Power vs. Condition Builds... the Major imbalances

[Stx.4857]

I would like to list and discuss several key reasons I believe condition builds are far superior in this game, mainly in the open world, and also some solutions to bring the two types of builds closer in balance.

 

1)  Stats.  

This one has been talked about many times.  But the simple fact that condition builds deal 80-90% of their overall damage as conditions means that they really only need two stats to be very effective damage wise.  Condition damage and expertise.  This fact means that you can run armor types like trailblazer, ritualist, or celestial, and gain a large amount of tankiness and sustain without losing much damage.  Power builds do not have this option.  Like at all.  Power builds use berserker gear, need three stats to deal full damage, and any swapping of gear reduces damage in a far harsher scale than when a condition build switches from viper to trailblazer.  How could this be fixed?  Well there are several easy solutions.  One could be that best in slot dps gear for condition builds could be a three stat armor similar to berserker, but something like Condition damage/expertise/precision (you could just change one of the existing three stat armor types to this, since there are many that don't see use).  Another solution is to add more power stat combinations to the game...  like Demolisher (Power/Prec main / ferocity/toughness off).  Why are there no power based 4 stat combinations with power/prec/ferocity/toughness in the game?  Bottom line, both types of builds should have the same number of raw dps stats, and the same number of survival stats.  

 

2)  Fury

Can we talk about why Fury is such a massive dps boost for power builds, but condition builds have no equivalent?  This means that when building into power, you either need to make sure you can supply your own fury, which comes naturally to most power builds but not all.  And also, when you run into the occasional enemy that rips your boons off repeatedly, power builds lose a lot more damage than condition builds.  Why is there no boon for condition builds nearly as important as Fury?

 

3) Weakness

Lets talk about Weakness.  When enemies apply weakness to a power built character, you feel it man.  That debuff wrecks your dps.  You need to cleanse it ASAP and when you run into enemies that chain apply it, well, have fun doing less than half your normal dps.  Condition builds?  Nope.  No equivalent whatsoever.  

 

4) Armor

This topic I will admit I don't have details on, but unless I am wrong, enemies have no equivalent to armor when it comes to conditions.  Armor reduces power damage by a lot (the arrowheads in HoT maps come to mind).  The only thing I can think of as an equivalent to this for condition builds is that some enemies will cleanse conditions.  But personally, I notice high armor a lot more often than I notice conditions being cleansed.  

 

Summary:

 

So to sum up, although Power builds and condition builds compete somewhat evenly in endgame group content, I believe the reason for this is support classes heavily bridge the gap for all these deficiencies I've listed.  When you step outside a group, into the open world content, story mode, etc.  Power builds feel incredibly weak and fragile compared to condition builds.  Often times power builds will deal much less damage, and also survive much much worse too!  I mainly play thief, engineer, and ranger.  I can tell you for ALL three classes, condition builds in the open world are lightyears ahead of power when it comes to surviving, and also killing tough enemies.  Power builds are great for cleaving down groups of weaker enemies, thats true..  but condition builds can do that too, it just takes a few more seconds.  

 

Solutions to this:

1)  Add a boon similar to fury but for condition builds.

2)  Add a condition similar to weakness but it impacts dealing condition damage.

3)  Change stat combinations on gear.  Add Power stat combinations with toughness.  Make a best in slot three stat combination for condition damage and balance condition builds top end dps around that.  

4)  Maybe make Ferocity effect condition damage in some way, that way both power and condition builds have three main stats for damage.  This could also work with precision if more classes had on critical effects that applied conditions.

5)  Un-nerf % based healing like Invigorating Precision, Impact savant.

   

[Beddo.1907]

1)buff power/nerf condi

2)buff condi

3)buff condi

4)buff power

Do you see a small problem here?

[Dadnir.5038]

Just make the conditions attached to the various AA only apply on a critical hit. This solve point 1, 2 and 3.

The 4th point is inexistent as benchmarks proves that condition damage builds and power build are already in the same league of damage output. At worst power build would have an advantage against light armor foe and condition damage builds would have an advantage against heavy armor foes. Seem "Fair".

Edited January 26, 2023 by Dadnir.5038

[Zyreva.1078]

5 hours ago, Stx.4857 said:

When you step outside a group, into the open world content, story mode, etc.  Power builds feel incredibly weak and fragile compared to condition builds.  Often times power builds will deal much less damage, and also survive much much worse too!  I mainly play thief, engineer, and ranger.  I can tell you for ALL three classes, condition builds in the open world are lightyears ahead of power when it comes to surviving, and also killing tough enemies.  Power builds are great for cleaving down groups of weaker enemies, thats true..  but condition builds can do that too, it just takes a few more seconds.  

 

More like condi builds tend to perform better for bad players on bad builds, because the resulting slower kill speed does not matter as much. Good power builds can mow down like 95% of open world and story content with ease and it doesn't neccessarily require going full glass. Ofc hardly anything beats cele for soloing bosses/grp content, due to the insane self buffing capabilities on top of survivability and dmg, but that's a cele issue, not a condi issue.

I have played condi (viper), cele and power ranger (soulbeast and untamed to be more specific) through all sorts of open world and story content and wouldn't say one is better than the other. Condi/cele tends to be safer, power tends to be much faster tho, even more so when abusing those ridiculous op jade protocols. And nowadays i prefer the latter, because dead things don't hurt, so survivability isn't really an issue. There are only a few instances where i'd swap to cele.

Edited January 26, 2023 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[eXruina.4956]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Just make the conditions attached to the various AA only apply on a critical hit. This solve point 1, 2 and 3.

The 4th point is inexistent as benchmarks proves that condition damage builds and power build are already in the same league of damage output. At worst power build would have an advantage against light armor foe and condition damage builds would have an advantage against heavy armor foes. Seem "Fair".

oh a very interesting take, a way to require condi to take precision. 🤔 so power, precision, ferocity on one end and condition dmaage, precision, expertise.

 

i'm also kinda interested on the notion, what if condition damage was also reduced by armor. and balanced accordingly.

 

this would certainly increase the value of certain stat combinations, as it is there are just too many underused or unused stat combinations in the game. 🤔

[Zyreva.1078]

4 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

oh a very interesting take, a way to require condi to take precision. 🤔 so power, precision, ferocity on one end and condition dmaage, precision, expertise.

You mean like applying condis on critical hits? If only something like that would exist ...

4 hours ago, eXruina.4956 said:

 

i'm also kinda interested on the notion, what if condition damage was also reduced by armor. and balanced accordingly.

 

this would certainly increase the value of certain stat combinations, as it is there are just too many underused or unused stat combinations in the game. 🤔

It would increase the value of toughness, so ... cele becomes even better and almost everything else remains irrelevant.

[eXruina.4956]

14 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

You mean like applying condis on critical hits? If only something like that would exist ...

i was thinking more in the lines of making condis crit, and adjusting the damage respectively, this way it will require precision. 🤔

[sigmundf.7523]

28 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

You mean like applying condis on critical hits? If only something like that would exist ...

 

It exists, on Virtu and Engi

[Rogue.8235]

On 1/26/2023 at 12:47 AM, Stx.4857 said:

1)  Stats.  

This one has been talked about many times.  But the simple fact that condition builds deal 80-90% of their overall damage as conditions means that they really only need two stats to be very effective damage wise.  Condition damage and expertise.  This fact means that you can run armor types like trailblazer, ritualist, or celestial, and gain a large amount of tankiness and sustain without losing much damage.  Power builds do not have this option.  Like at all.  Power builds use berserker gear, need three stats to deal full damage, and any swapping of gear reduces damage in a far harsher scale than when a condition build switches from viper to trailblazer.  How could this be fixed?  Well there are several easy solutions.  One could be that best in slot dps gear for condition builds could be a three stat armor similar to berserker, but something like Condition damage/expertise/precision (you could just change one of the existing three stat armor types to this, since there are many that don't see use).  Another solution is to add more power stat combinations to the game...  like Demolisher (Power/Prec main / ferocity/toughness off).  Why are there no power based 4 stat combinations with power/prec/ferocity/toughness in the game?  Bottom line, both types of builds should have the same number of raw dps stats, and the same number of survival stats.  

Condi builds benefit from precision.  There's many ways for every profession to bolster condition damage with critical hits, usually with extra conditions.

 

On 1/26/2023 at 12:47 AM, Stx.4857 said:

2)  Fury

Can we talk about why Fury is such a massive dps boost for power builds, but condition builds have no equivalent?  This means that when building into power, you either need to make sure you can supply your own fury, which comes naturally to most power builds but not all.  And also, when you run into the occasional enemy that rips your boons off repeatedly, power builds lose a lot more damage than condition builds.  Why is there no boon for condition builds nearly as important as Fury?

See above.  Being able to apply additional conditions with almost every hit on top of the conditions already applied by the base attack is valuable.

 

On 1/26/2023 at 12:47 AM, Stx.4857 said:

3) Weakness

Lets talk about Weakness.  When enemies apply weakness to a power built character, you feel it man.  That debuff wrecks your dps.  You need to cleanse it ASAP and when you run into enemies that chain apply it, well, have fun doing less than half your normal dps.  Condition builds?  Nope.  No equivalent whatsoever.  

Resistance and Resolution for Weakness and Protection.  You can also cleanse condition damage whereas you cannot cleanse strike damage.  You can heal both damage types.

 

On 1/26/2023 at 12:47 AM, Stx.4857 said:

4) Armor

This topic I will admit I don't have details on, but unless I am wrong, enemies have no equivalent to armor when it comes to conditions.  Armor reduces power damage by a lot (the arrowheads in HoT maps come to mind).  The only thing I can think of as an equivalent to this for condition builds is that some enemies will cleanse conditions.  But personally, I notice high armor a lot more often than I notice conditions being cleansed.  

There is a (relatively) rare stat for reducing incoming condition damage, though it's not really comparable to armor.  The ways to reduce condition damage is to use resolution, which negates it, or cleanse it, which negates it.  Someone may bring up regeneration, but that's only countable if geared and traited specifically for powerful regen, otherwise it's rarely, if ever, enough to noticeably reduce incoming condition damage.

So, armor reduces strike damage.  Cleansing outright removes condition damage.

Protection reduces strike damage, resolution reduces condition damage .

Weakness reduces your strike damage, yep there's no condition which affects condition damage.  Weakness reduces critical hit chance which only negates the conditions applied on critical hits.

 

Summary:

They're different.

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by Rogue.8235
Correction from Kodama.6453

[Kodama.6453]

8 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

Protection reduces strike damage, resolution negates condition damage altogether.

Resolution reduces condition damage by 33%, it does not negate the damage altogether. It is basically a condition damage version of protection.

People really need to read the descriptions of the game more.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Why do diatribe topics like this always involve open world somehow...open world isn't a factor for balancing.  

Anyway, anet has repeatedly nerfed condi builds massively in competitive, to the point where power is almost always better.  The only way you are winning on condi is by kiting (mostly stealth as found on condi druid and condi virt) or being like harb and blasting boons every 3 seconds.  

As in, it's very hard to kill someone with conditions now.  Not to mention most of the things that apply conditions are evade/blockable, same as power.  

The other factor here is what OP plays in ranger, thief, and engineer heavily, heavily scale towards power effectiveness.  Like you have power holo, power de / daredevil, power untamed / soulbeast to well bleed druid and pew pew condi thief (not sure I've ever seen a condi engi but guess it could happen, probably on mech?).  

Essentially, I think the balance problem here lies with cele/hybrid.  Things like harbinger, willbender, and elementalist can be extremely powerful running hybrid; but even here I think you mostly die to the power burst.  

[Jukhy.2431]

Some of these points do make sense, but I'd say it depends more on the situation and each profession's spec and weapon skill balance to determine which damage type is superior. It's too broad take to say that condi is always better.

And as others here stated there are condi specs that rely on high crit chance with perma fury to work as intended, for example the condi (bleed) virtuoso.

[Dawdler.8521]

On 1/26/2023 at 6:47 AM, Stx.4857 said:

I would like to list and discuss several key reasons I believe condition builds are far superior in this game, mainly in the open world

Does anyone run condition builds in open world? 🤔

I thought it was all full dps hybrids or full berserker.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Does anyone run condition builds in open world? 🤔

I thought it was all full dps hybrids or full berserker.

I don't think it's how one should take this thread.

The thread is basically taking to open world PvE the decade old argument that condition builds supposedly need less stats to achieve good results than power builds.

The analysis given by the OP isn't wrong in the sense that a tanky build will generaly retain more damage output in a condition setup. On another hand I wouldn't say that the solutions proposed by the OP are on point. Adding a new boon, a new condition and new stat sets is simply wasteful when you can just make the main sources of conditions rely "on crit" instead of being "on hit" in order to solve the perceived issue.

[Dawdler.8521]

40 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The thread is basically taking to open world PvE the decade old argument that condition builds supposedly need less stats to achieve good results than power builds.

I thought in open world PvE they do, hence why the rest of the stats is filled with power, precision, ferocity or expertise (ie grieving, viper, sinister etc). This isnt condition builds though, its hybrids.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Eekasqueak.7850]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Does anyone run condition builds in open world? 🤔

I thought it was all full dps hybrids or full berserker.

Yes hello I run Condi plenty in open world. 

[Kodama.6453]

1 minute ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Yes hello I run Condi plenty in open world. 

Pure condi? So not viper or sinister gear?

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Just now, Kodama.6453 said:

Pure condi? So not viper or sinister gear?

Well I use trailblazer on my open world scourge build. 

[Kodama.6453]

5 minutes ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Well I use trailblazer on my open world scourge build. 

Yeah that counts, no power damage from that whatsoever. ^^

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I thought in open world PvE they do, hence why the rest of the stats is filled with power, precision, ferocity or expertise (ie grieving, viper, sinister etc). This isnt condition builds though, its hybrids.

Going by your definition of condition builds and hybrid builds, there probably isn't enough true condition skills in the game to ever create a true condition build.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I know folks who use trailblazer for mirage for solo stuff too, it's something I kinda want to try. 

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Going by your definition of condition builds and hybrid builds, there probably isn't enough true condition skills in the game to ever create a true condition build.

Of course there is. You cant help the skills, but if you got anything above 0 power, you aint a true condition build.

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Of course there is. You cant help the skills, but if you got anything above 0 power, you aint a true condition build.

At level 80 every profession have 1000 base power yet 0 base condition damage.

[Dawdler.8521]

57 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

At level 80 every profession have 1000 base power yet 0 base condition damage.

Which doesnt really matter when all skills including conditions have base damage. I am, of course, talking about the gear you have. Someone having 2500 power and 1000 condition is a hybrid. Not a condition build. Someone ending up with 1000 power and 2000 condition damage... now that is a proper condition build.

I was just wondering how many of those is meta in open world PvE vs power/hybrids since they are "far superior".

Edited January 27, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Rogue.8235]

15 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Resolution reduces condition damage by 33%, it does not negate the damage altogether. It is basically a condition damage version of protection.

People really need to read the descriptions of the game more.

 

Yes they I really do.

Thanks for the correction.