Defensive Boons and Condi Discussion

[Yasai.3549]

With the most recent change to Resistance and Retaliation, we finally have some justice for Condi damage being utterly negated by a single boon, instead we now have Resolution which acts a Condi version of Protection while Resistance renders all other Condis ineffective (Chills, Slows, Immobs, Weakness etc.) 

So this brings up a question of : 
Now that Condi has a "Protection variant", should Condi likewise have a "Weakness variant" ? Am sure many power players would know, Protection is only the one half of the problem that Bunker-esque builds tend to put out, the other half being Weakness application. 

Weakness reduces yur effective crit chance by half and in addition to that, it also reduces the direct damage that power skills inflict. This combined with Protection is what made the original Boonbeast so difficult to deal with back in the Burst meta, because while they could burst others, no one could burst them. 

Now that Condi has been given some nuance of balance back regarding Resistance previously negating their damage entirely, should Condi also have its own version of Weakness to stifle the effectiveness of Condi application builds? 

Yes or no? 
And why? 
And should it come in the form of a Condi, similar to Weakness, or as another sort of unique effect? 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

Did you forget about cleansing?

[Grand Marshal.4098]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Did you forget about cleansing?

Well with no elaboration one could ask "did you forget of the constant condition reapplication?".

 

Imo, a new boon/condi which renders enemy conditions less powerful is not needed. With many traits having received the "general dmg output" increase instread of specifications on condi dmg, or power dmg, weakness should simply half all your outgoing dmg. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Well with no elaboration one could ask "did you forget of the constant condition reapplication?".

 

Imo, a new boon/condi which renders enemy conditions less powerful is not needed. With many traits having received the "general dmg output" increase instread of specifications on condi dmg, or power dmg, weakness should simply half all your outgoing dmg. 

 

Prior to this patch condi was completely worthless in large scale and any kind of organized smallscale, only really having any sort of presence in 1v1 and only for certain classes generally having broken sustain.

 

I guess my question is how dead do you want condi? Cleansing needs a rework. 

[saerni.2584]

I agree that cleansing, as a mechanic, is similar to resistance (pre-patch) because it's all or nothing. Either you cleanse and then immediately get reloaded with conditions or you cleanse the majority of the conditions and incoming damage drops to hilariously low levels.

 

Personally, my suggestion is to remove cleanse from the game (as far as it applies to damaging conditions). Then, make skills that "cleanse" currently apply resolution. Then I would make weakness also reduce condition durations applied while under the effect of weakness. Access to resolution should be much more common than protection (increasing uptime) and should act as a primary (temporary) mitigation factor.

 

I would simultaneously reduce the availability of resolution to professions like Guardian (which gained significant resolution access through retaliation's conversion but would also gain resolution access through converting cleanses into resolution) as needed to provide the necessary degree of balance. 

 

Arguably, the ability to play around condition damage resist (resolution) and condition duration resist (weakness) would provide better and more obvious counterplay to conditions (and counter-counterplay) than the current system of cleanse where first-in first-out and the variability of cleanses can make some builds effectively immune and others overly susceptible to taking condition damage (which becomes broken in large scale where AoE cleanse and profession synergies make condi gameplay almost ineffectual without a possibility of counterplay by the condi professions/builds). 

[Grand Marshal.4098]

4 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

Prior to this patch condi was completely worthless in large scale and any kind of organized smallscale, only really having any sort of presence in 1v1 and only for certain classes generally having broken sustain.

 

I guess my question is how dead do you want condi? Cleansing needs a rework. 

My selfish response would be "kill condi builds in competetive, I hate fighting them, now I won't be safe against them even for 4 sec (resistance rework on Zerker Stance)".

 

That of course wouldn't be healthy for the game as people enjoy condition gameplay. As for as cleansing goes, it is limited. It also has rather high cooldowns and many unreliable traits to work it with. Burst cleansing doesn't make you able to keep fighting, instead it gives you the time needed to kite away and re-enter the fray, whereas resistance did the oppossite for warriors.

 

Weakness applying the debuff on all dmg sounds like the best route possible. If there is an issue in the community, weakness shouldn't half condi dmg, rather reduce it by 25% and it's already more potent than power dmg. Furthermore, weakness would need to spread out more. Warrior has good ways of applying weakness, so no issue there, but other classes may not be as capable.

 

Resolution needs to be added more to traits, resistance should be given more freely now to elite specs that need it and an overall rework is required.

 

But that's words in the wind. Anet did the patch, received some comments and clarified some stuff and this is most probably how things will be until EoD.

[Dawdler.8521]

Condi already have a "weakness variant" that reduce the enemies ability to outsustain you. It's called poison.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Yasai.3549]

12 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Condi already have a "weakness variant" that reduce the enemies ability to outsustain you. It's called poison.

Huh?
No I meant like, Weakness severely guts Power damage output, I'm suggesting here what if Condi had a similar sort of debilitating affliction. 

Just because Poison reduces people's ability to sustain doesn't make it the same as reducing the damage they can do with Condi by killing them faster, it just means that they have to play around not taking too much damage as long as Poison is on them or they can't sustain themselves. They can still stack Condis on their opponent and kite around with Poison lingering on them, see?

Weakness however, just instantly means that the player using Power is unable to do any meaningful damage be it ranged, melee, direct or not, forcing them to not only back off to avoid being hurt too much to counter attack, but to also save their cooldowns to avoid wasting them and doing no real damage. 



 

[Vancho.8750]

2 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Huh?
No I meant like, Weakness severely guts Power damage output, I'm suggesting here what if Condi had a similar sort of debilitating affliction. 

Just because Poison reduces people's ability to sustain doesn't make it the same as reducing the damage they can do with Condi by killing them faster, it just means that they have to play around not taking too much damage as long as Poison is on them or they can't sustain themselves. They can still stack Condis on their opponent and kite around with Poison lingering on them, see?

Weakness however, just instantly means that the player using Power is unable to do any meaningful damage be it ranged, melee, direct or not, forcing them to not only back off to avoid being hurt too much to counter attack, but to also save their cooldowns to avoid wasting them and doing no real damage. 



 

Weakness is RNG and it annoying cause you can get hit by a crit to death anyway even with weakness or they can noodle you and do nothing. The best thing is to remove the RNG and make it to "You can't crit and get reduced condition duration by X% while under the effects of weakness". 

[Yasai.3549]

46 minutes ago, Vancho.8750 said:

Weakness is RNG and it annoying cause you can get hit by a crit to death anyway even with weakness or they can noodle you and do nothing. The best thing is to remove the RNG and make it to "You can't crit and get reduced condition duration by X% while under the effects of weakness". 

Yea that would be much better. 
I rather Weakness applied a "no crit at all" than the dumb Glancing blows stuff which made that particular Glancing blow not only not crit, but do 50% less damage. 

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Huh?
No I meant like, Weakness severely guts Power damage output, I'm suggesting here what if Condi had a similar sort of debilitating affliction. 

Just because Poison reduces people's ability to sustain doesn't make it the same as reducing the damage they can do with Condi by killing them faster, it just means that they have to play around not taking too much damage as long as Poison is on them or they can't sustain themselves. They can still stack Condis on their opponent and kite around with Poison lingering on them, see?

Weakness however, just instantly means that the player using Power is unable to do any meaningful damage be it ranged, melee, direct or not, forcing them to not only back off to avoid being hurt too much to counter attack, but to also save their cooldowns to avoid wasting them and doing no real damage. 



 

Death also severly guts condi damage because you didnt have the time to deliver it due to being unable to sustain.

[Astralporing.1957]

12 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

With the most recent change to Resistance and Retaliation, we finally have some justice for Condi damage being utterly negated by a single boon, instead we now have Resolution which acts a Condi version of Protection while Resistance renders all other Condis ineffective (Chills, Slows, Immobs, Weakness etc.) 

So this brings up a question of : 
Now that Condi has a "Protection variant", should Condi likewise have a "Weakness variant" ? Am sure many power players would know, Protection is only the one half of the problem that Bunker-esque builds tend to put out, the other half being Weakness application. 
 

Condi damage already has their "Weakness variant". It's called "condi damage cannot crit" - and it is permanently applied to everyone. If you want to introduce a condition that would be a "weakness for condi", you also need to allow condition to deal critical damage.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Astralporing.1957

[Yasai.3549]

50 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Condi damage already has their "Weakness variant". It's called "condi damage cannot crit" - and it is permanently applied to everyone. If you want to introduce a condition that would be a "weakness for condi", you also need to allow condition to deal critical damage.

People seem to not understand that Weakness isn't just "not critting half the time" 
It transforms half yur hits into Glancing Blows which will deal half of normal damage and cannot crit. 

This is such a major Power targeted debilitation that builds that can puke this out excessively essentially has a permanent edge over a competing Power build in a 1v1 setting. (Daredevil for example) 

Other plausible arguments and suggestions have been made in this thread already but yu saying "Condi cannot crit" as an argument is just pure and utter bull because Condi bursts, however rare these days, are more than capable of dealing equal or more damage to a Power build's critical hit, for several ticks. (Burning and burst Poison) 

I agree with Saerni : 
Cleanses should be changed to Resolution, and Weakness should reduce duration of the Condi applied by the caster who is affected by Weakness. 

[Astralporing.1957]

23 minutes ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Other plausible arguments and suggestions have been made in this thread already but yu saying "Condi cannot crit" as an argument is just pure and utter bull because Condi bursts, however rare these days, are more than capable of dealing equal or more damage to a Power build's critical hit, for several ticks. (Burning and burst Poison)

That's more a problem with burning specifically than with condi in general. Or, to be more precise, with certain builds being able to burst-apply way too many conditions in too short a time.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Conditions already received a massive hit.  They don't need any more nerfs mechanically.  

[Abyssisis.3971]

I personally feel tht the following would be a better idea.
 

Resistance - 3 seconds of condition application immunity after using a healing or utility skill that baseline includes removing conditions. Change it so it’s a unique effect that cannot be shared, stolen, increased duration or reduced duration, converted or removed by any means. It’s just straight up 3 seconds of condition application immunity.

 

The same goes from utility skill with base line break stuns, they should include a 3 second CC immunity, following the same unique rules as resistance in that it cannot be shared, stolen, have it’s duration increased or reduced, be converted or removed in anyway.

 

Resolution could then be changed to reduce both condition damage and condition duration, but at a lower value than 33%, possible 20-25% for both.

Edited May 15, 2021 by Abyssisis.3971

[Jski.6180]

Its too easy to get resolution as its on skills that are not def aimed but more blanked added by anet.

[ZDragon.3046]

On 5/12/2021 at 8:35 PM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Conditions already received a massive hit.  They don't need any more nerfs mechanically.  

If you ask me conditions never needed a nerf they needed a stack limit at least in pvp.

There should be diminishing returns for over bursting a player with condi when the point of condi is to have it wear them down over time and not nuke them at the same speed in some cases faster than power damage does.

setting fixed limits in pvp at least would very much solve most of the problems with players being near insta killed by condi because they couldn't push their cleanse fast enough or the only cleanse they have is not a burst cleanse thus they still die.

 

The main conditions here that need to be looked at for stack limits are likely

Burning (really should never be allowed to go past  a number between 5-8 stacks at most maybe)

Poison (probably should never go higher than 10)

And maybe Confusion  (Perhaps never higher than 15 or 20)

 

I would include torment in this list too but with its recent changes all a person needs to do is be actively playing to cut its damage in half so its no longer as bursty in pvp as it use to be unless you get hard cc'ed or rooted which then is on the own person for getting caught which is alot more fair imo.

 

Most bleed builds dont ever stack high enough fast enough to instantly kill a person (even the nasty ranger builds dont do it fast enough where you dont have time to use a cleanse) So i dont think bleeding is a problem. The few cases where bleeding might become a problem at least in pvp come  more so down to the fact that a few classes have traits that increase bleed damage by too high of a value in those mode and it would just need to be adjusted specifically for that mode.

 

Burning will likely not ever be ok (in a way where most players think its fine) so long as it can stack to an infinite number on players.

 

These are just ideas though I think we should all probably wait and see how the resolution changes play out a bit more first. There are still alot of strong anti condi builds out there i mean guardians alone right now can almost get free 43% condi damage reduction uptime rather often with just resolution and light aura.

This is also likely just part 1 of a big 2 or 3 part patch anet is planning to do. I expect more big changes as the year goes forward just like they did before HoT and PoF maybe we will see some changes to power builds too. Perhaps a cc damage rework or something.