Guardian and condition damage
Burning does the highest damage outside stacked bleeds, it also gets the most contribution from condition damage. It’s also the best damage condition when up against condition removals (as it will do full damage per tick from the start).
Asura get a racial poison field (at 15 seconds, possibly the best field a guardian can get), but what kind of goofball makes Asura Guardian? Pff!
I’m not saying that burning is bad by any means, but other professions can use at least two. On my ele I can stack huge amounts of bleeds as well as burning, my friend has a scepter necro who can do bleeds and poision, I’m pretty sure the ranger can do all three etc.
I’m just trying to see if stacking condition damage on a guardian can at all be justified compared to the other professions.
I’m just trying to see if stacking condition damage on a guardian can at all be justified compared to the other professions.
Rolling Guardian is an “excuse” for the talentless. At least I can blame my crap class for my lack of skill.
I think the bigger overall issue with condition damage is that it isn’t very useful in group play as currently implemented, while Guardian is a very strong group-play support profession. If you play a guardian for group support (I’m thinking about PVE here), condition damage doesn’t seem to be worthwhile.
I don’t have any idea how this pans out in sPVP whatsoever. In WvW, it seems like a guardian is not going to be applying much condition damage because it requires us to get up-close and personal. In 1v1 the burn is useful, but I don’t personally do WvW to seek out 1v1 battles. In solo play, I don’t really see burn damage being better than a greatsword crit to the face in 9 out of 10 cases, but it probably has a place when soloing large boss mobs.
Actually, I’d say the opposite is true. Condition duration is pointless since Burning already stacks in duration and we get a ton of sources. Well, four off the top of my head, but one is a class feature and Justice spam and one more source will usually be enough. Set up for it, Guardians can easly stack enough Burn to last a fight. Condition Damage makes it count.
And incidentally, Condition Damage is in the Virtue line. Which I’ve seen people on here dogmatically oppose, but which I keep finding useful bits in. Of course, Condition Duration is in Zeal, so most end up with a measure of it, too.
That said, yes, I’m unhappy with the whole setup too. I’d like to see an option to spec in Bleed via Traits or weapon choice at least to make Condition Damage more viable for some people. But having ‘only’ one condition that Guardians can however constantly and dependently apply doesn’t make it pointless to me.
Off the top of my head, Thieves have two sources of Bleed and two sources of Poison. From Pistol and Caltrops and from Shortbow and Venom. I might miss a few. If they use them all up they are locked in very tightly with their build. Warriors get Burn from Longbow only unless I’m very mistaken, and mainly in the Burst Skill. The rest is Bleeds.
A Guardian can pick up Renewed Justice, Offhand Torch, Purging Flames or Hallowed Ground, get different bonus effects and still rely on all his Traits relating to Burning. It’s not really all bad.
The internet is for Norn
What does “the number of different types of condition damage” have to do with the usefulness of condition damage as a stat?
Burning gets 25% of condition damage added directly to each tick compared to only 5% for bleeds, so you have to stack at least 5 bleeds together before you get the same added damage from stats.
It takes time to get 5+ stacks, meanwhile burning has been ticking for full value.
Condition clears also hurt bleeds far more than they hurt burning. You lose your stack and have to start over, meanwhile 1 attack gets burning right back in the game at full strength.
As Schakal said, Condition Damage is GREAT for Guardians.
It’s Condition Duration that doesn’t make much sense. (unless you’re trying to build for some kind of weird hit and run strategy maybe?)
Extending the burn duration is primarily used for 10% bonus damage you get against a burning target. ( If you’ve specced 10 point into Zeal of course)
Now whether that’s worth it is another question.
Did no one mention Binding Blade (greatsword 5)? Really? That’s condition damage as well.
Malaakh. [EU] Desolation.
And incidentally, Condition Damage is in the Virtue line. Which I’ve seen people on here dogmatically oppose, but which I keep finding useful bits in. Of course, Condition Duration is in Zeal, so most end up with a measure of it, too.
Er, condition damage is in Radiance.
Anyway, the one thing that I’ll point out: yes, burning is a great condition and possibly the best of the damaging conditions if you have enough sources of it. However, keep in mind that there ARE PvE mobs out there that are just flat-out immune to it, and it’s the only condition that Guardians have.
I feel sorry for any condition Guardian having to face Destroyers in their personal story.
It’s worth noting that Burning also scales the worst with the condition damage stat of the three DoT conditions (I haven’t looked at Confusion).
Bleeding: 100 condition damage increases damage by 11.7% of the base
Poison: 11.9%
Burning: 7.6%
(Binding Blade: 12.5%)
It’s worth noting that Burning also scales the worst with the condition damage stat of the three DoT conditions (I haven’t looked at Confusion).
Bleeding: 100 condition damage increases damage by 11.7% of the base
Poison: 11.9%
Burning: 7.6%
(Binding Blade: 12.5%)
Eh? I thought burning stacked the best, since its multiplier was only .25….
Eh? I thought burning stacked the best, since its multiplier was only .25….
Burning has the largest condition damage multiplier, but as fraction of its base damage, it still scales the worst. Think of it this way: burning does as much base damage as 7.7 stacks of bleeding, but whereas burning scales with 25% of condition damage, 7.7 stacks of bleeding would scale with 38.6% of condition damage. At 1000 condition damage, burning would be worth only 6.2 stacks of bleeding.
It’s worth noting that Burning also scales the worst with the condition damage stat of the three DoT conditions (I haven’t looked at Confusion).
Bleeding: 100 condition damage increases damage by 11.7% of the base
Poison: 11.9%
Burning: 7.6%
(Binding Blade: 12.5%)
Since the base value is different for each type, comparing them each to their own base and then trying to draw a broad conclusion from the numbers you get is entirely meaningless because it doesn’t tell you anything about how much damage your condition actually does over a set amount of time.
You also have to take into account the time on target.
It takes time to stack other conditions and a condition removal resets the entire stack, whereas burning does full damage from the very first tick.
To form a meaningful comparison between the condition damage types(including scaling), you need a LOT more than a simple formula. You need an entire statistical analysis that runs through dozens of battle scenarios for each type.
(edited by phor.7952)
But I’m not comparing the conditions. I’m comparing how they scale. Burning’s fractional scaling is worse than that of other conditions; this means relative to other conditions, either it’s strong at low values of condition damage or it’s weak at high values of condition damage. This is a conclusion that requires no further assumptions. And either way, that fact diminishes the value of the condition damage stat for guardians.
(edited by Moderator)
tbh burning is enough u dont really need anything else…. my burns hit at least 500 per sec and it can even be aoe ….
those poison etc… usually go around 100 …
Blackgate
I am a guardian that stacks condition damage, I find it works great with my build and I do a lot of damage with it.
Jeez peeps, what game are you playing? I’m a level 80 Guard. Burning does rock – UNTIL – you realize you can’t turn it off and are doing Sorrow’s Embrace and fighting a golem that heals every condition you put on it. Then you are stuck setting him on fire every 5th attack. Burning is great until you fight destroyers, or worse get the stupid Destroyer Queen mission in story mode on the skritt choices where it is totally useless.
Yeah, burning is great. But at this point, I will play my level 56 theif over my guardian any day of the week. LIMITED, LIMITED, LIMITED in PvE. Especially dungeons.
Oh my God, don’t even get me started on Twilight Arbor spider adds. You can’t turn off your blocking either – and depending on how your spec’d you might start burning those little buggars without even trying making them pop all over you. Burning is great, but you are stuck burning crap even when you don’t want to with a Guardian.
So let’s all sound off about how great it is to light things on fire. But it is so situational that playing a Guardian is a total pain in the butt. Give me something I can adjust and tweak out any day of the week. Don’t stick me with a condition I can’t even take off my bar.
We get some blind and invulnerability too, don’t forget. Also hard to turn off in Sorrow’s Embrace. We have to go staff or scepter Disney princess style to get a shot of surviving against crap like that. I hate my guardian.
My guardian has been the slowest to level, the biggest pain to play, and the lowest rewarded toon I’ve created for all the crap I have to put up with – especially in PvE.