Epidemic

Corruption. Apply vulnerability to yourself. Spread conditions on a target foe to all nearby foes at a reduced duration. WvW only: does not affect structures or targets with resistance. — In-game description

Epidemic

Profession

Necromancer (skill list)

Slot

Utility

Type

Corruption

Training cost

4 Hero points

Game link

API

10606

“

1  20  

Epidemic

Corruption. Apply vulnerability to yourself. Spread conditions on a target foe to all nearby foes at a reduced duration.
WvW only: does not affect structures or targets with resistance.

 Damage: 27 (0.1)^?

₃ Self Vulnerability (6s): +3% Incoming Damage, +3% Incoming Condition Damage

 Number of Targets: 5

 Duration Decreased: 50%

 Radius: 900

 Cannot Critical Hit

 Range: 1,200

 Unblockable

— In-game description

Related traits

Curses

• Master of Corruption — Corruptions gain reduced recharge time and inflict additional conditions on you.
• Target the Weak — Increases critical-hit chance for each condition on the foe. Gain condition damage based on your precision.

Death Magic

• Shrouded Removal — Lose a condition when you enter shroud and every few seconds while you remain in shroud. Gain carapace when removing conditions from yourself.
• Corrupter's Fervor — Inflicting a condition on a foe grants carapace. Gain pulsing protection while at or above the carapace threshold.

Notes

• Epidemic only spreads up to 5 stacks of each condition.
• Although the skill description states conditions are spread to all nearby foes, the skill is limited to the 5 nearest targets to the target.
• The spread conditions count as applied by the necromancer and benefit from their condition damage. The spread condition's duration is 50% of the remaining duration of that condition on the source target, and is not increased by expertise.
• The conditions are copied the moment the projectile reaches its target. While the projectile is in flight, the source target can continue to receive conditions, and those will be copied when the projectile lands. Likewise, if the source target dies before a projectile reaches its target, there will be no conditions to be copied.
• The projectiles are destroyed if they hit or are intercepted by an invulnerable enemy.
• A target can only be hit once by this skill. Further projectiles will pierce through them without effect. This prevents projectiles from being wasted if an enemy is on top or inside the source target.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
June 27, 2023	Fixed an issue that prevented this skill from functioning against downed enemies.
February 28, 2022	End of Dragons release: The maximum number of stacks of each condition that are applied to targets has been reduced from 25 to 5.
July 10, 2018	Increased the travel speed of epidemic projectiles by 33%. This skill now reduces the duration of conditions it copies by 50%.
May 18, 2017	Fixed a bug that caused conditions to not transfer on the fifth missile. The missiles fired from this ability will now pierce targets already struck by the skill. Removed the new functionality that caused condition durations to affect newly transferred conditions.
May 16, 2017	This ability now fires slow-arcing projectiles from its initial target to up to 5 targets in range. Foes hit by the projectiles gain all conditions from the original Epidemic target. Projectile strikes are unblockable but cannot critically hit. Increased radius to 900. Fixed a bug that allowed this skill to affect allies.
March 07, 2017	WvW Only: Does not affect structures or targets with resistance.
June 23, 2015	Specialization update: With the changes to condition stacking, Epidemic now only applies up to 25 stacks of any given condition. Increased recharge to 20 seconds.
July 01, 2014	Added a missing skill fact for number of targets (5).
April 30, 2013	Now unblockable.
March 26, 2013	Now requires line of sight of the main target to spread conditions to nearby enemies.
October 01, 2012	This skill no longer has infinite range.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Epidemic has been added to the game.

Trivia

• A Guild Wars skill bears the same name as this skill.