Guild Wars 2

As someone who has always main-handed axe and made Astralaria to celebrate this fact, I don’t mink the buff.

My issue is I mostly wvw and while I got a damage buff, so too did the classes that were broken before. It doesn’t resolve some underlying balance issues.

But I’ll take what I can get, a 13% damage boost outside of shroud is a big deal.

The opening seemed to be a veiled taunt to necros and can imagine the Dev laughing as they wrote it. The axe buffs are nice, GS buffs don’t matter much, Reaper is a dead class imo. The nerf to jaggies doesn’t really hurt, Lich Form is too easy to evade and kill so don’t use it. What really hurt us are all the buffs that other classes got again. Warrior was already seriously OP and now even more so, guess that’s a Dev’s favorite class lmao. Seriously I am still amazed how Anet wrecked Reaper because it was an awesome spec that actually held up to other classes and even beat them, then turn around and supercharge nearly every other class. Think its time to start siege trolling Anet guildees when I manage to kill them, trolls deserve to be trolled.

You guys seem to forget the biggest nerf for necros in spvp. There is no invulnerability on downstate anymore. This could mean the end of the necro + necrorezzbot meta.

Which may be good in the long run for us but the next pro league may not see many necros.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Evilek.5690:

This change nerf Death nova trait to. Death Magic is dead trait line right now.

Hm, what did they change about Death Nova? Can’t check right now and patch notes don’t seem to list a thing?

the horrors spawned from Death nova (15 sec cooldown) are also on the same 30 sec timer.

Unholy Feast buff is pretty kitten amazing imo O_O it gives power Necro access to really nice boon corrupt (which is part of the reason why Necros are useful in sPvP). Axe+Spiteful Spirit = 4 boons corrupted

Could turn a Spite/Curses/Soul Reaping base Necro into a boon corrupt machine too….

IMHO Jagged Horror nerf is good. It might seem bad on the surface but the build is fundamentally ‘broken’ in that it’s the only build in the game whose DPS scales directly with healing. By bringing Necro into line they can actually buff DPS without needing to worry about overbuffing with this build in mind.

Sarrs.4831:

IMHO Jagged Horror nerf is good. It might seem bad on the surface but the build is fundamentally ‘broken’ in that it’s the only build in the game whose DPS scales directly with healing. By bringing Necro into line they can actually buff DPS without needing to worry about overbuffing with this build in mind.

I’ll be honest, they should’ve compensated for the jagged horror change (which I can indeed understand) with this patch by buffing other skills. That would’ve also silenced those saying that necro gets “insane dps for doing nothing” while actually keeping us competitive, right now it just looks extremely bad for condi necs.

@Ropechef: Ah, thanks.

When I got to this line in the patch notes:

“We feel that necromancers have been faring quite well gamewide, providing play and counterplay in many spots over the last few months.”

I knew we were in trouble. Big trouble.

misterman.1530:

When I got to this line in the patch notes:

“We feel that necromancers have been faring quite well gamewide, providing play and counterplay in many spots over the last few months.”

My question is, given this statement, why the hell did they change anything?

Their was certainly no need to crush the class into the ground.

Yeah, completely dead power nec get a LITTLE buff. no stability, no speed skills…

But absolutely OP warri get more dmg and more speed on axe, hmm…GG ANET

Zero.3871:

Yeah, completely dead power nec get a LITTLE buff. no stability, no speed skills…

But absolutely OP warri get more dmg and more speed on axe, hmm…GG ANET

I’m a power necro. Stability comes from Shroud, and Swiftness comes from Warhorn.

Should try it sometime.

The swiftness from warhorn is laughable imo, especially since focus is better raw damage. Quickening Thirst does the job better imo, with the downside of not working with GS actively equipped.

Power nec is still bad, probably always will be. Necro’s job is being bottom tier apparently, or at least they’re constantly trying to get them there again.

Warcry.1596:

Zero.3871:

Yeah, completely dead power nec get a LITTLE buff. no stability, no speed skills…

But absolutely OP warri get more dmg and more speed on axe, hmm…GG ANET

I’m a power necro. Stability comes from Shroud, and Swiftness comes from Warhorn.

Should try it sometime.

Shroud started this whole problem. Necro was in a great spot a few patches after Hot things started going down hill as soon as they removed chill damaged and changed it to a single bleed on application. (A good change for pve but bad for pvp) The instant ramp up of chill damage (while it was counterable by some professions aka dash thief) was what condi necro really needed to boost ramp up time with conditions.

Just another example of a skill that should have remained split from pve and pvp and wvw.

On top of that necro has issues with not having true defensive tools instead we get soft defensive tools that require us to get hit and take abuse.
Spectral armor
Plague signet

Necro is the only light armor class with no trait access to vigor or a plethora of other boons that should be there. No blocks, or reflects, the projectile destruction we have is a bad joke and implemented far to late in the game for it to keep up with other classes tools that do the same job but much better.

Power necro has become trash in pvp and wvw because other professions do the same damage in 2-3 seconds while it takes necro 7-10 seconds to do the same amount. Necro gets instantly blown up by most classes unless you take the tanker condition route. Anet really needs to fix base shroud before necro will really be on par with the other classes. Having 0 utility in shroud use to be ok now its just sick. There needs to be traits that allow access to some utility while in DS (signets of suffering would allow signets, master of corruption would allow corruptions skills, vampiric rituals would allow wells etc.

You would think that necromancer would be one of the hardest classes to kill even more so in smaller fights but the fact of the matter is its currently one of the easiest to kill due to low mobility and lack of true defensive tools. Will always be a first focus target ALWAYS

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

The swiftness from warhorn is laughable imo, especially since focus is better raw damage. Quickening Thirst does the job better imo, with the downside of not working with GS actively equipped.

Power nec is still bad, probably always will be. Necro’s job is being bottom tier apparently, or at least they’re constantly trying to get them there again.

We may have different opinions of what’s bad then. Which is fine. Sure the damage is lower, But that doesn’t hinder me from completing content. There is not a single aspect of the game that progress is halted because of the fact I went power over condi. Until that happens, which it won’t, there is no reason to dismiss the changes as awful and claiming necro is worthless.

Sorry everyone wants record timings on the content they do. Not sure why that’s important, beating it at all is what should be important =/

Warcry.1596:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

The swiftness from warhorn is laughable imo, especially since focus is better raw damage. Quickening Thirst does the job better imo, with the downside of not working with GS actively equipped.

Power nec is still bad, probably always will be. Necro’s job is being bottom tier apparently, or at least they’re constantly trying to get them there again.

We may have different opinions of what’s bad then. Which is fine. Sure the damage is lower, But that doesn’t hinder me from completing content. There is not a single aspect of the game that progress is halted because of the fact I went power over condi. Until that happens, which it won’t, there is no reason to dismiss the changes as awful and claiming necro is worthless.

Sorry everyone wants record timings on the content they do. Not sure why that’s important, beating it at all is what should be important =/

Well yes, power necro is not bad in the sense of that it’s not useable. You can play everything in this game and it’ll work, somehow.

When you look at those things though you should always compare with the best options for each class and strive to keep them all about a certain level using their best setups, what they can bring etc. – and that’s where power necro falls extremely short. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my power necro, it’s my main and I wish it’d finally make sense to bring one instead of being something that’s just there an does some damage, but could easily be replaced by something that does more damage while bringing more valuable utility/buffs.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Warcry.1596:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

The swiftness from warhorn is laughable imo, especially since focus is better raw damage. Quickening Thirst does the job better imo, with the downside of not working with GS actively equipped.

Power nec is still bad, probably always will be. Necro’s job is being bottom tier apparently, or at least they’re constantly trying to get them there again.

We may have different opinions of what’s bad then. Which is fine. Sure the damage is lower, But that doesn’t hinder me from completing content. There is not a single aspect of the game that progress is halted because of the fact I went power over condi. Until that happens, which it won’t, there is no reason to dismiss the changes as awful and claiming necro is worthless.

Sorry everyone wants record timings on the content they do. Not sure why that’s important, beating it at all is what should be important =/

Well yes, power necro is not bad in the sense of that it’s not useable. You can play everything in this game and it’ll work, somehow.

When you look at those things though you should always compare with the best options for each class and strive to keep them all about a certain level using their best setups, what they can bring etc. – and that’s where power necro falls extremely short. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my power necro, it’s my main and I wish it’d finally make sense to bring one instead of being something that’s just there an does some damage, but could easily be replaced by something that does more damage while bringing more valuable utility/buffs.

Maybe bringing something else DOES make sense. But id rather people play what they want as long as whatever were doing is beatable. An example would be as long as there is a minimum of team DPS, as long as that is met I don’t care what is brought.

I think the Jagged Horror nerf will be good for the profession. Keeping Horrors alive to boost condition dps was cheese and probably covered Necromancer’s real condition dps issues.

There were very few trait changes in the balance patch. This lends some credence to the leak about new elite trait line development. Hopefully, the holes and soft spots in Necromancer’s build variety will be plugged on the next expansion.

I ran axe for a few hours last night in PvE, then swapped back to staff. Axe is slightly improved but not enough to change weapon selection for encounters. It is a bit more competitive with staff in PvE 1v1 as a ranged power weapon but it is still axe with no appreciable AoE.

For my own amusement, I also ran a Viper’s condition damage build without scepter (or Horrors) to compare with a power build using Terror, Dhuumfire, and Deathly Chill and monitoring condition dps. I gave up substantial sustain vs Berserker’s on a power build for the experiment.

Sarrs.4831:

IMHO Jagged Horror nerf is good. It might seem bad on the surface but the build is fundamentally ‘broken’ in that it’s the only build in the game whose DPS scales directly with healing. By bringing Necro into line they can actually buff DPS without needing to worry about overbuffing with this build in mind.

Yes nerf was needed, but from 100% up time(with healer), now its 16% up time. Thats to much. Should decrease Lich form cd or increase the up time to 33% at least.
Now Lich form is back to useless as it was before condi changes…