The current debate over the power of Conditions is exasperated by the fact that all Condition classes you encounter in WvW boast an additional 36/40% Condition duration from food.
This food is a balance anomaly as it far outpaces the benefits of any other food in this game by leagues. To drive this point home I will compare it to other forms of Condition Duration increases. This food (and by extension, the-40% Condition Duration food too) dilute any reasonable debate about this topic because of their huge impact on game-play.
Similar to how the old Omnomberry Pie blessed Crit-builds with extreme survivability, Rare Veggie Pizza makes Condition builds far more powerful than they’d normally be.
But let’s see how various other forms of Condition Duration are budgeted.
Most level 80 food that focuses Duration increases follow the same model by adding 15% to the respective Condition and 70% to a stat.
Examples:
Bowl of Fire Meat Chili
+15% Burning Duration
+70 Precision
Chocolate Omnomberry Cake
+15% Chill Duration
+70 Power
etc.
comparing this to Power foods it’s easy to conclude that 15% Condition Duration to a single type is budgeted the same as +100 stats.
Examples:
Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
+100 Power
+10% Crit-Damage
Fancy Potato Leak Soup
+100 Precision
+70 Condition Damage
etc.
This is somewhat mirrored in the trait-lines where going 30 points into one tree will add 300 Power, 300 Precision, 30% Critical Strike Damage or 30% Condition Duration.
The standard here seems to be 100 Power/Precision equal 10% Condition Duration or 15% Duration to a single Condition type.
In comes the (not so) Rare Veggie Pizza (representative of all Condition Duration foods).
Rare Veggie Pizza
+40% Condition Duration
+70 Condition Damage
This food in itself adds more Condition Duration than an entire, fully specced, trait line. It adds 3 times as much Condition Duration as any other level 80 food. And does so to ALL Conditions as opposed to a single type.
Applying the budgeting standards above it equates to a Food that adds +400 Power and +70 Precision.
Rune sets that typically apply diverse and powerful boni generally considered more potent than food, add a mere 10% Condition Duration.
My point being.
Compared to ALL other standards applied within this game, this vast increase in Condition Duration provided by food is an anomaly and dilutes any reasonable debate about Conditions by extending them far beyond their means.
In simply cannot understand how such a powerful food is allowed to exist when it so clearly breaches established standards.
PS: The same reasoning applies to the -40% Food. No combination of Runes and Food should make you practically impervious to an entire damage type. Point being, no food should affect anything by 40%.