No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I have HOPE but I can’t wield guns with my necromancer. Crinn is right, what’s limiting the terrormancer have always been fear duration and scourge dan’t change this fact.
Well, at least I can see it used in WvW where you’ll be able to see scourge fear whole enemies raids by themselve.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
WvW being balanced as part of PvE… Yeah the scourge will be a strong support.
Will he also stand strong as a support in raids and fractals… Honestly, he might see some use in fractal that are heavily loaded with condition which mean high level fractal. As for raids, if he got a high enough dps he might take the spot of one of the two druids but the support will be secondary to it’s dps.
Realisticaly the scourge will need to focus on it’s dps if he want to find a spot in raids. It’s natural support will come as a bonus that you won’t want to invest deep into.
NB.: OP, the reason why healing is done by the Druid is because there is grace of the land which is free extra damage for the allies affected by the heals. If a healing profession can’t provide the same option there will be no room for this profession. Another thing to keep in mind is that in high end PvE, groups try to rely less and less on healing to maximize their dps.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
(edited by Dadnir.5038)
Power Scourge is sweet because of its ability to upkeep boons for free with Feed From Corruption and some Concentration. It also has some nice burst between Desert Shroud and Spiteful Spirit. It’s just another way to play the class, and I’m excited for the possibilities.
Please tell me why a purely Condition focused Elite would go a power route?
There is not much more power trait in reaper than there is in scourge. Tell me why people keep slamming reaper should be played power and scourge condi while obviously none of them is better than the other at these 2 types of damage.
There is also room for power damage in scourge; As for whether berserk or grieving is better… Well you are probably right for grieving. What I was looking for with berserk was to cope with the natural low crit chance of the spec.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Curse : shouldn’t you take plague sending instead of terrifying descent?
I’d probably try a power build around those lines in order to see the potential of a power Scourge (not that I have such infusions) :
I think power scourge capitalizing on desert shroud ability to dish out damage at the same time as the scourge auto attack could (maybe) reach a satisfying level of dps (well, at least it shouldn’t be below reaper’s).
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
The main OP factor in Scourge is its AoE in WvW and PvE. In PvP it’s going to be a noob killer, which will get it a lot of hate.
Nope the main OP factor in WvW is the fact that you can maintain a golem or an NPC ad infinitam if you have enough scourges and a good teamplay.
WvW is not about roaming but mainly about teamfight and there will be a need to tune down barrier at least for NPC.
The second factor is still not the aoe ability but, sadly the condition management. Well yeah scourge finally achieve what we can call a good (borderline OP) condition management and between the sheer number of corruptions and cleanses, the scourge have the potential to create another shipwar meta. The fact that it can affect so many target is just the icing on the cake.
We’ve seen how condi cleanse can be seen by the PvP crew with how fast druid’s condi cleanse have been nerfed. I doubt that scourge will pass throught this unscathed. There is currently 2 boons converted on F2, I’d bet that it will drop to 1 pretty quickly.
This is where I see them nerfing things, F2 and max barrier on NPC and golem in wvw. And honestly, it wouldn’t be bad nerfs.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
The scourge is designed to be a monster in WvW, it would have been shame that these player deemed it useless.
However, I highly doubt that the scourge will pass through release without a nerf. Thought a nerf to the wvw scourge come at a potentially high cost to the PvE scourge.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Just what part of this thing isn’t overpowered against a player?
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Or they can simply give a breakbar to the things that are summoned instead of a lifebar. When the breakbar is removed, so is the summoned being. This way there is counter play but it stay usable almost everywhere. With scaling it could even live a bit in wvw zergs.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I’d say that it’s best to have a meteorologicus and put another skin on it. That’s what I’ve done personnally. Otherwise, dagger is also a good catch, tere are some pretty nice skins that can cover the legendary one.
I might even say that dagger is better since it’s the one weapon for which you might want to switch regularly from power to condi and from condi to power.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I’m not sure we need more effects on a weapon that basically need QoL. I’m trading all your bleeds against a attack speed improvement on the daggers skills.
When we look at some of the less popular skills of the necromancer, we can see that anet tried to fix them by adding more and more effect. We can also see that it never fixed the real issue.
Look at unholy feast it was just a slow skill that cripple and damage foes around you while giving you retaliation. Now, I’m affraid that the only thing it doen’t do is making us some coffee. The issue have always been that it’s a “close” range skill on a long range skill with a slow cast time.
Look at dagger #2 & 3, did they needed all these extra when a simple improvement in base attack speed and range would have make them perfectly fine?
This whole bleed on auto attack wouldn’t make the dagger “op”, it would only add more load on an auto attack that is inherently flawed due to it’s low attack speed on the 3rd skill of the chain.
I don’t think the necromancer need more change like those, but that’s sure the kind of change that anet is used to do on the necromancer.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I wouldn’t be against a mace that lay a mark every third auto attack…
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I’m assuming that you ask if the effect of vampiric presence act as a hit. It doesn’t, It is an on hit effect and thus doesn’t trigger on hit effect himself.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
(edited by Dadnir.5038)
The point was more that you need the druid for it’s extra damage buff that’s something that won’t change and since to grant these extra damage. Chrono won’t be replaced by 2 profession, there is not 11 spot in a raid. The revenant is bound to spam natural harmony and take salvation as a traitline which sink it’s dps to oblivion.
I know that it’s not “fun” to see that everything revolve around damage in GW2 PvE, but that’s how the encounters are designed. To avoid troublesome mechanisms, players have been pursuing offense instead of defense since release.
In raids there is nothing to protect, everyone’s effort are turned toward burning the bosses life as fast as possible in order to skip any troublesome mechanisms. The necromancer and the scourge could be fish in water if there were mechanisms that punish to much dps or simply if encounters were designed toward survivability instead of pure strength. However that’s not the case.
So : since you need Druid for it’s damage boost, you don’t need a heal. Since you don’t need a heal, you don’t want a ventari renegade. Since you don’t want a ventari renegade you need a chrono. Since you need a chrono you don’t really have a use for a firebrand specialized in quickness.
In the end, druid and chrono stand tall, renegade enter the fray thanks to the extra damage he provide and firebrand is doomed to compete for a dps spot. The only real “winner” in raids is renegade that gain a spot thanks to mechanisms that don’t work well in PvP environment and solo PvE.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I think that’s definitely not a necromancer elite spec… I mean… You’re virtualy naked as a necromancer without shroud, defense wise. And your spec don’t have any shroud nor mechanism that grant a spec of survivability.
I know that some players like to see the necromancer as a free kill but this one would be outrageously easy to kill. No dodge, no blind, no aegis/block, barely any movement skill… oups sorry, a minor grant invulnerability for each F skill, no less…
The necromancer and it’s e-spec are tightly bound to a theme which is related to condition management. The extra HP thingy is designed toward soaking conditions, corruptions, condition transfer,… everything revolve around condition management. Even minions in a way are used for condi management.
What you’ve done is something close to the deadeyes I imagine, except that it would be a lot less potent.
NB: for convenience
- F2 and F3 should be swaped.
- there are 13 traits usually a traitline only have 12.
- a trait that reduce cool down that are already reduced in soul reaping is redundant.
- death from above already in game : https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Death_from_Above
- hallucinate : we call that torment IG.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Why would you replace 1 profession that does abysmal dps by 2 professions with 1 of those profession that does abysmal dps? Why would that even be better?
In your setup, the chrono would be replaced by 1 renegade kalla/ventari that would actually need to be on ventari and do close to no damage to keep alacrity and 1 firebrand that would need to be the tank of the group and provide alacrity since he got a minor that can easily be an issue for aggro management if he is not the tank.
That said, the chrono could have provided this little extra that is distorsion and help skipping bothersome mechanism.
Honestly, I think the renegade will be better at providing extra damage for the team and not concern himself with alacrity than reaching chrono dps level by trying to maintain alacrity (and heal allies?). Will group give up a Druid that grant extra damage for an healing renegade? I doubt it.
Honestly, this is pretty ridiculous how much focus over “healing” there is at this point while druid the current raid “healer” is more here to provide it’s damage bonus than it’s heals. And here we got players fantasizing over having scourge/firebrand/renegade replacing chrono and druid I assume.
Why bother with scourge and firebrand? Just use renegade as extra damage with chrono and druid. Keep the current system and add free extra support/damage from renegade on an easy rotation. Never try something complicated, always take the easy path, it’s better.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
That won’t happen. Either distortion share is required (and then firebrand/renegade aren’t essential to base comps for quickness/alacrity) or you drop the chrono. Given that minstrel chrono, firebrand and renegade all have heal potential, Druid also isn’t required for healing. You are also mixing a lot of power/condi dps in there when subgroups ideally focus on 1 or the other.
Curiously I think chron will stay at it’s spot. Firebrand might not be used specifically for it’s quickness but for it’s dps and renegade will definitely be taken for it’s abilty to give more dps to it’s teammate instead of it’s ability to grant alacrity or heal.
Renegade is definitely an agressive spec, wasting it’s dps by using ventari in raid would be pretty lame. The good point being that if kalla’s skills are short live in PvP/WvW, they will be pretty resilient and usefull as dps increase in PvE.
As for firebrand, he give to short of an amount of quickness each time, which take him out of a fight against chrono. And you’ll especially not take a firebrand with mantra equiped in raids, charging mantra is to much of a dps loss. No I’d say that the firebrand even have chance to be kicked out of raid, because he got a trait that grant him 250 toughness while under quickness and that will conflict with the tank.
Between firebrand, chrono and renegade the one that have the least chance to enter the raid will be the firebrand. The druid, don’t have to worry thanks to all it’s dps increase boost. The renegade can capitalize on kalla’s skills and it’s ability to improve ferocity. While the chrono will remain the best at what he is actually doing. As for healing, all in all it’s not a “necessity” in raids and this raids party will still tend to minimize it to the max in order to push dps to new heights.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I think it makes sense to lower decay in pve only.
This would make sense if WvW was not balanced as a PvE area. The issue is that Scourge is strong, very strong in WvW as it is and any PvE buff can make it totally broken. Well, from what’s been seen it’s already broken op in WvW and nerfs to the “PvE” (read WvW) side are already bound to happen at release.
Barrier will probably be hitten hard especially in the “PvE” area because none should be able to grant 160k extra health to a golem or a lord in WvW.
Wait, PvE and WvW aren’t split like PvE and PvP ?
PvP balance only affect sPvP, that’s nothing new. WvW is and has always been looked at like a PvE area. That’s why there are player that still say that reaper’s deathly chill is too strong.
Scourge that have effects that can affect 20 targets is designed with WvW in mind where you usually have those 20 target to support or those 20 foes to reckt, where you have plenty of boons to corrupt or plenty of condition to cleanse.
And the PvE balance will be done accordingly because this is in this PvE area that the maximum potential of the scourge tools will be reached. WvW being a PvE area is illogical yet this is a thing and I don’t think anet is ready to change this anytime soon.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Well… you might want to take a scourge in the cliffside fractal if this is your question, but that doesn’t mean that the druid can’t do the job. For everything else, Druid stay strong and unshakable.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I think it makes sense to lower decay in pve only.
This would make sense if WvW was not balanced as a PvE area. The issue is that Scourge is strong, very strong in WvW as it is and any PvE buff can make it totally broken. Well, from what’s been seen it’s already broken op in WvW and nerfs to the “PvE” (read WvW) side are already bound to happen at release.
Barrier will probably be hitten hard especially in the “PvE” area because none should be able to grant 160k extra health to a golem or a lord in WvW.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Seems like barriers are being dismissed, which seems odd to me. Unlike a healer you get to preemptively mitigate damage that could otherwise result in a death. Rift had a similar mechanic in the Oracle class and it was highly wanted in raids.
Well barrier in rift are great, I liked it, especially as a tank. To be honest, barrier are/were also great in lotro, I was totally in love with this mechanism with my dwarf champion. Above all, these barriers don’t decay.
In GW2, PvE group content revolve around dps not healing. To put it simply, when the player discover new content they tend to need a few bit of survivability which then become unneeded as you understand the mechanisms of the encounter. This is where barrier, revive, heal stand.
On the other hand, as players grow accustomed to the encounter, they reduce the healing part to the minimum and instead look for more damage output.
The barrier mechanism is dismissed for this reason, on the long run this is not a mechanism that will be of an asset for the necromancer. And if we look at short term, this support give nothing more than what the druid’s heal give.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Well, it really depends on whether raidwide barriers and raidwide “convert 2 conditions into boons every 4 seconds” is needed in possible new raids or not, or would make old raids a lot more consistant to beat. Remember Scourge can give the might, barrier, and condicleanse to more than “just” 5 people. If new raidbosses then also have a lot of boons that need ripping… Well. I still think Scourge should probive quickness or sth. instead of might because might generation is so over-saturated already, but oh well…
Then again, also depends on what conditions raidbosses dish out…if they spam chill and/or slow, that gets converted into resistance and quickness every 4 seconds (and the boons last 3 base), so…
The questions are :
- Will you give up druid’s damage boost for barrier? And the answer is no.
- Will you give up warrior’s EA to use scourge as might provider? Again the answer is no.
- Should you bet on what the futurs raid boss will do to say that the scourge will have a place in raids? Still no.
The support that the scourge provide is not “sexy” for the actual content and is far from shaking off our “support classes” that provide what’s important on the long run : offensive support. The actual content won’t disapear while the futur content is far and few. Ask yourself if the scourge have something that would make raiders want to use it in the current raids. You’ll end up finding that also it could be usefull to have barrier/condi cleanse on some boss, the loss of offensive support don’t make him a primary choice as a support.
The very design of the raids encounter make it difficult for the scourge to overthrow the current support pilars of the PvE raids. If, and I say “if”, the raids developpers were to design encounters that are not centered around killing a foes as fast as possible but instead survive hard environment/block wave of monsters for an amount of time, the scourge might find it’s spot. However, that’s still a far and uncertain futur.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Ranger :
pros : good offensive support (especially as druid)
good mobility
good condi damage
pretty resilient
Cons : low power damage
can struggle against condition
the pet is a mechanism that tend to underperform.
conclusion : the profession is average in open PvE, sought out for PvE group content, a bit weak in PvP and have pet issue in WvW.
Druid made the ranger welcome in PvE and helped a lot in regard of survivability in PvP.
Soulbeast is full of promise for less issues in WvW group content.
Thief :
Pros : Good at both condi and power damage
good mobility
good at disengaging
Blind a lot
Cons : tend to be squishy
situational support
pretty weak against conditions
conclusion : almost faceroll open PvE content, can easily have a dps spot in PvE group content, THE roaming profession in WvW, not in a bad spot in PvP.
Daredevil is more like a direct upgrade of the thief as a damage dealer than anything.
Deadeye seem to introduce a bit more support on top of the damage dealing role.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Depends on how much will we need to sacrifice for might generation – we might be able to compete with warriors in that regard.
I’m sorry but that’s deluding yourself here. PS was king even when revenant’s passive might generation was above the top and Elementalists can still easily grant 25 might almost permanently to a party. Warriors are a convenient sources of might that need “low” investment and are already well rounded in all raids strategy because they do not only provide might (they also have empower allies and banners buff).
The point is that you’ll need a warrior with EA to be optimal and since EA is in the same traitline than PS, the best course of action is to use your warrior as might provider as well, while banner’s buff will come as a bonus.
And there you’ll have your scourge that will say : I can provide migth to! But he won’t be able to cope with the net loss of 150 point of power for all your team. He also won’t be able to cope with the loss of banners. And if you try to somehow push it, you’ll end up with a warrior that will take tactic just for EA, wasting personnal damage and usefullness for the sake of leting scourge provide might…
It’s not tryhard or whatever, the might providing role is taken by an unreachable montain of offensive buffs that the necromancer/scourge can’t sake off.
Like Drarnor said, the only place still left for the necromancer/reaper/scourge is a DPS spot. There is lot of competition for thess spots which mean that the scourge will need to hold is own dps wise. That said, there is potential for both condi and power dps in the scourge, what’s left is to see whether or not it’s at a competitive level. One need to be aware that it’s a boon eating spec that might end up starving in PvE and thus have a lower condi dps than expected in raids.
What the necromancer/reaper/scourge is missing is a unique offensive buff or debuff that is not the pitifull vampiric presence. Just this one thing in our core traitline would be enough to make any necromancer’s spec “sexy”.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Scourge is about condition management and the runes need to embody that not express a will for condition damage.
The runeset could have very well been :
1) +25 healing power
2) +35 vitality
3) +50 healing power
4) +65 vitality
5) +100 healing power
6) Grant barrier (200) when you cleanse a condition. ICD 20 seconds.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Yes but with PoF the firebrand will leave scourge in the dust if they do not make scourge runes solid.
I really don’t think the condi would be too big because the spellbreaker will passively eat up all the boons before scourge can get them. I suppose i could reduce the boon removal from rune set to 3.
Really? You are assuming that just scourge will be able to use those runes? Are you serious?
Now, just change your point of view 2 second, put you into the shoes of a mesmer with a scepter and look at your runset bonus. Don’t you see just how op it is?
For any condi spec profession,just your 5 first bonus make this runset meta and if the 6th bonus isn’t interesting (outside of PvP), you just take another condi rune to gain 25 more condi damage.
- cause 3 bleeds whenever you cause torment : make scepter mesmer so op, that it’s scary.
- Convert 5 boons, on foes in 600 radius, into torment every 3 seconds : Just remove boons from the game, you make them useless and even harmfull with just 1 bonus.
- Grant 1k barrier per boon converted or removed : weavers who have to work to gain 400 point of barrier would just ragequit the game when facing mesmers or necromancers who just have to auto attack to gain twice as much barrier.
Each one of your 6th bonus is incredibly overpowered. If we put all 3 together and your 50% condition duration, everybody and it’s grandma will use this runeset, whatever their personnal taste, everybody will use condibuild. Not just necromancers, all professions altogether would change their build to only play condi and use this runeset.
The scourge’s runeset is focused on improving barrier value (healing power) and improving condition (condi damage). The last bonus is supposed to grant a bit more survivability when you fight. Sure 75s ICD hurt a lot and halving this would help a lot to make those runes more popular, but what you propose is just insanity.
The current scourge runeset is neither good nor bad, it’s just Anet thinking to highly of a limited amount of extra health point for a very short time.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
(edited by Dadnir.5038)
Things that would help the necromancer :
General :
- Leaping in poison field grant poison aura. Poison aura : gain regeneration and poison foe when hit, ICD 1 second.
- Leaping in dark field grant aura of darkness. Aura of darkness : steal life when hit, ICD 1 second.
(I’m skipping all change that would be needed on mob AI)
Shroud mechanism :
- Reduce decay based on the concentration stat.
Barrier mechanism :
- Reduce decay delay based on the concentration stat.
- Cap max barrier sent on ally at the scourge max barrier cap if the ally health pool is higher.
Core necromancer :
- Change rending shroud so that it apply a toughness debuf instead of vuln stack.
- Apply unholy fervor damage boost to all skill instead of just axe skills.
- Put axe cool down reduction on Spiteful spirit
- Putrid defense additionnally grant you poison aura when hit under the treshold (50%, ICD 30 seconds)
- Soul comprehension : grant 1% life force on hit, ICD 3 seconds.
- Vampiric presence : When you and your allies hit a bleeding foe gain health. Heal for around 50 per hit.
- Quickening thirst : move faster while wielding a dagger and dagger cool down reduced (20%). When hiting a bleeding foe with a dagger, attack speed increase by 10%.
- Vampiric ritual : well recharge faster. Using a well grant you and your allies protection and aura of darkness.
- Reaper touch : no longer bounce, removed regen component. Now a 4 ammo skill, ICD between 2 charges 1/2 second, cast time 1/4 second.
extra :
- Summon flesh golem : now available underwater. (Yeah! I felt like I had to push for it a bit more)
- Lich form become lich aura. Lich aura : You and your allies do 10% more damage for 10 seconds. When under this effect and in shroud you gain 2% life force when hit, ICD 1 second and periodically have stability. CD 120 seconds. (Dream change)
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Also, for the 10000th time, if you were using Speed of Shadows in any PvP environment before the change you were not using Soul Marks and/or a staff.
That’s your real problem, l2build.
WvW is a PvP environment and you shouldn’t even have the need for such a trait. You can shout your love for the staff as much as you want it doesn’t change the fact that wvw’s fight are overflowing with life force rendering this trait and the staff unneeded outside of backliner builds.
Frontliners need every second available of shroud and staff help neither for survivability nor for damage at this place. Beside, mark, blocked or not, are not even an hindrance for most of the zergs.
This is not a case of “learn2build” like you like to say, this is a real concern for players that are not addicted to staff and soul mark. I mean… what a great game it is if to know how to build the first things that you got to do is : take a staff and soul mark otherwise you need to learn2build.
It might shock you Flow but that exactly what you’re saying. You’re saying that all necro should use 1 specific weapon and 1 specific trait otherwise they are worthless. Not even giving any place for a spec of originality by assuming (falsely) that your opinion is the best opinion and every single player that say it’s not is wrong.
Let’s just take one of your others sentense and replace just a few words :
Has it ever occured to you that people have run builds in WvW or PvP that don’t use Speed of Shadows, or Soul Reaping at all for that matter?
“Has it ever occured to you that people have run builds in WvW or PvP that don’t use staff and soul mark, or soul reaping for all that matter?”
The 3 seconds cool down mattered for some builds and these builds have been utterly destroyed. You can wield all the staffs and soul maark you want, it doesn’t change the fact that a number of successfull build have gone to oblivion and diversity took a huge blow.
The necromancers grieves for those builds.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Today, the shroud, despite all traits that support it, fail at being a good mean of damage output due to the ratio damage output/shroud decay.
It’s obvious that the developers think the opposite of necro players: Shroud “traits that support it” just got TWO huge nerfs in one “Balance” patch!
Well, they said clearly not so long ago that they felt that the necromancer was where they wanted it to be pvp wise. It’s obvious that they absolutely weren’t prepared to see how badly the necromancer’s community answered to those changes. They just tried to adjust traits so that they got more synergy with Scourge. Vital persistence reduced decay wouldn’t have affected the scourge which was bothersome to them and speed of shadows reduced cool down was overlapping with vital persistence’s one which was equally troublesome.
A way to present thing is that the latest patch was a great show of them moving forward without a real care for what was already here.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
OP, scourge is design to be a beast in zergs in WvW, and he is.
He is bound to be less satisfying in other gamemode but at least he got a good start there. After PoF release, you’ll still be able to play core necromancer and reaper (if they do not wreck to much things for these 2).
A lot of us that rant on the forum are more frustrated than anything by the choice of developpement that anet choose for the necromancer. They push and push forever toward the same direction which always favor zerging in wvw but end up lacking in other gamemodes.
The necromancer and it’s specialization are designed to be balanced in optimal situation so it force the dev to balance thing over WvW where it’s toolkit is the most effective. Yes, it’s often difficult to generate life force in some gamemodes, but in WvW it’s easy to fill your LF bar in very few seconds. Yes you need boons to corrupt to really benefit from all our boon corrupting tools but in WvW these are not rare at all. Yes you aren’t threaten by condition in a lot of pve area but condition bombing was a thing in WvW and there seem to need some tools to mitigate them while the necromancer’s community were litterally bleeding there own throat for some support. Yes life siphon feel weak but, if you stack enough minions or hit the maximum foes with your wells, it eventually give you one hell of a sustain… etc.
I’ll precise zephiris’s hint : Druid deal with health, Scourge deal with conditions. Druid recover, Scourge protect. Druid buff, Scourge debuff.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
The issue or advantage of the shroud is that it is not only a defensive mechanism.
I believe that in it’s inception, the shroud aimed to be the most powerfull tool of the necromancer. The issue is that it prove to be to powerfull in the eyes of the betatesters and was thus nerfed to the ground before release.
Today, the shroud, despite all traits that support it, fail at being a good mean of damage output due to the ratio damage output/shroud decay. Simply put, a player is sent out of shroud to fast for the shroud to be a good mean of sustain damage and the damage output in shroud is to weak for it to be considered a good burst.
As an additionnal health bar, the shroud is an interesting mechanism even if vastly inferior to direct avoidance. The main issue of this mechanism is probably it’s huge weakness against crowd control effects that other defensives mechanisms tends to brush of easily.
Ironically, the strength of a 2nd health bar is that “when hit” effect have really good synergy with it. Sadly, the necromancer have almost no personnal ability to gain retaliation, few traits that take advantage on “when hit” effect and above all their combo field have give no aura (aura that almost always grant “when hit” effect… Not that the necromancer is full of combo leap as well).
The 2nd health bar is a very strong defensive mechanism but the necromancer simply lack the tools necessary to exploit these mechanisms to a decent level. The same way, the will behind the shroud is commendable because we see that it’s a mechanism that aim to give the necromancer a strong impact even while he try to brush damage aside but, in the end, what seem meant to have a huge impact just fall off due to too many natural “nerf”.
The shroud is good but to limited by the profession design to eventually shine. This leave a lot of room for improvement and obviously a lot of room for differents elite specs. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the state of the current shrouds is not really satisfying. On the offensive side, there is a need for number adjustment so that it become either a short window of burst (by short, I mean that the current decay is already more than enough but the damage are not) or a steady mean of damage (which mean that there is both a need to have something that reduce the natural decay and little tweeks to damage number so that it reach at least 25k dps with optimal support). As for the defensive aspect, we need “when it” effects sufficiently punishing so that foes think twice when they want to harm us while in shroud.
In conclusion. Shroud is not as good as arena net thinks it is.
It’s more that it’s as good as they think it is, it’s just that the necromancer’s skills/traits/design do not exploit the strengths of this mechanism and there is still some adjustment to do to give the shroud a clear identity.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
It’s about as ridiculous as the qT guide showing condi reaper as 33-34k DPS and then somehow still not recommending them for most raid encounters.
Come on… repeat after me! “The issue is offensive team support”.
Mesmers drown into support they are invaluable in raid.
Warrior don’t even need to think to grant 25 might stack to everyone and it’s grandma, best buddy in raid.
Ranger add pure dps and precision to everyone for free.
Thief/elementalist have a long history of high direct dps, they are historically good and still have a lot of value, ele being a good provider of usefull fields/bursty conjure and thief the king of trash skipping.
Engi grant more condi damage and don’t bother anyone with non wanted field.
Revenant lack dps but have still some use with it’s boon duration buff and ferocity buff.
The guardian currently hold his own with a good dps and a few usefull utility here and there forgiving it’s undesirable fields.
And the necromancer… is still stuck with undesirable fields, useless (from a PvE point of view) support tools, an abysmal power dps and a condition dps that is highly dependant of ice fields which are undesirable for everyone else.
Guilds that want to speedrun are often on limelight, they showcase their achievement and end up being role model for those that struggle in the end game content. These guilds work hard on their team comp, squizing the best out of all team members to achieve the best result possible. There is high competition for a spot for each classe and when it come to a necromancer that struggle at dps, have inexistent offensive support and lay fields that tend to reduce damage from other more that improving it… well, they can only put aside such a profession.
Players often say that gw2 pve is all about dps. In fact it’s right and wrong, it’s all about how your group can achieve the highest dps possible and for this offensive support is king. The necromancer having a minor dps and close to no usefull offensive support, it’s logical that they are taken lightly.
Anet can pile up as much “condition management” as they want onto the necromancer, this is not a support that will help him to stand out enough to not be ignored in PvE. Vampiric aura add close to no dps, barrier add no dps, revive effect mock the ability of your teammates, corruption are not needed, drawing condition is laughable as team support. This is how a necromancer is seen. If anet’s dev were to just give 1 trait that improve sensibly the team damage on the core necromancer, there wouldn’t be any of those thread on the necromancer subforum.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Well… I would have been happier with an aura that poison and weaken foes around me, granted that it add a sliver of stability instead of the nobrainer condition damage skill that we ended up with.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Click on the Necromancer class guide on their site and tell me what happens.
Let’s not pose the necromancer as a victim… they got “nothing to say” about revenant either.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Honestly, I’m not even sure if it wouldn’t have been better to have the old speed of shadows with scourge. They could have tied the cool down reduction to the sand shades which would have been usefull and tied the movement speed to affect the scourge while under the effect of desert shroud which wouldn’t have been a bad thing either.
And again, if we’re talking about PvP or WvW it should’ve been 10 seconds all along. Because if not you were either not using a staff, or you were but you didn’t have Soul Marks. Either way, that’s a worse build than it could’ve been.
This is what I used to run in WvW, I can garantee you, I never ever wanted a staff to generate life force and I could hold my own on the front line without any issue. The fact that my cool down on the shroud increased from 7 to 10 second is a huge issue for my build and threaten my survivability on the frontline.
Nobody need soul mark in wvw, usually a necromancer gain more than enough life force to drown into it in wvw.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
While it’s true that ArenaNet has let Necros linger far too long with mediocre damage and absurdly low group utility, the response to the Reddit thread was simply an ArenaNet employee thanking someone for putting together a guide about how to clear fractals quickly.
Taking the intent of the dev’s comment out of context doesn’t advance the Necro cause any. In fact, it works against it.
^ That.
The dev just comment on the content not the policy of the guild. I’d prefer if he were to comment on the official forum instead of reddit but it seem that they prefer to be present elsewhere.
Like said before, the necromancer have a set of tools that make him great in WvW, especially in zer v zerg but also in small group. This is due to the fact that the necromancer’s support revolve around the idea of “condition management” and the scourge who push this idea over the top, will be a total beast in wvw. In fact the scourge being freed from the shackles of the shroud could even be great as a roaming spec.
Alas, this skillset does not work well in areas where there is no boons or incoming conditions. This is why in PvE, the necromancer is less desirable and scourge who focus on those tools will most likely quickly lose it’s popularity in this gamemode as soon as the novelty will fade.
The fact is that the necromancer is a popular profession but it does not give enough benefit to a group to be a profession that a group “want” in PvE. There is loads of necromancers that legitimatly want to do the PvE content but guilds that want to “speedrun” just can’t open their doors to classes that don’t benefit any group. If they need damages, there are better professions, if they need support, there are also better professions and if they need tanks, there are still better professions than a necromancer.
All of this is due to 1 and only thing : the support that a necromancer provide is good for WvW but totally unneeded in PvE. Worst than that, this support supposed to boost the necromancer’s damage end up boosting nothing in PvE.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
i really want siphon buffs for necro x.x double the healing and damage and give us two traits for siphon one that condis the enemy and another that grants regen on the necro
The best solution for us would probably be to remove all the siphon effect that the BM traitline grant. I know that it kill the “vampire” vib but let’s be honest, with every singlr traits the sustain is barely viable and the damage boost is, at best, laughable. Even more, the gimick involving vampirics effects have all been “fixed” across the years. As it stand, the only way to have great sustain with this is to load your utility bar with minion skills.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Both the most logical answer and most frustrating answer in the same answer. Vampiric effect are probably the most underpowered thing in gw2. It’s to the point that, also it’s a form of support and an unique buff, it’s the least desirable effect that one can give to others.
I believe that giving the “reaper” an unique buff is not the best thing to do. Giving the “necromancer” something that allow him to compet with other profession in regard of offensive support is what is needed.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
That’s wasn’t what I said.
I said that good damage on a range weapon promote a lonewolf gameplay while you need a party gameplay.
Longbow already do a lot of damage but it’s suboptimal in group content and it’s good as it is since Yes! a lot of ranger like to abuse of the knockback. On time I had a guy like you in a group, and we specifically asked him to not use the knockback and he even agreed. Yet he couldn’t refrain himself from doing so. There is way fewer ele that waste time casting their knockback than ranger that use knockback on cool down because it’s instant and do a bit of damage. Do you even know how annoying it is for an ele to use this 1 second cast time skill that do no damage and just have half the knockback distance of the ranger longbow? Most ele don’t use such a skill while most ranger in brainless mode use without a though their knockback. Nobody can correct the player base better than long a cast time on a skill.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I believe that the soulbeast have already the tools to be as competive at range than he will be at melee range.
However, when it come to the debate about range damage, the reality is not that the longbow is bad or anything but that in high end PvE it’s better to have everyone close together so that everyone benefit from all buff. Having a profession that do inately more damage at range than the others can only be a bad thing for this profession since it would promote a gameplay that put this profession far away from it’s group, losing large part of the teamplay.
This way it’s better to have a longbow that have the reputation to be an underperforming weapon since it promote a gameplay where the ranger is close from it’s teammate, sharing and receiving buff instead of the gameplay of a lone wolf that just cower away from the fight, without receiving any benefit from it’s teammate nor giving anything.
From the point of view of most non ranger, a ranger that like to camp or even use longbow in group content, is a ranger that is super anoying to have as teammate. That’s mainly due to their habit to use the knockback on cool down. No ranger will ever be able to remove this bad image of the longbow on other player view because there will always be rangers that will abuse this kitten skill ruining the game experience of other players.
It’s better that the longbow do not perform to well due to that.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
To be exact, entering in shroud remove movement impairing condition and grant swiftness with SoS. That is to say that the condition removal and swiftness application is once every 10 seconds granted that you flashed shroud. If a necromancer happen to corrupt your swiftness just after you enter shroud, you’ll just be plague by the cripple effect right away and that’s probably what Deceiver point out.
There is also a cap on movement speed which happen to be 25% allowing characters with passive 25% to run as fast as characters under swiftness if they are not in combat or under the effect of movement impairing conditions. This is why mesmers and guardian drool over having passive 25% speed since they have none on their core profession.
As for dagger, it’s an interesting tool. Melee is not nearly as kittenome think, providing reliably tons of LF and doing as much damage as greatsword on foes above 50% health. Dagger #2 certainly feel unsatisfying whatever change they try on it, owever, dagger #3 can be an insanely good tool when it come to pin done someone in one place (it’s only bad point is the cast time which tend to kill the purpose of the skill).
Personnally, my ain issue with speed of shadow is that the cleanse effect seem to step onto the toes of relentless pursuit. It just feel like one trait effect had been created because the other trait was to weak for use and they are to lazy to change this trait now that scourge is coming.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Your condi duration is just super low, there is no way that you could achieve top condi dps with that. Also sigil of agony do not stack it’s effect with himself.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Deadly strength convert toughness, which is something promoted heavily in death magic, to power. This reliance to toughness kill every gain you’d have from the trait in PvE and I doubt it give anything good in PvP.
No this trait absolutely do not belong to spite.
Rending shroud need to reduce toughness on enemy around the necromancer. That would be the best change possible for this trait.
As for signet of suffering, this is a trait that affect core utility skills, this trait just can’t leave the core traitlines to settle in an elite traitline.
Signet of suffering need a buff and the effect of the signets when in shroud need to be baseline. The recent change just felt like an insult more than a balance change. The excuse about it competing with spiteful spirit was just here to hid the fact that the trait was just making the signets do what the scourge will be doing (giving a few stack of might and corrupting boons).
Hell! here is what I’d do :
- grant signet passive effect while in shroud baseline.
- switch Signet of suffering and rending shroud place.
- give a minor buff to signet of suffering like allowing them to grant us LF on use or some might
- change rending shroud in such a way that it reduce nearby foes toughness by 180 while in shroud and grant you maybe 180 power while out of shroud.
- change unholy fervor so that it does not have any relation to axe anymore.
- move axe cool down reduction to spiteful spirit.
I believe that this would help a lot more.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Some people wanted signet passive while in shroud and we got the latest signet of suffering trait.
Just because there are no more Arenanet posts, here, does not mean your feedback is ignored. Arenanet employees’ social media posts and other public statements are tightly regulated to prevent anything they might say being construed as a commitment by Arenanet.
The most bothering in this is that they do post… But on Reddit. They’ve got a dedicated forum where they should communicate yet they chose to do so on another place.
This place should be where anet talk to it’s player base.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
dots don’t crit
that’s it, condition damage don’t crit. However, with the correct traits or sigil, crits have the possibility to apply condition stacks. Which mean that even if conditions damage don’t crit, critical chance still benefit condtion damage, granted that you trait/gear for it.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
But we don’t even know what their concerns are for necromancer. Or if there are concerns. Their is so little communication that we can’t even get a good grip of what they want the profession to do.
We do know that at some point last year they felt that the necromancer was where they wanted it to be in PvP (at least). It sure made a lot of us laugh but that’s what they stated at some point.
If the intention is to make Necro a selfish class then that class should have the best dps in game.. Why else would you take a selfish class in a group if you can’t bring any form of group utility..
It is not that simple… Their intent is not to make the necromancer a selfish class at all and in their eyes, it is not a selfish class.
The necromancer is intended to be a “condition manager”. He is supposed to support throught condition, ease condition pressure on it’s allies and corrupt boons into conditions on it’s foes. That is the whole purpose of a necromancer and scourge may very well be the pinacle of this idea. They pursue this goal, never straying off of this path.
The design of the necromancer as they seem to want it to be, put conditions at it’s very core. Be it damaging conditions or debilitating conditions. And the wall that the necromancer seem to not be able to cross is that this very design do not fit PvE (due to various reasons) and prove to not be sufficient in PvP.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I go GS + Staff in fractals.
I dont have the best of gears, but I once saw my guy crit 25k with grave digger.
Conditions at that time were:
- boss under 50%
- full vuln
- full might and prolly had some ferocity.I believe the idea of a GS reaper is staying in reaper form.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vREQJAWRn0ICV2gl2AO2Ac4glfBjKL8FCWxJxn4VEKpFA+AA-e
More autos as Reaper, the longer you stay in reaper. Even longer, if you dodge.You can also go for the Signet route, ditching the 20% more damage when target is below 50. You have passive LF gain.
The builds i mentioned above are “selfish” builds.
To be a supportive power reaper, ditch Spite and go for Blood Magic + Wells + Traited Wells.
Somehow it pain me to see someone happy to do a 25k crit with gravedigger while “fullbuffed”. That’s 12.5k dps… And that’s mainly the issue of the power reaper.
The answer to OP’s question is that it’s useable, yes, however there is high probability that your team will ask you to use something else. In game it’s less a matter of what’s useable than a matter of what’s optimally usefull for your group/party/raid.
If the necromancer or reaper had an unique buff or debuff that benefit the whole raid, the usability of the reaper wouldn’t even be a question but, as it stand, it suffer from a “not so good” dps and a total lack of usefull thing that would benefit the raid part as a whole.
That’s why I’m proposing over and over and over simple change that would benefit the necromancer in PvE like :
- Changing rending shroud so that it reduce foes toughness instead of applying vulnerability.
- Changing lich form into a lich aura that improve damage and condition damage of your allies for a short time.
Simple changes like these would make a necromancer always usefull in PvE end game and thus usable whatever damage they decide to focus on.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Power and ferocity (I’d go for dual stat instead of tristats or quadrastats)
This stat-combiantion would boost the damage of power-reaper into the higher stages of heaven where thiefs and eles make party all the time.
It´s not like I would reject this, it just seems unlikely that we will ever get something like that.
To be honest, I’m not even sure that it would be enough to allow the necromancer to compet as a power dps.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
Pinpoint distribution : increase condition damage for you and your allies by 150. Unique buff.
There are other professions that can be jealous (and have the right to) of just that, you know? Which one? Elementalist, guardian and necromancer. None of them have unique offensive buff to provide and might is all they gain.
I’m not denying the fact that gw2 world is full of might and that the best might provider out of all professions is the warrior.
I’m not denying that giving other profession more might won’t change the fact that the warrior is the best at it (especially since he also got some extra like baniers and empower allies).
However, when you don’t have teammate around you to buff you it’s always pleasant to be able to reach 25 might stacks by yourself, it help. The holosmith is probably that, an elite spec that make the engineer a powerfull self might buffer.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.