Guild Wars 2

Either the tooltip is incorrect or it does not augment the skill. The burning duration goes from 1 to 1.5 sec but the dmg does not increase. In fact, equiping undead runes as opposed to balthazar shows more dmg for bonfire but 1 sec duration. Has anyone tested this? I would love to but I am at work and basing it all off of the build editor.

Makes sense that it would be a tooltip error given that throw torch does in fact increase in duration and dmg

The damage does not increase because Burning only damages on a full second. The tooltip will not calculate damage inbetween seconds.

If you increase your condition/burn duration to 100%, then each pulse of bonfire will be 2 seconds long, and the damage in the tooltip will increase.

Chrispy.5641:

The damage does not increase because Burning only damages on a full second. The tooltip will not calculate damage inbetween seconds.

If you increase your condition/burn duration to 100%, then each pulse of bonfire will be 2 seconds long, and the damage in the tooltip will increase.

Holy crap, I didn’t know that. Is that true? (I almost exclusively go power/crit)

And if so, does that mean that if you have like 1-3/4s duration that really only counts as 1? Like it won’t round up?

Chrispy.5641:

The damage does not increase because Burning only damages on a full second. The tooltip will not calculate damage inbetween seconds.

If you increase your condition/burn duration to 100%, then each pulse of bonfire will be 2 seconds long, and the damage in the tooltip will increase.

The tooltip damage doesn’t increase on a 1.5 second duration tip, but, you will deal more damage, because you end up applying 12 seconds of total burning, which results in 12 ticks.

So even though the tooltip doesn’t say you do more damage, your burning duration does increase which increases overall damage.

I figured the damage had to increase somehow BUT.. is it 12 seconds of burning? 8 stacks? The skill confuses me since it says 1 second duration and 8 stacks by default. Is the stacking limit not 5 on duration conditions like burn/immob. I will have to test this in the mists tonight. Will reply with my findings

Bonfire ticks 8 times(it’s actually 9 times according to the Wiki). But we’ll go with 8 ticks for the example. So 8 ticks…each tick is adding 1 second of Burning to your target. 1 second of burning = 1 tick. When you add Balth Runes, it increases your total burning duration along with condition duration from trait line to 1.5 seconds per Burning tick. So, that 1.5 seconds of Burning will still only tick one time, but since it’s duration based, the second tick will total 3 seconds which would be 3 ticks.

So 8 × 1.5 = 12 seconds of Burning if they stay in the AoE for the whole duration.

I’ve also seen burning tick as if it was stacked twice. For example, instead of ticking 700 fire damage, I’ve seen a single tick for 1400. Anyone know what’s happening here?

Finished that makes complete sense and made me suspect 12 was correct; However, I just tested it in the mists and it ticked 14 times with balth runes and 10% condi duration from traits. With no balth runes and 10% condi duration it ticked 10 times… will continue testing but I do not have smoldering sigil or anything else increasing my duration.

If you have 50% condition duration your burns will be 1.5 seconds long like the tooltip states….but the way it works is this:
1st Pulse:Adds 1.5 seconds of burning, they take damage from the 1, however the .5 is “stored” in case more is applied.
2nd Pulse:Adds 1.5 seconds of burning to the .5 that is stored, so this 2nd pulse will stack 2 seconds…
3rd Pulse:same as 1st
4th Pulse:same as 2nd
and so on, and so on….

Dinas Dragonbane.2978:

If you have 50% condition duration your burns will be 1.5 seconds long like the tooltip states….but the way it works is this:
1st Pulse:Adds 1.5 seconds of burning, they take damage from the 1, however the .5 is “stored” in case more is applied.
2nd Pulse:Adds 1.5 seconds of burning to the .5 that is stored, so this 2nd pulse will stack 2 seconds…
3rd Pulse:same as 1st
4th Pulse:same as 2nd
and so on, and so on….

But, Unless you have alot of control keeping the enemy player standing still (regular enemies are dumb enough to stand in place), then they may only take 1 pulse of burning, lasting only 1.5 seconds. Therefore, they take only one second of damage, not 1.5.

Chrispy.5641:

But, Unless you have alot of control keeping the enemy player standing still (regular enemies are dumb enough to stand in place), then they may only take 1 pulse of burning, lasting only 1.5 seconds. Therefore, they take only one second of damage, not 1.5.

You got it, just like the example says
We’ll have people understanding how the fractions of seconds work by the end of this thread if we’re lucky :P

Narkodx.1472:

Finished that makes complete sense and made me suspect 12 was correct; However, I just tested it in the mists and it ticked 14 times with balth runes and 10% condi duration from traits. With no balth runes and 10% condi duration it ticked 10 times… will continue testing but I do not have smoldering sigil or anything else increasing my duration.

Hmm. Well, the Wiki must be correct in that it technically ticks 9 times. Once on the initial drop, then an additional 8 times. So with 9 ticks at 1.5 that’s still only 13.5 seconds. So you should see 13 ticks…..unless, the first tick starts the moment bonfire is set. Which means the tick starts at 0.0, then 1.0, 2.0 etc.

So…basically, unless you can get to +100% condi duration, Bonfire is only ever guaranteed to tick for 1 second(since 1-1.9s is still considered 1s for DoT purposes). Am I seeing that right? If that’s the case, it almost seems better off to aim for +50% condi duration and try keeping someone in the ring for at least 2 ticks(which shouldn’t be that hard) so you can get a full 3 dmg ticks off of 2s of Bonfire. Seems the most efficient to me.

Also… the extra .5 can tick occasionally on its own as all condition damage ticks synch up. If an enemy already had, say poison on them that was about to tick, the burn would tick right away, then again with the poison if its duration wasnt up.

I have concluded that Torch + Balthazaar runes is beast. Take Hao or TU low cd heals for more burning. Sun Spirit too.. why not!? As to how many ticks and why? 14 ticks and I do not know why! Oh well let the burning continue!

This
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBMhd+1IjK1s2yizKUtGAQoWFAtzhmNsdvE7wYfyK+yL-TpxFwAJOIAb2fwxDAwZZAAnAADHBAA

or, this
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBMhd+1IjK1s2yizKUtGAQoWFAtzhmNsdvE7wYfyK+yL-TpxFwAJOIAb2fwxDAwZZAAnAADHBAA

Narkodx.1472:

Finished that makes complete sense and made me suspect 12 was correct; However, I just tested it in the mists and it ticked 14 times with balth runes and 10% condi duration from traits. With no balth runes and 10% condi duration it ticked 10 times… will continue testing but I do not have smoldering sigil or anything else increasing my duration.

Just tested it in the Mists with 0 condi duration. It hits 9 times and the burning ticks 10 times.

I think what’s going on is the first hit is free. Its damage hits once, but its burn duration is 2 sec so it ticks burning twice. The subsequent 8 hits then apply burning normally.

With 0% condi duration:

• 1st hits: 2 sec burn
• 8 additional hits: 8 sec burning
  Total 10 sec burning

With 10% condi duration:

• 1st hits: 2 sec
• 8 additional hits: 8.8 sec burning
  Total 10.8 sec rounded down to 10 sec of burning

With Balth runes and 10% condi duration (+55% burn duration):

• 1st hit: 2 sec
• 8 additional hits: 12.4 sec burning
  Total 14.4 sec rounded down to 14 sec of burning

If I’m right, it should roll over to:
11 ticks of burning at +14% burn duration
12 ticks of burning at +25% burn duration
13 ticks of burning at +38% burn duration
14 ticks of burning at +50% burn duration
15 ticks of burning at +63% burn duration
16 ticks of burning at +75% burn duration
17 ticks of burning at +88% burn duration
18 ticks of burning at +100% burn duration

Testing that is left as an exercise for the reader.

Obsidian.1328:

So…basically, unless you can get to +100% condi duration, Bonfire is only ever guaranteed to tick for 1 second(since 1-1.9s is still considered 1s for DoT purposes). Am I seeing that right? If that’s the case, it almost seems better off to aim for +50% condi duration and try keeping someone in the ring for at least 2 ticks(which shouldn’t be that hard) so you can get a full 3 dmg ticks off of 2s of Bonfire. Seems the most efficient to me.

That’s generally the case with short burns, which is what most burn skills in the game are (1-3 sec). Throw torch (6 sec all at once) is long enough that you can get good benefit from less than 100% condition duration. Same for Bonfire if you can keep the target in the fire for a long time.

It’s worth pointing out that another purpose of the AOE burns (Bonfire, Flame Trap) is as area denial tools. To make other players avoid an area unless they want to pay the burn damage/condition cleanse penalty. For that purpose, the burn duration doesn’t really matter. The opponent is just going to see the red ring of fire, and decide not to enter it. Any damage or condition cleanse usage you get from it is just gravy.