Guild Wars 2

at the moment i am struggling to optimize my equipment regarding bleed duration
currently im running for bleed duration: 40%food+20%traits+45%runes+10%sigil —> 115% bleed duration
based on 5 seconds of the bleed on cit this should result in 11 seconds (10,75 rounded up)
tests showed only 9 seconds??? reducing the -bleed duration from 115 to 70% showed no change…
anybody can confirm or correct this?

There is a cap at 100%. 5s bleed can only reach 10s at most.

This 10s bleed will show as “9s” from the moment it appears. The game displays all durations rounded down, but you can see that the “9s” lasts a whole second.

With +70% bleed duration (8.5s), you should see “8s” from the moment the bleed is applied though.

This said, in a pvp situation with clensing etc going on I personaly only going and would reccomend “cheap” condition duration. Cheap condition duration is Food and synergi trating (traits you pick for you want them and get the % duration as a bonus). Rest runes and sigils are expensive duration sources. For this you gain more in dmg by go for dmg+ alterantive + applicance of conditions.

A 10% + bleed time sigil > bleed appliance alternative condition dmg stacking.

For spvp its different as you know your stacks will stay up al time.

/Osicat

Like others said, the cap on condition duration is 100%.

Personally, I find 80% condition duration to be best if you’re running a condition build with a staff. At at 75% duration and higher, Burn will round up to two ticks. In WvW or PvP, players will be dodging and otherwise evading so you might not be able to have perma-Burn on them, therefore the extra tick is a big damage boost. However, Bleed duration always rounds down, so you need to have 80% condition duration to get nine ticks from bleeding and two from burning.

In general, I find stacking regular condition duration to be the most beneficial since it also applies to non-damaging conditions, which you have pretty decent access to in most condition builds. Of course, if you’re doing a build which focuses solely on stacking bleeds with a greatsword or pistol, then everything I said above is far less relevant to you.

There is no rounding either. The 2 ticks comes from conditions sharing a tick timer, which I posted about in more detail here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Video-MSS-GreatSword-Mesmer-25th-June/2358299

This was also shown somewhere in the engi forums if I remember, but it was so long ago I can’t find it.

Baa.4582:

There is no rounding either. The 2 ticks comes from conditions sharing a tick timer, which I posted about in more detail here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Video-MSS-GreatSword-Mesmer-25th-June/2358299

This was also shown somewhere in the engi forums if I remember, but it was so long ago I can’t find it.

Hmm, I looked over your post and found it very intriguing. If it is as you say and there is a time that starts running when the first condition is applied, then condition duration should be equivalent to the percent chance that a 1s condition will get an extra tick.

This would explain something I discovered the other day. While using my trident, at 70% condition duration, I found that one bleed ticked once, but two bleeds ticked three times. This indeed agrees with the idea of a condition timer.

However, a while ago I was testing the burn from WoC. My method involved casting WoC once on a mob. If the result was a burn, I counted the number of ticks which, at 80% condition duration were two. If the result was bleeding or vulnerability, I let the condition clear before attacking again. This conflicts with the notion of a condition timer, since I had a 1.8s burn tick twice even when it was the first condition applied to a target.

If there is indeed a condition timer as you describe it also means that, after the first application of a condition, virtually all conditions with integer-value durations would be getting one less tick. For example, a 9s bleed would only tick eight times because it would more than likely be applied in-between ticks and would get some fraction of its total duration consequently ignored. Therefore, the value of getting enough duration to produce integer-duration ticks would be solely to ensure that a condition always got t-1 ticks, where t is the duration of the condition in seconds. Using the above example of a 9s bleed (80% condition duration), it would always be guaranteed eight ticks. However, if one had an 8.5s bleed (70% condition duration), there would be a 50% chance of it ticking eight times and a 50% chance of it ticking seven times.

All of this is very interesting, and seeing as there’s some conflicting data, I’ll try and test this tomorrow to see the results. Of course, there are enough inconsistencies in the way the game functions that neither the condition timer nor the rounding hypotheses are correct.

I really wish a dev would chime in about this topic. I’ve used tons of condi specs across several classes and have always thought that cond duration was not rounded up except for Daze.

If what you’re saying is true about a condi timer than that makes general duration much better.

Also does anyone understand exactly how our 33% confusion duration tactic stacks with 30% condi duration because I’ve been testing it and I’m not getting a full extra second. I’m seeing 4.5 seconds I think when I should at least be at 4.75.

I almost have the feeling that general cond duration is applied after the tactic………..which would be a bummer.

Not sure about bleeds or other conditions, but for our 1 sec duration burns, the round up in duration seems to be at 75% increased duration (where 1.75 sec gets rounded up to 2 secs and you get an extra tick).

Edit – just repeated what Palu said in a previous post, but wanted to emphasize for a staff condition build, particularly for WvW. 75%+ condition duration seems to make a staff / x/torch build much more deadly imo.

Palu.3405:

If there is indeed a condition timer as you describe it also means that, after the first application of a condition, virtually all conditions with integer-value durations would be getting one less tick. For example, a 9s bleed would only tick eight times because it would more than likely be applied in-between ticks and would get some fraction of its total duration consequently ignored. Therefore, the value of getting enough duration to produce integer-duration ticks would be solely to ensure that a condition always got t-1 ticks, where t is the duration of the condition in seconds. Using the above example of a 9s bleed (80% condition duration), it would always be guaranteed eight ticks.

A 1-stack bleed on a fresh target ticks at the end of the first second, and every second after. Pre-existing conditions (I just had to do it) would move the ticks forward: the first and last ticks actually happen sooner.

Pictured another way, split the 9s bleed into 9 1s blocks. The bleed would tick at the same point in each block, but it doesn’t matter if it’s the start or the end of those blocks. You’d still get 1 tick in each block, for a total of 9 ticks.

Regarding burns, I just tested WoC on spvp golems with
(1)just 30 points in dom and no armour, and
(2)with 30 dom and 3×15% burn duration runes (75% total).
I don’t get a 2nd burn tick in either set when no conditions or only vuln is present. I get a 2nd tick ONLY when bleed is already present, and it can happen with either set as well. It is a chance.
It also appears that vuln by itself doesn’t start the timer. I would guess a damaging condition is needed.

Baa.4582:

Palu.3405:

If there is indeed a condition timer as you describe it also means that, after the first application of a condition, virtually all conditions with integer-value durations would be getting one less tick. For example, a 9s bleed would only tick eight times because it would more than likely be applied in-between ticks and would get some fraction of its total duration consequently ignored. Therefore, the value of getting enough duration to produce integer-duration ticks would be solely to ensure that a condition always got t-1 ticks, where t is the duration of the condition in seconds. Using the above example of a 9s bleed (80% condition duration), it would always be guaranteed eight ticks.

A 1-stack bleed on a fresh target ticks at the end of the first second, and every second after. Pre-existing conditions (I just had to do it) would move the ticks forward: the first and last ticks actually happen sooner.

Pictured another way, split the 9s bleed into 9 1s blocks. The bleed would tick at the same point in each block, but it doesn’t matter if it’s the start or the end of those blocks. You’d still get 1 tick in each block, for a total of 9 ticks.

Regarding burns, I just tested WoC on spvp golems with
(1)just 30 points in dom and no armour, and
(2)with 30 dom and 3×15% burn duration runes (75% total).
I don’t get a 2nd burn tick in either set when no conditions or only vuln is present. I get a 2nd tick ONLY when bleed is already present, and it can happen with either set as well. It is a chance.
It also appears that vuln by itself doesn’t start the timer. I would guess a damaging condition is needed.

Yes, you are right about the bleeds. A 9s bleed would indeed get nine ticks. For some reason, when I was visualizing the bleed ticks occurring at the start of each second rather than at the end of each second. Given that they occur at the end of each second, you are indeed correct.

I also went ahead and tested burning again. My results agree with yours; additional burning ticks only occurred when the target already had bleed on it. I was able to get extra burn ticks both above and below 75% condition duration when the target was already bleeding. However, I wasn’t able to get any additional burn ticks if the target wasn’t bleeding. It seems my previous test with burning was somehow flawed. This time, I recorded videos and replayed them in slow motion to make sure I was accurately recording burn ticks.

This has some interesting implications as far as weapon selection goes. If one imagines a condition as a bunch of 1s boxes lumped together, along with a partial box at the end representing the fractional, non-integer portions of a condition, then that decimal should more or less be equal to the percent chance that an extra tick will occur, assuming there is already a damaging condition ticking on the target. Therefore, I thought it would be worthwhile to look into the damage of Giver’s vs Rabid weapons. Giver’s weapons all provide a flat 10% boost to condition duration, be they 1H or 2H weapons. I found that the 179 condition damage provided by a 2H weapon was worth more than 10% condition duration. However, if one uses two 1H weapons, then the 178 condition damage ends up being less valuable than the 20% condition duration the two weapons together provide.

Also, do keep in mind that scepter doesn’t obey these rules. Because confusion gets capped at 10s duration and Torment scales so well with condition damage, Giver’s stats probably wouldn’t be as useful as Rabid in this setup. However, I didn’t figure out the exact numbers for scepter since I use sword/torch and didn’t feel overly motivated to test out a weapon which I rarely use and don’t care for.

Godmoney.2048:

I really wish a dev would chime in about this topic. I’ve used tons of condi specs across several classes and have always thought that cond duration was not rounded up except for Daze.

Regarding condi-duration and daze, it rounds reliably to the nearest 1/4 second. I’ve tested that thoroughly and it applies to all condition cc’s mesmers can apply, such as daze, chill, cripple, and immobilize.

Not sure what you mean by scepter not obeying the rules. The base confusion duration on #3 is 5s, so a +100% cap leads to a 10s cap. F2 would similarly be capped at 6s.

Daze is not affected by condition duration. It is affected by stun (and daze) duration though, and is rounded up to the next full second. I don’t have video recording to accurately test out immob/chill/cripple down to 0.25s, but stun and daze getting a full second out of just 15% bonus (sigil) is very obvious.

Baa.4582:

Not sure what you mean by scepter not obeying the rules. The base confusion duration on #3 is 5s, so a +100% cap leads to a 10s cap. F2 would similarly be capped at 6s.

Daze is not affected by condition duration. It is affected by stun (and daze) duration though, and is rounded up to the next full second. I don’t have video recording to accurately test out immob/chill/cripple down to 0.25s, but stun and daze getting a full second out of just 15% bonus (sigil) is very obvious.

Go ahead and test, but I tested pretty extensively and found all those I mentioned to be affected by condition duration, again to 0.25s. I was validating what the wiki stated and it was correct. If I’m wrong on that, I would love to know because I use these conditions heavily in one of my builds.

Baa.4582:

Not sure what you mean by scepter not obeying the rules. The base confusion duration on #3 is 5s, so a +100% cap leads to a 10s cap. F2 would similarly be capped at 6s.

Daze is not affected by condition duration. It is affected by stun (and daze) duration though, and is rounded up to the next full second. I don’t have video recording to accurately test out immob/chill/cripple down to 0.25s, but stun and daze getting a full second out of just 15% bonus (sigil) is very obvious.

I could have been more clear regarding my statements about scepter.

First of all, for confusion, if a mesmer has the Master of Misdirection trait which increases confusion duration by 33% then it is easier to reach 100% duration. With the trait, if the trait is multiplicative with regular condition duration, then only about 50% condition duration is needed to max out confusion from Confusing Images. If the trait and regular condition duration are additive, then it requires 67% condition duration to max out Confusing Images. This means that regular condition duration plateaus in value after a certain point for Confusing Images whereas it keeps providing value up to 100% for all the other conditions. Of course, not every mesmer with scepter takes that trait, but enough do that I felt the above worth mentioning.

Now for Torment: Torment starts with a very long base duration on the scepter. Let’s consider a two different setups. While they are rather arbitrary, they illustrate the difference between duration and damage for Torment.

Setup 1: Rabid weapons; 1400 condition damage, 60% duration. Total Torment damage inflicted is approximately 10,800 over 12.8s; 845 dps

Setup 2: Giver’s Weapons; 1200 condition damage, 80% duration. Total Torment damage inflicted is approximately 11,100 over 14.4 seconds. 770 dps

As you can see, the difference in damage is extremely minimal. 300 damage is an extremely small amount. Torment is some of the only burst damage a condition build has. Rabid weapons, while doing slightly less damage overall, do significantly more damage per second. Also, since Torment has such a long duration and can only be applied once every 12s (9.6 is traited), it more vulnerable to condition removal than bleeds/burns that can easily be reapplied. A decent player will not let five stacks of Torment persist for their entire duration. Therefore, it is most beneficial to focus on condition damage when considering Torment, as Rabid weapons will always have Torment do more damage than Giver’s weapons if Torment gets removed early. The slight damage gain that Torment gets from having a longer duration is rarely worth it since it is likely to get removed.

Hopefully that is a sufficiently detailed explanation of why scepter doesn’t receive the same benefits of condition duration as other weapons.