Guild Wars 2

Skyro.3108:

…
Which highlights another issue on player’s view of Epidemic, … in reality its strength lies in its ability to leverage your team’s conditions.

Exactly this. Regardless of game mode Epidemic makes it possible to land an AoE condition stack that can kill in seconds if your cleanse is on CD. You can do this essentially at will (very short CD). In a coordinated tPvP match this is strong. In a mindless WvW zerg where the conditions come from 20 different sources all at once it is even stronger. Making it a little tricky to hit is necessary.

I cannot understand how everyone is saying this change is necessary and understandable, considering this skill was not, and has never been on the hit-list as supremely overpowered. I would content the changes to it when they put in LOS inadvertently changed the targetting for immune/dodging targets. That wasn’t even in the patch notes.

I am not arguing that epidemic isn’t stong, isn’t worth taking, isn’t going to continue to be taken, but everything being said here screams theorycraft. The “what if” scenarios are eye-roll worthy. A team of coordinated fear epidemic necros would get face rolled by stability/condition removal/stun breakers. Just because you can come up with a seemingly overpowered theory, there is always a seemingly overpowered theory counter. People dodge rolling your corruption boons, fears, whatever.

Retaliation and glamour confusion got nerfed in WvW becauae it was out of hand. Every coordinated zerg was running them. Some were also using epidemic necros to improve the effect, but the smart ones realized an extra source of glamour and confusion was better than the “chance” at more confusion.

I am not against a skill that requires setup, or a skill that has a high risk vs. reward, but right now, as is, the skill is out of line for what it can do in WvW.

I am going to pass on continuing the argument here, as I don’t think the people responding I am going to be able to convince, and I am sure everyone else is tired of me posting. I personally miss having epidemic on my bar, but in WvW, at least for me, it isn’t worth taking with such a low hit rate (on average), compared to a power based build with wells and marks.

The strength of epidemic was in a condition build, and conditions were already second-bananna to power in WvW, except in certain circumstances. Since I can’t kill supervisors anymore, condition removal is just as prevailant as ever or worse because of lemon grass, I guess I will just go with zerker marks/wells and say goodbye to the way I used to enjoy playing. Could be a L2 kitten ue for me, but I consider myself to be a good enough player, and if its effectiveness is going to remain sub-par, I will just avoid it, though it makes me sad.

The nature of WvW as it currently stands with how the down-state works, and how conditions work in general is playing against epidemic. This nerf was unnecessary, at least in WvW.

Rennoko.5731:

I cannot understand how everyone is saying this change is necessary and understandable, considering this skill was not, and has never been on the hit-list as supremely overpowered. I would content the changes to it when they put in LOS inadvertently changed the targetting for immune/dodging targets. That wasn’t even in the patch notes.

I am not arguing that epidemic isn’t stong, isn’t worth taking, isn’t going to continue to be taken, but everything being said here screams theorycraft. The “what if” scenarios are eye-roll worthy. A team of coordinated fear epidemic necros would get face rolled by stability/condition removal/stun breakers. Just because you can come up with a seemingly overpowered theory, there is always a seemingly overpowered theory counter. People dodge rolling your corruption boons, fears, whatever.

Retaliation and glamour confusion got nerfed in WvW becauae it was out of hand. Every coordinated zerg was running them. Some were also using epidemic necros to improve the effect, but the smart ones realized an extra source of glamour and confusion was better than the “chance” at more confusion.

I am not against a skill that requires setup, or a skill that has a high risk vs. reward, but right now, as is, the skill is out of line for what it can do in WvW.

I am going to pass on continuing the argument here, as I don’t think the people responding I am going to be able to convince, and I am sure everyone else is tired of me posting. I personally miss having epidemic on my bar, but in WvW, at least for me, it isn’t worth taking with such a low hit rate (on average), compared to a power based build with wells and marks.

The strength of epidemic was in a condition build, and conditions were already second-bananna to power in WvW, except in certain circumstances. Since I can’t kill supervisors anymore, condition removal is just as prevailant as ever or worse because of lemon grass, I guess I will just go with zerker marks/wells and say goodbye to the way I used to enjoy playing. Could be a L2 kitten ue for me, but I consider myself to be a good enough player, and if its effectiveness is going to remain sub-par, I will just avoid it, though it makes me sad.

The nature of WvW as it currently stands with how the down-state works, and how conditions work in general is playing against epidemic. This nerf was unnecessary, at least in WvW.

I don’t want to jump into any argument, but why should epidemic and corrupt boon get special treatment for working even though dodge rolls, invulns, etc.? I don’t know of anything else in the game that can be used on a player who is actively trying to avoid an attack, so I don’t see why epidemic should be an exception.

Like you said, it’s still a very strong skill, and even was when it was blockable.

Bhawb.7408:

Why are people disappointed when they just had SOTG and this is pretty much exactly what they said.

Also, 25% HP & 10% toughness isn’t something to laugh at for Flesh Golem, considering he is over 50% of your minion DPS as an MM.

I knew people would rage over this lol. Eithger they didn’t watch SotG at all, or just one of those that can’t be placated regardless. Overall I was neither impressed nor disappointed by the changes. All of it was necessary stuff, so not much else can be said about it. I don’t think it’s the end of the changes this month either, I have a feeling we might see some mid-month tweaks (nothing major most likely). We always seem to do this every month: " This patch is the big one we been waiting for" , but most likely it’s not going to be lol. That one is coming down the line one day, but not soon.

Welp, pets are utterly worthless in the new dungeon and the additional health points did not make a difference as expected. When will they realize that pets need to take heavily reduced AoE damage in order to be viable in PvE?

Roe.3679:

I don’t want to jump into any argument, but why should epidemic and corrupt boon get special treatment for working even though dodge rolls, invulns, etc.? I don’t know of anything else in the game that can be used on a player who is actively trying to avoid an attack, so I don’t see why epidemic should be an exception.

Like you said, it’s still a very strong skill, and even was when it was blockable.

I don’t think corruption boon should get the same treatment. I think it should be dodge-rollable, invlnerable, etc to be countered, and it always has been. Not being able to block corruption boon was actually a nice buff for that skill, as historically it has ALWAYS been blockable.

My comments are about epidemic only. Epidemic should get special treatment because it is the only skill that does nothing to the target cast on. It literally does nothing to the target. Show many any other skill that does the same thing under all circumstances and I will concede. Special skills deserve special treatment, and when you raise a community using a skill with (although it had a painful cast time) nice fluidity to its use, because it ALWAYS worked, to a skill that still has a long cast time, and now feels horrible because it fails frequently, you are going to get push-back.

Kravick.4906:

Necromancer

Well of Corruption skill: Updated damage skill fact to indicate the correct number of attacks.
Well of Suffering skill:
Updated damage skill fact to indicate the correct number of attacks.
Updated the number of attacks to be consistent when affected by Focused Rituals.
Spinal Shivers skill: Updated damage facts to indicate damage dealt based on boons removed.
Signet of Spite skill: Updated the skill facts to indicate the passive effect of this skill. Increased the passive power boost by 100%.
Corrupt Boon skill: No longer causes odd interactions with Aegis. Now unblockable.
Epidemic skill: Now unblockable.
Flesh Wurm minion: Increased health by 25%.
Flesh Golem minion: Increased health by 25% and toughness by 10%.
Lich Form skill: The Grim Specter skill now strips boons from enemies and conditions from allies when it reaches its target point instead of only when the missile hits a target.

Meh.

-Signet passive was not the problem. They are still useless until their cooldowns are reduced.
-Epidemic still useless in WvW.
-They buffed the health on the 2 minions that doesn’t need help. One is used for teleport. One is used for knock down. Excellent…
-Grim Specter is still useless due to its 30s recharge. It needs a recharge of 5 seconds, zero damage, remove boons and cure conditions. Then maybe it is something to think about.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Rennoko.5731:

You do realize that this skill just one patch ago DID go through invuln, dodge, everything else right? …

If epidemic was really so game breaking when it couldn’t be dodged/invulned, EVERY necro would have been running it, and people would have been rolling necros JUST for that skill. That wasn’t going on. You didn’t see epidemic necros like glamour mesmers, (which got destroyed this patch). There are still numerous down-sides to trying to use the skill in WvW.

I play WvW, and the concept of “baiting” out the dodge roll means I have to start the cast, then cancel the cast, which means I have to wait 3 seconds, before I start my 1 second cast again, when his dodge will be back up. You can’t bait anything out on a skill that has a 1 second cast time. Tag it on the end of a fear? Okay, well I better have increased fear duration, since it takes me 1.5 seconds to land the epidemic after I cast the fear, and fear only lasts 1 second.

You know what most people do in fear? Break it, or dodge roll after it ends. Nevermind that people are going down and getting up all the time in WvW, meaning landing epidemic on anything that doesn’t have zero conditions is a chore in the least.

I’m perfectly aware of the skill’s history, but thank you for the condescention. I found it quite funny.

Epidemic was nerfed BECAUSE it was entirely out of hand in WvW, not sPvP.

I’ll leave the comments about not being able to bait a dodge alone, but you have plenty of ways to increase fear duration, and 2 sources of fear readily available to insure that your epidemic lands. If you are running WH, then you have a 3rd option to CC before the Epi. If you are worried about a stun break, then let them break one, follow it with the another fear or daze and land your Epidemic. Yes, it is a hard skill to land, and as I said, it would be a better skill if the cast time was just shortened and it reverted to being blockable, but having to work a bit to set up a skill this strong isn’t that bad a thing.

The same thing can be same about Into the Void. The same thing can be said about Confounding Suggestions. They are entirely out of hand in WvW. Why aren’t they nerfed? In fact Confounding Suggestions got buffed in this patch.

Rennoko.5731:

Bhawb.7408:

Rennoko.5731:

…

Wells are no more difficult to dodge roll out of (and render absolutely useless) than Epidemic is, except one has 3x the CD of the other. It’s 15s CD is reason enough for it to not be a guaranteed hit every time, even one decent Epidemic will apply huge pressure.

If you don’t like it, feel free to not like it, but don’t pretend that it is the sole ability out there that is a low CD high damage ceiling but requires a lot of setup to pull off.

Yes, but the well stays around for 5 seconds, and can hit other players that are nearby, so that even if one or two get out, the other guy downed has to eat the well one way or the other. Not to mention they can be used to zone people out of ressing, force them into a corner, etc.

And more importantly, if the guy i cast a well on dodge rolls, the well doesn’t just fail and do nothing, it still casts and does its job, even if no one is there to take the damage.

Epi is also the ONLY skill that does zero damage to a target, but has the potential to do near tons of damage to everything around it. It is unique in this respect to any other skill. I hate the argument that the short cooldown makes it okay that it fails all the time now.

Spending 1 second every 15 second casts epidemic, means that is 7% of my combat time spent on using that skill, when I could have gotten off an extra mark, or two sceptor attacks, or whatever. There is opportunity cost in casting, it isn’t just free-time.

It is a unique skill, and if it had a cast time of 1/2 second, I might agree with the changes, but as it stands it is hardly worth taking in WvW under the current circumstances compared to a wells build.

I am not just talking out my back side here. I ran epidemic for months in WvW straight. The change was too painful, which is why they partially reverted it. They need to revert it all the way back.

I am totally with you. I have run with epidemic in my WvW skill bar since launch, and I am still running with it. But at this point, I’m not sure if it is worth it. With all the condition removal and the nerf, it is just about impossible to get epidemic off on a walking target. I think when balancing, ANet needs to look at how often players are able to successfully transfer conditions from normal players vs downed players and NPCs. In WvW, I would bet that since they instated the nerf, 90+% of the successful condition transfers are from the latter, and it has totally taken the fun out of it.

Skyro.3108:

Bhawb.7408:

@Skyro, I’m still waiting for a team of 2 well coordinated Terror necros with Epidemic completely destroy team fights by having Epidemic’d fears every 10 seconds.

Not even that, there are tons of things you can do with Epidemic in a coordinated, team environment, due to the fact that conditions spread via Epidemic take into account the caster’s condition damage (which for a condition Necro will obviously be high).

For example, Cry of Frustration is fairly useless for glass cannon shatter Mesmers, but 8 stack of confusion in a 600 radius with Necro’s 1300 condition damage? Or how about those long duration burns from Engineers or Guards? The fact of the matter is that even at the highest levels of tPvP, Epidemic is STILL not being used to its fullest potential, and yet it is still incredibly powerful.

Which highlights another issue on player’s view of Epidemic, in that everybody looks at it from what the Necro can do with it alone (which they can still do a lot with if you know how to time large bleed stacks correctly), but in reality its strength lies in its ability to leverage your team’s conditions.

On theory yes Epidemic is useful. But in WvW you got to deal with skill lags. You got to deal with game lags. In the middle of 60 enemies you got to find that one guy with tons of conditions, all the while dealing with the lag and moving to stack on your commander. So all that together makes Epidemic useless in WvW.

Well of Corruption skill: Updated damage skill fact to indicate the correct number of attacks.
Well of Suffering skill:
Updated damage skill fact to indicate the correct number of attacks.
Updated the number of attacks to be consistent when affected by Focused Rituals.
Spinal Shivers skill: Updated damage facts to indicate damage dealt based on boons removed.

Meh. At least One hadn’t forgotten we have a necromancer profession :P

Signet of Spite skill: Updated the skill facts to indicate the passive effect of this skill. Increased the passive power boost by 100%.

Woot, just because people is obsessed with condition damage and don’t like power builds don’t mean SoS was useless, now is awesome

Corrupt Boon skill: No longer causes odd interactions with Aegis. Now unblockable.
Epidemic skill: Now unblockable.

Meh.

Flesh Wurm minion: Increased health by 25%.
Flesh Golem minion: Increased health by 25% and toughness by 10%.

Mmh, minions are useless if you don’t have all minion traits so although welcome, those changes are pretty useless.

Lich Form skill: The Grim Specter skill now strips boons from enemies and conditions from allies when it reaches its target point instead of only when the missile hits a target.

Mmh, maybe next path…

CHIPS.6018:

Skyro.3108:

Bhawb.7408:

@Skyro, I’m still waiting for a team of 2 well coordinated Terror necros with Epidemic completely destroy team fights by having Epidemic’d fears every 10 seconds.

Not even that, there are tons of things you can do with Epidemic in a coordinated, team environment, due to the fact that conditions spread via Epidemic take into account the caster’s condition damage (which for a condition Necro will obviously be high).

For example, Cry of Frustration is fairly useless for glass cannon shatter Mesmers, but 8 stack of confusion in a 600 radius with Necro’s 1300 condition damage? Or how about those long duration burns from Engineers or Guards? The fact of the matter is that even at the highest levels of tPvP, Epidemic is STILL not being used to its fullest potential, and yet it is still incredibly powerful.

Which highlights another issue on player’s view of Epidemic, in that everybody looks at it from what the Necro can do with it alone (which they can still do a lot with if you know how to time large bleed stacks correctly), but in reality its strength lies in its ability to leverage your team’s conditions.

On theory yes Epidemic is useful. But in WvW you got to deal with skill lags. You got to deal with game lags. In the middle of 60 enemies you got to find that one guy with tons of conditions, all the while dealing with the lag and moving to stack on your commander. So all that together makes Epidemic useless in WvW.

Plus you have to deal with zerg condition removals, zerg stuns and interrupts on your cast, and there is a really good chance that when you find the guy that is getting all of the conditions stacked on him, he is going to go down very quickly because he is the one being focused.

XelNigma.6315:

they gave the hp bonus to the wrong minions. I was really expected all the minions to get an HP buff.

Bone minions don’t need a HP buff, since their only purpose is to be exploded anyway, and Shadows don’t really need an HP buff since they can inflict Blind. I am surprised that they gave wurm an HP buff instead of blood fiend, though.

To be honest, I’m sadly getting used to these disappointing Necro updates. At least the Signet of Spite buff looks worthwhile.

Again we get “fillers” to make the list look bigger…..tooltip fixes……..really….it just gives an indication of their appreciation of their player base again…..I thought next month was about this sort of stuff?? I can’t see these as any sort of balance adjustment…just fillers. I am really getting the feeling that they do not know “which way is up” with the necros.

Definitely in agreement that the lack of Signet change., however I think the change they made to it was to keep the passive in line with the other passive stat boosts.

The problem I have with Signet of Spite is just that it’s not worth activating. The steep cool down for such a brief effect is just disappointing. You can’t even really use it as a Bleed Source. Though the buff in the Power Stat is welcomed, I’d be more interested in seeing it’s effective active ability buffed somehow or that 90 second cooldown jiggered a little, because otherwise there are far better signets to use in the meantime.

Spiteful Talisman doesnt even increase the range of the focus anymore, nor does it reduce CD’s… smh anet.

Oh I’m not saying that there isn’t more to do with Epidemic, I just look forward to when the game progresses to that point in competitive play, where people are comboing skills off each other. It has some of the highest potential of every skill out there, I was just pointing out one specific use that I would love to see.

Does unblockable mean they cant be dodged either ?

Aphix.9846:

Does unblockable mean they cant be dodged either ?

No. It also doesn’t mean it will go through invulnerability and distortion, such as engineers Elixir S effect and mesmers Blurred Frenzy. Nothing gets through those.

Blocking is effects like Aegis, Shield Block skills, Arcane Shield, etc.

the buff to the signet is useless. Now if they halved the cool down I would consider taking it. With 100% condition duration it would be viable.

Bhawb.7408:

Oh I’m not saying that there isn’t more to do with Epidemic, I just look forward to when the game progresses to that point in competitive play, where people are comboing skills off each other. It has some of the highest potential of every skill out there, I was just pointing out one specific use that I would love to see.

So we can all come to agree wells are the way to go, and that epidemic is crap skill and knowing every other class in the game except eles/mesmers. Can just flip/remove those conditions anyways. And you getting a free weakness whether it misses or not, I think it is? I haven’t been condi mancer in about 3 months. And that there are still greater issues…like plague signet still miss firing even with LOS/the enemy not doing anything. Or cast time on other skills…and cooldown times which are too insane for the most situational utility’s in the whole game

Kharne.4235:

Bhawb.7408:

Oh I’m not saying that there isn’t more to do with Epidemic, I just look forward to when the game progresses to that point in competitive play, where people are comboing skills off each other. It has some of the highest potential of every skill out there, I was just pointing out one specific use that I would love to see.

So we can all come to agree wells are the way to go, and that epidemic is crap skill and knowing every other class in the game except eles/mesmers. Can just flip/remove those conditions anyways. And you getting a free weakness whether it misses or not, I think it is? I haven’t been condi mancer in about 3 months. And that there are still greater issues…like plague signet still miss firing even with LOS/the enemy not doing anything. Or cast time on other skills…and cooldown times which are too insane for the most situational utility’s in the whole game

I cannot see how you could possibly reach this conclusion from Bhawb’s post.

Also, epidemic causes 3 stacks of vulnerability. Weakness comes from corrosive poison cloud.

Edit: Personal reaction to this patch’s notes: Grim Specter had been bothering me for a while, but I never tested it properly. I don’t think I would have picked up on that it works as long as there’s a target, but not otherwise, and I’m glad it was made a bit easier to use. Other than that, nothing surprising to me, so kind of a ‘nothing’ patch I guess?

I would have liked more bugfixes, but apparently that is this month’s priority, so I am excited for that. Also going to predict DS5 won’t be implemented until July, at the earliest.

It will land in high levels of tpvp because good necros know when to use it after dodges, etc. Try landing a good epidemic in wvw in the top tiers against an organized guild and get back to me with your results. When two organized, top tier guilds/zergs/blobs collide, take a guess at all the aoe condition removal that goes off in that 1 second cast time. This doesn’t even account for all the dodge rolling, los issues, and all the guardian walls/static fields/earthshakers dropped everywhere to stun and interrupt our cast (We have no stability)… Its getting old seeing the same few posters come in and talk about skills when they have no clue how they work at higher level WvW.. And before you come in saying you have played wvw, i will be the first to tell you i have played tpvp. I can run an axe/dagger 15/15/15/15/10 build and stomp people in hotjoins and soloque but that doesn’t make it viable in high level tpvp… I still have yet to see a necro running epi in GvG videos or WvW zergs landing these nasty epidemics against top tier guilds/zergs.. There is a reason for this and its because the aoe condition removal and long cast time make the opportunity cost too high.

Torqky.3682:

It will land in high levels of tpvp because good necros know when to use it after dodges, etc. Try landing a good epidemic in wvw in the top tiers against an organized guild and get back to me with your results. When two organized, top tier guilds/zergs/blobs collide, take a guess at all the aoe condition removal that goes off in that 1 second cast time. This doesn’t even account for all the dodge rolling, los issues, and all the guardian walls/static fields/earthshakers dropped everywhere to stun and interrupt our cast (We have no stability)… Its getting old seeing the same few posters come in and talk about skills when they have no clue how they work at higher level WvW.. And before you come in saying you have played wvw, i will be the first to tell you i have played tpvp. I can run an axe/dagger 15/15/15/15/10 build and stomp people in hotjoins and soloque but that doesn’t make it viable in high level tpvp… I still have yet to see a necro running epi in GvG videos or WvW zergs landing these nasty epidemics against top tier guilds/zergs.. There is a reason for this and its because the aoe condition removal and long cast time make the opportunity cost too high.

I think you are on the money here. I WvW in Jade Quarry (T1), and when I am with a zerg, the amount of condition removal is absolutely ridiculous. I generally can’t keep a condition applied more than a couple seconds (meaning I can’t stack and then epidemic). And on some players, I can apply condition after condition after condition and nothing stays applied for even a full second. I think some of the people that think condition removal is not a problem simply don’t play on higher tiered servers. The occassion where I am able to get off a really decent epidemic on a non-downed player is very very rare since the March patch. It really is a skill you use on downed players or NPCs now.

krippler.9826:

Torqky.3682:

It will land in high levels of tpvp because good necros know when to use it after dodges, etc. Try landing a good epidemic in wvw in the top tiers against an organized guild and get back to me with your results. When two organized, top tier guilds/zergs/blobs collide, take a guess at all the aoe condition removal that goes off in that 1 second cast time. This doesn’t even account for all the dodge rolling, los issues, and all the guardian walls/static fields/earthshakers dropped everywhere to stun and interrupt our cast (We have no stability)… Its getting old seeing the same few posters come in and talk about skills when they have no clue how they work at higher level WvW.. And before you come in saying you have played wvw, i will be the first to tell you i have played tpvp. I can run an axe/dagger 15/15/15/15/10 build and stomp people in hotjoins and soloque but that doesn’t make it viable in high level tpvp… I still have yet to see a necro running epi in GvG videos or WvW zergs landing these nasty epidemics against top tier guilds/zergs.. There is a reason for this and its because the aoe condition removal and long cast time make the opportunity cost too high.

I think you are on the money here. I WvW in Jade Quarry (T1), and when I am with a zerg, the amount of condition removal is absolutely ridiculous. I generally can’t keep a condition applied more than a couple seconds (meaning I can’t stack and then epidemic). And on some players, I can apply condition after condition after condition and nothing stays applied for even a full second. I think some of the people that think condition removal is not a problem simply don’t play on higher tiered servers. The occassion where I am able to get off a really decent epidemic on a non-downed player is very very rare since the March patch. It really is a skill you use on downed players or NPCs now.

This is the primary reason I stopped using a Condition build. Too much AoE Cleanse for WvW. Too easy to hit the Bleed cap in PvE. I don’t think those are things that need to be changed about the game, as they’re just inherent problems with a Condition heavy build that I don’t particularly like.

Torqky.3682:

It will land in high levels of tpvp because good necros know when to use it after dodges, etc. Try landing a good epidemic in wvw in the top tiers against an organized guild and get back to me with your results. When two organized, top tier guilds/zergs/blobs collide, take a guess at all the aoe condition removal that goes off in that 1 second cast time. This doesn’t even account for all the dodge rolling, los issues, and all the guardian walls/static fields/earthshakers dropped everywhere to stun and interrupt our cast (We have no stability)… Its getting old seeing the same few posters come in and talk about skills when they have no clue how they work at higher level WvW.. And before you come in saying you have played wvw, i will be the first to tell you i have played tpvp. I can run an axe/dagger 15/15/15/15/10 build and stomp people in hotjoins and soloque but that doesn’t make it viable in high level tpvp… I still have yet to see a necro running epi in GvG videos or WvW zergs landing these nasty epidemics against top tier guilds/zergs.. There is a reason for this and its because the aoe condition removal and long cast time make the opportunity cost too high.

Exactly! I hope with the Epidemic nerf allows all the other skills to get major buffs.

For example, given how rapidly conditions are removed in this game, Mark of Blood should apply 5 stacks of bleeding instead of 3. But with Epidemic in the way that will be too strong (Mark of Blood+Epedimic is OP). But since now Epidemic is useless in WvW, hopefully the damage of Mark of Blood can be buffed.

Bhawb.7408:

Oh I’m not saying that there isn’t more to do with Epidemic, I just look forward to when the game progresses to that point in competitive play, where people are comboing skills off each other. It has some of the highest potential of every skill out there, I was just pointing out one specific use that I would love to see.

I personally like its WvW team potential. Have 5 necros pick a target (or host) to unload conditions on using staff and scepter AoEs, then instant 5 person epidemic to infect the zerg. When I do it solo it can pressure 5 players pretty badly, I can’t even imagine it with 5 epidemics.

Thor Rising.7850:

Bhawb.7408:

Oh I’m not saying that there isn’t more to do with Epidemic, I just look forward to when the game progresses to that point in competitive play, where people are comboing skills off each other. It has some of the highest potential of every skill out there, I was just pointing out one specific use that I would love to see.

I personally like its WvW team potential. Have 5 necros pick a target (or host) to unload conditions on using staff and scepter AoEs, then instant 5 person epidemic to infect the zerg. When I do it solo it can pressure 5 players pretty badly, I can’t even imagine it with 5 epidemics.

And in theory that sounds amazing, but what happens when he uses an immunity because he has you know….. 20 bleeds on him… or a full condition clear, or blinks away from the group. Also instant epidemic would be awesome… if it worked like that.

I tell you what works better. 5 Necros dropping WOS, WOC in a choke point. They either stay in and die, or back off, giving up ground. Also when your marks, and staff attacks hit upwards of 1500 to 1800, it feel much better in that environment.

VolumePlus.8059:

Corrupt Boon and Epidemic becoming unblockable are huge in my book. Both for WvW and SPvP

Well i have tested it and i does >>>>>NOT<<<<< work most of the time, it’s just more buggy now

Epidemic is fine in the right situations, I still carry it for open field combat, it works about 90% of the time (usually by an evade for the other 10%) and switch it out for something else like a 2nd well in keep-offence/defence situations where LOS is all ballsed up.

I still never saw any actual justification for Epidemic to be altered in the first place, they just did it because it ‘felt right’ at some theoretical level with no data-analysis, widely reported problems or evidence of abuse. Meanwhile the forums where baying out for the blood of thieves no one could see, 10k backstabs, DD ele’s solo’ing entire groups of mostly terrible people, mounds of pve consumables keeping people on permanent lock-down or doing stupid damage and someone got ganked in the jump puzzle.
Heck, if I felt it was overpowered I would have stopped using and reported it myself.

But no
Somewhere, someone decided that the tiny population base of necro’s had something that wasn’t actually complete garbage like their ridiculously stupid pets, huge cooldowns on everything else, no vitality or stability, the daft deathshroud skills/interface, no elite synergies for play style, crappy condition stacking ability… and ‘lets change stuff ’cause we can’

Aside from that, Corrupt boon seems* to be working ok and giving minions more hit points is the equivalent to putting lipstick on a pig. Sure, the pig may now have more lipstick than it did last patch which may make it appealing to a tiny percentage of the very small percentage of necro’s that actually ‘like them’.
But its still a pig.

*subject to more human subjects being tested

Thresher.3049:

I still never saw any actual justification for Epidemic to be altered in the first place, they just did it because it ‘felt right’ at some theoretical level with no data-analysis, widely reported problems or evidence of abuse. Meanwhile the forums where baying out for the blood of thieves no one could see, 10k backstabs, DD ele’s solo’ing entire groups of mostly terrible people, mounds of pve consumables keeping people on permanent lock-down or doing stupid damage and someone got ganked in the jump puzzle.
Heck, if I felt it was overpowered I would have stopped using and reported it myself.

I still contend that what happened was…. they fixed the LOS issues with it casting through walls, and then incidentally (as a result of fixing that part of the code) fixed/broke the great part about epidemic hitting 100% of the time. I don’t think they set out to fix that, it just… happened. It never showed up in the patch notes after all.

Honestly necromancers in PVE wouldn’t have noticed or cared. I can think of maybe one case (grawl shaman while in bubble form while flying to little people to eat) that I really would have liked epidemic to not fail. That is now fixed because of the block changes last patch. So PVE has zero complaints to make.

In PVP, as was stated, they are much more careful about timing dodges, the fights are smaller, and the skill cap is higher, so it is less of an issue there.

In WvW, most necros have given up on conditions, even before the nerf, so the minority of people who would even notice or care about the change was small enough that it didn’t really matter. Conditions were already low man on the totem pole to begin with, which didn’t help.

I have plenty of gripes in ZvZ about being downed as a “free” condition clear, and other issues that make me hate conditions in that situation (such as 20 bleeds being just as easy to clear as 1 bleed). I think until the address the mass cleansing going on, the overpowered -condition duration food that applies its reductions BEFORE condition duration increase food, and the general nature of downed state – mass ressing – pop back up.

I really have started to enjoy a zerker style power build, even for roaming in recent weeks. My DS4 is actually dangerous, my auto attacks actually hurt people, and I don’t have to be scared that a cleanse is going to ruin my DPS. I die much faster, but I rally much faster – and actually feel dangerous while in the downed state. Guess I can get used to the change.

Been running a condi build for a good while now so thought I’d test out the minion tweak and I have found they aggro 50% of the time regardless of the tweak. Their aggroing never bothered me at all but I like the extra HP and toughness which should have been added to all the other minions and as far as minion AI goes, seems to be a bit worse, they seem to be a bit more dazed and confused post patch.

And still no Rabid Insignia’s added!!! I would love to craft Rabid gear, weapons, armor and accessories… months ago!

Anchoku.8142:

Fungalfoot.7213:

The fact that minion AI still isn’t fixed is honestly inexcusable.

AI is partly fixed. Minions will no longer go looking for trouble, I hope.

They still do, just like the mesmer clones. Jump off a ledge, mob is 2k away. Minion says “look, off in the distance…I’m gonna go jam my finger in it’s butthole”. *and off it goes

Tried this on my mesmer and had the same results.

Ubi.4136:

…I’m gonna go jam my finger in it’s butthole". …
Tried this on my mesmer and had the same results.

Hmmm. What game are you playing? Context is a funny thing.

Myrmidian Eudoros.4671:

Ubi.4136:

…I’m gonna go jam my finger in it’s butthole". …
Tried this on my mesmer and had the same results.

Hmmm. What game are you playing? Context is a funny thing.

Surprise Proctology: The Game.

The final boss is a stringray.

Dev’s did say on live stream that they’d updated necro minions AI. They also did post something on the forums, no fix’s for downed or anything. Just a reminder that it’s not bugged and they can see our forum ;-)

They do seem very worried about buffing us too much and us being too strong in PvP. I’m just hoping that, there talk of splitting pvp & pve will give us more of a role to fill than burst support thru wells. (I’d love to see vamp keep up with ele’s no trait, or scale from heal power or something, and some control over minions so we can move them out of aoe death. Tho hopefully a necro condition will make us feel necro’ish)