Guild Wars 2

Am I reading this right? If you stack 25 bleeds on a target we’re looking at about 1230 healing per second when fully decked out for condition damage? Not to mention possibly spreading that to an additional 4 targets…

I think you might have an extra 0…

5% as in 0.05*dmg.

Still, that’s going to add up to a lot of healing

About 123 per tick on a single target. I think the power in this comes when you use AOE’s…

All of a sudden you get a multiplier of *5 on that number.

So a 1000 per tick bleed will heal 50 on a single target per tick but about 250 when you spread that… also keep in mine epidemic spreads all bleeds (and burn and poison and so on) to targets around it so that becomes a very powerful heal. The stipulation, of course, is that you need at least 5 other people to spread those conditions to.

Whoops, you’re right. Looking at about 246 healing for a whole stack of 25 bleeds on a single target fully decked out for condition damage.

I’m very, very excited about this… 25stacks of bleed ticks for over 3k on my build which means I should be getting a good deal of healing in return. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the changes being made to Necromancer but personally I’m crazy happy about this.

Exactly, the life gain from this will be minuscule because it will be balanced based on 25 stacks x 5….

Trait gonna suck.

Basically the only time this will be really good is when you have 25 × 5 stacks. Of course the only time that happens is when fighting trash mobs and you don’t need any healing.

But if you also have life steal on hit then you can heal for about 200/s which is actually fairly good.

Another hybrid trait in a power line, so basically as a power necro, move along, nothing to see here… just take the one trait that’s based on power.

I don’t know about hybrids, if I wanted more survivability as one I’d go into death magic at this point. Maybe I’m not giving it enough credit though, I spend more time in death shroud so healing (which obviously doesn’t work while in ds) makes me roll my eyes a bit. Not to mention how it seems like whenever I get targeted, I get spiked so regen that’s dependent on having a lot of bleed stacks up… doesn’t sound like it would help out.

With fear now interrupting, and this trait necros are gonna be so scary to fight. Think how much health youd get back with 15+ stacks of confusion! Plus epidemic. Nerf to crit dmg then this. Rough couple months for solo roamers

Since when Necro can dash out 15 stacks of confusion? Am I missing something?
It’s so powerful only for Condicionmancers so no need to be so afraid.

sAdam.5876:

Since when Necro can dash out 15 stacks of confusion? Am I missing something?
It’s so powerful only for Condicionmancers so no need to be so afraid.

He means using perplex. You get confusion on interrupt and since fear is now an interrupt we can use them more.

The trait is still going to blow.

Im not trying to say omg necro OP Anet wtf nerf. Just necros are gonna be extremely painful to fight with perplexity and this trait. You guys still have no real defense or disengage so its ok. But 1v1s will blow

Carpboy.7145:

Im not trying to say omg necro OP Anet wtf nerf. Just necros are gonna be extremely painful to fight with perplexity and this trait. You guys still have no real defense or disengage so its ok. But 1v1s will blow

Well, we don’t really know anything about how perplexity runes will look post-patch, so this is more of an assumption than anything else. Personally I would be surprised if they remain untouched.

More to the point though, it is precisely not ok for necros to load up on huge chunks of conditions at the expense of having no defensive measures. That kind of mentality is what promotes traits like Dhuumfire, and we’ve seen what that does to the meta already. The more dps a class can dish out, the less survivability it needs to be viable – and vice versa. If we’re ever going to get more sustain as necromancers, dps must come down to an acceptable level. That’s part of what the incoming Dhuumfire nerf is all about (and, I believe, also part of the reason why Parasitic Contagion is placed in the spite tree – to compete with Dhuumfire). The alternative is a necromancer that essentially becomes an artillery class rather than an attrition class. Too much condition-based dps pumped out at once leads to condition removal having less of an impact over time, which is precisely why many condition removal options were buffed recently. It’s a classic example of power creep, and it comes as a direct result of the playstyle you promote by giving a class access to an abundance of offense and close to zero defense. Since you cannot sustain yourself over time, it is always the right move to go all in (i.e. unload all the conditions you possibly can as fast as you can in an attempt to overwhelm the opponent).

With traits like Parasitic Contagion (and the Dhuumfire nerf) the pendulum is beginning to swing in the right direction. The trait is probably not going to be as impressive as many people think, but it’s a start, and a fundamentally good move for the overall health of the class.

Frankly the healing from condition damage should have been 30 in blood, as it would have pushed all condition damage builds down 30 percent duration if they wanted the heal. Leaving it in spite still encourages maxing damage over all else for more sustain.

Rennoko.5731:

Frankly the healing from condition damage should have been 30 in blood, as it would have pushed all condition damage builds down 30 percent duration if they wanted the heal. Leaving it in spite still encourages maxing damage over all else for more sustain.

Probably. It should probably also have been dependent on healing power to force necros into a tradeoff on gear. But given that it isn’t, there’s at least a remnant of method to the madness. A trait should synergize with the attributes of the tree that it’s in.

But it’s bad design, I’ll give you that.

ManaCraft.5630:

Rennoko.5731:

Frankly the healing from condition damage should have been 30 in blood, as it would have pushed all condition damage builds down 30 percent duration if they wanted the heal. Leaving it in spite still encourages maxing damage over all else for more sustain.

Probably. It should probably also have been dependent on healing power to force necros into a tradeoff on gear. But given that it isn’t, there’s at least a remnant of method to the madness. A trait should synergize with the attributes of the tree that it’s in.

But it’s bad design, I’ll give you that.

Well it synergizes with condtition duration, so?

ManaCraft.5630:

Rennoko.5731:

Frankly the healing from condition damage should have been 30 in blood, as it would have pushed all condition damage builds down 30 percent duration if they wanted the heal. Leaving it in spite still encourages maxing damage over all else for more sustain.

Probably. It should probably also have been dependent on healing power to force necros into a tradeoff on gear.

I don’t really see it not scaling with healing power as an issue. Necros have had sustain issues for a while. I find it perfectly acceptable that the healing of one trait on the profession that embodies Aggression scales off of a stat other than healing power. You still have to invest in it heavily to make it strong.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

ManaCraft.5630:

Rennoko.5731:

Frankly the healing from condition damage should have been 30 in blood, as it would have pushed all condition damage builds down 30 percent duration if they wanted the heal. Leaving it in spite still encourages maxing damage over all else for more sustain.

Probably. It should probably also have been dependent on healing power to force necros into a tradeoff on gear.

I don’t really see it not scaling with healing power as an issue. Necros have had sustain issues for a while. I find it perfectly acceptable that the healing of one trait on the profession that embodies Aggression scales off of a stat other than healing power. You still have to invest in it heavily to make it strong.

But the point still stands that healing power is a wasted stat for necros because of siphons, this new trait, and deathshroud all getting nothing or next to nothing from HPower. They should be encouraging the attrition class to trait into sustain, not shoving them the other way.

I want a reason to take healing power and to be able to build for sustain, but the lack of synergy is irritating.

don’t know if this has been said, but again as we already know with current life siphoning. It sucks because you cannot heal with it in deathshroud.

so what happens when, in a pvp situation, you are fighting 1v2 on point, you focus your opponent with condies to try and sustain yourself better but are then forced into deathshroud because of all the focus fire, all the health you would be getting from the condies is now useless.

This trait sounds good but since no one uses life siphoning in blood why would this be any better? especially when there’s alot of classes playing anti condy

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

I don’t really see it not scaling with healing power as an issue. Necros have had sustain issues for a while. I find it perfectly acceptable that the healing of one trait on the profession that embodies Aggression scales off of a stat other than healing power. You still have to invest in it heavily to make it strong.

A few things are worth pointing out here.

First, Parasitic Contagion being an “aggressive” trait (i.e. based on hitting a target) complements the class design nicely. If necros are an attrition class, they are presumably meant to be incentivized to stay in combat – to outlast their opponent. Linking sustainability to the presence of a target is an obvious move in that regard. It’s just good design, but it doesn’t entitle the trait to “special treatment” in any way. Assuming I could choose between getting sustainability by investing in a tree that supports my capabilities (condition duration) and one that doesn’t (healing power), why would I choose the latter?

More generally though, the reason why I’m pushing for healing power to become a relevant attribute for necromancers is that it would create the foundation for a solid attrition design. Classes are meant to make tradeoffs, it is a fundamentally healthy thing for the game when they do. Want to see what happens when they don’t? Take a look at the warrior. That class currently gets all of its sustainability from simply equipping a specific healing skill. In principle nothing else is required. No investment in any specific traits is necessary, and no healing power is required. Which is precisely why, in addition to their sustainability, they’re free to stack up on all sorts of other things (damage, cc, and so on). Why is a guardian with loads of survivability considered balanced, while a warrior with the same thing is widely regarded as overpowered? The answer is because one class makes significant tradeoffs to get that survivability, while the other does not.

Same thing with the necromancer. We’re not just going to get sustainability “for free”. Or if we are, a.net don’t know what they’re doing. It would have been a better move for the class if sustainability traits were linked to an actual attribute (healing power) so that the return you get depends on the scale of the investment you make. This goes equally for the vampiric traits and Parasitic Contagion. But apparently we’re moving down a different road instead, where you can invest in a tree that gives you nothing but offense and still come out with a build that is better on defense. Classes being allowed to “double dip” like that does not help create the natural tradeoff between offense and defense that should exist (but doesn’t).

ManaCraft.5630:

Same thing with the necromancer. We’re not just going to get sustainability “for free”. Or if we are, a.net don’t know what they’re doing. It would have been a better move for the class if sustainability traits were linked to an actual attribute (healing power) so that the return you get depends on the scale of the investment you make. This goes equally for the vampiric traits and Parasitic Contagion. But apparently we’re moving down a different road instead, where you can invest in a tree that gives you nothing but offense and still come out with a build that is better on defense. Classes being allowed to “double dip” like that does not help create the natural tradeoff between offense and defense that should exist (but doesn’t).

Largely agree with everything you wrote.

Where necromancers are concerned, however, I would argue that the profession’s potential trade-offs do not have to fit the standard mold. Certainly we can incorporate healing power into the equation and I’d like to see more effort put into that path.

With limited escapes and limited access to boons, though, the necromancer is largely restricted to the “win or die” model; there is no get out jail free card. Thus, in addition to the classic trade-offensive-skills-and-traits-for-defensive-skills-and-traits-and-vice-versa, we can use different trade-offs for necros.

For example, since necros are forced to remain in the fight, trade-offs could be developed around scaling abilities on the number of opponents; the more there are, the stronger we get (up to a point) while the fewer present, the weaker we become. This trade-off is less about sacrificing one skill or trait for another, but rather choosing how much to risk in return for the rewards for fighting against superior numbers.

Another trade-off is how aggressive the necro is in the course of combat. The more aggressive the necro, the more ABC we gain (as examples, ABC could be more might stacks, fury duration, life force generation, etc.). Some methods by which “aggression” could be measured might be how many hits a the necro delivers in X amount of time, how many conditions they stack on an opponent, or how many boons they rip from an enemy. This would be a measure of just how “all in” the necro commits to the fight itself; the greater the commitment, the greater the reward and vice versa.

As an attrition fighter, time can be used as a form of trade-off. The longer the necro manages to stay in the fight, the more they could build a boon or some unique benefit. The necro who runs from an opponent (or attempts to) isn’t going to build as much of X as the necro who commits to remaining in the fight for an extended length of time.

Life force could be used as trade-off currency, too. By sacrificing large amounts (or even 100%) of life force, the necro receives some benefit by releasing all of that built-up resource at once. The trade-off is then a choice between using life force to power Death Shroud at a slow trickle or unleash is all at once for a single but more powerful effect. For example, F2 could use up all life force to absorb a single one-hit kill, F3 could convert life force to healing at some set ratio, F4 could buff the necro with might, fury, and retaliation all at once.

Necros were conceived of as face-tanking aggressive fighters built around the mantra of “win or die”. As such, there’s room within the combat mechanics themselves – the exchange of hits, the length of the battle, the number of opponents, etc. – for creating trade-offs unique to the necromancer profession which better support their class concept versus a more traditional application of the trade-off system.

I figure they chose to not have it scale with healing power for a few reasons. First, though, I have to establish the premise that ANet wanted all of these Grandmaster traits to get used. It makes sense, given they invested time and money into these. To see them not get used at all would be hugely problematic for them.

1. Condition necros lack sustain. They have poor life force regen, and only Mark of Blood to really recoup health outside of the heal skill. This led to the Dhuumfire build becoming extremely popular, because it’s kill time was short enough that the lack of sustain didn’t matter as much. As such, this was a good niche to fill with a new trait.

2. Following from 1, this means one of two things: higher life force generation from the trait for condition builds, or better healing for condition builds. The main problem? Condition builds want to spend as little time in death shroud as possible because it kills their output. As such, death shroud, if used for defense, is used to absorb bursts. The current life force generation of condition builds is sufficient to ward off bursts, but not sustained damage. So, restoring health is the preferred method.

3. How to award this extra healing? Obvious one is some tie to conditions (remember: the goal is aiding attrition play), so the more aggressive you are being, the more healing you get. This self-scales risk vs. reward, as playing really safe won’t reward you with much healing. However, going headlong into danger will reward you with higher healing (which you will need). So, do we tie it to application of conditions? Probably not: that lacks interesting counterplay and just leads to mindless spamming for max condition application. So do we have conditions steal health when they tick? Again, no. Each individual condition ticks as one hit (for evidence, you can cast Blood is Power on a target and get odd bleed damage, despite the fact 2 stacks should always result in an even number), so it wouldn’t scale well. One bleed would reward you the same as 15…which doesn’t feel good. A necro could just drop Mark of Blood/Chillblains and get the same healing as he would if he went balls-to-the-walls all in. So, you need something that instead scales with stacks, rather than simple application. This opens up interesting counterplay as well, as cleansing those stacks would be an option to reduce the necro’s health gain (but cleansing at that moment may not be when you would want to otherwise).

4. We now have healing that scales with inflicted stacks of conditions. So, stealing health per stack? Probably not the best, as their damage is sufficient as-is. Regular healing it is, then. However, now we have another issue: how to do the actual scaling? If it’s flat healing, there is a very fine line between OP and worthless, so it needs to scale with stats. Healing Power is the obvious one, but this isn’t going into Blood Magic, as that line has very little synergy with condition builds. Spite is its desired home anyway, so it directly competes with Dhuumfire (one fewer condition to tick for healing without support, plus it’s attrition vs burst, two playstyles that should never coincide). The line gives Healing Power (21 on its own), but condition builds don’t do healing power. There is no gear with condition damage primary and healing power secondary either, so putting it on healing power would end up with a trait that just kind of sucks due to having no good way to use it. Perhaps it’s time to look at other possibilities? We already have Litany of Wrath in the game, which scales the healing with damage dealt. Why not mimic that? It is attrition-focused, scales with aggression, fits well into builds, and can be balanced on significantly more fronts than just healing power scaling.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Healing Power is the obvious one, but this isn’t going into Blood Magic, as that line has very little synergy with condition builds.

Assuming it did scale, this, if anything, is precisely why blood magic needs something along the lines of Parasitic Contagion. Defensive measures have to either be 1) build-agnostic or 2) there has to be enough of them that there’s something for every build. Why? Because every build needs them. The class as a whole makes a tradeoff of having little to no mobility, and in exchange for this should have access to quality (i.e. better than standard) options for survivability. Obviously, if our defensive trait lines fail to deliver on that promise with respect to certain builds, those builds are at an inherent disadvantage. The fact that condition builds aren’t very well catered to in blood magic is precisely why you should put something there that does. Either that, or make the sustain options that are already there available to all builds (as we’ve been trying to get them to do with the vampiric traits for some time).

Note that I’m fine with offensive lines having some limited form of sustain. Otherwise you run the risk of reducing build diversity by making the class dependent on a few trait lines (take a look at the elementalist and its water/arcana lines for a demonstration of how that works). Those traits just have to be proportionately less powerful than the ones found in the “true” defensive lines. So yeah, if Parasitic Contagion is just the prelude and a.net is still holding The Real Attrition™ up its sleeve, to be introduced at some later date, then all is well and good. But of course, that’s not what it is. This is a grandmaster trait, intended to have significant impact on your playstyle.

Incidentally, you’re absolutely right that the current life force gaining options aren’t exactly build-agnostic either, and that that’s just as much of a problem.

ManaCraft.5630:

Incidentally, you’re absolutely right that the current life force gaining options aren’t exactly build-agnostic either, and that that’s just as much of a problem.

The life force issue is because the condition damage weapons are very poor at building life force. They can build enough to stop bursts, but that’s pretty much it, they can’t afford to stay in death shroud both defensively and offensively.

And most necros admit that Blood Magic needs some serious work. Blood Magic is our worst trait line, without a doubt.

Sometimes i just don’t see where the DEVs get these ideas. I just don’t get it. I mean, i think they look at their favorite classes, see what they need, and bandaid apply it to all the other classes. I mean, they have to give them something, but don’t want to spend time thinking about what the class actually needs.

These traits still seem like collage of afterthoughts.

Don’t look at the players who have mastered the class, just make some random stuff up and apply.

Gryph.8237:

Sometimes i just don’t see where the DEVs get these ideas. I just don’t get it. I mean, i think they look at their favorite classes, see what they need, and bandaid apply it to all the other classes. I mean, they have to give them something, but don’t want to spend time thinking about what the class actually needs.

These traits still seem like collage of afterthoughts.

At least on the necro ones, I couldn’t disagree with you more. They all (except Path of Corruption) give something that we’ve been asking for for ages. The strength of what they give may be too little, but it is still giving us something we’ve been asking for.

Then it’s like asking for some candy and getting a single skittle.

Again, I would disagree. Unholy Sacntuary we can be pretty sure is too weak to matter, but the others provide very noticeable benefits that could swing the fight in your favor. Parasitic Contagion is the trickiest one to evaluate. We just don’t know how well it will actually play out in practice. It does give condition builds sustain, but we will have to wait and see if it will be enough of not.

The fact remains, ANet can always buff these traits later. It may take a bit, given how terrified they are still of the return of the necro bunkers from beta, but these are some of the bases we need for them to evaluate that at all.

So, it’s more like we’re asking for candy, get a single skittle, with the promise of more if we’re good.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Again, I would disagree. Unholy Sacntuary we can be pretty sure is too weak to matter, but the others provide very noticeable benefits that could swing the fight in your favor. Parasitic Contagion is the trickiest one to evaluate. We just don’t know how well it will actually play out in practice. It does give condition builds sustain, but we will have to wait and see if it will be enough of not.

The fact remains, ANet can always buff these traits later. It may take a bit, given how terrified they are still of the return of the necro bunkers from beta, but these are some of the bases we need for them to evaluate that at all.

So, it’s more like we’re asking for candy, get a single skittle, with the promise of more if we’re good.

Nineteen months of asking. I don’t think that lone skittle is enough to sustain interest in a promise (especially in light of past history), what with new candy stores opening up real soon.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Again, I would disagree. Unholy Sacntuary we can be pretty sure is too weak to matter, but the others provide very noticeable benefits that could swing the fight in your favor. Parasitic Contagion is the trickiest one to evaluate. We just don’t know how well it will actually play out in practice. It does give condition builds sustain, but we will have to wait and see if it will be enough of not.

The fact remains, ANet can always buff these traits later. It may take a bit, given how terrified they are still of the return of the necro bunkers from beta, but these are some of the bases we need for them to evaluate that at all.

So, it’s more like we’re asking for candy, get a single skittle, with the promise of more if we’re good.

Nineteen months of asking. I don’t think that lone skittle is enough to sustain interest in a promise (especially in light of past history), what with new candy stores opening up real soon.

Speak for yourself, a skittle is more than enough when I have been looking at an empty table for 4 months. I can easily find builds and combinations to keep me busy for a few months assuming nothing more than what we know about the new elites. They all have their own niche interest to me, though admittedly the SR one is going to take some serious stretching to find a place for.

Rennoko.5731:

Speak for yourself, a skittle is more than enough when I have been looking at an empty table for 4 months. I can easily find builds and combinations to keep me busy for a few months assuming nothing more than what we know about the new elites. They all have their own niche interest to me, though admittedly the SR one is going to take some serious stretching to find a place for.

Try healing in a zerg in wvwvw take unyealiding blast for piercing and you’re ready to go.

This is pretty nice when you consider we have unmatched AoE condition application. It isn’t supposed to sustain you 1v1, but when you can put out a lot of AoE conditions the healing is pretty nice.

Tim.6450:

Rennoko.5731:

Speak for yourself, a skittle is more than enough when I have been looking at an empty table for 4 months. I can easily find builds and combinations to keep me busy for a few months assuming nothing more than what we know about the new elites. They all have their own niche interest to me, though admittedly the SR one is going to take some serious stretching to find a place for.

Try healing in a zerg in wvwvw take unyealiding blast for piercing and you’re ready to go.

Yes the problem will be aiming it right. I will basically forgo selecting targets so I can just have a line based heal all the time. And if I am using 30 in Blood to sustain, I am going to have a real problem if it pulls 1 condition from 5 nearby players in WvW.

Rennoko.5731:

Tim.6450:

Rennoko.5731:

Speak for yourself, a skittle is more than enough when I have been looking at an empty table for 4 months. I can easily find builds and combinations to keep me busy for a few months assuming nothing more than what we know about the new elites. They all have their own niche interest to me, though admittedly the SR one is going to take some serious stretching to find a place for.

Try healing in a zerg in wvwvw take unyealiding blast for piercing and you’re ready to go.

Yes the problem will be aiming it right. I will basically forgo selecting targets so I can just have a line based heal all the time. And if I am using 30 in Blood to sustain, I am going to have a real problem if it pulls 1 condition from 5 nearby players in WvW.

Just worry about keeping your frontline up. They’re going to be the easiest to line up anyhow, and you will still deal damage then. As for pulling 1 condition from 5 allies every 3 seconds? You just gained 25% life force for that. This is, of course, assuming that the trait doesn’t just pull a single condition every 3 seconds.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Rennoko.5731:

Tim.6450:

Rennoko.5731:

Speak for yourself, a skittle is more than enough when I have been looking at an empty table for 4 months. I can easily find builds and combinations to keep me busy for a few months assuming nothing more than what we know about the new elites. They all have their own niche interest to me, though admittedly the SR one is going to take some serious stretching to find a place for.

Try healing in a zerg in wvwvw take unyealiding blast for piercing and you’re ready to go.

Yes the problem will be aiming it right. I will basically forgo selecting targets so I can just have a line based heal all the time. And if I am using 30 in Blood to sustain, I am going to have a real problem if it pulls 1 condition from 5 nearby players in WvW.

Just worry about keeping your frontline up. They’re going to be the easiest to line up anyhow, and you will still deal damage then. As for pulling 1 condition from 5 allies every 3 seconds? You just gained 25% life force for that. This is, of course, assuming that the trait doesn’t just pull a single condition every 3 seconds.

I just cannot imagine it works that way… it would be grossly powerful like that. I read it to mean that it works like plague signet in that it will pull a 1 condition from up to 5 nearby targets (so it pulls a maximum of 5 conditions to you), and if it pulls a condition you get 5% life force. Not 5% per target/condition pulled.

So you get 5% life force, and 20 bleeds, chill, weakness, and cripple.

If it is 5% per condition/target, that would be something indeed. I would almost have to run this in any 3+ man group.

Well, regardless of if the life force gain is per-pulse or per-condition, step 2 is “leave death shroud and use Putrid Mark.”

Would be nice if it scaled with healing power, that stats is so under used and only viable with a few good traits or skills ( regeneration is ok, healing signet and signet of malice do scales well with it, selfless daring healing on guard dodge has the best scaling of the game with a huge 1,2 ratio) but i think this would be a prime candidate for it.

If they dont want to scale it with healing power maybe raise its value from 5% to 10%, they already did that in the past and a good example is armored assault ( 10% toughness goes to extra power), if it really causes a huge rage storm on the forum because necro would be too strong again in pvp ( dumbfire incident) maybe not raise the cap that high to a sweet 7%. I tested it tho in WvW and spvp and seriously yes it doesn help me a bit but its far from overwhelming, it feels a bit like vampiric… The concept is cool but lack effectiveness.

Carpboy.7145:

Im not trying to say omg necro OP Anet wtf nerf. Just necros are gonna be extremely painful to fight with perplexity and this trait. You guys still have no real defense or disengage so its ok. But 1v1s will blow

Perplex runes have I believe a 15 second cooldown now on the interrupt, meaning they will only proc on one person, and were changed from on hit to on strike, which, basically, means that any necro (or honestly engi now) still using them is probably not doing himself any favors.

On strike every I think it was 25 seconds and on interrupt every 15 means your going to get MAYBE 3 stacks out during a fight.

Perplex were still excellent runes for a nade engi especially when they were on hit, seeing as we hit so so much, but on strike…nah.

(oh yeah my first toon was and is a nade engi)

After using this trait, and sticking with it, I can honestly say in small scale fights or 1v1 it’s healing is very sub-par similar to that of siphons. Whiles the return is noticable it’s still not lifesaving in most situations. In a ZvZ however, holy hell… Hop in to Plague and tag as many people as you can and no matter how many conditions are piled on you your health will go up faster than it will go down thanks to this trait. Parasitic Contagion is basically the trait to have if you’re zerging and a conditionmancer. The more marks I lay on the battlefield the longer I stay alive and the more people I kill, it’s awesome.

I’ve been experimenting with this trait since it came out and I find the mechanic really interesting. As others have said it’s extremely underwhelming in 1v1 or even 1v2 but as the number of victims grow the strength of the trait starts to show itself.

I’m using it in my hybrid build (rampager so pretty glassy) mainly in dungeons. A good point was made though in this thread that in dungeons it really only shines with trash mobs, when you really don’t need that little extra bit of sustain.

But an interesting dynamic starts to happen. The more mobs you pull and infect with conditions the more sustain you have to handle those bigger pulls. It can actually be better to tag some distant mobs with long bleeds and then go back to focus the other target just to get the heals, which weakens those other targets for when it’s time to focus them. One downside to this of course is that by aggroing more mobs at once you’re putting more pressure on your team.

Also something I’ve been playing around with is taking the Terror trait with Nightmare runes. Since Fear is a condition and with Terror does condition damage any ticks of Fear damage are also heals. So Terror now becomes a healing trait as well, especially if you are quick enough to epidemic the Fear.

Of course Spectral Wall becomes equally powerful as anything Feared by it will be running for their lives while healing you. Add to that equation a couple stacks of Torment and it gets really fun.

It’s a really interesting mechanic but I keep debating whether or not it’s better to just take Close to Death. Still experimenting though.