Can we please talk about Conditions, Resolution and game balance once more in the competitive scene?

[Yasai.3549]

5 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

What "passive nature of condi"? You got hit by a skill, probably many skills. You did! If you don't believe it, go back and check the combat log.

I meant the passive nature of Condi as in how you apply it and cash in on the reward over time, no matter the distance between you and the target.

In some cases, this is actually much better than Power damage which cashes in on damage immediately but can also be be interrupted immediately if other factors like Terrain and Power Healing get in the way. 

You can burst heal Condi too, but this doesn't immediately invalidate the Condis still applied, if potent enough, can utterly invalidate the incoming heal. 

Combined with a lack of cleanses which alot of classes suffer from, their 1 heal or passive regen is essentially entirely countered by how Condition damage works. 

AND BESIDES, WHY DOES BURNING STILL SCALE SO HARD? Burning still does so much Burst Condi damage it's ridiculous. 

[Chaba.5410]

11 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

I meant the passive nature of Condi as in how you apply it and cash in on the reward over time, no matter the distance between you and the target.

In some cases, this is actually much better than Power damage which cashes in on damage immediately but can also be be interrupted immediately if other factors like Terrain and Power Healing get in the way. 

You can burst heal Condi too, but this doesn't immediately invalidate the Condis still applied, if potent enough, can utterly invalidate the incoming heal. 

Combined with a lack of cleanses which alot of classes suffer from, their 1 heal or passive regen is essentially entirely countered by how Condition damage works. 

AND BESIDES, WHY DOES BURNING STILL SCALE SO HARD? Burning still does so much Burst Condi damage it's ridiculous. 

So?  It's a damage-over-time mechanic.  Not really seeing how this is a problem.

"

• Strike damage — Sometimes referred to as "direct damage", this is inflicted by skills and/or traits directly, can critically hit, and is mitigated by the target's armor.
• Condition damage — This type of damage is inflicted by damaging conditions, can not critically hit and is not mitigated by the target's armor."

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage

[coro.3176]

21 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

AND BESIDES, WHY DOES BURNING STILL SCALE SO HARD? Burning still does so much Burst Condi damage it's ridiculous. 

Burning doesn't scale particularly hard. Example: Blowtorch on Engi Pistol offhand. If I land that skill at point blank range, *and* I have full expertise *and* by some miracle it doesn't get cleansed for its full duration, then it would have to be on a player for something like 30 seconds straight to equal the damage from ONE power grenade barrage burst combo.

30 seconds vs less than 1 second. Same amount of damage.

Edited January 5, 2022 by coro.3176

[Yasai.3549]

12 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

Burning doesn't scale particularly hard. Example: Blowtorch on Engi Pistol offhand. If I land that skill at point blank range, *and* I have full expertise *and* by some miracle it doesn't get cleansed for its full duration, then it would have to be on a player for something like 30 seconds straight to equal the damage from ONE power grenade barrage burst combo.

30 seconds vs less than 1 second. Same amount of damage.

You're right, that's why I think the main issue is how some builds just stack Condis way faster, way more consistently way easily and with no risk.

Ele Earth Dagger is one such offender, and they have anti Crit and enough Condi cleanse up their butt to sustain through a small scale fight while being able to fall back on an auto which has generous range and is not blocked by projectile walls. 

Which is why my solution is turn Resolution into a stacking feature which can block incoming condition applications. 

[Xenesis.6389]

*cough* https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aegis

Aren't you just basically asking to combine multi stack aegis with resolution now?

How about we do this to protection too?

[Rider.6024]

I think op is close to a solution but its a bit more complex than needs be, hits the nail on the head with identifying a problem though

 

I would suggest changing to dmge reduction from 33% to 45% for resolution, and giving warriors access to light aura, no other profession got hit by the resistance nerf hammer nearly as hard

 

this would also make picking up resolution on sb ulti trait more viable over the pull in niche small scale fights, 

 

anti toxin rune set should be a power or vitality stat instead of a condi stat

[Shroud.2307]

Traits and skills are the problem, not Conditions. Make changes case by case. Otherwise, it would be fair to say that Power damage needs to be nerfed across the board because sometimes some things can crit for 20k.

[KeyOrion.9506]

I want to know why a Firebrand puts down a stack of 2 fire, that i take 18,000 dmg per second, and when i put 2 stacks of fire down with a Ranger and i'm putting out...600 dmg per second?  Even with Fire runes of some sort?  What gives?  Say you got two different classes, with same runes, and sigils lets say.....and both classes have the same stack of Fire...for some reason Firebrand vs....whatever other class, the Firebrand fire condition does + extra dmg.  Sigils are the same.  Runes are the same.  # of stacks are the same.  But the damage is unequal as all hell.

[ysnake.3619]

36 minutes ago, KeyOrion.9506 said:

I want to know why a Firebrand puts down a stack of 2 fire, that i take 18,000 dmg per second, and when i put 2 stacks of fire down with a Ranger and i'm putting out...600 dmg per second?  Even with Fire runes of some sort?  What gives?  Say you got two different classes, with same runes, and sigils lets say.....and both classes have the same stack of Fire...for some reason Firebrand vs....whatever other class, the Firebrand fire condition does + extra dmg.  Sigils are the same.  Runes are the same.  # of stacks are the same.  But the damage is unequal as all hell.

Firebrands burn heretics, Rangers make campfire. Big difference.

[KeyOrion.9506]

Nah, i'm calling out Anet for shennanigans.  I don't think their #'s add up.  No, I think the programming damage between the different classes is a real thing, and I don't believe they're looking at it.

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

53 minutes ago, KeyOrion.9506 said:

I want to know why a Firebrand puts down a stack of 2 fire, that i take 18,000 dmg per second, and when i put 2 stacks of fire down with a Ranger and i'm putting out...600 dmg per second?  Even with Fire runes of some sort?  What gives?  Say you got two different classes, with same runes, and sigils lets say.....and both classes have the same stack of Fire...for some reason Firebrand vs....whatever other class, the Firebrand fire condition does + extra dmg.  Sigils are the same.  Runes are the same.  # of stacks are the same.  But the damage is unequal as all hell.

Sry but if ur only doing 600 dps as condi ranger there's something seriously wrong with your build/gear. Btw ranger's main condis are bleed and poison (and possibly immob, depending on build), not burning. Might wanna focus on those instead

Edited January 5, 2022 by Hogwarts Zebra.8597

[KeyOrion.9506]

Nah, what i'm saying is between two classes, as a narrative, when all things are equal for Condition...one class for some reason does a whole bunch more damage than the other class.  I do firmly believe that has something to do with Anet's programming of damage between the different classes.  If you have the same runes, same sigils, barring skills themselves...why would one class do an outragous amount more damage than another class.  I'm saying that the condition for Burning makes no sense between say Heavy, Medium and or Light classes.  The class itself should NOT determine the amount of damage pumped out by a condition if all sigils and runes are supposed to be equal footing.  After that it comes down to the Damage for the skills themselves.  But there's a difference between dropping into a volcano vs. firewalking across hot coals.  And it shows in the game.

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

5 minutes ago, KeyOrion.9506 said:

Nah, what i'm saying is between two classes, as a narrative, when all things are equal for Condition...one class for some reason does a whole bunch more damage than the other class.  I do firmly believe that has something to do with Anet's programming of damage between the different classes.  If you have the same runes, same sigils, barring skills themselves...why would one class do an outragous amount more damage than another class.  I'm saying that the condition for Burning makes no sense between say Heavy, Medium and or Light classes.  The class itself should NOT determine the amount of damage pumped out by a condition if all sigils and runes are supposed to be equal footing.  After that it comes down to the Damage for the skills themselves.  But there's a difference between dropping into a volcano vs. firewalking across hot coals.  And it shows in the game.

Ranger simply isn't optimized for burning dmg, that's just how it is. If u were to try and make a poison FB it'd be doing similarly pitiful dps as ur seeing with your burn ranger right now. Likewise, if u started optimizing your ranger for what it's actually meant to do (poison+bleed), it will be dealing comparable dps to burn FB

Edited January 5, 2022 by Hogwarts Zebra.8597

[KeyOrion.9506]

No, I see burning damage does far more damage than bleeding per second by a longshot.

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

Just now, KeyOrion.9506 said:

No, I see burning damage does far more damage than bleeding per second by a longshot.

One stack of burning out-damages one stack of bleed, indeed. However, ranger is able to stack far more bleeding+poison stacks than FB is able burn, resulting in similar dmg output overall. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

It may be a chicken or egg issue, but supports almost completely negate condition damage at every scale.  If you want conditions nerfed you have to accept that cleansing must also be nerfed.

[Shroud.2307]

41 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

It may be a chicken or egg issue, but supports almost completely negate condition damage at every scale.  If you want conditions nerfed you have to accept that cleansing must also be nerfed.

A lot of people don't seem to care to hear this, unfortunately.

I don't really know what to say about this that I haven't already said before in the many, many, many threads that have been made on this subject. No one listens to actual advice, and no one wants to be constructive.

Condition builds have a niche, and a very small handful are actually any good. Beyond that, it's nothing but numbers - if several people are Condi builds it doesn't really matter what they're playing, it's going to hurt if they're all hitting you. Same can be said of Power.

ANet could start nerfing specific Traits, Skills, etc. and focus on the source of the problem, or they could nerf Condi across the board which would do...
... Absolutely nothing to the Condi builds that are strong. I mean a lot of people complain about Warrior Hammer after the CC changes because half the skills do no damage. That's how changes across the board end up screwing some things more than others. 

It really is as easy as bring Cleansing Sigil, bring Cleanses, consider what you're fighting and adapt to it. I mean changing builds is easier than ever but I guess people would rather "guess I'll die" when one Bleed hits them. 

Those of you convinced that Condi's are a problem, I'd be willing to bet money on one of two things.
You're playing a terrible build, probably with little/no Cleanse.
Or you're mashing buttons throwing kitten at the wall hoping something sticks.
Neither of those things are a Condition problem, it's a you problem.

[coro.3176]

This is what it's like trying to play condi in WvW. Notice how every time I manage to land my burst, it's just erased either instantly, or within a few seconds?

This is against ONE player with average condi cleanse.

Now imagine fighting a group with support cleansing even more. It's impossible. It's an exercise in frustration.

[Dawdler.8521]

 

6 hours ago, KeyOrion.9506 said:

Nah, what i'm saying is between two classes, as a narrative, when all things are equal for Condition...one class for some reason does a whole bunch more damage than the other class.  I do firmly believe that has something to do with Anet's programming of damage between the different classes.  If you have the same runes, same sigils, barring skills themselves...why would one class do an outragous amount more damage than another class.  I'm saying that the condition for Burning makes no sense between say Heavy, Medium and or Light classes.  The class itself should NOT determine the amount of damage pumped out by a condition if all sigils and runes are supposed to be equal footing.  After that it comes down to the Damage for the skills themselves.  But there's a difference between dropping into a volcano vs. firewalking across hot coals.  And it shows in the game.

Except it's just a matter of stacking. Not even just condin stacks but boons too (if you can stack 25 might fast you massivly increase your condi damage).

Coincidently this is the same reason power builds are vastly superior at anything above 1v1.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Draconious.2751]

8 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

This is what it's like trying to play condi in WvW. Notice how every time I manage to land my burst, it's just erased either instantly, or within a few seconds?

This is against ONE player with average condi cleanse.

Now imagine fighting a group with support cleansing even more. It's impossible. It's an exercise in frustration.

 

Seemed like a pretty decent fight to me. Even with cleanses you were dishing out damage while being evassive. Damage taken by both was about equal throughout the fight. The warrior cleansed 6 times with skills in a 60s clip which makes sense between Shake It Off, Mending, and Major Trait Shrug It Off. 

 

Condis on a whole are fine but there are certain builds that gain too much from running condi + trailblazer. Condis require active countermeasures in the form of cleanses while power can be mitigated passively via stats. WvW as a whole could benefit from more frequent balance patches.

[subversiontwo.7501]

9 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

This is what it's like trying to play condi in WvW. Notice how every time I manage to land my burst, it's just erased either instantly, or within a few seconds?

This is against ONE player with average condi cleanse.

Now imagine fighting a group with support cleansing even more. It's impossible. It's an exercise in frustration.

It's a warrior with cleanses on 5s swaps, swap sigils and cleanse on burst. That's not average, that's about as good as it gets. Not only is a dedicated, albeit somewhat common, build but it utilizes two unique class mechanics to achieve it. Also, assuming a group fight where you also have a group, it's not that frustrating. You alone versus five with support? Sure, that's frustrating but that is frustrating no matter what you play. You're not supposed to have relatively fair chances versus 5x your numbers of relatively decent organised players. There are plenty of 5-man condi groups around to prove that it works decently enough on a broad scale.

Not that it matters in the larger discussion about condition balance though, I just wanted to point that out since I don't like certain statements just floating around at face value (the whole "I can't solo groups or solo in blobs" thing is rather pervasive and always has the same answer that it does decent enough assuming you match scale and organisation while power is no easy ticket into fighting outmanned; most people just doesn't do those things to have a perspective on it).

Condi overall has two major issues since HoT and that is how mechanics were changed to suit to fit instanced PvE and that has never been properly rebalanced for PvP. Instanced PvE just has so much easier application (stand on spot) than PvP whereas in PvP easier-application abilities just risks scaling away. It used to make sense having many mechanics bypass others or play by different rules when some conditions were mainly cover, debuff or top-off. Prior to the pre-HoT shift condi worked alot differently with raws, secondaries and different stacking types.

The other issue is the good old amount of damage per stat. I think Anet jumped the gun on that when they primarily targetted condition time with the nerfs because that second issue is much less about the totals and much more about how something like Dire just puts out so much more damage than Soldier. Now, I'm, not saying people play Dire or Soldier alot, it just serves as a good example of the point. Many condi builds can put out relatively high damage on condi alone and the stat itself scales very well, many times making stacking more condi stat the best option on builds that already utilize a broad amount of stats.

But yeah those are the issues and there are no other foul magical things at play. In the mess of condition and boon jungle that exists today I would probably just favour some extra cut on raw condition scaling to adress those issues broadly. If they were to sort out 8 years of PvE mess they'd probably have to start rebuilding a balance from scratch. That's the main issue facing the skill splits and on-off balance initiatives. It tries smoothing out issues on a very uneven ground.

Edited January 5, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[coro.3176]

38 minutes ago, Draconious.2751 said:

 

Seemed like a pretty decent fight to me. Even with cleanses you were dishing out damage while being evassive. Damage taken by both was about equal throughout the fight. The warrior cleansed 6 times with skills in a 60s clip which makes sense between Shake It Off, Mending, and Major Trait Shrug It Off. 

Yes, it *seemed* like a decent fight, but in order to seem that way, I'm out-playing the warrior by a ton. If I had been playing power, they would have been dead in maybe 10s.

I was really not dishing out much damage compared to the number of cooldowns I landed on them.

16 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

It's a warrior with cleanses on 5s swaps, swap sigils and cleanse on burst. That's not average, that's about as good as it gets.

Disagree. That is pretty normal cleanse for a roaming build.  See also: weaver, necro, some mirage builds, etc. Power soulbeast builds have less cleanse, but still enough that they can negate my burst a few times while threatening to 1-shot me with a burst at any time.

20 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Also, assuming a group fight where you also have a group, it's not that frustrating. You alone versus five with support? Sure, that's frustrating but that is frustrating no matter what you play.

No. In a group fight, you want power, always. The fact that condi can be cleansed, and that entire stacks get cleansed means you are better off not risking that. There's a reason everyone switches off of condi builds when fights get too big. It's the shared cleanse negating ALL of a certain type of condi. That is too much of a scaling disadvantage to overcome. You're better off just blasting them in the face with power because there's no getting away from it after the fact.

[subversiontwo.7501]

8 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

 There's a reason everyone switches off of condi builds when fights get too big. It's the shared cleanse negating ALL of a certain type of condi.

Yes, that's my point. They are trying to play conditions in an environment where other people play power. That just doesn't work (their attacks feed into a 5-man scaled anti-debuff defense). However, things are different if entire groups build into conditions. It's just that very few players have experienced that.

That power works better by itself in a group otherwise dominated by condition output than vice versa or that power possibly does better in 1v5 where opponents have one or two decent group cleansers are not really causes for concern, very relevant for a balance discussion and does not do much to suggest what you *can* do with condition output. Power doesn't thrive in those situations either and to do well with it is mostly governed by the same rules.

Edit. In fact, thinking about large scale content, it is one of those situation where reversing perspective would be a good thing: If debuffs were not as strong, condition damage would fare better. It's the same sort of discussion as with stability in larger scale content. Dependency on stability is best adressed by reducing the need for it, because the game fares better when players get to play freely than by being mired in control.

Edited January 5, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[coro.3176]

6 minutes ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Yes, that's my point. They are trying to play conditions in an environment where other people play power. That just doesn't work. However, things are different if entire groups build into conditions. It's just that very few players have experienced that.

That power works better by itself in a group otherwise dominated by condition output or that power possibly does better in 1v5 where opponents have one or two decent group cleansers are not really causes for concern, very relevant for a balance discussion and does not do much to suggest what you *can* do with condition output.

The issue is that power is just always the best choice. It's better in zerg fights, or in any fight with support. It's at least equal in a 1v1, so you have the choice between condi (situational, huge downsides), and power (always good).

So I bristle at OP's suggestion that condi needs to be nerfed even further for some reason..

Edited January 5, 2022 by coro.3176

[subversiontwo.7501]

45 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

The issue is that power is just always the best choice. It's better in zerg fights, or in any fight with support. It's at least equal in a 1v1, so you have the choice between condi (situational, huge downsides), and power (always good).

So I bristle at OP's suggestion that condi needs to be nerfed even further for some reason..

That's my contention. It isn't always the better choice, it is rather as you say, situational, but that situation is not limited to solo play. It's situational in that conditions rely on overwhelming people's defenses and that has a social or organisational drawback when debuff defenses barge into the same territory. You have similar issues when people on these forums complain about defensive boons from a power perspective. They simply need to hit certain values and bring it to bare. Most of those people complaining simply have no experience playing with a well-organised group.

So, again, if you play in a 5-15 highly organised group that dip into condi comps you get a better grasp of what it does and does not do. If you experienced the Epi pickup meta in 2017 you know what it could do then and there. It wasn't particularily fun to play in. That harkens back to my point of why I always defend stability. It's for the broad fun of the game than for any self minded concerns for classes. So I'm merely arguing that point because I dislike misinformation.

I'm not sure either if conditions needs to be nerfed more. For me it is more a question of finding out what concerns and examples are valid to discuss and finding out ways to fit them into balance to improve upon the game. Balance is supposedly an ongoing process. So it is much less about what needs nerfs and more about what changes could improve on certain aspects of the game. Decoupling debuffs and condition damage or returning to more diffierentiation between conditions in PvP splits could be two such things because there are inherent issues within those two things and those issues can exist, be problematic, while at the same time not really needing to be adressed.

The question is rather whether they should or shouldn't be changed and, if so, how. That ties into this thread because while I do not agree with the OP's suggestion, the OP does illustrate one valid point: changes to the condition system has left conventional cleanses trailing behind causing some concern on a class-level of balance. That was my initial reason to reply to you as well when you framed that video as average. That there are other specific roaming builds on certain specific classes that also have a high amount of highly specialised cleanses doesn't really alleviate the OP's concern. Nore does any discussion about lopsided fights. In fact, some of those specialised cleansing options are valid balance concerns of their own. Things like dodge, swap or short class uniques are often balance concerns. I may like to use them myself but that doesn't mean I'm blind to what could be issues with them.

Ed. Another thing one could do with condition is to differentiate the abilities more, creating larger gaps between big and small applications with more telegraphing and counterplay. That would be a change that isn't a direct nerf. There are plenty of such discussions to be had as well. That could also differentiate strong debuffs from mere pressure.

Edited January 5, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501