Guild Wars 2

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

If half a second “might as well be instant”, then Warriors have been throwing around instant 3 second stuns since launch.

For the point-covering fire fields that you can’t just stand in (so Ring of Fire and Purging Flames are out, since they only do a lot if you pass through them repeatedly, excluding initial cast), there are only four in the game. Flame Trap and Fire Bomb are both very short lived, at 3 and 4 seconds respectively. Neither last long enough for a decap.

Of the two that remain, we have Bonfire (8 second duration on 25 second cooldown) and Combustive Shot (but, as you said, Warrior Longbow isn’t viable ) with up to a 9 second duration on 8 second cooldown. Bonfire doesn’t let you cap a point on its own. Heck, that’s barely enough time for the decap. After that’s expired, you have 17 seconds to fight him before it can come back up.

You’re right they were, then they nerfed mace to half a second from 1/4 but I don’t even care about it’s speed because mace is a kitten weapon besides that, pretty hard to make a no stun breaker build but condition removal needs to be specifically put in, if you let a mace Warrior hump your face in the first place, has no mobility unless they swap or Bullsrush but then they aren’t comboing into a swap. Short lived but low cooldown 12/8 with 3 second durations. Bonfire can be used twice in one weapon swap with Quick Draw trait, how is 8 seconds not long enough for a decap? But again you still didn’t list a single other possible to dodge burning skill, because they don’t exist, only ones are Dragon’s Tooth and basic attack on the useless scepter.

Okay, want me to list the easily dodgable ones? Because I can do that. I’ll even leave out the fields you don’t want to stand in, regardless of their ease of dodging (hint: most are)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Torch
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon's_Tooth
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Drake's_Breath
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flamestrike (overall, not worth it, since it’s an auto-attack, but definitely avoidable)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flamewall
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Prestige (this one is easy to dodge, but requires counting the time)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zealot's_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blowtorch
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Turret
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Purging_Flames
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flame_Jet (again, an auto-attack, but easily dodgable, especially as the burning is only on the last tick)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Throw_Napalm
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rocket_Kick
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Napalm (depends on range, as it’s a fairly slow-moving projectile)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fire_Breath

I’ll leave out racial skills and situational ones like boon corruption or random chance. Funny thing, I just listed the majority of skills that burn.

And yes, a half-second cast is quite dodgable.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

glaphen.5230:

D I V A.6018:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

i main necro, burn gaurds are my favorite snack.

If I run burn guard, the only think I really fear are necros. Even 2v1 I really try to avoid the coordinated ones, since they can kill me with 1 transfer in a critical moment.

I can not understand why people flame (pun intended) so much about burn builds.
Get good or equip condi remove.

Isn’t enough, how about you get good and use weapon swap conditions, only way 1 transfers gonna work is if they get lucky with Generosity or they are a Necromancer, though if you have Purging Flames you should not die to the first transfer anyways.

Funny thing: Purging Flames does nothing to help against transfers. The duration is set when the condition is first applied, and, short of cleanses, nothing can change that duration once it’s been set. Transfers use all of the characteristics of the original application, including altering damage ticks if the initial applicator gains or loses stacks of Might/Sigil of Corruption.

Uhh Purging Flames removes conditions too. Only transfers are Necromancers and one Mesmer skill, next is luck based Generosity sigil for 1 condition.

If he hasn’t used his big-hitting burn skill yet, the transfer probably wasn’t needed. Sure, the Sigil may proc before then, but intentionally cleansing before he pops Purging Flames is…kinda asking to be punished.

Small amounts of damage aren’t worth cleansing.

As for 3k ticks? Yeah, those aren’t coming instantly. That’s requiring 7 stacks of burning from a Burn Guardian in PvP, and the most a Guardian can get without a cast time is 4 (via VoJ proc/active, both are 1 stack, and Judges Intervention). Which means the other 3 stacks have a cast time associated with them that you can avoid. Anyone else…3 stacks or fewer instant at maximum, which also hurt less than a Guardian’s.

You know I actually decided to go test how they do the combo and it’s super easy to get 7 stacks instantly. Use Zealot’s and start the cast for Fire, use Judge’s about half way through the fast cast and swap weapons, 7 stacks of burning for the 1 justice proc and 3 from point blank torch and 3 from Judge’s with 1 poison and 3 bleed stacks. Can kill the Target golems with just that.

So, not instant at all, in other words. Fast, sure, but against a player, they can just cleanse and now you’re down a stunbreak/gap closer, weapon swap is on cooldown (so no Scepter/Torch), and, since you’re a burn guardian, you’re lacking the lockdown to properly land a Whirling Wrath or prevent Purging Flames from being dodged. Or you have no stunbreak left, which can also be heavily exploited.

iKeostuKen.2738:

StickerHappy.8052:

Lets just remove all CCs and replace them with Floating board signs saying “Equality for All”

Joking aside, I am really suspicious about this post, Why? You should be more complaining about stun than daze am I right? Since Stun shuts you down for real (can’t move can’t do anything)

Well when stunned, you can use stun breaks.

When dazed, everything goes on CD even if you werent interrupted.

Except for instant-cast skills and stun breaks…which remove Daze.

If half a second “might as well be instant”, then Warriors have been throwing around instant 3 second stuns since launch.

For the point-covering fire fields that you can’t just stand in (so Ring of Fire and Purging Flames are out, since they only do a lot if you pass through them repeatedly, excluding initial cast), there are only four in the game. Flame Trap and Fire Bomb are both very short lived, at 3 and 4 seconds respectively. Neither last long enough for a decap.

Of the two that remain, we have Bonfire (8 second duration on 25 second cooldown) and Combustive Shot (but, as you said, Warrior Longbow isn’t viable ) with up to a 9 second duration on 8 second cooldown. Bonfire doesn’t let you cap a point on its own. Heck, that’s barely enough time for the decap. After that’s expired, you have 17 seconds to fight him before it can come back up.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

glaphen.5230:

D I V A.6018:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

i main necro, burn gaurds are my favorite snack.

If I run burn guard, the only think I really fear are necros. Even 2v1 I really try to avoid the coordinated ones, since they can kill me with 1 transfer in a critical moment.

I can not understand why people flame (pun intended) so much about burn builds.
Get good or equip condi remove.

Isn’t enough, how about you get good and use weapon swap conditions, only way 1 transfers gonna work is if they get lucky with Generosity or they are a Necromancer, though if you have Purging Flames you should not die to the first transfer anyways.

Funny thing: Purging Flames does nothing to help against transfers. The duration is set when the condition is first applied, and, short of cleanses, nothing can change that duration once it’s been set. Transfers use all of the characteristics of the original application, including altering damage ticks if the initial applicator gains or loses stacks of Might/Sigil of Corruption.

Uhh Purging Flames removes conditions too. Only transfers are Necromancers and one Mesmer skill, next is luck based Generosity sigil for 1 condition.

If he hasn’t used his big-hitting burn skill yet, the transfer probably wasn’t needed. Sure, the Sigil may proc before then, but intentionally cleansing before he pops Purging Flames is…kinda asking to be punished.

Small amounts of damage aren’t worth cleansing.

As for 3k ticks? Yeah, those aren’t coming instantly. That’s requiring 7 stacks of burning from a Burn Guardian in PvP, and the most a Guardian can get without a cast time is 4 (via VoJ proc/active, both are 1 stack, and Judges Intervention). Which means the other 3 stacks have a cast time associated with them that you can avoid. Anyone else…3 stacks or fewer instant at maximum, which also hurt less than a Guardian’s.

I had a thought a while back that Blood is Power loses the Might and gets changed to increase Power and Condition Damage by 10% for a time.

Gabriell.4856:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

.

“Condition damage is applied via hits, so yes, Retaliation affects condition builds the exact same way as Power builds. Retaliation only procs once on a Maul, it only procs once on a Feast of Corruption.

Yeah, ok. Care to explain necro’s CPC, Ele’s auras, warrior’s, warhorn, etc?

Since when did warhorn (of any variety) deal condition damage?

For auras, there is one, and only one, that applies condition damage, and that’s Fire aura. It would be stupid for Retaliation damage to apply to someone because they are being hit. The damage from this is low anyway and can be avoided entirely by just not attacking while it’s up.

Corrosive Poison Cloud is a bit of an outlier, sure, but since when was anyone worried about its damage? Only time its damage is even halfway scary is when a Reaper uses Soul Spiral in it, and 12 of those Poison stacks are from Soul Spiral anyway.

Retribution had a Grandmaster changed to make the Jallis elite also apply to condition damage and auto-proc at a health threshold. The wiki hasn’t been updated with this info yet.

“Instant” burning is 2-3 stacks. Everything else has a cast time associated with it. And 2-3 stacks of Burning is easy to survive.

Oh no, you might have to leave the point for a couple seconds when facing a trap Ranger or bomb kit engie (or longbow warrior, but those aren’t viable, right?). Better to let them get the decap and kill them than to have them kill you and get the point anyway. This is almost always the case.

glaphen.5230:

D I V A.6018:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

i main necro, burn gaurds are my favorite snack.

If I run burn guard, the only think I really fear are necros. Even 2v1 I really try to avoid the coordinated ones, since they can kill me with 1 transfer in a critical moment.

I can not understand why people flame (pun intended) so much about burn builds.
Get good or equip condi remove.

Isn’t enough, how about you get good and use weapon swap conditions, only way 1 transfers gonna work is if they get lucky with Generosity or they are a Necromancer, though if you have Purging Flames you should not die to the first transfer anyways.

Funny thing: Purging Flames does nothing to help against transfers. The duration is set when the condition is first applied, and, short of cleanses, nothing can change that duration once it’s been set. Transfers use all of the characteristics of the original application, including altering damage ticks if the initial applicator gains or loses stacks of Might/Sigil of Corruption.

glaphen.5230:

Druids trait is kitten and Revenants only do that if they are a condition build themselves, they are the same as Necromancers. Invulnerability does not remove already applied conditions so a Guardian going invulnerable for 3 seconds while taking 3k burn ticks takes 9k and possibly dies, if he did it to protect against a Hundred Blades he took nothing. Zerker lasts double the duration but there is a trait to automatically proc Endure Pain too.

Revenants do it from Jallis and the Retribution line. Hardly a “condition build” thing. (note: wiki has not been updated with these changes from the last BWE)

Necros get that reduction for any kind of build. Necros in general apply a bunch of conditions, whether those are its damage source or not. It’s actually much more likely on Power builds because Death Magic has very little to offer Condition builds.

If the Guardian used Renewed Focus to prevent taking the hits that applied burning, he’d be cool. You’re basically saying that, because the Guardian went invulnerable after being hit with a Hundred Blades, he should be fine, because he went invulnerable. That is the exact thing you are suggesting should be the case by saying it should stop damage from conditions that were already applied.

So, a trait (requiring a situation you don’t want to be in) plus a utility skill to equal the single utility skill. And the condition defense is somehow weaker?

striker.3704:

nekretaal.6485:

I prefer that spinal shivers be a useful chill generator and boon ripper. I don’t care for the damage. Reapers touch has damage.

Anet shoul keep the boon rips and chill, & lose the bonus damage and lower the cast time to .25

If “they are being conservative with the skill because it hits like axe skills,” then nuke the skill entirely. It has no business being in the game if they are going to treat the skill like that.

Honestly instead of losing the damage, I’d love to see the skill corrupt 3 boons instead of simply removing them, make the cast time like 1 second or .75 seconds.

However, removing 3 boons+chilling on a .25 second cast time would simply be too strong, as the lost damage is negligible. This is why the trait chill of death gets so much hate.

In fact, buffing spinal shivers in any way is gonna be an issue with chill of death as that would inadvertently buff chill of death as well (unless they forget to update it like they did spiteful spirit). Chill of death isn’t a trait that really needs any buffs.

They can reduce the cast time of Spinal Shivers and Chill of Death would be completely unaffected.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Corrupter’s Fervor, sorry. Both traits never get used (though for Corrupter’s Fervor, it’s more to do with the overall weak state of Death Magic Master tier making it undesirable) and have similar names.

Endure Pain is also Warrior only. So what? Immunity skills of all types are not evenly distributed. Necros and thieves have none, for example Purging Flames both deals damage and helps you survive. There are a ton of skills that pull double-duty like that. Stone Heart is also effective against condition builds, as they usually have a number of on-crit procs.

The skills and traits that defend exlusively against condition damage without cleansing are pretty even with those that only deal with direct damage.

Pretty sure nothing has condition immunity skills besides Warrior unless you boon convert chill for a whole 2 seconds worth and Elementalist above 90% health. However there is a ton of physical damage reduction traits and skill, 20% reduction is the best you got from that trait and Scrappers.

There are only 2 direct damage immunity skills in the game (plus Defiant Stance, which works on everything), so that’s hardly a useful argument. Damage reduction traits and skills balance out damage amplification traits and skills. Which, I might add, are two things that are exceedingly rare when dealing with conditions in either positive or negative manners.

Gabriell.4856:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Gabriell.4856:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

That’s my point, those big condition hits? Not instant In fact, large stacks cannot come from instant effects. And if it’s not a big stack? You’re looking at a few hundred DPS from it. If you’re dying to less than 1k DPS, you’re a terrible PvP’er. Is the total amount high? It can be, but the actual DPS isn’t much. This is why people are more concerned with avoiding Maul over Locust Swarm, even though Locust Swarm actually does more total damage (not counting multipliers like Moment of Clarity or Opening Strike).

There are literally three things in the game that work on direct damage, but not conditions: Toughness, Protection, Weakness. Likewise, there are two things that apply to conditions, but not Power damage: cleansing and Resistance. Everything else can protect you equally well from both.

Clearly, you don’t want to listen. This isn’t a case of you just not knowing, it is being blatantly explained to you and you are still ignoring it.

Enjoy being stuck in low leagues.

So endure pain, stone heart, signet of stone, and similar abilities can equally protect me against conditions? And retal? Awesome. Totally going to use those vs condi build now.

Retaliation doesn’t protect you from anything, it just punishes those hitting you. Which, by the way, yes, that applies just as well to condition builds as Power.

You’re right, I did forget specific skills like Berserker Stance and Purging Flames or traits like Unholy Fervor and Diamond Skin.

Oh wait, looks like it’s balancing out again.

Last time I checked, only direct damage proc retal not condition damage so no to your first two sentence.

Condition damage is applied via hits, so yes, Retaliation affects condition builds the exact same way as Power builds. Retaliation only procs once on a Maul, it only procs once on a Feast of Corruption.

“There are literally three things in the game that work on direct damage, but not conditions: Toughness, Protection, Weakness. Likewise, there are two things that apply to conditions, but not Power damage: cleansing and Resistance. Everything else can protect you equally well from both.”

“You’re right, I did forget specific skills like Berserker Stance and Purging Flames or traits like Unholy Fervor and Diamond Skin.”

So don’t make blind statement like that when you know it’s not true.

Mistakes happen. For general purposes, what I said the first time is completely true. Outside of specific skills or traits, Toughness, Weakness, and Protection are the only things that affect direct damage, but not conditions. Likewise, cleanses and Resistance only affect conditions and not direct damage.

When you factor in specific skills and traits, things are still even. Every damage reduction (not immunity) trait is countered out by damage amplification traits (which don’t apply to conditions). Want to do immunities? Warrior has Defy Pain and Berserker Stance. The one protecting from conditions actually has double the uptime. Elementalist has a trait to make them immune to most condition builds (as the physical DPS is rarely enough to make it past their constant healing), but no similar protection from direct damage. Likewise, Ranger has Signet of Stone to protect against physical damage and nothing from conditions. Necros, and soon Revenants, Druids, and Scrappers, all have traits (or skills, on Revenant Jallis) that reduce condition damage, which help even out traits that boost the damage of particular conditions.

Invulnerabilities protect you from everything a player can do. They do not help against hits you have already taken.

On the defense and prevention front, everything evens out.

Corrupter’s Fervor, sorry. Both traits never get used (though for Corrupter’s Fervor, it’s more to do with the overall weak state of Death Magic Master tier making it undesirable) and have similar names.

Endure Pain is also Warrior only and half the duration on the same cooldown and, likewise, only affects hits you take after you activate it. So what? Immunity skills of all types are not evenly distributed. Necros and thieves have none, for example.

Purging Flames both deals damage and helps you survive. There are a ton of skills that pull double-duty like that.

Stone Heart is also effective against condition builds, as they usually have a number of on-crit procs. Not always, but usually.

The skills and traits that defend exlusively against condition damage without cleansing are pretty even with those that only deal with direct damage. If anything, they’re stronger.

Try moving out of range when you’re immobilized/knocked down? Sure, that’s always worked wonderfully. 8k Whirling Wrath is easy to land if you want to.

That said, if you’re bringing downed health into it (which death logs usually do), then it is immensely misleading, since when you’re downed, you have no active defense, nor cleanse.

That said, death logs, especially with conditions, are terribly unhelpful for figuring out what really killed you. If you take hits doing the following:
6k direct, 1k burn
4k direct, 1.5k burn
4.5k direct, 900 burn
3k direct, 1k burn
6.5k direct
5k direct, 1k burn
2k direct, 1.3k burn
7k direct, 500 burn

Burning will be shown at the top of the list with 7.2k damage. So that was the deadly part, right? Well, no, since the 36k direct damage was definitely a much larger contributor. But since no individual skill on the direct damage beat out the total of burning, burning is shown as the highest damage.

Gabriell.4856:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

That’s my point, those big condition hits? Not instant In fact, large stacks cannot come from instant effects. And if it’s not a big stack? You’re looking at a few hundred DPS from it. If you’re dying to less than 1k DPS, you’re a terrible PvP’er. Is the total amount high? It can be, but the actual DPS isn’t much. This is why people are more concerned with avoiding Maul over Locust Swarm, even though Locust Swarm actually does more total damage (not counting multipliers like Moment of Clarity or Opening Strike).

There are literally three things in the game that work on direct damage, but not conditions: Toughness, Protection, Weakness. Likewise, there are two things that apply to conditions, but not Power damage: cleansing and Resistance. Everything else can protect you equally well from both.

Clearly, you don’t want to listen. This isn’t a case of you just not knowing, it is being blatantly explained to you and you are still ignoring it.

Enjoy being stuck in low leagues.

So endure pain, stone heart, signet of stone, and similar abilities can equally protect me against conditions? And retal? Awesome. Totally going to use those vs condi build now.

Retaliation doesn’t protect you from anything, it just punishes those hitting you. Which, by the way, yes, that applies just as well to condition builds as Power.

You’re right, I did forget specific skills like Berserker Stance and Purging Flames or traits like Unholy Fervor and Diamond Skin.

Oh wait, looks like it’s balancing out again.

That’s my point, those big condition hits? Not instant In fact, large stacks cannot come from instant effects. And if it’s not a big stack? You’re looking at a few hundred DPS from it. If you’re dying to less than 1k DPS, you’re a terrible PvP’er. Is the total amount high? It can be, but the actual DPS isn’t much. This is why people are more concerned with avoiding Maul over Locust Swarm, even though Locust Swarm actually does more total damage (not counting multipliers like Moment of Clarity or Opening Strike).

There are literally three things in the game that work on direct damage, but not conditions: Toughness, Protection, Weakness. Likewise, there are two things that apply to conditions, but not Power damage: cleansing and Resistance. Everything else can protect you equally well from both.

Clearly, you don’t want to listen. This isn’t a case of you just not knowing, it is being blatantly explained to you and you are still ignoring it.

Enjoy being stuck in low leagues.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

WuGzaGenius.5684:

i main necro, burn gaurds are my favorite snack.

I love finding a necro with not much life force, then putting 12 stacks of burn followed by my 3 second invuln and watch them squirm as they burn.

Frequently, they just eat that. Literally.

striker.3704:

robertul.3679:

People keep saying projectile finisher this, blast finisher that but it’s extremely irrelevant since necro doesn’t have proper fields to benefit from it.

No, dark field life steal is not good enough. Neither is 3 seconds of weakness.

Necromancer has quite a lot of access to fields. In fact, every single utility category provides a type of field (except for minions if you don’t have death nova). Even then, GS has a dark field built into it, and reaper will give a lot of access to a chill field with RS 5.

Signets have a field? Shouts have a field?

Lots of ways for it to work. Wall of Reflection is rather wide. Cast it, say, 300 units in front of you and you’ve negated him, since the angle he has to go on is so wide compared to the angle you can move on.

Condition builds, especially burn guardians, are as easy if not easier to counter as Power builds. It just takes a bit of knowledge regarding the big hits. Knowledge that many players lack because they don’t make the association between “hand wave” and “pain.” Instead, they associate “hand wave” with “laughable damage” and “massive condition stacks” with “pain”, although the “massive condition stacks” came from a number of “hand waves.”

Everyone complains about the massive condition stacks without actually thinking about where they came from. Hint: it was from all those hits you took.

And yes, glaphen, you are 100% guilty of this exact train of thought. Big condition hits have their tells. You not only have ways to deal with them before they hit, but you also have cleansing to help you with after. Contrary to popular belief, cleansing is not the primary defense against conditions. Dodges/blocks/blinds are.

Can conditions hit hard if they run their full course? Sure, but this is necessary to kill things with them. That time works against them, though, giving more opportunities for them to be cleansed and more opportunity for their assault to be healed through. You can’t usually heal to survive a Power burst. You can heal to survive a condition burst. And the same thing happens with bursters of both types: they’re out of cooldowns and need to find a way to survive until they’re up again. Condition builds are actually averaging a bit higher on the burst cooldowns than Power builds, FYI. Guardians are a bit of an exception since they basically use the same skills for both build types.

And finally: you will take damage. No matter your defense and cleansing, you will take some damage. You can survive this if you’re smart. Not blowing your cleanses when you see the first two burn ticks is a great place to start.

smiley.4739:

Thanks to everyone talking about how OP burn builds are, I decided to try one. It is definitely fun.

A few thoughts:

1. It is way easier to apply condis than it is for someone to remove them.
2. It is insanely easy to play
3. Does higher burst than someone who is specced in zerker or maurader.
4. Being able to run rabid or carrion is really nice since I get either vit or toughness. Cele is good as well.

For those of you who haven’t tried, definitely do it. Burn guard, burn engi, burn ranger, or cele ele. All are good. It might be tough in the top end play, but for the other 98% of you, it will work well and is by far the easiest way to play PvP.

1. Duh? Any offense needs to be greater than its associated defenses or else the fight goes nowhere.
2. Against baddies, sure. You get wrecked by someone packing Sigil of Generosity. Yeah, a piece of equipment counters your build.
3. Not true, just easier to land because people don’t know what to dodge. Zerker burst is definitely way higher.
4. That is nice, yes, but also a requirement. Condition builds need more time to kill, so it helps if you can actually delay dying.

Umm, Wall of Reflection has a 900 cast range. You don’t need to be anywhere close to it.

glaphen.5230:

dancingmonkey.4902:

Alekt.5803:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Grenades can be reflected before impact just fine.

Tell that to my Magnetic Aura, because it does not reflect it.

That is your fault.

Grenades, as well as mortar are a slow arcing angle. Simply because you have an active reflect doesn’t mean anything. If your not putting your reflect into the path of the grenades before the impact the terrain, that is your fault. Do not expect thing to be so passive in this case, because that will not work for you. You are required to move in a manner that reflects the grenades/mortar before they impact the ground near your feet. If you expect your reflect to just bounce them back with poor positioning, may I remind you that they only have to be close, like the old saying goes.

This is one of the most kittened post I’ve seen, let’s just have him move his Magnetic Aura to the ground in front of him. If walls even reflect grenades any good then the only one that works is Mesmers Feedback, others would be mainly useless since you can throw them in front of it and still hit the other side, would only be good if you are running or happen to have a ranged DPS ally far behind it. Let’s just ignore that they ignore the majority of reflect and are nearly useless on all but one.

If he moved further into the path of the grenades, that is, closer to the engineer, the grenades would bounce back.

Wall of Reflection is also incredibly easy to use to reflect grenades. So are Experimental Turrets. Better believe that the Bulwark Gyro toolbelt will be as well.

Other reflects can work, but you need to move closer and into the path of the grenades. Whirling Axe is the easiest of the personal reflects to use due to it’s larger radius, but any can work.

Blast finishers are probably more for Unholy Feast. Definitely not Spinal Shivers.

Chill of Death is strong, while Spinal Shivers is bad. The only real difference is cast time. It also means that they do have something they can tune to improve Spinal Shivers without buffing Chill of Death.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Erasmus.1624:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

9k hits aren’t “strong?” But 10k burning over 12 seconds is terribly overpowered.

Logic at its finest, people.

Players can see and dodge Gravedigger. There is no effective way to consistently mitigate the passive triggers, instant ranged skills and autoattack spam which dominates condition play aside from stock up one’s bar and traits on hard counters and then hoping that they buy the player enough time to +forward while pressing buttons until the condition guy dies.

There is nothing skillful about either side of that exchange and it is perpetuated by condition damage being overtuned and improperly implemented on a fundamental level.

10k burning damage would be from a skill (like Purging Flames), not a proc. Totally dodgable.

And you’re right, when you let the condition builds do whatever they want to you, there is no skill on either side. When you treat them exactly as you would Power builds, with heavy-hitting skills you need to avoid, accepting that you will take at least some damage (autos), and keeping your eyes peeled for those heavy-hitters, skill emerges on both sides, with a ton of play and counter-play.

Just because you don’t know what to avoid doesn’t mean something is overpowered. It means you don’t know how to counter it yet.

If a condition build can beat you only from auto-attacking, then you’re bad. Full stop.

Uhh I already listed a ton of burning skills.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Eleandra.4859:

The point made by the anti-condi people in this thread is that condi builds can have similar dps as power builds and also that the condi cleanses of most classes (eles are a different kind of beast) are on much higher cooldown than condi applications.

This is rather deceptive, as those damage numbers are assuming no cleansing. Those 8k burn stacks don’t come from a single skill, they had to build up to that point. If you failed to avoid the equivalent attacks from a Soldier’s build, you would also be in dire straits.

Condition builds can kill you, yes. So can Soldier’s builds, with similar efficiency. So why don’t they?

Long and short of it? Because regarding conditions, people don’t bother to learn which attacks to negate. They don’t see a big number up front on these hits under any circumstances, so they never make the association of “this skill=pain.” This subtlety makes them seem vastly stronger than they actually are, as players don’t realize how bad of a situation they are in until they are taking, well, 8k DPS from a single condition. They then blame it on conditions being ridiculous and overpowered when they simply ate hit after hit and it took this long for the full impact of those decisions to be realized.

When you’re dying to massive condition damage per second, you already made your mistakes. What’s going on at this moment isn’t going to help you improve as a player, which makes it much more insidious. Your mistakes were several seconds ago.

Uhh it’s like 5.8k every 10 seconds just from any attack critting on Engineer trait. Purging Flames does 10k just from it being cast on you and every single time someone enters it, If he activates justice with 4 allies around you take like 20k damage if each hit once. Ranger has 2 different fields that do 10k each if you sit in them and each are as big as a point and extremely low cooldowns. Activating Incendiary Ammo and hitting with any 3 hits does 12k damage and you can reset the cooldown if you take Kinetic Battery, off hand pistol .5 second cast does 10k every 15 seconds too, 8k from Fire Bomb every 8 seconds if you sit in it’s field, cast Napalm on a downed guy and you got 14k to him and the people trying to revive. 5k per torch throw on Guardian twice every 10 seconds and 3.5k each just from being around him before each throw.

Also that’s another thing, if you are poisoned and revived, with my 11k health I only revive with like 2.9k, conditions stay on while downed so if you have enough and you can’t even dodge while downed, you will literally get downed again instantly.

Not even one of them has above .75 second cast time or any obvious animations. Tell what physical skill does 5k+ damage without an obvious animation besides Backstab and doesn’t involve elites.

Lava Font, Fire Grab, Path of Scars, Shield of Wrath, and Overcharged Shot all come to mind, and only Lava Font is arguably an obvious animation. Arcane Wave and Arcane Blast can also hit 5k with appropriate damage mods and Might, and those have no telegraph whatsoever.

Erasmus.1624:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

9k hits aren’t “strong?” But 10k burning over 12 seconds is terribly overpowered.

Logic at its finest, people.

Players can see and dodge Gravedigger. There is no effective way to consistently mitigate the passive triggers, instant ranged skills and autoattack spam which dominates condition play aside from stock up one’s bar and traits on hard counters and then hoping that they buy the player enough time to +forward while pressing buttons until the condition guy dies.

There is nothing skillful about either side of that exchange and it is perpetuated by condition damage being overtuned and improperly implemented on a fundamental level.

10k burning damage would be from a skill (like Purging Flames), not a proc. Totally dodgable.

And you’re right, when you let the condition builds do whatever they want to you, there is no skill on either side. When you treat them exactly as you would Power builds, with heavy-hitting skills you need to avoid, accepting that you will take at least some damage (autos), and keeping your eyes peeled for those heavy-hitters, skill emerges on both sides, with a ton of play and counter-play.

Just because you don’t know what to avoid doesn’t mean something is overpowered. It means you don’t know how to counter it yet.

If a condition build can beat you only from auto-attacking, then you’re bad. Full stop.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

9k hits aren’t “strong?” But 10k burning over 12 seconds is terribly overpowered.

Logic at its finest, people.

6k from standing next to the Necromancer for 15 seconds who gave up 35 damage and healing for his team every hit compared to 6k from being critical hit by any attack every 10 seconds. This is also with Zerker and Air runes, my Engineer comparison is using Rabid with Balth. 1.25 second cast time skill can’t be considered strong to me besides the downed destruction that condition fields can do too.

Why can a 1.25 second cast skill not be considered strong?

Something you’re probably forgetting is that Necro has very easy access to 100% crit chance. Try redoing the same test with Death Perception equipped, use Locust Swarm, and pop into Death Shroud immedietly afterward. You’ll see your 8-9k.

9k hits aren’t “strong?” But 10k burning over 12 seconds is terribly overpowered.

Logic at its finest, people.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Because condition builds require one vital and valuable resource that power builds really don’t: time. Condition builds have to buy time to kill you.

Purging Flames can do 10k if it’s not avoided (which is totally possible). But it does that over a long period of time, meaning it’s easier to out-heal and/or retaliate.

Here’s an easy to explain example from the Power side: which is more dangerous, traited Locust Swarm, or Gravedigger? Gravedigger, right? Why is that? Both skills have the same Power coefficient, and so do the same amount of damage. Meanwhile, Locust Swarm is harder to avoid (a single dodge/block/blind will not cut it), buffs the Necro with Swiftness and Life Force, and debuffs you via Cripple.

So why is Gravedigger considered the more dangerous skill?

Uhh I’m pretty sure Gravedigger does 150% more damage than 10 ticks of that and it’s cooldown resets itself while healing you.

I did say traited Locust Swarm, which is 15 ticks. Gravedigger doesn’t heal you, either. Cooldown reset is only if you’re hit below 50%, but I can garuntee you try to avoid it above that threshold as well.

Because condition builds require one vital and valuable resource that power builds really don’t: time. Condition builds have to buy time to kill you.

Purging Flames can do 10k if it’s not avoided (which is totally possible). But it does that over a long period of time, meaning it’s easier to out-heal and/or retaliate.

Here’s an easy to explain example from the Power side: which is more dangerous, traited Locust Swarm, or Gravedigger? Gravedigger, right? Why is that? Both skills have the same Power coefficient, and so do the same amount of damage. Meanwhile, Locust Swarm is harder to avoid (a single dodge/block/blind will not cut it), buffs the Necro with Swiftness and Life Force, and debuffs you via Cripple.

So why is Gravedigger considered the more dangerous skill?

Eleandra.4859:

The point made by the anti-condi people in this thread is that condi builds can have similar dps as power builds and also that the condi cleanses of most classes (eles are a different kind of beast) are on much higher cooldown than condi applications.

This is rather deceptive, as those damage numbers are assuming no cleansing. Those 8k burn stacks don’t come from a single skill, they had to build up to that point. If you failed to avoid the equivalent attacks from a Soldier’s build, you would also be in dire straits.

Condition builds can kill you, yes. So can Soldier’s builds, with similar efficiency. So why don’t they?

Long and short of it? Because regarding conditions, people don’t bother to learn which attacks to negate. They don’t see a big number up front on these hits under any circumstances, so they never make the association of “this skill=pain.” This subtlety makes them seem vastly stronger than they actually are, as players don’t realize how bad of a situation they are in until they are taking, well, 8k DPS from a single condition. They then blame it on conditions being ridiculous and overpowered when they simply ate hit after hit and it took this long for the full impact of those decisions to be realized.

When you’re dying to massive condition damage per second, you already made your mistakes. What’s going on at this moment isn’t going to help you improve as a player, which makes it much more insidious. Your mistakes were several seconds ago.

By the same token, that 10% damage is going to happen no matter what. Incendiary Powder doesn’t apply to every hit, while that boost does. Grenades will usually only inflict 2 conditions (one base, one sharpshooter, shrapnel grenade only does one), and that’s assuming they crit. It’s a 61.4% chance that the Shrapnel trait never kicks in for a particular grenade attack. Incendiary Powder can only apply to one attack every 10 seconds, so if you cleanse the burn, they’ve got no more for that period in grenades.

What honestly makes you think that you should be able to cleanse all of the conditions applied by condition builds? Yes, you will have conditions on you when fighting someone that uses them as their primary offense. Why wouldn’t this be the case? It would be broken otherwise.

Yeah, Necros by far have the most unblockable attacks.

Shrapnel adds an average of 365 damage/explosion in a condi engineer build. Sharpshooter adds an average of 116 per crit.
Incindary Powder is the strongest at 523.7 DPS, assuming you crit to proc immedietly on each cooldown. In practice, it’s lower.

However, none of this at all is out of line compared to damage amplification traits. A single 10% damage boost can easily match Incendiary Powder in a Power build (even in Soldier’s gear) for DPS increase.

Shatter effects also come from the mesmer himself, so to maximize impact, he has to be in melee range as well.

All of those traits proccing at once? Let’s say Sigil of Intelligence is used to guarantee the crit to remove that bit of RNG. You are still looking at a .24% chance of that happening. Not 24% chance, .24%. That can happen less than a quarter of one percent of the time.

EDIT: Actually, I calculated that based on two grenades when 3 is now baseline. So, even assuming a guaranteed crit, it is .012% chance of happening. Just over one in ten thousand. Talk about fringe cases.

glaphen.5230:

Just spent like 20 minutes fighting the Mesmer NPC for it to use it’s heal skill and it didn’t before I realized Thief had dagger storm, grenades ignore reflect. All scepter and staff skills are ranged with no projectile on Necromancer, all grenades are on Engineer, Guardian Purging Flames and Judge’s, Mesmer Confusing Images and Illusionary Counter aren’t and staff Chaos storm and all shatters. Then add in the fact that all of them can trigger conditions on any hit with traits.

Grenades can be reflected before impact just fine. Necros, I specifically called out as being the sole “ranged no-projectile” condi build.

Judge’s Intervention puts the Guardian into melee range, so yes, I count it as melee (Dark Path on Necro actually does the same). Yes, Purging Flames is ranged, but you can easily avoid most of the burning by simply not walking over the edge.

Shatters are totally melee attacks, just not for the Mesmer himself (though to maximize their impact, they are). Chaos Storm is hardly worth considering as a condition attack, since most of the time it doesn’t apply a damaging condition anyway.

And yes, they can apply conditions via certain traits. Those traits are rather low-impact on damaging conditions, though, with the sole exceptions of Weakening Shroud and Radiant Fire. Radiant Fire is a lot less scary if it procs after they swap off of torch.

I get it, you want to face condition builds with impuntiy. That will never happen. It should never happen. Any build, if you go into a fight against it poorly prepared for what it can do, should have a strong chance of bending you over and doing as they please. You can’t have the advantage in every fight. No condition build does.

Death Shroud 2 on Necro is a projectile, yes, but since it’s unblockable, it’s not stopped by anti-projectile skills. Deatlhy Swarm is also a projectile, but isn’t used for offense, since it does no condition damage and scales very, very poorly with Power.

Condition Guardian is primarily melee after Zealot’s Fire (a projectile) has been fired off.

Greanades are projectiles and as such are negated by most anto-projectile skills and mechanics in the game, even if they are aimed near the target instead of on.

Mesmer’s condition output is either through autos and Scepter block (projectiles, Scepter block), shatters (melee) or Confusing Images (long channel, easy to dodge). Chaos Storm gives some pressure, too, but is not a good source of damage due to random nature and low stacks (plus several non-damaging condis).

Condition Warriors all use the same weapons: Sword/Sword (melee) and Longbow (projectiles). They don’t get any condition pressure through utility skills, so they have to run this weapon set.

Trap Rangers bring traps (melee range), Axe 2 (melee range and projectile), torch/dagger (melee or projectile).

So please, tell me more about how nothing works to prevent condition damage because it’s all ranged with no projectiles.

meow one twenty.4376:

Rising Dusk.2408:

ANet doesn’t have the tech to do the suggestion in the OP at this point, though it is cool.

Honestly if they just had it pulse damage akin to WoS/WoC in addition to the blind it would be awesome and see use. Doesn’t take much to bring this skill to usable from where it’s at now.

I thought about that…
If (big if) they make it an enemy field and created a new field type (void field) with new finishers (void finishers) with a top field priority it would work. The only thing that would be odd about it is that it would have a red ring around it.

And it would be a hostile skill with a white ring around it if you were fighting the Necro.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

glaphen.5230:

I don’t even count either of those as big condition skills, I mean Grasping Dead is pretty much the same as a weapon swap but with a 5 second cripple, basic attack chain is more deadly. Now compare to staff and tell me the difference between the marks, oh the tiny circle art after it’s placed if it isn’t on top of of someone.

You do realize that Necro Staff does pathetic damage, both in Power and Condition builds, right? In a condition build, the only one that does any decent damage is Mark of Blood for…2k damage on a 4.75 second cooldown. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s pathetic.

No, on Necro, Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood are definitely heavy-hitting skills. Now, though, you add on Feast of Corruption as a heavy hitter, dealing up to 4.6k on a 10 second cooldown.

So are you supporting my conditions are OP argument or what, Feast of Corruption is literally the same animation as the basic scepter attack without the splotch at the back that appears when it’s already too late to tell the difference. Enfeebling Blood is a strong skill and yet you can do it every 10 seconds without an animation when you go Death Shroud, which is the obvious to take trait over the scepter one.

There are still particular skills to avoid, and they’re easy to do so with. Weakening Shroud, like Enfeebling Blood, has a delay before it hits. If you’re in melee with a Necro, you should figure out pretty quick if he has the trait, in which case you dodge/block/blind when you see him enter shroud. Or just don’t melee him and you’re fine.

I will admit that some Necro animations are harder reads than others, but Feast of Corruption is still distinct all the way through the cast. The scepter has black-green energy surrounding the head during FoC, but not the autos.

This is true with every condition build: there are a few heavy hitters to look out for. Learn them and use the same active defenses against them that you do Power builds and you may actually not even need a cleanse to beat them (I don’t advocate running without a cleanse, though; Immobilize kills).

On my Charr Necro I only see it while it’s behind it’s head, there is a green aura for a brief moment around the body but you can probably hide that on an Asura with green dye. Also they can just use Doom on you at the very start of it once every other cast if they really want to hit it, and that is one precious dodge that you only regen once per 10 seconds, 15 with the perma weakness of a Necromancer.

So you don’t have blocks or blinds? They also just blew their only defense to land a 4.5k hit (assuming no cleanse). Punish them for it.

And blaming Asura for skill unbalance is stupid. Everyone knows that the race is unbalanced in PvP scenarios because the animations are much harder to read.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

And the vast majority of those also apply to conditions. Funny thing…

To be clear, the only ones that don’t are Toughness, Weakness, and Protection. Everything else works.

There is only one condition build in the game that is primarily ranged, non-projectile attacks: Necro ( who, ironically, doesn’t see Weakness or Protection as being as significant hindrances as other professions do in Power builds). Every single other condi build is primarily either melee or uses projectiles to deliver a significant portion of their damage.

Uhh what condition build use projectiles?

Shortbow/axe/Torch Ranger (plus any ranged pets, which all do condition damage), Pistol Thief, Pistol/grenades Engineer, Staff/Scepter Mesmer, Longbow Warrior (as well as Impale on sword offhand), Torch Guardian, all variations of ele.

So yeah, literally every condition build in the game aside from Necro is either melee range or projectile reliant for very significant portions of their damage. Or both. Even Revenants don’t change this much, since their only condition weapon is melee.

slurry.2716:

Came to say I have not died from a direct attack for an entire week. I have been looking at cause of death everytime. It is always a condition.
Overwhelmingly burning like not even a competition

That is because conditions are all tracked as one entity, regardless of source. If you took a 6k hit that applied a 1k burn, a 3k hit that applied a 3k burn, a 7k hit with 1k burn, 5k with 300 burn, and a 4.5k hit with 2k burn, what did you take the most damage from? Your death recap shows burning at the top, at 7.3k, but the direct damage totaled 19.5k.

Sublimatio.6981:

i like the idea but there aren’t many bosses in pve that block attacks – most notably grawl shaman

There aren’t yet, anyway. Harder content should have more foes that use active defenses.

It’s plural because it benefits more than one skill.

Suffer and Plague Signet have the same base cooldown, Bhawb.

glaphen.5230:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

glaphen.5230:

I don’t even count either of those as big condition skills, I mean Grasping Dead is pretty much the same as a weapon swap but with a 5 second cripple, basic attack chain is more deadly. Now compare to staff and tell me the difference between the marks, oh the tiny circle art after it’s placed if it isn’t on top of of someone.

You do realize that Necro Staff does pathetic damage, both in Power and Condition builds, right? In a condition build, the only one that does any decent damage is Mark of Blood for…2k damage on a 4.75 second cooldown. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s pathetic.

No, on Necro, Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood are definitely heavy-hitting skills. Now, though, you add on Feast of Corruption as a heavy hitter, dealing up to 4.6k on a 10 second cooldown.

So are you supporting my conditions are OP argument or what, Feast of Corruption is literally the same animation as the basic scepter attack without the splotch at the back that appears when it’s already too late to tell the difference. Enfeebling Blood is a strong skill and yet you can do it every 10 seconds without an animation when you go Death Shroud, which is the obvious to take trait over the scepter one.

There are still particular skills to avoid, and they’re easy to do so with. Weakening Shroud, like Enfeebling Blood, has a delay before it hits. If you’re in melee with a Necro, you should figure out pretty quick if he has the trait, in which case you dodge/block/blind when you see him enter shroud. Or just don’t melee him and you’re fine.

I will admit that some Necro animations are harder reads than others, but Feast of Corruption is still distinct all the way through the cast. The scepter has black-green energy surrounding the head during FoC, but not the autos.

This is true with every condition build: there are a few heavy hitters to look out for. Learn them and use the same active defenses against them that you do Power builds and you may actually not even need a cleanse to beat them (I don’t advocate running without a cleanse, though; Immobilize kills).

And the vast majority of those also apply to conditions. Funny thing…

To be clear, the only ones that don’t are Toughness, Weakness, and Protection. Everything else works.

There is only one condition build in the game that is primarily ranged, non-projectile attacks: Necro ( who, ironically, doesn’t see Weakness or Protection as being as significant hindrances as other professions do in Power builds). Every single other condi build is primarily either melee or uses projectiles to deliver a significant portion of their damage.

glaphen.5230:

I don’t even count either of those as big condition skills, I mean Grasping Dead is pretty much the same as a weapon swap but with a 5 second cripple, basic attack chain is more deadly. Now compare to staff and tell me the difference between the marks, oh the tiny circle art after it’s placed if it isn’t on top of of someone.

You do realize that Necro Staff does pathetic damage, both in Power and Condition builds, right? In a condition build, the only one that does any decent damage is Mark of Blood for…2k damage on a 4.75 second cooldown. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s pathetic.

No, on Necro, Grasping Dead and Enfeebling Blood are definitely heavy-hitting skills. Now, though, you add on Feast of Corruption as a heavy hitter, dealing up to 4.6k on a 10 second cooldown.

1. No idea.

2. Only if the hit that triggered the sigil was already unblockable will it hit. Otherwise, the Aegis prevents the hit, and thus crit.

3. It does not activate if there is no boon to remove. The cooldown can’t be wasted, though it’s impact on a fight can, and will, vary.

Truefrost.6815:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Not that this means anything, but I’m amused you singled Eles and Thieves out in particular as classes that you’re sure groups will be taking, as this thread is active over on the PvE boards:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Thief-Ele-have-no-place-in-raids/first

In general though, I don’t subscribe to putting each individual mechanic under a microscope and throwing a class away because another class might handle that situation better. It’s like saying a Swiss army knife is useless because you could buy a better individual version of each component.

My point was that necro is on bottom end of dps, thief and ele are a considerably better choice. So even If they can’t get the best in slot classes, they’ll get the closest thing to it.

Ele, at least, actually falls pretty significantly behind in DPS against moving targets. If the Vale Guardian is any indication, Raid boss fights will keep moving around, meaning ele’s high damage isn’t going to actually land.

I can understand being upset about not being able to run Path of Corruption + Terror anymore, but that’s about it.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Weakness, chill, blind, fear, all things the bosses are completely immune to in raids. These offer no benefit in raids and should not be considered control in the raiding environment.

I think you’re mistaking “raiding” for “Vale Guardian”. Who knows how these conditions might be useful as encounter design evolves?

That’s not “Vale Guardian” that’s “defiance bar.” Which you can be guaranteed will show up on every boss in a raid.

Those things will be totally worthless except on trash mobs. At least in the Vale Guardian fight, the trash mobs are ignorable anyway if you move every so often.

Ehecatl.9172:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Just let it be 1200 Power, 900 Precision and Healing Power. Nothing more is needed.

Without the vitality druids won’t survive the initial burst long enough to even use that healing power. 15K base HP and no toughness means you will be dead before you can react.

Somewhat true, but you have to remember that they will have defensive traits and skills that can help them survive. For example, the Protective Ward trait may be rather popular on Druids, as other traits in the Nature Magic line can come in handy. Plus, since you will almost assuredly be running Wilderness Survival anyway, the Bark Skin minor trait does a lot to help you avoid an opening burst.

The main reason to do 1200 Power, 900 Precision, 900 Healing Power, though? Because that’s what Zealot’s gear is. If it was a 4 stat set, they would need to add a different name.