Guild Wars 2

Hello,

It’s yet another thread of series of threads I plan on posting in following weeks as we slowly approach the Balance Patch. Instead of bundling all things in one wall of text, I decided to pick them one by one. These threads are meant to adress specific Skills, Utilities and Traits, describe the problem and offer a place for discussion just that specific aspect.

Corruptions
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Corruption

I wanted to make this topic for quite a while now.

With HoT coming sooner or later and the “final” balance patch even sooner, Professions, traits and their concepts are changing. Some are being scrapped, merged, changed. Some didn’t live up to the expectations. It’s our opportunity to finally get some more significant changes, rather than those playing with numbers.

I would like to adress Corruption skills. Probably the most unique type of utilities within Guild Wars 2. Utilities, that in theory, bring not only the cooldown, but also self-damage as penalty for being used.

The core concept, I feel, was a huge sentiment and throwback to GW1. Playing with your health as resource pool, not only indication of character’s life.
They were meant to be skills more powerful than regular ones, but, unlike others, with a cost of your health or negative effect.

Did it work? I don’t think so. Don’t missunderstand, Epidemic, Corrupt Boon, CPC, BiP – they’re not bad. In fact, these are probably most powerful Necromancer utilities. But there’s another flaw.

Corruption skills in Guild Wars 2 failed as a concept. Because “health-play” is not a thing, we don’t sacrafice much for using them (well, apart from damage output in case of Power builds with no cleanse/transfer with CPC). Because of that, they can’t be as powerful as they could. And as strategical choice as they could.

So I ask you, Necromancers, do you see this as a archaic problem as I do? Should “self-condition” on use be just deleted and Corruptions serve as regular skills? Because most are just either annoyance, balanced around having a transfer, like in case of CPC for Power build, or don’t feel like a punishment/trade-off at all, like minimal Vulnerability, short Poison or Bleed?

Or should we get Corruptions that feel powerful, but costly? That using them is not just “it’s off CD, use it!”, but be a careful decision that can either influence the combat in very meaningful way OR turn out to be huge mistake when used incorrectly?
Should they cost health, apply more conditions, influence your other skills, maybe consume Life Force?

What are your thoughts and more importantly, solutions?

i like the idea of doing harm to oneself in order to do even greater damage to your opponent but the way they are now they feel pretty meh.
perhaps they could be merged? or maybe have 1 that chops 10% of your own health and gives you a 10% damage increase for a couple of seconds? and have it on a pretty short cd(6 sec?)

also would be cool to have something like Ghost Rider in Marvel Heroes. he does increased damage based on how low his health is so in order to do full dps and also survive he needs to juggle his health.

I dont think the self inflicted conditons do anything for them. BiP is the only good one for it. But you have to slot/blow a transfer so the rest of the time its just a hindrance. Id rather see the self inflicted conditions go and then give us new utilities in a future elite spec which do the self harm thing properly. The best examples i can think of are blood renewal and blood ritual from gw1. Immediate sacrifice for gradual overall gain. Its a good concept. Corruptions really dont do that at all.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Renewal
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_Ritual

Also look at gw1 version of BiP. Its completely different. And so much better.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_is_Power

It’s not meant to be a health tradeoff, it’s meant to give you a condition to use. Built right, a necromancer sees conditions not as a threat, but as a resource. The self bleeds from BiP, the weakness from CPC, and the poison from CB are all useful to either use to boost consume conditions, or to throw at an enemy with any of our numerous condition transfers. Granted, the 3 stacks of vuln from Epidemic are pretty negligible aside from boosting Consume Conditions, or while using Well of Power, but that’s a balance issue, not a design one.

Honestly, I feel the self conditions should be stronger, so it becomes even more viable to combo them with other abilities. Give Epidemic 10 stacks of self vuln, make the poison and weakness last longer.

But do you not see the problem of being forced to use a cleanse or transfer when using corruption skills? If we had a baseline transfer inside DS it would be different.

Captain Unusual.9163:

It’s not meant to be a health tradeoff, it’s meant to give you a condition to use. Built right, a necromancer sees conditions not as a threat, but as a resource. The self bleeds from BiP, the weakness from CPC, and the poison from CB are all useful to either use to boost consume conditions, or to throw at an enemy with any of our numerous condition transfers. Granted, the 3 stacks of vuln from Epidemic are pretty negligible aside from boosting Consume Conditions, or while using Well of Power, but that’s a balance issue, not a design one.

Honestly, I feel the self conditions should be stronger, so it becomes even more viable to combo them with other abilities. Give Epidemic 10 stacks of self vuln, make the poison and weakness last longer.

It’s not working out that good especially CPC.

The idea of corruptions seems to be premised on necromancer transfers being good.

You self corrupt but can throw the condition back on your enemy. In one of the previous balance patch Dev notes, the Devs even mentioned this ‘bonus.’

Unholy Martyr and the condition transfer signet seem based on the same concept.

Unfortunately necromancer condition removal isn’t good.., Its bad, and inadequate for the condition output tat celestial classes output.

In the real world, the self condition… Which removes the ability to OOC heal… Is too much of a defect.

None of the abilities even without the self condition are even good. (Some will argue that epidemic is good based on hypothetical situations, but even they don’t use te skill).

Sagat.3285:

Captain Unusual.9163:

It’s not meant to be a health tradeoff, it’s meant to give you a condition to use. Built right, a necromancer sees conditions not as a threat, but as a resource. The self bleeds from BiP, the weakness from CPC, and the poison from CB are all useful to either use to boost consume conditions, or to throw at an enemy with any of our numerous condition transfers. Granted, the 3 stacks of vuln from Epidemic are pretty negligible aside from boosting Consume Conditions, or while using Well of Power, but that’s a balance issue, not a design one.

Honestly, I feel the self conditions should be stronger, so it becomes even more viable to combo them with other abilities. Give Epidemic 10 stacks of self vuln, make the poison and weakness last longer.

It’s not working out that good especially CPC.

Again, balance issues are not the same as design issues. CPC may very well be incredibly powerful in HoT, once poison changes to stack intensity. Wanting to get rid of the mechanic because it’s weak is the same as wanting to remove minions because they have bad AI, you’re proposing the wrong solution.

And yes, it’s not an issue that they require the right setup to be used optimally. Many utility skills can be useless in the wrong setup. If you’re using conditions, you’re using Staff and Scepter/dagger, both of which have condition transfers. Sure, it’d be nice if DS had a condi transfer too, but it’s not needed to take advantage of it.

nekretaal.6485:

The idea of corruptions seems to be premised on necromancer transfers being good.

You self corrupt but can throw the condition back on your enemy. In one of the previous balance patch Dev notes, the Devs even mentioned this ‘bonus.’

Unholy Sanctuary and the condition transfer signet seem based on the same concept.

Unfortunately necromancer condition removal isn’t good.., Its bad, and inadequate for the condition output tat celestial classes output.

In the real world, the self condition… Which removes the ability to OOC heal… Is too much of a defect.

None of the abilities even without the self condition are even good. (Some will argue that epidemic is good based on hypothetical situations, but even they don’t use te skill).

Personally, I use Epidemic almost every time I run Condition.

But it’s just because I rolled Necromancer for this skill and I’m a masochist when it comes to playing non-meta builds only.

Captain Unusual.9163:

And yes, it’s not an issue that they require the right setup to be used optimally. Many utility skills can be useless in the wrong setup. If you’re using conditions, you’re using Staff and Scepter/dagger, both of which have condition transfers. Sure, it’d be nice if DS had a condi transfer too, but it’s not needed to take advantage of it.

But it is mandatory that you slot either staff, dagger offhand, plague signet or consume conditions when using corruption skills. Thats poor design. Its restrictive and limits an entire selection of utilities unfairly. Now if corruptions applied resistance to the necro for the duration of the self inflicted condition then it becomes a whole different story. But as it stands those skills hurt the necro and force you to take something extra to deal with the penalty. Self conditions like weakness are far more damaging than a small health sacrifice.

I think you bring up a great point Rym.
Corruptions are really underwhelming.
I don’t think there is any viable build out there that is built around corruptions and traited around it.

spoj.9672:

Captain Unusual.9163:

And yes, it’s not an issue that they require the right setup to be used optimally. Many utility skills can be useless in the wrong setup. If you’re using conditions, you’re using Staff and Scepter/dagger, both of which have condition transfers. Sure, it’d be nice if DS had a condi transfer too, but it’s not needed to take advantage of it.

But it is mandatory that you slot either staff, dagger offhand, plague signet or consume conditions when using corruption skills. Thats poor design. Its restrictive and limits an entire selection of utilities unfairly. Now if corruptions applied resistance to the necro for the duration of the self inflicted condition then it becomes a whole different story. But as it stands those skills hurt the necro and force you to take something extra to deal with the penalty. Self conditions like weakness are far more damaging than a small health sacrifice.

Fair enough, it does limit their usefulness somewhat. Sounds like that’d be a really nice trait to stick in a power-focused traitline, actually, to make them more usable for non-condi necros. Honestly, I think if there were a trait in Spite, or the reworked Blood line that applied several seconds of Resistance when using Corruptions, maybe even AoE Resistance if in Blood, then the self condition could be made stronger, and then the abilities would have a lot more general use.

Captain Unusual.9163:

Sagat.3285:

Captain Unusual.9163:

It’s not meant to be a health tradeoff, it’s meant to give you a condition to use. Built right, a necromancer sees conditions not as a threat, but as a resource. The self bleeds from BiP, the weakness from CPC, and the poison from CB are all useful to either use to boost consume conditions, or to throw at an enemy with any of our numerous condition transfers. Granted, the 3 stacks of vuln from Epidemic are pretty negligible aside from boosting Consume Conditions, or while using Well of Power, but that’s a balance issue, not a design one.

Honestly, I feel the self conditions should be stronger, so it becomes even more viable to combo them with other abilities. Give Epidemic 10 stacks of self vuln, make the poison and weakness last longer.

It’s not working out that good especially CPC.

Again, balance issues are not the same as design issues. CPC may very well be incredibly powerful in HoT, once poison changes to stack intensity. Wanting to get rid of the mechanic because it’s weak is the same as wanting to remove minions because they have bad AI, you’re proposing the wrong solution.

And yes, it’s not an issue that they require the right setup to be used optimally. Many utility skills can be useless in the wrong setup. If you’re using conditions, you’re using Staff and Scepter/dagger, both of which have condition transfers. Sure, it’d be nice if DS had a condi transfer too, but it’s not needed to take advantage of it.

Give it more support and I’ll build around it never mentioned a removal, even with poison changes CPC is still inferior to WoS I do propose a hit proc for siphon and change the weakness to torment and of course better traits.

CPC is highly underrated. AOE weakness, + 6s weakness you can transfer + epidemic = AOE 100% weakness uptime. In the open world weakness is simply not needed, but high level fractals become trivial with 100% AOE weakness.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

CPC is highly underrated. AOE weakness, + 6s weakness you can transfer + epidemic = AOE 100% weakness uptime. In the open world weakness is simply not needed, but high level fractals become trivial with 100% AOE weakness.

I thought we were talking PvP but isn’t avoiding/reflecting the damage better? Uptime weakness is not worth choosing a necro even if you did nah still not worth it. At least after changes it could become the condition version of WoS.

Corruptions are not strong enough to justify self applied conditions.

Those conditions are negatives If you think otherwise then you’re ignoring the fact that condition cleanses all have CD’s, and are all extremly important to only use when needed, not waste on junk that your own skills are applying to you.

It’s a gimmicky throwback to gw1 that shouldn’t exist with the current benefits of corruption skills.

Yeah the corruption skills just don’t do enough. Blood is power is decent but if you don’t clear the self bleed, it will take its toll. CpC i WANT to like, but weakness is a horrible condition. Just make it 25% reduced damage, or the just straight up inflict glancing hits. Hopefully the new condition system will make it worth using, but projectile destruction on this skill would be perfect. Corrupt Boon, that’s fine. Leave that as is, it’s perfect. And epidemic is great…or would be if we didn’t have to have 2 stunbreakers to have a slight chance of surviving being focus fired.

“Corruptions, Do we need them?” Well, the answer ain’t easy.

I think, corruption is good concept that fit well the necromancer’s thematic. I’d say, my only issue with this concept is that they simply just put it on the Necromancer without even trying to support/enhance it and make it really fun to use.

They could have made/designed plenty of trait that exploit the fact that the necromancer inflict himself/draw to himself some condition, why didn’t they?

How about some trait granting some support when self inflicting a condition? This could have been some small area heal, some boon support, even some AE contagion.

How about some self support trait when self inflicting a boon? Gaining some LF, maybe healing ourselve or even gaining a stackable buff.

There are plenty of way to exploit this mechanism of the necromancer but… they choose not. Why? It’s not like it would become something that grow out of controle…

So, do we need them in there current form, my answer would probably be : not really, this is just a cheap addition to some build but that’s all.

NB.: Maybe one day they will make good use of it through an elite specialization. I just hope it won’t be on another profession. (Well, I suppose they already do it on Revenant…)

I of course like the concept, and also think that the self-inflicted conditions should stay.

To make them worth it, the effects of the corruptions should be made way more powerful.

An elite specialisation focussed on sacrifice and things would be great, but i dont see why corruptions should lose their self hurt cause of that.

And in cases like CPC, where the self weakness may be too crippling, maybe change the self inflicted condition to something else, like torment or bleed.

Same goes for epidemic. The vulnerability is not noticeable at all and should rather be changed aswell.

I think Dadnir has pretty much summed it up.
Any time I read discussions like this, I just keep thinking of cool ways you can use the mechanics.
Things like, corruption skills will tranfer a condition every time you are critted against, for a short duration.
There’s a reason for the self infliction and some counter play too.

The self inflicting conditions are really not necessary. I hate corruption’s. The only one I might use is corrupt boon, and maybe poison cloud in the expansion.

Some of the self applications are fairly strong if you don’t/can’t clear them. And it’s one of the only skills in the entire game that will put you in combat before a match if you activate it, preventing you from switching skills. Fun stuff.

Corruptions interested me when I first started playing necro in the game’s younger days, but I found making a corruption specialized build to be quite underwhelming. They mostly just focus on applying conditions to your enemies. There’s no stun breaks, no mobility, no life force generation… basically they’re lacking things that are key to a lot of necro stuff. I used to try and do a build with plague signet transfers, but I found other builds were just better overall (particularly in PvP/WvW).

Corrupt boon and epidemic are really the only two that see any sort of common usage currently. I think BiP is not terrible, but it’s tough to fit on a utility bar, whereas I feel CPC is just not powerful enough yet to warrant a slot.

However, I’m looking to make a new corruption specialized build with the specialization changes. Specifically, it would be a terrormancer with dhuumfire that would use corruptions. I think it might end up being a bit more effective given how the trait distributions are changing, attributes being unlinked from traits, and things like poison and burning stacking.

Also, I think that consume conditions is a very likely candidate to be labelled as a corruption, so spec’ing into them can mean more healing and condition clearing, which is never a bad thing.

they are all bad except corrupt boon which is still “meh”. would not be worth using over another spectral/well/wurm if it weren’t for the abundance of aoe boons flying about

really they do not live up to their supposed theme and their effectiveness is questionable at best

spoj.9672:

But it is mandatory that you slot either staff, dagger offhand, plague signet or consume conditions when using corruption skills. Thats poor design. Its restrictive and limits an entire selection of utilities unfairly. Now if corruptions applied resistance to the necro for the duration of the self inflicted condition then it becomes a whole different story. But as it stands those skills hurt the necro and force you to take something extra to deal with the penalty. Self conditions like weakness are far more damaging than a small health sacrifice.

I think spoj got a point here. A trait which grants Resistance is exactly what the devs did for Mallyx on Revenants. Sadly, this also means we probably won’t see this happen on Necros. However, they could at least revise the self-inflicted conditions. Both, Poison and Weakness have too powerful side effects.

Possible alternatives for CPC and Corrupt Boon which are easier to deal with:

• Low stack of Torment (s. Blood is Power)
• Low stack of Confusion (s. Blood is Power)
• Blind

I’m against scrapping the conditions since it would take away from Consume Conditions.

Self-harm made sense in GW1 because it essentially gave you overpowered abilities in every other way, except that they hurt you. In GW2 we get mediocre to slightly strong abilities, that have a variety of meaningless to crippling effects on you.

Corruptions could work just fine, if they were strong and had strong but not overly debilitating self-harm.

War Mourner.5168:

Corruptions are not strong enough to justify self applied conditions.

Those conditions are negatives If you think otherwise then you’re ignoring the fact that condition cleanses all have CD’s, and are all extremely important to only use when needed, not waste on junk that your own skills are applying to you.

I find this incredibly true. It’s not that ‘Necromancer condition transfers are bad’. Necromancers are basically the only profession that can transfer conditions to enemies multiple times, and a reversal like that will always have some power. But the Necromancer’s condition transfers are expensive. They don’t get to casually toss them onto an opponent, with the exception of Underwater DS 1.

So putting self-inflicted conditions on these skills isn’t really a hidden positive, since it requires a very expensive skill to then turn it into a benefit. It’s just a drawback that can be mitigated.

Plus, some of the design for the corruptions are iffy. For example, Epidemic’s 3 stacks of vulnerability are basically meaningless. They could be removed entirely and hardly change the skill. As well, the bleeds on Blood is Power are the textbook definition of why low intensity & long duration conditions don’t hold up. In PvP, that gives them more time to be cleansed before they go through on your opponent. In PvE, it just gives them more time to be pushed off the stack by other people’s shorter bleeds.

I think the only corruption that’s broken-bad is CPC. Self bleed, poison, and vuln are all fairly harmless and the skills associated with them are pretty good for their purposes. Self-weakness is very crippling especially if any condi transfers or cleanses fail, and we’re stuck with a condition that limits our dodging ability, aka our only infinite scaling defense.