Nerf relic of akeem

[Widdershins.6824]

Dear Anet today my games contained anything but power builds. Everything is condi, literally everything. Maybe a support here and there but condi is king. 

[Gotejjeken.1267]

+1 if I read it right and the confusion stacks are backward for PvE / competitive---looks like 2 for PvE and 5 for WvW/PvP?!

[HawaiianDreads.5473]

Condi builds are just stupid atm. No matter how many cleanse I have Im always full of dots.

[Last Crab.6054]

So maybe condi zerk and mesmer can use this relic at its intended potential.

NoPe, get better at game.

[Goosekilla.2796]

On 12/4/2023 at 6:51 PM, HawaiianDreads.5473 said:

Condi builds are just stupid atm. No matter how many cleanse I have Im always full of dots.

Well that is kind of how they do damage... This is like complaining that no matter how many blocks and invulns you take, you still take damage when you aren't blocking/invuln.

On the original topic, I'm not sure the relic is really the big offender here. It's more the fact that skull grinder can trigger the whole thing in one hit, and one hit that casts pretty fast and doesn't have a very telling animation. Maybe just trim one or two stacks of confuse off skull grinder (condi zerk needs a nerf anyway), maybe make it's confusion last slightly longer instead of we really have to keep zerker at invincible duelist status. Then Akeem is no longer broken. I don't see it as a big problem on Mesmer. It's not like Mesmer condi is exactly terrorizing anybody right now. I run almost no condi cleanse and still don't know the last time I was actually taken out by a condi Mesmer. Necro pistol in theory would get a lot out of Akeem too, but in practice I never see this one breaking match-ups either.

Edit: and for the record, I don't play condi. I mostly play power shatter chrono, sometimes power mortar scrapper

Edited December 6, 2023 by Goosekilla.2796

[Widdershins.6824]

Tbf I truly hate this meta. Climbed to 1270+ after returning from a like close to 2 years break in very few games and now I'm constantly dropping, dropped like 300 rating in a matter of days and every time I check death log its 20k burning, 15k bleed/poison + the rest while running 2 cleanses and antitoxin. 
Condi in its current state is just stupid. You die in seconds, faster than against power builds while trying to remove all the debuffs you'll only delay the inevitable.
Guess its the usual "can't beat them, join them" scenario.

[JormagSorbet.8079]

Have you tried not getting the debuffs? You kind of have to eat a lot of skills to take 20k in burning damage, or 15k in bleed and poison. It's not like the classes look at you and you burst into flames. 

That being said so would they, but that's not really the point here.

Edited December 6, 2023 by JormagSorbet.8079
Shh. nobody say anything about signet of fire.

[Avatar.3568]

Okay guys, i have insane ideas for you

1. Use your condi cleanse if you have conditions on yourself
- this means if a utlity or trait or weaponskill or class trait says "cleanse condition" it removes the condition from you
2. Run to your Support (and pray)
- this means a support is normaly running condi cleanses for your team, if you stay in range of him , you might get suprised when he accidantly hits you with cleanses
3. Run Support by yourself
- you can pick a support class and heal and cleanse your allys, you can also use some supportiv weapon or utlity for you and yourteam if you see your enemys have a lot of condis, 
Relic of Leadership is also easy to go relic to not even cleanse but also convert conditions into Boons!
4. Dodge and Avoid dmg
- don't be the pathetic fool of poor broodforce, avoid big aoe circles and dodge heavy striking dmg, if you can't stand on the node than leave it, enter it 10 or 15 seconds later instead of beeing 30 seconds out of the game.

idk what to say anymore, power is still meta, outside of condi reaper i can't think of a class beeing meta with condi

[Flowki.7194]

8 hours ago, Goosekilla.2796 said:

Well that is kind of how they do damage... This is like complaining that no matter how many blocks and invulns you take, you still take damage when you aren't blocking/invuln.

On the original topic, I'm not sure the relic is really the big offender here. It's more the fact that skull grinder can trigger the whole thing in one hit, and one hit that casts pretty fast and doesn't have a very telling animation. Maybe just trim one or two stacks of confuse off skull grinder (condi zerk needs a nerf anyway), maybe make it's confusion last slightly longer instead of we really have to keep zerker at invincible duelist status. Then Akeem is no longer broken. I don't see it as a big problem on Mesmer. It's not like Mesmer condi is exactly terrorizing anybody right now. I run almost no condi cleanse and still don't know the last time I was actually taken out by a condi Mesmer. Necro pistol in theory would get a lot out of Akeem too, but in practice I never see this one breaking match-ups either.

Edit: and for the record, I don't play condi. I mostly play power shatter chrono, sometimes power mortar scrapper

Your perspective is kind of irrelivant, those are difficult specs to pin down if played well. Try a spec that has no real choice but to fight it out, you'll soon see the problem. Most of the condi specs are dirt low effort to play, even core thief.. insane amount of condi+poison for basically spamming steal and 3. Then plenty of stealth to rejump with 1 from safety of range. The specs don't have to be meta to be annoying af in terms of the low effort to play them, vs the high effort to deal with them. Many of the more difficult specs (mostly power) can fold for slight mistakes to those condi specs.. which are so basic to play, its hard to make mistakes on low effort condi builds. Specter is the same, spam 3. Zerker, spam blinds, then spam that horrible button I won't even name. Untamed condi was about the same if I remember, spam like 2 buttons+evade for massive condi+poison.

 

Its not the damage per say, its the easy application of it, along with most condi builds also having much more forgiving sustain traits and health pools.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[DoomNexus.5324]

Unpopular opinion but I think high condi damage in PvP content is awfully stupid in general.
Classes with only a few cleanses will get hard countered while classes with access to a lot of cleanses don't even care most of the time. Super hard to balance, especially since a proper team support will make a condi enemy almost useless but in your regular pug games without a dedicated support they likely are absolute stompers.

I was running a kitten condi build with thief for a while and it's just so stupid how effective this is against the right team composition while being absolute garbage in more "organized" matches. Absolutely 0 counter play other than cleansing or outhealing either.

[Dadnir.5038]

54 minutes ago, DoomNexus.5324 said:

Unpopular opinion but I think high condi damage in PvP content is awfully stupid in general.

Isn't it a "popular opinion"? I mean, the sPvP subforum have been showering condition builds with hate since the vanilla game. Even when the builds do strike damage they still shower those build with condi hate due to the non-damaging conditions. It's a very popular opinion in competitive modes that conditions are not welcome.

[DoomNexus.5324]

17 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Isn't it a "popular opinion"? I mean, the sPvP subforum have been showering condition builds with hate since the vanilla game. Even when the builds do strike damage they still shower those build with condi hate due to the non-damaging conditions. It's a very popular opinion in competitive modes that conditions are not welcome.

I know I'm not the only person who hates condi in competitive modes but any time I commented that it's annoying people were always arguing against me since "power is still meta". I don't really get how power outperforming in a coordinated team settings and being way more popular among competitive players as a play style is in any way related to condi making ranked queue an absolute cesspool of bullshittery, but there's ALWAYS some people who come up with this argument.

Case and point:

15 hours ago, Avatar.3568 said:

idk what to say anymore, power is still meta, outside of condi reaper i can't think of a class beeing meta with condi

And apparently Anet agrees. As long as people prefer a power play style "condi can't be an issue, right?" so nothing will ever change probably.
At least I think I haven't heard a single person say that their condi build is fun to play or offers an engaging play style ever, apart from maybe when enemies die like flies against it.

Edited December 7, 2023 by DoomNexus.5324

[Myror.7521]

@DoomNexus.5324 Well the only reason why Power is better than condi is ....... you can coordinates clutch 1 Guy in likely under 1 second to death. While on condi it would take longer means enemy could react and Condi cleanes in this longer "Not downed yet" window. ^^

[Vinny.7260]

Only one who is relatively problematic with Akeem Relic is Mace Zerker, just reduce Skull Grinder's confusion by 1 stack and suddenly they have to think differently. Throw sword -> wait for 5 stacks -> then go for the wombo combo proc. Or just make it so it doesn't proc on skills that meet the requirements immediately. Like forcing them to have to Mace 3 after Skull Grinder to proc it instead of Skull Grinder immediately inflicting 10 stacks of confusion. 😉

This gives off a 'x is problematic, nerf stuff x uses instead.'

Although, I don't really see any issues with CZerker anyway.

[Eddie.9143]

bump for akeem nerf, condi zerker is disgusting.