Can someone please explain why Condition damage is the most burst type of damage in the game?

[Korendil.5934]

The only times I ever experience one shots (or anything similar) I see things on my death log such as Burning - 20k, or Fire - 21k. Can someone please explain the game philosophy behind Damage over Time - as a damage profile - being the most burst oriented?

I don't know how to combat it. I have sigils that remove condition on hit, or when I weapon swap it removes a condition, but what stops the untelegraphed attack where I like 2/3rds of my HP in less than a second to condition damage? What can help me vs this? I'm pulling my hair out, it's so frustrating that it just makes PvP seem utterly futile.

I suppose some may consider the approach of, 'if you can't beat them, join them' - but why should I be forced to contribute to this lunacy. It's not fun.

[ccccc.4963]

1 minute ago, Korendil.5934 said:

but what stops the untelegraphed attack

Huh?

[Shagie.7612]

that's not how the death log works 

[magickthief.6492]

1 hour ago, Korendil.5934 said:

The only times I ever experience one shots (or anything similar) I see things on my death log such as Burning - 20k, or Fire - 21k. Can someone please explain the game philosophy behind Damage over Time - as a damage profile - being the most burst oriented?

I don't know how to combat it. I have sigils that remove condition on hit, or when I weapon swap it removes a condition, but what stops the untelegraphed attack where I like 2/3rds of my HP in less than a second to condition damage? What can help me vs this? I'm pulling my hair out, it's so frustrating that it just makes PvP seem utterly futile.

I suppose some may consider the approach of, 'if you can't beat them, join them' - but why should I be forced to contribute to this lunacy. It's not fun.

Play more condi. But, its not about condi, its about aoe. If your attacks hit AOE, up to 5, then they are normally solid attacks. Armor ignoring damage is a great benefit of condi, but you will notice that aoe power damage tends to do mega wega damage, and/or tacks on massive vulnerabiity stacks, but so do those nice condi attacks. THE AOE, less likely to miss large area is what makes condi good, and untelgraphed to you is that you got caught in the area. Do a small test, what kills beast faster? that is what is generally better in low rated uncoordinated matches.

[Saiyan.1704]

48 minutes ago, Shagie.7612 said:

that's not how the death log works 

I've always been confused (pun not intended) on why condi shows absurd amount of damage in the logs sometimes. I always thought there was a math glitch going on. Such as causing 10 seconds worth of burn damage, cleanse it within 3 seconds, but the full damage still shows up on the death logs as if you took the full duration.

[Avatar.3568]

because you don't understand how condi work

[Shagie.7612]

1 hour ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

I always thought there was a math glitch going on. Such as causing 10 seconds worth of burn damage, cleanse it within 3 seconds, but the full damage still shows up on the death logs as if you took the full duration.

I think it just doesn't reset properly when you exit combat, a lot of the time.
Or something, I dunno. And all the ticks add up over time even if they're not actively threatening too.

But it's never been a very useful tool, which I think is a huge mistake for people trying to learn. The combat log isn't the most easily readable chat box because the same tick options cover both important and unimportant info, while the death log might not show you that it was the 11 billion gunflame you took that killed you and not a bunch of meaningless bleed ticks that look like they did all the damage to someone who isn't knowledgeable.

[Endorphin.9147]

Yeah

3 hours ago, Shagie.7612 said:

I think it just doesn't reset properly when you exit combat, a lot of the time.
Or something, I dunno. And all the ticks add up over time even if they're not actively threatening too.

But it's never been a very useful tool, which I think is a huge mistake for people trying to learn. The combat log isn't the most easily readable chat box because the same tick options cover both important and unimportant info, while the death log might not show you that it was the 11 billion gunflame you took that killed you and not a bunch of meaningless bleed ticks that look like they did all the damage to someone who isn't knowledgeable.

Yeah i remember one time looking at my death log and seeing burns hit the 150k range in it..

[Irrational.2871]

you cant dodge condi damage thats why it kills you kinda faster than power damage thats it.

[arazoth.7290]

3 minutes ago, Irrational.2871 said:

you cant dodge condi damage thats why it kills you kinda faster than power damage thats it.

You can. And giving a few other ways to deal also with it.

And let me explain why with the following comparison between power and condi.

power: You can dodge/ block/invurnable the initial instant damaging attack(s) and it will stop the damage. defensive boons such as protection help mitigate and some other reductions too.

condi: You can dodge/ block/invurnable the initial attack(s) which apply damage over time and it will stop the damage. defensive boons such as resolution help mitigate and some other reductions too.

Now something that power instant attacks don't have, condi cleansing to remove damage applied which you couldn't dodge, block or invurnable.

( For both of these you can also count kiting enough, positioning, mobility and ranged weapons + stealth if you have )

Conclusion: You got outplayed, didn't had enough condi cleansing, mitigation or all multipble of these issues together. (you can also count for power/condi The general ones listed between ( ).

Argument for who tries to deprove it: I play a build with 1 active cleanse (3 condis) and 2 1-2 passive cleansing each 10 seconds depending if I change to that weapon. And I can manage more then fine in heavy condi fights.

 

And about being the better duelist by outsustaining longer, there have been power/condi builds from both times to times to do this. And there still are from both sides to accomplish this, some more succesfull then others but that's balancing and noting to do with condi specific.

[Irrational.2871]

26 minutes ago, arazoth.7290 said:

You can. And giving a few other ways to deal also with it.

And let me explain why with the following comparison between power and condi.

power: You can dodge/ block/invurnable the initial instant damaging attack(s) and it will stop the damage. defensive boons such as protection help mitigate and some other reductions too.

condi: You can dodge/ block/invurnable the initial attack(s) which apply damage over time and it will stop the damage. defensive boons such as resolution help mitigate and some other reductions too.

Now something that power instant attacks don't have, condi cleansing to remove damage applied which you couldn't dodge, block or invurnable.

( For both of these you can also count kiting enough, positioning, mobility and ranged weapons + stealth if you have )

Conclusion: You got outplayed, didn't had enough condi cleansing, mitigation or all multipble of these issues together. (you can also count for power/condi The general ones listed between ( ).

Argument for who tries to deprove it: I play a build with 1 active cleanse (3 condis) and 2 1-2 passive cleansing each 10 seconds depending if I change to that weapon. And I can manage more then fine in heavy condi fights.

 

And about being the better duelist by outsustaining longer, there have been power/condi builds from both times to times to do this. And there still are from both sides to accomplish this, some more succesfull then others but that's balancing and noting to do with condi specific.

i mean if you have already condis on you it keep damaging you even if you dodge. I didnt say that you cant dodge attack that place condis on you

[Korendil.5934]

How did I get outplayed when the condition damage gets applied to me, and then I subsequently lose over two thirds of my HP in less than a second. Please explain to me how I should of dodged that, or swapped weapons to remove a condition to avoid that? It's inexplicably punishingly high damage that power simply cannot compare to. To defend it is ludicrous, because essentially you're agreeing by that point that condition damage should be on par with power burst, which is nonsensical when taking into account that condition damage is damage over time. Conflating the two leads to a negative user experience; and people wonder why the population is low in PvP..

[arazoth.7290]

8 minutes ago, Irrational.2871 said:

i mean if you have already condis on you it keep damaging you even if you dodge. I didnt say that you cant dodge attack that place condis on you

That's my point. You didn't do these things to negate getting that. 

If somebody hits you with 10k power damage, you get the full damage instant because you didn't/couldn't negate the initial attack.

Condi attacks have an initial attack too to apply all this.

Now the tricky thing with condis compared to power damage. If you get big power damage hit, you're probably more aware of it. With condis it stacks over time and the player could be more carefree, till the moment they realise oh noo and then it's stacked too high and you get little snowball effect. But the thing is, mostly you have more time to realise this.

Now another point about condis, just like power attacks, you have outliners that do more then others. Some nice examples, power soulbeast and power zerker doing 12-15k hits. Same for condi on certain mesmer builds almost instantly stacking to 30 confusion stacks (the torment stacks are more balanced compared to the confusion stack amount). So on some abilties you have outliners and have to be more aware which you can potentially get caught off guard from. 

 

[arazoth.7290]

6 minutes ago, Korendil.5934 said:

How did I get outplayed when the condition damage gets applied to me, and then I subsequently lose over two thirds of my HP in less than a second. Please explain to me how I should of dodged that, or swapped weapons to remove a condition to avoid that? It's inexplicably punishingly high damage that power simply cannot compare to. To defend it is ludicrous, because essentially you're agreeing by that point that condition damage should be on par with power burst, which is nonsensical when taking into account that condition damage is damage over time. Conflating the two leads to a negative user experience; and people wonder why the population is low in PvP..

The ability that applies conditions/same like power damage can be countered by what I listed, the most simple are dodging, blocking.

You do see an animation when the ability is pressed right that does this amount of conditions??? Do you wait and see it getting applied or do you do something to negate it getting applied?

And I never agreed with overtuned abilties that count for power damage too like many 12k hits or more, a few oke which you can dodge or such. And same for condi, that applies a lot of condis with 1 press can be dodged but if they have multipble of these then condis aren't the problem but overtuned abilities. 

[arazoth.7290]

20 minutes ago, Korendil.5934 said:

How did I get outplayed when the condition damage gets applied to me, and then I subsequently lose over two thirds of my HP in less than a second. Please explain to me how I should of dodged that, or swapped weapons to remove a condition to avoid that? It's inexplicably punishingly high damage that power simply cannot compare to. To defend it is ludicrous, because essentially you're agreeing by that point that condition damage should be on par with power burst, which is nonsensical when taking into account that condition damage is damage over time. Conflating the two leads to a negative user experience; and people wonder why the population is low in PvP..

Another question to deprove what you said=>

If I hit you with an ability that instantly hits 10k power damage, 50% of your hp. How did I outplay you when this 10k power damage got applied?

(the answer is in previous one)

 

Edited January 7 by arazoth.7290

[Shagie.7612]

30 minutes ago, Korendil.5934 said:

To defend it is ludicrous, because essentially you're agreeing by that point that condition damage should be on par with power burst, which is nonsensical when taking into account that condition damage is damage over time.

If you truly died that quickly that means you had a billion things on you. If you have 500k worth of dots on you, one "over time tick" is still gonna be a very large portion of your health.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but have you considered that maybe you took a condi bomb so incredibly hard that you melted, and the equivalent level of a power burst would be literal instant death rather than a tick or two? Something that player probably would have done if they were playing power instead, considering what they managed to hit you with in a very short period of time.

You're brand new, you're clearly missing something, and that's expected, normal and acceptable.
But instead of asking about it, your immediate response was "this game is bad" when you don't even know what happened.
Seems a bit silly, doesn't it? Do you do that for other activities too, when you don't immediately succeed at them?

[Korendil.5934]

So some the responses here are:

• Dodge it
• Block it
• Power can do similar dmg
• Don't say the game is badly designed

None of them are admitting that condition damage doing (DoT) damage on par with huge burst in the same timeframes is questionable design? It's like you either have stockholm syndrome and can't see past the contradictory nature of its damage profile. The design philosophy, as mirrored in other MMOs, is that it's one or the other, but both at the same time invalidates the other, and would inherantly imbalanced. I can only see arguments from those that presumably use these builds, but with little to no regards to its flawed application.

DoTs should not be burst. Period. 

[arazoth.7290]

6 minutes ago, Korendil.5934 said:

So some the responses here are:

• Dodge it
• Block it
• Power can do similar dmg
• Don't say the game is badly designed

None of them are admitting that condition damage doing (DoT) damage on par with huge burst in the same timeframes is questionable design? It's like you either have stockholm syndrome and can't see past the contradictory nature of its damage profile. The design philosophy, as mirrored in other MMOs, is that it's one or the other, but both at the same time invalidates the other, and would inherantly imbalanced. I can only see arguments from those that presumably use these builds, but with little to no regards to its flawed application.

DoTs should not be burst. Period. 

Mostly these don't last as long as the lower condi damage ones. For example burning condis, they do high damage but don't last long.

Like the previous person said, you would have taken many condi bombs which would instantly killed with power damage if you got multipble of them. If you couldn't get it negated what I previous said, you can then hold your condi cleanse faster ready then it can do it's full damage. You can't do this with power damage and in case you have a support, they can cleanse you too. 

And again, there are many abilties that can be overtuned and do too much in general, but that isn't a condi problem related but just balance. For example like said previously, mesmer being able to apply instantly 30 confusion stacks => it catches off guard, but 2nd time be aware and know when to defend against it, then that burst window is ruined.

I am giving tips how to defend against it, but if you don't take the advice and try to use it, then I can't do more. 

[Korendil.5934]

I appreciate the tips, and I don't want to come across as inflammatory. That being said, I believe the window to be a lot shorter then what you believe to be reactionary. I'd honestly say it's less than a second, which is extremely punishing. You could argue, "Well, at least you do have time, unlike with power burst." And sure, I can see that. But the fact that condition dmg can be considered burst at all is inherantly flawed game & balance design, and I won't be able to convinced otherwise. Like I said, there's Damage over Time and Burst, and these shouldn't have blurred lines.

[Shagie.7612]

lol the only other active mmo with pvp is wow and you can absolutely get melted in a second or two there if you let something like spriest or aff tee off on you with CDs and no response
that's been true for most of the game's life

this is trolling at this point

are you sure you even got condi bursted considering the death log is unreliable

[Kuma.1503]

.You can react to each instance of power dmg taken immediately. You see each chunk removed from your hp bar. 

Condis damage is slow at first but stacks intensity. Let it stack high enough and it will melt you. By the time condis are "bursting" you, you've prob taken 2x your hp bar in damage and don't know you're dead yet. 

Burning is the exception. Most burns last 1-2 secs after nerfs and are functionally power dmg due to how quick they apply their full dmg. 

Condis also have weaker telegraphs. Many are tacked to skills with subtle/non-existant tells via trait interactions. This makes it harder to avoid and harder to tell when you've taken lethal dmg until its too late.

 

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Not really condi in general, it's burning specifically and has been for a while now. Almost any time a discussion regarding the high burst potential of conditions burning is always the main culprit mentioned. Most condi builds can build completely to maximize bleed or poison damage for example and while doing good damage quickly will never surpass a power burst, burning is the exception.

Edited January 8 by Psycoprophet.8107

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

Condi burst in a nutshell

 

[Severiun.6495]

I think that some sort of UI Customization would help- if you could move and resize your Boons and Conditions into a better "field of vision" location on the screen then you would/could possibly react quicker. 

[Flowki.7194]

Their are maybe 2 issue I have with condi at the minute, first is that a few specs apply poison or confusion way too easily. Getting hit with a condi bomb is one thing, it does high damage, but to then add confusion or poison ontop of that is a secondary hit that imo is too much. Thief and ranger are the biggest offenders of easy poison application, and reaplication (raw healing already suffers, clearly shown by lack of supports in use, easy app poison doesnt help). With confusion, its mostly mesmer/warrior. I do use poison relic on rev, but the balancing factor of that, is it requires CCing people to proc the poison, that can be negated by stability, which a lot of specs open with, or that I have to risk melee range for some of the CC. Poison and confusion are powerful debuffs that IMO should have more hoops/risk in order to use. For me, 900 unit scepter 3 on specter is an absolute monstrosity of an ability, completely over loaded.

 

The second major issue for me is the clear sustain difference of condi specs, yet their condi damage/mobility has been crept to higher levels. A lot of power burst specs forgoe sustain for higher damage, not all, but most. Condi specs use to have a trade off of better sustain for moderate ramp up/condi damage/lower mobility. There are a few condi builds that I feel are now doing too much condi damage relative to their hp pool/sustain/ and in some cases mobility.

 

Edited January 8 by Flowki.7194