Einlanzer.1627

> @MUDse.7623 said:

> > @BassHunteR.7246 said:

> > When GW2 came out most classes had 10k-13k dps range and spvp and wvw were lot better, i mean more balanced classes and more enjoyable for the playerbase.

> > Then came HOT with elite mobs and hard champion and bosses. ANET stepped in and gave us a dps boost. All classes reached 20-23k dps range. But vitality was not boosted, toughness was not boosted, condition resist was not introduced. That by itself alreasy broke the balance on spvp and wvw game mode. But that wasnt last boost.

> > POF came, and some classes are reaching 33k+ dps range. That would be ok if the classes got some defensive boosts, but we didnt. We are still at same vitality, toughness and cond resist range from gw2 game launch.

> > That is the main issue with these 2 game modes. You gave us "power" to fight the new monsters but you didnt give us defence power to survive each other.

> > Due to that wvw and spvp became a lot less friendly for new players. In wvw if you make a brief mistake during a zerg fight, you are dead in 0.5 seconds. So many bursts and soooooo many condition that it is just impossible to recover. That leads to less new players joining, and that leads to more veterans crying about game being dead.

> > All that needs to be done to save this is give players at least some sort of defensive boost just to catch up with all the ofensive boosts that were implemented.

> > I think moost issues related to both game modes would be dealt with when you realize that we just lost a lot of survivability due to the dps boost classes got from each expansion.

> > Thanks.

>

> there is alot more healing/mitigation now, if you lower DPS to 10-13k numbers or triple base defensive stats, you will get a bunker meta. the only reason the damag is this high, is the amount of healing and mitigation you can build.

>

> as example deadeye with DJ as there are alot of threads about it, a minstrel guard that dogges just every like 2nd DJ is nearly unkillable for me(drops if i keep preasure up for a few minutes maybe) while i can oneshot most builds. i understand that people with not so extreme builds do complain, but nerfing deadeye damage will just make more builds unkillable for deadeye who can get pretty instant killed by most builds aswell.

>

> the extrems are in both ways and it is not in base stats, power or crit damage are not higher than at release but the amount of multipliers and effects single skills can do are. same goes for thoughness healing vitality they are not higher but the traits have changed alot, we gt new weapons and changed weapon/utility skills and quite a few of them increase damage or mitigation.

> i know at release i could just run around with d/d thief and steal + cnd + backstab .. worked against ANYONE in wvw. so burst is also not really lower. remember 50% assassins signet? :D

> but now alot of classes got passive defense that will make this fail or are build too defensive to begin with.

>

> i am fine with reducing damage and reducing defense but i guess then some of the pve content will be undoable. just reducing damege will lead to bunker meta and reducing defense to berserk meta (no not condi as power damage is instant).

Yeah, but the problem here is actually very simple - total condition immunity and condi cleansing shouldn't be much of a thing in the game, because the purpose of condition damage should be to counter bunker builds with heavy support. They've over-buffed conditions and given way too much access to immunity and cleanse as a result, which is the main driver of this problem. Yeah, you may still have occasional outliers (Vigor is OP as well, IMO) , but those can be dealt with as individual builds.

> @Shirlias.8104 said:

> Lower the dps instead.

> Problem solved.

>

> Stop giving classes immunities and defenses.

This. Vitality and especially Toughness have become underpowered due to too much damage, largely from proliferation of high-damage conditions, and we now have too much immunity/resist to deal with those.

It's all bad for the game. Total cleanse/immunity of conditions is as overpowered as conditions are without them. Combat is too dicey - even in PvE, I spend way too much time getting downed by things I don't even see, and that isn't sufficiently mitigated by having defensive stats on your gear.

All sources of damage from both players and mobs need to be reigned in, but especially condition damage - the best function for condition damage is to penetrate armor, so condition builds should only outdamage power builds against high armor targets. To compensate, access to cleanse and immunity should be very limited so conditions can be more effectively balanced, builds can be more flexible, and fights can feel more strategically controlled by passive build choices.

But it's very clear they don't really know what they're doing. I'm a software project manager in my 30s, and I feel quite confident that I could do a better job balancing the game.

I think we need more masteries, and it's probably best if they aren't mount related.

The only revamp we really need is some new god damn dungeons.

> @Bloodstealer.5978 said:

> > @costepj.5120 said:

> > Yay for Brexit! We won't have to put up with this Nanny State stuff for much longer.

>

> Raises a glass, tips hat and shouts .. HELL YEAH! :)

Really, really dumb.

> @costepj.5120 said:

> Yay for Brexit! We won't have to put up with this Nanny State stuff for much longer.

Yeah. it's like the Net Neutrality thing in the US. YAY FOR MORE CORPORATE CONTROL AND LESS GOVERNMENT REGULATION!!!

Seriously, grow a brain. It should be obvious to anyone that RNG boxes for real money is an unethical and predatory gaming practice that needs to get shut down, or, at least, heavily regulated.

> @Shirlias.8104 said:

> Battleaxe as Hammer skins \○

I'm not convinced this works. I think they need to add new weapon types to the game, and two handed axes would be a high priority alongside polearms.

Ranger literally means someone who ranges lands, i.e. a scout or a nomad. It has nothing to do with either guns or ranged weaponry. Here, it seems that they are mostly sticking with the natury aspect of rangers. It'a also the case that a nomad/scout would want to remain quiet, so they would prefer a bow and melee weapons over a gun.

I wouldn't necessarily oppose a future elite that uses a gun, but it isn't as intrinsically tied to the class the way everyone seems to think it is.

> @"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:

> > @Ivantreil.3092 said:

> > All these posts about how condi is overtuned and needs to be taken to the ground... only makes me thing that they wanna kill condi engi even more dead than what it is already....

> As always, when people say "condi" they mean "necromancer" and/or "mesmer".

Not really, since it's a bigger problem than just PvP. condi is "designed" to do more damage the longer the fight lasts, which is flawed. It was and should be designed to penetrate armor.

> @takatsu.9416 said:

> Anet on class balances recently have mentioned once again that Condi must do more overall damage over time in order for it to be an actual viable choice and that power builds are intended for big spike damage.

>

> Power builds indeed produce huge spike damage in PvP game modes. Condi builds in PvP game modes stack fast and hard and so much that it seems like a big spike within a few seconds

>

> In pve, Condi does most damage over time on high health pool bosses therefore is the logical choice.

>

> The problem seems to be the invalidity of mechanics such as toughness and condition resist. Having high toughness should actually mitigate power damage so much so that Condi is a legitimate choice. While condition resist should be a choice as well which opens up the possibility for power damage. Right now vitality stats and health pools are almost equally a counter to power and condi. In boss mechanics there needs to be more design towards these such as periods of condition resistance where it's highly vulnerable to power damage bursts of so on.

>

> I'm not sure and don't have the answers of course but something needs to be done about the corresponding mechanics of the recipient of such damage not really only reliant on nerfing or buffing classes and skills.

>

> That said there are classes where they can build for high sustain in PvP but still do a lot of damage. There are classes that build glass cannon and have enough power to kind of disregard toughness. Both Condi and power can pump out damage to blow through vitality in PvP while power cannot keep up with a boss health pool. These must be narrowed more and tightened so there are actual sacrifices made

The idea that condi must do more overall damage over time to be a viable choice is faulty. It once again shows that those folks don't know what they're doing. I've said it a million times, and here it is again - conditions pierce armor, while physical damage doesn't. That makes armor the common sense balancer for physical and condition damage. We should expect physical damage to do more damage if the target has low armor, no matter how long the fight lasts. The problem is that, because they made conditions OP, they added in sources of condi removal and resistance everywhere, which breaks the game in all kinds of ways.

Conditions need to be toned down, dramatically in some cases. The purpose of conditions should be to bypass armor, not deal more sustained damage vs power's burst.

> @SoulPariah.2856 said:

> > @ChrisLew.5492 said:

> > A.) Resistance should be removed/ rolled into Protection (possibly with a lower value, 25% or so)

> >

> > B.) Raw Power damage should be raised across the board. Nothing crazy, like 5% to start, then more if needed.

> >

> > C.) Toughness (or another present—not addded—stat) should affect condition damage, obviously. Right now you negate it completely or you eat the stacks. That doesn’t promote balance when every encounter, especially in PVP can yo-yo like that.

> >

> > I think those changes would make an impact.

>

> First 3 quotes are all needing similar replies - yours at least has some actual discussion where the other 2 are not only wrong but ridiculously so.

>

> Anyways,

> They keep saying they're going to fix the ramp so it's a little more in line the the intent of the differentiation between them, but the instant gratification guild is here and wants the game fundamentally redesigned to defend against their foe more, and also increase their power. Because that's good balance, yank hard on both levers and i'm sure it'll even out.

>

> And power builds start out with 1000 less damage now right? Wait, you wanted more...........but then want to use toughness on conditions......

>

> Look, it's the same stuff on repeat. It's from PVP, and you wanna drive everyone crazy with it to validate your opinion.

>

> Have fun.

Power builds are fine, if not even slightly OP. Condi builds are just more OP.

Again, the ramp up issue is a red herring. The problem is that Karl seems to have his head poorly around how conditions need to be balanced. We should not have resistance and cleansing ad nauseam the way we do now, and we should not have this persistent idea that conditions need to be stronger since their are DOT. That's folly. Instead, conditions should deal more normalized damage that would generally be below power output, but would be specialized for taking down high armor targets that power builds struggle with.

> @Crinn.7864 said:

> > @Einlanzer.1627 said:

> > No, it's not that simple. I'm talking bout the condi balance paradigm. Right now, condition builds average around 36k dps vs power's 30k dps (which I know isn't a metric that matters to many people in PvP, but it's still relevant). Condi and power should both average around 30k DPS if you assume a low-medium armor rating (most benchmarking is done vs 2400 armor golem). Condi's rampup should generally be in the range of 4-5 seconds.

>

> Your armor values are wrong.

>

> The Average Kitty Golem (the golem used for benchmarking) has 1400 toughness with a combined armor rating of 2623.106. While higher armor values can be reached in sPvP by players, no meta build has anywhere near this much armor, since toughness amulets are rarely used in sPvP.

>

>

Well, 2623 armor isn't significantly different than 2400 armor. I'd still expect power and condition damage to be pretty close to neck and neck, with condi maybe doing only slightly more dps at most. 2623 armor is a warrior with about 400 extra toughness.

The reason nobody uses toughness amulets and why armor values aren't generally higher is because it's an underpowered stat that is made even more obsolete in a meta dominated by so many conditions. My entire point is that they've moved the game in a bad direction by making condi competitive with power against lower armor values and attempting to compensate by putting immunity and cleansing mechanics in everywhere. Your point about toughness/defense is a good illustration of that.

> @InsaneQR.7412 said:

> They could just add 6 glyphs. All working differently per legend and are interswapabble with normal legend skills.

> The build diversity would spike and you could basically make a legendless bar.

Yeah, this might be a good compromise. I think I'd prefer it to just adding a new skill or two per legend.

My biggest QoL request is to have traits remembered when you swap around specializations, rather than having them always reset.

Second biggest is to separate wardrobe/skin galleries from equipment section in the hero panel. The HP should just open up to equipment by default, with wardrobe being the second tab on the far left, where all skins/dyes are stored.

Third biggest is to add unidentified gear outside of PoF.

> @Milan.9035 said:

> If they had same dps why would you take delayed damage that can also be completely cut off.

>

> Your telling them thwy have the wrong idea about how t9 balance condi. I think its just you dont want any condi builds in the game.

You're so astute. I explain why in my original post, which you must have either not read or not understood.

Because conditions have the advantage of piercing armor, AND of generally having short durations, which means they don't work like DoTs in other MMOs. They need to be balanced around armor rating rather than fight duration. They should not do the same damage on low armor targets that power builds do, even after 30 seconds of fighting.

> @Milan.9035 said:

> > @Crinn.7864 said:

> > No when you say "condi needs to be nerfed" what you mean is "scourge and mirage need to be nerfed"

> >

> >

> >

>

> Yup thats what pisses me off. Condi is fine and the damage it does is fine. Think about if like ranger longbow autoattack crit for 10k every time. Would that be op or would we need to nerf all power damage?

>

> Why are you not using condi rev as an example of how op condi is? Or condi engi? Or condi ele? Condi warrior? Condi ranger?

>

> Scourges and mesmers thats the problem. Fix them.

See above.

> @Crinn.7864 said:

> No when you say "condi needs to be nerfed" what you mean is "scourge and mirage need to be nerfed"

>

>

>

No, it's not that simple. I'm talking bout the condi balance paradigm. Right now, condition builds average around 36k dps vs power's 30k dps (which I know isn't a metric that matters to many people in PvP, but it's still relevant). Condi and power should both average around 30k DPS if you assume a low-medium armor rating (most benchmarking is done vs 2400 armor golem). Condi's rampup should generally be in the range of 4-5 seconds.

In PvP, power should dominate when glass builds dominate. What they've done is tried to make condi competitive in PvP in a pretty glass meta, and that's not how it should work. Condi should have the role of wearing down attrition against high armor targets, not bursting down low armor targets.

Condi and Scourge may be more OP than other condi builds, but condi in general performs better than it should because they have the wrong idea in their heads about how to properly balance it.

> @OriOri.8724 said:

> I actually don't think that condi damage needs to be nerfed, rather access to condition application is what needs to be toned down. One of the reasons that these condi builds are pumping out so much more damage is because they are pumping out loads of damaging conditions, while _also_ dealing power damage with their attacks. And a lot of those attacks don't deal negligible power damage. So either reducing the condi application across the board, or reducing power damage significantly on skills that are clearly supposed to be condi application skills. That would do more than a lot of people think to bring power and condi build DPS in line.

I don't necessarily disagree; when I say "condi needs to be nerfed" I mean it in a nuanced way, which includes reviewing how much how much each condition ticks for and the rate of application from different sources. Clearly, some builds are more overtuned than others. My main point is that they seem to be using a faulty balance paradigm where they expect condition builds to be about 20% stronger once you pass a certain time threshold to compensate for the fact that it's DoT, and I think that needs to be corrected. Condi builds should be roughly equal to power builds vs a target with 2500ish armor.

> @"Crystal Black.8190" said:

> I will post their comment from the interview.

> >@ [source](http://www.mmorpg.com/mobile/features.cfm?read=12242&game=473&ismb=1 "Source") Power is intended to be more spike damage-centric, wheras Condi is meant to be more ramping, sustained damage. Currently there are some issues with how quickly condition damage can be spiked up, negating the benefits of power damage.

> > If I presented you with a power skill that dealt 1,000 damage instantaneously and a condition one that dealt 1,000 damage over 4 seconds there wouldn't be a question about what build to choose; you'd go with the instant option every time. Not counting other effects, condition skills must inflict more damage over their duration in order to make power vs. condi into a real choice.

> > Moving forward we'll be aiming changes to bring a bit more parity between the options through the ramp time and using that to emphasize some of the differences. That said, a fundamental issue is that foes whose health pools allow them to survive a significant amount of time (beyond the point of condition stack ramping) are going to favor condition builds unless they specifically have mechanics which deal with conditions.

>

> As long as they don't count these mentioned other effects like armor, protection, weakness, 3 stat vs 1(2) requirement and other stuff I doubt we can have those balanced. If they have a damage type with lots of ways to mitigate and a damage type with one way to mitigate (cleanses) where the later one is non existent in pve the choice is obvious the one without mitigation.

> There are also in open world too few enemies that remove conditions or apply resistance yet awakened buff themself with protection and apply weakness.

> A first step could also be to change condition/boon duration on runes in expertise/concentration. There are no power runes with +45% damage.

>

Yeah, the problem with Karl's example is that he excludes the dynamic effect of passive armor, which is the most important factor to consider here. The power skill's damage would be dynamically adjusted based on the target's armor, while the condition skill's damage would not - it would always deal 1000 damage as long as the target survives 4 seconds.

So, the former wouldn't automatically be the better choice, it would depend on what you were fighting, and, in fact, it's likely the latter would be the better choice in more situations than not, since 4 seconds isn't very long and you have the versatility of bypassing armor. The choice is supposed to be whether you want to be able to wreck glass targets or reliably wear down high armor targets. Balancing them primarily around how long the fights lasts makes zero sense. He always comes across like he doesn't know what he's talking about pretty much every time he posts anything, and this is why we can't have balance.

Condi **is** over-tuned, and has been for over two years now.

Let me explain why I'm highly confident about this claim. Karl has reasoned that condi DPS should be higher than power DPS with the rationale that it's DoT, and this idea has also proliferated throughout the community as sort of a "common sense" understanding of power vs. condi. But, the right answer isn't always intuitive, and, in this case, this apparently common sense idea is just wrong.

Unlike DoTs in most MMOs, conditions in GW2 were designed with short durations with the main purpose of piercing armor. Presumably, the original designers understood that conditions need to be balanced in both short and long duration fights, which means that the primary determinant of which is stronger from a DPS perspective should be the target's armor rating, not the duration of the fight.

If Power and Conditions were in proper balance, we would expect power to out-DPS condi up to a certain armor rating no matter how much time passes, with condi only overtaking power above that threshold. I would benchmark that threshold at around 2400 armor, which is a warrior with about 100 extra toughness, or an elementalist with about 400 extra toughness. That isn't totally arbitrary - it's just below what would be considered an "average" armor rating. It's also pretty close to the armor rating of the target golem, where most builds are benchmarked.

So what does this mean? It means that, if power and condition damage builds were in proper balance, we would would expect them to do equivalent DPS against the target golem. Power would win for the first 2-3 seconds, but condi would quickly catch up and they would stay close to even from there. Instead, what we see is that condition damage builds (on average) overtake power a few seconds in and maintain about 20% more DPS afterward. This basically means that condition damage (again, on average) is over-tuned by about 20%.

Of course, the problem with just nerfing the crap out of condi damage at this point is that, in response to the fact that condi has been overpowered for two years, immunity and cleansing mechanics have popped up everywhere, causing a lot of general gameplay problems (restricting build customization, making bunkers too strong, etc.). So, my argument is that we need to see a roughly 20% (average) nerf to condi damage, and a significant scale-back on the presence of specialized mechanics for dealing with incoming condition damage. Only then will we be able to move toward some semblance of balance in this game.

> @ReaverKane.7598 said:

> They need to make more bosses that can shed condis and get resistance.

> Because on paper things are working as intended. Power spikes quite rapidly and delivers a ton of damage in a short amount of time, but quickly drops off.

> While condis takes some time to build the stacks, but after it gets going it does a ton of damage. Problem is that condis reach that optimal damage quite fast and most fights that matter last way longer than that, which makes power less viable.

> In bosses that phase in and out of combat and reset between phases, you can see clearly that Power builds are more dominant, also the same for shorter fights vs adds and champs that die quicker.

> In longer fights condi builds become unreachable.

>

> All this says that in PvE everything on the damage part is working as intended. The problem is that there's very few encounters and bosses where condi doesn't work better vs power, because all of them take longer to kill or phase out than it takes for condi classes to go cruise speed.

>

> In PvP and WvW they simply need to get back to the 25 stack cap. And lower the durations across the board, then tune it from there.

No. The problem is they're using a bad balancing paradigm for power and condition damage, and the result is that condition damage has been overtuned for years, which is wrecking the game in numerous ways. This is exactly why PvP went to crap right around the time HoT came out, because that update and their ongoing balance iteration (lol) is rooted in bad ideas about what role condition damage has in the game.

The single biggest problem is that they're fixated on the idea (and have convinced the player base) that condition damage should outperform power damage in terms of sustained DPS because it's DoT, but that doesn't work. Unlike DoT effects in most other MMOs, conditions were designed around short durations and armor piercing, and this is because **conditions need to be balanced in both short and long duration fights**. The primary determinant for whether power should beat condi or vice versa should be target armor rating, not time. **I would probably consider a good break-even point to be around 2400-2600 armor** (this is close to what the target golem has). So, in other words, if power and condition damage were properly balanced, we would expect them to have equivalent DPS against the target golem. Power would beat condi against targets with less armor, and condi would beat power against targets with more armor. Currently, condition builds average around 20% higher against the target golem, meaning they are over-tuned by about 20%.

The problem is that, instead of reigning in condition damage two years ago, they just added a bunch of new sources for condi cleanse and immunity. The result of all of this is multi-fold and precisely what we see in the game's current mess of gameplay:

-condi damage dominates the meta, and power needs specialized gimmicks to be competitive

-too much power creep with no changes to passive defense

-survival is too reliant on building a lot of anti-condi in your kit, which hurts build customization

-defensive stats (especially Toughness) are underpowered due to a.) too much damage in general, and b.) too much damage specifically coming from conditions

-non bunker builds are too fragile, while bunker builds have too much survivability

-removal of toughness amulets in PvP because of the bunker problem, when the real problem is condi clear/immunity (condi is supposed to specialize against armor)

> @Edds.7681 said:

> i do wish revenants would get an extra skill for their legends. other professions get 4 skills to choose from on each elite spec. im not sure which 3 skills i would replace to choose a new one, as they all seem useful for their playstyle

You should read my post, this wasn't my suggestion =P

> @Cwnannwn.7681 said:

> Honestly I'd rather have had the option to pick alternate skills than weapon swapping.

I think I would, too. Having a generic customizable line in addition to two legend lines that you could swap between would almost certainly justify removing weapon swap. Although, I'm not convinced it would be necessary even then.

> @ArthurDent.9538 said:

> Will never happen though. They don't do balance patches mid season not because they care about messing up the meta mid season but because they don't have a clue what they are doing with balance and don't want to bother trying to figure it out.

Basically, this. It's been apparent for years. Balance patches once a quarter to kick off PvP season (lol), changes are always very small in scope, things that obviously need changes are left alone for years, a lot of the changes we do get are incredibly myopic or incidental.

We've had offensive power creep for years with no updates to defense except for an over-proliferation of immunity and condi cleanse to counter overtuned condition damage (instead of just bringing condition damage under control and letting it be a little weaker than power baseline, since it has the advantage of piercing armor). This one thing has horrible ripple effects all throughout the game:

combat is too bursty and conditions are too omnipresent

healing is mostly useless

autoattacks are largely ignored since sustained DPS is unimportant (terrible for PvE)

vitality and (especially) toughness are underpowered, since it doesn't help against conditions, where a lot of damage comes from now

kits are too reliant on anti-condi skills/traits, restricting build customization

The status quo with conditions has the effect of making non-bunker builds too fragile while simultaneously making bunker builds too tough

If I was in charge, I'd make a lot of systemic changes before iterating anymore on individual skills and traits , and I'd iterate way, way faster than this team is doing it.

Condition damage needs to be brought way down. It should generally hit its damage potential by 5-6 second mark and should only do more than physical damage against medium-highly armored targets

Access to cleansing and resistance (and boons in general to a lesser extent) needs to be scaled way back to balance condition damage being nerfed

Base health should be increased - Vitality should arguably increase endurance regen instead of health

Armor should scale a bit better than it does

Two things Rev really needs are: a.) more skills and b.) a better ability to customize their build (especially since most of the legends lack any synergy with each other). Rather than change the existing structure of the legends by adding utility skill options, I believe the better approach would be to add about 10-16 generic Mist-themed skills (including the currently missing racial skills) and give Revenants the ability to drop out of invocation mode. When not channeling a legend, they would have access to and be able to customize these skills on their skill bar. When they invoke a legend, their customized skillbar will be replaced by that legend's skill bar (containing the current fixed 5 skills).

This would give them access to 25 different utility skills at a time, which brings them closer in variety/functionality to Engineers and Elementalists. If they felt that was too many, they could either replace the second legend option (allowing only one legend to be equipped at a time), or leave it and remove the weapon swap as per their original intention for the class. Although, since Rev skills are managed through energy in addition to cooldown, it would probably be fine to leave it as-is with weapon swap and two equipped legends, especially if dropping invocation doesn't replenish your energy that way invoking a legend does.