So how do people feel about Condi now?

When they released the big condi update a while back, my instinct was that it was a misguide way to rebalance condition damage relative to direct damage. My opinion is that the durations should have remained short, and the damage instead just needed to be nerfed (in most cases, not all). In my estimation, it makes a lot more sense to balance condition damage around armor value rather than fight duration - condi needs to be effective in short fights as well as in long fights, otherwise the meta will always swing one way or the other in any particular game mode (i.e. general PvE and PvP will always favor power, while high-end PvE will always favor condi.)

Is this what has been born out? What are peoples' thoughts now that we're a few months past that big patch in terms of how it compares to direct damage across classes and game modes?

I think its mainly the expertise stat to blame for condi getting way out of whack, especially when combined with short duration conditions.

High end pve doesn’t really favor condi; it currently favors scourge epidemic/Mirage with a 50/50 split between condi and power overall, depending entirely on encounter. Fractals also very much favor power damage.

Condi as it is now is messed up in two key areas (off the top of my head):

Constant application via traits/autos needs to go away. Maybe allow it at the end of a combo. Current cleanses just can't keep up with constant pressure, and there's no system in place for immunity post-cleanse.And there should be.

Condi also should be lower pressure that builds up over time, ie longer conditions that do less damage, with Confusion being the exception. The crux being finding that balancing point that's sufficient ramp-up. Too long, and power "wins", too short and it's still "condi cry fest".

Bonus, since CC is "condi" too, see the first point above. Stability is insufficient in design and entirely too PvP-focused, and stun-breaks border on useless in some stun-heavy environments. Either apply decreasing gains or give some sort of Defiance after a stun-break.

In PVE, there's a mix between high damaging condi builds and high damaging power builds. There isn't a lot of overt discrimination between damage types. But, if you want a short evaluation:

Overworld: Power generally reigns supreme for anything that isn't a champion tier mob or higher. Against champions it is anyone's game. Also there are certain high toughness mobs.

Fractals: Power generally reigns supreme. Most of the bosses have a phasing mechanic that cut condis short, so it is quite rare to find a boss where condis are the best option.

Raids: It depends on the boss, but in general there's a good mix between the two damage type.

Though most of this doesn't matter for Berserkers and Firebrands, since they have very short ramp-up times. This also changes depending on the ways that the classes inflict damage. I.E. the Rev is bad at power cleave but excellent at condi cleave. Premade groups will sometimes run a high necro count to bounce epidemic around to maximize damage.

The problem is not just conditions but boon conversion to conditions. The current meta is full snowball effect. Boons to conditions back to boons back to conditions.

No sir, I don't like it

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Is this what has been born out?No. It's not.

So, still the same, as it was the previous several times you brought it up. Nothing has changed in that regard in the last few months.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Is this what has been born out?No. It's not.

You'll have to elaborate. Nothing has changed in regard to what?

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Is this what has been born out?No. It's not.

nothing has changed since the last time you asked. its still the same

@infrequentia.3465 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Is this what has been born out?No. It's not.

I don't even know when the last time I asked was. I believe it was before the big condi patch, so things have certainly changed.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@infrequentia.3465 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Is this what has been born out?No. It's not.

Tl/dr; no, things haven't changed.

Conditions should be way to go for sustain damage while power for burst damage. Professions are still imbalanced and we use power for sustain and condis for burst. But it's been only 6 years to learn how to balance their own game :)

In my opinion, Conditions should be more like what other MMORPGs have... them being "DoTs". In other words, Damage over Time. Not bursty at all, EVER. They should put pressure on the target, slowly downing its hp, while other abilities of the one doing the DoTs should revolve around survivability while the enemies health is being depleted and/or some power damage.

Conditions being bursty with no immunity post-cleanse, and relatively easy ways to apply it is just bad design in PvP. As for PvE, full stacks should desirable, but only be possible to achieve with at least 2 people applying the DoT, and they should support the overall dmg with power moves. DoTs (condition dmg) should either be a slow burn while the "DoTter" tries to survive until its enemy is dead or a support to medium power damage, where it is medium because the player chose to do a trade-off for survivability.

I do understand that this is more "classical" than what GW2 tries to be as an MMORPG, but in my opinion, it is a much better solution to having DoTs (conditions) in a game than what GW2 chose to do. Just because GW2 tries to be different and you have to approach it as such, doesn't mean that everything is remotely good in whichever way you try to look at it.

Can't ever be enough condi!

@"Poseidon.3852" said:As for PvE, full stacks should desirable, but only be possible to achieve with at least 2 people applying the DoT, and they should support the overall dmg with power moves. DoTs (condition dmg) should either be a slow burn while the "DoTter" tries to survive until its enemy is dead or a support to medium power damage, where it is medium because the player chose to do a trade-off for survivability.

Like Anet explained before, that would kill condition builds in pve. Nobody would take them, because frontloading damage would always be a superior choice then.

Problem is conditions weren't created equal.

Condi specs with strong access to burning reign supreme while condi specs with little burning and mostly bleeds like necromancer are total trash and rely on gimmicks to be viable.

The value of damaging conditions needs to be balanced so burning isn't so lopsidedly superior to bleeding and poison. As it stands, there's no point to a necromancer condi spec over a firebrand in pve since burning frontloads damage whereas bleeds have massive ramp up.

However, in terms of balancing condi specs are much better balanced than power specs where the gaps are humongous. You have necromancer, ranger, mesmer, and thief power builds way behind holosmith/warrior/elementalist/guardian power builds.

In the case of reaper and soulbeast they bring marginal utility to the group and yet they don't even match the damage of a dragonhunter who brings so much CC, aegis, and burst heals to the group not to mention the massive aoe burst from traps.

Ranger and necromancer in particular have power builds so weak that it's outright unacceptable. Power greatsword on both ranger and necromancer are so abysmally undertuned.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@infrequentia.3465 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Is this what has been born out?No. It's not.

I've actually never asked before. I've made posts about my thoughts on condi (which I still believe are correct), but I've never presented any query about it following any changes that were made. So, maybe your apparent irritation is a little misplaced.

@"Poseidon.3852" said:In my opinion, Conditions should be more like what other MMORPGs have... them being "DoTs". In other words, Damage over Time. Not bursty at all, EVER. They should put pressure on the target, slowly downing its hp, while other abilities of the one doing the DoTs should revolve around survivability while the enemies health is being depleted and/or some power damage.

Conditions being bursty with no immunity post-cleanse, and relatively easy ways to apply it is just bad design in PvP. As for PvE, full stacks should desirable, but only be possible to achieve with at least 2 people applying the DoT, and they should support the overall dmg with power moves. DoTs (condition dmg) should either be a slow burn while the "DoTter" tries to survive until its enemy is dead or a support to medium power damage, where it is medium because the player chose to do a trade-off for survivability.

I do understand that this is more "classical" than what GW2 tries to be as an MMORPG, but in my opinion, it is a much better solution to having DoTs (conditions) in a game than what GW2 chose to do. Just because GW2 tries to be different and you have to approach it as such, doesn't mean that everything is remotely good in whichever way you try to look at it.

I disagree with this, for the simple fact that you can't model a more action/reaction fast-paced based combat system like GW2 after a traditional MMO combat system like EQ. That's exactly what I think the devs are trying to do and it doesn't work that well.

Conditions bypass armor, so that should be how they are balanced - relatively low base damage over a quick duration (3 or 4 seconds), but stackable and able to ignore armor. If conditions did less damage baseline than direct damage, armor ratings could be used to tune encounters and players toward direct or condition damage. Instead, condition does more damage than direct damage, and so we have immunity and resistance effects pop up everywhere to reset condi and supplement power builds. Meanwhile, condi is largely useless for open world because of how fast everything dies and, consequently, how much condi damage is wasted when you have 8 second timers on them.

I think this is just unstable and a bad way to balance the game. It also just leads to too much damage being dealt in the game in general. From all sources.

Condi was fine before the patch and most Power DPS's already were pulling way ahead, now Condi is pretty much irrelevant aside from mechanics that force it (Red Guardian) or the few encounters heavily favouring it.

In Fractals Condi is dead.

@Asum.4960 said:Condi was fine before the patch and most Power DPS's already were pulling way ahead, now Condi is pretty much irrelevant aside from mechanics that force it (Red Guardian) or the few encounters heavily favouring it.

In Fractals Condi is dead.

You only say that because Weaver is plain broken.

A mirage is still pretty nice to have in 99 & 100 CM, they handle every one of those fights super consistently and have rather solid survival. Same can be said of Firebrand or Soulbeast.

Of course Guardian and Holosmith are also the strongest after ele is nerfed, but not by the huge margin that weaver currently holds.

Staff weaver needs nerfs and their sword build or dagger/warhorn tempest need to be brought up.

It's plain dumb that a weapon that's bost ranged and has the best aoe in the game happens to be the superior elementalist weapon over the melee options that require more risk.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@"Poseidon.3852" said:In my opinion, Conditions should be more like what other MMORPGs have... them being "DoTs". In other words, Damage over Time. Not bursty at all, EVER. They should put pressure on the target, slowly downing its hp, while other abilities of the one doing the DoTs should revolve around survivability while the enemies health is being depleted and/or some power damage.

Conditions being bursty with no immunity post-cleanse, and relatively easy ways to apply it is just bad design in PvP. As for PvE, full stacks should desirable, but only be possible to achieve with at least 2 people applying the DoT, and they should support the overall dmg with power moves. DoTs (condition dmg) should either be a slow burn while the "DoTter" tries to survive until its enemy is dead or a support to medium power damage, where it is medium because the player chose to do a trade-off for survivability.

I do understand that this is more "classical" than what GW2 tries to be as an MMORPG, but in my opinion, it is a much better solution to having DoTs (conditions) in a game than what GW2 chose to do. Just because GW2 tries to be different and you have to approach it as such, doesn't mean that everything is remotely good in whichever way you try to look at it.

Well, we disagree on that one, but I agree fully with "too much damage being dealt in the game in general". Honestly, I would be happy if everything (player driven) dealt 30% to even 50% less damage (and I mean everything) across all game modes (with some dps raid checks getting down-tuned appropriately), and that we had additionally 50% larger health pools in PvP.

@Poseidon.3852 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Poseidon.3852 said:In my opinion, Conditions should be more like what other MMORPGs have... them being "DoTs". In other words, Damage over Time. Not bursty at all, EVER. They should put pressure on the target, slowly downing its hp, while other abilities of the one doing the DoTs should revolve around survivability while the enemies health is being depleted and/or some power damage.

Conditions being bursty with no immunity post-cleanse, and relatively easy ways to apply it is just bad design in PvP. As for PvE, full stacks should desirable, but only be possible to achieve with at least 2 people applying the DoT, and they should support the overall dmg with power moves. DoTs (condition dmg) should either be a slow burn while the "DoTter" tries to survive until its enemy is dead or a support to medium power damage, where it is medium because the player chose to do a trade-off for survivability.

I do understand that this is more "classical" than what GW2 tries to be as an MMORPG, but in my opinion, it is a much better solution to having DoTs (conditions) in a game than what GW2 chose to do. Just because GW2 tries to be different and you have to approach it as such, doesn't mean that everything is remotely good in whichever way you try to look at it.

and then it becomes full of bunker builds where all fights turn into stalemates. At which point it devolves into a literal race because of of the conquest format. Whoever runs up to capture the point first gets to keep it.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Condi was fine before the patch and most Power DPS's already were pulling way ahead, now Condi is pretty much irrelevant aside from mechanics that force it (Red Guardian) or the few encounters heavily favouring it.

In Fractals Condi is dead.

Considering the ramp up time for Condis, Weaver, Spb, Holo and DH and even power DD and Chrono are all favoured over any Condi Spec for the DPS role in Fractals. Especially considering trash, if you are going for fast daily clears and want to be welcome in good PuG's, power rules absolutely supreme currently.

While Mirage has really solid DPS and is hilariously easy to play, it especially suffers from slow ramp up time and awful trash clear capabilities.

That is not to say condi isn't viable, but considering that by the time Condi specs reach their benchmark DPS, a power group will have already phased the boss, you are just making the content a lot slower and difficult for yourself and your group by playing condi atm.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Conditions bypass armor, so that should be how they are balanced - relatively low base damage over a quick duration (3 or 4 seconds), but stackable and able to ignore armor. If conditions did less damage baseline than direct damage, armor ratings could be used to tune encounters and players toward direct or condition damage. Instead, condition does more damage than direct damage, and so we have immunity and resistance effects pop up everywhere to reset condi and supplement power builds. Meanwhile, condi is largely useless for open world because of how fast everything dies and, consequently, how much condi damage is wasted when you have 8 second timers on them.That's how blood magic worked in gw1, and how it was balanced. As a result, outside of some niche cases, it was practically completely useless. Necromancer blood magic builds were for the most part considered a joke.

That's what would happen with condition damage if your proposal was implemented.