Condi remove is not random. It depends on the order of application. Last applied -> first cleansed. So you either want to cleanse immediately to get rid of the dangerous condis before they can get covered, or you want to wait out short cover condis or till another dmg condi application puts the stack on top before you cleanse. Of course it is not always possible to get rid of the dmg, but otherwise condi builds wouldn’t work at all.
It would force you to wait to cleanse until you had reached a certain point to get maximum value.[…]
That’s already the case most of the time. So many people waste their cleanses. You don’t have to cleanse as soon you get hit by some condis. Timing your cleanses well is very important when fighting condi builds and many people stuggle with this, which is probably the main reason, why so many complain about those “op” condis. Lowering the dmg won’t work as long there is so much healing in the game, that can completely shut down low dmg over time. You have to kill stuff fast in oder to kill at all.
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The only ways to avoid PI is to do nothing or to use uninteruptible skills/stability (if the thief hasn’t steal up). Avoiding headshot and avoiding PI is not the same. Headshot alone doesn’t do much if it doesn’t interrupt, so using defensive cds just to avoid hs is basically a waste. Not doing anything isn’t an option though, because then the thief can just autoattack you to death, which means, you need uninteruptible stuff (or enough sustain to heal through the dmg) in order to deal with PI. It requires counterbuilding, because counterplay is very limited. Which makes it such an unfun mechanic to play against (doesn’t neccessarily mean it is op though).
Exotic trinkets and backpiece with platinum doubloons.
You won’t even need the commanders armor.
Condi to boon conversion and plasma are very situational and not a reliable way to gain resistance. The main condi counter aside from avoiding application and healing are still cleanses, something that is aviable to all classes without exception. And if used properly those counters are sufficient to deal with most condi builds.
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Resistance was added with the trait changes in June 15, not with HoT. But if it was supposed to be THE answer to the condi buffs, they would have given more classes access to it.
Condis got changed, because they were completely useless in any form of group play and they didn’t tone them down afterwards (even though they admitted originally that condis might be a bit too strong), because of the general power creep that was a result of the trait changes. Not the other way arround.
What is the risk and reward for going condi? The reward is you can just stack massive amounts of condi and kite while being as tanky and trolly as the game will allow. There is no risk really.
The trade off for many condition builds is less utility/survivability from skills and traits, because they have to focus more on offense in form of condition application, since stats alone doesn’t provide them with any damage. A loss in mobility/defense/range and so on can be huge and is the main reason, why power is still better for most classes. Of course this doesn’t apply to all of them. Mesmer for example relies mostly on shatters for damage, which allows the use of defensive traits, weapons and utility skills, even in a condi build. This defense coupled with decent dmg is the main reason, why condi mesmer is so strong. Their damage and the tanky stats alone are not what makes them op.
And its not like power builds have to be super glassy. Most of them are actually quite tanky and far from “risky” to play, thanks to boons, passive procs and plenty of defensive skills.
I legit forgot Eye for an Eye. The others I do not count because they require active play from the player, or existed in the Core game.
All of the traits i named can be procced on an afk player. It can’t get more passive.
You dont get away with spamming skills. Overall, HoT has a lower skill floor but a much higher skill cap which is very good. Unfortunately, for a lot of people this creates the illusion that the game requires no skill at high level as well because theyre unable to get close to the cap.
Unless i wanted to compete in serious (now non-existent) tournaments , which i never did, i definitely get away with spamming skills. Maybe you don’t, but that’s why i didn’t wrote “all”. I also didn’t said or think, the game requires no skill at all. But i wonder, if that high skill cap you are talking about, is caused by mechanics/traits/skills added by HoT (which?), or more because players who practise and “try-hard” over an extended period of time naturally become better and discover “new” stuff, which will automatically raise the cap over time?
Also when watching post-HoT tournaments it always looked like matches are won mostly by rotations and coordination as a team, instead of individuals outplaying each other in even fights. Of course this doesn’t mean, there is no skill requirement, or that rotations were not important in the past. But it seems like even the best players can’t rely much on their personal skill. Or would you want to 1vs1 a dh as mesmer, knowing that you are the better player? And would the dh want to 1vs1 a druid? Even if it was filthy casual like me? Unless the skill gap is huge, the answer is no, right? But if even the best players can’t rely on their personal skill, then how should i be able to?
I loved this game because of the combat. It was the fights that i enjoyed. Not the rotating or capping, that’s just stuff that had to be done, because i didn’t want my team to lose. But if the majority of “fights” are either boring stalemates or decided before they even beginn – and that’s what happened for me – it’s not fun anymore.
Add:
Elemental Bastion + Imbued Melodies (the aura procs)
Rapid Regen (meta scrapper has passive swiftness access, which results in passive RR proc)
Adaptive Armor
Eye for an Eye
Endure Pain/Defy Pain got buffed (not with HoT release, but later)
The list doesn’t include passice procs that got added/buffed with the trait changes. And it lists only those traits that are pure passive procs. No traits that provide an general passive bonus (like +x% dmg), no traits that can literally be triggered by pressing buttons randomly and that encourage spamming stuff because you get rewarded for any action instead of only well timed actions (when you attack/dodge/heal/interupt/…).
And of course you know about that “high level” PvP first-hand …
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See these forums have three false beliefs about power creep
1) that all power increases are inherently bad
2) power increase automatically equates to lower skill level.
3) all buffs are power creep
1+3) Nobody said all buffs are bad or automatically powercreep.
2) Power increase doesn’t automatically lowers the required skill, but it can do so if passive mechanics get buffed or mechanics get simplified as result of buffs, which happened a lot in GW2.
Powercreep might not always be an issue, but this doesn’t mean, it can’t be a problem.
Powercreep as it happened with the new trait system (that might be even the main offender when i think about it) and HoT increases the influence of traits and skills on the outcome of the fight and decreases the impact of actual player actions. Counter building becomes more important. Many new or buffed traits are passive and don’t require any “skill” to be beneficial and there are more skills that offer both offense and defense at once, decreasing the need for thinking about when to play agressive and when to be more defensive.
The changes to the trait system and HoT added nothing that would increase complexity or mechanical demand. Your “examples” in a previous post are far away from reality.
Doesn’t mean, “braindead” builds didn’t exist back then (e.g. turret engi, spirit ranger), but those got nerfed quite fast into non-viability.
And DH can still do that. But DH can also use F3 shield for clutch body blocks which is something that core guard couldn’t do. (yes I’m aware of core guard’s shield5, but DH can and often takes that skill too)
All of the skill things that the core game had still exist and are still used. Nobody at high level spams skills. Juking is still a thing, so is faking, and so is teamplay.
So using a 4 second block is somehow more “skillful” than applying aegis, which requires precise timing to be useful and not wasted on an autoattack or similar? A ranged and easy to land pull/cripple/burn more skillful than a blind? Btw, body blocking was a thing even without those huge shields, because you know, a “body” alone can block some stuff.
“Skill things” can be still used, sure, and sometimes those are still important, but to a lesser extent than in the past. Why apply aegis, if passives do the job just as well? Why care about cc, if you have stability up most of the time and low cd stunbreaks if not? Why care about dmg, if you can just facetank/outheal it? Why interrupt a heal skill, if interrupting auto attacks is almost as rewarding? Why cancel that skill to bait dodges, if it can be used every 4 seconds anyways? Why care about wasting dodges if you can dodge again and again? Why care about the order of condi application, if you can apply 1337 condis at once? Why care about 1337 condis on you if you are a druid with CA ready?
I spammed skills and got away with it just fine most of the time. 99% of the players spam skills and get away with it most of the time, even at higher tiers.
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@Crinn
You don’t have much pre HoT or pre trait changes PvP experience, right?
Your assumptions about how those core classes used to be played shows this pretty clearly.
I think, the main reason, why people dislike the current state of class balance is not so much the balance between the classes, it is because the combat is less fun, due to various reasons. If it was fun, people wouldn’t get bored that fast and request changes just for the sake of getting something different. Meta builds are not fun to play nor fun to play against. It often felt like i’m fighting build mechanics instead of player actions and that i absolutely need certain mechanics in my own build to be able to counter those. Of course “fun” is a very subjective term and i’m sure there are some people that prefer the current state. But it is the main reason, why i quit and i know the same is true for many others. The combat is the core of PvP (and WvW) and i loved it. But if the core is rotten, improvements to the surroundings (matchmaking, rating, rewards, …) won’t save the game. At least not for me.
To use the healing/support capabilities to its full extent you have to run with the melee guys. But this build relies heavily on stab/protection from allies to survive in the frontline and in pug zergs you often won’t get those boons so it will be better to stay back.
When my team can’t win 4vs2 then i wouldn’t be helping them by making the fight 5vs5.
And the only thing your screenshots tell me, is that you play bad builds (though it shouldn’t matter at lower tiers where anything can work). But go ahead and keep beliving in those statistics, it’s not my problem.
I don’t have to dmg those players to keep them busy, i don’t have to heal a lot if i do a good job at kiting and avoiding their dmg, i won’t be defending a point, because it should be impossible to defend a point 1vs3. Yet i grant my team a huge advantage.
I can keep 2 or 3 players busy the whole game while the rest of my teams barely manages to cap 2 points. They will have higher stats than me, does this mean they carried me?
You can deal lots of dmg but never kill anybody. You can get lots of kills by zerging around and tagging players that would have died without your “help”. You can gain lots of healing as support class in long fights on an node that is capped by the enemy. You get my point?
It is only easy against players that don’t know, how to deal with a dh. Which might be the majority. But why would you encourage players to whine on the forums to get something nerfed, instead of learning how to deal with it?
Those statistics are meaningless. The faster you accept this and focus more on how to actually win games instead of focussing on gaining lots of dmg, heals, whatever, the better the chances that you will actually improve and rise in the ranking.
Getting always high numbers at the end game statistics but still losing most of the time, can be a result of bad rotations. You should go where you can be most useful for your team, not where you can gain the most healing/dmg/kills.
If you get caught without defense, lots of stuff can and should kill you. Nothing wrong with it …
Players aren’t supposed to be unkillable.
Condi mesmer isn’t bursty unless you mindlessly spam skills with lots of confusion on you. Condi warrior isn’t very bursty either. Killing somebody in10 or more seconds in not burst. The only somewhat bursty condition is burn and it still requires more than 1 or 2 seconds to kill with it, even if the target does nothing. Power offers still more potential burst.
(Doesn’t mean, all those condi builds are balanced, some could definitely be nerfed, but the same applies to some power builds)
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Jaguar
It has similar dps to the Lynx, maybe even pulls ahead in a power build, is better for short fights (more burst) and loses less dps on pet swap.
If you or your party members don’t have perma fury, take the tiger instead.
You don’t see anyone running 1200 vitality amulet either. Because 4-stat amulets don’t exist with major vitality or toughness and those are better than 3-stat amulets. Amulets like wanderer, demolisher or paladin (sometimes even rabid) are used though, so claiming that toughness doesn’t see any use in PvP is wrong.
If you get oneshot all the time that might be an issue with your build or playstyle, not with stats.
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You really want a bunker meta back?
Btw, protection – a single quite common boon – giving the equivalent of 1200 stat points seems more broken (if your numbers are accurate).
The few bleeds from dagger and Ancient Seeds are not worth running condi gear. Definitely stick to power on a GS +Sword/x build.
There are still ways to improve your build without giving up the melee playstyle, but if you want some advice, more information would be beneficial – what do you want to do with this build (PvE, PvP, WvW, solo or group, open-world or instanced content) and what gear are you currently using?
Anet was never balancing arround 1vs1/2vs2 and there was no rule that prevented them from doing any changes.
i think there was a rule saying there couldnt be any balance updates 2 weeks prior to any tournament. now that esl is done for, im hopeing there will be more balance updates that will keep the community happy and intrigued in the pvp scene. More frequent up dates then once a quarter (3-4month)
You really think, that’s what prevents them from doing more frequent updates when there hasn’t been any tournament for more than half a year?
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Do you really think, balancing arround people that don’t even understand half of the things they are talking about and that have completely different opinions on what should get changed, often based on anecdotal experiences and lack of knowledge, will somehow improve the game?
We would probably end up without any dmg skills, because apparently everything that can kill other players must be op accoding to someone …
Different dmg reductions stack. You can even add “Guard” into the mix.
And damage modifier don’t affect conditions unless the tooltip specifically mentions conditions. So Predators Onslaught doesn’t increase condition dmg.
The same applies for dmg reduction btw.
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If people afk inside a trap they deserve to die. That build you posted is a lot weaker than power medi dh. Easier to counter, easier to kill. The op was probably not fighting burn dh btw, so i don’t know why you bring up that topic.
Edit @ OP: If you want to know, what tends to kill you, it is better to look at the combat log.The death breakdown rarely provides useful information, so it is better to just ignore it, since it can be misleading.
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In case of conditions: hit = tick. 76745 dmg over 222 ticks means an average dmg of about 350 per tick, so not a whole lot. Death breakdown adds up all condition ticks of the whole fight. That’s why often conditions show up at the top with such huge numbers, even if you actually got killed by something different, which makes those stats pretty meaningless.
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A change like this would not only make it possible to stay in CA infinitely, but also make it easier to enter it on cooldown, because you would have more AF left after exiting, basically buffing DC and CS.
Druid doesn’t need any buffs. It is decent in all 3 game modes.
Only condi dmg and counter power dmg got a massive buff over all power dmg / crit dmg has been caped from day 1 of gw2 (well i guess it did get a buff when they added in acnsed level armor) but over all nothing has been added to the game that makes power dmg stronger then it has been with zerker.
Oh yea, they clearly didn’t add power skills that are a lot stronger/more spammable/easier to land and safer to use and traits/traitlines/skills that offer both offense and defense … Why would people even invest so much into defense against power, if its in such a weak state? It wasn’t neccessary to survive in the past, so why now? Doesn’t make sense, right?
Buffs doesn’t have to be buffs to the mechanic itself.
The thing is if it was killing ppl back then by adding the ability to stack say poison something that has the strongest utility effect in the game and that dose some of the highest dot and condi dmg % makes condi dmg unbalanced.
In a way your helping the anty condi argument by pointing out that condi dmg killed before it got a major buff. So yes condi dmg could kill back in the day but then they buffed the hell out of it and we have now a dmg type that is nearly not balanced to any of the tools in the game because only condi dmg was buffed every thing else stayed the same. So condi clears hp even heals are not even close to being on the same level of condi because they are all set for 2012 balance not 2017.
Everything got massively buffed with the trait changes in June 15 and with HoT. Just as example: put a stack of the old burn – the condition with the highest dmg – on a warrior and he could outheal the dmg without doing anything but landing a burst skill every now and then. Others would be to able outheal that dmg just as easily before even factoring in cleanses, resistance and dmg avoidance, which is all much more accessible than in the past. Direct dmg is also a lot easier to land and more spammable than it used to be. Don’t even get me started on boons …The powercreep applies to everything, not only to condis (that got changed because they were completely useless in any kind of group content).
Having a bad start and being behind 100 or even more points doesn’t equal a guaranteed loss. Unless somebody quits and makes the game 4vs5. In this case the quitting player is the only one to blame and therefore he should be the one who gets punished.
Without punishing quitting/afking players a lot more winnable games would turn into unwinnable 4vs5.
An arming/preparation time makes traps pretty useless against players. Trap ranger is already crap for quite a while. And now the same will apply to trap thief too i guess. Their traps are single hit and were already easy to dodge if the thief doesn’t port onto you mid-cast. With the delay it might be impossible to land them on halfways decent players. Adding the dmg was a good change, but nerfing them further was not neccessary.
Except from Healing Spring. But yes, ghost druid won’t work.
Maybe being below 50% shroud counts as <50% hp.
Does stuff like panic strike or chill of death proc when getting below 50% shroud (with hp still above the treshhold)? Never really payed attention to things like this when playing necro :/
(I’m actually not certain if you even need armor ? Never did try this, but do you even need armor in pvp or is your armor rating set automatically to the standard exotics level 80 baseline?)
You have to wear a chest piece, pants and boots, otherwise your armor will be lowered.
Last season only top plat + legendary were in the top250 and the threshholds didn’t change. The leaderbord alone proves, that there are a lot less players than last season. I mean, are there even legend players left besides sind and misha? Last season there where about 50 (EU only, idk about NA) and easily 1k or even more in platinum.
And even if casual PvP might be still ok, OP was writing about competitive PvP. And that’s definitely dead.
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When there are 400+ rating differences between players in a match at primetime and top 250 is the whole platinum division, then it surely looks healthy …
There is no TeamQ. You can only queue solo or duo. The issue isn’t so much that its always the same people on both sides, but more that there are often huge rating/skill differences between players within a match, which can be quite frustrating. And i guess that’s true for all tiers, though i can’t say it for sure for the lowest tiers. It is probably less of a problem at average MMR, because that’s where the majority of players sits (and where new players start). I’d give it a try, it doesn’t cost you anything if you already got the game and you will see if you like it or not. Just don’t expect too much when it comes to true competition.
So I’m a WoW vet and me and some friends want to go to try a new mmo with super competitive PvP […]
PvP is pretty dead, no real competition at all. Many PvP’ers including most top tier players left the game. There are no official tournaments anymore, just ranked PvP with terrible matchmaking due to low population. Of course you can still enjoy the game, and i don’t want to discourage you from playing it, but you should be aware that there is no competitive scene left, if that’s what you are looking for.
Edit: You can experience the story from LS 2+3 for free if you group up with somebody who has already unlocked the chapters. You just won’t get any rewards/achievements from doing it this way.
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What condi burst? 10-15 stacks of bleed from Split Blade + Sharpening Stone, that doesn’t only require the enemy to sit right in your face, but is barely ticking for 2k? To “condi burst” your opponent you have to lock him down as Jim Hunter said, unless it is somebody who is afk or who decides to facetank you for no reason. Good luck locking down any halfways decent players with metabuilds. Especially thieves should never die to a condi ranger. Of course you can still kill all those bad players that are plenty in wvw, but those tend to die to almost everything, so that’s not a measurement of a good build.
I was sometimes messing arround with different condis builds, but found them a lot weaker than most power builds. Even compared to my full melee core ranger build that i usually ran and that isn’t optimal either.
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It is also possible to get those ascended trinkets from raids, but other than that there are only the new maps.
What falsehoods are you talking about? Nonesense like “condis stack multiplicative” is coming more from players like you. And if condis are the only way to kill people even when outnumbering them, then it sounds more like passive defense against power is over the top. Who would have thought …
And bunker zergs facetanking each other is surely very “skillfull”. Too bad those skillfull GvG players aren’t able to adjust and take more aoe cleanses instead of stacking passive dmg reduction, because then they would actually have to play a bit more active.
As I see it, the problem is this: To recover from a strike attack, you need to heal. To recover from a condition attack, you need to heal and you need to cleanse conditions. If that doesn’t say “unbalanced”, I don’t know what does. Do rebut this; I’d really like that.
Generally condi dmg is easier to outheal than power dmg. If people take more dmg from condis, it is because they stack defense against direct dmg like crazy, but refuse to take counter to condis. And in this case they should die to condis. Nothing is more boring and skilless than boon spamming facetanking bunkers, that don’t take any damage because of 1337 passive crap.
Not everything that applies condis is a condi build and it is not always condis that kill you, even if you have some on you. If you see only condi builds, maybe take a closer look to what actually kills you. I mean, i got accused of running “op condi cheese” while playing a gs + s/x power ranger.
There are only 2 classes that are better off going condi in pretty much all situations (necro, mesmer) and 2 classes that are debateable (thief, guard). Which leaves 5 out of 9 classes that are usually better with power builds.
Ganking, chasing, escaping potential is as important in WvW as it is in PvP. Maybe even more. Less need to defend small points, so less reasons for pure bunkers …
And you are talking as if there is nothing but full zerk or condi. Yes, full zerk isn’t meta, but guess what, you don’t need full zerk for power builds. Marauder and even tankier power builds are a thing.
And if you consider RS5 + 4 instant, then we have a different definition of what instant means, i guess …
Balance isn’t based on math only. Giving up range, mobility, defensive skills and/or traits is a huge trade-off, that many classes have to make to achieve a somewhat decent condi output, and that’s why many classes are still better going power. And what do boon spam bunker have to do with dire/tb? Most of those builds are power …
And i still want to see all those op condi bursts with instant 10k ticks that people keep talking about, because i never experienced it in WvW.
Venoms don’t become more powerful, just because they get applied by a trap instead of something else. Thief can already run venoms + traps, but nobody does it, because a thief is a free kill without any defensive utilities, unless he sits in stealth permanently. Which he can’t, if he wants to apply those venoms. With or without traps.