Vitality directly counters condition damage as well. So does Healing Power.
And vitality and healing power dont do anything against power builds? Interesting.
Every time i tell someone i know about this game that toughness doesnt affect condi damage they just laugh and ask me if im serious or not.
Of course they work against power builds. I never claimed they didn’t.
Here’s a question: if not conditions, then what is the weakness of high toughness? If Conditions were reduced by Toughness, then wouldn’t Knight’s just be the best gearset in the game for PvP?
sure, cause power builds only kill with aa.. thats why dodge is equal in both dmg parts.
/sarcasm
When was the last time you fought a condition build that only auto-attacked? I’m dead serious here, because I highly doubt you ever have. Likewise, when was the last time you fought a power build that didn’t auto-attack?
No build types only spam 1 in a fight (PvE mobs don’t count). None.
And yes, power builds can kill you with just their auto-attack. Faster, in fact.
The sad part about necros and stability is, that necros can have the highest updown of stability of all professions, but at the same time it is useless, simply for the fact that our stability is on a to short duration with a short cooldown. But what we truly need is a skill with a longer duration of stability and a longer cooldown (and a stun break at the start). An other problem is that it is tied to ds.
This is actually the problem. To get high uptime stability, we have to forgo our defense.
I know it’s tough to let go of condi duration. It took me nearly three months. But take into consideration the variance in statistics each of our builds brings.
Perhaps yours is better for actually killing people, but that isn’t the point for me. The point is to make the other zerg simply suck. Cleanses are countered by frequent reapplication and the conditions I’m inflicting are, for the most part, short enough duration that they will run their full course anyway, even with frequent cleansing.
The build focuses around mass, application of weakness, blindness, chill, and poison with some fear for preventing resses. Not killing people. I’m running with 15+ other people for that purpose.
I edited the build in the OP, switching out the Runes of the Lich for Runes of Ice. This gives 2 second chills on every blind I inflict as well as making Spinal Shivers a nasty 10 second chill (which will probably get cleansed, but will hurt in the meantime). The points in Spite were moved to Curses and Death Magic.
“Siphoning health” is only Vampiric in my build, a necessary evil if you are going for Ritual Mastery. I have no other siphoning ability in the build.
The idea behind the condition duration was actually boosting the chill durations to maximize the pain (since even with +90% duration, they’re likely to run their full course). It can be dropped, but I really like having chill durations.
Anyone have any good zergbreaker/support builds out there? This is the one I’m working on but gear stats are unpicked thus far.
General thought process on the build is that you aren’t going to kill things yourself, you just make it much easier for your side to do so. Focused Rituals is a must, allowing Well of Corruption and Well of Darkness to be placed at range. I like Chilling Darkness for the intense effects on both Well of Darkness and Plague. CPC was taken for both location control and its generally good debuffing ability when dropped into the middle of an enemy zerg, but can (and should be) be swapped to Spectral Wall when chokepoints are involved. Most of the time will be spent in staff unless you feel extra boonstripping is needed. Between Putrid Mark and Spiteful Removal, you shouldn’t be threatened with conditions, leaving you Well of Blood for additional support. This is oddly a case where Antitoxin Spray may be useful as it allows group healing (and cleansing) without risking overwriting a water field.
how is double life and top health pool for survival, does that count for anything? not enough?
1. Death Shroud must be built up. Necros don’t just “get it”
2. Ask the Champ mobs in the game. For most of them, their sole defense is loads and loads of health. How well does that work out for them?
Cleansing Ire Warriors actually surpass necros on the cleansing front. Necros just frequently have ways to take advantage of the conditions you put on them instead of just removing them.
… Which baffles me, as last I played, warriors were one of the weakest vs. condi classes in the game (unless running shouts), potentially by design. Is there anything they’re bad at, now?
That’s sadly true, you’re both the disease and the cure.
Warriors might be a close 2nd is spec’d for it.
Cleansing Ire Warriors actually surpass necros on the cleansing front. Necros just frequently have ways to take advantage of the conditions you put on them instead of just removing them.
Runes of Balthazar and Runes of the Orrian basically trigger the Thief skill, I believe. Otherwise, it’s a mislabel and they meant either Quickness or Swiftness.
It’s one of the reasons they are rarely taken up to the rank 4, though, same with Rune of Svanir and Vampirism going to 6.
It’s unclear, but the only other unblockable projectile I can think of is Dark Path. Dark path likewise bypasses Fedback, Shelter, etc. I think Swirling Winds still stops it, though. Will need to test.
7 .1 second Lupicus kill: example of great planning and coordination -> high skill level
Typical all zerker run: mediocre skill level, but still completes the content with less risk due to everything the boss does essentially being 1-shots regardless of stats.
I am not completely convinced zerker gear needs a nerf, but encounter design does need to change. Fractals has a couple of good examples (like shaman and especially) as to how this can be done. Living story has even more (including those parts that have since joined fractals).
As for the dueling arenas in WvW, you see all sorts of builds. Some professions may be more likely to go Zerker than others (such as thief and warrior), but you still see large variety in dueling specs, even in those professions. The reason? Because you can’t completely negate everything a player does to you (barring broken things like bunker warriors and DS eles vs condition necros, but none of those specs run zerker gear)
Full Zerker teams are actually the safest way to do the harder dungeons (CoE and Arah) because you kill the bosses so fast the mechanics that make them difficult for everyone else never come into play (for example, that 7.7 second Lupicus kill. There was no risk involved there. Yes, I am aware of the coordination and planning needed to pull it off). That is one of the biggest issues right now. Zerker parties finish the fights so fast that they simply aren’t subject to as much risk.
Yes, most PvE content is easy, but when what should be “high-risk/high reward” gear turns into “negligable risk/high reward” gear, there is a definite problem. The problem is, of course, in the enemy design. Bosses are too reliant on infrequent attacks that one-shot or nearly one-shot you regardless of your stats.
This is clearly the case since in WvW and PvP, there is no “zerker meta”. Why? Because players have higher offense than active defense. The risk inherent in the stat set becomes very relevant then.
Condition builds already have lower rewards than power builds do. Lower damage output and longer time to do that damage. Sorry you don’t like how it functions, but it is quite well balanced.
5. Ranged damage is very laughable on Guardian. I can’t believe that’s even being used here. You can easily avoid Septer damage by simply walking in circles. And staff auto is not “high ranged” damage. It’s used to tag for loot or blind zerg play.
Guardian Scepter is fairly high damage. Easily avoidable, yes, but still high damage.
The main reason a condi necro is tough to beat as a condition build (of any profession) is that each time you stack conditions on them, you’re just giving them ammo. The typical condition necro has two condition transfer skills with a possible third, and Consume Conditions makes them happy to be loaded with conditions.
This is completely intended by ANet: necros are supposed to be very difficult to beat with conditions.
Thieves actually have two immobilize-breakers. Guaranteed effectiveness, in fact, as they explicitly remove Cripple, Chill, and Immobilize and no other conditions (well, Roll for Initiative removes Fear due to being a stunbreak). This isn’t including the shadowsteps they have that move them regardless.
Warriors can trait for every movement skill to be an immobilize break, they just frequently don’t bother because of how good Dogged March + Cleansing Ire is.
Why do people get on conditions continuing to tick after the hit like they’re somehow doing more damage than power builds? They aren’t. They are merely doing the damage over a longer period. If you dodge after hitting with a direct damage attack, you aren’t reducing the damage of the hits you already landed. The same is true of condition builds. However, their DPS is decreased just the same: while dodging, they aren’t attacking.
The only difference is that their DPS suffers a much less noticeable drop right this second. It still drops the same as a power build’s does.
As far as skills go, I’d rather see it tied to either signet of locust or signet of undeath. Currently both of those are very lackluster, and could use a buff. Spectral Armor is currently great as is because with spectral wall you can get a good amount of protection overall. I’d rather see stability on a trait though because we would get more overall stability. For instance, they could give 5 seconds of stability on spectral, or signet use.
Using the same parameters in this test which is be a power build and use one skill walk away and kill someone that stands there with 15.5k hp.
This should be able to be done with:
Meteor shower on a glass ele
Summon fire elemental
Summon hounds of Balthazar
Any power ranger
Any Mesmer
Thieves guild
Ambush trap thief might be able to pull this off.
These would recreate the same scenario in a power build and result in a kill of a 15.5k afk person.
Mesmer and rangers can always do this with the Mesmer killing 2 afk people summon duelist on one zerker on the other I believe leash range is 1500?
EDIT: forgot to add any necromancers minion.
Also forgot Blood is Power with maxed bleed duration and condition damage. That one is possible to hit 18k damage with just the one skill, but it takes 1 minute to happen in full (plus, if not removed from the necro, causes him to take 6k damage)
I also think the damage should show in the combat box. So many times after a fight I check out the combat log. Especially to see how I was damaged. Sucks that condition damage doesn’t show up (unless there already is a way to make it show that I don’t know about)
Now this I agree with. Combat Log should show all damage, no matter what it’s from or dealt to (including stealthed folks). That way, people can look through and identify why the fight went the way it did and have better information to improve their play in the future.
Though perhaps each individual condition stack would not be represented, so instead of seeing “bleeding: 45 damage, bleeding: 45 damage” you see “bleeding: 90 damage” This would also give great indication of exactly how fast things are happening
Here’s a question: why can a power build not also apply pressure with auto-attacks? Their autos hit harder, and the time a condition build takes to kill a Knight’s Guardian is the same as a Zerker Guardian (for example), so it’s not like they don’t have the same window of opportunity to fight back.
Oh wait, I forgot people forget how to play the game as soon as one side isn’t putting up huge numbers with each attack.
How do you fight kiting ranged condition build? Same way you fight a kiting, ranged power build.
Rangers are actually much better at stacking conditions high than necros are. In fact, when it comes to getting high stacks of particular conditions, necros are fairly bad at it (unless it’s vulnerability). It takes a good amount of effort and build dedication to reach 20 bleed stacks for a necro. Their strength comes from variety, not raw power.
Encounter design where glass cannon was the high-risk/high-reward playstyle it should be instead of low-risk/high-reward?
I have no issues with highly skilled zerk parties blasting through content without much trouble. I do have issues with mediocre zerk parties blasting through content without much trouble. Right now, the NPC design is such that active defense on players is greater than the offense from the mobs and bosses. It’s a simple change that’s needed.
However, to quote Jim Butcher “Lifting an engine block is simple, it just takes a lot of effort.”
Both Symbol of Swiftness and Temporal Curtain were changed to prevent mass-stacking of Swiftness by repeatedly walking in/out. However TC got the nerf sooner back in the days, and was changed to not stack at all. SoS got it later, and by then they were at a point where they coded it to only stack 1 extra second. Which is kinda what I’d like TC to do, too.
Yet, the change to not allow full stacking was intentional. Or the worst kind of bug ever, because it happened to mirror an intended change.
Sad really, the SoS-system is exactly as I’d want it to be. It’s at least +1 second that way.
This is also the way Spectral Wall works with Protection and Veil works with stealth. It’s to prevent massive stacking.
I don’t actually have a horrible bias against conditions. You have a love for them though, you two, and man that’s just dandy. People like you who spread disinformation and fight just oh so hard to keep your easy builds overpowered. Well you guys are keeping guild wars from being balanced. Enjoy.
What misinformation is being spread by the “condition damage is fine” camp? Seriously, I want specifics here. We’re prepared to back up our claims. Are you?
Condition damage is balanced by not having any multipliers affect it. True, Vulnerability doesn’t increase it, nor do traits, but at the same time, it isn’t reduced by Protection or Weakness.
The way it currently works is fine. Only thing it needs is a way around the stack cap in PvE.
Thematically, traps belong in Wilderness Survival (you know, snaring wild game to get food?). In addition, all of the traps in GW1 were Wilderness Survival-governed.
By a happy accident, Wilderness Survival is also the condition damage line, which helps make the traps better.
Necromancer: Fetid Consumption is 1 condition per 10 seconds from a nearby ally (not minion) per minion.
Engineer: Transmute is 100% chance to convert an incoming condition to a boon on a 15 second cooldown.
Other than those (and somehow missing the infamous bowl of lemongrass and poultry stew and its direct lesser counterparts as well as Runes of the Sunless), you’ve got it all right.
As well. Professions have access to plenty of cleanse to handle that no problem. Just because “most builds” as you put it, do not have access to “half that” is a problem with your builds. It is completely illogical to play the builds you do with no condition removal, then complain that you cannot cleanse them. FYI, 64% of every skill and trait in the game that removes conditions do 3 or more. Last I checked 3 is most of 5 and 64% is most of the skills.
you got me wrong buddy. it doesn’t matter where the numbers are from, as long as they don’t take into consideration basic balance cornerstones like trigger chances, cooldowns, gear slots, and other. they are just wrong. it’s like saying “10% of the population is beautiful”
You asked, I answered. And no, the information he gave is completely accurate and easily proven. 64% of all condition removals remove at least 3 conditions. Period. Cooldowns don’t factor into it, chances don’t factor in, gear doesn’t either. It just is the case. The exact value of those cleanses, now that is up for debate with the other factors. What he stated is not.
Your example, however, is predicated on opinion and cannot be backed up with facts. Your ability to make a compelling argument is shockingly disappointing if that is the best you can do.
As well. Professions have access to plenty of cleanse to handle that no problem. Just because “most builds” as you put it, do not have access to “half that” is a problem with your builds. It is completely illogical to play the builds you do with no condition removal, then complain that you cannot cleanse them. FYI, 64% of every skill and trait in the game that removes conditions do 3 or more. Last I checked 3 is most of 5 and 64% is most of the skills.
Now now, MQM, let’s let the Rangers have their time. Eles are next, and then it’s us necros.
On topic for the Ranger CDI, though, I feel pets would become much better if the F2 command simply caused the pet to immedietly cancel their current action and execute the skill, much like activating a healing skill cancels any skill you were using at that time. The code is already there, so it should be fairly simple to implement.
“Should” being the operative term. I know that sometimes these things get tricky for no apparent reason.
Actually all 8 can do that much in a second if they spec specifically for it, even though some of those specs are completely gimmicks while others are actually viable builds.
I don’t think necro can hit 18k in 1 second, even with 25 stacks of might and 25 stacks of vulnerability. The class was specifically designed to lack burst. It still has some, but I highly doubt it can hit that degree.
Unless you mean 18k total damage, and not to one target. Because against 5 foes, I can totally see 18k total happening easy on a necro.
At least on eles, and necros, he’s completely accurate. There are videos floating around of 22k bursts done in less than 2 seconds from an ele. In Heart of the Mists, no less (so no PvE runes, armor, sigils, food, etc.)
On the other end of the spectrum is necro staff, which has four traits tied to it: one for higher direct damage on skills 2-5, one for faster recharge, one for larger areas + unblockable on 2-5, and one to make skills 2-5 generate life force. These are in 3 different lines and grabbing all four means you have 10 points to spend (only one of these is Adept level, the rest are all Master).
This is extreme, especially as necro staff is ill-suited to be a primary weapon. Some people make it work, kinda, but it really should not have so many traits dedicated to it.
I am all for standardizing weapon traits a little more. They don’t all need to be the same (and realistically shouldn’t be), but a number of them can be merged.
