Permanent fix to Condi Creep in all game modes

[RedSPINE.7845]

I find the idea of removing stacks instead of a number of conditions pretty interesting. But then controlling effects like chill, cripple or slow must be applied with more than one stack, and won't add duration anymore. It would also change the way you must play when wanting to apply this type of conditions, one would rotate its conditions applications in order to maximize uptime on its target.

[Allarius.5670]

I kind of like the idea others have suggested of lowering damage, increasing duration, and working in other stat requirements. Lowered base dmg of conditions (50% or whatever), but crits allow them to double by lowering the remaining duration by 1 sec (current effective damage). High dmg condition builds are still possible, but require greater stat investment to achieve (condi dmg, precision, expertise) rather than just condi dmg.

[ROMANG.1903]

@RedSPINE.7845 said:I find the idea of removing stacks instead of a number of conditions pretty interesting. But then controlling effects like chill, cripple or slow must be applied with more than one stack, and won't add duration anymore. It would also change the way you must play when wanting to apply this type of conditions, one would rotate its conditions applications in order to maximize uptime on its target.

This would work the same I guess. Imagine you receive 3 seconds of chill, then 4 seconds of immobilize (yeah you're fighting a pretty OP class), then 2 seconds of chill again. You use a skill that cleanses 2 stacks. It removes the last chill effect you received (2 seconds), then it removes the immobilize. The skill cleansed the last 2 condis, but the 3 seconds of chill applied before that aren't affected.

[Sykes.5684]

@Obtena.7952 said:To be fair, if you look at the history of the game, the 'creep' you are seeing is simply the alternate damage strategy of Damage over Time catching up to Directly-applied damage ... as it should have been from the start. Obviously Anet intended for both to be useful and when the game was released, maybe a few professions could use DoT's effectively. Now, most if not all can.

Power Damage has suffered from a shift in gameplay design as well. Power is still excellent for open world and old dungeons, because power excels at killing groups of trash mobs very quickly before they have a chance to ramp up their own damage, as well as quickly bursting down boss enemies that aren't TOO spongy.

But HoT, PoF, and raids introduced enemies that are much more tanky, and take longer to kill overall, and have ways of defending themselves from direct damage that condi can bypass. These latest expansions and updates have been FAR too overly kind to condition damage. Power, as a gameplay mechanic, should be very high burst damage in a short amount of time, but has breaks in which that damage can be applied as you wait for your cooldowns to refresh. Condi should be reliable, constant damage that should be maintained.

They need to add more gameplay elements that allow power to shine. Nerfing condi damage so that it doesn't have more burst than some power builds would be a start, and I think they should add more trash mobs to boss fights, as well as more bosses where you can only apply damage for a set amount of time, that the burst from power is better for dealing with.

[Oshi.9324]

Resistance becomes an effect and cannot be stripped is a good idea.

[dusanyu.4057]

Put the cap back on condi stacks to where they were at launch. Condi meta solved.

[ROMANG.1903]

@dusanyu.4057 said:Put the cap back on condi stacks to where they were at launch. Condi meta solved.

Terrible idea. World bosses for example, where you could only have 25 stacks, rendered condi builds completely useless. Should you try to apply your damages when the target is already at 25 stacks, they are completely negated.

[RedSPINE.7845]

The addition of condi stacks was one of the best thing I've ever had from Anet in the game. They must and won't revert this change.

[leasm.1279]

The devs have already stated the issue with conditions is they are too bursty instead of applying actual damage over time.

We see scourges applying 20 stacks of 2s torment, as well as firebrand applying 15 stacks of 3s burn. This is obviously not damage over time.

So, the suggestion of halving condition damage while doubling duration is sound.

I just don't think the devs are actually taking this issue seriously, since they just released new PoF classes with many skills that apply, say, 3 stacks of burn for 3s (instead of doing it the right way from the start - 1 stack for 9s).

[otto.5684]

@Kidel.2057 said:Protection now also reduces condition damage received.Resistance becomes an effect and cannot be stripped.Every class can apply max 2 types of conditions and some even just 1 (if it's burning).Expertise effectiveness is reduced by 10% or capped.

Done.

If you do this no one will play condi dps in any form of PvP. Ya condi damage is kittened up, but we need a resolution that does not make them obsolete.

TBH, if they remove resistance and make condi subject to all forms of damage reduction, toughness, boons, buffs, distortion and so on, should be sufficient.

[Hyper Cutter.9376]

@Sykes.5684 said:Power Damage has suffered from a shift in gameplay design as well. Power is still excellent for open world and old dungeons, because power excels at killing groups of trash mobs very quickly before they have a chance to ramp up their own damage, as well as quickly bursting down boss enemies that aren't TOO spongy.

But HoT, PoF, and raids introduced enemies that are much more tanky, and take longer to kill overall, and have ways of defending themselves from direct damage that condi can bypass.It's almost as if Anet was unhappy with the way people did dungeons and wanted to put a stop to it, or something.

[OriOri.8724]

@xiev.6905 said:Or we can force condi build to take another offensive attribute to be effective.

Cut 50% condi damage but give condi spells a chance to crit and apply double stacks. Numbers can be balanced but you get the idea.

Don't cut condi damage so heavily. 25% cut to it would be fine to start with, and balance from there. Getting a crit when applying the condition won'd do anything, but each individual tick could have a chance to crit and have each stack deal extra damage using the same formula for power crits.

[Warlyx.6732]

there are ton of issues with condition dmg , 1 stacking , 2 easy to reapply , 3 almost no drawback , u can put dots up and dodge or use CDs while condi do its thing , all u need is condition dmg and some precision for procs and maybe some condi duration (usually runes and food take care of that) , for power u need power , precision and ferocity , u can go and take some defensive gear , but condition is just 1 stat , since condi doesnt crit , vit thoughness and condition dmg is a good way to be tanky and still do tons of dmg. Try going vit thougness and power :) gl

start tweaking condi already , power builds need a comeback , Condi should do more DPS but Power should be bursty with downtime Xdps can be acheived with a dots doing X dmg every 3s or a chain of attacks doing X dmg every 10s (CDs and whatnot)

[Substatic.6958]

@Warlyx.6732 said:Condi should do more DPS but Power should be bursty with downtime Xdps can be acheived with a dots doing X dmg every 3s or a chain of attacks doing X dmg every 10s (CDs and whatnot)

Condi having to do more dps is something Arenanet made up as an excuse because they know it's too much work to balance power and condi. Other games don't do this.

In other games DoT and Directdmg specs do similar dps. The difference is direct damage specs have periods of burst and periods of down time. DoT specs have steady damage throughout and are better on movement, but low ramp up. In the end, they still pull similar dps on fights lasting over a minute or two. Each have their own advantages and disadvantages in reaching this similiar dps.

But in GW2, everyone's a warlock lol.

[RedSPINE.7845]

You're all saying conditions are too fast and too easy to apply, and I must disagree with this statement. As an engie main, I can assure you the problem you're adressing mainly concerns Scourges and some more but not all professions. At least in PvP, where people are always moving, evading, and you must do the same, it's hard to reliably inflict conditions (as an engineer, not as a scourge)

[npmis.7860]

From a PvE perspective: I don't care what kind of damage I do. All I care is how the build performs in certain encounters. The differentiation between condi and power builds in PvE only makes sens when talking about the armor of an enemy. Strong armor favors condi, weak armor favors power and average armor both should deal the same damage after a long time.That condition-builds seem to be generally stronger is caused by ANet making more condition-builds viable in the recent time. Those viable builds are naturally a bit stronger than the older builds. Maybe ANet simply found an easy way to give dps to every class without giving classes like thief, war, ranger, rev AA-rotations or skills that do immens damage with only one or three hits.

For PvP: The best way to balance it is to give some classes options to deal with conditions on their team and reduce the burst of condition-builds. The rest of tweaking is a bit more than just do X and all is fixed. But than again, I don't really play that much PvP.

[Exalted Quality.8534]

I agree with some of what the OP said. Protection should reduce condition damage and Retaliation should return return damage to the caster. Also, I think they should come up with a way to make toughness help against condition damage. I’m not in favor of changing condition damage vs. duration ratios or making resistance non-removable. If the devs make the aforementioned mechanics that currently do not interact with the primary damage source in the current sPvP/WvW meta, it will fix a lot of what’s wrong without having to make significant nerfs to any particular specs. I believe these suggestions would support smarter, more competitive gameplay.

[Agent Noun.7350]

@mygamingid.5816 said:

1. Reduce condi damage by 50%
2. Extend condi duration by 100%

No change to DPS, just less burst from condis and more opportunity to clear them.

I get the core idea here, but I think the effect of this would be to essentially ruin any condition build's ability to operate solo in the open world, which would suck. Something along these lines could help reduce the ability to spike up condition damage quickly, but that much of a change would be too much.

[Substance E.4852]

@nosleepdemon.1368 said:Condition damage will always have to deal more damage over time than physical attacks, factoring in resistances for both damage types. Otherwise, there would be no reason to take a condition spec over a physical damage spec.

Then they need to radically redesign all instanced PvE content to allow for mobs to periodically clear conditions, pulse resistance, or pass them back to you.

Otherwise, we just end up where we are, where power is objectively weaker (often by a massive margin) in all content where the boss doesn't die in less than 30 seconds.

The current system has also had terrible spill over consequences in both PvP and WvW.

[Panda.1967]

@Kidel.2057 said:Protection now also reduces condition damage received.Resistance becomes an effect and cannot be stripped.Every class can apply max 2 types of conditions and some even just 1 (if it's burning).Expertise effectiveness is reduced by 10% or capped.

Done.

Protection reducing condi damage would be good.Resistance becomming a buff instead of a boon could be good or badExpertise already hqs capped effectiveness, can't raise condi duration over +100% through stats and gear as is.

The other suggestion.... HELL NO! That would single handedly make condi builds 100% worthless... again...

[npmis.7860]

Maybe let all(or some) of those skills and effects, that negate condition damage, make it impossible to apply any kind of condition for the duration of the skill/effect.

The thought behind it is simple:I want to burst a warrior with a power build and use all my high damage skills, but because I'm a noob I didn't realize that he used "Endure Pain". So all the damage potential of my skills is gone. I have nothing left and I die.I want to burst a warrior with a condition build and use all my high damage skills, but because I'm a noob I didn't realize that he used "Berserker Stance". So my Conditions don't do any damage...for the time that the warrior has resistance. Once it ends there will still be some conditions that will tick. I did lose a lot of my damage, but I was able to build up conditions on him the whole time and he gets that damage after it. Depending on how long the resistance is, it would negate just bit of the damage potential of the skill.

It is not necessary to let it not stack conditions at all, letting resistance reduce the duration of the condition applied would be a compromise.

[mygamingid.5816]

@Agent Noun.7350 said:

@mygamingid.5816 said:

1. Reduce condi damage by 50%
2. Extend condi duration by 100%

No change to DPS, just less burst from condis and more opportunity to clear them.

I get the core idea here, but I think the effect of this would be to essentially ruin any condition build's ability to operate solo in the open world, which would suck. Something along these lines could help reduce the ability to spike up condition damage quickly, but that much of a change would be too much.

The duration of any condition needs to be long enough that burst is not just as effective, but more effective in a manner reasonably comparable to the condition's long-term damage advantage. I wouldn't be opposed to starting with a more modest adjustment, but it'll likely take something close to that 50/100 adjustment to create a real choice between the two.

I would also add that Open World soloing should favor power builds. The opponents are (generally) low health and that's where power's burst should be advantageous. It's okay for a damage type to be better under specific circumstances than another so we have reasons not to run the exact same build all the time.

[RedSPINE.7845]

Under specific circumstances ? Open World is the main thing, that's where 80% of the people spend 80% of their time ! Please, don't kill diversity in the open world.

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

@ROMANG.1903 said:

@dusanyu.4057 said:Put the cap back on condi stacks to where they were at launch. Condi meta solved.

Terrible idea. World bosses for example, where you could only have 25 stacks, rendered condi builds completely useless. Should you try to apply your damages when the target is already at 25 stacks, they are completely negated.

There is always the split for PvE/PvP/WvW. In fact, they should restrict the stacks to even less than that for PvP/WvW because 25 stack of burn alone is still like 15k damage per tick.

[Malicious.3716]

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

@ROMANG.1903 said:

@dusanyu.4057 said:Put the cap back on condi stacks to where they were at launch. Condi meta solved.

Terrible idea. World bosses for example, where you could only have 25 stacks, rendered condi builds completely useless. Should you try to apply your damages when the target is already at 25 stacks, they are completely negated.

There is always the split for PvE/PvP/WvW. In fact, they should restrict the stacks to even less than that for PvP/WvW because 25 stack of burn alone is still like 15k damage per tick.

Seriously a split between the game modes would solve everything.