Guild Wars 2

What Necro is supposed to do is keep its damage rate up for a long time where other professions with spike damage find themselves having to break away more often. In theory, it should all average out to equal dps.

in theory

However, group buffs, finishers and other ways to modify dps by reducing the need for spike damagers to break off or have crazy multipliers on the spike damage screw with the balance.

Necro has more burst and less sustained damage though. :P

spoj.9672:

Necro has more burst and less sustained damage though. :P

Sorry, little confused, but how does necro have more burst that sustained? Due to the wells?

Necros sustained damage is one of the lowest in the game. But a necro using locust swarm > reapers touch > tainted shackles > WoS > WoC > Lich is very good burst. Its an incredibly frontloaded rotation. If you take out staff ele and icebow i believe its the highest burst in the game. Thats for about 10 seconds atleast. Some of the other classes might catch up once your wells run out and you are just spamming lich auto.

If you are talking about 3 second or less burst (PvP style burst) then obviously necro doesnt have it very good. But in PvE good burst is considered in a time frame of around 5-15 seconds.

spoj.9672:

Necros sustained damage is one of the lowest in the game. But a necro using locust swarm > reapers touch > tainted shackles > WoS > WoC > Lich is very good burst. Its an incredibly frontloaded rotation. If you take out staff ele and icebow i believe its the highest burst in the game. Thats for about 10 seconds atleast. Some of the other classes might catch up once your wells run out and you are just spamming lich auto.

If you are talking about 3 second or less burst (PvP style burst) then obviously necro doesnt have it very good. But in PvE good burst is considered in a time frame of around 5-15 seconds.

OK just wanted to make sure I was understanding correctly. Most bosses dont last longer than 10-30 seconds in Pve though Correct? So if its one of the longer boss fights, coe or hotw, i can see this being a problem, but in COF, AC, SE, CM, boss fights with a good party should melt in those 10 seconds of burst? It just seems that in some of the faster dungeons in a good dps group, necros could do….acceptably?

I have always been of the opinion that Necro needs to put out more weakness and chill. Sure as a class we can’t aegis or block or dodge, but we have good health pools and DS and we are a condition heavy class so lets use that to mitigate what people can do to us and our party.

Spite Changes:
Chill of Death: Move to Adept
Spiteful Renewal: Move to Master add effect – Apply chill to weapon for 3 sec on critical strike. CD: 10 sec
Siphoned Power: AOE Allie
Spiteful Talisman: Move to Death Magic Adept
Signet Mastery: Move to Adept
Replace GM (Signet Mastery): When chill is applied while wielding a dagger grant Fury (8 sec) & Might 3 (25 sec) CD: 25 sec

Curses Changes:
Reapers Precision: Move to Blood Magic – Combine with Deathly Invigoration
Lingering Curse: Move to Master
Replace GM (Lingering Curse): If target has X stack of condition(s) the next condition applied by the Necro will apply <insert fancy spell name> to target enemy. Target receives 5% extra damage from all sources. (Stacks in duration) Lasts: 5 sec CD: 10

Death Magic Changes:
Shrouded Removal: Combine with Speed of Shadows
Reapers Protection: Add effect – Apply Protection for 5 sec
Greater Marks: (Make Unblockable baseline) Add new effect – When blind and chill have been applied on target enemy <insert fancy spell name> is cast causing pulsating damage for X sec which improves allies (170) Power & (170) Condition Damage. Damage. Lasts: 5 sec Pulses: 1 sec Buff Lasts: 60 sec CD: 100 sec (Buff is applied to players who were in the pulse)
Death Nova: Add effect – Creates Well of Power

Blood Magic Changes:
Vampiric: Combine Vampiric Precision into this trait
Replace Vampiric Precision: When life is stolen more than X times from one enemy gain Protection (5 sec). CD: 15
Vampiric Rituals: Add Cripple effect
Deathly Invigoration: Add Reapers Precision

Soul Reaping Changes:
Strength of Undeath: Buff to 10% Damage Increase
Foot in the Grave: Make baseline (Tweak CD so it’s not OP)
Replace GM (Foot in the Grave): Pulse a fog (Radius: 600) Buff Allies: 170 Power 170 Precision while in Death Shroud

Darwec.3784:

spoj.9672:

Necros sustained damage is one of the lowest in the game. But a necro using locust swarm > reapers touch > tainted shackles > WoS > WoC > Lich is very good burst. Its an incredibly frontloaded rotation. If you take out staff ele and icebow i believe its the highest burst in the game. Thats for about 10 seconds atleast. Some of the other classes might catch up once your wells run out and you are just spamming lich auto.

If you are talking about 3 second or less burst (PvP style burst) then obviously necro doesnt have it very good. But in PvE good burst is considered in a time frame of around 5-15 seconds.

OK just wanted to make sure I was understanding correctly. Most bosses dont last longer than 10-30 seconds in Pve though Correct? So if its one of the longer boss fights, coe or hotw, i can see this being a problem, but in COF, AC, SE, CM, boss fights with a good party should melt in those 10 seconds of burst? It just seems that in some of the faster dungeons in a good dps group, necros could do….acceptably?

Yeah the problem is right now you need party slots for buffers and utility classes. Then the rest of the party goes dps. This means 1 thief, 1 warrior and atleast 1 or 2 eles. Then the other slot is either mesmer/guard or another ele. And with conjures and icebows as they are there is no justification for a necro. Especially when the eles can also contribute to buffing and group defence. There simply isnt space in a group for a mediocre dps leech class. Even if they nerf icebow into the ground people will still want staff eles. Giving 1 out of 2 eles up for a necro is not going to be something people will be ok with. If necro had a bit more to offer in addition to burst then maybe they would be more open to it.

Ragnar.1546:

Spiteful Renewal: Remove & Replace with …

We get a really nice sustain trait for once and you want to toss it. lol

Wow, Ragnar, nice buffs, though I, too, cherish the unreleased spiteful renewal.

Samhayn.2385:

I have always been of the opinion that Necro needs to put out more weakness and chill. Sure as a class we can’t aegis or block or dodge, but we have good health pools and DS and we are a condition heavy class so lets use that to mitigate what people can do to us and our party.

This. More on demand blinds would also be nice.

Roe.3679:

Samhayn.2385:

I have always been of the opinion that Necro needs to put out more weakness and chill. Sure as a class we can’t aegis or block or dodge, but we have good health pools and DS and we are a condition heavy class so lets use that to mitigate what people can do to us and our party.

This. More on demand blinds would also be nice.

You already get chill and blind from well of darkness, along with upcoming added vuln. And from staff. Aoe weakness from staff and dagger offhand? So its a decent amount. You just kind of have to pick between bringing chill or bringing weakness. Currently you can bring lots of weakeness from DS’ing but i think thats getting nerfed? So maybe…they shouldnt nerf that?

flow.6043:

Ragnar.1546:

Spiteful Renewal: Remove & Replace with …

We get a really nice sustain trait for once and you want to toss it. lol

Fixed.

Nerf to FITG has hurt necros too much.

Necros have no mobility options (leaps/evades/blocks/teleports) to get out of harms way, with smart play fitg used to be the safe haven to escape “pinball” mode. The buff to give it stun break is only part of the cure as you cannot use it to move anywhere without getting stunned again.

Having stability available for shroud was quite balanced for necro and I dont feel deserved nerfing along with general stability nerf. It was one ability we had to stand on our feet and try and do something.

Options to restore some survivability/self control in shroud are possibly a block, or for dark path to be a ground targetted teleport to use as escape.

edit: maybe add “evade” or “block” while doing life transfer? Powerful but scales better against multiple enemies than regular shroud and may let us stand on our feet in cc storm while using an ability which is on a fairly long cooldown instead of blowing it.

spoj.9672:

flow.6043:

Yeah, Weakening Shroud bums me out too especially after the community had to argue the very same issue last time they wanted to make it a regular Enfeebling Blood.
And the sad thing is, some necros will even consider this a buff.

spoj.9672:

I understand the devs want to use real weapon skills on DS entry so they benefit from weapon skill reduction.

Honestly, I don’t understand this. This might make sense in general but not when skills are already time gated by the cooldown of Death Shroud. You just lose control over your abilities because you won’t be able to tell when the cd is ready.
Also, I’m sure that even if you’ll have Quickening Thirst or Axe Traing (jk, nobody will use them) the average “cooldown” by simply using Death Shroud as usual will be somewhere around 25 seconds anyway.
But if you ever need to go into DS more frequently because you need to defend yourself you’ll not only lose out on the aoe weakness for defense but the actual time passing between procs would probably double to somewhere between 30-60 seconds.

Exactly. It just doesnt make sense on the necro. Its fine on the other classes. But with DS its just a build hindrance.

Just to add to this:

Mark of Evasion: 10 sec cd, not affected by Staff Mastery.

Well, there it is, the one trait where it would make sense to use the actual weapon skill, Mark of Blood.
But no, this gets almost twice the cooldown, minus 1 stack of bleeding in WvW and PvE, and it’s also limited by your endurance bar.
Seriously, even if this was considered too strong without a cooldown (which it isn’t), now you’d have to go with the entire Blood Magic line to get this trait which means you’re giving up a lot of damage just for picking this line over Spite, Curses or Soul Reaping.

Meanwhile in a parallel universe, aka engi-land:
Evasive Powder Keg: no cooldown, and a new gm trait turns it into a blast finisher.
Whaaaat?!

Kilger.5490:

Nerf to FITG has hurt necros too much.

You mean the very significant buff to FitG? Because it is significantly better now than it ever has been since Shade was nerfed to create it.

FotG should at least give stab on exit as well being a break stun on entrance is not enough especially with just 1 stack. I’m holding back my suggestions simply because they follow the removal of the second HP DS but I know it’s stupid… Dhuumfire will depend on how many stacks it applies per hit it should definitely not be 1 or 2, Bloodthirst need to be merged with Vampiric Precision,new adept trait incoming bleeding heals you for a small amount, Deathly Invigoration should transfer your siphon to allies in 600 radius,all self healing need to work in DS including regen(I feel like posting DS as bug in the Bug section of the forums).

Keep Parasitic Contagion in Curses it goes with it but it should drop that master tier at 8%(working in DS) to replace useless Reaper’s Precision,new GM trait increasing crit damage based on conditions on foes, Lingering is toxic don’t make base conditions weak for the sake of this trait make it give AoE buff of +180 condition damage 600 radius(necro deserves it),reduce Scepter CD by 20% and increased all conditions duration by 33%. Remove ICD on Mark of Evasion.

Again I worry of how deep into the profession they will open themselves…

Yes vamp precision and bloodthirst need to be one trait, please.

Bhawb.7408:

Kilger.5490:

Nerf to FITG has hurt necros too much.

You mean the very significant buff to FitG? Because it is significantly better now than it ever has been since Shade was nerfed to create it.

It’s honestly not.

I’ve used the trait since the start on the game, and though I was initially pretty happy about the stun break, I still think it’s worse now then it was pre stability nerf.

It still works for shroud stomping 1v1, but outside of that the change hurt a fair bit.

My suggestion was just make that 1 stack of stability pulse every 3-5 seconds, which would make it much better in a sustained fight, while not being overbearing due to the nerf.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration Raine Avina (The Gates Assassin.9827).

Here is my reading of the traits rework.

• General principle #1 Rework effects that work against our class mechanic such as heal upon entering DS.
• General principle #2 Don’t include ICD on skill that inherit DS CD.
• General principle #3 Moving traits between Adept/Master/Grand Master ask for trait rework.

Spite

• Spiteful Renewal -> Change it to grant LF. (General principle #1)
• Siphoned Power -> As 2 stacks of Might don’t feel like a minor GM trait, I’d suggest to reduce the ICD. Maybe having it only in DS (1stack per hit no ICD) could be encouraging class mechanic plays.
• Spiteful Talisman -> Because it’s so easy to have boons, i’d suggest 10% more dmg.
• Axe training -> This version is weaker than the current one -> revert.
• Unholy Feast -> Remove the ICD even if it means the skill do less dmg. (General principle #2)

Curse

• Toxic Landing -> Honestly, any non corruption skill may work, but CPC is weakening us for 6sec wich prevent to get OOC.
• Weakening Shroud -> 1stack of bleed rather than 2, but no ICD. (General principle #2)
• Reaper’s Precision -> This skill deserve to be buff in order to feat a Master slot. (General principle #3)
• Terror -> This skill deserve to be buff in order to feat a Grand Master slot. (General principle #3)

Death Magic

• Soul comprehension -> Will nearby death grant LF will in DS someday? If not, change this trait. (General principle #1)

Blood Magic

• Ritual of life -> Will the initial heal work on the target? If not, add as much rez speed as you like, this will still be weak mostly since WoP regen has been cut in duration.
• Transfusion -> This skill deserve to be buff in order to feat a Master slot. (General principle #3) & (General principle #1)
• Vampiric Precision -> This skill deserve to be buff in order to feat a Master slot. (General principle #3)
• Deathly Invigoration -> This skill deserve to be buff in order to feat a Grand Master slot. (General principle #3) & (General principle #1)

The rework for all classes is a tremendous amount of work. Congrats to you ANet (should I say NCsoft?). It’s going to be refreshing when all those changes hit live.

War Mourner.5168:

Bhawb.7408:

Kilger.5490:

Nerf to FITG has hurt necros too much.

You mean the very significant buff to FitG? Because it is significantly better now than it ever has been since Shade was nerfed to create it.

It’s honestly not.

I’ve used the trait since the start on the game, and though I was initially pretty happy about the stun break, I still think it’s worse now then it was pre stability nerf.

It still works for shroud stomping 1v1, but outside of that the change hurt a fair bit.

My suggestion was just make that 1 stack of stability pulse every 3-5 seconds, which would make it much better in a sustained fight, while not being overbearing due to the nerf.

Now it’s reactive instead of predictive. It’s obviously subjective based on how you value the different tools. I feel it’s better now, too.

I wouldn’t mind if the Ritual of Life change is put in effect. I mean, getting a free Well of Blood just by quickly touching a downed ally seems pretty sweet in WvW. Rallybots are our best friends suddenly! /awaits the nerf bat assault of doom

splatticus.1278:

I wouldn’t mind if the Ritual of Life change is put in effect. I mean, getting a free Well of Blood just by quickly touching a downed ally seems pretty sweet in WvW. Rallybots are our best friends suddenly! /awaits the nerf bat assault of doom

You realize you can already do this right? The only change to the trait is the added 10% revive speed. It still has a cooldown and it will still have the coldown in HoT.

magicsparadise.4871:

General principle #1 Rework effects that work against our class mechanic such as heal upon entering DS.

Instead of changing traits to accommodate the fact that heals don’t work in DS they should rework DS to allow heals and keept the healing traits (which we desperately need) as they are.

magicsparadise.4871:

General principle #2 Don’t include ICD on skill that inherit DS CD.

Yup.

magicsparadise.4871:

General principle #3 Moving traits between Adept/Master/Grand Master ask for trait rework.
…
Reaper’s Precision -> This skill deserve to be buff in order to feat a Master slot. (General principle #3)
Terror -> This skill deserve to be buff in order to feat a Grand Master slot. (General principle #3)

The thing is, with the new system you no longer have to make a bigger point investment to reach the end of a trait line. You get the entire line anyway so assuming gm>master>adept is actually irrelevant.
What you really need to think about is which 3 traits should compete for the same spot, and what builds should or shouldn’t be possible when doing so.
For example: Reaper’s Precision – Path of Corruption – Banshee’s Wail.
No one in their right mind would ever pick Reaper’s Precision over the other two. Maybe if you play PvE and don’t have a warhorn, but there’s never a shortage of life force in PvE. Either way, Reaper’s Precision is just a waste of space.

magicsparadise.4871:

Soul comprehension -> Will nearby death grant LF will in DS someday? If not, change this trait. (General principle #1)

It does, lf regen always works the same way when you’re in DS.
However, 2% extra lf for a nearby death is just pathetic, so this one needs to be changed anyway.

flow.6043:

The thing is, with the new system you no longer have to make a bigger point investment to reach the end of a trait line.

I’m not sure enough to bet on that. Admitting I’m wrong, General principle #3 is somehow obsolete.

flow.6043:

magicsparadise.4871:

Soul comprehension -> Will nearby death grant LF will in DS someday? If not, change this trait. (General principle #1)

It does, lf regen always works the same way when you’re in DS.
However, 2% extra lf for a nearby death is just pathetic, so this one needs to be changed anyway.

I’m sorry but I just double checked it and you literally get no(0%) LF from nearby death will in DS. This is as simple as that.

magicsparadise.4871:

I’m sorry but I just double checked it and you literally get no(0%) LF from nearby death will in DS. This is as simple as that.

Wow, just checked it myself, I never even noticed that you don’t get any life force at all.
How is this even possible? Must be a bug.
You don’t even get the animation with the green bubble floating towards you.

It’s been core functionality of Life Force & Death Shroud since the game’s release. If you want Life Force from a mob, you have to leave Death Shroud before it dies.

flow.6043:

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sagat.3285:

Let signet’s passive work in DS

I read this and immediately said “No…It can’t be…They have to work in DS…” Tried it. Wow. Signets don’t work in DS.

Haha, it’s fun when an outsider comes to the necro forum and discovers some of the 3 year old skeletons in our basement.

Aktium.9506:

splatticus.1278:

I wouldn’t mind if the Ritual of Life change is put in effect. I mean, getting a free Well of Blood just by quickly touching a downed ally seems pretty sweet in WvW. Rallybots are our best friends suddenly! /awaits the nerf bat assault of doom

You realize you can already do this right? The only change to the trait is the added 10% revive speed. It still has a cooldown and it will still have the coldown in HoT.

They said during the stream that they’re changing it so the well spawns when you start reviving, meaning that you can simply press your interact key to revive for half a second to get a free well and then cancel and carry on with your business. Currently you have to go through the whole reviving process for it to spawn. That is quite the difference, especially with the number of necros potentially using it in a typical zerg situation.

splatticus.1278:

Aktium.9506:

splatticus.1278:

I wouldn’t mind if the Ritual of Life change is put in effect. I mean, getting a free Well of Blood just by quickly touching a downed ally seems pretty sweet in WvW. Rallybots are our best friends suddenly! /awaits the nerf bat assault of doom

You realize you can already do this right? The only change to the trait is the added 10% revive speed. It still has a cooldown and it will still have the coldown in HoT.

They said during the stream that they’re changing it so the well spawns when you start reviving, meaning that you can simply press your interact key to revive for half a second to get a free well and then cancel and carry on with your business. Currently you have to go through the whole reviving process for it to spawn. That is quite the difference, especially with the number of necros potentially using it in a typical zerg situation.

Still not that strong. It will still have 40s(32 traited) cooldown and allies only get the healing ticks, not the big heal. 280×5 isn’t exactly a whole lot. It isn’t bad either but it won’t change a lot. Over a 1min period it’s about the same amount of healing that allies will get from an Ele giving allies Soothing Mist passively just by attuning to water. It will just solidify Necro’s place in the WvW meta with Wells becoming ranged by default opening up a slot for Ritual of Life.

So I’ve just listened to the recent BoC podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_js1MvyJG0

I know it’s been posted here and in other threads a thousand times already, but I’ll just say it here again as a direct response to the video:

Lingering Curse should not have +100% condition duration.

Whenever they discussed a trait in the podcast they where saying something along the lines of “…and if you have Lingering Curse it will be even more amazing!” or “… but if this was changed then it would be overpowered because with Lingering Curse it would double…”.
Seriously, the cause or obstacle to any meaningful balance change can’t be a trait in Curses that simply doubles everything.
For example, by now there’ve been countless people supporting the idea of Terror becoming a merged minor trait. So when the argument against that is “…but Lingering Curse!” then guess which side of it is the real culprit: Lingering Curse, without a doubt.

Also, why would it have +100% anyway if even within the same line you have another condi duration modifier as a minor trait: Hemophilia. Then you can have duration extensions on runes or sigil, and let’s not forget Master of Terror.
So really, 100% doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

Also, for PvE builds LC is actually a big nerf because you could max bleeding durations easily with food and gear anyway. But with this change you completely lose out on the modified base durations and get your total bleed duration on scepter cut back from 14 seconds to 10 seconds.

And let’s not forget, there’s the whole issue of power builds not having a proper grandmaster option. So something needs to be done here anyway. And the solution that makes the most sense to me would be merging Terror with the +2% crit chance for condis to make room for a power gm and drastically reduce the duration buff (30%) on LC but include the extended base durations on scepter.

flow.6043:

So I’ve just listened to the recent BoC podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_js1MvyJG0

I know it’s been posted here and in other threads a thousand times already, but I’ll just say it here again as a direct response to the video:

Lingering Curse should not have +100% condition duration.

Whenever they discussed a trait in the podcast they where saying something along the lines of “…and if you have Lingering Curse it will be even more amazing!” or “… but if this was changed then it would be overpowered because with Lingering Curse it would double…”.
Seriously, the cause or obstical to any meaningful balance change can’t be a trait in Curses that simply doubles everything.
For example, by now there’ve been countless people supporting the idea of Terror becoming a merged minor trait. So when the argument against that is “…but Lingering Curse!” then guess which side of it is the real culprit: Lingering Curse, without a doubt.

Also, why would it have +100% anyway if even within the same line you have another condi duration modifier as a minor trait: Hemophilia. Then you can have duration extensions on runes or sigil, and let’s not forget Master of Terror.
So really, 100% doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

Also, for PvE builds LC is actually a big nerf because you could max bleeding durations easily with food and gear anyway. But with this change you completely lose out on the modified base durations and get your total bleed duration on scepter cut back from 14 seconds to 10 seconds.

And let’s not forget, there’s the whole issue of power builds not having a proper grandmaster option. So something needs to be done here anyway. And the solution that makes the most sense to me would be merging Terror with the +2% crit chance for condis to make room for a power gm and drastically reduce the duration buff (30%) on LC but include the extended base durations on scepter.

I sort of agree, and I sort of don’t. You make a great point which may deserve its own thread entirely, but lingering curses as it stands now is so strong and we need strong traits. I think it’s more realistic to balance/replace the other traits instead. Remove master of terror – it’s peanuts compared to lingering curses. hemophilia may still apply to bleeds, too.

Instead of having condition duration food you can have precision food with more on crit effects, so would t the change there be more of a push? Serious question, I’m not as well versed in pve.

For pvp, having weakness, chill, poison, fear, slow – everything – lasting twice is a huge buff in defense.

I see the resemblance to dhuumfire, though….

flow.6043:

magicsparadise.4871:

I’m sorry but I just double checked it and you literally get no(0%) LF from nearby death will in DS. This is as simple as that.

Wow, just checked it myself, I never even noticed that you don’t get any life force at all.
How is this even possible? Must be a bug.
You don’t even get the animation with the green bubble floating towards you.

This has always been the case, iirc. Only Life Transfer gains LF while in DS. Prevents players from hanging out there too long.

It would be nice, though, if deaths and heals had some small restoration of health while in DS so Necro
(A) does not miss out completely on group heals,
(B) can tell when a group heal goes off by the green numbers however small they may be (1% or 2% actual heal?)
© deaths actually contribute to health even if not to LF

From article in

Tentonhammer

_When mesmers specialize in chronomancy they’ll gain access to a new effect called alacrity. This effect functions as the inverse of chill and is able to reduce the cooldowns on your skills (as opposed to chill which elongates them). _

Sounds like Alacrity is GW2 version of GW1 Necro skill Blood is Power

Roe.3679:

I see the resemblance to dhuumfire, though….

I guarantee that a +100% trait will be even more op than Dhuumfire was back when it was first released.

Roe.3679:

I think it’s more realistic to balance/replace the other traits instead.

Keep in mind that this would include a lot of traits that affect power builds as well, like all the vulnerability traits in Spite for example. If the stacks and duration of them is balanced to include Lingering Curse you’d just end up with way to little with a power build where you could actually make much better use of vuln stacking.

Roe.3679:

Remove master of terror – it’s peanuts compared to lingering curses.

It really is, but that just further proves my point.
LC completely invalidates the existence of MoT, was it not for the fact that you can’t have +100% when you pick Terror in the Curses gm slot.
And MoT is already somewhat overshadowed by Vital Persistance and Spectral Mastery. So out of those 3 traits Master of Terror is apparently supposed to be the offensive option, but +100% on all durations easily beats +50% on fears and some damage to go with it.

Roe.3679:

For pvp, having weakness, chill, poison, fear, slow – everything – lasting twice is a huge buff in defense.

The thing is, the real defensive option in Curses should be Parasitic Contagion. But yeah, if you double every defensive condition you put out you probably end up being more difficult to kill than with some extra healing.

Roe.3679:

Instead of having condition duration food you can have precision food with more on crit effects, so would t the change there be more of a push? Serious question, I’m not as well versed in pve.

If you insta-max out all durations with a single trait then yes, you don’t need duration food anymore and can go with something different. Other than that, +40% from food beats everything else for condition builds easily.
And the fact remains that the new Lingering Curse would no longer have the modified base durations.

Death Shiver and Spectral Mastery should swap places, they are in the wrong lines in my opinion.

Anchoku.8142:

flow.6043:

Wow, just checked it myself, I never even noticed that you don’t get any life force at all.
How is this even possible? Must be a bug.
You don’t even get the animation with the green bubble floating towards you.

This has always been the case, iirc. Only Life Transfer gains LF while in DS. Prevents players from hanging out there too long.

Litterally every other method of generating life force works in DS.

Also, let’s assume you could get the life force from nearby deaths while in Shroud. If you really wanted to stay in DS indefinitely you would need Vital Persistance, at least 1 death every 5 seconds to counteract natural degeneration and take no damage at all during that time. The only place where there’s even a chance of that happening is in PvE. But in PvE staying in DS that long isn’t optimal for dps and you don’t have a need for extra life force regeneration anyway because it’s so easy (which is probably why I never noticed this).

Rirgul.5302:

Death Shiver and Spectral Mastery should swap places, they are in the wrong lines in my opinion.

I disagree. Spite lacked vuln traits until now. And spectral skills are about life force management. Which is the soul reaping line.

flow.6043:

So I’ve just listened to the recent BoC podcast:

Lingering Curse should not have +100% condition
.
Seriously, the cause or obstacle to any meaningful balance change can’t be a trait in Curses that simply doubles everything

Agreed. Lingering curse is a boring, numbers based, trait that just holds necromancers back. Big numbers seem good, but every condition will have its baseline duration reduced to balance it.

We should get, as a build defining grandmaster, a trait that actually does something new and interesting instead of just increasing numbers. The other two traits accomplish this even if both require you to take condition damage on your gear.

Replace lingering curse with withering precision, then balance the condition duration numbers on weapons to compensate for the nerf to condition duration that comes from not having stats anymore.

Whatever you think Lingering Curse’s problem is does not change the fact I would never take scepter without it.

A better path might be to have scepter’s stat progression happen gradually with investment in Curses and save something special for the GM.

No Terror will be so rough on pvp/wvw buids, and it still irks me to no end that they take a main trait for condi builds and throw it into a grandmaster without a buff, where it conflicts with other needed condi traits. Then you look at engies and mesmers, their changes, and their spec, and you realize, that you forgot the devs CLEARLY favor certain classes and dislike necros. Stil think they don’t give 2 craps.

Or just buff scepter durations by 100%.

That way scepter users get a usable weapon (seriously, scepter is middling as a condtiin weapon) and there’s not a 100% trait out there lurking around nerfing DS#3 and Dhuumfire.

Curses is tied exceptionaly strongly to scepter because Necro has no other high dps condi weapons. This is why Terror is such a hard sell. Really, the Curses line is wasteful for those running dagger and looks unappealing just to get Terror.

Traiting Curses instead of another line when not using scepter is a bad deal.

If Necro had another condi weapon, though…

nekretaal.6485:

Lingering curse is a boring, numbers based, trait that just holds necromancers back.
…
We should get, as a build defining grandmaster, a trait that actually does something new and interesting instead of just increasing numbers. The other two traits accomplish this even if both require you to take condition damage on your gear.

Replace lingering curse with withering precision

I think the first priority should be to add a grandmaster that power builds can use.

Withering Precision simply doesn’t meet that job requirement. In fact, I don’t know why anyone would want this trait, it was never good and now you can get Parasitic Contagion which is a way better defensive trait than a single target weakness proc.

Anyway, I wouldn’t want to get rid of Lingering Curse entirely, just bring it down enough.

A thought exercise:
3 traits in the same line and tier are all equally good if they are all viable choices or even the optimal choice depending on the kind of build you’re running.
With +100% duration Lingering Curse is just too strong to even consider any of the alternatives. On the other hand, if it had no extra duration at all and just the 150 condi dmg buff it would be too weak. Therefore the sweetspot for the duration boost must be somewhere between zero and 100.
Now, would you take it if it was 10%? No. 20%? Maybe. 30%? Probably. 40%? Definitely.
Then you have to check with other traits and how they would synnergize. You still want to accomodate the possibility that someone might want Master of Terror, runes or sigils with duration extensions or food buffs without breaching the 100% duration cap (I know there’s chatter about the cap being raised but I don’t belive it).
Now combine that and think about what a reasonable duration buff for Lingering Curse would be: somewhere between 20 and 35%, I think.

Anchoku.8142:

Whatever you think Lingering Curse’s problem is does not change the fact I would never take scepter without it.

I’m assuming you mean for PvE?
There’s no reason to get rid of the extended scepter base durations on Lingering Curse. Also, like mentioned above, you can max your durations by other means than this trait.

Anchoku.8142:

Curses is tied exceptionaly strongly to scepter because Necro has no other high dps condi weapons.

That’s not true. Staff, DS and gear related stuff can pump out just as much condi pressure.
Also, Lingering Curse is literally the only scepter trait, so saying the entire line is tied to it might be a far stretch.

I’m mostly concerned that 100% duration lingering curse, even if people do not use it, will result in duration nerfs for focus chill, Dagger weakness, Dhuumfire, and Death shroud fear, chill, and torment.

If Scepter needs longer condition duration on it to be viable, give the scepter weapon skills longer condition duration!

Don’t punish them by denying them a grandmaster, making them take a grandmaster that only serves to make an unviable weapon viable.

Grandmaster traits are build defining: they should do something, not just tweak numbers.

Flow, I like Lingering Curse but wish some of the stat bonus was spread over minor traits so I do not feel like I have to take the GM to run scepter. I feel that way about all the weapon traits on all professions.

Regarding what I perceive as a very tight tie between Curses and scepter, conditions fall into two camps, CC and dps. Scepter far outstrips any other condition dps Necro has access to. Terror is effectively spike damage. Dhuumfire has an ICD right now that is longish. Staff has low bleed stacks and a long CD on poison and fear. War horn has the only other condi dps.

Some traits add condition damage but scepter is the only tool capable of stacking high bleed damage. Parasitic Contagion requires bleed, poison, burning, and fear to work well, too.

The Curses line begs for a condition build and no condition damage build works well without scepter.

War Mourner.5168:

Bhawb.7408:

Kilger.5490:

Nerf to FITG has hurt necros too much.

You mean the very significant buff to FitG? Because it is significantly better now than it ever has been since Shade was nerfed to create it.

It’s honestly not.

I’ve used the trait since the start on the game, and though I was initially pretty happy about the stun break, I still think it’s worse now then it was pre stability nerf.

It still works for shroud stomping 1v1, but outside of that the change hurt a fair bit.

My suggestion was just make that 1 stack of stability pulse every 3-5 seconds, which would make it much better in a sustained fight, while not being overbearing due to the nerf.

Ya this. Its most definately worse. In theory it sounds great but its not nearly as good as having on-demand stability to get some tactical movement or cast a clinch heal or well. We have lots of stun breaks. We had only one good stability outside of a shape changing elite, and when well timed made up for lots of class deficiencies with regards to other classes (evades, blocks, leaps).

The synergy it has is not as powerful either, I dont want to wait until I need a stun break to use shroud whereas stability was quite welcome. 1 stack is too fleeting.

However per my previous post I’m not looking to revert it, just compensate those of us that used fitg for pre-emptive capability with something else like a block or evade somewhere in our “toolkit”.

Anchoku.8142:

The Curses line begs for a condition build and no condition damage build works well without scepter.

I disagree :P
If you think about it, the only thing that makes the scepter unique is the auto attack. And one sequence of applying 2 stacks of bleeding and poison takes 3 seconds. Of course it stacks rather high over a longer period of time but not any higher than you can get by burst stacking with other weapons and sigils.

Anyway, I don’t want to derail the discussion too much from the traits, so I’ll just say that Curses always has been a trait line that was versatile enough to make it a viable pick for almost every type of build.

@flow: Pretty sure those that want Withering Precision (including myself) do not want the version that is on live. I’d vastly prefer to see launch version come back in (chance on crit, short-ish duration, no ICD).

We really need more Weakness application.

A version without icd would be acceptable, but not in the grandmaster tier. Perhaps a replacement for Reaper’s Precision, or a combined trait even?
Something like: 33% chance on crit to inflict 1 sec of weakness and generate 1 % lf.

flow.6043:

A version without icd would be acceptable, but not in the grandmaster tier. Perhaps a replacement for Reaper’s Precision, or a combined trait even?
Something like: 33% chance on crit to inflict 1 sec of weakness and generate 1 % lf.

Replacing Reaper’s Precision I like. It could also work at Grandmaster if we got something like “your endurance regeneration in increased by 20% for each foe you have weakened” on it as well.