Fragility / Virulence

Am I the onlyone feeling that the combination of Fragility and Virulence is off balance with the rest of GW ? It's pretty much the only combo ( that I know of) that can insta kill ( more or less). When I started playing gW I was so pleased that unlike Daoc you couldn't be killed in a second ( figuraly speaking) but that the fights are rather long and well balanced no matter what you face. This was untill the now FOTM Virulence/Fragility combo surficed.

I have a suggestion, why not make fragility elite, and if needed to meet an elite skills preferences improve it a little ?

Yes yes I know that as with everything you CAN counter this build with remove hex, but say fo example in the random arena.. chance you get a monk or secondary monk with remove hex is extreemly slim, and thats pretty much the only way to win over fragility/virulance combo.

So please let GW remain a game where you don't insta-kill people. I know many enjoy the long even fights.

Well, fragility in itself, if used with _mesmer_ skills, is weak. It's nowhere near elite material. It's only in combination with virulence it is a killer.

Yes, a Necro/mesmer can spike-kill someone, and yes, there's plenty of necro/mesmer frag-builds in the random arenas.

Thing is, they have weak defence. When you see a N/Me on the opposing team that's pretty much guaranteed to be a frag mesmer, so call it as the target. He hasn't got much chance against more than one warrior. If he runs or heals he'll die, if he continues the frag-attack he may kill one of you, but then he's dead.
You don't need a monk. The best way of killing or shutting down a frag mesmer is to bring an anti-caster mesmer - he can easily put the frag out of commission - but every class has hex removal. You can't count on there being a monk to help you, so bring your own remove hex/smite hex etc. But above all get the whole team to attack enemy N/Me's first.

I'm not sure how I feel about the frag mesmers. It's a one-trick pony, easy to shut down and easy to interrupt/knockdown/kill, but on the other hand I'm not fond of one-shot-kill-builds either.

On the whole, though, I don't think they need nerfing.

A good tip is to make a PvP frag mesmer and try it out in combat. You'll quickly see that it's not exactly an unbeatable killing machine (and you'll learn what its weaknesses are).

good points, but " every class has it's own hex removal" .. i'm a Warrior/Necro.. I havent found anything to remove hex with.. could you name it for me please ? and you say frag/vir are easy to kill, just call them first ? can't kill them if they got monks covering their ass.. yes in a grp where they don't have a healer to protect them it's not very hard I agree. I did try the frag/vir my self and didn't find any flaws really.. except as you said their defence. but thats what monks are for.

I agree that fragility it self is not too powerfull, absolutly not. thats why I sugested that if you make it elit modify it some too. Or could there be another way to dampen this combo's killing efficency ?

thanks for replying =)

Hmmm... appears you're right, and I was wrong - can't find a hex removal for a W/Ne. could've sworn there was one, but there's only enchant removals.

That does limit your options to "kill the frag mesmer before he kills me", "outheal the damage" and/or "rely on help from teammates".

out dmg the mesmer? no way. he'll have you dead before you can blink. out heal him ? only the monks can heal enough.. and that's just one single class.
and rarly they can even do it. Rely on temmates MWOHAHAHAAHAAHA ... maybe it's just my bad luck but only ONLY when playing with close friends is that possible. and people who don't get groups at team pvp or HoH ( rangers IE) .. no I still think something needs to be done with either fragility ( wich like you said isn't that bad ass on it's own) or virulence wich is good as it is.. just too good in combo with fragility =/

As a W/N in random arena, you should be taking plague touch anyway to deal with blindness and the like. Just put the deep wound onto an enemy before the mesmer can virulence you. That always works well for my R/N, at least.

Condition removal works a lot better than hex removal against the fragi/vir strategy, IME. Trying to remove the fragility has too much risk of instead removing the phantom pain, which doesn't get you anywhere unless the Me/N isn't paying attention and shatters her own fragility.

(It's always a Me/N, btw, not a N/Me. I've only ever seen one N/Me try to do it, and it just didn't work very well. Fast casting and runed-up illusion are pretty important.)

Heh, I hunt frag mesmers with my ranger. Nice effective interrupt build. He can't break me if I've blocked all his important skills. Remember, it only takes blocking one skill out of 4 and the combo doesn't work. Thisi s why I don't consider the frag build to be overpowered, lots to block and lots of chances to do it.

Frag build vs. W/N is a joke really.

If you're not close enough [or attentive enough] to Plague Touch their opening condition, then you deserve to die a horrible 1s. death...

It's 5e. to save your ass... Then you've got only Fragility on you with no conditions in sight...

What's worse, the said mesmer or necro is now down cause frag isn't a spammable combo due to BOTH energy loss and recycle time... Take them out...

I made a N/Me with Fragility in mind from the begining (lucky guess, so I see ), and I went to PvP right off with her. And, yes, I die right off usually, but I can sometimes take a Warrior or someone else with me. It's a really powerful one-shot build, and one shot is all you're going to have. I can attest to this.

Still, it is extremely funny nuking some poor shmoe right off XD

if you interupt or take off fragility, the whole build is now compeltely useless.

But a good frag necro only needs about 1 second after fragility is applied to apply Phantom Pain, then can apply a longlasting Necro hex as a cover.

The real way to defend against it is Mend Ailment after the first Virulence Frag spike.

Yeah, it is really powerful in random arenas, but I'd say the Ranger version is more powerful in those same arenas, since it can pretty much singlehandedly kill a monk and prevent that monk from healing. Trying the Necro version on a monk isn't so hot.

I see alot of arguements that refer to remove frag or the deep wound from phantom pain, but like I alreayd said, yes you CAN counter this. but it's the whole thing of a combo that insta kills thats no fun. no other build can do this. There is a reason why 90% of all the mesmer/necros you meet now in arenas are fragility/virulence don't you think ?

MY heaviest argument about it is the fact how fast it kills. not that it kills, or work etc. not even a 16 air elem can come close to killing that fast and they were the fast killers untill this combo showed up.

and about the plaugetouch on the deepwound.. usually in a frag group there's also a ranger or warrior giving conditions a the same time.. not often you get a chance to get everything of before the combo hits you ><

I like that so many has join the discussion so far, and not alot of flaming on me so far ^^

raja : uhh why would you want to apply a cover to phantom pain? the whole idea is to break phantom pain asap so you can throw on virulence and kill him, not leave him running around healthy for 10 seconds...

it feels like an instant kill because you suddenly see your hp go down.
but in reality it goes like this

(assuming 10 fastcast 15 illusion and always 0.75 aftercast) not sure how much domi you want, it's a tradeoff against inspiration.

fragility (1s) --> (0.65+0.75 = 1.4)
phantom pain (2s) (1.3+0.75 = 2.05)
shatter delusions (0.25s ) (0.16+0.75=0.91) damage = 50?? + fragility 28 + deep wound
virulence (1s) (0.65+0.75 = 1.4) = fragility 28x3= 84
(wait 3 seconds) degen 48
virulence ends and you take 28x3= 84


total time = 8.76 seconds
total damage = 246 + 48 (degen from poison disease over 3 seconds) = 294
temporary hp loss from deep wound = 20% of max hp, losing about 100hp from your max, less since damage from phantom pain being shattered applies first and then the loss of 100hp is scaled down.

even bring optimistic this deals no more than 400 damage over 9 seconds, and you'll recover 100 max hp when the deep wound goes away... hardly an instant kill. yes it's a lot of damage, but the price to pay is a character with zero defense and just about nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs until the 15 second recharge is reach on his skills.

in team matches fragility is called on an ally and you have about 4 to 5 seconds to remove the hex before the virulence can hit... easily doable with inspire hex or smite hex. only problem if the mesmer decides to be smart and skip the shatter and hopes you break phantom pain for him...

damage spikes in 3 stages, the shatter, applying virulence, and removing virulence... all it takes is a single word of healing to negate alot of that damage.

nice work Aetherfox thanks alot. i guess it isn't so "insta" but like you aid all dmg is in one punch. and again yes it can be countered but anything can be countered.. but this is still the only thing in the game that goes like
bang-dead.

but maybe I should just always make sure my team pvp grps are anti virulence ? ^^ guess all that needs to be said here is said. i was alone in feeling this was no fun obviously ^^

you dont even have to say anything: a good monk well see the Me/N and anticipate an attempt. And just by looking at the health bars you can see it coming.

Fragility is a joke.

Effective against people who don't know how to defend. But, most of the time I just laugh. So many things can stop this combo.

Interrupts, remove the first condition (so when virulence is used nothing happens), remove the hex (I usually wait until AFTER Phantom Pain is removed, this way I can guarantee that I remove the frag and not PP), increase your max health temporarily to get past the deep wound, hex breaker, spell breaker, obsidian flesh, Energy Denial (This combo is very energy intensive, drain just some of their energy and now they have to wait to use their skills). There are so many options that can counter this. People just have to open their eyes.

Fragility is not over powerful and it should not be nerfed. I also want to make note that I do not use a fragility build, so I am not biased.

P.S.- fragility is a joke, haha

putting a necro hex after fragility makes it easier for the person to run away, and it will take time off the spike.

Fragility spike is a hit or miss, if you dont manage to kill in one shot you are screwed.

This is exactly how spike work...

Spike are the killer against unprepared team.
Spike are almost like trash when faced against prepared team.

Think of spike as "ambush".

Ambush does not do any good to people who are well armed and well prepared.

This combo is fine.