Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/preview-of-upcoming-balance-changes/

Necromancer:

• Locust Swarm: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds.
  Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.
• Corrosive Poison Cloud: The casting time of this skill has been reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. The cooldown on this skill has been reduced from 40 seconds to 30 seconds.
  Dev note: Because this skill has a subtle effect, we wanted to be able to cast it quickly. We also wanted to allow it to be cast more frequently so necromancers can use it for more consistent (though less damaging) area denial.
• Signet of the Locust: The cooldown of this skill has been reduced from 60 to 40 seconds. Base healing has been increased by 4%, fixing an issue that caused the Bloodthirst trait to grant 25% bonus healing rather than the 20% intended. The bonus from healing power has been increased by 108% base, 100% when traited with Bloodthirst.
  Dev note: We wanted to reduce the penalty for using the active portion of the skill and also improve the reward for having healing power.
• Signet of Undeath: The passive life-force gain of this skill has been increased from 1% to 2%.
  Dev note: While this remains a low amount, we’re looking to provide more options for support when necromancers use this signet.

Related:
Rune of the Nightmare: The duration of fear applied from the sixth piece of this rune has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second. Its recharge has been reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.

Discuss.

EDIT:

Locust Swarm: …
Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.

Is this serious? How does this increase our mobility?

:( Seems like we’re still gonna be ultra bad in dungeons.

When are they going to actually make real changes? All of this is so minor it might as well have not have happened

They should work on bug fixes since that would be better improvements than what is on the list.

more nothing. gg.

Maybe the “expansion” will have bigger balance changes.

Expected nothing, got a little something.

Rune of the Nightmare: The duration of fear applied from the sixth piece of this rune has been reduced from 2 seconds to 1 second. Its recharge has been reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds.

kitten most fights don t last 1 minute anyway, useless change…

leman.7682:

Locust Swarm: …
Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.

Is this serious? How does this increase our mobility?

Shorter cast time means higher swiftness uptime. So yeah… huuuuge mobility boost right there.
The real buff here is being able to more likely cast it without being interrupted, which means more reliable life force regen.

On another note, what do you guys think about Runes of Scavenging in PvP? Personally I’d take them over Nightmare any day, even with the shorter cd on the 6th bonus.

This is completely insufficient, and honestly pretty hilarious.

• CPC is a horrible skill even with the buffs. Self-weakness forces you to burn a condi clear right away because it’s so punishing, and the actual benefits from the skill are very weak. This skill needs to actually deal damage on pulse, or needs to absorb projectiles, or needs to apply bleeds, or something. As it stands, this will never make it onto anyone’s bar.
• The Warhorn 5 change does nothing. How does that affect our mobility at all? It’s totally irrelevant and isn’t significant enough to make a big enough swiftness uptime change. No one interrupts your Warhorn cast intentionally anyway; they save that for the glaring tells of your healing skill and bigger skills that matter.
• Signet of the Locust is still bad and will still never see use except as a MS bonus passive forget-this-skill ability for those without Swiftness.
• Signet of Undeath is still terrible. The cast time is so long that it never properly gets used in PvP due to how much CC the necro attracts, and the passive just isn’t worth it over much more important skills for those slots.
• Nightmare Rune nerf is pretty huge, even if it does activate more often. Most fights last shorter than 1 minute, and those that don’t are better served by the bigger spike of a 2s Fear than a 1s Fear.

Come on ANet, throw us a bloody bone.

flow.6043:

On another note, what do you guys think about Runes of Scavenging in PvP? Personally I’d take them over Nightmare any day, even with the shorter cd on the 6th bonus.

I’d consider it if the sixth bonus interacted with a stat other than Vitality. As it stands, Vitality is too low in any proper build in any format for it to be worth it. Maybe if it interacted with Toughness instead.

Id say GZ to Thieves and well Necro we got….. whatever

This is legitimately the most Useless and under thought balance change they’ve done in a LONG time. Its for every class too it seems. Theres nothing outside of the Might change thats really “Big”

The locust swarm change does mean that its a slight dps increase because we arent spending a full second to cast it anymore. But yeah the other changes are pretty much pointless. The CPC change would be good if CPC actually did something useful like projectile block.

Rising Dusk.2408:

flow.6043:

On another note, what do you guys think about Runes of Scavenging in PvP? Personally I’d take them over Nightmare any day, even with the shorter cd on the 6th bonus.

I’d consider it if the sixth bonus interacted with a stat other than Vitality. As it stands, Vitality is too low in any proper build in any format for it to be worth it. Maybe if it interacted with Toughness instead.

If only there were any proper builds with a carrion amulett… :P

Also, by “any format” do you mean WvW as well? Because Dire + Scavenging has been rather popular since it’s been added to the game.

Holy crap, people are ungrateful as hell. These are all fine changes, literally direct buffs in any situation in every single way except for Nightmare runes. They aren’t going to fix our big issues in some random no-content patch. Stop complaining every single time they buff us just because it isn’t enough, the last time they did too much at once we ended up with Dhuumfire and were nerfed over and over for months because of it.

flow.6043:

If only there were any proper builds with a carrion amulett… :P

Also, by “any format” do you mean WvW as well? Because Dire + Scavenging has been rather popular since it’s been added to the game.

The problem with Carrion Amulet is that our condition sources have low Power coefficients. If we had a weapon like the Warrior’s mainhand sword, then Carrion would start to be a lot more attractive. What they could really do is have a primary Condition Damage, secondary Toughness and Power amulet. Then we’d really start to see some hybrid action.

And sorry, I was talking primarily PvP and PvE. WvW has a lot of varied usage for a lot of different runes and stuff, but the context of the original question I responded to seemed directed at PvP.

Bhawb.7408:

Holy crap, people are ungrateful as hell. These are all fine changes, literally direct buffs in any situation in every single way except for Nightmare runes. They aren’t going to fix our big issues in some random no-content patch. Stop complaining every single time they buff us just because it isn’t enough, the last time they did too much at once we ended up with Dhuumfire and were nerfed over and over for months because of it.

I certainly am not asking for anything like Dhuumfire, but the sort of changes we see here are frustrating because it shows a real disconnect between what the problems with the class actually are and what ANet’s understanding of those problems is. Claims like that a 0.5s reduction in cast time on Locust Swarm will increase our mobility are… Troubling.

Well my current setup for my condi/healing DS sustain build just had all of it’s utilities buffed (Was already using Siggy of Locust, Undeath and sometimes CPC in pvp). Been a long time since I have seen such a positive patch note for me personally, even though for Necromancers in general the changes are fairly/very lackluster.

From my point of view:

- Locus Swarm won’t get interrupted as much. Changes don’t effect mobility at all other than that.

- The CPC cooldown and cast time reduction is a good change. Using it in pvp, it was always getting interrupted and took a little too long to be used again in fights even with my sustain build. The cooldown reduction now puts the skill at a 40% uptime to 60% downtime over 30 seconds instead of 29% uptime to 71% downtime over 40 seconds.

It will be a lot better at countering multiple heal and damage spikes on a point especially against melee warriors/guards. The weakness penalty doesn’t effect me much since I’m condi focus and I’m always transferring back condis regardless. I would gladly take an offensive component though as Rising Dusk mentioned, but heal countering from poison sort of is in a way.

- Signet of the Locust: On my sustain build this is pretty much my mobility and a secondary active heal. Unfortunately 1 mistimed use due to blocks or blind/poison application can make the area heal useless. So seeing a 20 second reduction in cooldown and increased effectiveness from healing power makes me happy even though it will still fizzle most of the time.

- Signet of Undeath: Simple change. I will happily take another 1% LF gain on passive tick in addition to Soul Marks, Soul Comprehension and Gluttony. I’m also interested in the possible other additions to the active side of the skill if I understand the summary correctly.

- Edit: Forgot Nightmare runes somehow and I’m not sure about this change. I think I like having the 60 second CD at 1 second fear for our fear builds (really 2 seconds) than the 90 second CD with 2 seconds of fear (4 seconds). This makes other classes drop the runes while we get more, but lesser procs of fear with it. 90 second cooldown is too much downtime for a terrormancer to proc more than once in a skirmish.

Trading the “OP” 4 second fear once per fight for a 2 second fear twice per fight. Once at the beginning and once at the end when you really need it.

leman.7682:

Locust Swarm: …
Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.

Is this serious? How does this increase our mobility?

It cuts cast time allowing for us to have slightly more up time of swiftness. It doesn’t improve our mobility a tinny bit.

Condi Necro gonna use Torment Sigil for sure

The changes are fine. I"m more excited about about confusion changes considering I’ve wanted to use a condi mesmer for a long long time now. It seems that Arena net is slowly started to try and push to more usability for conditions in PvE. Which would be really nice.

Felt inclined to respond:

I get at least something good for my birthday (Might nerf sounds alright)… The Necromancer changes, meh, but some things did stand out;

Narkodx.1472:

Condi Necro gonna use Torment Sigil for sure

This is the first; if this is true, then I would imagine to see a lot more Rabid Necromancers’ – a thought to be dieing breed ever since most people who do not like to look into the class copy-paste Metabattle…

I am kinda 50/50 with it though… I will see, that’s all…

Runes of Scavenging in PvP seems something fun to test in my opinion – I was never a fan of Nightmare, and I would look into this when I can…

If I can, or want, I barely play due to my time and interest… it might return at the 27th if the changes are substantial enough, if not, I will likely not play much… like now…

Overall, good changes. Nightmare Rune gets lower uptime, but more useful cooldown (despite what people are saying, many fights take longer than 1 minute).

Locust Swarm… I won’t complain, but I don’t think this is the skill they really need to buff. Having a bit higher DPS is nice, but again, I don’t think the skill needs it.

Corrosive Poison Cloud might actually see some use now. It could still use a bit more, but cast time and cooldown changes make it actually useable.

Signet of the Locust having a shorter cooldown is exactly what it needed. The healing portion getting a buff is also nice, but their notes on the increased scaling are kinda funky. Improtant to note, though, is that if it steals from 5 targets, it will scale at 2* healing power untraited. I may teach myself to use it as a second heal skill. Between this buff and the recent buff to Life Siphon, Bloodthirst may become a good trait.

Signet of Undeath is still worthless. I give ANet an A for recognizing the fact it needed a buff…and a D- for actually changing that.

Need to view the changes in context. If they shave the top classes it only helps the rest.

Nightmare rune change might be a nerf but it’s a good change. The fear stacking you could get with them was ridiculous.

Looking over the rest, they seem fine I guess. The only skill that’s currently used and has been slated for change AFAIK is warhorn 5.

I think in context necromancers will be quite healthy with the nerfs to Might stacking. Necro might stacking for PvP wasn’t all that hot. It’s a non-trivial hit to Blood is Power, though.

I honestly can’t think of a scenario where I’d ever use Cloud with or without this change. Can already do AE weakness with dagger off-hand and poison is on scepter auto for condi builds.

What specs would honestly consider this utility skill?

Atherakhia.4086:

I honestly can’t think of a scenario where I’d ever use Cloud with or without this change. Can already do AE weakness with dagger off-hand and poison is on scepter auto for condi builds.

What specs would honestly consider this utility skill?

I could see it for zerg breaker builds or bunker-busters. It’s not fun to fight in an enemy’s CPC, and it is a strong source of weakness. Also basically covers a capture point in PvP. Really, the skill is okay, but it’s not good enough to justify one of the utility slots. After the change, it will be re-evaluated.

Also, 50% uptime when traited after the change. That is incredibly significant.

Just a few thoughts:
1)These aren’t bad changes, buffs are good, but they seem to think CPC, Signet of Undeath, and Signet of Locust are decent skills when they all need significantly larger buffs to see actual use. Also why did mesmers illusion of life get a cooldown reduction, when SOU didn’t?

2)The nerf to might stacking will make us even stronger against engis and eles, but those classes will be taken less. I don’t know if this will increase or decrease the amount of necros you see.

3)Lol at the .5 second cast time reduction to Locust swarm, it is a good change yes, but the swiftness uptime only increased by a tiny amount.

4)Torment sigil will be commonplace, even on carrion builds, with 6 in Curses, fury you should be able to proc it enough to be really useful. Scavenging runes will be nice for Carrion builds.

5)While these are positive changes, I wish they would give necros changes similar to what thieves, mesmers, and rangers got. I mean thieves will now have a trait which gives 15% of critical damage back to you as health, that is infinitely better than any necromancer siphon option (and sooo much better than parasitic contagion it isn’t funny).

At this point, it is nice to see buffs, but necros still have the same core functionality problems they have had since launch, and are still the worst by far in pve. I don’t expect them to fix this with one patch, but they aren’t even addressing these problems at all. Also, why buff litany of wrath but leave SOV which is still the worst heal in the game.
These buffs are nice, but the things they buffed will still be subpar. Anet seems to give necros very small buffs that don’t make a big enough impact to actually change anything. I look back at a lot of balance patches, and can’t help but feel most of Anet’s necro changes aren’t doing enough to actually fix the problems of the class. They need to be a little more bold with some of their changes.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Atherakhia.4086:

I honestly can’t think of a scenario where I’d ever use Cloud with or without this change. Can already do AE weakness with dagger off-hand and poison is on scepter auto for condi builds.

What specs would honestly consider this utility skill?

I could see it for zerg breaker builds or bunker-busters. It’s not fun to fight in an enemy’s CPC, and it is a strong source of weakness. Also basically covers a capture point in PvP. Really, the skill is okay, but it’s not good enough to justify one of the utility slots. After the change, it will be re-evaluated.

Also, 50% uptime when traited after the change. That is incredibly significant.

Just to add it all comes down to mechanics. Sure we have good access to area Weakness and to poison, but CPC mechanics make it a pretty valuable skill for cutting back enemy effectiveness. It’s just for most builds, at least pre this buff, there’s just better options where killing faster makes more sense (although CPC can help indirectly with that too).

- First of all it’s a 12 second long poison field, so you don’t need Chillblains for blast finisher during that time or Enfeebling blood for that matter. It doesn’t hurt to stack the weakness and poison auto attack, but you can if you want plan defensively and spread out the weakness and stack poison a lot more. Think of it as lesser Plague form condi spam. The same way Well of Darkness is a less effective Plague Form blind spam.

- Second it applies an instant 3 seconds of Weakness and Poison at creation and every 3 seconds after that. That means enemies have to condi clear five times in a row to get rid of its effects.

- While enemies are fighting in CPC without condi clearing, they’re again getting 15 seconds of Poison and Weakness. That’s 33% less healing effectiveness, 20% less endurance generation effectiveness and -50% less physical damage. That’s a big deal when it’s up and trying to out sustain a sustainer(s) with high DPS and cutting back their dodges.

50% less Endurance regen rate, 50% chance at 50% less direct damage (crit damage doesn’t apply on glancing blows), so 25% reduction of non-crit hits and greater on crits.

The thing with CPC is in high level PvP you simply need two stun breakers to avoid getting trained which leaves one utility open and Corrupt Boon is just too good especially since Stab > Fear is really good damage

I think CPC might be a better option for a power necro – it’s not like the condis that CPC provide benefit from condition damage anyway

I never really thought the issue with CPC was the cooldown or effect I simply think it is redundant

My dream version of CPC = Denies ALL healing for X seconds and reflects projectiles

If it was something like that it would be unique and worth bringing into pvp

I don’t get the balancing philosophy of waiting almost half a year to make tiny insignificant changes that doesn’t fix core obvious problems, or even fix things they’re trying too. Like patch notes like those are such tiny things they seem more fit for nudge balancing like every 2 weeks or a month since it’ll have a minimal impact (class specific change-wise.)

With that rant over I can’t see my use of any of these skills being more, the necro class has major glaring sustain issues still being ignored since day one, and it’s very annoying seeing them trying to boost underused/whelming skills that for 99% of content still won’t be used because they’re still bad and the buff is so small/irrelevant.

Was looking forward to significant changes to actually want to come back and play my necro, these are not it.

Signet of the Locust is getting a massive buff, so I wouldn’t say they’re neglecting Necro sustain. The active has always been the part making that skill bad. Ergo, buffing Signet of the Locust buffs Necro sustain. Likewise, buffing the uptime of CPC and making it more usable buffs our sustain via greater Weakness uptime.

The only buff that really didn’t change anything is Signet of Undeath. That will still be ignored in 99.9% of builds.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Signet of the Locust is getting a massive buff, so I wouldn’t say they’re neglecting Necro sustain. The active has always been the part making that skill bad. Ergo, buffing Signet of the Locust buffs Necro sustain. Likewise, buffing the uptime of CPC and making it more usable buffs our sustain via greater Weakness uptime.

I don’t agree with this, there’s still no reason to use it. We have solid, core problems with sustain. We have terrible healing, regen doesn’t work in ds, they want ds to be used for offense and defense, we have no active defenses, life siphoning is still a joke, etc. It doesn’t buff sustain where we need it. There are so many more important utility skills a necro use, being caught with it on your bar in WvW is just handicapping yourself. And CPC still has such niche use, corruption builds aren’t that popular and there are many ways to apply poison or weakness. I agree it’s a buff but nothing attractive enough to use it over many other skills.

My main problem is it took them so long just for these tiny things though, not the actual buffing they did.

Moving goalposts, much? It definitely improves Necromancer sustain, just not how you want it (that is to say, without changing your current builds at all).

I’m not saying our sustain will be great either after this patch, but to say they didn’t improve it is just false.

For reference: post-patch, assuming they (exactly) double the healing power scaling, Signet of the Locust will scale at 2.4 times Healing Power if it hits five enemies. The spoiler we already have suggested the scaling might be improved a bit beyond that to .5 healing power per opponent, so total of 2.5 times. On a drastically reduced cooldown. This is on top of a 969 per-target base heal, or 4845 base for 5 targets.

This, plus the improvements to dagger 2, our heals are improving with each patch.

I did say it improved, I acknowledged they in the literal definition are buffs. It’s just literally nothing that will change necro sustain in high level pvp. It doesn’t help us drop focus, or avoid damage, or be able to regen and tank hits. It will heal you more when you use the signet. Yes that is a fact. But no one would use it first of all, second of all it literally won’t help you live longer than an extra attack would do. It’s just not useful.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

50% less Endurance regen rate, 50% chance at 50% less direct damage (crit damage doesn’t apply on glancing blows), so 25% reduction of non-crit hits and greater on crits.

That’s for posting that, having a hard time seeing atm to correct mistakes/typos.

Edit:

L Step.8659:

I did say it improved, I acknowledged they in the literal definition are buffs. It’s just literally nothing that will change necro sustain in high level pvp. It doesn’t help us drop focus, or avoid damage, or be able to regen and tank hits. It will heal you more when you use the signet. Yes that is a fact. But no one would use it first of all, second of all it literally won’t help you live longer than an extra attack would do. It’s just not useful.

We’re never going to get some of the things you state though. We will never get something like stealth to drop focus and we will never get blocks/evades to avoid damage in addition to DS.

What we do get and could get more of is better access to regen/heals, better DS synergy (more LF gain), more soft condi crowd control and soft condi damage mitigation. The above changes are moves in that direction.

Your right though that the above changes do not effect high level pvp, but they don’t have to in order to be viable changes. If you weren’t already using Locust in pvp the changes don’t matter. If you were using SoL there’s plenty of instances where 25% speed buff won’t help you keep a point/kill someone, but getting a couple thousand more health to finish off your foe will. The changes with SoL gives us more bang for our buck on the active side with 20 seconds less cooldown. Post patch it will definitely be worth it sometimes to use that active if you don’t plan on going anywhere. By the time you finish up a skirmish, instead of being faced with 20 seconds left on SoL recharge, it will already be recharged for the speed boost post patch.

I look at it similar to the early reduction to Well CDs back in the day. A lot of people doubted they would help but it put Well CDs in a good enough sweet spot that they became effective. However like I said before, I mainly don’t like the active for SoL because blocks, poison and/or blind (especially blind) really mess it up badly to the point it has 0 effectiveness.

I’m of the opinion that Signet of Undeath will never be allowed a good passive, because its active can be so good. I mean, reviving up to 3 downed characters that are near each other? If you can land this on 2 people, it’s a pretty big swing in how the fight is going.

But at the same time, it’s a situation that doesn’t come up often and can still be difficult to pull off (3s+ channel, I think?). So Signet of Undeath will always be good if you can actually use it, but you almost never can, so it’ll always be bad in general play.

As for the rest of the buffs: Really minor, which is fine. The buff to Signet of the Locust is pretty interesting: reducing the cool down to 40s alone makes it a lot more interesting.

Unfortunately, Signet of Undeath was nerfed into oblivion back in the day. Its cast time is far too long right now to be useful, especially for a class so vulnerable to CC.

CPCs issue isn’t CPC, its the lack of a support/bunker build to use it. With this change you have a 12 second field on a 30s CD, 24s if traited. Untraited, it is theoretically possible to get 100% uptime of weakness and poison on up to 5 people, assuming they are stupid. If you trait it, then you make a capture-point sized area nearly impossible to fight on 50% of the time. It is actually a very significant buff to the skill.

The issue is just that the “best” necro builds have no room for it. The builds that can compete in high tier PvP can’t afford to pick it up, they need the damage or stun breaks other things give them. However the minute that ANet enables a bunker build, especially a condi bunker/support, I guarantee this will see play. Try to bunker a point as an ele or guardian when your healing is cut.

The main problem with CPC, as I said over a year ago, is that the conditions on it just won’t stick. They literally have to remain inside the area the entire duration for them to take effect. The second they leave the area the condis drop off, making it a laughable skill in a competitive environment. When most other classes have many ways to remove us from the point we’re trying to deny them (pulls/knockbacks/fears, ect) there’s no point in dropping it as area denial because with the short duration and no way to reliably hold them in the area, it becomes useless. I’ve offered many ways to change the skill to make it viable, from adding cripple to it or a boon strip (conservatively) but I think they are afraid to give it too much attention because on paper it is a very powerful skill. They seem to be more prone to balancing us on paper-which will never work.

As for the rest of the changes, meh, they aren’t bad ones but they are something that could have been added in any random patch instead of a balance patch. The sig of undeath still remains too weak on passives to be worth using when so many other skills to increase our own survivability are much more important. The change to locust swarm will help but it’s not some almighty mobility change like they tout it to be. Just means it will be a tad bit harder to get interrupted. To be honest though, that skill is a pretty decent skill overall so I’m not knocking that- just that we could have used mobility elsewhere instead.

Yay! My favorite class gets next to nothing while the class that I wish would implode gets buffs….sigh Ok corrosive poison cloud is a nice buff, and the signet of the locust shows MAYBE they are starting to get that our sustain is next to nothing. But those will still not see play as we need stunbreakers to help counter our huge weakness to CC.

CPC is useful in zergbusting for either pulsing weakness before an enemy push, slapping on top of an enemy regroup as the water field goes down and for pulsing poison when multiple players are downed on one position to stop them getting bannered.

These changes are rather bland. Small buffs to skills that need more work than they were given.
I’d be stunned if I saw anybody using CPC. It is way too mediocre to warrant competition for a utility slot.
The SotL change is nice, but I don’t imagine it is enough to make siphon good, and outside of siphon builds, it is still an underwhelming skill.
The Locust Swarm change does not improve mobility in any noticeable way. I think this was the wrong place to add mobility changes. If anything, they could have reduced Spectral Walk’s cooldown to 50 seconds.
The SoU change is probably the worst of the changes simply because the active is too weak to justify running the skill.

I’m very grateful to the changes to Signet of the Locust. I usually run WvW and have it on my bar for the speed. It has healed me in the past in an emergency, but not enough to be considered a valuable “active” utility skill. Even with Signets traited, you may gain some might, but that’s about it. And after using it, you run like molasses until the CD wears off (even with Warhorn equipped).

Now, you gain more healing for using it, lower CD=more speed overall, and if you trait if—some might and an even lower CD. This could mean more damage dealing both passive(might stacks) and active, more healing active, more speed overall, and it has a cast time that you can actually use in WvW.

You could run a signet build with this and Signet of Spite in order to make good use if the trait. SoS has both a strong active and passive ability. You just have to cast it early in wvw in order to get it off uninterrupted, but it has a 1200 range so that’s doable.

those are worthless changes…oh boy the not so corrosive CPC change almost made me fall out of my chair laughing. This skill is BAD and you should feel BAD if you ever slot it on your bar!
oh seriously self weakness on a necro no less? we already apply its effects normally and plus we would have to get rid of that long kitten d bloody weakness right away with a heal or transfer since it it means less crits for bleeds and procs etc and EVEN LESS dodging (as if we had the luxury of infinite dodge or vigor)

this useless skill needs changes!
first it needs to damage on pulses to proc effects plus the poison and weakness(can be changed)
second it needs a special effect like guardian’s consecration skills. for example: projectile reflection/block, convert boons applied in the area to conditions (could go for affecting allies too since it is a very powerful effect), greatly reduce the duration of boons applied in the area, increase the duration/intensity of the conditions applied to targets in the area, etc

oh totally forgot…still waiting for the day where I could use a necro for dungeons without getting questioned or worse…

Ummm…what? Weakness doesn’t affect how many crits you have. Procs are completely unaffected by Weakness.

Locust Swarm:

Change is good, cast time reduction is always welcome, especially on this skill i always felt the cast time or the animation was buggy, i interrupted it many times because i used the daze or a heal skill after it, a split second before the animation was finished even though from the visuals the cast was finished.

CPC

Its a start. They at least acknowledge this skill exists. They are pushing it into a direction, furthermore they explain us what that skill is meant to do, area denial. The problem here the ticks are so slow, 3 second in between ticks? Thats a LONG time the skill is active but does nothing. I do understand that lower durations but more frequent ticks would be too strong because of the kind of conditions applied, but i think it needs a persistent effect or a per second effect to become really viable. Projectile block is too strong regarding its uptime, but something like reduced boon duration on foes while standing in it or increased condition duration on foes while standing in it would do the trick.
Another idea would be a small per second damage tick a really low tick, just some of the possibilities this would open: sigil procs, on crit procs, vampiric procs, reapers precision procs…

Signet of the Locust

I love the intention behind the buffs, but i hate that the potency of the healing is depending so much on the enemy. The heal will still be crap if its just one enemy, it isnt based on my positioning but on the enemy positioning. A sustain skill should be more reliable.

Signet of Undeath

Its a buff.. the passive is still rather bad, it has to be bad because the active can be so strong, yet its stuck with a long cast time and the necros lack of on demand stability. Id rather change the active to something different. Necros team support should come from controlling and dominating the enemy, not rezzing or buffing or healing your allies.

Overall they tweak the right parts here, but not enough to make these skills good or viable in any game mode.

flow.6043:

leman.7682:

Locust Swarm: …
Dev note: This change will give necromancers a bit more mobility.

Is this serious? How does this increase our mobility?

Shorter cast time means higher swiftness uptime. So yeah… huuuuge mobility boost right there.
The real buff here is being able to more likely cast it without being interrupted, which means more reliable life force regen.

On another note, what do you guys think about Runes of Scavenging in PvP? Personally I’d take them over Nightmare any day, even with the shorter cd on the 6th bonus.

I don’t think so tbh.

The thing is nightmares runes are being buffed quite alot with that change (imo). Proccing every minute is way stronger as the reduced duration is borderline irrelevent as they have to cleanse it regardless.

And the real strength of nightmare is the increased condi duration with the fears. Scavenger will give more condi damage but the other skills are terrible for necro. The 4th bonus to steal health after a heal is pointless as our heal is on a long coo down. So I think condi duration is much better and you need nightmare runes for that.

I think on condi necro I will run sigil of torment on scepter after the patch though and nightmare runes will be better. So condi necro kind of got buffed although its not alot I guess.

As for the other changes. Locust swarm is a buff I guess, should help a little. Corrosive poison cloud buff is nice and was needed for ages, but the skill is still terrible. You spend a whole utility slot (which necro needs to stay alive) on a skill which does ONE condition? Yeh its terribad. And people can……just run out of it……Hardly great. And the poison is not applied often enough…again not good.

Locust signet buff is one of those changes which doesn’t matter and is a waste of time. Still pointless. The reason it sucks in pvp is that when you need to heal (the active) you are often being focussed. But then you also need mobility (the passive) so it actually never works out well. The signet of undeath buff was hilarious. They basically admitted they didnt know what they were doing with this note:

Dev note: While this remains a low amount, we’re looking to provide more options for support when necromancers use this signet.

So they still realise its low? Why not buff it more then? Why not actually use the 6 months between any balance patches to…you know…come up with some ideas of how to provide more options for that signet.

As always the favourite classes (engineer) get the in depth balance changes which open up build options and necro/guardian/ranger classes just get some boring stuff which just does nothing and doesnt open up any areas to even experiement.

No wonder all the necros and rangers quit….

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Ummm…what? Weakness doesn’t affect how many crits you have. Procs are completely unaffected by Weakness.

Weakness effects crits since the weakness rework. So technically it does reduce the amount of crits you have. With weakness you will glance multiple times instead of critting. Its really evident when you use assassin gear with the dagger build and then get weakened. Its like hitting mobs with a wet sock. Goes from like a 3 second kill time on a vet to about 20 seconds.