During the past several months Anet have been trying to promote team play by buffing skills that affect allies as well as creating new ones, as changes to guardians, mesmers (esp. mantras), and even necros with the Transfusion buff and the reduced well cooldowns have shown. And yet recently, they finally formalised a very severe stealth-nerf to one of the necro’s best party support skills: Putrid Mark.
Nobody disagrees that the original form of Putrid Mark was overpowered: complete condi cleanse 5 allies within a large radius and transfer to some hapless enemy, plus complete cleanse and transfer off the caster at 1200 range. And easy access to Greater Marks making it unblockable to make it even safer to hit.
Conversely, I think most people on these forums at least agree that the nerf is far too severe: at 3 conditions removed from the caster only, it now lags far behind comparative condi transfers/removals like Deathly Swarm which has half the cooldown, even accounting for its high damage, large radius, and double (possibly due to a bug) blast finisher.
But tbh, for me the worst part of the nerf wasn’t the reduction of the conditions it transfers to 3 only rather than all, or the fact that moving Greater Marks to master tier made it harder to make it unblockable. For me, it was the fact that it no longer cleanses allies! This flies in the face of what ANet have been trying to do, which is to encourage team plays and support builds, and for most condition builds, who don’t normally carry wells or invest in Transfusion, it was their only available means of team support. Selfish builds are boring and take less skill and coordination to play, whereas team support options make the game more interesting and sophisticated.
With that in mind, I’d like to suggest a few different ways in which the ally cleanse could be restored without making Putrid Mark as powerful as it used to be pre-nerf:
- Option 1. Restore the ally transfer, at 3 condis each rather than unlimited, but remove the ranged cleanse: the necromancer has to be standing in the mark to be cleansed, same as any other ally. This is my favourite option. I don’t know if it’s possible – I suspect the devs wanted to ensure that the caster was always one of the allies being cleansed, so they made the caster’s cleanse 1200 range rather than aoe to keep the necro outside the 5-target limit. I agree the necro should always be the first one to be cleansed, but I’m not sure how easy it’d be to code the skill to do that.
- Option 2. Restore aoe ally cleanse/transfer, but limit it to 1 ally per enemy hit. Basically change functionality to “for every enemy hit by mark, one ally within the mark’s radius has up to three conditions removed and transferred to that enemy.” This would serve 2 purposes: firstly it would stop the mark from transferring all cleansed conditions on the same enemy, which could be an instant (and unblockable) death sentence if it hit lots of allies. Secondly it would give the target(s) a chance for counterplay: since the functionality of AoE skills has been changed so that targets who block, dodge, or evade now COUNT AS PART OF THE 5-TARGET LIMIT, this change would make it possible to hit an entire enemy team and still get NO CLEANSES, not even from the necro, if all 5 of them dodge at the right time.
- Option 3. Restore aoe cleanse/transfer, but limit it to 3 allies max (plus the caster at range).
- Option 4. Restore aoe cleanse (3 conditions), but only transfer conditions from the caster, not allies hit.
- Option 5. Restore aoe cleanse/transfer, but limit it to 1 condition for allies, 3 for the caster. Not my favourite option this, as it gives the least team support.
-Option 6. Restore aoe cleanse/transfer (3 conditions), but increase recharge to 60". That would still be powerful but not excessively.
So there you go, 6 good ways to balance that skill while restoring team support. In my opinion, the best thing to do would be to combine options 1&2. Condition transfer at 1200 range is very powerful with a mark (at least Deathly Swarm is only 900 and has a slow projectile that can miss and is easier to dodge), and is inconsistent with how all other marks work – the caster doesn’t get regen if he’s not standing on the mark of blood after all! And limiting the transfer to 1 ally within the mark’s radius cleansed only for each enemy hit maintains its original functionality while toning it down and giving opportunities for coutnerplay.
If you like any of these ideas for balancing the skill please upvote this post so the devs see it. And if you have any better ones I haven’t thought of post them below – let’s make some noise to have our best team support skill brought back, fellow necros!