Guild Wars 2

Hello there dear necromancers, I would like to bring your attention to our ability called spectral wall. My experience brings me to think that it’s combo field effect is either bugged, or works in a weird way.

So now lets get to my observations.

First I would like to state my experience with projectile finishers through spectral wall.

The projectile finishers that a necromancer has are: Staff autoattack(#1 with a chance of 20%), Bone fiend and Flesh Wurm both having a 100% projectile finishers since they proc the poison effect off of corrosive poison cloud every time they fire(I’ve just tested it a few seconds ago).

When my minions start firing through spectral wall though, the thing that usually happens is that they proc the confusion once and then never after, only rarely do I get them to proc it twice or 3 times if I am lucky. Why is this? They have a 100% projectile finisher, does the ethereal field of the wall have some kind of hidden combo chance?
So as a result both the staff and minions seem to get the proc 1 or 2 times and then the confusion effect barely ever happens.

Note that me and my minions are always stationary during these tests and the results are never the same and completely random even though the minions have a reliable 100% projectile finisher.

Now for blast finishers. I have used the putrid mark, blowing up minions and necrotic traversal from the flesh wurm.

The results are never reliable and are random most of the time. I’ve had situations where the chaos armor effect triggers when the blast was WAY outside the wall. Then I get a lot of times when I trigger blasts inside the wall and don’t get the chaos armor effect. It seems to be totally random each time. I cannot really describe the specifics for every situation I tried but the main thing is that reproducing it in the same situation a lot of times tends to give different results. Please check it out for yourselves. I surely hope this is not intended.

I have had the unreliable blast finisher thing too. Both with staff 4 and blowing up minions

Spectral wall is actually a really good ability since if it’s fully traited then it lasts for a whole whooping 16 seconds and gives protection during all that time to the whole team even if your boon got removed or stolen. Then again a fully traited spectral wall CD is only 32 seconds which makes the downtime on it only 16 seconds and on top of it it’s an ethereal combo field. Now I am totally unaware of the ethereal fields that other classes have but I might be true when I say that a 16 second is the best duration for an ethereal field in the game. Imagine a team using it to get chaos armor for the duration of those 16 seconds. But then again, it’s combo field is bugged.=(

Basically this is kind of a bump but I really like spectral wall and would like to see it’s combo field being a reliable one. This is actually quite an important bug.

I’m getting the bone minion to proc confusion twice, every time it shoots through the ethereal wall. Flesh wurm never procced a projectile finisher for me (I don’t think it’s even a 20% chance), but does proc a blast finisher (in this case, Chaos Armor) if I put ethereal wall on top of it before using necrotic traversal, or vice versa. But you have to be really exact with the placement of the wall / wurm.

Softspoken.2410:

I’m getting the bone minion to proc confusion twice, every time it shoots through the ethereal wall. Flesh wurm never procced a projectile finisher for me (I don’t think it’s even a 20% chance), but does proc a blast finisher (in this case, Chaos Armor) if I put ethereal wall on top of it before using necrotic traversal, or vice versa. But you have to be really exact with the placement of the wall / wurm.

Edit: Seriously, unless ethereal wall is particularly narrow for a line-shaped combo field, I’m not seeing any bugs here.

Well…. I guess there’s no other way other than making a video then heh. As for you, sir. Please try running a lot of tests in different situations. You can do this in heart of the mists with no problems.

I think I’ve read somewhere that the actual field was at your feet instead of the wall itself, but they fix it if I remember correctly.

Now if you take it traited, I assume it do change the spell, like our glitched Marks, so maybe the traited version still act like that, the actual field is at your feet at the time you cast it.

Panhauramix.2784:

I think I’ve read somewhere that the actual field was at your feet instead of the wall itself, but they fix it if I remember correctly.

Now if you take it traited, I assume it do change the spell, like our glitched Marks, so maybe the traited version still act like that, the actual field is at your feet at the time you cast it.

My minions and me are stationary when attacking a stationary target and every shot gives different results.

The blast finisher is definitely buggy. Has about around 45-50% failure rate (possibly higher). It is very unreliable but I wish so hard it wasn’t as I really do love my some Chaos Armor. I still have it on my bar because it gives me some much needed defense in my condi build and I just quite honestly don’t see anything else worth using in its place.

Just one of the many bugs Necro’s have to endure. How we manage to even down anyone is a miracle in itself. I hope, though, that Anet eventually fixes it or gives us access to Chaos Armor (Spectral Armor would be awesome for it).

I can’t speak for minions however. I don’t like MM builds. The only minion I run with is FG and he gives me enough headaches.

Here’s a projectile finisher test video with horrible quality(free xsplit version).
I make my bone fiend and Flesh wurm shoot through 2 traited corrosive poison clouds first to show that they have a 100% projectile finisher.

Then I fully trait my spectral wall for CD and duration and make the wurm and fiend shoot through 2 of them. First time my bone fiend magically gets three confusion procs in a row and then stops getting any, flesh wurm on the other hand doesn’t proc it at all for some reason.

Second wall my bone fiend gets the confusion effect twice while the wurm is not getting any confusions again. Other times my wurm kept getting limited confusions too and you can clearly see the 100% blast finisher on both of them from the corrosive cloud test.

Note that everything is stationary during the attacks.

http://ru.twitch.tv/iceflame1988/b/410352462

I won’t be doing a blast finisher test video for now so I ask you to just take my word for it that blast finishers interaction with spectral wall is completely random as well.

It seems to works for the first 6-7 sec, which is the untraited duration of the wall if I’m not mistaken? Have you tried it untraited? Each trait seems to create a different version of the spell, which can act different from the others. The visual effect and protection doesn’t seem to bother if the field effect is still there.

Panhauramix.2784:

It seems to works for the first 6-7 sec, which is the untraited duration of the wall if I’m not mistaken? Have you tried it untraited? Each trait seems to create a different version of the spell, which can act different from the others. The visual effect and protection doesn’t seem to bother if the field effect is still there.

Ok, so I have just tested it and indeed that seems to be the case. During the bonus duration fromt he spectral attunement trait the wall seems to lose its combo field effect in regards to projectile finishers.

I still find it strange that the wurm is not procing confusion in that video though.

Ooookay. Now I see it.

So I was wrong, and Flesh Wurm does get a 100% combo finisher, and there is a problem when using it Spectral Wall: the wall is not tall enough. If you put the wurm somewhere sort of low, then manage to lay the wall across a rise in the ground / object so that it’s lifted up, you can get the combo to work.

I’ll put it into the list. I’ve seen other walls that do this, but I think it’s a case-by-case basis on which are tall enough and which are not.

The blast finisher on wall is finicky, but it’s there. I still think it has more to do with how ethereal wall is a line combo field than anything, so it’s hard to hit with blast finishers.

Edit: Hmm, I’ll look into the weirdness from the bonus duration trait, I was getting these results without that. The ethereal combo field could be expiring early.
Edit2: Yes, it is definitely losing the combo field early.

Softspoken.2410:

Ooookay. Now I see it.

So I was wrong, and Flesh Wurm does get a 100% combo finisher, and there is a problem when using it Spectral Wall: the wall is not tall enough. If you put the wurm somewhere sort of low, then manage to lay the wall across a rise in the ground / object so that it’s lifted up, you can get the combo to work.

I’ll put it into the list. I’ve seen other walls that do this, but I think it’s a case-by-case basis on which are tall enough and which are not.

The blast finisher on wall is finicky, but it’s there. I still think it has more to do with how ethereal wall is a line combo field than anything, so it’s hard to hit with blast finishers.

Edit: Hmm, I’ll look into the weirdness from the bonus duration trait, I was getting these results without that. The ethereal combo field could be expiring early.
Edit2: Yes, it is definitely losing the combo field early.

My wurm manages to proc confusion on that terrain from the video in most other cases though. I guess the case in the video is unique in some way or something.

Just to specify, the traited duration is 15 seconds and not 16 as I’ve stated earlier.

Untraited duration – 9, traited duration – 15, so basically no combo field for the additional 6 seconds. I guess I won’t be testing the blast finishers on the bonus duration then if it doesn’t work with 100% finishers, heh.

I think I might make a video where I play around with blasts from minions, staff 4 and necrotic traversal but I don’t think it’s going to be that systematic since the situations I had were veeeeeery different.

Iceflame.5024:

My wurm manages to proc confusion on that terrain from the video in most other cases though. I guess the case in the video is unique in some way or something.

Just to specify, the traited duration is 15 seconds and not 16 as I’ve stated earlier.

Untraited duration – 9, traited duration – 15, so basically no combo field for the additional 6 seconds. I guess I won’t be testing the blast finishers on the bonus duration then if it doesn’t work with 100% finishers, heh.

I think I might make a video where I play around with blasts from minions, staff 4 and necrotic traversal but I don’t think it’s going to be that systematic since the situations I had were veeeeeery different.

I think it also relates to the height of your opponent. Earlier I was testing on Jotun, which are kind of tall, so the wurm shoots upwards to hit them. Whereas some golems it’d fire downwards at, and probably be more likely to combo with the wall.

But by putting the wurm & bone fiend on a small ledge, then having them fire right at a large golem, they actually went over the ethereal wall without proccing it. So I think height is a major issue on that skill. I sort of need to test with other line combo field skills now, to see if they generally have height / area problems.

Ok so I did some testing right now and it seems that the combo field at the edges of the wall does not interact with blast finishers. The best reliable spot to get chaos armor is to blast in the middle of the wall, it also seems that the left side of the middle has more field space compared to the right side. Ima prolly make and post a video later when it’s day time(currently it’s 2:48 here in Moscow heh).

Bonus: While I was at it, I manager to teach my flesh wurm some flying maneuvers, proof in the attachment.

He seems to be happy and feel real badarse about it too:

http://ru.twitch.tv/iceflame1988/b/410428138

The problem is, as you seem to have pointed out, the hitbox on it is wonky. Now when blowing up minions i can usually get it done pretty reliably, but I have also practiced with it a lot and know exactly when to do it (just don’t forget bone minion explosion has a strange delay between the blast and the actual combo going off), but when it comes to projectile finishers I have noticed something strange: if players are firing through it, they need to be almost standing directly inside the wall most of the time to get it to combo, whereas minions can be anywhere within striking range and fire through it just fine and get the combo off. I know there is some room for error since many projectile finishers are only 20% chance, but I’ve tried it with 100% chance ones like hidden pistol, ect.

Don’t think I’ll be posting another video heh. The combo field seems to be nonexistent at the edges and the only reliable zone is in the middle. I do however get chaos armor procs when blasting outside the wall area in front of it. Most of the times it’s in front of the right edge of the wall, but I do get situations where I cannot replicate this while in other situations I can reliably use it. I dunno what the factor here is, the position of the wall relative to your character or relative to the compass or both at the same time, no idea. Also I get situations where the blast also works outside the wall in front of the middle part instead of the right edge.

I think that the whole combo field on it in general needs increasing to be more on par of the effective area of say, the elementalist skill unsteady ground (I know that one has no combo field, just talking about the effective area on the ground and how solidly reliable it is).

I always use Spectral Wall in zerg fights and I try to trigger Chaos Armor with Putrid Mark as often as I can.
Results: very inconsistent, for me and for other players using blast finishers on it.
It just doesn’t always work. Sometimes I think I’m not standing in the perfect spot (wherever that is…) but other times I see Choas Armor on people who were not even standing close to the Spectral Wall. Sometimes I can give Chaos Armor to myself and my Flesh Golem even if only I am standing in the wall.
What never ever happens (even though it should) is triggering Chaos Armor on 5 targets, which should happen all the time in zergs. My guess would be 2 or 3 tops.
Maybe this is an issue with ethereal fields in general? Because I’ve never given 5 Choas Armors on Null Field or Time Warp either.

flow.6043:

I always use Spectral Wall in zerg fights and I try to trigger Chaos Armor with Putrid Mark as often as I can.
Results: very inconsistent, for me and for other players using blast finishers on it.
It just doesn’t always work. Sometimes I think I’m not standing in the perfect spot (wherever that is…) but other times I see Choas Armor on people who were not even standing close to the Spectral Wall. Sometimes I can give Chaos Armor to myself and my Flesh Golem even if only I am standing in the wall.
What never ever happens (even though it should) is triggering Chaos Armor on 5 targets, which should happen all the time in zergs. My guess would be 2 or 3 tops.
Maybe this is an issue with ethereal fields in general? Because I’ve never given 5 Choas Armors on Null Field or Time Warp either.

I mostly play sPVP but during my tests I got chaos armor on myself, 2 of my bone minions and the flesh golem so that makes 4.

As I’ve already mentioned twice here, the most reliable spot for a blast finisher is in the middle of the wall. The edges seemed to never react to blasts. Other blast triggering areas differ from situation to situation and are outside of the visual field of spectral wall.

I hope you read it but I’m still going to mention the fact that if you trait the wall with spectral attunement for bonus duration which is an additional 5 seconds, the combo field is not there for that additional time, so basically it has a combo field only during the base 9 second time, this may be not exactly accurate regarding the time value but seems very close.

Here’s a blast finisher video after all:

http://ru.twitch.tv/iceflame1988/b/410786142

I only use it untraited.

I just did some testing in PvE with some regular mobs.
It seems, the few times I manage to trigger Chaos Armor on myself (can’t say that it works better if I stand in the center), other targets are likely to get it as well. But they don’t have to stand in the wall, only on the mark.
My golem is more likely to get it if he got protection from walking through the wall. Also, somtimes I can give my golem CA if he’s far from the wall, but not to enemies that are standing in it.
If I don’t stand in the wall myself it appears to be less successful and completely unpredictable.

If enemies get it the visuals don’t show up, they just get the conditions. So it’s kinda hard to tell here, but I could manage the combo on 5 targets. I’m pretty sure it never worked on 5 allies though.

I wonder if putrid mark triggers the chaos armor combo effect based on the enemy’s location, rather than the mark’s?

flow.6043:

I only use it untraited.

I just did some testing in PvE with some regular mobs.
It seems, the few times I manage to trigger Chaos Armor on myself (can’t say that it works better if I stand in the center), other targets are likely to get it as well. But they don’t have to stand in the wall, only on the mark.
My golem is more likely to get it if he got protection from walking through the wall. Also, somtimes I can give my golem CA if he’s far from the wall, but not to enemies that are standing in it.
If I don’t stand in the wall myself it appears to be less successful and completely unpredictable.

If enemies get it the visuals don’t show up, they just get the conditions. So it’s kinda hard to tell here, but I could manage the combo on 5 targets. I’m pretty sure it never worked on 5 allies though.

You seem to be saying that enemies do not get chaos armor? Errrr, isn’t it a buff so basically only for allies? Why are you mentioning enemies?

Softspoken.2410:

I wonder if putrid mark triggers the chaos armor combo effect based on the enemy’s location, rather than the mark’s?

Well, it would be nice if some of the people working at ANET test it out when they have access to unlimited no CD blast finishers and unlimited duration spectral wall on top of summoning enemies.

Iceflame.5024:

You seem to be saying that enemies do not get chaos armor? Errrr, isn’t it a buff so basically only for allies? Why are you mentioning enemies?

The description says boons to allies, conditions to foes
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chaos_Armor
Some of the npcs I tested it on had confusion, which they didn’t get from Necrotic Grasp. They didn’t have the bubble or the chaos armor icon or anything… so I assumed that’s as chaos-armor-ish as it gets on enemies.
Or does the description mean that they have to attack me (with the armor) first to receive conditions?

Enemies will not be able to finish a combo with your combo field… The conditions that occur on the enemy is a result of them attacking you while you have chaos armor up.

In regards to the bug, I suggest creating a post in the bug forums showing that the field disappears during the extra traited duration.

Alright, seems I got confused by the skill description.
So… does the “whenever you are struck” part also apply to the boons, or do you automatically get them with the armor?
If it does apply, does an attack trigger both a boon and a condition? or just one or the other?

And does this:
“This does not apply when the Chaos Armor effect is granted from a combo field.”
“Chaos Armor never grants protection when struck.”
…mean that necros can never get protection with it?

Flow, I think mesmers have an ability called chaos armor or one that gives them chaos armor. That ability is taken as base for the description and I take it they get protection when they activate it.

When anyone gets chaos armor form a combo field they can get all those boons and inflict all those conditions, it just requires enemies to attack you.

flow.6043:

Alright, seems I got confused by the skill description.
So… does the “whenever you are struck” part also apply to the boons, or do you automatically get them with the armor?
If it does apply, does an attack trigger both a boon and a condition? or just one or the other?

And does this:
“This does not apply when the Chaos Armor effect is granted from a combo field.”
“Chaos Armor never grants protection when struck.”
…mean that necros can never get protection with it?

See below…

Iceflame.5024:

Flow, I think mesmers have an ability called chaos armor or one that gives them chaos armor. That ability is taken as base for the description and I take it they get protection when they activate it.

When anyone gets chaos armor form a combo field they can get all those boons and inflict all those conditions, it just requires enemies to attack you.

Chaos Armor is a Mesmer skill from their Staff. It comes from Staff 4. The skill gives protection when used as well as a bubble effect; the bubble causes enemies to give themselves conditions and give the user boons (protection, regeneration, or swiftness). It should be noted however that protection is not given by Chaos Armor provided by blast finishers until you are hit by an enemy—and even then it’s a random chance between those three buffs.

The skill is actually quite powerful and I wish we had better/more ways of giving it to ourselves on Necro as I adore it on my Mesmer.

Well if the combo field was there for the whole 15 seconds when our spectral wall is traited and has a 32 second CD on top of it, it would bring very nice AOE chaos armor access for 15 seconds for the team as well as some confusion stacking. The downtime on it would only be 17 seconds which is in fact a relatively low CD.

Anyone who can, should report this as a behavior bug from the in-game support interface. I’ve created a thread in the game bugs forums with a link to this one and also reported the bug form in-game and gave them a link to this thread as well lol.