Guild Wars 2

Zenith.7301:

I still firmly believe torch should be an undisputed condition application offhand and the iMage needs buffing. If they nerf PU, I hope The Pledge gets retooled as well since the torch still feels too niche. It’d be nice if they buffed torch’s iMage at least so mesmer could rely on it for condi pve specs. I don’t see how 3-4 burning stacks instead of its single one would be too much relative to what the other power phantasms are putting out right now.

Preach it.

I’ve been advocating for 2 burning stacks, but you’re right that there might not be much reason not to go for 3, relative to other condi builds like Engi/Ele/Guard. iMage is on such a long cooldown as it is that you’ll rarely get more than one out anyway (unlike iDuelist). I’d even welcome removing the bounce to get to 3 stacks, if they felt it necessary (Pyro’s love of the aoe aside). The bounce prioritizes allies anyway, so it’s not like you get much aoe out of it.

The Pledge is already broken, so they definitely need to retool it. If all they do is fix the bug though, it’ll become an extremely underpowered trait. Just putting it at 20% cdr would be sufficient, I think, as long as they tune up the iMage.

So I’d say in sum:
1. Change The Pledge to a flat 20% cdr
2. Reduce iMage base cooldown to 22s (compare to 20s iDuelist, iSwordsman, iZerker, iDisenchanter; 18s iWarlock; 25s iWarden, iDefender)
3a. Increase iMage burning stacks to 2, fix iMage bounce priority to work like Chaos Winds
3b. Alternatively, increase iMage burning stacks to 3, remove bounces, reduce iMage cooldown to 20s
4. Increase The Prestige burning stacks to 2. 1 stack at 3s is pitiful, especially compared to what other classes get. Even 2 is pretty dang low, but the blind/stealth on The Prestige are useful in their own right.

The game needs less burning, not more…

Iavra.8510:

The game needs less burning, not more…

Burning is only broken on classes that can stack it and maintain it to ridiculous degrees like engineer and guardian.

3 stacks every 6 seconds from iMage is not gonna break it. If they nerf burning, which may be necessary or make bleeding scale a lot better so at higher stacks it becomes the stronger condi as it was always meant to be (burning was infrequent and did high base damage, but bleed was meant to surpass it when ramped up, that’s not the case and it needs to be fixed), then they also need to increase the amount of stacks iMage does.

Point is, iMage should be doing damage competitive with that of a power phantasm, and in fact its potential should be slightly higher to account for the fact its damage is over time and over time effects should always deal more damage than burst skills.

3 stacks every 6s would probably be more burning than d/d ele, unless you walk in and out of Ring of Fire like an idiot.

Also remember that torch has to be balanced with Prestige stealth in mind, which probably means that its phantasm has to be weaker than iDuelist/iSwordsman.

Iavra.8510:

The game needs less burning, not more…

Wrong.

The game needs fewer high-stack burning bursts, a la Engineer/Elementalist.
Getting 18 stacks of burning on a burst is extreme.

Mathematically, though, the damage of 1 stack of burning is roughly equivalent to 3 stacks of bleeds (the ratio improves in bleed’s favor at higher condition damage).

So 18 stacks of burning is equivalent to getting 54 stacks of bleeds.
Engineer’s blowtorch, which applies 3 stacks of burn in an aoe at close range, is equivalent to 9 stacks of bleed.
Incendiary Ammo is effectively 6 burn, or 18 stacks of bleed, per activation.
Rocket Kick applies another 2 burn (6 bleed).
Between those three, I can apply burn equivalent to 33 stacks of bleed in about 1.5 seconds.
If I crit at least once on those opening attacks, I’m up 2 more burn, to 39 bleed.
If I didn’t crit, I’m sure I will after unloading my poison dart volley, for 5 stacks of poison. Since a poison stack is just about equal to a bleed stack anywhere above 1700 condition damage, that’s essentially 5 more bleed and 33% reduced healing.
So we’re up to effectively 44 bleeds, 2 confusion, blind and -33% healing in the first 2.75s.

Cleansing that burst ain’t easy either (in the engi’s case), as between poison, bleeds, confusion, burn and blind, the condi stack is already 5 deep in the first 3 seconds, and we can mix in immobilize and cripple with glue shot, if we’d like.

My crits all have a 33% chance of bleed as well, and I can apply aoe confusion with pistol 3, and my pistol AAs apply bleed and are aoe as well, so I’m not hurting for other sustained condi damage either. Plus, I can pop over to flamethrower for some aoe burns and blinds if I need it (or elixir gun for some bleeds and aoe poison).

Eles are even more crazy on the burn burst, and we’ve seen plenty of videos showing how to pull it off to say it’s not just about staying out of their kitten ring of fire.

It’s not about the power of burn, we know precisely how strong it is: about the same as 3 stacks of bleeds. It’s about how many stacks the existing builds are able to lay down, because the abilities were originally designed when burn stacked duration, not intensity.

But for the Mesmer, context is everything.
At present, iDuelist with Sharper images, Phantasmal Fury and Rabid gear applies a little less than 6 stacks of bleed on average per volley. That’s equivalent to 2 stacks of burn per attack cycle. That’s twice as much condition stacking per attack as the mage is getting, albeit at a 1s lower duration.
The iMage has a slightly faster attack cycle, so you get a little bit more ground there.
The iDuelist deals immensely more physical damage than the iMage though, giving iDuelist the solid advantage, and making iMage’s role as “condition phantasm” a bit of a joke.
Increasing iMage’s burn stacks to 2 takes it past current iDuelist in condi stacking, and iDuelist remains ahead in physical damage, putting them where they ought to be relative to each other.

Except, Duelist’s Discipline is still broken. Fixed Duelist’s Discipline lowers sharper images bleeds to 4.32 stacks per volley (no more phantasmal fury), but increases total bleeds per volley to about 9.6, or about 3.2 burns every 6.6 seconds (traited).

Raising iMage’s stacks to 3, but cutting out the bouncing, puts it at 3 burns every 4.8 seconds (traited), or about 4.125 burns every 6.6 seconds (note that’s over time, it still only gets 3 burns on its opening attack, so if phantasms aren’t surviving to the second volley, iDuelist is still coming out ahead).

That solidly places iMage where it should be relative to iDuelist on conditions (ahead) and physical damage (wayy behind).

But is it even okay to be talking about these levels of burn, given what I said earlier?
Well, the difference as usual is in the burst and the counterplay.
Summoning 1 iMage gets you 4 stacks, ahead of blow torch but behind the total engineer burst stack, and at a much higher channel time (blowtorch has kitten cast time, vs 1s for iMage). It takes time to get all your phantasms out, and phantasms themselves are extremely vulnerable to enemy attacks.

We can’t stop the engineer’s burst, but they can kill our phantasms, and our “burst” is much slower than theirs anyway.

As far as the strength of The Prestige, fixing The Pledge will bring it about in line with Magic Bullet in utility (or have you forgotten all the interrupt traits?).

Iavra.8510:

Also remember that torch has to be balanced with Prestige stealth in mind, which probably means that its phantasm has to be weaker than iDuelist/iSwordsman.

…..what?

How does this even make sense? Other weapons bring strong utility as well.

The Prestige’s Strength is already balanced by the fact it has a whopping 30 sec cd, as opposed to the much lower cd’s of other weapons’ #4 skills.

You know burning is bad when a thread simply titled “Thieves” boils down to burning damage/stacks.

But you also know that some folks are logically impaired when the immediate kneejerk response to any suggestion about burning is ‘burning is bad and needs nerfs’ while completely ignoring the reality of the game. Probably more burning than a d/d ele my left foot! Please do try to at least put a tiny bit of rational thought into comments before posting, this sort of thing bugs me.

I reach 8k burn ticks in under 2s on my guardian. No might.

Celestial D/D ele only gets kills because its burn damage is so strong.

Yea, sorry, burning needs a nerf/conditions as a whole need a re-rework because bleeding got nerfed, and poison isn’t a viable stacking condition as it stands, either.

DeceiverX.8361:

I reach 8k burn ticks in under 2s on my guardian. No might.

Celestial D/D ele only gets kills because its burn damage is so strong.

Yea, sorry, burning needs a nerf/conditions as a whole need a re-rework because bleeding got nerfed, and poison isn’t a viable stacking condition as it stands, either.

I recognize the power of the builds in particular, but you haven’t answered the point that it’s just a numbers game.
1 burn = 3 bleeds, so anywhere 3 bleeds would be appropriate, so is 1 burn.

The problem with burning isn’t how it’s designed, it’s how and where it is used. Guardians applying a bunch of burn isn’t a problem, guardians applying as much burn as they can is.
Guardians, engis and Eles need a cutback on the amount of burning they can apply.

Mesmers, meanwhile, deal so little burn that their burn sources are outright inferior to their bleed sources. Increasing mesmer burn only falls prey to the problem with burning if you give them too much burning.

Really, you’re blaming burning because that’s where it’s happening, but there’s nothing mathematically special about the burning formula, it’s just naturally stronger, so its sources should stack less than other condi sources…but we’re finding that’s not always the case.

I’d add too, though, that 8k dps isn’t so bad when you can hit better dps than that on an ele or thief without conditions.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

DeceiverX.8361:

I reach 8k burn ticks in under 2s on my guardian. No might.

Celestial D/D ele only gets kills because its burn damage is so strong.

Yea, sorry, burning needs a nerf/conditions as a whole need a re-rework because bleeding got nerfed, and poison isn’t a viable stacking condition as it stands, either.

I recognize the power of the builds in particular, but you haven’t answered the point that it’s just a numbers game.
1 burn = 3 bleeds, so anywhere 3 bleeds would be appropriate, so is 1 burn.

The problem with burning isn’t how it’s designed, it’s how and where it is used. Guardians applying a bunch of burn isn’t a problem, guardians applying as much burn as they can is.
Guardians, engis and Eles need a cutback on the amount of burning they can apply.

Mesmers, meanwhile, deal so little burn that their burn sources are outright inferior to their bleed sources. Increasing mesmer burn only falls prey to the problem with burning if you give them too much burning.

Really, you’re blaming burning because that’s where it’s happening, but there’s nothing mathematically special about the burning formula, it’s just naturally stronger, so its sources should stack less than other condi sources…but we’re finding that’s not always the case.

I’d add too, though, that 8k dps isn’t so bad when you can hit better dps than that on an ele or thief without conditions.

The mesmer’s burns from the torch are still nothing to scoff at. These regularly still hit in the 400-500 tick areas in WvW, and can be twice, getting into the 1k tick areas. That’s very substantial especially considering the fact that cleanses need to be saved for incoming stacks of 19 confusion and 15+ torment each ticking for 3k+ that can happen at the drop of a hat. The mesmer’s burning is a cover condition. It’s like saying that building D/x condi thief based around its poison on the auto-attack is a reasonable build, if poison were OP, not even considering the terrible traits designed to bolster this build option which outright suck and are arguably the single-worst traits in the entire game.

That’s not 8k DPS. Those are 8k ticks on top of the additional damage dealt from a carrion build. Considering conditions outright ignore armor, defense modifiers, damage reduction effects, immunity periods like Berserker Stance, and protection, this is typically much more damage in a PvP scenario that any power cannon can shell out. Considering the terribly low amount of resistance currently available, it’s not like condi builds are being hard-countered in the current state of the game. That’s why you’re seeing burn guards being played: a power glass thief like what I typically play can always deal more theoretical damage, and always has, except it gets mitigated entirely by defensive effects and becomes increasingly less-useful the tankier your enemies are, which happens regularly in organized PvP, because tank stats are mathematically better than DPS ones in all PvP settings. It’s why nobody plays the berserker amulet in sPvP, why celestial Ele is and has been so strong (also because burning accounts for the majority of its damage), and why the meta in WvW is pirate ship/GW frontline. I’d also like to mention that if you played HoT, you’ll notice ANet is developing an extremely high number of monsters designed explicitly to hard-counter DPS setups and power builds while handing out increasing vulnerabilities to condi players. The whole PvE argument is a null argument considering it’s referencing old content that isn’t going to be changed/hasn’t been changed since when the game was considered balanced in regards to its skill : opportunity cost : payoff ratios.

Considering the mesmer already doesn’t benefit much from burning relative to the other conditions, why would a reduction to burning be a bad idea coming from the mesmer’s POV? It won’t change the state of balance much. If anything, it indirectly buffs the mesmer, which is already considered one of it not the best condition option in the game in regards to the PvP formats by a fairly large margin.

DeceiverX.8361:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

DeceiverX.8361:

I reach 8k burn ticks in under 2s on my guardian. No might.

Celestial D/D ele only gets kills because its burn damage is so strong.

Yea, sorry, burning needs a nerf/conditions as a whole need a re-rework because bleeding got nerfed, and poison isn’t a viable stacking condition as it stands, either.

I recognize the power of the builds in particular, but you haven’t answered the point that it’s just a numbers game.
1 burn = 3 bleeds, so anywhere 3 bleeds would be appropriate, so is 1 burn.

The problem with burning isn’t how it’s designed, it’s how and where it is used. Guardians applying a bunch of burn isn’t a problem, guardians applying as much burn as they can is.
Guardians, engis and Eles need a cutback on the amount of burning they can apply.

Mesmers, meanwhile, deal so little burn that their burn sources are outright inferior to their bleed sources. Increasing mesmer burn only falls prey to the problem with burning if you give them too much burning.

Really, you’re blaming burning because that’s where it’s happening, but there’s nothing mathematically special about the burning formula, it’s just naturally stronger, so its sources should stack less than other condi sources…but we’re finding that’s not always the case.

I’d add too, though, that 8k dps isn’t so bad when you can hit better dps than that on an ele or thief without conditions.

The mesmer’s burns from the torch are still nothing to scoff at. These regularly still hit in the 400-500 tick areas in WvW, and can be twice, getting into the 1k tick areas. That’s very substantial especially considering the fact that cleanses need to be saved for incoming stacks of 19 confusion and 15+ torment each ticking for 3k+ that can happen at the drop of a hat. The mesmer’s burning is a cover condition. It’s like saying that building D/x condi thief based around its poison on the auto-attack is a reasonable build, if poison were OP, not even considering the terrible traits designed to bolster this build option which outright suck and are arguably the single-worst traits in the entire game.

That’s not 8k DPS. Those are 8k ticks on top of the additional damage dealt from a carrion build. Considering conditions outright ignore armor, defense modifiers, damage reduction effects, immunity periods like Berserker Stance, and protection, this is typically much more damage in a PvP scenario that any power cannon can shell out. Considering the terribly low amount of resistance currently available, it’s not like condi builds are being hard-countered in the current state of the game. That’s why you’re seeing burn guards being played: a power glass thief like what I typically play can always deal more theoretical damage, and always has, except it gets mitigated entirely by defensive effects and becomes increasingly less-useful the tankier your enemies are, which happens regularly in organized PvP, because tank stats are mathematically better than DPS ones in all PvP settings. It’s why nobody plays the berserker amulet in sPvP, why celestial Ele is and has been so strong (also because burning accounts for the majority of its damage), and why the meta in WvW is pirate ship/GW frontline. I’d also like to mention that if you played HoT, you’ll notice ANet is developing an extremely high number of monsters designed explicitly to hard-counter DPS setups and power builds while handing out increasing vulnerabilities to condi players. The whole PvE argument is a null argument considering it’s referencing old content that isn’t going to be changed/hasn’t been changed since when the game was considered balanced in regards to its skill : opportunity cost : payoff ratios.

Considering the mesmer already doesn’t benefit much from burning relative to the other conditions, why would a reduction to burning be a bad idea coming from the mesmer’s POV? It won’t change the state of balance much. If anything, it indirectly buffs the mesmer, which is already considered one of it not the best condition option in the game in regards to the PvP formats by a fairly large margin.

Partly because PvE condi is exactly where mesmer needs some help, and partly because that’s the intended identity of the torch. iMage’s burn is good enough to be worth using, but the math doesn’t support it as a good condition option when you can do more on conditions via iDuelist. Yet, that seems to be what they want for torch.

Torch’s identity is based on burning, but it’s not just weak compared to other burning sources, it’s weak compared to other condition sources.
Reworking burning is unnecessary when you can just lower the stacks it produces in those cases where it is too strong. Conversely, in those cases where it is weaker than class baseline, it should be buffed.

Again, it’s not the comparison to other classes that matters, it’s the comparison to other mesmer mechanics, and to where the mesmer should be in each game mode.

Nerfing all mesmer conditions because we can apply a ton of confusion and torment would be a serious loss in pve, don’t you agree? The same logic applies to buffing non-torment and non-confusion sources, buffing them is primarily a benefit in pve.

But lest you worry that buffing iMage would make it too strong in pvp, recall that I’ve already made the comparisons to iDuelist, and condi mesmer can already unload the same amount of conditions that I’m proposing, just not from the phantasm that’s supposed to be able to apply good conditions.

There would need to be some serious compensation done to the confusion/torment access available in PvP formats, then. As it stands, condi mesmer is arguably overpowered or borderline overpowered in the PvP formats due to confusion and torment, and it’s about to get way worse with the addition of chronomancer being capable of putting on way more stacks.

And that’s the thing; conditions in PvE are impossible to balance, even relative to each other. They always will be. That’s because mobs don’t cleanse intelligently or at all, and some builds are just going to be better at stacking conditions quickly and maintaining those stacks. Additionally, this is also heavily-dependent on specific encounters. If there was a boss that people ran a lot that attacked 10 times per second all fight long with ridiculous toughness, condi mesmer would be the absolute undisputed best class to fight it, as nothing could compare to the confusion damage dealt per second this way, and power builds would all be useless.

And because there is no trinity in GW2, bosses need to be designed in ways that make the attacks be able to be dodged by all builds and classes with no support, or thus, attack more slowly. I’m an avid supporter of the lack of the “trinity” or forced strategy in the game, but it does have this flaw. And the condition system absolutely does not help in this regard because there are just too many different ones with each class having massive disparities between which ones it can access and how frequently it can access them, even so far as having massive disparities between builds within the same class.

As such, “competitive” PvE will also always favor time-based rewards. So even if an encounter did exist which made mesmers optimal, not only would everyone else complain that their build isn’t optimal, but unless the encounter provides large rewards for the time and effort spent (to the extent there is no comparison which enables more builds/classes), people simply aren’t going to partake in the content and the entire purpose is nullified.

From a purely theoretical and mathematical standpoint, conditions in PvE will never be balanced, and there will always be a single best strategy to completing any scripted content designed to be repeated regardless of complexity or number refinement, and from the devices of human nature, the most efficient mode of completion will always be pursued as long as a reward is attached, and further, will only be completed if there is a reward attached as we are motivation-driven creatures.