Guild Wars 2

There is food and armor to decrease condition duration. While the idea behind that is understandable, the actual implementation is utterly stupid. Wiht rune of Melandru and food buff I can achieve -75% condition duration and therefor effectivly reducing condition dmg by 75%.

I run a pure rabid condition dmg necromancer. Condition dmg builds are already punished in WvW, cuz you do kitten dmg to siege or gates and they are over all harder to pull off. Now there are characters running arround with this ridiculous setup and I do nothing to them. Why implement such a thing? Is there a rune and food buff combination that allows me to reduse direct dmg by 75% permanently? I don’t know of any. So why are condition builds being punished like that?

Lowering condition duration is balanced by the runes and food you can use to increase duration. The only truly unbalanced thing in this game involving conditions is that silly engi trait that stops all condition effects. It is a grandmaster trait that reduces all condi durations by 100% when health is below 25%.

Funny, I was thinking about the same thing today. Why they would put a food/rune combo into the game that basically negates the damage of any condition heavy class is beyond me. Between melandru runes and that BS lemongrass poultry soup, you are looking at -65%(?) condition duration. Which means if you want to counter that, you will need to go 30 points into a condi duration trait line, equip giver’s weapons, AND use condi duration runes/food if you want your conditions to be effective. But if you do that, your condition damage is going to suffer and they will probably most likely outheal your damage. Oh, and you’re still doing crappy damage to siege weapons.

/rant

I agree that the engie’s automated response trait is utterly stupid. Does it have an internal cooldown or does it’s effect wear of at one point?

I could balance the 40% decrease on condition duration with a 40% increas of condition duration, that is correct. But then rune of melandru offers over all 25% reduction of applied conditions to yourself ina ddition to 10% decreased stun duration. Which runes offer an over all 25% increase of condition duration with additional 10% stun duration? So after all there are still runes that decreases condition dmg drasticly, while there is no equipment that can increase condition dmg the same amount.

Power on the other hand balances out rune wise with toughness directly countering power in the same ammount (if my math is correct).

In response to engineer automated response discussion —

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Automated_Response

Any pre-existing conditions will continue to eat away at the engie.

Ynot.8397:

Lowering condition duration is balanced by the runes and food you can use to increase duration. The only truly unbalanced thing in this game involving conditions is that silly engi trait that stops all condition effects. It is a grandmaster trait that reduces all condi durations by 100% when health is below 25%.

yeah because being under 25% health is a truly desirable position

conditions and condition builds are far from underpowered in wvw.

sendmark.4731:

conditions and condition builds are far from underpowered in wvw.

Far from it. My condition eng gets bags.

sendmark.4731:

conditions and condition builds are far from underpowered in wvw.

Indeed. They’re just bad in the zerg, and that is where most of the complainers tend to dwell.

Condition duration is capped at 100% this equals -50% condition duration, but is this also capped?

shortcake.8659:

Ynot.8397:

Lowering condition duration is balanced by the runes and food you can use to increase duration. The only truly unbalanced thing in this game involving conditions is that silly engi trait that stops all condition effects. It is a grandmaster trait that reduces all condi durations by 100% when health is below 25%.

yeah because being under 25% health is a truly desirable position

I didn’t say it was a good thing but it negates all condi damage after 25% which is a free win against most condi necros.

Heeeey. It’s not like a single Guardian in a group will annihilate any form of condition damage. Ehm. Wait.

Ynot.8397:

I didn’t say it was a good thing but it negates all condi damage after 25% which is a free win against most condi necros.

All conditions applied before reaching 25% health will still continue to go on, not much people do bother with that because there are far more problems running around WvW than Condition Necros. So sure, scrap it. Nobody’s going to miss it.

Removing as I might be wrong, actually haven’t tested.

Cake.4920:

err, no. 165% duration x .35 (65% reduction) = 57.75

So if you take melandru runes + -40 food and I take +40 food and 25 in cond duration line, my conditions last 57.75% of their normal duration

Which is fine.

Congratulations, you have an anti-class/build.

ya becasue runes and sigils and traits and skills and weapons and foods that increase condition duration is fair without runes that decrease and food that decrease. OP QQ LTP.

Warlord.9074:

ya becasue runes and sigils and traits and skills and weapons and foods that increase condition duration is fair without runes that decrease and food that decrease. OP QQ LTP.

If you would have read, what I said, then you’d understand that I do not wish them removed. I am just questioning the ammount of reduction. But I guess you are one of those trolls, that roam the internet. Curious creatures.

@Automated response:
This traid is absurd. I admit, one has to put 30 trait points into it and one tends to use HGH instead of automated response. But to be left at 25% where nobody can reaply conditions just shuts down most condition dmg necromancers, who’s conditions don’t hold that long anyway. And considering you had dmged the necro too, both are at low health, while one of the combatants is imune to the dmg the other one pulls out.

Cake.4920:

Ynot.8397:

Lowering condition duration is balanced by the runes and food you can use to increase duration.

err, no. 165% duration x .35 (65% reduction) = 57.75

So if you take melandru runes + -40 food and I take +40 food and 25 in cond duration line, my conditions last 57.75% of their normal duration

they are additive not multiplicative, +40 food is perfectly canceled by -40 food.

however, – duration probably needs to be floored at -50 since the 1/x scaling significantly deviates from linear a lot faster than + duration effects.

TyPin.9860:

Warlord.9074:

ya becasue runes and sigils and traits and skills and weapons and foods that increase condition duration is fair without runes that decrease and food that decrease. OP QQ LTP.

If you would have read, what I said, then you’d understand that I do not wish them removed. I am just questioning the ammount of reduction. But I guess you are one of those trolls, that roam the internet. Curious creatures.

@Automated response:
This traid is absurd. I admit, one has to put 30 trait points into it and one tends to use HGH instead of automated response. But to be left at 25% where nobody can reaply conditions just shuts down most condition dmg necromancers, who’s conditions don’t hold that long anyway. And considering you had dmged the necro too, both are at low health, while one of the combatants is imune to the dmg the other one pulls out.

So wait! Are you seriously implying that you cannot achieve +67% condition duration only with runes +food to counter the -65% reduction runes + food? And you are forced to place 30 points in condition duration tree? Sorry to say but warlord got it right.There is only one viable counter to spamming necros and at a great cost of usefull runes/food and you just ask for easymode.

MrForz.1953:

Heeeey. It’s not like a single Guardian in a group will annihilate any form of condition damage. Ehm. Wait.

Ynot.8397:

I didn’t say it was a good thing but it negates all condi damage after 25% which is a free win against most condi necros.

All conditions applied before reaching 25% health will still continue to go on, not much people do bother with that because there are far more problems running around WvW than Condition Necros. So sure, scrap it. Nobody’s going to miss it.

I know that they continue but for the most part it won’t be a ton of conditions. This thread really only applies to small groups because in a large group using those runes and food to get rid of conditions means that person is not nearly as effective. IDK why you would run that food while zerging around.

I find it funny that the spvp forum is filled with people crying about how OP condi necros apparently are while the condi necros are here complaining about how OP condition reduction is.

There are in fact rune and food combos that reduce the direct damage you take. It’s called toughness and protection. There is absolutely no way to reduce condition damage itself, so conditions are mitigated by duration reductions instead. Also, besides doing damage to siege, condi builds aren’t any less effective than power builds in WvW.

About Engineers with Automated Response, of course it does well against a purely condi necro. The sole purpose of that trait is to protect against conditions. Good thing you’re playing WvW, where you’ll have an entire zerg or even just 1 person in your small man group that has a power build who could sneeze on an engi under 25% health and down him, right?

@mini:
Again, I am questioning the ammount of reduction, not that there is reduction. I am not using any food buffs atm. and am most certainly not asking for an easy mode. But there are several ways to completely neutralize conditions (for some professions harder to achieve than for others). I am only asking, if the amount of reduction is fair?

However, you claim I could achieve +67% condition duration. May I ask how? I checked the runes. There are some with nice increase to certain conditions bot nothing increasing all conditions by 25% in addition to a stun uncrease of 15%. That would be the exact opposite of melandur runes, but ain’t there.

I never said, I’d put 30 points in condition dmg increase (then I could use burning, I might think about that^^). The reason I used an harsh tone, was simple. In this forums a harsh tone get’s more attention then a nicely constructet post.

tl;dr: How can one with runes and food buff achieve an over all 65% condition duration increase?

Automated Response is only good for sPvP. You need to put 30 points in Alchemy(which leaves you with only 40 points left to get other stuff). Also you need to use the grandmaster slot for this…

In WvW just another person on Direct Damage build can walk with the Necro and kill you. Not worth using it. Better leaving that conditions and have someone rezz you should you die.

I often happen to get out of the action with Rocket Boots – but still have conditions running and sometimes by 1 second wrongly timed I get downed but safe to rez(not in an AC fire).

Edit: Also: Afaik toughness does not affeckt Condition Damage? At least I think I read something like this in the Wiki. And since there is no other stuff to put on the Armor to reduce the condition damge it is fine that there is food.

Condition duration reduction is OP because of how the math works. 50% increase in duration isn’t just canceled by -50% duration.

Say I have a 4 second bleed. I have +50% condition duration. It’s up to 6. The other person has -50% condition duration. It’s down to 3 now. It not only counters it, but then reduces it even more.

Because of how the math is… a build that has a 33% condition duration trait (like dogged march) plus 25% from runes (Melandru) and then 40% from Lemongrass… for a total of 98% condition duration reduction… is nearly immune to certain conditions… permanently… and 65% for the rest.

Lets do the math on 100% duration vs 98% reduction now… 4s chill becomes 8s. 98% reduction means it lasts 0.16 seconds.

For condition damage you’ll also need to factor in the damage loss to include the partial seconds that remain as they tick every 1 second (a 3.9 second burn does the same damage as a 3 second burn because there are still only 3 ticks of burn applied).

The more you stack -condition duration the more obvious how messed up the calculations on it become.

Seriously… the eng trait is the LEAST of the problems for conditions in WvW right now.

The problem with conditions in this game is how you effectively need to have enough condition duration to get to the next second for it to have any impact on anything. They need to make the overflow trigger on the first tick of a condition as the only condition this could even be overpowered on would be burn, but the only skill I can think of that applies burn that can be spammed is scepter +1 for eles which is dreadful anyway.

But keep in mind also with conditions that they’re also quite powerful because they have only one primary stat feeding into them. This is what makes Rangers so overpowered right now because they can stack condition, healing, and toughness and be brick walls that no amount of damage can get through while still dishing out 150+/tick bleeds that stack to 15 without much effort on 3+ targets.

I think they should add a second stat for condition classes to collect to bring the stat as a whole into balance with the other stats. Then maybe we could get things improved with duration reduction and the like.

For not being able to land conditions on an Automated Response engineer before they hit 25%:

This should be no problem at all for a necro. If you’re using scepter and dagger and have no more than +40% duration from food, you have 2 skills that’ll last 10-12 seconds and both do upwards of 4,000 damage, which I know because that’s what it says for my necro’s condition build. My engineer has 18,000 hits, that means he has 4,500 hits by the time I can negate incoming conditions.

I’m pretty sure necros have the longest base duration conditions in the game and just received two new hard hitting conditions to boot. Sure, Automated Response makes it a little harder, you may have to time when to apply your conditions that are on cooldowns, but that’s a skill issue in 1v1 situations only.

Not to mention my engineer uses Automated Response specifically because I have 1 other skill that can clear conditions and have no condition reduction in my build. Even my defensive stat is all focused on toughness, which your conditions don’t care about. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone using an elixir build with 409, condition reduction food/gear, AND Automated response. It probably about evens out with any other method of dealing with conditions.

This is an issue with Melandru runes, too. Sure you can get the runes and use the reduction food and all that good stuff, but you’re clearing giving up other things in the process. The OP makes it sound like people are running around with 2,000 power and precision while also having -70% duration and 1,600 vitality or toughness.

That was not the OP’s intention. I know, ’cuz I am the one making the OP^^

@Condition duration:
If the math turns really out as Aberrant says than there is smth broke with decreases of condition duration (till now I found it only a bit unbalanced). I did not think of it that way. Did some1 test that? Is it rly like that?
Sure you give up other bonuses by using melandru runes. But one allways gives smth up by choosing one specific rune and not another. I don’t see ur point.
However, I have changed my necro build to 30/30/10/0/0. Altough I had to give up on some pretty nice things, My dmg has exponentally increased. I tested it in WvW with a condition duration food buff and tuning crystal and I was just ripping stuff appart. So maybe the decrease of duration is fair after all.
I accept one argument in favor of the decrease of cond duraiton. It is the fact (pointed out by some of you) that there is, besides vitality, no real counter to condition dmg in stats (not talking about traits).

@Automated Response:
Well, I don’t think this trait is gonna change soon, and I did not encounter an engi till now using that trait (at least that I’ve noticed). And I use the flesh golem elite. So I might from now on get used to keeping the flesh golem rdy to spawn, when an engi goes near 25% life^^

The engineer trait isnt very good. It doesnt stop conditions already applied, from a condition specced player these will eat away enough health.
A condition specced player also has plenty of +cond. duration to still have his conditions deal damage. In the meantime, direct damage also still works.

Seriously, this trait is almost identical to what Warriors get. Only warriors get 100% reduced physical damage. The Engineer gets 100% reduced condition duration. The engineer version persists aslong as he’s below 25% health, but its a GM trait and it doesnt mitigate as much damage as the Warrior’s.

As for -% cond. duration. No, i dont find it a balanced mechanic. It greatly reduces the effectiveness from condition damage. There is no rune or foodbuff that would reduce nearly as much damage from direct damage. And there is nothing that for example reduces critical-damage taken.
Aslong as condition damage is the only one that can be greatly mitigated by runes and foodbuffs like no other damage i find it unreasonable.

Give me a -40% crit damage taken foodbuff please.

Every Build should have a counter and no Build should be an automatic “IWin” against any Spec.

Your problem isn’t “zomg game broken” it’s that you are a using a gimmick build with overloaded/imbalanced stats.

Considering how quickly Necros can reapply Conditions and also how every Weapon has both Direct Damage as well as Condition skills there’s a really simple solution to your “problem” – swap out 2-3 pieces of your Rabid set and equip Knights and now you can burn down those 25% Engis yourself.

As a warrior that runs melandru runes and the food being talked about I have to laugh at this thread (as well as your conditions but you already know that). If your a condition build and your not using the +40% condition duration food then you are the ones handicapping your build. This is something you can just as easily counter.

Terrahero.9358:

As for -% cond. duration. No, i dont find it a balanced mechanic. It greatly reduces the effectiveness from condition damage. There is no rune or foodbuff that would reduce nearly as much damage from direct damage. And there is nothing that for example reduces critical-damage taken.
Aslong as condition damage is the only one that can be greatly mitigated by runes and foodbuffs like no other damage i find it unreasonable.

Give me a -40% crit damage taken foodbuff please.

Because we have + 40% physical foods right?Oh wait…

Do you guys even play the game?

The drama for engis automated response left me speechless.Because Endure Pain,Mist Form,Elixir S,Blurred Frenzy are tottaly ballanced but a condi immunity only is not?It si not even a full immunity if it works like warrior’s Berserker’s Stance.Possible+117% could still get trough.

Maximum condition duration = 30+40+20+27 =117%

MAx reduction = 25+40 = 65 %

So how -65% duration is so unballanced against +117%?
Ok i agree completely .you should be able to get -117% too from foods/traits,buffs not only 65%.Anet please fix.
Before that happens i suggest a good dose of L2P.

Aberrant.6749:

Condition duration reduction is OP because of how the math works. 50% increase in duration isn’t just canceled by -50% duration.

Say I have a 4 second bleed. I have +50% condition duration. It’s up to 6. The other person has -50% condition duration. It’s down to 3 now. It not only counters it, but then reduces it even more.

Because of how the math is… a build that has a 33% condition duration trait (like dogged march) plus 25% from runes (Melandru) and then 40% from Lemongrass… for a total of 98% condition duration reduction… is nearly immune to certain conditions… permanently… and 65% for the rest.

Lets do the math on 100% duration vs 98% reduction now… 4s chill becomes 8s. 98% reduction means it lasts 0.16 seconds.

For condition damage you’ll also need to factor in the damage loss to include the partial seconds that remain as they tick every 1 second (a 3.9 second burn does the same damage as a 3 second burn because there are still only 3 ticks of burn applied).

The more you stack -condition duration the more obvious how messed up the calculations on it become.

Seriously… the eng trait is the LEAST of the problems for conditions in WvW right now.

I suggest you do your research before you post false information.

-50% is canceled by +50% Game uses additive scaling.

if a condition was to last 4 seconds, and you had +50% condition duration it would be increased to 6 seconds.
If a condition was to last 4 seconds and your opponent had -50% condition duration it would last 2 seconds
If a condition was to last 4 seconds and you had +50% condition duration and your opponent had -50% condition duration it will last 4 seconds.

Please test it out before you come on the forum and make a long winded response with factually incorrect information.

A video that demonstrates how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLexyzHyeO4

A necro crying he is underpowered???? I’ve seen it all. ok

@Draygo
Thanks for the information and the provided video. It is good to know, how it actually works.

@Duration of Condition
I do understand Terrahero’s point. But also crit dmg is reduced by toughness. Considering there is no stat that reduces condition dmg directly, I see the point in the food buffs. However, I would consider high HP build with condition cleanses a pretty good counter to condition dmg. So without reduction of condition duration, there are coutners to condition dmg.

However, after reconsidering everything said here (even if it happened often in a cheap L2P manner) I came to the conclusion, that the decrease of condition duration is balanced, if not actually underpowered. I was running today with everything I could get to increase condition duration and I actually felt as I would play a berserker build, cuz stuff was dying super fast due to quick stacking of sustained bleeds (with autoattack to 12+, with full utility usage to arround 20 within seconds, each bleed ticking with arround 130-160 dmg depending on how much might I had on me), although I must say, that some of the guys fighting me were just simply bad.

Draygo.9473:

Aberrant.6749:

Condition duration reduction is OP because of how the math works. 50% increase in duration isn’t just canceled by -50% duration.

Say I have a 4 second bleed. I have +50% condition duration. It’s up to 6. The other person has -50% condition duration. It’s down to 3 now. It not only counters it, but then reduces it even more.

Because of how the math is… a build that has a 33% condition duration trait (like dogged march) plus 25% from runes (Melandru) and then 40% from Lemongrass… for a total of 98% condition duration reduction… is nearly immune to certain conditions… permanently… and 65% for the rest.

Lets do the math on 100% duration vs 98% reduction now… 4s chill becomes 8s. 98% reduction means it lasts 0.16 seconds.

For condition damage you’ll also need to factor in the damage loss to include the partial seconds that remain as they tick every 1 second (a 3.9 second burn does the same damage as a 3 second burn because there are still only 3 ticks of burn applied).

The more you stack -condition duration the more obvious how messed up the calculations on it become.

Seriously… the eng trait is the LEAST of the problems for conditions in WvW right now.

I suggest you do your research before you post false information.

-50% is canceled by +50% Game uses additive scaling.

if a condition was to last 4 seconds, and you had +50% condition duration it would be increased to 6 seconds.
If a condition was to last 4 seconds and your opponent had -50% condition duration it would last 2 seconds
If a condition was to last 4 seconds and you had +50% condition duration and your opponent had -50% condition duration it will last 4 seconds.

Please test it out before you come on the forum and make a long winded response with factually incorrect information.

A video that demonstrates how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLexyzHyeO4

Then why my +50% condition lasts 0 seconds (just says immune) on an Engineer using the trait? Should last 50% by that logic. Perhaps that trait works in a differend way. Or perhaps those engineers carry some melandrus runes or something… Not a big deal. Condition bunkers need reliable counters anyway. Unlike direct damage builds, they need to maximise only one stat to have ridiculous, armor ignoring damage output.

Parthis.2091:

sendmark.4731:

conditions and condition builds are far from underpowered in wvw.

Indeed. They’re just bad in the zerg, and that is where most of the complainers tend to dwell.

No, they have sustained damage, you just need to balance your cd with living through fights. Use a flamethrower to push through the zerg. My engineer is p/p condition and she does fine, however I had to sacrifice some condition damage for soldier accessories with rabid crest.

With my higher crit I can do a little burst with my flamethrower. Also flamethrower helps me push through serfs with juggernaut.

kRAVen.4195:

As a warrior that runs melandru runes and the food being talked about I have to laugh at this thread (as well as your conditions but you already know that). If your a condition build and your not using the +40% condition duration food then you are the ones handicapping your build. This is something you can just as easily counter.

This^.

To the OP, is your build compatible with your Zerg? Zergs may seem hodgepodge and disorganized but the really good ones are in synch with the damage they stack and sustain.

Not just duration is killing you but the lack of cleanse from teammates will make you die faster.

Also the order you stack your conditions matter too.

Master of Timespace.2548:

… Not a big deal. Condition bunkers need reliable counters anyway. Unlike direct damage builds, they need to maximise only one stat to have ridiculous, armor ignoring damage output.

This.
People seem to forget one thing: For massive condition damage you need only one single stat – condition damage. You can use your other two stats for example for defensive stats.
With direct damage (berserk) you need to invest all three stats into damage (power, precision, crit damage).
So direct damage should be alot more powerful, but it is not. In my opinion it is only fine that there is a counter to massive condition damage (and duration).

If you need more damage you can still use power/precision/condition damage gear. That way you still have some direct damage against heavy condition cleaning and on top of that the very powerful condition damage. But you will be squishy like someone who uses berserk gear.
So there is a solution but it comes with a price like for everyone. If you want max damage its at the cost of defense.
If someone uses all his runes + food to have defense against conditions that seems fair to me.

TyPin.9860:

tl;dr: How can one with runes and food buff achieve an over all 65% condition duration increase?

2 piece lyssa and mad king (10% each so 20% for both)
2 piece nightmare or lich (4%)
rare vegie pizza (40%)

thats 64% increase before considering traits which have no comparable reduction trait lines. so you could get up to 94% duration to all conditions if you went all in on buffing that stat.

I play Guard/Ranger and Ele,

i find it strange, that you guys are mostly taking about condition damage,
the reason the i run melandru and Loafs of saffron bread, (on the guard and ranger) is for the reduction in Cripple/chill/Imobilize and stun

there are so many ways to reduce power; toughness, doge roll, stealth, healing power water fields, stability+swiftness (run away). but the only way to counter conditions is to remove it, unreliable as it can be reapplied faster then it can be removed so you have to reduce it duration.

We have to spend our rune and food slots just to counter condition, so why can’t you can use your, runes, food, traits, gear, sigels to counter our counter.

There is all sorts of ways reduce damage (direct or Condition) but every thing you do to reduce the damage take per hit, you reduce your potential to hit for more damage.

just remember he who lives the longest does the most damage