One thing I do have to say is that I think Shadow Fiend will replace Epidemic in boss fights with no adds. Sand Swell might also replace Path of Anguish for the extra utility. Being able to evacuate the melee team from a dangerous spot might be worth more than a burn.
Watch what happens when someone else can take over the boon strip role.
I guess it depends on if ~8 seconds of dagger auto +Feast of Corruption/20 seconds will be enough to sustain life force in longer fights.
8s of dagger auto under full quickness is about 45~53% LF with Soul Reaping.
The build has 0 vit so will have 79.35% of 21012 as LF meaning 16673.Considering that with alacrity:
- F2 is ~8.3% of your LF every 3s
- F3 is ~15% of your LF every 4.8s
- F4 is ~28% of your LF every 9s
and more importantly- F5 is ~22% of your LF every 12s
You should end up running out of LF fairly quickly. if you use your abilities too much. There is also less room for error if things move and you have wasted your shade placement/miss a shade skill.
On the upside, F4 is not going to be terribly important in a DPS rotation. Yes, you lose a Torment and a Burn every 9 seconds, but I think getting better uptime on the other three F skills is more important.
F5 is definitely priority #1 with F2 and F3 being dependent on the exact encounter for which is priority 2 and which is priority 3.
I honestly can’t think of many possibilities to maximize damage beyond that. I guess it depends on if ~8 seconds of dagger auto +Feast of Corruption/20 seconds will be enough to sustain life force in longer fights.
Against trash mobs, this isn’t an issue because they die so quick.
This is what I think will be best.
It will allow us to hit 100% cap easy with one Sand Shade out always, unless we have Alacrity.
We need to cap Condition Duration for Bleeding, Burning, and Torment now. Also this will cap Poison.
The Heal will end up being preference as usual. When using Staff you’d take Soul Marks.
I’m just wanting to start the discussion here about PvE builds.
At least for raids, I would think that a Master tuning crystal is superior, since you only need 2 shades up for max condition duration, which will be easy with Alacrity. That would let you eke out a bit more condition damage without losing anything else.
On an unrelated note, I’m thrilled to see that the build editor has been updated with extra infusion slots!
I can see a small number of Firebrands being desired, but definitely not replacing the bulk of Guardians. Especially if the mantra targeting gets changed to something useful from the tiny cones.
Condi Reaper has been strong, but I wouldn’t even rank it in the top 10 roaming builds right now and, as I mentioned before, it shares “top” with multiple other classes in WvW zerging which is literally where Necro is at its strongest due to unlimited life force during clashes.
So again, if Necro ever gets something good, it gets nerfed away quickly to the point where it does nothing better than anyone else, making it the least desirable class in the game.
It’s par for the course with Necro. Any time they get something good, it gets nerfed to be weaker than any other class in the game.
Said every class in every game ever.
Tell me, when has Necro stayed at the top of anything (other than WvW zerging, which it shares with multiple other classes) for more than the time between two balance patches?
It’s literally never happened. I can mention times for that on every class in the game except Necro.
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
It’s par for the course with Necro. Any time they get something good, it gets nerfed to be weaker than any other class in the game.
Nightmare/Trapper is 25% to all conditions, but it is recommended in WvW due to also increasing your chills, fears, and cripples.
Actually its 20% not 25.
No, it’s 25%. 10% from 2 Trapper, 15% from 4 Nightmare. Total of 25%.
Nightmare/Trapper is 25% to all conditions, but it is recommended in WvW due to also increasing your chills, fears, and cripples.
What about a longbow made of stone and sand? Could fire blasts of sand or quartz spikes instead of arrows and have a mini-sandstorm surrounding the player when drawn.
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.
Maybe all they need to do for WvW is make it so Barrier can’t be applied to Siege Golems? Boons already can’t.
Support is usually pretty good about helping you fix a mistake like that if you explain the situation that caused you to lose it. The timing was unfortunate, since you have to wait until Monday (they have lives too), but this should be something they can help you with.
Truth be told, there’s not much that can be nerfed In duration. Only Torch even can be nerfed in stacks.
That icy effect really should not be a traditional aura. Too similar to Howler’s.
When was the last time you saw an ele build that ran earth?
Every class has a defensive traitline which is never taken.
You see Earth taken all the time in WvW. Diamond Skin and Stone Heart both see tons of use there.
There is one thing I would like to see changed regarding Locust Swarm, and one thing only:
I want Decaying Swarm back!
Maybe with a higher health threshold.
Yes, I really am serious. I was getting whispers from you (or someone with your exact same style and thought process) in-game over this thread.
Pretty pathetic, really.
Fun fact: melee range happens in all game modes, even on condition builds. It’s true!
That’s right … We have a GS and a Scepter condi builds. So again, I’m seriously questioning where a melee condi weapon fits into EITHER of those builds … and even why the issues people express that a condi dagger would solve are not already solved with a Staff.
GS beats dagger in melee damage and LF regen; Scepter beats dagger in condition application. How does creating a marginally applicable weapon in any of those categories help either of those groups of condi users? What is that build look like and what is it used for?
You list the reasons this is desired. You can list 100 reasons this or anything else is desired; being desirable is less than compelling. The question is what problem are you trying to solve and why is the condi buffed dagger the BEST way to solve that. I think that solving ‘LF regen on condi’ builds is NOT best solved with a condi buffed dagger, simply because of how close Staff already is to doing that as well as being a meaningful alternative in either a Scepter or a GS condi build. It’s not even clear that a weapon buff approach is the best way to address that problem, so how anyone in this thread has nailed down “bleed on dagger AA” is beyond me.
So, your suggestion is that all Condi builds, INCLUDING SCOURGE use Reaper?
Greatsword and Scourge are mutually exclusive, or did you forget that? We’ve also heard rumors that Deathly Chill is going away from condition damage. Even forgetting Scourge, what happens when the third Elite Spec comes out? Are you still going to argue that they should use Greatsword for their life force generation?
On top of that, you pinned down the exact reason why Dagger in particular needs something different: “Greatsword beats Dagger in melee damage and life force generation.” Which means that Reapers never have any reason to equip mainhand dagger, because Greatsword is just strictly better. If you buff numbers on Dagger, then the reverse is true and nobody has a reason to equip Greatsword.
Only by adding something different to dagger can diversity actually occour.
Fun fact: melee range happens in all game modes, even on condition builds. It’s true!
The reasons for the desire of this change are simple:
1. Scourge has an immense appetite for Life Force.
2. Condition builds (of which Scourge is intended to enhance) are godawful at generating life force.
3a. Weapons are the best source of Life Force. Utilities generate it too slowly overall (may have great burst generation, but are then accompanied by long cooldowns).
3b. Staff generates life force too slowly and completely kills damage output beyond redemption for serious consideration.
4. Dagger is an underperforming weapon, but has great life force generation.
5. Swapping to dagger to provide life force in a condition build cuts damage too much to actually gain any advantage.
6. Adding damaging conditions to dagger auto reduces the damage loss for condition builds while they build life force. It also significantly improves the damage output for Power builds, as they frequently stack Might well.
7. Dagger already has skills that deal with Bleeding.
Proposal: add short bleeds to the dagger auto. This helps solve most of the problems the weapon currently has, is a small change, and gives a viable option for life force gain for condition specs in many areas of the game.
Staff would need just as much of a change to the auto-attack as well as numbers buffs on 4/5 skills (Putrid Mark is probably fine as-is from a numbers standpoint). In addition, this would go against the common balancing aspect of “risk vs. reward.” Condition builds are already fairly safe due to their ranged capabilities, which is one of the reasons Power Necro is currently so terrible. Buffing Staff up to the point where it becomes the life force generation weapon for condition builds is going oddly against that. Why should the safest weapon also be the best life force generatior?
Is Staff competitive, or used only because there’s no other choice? It’s our only 1200 range weapon, and it also is AoE, so no matter how pathetic the actual skills are, it will get used in WvW. In PvP, there’s no other secondary weapon that applies damaging conditions, so it gets used on Condition builds.
No, you can’t even say it’s used in either mode for the unblockable AoE CC, because Warhorn provides longer CC on a shorter cooldown and cast time with less protection against it.
So will we still be able to earn proofs of heroics? Like convert the new currency to proofs of heroics somehow?
This is actually a fairly important question, since there will still be HoT only players as well.
I won’t be one of them, but it’s still important.
Staff has one “debilitating” skill on it in Chillblains. It has two CC skills, one hard (Reaper’s Mark), one soft (Chillblains). It has one condition transfer skill. Then there’s Mark of Blood which is a DoT/HoT skill sort of (you don’t get both unless you’re in melee range).
None of the skills actually work together. There isn’t a theme at all there. Cool, everything but the auto has the same delivery method. That’s not a theme or identity. Staff is just a hodepodge of random skills only unified by their range.
Scepter has an identity: conditions.
Axe has an identity: execution.
Dagger has an identity: blood.
Greatsword has an identity: brawling.
Staff does not have an identity.
Staff could potentially be used to fill the “condition build life force builder” weapon, but it needs a total rework to do so. Dagger mainhand, meanwhile, would need only a small change and would strengthen its conceptual identity in the process, as well as moving it away from being in direct competition with Greatsword.
You say that “conceptually, staff is a more appropriate weapon” when Staff doesn’t have a concept, but Dagger does. And dagger’s concept is dealing with blood.
Is Staff currently closer to actually being a condition weapon that generates life force? Yes, because currently it actually has some damaging conditions on it while dagger does not.
But on theme, Dagger is closer to being that weapon. Life Siphon, you rip the blood out of your target and into yourself to recover. Dark Pact, you pay in blood to cripple your target. Adding bleed stacks to the auto turns the theme of that chain into pulling the blood and life energy from the target.
Staff doesn’t have a concept to work with, though. It’s in dire need of one, but until it has one, it really can’t be directed toward any given role.
Staff is very slow on the life force generation. It also already does have a combo field on 3.
The issue with staff is that it just does no damage and it requires a trait to generate life force on anything but the auto. Dagger is at least close to being sufficient.
Basically, adding bleeds on Dagger auto fulfills the role without requiring a total rework, which is what Staff needs. You’re constantly screaming pointlessly about the “identity” of a weapon. Staff doesn’t have one aside from “1200 range”.
You should be able to cap out on general condition damage with Fell Beacon, 2 shades up, full Viper’s, 2 Trapper/4 Nightmare, and Rare Veggie Pizza.
Assuming Alacrity reduces shade recharge, this should be good.
Also, it’s 75 Expertise (5% condition duration) per shade, not 25.
This thread is very informative.
You get to know the name of those actually defending Scourge. You know, those that have 0 credibility or any notion of balance whatsoever.
So this guy can bother you in-game.
Yeah, your time is probably better spent thinking about how you can counter things rather than harassing people in game.
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
Unholy Martyr I feel is a little more useful for Scourges than base Necro or Reaper. That’s 21% life force regained every time you use F5 (assuming allies have some conditions) and Scourge has an easy way of dealing with said conditions while Unholy Martyr is active.
Scourge effective range: 900
How many classes have viable 1200+ range weapons? They won’t have a choice but to spend their life force on barrier. If they don’t, you kill them. If they do, they eventually run out and are easy kills.
If Scourges are charging, well, you have literally the least mobile class in the game charging you. One that has no Stability, I might add. There are plenty of options already in meta zerg builds to punish them for such a maneuver.
For minion traits, I agree that some baselining/condensing is needed. I propose a new Grandmaster trait: “Minion master.”
Minions draw conditions from allies and transfer them to enemies they strike. Minions also explode in a toxic cloud on death. You gain Toughness for each Minion you control.
Health and damage from traits get baselined. Maybe have the effectiveness on those increases cut for baselining (say, 15% damage instead of 25%). I don’t think that’s necessary, but developers may see things differently than I do.
Regardless, though, Death Magic really needs some attention.
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
I apologize. There are new players joining the forums due to Path of Fire, and I admit I didn’t recognize your name.
If you’re outside 900 range, Necros have one weapon for life force. That’s it. And it’s slow at building it, too if it can’t manage piercing. They can’t gain appreciable life force without something to hit or without people dying frequently.
A couple plebs dying early should be the end of it. Long range pressure will do wonders to break apart an all-Scourge zerg because they can’t do any appreciable damage back and the barriers they’re throwing up to protect themselves cost them life force.
Funny how the answer to fighting Necros of any stripe is “attrition them to death.”
Could have sworn Nightmare gave 20% general condition duration.
Still, 25% is nothing to sneeze at.
Necro has always made boons a potential liability. Why are you treating it as though Scourge is some new thing in that regard? Well of Corruption has been in the game since launch and has been meta for zerg play since a meta formed.
FYI, starving them of life force also cuts their corruption potential.
You don’t use all 6 Trapper runes, just the first two. The 4 and 6 piece bonuses are worthless for Necros.
When people say “Nightmare/Trapper” they mean 4 Nightmare Runes and 2 Trapper runes so you net +30% Condition duration.
Isn’t it only 25% (10% from Trapper, 15% from Nightmare) or am I missing something here ?
You’re missing the fact that all benefits are cumulative. The 4 piece bonus from Nightmare does not overwrite the 2 piece bonus. It stacks with it.
You don’t use all 6 Trapper runes, just the first two. The 4 and 6 piece bonuses are worthless for Necros.
When people say “Nightmare/Trapper” they mean 4 Nightmare Runes and 2 Trapper runes so you net +30% Condition duration.
You can let the Scourges starve themselves of life force, thus drastically reducing the Barrier (no more 20 target sharing, only 5 target on a 30 second cooldown), condition cleanse, and damage (no more shade pulses).
Then, just kill them. They’re even more vulnerable to CC and spikes than regular Necros are.
Vulnerability really shouldn’t stack beyond 25, but I can 100% get behind at least Weakness actually applying to bosses. Blind, not so much because other classes are waaaaaaaaaay better at blind spam than we are, which would negate the need for Protection, Weakness, Healing, etc.
Cripple, Immobilize, Weakness, and Chill should all affect bosses rather than hitting the Defiance bar.
But not being in line with the intent of the weapon? The weapon already has a skill that wants your foes to bleed.
Again, I’ve explained why that’s a reason to NOT add bleed to dagger AA. The weapon takes advantage of bleeding foes; that does not mean it’s intent is to be a condition application weapon. Enabling the weapon to give the extra dagger 2 advantage without thought is a stupid implementation.
I love how you just ignored the part there about Axe having received a very similar change. In fact, it happened in the exact same patch as Life Siphon started caring about Bleeding! They’re even both #2 skills and channels!
I don’t see how the two influence each other’s concepts. Axe does both, doesn’t necessarily mean that dagger needs to as well. Of course, it doesn’t mean dagger can’t but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve given reasons I don’t think it should.
Your reasons have been…nonexistent, really. You’ve basically been saying “I don’t think it should have bleeding because then it would have bleeding and I don’t think it should have that.”
No that’s actually unfair and dishonest; there have been many reasons given for why I don’t think this should happen. Dismiss them as you wish, but they are well documented in this thread. Even my previous post gives one (of many) good explanation to why I don’t think bleed should be on dagger AA. You simply ignore them.
Oh, I’m sorry, I was only counting reasons given that weren’t directly addressed.
- would be too strong
Strength of a damaging condition added depends on condition, stack count, and stack duration. Keeping these low ensures this isn’t a problem unless dagger is already where it needs to be on damage (you’ve said yourself that it isn’t.)
- Would make Scepter irrelevant
Scepter has a massive range advantage and would still put out higher DPS in a condition build than a low stack condition.
- would encourage people camping dagger
You weren’t able to back this up and actually immedietly backtracked when called out on it.
- would remove choice
It would actually open up a new choice to condition builds
- would discourage swapping
Low stacks=only using dagger for building life force/sustain. Swapping necessary for higher damage output.
- isn’t on theme for the weapon/against the identity
Weapon already has a skill that wants the target bleeding. Giving it a way to actually accomplish that goal is called “synergy” not “lack of identity” or “changing identity.”
- bleeding on target would be braindead if added to auto
To be fair, I haven’t addressed this one yet because I thought it was so obvious, but this would require completing a full auto chain before using Life Siphon. And I mean right before with a short Bleed, as in no time to do anything else if you wanted to maximize the damage. Considering Life Siphon has a range advantage over the auto of 470, this is hardly a sure thing.
- bleeding should be achieved through other means
Why? Should Ghastly Claws lose its damage buff versus Vulnerable targets because the auto applies Vulnerability? Should Scepter not inflict conditions with the auto or Grasping Dead because Feast of Corruption wants conditions on the target?
Bring up a legitimate argument that’s not “I don’t like it” and I’ll answer it completely in 5 sentences or less.
(edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180)
But not being in line with the intent of the weapon? The weapon already has a skill that wants your foes to bleed.
Again, I’ve explained why that’s a reason to NOT add bleed to dagger AA. The weapon takes advantage of bleeding foes; that does not mean it’s intent is to be a condition application weapon. Enabling the weapon to give the extra dagger 2 advantage without thought is a stupid implementation.
I love how you just ignored the part there about Axe having received a very similar change. In fact, it happened in the exact same patch as Life Siphon started caring about Bleeding! They’re even both #2 skills and channels!
I don’t see how the two influence each other’s concepts. Axe does both, doesn’t necessarily mean that dagger needs to as well. Of course, it doesn’t mean dagger can’t but that’s neither here nor there. I’ve given reasons I don’t think it should.
Your reasons have been…nonexistent, really. You’ve basically been saying “I don’t think it should have bleeding because then it would have bleeding and I don’t think it should have that.”
Unholy Fervor give bonus damage to axe skills if there is vulnerability on them. Axe 1 inflicts vulnerability. heavens, nooooooooooooo.
But not being in line with the intent of the weapon? The weapon already has a skill that wants your foes to bleed.
Again, I’ve explained why that’s a reason to NOT add bleed to dagger AA. The weapon takes advantage of bleeding foes; that does not mean it’s intent is to be a condition application weapon. Enabling the weapon to give the extra dagger 2 advantage without thought is a stupid implementation.
I love how you just ignored the part there about Axe having received a very similar change. In fact, it happened in the exact same patch as Life Siphon started caring about Bleeding! They’re even both #2 skills and channels!
Yeah, I should have added that to the list as well in my last post. You’ve taken so many positions trying to argue against the idea that it’s hard to keep track of all of them.
But not being in line with the intent of the weapon? The weapon already has a skill that wants your foes to bleed. Was the recent change to Axe 2 against the intent of the weapon? Or was it a buff that was selected to synergize with the theme and existing mechanics of the weapon?
i would rather have staff completely reworked than see just bleeding added to dagger
Staff definitely needs attention and an actual identity. That said, bleeds on dagger make thematic sense as the weapon is tied to blood magic and already has a skill that wants the target to be bleeding specifically (instead of just wanting conditions).
If you think adding a paltry condi on AA is ‘intention changing’ for a weapon, then I don’t believe you understand what intention or weapon concept actually means.
Funny you say this, because that’s the argument YOU YOURSELF ARE MAKING.
So, yeah. You can’t even keep your own arguments straight. You’re done here.
I’m making an argument for adding a condi on AA to change it’s intention? No, that’s not even close to anything I’ve said, ever.
You:
“adding a condition will be against the intent of the weapon!”
“adding a condition will take away from it being a Power weapon!”
“adding a condition will change the intent of the weapon!”
“intentions for weapons can change!”
“adding a condition won’t change the intent of a weapon!”
Yeah, I paraphrased, but you’ve said all of these. Congrats on contradicting yourself.
That’s just plain dishonest; I’ve never said the intention couldn’t change; I said if you want to add something to a weapon, it needs to be inline with the intention of the weapon. That’s not the same thing.
If you think adding a paltry condi on AA is ‘intention changing’ for a weapon, then I don’t believe you understand what intention or weapon concept actually means.
That’s just plain contradictory. Tells people you can’t add stuff that’s not with the intent of the weapon, then tells people the intent can be changed.
Then also says adding a condition doesn’t change the intent. Managing to swap sides on the concept twice in the same post. That’s impressive!
If you think adding a paltry condi on AA is ‘intention changing’ for a weapon, then I don’t believe you understand what intention or weapon concept actually means.
Funny you say this, because that’s the argument YOU YOURSELF ARE MAKING.
So, yeah. You can’t even keep your own arguments straight. You’re done here.
That seems pretty amusing, actually. Necros definitely can’t abuse fast attack rates like that anymore.