Guild Wars 2

So we have a big update next week and probably a load of balances to go with it. What are you hopeful or terrified to see happen with regards to Necro?

Nothing, as usual. Tooltip polish, a few useless marginal tweaks to marginal traits nobody uses nor will use (much like the previous pitiful “buffs” to axe).

I never expect meaningful balance or overhauls of traits/utilities until the next xpac, especially not from this company.

Next on the chopping block comin right to your local graveyard next week!

Rise! RiPs

Random nerf to jagged horrors

Access to weakness halved

Random nerf to chill from Suffer!

Duration of conditions from corrupted boons nerfed but now affected by lingering curse cuz we be cool like that

Random chilling darkness nerf cuz necros spam blinds better than theives and mesmers.

Well of Darkness deleted…actually that would count as a buff nvm

Well of Darkness deleted…actually that would count as a buff nvm

I almost spit out my coffee!!!!

Honnestly I expect no real change for the necromancer. The necromancer is neither in a bad spot nor in a good spot atm and Anet is still adamant at keeping our badly designed trait. If anything they might remove the boon corruption on scepter auto attack and put it on scepter #3 (This would make the necromancer sink to the bottom but at the same time other profession would stop complaining about the necromancer)

I’d want a buff to axe, but I’m not optimistic.

Hesacon.8735:

I’d want a buff to axe, but I’m not optimistic.

Anet’s developpers are pretty shy when it come to buff axe.
- They do not want to buff the auto attack since it’s a range attack that can’t be reflect
- The second attack is descent (damage wise)
- The third attack pile up a lot of effects that, even if they do not have a lot of value in the game, make the skill look like it give already to much.

In the end, necro’s axe is a weapon that is theoretically strong but fall short when it come to practice. It’s understandable that they are reluctant in buffing it when you look objectively at the skills, even giving it a suitable combo finisher feel theoretically like overbuffing it.

NB.: note that theory is when it’s supposed to work but doesn’t, while practice is when it work but it shouldn’t. A good example of the latter being the druid’s staff auto attack which is set to be at the pinacle of crappyness but still stir the rage of the pvp community that rant about it’s damage.

I think they will want to sort out the Jagged Horrors problem, possibly. Put max duration on them, but Death Nova spawning a bit more at once (i.e. two out of one corpse).

Aside from that, as others pointed out, I wouldn’t mind them re-designing Axe to fill ranged long-range power weapon niche Power Necromancers need. Reliable Life Force generation+good power damage. Otherwise, next Elite Specialization should have something like this, but why leave Axe useless only to be replaced. Greatsword, obviously, didn’t work out for Reaper.

Axe is so all over the place and has no synergy within the kit. Why, if AA applies a lot of Vulnerability, don’t make Ghastly Claws (#2) gain double benefit from Vulnerability on targets (in other words, 1 stack increasing damage by 2% instead of 1%). That alone would already make the toolkit more interesting and fun.

They could tweak some Spectral skills – Reduce the long cooldown on Spectral Walk, speed up and reduce CD of Spectral Grasp, vastly reduce the CD of Spectral Wall or re-design it to be other shape.

Other than that, phleora of useless traits awaits, but that’s true for every class, more or less. They should do something about Master Minor in Death Magic though, it’s the most useless minor I’ve ever seen.

Possible change to Chill of Death. Necromancer is back to scepter and horror spam for bleeds, which was not the original purpose of CoD. The trait was supposed to enable hybrid builds and right now, it fails.

Rise may seem powerful but only from a Necromancer perspective. Elite power creap just keeps Reaper playable. Then again…

I am hoping for some trait and skill improvements to core Necro. Players without HoT really are handicapped. Death Shroud and several utilities could use some strengthening.

There will probably be nerfs, too, for several professions.

Greatsword #3 Death Spiral will have its damage decreased and vulnerability decreased because Anet deems it to be too strong of a skill.

Greatsword #5 will get lowered to a single target ability to spite those who wanted a teleport on death spiral.

Death’s Charge will get an increased cooldown (15s-20s) because necros are too mobile which helps them be viable.

Spectral Grasp will get nerfed to 900 range.

Axe will become a projectile somehow.

Dagger will have boon corrupt on auto attack (every part of the chain)

Blood is power will inflict 3 bleed for 30s and self bleeding will be increased to 50 bleed for 30s to capitalize on the new condi stack update.

Nothing can save you! will be increased to 4s cast time up from 0.5s.

Focus will remain unchanged.

Spectral armor cooldown decreased from 50s to 48.5s.

TBH I’m happy with Anet reworking power traits in Reaper trait line

I want them to finally sort out Axe.
While I have other fears of what will be pointlessly nerfed, one of the buffs I want is either Axe to be gutted and made Melee.. or keep it’s range but make it so the skill 2 can be reflected.
It’s range.. could be abit more…but at 900 I can accept this really.
It’s the damage.. it is sooo cak in comparison..to everything else.
But then tbh DH longbow is power and has range so why can’t axe have the same “type” of stats?
Axe has been in dire need of life since who knows.

But hey, I’ve stopped fully hoping for axe is be of something good for a while now.
Devs just seem to fear it being OP or something… cos no other weapon out there is OP right. -.-

Since skill splits are gonna be a thing I expect Scepter to lose its boon corrupt in PvP. I just hope its compensated for elsewhere.

Rym.1469:

I think they will want to sort out the Jagged Horrors problem, possibly. Put max duration on them, but Death Nova spawning a bit more at once (i.e. two out of one corpse).

This could be dangerous for raids tho. The rats are holding a significant portion of our DPS hostage.

Hmm not so much afraid of or hoping for. But this is kind of what I expect to see.

Some change to traits that power reapers are more likely to use than condi reapers to boost that playstyle. Possibly a less well known trait such as spiteful spirit.

Minor weapon tweaks. Nothing too heavy.

The built in time limit that exists in Rise minions is added to Jagged horror’s as well to stop organized groups from spawning 20 of them and maintaining them in raids and high level fractals.

Any other nerfs/buffs I feel will be indirect (I.E. x becomes better because y on another class got nerfed or buffed kind of thing)

Zefrost.3425:

Greatsword #3 Death Spiral will have its damage decreased and vulnerability decreased because Anet deems it to be too strong of a skill.

Greatsword #5 will get lowered to a single target ability to spite those who wanted a teleport on death spiral.

Death’s Charge will get an increased cooldown (15s-20s) because necros are too mobile which helps them be viable.

Spectral Grasp will get nerfed to 900 range.

Axe will become a projectile somehow.

Dagger will have boon corrupt on auto attack (every part of the chain)

Blood is power will inflict 3 bleed for 30s and self bleeding will be increased to 50 bleed for 30s to capitalize on the new condi stack update.

Nothing can save you! will be increased to 4s cast time up from 0.5s.

Focus will remain unchanged.

Spectral armor cooldown decreased from 50s to 48.5s.

This is only the tip of the iceberg ;D

Shadelang.3012:

as well to stop organized groups from spawning 20 of them and maintaining them in raids

As far as I’m aware this isn’t possible any more since they removed most of the Adrenal Mushrooms in raids. Now you only really get the ones you can spawn during fights.

They’ve already said why they will never balance ax.

They place far too much importance in a range weapon that is unable to be reflected and has no travel time. This is why it’s damage is kitten, it has no combo finishers or fields, only gives a single vuln per attack and has an atrocious animation that only exists to be a giant telegraph that an attack is coming.

As for “balances”

Nerf to rise, most likely along the lines of removing the damage reduction completely(using the argument that Death Magic has added toughness and condition Xfer.)

Nerf to Sceptre, I’d expect them to remove the torment, and probably a longer autoattack chain.

Just because “necro is in the middle” has never been a reason for Anet to not nerf necros.

I’d prefer the low risk option: do nothing. I’m really enjoying my necro as main right now and fear any “improvements” to the game.

Power needs a boost, but we won’t get it. We won’t get it as long as condi continues to rule PvP meta. This is because Anet doesn’t know how to make multi-builds viable.

I expect to see nerfs in our condi builds, despite condi reapers not having a meta spot.

The boon sharing meta has wreck balanced in WvW & PvP. Would Anet touch their precious revs? Doubt it. We should get better access to aoe boon corrupt to counter the boon sharing meta, but we likely won’t get it.

Sorry I’m all pessimistic this time around, I don’t see devs giving us good, balanced changes. Only nerfs.

gavyne.6847:

Power needs a boost, but we won’t get it. We won’t get it as long as condi continues to rule PvP meta. This is because Anet doesn’t know how to make multi-builds viable.

I expect to see nerfs in our condi builds, despite condi reapers not having a meta spot.

The boon sharing meta has wreck balanced in WvW & PvP. Would Anet touch their precious revs? Doubt it. We should get better access to aoe boon corrupt to counter the boon sharing meta, but we likely won’t get it.

Sorry I’m all pessimistic this time around, I don’t see devs giving us good, balanced changes. Only nerfs.

Guardians are far more dominant in WvW large scale fights than revs are….

Zenith.7301:

Guardians are far more dominant in WvW large scale fights than revs are….

They are used for different things. Guardians have been the absolute meta class in WvW since beginning of time, yes that’s true. But revs, ever since they were introduced with HoT expansion, have added resistance (which wrecks balance), high prot/fury/might uptime, and they’re great at ranged dps with their hammer 1, 2, and 5’s.

Not to mention in sPvP revs have held a solid meta spot in pro tournaments ever since they came into the game, effectively pushing other classes/builds out. If it wasn’t for the 1 class per team limit, teams would still be rolling 2 revs most likely. So yeah, Anet’s precious baby class. But they won’t touch them because they were sold with HoT expansion.

Resistance doesn’t wreck balance nearly as much as being pinballed around to your death by the rows of lines of warding and warding circles on top of the 193692615392165349826534823 centuries long immobilize duration from epidemic bombs. Kinda hard to cast resistance in a frontline when you’re getting tossed around unless you have 3 guardians in your party feeding you stability.

Revs are mediocre in raids, being replaced already by commander chronos, and in spvp berzerkers completely overshadow revenants after the nerfs.

Hell, my mouth as a necro waters when I see a rev (who’s weak to condi), compared to a godkitten warrior with 1936293629367 thousand years worth of immunities, stuns, and the massive burst and healing.

I know its a long shot but a reskin of the pets to make them look darker and cooler then horror lol.

Zenith.7301:

Resistance doesn’t wreck balance nearly as much as being pinballed around to your death by the rows of lines of warding and warding circles on top of the 193692615392165349826534823 centuries long immobilize duration from epidemic bombs. Kinda hard to cast resistance in a frontline when you’re getting tossed around unless you have 3 guardians in your party feeding you stability.

Revs are mediocre in raids, being replaced already by commander chronos, and in spvp berzerkers completely overshadow revenants after the nerfs.

Hell, my mouth as a necro waters when I see a rev (who’s weak to condi), compared to a godkitten warrior with 1936293629367 thousand years worth of immunities, stuns, and the massive burst and healing.

Not gonna turn this into Guardians vs Revs thread. I’m also not sure where you’re going with your ramblings. Guardians won’t get touched because WvW is the only place they have right now, and they are always going to be the most important class in WvW due to stab and stab alone. They have zero representation in PvP so I expect to see buffs rather than nerfs for them.

Revs are wanted in all 3 game modes, any competent WvW guilds would have a rev in every group, frontline & backline, for the sweet boons, resistance, and ranged dps pressure. And no matter how much warriors got over-buffed, revs still have a meta spot in all pro tournament teams in PvP. All I was saying is that Anet would rather ruin other classes first rather than adjust the new class they introduced.

Aktium.9506:

Since skill splits are gonna be a thing I expect Scepter to lose its boon corrupt in PvP. I just hope its compensated for elsewhere.

Rym.1469:

I think they will want to sort out the Jagged Horrors problem, possibly. Put max duration on them, but Death Nova spawning a bit more at once (i.e. two out of one corpse).

This could be dangerous for raids tho. The rats are holding a significant portion of our DPS hostage.

I have found this disturbing, too. Scepter AA and horror swarms make Reaper playable?

PS. I am continually amazed by the power of Guardian traps. For an attack that is essentially a super powered mark, it does not seem to have significant down-sides.

Knowing how they balance this game we will se something like this

there are a few areas that we feel need to be balanced, specifically boon corruption and survivability. In this update we’ll be reducing the overall capability of necromancer corruption by reducing it from their base abilities.
• Infusing Terror: Reduced the active duration of this skill from 5 seconds to 4 seconds. The recharge time has been increased from 25 seconds to 30 seconds.
• Scepter: only corrupt a boon on chilled foes
• Deathly Chill: description adjusted
• Shroud depleates 10% faster
• Rise: damage reduction is now decreased to 25%
• Signet of suffering added an internal cooldown 20s
• Soul marks: life force reduced to 1%

Minor buff to skil no 1 use and still will not use

WvW Buffs

1. Buff pulls – Given reaper/necro can’t chase that well, I would like to see us given better “come back here” powers.

I would like to see Spectral Grasp strip the stability boon before the pull. So it is almost a guaranteed pull if they don’t evade/invuln it. 1500 range also – then there would be some counterplay to every class that just disengages from us at will in WvW.

2. Buff WvW wall damage – currently we are entirely dependent upon ele’s meteor shower for destroying siege on walls. I would like to see necro’s wells given some radius love so we can also reach the siege on walls.

3. Buff Boon corruption – the boonshare meta in WvW is really lame and we need counterplay for it. Well Of Corruption should be buffed to counter boonshare. Given that players are smart enough not to stand in wells now, I think 2 boons per pulse would be a nice buff. Additionally, given players are smart enough not to stand in wells now. I think the Well Of Suffering should pulse for double the damage but for half the time, so we have a faster spike damage.

4. Buff power necros for sPvP – these changes below would also improve power wellomancers for sPvP which I understand isn’t a very popular build at the moment.

New skill descriptions:

Spectral Grasp:

Strip stability from your foe and pull them to you, chill them, and gain life force.

Chilled (4s): -66% Skill Recharge Rate, -66% Movement Speed
Boons removed: 1 (Stability)
Miscellaneous effect: Life Force: 15%
Range: 1,500

Well of Corruption:

Target area pulses, converting boons on foes into conditions

Damage (3x): 1596 (0.5)
Miscellaneous effect: Life Force: 1%
Miscellaneous effect: Number of Targets: 5
Miscellaneous effect: Pulse: 1 s
Miscellaneous effect: Boons converted per pulse: 2
Duration: 3s
Radius: 360
Combo Field: Dark
Range: 900
Miscellaneous effect: Unblockable

Well of Suffering:

Target area pulses, damaging foes and inflicting vulnerability.

Damage (3x): 3,192 (6.0)
Vulnerability (5s): 4% Incoming Damage, 4% Incoming Condition Damage
Miscellaneous effect: Number of Targets: 5
Miscellaneous effect: Pulse: 1 s
Duration: 3s
Radius: 360
Combo Field: Dark
Range: 900
Miscellaneous effect: Unblockable

Zefrost.3425:

Blood is power will inflict 3 bleed for 30s and self bleeding will be increased to 50 bleed for 30s to capitalize on the new condi stack update.

Nothing can save you! will be increased to 4s cast time up from 0.5s.

Muahahahaha! Nailed it with necros finally capitalizing on the condi stack update! Well played, sir

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

WvW Buffs
2. Buff WvW wall damage – currently we are entirely dependent upon ele’s meteor shower for destroying siege on walls. I would like to see necro’s wells given some radius love so we can also reach the siege on walls.

No ty. Rather nerf ms radius so it can’t reach siege either.

guildabd.6529:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

WvW Buffs
2. Buff WvW wall damage – currently we are entirely dependent upon ele’s meteor shower for destroying siege on walls. I would like to see necro’s wells given some radius love so we can also reach the siege on walls.

No ty. Rather nerf ms radius so it can’t reach siege either.

That would make field cannons pretty much required since balis won’t get line of sight most of the time..

remove minions completly death magic deleted would be a boon
for necro/reaper

Yep, I imagine a few nerfs and disappointment that usually comes with every patch and especially now since reapers feel like they’re in an ok spot but Anet doesn’t like a Necro/Reaper to be in an ok spot but more so in a bad spot.

They know what traits we use the most , they know whats op and not, problem is they take soo long to nerf or buff stuff.
I just hope anet gets it right this time and doesnt add buggs like they always do.
Im not going to add numbers or condi durations or any dps numbers , but i will ask anet to think what to do with:

Axe needs to get buffed
Gs needs huge buffs
Core necro needs buffs
We need some life force at starts of the fights (lets us get 20 percent every time we die if we have less then 20 and at start of the game, since we need lf to survive, we have no invuls or blocks….)
Focus needs faster cast times
Let regeneration boon go tru ds
Signet of undeath needs rework
I would like to sugest we could flash ds when we are stomping(IM SURE MORE PLAYERS WOULD USE FOOT IN THE GRAVE)with out interromping the stomp.
Life blast and staff AA should be faster.

Like i said im not going to suggest numbers, but i hope anet will look into this

Prince Vingador.8067:

I would like to sugest we could flash ds when we are stomping(IM SURE MORE PLAYERS WOULD USE FOOT IN THE GRAVE)with out interromping the stomp.

no flash but allow to use ds while stomping

Prince Vingador.8067:

Life blast and staff AA should be faster.

agree with this life blast need to be faster also cast time is horrible and aftercast.

Brokensunday.4098:

Prince Vingador.8067:

I would like to sugest we could flash ds when we are stomping(IM SURE MORE PLAYERS WOULD USE FOOT IN THE GRAVE)with out interromping the stomp.

no flash but allow to use ds while stomping

Prince Vingador.8067:

Life blast and staff AA should be faster.

agree with this life blast need to be faster also cast time is horrible and aftercast.

? Can use ds while stomping, it needs flashing while stomping so it doesnt get interrompt mid air, cause atm foot in the grave not ever cover the full stomp, so if u where lets say mid air and u activate ds u should still finish the stomp, and u woulnt get interromp cause of foot in the grave.
Cause atm u are mid air and if u activate ds u cancel the stomp .

guildabd.6529:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

WvW Buffs
2. Buff WvW wall damage – currently we are entirely dependent upon ele’s meteor shower for destroying siege on walls. I would like to see necro’s wells given some radius love so we can also reach the siege on walls.

No ty. Rather nerf ms radius so it can’t reach siege either.

No ty. I’d rather have PvP fights with the people hiding behind arrow carts.

Prince Vingador.8067:

Brokensunday.4098:

Prince Vingador.8067:

I would like to sugest we could flash ds when we are stomping(IM SURE MORE PLAYERS WOULD USE FOOT IN THE GRAVE)with out interromping the stomp.

no flash but allow to use ds while stomping

Prince Vingador.8067:

Life blast and staff AA should be faster.

agree with this life blast need to be faster also cast time is horrible and aftercast.

? Can use ds while stomping, it needs flashing while stomping so it doesnt get interrompt mid air, cause atm foot in the grave not ever cover the full stomp, so if u where lets say mid air and u activate ds u should still finish the stomp, and u woulnt get interromp cause of foot in the grave.
Cause atm u are mid air and if u activate ds u cancel the stomp .

at the moment you can only stomp on shroud if it’s activated but can’t activated while stomping that’s is wat we need, flshing shroud is bad period and even if u miss click ur out of defence and why flash the effects it gives are terrible this have been discusss many time over the years.

i would like to see a flashing shroud be viable in a pvp enviroment.

if they do make it viable it would consume lifeforce too so both a flashing shroud and a shroud build
shroud less f1 useage longer duration in shroud
flashing shroud more f1 useage(maybe even strategic useage) less duration in shroud

does this encourage healthy useage of our class mechanic?

I think it does and offers a new type of playstyle.

I was sugesting that we could like in mid air of the stomp activate ds and still finishing the stomp , with out interromping ,this is flashing , same when ele uses obsi flesh when stomping.
Like this if u had foot in the grave ,when we were about to stomp and activated ds , we wouldnt stop the stomp and we would gain stab.

Nerf is real!!!
Necromancer
Blood is Power bleed duration halfed (4stacks now)
Rise dmg reduction from 50% -> 33%

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4uojtr/skillbalance_changes_started_showing_up_in_the_api/