Guild Wars 2

Currently, the three prospective grandmaster traits in the curses line are:

Lingering Curse – “While wielding a scepter your condition damage and outgoing condition duration are increased.”

Parasitic Contagion – “A percentage of your condition damage heals you.”

Terror – “Fear deals damage; it deals additional damage if the target is afflicted with another condition.”

I can see why these were all chosen as grandmasters as they “influence the core gameplay” of the character. I would even agree to making Lingering Curse and Terror mutually exclusive because of the way they operate and compound each other. What I don’t understand is why they are now competing with Parasitic Contagion. Currently, since Parasitic Contagion rests in the Spite trait line, you can get both it an Lingering Curse on the same build. Two things:

1. PvP Condition / Fear builds are going to spec into this line specifically for Terror. The choice is easy for them.

2. With scepter being Necromancer’s premier condition weapon, PvE Condition builds are going to grab this line for Lingering Curse.

I am having a hard time imagining an instance when I would ever be able to take Parasitic Contagion over the other two traits, even if it is powerful enough in its new state. Beyond that, from a flavor standpoint, siphoning and healing are Blood Magic traits. Regardless of the fact that it is a condition trait why is it not located in Blood Magic? Taking a further step back, why is the only other condition-related grandmaster slated to be Dhuumfire in Soul Reaping?

I’ve looked at the new traits and I’m trying to map out my new PvE scepter build and I get stuck. Clearly, I take curses, but then what? I would love for Parasitic Contagion to move out of curses to give me the option to take it if I wanted added durability.

I’m not sure that a PvP condi necro could so effortlessly choose Terror when it means that they’d be forfeiting a 100% condi duration boost, something that is hard to come by in pvp as it is.

If you think you have it bad. Try to decide what grandmaster to take in curses in a power build that wants furious demise, target the weak and banshees wail.

Cecilia.5179:

I’m not sure that a PvP condi necro could so effortlessly choose Terror when it means that they’d be forfeiting a 100% condi duration boost, something that is hard to come by in pvp as it is.

True, but even then you’d agree that Parasitic Contagion would still not see any play?

spoj.9672:

If you think you have it bad. Try to decide what grandmaster to take in curses in a power build that wants furious demise, target the weak and banshees wail.

I completely agree that putting the Warhorn trait in curses was a silly idea unless they’re changing the skills to be more oriented towards damaging conditions. However, standard power Necros don’t currently specialize in curses, and it’s even less appealing to do so since stat increases were removed. If it weren’t for Banshee’s Wail power Necros would have no business being in the curses line; Furious Demise and Target the Weak are luxuries.

Parasitic Contagion should be in Blood Magic. No other build has to give up its main defining feature just to get sustain.

You mean DS necros dont specialise in curses. There are plenty of alternative non condi builds that do. For example dagger power in PvE. Furious demise and target the weak are very good for power builds. It was never the stat investment that made you go into curses. There are other ways to max crit chance so crit damage would be better in a lot of cases if you only cared about stat investments even on a non DS power build.

It was weakening shroud, furious demise, banshees wail and target the weak that were the main incentives and were all vital parts of dagger necro in PvE. Furious demise was actually build defining because of DS flashing for fury seeing as we arent camping DS (lower dps than dagger). Same for target the weak because of how powerful it is when foes have more than 3 conditions on them. Those traits werent luxuries, they were the incentives. The precision was the luxury.

Anyway no traitline should be forced into one very specific role. None of the other classes have this level of focus in their new lines.

New lingering curse is a terrible trait. Anet frequently balances by using extreme situations and the duration of every condition might as well be halved.

Kill lingering curse with fire and bring back withering precision.

nekretaal.6485:

New lingering curse is a terrible trait. Anet frequently balances by using extreme situations and the duration of every condition might as well be halved.

Kill lingering curse with fire and bring back withering precision.

While you’re being a tad hyperbolic, Lingering Curse does look very strong with those numbers. Good thing numbers are what they’re balance testing for, right, right? I would like to see something similar to Withering Precision introduced back into curses because it would give power builds something to look forward to at the grandmaster level… and it would be a good excuse to move Parasitic Contagion out of curses.