Guild Wars 2

Would be this too much or a good change?

maybe the trait in soul reaping could be buffed to make it decay 50% slower instead of 25%. but I think no ‘decay’ at all would be too much.

At the very least there should be no loss of damage done based on how much LF there is left. Its absurd that necros have to deal with a class mechanic that both 1) auto-degenerates AND 2) becomes less effective as it degenerates. Its a joke.

The degeneration was part of the mechanic from when DS had no CD iirc. But now that it has a 10s cd 4s traited I’m not sure it would be such a bad thing to just remove it and would probably make us a little more tanky. I can’t really see it being a huge buff but it definitely isn’t efficient as it is now.

I’ve considered this too, but ultimately don’t think it solves our main issue.

Even if it didn’t natural decay, it would still not measure up as a defensive skill against multiple burst. As any 2+ enemies focusing on you can wipe out DS in a second or two, well before the current decay is even a factor. While having perma style endurance, mobility escapes and pure damage avoidance can save you from these situations just as well as if you are facing only one opponent. But Necro gets none of those.

Honestly i dont care about the degen what would be nice is as said a) removed or reduced damage drop (like 1% damage loss pre 10% LF missing or so instead of Life blast is useless when under 50%) b) create a % damage reduction trait while you are in DS (make it even more facetanky) that gets better the lower your LF is.

I suppose the Degen is somewhat necessary, since without the degeneration a necromancer can theoretically stand back and use piercing life blast for ridiculous damage on everything in PVE without worry, using Life Transfer to gain back the occasionally lost LF from ambient damage. Might stacks + vulnerability + piercing on an attack with a base power of 470 is insane, and the only thing that keeps it in check in PVE now is that DS degenerates.

In PVP I don’t think it would be as big of an issue. Pretty much every player just DPSes and controls a necro in DS anyway, so the lack of degen wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Personally, however, I would make it so Life blast doesn’t lose power when Life Force is low. That way, necromancers can get more use out of Life Force.

Haha that’d be like shadow form. I kinda like the sound of that…

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the Degen is somewhat necessary, since without the degeneration a necromancer can theoretically stand back and use piercing life blast for ridiculous damage on everything in PVE without worry, using Life Transfer to gain back the occasionally lost LF from ambient damage. Might stacks + vulnerability + piercing on an attack with a base power of 470 is insane, and the only thing that keeps it in check in PVE now is that DS degenerates.

In PVP I don’t think it would be as big of an issue. Pretty much every player just DPSes and controls a necro in DS anyway, so the lack of degen wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Personally, however, I would make it so Life blast doesn’t lose power when Life Force is low. That way, necromancers can get more use out of Life Force.

How would that be any different than Engineers/Rangers/Eles or any other ranged class who can nuke from a distance? Life Blast only has 900 range as well. For sure the LBlast damage cutoff should be removed, as far as if DS decay was removed, not sure if it’d be such a bad thing. Could rework SR Trait 2 to remove the decay, instead of making it inherent, or increase the trait to 50% or so.

The difference with the other classes u mention are the traits that could make Life Blast too strong. Imagine for example how powerfull it would be to gain 1 stack of might for 15+ seconds with your “auto-attack”.

Dont get me wrong, i hate the degeneration and i d like to see it removed, but i m afraid its not that simple to do it.

Perhaps the degeneration could be removed completely but we get a time limit on how long we can stay in DS to keep things balanced. I think a 10 sec duration per use would be reasonable in this case.

As a first step i d definitely like to see Life Blast doing the same dmg regardless of LF and the rate of degeneration reduced.

What DS could use is 0 cooldown, making it so you can swap to DS at any time (sort of like an Engie kit), as long as you have the necessary life force to do so.

roamzero.9486:

What DS could use is 0 cooldown, making it so you can swap to DS at any time (sort of like an Engie kit), as long as you have the necessary life force to do so.

They can’t make it 0 cooldown because it will be OP with enter/leave DS traits(perma fury, stability, condition removal, retaliation, area heal etc. /spammable area weakness,bleed,vulnerability)

No degen would be too powerful too(at least in PvE where you can effectively avoid any damage, 4-5k constant piercing /vuln & might stacking ranged AA’s )

Would it really be more powerful than Zerker Warriors? Regardless, idk, I think it should degen a hell of a lot slower passively. Whats the point of it not even being 100% of our HP, as a secondary defense if it kills itself relatively quickly. Not to mention any burst fries it in half a second, then we’re also out of a chunk of our utility. I think they need to be more careful of not buffing us enough and making a lot of necros change or quit, rather than (instead of playing whack a mole) play Dynasty Reign where the same OP classes (pve and PVP) remain that way for RIDICULOUS amounts of time just because of their inching method ONCE A MONTH. I don’t know about the majority. But I can honestly say I’d prefer even whack a mole to such slight changes every whole month that you can’t even tell a difference. :/

Whack a mole is bad balance philosophy, period.

Bhawb.7408:

Whack a mole is bad balance philosophy, period.

I’m not saying it’s good, you’re right, don’t get me wrong. XD I’m just expressing my opinion on how bad “half-inching” to balance is also, in the form of a hyperbole. I think they need to go a little further than tiny buffs afraid of making something OP when patch after patch has shown that their way has really only left some classes feel in the dark while giving the illusion of favoritism for others.

Not doing whack a mole is not the problem with balancing in this game.

The problem is in addition to bringing down the OP builds too slow, they also rarely ever help the most used builds of slightly underperforming classes, due to their desire to increase variety instead.

So in other words, imagine we have one class build at a 12 in effectiveness and another at a 11. Then we have the rest of the classes using a lot of 8s and 9s which are the most popular for those profs. What Anet does instead of bringing the 8 and 9s up to 10, and bringing the OPs back down to 10, they just pick some stuff that is not even being used by anyone, and move it from a 5 or 6 level skill to another 8 or 9.

But in most cases, these improved skills still aren’t good enough to replace the most popular ones, or at best offer new alternatives that while different still do nothing to close the gap toward overall balance been the best and then the rest of the playing field.

I.e. making reanimator suck just a ‘bit less’ isn’t fixing anything. Doubling power on Signet Spite, ok no one is using it still, becuase Necro is built around a few key utilities you pretty much can’t live without.

ReMortis.4287:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I suppose the Degen is somewhat necessary, since without the degeneration a necromancer can theoretically stand back and use piercing life blast for ridiculous damage on everything in PVE without worry, using Life Transfer to gain back the occasionally lost LF from ambient damage. Might stacks + vulnerability + piercing on an attack with a base power of 470 is insane, and the only thing that keeps it in check in PVE now is that DS degenerates.

In PVP I don’t think it would be as big of an issue. Pretty much every player just DPSes and controls a necro in DS anyway, so the lack of degen wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Personally, however, I would make it so Life blast doesn’t lose power when Life Force is low. That way, necromancers can get more use out of Life Force.

How would that be any different than Engineers/Rangers/Eles or any other ranged class who can nuke from a distance? Life Blast only has 900 range as well. For sure the LBlast damage cutoff should be removed, as far as if DS decay was removed, not sure if it’d be such a bad thing. Could rework SR Trait 2 to remove the decay, instead of making it inherent, or increase the trait to 50% or so.

There are a couple of differences.

#1: With some very cheap traits, life blast would constantly grant might and inflict vulnerability. With no boon duration it would peak at 15 stacks, and with 66% boon duration it would cap the necro’s might by itself. It can inflict 20 stacks of vulnerability by itself as well. While piercing, on multiple targets.

#2: Life blast with a nearly full bar is one of the highest direct damage attacks in the game. It has a base tooltip of 470. The closest class that can compare (piercing damage at range) is the engineer which has a base power of 251. It is on a shorter recharge, so scaling it up to the same time as Life Blast will give it a DPS of roughly 335. This means that life blast, while granting might and vulnerability, has 40% higher DPS than Hip Shot.

This pattern is repeated by pretty much every single piercing shot in the game. Vapor Blade from Elementalists, Crack Shot warriors, Piercing Arrow’s Rangers, Trick Shot from Thieves, all of them far inferior in damage to Life Blast. The only one that comes close is the engineer, who is still beat out.

#3: Lets compare it to 100blades. 100 blades takes 3.5 seconds to activate and 8 seconds to recharge while having a base tooltip damage output of 2030. This comes to roughly 4.3 life blasts, which would take about 4.3 seconds to do. So you can say that the DPS from Life blast is around 81% of 100 blades. However, if you factor in that Life Blast can be used consistently for 8 more seconds while the warrior has to use other attacks while waiting for 100 blades to recharge, and that life blast can be used at a distance, and that Life Blast can hit more enemies per use, then Life Blast pulls ahead and becomes better than 100 blades.

It is no exaggeration when I say that Life Blast would be overpowered if it can be used at full power indefinitely. Zerker Necros, as rare as they are, prioritize using Life Blast as one of their main means of offense for a very good reason.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

It is no exaggeration when I say that Life Blast would be overpowered if it can be used at full power indefinitely. Zerker Necros, as rare as they are, prioritize using Life Blast as one of their main means of offense for a very good reason.

Fair point, well made, but that Zerker Necro is so squishy that his LF is under 50% in 2 hits from pretty much anyone, and he is dead in about 4s of combat is he hasn’t killed everything around him already.

Really I think getting rid of the degen is a good idea. It may be necessary to rein in the damage from Life Blast just a little bit as a result, but a Necro in Shroud is a sitting duck that is easily CC’d and focused down, so I can’t say that leaving it as is would really be a problem. Strong, yes, but also easily countered.

Izaya.2906:

roamzero.9486:

What DS could use is 0 cooldown, making it so you can swap to DS at any time (sort of like an Engie kit), as long as you have the necessary life force to do so.

They can’t make it 0 cooldown because it will be OP with enter/leave DS traits(perma fury, stability, condition removal, retaliation, area heal etc. /spammable area weakness,bleed,vulnerability)

No degen would be too powerful too(at least in PvE where you can effectively avoid any damage, 4-5k constant piercing /vuln & might stacking ranged AA’s )

You wouldn’t get perma-boons if they have/are given appropriate cooldowns (as they would if DS cooldown was removed).

We need to stop thinking based on one aspect of the game and look at the bigger picture.

For example no degeneration on DS wihtout any other change can make DS OP in PvE where u can avoid all dmg and are able to stay in DS all the time stacking boons and doing a lot of dmg with LB. In PvP though people can burst you out of DS and therefore things can be more balanced.

On the other hand no degeneration and internal cd on might/vulnerability stacking or reduction on dmg form LB is fine for the long fights we have PvE, but its not as usefull in PvP where u need to stack boons fast and burst someone.

This is why i think there needs to be some sort of limit for the time spent in DS. Right now this limit is degeneration and i think thats a bad way to do it.

With degeneration removed a time limit can be added. This limit can be a fixed amount of time or perhaps time based on the LF u have when u enter DS.

Another solution would be to have a maximun numbers of allowed casts while in DS, similar to how elementalists conjured weapons work.

Then all the traits regarding DS and LB dmg can remain the same as they are now without making DS OP in one aspect but UP in another.

Whenever a buff to DS is proposed I am always amazed and baffled by the number of fantasy land theorycrafted scenarios that get trotted out to justify not buffing DS.

In the case of healing through DS it was “gee in this theoretical case if I time my regen just right and I was being damaged just a little bit and wasn’t otherwise being CCed I could hypothetically be immortal so healing through DS is a bad idea.” Now it’s “gee in full berserker gear with two minor traits in spite and soul reaping you could hypothetically hit 20 stacks of might if you were left alone for 20 seconds or so and then your life blasts might hit for almost as much damage as 1/2 spam from a thief, so no DS decay is clearly a bad idea.”

It is as if nobody actually plays the game, in which we get chain CCed, our DS gets blown through in a few shots even in a bunker build, we don’t get enough life force fast enough to make up for that fact by the time our 10 second timer is up, and sooner rather than later we are dropped. But that doesn’t happen, because we are the attrition class, amirite?

sas.6483:

It is as if nobody actually plays the game, in which we get chain CCed, our DS gets blown through in a few shots even in a bunker build, we don’t get enough life force fast enough to make up for that fact by the time our 10 second timer is up, and sooner rather than later we are dropped. But that doesn’t happen, because we are the attrition class, amirite?

You are describing PvP and as said before u need to consider how a change affects all aspects of the game.
Noone argues that this change is fine for PvP where there are counters. Its PvE where the imbalance can appear.

I’d argue that the change would introduce little to no imbalance in PvE, beyond what is already there. You can already DS dance in and out of staff autoattack and life blast while achieving very high might and vuln uptime. Heck, if you go 30 points into SR and take the 5 second DS cooldown with 3% lifeforce on marks, along with the two minor traits in spite and SR you could achieve almost the same result as DS with no natural decay could get you. So, what is the problem?

I’d argue that you won’t even come close. Given your optimal set up, and assuming that you can, indeed, gain Life Force at a fast enough rate to recharge half of the bar in 5 seconds, I did some experimentation to find the limits of various things:

Number of Life Blasts in DS before power cut: 8
Number of attacks before DS recharges: 4 Auto attacks
Number of hits to recharge 50% of LF: 15

And this produces some interesting numbers. For example, this means that you can only peak at 8 stacks of might and 16 stacks of vulnerability. With the down time from Death Shroud’s recharge, that might dwindles away, and then you sustain at -4 stacks of might below the peak. The same thing happens with vulnerability, except it is 8 stacks of vulnerability. The interesting thing is that this might is used up outside of DS, where you aren’t doing nearly as much damage.

But lets come up with a steady DPS number. Taking the damage done in the 12 attacks that make up the rotation:

(8 × 470 + 4 × 246) / 12 = 395

which seems like it is a lot, until you realize that with infinite DS that number is 470. Then you factor in the higher sustained vulnerability (10 stacks), and you get 8% more damage, coming to 508. Then you factor in additional might (+140 power), which changes depending on initial power, but if you were to have, say, 2300 power like some zerker builds have, then this is a 6% damage increase further, coming to 538.

So, at peak life force gaining conditions, permanent DS does 36% more damage than the ideal scenario. This also neglects a few other things, such as viable build diversity. In order to get the DS recharge rate you need to devote 20 points into soul reaping for the greater recharge rate, and have to use the staff in order to hopefully gain that much LF back as quickly as possible (little hint, you won’t in the majority of circumstances). You pretty much have to go 30//10/0/0/30 in order to maximize use of Life Blast, whereas in permanent DS you only need 10/x/x/x/10.

Blood Red Arachnid posted while i was preparing some numbers too.

One thing to point out though is that if u can spam LB indefinitely u dont get only 4 stacks of might but can go up to 10-15 without any +boon duration. This makes the dmg increase even greater with infinite LB spam than what Blood described.

Ofc in reality u wont just spam staff AA while out of DS but even then there is a big difference.
I was trying to use an old spreadsheet i have to calculate the dmg u can do with different staff rotations and compare it to LB spam but it is very difficult to do so i decided not to post it.
It is not very accurate but LB spam with no might and vulnerability can do about 10-15% more dmg than a full mark rotation in a berserker build. And ofc the average staff dmg is lower than the mark rotation, since u have to fill in with the weaker staff AA.

I think it clear how big the difference can be…

Its disappointing how people can post things without even bothering to take a look at the numbers and also post things like “It is as if nobody actually plays the game”…

So, I agree that you’d get more damage through LB spam if you had infinite DS; the math is clear on this point. How much I think would be (is) a matter of some debate. How it compares to what other classes can it is likewise a matter of some debate; it’s not clear to me that saying “life blast does more damage than engi hip shot so spamming it is OP” is reasonable, given all the other variables that are left out of that equation.

I also agree that it would probably not possible to infinitely keep a rotation going on a 5 second DS cooldown; my guess is that there’d be a method to achieve higher efficiency than staff spam, that might involve not going below 50% on life force, and might involve rotating around weapon cooldowns (axe). It would probably require going 10 points into spite, using a signet of undeath, and using various foods and runes. It might result in higher steady DPS numbers than what you’re giving above. I guess you could conceivably hit 8 + 9 + 2 = 19% life force every 6ish seconds (plus some from spite talent procs I guess), which might buy you 6ish seconds in DS.

At the end of the day I don’t think that the particulars are all that important, because I don’t agree that non-decaying LF leading to infinite LB spam would be gamebreaking in PvE. To the extent it would be, it would be in group content, due to vulnerability procs, and these are capped anyway. Nobody is going to care in group PvE if you can do a little more personal damage as a necro acting as a life blast turret, given the lead up times required, the other things you’d give up, etc.

Again – what is the objection? It can’t be PvP or WvW. It clearly isn’t solo PvE, and there’s no way it can be group PvE. Maybe it’s the cool factor of hanging around in LA with DS on. I agree. That would be OP.

Enferian.2705:

The difference with the other classes u mention are the traits that could make Life Blast too strong. Imagine for example how powerfull it would be to gain 1 stack of might for 15+ seconds with your “auto-attack”.

Dont get me wrong, i hate the degeneration and i d like to see it removed, but i m afraid its not that simple to do it.

Perhaps the degeneration could be removed completely but we get a time limit on how long we can stay in DS to keep things balanced. I think a 10 sec duration per use would be reasonable in this case.

As a first step i d definitely like to see Life Blast doing the same dmg regardless of LF and the rate of degeneration reduced.

In a way, warriors can achieve this using Great sword. They can add might on every crit, and with the right build can hit a crit often enough to keep 25 stacks when built properly.

I agree that an unchecked Necro could be very dangerous left to blast away freely with out the degradation, but I doubt it would be game breaking or make Necros become FoTM.

I would be content if Anet slowed the degradation down a great deal more instead of none at all however. In many viable builds DS is a great tool, but players feel the need to preserve it rather than use it. Likewise, LF needs to be easier to generate in my opinion as well, but that is another issue for another thread.

Honestly, I would turn it on and just watch my character be like…

“GHOST FORM!” for maybe 1 hour in death shroud walking into homes/NPCs in Divinity’s Reach lol

My problem is more with the rate of life force gain in sPvP rather than its degen.