Guild Wars 2

Necromancer
Reaper—Blighter’s Boon: This trait now only procs for boons you apply to yourself. Increased healing level multiplier by 25%, increased healing attribute multiplier by 330%.

Blighter’s Boon now only triggers off of self-applied boons, but heals for significantly more. Seems fair to me, I think. A Herald or Warrior shouldn’t be instantly giving us full life force and healing forever.

I’m fine with this. :-) The main builds that utilize Blighter’s Boon spam quite a bit of might on themselves anyway.

Might as well have added a note that said Blighter’s Boon is only equipable when Spite is slotted. They already nerfed YAAW’s interaction with BB, so if you don’t have Spite I don’t know that this can be considered a GM worthy trait.

“Significantly” = 25% more base healing + Scaling is 5 healing per 150 healing power.

If we applied a decent amount of boons both in and out of shroud this might be good unfortunately we are pretty kitten outside of stacking ourselves to 25 might in shroud. I understand the change and it’s probably a good idea but it certainly makes the trait very unappealing especially at a grandmaster level.

While I understand this, I am sad.
For once we could receive support from allies. So now we’re back to our usual:
necro: the class than cannot give nor receive support from allies.

Yeah I’m kind of sad since this shifts the viable builds from soldiers towards celestial.. but it also makes deathly chill a more desirable alternative to the trait for celestial builds..

Well basicly they made Reapers Onslaught the only GM trait, and I dont even like it for pvp/wvw…so waited along time for a fin viable Power build and it took 5 DAYS, lmao at FailNet

Cant sustain decent LF-Gen atm proberly hold a few days/week and try out my Revenant instead. Wasnt suprised tho tbh, already heard the crying of the Warriors

Where did you read this? (haven’t bothered to search.)

Lopez.7369:

This is the exact nerf I wanted. Trying to balance it for groups would make it (and reaper, by extension) useless in smaller scenarios and one-on-ones. With this change, it’s still by far the best PvP and WvW trait, but it won’t have absurd scenarios.

Now it is useless unless you take spite.

Dumb change, time to use the other traits and unslot blighter’s boon permanently. Deathly Chill and Reaper’s Onslaught never looked so good.

I wouldnt really consider that a nerf. It more that in certain situations bb becomes better and in other worse.

It is just sad that spite now becomes even more important for bb.

Muchacho.2390:

I wouldnt really consider that a nerf. It more that in certain situations bb becomes better and in other worse.

It is just sad that spite now becomes even more important for bb.

Do you have Spite? Its fine.

No spite? Pretty mediocre trait.

So instead of fixing the root of the problem they removed the symptons, good balancing anet.

Reaper still inherited the pvp flaws that necro has. It has no hard mitigation, cannot survive being focus fired, dies instantly if any two zerker gear classes look at it. BB gave reaper a way to maintain itself in team fights, something that the class otherwise completely lacks.

Also certain other necro pvpers have voiced the opinion that spite is a badly designed traitline – strong, but very boring, very limiting. Now with this change, like others have said, you HAVE to take spite otherwise you have literally no self application of boons. This is terrible.

Bhawb.7408:

Muchacho.2390:

I wouldnt really consider that a nerf. It more that in certain situations bb becomes better and in other worse.

It is just sad that spite now becomes even more important for bb.

Do you have Spite? Its fine.

No spite? Pretty mediocre trait.

Yeah that what i meant with my post.

Also it seems to be buggy right now. I get more healing then i should be getting (it says without any healingpower 165 in the tooltip but heals me for 192).

Not a good nerf. It was a good survival trait and even with it, power builds got taken down fast. Instead of nerfing it to no outside boons going towards it, it should have been “Grants life force or healing per unique boon” so as it doesn’t stack with each individual stack of might or swiftness like it was. Now, as stated, it’s mediocre to useless without spite.

I haven’t been able to play because the expac released the day I left for a trip, but it kind of sounded like BB of old was going to be a nightmare to balance in a team setting. it’s just unfortunate that was Necro’s main in to receiving team support, it seemed.

Really sad with this one…
When we finally had a way to really benefit from outside support…
I guess necromancers need to live in their own instances apart from the rest of the game, not being able to support or receive support
And now Reaper only really has 1 GM trait worth the slot

I’m now wondering if there are any plans in motion to provide the Necro with more robust team support reception, since people really seemed to like that about BB.

Cogbyrn.7283:

I’m now wondering if there are any plans in motion to provide the Necro with more robust team support reception, since people really seemed to like that about BB.

Seconding
/15char

Cogbyrn.7283:

I’m now wondering if there are any plans in motion to provide the Necro with more robust team support reception, since people really seemed to like that about BB.

Could be a possibility as skills such as well of darkness is worthless. Gs #4 is like a better version of it on a shorter cd. So there’s a bunch of new stuff or updated stuff that can replace old useless things.

Its especially sad that they always shaft our sustain skills. Parasitic Contagion is useless. Our siphons are very weak compared to revenant. Our sustain line partially does not heal us while in DS. Even mark of evasion has an absurd icd. I mean i didnt like the power it could cause in a perfect situation, but nerfing it like that is just horrible. They cant even up the numbers much more, as some few builds and traitlines are okay with it; thats another trait for the garbage bin now.

Robert Gee.9246:

To provide some context on this change:

We felt that Blighter’s Boon was providing too much survivability, especially with the amount of boon output that Heralds and Tempests can provide. (This is especially true in WvW and large PvE Zergs). I did like the interaction this trait had with your allies, but boon application from allies is too broad of a category for us to reasonably balance in all modes of the game.

We considered a lot of other possibilities for this skill including adding an ICD, limiting the procs to specific boons, limiting the number of procs from allies, but the majority of these types of fixes ended up taking agency and control away from the reaper which we felt wasn’t optimal.

Ultimately we felt this change helped to make the trait more specific to some builds rather than the best trait in all situations.

So how is a melee spec going to survive in a group fight (especially if the foes can focus) when most of it scaling defense is so little that it is basically irrelevant?

Robert Gee.9246:

To provide some context on this change:

We felt that Blighter’s Boon was providing too much survivability, especially with the amount of boon output that Heralds and Tempests can provide. (This is especially true in WvW and large PvE Zergs). I did like the interaction this trait had with your allies, but boon application from allies is too broad of a category for us to reasonably balance in all modes of the game.

We considered a lot of other possibilities for this skill including adding an ICD, limiting the procs to specific boons, limiting the number of procs from allies, but the majority of these types of fixes ended up taking agency and control away from the reaper which we felt wasn’t optimal.

Ultimately we felt this change helped to make the trait more specific to some builds rather than the best trait in all situations.

Are you fine with the fact that spite now becomes mandatory for bb builds? Not that is wasnt mandatory before…

Tim.6450:

So how is a melee spec going to survive in a group fight (especially if the foes can focus) when most of it scaling defense is so little that it is basically irrelevant?

This is the problem I’m seeing. A teamfight focused Reaper needed high sustain because we have, count them, still NONE of the negation tools that every other bunker in the game has. Yes Rise! is nice, but all it does is mitigate, and at a certain point mitigation just flat out never scales as well as a defensive tool as full on negation does. We’ve been saying this for years, and we’re still there.

Also, too much PvE zerg sustain? That’s an awful balance point, next we’ll be nerfed because we could survive infinite fall distances even though revive orbs were abused for that anyway… wait a minute.

Tim.6450:

Robert Gee.9246:

To provide some context on this change:

We felt that Blighter’s Boon was providing too much survivability, especially with the amount of boon output that Heralds and Tempests can provide. (This is especially true in WvW and large PvE Zergs). I did like the interaction this trait had with your allies, but boon application from allies is too broad of a category for us to reasonably balance in all modes of the game.

We considered a lot of other possibilities for this skill including adding an ICD, limiting the procs to specific boons, limiting the number of procs from allies, but the majority of these types of fixes ended up taking agency and control away from the reaper which we felt wasn’t optimal.

Ultimately we felt this change helped to make the trait more specific to some builds rather than the best trait in all situations.

So how is a melee spec going to survive in a group fight (especially if the foes can focus) when most of it scaling defense is so little that it is basically irrelevant?

Especially when the only other trait line that makes this trait somewhat good is purely offensive, limiting our sustain and defense even more. This trait is now the pure opposite of the entire reaper design which is highly groupfight orientated.

So much for our tank role in raids. I don’t see how we can reliably tank without this trait.

Guess we need to push for more damage instead.

this was kind of huge for me in pvp….

ZudetGambeous.9573:

So much for our tank role in raids. I don’t see how we can reliably tank without this trait.

Guess we need to push for more damage instead.

To be fair, just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We’ll see how it plays out, but people need to not give up to truly explore it.

This is a sad change and pretty much ruins why Blighter’s Boon was so loved. In order for necros to pump out boons, necros have to hit things. Here lies the problem, any necros running GS will have issues hitting things, especially so in PvP. If you don’t hit things, you can’t stack might even if you run Spite line. Unless you run a Signet build, which requires you to burn all your Signets or Shouts just to stack enough boons to gain enough lifeforce when you’re being kited.

Blighter’s Boon gave necros an option, when playing with allies, to gain lifeforce and some sustain while in shroud. So even when the reaper isn’t hitting things, they get to gain something that makes them not 1 shot wonders when they inevitably get focused. Because we all know how necros/reapers are extremely vulnerable without lifeforce to pop shroud with.

Bleh, like I said, Deathly Chill and Reaper’s Onslaught never looked so good. Because to me Blighter’s Boon isn’t a good viable option anymore as it’s not optimal to take as the other 2 traits.

Robert Gee.9246:

Carlos.7915:

I guess necromancers need to live in their own instances apart from the rest of the game, not being able to support or receive support

I’m fairly confident that boons will still apply their effects to necromancers even if this trait is not equipped.

Well we just lost the only way for allies to heal us while in death shroud so yes, receiving group support is back at the known low: abysmall.

How about we push harder for revamped Death Magic and actual healing through shroud…..

Robert Gee.9246:

To provide some context on this change:

We felt that Blighter’s Boon was providing too much survivability, especially with the amount of boon output that Heralds and Tempests can provide. (This is especially true in WvW and large PvE Zergs). I did like the interaction this trait had with your allies, but boon application from allies is too broad of a category for us to reasonably balance in all modes of the game.

We considered a lot of other possibilities for this skill including adding an ICD, limiting the procs to specific boons, limiting the number of procs from allies, but the majority of these types of fixes ended up taking agency and control away from the reaper which we felt wasn’t optimal.

Ultimately we felt this change helped to make the trait more specific to some builds rather than the best trait in all situations.

It looks like you increased the healing a bit to compensate for the change, which makes sense, but perhaps more importantly, did you guys consider scaling the lifeforce generation up from 1% to 1.5% for example?

Robert Gee.9246:

To provide some context on this change:

We felt that Blighter’s Boon was providing too much survivability, especially with the amount of boon output that Heralds and Tempests can provide. (This is especially true in WvW and large PvE Zergs). I did like the interaction this trait had with your allies, but boon application from allies is too broad of a category for us to reasonably balance in all modes of the game.

We considered a lot of other possibilities for this skill including adding an ICD, limiting the procs to specific boons, limiting the number of procs from allies, but the majority of these types of fixes ended up taking agency and control away from the reaper which we felt wasn’t optimal.

Ultimately we felt this change helped to make the trait more specific to some builds rather than the best trait in all situations.

Thanks for letting us know Rob, sad to see it happen but i get the reasoning.

Robert Gee.9246:

too much survivability, especially with the amount of boon output that Heralds and Tempests can provide. (This is especially true in WvW and large PvE Zergs)

But boon outputs can only go to up to 5 targets, so there is no difference between the amount of boons a reaper can get from a stack of 5 people vs a stack of 200 people. I experience this first hand when I go to tequatl and stand in the middle of a zerg that is blasting might and get maybe 5 stacks total.

The one thing this class completely lacks is a form of damage mitigation that scales with the number of people you are fighting. Seeing as we’ve established that we don’t want to give necro and blocks or invulnerability, Blighter’s Boon was an interesting alternative to that which gave you healing that scaled with the number of people supporting you.

It wasn’t even the best in slot trait, it was just a good option for making necro able to actually tank. Offensive builds still take onslaught. People who don’t know what they’re doing still take the chill damage because that trait is worthless and terrible.

gavyne.6847:

… necros have to hit things.

To be fair on this point, you don’t actually have to hit things to generate boons, at least with Spite. Reaper’s Might procs on Should Skill 1 usage. Even with just auto attacking in Shroud, you are building Might and Healing yourself.

Outside of Shroud, we have many ways to generate life force. Are all of them viable or useful, no, but that is another issue that would need to be addressed. Personally, so long as they fulfill a niche role, I am OK with that.

I understand the change, but I do think it’s funny that the class received a nerf based on the capabilities of other classes.

Long live Deathly Chill! (Psst, Robert, make it a little stronger.)

Robert Gee.9246:

Carlos.7915:

I guess necromancers need to live in their own instances apart from the rest of the game, not being able to support or receive support

I’m fairly confident that boons will still apply their effects to necromancers even if this trait is not equipped.

Have you considered allowing the Regeneration boon to heal us through Shroud, so, you know, all boons will still apply their effects to necromancers?

Also I just thought of something.

What if you lowered the base heal, but increased the amount it scaled with healing power.

This would make it still a great sustain skill, but only if you sacrificed one of your 3-4 attributes for healing power. The skill would fit its intended purpose of making a tanky supported reaper, without making zerker-wearing reapers immortal.

Robert Gee.9246:

Carlos.7915:

I guess necromancers need to live in their own instances apart from the rest of the game, not being able to support or receive support

I’m fairly confident that boons will still apply their effects to necromancers even if this trait is not equipped.

Except regeneration/any heals while we are in shroud, BB was actually a great trait for team oriented fights filling our gap on sustain in team fights, but now its only really useful with spite. which takes away even more diversity (as pretty much all builds need to go soul reaping for vital persistence)

This is just a joke lol. Reaper has to go in melee to be effective and every class has ways to kite it. When under focus no amount of boon application on the reaper would save it since the healing/LF you got would be capped. We have no vigor for extra dodges, no blocks, no invuls. We have to soak and face tank everything and in a team setting it would make sense that our allies would help us through this limited scaling option. Now that’s gone as well. The other traits have their uses. One is for condi builds and the other is for max DPS. Not sure why this had to be touched at all.

Its like everything is balanced around 1v1 for necro but not so the case for everyone else. Why not reduce Rev buff application to allies for example? The amount of boons they output by themselves is already arguably OP but nope… Reaper is at fault cause of our sustain trait lol.

The logic….its painful

Robert Gee.9246:

To provide some context on this change:

We felt that Blighter’s Boon was providing too much survivability, especially with the amount of boon output that Heralds and Tempests can provide. (This is especially true in WvW and large PvE Zergs). I did like the interaction this trait had with your allies, but boon application from allies is too broad of a category for us to reasonably balance in all modes of the game.

We considered a lot of other possibilities for this skill including adding an ICD, limiting the procs to specific boons, limiting the number of procs from allies, but the majority of these types of fixes ended up taking agency and control away from the reaper which we felt wasn’t optimal.

Ultimately we felt this change helped to make the trait more specific to some builds rather than the best trait in all situations.

Since you have the means to separate self generated boons and outside boons, wouldn’t it be better to just put a 1 sec ICD on the outside boons and see how it goes?Or would that be too much of a internal issue?

I agree it makes the trait even more of a niche pick in certain builds but its also only makes it viable with Spite attached.

Now that we got “Blighter’s Booned” (huehuehue) could we please get a long-requested buff to Parasitic Contagion and make it work in Shroud?

That would be some alternative for BB and not going Spite, but Curses as Condi build.

Bhawb.7408:

This is the problem I’m seeing. A teamfight focused Reaper needed high sustain because we have, count them, still NONE of the negation tools that every other bunker in the game has. Yes Rise! is nice, but all it does is mitigate, and at a certain point mitigation just flat out never scales as well as a defensive tool as full on negation does. We’ve been saying this for years, and we’re still there.

Also, too much PvE zerg sustain? That’s an awful balance point, next we’ll be nerfed because we could survive infinite fall distances even though revive orbs were abused for that anyway… wait a minute.

^This

There are no words to express how bitter and burned I am from this uncalled change.

Ridiculous boon spam from professions that made defensive stats in raids utterly useless in BW3 despite the devs claims of “PvE Zerk meta is dead”? Nerf necromancers!

I’m rolling a Revenant as soon as I think a cool name for it. I’m not even angry just tired.

rip necromancer/reaper for another 3 years gg.

Flumek.9043:

Hello.

• WHERE IS HEALING IN DS THEN?
• WHY IS NECRO WORSE SELFISH BUFFER THAN OTHERS AOE? WHERE ARE THE NON S/SR/R BOONS AND SUPPORT
• WHY CAN EVERYONE HAVE TRIPLE THE AIDS A NECRO IS ALLOWED
• WHY IS CRAZY MORE REVENANT AND ABOUT SAME DRAGONHUNTER/CRONO, ALL GETTING ONLY 20-25% NERF
• WHY IS SOLDIER ENGIE, ALREADY ESTABLISHED BUNKERKITEN, GETTING MORE TANKYNESS WITH A BROKEN NON SCALING PURE PASSIVE STEROIDED COPY OF NECRO DEFENSE TRAIT,
  YET AS SOON AS ONE GUY GOES NON-YOLO TO STAY COMPETITIVE, ITS RECORD TIME BALANCE?

Blighters boon is a joke name to a gutting massacre nerfbat and theyre repeating it.

Like others said,
How are we then supposed be
-melee,
-teamfighting,
-(preferable useless gs wielding,)
-tanky brawlers who get actualy get scalingly stronger,
-and be viable with all other drawbacks (outrotated, bad position =focus death, slow=unreliable, no support cant even recieve it…)

Not really sorry for caps,
And to add on my quote,
Why is everyone looking at Nos whole time,
When he always needed double of the metaOPtanks of elebot/shoutbot to keep the necro alive?
Guess we just cant have nice things.