Guild Wars 2

transtemporal.2158:

Necros are impossible to kill? That’s interesting. You really must tell me how you survive 3v1 sometime.

Sorry, I thought you were being serious. Buffing DS by 1000% would make us virtually unkillable.

How to survive a 3v1? Tainted Shackles and run the heck away, dropping Spectral Wall after the immobilize wears off. That’s about it. If that doesn’t work, well, sucks to be you.

Or run to water. A necro can handle a 3v1 in the water pretty well.

Bhawb.7408:

It’ll be nice in WvW’s larger gameplay, and it’ll be nice for general PvE stuff. My problem with it is it’ll still be useless in PvP, and it’ll still be mostly useless in any small-scale fighting (WvW and PvE boss fights without adds).

Can’t have it all. Can’t get too up in arms over a 5 pt minor trait.

I mostly WvW so, I think this will get some better mileage. Good change, can use some more tweaking. But it’s a start at least (Anet has mentioned many times that they don’t like to make too may changes too fast).

The one thing I’m upset about is the proposed nerf to Weakening Shroud. 25 seconds is too long. I’d rather they keep the cool down ( even lower it to 12-13 seconds) and strip some of the bleeds off of it if the original goal was to decrease the amount of bleeds going out. I use it mostly for the weakness. Personally, not changing it would be prefered.

These nerfs are stupid, and the buffs are just lame, “We want u to sustain using Death Shroud” so now they are forcing Vital Persistence on us in an attempt to do so?

Wat even is this patch

It’s like ANet telling us: “For god’s sake just reroll a guard or warrior already”.

i would not be so fast to jump on the warrior band wagon if youve read whats in store for them if i were you. What anets really saying is its time to dust off your ele’s and engie’s and i hate to admit it but guards are looking nicer than ever as well. Back on topic, warriors….lets just say Mama says you can only have one piece of pie now son.

Axe #1 when???

Ascii.9726:

Necromancer:
For the necromancer, we felt that a few traits and skills were too powerful, while others were lacking in efficacy. We brought down some of the raw DPS conditions that necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements. The necromancer’s mobility will remain where it is currently, as we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud, siphoning health, and slowing down their opponent’s ability to act.

• Mark of Blood. Removed 1 bleed in PvP only.
• Signet of Spite: Removed one bleed.
• Spite 15 – Death into Life. Increased conversion from 5% to 7%
• Spite X – Chill of Death. Increased trigger threshold from 25% to 50%.
• Curses IV – Weakening Shroud. Increase recharge from 15 to 25.
• Curses VIII – Banshee’s Wail. Increase cooldown reduction from 15% to 20%.
• Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.
• Death VIII – Reaper’s Protection. Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.
• Death 25 – Deadly Strength. Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.
• Blood Magic 25 – Blood to Power. Decreased health threshold from 90% to 75%. Increase Power from 90 to 120.
• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview/first#post3133116

I can’t express enough my disapointment. While I think weaking shround needed to be nerfed, MOB didn’t need to be hit.

Death magic is still not for me because I don’t want to play an MM necro. I like reapers protection changes, but over greater marks? Why not MOVE the minion forced minors so the rest of us can enjoy that tree.

I read the blurb about what they want to do and scratched my head. You want to increase sustain and our staying power but ignored Blood magic? Oh thats right, last balance patch was JOB WELL DONE on blood magic right?

The only interesting change listed was the 50% reduction on decay. That will likely be the only part that might encourage build shift. The changes to stat increases are not a big deal. They are certainly not build defining traits and will do nothing to change the current state of things.

I wonder as many others do what the class would look like if the genious that thought up burning for necros had forgot to go into work that day. Watching condition builds get pulled apart piece by piece because of 30/20/0/0/20 is like watching a slow motion car accident.

Please…. Please decide to let cooler heads prevail, and accompany condition nerfs with real sustain gains.

Allow a small percentage of healing to work in DS, allow siphon skills to scale worthwhile, change death magic to be about boons and toughness, and not about minions (the minors part). For all that is decent, give us GOOD traits at the end of blood and death in the major slot (again for everyone other than minonmancers).

This is so simple to understand…. I can’t figure out why I continue to read these notes and think I am going to see something different…. but I am continually disappointed. And now I get to wait a month before a condi nerf that brings little to no new build or life into the class…. nice.

Ascii.9726:

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

This has made me rejoice …

kitten , I don’t know why are you people whining about
There are barely any nerfs [1 less Bleed stack, oh lord!] and it’s mostly buffs
This is really good for us.
Yes, it’s dumb that they want us to use health siphoning while it’s completely useless right now and I’d really like to see a real buff [not the last “buff” …] But kitten , these are pretty nice buffs

I really don’t get these negative responses

Well my builds been butchered simply from the weakening shroud nerf. Which I can understand for pvp. But again pve gets the short end of the stick.

SrebX.6498:

I really don’t get these negative responses

Vital is still gonna be kitten since it doesnt solve the life force generation imbalance, our core functions and stuff we like is getting nerfed for something a-net decided to add for kitten and giggles. OFC everyone is gonna continue with negative responses if their “buffs” are changing value x(which was a+b) to still be x=a+b, but change the numbers of a and b for no reason but change.

The weird thing is; 30/20///20 is the main (only?) problem. And every single change they make to bleeding stacks further reinforces it as THE viable build by cutting away damage left and right until dhuumfire is necessary to keep a viable amount of damage. The build that is the most problematic is the one getting hit the least (by comparison).

Ascii.9726:

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

Let’s talk about this part. The one aspect getting buffed is DS uptime in DS zerker builds, right? As far as I can tell this doesn’t change the damage soaking ability of DS much.

Bawi.9541:

Ascii.9726:

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

Let’s talk about this part. The one aspect getting buffed is DS uptime in DS zerker builds, right? As far as I can tell this doesn’t change the damage soaking ability of DS much.

Think it’s only better in long boss fight for longer DS uptime. And being hit still deduct LF just as fast.

I wonder if it would break us for Vital Persistence to simply negate natural life force degen? Damage taken, of course, would still drain it.

Yeah, that’s what I thought. As soon as you start getting hit the change is pretty much non-existant.
I kinda like that, I find 30/10///30 more enjoyable than 30/25///15 anyway

It used to be that on patch day we get given something with one hand and then slapped across the face with the other hand. Now they aren’t even hiding the fact that they are slapping us across the face and this time the other hand is sticking 2 fingers up to us.

I think its pretty evident by each patch that the miracle patch we hoped for is never ever going to arrive. If the people who created and designed the class doesn’t know what to do with it then what hope do we have? Its a sorry day when the best they can come up with for Necro in the first two changes is to remove a bleed. It feels like someone is trying to just fill the patch with anything for Necro and it doesn’t matter what.

Are we really that overpowered especially with staff that 1 bleed is pushing us over the edge from other classes? I never realised how overpowered 1 bleed actually made us, I was thinking that maybe with all the cleanses that the bleed didnt last its full duration to matter.

Reanimator which has been a debate amongst the Necro community for a while mostly stating that its not really good. So how is it improved…lets reduce the cooldown so its still useless but we might get more of the useless critters out instead now.

Vital persistence change doesn’t matter all that much when more times than not its the damage that knocks you out of DS rather than it ticking down. So this change is more than likely not going to be noticeable in a PVP environment.

Of course we will likely get the usual response of “wait and see to test it out how good it is” or “remember this is only snippet and there is a whole lot more in the patch”. Both responses have been stated numerous times and in every occassion we know the outcome and it wasn’t a good one.

And yes I am peeved and its more so because I enjoy my Necro, its a class ive played since beta to launch and beyond. Its a class that I know is misunderstood and altho it isn’t as awful as some make it out, there is glaring issue’s that patch after patch fails to address. But of course no amount of advice or recommendations or suggestions is going to matter when those are falling on deaf ears. Posts about we read everything you say is all well and good but someone needs a new pair of reading glasses. As I really don’t remember any recommendations of what the “community” said being included in any of the recent patches.

SrebX.6498:

Ascii.9726:

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

This has made me rejoice …

kitten , I don’t know why are you people whining about
There are barely any nerfs [1 less Bleed stack, oh lord!] and it’s mostly buffs
This is really good for us.
Yes, it’s dumb that they want us to use health siphoning while it’s completely useless right now and I’d really like to see a real buff [not the last “buff” …] But kitten , these are pretty nice buffs

I really don’t get these negative responses

It is actually very simple.

The reason you see so many negative responses is that we all know this is all we are going to get balance wise until somewhere in the middle of Q1 next year. Keep in mind this pach is over a month out, and there is no sign they have even thought about addressing the most irritating of problems that so many of us have been talking about for so many months.

Or just read my last post. It was pretty clear there. I want the trees to be balanced…. I want 30 points in blood to be as good as 30 points in SR and Curses and Spite. If that means things get nerfed so be it, but by adjustment of unpopular stat boosts? Okay…. that is nice…. but changes nothing about why no one wants 25 points in Death or 25 points in blood.

Do we really want them to buff up those stat boost to the point where we accept awful minors just for free stats? Is that how we want to pick traits? Completely boring and uninspired stat boosts.

Come on guys, at least they have n’t nerfed Siphoned Power.

Stx.4857:

STILL no buff to life siphoning.

Vital persistence buff is the only one that even caught my eye. But even with that, what trait would we give up to get it..?

So basically Necro’s are getting nerfs with nothing done to address how useless they are in PvE or how bad some of their traits are.

GREAT ANET GUD JOB.

Were you expecting any different?

Once ANet gave us dumbfire, they made us into the condi class, and threw our attrition out the window. If they removed dumbfire, or better yet replaced it with a torment ability, whilst upping our leeching (beyond laughable levels) then we would be getting somewhere. So long as they stick to their guns on dumbfire, we will never become more than a condi dispenser.

“•Curses VIII – Banshee’s Wail. Increase cooldown reduction from 15% to 20%.”

Can someone correct me on this. Didn’t Banshee’s Wail just change recently?

Ascii.9726:

Necromancer:
For the necromancer, we felt that a few traits and skills were too powerful, while others were lacking in efficacy. We brought down some of the raw DPS conditions that necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements. The necromancer’s mobility will remain where it is currently, as we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud, siphoning health, and slowing down their opponent’s ability to act.

Hmmm…

They want us to sustain ourselves through Death Shroud and siphoning health? Really?

Who could forget this zinger from the July 23rd, 2013 patch:

• Damage taken while in death shroud will now overflow to the necromancer’s health pool if the damage taken is greater than the remaining life force. (nope, haven’t forgotten; nope, not gonna let it go)

Or these gems from the October 15th, 2013 patch

• Bloodthirst: This trait now grants 20% bonus siphoning, down from 50% more effectiveness (which results in no change when combined with the change to other siphoning traits). <== Their words, not mine.

• Vampiric, Vampiric Precision, Vampiric Rituals, and other life siphon skills: Increased the base siphoning by 20%. (which resulted in a net increase of a whopping two – yes, you read that right – two additional points of life siphoning when combined with the nerfed Bloodthirst)

And now – just for kittens and giggles – the upcoming December 10th patch:

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence: Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%. (A little tip: our sustain issues have nothing to do with how fast or how slow Life Force degens while in Death Shroud; nada, zero, zilch, zip.)

But to be fair, they didn’t say, “…we want the Necromancers to sustain themselves through death shroud, siphoning health…”.

What they actually said was, “…we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud, siphoning health…”

Ok, fair enough. I’m focusing. I’m focusing real, reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal hard.

Hmmm…

My sustain doesn’t seem to be any better than what it was before.

Here’s a crazy idea:

Maybe it’s not the necro community that needs to do the focusing. Perhaps the focus needs to come from somebody else and directed at listening to what the community is telling you, rather than balancing off of a database of metrics or around the least played game mode (sPvP/tPvP).

And for the love of Grenth, could we PLEAAAAAAAAAAASE get someone on the balance team who actually plays necro as a main and knows the class.

Abramelin.7356:

Come on guys, at least they have n’t nerfed Siphoned Power.

This just in, we will be reverting the recent changes on bloodthirst!
Big changes, everyone!

Bawi.9541:

Abramelin.7356:

Come on guys, at least they have n’t nerfed Siphoned Power.

This just in, we will be reverting the recent changes on bloodthirst!
Big changes, everyone!

Now you’re just being cruel :P

Everyone have been crying for an increase in the breed cap from 25 to 50 or more.

And then Anet nerfed Mark of Blood by decreasing its bleed stack from 3 to 2. This is a 33% damage nerf.

Sense, this makes none.

The dumbfire argument is invalid because this is assuming EVERY SINGLE necromancer uses dumbfire. This is obviously far from the case.

On the other hand, I can almost guarantee that every single necromancer in WvW uses staff.

Well build gets slightly better with these changes except with staff and the nerf to #2

SrebX.6498:

I really don’t get these negative responses

Speaking for myself, the reasons for these adjustments and the end result of them are contradictory.

@Kraag, you forgot the one that was a sledge hammer to the necro-marbles; “oh hey guys, Putrid Mark wasn’t bugged, we actually just nerfed it without ever telling you, lol, xD we will fix the tooltip to make it better ::kisseyface::”

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

On the Reanimator change, I think you might change your mind about it being so bad when you can get a small horde from just that trait. I can already get three up at a time often in PvE after the health buff and I am really noticing a difference in effectiveness (because I actually pay attention to it instead of whine). Getting six of the buggers up without healing them or using a skill slot is actually a pretty big deal, since that’s as many minions as you can get from filling your bar with minion skills.

The more of those useless minions you spawn, the more free rally for the enemies in a zerg fight in WvW.

5 useless minions=5 free rally for the enemies.

This is actually a nerf to Reanimator, if that make any sense.

SrebX.6498:

Ascii.9726:

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence. Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

This has made me rejoice …

kitten , I don’t know why are you people whining about
There are barely any nerfs [1 less Bleed stack, oh lord!] and it’s mostly buffs
This is really good for us.
Yes, it’s dumb that they want us to use health siphoning while it’s completely useless right now and I’d really like to see a real buff [not the last “buff” …] But kitten , these are pretty nice buffs

I really don’t get these negative responses

Not sure if serious.

Mark of Blood just got a 33% damage nerf.

If you were serious, let me know so I can yell at you.

CHIPS.6018:

The more of those useless minions you spawn, the more free rally for the enemies in a zerg fight in WvW.

5 useless minions=5 free rally for the enemies.

This is actually a nerf to Reanimator, if that make any sense.

Except they cant be used as rallybots. Was changed a long time ago.

Hilariously inept balancing.

Another 2% power converted to healing? Most amusing.

Here’s a list of what would’ve made me care:

25 pt Spite trait set to 50%
Siphons changed to ~200hp heal, max 1 tick per second
Reanimator moved to a selectable trait replaced with anything at all
Protection of the Horde moved to a selectable trait, replaced with anything at all
25pt Curses trait changed to 10 cond damage per stack of bleed on target

etc.

As it is, our tree is a royal mess.

I mean, are they even aware of how bad the last blood magic changes were?

Still haven’t heard boo from A-net about that patch…. it was hyped up and i had high expectations. It sank like a hot steaming kitten .

I came here to vent my frustration, but you guys said it all. Thanks. God, I hate dumbfire so much…

Ascii.9726:

Necromancer:
_For the necromancer, we felt that a few traits and skills were too powerful,

That one made me laugh.
Well, I must have missed update when we got something OP. Dhumfire is powerful but is it so over the top? I don’t play much, but that was first changed trait I was 100% content about. Did that one thing made us so impossible for other classes to handle?

I feel they are leveling the playing field with this patch. Sure, I hoped for more specifically for necromancers, but I can understand if they don’t want major changes to one profession when they are trying to level the others.

On the other hand.. I’m running an aggressive wvw build for solo/small party roaming, and I can see this patch hitting other necromancer harder than me.

Heres what i posted on the official thread about the proposed changed and them still wanting to nurf Dhuumfire at the same time.

Ascii.9726:

JonathanSharp.7094:

For Dhumfire and Terror: we have plans on reworks for those down the road, but they won’t make it in for this patch. We have plans for those, but they’re a little further down the “balance” road.

Whoa wait… so let me get this straight, Necromancers were a borderline joke class until the Dhuumfire patch.

Ever since then most of the other condition related skills and traits have been nurfed because of the damage and pressure increase these skills added to the class, and these were pretty big nurfs too (fear damage, scepter 2, corrupt boon, greater marks, weakening shroud, mark of blood, spite sigil, numerous traits are the ones i can remember) and you still plan on nurfing (“reworking”) Dhuumfire and Terror?

Will you be reverting all the changes you’ve made to all the skills to ‘tone down’ or offset the damage Dhuumfire and Terror added?

Funny thing is they have not only left all the “counter builds” to conditions untouched (-65%/ -98% condition builds, berserker stance, mass regens, automatic response etc) but they also decide to add in another full immunity to condition trait and continue to nurf Necromancers condition skills because they have no clue what there doing and can’t balance/ remove Dhuumfire.

Post 10th all condition Necromancers will pretty much be forced to go for Dhuumfire or risk losing a lot of damage, and even then there’s no telling how long it will last before it and Terror are hit.

jpersson.7368:

I feel they are leveling the playing field with this patch. Sure, I hoped for more specifically for necromancers, but I can understand if they don’t want major changes to one profession when they are trying to level the others.

On the other hand.. I’m running an aggressive wvw build for solo/small party roaming, and I can see this patch hitting other necromancer harder than me.

1 bleed off one skill on the most condition spam class in the game next to engineers is your version of ‘leveling the playing field’? Oh geez…

Ryan.8367:

1 bleed off one skill on the most condition spam class in the game next to engineers is your version of ‘leveling the playing field’? Oh geez…

I’ve never been much for details, but yeah, in overall I feel they are leveling the playing field with this patch. Toning down warriors a bit, and polishing some other classes.

I understand if others view this patch differently, and I think that’s a good thing.

jpersson.7368:

Ryan.8367:

1 bleed off one skill on the most condition spam class in the game next to engineers is your version of ‘leveling the playing field’? Oh geez…

I’ve never been much for details, but yeah, in overall I feel they are leveling the playing field with this patch. Toning down warriors a bit, and polishing some other classes.

I understand if others view this patch differently, and I think that’s a good thing.

what other classes got polished besides mesmers who already didn’t need 1on1 build polishes in the first place? please explain

the necro class is so lucky that their op bullkitten got overshadowed by warrior’s op bullkitten or else you guys would have seen much more needed nerfs yet the condition spam is still encouraged obviously by anet ..i really cannot wait for this kittening burst condition/tank condition spam meta to be over with. it’s so kittening digusting.

Ryan.8367:

what other classes got polished besides mesmers who already didn’t need 1on1 build polishes in the first place? please explain

I told you I’m not much into details, but I for one am looking forward to the LB buff to rangers …but that’s beside my point. This is the necro forum, and my comment was related to what’s been written earlier in the thread.

It’s always easy to bash, especially when you take things out of context. That’s not something I’m interested in. Have a good day.

Ryan.8367:

the necro class is so lucky that their op bullkitten got overshadowed by warrior’s op bullkitten or else you guys would have seen much more needed nerfs yet the condition spam is still encouraged obviously by anet ..i really cannot wait for this kittening burst condition/tank condition spam meta to be over with. it’s so kittening digusting.

Or you just need to learn to play.

Andele.1306:

Ryan.8367:

the necro class is so lucky that their op bullkitten got overshadowed by warrior’s op bullkitten or else you guys would have seen much more needed nerfs yet the condition spam is still encouraged obviously by anet ..i really cannot wait for this kittening burst condition/tank condition spam meta to be over with. it’s so kittening digusting.

Or you just need to learn to play.

what does learning to play have to do with this game being plagued with condition spam?

i think you fail to realize im not JUST talking about necros here, it extends into engis / spirit rangers, necros and now bunker regen condi warriors as well. necromancers just have the most access to it. its a kittening stupid meta overall and promotes very low skill gameplay.

At this stage, I’m fairly certain I’m just going to ditch my Necro and level a Guard: Anet seem to be mortally afraid of buffing anything that doesn’t wear heavy armor.

Ryan.8367:

Andele.1306:

Ryan.8367:

the necro class is so lucky that their op bullkitten got overshadowed by warrior’s op bullkitten or else you guys would have seen much more needed nerfs yet the condition spam is still encouraged obviously by anet ..i really cannot wait for this kittening burst condition/tank condition spam meta to be over with. it’s so kittening digusting.

Or you just need to learn to play.

what does learning to play have to do with this game being plagued with condition spam?

i think you fail to realize im not JUST talking about necros here, it extends into engis / spirit rangers, necros and now bunker regen condi warriors as well. necromancers just have the most access to it. its a kittening stupid meta overall and promotes very low skill gameplay.

No, it just promotes Warrior play. The Condition-heavy meta means you can’t just go all-out burst anymore and expect to do well, you have to put in some defensive measures as well (namely cleanses) and be smart about when you use them.

Necros are quite spoiled on that front because of Consume Conditions and Plague Signet, both of which are total cleanses, so we don’t have to worry about how many different conditions are on us in the same way (we still need to keep track, just for different reasons).

I love when they say we should sustain with death shroud and siphoning. The two have zero synergy, if you sitting in death shroud for a good portion of the fight then all that siphoning is going completely to waste.

If we are suppose to take siphoning seriously, and our only defense is death shroud, the obvious answer seems to be – let us heal in death shroud.

As a PvE necro player (Because I’ve been a bit of a fan-boy since prophecies), you force us to go condition build just to keep up with the other classes in DPS, then nerf the blood tree while telling us it’s a buff (Sorry, but it pretty much was). Then, you nerf conditions builds.

Thanks Anet, thanks…
/vent (I’m in the process of levelling up my new guardian as we speak)

There wasn’t a single “nerf” to blood magic. The only nerfs resulted from incorrect scaling with the newly buffed siphons, otherwise everything was either unchanged or flat buffed.

shizo.5698:

CHIPS.6018:

The more of those useless minions you spawn, the more free rally for the enemies in a zerg fight in WvW.

5 useless minions=5 free rally for the enemies.

This is actually a nerf to Reanimator, if that make any sense.

Except they cant be used as rallybots. Was changed a long time ago.

Sorry didn’t know. Must have changed during my few month break away from the game.

Bhawb.7408:

There wasn’t a single “nerf” to blood magic. The only nerfs resulted from incorrect scaling with the newly buffed siphons, otherwise everything was either unchanged or flat buffed.

A flat buff? Care to share the numbers for that? Bloodthirst went from 50% to 20%.

My dagger #2 heals me a for a lot less than pre-patch, so I find it very hard to believe you.

Ascii.9726:

….and even then there’s no telling how long it will last before it and Terror are hit.

Remember Terror was already hit by, wat was it, 17% or something?

And guys remember when they said a 2 sec Dhuumfire was just a band-aid fix for PAX, and that they were gonna re-work it after the tourney, and now all they are doing is nerfing our base damage again.

First it’s Terror + Dhuumfire is OP so they nerf Terror
Then it’s Terror + Dhuumfire is still kinda OP so they nerf bleeds

Or i dunno, i dunno why they’re nerfing bleeds, i dunno what people think is OP atm, but imagine running a conditionmancer build in sPvP without terror and dhuumfire, i’m guessing the pressure would be pretty negligible. :|

Stx.4857:

My dagger #2 heals me a for a lot less than pre-patch, so I find it very hard to believe you.

Sorry, the one nerf was to non-traited siphons, which I forgot about, which did get indirectly nerfed from bloodthirst.

What they did was buffed all the bases of our vampiric skills gave them scaling, and then nerfed Bloodthirst. IIRC the design was that if you take bloodthirst, without scaling the siphons should be right where they were pre-patch (so 20% buffed siphons now == 50% buffed siphons before).

I believe there are some situations where this isn’t happening, I submitted it to the bug forums, and they did acknowledge it as a bug.