Power/Condi Shenanigans

[Einlanzer.1627]

Something I've posted about in the past and _still_ don't understand -

 

Condi damage is generally superior to power damage (especially now) but is "balanced" by being much easier to mitigate through mechanics like Resistance and Cleanse. Wouldn't it make more sense the other way around, and wasn't that the original intended design of Condi?

 

Intuitively, it seems that they let cleanse/resistance over-dominate and therefore cranked up Condi damage to compensate and that led to a bad overall design. In reality, I think the game would feel more stable and enjoyable if Condi damage was lower and resistance and cleanse got majorly nerfed, allowing power to be the "conditional" spike-spec that performs better mostly against lower armor targets while condi is more reliable/less clutch and specializes vs higher armor.

 

If anything, power damage should be very high but allow for some stronger invulnerability/block/parry effects more like what condi has now.

 

Am I missing something?

[Infusion.7149]

Power damage is mitigated by protection, blind, weakness, and aegis too, not just armor/toughness.

The difference is there is no ramp time so it is generally more bursty. Except for burning, most conditions have a ramp time. That's why you see so much firebrand dominance in PVP as well with permeating wrath or other burn effects along with burn weavers (at least before patch).

The conditions put out by scepter on scourge for example take about 5 seconds to do their full damage.

 

WVW-wise, scrappers still exist and because firebrands put out so many light fields anyone combo-ing off it also removes conditions.

* Projectile = remove 1 condition, Whirl = remove 1 condition , blast = remove 1 condition , leap = light aura ( -10% incoming condition damage)

[sneakytails.5629]

Its not balanced in the slightest, everyone knows the issues as we have been discussing them for years, but for some reason the same problems still exist.

 

1. Condition damage bypasses armor/toughness, power damage has no such luxury. This is not a level playing field.

2. There are 5 damaging conditions, (Bleeding, Burning, Confusion, Torment, and Poisoned) 8 crowd control conditions, (Blinded, Chilled, Crippled, Feared, Immobilized, Slowed, Taunted, and Weakness) and finally the bonus Vulnerability. So that is 5 damaging conditions against power damage by itself, again, tilted in condis favor. The real imbalance comes from the cover condis that come along with the damaging conditions, THIS is what destroyed cleanse and removal, and now its very easy to outpace enemy defenses by many condition builds.

3. Good damage for power requires 3 stats (power, precision, ferocity) but only one stat for condition damage (condition damage), this heavily tilts things in favor of condition builds as they can freely stack toughness and vitality, even healing power as well. Power damage builds MUST make sacrifices in damage to do the same. Condition builds clearly are not playing by the same rules as power in gearing, and this is bad game design.

4. Many condition damage skills are AOE and once tagged, conditions will still tick on the player even without LOS. Again, power damage has no such luxury. The heaviest hitting power damage skills are very often single target and require LOS.

 

Its so obvious that most of the advantages lie with condition builds, and this patch has only highlighted the power gap.

 

[Stand The Wall.6987]

theres generally only 2 problems with condis: too much spam (cover condis) and too much kite (mobility skills plus soft cc). excluding outliers such as trailblazer necro or burn guard. also weakness uptime is a problem.

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"Einlanzer.1627" said:

> If anything, power damage should be very high but allow for some stronger invulnerability/block/parry effects more like what condi has now.

>

> Am I missing something?

Yes.

 

Dodge.

 

[Ragi.7291]

Power Dommages and conditions Dommages are fairly well-balanced, what's wrong with it and makes people think the conditions are better.

**It's the number of different conditions that each profession puts and the dispell skills involved.**

 

* Each profession can inflict too many different conditions, whether it is the one that inflicts damage, that puts a status or that reduces movement.

Let me explain we take 2 people with the same number of condition dommages stacks equivalent (6 stacks.)

Character A has 6 bleeding stacks

Character B has 2 stacks of bleeding, 2 stacks of poison, 2 stacks of torment.

A and B use a dispell, A has no more condition and therefore no more damage but B removes that torment and stacks of poison and bleeding continue to do him damage.

If we add two other categories of conditions, the problem gets even worse.

If each professions has fewer different conditions imposed on it, the dispell and conter-play is fairer.

 

----------------

 

* With the current dispell there are a lot of traits or skills that dispell but most dispell the last condition suffered or certain specific conditions without anything else.

If we had more subtle skills and traits that said remove 1 alteration in priority an alteration that inflicts damage or in priority an alteration of statue, or movement.

We would have very specific dispellers and we could fill in some gaps in certain professions or spe that are vulnerable to movement alteration or damage as a priority.

And if they don't have that particular group of conditions then it doesn't matter, it removes the last alteration suffered as at present.

 

---------------

 

@"sneakytails.5629"

Besides the defence against power damage is toughness + armor and the defence against damage by alteration is vitality.

In addition conditions can be increased by expertise, not only conditions damages.

Stop giving only half of the explanations and info to make your reader's point of view inclined, it's tiring.

Moreover conditions aren't the devil, a lot of power build before the patch could kill you in less than 1 second or even in oneshot. (in WvW)

(I defend the conditions which I don't particularly like.^^ that's the last straw)

 

By the way, I sincerely think that robustness should definitely be merged with armor or vice versa.

We have 2 stat that do the same thing and that would simplify for the classes with heavy armor to up your aggro for PVE, which should be normal.

 

@"Infusion.7149"

**Remember that either power damage or condition damage is inflicted by a skill.**

AND each skill can be blocked, dodged, the player doing that skill can be interrupted or blind, the type of damage is unimportant.

 

[Aeolus.3615]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> theres generally only 2 problems with condis: too much spam (cover condis) and too much kite (mobility skills plus soft cc). excluding outliers such as trailblazer necro or burn guard. also weakness uptime is a problem.

 

I agree, imo since vulnerability also increases damage from condi:

 

Resistance should reduce condi damage protection does.

 

Armor should also reduce condi damage but for a small factor than reduced phisical one.

 

Or separete vulnerability for condi from phisical vulnerability(cracked armor could be vulnerability for condi in this case).