(edited by Swagg.9236)
Necromancer Balance Suggestions
Spinal Shivers
- Foes targeted by [Spinal Shivers] are surrounded by a bright blue ring during the cast-time period. The ring bursts upon cast-animation completion.
Chilblains
- Cast-time reduced from ¾ second to 0.
- Now uses a ¾-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while activating another skill).
- Added delay: 1 second
- Now, when cast, only the visual mark will appear (no red/white circle) and then linger for 1 second. During this 1-second period, the mark cannot trigger. After 1 second, a red/white circle will appear and the mark will trigger automatically if an enemy walks over it.
Putrid Mark
- Cast-time reduced from ¾ second to 0.
- Now uses a ¾-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while activating another skill).
- Added delay: 1 second
- Now, when cast, only the visual mark will appear (no red/white circle) and then linger for 1 second. During this 1-second period, the mark cannot trigger. After 1 second, a red/white circle will appear and the mark will trigger automatically if an enemy walks over it.
Reaper’s Mark
- Cast-time reduced from ¾ second to 0.
- Now uses a ¾-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while activating another skill).
- Added delay: 1 second
- Now, when cast, only the visual mark will appear (no red/white circle) and then linger for 1 second. During this 1-second period, the mark cannot trigger. After 1 second, a red/white circle will appear and the mark will trigger automatically if an enemy walks over it.
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
- Now unblockable.
Dhuumfire (Spite – XI)
- Now, when this trait activates, it summons an invulnerable reaper NPC near the side of the Necromancer (possibly using the same summon detection as [Phantasmal Warlock]. This reaper then attacks the Necromancer’s current target with an orange-tinted [Life Blast] projectile. The projectile deals no damage, but does inflict the burning described in the trait. The reaper dies/vanishes after shooting the projectile.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
Fear – FUNCTIONAL MAKE-OVER
- The problem with Fear is two-fold: it takes away a player’s ability to control his/her own character (often for a long period of time); it’s typically instant-activation and therefore provides no real counter-play outside of pre-casting stability (which not everybody has all the time) just because you see a Necromancer. It’s not terror that’s broken. It’s fear being so fast-activating that it has no counter-play outside of pre-casting stability.
If instead, we slow that process of inflicting “RUN AWAY” down but still promoting the flee mechanic organically (forcing a player to choose to turn his character around to avoid something bad), the whole experience of inflicting and countering fear can become a lot more thoughtful and engaging than “I press button,” and “I run away.” To promote the organic retreat (getting a player primed for fear to run away of his own accord), boon-stripping can be added to fear’s base effects to hopefully undermine boon stacking and stability but still keeping the power to counter in the hands of the opponent.
Part 1: Activating a skill or an effect whose end effect aims to inflict Fear.
- Caster gains unique boon: Frightful Disposition (2 seconds).
- A player with Frightful Disposition has the green and black image of the grim reaper above his/her head for its duration (same cue that appears when using [Doom]).
- A foe affected by the skill or effect is Frightened (1 second).
- A frightened player is surrounded by a black ring visual cue for its duration.
- Frightened is a unique debuff that cannot be cleansed, deals no damage and is unaffected by condition duration modifiers. Frightened stacks in intensity.
- If a player is inflicted with more than 5 stacks of Frightened at any time, that player instantly gains 5 stacks of Fear.
Part 2: After 1 second, the black ring bursts around the Frightened player with the characteristic fear “scream effect.”
- This player is now inflicted with Fear (1 second). Each stack of Frightened converts to 1 stack of Fear.
- Fear now stacks in intensity but not in duration (up to 5 stacks). A player inflicted with Fear caught starting at a player with Frightful Disposition receives debuffs according to the number of stacks of Fear that a player has. This is effectively the Risen Priestess of Lyssa’s Corrupted Gaze effect.
Part 3: Player with Fear looks at a player with Frightful Disposition
- Fear (1): Stun (1 second); Weakened (5 seconds)
- Fear (2): Stun (1 second); Weakened (5 seconds)
- Fear (3): Flee (1 second); Weakened (5 seconds); lose 1 boon
- Fear (4): Flee (1 second); Weakened (5 seconds); lose 1 boon
- Fear (5): Flee (1½ second); Weakened (5 seconds); lose 2 boons
- Boon ripping occurs before the CC.
- Flee describes the function of the current Fear (run away in the opposite direction of the source of the Fear).
(edited by Swagg.9236)
FEAR-RELATED NECROMANCER CHANGES
Doom
- Now inflicts 3 stacks of frightened at 600 – 1200 range.
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened at 0 – 600 range.
- Now unblockable.
Wave of Fear
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
Reaper’s Mark
- Cast-time reduced from ¾ second to ½ second.
- No longer immediately triggers if placed directly on top of a valid target. Upon cast completion, the mark will delay (no effect) for 1 second before it starts to automatically trigger when an enemy passes over it.
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
- Now unblockable.
Spectral Wall
- Now removes 1 boon from foes that cross it.
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
Corrupt Boon
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened when ripping stability.
Well of Corruption
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened when ripping stability.
Fear
- Cast-time reduced from 1¼ seconds to ¼ second
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of fear.
Fear of Death (Soul Reaping – I)
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened to affected foes.
Reaper’s Protection (Death Magic – VIII)
- Now also dazes affected foes for 1 second upon activation.
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
Terror (Curses – IX)
- Feared players that look at you while you are under the effects of frightful disposition take damage.
- Damage: 444
Master of Terror (Soul Reaping – XI)
- Frightful disposition that you gain lasts longer. You also gain might when frightening a foe (10 second cool-down).
- Frightful Disposition: 50% duration increase
- Might (3): 15 seconds
(edited by Swagg.9236)
NON-NECROMANCER FEAR-RELATED CHANGES
Runes of the Nightmare (6/6)
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
“Fear me!”
- Now inflicts 1 stack of frightened at 400 – 600 range.
- Now inflicts 3 stacks of frightened at 200 – 400 range.
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened at 0 – 200 range.
Fear (shark)
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
Terrifying Howl
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
Skull Fear
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
Snarl (Become the Wolf)
- Now inflicts 5 stacks of frightened.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
reserved for future posts
reserved for future posts
No to everything, please go to the thief forums if you want to post further suggestions, they will like you.
When life gives you lemon, ask if its from a anime or manga.
No to everything, please go to the thief forums if you want to post further suggestions, they will like you.
That was constructive. These suggestions are all about layering abilities or aiming attacks, you know. It’s not the most outrageous petition.
realy u want to make fear work like that??? U dont have any time to stack some stack of frightened , before u gonna do it war or thief gonna jump on you and u are dead
Almost all of these ideas are bad, except for a few that were ideas taken from other forum threads.
You essentially want to add on a 1s aftercast to our abilities, despite them still having a full half-second cast time. Are people in PvP so brain-dead that they need 1.5 seconds to dodge an ability? kitten , you wanted to make Spinal Shivers, of all things EASIER to dodge?
Its obvious you don’t play Necromancer, and don’t want to understand the class well enough to be able to dodge already fairly easy to dodge abilities, so lets just make them impossible to land. Readability =/= making every single auto attack more obvious than a boss insta kill mechanic.
realy u want to make fear work like that??? U dont have any time to stack some stack of frightened , before u gonna do it war or thief gonna jump on you and u are dead
[Doom] is instant-activation. Instant-activation, ranged CC without a projectile is nonsense from a balance perspective. It turns pvp into a face-roll.
[Doom] also comes with a second health bar.
Warriors come with enough cast-times and blatant attack animations to allow you to see them coming. Cast CC preemptively instead of reactively when fighting warriors. Draw circles on the ground for thieves.
Almost all of these ideas are bad, except for a few that were ideas taken from other forum threads.
I didn’t take anything from anywhere.
You essentially want to add on a 1s aftercast to our abilities, despite them still having a full half-second cast time. Are people in PvP so brain-dead that they need 1.5 seconds to dodge an ability? kitten , you wanted to make Spinal Shivers, of all things EASIER to dodge?
I was thinking of rewording how I described that particular part. I wanted to make some of the necromancer staff marks function akin to [Lava Font]. That skill technically doesn’t have a cast-time, but it still has an activation-animation and after-cast. I guess what happens with [Lava Font] is that the AoE goes down immediately even though the player is still technically casting it. It’s a very good model for a powerful ranged AoE. This way, an enemy can see it coming, but it also isn’t (at all) impossible to land given its radius and simple target leading. Furthermore, even if someone dodges it, that’s one dodge removed from that enemy.
Looking at necromancer staff, the 4 marks available to the player there are in a way like 4 individual [Lava Font]s that can be stretched out across an area. This creates a long line of dodge bait/bite the bullet that will clearly be able to hit an opponent especially when coupled with proper target leading and dodge positioning on the part of the necromancer.
This also removes the potential of ranged backstabbing in team fights achieved by simply spamming necromancer staff skills on a point because there are bodies there and scoring free hits.
Readability =/= making every single auto attack more obvious than a boss insta kill mechanic.
Staff elementalist cues are more than obvious and yet it’s still very possible to hit and kill targets with them with proper positioning. It’s about anticipating an opponent’s move and making counter-moves to derail his decisions. These changes are meant to teach players to learn a skill that actually can be a deciding factor in a battle. As necromancers stand now, it’s a very face-rolly profession with fear, dhuumfire and instant-effect, projectile-less, ranged abilities often being major factors in how they win fights.
The main things I would like to see is spite signet’s cast time increased to something like 1.5s, and for dhuumfire to proc when the enemy has no conditions instead of on crit, and also possibly swapping terror and withering precisions.
And on the flip side more access to stability/blocking, and better direct damage options.
(edited by roamzero.9486)
Why not, instead of the Delay ‘feature’, just have the game program it so when Necro’s cast an AoE spell, enemies automatically are moved out of the radius.
Might be easier to program and will have the same effect.
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
Staff elementalist cues are more than obvious and yet it’s still very possible to hit and kill targets with them with proper positioning. It’s about anticipating an opponent’s move and making counter-moves to derail his decisions. These changes are meant to teach players to learn a skill that actually can be a deciding factor in a battle. As necromancers stand now, it’s a very face-rolly profession with fear, dhuumfire and instant-effect, projectile-less, ranged abilities often being major factors in how they win fights.
And when was the last time a staff elementalist was seen in a serious sPvP environment? Never. The only people who play staff ele are for the giggles of being able to say “hey guys look, I’m using a staff in PvP!”.
You’re asking for changes that would kill these skills in PvP. Its not a matter of adding a little skill into PvP, anyone can dodge staff marks with ease, same with most of what we cast. If you get hit by a staff mark, its your own fault. If you are routinely losing fights because you don’t have the skill to dodge staff marks, you should honestly uninstall the game, because PvP is too hard for you, and PvE relies on the same kind of reactions, so you couldn’t even kill AI (note: not directed at you, but people in general).
The problems we have as a class being a bit too strong in PvP have 0 to do with our cast times, and everything to do with many of them being far too similar (pre-staff 5 change our marks were way too similar, and still are, in cast animations), that we can apply nearly every single condition in the game AoE on short CD, and Scepter 1 spam throws out 3 conditions and huge pressure just by jamming 1.
I`d do the following to balance necromancers:
- Make death perception baseline. (nerf it to 25-35% crit instead)
- Make foot in the grave baseline.
- Replace dhuumfire with Tormentfire.
- Remove reanimator, replace with à trait that gives lifeforce on each of elite forms + elite summons attack.
- Remove death perception, replace with a grandmaster trait that allows you to use utilities in death shroud.
- Remove foot in the grave, replace with a grandmaster trait that does the following: When entering death shroud, leave a trail of 5 marks of horror behind you (1 second interval). 60 seconds cooldown.
This is to promote powernecros, and to discourage condinecros.
Still Feeling Lucky [PunK] – Gunnars Hold
Recruiting necros & guardians. Whisper ingame.
Recruiting necros & guardians. Whisper ingame.
And when was the last time a staff elementalist was seen in a serious sPvP environment? Never. The only people who play staff ele are for the giggles of being able to say “hey guys look, I’m using a staff in PvP!”.
Staff elementalist is very strong in an organized team format. Moreover, it is a well balanced weapon that has clear telegraphs and well-defined, delayed AoEs that not only make it fair for an opponent, but they also allow a staff elementalist to lock down areas with good AoE positioning and target leading. It’s an exercise in timing, forethought and positioning: something that the necromancer could use.
anyone can dodge staff marks with ease
If they’re already on the ground, yes.
same with most of what we cast.
That’s not necessarily true. A lot of powerful necromancer attacks forego the use of red circles, cast-times, and/or projectiles. That’s why they’re used so often.
If you get hit by a staff mark, its your own fault.
If it’s on the ground, sure, but if a staff necro sees you, they can just place the marks directly on top of you without thinking about it. Since you can’t dodge 5 times in a row and you have no way of telling which mark the necro is using based on cast animations, the whole event is pretty much a craps shoot. It’s not well telegraphed and it’s not well balanced.
The problems we have as a class being a bit too strong in PvP have 0 to do with our cast times, and everything to do with many of them being far too similar
As I’ve already detailed, there are several issues related to why necromancers are generally overpowered in the current meta-game. These reasons are primarily: ranged attacks without projectiles; ranged attacks that are instant-activation; ranged AoE attacks that have no post-cast delay and no red circles. There are a lot of necromancer skills with at least one or more of these properties which tend to make fighting a necro an exercise in random dodges or a CC-spam race because nothing coming from that necromancer is clearly telegraphed.
Why not, instead of the Delay ‘feature’, just have the game program it so when Necro’s cast an AoE spell, enemies automatically are moved out of the radius.
Might be easier to program and will have the same effect.
[Lava Font] has a 1-second delay upon activation and it’s still very possible to hit mobile players at least once with it even in a 1v1 scenario.
Here’s the kicker, though, necromancer gets a lot of these types of skills. Necromancer staff has effectively 4 [Lava Fonts] just sitting on the skill-bar. By that, I mean that each AoE is substantially large (180 base radius), persist for a long period of time when activated and immediately deal damage when someone passes over them. Seeing that staff necromancer has 4 of these types of skills, it isn’t hard to imagine a necromancer controlling a battlefield with proper positioning and timed skill use. [Chilblains] is a 4-second base chill for crying out loud. That’s enormously strong on 20-second cool-down. Landing that skill should pretty much secure a players ability to land subsequent skills.
The goal with changing how staff marks work to be more in line with how [Lava Font] works is to move necromancer staff play away from “Spam skills on top of this guy,” to more a “Do you really want to walk there? You don’t want to walk there either,” sort of play-style. People really don’t seem to understand the importance or value of being able to control an opponent’s movements (even for a second), especially when in a team-play format. Skills don’t have to hit to have an impact on the battlefield. Since necro staff marks persist for so long even after their initial cast, they are prime candidates for this sort of play-style. However, implementing them without a delay removed the attrition from this attrition class’ weapon-set.
tl;dr: You can play with a delay on your AoEs, you just have to anticipate your opponent’s movements. It also removes ranged, AoE backstabs via projectile-less spam and makes everything more balanced for everyone.
Why not, instead of the Delay ‘feature’, just have the game program it so when Necro’s cast an AoE spell, enemies automatically are moved out of the radius.
Might be easier to program and will have the same effect.
[Lava Font] has a 1-second delay upon activation and it’s still very possible to hit mobile players at least once with it even in a 1v1 scenario.
Here’s the kicker, though, necromancer gets a lot of these types of skills. Necromancer staff has effectively 4 [Lava Fonts] just sitting on the skill-bar. By that, I mean that each AoE is substantially large (180 base radius), persist for a long period of time when activated and immediately deal damage when someone passes over them. Seeing that staff necromancer has 4 of these types of skills, it isn’t hard to imagine a necromancer controlling a battlefield with proper positioning and timed skill use. [Chilblains] is a 4-second base chill for crying out loud. That’s enormously strong on 20-second cool-down. Landing that skill should pretty much secure a players ability to land subsequent skills.
The goal with changing how staff marks work to be more in line with how [Lava Font] works is to move necromancer staff play away from “Spam skills on top of this guy,” to more a “Do you really want to walk there? You don’t want to walk there either,” sort of play-style. People really don’t seem to understand the importance or value of being able to control an opponent’s movements (even for a second), especially when in a team-play format. Skills don’t have to hit to have an impact on the battlefield. Since necro staff marks persist for so long even after their initial cast, they are prime candidates for this sort of play-style. However, implementing them without a delay removed the attrition from this attrition class’ weapon-set.
tl;dr: You can play with a delay on your AoEs, you just have to anticipate your opponent’s movements. It also removes ranged, AoE backstabs via projectile-less spam and makes everything more balanced for everyone.
This may as well be a thread on why we need square wheels.
Necromancer Balance Suggestions (concept):
2 conceptual changes
1. Tone down the condition necromancer’s condition damage and ability to burst damage with conditions
2. Increase survivability of all necromancers
This opens up the playing field for the non “damage-dealing condi” builds, tones down an over the top build and would still allow necromancers to be viable by increasing their sustain
Here’s the kicker, though, necromancer gets a lot of these types of skills. Necromancer staff has effectively 4 [Lava Fonts] just sitting on the skill-bar.
Sounds like a great suggestion. I’m looking forward to twice as many skills on my staff from now on, with lots of movement abilities, stuns, fire and water fields so both staffs are balanced and the same thing.
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
(edited by alanis.6094)
Here’s the kicker, though, necromancer gets a lot of these types of skills. Necromancer staff has effectively 4 [Lava Fonts] just sitting on the skill-bar.
Sounds like a great suggestion. I’m looking forward to twice as many skills on my staff from now on, with lots of movement abilities, stuns, fire and water fields so both staffs are balanced and the same thing.
You’re just used to having a game-play crutch. It’s not healthy.
Here’s the kicker, though, necromancer gets a lot of these types of skills. Necromancer staff has effectively 4 [Lava Fonts] just sitting on the skill-bar.
Sounds like a great suggestion. I’m looking forward to twice as many skills on my staff from now on, with lots of movement abilities, stuns, fire and water fields so both staffs are balanced and the same thing.
You’re just used to having a game-play crutch. It’s not healthy.
I have played four toons to 80. When i think of “game-play crutches”, the Necro Staff is not in the conversation.
You basically want the staff for a necro to work the same as one of the worst of the 20 spells the elementist staff has, ignoring that 1) that spell is a fire field, 2) many spells on the ele staff aren’t bound to your ridiculous delay suggestion, and 3) there are several ele staff spells that are significantly better than any spell on a necro staff (and any other necro weapon, for that matter).
Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net
I have played four toons to 80. When i think of “game-play crutches”, the Necro Staff is not in the conversation.
You basically want the staff for a necro to work the same as one of the worst of the 20 spells the elementist staff has, ignoring that 1) that spell is a fire field, 2) many spells on the ele staff aren’t bound to your ridiculous delay suggestion, and 3) there are several ele staff spells that are significantly better than any spell on a necro staff (and any other necro weapon, for that matter).
Alright, I apologize for that outburst. Let me try again, but this time I’ll refute your main point even though you haven’t refuted any of mine so far.
Sounds like a great suggestion. I’m looking forward to twice as many skills on my staff from now on, with lots of movement abilities, stuns, fire and water fields so both staffs are balanced and the same thing.
You don’t need them. Staff necro is fundamentally different than staff ele. I suppose I was wrong to use [Lava Font] as the lone comparison for these suggested changes because necro marks are not like [Lava Font]. [Lava Font] requires you to hold an enemy in that AoE for an extended period of time to get any real damage out of it. This is why there is so much CC on staff ele. Moreover, staff ele doesn’t really have a lot of high, sustained damage outside of fire attunement. It could be argued that most of a staff ele’s skills are often devoted to making sure that an enemy stays within fire attunement AoEs because those are the ones that are going to do the most damage the most consistently.
Necromancer staff doesn’t need to hold anyone inside of marks. Marks are one-shots. They blow up and throw everything that they have on their target. To this effect, you don’t need CC to make marks effective even if they had a delay. You just need to THINK about where to place them. If you anticipate someone’s movement, you can just place the mark where your opponent is going to go. Stagger out the AoEs instead of just vomiting them onto one point. Just because a ground-targeted AoE skill has a delay doesn’t mean that it forces you to cast it directly on top of an opponent so that they can just walk out of it before it comes into effect. That’s just being bad. Even so, that’s what necromancer staff marks are teaching players to do.
Futhermore, when placing large, delayed AoEs, if an opponent dodges through one, you got rid of one dodge. If an opponent dodges again, hey that’s 2 dodges down. You can throw down your fear mark or your chill mark now. The blood mark will come off cool-down shortly and you can use that again. This is calculated, attrition game-play. You have to make skill sacrifices to get your opponent to dance instead of kill you.
I’ll say it again: ranged skills (even just single target skills, much less AoEs) without projectiles, no post-cast delay and spammable cast-times are not flavor, they’re imbalanced. Necromancer has a lot of these skills. They need to be fixed.
As it stands, the way that necromancer staff marks work effectively makes them into projectiles that you can place on the ground for later use if you so choose. Tha’s actually a neat function, however in active use (no marks down; you just see someone in the distance), they simply turn into spammed ranged skills without projectiles (something that is already innately broken). Adding a [Lava Font]-style delay would fix that and it would make staff necromancer a lot more thought-based and team-oriented than it is now.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
You are great at outlining the advantages of marks, but I think you’re overlooking that all of our marks need to be aimed and have to be triggered. So that means nothing on downed players or structures, and if they are laid pre-emptively they are ludicrously easy to dodge. This does assume that you do land them.
You are great at outlining the advantages of marks, but I think you’re overlooking that all of our marks need to be aimed
Floating your cursor over your target and pressing a button isn’t really aiming if the bull’s eye is huge and there’s no projectile or delay. I’m not overlooking it at all. I’m saying that the action of leading a target into a delayed AoE is not difficult. A delay tied to several powerful necromancer AoE skills would simply mean that necros would have to think more about which AoE skills they use when and how they will stagger marks as someone attempts to approach them or a point.
and have to be triggered. So that means nothing on downed players or structures, and if they are laid pre-emptively they are ludicrously easy to dodge. This does assume that you do land them.
You’re missing the point. I’m talking about promoting active play that other players can actually see happening.
Moreover, you’re really down-playing the gravity of dodge-bait. You’re a necromancer. You get unfair fear mechanics. If someone rolled twice, over your marks you can fear them into oblivion and /laugh because it’s all instant-activation with range and no projectile. Even if they have a dodge, you can still do it because nobody can ever see it coming. Furthermore, necromancer marks begin recharging immediately once cast. It’s not hard to set up a mine field in preparation, use the mine field as dodge bait, and then start actively setting up another attrition path as soon as your mines go off.
Necromancer was designed as the attrition class after all. It’s just been poorly set up given all of its broken ranged mechanics.
snip
Your entire argument is based off of false ideas, and as long as you stick to the idea that Staff eles are good, Necros have short cast times, and aren’t easy to dodge, everything you say is based on things that just aren’t true.
Staff ele isn’t good. Necros already have long cast times, plenty of after-animations, and if you don’t suck you can dodge anything you want.
The only thing we need is better cast animations on a few of our abilities that are too similar.
snip
Your entire argument is based off of false ideas, and as long as you stick to the idea that Staff eles are good, Necros have short cast times, and aren’t easy to dodge, everything you say is based on things that just aren’t true.
Staff ele isn’t good. Necros already have long cast times, plenty of after-animations, and if you don’t suck you can dodge anything you want.
The only thing we need is better cast animations on a few of our abilities that are too similar.
Rethink what you have just said because anecdotal “Staff ele isn’t good,” is not going to refute any of the points that I’ve made. My point stands: necromancers are overpowered because they have many ranged attacks that forego at least two of the following: cues, projectiles, and/or post-cast delay periods.
I can understand though. The whole situation with necromancer being overpowered is like someone being given a mansion in a house give-a-way, living in it for many months and then being told one day that the more quaint and average house down the street was actually the house that he was supposed to win. It’s difficult to go back even though it’s the correct thing to do.
Aw, don’t start insulting us and our class now….
In my eyes you are losing some of your Swagg
;)
I can understand though. The whole situation with necromancer being overpowered is like someone being given a mansion in a house give-a-way, living in it for many months and then being told one day that the more quaint and average house down the street was actually the house that he was supposed to win. It’s difficult to go back even though it’s the correct thing to do.
Most Necros want to go back to where it was. We liked the challenge of actually having to outplay our opponents. Many Necros post quite often about ways to scale back the things that broke the class. Its like what’s happened to Warriors recently, the majority of people fighting against justified fixes are people who jumped on the bandwagon.
And its not like I’m having to give back my big present. I’ve never played condi necro, I have been protesting staff for quite some time, and give it up in most of my builds. I play MM, I always have, and I always will, these changes will do nothing to most of my builds.
But you’re comparing things that are incomparable. Skills with really easy to avoid animations have big effects. This is the MO of a lot of Ele skills; gigantic animations and effects requiring heavy setup to make it work, for the payoff of damage that Necros could never dream of. Compare things like Fire Grab, Meteor Shower, Dragon’s Tooth, Churning Earth, or even skills from other classes like Backstab, Killshot, 100b, etc. They all can give you absolutely massive payoff for skillful use, but on the other hand require a lot of traiting, setup, skill, or some combination.
What do we get for staff? 3 bleeds, (sorry, 2 because MoB is one of the strongest skills in the game) a poison field, a strong condi removal (that was stealth nerfed by Thor’s nerf hammer 4 months without a kitten word), and an AoE fear. You want attacks that can deal 50k damage when properly set up? Don’t look to Necro. Want abilities that 2-shot most players? Not Necros.
Staff is already easy to dodge. 3/4s animation is enough time to get the hell out of the way. If you can’t dodge them, l2p. The problem isn’t dodging staff, its knowing what to dodge. So again: make our casting animations better, because staff 2-4 animations are way too similar, and problem fixed, without making it impossible to ever hit an aware enemy with a mark. Its not like we get some massive effect from hitting you when you screw up (BEWARE MY 3… sorrry BEWARE MY 2 STACKS OF BLEEDS BEWWWWWAAAAAAARRRRRREEEEEE!!!!!!).
Most Necros want to go back to where it was. We liked the challenge of actually having to outplay our opponents.
A lot of necromancer skills have always been imbalanced. We just have dhuumfire, torment, signet of spite and MM meta now so the situation has been exasperated.
From what I’m reading in this thread, nobody here really wants to be balanced.
And its not like I’m having to give back my big present. I’ve never played condi necro…
What you play has no bearing on this argument.
But you’re comparing things that are incomparable.
I corrected myself in my last post.
Skills with really easy to avoid animations have big effects. This is the MO of a lot of Ele skills; gigantic animations and effects requiring heavy setup to make it work, for the payoff of damage that Necros could never dream of. Compare things like Fire Grab, Meteor Shower, Dragon’s Tooth, Churning Earth, or even skills from other classes like Backstab, Killshot, 100b, etc. They all can give you absolutely massive payoff for skillful use, but on the other hand require a lot of traiting, setup, skill, or some combination.
And then you go on to “compare the imcomparable.”
The problem with necromancer skills is that they do a lot of damage when all chained together and spammed. This wouldn’t be an issue if they had cast-times or delays that prevented this. However, they really don’t. Furthermore, most popular ranged necromancer skills completely forego projectiles, making avoiding them an exercise in permanent line-of-sight or random dodging. This is bad design. In effect, the necromancer staff is one big beam attack channel. You hold your cursor over your target and spam 2-4.
What do we get for staff? 3 bleeds, (sorry, 2 because MoB is one of the strongest skills in the game) a poison field, a strong condi removal (that was stealth nerfed by Thor’s nerf hammer 4 months without a kitten word), and an AoE fear.
[Mark of Blood] has a 6-second base cool-down and also provides regeneration. AoE fear (fear in general) is the most broken thing in this game. [Putrid Mark] has a very strong 444 (1.2) base damage and can blast AoE weakness. [Chilblains] is chill and poison: an incredibly potent combo. Most importantly of all, each of these skills has a 3/4 second cast-time without any post-cast delay. This makes these skills very easy to spam, very easy to hit and very difficult to honestly see coming.
Staff necro, as it currently stands, is a long beam attack that inflicts, bleeding, poison, chill, strong damage, fear and weakness. That’s nonsense and it should be fixed. More importantly, you can set them up for long periods of time and have them off of recharge for when they are triggered. In effect this means that you get a free mine field/bomb and a beam attack for when they’ve exhausted a dodge or two already.
You want attacks that can deal 50k damage when properly set up? Don’t look to Necro. Want abilities that 2-shot most players? Not Necros.
Spammable, easy-to-hit skills ruin good game-play. Working around delays and cues in order to bait enemies into your ranged attacks is the sign of skill. Right now the Necromancer skill ceiling is quite low. That’s what I’m trying to fix.
Staff is already easy to dodge.
No it is not. I already said that it’s effectively a beam attack. You don’t dodge full beam attacks. You eat most of it because you can’t reflect it and you can’t dodge for the entire duration. It’s just blurred damage and effects over a period of time so it forces a player to just sort of pick and choose randomly with defensive tactics instead of making calculated decisions. It doesn’t allow for proper counter-play.
The problem isn’t dodging staff, its knowing what to dodge. So again: make our casting animations better, because staff 2-4 animations are way too similar, and problem fixed,
This would still keep staff 2-4 as a beam attack. Beam attacks are annoying because you can’t mitigate them outright without blowing defensive cool-downs or a lot of dodges. The only way to truly make it fair would be to add a 1-second delay and then coloration to the marks themselves to identify which mark is which. All it would demand of necromancers in return is that they actually keep an open eye on their surroundings. Staff has a 1200 range. That’s a lot of room to start setting up a minefield for an opponent to cross on his way to you. It also doesn’t remove staff’s potential as a team-support weapon.
I think a real issue with the general attitude regarding balanced skills in this game is that most people tend to think about how a skill-set performs in a 1v1 environment. GW2 players really aren’t too keen on what is a good team-support weapon/play-style or why such a thing can be powerful when used properly.
Are you implying that staff on necros is a good team support weapon?
Also you are wildly overplaying how powerful a “minefield” is. Most players run right through marks and it hardly slows them down.
Are you implying that staff on necros is a good team support weapon?
Also you are wildly overplaying how powerful a “minefield” is. Most players run right through marks and it hardly slows them down.
You are wildly underplaying how powerful AoE chill, poison, regeneration, blast finishers and fear are. They only get stronger in team fights; they only get stronger when allies are nearby. This is why staff MM is so strong. You can spam this stuff on top of players and enter DS to further DPS, fear and snare while your minions just hit away. It’s enough to make anyone pop their defensive cool-downs and there’s almost no way to miss since all of the AoEs are large, without post-cast delays and the rest of the skills are just auto-targeted for you.
(edited by Swagg.9236)
For me:
I would love to see a total over haul of Death Shroud so that is MORE than a meat shield. I would like to see it become a key part of our damage. With traits that would buff the damage while in Death Shroud but also inflicting vul on us so that as we get more powerful damage wise we are at greater risk defense wise.
I would love to see stat increases (Toughness and Power at the leas)
Here is the thread i made up for it with other ideas: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Death-Shroud-4/first#post3324752
I would also like to see Siphon getting a buff and making it so that it WORKS in transformations (Lich, DeathShroud and Plague) – Maybe with a trait that would turn it from healing to gaining Life Force instead.
I would like to see Dagger/Dagger getting made more “fun” – kinda like how Dagger/Dagger Ele is, might not be the strongest of builds out there but kitten its alot of fun.