Guild Wars 2

What (best) condition skill deals much more damage then any power skills?

Dynnen.6405:

Problem with Condi:

1) Stacking
2) “Condi Burst”, they are damage over time, not damage up front…except in this game
3) Not enough smaller condi clear abilities, specifically on weapons
4) 1 stat to increase the damage, the rest can go into defense traits
5) Some classes have an insane amount of it on weapons, while others dont

Its a completely broken system

1) yes stacking is a problem, especially the cap on every condition (but i doubt you are talking about that)
2) They do damage over time, they don’t deal 5k+ damage at once
3) How much cleans do you want? Nearly every class has ways to handle conditions, even more cleans will make condition duration even more useless, which leads to …
4) Conditions are effected by Condidamage, duration (which however is not an armor stat) and a bit by precision (apply on-crit effects). Because of the damage over time aspect you also need more defense then a direct damage class, because you have to survive longer, because the damage is building up. If there would be a zerker equivalent (condi damage, duration and precision) people would use it as well, but there isn’t such a stat combination available.
5) Every class has a condition build (except of guardians) there are weapons designed around conditions as well as some designed around direct damage.

And no it is not a broken system. The only thing that went wrong is the condition cap, that needs to go.

Its like rock-paper-sissors, and with your build, you try to beat the paper with the rock

In other words, dont tank conditions, burst them down…

If weakness is ever effecting condition damage, then all the other multipliers (from traits and vulnerability) should also effect conditions to be fair.

One additions to the dodge (etc.) does not cleans conditions thing:
It does also not heal you for a percentage of the raw damage you received within the last X seconds (because this would be the same)

And as Tim said, you forgot about condition removals in your comparison.

But that is what anet tries to achieve (balance the whole game with sPvP), well at least is seams to be that way. And there is the big problem of stat differences (available combinations and limits) the fact that you can’t use food in sPvP/use it in the rest of the game, …

No one said, that the game should be balanced due to PvE, but the current way it is done, leads to a huge imbalance in 2/3 of the game.
No one said, that this will balance every skill, there is still the difference in the kind of enemy behavior.
But it would make it easier for the devs to balance the game, because they don’t have to balance their skills for every game mode, right now they need to build some skills three times because of the different kind of enemies and the stat differences.

I can understand, that this is scary for some PvP’ers, because it will introduce the (in my opinion) unbalanced food into your half balanced world. And it will mess it up in the beginning. But on the long-term view it will lead to a (more) balanced game.

1. ranger – broken pet mechanic, chaotic traits, sword #1, Bows in general, …
2. necro – DS delay, no healing in DS, DS in some builds useless, broken/useless traits, Vampiric is underpowered, …
3. engi – a bit everywhere

Warriors should also be looked at, but they don’t need help

If you are just hanging around, you wont notice the bugs with the Deathshroud (2s delay, no heal, ..) Vampiric traits that are worthless, …

Just one thing:

don’t make the topics of the CDI too big. Probably start more smaller topics instead of one big one. (if possible)

videoboy.4162:

unleashed.8679:

Why should we discuss those smaller QoL changes, when the game has huge problems since the beginning?

• Conditions in PvE
• CC in PvE
• Uselessness of support builds
• Still broken Class-mechanics (Necro: no heal in DS, 2s delay of utilities after leafing DS, … Ranger: pets die to fast, cant hit moving targets, do not scale with the owners stats, … and so on)
• Stat difference between PvP, WvW and PvE (>30% make balancing impossible)
• Boss/NPC design doesn’t fit to the rest of the game (1 hit every 5sec, no movement, immune to CC, don’t dodge, just huge life sponges, most of the time no cleaving attacks (vs. stacking), forget about there skills if there in no ranged player, …)
• 1/3 of your skills can’t be used underwater (probably one of the reasons people hate underwater combat)
• useless/broken traits on nearly every class since beta
• useless/broken skills on nearly every class since beta
• No filtering in the trading post
• and many more

Why should the CDI concentrate on small UI fixes or quest rewards, when some of the core mechanics are broken since the beginning of the game?

Because a lot of what you just listed would improve the QoL of the game, but are mostly too small and specific to have an entire CDI dedicated to them?

In asking me that question, you just listed a bunch of examples of why it is needed. It also looks like you skipped some CDIs since you listed things we discussed.

Yes, most of these topic would increase QoL, but I would count only one of them QoL-improvement (BLT filter). The rest are problems with the core mechanics of GW2. For me QoL means smaller changes on the GUI and player Controls, making life easier. (for example: use full stack of X, filters in BLT, … )

If some of these points are too small, mix them together. They are related with each other.

And yes i skipped some of the CDI, because i just didn’t care about that specific topic they addressed. It could be possible that some were discussed there, but that had to be off-topic in my opinion.

I think the topics chosen for the CDIs were to big and not specific enough leaving to much room for off-topic discussions. And some topics weren’t high priority in my opinion.

delete condition cap as well
in pvp it is irrelevant, because if people will die to 25 bleeds, the will die to 40 as well
in pve it wont hurt condition players any more

haviz.1340:

unleashed.8679:

It wont change the fact, that brute-force is the way to go (who needs defense, when you can dodge nearly everything?).

Dodge is an active defense. It’s ironic you call dodging attacks a brute-force when passive defense could be considered a real brute-force.

I call using zerker gear, for maximum damage with zero defense, brute force. Because with this you smack the hell out of your foe. Just this raw power thing, you know

Defense is maxing vitality, toughness and probably healing power in combination with regeneration and protection, so you can survive several hits.

Of course dodging is a defensive action, but it is not effected by your choice of gear and traits (except of vigor) it is just there to be used

Jahroots.6791:

These people seem to enjoy the challenge itself, so let ’em take the same rewards as the rest of us. lol.

But I suppose the rewards should be about on par with higher level fractals. Slightly better drops and tokens to exchange for ascended gear and random other account bound goodies.

tbh, fractal reward is the worse in game, you are playing fractals for 1-1,5 hours and get <1,5g there for. Running CoF takes you 5-10 min each way and your get 1g each. Even if it takes your group 45min each way, you will get more gold then the fractal run.

Jahroots.6791:

We do need new content, though. I’d love to play in a Branded dungeon. Just think of the possibilities for armour and weapon skins!

Honestly, I think most players are satisfied with the level of difficulty in dungeons. Just min-maxing and burning down bosses as quickly as possible is pretty fun in itself. The people who think everything is faceroll easy are clearly not joining any PUGs. Ever so often I’ll join a group where 2 or 3 people fail repeatedly in the most basic, straightforward paths.

I don’t think we should make things harder, that would just exclude people and that’s bad for the game, imo. If anything the dungeons need a mechanism for difficulty scaling. Some form of Elite mode where every mob is a tier higher (vets become elites, and so on), maybe remove WPs so that you need to be manually res’d.

Of course we need new content, I didn’t say anything against it, but if this new content is designed like current ones it is going to be bad for the game and the players.

Yes there is tequatl and he is hard to kill, but this is because you need one whole server organised to kill him. It is not possible in smaller groups/guilds because of this silly time limit. It is just brute-forcing him down as fast as possible, while most of the players are stacking right in front of him and a few are defending the turrets. That’s all you have to do, the problem is you need the whole server to work together.

Increasing the hp of the opponents doesn’t make the game harder, it will just getting more boring, because you have to stay for much longer in this silly dungeon. Probably have to dodge one or two more telegraphed attacks and that’s it. It wont change the fact, that brute-force is the way to go (who needs defense, when you can dodge nearly everything?) The whole behavior of the NPCs has to be changed to increase difficulty.

E: and just for few silver more reward, who will stay 30 min longer in a dungeon, doing the same brain-dead “smacking the hell out of the boss” stuff?

Harper.4173:

I like how a lot of the players who complain that the game is easy and trivial weren’t here on day one.

When the game started pretty much everything in the game was tough.
Since then players have gotten better – and having done the content hundreds of times not only have they become adept at it but have figured out the most effective strategies – which are now being used by new players from day 1 thus creating the false impression that the game is easy.

The game is not the problem – players have just gotten good at it.

The solution is NEW content.

probably players are getting better, but in the beginning everyone went into the dungeons with the suggested level and probably green gear, now everyone has exotics or even ascended gear and is going into dungeons with lvl 80.

Yes there is the down scaling and stuff, but that does not compensate your traits and the much better gear. In the low level dungeons your armor also has 2 instead of 3 stats, …

New content wont fix this and the other problems mentioned (stacking, slow attacks, …)

PS: I am a casual player to, no dungeon farming, champ trains, … and i have to say, there is no challenge in GW2. It is to easy and this makes it boring!

Why should we discuss those smaller QoL changes, when the game has huge problems since the beginning?

• Conditions in PvE
• CC in PvE
• Uselessness of support builds
• Still broken Class-mechanics (Necro: no heal in DS, 2s delay of utilities after leafing DS, … Ranger: pets die to fast, cant hit moving targets, do not scale with the owners stats, … and so on)
• Stat difference between PvP, WvW and PvE (>30% make balancing impossible)
• Boss/NPC design doesn’t fit to the rest of the game (1 hit every 5sec, no movement, immune to CC, don’t dodge, just huge life sponges, most of the time no cleaving attacks (vs. stacking), forget about there skills if there in no ranged player, …)
• 1/3 of your skills can’t be used underwater (probably one of the reasons people hate underwater combat)
• useless/broken traits on nearly every class since beta
• useless/broken skills on nearly every class since beta
• No filtering in the trading post
• and many more

Why should the CDI concentrate on small UI fixes or quest rewards, when some of the core mechanics are broken since the beginning of the game?

KickBitBeatBorg.7941:

All i wanted to say is, that i think the game would be better, if there wouldn’t be a need for massive DOTs melting down Tanks (and everything else atm). Instead they should be used for precise soft CCing high priority targets.
If Condies would not deal massive dmg, there would have never been the need to buff Warries to become immune to them, for a set time frame.

You can do both with conditions, there are Dots and CC.
Anet probably should have split those two a bit more in the beginning of the game. (different Symbols)

The game should be made like rock. paper, scissors. Everything has its pros and cons (it’s nemesis).

• Support counter cDPS,
• tank counter dDPS
• cDPS counter tanks
• dDPS counters support
• dont know where wo move the control part here

Ok it is not as easy as rock paper scissors, because beeing a tank should not mean, i will 100% die to conditions and a dDPS should also be able to kill a tank, … But i hope someone understands, what I want to say.

With this in mind, removing codnition damage, would lead to unkillable tanks, where sour only tactic will be: “Is one player can’t burst them down, take two!”

The warroir thing was the stupidest decision ever made, he was designed to have a bad time with conditions and now, after a lot of QQ, he has one of the best cleanses and in addition a long immunity. Great job.

KickBitBeatBorg.7941:

But the game developed for over a year in this direction and i think it’s to late for massive changes, like these.

The problem is, massive changes are needed!
- You wont fix conditions in PvE by tweaking some numbers, In PvP I think their damage is fine by the way (probably a bit to weak with all those cleanses now).
- You wont fix some classes (i.e. Ranger) with number tweaking, the pet is stupid and dies to fast, while in PvP has a to high damage in condition builds.
- …
Think this is enough off-topic now

KickBitBeatBorg.7941:

You (unleashed) also mentioned a lot of other problems, which are at minimum half true, but i think their not entirely topic related and would produce a wall of text to deal with

feel welcome and write your wall of text:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/All-Before-balancing-classes/first#post3579556

Carighan.6758:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I thought this topic would be about how completely broken conditions are in PVE. Color me disappointed.

Same. And frankly, conditions balance out in larger PvP fights due to various sources of cleansing. So it’s mostly an issue with a game mode which honestly just needs the axe (as in, discourage 1v1 combat entirely, and even 2v2 and 3v3).

This one is a about the condition problem and some other design flaws as well: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/All-Before-balancing-classes/first#post3579556

KickBitBeatBorg.7941:

It would be great imho, if there wouldn’t be things like damage condies, as it would promote support roles, which this games lacks. But it would require a different game design at all and as i look back to past balance updates, balance will more focus on number adjustments, than complete gameplay/weapon overhauls. Which is ok, since everything else is a lot of work and needs further balancing. Again something a new released game could have done. I’m not sure if discussing these things really helps, since i don’t see practical/easily made changes to these mechanics, as one, for example, can’t remove bleeds at this point.

damaging conditions are needed, because they are a counter to tanks (ignore toughness). With out them and the other changes you have the trinity back (tank dps support)

The lack of viable build for Support and control in PvE comes from the bad enemy design. You cant control your opponent, because a) he dies to fast or b) has 10+ stacks defiant and unshakable.
In PvP there are builds, that can do so, well at least the control part (kiting) the support is most of the time useless, because everyone has access to it. It doesn’t matter if the might comes from a zerker warrior or a full support guardian. You will get the same benefit out of it. And because you have easy access to boons, boon duration is useless as well. The difference between those two player is, that the zerker will deal 3 time the supports damage.

@TO: you forgot to mention the condition cap, that makes condition builds totally useless in PvE (when more then 2 are hitting the dame enemy)

Vuh.1328:

It can be countered in as many ways as power, but also cleansed and never burst like power.
The “problem” is that anet have buffed condition cleanses and applications to weird levels.

A 10k crit from a backstab or evis is worth about 8-10stacks of bleeds for 10seconds or a mix between burn, bleed an posion and it cannot be cleansed, it can be healed through but so can condition damage.

For some mental reason though, people usually find dying “slowly” more annoying than getting bursted down in seconds
Conditions are more like torture while power is more like a swift execution i guess

Players will only see the damage of multiple skills combined into one number bleeding/burning/poison damage in PvP and therefor conditions have to be op. That a direct damage build will deal more damage within a shorter time period doesn’t cont, because there isn’t one huge number.

Those player dont realise that you can block, dodge, … a condition, because you will still receive the damage of your old conditions. That there is no condition new applied doesn’t matter. (“you get damaged → no block” which is wrong)

Sometimes I think some people will only be satisfied, if every condition is healing them.
They want to be able to cleanse every condition at every given time, what is equivalent to “you get healed for the direct damage dealt to you the last x seconds”

I think the TO knows that, but writing down all bugs/design flaws of every class would probably need the full first page of this thread. This are only the fundamental problems in GW2 that make balancing impossible and should have been looked at, before starting the balancing process.

I think you are right in some way, but in WvW the enemies you are dealing with the most time are Players with less then 30k hp. If you attack them with skills designed to deal damage vs. 1Mio. hp bosses you probably will unintentionally implement one-shot skills, that in PvE don’t look that strong or are even balanced.

On the other hand, the keeplords, Guards, dolyaks, … are still NPCs, with their huge healthbar, slow attacks, stupid AI, etc. You wont 1v1 a keeploard, but the smaller units for sure. Fighting them with sPvP kills would probably also lead to some problems.

Carighan.6758:

unleashed.8679:

If you want to say, that everyone is playing sPvP and WvW and no one is playing PvE, then you are wrong.

I suspect if they had such a census, the sPvP players especially best look for a new game.
Because I’d ballpark sPvP as a tiny tiny playerbase, considering number of open games, number of players standing in the hearts etc, versus just the visual sea of players in WvW, and much less the insane amounts of players in PvE.

I didn’t say, that anet is balancing around the highest populated gamemode. And i doubt it, because then PvE wouldn’t be all about zerkers. The condition cap would have been raised, …

Right now they are balancing most skills in PvP and most of the time forget about the rest of the game. There are only few exceptions, with split skills, that wouldn’t be needed, if PvP and PvE would be closer together. (using all the suggestions of the TO).

I mean, you can’t balance skills in a gamemode, where you miss half of the stat-combination, have >30% less stats, not every rune/sigil, no buff-food and completely different enemies. It just won’t work and will lead into the mess. The logic consequence would be to split every skill into 2 different versions (one for PvE and sPvP) and include a query in WvW, whether your target is a Player or a NPC and use the specific skill.

The problem is how life leech works in GW2.
Every life leech adds a fixed amount of damage to you skills (that ignores armor and invuln(?)) and adds a fixed amount of health to your health-bar.*

It is not like in other games, where you “steal” 10% of you attacks damage, so it scales with the damage dealt.

So if you are facing a high toughness target (like the gates in WvW) where you only deal ~20 damage per hit, the additional ~420 damage per hit from your siphon are very much damage. So you are ~20 times faster in killing walls/gates with this exploit (with enough necros of course).

—
*Because of this fixed number thing, Anet can’t give those skills a good scaling with power or healing power (some scale with 0.0x, other don’t scale at all). Because they probably would get to mighty. too much heal in addition to your #6 and/or to much true damage.
In the end it is just a stupid design decision.

Introp.8465:

^ why does every skill be meant to use against every class? You take cleansing ire trait to mitigae condi damage. You can dodge out of big phys dmg hits, cant do that with condi spam on you.

Well thats wrong. You can also dodge conditions, you will prevent the new applies ones.
You probably wont notice it., but it prevents one or more new conditions that would be applied to you.

You probably can’t dodge damage from runes and sigils, beause their CD wont trigger, but thats an other story

Introp.8465:

thread is about warrior weaknesses. condis are main weakness, thats why 98% of warrior pick cleansing ire to mitigate it. If you yet claim that condis is not a weakness to a warrior, you must be inspecting enemy weapons and making big list every game which player to avoid ( if you play in spvp)

You can’t count conditions as a weakspot of the warrior.
They have berserker stance, cleansing ire and dogged march.

With that logic, you could say, that warriors don’t have any melee damage, because you could play them with bow/rifle, or the other way arround …

Those 98% are using cleansing ire, because they don’t have any weakspot then.
A weakspot is something you cant prevent (See necros lack of mobility, thiefs low health, guards bad ranged attacks, …) Those are weakspots in the game mechanic, that are implemented, so they can be used against this classes. The warrior was designed to have no/bad condition resistance. But unfortunatly he got those three skills and has one of the strongest condition resistance in game now.

Bombsaway.7198:

You will never get change with this idea. The fact of the matter is that balance would take way too long to do this way.

Please define “way to long”, because the game is out for 1,5 years now and nothing is balanced.

• The whole condition System isn’t balanced in PvE since launch!
• Game modes are drifting away from each other, making them even harder to balance or compare (ascended gear)
• Mobs are dumb like hell
• control is impossible in PvE
• tanks/support are useless in PvE
• Classes lack of viable builds
• Some classes aren’t even close to be balanced.
• and more

Take the ranger for example, he wont get balanced until it’s pets scale with his stats. Without this change rangers will always take condi-damage and/or defensive stats. Why? because those stats are the only independent stats of the ranger. Direct damage/weapon damage is reduced due to the fact, that there is a pet around

You can go through nearly every class and will find some broken core-mechanic, that prevents the class from being (ever) balanced or get more viable builds.

The only exception is the warrior*, he has a lot of good builds that can be used for nearly every situation. Every other class has one probably two viable builds available.

*well his adrenalin system is kinda broken, because there you can’t do anything wrong. Miss your target? Well, try again in 3sec, that’s all. Why should he lose adrenalin therefor?

Bombsaway.7198:

I would much prefer they simply acknowledge where players actually spend their time and balance accordingly.

If you want to say, that everyone is playing sPvP and WvW and no one is playing PvE, then you are wrong. There are a lot of PvE players around and they deserve balancing, too. Probably even more then the rest of the game, because PvE only consists of berserker gear and the ability to dodge. Here are even less good builds available then in the rest of the game, because tanks, conditions, support and control is completely useless here. It’s all about brute forcing right now.

Bombsaway.7198:

sPvP is to be balanced by equipment.
WvW is to be balanced on abilities.

You use the same abilities in WvW and sPvP, the only differences are the maximum achievable stats, you can get there, The number of players and the fact, that there is PvE involved. That’s all. Or you are going to split every skill between those game-modes.

And let me ask you a question:
How do you balance PvE? Or do you really like that zerker-fest that is going on there?

I can only agree, there are to many design flaws in GW2, that impact the whole balancing process and make it impossible.

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

Why should a third weapon set fix the pet?

It gives the Ranger more control over the pet.

It is not a problem, that the ranger has not enough control over the pet. You can call targets, change the pets behavior and use its F2 skill. That is enough control for the pet. Why should i sacrifice control over myself to control my pet?

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet misses a lot of hits

The Ranger now gets control over when the pet will use its skills.

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

And additionally: It is not a problem of control, that the pet misses every attack, it is a design problem! The pet stands still and casts it’s attack. Therefor the fight is 5m next to him, when the cast has finished.

Fun fact: If you want your pet to hit everything, let a mesmer Moa it. Due to the leap of the moas Auto he will hit everything (except of dodges)

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem, that the pet will die fast in dungeons

The 4 and 5 skills will often be associated with quick repositioning, movement or evasion, giving the Ranger a means to mitigate damage on the pet in a high damage environment.

As above “.. and lose control over himself”

You will die instead, because you can’t cast a block or something else. You will lose 2s of using skills, just because you swap back and forth between this skillbars.

Swagg.9236:

unleashed.8679:

It wont solve the problem of balancing hybrid builds

That’s why pets should get traits.

This will probably make the problem even worse, because now you can spec every pet for this hibrid builds and get even more effective ones. Not only because you can spec your pet into one specific direction, you will also get bonuses (traits) for doing so. This will buff hybrid builds (condition bunker + direct damage pet) and those are the builds, that are broken right now and lead to the bad situation of the ranger. You cant nerf the condition part and you cant nerf the dmage part, because both are fine for them self. It is the combination that makes balancing of the ranger impossible right now.

The only solution to solve this problem is to make the pets stats depending on rangers stats. Which was suggested a lot in this thread, but you seam to ignore this.

I respect your effort, but ever thought about the terrible traits, necros have?

Oh and i am not talking about dhuumfire here I think it is fine right now
Nefing it to only trigger on life blast is a too high nerf (in addition to all the previous nerfs due to dhuumfire) and you want to increase the CD to 15s, too.

What i think about this is, that you have never played a necro before and hate him like hell. Or you just think “what looks good on paper works in game” but right now necro only has one viable build and that is condition mancer in PvP/WvW. In PvE all builds are maximum Okey but not good.
Condi-mancer wont work, because of condi cap.
Minion-Master wont work, because minions die to fast and are stupid
Power Builds lack of damage
Vampiric builds are a joke (<100heal/s)
…

The biggest problem of the necro are the broken, underpowered or even useless traits and you only have one of them that needs a nerf? I can make you a list of ~10 that need a buff and ~10 a complete redesign. And another 10 that need to be swapped or merged to allow some build variety.

btw: what do you want to do with scepter 1? with this change, you would only stack vulnerability and 1 bleed and 1 torment. pretty bad for a condition weapon isn’kitten

And why is every CD and casttime increased? Do you want to slow the combat in GW2 down?

Midna.2195:

coming from a necro background, i’d remove these traits from the list:

Hi, I think all the necro traits were added because of my post in the previous thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Survey-Worthless-abilities/first#post3571286

I have added all the Vampiric traits, because right now they are useless/too weak.
I its not a bad design in general, i called them worthless, because they are underpowered and right now it is not worth to make a vampire-necro. I would love to see them get buffed and I would definitely run such a build, but right now this wont work. (-> worthless) Imagine a D/D Necro, jumping into a fight healing himselve and dies only, if he gets stunned … well more or less. Unfortunately I would have to spend more then 30 Points into Blood Magic for such a build what is the next problem

I think for a lot of them the “bad design”-tag were wrong. Something like “underpowered” / “needs a buff” would probably be better here. “Bad design” is to general to explain those problems

E: Or for the vapiric traits, a “Bad Implementation” would fit perfectly I think

E2: The first Necro issues are traits too

Swagg.9236:

Then enjoy your useless pet forever. It’s not even that complicated. Minimal skill additions and the swap-related mechanics are already in the game’s code.

It would give the Ranger more control over the pet. I don’t understand how that isn’t solving the “useless sack of meat at my side” problem.

Why should a third weapon set fix the pet?

It wont solve the problem, that the pet misses a lot of hits
It wont solve the problem, that the pet will die fast in dungeons
It wont solve the problem of balancing hybrid builds
…

Just because the ranger gets a third weapon set, wont make the pet better.

I think it wont be better, because you can still build those broken hybrid builds (spirit ranger) dealing full condi damage and a pet that can crit for 3k every few sekonds.

It is an interesting idea. But i think this would need more work than fixing the AI. There have to be traits for at least every pet group, probably not all but at least some should be special. (and there are 13 pet types in GW2)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

- Tech improvements for the CDI forum.
- Anymore ideas or thoughts?

Chris

I would introduce a -1 button to the posts. And make the rating of such post visible.

Not that someone suggest a “pink pony post service”, with little pink ponys delivering the ingame masages instead of the carrier pigeon. resulting in a 3 page long conversation…..

too complicated and wont fix anything.

Just made a list of worthless Necro traits

[Necromancer]
Spite:
- Death into Life [trait] (15) – worthless
As long as there are no viable vampiric build/ life-siphon gets buffed and siphon scaled with healing power. But even then it feels wrong to be in the power trait line, because it “forces” you to use siphons.

- Siphoned Power [trait] (25) – worthless
Who the hell needs 1 stack of might, when he is nearly dead?
probably worth with 5 stacks or a defensive boon (protection), …

- reaper’s might [trait] (VI) – worthless
Life blast has a way to slow attackspeed (on land) to get a good benefit out of this trait.

- Spitefull Marks [trait] (VII) – worthless
Marks deal to less direct damage, because they are a support/control weapon. You wont see any difference because of those 10%

Curses:
- Target the weak [trait] (25) – Balancing Issue
Useless for condition builds, because of the bad direct damage they deal.
UP compared to a warrior, who gets 10% from a single bleed
probably good vs. bosses and in a power build, because you probably get more then 10%

Death Magic:
- in general:
There are only 2 boons in this trait line, which is a bit odd, because is grands boonduration.
The Traitline is to much Minion orientated, so it is not worth to pick traits, when you run another build

- Reanimator [trait] (5) – worthless
only good for minion builds, with death nova
should be merged with minion master (III) and replaced with something non-build-specific i.e. “+20 toughness for every condition on you”

- Protection of the Hord [trait] (15) – worthless
Same as reanimator.
merge with Flesh of the master (X) and replace with
“gain toughness based on DS level”

- Dark Armor [trait] (I) – worthless
400 Armor are equal to -14% damage while using one skill per weapon (necro has 6 channeling skills) for 2,5-3,5sec.
I would replace it with protection for 3sec, when using a channeling skill

- Necromatic corruption [trait] (XII) – worthless
interesting skill, but a) to weak compared to death nova and b) there is no grandmaster trait for non MM

Blood Magic:
- in general:
contains three “builds” (vampiric, dagger and well) that would probably synergies very well with each other, but unfortunately you can only spend 30 points here.
Siphon is currently to weak, bad scaling with healing power (0-0,5%). Increase this scaling and include a debuff, that reduces active heal by x% per siphon trait you use

vampiric [trait] (15) – worthless
bad healing power scaling (0,5% = max. +6 heal)
incease scaling and probably base heal, while reduce active heal (skill 6) by 5-10%

Blood is Power [trait] (25) – worthless
+120 power = <5% more damage, when health above 75%, to weak for a grandmaster trait. change to fixed 10%

Vampiric Prcision (V) – worthless
same as vampiric

Transfusion [trait] (VI) – balancing issue
should scale with healing power

Vampiric Master [trait] (VII) – unsure here
but i think it is the same as vampiric and Vampiric Prcision

Vampiric Rituals [trait] (XII) – worthless
same as vampiric

Soul Reaping:
- Path of Midnight [trait] (III) – balancing issue
Only 15%, while other traits reduce CD by 20%

- Foot in the Grave [trait] (III) – worthless
3s stability is a nice Stunbraker, but i think it is to weak for a grandmaster trait.
I think it was “get stability while in death shroud” back in the beta. Would be nice to see this again

I would do the same, because warrior is just OP and ranger is still broken right now, but I think i shouldn’t say that here

I think they should scale with the player as well. Then such broken builds like spirit ranger (full Condition Damage + 3k crits from Cat) wouldn’t work. With the current system rangers are forced to use those hybrid builds, because their direct damage is capped because of the pets but they can max condition damage very effective.

What I think would work is:
- every pet has the same base stats
- every pet has (lets say) two major and two minor stats. major stats scale with 70%, minor with 30% of the owners stats (numbers can be tweaked)
Edit: could also be a master with 100%, as I said, number can be changed

With this system you can force pet a to be tanky (major = vita and toughness) or offense (power and crit). Even condition pets would be possible (codni damage and duration) or support pets (boon duration healing power), …
So you have to/should choose your pets depending on your build. And you don’t have to take the cat, because it deals the most damage.

mzt.3270:

WhiteRose.6934:

mzt.3270:

…Warriors do not need nerfs, they need more love in all honesty…

Ummm…..no.

Ummm…Yes ! Why you scared your easy living mode on a Necro will be cut in half that you actually need to L2P ? :P

Not while Necros have the mass staff damage that they have, warriors need that health tick just to get through the barrage of little red circles, of so many you cannot possibly avoid them due to the cheese build that happens, Warriors perhaps need better passive condition removal to cope with that if anything.

WTF how much condi cleanse do you want? Warrior has the best condi cleanse in game (while beeing designed to have the worst 1 year ago).
when do you think is a warrior strong enough against conditions?
When he gets Zero damage or when he gets healed with every tick?

Just as a reminder:
“We want the Warrior to be capable of good melee damage in a sturdy body. They can still do some decent damage at range, but they aren’t as good at it as the Ranger (with their pet). They have a hard time taking enemy boons down, and instead, have to just go through them with raw force. They may have a hard time with enemy conditions, and may need to ask for ally help in order to keep themselves free of hampering conditions.”

from: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-December-14-2012/first#post999247

Compared to Incendiary Powder it is a really strong nerf for the Necro.
Why is dhuumfire bound to deathshround, while applying less burning (2/3s) and being a grand master trait?
If they do this, the engineers trait should also be coupled to special kits (his trait line is focused on bombs, grenades and mines). just for balance reasons.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

whyme.3281:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

actually, i came up with an excellent method to determine the “end of match participation gold reward” formula.

use team points. really. it is that simple.

for example,
if end of match participation gold reward for team arena is 1 gold
winning team scores 500
losing team scores 300
winning team gets 500 / 500 × 1.00 gold = 1.00 gold
losing team gets 300 / 500 × 1.00 gold = 0.60 gold
winning team then gets additional 2 gold for winning the match
losing team gets 0.60 gold for their effort of 300 team points

then we look at another scenario where one team destroys the other team
winning team scores 649
losing team scores 100

winning team gets 649 / 500 × 1.00 gold = 1.298 gold
losing team gets 100 / 500 × 1.00 gold = 0.20 gold

in this system, if people wanna farm in team arena, they need to put in some effort to score some team points or else they do not get much at all.

for hotjoin, make it so that it tracks the amount of time a player has been in the team that wins or loses.

Why pay people for loosing a game? in PvP you dont have to repair your equipment, why not only pay the winning team, so that noone can say, “i stay AFK, I will get my gold anyways”. They have to fight for it.

Ok this would have a downside too, cause you will see all those OP builds, but you see them today anyways…..

so you are telling me a team that tried their best (in team arena) but lost at 500 vs 499 should not get anything at all for their efforts?

glory will be removed.
gold will be the universal currency.

there should be a reasonable amount for end of match participation.

That’s life, Not everything can be handled with “waldorf education” you win or you lose, … It’s like those soccer games where people don’t count the goals, because some one could lose …

If everyone will get gold, there will be a system, that will be abused by bots.
Put 10 bots in the same game, so no one else can join and let them run to the nearest point. They will win with 500 vs 499 → ~10g for doing nothing. And this every 10min. (→ 60g/h → 1440g/d). Even if only the winning team could get gold, you will be able to farm 700g per day with this method.

I wouldn’t use the class balance for this, because the main problems in Pve are the boss and enemy designs, not special skill balance.

There is no high defense boss, so you are “forced” to use conditions. If there is one it is a structure, so conditions won’t deal damage at all.
there is unshakable and defiant on every boss, that limits the control ability really hard
…

It’s a separate topic and has nothing to do with balance

Chris Whiteside.6102:

whyme.3281:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

FYI if we go with the next topics from the initial call for topics threads (Global) then they are as follows:

PVE: Ascended Gear
PvP: Rewards and Progression
WvW: Skill Lag

These are all pretty focused topics which means we will be able to enter into the discussions more readily in terms of time. The bigger the topic the more divergent the discussions and this makes it harder for us to give them our full attention.

Chris

Can we see a complete list of the next 3+ topics?

Hi Whyme,

Here is the data you requested:

PvE Request for Topics Results

1 Living World
2 Ascended Gear/Ascended Items
3 Class Balance

Thought Conditions will be on one of the upcoming topics

Right now PvE is a pain when playing condition specs.

• Much lower damage then direct damage classes
• one player is capable to scratch the condition cap, bringing two into a dungeon , you lose ~80% of your damage.
• Controlling bosses is nearly impossible because of unshakable and defiant

Are you working on that, so every discussion will be “useless” because there is a bigger change set up right now. Or will there be a CDI about this topic later?
For me this is one of the major design problems in PvE because it limits your group setup so much.

Would like to hear your thoughts about this.

You probably shouldn’t switched from hello kitty online to GW2.

Condition damage is a common damage type in several games. They probably call i Dot (damage over time) or what ever there. but the the mechanic is the same

Why don’t you stop instead? You think there is a problem, but you obviously don’t even understand the simple mechanic behind conditions.

If everything I wrote is wrong, you still have to believe conditions are unblockable, which is just not true.

The fact that I didn’t comment on the mesmer thing, is simple, I don’t play one. So I can’t prove it. That’s all.
If you think that disqualifies me, because I should know everything in the game, before I post here. I have to say that you shouldn’t start such a thread without knowing how conditions are working.

So once again, please take the time and tell me exactly which points in my post are wrong and why they are wrong.
Everything you wrote is, Zerker builds deal tons of damage because they use conditions, which are unblockable. did I miss anything?

Nova Stiker.8396:

Really? The way I see, there are plenty of things wrong with your post.

At least I took the time to correct them, would like to hear what is wrong in my post

Nova Stiker.8396:

If you believe that using a power based build that spams conditions isn’t ideal, you don’t PvP enough.

I didn’t say, that hybrid builds are bad at all, they can get really strong to be honest. I just think you overrate the extra damage those Conditions do without Condition Damage.

Nova Stiker.8396:

I can tell you the top tier roaming necromancer build is using Berserker Amulets wielding Scepter and Staff.

And because they use a scepter in a berseker build conditions are OP? Probably the use it because every class is faster then a necro,

Nova Stiker.8396:

Dealing as much damage as a zerker ranger with a shortbow but spamming 3 conditions with their auto attack and using fear, death shroud and weakness to safely stay alive.
Making it near impossible to beat 1v1, getting 2 zerker necromancers to focus 1 target? That player is going to blow up, 20 stacks of bleeding, near perma burning and perma Poison.

In which world ~55% Burning Uptime is nearly permanent? (2*3s=6s @ 10s iCD + time for the next crit) The maximum burning duration you can get is +95% in PvP (30% traits, 2*10% sigils, 3*15% Runes). And if the enemy uses a cleanse, the uptime is getting smaller.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Who needs condition damage when you stack bleeding so fast?

Who would use a power build, if conditions are so super mega OP, that every one is crying for a nerf?

To get those conditions, the condition spec has to hit you multiple times. Of course it is not that easy and there are other variable involved as well, for example the defense, etc. But this works also the other way around (condi cleanse). And there for I used the “probably” in this sentence.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Which leads to the main problem with conditions, they don’t punish failure and reward spamming.

-There is never a bad time to use Pin Down.
-There can be plenty of bad times to use Hundred Blades.

-There is never a bad time to use Crossfire.
-There can be plenty of bad times to use Concussion Shot.

-There is never a bad time to use Blood Curse.
-There can be plenty of bad times to use Life Siphon.

What are you comparing here? Those skills aren’t even comparable.

Why didn’t you compare Pin Down with Concussion Shot? Both are ranged CCs with 25s CD.
Why didn’t you compare autoattacks with other autoattacks?
Why didn’t you compare skills, that do the nearly same thing? (CC, stun, …)

Nova Stiker.8396:

The problem with conditions is not damage nor skill. It’s timing.
Fire Grab, Barrage, Eviscerate, good players will not spam these. They know the power they have an will save it for the right moment. To finish off a player or force an enemy to move, power has timing.

As for conditions
Whether an enemy is at 5% health or 100% health, lay on the conditions, it doesn’t matter if you give an enemy with full health 10 stacks of bleeding or an enemy with low health 10 seconds of burning.
There is no punishment. Burn as much a possible, bleed as much as possible, poison as often as you can, spam that confusion, hit with torment on recharge. It’s not for damage, it’s for the times you couldn’t damage.

So a power build does not to want to hit the enemy as often as possible, to increase the damage dealt? That’s interesting.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Conditions needs a mechanic, as of right now it’s purpose is diminishing to damage that the player couldn’t land.

So if a condition player doesn’t hit you, you want to get less damage, right?
You know how conditions are working? If the enemy doesn’t hit you due to blocks, blinds, etc., most of that stuff that prevents direct damage, you won’t get new conditions and there for less damage. The best thing, anet doesn’t even have to change something in GW2, because this is implemented right now! -> Problem solved.

So much wrong information in the first post:

Nova Stiker.8396:

The other day in sPvP I fought a Power necromancer using a staff and scepter. I told him condition necromancers are overpowered and he responded he’s a power necro.

Why staff? Why scepter? Why not dagger or axe? Weapons DESIGNED to use power.

Was the necromancer stupid? No, just the opposite.

The scepter for necromancer is FAST, very fast. No projectiles to wait either, you can hit someone four times with the auto attack by the time they realized there is an enemy nearby.
With such a fast weapon, you can trigger Dhuumfire quickly and safely from range.

Dhuumfire won’t be applied much quicker because of the faster attackspeed. It still has an internal CD of 10s, so you will apply a new burn after that 10s with a faster weapon you will be probably 1s faster, that’s all. With 300 Condition Damage and 30% condition +30% (1200dmg over 3s) burn duration you will deal an additional 110 DPS plus around 10 DPS more or less depending on your luck and “attack speed”. I think a power build will get more benefits from Close to death, so it is not really worth using dhuumfire here.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Bleeding, poison, burning on a power build? What is the point? Sure it does damage but isn’t it not effective without condition damage?

The only reason i see to use scepter is the poison to reduce the enemies heal and the CC capabilities. You won’t deal more damage because you use a scepter in a power build.

Nova Stiker.8396:

The point is:

• No matter how the enemy responds, evades, blocks or go invisible. You are doing damage that pure based builds would miss. If you don’t miss, you simply do more damage.

It’s why you see so many builds that use power but abuse condition traits or skills. It’s why they are superior to other builds and even classes.

This thing you call a “problem of conditions” is the key to understand how they are working. Yes you will get damage, while dodging, blocking, being invisible or invulnerable but this damages comes from conditions applied to you much earlier. Conditions aren’t called damage over time for no reason. They deal the damage a power build would hit you with over a certain time. So if there is a huge amount of conditions on you a power build would probably have killed you already.

With the dodge you evade the current attack, not one of the past! This means, you will be damaged by older conditions, but there won’t be a new one applied to you and there for it is possible to dodge condition damage.

If it would be possible to negate the damage of all conditions applied to you for one second, a dodge should heal you for 10-20% of the damage dealt to you during the last 5 seconds, if you think about it, you will see it would be the same behavior.

Nova Stiker.8396:

This WILL be a trend in Guild Wars 2 combat unless mechanics are changed. Taking condition inflicting skills or traits in power based builds, just for the sake of more unavoidable damage.

See above conditions can be avoided, due to dodges, blocks, etc. just because you still get damage doesn’t mean the dodge, block, … didn’t work.

hooma.9642:

whyme.3281:

hooma.9642:

@all
i think they should just remove the condition from autoattacks. so the reapplication would be reduced and it becomes manageble.

Then they should remove the damage of autoattacks too. Conditions are another source of damage. And they are needed.

lol u thinked about that post? i hope u know autoattacks do dmg+conditions. and the build u play decide what doing more dmg. in gw1 wasnt 1 autoattack that spamed conditions by nature. there was condition spam too, but that was coordinated and with skillusing and not possible to maintain 24/7

why? he is right with that. If you remove all conditions from autos, you have to remove all damage as well.

Compare the direct damage of a condi build with the damage of a power build. A Zerker should be able to deal like 2-3 times more damage with an autoattack (probably more, haven’t done the math). A condition build has conditions attached to the attack to compensate to that damage gap.

Autoattacks with conditions are not a problem at all. Conditions are just an other form of damage, that’s all. The damage is just time based and not applied instant.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Or that they lower the skill floor/cap because they feel “spammy,” when in reality they add complexity to the game (and there’s no difference between spamming conditions and spamming direct damage, either).

[sarcasm] But conditions are evil, they will hit you after you got initially been hit. [/sarcasm]

the problem are all those misinformations about conditions:

1. you only need one stat (rarely two stats)
2. invulnerability, blind, blocks, dodge don’t work, you can only cleans them
3. you are able to make condition bunkers (actually we are forced to do so by stats)
4. they deal much more damage then power builds (they are normally No1 and 2 in the death statistics)
5. condition builds one hit everything
6. WvW-players complaining in sPvP forums, because you can get >30% more stats there.
7. every condition is applied by a condition player and not one of those weak ones from power builds
8. codnition build = auto attacking
   I think this was all.

I think you are right, conditions are OK, there are some skills and builds that are no balanced, but overall conditions are fine and needed. Without them we will end up with the old bunker-wars.

builds
condition pet builds:
I think there is a general design flaw, that pets do not scale with the owners stats. So every ranger with a cat gets his 4k+ crits, no matter what armor he is wearing. I think they should scale with your build, so you don’t end up with a strong hybrid build.
terrormancer:
Is really strong because of the complete lose of control, that can really suck. That makes him strong not the damage by itself. They should probably consider to change corrupt stability to weakness or cripple instead of fear, so you are able to counter it.
mesmer:
He “only” has to spam clones and they do the job. The enemy gets every condition randomly applied, while the mesmer is hiding some where.
condition warrior:
I think the strength of a condition warrior is the longbow, especially the “burst skill” that grants huge AoE burning with small CD. I would change this skill with #3 (explosive arrow) because that skill is really a burst.

skills
Sunspirit:
That skill is totally OP. up to 70% chance to apply burning for the whole party, that is just insane. 20-30% on crit chance would be fine, i think.
on crit effects:
They are just bad designed, the ICD should also trigger, when they get blocked. They should not be unpreventable.

some random thoughts:
- real offensive stat combination (condi dmg| duration| precision)
- “nerf” condition duration on runes and move it to the armor stats (same % as crit damage)
- change rabid to (condi dmg | vita | preci) so the build is more effected by power builds, but still get some survivability.

Bsgapollo.5364:

And like you said crit dmg works exactly the same probably, if I were to have 1k power and 50% crit dmg it would result in 1.5k power. However unlike conditions, power actually has several counters.

1. Our damage doesn’t keep damaging an opponent while dodge rolling
2. Protection
3. Weakness, glancing blows
4. And I would even say retaliation, the amount an elementalist spams his skills compared to a necro is a lot more.

1. Your damage was dealt x sec. before the dodge in a single hit. The condition damage you receive was applied before the dodge. A dodge will block one attack and therefore new conditions. So it doesn’t make any difference here. Same thing for blocking, blinds and most invulnerability.
2. and 3. I wouldn’t mind, if weakness (25%) or a glancing blow (50%) would reduce the condition duration. But this should not apply to protection, too, because there are also all that cleansing around, that reduces your damage as well.
4. wouldn’t say so, that depends more on the weapon being used.
5. you forgot the armor, but therefor direct damage is much higher vs. glass cannons.

Bsgapollo.5364:

You could counter the fact that conditions don’t have a lot of burst compared to power classes, and need these kind of advantages, that would be wrong. Yesterday I got 1 shot by a spirit ranger that the ranger actually laughed how fast I died.

I think spirit ranger is broken right now and I would ignore that. Why?
Because the Ranger can get full tank and only has to max his condition damage. The pet is not effected by that. They deal the same damage as usual (crits >3k) + the conditions. So you get both high condition and direct damage, while just focusing on your survivability. Sun spirit is Op as well, 70% chance to burn some one on hit, not even a crit, for every one around is at least 50% to much.

Bsgapollo.5364:

The same goes for necro’s, with a decent fear chain they can almost 1 shot everyone as well.

For me oneshot means using one skill. The necro uses 3 skills (Staff #4, DS #4 and Wall) for such a chain. Additionally he could corrupt boons, … During that he also hits you several times. If any other build is able to hit you that often, you will probably die as well.
The fear alone will hit you for 3*2,5s*700dmg=~5250damage then there will be burning from dhuumfire for 3*700damage=2100 damage.

Bsgapollo.5364:

And not to mention they only need 2 specific stats in order to be effective, they can build defensively while power classes have to go full glass cannon in order to keep up with their damage.

Power builds can deal more damage then Condition builds, but not against tanks. That is where condition builds shine, because they ignore enemies armor. That is probably also the point, why power builds kinda suck right now, because there are a lot of bunker builds around.

And conditions need more than 2 stats. Most builds need a decent ammount of crit chance (i.e. for dhuumfire) to deal extra damage. The defense is also needed, because unlike direct damage builds, the conditions need time to kill. I think >90% of the current condition builds would swap their armor, if there would be a equivalent to zerker gear (Condi damage, duration, precision). But there is no such set. Right now we need to use those defenseiv stats, because we are forced to it.

Bsgapollo.5364:

Other then cleansing your conditions there is very little counter play to it.

Ever tried blocks , invulnerability (not endure pain), blinds or dodge against a condition build?