Guild Wars 2

I just tested this in the Mists against the golems, got video of it too. The Flesh Wurm doesn’t trigger Death Nova when it’s sacrificed with Necrotic Traversal!

I’d say maybe this is a feature, but the Bone Minions DEFINITELY trigger Death Nova when exploded so I doubtthis is the case.

Can anyone confirm that this is the case for them as well?

it works just fine (as intended) for me.

What do you mean “as intended”? Does Necrotic Traversal trigger Death Nova or not?

It should proc the poison field but not the direct damage.

OK I repeated my tests with bone minions, and you’re right, they don’t proc the damage when exploded either! Earlier today I thought I was seeing 2 sets of numbers (one for Death Nova and one for Putrid Explosion), but I repeated the tests while recording them and played them back in slow motion, and there’s only 1 set (which I assume is Putrid). However, the poison field DOES proc, both for Flesh Wurm and for Bone Minions.

So it’s conclusive: when deliberately sacrificed, minions proc the Death Nova poison field but not the damage. Makes me wonder whether there’s any point to death nova in pvp tbh, very disappointing,…. And the fact that the poison field procs anyway makes me wonder whether this might be a bug!

Interestingly, both Death Nova and Putrid Explosion seem to do roughly the same amount of damage whatever your own stats are. Tried it with berserker gear as well as with no amulet on the golems hundreds of times and both are always doing between 1200-1600 damage.

I have also seen them crit for ~2400 dam,age, but the crit rate is EXTREMELY low, even in berserker gear, so I guess it’s unaffected by your own precision and critical damage.

I know back in the days I were a MM. Necrotic Traversal didn t work either. Still I am no MM anymore (because I think it a bit boring) so I am not the expert XD

If I’m not mistaken, Death Nova proc poison field and N. Traversal does same thing. Isn’t it just that poison stack? Because last time I checked it worked fine

Rym.1469:

If I’m not mistaken, Death Nova proc poison field and N. Traversal does same thing. Isn’t it just that poison stack? Because last time I checked it worked fine

Death Nova has two functions:
On any minion death, it spawns a poison field (a pretty crazy one)

On “natural”, non-sacrificed, death, it deals around 1.2-1.5k direct damage.

The main issue of this was that they didn’t want to take Putrid Explosion, which deals fine damage already, and add on a flat almost 3k damage over two minions. Blood Fiend and Flesh Wurm are the only two others that have sacrifice skills, and realistically aren’t often going to proc the direct damage if sacrificed anyway, so it wasn’t a big deal for them to take the easy route and exclude all sacrifices.

Death Nova is still an incredible trait though, able to maintain 100% poison uptime through bone minions alone.

@Rym NT poisons people around the wurm, but doesn’t leave a poison field or do damage.

@Bhawb I agree the poison field is excellent in team fights – with finishers from teammates and your bone fiend you can keep reapplying poison aoe for the whole fight, but since minionmancers in pvp mostly bunker and 1v1 its utility is limited: now that I know it doesn’t proc on intentional sacrifices, it’s no longer a no-brainer choice when compared to either Close to Death in Spite or Fetid Consumption in blood.

Depends on who you expect to 1v1. In a 1v1 that extra 1.5k every single time they kill a minion, and permanent DPS+healing reduction murders a lot of 1v1 builds.

The only time I would ever take it out of a minion build is if you are expecting heavy conditions and aren’t running Lyssa/Dagger off-hand/Blood Fiend, and any time you run blood fiend you want Fetid Consumption.

20% increased personal damage isn’t that great when most builds are only going to see an increase of 100 at best per hit, and only when below 50%. Its just not that great unless you’re running a full-damage minion build (in which case yes it can be fine).