Guild Wars 2

Hello ANet,

In your livestream yesterday you wanted to know how these changes will affect players current build so i am writing to let you know how they will cripple my current Necro build.

I run a pure MM build. I have a lvl 80 of pretty much all professions and this MM Necro is one of my fav to play. Not only are my minions my main source of damage but they are also my main source of survivability as I am heavily traited into the vampiric traits and rely on my minions to heal me whenever they hit.

In the current version of the build I am able to take both “Training of the Master – Spite Master Trait” and " Death Nova – Death Grandmaster Trait". Now you have removed Training of the Master in favor of the Necromatic Corruption and lumped it into the Grandmaster tier along with Death Nova. So now I am left with a lose-lose scenario. A big part of my build was being able to get those extra Jagged Horror minions so that I receive extra health from vampiric and extra damage. Also the synergy with Putrid Explosion & Death Nova was a big part of m build.

But now if I choose Death Nova I lose the 25% damage I use to have (not to mention the condition removal on new version of Necromatic Corruption) but if I chose NC now I lose those extra minions that healed me and the burst from when those minions die (which was a big plus for a build that relied on AI staying alive).

I would like to see Death Nova swapped with Deadly Strength. This makes sense for 2 reasons. For those who want to run an MM build they could go Flesh of Master – Death Nova, Necromatic Corruption. Then for those who would like to run a Death Shroud build can go Shrouded Removal, Greater Marks/Reapers, Unholy Sanc /Deadly Str (maybe bump this to 10-20 as GS trait).

Now someone may want to counter this by saying “well now that nerfs Death Shroud builds since you cant take both Unholy Sanc and Deathly Str together”. My reply to that would be that the Necros core mechanic is the lifeforce/death shroud and the trait tree that focuses on this is Soul Reaping. Therefore Death Magic tree should be the tree that focuses on minions and trait set up should be prioritized for minions and not death shroud.

I hope my argument is heard. I will not rage quite if nothing gets altered I just wanted to answer ANet’s questions about letting them know how current builds are being affected by the changes.

Thanks.

MM gets a decent buff with these changes. If you go the same build that you did before (Spite, DM, BM), you can pick up an extra Master tier slot in Death Magic, you get two new Spite traits, and two new Blood Magic traits, plus the GM minors in Spite/BM. The only thing you lose is Training of the Master, which is easily replaced by personal damage through all of your extra Spite traits.

The addition of Necromantic Corruption as an option just opens up a true difference between MM builds. One will be more focused on personal damage, with minions existing as true utility skills, there to slow down and debilitate the enemy but not so much be the only focus of the build, and another will focus on keeping the minions alive, and in turn them keeping you alive. There is even a decent chance that we will see the introduction of actual decent condi MM builds for the first time, now that Death Nova can really synergize with condi builds.

I guess I can live with death nova and training of the master being mutually exclusive. I guess Anet wants to better control how much damage you can stack up (although broken AI already breaks any damage you are supposed to do). But I do have one comment. Do we lose the Minion Master trait? 20% reduction on minion cooldowns. Is cooldowns being reduced by 20% default? Reduced cooldowns is important for keeping minions up and doing damage. Not being able to pick up the cooldown reduction would be disappointing.

They said the cooldown reduction is baseline now. MM will be pretty decent with the changes, though I recommend you stick to Death Nova as I think minions would kill themselves with Corruption.

manveruppd.7601:

They said the cooldown reduction is baseline now. MM will be pretty decent with the changes, though I recommend you stick to Death Nova as I think minions would kill themselves with Corruption.

They transfer conditions off themselves every attack, which is at the worst 3 seconds. Also you can give them protection, and you have Transfusion, Deathly Invigoration, and potentially some other stuff to heal them. Should be very possible to keep them alive through conditions, the only worry is if they get a CC condition it makes it hard for melee minions to attack to get it off.

Plus, you can do Death Nova and Putrid Defense instead of Flesh of the Master for your defense, as Death Nova encourages you to cycle through your minions (and synergizes well with lich runes). Necromantic Corruption will allow you to retain the FotM bonus for longer.