Guild Wars 2

Well, as always, it is not a single issue by itself that causes a problem and everybody will believe to have found the “real issue”.

That said, I’ll try and offer an analysis from my point of view and experience in PvP and this genre in general.

If we look at all the aspects of how condition damage is applied (unavoidable procs from traits, critical conditions that can not be cleansed individually due to a multitude of different conditions providing coverage etc.), the underlying issue when it comes to damaging conditions is the potential damage (per attack) they are designed to deal.

So what is potential damage you may ask.

Potential damage is the total of damage a single condition applying attack will deal if it is allowed to run its course. The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack, especially in the context of range vs. melee dps guide lines. Extreme builds can literally stack so much potential damage that they are able to kill a light golem with a single basic attack (#1) as a result.

The reason for this design decision rests on the fact that condition damage is balanced around cleanses and the furthermore that condition damage can not be allowed to exert its damage too quickly, because it ignores most passive and some active defenses.

Cleansing can nullify most of the damage conditions are able to deal, so in order to create meaningful play and counterplay (realistically you will never be able to cleanse a condition immediately, so that part of the damage will always be going through) and keeping the restrictions in mind concerning passive defenses, the conditions applied usually have significant base durations (as a result obviously the player who can prevent most of the potential damage through cleansing, is better off right now).

This dependency and interaction between damaging conditions and cleanses, however, creates an environment where conditions have to be cleansed in order to be balanced. Instances where they can not be cleansed reliably will put their effect beyond what was intended (an oversimplified example to visualize the above: if I hit a meta build D/P thief with a Pin Down right after he used Hide in Shadows, which puts him back at 100% HPs, he will die from this single attack. He can run, hide and avoid any other attack I’ll follow up with, but unless he gets back to his guardian for a cleanse, the potential damage of that range attack will be enough to take him from 100 to 0).

Some people will read the above and the first thought crossing their mind is “But even if my build focuses on cleanses, the conditions will still overwhelm me, because of the frequency with which conditions are being applied and the coverage provided by so many different type of conditions I can be affected by”.

While this is definitely what you observe, this again is a direct result of how long conditions last. The longer each individual condition lasts, the more conditions will ultimately provide coverage, because of the residual conditions still on you after a cleanse. This means that on the next condition cycle you are hit with, you will have to deal with any residual conditions that haven’t fallen off yet from the cycle before on top of the new cycle.

Now there are several remedies one can test to see if they can take care of these issues and that’s what the staff has probably been doing:

1. You increase condition removal across the board

I believe that is what we have been seeing recently. The upside to this solution is that you create more instances where conditions are cleansed, thus increasing the chance of having conditions deal “balanced damage” overall.

The downsides are that additional cleansing capabilities usually don’t come for free, as you will have to pick them up in exchange for other abilities. If you do not pick them up, you are in the same boat as before. This also puts the burden entirely on the defender, rather than making the attacker “work” harder for their kill.

Furthermore, while this solution will increase the chance of conditions getting cleansed, there will still be instances where they are not, which will again push them beyond their intended effect.

2. Reduce condition duration across the board

This one has had the most drastic impact of any changes on any of the abilities that have been adjusted in any way. For those who tested the Necromancer during beta it was obvious back then how much of an impact it had when the bleed duration on the scepter #1 was halved. This change would address the core of issues we experience with conditions and all the aforementioned side effects.

The downside, however, is that condition damage would probably be shifted entirely towards the other end of the spectrum, which would leave condition damage overall in a spot where it would only be “balanced” when it went uncleansed.

3. Reducing condition duration across the board and lowering the cool down of condition applying attacks accordingly

This is the one change that would try to introduce balance by having the burden shared equally between attacker and defender, though it would do so by significantly weakening the dependency between cleanses and conditions.

The upsides are quite impressive, as the reduced condition duration would take care of the issue with potential damage per attack that I have gone into earlier. Furthermore, it would not directly decrease the overall potential damage per second, since conditions would deal the same amount of damage through the ability to apply shorter cycles of conditions that last a shorter amount of time individually more often.

Another upside, as alluded to above, would be the fact that in order to deal the same amount of damage the attacker would have to execute and land more attacks, which not only would cut into the attacker’s time efficiency (no more fire and forget playstyle, which allows the attacker to place a potential 15k damage on a target and spend the rest of the time hiding, running or using defenses to outlast the opponent), but it would also give the defender increased opportunity to avoid parts of the overall damage by preventing some of the condition cycles (more condition cycles are needed to kill the defender, hence more chances to avoid single, shorter lasting cycles).

Thus placing the burden of acting and reacting in order to achieve their respective goal (kill/survive) on both parties equally.

The downside is rather raw and simple in comparison. Cleanses become less important, as the potential damage mitigated by cleansing a shorter, less lethal cycle is reduced quite heavily. The attacker is simply less vulnerable to cleanses in regards to his overall damage.

Apologies for the very long post that I have been wanting to make for quite a while and finally got to do so.

Thanks for reading.

Very detailed and imo correct analysis of the problem everyone talks about for month and finally a suggestion which makes a lot of sense (at least for me).

It deals with the main problem which is the how easy cond classes can bring on their damage which leads to solving the “I’m hitting you with 3 attacks and when you don’t cleanse you will die while I’m watching you from above here” – problem!

The dps of a cond class would still be the same but a cond class would have to “work” much more to archive that dps and hitting your combo once wouldn’t mean that you can go kite around but you would need to actively continue doing your dmg such as power classes have to.

So yeah – I’m all for it. Reducing CD’s (and maybe the cast time from aa) but also cutting the duration timer down is the best solution I’ve heard for that problem by far!

+1 For great justice

Now this is a thread i can get behind.

Because personally i like conditions in their intended nature.

Where in theory they are applied. And if allowed to run their full course, (key word) overtime they would do more damage than if someone was on top of you just barely.
But currently a lot of the ‘condition’ builds do just as much up front damage as physical builds as well as having the very painful conditions that also hit like a unavoidable truck over time.

Personally i agree with the lowering condition duration across the board -
I think that giving more classes condition removal won’t really help unless its passive and not traded for core needs like damage and certain mitigation. and passive condition removal will just be a wobbly scale of balance between making conditions viable as opposed to useless.

Though i do believe a good idea would be adding “CLEAN” as a short duration buff
The real issue with cleanses is their long CD for getting a lot (not all) conditions off just to have those same conditions reapplied. So I think that if you use a hardline Condition removal that for the next 4 – 6 seconds you should have a bufft hat reduces all incoming condition durations by 60%. Though this won’t solve the problem. For a lot of classes who can go toe to toe with condition builds just to be outlasted might give them the edge they need in those 4-6 seconds to get over the threshold of victory.

This is a good analysis and the suggestions are very solid, but I can’t get behind any “complete re-design” approach. Changing things “across the board” is very rarely healthy for a game post-launch.

Condition specs are already tottering. There are about 4 professions that have a couple variations on a condition build, and most of the usable ones can be traced to a couple key skills or traits keeping them functional (i.e. Spirit ranger without sun spirit = lol).

For these reasons, I don’t think Anet should re-design conditions from the ground up.

I don’t know, how “strong” this would be, but I had some time ago 1 simple idea:

Make players invulnerable to (already applied) conditions while they dodge.
This wont save you, but this way, you might be able to “dodge” one of the ticks.
Facing a condition focused class, evading one tick could mean that you don’t get the next tick of some bleed stacks, fire and poision.

You’re right about a lot of points. In my opinion, condition damage, damage itself is too strong. I don’t mind long durations but make them tick for less. A 6 stack bleed, burn and fear combo can really drop your health quickly, after the fear is over, the other conditions still do their work and take you down too quickly.

One of the ideas I really like is introducing precision to differentiate Condition builds. At the moment condition builds only need that 1 offensive stat to do effective damage.

I think it would be neat if offensive/defensive conditions specs were more easily distinguishable. Similar to how a Berzerker amulet compares to Soldiers.

Most classes have those traits/abilities to get bleeding/burning chances on critical hit. Almost all of them would probably have to be adjusted to fit the model.
(Ex. Sun spirit has x% chance on crit to cause Y seconds of burning)

Med.6150:

The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack

OK, you put a lot of effort into writing this, so I’m trying not to be too dismissive, but this is as far as I made it. The correct approach here would have been to do the math, then decide on your position, not the other way round.

Great post IMO. If anyone of these were implemented I would immediately come back to PvP…

Mammoth.1975:

Med.6150:

The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack

OK, you put a lot of effort into writing this, so I’m trying not to be too dismissive, but this is as far as I made it. The correct approach here would have been to do the math, then decide on your position, not the other way round.

Lol, he is correct.

vinceftw.5086:

Lol, he is correct.

Same applies to you. If you’d done the math you wouldn’t have posted this. The only condi attack that ‘is way higher than that of a single power attack’ is warrior sword 1 (discounting ele earth scepter as unplayable here, if you want to include it we can, nothing changes). Of course, ‘way higher’ here means ‘way higher if you don’t have any damage percent traits or crit chance, otherwise use axe. Or GS. Or anything except condis’.

Most other condi attacks deal slightly less to significantly less than power attacks. The highest damage attack a standard condi necro has is ~3.5k over 15 seconds (assuming it isn’t cleansed), on a 25 second cooldown. Necro scepter auto does ~750, and excluding warrior sword it’s by far the best condi auto. For comparison, thief sword does ~2k once you factor crit chance. Guardian staff does ~1k+ with a ranged cleave on hybrid builds. Both of those numbers are after average armor is factored, while the necro scepter is before cleanses are considered.

I don’t think its fair to say X attack is better against Y class in Z situation. Sure a full hundred blades hurts. And so does spamming everything with a 10 stack of confusion. You can’t just say Power > Condition because example. It’s all situational and traits only make it more complicated.

Back to main topic.

Right now a couple Condi builds are extremely strong while being very tanky. To combat it, mass condition cleansed are needed to not melt instantly. This has left lots of non FOTM condition classes in the dust because they can’t compete against all the cleanses/evades.

Universal nerfs to conditions or buffs to removal would just be the final nail in the coffin for the underpowered builds.

Astos.3609:

I don’t think its fair to say X attack is better against Y class in Z situation.

Sure, except the whole argument is predicated on this:

Med.6150:

The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack

When the reverse is true.

Mammoth.1975:

Astos.3609:

I don’t think its fair to say X attack is better against Y class in Z situation.

Sure, except the whole argument is predicated on this:

Med.6150:

The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack

When the reverse is true.

Lol really? not even close to true at all. Conditions have always been strong just not quite as strong as power. Now they out shine power in every single way possible.

jportell.2197:

Lol really? not even close to true at all. Conditions have always been strong just not quite as strong as power. Now they out shine power in every single way possible.

Once again, math. Half the threads on this forum simply wouldn’t exist if people would bother to learn a little bit about the game before posting.

Mammoth.1975:

jportell.2197:

Lol really? not even close to true at all. Conditions have always been strong just not quite as strong as power. Now they out shine power in every single way possible.

Once again, math. Half the threads on this forum simply wouldn’t exist if people would bother to learn a little bit about the game before posting.

However math does not=effectiveness genius. Damage=/=performance. Get it?

jportell.2197:

However math does not=effectiveness genius. Damage=/=performance. Get it?

Again, except the whole argument is predicated on this:

Med.6150:

The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack

When the reverse is true.

You quoted it and disagreed, but hey, go ahead and change your mind. Learning is good.

If you frame the discussion as opinions on condis, fine. As they say, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, they’re just not entitled to their own facts. All I’m doing is pointing out that something was said that is simply untrue. One party getting the facts wrong is a pretty big barrier to constructive discussion, and the fact is that in a vacuum, condi attacks just don’t hit as hard as power attacks.

Against a guy with 4k armor and no cleanses, condi performance is going to kitten on direct damage of course. Likewise against a guy with 2k armor and a cleanse every 3 seconds, you’re going to be better off with a power build. We’re just talking about the abilities themselves though. ‘Potential damage’ is the term, and that potential is lower on condis, even when you’re just talking about averages, not crit peaks. No ifs or buts, it just is.

Mammoth, I am glad that you chose to dispute my argument and that you also pointed out specifically where you believe I made a mistake. It is important to receive that kind of feedback, as when one makes an argument or tries to convey a message, they are bound to be subjective and get lost in a train of thought that is only clear to them but might not be as clear to the reader.

After reading your posts I realize I should have elaborated on that statement, though I believed it not only would make the post even more complicated, but also be very dry to read.

My argument: The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack, especially in the context of range vs. melee dps guide lines.

Firstly, I stated how the potential damage of a condition attack is generally higher than what a single power attack can deal. What I am implying by using the term “in general” is the fact that this is not entirely true across the board and that there might be power attacks that can result in higher potential damage than an equivalent condition applying attack.

Secondly, I tried to be as concise and condensed as possible in my argument, thus I ended up being way too superficial in regards to explaining how range attacks and melee attacks correlate in terms of damage by design (“…especially in the context of range vs. melee dps guide lines”).

Let’s put some math behind those statements:

Using an Earth sigil in a 30/20/0/0/20 build my bleed from the scepter #1 will deal around 750 damage over time. On a critical hit using an Earth sigil, Dhumfire and Barbed Precision, I can turn my potential damage up by an additional ~1500 (Earth sigil), ~325 (Barbed Wire) ~1690 (Dhumfire). Coupled with the ~325 (heavy golem) power damage this attack will do (Rabid), the total potential damage this attack can do can scale up to ~4590 damage.

Now in order to explain how range and melee damage are balanced against each other based on the fact that damage uptime differs quite strongly between these two types of combat, we’ll take a look at attacks that deal power damage almost exclusively and compare the difference in potential damage between a power range attack and a power melee attack by using a thief:

In a 25/30/0/0/15 build (I am using this in order to get the highest damage in a reasonable build for testing purposes, but I am well aware that very few thieves would use such a build with either S/D or D/P at this point in time). I am also using scholar runes for the extra oomph, an air sigil and the assassin’s signet:

No bounce-Trick Shot critical hit (light golem) ~1650 (this is with Exposed Weakness and First Strikes), ~1500 Lightning Strike (again, this is done for testing purposes only, and fire instead of air would make a lot more sense on a shortbow) for a total of 3150 potential damage.

Slice critical hit ~2500, ~1500 Lightning strike for a total of 4000 potential damage.

What we can observe are two things:

1. Power based melee potential damage per attack is significantly higher than power range damage. This is a design decision that makes sense absolutely, because of risk vs. reward and the damaging uptime correlation between the two types of combat

2. Power based attacks’ potential damage is generally lower than condition based attacks’ potential damage

I deliberately chose to deal the power damage on the light golem, so that any mitigation issues would not further complicate the comparison.

I hope that clears up what I was trying to convey and ended up short on in my analysis.

Mammoth.1975:

jportell.2197:

Lol really? not even close to true at all. Conditions have always been strong just not quite as strong as power. Now they out shine power in every single way possible.

Once again, math. Half the threads on this forum simply wouldn’t exist if people would bother to learn a little bit about the game before posting.

Unbelievable how many trolls seem to take their posts actually serious…
It’s so obvious that cond damage has a higher potential damage than power attacks that everyone gets it with some logical thinking and that’s how it should be. The potential damage has to be higher since the damage can theoretically pretty much be completely negated by one cleanse.
What the op is saying, is that the gap between the potential dmg between power and cond is too big. A decrease in cond duration would fix that problem and cond classes would still be able to maintain their dps though would have to “work harder” for it -> use their skills more often.

And I hope you realize that the op did not use the highest potential cond dmg ability in his exmaple.
I will show you what you can do with one kittening AUTO ATTACK on 900(!!!) range.
I made an engi with a little over 1400 cond dmg and 40% cond duration + smoldering (using nightmare runes/ smoldering + earth sigil and 30/30..whatever spec with Incendiary Powder and rabid amulet).

My power dmg of this attack crits on light over 200dmg – but lets say it’s 200.

Lets add the bleeding: 2s from the aa, 7s from earth and 4s from Sharpshooter (first minor trait in firearms) —> 13s bleeding.

The burning: 6s from Incendiary Powder.

My bleeding ticks for 113/s making it: 113*13 = 1469dmg.
My bruning ticks for 680/s making it: 4080dmg.

Lets add all this: 200 + 1469 + 4080 = 5749dmg!!!
from pressing one single key on 900 range – 98% of the dmg is unmitigatable and I’m still sitting around ~1600toughness.

Now you can show me which power based aa does a similar amount of dmg. I bet you can’t even find a melee attack with doing that damage. And btw that’s without any buffs – no Incendiary Ammo buff which would lead into another 4080 dmg gain!

And that just from a normal weapon – I could have brought up Shrapnel Grenade which does 3*16s bleeding + Shrapnel trait (another 16s bleeding) + all the other procs I listed above.
Or just try to think about the potential damage you have with Poison Grenade!

So how much more math which shows how wrong you actually are you wanna have.
Just funny how many posts in this forum we could spare if people would use some logical thinking before posting!

Condition damage doesnt have more damage just because it has to deal with cleanse, it also has more damage because its not frontloaded damage.
A 7k+8k burst would put any player in serious trouble, with little room to reliably get a heal off without a risk of an interupt. But if that samage damage was spread across 15seconds, or more. It leaves the player plenty of room to Heal aswell, with less risk of an interupt. It also leaves the situation where a heal is on cooldown when the damage is applied, but since the damage is delayed it gives the player time to get his heal off cooldown.

Passive defenses are also not limited to toughness, which does not apply to conditions. But passively cleansing is a passive defense against conditions. And so are runes, traits and skills that lower the duration of conditions. There is an entire runeset that removes the duration of conditions by a whooping 25%.
And active defenses are not limited to Cleansing. A player can apply almost all the same avoidance to direct-damage to avoid condition damage. Block, Evade, Immune.

I also strongly disagree with the idea that its a downside that players have to make choices, and sacrifices, to deal with conditions. If i want to deal with a stun warrior i need to have several active abilities just to try and avoid, and break, stuns. Yet sooner or later he’ll get me anyway. Just an example.
If that Thief from your example gets loaded on conditions and then HotS, the majority of my damage potential has been neutralized. Whereas, if he had been hit by the same amount, and severity, of direct attacks he would likely have been downed.

Its a matter of applying condition removal at the right time. I feel far to many players are haphazerdly throwing around the one condition removal they descided was enough on minor conditions. I dont throw around my stunbreakers, or immunities on every autoattack, now do i?
Yet all to many times do i see someone like a Mesmer blow a Nullfield on 2 stacks of Bleed and a 3sec poison. Just to name an example.

I think if there is an issue with a condition build, that build should be looked at. If Pin Down is indeed capable of 1shotting a player, then does it not stand to reason that Pin Down is overpowered?
I certainly have not a single ability in my kitten nal that can one-shot a player with condition damage. Even if the player takes no action whatsoever i require atleast 4 solid attacks to land and tick to completion over the course of more then 20seconds in order to down a player. Considering a similar faith can be met much swifter with direct-damage attacks i fail to see the problem anywhere but with abilities like Pin Down.

I’ll be the last to deny that there arent some builds that are doing a little to well. But these builds should be reviewed in and of themselves. Rather then broadstroking all conditions across the board, which will also harm any condition build that isnt over-performing.
Which would then mean we have to go back and review all the condition builds that became unviable, or were poor and became even worst, to then see what we can do to buff these.

These suggestions follow the same line of reasoning as stating a Guardian needs to take a nerf to all his direct-damage across the whole profession, because Thieves can deal to much damage. I say No, deal with the Thief rather then restructuring the entire concept of how damage is dealt, and opening a quagmire of problems and issues along the way.

The only issue i see with conditions is how they maintain the target in a stats of Combat. As such after a fight is worn and done, the player may find himself with a delay of 10+ seconds before he leaves combat and swiftly regenerates his health in order to move on and be effective somewhere else.
I feel that if the player has condition on him, yet meets the criteria of “out of combat”, health regen and movement speed should kick in. This however, i would currently limit just to sPvP.

@Terrahero:
I think you are not quite getting the whole idea behind the suggested change:

The op doesn’t want to decrease the damage of a cond class in general but wants them to deal with the problem of having too much damage from one single attack which results into a very defensive playstyle from the cond class after applying his conds and still killing his target.
The op wants the cond class “to be active while killing” his target.
As an example: If class A can do a 6s burning on a 12s cd – the general idea behind this change would be to make it a 3s burning on 6s cd (or 4s on 8s cd) —> so you still have the same burning up time --> doing the same dmg. But you would have to hit more skills to do so and would therefor need a more aggressive playstyle:

—>so no more “I’m hitting you in 3s with 20k potential dmg and then kite around in circles while you die” – game play!

Med.6150:

Using an Earth sigil in a 30/20/0/0/20 build my bleed from the scepter #1 will deal around 750 damage over time. On a critical hit using an Earth sigil, Dhumfire and Barbed Precision, I can turn my potential damage up by an additional ~1500 (Earth sigil), ~325 (Barbed Wire) ~1690 (Dhumfire). Coupled with the ~325 (heavy golem) power damage this attack will do (Rabid), the total potential damage this attack can do can scale up to ~4590 damage.

Haha you are talking about crit peaks. Rangers can hit nearly 6k with longbow 1. The heavy golem obviously favours condition damage, because it has high armour but no cleanses, nonetheless, a 30 second test on it produced a 4600 damage crit, already higher than your scepter example. Power just does more damage per attack, both on average and with once every 30 attack situations like you’re proposing. That’s the way the game is.

tarcheg.4872:

Unbelievable how many trolls seem to take their posts actually serious…

Ohai. Even your once in 100 (you’re literally using a 1 in 100 attacks example, (10/attack speed)/0.6)/0.33 = 101, and yes, I lol’d) stars align attack on a light golem is outdone by a ranger with a longbow. You sure I can’t find a melee attack that does more?

On point, well done (even when the effort of this is pointless).

Mammoth.1975:

Power just does more damage per attack, both on average and with once every 30 attack situations like you’re proposing. That’s the way the game is.

Let’s just assume you are correct, then why on earth are we seeing so many cond build in the current meta? If power damage is superior in any way?
The op stated that there are cases in which power does more dmg than cond abilities (like when the conds gets immediately cleansed) which explains why we are still seeing some power classes in a “normal” tpvp group setup.
But in your world, how do you explain to yourself that anyone would run a cond build and even still be successful with it?
hint maybe your argumentation is a little bit of made up BS hint

At least almost everyone else seems to agree with op but you always have to have the contra people in every thread no matter how easy it is to understand the pros of the point you are making.

tarcheg.4872:

hint maybe your argumentation is a little bit of made up BS hint

At least almost everyone else seems to agree with op but you always have to have the contra people in every thread no matter how easy it is to understand the pros of the point you are making.

You can’t BS maths sorry dude. Well, except statistics :P

6k > 4.5k. Which part of that statement is BS? You could actually get over 6k if you had 25 vuln stacks and sigil of air too. Over 7k in fact.

Sorry for interrupting the feels going in in this thread with facts I guess?

Mammoth.1975:

Haha you are talking about crit peaks. Rangers can hit nearly 6k with longbow 1. The heavy golem obviously favours condition damage, because it has high armour but no cleanses, nonetheless, a 30 second test on it produced a 4600 damage crit, already higher than your scepter example. Power just does more damage per attack, both on average and with once every 30 attack situations like you’re proposing. That’s the way the game is.

That’s such made up nonsense – unbelievable. Please show us a 4.6k crit with ranger aa on longbow on the heavy golem. I just logged on my ranger and gave him full power build with the more dmg on longbow trait (eagle eye) using scholar runes (at max health) and force sigil and I’m shooting from max distance. Even with flanking my max hit was 2.5k. I could use peak strenght as well for another 10% and maybe you had a frost spirit up but please… don’t come here telling everyone you are dong 4.6k crits when it’s clearly made up…
Such a troll.

full power build means: 3384 power, 58% crit dmg + everything above listed.

And do not tell me you are calculating with 25 vuln stacks or signet of the hunt – that would be a whole combo (from several players) which has nothing to do with our comparison of one single attack power vs cond.

Sure. 4515+sharpened edges. Sigil of air would be another 1350+. No need for 25 vuln stacks. Or frost spirit. You do it with signets. Hey, you wanted to use 1 in 100 examples

Mammoth.1975:

Sure. 4515+sharpened edges. Sigil of air would be another 1350+. No need for 25 vuln stacks.

Yeah that show a lot. Nothing at all to be honest. You probably had singet of the hunt active, a frost spirit behind you etc.

I showed how much dmg WILL DO with a ranger longbow #1 with a full power build and backed it up with actual numbers so everyone can test it for themselves if interested.
You are just showing one line of you combat log. I mean, what are your buffs? What are the debuffs on the target? You can power up every attack to do 300% it’s normal dmg when creating a certain environment for it.
But that’s not the point of this thread.

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

Sure. 4515+sharpened edges. Sigil of air would be another 1350+. No need for 25 vuln stacks.

Yeah that show a lot. Nothing at all to be honest.
What are your buffs? What are the debuffs on the target? You can power up every attack to do 300% it’s normal dmg when creating a certain environment for it.
But that’s not the point of this thread.

It’s not? BTW, when I say 1 in 100, I’m being kind and giving you 100% crit chance. Your example was actually worse than that.

Buffs and debuffs = 10 stacks of vuln from opening strike.

Or do you want to stop playing ‘look what I can do when the stars align’ and be serious? I think it’s safe to say we’ve established that peak power damage > peak condition damage, do you want to compare averages now? Because average power damage is also > average condition damage.

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

Sure. 4515+sharpened edges. Sigil of air would be another 1350+. No need for 25 vuln stacks.

Yeah that show a lot. Nothing at all to be honest.
What are your buffs? What are the debuffs on the target? You can power up every attack to do 300% it’s normal dmg when creating a certain environment for it.
But that’s not the point of this thread.

It’s not? BTW, when I say 1 in 100, I’m being kind and giving you 100% crit chance. Your example was actually worse than that.

Buffs and debuffs = 10 stacks of vuln from opening strike.

Why was my example worse? Because I used an attack which crits while using a rabid amulet? Alone the crit and burning proc (which is 100% on crit fyi) is enough to do ~5k dmg… But maybe you can somehow attack 100 times in 10s, which is the icd of the burning trait – then yes it would be an 1 out of 100 example. If not you can reproduce that dmg every 10s with an auto attack.

And just for fun: http://www.imagebanana.com/view/pkqsw87r/PinDown.png
<— that’s what the op meant when talking about potential dmg and not whatever you are making up.
Sorry dude but I guess the thread is a little too complex for you.

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

Sure. 4515+sharpened edges. Sigil of air would be another 1350+. No need for 25 vuln stacks.

Yeah that show a lot. Nothing at all to be honest.
What are your buffs? What are the debuffs on the target? You can power up every attack to do 300% it’s normal dmg when creating a certain environment for it.
But that’s not the point of this thread.

It’s not? BTW, when I say 1 in 100, I’m being kind and giving you 100% crit chance. Your example was actually worse than that.

Buffs and debuffs = 10 stacks of vuln from opening strike.

Why was my example worse? Because I used an attack which crits while using a rabid amulet? Alone the crit and burning proc (which is 100% on crit fyi) is enough to do ~5k dmg… But maybe you can somehow attack 100 times in 10s, which is the icd of the burning trait – then yes it would be an 1 out of 100 example. If not you can reproduce that dmg every 10s with an auto attack.

Because you can proc burning every 10s with 100% crit chance, or once every 20 attacks, but to get sigil of earth and sharpshooter to proc on the same attack it will take you nearly a minute on average. Math, it’s good.

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

Sure. 4515+sharpened edges. Sigil of air would be another 1350+. No need for 25 vuln stacks.

Yeah that show a lot. Nothing at all to be honest.
What are your buffs? What are the debuffs on the target? You can power up every attack to do 300% it’s normal dmg when creating a certain environment for it.
But that’s not the point of this thread.

It’s not? BTW, when I say 1 in 100, I’m being kind and giving you 100% crit chance. Your example was actually worse than that.

Buffs and debuffs = 10 stacks of vuln from opening strike.

Why was my example worse? Because I used an attack which crits while using a rabid amulet? Alone the crit and burning proc (which is 100% on crit fyi) is enough to do ~5k dmg… But maybe you can somehow attack 100 times in 10s, which is the icd of the burning trait – then yes it would be an 1 out of 100 example. If not you can reproduce that dmg every 10s with an auto attack.

Because you can proc burning every 10s with 100% crit chance, or once every 20 attacks, but to get sigil of earth and sharpshooter to proc on the same attack it will take you nearly a minute on average.

If you could acutally understand what you are trying to read you would have noticed that 80%+ of the dmg I showed you is coming from the burning proc. So there is no need to proc sharpshooter and earth sigil to outperform every power dmg coming from an aa. I just added it to show you what’s possible but as I already said – the topic seems to be a little too hard for you.^^

tarcheg.4872:

If you could acutally understand what you are trying to read you would have noticed that 80%+ of the dmg I showed you is coming from the burning proc. So there is no need to proc sharpshooter and earth sigil to outperform every power dmg coming from an aa. I just added it to show you what’s possible but as I already said – the topic seems to be a little too hard for you.^^

Ok, so now you want to talk about more realistic situations. Makes sense I guess

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

Mammoth.1975:

Sure. 4515+sharpened edges. Sigil of air would be another 1350+. No need for 25 vuln stacks.

Yeah that show a lot. Nothing at all to be honest.
What are your buffs? What are the debuffs on the target? You can power up every attack to do 300% it’s normal dmg when creating a certain environment for it.
But that’s not the point of this thread.

It’s not? BTW, when I say 1 in 100, I’m being kind and giving you 100% crit chance. Your example was actually worse than that.

Buffs and debuffs = 10 stacks of vuln from opening strike.

Why was my example worse? Because I used an attack which crits while using a rabid amulet? Alone the crit and burning proc (which is 100% on crit fyi) is enough to do ~5k dmg… But maybe you can somehow attack 100 times in 10s, which is the icd of the burning trait – then yes it would be an 1 out of 100 example. If not you can reproduce that dmg every 10s with an auto attack.

Because you can proc burning every 10s with 100% crit chance, or once every 20 attacks, but to get sigil of earth and sharpshooter to proc on the same attack it will take you nearly a minute on average. Math, it’s good.

You are focusing too much on most damage with a single attack, when the potential damage per attack has to be viewed over time.

I can deal a lot of damage with backstab and a proc, but over the course of a fight I will not be able to match the potential damage per attack of a condition based build.

I really don’t want this to escalate, because I realize that presenting an argument like the one I did can never be done in a way to satisfy everyone or every single aspect of it.

The easiest way to test your argument versus mine is to have a necromancer and a ranger (just an example) attack the indestructible golem for a few minutes and compare the total damage over the time elapsed.

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

If you could acutally understand what you are trying to read you would have noticed that 80%+ of the dmg I showed you is coming from the burning proc. So there is no need to proc sharpshooter and earth sigil to outperform every power dmg coming from an aa. I just added it to show you what’s possible but as I already said – the topic seems to be a little too hard for you.^^

Ok, so now you want to talk about more realistic situations. Makes sense I guess

That’s why I broke it down and calculated every proc on its own so people can see that not every proc is needed to make cond dmg as strong as it currently is.
Which is what the op tried us to explain from the beginning.

Both of you used once in a blue moon examples, when I showed you that power hits harder under those conditions you both suddenly want to use averages. Are you sure about that? Because power hits harder on average too. We can if you want.

1. you showed us that power can hit hard when using certain buffs. When you would read my post where I calculated the engi attack I said you could use the f skill from flamethrower which would add another 4k which would lead into almost 10k dmg outshining your “once in a blue moon example” by far.
But I didn’t want to use any buffs – just the potential dmg you can do by pressing one key without any “pre-work”.

2. You can try…^^

tarcheg.4872:

1. you showed us that power can hit hard when using certain buffs. When you would read my post where I calculated the engi attack I said you could use the f skill from flamethrower which would add another 4k which would lead into almost 10k dmg outshining your “once in a blue moon example” by far.

2. You can try…^^

4s of burning is 4k damage and 5.5 + 4 = 10. I think I understand why you think condis hit harder.

Mammoth.1975:

Both of you used once in a blue moon examples, when I showed you that power hits harder under those conditions you both suddenly want to use averages. Are you sure about that? Because power hits harder on average too. We can if you want.

You are trying to be very antagonistic here and there’s no reason for it. You are also pretending you somehow showed that a power attack hits harder than a condition based attack in general, when there’s a screen above of a pin down doing 20k potential damage with a quarter of a second investment.

Lean back and chill.

Mammoth.1975:

jportell.2197:

Lol really? not even close to true at all. Conditions have always been strong just not quite as strong as power. Now they out shine power in every single way possible.

Once again, math. Half the threads on this forum simply wouldn’t exist if people would bother to learn a little bit about the game before posting.

Conditions ignore many damage reducing factors, such as protection, thoughness, damage reducing traits and weakness. This greatly adds to their potential damage.

This sounds like the completely opposite of what would be healthy. Condition Duration and Rate of Application both factor in to how large of a stack you can make, but the latter is the problem here, not the former.

Having longer duration conditions applied at a lower rate are easier to counter than low duration conditions with a high rate of application, which is part of what you see here.

Long duration conditions are ALWAYS irrelevant when there is any sort of cleansing happening, outside of the cases where someone has 0 cleansing whatsoever in which case it becomes incredibly strong.

A good example of this is Death Blossom spamming. It becomes easy to counter because all it really involves is stacking a large stack of long duration bleeds all at once then running out of steam.

Compared to everything else that is non stop spamming conditions at a moderate-high rate.

I’d personally rather see more condition application done in bursts like Death Blossom, then all the passive condition cleansing can go away and cleansing would be 100% in control by the player. And also make it harder to stack too much condition cleansing, but giving enough options for flexibility in builds (this could be done with traits).

Then you could see more strategy with conditions, should I unload them all right now, or hold back a bit and try to bait out this guy’s main condition cleanse, then lay them all down?

If you take a Necromancer, there is very little thought to that besides “when to fear” or “when to transfer conditions”. It’s just spam autos to lay on conditions, spam other condition attacks/marks on cooldown, and that’s about it.

The only time you really see someone actually plan out conditions is with poison, and that’s ONLY if they have little access to poison.

Again, just as an example play a deathblossom thief, then play any other bleed spamming build/class, see if which has more room/need for strategy.

Mammoth.1975:

tarcheg.4872:

1. you showed us that power can hit hard when using certain buffs. When you would read my post where I calculated the engi attack I said you could use the f skill from flamethrower which would add another 4k which would lead into almost 10k dmg outshining your “once in a blue moon example” by far.

2. You can try…^^

4s of burning is 4k damage and 5.5 + 4 = 10. I think I understand why you think condis hit harder.

Actually I was at 5750 dmg which would be increased by 4s burning (680/s) = 8470dmg with one buff. And I said almost 10k – and you can add sun spirit, guardian f1 etc if you really wanna go there….

So, let’s take a standard necro.

Scepter auto = 189 power damage, 42% crit chance, 170% crit multiplier = 245 power damage + 617 bleeding = 862 damage.

Sigil of earth, 0.67s attack speed+aftercast, 2s ICD, 42% crit chance, 60% proc chance = procs every 4.3 seconds (6.4 attacks) applying 721 damage worth of bleeding. 721/6.4 = 113 extra damage per attack. 113 + 862 = 975 damage per attack so far.

Barbed precision 0.67 attack speed, 1s ICD, 42% crit chance, 66% proc chance = procs every 3.3 seconds (4.9 attacks) applying 103 damage worth of bleeding. 103/4.9 = 21 damage per attack. 975+21 = 996 damage per attack.

Dhuumfire 0.67 attack speed 10s ICD, 42% crit chance, 100% proc chance = procs every 11.2s (16.8 attacks) applying 1890 damage worth of burning. 1890/16.8 = 113 damage per attack. 996 + 113 = 1109 damage per attack.

Now let’s compare.

Mammoth.1975:

So, let’s take a standard necro.

Scepter auto = 189 power damage, 42% crit chance, 170% crit multiplier = 245 power damage + 617 bleeding = 862 damage.

Sigil of earth, 0.67s attack speed+aftercast, 2s ICD, 42% crit chance, 60% proc chance = procs every 4.3 seconds (6.4 attacks) applying 721 damage worth of bleeding. 721/6.4 = 113 extra damage per attack. 113 + 862 = 975 damage per attack so far.

Barbed precision 0.67 attack speed, 1s ICD, 42% crit chance, 66% proc chance = procs every 3.3 seconds (4.9 attacks) applying 103 damage worth of bleeding. 103/4.9 = 21 damage per attack. 975+21 = 996 damage per attack.

Dhuumfire 0.67 attack speed 10s ICD, 42% crit chance, 100% proc chance = procs every 11.2s (16.8 attacks) applying 1890 damage worth of burning. 1890/16.8 = 113 damage per attack. 996 + 113 = 1109 damage per attack.

Now let’s compare.

Good that the game isn’t only made out of aa…
See: http://www.imagebanana.com/view/pkqsw87r/PinDown.png

tarcheg.4872:

Good that the game isn’t only made out of aa…
See: http://www.imagebanana.com/view/pkqsw87r/PinDown.png

Sure, if they don’t cleanse or kill you in 20 seconds, that’s as good as http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kill_Shot.

Duuuuude!!! That’s the whole point – potential dmg – so no cleanse! And btw 1/4 cast time.
I think you might be getting it very slowly.

tarcheg.4872:

Duuuuude!!! That’s the whole point – potential dmg – so no cleanse!
I think you might be getting it very slowly.

OK, so you posted an ability that will never do as much as killshot, but hypothetically can. Well done.

Now for this:

The general potential damage of a condition applying attack is way higher than that of a single power attack

Mammoth.1975:

an ability that hypothetically can.

That’s potential damage. gz for understanding!

It’s not general potential damage, nor is it way higher. Gz for not understanding? Power hits harder, even on 2600 armor targets. In fact, that ranger would hit harder on 3k armor. It’s doing over 50% more damage (average including crits + non crits) than a necro, on 2600 armor. It’s doubling necro damage on 2k armor.

Right now it seems like you’re deliberately choosing to ignore the facts.