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From the Devs AMA- “to make power vs. condi into a real choice.”


Swagger.1459

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AMA quotes...

“Power is intended to be more spike damage-centric. Condi more ramping sustained damage. Currently there are some issues with how quickly condition damage can be spiked up, negating the benefits of power damage. If I presented you with a power skill that dealt 1,000 damage instantaneously and a condition one that dealt 1,000 damage over 4 seconds there wouldn’t be a question about what build to choose; you’d go with the instant option every time. Not counting other effects, condition skills must inflict more damage over their duration in order to make power vs. condi into a real choice.”

Here’s how we “make power vs. condi into a real choice.”, and make a better Condition System for competitive gameplay! ?

1- A stat, that players can build for with gear, that mitigates (not removes) condi damage... Toughness would be my personal preference.

2- Remove condition damage from auto-attacks.

3- Weapon and slot skill attacks designed to do condition damage are changed to DoT (damage over time) skills (like every other game uses successfully) using 1 particular condition damage per tick.

Ranger Shortbow damage type examples using the above suggestion...~Crossfire- X power damage. No bleeds.~Poison Volley- X poison DoT over X seconds.~Quick Shot- X bleed DoT over X seconds.~Crippling Shot- X bleed DoT over X seconds.~Concussion Shot- X power damage.

*You keep in place all the other secondary effects going on with the skills. So Quick Shot still provides evade and swiftness... Crippling Shot still provides cripple and immobilize...

4- Assign each individual condi weapon skill and slot skill to use only 1 type of DoT damaging condition. You still keep secondary movement impairing and hard conditions on skills...

Look at the difference between these skills and you’ll see what I mean.• Way crazy and over-the-top condi skill, and highlights the overarching condi issues this game faces... https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Spite• Well designed condi skill, and what I’m talking about with the above with assigning 1 DoT condi to all skills. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blood_Is_Power

5- Cleansing skills become condi DoT damage mitigation (x % damage reduction) skills, but they still remove secondary soft (cripple, chill, ...) and hard (daze, knock down... ) condition effects. These redesigned cleanses do NOT remove condi DoT damage...

6- Skills that produce hard condition effects remain the same.

7- Moa transformation should be classified as a Hard Condition and countered by Stun Break.

8- Add in an “immunity timer” to prevent the chaining of soft and hard CC effects from occurring. Timer starts after being hit with either a soft or hard CC.

9- All stats and equipment remain and function the same way, except expertise...Either remove expertise so the team can have duration control on skills for balance, or expertise can function like precision does, but only for condi DoT damage.

TY!

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@"Swagger.1459" said:1- A stat, that players can build for with gear, that mitigates (not removes) condi damage... Toughness would be my personal preference.

2- Remove condition damage from auto-attacks.

3- Weapon and slot skill attacks designed to do condition damage are changed to DoT (damage over time) skills (like every other game uses successfully) using 1 particular condition damage per tick.

Ranger Shortbow damage type examples using the above suggestion...~Crossfire- X power damage. No bleeds.~Poison Volley- X poison DoT over X seconds.~Quick Shot- X bleed DoT over X seconds.~Crippling Shot- X bleed DoT over X seconds.~Concussion Shot- X power damage.

*You keep in place all the other secondary effects going on with the skills. So Quick Shot still provides evade and swiftness... Crippling Shot still provides cripple and immobilize...

4- Assign each individual condi weapon skill and slot skill to use only 1 type of DoT damaging condition. You still keep secondary movement impairing and hard conditions on skills...

Look at the difference between these skills and you’ll see what I mean.• Way crazy and over-the-top condi skill, and highlights the overarching condi issues this game faces... https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Spite• Well designed condi skill, and what I’m talking about with the above with assigning 1 DoT condi to all skills. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blood_Is_Power

5- Cleansing skills become condi DoT damage mitigation (x % damage reduction) skills, but they still remove secondary soft (cripple, chill, ...) and hard (daze, knock down... ) condition effects. These redesigned cleanses do NOT remove condi DoT damage...

6- Skills that produce hard condition effects remain the same.

7- Moa transformation should be classified as a Hard Condition and countered by Stun Break.

8- Add in an “immunity timer” to prevent the chaining of soft and hard CC effects from occurring. Timer starts after being hit with either a soft or hard CC.

9- All stats and equipment remain and function the same way, except expertise...Either remove expertise so the team can have duration control on skills for balance, or expertise can function like precision does, but only for condi DoT damage.

TY!

So basicly you want 2008 WoW. Good news there are private servers just like that, you don't have to ruin this game to get that experience again. Also hard pass on literally everything you proposed here, all of them in context, or one by one just as a single suggestion... none of this could work or make the game better, because this is not the Burning Crusade!

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That's a lot of changing that won't fix the core issue of condi builds, namely that they time and again allow you to do obscene amounts of damage with very little commitment and can crop up very quickly because of the spamming of hard-to-evade moves.

Conditions doing damage based on proximity to the opponent , or doing high stacks of condition damage on moves that are easy to evade and less/only conditional stacks (like attacking from the flank or behind) on moves that are -not- easy to evade would be better suited for balance.

whichever path Anet chooses to take, if the end result is X class can quickly approach you without telegraph, offload a myriad of conditions on you with moves designed to not be avoidable entirely, then get away with doing nothing/letting clones hit you/tending to their heals/stealthing/laying traps to punish chasing them while you burn cleanses to not die immediately, Then condi builds will be continuously scrutinized and called cheap.

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If there was to be a stat, it should be one that provide scaling health regeneration while afflicted with atleast 1 condition.

Might stacks should counter some of this stat.

I am all for splitting cleanse sources into damaging and non-damaging if the symbols differ (green instead of red f.ex if non-damaging). Only big cleanse skills, only small cleanse traits. Remove cleansing sigils/runes/food.

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That is the right track / idea for the most part (except toughness being the stat to mitigate ).

If this game actually had magic damage then we could have had a stat like magic resistance. Then armor types would actually matter and things could be balanced around that system.

But instead anet seems to think condi is magic and should scale offensively in dmg through stats without there being a defensive counter mitigation stat to reduce the incoming.

The condi system is just as flawed as the boon system.

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If I were to make changes, i would:1) make all non-damaging conditions (immobilize, cripple, weakness, slow, etc) be unaffected by expertise.2) make confusion and torment stack in duration only, not intensity.3) remove the damage over time part of Poison. And have it stack only in duration. Keep the reduced healing aspect.4) Traps don't begin recharging until triggered.

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@Leonidrex.5649 said:most meta builds.power thief, power reaper, power holo, support tempest and 1 condi build, condi rev.community -> NERF ALL CONDI,

Condi thief should make a comeback with condi rev nerfs. Base necro is still top tier. Condi mirage and condi weaver aren't top tier but aoe spam a million condis around them. Condi renegade can insta kill 20k HP and aoe spams the node with pulsing CC. Condi ranger is super common at low ratings and just runs around spamming AOE condis everywhere. Burn guardians passively AOE 5k burn ticks around it at all times with 50 blocks and is super common a low ratings.

Since the majority of players are low rating, they see stuff like burn guard and condi ranger VERY commonly and thus think condis are broken and unfun. These builds fall off with better rotations and more competent teammates but at low ratings AND WvW they are incredibly unfun and demoralizing to fight. So I can understand their frustration.

Note: Besides condi thief I don't think any of the above builds are overpowered. I simply think the reward:effort ratio for condi builds are so heavily skewed that for low rating players condi builds are the most effective way for them to deal damage and beat equally lesser skilled players.

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I also think it could use a overhaul.. but i've no decent ideas on how.

I would like to see more of Gw1 conditions etc come into Gw2 though.Like not being able to bleed Stone elementals or Asura Golems etc.There are some cases in GW2 where this does exist like Dredge immune to blind and Fire elementals immune to burning but i'd like to see that expanded on.

Would also like to see damage types and elements play more role in this as well like they did in Gw1.Fire dealing more damage to ice.. and crushing weapons like Mace and Hammer being more effective against enemies with hard skin, scales or armour.

Balancing this in PvE would be a ton of work though.. and so much more for competitive so it'll never happen.

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@Shiyo.3578 said:

@Leonidrex.5649 said:most meta builds.power thief, power reaper, power holo, support tempest and 1 condi build, condi rev.community -> NERF ALL CONDI,

Condi thief should make a comeback with condi rev nerfs. Base necro is still top tier. Condi mirage and condi weaver aren't top tier but aoe spam a million condis around them. Condi renegade can insta kill 20k HP and aoe spams the node with pulsing CC. Condi ranger is super common at low ratings and just runs around spamming AOE condis everywhere. Burn guardians passively AOE 5k burn ticks around it at all times with 50 blocks and is super common a low ratings.

Since the majority of players are low rating, they see stuff like burn guard and condi ranger VERY commonly and thus think condis are broken and unfun. These builds fall off with better rotations and more competent teammates but at low ratings AND WvW they are incredibly unfun and demoralizing to fight. So I can understand their frustration.

Note: Besides condi thief I don't think any of the above builds are overpowered. I simply think the reward:effort ratio for condi builds are so heavily skewed that for low rating players condi builds are the most effective way for them to deal damage and beat equally lesser skilled players.

wow, show me the cmirage that aoe spams milions of condis around them :Dor renegade that instakills 20k.

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Renegade almost insta killed my 29k HP scourge in the shortbow knockdown, it's like shiro/kalla or malyx/jalla or something.

Condi mirage AOE's a million condis around it everytime it bursts someone.

Neither of these builds are overpowered, I'm simply speaking in terms of a lower tier player and can see their frustrations.

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To me, conditions felt best in the beginning, when it was just a supplementary source of damage.

But with the current conditions system, cutting the damage at least in half and increasing the duration would be the best move.Also, remove the healing reduction from poison.

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@Fueki.4753 said:To me, conditions felt best in the beginning, when it was just a supplementary source of damage.

But with the current conditions system, cutting the damage at least in half and increasing the duration would be the best move.Also, remove the healing reduction from poison.

conditions were never a supplementary source of damage. condition builds have existed since the start.

increasing the duration would just make conditions stack higher than ever before, and make them deal higher dps towards the end of fight (where they deal most of their damage anyway)

removing the healing reduction from poison would just make it into bleed.

any other blatantly incorrect or misguided suggestions?

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@Caine.8204 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:To me, conditions felt best in the beginning, when it was just a supplementary source of damage.

But with the current conditions system, cutting the damage
at least
in half and increasing the duration would be the best move.Also, remove the healing reduction from poison.

conditions were never a supplementary source of damage. condition builds have existed since the start.If you look at the original design of the game during betas and at release, there's a strong argument for condition damage being a secondary damage stat like precision or ferocity. Many weapons and abilities added damaging conditions, but not enough to have condition damage alone be a viable damage source. Aside from bomb engi - which didn't kill all that quickly - there were no viable pure condition damage builds. And there were many weapon kits which did have conditions attached to them, but not enough to be viable as the only source of damage.Once the game had been out for several months, ANet started pushing condition damage only builds to be viable. The addition of Dhuumfire to necromancer was a key turning point. Switching to a model where condition damage alone was sufficient to be competitive with power created another problem where power needs precision and ferocity and is affected by toughness. Meanwhile, condition damage only needs the duration increase - and mostly just for PvE - to be viable after power creep.

increasing the duration would just make conditions stack higher than ever before, and make them deal higher dps towards the end of fight (where they deal most of their damage anyway)Doubling duration but halving damage per tick means the same damage per application, but the initial damage isn't as high. A change like this would allow periodic health recovery (regeneration, leech, etc) to better counter-act conditions. Additionally, cleansing immediately would no longer be the difference between life and death. It would allow more judicious use of cleanse and limit condi burst with CC from shutting down builds without instant cast condition removal.

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@"Shiyo.3578" said:Condi mirage AOE's a million condis around it everytime it bursts someone.lol wutAll the axe attacks need to hit to apply condi, pistol 4 applies condi if specc'd for it and applies the bleed to the target it hits, same with pistol 5, torch 4 and 5 and the shatters have a 240 radius which is less than double the melee range (130), aka barely anything. If you're being condi'd by the mirage its because the mirage is on top of you. And if you're getting "a million condis" from the mirage it's because you're the one targeted by it.

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@Caine.8204 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:To me, conditions felt best in the beginning, when it was just a supplementary source of damage.

But with the current conditions system, cutting the damage
at least
in half and increasing the duration would be the best move.Also, remove the healing reduction from poison.

conditions were never a supplementary source of damage. condition builds have existed since the start.

increasing the duration would just make conditions stack higher than ever before, and make them deal higher dps towards the end of fight (where they deal most of their damage anyway)

removing the healing reduction from poison would just make it into bleed.

any other blatantly incorrect or misguided suggestions?They were probably designed as supplementary damage source since they start at 0 stats, and malice was probably intended to be like ferocity, so instead of crit damage you get dot damage from you skills, but they changed their mind at some point and condition damage is made to be like power but it only needs 2 stats to work instead of 3.

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@Vancho.8750 said:

@Fueki.4753 said:To me, conditions felt best in the beginning, when it was just a supplementary source of damage.

But with the current conditions system, cutting the damage
at least
in half and increasing the duration would be the best move.Also, remove the healing reduction from poison.

conditions were never a supplementary source of damage. condition builds have existed since the start.

increasing the duration would just make conditions stack higher than ever before, and make them deal higher dps towards the end of fight (where they deal most of their damage anyway)

removing the healing reduction from poison would just make it into bleed.

any other blatantly incorrect or misguided suggestions?They were probably designed as supplementary damage source since they start at 0 stats.

I would disagree with this one. I'd say they start at 0 stats because of the calculation they use. If power damage had a similar type of calculation both power and toughness would likely also start at 0.

Also if it was never intended as a true damage source then we wouldn't have seen the dedicated condi weapons, they would have been hybrid at best.

People tend to like condi at the beginning on the game because it was largely irrelevant.

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