Guild Wars 2

Sarrs.4831:

Would rather have epidemic than bunker meta. Honestly I’m just reading people complaining that their group isn’t invulnerable; you’re not supposed to be.

And I would rather not have both…? Just because something that is bad for the game helps counter another thing that is also bad for the game shouldn’t justify it’s bad-ness.

And that second part.. That’s a half-kitten straw-man.

Epidemic of course is too good in a zerg-scenario. I personally would nerf it so that it only transfers 2-3 of the conditions to the other targets. Since necros only have poison and bleed as damaging conditions this wouldn’t hurt solo necros or small group-necros at all.
But even now there are still a lot of ways to counter conditions that imho make condition-zergs not as good as other setups. So maybe it is good to keep the problem in the game to give condition-zergs a chance

There is nothing OP about epi. The only time you will be killed by an epi is if you stand too close to a condi-loaded cannon or npc. If you get 100 bleed stacks from the smc lord and insta-down, frankly it is your own fault for getting too close to him. Due to its long cast time, the majority of my epi’s either get interrupted or miss because the target moved out of range. Of those that due hit, probably half hit a target that got cleansed while I was casting, so nothing gets actually gets spread. Sure, epi is great in pve, but in wvw it is mediocre at best.

I don’t see a problem with it. If there is one, then reduce the radius to 500. Small, incremental adjustments are better than large ones.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I don’t see a problem with it. If there is one, then reduce the radius to 500. Small, incremental adjustments are better than large ones.

Then it would be total kitten in small scale and wouldn’t affect zerg fights at all. There is always 5 target in 500 range in zerg.

It’s more the free-stacking conditions + epi that results in 1-shotting people without an obvious tell to dodge.

IMO, it should absolutely transfer every condi on a thing to its targets, but it shouldn’t transfer more than a few stacks of each. You shouldn’t be able to wipe 5 people instantly because you epi’d a down or lord with 100 stacks of bleed.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Epidemic is a bit too strong in wvw at the moment. Agree? Disagree? Why? When you respond, please include whether you agree/disagree in the very first sentence of your response. I’m curious if others really agree or not.

I think it’s too strong, therefore I’ll suggest some changes that would only be applicable to wvw.

Change #1: Make it blockable. (Not a fan of this one.. won’t help solve much.)
Change #2: Make condis have a set duration just like boon/condition conversion.
Change #3: Maximum spread of conditions set to a specific number.
Change #4: Make the animation on whoever is targeted more readable.
Change #5: Total rework of the skill. The possibilities are endless with this one.
Change #6: Increase cool down. (Not a fan of this either.)
Change #7: Non damaging conditions do not transfer. Or, damaging conditions do not transfer.
Change #8: (I like this one.) Foe becomes corrupted. All conditions on target are ‘remembered’ at the time of cast. Those conditions are pulsed to nearby foes at a rate of 1 condition per second until all conditions have been transferred. Meaning that if you cast epidemic on someone with 10 conditions, it will take 10 seconds for all of those conditions to transfer to nearby foes. This adds counterplay to the skill by allowing for people to move away and out of the corrupted ally as fast as possible, much in the same way that people would need to move out of AoE’s to avoid the damage. This is a very interesting change proposal.

Shoot, what you do guys think then?

1) meh. Not fussed either way.
2) yuck. This has the potential to relegate epi to “never used”
3) they are already capped at 25 stacks of a condi to 5 enemies.. People don’t seem to realise this though. ( stack cap as of june 2015 according to wiki..)
4) ey.. visual clutter.. But sure. why not.
5) no thanks, epi is quite unique. Id rather see new functions on e-spec skills.
6) don’t like it. Also necros dps is low as it is. This would just be a nail in the coffin.
7) This could potentially kill epi completely. It’s somewhat niche as it is.

Also, condi bombs that down a player within a couple of seconds probably aren’t root caused by epi. The player the epi hit should be dying just as fast (unless they have resistance).

It’s more likely mass boon corruption, conditions being sent back (eg necro staff 4 or plague signet) or mark/well bombs.

So enemy can’t see that epidemic effect in player or is this just l2p issue? When i cast epidemic i see effect when i start to cast and effect when cast is over.

Some simple changes would make it a lot better. Firstly no Epi’s on NPC’s or siege, only players. Why Anet thought condis should affect siege im not sure but there you go it’s in the game.

As soon as you start casting Epi a large skull appears floating above the epi target, or something equally visible with an accompanying sound. This gives ppl an indication of what is about to happen and that dodging might be a good option. Or putting some distance between you and the target about to be epi’d. Maybe bump the cast time up to 1.25 seconds so it gives ppl more time to clear the area or dodge.

It is very hard to spot in combat, not like a meteor shower where you have these large balls of fire raining down on you.

Epi is not that strong as you guys think. Lot of people just neglect the counterplay against it
It has 1 second cast animation, so during it
1) Resistance, dwarf stance,, even 1 lucky dura rune proc is enough to make it useless for 1+ second.
2) condi clenase, guardians should constanly keep cleansing when people are condibombed (i mean they have purging cd on their skill bar anyways). (btw dont play DH, because it sucks against condis regarding party members)
3) Dodges, invulns etc. The skill becomes completely useless many times.
its just simple, necro puts condis on you, you count 0.5 seconds, and you dodge. its not that hard. 1/2 sec cast on “nothing can save you” that removes 2 boons AoE unblockably from 5+ necros would be more broken cuz its instadeath when combined with axe 3.

so basically your party comp should be something like
2 guard, 1 dwarf/mallyx rev + 2 classes with 2 melee eles in squad and no1 will even notice condis on them as long as the revs and guards their job (NOT DHS)

Reason why epi is good is because guardians purging flames, but it requires epi cast happen at the same time as the purging flames, which requires coordination and coordinated bombs kill people, live with it.

Threather.9354:

Epi is not that strong as you guys think. Lot of people just neglect the counterplay against it
It has 1 second cast animation

Epi is strong because a little Asuran hiding in Tempest AoE field spam while occupying the same game space as a big Norn Guardian is able to drop a condition spike that basically drops 5 players with almost no counter play. Conditions are Damage Over Time and not meant to be spike damage. When a DoT blows up several players in one shot, something is wrong with the DoT.

I do not disagree that it requires good composition for it to be highly effective which is why it is not outright OP but once composition is attained the skill is way over tuned in the right hands.

Conditions itself are very powerful on its own to the point that it has become the new zerker. Many sPvP builds are already conditions based and general WvW in NA too is moving towards conditions. Simply because conditions is easy to play with compared to any other builds and compositions that require higher level of coordination, cooperation etc.

While nerfing epi will not magically change the power scale of conditions, it will limit the huge amount of conditions stack being spread around the general wvw. This also will fall inline with the nerf made to boonshare which is like the white version of epi. One spread boon and the other spread condi.

SkyShroud.2865:

Conditions itself are very powerful on its own to the point that it has become the new zerker. Many sPvP builds are already conditions based and general WvW in NA too is moving towards conditions. Simply because conditions is easy to play with compared to any other builds and compositions that require higher level of coordination, cooperation etc.

While nerfing epi will not magically change the power scale of conditions, it will limit the huge amount of conditions stack being spread around the general wvw. This also will fall inline with the nerf made to boonshare which is like the white version of epi. One spread boon and the other spread condi.

What i realty think is the problem is that you cant build one line (gear trates and food) alone to counter condi but you can build one line to do condi dmg. Condi is the zerker meta but with out the class and with out the counter.

Jski.6180:

SkyShroud.2865:

Conditions itself are very powerful on its own to the point that it has become the new zerker. Many sPvP builds are already conditions based and general WvW in NA too is moving towards conditions. Simply because conditions is easy to play with compared to any other builds and compositions that require higher level of coordination, cooperation etc.

While nerfing epi will not magically change the power scale of conditions, it will limit the huge amount of conditions stack being spread around the general wvw. This also will fall inline with the nerf made to boonshare which is like the white version of epi. One spread boon and the other spread condi.

What i realty think is the problem is that you cant build one line (gear trates and food) alone to counter condi but you can build one line to do condi dmg. Condi is the zerker meta but with out the class and with out the counter.

Well, anet had a goal and that is to make conditions great again which they did it successfully, maybe too excessively to the point they did a series of nerfs. Back at HOT launch, experienced players were already aware of how powerful conditions are, this resulted in boonshare meta as it provide perma resistance and more to the zerg play. So, a lot of people who are just merely following meta are simply directing their attention to boonshare. With boonshare nerfed, naturally, conditions which were powerful to begin with become the next trend. Obviously, people who merely following meta will be slow to pick up so it wasn’t a major issue at the beginning but now, a lot more begin to use it and thus making it unbearable for some.

What I think is really simple, if they had to nerf boonshare, they should have nerfed epi along with it. As for the powerful conditions, I have no idea on how to balance it, really. Afterall, a big scale zerg is really hard to find that kind of balance.

Think the better way to go would to be to impose a global cap on the number of condition stacks that can effect a player. 25 bleed/5 poison/3 burn/ etc or something like that.

Nerfing Epi is all well and good for zerg play, but it doesn’t stop the problem of condition overload on the small scale roaming side of things.

…On top of that, Wuv and PvE share the same skills and rule atm, and all this talk of nerfing epi would probably send all those PvE Necro players into a fit if they ever looked at this thread. Especially those who suffered as Necro mains for years before the specialization update and HoT and still believe their profession is terrible despite the fact half the LFGs for Master tier fractals will accept nothing else for condi. :P

Foefaller.1082:

Think the better way to go would to be to impose a global cap on the number of condition stacks that can effect a player. 25 bleed/5 poison/3 burn/ etc or something like that.

Nerfing Epi is all well and good for zerg play, but it doesn’t stop the problem of condition overload on the small scale roaming side of things.

…On top of that, Wuv and PvE share the same skills and rule atm, and all this talk of nerfing epi would probably send all those PvE Necro players into a fit if they ever looked at this thread. Especially those who suffered as Necro mains for years before the specialization update and HoT and still believe their profession is terrible despite the fact half the LFGs for Master tier fractals will accept nothing else for condi. :P

So when you would fight against condi reaper you wouldn’t even need to dodge that spinning skill because it would only give 5 stacks of poison? Frigging awesome ideas.

Straegen.2938:

Threather.9354:

Epi is not that strong as you guys think. Lot of people just neglect the counterplay against it
It has 1 second cast animation

Epi is strong because a little Asuran hiding in Tempest AoE field spam while occupying the same game space as a big Norn Guardian is able to drop a condition spike that basically drops 5 players with almost no counter play. Conditions are Damage Over Time and not meant to be spike damage. When a DoT blows up several players in one shot, something is wrong with the DoT.

I do not disagree that it requires good composition for it to be highly effective which is why it is not outright OP but once composition is attained the skill is way over tuned in the right hands.

Epi isn’t going to be dropping 5 players in a second or two..
The player hit by epi would be downed before epi finished casting.

Please see my post a few above yours – I gave several examples of what is actually capable of inflicting the kind of condi bombs you are describing ( hint, its not epi).

I’ve long since run out of ways to argue against this but I do want to say;

The majority of the time I’m with a zerg, I’m without TS and without a squad/party, often using a vanilla Necromancer or vanilla Ranger. I can literally count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been Epi bombed so hard I insta-downed and WvW is all I do in GW2.

Not being in TS or a squad/party means I can’t rely on team support cleanses. Although I do obviously get them, it just means that the likely-hood of being condition nuked by Epi is that much greater. And yet, it still has only happened a very small number of times, most of which have been the result of standing near a champion or siege loaded with a ton of conditions.

I don’t deny that it’s a powerful skill but it just boggles my mind how people think it’s so in need of a nerf. I’m just not grasping how this can be such a big deal for people who are probably in a squad and TS, also probably using a proper zerging build, but not an issue for someone who isn’t.

I made a thread not long ago with suggestions for proper ways to balance Epidemic without gutting it that you can find here.

There isn’t any way I can prove that I rarely get one-shot Epi bombed but I just feel that under the circumstances and how often I play WvW… If it’s not an issue for me it really shouldn’t be for most other players, with some exceptions (new to the game, group support build with little personal support, etc).

People think it needs a nerf because they have no combat awareness and don’t know how to condi cleanse or to avoid being hit by things.

Junkpile.7439:

Foefaller.1082:

Think the better way to go would to be to impose a global cap on the number of condition stacks that can effect a player. 25 bleed/5 poison/3 burn/ etc or something like that.

Nerfing Epi is all well and good for zerg play, but it doesn’t stop the problem of condition overload on the small scale roaming side of things.

…On top of that, Wuv and PvE share the same skills and rule atm, and all this talk of nerfing epi would probably send all those PvE Necro players into a fit if they ever looked at this thread. Especially those who suffered as Necro mains for years before the specialization update and HoT and still believe their profession is terrible despite the fact half the LFGs for Master tier fractals will accept nothing else for condi. :P

So when you would fight against condi reaper you wouldn’t even need to dodge that spinning skill because it would only give 5 stacks of poison? Frigging awesome ideas.

Well, as I said, I was just pulling numbers out of my kitten .

shagwell.1349:

People think it needs a nerf because they have no combat awareness and don’t know how to condi cleanse or to avoid being hit by things.

I guess the same arguments can be applied to boonshare nerf? People complains boonshare is too much, why they can’t learn to boonstrip and to be avoid getting hit?

Try to derailing the topic? Boonshare isn’t the topic, right?

Derail? I am showing your flaws in your argument.

SkyShroud.2865:

Derail? I am showing your flaws in your argument.

Probably because most of the sources of boons that are an issue; Guardian, Revenant and Tempest, apply their boons via shouts or insta-cast skills. Mind you, Facets are not insta-cast but they are still pre-cast and often already pumping out boons long before a fight happens.

I don’t think comparing condition awareness to boon awareness is fair in that sense, although yes you do have a point.

Okay so people, stop delusionally thinking its the epi killing. The conditions come from somewhere and biggest damaging condi source in a short cast time is Signet of spite(?) or scepter 3, which neither will do more than 4k per tick.

Wells turn your boons into conditions, melee eles stack bleeding+burning+chill normally. Purging flames does like 1500 per tick per purging, so normally it’s the 10 guardians on enemy side doing 15k damage per second to you. Condi wars + mesmers are beasts on single targets as well.

If you get lot of conditions on you, you normally stepped on a well bomb and died from POWER DAMAGE, not from the conditions on you. The only condiclass that can 1 shot you is condi mesmer with 17 confusion stack and 10+ torment application.

But yeah, you should blame the people on your side not playing enough melee eles/guardians(notice, not DH, because DH doesnt cleanse condis from allies), because its super easy to stack condis to a warrior or rev if they dont have guardians in party, and then epi it, if the warrior/rev is an idiot.

SkyShroud.2865:

Derail? I am showing your flaws in your argument.

There isn’t a flaw in my argument. It’s your “witch hunt” against epidemic which is pretty much flawed.
Boon share wasn’t nerfed because it was overpowered in wvw, it was nerfed because of pve raids. Boon share is nothing you can avoid or interupt.
You can avoid epidemic by cleanse, you can dodge it and you can just move out of range because it’s a visible cast.

Epidemic isn’t a problem, when you have enough condi cleanse and your group isn’t stupid. For a necro it’s easy to “miss” epidemic when there are too many conditions on the target and it goes in downstate before the epi hits or the target dies fast.

You try to get an ability nerfed that isn’t the problem. The problems are condition output and guardians in combination with revenants. There wouldn’t be a condi meta without boon spreading. The condi meta exists because of this and is the only answer to it.

If you nerf condis you will have to nerf boons. End of story.

And why should we go there again? Because power meta was more fun? It wasn’t. You put on stuns on enemy group, bomb on it, run, repeat.

shagwell.1349:

SkyShroud.2865:

Derail? I am showing your flaws in your argument.

There isn’t a flaw in my argument. It’s your “witch hunt” against epidemic which is pretty much flawed.
Boon share wasn’t nerfed because it was overpowered in wvw, it was nerfed because of pve raids. Boon share is nothing you can avoid or interupt.
You can avoid epidemic by cleanse, you can dodge it and you can just move out of range because it’s a visible cast.

Epidemic isn’t a problem, when you have enough condi cleanse and your group isn’t stupid. For a necro it’s easy to “miss” epidemic when there are too many conditions on the target and it goes in downstate before the epi hits or the target dies fast.

You try to get an ability nerfed that isn’t the problem. The problems are condition output and guardians in combination with revenants. There wouldn’t be a condi meta without boon spreading. The condi meta exists because of this and is the only answer to it.

If you nerf condis you will have to nerf boons. End of story.

And why should we go there again? Because power meta was more fun? It wasn’t. You put on stuns on enemy group, bomb on it, run, repeat.

Witch hunt? Nerf because of PvE?

PvE people calling for nerfs, lol, why should they? Because it must be fun to throw away the 500++ golds worth of ascended? Because they feel sorry for the mobs they killed due to their op-ness? Which part of my comment appear as witch hunt? You never even read all the comments I have posted, you even repeated what I wrote in one of the comments I made.

Regardless, I find it pointless arguing with people who conveniently make up stories as counter argument. Good luck to you.

my 80th time posting this, but: tankiness is the issue. Sustain is the issue. Epidemic has ALWAYS existed, and was tried about 100 times in competitive scenarios and it wasn’t that good.

What changed that it works now?! it’s how amazingly tanky things have become. Groups have done a few things:

Lowered their power damage for tankiness because it simply scales better

Replaced Cleanses with Resistance almost completely (Guardian is probably the only class that still brings natural and utility group cleanses)

Lowered their catch potential overall: this means less backliners, less mobile warriors, rangers are staff at most, and generally enemies are easier to evade now in a zerg than they ever have been. Potentially because the meta revolves around guardians, and guardians are limited in mobility for their Revenants. Previously, guardians were buddies with Warriors, and warriors could initiate from farther out.

The punishment to this meta adjustment is that it’s easier than ever to evade with condition specs, and even if you are caught, you can often times just walk through the enemies garbage damage and catch.

I think it’s backwards as hell to reward this tanky meta adjustment by nerfing one of the only punishments for it. Our goal should be to nerf the tanky meta, and an increase in power and mobility will do what it did to condition comps for years prior to HoT. If you’re reading this Anet, don’t listen to little zerglings that want their terrible bunker meta buffed even more.

SkyShroud.2865:

shagwell.1349:

SkyShroud.2865:

Derail? I am showing your flaws in your argument.

There isn’t a flaw in my argument. It’s your “witch hunt” against epidemic which is pretty much flawed.
Boon share wasn’t nerfed because it was overpowered in wvw, it was nerfed because of pve raids. Boon share is nothing you can avoid or interupt.
You can avoid epidemic by cleanse, you can dodge it and you can just move out of range because it’s a visible cast.

Epidemic isn’t a problem, when you have enough condi cleanse and your group isn’t stupid. For a necro it’s easy to “miss” epidemic when there are too many conditions on the target and it goes in downstate before the epi hits or the target dies fast.

You try to get an ability nerfed that isn’t the problem. The problems are condition output and guardians in combination with revenants. There wouldn’t be a condi meta without boon spreading. The condi meta exists because of this and is the only answer to it.

If you nerf condis you will have to nerf boons. End of story.

And why should we go there again? Because power meta was more fun? It wasn’t. You put on stuns on enemy group, bomb on it, run, repeat.

Witch hunt? Nerf because of PvE?

PvE people calling for nerfs, lol, why should they? Because it must be fun to throw away the 500++ golds worth of ascended? Because they feel sorry for the mobs they killed due to their op-ness? Which part of my comment appear as witch hunt? You never even read all the comments I have posted, you even repeated what I wrote in one of the comments I made.

Regardless, I find it pointless arguing with people who conveniently make up stories as counter argument. Good luck to you.

You haven’t brought a single argument into this discussion and yet you blame me for “having no arguments”?

I never said “community” called for a boon share nerf, it was a nerf based on pve by devs. You can read that here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Balance-Changes-Upcoming

And sure, you are almost on every page of this topic posting how overpowered epidemic is and still are not answering to the discussion – that’s pretty much a witch hunt. You see epidemic as problem because you fail to deal with it and you don’t get the real problem of wvw these days.

Epidemic isn’t a problem. It’s not used in any content besides wvw and in wvw you still can counter and evade it. So it’s pretty much pebkac.

shagwell.1349:

SkyShroud.2865:

shagwell.1349:

SkyShroud.2865:

Derail? I am showing your flaws in your argument.

There isn’t a flaw in my argument. It’s your “witch hunt” against epidemic which is pretty much flawed.
Boon share wasn’t nerfed because it was overpowered in wvw, it was nerfed because of pve raids. Boon share is nothing you can avoid or interupt.
You can avoid epidemic by cleanse, you can dodge it and you can just move out of range because it’s a visible cast.

Epidemic isn’t a problem, when you have enough condi cleanse and your group isn’t stupid. For a necro it’s easy to “miss” epidemic when there are too many conditions on the target and it goes in downstate before the epi hits or the target dies fast.

You try to get an ability nerfed that isn’t the problem. The problems are condition output and guardians in combination with revenants. There wouldn’t be a condi meta without boon spreading. The condi meta exists because of this and is the only answer to it.

If you nerf condis you will have to nerf boons. End of story.

And why should we go there again? Because power meta was more fun? It wasn’t. You put on stuns on enemy group, bomb on it, run, repeat.

Witch hunt? Nerf because of PvE?

PvE people calling for nerfs, lol, why should they? Because it must be fun to throw away the 500++ golds worth of ascended? Because they feel sorry for the mobs they killed due to their op-ness? Which part of my comment appear as witch hunt? You never even read all the comments I have posted, you even repeated what I wrote in one of the comments I made.

Regardless, I find it pointless arguing with people who conveniently make up stories as counter argument. Good luck to you.

You haven’t brought a single argument into this discussion and yet you blame me for “having no arguments”?

I never said “community” called for a boon share nerf, it was a nerf based on pve by devs. You can read that here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Balance-Changes-Upcoming

And sure, you are almost on every page of this topic posting how overpowered epidemic is and still are not answering to the discussion – that’s pretty much a witch hunt. You see epidemic as problem because you fail to deal with it and you don’t get the real problem of wvw these days.

Epidemic isn’t a problem. It’s not used in any content besides wvw and in wvw you still can counter and evade it. So it’s pretty much pebkac.

Well its not epidemic alone that is the problem but its a very major symptom of not being able to see tells for major skills and epidemic is the end all be all major skill that you can only dodge. As long as there stealth size different of players partake effects that can hid moments a tell on the player casting it will never work but a tell on the person getting cast on giving them time to dodge will. That an epidemic is too burst as in it should be more on the lines of chance effect where you spread condis over time giving ppl time to both get away stop the necro and land more condis on the person getting epidemic. Even in pve (well wvw tower boss who dose this) is a chance effect and has a major tell of its aoe and that the person is getting cast on why not just carry this over to players.

Any way “witch hunt” only has a bad reputation because of after the fact not during and often a lot of “witches” are found out during. Another name for it is “watch dogs” and “whistleblower” only the name evokes different feelings but it is the same thing.

shagwell.1349:

SkyShroud.2865:

shagwell.1349:

SkyShroud.2865:

Derail? I am showing your flaws in your argument.

There isn’t a flaw in my argument. It’s your “witch hunt” against epidemic which is pretty much flawed.
Boon share wasn’t nerfed because it was overpowered in wvw, it was nerfed because of pve raids. Boon share is nothing you can avoid or interupt.
You can avoid epidemic by cleanse, you can dodge it and you can just move out of range because it’s a visible cast.

Epidemic isn’t a problem, when you have enough condi cleanse and your group isn’t stupid. For a necro it’s easy to “miss” epidemic when there are too many conditions on the target and it goes in downstate before the epi hits or the target dies fast.

You try to get an ability nerfed that isn’t the problem. The problems are condition output and guardians in combination with revenants. There wouldn’t be a condi meta without boon spreading. The condi meta exists because of this and is the only answer to it.

If you nerf condis you will have to nerf boons. End of story.

And why should we go there again? Because power meta was more fun? It wasn’t. You put on stuns on enemy group, bomb on it, run, repeat.

Witch hunt? Nerf because of PvE?

PvE people calling for nerfs, lol, why should they? Because it must be fun to throw away the 500++ golds worth of ascended? Because they feel sorry for the mobs they killed due to their op-ness? Which part of my comment appear as witch hunt? You never even read all the comments I have posted, you even repeated what I wrote in one of the comments I made.

Regardless, I find it pointless arguing with people who conveniently make up stories as counter argument. Good luck to you.

You haven’t brought a single argument into this discussion and yet you blame me for “having no arguments”?

I never said “community” called for a boon share nerf, it was a nerf based on pve by devs. You can read that here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Balance-Changes-Upcoming

And sure, you are almost on every page of this topic posting how overpowered epidemic is and still are not answering to the discussion – that’s pretty much a witch hunt. You see epidemic as problem because you fail to deal with it and you don’t get the real problem of wvw these days.

Epidemic isn’t a problem. It’s not used in any content besides wvw and in wvw you still can counter and evade it. So it’s pretty much pebkac.

Don’t tell me that just because it is posted in gw2 discuss, you believe the nerf targeting pve, that is so silly, I mean it.

We shouldn’t be allowed to epi siege https://gfycat.com/GreenWindingGraysquirrel

Eyae.6843:

We shouldn’t be allowed to epi siege https://gfycat.com/GreenWindingGraysquirrel

Lol good point but you can say the same for lords all though you can clear the lords you cant clear siege. I think making epi have a bigish tell on the person getting hit and have it as a channel effect 1-2 condi per sec aoe on a 4 sec cast time would fit well and fix that problem.

Eyae.6843:

We shouldn’t be allowed to epi siege https://gfycat.com/GreenWindingGraysquirrel

Chorazin.4107:

Some simple changes would make it a lot better. Firstly no Epi’s on NPC’s or siege, only players. Why Anet thought condis should affect siege im not sure but there you go it’s in the game.

93 bleed stacks gg anet, it’s like Anet hired the balance crew responsible for Bright Wizards.

Oh wow, multiple epidemics op in 7vs2? With power dmg they would have killed the warrior even faster …

Srsly, in the past most groups/zergs where running – condi duration food and melandru or soldier rune and tons of aoe clear and condis were basically non-existent in group play. Those things still exist. But now everyone runs durability rune and boon duration/dmg reduction food for as much (often passive) boons as possible while barely taking (aoe) condi cleanse and people still expect condis to be something ignoreable. Really?

Just reroll Trooper runes and Shouts on your guardian frontliners. Condi/Epi meta is very strong but very very easy to counter.

Lahmia.2193:

Just reroll Trooper runes and Shouts on your guardian frontliners. Condi/Epi meta is very strong but very very easy to counter.

That not enofe to counter it because even at best your only going to run 3 shouts maybe 4 where you have full zerg running nothing but condi. Also there a thing called ping and human reaction time and the way condis are applied in this game being more burst dmg type then a dot (as they should be). You also cant clear downed players pets npc sieges (they cant dodge too) major targets for epidemic.

Frozen.1347:

Oh wow, multiple epidemics op in 7vs2? With power dmg they would have killed the warrior even faster …

Srsly, in the past most groups/zergs where running – condi duration food and melandru or soldier rune and tons of aoe clear and condis were basically non-existent in group play. Those things still exist. But now everyone runs durability rune and boon duration/dmg reduction food for as much (often passive) boons as possible while barely taking (aoe) condi cleanse and people still expect condis to be something ignoreable. Really?

I do not think that was the point the point is that players have caps of what you can apply to them siege and npc do not and its exploitable. Also it was a war power dmg dose nothing to them for a good 5 sec most of the time.

The only condi clear that is a reliable counter to epidemic is passive or the type that removes human reaction and lag from the equation. This could be said for all condi dmg over all.

What they need to do is drop the dmg per tick for all condi and simply make it last longer making it a DoT tool not a burst tool. That is if you wish to keep epidemic as is.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Also, epidemic is not a problem in spvp because spvp is not about kills. Epidemic might very well be a problem if courtyard still existed.

As someone who spends majority time in sPvP. Spvp is about kills, b/c you have to wipe the enemy to take a node.

Epidemic is crap in sPvP and would still be crap in sPvP even if courtyard still existed.

Epi doesn’t work in sPvP because people don’t stack. In sPvP people spread out to avoid damage unless they are body blocking or stacking for healing. Epi will typically at best only hit 1 other player tops.

Worse yet the payoff for landing epi in 5 mans in small. Unlike WvW zergs where targets are drowning in condis, spvp teams typically don’t have much more condi than what the necro is bringing so the necro can only really epi his own condis which is a bit of a problem since necro has a large ramp up time.

Epi only works in WvW zergs because zergs like to stack on top of each other and are typically drowning in condis to begin with. The other thing is that zergs don’t have focused condi clear like sPvP teams do.

I agree if youre talking about unorganized teams that don’t stack resistance.
in that case imo the best thing to do is cap the transferred condis to 4 or 5. since nerf, buff it to compensate by making it instacast! lol.

Eyae.6843:

We shouldn’t be allowed to epi siege https://gfycat.com/GreenWindingGraysquirrel

Thanks for sharing, good point. Same things happens on npcs and downed players, so it really would be the smartest change to limit epi the same way that boonsharing was limited with number of stacks/duration or let it transfer only a few conditions.

The condition meta is ok, it is good that conditions are present in zergfights as well and there isn’t only one way to play the game. But I agree that this condition bomb is too much to be balanced.

Stand The Wall.6987:

I agree if youre talking about unorganized teams that don’t stack resistance.
in that case imo the best thing to do is cap the transferred condis to 4 or 5. since nerf, buff it to compensate by making it instacast! lol.

Resistance dose not stop the epidemic if any thing it leaves more condis to effect other ppl. What resistance dose is stop conids from taking effect and if a group has 100% up time its a complete counter a kind of off and on switch. That is a major problem because it becomes a requirement to have in a group or that group will die to epidemic conid bombs. Wvw and gw2 over all should not foce ppl into play like this because its a high specialization of builds and classes per pt to effectively counter conid and is such a powerful counter that conid both dmg and soft cc have no effect at all much like the old stab for hard cc.

That what is going on condis are destroying the game for balancing much like zerk was destroy the game for pve during the first year of gw2. The major different is at least zerk players had to know how to dodge condi players do not need to dodge. Epidemic builds are the worst offenders of this.

Just band-aid resistance and make it remove a condition every 5-seconds on top of nullifying conditions. ez

Stand The Wall.6987:

I agree if youre talking about unorganized teams that don’t stack resistance.
in that case imo the best thing to do is cap the transferred condis to 4 or 5. since nerf, buff it to compensate by making it instacast! lol.

Resistance is a boon thus it can be stripped. Also, it doesn’t remove conditions, it delays them therefore when you run out of resistance for whatever reasons, the tons of conditions will kitten that person immediately. Likewise, it also become the target of epi (herald).

Haematic.4913:

Just band-aid resistance and make it remove a condition every 5-seconds on top of nullifying conditions. ez

The resistance still a must have effect even more so. Resistance as it stand is too strong if its up all the time and at the same time what its dealing with conids are too strong too making it a must have on both ends. Both effects need to be hit at some level much like they did with stab (by adding a charge system) / hard cc (by caping targets to line cc).

I enjoy all those necros running Epidemic when playing my condi/confusion (perplexity runes) Mesmer

In fact, I often run into their little red circles and pop Signet of Domination, then Arcane Thievery and Signet of Illusions. So fun!

Jski.6180:

Eyae.6843:

We shouldn’t be allowed to epi siege https://gfycat.com/GreenWindingGraysquirrel

Lol good point but you can say the same for lords all though you can clear the lords you cant clear siege. I think making epi have a bigish tell on the person getting hit and have it as a channel effect 1-2 condi per sec aoe on a 4 sec cast time would fit well and fix that problem.

Actually, you can clear conditions on siege, try purging flames or using f2 or any AoE condi cleanse on them, wont work with 5 party/squadmembers around tho ^^ Just to clear the misunderstanding.

Eyae.6843:

We shouldn’t be allowed to epi siege https://gfycat.com/GreenWindingGraysquirrel

Looks like there is at least 2 epi’smake that 4 epi’s being used in that clip..

The fact is, when multiple players coordinate spikes to focus down an enemy, it shouldn’t really matter which skills ( as long as they are damage oriented skills..) the focused player is going to drop like an acme anvil out of the acme delivery plane.

It would be no different than 2 warriors coordinating throw bolas hammer shock (traited with leg specialist) + earth shaker then both hitting hundred blades. Setup, then spike.

tl;dr – that clip has no weight in the argument.

Resistance being nerfed to say 33% dmg reduction on damage conditions would be fine I think, though it would mean some classes ( eg mallyx rev) would need some rebalance.

Jski.6180:

Resistance dose not stop the epidemic if any thing it leaves more condis to effect other ppl. What resistance dose is stop conids from taking effect and if a group has 100% up time its a complete counter a kind of off and on switch. That is a major problem because it becomes a requirement to have in a group or that group will die to epidemic conid bombs. Wvw and gw2 over all should not foce ppl into play like this because its a high specialization of builds and classes per pt to effectively counter conid and is such a powerful counter that conid both dmg and soft cc have no effect at all much like the old stab for hard cc.

That what is going on condis are destroying the game for balancing much like zerk was destroy the game for pve during the first year of gw2. The major different is at least zerk players had to know how to dodge condi players do not need to dodge. Epidemic builds are the worst offenders of this.

ok, I know what resistance is. it does delay the inevitable, but that delay will give people time to use their condi cleanses or even just wait the condi duration out. condi bombs were a threat before epidemic was. pretty sure everyone needs to dodge regardless of power or condi.

SkyShroud.2865:

Resistance is a boon thus it can be stripped. Also, it doesn’t remove conditions, it delays them therefore when you run out of resistance for whatever reasons, the tons of conditions will kitten that person immediately. Likewise, it also become the target of epi (herald).

resistance and any other boon can be stripped, if youre targeted by 2 corrupt boons at once. other than that astronomical event boon strip isn’t really a thing unless you get caught in a well of corruption + null field + cc, and that isn’t a fault of condis. if your commander is relying solely on resistance to combat condis then that is a problem, condi clears are still essential.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Epi isn’t going to be dropping 5 players in a second or two.. The player hit by epi would be downed before epi finished casting.

Please see my post a few above yours – I gave several examples of what is actually capable of inflicting the kind of condi bombs you are describing ( hint, its not epi).

There may be other combos that can do it but tRex has used this Epi trick to drop me like a rock on multiple occasions.

Waffle.3748:

1. Load up an immobile target such as a necro, guardian, non-shiro rev. For our wombo combo this ends up being like 15-20 poison, 10ish burn, 15ish bleeds, anywhere from 10-20 torment, some confusion from corrupting retal, and all the other nondamaging conditions.
2. Press Epidemic (multiply conditions for however many necro/reaper use it)
3. Stow weapon and watch everyone die.

I suspect it got even easier to pull off thanks to Resistance.

Straegen.2938:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Epi isn’t going to be dropping 5 players in a second or two.. The player hit by epi would be downed before epi finished casting.

Please see my post a few above yours – I gave several examples of what is actually capable of inflicting the kind of condi bombs you are describing ( hint, its not epi).

There may be other combos that can do it but tRex has used this Epi trick to drop me like a rock on multiple occasions.

Waffle.3748:

1. Load up an immobile target such as a necro, guardian, non-shiro rev. For our wombo combo this ends up being like 15-20 poison, 10ish burn, 15ish bleeds, anywhere from 10-20 torment, some confusion from corrupting retal, and all the other nondamaging conditions.
2. Press Epidemic (multiply conditions for however many necro/reaper use it)
3. Stow weapon and watch everyone die.

I suspect it got even easier to pull off thanks to Resistance.

So your complaint is:
“this skill is OP because a guild used it to spike me”?

Rapid fire.
Hundred blades.
Mind Wrack.
Backstab.
Necro wells.
Whirling wrath.
Coalescence of Ruin.
Thunderclap.

I’m sure there are plenty of other skills that a guild group could coordinate and drop you fast.

You’re problem isn’t epi, it’s that you’re being spiked and don’t like it.

Learn to counter. E.G take condi cleanses.