Make sure you always have the high ground when you lich. If anyone can close the gap on you when you pop that spell you’ve pretty much handed in the towel. Try to gauge when your opponent has used his gap closers and dodges.
Actually, if you make Dark Bond an instant buff on spawn, you may kill the horrors before they even reach their target. Eh, too much to weigh in on and too many unknowns.
Rise!”: This skill is now unblockable and instant cast. Damage increased. Now creates a shambling horror for each foe hit which lose health every second. These minions place Dark Bond on their master when they hit with attacks which causes 50% of the damage from attacks on the master to be redirected to the minion.
Not sure what a shambling horror looks like but it’s already an improvement on the previous version. The spell has very nice synergy with Death Nova with minions taking increased damage further expediting subsequent explosions. These minions also fit the thematic of Death Magic (i.e. tanky) quite nicely.
Couple of things I’d change:
Remove the need for minions to attack to apply the dark bond. Have it apply instantly when they are summoned.
Allow the damage redirection to affect party members.
I’m not the best when it comes to calculating after casts and whatnot, but what is the damage difference between the staff auto attack and the sword? They seem pretty similar.
Robert is busy working on the warrior elite, he’s also doing necro buffs to axe and scepter, and hes balancing the chrono and reaper. I admit the chronomancer is basically complete, but still he’s a busy man
What’s your source to indicate that we can expect axe and scepter buffs?
Robert is busy working on the warrior elite, he’s also doing necro buffs to axe and scepter, and hes balancing the chrono and reaper. I admit the chronomancer is basically complete, but still he’s a busy man
What’s your source to indicate that we can expect axe and scepter buffs?
The majority of traits that operate around healing power are either plagued by terrible scaling or unnecessary internal cooldowns. I understand that ventari is supposed to feel thematically like some sort of spring of healing to allies but at the moment the scaling on ALL healing spells is simply so lackluster you could go full zerker and not even notice a difference.
In regards to Retribution, so many traits operate around retaliation yet the revenants access to this boon is largely lacking. Traits like Retaliatory Evasion are oxymoronic and all grandmaster traits would be considered adept tier on any other class. In short, there is no compelling reason to take this trait line over any other (including salvation).
Devestation, Corruption and Invocation are really the only trait trees worth taking.
With the beta test coming up this friday I thought I’d get an idea of what people are planning to try out and why.
Personally I’d like to try out supplementing radiance in the current pve zerker build with dragonslayer for some better damage modifiers and go from there. Whilst in PvP how could I not say no to Trapper runes.
I’d be happy with conditions being nerfed if they are then allowed to benefit from damage modifiers like close to death. This would help out in PvP but preserve some of the new sinister builds we are seeing in PvE
Only reason I use it is to force a dodge roll or rip some stability. I know that it isn’t going to actually do anything but people always seem to dodge it for some reason…
Since revenants are getting access to a 150 ferocity aura trait much like warriors and rangers, I thought it’d be nice if necro’s could trait into a 150 condition damage aura. Perhaps work it into lingering curse? With sinister builds becoming more popular it might go a long way to improving the necro’s viability in group play.
Anet’s reasoning behind this change is that damaging conditions can be transferred to a target duration and all. It would be a DPS loss to condi necromancers if they made self inflicted damaging conditions not scale with their condi duration.
Non-damaging conditons however (vulnerability, weakness, blindness etc.) no longer get bonus duration which is more of a QoL change.
wow there my fellow necro
rein yourself in
pve is not really important
what is important is wvw and to a smaller extent, pvp.
i think we are in a good spot everywhere.
except minions. the looks i can still accept but the AI needs to be the same as ranger pets.
i cant understand why they cant use the ranger pet AI on our necro minions.
unless it is because necro minions are dead and dont have intelligence then well…okay…fine…
This is subjective.
I very much enjoy PvE. I like PvP. I couldn’t care less about WvW.
WvW is a brain dead game mode where anyone can run any build and still succeed if they are in a large enough group. It’s a karma train with a readily dying playerbase that offers no foreseeable rewards besides bragging rights on a fictitious ladder.
Now I expect people to disagree with me but it doesn’t mean that necro should do well in 1/3 game modes.
Just a quick note here, but adding that 5 second ICD on Chilling Darkness was effectively a 96% efficacy nerf. I am pretty sure no trait, skill, or piece of gear in the game has ever been nerfed that hard.
If Anet simply said something along the lines of “we think chilling darkess is too strong in WvW right now” or “chilling darkness is currently too strong with bitter chill” I would be somewhat content (though still unhappy).
The problem is this nerf literally came out of nowhere. It was never a problem before, no one asked for it to be nerfed and no one expected it. It also doesn’t help that there have been no red posts to help justify the change.
I really just want some degree of interaction between the dev’s and the necro community to help understand why they nerf and buff spells on what seems like a whim. TALK TO US
If we get the breakbar when we shift into deathshroud I think it would be a perfect fit. Not sure how this would fit in trait wise with the reaper at the moment as all those traits are fantastic.
Let’s just clear the air here and recognize that we don’t use spirit weapons for their auto attacks. I’ts the active that serves any real purpose for using them. I’d say that instead of summoning a weapon and then commanding them to do a spell we would simply create the spell that is enacted out by a weapon. Removes a second button press and a global cooldown. Any more than that and your pretending to be a necro (which suffers from the same, if not worse minion AI).
I like the idea of a personal buff (or debuff) that runs off incoming conditions. Perhaps you could simplify it down and make it a stacking personal debuff that stacks the longer you stay in demon form?
I’d also like to point out that necro has a trait which transfers conditions from allies to themselves when they are in death shroud. Perhaps revenant needs that trait for embrace the darkness?
I feel thematically long wind up spells with lasting effects is what the reaper is about. I’m happy with having the cast times as long as the payoff is sufficient. At the moment, Reaper shouts aren’t justified for their cast time and cooldowns. It’s just that simple.
I’v been doing some napkin math lately in regards to some PvE condition builds for the revenant and have come to a few disappointing conclusions. I absolutely love Mallyx stance both thematically and visually however I believe some number tweaking is in order to fully bring him into viability. Below I have simulated a most ideal PvE condition build for the revenant to theorycraft how well its dps could manage.
Gear to be used:
Full Ascended Sinister Gear
Versatile Malign Infusion
Superior Rune of Torment
Toxic Focusing Crystal
Bowl of Garlic Kale Saute
Banner of Strength
Under the above conditions I can expect:
Condition Damage of 2154
Bonus Condition Duration of 50%
Bonus Torment Duration of 167% (1.5 × 1.78)
Just to clear the air before anyone asks, specific condition durations such as torment, bleeding and burning will stack multiplicatively when it concerns two different modifiers (i.e. Condition Duration and Burning Duration).
Going from each notable weapon skill I have worked out the maximum maintainable condi stacks. Please keep in mind I have not considered the after cast of each spell so these numbers are expected to be slightly lower in reality:
Mace Auto
17.09 Torment stacks = 1928/3857 DPS
3.6 Poison stacks = 586 DPS
Searing Fissure
5 Burning stacks = 2327
Temporal Rift
4.27 Torment stacks = 482/964 DPS
Unyielding Anguish is slightly complicated to calculate as it both displaces enemies outside of its AoE and is only limited by its energy cost. I could assume in perfect scenario we would manage the spell so that we would constantly have the field rolling with little downtime. However, I have had little practice with the spell and as such will treat it as a utility spell rather than a rotational one.
With the revenants current kit, Embrace the Darknesss is also quite complicated to theorycraft. From what I understand, the principle behind this elite is simply to deal out self inflicted conditions in an AoE. However, considering how pathetic our self inflicted conditions are I would never consider using this spell for its actual mechanics. Drawing attention to the most recent patch notes:
Embrace the Darkness: Reduced the pulsing interval from 3 seconds to 1 second. Decreased the self-torment duration from 3 seconds to 1 second per pulse.
Empowering Misery: Reduced the casting time from 1.25 seconds to 0.75 seconds. The self-applied weakness no longer uses your condition duration.
Pain Absorption: Reduced the casting time from 1 second to 0.5 seconds. The self-applied blindness no longer uses your condition duration, and its duration has been reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds.
Unyielding Anguish: The self-applied cripple will no longer use your condition duration, and its duration has been reduced from 5 seconds to 3 seconds.
Banish Enchantment: The self-applied vulnerability will no longer use your condition duration.
If our self inflicted conditions were to benefit from our condition duration, transferring them via Embrace the Darkness would be all the more attractive. However this in itself is counter-productive due to the duration cap transfer of 3 seconds. Additionally, pulsing 1 stack of torment every 1 seconds is pretty negligible in all situations not just PvE. The 15% stat boost provided by this form would serve better when activating large cooldown spells such as searing fissure and temporal rift.
Given the above, I would say that the revenants current kit is full of meh.
Why does the mace auto apply poison? Why is there a trait to increase poison duration when this is the only spell that applies it? Why is it so hard to get the condition threshold on utility spells by yourself? These are questions to which I don’t think there are answers.
In it’s current form, compared to all other current condition builds, mallyx greatly under performs.
Possible Soultions could include:
Simply increasing the condition duration and stacks on all mace/axe spells.
Replacing the poison on mace auto with burning to match searing fissure.
Introduce a “master of corruption”-like trait to reduce utility cooldowns at the expense of more self inflicted conditions.
Allow self inflicted conditions to benefit from condition duration.
Removing the condition duration transfer cap from Embrace the Darkness.
Allow Embarce the Darkness to pulse random debilitating conditions in addition to torment.
Now I don’t care to know how this nerfs/buffs any particular class, nor do I care about the changes to chilling darkness (for the purposes of this thread). What I care to know is what this change actually means.
Stack to a maximum of 5….. what? seconds? apllications? stacks?
From in-game testing it’s obvious that it isn’t a stacking condition and neither is there a 5 second cap as I’m easily able to combo Spinal Shiver’s and Chilblains for over 5 seconds of chill. What exactly is this “maximum of 5” referring to?
Secondly, what prompted this change? Nobody saw this as an issue and it was never addressed in previous Red Posts. It was just a sudden, unexpected and unwarranted change.
Pre-June 23rd, I (somewhat) regularly updated a PvE build on Gw2guru for the necromancer that focused of squeezing out damage with siphons. I’ve recently updated the build in question and I reckon it’s substantially better than most necro builds for dungeons.
It was mentioned in the Reaper livestream that necros will be getting a new aura effect in the blood tree called vampiric aura. According to Dulfy’s notes:
a new aura that can be placed on allies that also cause them to siphon health and also increase your own life siphon
I just like to suggest for QoL purposes that this aura replace the current active on Signet of Vampirism. Seems like a good idea.
Oh I forget to add that the new weakening shroud now has a 25s increased cooldown compared what is currently live. Despite adding an additional stack of bleeding to the spell, it clearly doesn’t warrant this type of change (sigh). Trait’s like weakening shroud should only be limited by the cooldown of Death Shroud.
