Guild Wars 2

Hmm, less extensive changes than I was hoping for.

Axe range increases are nice but I don’t think a mere 10% buff to the AA will change it’s situation much. Will give it a go but I don’t expect much.

Scepter on the other hand does seem to be a quite nice, boost to #2 and #3 finally being condition based is great. AA change seems like a wash but not bad, would prefer it if the AA was just sped up a touch. Still overall good.

The change to CPC to projectile defense is great but was hoping they were also looking at the other corruptions as well.

I see that they did clarify that this is just the first of a series of balance changes, I say that’s fine as long as they take fewer than three months between them. I’d like the core profession specs to be tuned up across the board before the next expansion drops.

ZDragon.3046:

Condition duration is becoming a lackluster thing on all other professions I dont see why necro is still being held back by it. IF we look at engi and mesmer their conditions don’t last very long but they hit very hard because of the number of stacks applied. Necros can’t apply very many stacks so they want to try and make up for it in condition duration…. not really a good bonus these days like it was back 2 years ago.

I don’t see why that would be the case. It would be even better on things with short durations since you will likely get the full use out of the stat. Not sure what you’re on about, please elaborate. I haven’t mathed it out but I imagine the amount of condi damage that would be required for a 10% increase in your DPS would be a lot more expensive than 10% condition duration. And you can easily stack that to over a 50% bonus with food/runes

Also I’d still definitely take Lingering in PvE. I have enough weakness with CPC and D5.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Something to note now is that axe auto now deals a bit higher damage than staff auto. This is after accounting for weapon strength.

Aw yes, our midrange pure-dps weapon finally outdamages our long range support weapon. What a time to be alive.

Basically this patch was just

1. Bug fixes, which are always nice, though I’m sad they didn’t fix Blood Bond’s healing through shroud if they were going to touch it.
2. Scepter buffs, which are really nice
3. Axe buffs, which make axe a bit nicer but the Unholy Feast buffs were in the wrong direction (needs to blast), the 1 skill needs animation changes, and the 2 skill needs damage buffs
4. CPC buffs, which are really cool

Overall an okay patch for us. The D/D nerfs are bigger than anything, though Scepter buffs should help out condi a lot. All around steps in the right direction.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Stilgar.6437:

not as many things as i hoped for, its a very tiny balance patch. but what was implemented is pretty good imo. Scepter is better now (more bursty is better then condi duration), CPC is much better, axe changes are a good start (needs a lot more though). What i would like is LF generation on off hand dagger, Its the weapon with most scepter synergy but your LF generation is very bad. Dunno why dagger is the only offhand without LF skills. Adding some LF there would be huge to really bring scepter condi into meta pvp.

Good start, but there is lot of work still to be done.

Bursty AND duration is what we need. We shouldn’t have to debate which form of 30% less dps we have to take… we should be competitive in our dps.

We dont need that much duration. I would take bonus stack per skill use over duration. The durations we have now are ok ish… but long conditions are a thing of the past I dont see why people calculate conditions here on the forums as if a enemy player will allow the full duration of a condition to stay on them. Even some pve mobs and bosses dont allow this to happen. The durations we have now are fine. What we need are better stacks without using duration to achieve this effect. I think a trait for 100% or even 50% duration is utterly pointless with the speed that scepter has currently. IF we swung the thing as fast as guardains do then it might be ok, but sense that is not the case i dont think duration is helping us at all. Duration through runes and food is ok but not in this trait It could be something so much better.

I don’t understand how people can be happy with our scepter “rework” which gives us LESS lf and gives a net dps change of ZERO.

Literally nothing has changed, especially for PvE.

Yay! They took some of my suggestions!

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I think the third attack in the scepter auto attack chain (Putrid Curse) should apply 2 bleeds + poison instead of just poison. Bleed, Bleed, Bleed x2 + Poison.

Grasping Dead should be a field. I think a 3 – 5 second duration that causes Cripple and Bleed every second someone remains in the field would be nice, with the base durations that it already has. As in; when you hit someone with it it still functions the same way that it currently does but the AOE lingers and stacks the longer you stand in it similar to a Ranger trap.

As much as I love Feast Of Corruption with power builds it’s still very out of place. Removing the effect it currently has and converting it to something like, gain Life Force and apply conditions for every condition on your target. Say those conditions are Bleed and Torment. Bleeds for all non-damaging conditions and Torment for all damaging conditions.
Eg. My target has; Blindness, Vulnerability, Crippled and Chilled on them. I hit them with Feast Of Corruption, gain 12% Life Force (3% per condition as it currently is) and apply 4stacks of Bleed.
Eg #2. My target has; Bleed, Poison, Burning and Torment. I hit them with Feast Of Corruption, gain 12% Life Force and apply 4stacks of Torment.

Those are just some of my suggestions for how to make scepter better in regards to people discussing buffs for it.

As for the OP, it is a solid condition weapon but it is not very good for power builds and is still lacking some major pressure with condition builds.

From this thread

Captain Unusual.9163:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Something to note now is that axe auto now deals a bit higher damage than staff auto. This is after accounting for weapon strength.

Aw yes, our midrange pure-dps weapon finally outdamages our long range support weapon. What a time to be alive.

I didn’t say it was good I said it was worth noting. Axe has a long way to go to be decent.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

ZDragon.3046:

Condition duration is becoming a lackluster thing on all other professions I dont see why necro is still being held back by it. IF we look at engi and mesmer their conditions don’t last very long but they hit very hard because of the number of stacks applied. Necros can’t apply very many stacks so they want to try and make up for it in condition duration…. not really a good bonus these days like it was back 2 years ago.

I don’t see why that would be the case. It would be even better on things with short durations since you will likely get the full use out of the stat. Not sure what you’re on about, please elaborate.

Also I’d still definitely take Lingering in PvE. I have enough weakness with CPC and D5.

Even with the duration bonus the bonus of this trait being a grand master hardly feels rewarding over the other options for what it does. It helps you sustain conditons slightly longer on foes but non AI foes will be likely to clense conditions off meaning the 50% duration is a flat out waste. Because they want necro to build up damage over time instead of instantly necro can never really be viable through condition application.
Im suggesting that to fix this the devs should consider upping the number of stacks on these skills through the use of that trait.

What im thinking in simplfied way.

For example duration
you bleed someone for 10 seconds 5 stacks at max ramp (Lets just assume 100 per second per stack) with your attacks, but they cleanse the bleed at the 4th second. 60% of its duration was wasted. The bleed ticked 4 times so 2000 damage.

Lets assume here the Devs don’t give us duration with that trait but more stacks instead
You bleed someone for 6 seconds at 8 stacks with your attacks at max ramp, but they cleanse at the 4th second again. 33ish % of your duration was wasted. the bleed ticks 4 times doing 3200 damage.

I know max ramps would have alot more conditions, but im just usin this as a small example.

Most professions at this point have enough cleanse that longer durations are not going to matter. Most other professions to me seem to have these shorter durations that stack fairly and will do more damage in a shorter time than one would get trying to ramp up over a longer period of time.

Necro seems to be stuck with the problem of just have such a slow ramp up time but even when you get ramped up its not as rewarding as a profession that can burst you in easily 25% of the time and deal more dps even though they conditions didn’t last as long. It comes down to having more stack application or more condition variation not so much duration. Dont get me wrong Duration will help you deal more damage in the long run for sure but it seems that necro is too focused on duration when it comes to scepter and the stacks/veration is still a little lacking.

The only time Necro gains great dps condition wise is if they piggy back off another conditions by xfer or in pve blasting the focused target with epidemic.

Maybe you can help me see things the other way around if you have better examples. Ive got open ears.

Scepter feels really good now. It actually feels like a full condi weapon and the torment acess is very much appreciated.

While I don’t like the lingering curse nerf, it kinda helps with food and runes, otherwise condi duration was wasted being onnscepter and it felt like we had to be onnscepter to be the best, now swapping to staff doesn’t hurt as much, and food feels better.

CpC is awesome!!!

Axe changes might see power necro go axe in pvp but I can’t see axe used in pve much, maybe for the easy vuln.

Either way I like the changes, yay signet of spite fix.

No the ramp is pretty bad, for sure. I’m mostly in a pve mindset right now though (which is actually atypical, but prepping for HOT I’ve been doing lots of work on my hybrid DPS pve spec and its coming along very nicely) I think there’s a lot of good reasons to play hybrid dps, but if they ever do power/fero/condi armor I think it will reach new heights.

With corruptions and the auto-plague signet trait, you can improve ramp a bit with your self-inflicted conditions (I take BIP and CPC, so a little extra damage), but still pales in compare to burst of other condi specs.

Overall this was a buff for my spec and I think people are underestimating the value of an additional 300 range on axe. It’s tough to compete with the raw damage of ds, but I don’t see why pve power specs wouldn’t run d/w a/f now. I’ve watched and played enough that sometimes you can’t keep camping death shroud and also can’t get close to a boss, so your DPS drops to near zero. Why not switch axe/focus, burn 4 then 2 while you wait for some LF or DS to come off CD?

Happy to see range increase with Axe 1 & 2, also very surprised at the cooldown reduction on Axe 3. Axe 3 has a niche use in WvW so cooldown reduction is a welcoming change. Now that Axe has the same range as Wells, it becomes more of a viable choice for wellmancers in WvW.

If I could make a suggestion Mr. Gee, if Axe 1 must remain a weak attack, please allow us to cleave with it. It’s just painful not able to cleave. 3 targets would be nice but I’d settle with 2.

Also this is a long shot, but please consider making Unholy Fervor baseline. No powermancer is going to take Unholy Fervor over Chill of Death, it’s not even a choice, there’s no contest. So this trait supposed to boost Axe is burried in a line where the other 2 choices are clearly superior for any necros taking Spite. By making Unholy Fervor baseline, you would’ve solved Axe problems without further tweaks necessary.

People were calling half of these changes months ago (especially the scepter and scepter trait ones). Truly, these are the most predictable and unimaginative devs given the shallowness of these changes.

Erasmus.1624:

People were calling half of these changes months ago (especially the scepter and scepter trait ones). Truly, these are the most predictable and unimaginative devs given the shallowness of these changes.

Not everybody can be as imaginative as you are. Looking at some of your past suggestions, I am glad they are not.

Thankyou for the updates Robert Gee.

Just a reminder that Flesh Golem, the MM elite, is acutely allergic to water.

For Minion Masters, the world map is littered with treacherous H2O which serves only to steal their elite summon away and put it on full cooldown if they step in it.
Also HotW paths 2 & 3 – you’re dreamin!

I was hoping for some address to the corruption and Master of Corruption issues. CPC change is nice and all. But 6 seconds of self weakness holds it back so much. Especially now that the duration of the field is lower so the self condi is almost fully neutering you for the fields full duration. The corruption concept needs a drastic overhaul and i really hope it happens before HoT.

Well I had a few hours to play around with the changes (PvE) and here are my thoughts:

1. Scepter AA- doesn’t feel any different at all to me. Enemies either die in 5 seconds, so the faster ramp up time makes 0 difference, or enemies die in 2-3 minutes, and the ramp up time makes 0 difference.

2. Scepter 2- unchanged due to lingering curse nerf

3. Scepter 3- The loss of LF gain is just completely nonsensical to me. We need MORE LF gain, not less. No idea why this was done.

4. Scepter 3- Torment is the nicest change to scepter, yet the duration is soooo short that even with lingering curse, 40% food, runes, and 10% utility duration I STILL CAN"T get 100% uptime… This is absurd to me. Double the duration at minimum.

5. CPC- Love this change, this is the best buff of the patch

Other comments:

Disappointing that there were no changes to the curses line, no changes to corruptions, and no change to corruption master. These need a big overhaul before HoT hits.

Bhawb.7408:

Basically this patch was just

1. Bug fixes, which are always nice, though I’m sad they didn’t fix Blood Bond’s healing through shroud if they were going to touch it.
2. Scepter buffs, which are really nice
3. Axe buffs, which make axe a bit nicer but the Unholy Feast buffs were in the wrong direction (needs to blast), the 1 skill needs animation changes, and the 2 skill needs damage buffs
4. CPC buffs, which are really cool

Overall an okay patch for us. The D/D nerfs are bigger than anything, though Scepter buffs should help out condi a lot. All around steps in the right direction.

enough with the blast finishers… We don’t need them! Or any more I should say.

What do you mean any more? We have no meaningful finishers on anything except minions right now. I’m not saying we should just Oprah-style give them to every ability, but we 100% need finishers sprinkled into our skills.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Well I had a few hours to play around with the changes (PvE) and here are my thoughts:

1. Scepter AA- doesn’t feel any different at all to me. Enemies either die in 5 seconds, so the faster ramp up time makes 0 difference, or enemies die in 2-3 minutes, and the ramp up time makes 0 difference.

2. Scepter 2- unchanged due to lingering curse nerf

3. Scepter 3- The loss of LF gain is just completely nonsensical to me. We need MORE LF gain, not less. No idea why this was done.

4. Scepter 3- Torment is the nicest change to scepter, yet the duration is soooo short that even with lingering curse, 40% food, runes, and 10% utility duration I STILL CAN"T get 100% uptime… This is absurd to me. Double the duration at minimum.

5. CPC- Love this change, this is the best buff of the patch

Other comments:

Disappointing that there were no changes to the curses line, no changes to corruptions, and no change to corruption master. These need a big overhaul before HoT hits.

100% torment uptime would be absurd. The ability to pop up to 6 stacks and have it crit and possibly add a bleed is fine, helps keep condi pressure on any target.

It’s frustrating to have access to a lot of fields but having no ways to use them. Doesn’t have to be blasts but just any reasonable finishers. but blast on axe 3 would be amazing. Then Unholy Feast truly would do everything.

Looking good so far. Despite what the cry babies are saying, axe got a pretty significant buff. It’s just that no one is taking into account the mechanics of how the axe attacks. I would have liked to see more LF generation on both axe and scepter though, especially scepter since that was it’s biggest weakness. The changes it did receive are good so I won’t complain there. CPC….Yes, yes, and oh yeah- YES. Ty. I was initially against putting projectile block on it, but I think it’s time we got some decent ranged defense. Bug fixes are always welcome, so ty for that.

I would ask the amazing Robert Gee to discuss some life force issues with us though, mainly pertaining to condi builds since that is where they struggle the most.

Also was a little disappointed that parasitic contagion still does not work in shroud along with signet passives. Those too can be future discussions though since we’re starting to get in a good place overall.

nekretaal.6485:

ZDragon.3046:

nekretaal.6485:

Reaper isn’t solid… it’s hard countered by anybody with a ranged weapon.

Life blast and doom are gone & scepter/axe/staff provide next to nothing damage.

Until the weapons are fixed, reaper is garbage.

Thats called being fair reaper converts necro into a high pressure melee brawler. You cant expect it to have ranged pressure anymore of course its countered by range play. Thus its actually is solid.

The problem is baseline necro not Reaper.

“High pressure melee brawler.”. —->. No defenses close ranged slow highly telegraphed glass cannon, with no other means of pressure. (and middle of the pack DPS in optimal circumstances)

This game shouldn’t be throwing around hard counters so generously.

If you’re playing reaper as a glass cannon, you’re doing it wrong. Reaper with soldier’s, Knights, or even celestial is an excellent bruiser with great cleave pressure and very high sustain due to Blighter’s Boon.

But build issues aside, in general, reaper will always work as long as there are people standing on a point to clobber. Longbow ranger death from afar is only of true concern on legacy of the foefire, and you can typically LoS them on a side node until they get close enough to to try and contest the tiny capture point where you can fight them.

So unless you’re talking about stronghold or WvW roaming, I don’t think the ranged weapon hardcounter is nearly as signficant as you think it is.

Even chronomancer vs. zerker reaper duels were shown to be about evenly matched based on player skill via evidence from people like Holls that duel a lot.

spoj.9672:

I was hoping for some address to the corruption and Master of Corruption issues. CPC change is nice and all. But 6 seconds of self weakness holds it back so much. Especially now that the duration of the field is lower so the self condi is almost fully neutering you for the fields full duration. The corruption concept needs a drastic overhaul and i really hope it happens before HoT.

I know its not an ideal solution, but can you run plague signet or offhand dagger or staff or something as an offset to GS to help deal with the self-weakness in PvE?

I would recommend reconsidering the purpose of Lingering Curse. Rolling half it’s power baseline has double sides scepter is better but the trait is even weaker the change cancels out for less diversity. If Lingering Curse isn’t going to benefit allies and make condi necro relevant in PvE help the other modes by adding a special effect “your damaging conditions (excluding terror and deathly chill) gives 3 1/2%LF every 3 sec(not restricted to scepter conditions)”.

Lexan.5930:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Well I had a few hours to play around with the changes (PvE) and here are my thoughts:

1. Scepter AA- doesn’t feel any different at all to me. Enemies either die in 5 seconds, so the faster ramp up time makes 0 difference, or enemies die in 2-3 minutes, and the ramp up time makes 0 difference.

2. Scepter 2- unchanged due to lingering curse nerf

3. Scepter 3- The loss of LF gain is just completely nonsensical to me. We need MORE LF gain, not less. No idea why this was done.

4. Scepter 3- Torment is the nicest change to scepter, yet the duration is soooo short that even with lingering curse, 40% food, runes, and 10% utility duration I STILL CAN"T get 100% uptime… This is absurd to me. Double the duration at minimum.

5. CPC- Love this change, this is the best buff of the patch

Other comments:

Disappointing that there were no changes to the curses line, no changes to corruptions, and no change to corruption master. These need a big overhaul before HoT hits.

100% torment uptime would be absurd. The ability to pop up to 6 stacks and have it crit and possibly add a bleed is fine, helps keep condi pressure on any target.

Why? Mesmer can do it, at higher stacks, with higher bleeds, and more direct damage, and access to group buffs, and stealth, and confusion.

So why?

spoj.9672:

I was hoping for some address to the corruption and Master of Corruption issues. CPC change is nice and all. But 6 seconds of self weakness holds it back so much. Especially now that the duration of the field is lower so the self condi is almost fully neutering you for the fields full duration. The corruption concept needs a drastic overhaul and i really hope it happens before HoT.

I think the main problem with master of corruption is that it should juice up base stats of the skills, not make us even weaker with only the reward of small cooldowns. That was the big trade off for corruption skills in GW1. They had very high base effects at the cost of hurting yourself (and by-proxy sacrifice skills too, which got turned into more corruption skills in GW2). That model for them worked great because it gave the skills much more skilled play instead of “spam all teh thingz and get off that transfer before you self-nuke”. But this is a discussion for another thread, one I will weigh in on if we can keep the talk constructive and not "zomg weak crap…buff more like <insert random op class here> "

Raziel.8072:

It’s just that no one is taking into account the mechanics of how the axe attacks.

I am!

Raziel.8072:

I would have liked to see more LF generation on both axe and scepter though, especially scepter since that was it’s biggest weakness.

Agreed. Axe generation is marginally acceptable but the Scepter’s generation is just bad.

Lily.1935:

enough with the blast finishers… We don’t need them! Or any more I should say.

Our Blast finisher availability is pretty bad and Axe 3 does look like it could be a Blast, but I’m not convinced it needs any more mechanics. It’s already a pretty bloated skill, if we’re being quite honest. I’d rather we focus on improving its existing mechanics (if it needs improvement) rather than throwing even more effects into the mix.

spoj.9672:

I was hoping for some address to the corruption and Master of Corruption issues. CPC change is nice and all. But 6 seconds of self weakness holds it back so much. Especially now that the duration of the field is lower so the self condi is almost fully neutering you for the fields full duration. The corruption concept needs a drastic overhaul and i really hope it happens before HoT.

Kind of feels like in order to use corruptions fully (especially with MoC), we have to have them paired with plenty of transfers (ideal) or consumptions (less ideal). Which… I don’t think we have quite enough of, or they’re not as ubiquitous as they should be (LF on offhand dagger, transfer on focus, plz).

But would adding more make us more overpowered against enemies using condis? If so, we could really use some sort of mechanic that works on our personally-induced conditions rather than enemy-applied.

Or, you know, make the effects of the abilities so good (and so good for your group) that self-hurt is worthwhile.

I’ve got nothing against making corruptions stronger, but I do rarely find myself having issues getting them off. The only obnoxious thing is forgetting to get that blind off from CC. I think if anything they should increase the effects of the self-harm, so the transfers become even more potent. In their current state they’re an annoyance on you but not really enough to justify blowing those CDs or wasting time getting them off you. I think one of the best I’ve heard is making MOC increase the duration of transferred conditions, though it might make sense as a different trait.

nearlight.3064:

spoj.9672:

I was hoping for some address to the corruption and Master of Corruption issues. CPC change is nice and all. But 6 seconds of self weakness holds it back so much. Especially now that the duration of the field is lower so the self condi is almost fully neutering you for the fields full duration. The corruption concept needs a drastic overhaul and i really hope it happens before HoT.

I know its not an ideal solution, but can you run plague signet or offhand dagger or staff or something as an offset to GS to help deal with the self-weakness in PvE?

Thats exactly the problem. We are forced to slot another utility/weapon just to use a certain utility type. This makes absolutely no sense. Its like giving us a utility skill that takes up two utility slots. Its restrictive and unfair to certain builds. Id like to use the utility of some corruptions on a power build. Normally i wouldnt need a cleanse or transfer. But suddenly i do for no reason other than my own skills screwing me over.

The concept of hurting yourself for more powerful abilities is a nice idea. But corruptions are so far off from that concept. They are both far too weak and the self conditions are difficult to balance. If you make the self condies more potent to compensate for stronger skills then when using a transfer the corruption becomes overpowered. The idea should be scrapped and used properly in a future elite spec where it can actually work without causing these imbalances.

If nothing else, having the self-harm be confined to damage that we can mitigate through self healing and shroud would be better than something like Weakness, which nerfs damage during a pve encounter.

Only thing of value for me here is a Projectile block, FINALLY. I’ve been hoping they’d give us one for three years now. -_- Took em long enough.

When we first heard some of the changes mentioned at Twitchcon there was immediately an outrage of “that’s all you’re changing?/why aren’t you changing xyz?/this is a nerf not a buff!” and I kept thinking to myself be patient..Tuesday will come and those who main a necro will be pleasantly surprised. I am honestly very disappointed. I was expecting so much more from the changes, necro desperately needs love and I thought we were going to see some of it before the release of HoT. Yes there were some good changes, however, I found them very underwhelming.

I thought I had low expectations, but the axe changes proved me wrong. This weapon now ranks higher in it’s own garbage tier. Wow…

CPC is now rather strong, but the excruciatingly long self weakness makes me wonder if it will ever be desirable on a power or even hybrid build.

Also, curses really need a buff: after playing with it on a condi build, it felt so lackluster (or even detrimental with MoC hurting so much) that I took death magic instead… Too bad for that 20 sec CD CPC. You will be missed.

Scepter buffs make condi necro more playable, although LF generation is still lacking and, in my opinion, requires a warhorn (not to mention: nothing has been done to make OH dagger or focus more desirable).

Im a bit rusty with condi but so far I enjoy my trollish settler build with blood, death and soul reaping.

People should temper expectations for balance changes. Balance in a game like this is often a game of inches. Additionally, people often tend to get this idea that if something is worse than something else, it is therefore bad, which is fallacious. I think that’s part of the reason necros have the reputation we do.

nearlight.3064:

Longbow ranger death from afar is only of true concern on legacy of the foefire, and you can typically LoS them on a side node until they get close enough to to try and contest the tiny capture point where you can fight them.

And in Stronghold……

You are a sitting duck in stronghold against anybody with a ranged weapon

And mid point in silent storm, and side points on Kyhlo, and center area on Nifhel. Pretty much every map has areas where you can’t rely on the map to save you from the fact that you have bad ranged defenses and no ranged counter pressure.

Something that is bothering me I noticed after the changes were announced. Everyone seems to think necro is getting projectile reflection which is False…CPC will provide projectile Destruction which basiclaly nullifies the projectiles. Need to be clear on that because every post I see discussing CPC people keep saying reflect, which is wrong and might mislead some people who can’t be bothered to read full sentences.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Something that is bothering me I noticed after the changes were announced. Everyone seems to think necro is getting projectile reflection which is False…CPC will provide projectile Destruction which basiclaly nullifies the projectiles. Need to be clear on that because every post I see discussing CPC people keep saying reflect, which is wrong and might mislead some people who can’t be bothered to read full sentences.

A lot of that has to do with people just lumping projectile reflect/block into the same thing. I think most know It’s just a block, force of habit for them I suppose.

Mega Skeleton.8259:

People should temper expectations for balance changes. Balance in a game like this is often a game of inches. Additionally, people often tend to get this idea that if something is worse than something else, it is therefore bad, which is fallacious. I think that’s part of the reason necros have the reputation we do.

LMFAO, you say that with a straight face in a game where Eles have been OP for over 2 years, tsk, tsk. this is the reason why Necros don’t get buffed. and yeah if something is worse than something else it’s bad, hence why meta is a thing and all /facedesk.

Well… Going to test out the Scepter changes tonight during TTWurm. Let’s see if we can melt those Husks a lot faster now

4. Scepter 3- Torment is the nicest change to scepter, yet the duration is soooo short that even with lingering curse, 40% food, runes, and 10% utility duration I STILL CAN"T get 100% uptime… This is absurd to me. Double the duration at minimum.

I dont understand how with lingering curse, 40% food, runes and 10% duration you can get over 10s because with just 15% duration and lingering curses in pvp you get 7s.

Lingering curse makes it a base 6s. Just with 40% food you are at 8.4s. You only need another 27% condi duration to be at 10s. Sceptar skill bleed duration has the potential to reach 300% of base because of how lingering curses works. Can be easily seen because you can get 85% bleed duration in pvp and with lingering curses that puts your sceptar #1 kitten bleeds at 12.5s.

2. Scepter 2- unchanged due to lingering curse nerf

Grasping Dead: Increased damage by 14%. Increased bleeding duration from 7 seconds to 10 seconds

This means you went from 3 stacks of bleed for a maximum of 28s (7*2*2) to 3 stacks of bleed to a maximum of 30s (10*1.5*2). It got marginally stronger.

Bhawb.7408:

What do you mean any more? We have no meaningful finishers on anything except minions right now. I’m not saying we should just Oprah-style give them to every ability, but we 100% need finishers sprinkled into our skills.

I’m not saying we don’t need more finishers. just blast finishers. Currently the primary reason that I’ve seen why people want blast finishers is because of pre-buffing in PvE. And the necromancer can already give a group half its might through blast finishers and bip. Adding a blast finisher does bring us up to 23 might for our group pre-buffing but this is a part of the zerker meta which arena net has gone on record in saying that they don’t want it to be a thing anymore(though i’ll admit I’m skeptical on how they’ll actually achieve this goal in the majority of Tyria). And if this happens this means that blast finishers that can function at range will have more value for group support than a melee range blast finish like what the axe would give us. Which would still mean that the axe would still be invalidated by staff. And this isn’t entirely because a melee blast finisher is a bad thing. The engineer’s shield blast finisher is great in combat, but the engineer has far more mobility than we do and can utilize it to a greater effect.

Yes, I do want to see more finishers. Whirl and projectile finishers to be honest. Or even a new type of finisher that arena net hasn’t implemented into the game that could have interesting synergies with our existing abilities.

I just can’t see a situation where this would be better for the necromancer than the staff in any situation outside of pre-buffing. Maybe I’m missing something, but as far as I can see this doesn’t become useful to us without piggy backing on someone else’s fire/water fields which the professions that have them tend to bring several blasts of their own anyway.

Lastly I do want to clarify something else. I do think the necromancer should eventually get more blast finishers on a future elite specialization.

Sigmoid.7082:

4. Scepter 3- Torment is the nicest change to scepter, yet the duration is soooo short that even with lingering curse, 40% food, runes, and 10% utility duration I STILL CAN"T get 100% uptime… This is absurd to me. Double the duration at minimum.

I dont understand how with lingering curse, 40% food, runes and 10% duration you can get over 10s because with just 15% duration and lingering curses in pvp you get 7s.

Lingering curse makes it a base 6s. Just with 40% food you are at 8.4s. You only need another 27% condi duration to be at 10s. Sceptar skill bleed duration has the potential to reach 300% of base because of how lingering curses works. Can be easily seen because you can get 85% bleed duration in pvp and with lingering curses that puts your sceptar #1 kitten bleeds at 12.5s.

2. Scepter 2- unchanged due to lingering curse nerf

Grasping Dead: Increased damage by 14%. Increased bleeding duration from 7 seconds to 10 seconds

This means you went from 3 stacks of bleed for a maximum of 28s (7*2*2) to 3 stacks of bleed to a maximum of 30s (10*1.5*2). It got marginally stronger.

That’s great except you can’t get another 27% duration. You can get 10% from a utility and 10% from runes. The only exception is if you built entirely around torment and completely sacrificed bleeds and took runes of tormenting, but your dps would suffer significantly more that way. So you are stuck at 9.5s plus there is nearly a 1s cast (including animation and travel time) so you really need to hit 11s to get 100% uptime.

And yes scepter 2 got a tiny bit better, but scepter 1 got a tiny bit worse, working out to 0 change between them.

Lily.1935:

Bhawb.7408:

What do you mean any more? We have no meaningful finishers on anything except minions right now. I’m not saying we should just Oprah-style give them to every ability, but we 100% need finishers sprinkled into our skills.

I’m not saying we don’t need more finishers. just blast finishers. Currently the primary reason that I’ve seen why people want blast finishers is because of pre-buffing in PvE. And the necromancer can already give a group half its might through blast finishers and bip.

Thats just a false presumption you have. The primary reason for blast finishers is not for fire fields. Its for interacting with any useful field in a useful way. That means smoke, lightning, water and of course fire as well. And blasting dark and poison fields could become a thing. So theres that too.

Its incredibly frustrating to be in an organised group when players are dropping fields like smoke/lighting and everyone can drop a blast or two to contribute. Except you, the necro, just sits there and thinks “Hmmm…. yep…. Maybe i can use a bone minio…. Nope. We are already moving on and my minion would have missed the field anyway….”. Its not a good feeling and its totally contradictory of group content where you should all be working together.

Odeezee.7362:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

People should temper expectations for balance changes. Balance in a game like this is often a game of inches. Additionally, people often tend to get this idea that if something is worse than something else, it is therefore bad, which is fallacious. I think that’s part of the reason necros have the reputation we do.

LMFAO, you say that with a straight face in a game where Eles have been OP for over 2 years, tsk, tsk. this is the reason why Necros don’t get buffed. and yeah if something is worse than something else it’s bad, hence why meta is a thing and all /facedesk.

Facedesk indeed.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

That’s great except you can’t get another 27% duration. You can get 10% from a utility and 10% from runes. The only exception is if you built entirely around torment and completely sacrificed bleeds and took runes of tormenting, but your dps would suffer significantly more that way. So you are stuck at 9.5s plus there is nearly a 1s cast (including animation and travel time) so you really need to hit 11s to get 100% uptime.

And yes scepter 2 got a tiny bit better, but scepter 1 got a tiny bit worse, working out to 0 change between them.

Only worse if you don’t finish the chain, then it’s better, in practice, because of a quicker ramp up, which is necros main failing as condi, IMO. Also you can technically get 25% condi duration through runes if you mix and match sets.

spoj.9672:

Lily.1935:

Bhawb.7408:

What do you mean any more? We have no meaningful finishers on anything except minions right now. I’m not saying we should just Oprah-style give them to every ability, but we 100% need finishers sprinkled into our skills.

I’m not saying we don’t need more finishers. just blast finishers. Currently the primary reason that I’ve seen why people want blast finishers is because of pre-buffing in PvE. And the necromancer can already give a group half its might through blast finishers and bip.

Thats just a false presumption you have. The primary reason for blast finishers is not for fire fields. Its for interacting with any useful field in a useful way. That means smoke, lightning, water and of course fire as well. And blasting dark and poison fields could become a thing. So theres that too.

Its incredibly frustrating to be in an organised group when players are dropping fields like smoke/lighting and everyone can drop a blast or two to contribute. Except you, the necro, just sits there and thinks “Hmmm…. yep…. Maybe i can use a bone minio…. Nope. We are already moving on and my minion would have missed the field anyway….”. Its not a good feeling and its totally contradictory of group content where you should all be working together.

Prebuffing too I think is just a relic of how we’ve played that should probably go away in a normal circumstance. From what I understand its generally a DPS loss, almost certainly if you count the time spent prebuffing. It’s very quick to start the fight and buff in combat, and you don’t waste cooldowns in the process. There’s probably more nuance than that.

As an aside, I’m pretty sure anyone who prebuffs BIP is probably doing it wrong, if anything because the duration of the stacks is quite short. I’m not 100% sure on how might stacks overwrite each other, so any clarification would be welcome. I’m not 100% sure of the correct usage in combat, however, whether to open with it for dot damage, to wait a few seconds to refresh might stacks about to fall off, or to wait until stacks noticeably go down (by which point if you had opened with it it may have been coming off CD already). Like I said, I don’t fully understand the mechanics of stacking effects, the wiki article doesn’t go into overwriting effects of different durations.

spoj.9672:

Lily.1935:

Bhawb.7408:

What do you mean any more? We have no meaningful finishers on anything except minions right now. I’m not saying we should just Oprah-style give them to every ability, but we 100% need finishers sprinkled into our skills.

I’m not saying we don’t need more finishers. just blast finishers. Currently the primary reason that I’ve seen why people want blast finishers is because of pre-buffing in PvE. And the necromancer can already give a group half its might through blast finishers and bip.

Thats just a false presumption you have. The primary reason for blast finishers is not for fire fields. Its for interacting with any useful field in a useful way. That means smoke, lightning, water and of course fire as well. And blasting dark and poison fields could become a thing. So theres that too.

Its incredibly frustrating to be in an organised group when players are dropping fields like smoke/lighting and everyone can drop a blast or two to contribute. Except you, the necro, just sits there and thinks “Hmmm…. yep…. Maybe i can use a bone minio…. Nope. We are already moving on and my minion would have missed the field anyway….”. Its not a good feeling and its totally contradictory of group content where you should all be working together.

That’s why I always bring a mesmer along, so I’m not the only one who can’t contribute.

So:
Sceptar #1 does the same if not a pointlessly small higher amount of DPS but ramps up faster so buffed.
Scpeter #2 does more damage over all and has longer bleeds.
Scpeter #3 for condi builds is just a pure fpDPSs increase.

Over all the whole thing has been buffed.

Sigmoid.7082:

So:
Sceptar #1 does the same if not a pointlessly small higher amount of DPS but ramps up faster so buffed.
Scpeter #2 does more damage over all and has longer bleeds.
Scpeter #3 for condi builds is just a pure fpDPSs increase.

Over all the whole thing has been buffed.

Scepter 1 is a slight nerf not a slight buff, scepter 2 is a slight buff, these 2 cancel each other out almost perfectly.

Scepter 3 is a buff to DPS but an average nerf to LF gain.

I think slightly longer duration on scepter 3, and a LF gain skill on dagger 4/5 would be good.

I think the overall bigger problem is that bleeds suck. they need to make bleeds to the damage they were supposed to be before the unexplained patch day fake out nerf. If they fix that then I think condi necro could actually be really good.

Captain Unusual.9163:

spoj.9672:

Lily.1935:

Bhawb.7408:

What do you mean any more? We have no meaningful finishers on anything except minions right now. I’m not saying we should just Oprah-style give them to every ability, but we 100% need finishers sprinkled into our skills.

I’m not saying we don’t need more finishers. just blast finishers. Currently the primary reason that I’ve seen why people want blast finishers is because of pre-buffing in PvE. And the necromancer can already give a group half its might through blast finishers and bip.

Thats just a false presumption you have. The primary reason for blast finishers is not for fire fields. Its for interacting with any useful field in a useful way. That means smoke, lightning, water and of course fire as well. And blasting dark and poison fields could become a thing. So theres that too.

Its incredibly frustrating to be in an organised group when players are dropping fields like smoke/lighting and everyone can drop a blast or two to contribute. Except you, the necro, just sits there and thinks “Hmmm…. yep…. Maybe i can use a bone minio…. Nope. We are already moving on and my minion would have missed the field anyway….”. Its not a good feeling and its totally contradictory of group content where you should all be working together.

That’s why I always bring a mesmer along, so I’m not the only one who can’t contribute.

I assume you are joking seeing as Mesmer is basically the utility version of an ele. Its top tier. Might not have loads of blasts but you can use torch for one quick easy one. And mes has plenty of other tools to make you feel like you are contributing.

@Mega
Simple answer is never use BiP. Might stacks always overwrite the oldest stacks. And BiP might is far too short to ever be worth using. It was ok as a solo selfish might stacker before it got its duration nerfed. Funny how making it “group friendly” ended up destroying it and making it an actual hindrance to use in groups. Whereas before you could use it to help supplement you if your group lacked some might.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Sigmoid.7082:

So:
Sceptar #1 does the same if not a pointlessly small higher amount of DPS but ramps up faster so buffed.
Scpeter #2 does more damage over all and has longer bleeds.
Scpeter #3 for condi builds is just a pure fpDPSs increase.

Over all the whole thing has been buffed.

Scepter 1 is a slight nerf not a slight buff, scepter 2 is a slight buff, these 2 cancel each other out almost perfectly.

Scepter 3 is a buff to DPS but an average nerf to LF gain.

I think slightly longer duration on scepter 3, and a LF gain skill on dagger 4/5 would be good.

I think the overall bigger problem is that bleeds suck. they need to make bleeds to the damage they were supposed to be before the unexplained patch day fake out nerf. If they fix that then I think condi necro could actually be really good.

How do you get that scepter 1 got a slight nerf?

New bleed damage is 3x (4.5s x 1.5) = 20.25 ticks per auto chain
Old bleed damage is 2 x (5s x 2) = 20 ticks per chain
New poison damage is 6s x 1.5 = 9 ticks per auto chain
Old poison damage is 4 × 2 = 8 ticks per auto chain

Unless you’re planning on interrupting your auto chain for huge dps losses, it got a slight damage buff.