Guild Wars 2

Quick background about myself, I am predominately a PvP player, and have spent over 90% of my time in this game in SPvP playing every class. Lately I’ve taken a like to necro and mesmer. So here are my thoughts on the latest ninja nerf:

Whilst necros can still have huge impact in teamfights, I feel that their overall “team support” has been kitten by this nerf alone. In order to help cleanse conditions off allies now you must either pray to the RNG gods and take Plague Signet or force your entire team to sit in Well of Power for 5 seconds letting the enemy team bombard that small area for that duration, hoping you’ll clear 6 conditions that won’t be reapplied in half that time. I do agree the skill (Putrid Mark) needed a nerf, but I think the wrong aspect of its functionality was hit.

My proposed ideal functionality is the following:

• Transfer 3 conditions from each ally in the mark’s area to the enemy nearest the center of the mark when placed. Do not transfer any conditions from the caster unless he is also inside the mark’s area.
• Remove the double Blast Finisher bug.

That way, necros still have viable team support against conditions and Putrid Mark is adequately nerfed.

I’d like to hear what you guys have to say about this.

Acandis.3250:

the latest ninja nerf:

You mean the one from 5 months ago?^^

Acandis.3250:

• Transfer 3 conditions from each ally in the mark’s area to the enemy nearest the center of the mark when placed. Do not transfer any conditions from the caster unless he is also inside the mark’s area.

Self cleanse > ally cleanse. It’s an improtant part of ridding ourselves of focus fire and staying alive, which is the actual support we’re doing: stay alive and do damage.

Acandis.3250:

• Remove the double Blast Finisher bug.

Why do people insist this is a bug? It just has 2 finishers…

Self cleanse > ally cleanse.

I think SPvP is more about teamplay than anything else, and while you do rely on your teammates it’s nice to be able to help them too.

Acandis.3250:

• Remove the double Blast Finisher bug.

Why do people insist this is a bug? It just has 2 finishers…

It makes no sense that a skill should have 2 finishers >.>

Acandis.3250:

I think SPvP is more about teamplay than anything else, and while you do rely on your teammates it’s nice to be able to help them too.

I’m not againts restoring the ally cleanse, but you’ll help your team alot more with a self cleanse. So in the interest of fighting solo and teamplay: self cleanse > ally cleanse.

Acandis.3250:

It makes no sense that a skill should have 2 finishers >.>

Well… it makes sense in context of this particular skill since it’s not one finisher with double the effect, but actually two seperate parts of the skill.
And since the mark has to be triggered and usually hits a dark- or poison field in our case it’s not really that big of a deal.

Just out of curiousity… let’s assume one of the finishers really was unintended, which one would you get rid of? The placement or trigger finisher?

flow.6043:

Just out of curiousity… let’s assume one of the finishers really was unintended, which one would you get rid of? The placement or trigger finisher?

I would get rid of the placement trigger. It doesn’t actually cast any effects until the mark is tripped anyways.

Also, necros already have other excellent ways of condi flip/cleanse so I think it’s more important to restore ally cleanse.

So you would force every necro to run an off hand dagger…

And I disagree on the finisher, I’d get rid of the second one because it allows for less strategic gameplay. Without the first you’d no longer be able to pre-cast a self beneficial combo from range.
Also, if you precast a mark without a field, it’s rather unpredictable which field will end up on the mark when it actually triggers.

And removing either one of them would not only be a big nerf, but you’d end up in situations where the mark doesn’t trigger a blast finisher at all, even though the mark came in contact with a combo field at some point. And that would certainly be unintended, ergo: 2 finishers are not a bug.

flow.6043:

So you would force every necro to run an off hand dagger…

And I disagree on the finisher, I’d get rid of the second one because it allows for less strategic gameplay. Without the first you’d no longer be able to pre-cast a self beneficial combo from range.
Also, if you precast a mark without a field, it’s rather unpredictable which field will end up on the mark when it actually triggers.

And removing either one of them would not only be a big nerf, but you’d end up in situations where the mark doesn’t trigger a blast finisher at all, even though the mark came in contact with a combo field at some point. And that would certainly be unintended, ergo: 2 finishers are not a bug.

Firstly, I wouldn’t force anyone to do anything with my proposed change. It would be a balanced mechanic, why should I benefit from an AoE mechanic when I’m not even in the AoE?

Secondly, why would you precast such an important mark? Unless you’re fighting a 100% power comp, there’s no reason to cast this just to get 1 blast finisher out of it.

I don’t see the removal of 1 finisher as a big deal, especially when you shouldn’t be using such an important mark unless there’s an enemy around.

Trading the double blast finisher to get the group condi transfer back is a favorable trade in my opinion.

Probably not going to happen though. I get the feeling that the real reason they removed the ally to enemy condi transfer is due to bugged targeting issues they could not/would not spare the resources to fix.

Acandis.3250:

Secondly, why would you precast such an important mark? Unless you’re fighting a 100% power comp, there’s no reason to cast this just to get 1 blast finisher out of it.

I don’t see the removal of 1 finisher as a big deal, especially when you shouldn’t be using such an important mark unless there’s an enemy around.

I don’t always precast Putrid Mark, but when I do it’s because I want to charge it with a combo.
On the other hand, if you never precast it anyway, what’s the point of deleting the placement finisher?

All that aside, precasting marks has its benefits, like area control or that you can artificially reduce cooldowns from one trigger to the next. Of course I don’t spam my marks at any chance I get, but it’s definitely not always the best choice to wait for a big transfer. That’s like saying you should only use Corrupt Boon on stability.

The mark sucks now clear and simple..

I dove into the putrid/plague/WoC/WoB build and am experiencing the same problems.

As it first would scare players away a bit from marks.. now they basicly ignore them since.. passive cleanse..and yolo.. i believe this nerf made us take a huge hit.. in all aspects of pvp..

I totally support the suggestion. just wondering if if differentiates between conditions upon transfer..?

(i remember a topic that had the order of conditions that were transfered)

I’m okay with this change. It never really made sense that Putrid Mark just… magically removed conditions from you no matter what. It makes it consistent with MoB, and gets a nice buff to compensate (allied cleansing).

And let’s face it. Its not like its all that rare for a Necromancer to be close enough for this to work on themselves.

Ally cleansing is not a nice buff if it means losing the self cleanse, that would be more devestating than the stealth nerf in June.
Again, I’m not against restoring some form of support for Putrid Mark, but the proposed changes here would make this skill absolutely useless, unless some allies happen to be crowding up near a foe in a 180/240 radius.

Bhawb.7408:

Its not like its all that rare for a Necromancer to be close enough for this to work on themselves.

Considering how important positioning is for a necro, it would make absolutely no sense to make the defensive part of a skill (of a 1200 range weapon) only work when moving closer to your foes.

Absolutely agree with the OP: it is disappointing that they nerf one of our best team support skills, even while they’re buffing team support skills on every other class (see mesmer mantras etc). I was under the impression that their recent efforts had been to encourage team plays and I thought it was a great idea – it makes no sense that they would go in the exact opposite direction with the necro! I do agree that complete condition transfer at 1200 range (unblockable with Greater Marks), plus complete transfer from all allies was hideously overpowered, but I don’t like the way they balanced it.

The suggested fix sounds good: restore cleanse/transfer from up to 5 allies in the mark area, but DO NOT cleanse from the caster unless they are also in the area. It would still be pretty powerful, but if it’s limited to 3 conditions per ally at such a long cooldown I think it would be ok. If necessary, I would prefer that the blast finisher be removed from the skill completely, or even that the cooldown be slightly increased, in order to maintain the group support aspect of it. I do think that staff needs a blast finisher, but it can be moved to Reaper’s Mark.

Wait what? someone wants to nerf it even more? its already gotten to the point that staff aint a mandatory offhand because of the nerfs its skills got bunched on, itll be useless (think of mesmer torch) if you nerf it more.
Bloody A-net just needed to hit it on one place, either aoe removal or self cleanse.

I enjoy when people assume this skill has 2 blast finishers, simply because the blast finisher combo thing pops up when you place it.
Let me know how that works for you in actual combat.

If you aren’t feeling quite as into it, try putting down a Spectral Wall on your feet (Ethereal Field) and using Putrid Mark on it, and letting me know how long you get Chaos Armor for?

Da Sonic.6521:

I enjoy when people assume this skill has 2 blast finishers, simply because the blast finisher combo thing pops up when you place it.
Let me know how that works for you in actual combat.

If you aren’t feeling quite as into it, try putting down a Spectral Wall on your feet (Ethereal Field) and using Putrid Mark on it, and letting me know how long you get Chaos Armor for?

How many times do i have to repeat this there is both a animation bug (as in the combo field image showing up when you drop the mark instead of when it procs) and possible double finisher, but 2 fields have to be overlapping when mark is dropped and then the mark must be triggered when one expires but before the other, you can/were able to get both effects. Also as all chaos armor blasts this 3 seconds.

They nerfed it because it took skill to use it at the right time to help your team previously. So they just made it terrible.

Andele.1306:

Da Sonic.6521:

I enjoy when people assume this skill has 2 blast finishers, simply because the blast finisher combo thing pops up when you place it.
Let me know how that works for you in actual combat.

If you aren’t feeling quite as into it, try putting down a Spectral Wall on your feet (Ethereal Field) and using Putrid Mark on it, and letting me know how long you get Chaos Armor for?

How many times do i have to repeat this there is both a animation bug (as in the combo field image showing up when you drop the mark instead of when it procs) and possible double finisher, but 2 fields have to be overlapping when mark is dropped and then the mark must be triggered when one expires but before the other, you can/were able to get both effects. Also as all chaos armor blasts this 3 seconds.

It seems I need to repost some stuff:

Things you should know about the Putrid Mark blast finisher for application in combat:

1. Putrid Mark has a double finisher, one when you place the mark and one when it’s triggered, both will only combo when the mark is triggered but the placement-finisher will always display the combo-icon before that.

2. The blast area is the entire mark surface, but in order to get the combo the center of the mark needs to be placed on a combo field.
If you or your target stands in a combo field but you place the center of the mark outside then you won’t trigger the combo. That also means that you can actually stand outside of a combo field but still on the mark and get the combo as long as the center hits the field.

3. Multiple combo fields (this is not specific to Putrid Mark but I’ll mention it anyway):
Which combo has priority when several different fields are overlapping?
There are two rules:
a: the nearest field (again determined by the center) has priority, so the center of the field which is closest to the center of the mark will trigger the combo.
b: the first field has priority if they have the same center (like when placed without groundtargeting). Unlike other mechanics in the game “new” does not push out “old”.
For example, a necro places on himself: Well of Blood, Well of Darkness and Corrosive Poison Cloud (in that order). Any blast finisher in this area will trigger retaliation because the light field has priority over dark and poison.

4. The double finisher actually means that you get double the combo effect, like 6 stacks of might instead of just 3, or double duration of whatever stacks in duration.
Effects like Chaos Armor are the exception, apparently it doesn’t stack and will therefore last 3 seconds either way.

5. The placement finisher can combo the effect even if the combo field it was placed on doesn’t exist anymore, it “remembers” the combo for the entire 30 seconds the mark stays alive. The icon you see when it doesn’t really combo anything (yet) serves as a visual feedback for the player so he knows the mark gives an effect if he or his target stands on it when triggered.

6. The mark can actually trigger two different combos, see attatchment:
In the first panel I charge the mark with Chaos Armor on the eatheral field of Spectral Wall. I then place Corrosive Poison Cloud on the mark and pull the warrior so the mark gets triggered. Result: combo weakness on the npc, Chaos Armor on me.

Btw, I can’t believe that there are so many people who want to get rid of what is arguably the most reliable cleanse we have. That would be the hardest nerf EVER, and for what… group support?? Heeell no, kthxbye.

We have enough cleanse options that changing one from self only at max range to team and self if near the mark is not a bad trade.

Unless you deliberately avoided all the other methods and were only using staff I guess.

Edit: Plus the team transfer to an enemy target had incredible synergy with epidemic, and it worked better than a certain signet. Losing that was a pretty harsh nerf too.