Guild Wars 2

Artemis Thuras.8795:

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

Going to quote myself:

“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.”

The problem with Epidemic is that it can use a Damage Over Time mechanic to one shot up to 5 players. Conditions in my opinion should not be one shotting players.

Stand The Wall.6987:

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.

I feel like stop replying to you since you assume theres only 2 necros, believe theres only few forms of boonstrips, assume that people don’t use cleanse. Pretty much just patronizing.

SkyShroud.2865:

I feel like stop replying to you since you assume theres only 2 necros, believe theres only few forms of boonstrips, assume that people don’t use cleanse. Pretty much just patronizing.

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).

youre saying this isn’t patronizing?
I’m sorry if I came off like that but I’m shooting in the dark trying to understand why you guys think epidemic is a problem. its been around for a long time, so have condi bombs, long before resistance was even in existence. lol that rhymed. but yeah, if you have stab and resistance, there is absolutely no reason to be boon stripped unless youre getting sniped by someone, or have run out of dodges/invulns. if I run out of cds I immediately just run away lol, let my commander know. its better then dying and having to run all the way back. when I played each frontline group had at least one revenant using demon stance, and most other peeps had condi clears. even if 10 necros used their epidemics all at once there was no way they could put a dent in us when we had our cds up. if youre having trouble as a backliner, then my suggestion is to make sure youre not out of position, which often times isn’t even your fault, since position relies on the commanders of each side.

Looking at the builds at metabattle: http://metabattle.com/wiki/WvW and assuming it’s close to some degree of accurate, it seems that condition removal has not been a large priority thanks to Resistance, but now that boon spam nerfs/corruptions have changed matters so that one can no longer focus totally on damage reduction and heals.

So what about bringing back stuff like worker warriors and cleansing water eles? Or maybe looking for condi removal ability on the reject classes?

As a side note, Epi and Siege should be something to be looked at.

Threather.9354:

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.

Did not know that but i was more talking about 5 target thing this is where the npc / pets coming into play.

Stand The Wall.6987:

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.

Well that part of the problem there is no real tell on skills in GW2 on the person getting cast on there are tells on the players casing but in wvw how do you even begins to see these things and most ppl NEED to run on every thing cut off just to have the game playable. Dodging a snip skill is NOT a counter in wvw. Dodging in wvw is for red cycles. To have any thing in wvw that is unblockable is to effectively say it has 100% hit rate. Much like removing daze on DH traps because it was unblockable daze on an aoe epidemic needs to be weaker in one way or another OR become blockable.

Jski.6180:

Threather.9354:

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.

Did not know that but i was more talking about 5 target thing this is where the npc / pets coming into play.

Stand The Wall.6987:

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.

Well that part of the problem there is no real tell on skills in GW2 on the person getting cast on there are tells on the players casing but in wvw how do you even begins to see these things and most ppl NEED to run on every thing cut off just to have the game playable. Dodging a snip skill is NOT a counter in wvw. Dodging in wvw is for red cycles. To have any thing in wvw that is unblockable is to effectively say it has 100% hit rate. Much like removing daze on DH traps because it was unblockable daze on an aoe epidemic needs to be weaker in one way or another OR become blockable.

I’d recommend going into the special forces training arena, with an necro, spawning a golem, and casting epi.

Epi has a rather large green/black explosion around the target.
I do appreciate it’s hard to learn tells in active combat, but once you know what to look for, it becomes a lot easier to spot the animations.

Edit: also, red circles can be sidestepped, having dodges left over for other skills is perfectly feasible.

Stand The Wall.6987:

SkyShroud.2865:

I feel like stop replying to you since you assume theres only 2 necros, believe theres only few forms of boonstrips, assume that people don’t use cleanse. Pretty much just patronizing.

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).

youre saying this isn’t patronizing?
I’m sorry if I came off like that but I’m shooting in the dark trying to understand why you guys think epidemic is a problem. its been around for a long time, so have condi bombs, long before resistance was even in existence. lol that rhymed. but yeah, if you have stab and resistance, there is absolutely no reason to be boon stripped unless youre getting sniped by someone, or have run out of dodges/invulns. if I run out of cds I immediately just run away lol, let my commander know. its better then dying and having to run all the way back. when I played each frontline group had at least one revenant using demon stance, and most other peeps had condi clears. even if 10 necros used their epidemics all at once there was no way they could put a dent in us when we had our cds up. if youre having trouble as a backliner, then my suggestion is to make sure youre not out of position, which often times isn’t even your fault, since position relies on the commanders of each side.

You don’t get it, do you. You need to run a organised group to fight against conditions, you don’t need a organised group to play conditions. The skill cap is different, it isn’t a zero sum game. Conditions is so much easier to play such that more and more NA guild groups are switching to conditions. Now, the already increasing number of conditions in general WvW, you add in something called epi and further blow up the stacks of conditions, you get melted. To pug in wvw, is now a competition who has more conditions since people generally hate to roll organised group classes and rolling those classes just isn’t enough, you still need to know what to do and that isn’t something you will find easily while pugging.

SkyShroud.2865:

You don’t get it, do you. You need to run a organised group to fight against conditions, you don’t need a organised group to play conditions. The skill cap is different, it isn’t a zero sum game. Conditions is so much easier to play such that more and more NA guild groups are switching to conditions. Now, the already increasing number of conditions in general WvW, you add in something called epi and further blow up the stacks of conditions, you get melted. To pug in wvw, is now a competition who has more conditions since people generally hate to roll organised group classes and rolling those classes just isn’t enough, you still need to know what to do and that isn’t something you will find easily while pugging.

Properly using Epi 100% requires a coordinated group.

Also all damage is easier to deal than it is to counter. This isn’t something limited to conditions.

Tell me what is harder. Pressing F1 on a warrior, or being able to correctly identify, react to, and counter Warrior Berserk skills. (note this example can be applied to every class in the game)

Why is this thread still alive? Stop posting here. Untill they fix the class no nerfs on any level whatsoever.

Of course it is easier to deal damage but you need to compare the difference between direct dps and condi dps, not just in dps difference but in gear and trait difference which lead to sustain difference. Also, condi suppose to be dot damage but if a dot damage is behaving like a glass direct dps hitter, something is very wrong here. Btw, epi isn’t the only thing need to be nerfed but it still has to be nerfed.

so first of all anet came out with all these new skills that stipped stability from players in wvw without balancing for god knows how long and kinda finally fixed it now there’s the problem with condi’s in wvw and now theres not enough condi removal with a massive amount of players using condi’s there,s just no escape it stacks way to much and not enough condi removal to counter it players in wvw will go for the most op builds just to win which currently is condi’s plain and simple

SkyShroud.2865:

You don’t get it, do you. You need to run a organised group to fight against conditions, you don’t need a organised group to play conditions. The skill cap is different, it isn’t a zero sum game. Conditions is so much easier to play such that more and more NA guild groups are switching to conditions. Now, the already increasing number of conditions in general WvW, you add in something called epi and further blow up the stacks of conditions, you get melted. To pug in wvw, is now a competition who has more conditions since people generally hate to roll organised group classes and rolling those classes just isn’t enough, you still need to know what to do and that isn’t something you will find easily while pugging.

I don’t disagree, although epidemic has always been there. that’s why I don’t think its epidemics fault. I’m not against a nerf/buff, maybe something like 4 condi transfer 15s cd.

headraver.4862:

so first of all anet came out with all these new skills that stipped stability from players in wvw without balancing for god knows how long and kinda finally fixed it now there’s the problem with condi’s in wvw and now theres not enough condi removal with a massive amount of players using condi’s there,s just no escape it stacks way to much and not enough condi removal to counter it players in wvw will go for the most op builds just to win which currently is condi’s plain and simple

There is more than enough condi removals. People just aren’t taking them because they are pitifully slow to adapt. WvW players (particularly wvw only) have in my experience always been pitifully slow to adapt to meta changes.

edit: Pretty sure this thread is going in circles now..

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Jski.6180:

Threather.9354:

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.

Did not know that but i was more talking about 5 target thing this is where the npc / pets coming into play.

Stand The Wall.6987:

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.

Well that part of the problem there is no real tell on skills in GW2 on the person getting cast on there are tells on the players casing but in wvw how do you even begins to see these things and most ppl NEED to run on every thing cut off just to have the game playable. Dodging a snip skill is NOT a counter in wvw. Dodging in wvw is for red cycles. To have any thing in wvw that is unblockable is to effectively say it has 100% hit rate. Much like removing daze on DH traps because it was unblockable daze on an aoe epidemic needs to be weaker in one way or another OR become blockable.

I’d recommend going into the special forces training arena, with an necro, spawning a golem, and casting epi.

Epi has a rather large green/black explosion around the target.
I do appreciate it’s hard to learn tells in active combat, but once you know what to look for, it becomes a lot easier to spot the animations.

Edit: also, red circles can be sidestepped, having dodges left over for other skills is perfectly feasible.

The explosion is too fast to reacted to it. The best “tell” is from a person casting it and often its a hand movement in a sea of ppl vomiting rainbows. 5v5 is nothing compared to 20 v 20 when your looking for the smallest models for a tell. Its silly to even suggest that.
You also dodge over red circles to get hits in if you simply sidestepped them then your going to never make it to the other team or the other team simply going to use them as aoe denial tools the true use of red circle ability.

It’s fine with low numbers of conditions, but the fact that you can stack so many on lords, downed players, etc. means that you can burst people down in 1-2 ticks. That’s too powerful.

I have video of a fight where I take 13k!!! ticks of condi. I immediately start casting my heal (only clears 2 condis ’cause lol engi, but gotta try, right?). My heal is 75% of the way through casting when I take the second tick and die.

There’s no counterplay to that really. There’s no obvious tell on the player being epi’d. Maybe if there was an orange circle under them, it’d be fair, or if there was a limit on the number of stacks being transferred. Condi shouldn’t be burst.

All the usual power burst is dodgeable and there’s an obvious animation or red circle to dodge – not so with epidemic.

If you stack many conditions on someone in downstate there will be a high chance the target dies before epidemic hits.
If you stack too many conditions on a living target it ends up in downstate before epidemic hit and you spread nothing.

coro.3176:

I have video of a fight where I take 13k!!! ticks of condi. I immediately start casting my heal (only clears 2 condis ’cause lol engi, but gotta try, right?). My heal is 75% of the way through casting when I take the second tick and die.

13k ticks would be the work of 5 or so sources in most cases.

Do you realize how hard 5 or power classes would hit you?

gebrechen.5643:

If you stack many conditions on someone in downstate there will be a high chance the target dies before epidemic hits.
If you stack too many conditions on a living target it ends up in downstate before epidemic hit and you spread nothing.

this 100%.
speaking from personal experience and watching videos of others.
condis are still ridiculous in general though.

Crinn.7864:

coro.3176:

I have video of a fight where I take 13k!!! ticks of condi. I immediately start casting my heal (only clears 2 condis ’cause lol engi, but gotta try, right?). My heal is 75% of the way through casting when I take the second tick and die.

13k ticks would be the work of 5 or so sources in most cases.

Do you realize how hard 5 or power classes would hit you?

Yea, and imagine a skill that redirected all power damage from the target to all nearby allies in a 600 radius for 10 seconds. (also unblockable.)

Yea, apples to oranges, right? Also now imagine that these power classes can now stack toughness and vitality along with the same power damage. Wow, now we’re getting somewhere!

The condition bombs aren’t the problem, and no one is saying they’re the problem. The problem we’re talking about is the fact that you can condition bomb someone and make 5 other people around him pay for it as well. (It needs some toning down. Having a skill like that is ok, it just needs some shaving.)

Stand The Wall.6987:

gebrechen.5643:

If you stack many conditions on someone in downstate there will be a high chance the target dies before epidemic hits.
If you stack too many conditions on a living target it ends up in downstate before epidemic hit and you spread nothing.

this 100%.
speaking from personal experience and watching videos of others.
condis are still ridiculous in general though.

No, not ‘’this 100%’’. You can stack absurd amounts of condis on someone thanks to an abundance of resistance in the game.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Jski.6180:

Threather.9354:

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.

Did not know that but i was more talking about 5 target thing this is where the npc / pets coming into play.

Stand The Wall.6987:

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.

Well that part of the problem there is no real tell on skills in GW2 on the person getting cast on there are tells on the players casing but in wvw how do you even begins to see these things and most ppl NEED to run on every thing cut off just to have the game playable. Dodging a snip skill is NOT a counter in wvw. Dodging in wvw is for red cycles. To have any thing in wvw that is unblockable is to effectively say it has 100% hit rate. Much like removing daze on DH traps because it was unblockable daze on an aoe epidemic needs to be weaker in one way or another OR become blockable.

I’d recommend going into the special forces training arena, with an necro, spawning a golem, and casting epi.

Epi has a rather large green/black explosion around the target.
I do appreciate it’s hard to learn tells in active combat, but once you know what to look for, it becomes a lot easier to spot the animations.

Edit: also, red circles can be sidestepped, having dodges left over for other skills is perfectly feasible.

With all the particles effects, red circles and other garbage littering the screen not to mention having to run in minimum mode to cut down on lag spikes and being able to actually cast anything, the above advice is practically useless in any large scale zerg fight- you’re lucky if you can even see the enemy toon, never mind tell what they are doing and spot a cast.

I’m maining necro this week. No epidemic on my skill set (I’m using strange build that is very effective and works for me).

But I will say, epidemic needs a small nerf to the number of stacks transferred. As it transfers so many conditions it should be restricted to 5 stacks of each. Still powerful when used well but not as bad as it is now.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Stand The Wall.6987:

gebrechen.5643:

If you stack many conditions on someone in downstate there will be a high chance the target dies before epidemic hits.
If you stack too many conditions on a living target it ends up in downstate before epidemic hit and you spread nothing.

this 100%.
speaking from personal experience and watching videos of others.
condis are still ridiculous in general though.

No, not ‘’this 100%’’. You can stack absurd amounts of condis on someone thanks to an abundance of resistance in the game.

Try this in a coordinated team (wvw of course): have 5+ condis target the same superior/guild siege, and unload all their condis on it. Then have all the necros spam epidemic on that siege. A coordinated team can lay waste to an entire zerg if timed right and if you have certain groups target different sieges. I’ve seen insane stacks transferred from siege to players where they implode so fast the damage log doesn’t even record it. much, much easier to pull off in a group that is in team speak though.

The problem with epidemic is the whole non-player stacking condis, as you can get the stacks really high on those, then transfer those stacks. This was hilarious back when YB was in T1, as they had a tendency to drop tons of siege, and our guild zerg condi specs wouldn’t even target the YB players, just target the sieges and epidemic them with our necros.

And you can avoid that by not “hugging” siege. So epidemic is a solution for the terrible “siege curse” Anet brought into wvw.

Learn from it:
- don’t build too much siege
- don’t siege hug

Sigh. I tried to be polite and constructive. It hasn’t gotten the message over.
Blunt version:
Stop whining, your problems are L2P.

If you can’t learn from the suggested counters posted here, or realise that it’s not epi for most of the spikes, then you’ll just carry on getting wrecked in zvz regardless of the flavour of the month.

Even if you get epi nerfed, you’ll just be back here a week later whining about the next coordinated multi-skill spike that wrecks you in < 2s.

It is a broken skill the amount of condi necro’s in wvw now is ridiculous. This game keeps pushing to more passive gameplay. Yesterday I killed 5 people by just using epi on a lord. 1 skill…..lol they should just change the animation so a mushroom cloud appears because it literally is like dropping a nuke

Packit.8576:

It is a broken skill the amount of condi necro’s in wvw now is ridiculous. This game keeps pushing to more passive gameplay. Yesterday I killed 5 people by just using epi on a lord. 1 skill…..lol they should just change the animation so a mushroom cloud appears because it literally is like dropping a nuke

So no skills were used to apply those conditions?
Think about that for a moment.. Now do you still want to claim it was one skill used to kill 5 people?

People not bringing counters = people bring that type of build because they can roflstomp. I thought that was obvious.. not to everyone it seems. Proves my previous point about wvw players being pitifully slow to adapt though.

Packit.8576:

It is a broken skill the amount of condi necro’s in wvw now is ridiculous. This game keeps pushing to more passive gameplay. Yesterday I killed 5 people by just using epi on a lord. 1 skill…..lol they should just change the animation so a mushroom cloud appears because it literally is like dropping a nuke

One meteor shower kill 5 players easily when they fight against lord. I think that you haven’t even used epidemic. You just want nerf because you can’t l2p.

Junkpile.7439:

Packit.8576:

It is a broken skill the amount of condi necro’s in wvw now is ridiculous. This game keeps pushing to more passive gameplay. Yesterday I killed 5 people by just using epi on a lord. 1 skill…..lol they should just change the animation so a mushroom cloud appears because it literally is like dropping a nuke

One meteor shower kill 5 players easily when they fight against lord. I think that you haven’t even used epidemic. You just want nerf because you can’t l2p.

That most likely from the SM lord it self his meteor hit hard and knock down. A players meteor only hits 3 ppl per impact and is often too spread out to hit the same 5 ppl more then a few times. This partly why wells are better or over all 5 targets burst spells like epidemic because you have much more control over who getting hit because burst is the only real dmg in gw2 (even for condi a ideally DoT effect that is so over inflated passive dmg that its mostly use as a burst effect).
That and for ele to make it a real killer you need to play with 12k hp 1,900 armor where necro or realty any condi build can be a killer with well over 23k hp and 3,000 armor (some vaibitly) something that was never a problem back during zerker meta because at least then you could kill the ppl ruining the cheez builds you cant kill them now.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Stand The Wall.6987:

gebrechen.5643:

If you stack many conditions on someone in downstate there will be a high chance the target dies before epidemic hits.
If you stack too many conditions on a living target it ends up in downstate before epidemic hit and you spread nothing.

this 100%.
speaking from personal experience and watching videos of others.
condis are still ridiculous in general though.

No, not ‘’this 100%’’. You can stack absurd amounts of condis on someone thanks to an abundance of resistance in the game.

lol. its all resistances fault, even though conditions and epidemic have existed for ages before resistance was introduced. guess what else existed, continues to exist, and will exist for the life of the game? CONDI CLEARS. if you are unlucky enough to be a backliner and get hit by a condi bomb, then that is either your or your commanders fault due to bad positioning.

mulzi.8273:

Try this in a coordinated team (wvw of course): have 5+ condis target the same superior/guild siege, and unload all their condis on it. Then have all the necros spam epidemic on that siege. A coordinated team can lay waste to an entire zerg if timed right and if you have certain groups target different sieges. I’ve seen insane stacks transferred from siege to players where they implode so fast the damage log doesn’t even record it. much, much easier to pull off in a group that is in team speak though.

The problem with epidemic is the whole non-player stacking condis, as you can get the stacks really high on those, then transfer those stacks. This was hilarious back when YB was in T1, as they had a tendency to drop tons of siege, and our guild zerg condi specs wouldn’t even target the YB players, just target the sieges and epidemic them with our necros.

what you speak of is the fact that siege can be affected by conditions, which is a terrible decision. or maybe its the best one ever to force people from a) being a zerg and b) siege humping. if both of these conditions are met (harhar) then you should consider the fact that your gameplay is the problem. to be clear I’m not calling you out but informing other people that they might benefit from trying something different.

Crinn.7864:

coro.3176:

I have video of a fight where I take 13k!!! ticks of condi. I immediately start casting my heal (only clears 2 condis ’cause lol engi, but gotta try, right?). My heal is 75% of the way through casting when I take the second tick and die.

13k ticks would be the work of 5 or so sources in most cases.

Do you realize how hard 5 or power classes would hit you?

You can see power damage coming and dodge or block it (with the exception of insta-teleport thief steal+venom combos). You can’t be constantly clicking on allies to see which have conditions on them. Furthermore, it’s very difficult to tell when one near you is being epi’d and whether you’ll take a few conditions and not care, or take 13k ticks and die instantly.

coro.3176:

Crinn.7864:

coro.3176:

I have video of a fight where I take 13k!!! ticks of condi. I immediately start casting my heal (only clears 2 condis ’cause lol engi, but gotta try, right?). My heal is 75% of the way through casting when I take the second tick and die.

13k ticks would be the work of 5 or so sources in most cases.

Do you realize how hard 5 or power classes would hit you?

You can see power damage coming and dodge or block it (with the exception of insta-teleport thief steal+venom combos). You can’t be constantly clicking on allies to see which have conditions on them. Furthermore, it’s very difficult to tell when one near you is being epi’d and whether you’ll take a few conditions and not care, or take 13k ticks and die instantly.

the initial condi applications can often be avoided.

It’s certainly true to some extent you don’t know how hard the epi bounce is going to hit. However, 13k ticks are either coming from siege/lord, or, from multiple epi bounces. Possibly both.

Again.. it’s ultimately an L2P issue.
Adapt or die.

Go look up this page:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

There is an entire section on skills that remove conditions from allies.

/circlethread

My only problem with epidemic is that it scales way too well compared to power based bombs (multiplicative rather than additive).

Example, you take 1 necro, scepter auto a guy for 1 bleed, then epidemic that bleed to get 5 more. That’s not too bad. Two necros auto a guy resulting in 2 bleeds, epidemic results in 20 new bleeds (2 bleeds * 2 necros * 5 targets). 3, 3, 5 is 45 total bleeds.

I think you get the point, but wow a n^2 * 5 formula for condi output.

Compare to a coordinated hammer bomb, you increase additively. Say 1 warrior earthshakers 5 targets: you get 1 earthshakers worth of damage on 5 dudes. Not bad. Add a second warrior, you get 2 earthshakers worth of damage (10 damage instances). Hmm, ok, this is ramping a lot slower than epidemic with just 1 person. 3 you just get 3 earthshakers worth of damage (15 damage instances). Man, compared to epidemic this is terrible.

So yeah, now apply this to zerg scales, and I would think that epidemic is definitely an overperformer.

Possible solution: Epidemic only copies the casting necros conditions. Now you don’t get that exponential scaling issue.

Alternative: Using the druid elite glyph tech, make epidemic bind to 5 enemies near the first target. Damage (power and condition) dealt to the “corrupted” target is shared (at a reduced rate) to those 5 targets. This lets power get in on the action, while also taming the damage share rate since it’s quite ridiculous as it is now. Allows for counterplay by letting the 5 position far away (potentially exposing them in a zerg fight). If we go with say, 33% damage share, this lets a targetted necro with 19000 hp cause up to 6270 damage (assuming he loses all of his life while corrupted) to 5 other targets. Tether range should be 600 to force targets to either move outside of range of any support shouts, or risk the damage while using supportive abilities.

The only time this skill is OP is when it’s used on siege, keep lords, and downed people. And the reason it is so effective in those cases is because the targets cannot clear conditions, and you can get such large stacks of damaging condis transferred. You can’t even use siege golems in WvW anymore because they are ticking time bombs that will one-shot entire zergs.

So the solution is simple, just limit the stacks of condis transferred. 1 stack per condi seems like the best option, but maybe increase low damage condis like bleed, torment, poison to 2 or 3 max. Everything else though just cap at 1 stack. The skill is still useful in coordinated play, because multiple necros can still stack sync epidemics. And all of the soft CC condis dont’ need multiple stacks anyways.

But the days of getting hit by a 16k burn tick, a 9k poison tick, and 6k bleed tick all at once…that needs to stop. It promotes bad gameplay and gives you zero chance to counterplay it.

Epidemic should be an Elite.

I think ultimately it boils down to conditions stacking. if pve players want to have condi builds be viable for their 10 million hp bosses, then fine. for pvp, and especially wvw? madness like this is bound to happen.

I come to an ideal about what to do with epi make it a skull that appears above some one head that ticks down. At 0 it dose an aoe effect applying the condis on that person to 5 targets near that person unblockable. At the same time it stuns and removes x boons the person with the skull above that person head and this is also unblockable and undodgeable.
You can only have one verson of this effect on a person so you cant spam epi on one person only. This will give a major game play and mind game effect to where an necro can do a lot of things during that count down such as apply more condis or simply use it as an separation tool to make ppl run away from the target with the effect. You can use it to scare ppl away from siege and npc.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

coro.3176:

Crinn.7864:

coro.3176:

I have video of a fight where I take 13k!!! ticks of condi. I immediately start casting my heal (only clears 2 condis ’cause lol engi, but gotta try, right?). My heal is 75% of the way through casting when I take the second tick and die.

13k ticks would be the work of 5 or so sources in most cases.

Do you realize how hard 5 or power classes would hit you?

You can see power damage coming and dodge or block it (with the exception of insta-teleport thief steal+venom combos). You can’t be constantly clicking on allies to see which have conditions on them. Furthermore, it’s very difficult to tell when one near you is being epi’d and whether you’ll take a few conditions and not care, or take 13k ticks and die instantly.

the initial condi applications can often be avoided.

It’s certainly true to some extent you don’t know how hard the epi bounce is going to hit. However, 13k ticks are either coming from siege/lord, or, from multiple epi bounces. Possibly both.

Again.. it’s ultimately an L2P issue.
Adapt or die.

Go look up this page:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

There is an entire section on skills that remove conditions from allies.

/circlethread

The initial condi applications can indeed be avoided, but in wvw there is a 99% chance there is a noob pug inside a 600 radius to you. 600 units is absurdly large, and having it be unblockable is icing on the cake. You are only as good as the worst player within 600 units of you is when it comes to epidemic.

Meteor shower? Walk out of it. Epidemic? Clea- nvm you’re already dead and so are 4 other people near you.. It’s an over-performing skill, and I don’t personally want to see it viscerally gutted, but it needs some small shaving done.

A pug running with your group is a l2p issue too. Just teach him not be a kitten.

Jski.6180:

I come to an ideal about what to do with epi make it a skull that appears above some one head that ticks down. At 0 it dose an aoe effect applying the condis on that person to 5 targets near that person unblockable. At the same time it stuns and removes x boons the person with the skull above that person head and this is also unblockable and undodgeable.
You can only have one verson of this effect on a person so you cant spam epi on one person only. This will give a major game play and mind game effect to where an necro can do a lot of things during that count down such as apply more condis or simply use it as an separation tool to make ppl run away from the target with the effect. You can use it to scare ppl away from siege and npc.

this is an interesting approach, but what about animation culling? er actually no stun, should be able to be blocked and dodged lol. the countdown timer is a good idea.

The Game Slayer.7632:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

coro.3176:

Crinn.7864:

coro.3176:

I have video of a fight where I take 13k!!! ticks of condi. I immediately start casting my heal (only clears 2 condis ’cause lol engi, but gotta try, right?). My heal is 75% of the way through casting when I take the second tick and die.

13k ticks would be the work of 5 or so sources in most cases.

Do you realize how hard 5 or power classes would hit you?

You can see power damage coming and dodge or block it (with the exception of insta-teleport thief steal+venom combos). You can’t be constantly clicking on allies to see which have conditions on them. Furthermore, it’s very difficult to tell when one near you is being epi’d and whether you’ll take a few conditions and not care, or take 13k ticks and die instantly.

the initial condi applications can often be avoided.

It’s certainly true to some extent you don’t know how hard the epi bounce is going to hit. However, 13k ticks are either coming from siege/lord, or, from multiple epi bounces. Possibly both.

Again.. it’s ultimately an L2P issue.
Adapt or die.

Go look up this page:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

There is an entire section on skills that remove conditions from allies.

/circlethread

The initial condi applications can indeed be avoided, but in wvw there is a 99% chance there is a noob pug inside a 600 radius to you. 600 units is absurdly large, and having it be unblockable is icing on the cake. You are only as good as the worst player within 600 units of you is when it comes to epidemic.

Meteor shower? Walk out of it. Epidemic? Clea- nvm you’re already dead and so are 4 other people near you.. It’s an over-performing skill, and I don’t personally want to see it viscerally gutted, but it needs some small shaving done.

Gonna keep sharing my thread here where I suggested ways to balance Epidemic without gutting it.

I’ve also already said this a number of times in this thread but if I have 7k hours logged strictly in WvW (according to GWEfficiency) and I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been one-shot Epi bombed… Then the people that are dying from it constantly are doing something very wrong. Yes it has potential to do massive amounts of damage but those situations are so obvious you should have learned how to avoid it by now.

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Epidemic should be an Elite.

That would be a huge buff considering how crappy necro elites are.

The arguments that state that any current problem with epidemic is due to a shift in player attitudes/playstyle/builds/whatever and not really to do with the skill itself are the ones that make the most sense here. As such I feel that the solution lies in another shift in player attitudes/playstyle/builds/whatever, and not in devs altering the skill itself.

Crinn.7864:

BeepBoopBop.5403:

Epidemic should be an Elite.

That would be a huge buff considering how crappy necro elites are.

At least then you could have a party blow up the necro without them going into immortal plague form

Stand The Wall.6987:

Jski.6180:

I come to an ideal about what to do with epi make it a skull that appears above some one head that ticks down. At 0 it dose an aoe effect applying the condis on that person to 5 targets near that person unblockable. At the same time it stuns and removes x boons the person with the skull above that person head and this is also unblockable and undodgeable.
You can only have one verson of this effect on a person so you cant spam epi on one person only. This will give a major game play and mind game effect to where an necro can do a lot of things during that count down such as apply more condis or simply use it as an separation tool to make ppl run away from the target with the effect. You can use it to scare ppl away from siege and npc.

this is an interesting approach, but what about animation culling? er actually no stun, should be able to be blocked and dodged lol. the countdown timer is a good idea.

Culling may happen but added an effect on the bar with a count down would go a long way to fix that. The applying of the effect should be dogdable but once that effect is on you there should be no way to stop it form triggering only mitigation of it. You could even set up that one epi bomb triggers it makes other go off so you can get some chain reaction going on if you have more then one necro fighting more then one person.