Guild Wars 2

Seeing as they’re supposed to be the master of spreading conditions to large groups of players, it seems like plague form is highly susceptible to conditions themselves since we literally have no condition removal options.

Bleeds/burns etc. are tolerable I guess since the high health makes up for it (although makes you a good target for epidemic just like lich form..) but when you’re crippled/chilled/immobilised, it’s just painful.

As a moving virulent plague, shouldn’t you have some condition resistance or have some options available to clear conditions?

great idea – i think it will be nice that as a moving virulent plague you only get stronger by getting conditions thrown at you.

Yes, lets make an OP skill more OP by taking away the only counter available. Sorry if this response is harsh and your post well-intentioned… but the consequences would be ridiculous.

Talentless.5708:

Yes, lets make an OP skill more OP by taking away the only counter available. Sorry if this response is harsh and your post well-intentioned… but the consequences would be ridiculous.

OP? Plague is nice but far from OP, you may upset some people with Poison + Blind + Chill (Traited) and I like it very much for group fights and dungeons. But that’s it.

I would like to see Plague work more offensively, the 1 is plain bad and the 3 is really short, if they manage to get away for you (Really easy) you don’t have anything to close the gap, if you yourself get crippled, chilled or immobilized then you depend that people are not paying attention, because they just have to walk away a little from you.

Once the enemy knows how Plague works, you’re in a tight spot.

ratmanduohana.6824:

Talentless.5708:

Yes, lets make an OP skill more OP by taking away the only counter available. Sorry if this response is harsh and your post well-intentioned… but the consequences would be ridiculous.

OP? Plague is nice but far from OP, you may upset some people with Poison + Blind + Chill (Traited) and I like it very much for group fights and dungeons. But that’s it.

I would like to see Plague work more offensively, the 1 is plain bad and the 3 is really short, if they manage to get away for you (Really easy) you don’t have anything to close the gap, if you yourself get crippled, chilled or immobilized then you depend that people are not paying attention, because they just have to walk away a little from you.

Once the enemy knows how Plague works, you’re in a tight spot.

Have to agree. Even fully specced for condition damage, it’s damage is still quite pitiful. The only thing worthwhile in plague form is weakness/blindness. Otherwise, you’re better off with Lich or something else.

I’m stealing this from another thread, but it seems applicable here:

Scarran.9845:

The thing I would like to see also is tweaks to current skills, plague is a great elite but I would also like it to transfer conditions on you back to the enemy every time it pulses. Wither you add that to the 1 skill as its not really that great, but its a change that suits the skill, plague to me is a virulent cloud. So I find it strange that when im in this form I get tons of conditions stacked on me and nothing I can do about it other than to soak it up.

I totally agree with this, except with a twist. The conditions have a chance to mutate into a different condition when you transfer them back onto enemies, or perhaps they mutate into a boon on you.

better would be that when plague form ends, all conditions on you transfer to foes in an epidemic fashion.

Plague form is one of the best elites necro has but it’s limited to confined spaces. Once players know to get out of the circle and range you it will become less useful and not worthy of an elite spot.

it seems rather ironic, that you transform into a living moving plague (a gas like form) and yet you can be crippled and immobilized? needs like 10% speed increase or something as well, seems near useless when people move away from you if you haven’t already spammed cripple on them.

I think it actually shines very well when used on large group of adds in pve and mobs in wvw. I think the skill is nice for it’s use to be honest.

It works if people don’t know how to counter. I.e. root and forget.

maybe conds on us while in this form can be with shorten duration ?

i agree on either small speed increase or 2sec of criple instead of 1 because a simple dodge roll and ppl go out of the area which makes it hard to get em after that.

or remove “transform” from it

I really like this skill
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Reaper_of_Grenth

I’m sorry, but still not convinced. Plague is a supportive skill. The reason why the damage is low is because you can blind and chill a large area… You get your HP and Toughness buffed through the roof and you blind and chill everyone. How is that not OP? Oh… because anyone caught in that big circle doesnt die instantly and there is a single counter that might require you knowing how to dodge… LOL.

I’m pretty sure its not working as intended, it seems since we lose condition removal the stability was there to make sure we can move around at least.

Maybe take something from the pve side “unstoppable” and have it as an unstrippable buff (ie trait) attached with the spell would be the best idea.

Talentless.5708:

I’m sorry, but still not convinced. Plague is a supportive skill. The reason why the damage is low is because you can blind and chill a large area… You get your HP and Toughness buffed through the roof and you blind and chill everyone. How is that not OP? Oh… because anyone caught in that big circle doesnt die instantly and there is a single counter that might require you knowing how to dodge… LOL.

Since when does plague chill? Maybe you meant cripple but if it chilled I might use it more.

ON a Side note PVE-wise you can chill rather effectively while in plague form. It’s called a frost gun and it will replace your 3 plague skills with 5 skills that almost all have long duration chills, bleeds(15 stacks), and improved movement(jump skill away but if you turn around before jumping you’ll jump in front and face them, fun!). It’s not a cheap investment at 40 copper for 10 uses but 5 additional skills while plague is ticking away bleeds/poison (or whichever you pick before activating gun) is leet. And the gun skills stay after transformation ends but don’t use before transforming. Try it if you want more utility/damage while in plague form. Also a Lich with a boom stick is just hilarious to watch.

Drainbamaged.1062:

Since when does plague chill? Maybe you meant cripple but if it chilled I might use it more.

Curses III trait “chilling darkness” chills on blind. Start using it more!

As a pve player and partially pvp player I can say something.
In pve it’s my “panic button”, when I know I’ll have hard time with huge group of mobs, with darkness and chill I’m almost invulnerable vs melee fighting mobs.

And now for pvp.
Maybe it’s not as op as some elementalist skills, but it’s still crazy op in group fights. Even in 1 on 1 fights it’s really good, since you can stay in the middle of a point, you want to cap. if anyone want to kill you during those 20 seconds, he’ll have to get out of the point. If you’re countering thief, he’s mostly out of options, and bleeding with poison can take him down in a minute. I always laugh when ele try to use his huge aoe skill and fail because of blind.
And never underestimate chill.
It has few counters, for example I use to change necros stability to fear and then spam conditions. If he’s not so good, he’ll surerly die. If he knows, how this works, he will get out of plague more quickly, which is still some kind of win.

I’ve used Plague form quite a bit in WvW recently, both to support point taking / zerg v zerg, and as a damage tanking / escape tool. I think I concur with Kilger. Plague form needs to grant both the “unstoppable” buff from PvE and swiftness. Otherwise, it’s uses are point taking support and a 20 second death postponement while you’re crippled and immobilized, which seems pretty weak for a 3 minute cooldown elite skill. Zerg v zerg support only really works if you can keep up with your meleers, which again you often can’t effectively do.

Talentless.5708:

Yes, lets make an OP skill more OP by taking away the only counter available. Sorry if this response is harsh and your post well-intentioned… but the consequences would be ridiculous.

lol OP? It does pitiful damage and only hits you if you are basically within melee range. It’s ridiculously easy to dodge-roll out of it and kite a necro using it. But I’m guessing you’re speaking from the point of view of a dagger thief and don’t like that it prevents backstab craziness for 20 seconds.

If an enemy applies conditions to plague form, plague form should convert them to boons.

If plague form gets any of these buffs then they also need to reduce the extra HP and armor to keep it balanced.

I just laugh whenever another necro im fighting pops plague form, its so bad in wvw that it’s just downright pathetic. I don’t think I have ever lost to a necro who used it against me.

only 3 skills to use and all of them exclude the others.

make it better or at least more fun

add a gap closer on 4 usuable once or twice during the transformation, call it Swarm
add a condition transfer or rip on 5 usuable once during the transform
allow you to weave 2 of the 1-3 skills at once similar to bards in other games

attrition can be fun but too much attrition with a few poorly thought out skills just shows how little thought was put into our class on the whole.

The only “attrition” thing about plague form is that it delays your own death a little longer than usual.

kidbs.8920:

Talentless.5708:

Yes, lets make an OP skill more OP by taking away the only counter available. Sorry if this response is harsh and your post well-intentioned… but the consequences would be ridiculous.

lol OP? It does pitiful damage and only hits you if you are basically within melee range. It’s ridiculously easy to dodge-roll out of it and kite a necro using it. But I’m guessing you’re speaking from the point of view of a dagger thief and don’t like that it prevents backstab craziness for 20 seconds.

This would be why you are on SOR. Thief is an alt, and I suck on it. However, contrary to typical forum logic, I only post on the Necro forum because I know what I am talking about. I dont hop over on the Thief forums to complain that the class sucks when it is I who suck

Ironically, plague form (or lich form) can be countered very nicely with a necromancer. I always love it when someone pops plague form only to be corrupt booned by me

Plague form is best when you’re playing as a bunker support. Blinding people on a point for 20 seconds is very good and can help your bunker (primarily guardian) recover. If you’re attacking a bunker along with some allies, pop it, spam the 3rd skill. Weakness and poison really devastates bunkers that rely on dodge and healing and then leaves them more vulnerable for your allies to take down.

But I disagree with Talentless. This skill is hardly OP (not even close) and conditions aren’t its only counter. Any smart player knows to just avoid melee and kill the necro from ranged. After all, you can hardly ever kill anybody with plague form itself. It’s just something you can use to buy your team some time in addition to what I explained above.

I find plague form to be a pretty good supportive skill for running around in small groups in wvw. For some reason people get it in their head that no matter what build a necro is, once those marks are down and people see the cc train coming, all eyes turn on you. This is especially effective if your a tank (ptv) build, because when the enemy group is all trying to wail away at my 50k hp ~3k armor and damage reduction from plague form my teamates can wipe the floor with them.

Why can’t people accept the fact plague form is an ‘oh kitten’ button against power classes? It’s fine as it is.

I agree with several of these posts: Plague Form needs a rework. I should also preface this by saying that I play predominately PvE, but I have done some WvW as well.

But what to do? I personally feel that it makes no sense that there is no condition removal, but I agree that you can’t make it impervious to conditions. I really like Dredlord’s idea of adding a skill to the form which would remove conditions (possibly even transfer them to enemies), but give it a CD long enough that it would only be usable once during the 20s. Alternately (or perhaps “additionally”), a skill could be added to the form which would allow the necro to “feast” on his/her conditions, allowing for a small heal while in the form. Like the transfer skill, it would need to have a long enough CD so that it could only be used once or twice per form. This skill could alternately be used to convert conditions into boons (like swiftness), but only for the necro, not for his/her allies.

I also like the idea of giving a (small) speed boost while in this form. It makes sense for gap closing and to help get away from cripple/stun/chill. One idea would be to give a 5-10s swiftness at the start of the form in addition to the stability we already get.

For balance, the toughness could be reduced to only triple (or maybe even double) rather than the quadruple we have now. Also, if a heal is added, the vitality should be only doubled, if added to at all. I feel that this is fair since most people I know who play conditions play ranged, and there does need to be some compensation for the fact that in Plague Form you are required to get very close to your enemy indeed.

Plague form doesnt even grant condition damage increase either.