Guild Wars 2

@ Mad Queen Malafide,

Again, I wouldn’t say it’s a massive nerf. We don’t know how it will all pan out 100%, and if we’ll get other possible buffs. Sure, placing dhuumfire on life blast ALONE is probably unpleasant, but you gotta consider all the other changes on top of that, as was said before. So whereas you will still keep your burning, although inconvenienced, you’ll be able to get an additional poison/chill/bleed/etc. that you didn’t have before. In other words… we’ll potentially get MORE condis than we currently have. So when you say we are getting a “masive nerf”… eh… I wouldn’t say that.
—Also, I’m not with you on the “conditions are broken” part. I personally only feel that they fall short in world bosses or large zergy events. But even then, you’ll get your credit (and rewards) if you get there in time. Other than that they are quite fine and far from “broken”, in my opinion.
-“2x sigils won’t increase our attrition” Sigil of Energy, Hydromancy would increase your survival. If you can survive better, you will be able to deal more damage over a longer period of time, no? Or on the other hand keeping poison up on the target with sigil of doom could be interesting as well.
-I also disagree that we aren’t in a good spot right now. Some classes, like ranger, for example, can be considered in a worse spot. I think we are pretty good where we are now, overall. Necros are one of the strongest enemies to face in WvW at the moment…
-What I meant by “reduced crit dmg” is this: Power builds, especially those glassy ones that stack high crit damage will now deal about 10% less damage. Sure, if you go glassy, you’ll deal less dmg with your power build, but you’ll take less damage as well. And if you are a condi Necro, you are unaffected by the crit damage nerf. So that glassy thief that annoys you in WvW will deal about 10% less dmg while still being as squishy as he was before.

MethaneGas.8357:

@ Mad Queen Malafide,

Again, I wouldn’t say it’s a massive nerf. We don’t know how it will all pan out 100%, and if we’ll get other possible buffs. Sure, placing dhuumfire on life blast ALONE is probably unpleasant, but you gotta consider all the other changes on top of that, as was said before. So whereas you will still keep your burning, although inconvenienced, you’ll be able to get an additional poison/chill/bleed/etc. that you didn’t have before. In other words… we’ll potentially get MORE condis than we currently have. So when you say we are getting a “masive nerf”… eh… I wouldn’t say that.
—Also, I’m not with you on the “conditions are broken” part. I personally only feel that they fall short in world bosses or large zergy events. But even then, you’ll get your credit (and rewards) if you get there in time. Other than that they are quite fine and far from “broken”, in my opinion.
-“2x sigils won’t increase our attrition” Sigil of Energy, Hydromancy would increase your survival. If you can survive better, you will be able to deal more damage over a longer period of time, no? Or on the other hand keeping poison up on the target with sigil of doom could be interesting as well.
-I also disagree that we aren’t in a good spot right now. Some classes, like ranger, for example, can be considered in a worse spot. I think we are pretty good where we are now, overall. Necros are one of the strongest enemies to face in WvW at the moment…
-What I meant by “reduced crit dmg” is this: Power builds, especially those glassy ones that stack high crit damage will now deal about 10% less damage. Sure, if you go glassy, you’ll deal less dmg with your power build, but you’ll take less damage as well. And if you are a condi Necro, you are unaffected by the crit damage nerf. So that glassy thief that annoys you in WvW will deal about 10% less dmg while still being as squishy as he was before.

Make no mistake, the change to dumbfire is a massive nerf. It goes from a reliably easy to proc skill to a situational skill. I could proc it in the first 1-2 second of any engagement, and now if I am out of DS for instance, it is impossible for me to proc.

I don’t think it will break the class, I think it will make the most powerful build weaker, and I think it will discourage the use of the class in PvP as long as the meta does not shift to something else.

I think putting a lot of stock in Anet to make “sweeping” change to the rest of the classes, and necro, and the game modes is hoping for way more than you are likely to get. The net effect of this patch will be that necro is simply less desirable for the role it currently fills – spike condition damage.

I could be wrong, and I would love to be surprised by the patch, but I have yet to see a patch that surprised me except the dumbfire patch, and we all know what the fallout from that patch was.

A lot of people really don’t seem to realize what a massive impact this nerf will have on PvP. It will make Dumbfire applications super easy to negate by ANY class due to how telegraphed the blast is. You can forget about using Dumbfire against skilled opponents right now because it will not stick unless you’ve got a group to hold them down for you. Once you shift into shroud and start charging that blast they will know.

It kind of saddens me that instead of removing the trait and reverting all the nerfs it caused they have to wreck the entire class. I guess expecting them to straight up admit that they kittened up here and take responsibility is just expecting too much.

Fungalfoot.7213:

A lot of people really don’t seem to realize what a massive impact this nerf will have on PvP. It will make Dumbfire applications super easy to negate by ANY class due to how telegraphed the blast is. You can forget about using Dumbfire against skilled opponents right now because it will not stick unless you’ve got a group to hold them down for you. Once you shift into shroud and start charging that blast they will know.

It kind of saddens me that instead of removing the trait and reverting all the nerfs it caused they have to wreck the entire class. I guess expecting them to straight up admit that they kittened up here and take responsibility is just expecting too much.

The problem is actually much more subtle than this. Against the cream of the crop, they are going to be able to avoid the burn and really shut down a condi necro, however that doesn’t really hit the majority of other players who are not savvy enough to negate the 2nd or 3rd life blast. Talking in regards to them.

The bigger issue, the more wide-spread problem, is that the additional time required to spend in DS, which will:

1. Reduce damage output, as our condition application while life blasting is virtually nil.
2. Increased time spent being forced into DS, reducing the defense potential as we are forced to decay when we don’t really want to be decaying.
3. Decrease availability to our DS control skills, primarily doom, because of how long we may have to sit in DS to get the burn off, or how much LF we lose trying to get the burn off.
4. It opens the door for people to “burst us” out of DS to avoid the burn, negating the trait all together, while we are likely to have little extra life force to begin with in a close match.

I don’t think the change will have much of an effect in WvW, and I think it is an neutral change to PVE, but for PvP, it is quite a heafty blow to our most popular and viable build.

One positive is this will put Carrion as a much more favorable stat setup. It is a shame there is no Condition primary, power, toughness armor though.

Rennoko.5731:

The bigger issue, the more wide-spread problem, is that the additional time required to spend in DS, which will:
…

I think people will have to abandon the mindset of having to apply burning as much as possible and as soon as it’s off cd.
The way you described the “issues” makes it sound like burning application has priority over everything else. But in reality, instead of trying to make a Life Blast hit at all costs, players will stick to their regular skill rotations and only if the opportunity presents itself will they squeeze in a Life Blast.
And before anyone says something like “making Dhuumfire work will be so much harder…”: 1. Yes, that’s the point. 2. it’s easier than it sounds, you’ll get used to it.

flow.6043:

Rennoko.5731:

The bigger issue, the more wide-spread problem, is that the additional time required to spend in DS, which will:
…

I think people will have to abandon the mindset of having to apply burning as much as possible and as soon as it’s off cd.
The way you described the “issues” makes it sound like burning application has priority over everything else. But in reality, instead of trying to make a Life Blast hit at all costs, players will stick to their regular skill rotations and only if the opportunity presents itself will they squeeze in a Life Blast.
And before anyone says something like “making Dhuumfire work will be so much harder…”: 1. Yes, that’s the point. 2. it’s easier than it sounds, you’ll get used to it.

I agree that this is what will happen, and normal rotations will prevail…. but then that begs the question:

Does this still justify the reductions in our other non-related bleed skills and terror?

Or will the requirement for entry still be to make the burning work, at all costs, because that currently is (and will remain) one of the needed damaging effects to take down certain classes.

I guess it all depends on the other unspecified changes, but I still think the hit (in spvp only) is going to be too hard.

I’d settle for minions that actually attacked……

Rennoko.5731:

Does this still justify the reductions in our other non-related bleed skills and terror?

Or will the requirement for entry still be to make the burning work, at all costs, because that currently is (and will remain) one of the needed damaging effects to take down certain classes.

I guess it all depends on the other unspecified changes, but I still think the hit (in spvp only) is going to be too hard.

The thing you are leaving out is the additional conditions we will be able to apply through the extra sigils. For example, with 30 in spite:
-Geomancy. It not only deals damage, but it can crit AND cause bleed on-crit effects, such as Earth sigils (1 stack, up to 6-7 seconds) and 5 points in Curses (1 stack, 2-3 secs). So on top of the raw power damage, and the chance of causing 1-2 additional bleeds, it causes 3 stacks of bleed for 9 seconds, every 10-second weapon swap. If this is taken to begin with, you could still have Sigil of Earth, which will cause additional bleeds than we currently have. Or… on top of Geomancy, the sigil below.
-Sigil of Doom – about 6-7 secs, every 10-sec weapon swap. You will be able to keep up basically constant poison on the target (if they don’t cleanse, but even if they do, the poisons are spaced out enough that it will apply again rather quickly).
- Not to mention Hydromancy, which could basically hold your opponent in place, making it easier to land life blast, for example. Or could even allow you to deal damage easier, since you won’t have to worry about kiting as much.

These combinations are the sort of stuff we DON’T have at our disposal at the moment, but we will have access to with just the sigils. So yes, Dhuumfire will be less accessible, but that’s not. the. only. change. being. made. and we need to stop looking at it as it’s the only change happening.
Also: good players will adapt and will make it a part of a new rotation of skills, in my opinion. Currently, your opponent can do very little to counter Dhuumfire. Very. Litttle. Especially when you sprinkle in those Terror-fears. That makes it super strong, maybe too strong. This at least gave some professions a way to avoid it, as opposed to eating it each time. Lastly, I don’t think a profession’s strength is solely reliant on one trait.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Rickster.8752:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Death Magic trait reworks will be happening, but nowhere were they ever promised, or even suggested as being in this coming patch. We know they’re coming, but there is no possible way to say “when” right now.

We need them in this patch because atm having no blocks, no evades, etc etc and light armor and no viable defensive trait line is killing necros in high level pvp.

Death magic should be a defensive trait line with minor traits which significantly help in this area.

Chill out, we’re managing right now and they haven’t announced any plans to harm our defense. Heck, they’ve announced fixing a major bug that limits our survivability.

Yes, the changes need to come, but they don’t need to come -right now-. If you want to put in your input, dig back through for the “Compilation of Death Magic Minor Ideas” thread and add to it.

You can’t harm something that we don’t even have. Our “defense” is the laughing stock of the gaming community right now. If it wasn’t, then necros wouldn’t be #1 in priority targets in team fights and half the time in wvw we get the big red T over our heads. As for adding to an already bloated list of death magic ideas that will, ultimately, get ignored, we should be constantly down their throats to remove dumbfire and get us back where we were before this fiasco and balance from there

Druss.6917:

You can’t harm something that we don’t even have. Our “defense” is the laughing stock of the gaming community right now. If it wasn’t, then necros wouldn’t be #1 in priority targets in team fights and half the time in wvw we get the big red T over our heads. As for adding to an already bloated list of death magic ideas that will, ultimately, get ignored, we should be constantly down their throats to remove dumbfire and get us back where we were before this fiasco and balance from there

Functionally we were awesome for 2 weeks before dhuumfire, Sarmor was on needed 60/48s, both of the S defenses gave 3% without icd and worked in DS, DS absorbed hits and the best, noone of our kitten got randomly nerfed for no functional balance reason * cough putrid mark*

Andele.1306:

Functionally we were awesome for 2 weeks before dhuumfire, Sarmor was on needed 60/48s, both of the S defenses gave 3% without icd and worked in DS, DS absorbed hits and the best, noone of our kitten got randomly nerfed for no functional balance reason * cough putrid mark*

^ Couldn’t agree more.

Dhuumfire and the change to DS have really destroyed my favorite profession. I wish we could go back to what the class was before all these abysmal changes.

MethaneGas.8357:

Rennoko.5731:

Does this still justify the reductions in our other non-related bleed skills and terror?

Or will the requirement for entry still be to make the burning work, at all costs, because that currently is (and will remain) one of the needed damaging effects to take down certain classes.

I guess it all depends on the other unspecified changes, but I still think the hit (in spvp only) is going to be too hard.

The thing you are leaving out is the additional conditions we will be able to apply through the extra sigils. For example, with 30 in spite:
-Geomancy. It not only deals damage, but it can crit AND cause bleed on-crit effects, such as Earth sigils (1 stack, up to 6-7 seconds) and 5 points in Curses (1 stack, 2-3 secs). So on top of the raw power damage, and the chance of causing 1-2 additional bleeds, it causes 3 stacks of bleed for 9 seconds, every 10-second weapon swap. If this is taken to begin with, you could still have Sigil of Earth, which will cause additional bleeds than we currently have. Or… on top of Geomancy, the sigil below.
-Sigil of Doom – about 6-7 secs, every 10-sec weapon swap. You will be able to keep up basically constant poison on the target (if they don’t cleanse, but even if they do, the poisons are spaced out enough that it will apply again rather quickly).
- Not to mention Hydromancy, which could basically hold your opponent in place, making it easier to land life blast, for example. Or could even allow you to deal damage easier, since you won’t have to worry about kiting as much.

These combinations are the sort of stuff we DON’T have at our disposal at the moment, but we will have access to with just the sigils. So yes, Dhuumfire will be less accessible, but that’s not. the. only. change. being. made. and we need to stop looking at it as it’s the only change happening.
Also: good players will adapt and will make it a part of a new rotation of skills, in my opinion. Currently, your opponent can do very little to counter Dhuumfire. Very. Litttle. Especially when you sprinkle in those Terror-fears. That makes it super strong, maybe too strong. This at least gave some professions a way to avoid it, as opposed to eating it each time. Lastly, I don’t think a profession’s strength is solely reliant on one trait.

Currently dumbfire is uncounterable, not hard to counter. I am not arguing it should stay the same, I am simply pointing out the hit is going to overshoot the balance side of things (again in Spvp, not WvW, where the change will be fine).

I don’t buy the argument that the new sigil system is a buff for us, because it is a buff for everyone, arguably it will be much stronger on other classes than us that have less situational opportunities and more frequent chances to swap (IE warriors).

And no, the class strength is not reliant on one trait, but that one trait took the class from not desired, to heavily desired. It stands to reason a severe reduction in that trait will result in a similar effect.

I don’t like spite or dumbfire, I would rather put zero points in spite, but because of the gutting to terror damage and bleeds, and the prevailance of heavy removal already, it doesn’t work so well.

Being a 2nd class citizen is fine, it makes the class more fun because it is less popular, but I would rather they lower damage while raising survivability, rather than just lowering damage. Again we shall have to wait and see how it all pans out.

Rennoko.5731:

MethaneGas.8357:

Rennoko.5731:

Does this still justify the reductions in our other non-related bleed skills and terror?

Or will the requirement for entry still be to make the burning work, at all costs, because that currently is (and will remain) one of the needed damaging effects to take down certain classes.

I guess it all depends on the other unspecified changes, but I still think the hit (in spvp only) is going to be too hard.

The thing you are leaving out is the additional conditions we will be able to apply through the extra sigils. For example, with 30 in spite:
-Geomancy. It not only deals damage, but it can crit AND cause bleed on-crit effects, such as Earth sigils (1 stack, up to 6-7 seconds) and 5 points in Curses (1 stack, 2-3 secs). So on top of the raw power damage, and the chance of causing 1-2 additional bleeds, it causes 3 stacks of bleed for 9 seconds, every 10-second weapon swap. If this is taken to begin with, you could still have Sigil of Earth, which will cause additional bleeds than we currently have. Or… on top of Geomancy, the sigil below.
-Sigil of Doom – about 6-7 secs, every 10-sec weapon swap. You will be able to keep up basically constant poison on the target (if they don’t cleanse, but even if they do, the poisons are spaced out enough that it will apply again rather quickly).
- Not to mention Hydromancy, which could basically hold your opponent in place, making it easier to land life blast, for example. Or could even allow you to deal damage easier, since you won’t have to worry about kiting as much.

These combinations are the sort of stuff we DON’T have at our disposal at the moment, but we will have access to with just the sigils. So yes, Dhuumfire will be less accessible, but that’s not. the. only. change. being. made. and we need to stop looking at it as it’s the only change happening.
Also: good players will adapt and will make it a part of a new rotation of skills, in my opinion. Currently, your opponent can do very little to counter Dhuumfire. Very. Litttle. Especially when you sprinkle in those Terror-fears. That makes it super strong, maybe too strong. This at least gave some professions a way to avoid it, as opposed to eating it each time. Lastly, I don’t think a profession’s strength is solely reliant on one trait.

Currently dumbfire is uncounterable, not hard to counter. I am not arguing it should stay the same, I am simply pointing out the hit is going to overshoot the balance side of things (again in Spvp, not WvW, where the change will be fine).

I don’t buy the argument that the new sigil system is a buff for us, because it is a buff for everyone, arguably it will be much stronger on other classes than us that have less situational opportunities and more frequent chances to swap (IE warriors).

And no, the class strength is not reliant on one trait, but that one trait took the class from not desired, to heavily desired. It stands to reason a severe reduction in that trait will result in a similar effect.

I don’t like spite or dumbfire, I would rather put zero points in spite, but because of the gutting to terror damage and bleeds, and the prevailance of heavy removal already, it doesn’t work so well.

Being a 2nd class citizen is fine, it makes the class more fun because it is less popular, but I would rather they lower damage while raising survivability, rather than just lowering damage. Again we shall have to wait and see how it all pans out.

^ Wonderfully said

well you lose a player on this patch that spent month every month….
im done….

@ Andele,
I agree that the Spectral stuff was really strong earlier. I’m not sure whether it was too strong or not though, because with the previous version of Spectral Walk (when traited with Spectral Attunement for 12 secs, just to add to the effect), you could tank really, really well. And that’s just Spectral Walk.. not to mention Spectral Armor. 100-blades from warriors and Blurred Frenzy from mesmer… any flurry-type attack either did no damage to you or healed your life force while in DS, which was really excellent. I enjoyed it very much… while it lasted It shouldn’t have been changed, imo. Tears were shed :P

-Druss, I highly disagree that our defenses are the "laughing stock" of the gaming community. If anything, I'd say the ranger is a better candidate. I'm sorry, but calling it that is just ridiculous cuz it simply isn't true. What IS true is that people like damage. Necros are bad$$es at dealing damage. But when you go all out on damage you sacrifice your survival. It’s just the way it is. And it just so happens that the majority of people like damage, and they grab everything damage – traits, weapons, utilities – and then they say we can’t survive O_o. When you look at a high damage thief, for example. A lot of the time they have all three (or most) of their utilities as defenses (Shadow refuge, Blinding Powder, Shadowstep). Elementalist (lightning flash, mist form, armor of earth). Warrior (endure pain, zerk stance, balanced stance), Mesmer (Blink, Decoy). So why don’t you sprinkle yourself with some defense? I will admit that survival isn’t the easiest (in WvW, when compared with many other classes), but it’s very possible, while STILL maintaining a high amount of damage. In other game modes, I don’t see it AS difficult as WvW because WvW survival requires mobility, which Necro doesn’t have an easy access to. I’m assuming you are referring to WvW because you are talking about team fights.
-For example, running something like this will give you high survival while maintaining excellent damage. The first is more defensive, while the second is more offensive:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vQAQNBLhZakjmebLuxvG+bTASKuG6oHHrcwUKgndA-z0ABk3g0HBquuIaskCAmpRA-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vQAQNArYWjc00YbxN+1wfbCB6BAgLgYkijJYoUAAsDA-zkAB0HBqMsIaskCAmpRA-w

@Rennoko,
It is true that other classes will be getting the sigil changes as well, but I’m not sure if they will be getting much more benefit from them than we will. Although a warrior, engi, and ele can swap weapons faster than other classes, the on-swap sigil will still trigger every 9 seconds… I’m doing some math in my head, and I don’t think it should trigger much more frequently than other professions, so they shouldn’t get much extra benefit out of that because of the internal cooldown of the sigils.
-I also agree that I’d rather have them up the survival and lower the damage.

MethaneGas.8357:

-Druss, I highly disagree that our defenses are the "laughing stock" of the gaming community. If anything, I'd say the ranger is a better candidate. I'm sorry, but calling it that is just ridiculous cuz it simply isn't true. What IS true is that people like damage. Necros are bad$$es at dealing damage. But when you go all out on damage you sacrifice your survival. It’s just the way it is. And it just so happens that the majority of people like damage, and they grab everything damage – traits, weapons, utilities – and then they say we can’t survive O_o. When you look at a high damage thief, for example. A lot of the time they have all three (or most) of their utilities as defenses (Shadow refuge, Blinding Powder, Shadowstep). Elementalist (lightning flash, mist form, armor of earth). Warrior (endure pain, zerk stance, balanced stance), Mesmer (Blink, Decoy). So why don’t you sprinkle yourself with some defense? I will admit that survival isn’t the easiest (in WvW, when compared with many other classes), but it’s very possible, while STILL maintaining a high amount of damage. In other game modes, I don’t see it AS difficult as WvW because WvW survival requires mobility, which Necro doesn’t have an easy access to. I’m assuming you are referring to WvW because you are talking about team fights.

I disagree with you. I play ranger as well and my defenses as well as escapes on ranger are like night and day compared to necro. My survivability is through the roof and I don’t have to load my bar with defensive utilities to do it either. 1 stun break or invuln is all that’s needed. The rest are on the weapons themselves and tied up in traits that you would usually take anyway in a variety of builds.

These are things that necro lacks. and while I know they said they are refusing to give necro mobility (which is something I’m fine with btw) they give nothing in return for survivability (which really should translate to sustainability for necros). And yes Im talking about wvw, but even in pvp, we’ve had our damage shaved significantly, but they’ve also hacked up our defenses and not given much sustain in return. It’s like they want every class to be able to counter necros yet necros counter to none. It’s not balance with necros, because to have balance you need to bring one thing up and lower another to achieve equilibrium. In this case, they wanted to lower our damage. I’m fine with that, it needed to be done, but in doing so they also lowered our sustain.

That’s not balance, That’s hack-n-slash nerfing. On top of all that they now gave out condi immunities to everyone else and even gave warrior yet another physical immunity…because that’s really what the most sustainable and high damage class in the game really needed…. and lowered our weakness, chopped up our bleeds, removed DS as our one defensive tool we could count on to be reliable and removed one of the best aspect of team play we had (looking at you putrid mark cleanse). So what are we given in return? A healing signet that doesn’t heal and a faster reanimator that doesn’t proc when you need it (during fights) making the faster uptime on it pointless.

If these past few months are any indication of where we’re headed, necro is in trouble. Right now yeah we can scrape by, but there’s only so far you can sink this class before it becomes unplayable.

And don’t even get me started on pve necro. What a walking disaster….

MethaneGas.8357:

@ Andele,
I agree that the Spectral stuff was really strong earlier. I’m not sure whether it was too strong or not though, because with the previous version of Spectral Walk (when traited with Spectral Attunement for 12 secs, just to add to the effect), you could tank really, really well. And that’s just Spectral Walk.. not to mention Spectral Armor. 100-blades from warriors and Blurred Frenzy from mesmer… any flurry-type attack either did no damage to you or healed your life force while in DS, which was really excellent. I enjoyed it very much… while it lasted It shouldn’t have been changed, imo. Tears were shed :P

Spectral attunement was a bit of a strong trait then, but a dear “friend” of mine so to say who adores pvp in all its forms (i was kinda a test dummy in exchange for no need to worry about kittens in the OS JP) still did burn all of my ds with it up on a simple shatter spec, the full air burst ele combo and a thief stab pull hss then (it didnt hurt my hp in any of the attempts, but it took me out of ds with Swalk on), so you could burst that life bar down with a coordinated attempt, right now anything that takes 3 seconds or longer just heals your LF if you pop sarmor (aka weaker but longer endure pain).

Druss.6917:

I disagree with you. I play ranger as well and my defenses as well as escapes on ranger are like night and day compared to necro. My survivability is through the roof and I don’t have to load my bar with defensive utilities to do it either. 1 stun break or invuln is all that’s needed. The rest are on the weapons themselves and tied up in traits that you would usually take anyway in a variety of builds.

Well.. then you are one of the few rangers that survive well. They are usually one of the easiest classes to kill in WvW, which is why it’s often lovely to focus them first. Also, you didn’t address all the other classes that have to invest into defensive utilities… which is almost all of them.

These are things that necro lacks. and while I know they said they are refusing to give necro mobility (which is something I’m fine with btw) they give nothing in return for survivability (which really should translate to sustainability for necros). And yes Im talking about wvw, but even in pvp, we’ve had our damage shaved significantly, but they’ve also hacked up our defenses and not given much sustain in return. It’s like they want every class to be able to counter necros yet necros counter to none. It’s not balance with necros, because to have balance you need to bring one thing up and lower another to achieve equilibrium. In this case, they wanted to lower our damage. I’m fine with that, it needed to be done, but in doing so they also lowered our sustain.

From my perspective, Necros really doesn’t need that much more mobility than they already have, as it is only really a big deal in WvW.
-I don’t know how you can say that they want every class to counter Necros and that they can counter none. Necros can destroy warriors, eles, guardians, other Necros…. everything in a 1 v1 situation. And if you let a Necro sit at the back doing his/her thing in a team fight, you are gonna find yourself dead quite soon. Also, you don’t know the full scope of the upcoming changes so you can’t say they’ve lowered our damage without increasing sustain.

Druss.6917:

That’s not balance, That’s hack-n-slash nerfing. On top of all that they now gave out condi immunities to everyone else and even gave warrior yet another physical immunity…because that’s really what the most sustainable and high damage class in the game really needed…. and lowered our weakness, chopped up our bleeds, removed DS as our one defensive tool we could count on to be reliable and removed one of the best aspect of team play we had (looking at you putrid mark cleanse). So what are we given in return? A healing signet that doesn’t heal and a faster reanimator that doesn’t proc when you need it (during fights) making the faster uptime on it pointless.

The hack-n-slash nerfing was needed, imo. Necros, as I said earlier, are one of the strongest opponents you can come across in WvW. They literally were (and arguably are) still over the top, in WvW. The problem is when they blend the nerfs for sPvP and WvW.
-First of all, we can deal with condis quite well ourselves, despite having no immunities.
Additionally, not everyone has access to condi immunity- just eles, warriors, and engis. Diamond Skin is useless in team fights. And about the new warrior skill, I’ve only seen like 3 people using the new warrior heal.. I wouldn’t say warrior is the highest damage class in the game either. I’m personally more weary of other Necros. Berserker Stance and Defiant Stance both have a set duration and the engi condi immunity doesn’t trigger until they are 25% health. With 25% health, one backstab can send them to their graves. Also, by the time an engi is that low, they likely already have plenty of other condis on them, and most lack more than one or two cleanses so they still die as a result. The condi immunity doesn’t cleanse anything. Existing condis still tick.
-Lowering our weakness output was bad, imo, but DS is still good. I don’t know what you mean that they removed DS. It is still a good way to mitigate damage, when used well.

-I agree that Putrid Mark has been nerfed badly, which was sort of silly, but it’s been that way for ages now… It’s sort of old news… I’m already used to it myself. If anything, it helps me hold onto it for myself until I’m loaded with condis. I see it as a mini stun break (for those situations when you are rooted in a bad spot). The transfer from allies was really quite strong, when you think about it. If you had a team of Necros that stuck together, they could basically be immune to condis if they coordinated it well. But the removal of cleanse from allies AND reducing the number of condis that cleanse from yourself was a bit too much =/.
-The reason things were taken away was because they were borderline OP. Simple as that. I do agree that some sustain needed to be added in there to make up for overall damage lost, though. Last thing about the new heal skills… let’s be fair, most of the new heal skills aren’t really used that much… Necro heal skill is pretty horrid, but most of em are in a weird spot right now, not just ours.
-I frequently have 2-3 jagged horrors in larger fights. They are slightly useless (and ugly), but still… if they can soak up AoE away from me/my allies, why not have the uglies around? XD

If these past few months are any indication of where we’re headed, necro is in trouble. Right now yeah we can scrape by, but there’s only so far you can sink this class before it becomes unplayable.

What! We’ve received burning and Torment, a wall that fears and triggers Terror, fills life force, grants protection….etc. Now we’ll get additional sigils, on top of who knows what…. and before it’s even known what changes we’ll get, we are “sinking into being unplayable” ? My apologies, but Necros don’t seem in the “deep end” to me.

Druss.6917:

And don’t even get me started on pve necro. What a walking disaster….

PvE is easy mode when compared to fighting real people. The only place where it becomes problematic is world bosses/zergy events where condis cap but even then you’ll get your reward, especially since torment never stacks high so it will do its full damage on the boss.

Easy, switch to ESO in April, all problems solved.

MethaneGas.8357:

The transfer from allies was really quite strong, when you think about it. If you had a team of Necros that stuck together, they could basically be immune to condis if they coordinated it well.

This line of thinking is why things such as lifesteal are so bad.

“If a bunch of mesmer illusions hit a necromancer at the same time while they had Signet of Vampirism on, they could regain a tiny bit of their health!”
“If two necromancers worked together, one could cast fear and the other could use Epidemic on it!”
“If a necromancer managed to hit five people with five crits from a well while using multiple lifesteal traits, they could regain kind of a lot of health!”
“If a zerg of necromancers coordinated, they would be unstoppable because of all the conditions!”

“If two thieves backstabbed someone at the same time, that person would die!”
“If guardians were perfectly coordinated, they could stop a zerg from entering a tower forever!”

bckerr.4798:

Easy, switch to ESO in April, all problems solved.

^
See this guy? A true necro always want to hurt themselves. Give this man a cookie.

Druss.6917:

These are things that necro lacks. and while I know they said they are refusing to give necro mobility (which is something I’m fine with btw) they give nothing in return for survivability (which really should translate to sustainability for necros). And yes Im talking about wvw, but even in pvp, we’ve had our damage shaved significantly, but they’ve also hacked up our defenses and not given much sustain in return. It’s like they want every class to be able to counter necros yet necros counter to none. It’s not balance with necros, because to have balance you need to bring one thing up and lower another to achieve equilibrium. In this case, they wanted to lower our damage. I’m fine with that, it needed to be done, but in doing so they also lowered our sustain.

That’s not balance, That’s hack-n-slash nerfing. On top of all that they now gave out condi immunities to everyone else and even gave warrior yet another physical immunity…because that’s really what the most sustainable and high damage class in the game really needed…. and lowered our weakness, chopped up our bleeds, removed DS as our one defensive tool we could count on to be reliable and removed one of the best aspect of team play we had (looking at you putrid mark cleanse). So what are we given in return? A healing signet that doesn’t heal and a faster reanimator that doesn’t proc when you need it (during fights) making the faster uptime on it pointless.

If these past few months are any indication of where we’re headed, necro is in trouble. Right now yeah we can scrape by, but there’s only so far you can sink this class before it becomes unplayable.

And don’t even get me started on pve necro. What a walking disaster….

Exactly!

lol pvpers, it’s almost as if the only thing that matters in a game to you guys.. is pvp. =|
or or or being a sweeper ready to get 1 shot in pve by an ambient mob. Yeah I over-exaggerated that for my own luls.
Even though necro is all kinds of nerfed, just remember that there’s no other class in the game that can tap f1 and survive a blast of “Ultima” to the face.

Yamedo.2561:

lol pvpers, it’s almost as if the only thing that matters in a game to you guys.. is pvp. =|
or or or being a sweeper ready to get 1 shot in pve by an ambient mob. Yeah I over-exaggerated that for my own luls.
Even though necro is all kinds of nerfed, just remember that there’s no other class in the game that can tap f1 and survive a blast of “Ultima” to the face.

wrong, damage now bleeds over to our actual hp pool. Well aegis, distortion and damage immunity skills will block this blast you speak of.

Lol silly pver doesn’t even know his class! It’s almost like pve isn’t the easiest aspect of this game… Oh wait

NeXeD.3042:

Lol silly pver doesn’t even know his class! It’s almost like pve isn’t the easiest aspect of this game… Oh wait

I hope you aren’t a WvW player.

You folks seem to lump all of PvE into one pile but, for Necromancer, it is not really one experience. PvE for Necro is either versus trash mobs (total pownage) or versus bosses (too bad, so sad.)

Epidemic off a boss onto adds just plain melts them but, if you try it against the reformed Tequatl, you get almost zip with your slow, weak Necrotic Grasp backed up by AoE conditions that mean little more than bumping someone else’s conditions off the boss’s stack.

Necro is great for farming trash mobs, in my opinion, but against bosses, the lack of mobility and the boss’s ability to ignore most CC, combined with weak single-target dps once condition caps kick in, make it under-powered.

A new weapon or two could fix this, though. All we need is a long-range tool forsaking AoE almost entirely in favor of straight-up damage with a siphon booster to make up for the lack of mobility (or reduced CD on DS transforms.)

I do play wvw. My guild happens to focus on wvw and I’m not sure if your implying wvw is easier than pve because there is a big difference between following a zerg and spamming your aoe and actually trying to use some tactics to fight groups twice your size or more.

NeXeD.3042:

I do play wvw. My guild happens to focus on wvw and I’m not sure if your implying wvw is easier than pve because there is a big difference between following a zerg and spamming your aoe and actually trying to use some tactics to fight groups twice your size or more.

I know, i’m in a WvW oriented guild too, but my personal experience that these type of players often can’t follow simple “stand here and press 1” orders.

If we got by high end skill cap its: PvE>PvP>WvWvW
If its by ok requirements its: PvP>WvWvW>PvE

Im gonna go out on a whim and say balance isnt based on the medicore players, nor should it ever be in a RPG * cough casuals dying to a hoplite in Demon Souls*

Andele.1306:

If we got by high end skill cap its: PvE>PvP>WvWvW
If its by ok requirements its: PvP>WvWvW>PvE

Im gonna go out on a whim and say balance isnt based on the medicore players, nor should it ever be in a RPG * cough casuals dying to a hoplite in Demon Souls*

When thinking balance you must also consider the skill / reward factor. It’s bad to say that “well you could still kill him if you were more skilled”.

This is like Starcraft II all over again…
For the first year 80% of all tournament winners were terrans with an average of 150 APM, followed “closely” with zerg with 15% for average of 270 APM and protos with 5% for an average of 240 APM…

That… is f…
One could argue that if the zerg and protos players were more skilled they would have taken more games, but that in it’s self is an imbalance…

Balance should be like you said, fixed towards the higher tier of players, but their skill level should be equivalent… if true balance is to ever emerge…

PS: in case i wasn’t clear… using 4 skills, a special gimmicky build, insane map awareness and preparation + perfect timing and execution to counter a ONE PASSIVE SKILL will never be called balance… even if you can do it…

Andele are you seriously saying there is a higher skill cap for player vs ai than player versus player. No.

NeXeD.3042:

Andele are you seriously saying there is a higher skill cap for player vs ai than player versus player. No.

Yes because the ai can be perfected, humans cant, also id like to see you go solo arah and ac (no walljumps, aggro stucking, etc), since unlike winning a game for which you just need to roam, decap and keep points up which every joe can do, you wont see a normal player go solo dungeons.

Rennoko.5731:

Fungalfoot.7213:

A lot of people really don’t seem to realize what a massive impact this nerf will have on PvP. It will make Dumbfire applications super easy to negate by ANY class due to how telegraphed the blast is. You can forget about using Dumbfire against skilled opponents right now because it will not stick unless you’ve got a group to hold them down for you. Once you shift into shroud and start charging that blast they will know.

It kind of saddens me that instead of removing the trait and reverting all the nerfs it caused they have to wreck the entire class. I guess expecting them to straight up admit that they kittened up here and take responsibility is just expecting too much.

The problem is actually much more subtle than this. Against the cream of the crop, they are going to be able to avoid the burn and really shut down a condi necro, however that doesn’t really hit the majority of other players who are not savvy enough to negate the 2nd or 3rd life blast. Talking in regards to them.

The bigger issue, the more wide-spread problem, is that the additional time required to spend in DS, which will:

1. Reduce damage output, as our condition application while life blasting is virtually nil.
2. Increased time spent being forced into DS, reducing the defense potential as we are forced to decay when we don’t really want to be decaying.
3. Decrease availability to our DS control skills, primarily doom, because of how long we may have to sit in DS to get the burn off, or how much LF we lose trying to get the burn off.
4. It opens the door for people to “burst us” out of DS to avoid the burn, negating the trait all together, while we are likely to have little extra life force to begin with in a close match.

I don’t think the change will have much of an effect in WvW, and I think it is an neutral change to PVE, but for PvP, it is quite a heafty blow to our most popular and viable build.

One positive is this will put Carrion as a much more favorable stat setup. It is a shame there is no Condition primary, power, toughness armor though.

Yeh these are the issues. Besides they will easily be able to clear the burn when it lands. There will be less condition cover for the burn because life blast will only burn

Andele, i suggest you read your comments twice before posting them.
Other skilled players will always be a lot harder to beat than AIs, always.

unlike winning a game for which you just need to roam, decap and keep points up which every joe can do

I just loled so hard, i almost fell of my chair, srsly

Winneh.2064:

Andele, i suggest you read your comments twice before posting them.
Other skilled players will always be a lot harder to beat than AIs, always.

unlike winning a game for which you just need to roam, decap and keep points up which every joe can do

I just loled so hard, i almost fell of my chair, srsly

Well lets just say that if you can win 11 out of 13 arenas by going guard with hammer and x/s to just decap, get top player as a person who doesnt give a kitten about the pvp meta and the persons highest pvp achivements in other games is high plat lol mmr and getting to fight lily, stonebro and hotshot. No PvP doesnt take more skill than going trough pve.
Again ill be glad to admit im wrong when you show me a video of a main pvp player going solo trough dungeons (AC 3, Arah 1 to lupi, 3 entire path and 4 to lyssa and maybe TA2 or finishing stuff like the ascalon or molten fractal at 40+), but im pretty sure we know that that wont happen since people that did those focus on pve.

k ill do that when you solo cap EBG.

NeXeD.3042:

k ill do that when you solo cap EBG.

The npcs in wvwvw aint even worth the bother, but ill just leave these links for the sake of comparison between wvwvw and dungeon solos https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=GW2%20solo%20WvWvW&sm=3

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=GW2%20solo%20dungeon&sm=3

I’m not talking about killing the npcs holy kitten. Go take stonemist from the the kittentiest tier wvw by yourself. Against players not the npcs. You did say PvP was easy.

I did some pvp with some guildmates a few weeks back. Some of us havent touched pvp much at all and hadnt done it for months. We didnt know the meta or anything yet we were able to stomp so many teams that we got put up against really good teams pretty fast.

Being a good pve player teaches you to read animations, understand class synergy and most importantly not to waste active defense. Yes ai can be beaten just by practise and it never varies much. But the average pvp player is beyond dumb so its not hard for someone who understands when to dodge to win just by copy and pasting a build.

Also look at it this way. I dont know of a single top pvp player who can solo lupi and other challenging bosses. But I know there are quite a few players in the top pve guilds who are top 100 pvp players aswell.

how’s that soloing stonemist going?

I don’t think any of the top 100 PvP players would bother spending the time to solo lupicus… not because it is hard, but because it is extremely tedius. Not saying it isn’t hard to do, as it certainly is, but that isn’t the reason they don’t do it.

The unpredictability of PvP is what makes it interesting to most people. PvE on the other hand generally has more to do with replicating the same circumstances and learning the same mechanics to a point where the entire fight becomes second nature.

No matter now long you play, a PvP tourney game is never going to be second nature, because the other player can be unpredictable (not that he will be, but he can be). Just because I face roll 80% of thieves, doesn’t mean I face roll all thieves, some will most certainly face roll me. Conversely, if I really learn how to face roll lupicus solo, there is a very good chance I could face roll lupicus just about every time.

I like both parts of the game, so I am not here to stab at one or the other. PvE is more predictable, but often (not always) more punishing of positioning mistakes. PvP is less predictable, but often times has a much lower skill cap for entry and mid level play.

A REALLY BAD PvP player with a really good build can do just fine. That same REALLY BAD player in PvE with a really good PvE build is going to not do well on any difficult boss.

At the absolute peak of player skill, I can’t imagine anyone arguing PvE (in this game) is harder than PvP. The best warrior in the world is going to be kitten near impossible for anyone to beat, no matter how many tries you give them, while many people could solo lupicus if they had the time and will to work through the animations and large HP.

Now WvW is just an entirely different set of circumstances. There are somet things that involve no skill at all to be successful at, and other things that require more skill than in any of the other game modes. I would rather solo lupicus than take on 5 backstab thieves at the same time.. But that game mode has no constraints at all… so it isn’t that interesting to compare it to PvE, a mode defined by its constraits.

None of the mobs in WvW are even worth mentioning… they are all easily soloable with the right builds and sufficient time, and far easier than any PvE boss… but the players are where the challenge is coming from.

Rennoko.5731:

… but the players are where the challenge is coming from.

I don´t think he´s getting the point, probably not even playing on a high tier wvw server.

@ Andele
Have a look at http://www.twitch.tv/gw2ascii
Hes playing tons of wvw, soloing pve dungeons and also playing spvp
(just like me btw, i just prefer wvw because its the most challenging mode)

NeXeD.3042:

how’s that soloing stonemist going?

Any news?

Rennoko plays on Magumma and specializes in small-group roaming in WvW.

By “Small group” I mean “2-5 people.” He’s got some good videos if you want evidence.

#magswag – I think we are officially tier 2 now.

At any rate, I understand the defensiveness of PVE players in this situation. So often PvP players scoff and down-play any sort of achievement in PvE because it is mostly scripted, and easily “trained” for.

That said…. I spent at least 1 hour in a 40+ factal last night getting face-rolled by the Molten-Duo with a sub-optimal party and pugs. Conditions for the lose.

All PvE isn’t easy, it just is much more controlled, and if you understand it right, cannot surprise you the way a WvW engagement can. The majority of WvW is just running around spamming skills in a blob bigger than your opposing blob for the average player.

Sure there are tactics, and ways in which you can beat a larger group with a smaller group, but that has less to do with individual skill and more to do with positioning, build, preperation, and driving. But those sort of tactics come into play a lot less often than is necessary, as numbers are still by and large the prevailing “win” factor.

Rennoko.5731:

#magswag – I think we are officially tier 2 now.

At any rate, I understand the defensiveness of PVE players in this situation. So often PvP players scoff and down-play any sort of achievement in PvE because it is mostly scripted, and easily “trained” for.

That said…. I spent at least 1 hour in a 40+ factal last night getting face-rolled by the Molten-Duo with a sub-optimal party and pugs. Conditions for the lose.

All PvE isn’t easy, it just is much more controlled, and if you understand it right, cannot surprise you the way a WvW engagement can. The majority of WvW is just running around spamming skills in a blob bigger than your opposing blob for the average player.

Sure there are tactics, and ways in which you can beat a larger group with a smaller group, but that has less to do with individual skill and more to do with positioning, build, preperation, and driving. But those sort of tactics come into play a lot less often than is necessary, as numbers are still by and large the prevailing “win” factor.

You are probably one of the only pvp players that doesnt discredit pve challenge, so I have utmost respect for you.

That being said ive seen countless “top” pvp’ers venture into pve and use terrible builds, do stupid stuff and then claim “it doesnt matter pve is easy I dont need to change how i play”. Whereas when top pve players venture into pvp, we certainly dont take that kind of approach. We use what is effective in the gametype. We understand the differences and we understand how to theorycraft properly. I notice a lot of pvpers just follow builds blindly and have no clue at why the pick those builds.

Obviously being a top top pvp player requires skill. But as you said the entry level is a lot lower in pvp and even the very best in pvp often have such a close minded mindset its a miracle that they can actually perform the way they do with such ignorance.

Thats just my opinion on it. By the way, im pretty terrible at pvp. It doesnt interest me so I have very little experience on how to play it. But if I really got into it I dont think it would be that hard to make it to top 100. The game seems to be more about composition, communication and teamwork. Skill is kind of second place.

Andele.1306:

NeXeD.3042:

Andele are you seriously saying there is a higher skill cap for player vs ai than player versus player. No.

Yes because the ai can be perfected, humans cant, also id like to see you go solo arah and ac (no walljumps, aggro stucking, etc), since unlike winning a game for which you just need to roam, decap and keep points up which every joe can do, you wont see a normal player go solo dungeons.

one shot mechanics and buckets of HP is not really a perfection of AI. Your confusing balancing AI content to make it difficult vs the ability to read and predict and react to a human opponent.

its to different things really and both take skill, I will say in all my time playing mmos alot of top pve and top pvp are the same people, this has to do with these people are just that good. Yet you can have people who are great at pve or pvp and just suck at the other. I happen to be one of those people that is good at wvw and pvp (I don’t do it much) but tend to do poorly in pve since I don’t really get into it and its hard to be good at something you don’t enjoy.

In fairness some bosses are less predictable than players (RNG on boss attacks). But even so, you can learn what to do for every single attack a boss has so that unpredictability becomes unimportant after a certain point. With pvp its usually fairly obvious what most players are doing. Occasionally you will fight someone who can actually trick you, but really everything can be predicted with the right thought process.

Back when i played FPS games. I got to a point where i could predict what players were going to do 95% of the time so it just came down to either me winning out no problems or if they could predict me aswell then it was just who had the better aim.

Spoj The Second.7680:

In fairness some bosses are less predictable than players (RNG on boss attacks). But even so, you can learn what to do for every single attack a boss has so that unpredictability becomes unimportant after a certain point. With pvp its usually fairly obvious what most players are doing. Occasionally you will fight someone who can actually trick you, but really everything can be predicted with the right thought process.

Back when i played FPS games. I got to a point where i could predict what players were going to do 95% of the time so it just came down to either me winning out no problems or if they could predict me aswell then it was just who had the better aim.

there is a truth to pvp predictability, you do learn to anticipate an ele rtl pr when a guard pulls you he is going to do whirling wraith. Most of the unpredicted aspect comes on when someone else enters the fight. This is what separates it from pve, a boss wont suddenly have a 2nd boss show up to help him.