as opposed to the over-time nature of conditions, but it just seems like there’s such a ridiculous amount of ways that going raw damage isn’t favored in the spectrum of PvP. Which is a shame, because to me it’s one of the most fun specs available.

To me condition specs are more fun but hey each their own. Also where is condition removal in your argument?

IMO in WVvW you do need condition duration because people are running condition reduction gears to counter it. In PVP though not a lot of condi players opt for condition duration.

Darmikau.9413:

snip

To your first point, most build require precision and condition duration to be effective. Why do you think necromancers invest 20 trait points in a line to get 50% more fear duration? Mesmers, engis and necros all need precision to proc extra bleeds. Your argument does not hold up when the vast majority of condition builds invest in 3-4 stats. Also, full damage berzerkers gear way out damages a max condition spec because you can invest in 3 stats with an amulet, and gear (all game modes). If there was a gear that gave condition damage precision and condition duration I believe condition specs would be much more viable in PVE. I’m also going to point out that many of the skills which people consider to be spammable aren’t that spammable. For instance a necromancer’s staff skills 3-5, signet of spite, corrupt boon, tainted shackles, and doom are all on a 20 plus second cool down. The spam skills on a necromancer are scepter 2 and auto, whose damage is far less than any zerker builds auto attacks.

Your second point doesn’t mention condition clears or transfers at all which completely mitigate conditions on you, or the immunity traits. Also you can use all of the skills you listed to mitigate the big condition applying skills just as well as the power ones. For instance, you should probably dodge a necromancer’s signet of spite, or an engineers pry bar or concussion bomb. That’s the same as any burst build. You point out that conditions do damage while your blocking and dodging if they are already applied to you. I wonder, do you really think conditions should stop doing damage once they have already been applied? You really think that during thieves pistol whip, mesmer’s distortion, warriors endure pain, engineers gear shield, and guardian’s renewed focus that conditions shouldn’t do any damage? Furthermore, you want a boon or condition that lowers condition damage beyond that? If all of those where implemented along with the amount of ways one can already mitigate condition damage, condition builds wouldn’t exist and necromancers, engineers, and rangers would have no business being anywhere in this game.

I also want to point out that there are as many ways to prevent condition damage as direct damage in this game:
Condition: condition clear and conversion, immunity skills and traits
direct damage: weakness, protection
both: block(including aegis), invuln, blind, dodge

Overall, condition builds and direct damage builds are well balanced from a design standpoint. The issues people are having with condition builds currently is that they don’t pay attention to the animations, and use their mitigation effectively. I also want to point out that most high level pvp teams run more direct damage than condition builds.

If weakness is ever effecting condition damage, then all the other multipliers (from traits and vulnerability) should also effect conditions to be fair.

One additions to the dodge (etc.) does not cleans conditions thing:
It does also not heal you for a percentage of the raw damage you received within the last X seconds (because this would be the same)

And as Tim said, you forgot about condition removals in your comparison.

zapv.8051:

Darmikau.9413:

snip

Overall, condition builds and direct damage builds are well balanced from a design standpoint.

I kinda disagree with this. We won’t be in the so-called “Condi-Meta” if it was balanced.

Kyon.9735:

zapv.8051:

Darmikau.9413:

snip

Overall, condition builds and direct damage builds are well balanced from a design standpoint.

I kinda disagree with this. We won’t be in the so-called “Condi-Meta” if it was balanced.

People only call it that because they are too stubborn to change anything about their build to cleanse conditions. If you fight a condition build without reliable condition cleanse, that is your own fault. Expect all situations, adapt, and you will become a better player.

Ugh, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
It isn’t about theoretically higher DPS, or ease of cleansing, or greater total damage.
What gives conditions an edge over direct damage is the ineffectiveness of defensive strategies, and the ease of application. Condition damage is generally (not always, but usually) spread through either a number of passive procs, or spread evenly over a number of individually weak, low-cooldown skills.
The reason this is good for condition users is that skilled players time their defenses to coincide with strong enemy attacks, which is ineffective against most methods of condition application (because autoattacks come cheap and dedicated condition skills aren’t penalized terribly for failing to hit).
This is and will continue to be the major reason conditions are so powerful, as far as I can tell.

Kyon.9735:

zapv.8051:

Darmikau.9413:

snip

Overall, condition builds and direct damage builds are well balanced from a design standpoint.

I kinda disagree with this. We won’t be in the so-called “Condi-Meta” if it was balanced.

I’m not talking about the meta at this time (which is debatably not a condition meta), certain builds always need to be toned down and others brought up. I’m saying that the way direct damage and conditions are designed within this game is well implemented. Certain builds are problematic (IMO decap engi), but the way conditions and direct damage are built from the ground up is fine. <— that is what people want changed that I strongly disagree with.

In short I’m not arguing against small changes to certain builds, but Arenanet doesn’t suddenly need to make dodges give complete immunity to an attack that already hit you.

Conditions dominate PvP because the best condition skills deal much, much more damage than the best regular damage skills. Between dodges, blocks, invulnerability, stealth, and evasion in general, it can be tricky to land any hits at all; the advantage of conditions is that the best condition skills are roughly twice as powerful as the best regular damage skills.

That can be balanced in a world where there’s strong condition removal that can blunt the effectiveness of all that damage. But as we’ve seen condition builds puke out so many conditions that even dedicated anti-condition specs struggle to keep up.

When you make something super powerful because it can be countered, but that counter is ineffective, you’re going to have a balance problem.

There are some quirky things about conditions scaling better with your runes than your base stats and having much stronger procs as well, but it really just comes down to condition skills being crazy overpowered in a world where it’s hard to pull conditions.

What (best) condition skill deals much more damage then any power skills?

It is funny how this flip flops between PVE and PVP, thanks to how different the opposition is stated.

unleashed.8679:

What (best) condition skill deals much more damage then any power skills?

All of them. Assuming we are comparing equivalient skill types, like autoattack. A condition damage skill will do roughly 50% more damage then a power skill- the catch is that it can be cleansed and that damage is stretched out.

Example with easy to nom numbers:

Power: 100 damage
Condi: 50 damage, +100 bleeding over 10 seconds

If you dodge the power attack, you mitigate 100 damage. If you dodge the condi attack, you mitigate 150 damage. It’s not that complicated.

Also of note, it takes time for condi DPS to actually pass power. Without high stacks, it’s actually worse then power because the damage trickles in and gives you time to counter it. If you have a 25 stack of bleed on you, that basically means that you have stood there and let another player whomp on you for a good 10-15 seconds (counting autoattacks only in this case ). With power, you’d already be dead by then.

I know that its easy to get high condi stacks from multiple skills (I have played necro, scepter/dagger is evil)- you should be able to anticipate this condi-burst and act to counter it. Unless you don’t have any condition counters in your build- in this case, scissors, meet rock. I will grant the point that condition counters are on very long cooldowns and condi attacks are not- this is a game design error. Cleansing is balanced to counter CC conditions, not DPS ones, but unfortunately (idiotically, imo), they both use the same mechanic.

I think that there is also a case for +duration being too powerful, but the core design of power vs condition is fine.

The big problems with conditions goes deeper then a mere dps imbalance and into the core mechanic- counters to DPS should not be mixed in with counters to CC. It restricts builds and tactics. Yet that’s exactly what we have with conditions and cleansing because there’s only one category of effect.

Rhyse.8179:

unleashed.8679:

What (best) condition skill deals much more damage then any power skills?

All of them. Assuming we are comparing equivalient skill types, like autoattack. A condition damage skill will do roughly 50% more damage then a power skill- the catch is that it can be cleansed and that damage is stretched out.

If that were true then conditions would be desired in pve but they don’t. Kinda strange right?

Tim.6450:

If that were true then conditions would be desired in pve but they don’t. Kinda strange right?

The stack limit is their only problem in pve.

Rhyse.8179:

Tim.6450:

If that were true then conditions would be desired in pve but they don’t. Kinda strange right?

The stack limit is their only problem in pve.

NO, the fact that they do less damage while providing no benefits is their problem in PVE. If stacking was the only limit optimized groups would take one condition build. Seeing as no optimized run does take condition builds they must do less damage.

zapv.8051:

Rhyse.8179:

Tim.6450:

If that were true then conditions would be desired in pve but they don’t. Kinda strange right?

The stack limit is their only problem in pve.

NO, the fact that they do less damage while providing no benefits is their problem in PVE. If stacking was the only limit optimized groups would take one condition build. Seeing as no optimized run does take condition builds they must do less damage.

Wasn’t the point of the OP that they do too much damage?

Cmon everyone, get your act together.

/assist

4 guys hit me with multi stacked bleeds I cleanse all their damage is gone.

4 guys target me at once with direct damage – melted…..

Direct damage works better with teamwork as it is not limited by stacking rules or time. It’s force multiplicative.

But yeah individually conditions are powerful at the size of tpvp and health pools makes it highly advantageous.

I would say it is safer damage. For direct damage you only have to hit your opponent. For conditions you have to hit your opponent and make sure they dont cleanse too much conditions.

Tim.6450:

If that were true then conditions would be desired in pve but they don’t. Kinda strange right?

Conditions don’t benefit from vulnerability or raw damage multipliers, and you don’t get power/precision/ferocity multiplying together to push tiny base numbers into something pretty monstrous.

When you’re running an optimized set-up against scripted content, you can stack every damage multiplier on top of each other and get tons of damage. When optimization means buff/debuff stacking, optimized skill rotations, and not a concern for defense, regular damage dominates.

When defensive stats matter, when you have short windows to deal damage to evading, unpredictable foes, and between disruption and other concerns you can’t stack every buff you’d ever want, things like, say, Shrapnel Grenade dealing roughly twice the base damage of a fully charged Eviscerate is kind of a big deal.

You know, there is something that is bothering me. I could’ve sworn that, awhile ago, I did a comparison between a PVT build and a condi build, and found that direct damage did more damage.

Ah… I found it:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Personally I don’t put all my eggs in one basket, and I go hybrid.

Anyway, not a lot of people have done math on the issue. What most people get is the tooltip, and that is misleading to a large degree. The tooltip assumes 2600 armor, and since the minimum is 1836, this means it can be up to 41.6% higher.

So, with that in mind, I’m going to make an arbitrary comparison between a guardian’s auto attack with his sword, and a Necromancer’s auto attack with their scepter. This is assuming a few things: Full PVT / MVT gear, exotic level gear, 300 in the relevant damage stat, and an appropriate rune/sigil. Off-hand weapon will not be considered. So, in full PVT/MVT we get the following bonuses:

Guardian:

Vitality: 698
Toughness: 698
Power: 1003 from gear + 165 from rune + 300 from stats = 1,468 Power
Runes of the Ogre bonus: 4% damage increase
Sigil of Force bonus: 5% damage increase

Total effective power: (916 + 1468) x 1.04 × 1.05 = 2603 power

Necromancer:
Vitality: 698
Toughness: 748
Malice: 1003 (from gear) + 300 (from stats) + 183 (from runes) + 83 (run undead bonus) = 1569
Total Malice with Sigil of Bursting: 1663

At 1663 condition damage, bleed does about 126 per tick, and poison does about 250 per tick. This means that the necromancer’s scepter auto chain will do 4 (126) x 2 + 4 (250) = 2008 damage over the course of 7 seconds (3 seconds to initialize the damage, 4 for the poison to tick). If you want to get technical, the motions to inflict all the damage is done in 3 seconds, so we’ll just go with that. Note that the auto attack also has a direct damage component (118 + 118 + 168), so the real total damage comes to 2,421 in 3(+4) seconds, factoring in crit chance and crit damage.

At 2603 power, the sword auto attack will do 764 × 2 +1,432 damage, or 2,960 damage in 2.5 seconds. Now, this isn’t assuming any crits, but if we factor in a 4% crit chance along with a 1.53 crit damage, we will get a further 2% increase, or about 3023 damage in 2.5 seconds.

This tooltip damage is also assuming 2600 armor. That is actually more than the necro has ATM (2584), but assuming we were fighting something like a GC mesmer, who would only have 1836 armor, then we would do 41.6% more damage, up to 4281 damage in 2.5 seconds. But, we’ll just go with the tooltip for now.

Ultimately, the guardian is doing more damage, doing it faster, doing it in power, and doing it while in heavily defensive gear. A lot of people constantly point at zerker gear, saying it is the only way to run a damage build. It really isn’t. I’ve been running a PVT guardian build in sPVP for a long time, and it does hit things quite kitten its own. One of my favorite things to do is just go around auto attacking people with the greatsword, since the combination of power + bulk means I’ll win the auto attack war. I’ve even played around with Valkyrie, which I recommend to many people, as it hits really kitten crits, and still has plenty of vitality for defense.

Those “builds” above are merely skeletons. The more modifiers you throw at it, the more things change up. But if you do throw modifiers on, you have to remember to do it to both classes: if you include trait abilities, you do it for both. If you include additional stats, you do it for both. If you include consumables, you do it for both.

We do see a lot of condi spam, and it is not because it is stronger, but because it is easier. Most condi attacks are ranged, which means they are easy to execute. They are also done in an AoE, which means they have an accumulating group damage, which is higher. They also have more passive abilities, which means it requires less skill shots or timed attacks. They have less obvious animations, making them harder to avoid. They have less direct build counters, instead yielding almost exclusively to cleanses. This makes it so that, for pole positioning and kiting, conditions are the best bet.

Power, while being stronger, is harder to use. You’ve got to be in melee range to do the best damage, and with big hits you are often relying on control effects, which have their own counter in stability and stun breakers. When it works, it pays off. Up in t1 we have melee trains, which are groups of warriors, guardians, thieves, and sometimes Rangers and Mesmers who rush in with movement skills in a large wave, and just mow everything down with power based melee attacks. These melee trains are capable of mowing down groups much larger than themselves, often splitting zergs in half once they march in.

This was in the WvW forum, so the context is slightly different, but nonetheless I think it applies.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You know, there is something that is bothering me. I could’ve sworn that, awhile ago, I did a comparison between a PVT build and a condi build, and found that direct damage did more damage.

Ah… I found it:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

…

This was in the WvW forum, so the context is slightly different, but nonetheless I think it applies.

Thank you for this post. I’m really happy I finally found a post like this (a detailed comparison of soldier vs dire). Though the method may be debatable (you maximized conditions damage and added no duration into runes and such), it will provided an answer to the following notion:

“conditions only need one stat.”

They dont need only one stat. There are some broken builds, like spirit bunker ranger, that dont need crits to apply their conditions and dont even need duration, because they reapply them very fast.

Excluding those broken builds, you will need atleast 3 stats, you can count some defense too if you take into account, that condition damage needs time to hit.

Compared to a powerbuild, condition damage works like power, it increases the base damage.
Precision increases this damage a bit more due to sigil/trait procs.
Condition duration works like crit damage, it multiplies the other stats.

The problem I see is the stat combination, if we think about rock-paper-sissors (direct damage < tank < condition damage). Condition builds should have their weakness to bursty direct damage, but the stat combination you get is condition damage/thoughness, which make no sense. It should be vitality. Also rune of the undead should scale with vitality. The buff food crystals should also scale with vitality as main stat, not thoughness.

I made a post sort of addressing this subject. I think a good reason we see more tanky condition is because Power specs don’t have a proper tanky amulet to work with in a lot of cases. That’s in spvp though.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Spvp-Amulets-Critical-damage-tanky-power

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You know, there is something that is bothering me. I could’ve sworn that, awhile ago, I did a comparison between a PVT build and a condi build, and found that direct damage did more damage.

This is the right way to compare skills across classes and specs. Your methods are good.

I question your choice of sample. Guardian sword has a pretty typical melee chain, but Necromancer scepter has a really weak ranged condi chain. When you’re comparing a weak skill to an average skill, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the weak skill is, well, weaker.

This is in fact typical. Skills are not anywhere near each other in power; some weapons have very strong skills, some have a bunch of garbage and 1-2 scary skills. If you just pick two skills and compare them, the results aren’t going to generalize, because the power of individual skills dominates.

You have to look at the whole set of skills if you want to avoid those errors.

Ensign.2189:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You know, there is something that is bothering me. I could’ve sworn that, awhile ago, I did a comparison between a PVT build and a condi build, and found that direct damage did more damage.

This is the right way to compare skills across classes and specs. Your methods are good.

I question your choice of sample. Guardian sword has a pretty typical melee chain, but Necromancer scepter has a really weak ranged condi chain. When you’re comparing a weak skill to an average skill, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the weak skill is, well, weaker.

This is in fact typical. Skills are not anywhere near each other in power; some weapons have very strong skills, some have a bunch of garbage and 1-2 scary skills. If you just pick two skills and compare them, the results aren’t going to generalize, because the power of individual skills dominates.

You have to look at the whole set of skills if you want to avoid those errors.

I would have to agree with this. I also want to emphasize that in this analysis, the necro attack is 900 range while the guardian is 130. Ranged skills are typically balanced to do less damage in this game than close combat ones. An analysis of a physical ranged attack versus a condi ranged attack might be better.

Lazaar.9123:

Kyon.9735:

zapv.8051:

Darmikau.9413:

snip

Overall, condition builds and direct damage builds are well balanced from a design standpoint.

I kinda disagree with this. We won’t be in the so-called “Condi-Meta” if it was balanced.

People only call it that because they are too stubborn to change anything about their build to cleanse conditions. If you fight a condition build without reliable condition cleanse, that is your own fault. Expect all situations, adapt, and you will become a better player.

I don’t think it’s because people are just too stubborn to put condi cleanses in their builds.

People do put in condi cleanses but the rate of application is the problem. The cleanses from utility skills/traits have very long cooldowns if you compare it to the rate of how much conditions you can apply. Condis usually come from auto attack chains (paired with on crit proc traits) and weapon skills which have much lower cool down than your cleanses. Everybody who’s played a decent amount of PVP knows pretty well how fast people can stack up condis on a target even without condi duration bonuses (esp engineers, spirit rangers, and necros).

Not to mention that the strongest condi classes don’t really need as much Precision as Power builds do because they usually put in precision to proc on crit effects every once in a while. Power builds needs at least around 40% crit chance because they rely heavily on crits.

The best way to play a condi class in pvp? Get condi damage, put in a decent bit of precision so you can proc on-crit effects, stack up your vit/toughness/healing and kite your enemies. You will never run out of condis because of auto attack procs and on-crit procs but your target will run out of cleanses eventually.

The pvp amulets themselves can tell the story on how much defensive condi builds can go. Look up to Rampager/Settler amulets, they offer condi damage along with survivability. Power builds though are useless without precision and Crit Damage so you can’t opt for Soldier Amulets because they only offer Power offensively.

Lazaar.9123:

Darmikau.9413:

For one, running straight damage requires a three stat investment: power, precision, and critical damage. Conditions require one, and that’s condition damage. There’s condition duration, but conditions are already so spammable it hardly makes a difference. If you’re going for straight damage, you have to go all in or you see huge losses in your ability to actually hurt people, and once your raw damage is low enough, you’re getting into areas of attrition where conditions are just straight better anyway. Meanwhile, in running a condition spec, you free up one or two stat slots for stats like toughness, healing power, etc. Stats, which I should add, make you more defensible against raw damage builds (healing power and vitality are a good defense against conditions, but toughness does nothing except mitigate raw damage, and the first two also mitigate raw damage).

This is very wrong. Condition builds also have to take precision in order to be effective, otherwise the condition stacking just isn’t going to be that much. And yes, you do actually need condition duration, as you can not get to high stacks without it. There is a reason why many condition builds, or at least ones that play efficiently, use precision. This is coming from someone that has played a condition necromancer since the beta.

yeah but only for the crit procs..

- condition builds have 1 main problem. conditionapplication is to spammy and proc related. it just dont pay off to dodge 1 auto attack that apply bleed for x seconds if the next attack does simply the same.. add crit procs on that and u realize u could dodge 10000000000 million attacks but the crit proc will hit u..
- regarding condi cleanse. yeah condition can be cleansed but except warrior with cleansing ire there is not enough condi cleanse in the game that can stop condis from working.
- an engi just overloads a player with conditions
- necro starts fairchain with 0-animation fears to prevent cleansing or putting covercondis with signet of spite
- direct dmg normaly needs a setup or the “burst” is prevented. negating these 2 things with active defense + toughness, protection and weakness is a lot of counter to direct dmg. where as condition only has 1 counter. condicleanse
- active defense cant be seen as counter to conditions cause passive procs and application via autoattack. there is simply nothing dodge, no setup, no burst.

zapv.8051:

If there was a gear that gave condition damage precision and condition duration I believe condition specs would be much more viable in PVE.

No.

Tim.6450:

Rhyse.8179:

All of them. Assuming we are comparing equivalient skill types, like autoattack. A condition damage skill will do roughly 50% more damage then a power skill- the catch is that it can be cleansed and that damage is stretched out.

If that were true then conditions would be desired in pve but they don’t. Kinda strange right?

No. The core problem im PvE is that a single condi-specced player can reach 25 stacks of bleeding (enemies don’t cleanse). Many classes perma-burn enemies as part of their normal rotation without any investment in conditions. Confusion is useless in PvE because of the low attack frequencies of enemies. In a dungeon group of 5 (or a world boss zerg of 20/50/100) you need only one condition-based character, a second one would be a potential dps loss due to the bleeding cap of 25.

In short: That conditions are “useless” in PvE has more to do with practical limitations than dps. It’s no indication for the power level of conditions in PvP

P Fun Daddy.1208:

Ugh, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
It isn’t about theoretically higher DPS, or ease of cleansing, or greater total damage.
What gives conditions an edge over direct damage is the ineffectiveness of defensive strategies, and the ease of application. Condition damage is generally (not always, but usually) spread through either a number of passive procs, or spread evenly over a number of individually weak, low-cooldown skills.
The reason this is good for condition users is that skilled players time their defenses to coincide with strong enemy attacks, which is ineffective against most methods of condition application (because autoattacks come cheap and dedicated condition skills aren’t penalized terribly for failing to hit).
This is and will continue to be the major reason conditions are so powerful, as far as I can tell.

Nailed it!! +1

pmnt.4067:

zapv.8051:

If there was a gear that gave condition damage precision and condition duration I believe condition specs would be much more viable in PVE.

No.

Tim.6450:

Rhyse.8179:

All of them. Assuming we are comparing equivalient skill types, like autoattack. A condition damage skill will do roughly 50% more damage then a power skill- the catch is that it can be cleansed and that damage is stretched out.

If that were true then conditions would be desired in pve but they don’t. Kinda strange right?

No. The core problem im PvE is that a single condi-specced player can reach 25 stacks of bleeding (enemies don’t cleanse). Many classes perma-burn enemies as part of their normal rotation without any investment in conditions. Confusion is useless in PvE because of the low attack frequencies of enemies. In a dungeon group of 5 (or a world boss zerg of 20/50/100) you need only one condition-based character, a second one would be a potential dps loss due to the bleeding cap of 25.

In short: That conditions are “useless” in PvE has more to do with practical limitations than dps. It’s no indication for the power level of conditions in PvP

It’s about DPS as well, though. Direct damage is higher DPS (somebody with more time than me has done the math somewhere), which is the only thing that matters in high end PvE anyway.

Why not compare Orb of Wrath with Blood Curse instead?

That’s perhaps biased too much in the opposite direction.

The only fair way to compare condition damage versus direct damage is to take every skill available to a DD build and stack it up against every skill available to a CD build.

Maugetarr.6823:

Ensign.2189:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You know, there is something that is bothering me. I could’ve sworn that, awhile ago, I did a comparison between a PVT build and a condi build, and found that direct damage did more damage.

This is the right way to compare skills across classes and specs. Your methods are good.

I question your choice of sample. Guardian sword has a pretty typical melee chain, but Necromancer scepter has a really weak ranged condi chain. When you’re comparing a weak skill to an average skill, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the weak skill is, well, weaker.

This is in fact typical. Skills are not anywhere near each other in power; some weapons have very strong skills, some have a bunch of garbage and 1-2 scary skills. If you just pick two skills and compare them, the results aren’t going to generalize, because the power of individual skills dominates.

You have to look at the whole set of skills if you want to avoid those errors.

I would have to agree with this. I also want to emphasize that in this analysis, the necro attack is 900 range while the guardian is 130. Ranged skills are typically balanced to do less damage in this game than close combat ones. An analysis of a physical ranged attack versus a condi ranged attack might be better.

I already talked about the difference between the two attack types. But if you guys insist, orb of wrath will do about 813 damage per second, and in 3 seconds it will come to 2439 damage against a 2600 armor target, which will roughly put it on par with the scepter’s auto attack against heavily armored enemies. Against lightly armored enemies… different story.

The thing about comparing whole classes is that the circumstances must be applied equally. If you want to include the necromancer’s full condi burst, you have to include the guardian’s full direct burst. If you want to include trait procs, you have to include trait damage mods. This argument eventually breaks down into certain skills being OP/UP, and not the damage type itself. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though: the dominance of conditions may be because of build viability, and not some broken down fundamental mechanic.

My comparison of auto attacks is meant to show a baseline power. The auto attack is always available to the player. Weapon skills, utilities, and trait abilities are not. They’ll be blocked, miss, cleansed, dodged, body blocked, healed, interrupted, etc. Auto attacks stay, no matter what.

I talk about the Auto Attack War, but I’m not sure every knows what I mean by this. The AAW is which player has a higher combination of total DPS (from basic damage rotation via auto attack) x total durability. Before any skill comes into play, the player with the highest product of DPS X durability has an immediate advantage: they win by default. The player with a lower product has to use skill and use their skills to gain superiority in the fight.

If you guys want to do comparisons, it isn’t that hard. With the current specs I laid out, just multiply the tooltip damage by 2.902 for 2600 armor, and for lower/higher armor values multiply that by 2600/(Armor value).

Consider a rock paper scissors set-up.

Excluding the entire skill factor (which honestly is more significant but these are MMO forums after all), we have conditions > DD burst > tanks.

Conditions exist as a particularly effective counter to evading/stealthy specs burst which put all their eggs into the damage basket.

Here’s why we get so much of this kitten here:

A lot of players, especially newer or PvE focused players, will come into PvP with their burst spec.

They ignore cleanse and find that conditions are an extremely effective counter to them.

They skip the whole, “try what you consider OP” step to realise they are wrong and revise builds to be more universally effective then rush straight to the forums with their often embarrassingly illogical arguements.

Then, all of a sudden, despite immunity and huge amounts of passive/active cleanse available for balance we have a “condition meta”.

No-one reasonably considers that burst specs might die just as fast as they kill…

Anyway, good luck with your imagined demons and blatant refusal to adapt forums!!

Brew Pinch.5731:

Consider a rock paper scissors set-up.

Excluding the entire skill factor (which honestly is more significant but these are MMO forums after all), we have conditions > DD burst > tanks.

I think its the other way around, conditions are strong against tanks, because they ignore armor, and because of their low defense, they should have problems with burst damage.

The problem that I see with condition builds are the available stats. While they need defnesive stats to envolve their damage, they get thoughness, which also negates their weakspot. Thoughness should not be the defensive stat on condition stats, except CVT, for the rest it should be vitality. This would make condition builds more vulnerable to burst damage, but still increase their survivability to tanks (which they counter).

You should also consider the fact that DD burst and much more difficult to mitigate than the regular ticking of conditions. There is not surprise with condition, just heal when needed and that’s it.

Ambush someone at 1/2 HP with a power build, you’ll destroy him. With a condi build, you’ll just force him to heal a bit sooner during the duel.