Guild Wars 2

Would it be reasonable to bring back the old Diamond Skin of condi immunity while above 90% HP to provide a form of deterrence against the current condi-heavy meta?

This would give trailblazer/dire sets a natural predator.

Hard-counters are usually something I don’t like, but this might be a decent way to tamp down the overbearance of condi while giving a small reason to play elementalists again.

I don’t think it would ultimately change much, though. It’d be better to go back to the drawing board with condi and make the necessary changes for it to be a main source of damage. As it stands, it seems very clear that they did not originally intend it to be that way. Either that, or they’re just really bad at this…but I like to have faith q_q

If they were to revert back to the old diamond skin, its more likely they’d add something along the lines of “gain resistance for x amount of seconds, when struck above 90% health”.

Sviel.7493:

Hard-counters are usually something I don’t like, but this might be a decent way to tamp down the overbearance of condi while giving a small reason to play elementalists again.

I don’t think it would ultimately change much, though. It’d be better to go back to the drawing board with condi and make the necessary changes for it to be a main source of damage. As it stands, it seems very clear that they did not originally intend it to be that way. Either that, or they’re just really bad at this…but I like to have faith q_q

back when anet was talking about the changes to the meta coming with HoT, they mentioned that their intent was to change the meta away from power and to cnd. this was to fight the overabundance of “zerk only”. cnd has a natural deterant already they are called cnd clearing skills. the meta is functioning currently the way they want it to.

Ele’s do not need more sustain in the current meta. The old diamond skin was overpowered, especially with the meta being constant high ticks of healing from not only eles.

At most i think they should tweak it for resistance vs immunity.
Say 4 conditions to trigger, clear all conditions and Resistance for 4 seconds. with an ICD of 60 seconds.

this way it deals with the burst condi’s you see in a zerg

this more belongs in the ele forum though :P

Diamond skin is already a very solid trait if you keep your heals up. The only time I die to condis is when I am locked out of water, and that’s more of a l2p issue. Buffing Diamond Skin will do nothing but further pigeonhole eles and tempests into the same exact traits.

What eles need are better active cleanses. I think the greatest debacle is aura share (the reason why they get taken into groups) and cleansing water are mutually exclusive. In any case, that means the average auramancer has pretty bad ways of dealing with condi burst beyond overload water despite taking 3 trees that are meant for survival.

yea, simply put to OP is the term “git gud” if you are indeed heavy trouble vs conditions when traited into diamond skin.

Warlock.7136:

back when anet was talking about the changes to the meta coming with HoT, they mentioned that their intent was to change the meta away from power and to cnd. this was to fight the overabundance of “zerk only”. cnd has a natural deterant already they are called cnd clearing skills. the meta is functioning currently the way they want it to.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have condis as a damage source, but the current implementation is awful. Also, it’s disheartening to hear that their plan to get people off of zerk builds is to shift to condi. Basically, that’s going from full damage/no defense to full damage/full defense + ignore enemy defense. It’s not any more interesting.

Condi clear skills were meant to deal with debilitating conditions. You got a few on you and decided which you could deal with and which you needed to get rid of ASAP. For power builds that use condis, this works out—the rate of application is fairly low and the threat level of the condi is such that you can use your cleanses judiciously.

However, now we have condis doing absurd levels of damage and a much higher application rate, in some classes. You can no longer decide to let some condis play out, as that means death. However, given the rate of application and the sheer number applied, you can use all of your cleanses in the best possible manner and still be laden with condis. Such a situation would be tenable if being able to do it meant building full damage, but condi is designed so that they can build full defense while still laying all that out. Thus, you can’t clear enough condis to live and you can’t kill them fast enough that you don’t run out of clears and get totally mothballed.

The problem is less noticeable in larger fights because AoE condi clear means each person has more clear than anyone could have alone. Also, it’s difficult to load up tons of people with condi compared to the travesties which can be worked on a single target.

They should switch up removal to prioritize the things that kill you and should try to strike a better balance between application/clear rates.

Wouldn’t it be better to nerf conditions? rebuffing DS doesn’t solve how OP conditions are to other professions.

So diamond skin should be something that works with other effects in earth line such as being an added effect with protection being some type of anty condi. It could be removing a condi when you apply protection or your protection has a dmg -%.

What i would like to see is 2 fold first resistance becomes a dmg -% not a full condis do not effect you any more and that diamond skins applys the new resistance on auras. 100% dmg conters are not good for games and being how resistance can be a perma effect it becomes a much to strong of an counter. Diamond skins only cleaning 1 condi per sec per hit makes it a weak GM level trite it seems like it should be a M level or should have more effects on it. That with having the hp % limitation on it makes it all the worst not even close to other GM level trite.