Guild Wars 2

Very interesting stuff is being brought up.

FoeFaller,
Have you used any condi duration in your calculations?
Also, when you dodge in Plague, you would trigger the Mark of Blood from the minor trait… which would give you regen and reduce the damage taken by a bit too.
Annndd… Plague apparently (wiki said so lulz) quadruples your toughness……. so if that’s true…. that would synergize with Corrupter’s Fervor very…very…..nicely… at least from a toughness standpoint.

Annnnddd… Parasitic Contagion works with self applied bleeds? If so, that’s a pleasant surprise

Additional things which could reduce the damage even further : Rune of Sunless or Antitoxin. They both reduce the duration of incoming conditions and if one uses -condi duration runes + Corrupter’s Fervor, the damage would be reduced by quite a bit. I don’t know if I’d use any of those runes though but just an idea

The only thing that slightly bothers me is that many of the traits were meant to give you sustain (and they will, for sure, outside of plague) but when using Plague, all that sustain/healing drops. I can see the reason being that the healing could potentially be monstrous in Plague without the self-inflicted bleed (especially if you consider Reaper and chill doing damage) but then again… since cripples etc. won’t slow down leaps, then leaping out of Plague won’t be an issue, even if Plague chills the enemy… so if the bleeds were put there to counterbalance the sustain we could “potentially” get… it’s a little silly. Nevertheless, I just want Tuesday to come already… need to hands-on test drive these changes :P

One thought that came to mind for me… although Necro elites have generally been classed as more usable than Tomes, I don’t really understand why Tomes were thought to require a change and Plague/Lich weren’t? Functionally they are very similar, both sets were long cooldowns that replaced your skills with another set. The reasoning behind the Tome change was given that they were ‘clunky’ and didn’t match the rest of the Guardians abilities rather than being poor skills.

My Necro is mostly used in WvW with small groups and I generally find none of the elites to be useful for that situation, Plague is basically a stomp tool, Lich is a “shoot me please!!” alert for the enemy (although by far the most effective of the elites if left unchecked) that gets you killed very quick, and the Golem dies before it gets to attack. Been considering rerolling to a human to get Reaper of Grenth (especially with the Reaper coming, it’s a longer CD than the elite shout but pulses and has a much shorter cast time + poison). For the moment my 0 button is left unused until I need to stomp, and a 3min CD to stomp feels rather wasteful.

That said… I’m not sure exactly what could be done instead either, an elite Well would likely suffer from the same problems as the utility ones – keeping people in them, and I have no idea what an elite Spectral or Signet could be either.

we have terrible, situational elites, that really are not all that good. I am excited for the shout, because that is better (IMO) than all of our elites.

A maintained 2 stacks of bleeding on yourself honestly isn’t that bad, idk why people say the skill is kill now because of it.

striker.3704:

A maintained 2 stacks of bleeding on yourself honestly isn’t that bad, idk why people say the skill is kill now because of it.

You have no condition cleanse or healing skills inside Plague, and even if you did, it would not be worth cleansing due to the short duration, pulsing nature of the bleeds.

Your typical condition build will have ~180 damage per bleed tick for 48 effective ticks (thanks to Barbed Precision), for a total of ~8640 damage that you dealt to yourself. This is without any extra bleed duration at all. Just adding a koi cake boosts the damage you deal to yourself to ~11,520. And this is before accounting for any Might!

Get it yet? It’s really, really kitten obvious if you run a couple numbers.

Gryph.8237:

I am excited for the shout, because that is better (IMO) than all of our elites.

AND THIS IS WHY ANET NERFED PLAGUE AND LICH. Talk about elaborate marketing tactics.

Hey! I ’ve though of some pretty funny bug that could happen with plague or BiP…

It would be hilarious if we were procing Blood bound on us.

Beside, I never liked lich form (slow, unesthetic, unfun to play…) and plague weren’t even really good… Well I’ll still not use any elite this won’t change anything.

MethaneGas.8357:

Very interesting stuff is being brought up.

FoeFaller,
Have you used any condi duration in your calculations?
Also, when you dodge in Plague, you would trigger the Mark of Blood from the minor trait… which would give you regen and reduce the damage taken by a bit too.
Annndd… Plague apparently (wiki said so lulz) quadruples your toughness……. so if that’s true…. that would synergize with Corrupter’s Fervor very…very…..nicely… at least from a toughness standpoint.

Annnnddd… Parasitic Contagion works with self applied bleeds? If so, that’s a pleasant surprise

Additional things which could reduce the damage even further : Rune of Sunless or Antitoxin. They both reduce the duration of incoming conditions and if one uses -condi duration runes + Corrupter’s Fervor, the damage would be reduced by quite a bit. I don’t know if I’d use any of those runes though but just an idea

The only thing that slightly bothers me is that many of the traits were meant to give you sustain (and they will, for sure, outside of plague) but when using Plague, all that sustain/healing drops. I can see the reason being that the healing could potentially be monstrous in Plague without the self-inflicted bleed (especially if you consider Reaper and chill doing damage) but then again… since cripples etc. won’t slow down leaps, then leaping out of Plague won’t be an issue, even if Plague chills the enemy… so if the bleeds were put there to counterbalance the sustain we could “potentially” get… it’s a little silly. Nevertheless, I just want Tuesday to come already… need to hands-on test drive these changes :P

I did not factor condition duration. I was tired and that would have been too much math at once.

In any case, the 20% increase to Bleed from Barbed Precision would make Plague do an effective 48 second 1 stack bleed, or about 2.4 stacks of bleed worth of damage per second. This would basically completely offset the effects of Corrupter’s Fervor (quick calculation suggests a net 4% reduction on total damage), and at 1400 Condition damage, increase the amount of damage you suffered with only Parasitic Contagion from 118.3 per second to 165.46.

As for the Rune suggestions… Antitoxin would be the better of the two. Better incoming Duration reduction (more than what BP inflicts in fact) plus the 6 rune effect apparently triggers on self-applied poison and torment. Sunless’s Condi duration reduction is only 15%, and the fear from it’s 6 Rune effect would be counterproductive when using Plague.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

striker.3704:

A maintained 2 stacks of bleeding on yourself honestly isn’t that bad, idk why people say the skill is kill now because of it.

You have no condition cleanse or healing skills inside Plague, and even if you did, it would not be worth cleansing due to the short duration, pulsing nature of the bleeds.

Your typical condition build will have ~180 damage per bleed tick for 48 effective ticks (thanks to Barbed Precision), for a total of ~8640 damage that you dealt to yourself. This is without any extra bleed duration at all. Just adding a koi cake boosts the damage you deal to yourself to ~11,520. And this is before accounting for any Might!

Get it yet? It’s really, really kitten obvious if you run a couple numbers.

Then please run them appropriately. First: We need context. Are we talking about sPvP (which is the balance focus in PvP) or about WvW (which isn’t balance focus for anything). Then, we need to look at complete builds, not just one single skill.

If you do this, you will see, that depending on the used build in sPvP the damage is actually significantly lower. When using this kinda tanky terrormancer build the relevant traits are Barbed Precision (+20% bleed duration), Target the Weak (13% of Precision into Malice), Corrupter’s Fervor (up to -20% incoming Condition Damage). We’ll be using Rabid Gear, ’cuz we hate ourselves^^

Precision = 1845 = 1000 (base) + 845 (650*130%)
Condition Damage = 1452 = 0 (base) + 240 (Target the Weak) + 1212 (932*130%)

Bleed [1stack/s] = 138 = 2 + (0.3 * Level) + (0.075 * Condition Damage)
Self Bleed [1stack/s] = 110 = 138 – 20% (10 stacks of Corrupter’s Fervor)
Self Bleed from one second Plaque = 264 = 110 * 2 * 120% (Barbed Precision)
Self Bleed from 20 seconds Plaque = 5280 = 264 * 20

Of course this assumes you have Corrupter’s Fervor up all the time. Which I guess in a PvP match you will.

What matters is, that the numbers aren’t actually that high, as ppl claim them to be. The question is, does this change anything. And for WvW (which, I might remind you, is not the PvP balance focus) those numbers would be higher of course.

You also forgot 175 condition damage from runes in your calculations, plus any bleed duration or extra condition damage (Undead runes) that may be present. Undead Runes are particularly troublesome to calculate as Plague does a massive boost to your Toughness.

Factoring in the 175 from runes but no other modifiers we are looking at 1627 condition damage, which results in bleed ticks base of 148. Assuming you already have 10 stacks of Corrupter’s Fervor before popping Plague and maintain those stacks, it’s 118.4 damage/bleed tick. Times 48 for the bleed ticks you will have just for being in Curses, and you are looking at 5,683 damage you dealt to yourself even with a Grandmaster trait reducing it by 20%!

That’s as much as you would probably take from a Backstab in that same situation.

Yes, the numbers I had before were average WvW/PvE numbers. In PvP, it will be lower. In PvP, you are still effectively Backstabbing yourself for using your elite.

A little over 3130 condi damage fully buffed using bursting instead of corruption sigil., which gives roughly 260 dmg per bleed. A grand total of 18200 damage done to self while in Plague while fully buffed up. A little less if Plague overwrites the new scepter trait in curses. But still a completely ridiculous amount of damage dealt to self. With Might stacks and banners and whatnot. And that’s not even counting if you have vulnerability stacks on you.

The guy in charge of Necros has no idea what he’s doing, didn’t test this change, didn’t listen to feedback from the core testers, the core testers are fools and incompetent. Pick one or more.

Zaroua.2714:

A little over 3130 condi damage fully buffed using bursting instead of corruption sigil., which gives roughly 260 dmg per bleed. A grand total of 18200 damage done to self while in Plague while fully buffed up. e.

That sounds like almost enough damage to down you when the form ends.

I would love to see a video of a necromancer killing himself with his elite form.

Somebody please make this happen

plague should give self weakness so you wouldn’t kill yourself but couldn’t dodge/deal direct damage as much which would make sense with the theme of the skill Oo

I wonder how many people are going to kill themselves in Plague because they did not read (the INCREDIBLY kittening stupid) self-bleed stacking.

I don’t know on what kind of group-think yes-man organization Anet’s development runs, but it’s appalling.

nekretaal.6485:

Zaroua.2714:

A little over 3130 condi damage fully buffed using bursting instead of corruption sigil., which gives roughly 260 dmg per bleed. A grand total of 18200 damage done to self while in Plague while fully buffed up. e.

That sounds like almost enough damage to down you when the form ends.

I would love to see a video of a necromancer killing himself with his elite form.

Somebody please make this happen

I’ll try to document this for future generations as fast as possible.

Rym.1469:

nekretaal.6485:

Zaroua.2714:

A little over 3130 condi damage fully buffed using bursting instead of corruption sigil., which gives roughly 260 dmg per bleed. A grand total of 18200 damage done to self while in Plague while fully buffed up. e.

That sounds like almost enough damage to down you when the form ends.

I would love to see a video of a necromancer killing himself with his elite form.

Somebody please make this happen

I’ll try to document this for future generations as fast as possible.

(Un)Fortunately, it’s not possible to kill yourself leaving Plague, you health maintains the same % when the skill ends.

So unless you can find a Condition setup that will deal over 40k damage to yourself…

Fhenrir.5297:

plague should give self weakness so you wouldn’t kill yourself but couldn’t dodge/deal direct damage as much which would make sense with the theme of the skill Oo

Weakness won’t do anything because it doesn’t affect condis.

Bhawb.7408:

Fhenrir.5297:

plague should give self weakness so you wouldn’t kill yourself but couldn’t dodge/deal direct damage as much which would make sense with the theme of the skill Oo

Weakness won’t do anything because it doesn’t affect condis.

Yes it will. Weakness affects condis now

Plague will give self bleed + self poison with trait , confirmed

Watching the Livestream at the moment it would appear with Master of Corruption trait added Plague will also apply Poison to you not just bleed.

Seemed like he had about 2 stacks of bleed and poison on him consistently while in Plague running the trait.

Forsaker.9213:

Plague will give self bleed + self poison with trait , confirmed

I have to say that guy streaming Necro sounded like he heard that his dog died and wanted to forget about it as quickly as he could.

Now the main question is – Poison was listed as 2 second. If it pulses, then we can safely start rolling on the floor, laughing.

Foefaller.1082:

Rym.1469:

nekretaal.6485:

Zaroua.2714:

A little over 3130 condi damage fully buffed using bursting instead of corruption sigil., which gives roughly 260 dmg per bleed. A grand total of 18200 damage done to self while in Plague while fully buffed up. e.

That sounds like almost enough damage to down you when the form ends.

I would love to see a video of a necromancer killing himself with his elite form.

Somebody please make this happen

I’ll try to document this for future generations as fast as possible.

(Un)Fortunately, it’s not possible to kill yourself leaving Plague, you health maintains the same % when the skill ends.

So unless you can find a Condition setup that will deal over 40k damage to yourself…

Turns out it might be quite possible, my dear friend!

Welp, we’re no Engineers, so you may have to adapt to all the craziness!

So how bad does it look?

I guess we’re safely looking at about 15-20k damage with ease out here.

Capped at 2-3 bleed & 2 poison it seems (from digitalprosports stream)

Rym.1469:

I guess we’re safely looking at about 15-20k damage with ease out here.

Especially traited for less cooldown…additional selfpoisoning , kitten yeah. Plague needs to pulse all conditions you have, then it might be good. but it would still selfkill you.

https://youtu.be/h1dZ0YddG7w

“We can commit suicide within 20 seconds!”

Gotchya Arena Net! NOW I know where the Necro inspiration came from!

:D

Gryph.8237:

Bhawb.7408:

Fhenrir.5297:

plague should give self weakness so you wouldn’t kill yourself but couldn’t dodge/deal direct damage as much which would make sense with the theme of the skill Oo

Weakness won’t do anything because it doesn’t affect condis.

Yes it will. Weakness affects condis now

Where’d it say that?

Cecilia.5179:

Gryph.8237:

Bhawb.7408:

Fhenrir.5297:

plague should give self weakness so you wouldn’t kill yourself but couldn’t dodge/deal direct damage as much which would make sense with the theme of the skill Oo

Weakness won’t do anything because it doesn’t affect condis.

Yes it will. Weakness affects condis now

Where’d it say that?

Nowhere

Rym.1469:

I guess we’re safely looking at about 15-20k damage with ease out here.

Early estimates by Drarnor is putting it at over 30k if you actively try to kill yourself with it. I also wonder if we can Blood Bond ourselves, by using Blood is Power + Plague self bleeds.

So, I’ve been running some numbers, and here is what I’ve found:

For equipment and skills: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYGDV32dj5N83AA-TFyBABEcEAW+UAAwDAIl9H4S53mq/4n+gzUCGAABYmlZZOzADdoDdoDdoNzZO0ZO0ZWKAYWWB-w

For traits: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQB6ALcA9Q~

Assuming 25 sigil stacks, but no Might or Vulnerability on yourself and no banners, you will have 2405 Condition Damage. Plague will deal 16,510 Bleed damage and 13,172 Poison damage for a grand total of 29,682 damage you dealt to yourself.

In Plague, you have 37729 health, so you won’t die there. The few seconds after leaving Plague is key.

Long story short, you leave Plague at 31% health (5956), then take another 1238 bleed damage and 908 poison damage for a total of 2146 damage after leaving Plague. It doesn’t kill you, but you’re left with 3809 health. From full. From your own elite.

However, if you first cast Blood is Power, it is a guaranteed suicide. Before accounting for the Might, the self-inflicted damage increases to 37937. After accounting for the Might (8 stacks, 8 seconds), the damage is increased by 1024, to 38960.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

So, I’ve been running some numbers, and here is what I’ve found:

For equipment and skills: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYGDV32dj5N83AA-TFyBABEcEAW+UAAwDAIl9H4S53mq/4n+gzUCGAABYmlZZOzADdoDdoDdoNzZO0ZO0ZWKAYWWB-w

For traits: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQB6ALcA9Q~

Assuming 25 sigil stacks, but no Might or Vulnerability on yourself and no banners, you will have 2405 Condition Damage. Plague will deal 16,510 Bleed damage and 13,172 Poison damage for a grand total of 29,682 damage you dealt to yourself.

In Plague, you have 37729 health, so you won’t die there. The few seconds after leaving Plague is key.

Long story short, you leave Plague at 31% health (5956), then take another 1238 bleed damage and 908 poison damage for a total of 2146 damage after leaving Plague. It doesn’t kill you, but you’re left with 3809 health. From full. From your own elite.

However, if you first cast Blood is Power, it is a guaranteed suicide. Before accounting for the Might, the self-inflicted damage increases to 37937. After accounting for the Might (8 stacks, 8 seconds), the damage is increased by 1024, to 38960.

So any rabid/MoC necro build standing next to a might stacker is going to just guarantee kill itself with plague?

Inb4 somebody tries to sell this as a downstate necro buff.

Probably a typo.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

So, I’ve been running some numbers, and here is what I’ve found:

For equipment and skills: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNArYGDV32dj5N83AA-TFyBABEcEAW+UAAwDAIl9H4S53mq/4n+gzUCGAABYmlZZOzADdoDdoDdoNzZO0ZO0ZWKAYWWB-w

For traits: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQB6ALcA9Q~

Assuming 25 sigil stacks, but no Might or Vulnerability on yourself and no banners, you will have 2405 Condition Damage. Plague will deal 16,510 Bleed damage and 13,172 Poison damage for a grand total of 29,682 damage you dealt to yourself.

In Plague, you have 37729 health, so you won’t die there. The few seconds after leaving Plague is key.

Long story short, you leave Plague at 31% health (5956), then take another 1238 bleed damage and 908 poison damage for a total of 2146 damage after leaving Plague. It doesn’t kill you, but you’re left with 3809 health. From full. From your own elite.

However, if you first cast Blood is Power, it is a guaranteed suicide. Before accounting for the Might, the self-inflicted damage increases to 37937. After accounting for the Might (8 stacks, 8 seconds), the damage is increased by 1024, to 38960.

I can’t wait to fire up fraps, gather couple Necromancers and go full Jewish Suicide Squad on some world boss event.

I am excited for tomorrow patch, lol.

Plague as a well doesn’t sound not so fitting right now.

Sagat.3285:

Plague as a well doesn’t sound not so fitting right now.

Either that or if they want to keep it a corruption make it a 10 second effect that extends the duration of all conditions by 2s every 1s. It spreads from player to player like an actual plague.

Rym.1469:

I am excited for tomorrow patch, lol.

I am excited for all the wrong reasons. But excited nonetheless.

We need to all post videos on the forums of how we 1v1 ourselves to show how stupid these nerfs are

Lordrosicky.5813:

We need to all post videos on the forums of how we 1v1 ourselves to show how stupid these nerfs are

That’s how we should celebrate in LA!

I want to laugh in the devs face who did this and the cc nerf. Just want to laugh right in their face

Depends on what hour patch hits, I will be organizing massive suicide of Necromancers in new Lion’s Arch and other areas tomorrow ln EU. Probably record it, too.

That should be fun.

Even thinking about creating a special guild. Dunno about the name, “Suicide Squad” or “Little Sweden”. [EMO] tag?

Rym.1469:

Depends on what hour patch hits, I will be organizing massive suicide of Necromancers in new Lion’s Arch and other areas tomorrow ln EU. Probably record it, too.

That should be fun.

Even thinking about creating a special guild. Dunno about the name, “Suicide Squad” or “Little Sweden”. [EMO] tag?

If we can feature a “U SUCK BALANCE TEAM” in /say at end, im gladly joining

This is the most embarrasing “balance” update I’ve ever read in my 12 years of gaming. Period.
I’ve always had faith in ArenaNet, even when they just ignored our class patch after patch, but this is seriously ridiculous and kittened. That’s it, I can’t defend them anymore at all.
Make the condition/tank elite suicide yourself and make a healing skill not healing you and going against its own purpose (consume conditions, CON-SU-ME! ffs).
But hey! If you equip MoC trait, you can get into suicide mode a.k.a. plague form every 2 minutes. That’s awesome guys!!
And why not? Make the supporting vampiric aura improve the damage of your allies attacks by the awesome quantity of 38 DAMAGE!

/endrant

Seriously guys, this is driving me freaking nuts. Revenant can’t come soon enough

Maybe we can /lay Or let our dead bodies spell out “you suck balance team” after we suicide with this stupid plague nerf hahahha

Can someone tell me or point me to any complaints that our plague form was op? Any? Any posts at all? Did it disrupt a tournament? Did an engie cry due to plague form? Did an ele break his dagger or skin his knee because of plague! Did anyone, for the love of God anf all that’s holy ever kittening say, holy kitten consume condition or plague needs a kittening nerf it’s so op?

No? Then W. T F a kittening net

Waiting for videos!

Wait wait does Parasitic Contagion heals of your self inflicted conditions (and DS)?

I’m planning suiciding myself with a friend tomorrow on ranked arenas. We don’t care if they report us for trolling, it’s for fairness!

Sagat.3285:

Wait wait does Parasitic Contagion heals of your self inflicted conditions (and DS)?

It doesn’t.

Tim.6450:

Sagat.3285:

Wait wait does Parasitic Contagion heals of your self inflicted conditions (and DS)?

It doesn’t.

I need to see this kitten through my own eyes. I guess it can get worse than now.

Could we request Plague be a forced transform of an opponent?

Sagat.3285:

Tim.6450:

Sagat.3285:

Wait wait does Parasitic Contagion heals of your self inflicted conditions (and DS)?

It doesn’t.

I need to see this kitten through my own eyes. I guess it can get worse than now.

Hey, don’t jinx it.