Guild Wars 2

Just want to pick the necromancer community’s brain a bit: what’s your opinion on adding a pseudo-condition (like a guardian’s gs 5), disease, into GW2?

For those who don’t remember, disease was a condition available in GW1 that caused health degeneration equal to poison, with the added bonus that it spread automatically to enemies of the same “type”. If a human was infected, all nearby/adjacent (think 100-250 radius) became infected (friendly fire possible, IIRC). If, say, an undead, beast, or elemental was infected, all nearby/adjacent undead, beasts, or elementals would be infected as well, but nothing else.

There is already an enemy type/species mechanic in the game; potions attest to this. Disease could be a pseudo condi unique to necros, available on a select few skills (say 1-3 across all new weapons or talents). It’s damage would be similar to whatever damage your poison would cause, minus the healing debuff, and spread automatically across all similar targets with normal targeting rules applying (in PVP, for example, if you hit a ranger with disease, and he goes to regroup with an elementalist with Diamond Skin up, the condi wouldn’t transfer while that effect was active. When Diamond Skin loses its effect, and if the ranger still has disease on him, only then would it “infect” the ele).

As for condi duration, whatever the remaining duration is on the “host”/initial target, that’s what it’ll be on the infected (you hit the ranger with 8 sec of disease, he regroups with the ele 3 seconds later. Four seconds later, Diamond Skin finally loses its effect and disease jumps to the ele for the remaining 1 second).

The condition, being a pseudo-condi, would/could not stack in any way.

Gets tricky in PvP for this game because unlike in GW1 where all players were Human, in GW2, there are 5 different races. The only thing I can say there is that it would, at least, put a dampener on those all-Asura teams.

I wouldn’t even have it barred to same-species spreading, just nearby enemies exactly how you said.

That’s actually an interesting idea, although I agree with Bhawb that it shouldn’t be race dependent. This got me thinking about a variation to this theme.

Not a new Condition but a new temporary debuff (much like the Signet of Vampirism in the way it marks a target) called something like Contagious. All conditions when applied to the target marked as Contagious are spread 1 per second to 5 targets in a radius around the infected. Sort of like a slower but more sustained Epidemic.

Would be kind of the reverse of things like Berserker’s Stance or Diamond skin which are of course unremovable buffs that allow for complete condi immunity. Contagion would not be removable but would be indicated on the infected players bar and have a fairly short duration I would imagine. Traditional condi cleanses & immunities would of course be the counter, and as a last resort the infected could isolate from the group.

Could be some interesting play to something like this, although admittedly it still doesn’t address any of the core gaps in Necromancer’s utility. But that’s another topic.

@Drarnor: I should’ve been a little bit more clear/concise: for GW2, it would have to focus more along enemy “type”, like the potions (Outlaw/Sons of Svanir/Icebood/etc). “Player” would be the type, infecting Asura, Charr, Sylvani, Human, & Norn alike.

that being said, I don’t know if it would fit into lore, per se, since the Tyrian races are unable to reproduce with one another. On the same token, however, there are documented cases of disease crossing species IRL (bovine spongiform encephalopathy [mad cow], rabies, HIV, and malaria all cross from animal to human, with various strains of influenza [avian, H1N1] crossing from human to animal). This could be enough to explain why a human could be infected by disease that a charr is carrying, however a nearby moa (WvW example) would not get infected.

@Bhawb—good idea. Being a pseudo condi, it wouldn’t be able to be xferred, cleansed, or Epi’d and would have to run its course.

Effect could be provided by new trait (example):

Virulence
Your poison and/or (TBD) bleeding skills also apply disease for 6 seconds (scales with condition damage & condition duration)
Disease:
Deals 600 damage (6 seconds).
Infects nearby enemies of the same type (player counts as an enemy type).

[Edit] take the damage with a grain of salt, I realize it’s a non-removable condition, this is just an example. Adjust in your reading of, to make feasible

Disease is a very broad term. Malaria is a parasite, Influenza is a Virus, Salmonella is a Bacteria. Mad Cow is simply a misfolded protein that causes other proteins to misfold (aka the Luigi effect).

It would not be a stretch then for a disease to have a magical basis. Since we are necromancers, a caster class, it should be a non issue to do. It would be something like a self-spreading curse. This would eliminate any lore issues regarding cross species interaction.

Lorelei.3918:

It would not be a stretch then for a disease to have a magical basis. Since we are necromancers, a caster class, it should be a non issue to do. It would be something like a self-spreading curse. This would eliminate any lore issues regarding cross species interaction.

This, and its within Necromancer’s power and theme easily.

I think there is another way to do this. Instead, have it act similar to retaliation: when you’re struck, you apply a stack to your enemy.

This can be an effect of entering into DS. That way, we actually DO get stronger over time. We are supposed to be a condition heavy profession and yet our torment is only 3 stacks and we can only chill and fear in DS.

That way, you’ll load up on poison/bleed/cripple/chill or whichever condis you’d like, pop DS and watch as is spreads. That now involves a little strategy

That being said, I think that after Disease has been applied, your enemy should receive a stack of “immune” for a few seconds, much how thieves get stealth and revealed.

I would rather see it as a “Effect”, not condition in fact. First reason is that we have pretty wide amount of conditions already, second reason is, whenever we get something “unique” other professions get better versions of that when it comes to conditions.

Let it be minor, but constant effect which heals you in Death Shroud and buffs siphoning on affected targets maybe.

I’ve suggested Disease multiple times. Although personally I think it should be a condition. And a rare condition like it was in GW1. Personally, I would prefer it to have higher damage then poison. Maybe 300 with full rabid/dire/Carrion armor or perhaps 400, non stacking. And like Bawb said spread to enemies only.

But I also have the rather unpopular opinion that we should have a few more condition and boons to round things out for Condi damage sets to have a higher diversity among professions.

I would.love.to.see.a condi for necros instead of just bleed stacks

We should have more ways to put torment on someone to stop people from just kiting the kitten out of us and disengaging whenever the fight isn’t going there way.

Oooh a necro! I’m gonna kill this baddie. Oh kittentt maybe not. Welp see ya later necro!

I really like this idea. My wife suggested a trait called “Patient Zero” that would give the inflicted a random condition once per tick. It would then also be spread to nearby enemies on the following tick.

NeXeD.3042:

We should have more ways to put torment on someone to stop people from just kiting the kitten out of us and disengaging whenever the fight isn’t going there way.

Oooh a necro! I’m gonna kill this baddie. Oh kittentt maybe not. Welp see ya later necro!

So sad. … but true
Edit scepter AA needs something else.besides bleeds maybe torment

alamore.1974:

NeXeD.3042:

We should have more ways to put torment on someone to stop people from just kiting the kitten out of us and disengaging whenever the fight isn’t going there way.

Oooh a necro! I’m gonna kill this baddie. Oh kittentt maybe not. Welp see ya later necro!

So sad. … but true
Edit scepter AA needs something else.besides bleeds maybe torment

Only way to implement it into AA would be to replace one of the bleeds for it. not only would it result in more damage (only mobs stand still and even those can be kited) if it has the same duration but also in more condi pressure. just from AA you would be applying 3 different condis which could easily be reapplied.

i could maybe see it replacing bleeds on S2 to fit with the “don’t move” nature of it.
the perfect scenario would be torment added to S3, so it would be more beneficial to condi build besides LF.

however i don’t see any of those changes happening.

Du Bist Schuld.8097:

alamore.1974:

NeXeD.3042:

We should have more ways to put torment on someone to stop people from just kiting the kitten out of us and disengaging whenever the fight isn’t going there way.

Oooh a necro! I’m gonna kill this baddie. Oh kittentt maybe not. Welp see ya later necro!

So sad. … but true
Edit scepter AA needs something else.besides bleeds maybe torment

Only way to implement it into AA would be to replace one of the bleeds for it. not only would it result in more damage (only mobs stand still and even those can be kited) if it has the same duration but also in more condi pressure. just from AA you would be applying 3 different condis which could easily be reapplied.

i could maybe see it replacing bleeds on S2 to fit with the “don’t move” nature of it.
the perfect scenario would be torment added to S3, so it would be more beneficial to condi build besides LF.

however i don’t see any of those changes happening.

We are necros… I’m used to changes not happening, all we can do is talk and hope.

It’s a little ridiculous that torment was originally supposed to be just for the necros. Now we only have access to it through one skill, a rune set, and a sigil.

NeXeD.3042:

It’s a little ridiculous that torment was originally supposed to be just for the necros. Now we only have access to it through one skill, a rune set, and a sigil.

No, that was never going to be the case. We were allowed to pitch ideas for it, and we were going to be the first to get it on a new skill, but we were never going to have exclusive access.