Bleed + Burning Rune

[Sobx.1758]

17 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Not necessarily no.  The grieving weaver build is currently a few thousand dps weaker than the vipers build.  Adding a rune to fill its needs would push it up into meta status.  That’s why I said in the OP that it wouldn’t be an automatic upgrade.

You still didn't respond, what "grieving weaver build" are you talking about exactly? "few thousand dps" meaning how much exactly?

 

8 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I challenge anyone to explain what would happen if you were to swap a burning+bleeding rune into an existing build.

Maybe you should challenge yourself and explain how "changing a rune in existing build" would somehow "increase the number/variety of meta builds". Sounds like you want basically the same build with slightly different armor+rune stats combination achieving similar/same results. A rune saying "x% burning duration" instead of "x% condi duration" is your idea of fighting buildcraft monotony here?

Edited May 18 by Sobx.1758

[Cyninja.2954]

2 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I’m still waiting for you to describe what would happen to a build when one such mixed rune similar to afflicted runes was used instead of trappers.  Surely you understand that it would lead to less condition damage and more strike damage.  Surely you can describe to me the simple trade off of expertise vs ferocity that would occur.

First off: asked and answered by me earlier in the context of what your goal is and if this would achieve said goal.

In the current environment of available stats, potentially. What you are not accounting for is other stat combination which could yield more condition damage yet not available in game, say a 3-stat combo with condition damage as primary. In which case it would depend on how hybrid the build in question is.

As to your claim that builds are moving away from viper gear... what?

Please go and check up on the majority of top tier condition builds, they all run almost exclusively vipers (or an expertise equivalent stat set for offensive support builds). In the top 10 builds there is exactly 1 build which uses 5 pieces of Sinister, and that's Condition Willbender. The rest is pretty much across the board full viper. Condition Willbender uses Superior Rune of Balthazar to achieve max burning duration and is not even running Trapper like all the other builds (and a bleed+burning rune would have little impact on the build given the lack of bleeding).

I'm sorry but you come across as argumentative and disagreeing only because others do not seem to flock to your idea that a new best in slot rune is that great an idea. Your arguments are weak, incorrect or non existent at best at this point. Take the L, rework your idea or accept that others disagree.

Edited May 18 by Cyninja.2954

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

15 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You still didn't respond, what "grieving weaver build" are you talking about exactly? "few thousand dps" meaning how much exactly?

In my response to another person I mentioned there are many builds which are not advertised anywhere because they are just barely not up to par with the meta builds.  It is no surprise that those of you with no involvement in build crafting have never heard of any of such builds.  For example, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that the meta bladesworn build now uses the mainhand sword instead of axe.  Turns out the sword was never far off from being meta in power builds.

The grieving weaver build is as it sounds.  A weaver build that aims for hybrid damage using grieving gear.  The only hint of its existence open to the public is an errant listing in the discretize optimiser.

Why bother with all this in the first place?  Because different weapons favour different distributions of strike and condition damage.  A full vipers + trappers setup may favour the elementalist’s pistol with 80% condition damage.  Meanwhile a distribution with 60% condition damage may better suit the daggers.  Providing more support to builds through a new burning+bleeding rune  would allow people to better match their preferred play style with a build on par with the meta.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

On 5/18/2024 at 7:41 PM, Cyninja.2954 said:

First off: asked and answered by me earlier in the context of what your goal is and if this would achieve said goal.

In the current environment of available stats, potentially. What you are not accounting for is other stat combination which could yield more condition damage yet not available in game, say a 3-stat combo with condition damage as primary. In which case it would depend on how hybrid the build in question is.

As to your claim that builds are moving away from viper gear... what?

Please go and check up on the majority of top tier condition builds, they all run almost exclusively vipers (or an expertise equivalent stat set for offensive support builds). In the top 10 builds there is exactly 1 build which uses 5 pieces of Sinister, and that's Condition Willbender. The rest is pretty much across the board full viper. Condition Willbender uses Superior Rune of Balthazar to achieve max burning duration and is not even running Trapper like all the other builds (and a bleed+burning rune would have little impact on the build given the lack of bleeding).

I'm sorry but you come across as argumentative and disagreeing only because others do not seem to flock to your idea that a new best in slot rune is that great an idea. Your arguments are weak, incorrect or non existent at best at this point. Take the L, rework your idea or accept that others disagree.

That is a lot of vitriol lol.  It’s funny how you’ve misread my comments and written a whole paragraph reaffirming what I actually wrote.  So uh… thanks for being the devil’s advocate.  My claim is that vipers+trappers is dominating the meta, and that a burning+bleeding rune will help shake it up without power creep.

I am waiting for someone to demonstrate that they actually know what they’re talking about on this topic.  I did not find your previous two comments to even come close to satisfactorily proving yourself.  Vague platitudes won’t cut it.  Is it really so hard to give a concrete number of how much expertise a build will have in excess when swapping from trappers to one with the same profile as afflicted runes?  It’s 225.

The trial continues.  If you can’t explain where that number comes from in your next post then it is an admission that you don’t understand build crafting.

[Sobx.1758]

16 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

In my response to another person I mentioned there are many builds which are not advertised anywhere because they are just barely not up to par with the meta builds.  It is no surprise that those of you with no involvement in build crafting have never heard of any of such builds.

The assumption you came up with is baseless and wrong.

16 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

The grieving weaver build is as it sounds.  A weaver build that aims for hybrid damage using grieving gear.  The only hint of its existence open to the public is an errant listing in the discretize optimiser.

Meanwhile you still didn't link any build nor answer what "few thousands" exactly means here. Are you, for some reason, unable to answer those questions?

[Cyninja.2954]

5 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

That is a lot of vitriol lol.  It’s funny how you’ve misread my comments and written a whole paragraph reaffirming what I actually wrote.  So uh… thanks for being the devil’s advocate.  My claim is that vipers+trappers is dominating the meta, and that a burning+bleeding rune will help shake it up without power creep.

I am waiting for someone to demonstrate that they actually know what they’re talking about on this topic.  I did not find your previous two comments to even come close to satisfactorily proving yourself.  Vague platitudes won’t cut it.  Is it really so hard to give a concrete number of how much expertise a build will have in excess when swapping from trappers to one with the same profile as afflicted runes?  It’s 225.

The trial continues.  If you can’t explain where that number comes from in your next post then it is an admission that you don’t understand build crafting.

Trial? You expect simple math which is obvious to the point that it hurts, which is completely unnecessary to counter argue your point? Also you did not ask for specific numbers (which are again hilarious easy to come by). You specifically asked for:

Quote

I challenge anyone to explain what would happen if you were to swap a burning+bleeding rune into an existing build.  Demonstrate your knowledge of build crafting by describing the chain reaction, the numbers, and the tradeoffs.

Which does not have to be "solved" via math given the resulting change on the build/meta is of relevance and can simply be explained by means of how meta shifts occurre when new elements are introduced.. Good way of moving the goal post though.

Best example of a Dunning–Kruger effect if I have seen one lately.

FYI: nothing of what I wrote is incorrect btw, even without specific numbers because those specif numbers are not relevant for this level of discussion. As to no power creep occurring, that statement alone is actually incorrect because without any power creep or motivation to swap to the new rune, there is no reason to leave the status quo (which as is is even superior damage stat wise given it's omni condition damage and not specific).

Edited May 19 by Cyninja.2954

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

7 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Meanwhile you still didn't link any build nor answer what "few thousands" exactly means here. Are you, for some reason, unable to answer those questions?

I can't link to it directly because the Discretize Optimiser does not use its url in that manner.  You'll have to navigate that page on your own to find it.  It's called "Hybrid Weaver (Outdated)".  This tool relies on being fed up-to-date information for a few different things to function correctly.  Unfortunately what that means in practice is that dead builds can go months without being updated because the only reason to do so is purely for curiosity's sake.  Besides the name of the build including "(outdated)", it also does not even have a relic equipped.  I have not shared the exact dps of the build because I do not want to spread misinformation.  No one has tried this build and shared the data in months.  The optimizer says 38k with a fractal relic, but you should not take that number to heart.  If it is accurate, it's only by chance.

It's hard to say exactly how a new rune would help this build, because it would require the whole rotation to be redesigned.  The build currently (that is: the last time it was updated) uses balthazar runes and applies almost no bleeding at all, so the rotation likely never dips into earth.  As such, a mixed rune providing burning and bleeding duration will not simply plug in and be better.

[Jobber.6348]

On 5/17/2024 at 11:08 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

How is it irrelevant? You're basically suggesting the introduction of a piece of equipement that would give an edge to the builds that focus on burning and bleed. It mean that build that focus on different combination of condition would lag behind afterward.

Now, odds are high that even if the devs were to introduce what you suggest people would still stick to trapper runes. There is more value in increasing the duration of all conditions than there is in increasing 1 or 2 specific conditions.

OP is a secret Renegade main. 

[Panda.1967]

Ok, lets humor you and say it wouldn’t throw the balance off… you said you wanted it to be identical to afflicted except for burn & bleed instead of bleed & poison… ok… so 175% condi damage, 10% burn duration, 20% bleed duration, and 10% condi duration… or were you thinking the burn would be the 20%?

lets compare it to the rune of the trapper that you so desperately want to overturn in the meta… 200% condi damage, 15% condi duration… an extra 5% duration on burn isn’t worth losing a 25% damage increase, the 15% duration increase on bleed is though since that extra time can easily net you enough extra bleed stacks to make up the damage difference when solo stacking… but in group content, all that really matters is the damage per stack because they will almost always be at max stacks anyways.

rune of the afflicted sees use on necro builds becasue of their heavy usage of bleeds with some minor use of poison mixed in… same with Rangers… but most other condi builds have no need for poison duration, or don’t have as high of a reliance on bleed. Condi guardians tend to go with Balthazar because their high access to burn means they can actually get some additional stacks in with the 50% duration increase from balthazar runes, while other burn heavy builds like condi warrior or condi elementalist still find the duration insufficient.

looking at builds with burn + bleed… about the only ones that might find your suggested rune remotely useful are Condi Engi and Condi Revenant… but both of them would find afflicted to be potentially more useful since the tiny extra duration on burn would only ever give them 1 extra stack at a very inconsistent rate while the extra duration on poison would yield consistent stacks. But even then, both are even more likely to just keep using trappers anyways because its higher dps in the end.

if the burn duration on your suggested rune is bumped up to be seen as a worthwhile increase then it must be high enough to compete with Balthazars. Which means they have to either give up another condi damage bonus or trade the 10% condi duration for 20% burn duration netting a total of 30% burn duration but dropping the bleed from a 30% total to just the 20% direct… 30% might make it somewhat desirable but it would most likely still be ignored. The bleed duration dropping would also make it less desirable for the both engi and rev, but might increase its appeal to condi Ele… though most likely not enough to replace trappers still…

 

this is the biggest issue with designing new runes… finding values for them that are desirable but also don’t completely overshadow other runes for the same builds. The only way this one actually becomes desirable enough to shake up the meta is if it completely overshadows trappers for builds with burn + bleed, but to do that would mean it has to yield a notable DPS increase over trappers… if the DPS is about even, people will stick to trappers because its less effort for the same increase if its notably higher it will become the meta for builds that can get the higher dps benefit from it… and that risks straddling a very fine line on breaking the balance of burning condition… 

Edited May 20 by Panda.1967

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

9 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Ok, lets humor you and say it wouldn’t throw the balance off… you said you wanted it to be identical to afflicted except for burn & bleed instead of bleed & poison… ok… so 175% condi damage, 10% burn duration, 20% bleed duration, and 10% condi duration… or were you thinking the burn would be the 20%?

lets compare it to the rune of the trapper that you so desperately want to overturn in the meta… 200% condi damage, 15% condi duration… an extra 5% duration on burn isn’t worth losing a 25% damage increase, the 15% duration increase on bleed is though since that extra time can easily net you enough extra bleed stacks to make up the damage difference when solo stacking… but in group content, all that really matters is the damage per stack because they will almost always be at max stacks anyways.

rune of the afflicted sees use on necro builds becasue of their heavy usage of bleeds with some minor use of poison mixed in… same with Rangers… but most other condi builds have no need for poison duration, or don’t have as high of a reliance on bleed. Condi guardians tend to go with Balthazar because their high access to burn means they can actually get some additional stacks in with the 50% duration increase from balthazar runes, while other burn heavy builds like condi warrior or condi elementalist still find the duration insufficient.

looking at builds with burn + bleed… about the only ones that might find your suggested rune remotely useful are Condi Engi and Condi Revenant… but both of them would find afflicted to be potentially more useful since the tiny extra duration on burn would only ever give them 1 extra stack at a very inconsistent rate while the extra duration on poison would yield consistent stacks. But even then, both are even more likely to just keep using trappers anyways because its higher dps in the end.

if the burn duration on your suggested rune is bumped up to be seen as a worthwhile increase then it must be high enough to compete with Balthazars. Which means they have to either give up another condi damage bonus or trade the 10% condi duration for 20% burn duration netting a total of 30% burn duration but dropping the bleed from a 30% total to just the 20% direct… 30% might make it somewhat desirable but it would most likely still be ignored. The bleed duration dropping would also make it less desirable for the both engi and rev, but might increase its appeal to condi Ele… though most likely not enough to replace trappers still…

 

this is the biggest issue with designing new runes… finding values for them that are desirable but also don’t completely overshadow other runes for the same builds. The only way this one actually becomes desirable enough to shake up the meta is if it completely overshadows trappers for builds with burn + bleed, but to do that would mean it has to yield a notable DPS increase over trappers… if the DPS is about even, people will stick to trappers because its less effort for the same increase if its notably higher it will become the meta for builds that can get the higher dps benefit from it… and that risks straddling a very fine line on breaking the balance of burning condition… 

Thank you for putting the effort into this post.  Sincerely.

I’ve been waiting for someone to bring up the fact that the stats of the rune have not been explicitly stated.  All this talk and yet even something so basic was never brought into question.  I was thinking that favouring burning would not only sit better in terms of variety, but it would also appeal to the strengths of the targeted classes better.

175 condition damage, 30% burning duration, 20% bleed duration, and 10% other condition duration.  That is compared to nightmare runes with 175 condition damage and 20% all condition duration, and also trapper runes with 300 (not 200) condition damage and 15% all condition duration.

10% condition duration is the equivalent of 150 expertise.  So it’s obvious why trapper runes pushed out nightmare runes when they were buffed with the release of relics.  Getting the extra 125 condition damage from trapper runes is better than the 75 expertise on nightmare runes.  And so it goes with this burning+bleeding rune.  Compared to trapper, you’re losing 125 condition damage to gain 225 expertise toward burning and 75 toward bleeding.

Builds that currently use trapper runes are already at 100% condition duration, so the extra expertise has to come back out of your other gear.  That might take the form of changing sigils, relics, traits, or most likely equipment.  Swapping vipers for sinisters or grieving gear will increase your average strike damage.  So as a general overview, you’d be trading 125 condition damage from your runes to gain that back in some proportion as ferocity or precision and condition damage.  Don’t immediately scream “power creep!” at this though, you still have to account for the difference in proportion of strike vs condition damage.  Go back to the first page and have a look at the proportion breakdown of the builds I posted.  Many condition builds hover around 30% strike damage and 70% condition damage.  It would only be worthwhile to sacrifice a portion of your condition damage if you gained a significant increase to your strike damage in compensation.  The more heavily condition focused a build is, the less valuable that trade is.

I do not intend for this rune to simply plug into existing builds and be better than trapper runes.  The purpose is to provide better gear support for builds which have damage proportions closer to 50% strike damage.  These true hybrid builds are not meta because they lack the necessary build components to function on the same level as the more focused builds.  They are stretched too thin trying to increase these mutually exclusive forms of damage in equal measure.  If they had a rune that came with more condition duration, it would be easier to cover all their bases.

With that said, there is cause for concern about the current condi tempest build.  The build uses a sigil to shore up its condition duration, which would become unnecessary with this new rune.  I can’t say for certain, but there is a strong possibility that a damaging sigil like the sigil of earth may make up for the loss of condition damage from trapper runes.  My calculations came up as losing 5k dps from losing 125 condition damage to gain 1k from the extra duration and 1.5k from the sigil of earth.  I’m happy for someone to go into more depth there.

As for which classes I believe this rune would be a boon to: that would be elementalist and engineer.  Warrior is too caught up in condition damage for a hybrid to work.  Maybe if a different elite spec got some condi support it would be a different story.  Guardians are too focused on burning for a hybrid rune to be of any use.  Revenant actually gets most of its condition damage from torment.

I think you need to head on over to the snowcrows website to refresh what builds are using which runes.  You’ve claimed that elementalists and warriors find the burning duration from balthazar runes to be insufficient, but in fact they actually use trapper runes.  Berserker in fact uses a lot of sinister gear because it has so much excess condition duration, whilst some elementalist builds make up for it with a malice sigil.

You also mentioned that condis are always at max stacks in group content.  Can you expand on that topic?  The maximum stacks for each condition was changed to 1500 almost 10 years ago.  The ui stops displaying a number when the stacks go over 100, but the stacks can keep climbing to 1500.  Now sure in the open world that cap can be reached on bleeding quite easily, but burning?  Even 50 condi firebrands would only slightly get in each other’s way.

Again, thank you for making the effort to discuss this topic in good faith.

[Panda.1967]

45 minutes ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I think you need to head on over to the snowcrows website to refresh what builds are using which runes.  You’ve claimed that elementalists and warriors find the burning duration from balthazar runes to be insufficient, but in fact they actually use trapper runes.  Berserker in fact uses a lot of sinister gear because it has so much excess condition duration, whilst some elementalist builds make up for it with a malice sigil.

Yes, the burn duration from balthazar runes is insufficient for them, they don’t get enough duration to reliably gain enough additional stacks, so the logical choice is to forgo the additional duration to instead gain additional damage. Which means that, of course, they use trappers. This is largely due to the fact that burning inflicted by elementalist & berserker is so abysmally short that no amount of condi duration actually helps. Guardians have the longest base durations for burning out of everyone, of course they also have very little access to other damaging conditions too…

51 minutes ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

You also mentioned that condis are always at max stacks in group content.  Can you expand on that topic?  The maximum stacks for each condition was changed to 1500 almost 10 years ago.  The ui stops displaying a number when the stacks go over 100, but the stacks can keep climbing to 1500.  Now sure in the open world that cap can be reached on bleeding quite easily, but burning?  Even 50 condi firebrands would only slightly get in each other’s way.

Simple… while it may not actually be at the true cap, in most group content you reach a point where stacks simply don’t appear to fall off anymore because they are replaced as fast as, if not faster than, they fall off. In groups there is no effort in the upkeep of conditions and as a result stacking duration becomes less important.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

1 hour ago, Panda.1967 said:

Yes, the burn duration from balthazar runes is insufficient for them, they don’t get enough duration to reliably gain enough additional stacks, so the logical choice is to forgo the additional duration to instead gain additional damage. Which means that, of course, they use trappers. This is largely due to the fact that burning inflicted by elementalist & berserker is so abysmally short that no amount of condi duration actually helps.

Do you know this to be a fact or is this a supposition?  The data I’m looking at shows berserker running 99.93% burning and bleed duration, whilst tempest reaches 81.87% without the malice sigil.  Berserker has 469 expertise from gear (30% duration), another 310 from traits and food (20%), another 33% duration on bleeding and burning from traits, and then 15% from trapper runes.  The math checks out.  It’s a similar story for elementalist and holosmith.  They all use trapper runes and still get close to 100% duration on their main condis.  In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and posit that every meta condi build in the game runs at least 90% duration.

That is why I strongly believe that a rune with less condition damage and more duration would lead to a more hybrid damage output.  There is nothing to gain by going over 100% condition duration, so the excess has to be fed back into other stats.  Going from 4-stat vipers to 3-stat sinisters, you gain about a third of the excess as condition damage, 2/3rds as precision, and lose a third as power.  In this scenario you would have 15% excess burning duration which is the equivalent of 225 expertise.  You would gain a third of that, which is 75, as condition damage and 150 precision.  From a purely condition damage focused mindset it doesn’t make sense to trade 125 condition damage on the trapper runes to only get 75 back.  While the precision is nice, it’s not as highly valued.  Berserker seems to value precision the most of all the builds I’ve looked at, gaining around 19 dps per point, and losing 37 dps per point of condition damage, as well as 20 dps per point of power. So you would gain 2850 dps from the precision but lose 1850 + 1500 from the reduced condition damage and power.  In addition, you would be short 10% bleeding duration, which is about another 1k dps.  Hopefully that is sufficient to put to rest any concerns about condition build power creep.

Also, no matter the base duration of the condition, 100% duration still doubles the damage.  In most (if not all) condition builds you will find that expertise is more highly valued than condition damage (until you max out of course).

[UNDEAD.6108]

reply deleted

Edited May 24 by UNDEAD.6108

[Panda.1967]

On 5/20/2024 at 11:43 PM, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Also, no matter the base duration of the condition, 100% duration still doubles the damage.  In most (if not all) condition builds you will find that expertise is more highly valued than condition damage (until you max out of course).

Not quite… for most conditions it does in fact nearly double the damage, yes… but, thats not quite the case for burning. Conditions do a tick of damage immediately upon application and again after each second. This means that a 1s burn inflicts damage twice, while a 2s burn inflicts damage 3 times for a 50% increase. The base duration of most conditions is high enough that +100% duration is close enough to double damage that the extra tick of damage isn’t a big deal, but burning tends to have only a 1-2s base duration putting it at a 50-75% increase with +100% duration for most sources of burning.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

21 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

Not quite… for most conditions it does in fact nearly double the damage, yes… but, thats not quite the case for burning. Conditions do a tick of damage immediately upon application and again after each second. This means that a 1s burn inflicts damage twice, while a 2s burn inflicts damage 3 times for a 50% increase. The base duration of most conditions is high enough that +100% duration is close enough to double damage that the extra tick of damage isn’t a big deal, but burning tends to have only a 1-2s base duration putting it at a 50-75% increase with +100% duration for most sources of burning.

No sorry that’s not correct.  The conditions apply each second, but the remainder will tick once either upon first application or at the end.  See the following excerpt from the wiki:

Quote

Skill's tooltips will show the duration of conditions rounded to the nearest quarter of a second (0s, ¼, ½, ¾ and 1s). Conditions which inflict damage over time (bleeding, burning, tormentand poisoned) deal damage each full second and a fractional damage either at the beginning or end of their duration. The fractional duration of any condition is rounded up to the nearest multiple of 0.04 seconds (due to the 25Hz calculation rate of Guild Wars 2's servers). Thus, if a skill that inflicts poison with a duration of 6 seconds has its duration increased to 6.89 seconds, it will show 7s in its tooltips, will deal 6 full damage ticks, and fractional damage one time equal to 92% of a full tick

Condition duration does not apply massively arbitrary breakpoints as you’ve described.

[Sobx.1758]

On 5/20/2024 at 2:54 AM, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I can't link to it directly because the Discretize Optimiser does not use its url in that manner.  You'll have to navigate that page on your own to find it.  It's called "Hybrid Weaver (Outdated)".  This tool relies on being fed up-to-date information for a few different things to function correctly.  Unfortunately what that means in practice is that dead builds can go months without being updated because the only reason to do so is purely for curiosity's sake.  Besides the name of the build including "(outdated)", it also does not even have a relic equipped.  I have not shared the exact dps of the build because I do not want to spread misinformation.  No one has tried this build and shared the data in months.  The optimizer says 38k with a fractal relic, but you should not take that number to heart.  If it is accurate, it's only by chance.

It's hard to say exactly how a new rune would help this build, because it would require the whole rotation to be redesigned.  The build currently (that is: the last time it was updated) uses balthazar runes and applies almost no bleeding at all, so the rotation likely never dips into earth.  As such, a mixed rune providing burning and bleeding duration will not simply plug in and be better.

Thanks for clarifying the build. So for now it seems your request is mostly supported by your hopes connected to an outdated build with rotation that probably would need to be altered. Since this hypothetical rune could be -and as far as I understand your plan, it has to be- simply a condi damage increase for a hybrid weaver build, how's that rune supposed to be made in order to avoid being a straight buff to the condi weaver/ele builds as well? What stops any burn/bleed condi build from swapping some of the attributes on their gear to lower exp and probably increase their overal damage? If that becomes "the new norm", it will be better than "the current norm" why exactly? Because it buffs that one build you're interested in too?

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Thanks for clarifying the build. So for now it seems your request is mostly supported by your hopes connected to an outdated build with rotation that probably would need to be altered. Since this hypothetical rune could be -and as far as I understand your plan, it has to be- simply a condi damage increase for a hybrid weaver build, how's that rune supposed to be made in order to avoid being a straight buff to the condi weaver/ele builds as well? What stops any burn/bleed condi build from swapping some of the attributes on their gear to lower exp and probably increase their overal damage? If that becomes "the new norm", it will be better than "the current norm" why exactly? Because it buffs that one build you're interested in too?

Please read my long posts above for an explanation of why existing builds won’t find this new rune to be better.  Generally it’s because boosting precision or ferocity does not make up for the loss of condition damage, because the builds are so heavily skewed towards condition damage.

Weaver isn’t the only build I’m trying to bring up.  As I’ve said, there are a multitude of builds that could easily run a hybrid damage split.  Sword/pistol holosmith is an example of another, and theoretically a non-berserker warrior could go hybrid too… or perhaps if another weapon besides the bow had a single other condi skill.

This all stems from the way condition duration works.  It is generally more coveted than condition damage because of the mathematics behind it. However it is also a stat with a cap, so there is no benefit in stacking too much.  Additionally, condition duration on runes provide more raw stats than other runes.  Runes provide a cumulative bonus of 25, 35, 50, 65, 100, 125 stats.  But Trapper runes provide 25, 75 expertise, 50, 150 expertise, 100, 125.  So you generally want to get condition duration from your runes rather than something like rune of the elementalist.

It’s honestly a major flaw in the game that condition duration is more valuable than damage.  The uninitiated would normally just handwave all of this and say to go use elementalist runes or something of that nature; there’s a lot of different combinations there already.  But unfortunately those runes aren’t competitive as far as I understand.

[UNDEAD.6108]

reply deleted

Edited May 24 by UNDEAD.6108

[Cyninja.2954]

4 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Please read my long posts above for an explanation of why existing builds won’t find this new rune to be better.  Generally it’s because boosting precision or ferocity does not make up for the loss of condition damage, because the builds are so heavily skewed towards condition damage.

and as I have mentioned in the past: this only applies currently due to lack of attribute combinations.

What you are also omitting is: you are trying to cover balance issues between builds with a new rune choice. This works only so long as those specific weapons/builds have a lower output than their alternatives. The moment where a competitive burn+bleed weapon/build gets introduced, this rune combination would provide more respective condition duration, thus allowing for less condition duration in favor of other damage stats.

You are very focused on a very niche set of builds and current game situation and trying to band-aid fix their viability by backhandedly handing out more condition duration to those builds.

You are correct that there is precedent for this in form of Rune of the Krait, Rune of Balthazar and Rune of the Afflicted. Yes, those builds exist because they can make use of such a specific rune choice. In turn this also means if these builds will always have to be balanced around these respective rune bonuses.

Quote

Weaver isn’t the only build I’m trying to bring up.  As I’ve said, there are a multitude of builds that could easily run a hybrid damage split.  Sword/pistol holosmith is an example of another, and theoretically a non-berserker warrior could go hybrid too… or perhaps if another weapon besides the bow had a single other condi skill.

any build which would benefit off of getting more condition duration for free, because it can get away with only boosting its bleeding and burning duration due to lack of other conditions.

That still means that from now on any build which IS designed this way, would need to be balanced lower to make up for higher amounts of specific condition duration.

Quote

This all stems from the way condition duration works.  It is generally more coveted than condition damage because of the mathematics behind it. However it is also a stat with a cap, so there is no benefit in stacking too much.  Additionally, condition duration on runes provide more raw stats than other runes.  Runes provide a cumulative bonus of 25, 35, 50, 65, 100, 125 stats.  But Trapper runes provide 25, 75 expertise, 50, 150 expertise, 100, 125.  So you generally want to get condition duration from your runes rather than something like rune of the elementalist.

True, that's an issue with the developers approach to apply the same modifier in different ways and not paying attention to stat values.

Quote

It’s honestly a major flaw in the game that condition duration is more valuable than damage.  The uninitiated would normally just handwave all of this and say to go use elementalist runes or something of that nature; there’s a lot of different combinations there already.  But unfortunately those runes aren’t competitive as far as I understand.

It's a flaw if you view this through a PvE only perspective. If you take competitive modes into consideration, this flaw goes away quite quickly.

Edited May 24 by Cyninja.2954

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

and as I have mentioned in the past: this only applies currently due to lack of attribute combinations.

What you are also omitting is: you are trying to cover balance issues between builds with a new rune choice. This works only so long as those specific weapons/builds have a lower output than their alternatives. The moment where a competitive burn+bleed weapon/build gets introduced, this rune combination would provide more respective condition duration, thus allowing for less condition duration in favor of other damage stats

I covered this before but maybe it’s worth going into more detail.  The main point is this: there are no other stat combinations.  Condition builds invest so strongly into conditions, which only need condition damage and expertise.  If you’re getting all your expertise covered through runes, there is nothing left to invest in through gear.  There will never be a stat combination of purely condition damage.

As an example, condi tempest gains 45 dps per point in condition damage and 52 per expertise, but only 17 per point of power and 9 per point of precision.  The strongest combination is to use vipers+trappers, because it allows you to focus the bulk of your resources into the two stats that matter most without over investing into expertise.  The only attribute combination that could be better than vipers would be a 3-stat that dropped power or precision.  However that combination would have more expertise than vipers, and so would not combine well with a rune with more duration than trappers.

Thats the beauty of adding a rune with more duration and less damage.  Condition builds do not have room to accommodate more expertise because they are already capped, but hybrid builds would love to drop vipers for grieving or rampagers or sinisters.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I covered this before but maybe it’s worth going into more detail.  The main point is this: there are no other stat combinations.  Condition builds invest so strongly into conditions, which only need condition damage and expertise.  If you’re getting all your expertise covered through runes, there is nothing left to invest in through gear.  There will never be a stat combination of purely condition damage.

As an example, condi tempest gains 45 dps per point in condition damage and 52 per expertise, but only 17 per point of power and 9 per point of precision.

and damage per point of expertise goes to 0 once it is capped. So reaching this cap easier/faster allows for more other stats, for example condition damage primariy with power, precision secondary.

Hybrid builds take even better advantage of split stats, thus capping expertise easier allows for more damage. That literally what you are trying to do here: buff a specific hybrid build because current available puzzle pieces are not sufficient to do so.

While you are willfully ignoring that certain stat combination are not available yet in game but might become available down the road.

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

13 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

and damage per point of expertise goes to 0 once it is capped. So reaching this cap easier/faster allows for more other stats, for example condition damage primariy with power, precision secondary.

Hybrid builds take even better advantage of split stats, thus capping expertise easier allows for more damage. That literally what you are trying to do here: buff a specific hybrid build because current available puzzle pieces are not sufficient to do so.

While you are willfully ignoring that certain stat combination are not available yet in game but might become available down the road.

I did a breakdown of berserker earlier (which makes the most of power and precision of all the condi builds that I know) which demonstrated that this rune would not be stronger.  Getting the extra 125 condition damage from trapper runes is a more optimal split of resources.

[Cyninja.2954]

8 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

I did a breakdown of berserker earlier (which makes the most of power and precision of all the condi builds that I know) which demonstrated that this rune would not be stronger.  Getting the extra 125 condition damage from trapper runes is a more optimal split of resources.

We are going in circles, instead I'll just refer you to the current top build which has exactly the effects going for it which I am describing:

https://snowcrows.com/builds/raids/guardian/condition-willbender

Condition Willbender has a mono condition setup and thus can use Rune of Balthazar to maximum effect, thus dropping significant amounts of expertise on its gear. This is exactly what would happen to Bleed+Burning duo builds, they would be able to drop significant amounts of condi duration. These builds, not unlike condition Willbender right now, would then need to get balanced around the existence of this new rune.

Balance wise it would be far better to remove Superior Rune of Balthazar (which yields a total of 525 expertise for burning, at the expense of  125 condition damage when compared to Trapper) and re-balance Willbender around the output it can generate without Rune of Balthazar. This would also prevent any potential conflict with adding new stat combinations (predominantly cd+expertise+power which would pair exceptionally well with Sinister).

That's without getting into ANY issues this massive stacking of dedicated condition duration can have on competitive builds, where hybrid builds become far more of an issue and giving hybrid builds even easier access to condition duration (which does not need to be stacked to 100% but rather to 30-40%) allows for far more diverse stat distribution (since defensive stats are not as useless as in PvE). Which I've already mentioned.

Edited May 25 by Cyninja.2954

[ZephyrusSpring.5728]

16 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

We are going in circles, instead I'll just refer you to the current top build which has exactly the effects going for it which I am describing:

https://snowcrows.com/builds/raids/guardian/condition-willbender

Condition Willbender has a mono condition setup and thus can use Rune of Balthazar to maximum effect, thus dropping significant amounts of expertise on its gear. This is exactly what would happen to Bleed+Burning duo builds, they would be able to drop significant amounts of condi duration. These builds, not unlike condition Willbender right now, would then need to get balanced around the existence of this new rune.

Balance wise it would be far better to remove Superior Rune of Balthazar (which yields a total of 525 expertise for burning, at the expense of  125 condition damage when compared to Trapper) and re-balance Willbender around the output it can generate without Rune of Balthazar. This would also prevent any potential conflict with adding new stat combinations (predominantly cd+expertise+power which would pair exceptionally well with Sinister).

That's without getting into ANY issues this massive stacking of dedicated condition duration can have on competitive builds, where hybrid builds become far more of an issue and giving hybrid builds even easier access to condition duration (which does not need to be stacked to 100% but rather to 30-40%) allows for far more diverse stat distribution (since defensive stats are not as useless as in PvE). Which I've already mentioned.

Let's talk about condi willbender then.  To start, I'll share a few bits of information so that everyone is on the same page.  There are 2 predominant builds for condi willbender, one with 1-handed weapons which is more condition focused, and one with the greatsword which is slightly more power focused.  This difference is actually relevant and I'll explain why.

Stat breakdown:

• The 1-handed weapon build favours stats with the following proportions: 53 dps per expertise, 43 dps per condition damage, 17 dps per power, 11 dps per precision, and 15 dps per ferocity.  The build reaches 76% crit chance.  The build has 23.4% of its damage as power, and 73% as burning.
• The 2-handed weapon build favours stats via the following: 50 dps per expertise, 41 dps per condition damage, 18 dps per power, 13 dps per precision, and 15 dps per ferocity.  The build reaches 74% crit chance.  The build has 26% of its damage as power, and 70.5% as burning.

This difference in stat layout causes the 1-handed build to go for sinister gear when it has maxed out on expertise, whilst the 2-handed weapon build goes for grieving.  It is very interesting how willbender seems to be on the cusp of a breakpoint.  It's also worth noting that these builds opt to use the sigil of air instead of something like the sigil of earth or geomancy.  I wonder how close they are until sigil of force is better.  As an aside, I found that swapping the greatsword build into being more power-focused (29.2% strike damage) marginally increased the overall damage.  The builds are listed as outdated so I can't say for certain that it would translate into the real game, and I can't change too much such that I interrupt the rotation.

There are two things that I feel need to be laid plainly on the table about condition duration.

1. All damaging condition types have an associated 50% duration rune.  Krait, Balthazar, Thorns, Tormenting, Perplexity, and even Grenth for when reapers made chill do damage directly.
2. In addition to the sigils which provide 20% duration, there also exists food that provides 15% specific condition duration for each type E.g. Kimchi pancakes.  For some builds it is more optimal to sort their expertise to accommodate these foods.

Now onto your main point about being able to drop expertise for other stats.  I have explained it before in this thread but I'm happy to go over it again.  Compared to trappers, a hybrid rune would give you 225 excess expertise toward the major condition.  Now compare the stats of vipers to sinisters and grieving:

• Obviously swapping vipers to grieving gives you the excess in an equivalent amount of ferocity.  This is not a great trade because condition builds favour ferocity a whole lot less than condition damage or expertise.  It's usually somewhere in the ballpark of a 1:3 ratio, you can look at the numbers above for proof.  Trading 125 condition damage for 225 ferocity is not worth it.  A build needs to be already teetering over the edge of the hybrid threshold for the trade to be worthwhile, and this can be weapon dependant.
• Swapping into sinisters is more complicated and we'll need to explore the difference between 3-stat combinations and 4-stat combinations.  Let's use the numbers on a 1-handed weapon as an example.  3-stats have 125 major and 90 minor stats.  4-stats have 108 major and 59 minor stats.  So if we were to try to take 225 excess minor stats from the 4-stat combo (vipers) and redistribute them as the 3-stat sinisters we would find the following:
  • The gain of the main major stat is roughly 30% of the excess minor stats.  Going from 108 condition damage to 125 is a gain of roughly 30% of 59.
  • The gain of the other minor stat is roughly 50% of the excess.  Going from 59 precision to 90 is a gain of roughly 50% of 59.
  • The loss of the other major stat is roughly 30% of the excess.  Going from 108 power to 90 is a loss of roughly 30% of 59.
    So we can surmise that we can translate an excess of 225 expertise into ~65 condition damage, ~118 precision and negative ~68 power.  Keep in mind we're trading 125 condition damage for this.  So in total, you're trading 60 condition damage and power to gain it back as precision.  That's a tough sell.

It is also worth looking at builds which may use Fishy Rice Bowl for 15% burning duration because that is the same amount that trading trappers for a hybrid rune would give you.  In that case, you could swap the trapper runes and the food for the hybrid rune and different food.  If you swapped it for normal condition food you would gain either 100 expertise or 30 condition damage and 70 expertise.  Then it is a question of value between 125 condition damage vs 100 expertise or 95 condition damage vs 70 expertise.  If that expertise would be in excess then it wouldn't be worthwhile, but if it wasn't... then there'd be a case.  I'm looking at a variant of firebrand where this case exists.  This variant is marginally weaker than the snowcrows build with smoldering sigils, and it is definitely possible that a hybrid rune with normal food could make the difference.  There's too much to calculate to know for certain (such as the loss of 5% torment duration), and it'd be close either way.  I do remember saying that builds using condition duration sigils would be the biggest concern.

As for competitive builds, it's really just a risk-reward of potentially having your longer conditions cleansed.  I don't consider that to be a problem personally.  Yeah it gives you more options to trade damaging stats into defensive ones.  I said in the OP that having more options is inherently power creep because it lets you get closer to your ideal build.

[Cyninja.2954]

5 hours ago, ZephyrusSpring.5728 said:

Let's talk about condi willbender then.  To start, I'll share a few bits of information so that everyone is on the same page.  There are 2 predominant builds for condi willbender, one with 1-handed weapons which is more condition focused, and one with the greatsword which is slightly more power focused.  This difference is actually relevant and I'll explain why.

Stat breakdown:

• The 1-handed weapon build favours stats with the following proportions: 53 dps per expertise, 43 dps per condition damage, 17 dps per power, 11 dps per precision, and 15 dps per ferocity.  The build reaches 76% crit chance.  The build has 23.4% of its damage as power, and 73% as burning.
• The 2-handed weapon build favours stats via the following: 50 dps per expertise, 41 dps per condition damage, 18 dps per power, 13 dps per precision, and 15 dps per ferocity.  The build reaches 74% crit chance.  The build has 26% of its damage as power, and 70.5% as burning.

This difference in stat layout causes the 1-handed build to go for sinister gear when it has maxed out on expertise, whilst the 2-handed weapon build goes for grieving.  It is very interesting how willbender seems to be on the cusp of a breakpoint.  It's also worth noting that these builds opt to use the sigil of air instead of something like the sigil of earth or geomancy.  I wonder how close they are until sigil of force is better.  As an aside, I found that swapping the greatsword build into being more power-focused (29.2% strike damage) marginally increased the overall damage.  The builds are listed as outdated so I can't say for certain that it would translate into the real game, and I can't change too much such that I interrupt the rotation.

There are two things that I feel need to be laid plainly on the table about condition duration.

1. All damaging condition types have an associated 50% duration rune.  Krait, Balthazar, Thorns, Tormenting, Perplexity, and even Grenth for when reapers made chill do damage directly.
2. In addition to the sigils which provide 20% duration, there also exists food that provides 15% specific condition duration for each type E.g. Kimchi pancakes.  For some builds it is more optimal to sort their expertise to accommodate these foods.

Now onto your main point about being able to drop expertise for other stats.  I have explained it before in this thread but I'm happy to go over it again.  Compared to trappers, a hybrid rune would give you 225 excess expertise toward the major condition.  Now compare the stats of vipers to sinisters and grieving:

• Obviously swapping vipers to grieving gives you the excess in an equivalent amount of ferocity.  This is not a great trade because condition builds favour ferocity a whole lot less than condition damage or expertise.  It's usually somewhere in the ballpark of a 1:3 ratio, you can look at the numbers above for proof.  Trading 125 condition damage for 225 ferocity is not worth it.  A build needs to be already teetering over the edge of the hybrid threshold for the trade to be worthwhile, and this can be weapon dependant.
• Swapping into sinisters is more complicated and we'll need to explore the difference between 3-stat combinations and 4-stat combinations.  Let's use the numbers on a 1-handed weapon as an example.  3-stats have 125 major and 90 minor stats.  4-stats have 108 major and 59 minor stats.  So if we were to try to take 225 excess minor stats from the 4-stat combo (vipers) and redistribute them as the 3-stat sinisters we would find the following:
  • The gain of the main major stat is roughly 30% of the excess minor stats.  Going from 108 condition damage to 125 is a gain of roughly 30% of 59.
  • The gain of the other minor stat is roughly 50% of the excess.  Going from 59 precision to 90 is a gain of roughly 50% of 59.
  • The loss of the other major stat is roughly 30% of the excess.  Going from 108 power to 90 is a loss of roughly 30% of 59.
    So we can surmise that we can translate an excess of 225 expertise into ~65 condition damage, ~118 precision and negative ~68 power.  Keep in mind we're trading 125 condition damage for this.  So in total, you're trading 60 condition damage and power to gain it back as precision.  That's a tough sell.

and once again, for the x-th time you are dodging doing the calculation for a stat combination of Condition damage, power, expertise. Which as mentioned is not available yet, but might become available in the future and would represent the best in slot damage 3-stat combination for condition builds (which are not as power heavy as Willbender, which has inherently higher power scaling than most other condi builds).

Quote

It is also worth looking at builds which may use Fishy Rice Bowl for 15% burning duration because that is the same amount that trading trappers for a hybrid rune would give you.  In that case, you could swap the trapper runes and the food for the hybrid rune and different food.  If you swapped it for normal condition food you would gain either 100 expertise or 30 condition damage and 70 expertise.  Then it is a question of value between 125 condition damage vs 100 expertise or 95 condition damage vs 70 expertise.  If that expertise would be in excess then it wouldn't be worthwhile, but if it wasn't... then there'd be a case.  I'm looking at a variant of firebrand where this case exists.  This variant is marginally weaker than the snowcrows build with smoldering sigils, and it is definitely possible that a hybrid rune with normal food could make the difference.  There's too much to calculate to know for certain (such as the loss of 5% torment duration), and it'd be close either way.  I do remember saying that builds using condition duration sigils would be the biggest concern.

Long wall of text to basically say: I might be wrong, the math is to hard, let's add a pointless side-grade anyway.

Quote

As for competitive builds, it's really just a risk-reward of potentially having your longer conditions cleansed.  I don't consider that to be a problem personally.  Yeah it gives you more options to trade damaging stats into defensive ones. 

That's not how competitive builds work. There is a break-point of how much expertise is useful, unlike PvE where it usually always ends up being 100%, and that break-point is the intersection of opponents necessity to react and devote more resources to condition denial/defenses and conditions becoming an "I WIN" mechanic. That break-point usually is around 30-40%, condition duration at which point opponents are required to react to those conditions or strait up lose in an exchange.

There is no "longer conditions" aspect here since past 30-40% opponents either have dedicated enough resources to deal with conditions, which usually also means significant amount of cleansing, or they haven't and you win as condition build.

Making it easier to reach those 30-40% in what ever way possible not only allows for far easier access to defensive stats, it also support the vastly superior stat options for condition builds in regards to defensive-condition hybrid builds. Not that it matters that much with celestial already shoving aside most other stat combinations.

Quote

I said in the OP that having more options is inherently power creep because it lets you get closer to your ideal build.

Different types of power creep exist. This is a poor cop out of finally admitting that adding this rune will either be a pointless side grade or power creep and who would have guessed, most players following this topic disagreed with the idea.

Edited May 26 by Cyninja.2954