Guild Wars 2

So I’m just going to rant out over here

When the balance patch came out, one of the things that stuck with me the most as a necromancer main was how the devs decided to replace the 50% life force reduction with +180 vitality to make this trait not seem incredibly obviosuly better than the rest.

Although that brings up the question: why not buff the other two traits? Lets be honest here, we chose vital persistence over the other two not mainly because it was so good (although that was a factor) but because the other two sucked. Why would I run spectral mastery if i don’t run any spectral skills? Why run fear of death at all? Fear is a nice CC but it certainly isn’t something I would bank on, and the extra fear when we get downed won’t really help much

The only other trait then was vital persistence. This trait also made a whole lot of sense to me since the core profession mechanic is the shroud. If we plan to spend a lot of time in shroud, it makes sense that shroud lasts longer. Now all we get is a +180 vitality, which is what, 2 extra seconds of survivability?

Maybe you say that such a nerf is necessary to transition to PoF, where there will be no shroud in scourge. But what if I want to run reaper? What about f2p players? Are we not as important?

My point is, stop nerfing so much. And stop nerfing necro, we already get kicked from raids, fractals, and dungeons as it is. And my PVP build was really dependent on shroud so now I’m screwed in that department. The devs had so much room to buff the other two traits that compete with vital persistence. Maybe instead of just saying “spectral skills recharge faster”, you couldve buffed it to say “reduce recharge on spectral skills when you kill a foe” or something like that. Or say you get might from spectral skills. Or say you get might from fear if you want to buff that trait.

Leave your thoughts below guys, since I don’t claim to be a dev

Flubbernaut.9584:

So I’m just going to rant out over here

When the balance patch cane out, one of the things that stuck with me the most as a necromancer main was how the devs decided to replace the 50% life force reduction with +180 vitality to make this trait not seem incredibly obviosuly better than the rest.

Although that brings up the question: why not buff the other two traits? Lets be honest here, we chose vital persistence over the other two not mainly because it was so good (although that was a factor) but because the other two sucked. Why would I run spectral mastery if i don’t run any spectral skills? Why run fear of death at all? Fear is a nice CC but it certainly isn’t something I would bank on, and the extra fear when we get downed won’t really help much

The only other trait then was vital persistence. This trait also made a whole lot of sense to me since the core profession mechanic is the shroud. If we plan to spend a lot of time in shroud, it makes sense that shroud lasts longer. Now all we get is a +180 vitality, which is what, 2 extra seconds of survivability?

Maybe you say that such a nerf is necessary to transition so PoF, where there will be no shroud in scourge. But what if I want to run reaper? What about f2p players? Are we not as important?

My point is, stop nerfing so much. And stop nerfing necro, we already get kicked from raids, fractals, and dungeons as it is. And my PVP build was really dependent on shroud so now I’m screwed in that department. The devs had so much room to buff the other two traits that compete with vital persistence. Maybe instead of just saying “spectral skills recharge faster”, you couldve buffed it to say “reduce recharge on spectral skills when you kill a foe” or something like that. Or say you get might from spectral skills. Or say you get might from fear if you want to buff that trait.

Leave your thoughts below guys, since I don’t claim to be a dev

this was plain sad really showing once again how no 1 in arenanet play’s the necromancer profession, the nerf was disgusting and even if it was op which was not the case why not make a lf reduction baseline (btw its 1k-700 per tik) and change the trait to something else or buff the other 2, now as necro you have even less defenses.
and for these people that will say oh but it cant be used on scourge why not make it spend less life force while using scourge …… horrible nerf

I have to agree 100%. The other two traits are total garbage (for pve) and can’t see anyone ever using them in pve. Even reaper is not going to waste a trait for a measly half second increase to our 1 (make that 2 if your willing to run staff) fears. There’s no reason to take spectral mastery in pve as no one uses spectrals aside from lich. In short this was a rediculous nerf and the other two traits are utter garbage. Now the entire tier is a dumpster fire, wtg Anet.

They actually nerfed one of alternatives:

Spectral Mastery: Duration increase has been reduced from 50% to 20%.

I’ve played around with it, it’s a giant nerf. Almost not worth taking soul reaping at this point.

Flubbernaut.9584:

But what if I want to run reaper? What about f2p players? Are we not as important?

Necromancers as a whole are not importan to Anet. It’s common knowledge and you must be new.

Swan.9815:

They actually nerfed one of alternatives:

Spectral Mastery: Duration increase has been reduced from 50% to 20%.

Yeah…this is the most comical part. Their “rationale” was that it was too strong compared to the other options, but then they raise the base time of spectrals and nerf the trait they said wasn’t good enough. /smh

Overall, I’m glad because raising the base time of spectrals is better, but it just shows the dumb logic used in their “rationales”. On top of that, it’s going to make the new vital persistence even MORE required if you go with soul reaping because fear and spectral utilities won’t be big parts of scourge build. The extra vitality will probably scale well with barrier and be necessary for scourge due to the lack of Shroud.

Nevertheless, for PvP, I can see a full spectral necro build working fairly well now. Lich is probably going to make a comeback since it’s 20 seconds and the LF building potential is huge with spectral grasp and armor. Even though the cooldown is longer on grasp, you will have a higher percentage chance of it hitting and thus getting more bang for your buck…just in LF generation.

Disclaimer: This is strictly my theory based on no testing yet.

vicious.5683:

Flubbernaut.9584:

But what if I want to run reaper? What about f2p players? Are we not as important?

Necromancers as a whole are not importan to Anet. It’s common knowledge and you must be new.

Yeah I guess I have to agree with you on that one mate. But I’ve gotten a lot of success with necromancers in PvP by staying in shroud. Now I not only suck in all areas of PvE, I also suck at PVP. It’s almost as if the devs thought to themselves “Guys, necros are officially the deprived child nobody wants in PvE. How do we make it worse?” It makes me wonder if engis are also still on the same boat with us.

Either way, it’s still infuriating when they nerf the hell out of necromancers and come up with the most shallow rationales for doing so. Jesus Anet, just say necromancers have never been a priority

Very bad change. It is bad enough that shroud gets eaten up by conditions, Vital persistence was one of the few ways a necromancer could sustain through damage. Now they made it useless….

A completely unnecessary nerf on a class that struggles to find it’s way in this game, why? I can tell you this has changed my view completely about playing Reaper and more than that has absolutely killed the excitement i had about the expansion. I get you want people to try Scourge but it shouldn’t come at this cost! You need to roll this back it was not necessary and far too harsh and virtually has all but killed power Reaper and honestly my will to keep playing.

At least the broken as all getup warriors got super buffed.

SPESHAL.9106:

Swan.9815:

They actually nerfed one of alternatives:

Spectral Mastery: Duration increase has been reduced from 50% to 20%.

Yeah…this is the most comical part. Their “rationale” was that it was too strong compared to the other options, but then they raise the base time of spectrals and nerf the trait they said wasn’t good enough. /smh

Overall, I’m glad because raising the base time of spectrals is better, but it just shows the dumb logic used in their “rationales”. On top of that, it’s going to make the new vital persistence even MORE required if you go with soul reaping because fear and spectral utilities won’t be big parts of scourge build. The extra vitality will probably scale well with barrier and be necessary for scourge due to the lack of Shroud.

Nevertheless, for PvP, I can see a full spectral necro build working fairly well now. Lich is probably going to make a comeback since it’s 20 seconds and the LF building potential is huge with spectral grasp and armor. Even though the cooldown is longer on grasp, you will have a higher percentage chance of it hitting and thus getting more bang for your buck…just in LF generation.

Disclaimer: This is strictly my theory based on no testing yet.

been doing some testing with Lich form. Its Underwhelming. The Numbers just don’t seem to be there. Auto attacking seems to be your best option, the second skill is nice but just auto attacking in reaper’s shroud with Dhuumfire is better power DPS than Lich Form.

At least from what I’ve been seeing.

I think we can all agree that Arena Net dev do not play their own kittening game. I mean my god, how the kitten do you screw up so badly on a class that was already weak.

I mean, at this stage I feel like Arena net did me a favor. I wont bother with the expansion.

vicious.5683:

Flubbernaut.9584:

But what if I want to run reaper? What about f2p players? Are we not as important?

Necromancers as a whole are not importan to Anet. It’s common knowledge and you must be new.

And no dev have make any comment in this forum for over a year lol
Its really frustraiting when you have a class that is by far the weakes of all and you keep on nerfing and cant show your face as a dev to explain other than on the post and say we find is too stong compared to…. incompetence 101

Flubbernaut.9584:

vicious.5683:

Flubbernaut.9584:

But what if I want to run reaper? What about f2p players? Are we not as important?

Necromancers as a whole are not importan to Anet. It’s common knowledge and you must be new.

Yeah I guess I have to agree with you on that one mate. But I’ve gotten a lot of success with necromancers in PvP by staying in shroud. Now I not only suck in all areas of PvE, I also suck at PVP. It’s almost as if the devs thought to themselves “Guys, necros are officially the deprived child nobody wants in PvE. How do we make it worse?” It makes me wonder if engis are also still on the same boat with us.

Either way, it’s still infuriating when they nerf the hell out of necromancers and come up with the most shallow rationales for doing so. Jesus Anet, just say necromancers have never been a priority

Let’s imagine Anet realizes they kittened up, it will take half a year to revert this nerf.

vicious.5683:

Flubbernaut.9584:

vicious.5683:

Flubbernaut.9584:

But what if I want to run reaper? What about f2p players? Are we not as important?

Necromancers as a whole are not importan to Anet. It’s common knowledge and you must be new.

Yeah I guess I have to agree with you on that one mate. But I’ve gotten a lot of success with necromancers in PvP by staying in shroud. Now I not only suck in all areas of PvE, I also suck at PVP. It’s almost as if the devs thought to themselves “Guys, necros are officially the deprived child nobody wants in PvE. How do we make it worse?” It makes me wonder if engis are also still on the same boat with us.

Either way, it’s still infuriating when they nerf the hell out of necromancers and come up with the most shallow rationales for doing so. Jesus Anet, just say necromancers have never been a priority

Let’s imagine Anet realizes they kittened up, it will take half a year to revert this nerf.

They wont, its clear they want people to move on to the new elite specs to drive sales. I am not very interested in scourge, but what choice is there if the important parts of my build get nerfed this badly.

Massive error. terrible call by the devs.

Honestly I like the change. Firstly for classes that are limited by a resource (in this case LF) traits that make resource managing easier will always drown out all other options.

Secondly having the vitality buffer from the trait opens up our amulet options. Berserker necro might be a thing. Also toughness amulets like rabid and demolisher might be worth playing with.

Crinn.7864:

Honestly I like the change. Firstly for classes that are limited by a resource (in this case LF) traits that make resource managing easier will always drown out all other options.

Secondly having the vitality buffer from the trait opens up our amulet options. Berserker necro might be a thing. Also toughness amulets like rabid and demolisher might be worth playing with.

Simply not ture at all i used to run a berserker necro and even 1k more hp whont make any iference you will still die in a few seconds

I do not play necromancer much, but this trait, was necessary for necro’s. Removing it, makes them unstable/weak imo, especially in pvp, and wvw. First of all, the other two traits are very bad. Only spectral mastery i use (in wvw), cause i love it’s effects, and it yields perma swiftness (spectral walk + cd reduction + rune of pack). But that fear is purely trash. Not worth it. Now you made spectral trait even less worth it, since base is better. The problem is the two weak other traits, not the vital persistance (wich is one of the only ways for necro to ‘imitate’ invulnerable playability (sort off). Now classes with a true block/invul are stronger by definition. HP or no hp.

Now Anet forced their own hand imo. Their is only one way to make the trait work: make it an aoe support buff that grants 180 vitality to party members.

Especially with the insane amount of changes today (a lot are boosts of traits) this nerf (of a ‘NEEDED TO SURVIVE’ trait) was out of the question imo.

PS i dislike to fight necro’s in pvp. They keep restoring full shroud bars while loosing hp in shroud very slowly. But i know balance. I play all profession in pvp, just atm not necro (1 year ago or so i did). But this trait, nah. It would be saddistic as a non necromancer player atm, to be happy about the nerf. Necro’s didnt deserve it.

Considering a necro/reaper drops like a fly without their shroud, this is an AWFUL change. +180 vitality is barely anything compared to how helpful the reduced decay on shroud was. :/

This wasn’t a balance patch, it was a nerf everything patch.

I would have take the nerf if they change to the % of loss life force degenerated not by damage. Or in scorge by self skill wss turn to heath like a heal … the nerf was brutal and excesive

This is a trait that needed to be baselined, not removed.

Okay, bringing the Cooldown reduction up to 20%? That’s good. Adding Vitality? Completely ignorable. Removing the decay reduction entirely from the game? I guess they don’t want Necros to be able to survive anything.

The issue with Vital Persistence wasn’t that it was “too good compared to the other options,” it was that it was too necessary to even consider the other options.

And Fear of Death is still godawful trash, so that didn’t change.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

This is a trait that needed to be baselined, not removed.

Okay, bringing the Cooldown reduction up to 20%? That’s good. Adding Vitality? Completely ignorable. Removing the decay reduction entirely from the game? I guess they don’t want Necros to be able to survive anything.

The issue with Vital Persistence wasn’t that it was “too good compared to the other options,” it was that it was too necessary to even consider the other options.

And Fear of Death is still godawful trash, so that didn’t change.

+1. Many of us have wanted this baseline since this trait was buffed originally from 25 to 50%. Either you make it baseline, or you INCREASE the desirability of the other 2 traits to make them competitive. Awful dev design.

So shroud gets nerfed right before releasing an expansion pack spec that forgoes the shroud mechanic completely? What a coincidence!

It doesn’t matter because Anet will never come on here to explain why they made specific changes. “It’s our game so deal with it”.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

This is a trait that needed to be baselined, not removed.

Okay, bringing the Cooldown reduction up to 20%? That’s good. Adding Vitality? Completely ignorable. Removing the decay reduction entirely from the game? I guess they don’t want Necros to be able to survive anything.

The issue with Vital Persistence wasn’t that it was “too good compared to the other options,” it was that it was too necessary to even consider the other options.

And Fear of Death is still godawful trash, so that didn’t change.

I could have lived with a nerf but removing this altogether was way over the top and killed an entire classes viability. Like i said if the motivation was to have players try scourge all you’ve done is sour me on the entire expansion with this ridiculously unnecessary and frankly not well thought out attempt to balance.

If there are any devs that even bother to read this forum anymore this needs to be addressed. Somebody has to see how out of whack this is, for heaven’s sake somebody at Anet has to care about this profession. The sad thing was i almost believed WP and his theory that power Necro’s may actually get some positive changes, man was he off the mark!

Oh and to those who think the additional health is compensation, please you have obviously never played a Necro as a main lol!

Vlad Morbius.1759:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

This is a trait that needed to be baselined, not removed.

Okay, bringing the Cooldown reduction up to 20%? That’s good. Adding Vitality? Completely ignorable. Removing the decay reduction entirely from the game? I guess they don’t want Necros to be able to survive anything.

The issue with Vital Persistence wasn’t that it was “too good compared to the other options,” it was that it was too necessary to even consider the other options.

And Fear of Death is still godawful trash, so that didn’t change.

I could have lived with a nerf but removing this altogether was way over the top and killed an entire classes viability. Like i said if the motivation was to have players try scourge all you’ve done is sour me on the entire expansion with this ridiculously unnecessary and frankly not well thought out attempt to balance.

If there are any devs that even bother to read this forum anymore this needs to be addressed. Somebody has to see how out of whack this is, for heaven’s sake somebody at Anet has to care about this profession. The sad thing was i almost believed WP and his theory that power Necro’s may actually get some positive changes, man was he off the mark!

Oh and to those who think the additional health is compensation, please you have obviously never played a Necro as a main lol!

Couldn’t agree more! I took a break and came back because the expansion but nothing like Anet and their no thought nerf fest to make me not care again

Vlad Morbius.1759

: The sad thing was i almost believed WP and his theory that power Necro’s may actually get some positive changes, man was he off the mark!

I remember WP interviewing game devs and asking them if older elite specs would be made obsolete because PoF would power creep the new elite specs. The answer, obviously, was a resounding “no” from everybody asked.

I feel like an idiot for believing them

Flubbernaut.9584:

Vlad Morbius.1759

: The sad thing was i almost believed WP and his theory that power Necro’s may actually get some positive changes, man was he off the mark!

I remember WP interviewing game devs and asking them if older elite specs would be made obsolete because PoF would power creep the new elite specs. The answer, obviously, was a resounding “no” from everybody asked.

I feel like an idiot for believing them

Well, in the case of Scourge and Reaper, it’s probably quite true.

Now, Scourge or Reaper compared to any other profession? Yeah.

Thief: (let us buff your weaker areas to compete with the other stronger areas)

The Daredevil specialization has largely taken over the Power-based gameplay that used to be the domain of the sword, so we are giving sword (and sword-related traits) an enhancement in order to ensure it has some unique utility to offer. Tricks and signets are also receiving several changes to help them compete with the very powerful utility skills offered by deceptions and physicals. Finally, we are also reassessing some traits that we felt were either lacking in power or not offering enough diversity in choice.

Necro: (let us nerf your stronger area to make your weaker areas a competitive option)

One of the biggest changes for necromancers in this patch is the change to the Vital Persistence trait. Previously, this trait reduced the rate at which life force decayed while in shroud and was too powerful compared to the other two traits in the same tier. We’ve changed the functionality of this trait in order to provide a different option that is easier to track and is more competitive with other traits in the same tier.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Flubbernaut.9584:

Vlad Morbius.1759

: The sad thing was i almost believed WP and his theory that power Necro’s may actually get some positive changes, man was he off the mark!

I remember WP interviewing game devs and asking them if older elite specs would be made obsolete because PoF would power creep the new elite specs. The answer, obviously, was a resounding “no” from everybody asked.

I feel like an idiot for believing them

Well, in the case of Scourge and Reaper, it’s probably quite true.

Now, Scourge or Reaper compared to any other profession? Yeah.

Both base necro and reaper are impacted by this nerf. I couldn’t find a good reason to player reaper before, and a nerf like this doesn’t help.

This is just kitten. Absolute kitten. I saw nothing in the patch notes to justify taking away vital persistence. Seems like Anet are doing their kitten edest to take away any and all of our tanking options.

First the Plague change now this. And we still don’t have reliable stabulity, protection, or other defensive tools on base necro.

I agree with a lot of what you said. Hard to believe they got people excited about what they promised players two years ago (a power necro) only to not deliver again.

I’ve been playing the GW franchise since its started over a decade ago and every year I’m put off more and more by the franchise I love most. I wont be preodering the expansion in protest of Anets balance team REPEATEDLY ignoring the player-base. And honestly… if they keep on this path ill withdraw my support entirely. Unlikely ill be getting anything other then the base expansion.

I would LOVE to continue supporting anet, I think they have a great premise of a game, for the most part they are attentive to their player-base. IDK WHY THE HECK they ignore us entirely for balance input. WE’RE THE ONES PLAYING THE GAME, WAKE UP.

logan.5846:

So shroud gets nerfed right before releasing an expansion pack spec that forgoes the shroud mechanic completely? What a coincidence!

Honestly, I don’t think it was planned obsolescence. I just think the designers aren’t good at their jobs.

Isn’t this patch supposed to empower power reapers? Now with the vital persistence nerf, power reapers are dead, for good. Rest harder in Peace, power reapers.

Now, surely, these can’t be ALL the changes for power reaper. Wasn’t Deathly Chill supposed to be nerfed in the PoF demo? Since it’s still the same I’m expecting more changes before the xpac launches. At least I pray there’s more changes…

We Reapers will be tuned into the true nec power spec"…by reducing the time we are in dps state……….Bahaha DERRRRRRP.

They simply didn’t know how much it was required to actually play Necromancer lol. Core suffers the most from this as it is the only way to even tank the endless CC of this game lol. it needs to be put in baseline (but make it 25% instead of 50% since this wouldn’t be a trait investment.) Or if they choose to kee pit how it is… improve shroud skills by a good margin to compensate. OR better yet give all weapon skills of necromancer the ability to regenerate life force by small margin which will add up when simply playing necromancer abilities.. this would compensate for the removal.

I have never been more disappointed and completely turned off by changes in balance. This killed my power Reaper, killed it. Why should i bother anymore after pouring everything i have into gearing up a power reaper only to have it killed off with this nerf. Really why should i buy into anything else at this point only to have it yanked out from under me after a year of investing money, resources and time to have it completely negated by some random developer who doesn’t fully understand the implications of a poorly thought out change? This wasn’t balance, it was a destruction of a years work and time so thanks for that!

Vlad Morbius.1759:

I have never been more disappointed and completely turned off by changes in balance. This killed my power Reaper, killed it. Why should i bother anymore after pouring everything i have into gearing up a power reaper only to have it killed off with this nerf. Really why should i buy into anything else at this point only to have it yanked out from under me after a year of investing money, resources and time to have it completely negated by some random developer who doesn’t fully understand the implications of a poorly thought out change? This wasn’t balance, it was a destruction of a years work and time so thanks for that!

I’m with you on that… I’m not even mad, just defeated.

I have to agree that the Vital Persistence change drastically reduced Reaper capability. I loved Reaper when it came out. Always wanted to play a purely death shroud based build but the core Necromancer version was just lackluster to try and sustain damage. Sure it had some great options but Death Shroud just wasn’t something to stay in if you wanted to be more effective in a damaging role.

Enter the Reaper, and woah baby was I excited! Not only could a power build compete in the damage department by staying in Reaper Shroud but the development team made the new iteration look awesome! Useful shroud sustain AND more visually pleasing? Yes, please! Sure, oddly enough condi-Reaper was more effective but lets face it, outside the min/max elite scene a Reaper staying in their shroud was still effective enough. The best part was if the build was traited accordingly then the form could be sustained indefinitely barring taking any damage.

Now the shroud cannot be sustained, and trying to build to stay in shroud as long as possible severely limits damage potential so you are left with a shroud build that, once again, is lackluster for sustain purposes.

Suggestions to make how Reaper Shroud works: while shroud is active there can be no more life force generation, but a trait to prevent decay over time; or increasing Signet of Undeath’s passive to effectively nullify the decay and removing the life force generation side of Chilling Victory.

I’m playing a power reaper and I used Soul Reaping mainly for that trait (which does not exist anymore). I guess, I’m going to drop that line for blood magic maybe.

Well, I’ll miss that trait cos it made shroud actually a very good mechanic that had potential, with some number tweaks, to help us, power reapers and necros, to somehow come closer to meta. Someday at least.

I wouldn’t rather say that devs are bad or so. I think they know what they do. I have to run more tests on patch before i can say if shroud-based reaper is RIP or not. But at first sight it looks VERY RIP. [*]

I’m trying to look at other things. Signets with trait will work in shroud, i’ll surely look into it. I consider a trait with Signet of Undeath to be 1/2 Vital Persistance (25% slower decay in combat). Also – Soul Eater. I was wondering if it works in shroud if we change while wielding greatsword. 1/2 LF per second would be also nice to upkeep shroud longer.

I have to admit though that shroud, especially in instances, was sometimes insane. I remember doing boss fights 80% time in shroud. I think I’d be okay with that nerf, if Reaper Onslaught would have effect outside shroud too, with lower numbers.

I’m afraid, that shroud will become necro’s personal ‘barrier’. You can’t make shroud a major part of dps if it ends so fast.

This literally has me debating on quitting and going back to WoW

Sorry not sorry, but what in the kitten Anet, like seriously wtf

So now soul reapings completely useless, we were already stuck with like what only 4 good traits, yeah thanks for marking it down to 3

Now its either condi or run scourge, I don’t wanna run condi just to wait for it to get nerfed more and I don’t play scourge to play in pretend land thinking I’m a kitten ele

Like come tf on

As I mentioned in another thread about how bad Scourge will be for pvp, it’s also devastating reaper and core necro now because they nerfed one of the required traits so that it will apply to scourge builds too.

It’s not just a big hit to survivability,…it’s a damage loss too.

I can’t imagine any designer sitting in a meeting and saying “Yeah…the one thing we really need to do is get rid of the one trait that almost everybody has to take to survive/do dmg in shroud…necros need less defenses/survivability/damage”.

It’s quite baffling.

At least celestial scourge will be a thing.

Hesacon.8735:

At least celestial scourge will be a thing.

Well, in current state necro slowly stops to be attractive. Necro was known for being the easiest and most op in open world class. Solo master. At least we all agree that anet successfully did what they wanted – made this trait, and by the way Soul Reaping less attractive.

I’m not sure if to complain. Blood magic is also fun, but EH. I prefer to have ‘options’. To choose, if i want blood magic or Soul Reaping. As a Reaper ofc (In Core there’d be no choice but Core necros have now worse because they will be forced to play weaker Soul Reaping).

why for what would we take soul reaping now … they should at least give us more defensive skills and stab….. another great gob anet……

I don’t for a second buy that it was for balance reasons. They would have changed it long ago if that was really the case. Its clear they changed it because Scourge doesn’t have a shroud in a traditional sense, so there’s no life force decay, and thus that skill would have been mostly useless with Scourge (that’s very likely also why they changed Speed of Shadows to not reduce Shroud cooldown). They want all traits to (for the most part) play nice together and not have one trait / spec make others useless. I’m actually completely on-board with that, I think its a good philosophy. Changing it to Vitality lets it benefit all specs, albeit not nearly as much as the old DP benefited Death / Reaper Shroud.

Baffling that they didn’t make it at least partially baseline for Death and Reaper Shroud, though. At least cut the decay by 33% or something, if cutting it by 50% for free would have been too much. The reason so many people took the trait, hell, the whole Soul Reaping line, is because Death Shroud decays too fast by default to account for using it as an offensive tool while also having it sliced apart by damage. It was bad being pigeonholed to lessen that issue, but not having any option at all and just having it decay that fast by default with no option to reduce the decay whatsoever is worse.

I can only hope they hear the criticisms and adjust the decay at some point.

Ran it today and wow….truly sad.

Honestly Death Shroud was the thing for me, on Necro. Is why I played it. It may be a toon I just let languish as it seriously is awful now. Fun is gone for me.