Guild Wars 2

Ever since someone on here told me it was changed to transfer blind, I’ve been using it in pvp in place of Spectral Walk as my second stunbreak. I’ve also made a friend chuck condis at me in an empty hotjoin server to test under various circumstances.

I can confirm it does transfer blind.

However, it still requires LOS to transfer condis. This means that if you’re immobilised and can’t turn to face your target, the condis stay on you.

This is a huge problem since immobilise is the one thing that can kitten up a necro the hardest. It can’t easily be cleansed since all our other transfers need LOS too (though if whoever immobilised you is at melee range you can drop a Putrid at your feet, that works), it often causes Wurm to glitch so you can’t reliably teleport out of it, and you’re a sitting duck for further CC so you can’t try to heal through the damage either.

Considering its passive tends to transfer Immobilise off allies first for some reason (that and cripple are the things that I most often find myself stealing off an ally, don’t know who made that weird priority list), I still don’t think Plague Signet is a viable stunbreak in pvp. Its active needs to be changed to not require LOS and to make the cleanse independent of the conditions getting copied, and it would help if the priority list for the passive would copy damaging conditions rather than disabling conditions first. I know that sounds worse, but the necro has transfers and a big health pool, so damaging conditions would actually synergise more. By transferring an immobilise and turning you ionto a free kill you’re not helping anyone on your team, since it’s not like your teammates could rely on that immobilise being copied off them anyway.

Putrid Mark can be placed behind you with no issue. Try left clicking to adjust camera instead of right clicking.

Also, I believe you are confusing “Line of Sight” with “facing.”

I do mean facing, you’re right.
And marks can be placed behind you while you’re moving, but it doesn’t work if you’re immobilised. I don’t know why that is.

You can place marks behind you when immobilized. use a look behind keybind.

“Master of Condi Matipulation” Necromancer shouldn’t be such a sitting duck to immobilize, which both thieves and engineers can spam.

Shrouded removal and Condi removal sigils are the only things that reliably work.

We shouldn’t be forced into staff in a builds, but we kind of are….

Offhand Dagger transfers condos with a Blind on half the cooldown…

My biggest problems with Plague Signets are as follows:

• Directional, so if I’m not facing my opponent it just fails.
• I hate the passive, but I love the active.

The second bullet bothers me the most. I would love to use this skill, but I hate pulling conditions randomly from allies. The skill would be much more useful as follows:

Plague Signet
Passive: +10% Condition Duration
Active: Stunbreak. Unblockable. Instant-Cast. Transfer all conditions from yourself to target enemy. Works regardless of facing/LoS. 30s CD.

I like its passive as a potential condi-hate mechanic. Especially with the obscene number of ways you can deal with conditions, it has potential if we could ever afford a bit more support-y of a build, and if it worked in DS especially. Not that I’d turn down 10% condition duration either, mind you.

The passive is pretty horrible which sucks since the active is very nice. Having condition unloading classes who drop everything they own on you without a care think twice out of fear of it coming right back is always a plus.

@Rising Dusk
I like the idea of a working passive and +condition duration definitely sounds like the kind of passive that will make you miss it should you use the active. Although a 30s CD is extremely powerful for a complete transfer and being traited would make that a 24s CD. A forty-five second (seriously?) CD is probably more reasonable but I would even keep the 60s CD with a useful passive.

I agree with bhawb the passive is very interesting. In team fights it can give condi necro firepower with its trasnfer on dagger 4 and staff 4. And ofc makes its own active stronger becuase of the condi you got from allies you can spike an opponent with plague signet after recieving a high bleed stack from a teammate or something like that. My only problem with the signet is it seems buggy. It has flat out failed to transfer conditions for me enough times to notice because it cost me the point i was defending >.< and i definitly had los and the stunbreak worked. Idk why transfer just fails sometimes :/

Necro signets are just generally weak. Plague signet sucks i find. Signet of undeath is interesting now altho the 3s cast time is stupid in a game with no much cleave and cc. Why are they worried about making it 2s again.

I’m honestly not sure why 2s would be too much. By making it 3 they make it so that anyone with a secured stomp will be able to stomp the person you are trying to res before you even finish casting.

More people really need to embrace the rearward facing camera. I would say that nearly a third of my corrupt boons and plague signet transfers occur when I’m running completely away from some opponents. It’s a solid signet. Just stop casting it on blocking enemies if you’re trying to land the transfers.

Bhawb.7408:

I’m honestly not sure why 2s would be too much. By making it 3 they make it so that anyone with a secured stomp will be able to stomp the person you are trying to res before you even finish casting.

Might help a little bit if it’s a coordinated team a lot of the time they can call out when they are about to die.

I also think that the passive is interesting, but badly implemented. You’re not helping your teammates by pulling 1 condi every 10" randomly. Especially when it seems to prioritise cripple, of all things. (it would be good to test this somehow, maybe have an engi or a necro with SoS unload on someone with no passive cleanses while the necro is standing around) If you’re cleansing your allies it has to be timed and deliberate if it’s going to help them.
So I’m thinking either completely redesign the active (to +10% condi duration or maybe “gain life force for each condition on your target”?), or change the current active to be more deliberate. How do you do that on a PASSIVE ability though? It’s almost like a contradiction in terms!
Well, the only thing I can think of is, maybe have it just transfer one condition, and remove the ICD. Like, not just 1 of any condition: 1 specific condition. And I think the only thing that could be that would be actually useful and also thematically appropriate with the signet is POISON. Think about it: it’s not a lot of damage, so it won’t kill the necro like transferring 25 bleeds (or, even worse, an immobilise) would, but it still helps teammates tremendously because it’s not really about the damage, but about the healing reduction.
Perhaps, if you’re gonna reduce or completely remove the ICD, its range has to be reduced too: so maybe make the passive “Whenever an ally within 600 suffers poison, that poison is transferred to you.” So a buff in removing the ICD, but a nerf in range and in the fact that pre-existing conditions don’t get transferred.

I still think the active needs a buff too though. As a stunbreak it’s pretty terrible, because condition lockdown usually involves immobilise, which restricts your field of view. A stunbreak needs to do more than just break stun, it neesd to get you out of trouble, or allow you to cast other skills that get you out of trouble. This doesn’t teleport you, it doesn’t give you life force, it doesn’t give you stability or protection: the “getting you out of trouble part” is supposed to be handled by the transfer: loading up the enemy with condis so they can’t hurt you, and you turn the tables on them. I mean, I know it’s still niche, cause it does nothing against Sleight of Hand thieves who daze you without putting any other conditions on you, but it’s flavoursome and fun when it works, and would be a great counter to condi burst. But if your transfer is restricted by field of view WHILE YOU’RE DISABLED then it’s completely useless! Immobilise, fear, stun, and knockdown all restrict your FOV, so you can’t cast it in the fraction of a seccond where you NEED to cast it before the rest of the damage burst is delivered.

Needs to be changed to either closest enemy, or your target but unrestricted by fov – and imo also made unblockable.

The revenant is getting a similar skill to the SoS passive.

The revenant skill is always up (lke the necromancer blood trait), but gives resistance when you pull a condition.

If the blood trait and/or the signet were to give resistance (even just a second) after a condition pull, then they get more interesting.

AGREE with manveruppd’s point about the weak active. The active should get rid of the conditions and break stun even if the transfer fails.

manveruppd.7601:

I also think that the passive is interesting, but badly implemented. You’re not helping your teammates by pulling 1 condi every 10" randomly.

Its once every 3s according to the wiki, although I can’t say I’ve tested it. This makes it 3 times stronger (from the perspective of your allies) than any of the other signets that remove conditions, with the “downside” being that they are pulled to you instead of removed fully (“downside” since we have 3 ways to transfer and 1 to turn into boons).

The real problem with the passive in its current state is that you’re going to need your converts/transfers for conditions your enemies are already applying to you. If you are also picking up allies’ conditions, you will actually be overwhelming your own ability to deal with them, and you will end up converting or transfering conditions you’d rather just tank. Since it’s just transferring conditions and isn’t actually doing anything to reduce the duration or ameliorate the condition, it hardly can even be considered a beneficial passive.

Based off of what I have read, I will attempt a remake of what people want.

Passive: Transfers conditions from nearby allies and applies them to nearby foes.
Active: Send all your conditions to a foe.
Passive Radius: 1,200
Breaks Stun
Range: 1,200
Cooldown: 60
Notes
Is not affected by blind, immobilize, or line of sight.
Transfers 1 condition from an ally every 3 seconds and transfers that condition every 3 seconds to a foe.

Maybe the passive transfer could prioritze who sent the condition?

That’s over complicating things.

(1) Just add 1 second of resistance when pulling a condition
(2) Activating the signet removes the condition and breaks stun regardless of whether the skill “hits”

It can keep the wonky targeting and long cool down if the above are met.

Bhawb.7408:

Its once every 3s according to the wiki, although I can’t say I’ve tested it. This makes it 3 times stronger (from the perspective of your allies) than any of the other signets that remove conditions, with the “downside” being that they are pulled to you instead of removed fully (“downside” since we have 3 ways to transfer and 1 to turn into boons).

You’re right, I didn’t check the wiki. My point stands though: it might be potentially powerful, but when was the last time you pulled 10 stacks of bleeds or a poison off someone? It seems to prioritise movement-impeding conditions, and the fact that it’s random (can’t be timed, can’t pick which ally to transfer from) means it just puts the necro in danger without helping your team. It’s one of those that has a thousand to one chance of turning a fight around, but it’s a completely random chance you have no control of. I’d rather do without it. It should either cleanse something useful, like poison, so at least you know you’ll do some good, or it should give a buff to the necro like every other signet in the game.

nekretaal.6485:

(1) Just add 1 second of resistance when pulling a condition

Like I said above, the problem isn’t so much that the necro suffers, it’s that you never cleanse anything useful.

(2) Activating the signet removes the condition and breaks stun regardless of whether the skill “hits”

It can keep the wonky targeting and long cool down if the above are met.

That won’t be anywhere near enough. As I pointed out, for a stunbreak to be useful it has to mitigate future danger as well as break the stun: either by teleporting you out of trouble like Wurm, by giving you protection and life force like Spectral Armour, or giving you total invulnerability for a short while like Elixir S. The idea behind Plague Sig is it doesn’t do any of that, but it transfers all your conditions to the enemy. That way whoever’s trying to hit you gets blinded so they miss, or snared so they can’t chase you, or gets weakened, or gets a million bleeds and dies or whatever. That in itself is already pretty bad, because 1. it’s useless if you’re being focussed by 2 or more people (only 1 target gets the condis) and 2. it’s useless if you don’t have any disabling condis on you. For such a long cooldown skill, making sure the condis always transfer is THE VERY MINIMUM they would need to do to make it worth taking!

nekretaal.6485:

That’s over complicating things.

(1) Just add 1 second of resistance when pulling a condition
(2) Activating the signet removes the condition and breaks stun regardless of whether the skill “hits”

It can keep the wonky targeting and long cool down if the above are met.

I agree the big thing is the active shud cleanse u regardless of if it hits. Then it is straight away a viable and good skill

In pvp I find plague signet to be the most game-changing stunbreaker. The other stunbreakers are alright, more consistent and reliable, but they don’t straight up win you fights – plague signet does. They are great versus celestial engineers and eles who can output extremely long duration burns. When an engineer or ele knocks you back, you are still considered facing them, so plague signet is a reliable stunbreak in those situations.

I say play with what’s going on in the meta. If the meta is filled with celestial engineers and eles, then it’s really a no-brainer to choose the stunbreaker that wins you fights vs them.

Rising Dusk.2408:

The real problem with the passive in its current state is that you’re going to need your converts/transfers for conditions your enemies are already applying to you. If you are also picking up allies’ conditions, you will actually be overwhelming your own ability to deal with them, and you will end up converting or transfering conditions you’d rather just tank. Since it’s just transferring conditions and isn’t actually doing anything to reduce the duration or ameliorate the condition, it hardly can even be considered a beneficial passive.

There is absolutely no reason a condi Necromancer should ever be overwhelmed by conditions. Dagger 4, Staff 4, and Consume Conditions alone should be good enough, plus if at any point you feel overwhelmed you just active Plague Signet and you’ve effectively hit the enemy team with a SoS (or worse), and no more passive to worry about. You can put Well of Power on top to use the passive as a way to give yourself boons.

I find the plague passive to be a non-issue because the skill is often on cooldown. As it is ticking off cooldown, you can re-position yourself in a fight so that you don’t absorb unwanted conditions.

The passive also beefs up your #4 condition transfer on staff. It feels wonderful to strip an entangle from an ally and then re-apply it to an enemy.

Bhawb.7408:

There is absolutely no reason a condi Necromancer should ever be overwhelmed by conditions. Dagger 4, Staff 4, and Consume Conditions alone should be good enough, plus if at any point you feel overwhelmed you just active Plague Signet and you’ve effectively hit the enemy team with a SoS (or worse), and no more passive to worry about. You can put Well of Power on top to use the passive as a way to give yourself boons.

I’ve played tons of PvP Necro games as my witness at the mid-top MMR range, and I can assure you that every single player I fight is watching for Dagger 4 and can dodge it, and is watching for CC and can interrupt it. On paper we have great condi management (and even in practice I hit Dagger 4 more often than it gets dodged), but unless I roll really bad enemies in games it’s always much, much more difficult than you make it seem.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Bhawb.7408:

There is absolutely no reason a condi Necromancer should ever be overwhelmed by conditions. Dagger 4, Staff 4, and Consume Conditions alone should be good enough, plus if at any point you feel overwhelmed you just active Plague Signet and you’ve effectively hit the enemy team with a SoS (or worse), and no more passive to worry about. You can put Well of Power on top to use the passive as a way to give yourself boons.

I’ve played tons of PvP Necro games as my witness at the mid-top MMR range, and I can assure you that every single player I fight is watching for Dagger 4 and can dodge it, and is watching for CC and can interrupt it. On paper we have great condi management (and even in practice I hit Dagger 4 more often than it gets dodged), but unless I roll really bad enemies in games it’s always much, much more difficult than you make it seem.

Agreed.

I think we all agreed in a previous thread that dagger 4’s projectile is appallingly slow. :p People have even learned to dodge Putrid Mark nowadays, and I’ve dropped Reaper’s Protection for Greater Marks because of the amount of blocks around. Being able to transfer conditions is awesome, but the fact that it needs to hit to transfer makes it less reliable than an ele or shoutbow’s cleansing. I don’t have a problem with Putrid Mark and Deathly Swarm being able to miss or be dodged, as you’re in full control of your character when you cast them so you can set them up (fear the target, bait dodges, etc) to make sure they hit. But with Plague Signet that isn’t the case: you’re disabled when you use it, you can’t set it up properly, you can’t even control your facing! The active NEEDS to be changed to make it a more reliable transfer.

manveruppd.7601:

But with Plague Signet that isn’t the case: you’re disabled when you use it, you can’t set it up properly, you can’t even control your facing! The active NEEDS to be changed to make it a more reliable transfer.

This is where you are wrong. Your character does not need to face the target. Your camera, however, does. the only way to make it more reliable is to make it unblockable, which ironically would remove the only setup required for using the skill. Personally, in my opinion, plague signet could use a 35-40 second cooldown.

Jayce.5632:

manveruppd.7601:

But with Plague Signet that isn’t the case: you’re disabled when you use it, you can’t set it up properly, you can’t even control your facing! The active NEEDS to be changed to make it a more reliable transfer.

This is where you are wrong. Your character does not need to face the target. Your camera, however, does. the only way to make it more reliable is to make it unblockable, which ironically would remove the only setup required for using the skill. Personally, in my opinion, plague signet could use a 35-40 second cooldown.

Just tested this. Turns out neither my character nor my camera need to face the target for the transfer to work.

manveruppd.7601:

I think we all agreed in a previous thread that dagger 4’s projectile is appallingly slow. :p People have even learned to dodge Putrid Mark nowadays, and I’ve dropped Reaper’s Protection for Greater Marks because of the amount of blocks around. Being able to transfer conditions is awesome, but the fact that it needs to hit to transfer makes it less reliable than an ele or shoutbow’s cleansing. I don’t have a problem with Putrid Mark and Deathly Swarm being able to miss or be dodged, as you’re in full control of your character when you cast them so you can set them up (fear the target, bait dodges, etc) to make sure they hit. But with Plague Signet that isn’t the case: you’re disabled when you use it, you can’t set it up properly, you can’t even control your facing! The active NEEDS to be changed to make it a more reliable transfer.

The problem with dagger 4 is that its a cone skill making it hard to hit as a cleanse. As such it is more of an offensive skill. It is really strong, but we do need some peroidic condi removal. I suggest a Gm trait of wells remove condis from allies on pulse. Perhaps with a 3s icd

flow.6043:

Jayce.5632:

manveruppd.7601:

But with Plague Signet that isn’t the case: you’re disabled when you use it, you can’t set it up properly, you can’t even control your facing! The active NEEDS to be changed to make it a more reliable transfer.

This is where you are wrong. Your character does not need to face the target. Your camera, however, does. the only way to make it more reliable is to make it unblockable, which ironically would remove the only setup required for using the skill. Personally, in my opinion, plague signet could use a 35-40 second cooldown.

Just tested this. Turns out neither my character nor my camera need to face the target for the transfer to work.

Looks like I was wrong too. I haven’t checked the camera facing since the old blind fail fiasco. It’s even better now then, although I still probably will continue to at least look at my target to make sure they aren’t doing a random dodge or blocking before transferring. This is also why I couldn’t really understand why so many people were getting such a high fail rate when using this signet.

Well guys, like I said I tested this with a friend in a custom arena 3 days ago and it didn’t transfer when the target was behind me. I used Blood is Power to give myself a nice long bleed so it would be unmistakable when it transferred, and it was still on me. I also had him immobilise me so my character wouldn’t automatically turn to face him. Maybe you two are using a new and improved Plague Signet that just didn’t make it onto my client yet. Or maybe you weren’t immobilised so your characters just turned around, which you didn’t count on.

manveruppd.7601:

Or maybe you weren’t immobilised so your characters just turned around, which you didn’t count on.

immob has always behaved erratically. i think you should post in bugs subforum as there is no reason for plague sig to fail when immob is on you.

manveruppd.7601:

I also think that the passive is interesting, but badly implemented. You’re not helping your teammates by pulling 1 condi every 10" randomly. Especially when it seems to prioritise cripple, of all things. (it would be good to test this somehow, maybe have an engi or a necro with SoS unload on someone with no passive cleanses while the necro is standing around) If you’re cleansing your allies it has to be timed and deliberate if it’s going to help them.
So I’m thinking either completely redesign the active (to +10% condi duration or maybe “gain life force for each condition on your target”?), or change the current active to be more deliberate. How do you do that on a PASSIVE ability though? It’s almost like a contradiction in terms!
Well, the only thing I can think of is, maybe have it just transfer one condition, and remove the ICD. Like, not just 1 of any condition: 1 specific condition. And I think the only thing that could be that would be actually useful and also thematically appropriate with the signet is POISON. Think about it: it’s not a lot of damage, so it won’t kill the necro like transferring 25 bleeds (or, even worse, an immobilise) would, but it still helps teammates tremendously because it’s not really about the damage, but about the healing reduction.
Perhaps, if you’re gonna reduce or completely remove the ICD, its range has to be reduced too: so maybe make the passive “Whenever an ally within 600 suffers poison, that poison is transferred to you.” So a buff in removing the ICD, but a nerf in range and in the fact that pre-existing conditions don’t get transferred.

I still think the active needs a buff too though. As a stunbreak it’s pretty terrible, because condition lockdown usually involves immobilise, which restricts your field of view. A stunbreak needs to do more than just break stun, it neesd to get you out of trouble, or allow you to cast other skills that get you out of trouble. This doesn’t teleport you, it doesn’t give you life force, it doesn’t give you stability or protection: the “getting you out of trouble part” is supposed to be handled by the transfer: loading up the enemy with condis so they can’t hurt you, and you turn the tables on them. I mean, I know it’s still niche, cause it does nothing against Sleight of Hand thieves who daze you without putting any other conditions on you, but it’s flavoursome and fun when it works, and would be a great counter to condi burst. But if your transfer is restricted by field of view WHILE YOU’RE DISABLED then it’s completely useless! Immobilise, fear, stun, and knockdown all restrict your FOV, so you can’t cast it in the fraction of a seccond where you NEED to cast it before the rest of the damage burst is delivered.

Needs to be changed to either closest enemy, or your target but unrestricted by fov – and imo also made unblockable.

I could actually see this being useful +1

What if it only pulled damaging condis? The last thing in the world a Necro needs is to have mobility impaired anymore than it already is. Would this simple change be enough to make it an option? I really think the CD is a bit much for what it does as well. Maybe kitten second CD and passive only pulls damaging condis, is. Bleed, Poison, Burn, Torment, and Confusion. This would give a more reliable access to Burns (mostly in team fights, where it would shine) for Necro w/o being forced into a convoluted rotation with Dhuumfire. With our survival tied to DS, having to use it so rigidly for Burning is counterintuitive IMO, especially in a condi build with less LF building options.

Oh OK ^ I see someone was already thinking along the same lines. I think pulling all damaging condis would be better than just one predetermined one though maybe. Aside from the access to Burning, it would also give access to Confusion which, when cleverly transfered, might allow Necro to punish people that get ‘trigger happy’ and try to burst the Necro down. Just this one change (possibly with a small CD reduction) would greatly alter this skill’s role in team fights and give Necro a bit of a support dynamic in such fights. There is no reason at all to take this over WoP for team fights IMO, but I’m a fan of WoP anyway. (Yay for not feeling forced into dual Energy Sigils!)

Stand The Wall.6987:

manveruppd.7601:

Or maybe you weren’t immobilised so your characters just turned around, which you didn’t count on.

immob has always behaved erratically. i think you should post in bugs subforum as there is no reason for plague sig to fail when immob is on you.

What do you mean? How does it behave erratically? If you’re immobilised, you can’t turn around to face your target, so skills that need facing fail and go on 5" cd. You can still drop Putrid Mark at your feet to cover an area a little bit behind you, but that’s about it.

The only weird thing is, certain skills (mostly targeted aoe skills like marks) WILL let you cast them behind you if you’re not immobilised EVEN IF YOU CAN’T TURN AROUND TO FACE YOUR TARGET. For instance, if you’re running directly away from them. This works if you’re running, but NOT if you’re immobilised. This has made a lot of people think that marks don’t require facing, but they do. You can tell because they fail if you try to cast them behind you while immobilised, and also by the fact that, if you’re standing still, your character will turn to face the point where you placed the mark. If you’re standing still and cast Doom, which doesn’t require facing, you won’t turn to face your target.

I really think PS should be made like Doom, and not need facing at all. It’s literally the worst stunbreak we have, and the only way to make it better is to make the condi transfer guaranteed.

Tman.6349:

What if it only pulled damaging condis? The last thing in the world a Necro needs is to have mobility impaired anymore than it already is. Would this simple change be enough to make it an option? I really think the CD is a bit much for what it does as well.

Yeah that would totally work! Last night I actually had my heal interrupted by randomly pulling 0.25" of Fear off a teammate! I didn’t die cause I jumped into DS and ran away, but it was a close call.
I still think the biggest problem is the active though.

manveruppd.7601:

This has made a lot of people think that marks don’t require facing, but they do. You can tell because they fail if you try to cast them behind you while immobilised

That’s not true, marks always work.
And so does Plague Signet, just tested this.