Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

That would actually work, it would stop it from being ridiculously powerful while still allowing people to condition-burst targets while chain-feared. Were you thinking of keeping it in the same line/tier at that duration and cd?

Thanks for the rethink with weakening shroud. This keeps it viable for pve and prevents it from being op.

I still think siphoned power needs to be scrapped and completely reworked. It just doesnt have a use and its not worthy of the tier. My suggestions would be to be either some 5-10% damage boost under a certain conditon, example; 10% damage when foe is weakened or necro is above 90% hp. Or to simply change it to might on crit or 66% chance for might on crit. Its not like it would be op considering how poor necro self buffing is at the moment, they could do with a good self buff trait which isnt dependant on DS.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

Jon, if I play sPvP I would be happy with this. Finally there will be a way for condimancers to apply their condition damage onto foes while in DS.

However I am a pure WvWer. And in WvW, AoE is all that matters. This proposal will only buff a Necro’s single target damage. All single target skills are, by definition, underpowered in WvW.

You see, it isn’t just about the numbers. In WvW, there are many other factors like network lag, graphic lag and skill lag that reduce the effectiveness of single target skills. It is nearly impossible to pick out a single target to spike in a zerg fight.

And worst of all, single target skills requires you to turn and face the enemy that you are attacking. That slows your movement down, meaning you will not be able to follow your commander. That’s a big no no in tier 1 WvW.

Most professional WvW guilds bans all single target skills (except for a few good ones) in zerg fights preciously because of the above reasons.

Now, I am not against this buff. But here is my conclusion:

Even with the new Dhuumfire, it does not justify the nerf to Mark of Blood by 33%.

Jon, please read my post on page 8 and give me your opinion. Thanks. ^^

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview-Necromancer/page/8

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

Not sure about this one. It would certainly be a nice trait, but I don’t know how useful it would be for condition builds. These builds usually can’t ramp up Life Force quick enough to use Death Shroud skills reliably, at least in PVP. A hybrid build might get decent use out of it, but pure condi-necros… If you change Dhuumfire like this, it would be nice if you also moved it to the Master tier so that it may not be completely lost for condi builds. It would also be nice if you could add some more Life Force generation to the typical condi-weapons (meaning scepter/off-hand dagger/staff). Right now, we only have Feast of Corruption, staff auto-attack and Soul Marks when traited, which simply isn’t enough for a trait like this to really matter.

As for the other changes, the smaller version of Weakening Shroud looks quite nice. It’s a good way to tone the skill down without greatly reducing its usefulness. I also like that Death Magic will see some change in the future. Just as a suggestion, Shrouded Removal would make a great replacement for Reanimator as an Adept minor trait. It seems way too weak for a major trait in its current form, but as a minor it would be fine. I would also like to see you move Necromantic Corruption to Master tier. It has such a low chance to trigger that it seems pretty much irrelevant, certainly not enough for a Grandmaster trait. It would also free up space for a new, non-minion related Grandmaster.

JonPeters.5630:

Rennoko.5731:

JonPeters.5630:

Rhyse.8179:

JonPeters.5630:

Great post, and yes we considered that, but its nice to get some good back and forth. The other drawback is that its PBAoE not ranged… Food for thought.

Wow that was fast. What timing. I’m impressed.

Since you’re here, I’ll leave a semi-relevant brain fart. Siphoning is lackluster and really hard to balance because of it’s simultaneous heal and damage. What about creating a Necro-unique condition that drains health into life force? It would fit into the sustain paradigm of the Blood tree, and create some DS/condition synergy as well. Obviously, not a suggestion for the coming patch, but it popped into my head about 3 minutes ago while reading the last couple pages of this thread and thought I’d throw it out and see if it catches.

We talked about a condition like that, but it blows out because we would want to balance it when you only had 1 target to apply it to, but if you epidemic it it now is hitting 6 targets and is wildly OP.

So just lock that skill out from working with epidemic? Like a stun or a daze.

How about 2 necros using this…

I will be honest with you, I had a great reply typed up and then I went to check and it turns out that TAINTED SHACKLES doesn’t work right at all with two necros, and that was going to be my example of a special non-transferable condition that multiple people could use at the same time.

As it turns out, if two necros tained shackles on the same target at the same time, you don’t get 6 torment, you get 4. And if you cast tainted shackles while it is already running on a target, it won’t refresh the duration on the “special” condition part, it just runs out and whoops no extra torment stacks.

So yes I see your point. There are no special conditions that would allow appropriate applications from multiple targets. Of course couldn’t you just duplicate the trainted shackles debuff for instance instead of having it ignore the second cast, and apply that same rule to a new condition as was mentioned?

It is a shame double tainted shackle is bugged… I had not noticed it didn’t work right.

EDIT: After further testing with like 8 necros, it DOES stack torment right, but the debuff does not refresh at all (the actual tainted shackles debuff). So if you had multiple people using it and it did refresh, not sure how you would manage… but I think it would be doable.

A new LF stealing condition made in the same mold as tainted shackles would be pretty nice. And immune to epidemic.

Bhawb.7408:

To people talking about DS use in condition builds:

You do realize that essentially every “meta” condition build right now finishes its burst with DS right? You do your bleeds on whatever weapon you’re on -> swap weapon (Geomancy Sigil) -> bleeds on that weapon -> DS (Weakening Shroud) -> DS 2/3

This is the current type of bleed rotation used, and it relies on DS for a pretty large amount of its damage, in fact DS is what gives it that little push over the top. It is reasonable to expect that condi Necros would have LF to do that more often. It also gives us more burning in situations where we can sit in DS, because this game isn’t only PvP.

Dhuumfire as it is now can be triggered by DS skills as well.
But yeah, a burning LB would actually make the condition burst a little bit slower and predictable because you’d have to wait for the 1sec channel.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

Chilling Thirst
You deal more and receive less damage from chilled enemies. Increases the duration of your chill effects by 20%.

Or some generic benefit for chilling/immobilizing/fearing an enemy. Quickness? There really is a niche to filled on the control side of things.

Jon only one thing , becouse atm u we are talking only about nerfing things ifc to balance necro and his dmg , but at the same time remeber that this dmg is the only thing that makes necro vaible and ita good class for competetice team , if we want to find some balance we need smt to defend ourself , we gonna nerf terror/burn/amount of bleeds/weekning shroud so it will be a LOT.

Although this topic it about the changes due on the 10th of December, I would like to propose an alternative to the blood magic line. I realize a total re-write of the line would require an insane amount of time/testing, but as I have never met a necro that is happy with any of the changes this line has received I believe it would be worth it.

My proposal is that we as necros emanate an aura (5 target max) of cold/leeching, the severity/distance fully dependent upon the points you place into the blood line. The numbers could be tweaked in testing, but to me this would make the necro more of a force to not get near and instead making your enemies have to think of the best way to approach killing you. Although this may sound OP you could have it start as a relatively minor effect to appease those that want to have condi/power and as you put points into the line make it be a real threat as a true attrition class should be.

edit: clarity and spelling

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

That would mean that Life blast will never get its cast time cut/will be able to use the underwater version on land (which kinda hinders it being the main power attack option). Another option would be Dark Path burns for 5 seconds instead of chilling? Risk Reward is there, it weakens the pure condi setups kite power while giving burst/more condi power. Also the enemy can dodge it.

On topic of Spite Siphoned Power is still bad since it encourages entering DS at low hp (aka the stupidest thing you could do with it not getting fixed to instantly unlock your heal skill and even if you could still a very stupid thing to do).

Edit: mixed up curses and spite.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Some great ideas in here. We’ve talked about moving Dhuumfire up to Grandmaster in the Curses line, and moving Terror as well.

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

This would be amazing

Btw thanks for all the red posts today!

JonathanSharp.7094:

Some great ideas in here. We’ve talked about moving Dhuumfire up to Grandmaster in the Curses line, and moving Terror as well.

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

Just let me put this thought in your head:

Fragility from GW1 would be a great trait if it did low damage, scaled slowly with power, and only did the damage while applying a condition (not on removal). This would allow for hybrid builds where the weapon applied conditions along with dealing damage. The numbers would have to be a bit low otherwise you’d risk Axe auto attack builds, but I think it has really good synergy with withering precision (assuming no rework), bleed on crit, the vulnerability on life blast, etc. Throwing random numbers against the wall, I’m thinking scaling from 150 damage per condition at low power to 300 damage per condition at really high power.

Edit: I just realized fragility is AoE in GW1 now. To clarify, this damage would be single target. Since you can apply conditions in AoE (either on crit, with tainted, or with staff), you would absolutely not want an AoE component no matter how small.

JonPeters.5630:

jsduke.6537:

JonPeters.5630:

The point is this thing is unbounded. You can be hit a bunch of times and it keeps stacking up the might. Maybe the duration is a bit low, but with no cooldown this is a good interesting trait.

You can be hit a bunch of times… while <25% HP.

I can’t speak for other Necros, but if I get hit “a bunch of times” while <25%, it doesn’t matter how many stacks of Might I get because I just died.

Like I said, it works while in DS.

This is still fundamentally broke. Why? ‘Cause DS damage spills over into your HP pool now. So if I’m sitting at 25% health and dropping into DS to take hits and stack might, it’s a lose-lose situation. If I take enough hits to stack a reasonable amount of might (more than 10 stacks), I’ll get forced out of DS, and very likely get downed because I’m sitting at low HP to begin with. If I’m being smart about not dying, I’m not going to stack all that much might.

If this was re-worked into a simple “do __ % more damage when under 25% health,” it’d make a lot more sense. And I’d be very pleased.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

I like this. A lot. Still not sure it belongs in the Spite tree…but eh.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Withering Precision: Deal 15% more damage to foes suffering from Weakness.
Siphoned Power: Deal 10% more damage when you have over 90% HP or 90% Death Shroud.

This does the following things:

• Conditionmancers are forced to take either Terror or Dhuumfire, but they can’t have both
• Dhuumfire is a cover condition for other conditions and can have longer durations depending on condition duration investment, but fear doing damage is also very powerful. From this position, you could possibly even buff Dhuumfire to bring it into line with Terror since they occupy the same trait spot on a bar.
• Weakening Shroud is kept valuable with its new synergy with the new Withering Precision, which is now in the Power line
• Withering Precision goes to the Spite line and actually provides a dps boost comparable to Close to Death with different conditions, which actually helps PvE necros too
• New Siphoned Power has synergy with Death Shroud because you can activate it when health is over 90% and keep it there safely, and this trait significantly helps power Necros in both PvP and PvE to actually be worth packing over condition variants

This this this this this this this.

If the above changes were the only things ever done to the Necro again, I’d be a very happy camper.

Jon, other than game balance, I want to ask a conceptual question. What are those spirit hands in this image, around the necromancer?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Necromancer_05_concept_art.png

I understand that this is a conceptual image. But what was the original vision of the necromancer’s death shroud? I had been very curious about this since I saw this image.

Before GW2 was released, upon seeing that image, I always thought that Death Shroud would act as a Binding Ritual (from ritualists) that’s casted directly on the necromancer himself. The necromancer would fight together with that spirit, 2 persons in one body. The necromancer can summon different types of spirits onto himself as the need arises.

Examples:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Some great ideas in here. We’ve talked about moving Dhuumfire up to Grandmaster in the Curses line, and moving Terror as well.

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

I really like this idea and it feels alot better than changing Dhuumfire to DS life blast. Altho I do hate myself for saying it as it means Terror that I use in my build will move beyond my points reach but in the longer term I think its going to solve alot of problems that trying to balance Terror and Dhuumfire is going to create.

Very interesting discussion that I missed today. I like where a lot of this is headed.

If I may add one thing: please don’t hurt power specs to balance condi Necros. I feel power Necros are in a good place right now as being strong in niche situations and weak in others, the way I feel classes should be. Moving some key traits could end poorly for power Necros.

Anyway, I do like some of the changes mentioned here, especially for dhuumfire, and I like adding strategy to terror being discussed. No offense to Devs, but I loathe that my beloved necro was turned into a spammy buttonmash class. Before 6/25 it took knowledge and ability to play necro, and I liked it that way.

CHIPS.6018:

Jon, other than game balance, I want to ask a conceptual question. What are those spirit hands in this image, around the necromancer?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Necromancer_05_concept_art.png

I understand that this is a conceptual image. But what was the original vision of the necromancer’s death shroud? I had been very curious about this since I saw this image.

Before GW2 was released, upon seeing that image, I always thought that Death Shroud would act as a Binding Ritual (from ritualists) that’s casted directly on the necromancer himself. The necromancer would fight together with that spirit, 2 persons in one body. The necromancer can summon different types of spirits onto himself as the need arises.

Examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6WKYAZXlCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02H2B4OLn0Y#t=10m50s

That was scepter 2, it used to be cast in a line starting from a bit behind you, but was too messy to land, also originally DS was the only downed form, then it had in build spectral walk leaving your body behind then current setup of a transform.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

A couple variants to consider:

1) Life Blast has a X% chance to cause Chill on hit (X seconds long). X seconds ICD. (Leaning towards short duration with short cooldown; not spammable/permanent, per se, but nearly so after taking Near to Death and condi duration buffs into account.)

2) Life Blast has a X% chance to cause Burning on hit (1 second long) and Y% chance to cause Chill on hit (Y seconds long). Y seconds ICD.

Variant #2’s Chill duration would be less than variant #1’s Chill duration.

Change the name to Coldfire, Chilling Blast, Grenth’s Fire (everybody loves Grenth, while nearly everybody hates Dhuum by this point) or something along those lines. The “Dhuumfire” name has too many negative connotations associated with it after all the bad blood it’s generated. A complete rename would help to heal those wounds and have the hated title fade from memory over time. Plus, it would eliminate the all-too-easy tendency to refer to it as “Dumbfire”.

There’ve been some calls for more access to Chill and these suggested variants would be consistent with the move towards necro as the anti-mobility class.

I’ve also read a critique stating a condimancer isn’t likely to take this trait (assuming it remains in the Spite line), thus negating its value as a DoT if the Burning condition were to remain. The critique went on to state power necros won’t equip it, either, because there are better options in support of power over conditions.

The ability to Chill an opponent, on the other hand, has more universal utility to necros across the build spectrum and would help address our short-comings with regards to sticking to our opponents.

The other benefit is all the negative fall-out that has ensued from balancing around Dhuumfire could be repaired with the elimination (or at least severe curtailing) of Burning from the necro profession.

JonPeters.5630:

Bhawb.7408:

I feel like the weakness is just a little bit too small. I feel like 3s base would be perfect. In PvP overall condition duration sits at 50% at max for weakness, which would give it a 45% uptime, assuming you used it on CD. But more realistically, it’d be used less often as the normal bleed burst rotation.

Otherwise, I think its a decent option, my only fear is that, like other on-entry skills, it ends up too weak because it “can” be spammed every 7s in one build.

We are going back and forth between 2s and 3s of weakness. 3s with full condi duration and with Near to Death trait is almost 65% uptime, which sortof scared us on an adept trait that gives AoE weakness. 2s works out to 42% uptime when maxed out which felt a little better. Still open to discussion so thanks,

Jon

Consider uncoupling the trait from Enfeebling Blood entirely. It would now only cause Weakness. Base weakness would be 3s.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

everybody loves Grenth, while nearly everybody hates Dhuum by this point

Dont you dare talk bad about a awesome Discworld reference!

All life siphoning is really really bad… i reckon its worse than before the last patch given you now have to use healing power to get basically the same result.

Any plans to fix this or is this the only sustain we are allowed?

This just bothers me so much.

JonPeters.5630:

“Could you not combine Protection of the Horde with Flesh Of The Master?” -Scarran

We could but I think that would be a wildly OP Master trait…

Then how about combining it with Minion Mastery instead and bump it up to Master? Combine Reanimator with Flesh of the Master and have it spawn jagged minions off minion deaths instead of enemies.

ThanatosAngel.8024:

JonPeters.5630:

“Could you not combine Protection of the Horde with Flesh Of The Master?” -Scarran

We could but I think that would be a wildly OP Master trait…

Then how about combining it with Minion Mastery instead and bump it up to Master? Combine Reanimator with Flesh of the Master and have it spawn jagged minions off minion deaths instead of enemies.

1) Minion mastery becoming a master trait would be a massive nerf to minion builds.

2) Reanimator is going to be combined with Death Nova, two traits which have a lot of internal synergy.

JonPeters.5630:

jsduke.6537:

JonPeters.5630:

The point is this thing is unbounded. You can be hit a bunch of times and it keeps stacking up the might. Maybe the duration is a bit low, but with no cooldown this is a good interesting trait.

You can be hit a bunch of times… while <25% HP.

I can’t speak for other Necros, but if I get hit “a bunch of times” while <25%, it doesn’t matter how many stacks of Might I get because I just died.

Like I said, it works while in DS.

Hi Jon, thanks for taking the time to talk to us like this. It makes me feel optimistic about the future of the necromancer class and the game as a whole.

I want to explain why I think Siphoned Power is currently a bad trait and suggest a couple of ways to rework it.

The problem with Siphoned Power

The problem with Siphoned Power is that it only gives us offensive power in circumstances when we are unable to use it, generally speaking. If a necro is below 25% health, he is close to death. Further, it will be unusual for a necro to be damaged down to 25% precisely. Usually the necro will be damaged beyond this, down to 20%, 15% or even 10%. So I think it is important to note that the necro will usually have some amount less than 25% when the trait activitates.

You noted that the trait works when in deathshroud. It is certainly more useful because of deathshroud. However:

1. It first requires the necro to have a sufficiently high amount of lifeforce to soak up the might-generating hits; and

2. the necro cannot be healed in deathshroud. This means that as soon as he or she leaves deathshroud , he or she is likely to be killed by the other player (or before even if the damage spills over into health once the life-force is depleted). Even if necros did not have the delay in getting our utitly bar on leaving DS, our heal still has a decent cast-time.

Further if the player is taking a sufficient number of hits to make the might stacks meaningful, his or her DS will be rapidly depleting. Basically, the necro is getting beaten up. In this case the sensible thing to do is to try to flee, with the result that the might stacks are wasted through non-use.

The only time a necro would sensibly “return fire” in these circumstances is if they thought they could kill the opponent before the opponent finished killing them. This will usually mean that the opponent is significantly weakened. In this case, the opponent won’t usually landing many hits, as the necro is counting on killing the opponent quickly (as the necro can’t survive a long fight). Accordingly, the actual buff from Siphoned power in this case will be small and short-lasting.

Some players do of course have channeled attacks which do several low damage hits. If the opponent fired one of these off, it could give the necro a decent might stack. However the necro would still be expecting the fight to be over quickly, so they would not get that benefit for long. In addition, what would the practical effect of having a few might stacks be in this case? Arguably it would only provide an actual benefit if it allowed the necro to kill the opponent with fewer life-blasts (I think we can assume the necro is life-blasting, since he is in DS and would be running away if there were multiple opponents). However Lifeblast is a slow cast, high damage spell. Accordingly, while it is possible, it would be unlikely for a few might stacks to mean the necro needed to use less life-blasts.

Therefore the might buff from Siphoned power will be of no use in most cases. It will give a benefit only in a “duel to the death” scenario, in which case the benefit will be slight and unlikely to have any practical effect. So I think that the circumstances in which the trait will give the necro a meaningful benefit are pretty unique. Given this, I also do not think increasing the duration of the might stacks gained would provide any practical benefit.

My suggestions

To improve the trait, I suggest removing the health threshold and have it give might for all hits received while in deathshroud only. This would:

1. allow a player to sacrifice life-force for offensive power, which is cool and necro-y

2. give an offensive purpose to go into DS for meleers on single target fights . Currently, dagger does more dps than life-blast on bosses, even for 30/10/0/0/30 specs. This would encourage melee necros to dip into DS to “charge up” their dagger attacks via the might stacks. It would be particularly beneficial for 30/25 necros.

3. it would add an interesting skill component to necro play, as necros would need to know when to dip into DS to generate a few might stacks. It would not be worth doing for single big damaging attacks, or if the necro thought they might need to use DS as a defensive damage soak in the future.

The trait would not provide a benefit if the necro already had full might stacks, so it would not help the serious speed-runners or highly organised WvWers.

One other option (and my preference in a perfect world) would be for each hit recieved in DS to give the necro a 1% damage buff, stacking up to 10%. The buff would be lost when the necro was downed or re-entered DS (in which case it would start regenerating). This would be a cool and unique mechanic and would require the necro to make interesting choices about when to enter and re-enter DS. It is kind of complicated however and I’m not sure how feasible it would be to program .

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

meh, even running a hybrid build I don’t know if this would.be worth taking anymore. If its that much of a balance problem I would rather it be changed to add 5 stacks of torment for 5 secs on a 10 sec icd. Now that everyone has a way to remove torment it wouldn’t be game breaking.

this would also help with the “o look I’m losing to this necro let me just walk away”

We talked about a condition like that, but it blows out because we would want to balance it when you only had 1 target to apply it to, but if you epidemic it it now is hitting 6 targets and is wildly OP.

Why not make it a non-transferable condition? Tons of odd conditions can’t be monkeyed with, such as the new Toxic Corruption debuff. Just make it like that, so that it does what it does, but you can’t steal it, transfer it, etc.

Loving some of the ideas being put down here, great discussion to!

Most everything being presented is from a PvP/WvW perspective. So my question for anybody following is this: Is anything happening here that will change the general perception that we are complete bottom of the barrel(both power and conditions) when it comes to party comp? Just look at every poll, every party comp thread, every forum…all the same. Are we going to see 5 man necro speed runs now? :P Are we going to be actively looked for in PvE?

As somebody else pointed out many pages ago GW2 is an MMO (being a greedy class does not work so well here) and thus I and likely many others don’t give a rats kitten about swapping this number of damage for this other. Fixing things broken or unintentional yes please! Absolutely! but If we don’t bring something unique to the party(and I thought this was weakness, kinda?…which no matter how it’s spun will be nerfed yes?) we are still a wasted spot. Flavor and truly useful are two different things.

I don’t care if I do more or less damage, I just want to feel as useful to the party on my necro as I do on my warrior…my guardian…my elementalist…my thief…my ranger…etc. I don’t currently, will I after these balance changes?

Weakening Shroud. This trait now does a smaller version of Enfeebling Blood when entering Death Shroud. Bleeding (1 stack only; 6 seconds [10s with full condition duration spec]). Weakness (2s [3s with full condition duration spec]). No ICD.

Obviously this is a very big change so please discuss, and keep your discussion constructive, so that we can actually talk through the merits/downsides.

I like this. I mean, a nerf’s a nerf, but this is the lesser of two nerfs. If it absolutely must be nerfed (which I disagree with but have no agency in the matter), then I would prefer one that leaves it always available but lesser to one that leaves it mostly as strong but unreliable.

I tend to hate moves with random activators combined with internal cooldowns in general, unless you’re keeping count on them all then as soon as you enter combat they become completely unpredictable, turning on and off at their own whims. Internal cooldowns as a balancing method should be avoided at all cost. All abilities should be balanced to go off as often as the trigger is likely to occur, whenever possible, even if that means a very weak effect.

Most everything being presented is from a PvP/WvW perspective. So my question for anybody following is this: Is anything happening here that will change the general perception that we are complete bottom of the barrel(both power and conditions) when it comes to party comp? Just look at every poll, every party comp thread, every forum…all the same. Are we going to see 5 man necro speed runs now? :P Are we going to be actively looked for in PvE?

They need to fix condition damage first, removing or overcoming stacking issues and damage vs. objects issues.

BTW Siphoned power procs when under 25% of base hp, not 25% of your real hp (so for sentinels its like at 10%, for soldier/carrion its around 20~17% and god forbid you got a good wvwvw).

Bhawb.7408:

ThanatosAngel.8024:

JonPeters.5630:

“Could you not combine Protection of the Horde with Flesh Of The Master?” -Scarran

We could but I think that would be a wildly OP Master trait…

Then how about combining it with Minion Mastery instead and bump it up to Master? Combine Reanimator with Flesh of the Master and have it spawn jagged minions off minion deaths instead of enemies.

1) Minion mastery becoming a master trait would be a massive nerf to minion builds.

2) Reanimator is going to be combined with Death Nova, two traits which have a lot of internal synergy.

Actually, Death Nova is the only trait you want to have a Jagged Horror for anyway, so I think combining those would be a really cool move.

Necromantic Corruption is overshadowed by Death Nova already, so maybe that one needs a buff..? How about merging Necromantic Corruption and Fetid Consumption (do MMs pick this trait?) in Death Magic as a defensive counterpart to Death Nova. Or merge them both in Blood Magic and make way for a non-minion gm trait in DM? It would be a strong Blood Magic gm for once, but makes you drop either 20 in Spite or 30 in DM to get it.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

Simply very good idea. it could be in DS tree, master trait, insteed of master of terror. this one can be moved in spite, grand master, because it’s condition duration, with a up at 70%.
if terror is moved to grand master too, it’s means that a full terror build cannot use dhuumfire (30/30///).
and minus terror+ dhumm, wich could be x/30/x/x/20

I don’t understand Anet’s balancing mentality, at least when it comes to necromancers. For example, they correcly conclude that the meta dhuumfire build in pvp (30 20 0 0 20) is too powerful and has problems, but strangely, for whatever reason, their solution to fixing it ends up being a nerf to other aspects of the necromancer not the “Dhuumfire” itself!
Freaking hell?!
Back before the big update to necros, conditionmancers weren’t as good, but at least we had choices. There were a variety of condition builds for necromancers. Now there’s only one: 30 20 0 0 20 Terror Dhuumfire! You pick anything else, you’re just gimping yourself.
Now they might aim to bring this necromancer build down and make it balanced but what they are doing is to kitten the other non-meta condition builds even more!
If that build has a problem, then for god’s sake, remove the culprit not mess with things that can make the already underpowered non-meta condition builds even more underpowered!
Jon Peters concludes that “dhuumfire” is what brought conditionmancers into play, but how is that a good thing? The most fundamental aspect of this class now hinges on one freaking trait!

BTW, I somewhat agree with a change that involves bringing both Dhuumfire and Terror to curses GM (and maybe improve them if needed), bringing Lingering Curses to master tier and altering Withering Precision’s functionality and moving it to Spite line. I don’t think that would make conditionmancers more broken than they are now!

JonPeters.5630:

I think you meant 30/20/0/0/20 which is generally accepted as one of the best condition builds, which is what you run this with, and also not including food, but only including condition duration runes. With food it actually goes to.

54% uptime @ 2s
82% uptime @ 3s

Jon

A bit late, but: Have you ever considered nerfing the food if thats the problem? It’s pretty weird to begin with, since it gives +-40% AND 70 of another attribute, while most food gives 100 of stat A and 70 or 10% of stat B.

JonPeters.5630:

The point is this thing is unbounded. You can be hit a bunch of times and it keeps stacking up the might. Maybe the duration is a bit low, but with no cooldown this is a good interesting trait.

I want to spend a few words on Siphoned Power.

It is a damage boosting trait which takes action in a situation in which most players tend to play defensively and its benefits ends right after you are out of danger, since 5s might will be most likely expired few seconds after you have healed and start playing offensively again.

To take advantage of this trait, you have to play offensively while under 25% HP, which is an horrible choice for any player.

Even when you are in Death Shroud and under 25% HP, you make an use of that trait if you are constantly getting hit and playing offensively at the same time. That means that your life force is going to drain fast and you’ll end up with ~10 stacks of might at best for a couple of seconds which expires right after you healed, assuming that you manage to heal.

That’s why I think it is completely worthless for an adept minor trait, which makes it a complete joke for a grandmaster minor trait.

To make this trait worth something, I suggest to increase the might duration to ~8s and make it kicks in when you have more than 90% HP instead of less then 25% hp.

This will encourage Necromancers to stay over 90% HP, giving more luster to the Blood Magic traitline and also quite a good synergy with Blood to Power.

That Dhuumfire trigger on LB is what i thought how you would implement the trait in the first place. On crit trigger are pretty bad in terms of gameplay, especially if they reward as much as this one (dmg gain).

Also, while it is true that condibuilds have their problems with LF generation, the standard Dhuum specc is still decent in it. Especially since people started to run warhorn and fleshwurm with it.

JonPeters.5630:

jsduke.6537:

JonPeters.5630:

The point is this thing is unbounded. You can be hit a bunch of times and it keeps stacking up the might. Maybe the duration is a bit low, but with no cooldown this is a good interesting trait.

You can be hit a bunch of times… while <25% HP.

I can’t speak for other Necros, but if I get hit “a bunch of times” while <25%, it doesn’t matter how many stacks of Might I get because I just died.

Like I said, it works while in DS.

The threshold is low enough that even with a full DS bar available; getting enough hits to scale this up to something useful will most likely burn though that bar very quickly, then add in the second of cool-down/timeout/client lag that prevent us from using other skills when exiting DS and we have a high probability of eating dirt instantly after leaving DS.

Extreme risk, low to moderate reward. One or the other end should change for this to become a remotely desired trait. The overall theory is good though.

Since the mechanic of Siphoned Power is considered interesting and worth keeping, how about reversing the threshold? Instead of having it activate below 25% health have it activate only when above 75% or possibly higher for balance.

It seems like the current implementation is attempting to bring a reward for high risk aspect to the class but the reward is too small for the current risk. It’s also not very interesting from a players perspective because it’s too obvious as to when pop death shroud. It basically encourages death shroud usage as a simple damage sponge when low on health.

With the health pool reversed the risk is mitigated a bit but the core of the mechanic becomes much more interesting.

The trait would be similar to runes of the scholar with the additional criteria of needing to take damage. The ideal of the mechanic would be for a player to keep their health high while attempting to build a large death shroud pool. The more death shroud built up the more might stacks the player can potentially gain.

I think this plays really well into the concept of the necromancer being a attrition based class by offering a large burst of damage only after a given amount of time of skillful survival and well timed ability usage. If this proves to be effective then healing power/life drain abilities become a means to sustaining/providing burst damage.

Something that may or may not be a problem is death shroud already being maxed before combat. It doesn’t take a lot of skill to just immediately pop death shroud and gain the burst damage. However, there are plenty of other abilities that gain this sort of advantage and stacks of might are easily countered via boon removal or well timed dodging so I don’t see it as a instant win condition either. Another counter would be for many classes to just run away or stealth for a bit. Then we would be faced with either putting death shroud on cool down or allowing it to drain and attempting to CC the opponent before they get away.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

That actually would be flipping awesome on a Carrion build; plus makes DS more useful for condition builds overall. Right now even with DS5 it is best used as a flicker in/out to ablate a hit. Any reason on a condition build to stay in and nuke a bit would be nice.

Soul Reaping II: Vital Persistence

Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%. Additionally, you take 15% less damage on life force.

This would make the trait at least worth thinking about taking it in PvE, besides the fact, that with the PvP mechanics added to PvE (finishing moves), DS sort of fails.

Let us finish those mobs while in DS, just in PvE pretty please.

I was going to make some long-winded post but man, where to start. Hm, guess I’ll start with the changes already proposed.

The changes to chill of death, weakening shroud and banshee’s wail are all good Although about weakening shroud, I agree with others; 2s base weakness is rather low, since you’re having a joke if you thing people are going to be trying to max condi duration, shorter DS CD, and spamming DS as often as they can. You simply can’t do this and still be effective, it’s an outright waste of DS, although if the DS CD was based on when you entered DS, not left it, it would be a different matter…

Reanimator is just beating a dead horse – if you’re removing it/merging it into something else later great, but decreasing the CD makes it just as useless in 90% of the game.

The change to reaper’s protection is also good – so many things in this game, atleast in my experience playing necro, is about how often you can do things, not how powerful they are, which is why adding a CD onto withering precision so utterly killed it – it’s far easier to cleanse and then forget about it, whereas before, under certain conditions (heh) you could apply enough hits (admitttedly with my 97% crit chance) from various things to much more reliably maintain weakness on someone. Short of scrapping withering precision entirely, I would suggest having no ICD/a very short ICD, with a reduced duration to make the trait useful.

The buffs to the GM minors in death/blood magic are good I suppose… but I’ll struggle to find people that actually invest high into those lines – for most aspects of the game, it’s just not really useful to go much into either of those lines.

Vital persistence is completely overshadowed by the other traits in the line. I cannot conceive a build where vital persistence is better then path of midnight, spectral mastery or unyielding blast, they’re just so much better in comparison. Soul reaping in general just has a lot of good traits.

There’s plenty more to talk about but I’m far too lazy to keep typing for long, so I’ll just cover a few things.

If you’re clearing out the death magic minors in the future, I think you should add aegis on entering DS either as an adept minor or major. Firstly this fits somewhat with the fact that this trait line boosts boon duration (although admittedly this aegis should only last 1 or 2 seconds) and to help cover the old functionality of DS being able to absorb a large hit. This would still be weaker then that, but would allow for skillful use and timing of DS to absorb nasty attacks in both PvP or PvE. Failing that (or with it, depending on where you were to put it) shrouded removal, while useful (playing with it solo roaming was surprisingly useful at times), doesn’t really cut it, compared to giving out protection, or hm, yeah the adept DM traits are pretty meh to me, but anyway I feel this trait would be quite suited to the adept minor spot – it’s not a powerful ability, but it’s the sort of thing that proves to be a minor (eh? eh?) improvement, regardless of build. Also not using dagger OH or staff severely neuters your ability to shed conditions.

But what ever traits you do put into DM eventually, just make sure they have utility value to more then just one sort of build, ideally supportive, defensive utility, it fits the line, after all.

Blah blah other stuff, when I can be bothered to type it blah blah etc.

Thanks.

JonPeters.5630:

AN UPDATE
Weakening Shroud. This trait now does a smaller version of Enfeebling Blood when entering Death Shroud. Bleeding (1 stack only; 6 seconds [10s with full condition duration spec]). Weakness (2s [3s with full condition duration spec]). No ICD.

Obviously this is a very big change so please discuss, and keep your discussion constructive, so that we can actually talk through the merits/downsides.

Jon

Hmm….

My concern is the duration (if it only procs once in a small radius pbaoe around the necro) may not be long enough to blunt the inevitable incoming hammer warrior and guardian assist train; who are if geared and specc’d sensibly, using either copious cleanses or -cond duration runes/food., as well as not doing much of anything to ranged focus fire.

What is the radius of this prospective trait? If it’s 240 (same as the enfeebling blood; but pbaoe instead of 900) getting into range to actually make good use of it without inviting swift death may be problematic. If Necros had more access to pulls; I could see this having good offensive use though to pre-neuter melee trains.

But guys remember one thing
- we got already 1 bleed less
- we will get 1 bleed lees on MOB
- dhumfire will be changed and it wont be so strong
- if fear will be moved to grandmaster it kinda nerf too
- weekneig shroud less bleeds so nerf

Ofc i agree that necro is to strong atm but 1st dont implemet those changes to fast , 2nd u need to find synergy by changing smt on other class like war who have berzerker stance or engi the AR trait ( we wont be able to stack condis so fast and the whole amount will be smaller) , 3rd fix bugs example interupting marks make them go full cd most important go out DS block our skills for 2s , 4th condi builds lack of fl gain so some scepter or staff change would be nice to get more lf , 5th most of our grandmaster traits is realy stron but ton of adept/master completly usless so we need to rework them step by step , 6th our sustain is realy low even full DS wont help us when focus and low mobility + low acces to stability make us easy kill so i was thinking give us some good defensive traits like 20% less when we get CC or smt simmilar to that .

I would realy like to see necro as a stationary support/medium tank that can cripple,chill and things like that , the dmg should decent enough , the problem i see atm is when we gonna start to get those changes that gonna lower our ability to stack condis fast ( i mean amount nerf on skills/traits) and other profesion will stay the same we wont do to much , theye is a lot of condi cleanse in game thats why making all those changes on necro plz remeber that those balance will not affect necro and his potencial vs other class but also it will affect how other class work on us

sorrow.2364:

JonPeters.5630:

The point is this thing is unbounded. You can be hit a bunch of times and it keeps stacking up the might. Maybe the duration is a bit low, but with no cooldown this is a good interesting trait.

I want to spend a few words on Siphoned Power.

It is a damage boosting trait which takes action in a situation in which most players tend to play defensively and its benefits ends right after you are out of danger, since 5s might will be most likely expired few seconds after you have healed and start playing offensively again.

To take advantage of this trait, you have to play offensively while under 25% HP, which is an horrible choice for any player.

Even when you are in Death Shroud and under 25% HP, you make an use of that trait if you are constantly getting hit and playing offensively at the same time. That means that your life force is going to drain fast and you’ll end up with ~10 stacks of might at best for a couple of seconds which expires right after you healed, assuming that you manage to heal.

That’s why I think it is completely worthless for an adept minor trait, which makes it a complete joke for a grandmaster minor trait.

To make this trait worth something, I suggest to increase the might duration to ~8s and make it kicks in when you have more than 90% HP instead of less then 25% hp.

This will encourage Necromancers to stay over 90% HP, giving more luster to the Blood Magic traitline and also quite a good synergy with Blood to Power.

Or another alternate approach; have it give retaliation instead/in addition to might; then an emergency turtle in DS when low on health would have a better chance of dissuading mass focus fire. Spiteful spirit helps, but for only 3 sec base.

Or, steal enemy boon when struck while below x threshold.

War Mourner.5168:

The changes to chill of death, weakening shroud and banshee’s wail are all good Although about weakening shroud, I agree with others; 2s base weakness is rather low, since you’re having a joke if you thing people are going to be trying to max condi duration, shorter DS CD, and spamming DS as often as they can. You simply can’t do this and still be effective, it’s an outright waste of DS, although if the DS CD was based on when you entered DS, not left it, it would be a different matter…

Reanimator is just beating a dead horse – if you’re removing it/merging it into something else later great, but decreasing the CD makes it just as useless in 90% of the game.

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

This is my take on the changes:

• Mark of Blood: Well, it kinda had to happen. We really did burst bleeding well, but no one ever complained about our bleeding damage, but our all around condition stacking. We did not have too many bleeds, but too many different conditions. Necros can stack every possible condition in this game in a matter of seconds, and people are just flabberghasted by the amount the cannot cleanse. Which… well… is our primary purpose.
• Spite 15 – Death into Life: Still useless. Does this even work with our siphons? Our heals are bad as they are, and that is not going to fix that problem. Also, it just works around the problem, that the necromancer is unable to sustain, because we cannot dodge anything for 10 seconds.
• Spite X – Chill of Death: That is probably usefull. Currently, the moment Chill of Death procs, the enemy is already dead. You still had to run other condi removals to really bring a buffed profession down. Maybe this will atleast help powermancer.
• Curses IV – Weakening Shroud: Again, we nerf something that was not that broken. Since we can’t dodge, it was kind of important to keep weakness up. Granted, it was a little strong in combination with others, but how exactly did that count as overpowered?
• Curses VIII – Banshee’s Wail: Brings it en-par with other classes cdrs. No complaint from me there.
• Death VIII – Reaper’s Protection: Same as for Banshees.
• Death 25 – Deadly Strength: Still doesn’t fix that necros dps on power builds is far less than other professions. Maybe don’t fix the trait, but our scalings? Maybe??
• Blood Magic 25 – Blood to Power: I am not sure if that is really worth 25 points in this line. Although 120 power is good, it is still dependend on you being above a health threshold. Since necro can’t really move around or dodge more than once or twice every fight, this trait still does not much for us.
• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence: Ye, that one’s good. But I don’t really like where this is going. This is forcing about everyone to play shroud centric and only play shroud centric builds, since these are the only traits that really help.

Things that are still missing from the patch:
- No way to gain endurance.
- No way to disengage.
- No way to tank one-shot kills.
- No way to sustain minions in large aoe brawls.
- Death magic still not that great.
- Health siphoning still not that great.
- Support still not that great.

In WvW players often has Melandru runes and using Lemongrass food which ends up with 55% condi duration reduction, so a base 3s on Weakening shroud wouldnt be useless in that situation. In pvp it can be 4s with 30 points in Spite, but it still dont feel too much. And ofc in pve, the more weakness is the better so i think its okay there.

About Siphoned power … What if you replace it with Target the Weak (it has more benefits for a power based build anyway) and make a chill based support trait in Curse 25? Like chill is reducing attack rate by X% like a reversed Quickess, maybe some extra chill duration too. Opinions?

JonPeters.5630:

jsduke.6537:

JonPeters.5630:

The point is this thing is unbounded. You can be hit a bunch of times and it keeps stacking up the might. Maybe the duration is a bit low, but with no cooldown this is a good interesting trait.

You can be hit a bunch of times… while <25% HP.

I can’t speak for other Necros, but if I get hit “a bunch of times” while <25%, it doesn’t matter how many stacks of Might I get because I just died.

Like I said, it works while in DS.

I think you’re missing the point. In any practical situation, if you’re that close to enemies to build up Might, the moment you exit Death Shroud with that little health you are dead. Death Shroud disables your skillbar for several crucial seconds, making it impossible to use a heal skill. In other words: DEAD.

Also, we need a way back to tank spike damage, like we could before the DS nerf. This really is a crucial issue in PVE. Every class has an invincibility skill, yet our class gets their strategic ability to tank one hit using DS removed. We have no defense against spike damage, none what so ever.

JonathanSharp.7094:

Some great ideas in here. We’ve talked about moving Dhuumfire up to Grandmaster in the Curses line, and moving Terror as well.

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

Dhuumfire moving would also open up a gap for a new GM trait in Spite, so we’d need to figure that out as well.

Great suggestions!

What about a trait that deals fixed damage each time you chill your foe? Chill is great for attrition but chill o mancers suffers a lack of damage. This trait shouldn’t scale with condition damage.