Guild Wars 2

What is Guild Wars 2’s Necromancer? We are a pinata. This is not a bad thing, because we are a pinata that if left uncheck will bring death and destruction to all in our path.

Why a pinata you ask? We are designed to be hit, we are designed to be thrown around, kicked, interrupted, hit some more, because once you think you’ve got us, we’ll make you work for it all over again with our death shroud HP.

With the proper positioning, proper support from teammates, and knowing our imminent doom is around the corner if we don’t dodge properly, or if we step out of line, we can be a glorious pinata of doom and destruction the likes of which is unrivaled.

As a profession in GW2, we have the least access to stability, vigor/dodge, stun breaks, blocks invulns and evades. On top of that, all 4 of our current heal options have a minimum of 1 second cast time and are very telegraphed meaning skilled players can and will interrupt it.
Despite all of this, we manage, and we do so because of death shroud. When PoF was revealed I was immediately concerned about Necromancer because having a new elite spec that doesn’t use this mechanic in its traditional sense sounds like it can uproot the profession as a whole due to the vast amount of traits we have that tie specifically to the functionality of the death shroud mechanic.

This leads us to Vital Persistence and the reason for this thread.

Death shroud drains 4% a second without this old trait.

This means with a 13,257 death shroud pool, or a 22,744 death shroud pool with a ton of vitality, you’re looking at only 25 seconds of death shroud if you’re untouched because the passive draining that occurs is % based not number based.

25 seconds seems like a lot of time, but keep in mind this is full death shroud, not taking damage. Now death shroud is used in one of two ways, Deal damage, or prevent damage. Not having Vital Persistence is a HUGE hit to both, because now not only do we have to be overly cautious when using death shroud offensively, we now have to rely on death shroud as a defensive mechanic significantly less than before because on top of any damage we’re taking, tax on an additional 4% a second.

This nerf is an overall hit to our performance in all aspects at a time when we need our ability to survive the most. Lets be honest, PoF is designed to be one big damage dealing and killing expansion for pvp, which isnt bad compared to HoTs no damage no death PvP at launch. We do not need our class to be overhauled and its core to be redesigned, but what we do need to is not take away from what little we have.

Giving us the old Vital Persistence for free without having to trait into it would be OP in the games current state, but in PoF I believe it will be more than appropriate to do.
At the very least instead of 4% a second, make it 3%, or make it # based so vitality stacking isnt worthless.

About me:
I have 1337 hours on necro, 1073 ranked games played, 703 ranked games won. I’ve played necro in spvp/tpvp way back when paid tournaments were a thing and I even have the Challenger of the Arena title for placed in the top 60 in paid tournaments around launch of the game.
(yes, 1337 hours exactly, what a crazy coincidence)

This insight is purely about pvp/tpvp, not WvW or PvE as I’m not seasoned in those areas. Feel free to contribute to this post regarding how this would relate to WvW and PvE.

Jesus Christ man, you really went all-out with this one. I made a similar post, but not nearly as in-depth as yours

I have about 800+ hours on necro, most of which come from PvE. For anybody running shroud in PvE for their power build, this will be extremely crippling to them. If life force drains faster now, they will spend less time in shroud. Thus, their dps will see a big decrease. They probably have some way to stack up on life force again (daggers or staves), but they’ll be spending more time stacking life force and less time actually dealing damage. In other words, a damage reduction to pve power reaper. And it’s not like power reapers were that great to begin with. (although I should put the disclaimer in here that this is speculation since the patch has only been out for like 3 hours as of writing this)

I run condition damage, and I spend a good portion of my rotation in shroud, stacking that burning with dhuumfire. I depended a lot on vital persistence because a condi necro like me isn’t really able to build up life force. So any bit of life force we can save is vital to our dps. With this nerf, we will be losing life force at a quicker base rate, coupled with the damage we’ll be taking and that shows how little time we can spend in shroud and how much dps we will lose as a result. This part isn’t speculation.

All considered, I think this is a huge nerf to necros on the pve scene. And we already suck in that department, so we really didn’t need this nerf.

That is my PvE insight

many of us have felt this way for a long time. the degeneration rate should always be -50% so you have more freedom to chose a trait better for your particular build. Eliminating it entirely is a massive nerf. But, I’m still ticked about the plague nerf.

I have never used soul reaping.

So happy about the spiteful spirit buff.

The sad thing is, I knew this was going to happen. I recorded this video 15 hours before the patch went live.

https://youtu.be/N2etLZ6l_VY

Justine.6351:

I have never used soul reaping.

So happy about the spiteful spirit buff.

I’m still tilted about the change to Signets of Suffering. Killed off signet builds. So much for clutch Psig corrupt plays.

Nothing.8564:

The sad thing is, I knew this was going to happen. I recorded this video 15 hours before the patch went live.

https://youtu.be/N2etLZ6l_VY

1) I used to play that build religiously back in the day, and feelings of intense nostalgia washed over as I watched you play it again.

2) I agree, that trait should have been baseline, I thought back when they bumped it to -50% it should have been standard degen rate, as it became a “must have” and definitely had balance issues within that tier of traits. Without it entirely, totally hosed.

cobracommander.5861:

Nothing.8564:

The sad thing is, I knew this was going to happen. I recorded this video 15 hours before the patch went live.

https://youtu.be/N2etLZ6l_VY

1) I used to play that build religiously back in the day, and feelings of intense nostalgia washed over as I watched you play it again.

2) I agree, that trait should have been baseline, I thought back when they bumped it to -50% it should have been standard degen rate, as it became a “must have” and definitely had balance issues within that tier of traits. Without it entirely, totally hosed.

Thanks!

Thank you ANET for listening. As of right now, we have 25% of this trait for free. This is a HUGE step in the right direction and puts my mind at ease for the expansion not trampling over non expansion builds.