Fine if the problem is fury, give fury plus 30% crit. that way if you get fury from other source it wont stack 50+ 20 .
Another Necromancer mechanic that makes ally assistance absolutely worthless? No thanks.
You can’t get fury on your own as a Necromancer while using a damage-oriented build with Deathly Perception, it requires 3 points in Curses (which means no Close to Death), not to mention it forces you to go in and out, which means large downtimes due to CDs.
This trait isn’t that good. Necromancers were meta in WvW long before it existed, it isn’t good in group PvE, and power necro is still subpar in PvP even with this trait. If it was actually OP it would be the cause of Necormancers being OP, which is an incorrect idea on two fronts; we aren’t OP, and this sure as hell wouldn’t be the cause of it if we were.
ah youre right Bhawb.
i was assuming blood fiend, water/blood sigils, and regen was allowed as well. might be a good idea to not skim OP…
i still think its a bad idea though. it mainly buffs mm, which doesnt need a buff, and doesnt do anything for power/condi mancer.
Blood Fiend is awful, the only sigils that MMs use are on-swap, and regen isn’t that big of a deal. It really doesn’t change much for MM at all, honestly, and any changes it does make can simply be taken out of Vampiric Master’s sustain if it is too much.
There is an MM build on metabattle you should try =0
The metabattle MM build is not good.
You need Cleric on MM if you ever want to be able to manage a 2v1, Soldier really hurts your sustain. The minions are about half of your overall damage, but the main point is that Cleric keeps you and your minions alive much better against their “counter” of AoE.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQNBIhdakjmma7qxvG2bTENASHOlJzfINA-T5QIABzeCAA4JAYUZAA
Right now this is the core build you should use for every s/tPvP MM build. Without Cleric you aren’t effective as a bunker anytime you are more than 1v1 (its MM you should’t lose 1v1s anyway except against certain builds). The big changes you make are the Spite 2 trait (whether you have focus or not) , whether you bring focus or dagger (dagger for condi removal, focus otherwise), and what runes you bring.
Dagger auto is just fine, honestly. If you change anything more about dagger, now that they announced the new 2 changes, it would be a slight reduction on 3’s CD, but I don’t think that is at all necessary.
if they buff deathshroud sustain then they will have to nerf minionmancer, which is fine by me but not so much for a lot of other people.
They don’t need to nerf MM, all they would do is nerf Vampiric Master’s healing a little due to it now healing you more often. Other than that there would be no change to MM, since they only have one source of siphoning they’d access in DS.
I don’t think forcing Bloodthirst is the right way to make siphoning good. Sure you could keep the siphons pathetically low base values and just keep bumping up BT until it is ridiculous; but it is far better for our profession is the base values of siphons are made reasonable for many builds and keep bloodthirst for people who are specializing into siphoning.
1. No.
2. No.
3. No
4. No.
5. No.
6. Sure, but unnecessary.
7. Sure.
8. Yes.
9. No.
10. No.
11. No.
Because it creates a nightmare for their team. The way the game deals with skills being different in each game mode is by having copies of that skill, same with how traits work. Just as an example, Necromancer staff has 5 normal skills in the database. It also has a sPvP only version of its 2 skill, bringing it to 6 total. Greater Marks then has a copy of every skill except the AA (I assume they don’t change out the AA since it doesn’t change), bringing it to 11 total. Soul Marks do the same, 16 total, and Staff Mastery as well, 21 total. Now those 21 are just the basic 6 skills, plus an extra version for every mark for each trait, except each of those versions only use 1 trait. So now you need one that is a combination of Soul Marks + Staff Mastery, Staff Mastery + Greater Marks, Greater Marks + Soul Marks, and all 3 together, so 36 total skills, for a single weapon set and its associated traits. Spiteful Marks might do the same thing, which would then increase it by a lot, since you’d need a bunch of extra combos (I believe it would bring it to 76 total), although I’m not sure how they deal with modifiers to specific skills instead of flat damage modifiers (since it only works on marks), however with how Lingering Curses replaces the skills with new ones that have 33% increased base duration it is entirely possible it works this way.
Then lets say they split it for each game mode. This would take all of those skills in the database, and multiply them by about 3 (slightly less, since staff 2 is already split). Every trait would then not just reference 5 skills in the database plus their respective combinations with other traits, it would reference 12 skills plus combinations. Essentially the more combinations you need, you end up multiplicatively increasing the amount of skills that the database needs to work with.
Simply put: it is a TON of work for them. It makes every single balance change harder, it makes bugs far more likely, it makes patches slower, and it lowers the general player experience by making you re-learn how a skill works in each game mode. The benefits of being able to balance each skill separately are arguably heavily out-weighed by how difficult and resource-consuming it would be. That’s not to say there isn’t any merit to doing it sometimes when absolutely necessary, but it isn’t a simple change.
Note: the stuff about staff isn’t strictly true number wise, I figured out. But its too much work to figure it out. Some traits change the database, some don’t, it’s weird.
(edited by Bhawb.7408)
Wait what?
I like that they are turning DS into a unique defensive mechanic, I’d 100% prefer that we have a strong unique defense. They just need to tighten up some of its issues, and it’d be great; stuff like negating a big hit (such as an Aegis on entry), our mechanics not cancelling each other out, and things like that.
You’re confusing balance with theme. We aren’t used in the wvw frontlines because we can’t give ourselves stability and don’t have a CC-heavy weapon set like Guardians/Warriors; by that suggestion Thieves should be great for frontlines, because they are a melee heavy profession. Also range vs melee has nothing to do with dungeons, the highest DPS dungeon build is also a ranged cloth build.
Even in GW1 we were not solely a cloth-caster profession. It has translated into GW2 as well. Even Elementalist, which is the closest thing we have to “cloth caster” can just go D/D and laugh at your damage. The entire idea of a cloth caster at a profession level is completely null in GW2.
If you think Necromancers are supposed to be some wussy cloth caster profession, then I think we’ve solved the problem right there.
I have over 1400 in my MM build, lol. But Cleric would be just about the only time you’d see that much, and you can only afford that in MM. Normally you’ll probably see 3k, maybe 3.6k in a siphon build.
power necros are going to think this will make them strong and go out there and try to do something only to see the same old same old hard cc to their face preventing them to pull off that kind of attack . once again we get nothing that actually helps !
Nothing ANet does can help people who can’t play.
I really think that the summoned npcs should have a % of the owner status. This implies to Spirit Weapons; Elementals; Minions; Spirits; Turrets…
God no.
There’s no reason to expect more changes, we got no less changes than anyone else.
Its a bit more than that according to my math.
Current base heal 238 per tick, 2142 full channel
Current ratio 0.05 per tick, 0.45 full channel
With 1000 healing power, you get 2592, with Bloodthirst 3110
Changes are 25% increase to base, 75% increase to ratio
Changed base heal 298 per tick, 2682 full channel
Changed ratio 0.0875, 1.38 full channel
With 1000 healing power you get 4062, with Bloodthirst 4874
All numbers were taken from in game, because the wiki is wrong.
Many bosses use attacks that will 1 hit all of your minions even with that damage resistance.
Actually very few bosses do, minions have significantly more HP than most players in PvE. Traited Flesh Golem has around 33k HP IIRC, as well as heavy armor.
The only reason you die in any build is because you misplayed. Even the most ridiculously squishy elementalist builds can survive the vast majority of content if you are playing them right.
Why so optimistic people? We haven’t seen the unmentioned nerfs yet and the postpatch nerfs that negate the buffs we got.
Maybe because they very rarely nerf Necromancer in a meaningful way anymore. The only real undeserved nerf we got recently was the WoB one.
If he enjoys it then it doesn’t particularly matter how good it is or not. But in general might stacking for MMs is pretty irrelevant, the only time I use it is in PvE when I’m running a DS build with minions tacked on because some pug groups are awful.
Are you able to reproduce this under controlled settings, and are you sure that it is your HP decreasing and not just your LF?
It has nothing to do with forcing us into using a trait or nerfing DS, it was an unintended function and since it had fairly minimal balance implications (at least in their mind), they axed it. However, the functionality wasn’t innately bad, so they added it to a bad trait that synergizes really nicely with it.
I hate to break it to you, but they didn’t do this to nerf your awful spectral build.
Considering you use a MM build with Apothecary gear in PvE I think we can all ignore your opinions
Doom is literally the best skill in the entire Necromancer kit – You can trait it for damage it has a low cooldown 20/17 seconds traited but here is the best part – It is instant cast! You can use it while stunned!
Be one with the shroud embrace the shroud
Not to mention MM makes decent use of literally every single skill. Transfusion is a must, DS 5 makes for a great chain CC or dodge-bait, DS 3 is great for chain CC, creating room, or fighting for a point, DS 2’s chill is amazing plus it helps you stay in range for dagger, and DS 1 is a decent skill for damage. DS is great for MM.
NO! This change would ruin dhuumfire – i dont want to lose control of when and who i want to proc it on.
Good point. Ideally they could just have the trait always access the untraited Life Blast, instead of the traited version, which wouldn’t be too hard.
Small changes, but great ones. My cleric MM will be happy.
Its been ages and I still think of traits as being 30 points…
Yes and no. Sometimes active skills seem to “reset” the pathing issues, sometimes it actually causes pathing errors, and most of the time it just doesn’t do anything.
Except minions have added aggro patterns on top. They have the core AI of a mob, but they also act like a “group” of mobs (hence why you can “pull” the minions from a necro by attacking the necro), and they have some unique AI from the Necromancer. Back when things were a bit weirder, they had nearly a full page worth of aggro instructions that they followed, which I imagine are still all there.
I’d rather the trait just work in DS.
There isn’t even a build that uses DS only as a damage sponge. Literally every build in the game uses it for its damage soaking and at least one ability; even PvE DPS dagger Necro has use for some of the skills; 2/3/5 have pretty much universal utility for any build.
Death Shroud is an absolutely vital part of Necromancer at this point. To remove it or change it in any heavy way would require the full rework of the entire profession.
In PvE 4/0/6/4/0 is completely unnecessary. You’re better off using a more selfish damage build with minions around to tank damage for you, rather than fully trait them. At most you will sink 4 into death magic for the obvious minion traits, but the rest should all be personal DPS.
The question I’m trying to answer is what causes variability in the damage. I fully grant that given the sizes of the numbers, this is a pretty much just an academic exercise. And two sample runs is way too little to even say there is some other factor at play.
In what sense? The big differences in numbers are due to different attacks being used, the small differences within a single type of attack are due to how the game calculates damage (every attack has a range of “weapon power” it randomly chooses from). I’ve never seen any other variation, although it is possible it exists.
As for the other stuff, if I get some time this weekend I’ll look into it. It is entirely possible they did some funny coding.
The damage on Bone Fiend’s tooltip is the combined damage against a heavy armored target at whatever level is in question. The only question would be whether it is like other minions, and is the average damage over a sequence of attacks, or is the damage of the crippling attack only.
Bone Fiend has three separate attacks, each of them using two projectiles and dealing the same damage for each projectile (including crits). His normal one that he uses on auto attacks, his crippling attack which is used instead of his auto attack every 10 seconds, and his active ability. They increase in base damage in the same order, and have the same crit chance, which is 4% afaik. So like someone else mentioned it was just his different auto attack.
As far as DPS, its fairly easy to compare minion DPS. Use the listed tooltip, 1.2 seconds per Flesh Golem auto, 1.5 for Shadow Fiend, about 3 for everyone else, and you can figure DPS. It is a bit weird that they don’t normalize Bone Fiend’s DPS though, which they do for Flesh Golem’s 3 attack chain.
Edit: if yes how much info would you like us to post about the build we want to share
It can be a specific build, in which case link the build itself, or it can be general, like spectral builds.
And non-meta builds are just fine, it lets us bring up why they aren’t meta.
Hey guys, BoC is going to go forward with the idea of Build Spotlights. That is, having a build or two and going over them, how they are used, strengths/weaknesses, things like that. When possible, we’ll have someone on to talk about them who plays the build.
So, I’d like two things. First I’d like builds/build-types that you guys would like us to go over. We’ll probably start generic (PvE power necro) and then when we have guests we can line up specific builds (Bhawb’s barely better than bad MM build). Second I’d like people to nominate people (you can nominate yourself) to represent the build on the podcast. The second part isn’t necessary, but it will save me time and make the casts better for you guys.
As a side note, this might lead to sub 1 hour podcasts. I’m just going to not worry about length so much now, because I feel it leads to us just kind of BSing our way to the hour mark sometimes. If we hit an hour naturally that’s awesome, and it will probably happen when we have guests, but if we don’t I won’t push it.
Thanks for reading.
My only issue with the minion traits is that because they are fairly generic, they don’t give non-minion builds reason to invest in them (arguably the 20% CDR on Flesh Wurm/Golem isn’t bad for a general build). Which is why I keep arguing that traits like Training of the Master needs to completely augment the active of the skills. But besides that, like zapv said, there are plenty of professions that have a ton of traits for something, the only issue with the minion ones is that some of them have major issues with design (Corruption) which hold them back.
Your the minion guy so I believe you know best, but I see two traits there that are never worth taking over Death Nova, they either both need a buff, or some kind of merge/deletion of one of them
Oh I 100% agree they need changes, they just need changes that suit them. If you merge them, I’d just change one/both of them so that they have internal synergy (much like Death Nova has synergy with its merged Reanimator), or leave them separate but give them buffs.
This has been the case for over a year, its not going to change until they do an AI rework.
There is no reason for a team to use a power Necromancer at high tier play, the only unique thing they bring is Lich, which is very easily countered. Other professions have better burst, better survivability, more mobility, etc.
This entire thread is a complete and utter waste
You think a dev will read this? LOL
Devs will look at the upcoming tournaments and see plenty of Necros – thats all we need to see all other arguments are pointless
The devs read threads, this is a fact.
I think you are wrong about the one viable build, it depends on the comp your playing with and against.
True. If you are playing against idiots there are 3 viable builds. However against any competent team the only builds that work are Dhuumfire (which some would even argue doesn’t work against good teams) and the PoC build.
So I can heal myself for 20k in a teamfight or against anyone with pets? That would never be broken, not at all.
But yeah, Life Siphon is fine as is as far as its healing, it just needs to be a shorter cast time.
I saw Zombify in game and asked him if he’d be on tomorrow and he said he should be. For NA so far at around 8pm eastern we have:
Roe
NeXeD
Possibly ZombifyAnyone else? Minas? Bhawb?
Unfortunately I can’t. Midterm + essay today is going to kill me.
The issue with Necro and regen is that we are the only profession that can “turn off” our own healing. When any other profession has say 500 HPS average, they actually average that HPS regardless of other . A Warrior with Healing Signet cannot lose that passive HP regen through any action except by activating it. They can block all day, they can activate every immunity possible, etc. but as long as they never use the heal they will always be healed. Same for Rangers and their passive healing, same for Elementalist and their healing, not a single other profession can turn off their healing by using other defensive abilities.
As long as we can turn our defense off, or have stupid crap like trying to pass off condition regen as a grandmaster trait.
Also siphons deal damage because that is what a siphon is. If you siphon gas from someone, it doesn’t magically generate gas for you, you take gas from them and give it to you. It is the very definition of what siphoning is, and its based on the entire Necromancer theme of stealing strength from others.
If boons were cut back Necromancer would have even less viability because our only niche now is to remove the boons.
Helseth also won a tournament when Mesmers were generally considered very weak, not because the class was good but because he was amazing and his team knew how to work around it. Eura also played Ranger when it was “weak”.
Being on a top team doesn’t mean much. A successful team beating other highly skilled teams with a Necromancer where the Necromancer is actually a vital member to their composition would be far better evidence. And we just don’t see this much except in NA, which has arguably the best Necromancers and the worst team-play.