Condition Damage

[Mauxe]

I have been looking closer at my stat increases. Initially I have loaded up on Power and Precision items but I wanted to understand a bit more about Condition Damage.

The wiki describes it as such:
Condition Damage, also known as Malice, is a secondary attribute that improves the damage dealt by conditions your character inflicts.

What I am wondering is if this affects all damaage done to the creature - including utility skills.
I would assume the aanswer to be yes but as I don't have time at the moment to test it out I am putting the question here.

As a thief one of my favorite utility skills is Caltrops. When I drop these down and slowwly back away I love to watch the enemy health bar wither away.. it's even better if I get a 2 pull

I am going to do a few pulls without any jewelry on to log the damaage done by caltrops and then a few pulls with all +condition damage jewelry. While I really love the damage output I have gotten from my +power gear I'm hoping to see a nice boost to this DoT damage as well.

Come to think of it... I should also run a few pulls with my +power gear on as well to see the difference.

[Katzyn]

If I'm understanding it right, conditions = poison, bleed, burn, chill, etc. So + condition damage would increase how much those conditions do per "tick" (you know how poison ticks damage every couple of seconds or so). So yeah, the bleed (I believe) from Caltrops would be even more powerful, and the hp bars would lower even faster ;D

[auhfel]

Katzyn is pretty much right, I can't think of anything more. Honestly though I'm not sure if Condition damage is worth it so much, mainly because it does not scale with precision like power does.

[Katzyn]

Oh, I just had a thought - well, more of a question, really.

Say you invest in a lot of +condition damage on a thief. Using your short bow, you have a skill that lets you throw down a wide circle of poison. A second person who shoots through it will apply poison to the enemy, yes? Is the amount of damage done by the poison itself dependent on the thief's condition damage stat, or the second person's condition damage stat? I would assume it would be the thief's stat, which seems to be, would be a pretty spiffy thing in, say, a dungeon or some such thing.

[auhfel]

That would be a difficult thing to test for me, because I have not gotten myr IRL gamer friends into GW2 yet. I think it would probably apply the other person's condition damage. This would be worthy of finding out, along with combo moves like healing (Water Area + Whirl or Blast)

[Erris]

Condition damage affects everything that is considered a conditions - so all De-buffs.

Not sure about how it will affect your question about finishers.

[samuriajackson]

...should a mesmer use this? I dont burn or cause bleeding much. But confusion and maybe stuns later...

[Raehl]

Oh, I just had a thought - well, more of a question, really.

Say you invest in a lot of +condition damage on a thief. Using your short bow, you have a skill that lets you throw down a wide circle of poison. A second person who shoots through it will apply poison to the enemy, yes? Is the amount of damage done by the poison itself dependent on the thief's condition damage stat, or the second person's condition damage stat? I would assume it would be the thief's stat, which seems to be, would be a pretty spiffy thing in, say, a dungeon or some such thing.

That's a great question. On one hand, you are the one with the +condition damage so it could be only yours, however as you laid down the poison your team is shooting through, their poison damage could be amplified as well. Someone way more knowledgeable will have to answer this. But I am interested to find out.

[Littlefeather]

Condition = DoT (Damage over Time)
De-Buff = well....debuffs like slow, vulnerability, root, etc, etc, not damaging over time skills.

Build for condition if your character has an assortment of condition based skills to cast. If only 1 condition based skill, then maybe not...

[Erris]

Condition = DoT (Damage over Time)
De-Buff = well....debuffs like slow, vulnerability, root, etc, etc, not damaging over time skills.

Build for condition if your character has an assortment of condition based skills to cast. If only 1 condition based skill, then maybe not...

That's how it works in other MMOs, but not quite in GW2, I think.

Everything negative you can apply to a foe is called a condition.

According to http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition , all these are conditions, even if some of them don't damage:
Bleeding
Blind
Burning
Chilled
Confusion
Crippled
Fear
Immobilized
Poison
Vulnerability
Weakness