Guild Wars 2

I’ve been doing a little experimenting today with a condition build as an engineer which implements vulnerability into it. To test this directly, I used utility goggles (which adds 10 stacks of vulnerability to the target on use) and the elixir gun for fumigate (adds 5 stacks of vulnerability to the target), and then switched to a bleed/burning/poison ability, like the tranquilizer dart which adds a bleed to the target, poisoned darts from the pistol, or just using the standard attack on the flame thrower.

After testing with 15 stacks of vulnerability versus none, none of the applied conditions are doing increased damage whatsoever from vulnerability.

The tool tip describes vulnerability as “Lowering the targets defense” and “x% incoming damage”. To make sure this wasn’t an outdated tool tip, I checked the wiki on the damage section which states that “Vulnerability condition increases all damage taken (both direct and condition-based) by a flat percentage.”

Link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

Now I’m not sure if this is bug, but this seems more intentional that conditions are not benefiting from vulnerability stacks since the issue is a big one considering the large difference in DPS this would have on DoT conditions.

Could anyone clear this up for me? Perhaps there has been a post on this that I missed or something similar to that.

Edit TLDR: For statistical purposes, with current sPvP gear attacking the heavy golem, the bleed from tranquilizing dart hits for 104 damage per stack with no stacks of vulnerability. It also hits for 104 per stack with 15+ stacks of vulnerability. Now if I understand that vulnerability increases damage by 1% per stack, that should be 15% extra damage which means each tick should be doing 119.6 points of damage per tick.

It’s not a bug. All percent damage increases intentionally do not affect condition damage.

Not to be a nit pick sir, and I’m not doubting your words, I’m just really big on citation. Do you perhaps have a link supporting that claim?

If that is the case, then the tool tip needs to be updated and the wiki needs to be changed because as it reads it appears to be in direct contradiction of the fact. As posted previously, the wiki states it word for word “Vulnerability condition increases all damage taken (both direct and condition-based) by a flat percentage.”

My source is not able to be cited so unfortunately you’ll have to take my word on it being intended. However, you can test other percent damage increase mechanics and you’ll see that they all operate the same way with regards to condition damage.

wiki can be edited by ANYONE and as such is not always a reliable source, so instead you should be going more out from the tooltip, as you said it listed “Lowering the targets defense” and condition dmg is not affected by defence (armor+toughness) hence makes sense that vulnerability don’t affect it either. due to that fact actually condition dmg would be severely overpowered if combined with vulnerability, as there would be no counter against it, making it maybe possible to almost do more dmg per tick than you could with a direct attack, using the right build

GummiBear.2756:

wiki can be edited by ANYONE and as such is not always a reliable source, so instead you should be going more out from the tooltip, as you said it listed “Lowering the targets defense” and condition dmg is not affected by defence (armor+toughness) hence makes sense that vulnerability don’t affect it either.

I believe the tooltip for vulnerability is leftover from its previous version, when it actually gave negative toughness instead of a percent damage increase.

Yes exactly, the tooltip says both (reduced defenses and increases damage taken) by a flat %. As for the wiki, the last update was on September 4th, so unless something was changed by a person outside of the Guild Wars team, it would be pretty inconsistent if we are to consider this information with what the tool tip states an increase in damage.

Like Armstrong said, it does feel like this may be intended since this is a large mechanic to overlook, but currently there seems to be no official or definite response on the issue.

Is there any possible way that one of the forum developers could spend some time clarifying on the issue at hand? It would be largely appreciated.

Tooltips say “1% increased damage taken” on skills that apply vuln, on the actual tooltip you see by the health bar of the monster, it says “Defense is decreased; stacks in intensity.”

Vulnerability NEVER increased damage taken by conditions. Toughness does not reduce incoming condition damage. Nothing does. Nothing can effect the damage you recieve by conditions outside of the condition damage that the player adds to his or her own character.

Vulnerability was balanced around that fact and remains balanced for only effecting direct damage. Conditions are powerful enough on their own.

all this “conditions are too strong anyway” talk by welps building glass cannon without condition removal is amusing. a vitality power build with some condition removal will beat a condition build everytime. condition builds are a counter to all those high damage low vit builds alot of players are running. also I am pretty sure the change to vulnerability was made to make vulnerability to affect conditions thus you are not entirely crippled if one of your big stacks (that takes time to build up) is suddenly removed otherwise the nerfed condition application for several classe that was done in the past would make no sense at all.

if you want to moan about condition damage then moan about the condition damage of monsters, especially boss monsters which was not touched at all.

CptCosmic.3156:

all this “conditions are too strong anyway” talk by welps building glass cannon without condition removal is amusing. a vitality power build with some condition removal will beat a condition build everytime. condition builds are a counter to all those high damage low vit builds alot of players are running. also I am pretty sure the change to vulnerability was made to make vulnerability to affect conditions thus you are not entirely crippled if one of your big stacks (that takes time to build up) is suddenly removed otherwise the nerfed condition application for several classe that was done in the past would make no sense at all.

if you want to moan about condition damage then moan about the condition damage of monsters, especially boss monsters which was not touched at all.

Not exactly sure who is saying that condition damage is too high or too powerful. Must be someone who deleted his/her post. We’re discussing the topic of Vulnerability only effecting direct damage attacks.

As I’ve said before, this is how it is balanced. Armor levels do not reduce condition damage. Vulnerability does not increase it. Outside of the “Malice” stat, nothing increases or decreases condition damage.

It’s been balanced that way and hopefully will remain balanced that way for simplicity’s sake. Not saying they won’t change it, but I’m hoping that game mechanics don’t have to change that drasticly after release.

The main reason for the change to Vulnerability is BECAUSE condition damage effects all toughness levels equally. If you removed a certain amount of toughness on a character, then your toughness level effects the damage that condition causes. If you increase damage by a flat percent, everyone is effected equally.

Lets try not to veer off-topic with odd comments that appear to be that of trolls in a BUG reporting forum.

It is intended, it does the same damage to every target regardless of armor values

anyway either the description of the vulnerability is wrong or the condition does not work properly, it is a bug either way.

Redscope.6215:

stuff

there actually are items that decrease damage of conditions by alot.
1. we have runes that remove conditions on a critical hit
2. we have runes that lower that lower conditions duration. you actually need only 1% of reduction because the damage ticks on every full second only.

btw, you lean out of the window too much by saying it is balanced. removing conditions by abilities is easy, removing high damage crits on the other hand is not possible. stacking thoughness has limits and it is not unusual to get hit by between 3-5k crits from abilities in someones burst rotation even with high toughness. please also dont say “you can dodge it” cause you can dodge abilities that apply conditions too.

Monkeyboy.2869:

It is intended, it does the same damage to every target regardless of armor values

your point is? the discussion is not about armor and vulnerability has nothing do to with it.

Definitely need an official response to clear this issue up. Inconsistencies with the wiki, the tool tip, and how the game mechanics currently work merit some clarification if we want to set this issue straight.

Again, it would be greatly appreciated.

condition damage ignores armor…

issue resolved.