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Condition Variety


Batalix.2873

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So I'm sure there is a more nuanced discussion to be had about condi builds being generally overpowered compared to melee builds, but I just wanted to note something that I find extremely disappointing:

 

So many condi builds kind of feel "the same". Every time I try out a new condi build, it tends to use primarily burning or bleeding to do damage.

 

* Condi Berserker - burning and bleeding

* Condi Renegade - burning and bleeding (bit of torment)

* Condi Ranger - bleeding (maybe bit of burning or poison)

* Condi Scourge - burning and torment

* Condi Virtuoso - bleeding

* Condi FB - burning

* Condi Willbender - burning

* Condi Ele - burning and bleeding (all three especs because ele barely has especs, only element traitlines)

 

And yes, we do have some additional options, but those all lean into torment instead:

 

* Condi Specter - torment and poison

* Condi Harbinger - torment and poison

* Condi Mirage - torment and confusion

* Condi Herald - torment and burning

 

Flavorfully, a lot of condi builds are starting to blob together for me because they primarily deal in one of three condi types: burning, bleeding, or torment. Torment especially bothers me because it so frequently seems "tacked on" to give an espec condi options when there is no fire or "sharp blades" in its design. But even burning and bleeding are disappointing, in that I have to imagine there could be more than just those two flavors of "ongoing physical damage" across 27 especs. Even poison is starting to seem overused a bit.

 

And I admit, the thing that really made me notice how much the condi system is straining to accommodate new espec designs wasn't any of these examples: it was that for some strange reason Mechanist has a unique weapon that does confusion damage, despite this having nothing to with the concept at all. Frankly I think it is is ridiculous that Mech got a condi build in the first place, makes very little sense. 

 

But what this design decision communicates to me in a game that is constantly pressing for every espec to have a condi build, is that, instead of developing new conditions that suit the newer especs and maybe allowing for better differentiation among older especs, the devs instead looked at their existing options and decided "well four of the five damaging conditions definitely don't work, so I guess confusion will have to do".

 

We could really use more condition damage types. Ones that have different side-effects, different flavors. I would even argue that certain condis should have been "expac exclusive" to make them more clearly balanceable. Torment would have been perfectly fine on just the PoF especs. Jade tech and void magic were the perfect occasion to introduce two new condi types for EoD especs. The class system has grown large enough to accommodate more variation in condis and boons.

 

Tl;dr: I am getting tired of applying burning, bleeding, and/or torment, regardless of which espec I am playing.

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21 minutes ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

 

More 2 years? 😛

 

46 minutes ago, Batalix.2873 said:

So I'm sure there is a more nuanced discussion to be had about condi builds being generally overpowered compared to melee builds, but I just wanted to note something that I find extremely disappointing:

 

So many condi builds kind of feel "the same". Every time I try out a new condi build, it tends to use primarily burning or bleeding to do damage.

 

* Condi Berserker - burning and bleeding

* Condi Renegade - burning and bleeding (bit of torment)

* Condi Ranger - bleeding (maybe bit of burning or poison)

* Condi Scourge - burning and torment

* Condi Virtuoso - bleeding

* Condi FB - burning

* Condi Willbender - burning

* Condi Ele - burning and bleeding (all three especs because ele barely has especs, only element traitlines)

 

And yes, we do have some additional options, but those all lean into torment instead:

 

* Condi Specter - torment and poison

* Condi Harbinger - torment and poison

* Condi Mirage - torment and confusion

* Condi Herald - torment and burning

 

Flavorfully, a lot of condi builds are starting to blob together for me because they primarily deal in one of three condi types: burning, bleeding, or torment. Torment especially bothers me because it so frequently seems "tacked on" to give an espec condi options when there is no fire or "sharp blades" in its design. But even burning and bleeding are disappointing, in that I have to imagine there could be more than just those two flavors of "ongoing physical damage" across 27 especs. Even poison is starting to seem overused a bit.

 

And I admit, the thing that really made me notice how much the condi system is straining to accommodate new espec designs wasn't any of these examples: it was that for some strange reason Mechanist has a unique weapon that does confusion damage, despite this having nothing to with the concept at all. Frankly I think it is is ridiculous that Mech got a condi build in the first place, makes very little sense. 

 

But what this design decision communicates to me in a game that is constantly pressing for every espec to have a condi build, is that, instead of developing new conditions that suit the newer especs and maybe allowing for better differentiation among older especs, the devs instead looked at their existing options and decided "well four of the five damaging conditions definitely don't work, so I guess confusion will have to do".

 

We could really use more condition damage types. Ones that have different side-effects, different flavors. I would even argue that certain condis should have been "expac exclusive" to make them more clearly balanceable. Torment would have been perfectly fine on just the PoF especs. Jade tech and void magic were the perfect occasion to introduce two new condi types for EoD especs. The class system has grown large enough to accommodate more variation in condis and boons.

 

Tl;dr: I am getting tired of applying burning, bleeding, and/or torment, regardless of which espec I am playing.

you have more than any other AAA game i can think of.  Adding more is not the answer to your problem, I would suggest you go hybrid if you want  yet more variety

 

Icon Name Description Converted into
Damage Conditions
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/3/33/Bleeding.png/20px-Bleeding.png Bleeding Deals damage every second; stacks intensity. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f4/Vigor.png/20px-Vigor.png Vigor (10s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/4/45/Burning.png/20px-Burning.png Burning Deals damage every second; stacks intensity. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/e/e5/Aegis.png/20px-Aegis.png Aegis (5s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/e/e6/Confusion.png/20px-Confusion.png Confusion Damage received on skill activation; stacks intensity. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/0/06/Resolution.png/20px-Resolution.png Resolution (5s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/1/11/Poisoned.png/20px-Poisoned.png Poisoned Deals damage every second; decreases healing effectiveness by 33%; damage stacks intensity. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/5/53/Regeneration.png/20px-Regeneration.png Regeneration (5s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/0/08/Torment.png/20px-Torment.png Torment Deals damage every second. Deals additional damage to foes that aren't moving. Stacks intensity. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/7/7c/Might.png/20px-Might.png Might (3 stacks, 10s)
Crowd Control Conditions
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/3/33/Blinded.png/20px-Blinded.png Blinded Next outgoing attack misses; stacks duration. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/4/46/Fury.png/20px-Fury.png Fury (5s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/a6/Chilled.png/20px-Chilled.png Chilled Movement speed decreased by 66%; skill cooldown increased by 66%; stacks duration. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/4/4c/Alacrity.png/20px-Alacrity.png Alacrity (2s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/fb/Crippled.png/20px-Crippled.png Crippled Movement speed decreased by 50%; stacks duration. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/af/Swiftness.png/20px-Swiftness.png Swiftness (10s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/e/e6/Fear.png/20px-Fear.png Fear Involuntary retreat; unable to act; stacks duration. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/ae/Stability.png/20px-Stability.png Stability (3s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/3/32/Immobile.png/20px-Immobile.png Immobilized Unable to move; stacks duration. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/4/4b/Resistance.png/20px-Resistance.png Resistance (2s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f5/Slow.png/20px-Slow.png Slow Skills and actions are slower. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/b/b4/Quickness.png/20px-Quickness.png Quickness (3s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/c/cc/Taunt.png/20px-Taunt.png Taunt Involuntarily attack foes. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/ae/Stability.png/20px-Stability.png Stability (3s)
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/f/f9/Weakness.png/20px-Weakness.png Weakness Endurance regeneration decreased by 50%. 50% of hits are Glancing Blows (50% damage). Stacks duration. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/7/7c/Might.png/20px-Might.png Might (3 stacks, 10s)
Other Conditions
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/a/af/Vulnerability.png/20px-Vulnerability.png Vulnerability Damage and condition damage taken are increased; stacks intensity. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/thumb/6/6c/Protection.png/20px-Protection.png Protection (3s)

 

 

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I am not sure power builds have equivalent damage varieties though. Good old slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage isn't a thing in this game.  You can chill an enemy but the damage isn't ice damage.  You can hit a fire elemental with a flame thrower,  and it will be immune to the burning condition, but it will take full damage from the initial firey blast.  Power builds mostly seem to deal generic damage. 

I am not sure damage type matters anyway.  We have toughness that seems to mitigate all damage types equally.  If a skill happens to ignore damage mitigation: that is a feature of that skill, rather than it's damage type.  I don't understand what effect op wants to achieve by adding a condition type.  Visual variety?

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The different damaging condis are there simply for different damage formulas (if setting aside the themes). You could ofc slap in more types, yeah, but functionally they'd still be merely additional versions of same formulas.

However, Kitty's kinda opposed to adding new condi damage types as it'd just end up slapping them on currently existing stuffs and unless balance team is using damage calculating spreadsheets for balancing, new formulas would result in balance issues that'd take a good while to fix. Meanwhile, we even currently have builds waiting for fixes. *stares at mace warrior, shortbow thief, hammer rev and half of engi's kits*

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We have DOTs and we have confusion as damaging conditions:
Technically if you just don't use any skills confusion won't hurt you. Just dodge roll and run away?
Burning is a damage over time, does burning go away if you swim? I can't remember.
Bleeding is the damage over time that also works on destroyers and fish. Are there constructs or undead that are immune to bleed? I mean if destroyers and forged are immune to burning, why not?
Torment is a dot that hits harder if they aren't moving.  Torment used to be a dot that hit harder when they did move, I miss that.
Poison is a dot that reduces the target's ability to be healed.  I assume it doesn't scale as well as bleeding because it reduces health recovery.
 

I am not sure that there are any other triggers to attach condition damage to.   I guess you want another flavor of confusion.  Victim takes damage if they do...
If you combine a trigger with a dot then you have simply duplicated torment.

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First, condi builds aren't overpowered.  SC benchmarks have power and condi very evenly split, with exactly half of the top 20 DPS builds running power (including the #1 build and 2 out of the top 3).  And if you feel condi is lacking variety due to having only 3 primary damage sources (4 actually, as you forgot about confusion which is a primary damage source on at least one build), you must really hate power because it has only one.  What are you even talking about here?

In my opinion, conditions should have a purpose to differentiate them.  Simply adding new conditions that just deal damage and saying that it comes from a different source doesn't change the feel of it for me in the same way that 5k damage from a fireball doesn't feel any different than 5k damage from a hammer unless they add conditions or other effects in addition to the damage.

So what would you add?  You mention void and jade tech.  What would those conditions do that we don't already have covered by other conditions?  

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On 12/30/2022 at 12:03 PM, Zebulous.2934 said:

I am not sure power builds have equivalent damage varieties though. Good old slashing/bludgeoning/piercing damage isn't a thing in this game.  You can chill an enemy but the damage isn't ice damage.  You can hit a fire elemental with a flame thrower,  and it will be immune to the burning condition, but it will take full damage from the initial firey blast.  Power builds mostly seem to deal generic damage. 

I am not sure damage type matters anyway.  We have toughness that seems to mitigate all damage types equally.  If a skill happens to ignore damage mitigation: that is a feature of that skill, rather than it's damage type.  I don't understand what effect op wants to achieve by adding a condition type.  Visual variety?

 

More like...variety of flavor. I'm especially feeling like torment is just slapped on a lot of builds just "to do more condi damage", when we could easily have some condis that are...variations on torment/poison/confusion that could make especs feel a tad more unique.

 

Part of that is game feel, because imo the distinction between torment and confusion conceptually is very thin aside from one being more "insidious" than the other, and yet torment is used on jobs like mirage where I really don't think it fits the idea of the espec as well as confusion or maybe some new condition type.

 

But part of that is also...worldbuilding? Like, the realm of torment is an actual concept in GW lore, totally distinct from dragonvoid magic. It made sense to include on Revenant and Scourge because of their connections to the concept. But Specter and Harbinger, which use some kind of shadow magic, risen magic, dragonvoid magic...why do they have torment and not some thematically appropriate status?

 

(And then, on a lesser note, the amount of specs that just use a mishmash of burning/bleeding is just disappointing...they don't feel as "off theme", but given how many there are I can't help but feel like they could be diversified a bit with a new condi type or two).

 

On 12/31/2022 at 3:27 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

First, condi builds aren't overpowered.  SC benchmarks have power and condi very evenly split, with exactly half of the top 20 DPS builds running power (including the #1 build and 2 out of the top 3).  And if you feel condi is lacking variety due to having only 3 primary damage sources (4 actually, as you forgot about confusion which is a primary damage source on at least one build), you must really hate power because it has only one.  What are you even talking about here?

In my opinion, conditions should have a purpose to differentiate them.  Simply adding new conditions that just deal damage and saying that it comes from a different source doesn't change the feel of it for me in the same way that 5k damage from a fireball doesn't feel any different than 5k damage from a hammer unless they add conditions or other effects in addition to the damage.

So what would you add?  You mention void and jade tech.  What would those conditions do that we don't already have covered by other conditions?  

 

When you look at wingman spreads, condi and ranged builds (of which there is significant overlap) are heavily favored. And it makes sense, because ranged allows you to continue doing damage while moving/dodging/outside of melee mechanics' range, while condi builds often require fewer "direct hits" to tag with damage.

 

See my observation above about the overbroad application of torment as a kind of catchall non-status. There are still plenty of "side effects" that could be associated with new condi damage: prevent barrier, boonstrip, paralysis, reduce magical damage, etc. etc. When you look at what damage condis we do have they only have a few slices of the possibility pie.

 

And so I don't particularly care about the precise implementation so much as introducing enough variety to cut back on overapplying condis like torment and confusion where they don't seem to fit very well. But if you want a proposal:

 

* Void - reduced outgoing magical damage by 50 percent. (could be incorporated into Specter and Harbinger weapons and utilities)

* Jade tech - boonstrip or barrier prevention. (could work on Mechanist mace, Catalyst Jade Spheres, Bladesworn pistol)

 

I would also propose some sort of "light magic" damage condi to be retrofitted to some Path of Fire especs, particularly Firebrand, Holosmith, and Mirage, to counterbalance the overuse of fire and torment (and maybe also feature in Druid, just a thought). Radiant damage or some such.

 

I'm not proposing a LOT of conditions be added to the game. Just some careful, selective additions to make especs stand apart from each other better.

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different colours  for a 'light magic' (for e.g) would make things a little more interesting visually actually.  

 

Aside from this there are already 14 conditions, all with different/multiple ranges and duration and impact., then we have CCs then we have all the flavours of strike damage then we have all the buffs, then the 3 types of combo.  we have a A HUGE variety of spell effects already.  Resources would be better spent elsewhere  think.

Edited by vesica tempestas.1563
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20 minutes ago, vesica tempestas.1563 said:

different colours  for a 'light magic' (for e.g) would make things a little more interesting visually actually.  

 

Aside from this there are already 14 conditions, all with different/multiple ranges and duration and impact., then we have CCs then we have all the flavours of strike damage then we have all the buffs, then the 3 types of combo.  we have a A HUGE variety of spell effects already.  Resources would be better spent elsewhere  think.

 

Well my issue is that the game has defined an entire role, condi DPS, built across 27 especs (of which, by my rough count, some 19-ish have a condi build), but only 5 condis that do any damage (burning, bleeding, confusion, torment, poison).

 

For being only one of two ways to deal damage, there really isn't much variety for condi agency. At least with physical damage every weapon feels different and has things like daze, stun, knockback, CC, etc. Condi damage is fairly intangible and passive, and so would rely even more on flavor and different side effects to really differentiate itself. And as you observed the real thing is the visuals and how it *feels*. Poison's effect on healing doesn't impact condi DPS much, making it barely different from bleeding or burning. But it just has that slightly different flavor that makes a poison build feel unique. I want more of that in a game with too much burning, bleeding, and torment.

 

Also, small side note, but boons are in a similar state of disarray. I think it quite ridiculous that the only other "mandatory" role besides DPS is alac/quick, and that we have TWO entire role slots outfitted for practically the same "speedy" boon (quickness and alacrity). We don't care about shielder roles, or CC/Mezzy roles, or (usually) healers or tanks, but we as a community have decided we NEED two whole speed boon slaves in every party of five (and on top of that, many of them feel terrible to play with off-cooldown tacked-on traits)? Why haven't quickness and alacrity been consolidated into the same boon by now? If both are practically mandatory full-uptime and do almost exactly the same thing, why can't we halve the inconvenience and just have one speedboonslave per party?

Edited by Batalix.2873
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On 12/30/2022 at 9:53 AM, Batalix.2873 said:

We could really use more condition damage types. Ones that have different side-effects, different flavors. I would even argue that certain condis should have been "expac exclusive" to make them more clearly balanceable. Torment would have been perfectly fine on just the PoF especs. Jade tech and void magic were the perfect occasion to introduce two new condi types for EoD especs. The class system has grown large enough to accommodate more variation in condis and boons.

 


How do you propose we hurt someone nonphysically then. What happens when you jade someone or void someone to death? Does their skin burn? Do they suffer mental damage?

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41 minutes ago, Solnos.8045 said:


How do you propose we hurt someone nonphysically then. What happens when you jade someone or void someone to death? Does their skin burn? Do they suffer mental damage?

 

Well jade tech is some sort of electromagnetic magical analogue, most of the time. And void is no more esoteric than the realm of torment and it definitely does *something* metaphysical to things and people.

 

To me this question is like asking what the difference is between torment and confusion. They are practically the same thing flavorfully (mental instability) except torment is like...a variation on confusion that is realm-of-torment-themed. So void could be a "distortion/emptiness" version of confusion, depending on how you interpret its kind of incoherent depiction in the story. To me, if confusion is confusion and torment is madness, then void would be like...depression. Hence reduced magical damage as a proposed side effect.

 

And then jade tech could act like an interference field. Maybe even call it interference, and prevent boons and/or barrier.

 

Both have actual flavors albeit somewhat intangible, but they are well-defined kinds of magic in the worldbuilding and would at least fit the EoD especs better than torment and confusion.

In fact (and although this is too late), having new condi damage types introduced per expansion would theoretically have kept progression more "horizontal" and prevented power creep. If you can imagine an isolated microcosm where, say, confusion only existed in core, and torment/void only in a particular expansion, you could nerf/buff a specific condi without unfairly impacting any class that happened to have access to both. Core classes too weak compared to three expacs? Buff confusion numbers. EoD expac classes too strong compared to Core/HoT/PoF? Nerf "void" or "jade tech" numbers. And given that each expac deals with certain new regional types of magic that are reflected in the classes, it would have just gelled with worldbuilding better.

Edited by Batalix.2873
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Adding more condition "varieties"  will have massive balance implications.  Condition cleansing will not ever be able to keep up if there are 7 types of bleeding and 3 types of burning, each covering torment/poison/confusion/etc.  You would need to ramp up condition cleansing to keep up, and for what?  This is similar to just making strike damage and health pools bigger across the board.  It doesn't do anything but provide bigger numbers.  100 damage to a 10,000 health pool is the same as 1,000 damage to a 100,000 health pool.  Ramping up the number of different conditions in the game while ramping up the number of conditions cleansed across the board is the same.

As for the examples provided, there is no such thing as magic damage.  There is just damage modified by power and critical hits, and damage modified by condition damage.

Increasing the number of conditions is power creep.  These are additional stacks of damage over time that only add to the damage taken by a particular target.  The increased damage is harder to remove because there are more conditions that require cleansing.  

Also, how would elite specializations be prevented from accessing the conditions of core specializations?  They ahve access to core traits, weapons, and utilities.

 

On a personal note, torment does go with the mesmer theme.  Mesmers are all about tormenting the minds of others through reality-altering deceit.  I would certainly be tormented if a massive hot-pink mustachioed Norn wearing neon green tights suddenly manifested several copies of himself around me.    Actually, I'm just going to stop thinking about mesmers for now.

 

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On 12/30/2022 at 8:03 PM, Zebulous.2934 said:

I am not sure damage type matters anyway.  We have toughness that seems to mitigate all damage types equally.  

As far as I know, and the wiki confirms it, Toughness raises your armor value and only works against strike damage aka power damage. That means it's entirely useless against condition damage.

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2 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

As far as I know, and the wiki confirms it, Toughness raises your armor value and only works against strike damage aka power damage. That means it's entirely useless against condition damage.

The counter conditions are called clenases something you cant do with power damage at all.

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On 1/3/2023 at 11:04 PM, Rogue.8235 said:

Adding more condition "varieties"  will have massive balance implications.  Condition cleansing will not ever be able to keep up if there are 7 types of bleeding and 3 types of burning, each covering torment/poison/confusion/etc.  You would need to ramp up condition cleansing to keep up, and for what?  This is similar to just making strike damage and health pools bigger across the board.  It doesn't do anything but provide bigger numbers.  100 damage to a 10,000 health pool is the same as 1,000 damage to a 100,000 health pool.  Ramping up the number of different conditions in the game while ramping up the number of conditions cleansed across the board is the same.

As for the examples provided, there is no such thing as magic damage.  There is just damage modified by power and critical hits, and damage modified by condition damage.

Increasing the number of conditions is power creep.  These are additional stacks of damage over time that only add to the damage taken by a particular target.  The increased damage is harder to remove because there are more conditions that require cleansing.  

Also, how would elite specializations be prevented from accessing the conditions of core specializations?  They ahve access to core traits, weapons, and utilities.

 

On a personal note, torment does go with the mesmer theme.  Mesmers are all about tormenting the minds of others through reality-altering deceit.  I would certainly be tormented if a massive hot-pink mustachioed Norn wearing neon green tights suddenly manifested several copies of himself around me.    Actually, I'm just going to stop thinking about mesmers for now.

 

 

I think the only place where condition cleansing would suffer is WvW. For PvE, I don't think a boss would care much if it had 30 stacks of tormen versus 15 torment and 15 jade-whatever. And for PvP, at most you are increasing the number of condis to cleanse in a fight by maybe 1, 2 in most instances, which could be reasonably balanced by tweaking PvP-specific cleanses.

 

I don't have a good answer to WvW cleanses, other than WvW generally is broken combat-wise when out of all medieval war strategies you could conceive for a 50 v. 50 battlefield, the meta devolved into blobification. WvW is so hard to make individual mechanics or classes impactful anyway that I don't think condis are as fundamental an issue.

 

When I talk magic damage I mean condi damage. Nearly all condi damage outside of bleeding is basically GW2's idea of "magic". And I still think having a condi that reduces outgoing condi damage would be relevant for balancing (and to some extent would help mitigate said "power creep" of adding more condis).

 

I guess we will have to disagree on Mirage. I think confusion suits mirage much better than torment.

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