Guild Wars 2

Maybe a strong dueling build, just like many other ranger builds. But it lacks stability/dmg mitigation and relies too much on kiting, therefore not the best for holding a point.

Edit: Warrior rune is only a problem when using the same weapon swap sigil on both weapons, so double leeching is not the best idea, but int on gs isn’t affected.

If druid is op, nerf druid, not core ranger. I don’t think MoC druid is op though, there are better druid builds aviable.

All those death recap screenshots are completely meaningless, and don’t provide any useful information about balance or how op/up something is. It shows all condition damage added together, regardless of the source, but shows direct dmg seperate for every single skill. You just can’t compare those numbers. Also they don’t provide additional information regarding balance, like numbers of players involved, aviable counters, time frame, …
So stop using those screenshots as arguments, they prove nothing.

(The statistics after a match are a little bit more accurate, but don’t prove much too).

Edit:

Nope because it would be my fault for not preventing it with the many many ways to prevent big physical damage. Only thing you can do about conditions is hopefully remove what you want it to after it’s applied.

Every single counter to direct dmg works against condition (application) too. The only exceptions are thoughness and protection. In return there are condi cleanse and resistance. If you can’t counter something, because it is instant/untelegraphed/passive, it’s a problem with the specific skill, not a problems with conditions. (And yes, the game has lots of unavoidable direct dmg too)

It would not change much in 1vs1, but would make it easier to lock down the ranger in teamfights, where it is way harder to keep the pet alive.

BolshoiBooze.3406:

Keep in mind that this is with Sic ‘Em (40% damage increase), signet of the wild (25% damage increase) and close to 25 might stacks on the pet. On top of that, this was in WvW. I’m not saying the damage isn’t too high (haven’t tested it so I don’t know), but in realistic PvP scenarios this is more likely to hit for 5-6k than for 20k.

1. Pets have exactly the same stats in WvW and PvP.
2. Even with zero buffs, UA can deal a lot of dmg. 8-12k are common, sometimes even more. (I can remember 9,9k UA on a warrior with 3k armor! – with zero buffs outside of the mightstacks from UA and no vuln on the target)

Fluffball.8307

Those same ranger skills on birds or dogs will down people too, but people know the brutal charge and lacerating slash animations, especially when it’s enlarged.

The smokescale deals more (burst) dmg than birds or dogs or every other pet. And UA can’t be fully avoided by a dodge. It is NOT the same like other pets. Of course there is still counterplay (Blocks, stealth, invuln) and it is less effective against multiple targets. But if you bait out those defensive cooldowns, swap to smokescale and use Sick’Em, it is an almost guaranteed win. If it fails, kite/heal for 32 s and try again. I had never an easier time at winning duels. A tanky druid with smokescale is like a mobile turret engi (pre nerf)…

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

i’ve seen it enough in Pvp to know people don’t Avoid it or keep a eye on it for its Stealth effect , and yes it does require set up the target needs 25Vun and with in 750 yards plus consistant Mobility CC to allow those attacks to hit so even if the first does hit and cause that Opening strike 6-10k first strike the rest are Equal to normal damage 2-3k which would then total its 15+k , the whole point of HoT too was to introduce Unavoidable Attacks to make dodge that little less effective too .

No, you don’t need vuln, cc, opening strike or whatever (Of course it would increase the dmg further, but it is not neccessary). And where did they said, they want to introduce unavoidable dmg in PvP?

Have you even tested the smokescale? UA deals way more dmg than the canide’s leaps and the smokescale teleports to the target and follows it everywhere with this attack, so it doesn’t even need a “set up” to land. Of course it can be countered by dodges and other defensive mechanics, but it is still more powerful than other pets.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

[…]
compaired to other pets the damage is quite even when a wolf can Leap/charge for 8-12k buffed up in a single attack vs 10 in 3 attacks chain which is avoidable and deals the same amount as a fully buffed wolf. risk vs reward you risk the whole attack missing but if the first hit hits, your rewarded with Multiple target hits. […]

To achive this dmg with a wolf or other pets, you have to use buffs/dmg modifiers and those attacks can be easily avoided by moving. The smokescale hits for 10k+ and you have to do absolutely nothing for this dmg, and it is way harder to avoid, because of the tracking nature of UA. With buffs (Signet/Sic’Em/Might/Fury …) the smokescale can hit for 30k+ …
This is definitely not the same as the other pets, smokescale is currently the most powerful pet (on top of the dmg it offers a smoke field, cc and decent survability).

MoC + Rune of the Mesmer don’t stack (becase duration increase is capped at 100%, which is covered by MoC alone)

Is it op? Maybe. Will it change, if it is op? Most likely. But it is too early to tell. As long they don’t nerf core ranger stuff (like MoC) to balance druid, i’m fine.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Roy or someone will have to Make sure Fortifying bond is Edited to match longer durations on the other boons ect or they could simply leave HaO as is and make the cooldown 30seconds or 24seconds Traited so the cooldown out paces the Boon durations. […]

Don’t nerf HaO for builds, which don’t focus on massive boon stacking. I would not mind, if they completely remove the new mechanic (don’t think, this is neccessary though), as long the Heal itself stays as it is. I just don’t want do be forced to use TU, because other Heals suck outside of few gimmicky builds.

Jekkt.6045:

ele doesn’t have quickness to begin with and the boons are frequent but short lived. that’s a difference.

and your salt against eles won’t get you anywhere, not like it has anything to do with it.

It doesn’t matter much, if you have permanent boons through permanent (re-)application or through stacking/copying long durations. The latter is actually easier to counter with any kind of boon remove.

CC (and everything else) on the pet does not affect the ranger and CC on the ranger does not affect the pet (unless Shared Anguish is triggered which will CC the pet instead of the ranger). The ranger and the pet are basically two different characters.

Jaha.2840:

Anyone who roams or 1v1s in WvW knows that you’re simply dead if you’re running a power build and encounter a condition build.

Wrong. I (solo) roam a lot with power builds and don’t die automatically, if i meet a condi build. And no, i don’t run away either. I fight them, and more often than not, I win.

Jaha.2840:

Power builds require 3 main stats for damage: Power, Precision, and Ferocity. Conditions require 2: Condition Damage and Condition Duration.

Some condition builds require precision too. And not all power builds require 3 offensive stats, because they can gain crits from traits or int sigill (remorseless ranger/powernecro/some warriorbuilds).

Jaha.2840:

This results in condition builds acquiring both incredible survivability and damage output from their cookie cutter gear sets.

Overall condition builds are less bursty than powerbuilds, especially if they are full dire (with the exception of burn guard and burn engi – the latter needs precision though) and they can be hardcountered in a way, which is impossible to achieve against power builds (massive cleanse/diamond skin – there is no similar countermechanic against direct dmg). This is one reason, why glassy condi builds (sinister/rampager) often does not work as well as zerk builds. Also survability is not only dependent on stats. Defensive mechanics are even more important, and some condi builds have to sacrifice those (trap ranger for example)

Jaha.2840:

Condition builds can then make double or more mistakes versus power builds, while power builds have to make even less mistakes than they do versus condition builds than they would versus other power builds.

If i eat a full shatter from a power mesmer, i’m dead. If the same happens against a condi mesmer, i simply press a button, and remove 90% of its dmg. If i get low against a condi ranger, i can kite/run away and wait for cooldowns. If i do the same against power ranger, his longbow will kill me. I could give similar examples for other classes too. Some powerbuilds are quite forgiving, some are not. The same is true for condibuilds. It just depends on the specific situation, not if it is a condi or power build.

Jaha.2840:

1 – Lower the strength of condition damage and/or duration, especially on certain conditions like Burning and Confusion.

The condition dmg itself is fine (burning and bleed could maybe need some adjustments, because the difference is too big). Application of a few skills/traits should be looked at though (mainly burning stacking).

Jaha.2840:

2 – Require condition damage to incorporate precision, ferocity, or both to force condition builds to balance their survivability similar to how power builds do.

As I already stated, condition builds have less burst (even less, if burning is nerfed) and sometimes less sustained dmg too, and can be hardcountered by cleanse and immunities. They need more survability to be able to compete with power builds. Otherwise there would be absolutely no reason to play condi builds.

Jaha.2840:

3 – Alter the stats of Dire. Dire is currently so overpowered. Imagine the power equivalent of Dire which would be gear with Power, Precision, Ferocity, Vitality, and Toughness with no reduction to their stat values, because Dire gives both maximum damage and survivability unlike any gear set in the entire game.

Dire does not give maximum dmg. Sinister does, which has the same defensive stats as zerker and is subpar for most classes/in most cases. This alone proves, that condition dmg alone is not superior to direct dmg.

Jaha.2840:

4 – Buff condition removal and/or reduction across the board. All traits, gear, utilities, and weapon skills that remove or reduce conditions can be near doubled in effectiveness and condition builds would still do very well.

It is already possible for some classes/builds to be almost immune against many condition builds. In groupfights conditions are already weak, due to the amount of aoe cleanse. If you buff cleanse massively across the board, how should a condibuild ever be able to kill somebody who is not afk?

Protection = 33% direct dmg reduction. Invuln would be 100% reduction. Mesmer had access to protection prepatch too, maybe less, but it is still no new mechanic. And yes, it is passive and yes, it is strong.
And yes, there is too much passive stuff in the game.

I would not talk about squishy classes, every class can have builds with more or less survability. Some classes can have better survability though, but they have to build for it. Their survability is not class inherent (yes, there are some basic differences in armor and hp, but those things are not as crucial als traits/skills – just look at ele). Also survability is not the only thing, which decides how hard to play a class is.

Those mesmer traits grant protection, not invulnerability. And yes, i know, why they are easier now – not because of their mechanics.

Warrior isn’t the most op class right now, so even if he doesn’t need the knowledge against thief, he might need it against mesmer or ele (Actually i think, thief has an easier time than warrior against mesmer, at least at “pro level”).

The point of this thread was “hard to play classes should be stronger than easy classes”. I said, this won’t work, because stronger classes would be automatically easier.

Heavy armor/adrenaline/passive buffs/invuln won’t help the warrior much, if other classes would be just stronger. And even if a warrior doesn’t need the knowledge to achieve the same as a thief, he would be better with this knowledge. To be played to his full effectivity, he need the knowledge as much as the thief.

And mesmer always had (aktive) invuln/evade (they don’t have passive invuln now), clones, stealth (less than now, but thief can have perma stealth and therefore has still more), ranged attacks … Exactly the same mechanics, yet once “hard”, now “easy”.

Jana.6831:

With that perception you’re wrong, there are classes which are easier to play, no matter what weapons you chose.

Jana.6831:

And you can’t change the mechanics of the classes- take a warrior, easy to play,no matter what build, harder to master, still he can allow himself a mistake against an equally skilled opponent, no matter the class and he doesn’t have to know all the classes’ mechanics in comparison to a thief.

Mechanics determine, how easy or hard a class is to learn. But once you know all mechanics and tricks and whatsoever about your class, those mechanics are not what makes your class hard or easy. It depends more on how good/effective (in a specific situation) your class is in comparison to other classes. Just take mesmer – they were considered a “hard-to-play” class very often. Now, after they got buffed, but still have the same mechanics, the are considered “easymode”.

Also if a warrior (or another “easy” class) doesn’t need as much knowledge as a thief to win a fight or whatever he wants to achieve, this does not say, a warrior can’t has as much or even more knowledge as the thief. And maybe he needs it in an other situation.

Robert.6790:

However the problem I have is that a thief and a warrior being played by people of equal skill would have unequal success. In order to be a “decent” thief you have to be in the top 25%. In order to match that thief on a warrior, you don’t really have to be that great.

But if you make a perfectly played thief stronger than a perfectly played warrior, it would be unfair again, because even if both player put the same effort into playing their class, the warrior would be worse. To get the same reward, the warrior would have to play better than the thief -> it would be automatically harder for the warrior than for the thief.

Just like I already wrote “the better a class/build is at something, the easier it becomes to be sucessfully at something”.

Currently thief feels/is hard to play, because it is weaker than most other classes in 1vs1/fights in general.

mistsim.2748:

well, to me the choice is very simple. thieves have the stealth mechanic, and good engie builds use 3-4 invulns/blocks, or even stealth. we’re talking complete damage avoidance here. other than SoS, rangers don’t have anything else that is viable. sword, dagger and evasion spamming are generally not used because defending without attacking or leaving the area is totally unproductive and inevitably leads to death.

Thieves/Engis can’t attack or defend points while they are in stealth/invulnerable. Ranger can do those things, while using SoS or evades. So, what did you want to say with this contradictory statement?

Durzlla.6295:

My engi has always had an easier time with condis than my ranger has, but that’s probably because engi has on demand condi cleanse where our big condi “cleanser” is a passive 3 condis every 10s and it doesn’t even cleanse them.

EB sucks, but SotF/WK + some survival skills offer decent condi remove.

Odokuro.5049:

People seem to think that all people need to do is build their toons, and gear their toons for anti-conditions and it will all ok, I ask, if someone just pumps up their vitality, uses runes and sigils for condition duration decrease and transfer, and fills their bar with condition removal skills/spells, how are they then going to kill the other persons toon? I’ve built these “Tanky” “Anti-Condi” toons before, and I was able to do squat vs. people, I could heal/regen most of their damage, but I’de hit like a feather and would have to rely on others to come by and kill people for me.

Unlike “anti-power-builds” “anti-condi-builds” don’t have to be tanky. To counter conditions you need less defensive stats and therefore have to sacrifice less dmg than against direct dmg (because you don’t need thoughness and even much vitality is not necessary if you have enough cleanse).
Thats one reason, why glassy condi builds (sinister/rampager) often don’t work as well as zerk/power builds. Both have the same defense (statwise). Now if you play a powerbuild and meet a bunker, who counters your dmg and can’t be killed, it is not a big problem for you, because he won’t be able to kill you too. But if you play (glass) condi, and your enemy an “anti-condi-build”, you would deal almost no dmg, your enemy would do though.

Barkskin isn’t bad for zerk builds too. And comparing PW to warriors spiked armor, wtf? Those traits are completely different, only the ICD is the same, thats it. A WS/NM/BM zerk lb ranger is probably the zerk build with the second best survability in the game (best would be pu mesmer i guess).

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Passive effect like defy pain allows a warrior to not take physical damage while at the same time allowing him to unleash everything he has (negating 100% physical damage and not limiting his damage output). A defensive passive is what we need ( not bark skin in its current form).

Protective Ward is one of the strongest defensive passives in the game, especially when combined with bark skin. Survability is not a problem for rangers, and even if i were, aktive defense would be better. The game has already too much passive kitten, don’t add more.

@ melee weapons

Sword lacks cleave and spamming autoattack leaves you very vulnerable to enemy burst, therefore it is not good in teamfights for other things than defense. GS cleaves, but the dmg is too low, to be effective enough at cleaving.

The stronger a class/build is, the easier it becomes to play (successfully).

Now I want a thief as pet for my ranger

apharma.3741:

Illusionary counter
This is when a Mesmer goes into a block animation and raises their sceptre up, do not hit them and just focus on killing illusions or just type /laugh.

Just as additional information:
If you accidentially hit into the block, you can still dodge the torment application.

It is true, that some conditions are useful for powerbuilds too. Which is totally fine, condis are just part of the game like direct dmg, cc, boons, whatever … But ppl are not complaining about powerbuilds with some condis. They are complaining about builds with conditions as their main dmg aka “condi builds”. And those condition builds are not meta in “high lvl” pvp, and even in unranked and hotjoin, power builds seem to be more common (I’m 100% sure about hotjoin, have no numbers about unranked though).

This is wrong. But i’m not surprised. Some ppl just see some condis on them, die and start crying about those condis without even knowing what killed them. I got “accused” for using a cheese condi build several times, while i was playing a power build (melee ranger) with zero condition dmg.

You said, anet keeps adding insane amount of mobility. Now please tell me, which mobility buff a meele ranger got. I can only think of the superspeed from QZ, which is 6 sec on 48s cd, so not very much. On the other hand they nerfed leaps (the main source of a rangers mobility) – they aren’t affected by movement speed increase. So overall the same mobility as they always had.

Mh, cele ele = hybrid, cele necro = hybrid, settler/cleric shoutbow = support, bunker bunker guard = support, burn guard = condi, d/p thief = power, shatter mesmer = power, maraudeur engi = power …

Did i forget a meta build? Well, the majority seems to be power or hybrid (even if we count cele as condi, it would be only half of the meta builds) anyways, so where are all those meta condi builds?

Because there is already a boon, which prevents condition dmg. And buffing only classes with high access to protection would cause even further unbalance, because most of those are already very strong and/or don’t struggle vs condis anyways.

No, they don’t hard counter rangers. They may have the upper hand in a duel, but lb power ranger is acutally one of those very few builds, that has a chance to kill them, thanks to high sustained ranged dmg, cc, and decent condi remove. And if you can’t kill them, it should be no problem to escape, unless you make mistakes. For me they are just annoying, but not very dangerous in 1vs1. If i can’t kill one, i /sleep and walk away ^^.

The problem with Beastly Warden is, that people only notice, if they get hit by the taunt “out of nowhere”, but don’t notice, if they are avoiding the taunt “accidentially” by moving arround. Which leads to this “completely unavoidable” feeling.

And the instant nature of this trait is basically the only thing, which makes it usefull. Ranger has already enough pet CC with long casttimes, it would be useless to add another one.

With fully traitet bm line pets had always + 300 stats. Now the got + 150 baseline (all classes got half of their class mechanic traitline bonus baseline) and + 150 through bm traitline. So exactly the same stats as prepatch. They didn’t gave the pets 2x + 150 baseline, they just forgot to add the baseline bonus and fixed it with an following patch. And there was an adept trait, which increased pets ferocity by 450 (now it is a minor which gives +300 ferocity – so actually a slight dmg loss).

It is possible to achieve more dmg than before the trait changes, but only because of the new remorseless. Which gives the ranger better burst too, not only the pet.

Nothing new, they could always hit that hard. Just more people running bm builds with birds now.

Marauder or soldier is useless against burst without additional defensive mechanics. Invuln, stunbreaker, protection, Vamp rune (sucks against condis, yet is one of the most used runes – guess why), etc …
The food is used mostly in zerg fights to make soft cc less annoying. Dmg condis were never a threat in zerg fights and in roaming/smallscale it isn’t as common.

Tragic Positive.9356:

While in PvP you cannot bring food to become condi immune with minus 40 percent duration, you are screwed in WvW if you don’t. And do you expect people to have 20 different types of food just to negate the enemy’s everytime you encounter a new one?
Maybe you didn’t get the point, but a single piece of food tips the balance of the build by 40%. 40 freaking percent. Whichever way you try to defend it – that kind of amount is not acceptable when discussing dueling balance or potential (e.g. there’s no food to increase Direct damage by 40% – which already makes Zerk builds for dueling obsolete – that’s how balance-breaking the difference is)

I don’t want to defend the +/- 40% duration food. I do think, 40% is too much.
But this has nothing to do with class/build balance, because it is accessible to everyone.

If we want to compare two builds, it doesn’t make sense to assume, one uses food and every other possible buff and maybe full asc gear, and the other uses no buffs and is maybe even an uplvled with green gear. Of course this would be an unbalanced situation and yes, this can happen in WvW. Just like 50vs1 can happen. But this kind of imbalance has nothing to do with class/build and is therefore irrelevant for class/build balance.

And no, you are not necessarily screwed without -40% condi duration food, and zerk builds are not obsolete for dueling (zerk lb ranger can beat most condi builds).

Tragic Positive.9356:

Those who are able to escape (rotate in PvP) are all classes that need to be as efficient in fight which means they have to sacrifice as little for the mobility as possible staying as good for fights as ever.
If they aren’t able to beat classes and builds that are solely made for fighting – rotating isn’t going to save their sorry butt (unlike WvW) because objectives are elsewhere.

Sooo … thieves are useless for PvP right? Sry couldn’t resist :p

Tragic Positive.9356:

Food in WvW is just another crack in the difference. Because if we want to talk about WvW maximum potential we need 20 gold per hour to get +5% damage, +5% armor, +15% speed, +passive regeneration, +the most expansive food and sharpening stone, +black bear whistle, +stealth consumables, +cleanse water field consumable…

I have never encountered one, who used all this stuff. Food, sharpening stone, guard stacks and weapon sigil stacks are common, everything else is hardly ever used. And completely independent from class/build.

Btw the biggest imbalance factor in WvW is the number of players involved in a fight/match.

I can’t count, how often I kill somebody who has food and full stacks, while i have none.
Also if you run into an enemy with – condi duration food, the +40% condi duration is nullified. And against someone with decend cleansing the food does not much too. If you rely on the extra duration you are screwed. So lets say, food might be able to carry sometimes, but definitely not always. Bad builds and players remain bad, even with op food.

runeblade.7514:

What about Fresh Air? Its not even viable anymore.

Just because there are better builds, does not mean, Fresh Air builds are nonexistent. So “ele has no burst” is wrong. They can burst if build for it, thats all i wanted to say.

I think you overestimate the influence of food and buffs in WvW. Those things can’t carry trash builds or bad players.

runeblade.7514:

Elementalist don’t have the lockdown + burst.

They have high pressure, high sustain. But they cannot 100-0 in a few seconds.

Fresh Air says “hi”.

I have tried to recreate this situation and noticed that hits from the turrets don’t proc IA. So crate counts only as one hit and can apply max. 5 stacks of burning (2 from IA, 2 from IP, 1 from flame turrret, which hits 1 second after crate was dropped). Guard F1 only adds one single stack. You must have been hit by other attacks too (most likely Blowtorch and maybe something else).
Crate was actually a huge waste, just to kill a single thief. 2x IA + Blowtorch + some other (auto)attacks can stack 15 stacks. It requires some timing to apply IA 2x consecutively and it takes a few seconds to reach this amount of burning. Enough time to react and only the 2 stacks from IP are (sort of, not even fully) passive and unavoidable.

Also rabid amulet does not necessarily mean tanky build. Most survability comes from traits and skills, not from defensive stats. Rabid offfers only high armor but low health (rabid engi has less hp than your marauder thief). A engi who completely focus on “burn burst” is pretty much only a “one-trick-pony” with high cooldown on the burst (which can be easily cleansed by most classes) and far from great survability.

1. It is not possible to instantly stack 15 stacks of burning with one single skill
2. Even if you had 15 stacks on you, those would tick for about 6-7k dmg per second.
If you die to one tick you had less than 7k hp and would have died to pretty much every sort of burst. 2 ticks mean still under 14k health, which can be bursted down by many power builds in less than 2 seconds.
3. I agree with your complain about passive and/or unavoidable procs, but those have nothing to do with conditions in general. There are similar direct dmg procs and passive defensive mechanics in the game too.

Flame turret = 1 stack, Incendinary Ammo = max. 6 stacks (3 hits), Incendinary Powder = 2 stacks. Crate alone can’t stack 15 stacks of burning. Unless you keep sitting between the turrts and the engie uses IA twice. Crate and IA are on long cooldowns and thief is currently the class with worst defense and can be “oneshot” by many things, with much lower cooldown.

IA and doom can be avoided though dodging. IP theoretically too as long you are able to avoid every single hit. Which is not realistic of course, so IP is indeed kind of unavoidable. I don’t like this trait, but condi engi in general is not op and nerfing IP would require some buffs for compensation to keep condi engi somewhat viable.

Nymph of Meliai.6739:

skill failure on mesmers is terrible… plus there are cool downs activated when you come out of stealth under certain conditions… I’ve lost a few fights by accidently killing an ambient rabbit that has triggered stealth cool down without realising it before trying to cloak again and thus putting another stealth skill in cool down.

Today, I lost an easy fight with a warrior twice because stealth failed completely to work.

If you deal direct dmg to something while in stealth, you get the revealed debuff, which prevents stealth for few seconds. Additionally revealed can be applied by certains skills (ranger, engi) and a trap.

If you try to stealth while being revealed, it is player failure, not skill failure.

NeXeD.3042:

Pretty sure he already said this bUT it’s bugged. It’s working on invulns blocks etc. I don’t know the extent to which it works since I’m almost always on a necro… but I’m like 98% it was happening to my reaper even when I had stab up.

It does not go through invuln, stability and any sort of condi immunity. It does go through blocks and evade skills. I’m not 100% sure about dodge rolls and blind (but i think it goes through blinds, but not dodge rolls – the instant nature makes it very hard to dodge though.)

As far a i know, the only official statement about beastly warden says:

Beastly Warden: Fixed an issue that allowed players to taunt targets that should not have been affected.

Of course this doesn’t say, it can’t be still bugged, but as long there is no official statement about how it is intended to work, we don’t know. However I don’t think it should go through evades and blinds (Mainly because of those poor thieves ^^).

kdaddy.5431:

There is literally no reason atm to run a dps character except on thief or mesmer. Rangers and warriors are not legit options on higher tier play teams and the rest is sustain with minimal damage from condi. thats the game at the moment.

There is literally no reason atm to run a condi charakter except on … uhm … guard maybe?

Did power players started by playing power builds or condi bulds? And why did they switch to power player then? Not fast enough or just easy gameplay? …

Cele is carried by might stacking.

Shala.8352:

Condition build are easy and cheap, means they not require that hard set up and burst with a fast sequence of skills, thats the only reason why condi players are having better MMR nowadays (wtf, since when it is possible to see MMR?), its very simple: easy gameplay, easy success.

Power builds are easy and cheap, means they don’t require hard set up and burst with a fast sequence of skills, thats the only reason why power players are having better MMR (wtf, since when can we see MMR?) nowadays, its very simple: easy gameplay, easy success.

This condi meta does not exist. Most meta builds are power or cele. Fact.

Odokuro.5049:

IF Condi-builds weren’t an issue and weren’t a power-house build, they wouldn’t be the meta for things like sPvP and WvW Roaming/Havoc. Anytime, and I mean ANYtime something becomes “Strong” everyone plays it…

Step into sPvP or WvW and find me a Thief who isn’t using a Condi-trap build, or a Condi-PU Mesmer or a Burn-Guard, or any Condi-centric Build while roaming/havocing… It’s very very rare to see.

Condition builds are NOT meta for pvp. Most meta builds use cele (= hybrid, not condition) or maraudeur(zerk) amulets, burn guard is basically the only condition build which probably can be considered “meta” and it is still less common than cele ele and power thief/mesmer. If you are talking about hotjoin – well, everything can be op there …

About wvw – i solo roam a lot (with power builds btw) and meet plenty of players with power builds. The only build which is clearly used more often than everything else is condi pu mesmer – mainly because of pu, not because it is condi. Power pu mesmer is common too, but hardly anyone plays condimesmer without pu.
Most thieves, guards, rangers and almost all warriors i encounter play power builds. For engi and necro it is about 50:50 i guess. Ele is usually cele. I haven’t found this ominous “condi (roaming) meta” yet.

I guess, i don’t have to write about meta for zerg fights …

Even DnT a very well known Dungeon/Fractals guild that has many successful builds for those game types, has a Condi-Engi build that in fights lasting around 14 seconds, can out perform Any/Most Power builds, and if it couldn’t DnT wouldn’t use it, because DnT focuses purely on “The Best” builds and nothing more.

Oh no, there is one! single condi (oh wait, it is actually hybrid, not even full condi) build, which can compete with the zerk meta. Must be op then …

Vague Memory.2817:

The OP is right, conditions are ott at the moment rivalling direct damage, which I don’t think should be the case for something that is a passive application with a supposed attritional effect. This is the worse case of passive play in the game atm and encourages easy and lazy gameplay. Cover the entire ground in oversized aoes condition fields (wells, traps etc.) and just walk away. Anet have no clue how to balance this game at all. All the applications of multiple conditions with one skill, especially transfer conditions and convert boons to conditions need to be looked at. To me this a ridiculous situation which Anet just makes worse with each balance pass.

Condition application is not more passive than application of direct dmg. When playing condi builds you have to press buttons and land skills just like with power builds. Btw fields can be avoided by walking out of them, and you mentioned wells, which are used mostly by power necros and not by condi ones. Sooo … power builds can do the same as condi builds, where is the problem?

Condi transfer is just a counter to conditions (basically a better form of condi cleanse) and can be used by power builds. Boon corruption is just a counter to this random, passive “boon-spam” meta and only aviable for one class.

sinject.4607:

taunt is is a literal 100% guaranteed hard CC (and the prime reason birds are meta pets)

It is only guaranteed if the pet is alive and in range (and you don’t have stab, invuln, or any sort of condi immunity). Those requirements are not too hard to fulfill with bird pets in 1vs1 on even terrain – which makes taunt extremly stong in some cases, yes.

However even in the described situation the pet can be kited or killed (birds are not tanky and pets in general are very vulnerable to conditions – just wait for petswap before the burst), therefore taunt is never 100% reliable, just like everything tied to the pet. Add some ledges and aoe/cleave from multiple players and you get a pretty mediocre grandmastertrait.

Pets are rangers strengh and weakness at the same time. They can be op or completely useless. Which makes it so hard to balance.

@topic in general
It depends a lot on the specific situation but just like most have already mentioned Cele Ele, Mesmer, (Power) Ranger and Necro (with full DS) are usually the best candidates for 1vs1.

True. I was just responding to the “go to pvp for dueling” statement. WvW is as much for dueling as pvp. It is just a matter of personal preference.