Guild Wars 2

In the ready up today, 10/17/2014, the devs went over a few balance changes that will occur in the next patch. They mention 2 changes:

Staff auto attack aka Necrotic Grasp: Projectile velocity increased by 50%

Dagger 2 skill aka Life siphon: Base healing increased by 25% and scaling increased by 75%

These are some good changes, Staff sorely needed this change and dagger 2 will be a much better sustain weapon now. The base healing of the dagger will now be 250 a pulse which totals at 2250 for the whole skill with no healing power.

Can’t be mad with changes like this!
Looks like Anet listens to the forums… Well, somewhat =P

o.0

outstanding!

My Unholy Zealot build is very happy. Life Siphon’s healing going up to 297.5+7% healing power per pulse is very, very nice. Total of 63% healing power scaling from the full channel on a 12 second cooldown.

More buffs to my pvp build. Sounds good to me, now casting staff 1 actually can be meaningful, and more health from dagger 2 won’t hurt, either.

Both changes are very welcome and actually do something. Good job, unexpected.

I’m a little bit upset about another condi buff to Mesmer and Thief, but hey…

Small changes, but great ones. My cleric MM will be happy.

I’m very happy with these changes.

Oh excellent news!

Finally. Staff will gain life force faster, thank god and ppl won’t be able to just casually walk away from my auto attacks.

I think this is the best change they could have done for staff. The aa projectile speed was always the only thing i hated about that weapon.

The buff to dagger 2 is also nice.

Why so optimistic people? We haven’t seen the unmentioned nerfs yet and the postpatch nerfs that negate the buffs we got.

Tim.6450:

Why so optimistic people? We haven’t seen the unmentioned nerfs yet and the postpatch nerfs that negate the buffs we got.

Tse tse. You seem to not understand a necromancers mind…

zapv.8051:

In the ready up today, 10/17/2014, the devs went over a few balance changes that will occur in the next patch. They mention 2 changes:

Staff auto attack aka Necrotic Grasp: Projectile velocity increased by 50%

Dagger 2 skill aka Life siphon: Base healing increased by 25% and scaling increased by 75%

These are some good changes, Staff sorely needed this change and dagger 2 will be a much better sustain weapon now. The base healing of the dagger will now be 250 a pulse which totals at 2250 for the whole skill with no healing power.

You’re still a Piñata Necro. But if someone lets you get a full channel off, you deserve to kill them.

Muchacho.2390:

Tim.6450:

Why so optimistic people? We haven’t seen the unmentioned nerfs yet and the postpatch nerfs that negate the buffs we got.

Tse tse. You seem to not understand a necromancers mind…

like what? ‘Weaker is better’? I would say only woks when aplied to the enemy. That or we can hope to find a mechanism that allows us to transfer nerfs to others.

Tim.6450:

Muchacho.2390:

Tim.6450:

Why so optimistic people? We haven’t seen the unmentioned nerfs yet and the postpatch nerfs that negate the buffs we got.

Tse tse. You seem to not understand a necromancers mind…

like what? ‘Weaker is better’? I would say only woks when aplied to the enemy. That or we can hope we find a mechanism that allows us to transfer nerfs to others.

No, i dont mean it that way…

Though i have to say a ability to transfer nerfs to other professions would be rather nice…

Tim.6450:

Why so optimistic people? We haven’t seen the unmentioned nerfs yet and the postpatch nerfs that negate the buffs we got.

Maybe because they very rarely nerf Necromancer in a meaningful way anymore. The only real undeserved nerf we got recently was the WoB one.

Oh, so main hand dagger has 3 skills now. Good changes.

A faster channel time for dagger 2 would have been more useful, but a buff is a buff.

The changes where good. However its not enough to fix any of our problems. While theyre making adjustments here and there they also do this for other classes, the problem here is other classes weaponsets are much more reasonable, defined and more impactful.

Take hambow as a example, or s/d thief, these weaponsets are in a strong spots. They are reasonable, remarkable, impactfull. While they dont buff these in general, they want to bring all profession weaponsets into that power range. Making them a option and potent. That is generally a good thing, but necromancers weaponsets are just not impactfull and rather scattered. Better scaling on dagger #2 helps in sustain, sure, but is dagger really a sustain weapon? Its one of the best AAs dps wise, it now also gets a decent healing over time with the buff, but the weapon itself has nothing impactful. A defensive oriented build may profit from the better healing, but yet cant provide much more then this, a dps focused build will ignore the healing part completly because it costs dps, the tradeoff for more sustain is not worth it, as a single cc can stop it, costing you the initial cast time, further crippling your dps, and in a dps build time is a much bigger factor then for bunker / sustain builds. It basicly has 3 random skills with almost no interaction or synergy. You could swap dagger #3 and axe #3 and it would still feel random. While people can think oh crap, that warrior has a hammer, or that guardian has a GS, or that thief uses s/d, or that elementalist uses a staff or that Ranger uses a longbow – all these weaponsets have a rather impactfull effect, a clear line of thread and danger that inheritly comes from the weaponskills. Well, did you ever hear anybody say oh crap, that necromancer has a axe/focus? Or crap that necromancer has a scepter/dagger? The most remarkable and dangerous weapon a necromancer currently has is dagger – but only because of its potent AA, and this is rather sad.

Im not saying the buffs are underwhelming or unreasonable, in fact i like the direction – sustain and reliability are key points of atrittion – but number changes are no real solution until the profession mechanic gets synergy with the traits, the traits get a reasonable redesign / reorder, and the weapon sets get a clearer design.

It feels much like wasted resources at this point, as the big balance problem arent the numbers its the spells, the synergy the profession mechanic – at least imho.

Any idea when the changes mentioned tonight are happening?

manveruppd.7601:

Any idea when the changes mentioned tonight are happening?

November.

nothing to counter pewpew so changes are lost to me iow couldnt care less when some things are too broken without counter pewpew

I wouldve been fine with the slow projectile, if it wouldve tracked like hell and got fire power that matches the slowness.
But 50% speed increase is fine too, of course

Now they just need to give Putrid mark some AoE cleansing back and staff would be fine.

RashanDale.3609:

I wouldve been fine with the slow projectile, if it wouldve tracked like hell and got fire power that matches the slowness.
But 50% speed increase is fine too, of course

Now they just need to give Putrid mark some AoE cleansing back and staff would be fine.

Actually i think the speed increase is alot better then damage, since it makes the LF generation and the damage more reliable. In pvp it is currently rather easy to avoid the auto without even using a dodge.

And the damage was always fine for a 1200 range weapon in my opinion.

Still no offensive group-support. The changes are nice, but not solve any of the necromancers Problems like Brujeria said before.
What we really need are usefull weapon-mechanics and group-support, a way to stack might for group or share the own might-stacks maybe, something like that. This is the job A-Net should do in my optinion :/

War Mourner.5168:

A faster channel time for dagger 2 would have been more useful, but a buff is a buff.

My thoughts exactly, it gets dodged way too easily

Good grief, the optimism outweighs the scepticism here :O

Alright, let me fix that:

Pessimism, pessimism, blood magic scepticism, group support pessimism, mobility pessimism…

There we go all done

Jelzouki.4128:

War Mourner.5168:

A faster channel time for dagger 2 would have been more useful, but a buff is a buff.

My thoughts exactly, it gets dodged way too easily

how does a fast channel time improve it against dodging? that only means that you can avoid a bigger part of the skill with a single dodge.

windup time needs a decrease tho, i agree. takes way too long for my necro to lazily raise his arms and finally start leeching.

Although I won’t play with it for x amount of months (or years), I liked hearing about these necro changes. Not only did they address it moderately they showed what people have asked for in other forms of sustain and explained why this was a step in the right direction.

Good things do come in small packages (every once in awhile)

The year I’ve been playing Necromancer I only ever used staff for zerging in WvW, which I don’t do much of as I prefer to roam. The rest of the time I’m using scepter/focus and scepter/dagger because I hate staff thanks to how slow the AA is. Now that it’s getting it’s velocity increased, I may start using it outside of ZvZ. That AA was so slow you could literally side step it from point blank range… It really needed this change.

GoogleBrandon.5073:

Good grief, the optimism outweighs the scepticism here :O

Alright, let me fix that:

Pessimism, pessimism, blood magic scepticism, group support pessimism, mobility pessimism…

There we go all done

Feels like the necro forums already!

I really hope they add a few more changes with this patch. Putrid mark aoe cleanse maybe? Please??? I want it back

There’s no reason to expect more changes, we got no less changes than anyone else.

a useless life siphon that can get shut down from dagger that is only for power / healing necros , and a staff 1 attack that is 50 % faster , big whooop

It is a big whoop. First of all, healing of any kind is never useless for necros. Secondly, faster Grasps is incredibly good. Both buffs are a really nice sustain increase.

I think it’s funny how they emphasized that those changes are not “feature patch” big, but it’s pretty much on the same level if you think about what we got last month. The only really significant buff was DS interaction.

flow.6043:

It is a big whoop. First of all, healing of any kind is never useless for necros. Secondly, faster Grasps is incredibly good. Both buffs are a really nice sustain increase.

I think it’s funny how they emphasized that those changes are not “feature patch” big, but it’s pretty much on the same level if you think about what we got last month. The only really significant buff was DS interaction.

Actually, I think we’re getting a bigger sustain buff this patch than in the feature pack. Go figure.

A starving man will love you forever if you trow him your table scraps in his hour of need.

I discussed this with Bhawb yesterday, but with this change, Life Siphon is on-par HP/second with Consume Conditions (0 conditions eaten). Having effectively another heal skill on a weapon is a pretty decent boost to sustain.

I like the QoL changes, too.

Happy with the change to staff and dagger, least it’s something, now if they’d just buff Dark Path….

Looking at their track record with necro since the September patch though, i’m afraid what they’ll consider over performing after this.

TheLastNobody.8319:

Happy with the change to staff and dagger, least it’s something, now if they’d just buff Dark Path….

Looking at their track record with necro since the September patch though, i’m afraid what they’ll consider over performing after this.

a buff to dark path imo which would be good is a speed increase by 25 % nothing to drastic and maybe increase the range on it to 1200 . yeah that would be nice

More bug fixes please

Dark path velocity changes would be sweet. Maybe over the top with range increase too but idc. Also main thing I request is easier access to life force especially at the start of matches. Shouldn’t always have to pre summon swap at the start of a match. I mean I don’t mind it but it would be nice. Oh and cast times on focus should be a bit lower as well as flesh wurm.
Oh what I would give for some better more necro-ish animations on weapons and some skills.

RashanDale.3609:

Jelzouki.4128:

War Mourner.5168:

A faster channel time for dagger 2 would have been more useful, but a buff is a buff.

My thoughts exactly, it gets dodged way too easily

how does a fast channel time improve it against dodging? that only means that you can avoid a bigger part of the skill with a single dodge.

windup time needs a decrease tho, i agree. takes way too long for my necro to lazily raise his arms and finally start leeching.

If it had a faster channel time it would be easier to get the whole heal off.

didnt they say this was comming in the Halloween Patch ? or did I miss somthing, cause i know they said its NOT a balance patch or feature patch just some minor balance changes to the classes.

so when is this actually comming ?

Ravezaar.4951:

didnt they say this was comming in the Halloween Patch ? or did I miss somthing, cause i know they said its NOT a balance patch or feature patch just some minor balance changes to the classes.

so when is this actually comming ?

November 4th, it hasn’t changed.

In my opinion, from a pvp perspective these changes are irrelevent.

The game is designed around mobility and evasion. The more power creeped everything is the more mobility and evasion are buffed (dodging or porting to avoid 10k damage is now even better than previously when you had to avoid 8k damage).

The biggest culprit for this is sigils.

As such, necro will never be even semi viable in PvP (it hasn’t been meta except for about 1 month in 24 months). It either needs warrior-like massive sustain (when warrior was OP) or thief/mesmer like evasion/mobility/damage.

As it has niether it has no place in PvP.

And this will never ever change. If anyone wants to PvP I suggest you reroll. There is 100% no point in pvping on a necro unless you want to be involved in a permanent uphill battle. A team cannot work with a necro unless the opposition is poor/has a bunker comp.

These changes are utterly insignificant. Pretty sure auto attacking with staff will still be bad as it does no conditions. And the cast time is still too high. It will still be best to cast your marks and then move into scepter. As for the dagger buff. I doubt this matters as necro isn’t viable in melee range and never will be.

That is the cold hard truth. Well it is my opinion of the truth.

Henry! One month afk and you come back in full emo-mode? What happened? :o

flow.6043:

Henry! One month afk and you come back in full emo-mode? What happened? :o

Oi oi oi, why do you think people stick to Necromancer anyway – it is to have a legit reason to go emo in game and on forums :P

Though I am inclined to agree – the gamemode and the way Necromancer gets balanced everytime does not help that much… I know, I am far from the best Necromancer, but I feel as if the class’ design clashes too much with the way the Devs are interpretting and balancing it…

Best thing we can hope for is a new gamemode and see

@Henry, I think we are actually viable now. The celestial sustain meta means a lot of teams are running full burst to counter it, and those burst builds usually have terrible condition cleanses. That brought necro back into the meta, at least for now. I do agree with you that we need more mobility options though, and it doesn’t seem like they want to give them to us.

Also DS is a balancing nightmare and they need to finally bite the bullet and change it.