Guild Wars 2

I was wondering how effective weakness is compared to an enemy without weakness.

And, I want to know how effective weakness + protection is compared to no buffs.

Is there any research finding on this? I play a mace/shield warrior, and I happen to perma-weakness everyone I bash on.

they regen at i believe 33% of their regular rate, its an amazing debuff especially against classes they rely on vigor to stay up

Defektive.7283:

they regen at i believe 33% of their regular rate, its an amazing debuff especially against classes they rely on vigor to stay up

I forgot to mention that I use it for dungeon running only.

oh, then probably not. no

I was under the impression that weakness applied a 50% debuff to endurance regeneration.

Also, 50% chance of non-critical attacks being glancing is nothing to sneeze at if you can keep it up permanently.

thats true on the glancing which can be useful, but im unsure if NPCs follow the same endurance rules as players

Defektive.7283:

thats true on the glancing which can be useful, but im unsure if NPCs follow the same endurance rules as players

I can’t even really recall any mobs dodging, save for a few bosses, and even then those might have been dodges tied into the weapon sets they were emulating.

weakness + protection is great against hard hitting dungeon mobs.

Weakness is fantastic in dungeons for the 50% fumble. The endurance penalty is useless, but that’s not why you use weakness on mobs. The mace’s weakness attack is a cleave (hits 3 targets) as well, so even in multi-pulls providing you keep the mobs together a mace Warrior can keep most of them weakened.

Weakness is a powerfull condition. Like Sami wrote above endurance penalty is useless in pve, but the Fumble is really powerfull. I myself run a Control build with Mace+Shield/Hammer.

I didn’t notice any critical hits from dungeon mobs so 50% of all their attack has a chance to do 50% their full damage power.

No idea why they made it so complicated. Why not just stick 25% damage reduction or something.

Because glancing hits are already built into the game (when you try and attack mobs higher than your level you will start to glance on them), and it means you can’t use weakness to counter big boss crits.

That doesn’t explain why it should be “%”-based.
And why weakness would counter critical hits better? 75% of 2+2 is same as 75% of 0.5+1.5.
(+ why even have critical hits? to make game mechanics look more advanced?)

I believe the mechanic is intended to not negate spikes. Before I go on, allow me to restate – a Glancing Blow deals 50% damage.

Let’s ignore Critical Hits and say the enemy has two attacks – one that deals game equal to 100% of your life, and one that deals damage equal to 10% of your life. Obviously, to stay alive you must dodge the one that can kill you in one hit.

If Weakened causes them have a 25% damage reduction, then they would only hit for 75% and 7.5% of your life respectively, meaning you don’t need to dodge. However, if you have a 50% chance of turning them into Glancing Blows, this essentially means the enemy has four attacks – the big ones (which share an animation) that deal 100% and 50% of your life, and the small ones (which share an animation) that deal 10% and 5% of your life. Now you can’t just ignore the heavy attack – you still need to dodge, because there’s a 50% chance it will kill you.

Same net damage output, but considerable difference in how they affect the flow of combat.

With so extreme damages you would try to dodge anyways. Anyways first scenario sounds much better. Wasted your endurance, enemy is closing with 100% damage attack. Apply Weakness.
First scenario: save your life.
Second scenario: roll a dice.

25% reduction would make bosses completely trivial, get over it.

Weakness also adds secondary value to crit in PvP. You can stack all the power in the world if you want and focus on survivability, but you will be crippled by Weakness. However, if you sac some survivability to gain crit, you’ll negate some of the negative effect.

It’s a give-and-take mechanic that I think feels pretty cool for PvP. For PvE, it seems like it’d be also nice, since you aren’t going to be dodging 100% of the damage (though maybe you can dodge 100% of the huge burst attacks), thus helping mitigate damage out to the party.

If it were just a straight % damage reduction, it would lose the PvP risk/reward.

fony.5102:

25% reduction would make bosses completely trivial, get over it.

And 50% of 50% is what? 10%?

Cogbyrn.7283:

Weakness also adds secondary value to crit in PvP. You can stack all the power in the world if you want and focus on survivability, but you will be crippled by Weakness. However, if you sac some survivability to gain crit, you’ll negate some of the negative effect.

It’s a give-and-take mechanic that I think feels pretty cool for PvP. For PvE, it seems like it’d be also nice, since you aren’t going to be dodging 100% of the damage (though maybe you can dodge 100% of the huge burst attacks), thus helping mitigate damage out to the party.

If it were just a straight % damage reduction, it would lose the PvP risk/reward.

Criticals could still get through.
As stated, with 25% damage reduction it would overall be same, except without the luck part. Similarly protection could be 50% change to reduce attacks by 66%.