Guild Wars 2

Spectral Walk LF gen lasts 8 seconds, 12 if traited. It can easily get you from 0 to 100 life force right now if being focus fired by multiple enemies.

Will be a bit less if you are actually in DS of course, but still gonna be a great option to have.

If these updates are true, I would love to do a little tennis match with another necromancer, by placing a spectral wall on either side of the same enemy. It could be the new pong!

Its a shame they still haven’t fixed the reanimator minor skill, despite us begging for it to be changed. But oh weill

Placing the new burning on crit trait in spite as a grandmaster trait is about the worst thing they could have done. No condition necro is going to be able to put 30 in spite without sacrificing either greater marks or fear does damage and lasts 50% longer. Contrast the sacrifice Necro would have to make to get burning with the relative ease with which Engineers get the same trait. Engineers get 100% chance to cause burning on crit with just 10 points in their power line.

Minoru.1237:

Placing the new burning on crit trait in spite as a master trait is about the worst thing they could have done. No condition necro is going to be able to put 30 in spite without sacrificing either greater marks or fear does damage and lasts 50% longer. Contrast the sacrifice Necro would have to make to get burning with the relative ease with which Engineers get the same trait. Engineers get 100% chance to cause burning on crit with just 10 points in their power line.

Huh?

30/10/10/0/20

I mistakenly thought terror was a master trait, and didn’t realize 6 was selectable as an adept trait. I stand corrected. Engineers still get access to burning on crit for a measly 10 points though. That being said, if this leak is correct I’ll most certainly be running 30/10/10/0/20. Glad my build won’t change too dramatically because I do enjoy the terror traits.

Burning, which is a condition damage, in the spite tree which gives power. Is this real life?

CHIPS.6018:

Burning, which is a condition damage, in the spite tree which gives power. Is this real life?

Spite also gives condition duration.

CHIPS.6018:

Burning, which is a condition damage, in the spite tree which gives power. Is this real life?

ye cause terror+burning would’t be OP while still having a good defense

No one seems upset about dropping 20 into SR for Master of Terror when it’s otherwise useless stats for a condition build, but somehow 30 into Spite is unacceptable. We knew it was a grandmaster trait, so it wasn’t going to go somewhere that was comfortable for everyone.

Burning hurts. You need to work to get it. I don’t see how that’s surprising.

Anyway, we don’t even know if this is the final place for it. It could end up in another line altogether.

To be honest, assuming the patch notes are correct a Terror Hybrid build would be killer for WvW.

Ascii’s Terror Hybrid Build©™®
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAodWjMax7dbaaMcKApCPD9IXcBIqQwUKgPdA-jUyAYNBRaBEVBgIAmDLiGb1sIasaGMVKRUt3oIa1SBAxaA-w

Roe.3679:

No one seems upset about dropping 20 into SR for Master of Terror when it’s otherwise useless stats for a condition build, but somehow 30 into Spite is unacceptable. We knew it was a grandmaster trait, so it wasn’t going to go somewhere that was comfortable for everyone.

Burning hurts. You need to work to get it. I don’t see how that’s surprising.

Anyway, we don’t even know if this is the final place for it. It could end up in another line altogether.

SR has a lot of stuff, it’s got master of terror, it’s got soul marks, it’s got path of midnight, it’s got the minor spectral armor, it’s got spectral utility CD reduction, it’s got stability. So it’s not really only about master of terror, seems a lot more people in sPVP would prefer soul marks actually and this trait line also increases the LF pool. Soul marks is very important for a condi build.

Surely it doesn’t boost your condition output but it gives you a lot of other things, mostly survivability ones which is very important. That 15 SR minor trait is huge.

Iceflame.5024:

Roe.3679:

No one seems upset about dropping 20 into SR for Master of Terror when it’s otherwise useless stats for a condition build, but somehow 30 into Spite is unacceptable. We knew it was a grandmaster trait, so it wasn’t going to go somewhere that was comfortable for everyone.

Burning hurts. You need to work to get it. I don’t see how that’s surprising.

Anyway, we don’t even know if this is the final place for it. It could end up in another line altogether.

SR has a lot of stuff, it’s got master of terror, it’s got soul marks, it’s got path of midnight, it’s got the minor spectral armor, it’s got spectral utility CD reduction, it’s got stability. So it’s not really only about master of terror, seems a lot more people in sPVP would prefer soul marks actually and this trait line also increases the LF pool. Soul marks is very important for a condi build.

Surely it doesn’t boost your condition output but it gives you a lot of other things, mostly survivability ones which is very important. That 15 SR minor trait is huge.

So um

if you’re talking about taking 20 in SR to get Master of Terror, you’re not allowed to bring up Soul Marks as a reason to go into SR. Because it’s also a 20 point trait. So unless you’re now dumping 30 points in SR it’s not an option, and at that point you’re choosing between it and stability on DS.

Granted, Last Gasp is very good, and Path of Midnight is useable. I guess the greater argument is: does Spite have traits that are useful to a wide variety of condition builds?

A lot of the changes are not bad, but I don’t really believe the leaked patch notes are real (especially after noticing DS5 name is incorrect) or they’re outdated. The changes would definitely improve Necromancer’s skill usage across the board, but here are my problems with them:

1. Trait changes/focus: The focus was obviously on power builds with the majority of the changes being in Spite, Soul Reaping and LF gain to make power builds much more viable. My problem is where is the Death Magic, Blood Magic, Conditionmancer and Minionmancer love? Arguably Death Magic followed by Blood Magic were the lines that needed the most buffing.

Death Magic having too many split or useless traits to most builds, should have been a prime target for merging traits while making new attrition based ones for outside/inside DS. These patch notes barely touch Death Magic. Blood Magic needed life siphons boosted among other things, but sees only one change to dagger CD? Even if you didn’t want to change the traits, making a lot of the Blood Magic traits scale minimally with healing power would open new viable builds. Conditionmancer gets torment from DS5 and a 30 spite trait for burning every 10 seconds for 4 seconds… meh (on the burning) but I will try it. Minionmancers get Shadow/Bone fiend regen outside of combat, longer shadow fiend blind and dmg on death nova… ok…

2. Death Shroud: The increased LF gain, 50% critical chance in DS with 30 SR (whaaaat? OP), Spectral Armor/Walk working within it and most of all DS5 torment are good changes with one exception. However, the core problem of attrition doesn’t appear to be solved and definitely isn’t if you’re a non SR/Spite build. What happened to regeneration healing normal health while in DS? I don’t see a real reworking of DS skills either. A big problem has been that Necros need to be able to recover and CC while in DS for it to truly be viable for attrition. Compared to other damage mitigation mechanics like distortion, blocks, stealth etc., DS right now is lackluster. DS5 should help but can do only so much, unless torment from DS5 is really that awsome.

So if these patch notes are real, I would say a great step in the right direction and Power/Spite Necros should be really happy with these changes. I would also say that all skills and abilities need to work better and in unison with Death Shroud, while Death Magic and Blood Magic trait lines need to be reworked to a degree.

Softspoken.2410:

So um

if you’re talking about taking 20 in SR to get Master of Terror, you’re not allowed to bring up Soul Marks as a reason to go into SR. Because it’s also a 20 point trait. So unless you’re now dumping 30 points in SR it’s not an option, and at that point you’re choosing between it and stability on DS.

Granted, Last Gasp is very good, and Path of Midnight is useable. I guess the greater argument is: does Spite have traits that are useful to a wide variety of condition builds?

Wanted to point out that the trait line is pretty much useful in any build and has lots of good stuff, even for condi builds. I actually have 30 in SR for my sPVP build aaaaand I have master of terror for 20 and soul marks for 30. Stability is too mainstream, heh.

Iceflame.5024:

Softspoken.2410:

So um

if you’re talking about taking 20 in SR to get Master of Terror, you’re not allowed to bring up Soul Marks as a reason to go into SR. Because it’s also a 20 point trait. So unless you’re now dumping 30 points in SR it’s not an option, and at that point you’re choosing between it and stability on DS.

Granted, Last Gasp is very good, and Path of Midnight is useable. I guess the greater argument is: does Spite have traits that are useful to a wide variety of condition builds?

Wanted to point out that the trait line is pretty much useful in any build and has lots of good stuff, even for condi builds. I actually have 30 in SR for my sPVP build aaaaand I have master of terror for 20 and soul marks for 30. Stability is too mainstream, heh.

Well, I won’t criticize for bucking the mainstream.

DS-5 will naturally synergise with Fear and Terror builds and would be a huge boost to the build especially with 1 more access to Fear through Spectral Wall.

DS-5 is also an AoE, so 4 or 5 Conditionmancers frontline diving zergs and dropping DS-5 would destroy coupled with Spectral Wall.

Actually, DS 5 will synergize in some way with every build, depending on the immobilize and torment numbers. Dagger users can use it as a “I dare you to not get out of range” mechanic (forcing you to eat the added damage), or risk the immobilize (which chained with Dagger 3 could basically guarantee a full WoC, and also one could attempt a chain immobilize, Dagger 3 → WoC → DS 5). Condi users get the obvious use; Torment stacks. Standard MMs will get the added benefit of the extreme danger of not continuing to kite while afflicted by Torment (not kiting an MM is toying with death), similar to what a dagger user will get. And every Necro will get the AoE benefit of the danger of allowing yourself to get locked up at the end (I could see this clearing points in PvP instead of risking it). I doubt it will be god-mode, but it should be very fun to play with.

I am very happy with how they implemented the skill, I just really want to see the full numbers on it (immobilize duration, how long it takes till that procs, how much torment is stack, etc.). Oh, and NA profession tournament people. I demand to see huge torment/fear epidemics.

assuming these patch notes are real the spite tree is the best place for burning, condition duration is great, already is spiteful marks or chill of death for a master trait and I say get signet mastery for the first major trait, that buff to signet of spite is huge and when traited that’s not that long of a cd (in the future). will be a great way to cover your good conditions so they are not removed so fast.
and with 2 runes of lyssa, 2 runes of the mad king 40% condition duration from food and the 30 from spite and that’s 90% condition duration, you wont even need the +50% fear duration trait

If these changes alone get launched and nothing to help MM I’ll likely quit. I was trying to hold on by a thread on the only spec I even like in this game, so instead of allowing our minions to survive AOE a little better because were “Good at 1v1” (oh, if you don’t have any aoe…) they buff Necros AOE spec that was already more viable in most places, buff condis, and ADD A NEW CONDITION, that punishes movement, such as… stupid moving minions? Great. Also, according to John, there’s no plans on helping them because they’re good in 1v1. Turn down the damage a little on them if its that big of a deal, because they’re obviously hitting as hard and consistently as Mesmer Phantasms, just let them survive ANY aoe conditions, a LITTLE bit? Please kitten . It’s the closest thing you’re going to get to a necro that isn’t basically a spell slinging warlock, and you push it deeper into the water it was already downing in.

/endrantrage

brb as I get some VERY important duels in before this all goes down.

if this is true, still no change to siphons <sigh>
Although I’m inclined to believe a lot of this is either false or not the final release. Too many inconsistencies.

Actually, DS 5 is going to have decent synergy with minion builds. Its basically guaranteed bonus damage (you need to kite minions), and with Bone Fiend you can chain immobilize a single target for ages.

Bhawb.7408:

Actually, DS 5 is going to have decent synergy with minion builds. Its basically guaranteed bonus damage (you need to kite minions), and with Bone Fiend you can chain immobilize a single target for ages.

It doesn’t really matter, we won’t have minions to do anything with it still. Especially if any other type of necro is around or, you know. All the stuff that already aoes down minions in 4 seconds. You’ll be basically a traitless/utilityless necro. Might as well play wells and make some good use of that CC for power wells.

It may turn out burning is not worth having for condi, or depending on the type of style you play. Just because something is new and exciting sometimes people can be tricked into thinking they must have it, not realizing what they are giving up in turn.

Spite and Curses are already overused trees relative to Death and Blood Magic, and if this patch makes that even more so true, it will be a big failure in the way of diversity and improving our weaker areas, which is really supposed to be a large part of the focus of this balance sweep.

Any of you guys play GW1? There were skill leaks like this all the time, and many were true. I remember when Visions of Regret was changed in 2009, and days earlier there was a leak saying the exact same thing. So I am inclined to believe this one is true.

However, since this is Necromancer, and there a lot of incomplete tooltips in GW2, I think this will be the case for them:

Deathly Perception: You have a 50% greater critical chance while in Death Shroud. Only for 3 seconds, or triggers once every X seconds

Spectral Wall: Normalized the amount of protection gained to 7s for allies. Replaced the Vulnerability with a 1s fear when enemies try to cross the wall. Added 4% life force gain on hit. This may only trigger once per a foe

…and so on.

no way they would make the fear from spectral wall only trigger once, just look at the Mesmer temperal curtain, if you had swiftness when you walked through it then you don’t even get the buff once, I don’t think the current engine the game is running on can tell how many times a foe has gone through it, though probably won’t effect foes that are already feared

So basicly… its a Burn that procs of critical hits and deals condition damage, but is in our power tree. Not our condition/critical chance tree…

Mind=Blown

To all those that are complaining about minions, two of them now regenerate health out of combat, which I think is a great idea. Arenanet never meant for minions to last forever like Ranger’s pet, otherwise it would have gave them more toughness and a skill bar of their own.

To all those who think that the spectral wall is too good to be true, you obviously forgot the “Line of Warding” skill for Guardians… I don’t know why you thought one is OP while the other is normal…

To all those who are complaining that the burning is in Spite tree. Well, first of all spite has condition duration, doesn’t play perfectly well with pure power builds, and second of all, if it was in the condition trait line, everyone would have cried that it is OP. It works well with hybrids, and can work with burst power builds, we will just have to wait and see.

Lastly, these aren’t the final patch notes, so stop whining and wait.

if you compare the burning to the engie burn, most builds that use it also have to go 30 points in power for grenadier anyway. They just put rabid gear on top and they’re fine. The necro will be similar.

I really hope those are true. But the fact that those are really great patch notes that players demanded for months and would promote build variety are EXTREMELY unlikely to be true.

Hope dies last.

CHIPS.6018:

Burning, which is a condition damage, in the spite tree which gives power. Is this real life?

+1

Sadly in the real patch it’s going to be exactly like this

I would have liked to see a trait that adds synergy for chill. Perhaps in Spite or SR. “You do X% more damage and take X% less damage from chilled enemies”

PlasticHippo.8934:

no way they would make the fear from spectral wall only trigger once, just look at the Mesmer temperal curtain, if you had swiftness when you walked through it then you don’t even get the buff once, I don’t think the current engine the game is running on can tell how many times a foe has gone through it, though probably won’t effect foes that are already feared

Right now, spectral wall (similar to temporal curtain in this regard) does not apply the buff (protection) to allies that already have it – this is to prevent abusing it to stack a ridiculous duration. However, it does not have the same check in place for enemies, so if an enemy is silly enough to walk across it multiple times, or across multiple spectral walls, he will get the vulnerability stacks on each pass (3 times over a wall = maxxed vuln stacks), which is why, as someone else was saying in a different topic, the wall is underrated in wvw, because it makes a massive difference if you run it in a coordinated team and use it at the right time/place coupled with knockbacks/fears/box-in tactics.
You can test this easily by kiting a mob over the wall repeatedly.

Gabi P.3094:

PlasticHippo.8934:

no way they would make the fear from spectral wall only trigger once, just look at the Mesmer temperal curtain, if you had swiftness when you walked through it then you don’t even get the buff once, I don’t think the current engine the game is running on can tell how many times a foe has gone through it, though probably won’t effect foes that are already feared

Right now, spectral wall (similar to temporal curtain in this regard) does not apply the buff (protection) to allies that already have it – this is to prevent abusing it to stack a ridiculous duration. However, it does not have the same check in place for enemies, so if an enemy is silly enough to walk across it multiple times, or across multiple spectral walls, he will get the vulnerability stacks on each pass (3 times over a wall = maxxed vuln stacks), which is why, as someone else was saying in a different topic, the wall is underrated in wvw, because it makes a massive difference if you run it in a coordinated team and use it at the right time/place coupled with knockbacks/fears/box-in tactics. It also does not have a target count limit in place, so it will affect everyone that passes through it.
You can test this easily by kiting a mob over the wall repeatedly.

Azraeel.1238:

To all those who think that the spectral wall is too good to be true, you obviously forgot the “Line of Warding” skill for Guardians… I don’t know why you thought one is OP while the other is normal…

Cause terror fear deals a good chunk of damage while being a CC? Cause you are a necro and will throw other type of damage while they are feared? Cause you’ll be able to throw at least 2 more fears on top of that one?

It’s a very good source of protection and it’s an ethereal combo field?

The new Spectral Wall could be a bit OP, but the current Spectral Wall is surely useless. I’d settle for a knockdown + chill, rather than a Fear, if necessary.

Don’t forget that Spectral Wall is 14 (or 16, can’t remember) seconds when traited.
Just imagine a 14 seconds of “You can’t pass here” wall.
2 necros can permablock an entire zerg of players entering a castle in WvWvW.
How can you guys think that those patch notes are remotely possible?

I’m not going to set my hopes on these changes happening, I can’t do it to myself

sorrow.2364:

Don’t forget that Spectral Wall is 14 (or 16, can’t remember) seconds when traited.
Just imagine a 14 seconds of “You can’t pass here” wall.
2 necros can permablock an entire zerg of players entering a castle in WvWvW.
How can you guys think that those patch notes are remotely possible?

Cant you really think to a counter to a fear wall ? i mean…..really ? never heard about stability ? lol
Guardians has 3 skills working the exact same way (line of warding, circle, sanctuary),

how can you think that this isnt possble ?

cuge.5398:

Cant you really think to a counter to a fear wall ? i mean…..really ? never heard about stability ? lol
Guardians has 3 skills working the exact same way (line of warding, circle, sanctuary),

how can you think that this isnt possble ?

Our fear is unique, if it’s a terror fear it deals a good amount of damage, I even made a comic about it. I find stability interaction with terror fear quite unfair since in this case it blocks the damage part. Fear in itself is this unique thing of being a condition and a CC effect.

What I am trying to say is that stability is already an issue in this case. You can already get a heavy CC build which will make people cry in fear/dazes/knockdowns if they lack stunbreakers and stability. If you add a 16 second duration fear source to it it will make people cry for sure and they will cry a lot. Surely guardians, elementalists and thieves will have less problems but there will be builds and classes for whom this would be incredibly problematic. I already run a heavy CC terror build which seems to be fairly good for me so far. And again it would be a 16 second source of MULTITARGET fear with 16 seconds of downtime if fully traited!!!! Terror fear deals damage!!!! Then it’s an ethereal combo field and gives protection as well!!!!=P

Even if people don’t walk through it, that’s a 16 second window where you can use it to kite the enemy around and mess with them, pretty much a 16 second fear/protection ethereal well in a form of a wall.

If Spec wall gets this change [lets face it, everyone will be using it if it does], then we also get some access to confusion + chaos armour using the staff

Regarding the patch notes though I hope that if part of them is true, they would only take around 40-50% of the actual necro changes. That is because judging form the things mentioned on the SOTG and also the things mentioned on the forums a lot of times it puzzles me not to see anything regarding:

-greater marks made baseline or merged with staff mastery
-blood magic trait rework and siphon scaling with healing power
-healing your main HP bar while in DS in some way
-improved cast time on CC(minions were mentioned specifically):
*dark pact – single target immobilize, 25 second cd, >>>1<<< second cast time
*golem charge – A. I. controlled aoe knockdown, 40 second CD, >>>3/4<<< second cast time
*spinal shivers – single target boon hate, 20 second CD, >>>>>>1,25<<<<<< second cast time, I REPEAT, 1,25 SECOND CAST TIME ON A SINGLE TARGET, BOON HATING 20 SECOND CD ABILITY!!!!
-Proper rework of our stunbreakers

I don’t remember what else was mentioned but I got the feeling I missed something, hmmm.

Negating this wall’s effects is way easier than line of warding in pvp. You can simply just dodge through it.
I believe it’s gonna be way better than line of warding in pve though, the duration is almost twice as much as line of warding and mobs don’t know how to dodge through a wall

These leaks however awesome, just don’t read like they are real. The first big red flag I’m seeing is that about 80-90% of the notes are buffs in one way or another, and that is not the way Anet has proven that they balance their game. The second is that it is not even in their style of writing. I may be wrong, and in being wrong will be happy to play with the new toys they have given us, but I’m not holding my breath.

Preacher

ah didnt know you could dodge it, anyway its not OP, but will still be a funny tool to drop in WvW, i bet not many ppl in a zerg will be smart enough to dodge, put stability, or else; at least it could be a good way to split the zerg and kill those left behind / out.

I’ve been asking for a utility necro skill that causes fear. I’m very hopeful that the spectral wall is true and I’ll add it to my bar for sure!

One thing that noone seems to touch, CB is getting a nerf… The only ability that counters the 10 seconds of “i dont need skill i have all boons” Save yourselves (up to 30 with lyssa runes and boon duration). If anything shouldnt it be normalized with how steals work to corrupt for full duration of the boon applied?

Andele.1306:

One thing that noone seems to touch, CB is getting a nerf… The only ability that counters the 10 seconds of “i dont need skill i have all boons” Save yourselves (up to 30 with lyssa runes and boon duration). If anything shouldnt it be normalized with how steals work to corrupt for full duration of the boon applied?

I didn’t touch this because I won’t want to rant anymore. They’re not helping MM due to the fact that it “can 1v1 well”, in which every other aspect its useless, and also in 1v1 if they can avoid ccs easily or have any aoe you’re also screwed, but also now they add a new profession that punishes movement… Kind like dumb minions constantly chasing someone? Aside from pushing them to the abyss, now Corrupt Boon has the wonderful taste of RNG. Will it corrupt stability or is RNG going to kitten me? Awesome design.

its not about rng, it should works like cleansing, so it corrupts last boon applied, its probably based on a stack, when you remove a boon/condition it works “last in, first out”.

New Grandmaster trait – Deathly Perception: You have a 50% greater critical chance while in Death Shroud.

How many times did i tell “you guys” (as in about 200 people that kept going into curses – but we need precision !), for glass cannoning you go into Soul Reaping and Spite not Curses… we have enough precision regardless…

The fact we have a bit of power related bonuses in curses means that they were placed there for hybrid builds to function…

But noooooooo… I said DS 1 should be the auto-attack for a glass cannon build, but noooooooo… I told you all to play the necromancer more or less as intended, but nooooo…
Who’s laughing now eh ?!

PS: sorry i had to say it, had to get it out of my system, it’s been on my mind ever since i first read the patch notes…