Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone!

First of all, this is not meant to be a whine thread – I just want to discuss our current situation as opposed to pre-Dhuumfire.

After today’s hotfix, the viability of Dhuum is up for serious debate – I am not sure it’s worth going into the spite tree for a 2 sec burn once every 10 seconds.

However I was thinking about everything else:
- Putrid Mark nerfed to remove only 3 condis
- Corrupt boon nerfed to affect only 5 boons
- Signet of Undeath cast time nerfed
- terror damage nerfed
- Dhuum duration nerfed
- Greater marks moved up to the master tier (essentially a nerf)

The trade-off is that we got:
- Slightly bigger area marks
- Spectral wall
- More Life force
- better life force generation
- an extra 0.5 seconds duration on Doom (DS fear)

Please point out if I’ve missed anything major in either list.

Now, the question that I wish to ask our fine community is: do the buffs compensate the nerfs?

I for one, am not so sure we’re not worse off now

Thanks for your time and consideration,

Things are different now.

Were lots worse off for removing conditions now.
Were not top combat res.

Spectral wall was good for a day, till people worked out walking around it/dodge thru it.
Marks make staff useful without needing to trait it. Tho the cost of making it super is more costly.
Death Shroud, makes more sense now. 100% our health pool & not taking more direct damage than conditions. It’s better to fill it up to mitigate damage, rather than small ‘flicks’ as a power shield. Tho it now cannot be used as a vigor replacement. Life Force gen is still pretty bad with condi/scepter. Axe & Minion need to hit the target, so bug/block/evade/dodge/invul all mitigate it.

Fear/Terror got nurfed to compensate DFire. Glady DFire is only nurfed in PvP. Not that it was a huge boost to PvE over close to death. Actually as it triggers when it feels like it, it’s highly likely it’s going to happen on trash mob that’s about to die anyway, and in groups your fighting with others for it’s condition slot on big mobs.

Terror+Stay still, wasn’t the gap closer/stop runner we needed, as terror is highly telegraphed with a super long cast before immobilize that only works in ‘hug range’.

The extra sudden over the top extra condition pressure, has made lots of PvP necro hate & made us more of a kill me on sight target.

The hybrid glass cannon being most used spec has made PvE’ers want us less in there groups. Altho some players know our pain, and simply ask us to sit out of boss fights rather than kick us on join.

On the flip side tho, they did fix up a pile of old problems.
1/3rd downed life. Projectile speed (Altho they still fly over lots of objects, and can’t shoot our feet outa roots)
Transforms don’t don’t go on multi-min CD if interrupted. (Tho not getting our heal/skill buttons back for 1sec +lag on dropping out hurts)
Axe trait move was nice. (Tho axe is still mostly crap, and it’s minions dam or axe for that trait spot now)
Marks got faster CD, and we got a brake stun on less than 1min CD.

Putrid mark is more than likely bugged
We have more fear sources, so comparatively DPS from terror overall is still up, in general.

We are buffed greatly since pre-Dhuumfire still. Not to say that we still don’t need work, but we’re getting there (albeit with some setbacks).

Other than the DS nerf (which effectively squashed PvE necros) the rest of the changes were needed. The DS overflow makes negating big hits in pvp pointless, so you’re better off trying to disengage than hold points anymore. As for dhuumfire, the trait itself was pretty lame. I was never an advocate for it from the beginning, in fact I said in several occasions we shouldn’t have it. Moving the axe traits around was good. Nothing was done about the death magic line, I really don;t think the staff changes were needed, it just makes staff users more lazy now. There were far more pressing things in the death line that needed attention than that. Nearly all PvE dungeon groups will now kick necros, or just troll them and let them do the trash parts and kick them at bosses or simply leave them dead. transform interrupts getting fixed was a huge one, and one that shouldn’t have been there to begin with, because only necros were affected (at least from what I know personally, none of my other classes suffered that). Staff putrid mark is still broken or at very least improperly tooltipped and killed many support builds. The limit on condition cleanses as well as inability to now take it off allies (tested and confirmed by playerbase yet ignored by devs) makes it a useless support weapon, there are other weapon combos better suited for the job now. Spectral wall in it’s current form is pretty useless. I’ve said it since the change. Even in Pve, I’ve had mobs clip the edges of it and run right through it. No more vulnerability on it, and shorter protection and duration. the fear is pointless. even in PvE when you have them coming from all directions. In PvP they simply sidestep it or dodge through it. Should you land a lucky hit right on top of them with fast cast, they simply stun break it and come right back at you. Waste. The only good thing I can say is we do have more LF regen. That one is undeniably in the right direction, and one I have called for, for a very long time. The only current LF regen function I’d like changed, is the shadow fiend LF genertion. It should be “per-hit” not a single hit LF regen (since it technically hits multiple foes on the skill activation if they’re close enough). That would make it so valuable to bring along and overshadow the fact that once you summon it and activate it, it dies right after (being in melee range and no survivability) Still bound by cooldowns, still succeptible to all the other shortcomings of minions, but giving not only MM builds a sorely needed LF generation, but condition specs as well. I’ve noticed lots of condition necros running it now, but the key is to wait till mid fight to summon it, since it dies so fast. It’s basically a “summon and kill for some LF” which ironically is what I posted about with a suggestion for shadow fiend as a troll comment.

My responses in bold:

Bennet.2954:

However I was thinking about everything else:
- Putrid Mark nerfed to remove only 3 condis
Hopefully just a bug which will be fixed sometime before the next ice age.

- Corrupt boon nerfed to affect only 5 boons
I, personally, find it to be so unreliable to pull off consistent hits that affecting only 5 boons is the least of this skill’s worries. However, since necros are supposed to be the masters of condition manipulation (so they tell me), I fail to see the logic behind this nerf.

- Signet of Undeath cast time nerfed
Ridiculously long cast time; allies are probably defeated or rezzed by other allies by the time the signet is done casting. Might have a niche in a known encounter (e.g. a dungeon) but I, personally, wouldn’t equip it.

- terror damage nerfed
I can’t speak with authority on this as I’m not a conditionmancer and don’t use this trait. However, I could certainly see conditionmancers being justifiably upset over this one. Especially since it was nerfed because of being combined with Dhuumfire; the condition few necros wanted and has lead to more problems than it’s solved. Terror, by all accounts, was never the issue and was used without complaint long before Dhuumfire was introduced.

- Dhuum duration nerfed
I tested it on release and found it…lacking. I can see how a conditionmancer could make better use of it than I, though. From reading the posts of those with more familiarity with it and the apparent OP-ness of Terror+Dhuumfire, the nerf is probably justified. It seems to have indirectly caused more problems than it’s worth by leading to a lynch mob mentality among the other classes calling for even more nerfs to our profession.

- Greater marks moved up to the master tier (essentially a nerf)
I’m sorry to have lost the unblockability of my marks. With the increase in size of the default marks, though, and the ability to reallocate those 10 trait points elsewhere, I’m indifferent on this one.

The trade-off is that we got:

- Slightly bigger area marks
As mentioned above, a balanced buff/nerf in my eyes. I like having larger marks by default and I’m not missing the unblockability all that much. As a result of reallocating the 10 trait points I’d previously invested in Death Magic, it’s led to experimenting with new builds; which I think is a good thing.

- Spectral wall
I like it. As I primarily play WvWvW, I find it’s very effective. Yes, it’s easy to walk around or dodge through IF an opponent can see it. In the chaos and kitten-storm of particle effects that typifies large-scale encounters in WvWvW, it’s easy to hide it and catch unwary players. If some dodge through or walk around, I actually consider that a bonus. Now, instead of a cohesive group, the enemy zerg is fractured as some make it through the wall and some don’t. Much easier to pick them off that way

- More Life force
This was a bug that was fixed rather than a working mechanic that was improved. So though welcome, I don’t give the devs extra credit for fixing something that was broken and which took them 11 months to get around to correcting.

- better life force generation
Any extra LF generation is a good thing.

- an extra 0.5 seconds duration on Doom (DS fear)
Any extra fear is a good thing.

Please point out if I’ve missed anything major in either list.

The big one is the overflow of damage from DS to our normal health pool. I’ve collectively posted a book’s worth of text why this is so game-breaking from a primarily PvE necro perspective. I won’t repeat it all here as it can be read in the relevant threads and I don’t want to derail this one.

However, for me personally, it’s severe enough of an issue I’d give up all the buffs we received in this patch in exchange for reverting DS back the way it functioned prior to the patch. That’s how bad it is in my eyes.

Now, the question that I wish to ask our fine community is: do the buffs compensate the nerfs?

If we take the Dhuumfire fiasco and DS overflow damage out of the equation, I’d say its a reasonable balance of buffs and nerfs for any necro other than a conditionmancer. I imagine conditionmancers may not be too happy with the patch overall, though. However, we can’t separate out the Dhuumfire and DS overflow issues except in our minds; they are part of the patch.

As such, I consider the patch was an attempt to move in the right direction but was then negatively overshadowed by these…I don’t know what to call them that won’t just turn into a string of kittens…these “the-devs-brains-saw-it-was-5PM-on-a-Friday-and-decided-to-leak-out-the-devs-ears-grab-the-keys-yell-”TGIF!-Catch-ya-at-the-bar-when-you’re-done-here"-and-exited-the-building-while-the-devs-remained-behind-to-brainlessly-F-up-the-necro-class." I just don’t know how else to put it any more politely.,

As funny as your post is Kraag, and I totally agree with most of it, I really don’t think it was the balance team’s fault totally. They’ve let slip, quite clearly, that they didn’t want necro having the power it did in this upcoming publicized tournament, and we’re all paying for it. Things like that usually come down the line from the big cheezes, not the poor little guys that get stuck with the grunt work. Someone figured the people they had repping the game for this endeavor couldn’t hold back enough on the necro to make it look balanced. We have been forced to run against the wind uphill all this time and our playing skill shows for it, and that’s dangerous in a supposedly “balanced” game. I honestly hope there’s no necro reps in the tourney and someone pops THE question….

Nay of the Ether.8913:

As funny as your post is Kraag, and I totally agree with most of it, I really don’t think it was the balance team’s fault totally. They’ve let slip, quite clearly, that they didn’t want necro having the power it did in this upcoming publicized tournament, and we’re all paying for it. Things like that usually come down the line from the big cheezes, not the poor little guys that get stuck with the grunt work. Someone figured the people they had repping the game for this endeavor couldn’t hold back enough on the necro to make it look balanced. We have been forced to run against the wind uphill all this time and our playing skill shows for it, and that’s dangerous in a supposedly “balanced” game. I honestly hope there’s no necro reps in the tourney and someone pops THE question….

Fair enough. And having been in similar situations in my own line of work where very bad decisions have been made by higher-ups due to unrealistic expectations and lack of foresight, I can fully sympathize with any grunt level developer laboring under such conditions who knew what a mess this was going to turn into but had no choice but to go along for the ride if they still wanted to keep earning a paycheck.

The more I think about it, the more I think you’re absolutely correct in your assessment. What’s worse is – if I may be allowed to put on my tin-foil hat for a moment while stepping through the looking glass – I’m beginning to think the decision boiled down to this:

Necro is too weak in tPvP. We need to buff them so they can appear competitive in the upcoming PAX tournament so we can maintain the illusion the game is balanced and we know what we’re doing.

We could add burning.

Good idea. Make it so.

tPvP Community: OMGWTF!!! Necro is OPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!

Oops. Guess those necros are skilled players afterall and it’s the shortcomings of the class design itself that were holding them back. We’ve created a monster!

We could scale back the burning a bit in PvP. Kind of like what we did with GW1 skills (hint, hint).

Good idea. Make it so. But do it quick because PAX is almost here.

So, this is my formal apology to the devs to whom the above scenario applies. You get doubly screwed for being forced to implement changes you know are antithetical to the game but then are the first to be thrown under the bus when the kitten-storm ensues. I will endeavor in all future posts to avoid using the word “dev” when venting my frustrations and instead try to be more accurate when assigning blame; such as “the party responsible for making the decision that…
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*…KITTENED MY BELOVED PROFESSION UP THE PUPPY-DOG…SIDEWAYS…WITH NO LUBE..SIX WAYS TO SUNDAY, YOU ROTTEN KITTEN-KISSERS!!!”*

That should cover it.

Lol…that’s one colorful way of putting it. I was just gonna tell them that those PAX viewers aren’t paying their paychecks, we are :P

Actually I’m pretty sure we pay NCSoft directly and they pay a very small sum to Anet. So while yes we pay them, look at it as we pay the ones who decide when they get paid again. Wow….that’s kinda scary…Now I just feel sorry for them lol.

Maybe when they fix Death Magic and Blood Magic it will all make sense. Only been waiting months for that. The tinkering they did with siphoning recently was hardly worth the effort. It needs so much more.

Pendragon.8735:

Maybe when they fix Death Magic and Blood Magic it will all make sense. Only been waiting months for that. The tinkering they did with siphoning recently was hardly worth the effort. It needs so much more.

If they implemented healing while in DS, whether it be with siphons or w/e they chose…then yes these nonsense changes would make muuuuch more sense. And cleaning up the DM line would bring it all together. But time will tell. I certainly do not want them doing something like the original greater marks thing for Dm to make it ’mandatory" just for that single trait. They need to clean it up to the point that it actually synergizes properly with other lines and builds. Honestly I think all spectral and warhorn traits in curses should be swapped to DM for death nova, jagged horror, and maybe retal on heal. None of those belong in curses, they belong in death magic for bunker/power (or power/crit in the case of retal on heal) and the death magic ones belong in a condition line like curses. But Nemesis has also posted tons of ideas on trait reworks and is prob more adept at figuring this out than me. Those are just ones that always stick out like a sore thumb when I look at them.

… But don’t all these dmg nerfs basically add up to us doing less dmg than we did pre-dhuum?
I mean, if you take spectral wall and you get an enemy to pass through it then, maybe it’s around the same but otherwise without the 4 sec dhuum, what exactly do we have now that makes us better than we were?
Again, not whining just trying to figure stuff out here.
Without dhuum I feel rather weak now dmg wise.

Also is anyone still using dhuum now in tpvp?

Well, Life Blast became a much stronger attack option with the recent changes and the addition of Deathly Perception. Of course, that doesn’t affect condition necros, but hey.

The extra poison duration on the scepter attack does mean that we’re better at making sure our damage dealt actually sticks.

putrid mark was nerfed? dang

i haven’t even played my necro since the dhuumfire patch and all this craziness is going on

1. Introduce Dhuumfire.
2. It’s OP, so nerf terror.
3. It’s still OP, so nerf Deathshroud.
4. Hmm it’s still a bit OP, let’s nerf Dhuumfire.
5. ?

Dhuumfire nerf was a “hotfix” to make Necros weaker for big tournaments.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Constructive-necromancer-thoughts/page/8#post2495320

It’ll probably return to 4 seconds once other things are more balanced.

sheelzi.5803:

1. Introduce Dhuumfire.
2. It’s OP, so nerf terror.
3. It’s still OP, so nerf Deathshroud.
4. Hmm it’s still a bit OP, let’s nerf Dhuumfire.
5. ?

pretty much , all for a skill/trait NO NECRO WANTED……kitten revert everything done to necros to pre Dhuumfire , we were better off there then we are now (as far as a pve point of view goes , cause quite literally these patches have just s*** on the pve aspect of necros)

Enundr.9305:

pretty much , all for a skill/trait NO NECRO WANTED

I did.
Stop talking for me, thanks.

LastDay.3524:

Enundr.9305:

pretty much , all for a skill/trait NO NECRO WANTED

I did.
Stop talking for me, thanks.

has doubts that you actually did…..but that your here just to troll the forums cause you couldnt care either way….;-P

Enundr.9305:

LastDay.3524:

Enundr.9305:

pretty much , all for a skill/trait NO NECRO WANTED

I did.
Stop talking for me, thanks.

has doubts that you actually did…..but that your here just to troll the forums cause you couldnt care either way….;-P

My first exotic armor was CoF.
My hybrid set has had a Fused Dagger for quite some time.
My Zerker/Knights mix set uses Fused Gauntlets and CoF shoulders.

Also I remember suggesting torches as off-hands for Necro multiple times.
I’m also working on an Incinerator… Well, more or less.

I’m sure you can find some of my screenshots around, I’ve been here since before the launch.
I don’t know what more I can offer to prove my claim, but I was absolutely overjoyed to see Necro finally get burning.

LastDay.3524:

Enundr.9305:

LastDay.3524:

Enundr.9305:

pretty much , all for a skill/trait NO NECRO WANTED

I did.
Stop talking for me, thanks.

has doubts that you actually did…..but that your here just to troll the forums cause you couldnt care either way….;-P

My first exotic armor was CoF.
My hybrid set has had a Fused Dagger for quite some time.
My Zerker/Knights mix set uses Fused Gauntlets and CoF shoulders.

Also I remember suggesting torches as off-hands for Necro multiple times.
I’m also working on an Incinerator… Well, more or less.

I’m sure you can find some of my screenshots around, I’ve been here since before the launch.
I don’t know what more I can offer to prove my claim, but I was absolutely overjoyed to see Necro finally get burning.

ok first off over half of that has no grounds for proving the point , 2nd , adding a torch isnt a bad thing but thats an entire skillset right there being added , not a SINGLE TALENT that ends up screwing all other skills because of it , no real build diveristy was added in this case , and in return for that , DS gets nerfed PvE wise (yes NERFED you take as much dmg if you dont pidgeon hole into a specific skillset (ie wasting utility slots for Spectral Armor , etc) rather then using a build you prefer , and i dont say this out of blind rage , i tested this in Hirathi Hinterlands on a champ centaur , duoing it with a thief , specced 20 into DM , 20 into Spite , 30 into Curses , NOT using spectral armor , and holy crap you die just as fast now as you did before , nothing was fixed other then not being able to asborb that heavy hit now , aka our major source of defense was nerfed).

All because of a SINGLE trait and ppl crying in pvp , that pve gets ruined for alot of ppl. Seperating the 2 skillsets would have been better like it was back in GW1……but no you didnt provide anything to back up the statement (yes i was here back in BWE2 so still waiting for that to be anything valid here? =P )

A talent so high up in the power tree thats a crit proc that makes no sense……lol

There have been a lot of subtle Necro changes that have flown under the radar amidist all the Dhuumfire rage. For example:

-Barbed Precision was buffed from 1s base duration to what I believe is now 2s (haven’t tested it specifically but it’s definitely noticeably longer)
-LF drains MUCH slower due to damage now. Again I haven’t tested it thoroughly, but that’s mainly because I’ve put GW2 on the side burner for now as I’ve been getting into dota 2 but again it is quite noticeable.
-The projectile speed on Staff auto-attack and Dark Pact are MUCH faster. This was a huge quality-of-life complaint from Necros and I’m glad ANet finally changed this.
-Spectral Armor I felt overall was buffed, however Spectral Walk was nerfed, but counterbalanced somewhat by LF now being tankier point-for-point.
-You forgot about Tainted Shackles which is pretty good :P
-Longer duration on Poison from #3 chain on Scepter.

And those are just off the top of my head. There’s no doubt in my mind Necros are stronger now than they were pre-patch, and by quite a large margin.

Skyro.3108:

There have been a lot of subtle Necro changes that have flown under the radar amidist all the Dhuumfire rage. For example:

-Barbed Precision was buffed from 1s base duration to what I believe is now 2s (haven’t tested it specifically but it’s definitely noticeably longer)
-LF drains MUCH slower due to damage now. Again I haven’t tested it thoroughly, but that’s mainly because I’ve put GW2 on the side burner for now as I’ve been getting into dota 2 but again it is quite noticeable.
-The projectile speed on Staff auto-attack and Dark Pact are MUCH faster. This was a huge quality-of-life complaint from Necros and I’m glad ANet finally changed this.
-Spectral Armor I felt overall was buffed, however Spectral Walk was nerfed, but counterbalanced somewhat by LF now being tankier point-for-point.
-You forgot about Tainted Shackles which is pretty good :P
-Longer duration on Poison from #3 chain on Scepter.

And those are just off the top of my head. There’s no doubt in my mind Necros are stronger now than they were pre-patch, and by quite a large margin.

it drains slower if your not taking hits yes , but your still taking just as much damage (and now dont have that shield against bosses in pve , aka your biggest and practically only form of defense in pve , all for the sake of pvp , thank you pvp crowd for screwing the pve crowd AGAIN)

AKA they said you were taking more dmg due to some bug before , but you see it gets drained JUST AS FAST as before even in 20 spite (i have quite literally seen NO DIFFERENCE when i tested it (even if not 30 it still should have been something more noticeable , only thing i noticed was i die just as fast while trying to avoid attacks and play defensively with DS) the only way you mitigate dmg more now is with Spectral Armor (aka FORCED UTILITY if you dont want to die , so our build diversity shrinks due to this poor design aimed for pvp purposes)

Enundr.9305:

Skyro.3108:

There have been a lot of subtle Necro changes that have flown under the radar amidist all the Dhuumfire rage. For example:

-Barbed Precision was buffed from 1s base duration to what I believe is now 2s (haven’t tested it specifically but it’s definitely noticeably longer)
-LF drains MUCH slower due to damage now. Again I haven’t tested it thoroughly, but that’s mainly because I’ve put GW2 on the side burner for now as I’ve been getting into dota 2 but again it is quite noticeable.
-The projectile speed on Staff auto-attack and Dark Pact are MUCH faster. This was a huge quality-of-life complaint from Necros and I’m glad ANet finally changed this.
-Spectral Armor I felt overall was buffed, however Spectral Walk was nerfed, but counterbalanced somewhat by LF now being tankier point-for-point.
-You forgot about Tainted Shackles which is pretty good :P
-Longer duration on Poison from #3 chain on Scepter.

And those are just off the top of my head. There’s no doubt in my mind Necros are stronger now than they were pre-patch, and by quite a large margin.

it drains slower if your not taking hits yes , but your still taking just as much damage (and now dont have that shield against bosses in pve , aka your biggest and practically only form of defense in pve , all for the sake of pvp , thank you pvp crowd for screwing the pve crowd AGAIN)

I meant that it drains slower per hit, meaning each % of LF absorbs more raw damage now than before. I believe the LF degeneration of 4%/sec is still the same.

Yeah I can see how losing the ability to absorb a big hit and have it not spill over to hp is pretty big in PvE, although PvE seems ridiculously easy in this game except I suppose if you get into the higher end of fractals, is that what you’re talking about?

Skyro.3108:

Enundr.9305:

Skyro.3108:

There have been a lot of subtle Necro changes that have flown under the radar amidist all the Dhuumfire rage. For example:

-Barbed Precision was buffed from 1s base duration to what I believe is now 2s (haven’t tested it specifically but it’s definitely noticeably longer)
-LF drains MUCH slower due to damage now. Again I haven’t tested it thoroughly, but that’s mainly because I’ve put GW2 on the side burner for now as I’ve been getting into dota 2 but again it is quite noticeable.
-The projectile speed on Staff auto-attack and Dark Pact are MUCH faster. This was a huge quality-of-life complaint from Necros and I’m glad ANet finally changed this.
-Spectral Armor I felt overall was buffed, however Spectral Walk was nerfed, but counterbalanced somewhat by LF now being tankier point-for-point.
-You forgot about Tainted Shackles which is pretty good :P
-Longer duration on Poison from #3 chain on Scepter.

And those are just off the top of my head. There’s no doubt in my mind Necros are stronger now than they were pre-patch, and by quite a large margin.

it drains slower if your not taking hits yes , but your still taking just as much damage (and now dont have that shield against bosses in pve , aka your biggest and practically only form of defense in pve , all for the sake of pvp , thank you pvp crowd for screwing the pve crowd AGAIN)

I meant that it drains slower per hit, meaning each % of LF absorbs more raw damage now than before. I believe the LF degeneration of 4%/sec is still the same.

Yeah I can see how losing the ability to absorb a big hit and have it not spill over to hp is pretty big in PvE, although PvE seems ridiculously easy in this game except I suppose if you get into the higher end of fractals, is that what you’re talking about?

fractals and any boss fights that you dont exploit to win ;-) necros defenses are near to null in pve boss fights (as ive said before weakness is almost next to not as useful on bosses , and DS not being able to absorb those big hits now really hurts the need for necros in pve outright)

and i went and tested this in a group even (duo’ed with a thief) in hirathi hinterlands , champ mob , it drains just as much per hit as it was before , like i said 20 DM , 20 spite , 30 curses , no spectral armor since i dont want to be FORCED into bringing a skill like that and ahve to combine it with a class mechanic to survive when other classes have way more options (condition mancer if you didnt tell by my build) , BiP , (signet with passive power and multi conditions on use , sry forgot name) , flesh golem , and epidemic (and consume conditions for heal) . running rabbid gear , S+D / Staff. i got torn to shreds trying to avoid attacks and using DS defensively when he started focusing me down , the thief outlasted me in surviving , a THIEF who DOESNT HAVE a “2nd healthbar” that made necros the target of part of our nerfs.

Enundr.9305:

ok first off over half of that has no grounds for proving the point , 2nd , adding a torch isnt a bad thing but thats an entire skillset right there being added , not a SINGLE TALENT that ends up screwing all other skills because of it , no real build diveristy was added in this case , and in return for that , DS gets nerfed PvE wise (yes NERFED you take as much dmg if you dont pidgeon hole into a specific skillset (ie wasting utility slots for Spectral Armor , etc) rather then using a build you prefer , and i dont say this out of blind rage , i tested this in Hirathi Hinterlands on a champ centaur , duoing it with a thief , specced 20 into DM , 20 into Spite , 30 into Curses , NOT using spectral armor , and holy crap you die just as fast now as you did before , nothing was fixed other then not being able to asborb that heavy hit now , aka our major source of defense was nerfed).

All because of a SINGLE trait and ppl crying in pvp , that pve gets ruined for alot of ppl. Seperating the 2 skillsets would have been better like it was back in GW1……but no you didnt provide anything to back up the statement

My point was this:
“I like fire, so saying that nobody wanted a trait that sets things on fire is just wrong.”
That’s it.

I didn’t read the rest of your short post because it had swear filtering and seemed like a rant.
I just skimmed over it. …but I did read it now.

In my opinion Dhuumfire itself isn’t bad.
I don’t think that it should be nerfed by numbers.
I’ve said this multiple times in the past.

I think that it’s trait position is silly. It shouldn’t work so well with Terror.
It’s position in the Power tree basically says “USE ME IN HYBRID BUILDS!”
Too bad the 30% condition duration from Spite and the fact you can combine it with Terror makes it OP.

I think that it should be in a position where you can’t use it with Terror.
I know some at Anet believe that the Terror+Dhuumfire build shouldn’t be just completely gutted, but I believe that if Dhuumfire builds were their own thing separate from Terror ones we’d have more build variety.

In fact Dhuumfire might need a buff if you couldn’t use it with Terror.
…and Terror might get some of it’s damage back, who knows.
(Unlikely due to Spectral Wall and Torment being added, but eh.)

As for Death Shroud Anet fixed a bug that was causing the Death Shroud to take double damage from attacks.
Seeing that they essentially doubled Life Force vs direct attacks they probably went “HOLY… it was this badly bugged?!”

They probably got scared and decided to nerf the overflow thing to make sure they don’t make Necro’s defenses too strong by fixing that bug.

Death Shroud is still very situational, that’s for sure.
It can eat a burst from an Elementalist 1vs1 but still melts in team fights and PvE boss fights.
The lack of blocks and invuls just doesn’t work very well with the way GW2’s combat is designed.
There are situations where you NEED a shadowstep OR invulnerability OR lots of blocks.
Necro doesn’t have any of those.
They used to have a shadowstep where Dark Path is now but someone deemed Necro too mobile with it.

I’ve made posts about it before, but I don’t think that it has anything to do with Dhuumfire.

Enundr.9305:

(yes i was here back in BWE2 so still waiting for that to be anything valid here? =P )

I said that because trolls usually don’t stay around for very long.
Anet isn’t shy with forum bans.
Were my account 1 week old it could be a troll one.
I didn’t say that to somehow imply that I’m better than you.

Also… Trying to bait me isn’t going to work.
I generally don’t fight with people.
I usually reason with them or ignore them.
The really annoying ones I just report.

And thats a fair point about the dhuumfire + terror thing , i would suggest put them both in grandmaster spite so their dmg is a you pick one or the other , and at this point im not exactly afraid of a ban , a gaurentee its time to move onto the next game knowing that all of us that are here are complaining about the same thing and then resort to “silence” the ppl complaining (not a new tactic as some mmo devs have resorted to it , and ppl laughed when it happened cause their games DIED going to the desperate change from P2P and F2P model (not COMPLETELY F2P like GW2 is mind you) , if alot of ppl have been complaining about a subject , then you know somethings wrong and needs to be looked at , if instead the company chooses to ban the ones complaining rather then looking then they let their friends know that are in the game to stop playing , in turn knowing nothings going to get fixed , rather swept under the rug tactics instead.

Back to the topic though , yea dhuumfire + terror in one grand master trait so you cant have both doing the insanity that got us here would be a good thing , i still dont see a necro ever using fire lorewise (this game and others , as ive pointed out before the only time youve ever seen a necro “wielding” flame was with the fire golems in GW1 , even then that wasnt the necro wielding fire magic , but instead reanimating creatures that were “fire touched” for lack of better words , lore wise theres never been anything for necros wielding flames , torch could be the one exception due to its not really a “weapon” but more of a ritual situation type of item , and thats why it could work better then the logic for dhuumfire (where dhuumfire shows more towards wielding fire magic like an ele). id trade the dhuumfire for the torch anyday , especially as it is now.
And with the DS thing , ive tested it in pve (20 DM , 20 Spite , 30 Curses) , no spectral armor , BiP , signet with power passive / mass condition spam on use , epidemic , flesh golem and consume conditions , rabid gear all around (gee guess what type of necro i am ;-) ). this was tested in Hirathi Hinterlands on a group event (duo’ed with a thief) , i got downed SO much cause DS was getting torn to pieces , showing no signs that we werent still taking double dmg (aka DS LF pool is going down per hit the same amount as before) , running out of energy to dodge , while the thief stayed up for quite a while , downed 2 or 3 times while i got downed to the point of death on down. there was enough testing the DS there to show to me that it wasnt improved at all , still taking as much dmg as before , and now without that extra absorption we had for pve purposes. the only reason ppl think DS is taking so much more dmg now then before , is ppl are using spectral armor in combination with DS , in turn saying you want to survive ? then your only choice is spectral armor , as in pvp you see ALOT of condition cleansing , especially in WvW , so trying to rely on weakness to act as a defense turns up as null.

Skyro.3108:

-Barbed Precision was buffed from 1s base duration to what I believe is now 2s (haven’t tested it specifically but it’s definitely noticeably longer)
-LF drains MUCH slower due to damage now. Again I haven’t tested it thoroughly, but that’s mainly because I’ve put GW2 on the side burner for now as I’ve been getting into dota 2 but again it is quite noticeable.
-The projectile speed on Staff auto-attack and Dark Pact are MUCH faster. This was a huge quality-of-life complaint from Necros and I’m glad ANet finally changed this.
-Spectral Armor I felt overall was buffed, however Spectral Walk was nerfed, but counterbalanced somewhat by LF now being tankier point-for-point.
-You forgot about Tainted Shackles which is pretty good :P
-Longer duration on Poison from #3 chain on Scepter.

1 – Cond dur works on it since a few patches
2 – Drains the same unless you had cleric/soldier/other toughness amulet or armor set (as testing before showed, you only took more damage in ds than out of it if you doubled your base toughness), the fix of the hp ratio is nice for sustained fights/not getting chunked from aoe, so mixed blessing/curse
3 – give you this one
4 – plain nerf, Sarmor being a cheezy 1v1 endure pain and worthless in teamfights/most burst skills (the spectral part prot is always nice) is hell of annoying, but it made 15 in SR even stronger so obviously weaker but making a trait line more appealing
5/6 – check updates across all professions, everyone got a bit of skill love/fixing some old setups (as in buffing doesnt matter if everyone gets buffed, its not a everyone is number x, you are y, but then you get buffed to x, its just 10x, 10x, 10x, 10y, 10x, etc)

Dhuumfire should be moved to Master tier. Powermancers won’t take it over Close to Death, and Condimancers don’t want to go that far up Spite for a Master trait in a Grandmaster slot.

Well after a bit of testing, I don’t spec into dhuumfire anymore.
It doesn’t feel worth it.

But I am really having trouble doing decent dmg now. Maybe I had just gotten used to dhuum too much.

We are definitely in a better place now than say 2 months ago.

Its as myself and others were sayin, if we get buffs, nerfs will quickly follow. The necro is a very powerful class, and if that balance is tipped more we’ll dominate battles visibly. As it is we are low enough in the radar because we arent great at 1-1 (exceptions), but once we start excelling here too the fun will be over.