Guild Wars 2

It seemingly never works. Or its very unreliable.

From my testing it seems like:

It doesnt work on invulnerable enemys
It can be blocked by things like aegis
It can be dodged even though it doesnt have a cast time (wtf?!?!?!?)

But also it seems to randomly miss sometimes. Do you have to maintain line of sight? Is there any projectile involved or is it instant? Can I do it on someone not in front of me?

All in all the skill is worthless it seems to be because its just way too unreliable and buggy.

Even when I have LOS, they are in front of me, they dont dodge, dont block and arent invulnerable it often still misses. Its basically a joke.

We might be missing something, it would make no sense for it to just randomly miss, but I experience the same thing you do. I thought maybe I was crazy or maybe they just blocked in a way I didn’t realize, well MAYBE they did! But either way it rarely ever works for me even if I’m smacking them before to make sure they don’t have aegis.

From what I know:

It shouldn’t work on invulnerable enemies. Nothing does. That’s what invulnerable means.
It should work on aegis, I believe it converts it to a short burning. You might still get the ‘blocked’ message though, from skills that place the user in a blocking stance, like protector’s strike and shield of wrath. As well as dodging.
It shouldn’t go through dodging. During a dodge, the target is effectively invulnerable.

I think it needs line of sight: the only skill I can think of that doesn’t is epidemic and that’s Just Plain Weird. I think you have to be facing your target for Corrupt Boon, as with most skills.

If you can get reproducible misses with Corrupt Boon (where dodging / blind / invuln are not involved) I’d like to hear about it in the bug thread. Honestly though, I haven’t had trouble with it.

I have about a 60% hit chance with it when there is no visible counter or obstruction. Admittedly this is too low. Glad you posted this, I would like a little clarification as to whether there is a bug or something impairing the ability I am not aware of.

Softspoken.2410:

I think it needs line of sight: the only skill I can think of that doesn’t is epidemic and that’s Just Plain Weird.

Tides of Blood (necro trident auto-attack) doesn’t require LoS either.

It works on aegis.

It’s supposed to be possible to dodge it, and it shouldn’t work on invulnerable enemies.

Most people struggle with it because it has strict range and facing requirements, but the ability works fine.

One thing to remember is people will almost always roll after using a big defensive cooldown, such as Armor of Earth. So always wait a second or two before using it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Tides of Blood (necro trident auto-attack) doesn’t require LoS either.

One of the few reasons I can tolerate underwater combat as a necro, the fact that you can hide behind mountains and still hit your target all day.

I always use Corrupt Boon, it’s too useful when it does decide to work. But seriously, this spell just doesn’t work a lot of the time. I’ll make absolutely sure there’s no possible way it could miss, obstruct, etc and it will just not work at all. You cast it, they’re not doing anything to protect against it, they’re not dodging, they’re in range and in line of sight, but nothing happens. The spell goes on cooldown and your opponent’s boons remain intact. They really need to look at this spell considering they push so hard to make condition necros take it with epidemic and blood is power. What should feel like a staple class ability instead feels like a buggy “cross your fingers and hope it decides to work at the right moment” spell. Even with its issues I can’t play without it.

Silly question, but you are sure you aren’t under a Blind condition when using it?

Having used it for the last month I can say corrupt boon works about half the time. I usually like to pop it when other classes pop a big stack of boons to come at me so its usually close range and obviously while facing the target. I think its more of a terrain issue as I have seen it pop as obstructed a lot appearingly die to slight changes in elevation.

The game handles most attacks as either melee or projectile. On the melee end of things this leads to wells and i think sceptre auto attack triggering effects like the stun from an enemy shielded by lightning aura.
I am not sure but i think i read somewhere on the forum that corrupt boon has a spectral grasp like projectile component. So it could be body blocked by clones/minions/pets/other players or just miss because of (slight) height differences or a pebble on the projectiles path.

I can confirm that Corrupt Boon misses enough that, for me personally, I don’t feel I can rely on it. As a result, I don’t have it on my skill bar any more.

Above post mentions a projectile component and that seems like it might be correct. There appears to be a slight delay between cast and effect (when it does work) and perhaps this delay is actually the cast time of an “invisible” projectile which could theoretically be blocked by clones/pets/pebbles/blades of grass/errant molecular detritus.

Suggestion: Change Corrupt Boon so it operates in the same way as Epidemic / Tides of Blood? i.e. no LOS required so we can rely on a hit. Until it is reliable, it’s pretty much a useless skill for me.

Donedusted.9846:

I can confirm that Corrupt Boon misses enough that, for me personally, I don’t feel I can rely on it. As a result, I don’t have it on my skill bar any more.

Above post mentions a projectile component and that seems like it might be correct. There appears to be a slight delay between cast and effect (when it does work) and perhaps this delay is actually the cast time of an “invisible” projectile which could theoretically be blocked by clones/pets/pebbles/blades of grass/errant molecular detritus.

Suggestion: Change Corrupt Boon so it operates in the same way as Epidemic / Tides of Blood? i.e. no LOS required so we can rely on a hit. Until it is reliable, it’s pretty much a useless skill for me.

+1 to suggestion.

it has a cone-shapped field, similar to warhorn #4. this means, that when u strafe, ur camera looks forward but ur body is actualy facing sideways. if the angle is too big, u miss.
Medium range, face directly towards target, stand still if u can afford it. then it works.

Just to add i have similar problems with Plague Signet. And sometimes it doesnt even remove conditions from me.

Flumek.9043:

it has a cone-shapped field, similar to warhorn #4. this means, that when u strafe, ur camera looks forward but ur body is actualy facing sideways. if the angle is too big, u miss.
Medium range, face directly towards target, stand still if u can afford it. then it works.

Do you have a source for this?

If this is true, it’s really stupid. Why would a single target ability require a cone-shaped field? Essentially this means it is an aoe that only affects one person…?

Just like Plague/Death Shroud sometimes deciding to cancel immediately even though I only pressed the button once. It’s just strange behavior you’ll get used to until it becomes more responsive.

IMO it should just be coded like BIP, which means you can cast it on a target without facing, but still requiring line of sight. Since you can be running directly away from something, and hit it with BIP, that would be nice for Corrupt Boon. Again I think the issue seems to be that it works like a really fast projectile, requiring facing, and for some reason only activating in the middle 90 degree arc.

Epidemic is very unusual in how it works, but I think it has to do with the fact that the “source” of the epidemic actually originates from the player/mob that was hit by the epidemic. So from the games perspective, it uses the epidemic target for radius, conditions applied/durations.

Since it originally worked at infinite range, it is a good bet the skill was coded to do nothing other than check that the target was an enemy. Then they added a distance check. Eventually they will get around to adding a line of sight check. I always find it odd that so many skills function differently, but should effectively work the same. It is almost like 10 different guys coded the 100’s of skills in a vacuum.

Donedusted.9846:

Flumek.9043:

it has a cone-shapped field, similar to warhorn #4. this means, that when u strafe, ur camera looks forward but ur body is actualy facing sideways. if the angle is too big, u miss.
Medium range, face directly towards target, stand still if u can afford it. then it works.

Do you have a source for this?

If this is true, it’s really stupid. Why would a single target ability require a cone-shaped field? Essentially this means it is an aoe that only affects one person…?

His source is probably me, I’ve said the same thing on these forums a few times. That description matches my experience with the ability.

I’d like to see the skill made more forgiving, but if it was made completely LOS-free I would feel like some element of skill in the game had been lost. As it is now I don’t really have a problem with it. Lots of spells behave differently from one another in terms of targeting and facing. For example, our Trident #1 skill doesn’t require line of sight. Another example, after starting the dagger 2 channel you can turn away from your target and it will keep going (but you can’t do this with axe 2 channel). Knowing all these small differences between skills is one thing that separates the good players from the great ones.

I posted this a while ago, necro right side skill slots should just be swapped to their underwater versions, they never failed and are way slicker to operate. Ofc that a giant mountain or wall would still stop it from hitting the target, but never a pile of cardboard boxes that probably have a really old spy inside them or a small hill.

I don’t think LOS free skills are “working as intended”. I fully expect them to be mopped up eventually. Think about how many skills used to work without LOS, and have now been changed. I think they have just left the least offensive offenders for last.

Corrpution boon needs to require LOS, however I don’t think it would be all that much of a change to remove the facing requirement. It is already hard enough to line up your facing, make sure they are in that invisible hard to define arc, wait till they have burned their dodges/invuls (or just spray and pray). Having a dagger ele dance around you and knock you off your feet over and over again makes it just irritating to try and line up.

I’ve seen it do-
Completely nothing despite being fired at someone, facing them and at somewhere between 600-900unit range. That seems to happen about 40% of the time with no combat log report of anything, so I can’t figure out what actually happened.
(mostly against DD Ele’s and Guards, basically the people you want this to work on!)

Inadvertently dodged more by accident than any kind of skill as I don’t think its got a projectile or spell effect shooting out the enemy could actually see.

I only use it in duels personally, but it fails about 50% of the time for me. Most of the time it is user error, where I drop it on someone while they are dodging or invulnerable, or a giant lightning ball, or outside my arc of activation.

Remove facing requirement like all the other corruption skills. Would be in line with Epidemic/BIP.

I’ve been playing sPvP with it for the past few nights and I find it finicky as hell. I can’t figure out the special magic always works formula of facing/distance/phase of the moon for this utility. It’s like that scene in every movie where the person needs their car to start… but they turn the key… and… nothing. Then the face stabbings start.

brogarn.8723:

I’ve been playing sPvP with it for the past few nights and I find it finicky as hell. I can’t figure out the special magic always works formula of facing/distance/phase of the moon for this utility. It’s like that scene in every movie where the person needs their car to start… but they turn the key… and… nothing. Then the face stabbings start.

That analogy was great….

I was dueling an engineer last night and I had him all booned up and ready to go, said to myself: “heheheh, this is it for him…. wait…. it didn’t work, NOOOOOO”

I have the same problem with DS2 though…. I am going to extensively test it and get back to the boards, because I really don’t think it is working right. I have a target selected, it is in range, and it is in front of me, and the bolt just goes straight ahead…. and these are just NPC mobs….. sorry, off topic.

I haven’t used this in SPVP, but have started paying closer attention to this since I replied to a similar thread.

As it relates to WvW, when it fails it is deffinately NOT a LoS or conal issue. I have had players all primed with boons, 10 feet in front of me, with neither of us dodging (in a map chokepoint) and POOF…..nothing.

I hate to lose this because it is a game changer when it works, but it feels like an engineer skill with how random it is.

If the skill has to behave in this way for balance reasons that’s fine but at least gives us some visual feedback so we can see this projectile/cone/whatever. It’s pretty frustrating when it doesn’t work even after doing everything in your power to ensure it works. It’s already hard enough to hit with players being keenly aware of the skill and dodging a lot after they use their “insert boon spam skill here.”

happens to me also and i have no idea how it gets blocked when it should turn aegis into condition of some sort.
It is isntant cast but gets evaded or something but theres no display info what happens. The skill is good and works most of the time but it can be very annoying

I paid particular attention to it last night in world vs. world, and it definitely seems like there’s some sort of conal or projectile element to it. It’s fine if the ability is going to work that way, but there should at least be some visual element that makes its failure obvious.

The ability is still amazing enough to keep in my bars even when it occasionally fails (I’d say it’s about a 20 percent failure rate), but it does need to be fixed.

I have seen some say that the conal zone applies vertically as well because sometimes when the target is up or down slope it doesn’t work. But I have successfully used the skill while defending on top of a wall with the target on the ground. So that shows that this skill is just wonky in general.

MeanMug.2630:

I haven’t used this in SPVP, but have started paying closer attention to this since I replied to a similar thread.

As it relates to WvW, when it fails it is deffinately NOT a LoS or conal issue. I have had players all primed with boons, 10 feet in front of me, with neither of us dodging (in a map chokepoint) and POOF…..nothing.

I hate to lose this because it is a game changer when it works, but it feels like an engineer skill with how random it is.

Yeah exactly this. You make 100% certain that there’s no possible way for Corrupt Boon to fail but it STILL fails randomly for no apparent reason. It would be really helpful to get a red post about this as it tends to ruin play when it does fail. There’s nothing worse than 1v1ing someone to gain control of a point, knowing he’s going to pop all his boons and saving your burst for when he’s completely debuffed, and then having the spell do absolutely nothing at the worst possible time. There’s NO reason this should exist; either the spell gets avoided with a clearly displayed “Evaded” or “Obstructed” or “Out of range” or “Vulnerable” or it works. There shouldn’t be any fear of having a spell just plain not work, you need to be able to time your play around key abilities used at the right time to make PvP doable.

Did this get fixed? Was using it earlier today and it seems more responsive and the targeting doesn’t seem as iffy as it was.

I’ve been using corrupt boon in my new sPvP build. Over the course of several hours of play, I only noticed it missing when the opponent dodged, blinded me, or blocked it with something like the Engineer shield ability. Seems to be working just fine.

Sometimes I’m scratching my head as to why it didnt land, but in fast paced wvw I probably missed something. I’m suspecting a bug, but could be wrong. :/