Guild Wars 2

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-July-28-2015/first#post5326068

Necromancer

Signet of Vampirism: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to heal for more than its listed value.
Chilling Darkness: This trait now activates on all targets that are blinded by a single area-of-effect blinding strike before it goes on cooldown.
Spinal Shivers: Removed an incorrect unblockable skill fact from this skill. While this skill does remove aegis before striking, it is not unblockable.
Unholy Martyr: Reduced life-force generation from 10% to 7% when transferring a condition.
Corruptions: Self-applied, nondamaging conditions from these skills no longer have their durations increased by condition duration stats.

What do you think?

It’s nice that they made Chilling Darkness slightly less awful.

Spinal shivers change is sad. not that it was used all that much anyway, with that cast time. Could anyone already test if this affects chill of death aswell?

The corruptions change looks really random. Why? Why only nondamaging conditions? This is not going to help corruptions and Master of Corruption at all. Effects are still too weak for the self hurt.

More nerfs even though we are already bottom tier… I really just don’t know what to say anymore…

Nerfed my self applied conditions, nerfed spinal shivers, nerfed signet of vampirism, nerfed holy martyr… I guess we were just too awesome to be viable.

Lame nerf to UM…the corruptions change is the same as they did for revenant but don’t worry they will have to make ours useful if they don’t want Mallyx to suck. Bugs are still here though.

Well, a bunch of nerf on things that aren’t loved/meta in the current game.

Sorry, there are buff on chilling darkness (which has been destroyed and still ain’t viable) and corruption (which have still a high cost for low reward)

Edit : I wonder if they nerfed Chilling darkness to the ground only for the pleasure of buffing it slowly on the next few weeks… Maybe next time they will up the chill duration up to 3 seconds

I can’t believe we got nerfs while other classes continue their power creep. It’s really beyond me at the moment to comprehend.

Yay, Chilling Darkness now makes Well of Darkness a bit less kittenty.

gavyne.6847:

I can’t believe we got nerfs while other classes continue their power creep. It’s really beyond me at the moment to comprehend.

I can only assume that all the devs currently play mesmer. It is completely ridiculous that they “fixed” (buffed) so many things on memser when they are already stupidly OP.

@ZudetGambeous
You probably didn’t read the same mesmer post as I have. Most of the fixes are nerfs. Most are also “good” nerfs that the class needed, but definitely not any buff. And one in particular is arguably a “bad” nerf.

Buffed/ no nerfs for elementalist which is the best class in pvp, wvw and pve.

nerfed necro which is bottom tier in all game modes except maybe wvw

Anet gonna anet

Chilling Darkness is still awful

Well of Darkness is still worthless

lol random changes much?

Anet on da quest: How to make the fragile existence of the suckomancer class even more fragile

Lahmia.2193:

Yay, Chilling Darkness now makes Well of Darkness a bit less kittenty.

This one is the worst actually.

Like im always negative and post exagerated clickbait titles, but todays nerfs are worthless. tiny nerfs to stuff nobody uses so not 1/1000 change in reality (beside unholy martyr)

It is actually a great patch with
-mesmer mirror blade nerf (will hit u now 2x instead of 3x times), blind on shatter still kittens us up but at least it doesnt go through evades anymore
-rampage nerfed – get liched

The only problem is with this, they solidified their opinion on blind+chill trait, making well of darkness useless and one less potential synergie on future gs#4 skill nightfall.

These changes are depressing.

Mesmer was due to get Dhuumfired but instead got thoughtful, reasonable changes that fix what is OP without ruining the class. Why doesn’t that ever happen to necromancer?

To this day, axe never got fixed after being Dhuumfired in beta more than three years ago.

Anyways big nerfs to the only builds that people have been attempting to use. The vampirism signet change is another nerf to healing, and the unholy martyr trait was a main thing keeping MM alive.

Spinal shiver should be unblock able if it’s going to take over a second to cast, and casting it is a DPS loss.

And Corruptions changes and Chilling Darkness change is lipstick on a pig.

There’s nothing worse than token changes that make absolutely no difference. What was bad before is still bad now, which makes them worthless token changes. Unlike some of the changes to other classes that are net positive changes that really do affect them positively. Spinal Shiver change for an example, if they want to remove Unblockable from it, at least shorten the cast time to make the skill viable to use.

As for some of the “nerfs” to mesmers and warrior’s rampage nerf, they’ve been long time in coming. But none of this changes anything with us necros however. If you bump into a Mesmer in WvW without any lifeforce, you’re still going to die within 5 seconds.

How does Chilling Darkness Work now?

(1) Chilling darkness procs an explosion similar to sigil of fire that blinds and chills?

Or

(2) The first hit of an AoE blind will also chill, meaning that the first hit of plague and well of darkness will chill everyone it hits, but dagger 4 will only chill the first enemy it hits.

Both suck. Neither makes sense unless the class is suddenly goings get a lot more access to blind (from blasts or whatever)

nekretaal.6485:

How does Chilling Darkness Work now?

(1) Chilling darkness procs an explosion similar to sigil of fire that blinds and chills?

Or

(2) The first hit of an AoE blind will also chill, meaning that the first hit of plague and well of darkness will chill everyone it hits, but dagger 4 will only chill the first enemy it hits.

Both suck. Neither makes sense unless the class is suddenly goings get a lot more access to blind (from blasts or whatever)

havent tried it out yet, but from the wording i understand it works like (2).

If more than one person is hit by a blind at the same time, by the same skill, they all are blinded before it goes on cooldown.

Spinal Shivers wasn’t changed at all. It turns out we were simply deceived into thinking it was unblockable when it actually isn’t. So they just changed the tooltip. Of course this is the same with Chill of Death as well.

Pretty happy with the changes. I don’t understand what was so powerful in Martyr that it got 30% nerf, but aside from that, pretty okay stuff.

I’m expecting more serious changes after the WTS.

You guys seriously need to stop crying. These nerfs aren’t a huge deal at all. No one seriously uses the focus in pvp, so spinal shivers is irrelevant. Unholy Martyr was similarly bad for the RNG factor. You could get sustain if you pulled weak condis to you, but you could get kittened over if you pulled 12 stacks of burning or immobilize. The change to chilling darkness makes it salvageable again with skulls like nightfall in the future.

And corruptions , we’re you really going to send that self blind from MoC CC to you opener when the blind stops staff/dagger 4 from working?

Maybe if you guys stopped crying on the forums all the time you’d see that necromancers aren’t all that bad. I’ve been seeing cele necros in tournaments at many different levels all the time these days, and those teams tend to be very succesful. They’re much more common than rangers and engineers in tournaments right now.

And the pve complaints are so hollow considering that most of you will never attempt to do a speedrun.

Anyway I’m sorry for being harsh, but these nerfs are irrelevant overall and nothing to be sad over.

Unholy martyr is still bad because of the RNG factor.

The nerf just took MM out of mid level Pvp viability.
The change to signet healing is a big sustain nerf for everybody looking for an alternative to consume conditions

nekretaal.6485:

Unholy martyr is still bad because of the RNG factor.

The nerf just took MM out of mid level Pvp viability.
The change to signet healing is a big sustain nerf for everybody looking for an alternative to consume conditions

How significant is the signet nerf?

nearlight.3064:

You guys seriously need to stop crying. These nerfs aren’t a huge deal at all. No one seriously uses the focus in pvp, so spinal shivers is irrelevant.

Why did the bottom tier class need nerfs?

Why not fixes to stuff like axe (Dhuumfired in the beta three years ago & never fixed) or signet of spite (only does one bleed)?

Anyways, everybody in high level Pvp used the spinal shivers trait and the healing signet. Those are pretty big nerfs. The PvPers trying to make MM wok relied on unholy martyr, another big nerf.

Why does Mesmer get thoughtful changes while we get thoughtless nerfs?

I expected nothing and I was still let down.

nekretaal.6485:

nearlight.3064:

You guys seriously need to stop crying. These nerfs aren’t a huge deal at all. No one seriously uses the focus in pvp, so spinal shivers is irrelevant.

Why did the bottom tier class need nerfs?

Why not fixes to stuff like axe (Dhuumfired in the beta three years ago & never fixed) or signet of spite (only does one bleed)?

Anyways, everybody in high level Pvp used the spinal shivers trait and the healing signet. Those are pretty big nerfs. The PvPers trying to make MM wok relied on unholy martyr, another big nerf.

Why does Mesmer get thoughtful changes while we get thoughtless nerfs?

I agree but you shouldn’t be surprised. Remember when we first got an insight in their balance system and everyone was like “lol wtf”.

Their balancing is dictated by the devs duelling each other. At way below the skill cap. Probably running weird specs. Then they make nerfs and buffs as a result.

@nearlight.3064
I always assumed your undying loyalty to Arena net’s terrible balance decisions were exclusive to the Elementalist, today I was proven wrong.

Just because a weapon was unused doesn’t mean nerfing it is not a big deal. if they were being unused changes are they probably deserved a boost not a nerf.

I can only assume an asleep dev, playing anything but necro, got taken out by a MM necro sometime this month and decided that we needed more nerfs.

Way to keep the balance alive!

I dunno, I’m still not happy with Chilling Darkness as it is. If the chill was upped to 3-4" MAYBE it’d be ok with the 5" icd. If it’s gonna stay at 2" they should lower the ICD to 3", so that at least WoD gets to proc twice.

I honestly give up. Axe is crap and everything else is nerfed to stupidity. Its not even that fun in PVE anymore. Its only good for the wells. I’ve been maining a Necro since I started the game but I’m done. I’ll try it again when Reaper comes out.

I was expecting a chilling darkness revert. Guess its still unusable.

Necromancer
•Signet of Vampirism: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to heal for more than its listed value.

Giving zero meaning to a skill that is barely even useful, no nerf it because reasons.

•Chilling Darkness: This trait now activates on all targets that are blinded by a single area-of-effect blinding strike before it goes on cooldown.

Ok…..so it isn’t as useless….

•Spinal Shivers: Removed an incorrect unblockable skill fact from this skill. While this skill does remove aegis before striking, it is not unblockable.

Yeah, I guess that’s fair…
•Unholy Martyr: Reduced life-force generation from 10% to 7% when transferring a condition.
I’d argue that the LF gain was not enough to even recommend traiting this.

•Corruptions: Self-applied, nondamaging conditions from these skills no longer have their durations increased by condition duration stats.

Complete random change, If I could make a suggestion, maybe lowering the self damage as well. You can very well put yourself at about 50% health using this. The risk is too high, and the reward isn’t worth it.

Just going to say mesmers got nerfed. It was weird nerfs to the wrong places, and one totally unnecessary change to MoD, but overall still a nerf.

Also, the only real nerf to us was UM. The rest is bugfixes. Not saying the UM nerf was called for by any means, but lets not exaggerate things.

nekretaal.6485:

nearlight.3064:

You guys seriously need to stop crying. These nerfs aren’t a huge deal at all. No one seriously uses the focus in pvp, so spinal shivers is irrelevant.

Why did the bottom tier class need nerfs?

Why not fixes to stuff like axe (Dhuumfired in the beta three years ago & never fixed) or signet of spite (only does one bleed)?

Anyways, everybody in high level Pvp used the spinal shivers trait and the healing signet. Those are pretty big nerfs. The PvPers trying to make MM wok relied on unholy martyr, another big nerf.

Why does Mesmer get thoughtful changes while we get thoughtless nerfs?

I was under the impression that MM necros were using transfusion to keep their minions alive but whatever. My point is that necromancer is not a bottom tier class, it’s just a self-hatred complex you guys have created for yourselves.

The change to signet of vampirism is a bug fix, not a nerf. The chill of death spinal shivers is unaffected by no longer being unblockable because the proc happens when the target is hit by a normal attack under 50 percent health. It works like a fire or air sigil proc. You cannot block chill of death, so the change does not effect it.

If you were running focus to begin with… well then pvp probably isn’t for you.

Sledge Stone.9017:

I honestly give up. Axe is crap and everything else is nerfed to stupidity. Its not even that fun in PVE anymore. Its only good for the wells. I’ve been maining a Necro since I started the game but I’m done. I’ll try it again when Reaper comes out.

You should give other professions some playtime until more changes come about.

How did they find something to nerf?? They nerfed a relatively bad trait too…

No real changes, just bug fixes and UM nerf which wasn’t surprising because it was an absolute insane amount of LF generation. Nothing really to see here, I wouldn’t expect meaningful balance work yet, and frankly most of what they need to fix to balance us is too large scale for just a random patch.

They said they were going to continue these balance patches up until HoT release. If we cant expect stuff during one of these patches then well its hopeless.

spoj.9672:

They said they were going to continue these balance patches up until HoT release. If we cant expect stuff during one of these patches then well its hopeless.

Oh we can expect stuff. More kittening nerfs.

nearlight.3064:

If you were running focus to begin with… well then pvp probably isn’t for you.

this is good, sound logic. “this thing is totally unusable due to balance problems, so making it even more unusable is fine.” i wish i could design games under this philosophy and make as much money as anet

at this point you might as well say, like, i dunno

“if you were running necromancer pve, pvp, and 2/3 of wvw probably aren’t for you. therefore, any nerfs to necromancer to make it even more unusable are totally fine. stop having a victim complex”

frankly with each balance patch i become more and more amazed at arenanet’s ability to design and balance their own game. it’s shocking how they can progress so much in other areas of the game, but profession design makes GW2 look like a game from 2005 with how disparate and broken it remains.

Shiki.7148:

spoj.9672:

They said they were going to continue these balance patches up until HoT release. If we cant expect stuff during one of these patches then well its hopeless.

Oh we can expect stuff. More kittening nerfs.

Most likely. I had faith in the devs once. Then the specialization patch happened.

Bhawb.7408:

No real changes, just bug fixes and UM nerf which wasn’t surprising because it was an absolute insane amount of LF generation. Nothing really to see here, I wouldn’t expect meaningful balance work yet, and frankly most of what they need to fix to balance us is too large scale for just a random patch.

I understand your point but shouldn’t they address “the large scale balance fix” at the same tme they introduced the specialization system? Most likely these fix won’t happen because they do not aknowledge that there is a need for them. That is to the point that they waste time on silly things like Chilling darkness to not make it to strong when the nobody-know-when-it’s-coming XPAC will come out.

No core profession should be balanced around an hypothetical upcoming spécialization.

Golby.5348:

nearlight.3064:

If you were running focus to begin with… well then pvp probably isn’t for you.

this is good, sound logic. “this thing is totally unusable due to balance problems, so making it even more unusable is fine.” i wish i could design games under this philosophy and make as much money as anet

at this point you might as well say, like, i dunno

“if you were running necromancer pve, pvp, and 2/3 of wvw probably aren’t for you. therefore, any nerfs to necromancer to make it even more unusable are totally fine. stop having a victim complex”

frankly with each balance patch i become more and more amazed at arenanet’s ability to design and balance their own game. it’s shocking how they can progress so much in other areas of the game, but profession design makes GW2 look like a game from 2005 with how disparate and broken it remains.

Your argument is a slippery slope, which by definition is a logical fallacy. Your argument is flawed because you present no reason as to why someone would go down that slope. Just because one weapon is bad, that doesn’t mean that you can extend that reasoning to the whole class, because there are other weaponsets available that the class can use. Necromancer may be suboptimal in PvE, but that doesn’t mean its nonviable, especilly at the level 95% of players play at. Same in PvP, it may not be the “Most Efficient Type Available” (META) but that doesn’t mean its not great, and not viable. Cele necro is relatively common in PvP now.

Also, if you ran focus in PvE, you wouldn’t use spinal shivers anyway.

It’s quite a sad state of affairs that we, as players, are pitted against one another whenever there’s a balance patch and want other classes to be nerfed so they can splash around in the mud with us lol.

spoj.9672:

They said they were going to continue these balance patches up until HoT release. If we cant expect stuff during one of these patches then well its hopeless.

I don’t think we can expect anything big from these balance patches. For example, a lot of our fixes will require massive bug fixes, reworking entire weapon sets, reworking how DS works, etc. Bug fixes and balance changes are expected, and we got that, but I don’t think we can expect the level of changes we need until the HoT patch.

Dadnir.5038:

I understand your point but shouldn’t they address “the large scale balance fix” at the same tme they introduced the specialization system?

I’d say they addressed a fair number of issues, the trait changes were pretty good to use overall. Also I don’t at all believe they nerfed Chilling Darkness because of Reaper until they say that themselves which I haven’t heard.

RashanDale.3609:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-July-28-2015/first#post5326068

Necromancer

Signet of Vampirism: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to heal for more than its listed value.
NERF
Chilling Darkness: This trait now activates on all targets that are blinded by a single area-of-effect blinding strike before it goes on cooldown.
SLIGHT BUFF, NOW IT’S ONLY %50 USELESS
*Spinal Shivers: Removed an incorrect unblockable skill fact from this skill. While this skill does remove aegis before striking, it is not unblockable.
MEH, JUST A SKILL FACT. BARELY USE FOCUS ANYWAY
*Unholy Martyr: Reduced life-force generation from 10% to 7% when transferring a condition.
MASSIVE NERF TO THIS, NOW IT BARELY HELPS SUSTAIN OVER NATURAL LF DEGEN
*Corruptions: Self-applied, nondamaging conditions from these skills no longer have their durations increased by condition duration stats.
GOOD, SHOULD HAVE BEEN THIS WAY TO BEGIN WITH, NOW IF WE CAN JUST GET THE SELF CONDITIONS TO NOT USE CONDI DMG VALUES AND ONLY USE A BASE VALUE, WE WILL BE IN BUSINESS

What do you think?

It’s nice that they made Chilling Darkness slightly less awful.

Spinal shivers change is sad. not that it was used all that much anyway, with that cast time. Could anyone already test if this affects chill of death aswell?

The corruptions change looks really random. Why? Why only nondamaging conditions? This is not going to help corruptions and Master of Corruption at all. Effects are still too weak for the self hurt.

My thoughts are in bold and caps because caps makes my words 150% more powerful :P

Spinal Shivers wasn’t nerfed, it had a tooltip fix.

I tested Chilling Darkness with Well of Darkness and Deathly Swarm. Chill still only applied to 1 target golem with Well of Darkness and 1 target with Deathly Swarm (which isn’t aoe, i know, but does bounce to 3 targets).

Bhawb.7408:

Spinal Shivers wasn’t nerfed, it had a tooltip fix.

well is a nerf the skill was unblokable so was a nerf not a fix this also nerf the trait so yay us =[ lets hope they give us something next update =]

Brokensunday.4098:

Bhawb.7408:

Spinal Shivers wasn’t nerfed, it had a tooltip fix.

well is a nerf the skill was unblokable so was a nerf not a fix this also nerf the trait so yay us =[ lets hope they give us something next update =]

It was never unblockable. Spinal shivers was never unblockable. Everyone who thinks it was unblockable, please read the bugfix involving it very slowly and carefully.

If anything this is a buff for all newbie necros (and people who do not pay attention) who were being tricked into thinking the skill did something it did not.

I went in with no expectations as well, still dissapointed.

I suppose I let myself hope for a Quickening Thirst fix after all. I keep walking into the same trap every update.

Gerrark.9870:

Brokensunday.4098:

Bhawb.7408:

Spinal Shivers wasn’t nerfed, it had a tooltip fix.

well is a nerf the skill was unblokable so was a nerf not a fix this also nerf the trait so yay us =[ lets hope they give us something next update =]

It was never unblockable. Spinal shivers was never unblockable. Everyone who thinks it was unblockable, please read the bugfix involving it very slowly and carefully.

If anything this is a buff for all newbie necros (and people who do not pay attention) who were being tricked into thinking the skill did something it did not.

Spinal Shivers was changed in the Specialization patch. I made a post about it 3 days after the patch went live. Dial it back a bit now.

Crowlia.1987:

I went in with no expectations as well, still dissapointed.

I suppose I let myself hope for a Quickening Thirst fix after all. I keep walking into the same trap every update.

This also the CD reduction based on HP threshold is horrible.Lingering Curse is still bugged and need some of it’s duration to be added to base scepter etc. When you go in dept with necro you can tell they skipped over a lot of things the death of condition necro is sad as well.