Why did Condi get so much more powerful than Power?

[Josiah.2967]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm a returning player. It seems like all my power builds are worse than before, and all my condi builds are as strong or stronger than they were prior to my returning? 

 

It seems like every top build I'm seeing is Condi. Why did this happen? Condi was always better at some bosses. I'm having a hard time understanding why this went from balanced to completely Condi favored.

[anbujackson.9564]

On the latest balance patch one week ago, anet removed unique class effects like banners and spirits which were very important especially for power.

We got some adjustments for soulbeast and engineer and sort of bladesworn (which no1 really plays). 

Condi was already better before, now it dominates even more.

[Puck.3697]

Power is still strong. The issue is

Power requires your whole team to be Power, to stack also have synchronised bursts as power generally exceeds at speed killing. 

Condi however doesn't matter what your team runs and doesn't rly matter how slowly the boss dies. 

In pugs u will never rly see situation 1. So condi will always perform better in the average gameplay. But you have to remember, Power was dropping bosses in under 2minutes when it was the norm to run among average players which can't rly be allowed either. 

I

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Long story short, condi works with only 2 stats which leaves 2 the 2 other stats to be whatever you want, including power and precision. Power build requires 3 stats to work. There's also the matter of boons like protection that is more present than Resolution, indirectly making condi stronger. And for open world, you can build for both condi and survivability, meaning you can just solo almost all hard content with no difficulty.

 

Also there's the idea that condition takes some time to ramp up which is true but at the same time irrelevant when you have class that can either apply a tons of burning or stack a lot of bleeding in a short window of time.

[Antycypator.9874]

Condition Damage ignores enemy's toughness and armor, so you're always doing full damage.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1) All "power" buffs are gone. (banners, assassin's presence, frost spirit etc)

2) Exposed debuff on enemies rewards more condi build.
Condi damage buff + 20% while strike damage only +10%, plus you don't care on condi to timegate your rotation, this is less true with power as you would like to time your rotation/burst with the debuff. The march/april update matchs a bit that ; exposed last 10sec, enough for 1-2 power rotation; but  is still stronger/easier for condi overall.

3) As people said : you need aligned planets with teammates for the highest dps/burst for all and then shorten the fight.

4) Condi works mostly with 2 stats, sometimes 3 when you need to proc condition with precision; on Power you need 3. And see how condition work +  but also weapons skills/kits, it allows for OW, pvp/wvw and even pug instances  more bulky sets. Plus, power often lacks tools like boonstrip, weakness, vulnerability, chill etc to make fights more confortable. Celestial for example is doing better for condi than power usually.
Edit* forgot to speak about weakness on power build ... but hey.

5) Most enemies have armor, block, regen/protection teleport, etc; condi > power.
Sure obviously there are set-up where power outperforms; like you also have more and more bosses with resolution, cleanse, or invulnerability phases every 10%, like in fractals; but even here for the same reasons above, condi are still doing great.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Taclism.2406]

6) Most power builds are melee, most condis builds are ranged. So in every fight that ask more movement than a dps golem, as a melee you have to EITHER do damage, OR mechanics ; whereas condi can do mechanics AND continue to dps at the same time (and that's not mentioning condis would keep ticking even if you moved out of range, lowering your downtime)

[SeTect.5918]

28 minutes ago, Taclism.2406 said:

6) Most power builds are melee, most condis builds are ranged. 

Not rly. Both most power and condi builds r melee. 

Almost all or even all are melee. Its like this game doesn't have viable ranged builds tbh. 

[Dadnir.5038]

If a Power build see it's damage multiplied by 4 on crit, a condi build see it's own damage increased by less than 50% throught crits. The last patch especially hurted power damage by increasing the sacrifices needed to cap crit chance which, thus, heavily affect "power builds".

To "balance" condi builds against power builds that used to easily cap their crit chance, the devs pushed numbers and modifiers over the years. Now that caping crit chance is no longer granted, condi builds shine brighter than ever.

 

When people say that condi build need 2 stats instead of 3 compared to power builds, they are wrong. Condi build need as much stats as power builds. The difference is in the sheer impact of each stat over their performance.

 

[Fueki.4753]

18 hours ago, Josiah.2967 said:

Why did this happen?

It happened for the same reasons that apply to all the changes that happen to professions: Personal feelings and whims of the developers.

They simply prefer condition damage and have little to no love for Power damage.

 

[Gajex.2386]

Power damage is countered by defense and toughness, condition damage ignores both and is supposed to be countered by health.

So was the idea... And here is how they basket of kitten'd it up, using fractals as cherry pick:

Fractal enemies gain on higher levels more defense, toughness, health, damage... More of everything.

So power damage gets reduced even more, the further up the levels you come. Condition damage on the other hand "just" has to worry about a larger health pool, which in turn allows to actually stack conditions and pull better numbers before the target croaks it.

On the flipside, there are supposed to be a couple fractal bosses where power should perform better. Never noticed that much of a benefit though (yes, am poor casual).

[Malsheem.1794]

Also, the change to Torment made tons of difference.

[SeTect.5918]

1 hour ago, Malsheem.1794 said:

Also, the change to Torment made tons of difference.

Not rly tbh. 

Before something like renegade was some dps on a golem that doesn't move. And if it would move, it deals additional damage. 

Now it works like: it deals whatever dps on a standing golem, but if it moves, it deals less dmg. 

Before it was a cherry on the already good cake. So a bonus on the top that isnt visible in benchmarks. 

Confusion works the same btw. 

And thats why Mechanist is so op while the benchmark is actually not that strong (letting away the heal mechanist). Still very strong tho. Mechanist Was like...41k dps? Without confusion effect even activating. So it was already one of the best dps e specs. And in a real fight, it even deals far more dps bc of confusion. 

Torment worked the same, dealing x dps on golem not moving but dealing x + y dps in a real fight bc target moves sometimes. 

So actually torment was stronger before in pve. In pvp is stronger now tho. 

 

BUT i agree that condition builds are stronger than power builds. Also bc of the confusion condition on some builds which is, like on mechanist, a cherry on the top of the 41k benchmark that makes it even better in real fights, even tho 41k dps is veeeery strong already. 

[ThunderX.6591]

I really want to see the mecha build 41k dps, really, because now the top one before the hot fix nerf of the 01/07 (but after the 28/06 patch) was around 32k, and after the hot fix, is sure less and the condi variant do even less than the power one after the condi nerf time on the 28/06 patch.

On the argument of power vs condi, condi FB do less than 31k dps now, condi willbender do less than 32k now, condi virtuoso do less damage than power virtuoso, Bladesworn (elite warrior) is top power dps and so on...... (as condi, the only one really good is harbringer, but the class is good as power too).

So, yeah, on the theory, condi is good in a lot of situation (expecially after the change in patch 28/06), BUT, at least atm, i see more power build doing high level contents.

Obviously, things can change in 1 single day, expecially cause atm, people are in the middle to experimenting with the class to see the new balance (nerf) get them in term of max dps.

We will see.

Oh right, a lot depend on the class you are playing too and you didn't write them in your post (Some class now are better condi, some other are better power, the difference is more marked now).