I’m not sure, I think curses might actually do okay with power builds, the only problem is the GM slot being mediocre/bad. Looking at it I think the curses GM should be re-thought a bit, because it is otherwise a really good tree for power.
But I agree, it is just not enough of a change to Blood Magic to make it good enough, except Vampiric Rituals being pretty good now.
Its worth noting we will see these changes before HoT. So they actually have time to balance this a bit before HoT hits. Condi is going to be hard to know, honestly; there are so many condi changes coming, and condi is so subject to the meta, that it is hard for me to say what will happen. Also, will the Scepter trait work like Axe Training did, and increase Dhuumfire by 100%?
I think the biggest thing is if our buffs will keep up with other professions. And I’m not sure that Condi will keep up, especially since shoutbow wasn’t nerfed much.
Did i miss see it, or is it now going to be a choice between death nova and fetid consumption?
It is a choice between Death Nova (which will be buffed a bit with the poison changes), and Fetid Consumption/Necromantic Corruption/new functionality that minions also transfer conditions on hit. The new Necromantic Corruption is probably going to do what I’ve always hoped they would do, and support minion builds based around keeping minions alive. Cleric MM and Soldier (or some other tanky but more selfish damage) specs will be quite different, and condi MM will probably be a thing.
That probably the reason why bawb didnt find the changes that bad, MMs are actually now better…
They aren’t bad because they are objective buffs in almost every single case. There are exceptions, Axe Training got nerfed for example. The biggest criticisms about the Necro changes is that they weren’t enough in some cases, mainly Blood Magic. But I’ll accept that regardless we were buffed, and that these are tentative changes. Hopefully they will see this discussion, and use this time to tweak our numbers a bit.
Mostly though I think people expect too much from each change. Most of our problems aren’t traits, they are the lack of certain things from skills, and traits couldn’t help that.
I think overall we saw a lot of nice buffs. Power builds will be sitting pretty, I actually personally think Condi will be fine in a vacuum, but it is hard to know because Condi is far more dependent on the meta, and MM is going to be the holy place for me. I am more or less certain that MM will have 4 distinct builds after these changes hit.
I would note that they mentioned Deathly Invigoration getting a big buff to its healing, which could make it attractive. However, otherwise I’d tend to agree. Blood Magic got nice changes, and was buffed. Here is a link to the list of changes.
My biggest issue is that, while I liked the changes overall, they weren’t enough. Its like if they added 5 damage/HP to Vampiric its a buff, but it isn’t enough of a buff. My guess is Blood Magic will be used by some power builds (though Curses is looking really good too, with increased crit chance), and MM. It still just isn’t enough to make the trait line really competitive, and if anyone takes it it isn’t so much that blood magic is great, but that once you’re down to a third choice you can afford something somewhat subpar.
We weren’t nerfed with this change, with very rare exceptions (Axe Training). The only real disappointment was Blood Magic, a lot of changes were good, but the siphoning still seems really weak compared to other profession’s sustain options.
Its really hard to know how condi will turn out after this. It is fairly obvious it will go Curses, Death Magic, and Soul Reaping. My big concern is if we will have enough burst without Terror to make Lingering Curses worth running. It is just way too early to say though, because we are also seeing poison stack in intensity, which means a lot of our skills got really significant buffs in certain situations.
If signets get buffed a bit so that they have a little bit of internal synergy and/or have lower CDs, this trait is quite strong. It is a free AoE heal on 24s CD when under 50% HP, this is the exact kind of scaling defense we ask for, plus it is might, plus it is CDR to signets. It is a really nice change.
The only problem with it is signets have too long of CDs right now.
They absolutely listen to us, where do you think Foot in the Grave being a stun break, or merging wells into one trait came from? The devs have listened quite a lot to Necros actually, sometimes for the worse (like original Dhuumfire), and often for the better.
Keep in mind that for every life blast you fire off you miss out on about 4 bleed stacks from scepter auto.
Burning is still a DPS increase even if you lose 4 bleed stacks per auto.
MMs still will, and I think it might see use now that we have 3 full trait lines, so it won’t hurt our DPS really. It has the potential for a lot of healing support, as we have WoB on revive, Transfusion, and a buffed (to allies) heal on DS entry. Also I could see power builds going into it if they want sustain, since it provides a lot of buffs to the double (or even triple) wells build.
If/when we see support weapon(s), support Necro now has a decent tree to go into. It certainly didn’t fix all the issues, but it can help a bit.
There are still issues absolutely, but I never expected this to solve them all. It is still a really nice step in the right direction, and that is all I could have asked for. Plus its nice to know the guy in charge of the remakes also handled us in GW1.
Jon Peters wasn’t in charge of the Necromancer changes, so who gives a crap what he thought, and Grouch doesn’t do anything involved with balance.
Blood Magic was buffed. Not by a ton, but it was absolutely objectively buffed.
Dhuumfire stacks 3 burning on DS AA, Scepter allows for 100% condition duration to all outgoing conditions. They flat buffed everything except Terror, and basically the only thing there is Terror will compete with the Scepter, which is absolutely needed.
I felt the changes were overall great. Condition got a huge potential buff with Dhuumfire stacking 3 burning on its own with no extra duration, Scepter having 100% condition duration to all outgoing conditions while equipped. Minions got some potentially really nice changes, we had a lot of traits consolidated together, some base buffs to things.
I really don’t see what there is to complain about. This is trait changes, they can’t fix all of our problems. But they are absolutely a large move in the right direction, and these are tentative.
Uh… we got some really big changes. Dhuumfire now stacks on its own, it will stack 3 burning on AAs, and has no ICD. Minions saw what is most likely a decent buff (hard to tell), Spite is absolutely better now, there were actually a lot of good changes.
They’ve also talked about addressing stuff like that, so I wouldn’t count on it.
So they just confirmed that transforms are not a “true” category. Tornado transform for Ele is (currently) a cantrip.
A very interesting point. My guess is that Death Shroud will remain similar, but we’ll be able to access Life Force as more of a resource than just HP. We’ll maybe see tomorrow though.
Time is kind of whenever we can get people together, most likely over the weekend. If someone can host the stream (Blackmoa might be able to) then we can do it live, otherwise it will probably be done on mumble and uploaded.
I wish I could make that happen.
Basically yeah. You’d have to play the soundtrack on your own and disable it in game.
So its been a while, but with the traits being presented tomorrow I’m planning on doing a But of Corpse podcast soon. I can’t guarantee it will be this weekend, I’ll have to see if anyone wants to do it with me and my lovely 0.5mbps internet might take some coaxing, but we will absolutely cover the traits when we get a chance.
If you’d like to come on to discuss the changes with me let me know, and hopefully we’ll be able to get it out soon. After the show tomorrow we’ll see how much they’ve shown, and if you guys have any questions you’d like us to address drop it here. At the very least I’ll talk myself to death and record it.
They aren’t though. The conflict is something that should be fixed but on MM the life steal is still definitely noticeable despite it being blocked by DS quite a bit.
I think Plague and Lich Form already have tags, that is Transformation.
Actually yeah, they might just keep the “transform” tag.
I’m not entirely sure if this was said or not: but how will condition/boon duration fit into the new system? Profession mechanics were talked about (half added to base, half added to profession trait line), but currently boon/condition duration don’t exist on PvP amulets, so will they be included in trait lines or gear now?
Edit: Also, with profession mechanic trait-lines getting a benefit to speccing into them (attunement reduction for example), will other trait lines see similar things? Otherwise it seems like the profession trait lines will almost automatically be significantly better since they are the only ones that give additional benefit on top of the traits.
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I don’t like it : Locked adept/master/grandmaster tiers traits.
In short, in the current system, this would be like having to choose between bloodthirst and Vampiric precision. This kill our freedom in to many way.
Except as we’ve already seen they are combining traits. So it will be like choosing between Vampiric Thirst which gives both siphon on critical hit and 20% to all siphons, and Transfusion.
No, this is simply tagging a category on every skill, not a change in functionality.
I really doubt it will remove DS. It is just too core to the profession’s mechanics for one trait line and a set of skills to realistically completely remove DS. I do see us getting new ways to use LF that might give us ways to spend LF outside of DS for strong defensive options that make DS less of a big deal.
Traits are getting a massive pass over, I wouldn’t count on that too much.
So, with the changes every single skill will have a “type” associated with it. Meaning Consume Conditions, Lich Form, and Plague Form will all be assigned a type, which also introduces possibility for trait interactions, which could be huge. 20% CDR brings CC to 20s CD, and it removes 36s from Lich/Plague.
I saw a Bone Fiend when I was watching my cousin play GW1 when I was like 10-11, and I instantly wanted to play Necromancer. So eventually I got the game, and I spent probably hundreds of hours in AB/FA as an MM, and it was the greatest thing ever. From that, I really fell in love with the whole design of walking the line between life and death, and the whole idea of inflicting curses yet enchanting allies, of healing while dealing damage, etc. Its all a cool cyclic deal that I enjoyed. Plus the aesthetic is cool.
In GW2 I also love the playstyle of being very naturally beefy. Minions are super cool (if buggy), and sadly the broken-ness of the class actually really attracts me because it is almost more fun to learn and understand all the tiny interactions of the profession than it is to actually play the game.
Yeah, why do these magically appearing turrets not take damage from my swirling fire I summoned from this magical wooden stick!
Turrets absolutely needed a nerf, there is no doubt there. However, immunity to critical hits and conditions is not what makes turrets so strong, a completely passive playstyle that allows turrets to deal high consistent damage and bring tons of CC while on a massively tanky build is. All this does is allow builds that already brought tons of passive AoE and had an okay matchup against turret engi to flat out hard-counter them, and builds that originally struggled will still struggle. I’m also pretty sure that a single Combustive shot at level 3 will one shot all turrets it hits or very close, much like it does to every other AI build which (is one of many things that) forces those builds completely out of the meta.
This is not a good change, it doesn’t even come close to addressing the real issues that make turret engi too strong.
The problem with that is vampiric builds is that they are generally selfish builds by design currently. That is not to say there is no place for healing or vampiric team support, but if you take a selfish build and then add a GM trait that is almost the polar opposite of the rest of the build it doesn’t synergize well.
Vampiric Rituals should exist as a way for a more teamfight focused bruiser Necromancer to sustain in multiple-opponent situations. Basically, with 6 point investment in Blood Magic, plus the wells, you should have Necromancers who are able to sustain themselves similar to a bunker guardian or D/D elementalist with heals.
There are of course other issues with vampiric builds, but the Vampiric Rituals trait itself should just exist as a source of burst AoE sustain via wells. This is not the appropriate place to try to add support to the Necromancer kit, and if we want to try to support a kind of supporty-vampiric kit design, wells probably aren’t the best fit either.
Generally speaking you’ll want Air/Fire or Air/Blood sigils in glass cannon builds with high crit chance, as they are the largest DPS boosts you can get from the sigil slot. Your other options would be things specific to responding to what is happening, ex: taking Energy sigils if you find you need an extra dodge, Doom sigil if you find a lot of sustain in the meta and don’t have poison, etc.
We need more info about your build than just weapons and build type. Its also worth noting that D/WH and A/F are generally much better combos range wise.
The only particularly unique things ANet did with MMs in GW1 was minions going hostile on MM death, which could turn a full minion MM (if they somehow died to their own stupidity…) into a very real threat to their allies when dead, Verata’s Gaze/Aura, which were absolute troll spells that pretty hard-countered MMs who didn’t also run them, and the fact that Blood of the Master would apply to all nearby minions, meaning running a group with 30 minions turned one BotM use into a 65% HP sacrifice with 48 minions meaning instant death from 100% HP.
The institution of a minion cap (8 with just max DM investment, 10 with your general PvP builds, 12 in extreme cases) was done extremely early on in GW1, and didn’t massively affect MM usefulness. You still saw Discordway in PvE, you still saw multiple MMs very commonly in the larger scale PvP game modes.
Limitation of minion/turret builds is stupid, it is a band-aid to a larger problem. If the game mode is so badly designed that you can run that kind of team and win, then fix the game mode or deal with the builds directly.
^
Yes, I think you have it right. As far as I am concerned, the is not one Grandmaster trait in Blood Magic that deserves to be called a grandmaster.
Fetid Consumption entirely deserves its GM slot, it provides some of the strongest theoretical condition removal of anything in the game; 6 conditions removed per 10 seconds, without involving jagged horrors. The other two are pretty garbage though, for sure.
I used to mention having a “defensive” minion, and taunt would be a perfect way to realize that. Shadow Fiend wouldn’t work well though, he is the second least durable minion in practice (behind Bone Minions) due to having very low armor and being melee.
It would fit better to have a minion more designed to actually take damage, with base durability closer to Flesh Golem, but with weaker DPS than the other utility minions (maybe on the level of Bone Minions, but with something defensive on AA). Slap a taunt onto the active, maybe a stun break (makes it more relevant to non-MMs as well, if it can become a source of self-peel).
Let’s not change Close to Death and nerf Necromancers even more in PvE. It might be a boring trait, but there is nothing wrong with it. Making Chill of Death better is a valid place to look at, as is changing it so it doesn’t get +50% damage when you pair it with the downed trait.
However, let’s not pretend like Chill of Death can’t be anticipated. If you are against a power Necro, expect to get hit with a burst when you fall below 50% HP. You know exactly when it is going to happen, and it requires the Necromancer to hit you to proc it. There are plenty of other bursts in the game which have no more “tells” than CoD, and it isn’t at all random, though it is passive.
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To be fair, the GW2 music is really good. It doesn’t compare to playing Necro with heavy metal in the background though.
Its just how I understood it to work, but it is entirely possible that I am wrong.
How is staff a condi build weapon more than power? Except fear which can be traited for it doesn’t have much going in the condition department. Chill isn’t a damaging condition, transfers don’t scale with your stats so it basically only has 2 silly bleed stacks and some poison(which is more utility than dps to negate heals and whatnot).
It has bleed, fear which gives terror, transfer does scale with your stats just not your condition duration. It has been specifically nerfed because of condition builds as well. At this point the utility staff gives power builds is awful, it gives you a slow, weak, badly scaling AA, chill/poison, condition removal, and CC. Any other of our weapon sets give that much “utility”, all that staff gives is range.
The auto scales with power. It’s even better in power builds than in condition because necro spends most of the time autoattacking.
The only reason you spend time AAing with staff is because you have no 900+ ranged damage except LB. A 0.47 coefficient per second AA is garbage, if we had any other option we’d take it.
Staff is purely for utility/kiting/range pressure. That’s why it’s used in all the builds.
You can’t offensively pressure someone by tickling them with staff AAs. Its used in many (not all builds) simply because it is our only 1200 range option, and because power builds don’t really want to take scepter, even though scepter gives almost as much utility as staff does. If you introduced a proper ranged power weapon staff would disappear on power builds almost universally.
Also isn’t the Well of corruption thing more a bug then an actual intended lf generator?
Yes.
I would note that ANet definitely (maybe) knows about it, so at this point I’d consider it a “feature” until it makes its way to a patch note. It wouldn’t be the first time a bug because a feature, although maybe one of the rare times that it has benefited us.
I wouldnt call the change to weakening shroud an actual buff. For pvp the old effect with icd was certainly better. Though i can see that the removel of the icd had some benefits…
I would say the ICD removal itself was a buff, but the changes that accompanied it are overall a nerf.
As for the DS change, I would say it was overall a buff. It was changed to overflow, but the 50% reduction is a huge addition to our EHP.
I’ll watch the video when I get a chance. Welcome back though Nemesis, hopefully HoT will fix some problems.
Necromancer: Consume Conditions.
It is arguably one of the best heals in the entire game, it brings a full condition removal without giving up any vital utility skills/weapons/traits. Basically every single build runs it, and even if our other heals weren’t garbage it would still be a viable option in basically every build.
You are a sitting duck with a/d if someone is ranging you. Being able to cast your marks behind you is huge for peeling. It could use more life force but I love my staff. I agree it could use a damage buff maybe? But It does make every necro build better but whatever floats your boat bhawb.
This is basically what I just said, staff is only used because it is our only long range option for power builds. If we had any remotely decently designed 900-1200 range power weapon it would be used over staff in power builds. Also, the range issue and kiting is much more of an issue to glass power builds, any tankier build can deal with not having it (those builds are just bad for other reasons).
I’m assuming everyone is basing this off a power build so have you ever tried casting the auto attack then popping your death shroud to get a life blast off and make your staff AA crit? Plus air and fire procs can equate to a lot of damage. The staff auto attack crits between 1500-2100.
Remove the extra stuff, air/fire procs work on anything. Staff’s AA alone has roughly 0.34 less power scaling and the same base damage as >600 range Life Blast, has just as long of a cast+aftercast (1.4s attack cycle), has no tracking, and is really slow moving. Elementalist Staff, Ranger LB, Warrior LB, Guardian Scepter, Elementalist Scepter, Mesmer GS (at 300 range or higher), Engineer Rifle – almost every single 900 or higher power weapon AA is better than staff.
Now sure, staff is about utility, except in a power build this utility is much more limited. At its full range, it gives very low amounts of life force, some chill/poison, condition removal, and an AoE CC. This isn’t anything to write home about, focus/dagger OHs both provide extremely similar functions, all we are missing is either a ranged MH or ranged 2H and we’d easily fill this, with much better skills suited to a power skillset.
Staff is essentially a condi utility weapon that gets forced onto power builds because they need to be able to do something at 900+ range, and our only options there are scepter or staff, and staff at least brings some utility and a slightly less bad AA. However, staff on its own is a bad weapon for power builds, it only works because of a huge deficit we have.
I’m going to screw around with cele MM over the weekend/tomorrow if I get a chance, it seems much more likely to be able to actually use all the stats, and is much closer to what your traditional cele build goes for: a high sustain bunker with good base damage.