Talk: Weakness

I was under the impression that weakness lowered attack damage by 66% as opposed to 90%.

Changed. The GW site itself says 66% and I've never seen a source say anything else. --Fyren 11:44, 21 Aug 2005 (EST)

Melee attacks, Physical weapon attacks, any weapon attacks, or all Attacks?

This affects ranged attacks? Huh. I was under the (probably mistaken) impression it was only melee attacks. --207.172.212.167 11:24, 11 February 2006 (CST)

It makes perfect sense to me to affect bow attacks, which is not melee. As to whether it affects wand/staff attacks or Smite, that is an interesting question (since I don't have much faith in the technical accuracy of skill descriptions) -PanSola 11:37, 11 February 2006 (CST)

Ok just tested it. It does affect wand attacks. However Smite is not affected. -PanSola 11:48, 11 February 2006 (CST)

Attack skills

Anyway, I thought it important to note on weakness that attack skills aren't reduced by weakness. This has been my experience with weakness. I do about as much damage with a max sword with weakness as I do with a candycane. If someone believes elsewise, please discuss. StatMan 20:34, 4 January 2007 (CST)

19 Jan 07 update

After some simple testing, it looks like if the -1 attributes puts you below a weapon's requirement (ie, your allocated attribute matches the item's minimum requirement), you will fail the req check. Also, damage reduction is still in the neighborhood of 66%. --Bob III 22:26, 19 January 2007 (CST)

Is it possible to get attributes at -1 ? Nytemyre 12:36, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Based on a) the listed attribute level and b) the damage done by Lightning Orb, no. Gale can fail at 5 mastery when weakened, and if you increase your attribute from 0 to 1 while weakened, it will correctly fall back down to 0. So the -1 appears to work exactly as one could expect. Sigh. --Bob III 03:37, 21 January 2007 (CST)

Ah. Hm. Only temporary, eh? ^^;; --Bob III 05:03, 21 January 2007 (CST)

It is, till it is confirmed on the permanent release date. -- Xeon 05:07, 21 January 2007 (CST)

Hope it stays, so its not only for damage dealers. ` 81.59.104.10 15:09, 24 January 2007 (CST)

If you press K while weakened, does it show the original attribute level or the weakened one? VegaObscura 03:55, 22 January 2007 (CST)

The weakened... if you have no runes on an attribute, it will be red.

monsters

Does anyone see any problems with this and the monsters? all the monsters i can think of suppress the req of their skills or wielded items. 58.107.53.89 10:39, 2 February 2007 (CST)

Good luck testing that one

Bug?

I'm using a Fire Barrager right now and I have spent no points in Wilderness Survival, but I got a minor rune on my armor. With and without weakness on me I have an attribute level of 1. It seems that the effect of Weakness is calculated first and then capped at 0, so you don't get into negative numbers. After that Runes are applied. Bug or not? ANet could have done this on purpose. -Khan Reaper Kerensky 17:17, 13 February 2007 (CST)

It wouldn't make a difference either way. 132.203.83.38 17:22, 13 February 2007 (CST)

That's just because the rune makes the number green. Try it with one attribute point and take off the armor witha rune, It should showa red zero.— Cheese Slaya (Talk) 21:25, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

Soul Reaping

Lol, that'd be funny fi there was a bug that made this work on soul reaping for necros. Necros iwth no soul reaping (or /n) would be losing energy...lolz.— Cheese Slaya (Talk) 21:26, 21 May 2007 (CDT)

That would make necroes sad...or sloooow casting for mesmers maybe? Heh, all negative primary attributes would be funny.--Skax459 19:03, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Ranger w/ expertise making skills cost MORE, or monks healing in negatives from Divine Favor. And energy storage..lol.— Cheese Slaya (Talk) 19:06, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Enemies GAIN armor from Strength. The list goes on --Gimmethegepgun 19:27, 22 May 2007 (CDT)

Needs a buff

by a lot. -anon

You don't play PvP much do you? ... (T/C) 17:02, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

sure i do. Let me list all my points if I need to spell it out.

blind is easier to inflict, and lasts about the same time generally, but blind prevents interrupts, kds, etc. I don't think it's even possible arguing that weakness is better than blind.

Weakness still allows bonus damage, which means while blind completely ruins an assassin, you can still attack through it, ~2/3 of dagger's DPS in a chain comes from bonus damage through attack skills.

There are the warrior skills that inflict weakness, but changing target from backline to melee, inflict weakness, then go all the way back to the enemy's backline is a bad idea. And come on.. seriously, when's the last time have you seen a backbreaker warrior bring Staggering Blow just to cause weakness. Or better use Dev hammer on a paragon then attack the monk standing next to it with crushing blow just for kicks.

Eles: Any air magic blind skill > Enervating Charge and Ebon Hawk, no game.

-1 to all attributes, meh.

Enfeeble is underrated, I will give you that.

Weakness is pretty much that filler condition that is used to satisfy skill chains like Oppressive Gaze+Enfeebling Blood, and dev hammer builds. Degen conditions are pressure obviously and Dazed, Deep Wound, Crippled, and Blind all have their uses.

Thus, I conclude, buff Weakness

-anon

Another note: you can still charge adrenaline and gain energy with crit strikes with weakness, something you can't do with blind or crippled. Crippled + weakness, unless it will come easy like with "You're All Alone!", is silly

-anon

Meh, that is certainly more convincing than your original post, but I think Enfeeble alone is the one skill that prevents Weakness from being really buffed. If Weakness were buffed any more, then Enfeeble would also need a large nerf...maybe Enfeebling Blood too. The rest of the Weakness-causing skills for other classes are not used often and don't usually fit to skillbars with as much synergy. Enervating Charge is typically thrown in as a filler skill on an all-Air ele; Blinding Flash or Bsurge takes care of it even though they cost more in the long run...No one should ever use Staggering Blow since it has no bonus damage and because Dev Hammer is tons better. The old chain for Dev Hammer was something like...Dev, Fierce, Heavy, Crushing. That wreaked havok on any character, melee or backline, and Belly Smash could also be used for more chaos if needed. Since that chain only worked with Weakness it was for a while very very nice. But now they buffed Mighty Blow and gave it damage very near to Fierce Blow, and thus the old chain has been replaced with Backbreaker wars again. Ebon Hawk is troublesome since obviously it requires line-of-sight and a target that won't suddenly move out of the way...it has a long cast time also. The good combo for Ebon Hawk is Ebon, Stoning, Glowstone which gives Weakness, KD, and energy gain plus nice damage. If you're a full Earth ele in PvE/PvP then that is miles better than a Stone Dagger spammer...but, you'd still have better luck with things like Earthquake and Eruption for mass KD and Blind. Plus Wards and armor buffs...the Ebon Hawk chain works fine on a single foe, keeping them knocked down every 5 seconds and decent damage, but having two line-of-sight spells to rely on is iffy.

On the other hand, Antidote Signet makes quick work of Blind in PvP, regardless of cover conditions; it can't remove Weakness, though. There's also Sight Beyond Sight, which only blocks Blindness. So even though Blind is a superior condition for totally negating damage, it also has more counters against it. Also, the duration of Weakness is pretty much always superior to the duration of Blind, and Blind usually costs more...Weakness is not a high-priority condition for removal in PvP, Blind is. Weakness is usually easily spread around and even on a caster, it's nice as a cover condition. The -1 attributes looks like meh at first, but sometimes it can totally ruin some builds that require very specific attribute balances to work. For example, any build that takes 9 ranks for using a Shield will take not just -1 attributes, but also -8AL if hit by Weakness. And for weapons, too...Primary attributes with breakpoints, like Critical Strikes and Expertise, are also affected. Lowering an Assassin's energy gain from +3 to +2 per critical, or forcing a Ranger to spend extra energy on spammed Burning Arrow + Savage Shot, does have an effect.

I think that while Weakness seems underpowered compared head-on to the other conditions (except maybe Bleeding heh), it does have its uses, so I wouldn't automatically call for a buff. Even though you are absolutely right about Weakness not affecting bonus damage from skills, the most major concern I guess. (If it did...oh boy...best condition in teh game!) (T/C) 14:06, 26 June 2007 (CDT)

OK. -anon —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.162.10.70 (contribs) .

Personally, I think that the power in Weakness lies in the fact that, unlike blindness, it affects casters too (less so, but still). And like most things in GW, if it affects everything, then its effect will be less powerful than something that affects a single thing. A good example would be the super versatile Blessed Light. It can do everything, but unless it does everything, it will be underpowered compared to something that only does part of it. Just a thought, really. Weakness can be powerful on a Geomancer, so I guess that is why there is no Enervating Charge for Eath Magic. :-) 145.94.74.23 03:34, 23 September 2007 (CDT)

Ebon Hawk <-- Weakness @ Earth. Also: Ward of Weakness+Churning Earth <-- mass weakness? --Vipermagi 03:41, 23 September 2007 (CDT)

The buff I would have liked to see was a small armour debuff, like Cracked Armor but less (-8/-15). Unfortunatly, it came in the form of a new condition not much interacts with, of wich most applications are akward at best, etc. Cracked Armor is rather good now, but maybe it was a rocket launcher to kill a fly.86.208.46.194 11:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Weakness causing skill to be added

I would just like to note that Ursan Roar causes weakness, and isn't listed yet.

Done. —Dr Ishmael 06:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

effect on weapons

"Be aware that Weakness causes all attributes to drop by -1, so meeting the req. demand by even +1 should be the wisest choice, especially when equipped with one of the wide-spread req. 9 items." from Req

i think this should be noticed in the article about the condition itself too Hjuiri 17:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)