Guild Wars 2

I was wondering…
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If the Empathic Bond is ever going to be changed to something worth a Grandsmaster, I was wondering if the effect could be similar to Rabies.

-Your Pet pulls 3(2) conditions from you to itself every 10 seconds and if a condition is successfully transferred [works with SoR] it’s next basic attack copies all conditions to it’s target.

Currently the EB is unreliable, not even viable against condition based opponents and kills your pet if it tries to do so (similar to Signet of the Renewal that is viable against condis).
This would make it a worthwhile trait that would promote use of tanky pets into PvP (even though the DPS would be still low since pets have no condi damage).

I don’t hold any high hopes, but I thought I might share the idea.

Wondrouswall linked a necro trait once that did something similar, cannot remember it now, but it would be great if it did that.

That was the trigger to the idea.
Necro trait makes the minions transfer a condition per attack from them to the enemy.

Ranger Rabies could copy them on a set time period and SoR activation.

My biggest problems with Emphathic Bond are:

• Invisible 10 second interval … I don’t want to wait 9-10 seconds for some condition(s) to be cleansed. I have no way of knowing if it will be 1 second or 9-10 seconds or somewhere in between.
• It applies the conditions to my pet … there are non-GM traits, a heal, and utilities that do this without screwing over a part of the class. We get a GM trait that screws over our pet. If I don’t have pet swap off cooldown, that could end up being a dead pet which then exacerbates the problem

Your suggestion doesn’t fix this. Now, if you said the pet transferred them to the target … then I’d be a little more interested.

Sebrent.3625:

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Your suggestion doesn’t fix this. Now, if you said the pet transferred them to the target … then I’d be a little more interested.

That’s what a Necromancer already does. I don’t want all classes to be same.
Plus I believe that a bonus condition applier (on a massive scale) would be just a fine reward for sacrificing the pet (that’s why called Rabies).

And if you specced into Beast Mastery, you could swap the pet more often. Not to mention you could use tanky pets to be useful for once (even though I believe I already mentioned this).

For harmless condition removal there’s already the Survival of the Fittest (that got merged and renamed if I am correct). That one leaves your pet as pure as ever.

Fair enough points. It’s definitely an improvement, I just don’t think it suits my tastes … though I bet if it was implemented someone would eventually talk me into playing around with it … or given more time I eventually just would on my own :-p

Tragic Positive.9356:

That was the trigger to the idea.
Necro trait makes the minions transfer a condition per attack from them to the enemy.

Ranger Rabies could copy them on a set time period and SoR activation.

The Necromancer trait allows a minion to transfer a condition on attack every 10 seconds, since a MM Necro can have multiple minions out at once.

I suggested before for EB to work the same, but since it’s just 1 pet vs a MM Necro that can have up to 6 from utilities alone, keeping the condition transfer both ways at 3 every 10 seconds would be fine.

Sure, copy/pasting the Necro trait onto EB looks lazy, but the idea is solid, and I don’t think that should detract from its value if applied to EB.

Making it 1 condition per 3s would be tons better too imo.

This is actually a good idea. I wouldnt really mind if this would take 2 traits tbh, The original EB + 1 more trait (Pets transfer condis, on a successful attack, ICD 10)

Either that, or the original idea can stick to copying the conditions, but it just needs an extra “oomph” to make it unique. When I think of a rabid animal, I think of an animal that’s also gone berserk. This might be reaching, but what about, as a suggestion to make it more interesting than a condition fax, perhaps…

“Transfer 3 conditions to your pet every 10 seconds. Pet copies conditions onto struck foes when the amount of conditions is equal to or above the threshold – cannot happen more than once every 10 seconds per target. Pet attacks faster with each condition it is afflicted with.”

Transfer Rate: 10 seconds
Condition Threshold: 3
Attack Speed Increase Per Condition: 2%

At least with the threshold, you can have a bit of control when using SoR to force more conditions onto your pet for the copy, or at least ensure it copies more than 1 or 2 conditions. Gives it an extra layer (I suppose) to be more active.

Why not ditch EB all the way?

And change it to.

Pets convert 3 conditions into boons. 10 sec ICD

I’d actually like to see conditions to boons on Invigorating Bond since Nature Magic is based around providing boons and support. Would be perfect with the heal and F2 incorporation so the conversion is on-demand and makes IB worthwhile.

I agree with Wondrouswall on the condi>boon convert.

Yup, on F2, that would be nice. Take a look at Quick Breathing.