Guild Wars 2

During the SotG livestream, anet admits to the public that dhumfire terror builds have too much condition pressure available. One of the ways they would like to fx this is to nerf terror; reducing its damage OR making it a grandmaster trait.

Now don’t get me wrong, the 30/30/10 build does indeed have insane burst potential, but before nerfing terror, look at the other side of the story. NOT EVERYONE USES DUMBFIRE. I know right? Mind blown.

I’ve been running a 0/30/20/0/20 terrormancer using CARRION gear long before this patch came out. What changes did I make to my build? Took epidemic off and swapped it to spectral wall.

My main point is that my build is built around locking someone down while being capable of killing people on my own. Why I choose not to switch to the meta dhumfire build? Because I’m traited for spectral walk and wall. So, to nerf dhumfire, you nerf terror; something used in TONS of other builds. Idunno about you, but I don’t see many people running a different variety of dhumfire builds.

Of course, it depends how they nerf it, and how they compensate for the nerf. I agree the meta condition burst is over the top(even tho I have no problems with dealing with other necros for obvious reasons), but there is more than one side to every nerf you throw at us. You might make terror more unattractive to dumbfire necros, but you kill many more birds- er, undead birds with the same stone.

Instead of making this a rant thread, what other kinds of ways can we tone down the meta? If we MUST nerf terror, how about do we go around doing so? The ‘moving it to grandmaster line’ doesn’t sound too bad. Discuss.

Basically imo they shouldn’t have added dhuumfire. It was a bad idea. The condition spamming in pvp is just pathetic right now. Sadly they will never admit they have made a mistake by creating that trait, so they are going to nerf terror instead. Ofc they are going to overnerf it like they did with other things in this game.

Fjandi.2516:

Ofc they are going to overnerf it like they did with other things in this game.

THIS game?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter's_Boon_

I find, both playing as and playing against players with Dhuumfire and Terror, that it isn’t overpowered, especially when considering options against it.

To take Dhuumfire and fully benefit from Terror, you have to run 30/20/0/0/20. This means you have 0 points in either of the defensive trait lines. You’ve got the option to run several condition clears, but zero access to invulnerable frames or stealths. Essentially you’re running the berserker equivalent of condition damage.

You’ve got great offense, with a base, lets say, 1000 damage a second from a consistent application of bleeding and poison. Fears add 1200 dps, and in the span of 1 minute, you might get 6000 damage from fears if they don’t break them at all. Add in the burning at 50% uptime and that’s 4000 damage every 10 seconds. All in all, these numbers are not too out of line with what berserkers can output. I find it lower, especially since at it’s max, my condition damage build can do 5000 damage in 1 second, with a serious dropoff in sustained immediately after.

The balance comes in the fact that, just as a blind or weakness can seriously detriment a power build, there are an abundance of complete condition cleanses. From pets stealing conditions from rangers, elementalists able to clear themselves of dangerous conditions frequently with water attunement, necromancer skills that completely wipe themselves or allies of conditions, Thieves heals removing the major damaging conditions and stealthing them preventing targeted conditions from being applied, Guardians removing conditions from allies en masse… The list goes on and on, and by focusing so much on the core of this build, you allow yourself little room for defensive builds.

You get focused, you die.

It is a strong build to be sure. It is strong in the current meta because people are used to dealing with big numbers from direct damage, and avoiding those big ticket moves, they are not used to dealing with the big ticket condition spikes, and avoiding those. People do not run readily available condition cleanses even when the current meta (with Grenade Engies and these new Dhuumterror Necros) clearly calls for it.

Necromancers have been brought into line with the offensive abilities of other classes, and people are used to being scared of Mesmers, Thieves, and Warriors. They aren’t used to being scared of Necromancers, and since they don’t understand it, they say it’s overpowered. I can’t wait for a meta in which I have to be scared of every class. I dislike looking at Rangers and thinking “They’re going to be a pain to stomp.” instead of “I’ll need to play smart to beat this player.”

Alpha.1308:

Fjandi.2516:

Ofc they are going to overnerf it like they did with other things in this game.

THIS game?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Smiter's_Boon_

Holy nerfbats! Talk about over nerfing.

You brought it upon yourself.
Simply do not post builds and tips so good things can live longer.

Da Sonic.6521:

Necromancers have been brought into line with the offensive abilities of other classes, and people are used to being scared of Mesmers, Thieves, and Warriors. They aren’t used to being scared of Necromancers, and since they don’t understand it, they say it’s overpowered.

this^^

it’s funny how this kind of damage/CC combo is fine on other classes but it’s OP on necro because it’s new to them.

In any area of the game, I do not agree that it is overpowered. I find that we now have a possibility of doing good damage. What I do recognize and agree is that with symbol of paralyzation, and the increase in base fear duration, it is a bit much. What I think should happen is a revert back to base fear levels, and a removal of symbol of paralyzation effect to fear and TEST ( I cannot say this more. Test for an additional patch with these two minor changes). I think this would give an understanding if it is still overused, or too much. I don;t think terror/fear’s base was too much, nor do I think the addition of Dhuumfire + terror is too much. IT is the combination of Terror base increase, dhuumfire, + the sigil of paralysis, which should not work for fear.

It is obvious that they did overshoot slightly due to existing game mechanics that were not too much without our buffs. I think the buffs we got, outside of the fear base boost were totally needed, incuding dhuumfire and including the move of terror to the master tree.

That said, what I do not understand is if the Devs play the necro in multiple aspects of the game. The necro can finally roam in wvw and be useful, though if focus fired, in any build, they are done. There is no way to escape. Even if you pop DS use DS 5, and it goes off, they are immobile for 2 seconds, which is nothing to our slow moving kitten. So what do we have instead, the ability to lock people downin a fear, while doing semi-dps level condition damage.

Where I think the problem also lies, is in sPVP. If you have a sigil and certain builds, its too much, esp when you hvae multiple necros locking people down. However, if the devs overshoot with regard to nerfs, they will put the necro into a position where he is no longer played, and no longer viable.

Dredlord.8076:

Da Sonic.6521:

Necromancers have been brought into line with the offensive abilities of other classes, and people are used to being scared of Mesmers, Thieves, and Warriors. They aren’t used to being scared of Necromancers, and since they don’t understand it, they say it’s overpowered.

this^^

it’s funny how this kind of damage/CC combo is fine on other classes but it’s OP on necro because it’s new to them.

Everyone who says it is fine just doesn’t understand how much damage this really does and how little other classes can do about it.

And no, it would not be fine on other classes, but guess what… they don’t have that kind of condition pressure available. No class ever had up until now.

Also, it’s not just about the damage spike while fearing someone, it’s the fact that this:

Da Sonic.6521:

there are an abundance of complete condition cleanses.

..just isn’t true.
The problem isn’t solved by reducing fear durations.
Burning, bleeding and torment will still be on your opponent. If that was cleansed automatically at the end of fear, then yeah.. all this was is a 5-10k damage spike. But that isn’t the case, with all the other conditions (weakness, chill, cripple, immobilized…) other classes have to cover more cleansing spots than before.

@OreoWolf
The only one who suggested nerfing Terror in the SotG was Zombify, no one from anet ever said that.
Your arguments are perfectly reasonable though, nerfing Terror in favor of Dhuumfire is just limiting build diversity by forcing everyone to take up burning to compensate.
Dhuumfire needs to go.

Btw Gryph, the Sigil of Paralyzation was already fixed, and again… reducing fear durations won’t do anything.

flow.6043:

And no, it would not be fine on other classes, but guess what… they don’t have that kind of condition pressure available. No class ever had up until now.

Engineer.

Kravick.4906:

flow.6043:

And no, it would not be fine on other classes, but guess what… they don’t have that kind of condition pressure available. No class ever had up until now.

Engineer.

Yeah, if engineers had torment and fear+terror then people would complain about Incendiary Powder too… or the combination of it all.

flow.6043:

Kravick.4906:

flow.6043:

And no, it would not be fine on other classes, but guess what… they don’t have that kind of condition pressure available. No class ever had up until now.

Engineer.

Yeah, if engineers had torment and fear+terror then people would complain about Incendiary Powder too… or the combination of it all.

They were, or don’t you remember? The lack of fear+terror was made up for by having confusion and any where from 20-25 stacks of might. Do you know how hard those grenades hit for with 25 stacks of might?

I honestly think Flow is so godkitten biased against the class and the added benefits we got that he must play a mesmer. I just can’t see why you cannot support the buffs we got that have finaly made us A, a popular class, and B. dangerous. I don’t think we were as dangerous as you say we were pre-patch, as we were not needed in pve, nor were we outstanding in pvp or wvw. You seem so godkitten biased, and you obviously cannot see how the complexities of the situation: The combination of bleeds + poison and burning are exacerbated and more noticeable with the increased fear duration, as people need to clean fear and the added 2 conditions we got if that situation arises.

You just say nerf and give necros more defense because that seems to be the way YOU want the class to be, and some of us do not agree with you.

What i dont get is…

They add a new trait that applies burning right..? And then suddenly terror which has been in the game since release OP?! WHAT THE F anet?

People have been using terror since foreever, thats not the problem. The problem is dhuumfire and burning not working for necros… We already have strong condition builds with bleed, torment and terror… Fire makes it OP

Homonavn.6348:

What i dont get is…

They add a new trait that applies burning right..? And then suddenly terror which has been in the game since release OP?! WHAT THE F anet?

People have been using terror since foreever, thats not the problem. The problem is dhuumfire and burning not working for necros… We already have strong condition builds with bleed, torment and terror… Fire makes it OP

This is exactly why I’ll be very upset if they nerf terror because of what our “representative” says. Terror has been fine for months. If anything needs to be nerfed, its burning. Either take it away completely (preferable) or nerf its up time/cool down. No one asked for burning. We didn’t need burning. We asked for survivability so we could be the advertised attrition class. Not to be a condition burst class. Nerfing terror will destroy the other builds that rely on it. The ones that DON’T take Dumbfire.

Kravick.4906:

This is exactly why I’ll be very upset if they nerf terror because of what our “representative” says. Terror has been fine for months. If anything needs to be nerfed, its burning. Either take it away completely (preferable) or nerf its up time/cool down. No one asked for burning. We didn’t need burning. We asked for survivability so we could be the advertised attrition class. Not to be a condition burst class. Nerfing terror will destroy the other builds that rely on it. The ones that DON’T take Dumbfire.

I agree 100% with that.

Gryph.8237:

I just can’t see why you cannot support the buffs we got that have finaly made us A, a popular class, and B. dangerous.
…

You just say nerf and give necros more defense because that seems to be the way YOU want the class to be, and some of us do not agree with you.

A. yes we are very popular now :/
B. We are too dangerous in 1v1s, not dangerous at all when we’re outnumbered.

Just look at what Kravick wrote: “We asked for survivability so we could be the advertised attrition class.”
It’s not just me who wants the class to works this way…

Damage is being nurfed
Para Sigil will no longer work with fear
but…
The Runes that reduce stun and fear will not be changed.

In the way that Anet do stuff, fear will be nurfed to the ever beyond…

I think it’s important to distinguish two different points here:

a) Currently, as stated by others before, we seem to have a spec that is basically the condition equivalent of a glass cannon, which might be somewhat new to the game. But, since it somewhat came out of nowhere, everyone still has to adapt to this notion. All things considering though, I don’t think this spec is OP compared to the other glass cannon burst builds out there.

b) Longer term, is this what we want for the necro? I think a fair amount of people have chosen the necro for the attrition idea, not for the burst, but the devs seem to be both aware of this and doing tweaks in that direction. Yet, does it have to be one or the other? Would it be that wrong to have both options available to us? (Not in the same build obviously…)

Just remove burning. I don’t wanna spend point in spite anyways.

Junkpile.7439:

Just remove burning. I don’t wanna spend point in spite anyways.

other ppl do, and Dhuumfire its for those builds.
They won’t nerf this burning trait. It’s just not that powerful. If you nerf it no one will ever take it, cause it’d be worse than Close to Death. We want build diversity, not the opposite.

vicious.5683:

Junkpile.7439:

Just remove burning. I don’t wanna spend point in spite anyways.

other ppl do, and Dhuumfire its for those builds.
They won’t nerf this burning trait. It’s just not that powerful. If you nerf it no one will ever take it, cause it’d be worse than Close to Death. We want build diversity, not the opposite.

If you want build diversity so badly. You should know that nerfing terror will destroy more builds than nerfing dhuumfire.

@Glyph I think there is enough posts and stream to show us that most people complain about all those condition easily applied and terror+dhuumire DAMAGE combo. Reducing fear duration by 0.5 sec won’t solve the problem at all -they already nerfed fear with sigil of para. Necro will still be able to put insane pressure with terror+dhuumfire. If there is someone being biased among us, it’s certainly not flow, but… someone else.

i do not use the 303010 thing also
no idea why ppl cry about terror when it was always there
then we got burn and unknown why terror becomes a problem ?

I’d wager on a nerf to Terror, not because of Dhuumfire, but because fear access in general got buffed nicely on the necromancer. Doom got an extra 0.5 seconds within 600 range, which isn’t that major, but spectral wall also got a 1s fear added on to it. Considering how few sources of fear we had before, it’s a pretty big improvement.

Edit: Dhuumfire was just the icing on the cake, really, because it allowed a condition necromancer to put 30 in Spite for condition duration and not be left with a grandmaster they couldn’t use. If they want to nerf Dhuumfire instead of Terror, I’d be fine with that, but I think we’ll still see people getting gibbed without that 630 damage / second.

If they nerf terror we will end up weaker than we were pre-patch, except for Torment. Terror > Dumbfire, because Terror is controllable, burning is random single target. You can’t depend where its going to go or when. Terror is the only thing that gives us anything even remotely resembling a mini burst, and its a joke burst compared to what some other professions can do, and without chance to stunbreak or cleanse their burst.

lol it’s funny how people are quick to complain about a terror nerf when they don’t even know the extent of how bad the nerf will be. The necromancer got some sweet buffs and the developers know that we still lack good health sustain to stay in battles long enough so they’ll be addressing that eventually and also add some way to escape fights. I’ve always enjoyed my necromancer pre-patch and still post- patch but let’s be real the necromancer is really strong atm and a slight nerf to terror isn’t exactly going to break us but so much complaining…I mean if you’re going to consider leaving a classes based on just one trait change then maybe the necromancer isn’t for you.

As far as offensive capability goes condition necros were always in a good place, and they’re in an even better place now. Perhaps the only area where they were lacking somewhat was condition diversity, in that bleeding had to lift too much of the burden on its own. That was addressed with torment – and really, nothing further was needed. Burning, while certainly nice to have, is by no means necessary for the condition necro to be viable in terms of offense. The same can be said for the half second duration increase on doom at close range, fear/terror was fine before the update (in fact one of our strong points) and did not need a buff. Other than that there are only a few places where a.net went overboard, notably the weakness duration of enfeebling blood and perhaps also on signet of spite, though that’s less of a problem due to the relatively long cd. As for spectral wall, I don’t think it’s as much of a problem as people are making it out to be.

I’m less concerned about the specifics of how to actually fix the dhuumfire/terror interaction. I could easily live with a modest nerf to the damage on terror, though if given the choice I think a rework of dhuumfire is a better approach – in the end this is what would pigeonhole the condition necro the least. But overall, in terms of offensive potential, only a few fixes are needed to return the necromancer to a more than acceptable level of damage output.

Once we get that done we can start talking about the real problems of the class, which the recent patch barely addressed at all.

Brighteluden.2974:

and the developers know that we still lack good health sustain to stay in battles long enough

No they don’t know becouse after 10 months, despite nice buffs, we still have the same old problems. Now we just have a nice burst.
Nothing else.

Brighteluden.2974:

…I mean if you’re going to consider leaving a classes based on just one trait change then maybe the necromancer isn’t for you.

nice point, now tell us how good we have had it since release.

Da Sonic.6521:

I find, both playing as and playing against players with Dhuumfire and Terror, that it isn’t overpowered, especially when considering options against it.

To take Dhuumfire and fully benefit from Terror, you have to run 30/20/0/0/20. This means you have 0 points in either of the defensive trait lines. You’ve got the option to run several condition clears, but zero access to invulnerable frames or stealths. Essentially you’re running the berserker equivalent of condition damage.

You’ve got great offense, with a base, lets say, 1000 damage a second from a consistent application of bleeding and poison. Fears add 1200 dps, and in the span of 1 minute, you might get 6000 damage from fears if they don’t break them at all. Add in the burning at 50% uptime and that’s 4000 damage every 10 seconds. All in all, these numbers are not too out of line with what berserkers can output. I find it lower, especially since at it’s max, my condition damage build can do 5000 damage in 1 second, with a serious dropoff in sustained immediately after.

we’ll ignore for a second that rampager’s isn’t the only condition set. you’re not really saying anything the rest of the post, so i just cleared it and saved what i thought was relevant.
rabid is the superior condition set. you become a necrotic fortress. also you don’t have to run increased fear duration at all to benefit from terror, regardless it isn’t overpowered at all.
in fact i’d say to benefit from fear the most you’d need decreased staff cooldowns.

You guys keep saying “Burning” and completely ignore that:
1. Doom deals 1,5 seconds of Fear instead of 1 sec at 600 range and below now.
2. Spectral Wall applies 1 second of Fear on top of all the existing ones
3. Every Necromancer now has access to Torment.

I for one would like to see more variety than every Condi Necro just running Terror.
The other traits are meant to be on equal ground with Terror and they obviously are not.

LastDay.3524:

You guys keep saying “Burning” and completely ignore that:
1. Doom deals 1,5 seconds of Fear instead of 1 sec at 600 range and below now.
2. Spectral Wall applies 1 second of Fear on top of all the existing ones
3. Every Necromancer now has access to Torment.

I for one would like to see more variety than every Condi Necro just running Terror and dhuumfire.
The other traits are meant to be on equal ground with Terror and they obviously are not.

Fixed.

• If you so want necro to not be pigeonholded into one single build. You should know that nerfing terror will just force every necromancer that want to be condition to run dhuumfire build.

Thief constant exploit of the bad Perma stealth and initiative mechanic and Nobody cares…………………………..

Necro can use terror every 40sec only if have enough life foce and Everyone loses their minds.

Poplolita.2638:

LastDay.3524:

You guys keep saying “Burning” and completely ignore that:
1. Doom deals 1,5 seconds of Fear instead of 1 sec at 600 range and below now.
2. Spectral Wall applies 1 second of Fear on top of all the existing ones
3. Every Necromancer now has access to Torment.

I for one would like to see more variety than every Condi Necro just running Terror and dhuumfire.
The other traits are meant to be on equal ground with Terror and they obviously are not.

Fixed.

• If you so want necro to not be pigeonholded into one single build. You should know that nerfing terror will just force every necromancer that want to be condition to run dhuumfire build.

Only until bad traits are buffed to make them into viable alternatives.
In my eyes Dhuumfire isn’t so OP that it couldn’t have alternatives that are on an equal level with it.

Engineers have the same effect on an Adept trait.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Incendiary_Powder

It’s only a problem when compounded by Terror.

Doom is on a way lower cooldown. What you guys forget as wel is that it’s not only damage, but also CC. Doom lasts 2+ seconds in most builds which makes it take for 3 times (in my spvp build at least). You’re completely CC’ed during this time, and take a lot of damage.

I don’t even use dhuumfire and my build and simply melt people. I don’t think terror needs to be nerfed per se but Doom is insanely strong to me. Instacast, able during stun, strong and short cooldown.

Get a person at 60% with regular conditions and from that moment, you can just fear him to death. Oh, and to the people saying to bring condition clears, you really have no idea lol. Necros deal with conditions so easy it’s not even funny. Other classes have way, way lower removals ready.

Terror has been buffed indirectly this patch through spectral wall and doom, but it doesn’t make it ‘op’. 0.5 seconds basically means that the average player will get their second fear tick, as not everyone throws 20 points into soulreaping as myself. From a Spvp perspective (where most of the complaints lie) you cannot spec heavily into fear duration without gimping the damage it does in the first place.

Terror was just as strong as it was before the patch, with a few new perks while at the same time taking its toll (corrupt boon ‘nerf’). Of course this post is opinionated, but the fact that a lot more builds will be nerfed through terror than the dhuumfire build is a fact.

Also, If I didn’t quit the class 9 months ago, why would I now?

Softspoken.2410:

I’d wager on a nerf to Terror, not because of Dhuumfire, but because fear access in general got buffed nicely on the necromancer. Doom got an extra 0.5 seconds within 600 range, which isn’t that major, but spectral wall also got a 1s fear added on to it. Considering how few sources of fear we had before, it’s a pretty big improvement.

You mean the wall that is inivisble last for ages and because stability do not protect players from fear ?

Batlav.6318:

Softspoken.2410:

I’d wager on a nerf to Terror, not because of Dhuumfire, but because fear access in general got buffed nicely on the necromancer. Doom got an extra 0.5 seconds within 600 range, which isn’t that major, but spectral wall also got a 1s fear added on to it. Considering how few sources of fear we had before, it’s a pretty big improvement.

You mean the wall that is inivisble last for ages and because stability do not protect players from fear ?

I think he’s joking, but I can’t be sure. I’ll clear it up incase anyone believes him.

The wall lasts for 5 (6) sconds, has a 45 (36) cooldown, is very visible, and stability does protect you from fear.

Base (traited)

I find a lot of this QQ to be largely unfounded. Then again, Anet also keeps nerfing engineers, who were the go-to condition class for awhile, and for understandable reasons, too. Engineers could single-handedly stack 25 stacks of might while rapidly applying Bleeds, Burns, Poison, Chill, Blind, Vulnerability, and with spots of confusion, cripple, weakness, and immobilization, and all of this at 1500 range in an AoE. So then engineers got their burning nerfed, substantially more boon hate put into the game, their stun breakers nerfed, their evades and their blocks nerfed, and now we aren’t top tier anymore.

Anyway, I’d argue that Dhuumfire isn’t that powerful at all, and on several conditions:

#1: To make use of dhuumire you have to make the condition equivalent of a glass cannon build. You have to go 30 into spite, and you have to have enough precision for it to proc reliably. This is powerful and all, but it decreases the necromancer’s statistical defense (toughness + vitality), and that is the only defense necromancer’s have.

#2: Other classes constantly override your burning. Warriors, Engineers, Guardians, Rangers, Mesmers, and Elementalists all do burning. Eles and Guardians do a lot of unintentional burning, and this will override the burning that Dhuumfire does. Due to the luck of the draw, this can make Dhuumfire’s proc absolutely worthless from time to time (“time” being every 5th attack by Guardians). I’d prefer it if they changed Dhuumfire to instead inflict 5 stacks of confusion for 4 seconds, or 5 stacks of torment for 4 seconds, because then every class and their grandmother won’t override the trait.

#3: Due to the recharge and single target nature of the proc, it makes the proc fairly weak from an AoE standpoint. In PVE this is pretty big, but it happens in tPVP as well. Rangers always have a pet who can end up taking the proc, Elementalists have summons that can take the proc, Mesmers spam so many clones and phantasms that they’ll take the proc, and there’s also the rare minion master necro who’s minions can take the proc as well, and thieves have ambush + thieves guild that can also absorb the proc for them. This isn’t including guardian spirit weapons or ranger spirits (those can be attacked, right?). Put them together and there’s a high likelyhood that Dhuumfire will never hit anything meaningful.

And with that, I just don’t take the trait, period. Now, while the terror trait didn’t change, Necromancers have two better tools to inflict terror now: Doom was buffed by 50%, and Spectral Wall was also buffed 1000%.

Doom: Now inflicts 1.5 seconds of fear. For no condition duration, this has the potential to double the terror damage done. For 50% condition duration, it does 50% more damage, and for 100% condition duration it does 25% damage. It is pretty powerful all things considered.

Spectral Wall: this area denial + protection skill can hit the target multiple times with fear, both depending on tactics as well as how smart your opponent is. I’ve seen it used to chain fear 3 times on a single target once (doom + wall + spectral grasp + running in front of the enemy = 3 collisions with the wall), and this can also be used on groups of enemies, both PVE and Melee Trains in WvW. This move itself nearly changed the meta with Terror, because now you can reliably stack fear.

Prior to Spectral Wall, you had 2 or 3 fears at most. You used Reaper’s Mark (2 seconds), then used Doom (2 second), and that was it. Maybe you made Reaper’s mark when reviving someone, and maybe you would cause AoE fear when you were stunned (90 second cooldown), but that was it. Now with wall, you get Doom (3 seconds) + Wall (2 seconds) + Spectral Grasp (2 seconds w/ wall) + Reaper’s Mark (2 seconds) + wall again (2 seconds), and if they stun you then Reaper’s Protection (4 seconds). That is 11 or 15 seconds of fear, coming to that many ticks of Terror.

But is this nerf worthy? I’m not so sure. For one, Spectral Wall requires great positioning, and a good player can avoid many of the chain stuns quite effectively simply by not standing between the necro and the wall. Second, stability kills the whole combo and makes the user immune to fear. Third, stun breakers can interrupt the combo and kill the fear damage immediately. Fourth, without any stability, a necromancer can easily be counter-controlled as soon as that wall is up, forcing them out of position and/or causing them to burn their own stun breaker. Fifth, all of the fear skills can be dodged or blocked except for Reaper’s mark, which can’t be blocked.

The combos are far from incounterable, the damage can be easily negated, and the positioning can be interrupted quite easily. All this is on a class with no blocks, no vigor, no stability, and little to no movement skills. The fact is that by knowing how to fight necromancers while also bringing good condition cleanse and a stun breaker / stability, the terrormancer can be defeated. The biggest issue right now is that the meta hasn’t adjusted yet, so players aren’t bringing good condition cleanses or stability.

^Another /threadwin.

The biggest problem is that this nerf will once again destroy pve. If they could just lower terror damage in pvp i wouldnt care but in pve that pitiful damage will make terror all but useless.
Also terror is one of our signature abilities. Burning is not. I really wish they had never added Dhuumfire. But now that they have i doubt they will remove it again or nerf it just one patch after introduction.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’d argue that Dhuumfire isn’t that powerful at all, and on several conditions:

#1: To make use of dhuumire you have to make the condition equivalent of a glass cannon build. You have to go 30 into spite, and you have to have enough precision for it to proc reliably. This is powerful and all, but it decreases the necromancer’s statistical defense (toughness + vitality), and that is the only defense necromancer’s have.

Not true.
You can still wear regular rabid gear with a 30/30/10 or 30/20/20 build. How did players trait before Dhuumfire was introduced? 0/30/20/0/20… or 10 in Blood Magic for Mark of Evasion…?
You don’t have to run rampager’s with a Dhuumfire build, and even then: you can have Spectral Walk, Well of Power or Darkness, Spectral Wall… there are all kinds of utilities that buff your defense.

People claim that Dhuum/Terror builds are glass cannons so it’s fine to have a strong burst in return… but it’s not! There’s nothing glassy about a build that has 100 toughness less (or 100 vitality or some points in Soul Reaping) than a regular pre-patch condition build.
In fact, you could argue that +30% condition duration from Spite improves your defense because your fears are longer.

am I the only condition necro that doesn’t take terror or dhuumfire?

I have no issues killing stuff in spvp and wvw. BiP, epidemic and spectral walk.

0/30/20/20/0

weakening shroud, master of corruption and lingering curses.
greater marks and shrouded removal.
dagger recharge and mark on dodge.

great survivability and with adventurer runes you get full condition damage and an extraddodge on heal.

flow.6043:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’d argue that Dhuumfire isn’t that powerful at all, and on several conditions:

#1: To make use of dhuumire you have to make the condition equivalent of a glass cannon build. You have to go 30 into spite, and you have to have enough precision for it to proc reliably. This is powerful and all, but it decreases the necromancer’s statistical defense (toughness + vitality), and that is the only defense necromancer’s have.

Not true.
You can still wear regular rabid gear with a 30/30/10 or 30/20/20 build. How did players trait before Dhuumfire was introduced? 0/30/20/0/20… or 10 in Blood Magic for Mark of Evasion…?
You don’t have to run rampager’s with a Dhuumfire build, and even then: you can have Spectral Walk, Well of Power or Darkness, Spectral Wall… there are all kinds of utilities that buff your defense.

People claim that Dhuum/Terror builds are glass cannons so it’s fine to have a strong burst in return… but it’s not! There’s nothing glassy about a build that has 100 toughness less (or 100 vitality or some points in Soul Reaping) than a regular pre-patch condition build.
In fact, you could argue that +30% condition duration from Spite improves your defense because your fears are longer.

The way you speak makes it sound like you don’t think glass cannons have options for defensive abilities.

I have my Mesmer build, full berserker, that has an 8-12k (simultaneous 1200 range) spike every 10 seconds. I also have Decoy, Blink, and Null Field/Arcane Thievery. Those defensive utilities, you guessed it, help me survive.

I have my Thief build, full berserker, that has a 15-20k (spread out over 1s, melee) spike every 8 seconds. I also have Shadowstep, Infiltrator’s Signet, and Blinding Powder. Those defensive utilities, you guessed it, help me survive.

Any full berserker build can use defensive utilities. Heck, you don’t even have to run full berserker for a glass build, you can use a mix of Zerk, Valkyrie, and Knight’s, and still hit like a truck.

Necromancers who run 30/20/x/x/x are not invincible. They do not have methods to avoid damage comparable to other classes. They do not have any good sources of sustained healing. I don’t know what you and some other people don’t get about that.

If you attack them, they will die.

I’ve seen plenty of condition builds that were 0/30/20/20/0, and 0/30/10/30/0 before. What they would do is take advantage of the vampiric traits and the crits from rabid to heal themselves as much as possible while also stacking regeneration with the staff. This did provide 200 toughness, 200 vitality, 20% boon duration, and 200 healing, so in the end it ended up being quite tanky as condition builds go.

The 0/30/20/0/20 build is the terror build, and it is deceptively more durable if not for one trait: Last Gasp. This trait, on 60 second cooldown, gives you spectral armor at half health. So basically it gives you spectral armor when you need it, breaking stuns and generating life force while under protection. It is arguably the best defensive trait a necromancr has. This is combined with an increase LF pool, and then any one of the adept major traits in that line, such as Spectral Recharge, which would allow double spectral armor while also making wall (back then it was mostly for protection) and walk more effectively. These terror builds usually achieved 100% feat duration anyway, so the extra time in spite meant very little.

Also, rampager’s is hybrid gear. The “glass cannon equivalent” is still using rabid or carrion, however it has lost the defensive stats from traits and also has lost the few defensive abilities traits had to offer. At 30/30/10/0/0, your only defense is your offense. You need to run spectral wall, and then you have 2 utility slots to go from there, and your choices are incredibly limiting.

When you are too stupid to make things fun, nerf at random. Seems like this mentality applies to anet pretty well.

Anyway… it will get nerfed. Both trashy fire trait that requires 30 points and grandmaster slot… unlike at most master minor equivalent for others. And spectral wall will get nerfed along with terrors pitiful damage. And no amount of trying to argue with facts/reason/fun etc will work because they simply do not give a kitten and made it obvious.

Apparently we are in disagreement about what a glass canon is.

The “glass” part of the term comes from being fragile, as in not having the toughness or vitality you’d usually get from rabid or carrion. That applies to berserker or rampager, anything else is just a canon if you still get high damage with it.

So again, rabid (or carrion) means your build is not glassy, period. But it so happens that this prefix gets you the highest damage out of Dhuumfire and Terror, so there really is no trade-off for damage vs defense here.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’ve seen plenty of condition builds that were 0/30/20/20/0, and 0/30/10/30/0 before. What they would do is take advantage of the vampiric traits and the crits from rabid to heal themselves as much as possible while also stacking regeneration with the staff. This did provide 200 toughness, 200 vitality, 20% boon duration, and 200 healing, so in the end it ended up being quite tanky as condition builds go.

The 0/30/20/0/20 build is the terror build, and it is deceptively more durable if not for one trait: Last Gasp. This trait, on 60 second cooldown, gives you spectral armor at half health. So basically it gives you spectral armor when you need it, breaking stuns and generating life force while under protection. It is arguably the best defensive trait a necromancr has. This is combined with an increase LF pool, and then any one of the adept major traits in that line, such as Spectral Recharge, which would allow double spectral armor while also making wall (back then it was mostly for protection) and walk more effectively. These terror builds usually achieved 100% feat duration anyway, so the extra time in spite meant very little.

Also, rampager’s is hybrid gear. The “glass cannon equivalent” is still using rabid or carrion, however it has lost the defensive stats from traits and also has lost the few defensive abilities traits had to offer. At 30/30/10/0/0, your only defense is your offense. You need to run spectral wall, and then you have 2 utility slots to go from there, and your choices are incredibly limiting.

the only thing I would disagree with is that I think my 0/30/20/20/0 build is more survivable than the 0/30/20/0/20 build, I have played alot of time with both and have full rabbid and full carrion sets of armor. I find carrion armor and rabbid trinkets are the best combination for survivability and damage. I have 25k hp, 2.2 armor (maybe more) and 1400 condition damage before stacks and food which is nice.

I also dont rely on life stealing/vampire traits.

but I agree with mostly everything mentioned here.

When I said “deceptively more durable” I wasn’t referencing the 0/30/20/20/0 build. I was talking about the 30/30/10/0/0 build. In a toss up I wouldn’t know which one would be more survivable between last gasp and defensive condis.

Bull Zooker.1672:

the only thing I would disagree with is that I think my 0/30/20/20/0 build is more survivable than the 0/30/20/0/20 build, I have played alot of time with both and have full rabbid and full carrion sets of armor. I find carrion armor and rabbid trinkets are the best combination for survivability and damage. I have 25k hp, 2.2 armor (maybe more) and 1400 condition damage before stacks and food which is nice.

I also dont rely on life stealing/vampire traits.

Alright, so in your case a switch to 30/20/20/0/0 from you current 0/30/20/20/0 build would mean you lose 200 vitality… and that’s it. You could still have your carrion/rabid gear with 23k hp and 2.2k armor. There’s absolutely nothing glassy about this, yet it’s all you need to pull off a Dhuum/Terror build.

So I call bs when someone says those builds are squishy.