Guild Wars 2

Lots of threads on the Necro sub questioning the change to the Chilling Darkness trait. Would be nice to get some feedback from Anet on why this change was made, as it appears the community is shocked by the nerf.

Well they couldn’t have just given a buff to plague by making it not kill you, so they had to nerf one of the few synergies necros have. I want to note that necros only have 4 ways to apply blind in deathly swarm, signet of spite, well of darkness, and plague. Note that all of those except deathly swarm are on really long cooldowns. Also, well of darkness is now officially the worst skill in the game, a 50 second CD on a 5 second aoe blind you can walk out of.

This also means reaper will be completely bad. Slow attack skills, low damage per second (the actual damage coefficients are bad), and only minimal access to chill. This also points out how bad necros defensive skills are. Spectral skills, well of power, well of darkness, and cpc are all bad compared to other utility skills actual effectiveness.

Some moron probably thought that un-nerfing Plague meant they should nerf this. Honestly can’t justify this with any remote kind of logic, its like trying to understand someone who enjoys smashing their face against a wall.

The only thing that could possibly justify this change is if something more is coming down the line for chill in the expansion.

Deathly Chill for example. Perhaps if each stack did similar damage to burn perhaps they felt it would be too powerful. Why limit to 5 stacks though I don’t know.

It would be really nice to see dev insight on balance changes in the patch notes. I know some other online pvp games that do this, and think it would really help with transparency and can’t be too difficult to include.

cerulean moth.2743:

It would be really nice to see dev insight on balance changes in the patch notes. I know some other online pvp games that do this, and think it would really help with transparency and can’t be too difficult to include.

“We felt this trait was over performing, what with necros having so much pulsing AOE stability, letting them chill entire groups of enemies, especially since we nerfed plague. We’ll keep an eye on this change and see if it works as intended.”

zapv.8051:

Well they couldn’t have just given a buff to plague by making it not kill you, so they had to nerf one of the few synergies necros have. I want to note that necros only have 4 ways to apply blind in deathly swarm, signet of spite, well of darkness, and plague. Note that all of those except deathly swarm are on really long cooldowns.

You forgot corrupting fury.

What’s wacky is that something so obscure and minor gets addressed before burning.

How does a completely obvious problem affecting multiple scenarios, multiple traits, and virtually all classes get no attention while something like this does.

SPESHAL.9106:

What’s wacky is that something so obscure and minor gets addressed before burning.

How does a completely obvious problem affecting multiple scenarios, multiple traits, and virtually all classes get no attention while something like this does.

lol, you freaking win!!!!

I kittening refuse to call Consume conditions change a buff, when we are still recovering from the initial reaming we got. It like they just made the tool we are reamed by smaller and expect us to call it a buff. A buff cannot be considered less of a reaming

Wasn’t “It would be too strong” always an argument for necro balance? They are trying to “keep things in line”….for necro >.>

What’s happening here is simple; Reaper.

Reaper OP.

Lol. Sow moving, no range skill having, suffer from focus fire, chill weakened class that attacks slow as a fat kid with kitten strength is op? Lol, reapers will be lucky to even finish a greatsword attack chain and once again is being nerfed in a vacuum before it’s even released. Anet never has understood the Necro.

Tim.6450:

zapv.8051:

Well they couldn’t have just given a buff to plague by making it not kill you, so they had to nerf one of the few synergies necros have. I want to note that necros only have 4 ways to apply blind in deathly swarm, signet of spite, well of darkness, and plague. Note that all of those except deathly swarm are on really long cooldowns.

You forgot corrupting fury.

Didn’t forget, didn’t include intentionally. Since boons are now a random conversion, that isn’t a reliable way to get blind. I guess I should have said the only reliable ways. If it isn’t reliable, it shouldn’t even be considered for traits like chilling darkness.

Gryph.8237:

Lol. Sow moving, no range skill having, suffer from focus fire, chill weakened class that attacks slow as a fat kid with kitten strength is op? Lol, reapers will be lucky to even finish a greatsword attack chain and once again is being nerfed in a vacuum before it’s even released. Anet never has understood the Necro.

This is what annoys me most. They always have all these limitations on necro. Necro can’t have stab, necro can’t have vigor, necro can’t have invulns, necro can’t have finishers, necro can’t have mobility skills, necro can’t have most of the mechanics in this game for no actual reason other than their idiotic design (Yes anet devs when it comes to necro you are idiots, this nerf is a perfect example). The only other time I’ve ever seen someone say another class couldn’t have something was with guardian and glacial heart in the og trait preview, but guards ended up with that trait.

Every time they preview something good on necro, the devs come back with a nerf and say that it would have been op (previewed scepter trait, og SOV). Well guess what Anet, every other class has blatantly op things. 33 second cd on a 4 second invuln, completely op, elemental attunement as a minor, completely op, the amount of invulns and blocks guards can chain, completely op, the damage on shatter mes, completely op, all the instant cast skills that give boons, healing, condition removal, damage, completely op, but chilling someone for 2 seconds on one of a few blind skills necros have is over the top.

Now, necros did get some good sustain buffs in the last patch, and their are some op things on the class (chill of death, plague signet), but the fact is they are still decades behind eles, guards, and warriors as tanks because necros can do very little about chain cc immob (no way to stay on point or survive focus fire other than facetanking). Similarly, necros are miles behind mesmers and thieves as +1ers because their damage is very avoidable and they have terrible mobility skills. Condition necros only work because other condition builds exist, but necro actual condition damage output is pitiful as well.

Anet gave necros a few unique things in DS, condition transfers, and boon corruption, but necros give up almost every single defensive mechanic for those (stab, vigor, instant teleports, invulns, projectile reflect/destruction, evade weapon skills, aegis). Every other class is unique in this game, but they give up almost nothing to get their unique mechanics while necros give up almost everything to get their unique mechanics. Boon corruption and condition transfer are good, but they aren’t even close to good enough to justify this.

I imagine it’s more tuning for the reaper spec. They seem to like balancing around a spec that’s not even out. Is a confusing change regardless.

L Step.8659:

I imagine it’s more tuning for the reaper spec. They seem to like balancing around a spec that’s not even out. Is a confusing change regardless.

It’s actually funny, they were talking in that stream about nerfing the reapers damage, but spoj calculated the damage coefficients and they weren’t any better than the dagger auto in terms of damage. The reaper looks like it will be terrible right from the start. Without absolutely amazing damage (on par or just below d/d thief and staff ele in pve), reaper will be useless in pvp, big cast times would be tough to deal with in pvp even with a ton of damage, but the current damage coefficients will basically make it a weaker version of gs or rifle warrior.

L Step.8659:

I imagine it’s more tuning for the reaper spec. They seem to like balancing around a spec that’s not even out. Is a confusing change regardless.

Dhuumfire.

I really can’t help but think that they have been meaning to do this for a while, but it took a backseat until its story in their PM flow made it onto the track while they try to figure out what to do with some of the other issues people are voicing concerns about.

Even with all of the complaining I’ve seen, I don’t think Burning is too far off from being fine. Remove a stack here and there, maybe adjust duration a bit to compensate, and it’s much less of a deal. With Mesmers I can’t comment, because I honestly don’t know the class well.

However, it’s insane to me that this seemed too strong to them, even with other pulsing blinds coming down the pipeline. Yes, it is strong, but why can’t it be? Chilling Darkness already competes with Plague Sending, the auto-play condi transfer that also converts boons and gives might (if traited). So, we can’t pulse a few additional seconds of Chill in an AoE when we build for it?

And if Bitter Chill is the reason, then nerf Bitter Chill. Give it a few-second ICD so vuln stacking doesn’t get outrageous.

With any other classes, does it seem like a Rube Goldberg of traiting/execution is formulated, and they pick a spot in the middle of it to ripple out nerfs? Chilling Darkness has existed forever. I’ve used it in WvW for a while when nothing else piqued my fancy. They create Bitter Chill, they create another blind-pulsing ability for their Expansion content, and then they go back and nerf Chilling Darkness because apparently that is the issue here?

Where is the “extreme case” balancing for some of the other classes out there?

I wasn’t even using the trait, personally, but the missing logic is what keeps killing me about it.

It might have something to do with them being concerned people would complain that their longer duration Chills would be removed by the short-duration pulsing chill, reducing the overall duration of the Chill on target. But again. Extreme case balancing for a situation that just doesn’t sound reasonable. It’s already going to be moderately dangerous stacking a lot of Chill on a target since it converts into Resistance.

The only reason it irritates me is because I just don’t understand. I don’t even mind the vulnerability on Consume Conditions, even if I think the logic for that is completely flawed as well. This just came swinging right out of left field.

Can we get one, just one experienced Necro in the balance department.

Please run weird kitten patch notes by ANY competent player before patching. I mean I feel kittening defeated.

Login.5102:

Can we get one, just one experienced Necro in the balance department.

Please run weird kitten patch notes by ANY competent player before patching. I mean I feel kittening defeated.

No, no competency allowed,no logic or reasoning permitted. Await the gift of our next nerf and treasure what you were or sign up for a retirement plan on our descent to storage at the old folks home.

Any insight on the Chilling Darkness ICD?

I dont think theres any insight to be had. That nerf looks like nothing more than a random crapshoot without any thought.

why are they so kitten scared of necromancers? other professions are allowed to be at the top of game modes for months and years but if theres even the slightest possibility of necromancers not being at the bottom, they immediately nerf some random thing to kitten. i just dont get it.

At the very least give it an ICD per target.

Yes OP it is indeed quite shocking.

I question the thought process of the individuals involved in these updates.

Or, maybe as Login.5102 suggested, it would be nice to have an experienced necro in the balance department.