Guild Wars 2

Hi guys.

I don’t play Necro too much, so I can’t tell why Well of Darkness have that insane cooldown, I think this should be lower. (in in relation to balance)

Compared to Elementalist – Glyph of Storms (have 10 sec of duration vs 5 of Well of Darkness and only 10 sec more CD) and also Thief – Smoke Screen (have 7 sec duration, blocks projectiles and have only 30 sec CD) the Necro version feels very underwhelming.

I do know that Necro have the Chilling Darkness trait, but do not think that explains why it has such high CD/low duration.

Old trait used to increase well duration that got scrapped explains it.

It could serve to have a bit of a reduced CD, and/or a slight other buff, I totally agree. The issue is that any “standard” buffs to it just make it even more overbearing to melee builds, and just as useless to the rest.

Its because when traited it not only blinds but also chills. This trait is easy accessible.

Also it has traited group protection and siphon.

if you trait the wells to maximum, you will have an unplayable build.
the duration of the well have to be increased, or the basic CD decreased.

^ this. I play a wellomancer in pve and I guess they are fine in pve… But in PvP they absolutely suck. No moron is going to stand in one and its difficult to lock someone down long enough for them to be effective. Something needs to be donee with them…. Increase in size or duration or reduced cd.

NeXeD.3042:

^ this. I play a wellomancer in pve and I guess they are fine in pve… But in PvP they absolutely suck. No moron is going to stand in one and its difficult to lock someone down long enough for them to be effective. Something needs to be donee with them…. Increase in size or duration or reduced cd.

Wells were supposed to be battlefield control skills, they ended up being some watered down AoE effects.

Personally, I’d stand to see wells slightly redesigned. Double the well’s radii and their duration but half the damaging effects of suffering and corruption so you maintain the same total damage. Also change the pulsing to twice every three seconds to diminish the utility in proportion to their increased duration and ease of application.

This would turn wells into large scale and long lasting battlefield effects but inbuilt damage and utility would be slower in application. Something closer to the touted attrition play-style Necros should have and their original description.

Wells themselves have always been strong in PvP, they just go in and out of popularity because the spec that you need to run them with (powermancer) has a lot of issues.

I like the idea of the wells hitting faster but for less damage per hit with the same total as they are currently if all the pulses hit.

Theoretically, in PvP, and more practically in PvE, your opponent could sit inside the well, while it pulses, and keep missing major attack skills.

In practice, top PvE bosses either will not stand in the well the full duration or ignore it. I will not even get into PvP. WoD is one of those skills that is awesome if your opponent is brain-dead.

I’ve been tinkering with it using a chill build, but this is only in the zergfests hotjoin matches; even in those it’s “meh” unless it’s team vs team fight on a point, and that’s the height of it’s usefulness.

In smaller skirmishes, it may need to be replaced by something else just due to the sheer length of the CD. Since with the build I have I can’t trait into Well CDs, 50s and the inability to ground target makes it very situational for my liking.

Just my two cents. But again, I’ve been out of the game since September so take this with as a grain of salt.

WoD is, I suppose, a skill meant to be used as a CC right after seeing a tell, or start of a skill, from an opponent. If, for example, a Thief was preparing a back-stab, drop the well just before and the Thief’s skill will miss and go on full cool-down.

Because the well itself has a long cool-down, the trick is not to waste it on an opponent’s skill that has very short CD, or low damage, or if you can absorb the damage in DS, or if you can simply dodge it, or if you can flash DS for retal if it is a projectile, or any number of other options, unless you are desperate.

All wells have stupidly long CD.

The long cooldown is probably because it can be traited very well(haha well). With this well is almost a healing skill: Your enemies can’t hit you, and you get healed by the Vampiric Rituals traits. However from the other side I do indeed think the cooldown is too long. Just take smoke bomb for example: AoE blindness for 4 seconds with 25s cooldown (And it is a weapon skill). Then you might say: “But the well has 60s cooldown on 10 seconds. When you would have this skill 4 seconds it would be 24 sec cooldown”. HOWEVER: It takes an utility slot. This makes the well less viable because it is more likely to take an other skill than this.

Conclusion: The well is not viable for me when I run Wellomancer. Too long cooldown and I can take wells than that.

I bring either well of suffering or corruption in pvp. I dump it on a downed player to help finish him off and punish any rezzers. Also some capture points aren’t much bigger than the well.

But well of darkness is awful. If anet balances the cooldowns too long because the well can siphon, give protection, and give a short chill, as well as be ground targeted and shorter cooldowned, then i would prefer anet lower the base cooldown and remove some of the traits so I at least have a non bursty useable skill.

Necro shouldn’t “need” a well to finish a downed player, and wod is not like an kittening heal the amount of health you get back is laughable.

Wells suck in PvP unless you can burn all someone’s stunbreaks and stun them in the well. If they were larger and hit faster even if its for less they would at least do something.

NeXeD.3042:

^ this. I play a wellomancer in pve and I guess they are fine in pve… But in PvP they absolutely suck. No moron is going to stand in one and its difficult to lock someone down long enough for them to be effective. Something needs to be donee with them…. Increase in size or duration or reduced cd.

Agreed. Before the whole “life blast to victory” necromancer play style became a thing, I attempted to use wells and it was easily the worst necromancer play style I stumbled upon. I admit that back then the cool downs were far greater, but few opponents are bad enough to sit in them and dedicating that much utility slots to extra damage is suicide.

If well of darkness is being neglected the way it is because chilling darkness exists, then I think chilling darkness should be removed from the game. We don’t have enough blindness to make it useful outside of some niche counter push play style with plague form anyway.

NeXeD.3042:

^ this. I play a wellomancer in pve and I guess they are fine in pve… But in PvP they absolutely suck. No moron is going to stand in one and its difficult to lock someone down long enough for them to be effective. Something needs to be donee with them…. Increase in size or duration or reduced cd.

I play leeching wellomancer in spvp and im usual top player verry effective ( against minion masters i havent lost unless theres 2 or more.

Edit: i do agree about the size i wanna see a trait for larger ones

NeXeD.3042:

Necro shouldn’t “need” a well to finish a downed player, and wod is not like an kittening heal the amount of health you get back is laughable.

Wells suck in PvP unless you can burn all someone’s stunbreaks and stun them in the well. If they were larger and hit faster even if its for less they would at least do something.

Shouldn’t.

But until necromancers get the ability to stop in death shroud, they are terrible at stomping.

Are you usually a top player in the 8v8 spvp or in tpvp because there is such a huge difference. Yes you can beat a bad mm necro because your all aoe and minions don’t know to jump out of them. Every other player will especially any decent pvper in tpvp is just going to laugh at your wells and range you for 5 seconds then come in and stun lock you.

The only way a vamp necro would work in pvp would be with additional access to stability or vigor. Otherwise your traiting for something that is only useful when your attacking on a wells build you might not have a stunbreak or you will only have one. Sure you could use wop for a whopping 3 seconds of stability. Leeching works great for pve at least imo but its kittening useless in PvP unless its a 1v1.

Wells aren’t as bad as you are making them out to be.
Just combine the damaging ones with the 50% bonus crit in death shroud trait, or follow them up with lich form.

You compared WoD to glyph of storms and smoke screen.
Glyph of storm’s blinding is only when in earth attunement. It has a longer cooldown than WoD. Well of darkness’s casting time is 1/4 seconds while the glyph has a 1+1/4 seconds casting time, allowing WoD to be used in an emergency while the glyph cannot. WoD is a dark field, glyph is not a combo field. WoD is the clear winner.

Smoke screen has a shorter cooldown. Smoke screen is only a line, while WoD is a circle and so covers vastly more area. Smoke screen has a 1/2 second cast time, and WoD has a 1/4 second cast time. They are both combo fields. Smoke screen blocks projectiles and lasts 2 seconds longer. Reducing recharge is the only trait smoke field can get, WoD can get ground targeting, cooldown, protection, siphon health, reducing recharge, and the chill on blind trait.
Have you seen any thieves use smoke screen? I would say WoD is the winner.

Smoke Screen is also a Smoke field, which is generally better.

nekretaal.6485:

NeXeD.3042:

Necro shouldn’t “need” a well to finish a downed player, and wod is not like an kittening heal the amount of health you get back is laughable.

Wells suck in PvP unless you can burn all someone’s stunbreaks and stun them in the well. If they were larger and hit faster even if its for less they would at least do something.

Shouldn’t.

But until necromancers get the ability to stop in death shroud, they are terrible at stomping.

You can stomp in DS, actually. It takes practice to learn how to do it but I almost never fail now and I’ve been gone since October. I actually don’t stomp outside DS anymore.

YouTube Death Shroud stomping to learn how it’s done and then practice on the NPCs in HotM.

Chesire.9043:

nekretaal.6485:

NeXeD.3042:

Necro shouldn’t “need” a well to finish a downed player, and wod is not like an kittening heal the amount of health you get back is laughable.

Wells suck in PvP unless you can burn all someone’s stunbreaks and stun them in the well. If they were larger and hit faster even if its for less they would at least do something.

Shouldn’t.

But until necromancers get the ability to stop in death shroud, they are terrible at stomping.

You can stomp in DS, actually. It takes practice to learn how to do it but I almost never fail now and I’ve been gone since October. I actually don’t stomp outside DS anymore.

YouTube Death Shroud stomping to learn how it’s done and then practice on the NPCs in HotM.

Skill lag =/= feature or shall we exuse a-net for still not fixing transformations to work with minions?

Andele.1306:

Skill lag =/= feature or shall we exuse a-net for still not fixing transformations to work with minions?

Oh I’m by no means saying it’s intended, because if it was they wouldn’t have taken the option away from us ages ago when could actually do it. It’s the very reason being forced out of DS causes everything past our #5 from being usable a full 2 seconds afterwards (as stated in my Deathshroud Problem thread by others). They’re forcing a very flawed system down our throat.

So I totally agree with you, it’s inexcusable. I only meant to point out that it is still possible to do it and worth learning.

Even with practice shroud stomping is unreliable at best.

On topic: Wod on it’s own barely warrants slotting, even fully traited it is still weak but at least could give a chill [even this only lasts as long as they stand in it]. As people have already said, a fully traited well build serves no purpose and even in hotjoins people aren’t that stupid to just stand in them til they die.

Wells are just an odd skill for necros. They’re an aoe burst on an ‘attrition’ class. The thief blind field works so well because in the space of 1-2 missed attacks they could have burst you down significantly, a necro can’t really suppourt the same playstyle atm. I’d prefer the suggestion that wells were larger, had longer durations and ticked less frequently so that people basically had to stand in them because they are up for so long, but slowly suffer being periodically blinded/damaged etc. That would be awesome.