Guild Wars 2

Corrosive Poison Cloud needs to be improved. Want proof? Even the Auran Racial is better.

Corrosive Poison Cloud:

Duration: 12 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Weakness: Self Weakness 6 s
Radius: 240
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 900
Cast Time: 1 second casts while moving
Cooldown: 40 seconds

Radiation Field:

Duration: 15 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Radius: 240
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 1,200
Cast Time: 1/4 second cast while stationary
Cooldown: 60 seconds

Radiation Field has a 400% faster cast time, 25% longer duration, 25% longer range, and does not inflict self weakness. However it also has a 50% longer cooldown and cannot be cast on the move. In a typical scenario however both these drawbacks do not show as a long duration field is not useful for a highly mobile fight, the cast time is tiny at 1/4 second, and 40 second vs 60 second cooldown doesn’t make that much difference when most battles are over or decided in within the space of either cooldown.

Please Improve Corrosive Poison Cloud.

My Suggestion:

Corrosive Poison Cloud: (Improved!)

Duration: 15 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Weakness: Self Weakness 6 s
Radius: 360
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 1,200
Cast Time: 1/2 second casts while moving
Cooldown: 40 seconds

This would Increase the range to the much more useful 1,200 that Radiation Field enjoys, increases the AOE radius by 50%, increases the duration by 25% to match Radiation Field, and lowers the cast time by 50% while keeping the other benefits.

This makes it far superior to Radiation Field as it should be (especially since engineers get even MORE use from Radiation Field). It’ll still be lesser used than alot of other things, but it’ll be much more competitive at least this way.

I definitely like the idea of increasing the size of CPC, since it is supposed to be an area denial, it needs to actually have a large enough size to, you know, deny an area.

Poison Cloud should be bleed instead of weakness.

No, it shouldn’t. Weakness is underrated but a field of stacking weakness would wreck people in PvP, and PvE its actually a good way to mitigate damage.

Speaking from a tPvP perspective, it’s hard to see this skill getting much use even if it is improved. While Poison fields are nice to put on points and on top of corpses to prevent/slow down rezzes, it is easily accessible from Thieves w/ shortbow (which nearly all Thieves use) and Engi grenades. The weakness aspect of it is not all that awesome either since you can just blast finisher in the field to apply AoE weakness (which is also readily available with Thief shortbow). And the area control aspect of it is better done with Necro wells.

Poison application for Necros is a problem however, but IMO it should innate with the Necro’s weapons, rather than be forced to use a utility slot on it. Chilblains should leave a poison field which ticks poison in the field (it already leaves a poison field for combo’ing stuff, but doesn’t continually tick poison), and Corrosive Poison Cloud should just be scraped entirely IMO, and it’s slot should be replaced with some other interesting mechanic.

Bhawb.7408:

No, it shouldn’t. Weakness is underrated but a field of stacking weakness would wreck people in PvP, and PvE its actually a good way to mitigate damage.

Can already get perma-weakness with traits.

Requiring 30 in Curses and high precision. Or, you could drop this and let an ele wail on it with blast finishers.

Couldnt we change cpcs self condi into cripple or blind, weakness kinda wrecks a necro (lowering already bad scailing and/or weak at base damage abilites and less dodge….) id be fine with that, oh and maybe letting use use it underwater (spawning around the target) itll be pretty cool.

Or how about buffing the weakness condition to cut crit chance in half

roamzero.9486:

Or how about buffing the weakness condition to cut crit chance in half

yeah that would be nice. A 25% chance should be okay and shorter duration would fix so many problems. i mean a boss in dungeons just needs to apply this condition and all those waarior/mesmer groups would fail. at least then they would pick someone to deal with that..
and for pvp necro could save himself without mechanicslike mistform.. just by applying this condition as much as he can :P
oh.. imagine all those whiners xD

Skyro.3108:

Speaking from a tPvP perspective, it’s hard to see this skill getting much use even if it is improved. While Poison fields are nice to put on points and on top of corpses to prevent/slow down rezzes, it is easily accessible from Thieves w/ shortbow (which nearly all Thieves use) and Engi grenades. The weakness aspect of it is not all that awesome either since you can just blast finisher in the field to apply AoE weakness (which is also readily available with Thief shortbow). And the area control aspect of it is better done with Necro wells.

Poison application for Necros is a problem however, but IMO it should innate with the Necro’s weapons, rather than be forced to use a utility slot on it. Chilblains should leave a poison field which ticks poison in the field (it already leaves a poison field for combo’ing stuff, but doesn’t continually tick poison), and Corrosive Poison Cloud should just be scraped entirely IMO, and it’s slot should be replaced with some other interesting mechanic.

As you stated this will never be viable for tPVP. This is why I am not trying to make it viable for tPVP, that would require a complete rebuild of the skill to be something different than what it is. Any buffs to tPVP necro should be pursued elsewhere. This is strictly PVE and WvW where this skill could actually see good use if it was a little better.

Andele.1306:

Couldnt we change cpcs self condi into cripple or blind, weakness kinda wrecks a necro (lowering already bad scailing and/or weak at base damage abilites and less dodge….) id be fine with that, oh and maybe letting use use it underwater (spawning around the target) itll be pretty cool.

The point of corruption abilities is a trade-off, or if you are spec’d for it an additional condition you can inflict on an enemy. Considering the field itself is long duration and the self-weakness is short it’s not hard to time your hard hitting power abilities outside of that time. Also, keep in mind you could easily place this before using consume conditions.

In essence you have 2 really good uses for this: Consume conditions = more heal, Plague Signet = more conditions sent to foe. If neither of those are options in your build you can still just try…playing well. This will greatly mitigate the temporary weakness with good timing.

50% chance for glancing blow only applies to direct damage, not condition damage. The only real concern of having weakness on you is endurance regen and lets be honest necro’s have great survivability in nearly any spec when played right.

Last note: If you think weakness is really that bad for you then it’s even worse for the targets you’re giving it to with poison as well in an AOE…right?

Ralathar.7236:

The point of corruption abilities is a trade-off, or if you are spec’d for it an additional condition you can inflict on an enemy. Considering the field itself is long duration and the self-weakness is short it’s not hard to time your hard hitting power abilities outside of that time. Also, keep in mind you could easily place this before using consume conditions.

In essence you have 2 really good uses for this: Consume conditions = more heal, Plague Signet = more conditions sent to foe. If neither of those are options in your build you can still just try…playing well. This will greatly mitigate the temporary weakness with good timing.

50% chance for glancing blow only applies to direct damage, not condition damage. The only real concern of having weakness on you is endurance regen and lets be honest necro’s have great survivability in nearly any spec when played right.

Last note: If you think weakness is really that bad for you then it’s even worse for the targets you’re giving it to with poison as well in an AOE…right?

Difference is, Poison and Vuln CB and Epi place have little impact on the necro, its there to fuel the power of necro condi control, while chill and weakness have higher impacts and are a priorty for removal (longer cooldowns ending up even longer and less dodge), essencially the only thing other corruptions do is maybe make the enemy have to do less damage to kill you, while weakness actually changes/forces how you should play (wouldnt be that much of a thing if necros got vigor, but i am against it since it actually forces more thoughtful gameplay than spam dodge once every 3-4 seconds).
Also power and “tank” necros (who still get their delicious dose of utility from CB and CPC) got it kinda hard with losing about 1/5th of their damage.

The most intriguing part of this change to me is making the 3s of poison and weakness apply every second, allowing for fairly rapid stacking.

I would decry this as overpowered, but one other skill seems too relevant to ignore, especially when you consider its synergy with a particular minor trait that thieves have access to.

And after a little thought, I like the idea of a larger AoE. If nothing else it would help differentiate CPC from wells.

Doing all of this together seems like too much, but some combination of “applies every second” and “has a huge area” seems appropriate.

@Skyro: About Necro poison application: I’d love to see it more thoroughly available on a couple weapon skills as well, especially after ANet brought up ‘poison application’ as a defining characteristic of the Necromancer, somehow.
But I think it’s essential that there is at least one utility skill that has poison as its emphasis, so that someone with the ‘wrong’ weapon sets still has the option to give up a utility slot for poison when the situation calls for it.

Should cause 3s Poison and 2 sec Confusion every tick. It’s too boring and weak, and certainly doesn’t need bleed.

CPC has advantages over shortbow but they don’t really make up the difference.

To keep choking gas up for the duration, the thief uses one initiative bar. In the same amount of time he regenerates about 2/3 of an initiative bar. Basically, for a thief to keep a poison field down for the same amount of time, the only other thing he can do is fire 2-3 cluster bombs. CPC is fire and forget, allowing you to chill and boonstrip in the meantime. Weakness, poison, and chill basically turn a guard into a punching bag when stacked together. I could definitely see a chilling darkness/focused rituals build using CPC effectively, if only chilling darkness was worthwhile.

On the other hand, choking gas has a massive list of advantages over CPC, so yeah it could probably use looking at. A much shorter recharge or a slightly longer duration would be good. Removing weakness from it would suck though. People always mistake weakness for a defensive condition.

Aside from (mostly lackluster) combo’s, the only reason to use AoE fields in pvp is potential for serious damage if you keep your enemy in it. AoE field that doesn’t deal damage is pretty pointless imo. You could buff this skill to give bleeding and/or confusion and it still wouldn’t be used, unless it gave like 5 stacks of confusion per second.

All I read was…. random racial > necro utility. And there are still people claiming necro is fine. Pfft… what a joke. And its not just poison cloud that falls into this category.

Andele.1306:

Couldnt we change cpcs self condi into cripple or blind, weakness kinda wrecks a necro (lowering already bad scailing and/or weak at base damage abilites and less dodge….) id be fine with that, oh and maybe letting use use it underwater (spawning around the target) itll be pretty cool.

Run CPC with offhand dagger. Dagger 4 allows you to instantly toss the weakness onto the opponent to jump start the cripple stacking. Or save it for when you are about to use consume conditions for extra healing. Just time it.

I love the whole I hurt you while hurting me aspect of many of the necro abilities. Because often enough they can be combo’d and dropped on an enemy, eaten for more healing, or convert into boons.

Too bad we couldn’t get a poison cloud that followed the target like Plague Form follows us.

It should be noted that Radiation Field is the ONLY racial skill that is superior to the profession skill it most closely mimics, which makes it odd in its own right. Not saying that CPC doesn’t need a buff (Very much it does), just that Radiation Field is an outlier.

I, for one, would like to see the cloud pulse each second (currently it pulses once every 3 seconds, making it pretty worthless) and have something in it that plays up the CORROSIVE part of its name. Damage, boon stripping, blindness, or even vulnerability, I don’t care, but something needs to be there to say “Hey, this is more than just nastier than normal poison”.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It should be noted that Radiation Field is the ONLY racial skill that is superior to the profession skill it most closely mimics, which makes it odd in its own right. Not saying that CPC doesn’t need a buff (Very much it does), just that Radiation Field is an outlier.

I, for one, would like to see the cloud pulse each second (currently it pulses once every 3 seconds, making it pretty worthless) and have something in it that plays up the CORROSIVE part of its name. Damage, boon stripping, blindness, or even vulnerability, I don’t care, but something needs to be there to say “Hey, this is more than just nastier than normal poison”.

Lets see about that for elites:
Hounds of balthazar vs flesh golem/spirit of nature/thieves guild; Charrzooka/Take Root vs Mortarl Become the Insert random animal vs Rampager, Elixir X, Tornado

And now utility:
As said Rad field vs CPC; Grasping Vines vs Throw Bolas and Hidden Pistol vs Lightning Reflexes can also count depending on build

Grasping Vines is more closely parallelled to the Ranger elite (they have similar mechanics, and Grasping Vines was actually stronger back in Beta). Still strong, but this time actually weaker than the closer skill (though as it’s utility vs. elite, perhaps not a fair comparison).

Hidden Pistol is more similar to Quick Shot (Ranger Shortbow 3) and is by far inferior (twice the casting time, longer recharge, can’t be used on targets behind you, no Swiftness, shorter range)

Hounds of Balthazar is worse than any of the similar elites (Warband Support is on par with Thieves Guild, but has longer recharge). Flesh Golem is permanent and tankier with a great active, Spirit of Nature is tankier and has great abilities (including the active, but not limited to that), and Thieves Guild spam damage, blind, and pulls.

The others, I will agree with you on, I suppose. Become the X is most similar to Juggernaut, but because Juggernaut sucks so badly, the skills by virtue of being decent are way better.

Tornado would be good if the damage radius was at least as large (if not larger) as the knock-back radius. You can still use it to be extremely disruptive.

Since Elixer X is random between Juggernaut and Tornado, it’s not good, but that’s because the other two are not good.

It should pulse every second like a well

Ralathar.7236:

Corrosive Poison Cloud needs to be improved. Want proof? Even the Auran Racial is better.

Corrosive Poison Cloud:

Duration: 12 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Weakness: Self Weakness 6 s
Radius: 240
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 900
Cast Time: 1 second casts while moving
Cooldown: 40 seconds

Radiation Field:

Duration: 15 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Radius: 240
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 1,200
Cast Time: 1/4 second cast while stationary
Cooldown: 60 seconds

Radiation Field has a 400% faster cast time, 25% longer duration, 25% longer range, and does not inflict self weakness. However it also has a 50% longer cooldown and cannot be cast on the move. In a typical scenario however both these drawbacks do not show as a long duration field is not useful for a highly mobile fight, the cast time is tiny at 1/4 second, and 40 second vs 60 second cooldown doesn’t make that much difference when most battles are over or decided in within the space of either cooldown.

Please Improve Corrosive Poison Cloud.

My Suggestion:

Corrosive Poison Cloud: (Improved!)

Duration: 15 s
Poison: 3 s (252 damage) (Per second spent in the field)
Weakness: 3 s (Per Second Spent in the field)
Weakness: Self Weakness 6 s
Radius: 360
Combo: Poison Field
Range: 1,200
Cast Time: 1/2 second casts while moving
Cooldown: 40 seconds

This would Increase the range to the much more useful 1,200 that Radiation Field enjoys, increases the AOE radius by 50%, increases the duration by 25% to match Radiation Field, and lowers the cast time by 50% while keeping the other benefits.

This makes it far superior to Radiation Field as it should be (especially since engineers get even MORE use from Radiation Field). It’ll still be lesser used than alot of other things, but it’ll be much more competitive at least this way.

At first I was like “oh no not another CPC hater” but you made valid points and I approve of your ideas. When all other racial skills were meant to be weaker than normal skills, I think this proves that CPC needs some tweaking. I personally love the heck out of this skill, I think it’s one of our best ones honestly, but you’re right, it should at least be better than a racial and your ideas for it are reasonable, wouldn’t make it OP, and would bring it in line with where it should have been at the beginning without destroying the racial skill, should other classes still want to use it (I am never a fan of nerfing racial skills, they are weak enough as it is, which leaves the only option of buffing CPC to be on par). The only other thing I wish we could see out of it, but would probably make it too OP would be pulses or some mechanic to allow for health siphons off of it. It’s not something I think it needs per-se but definitely something I would want.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Grasping Vines is more closely parallelled to the Ranger elite (they have similar mechanics, and Grasping Vines was actually stronger back in Beta). Still strong, but this time actually weaker than the closer skill (though as it’s utility vs. elite, perhaps not a fair comparison).

Hidden Pistol is more similar to Quick Shot (Ranger Shortbow 3) and is by far inferior (twice the casting time, longer recharge, can’t be used on targets behind you, no Swiftness, shorter range)

Hounds of Balthazar is worse than any of the similar elites (Warband Support is on par with Thieves Guild, but has longer recharge). Flesh Golem is permanent and tankier with a great active, Spirit of Nature is tankier and has great abilities (including the active, but not limited to that), and Thieves Guild spam damage, blind, and pulls.

The others, I will agree with you on, I suppose. Become the X is most similar to Juggernaut, but because Juggernaut sucks so badly, the skills by virtue of being decent are way better.

Tornado would be good if the damage radius was at least as large (if not larger) as the knock-back radius. You can still use it to be extremely disruptive.

Since Elixer X is random between Juggernaut and Tornado, it’s not good, but that’s because the other two are not good.

Its only utility vs utility and elite vs elite (since all healing skills are playstyle based), weapon skills are overall more impactful than utility slots so you cannot compare them.
Bola and Wines are both based on the immoblization trick, but Wines has 1 second longer duration at base and twice the duration if the wine isnt killed, its only missing the damage (and even with 100% cond dur wine still has a second over bola).
Hidden pistol is not only a projectile finisher but has the ranged damage advantage so in most cases a ranger would get more benefit from it (not to mention that the vigor part of LR is wasted by 5 trait points) and no it can be cast from behind (will do same rotation move as with shortbow, but unlike shortbow you can interrupt it since the cast time is longer).

Hounds of balth is possibly the most damage a elite can do by itself in game (right under lich with perma 1 spam and guardian book derplz on aoe), its constant aoe burning 2×3k hits (around 2k on bosses), 2x knockdown leap from 600 range and 2 tanky pets, they together have same hp than traited spirit (kittens each from lich form vs 8 on spirit, but are thus weaker to powerful aoe) and deal more damage than warband and thieves guild (that apply 1-2 conditions from time to time and got no utility past tanking), also the stronger skills from spirit are random… what is qutie the problem.
Also flesh golem is only 1 summon and only gets stronger than the hounds (1 of them getting 2 leaps pre 30 seconds total of 4 possible ccs over a 30 second spam instead of 1 linear minion position based charge cc) if fully traited, but true if you can keep him up he is stronger as a long term minion and open pve/bosses with high defiant stacks.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

At first I was like “oh no not another CPC hater” but you made valid points and I approve of your ideas. When all other racial skills were meant to be weaker than normal skills, I think this proves that CPC needs some tweaking. I personally love the heck out of this skill, I think it’s one of our best ones honestly, but you’re right, it should at least be better than a racial and your ideas for it are reasonable, wouldn’t make it OP, and would bring it in line with where it should have been at the beginning without destroying the racial skill, should other classes still want to use it (I am never a fan of nerfing racial skills, they are weak enough as it is, which leaves the only option of buffing CPC to be on par). The only other thing I wish we could see out of it, but would probably make it too OP would be pulses or some mechanic to allow for health siphons off of it. It’s not something I think it needs per-se but definitely something I would want.

Thanks. It was difficult to make sure I thought it through to buff it without making it OP. While I wouldn’t be terribly against it siphoning health I’m not sure if it thematically fits the skill as it isn’t a darkness move like the wells but instead a poison move and it does no direct damage.

Ralathar.7236:

Nay of the Ether.8913:

At first I was like “oh no not another CPC hater” but you made valid points and I approve of your ideas. When all other racial skills were meant to be weaker than normal skills, I think this proves that CPC needs some tweaking. I personally love the heck out of this skill, I think it’s one of our best ones honestly, but you’re right, it should at least be better than a racial and your ideas for it are reasonable, wouldn’t make it OP, and would bring it in line with where it should have been at the beginning without destroying the racial skill, should other classes still want to use it (I am never a fan of nerfing racial skills, they are weak enough as it is, which leaves the only option of buffing CPC to be on par). The only other thing I wish we could see out of it, but would probably make it too OP would be pulses or some mechanic to allow for health siphons off of it. It’s not something I think it needs per-se but definitely something I would want.

Thanks. It was difficult to make sure I thought it through to buff it without making it OP. While I wouldn’t be terribly against it siphoning health I’m not sure if it thematically fits the skill as it isn’t a darkness move like the wells but instead a poison move and it does no direct damage.

Yeah now that I think about it I kind of like the fact it doesn’t do direct damage because it gets around retaliation, which is good on those karka that love to perma-retal. Just wish the weakness would affect them since they like to evade constantly lol, slow them down some.

Andele.1306:

Its only utility vs utility and elite vs elite (since all healing skills are playstyle based), weapon skills are overall more impactful than utility slots so you cannot compare them.
Bola and Wines are both based on the immoblization trick, but Wines has 1 second longer duration at base and twice the duration if the wine isnt killed, its only missing the damage (and even with 100% cond dur wine still has a second over bola).
Hidden pistol is not only a projectile finisher but has the ranged damage advantage so in most cases a ranger would get more benefit from it (not to mention that the vigor part of LR is wasted by 5 trait points) and no it can be cast from behind (will do same rotation move as with shortbow, but unlike shortbow you can interrupt it since the cast time is longer).

Hounds of balth is possibly the most damage a elite can do by itself in game (right under lich with perma 1 spam and guardian book derplz on aoe), its constant aoe burning 2×3k hits (around 2k on bosses), 2x knockdown leap from 600 range and 2 tanky pets, they together have same hp than traited spirit (kittens each from lich form vs 8 on spirit, but are thus weaker to powerful aoe) and deal more damage than warband and thieves guild (that apply 1-2 conditions from time to time and got no utility past tanking), also the stronger skills from spirit are random… what is qutie the problem.
Also flesh golem is only 1 summon and only gets stronger than the hounds (1 of them getting 2 leaps pre 30 seconds total of 4 possible ccs over a 30 second spam instead of 1 linear minion position based charge cc) if fully traited, but true if you can keep him up he is stronger as a long term minion and open pve/bosses with high defiant stacks.

Vines has over double the cooldown of bola, does no damage, is not a finisher, and is very vulnerable to blinks and smart players killing it very quickly. It’s good on a single use vs bad players though.

Hidden Pistol is just a plain good skill.

Your estimation of hounds is indeed correct. I love that skill even though the recharge sucks. I find it superior area damage and my ele even uses it instead of glyph of elementals due to it being a reliable effect vs an attunement based effect. I don’t have time to choose X or Y attunement to start a battle and lock myself out just for a summon, nor do I have time at many times to fit the summons in before combat. I needed something I could precast and forget right before battle joined and Hounds is that.