Guild Wars 2

I think this thread is a bit misunderstood. I asked if I might have missed weaknesses. Only a few had really addressed that issue. However, I could also say that having no stealth is a disadvantage of the necromancer, or having no hammer is a disadvantage of Mesmer. You get, where I am going? Many of the disadvantages listed but show the warrior philosophy here, of wanting to have everything.

I agree that the animations are easy to see for many hard hitting attacks. However, the frequency in which the hard hitting attacks are executed, are pressuring many players insanely. Also other professions have also easy to spot tells for certain attacks. Like condi necro going into death shroud and getting fear on you. Low health Mesmer wanting to escape with mass invisibility. Elementalist’s attunement telling what kind of attacks you can expect. And who didn’t hear elementalists complain about ride the lightning being always in long cool down? Thief using basilisk venom before porting to you or engineer switching to a certain tool kit. These are all things that tell you what’s about to come. And guardians for example have similar obvious animations. I mean a warrior switching to hammer also tells me, that I can expect a Earthshaker, however, if that didn’t hit, he has another 4 (soft to hard CC) attacks on that set and one of them will hit me sooner or later. If that happened, another chain of skills will hit me too, it is almost unavoidable at this point. The tell animations are there, but are not different to other builds, just the signs, telling me what comes next, are different, but not unique trait to warrior skills.

I ask you to list disadvantages of warriors, who are not in the spirit of “I don’t have stealth, so that’s a disadvantage”. But are really troubling and could be seen as a trade off in role diversity or weak spots. I mean, the disadvantages of all other professions are things you can build for. You can change you build, if you have issues against a certain profession, to help you deal with it. However, that is not possible against warriors, except focusing on evades/blocks, stun breakers and/or high mobility. This is but all focused on defense. Against an engineer I know I can pressure him with well timed stuns and/or conditions. Elementalists and Guardians are weaker to necromancers who corrupt and rip boons. But what is the warrior weak to?

@Bogy.2953:
So now I have to play every profession to discuss my impressions? I have specifically stated the possibility that I had overseen issues. Instead of pointing me there, you make empty statements.

Prophet.1038:

it would last 5s not 10. But it doesn’t work like the energy sigil now, you are able to strip it. A huge difference.

Why? 5 seconds Vigor give you 25% additional endurance. 5% is base rate, vigor adds 100% regeneration bonus, so giving you each second another 5%. 5 seconds would add up to 25% only. A reduction in the over all endurance bonus would only be acceptable, if necromancer gets buffed somehow, for this profession would be hit the most by it.

And still it doesn’t solve the boon duration bonus, that we would have to live with. Question is, is that bonus (not all professions rip boons) acceptable. And how would a S/D Thief be happy to be able to steal all the vigor you granted yourself. It would allow this profession to have huge vigor bonus.

Now imagine a Necromancer fights a S/D Thief and the necromancer uses energy sigil in the changed form, meaning it grants vigor. That Thief would just steal the vigor, leaving the necromancer without endurance, while the thief dodges all over the place.

This suggestion with vigor is not thought through guys.

While I was researching warrior and creating my own warrior builds, I had a sudden idea to make healing signet more of a signet, that should be managed, causing a situational trade off: either attack and “use” adrenaline, or leave it and gain more healing.

Right now the signet gives a base healing each second and the active heal is laughable on a 20 seconds cool down. So I was thinking of tying the healing to adrenaline in the form of the trait adrenal health:

Healing Signet

• Adrenaline level 1 passive healing: 140
• Adrenaline level 2 passive healing: 270
• Adrenaline level 3 passive healing: 405
• active healing Adrenaline level 0: 6,000
• active healing Adrenaline level 1: 5,000
• active healing Adrenaline level 2: 4,000
• active healing Adrenaline level 3: 3,000

This would allow for adaption to different situations and include a trade off. When you burst your skill out and get rid of your adrenaline, you receive less passive healing. However, in case of fighting a condition build, you could actually with the trait Cleansing Ire burst it out and heal 3 conditions and then you use the active healing to get HP back, but then you lose the passive healing for a while completely. Don’t take the numbers too seriously, they maybe need changing. But what do you think of the principal, making healing sigil a passive skill, that needs to be managed a bit?

@Carighan.6758:
The sigil as it stands is not only a huge help for necromancers to avoid damage, but also stuns. That can’t be easily calculated. Nerfing the “dodgeability” of high evading countries must happen in their respective abilities and traits rather than in this sigil, that is almost mandatory for necromancers in a competitive PvP setting. Or the necromancers should get a compensation, if that sigil really gets nerfed.

Straegen.2938:

As has been said before, no build should excel in damage AND bunker.

And I know no build (except for some warrior builds, who come close to this description) that can achieve that.

Prophet.1038:

TyPin.9860:

I still have only energy signet on my necro, but I need it. Being a slow moving target this additional energy helps very much.

Right now the sigil gives the same bonus to every profession. If the sigil would grant vigor instead of instant endurance it would certainly benefit the builds with boon duration bonuses hugely. Every Boon guardian and ele would use it and won’t die ever again, unless you constantly corrupt/rip it…

EDIT:
Also PU Mesmers, who have 30% boon duration bonus through trait line, would become even stronger defensively and offensively. You really want that, when the world is crying about PU already?

it wouldn’t and shouldn’t grant perma vigor. It should give a 2s-3s vigor. If classes who use boon duration for example the PU mez with 30% (3+0.9)=3.9s of vigor. STILL not a bar of dodge. Vigor increases endurance regeneration increased by 100% so from 10s-5s.

Not only would it promote better play but it would also effect the bunker meta people have been using for over 2 years in spvp.

3s Vigor would equal 15% Endurance. I wouldn’t use that rune any more if it would only grant that joking amount of endurance. If vigor would give endurance equal to the energy sigil right now, then it should last 10 Seconds, if I am correct. That results in 13 seconds for PU Mesmer for instance and results in 15 additional endurance, adding up to 65.

Energy Sigil as it stands is crucial for Necromancers. It is already hard to withstand the onslaught of one warrior right now. In group fights, were Necromancers are focused usually, it is becomes exponentially harder. Nerfing the energy sigil would result in nerfing the Necromancer mainly.

I know how perma evades can be annoying, but the suggested changes would hit one profession hugely. Such an implementation would only be okay, if the Necromancer gets an equal defensive bonus.

I still have only energy signet on my necro, but I need it. Being a slow moving target this additional energy helps very much.

Right now the sigil gives the same bonus to every profession. If the sigil would grant vigor instead of instant endurance it would certainly benefit the builds with boon duration bonuses hugely. Every Boon guardian and ele would use it and won’t die ever again, unless you constantly corrupt/rip it…

EDIT:
Also PU Mesmers, who have 30% boon duration bonus through trait line, would become even stronger defensively and offensively. You really want that, when the world is crying about PU already?

Nothing needs to be removed. Maybe we need to look at certain builds, adept certain numbers. But the cry for redesigning the whole balance on such a level is just not realistic…

Silent Shino.7239:

As we all know, conditions in wvw are out of control and horrendously difficult to counter.

Nope, they are fairly simple to counter, really

I main a guardian, guardians have the best condition removal in the game, if I can’t counter them with a full anti condition build; something is seriously wrong.

Or you are simply not good enough. Not meant as an insult. For your defense: When I run my condition necro, I usually have no issues against guardians. Having many cleanses doesn’t equal a good condition cleansing.

You cannot dodge most conditions and there’s only so many times you can dodge in a certain space of time.

You can not dodge all of the physical damage and hard CCs either.

I main a guardian, the class which has the best anti-conditions in the game. There is no counter for conditions apart from horribly expensive food + runes.

Simply wrong. I also would argue that Warriors have better condition cleanses than guardians. At least for themselves.

Yes, I’ve been forced to use a PU mesmer in certain scenarios and it’s just about impossible to be killed as one.

Funny, I main Mesmer and I was never forced to run PU. And I have killed plenty PU Mesmers myself, with condition damage and physical damage and hybrid damage.

Now to your suggestions. You want to remove so many conditions, that several professions would be broken. This can go either way for them. Also the reduction of bleeding to 5 stacks is ridiculous as well as the confusion suggestion. Your posts seems like you want an easy win mode.

KcB.6890:

This is the worst idea anyone has ever had. Congratulations.

And you are the spirit of that forum… lol…

@Bugabuga.9721
The idea would be that even if it is cleansed from 5 players at once, it would still spread in the moment of the cleanse to allies around you. It would be only possible to completely get rid of it, if no1 is around you.

If 5 ppl get it cleansed and one is not effected by the cleanse but still in melee range of all 5 players, then yes, he would get 5 stacks. It forces the zerg to split up and a melee range spread is indeed very close, so don’t even need to run miles away.

From my point of view this condition is a very clear working condition. If it is technical possible I can not say. But I think it would allow for Condition professions to be more viable in bigger fights. And bring a new dynamic to WvW.

@SFShinigami.2015
Hehe, I thought about that. But in GW1 you also had defensive skills for disease. It was completely integrated in the game. Although I also I would like to something like that in GW2^^ And yes, I was also imagining that pug

Azrael.4960
Well, how much is it compared to calculate bleeding stacks on your zerg these days? Such calculations are already happening, but the conditions get cleansed right away in most of the cases. Those kind of technical limitations shouldn’t be an argument imho.

I was thinking about making conditions a bit more viable in large scale fights and I came up with the following:

Disease
any profession can choose a grandmaster trait in the respective condition damage trait line, that replaces poison with disease.
It has the following properties

• duration equal to the replaced poison
• damage equal to bleeding
• reduces healing by 4% (maybe even lower?)
• stacks in intensity
• spreads every [insert sensible number here] seconds to allies in melee range (only on stack each time)
• spreads to allies in melee range when it ends (only one stack)
• spreads to allies in melee range when it is cleansed (only one stack)

What I hope it would do
It is a condition, that becomes more and more dangerous, the longer it is around (the principle of condition damage). In the beginning, it is easy to deal with. The damage and healing reduction is fairly low. However, if the group doesn’t do something about it, it will soon stack up to 25, dealing considerable damage and reducing healing by 100%. The players effected should also have a specific green glowing or something, so you know from who you should stay away.

Cleansing on the other hand might reduce it’s effects, but it will spread the condition around. Also condition duration reduction, while saving one player from it shortly, will cause it to spread. A group can only get rid of it, when they scatter around and thus preventing the condition from spreading further.

I think the principal can bring a whole new dynamic to WvW while not being overpowered. Maybe the numbers need tweaking and the way to gain access to the condition should be different. However, while disease wouldn’t be really helpful in small scale combat, it could largely effect how big groups fight.

What do you guys think?

EDIT:
It would suddenly make Thief with shortbow viable, because they could quickly spread disease around. Uh… the thought makes me tickle

If the condition damage from a power build would be the issue, than not the conditions are too strong, but simply the scaling of condition damage with… well… condition damage (or malice, as it once was called).

@Straegen.2938
So when you say there would be a condi meta, than you actually mean, that you personally play mostly condi and the competitive players you meet mostly play condi. Funny thing is that your personal experience, that you presented as all around general knowledge (you said it would be the meta), is contradicting my personal experience.

On this forum there are as many people saying condies are OP as people are saying condies aren’t OP. Additionally game forums have the tendency to be “populated” by players who are not contend with the game or certain game issues. That creates a bias towards complaining to things and is not a proper representation.

But you ignored the actually most important point, that would be important for this forum. We can not offer statistical data (although many players speak like they’d have access to such) so we need to deduct from our experience and argue our issues. General statements are of no help, if you don’t point out the actual issues. Like you say that so many runes offer passive condition application, without being specific. I have partially argued 2 of those rune sets (Nightmare and Balthazar) to be fine. Although I hoped for a discussion about those examples or even of examples of your own, you simply move on and say, I would only focus on a small part. You even didn’t argue why this additional “passive” damage is so strong or wrong in the game. And how or if this applies to all the different rune sets. You simply stated that this passive additional damage wouldn’t be acceptable to you.

If you’d say that certain condition setups are very strong in a 1v1 setup, then I would agree, although we still didn’t talk about the reasons for that. Please be concrete and specify your issues and stop putting out platitudes.

@Rudy.6184:
I addressed your issues partially in the part above. You were in previous post not very precise. You complained about one player with a condi setup being fought by many and concluded from that condition specs would be OP. That is as anecdotal or episodic as it can be and is not very much helpful talking about the meta game play or the game balance.

Now you were talking about the +40% food buff. I had talked with babazhook.6805 about that issue here, however it was not really concluded.

Judging from my gut I would actually agree with you about the food buff. I’d also prefer that the general condition duration bonus should be reduced to maybe 15% and that specific condition food buffs could be available for specific conditions. Here we could even differentiate between CC condition and damage conditions:

• Very specific: Like +40% burning duration on one food, but only +25% Chill duration on another. Question is, how counter food would look like here.
• Less specific: Like +40% damaging condition duration on one food, but only +25% CC condition duration on another. That would make counter food easier to design: duration reduction specific to the 2 different condi types accordingly.

Those numbers are pulled right out of the air of course just to illustrate the general idea. But splitting the duration buff up would not strengthen all conditions. A condition player would have to decide if they want to go for more CC or more damage. And you would still have the chance to buff all of your conditions, but less effective of course than the specific buffs.

Again: Episodic evidence is not very helpful.

Of course there are certain builds, which are hard to beat. That doesn’t mean conditions as a whole are broken. And I can counter your episodic evidence easily with evidence of the same level of my own: I have no trouble against condition specs on my Power Mesmer.

ShakeyStorm.7180:

1. On weapon hit, avatar blurs before going back into stealth.
2. On weapon hit, damage appears where avatar in stealth was hit.
3. Hit points reset timer will not start while in stealth.

No trolling please. Just serious comments.

First, it is not even established that stealth needs balancing.

But I will address your suggestions anyway.

1. I understand your idea behind that. However, we should discuss if that doesn’t leave the cloaked one too vulnerable. If something like that would be implemented, than I would see the need for a trait, that circumvents this effect, maybe on the master or grandmaster level, at least for thieves. However, that could seriously hurt build diversity.
2. Why? This is the same as the 1st effect. Or do you need to see how much damage you dealt?
3. Well, as long as the cloaked player is still in combat with you, it won’t anyway. Why shouldn’t it restart when you both are not in combat any more?

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

It depends. It all depends.
I always roam, and if I see two people fighting it out and the enemy isn’t a PU mesmer I’ll leave the fight alone. If it’s a PU mes or the ally yells for help, you can be kitten ed sure I’m jumping in.

Now, if I’m with someone else roaming all of those restrictions come off unless it’s blatantly obvious that it’s a duel – at that point we’ll probably all stop and watch.

How do you see if it’s a PU mesmer. I have been many times “accused” to use PU, when I am rarely ever using that trait.

And the next question would be: What is so different about PU mesmers?

I find this duel mentality weird actually. I like to have a good duel myself, no question. But I am in WvW to fight the war. To intercept dollies, solo towers (on not so busy hours), to upgrade towers, to stop enemy supply routes and reinforce my own.

WvW is not the place to duel imho. If I let a duel go on and my ally looses, that enemy will be free to kill my dollies, capture my camps, if I did not watch the duel play out. You might say killing him is not that big of a difference, because he simply can come back. But that is your difference. He has to come back, giving me time (how often is it only one dolly missing in the tower for the upgrade to finish) and I can anticipate his movements and maybe intercept him again.

I love to play this kind of small scale skirmish wars with other roamers for dollies, camps and towers. So I will engage the enemy, because it is WvW, it is war. Leaving the enemy to duel my ally can be a grief strategic error.

@Straegen.2938:
You contradict yourself. On one hand you say, that you can not provide or have access to sufficient statistical data and can only speak from your experience. On the other hand you claim that a certain build or damage type dominates the meta. What is it?

Of course I focus on certain builds, because I can only speak of what I have experience with. Theoretically so many builds should/could work, but sometimes in practice they don’t. If we don’t have enough date, we can only argue case by case. One rune set might be overpowered, the other might not be.

Either you provide sufficient data or you argue your position. Claiming “facts” out of the air is not a proper bases for a discussion.

@Straegen.2938:
As long as you can not offer a statistical or experimental analysis, claims Condition Mesmers would surpass Power Mesmers are of no great value. I do not claim to speak for the wide player base or offer any data that is representative to the game mechanic or all including concerning the player base. However, my Power Mesmer build is very effective and my success rate, though only presenting itself as episodic evidence, speaks clearly in favor of a power build to a condition build. I win, estimated, 70% of my 1v1 WvW roaming engagements, defeating or being defeated by power, bunker and condition builds all the same. The sacrifices in Toughness and Vitality are easily made up by my build’s ability to quickly escape from damage spikes, to cleanse conditions effectively and by the sheer constant damage output:

Si Lly’s Roaming Build

It might not be the most elegant build, but it is fairly adapted to my play style and allows me to deal with condition damage builds as well as power builds.

Your further complaints regarding rune effects are rather unsubstantial. While some of those runes are greatly build defining, they are not not dominating the damage output. I have recently experimented with Nightmare Runes and a Necromancer Fear Build. It resulted in a build, that destroyed the unprepared player. However, they would have been destroyed by any condition build judging from their performance. In contrary the prepared player (running condition duration reduction food, equipment and traits and/or knowing how to behave and avoid and even on purpose trigger passive effects on their account), the frequent fear application was rather a nuisance than a real danger to them.

I can in the end only speak from my experience. I had some issues for example with perplexity Engineers. Nevertheless, I realized that they can be defeated and have their own weaknesses themselves. I have not seen so far any conclusive proof, neither in the game, nor in theoretical discussions here in the forum, that Condition Damage is indeed overpowered.

If they fight on the edge of the map, far far away from any objective, I’d assume it’s a duel and let the duel it out. However, I am not on the far edges of the map myself. Other than that, if I see an enemy, no matter if upleveled or seemingly in a fair fight with an ally of mine, I attack. I attack in “easy mode”, giving them a chance to run. However, often that encourages them to fight back (who doesn’t wanna win a 1v2?) leaving them dead seconds later.

If my supposed “ally” starts to insult me, I will make fun of him. Because that attitude is just simply idiotic. Have your duels in the far edges of the world and don’t turn objectives into your personal duel spots.

In most cases, where an enemy Thief tries to shadow refuge resurrect his downed ally, I manage to down the Thief as well, or push him away, or pull him away or fear him out, depending on what profession I use myself.

I get your frustration with the issue, because it has happened to me too. Especially when Thieves team up and do that on each other, if necessary. However it can be beaten and works as intended. I do not see the need for it to change.

@Jedge.3619
Your build seems impressive on the first glance (thieve is still a bad example, for their initiative mechanic makes them work different to all other professions, but we’ll go with it for now). However, I have fought such thieves. They follow a standard rotation and are not that big of a threat, if you know, what you’re dealing with. It requires practices, that is shure, but they can be dealt with. I have more trouble against a Hammer Warrior, all defense and all condition cleanse but still dishing out huge amounts of damage than against this kind of thieve to be honest.

For starters, how about dodging sneak attack. Dodging, when he starts unloading, will allow you to avoid most of it’s damage. And I play Mesmer. They have it easier against Mesmers (for some time), because they simply stealth of my Illusions. And the Confusion + Poison from steal is on a 27s cool down. If you can’t deal with that, than you need to practice more.

Also your point with applying conditions and walking away does not make any sense. Why is 1k damage, that takes 5s to fully work it’s magic and can be cleansed, more dangerous than the 1k damage that can be applied instantly? In both cases, I can walk away after the initial attack.

@Hvaran.6327
I feel you. Perplexity Engineers are hard to deal with. But with some practice, you will see that their mechanics are as predictable as many other builds. They are hurting, because they apply many different kinds of conditions, like constant burn and often confusion. Keep your distance. Once you’re close, they can bomb you into the ground.

I had trouble against them myself for a long time. But I learned to deal with them. And especially when they meet my Necromancer, they will get all their conditions back and their cleanses are often weak or non existent.

@Straegen.2938
You are pulling statements right out of the air. As a power Mesmer I can tell you, that my ranged power build is more than sufficient in skirmishes. Lately 80% of the players I meet in a 1v1 situation either taste the ground or run from me. Including condition builds.

The claim most of the condition damage works passively is simply not true. Some conditions are applied passively, granted, the major load of damage though must still be applied actively.

I think you are thinking of things like Balthazar runes, who could apply around 6 seconds of burning on heal, if you build for it. However, those 6 seconds of burning would deal around 4k dmg in a time of 6 seconds. And that burning only stacks in duration, meaning you’ll never get a damage burst done with burning alone. I wouldn’t call that massive. It also is short range and predictable. The majority of damage would still have to come from your active attacks.

It is funny how some people assume, that it was already established condition builds would be overpowered. I have yet to see the evidence for that. I read condition spam all the time, however, what about direct damage spam? People want condition users to think about, when to apply conditions. However, the good condition users do that, and that is what’s destroying you. Blow your cleanses on the easy mode conditions and of course you will then be spammed with the real deal.

I rarely run a condition build when roaming. But when I do, I run as necromancer and I see, that people simply don’t know how to react to conditions. Blowing cleanses either way way too early or wait just till the last moment, when I just chain fear them, because I have loaded up enough conditions.

And it was then in the Edge of the Mists, the last place where I’d expect that, that I found a Mesmer, who knew how to deal with a condition build. He stayed away, avoided to get close and be hit with all the close range AoE condition applies. Letting me reach him only with staff and therefore keep condition application low. Only once did I manage to get close to him and load him up. What he then simply cleansed. It ended in a stalemate, because my zerg arrived. But that one knew, how it is done.

It is in many cases a learn to play issue. And some players (not even the majority, just some, who seem to scream the loudest) refuse to educate themselves on how to deal with such kind of builds.

I used http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/ for the calculations. I believed they use the cap. I count only 125%. However, changing it back to 100% condi duration, I get lower numbers on bleed there. So that cap is not incorporated in the editor apparently. I will adept the table table accordingly. Thx for the hint.

EDIT:
Fixed the issue, Except for the burning from engineer, no condition should exceed 100% condition duration, excluding lingering curses. The 13% additional burning duration over 100% should not matter that much. The point is still illustrated

I have taken the time to calculate on 2 examples, how different stats – namely condition duration and precision – in addition to condition damage effect the resulting damage. Keep in mind, that it does not involve full builds, nor does it calculate the average damage output of that particular build, but rather only focuses on a single attack mechanism.

The builds used follow a basic philosophy. Based on the examined attack mechanism they try to cause as many conditions as possible and then focus on a certain aspect like the combined effect of condition damage and precision.

I wanted to do this, to show that precision and condition duration in addition to condition damage effect the strength of a condition build. In turn the player has to give up some toughness or HP. The results are quite different for the examined professions.

To keep things simple, both builds use the same food. Please let me know, if you want some other comparisons, if you think there is a mistake or if you have suggestions on improving those.

Here is the link to the PDF: Click Me! (Edited Version, fixed 100% condition duration cap issue)

I’ll leave it to you guys to interpret the results. I had my own conclusions from that, but you can draw your own.

EDIT: All builds use ascended gear btw

Bertrand.3057:

TyPin.9860:

I am quite shocked, that even after I took the time, calculated and broke down for you guys on an example the benefit of all 3 stats – condition dmg, condition duration and precision – you still are claiming false statements.

The main message I took away from your spreadsheet is that if you want to double your condition damage you just need to swap in some optimal runes and traits (for necros it’s more than double, you ignored food despite the fact that the Lingering Curses trait can actually push condition duration over 100%), and you still get to keep vitality and toughness as secondary stats on your gear.

But, regarding my table and ignoring the precision factor, swapping out those runes and traits causes you to go from 3k defense to 2.5k defense (it was all exotic gear). That would allow you to almost double the damage, that is correct. However, that boost only applies to scepter and, as far as my knowledge goes, necromancers have the most condition duration boost traits. If I find the time, I will create a more structured table, with different professions, to illustrate the effects of all 3 offensive stats for condition builds.

I am quite shocked, that even after I took the time, calculated and broke down for you guys on an example the benefit of all 3 stats – condition dmg, condition duration and precision – you still are claiming false statements. As I have pointed out: the benefit of precision may seem weak compared with condition duration, the combined bonus of all 3 stats however gives a 10% bigger dmg increase than condition duration alone. In that form, the precision increase is actually weakest for necromancers (condition dmg and the ‘bleed on crit’ trait are in the same trait line), it becomes insanely stronger for engineer (Burn on crit + bleed on crit) or Mesmer, who hugely gain additional condition damage with precision and cause a huge amount of bleed stacks with weapons, that don’t cause bleeds on themselves.

Looking at those mechanics and the number break down, it would be impossible to ignore that to maximize condition damage 3 stats are needed already. Anything further would be just simply unfair.

I can’t hear the word ‘condi bunker’ any more, suggesting that condition builds need lesser amount of stats in order to dish out huge damage numbers, while maintaining bunker defenses. That is simply not the case (as explained above). Any condition damage build, I am aware of, that has huge damage output, has around 2.5k -2.6k defense (what can not be called bunker) and may even lack some important defensive mechanisms like stun breakers, or even condition cleanses. The 3k defense and 25k HP builds are weak in damage output and have to fight the real attrition, often not being able to out dps some build’s cleanses and heals.

Gully.7358:

The reason condi is rewarding right now is because you just need 1 offensive stat to do almost the same type of damage to a power style build that requires 3 stats to work.

Your statement is false.
I have added a JPG-file to show my point. I have calculated with the help of this online build editor the average damage of one scepter auto attack chain of the necromancer with different condition damage setups. Those are not complete builds but rather basics of possible builds. I chose the necromancer profession for I am most familiar with it.

In the line with Sum you can see the average damage of one attack chain under the different setups. The columns with the Pizza food buff are greyed out, because they exceed 100% condition duration bonus. But that bonus has a limit of 100%. So those columns aren’t accurate.

However, in the last lines, I compared the different damage numbers (the stat advantages). And the result is that condition duration and precision leads to a significant damage bonus. The bonus from precision alone seems rather weak compared to the bonus from condition duration. That is due to the inherent design of the necromancer, where even with low precision some bleeds on critical hit will still trigger. For engineer for example, it would be way more important, for they rely often in the trait, that offers burning on critical hits. Nonetheless, in necromancer the combination of condition duration and precision has an additional 10% dmg bonus than condition duration alone, showing how important and well all 3 stats – condition damage, precision and condition duration – work together. Going for all those three means giving up on vitality and toughness. For instance, build 1 and 2 have almost 3k defense, while builds 4 and 5 have only around 2.5k.

Critical hits might still be important, to maybe transfer conditions to enemy on critical hits. The advantages of precision are more than what is shown here.

However, the attack chain with 3 attacks with only max. condition damage causes a laughable amount of damage compared to any power build. That makes your statement, only one condition stat could make damage equal to power builds, laughable. Remember, this table shows an attack chain of 3 attacks.

I agree, it requires testing. However, it was tested before, maybe I can find the video again, or find some1 with whom I can test it. But your assumption is correct: In your example, I would assume the burning lasts for 4 seconds.

On a high Power build + 100 power would equal around 3-4% damage increase. On a low power build, that bonus would be relatively higher. To be fair, we have to account for the Ferocity bonus of 70, leading to a 5% crit damage increase, what in turn increases maximum damage. That equals on a zerker build – with around 200% crit dmg – an increase of 2% in maximum damage. That would be relatively seen higher, if the base crit dmg is lower. Assuming a crit chance of aprox. 50% it would give on a zerker additional 1% average damage. All in all the food (+100 power, +70 ferocity) would increase average direct damage 4-5% (if I am not mistaken, it is late, so nobody should take those number for granted). The average damage output of a condition damage build is, without any food, lower, I agree, but the question is, if the difference is really that big, as you have metaphorically claimed.

To make both increases “equal”, base direct damage would have to be around 33% higher than base condition damage. This way 5% direct damage bonus leads to the same amount of damage as a 40% damage increase on condition damage. Not taking into account defensive mechanisms like protection, condition cleanses or even turning of conditions into boons (technically a cleanse, but also more than that). If we account for them, what is not easily estimated, than the base direct damage doesn’t have to be so much higher than condition damage to make the buffs “equal”.

I will, however, first focus on the matter of condition damage reduction. That doesn’t solve the issue with the duration increase topic, it would but clear some things out concerning damage reduction.

EDIT:
Okay, the first obstacle has been overcome. I found the thread with the respecting video: klick me

A quote from that thread is:

Findings were that both negative and positive duration effects act on base duration, and are combined additively. Once I put on the same amount of + duration that he had on – duration, we ended up cancelling each other out, as if neither of us was running food.

Minus duration food is not stronger than plus duration food, minus duration food calculates off base durations just the same as plus duration

Kiriakulos.1690:

Power builds use Strength runes, no matter which profession it is. There isn’t even a whisper of doubt about it.

Nope I use traveler runes, cuz I hate slow mesmer

@babazhook
I think your calculations are false. First, bonus and malus to condition duration is taken, as far as I know, from the base duration of this condition (I saw a video, where 2 dudes tested it our with traits and food, but it was a long time ago). So let’s use the same numbers of your example: 4s bleed with +70% duration and on target a -40% duration:
70% of 4s = 2.8s
40% of 4s = 1.6s
Adding bonus and malus together we get a final duration of 5.2s
In the end, the malus has weakened the bonus, but not canceled it out.

Why I think 40% is out of line? Because it more or less equals a damage bonus of up to 40% in addition to the bonus to malice it already offers. Of course, if we have, for instance, already 6 trait points in a trait line with bonus to condition duration, then it is a bonus of only around 30% (not taking into consideration the malice bonus). That is still huge and doesn’t come close, to what other food gives as a bonus to direct damage.

Also, another issue is, that there is food giving a duration bonus to certain kinds of condition, like bowl of fire meat chilli. But that bonus is only 15%. That just doesn’t make sense. You have a specialized food, that is weaker, than the food that buffs all conditions.

I like that idea. Removing PPT and therefor a tower would for instance offer more gold on drops for this server’s players. But not just like that. You should have to build an upgrade, that constantly drains supply in order to work and it will increase effectiveness over time with a higher upgrade level. So the server, that has no chance of ever capturing the tower, could still attack dollies and stuff, to stop the upgrade from working.

What I also would like to see is a slow decay of towers and keeps. Walls lose slowly HP over time and you would also need constant supply to repair the walls. The decay would also work like an event, scaling with number of players. Meaning, a keep, used by a lot of players, would decay quicker, than a keep, that no one ever visits.

I agree, it is easier fighting scrubs with a condi setup. But that is due to a lack of condi cleanse or basic knowledge, how condi specs work.

Also, I wonder, how is bursting with 10-20k direct damage (skill chain of course, not one skill) and auto attacks with 1-2k+ damage a more skillful play than applying conditions over time via skill chains?

Linnael.1069:

If you are a roamer, you will immediately recognize how stupid this system is. Conditions are OP in situations where the cap is not reached. There’s only one stat you need to invest in, and you can out-dps berserker builds by spamming uautoattack on a number of builds. Tell me how many pistol autos i’m supposed to dodge. Tell me how I’m supposed to counter their attrition build with burst, when they get to have max damage while carrying around Vitality/Toughness on every piece of gear. It’s mindblowingly broken.

Wrong, wrong wrong. To maximize condition damage you need 3 stats. Condition damage, condition duration and precision. Even if you invest in all 3 stats, I don’t believe you out DPS a zerker. Take warrior zerker for instance, who auto attakcs for 2k+ and now show me a condition auto attack that consistently hits for 2k+. While you might get close, including certain traits that proc on critical hit and investing in also in condition duration, you won’t get there, if you leave precision out and ignore condition duration. And even all included, you will get close, but won’t beat it.

Artaz.3819:

Condition builds are overpowered and will continue to be so for one major reason, it only takes 2 stats (Condition damage and Condition duration) to maximize damage output. All other direct damage takes 3 stats, Power, Precision and Ferocity.

I am not even gonna read further in your post. Because you start out with a straight out false statement. Condition builds rely on 3 Stats to maximize damage. It is Condition Damage, Condition Duration and Precision. Remember, you talked about maximizing. Also, a condition build relies on a defensive 4th or even 5th stat, to be able to survive, until the conditions have dealt their damage, like Toughness or Vitality.

Builds, that focus only on the 3 offensive ones, do quit a lot of damage, granted, but it is still far away from Thief or Warrior Zerker builds in a matter of DPS. Also, giving up one of the offensive stats, mostly in sacrificing Precision in favor of Vitality (Dire Gear), means giving up on a lot of damage.

My Terrormacer condition build for instance, has a defense of 2.4k. All in favor of maximizing damage output. Granted, necromancers have quit a lot of HP, making them still a tougher target. However, if I am not carefull, I will be bursted down.

The only thing I will admit, is that the +40% condition duration food is out of line. I’d be okay with changing that to 10-15%, if the defensive ones will be changed to 10-15% as well. Melandru Runes could remain untouched, as far as I am concerned.

Gilburt.9146:

-They get to wear more defensive gear without sacrificing their damage (Dire/Rabid)

More defensive gear is needed, in order to have the condition damage deal the damage. As far as I am aware, the more offensive condition damage builds (I run one of them on my necro) have only around 2.4-2.5k armor. While this is more than glass, it is not a bunker either and can in deed be bursted.

-Condition damage completely ignores armor.

That is the point of condition damage.

-Their conditions ignore invulnerability once applied.

As same as direct damage. Invulnerability stops you from applying conditions as well es direct damage. Once there is no invulnerability, the condition is applied, as well as the whole load of direct damage. Only difference, condition can still be cleansed, while the direct damage can’t be.

-Buffing condition duration buffs both damage and crowd control (chilled, crippled, etc) and ability to reduce healing (poison).

That is correct.

-They get ridiculous 40% duration food (equivalent to 8 trait points). That is an insane buff and power builds have no equivalent (they’re food buffs are only equivalent to 2 trait points).

Agreed, that is indeed ridiculous.

-Condition damage can ignore both weakness and protection (while not benefiting from vulnerability stacks, however)

You say it. However, equivalent to protection is in my eyes the condition cleanse. Both prevent damage.

-Crit Damage was recently nerfed in PvE/WvW so they even deal more damage now relative to power/crit builds.

While technically true, I have not seen so much of a damage nerf in practice on my power builds.

-They don’t have to constantly attack to still be dealing damage.

Technically true. However, you show a common misconception. While direct damage is applied instantly, condition damage needs time. One attack of condition damage equals one attack of direct damage. However, the condition still ticks after the attack. Making it possible to cleanse.

Some of these advantages are fine, since condition builds should be unique from power builds, but it’s definitely a little unbalanced right now. Frankly, I think the 40% condition duration food needs to be reduced to 10%. Think about it, a 40% duration buff to ALL conditions is crazy over powered. If people want higher condition duration food, Anet should just add higher duration food that only buffs specific conditions such as burning, bleeding, fear, etc, perhaps by 20-25%.

Yep, I agree with that completely and would support such a change.

ErazorZ.5209:

I agree with OP, condi ruins the game in this state.

People complaining to him about how there condis are fine are dillusional.
The problem is where people think nerfing condi means its automaticly not viable.
Wich is NOT the case. If you nerf something overpowered the goal is to get it balanced, not to remove it.

And right now Condition bunker is overpowered.

Right now its in the state of being the only things thats viable. It defeats everything. and the people saying how its otherwise simply just cookiecutter DPS.
Well, right now its JUST conditions with a few bunkers since all the cookiecutter DPS are crying on the forums because condi is overpowered.

With the ferocity nerf Anet shouldve also figured out a way to reduce the way conditions are stacked or do damage because after that, condi started to be new meta because its the only way to do sick damage whilst also being in bunker making you never die.

Anet should punish mass conditions with either mass removal, nerf the condition damage itself or make bunker condi unviable.

First, you contradict yourself. You say the only ones saying condi dmg ain’t overpowered are cookiecutter DPS. In the very next sentence you say cookiecutter DPS players QQ about overpowered conditions. BTW, since you love this term, what is cookiecutter DPS? Since I defeat condie dmg builds on a regular bases with power, that must mean I use a cookiecutter DPS build. How rude of me. I use a viable build. That must hurt your sense of honor.

Second, just saying people are delusional or just saying something is something, doesn’t make it so. Unless some1 presents me some actual evidence, even on a pure theoretical level, this thread is a joke to me.

Reverence.6915:

It’s the fact that you can stack more than you can cleanse. There’s no way to counter-play that when they’re full bunker too. Any power build, same class, will lose to an equally skilled condi bunker build because of its “safeness”.

Does this mean, that I am with my power Mesmer build better that most of the condition Mesmers? Because I tend to win those engagements. You know why? Because I know how they work and on what they rely. Many condition builds rely on certain combinations and/or setups. Like a mayor damage output for condi Mesmer is the dying of their clones. One of the most predictable mechanics ever and still people fall for it.

And of course it’s a fact, that you can stack more conditions, than one can cleanse. Because, as was explained to you earlier, otherwise they wouldn’t do a thing.

Tarsius.3170:

yup, never seen this before.

I would be more inclined to believe that the Ele used Glyph of Renewel on the fallen guard.

Possible. I wasn’t aware that he did smth. like that. The guard rallied in the very moment the catapult died. At this time the Ele was attacking the catapult. I will look further into that. I didn’t think before you can rally off of siege, but it sure looked like it.

It is also possible smth else, the guard tagged earlier, died in this very moment, when the catapult died. It could be just a crazy coincidence. Maybe I’ll find a guy from another server, with whom I can test it tonight.

Samis.1750:

I would guess that 50% of roamers in wvw are thieves – so something must be wrong.

Other than that is irrelevant for the discussion, I think that this estimation is not even true. I see each of the other professions roaming in WvW as much as I see thieves.

The thing is, that, as far as I know, the money from the gem store goes to NCSoft, not directly to ANet. And NCSoft funds other projects with their money pool… So, if at all, it would be NCSoft’s greed you’re talking about. And in the worst case GW2 would just shut down, if NCSoft deemed it not profitably any more.

Darox.8069:

So PvE is almost non-existent, WvW is terrible, PvP is kind of decent … that’s it?

Well, I don’t PvE so often, so no idea. PvP is okayish, but could be better. However WvW can be a very different experience from day to day. I for myself like to roam the borderlands. Trying to sneak camps and towers can be fun, especially when you start picking up the guys, trying to find you, one by one. I play mostly Mesmer, no PU, if anyone is wondering

The Zerging is not so much fun for me. The roaming is, and learning to avoid main roads and certain situations brings you into the realm of roamers. That almost guarantees you, that you will find some small scale fighting.

EDIT:
And with some experience and watching the map, you can anticipate where the enemy zerg and roaming teams will most likely be. This allows you to choose the kind of engagement you prefer. No hours of walking required.

I just had another break from GW2 and came back with a fresh and game enjoying mindset. I quit my old guild and came back to solo roaming in WvW, what I enjoy the most.

I saw that tower, undefended and a camp close by, so I decided to build a catapult and bombard that one wall. It all went great, until that guardian showed up. I still managed to bombard the wall, but I had to be aware of course. When a D/D Ele joined, it got a bit more challenging. After some time, I managed to down the guardian, while my catapult was still there, so I started to finish him, successfully avoided his downed push back skill. His downed life bar was at around 20%, the finish animation was almost done and the the ele managed to kill my catapult, causing the guardian to rally. Nothing else, no other NPC, no other player was around.

That was extremely frustrating. I was okay, that they will eventually destroy my catapult. But all my effort in defending a catapult against 2 players and gainign the upper hand, was destroyed by an extremely frustrating rally mechanic, that rewards not the skillful play. I know, that was asked often already, but please remove the rallying on NPCs and Siege Engines. It is unfair and frustrating.

TL;DR: Rallying on NPCs and Siege Engines is an unfair mechanic, that punishes the party with fewer numbers even further. Please remove it.

EDIT:
Just realized that fits better in the WvW Forum. If an admin could move the thread, that would be appreciated.

This one is just a quick idea. Might be total crap, but I’ll say it anyway.

The problem in zerg fights is, that there is too much condition cleansing going on and your conditions just don’t stick. So I was thinking of a kind of boon or effect, that will effect the condition cleanses: purity (working name^^)

purity
Purity prevents allies from cleansing conditions on you.
Each time an ally cleanses conditions from you, you gain a stack of purity for each cleansed condition (for 10 seconds maybe?).
Ally condition cleanses will remove one stack of purity for each condition they would have cleansed.

Meaning that your own condition cleanses would not be effected. Others however would have to first work the purity stacks down, after they initially removed conditions from you. So if someone removes 2 conditions from you in ones strike, you would get 2 stacks of purity. So if another AoE condition cleanse, cleansing one condition, comes from a source other than yourself, that purity stack would be reduced by one. Leaving you with only one purity.

This would make group condition cleanses still viable. And the more you have the better, but it would make cleansing for groups a bit harder… maybe…

Yesterday during a pvp match I met a mesmer (the only one I witnessed yesterday), who wanted to moa me at the beginning of the fight. One dodge and his elite was useless the whole fight. I won btw

Later in the same match, I met him again. This time he didn’t open with it and while I was out of endurance, he moad me. I just continued to attack him and he went down… after some seconds I stomped him.

Moa can sometimes surprise you and be your doom. But that is very situational, and if you’re not a MM Necro, that skill shouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. That’s how I see it.

bigmonto.4215:

Xahz.8406:

bigmonto.4215:

TyPin.9860:

killahmayne.9518:

whether it is 30, 60, 90 or 100 percent, chill regardless is going to proc before the cooldown is over.

What an odd thing to say. Get it?

EDIT:
But then I did the numbers. It turns out, that after 5 attacks already the proc chance of the sigil is 88%.

gambler’s fallacy!? After 5 attacks, the proc chance of the sigil is exactly 30%.

Don’t use terms when you don’t know what they mean. The chance on proccing it on the next attack is 30%. The chance is proccing it at least once over five attacks is 88% (assuming his math is right)

Of course I know what it means, now go back and reread his sentence. Notice he uses “after 5 attacks” instead of “over 5 attacks”, that’s a huge difference. So yeah after 5 attacks, your chance of procing is not going to improve one bit.

As such the OP has a point, increase chance to proc will help.

I am not a native speaker, so excuse me, if I made a mistake in using the right words. If you know what I mean, than what did you accomplish with that comment? The forum is full of trolls. Are you one of them?

These are the cumulative chances (if I didn’t make a mistake):
1 attack: 30%
2 attacks: 51%
3 attacks: 66%
4 attacks: 76%
5 attacks: 83%
6 attacks: 88%
7 attacks: 92%
8 attacks: 94%
9 attacks: 96%
10 attacks: 97%

Can this thread please be merged with all the other tell tales threads about condition damage? I hear the same false arguments against condition damage again and again and also from the same few people (say “hi” to Dee Jay).

I make it short:

• Condition damage is strongest in small scale fights against players, who do not understand how to counter the mechanic (much like Mesmer illusions).
• reason for that is, that the number of conditions seem overwhelming, while the actual full damage of the condition appears after a time, making it hard to properly estimate cause and effect.

As for it being episodical and unstructured arguments that are being brought up against conditions I will answer with the same level of evidence:

I play mostly power builds and ripp most of the condition damage build users apart in sPvP and WvW roaming. Conclusion: Condition Damage is too weak and needs buffing…

Paavotar.3971:

TyPin.9860:

Paavotar.3971:

On some situations it would mess a lot, but on some others it wouldn’t matter that much.

So what you’re saying is that the benefits if there is no boon strip are not really to mention while if there is boon strip it would greatly effect the outcome? Messing up a lot just to make the skill appear more in line with others stances?

If there is boon stripping involved in the fight it could change a lot as the warrior couldn’t be interrupted during the 8 seconds. This doesn’t though turn warrior into superior being. You could still cripple, chill, immob etc him.

But then again if there is no boon stripping then it is pretty much the same as it is now, with the exception that the stability from it could be couple seconds shorter because boon duration doesn’t affect and it wouldn’t also stack with other stabilities. So if you got stability from somewhere and launched Balanced Stance at the same time, they would both keep ticking down and that could mean a lot shorter up time of stability than with the current system where it would stack.

Right now warrior can easily obtain long duration of stability by popping one skill and getting extra stability from guardian or/and ele.

I have most experience playing GW2 as Necromancer and Mesmer. Both professions have important boon ripping skills, which especially in case of interruption Mesmer are necessary for the interrupts and in the case of Necromancer are important for additional damage or even exploiting the boon of the enemy.

During this 8 or 10 seconds, the warrior would be guaranteed to contest or even cap a point against me, while I have no way of CCing him out of that point (I am using Greatsword and Focus in sPvP, to get them the hell out of my cap point ^^). This doesn’t seem to be much, but combined with traits like Last Stand and the anyway existing disadvantage a Mesmer has against the common Warrior builds in sPvP this would further significantly increase chances of warriors against Mesmers and also Necromancers (Staby can not be corrupted to fear any more).

Although I understand the esthetic argument of wanting consistance in skill types, it would be – in terms of balancing the game – the wrong step.