Healing Power and Condition Damage

For those who don't know, before launch, all of the secondary attributes had flavor names similar to the primary attributes, and they were changed to be descriptive sometime around launch. I have no idea why, because, apart from being less interesting, it removes clarity rather than adding it. Over time, Ferocity, Expertise, and Concentration all made their way back due to the need to have a secondary attribute influencing a derived attribute. Only Healing power and condition damage are left (and the profession attributes, sort of.)

Condition Damage was Malice, and Healing Power was Compassion, though I could think of terms that work better than Compassion (like Spirit)

I think it's time for Anet to formally change them. The flavor names roll of the tongue more easily, they are faster to type, and they are less ambiguous in discussion. - you can easily distinguish between the attribute Malice vs. a condition damage build, which involves more than just the one attribute. Likewise, you can easily distinguish between the attribute Spirit vs. a healing build, which involves more than just the one attribute.

In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm just going to start using the terms Malice and Spirit ubiquitously on the forums until the habit gets passed to around to other denizens.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm just going to start using the terms Malice and Spirit ubiquitously on the forums until the habit gets passed to around to other denizens.

It won't - you're exaggerating how these things are pronounced in casual conversation, the current stat names are blunt and convey instantly what these stats do, Condition Damage instantly conveys exactly that, that the stat will improve condition damage, as does healing power, literally improving the power of heals.

Clarity of purpose is much more vital than having a edgy or whimsical sounding name for a stat.

Also barely anyone I've run into bluntly calls things "a condition damage build" it's always come with the armor prefix as the descriptive term, which tells far more about what you're trying to say than just bluntly saying "condi damage" which could refer to 4 common types of gear, all serving different purposes.

@Verenhimo.3296 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm just going to start using the terms Malice and Spirit ubiquitously on the forums until the habit gets passed to around to other denizens.

^this. What bothers me more is "Expertise" and "Concentration", I absolutely never use those terms and why would I when all they do is increase Condition Duration and Boon Duration, which is what I say when I talk about "Expertise" and "Concentration" - I do get it though, it's weird to have a piece of equipment increase Condition Duration by 200 or so.So no complains, I like it the way it is.

Somethign that disturbs me by design personalyl too, I tried also somethign out, how peopel react on the german part of the forums, how they think about renaming old terms..

It ended up in fact like a thought how it would - people just don't care, or when they care, then they are so protective over these old terms, jzst becasuse they are lazy and used to these terms now for nearly 5 years now, that their minds kind of woudl get irritated, if Anet would suddenly come up with renamigns of older terms, even when these renamed terms in fact woudl make much more sense and would be finalyl in line by design of all the othe terms, which are parameters of a characters values and not like in case with "Condition Damage" just measure numbers, where you get as a player the impression, that the devs sem to have been too lazy for giving this attribute a proper term name, thats in line with all the others conceptually, because we also don#t call Power instead "Physical Damage", no, we call Power, just Power because it just fits better, because its a common used and known parameter for how much strength our character can put into its attacks, which decides over it, how much damage we can dealHowever, I don't agree with the term "malice"... malice doesn#t fit to heroic character,s which is why I think it made sense, that anet removed this term and it kind of disturbs me also ,that they basically reused it as term now for the deadeye as a gameplay mechanic term, which on the othe hand is again a strong reason for why condition damage should be named malice, as logn theres the deadye mechanic with the same term in use.

Healing Power just shouldn't exist at all as individual Attribute. It woudl be best, if just the effect of healing power - to increase the effectiveness from your Healing Skill and that to heal others with your skilsl that can heal others, or cause Regeneration, that heals others as well too, should be merged into Vitality as its secondary effectVitality in itself aloen is useless, Healign power aloen it itself is useles,s but merged together as the Dual Effect Attribute Vitality, it is much more useful and build definign, due to its bigger impact of beign now two effects in 1 attribute.If All Attributes woudl work thsi way finally, Anet could much simpler balance this game and make better sure, that offense and defense become finally more equal, as such a system allows Anet to add soem missing defensive effects that would help dramaticalyl in balancign this game, like an Endurance Regen Increase Effect, I know, that you want to have in teh game same as much as me -me, because I know how much it woudl help in rebalancing obsolete boon effetcs to the point, that they even could be completely removed and perhaps replaced with new and more useful boons, whiel the removed boons just get recycled into improved Attribute Mechanics, Traits, Skilsl Effect,s or Upgrade Effetcs instead, where they'd make more sense to be there in the game.

Problem with that is those terms are either actively used or part of defunct systems

Malice is used for Deadeye and Compassion was previously used for the Flavor Emotion System.

@TexZero.7910 said:Problem with that is those terms are either actively used or part of defunct systems

Malice is used for Deadeye and Compassion was previously used for the Flavor Emotion System.

No, you're thinking of Ferocity, which they actually hijacked from the personality system to use for a new attribute tied to critical damage.

@Verenhimo.3296 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm just going to start using the terms Malice and Spirit ubiquitously on the forums until the habit gets passed to around to other denizens.

That's exactly the point. The problem with your assertion is that "malice" is in fact much clearer and to the point than "condition damage" once you know what it does because it's a specific term that references a specific game mechanic, which isn't exactly tricky to figure out if you spend any length of time whatsoever playing the game. It's also silly to have to type out or say "condi damage" to refer to the attribute that increases condition damage. In some cases you actually have to specify "the condition damage attribute" which is even more retarded.

Their original decision to replace specific names for attributes with generic names was misguided and should have never happened.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:Problem with that is those terms are either actively used or part of defunct systems

Malice is used for Deadeye and Compassion was previously used for the Flavor Emotion System.

No i'm not. I was actually thinking of Charming but point remains the same. Anet is trying to not make the mistake(s) they've already made more than once when it comes to Clarity.

It's much easier to get everyone on the same page when you have one term for something rather than having multiple terms for multiple things.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Verenhimo.3296 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm just going to start using the terms Malice and Spirit ubiquitously on the forums until the habit gets passed to around to other denizens.

It's literally not, one explains the given stat and it's effect at a glance, one is a edgy name that has no meaning outside of flavour, I can tell the latter term to a hundred people and they'd be able to infer what I say instantly, I could say the former and come against a bunch of confused people thinking I'm talking about, A, a sigil, or B, a deadeye mechanic, or C a focus skin, but no. let's add another term to the bloat under that one name.

Might I add that even games like WoW aptly name there stats directly after the stat it impacts, Mastery effects Mastery, Haste increases your haste, Critical Strike increases, you guessed it, Critical Strike rating, not some silly naming convention that is bound to confuse people trying to decipher stats at a glance.

@Verenhimo.3296 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Verenhimo.3296 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm just going to start using the terms Malice and Spirit ubiquitously on the forums until the habit gets passed to around to other denizens.

Do you routinely talk to non-GW players about condition damage?

No, sorry, you're judging from intuition, and intuition is commonly wrong. For people who aren't experienced with the game, "condition damage" is no clearer than "malice", and for those experienced with the game, the former is less clear since it can be used in different ways based on context and doesn't necessarily only refer to an attribute. it's actually incredibly dumb to not have a short hand way to refer specifically to the attribute that everyone automatically understands and interprets in the same way, or can look it up easily if they aren't familiar with it. It just complicates discussion in addition to lacking the pizzazz that helps build immersion.

What a bunch of silly arguments. Why don't we go ahead and go change "Power" to "base attack bonus", and toughness to "base defense bonus" just to ensure discussion around those attributes is as complicated and unflavorful as possible.

The right idea is not always the popular one, I suppose.

Inference, context and translatability are all key things to keep in mind when coming up with words in a relatively fast-paced game. A word that describes a stat needs to be quickly understood at a glance.

Toughness was brought up, so let's use that as an example:What does it infer? The ability to take less damage.What is it's context? We already have a "Health" stat, so therefore it must have something to do with Armor.It can also be easily translated into various languages, and it can be described in only a few words.

Now, Malice:What does it infer? Anger.What is it's context? Uhmm. Social NPC interactions? Or wait, maybe it's the new Deadeye mechanic? Hold on, isn't there an item called Malice?

Do you see? We're already way off the mark of what it's supposed to mean! Far be it for me to argue for a "double-plus-good" naming convention, as I am of the belief that flavor is the spice of gaming... Perhaps, "malice" may be replaced with a different word that has better inference and context. For the time being, "Condition Damage" is sufficient, however, I agree that over time, A.net should replace it with a far more flavorful descriptor that fits their guidelines.

As an aside, here's an anecdotal example: I played WildStar at the time of it's launch. It had a multitude of uncommon words for it's stats. One of which was, "Moxie". I only remember that stat purely because every time it came up, I had to wiki it to remember what in the world it did! To this day, I still only vaguely remember it had something to do with "Criticals".

@Verenhimo.3296 said:

Also barely anyone I've run into bluntly calls things "a condition damage build" it's always come with the armor prefix as the descriptive term, which tells far more about what you're trying to say than just bluntly saying "condi damage" which could refer to 4 common types of gear, all serving different purposes.

^ Still this

If I'm referencing a build for Raids/fractals I will use the prefix if there are multiple variants to the build:

Example of builds that need clarification:

• Healer Druid: Magi, Minstrel, Harrier
• Chrono: Minstrel, Commander

Example of builds that don't need clarification:

• Condi Druid: only 1 "meta" variant
• Condi Renegade: only 1 "meta" variant

So no, changing the terms Healing Power back to Compassion (or your proposed Spirit) and Condition damage back to Malice? That's rather pointless as they are not used as a point of reference as much as the prefix is. As in if someone asks me what they need to run a condi build I'm not gonna tell them to stock up on Malice or whatever. Instead I'm gonna mention things like Sinisters, Vipers, Dire, etc because that is more of a specific statement than just saying they need a certain stat.

In regards to talking to non-gw2 players. Still easier to use terms like Condition damage and healing power as to them Malice and Compassion could mean something entirely different. At worst, I use the term DOTs when refering to conditions. In regards to gw2-players. Well, it doesn't really get anymore blunt that it is right now. If I need to add more damage to my conditions....well...I stack Condition damage. I need to add more power to my healing?....I grab healing power.