Guild Wars 2

Found this:
“Death shroud: New ability #5 – Dark Binding: You tether all enemies within a 600 range, constantly dealing Torment to them over time. At the end of the cast, Dark Binding immobilizes all affected enemies still within the radius.”

Not 100% confirmed though.

For all we know those are old/incomplete if they are even genuine.

We haven’t seen any of the crucial variables yet…..damage, range, cooldown, duration. It could be real lame if these are wrongly tuned or grossly OP if it synergised with too many combinations….and we know what the response to that will be.

I’m looking forward to this patch, I main a necro especially in PvP. The main problem I have with it is chain CC’s. I feel most vulnerable against engies and eles in general. I don’t understand why people here are complaining about fighting thieves…necro eats thieves… wells and marks hit them even in stealth and most of them are glass, well of darkness destroys heartseeker spammers. I already find the necro quit a decent 1v1 class, so this will be interesting

osif.8673:

My goodness some of you guys are such pessimists. Anet has been the most vocal about Necros for this upcoming patch with buffs (who knows, there could even be more buffs that they haven’t mentioned yet!) with access to burning, Torment, DS #5… and you still find something to complain about. So quick to complain about things that aren’t even out yet.

Oh really? You must be seriously new here.
I remember every last time anet said they are going to give love to necros. Every single time it resulted in massive nerfs. Recently at least the massive nerfs stopped there is hardly anything to nerf now. There was that old necro super nerf then scepter then ignored and not mentioned in single path for half a year then they fixed tooltips to shut people up about moa and always followed by new/more bugs. kitten thats been broken since they nerfed the crap out of DS is STILL BROKEN… 9 kittening months later.

Pessimistic? No. Realistic more like.

HatasGunnaHate.3627:

Found this:
“Death shroud: New ability #5 – Dark Binding: You tether all enemies within a 600 range, constantly dealing Torment to them over time. At the end of the cast, Dark Binding immobilizes all affected enemies still within the radius.”

Not 100% confirmed though.

This is pretty much morganas elite in league of legends
Soul shackels:
ACTIVE: Morgana latches chains of energy onto nearby enemy champions for 3 seconds, dealing initial magic damage to them after a brief delay of 0.5 seconds and reducing their movement speed by 20% if the target(s) stay within 1050 range.
If the target(s) does not break the tether after 3 seconds, they are dealt magic damage and stunned for 1.5 seconds.

Coincidentally, Morgana also has a skill called dark binding. It’s a slow moving projectile that hits for fairly high damage and also immobilizes the target for a very long duration. Sort of like if you charged a life blast with dark pact, somehow.

My tinfoil hat theory is that the version of DS5 people are reposting is the underwater variant.

Kraag Deadsoul.2789:

All I’m asking is that the devs recognize this fundamental flaw in the design of the necromancer and correct it. We may not be able to disengage from combat, but then the balance should be that we make it VERY difficult for our opponents to disengage from it, as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Torment is a terrible idea for a condition. I just think the Necro comes out ahead in this fight, rather than the Thief.

Huh, so with over 400 necromancer skills from GW1 to choose from they went and copied LoL instead? :p

If the patch notes are real then it doesn’t sound like Torment will be a big deal for us. Here’s why: DS5 will be another channel skill. Channel skills are already problematic for us due to our lack of evasion and stability. We’d need to go 30 deep in Sour Reaping to make sure we can even get the skill off! (Or alternatively bring Well of Power, though popping a 45" cooldown utility just so you can channel DS5 safely seems excessive!) Also, although I love having an extra immobilise, why put it at the END of the channel? It makes no sense, why would you want to immobilise a target that receives extra damage while moving? Why not put it at the START of the channel, so you can at least stop them from charging into you, knocking you over, and interrupting the channelled spell?

I do like a lot of the other changes in the patch notes (though I can’t understand why they put burning in the power tree, and it seems our Grandmaster weakness trait in curses got a serious nerf).

manveruppd.7601:

Here’s why: DS5 will be another channel skill.

We actually don’t know it’s a channel.

Everything about this supposed leak of the “balance” update screams warrior nerf. With the addition of Torment we’ll be perma-kited, and if we succumb to the condition (which we can’t exactly remove that easily, being warriors), a necro can just throw down their wells and let loose. Greate DOT, ANet. I can say that, if this update is indeed real, I am heavily disappointed.

Pandabro.8743:

Sepreh.5924:

Hehe – I can just see a sweet bursty rotation forming….

(while running in) Focus 5, Focus 4, Axe 3, Axe 2, DS5, WoC, WoS, Dagger 1

I see it synergizing with well power builds VERY well. Right now there’s not loss for stepping out of a well, but the new condition has potential to put people in a lose/lose situation.

Seems to synergize with both power and condition to me. Because for condition you want to kite people and this will punish them for chasing.

Could be ingenious but we’ll see.

Roe.3679:

Apparently it scales in intensity, as stated in an spvp thread on torment.

So as someone else mentioned, similar to condition just punishing movement instead of action.

Hard to see too many sources of this piling up on someone though.

Nemesis.8593:

Definitely solves the problem that i have kept trying to showcase every time i could. I even brought this subject up a few times in the podcasts i was invited to.
There are some classes that because of the mobility they possess… they fight you and win… or fight you, don’t win and run away, with absolutely no way of countering that.

Finaaaaaally… no more “you either lose, or you get a chance to lose again in a few moments”..

Well until they cleanse it. Condition removal is still to strong and prevalent in this game, which I why I could never see how a Necro could lock down people purely via conditions.

If they could, then chill and cripple could already prevent escapes.

Blaine Tog.8304:

manveruppd.7601:

Here’s why: DS5 will be another channel skill.

We actually don’t know it’s a channel.

Well if the leaked notes are right it seems it is, but yes, you’re right, we can’t be sure.

infantrydiv.1620:

I’m looking forward to this patch, I main a necro especially in PvP. The main problem I have with it is chain CC’s. I feel most vulnerable against engies and eles in general. I don’t understand why people here are complaining about fighting thieves…necro eats thieves… wells and marks hit them even in stealth and most of them are glass, well of darkness destroys heartseeker spammers. I already find the necro quit a decent 1v1 class, so this will be interesting

Then you’re not fighting D/P thieves with points in shadow arts for condi removal spam. If a thief is standing on your wells, he’s an idiot. He can bait your wells, reset, heal back to full, and burn you down.

His skills are not on cooldowns. Yours are.

leman.7682:

“Necromancer Death Shroud 5

As the professions in Guild Wars 2 continue to grow, we will continue to find ways to augment them and add potency to their arsenal of abilities. With the next balance update, necromancers will be unlocking their fifth ability within Death Shroud: Tainted Shackles. This skill will cause nearby enemies to be inflicted with conditions and controlled if they don’t take very quick action.

New condition

_With the introduction of Tainted Shackles, we’ll also be adding a new condition to the game: Torment. This condition is designed to play around with movement, one of our fundamental combat mechanics. Enemies under Torment will take damage periodically; as they move, they’ll take even more damage. In looking to expand the condition diversity of thieves and mesmers, we decided to include Torment skills for those two professions as well."

See, this actually scares me more than it makes me feel optimistic.

Let me preface this by asking; What does one need to take out mobile Professions? My answer is that you need A ) Enough firepower to take them out before their mobility really kicks in, and/or B ) Mobility that is approximately on par with that of their own.

Now, this change appears to, rather than increasing our own mobility, attempt to take it away from our opponents. The issue arises when the benefit from disengaging is disproportionately higher than that of staying engaged and taking the damage. Torment will need to be damaging enough where it is a very serious threat to anyone with enough mobility that they can disengage, or else it is simply another Bleed with a tiny bit of variance in damage output. From Arenanet’s current track record, their take on high-damage conditions that are dependent on what the player is doing is -not- something anyone should be putting a lot of faith into. Retaliation and Confusion being the two examples from the past. On top of all of this, they are additionally giving two of the already extremely mobile Professions access to this condition. What in the kitten? I can guarantee, right here and now, that both the Thief and the Mesmer can and will be using this condition to an exponentially higher degree of viability than we will ever see possible.

That is addressing concerns for Torment alone. Moving on to Deathshroud 5; This, to me, appears as if it is giving the enemy players more incentive to disengage, rather than assisting our problem of remaining engaged. First off, you need to be near an enemy to use it. This means that Arenanet’s intent is a combo based off of Dark Path. #2 -> #5, and pray the enemy is stupid or naive enough to remain in combat with us so that they become immobilized/stunned/knocked down/whatever. This does, literally, nothing for our issue of actually remaining locked in combat with an enemy. The only way this is changeable is whether or not Tainted Shackles has an additional condition built in a la Cripple or Chill. If this does turn out to be the case, fantastic. I hope you’re a Power build so that you can spam away on those Life Blasts while in Death Shroud, waiting for your enemy to get CC’d.

The real issue is something they actually outlined very blatantly.

This condition is designed to play around with movement, one of our fundamental combat mechanics.

movement, one of our fundamental combat mechanics.

We. Do. Not. Have. This. That is the issue. Right here. No amount of damage is going to change this. A re-work away from the ideals of simplicity into something that can be remotely complex (Leeching movement speed away from an enemy and turning it into our own, some form of Hex that hinders the enemy while being harder than a standard condition to remove, some form of debuff that actually makes the enemy fear becoming disengaged with us) is what is necessary at this point. This is also what made Guild Wars 1 such a fantastic game. It was not simple. There were counters to counters that were then countered by specifics that were built to do nothing but counter a counter. We don’t have that right now. And until we do, nothing is really going to change. The core mechanics are simply “What you see is what you get”.

infantrydiv.1620:

I’m looking forward to this patch, I main a necro especially in PvP. The main problem I have with it is chain CC’s. I feel most vulnerable against engies and eles in general. I don’t understand why people here are complaining about fighting thieves…necro eats thieves… wells and marks hit them even in stealth and most of them are glass, well of darkness destroys heartseeker spammers. I already find the necro quit a decent 1v1 class, so this will be interesting

Not good thieves, we’ve done test duels, and GOOD thieves can wreck necros. They can see the wells and marks just as easy as we can and the better ones just tip toe around and wait out the cooldowns. However, most wvw thieves are plain lazy and dont know the profession well enough to play well.

Though I agree in general, necro was already a solid class. This patch is more for condition necros however, which I am not.

While hybrid damage would be cool, it would make carrion/rampager the ONLY choices for condition builds if you wanted to max out damage…. my poor multiple sets of rabid gear would be sad.

EDIT: Also these leaked patch notes….. i don’t know….. seems way to good to be true IMO.

Arianna.7642:

leman.7682:

“Necromancer Death Shroud 5

As the professions in Guild Wars 2 continue to grow, we will continue to find ways to augment them and add potency to their arsenal of abilities. With the next balance update, necromancers will be unlocking their fifth ability within Death Shroud: Tainted Shackles. This skill will cause nearby enemies to be inflicted with conditions and controlled if they don’t take very quick action.

New condition

_With the introduction of Tainted Shackles, we’ll also be adding a new condition to the game: Torment. This condition is designed to play around with movement, one of our fundamental combat mechanics. Enemies under Torment will take damage periodically; as they move, they’ll take even more damage. In looking to expand the condition diversity of thieves and mesmers, we decided to include Torment skills for those two professions as well."

. On top of all of this, they are additionally giving two of the already extremely mobile Professions access to this condition. What in the kitten? I can guarantee, right here and now, that both the Thief and the Mesmer can and will be using this condition to an exponentially higher degree of viability than we will ever see possible.
.

If you looked at the supposed leaked patch notes in full detail, then you’d see that Mesmers would get torment through the OH sword 4 counter skill (its attack damage decreased) and Thieves would have torment replace weakness on their skale venom skill. Necromancers on the hand get this ability through an AoE, so I doubt that theives and mesmers would be able to cause as much torment damage as we will be able to. And besides condition thieves really needed a boost too, and condition mesmers will appreciate a viable OH other than torch.

nearlight.3064:

Arianna.7642:

leman.7682:

“Necromancer Death Shroud 5

As the professions in Guild Wars 2 continue to grow, we will continue to find ways to augment them and add potency to their arsenal of abilities. With the next balance update, necromancers will be unlocking their fifth ability within Death Shroud: Tainted Shackles. This skill will cause nearby enemies to be inflicted with conditions and controlled if they don’t take very quick action.

New condition

_With the introduction of Tainted Shackles, we’ll also be adding a new condition to the game: Torment. This condition is designed to play around with movement, one of our fundamental combat mechanics. Enemies under Torment will take damage periodically; as they move, they’ll take even more damage. In looking to expand the condition diversity of thieves and mesmers, we decided to include Torment skills for those two professions as well."

. On top of all of this, they are additionally giving two of the already extremely mobile Professions access to this condition. What in the kitten? I can guarantee, right here and now, that both the Thief and the Mesmer can and will be using this condition to an exponentially higher degree of viability than we will ever see possible.
.

If you looked at the supposed leaked patch notes in full detail, then you’d see that Mesmers would get torment through the OH sword 4 counter skill (its attack damage decreased) and Thieves would have torment replace weakness on their skale venom skill. Necromancers on the hand get this ability through an AoE, so I doubt that theives and mesmers would be able to cause as much torment damage as we will be able to. And besides condition thieves really needed a boost too, and condition mesmers will appreciate a viable OH other than torch.

If the notes are to be believed, it is on the sceptor 2 counter, not the sword 4 counter.

WHY would a thief get this skill- it’s the LAST class that needs any more ways of escaping enemies or doing more damage to them.

I can see the reasoning for mesmers and necros- but why do the devs always want to buff their favourite class (thief).

Thiefs can run away and reset fights, but now they can run away while snaring you and making sure you can’t move?

Stupid idea to even think of giving it to thief- especially as for a necro it will be only accessed via death shroud but no doubt will just be an add on to an existing skill for thieves.#

Rennoko.5731:

nearlight.3064:

Arianna.7642:

leman.7682:

“Necromancer Death Shroud 5

As the professions in Guild Wars 2 continue to grow, we will continue to find ways to augment them and add potency to their arsenal of abilities. With the next balance update, necromancers will be unlocking their fifth ability within Death Shroud: Tainted Shackles. This skill will cause nearby enemies to be inflicted with conditions and controlled if they don’t take very quick action.

New condition

_With the introduction of Tainted Shackles, we’ll also be adding a new condition to the game: Torment. This condition is designed to play around with movement, one of our fundamental combat mechanics. Enemies under Torment will take damage periodically; as they move, they’ll take even more damage. In looking to expand the condition diversity of thieves and mesmers, we decided to include Torment skills for those two professions as well."

. On top of all of this, they are additionally giving two of the already extremely mobile Professions access to this condition. What in the kitten? I can guarantee, right here and now, that both the Thief and the Mesmer can and will be using this condition to an exponentially higher degree of viability than we will ever see possible.
.

If you looked at the supposed leaked patch notes in full detail, then you’d see that Mesmers would get torment through the OH sword 4 counter skill (its attack damage decreased) and Thieves would have torment replace weakness on their skale venom skill. Necromancers on the hand get this ability through an AoE, so I doubt that theives and mesmers would be able to cause as much torment damage as we will be able to. And besides condition thieves really needed a boost too, and condition mesmers will appreciate a viable OH other than torch.

If the notes are to be believed, it is on the sceptor 2 counter, not the sword 4 counter.

My mistake, I got the skill names confused. That certainly makes a lot more sense and makes the scepter a bit more viable for condition (read not shatter/phantasm burst) mesmers! To the person above me, I argue that giving the condition to theives is a great idea as well, because it won’t be able to do much damage in a typical backstab or pistol whip burst build. If the leaked patch notes are real then torment will do 75% bleed DPS when not moving and 150% bleed DPS when moving. It will be very nice for P/D condition builds which tend to be considered low threat at the moment becuase all they really have right now is caltrops, pistol autoattack and stealth attack, and death blossom/lotus strike. Having an extra condition will make condition specs (NOT burst specs) more playable and and won’t give burst specs anything extra as their utilities are already filled with shadow refuge, blinding powder and signets usually and they would lack the condition damage stat to do anything devastating with torment.

Victory.2879:

WHY would a thief get this skill- it’s the LAST class that needs any more ways of escaping enemies or doing more damage to them.

I can see the reasoning for mesmers and necros- but why do the devs always want to buff their favourite class (thief).

Thiefs can run away and reset fights, but now they can run away while snaring you and making sure you can’t move?

Stupid idea to even think of giving it to thief- especially as for a necro it will be only accessed via death shroud but no doubt will just be an add on to an existing skill for thieves.#

• ASSUMING THE NOTES ARE CORRECT***

1. It isn’t very much damage, and they can only get 3 stacks of it from their one and only source (skale venom which has a 45 second cooldown), which would be the equivalent of 4.5 bleed ticks while running away (or nearly no damage at all).

2. If it scales off of condition damage, dagger and sword thieves will NEVER EVER take it, because its horrible damage.

3. If it scales off of power, dagger and sword thieves will STILL NEVER take it, as they would have to take skale venom, a very lack-luster utility.

Without lots of stacks and lots of condition damage, it is likely this condition will just get ignored, like confusion is now.

The real question is going to be how well a 5 necro WvW group can coordinate application of this, burning, fear, and epidemic. The combo sounds way too strong, and why I think these notes are just not accurate.

I would like to see if this change will potentially make Venom Share thieves more common. Yes, that is a totally personal thing, because I had a tournament match recently as an MM where after winning a mid fight, I went off to defend home node against a Mesmer, with Flesh Golem, Bone Fiend, and myself stacked with two venoms each. It was a slaughter. If I had had essentially 9 stacks of torment (plus my own torment from Morgana ult), and the forced movement I can get with fears? Oh yes.

We don’t know how much torment DS5 actually gives, so we can’t judge that, but the mesmer torment is actually rather strong. Every mesmer has at least 5 points in the last trait line, which cuts the CD of focus 2 by 20%, so a 9.5s CD. that means you need barely any condi duration to get that 3 torment stacks to last longer then the CD.

We’ll have to wait and see if that leads to it becoming overly strong, but the fact they have extremely easy access to perm torment can’t be denied.

Thinking this through a tad more and looking at the current uses that Torment will probably be seeing makes me think this is an even worse idea; The concept of Torment was to deter players from being mobile and moving around. Necromancers will opt to use Fear as a means to inflict more damage by making foes mobile, as opposed to using Torment as a deterring factor in moving. Great usage of Fear, absolutely horrible idea from Arenanet as it goes in the complete opposite direction of the intended use. So how, exactly, is this expected to assist us in the problem of keeping a player in combat with us? It’s not. Frankly, it probably shouldn’t be implemented in the current iteration or it’s just going to be another random condition added to an already rather meager arsenal. Give us Hexes back.

Tainted Shackles should also be a tether that inflicts damage, controls, or does some other detrimental effect if that tether is broken (due to distance from opponent) while it is in casting. Not the other way around, as this is counter-intuitive and would give the opponent a reason to actually run away, aside from simply becoming bored with the fight. This would also see many more strategic uses, whereas it is currently nothing more than ‘Stay on enemy after tethered’.

I really just don’t understand their design direction. Where the hell is the genius from GW1?

Arianna.7642:

Tainted Shackles should also be a tether that inflicts damage, controls, or does some other detrimental effect if that tether is broken (due to distance from opponent) while it is in casting. Not the other way around, as this is counter-intuitive and would give the opponent a reason to actually run away, aside from simply becoming bored with the fight. This would also see many more strategic uses, whereas it is currently nothing more than ‘Stay on enemy after tethered’

Honestly, a tether-like effect that doesn’t proc a negative effect when you stay close to the source for the duration is highly counter-intuitive. When there’s a line between you and an opponent, getting further away is a pretty typical reaction to try and break that line (sort of like stretching it until it snaps), and breaking the line is how you break the effect.

As it is, yeah, the line encourages a person to run, similar to any strong effect that’s proximity based (Like Wells, or the dagger 1 chain, maybe?) but the Torment being applied will discourage that, or at least punish for it.

Softspoken.2410:

Honestly, a tether-like effect that doesn’t proc a negative effect when you stay close to the source for the duration is highly counter-intuitive. When there’s a line between you and an opponent, getting further away is a pretty typical reaction to try and break that line (sort of like stretching it until it snaps), and breaking the line is how you break the effect.

As it is, yeah, the line encourages a person to run, similar to any strong effect that’s proximity based (Like Wells, or the dagger 1 chain, maybe?) but the Torment being applied will discourage that, or at least punish for it.

It is somewhat counter-intuitive for the enemy, but not necessarily the ones casting it, as they want to keep the enemy within close proximity while punishing them for moving out of that proximity. It would be up to the enemy to decide whether it was better to eat the punishment for running (As it should be), or incur the wrath of the Necromancer at close range for the duration of the ability. As it stands in the current iteration, it is simply “Necromancer is tethering me? Better run away, because the punishment for staying engaged is disproportionately larger than running.” It is a motivator to run, as opposed to actually making the enemy feel the need to stay engaged.
Regardless, it would better serve the purpose Arenanet has in mind for keeping an enemy locked into combat with us if the effects were swapped. That is, running away would more severely punish the enemy, while remaining engaged would lessen the impact of the ability… Which is what the intent appears to be. This would then allow us the benefit of strategic play in being able to manipulate whether we actually want the enemy to remain in combat with us, or whether we want them to incur whatever penalty that would befall them if they disengaged.

On top of which, the only way Torment is likely to be anywhere near a “severe” punishment is if the one applying Torment is in a condition build. A tether that is affecting “nearby” targets is not assisting a condition user as much as it would a main-hand Dagger user, who is probably going to be relying on such an ability more than the condition user.. It’s just completely out of whack and doesn’t synergize. But then, I guess that’s the life lesson for a Necromancer currently.

I’m curious how this ability is going to work. My main questions are:

1) How long is the channel? A longer channel means easier chance to interrupt which means a wasted CD.

2) What’s the CD?

3) How many stacks of torment are we talking per second? 1 stack per second? 2 stacks per second?

4) What’s the duration on these stacks applied during the channel?

I’m curious if these will be of any use after we leave DS and if they will still tick after the immobilized has kicked in. My assumption is that they will only last long enough to stay on the target until the channel has finished, since they will be immobilized once it is finished thus damage will drop.

5) How long is the immobilize?

6) Does LoS effect the tether?

All of these play into how useful or useless this new skill and condition are going to be to all of our builds, but are relatively easy to answer once we can test it. The questions then become how can we make use of it, will the 15% CD trait be worth taking for it and how is it effecting our ability to stay engaged or kill targets that try to escape when low?

The strength of this skill really depends on how much torment it puts on the enemy, for how long, and how long its recharge is.
2 torments, while moving is equal to 3 bleeds. There’s no way for just a few stacks of torment to make a person stay in place and get immobilized instead of running away. Unless the person gets around 8+ stacks of torment during the full channeling of the skill, it’s not gonna deter anyone.
I’m more interested in the AoE immobilize effect however.

Burijs we don’t know the damage of torment. Just because someone posted that Torment will do 1.5 times the bleed dmg we should not take that granted.

I believe(since torment will stack in intensity) that the damage will be close to 2 times the poison damage(something like a weak stacking burn).

I still see that an issue will be created with thieves and mesmers..

Had a hard time before playing rabid condition necro? Well, we give you Tainted Shackles. And btw: weakness actually does smth now.

Rumple Stilts Skin made herself wet, after reading this^^

TyPin.9860:

Had a hard time before playing rabid condition necro? Well, we give you Tainted Shackles. And btw: weakness actually does smth now.

Rumple Stilts Skin made herself wet, after reading this^^

My beef with rabid was how susceptible to cleansing your DPS is. Adding more damage on condition that can be wiped in removal heavy fights doesn’t really address that.

Those that didn’t have much removal already get melted by condi builds.