Guild Wars 2

In GW1, Weakness affected the effectiveness of normal attacks by reducing damage dealt by 66% and also reducing all stats by 1. Effectively, it affected both condition damage and direct damage. Also in GW1, regen skills affected condi damage significantly, slowing it but not removing it completely. These regen skills were enchantments and Necros and Mesmers of that era had to remove them in order to keep the condi damage rolling.

So here is my proposal, make Weakness reduce condi duration by 20% and make each unique condition on a target boost the effectiveness of the Regeneration by 20%.

The reason for this proposal is that I feel there should be a more pro-active way of dealing with conditions. Just like there are several pro-active ways of dealing with direct damage (Blind, Aegis, Protection). The proposed change would also give condi specced classes, something to look out for when in battle and non-condi specced classes a tool to say “yea, I’ve got weakness, I can totally take that guy”. This change would also be an indirect way of appealing to the complaints about condi spam in the game without directly nerfing the classes that provide such high condi damage.

I know that condi specs have to deal with condi removal as well but those are few and far between depending on what spec you’re looking at. Also if your target is cleansing then they are not gaining anything from the regen boost and if they are not cleansing, they are slowing dieing from conditions anyway.
I also know that there are many non-damaging conditions like Weakness, Blind, Vuln, chill, immob, cripple and (in some cases) fear. But even if those conditions would boost the effectiveness of regen on the target it is put on, it will not reduce the effectiveness of the conditions themselves meaning; Weakness will still reduce damage dealt, Blind will still make the next attack miss, Vuln will still boost direct damage, Chill will still slow their skill recharge, immob will still keep them in one place for more precise bursting and cripple will still slow them down so that you can catch up with them. And let’s not forget the fact that, you will rarely ever see all these conditions on one target at the same time.

This proposed change would definitely make bunkers (especially Ele) stronger but like I said earlier, if your target isn’t cleansing, he is still dying… albeit slower than normal.

So that is my suggestion. Please let me hear your thoughts on the subject.

lol put this in the wrong forum. Could a mod help me out with moving it to the SPvP forum.

EDIT:
Thanks Modgods!

Yesssss 10000+ Times over

I love it! Yes please! +1

So your solution to balancing conditions, is to make a condition stronger?

I don’t understand this logic.

Also, Confusion and Retal damage should be based off the power of the attack done..For instance, if you’re spamming some 3k hit attacks, Confusion should do 2k damage to your, and Retal should do 1k damage..

grin

Chase.8415:

So your solution to balancing conditions, is to make a condition stronger?

I don’t understand this logic.

What don’t you understand? (Serious question because this is a discussion.)

The condition that is being made stronger doesn’t do damage and only certain characters can apply it frequently (Necros, Warriors, Engineers with Elixir Gun). Having Weakness either affect condition duration or the condi damage stat (malice, kinda like how might affects both power and malice) would definitely bring something to the table that these condi specs can be afraid of. Warriors can finally walk up to a Necro and say, yea I’ve got lots of skills that apply weakness and I’ve got this banner that gives me infinite Regen so I reduce your condi duration whilst reducing the damage dealt to me by stacking the Regeneration boon. It might not work exactly like that because Necros have boon stripping and condi flipping skills but at least it will still be something that classes can fall back on for protection against condis rather than just the pure condi removal.

actually, regen already kind of works the same way as it did in GW1, but now there’s only one regen boon, rather than various possible sources.

regen in GW1 was basically adding positive health ticks, which countered the condis’ negative health ticks. when you think about it, regen in GW2 is doing the same thing.

say you’re losing 500 health to bleeds (-5 ticks), but you got a 400 health regen (4 ticks). at the end of the day, you’re only losing 100 health (-1 tick). in fact, there are plenty of traits that do stuff like that (thieves have a trait that triggers regen upon getting a certain amount of bleeds).

as for weakness affecting condis, i think it should affect the damage (even if it makes little sense from a “realistic” perspective), as affecting the duration would mean that stuff like burns would be effectively shut down by a single condition, which is insane. shortening the condi duration would hit condi builds FAR MORE than the “50% chance to deal 50% damage” of direct damage builds.

BrunoBRS.5178:

actually, regen already kind of works the same way as it did in GW1, but now there’s only one regen boon, rather than various possible sources.

regen in GW1 was basically adding positive health ticks, which countered the condis’ negative health ticks. when you think about it, regen in GW2 is doing the same thing.

say you’re losing 500 health to bleeds (-5 ticks), but you got a 400 health regen (4 ticks). at the end of the day, you’re only losing 100 health (-1 tick). in fact, there are plenty of traits that do stuff like that (thieves have a trait that triggers regen upon getting a certain amount of bleeds).

as for weakness affecting condis, i think it should affect the damage (even if it makes little sense from a “realistic” perspective), as affecting the duration would mean that stuff like burns would be effectively shut down by a single condition, which is insane. shortening the condi duration would hit condi builds FAR MORE than the “50% chance to deal 50% damage” of direct damage builds.

The fact is, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to hit a 400 regen tick. Yea multiple sources of regen (not neccessarily regen boon)will get you there but right now the Regeneration boon itself will not hit that number. Yes Regen does reduce condi damage dealt right now but not to the point where the Necro or Engie would care to remove it.

Weakness affecting the duration of condis will not shutdown burning. Unless for some reason a condi specced class does not have any condi duration whatsoever. Burning usually lasts about 3-4s base and shaving 20% off that duration would only remove about 0.6-0.8 seconds from the duration. Essentially only removing the last tick of damage on the condition. So in any case, it might actually be more effective for Weakness to affect Malice by dropping the stat down by 20% which can then be countered by stacking might.

Dirame.8521:

BrunoBRS.5178:

actually, regen already kind of works the same way as it did in GW1, but now there’s only one regen boon, rather than various possible sources.

regen in GW1 was basically adding positive health ticks, which countered the condis’ negative health ticks. when you think about it, regen in GW2 is doing the same thing.

say you’re losing 500 health to bleeds (-5 ticks), but you got a 400 health regen (4 ticks). at the end of the day, you’re only losing 100 health (-1 tick). in fact, there are plenty of traits that do stuff like that (thieves have a trait that triggers regen upon getting a certain amount of bleeds).

as for weakness affecting condis, i think it should affect the damage (even if it makes little sense from a “realistic” perspective), as affecting the duration would mean that stuff like burns would be effectively shut down by a single condition, which is insane. shortening the condi duration would hit condi builds FAR MORE than the “50% chance to deal 50% damage” of direct damage builds.

The fact is, it’s IMPOSSIBLE to hit a 400 regen tick. Yea multiple sources of regen (not neccessarily regen boon)will get you there but right now the Regeneration boon itself will not hit that number. Yes Regen does reduce condi damage dealt right now but not to the point where the Necro or Engie would care to remove it.

Weakness affecting the duration of condis will not shutdown burning. Unless for some reason a condi specced class does not have any condi duration whatsoever. Burning usually lasts about 3-4s base and shaving 20% off that duration would only remove about 0.6-0.8 seconds from the duration. Essentially only removing the last tick of damage on the condition. So in any case, it might actually be more effective for Weakness to affect Malice by dropping the stat down by 20% which can then be countered by stacking might.

but then you’re shoehorning builds that focus on multiple conditions to care only about a select few to improve duration. a reduction in condi damage is in line with how it works for regular damage, making the weakness condition much less convoluted (“reduces all damage” instead of “reduces direct damage and makes conditions last less”).

as for regen, you can get some pretty high ticks on it. it’s not supposed to shut down conditions by single handedly outhealing them, but it buys you time to use your cleanses, or let them wear out.

plus, if you combine it with other heals per tick, you get a pretty beefed up condi negation. picking the thief as an example again, combine the trait that triggered regen with the healing pulses from shadow refuge (4 seconds) and then shadow’s rejuvenation heal on stealth, and you have a lot of condi negation, and that’s not accounting for cleanse on stealth, something that just about every thief should take.

another example would be a warrior with the regen signet, plus a lifesteal sigil, regen boon, and if he really wants to, that rune combo that grants health regeneration.

the problem right now isn’t that regen isn’t shutting down conditions on its own, it’s that many of these condi shutdown combos aren’t viable enough.

BrunoBRS.5178:

but then you’re shoehorning builds that focus on multiple conditions to care only about a select few to improve duration. a reduction in condi damage is in line with how it works for regular damage, making the weakness condition much less convoluted (“reduces all damage” instead of “reduces direct damage and makes conditions last less”).

as for regen, you can get some pretty high ticks on it. it’s not supposed to shut down conditions by single handedly outhealing them, but it buys you time to use your cleanses, or let them wear out.

plus, if you combine it with other heals per tick, you get a pretty beefed up condi negation. picking the thief as an example again, combine the trait that triggered regen with the healing pulses from shadow refuge (4 seconds) and then shadow’s rejuvenation heal on stealth, and you have a lot of condi negation, and that’s not accounting for cleanse on stealth, something that just about every thief should take.

another example would be a warrior with the regen signet, plus a lifesteal sigil, regen boon, and if he really wants to, that rune combo that grants health regeneration.

the problem right now isn’t that regen isn’t shutting down conditions on its own, it’s that many of these condi shutdown combos aren’t viable enough.

No one is pigeonholing anyone into anything. The protection boon hasn’t forced burst classes to start running boon removal sigils and weakness is still running rampant even with the improved effect to crits.
The thing is, regardless of whether Weakness affects condi duration or malice, people are still losing ticks of damage. And if Weakness were to affect condi damage directly, people would still have to stack duration in order to make up for the loss in damage or stack might to counter it, and it would be the same thing if Weakness affected duration. I do agree that in order to make Weakness less convoluted, it would be better for it to say “affects all sources of damage”. That I can definitely agree with.

Have you actually tested how high a tick of regen you can get with full healing gear? It’s literally only 288. LITERALLY! So I don’t know where you’re getting these “pretty high ticks” from. Also, I do know that multiple sources of healing will reduce the effectiveness of conditions but that reduction is so small it’s negligible. The one thing that really slows condis are burst heals and those come very rarely unless you’re running with a Healing turret engie who knows how to make the most of his blast finishers or an Ele.
What I’m asking, is for Anet to make Regeneration to Condi damage as Protection is to direct damage. Basically it acts as a deterrent to stacking multiple conditions. Let’s not forget that there is already a condition that affects all healing (Poison) and it counteracts the effectiveness of Regen directly. So it’s not like there isn’t a counter to regen in the game, it’s just that there isn’t a counter to stacking everything else and the kitchen sink.

Also, I never suggested that Regen should shut down condi on it’s own (just as protection doesn’t shut down direct damage on it’s own), it just needs to affect it more so that people look out for it and know that “Hey, THAT’s the reason I’m not doing enough damage! I need to get rid of that.”

Umm…I get almost 350 Regen Tics from Regen boon with healing gear…

288 tells me you’re not actually speccing for heals.

i think buffing regen would be more than enough for that, but then you’d have to look at the durations and the procs (there are a ton of easy regen sources in this game). conditions and boons don’t need secondary and tertiary effects with proper number management.

i imagine that if a heal-specced player can get 500-600 per regen tick (with reduced durations), it would be more than enough. it doesn’t have to have a super complex calculation that changes the behavior of conditions depending on the amount of conditions and the existence of regeneration. of course, this is just wild speculation, the devs would have to test the numbers and make all the necessary tweaks.

on the other hand, you’d have to buff certain condi builds. people keep staring at condi necros and going “this is insane, i need a way to protect myself against that”, and then all the condi builds that rely on sustained damage and one or two conditions (P/D thief, sword warrior, etc) become useless because things weren’t seen in the broader spectrum.

i agree that conditions are too much of a thing on the side of the game. one side applies them, the other cleanses, and that’s it. there’s no mitigation, no countering once it’s applied beyond getting rid of it altogether, and so on. but at the same time, most condition builds don’t rely on conditions for burst, and killing someone with conditions only takes longer than direct damage. you see where i’m going with this?

basically, non-burst condition specs would need to be buffed before the devs implement more anti-condition mechanics.

on a side note, the game is in dire need of better access to cleanses, which would be a much simpler solution to the “problem”. not so much that it rules out bleeding specs, but enough to keep people from just waiting to die if they get hit by two necros.

Xsorus.2507:

Umm…I get almost 350 Regen Tics from Regen boon with healing gear…

288 tells me you’re not actually speccing for heals.

In Pvp or WvW? Because I’m talking about SPvP here.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i think buffing regen would be more than enough for that, but then you’d have to look at the durations and the procs (there are a ton of easy regen sources in this game). conditions and boons don’t need secondary and tertiary effects with proper number management.

i imagine that if a heal-specced player can get 500-600 per regen tick (with reduced durations), it would be more than enough. it doesn’t have to have a super complex calculation that changes the behavior of conditions depending on the amount of conditions and the existence of regeneration. of course, this is just wild speculation, the devs would have to test the numbers and make all the necessary tweaks.

on the other hand, you’d have to buff certain condi builds. people keep staring at condi necros and going “this is insane, i need a way to protect myself against that”, and then all the condi builds that rely on sustained damage and one or two conditions (P/D thief, sword warrior, etc) become useless because things weren’t seen in the broader spectrum.

i agree that conditions are too much of a thing on the side of the game. one side applies them, the other cleanses, and that’s it. there’s no mitigation, no countering once it’s applied beyond getting rid of it altogether, and so on. but at the same time, most condition builds don’t rely on conditions for burst, and killing someone with conditions only takes longer than direct damage. you see where i’m going with this?

basically, non-burst condition specs would need to be buffed before the devs implement more anti-condition mechanics.

on a side note, the game is in dire need of better access to cleanses, which would be a much simpler solution to the “problem”. not so much that it rules out bleeding specs, but enough to keep people from just waiting to die if they get hit by two necros.

Killing someone with conditions takes longer than direct damage but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be mitigation for it. There was mitigation for it in GW1, so why can’t there be mitigation for it in GW2?
The thing is, if you want to compare direct damage burst to condi burst, you have to also factor protection, Aegis, Blind, Weakness and even dodging. You can’t just say “Oh, if DD burst hits you, you’re dead”, you have to see the other mitigating factors. Condi damage has no mitigating factors apart from blind, Aegis and dodging. And it seriously needs more.

You say the “little guy” would be affected by the proposed Regen change but what about Sustained Direct damage? Where is that in the meta? Isn’t sustained damage affected by Protection and Weakness and totally BAD because of it? Or even a pure power spec without crit, that doesn’t even exist nowadays.
But no, the regen change will not affect the people who can only stack two conditions because the percentage increase is based on UNIQUE conditions so 14 stacks of bleed will still deal a significant amount of damage even with a 20% increase to Regen effectiveness. Throw in poison and that increase is pointless (so maybe poison shouldn’t affect Regeneration ticks but affect everything else…?).

Also, adding more ways to condi cleanse is just a band-aid. It doesn’t fix the problem. Some speccs will still get shafted because they can’t access the condi cleanse that is being given to their class. If Regen is modified to work as I suggest, all people will need in their team is either an Ele or a guardian or an Engie or even a Ranger or all four then they can provide the team with loads of Regen which will help mitigate condi damage. A Warrior can then walk in to a team fight knowing that his Guardian is going to have “Hold the Line” and when he uses that, he can actually stand this condi spam that’kittenting him to a certain degree.

The game might do with more condi removal but those will probably not make it into the mainstream speccs unless they start saying Mesmer shatters remove condis for everyone in the area as well as deals damage and Guardian Auto-attacks remove conditions or something crazy like that. At most, I think they need to buff light fields and the condi removal those bring. A 3 second whirl finisher only removing 1 condition is pathetic to me, 1 condi removal per second spin within the light field would actually be way more interesting. Or even blasts and leaps within a light field removing 2 condition instead of granting retaliation.
Thinking about it a bit further, if they buff light fields, as said above, that would literally be the ultimate counter to condi builds within team fights. Combine that with proposed changes to Regen and you’ve now got a really good team fight which is now based on reaction, pro-action and coordinated CC.

I’m not too sure that making the gameplay revolve more around conditions and condition counterplay is the best way to approach things.

I liked this at first but would have gone further, amplifying the effect of weakness from what you have suggested, and changing regen to remove a condition, if you have no conditions, gain regen. After thinking about it a bit more though, there’s a real chance the game then becomes about stacking conditions even harder, while also stacking the counters.

Mammoth.1975:

I’m not too sure that making the gameplay revolve more around conditions and condition counterplay is the best way to approach things.

I liked this at first but would have gone further, amplifying the effect of weakness from what you have suggested, and changing regen to remove a condition, if you have no conditions, gain regen. After thinking about it a bit more though, there’s a real chance the game then becomes about stacking conditions even harder, while also stacking the counters.

But isn’t the game all about counterplay? Aren’t games generally about counterplay scenarios? If you don’t give people the opportunity to counterplay, then you’re not really balancing the game. The game just becomes one-sided without counterplay.

Xsorus.2507:

Umm…I get almost 350 Regen Tics from Regen boon with healing gear…

288 tells me you’re not actually speccing for heals.

you need 2160 healing power to get 400/s regen ticks, so it IS kinda impossible to get to that number :p
even for 350/s you need 1760, also a pretty high number for tPvP (I’m not even sure you can get that high even with fully stacked sigil of life)

Dirame.8521:

Mammoth.1975:

I’m not too sure that making the gameplay revolve more around conditions and condition counterplay is the best way to approach things.

I liked this at first but would have gone further, amplifying the effect of weakness from what you have suggested, and changing regen to remove a condition, if you have no conditions, gain regen. After thinking about it a bit more though, there’s a real chance the game then becomes about stacking conditions even harder, while also stacking the counters.

But isn’t the game all about counterplay? Aren’t games generally about counterplay scenarios? If you don’t give people the opportunity to counterplay, then you’re not really balancing the game. The game just becomes one-sided without counterplay.

I don’t think I expressed myself properly, you seem to have misunderstood what I was saying. There is condition counterplay in the game already, what I’m saying is that if you address this issue by making it revolve even more around conditions and their counters, you’re actually just increasing the focus on conditions.

What if Regen stacks in intensity?
Make it works exactly like bleed but it gives health instead of dealing damage.

Mammoth.1975:

Dirame.8521:

Mammoth.1975:

I’m not too sure that making the gameplay revolve more around conditions and condition counterplay is the best way to approach things.

I liked this at first but would have gone further, amplifying the effect of weakness from what you have suggested, and changing regen to remove a condition, if you have no conditions, gain regen. After thinking about it a bit more though, there’s a real chance the game then becomes about stacking conditions even harder, while also stacking the counters.

But isn’t the game all about counterplay? Aren’t games generally about counterplay scenarios? If you don’t give people the opportunity to counterplay, then you’re not really balancing the game. The game just becomes one-sided without counterplay.

I don’t think I expressed myself properly, you seem to have misunderstood what I was saying. There is condition counterplay in the game already, what I’m saying is that if you address this issue by making it revolve even more around conditions and their counters, you’re actually just increasing the focus on conditions.

The focus is already on conditions. Conditions are the new FOTM, might as well find a way to put it back into the background.

I know it is, that’s why I used ‘increasing’ instead of ‘placing’ in the post you’re quoting.

sorrow.2364:

What if Regen stacks in intensity?
Make it works exactly like bleed but it gives health instead of dealing damage.

That would be a nice way of doing it.

Mammoth.1975:

I know it is, that’s why I used ‘increasing’ instead of ‘placing’ in the post you’re quoting.

Is there really anything wrong with focusing on counters to conditions? You did say that there are already counters to conditions but, the question is, are they really enough? Running three Eles in a group to counter conditions isn’t what I call a good counter. That’s going from one extreme to the other and that’s what seems to be happening now.

sorrow.2364:

What if Regen stacks in intensity?
Make it works exactly like bleed but it gives health instead of dealing damage.

So that I could have 1000hp/s regen? yes please.

Horrible idea balance wise.

Dirame.8521:

…
So here is my proposal, make Weakness reduce condi duration by 20% and make each unique condition on a target boost the effectiveness of the Regeneration by 20%.

The reason for this proposal is that I feel there should be a more pro-active way of dealing with conditions. …

The idea of making Weakness counter another thing is probably not a good one as it is already immensely valuable in that it mitigates an opponents endurance regen while also making a massive reduction to damage.

The Regeneration Boon could have some kind of effect added to help counter conditions better, since right now it maxes out at about the same level of healing as 3 stacks of bleed. I don’t think a reduction in condi durations of 20% would make it out of hand.

I agree in general that a more proactive method of defense against conditions should be available, but for now there is at least Melandru runes that can serve that purpose and a number of GTAoE skills that cleanse on ticks. Perhaps a rework to a Sigil of Purity (reduce ICD) and an “on swap” sigil that can cleanse would be helpful in this way.

Shar.3402:

sorrow.2364:

What if Regen stacks in intensity?
Make it works exactly like bleed but it gives health instead of dealing damage.

So that I could have 1000hp/s regen? yes please.

Horrible idea balance wise.

You know, if they’re going to make the boon stack in intensity, they could just reduce the base healing of Regen to balance it out.

And you would end up like you are now, with regen healing for 300hp/s on stacked intensity

The “healing per condition” thing could work as an effect from a skill, like an Elite or with short duration in an utility with long recharge, but I think that as an innate effect for the regeneration boon itself it’ll be too much.

Maybe just making it heal 10% of whatever damage each DPS condition does on you, effectively reducing condition DPS by 10% while under regeneration (maybe as a trait effect for a the professions having a harder time against conditions), but never much more than that.
Or maybe making protection reduce the duration of conditions on you by 10%. Probably traited too.

The weakness thing I could really go for.

Shar.3402:

So that I could have 1000hp/s regen? yes please.

Horrible idea balance wise.

Probably don’t make that easy to stack 10 regen? Adjust the duration and the healing of regen accordingly?

Shar.3402:

And you would end up like you are now, with regen healing for 300hp/s on stacked intensity

If they were aiming to improve regen then they wouldn’t allow this to happen.