Guild Wars 2

“Putrid Curse (scepter autoattack chain 3) – Corrupt one boon with every attack. So every third autoattack you can corrupt one boon.”
-Dulfy’s notes on the balance preview livestream

I realize this isn’t a huge change, but I think it’s a bad one. Looking at why it’s bad is important because it is part of a trend of changes I find dangerous to the enjoyability of pvp. SO HERE’S WHY IT’S BAD:

1. With all the other changes coming to stop bunkers, it shouldn’t really be needed to bring them in line.

2. I see this punishing non-bunker builds just as much as bunkers. Errebody needs boons.

3. It’s moving us in a direction where boons are trivialized. To be effective you’ll want many boons pulsing out on short durations so corrupt doesn’t hurt as much. The current tempest and bunker mesmer builds are already like this. imo, boons are more fun when they have longer lasting impact and are actually a thing you play around. For this to be a thing, boon corrupts/rips can’t be too common.

4. Necro is already the best class to corrupt boons. Necro has nearly always been thought of as a niche class, or one meant to hard counter specific builds and this is pushing it more in that direction.

5. Looking at my last two points in a different way: this is a good example of dangerous power creep. Small changes like this will pile up on each other and push the game in a direction that wasn’t originally intended. Here, I see the trivialization of boons as the main consequence.

Well that’s all. I hope some of you share my concern about power creep and weird changes like this. I’m not on the forums a lot but please give me some feedback.
I’d appreciate a discussion not based on “my class should be buffed because..”

Ele, mesmer, ranger, revenant, engi, all classes that can spam boons everywhere all the time long.

Actualy the meta is: Who can spam more boons and have more survavibility.
Who need to be a glass cannon if you’re able to spam boon, have insane survavibility (also chained to have a permanent full stack of boons) and stack might so much (also by your self) that you can obtain a high damage still whyle bunkering?

If you look all the classes in meta can spam boons. Every single one. And also have really good immunity/defensive/movement skills (frequently them all).

If you remember there was only one time when the necromancer had a real spot on the Meta: when Signet Master comes out.
(I don’t take consideration for the start of condi spam why there was a lot of classes that spam conditions much better than the necro and the terrormancer is always been killed by teamplay stability)

Why that build was in meta?
Why there was so much Boon Spam that you Needed a class that was able to counter that boon spam to kill your enemy. (at that time the Necro was the only class able to kill the elementalist why was the only one able to reduce hes boon spam)

The Boon Corruption in the Necro AA is strong, but we still have the Mesmer with a Condi Removal on the AA and no one had always asked for a nerf.
Why?
Why there’s a large amount of skills to use to inflict damage and save your “back” that is really hard to find a necromancer hitting you with the AA of a scepter.

That change will have a impact on classes that have lesser boon spam? Yes, it will.
But also will reduce the Boon Spam (but just a little, not so much like you think).

It’s still a 3*AA skill, can be blocked, evaded, blinded and more, and you need to spend 1.5 sec on the AA to corrupt a boon. it’s not so good as you think.

I really hope that this change will reduce the boon spam.

We need lesser Boons and more Active Gameplay!

Silv.9207:

Ele, mesmer, ranger, revenant, engi, all classes that can spam boons everywhere all the time long.

Actualy the meta is: Who can spam more boons and have more survavibility.
Who need to be a glass cannon if you’re able to spam boon, have insane survavibility (also chained to have a permanent full stack of boons) and stack might so much (also by your self) that you can obtain a high damage still whyle bunkering?

If you look all the classes in meta can spam boons. Every single one. And also have really good immunity/defensive/movement skills (frequently them all).

If you remember there was only one time when the necromancer had a real spot on the Meta: when Signet Master comes out.
(I don’t take consideration for the start of condi spam why there was a lot of classes that spam conditions much better than the necro and the terrormancer is always been killed by teamplay stability)

Why that build was in meta?
Why there was so much Boon Spam that you Needed a class that was able to counter that boon spam to kill your enemy. (at that time the Necro was the only class able to kill the elementalist why was the only one able to reduce hes boon spam)

The Boon Corruption in the Necro AA is strong, but we still have the Mesmer with a Condi Removal on the AA and no one had always asked for a nerf.
Why?
Why there’s a large amount of skills to use to inflict damage and save your “back” that is really hard to find a necromancer hitting you with the AA of a scepter.

That change will have a impact on classes that have lesser boon spam? Yes, it will.
But also will reduce the Boon Spam (but just a little, not so much like you think).

It’s still a 3*AA skill, can be blocked, evaded, blinded and more, and you need to spend 1.5 sec on the AA to corrupt a boon. it’s not so good as you think.

I really hope that this change will reduce the boon spam.

We need lesser Boons and more Active Gameplay!

Boon corruption and boon removal are very different things tip one of them allows you to fear and slow.

We were once joking that they’ll give necros fear on AA. This is pretty close.

The problem is that the amount of boon as gotten out of hands. Now people get boons on autoattacks…
The good solution would have been a shave on boon production.
The lazy solution was to make sure boon rip/corrupt also gets out of hands.

This is called power creep.

except warrior, warrior gets nothing
no boon no corrupt

lighter.2708:

except warrior, warrior gets nothing
no boon no corrupt

well warrior will receive more tankiness for sure, warrior on wvw looks ok’ish, but looks like people need a bit help to run warriors on spvp.

Silv.9207:

but we still have the Mesmer with a Condi Removal on the AA and no one had always asked for a nerf.

what?

Again, what necromancer need is Stealth he lack the element of surprised.

What’s an Ele without boons? Ele has no worthy active defense beside boons. Or do they want Ele to rely on that 75s cd block?

Remind me what are the priorities in boon corruption? I remember stability is high in that list but you shouldn’t be able to generate fear that easily.

There is a reason why most mesmers don’t take domination despite the all powerful shattered concentration you know…surviving seems more useful than useless attempt to remove boon.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Remind me what are the priorities in boon corruption? I remember stability is high in that list but you shouldn’t be able to generate fear that easily.

There is a reason why most mesmers don’t take domination despite the all powerful shattered concentration you know…surviving seems more useful than useless attempt to remove boon.

It’s random, now.

So you either have to go for heavy condition cleanse and extra heavy boon application to fight a necro, or heavy condition cleanse and as few boons as possible. Might corrupts into 10 seconds of weakness! Weakness is a powerful condition. And a necro has plenty of cover conditions to help with keeping it on.

With boon corruption becoming more frequent, condition cleanse now becomes more necessary than ever, or else you’ll almost always have weakness, chill and poison on you, which imo are the three most powerful condition. They reduce the damage you deal, the frequency you dodge, your movement speed, your cooldown speed, and the healing you take. Anet, please…PLEASE don’t give more condition cleanse next balance patch. For the sake of this game, reduce boon application, boon corruption, and maybe even condition cleanse.

in the current meta only thing that does not cause a non-necro to fart out a boon is standing idle in base. And even that might turn out to be not enough to not drown in your own boons. Some of them occasionally get applied via skill usage, but these are rarer and more of a side show then actual source….

Terror + scepter autoattack = Dhuumfire’s Revenge.

Necros the masters of corruption and death/life… yeah sounds like boon corruption is right down their alley. Im liking it. Condition Necros will be getting a nice buff.

Who cares about priorities? Lol. Just go 100% for boon corruption. No boons for anyone lol. You have boons = you have condis and no boons, GG you lose.

Hell maybe even equip a sigil of nullification just to rub it in.

Zefrost.3425:

Hell maybe even equip a sigil of nullification just to rub it in.

That in theory could actually harm you, since you might get less stability to turn into damaging CC.

They need to watch this autoattack VERY CAREFULLY or it’s going to get absurdly out of control. And by very carefully I mean like, it’s only able to corrupt resistance or something. Corrupting stability means stability is removed from the game entirely.

Also why is this the balance patch of autoattacks getting buffed to lethal levels? The preview Guild Chat showed a thief autoattacking a heavy golem for 4k. Press 1 to win from now on?

lighter.2708:

except warrior, warrior gets nothing
no boon no corrupt

Part of what inspired me to write this. I like might stack warrior builds and that just can’t be a thing if boons/condi rips and corrupts are out of hand. Either they make warrior spam random boons or they start nerfing the boon saturation on other classes. Making warrior spam boons is the easy choice, but nerfing others is healthier for the game.

Zoso.8279:

Necros the masters of corruption and death/life… yeah sounds like boon corruption is right down their alley. Im liking it. Condition Necros will be getting a nice buff.

See this is the problem. Sure its flavorful and feels good if you’re playing necro, but the game overall suffers because of the chain reactions it causes in meta builds.

Sunshine.5014:

What’s an Ele without boons? Ele has no worthy active defense beside boons. Or do they want Ele to rely on that 75s cd block?

My idea is that access to boons on each class should be nerfed. You’re right that ele depends on boons so they should still have some strong boon generation after the nerf to remain viable. It’s just that overall, there shouldn’t be this many boons and boon counters flying around.

Silv.9207:

It’s still a 3*AA skill, can be blocked, evaded, blinded and more, and you need to spend 1.5 sec on the AA to corrupt a boon. it’s not so good as you think.

I really hope that this change will reduce the boon spam.

We need lesser Boons and more Active Gameplay!

I realize this is a rather small change. As you said it’s the third autoattack and won’t hit that often. The real problem is the trend this is a part of. My view is that instead of fighting boons with corrupt, Arenanet should just reduce boon spam in general. It may take a while for them to really consider this, and it would need to be in a big balance patch, but it is really needed.

Right now we’re trundling around in a world of boring walls of boons. Cutting boon generation I believe is the way to bring everything in line and bring us back to the Active Gameplay we love

Zintrothen.1056:

So you either have to go for heavy condition cleanse and extra heavy boon application to fight a necro, or heavy condition cleanse and as few boons as possible. Might corrupts into 10 seconds of weakness! Weakness is a powerful condition. And a necro has plenty of cover conditions to help with keeping it on.

With boon corruption becoming more frequent, condition cleanse now becomes more necessary than ever, or else you’ll almost always have weakness, chill and poison on you, which imo are the three most powerful condition. They reduce the damage you deal, the frequency you dodge, your movement speed, your cooldown speed, and the healing you take. Anet, please…PLEASE don’t give more condition cleanse next balance patch. For the sake of this game, reduce boon application, boon corruption, and maybe even condition cleanse.

Well said. I didn’t touch on condition cleanse vs conditions but it is exactly the same problem.

Boon corrupt on 3rd auto attack ok how many times do you think you would actually land that in one match? I currently run with nearly as much boon corrupt as i can and even then i find a lot of the time boon production is way higher than my ability to remove or corrupt. I really don’t care if this change goes through or not i cant see it being anything more than a drop in the ocean and won’t effect any of my matches in anyway.

It is a massively overrated change. The only way it is gonna hit super often is if you sit there spamming the auto, which means your gonna get wrecked. Furthermore, the meta seems to be shifting to burst with thieves coming back. This is very hard for necromancers with poor healing, and no invulns to deal iwth.

Because this is “fun” and “balanced”? This is not how the game should be played….

DeWolfe.2174:

Because this is “fun” and “balanced”? This is not how the game should be played….

Just remove all the boons from Ele and give it some hard active defense. That’s better than giving it all the boons and make the boons a liability.

Its 3rd AA,you wont see it much,if ever.In this boon heavy enviroment,you wont ever notice it.

As mentioned above,mesmers sword aa 3rd chain “also clones” does almost the same,and ppl dont even know/notice it.Especially not nowadays when you get over 3 boons with over 10might by just standing next to semi-afk herald…. .

As for necro being master of boon strips,you should one day compare combat stats after match with shatter mes “not the crap which u meet nowadays”.Despite having few traits and weps and utils dedicated to boon removals,one single trait on mesmer is doing the job 2xbetter as for amount of boons removed in longer period.

foxcat.4096:

Boon corrupt on 3rd auto attack ok how many times do you think you would actually land that in one match? I currently run with nearly as much boon corrupt as i can and even then i find a lot of the time boon production is way higher than my ability to remove or corrupt. I really don’t care if this change goes through or not i cant see it being anything more than a drop in the ocean and won’t effect any of my matches in anyway.

Its a boon wars :-),you need to have ready at least 2-3 boon removals and will have small window for striking.Against some classes with certain builds,it wont be enough ever.The boon spam have come to higher lvls as we were used to,when fighting old d/d cele eles.

Leeto was joking about having signet of spite on auto attack, but I’m confident we will have that at some point. Give it a few more power creep patches (you know, the things they call “balance patch”) and we will get there.

Fluffball.8307:

Terror + scepter autoattack = Dhuumfire’s Revenge.

Terror is a terrible trait (unless you fight revenants) and requires you to drop Spite (Signets and burst) for Curses. Not happening currently.

I was semi joking. But if it turns out they’re pumping fear all over the place with autoattack, it might happen.

Cant they just turn the upcoming scepter autoattack boon corrupt into boon removal?

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Silv.9207:

but we still have the Mesmer with a Condi Removal on the AA and no one had always asked for a nerf.

what?

Sword 3° AA skill. Remove a boon and inflict good damage. Inflict High damage if the enemy don’t have boons, hit 3 targets.
No one noticed it? is in the meta!

I don’t have a problem with damage on the autoattack, what worries me are things like fear, slow, burning, etc. on autoattack. Necro scepter already has a very good autoattack, so it may become meta to do nothing but hit 1.

Silv.9207:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

Silv.9207:

but we still have the Mesmer with a Condi Removal on the AA and no one had always asked for a nerf.

what?

Sword 3° AA skill. Remove a boon and inflict good damage. Inflict High damage if the enemy don’t have boons, hit 3 targets.
No one noticed it? is in the meta!

It’s not condi removal it’s boon removal and what scepter is getting is boon corruption which is quite a lot stronger. Another reason for not wanting this kind of buff is that condi reapers are already pretty strong in the meta and will be getting better (power reapers definitely needs some buffs) .

GS Reaper needs some work. I actually do not use scepter as the blind and pull on GS is valuable. Even though “Nightfall” needs a lot of work too. That interval needs to be 1 sec.