Guild Wars 2

The big picture is that the reaper is coming out and doesn’t have necromancer death shroud skills (ranged DPS), and doesn’t have a kiting Playstyle and so needs defensive abilities similar to what warriors have.

Let’s preview the changes:

Corrosive Poison Cloud: Duration decrease from 12s to 8s. It will now destroy all projectiles that pass through it. It will also now pulse every 2 seconds instead of every 3s.

Axe skills (Rending Claws/Ghastly Claws) going up to 900 radius.

Scepter – Scepter 1 and 2 skill bleed duration going down from 5s to kitten . Scepter 3 get a poison duration increase to 6s and kitten bleed.

Feast of Corruption – It apply a base 2 stack of Torment and a max of 5 more stacks of Torment, one for every condition for the target.

Lingering Curse – Condition duration effect is now 50%.

Lich and Plague forms will no longer destroy your minions. Other transforms (i..e Moa) will still destroy them.

Yikes!

These are the tweaked axe and scepter (and focus) changes!

First of all, no changes to focus, which is still bottom tier.

Second, anet basically listened to the wrong people for axe and scepter changes.

Axe didn’t need a range increase to make it a cruddy warrior rifle… It needed damage or utility. It still has neither. The range increase was especially horrible because the animations aren’t super telegraphed and look silly the longer range you go.

Scepter needed its condition damage back & to keep up with condition power creep in the game. The scaling changes and poison no longer duration stacking removed most of the power of the weapon. Scepter still has neither good scaling condition or power damage. If they had to put a condition on scepter 3, torment is the wrong one.

Both weapons are still single target & the worst main hands overall for damage or utility.

Both weapons still nerf death shroud.

Both weapons still generate life force poorly.

Reaper is going to be a near gimmick because its fun to play, but the profession will quickly find itself bottom tier (another 3 years of bottom tier incoming) without ways to handle skirmishers.

As for the other changes, at least the minion master elites were buffed (do plague and still remove spectrals?), but anet put the projectile block on literally the worst utility skill in the necromancer skillset and then nerfed that skill.

For everybody who said, reaper is in trouble unless they fix necromancer….. Did they?

Did you miss the point where they said that this is just a few points and that the whole release notes will come out on tuesday?

I’m not saying that there will be many more tweaks. In fact I wouldn’t even be surprised if this is it.
But, you can’t go argue about the lack of fixes in this balance patch, when you haven’t even seen the complete patch notes.

nekretaal.6485:

The big picture is that the reaper is coming out and doesn’t have necromancer death shroud skills (ranged DPS), and doesn’t have a kiting Playstyle and so needs defensive abilities similar to what warriors have.

Let’s preview the changes:

Yikes!

These are the tweaked axe and scepter (and focus) changes!

First of all, no changes to focus, which is still bottom tier.

Focus is one of the main weapons for PvE. I agree it needs tweaks, but you make it sound extremely dire.

Second, anet basically listened to the wrong people for axe and scepter changes.

Axe didn’t need a range increase to make it a cruddy warrior rifle… It needed damage or utility. It still has neither. The range increase was especially horrible because the animations aren’t super telegraphed and look silly the longer range you go.

I disagree. IMO the range increase is a good first change. (I hope more follow tuesday). The axe with 600 range is in direct competition with not only the dagger, but also with the upcoming greatsword for a close range power weapon. Extending the range and giving access to maybe our first ranged power weapon is the best thing they could have done with it. (Actually I still think that the dagger should be better off as a 900 range weapon, so we don’t have 2 melee cleave weapons, but that’s too many changes for a balance patch.)
Does it need more than just a range increase? Yes, most definitely. But this is a step in the right direction IMO.

Scepter needed its condition damage back & to keep up with condition power creep in the game. The scaling changes and poison no longer duration stacking removed most of the power of the weapon. Scepter still has neither good scaling condition or power damage. If they had to put a condition on scepter 3, torment is the wrong one.

*Torment might be the wrong one; I don’t know. Also depends a lot on the duration. The good thing is, that the scepter is finally getting a bit more identity, instead of being this semi-condi / semi-power weapon that it’s been so far. Yes it needs more dps and more LF generation badly. But without lingering curse in mind, the scepter got a pretty solid base increase to condition damage potential.

Both weapons are still single target & the worst main hands overall for damage or utility.

Agreed, they need more dps. But single target isn’t a bad thing. I’m frankly getting a bit tired of every weapon being a cleave weapon these days. If anything we need less cleave in this game, not more

Both weapons still nerf death shroud.

Both weapons still generate life force poorly.

Axe frankly isn’t too bad, it’s biggest downfall is the fact it’s channeled; meaning every dodge or interrupt will kill your LF generation completely. Scepter is horrible yes. Again though, still hoping a bit that there will be more tweaks. This seems kinda bleak when Robert Gee was talking about “exciting upcoming changes to axe and scepter”.

Reaper is going to be a near gimmick because its fun to play, but the profession will quickly find itself bottom tier (another 3 years of bottom tier incoming) without ways to handle skirmishers.

• Blablabla <insert obligatory whine about content you don’t even know yet here> blabla*

As for the other changes, at least the minion master elites were buffed (do plague and still remove spectrals?), but anet put the projectile block on literally the worst utility skill in the necromancer skillset and then nerfed that skill.

Minion master elites weren’t buffed. Because minion masters always take golem. The whole change is nice to some degree. But at best it’s nice for non-MM taking something like spectral wurm for mobility. It hardly does anything for MM.
Adding projectile destroy on CPC actually turned one of lesser used (it wasn’t worthless, there are some great plays out there with CPC) utilities into something that is worth using.
What did you want. Them to put projectile destroy on Well of Suffering? Yes please make this class even more one dimensional. Also I’m not sure how you think it got nerfed. It’s still 5 pulses, the conditions still last 3 seconds, so it’s only gotten more bursty now. The duration decrease was solely done because of the new projectile destroy.

For everybody who said, reaper is in trouble unless they fix necromancer….. Did they?

I think what people meant (At least that’s why I always said this); is that if they don’t fix some of the core issues of necromancer. Everyone will be playing reaper. Did they fix necromancer? Hell no. You can’t do that in one balance change, everyone with the slightest bit of MMO knowledge knows that takes several patches with a ton of itteration. But at least they’re starting on it (about 2.5 years late, but whatever).

going to say a few words.
first, these arent all the changes, they said they wanted to talk about scepter more but didnt have time.
2nd, the range buff is exactly what axe needed. BEFORE the GS and GS buffs, we had a lot of ideas about axe (ive created over 7 threads on axe sadly) but now, its a different ball game. What we need axe for truly is for power and range. Axe might deliver that, we will have to see if there are any other changes, but 900 range is a VERY big deal, and the proper direction.

Also scepter hitting one target isnt bad. As long as the condis are buffed, which they seem to be, its fine. Single target on a condi weapon makes sense on a necro because we have access to epidemic, one of the most underrated yet well respected utilities in the game. If scepter condi dps is viable, I promise the single target situation wont be an issue at all

I will agree on the 900 range if axe also get straight damage buff and something on top of that.
But honestly if they tweak staff, they can make the auto attack faster/better and with some duration decreases staff can fulfill the :power" role, easily.

I’m hoping they left some really good things out. Base necro needed more than this. Why doesn’t Corrupter’s Fervor reduce incoming condi damage?

Cecilia.5179:

I’m hoping they left some really good things out. Base necro needed more than this. Why doesn’t Corrupter’s Fervor reduce incoming condi damage?

It does actually, up to a 20% reduction condition damage, just like the Scrapper: Corrupter’s Fervor Wiki

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Cecilia.5179:

I’m hoping they left some really good things out. Base necro needed more than this. Why doesn’t Corrupter’s Fervor reduce incoming condi damage?

It does actually, up to a 20% reduction condition damage, just like the Scrapper: Corrupter’s Fervor Wiki

Ok, so all the QQ threads I read were ignorant? Shame on me for not fact checking them.

Cecilia.5179:

Ok, so all the QQ threads I read were ignorant? Shame on me for not fact checking them.

Hmm iirc those threads were complaining about that scrapper had the 20% condition damage reduction base and ours depends on the stacks.

Ithir Darkleaf.7923:

Cecilia.5179:

Ok, so all the QQ threads I read were ignorant? Shame on me for not fact checking them.

Hmm iirc those threads were complaining about that scrapper had the 20% condition damage reduction base and ours depends on the stacks.

Alright, then I’ll revise. Why isn’t the condi damage reduction on Corrupter’s Fervor baseline?

Cecilia.5179:

Alright, then I’ll revise. Why isn’t the condi damage reduction on Corrupter’s Fervor baseline?

We don’t know it, but I think the real question is why the adaptive armor trait from scrapper has full 20% condition damage reduction. Because, you know, our trait came first haha

I would love to see axe more powerful. It will be my main ranged weapon once reaper comes out. A range of 900 is not great (I would love to see 1200) but it is better than it was before.

Wait until Tuesday to see full patch notes. Also with BWE3 coming up, it just means more adjustments and tweaks will be made before HoT launches. It’s always better for them to make some changes rather than a bunch of them then nerfing them later.

With balance patches scheduled to come out in a more frequent manner according to the twitch stream, expect more balance updates. I get the sense this round they were really focused on toning down the extremely overpowered things, such as dd eles and complaints about PU mesmers. It may take us another round of balance patches to get tuned up more if necros ended up needing it.

900 range on the axe is a big deal, so that’s the LAST thing you should be complaining about.

Record a few matches playing with dagger and watch the replays. There are numerous times you get ZERO dps because the target is out of range.

The new, larger increase in range with axe versus dagger/GS range will help offset the lower DPS of the axe. You can hit targets with it more often and with less positioning risk.

It’s a good option to now have based on your playstyle.

In fact, I can see some people trying GS/Axe power builds because you now have a weapon for range and one for up close. It’s too early to say if this will work, but it definitely wouldn’t be viable without these changes.

That being said…the 20% increase in dmg they are giving Thief pistol is insane. 20% on an entire range weapon is HUGE!

Thus, I can see why people might be jealous of a range weapon doing that much damage from afar…considering how much damage they can also do up close.

However, I suspect this is something that will get nerfed pretty fast versus something Necros should be asking for on the axe.

Necros are actually one of the most overall balanced classes in the game with certain strengths and clear weaknesses. It’s just a few other classes that are over-budget and sometimes get ridiculous buffs.

gavyne.6847:

Wait until Tuesday to see full patch notes.

^^^^^^^^^^^THIS!

I keep seeing people complaining about the changes are not enough, they were a PREVIEW of the changes, only some of them not all the full patch notes. Just wait until Tuesday and if then they are still not enough start to complain.

SPESHAL.9106:

900 range on the axe is a big deal, so that’s the LAST thing you should be complaining about.

Record a few matches playing with dagger and watch the replays. There are numerous times you get ZERO dps because the target is out of range.

The new, larger increase in range with axe versus dagger/GS range will help offset the lower DPS of the axe. You can hit targets with it more often and with less positioning risk.

It’s a good option to now have based on your playstyle.

In fact, I can see some people trying GS/Axe power builds because you now have a weapon for range and one for up close. It’s too early to say if this will work, but it definitely wouldn’t be viable without these changes.

That being said…the 20% increase in dmg they are giving Thief pistol is insane. 20% on an entire range weapon is HUGE!

Thus, I can see why people might be jealous of a range weapon doing that much damage from afar…considering how much damage they can also do up close.

However, I suspect this is something that will get nerfed pretty fast versus something Necros should be asking for on the axe.

Necros are actually one of the most overall balanced classes in the game with certain strengths and clear weaknesses. It’s just a few other classes that are over-budget and sometimes get ridiculous buffs.

I agree with all of this except the pistol part. 20% damage buff isnt much, for the PISTOL. 20% is a lot, but what is 20% of 1?