Guild Wars 2

In the past conditions worked in wvw because they would stay on. Lately in wvw it seems everyone have condition removals. I can barely keep a target bleeding for more than 4 seconds. Often it seems the condition was gone in 2 seconds or less. That’s insane!

And unlike gw1 hexes, I cannot “cover hex” to protect my main hexes. 14 stacks of bleeding gets removed instantly.

Think about it. A thief can hit for 4-8k damage a hit, and in a few seconds you are dead.

Necro conditions deals 3k damage in 8 seconds. But in wvw it almost never lasts 8 seconds. And 3k in 8 seconds is so slow that they are easily healed & plenty of time to escape.

All in all, it took so much work, effort and skill slots to do what a thief can do in just ONE hit.

It just seems to me that even when conditions works, they are very mediocre at best. And very often conditions fail to work.

What I recommend is to have some kind of limit in condition removals. Perhaps cut the existing condition duration down by 66%, instead of removing the conditions completely.

Yeah, it’s pretty ordinary.

I was thinking we could have our own condition type – disease or plague and some mechanics could be built around that.

This is like power build players asking ANET to remove toughness.

For that example to really hold water, condition damage would have to be able to crit; power damage would have to have an arbitrary dps cap that any single target can receive; and there would have to be a plethora of invincibility skills that only affects power based damage that every class has access to.

or… how about just keep applying conditions until they run out of cleanses and then drop your mother load BiP on them and kite?

cleansing is a problem, but honestly.. with no cleansing, conditions would be the norm and the game would be filled with auto-kills.

my only problem is shake it off combined with shrug it off trait. a double-cycle AoE cleanse I think is extremely punishing and should have a lock-out between the utility and the pre-cast trait. Too many warriors running around cycling both every 15 seconds or less.

Kolisch.4691:

This is like power build players asking ANET to remove toughness.

True.

Dunno why people are never happy. Cmon Anet remove conditions cleaner and toughness from the game and had more 200% damage to all jobs!

Thieves are happy,stealth + condition removal in 1 button
And if you bother with markeing the area,they just switch to pistols and fire happily at you while you wait for them to load.

Condition builds felt unbelievably overpowered when people didn’t have condition removals. There might be a bit too many condition removals today in some cases (elementalists, guardians), but I definitely understand why so many exist.

Condition damage is pretty good in wvw in small group fights. But you surely can’t expect a zerg of 20 people most of whom have aoe condition removals to not affect your conditions.
Right now, Epidemic is in a very good place and shape because of the sheer zerg condition removals in wvw. If they nerf those condition removals, you can also expect another nerf to Epidemic right after it (which I would hate) because every necro and their moms will start abusing it in zerg fights.

Burjis.3087:

Condition damage is pretty good in wvw in small group fights. But you surely can’t expect a zerg of 20 people most of whom have aoe condition removals to not affect your conditions.
Right now, Epidemic is in a very good place and shape because of the sheer zerg condition removals in wvw. If they nerf those condition removals, you can also expect another nerf to Epidemic right after it (which I would hate) because every necro and their moms will start abusing it in zerg fights.

Epidemic in wvw is balanced around the necro using it on some dude with 5+ conditions AND standing next to a ball of players. Any decent player with 5+ conditions would retreat back behind the zerg, outside of 1200 range. And even if not, people in wvw are so spread out that it won’t matter. And to top it off, conditions gets removed so easily. And honestly it doesn’t even hurt that much by percentage.

In GW1, 10 pipes of degen hurts A LOT by percentage. And it was possible for one player alone to deal 10 pipes. In GW2 there is no way a single player can get bleeding to stack up to 25, and then Epidemic it. The necro had to rely on others. So the necro had to search though a zerg of 40 enemies, find out who had that 25 stack of bleeding, and pray that the enemy happens to be standing next to a ball of allies, before casting Epidemic.

Think about it. In the heat of a wvw zerg battle, it almost never happens. Yes the damage potential of Epidemic is very high. But it is very situational and very rare.

And Epidemic is limited to 5 targets anyways.

If they nerf condition removals, so conditions are useful again, they can nerf Epidemic to the ground for all I care. I rather lost one skill than having the whole necromancer class hold hostage because of its “potential”.

i stopped playing necro and switched into dps class

now gonna make thief next since its only class supposed to win ever

CHIPS.6018:

If they nerf condition removals, so conditions are useful again, they can nerf Epidemic to the ground for all I care. I rather lost one skill than having the whole necromancer class hold hostage because of its “potential”.

Skills are not balanced around WvWvW.

Besides, if they nerfed Epidimic, it would screw over nearly every condition necro out there that uses it…making them way less effective in dungeons, group events, solo play, etc. I don’t think A.Net is going to screw over that many builds across all game modes because you are tired of re-applying conditions or something.

Best advice I can give you from my own wvw experience is that Duration is a near-useless ability in WvW, you’re far better off investing in two other things:
1. Faster cyclic downtime for skills/utilities to overwhelm enemy removals
2. More damage per tick for conditions so when they do stick, they really hurt

You do have one big advantage though… there is a large majority of people in WvW who don’t seem to carry any condition removal, are using some glass cannon spec ‘for big numbers’, still think their spec from spvp/pve is applicable or are up-levelled noobs looking for karma and xp. So, you’ll always cause some causalities

Idolicious.6091:

CHIPS.6018:

If they nerf condition removals, so conditions are useful again, they can nerf Epidemic to the ground for all I care. I rather lost one skill than having the whole necromancer class hold hostage because of its “potential”.

Skills are not balanced around WvWvW.

Besides, if they nerfed Epidimic, it would screw over nearly every condition necro out there that uses it…making them way less effective in dungeons, group events, solo play, etc. I don’t think A.Net is going to screw over that many builds across all game modes because you are tired of re-applying conditions or something.

When conditions gets removed this fast, Epidimic is useless no matter what.

Think about it. In a 20 vs 20 zerg fight, you would expect at least 6 guys with 5+ stack/different conditions. But nope. Nearly everyone is clean because conditions drops off them super fast.

I think the issue is that there is too much passive condition removal instead of deliberate cleansing. Most of the time its tied to heal skills or dodge rolling or something else that people do multiple times a fight. Condition removal is in a spec and happens naturally instead of someone noticing they have a tons of bleeds and making a conscious decision to do something about it.

Thresher.3049:

Best advice I can give you from my own wvw experience is that Duration is a near-useless ability in WvW, you’re far better off investing in two other things:
1. Faster cyclic downtime for skills/utilities to overwhelm enemy removals
2. More damage per tick for conditions so when they do stick, they really hurt

You do have one big advantage though… there is a large majority of people in WvW who don’t seem to carry any condition removal, are using some glass cannon spec ‘for big numbers’, still think their spec from spvp/pve is applicable or are up-levelled noobs looking for karma and xp. So, you’ll always cause some causalities

(Below comments for WVW/PVE and not SPVP/TPVP

I disagree with this premise and it seems to be such a popular trend on the forums.

I used to run a build that maximized condition damage, and took whatever duration I could find as extra. Then I realized that the barbed precision bleed ticks twice at 100% duration on bleed, and procs all the time (normal crit rate around 50%, gives a proc rate of 1 in 3 hits)

It is so easy to get 100% bleeding duration without sacrificing a large source of condition damage. I don’t even run hemophila anymore, because I prefer the other traits in that line and get the bleeding duration from runes and food.

Ignoring the condition duration weapon slots, because they are horribly under-statted, you can get condition duration from traits, foods, runes. If you run a condition build and you don’t use rare veggie, you are crazy, but ill just give an example.

For foods you can take pizza at 40% duration and 70 cond damage. Or you can take 100 cond damage and 70 precision. The precision is not a huge effect and 30 cond damage is not a huge effect.

For runes/orbs, the maximum you are going to get for cond damage is undead runes for 183+ 5% toughness or roughly 260 condition damage.

So the net maximum condition damage you can get ignoring your primary stats is going ot be around 290 give or take, or an extra 14.5 damage per tick on bleeding.

If you take a base bleed at 100 damage (lower than a normal build i realize), and compare that it 115, with the addition condition damage, just looking at barbed precision, which takes 2 seconds to run its course at full duration, your damage comparison is 115 vs 200.

I get that everyone clears conditions quickly and that they do not persist through downed, but you also reapply them quickly, and the barbed prec. bleeds will almost always run their full course. Terror should also be mentioned because of its huge damage component and one extra tick of that does over 1400 damage.

So in the end, if I can run runes/food that give me 80% longer bleeds and 50% longer other conditions and lose 290 condition damage, it is absolutely worth it to me. If you can manage to keep your bleeds up 1-2 seconds longer, you have done more damage.

10 bleeds at 115 damage/bleed = 1150 DPS
10 bleeds at 100 damage/bleed = 1000 DPS

10 bleeds at 115 damage/bleed for 5 seconds = 5750 damage
10 bleeds at 100 damage/bleed for 5 seconds = 5000 damage
10 bleeds at 100 damage/bleed for 6 seconds = 6000 damage.

All it took was one extra second.

Very nice breakdown on cond duration rennoko, thats why when i work with power pushed hybrid builds, i try to get the most out of it through cond duration because cdmg is hard to work in and balance.

Rennoko.5731:

I disagree with this premise and it seems to be such a popular trend on the forums.

I used to run a build that maximized condition damage, and took whatever duration I could find as extra. Then I realized that the barbed precision bleed ticks twice at 100% duration on bleed, and procs all the time (normal crit rate around 50%, gives a proc rate of 1 in 3 hits)

I logged about 400hrs in wvw as a condition/hybrid using the pizza food and around the last 350hrs in wvw as a pure condition/prec/toughness build using Master Tuning Crystals & Bowl of Truffle Risotto.
It seems to be more practical in combat situations where I get about 5 bleeds at 160, run around a bit as the enemy gets insanely cranky at me/have to chase them, apply another 5 bleeds as soon as the timers come up or are cleared by the enemy or incapacitate another group with conditions.

To some extent I also leverage a lot off running organised guild groups so I’ll also have a 2nd necro (rarely) or ranged C/Dam spec class (more commonly) and a guardian (or 2!) to pump up more conditions and Might stacks, which is a big factor in our damage output now.
In hindsight, a lot of the changes since the game opened in terms of Terror, Might from BiP and actual ‘equipment’ types have allowed for higher C/Dam builds than when I first rolled out into wvw.
At some point I might try out the hybrid again, but this is working for me now and Im happier with the overall performance.

Running in groups that have AOE might, like warriors/altrusim runes etc, are very nice for conditions, but the scaling is linear. Each might stacks as the same effect on you with 100 condition damage or 2000 condition damage (35 cond per might stack). The higher the damage on your bleed effects, the more damage you are going to add by extending those even a short duration.

I have tried many different builds in WvW and swap back and forth day-to-day. I literally was wracking my brain yesterday after my post thinking of a way you could maintain 100% bleed duration with undead runes; realizing you would have to use those God awful giver’s weapons to make it happen. There-by negating any additional condition damage you get by losing it on your MH or OH. Unfortunately the best you can manage is 90%, which will not get you that critical second bleed on barbed prec. Agony rune could be used…. but it is so weak.

The barbed prec. bleed is really the only “safe” increased duration damage you can swing against competent players who can run passive and active clears every 5-10 second. This is primarily why I have TERROR in pretty much every cond. build I use now, as it is like a super bleed for a short duration in terms of damage.

I would love to be able to make a hybrid build work for me, but if I MH a sceptor the benefit just does not seem to be there. The difference between 30 points in spite and zero points in spite is about 40 damage on my sceptor auto attack…. hadly even noticable. Hell at that point I am better off with the siphon 15 point trait.

I have yet to do the math, but I was trying to figure out the damage difference between 20 points in Soul Reaping (20% increased crit damage @ 50% crit), vs. just a straight bump of 200 power. in a 0/30/20/0/20 build my DS life blast still hits pretty hard even with only 1300 or so power.

Unfortunately the only way I see to make a hybrid build work is forgoing all passive suriviability and running rampagers/all stat gear (okay for PVE). Consequently getting blown up by a thief in 3 hits is not my thing though.

For the record, I would give anything for some sort of parsing for damage calculations. I feel like 90% of what I do testing is all speculation, as without being able to record damage over X seconds, I really can’t be sure which build is better.

EDIT: Typo

Did a bit of testing yesterday:

Standard 1811 C/Dam = 133 tick
BIP 2161 C/Dam = 151 tick
Food + Crystal = 146 tick
BIP + Food+Crystal = 163 tick

A standard opening salvo (not including staff 3 & 4) would be:
BIP: 2x Bleeds running for 15sec at 163tick (2445) and 16x Bleeds at 146tick (2336)
Staff 2: 3x Bleeds running for 10sec at 163 tick (2445)
6second mark*- 2nd Staff 2: 3x bleeds running for 4 sec at 163tick (652) and 6sec at 146tick (876)
Terror = 1 × 1640 tick

So those first 10seconds
1630 + 2445 + 652 + 1640 = 6367 damage

A second terror tick would be nice, but its a lot of compromise to squeeze in at the moment.

• 4 .75sec cycle time with 0.75 sec cast + slow old man reflexes

Sheobix.8796:

or… how about just keep applying conditions until they run out of cleanses and then drop your mother load BiP on them and kite?

Agreed.

Dunno why the OP is having such a hard time. Must not be spamming enough conditions or not enough skills/traits to improve his overall dps.

I just posted a WvW fear build on these forums that I had no problem with… you just got to learn when and when not to fight and kite properly.

CHIPS.6018:

Idolicious.6091:

CHIPS.6018:

If they nerf condition removals, so conditions are useful again, they can nerf Epidemic to the ground for all I care. I rather lost one skill than having the whole necromancer class hold hostage because of its “potential”.

Skills are not balanced around WvWvW.

Besides, if they nerfed Epidimic, it would screw over nearly every condition necro out there that uses it…making them way less effective in dungeons, group events, solo play, etc. I don’t think A.Net is going to screw over that many builds across all game modes because you are tired of re-applying conditions or something.

When conditions gets removed this fast, Epidimic is useless no matter what.

Think about it. In a 20 vs 20 zerg fight, you would expect at least 6 guys with 5+ stack/different conditions. But nope. Nearly everyone is clean because conditions drops off them super fast.

Think you missed my point entirely. Nerfing epidemic would affect more than just certain WvWvW situations, a lot more. Not every fight in the game is a 20v20 zerg. You’re being awfully single-minded.