Weakness: A Case Study

[Zuko.7132]

**Current Weakness**

Weakness is a condition that decreases the rate of endurance regeneration by 50% and turns 50% of all hits into glancing blows.

Glancing blows cause an attack to deal only 50% of regular damage and lose any critical damage. Glancing affects only direct damage, not damage dealt by conditions.

 

**Example**

 

Build: Power

Amulet: Berserker

Rune: Eagle

 

No Weakness:

Offensive Stats: Power 2200, Precision 2075, Ferocity 1125 =

 

With Weakness:

50% of the time: Power 1100, Precision 0, Ferocity 0

50% of the time: Power 2200, Precision 2075, Ferocity 1125

Effective Stats: Power 1650, Precision 1037.5, Ferocity 562.5

 

Stat Loss:

Effective Stat Loss: 550 power, 1037.5 precision, 562.5 ferocity = 2150

Effect on Build: Immense. Capacity to do damage is extremely reduced.

 

**In Conclusion**

Weakness is an extremely powerful anti power tool while also halving endurance regen. It should be treated as such. Either frequency and ease of application needs to be adjusted or strength should be reduced.

 

**Edit**

I removed the condi case study due to it miscommunicating that I was asking for condi nerfs. It was simply there for reference. I do not want condi nerfs. I simply think weakness needs to be balanced with the understanding that it is an extremely powerful tool.

[Grimjack.8130]

weakness effect condis as well, jsut in a bit of a different way, since classes cant crit as much they lose out on their on crit condi trait that some have.

weakness as a condi is fine, it just needs to be on less skills and traits etc

[RisenHowl.2419]

While we're at it, do resistance

[viquing.8254]

The only problem with weakness is the way to output it who greatly vary between class :

From easier to harder : some will put it passively on auto (or by AI or spammable mechanics), other in skills while doing their normal rotation, other with their sustain tools, other on rupt.

IMO when they are at the rework and tunning down time, they should take a look on the condition uptime for this kind of condition (looking at you 80% poison uptime with no particular skills involved on two classes.) and the investment the player have to do to maintain this uptime because the gap is real sometimes.

The probably should switch some passive auto application to certains skills to give it more "I have to think about applying this" instead of "I just dps and it magically proc.".

[Leonidrex.5649]

people are getting creative with their nerf condi reee posts.

[KrHome.1920]

The Weakness uptime has been nerfed in the balance patch. The effect is almost not noticeable these days. It either runs out in 3 seconds or it is cleansed.

[viquing.8254]

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> The Weakness uptime has been nerfed in the balance patch. The effect is almost not noticeable these days. It either runs out in 3 seconds or it is cleansed.

 

I pretty notice it when playing power mesmer with no stealth gameplay.

[ProverbsofHell.2307]

It's a bloated as HELL condition. It should just reduce damage by 33-50%, and not prevent crits.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

> @"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:

> It's a bloated as HELL condition. It should just reduce damage by 33-50%, and not prevent crits.

 

Yeah, I second that. If you are a class that can reliably put weakness on someone, and protection on yourself then you're going to have an easy time. Those two together are pretty great damage reduction.

[Zuko.7132]

> @"RisenHowl.2419" said:

> While we're at it, do resistance

 

Resistance is equally powerful. 100% condi damage reduction vs about 75% physical reduction and 50% Dodge decrease.

 

However weakness is much more commonly applied. Either reduce upkeep to match equally powerful tools or decrease strength.

 

Weakness is much better power defense than protection. It needs to be treated as such.

[Zuko.7132]

> @"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:

> > @"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:

> > It's a bloated as HELL condition. It should just reduce damage by 33-50%, and not prevent crits.

>

> Yeah, I second that. If you are a class that can reliably put weakness on someone, and protection on yourself then you're going to have an easy time. Those two together are pretty great damage reduction.

 

Strength or application frequency has to decrease.

[UNOwen.7132]

Anti-power condition is stronger against power than conditions, more news at 11. Weakness is honestly not an issue, its not even as insane as resistance, or the builds that can just condi-cleanse ad infinitum.

[Zuko.7132]

> @"Grimjack.8130" said:

> weakness effect condis as well, jsut in a bit of a different way, since classes cant crit as much they lose out on their on crit condi trait that some have.

> weakness as a condi is fine, it just needs to be on less skills and traits etc

 

It still has a negligible effect due to most topowerful procs being on a 5 or 10 sec icd and effectively reducing crit chance by 50% plus Intel being a thing. You will get your one crit you need.

 

I don't want it to affect condi more though. As pointed out resistance and condi removal exist, and overall damage in this game has decreased enough with recent patches.

 

It's just inordinately powerful for it's frequency in the game as you said.

 

It either should be weaker or less frequent. I recommend letting it still crit while halving power stay and reducing endurance Regen as it currently does.

 

That's an easier fix than adjusting frequency on a bajillion skills and traits.

 

It's particularly bad now that anet just needed a ton of power coefficients throughout the game.

[Shao.7236]

Realize that if you nerf weakness, you have other things to nerf.

 

Starting with Protection up time on some classes like Ranger or Engineer, because unlike Weakness, that's guaranteed sustain, Weakness is total RNG and as of late even if you tried to make a Weakness build, Protection still is more commonly found in large amounts.

 

* Necromancer has absolutely nothing on it's Weakness up keep, it's a meme to waste your skills if you can't notice the application.

 

* Daredevil makes use of it, but what would it be without it, probably nothing considering people don't use Staff because they don't play with Weakness much.

 

* Warrior has barely enough to be comparable to Elementalist, but relies on the same playstyle as Revenant.

 

* Elementalist has a lot but it's not like it's broken if you run Stability, damage is the bigger issue.

 

* Revenant is the actual one that I play and know best with a lot of people still complaining for the application, which has been severely nerfed with the lack of expertise and durations reduced.

 

There's no more of it considering those facts and I don't just play condi rev, I do power as well and effectively the Weakness is just good enough to sustain if I time my skills right with everything else that comes with it.

 

People that just press button and don't avoid key skills are meant to be punished with, because when I miss my key skills that's when I have to work my way around to not be the one be on the losing side of things because that's what makes me effectively survive just enough to fight back and without it I'm just as good as an dead.

 

Boy it's like we have mechanics that people can't accept working around, if it's not Weakness, what else will it be. There's a lot of skills that forces you to wait in this game for longer periods of time that NOBODY still do for regardless, you take out the thing that will make some classes irrelevant, you'll have to take away some others.

[viquing.8254]

Did everyone just look at : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Weakness , particulary on the autoproc traits ?

Should also look at : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition#Skills_that_convert_boons_into_conditions .

Just to be sure we all talk about the same thing.