Guild Wars 2

I seriously start to enjoy clickbait titles.
Now, up to the point.

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.

Previous discussions:

1. Corruptions – Do we need them?
   https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/1-Corruptions-Do-we-need-them/

Feast of Corruption
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Feast_of_Corruption

Feast of Corruption is a weird beast. I think it was designed at release with many hybrid builds in mind. Has good power scalling, damage heavily increases thanks to the multiplier and Target the Weak. Kind of “spike finisher” for some builds, when you stack your conditions and then use it to deliver the final blow.

Sadly, it didn’t really work out. Hybrid builds for Necromancers aren’t as effective as on other professions, today Celestial users. Our conditions are too heavily bound to weapon choices and in case of Scepter, require constant attacking in order to keep the condi pressure up. Not quite “fire and forget” like for Engineers.

So I observe many Necromancer not even using (!) that skill on the scepter. That’s obviously a big mistake, because it generates Life Force, but still, apart from that aspect it’s incredibly underwhelming and feels out of place.

What are your opinions on this skill? And, more importantly, solutions?

*Does it work for you?
*If not, can it be tweaked to work right?
*Or should we get another skill?
*Should it grant more Life Force based on number of opponents?

Personally, for me it’s 2 step way:

Step 1: Life Force. Is it enough? Personally, I would consider 4 or 5% per condition. As Necromancers, we don’t stack a lot of different conditions, unlike Engineer or a Mesmer. Stacking more than 3 or 4 different conditions and them staying on our target long enough to Feast is a challange in itself.

Step 2: Bonus use. I see three approaches, erasing % dmg increase per damage in every case:

1. Damage. In this case, I would focus more on quality of conditions applied rather than quantity. Total damage % of Condition damage applied to the target seems reasonable thing for me. The more potential damage conditions on target have, the more spike damage you do. E.g. If it’s 10% damage: 2000 total bleeding potential damage on the target – 200 damage from Feast. If it’s 20% damage: 5000 total bleeding potential damage – 1000 damage.

2. Utility. In this case, Boon or heal based on conditions.

3. Mix. In this case, I personaly like the most, we get both pressure on the target and get something for ourselves.

My proposal would be: Apply 1s of Weakness and gain 10 Endurance per condition applied.

Because we don’t stack tons of conditions with one skill and procs, it keeps it at bay. At the same time, we’re rewarded the better we fight. Our Withering Precision trait is going away with the next patch and it’s an opportunity to maintain Weakness.

It gives us better survivability vs. multiple and in PvE, giving Endurance and hurts the foe, reducing his endurance generation and damage.

Thoughts?

I had to go back and check if the Corruption thread was #1 because I was raging my kittens off because FoC is skill #3, not #2.

As for the skill itself, it’s in an awkward spot that I’m not really sure how to fix. The design is good, it rewards stacking a bunch of conditions with extra damage and life force, but the balance is pretty lousy. The damage is pitiful, and condi necro builds can only really keep 3-4 conditions up all the time, so it doesn’t actually generate that much LF. But in a group setting, the damage is still pitiful, but it can generate up to a whopping 36% life force.

Perhaps a better way to handle it would be to have it grant 4 or 5% LF per condition, with a 20% damage bonus per condition, but only work off of conditions you applied yourself. Or make it more similar to its GW1 counterpart, and make it AoE, but with a lessened LF gain per target.

Captain Unusual.9163:

I had to go back and check if the Corruption thread was #1 because I was raging my kittens off because FoC is skill #3, not #2.

Just edited it

Captain Nailed it.

Its a good idea for a skill in theory but in practice its just meh.

Maybe it would be better if they changed it so the damage it does scales directly off of your + condition damage instead of your power.

Armor could still effect it of course but at least then it would be better for pure condition users while still working for a hybrid.

Short of doing that I can’t really see it being of any good use at all unless it were changed completely.

Maybe it could heal you & grant a bit more life force per each unique condition on the target. That would give condi mancers a bit more self sustain & help allot in PvP.

Or maybe they could change it up so it copies a condition/stack on the target to enemies nearby the target. Only one condition/stack mind you, but that would help with AOE.

Or maybe they could make it a bit more akin to air blast on a flame thrower engineer & have it do damage + extend the duration of conditions you have on the target by a few seconds.
That way it would be good for a bit of spike + keeping your stacked conditions up longer.

Captain Unusual.9163:

As for the skill itself, it’s in an awkward spot that I’m not really sure how to fix. The design is good, it rewards stacking a bunch of conditions with extra damage and life force, but the balance is pretty lousy. The damage is pitiful, and condi necro builds can only really keep 3-4 conditions up all the time, so it doesn’t actually generate that much LF. But in a group setting, the damage is still pitiful, but it can generate up to a whopping 36% life force.

Perhaps a better way to handle it would be to have it grant 4 or 5% LF per condition, with a 20% damage bonus per condition, but only work off of conditions you applied yourself. Or make it more similar to its GW1 counterpart, and make it AoE, but with a lessened LF gain per target.

I guess the problem with “conditions you have applied by yourself” is that you can’t really tell how many of them are yours on the target. They could highlight, but I don’t know how visible that would be.

As for the damage modifier, I would get rid of that once and for all. 8% or 20% doesn’t really make a huge difference for Condition build. But if you get that as a Zerker, who can apply same amount of conditions, too, we could end up in clunky situation when Scepter is used just for that one skill as a finishing weapon swap. 1:1 scalling + 80-120% modifier is suddenly flat 5-6k damage. Add critical strike and bonus critical damage and you have one shot macro/OTK with SoS+Feast.
No, playing with direct damage modifiers is dangerous.

Talking about baits, kittens.

IMO you analysis is right and i would prefer a lot more %damage on condi damage stacked on the enemy: as necros we already lack natural condi burst ( and instead we have to rely on terrormancy ) and that would help it.
However we must be careful in % scaling with other condis – the main reason is that this game gates each stat to an other when possible and i would like to keep that way.
For example, you don’ t have % damage returned as health but you have healing on damage that scales on healing ( except some cases, like parasitic contagion, or the guard’ s heal), so in the same way the direct damage should scale with power and benefit in some % way from the condi damage, but in a way that it does not become a real nuke unless you got both power and condi.
it’ s a bit like keeping alive an already dead deam of hybrid builds, but if it is designed that way i would not like to change it, who knows what the future reserves.

EDIT: i forgot the censorship and i got kittens instead, but thinking about it maybe kittens are a better bait.

Rym.1469:

Captain Unusual.9163:

As for the skill itself, it’s in an awkward spot that I’m not really sure how to fix. The design is good, it rewards stacking a bunch of conditions with extra damage and life force, but the balance is pretty lousy. The damage is pitiful, and condi necro builds can only really keep 3-4 conditions up all the time, so it doesn’t actually generate that much LF. But in a group setting, the damage is still pitiful, but it can generate up to a whopping 36% life force.

Perhaps a better way to handle it would be to have it grant 4 or 5% LF per condition, with a 20% damage bonus per condition, but only work off of conditions you applied yourself. Or make it more similar to its GW1 counterpart, and make it AoE, but with a lessened LF gain per target.

I guess the problem with “conditions you have applied by yourself” is that you can’t really tell how many of them are yours on the target. They could highlight, but I don’t know how visible that would be.

As for the damage modifier, I would get rid of that once and for all. 8% or 20% doesn’t really make a huge difference for Condition build. But if you get that as a Zerker, who can apply same amount of conditions, too, we could end up in clunky situation when Scepter is used just for that one skill as a finishing weapon swap. 1:1 scalling + 80-120% modifier is suddenly flat 5-6k damage. Add critical strike and bonus critical damage and you have one shot macro/OTK with SoS+Feast.
No, playing with direct damage modifiers is dangerous.

I agree, I was mostly just putting it out there so someone could point out problems with it. Honestly, as much as I love the theme of the skill, there’s not really a good way to balance it without it being under- or over-powered. If the direct damage becomes useful on a condition build, then, like you said, it would end up too powerful as a finisher for power builds. But leave it as it is now, and its only use is to generate life force in big boss fights, which usually isn’t important to a condition necro anyway.

The thing is that our condition output is too low too justify using this. It has no advantage to a outside of a pure condition build and for a hybrid build the scepter has too low damage modifiers.
So with that in mind the skill translate to this: “waste 7.5~10% of your time or gain no life force with scepter”. It gets even worse that staff and life transfer function the same way and when you look at the most ofhand dagger it generates no life force at all. In other words outside traits and utilities it’s either wasting time or getting life force.
This could work if we had a condition damage output that allowed us to waste 7.5% of our time but with an abundance to condition cleanses(some even aoe) and nerfs because of dhuumfire it has become pitifully low.
Another problem is that even if you use and land the skill your not guaranteed to life force at all due to cleansing.

With that in mind I suggest 2 things:
-Up the condition output of conditionmacer, restore the lost bleeds on grasping dead and lower its cooldown (I mean rapid fire is way more dangerous, has the same cooldown and even has a cooldown reduction trait) , up auto attack damage (921 DPS with 2 stat investment (carrion+ 300 condition damage from curses and + 175 conditon damage and 100 power from runes of adventure) is just weak ) and increase off hand dagger condition damage output. This way you can now use feast of corruption without neutering what little dps you had.
-Make feast of corruption a skill that’s more then just a life force generating skill. I would make it corrupt 1 boon (before the life force is calculated). This way the condition mancer can use feast of corruption to apply a condition but also to setup for corrupt boon or path of corruption.

Tim.6450:

The thing is that our condition output is too low too justify using this. It has no advantage to a outside of a pure condition build and for a hybrid build the scepter has too low damage modifiers.
So with that in mind the skill translate to this: “waste 7.5~10% of your time or gain no life force with scepter”. It gets even worse that staff and life transfer function the same way and when you look at the most ofhand dagger it generates no life force at all. In other words outside traits and utilities it’s either wasting time or getting life force.
This could work if we had a condition damage output that allowed us to waste 7.5% of our time but with an abundance to condition cleanses(some even aoe) and nerfs because of dhuumfire it has become pitifully low.
Another problem is that even if you use and land the skill your not guaranteed to life force at all due to cleansing.

With that in mind I suggest 2 things:
-Up the condition output of conditionmacer, restore the lost bleeds on grasping dead and lower its cooldown (I mean rapid fire is way more dangerous, has the same cooldown and even has a cooldown reduction trait) , up auto attack damage (921 DPS with 2 stat investment (carrion+ 300 condition damage from curses and + 175 conditon damage and 100 power from runes of adventure) is just weak ) and increase off hand dagger condition damage output. This way you can now use feast of corruption without neutering what little dps you had.
-Make feast of corruption a skill that’s more then just a life force generating skill. I would make it corrupt 1 boon (before the life force is calculated). This way the condition mancer can use feast of corruption to apply a condition but also to setup for corrupt boon or path of corruption.

Thanks for your opinion,

We’ll discuss our general condition output in another thread exclusively, I promise. But for now, just about FoC.

Yes, many percive it as lost time on condi build, agree.

About corrupting boons, it’s certainly a good suggestion. But sometimes it might do nothing if foe has no boons on himself, like in PvE. I’d gladly see Unholy Feast (Axe #3) corrupting boon instead of removing it, though. That way, Scepter and Axe would keep more unique use and feeling and we would still gain that kind of option for Necromancer.

I personally always think of Condition Necromancer as pressure builds. When you enter the fight, you might not proc thousand different conditions at instant, but pressure whole enemy team up to the point that over time, keeping up theirs starts being impossible, because you force them to either retreat or slowly die.

That’s why I’m fan of both Weakness and Chill. While Chill is in my perception just broken currently, because it’s either too easy to cleanse (goes under Dogged March, Charge!, all movement cleanses) or has different effects of different professions (Thieves and on the opposite side, Elementalists), Weakness isn’t as easy to cleanse, has same effect on everyone and does exactly that – puts pressure. Less dodges means less defense. Less damage means you have to be more aggressive and expose yourself more to get the same effect.

I’d really like to see either that Weakness+Endurnce gain on Feast as proposed earlier or, linking it with previous thread, Condition Transfer. This way we could get another short cooldown cleanse that could synergize better with Corruptions. While boss not always has to have that boon to rip, you can always apply one to youself.
Or Feast could apply Chill for nice possible synergy with Reaper.

Personally, I still like endurance and weakness, but that’s an option.

Rym.1469:

About corrupting boons, it’s certainly a good suggestion. But sometimes it might do nothing if foe has no boons on himself, like in PvE. I’d gladly see Unholy Feast (Axe #3) corrupting boon instead of removing it, though. That way, Scepter and Axe would keep more unique use and feeling and we would still gain that kind of option for Necromancer.

I don’t think that Foc for pve is a wasted skill slot because of sinister stats ,might application (blood is power, signet might, runes of aristocracy) and allied condition application (vulenrability especially).

Rym.1469:

That’s why I’m fan of both Weakness and Chill. While Chill is in my perception just broken currently, because it’s either too easy to cleanse (goes under Dogged March, Charge!, all movement cleanses) or has different effects of different professions (Thieves and on the opposite side, Elementalists), Weakness isn’t as easy to cleanse, has same effect on everyone and does exactly that – puts pressure. Less dodges means less defense. Less damage means you have to be more aggressive and expose yourself more to get the same effect.

The reason I suggested for boon corruption is, because I look a bit a the future with the introduction with 2 boons: quickness and resistance. Resistance will shut down a condi necro’s game easily and has to be removed as swiftly as possible. Quickness while not as debilitating as resistance is another filler boon that can be in the way from corrupting the boons you want. So having a boon corruption on the scepter means that not only do you not need external traits to remove resistance, it also gives a means to the necromancer to remove the boons that are in the way of the skills you want to corrupt with corrupt boon which the added quickness will hinder.

I’d really like to see either that Weakness+Endurnce gain on Feast as proposed earlier or, linking it with previous thread, Condition Transfer. This way we could get another short cooldown cleanse that could synergize better with Corruptions. While boss not always has to have that boon to rip, you can always apply one to youself.
Or Feast could apply Chill for nice possible synergy with Reaper.

Personally, I still like endurance and weakness, but that’s an option.

Chill is not a good idea, same with weakness because of pve and I don’t like extra endurance on necromancer because of thematical reasons. But condi transfer could work well.

1st) FOC is 3rd skill on scepter. I needed to get this out.

2nd) I think one change that would make this skill more usable is faster cast time. 1/4 or even 1/2 will be great. the current 3/4 is too long imo.

If healing power did more for the necromancer, then scepter could see use as a celestial weapon.

As it is, scepter does more power damage than Axe, and power based feast of corruption isnt useless for those users.

EremiteAngel.9765:

1st) FOC is 3rd skill on scepter. I needed to get this out.

The #2 in number of thread in the series

Running zerker scepter in WvW. Find a target who has every condition in the game on him during a fight, pop feast, enjoy the hilarity.

my idea it kittenallenging

1. make the skill cleanse conditions on your foe . with each condition you cleanse you do 500 dmg (as for now the average dmg of the skill is 1k)

the average conditions proc is about 4 so if you cleanse 4 you can do 3k dmg with condi gear. with zerk gear you can do around 6k. with hybrid you will do 5k

also it will punish emeny for not cleansing so you can even stack unimportant conditions like signet of spite and use this skill for massive dmg spike

down side you have to play smartly and dont just spamm it then your conditions wont do their things

considering most condition builds run power/precision/condition damage anyway (or celestial if you’re feeling cheesy), I think feast of corruption is fine. The only thing I can see it gaining that would make it better without making it too strong would be that life force per condition increase.

striker.3704:

considering most condition builds run power/precision/condition damage anyway (or celestial if you’re feeling cheesy), I think feast of corruption is fine. The only thing I can see it gaining that would make it better without making it too strong would be that life force per condition increase.

That’s in PvE I might add.

messiah.1908:

my idea it kittenallenging

1. make the skill cleanse conditions on your foe . with each condition you cleanse you do 500 dmg (as for now the average dmg of the skill is 1k)

the average conditions proc is about 4 so if you cleanse 4 you can do 3k dmg with condi gear. with zerk gear you can do around 6k. with hybrid you will do 5k

also it will punish emeny for not cleansing so you can even stack unimportant conditions like signet of spite and use this skill for massive dmg spike

down side you have to play smartly and dont just spamm it then your conditions wont do their things

That’ll teach your teammates to run conditions!

messiah.1908:

my idea it kittenallenging

1. make the skill cleanse conditions on your foe . with each condition you cleanse you do 500 dmg (as for now the average dmg of the skill is 1k)

the average conditions proc is about 4 so if you cleanse 4 you can do 3k dmg with condi gear. with zerk gear you can do around 6k. with hybrid you will do 5k

also it will punish emeny for not cleansing so you can even stack unimportant conditions like signet of spite and use this skill for massive dmg spike

down side you have to play smartly and dont just spamm it then your conditions wont do their things

but its the only life force generator skill on the weapon set…limiting its use like that might not turn out so well

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

messiah.1908:

my idea it kittenallenging

1. make the skill cleanse conditions on your foe . with each condition you cleanse you do 500 dmg (as for now the average dmg of the skill is 1k)

the average conditions proc is about 4 so if you cleanse 4 you can do 3k dmg with condi gear. with zerk gear you can do around 6k. with hybrid you will do 5k

also it will punish emeny for not cleansing so you can even stack unimportant conditions like signet of spite and use this skill for massive dmg spike

down side you have to play smartly and dont just spamm it then your conditions wont do their things

but its the only life force generator skill on the weapon set…limiting its use like that might not turn out so well

i didnt mention to deny the ability to gain life force

Just adding a covering condition could be nice.

Would be fun to add the new slow condition, but I get the sense that no HoT conditions will get added to pre-HoT weapons.

The sad thing about this skill is that it is power based and doesn’t hit consistently hard even with a lot of conditions in a power build. I’ve heard of someone saying they hit for over 10k with it, but when I test in pvp with a handful of skills and SoS I only ever hover around 4k, with a zerk amulet. It is OK at generating life force, OK at best at dealing damage, and has no utility. It’s not something that I’m pressing every time it’s off cooldown, but then again that has a lot to do with how conditions are cleansed now, too.

I have hit around 9k on players, full zerk, Eagle runes, after landing a Signet Of Spite on people with Feast Of Corruption.

I’ve never cared for axe and I’m more than aware, especially after all the people always prattling on about it, that scepter is a crappy weapon to use with a power/berserker build. But I do mostly PvP/WvW and I find it works better for me than the axe. Of course, personal preference, but cripple, poison on AA and a potentially high burst are nice. I use Intelligence sigil to enhance the effects.

I don’t have any real thoughts on this other than that I use scepter with condition and with power. I enjoy FoC regardless of whether it feels out of place or not.

EDIT: Also note that those screens were taken when I had no might stacks. With some might, the numbers could probably climb even higher.

That’s against eotm mobs that probably have every condition in the game – including full stacks of vuln – on them, plus whatever ascended gear you might have, food, and likely close to death plus the eagle runes you mentioned.

Roe.3679:

That’s against eotm mobs that probably have every condition in the game – including full stacks of vuln – on them, plus whatever ascended gear you might have, food, and likely close to death plus the eagle runes you mentioned.

I didn’t read the OP. Don’t much care. Was just sharing a few screens and my opinion on FoC, which is that I’m okay with what it is.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I didn’t read the OP. Don’t much care.

You’re my favorite kind of commenter.

If you spent as much time writing this post as testing you would know how good the skills is for both condi builds and power builds.

BTW try scepter with a power build, close to death and eagle runes.

Xom.9264:

If you spent as much time writing this post as testing you would know how good the skills is for both condi builds and power builds.

BTW try scepter with a power build, close to death and eagle runes.

Not sure if sarcasm, or…