Cogbyrn.7283

Not to beat a dead horse, but to drive the point about power builds also looking for that easy-mode instant gratification, a Thief did a simple Steal+Backstab combo on me just this evening for a total of 12k damage (2.5k Steal, 9.5k Backstab). I don't recall any stacked Vulnerability or anything, and though I still don't have the gear I want, my overall Defense was at about 2500 to 2600 on my Ele. WvW is an absolute circus of burst, so singling out one damage type over another just feels silly to me. When I take 12k damage instantly in the midst of a fight, it doesn't really matter to me that the Thief is full Zerk and would probably die in 2 hits if I ever landed them, and being full Zerk for some classes has a small fraction of the risk of others. Thieves are an extreme example, and I've always thought Thief was the most poorly designed class in the game, but burst is burst. It hasn't changed in the past 5-6 years, it won't change drastically now.

Which condi bursts are you talking about in particular? Like, what buttons are being pressed to result in the burst, and how many stacks of what conditions do you get for landing each button press? If you don't already know the answer then your opinion on effort has no place in this conversation.Sigh, and I really thought you might engage in a conversation instead of send your echo into the forum and see who bounces it back to determine in-group vs. out-group. I haven't really played GW2 since a few months into HoT, but I've spent probably 1500 hours in WvW. I also spent an evening going down the "conditions do too much damage" rabbit hole, only to demonstrate to myself that condi pressure, just like power pressure, generally relies on certain abilities that can be dodged. You just have to figure out what to dodge. And, just like power pressure, some condi pressure needs to be proactively dodged given situational knowledge, instead of reactively dodged based on skill animations. If you're concerned that the actual details might prove you wrong, well, you should be. As a baseline, with 2000 condi damage, 1 stack of bleeding will do about 142 damage/sec, and 1 stack of burning will do about 441 damage/sec. If someone stacks 15 bleeds and 5 burnings with full dedication to condi damage, you'll be taking roughly 4335 damage/sec, so if you have 20k health, that would still require 4.6 seconds to kill you. Factor in the time it takes for the enemy to attack to land all of those condis across multiple abilities, and your actual time-to-death is higher. Factor in the ability to dodge some of those applications and it's even higher. Factor in your ability to cleans that damage before it fully actualizes and it's even higher. Sure, confusion-stacking condi Mesmers have been an issue (at least in the past) because even pressing the button to cleanse yourself of the conditions would take a huge chunk out. Guardians that pile burn on at once rip you down, but I don't know how much of a thing that really is anymore. What I'm curious about is what people actually consider "condi burst" these days, and what that burst actually requires ability-wise.

Which condi bursts are you talking about in particular? Like, what buttons are being pressed to result in the burst, and how many stacks of what conditions do you get for landing each button press?

That's what players who like conditions say about power builds (Shatter Mes, most Warrior builds, any non-condi Thief build). It's ultra easy to say the other guy doesn't have to try, but that door swings both ways. ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ One of these things is not like the other - one of these things can be successful in gear that gives both vitality and toughness ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫And the other thing doesn't need Vitality or Toughness in many cases because of how much active mitigation, mobility, and other escape methods (Stealth) is at their disposal. At this point it's just tribalism. If you aren't going to at least extend an olive branch that Shatter Mes and Power Thief builds can detonate you out of nowhere with minimal effort, then you just aren't interested in actual balance.

That's what players who like conditions say about power builds (Shatter Mes, most Warrior builds, any non-condi Thief build). It's ultra easy to say the other guy doesn't have to try, but that door swings both ways.

You forgot to mention that though Vitality is the "natural" defensive stat counter to condis, you also sort of need healing power to actually help your sustain. Meanwhile, against power, simply having Toughness also increases the effectiveness of your healing. But as was mentioned, you're probably exaggerating how much damage condis are actually doing to you, unless you are against some sort of high octane burn build or blow yourself up on confusion stacks against condi mes (is that still a thing?) Either way, this has been a GW2 topic since the game released. In fact, I laughed out loud to see this topic on the front page of WvW after not playing for a couple years. Last time I did the analysis, in an attempt to prove that condis did too much damage, I ended up convincing myself they were in a pretty good place. There are just a few builds that really blow you up with condis. Considering Thieves are still in the game critting for 9k out of stealth or while vaulting around like clowns, and shatter Mes is as bursty out of nowhere as ever, I don't particularly see the issue with condis.