3 replies to this topic

[MrAmbiguous]

Fellow Guardians,

I know many topics have been done to death regarding condition damage not being viable outside of solo-play; however, I want us to brainstorm for a moment.  Burning condition damage is one of the strongest conditions out there, and yet we feel shoehorned into mostly avoiding it due to the way stacks work.  From what I understand, this is what we know:

1) Player A places Burning condition on enemy target.  Damage is based on Player A's condition damage stat.

2) Player B happens to place the Burning condition on the enemy target after Player A.  Now the Burning stack is increased in duration; however, the damage is now based on Player B's condition damage stat.

3) The cycle continues, basically having whoever places it last deal the damage.

Now, I'm sure I may not have it 100% right, and that's okay -- this topic is meant for both brainstorming and clearing up misconceptions.  For solo-play, this is perfectly fine as we are the only one we're depending on to deal this condition damage; however, dynamic events have little control over who does what and on which target... which makes me wonder, is it possible to actually have it work in a dungeon?

A Guardian has a nigh-endless way to keep Burning on the enemy.  If the party is aware, is it possible to allow a Guardian to stack his own damage without it being overwritten?  There are a few scenarios where I can see it being tricky (Consecrations), but hogging Virtue of Justice certainly is one direction to prevent it... then again, I'm not certain how many more fire combo fields other players can field, and if it's even feasible to have a premade group potentially harm damage over the fire fields (as in, how many other characters would it affect to not cause burning?).

In the end, I'm assuming the outcome will be that we just cannot use this condition in a dungeon while specializing for it due to how combos and the condition itself works... but I at least want to see if the option/opportunity is there.

Your thoughts?

[Isaac82]

I was always under the impression that when conditions are stacked whoever had the highest conditions damage got pushed to the front. I feel no guardian should have any + condition damage and I personally wouldn't want one in group that did. Just go 15 radiance spam virtue of justice(which also blinds) so your whole group is burning the target. Let the ele necro stack condition damage and do the high burning ticks while you keep them alive with supportive utilities rather then offensive ones.

[Lilith Tremere]

I can partially agree with Isaac82, but only partialy.

I've played 10/30/0/0/30 with AoE burning + high condition dmg and its true its a bit useless in dungeons or PvP but good [not great] while solonig. Even though conditions are very powerfull and burnning is the most powerfull out there [it needs only one stack to do serious dmg], u can have only one stack, which means there is no point in specing in burning and condition dmg for an endgame content. Especially taking into consideration that we have only one dmg condition. elementalists have burns and bleeds, necros and thieves have bleeds and poision, engeeners have burns and poison etc.

My point being: cond dmg is unfortunately a waste atm,

Although burning condition is VERY IMPORTANT.

Best spec i found so far is: 10/30/30/0/0

Whats do special about it? Zeal 10p Major Trait + 10 dmg to burning targets, Radiance 25p Minor Trait +10% to dmg with conditions, additionaly Rune of Flame Legion 6/6 + 5% dmg to burning targets.

To summerise: u have to apply burning on your target and u can pull off fantastic burst dmg from 1h sword+torch. Burning itself will do considerable dmg couse of +300 cnd dmg from radiance and u will have great crits from Valor [+30% crit dmg].

So basically u need burning as a Debuff not a DoT.

As for gear:
After extensive theorycrafting I've found out that best is combination of Knight's and Valkyrie's.

It gives u great dmg output and very good survivability.

Edited by Lilith Tremere, 05 October 2012 - 01:47 PM.

[Aetou]

Leave the Burning to classes that should be stacking Condition Damage for the most part - Elementalists spring to mind as a class that can also put out big stacks of bleeds and so have every reason to run Condition gear (S/D in particular, staff less so.)  Guardians for group play just shouldn't build around applying Burning themselves (and 5x5s from Justice is enough to keep it up almost the whole time anyway) but can take traits that benefit from burning targets if you want.