Guild Wars 2

Mammoth.1975:

I don’t know what kind of enemies you’re fighting, but most of the ones I face hit a lot harder than 2% of my health. If you’re taking 6000 dps, you’re boned either way, and that’s about the point where old spectral is better than new spectral, assuming your enemies can output 1500-2000 dps on a stationary target.

Professions with aegis, stealth, vigor, invulnerability and blocks aren’t “boned” because they don’t have to take 6000 DPS, they can just negate most of it easily. Being a profession that can’t escape and get easily pinball’ed (btw, KBs are OP), a bit more LF generation while focused fire would greatly help closing the survivability gap, while still not giving us any of those buffs other professions have.

Up to now, tPvP was mostly: “focus fire necro to the ground”, maybe it could change to: “focus fire necro to 50%, switch to someone else for 5-6 sec, and back to necro for the kill”.

Anyway, do conditions still melt DS ?

Andele.1306:

even the most obvious newbies just move out of the way/cc a DSed necro).

I like this strategy. ‘Oh look, that guy used a LF generation ability, can’t kill him anymore, he has the F1 godmode!’

As for the spectral armour change, it really does depend on how hard your opponents hit. If they’re hitting for like 500, sure, it’s a nerf, but you’re not dying anyway, so who cares?

This forum will whine about anything. ‘Sure, we got 180 radius marks baseline and a 50% increase to our DS hps, but I can’t jump off cliffs anymore anet you kittening suck!’

Mammoth.1975:

I like this strategy. ‘Oh look, that guy used a LF generation ability, can’t kill him anymore, he has the F1 godmode!’

Nahh, you just dont waste burst/cooldowns on something that loses 4% of its value pre second, just abuse the weakness of no stun breaks and heal in DS so cc the necro or side step/blink away for 2-3 seconds in a 1v1, if you got a second person with you, its a question of why isnt the necro dead already?
Also Greater mark size was a needed thing for making staff viable in pvp, no other weapon across all professions has that requirement (each has at least one useful reliable ability) and the DS damage fix didnt actually influence anyone who went glass cannon, you needed to double your base armor value for DS to take more damage than you outside of ds (as in to go 100-0 faster not counting degen).

As someone whos never played necro before, could someone explain in simple terms why these patch notes are so bad?

I an genuinely curious, because to an outsider they dont look too bad (but like I said, I dont really know how necro builds work).

Cufufalating.8479:

As someone whos never played necro before, could someone explain in simple terms why these patch notes are so bad?

I an genuinely curious, because to an outsider they dont look too bad (but like I said, I dont really know how necro builds work).

I can’t give a direct comparison on all points because some things are not bad just different.

Fall damage just seemed like a very cool feature to have if you knew enough to hit DS before landing anywhere. Your life forces would be gone if the fall was too far but you could walk away in full health. It is not game breaking to lose, just unfortunate in my opinion.

Having overflow damage take out of the health of a Necro when DS (Death Shroud) is low on life force is the one that is going to be hard to judge and adjust to. We don’t have a health number in DS, it is just a bar. I don’t know if I have 4k, 5k, 6k etc, it is going to be guess work and compare work from the combat log to figure it out so you have an idea of how much danger you might be in.

Think of it like this; Guardian can renew Aegis and block an incoming attack. It does not have a physical cap. 100 or 10000 is the same. Death shroud now has a cap whereas it did not before. As a Necro DS could be popped when you were very low on health giving you a chance to wait out a heal on cool down if you had enough and didn’t run out of health before. The thing was, you could have a chance to hit your heal skill if you were knocked out of DS. In this situation you could be knocked out of DS right into downed state without any chance to hit the heal.

Death Shroud might not save a Necro at certain times anymore. Good for the guy trying to kill you but bad for the Necro. We do not have very many escapes in this situation. We have no speed or distance escapes outside of a couple of utilities that are very situational and nowhere near as reliable as anything any other class has.

I think the rest of the stuff that has been adjusted is self explanatory. Skill nerf, trait tree movement, larger base ring size for marks etc. Details but not overly confusing ones for most people.

Cufufalating.8479:

As someone whos never played necro before, could someone explain in simple terms why these patch notes are so bad?

I an genuinely curious, because to an outsider they dont look too bad (but like I said, I dont really know how necro builds work).

A couple major things, especially relating to death shroud-

First off, skills (1 on each weapon) can generate life force (LF). When a necro goes into death shroud (DS), the profession mechanic, damage taken reduces their life force instead of their health. When they run out of LF, they’re pushed out of DS into regular mode.

Now the changes -
Damage overflowing from LF to health:
Necromancers have generally poor access to ‘temporary invulnerability’ skills / effects. There is no mist form, obsidian flesh, vigor (for more dodges), skills with long evasion windows, or skills that block the next X attacks or attacks for X seconds. Hell, they don’t even have a projectile invulnerability skill anywhere, which I believe is an exception among all professions.
To cope with this, necromancers tended to use LF as that temporary invulnerability. Burning your entire LF bar (whether it be 50%, 30%, or a fortunate 10%) to block a one-shot wasn’t just a good response to big single-hit skills, it was practically the only response. Again, dodges / evades are available to Necromancers, as they are to every class, but there is no way to really invest in dodging / evading or any skill to take for brief windows of invulnerability.
Now however, using your hastily acquired 15% LF to tank a thief’s backstab isn’t a block / dodge roll, it’s just a bit of extra health to take the edge off.
So there’s been some complaints about how that was removed.

Secondly: Spectral Armor / Walk internal cooldowns.
Previously, both of these effects gave 3% LF every time you were hit, and briefly were allowed to persist through DS. This made them excellent for soaking damage in chaotic XvX situations where there was a lot of minor chip damage flying around. Instead of getting worn down, a necro could coast through on the generated LF while sticking to DS.
With the internal cooldown / LF per hit changes, the focus is put back to 1v1. The skills won’t scale nearly as well against multiple opponents as they used to, though spectral armor will probably still feel very workable against single opponents. There’s a non-trivial contingent that holds necromancers can’t handle 1vX situations, so having an ability that fit that niche removed stings.

That’s how I see it anyways. Personally I’m going to wait a few days and see how it plays out: the ‘bug fix’ for how much damage a necromancer could soak with Death Shroud is actually far more significant than I originally anticipated. If I’m correct in my observations and theories, post-patch DS can tank about 66% more damage than pre-patch DS. Which means that generating life force has become a significantly better way to soak damage than it was previously.

About DS:

Anyone else notice we don’t take any condition based damage in the “new and improved DS”?

Just killed a couple of spiders in front of LA and noticed the damage ticks of poison and (self-inflicted) bleeding disappear once I hit DS The moment I leave DS the numbers come back…

Might also be just a visual kind of bug but I also didn’t seem to degen any faster.

Cufufalating.8479:

As someone whos never played necro before, could someone explain in simple terms why these patch notes are so bad?

I an genuinely curious, because to an outsider they dont look too bad (but like I said, I dont really know how necro builds work).

This patch is a buff, no matter what emo necros can say. It’s just that some can’t cope, yet, with Death Shroud not being able to absorb an infinite amount of damage anymore. They are slowly moving through the 7 steps to acceptance. The sad part, as Rennoko noted, is that it slightly reduces skill cap, because you can’t reactively pop DS to absorb a huge hit anymore).

I think the most grieving part of this patch is the reduction of build diversity. But the necromancer becomes more and more viable, and that’s a step up from the diversity of crappy builds we had before.

Softspoken.2410:

Cufufalating.8479:

As someone whos never played necro before, could someone explain in simple terms why these patch notes are so bad?

I an genuinely curious, because to an outsider they dont look too bad (but like I said, I dont really know how necro builds work).

A couple major things, especially relating to death shroud-

First off, skills (1 on each weapon) can generate life force (LF). When a necro goes into death shroud (DS), the profession mechanic, damage taken reduces their life force instead of their health. When they run out of LF, they’re pushed out of DS into regular mode.

Now the changes -
Damage overflowing from LF to health:
Necromancers have generally poor access to ‘temporary invulnerability’ skills / effects. There is no mist form, obsidian flesh, vigor (for more dodges), skills with long evasion windows, or skills that block the next X attacks or attacks for X seconds. Hell, they don’t even have a projectile invulnerability skill anywhere, which I believe is an exception among all professions.
To cope with this, necromancers tended to use LF as that temporary invulnerability. Burning your entire LF bar (whether it be 50%, 30%, or a fortunate 10%) to block a one-shot wasn’t just a good response to big single-hit skills, it was practically the only response. Again, dodges / evades are available to Necromancers, as they are to every class, but there is no way to really invest in dodging / evading or any skill to take for brief windows of invulnerability.
Now however, using your hastily acquired 15% LF to tank a thief’s backstab isn’t a block / dodge roll, it’s just a bit of extra health to take the edge off.
So there’s been some complaints about how that was removed.

Secondly: Spectral Armor / Walk internal cooldowns.
Previously, both of these effects gave 3% LF every time you were hit, and briefly were allowed to persist through DS. This made them excellent for soaking damage in chaotic XvX situations where there was a lot of minor chip damage flying around. Instead of getting worn down, a necro could coast through on the generated LF while sticking to DS.
With the internal cooldown / LF per hit changes, the focus is put back to 1v1. The skills won’t scale nearly as well against multiple opponents as they used to, though spectral armor will probably still feel very workable against single opponents. There’s a non-trivial contingent that holds necromancers can’t handle 1vX situations, so having an ability that fit that niche removed stings.

That’s how I see it anyways. Personally I’m going to wait a few days and see how it plays out: the ‘bug fix’ for how much damage a necromancer could soak with Death Shroud is actually far more significant than I originally anticipated. If I’m correct in my observations and theories, post-patch DS can tank about 66% more damage than pre-patch DS. Which means that generating life force has become a significantly better way to soak damage than it was previously.

Really? http://www.twitch.tv/symbollix/c/2622702

Mammoth.1975:

Andele.1306:

even the most obvious newbies just move out of the way/cc a DSed necro).

I like this strategy. ‘Oh look, that guy used a LF generation ability, can’t kill him anymore, he has the F1 godmode!’

As for the spectral armour change, it really does depend on how hard your opponents hit. If they’re hitting for like 500, sure, it’s a nerf, but you’re not dying anyway, so who cares?

This forum will whine about anything. ‘Sure, we got 180 radius marks baseline and a 50% increase to our DS hps, but I can’t jump off cliffs anymore anet you kittening suck!’

Gj on ignoring everything and being a cheering squad all-in-one. So what do you mitigate damage with as condition spec. Your face? Well… yeah I guess but now you can’t even negate that backstab for 10k… now that 10k backstab will stab you right through your crapshourd. So will everything else.
And its not just condition specs that rely on ds… but hey… no amount of logic will convince you… since anet are so awesome and everyone just whines.. amright?

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Really? http://www.twitch.tv/symbollix/c/2622702

Trololo. Did the same thing to some fresh air guy this morning.

HiSaZuL.2843:

Mammoth.1975:

Andele.1306:

even the most obvious newbies just move out of the way/cc a DSed necro).

I like this strategy. ‘Oh look, that guy used a LF generation ability, can’t kill him anymore, he has the F1 godmode!’

As for the spectral armour change, it really does depend on how hard your opponents hit. If they’re hitting for like 500, sure, it’s a nerf, but you’re not dying anyway, so who cares?

This forum will whine about anything. ‘Sure, we got 180 radius marks baseline and a 50% increase to our DS hps, but I can’t jump off cliffs anymore anet you kittening suck!’

Gj on ignoring everything and being a cheering squad all-in-one. So what do you mitigate damage with as condition spec. Your face? Well… yeah I guess but now you can’t even negate that backstab for 10k… now that 10k backstab will stab you right through your crapshourd. So will everything else.
And its not just condition specs that rely on ds… but hey… no amount of logic will convince you… since anet are so awesome and everyone just whines.. amright?

Signets, Spectral Walk, Dodging, Good ol’ Fashioned skill saves me from Heartseeker monkeys.

Oh, and I don’t run the terrible glass cannon 30/30/10/0/0. That doesn’t mean I’m happy about the changes, though.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Really? http://www.twitch.tv/symbollix/c/2622702

Yep, it’s better in 1v1s but going to be worse in 1vX situations.

stof.9341:

Blaine Tog.8304:

stof.9341:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Why?! The only thing that enabled was jumping off things. What was broken about that?!?

Jumping off cliffs.

Jumping off cliffs was not broken! It was an extremely niche strategy mostly useful for clever escapes in WvW (where the Thief still has better escapes). It was also fun.

It breaks map design. It was foolish to think it’ll stay and wasn’t just a bug that would get fixed as soon as it was advertised.

Guess what? Necros jumped down out of the latest sPvP map and found stuff down there outside the normal play area. It was advertised, ANet saw the bug and now fixed it.

The stuff that breaks the game ARE fun yes, problem is they break the game so we cannot have them :/

ok well if anything that sounds like the out of play area was something wrong with the MAP and not DS….you do realise that right? and as far as breaking the game, lets talk perma stealth thieves that can have a full stack of bleeds and all sorts of conditions on them , go stealth and are back to full health…..really? you still think Necro needed this nerf? dude im sry but necro has not needed any nerf till perma stealth thievs get fixed , and its blatently obvious at this point theres no plan to. this nerf to DS destroys pve viability when other classes can stack conditions as well , with bleeds capping at 25 , therfore destroyign condition necros reason for pve……im sry but if all im seeing is nerfs designed specifically for pvp whiners then this game is done.

@Vlad

Can we see one with 2-3 people bursting you since that’s how it usually is in pvp

Ara.4569:

Cufufalating.8479:

As someone whos never played necro before, could someone explain in simple terms why these patch notes are so bad?

I an genuinely curious, because to an outsider they dont look too bad (but like I said, I dont really know how necro builds work).

This patch is a buff, no matter what emo necros can say. It’s just that some can’t cope, yet, with Death Shroud not being able to absorb an infinite amount of damage anymore. They are slowly moving through the 7 steps to acceptance. The sad part, as Rennoko noted, is that it slightly reduces skill cap, because you can’t reactively pop DS to absorb a huge hit anymore).

I think the most grieving part of this patch is the reduction of build diversity. But the necromancer becomes more and more viable, and that’s a step up from the diversity of crappy builds we had before.

last i checked when this game out , it was boasted that you could play in any spec / build and be just as “successful” as any other , yet with all this stuff we seem to be getting pidgeon holed into specific specs to even be viable. well the game was fun but im pretty much about done if this is what were dealing with….

Rok.5260:

@Vlad

Can we see one with 2-3 people bursting you since that’s how it usually is in pvp

Can you tell us how much old spectral would help against people 2-3 people hitting you for 7k? On an 18k health necro it would protect against ~360 damage per hit. You’d get toasted anyway.

New one is ~1440 per second. It’s better unless you’ve got enough people hitting you that you’re dead anyway.

Enundr.9305:

last i checked when this game out , it was boasted that you could play in any spec / build and be just as “successful” as any other , yet with all this stuff we seem to be getting pidgeon holed into specific specs to even be viable. well the game was fun but im pretty much about done if this is what were dealing with….

Did people really believe those marketing shenanigans? That you could do any one of a number of different builds and be as viable as any other in any situation?

It’s both insane and unrealistic to think that’s how things will actually pan out. It’s unfair for ANet to make a claim like that (I don’t remember anything worded quite so strongly, though), but it’s also on the reader to draw his/her own logical conclusions.

But yeah, no. If you break a situation down into its constituent parts, there will be one permutation on one class that is “best”. Others will compete for “viability” given an acceptable range of deficiency. When you have as many permutations of weapons/traits/utilities/gearing as GW2 has, what you really should be aiming for is a spread across classes so each has its own distinct role that it excels at, or at least you insure there’s viability for certain classes in certain roles. Even that is intensely difficult.

Also, good vid.

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Really? http://www.twitch.tv/symbollix/c/2622702

Post patch – 32% life force gained. Pre patch – about 36% gained. Not sure how many hits there actually were there, because I can’t see the damage log.

Really it’s just the buff to death shroud’s damage resistance that’s showing through in that video. Although it’s worth noting that had anyone else been attacking him at the time as well, he would have received no extra life force unlike before the patch. Again, still plays well against a single target, but has probably lost its 1vX niche.

I the only way to deal with these is to see the necro a bit differently and adapt to what has been given.

Safer Saviour.9685:

Fifthnight.9658:

Oh no I can’t use Deathshroud as an invincible shield anymore? I have to use the Skill as intended and can’t abuse it? Ooh Nooo!

You should roll a character because it’s mechanic fits your play style not because it is the broken prof of the week.

I have 1,900 hours logged on my necromancer. Come back when you have something worthwhile to contribute.

Come back when your post contributes more than mine.

Fifthnight.9658:

Safer Saviour.9685:

Fifthnight.9658:

Oh no I can’t use Deathshroud as an invincible shield anymore? I have to use the Skill as intended and can’t abuse it? Ooh Nooo!

You should roll a character because it’s mechanic fits your play style not because it is the broken prof of the week.

I have 1,900 hours logged on my necromancer. Come back when you have something worthwhile to contribute.

Come back when your post contributes more than mine.

How did your post contribute? DS is an invincible shield?

Look at all the QQ over a minor nerf… this massive buff to necros really screwed over the community it seems..

Hey dev’s, I’m usually pretty supportive with your decisions not this time though. Thank you for nerfing build diversity, I was having too much fun on 0/30/10/0/30 anyway, I’m so happy I get to be shoehorned into a burning build. Looks like 30/20/0/0/20 is the way to go now.

Another thing that I find weird, Sharp said he wants us to be the “master of condition and boon manipulation” yet we get a nerf last patch to Corrupt Boon and a stealth nerf to Putrid Mark. Then this patch the mesmer’s Null Field gets a buff by reducing its cooldown to 40 seconds. Let’s take a look at what you get with it:

Null Field
Create a field of energy that rips all boons from foes, and cures all conditions on allies.

Duration: 7 s (bugged to be 5s)
Radius: 240
Combo Field: Ethereal
Range: 1,200

I fail to see the dev’s logic in these recent decisions.

Null field removes and conditions similar to the necro’z well of power. What really sucks is we still lack tools that allows us to survive high bursts.

With this patch it would seem that going for a more offensive playstyle can benefit necros more. In pvp that is. Pve, we can just face the ground more…..

Can’t stand that getting Dumbfire caused Terror getting nerfed. Never wanted the power tree or burning as a condition Necro in the first place, but they pigeon holed us there so that our ‘best defense is a good offense’. And end up soft as tissue paper.

Or you can avoid the railroading, go away from dumbfire, but end up with way less DPS and our old condition builds now nerfed – which were all fine the way there were, and even needed more help as Necro was regarded universally weak back then.

rly sad that i can’t jump off cliffs surviving and watching silly ppl die after me

Hi All,

After reading all the tag-line comment from all fellow necro player.

Well I really hope Anet could understand our comment. The game developer should look into an angle that each job professional has a unique skill and damage, this will enhance the every player interest to create new play style & etc. By nerfing our skills damage point or etc, it is as good as discouraging player from selecting our class and greatly outnumber by other class, well in short i can say is since the game develop so many job class why keep nerf? if you nerf it so greatly, then don’t create it. why create it at the first place.

I am a fan of Nemeis the necro, I can see he has great passion on playing the necro so well, but imagine, every-time a update and nerf applies, we the player include Nemeis will need to spend time to understand it. Well it is time wasting. A game is create for a period of enjoyment not controlling.

My apology if I have meant anything wrong. it is just my heartfelt comment.

Regards

my favourite thing about patch day is reading peoples reactions to it on the forums. honestly its hilarious.

though I do think they nerfed spectral skills with the 1 sec cool down.

I think the important thing to remember here is this game, is a game…

the only other complaint I have is how after each patch I feel like I need to re-learn building my necro.

They need to nerf necro more so people will kitten and quit crying.

Bull Zooker.1672:

my favourite thing about patch day is reading peoples reactions to it on the forums. honestly its hilarious.

though I do think they nerfed spectral skills with the 1 sec cool down.

I think the important thing to remember here is this game, is a game…

the only other complaint I have is how after each patch I feel like I need to re-learn building my necro.

The patch notes are ambiguous…
After playing the game i wouldn’t call this patch a nerf, but there was no way of seeing that before.

Some of us read fast, some of us had a bad day… and you know people read and see what they fear/are interested in. So…
It’s only natural…

Maybe i should have had more faith in the company and test before speaking, but i don’t like faith, i like facts.

Here is what Jonathan Sharp wrote about necro in the spvp section of the forum regarding the current meta:

JonathanSharp.7094:

Oh, also, to the Op’s point (sorry, I’m about to present in China, my mind is elsewhere, didn’t mean to ignore the OP):

The reason we did a “big” change for the Necro, as I’ve stated before, is that we had the Pax tournament coming. We knew we wanted to get Necros and Warriors up with the other classes, and that’s why we had big changes.

Also, a lot of our changes happen VERY far ahead of what you guys see on live. What do I mean?

• It takes us time to get our changes to editors for writing (any text/trait change has to be edited). This can take a week or more.
• We have to then get changes to writers.
• We then have to make sure we work with artists for any visual changes
• We also have to work with sound to make sure we have sound for any changes
• We have to work with icon artists for icons if they’re needed (in the case of Death Shroud 5)
• We have to make sure the changes get through multiple stages of QA testing
• Then with the changes in, we get time to play them before we do final changes
• While doing all this, we have to take the current meta, be it in dungeons/wvw/pvp, and from that, try to extrapolate what we think needs to be done a few months in advance.

This process can take a LONG time, as you can imagine. It’s not as simple as, “Oh, let’s change this to a 2, and change that to a 7.”

I know the video game industry in general is not very transparent when it comes to how things actually work, but I wanted you guys to know that a lot of times, there is a LOT of process for even the SMALLEST balance/content changes.

We get to see how Ridley Scott made Blade Runner with a companion DVD special, but in video games, no one talks about all the complex processes that go into making and balancing a game as complex as GW2 (which is basically 3 games in 1, all using the same balance #’s).

Hope this makes sense.

Oh, also, the reason we can’t give Necro’s too much disengage has to do with the point of “purity of purpose”.

In this game, we want to allow classes the ability to deal with all situations but in different ways. But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Example: In PvP, the Necro and Engi both vie for the position of condition pressure. The engineer has more physical alternatives, the Necro has more boon/condition manipulation, the Engi has more escapability, and the Necro is a little squishier. If we gave the Necro too much mobility or escapability, then all of a sudden their “tools” start to line up exactly. If this is the case, one of them will simply be better than the other, as far as efficacy goes, and thus, one will push the other out of the meta for that “role” on the team. This class would then be the “apex” predator for that role. So, in order to prevent this, we try to make it so that the classes don’t have all their tools overlap perfectly. This means you have to say (following our example), “Well, if we take a Necro, we get more condies, but a squishy body that can’t disengage…..but if we take Engi, we lose some DPS and control (depending on utils), but we get someone who can stand up to a spike better”.

Make sense? If we just gave the escape to Necro’s, then all of a sudden, the Necro is just the clear choice. Not all decisions come down to a clean break like this, but this is the type of thing we’re trying to do when we “deny” some classes certain tools.

This is the same reason that Red doesn’t get interrupts in Magic, the reason that Zergs, normally, have much more mobility than Protoss (since Toss are usually stronger unit-by-unit), and why Karthus has no escapes. By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.

Also, keep in mind we’re trying to get 8 classes to fit into 5 slots, for PvE, Dungeons, and PvP.

This is all high level, and I’m in a rush, but I just wanted to explain this real fast…..

It’s funny, being in China, I have more time to post on the forums than I do while in the office. That’s irony or something….like 10,000 spoons….

-Chap from China

Link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/page/9#post2474136

A true politician, so whilst Engi/Necro struggle together for viability of condition pressure, power necro continues to lay dead beside the parade of warriors/thieves/guards/elementalists and, fml, even rangers for melee orientated pressure. All of whom also have better roaming capabilities mixed with reliable get-out-of-dodge moves tied to weapons for cancelling zerg attempts without taking up a wasted utility [before someone tries to suggest using fail worm].

Is this like David Cameron announcing the abismal budget and blocking off naughty websites just as the Royal baby is born? Distract them with the shiny new stuff while you twist the knife

JonathanSharp.7094:

But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/page/9#post2474136

I think we have a name for a class that has all tools.

Guardian!

Excuse me while us PvE players and WvWers are slowly pushed to the side, you’ve all heard the news folks! Time for Necro to go into sPvP.

The game is not only SPVP so if theres problem in it do changes for it only.
i don’t see anyone crying about how op are necros out of it…

also theres problem with one build only coz they did changes that not a single necro asked for like adding burning.
overall the nerfs are nothing except the mark trait one which is rly stupid

to the necro haters : you will still cry in the corner each time u meet one of us

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

JonathanSharp.7094:

But, if we give all classes all TOOLS (which is a different thing), then players get confused as to which classes fill which roles, and in what way they fill those roles

Link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Current-state-of-the-meta/page/9#post2474136

I think we have a name for a class that has all tools.

Guardian!

And elementalist, technically even mesmer but they must specialize for one thing then do it (not all at once like guard and ele).

Rok.5260:

Fifthnight.9658:

Safer Saviour.9685:

Fifthnight.9658:

Oh no I can’t use Deathshroud as an invincible shield anymore? I have to use the Skill as intended and can’t abuse it? Ooh Nooo!

You should roll a character because it’s mechanic fits your play style not because it is the broken prof of the week.

I have 1,900 hours logged on my necromancer. Come back when you have something worthwhile to contribute.

Come back when your post contributes more than mine.

How did your post contribute? DS is an invincible shield?

No that isn’t the part. Perhaps you should give it another read.

My point is that the mechanic for Deathshroud was obviously not intended to function as it did before allowing for it to eat up any amount of damage before eating at your health. Nothing is wrong with Necromancer and they are still perfectly fine and playable.

If everyone is so set on bringing up contribution let me point out that posting about the contribution of my post is not a contributing post.

Fifthnight.9658:

Rok.5260:

Fifthnight.9658:

Safer Saviour.9685:

Fifthnight.9658:

Oh no I can’t use Deathshroud as an invincible shield anymore? I have to use the Skill as intended and can’t abuse it? Ooh Nooo!

You should roll a character because it’s mechanic fits your play style not because it is the broken prof of the week.

I have 1,900 hours logged on my necromancer. Come back when you have something worthwhile to contribute.

Come back when your post contributes more than mine.

How did your post contribute? DS is an invincible shield?

No that isn’t the part. Perhaps you should give it another read.

My point is that the mechanic for Deathshroud was obviously not intended to function as it did before allowing for it to eat up any amount of damage before eating at your health. Nothing is wrong with Necromancer and they are still perfectly fine and playable.

If everyone is so set on bringing up contribution let me point out that posting about the contribution of my post is not a contributing post.

If it was a unintended design decision, why did they improve it in patches two times before (first letting the damage not only count from mobs but also falls, second fixing low/expire LF hits to proc runes making the necro be stuck/waste effects like spectral armor and regen)? Its like they come tomorrow to guardians and say. oh no, blocks dont work vs anything that has cc or conditions on it from now on, that was totally unintended behaviour.

Fifthnight.9658:

No that isn’t the part. Perhaps you should give it another read.

My point is that the mechanic for Deathshroud was obviously not intended to function as it did before allowing for it to eat up any amount of damage before eating at your health. Nothing is wrong with Necromancer and they are still perfectly fine and playable.

If everyone is so set on bringing up contribution let me point out that posting about the contribution of my post is not a contributing post.

Except they stated repeatedly that the point of deathshroud was to replace our lack of evasion/invulns/boons. In fact in one state of the game, a dev stated that most Necros didn’t use DS correctly because it was designed to save you from death so you should use it defensively however the change did not allow that. DS previously would take 200 percent damage every time someone attacked you while in DS, but it would absorb all the damage taken regardless of the hit or period in which it was used. It was essentially a dodge every 10 seconds, now it’s significantly worse than a block.

Currently if you get hit by a burst damage class and you don’t have protection on, you will get absolutely train wrecked in or out of DS. If your ds isn’t full. This is a bigger hit to WvWvW Solo Necros and PVE Necros in boss fights where you have to dodge massive damage hits. This is not a significant nerf to Tournament necros as the DS change actually benefits necros in team fights where prot and weakness will always be on.

The new ds will make multiple attacks really easy to mitigate if you have prot and weakness spreading with ds. However if you aren’t running with a source of prot and are able to apply weakness, you will essentially be hit even harder than before if running a glass cannon as DS can no longer be used as simply a soak shield to absorb a massive hit.

However, we will be significantly stronger against more bunker type teams Guardians, Bunker Engi’s, Rangers, and any player that uses chain attacks will have a significantly harder time killing us. It’s the burst that we used to absorb and then come out of it fine that’s gone now which inherently hurts our ability when we are rebuilding DS.

Coming from a WvWer’s perspective…

The end of the Kamikaze era is just one thing. Let’s bring up some pre-staged situations…

1. Roamers
You like small groups and small fights where skill lag does not interfere and you can bring it all on. You even have your 5-10 man group, everything is perfect. But then the zerg is coming…
What kind of tools do the professions have to make an escape attempt?
- thief: stealth + shadow step + shortbow
- guardian: stability + line of warding + block + aegis
- warrior: excellent mobility + stability + block
- ranger: stability + swiftness + leaps
- mesmer: invis + clones + portal + blink
- elementalist: extremely good mobility + static field + stunning aura + mist form
- engineer: mini + heavy CC + perma swiftness

…just a few ways to bring up. Now what did necro have pre-patch?
Erm…pop Walk/Armor, try to survive, find a cliff and jump. We had no real source of stability, no leap at all and we are the least mobile class in the game. No vigor, nor increased endurance regen.
With the recent patch, it means a guaranteed wipe for a roaming necro if he meets the enemy zerg.

2. “Zergers”
Death Shroud itself melts in zerg fights. It did pre-patch, it does now. I don’t care if you’ve fixed a bug and thanks to that we have more effective HP in DS. Extra HP is only extra HP in the end of the day, not a mitigating/evading mechanic like channeled blocks/aegis/invuln./mist form/etc.
The only valid way for a necro to get his own invuln. or at least something close to that was Spectral Armor/Walk combined with DS.
It still heavily limited our skill cap, since we were stuck in Death Shroud, but at least we could maintain our LF pool, which was decent enough. Bear in mind though, that we had no access to any kind of buff/heal/regen. No weapon swaps, therefore no on-swap sigils either in this form, which made it a bad alternative compared to the aforementioned mitigation methods. But still, an alternative…
Now you even took that away with the implemented internal cooldown on Walk/Armor. The maximum amount of Life Force gaining is 48% with Armor (68% if traited for longer duration). That’s without calculating in the damage taken in Death Shroud.

Now, let’s do a little bit of math here…
(I’ll call LF “effective HP” from now on, it pretty much works that way)

Based on this post, I’ll calculate with 50k effective HP in DS assuming the necro has 25k normally, which is an average value.
In this case 48% LF gain (let’s round it up to 50 for the sake of simplicity) means ~25k effective HP. That is ~25k in 6 seconds >> ~4.2k per second.
Now, add natural degeneration (that’s ~2k effective HP if not traited) which makes it only 2.2k effective HP gain per second.
What it means is, that the moment you take more than 2.2k damage per second this kind of effective HP regen. is as good as nothing and you will keep melting since HP -like I said above- is only HP.

This is the very reason why we don’t see many sPvPers/1v1ers complaining and they don’t get how big this nerf really is. While this scenario in sPvP/1o1 is not likely, it happens quite often in WvW/PvE.

I’ve accepted a long time ago, that necro is not and most likely will not be on pair with the “big guns”. Fine by me – I said – at least I’m tanky and can survive most of the crap you throw at me. I may not be strong in terms of damage dealing but I can be hell of an annoyance and you won’t get rid of me (at least not by killing me).

And for those who say Necros should focus on condition damage: ever tried running condition build against an organized group on large scale WvW? Conditions need time to kick in and that’s exactly what they don’t have. They get flipped/stripped in seconds and thus countered and ripped from their full potential. Not to mntion the whole “capped-part” that makes condition damage a limited source of damage.
Any decent WvW guild/group runs a decent condition cleanse composition, anyone who plays WvW competitively knows that. Arguments that claims that Necro should be all about condition damage only shows that the person have minimal on no knowledge at all about the WvW meta.

Of course, if sPvP players can’t realize the fact (or rather couldn’t – past tense), that it is (was) the necro’s own invuln. mechanic and don’t (didn’t) do the same what any competent player would do with any other invuln. skill (i.e. let it run out and try to keep the player out of game or focus on others), it’s understandable that they consider (or rather considered) it OP.

I have now had the time to put the new DS to the test in PvE, WvW zerg fights, and some small skirmish encounters.

I am puzzled about something.

DS is certainly more effective (HP) and has better duration but for some reason I feel like my Toughness is not holding up as much as it did before. This might be due to my attention being on managing the Life force pool and doing everything I can to stay above 50% Life force which involves being more aggressive during fights.

In WvW if I am working with a large group I usually have wells on my bar because they are very effective at breaking down opposing zergs. I also do not use staff in my build instead favoring DS as a damage mitigation tool and offensive weapon.

During zerg fights generating Life force is easy. There is more than enough dying along with easy to hit targets with axe 2, dagger 2, wells and so on.

In one on one fights I can keep Life force generating at a reasonable rate against most targets that are in range the most difficult being thieves due to stealth. Landing any channel skill on a thief is very challenging.

Facing 3 or more enemies at once is still certain death for me. Not much has changed here.

I did get instantly downed by a warrior out of DS once while 3 players chased me down. I wish Locust Swarm did not put me in combat when it applied damage to anything. As an escape feature it really suffers because you get the speed burst until the enemy, mob or player takes damage and then you are in the combat molasses. It also does nothing to prevent any classes with leaps to reach you anyway.

All in all. The added fix to DS is a nice feature but I haven’t been in too many situations as yet to see how often I am kicked out from an attack into peril as yet. The change hasn’t drastically affected my play style however I did swap out some trinkets for added Toughness because for some reason it feels like it is taking fewer hits from anything to get my HP to drop.

I might just rework my build entirely though for reasons relating to our competition this week and not this patch, but that is another story.

I hate when at the end of the OP post, they say “discuss” D8<

lol anyways… discuss

@chiefdiablo: Locust Swarm is better suited as a sticking skill than an escape skill.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

@chiefdiablo: Locust Swarm is better suited as a sticking skill than an escape skill.

I agree. I think it they should rework it so that it gives us a chance to get away.

Some people use it for getting around in both WvW and the regular maps. I have no idea why because you have to avoid any of the neutral mobs so they don’t end up in combat with you.

I have no idea how they thought up this quickness burst that puts you in combat but it is very annoying.

Edit;

Would be cool if you had a secondary fearture a la spectral walk, hit it again and leave the locust swarm where it is crippling the enemy but breaking you out of combat to use the quickness. That would be clever and useful in my opinion.

That’s… a pretty neat ideal actually, could let you dump it dead center of a point in pvp or something also.

Also I’ve said it a few times but I wish our warhorn was a little like the other warhorns in the game in that they give aoe buffs – I feel a little sad when a warrior gives everyone swiftness with his, while ours is completely selfish.

chefdiablo.6791:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

@chiefdiablo: Locust Swarm is better suited as a sticking skill than an escape skill.

I agree. I think it they should rework it so that it gives us a chance to get away.

That might be cool but we have to think about the consequence. Right now, the warhorn is naturally paired with the dagger. This tends to be in power builds and serves 2 purposes: first is basically passive damage with locust swarm and second is crippling your enemy while giving you swiftness so that you can stick to them and keep them in dagger range.

If locust swarm were changed for escapability, the damage would have to be taken away. The reason you slow down when using locust is that the damage it causes your enemy puts you in combat. No damage, no speed reduction. An example of this is the mesmer’s focus 4. This cripples enemies, gives you swiftness and does not slow you down because there is no damage.

Even though it would be cool to have some ability to escape, I am not sure that this is what the warhorn is for and taking away the damage may make it too similar to the mesmer focus skill without the additional utility of a pull/knockdown

“Terror: Reduced the damage by 17%. Fixed a bug so this trait now checks for the torment condition as well.”

I don’t know if it has been discussed yet but what exactly does that second sentence actually mean. Checks for torment and then does what???? It looks like another bit of ANet doublespeak/halftruth/obfuscation. We need some clarification on it.

Does it mean that these conditions are now mutually exclusive….in addition to the fear nerf? That really does seem a bit excessive…but in line with the incomprehensible direction this class is now taking with the counterintuitive changes to our survivability…all in the name of ???…..well I can’t work that out….neither can they it seems.

Edit: spelling

Edit2: If the conditions ARE mutually exclusive now due to that check then the fire/fear builds are now also obsolete…they will not work as before. I have a sneaking suspicion this is intended but stealthed through without telling us the implications of the check. We need someone with better skills than me to test this.

Oldbugga.7029:

“Terror: Reduced the damage by 17%. Fixed a bug so this trait now checks for the torment condition as well.”

I don’t know if it has been discussed yet but what exactly does that second sentence actually mean. Checks for torment and then does what????

Terror didn’t gain 50% more damage if the target had only torment on them. Now torment counts as a condition for the conditional damage increase on terror. It was a bug fix.

New changes… Let’s see what i noticed and tested

I used to use DS against high hitting thieves all the time, either for jumping off, or mitigating high damage. Now that is gone. I’m going to have to pick spectral armor, and hope that my DS isn’t on cooldown.

I used to have a 30/30/10 build, which fit perfectly with rabid gear, now my build has to change and i have nowhere to put that 10 points.

My condition necro always had enough survival with the toughness in its gear but my power necro is paper now. Unless someone gives me vigor, it doesn’t look possible to survive for long in a CoE run without good dps. (DS no longer mitigates high circle damage and with no vigor…)

I always had issues against thieves, now its worse. It’s good to be the king of conditions but a class based on attrition damage needs damage mitigation, otherwise we are target practice for high hitting thieves.

I hope it will get better in time, once people get used to it. All the other buffs are probably put to reduce the player response to these nerfs, but they just don’t cut it.

And for gods sake Axe#1 needs to be reworked.
I hope i made my points, all the best.