Guild Wars 2

“Decreased the active time of this well from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. Increased base healing per pulse by 50%. Updated the skill to have the correct values when Vampiric Rituals is equipped.”

Can someone check the values in game? I’m curious if this is a nerf/buff and how much so. I can’t log on right now to check the in game values.

Pre-patch it was
Base on cast – 5240(1.0)
Base per pulse – 152(0.4)

If the scaling wasn’t improved that’s a nerf. It would have required a 100% buff to the well heal to make up for the 50% reduction. Not 50% for 50%.

Oh yay anet, lets nerf the heal skill that no one in their right mind ever takes! Cuz that makes no sense. We might as well make SoV give the necromancer’s health to the enemy while we’re at it then!

280 base, 653 healing per pulse with 932 healing power(0 traits, no hp amulett vs cleric amulett). So the 0.4 coefficient is still in place, since 0.4 * 932 =372.8

Base heal on activation hasn’t changed. Scaling is also the same. 5240 with 0 HP vs 6172 with 932 HP.

Yay, WoB was too OP and really needed that nerf… /s
Also not a tooltip error, checked with svanir.

At 1431 HP I’m getting 852 per pulse (I got to log in). So it definitely got a nerf to its total healing.

As expected.. im off playing minecraft pvp..

Yepp a nerf. Only the base healing was increased…

Anet has lost it.

Great, now it heals even less for allies. Necro definitely has too much group support.

But we get 600 extra hp in the first 5 seconds! That’ll save us!

You are kidding me…

Is it weird that I got drained from my energy? Is that what Necromancer does?

I tried hard these days being positive… I tried to….

Wow, no wonder they didn’t include this in the preview. One of our few support(ish) skills, and not an overly used one at that, and they felt the need to hit it with the nerf bat eh?

If I didn’t know better, I would think this is their way of getting back at the community for “whining” about the underwhelming changes they did advertise.

Well that depends. I don’t think in most practical situations you’d be able to stand in that well for 10 seconds for it to take its full effect. Then again, I rarely use this heal anyways…

I’m not really sure why they did it.

25% nerf to well of blood

20% buff to signet of bad

How many infractions do you get for cursing in caps?

ArchonWing.9480:

Well that depends. I don’t think in most practical situations you’d be able to stand in that well for 10 seconds for it to take its full effect. Then again, I rarely use this heal anyways…

No but those 10 seconds allowed me to move back in when I got the chance.

This is supposed to be the counter to unload, flamethrower and rapid fire in their immagination, with the huge retaliation fields we can create…

Or something..

Invictus.1503:

Wow, no wonder they didn’t include this in the preview. One of our few support(ish) skills, and not an overly used one at that, and they felt the need to hit it with the nerf bat eh?

If I didn’t know better, I would think this is their way of getting back at the community for “whining” about the underwhelming changes they did advertise.

I think their goal was more to normalize wells (bloodwell the only one that wasnt 5 seconds).

But it was still a nerf…

Or maybe they did so to make SoV more viable as a support heal, but instead of buffing an underperforming heal simply nerfing the other support heal…

So just so everyone here understands the pre/post math.

Prepatch WoB = heal on cast + 11 ticks of base pulse heal * (healing power * 0.4)
It effectively had a healing power ratio of 4.4 on the AoE effect

Now, ANet wants to make it happen faster (which is fine, the amount of time it took to heal was really hurting the skill), so they decrease its duration by 5 seconds, reducing the AoE healing by kitten. To compensate, they increase the base healing per pulse by 50%. Meaning even just looking at the base healing, we now get 79.3% of the original base heal (45.5% increase on 54.5% of the original healing), AND they don’t increase the ratio, meaning they nerfed its ratio by kitten as well.

So post-patch WoB is:
Self heal – unchanged
AoE heal – base healing reduced by 20.7%, ratio reduced by 2.0 (45.45% nerf), but now does so over 5 seconds instead of 10.

So… its a change. Imo a significant nerf, but oh well.

Dont forget it will also proc less siphons, if you have those traits ofc.

Hey. Atleast we didnt get nerfed too hard!

oh wait.

Loyo.8526:

Hey. Atleast we didnt get nerfed too hard!

oh wait.

With all the buffing going on, and changes not working as hoped, I can honestly say we did… Other classes certainly did, leaving us stuck with the same tools pre-patch…

Wow that was completely uncalled for, gg Anet.

Poo, I only use WoB in group/NPC support.

Was it broken? I cannot remember the last time it was trolled on the forum.

Oh, wait! Now I remember. “Stop casting your light field over water and fire fields!”

Edit: I guess the change will reduce the persistence of inappropriate welling and it was hard to kick back in a well for 10 sec’s.

Hey, what is this all about?
“Light Field:
Leaping through a light field now grants 5 seconds of light aura.”

Anchoku.8142:

Hey, what is this all about?
“Light Field:
Leaping through a light field now grants 5 seconds of light aura.”

Doesnt change a thing for necromancer though…

I dont think we have any leaps.

But… we may be asked to run WoB just so others can leap through it!

Yeah, I can hear it already. “Stop casting your $%>< light field!”

Could have been changed for this reason:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Light-Aura-from-Combo-Finisher/first#post4382237

To clarify: Granting Vulnerability in the way Light Aura does can be strong, so I think light combo fields may see a shorter duration because of it. That, or maybe its for Necromancers that use Well of Blood that want to enter Death Shroud while still receiving the full benefit of their self heal. Waiting 10 seconds to enter Death Shroud can be too detrimental, so a shorter amount of pulses can make it more fluid.

Yep kind of kills my support/sustain build I have been using for so long (2 years). Not only is the base healing per pulse reduced by 20%, but it also reduces siphon self heal by 50% from vampiric/vampiric rituals as well. I have no clue what they were thinking. Again 5 enemies in WoB I could heal around 5000-5500 exrta health over 10 seconds. That has now been reduced to around 2500-2750.

In heavy fights when my WoB is always procing, I lose 3820-4070 self healing now. The biggest advantage of WoB was that it was a sustain heal for you and allies. Now pulls, fear and knockbacks are twice as effective against a WoB Necro, as we can be knocked out of WoB for its entire duration much easier.

So:

1. Basically a sizable nerf to Necromancer self/ally support/sustain in the very patch they said they wanted to increase our sustain form utilities. The changes should have also included either a 100% increase in pulse effectiveness, made it a water field, reduced the recharge time or given us stability. There was no reason to nerf a skill that required so much gear investment to make effective.

2. Not only is it a nerf to the above, but goes against the whole theory of Necromancer that Anet themselves laid out previously. We do not have escapes or stability due to the fact that we have Death Shroud. Our skills are instead supposed to command our area of control through DS damage mitigation, soft CC etc etc.

The problem is Death Shroud does not perform it’s damage mitigation function well or long enough for a Profession that’s based on holding its ground. It’s best for a skirmisher who doesn’t get hit or crowd controlled a lot (DS Zerker builds for example).

The only build that truly matched their definition of a Necromancer’s role, of the gears/builds I use, was my Apothecary Support well build and well builds in general (lesser extent MM).

Well of Blood was/(is still? maybe) instrumental part of dealing with one or many enemies with their huge spike and great escape abilities that I can not match. If enemies and allies stayed out of my zone of control (240-300 for max, 300-900 for ok control and 1200+ least to no control), I was less effective. If you were in my zone of control I was very effective in supporting allies and withering enemies. Well of Blood, unlike Death Shroud, was able to counteract enemy spike damage in combination with other wells, DS and huge investment trait wise. It did the job that DS could not, with sustained healing over time that meant I had enough time to control my zone, thereby not being spiked when I have no where to go.

This sustain has now been cut 1/2 and only given 1/4 more effectiveness.

3. Lastly this change was an underhanded unfortunately. Anet was being dishonest oblivious to feel that this change wasn’t worthy of their Necromancer change preview. The change to SoV’s active, which doesn’t even work half the time and no ones uses, does not warrant the change to WoB nor mention in the preview. If WoB was thought overpowered in PvP (somehow?), my above build was already defeated by steady poison application in addition to sustained damage rather than spikes.

With all that said I will have to test out my pre patch build. To be at least a bit positive, I believe that the change will likely mean we WoB users will feel less “anchored” to wherever WoB is for 10 seconds and in situations where we need health faster, this change will help rather than hurt us. However the downsides of being knocked out of WoB (which is a lot more common), will hurt a lot more than the above gain.

I’m really glad i have gone back to engineer as my main…this just adds insult to injury. After this and the feature patch, I’m honestly going to be afraid whenever Anet says they are doing something to necromancers, cause they obviously have no idea what they heck to do with this class.

But hey! Least necros are still masters of conditions! -_-

Well been testing out in pvp and so far my fears are true. WoBs effectiveness is pretty much null, because you cast it when while under pressure (the whole point of it), enemies continue to knockback etc. and by the time you get back to WoB, its gone. So now im getting about 0% of the pulses as opposed to 50% of them pre patch under those circumstances. I might as well use Consume Conditions i’m thinking like everyone of my other builds.

Also, the lack of extra siphons for 5 seconds and the more healing per pulse isn’t doing me any good over time. I just don’t have any sustain with my old build, at least in pvp. Will see what its like with a higher healing power build in wvw later.

WAIT!!! i got it!

They unexpectedtly nerfed Well of Blood , to distract us and give us something to bark about.
And not point out everything else was bad/meh.

I must say im impressed ANet.

I mean… realistically you weren’t gonna stay in it for the full 10", so for the first 5" it’s a 25% buff. But yeah, when you consider ally healing in big boss fights in pve where you don’t often get knocked out of the well it’s definitely a nerf.

The good news is that with its duration reduced it would no longer be ridiculously overpowered if they turned it into a water field, so maybe we can start lobbying for that change! It’s a very reasonable change, both thematically and mechanically, as most healing skills in the game (except guardian’s) are water fields: and it’s a sodding WELL kitten , and they do say blood is thicker than water! :p

Actually I was wrong on how much healing I lost before I was able to play. Only in WvW did I notice just how bad it was as mentioned by others. I was assuming that the 50% increase to pulses was including healing power, but it isn’t. Before I was healing 700 per pulse over 11 pulses with 1370ish healing power. Now I heal 869 per pulse over 6 pulses. The way I thought it worked would have me at around 1050 per pulse. So lets see how it really works:

Pre-Patch Well of Blood:

Self Heal: 6609
Pulse Heal: 700 per pulse over 11 pulses – 7700 Self/Group Healing
Siphon: (38 Vampiric + 57 Vamp Rituals) x 6 Pulses up to 5 targets = 0-5220 Healing

Post-Patch Well of Blood:

Self Heal: 6609
Pulse Heal: 869 per pulse over 6 pulses (tooltip broke in hotfix) – 5225 Self/Group
Siphon: (38 Vampiric + 57 Vamp Rituals) x 6 Pulses up to 5 targets = 0-2850 Healing

Total possible healing Pre-Patch: 6609-19529 on a 32 second traited CD, normal is 40s

Total possible healing Post-Patch: 6609-14684 on a 32 second traited CD, normal is 40s

Total loss of potential healing: 4845 health. I have 22760 Health.

So pre-patch WoB healed me 85.8% of my total health over 10 seconds in an ideal circumstance (if you call being surrounded by 5 enemies and getting pounded by enemies “ideal”). I would have to wait 22 seconds to use heal and recreate the same sustain that I had for 10 seconds.

Now in the same circumstance post-patch, WoB heals me only 64.51% of my total health, but over 5 seconds. I have to wait 27 seconds to heal and recreate the sustain for 5 seconds.

At first glance this looks like it could be advantageous as more healing in the first 5 seconds, but the difference from pre-patch is very small.

Remember Pre-Patch WoB under the same 5 seconds/circumstances healed me 6609 + 4200 + 2850 = 13659 instead of post-patch 14684. That means I (or Anet) just traded 4845 health over an additional 5 seconds for an extra 1025 in the first 5 seconds and nothing after that. I will probably waste that 1025 from being knocked back, inefficiency (a pulse healing me at 100% health) or poison (which is now a lot more effective against WoB since you have a lot less time to clear it).

How is that not a notable enough change to even mention in Necromancer preview? Did someone do the math or even test it? A second added to SoV active that no one uses or will use is worthy of the preview or warrant explaination? Huh??? Both the Base Pulse and its Healing Power scaling should have been doubled period. My WoB would be more like this:

My WoB change at healing pulse power x2 compared to pre-patch:
Self Heal: 6609
Pulse Heal: 1400 per pulse over 6 pulses – 8400 Self/Group Healing
Siphon: (38 Vampiric + 57 Vamp Rituals) x 6 Pulses up to 5 targets = 0-2850 Healing
Total: 6609-17859 healing

That’s more front loaded and less dependent on siphons for max heal, but the 5 second duration is a lot weaker and vulnerable to enemy counters like poison and knockback. That’s a fair balance while also making WoB a better and more viable group heal. Yay for build diversity and alternative group heals!

Numbers might be low, not sure, but the functionality is a massive improvement in my eyes.

1. Faster burst healing and making sure you get in some ticks before people walk out.

2. Less time/chance of cancelling out other, more useful longterm fields, particularly in PvE.

If they get the numbers right, they’re on the right track.

Amethyst Lure.5624:

Numbers might be low, not sure, but the functionality is a massive improvement in my eyes.

1. Faster burst healing and making sure you get in some ticks before people walk out.

2. Less time/chance of cancelling out other, more useful longterm fields, particularly in PvE.

If they get the numbers right, they’re on the right track.

Exactly, but the problem is the numbers are low/wrong.

1. As I said before, the faster burst healing even on the highest healing power builds is only 1K more healing than pre patch version in that first 5 seconds, while losing the 5 remaining pulses in the latter 5 seconds and any mass siphoning you would have got from vampiric/vampiric rituals. I think it’s a better group heal right now due to the fact so many people run out of WoB and usually don’t benefit from the full effect. However, it’s still only 1K more on the best day.

2. The reverse more likely in pvp/wvw, as in you will likely be knocked out of your WoB for 2-3 seconds, leaving only a remaining 1-2 pulses left. Compared to before when you got knocked out of your well you could limp back and still enjoy 7 seconds of pulsing. The total healing from pulses should actually be more than before because of this.

Shorter and more spiky the heal = More emergency healing, but less sustain/efficiency versus sustained damage. Great for healing a one time spike.

Longer more pulsing the heal = Less emergency healing, but more sustain/efficiency versus sustained damage. Great for taking lots of punishment, especially when combined with soft/hard crowd control.

That was the nice thing about WoB. It was a spike self heal combined with a group sustain pulse that recovered health over a longish period.

If they get the numbers right, except they didn’t. They should have increased the ratio by 50% too, and then maybe I’d be less PJSalt y.

They need to double the scaling and make it heal at least 80% of what it did total. Then I would say it is better than it was. Right now this is a ridiculous nerf to a skill that was very niche already.

zapv.8051:

They need to double the scaling and make it heal at least 80% of what it did total. Then I would say it is better than it was. Right now this is a ridiculous nerf to a skill that was very niche already.

Basically if they increased the ratio by 50% it would end up being 79% of the AoE healing, which I’d say would be fine.

Amethyst Lure.5624:

Numbers might be low, not sure, but the functionality is a massive improvement in my eyes.

1. Faster burst healing and making sure you get in some ticks before people walk out.

2. Less time/chance of cancelling out other, more useful longterm fields, particularly in PvE.

If they get the numbers right, they’re on the right track.

My same ‘feel’ from testing, its “faster” but way “weaker” , please double check your numbers Anet.

If the new figures remain the same, how much would they need to reduce the cooldown in order to get similar results prior to the patch?

Jayce.5632:

If the new figures remain the same, how much would they need to reduce the cooldown in order to get similar results prior to the patch?

Well the CD untraited is 40 seconds, 32 seconds traited. Before we basically waited 22-30 seconds for the 10 second effect. Now we wait 27-35 seconds for a 5 second pulsing effect. We lossed about 1/3 to 1/2 of the pulses’ overall healing effect depending on healing power in addition to that.

If they were to keep the mechanics as they are now, while decreasing the cooldown, they could make WoB a base 35 second CD (28 seconds with mastery). That would be 23-30 seconds in between pulse effects (very close to what it was before duration/potency nerf). I would be ok with that.

Again though, the ability is a lot less powerful in addition to being shorter. I believe a 30 second base CD (24 seconds with Mastery) on WoB would still be appropriate. That’s 19-25 seconds in between 5 second pulse effects.

A base 32 seconds may be the sweet spot if skill mechanics were left as is.

Right now WoB feels a lot like what is was when it was a base 50(? memory is fuzzy) second CD before well CD buffs. A day late and a dollar short.

Jayce.5632:

If the new figures remain the same, how much would they need to reduce the cooldown in order to get similar results prior to the patch?

It depends on your healing power. If you have 0 healing power, then it would need to come up 20% faster, so it’d need to be base 32s or so. With any healing power investment that would need to be even shorter.

Make it a water field and I’ll approve the change.

I am not very concerned about total heal reduction for Necromancer. The initial heal is the same and it was not always possible to camp the field for 10 seconds.

Attractiveness of the profession for group support is my chief worry.

ANET is craaazzzzyyyyyy

I have a full cleric ascended necro I used to enjoy. 10s of 1k a second burst healing plus constant 400 hps regen. Toss in transfusion and use some minions or rebuff wells and it was my goto support.

Now a water ele auto attacks for more hps.

Well of blood was the lynchpin of necro healing. I am so depressed.

If this had been accompanied by support buffs like lifesteals heal in a 600 range and some more vulnerability, blind and control options I could deal. Also more friendly condition control. But necro support is just horribly outclassed now.

Looks like we agree, Dimglow. +1. I understand that Necromancer is a debuff class by design but it is disappointing that very idea runs against the game’s development.

I wish Arenanet would re-evaluate condition access for other professions. Conditions are commodities and Necro is only marginally better than other jobs.

Honestly, how many flavors of vanilla pudding are there?

The thing I hate most about wells is the change from GW1 – GW2, and that the duration of each well is so pathetic; I also dislike the animation its very weak.

It even goes against what they have up on the official website necro page. “These persistent, stationary spells allow necromancers to control the area around them. Well of Blood, for example, regenerates all allies within range.”

hmm persistent-lasting or enduring . Yes, five seconds is very ENDURING…. lame

It could actually change the game a lot if wells remained for a much longer period of time, instead of how they now seem to make them last shorter and shorter. It would also help rid the game of the zerg mentality, if wells were a real hazard, and players had to spread out to avoid them, instead of spamming their heals till they ran out naturally.