An analysis of condi dmg application across all classes and why necro is the best template to adopt

I was posting a reply to another thread in the necro forum and thought of sharing it here since it applies to the balance philosophy for all classes in WvW too.

IIRC, anet once said that the design philosophy behind condi dmg was for it to have a ramp up time. It was supposed to be Low-moderate damage that builds up over time if it is not cleansed, as opposed to power damage that was to be instant. (Which I suppose is a reason why stats like dire/trailblazers exist to enable a condi player to survive Long enough to ramp up the damage over time)

The current state of condi dmg application across most classes however seems not to match the above philosophy of ramp up over time condi damage.

Most classes are instead able to chain skills and inflict large stacks of damaging conditions that does huge amount of near instantaneous damage over time. (Which makes stats like dire/trailblazers seem broken as the condi player is able to hit as hard and as fast as a power build but with even more defenses)

The most OP burst has to belong to Mirage. Mirage is like the pre-nerf chill Reaper on steroids.

• Mesmer burst: large stacks of torment and confusion with some burning
• Thief burst: large stacks of poison and bleed
• Guardian burst: large stacks of burning
• Engineer burst: large stacks of burning
• Revenant burst: large stacks of torment
• Ranger burst: large stacks of bleeds with some burning
• Elementalist: moderate stacks of bleeds and burns
• Warrior: moderate stacks of bleeds and burns
• Necro: Low stacks of bleeds, burns, torment, confusion

Necros are the only class that can't burst in high stacks after the nerf to Reaper chill bleed stacks from 3 to 1. Instead, they rely on a slow ramp up of condi damage over time which actually fits the design philosophy behind condi damage.

I think balances moving forward for condition damage across all the classes can reference necro as a template.

They would have to reduce the amount of condi cleanse as well then, as currently all that slow ramp up can be cleared with one button on many classes.

Really? Does anyone think that Condis are the problem right now?

I can personally think of 5 things that are higher on the ‘balance list’ than Condis.

And I’m not even that creative...

Any condo that is one type, is easily cleansed. What makes Mirage, Necro, viable, is that the rly can apply multiple types in a short time. This prevents a single cleanse from being highly effective.

High burn stacks only kill unaware people, or people without any cleanse. Yes, if they can be reapplied frequently, it makes it much more difficult.

And yet the necro has pretty much the only real viable condi spec. Because it can hide the condi under even more condi while applying condi on top of the condi and right after that convert your boons to even more condi.

Mesmer, thief, engineer, rev, guard take your condi pick they all indeed do large stacks (30k burning with blowtorch to the face ftw) however thats all they do. Which means it scales horribly with enemy numbers, whereas necros you can just stack on top of each other and still outcondi AoE cleanses.

Asking to have necro as a template is just saying "hello, I want condi to dominate the meta again!". Because I would love it if my condi scrapper became viable again so people could stop being able to cleanse my damn burns and bleeds and just die.

WTB a ranking list where Necro isn't on the bottom (in a positive way :p ).

@Etterwyn.5263 said:WTB a ranking list where Necro isn't on the bottom (in a positive way :p ).

Necro is supposed to be on the bottom being masters of the dead.I'd put them 6 feet down but people may complain about all the white spaces. ;)

And yet, current meta has necro playing power. So much for condi damage...

I actually prefer spike burst from condi with an abundance of clears in game and decent access to resistance so the give and take is between burst application, fast frequent cleanses and resistance.

The usefulness of condi is inversely proportional to the size of the fight. Power spike matters far more overall.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Really? Does anyone think that Condis are the problem right now?

I can personally think of 5 things that are higher on the ‘balance list’ than Condis.

And I’m not even that creative...

Agree, condi is not at all META at the moment sadly.

@Vertras.7531 said:They would have to reduce the amount of condi cleanse as well then, as currently all that slow ramp up can be cleared with one button on many classes.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Any condo that is one type, is easily cleansed. What makes Mirage, Necro, viable, is that the rly can apply multiple types in a short time. This prevents a single cleanse from being highly effective.

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Mesmer, thief, engineer, rev, guard take your condi pick they all indeed do large stacks (30k burning with blowtorch to the face ftw) however thats all they do. Which means it scales horribly with enemy numbers, whereas necros you can just stack on top of each other and still outcondi AoE cleanses.

Combine these 3 comments and you'll likely understand why conditions are largely a non-issue these days.

Like it takes serious effort on MOST specs (And many button clicks.) to get a good amount of damage going in 1v1 against at least semi-competent players. In small to large scale it's trivial. I'm not even against lowering the application rate, but the sticking point here is the amount of cleanse in the game.

Tanky gear like Dire/Trailblazer (I use Shaman/Apothecary mostly.) also isn't really JUST an option, it's practically mandatory for condition builds. It takes time to get skills off and stack conditions, and then they get cleansed most of the time as well. You need durability to outlast cooldowns.

When removal is frequent, you have to apply conditions in bursts between removal to do any sort of damage. Furthermore, what condition "Burst" there is these days is a direct consequence of balance through primarily buffs/additions only. Someone had a better term for it which i read once, but can't remember for some reason.

• (Pre-)HoT: Conditions too effective before HoT? - Ok let's add more cleanse. We also lower the amount of base condition damage and require them to build up stacks. (This improved the ability to play with multiple condition players.)
• Post-HoT: Conditions are falling behind power a bit don't you think? - Ok let's add some more stacks to various skills.
• PoF: Man these conditions though... Hey you guys remember that boon we gave to Revenant's Mallyx Legend to make it thematically a condition absorbing tank? Resistance right? Yeah, let's spread that out to other classes, oh and more cleanse too.
• Also PoF: Scourge/Mirage etc. get introduced, Scourge has amazing ranged AoE condi application and corruption, Mirage has good single target/PBAoE pressure. Renegade is... we won't talk about that. Firebrand gets some nice burns too, but they mostly run rune of the guardian and that one trait to use it to destroy arrow carts by blocking.
• Post-PoF: So Team, about those conditions... You know what would be really swell? Pushing Sigil of Cleansing from 1>3. Toss in runes of Altruism/Antitoxin for good measure. (I think there was also some weaver infini-cleanse build but that got nerfed iirc?)
• SoonTM: Team, It's about time to bring back the condition meta. - Sounds good Bob.

Mabey that was a bit too comically exaggerated, but i couldn't help myself. :-P

From my perspective - condi engi - it's SO HARD playing condi right now.

• I have to get in melee to land my main damage skill (blowtorch)
• that is on a medium cooldown (~12s) considering it's my main source of damage
• that my opponent will cleanse before I can cover with other condi (even instant skills like static shot don't seem to be fast enough. 0.5s skills like Glue Shot definitely aren't fast enough. The burn is gone before those have even finished going off)
• often my opponent cleanses my burning and cover all at once
• opponent's allies can help cleanse too
• so for a potential 20k+ skill (if it ticks the full 16s, which is never ever ever going to happen in pvp), I probably get 2-5k per blowtorch on average...

The amount of risk I have to take compared to the reward is just way out of line. I could just play Holo and nuke everything around me while requiring vastly less skill + effort but dealing vastly more damage with no potential for cleanse.

The same applies to basically every condi build that isn't mirage or scourge.

Even if I do everything right and I've exhausted my opponents' cleanse and they don't have a support around to cleanse for them, I still have to wait 10-15s while the condi ticks before they actually go down. In that time, they can pop an Unrelenting Assault or Worldly Impact or Holo Shockwave or whatever and win the fight. Usually by that point in the fight I'm out of dodges since I've had to reapply my condi about 8 times already.

In 2015-2016ish, this used to be a perfectly playable build. What changed?

• gradual cleanse-creep (eg. sigil of cleansing), addition of high-cleanse traits + support options
• condi stacks were reduced across the board in the "great condi nerf patch" (frustratingly, the worst offenders took the least nerfs in this .. mirage/scourge). Cleanse was not reduced to match, resulting in a massive condi nerf
• gradual increase in power damage. A power build autoattack used to hit for ~2.5-3.5k. That number has doubled for many classes. Many classes are capable of unleashing an easy 20k+ burst in under a second. Why bother playing condi when you can do the same or more damage in 1/10th the time, often from longer range or with greater aoe.
• (in PvP specifically) removal of tanky gear like Dire and Trailblazer. Now condi classes are as squishy as power

this game needd immunity timer for any condition, its juts rediculous u can get none stop cc to death.

Conditions per player aren't OP by any stretch. Scourges have a high burst of condition, and players caught in a shade bomb may think they are taking too much condition damage.. but there is a problem here...

You aren't being hit by just 1 scourge, you're being hit by many scourges and other classes dealing condition damage as well. If you meet a scourge 1v1 and allow them to shade bomb you, you'll see the amount of condition damage dealt up front vs power damage is still considerably lower. Over-time however, if uncleansed, it does build up.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:Really? Does anyone think that Condis are the problem right now?

I can personally think of 5 things that are higher on the ‘balance list’ than Condis.

And I’m not even that creative...

You mean. Power creep of power classes like, mesmer, ingi guard, thief,...?

@"Dawdler.8521" said:And yet the necro has pretty much the only real viable condi spec. Because it can hide the condi under even more condi while applying condi on top of the condi and right after that convert your boons to even more condi.

But most of these condis don't even do damage

Mesmer, thief, engineer, rev, guard take your condi pick they all indeed do large stacks (30k burning with blowtorch to the face ftw) however thats all they do. Which means it scales horribly with enemy numbers, whereas necros you can just stack on top of each other and still outcondi AoE cleanses.

Engi, thief and mesmer are also very good at hiding their condis behind condis and they apply way more damaging condition stacks than necro does.

Asking to have necro as a template is just saying "hello, I want condi to dominate the meta again!". Because I would love it if my condi scrapper became viable again so people could stop being able to cleanse my kitten burns and bleeds and just die.

So getting onehit by every freaking player playing power is okay? Regardless of the other players defense?

Pretty dumb argumentation if you ask me.

If you apply condis as slow as necro does right now, you need to back it up with sustain. Well we all know necros sustain is horrible.

Now you could tell me:

power players will need 5stats (power, vita, precision, ferocity, toughness), Condi players only 4 (vita, thoughness,conditiondmg, expertise). Not exactly true, as you need sustain, you also might want some healpower on Condi builds.

But what if a power player plays against a Condi player? then the power player also only needs 4stats (no toughness needed).

@DeadlySynz.3471 said:Conditions per player aren't OP by any stretch. Scourges have a high burst of condition, and players caught in a shade bomb may think they are taking too much condition damage.. but there is a problem here...

You aren't being hit by just 1 scourge, you're being hit by many scourges and other classes dealing condition damage as well. If you meet a scourge 1v1 and allow them to shade bomb you, you'll see the amount of condition damage dealt up front vs power damage is still considerably lower. Over-time however, if uncleansed, it does build up.

And in addition: everyone is always only seeing: oh parrot, my whole buffs are gone and I have a lot of different condis.So I have to have died from them,

not noticing the 8-10k meteor showers, 15k rev hammers and so on.

Also almost every class has a lot of boon applies (yeah well, except necro), most classes can apply a lot of boons very frequently. Necro doesn't, so how is necro supposed to fight against them, if you don't get survivability and damage from boons? And in addition don't have a single block or invuln or evade?

Almost everyone plays scourge/necro very glass-cannon like and then some people complain about it doing damage?

That's ridiculous, that's like saying: my class has to be able to play bunker, but still onehit people with bunker gear. - lol

Apart from condi stacking quickly via chaining skills and the lack of ramp up time on many classes, I also have issues with Confusion and Torment in particular as they are both 'Control' conditions like stuns, dazes, Fear, knockbacks, knockdowns etc. and needs to be better balanced in accordance to a Control effect which is generally low damage, short duration etc., everything that Confusion and Torment currently isn't.

Coincidentally, Necro's traited Fear damage is again a good template to follow. (Necros always seem to have the most balanced design)Fear is also a control condition and is properly gated behind low damage, short duration, cannot be stacked, easily countered by at least 4 mechanisms and has very few ways to be applied.

I created a thread in the PvP forum on this if any of you would like to join in the discussion.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/65502/confusion-and-torment-are-control-conditions-and-needs-a-re-look