Guild Wars 2

Here they are

I’ll update with my thoughts in a bit, its a huge number of changes, but what is everyone’s impression?

I’m just happy I get to see them before I go to work.

The area of mark skills has been increased to 240. Mark skill recharges have been reduced by 20%. Mark damage has been increased by 10%.

What

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

WHAT THE kitten

Plague: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds to you every second it is active.

WHAT THE kitten IS GOING ON. Can someone please tell me another elite that actively hurts you while using it.

After reading everything I think I will be trying Spite/Curses/Blood Magic in spvp.
Something like this with this.

AWESOME
/15necro

Minion builds can now have both necromatic corruption and death nova!

I might have to rethink my use of war horn because it’s trait is now in blood magic.

Lingering curses is still 100% condi duration, so I’m definitely designing around that.

The most pressing bad traits have been reverted, changed, or removed. Good.

Necros can actually give might to party in PVE. Good.

My favorites:

Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.

Last Rites: Gain increasing healing power based on how low your health is. Other allies near you do not bleed out while downed (combat only).

Blood is Power: This skill now applies 8 stacks of might for 8 seconds to nearby allies.

What can I say? I like support

And this one makes sense, even though it’s gonna hurt:

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

Ouch…

Blood is Power: This skill now applies 8 stacks of might for 8 seconds to nearby allies.

Nice…

Spectral Walk: This skill can no longer be activated while in mid-air.
Lame…

Overall seems like a ton of nerfs and a few nice things skills wise…

I don’t understand things like this at all:
Master of Corruption: Reduces recharge of corruption skills by 33% but causes corruption skills to apply additional conditions to you when cast. (Condition applied varies per skill.)

Why does every other class in the game get straight up buffs with their skills but necro traits actually hurt us instead of helping us? WTF?

Terror moved to master !!!

Other allies near you do not bleed out while downed (combat only).
That’s kinda cool

“Vampiric Presense: You and allies near you siphon health with attacks (combat only). This effect stacks with the siphoning granted by Vampiric.”

This could be really awesome

Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.

Looks like necros will be the king of saving allies

Overall looks pretty good. Not sure the nerfs were really warranted, but i’m tried so maybe i’m missing some OP combos.

Consume conditions got nerfed. Maybe enough that I will try something else…?

I think Necros aren’t getting nearly enough for taking on a condition, while other classes are getting boons wholesale.

Let’s see
Bad:
epidemic nerfed, Consume conditions nerfed, blood is power nerfed, master of corruption nerfed, soul comprehension exists, lich form nerfed, axe is still useless, reapers might is minor instead of more usefull spitefull renewal, Lingering Curse is back to pve only skill, mark of evasion still has an icd and dhuumfire.

Good:
Signet buff( signet of undeath/vampirism still useless), Plague Sending, , Weakening Shroud, shrouded removal buff, staff buff, Corrupter’s Fervor, Transfusion and soul marks.

maybe:
blood bond, Vampiric Presense (need to see the numbers).

Desastrous:
spectral walk nerf.

Lots of nerfs, but also lots of surprisingly nice buffs and tweaks to traits that we complained about. It’s gonna take a bit for me to digest this. I think overall we’re at net plus with the changes for what’s important. But geeshka they sure changed a lot of things.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

Ouch…
I don’t understand things like this at all:
Master of Corruption: Reduces recharge of corruption skills by 33% but causes corruption skills to apply additional conditions to you when cast. (Condition applied varies per skill.)

I like this. It’s to synergize with condition transfers. That 10 stacks of Vuln from Consume can easily become your weapon!

One question: do devs play necros??

Warcry.1596:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

Ouch…
I don’t understand things like this at all:
Master of Corruption: Reduces recharge of corruption skills by 33% but causes corruption skills to apply additional conditions to you when cast. (Condition applied varies per skill.)

I like this. It’s to synergize with condition transfers. That 10 stacks of Vuln from Consume can easily become your weapon!

It’s 4 seconds by the time you transferred them you lost 25 percent of them.

Gryph.8237:

One question: do devs play necros??

probably. Do they understand necros? no they don’t.

Overall I’m really excited with the changes. We got most of what we wanted overall, like almost everything they could have done they did. Blood Magic will actually be insanely powerful for support, to the point where I think MM might be playable in teamfights because of how much support Cleric could bring.

I didn’t love the few nerfs we got, however I understood them with the new trait pairings. Plague can now have its CD reduced by a full minute, Lich similarly plus a lot of LF, and Consume can now have a 20s CD. If I had to nitpick I’d also say I’m sad Soul Comprehension is still around.

But overall, great changes. I do somewhat worry about if we can keep up with the power creep, but I’ll talk over that all on But of Corpse soon, we’ll have a new podcast out as soon as I and Blackmoa can get together.

Lol. Necro just got slammed in pvp, with some weird changes that will only smokescreen the nerfs. Maybe, mm got a buff, but if necro means being an mm to be good, then necro is not for me, after 3 years.

Consume conditions nerf is awful

Now we have no way to escape pressure but we’re also getting punished for healing under pressure

Ashur.6403:

I’m just happy I get to see them before I go to work.

The area of mark skills has been increased to 240. Mark skill recharges have been reduced by 20%. Mark damage has been increased by 10%.

What

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

WHAT THE kitten

Plague: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds to you every second it is active.

WHAT THE kitten IS GOING ON. Can someone please tell me another elite that actively hurts you while using it.

Plague and Consume Conditions now benefit from the amazing 33% cooldown reduction corruption trait. And Plague can now transfer conditions to your foes with plague sending.

Plague doubles your health when you use it, a constant 2 stacks of bleed on yourself isn’t going to change a fight ever. Except for when it helps proc Plague Sending, making Plague essentially immune to conditions, which were its main weakness.

Bhawb.7408:

But overall, great changes.

Overall, great changes? Our only viable heal skill got nerfed, One of our few escapes got nerfed, Dhuumfire is absolutely garbage (it’s worse than scepter), scepter is still baseline bad , plague got nerfed (and don’t start with the 2 min cd because it gets a second condition then) and lich nerfed . There goes the pvp power build.

Also, we get Terror back as a Master level, so we don’t need to choose between it and LC or PC.

And Blood looks kittening fantastic now.

Bit of a mixed bag but overall leaning towards positive.

@Anet: regarding this:

Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.

Is this going to teleport allies that are currently being rezzed by other teammates? That could be a problem.

I was like I’d bet my shirt and shoes in the alley that necro is getting gimmicks and….It was not far from it. disappointed.

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

I didnt know I could help someone kill me by using my heal skill. hi there Plague Sending! and extra rechrage to keep you healthy! no im not taking master of corruption!

Lich Form: This skill is now considered a spectral skill and grants 15% life force when it ends. Reduced duration of this skill to 15 seconds (previously 20)

its too hard to trait for spectral mastery with the competition just for lich form…

Epidemic: With the changes to condition stacking, Epidemic now only applies up to 25 stacks of any given condition. Increased recharge to 20 seconds

cooldown increase was a slap in the face

Plague: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds to you every second it is active.

I didnt know I could help someone kill me. screams slot in Plague Sending

Plague Signet: Reduced recharge to 30 seconds. Reduced number of conditions transfered by the active component to 5 (previously all).

I understand with the need for the change with Plague Sending in place but…that wasnt needed really

Rending Claws: The animation for this skill no longer hides your offhand.
oh gosh thanks i couldnt have lived without it!

Signet of Undeath: This skill now has a small strike of damage to foes within it’s area of effect.
ohh such appeal much support

Spectral Walk: This skill can no longer be activated while in mid-air.
Y U DO DIS?! my only cheese escape scraped

Mark of Blood: This skill has been unsplit and now applies 2 stacks of bleeding for 8 seconds in all game modes.

I thought were screaming for a reverse treatment….GG

blood magic hi gimmicky support RIP banshee’s wail

Good:

Staff buffed, soul reaping buffed, terror moved back to master slot, unholy martyr and siphons got buffed (some F this we knew), signet of vampirism healing through death shroud. Also very surprised at the increases to DS totals.

Bad or shocked it didn’t change:

No changes to death magic? Really surprised it is staying as is. Axe? Signets? Focus skills are still unimpressive. No tools against projectiles. Quickening thirst 75% health threshold – why? Consume conditions cooldown is likely pushed to unviable. No change to wurm cast time. Spectral walk nerfed.

I am not sure if these changes equate to good or bad, but death magic staying very unimpressive limits builds in a big way. I think necro will make it out better than present day, but no major changes to builds that I can see right now.

A lot better than the last preview. But the nerfs to elites and consume is kind of kittened.

I like the ideas for blood magic support. Unfortunately theres only two traits in that line that I would want and they are in the same tier (banshees wail and vampiric presence).

Curses is heavy condi focus now. Dont mind it so much. Just feeling a little disappointed with the lack of choice for power necros and the major lack of damage modifiers (persistent problem).

There were a couple of things I thought were good but not much on fundamental capability changes to bring Necromancer up in profession ranks after looking over the other jobs.

Blood is Power and Transfusion help with group support. The rest look like they fall in line with other general profession buffs.

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

I was like I’d bet my shirt and shoes in the alley that necro is getting gimmicks and….It was not far from it. disappointed.

Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

I didnt know I could help someone kill me by using my heal skill. hi there Plague Sending! and extra rechrage to keep you healthy! no im not taking master of corruption!

Lich Form: This skill is now considered a spectral skill and grants 15% life force when it ends. Reduced duration of this skill to 15 seconds (previously 20)

its too hard to trait for spectral mastery with the competition just for lich form…

Epidemic: With the changes to condition stacking, Epidemic now only applies up to 25 stacks of any given condition. Increased recharge to 20 seconds

cooldown increase was a slap in the face

Plague: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds to you every second it is active.

I didnt know I could help someone kill me. screams slot in Plague Sending

Plague Signet: Reduced recharge to 30 seconds. Reduced number of conditions transfered by the active component to 5 (previously all).

I understand with the need for the change with Plague Sending in place but…that wasnt needed really

Rending Claws: The animation for this skill no longer hides your offhand.
oh gosh thanks i couldnt have lived without it!

Signet of Undeath: This skill now has a small strike of damage to foes within it’s area of effect.
ohh such appeal much support

Spectral Walk: This skill can no longer be activated while in mid-air.
Y U DO DIS?! my only cheese escape scraped

Mark of Blood: This skill has been unsplit and now applies 2 stacks of bleeding for 8 seconds in all game modes.

I thought were screaming for a reverse treatment….GG

blood magic hi gimmicky support RIP banshee’s wail

+1

It’s not perfect, some things I like some things I don’t, like the whole plague giving us bleeding and such, I’m sorta ok with the Consume Conditions thing. Though….i’m a bit worried about what this will do with condition duration increases. MM is going to be fun provided they give the Minion AI an IQ higher than 0. DO NOT like the nerf to Mark of Blood, we did not need that. Love the fact our marks are bigger now. I have more to say but I think it’s all been said already.

I’m mixed but, overall please. It’s not a leap like I wanted but a step, love the support ideas and the fact I CAN FINALLY RESURRECT PEOPLE!

Here’s my abstract thoughts just looking at Necro changes in of themselves:

General Changes
- Meh. What we have been expecting for the most part since they released the original new changes (like bloodthirst becoming baseline). Siphons may need a bigger buff.
- 15% more lifeforce? Guess more lifeforce is better than nothing, but it may be a change to incorporate SR lifeforce boosts on average.

Skills
- Marks got a major baseline boost. Basically the Staff Mastery, Spiteful Marks and the range of Greater Marks is now baseline. I’m happy.
- General conditions boosts in between mark changes and Blood is Power. Good
- Well there it is everyone. 8 might stacks to nearby allies on Blood is Power. Group utility online :p
- Consume Conditions. Corruption skill. Yay. Longer CD and 10 stacks of self vulnerability? Be ready to deal with that in combat…
- Rest of skills changes are meh except the semi nerf to Plague. Again, be rdy to deal with the downsides of this skill now if you use.

Edit: Missed the MoB Nerf. Sucks, but I have gotten used to it in spvp and it won’t really matter in wvw and pve. With the Mark baseline boosts and most area bleed application coming from constant rotation, it doesn’t hurt all that much. It would have been better to normalize at 3 stacks. /Edit

Spite
- Stayed mostly the same in relation to previous Anet changes in new system. I like the corrupt boons aspect to signet mastery (Signets of Suffering now).

Curses
- Lingering curse nerfed to scepter only again. Probably a good idea for build variation, but I’m kind of sad about this change.
- Paratisic Contagion nerfed by 5% to 10% instead of 15%. Probably a good idea when you start to think of area bleeds + epidemic.
- Withering Precision is basically 50% weakness uptime. Add in condi duration, skill use and Enfeeble Blood on DS enter you could probably get 100%. Definitely a GM power option.
- Big change is terror being moved to Master level. Nice.

Death
- Noooo, they fixed LF bug. :p
- Shrouded Removal buff to remove a condi every 3 secs in shroud. Needed.
- Necromantic Corruption moved down to Master. Greater MArks gone from DM? Awesome.
- Death Nova can now be taken with Necromantic Corruption. Great news for MMs
- Corruptor’s Ferver. Whaa? Definitely an alternative for my condi based sustain builds to Unholy Sanctuary. Hard to say what will be better in practice. (probably Unholy)

Blood
- Last Rites. Wow a minor that helps to force stomps or DPS rather than just interrupting down self heals. More healing power the lower your health is? Great.
- Mark of Evasion as a forced minor is nice for freeing up a slot, but a lot of people will be unhappy with the mark making them enter combat on dodge rolls while running through pve content.
- Ritual of Life casting WoB on revive start? Really nice for the resser, not so much for the resee.
- Blood Bond. Yet another boost to my condi sustain builds. Does this even have a CD? My apothecary condi builds easily apply 4 stacks of area bleeds almost constantly. I wonder how much of a “lesser” signet of vampirism it really is.
- Life from Death (new deathly invigoration). Reverted back to original function with revive heal mechanic. Nice.
- Banshee’s Wail now in BM. Feels right.
- New Transfusion. New best support group heal in heavy downing situations if it keeps the same or better healing. Teleporting up to 5 downed allies to your location could be the ultimate troll support/sustain skill vs stomps. Necro medic!! :p

Soul Reaping
- Strength of Undeath. Oh look our other 15% life force.
- Soul Marks. One staff trait. Finally it happened.
- I would have liked more changes to Foot in the Grave.

Read too fast the first time…

Lingering Curse is now 100% duration on scepter skills only… not 100% condi duration on all conditions

I guess it was too good to be true

eldenbri.1059:

Read too fast the first time…

Lingering Curse is now 100% duration on scepter skills only… not 100% condi duration on all conditions

I guess it was too good to be true

It’s actually base duration meaning that scepter auto can deal up to 20 seconds of bleed per hit.

^ good thoughts I think. Except LC was scepter only with the traits that they announced in April.

Eh, I give up.

Three years. Three, kittening, years. Still no idea.
Even WoW Warlock looks more appealing now.

Let it be, but you lost me.

Necromancer elites were definitely nerfed, especially Lich. 15 sec every 3 min, including transform time? Might as well not have any skill but #1.

Plague Signet, staff, and OH dagger look a lot more important, now.

I have heavy mixed feelings on this, so DS is still restrictive with utilities,LF at start is still same,rework to signets eh,SoV still has ICD,the self condition focus of corruptions might end up firing back,no much team sustain like per target ICD,nothing impressive boon hate wise etc.

There is some good stuff and definitely bad ones but it’s not as bad as now but I’m confused does Parasitic Contagion finally works in DS?

Edit: Almost forgot lol : 3 more years to go.

Great

• Blood is Power: This skill now applies 8 stacks of might for 8 seconds to nearby allies.

• Plague Sending: When you have 3 or more conditions on you your next critical hit casts Plague Signet on your target. This trait benefits from the recharge bonus of Signets of Suffering.

• Last Rites: Gain increasing healing power based on how low your health is. Other allies near you do not bleed out while downed (combat only).

• Vampiric Presense: You and allies near you siphon health with attacks (combat only). This effect stacks with the siphoning granted by Vampiric.

• Transfusion: Shroud skill 4 heals and partially revives nearby allies. Additionally you teleport up to 5 nearby downed allies to your location while channeling this skill.

Good

• Focus skill range increased to 1200.

• The area of mark skills has been increased to 240. Mark skill recharges have been reduced by 20%. Mark damage has been increased by 10%.

• Well skills now use ground targeting by default. When used underwater, wells cast at the player’s location.

• Minion skill recharges have been reduced by 20%.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud: Increased the number of poison stacks from 1 stack for 3 seconds to 3 stacks for 3 seconds.

• Epidemic: With the changes to condition stacking, Epidemic now only applies up to 25 stacks of any given condition. Increased recharge to 20 seconds.

• Life Blast/Plague Blast: Fixed a bug that caused the projectiles fired from these skills to not deal damage to the caster if they were reflected.

• Signet of Vampirism: Healing from the active portion of this skill will now heal players while in shroud.

• Rending Claws: The animation for this skill no longer hides your offhand.

• Unholy Feast: Instead of removing a boon, this skill now converts a boon to a condition on struck foes

• Signets of Suffering: Reduces recharge of signet skills by 20%. Signets grant 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds on cast and convert up to 2 boons on affected foes to conditions.

• Corrupter’s Fervor: Whenever you apply a condition to a foe gain a stack of Corrupter’s Fervor for 8 seconds which grants 30 toughness and 2% reduced incoming condition damage per stack (maximum 10 stacks).

Insignificant

• Necrotic Traversal: Increased the poison from 1 stack for 5 seconds to 3 stacks for 6 seconds.

• Fetid Ground: Increase the poison duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds per pulse.

• Plague: Increased the poison duration from 1 second to 2 seconds per pulse.

• Putrid Curse: Increased the poison duration from 4 seconds to 5 seconds.

• Chillblains: This skill now applies 3 stacks of poison for 5 seconds. Fixed an issue where this skill would not display a combo ring.

• Dark Water: This skill now applies 2 stacks of poison for 6 seconds.

• Death Curse: Increased the poison duration from 6 seconds to 8 seconds.

• Signet of Spite: Increased the number of poison stacks from 1 stack for 10 seconds to 2 stacks for 10 seconds.

• Flesh Golem – Charge: Movement speed adjustments no longer affect the intended travel distance.

• Signet of the Locust: Reduced recharge to 30 seconds. Increased range to 600.

• Signet of Undeath: This skill now has a small strike of damage to foes within it’s area of effect.

Bad

• Plague Signet: Reduced recharge to 30 seconds. Reduced number of conditions transfered by the active component to 5 (previously all).

• Plague: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds to you every second it is active.

• Unholy Fervor: Reduces recharge of axe skills by 20% and deal 10% more damage to vulnerable foes.

Why would you do this?

• Consume Conditions: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 10 stacks of vulnerability to you for 4 seconds after use. Increased recharge to 30 seconds.

• Lich Form: This skill is now considered a spectral skill and grants 15% life force when it ends. Reduced duration of this skill to 15 seconds (previously 20).

• Spectral Walk: This skill can no longer be activated while in mid-air.

All in all I rate these changes 2/10 in regards to what other classes got. I’m convinced Anet want nothing more than to delete Necro and as such are doing their best to make sure no one plays it instead.

Thanks ANET! Not only is my MM build still viable, it is a lot stronger.

People can continue to hate me for playing it.

Oh, btw. Since our beautiful rework to Curses, we will probably have to run Rabid Amulet/give up on at least one Geomancy sigil for Intelligence proc.

We will also probably lose both Path of Corruption which made Condimancer so unique and Terror in order to have any viable heal.

Nobody mentioned Parasitic Contagion working in Shroud. Surprise, surprise, it also got shafted.

Lingering Curse working just with Scepter means that Dhuumfire will now hardly keep 2 stacks of burning, assuming you hit every time. And persist as an amazing PvE trait.

Not even mentioning that Weakness trait. Let it drown in silence.

Oh, btw, Plague sending is a proc. Which means, it can proc on a Mesmer clone and go on full 30s cd.

We got wonderful self-conditions on Corruption skills, even more and even more dangerous. Thing we discussed just a while ago! However, it looks like someone forgot to up our reliable condition transfering.
Or did that person think we will get a Plague Signet, also nerfed, or Well of Power, to deal with condition pressure of other professions now? I believe there might be a problem with utility slots, since we have no space for new amazing options!

Our Life Force generation remains as it is, because we have even too much of it.

Feast of Corruption, awesome power skill stays on Scepter unchanged, with amazing synergy with Lingering Curse.

Mark of Blood PvE/PvP split was clearly a big problem, so in order not to make Necromancers absolutely dominant in dungeons, nerfed PvE version.
It also looks like Putrid Mark is already an amazing group utility, being the only semi-reliable Blast Finisher Necro has and obviously, doesn’t need that group cleanse.

Our siphons will give us an amazing defense against multiple opponents, while our ressurection traits will not actually ressurect, but rather force the enemy to cleave bodies 2 seconds longer, giving us mental upper hand.

Hey, let’s not forget about our new defenses against projectiles, blocks…. Actually, forget about them..

And all that to give allies 8 might for less than 10 seconds and 50 dps increase. Was worth it!

Captain Unusual.9163:

Also, we get Terror back as a Master level, so we don’t need to choose between it and LC or PC.

And Blood looks kittening fantastic now.

Master:
Master of Corruption: Reduces recharge of corruption skills by 33% but causes corruption skills to apply additional conditions to you when cast. (Condition applied varies per skill.)
Path of Corruption: Shroud skill 2 converts boons on struck foes to conditions.
Terror: Causes fear to deal damage per second scaling with your condition damage stat. Damage is increased vs foes that have at least one other condition on them.

PoC and Terror are now competing…

@Aktium

lol I love the “Why would you do this?” category.

I would have labeled it “Who would want this?” though, so I could have answered with masochist. It feels like with some of those “ouch” changes, Anet thinks Masochists=Necromancer.

I overlooked some changes in the skills section more than I thought. Missed the SoV change and think it deserves the “good” label. Pretty good change disguised as a QoL change. I always waste the active because SoV activation usually coincides with being forced into shroud during heavy pressure.

Compared to other classes our changes are great… If we were being balanced for the current meta. However, with the power/healing creep happening we’re going to need more (as we feared). However, I pretty much expected that this new patch will break the game in many ways and will need a lot of balance regardless. It’s the nature of a beast when you make this many dramatic changes.

Edit:

@ Rym

I would have liked to have seen the group condi clense reinstated on Putrid Mark. I was half expecting it a week ago and forgot all about it.

More life force gain would have been much appreciated instead of max life force.

Life from Death is questionable depending on how much it heals for usefulness. Last Rites is a minor that pevents down degen. That’s pretty useful in combat when downed players in spvp can end up dieing from degen just from stray damage interrupting their down heal. This will give us and other allies more time to heal them. Think of DS without a degen function.

Transfusion could be just awesome drawing 5 downed allies from 600 range away to your position. With good timing you could really mess up stomps and partially revive… or teleport the entire team to one place for the epic fail of all being cleave killed in one go. Transfusion + Signet of Undeath combos?

Rym.1469:

Oh, btw. Since our beautiful rework to Curses, we will probably have to run Rabid Amulet/give up on at least one Geomancy sigil for Intelligence proc.

We will also probably lose both Path of Corruption which made Condimancer so unique and Terror in order to have any viable heal.

Nobody mentioned Parasitic Contagion working in Shroud. Surprise, surprise, it also got shafted.

Lingering Curse working just with Scepter means that Dhuumfire will now hardly keep 2 stacks of burning, assuming you hit every time. And persist as an amazing PvE trait.

Not even mentioning that Weakness trait. Let it drown in silence.

Oh, btw, Plague sending is a proc. Which means, it can proc on a Mesmer clone and go on full 30s cd.

We got wonderful self-conditions on Corruption skills, even more and even more dangerous. Thing we discussed just a while ago! However, it looks like someone forgot to up our reliable condition transfering.
Or did that person think we will get a Plague Signet, also nerfed, or Well of Power, to deal with condition pressure of other professions now? I believe there might be a problem with utility slots, since we have no space for new amazing options!

Our Life Force generation remains as it is, because we have even too much of it.

Feast of Corruption, awesome power skill stays on Scepter unchanged, with amazing synergy with Lingering Curse.

Mark of Blood PvE/PvP split was clearly a big problem, so in order not to make Necromancers absolutely dominant in dungeons, nerfed PvE version.
It also looks like Putrid Mark is already an amazing group utility, being the only semi-reliable Blast Finisher Necro has and obviously, doesn’t need that group cleanse.

Our siphons will give us an amazing defense against multiple opponents, while our ressurection traits will not actually ressurect, but rather force the enemy to cleave bodies 2 seconds longer, giving us mental upper hand.

Hey, let’s not forget about our new defenses against projectiles, blocks…. Actually, forget about them..

And all that to give allies 8 might for less than 10 seconds and 50 dps increase. Was worth it!

Great post. Yeh I misread the mark of blood change. I presumed it had been reset to its previous version! But it hadn’t! It just got nerfed in PvE too. Those dungeon speed runs with mark of blood were ruining the economy.

Breath taking incompetence.

It’s time to walk away. It goes downhill from here. I announced months ago I was done but I hung around clinging to hope for some solid changes but I really was unprepared for this. This is just….I can’t…. I don’t even recognize this class anymore. Fare thee well to those masochistic few that stay behind.

dood.7526:

The most pressing bad traits have been reverted, changed, or removed. Good.

Necros can actually give might to party in PVE. Good.

Soul Comprehension still exists and got fix-nerfed. :/

I don’t know what all the fuss is about but I am super duper happy with the Necro changes. My preliminary build after reaper was announced has not only remained unharmed, but actually got buffed! Can’t wait!

imagine pairing up shroud 4’s teleport of downed allies to you with signet of undeath aoe ress 3 of them.

EremiteAngel.9765:

imagine pairing up shroud 4’s teleport of downed allies to you with signet of undeath aoe ress 3 of them.

That’s a perfect scenario case. You would actually slot that skill O.o?

We will see how it goes. I doubt there will be a net improvement compared to other classes, especially for necro builds that are already popular.

However, our sustain builds that are almost non-existent got a fairly big boost. The shuffling, merging, and baselining of traits honestly gives 100-150% more trait and build potential than we currently have in certain lines. No matter how hard we try, our support/sustain always has a lot missing, because we simply have way too many traits competing with each other and/or severely underpowered. Although the traits may still be underpowered compared to the power creep, trait competition will be dramatically cut down.

At least 2-3 sustain builds (Life Steals/Wells, Unholy Sanctuary/Support and LF Gain/Shroud builds) are mutually exclusive and semi-effective right now. After the patch, they can pretty much be taken all at once with additional buffs/traits.

Edit:

Sagat.3285:

EremiteAngel.9765:

imagine pairing up shroud 4’s teleport of downed allies to you with signet of undeath aoe ress 3 of them.

That’s a perfect scenario case. You would actually slot that skill O.o?

Yep. It’s getting an extra 3% lifeforce on tick and the CD is now cut in half…

Made you look.

Like I said above though, getting all allies bunched together alone will make reviving a lot easier once people start getting back up. You can also combo Transfusion with Life from Death on DS exit. It will be great for pve getting downed people out of AoEs. In PvP it will be great too until you get the whole team killed because someone spiked everyone.

…I wonder if moving and channeling Life Transfer w/ transfusion plops downed allies over an area like a dropship in an RTS like Starcraft.

I like a lot of what I’ve seen in regards to the changes.
It looks like they generally tried to grant more condition transfer and cleansing (plague sending, new shrouded removal) to the Necromancer’s traits, which is really good. Signets of Suffering also has some serious potential, since that is a lot of boon corruption.

There’s also some support for a long-duration Shroud build in there somewhere, which I might try again just to see what it can do.

I’m still not a fan of some of the traits, but the trait slots all seemed to have a good option or two at least. Before there was a couple lines & levels that were super niche.

Corruptions are making me raise an eyebrow, but I don’t feel like I can judge before I know exactly how Master of Corruption works, and how the new condition cleanse options pan out. If nothing else, Master of Corruption is much more interesting than a flat 20% recharge reduction.

I’m curious if they’ll consider speeding up the attack rate of Life Blast (regular Shroud 1) to bring it more in line with the previewed Reaper Shroud chain, since that changes how well it works with Dhuumfire, Unyielding Blast and Reaper’s Might. Obviously the damage / shot would go down to keep it at around the same DPS when untraited.

Edit: Although, still no way for Necromancers to generate extra endurance or interact with projectiles. So I guess that’s just Never Allowed.

the dagger trait would be good without the health threshold. I mean what the kitten is that? I can’t imagine a circumstance where i’d use life siphon above 75% hp.

Lightsbane.9012:

the dagger trait would be good without the health threshold. I mean what the kitten is that? I can’t imagine a circumstance where i’d use life siphon above 75% hp.

I’m fine with the health threshold, but we get the benefit on the wrong side of it.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lightsbane.9012:

the dagger trait would be good without the health threshold. I mean what the kitten is that? I can’t imagine a circumstance where i’d use life siphon above 75% hp.

I’m fine with the health threshold, but we get the benefit on the wrong side of it.

Unles you are thinking for dagger ofhand than it is hundred percent the right side also aren’t channel cooldowns applied after the channel when you have have used the skill (in this case healed).