Power vs. Condition Builds... the Major imbalances

[coro.3176]

The vast majority of condition damage never fully ticks out.

• In PvP, opponents cleanse constantly, often without even realizing they're doing it.
• In PvE, the target quite often dies , drops conditions, or enters an invuln state with huge stacks of conditions remaining to tick.

This is wasted damage. It's gone, vanished. Power, meanwhile, always hits its target and is never wasted.

[mungozen.2379]

6 minutes ago, coro.3176 said:

 

This is wasted damage. It's gone, vanished. Power, meanwhile, always hits its target and is never wasted.

I don’t disagree with the sentiment but that is not correct. Every point of damage that exceeds the life total of the target is lost and or wasted.

 If I hit for 10k on a target with 7k life, 3k damage is never realized against that target.  Whether that is power or Condi there is excess damage.  And I kinda expect there to be excess damage of some amount in every combat when the target dies. 
 

What I haven’t seen in this thread is reference to ramp up time for conditions vs power.   Unless you play a Mesmer (lol), you get to front load a lot more damage with power than condition.  Against weaker targets or as the third player into a fight, that gives you a significant advantage to end the fight quickly where conditions will take longer to do the same work. 

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

On 1/25/2023 at 11:47 PM, Stx.4857 said:

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. 

PvP already has the Paladin stat combo which is POWER + PRECISION + toughness + vitality. (BOLD is major, non-bold is minor) This stat combo should be available in PvE and WvW as well. and yes, PvP has a few more stat combos not available in the other game modes which should be considered.

 

And i totally agree that power damage is is not balanced with condition damage. It's very visible in competitive modes (WvW and PvP) where strike damage is about half of what it is in PvE, so condition damage ramps up before strike damage can scratch through toughness of the trailblazer build.

[eXruina.4956]

2 hours ago, Forgotten Legend.9281 said:

PvP already has the Paladin stat combo which is POWER + PRECISION + toughness + vitality. (BOLD is major, non-bold is minor) This stat combo should be available in PvE and WvW as well. and yes, PvP has a few more stat combos not available in the other game modes which should be considered.

 

And i totally agree that power damage is is not balanced with condition damage. It's very visible in competitive modes (WvW and PvP) where strike damage is about half of what it is in PvE, so condition damage ramps up before strike damage can scratch through toughness of the trailblazer build.

yep, they should really start introducing these tanky power damage stat combinations to pve and wvw. demolisher, paladin, etc..

 

i've been trying mixing gear to achieve this effect, but it is just inefficient, the stat loss is pretty significant.

 

its just that power damage is so heavily negated by armor, protection and weakness.

also that power builds require 3 stats to deal damage where as condi builds only truly require one to be effective.

Edited January 28, 2023 by eXruina.4956

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Originally I was going to respond to some guy, but I'm just going to say this into the ether:  You can have defensive stats while losing very little damage.  Marauder gear has 90% of the strike damage of Berserker gear, while giving an extra 6,330 extra health.  The set boosts the player to 60% crit chance, which lets most builds crit-cap without having to invest in any assassin gear.  If a build goes over the crit cap, Dragon pieces can be swapped out to exchange precision for ferocity, increasing overall damage done.  Combine this with the Jade Bot tier 10 Core and the Jade Overcharged buffs, and the low HP professions are sitting at 21.8k health with a full Marauder/Dragon complement. 

Not that players need equip these sets anymore. The tier 10 cores and overcharged buffs add 3850 extra health, 150 toughness, and the protection boon upon entering combat.  Ascended food is now shaving 10% of incoming strike damage away, if not granting regen or lifesteal.  There are no more glass cannons in the overworld.  With all this said, the potential extra defenses afforded to condi strats are only of value if you're trying to solo the harder champion encounters.  

[Mell.4873]

I think you are confusing pure condition damage elites with hybrid ones. If you look at arc most if not all Condition damage builds only get up to about 70% conditions damage and the best ones are even less due to being hybrids. 

The best Snowcrows builds are all hybrid ones so the mix is where all the damage is at. There are some exceptions but most of the time it's not pure Condition damage and Expertise. 

Perfect example is Virtuoso which does have some of the leading Condition damage percentages but requires Precision so that's your trinity stat set up there. 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Asum.4960]

 

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, 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. 

The reason Condition Builds are more flexible is because they are hybrid by nature and scale with more stats and have better Runes, Sigils, Food, as well as suffer from less Trait reliance - not because they need less stats to do full damage. 

 

Power Builds, which do about 100% Strike Damage, pretty much only scale with Power, Precision and Ferocity, and, since they are balanced around 100% Crit Chance and a massive Critical Damage multiplier, need huge investment's into those.

Further, they are balanced around stacking an absurd amount of multiplicative damage modifiers via Traits (to a point that they are what half of the Trait system is these days - which Power Builds are almost entirely constrained to), so they are very rigid in that regard too. 

 

Condition Damage Builds, which came as an layered on top after thought post-launch, on the other hand are simply better designed. Yes they primarily scale with Condition Damage and Expertise, but being hybrid builds by nature (doing between 10-30% Strike Damage still) they also benefit from Power, Precision and even Ferocity to some extend - and through conversion Traits, in some cases even Vitality, etc. 

And while there are key Condition Damage Traits, Condi builds rely far more on Sigils and Runes, as well as Food to do their damage, and aren't as reliant to play catch 'em all with all the damage modifier Traits like Power builds. This means they are far more flexible to dabble into more defensive stat combinations and traits, without sacrificing the majority of their Damage.

 

For example, not only does Precision require 21 Points for 1% Critical Chance, vs. Expertise (as well as Concentration and Ferocity) requiring just 15 points per 1% increase, there are also Rune options granting ~20% Condition Duration (or 50% to specific Conditions, which is equal to 750 Expertise to that Condition for largely single Condi Builds - which is about as if a Power Rune gave ~35% Crit Chance, in addition to Power), Sigils that grant 20% Duration (or apply significant amounts of Conditions themselves), Foods that grant 15% Duration, etc. -  vs. Power Builds only being able to substitute small amounts of Crit Chance via Gear, such as 7% with Accuracy, or having to sacrifice a lot of Damage for awkward setups like Thief Runes, which still just grants ~14% Crit Chance, but together with Condi Damage which is almost entirely wasted on Strike Damage Builds.

 

This is a pretty major difference in underlying design philosophy (going far beyond the Power+Precision+Ferocity vs. Condition Damage+Expertise[+Precision+Power+Ferocity+Vitality..]), and neither adding more Condition Damage focused triple stat combos, nor adding toughness/survivability focused Strike Damage stat combos is going to change that underlaying difference of Condition Setups being less Stat and Trait bound, and therefor being more flexible.  

 

Making Strike Damage builds less rigid to that degree would pretty much require nothing short of a massive Stat, Trait System, and especially Rune, Sigil and Food rework of Power options and complete rebalance from there. 

The easiest step would probably be to add Runes like +25 Power; +5% Critical Chance; + 50 Power, +10% Critical Chance, +100 Power; +20% Critical Chance (+ special effect, like converting x% of Power into Ferocity). Buffing Accuracy Sigil to 10-15% Critical Chance, potentially increasing the potency of Precision to 15 points for 1% Crit Chance, rather than 21, etc.

That should be a sizeable boost to Strike Damage Builds, allowing them to be more flexible with Gear (Dragon's, Diviner's, Valkyrie, etc.). 

I think Anet already realised that Critical Chance (at least as long as Strike Damage builds are balanced around being Crit Capped) especially is an issue, hence the buff to Fury from 20% to 25% Critical Chance in PvE - but in terms of Gear options and Trait flexibility, Power is still far behind.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Asum.4960

[The Boz.2038]

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

conditions means that they really only need two stats to be very effective damage wise.  Condition damage and expertise

And Precision. 
Wrong, right off the bat.

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 1/27/2023 at 2:55 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Does anyone run condition builds in open world? 🤔

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

Trailblazer works quite well for solo play, with some builds capable of 20k+ DPS in real scenarios and without masteries (i.e. no jade tech).  For example, this demo of a champ solo on trailblazer weaver.  Burn damage ramps to over 20k in about 4-5 seconds, with condition damage peaking at about 31k burn + bleed and DPS averaging just over 20k for the duration.

A full DPS build can deal higher damage (especially in shorter windows of time), but in any scenario where pressure is high enough to force you to waste time on defense it's likely you'd deal better damage while having a much easier/safer time using a build like this. 

For example, this Balthazar solo using a full DPS raid build for weaver.  It's manageable and the time of 39 seconds isn't bad, but I've lost significant DPS/time having to play defensively and it would not be difficult to get myself killed within a few seconds if I'm not careful.  By comparison, my best time on trailblazer is 32 seconds and I didn't have to dodge, heal, or defend myself in any way.

I imagine many players would prefer the peace of mind and self-sufficiency of a pure condi build like this, even if it's not ideal for trash clearing and tagging in squads and has lower maximum damage potential.

 

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

What I want to see:

• Weakness: 50% chance per second for all conditions ticking to deal half damage. Could also be a 50% chance on every stack at any tick, but that would average out to the same thing.
• A trait added to each core self sustain line that either reduces all condition durations OR offers a % damage reduction versus condition damage. There is some of this now but could be bolstered more.
• Increase the reliance on landing critical hits to deal conditions. These traits exist but are along the lines of 33% chance on crit, and sometimes for very small durations. If these were higher chances or higher durations, then precision would be higher value than it is currently for condition builds.

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Trailblazer works quite well for solo play, with some builds capable of 20k+ DPS in real scenarios and without masteries (i.e. no jade tech).  For example, this demo of a champ solo on trailblazer weaver.  Burn damage ramps to over 20k in about 4-5 seconds, with condition damage peaking at about 31k burn + bleed and DPS averaging just over 20k for the duration.

A full DPS build can deal higher damage (especially in shorter windows of time), but in any scenario where pressure is high enough to force you to waste time on defense it's likely you'd deal better damage while having a much easier/safer time using a build like this. 

For example, this Balthazar solo using a full DPS raid build for weaver.  It's manageable and the time of 39 seconds isn't bad, but I've lost significant DPS/time having to play defensively and it would not be difficult to get myself killed within a few seconds if I'm not careful.  By comparison, my best time on trailblazer is 32 seconds and I didn't have to dodge, heal, or defend myself in any way.

I imagine many players would prefer the peace of mind and self-sufficiency of a pure condi build like this, even if it's not ideal for trash clearing and tagging in squads and has lower maximum damage potential.

 

 

Would be interesting to know what that same demo build does on celestial in terms of total overall damage. The raw condition damage is fairly easy to calculate since the condi duration is exactly the same - celestial is ~85% the condi damage of the trailblazer build. The rest of the differences is the harder part.

But yeah overall it kind of also show how pointless it is since you could just hybrid it for straight up more dps with literally any power or condition gear that doesnt have toughness and vitality (obviously dont need either in that amount).

Edited January 30, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Mell.4873]

6 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

What I want to see:

• Weakness: 50% chance per second for all conditions ticking to deal half damage. Could also be a 50% chance on every stack at any tick, but that would average out to the same thing.
• A trait added to each core self sustain line that either reduces all condition durations OR offers a % damage reduction versus condition damage. There is some of this now but could be bolstered more.
• Increase the reliance on landing critical hits to deal conditions. These traits exist but are along the lines of 33% chance on crit, and sometimes for very small durations. If these were higher chances or higher durations, then precision would be higher value than it is currently for condition builds.

1: Weakness is fair since it prevent bursting with high strike damage. 

2: This exists already with many Core and Elite traits.

3: Hmm like you said they exist but normally conditions are reliant on your class mechanic(traitline to). For example Mesmer with clones applying Bleed or Shatters applying Torment. 

Edited January 30, 2023 by Mell.4873

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Would be interesting to know what that same demo build does on celestial in terms of total overall damage. The raw condition damage is fairly easy to calculate since the condi duration is exactly the same - celestial is ~85% the condi damage of the trailblazer build. The rest of the differences is the harder part.

But yeah overall it kind of also show how pointless it is since you could just hybrid it for straight up more dps with literally any power or condition gear that doesnt have toughness and vitality (obviously dont need either in that amount).

I would usually use a different build with celestial than I would with trailblazer (to use the same build as I do with trailblazer results in lower DPS).  It comes out to around 10% less damage (18-19k vs. 20-21k for the vinetooth test) for celestial in the builds I use.  Viper probably comes out to 10-15% higher than trailblazer, but outside of bosses you can simply sidestep like the vinetooth it isn't realistic, as demonstrated in the Balthazar test.  Depending upon how defensively you have to play it, you can easily deal lower damage with the viper build than trailblazer or celestial.

So, I have to disagree that it's pointless to run defensive builds like trailblazer or celestial for solo play.  First, I don't think it's true that you could take "any hybrid" stats and do better damage when even the meta DPS build is only 10-15% above.  It's likely that running something that sacrifices condi for more power damage, like grieving for example, would result in lower DPS (or else it would be meta and not viper, right?) and the margin is already slim to the point where the value of glass builds is questionable.

Also, most players aren't capable of taking a full glass raid build (on ele at least!) and soloing champs with it.  Even for those that are, it's rarely a DPS gain in any scenario where you have to play defensively.  The only exceptions I can think of are bosses that are trivial in either case (e.g. the vinetooth) or bosses that can't be facetanked due to mechanics (e.g. the coztic bladedancer spamming stuns negates the DPS advantage you would normally enjoy by being able to soak damage and focus entirely on DPS).  If self-sufficiency is a priority for these players, the tankier builds will almost always be a better choice.

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

41 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

1: Weakness is fair since it prevent bursting with high strike damage. 

Yeah, but it could also prevent some condition damage

41 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

2: This exists already with many Core and Elite traits.

Yeah, but not on all of them, especially not straight condition damage reduction.

41 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

3: Hmm like you said they exist but normally conditions are reliant on your class mechanic(traitline to). For example Mesmer with clones applying Bleed or Shatters applying Torment. 

Yeah, but there is not the same reliance on precision that power has. That reliance should be increased, which would be a buff in the end.

[Zyreva.1078]

Don't forget to remove cleansing from the game if you want to make power and condi "equal".

But then, why even have different dmg types?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

32 minutes ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

Don't forget to remove cleansing from the game if you want to make power and condi "equal".

But then, why even have different dmg types?

I can see cleanses only cleansing soft condis if more actual condition defense was added in.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

One huge misconception is that Viper is the optimal condition damage set in PvE content. This is incorrect, Viper is only taken because you don't want defensive stats in group content and there's no set that provides anything else while still providing condition damage and expertise (except RItualist).

 

A three-stat precision, condition damage, expertise gear would definitely be best-in-slot for condition builds despite the power loss because they don't rely on power for the majority of their damage, but for many classes they do rely on critical hits, but that reliance is also fairly weak.

 

We can take this a step further as many have suggested and make critical hits required for condition builds, by simply making it so that every skill that currently applies conditions can "critically hit" and apply a second copy of the condition in the case of a crit (with expertise serving as the "ferocity"), and then nerf base condition application to compensate, so builds that are crit capped will perform somewhat better than now, but builds that aren't crit called will perform somewhat worse.

 

This is the only solution that will work, otherwise,precision will never be truly required on condition builds. It will also weaken Celestial builds a fair bit (but not too much), since they're not known for crit-capping outside of a few very rare exceptions.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Jobber.6348]

If we're talking about competitive:

The real reason why Condition damage is more powerful than Power damage is due to two things
- Weakness punishes Power too hard

- Burst Condi is somehow still a thing, and some builds have multiple instances of Burst Condi 

 

If we're talking about PvE:

-Uptime

 

Condi holds uptime superiority over Power anytime anyday anysecond. But it's designed to do so. Power damage in general I feel doesn't make up for this and doesn't deal nearly enough damage to compete with this uptime loss when they are actually hitting things. While on DPS Golem a Power build could come close or beat some Condi builds, fact remains that uptime in realistic combat scenarios mean the Power build is constantly having to readjust their rotation, position and hitting the target while Condis are constantly ticking even if they have to readjust for mechanics. 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by Yasai.3549

[Asum.4960]

2 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

One huge misconception is that Viper is the optimal condition damage set in PvE content. This is incorrect, Viper is only taken because you don't want defensive stats in group content and there's no set that provides anything else while still providing condition damage and expertise (except RItualist).

 

A three-stat precision, condition damage, expertise gear would definitely be best-in-slot for condition builds despite the power loss because they don't rely on power for the majority of their damage, but for many classes they do rely on critical hits, but that reliance is also fairly weak.

 

We can take this a step further as many have suggested and make critical hits required for condition builds, by simply making it so that every skill that currently applies conditions can "critically hit" and apply a second copy of the condition in the case of a crit (with expertise serving as the "ferocity"), and then nerf base condition application to compensate, so builds that are crit capped will perform somewhat better than now, but builds that aren't crit called will perform somewhat worse.

 

This is the only solution that will work, otherwise,precision will never be truly required on condition builds. It will also weaken Celestial builds a fair bit (but not too much), since they're not known for crit-capping outside of a few very rare exceptions.

I'm not 100% convinced of this, at least not for all builds/specs. Keep in mind some Condi Builds do up to 30% Strike Damage with full Viper's, and quad stat gear provides more total stats than triple stat gear. 

So that extra bit of Condition Damage from a pure condi triple stat set would have to do a lot of work on some builds to compensate for zero Power - while the extra Precision, without the Power from Viper's - which is already questionable value on Viper's, would drastically lose further value on Condi Builds. Especially with Fury at 25% now, meaning 30% Base Critical Chance in group content, you really don't need much if any Precision to trigger on Crit condi Traits and Sigil's reliably on ICD with Quickness (esp. since many Condi lines even have Critical Chance increases on top). 

 

I honestly also don't like the idea of adding a requirement for Condi Builds to Crit Cap as well (and forcing many specs into Rampager's, like Condi Virtuoso). The idea that all Powerbuilds have to be at 100% Crit Chance permanently to do competitive damage is already silly to me - if essentially every build has to permanently Crit, they might as well remove Critical Chance as a game mechanic and Precision as a stat, and make Critting the default with it being a non-mechanic. 

I'd much rather see Strike Damage builds gain flexibility by making them less reliant on Critical Chance/Precision (with better Runes, Sigil's, etc.), or balancing the damage of at least some builds to be competitive non-capped - although there are RNG concerns with that ofc, and should be limited to fast hitting builds, rather than slow heavy hitting specs where missing crits on crucial big nukes would be devastating to dps, than see that same limiting design forced onto all Condition Builds as well.

 

41 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

If we're talking about PvE:

-Uptime

 

Condi holds uptime superiority over Power anytime anyday anysecond. But it's designed to do so. Power damage in general I feel doesn't make up for this and doesn't deal nearly enough damage to compete with this uptime loss when they are actually hitting things. While on DPS Golem a Power build could come close or beat some Condi builds, fact remains that uptime in realistic combat scenarios mean the Power build is constantly having to readjust their rotation, position and hitting the target while Condis are constantly ticking even if they have to readjust for mechanics. 

 

 

Maybe that's what you meant in a way, but just to clarify especially on your last sentence - while it's true that most Condi Builds have better DPS uptime than Power builds, that has actually nothing to do with them being Power or Condi, but unrelated design decisions such as range, etc. 

There is no difference* in damage uptime between equally designed builds of Power or Condi - it doesn't matter if you deliver a 10k Strike damage hit and then are prevented from applying further damage for a few seconds, or delivering 10k Damage worth of condis and then being prevented from applying further damage for a few seconds. 

That the same amount of Condi damage keeps ticking away to do it's damage while you can't do anything else, as opposed to Power's instant delivery and then nothing, making you feel like you are still contributing damage, is purely psychological - the result is the same. 

If you can't keep attacking as Condi build to reapply new Conditions, you are losing damage all the same. 

*In fact, Strike Damage being delivered instantaneously is purely and objectively superior, as it both provides far higher burst and doesn't get lost into boss phasing and the like. 

That's the very reason Condi Builds actually require higher DPS on a Golem and/or higher DPS-uptime in real scenarios to be competitive with Power builds - and why a build like OG Power Mech completely broke that balance by having equal to higher DPS uptime (range) by design than most Condi Builds, while being the better Strike Damage.

 

Golem Benchmarks, and that SC and co. only list the last Damage report tick as a builds DPS (which is usually the strongest tick for Condi Builds, and usually the weakest for Strike Builds) makes Condi Builds look far better and Power Builds far worse than they actually are - especially against multiple phase and low health/short encounters (or anything with extra mechanics such as IBS Strikes with Essence Manipulation, especially Shattered Psyche, delivering insane Power Bursts). 

 

Where Condi builds really shine is in random/pick up groups, because they generally have fairly low group DPS and the encounter's are long. If you play with really good players, especially on Power Builds, you are not going to have a good time playing Condi, and quickly notice just how much ahead Strike Damage is in the hands of good players making encounter's short. 

You'll never catch equally or even somewhat lower benching Power Builds as Condi Build in good power groups/short encounters.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

To the two points above:

Range vs melee is a stark disparity in endgame. Especially if the boss has PBAoE vomit death circles that melee cannot stand in, but also if the boss moves a lot. Melee has to move with the boss, but range does not, and condi builds at least keep ticking if they have to move with the boss, so ranged condi builds end up overwhelmingly BiS. It's pretty telling how bad that balance is. The guy previously in charge of class balance was also involved with the encounter design in EoD. You can see his favoritism towards ranged combat from that alone without looking at how he buffed engineer and Mechanist, which he designed.

In PvP/WvW Condi also has bursts that are as powerful as strike bursts, and weakness does nothing to hamper condi in reality, just power damage. Power damage is also easier to get damage negation for. Condis can be cleansed, but at the same time that does nothing if it happens in bursts, the burst happens before you can cleanse it completely. I know condi enjoyers do not want to admit it, partially because cleanses exists, but there is a disparity between the two, especially in competitive play. Power builds do not have the luxury of have Power|Precision|Ferocity|Toughness stat combos in WvW (but do in PvP). Condi stat sets are inherently more defensive, which is a throwback to the beginning of the game where condi builds were less bursty and needed the ramp time. They don't need that ramp time as much any more.

As I said above, I'd be okay if cleanses only worked on soft condis if there were adequate defenses against damaging condis. Things like a trait in every  class that reduced condition damage by 1% for every 100 points of toughness, or something like that, or its equivalent in condition duration reduction.

 

[Jobber.6348]

28 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

To the two points above:

Range vs melee is a stark disparity in endgame. Especially if the boss has PBAoE vomit death circles that melee cannot stand in, but also if the boss moves a lot. Melee has to move with the boss, but range does not, and condi builds at least keep ticking if they have to move with the boss, so ranged condi builds end up overwhelmingly BiS. It's pretty telling how bad that balance is. The guy previously in charge of class balance was also involved with the encounter design in EoD. You can see his favoritism towards ranged combat from that alone without looking at how he buffed engineer and Mechanist, which he designed.

In PvP/WvW Condi also has bursts that are as powerful as strike bursts, and weakness does nothing to hamper condi in reality, just power damage. Power damage is also easier to get damage negation for. Condis can be cleansed, but at the same time that does nothing if it happens in bursts, the burst happens before you can cleanse it completely. I know condi enjoyers do not want to admit it, partially because cleanses exists, but there is a disparity between the two, especially in competitive play. Power builds do not have the luxury of have Power|Precision|Ferocity|Toughness stat combos in WvW (but do in PvP). Condi stat sets are inherently more defensive, which is a throwback to the beginning of the game where condi builds were less bursty and needed the ramp time. They don't need that ramp time as much any more.

As I said above, I'd be okay if cleanses only worked on soft condis if there were adequate defenses against damaging condis. Things like a trait in every  class that reduced condition damage by 1% for every 100 points of toughness, or something like that, or its equivalent in condition duration reduction.

 

Time to make some Condi players angry:

Add a new Toughness benefit where every 1000 Toughness over the base level will reduce the Condition stack gained from sources by 1.

Base Toughness: no change

Base Toughness + 1000 : If an attack would inflict 2 stacks of Bleed, it inflicts 1 stack instead. Does not affect multi-hitting skills where each individual hit can be dodged or blocked.

 

Take that stinky Condi bursters. 

[Nimon.7840]

@Stx.4857 sorry but there is a fundamental flaw in your thought process:

 

1) power builds need 3 stats vs condi builds need 2.

That's basically right but not quite right at the same time.

Most condi builds have a trait that inflics a certain condition on crit. One some builds that's more impactful, than on others.

Take condi virtuoso for example, you try to max out crit because that's even your main source of damage.

And there is another "stat" that condi builds need.

It's time.

How do you buy time? By being tanky.

Why do condi builds need time? Because you need to build up your condition stacks.

 

Imo if you had said, that the flaw of most current condition builds is, that they ramp way too fast, I would have agreed.

For example: 

Scourge takes a pretty long time to ramp up it's conditions (I think it was somewhere around 30 seconds)

If you take a build like harbinger, it's condition application is much more burst oriented. And there are condition builds that build up all their stacks in the first 10 seconds.

 

The armor problem: yes power builds deal less damage to enemies with high armor values, but they also deal more damage vs low armor targets. Condition builds deal always the same amount of damage.

 

Power damage is front loaded while condition damage is/should be back loaded:

If you have bosses like Old lions court normal mode or basically every normal mode fractal boss.

Those fights are much more favourable for power builds.

Short phases just benefit power builds.

 

Yes there are flaws in today's balancing.

Imo:

Some power builds don't really have a big damage burst at the beginning of a fight (for example mechanist) while some condi builds are way to bursty.

[The Boz.2038]

10 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Yeah, but it could also prevent some condition damage

Yeah, but it could also not.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Condi suffers from better anti-mesures than power. Condies can be:

• cleansed
• reduced in duration
• reduced in damage
• resisted completely if any of the above goes up to 100% (it can)
• resisted completely via resistance boon (non damaging ones)

Out of the above only resistance can be really counter-played (boon hate) and to a degree condi cleanse (output more condies thatn they can cleanse).

Also power vs condi can be more of a profession thing.
Reapers are example of that. A power reaper will not only sport better burst but also better sustain, as a lot of self healing options naturally mesh with power traits while condi sustain options heavily impede the dps ones (parasitic contagion vs lingering curses or blood magic/death magic vs curses or soul reaping)

[Asum.4960]

5 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

To the two points above:

Range vs melee is a stark disparity in endgame. Especially if the boss has PBAoE vomit death circles that melee cannot stand in, but also if the boss moves a lot. Melee has to move with the boss, but range does not, and condi builds at least keep ticking if they have to move with the boss, so ranged condi builds end up overwhelmingly BiS.

As I just explained above, that's just Range vs. Melee - it has nothing to do with Condi vs. Power. 

If you are a melee condi or melee power build doesn't matter in terms of DPS-Uptime, the fact that condis keep ticking after you are forced off reapplying pressure due to a mechanic is purely psychological in terms of feeling like you have more DPS-uptime on condi - Strike Damage already delivered that same damage instantly before.

Both Power and Condi lose the same amount of Damage by not being allowed to keep applying pressure, Condi's simply are still busy applying their past pressure, while Power got that benefit instantly already. 

If anything Power is at an advantage, for example if a Boss phases - Power Builds already got value out of all their Damage, while Condis lose the value of Damage applied in the past which hasn't gotten value yet (run their full condition duration). 

 

Ranged > Melee and Strike Damage > Condition Damage, hence Condi Builds often feature either more range/better DPS-Uptime or slightly higher sustained DPS to balance that out. 

 

1 hour ago, Nimon.7840 said:

Some power builds don't really have a big damage burst at the beginning of a fight (for example mechanist) while some condi builds are way to bursty.

I mean even Power Mech used to have a 180k+ second one opener with a ~50k+ DPS 10 second burst, while being Strike Damage, while having the best DPS uptime in the game (although post-nerf, nerf, nerf, it's certainly more balanced now). 

Not even Burn builds (like Condi Guards), which are designed to be the burst condi builds, can even remotely compete with that, despite ramping in just 10-12 seconds to their benchmarking DPS. 

 

Even taking just 10 seconds to ramp up to ~35k DPS for some super bursty Condi Builds is still a far cry off doing 50-80k DPS for the first 5-10 seconds, before falling down to ~35k DPS for Power Builds (over triple the Damage, which Condi then has to somehow catch up to, either via higher sustained DPS and/or higher DPS-uptime).

 

What would seem balanced for you here in terms of ramp for Condis?

Keep in mind, the larger that difference, the more difficult it becomes to balance each for both shorter and longer encounters. If the ramp is too long, Condi Builds are entirely useless for shorter encounters as they can never even remotely catch up in time - and in turn their sustained DPS or DPS-Uptime would have to be so much higher than Power Builds to make up for the huge ramp vs. burst difference, that Power Builds would be entirely useless for longer encounters. 

Would that really be preferable and more fun and balanced than "bursty" conditions?

2 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

For example: 

Scourge takes a pretty long time to ramp up it's conditions (I think it was somewhere around 30 seconds)

Scourge takes roughly 60-70 seconds to ramp up to it's 35k DPS Benchmark, 30 seconds get's you to around 33k.