Guild Wars 2

And Corrosive Poison Cloud still sucks. Sorry guys, I tried to make it work. Didn’t have any luck.

Perhaps I should back up. On my stream this evening, I went into PvP and tested out the buffs Necros got today (outside of Signet of Undeath, which is obviously still terrible). I used each improved skill in 3-4 rounds and tried to evaluate the performance.

First off, Locust Swarm is much more fluid now. I think when they trimmed the cast time, they just cut off the back half of the animation because the aftercast is practically nonexistant now. Locust Swarm barely delays your DPS at a 1/2 second cast and probably the most hilarious thing about it is that opponents still won’t see just how strong the skill is.

Second up was Signet of the Locust. I spent about 2 minutes coming up with a build to test it in and came up with this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhZ6kGRqsxeaw8GYvxE4C1kJxVA5CEAR/BnQ+C-TpBCwAAOBAZOCAcOEA+2fI/DAIcZAA

Yes, that is Signet of Vampirism in my healing slot. I think in 4 matches, I actually activated it twice. Signet of the Locust and Life Siphon instead made up for healing quite effectively. I also decided to do a variant using a Cleric’s amulet instead and it felt pretty good with utterly massive heals. I prefer the damage output of Zerker amulet, however.

Third was Corrosive Poison Cloud. I just could not get this to feel like it was doing anything. The reduced cast time certianly helps, but the skill’s impact is so low, it might as well not have one. I feel like this one is better suited to WvW in zerg combat, because in PvP, it sucks. Of course, I’ve spent so much time on Power necros that I need to re-learn condition necro it seems.

Thank you for the video, Drarnor.

Too bad about CPC. Maybe it will be better in WvW but I doubt it is worth a slot there as it seems useful only in zerging/siege as a replacement for wells. It is still utterly useless in PvE with most bosses resisting weakness and not bothering to heal.

Locust Swarm is dangerous: I already got reported twice for cheating because I generate LF while in DS, which, for some people, is a hack.

Anyone felt sturdier with that Might re-balance ?

I’ve tested the changes yesterday as well.

Locust Swarm: I wouldn’t say much more fluid, but it’s definitely a good change.

Signet of the Locust: imo this is still trash.
If you run a viable pvp build you won’t have any healing power so the heal per traget would be about 1k. At first glance this doesn’t seem to be that bad, after all, necros are pretty desperate for every slightest bit a healing. And with this skill you could get up to 5k hp every 40 (or 32) sec.
But here is the problem, you usually will not be able to heal 5k. You will not always hit 5 targets in a 480 radius, and you might have poison on you sometimes. So the full healing potential is rarely ever met. What you can expect is probably an extra 2-3k hp every 40+ sec, and this is just too weak when you could have any different defensive skill instead.
Also, the passive bonus is useless, in case the skill isn’t on cooldown.

Corrosive Poison Cloud:
I have to admit, I was positively surprised by this skill. I dare say, if I would run a regular condi build, I’d take CPC/Corrupt Boon/stunbreak with Master of Corruption instead of Path of Corruption. Once you do that you basically get a groundtargeted poison well that lasts 12 seconds on a 24 sec cooldown. Considering the skill’s base durations and that you might have some extra condi duration, you are looking at a 60%+ uptime of aoe poison and weakness on an area that covers an entire capture point. And that doesn’t include any projectile and blast combo finishers, which will not only add more weakness and poison, but also extend beyond the range of the field itself.
Keep in mind, the impact might be subtle because you can’t really monitor your opponent’s healing reduction and endurance bar as well as actual damage numbers on your screen, but it really is a highly disruptive skill. Plus, it adds nice pressure on downed players and is now rather easy to use thanks to the reduced cast time.
So imo Corrosive Poison Cloud, especially if traited, is now really great for on-point team fights, and worth a slot on your skillbar.

Just some of my own personal experience with CpC in WvW from awhile back.

I appreciate the thought I think about the buffs to it. but I tend to agree with the its just not quite bar worthy. I would have it around for a bit on my Zerg baller and just more or less time it with some staff 4 stuff. so i could not only keep up the poison time but transfer some weakness as well. I just never really felt like it was worth it. When I go full tilt well bomber I would rather take well of Power for either my personal defense or as a buff to the hammer train.

Personal opinion:
CpC would see more use if it was a projectile destruction. OR add more conditions to it. Such as torment and bleeding in addition to the poison and weakness.

edit:
Regardless good posts on it it looks to be like CpC may be more playstyle preference. if you can use it to your liking it seems to not be all terrible now. but if it does not fit in with what you need there is no shame in not taking it.

I’ve got a feeling CPC is actually better in teamplay rather than soloque. Good for dropping on downed bodies, sure, but not if your team isn’t working together.

On Signet of the Locust, it doesn’t fit into any current meta builds, but it might work out in a new build that is now viable that we just haven’t come up with yet. I was pleasantly surprised at the performance of the siphon build I linked, for example, though I will be testing it more thoroughly. Important thing to remember is that it is not your primary healing skill. It is, at best, tertiary. The only required skills on a Necro utility bar are a stunbreak and Corrupt Boon, so I can see this being an option.

I was playing around with post-patch CPC and SoL with my SoV/Unholy Sanctuary condi build. Actually for weeks/months I had been experimenting using CPC, SoL and SoU on my skillbar which all got “buffed” this patch. So my build definitely had a good before and after feeling.

Like many of you I didn’t notice much difference in play with CPC. The new cast time is the best part since before it was interrupted way to much for what it was. The recharge reduction isn’t as impactful as I thought it would have been though. Now that I think of it it’s not one of those skills you spam on recharge so the difference of 10 seconds isn’t a big deal when you’re timing the skill for the right time (which probably isn’t going to be every 30 seconds). The skill is nice for heal/damage denying on points but there’s so many other options more useful for most other builds, that CPC remains just that other, “other” option.

Signet of Undeath change feels like no change. Enough said. Well maybe not having that extra 1% LF gain over 30-60 seconds outside DS would be 10%-20% extra passive LF gain, which may have saved me once or twice when I failed before pre-patch. They really need to take a look at the active side of this skill and reduce the CD. Maybe add a stun breaker? Make it only res 1 person in AoE and cut cast time too? Don’t know.

The best change is Signet of the Locust. On my build the healing jumped like 300-400 health per steal and not only does it seem to be up just when I need it, but I’m actually pulling off some incredible heals with it more than ever before. For example pre-patch I would maybe get to use SoL once per fight and it would likely fail to heal anything 50% of the time (blinds, blocks, poison, invul etc all getting in the way). Because of that I never used the active because it was too long of a CD to warrant the risk. Why use active and fail to heal 90% of the time when the passive speed buff may allow you to out kite your enemy successfully?

Now I’m using it once, twice and maybe three times a fight, giving me that chance to pull off a successful multi-hit siphon. With the extra 300-400 healing per hit, it’s actually noticeable when I use it rather than looking like I dehealed myself (still happens post-patch though) lol.

When I do pull off a successful SoL steal it heals like 6.5-8.2K health. Not bad for 40 second recharge active utility heal when you have 410-450 SoV, 270-300 Regeneration, Unholy Sanctuary ticks and lots of LF gain.