Guild Wars 2

After a year and a half of never being on my skillbar, I’m finally using Epidemic again in the Halloween Labyrinth.

Epidemic, according to old forum threads is “So OP,” and “a force multiplyer of potentially unlimited power.”. However I don’t use it very often, and I don’t see it used very often.

See, in open world PvE, in order to get any use from the skill you need to have:

(1) A mob with a lot of hit points, enough hit points that a lot of conditions and Zerg auto attacks don’t kill it faster than the long casting cost for epidemic (which goes on full cool down if the skill fails because the target is dead).

(2) the mob has to be surrounded by enemies, and the enemies need to have a lot of hit points. (in order to tag a mob for loot, the spread conditions may need to tick several times). It’s not enough for your epidemic merely to spread to other enemies, but the conditions need to tick long enough to tag.

Orr mobs or Centaurs don’t have enough hit points to qualify, mobs in the rest of the game aren’t packed closely enough together to qualify. Fortunately, the beefy labyrinth mobs do qualify.

Dungeon bosses typically don’t have adds, which means that the skill sits useless.

Even in situations where the skill is theoretically useful (the charr fractal), the number of ideal uses pops up so infrequently, that you are better off taking another skill.

The way WvW is played today, with tight Zerg groups, it looks like the skill could have its uses, but, the skill is outclassed in every way by the condition removals that are everywhere.

Pvp, the problem is that the necromancer doesn’t have mobility and as a result isn’t part of team fights. Also, enemy positioning can render the skill useless. Also, the necromancer is pigeonholed into taking stun breaks because of no stability, leaps, or stun breaks on weapons.

The real problem with Epidemic, is that most of the time the skill just doesn’t do anything.

The skill has literally no effect on the target. “Save Yourselves,” isn’t just a group condition clear, it also gives the shouter a lot of buffs, but Epidemic does nothing.

I would prefer that the skill did something, anything, to the target (weak damage and poison?) in order for this skill to see time on my bar. If the skill needed to be weakened to accommodate this (self condition, or limits on the numbers of conditions spread that’d be ok).

What do you guys think?

Try using it without aiming for max effectiveness. Even if all you do is copy 7 bleeds, cripple, poison, and 3 torment (really easy to do), that’s still a potent multiplier for you.

They should reduce the cast time to at least 0.75s. Now is not really viable to use, even if you are cond necro, in any game mode.

Epidemic has the single highest potential for any skill in the game, and still has a super low CD to pair with it. Even a skill copying just 5 bleeds and some assorted other crap is stronger than a normal condi CD. Just because you can copy 25 bleeds 25 torment and every other condi in the game doesn’t mean you have to save it for that.

another use : load ranger pet with condis, detonate, profit

There’s nothing wrong with epidemic, you’re just trying to maximize the benefits too much, like Drarnor said. Necro has a ton of aoe potential so it should be fairly easy to tag mobs in open world pve. If you’re running in a zerg like that dont even bother trying to stack conditions, just run to the mob (you’ll be a little behind the group since you’re a slow necro) and cast epidemic. By the time you get to the mob there will be enough conditions for you to spread around.

Bhawb.7408:

Epidemic has the single highest potential for any skill in the game, and still has a super low CD to pair with it. Even a skill copying just 5 bleeds and some assorted other crap is stronger than a normal condi CD. Just because you can copy 25 bleeds 25 torment and every other condi in the game doesn’t mean you have to save it for that.

^ This.

Also, although it is extremely insignificant, I’d just like to point out that if it goes on cooldown without doing anything you can still apply vulnerability on your target. Corruption skills apply a condition to you as well, Epidemic applies 3stacks of Vulnerability. The reason behind this, or at least I believe the reason behind this is, either to give you more conditions to send to your foes, or to feed Consume Conditions.

For example: when I use Blood Is Power, I follow it up with Deathly Swarm to transfer the bleeds I apply to myself, to my opponent, further intensifying the bleeds I apply with my scepter and the bleeds added by Blood Is Power. You can do the same with Epidemic by transferring the Vulnerability by using Deathly Swarm or Putrid Mark.

Having a ton of conditions on us doesn’t always mean we’re about to die, sometimes it means more damage potential (;

As much as I like this skill, I tend to opt for poison cloud now. It grants solid benefits no matter the size of the group, and weakness and poison are both fairly uncommon to get reliably, but both potent. Aoe weakness is almost as good as protection and the poison aside from being a decent dot in its own right can do substantial healing prevention (effective damage) on any mobs with regen.

Though some people might not be fans of the poison field sitting around there for so long.

coordinate with others in a condi spike then use it

Yah, I find epidemic is pretty great and like folks have said even if you only spread a small bleed stack it still can allow you to hit multiple targets.

I’m currently running it in the Halloween Labyrinth and my only complaint is how small the spread is, it seems I consistently misjudge what will fall under the spread. I usually don’t run it in PvE but save it for WvW (against Zergs) and larger living world events like Halloween when there are bigger swarms and tougher enemies. It was instrumental for doing Scarlet when I was under lvl 80 as long as I was up long enough to pop my signet of hate and plague it gave me enough damage to gain XP and silver/gold for the events.

When traited it has a cooldown of what, 12 seconds? Just use it on CD if there are other mobs in the vicinity.

Transferring a handful of bleeds, poison, and cripple/chill is usually enough to make the 12/15s cooldown worth it. Add to it torment, weakness, blind, or vuln that your target may have just from fighting you and it’s definitely worthwhile.

Personally, I use it in my “vampiric hybrid” build (don’t laugh) to facilitate additional self-sufficiency (read: additional self-heals).

Epidemic has a CD of 15s untraited and a 1s cast time. While it does apply a few stacks of vulnerability, it doesn’t actually hurt you much, and the few times it can benefit you should easily balance out the times it hurts.

Grasping Dead is 10s CD and applies 3 bleeds and cripple
Dark Pact is a single-target immobilize on 25s CD
Doom is 1-1.5s fear with 20s CD
Enfeebling Blood is weakness + 2 bleeds, 25s CD

Meaning all you really need to do to make Epidemic worth casting is spread about 5 bleeds + another condition with over 10s duration. Not exactly a difficult task to accomplish.

Epidemic is great. Sure, it is a niche skill that is usually underpowered but in the right situations it is very powerful. I run a corruption build in the labyrinth and in some other dungeons. It wipes troublesome adds to improve group survivability.

I will bump this thread, because, well… it’s the single skill that made me play my necromancer 2 years ago.

I was looking at the new celestial meta and wondering if I could switch any of my utilities and get Epidemic back from storage after 26 months.

In today’s meta dominated by Engineers and Elementalists, I believe it would be worth trying. The amount of various condition spam a single Engineer can do nowadays is pretty much unreachable for a single necro. What’s important is the fact that without too many Celementalist facerolling around, Engi’s condition removal is pretty meh against strong condition pressure.

Here we have our Epidemic target. Paired in a team with another Engineer, helping you cover targeted engi it could be pretty devastating.

Now the main concern about Epidemic – utility skillbar. We all know that we have many good utilities such as E., CPC, Spectral Wall. The only thing holding them back is that Necromancer have mandatory utilities such like SArmor, Wurm and CB.

I was thinking about swapping SA for Walk and Wurm for Epidemic (basically my setup used 2 years ago).

What’s your opinion guys? Have you tried Epidemic in tPvP recently (not now on broken mmr, but b4 dec 2)? Could Epidemic live again in this Engineer/Celementalist meta?

I do not play PvP enough to have a good feel for viability but I suppose a straight corruption build using secepter/dagger, D/D, or staff, corrupt boon, epidemic, corrosive poison cloud, and plague might work but there are no escapes or stun breaks. Epi also needs two targets in reasonably close proximity with each other. CPC, CB, then Epi seems like it needs a partner to support you while you put the condi pressure on, hard. Maybe I will give it a try but I only play in yoloq.

Oldschool logic, but it doesnt work, heres why:

It puts necro in TEAMFIGHTS.
First poeple think there is where necro should be, safely doing lots of AOE + occasional fear/CB spike and interupting (not helping) rezz/stomp.
Thing is, necro has basicaly 0 self sustain and limited escapes – thus making it the perfect target. And even class mechaninc DS is weaker in bigger fights as it doesnt scale.

Here is “newschool logic” from the current necro master noscoc:
- most 1v1 are good for necro
- iirc all 2v2 are best for necro
- 3+ are teamfights, where bunker guard should be and necro shouldnt be – cz he is too easy to spike.
- also: partners for necro are anything but bunker guard – as they dont bring enough dmg

So with the current best spot for necro being 1v1 and mostly 2v2s – with better being on the attacking than defending node side – there is simply no need for epidemic
Maybe if it werent 99% uselss in 1v1….

Sad though, i like the boom of it would pay 1000g to make f2

And i dont think CPC deserves to be mentioned in the same “almost viable skills league”.

Epidemic is actually an amazing ability for small group stuff, however I think the reason why it isn’t used so often is because Necros need or tend to take survival-based utilities, or play well builds.

It is always satisfying to pop Signet of Spite on somebody and pop epidemic onto a whole group :p.

Might be usable in courtyard

killahmayne.9518:

Epidemic is actually an amazing ability for small group stuff, however I think the reason why it isn’t used so often is because Necros need or tend to take survival-based utilities, or play well builds.

It is always satisfying to pop Signet of Spite on somebody and pop epidemic onto a whole group :p.

This. IF you can get a good epidemic off, the enemy is going to have to cleanse, or be horribly hampered in the fight. However since necro has no actual escapes or ways to defend itself from multiple attackers, we have to take other utilities to compensate, thus ruling epidemic out in PvP.

For the simple bread and butter application, well of blood + blood is power + epedimic + putrid mark should be enough to get non vet mob groups melting.

Epidemic is one of those really good skills. But pretty much no where to use it.

spoj.9672:

Epidemic is one of those really good skills. But pretty much no where to use it.

Yeah, it’s essentially only useful at the Triple Trouble Wurm for the condition teams, which is a crying shame.

Lopez.7369:

The cast time is just way too long. Especially with all the cleansing in the game, many, most, or even all of the conditions you want to spread are cleared off before the Epidemic even goes off.

Pretty much this. Before the cast ends my target already cleaned all conditions. They should reduce the cast to ~1/2 and increase the CD to 20sec to compensate.