Guild Wars 2

Honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve done hot with my ele but I believe that just using staff, glyphs and full damage traitline make thing easy enough for an ele to do almost everything. That’s what I used at that moment and I had absolutely no issue.

Power and ferocity (I’d go for dual stat instead of tristats or quadrastats)

I can just approve this novel idea of an healing skill that cursed a group of foes for a limited timae so that a %age of their damage heal the necromancer. That’s purely evil, I love it.

I think that the answer to your question is that anet don’t want to create more powercreep than needed.

Obviously, this isn’t really a good move to improve the balance between professions in PvE but that’s how it is.

And yes the “boost allies with your fervor” most likely meant : “boost allies by using Heroic command that grant might per fervor stack”.

That said, at least, the might stack granted have a decent duration. Had the revenant been a necromancer, the might duration granted would probably have been halved.

Flumek.9043:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… Pelopidas the wise once said that revenant was the proof that Anet’s listen to the necromancer’s community. We can add this skill to the list I guess.

I deleted my pelopidas signature this week , but it considering the boring elite , it may be fitting to bring it back for another 2 years.

Well, it had more impact at revenant’s release.

It might have been designed as solo Pve farming character

Well, from experience the necromancer is the most comfortable in WvW. This is it’s natural playground and the scourge is no exception to that. It can’t be helped, this is where the whole “condition manager” coupled with passive defense thematic is the most effective.

Honestly, if we only consider wvw, the necromancer and it’s 2 e-specs are pretty well done and balanced (well scourge need some tweeks for it’s balance in there thought but at least he is a natural predator here).

If we consider PvP, the necromancer got strong tools but equally he got some serious weaknesses in this game mode. I’m not sure the tools are worth the weaknesses thought.

As for PvE, the tools are inadapted to 95% of the gamemode yet he fare pretty well in solo play. The real issue is just that he is lacking in the way he support his teammates and he got some serious issue to reach a sufficient dps to contend against other professions. The profession is not bad but lack every single things that are needed to be desirable in PvE group content : a unique offensive buff/debuff and some damage modifyer allowing him to reach others profession’s dps.

If you intend to play scourge you’d probably better spend your money into vitality (at least if the scourge shroud skill stay with a fixed LF cost)

“One of the biggest changes for necromancers in this patch is the change to the Vital Persistence trait. Previously, this trait reduced the rate at which life force decayed while in shroud and was too powerful compared to the other two traits in the same tier. We’ve changed the functionality of this trait in order to provide a different option that is easier to track and is more competitive with other traits in the same tier.”

Well yeah, the change on VP was like them saying : “Guy look! we change it so it became mandatory to Scourge instead of being mandatory to the necromancer/reaper. Look really carefully! This is a hint on the stat we excpect all of you to use with this new specialisation… Come on!!! Vitality!!!! Take gear with vitality!!!! You’ll love it! I garantee you!!!!”

Oh wauw.. I was browsing the wiki and ended up on breakbar research…

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance_Bar#Mob-specific_defiance_bars

We have 7 hard control skills to damage breakbar… Revenant is next with 9
All others have 10+
Yeah, Necro realy needs a lot of TLC

Well… Not exactly. We got 7 hard CC + fear + miscellanous conditions that wear down the breakbar (And that’s where anet want the necromancer, wearing down the breakbar throught condition)

And while we’re at it, Reaper’s Onslaught needs to be changed up a bit. Remove the 15% attack speed increase, it’s useless because it doesn’t stack with Quickness anyway. Then make the 225 Ferocity bonus a party wide effect like Empower Allies.

That would help the reaper for sure but this “aura” effect have already been given to the revenant.

Well, the bad news is that if you lost it… you lost it.

The good news is that if you already obtained it, it mean that you unlocked the skin and that you can put this skin on any GS you have.

The 2nd good news is that if you unlocked it, it mean that you already unlocked it in the Dark harvest collection and you don’t need it “physically” anymore to proceed through the collection.

Anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about.

SneakyTouchy.6043:

Dadnir.5038:

That would make viper stats totally broken… no thanks!

Can you explain? You would still have 100% crit chance so I don’t see how another 50% in shroud would help. If anything it would up their already low performance, if they even decided to take that line in the first place.

Basically, what you do is adding high ferocity to a Power/condition/expertise/precision gear. Due exactly to the possibility to easily reach 100% crit chance, it just mean that you add long hard damaging conditions on top of an assassin gear. It’s like having both the damage of a sinister gear and assassin gear. That’s unbalanced/broken.

Well… Pelopidas the wise once said that revenant was the proof that Anet’s listen to the necromancer’s community. We can add this skill to the list I guess.

We got it when kessex tower was about to come to an end… It came with a hard nerf to the minions builds. I remember that I used it to test it at that moment and then I never used it again… Ah! memories!!!

If I remember correctly they decided that life siphon when hit was to punishing for the opponent That’ why we got the heal when hit on 1 second ICD.

Truthfully the passive, while feeling weak, wouldn’t stand even a slight buff. Anything done to it, would create a dire imbalance. As for the active, I’ve never been a fan of it but it had it’s hours of glory against wvw keep’s door (well it’s been nerfed since then… pretty quickly).

It’s been to long for me that I gave up on this skill, I can’t even think of a way to make it barely playable without breaking it completly. I don’t even have the will to think about trying.

That would make viper stats totally broken… no thanks!

Maxzero.4032:

Which is why I think multi proc is good. It’s a mechanic that has reduced impact in PvP but a bigger one in PvE.

In fact, multi proc have the same impact in PvE and PvP and if anything, such a thing impact more PvP than PvE. That is because mobs usually have large health pool while player have health pools that are more balanced and where each hit count. I’m giving a simple exemple : Aegis. Aegis rarely appear on mobs but is something of importance to some player and multi hit impact those players a lot.

The whole reason why Anet has never buffed Necro in PvE is the old excuse that they were too tanky. Scourge is not tanky.

Well, I’ve seen some video featuring scourge that are way tankier than any necro/reapers are. This is a matter of build, not a matter of elite spec. If anything, scourge are compelled into taking more and more vitality to be able to use more often their “F” skills which mean that a scourge will more easily lean toward a vitality build even if he want to be a damage dealer. Just take a look at the video that zero solstice made to showcase it’s “support” build… That is tanky! Neither a reaper nor a necromancer would have survived where he survived.

No, anet don’t refrain from buffing the necromancer because he is tanky, anet refrain from doing so because they fear the potential that they see in the shroud and their narrow view of what a necromancer should be doing.

Fixing the fact that the necromancer is unwelcome in raids, is just a matter of slightly modifying a trait (rending shroud) so that it’s effect is not impeded by the natural vulnerability cap.

Fixing the low power dps of the necromancer is just a matter of introducing a +10% damage modifyer that affect all skills (except minions) and is not in competition with close to death.

I believe that condi dps don’t really need more “love” and that a PvE necromancer absolutely don’t need more skills that corrupt boons to be competitive. And what do the scourge propose? Boon corruption and conditions to apply. The conditions are certainly balanced in PvE to achieve a condi dps that is close to what a condi reaper do and if it need boons to corrupt to achieve such a feat, you can be sure that scourge is screwed. Multi it can’t change those facts.

Multi hit or not, it will be balanced around how it impact other professions in PvP not how it impact them in PvE. And as it stand multi hit is way more bothersome in PvP. All in all, for balance, it’s better for them to keep things simple and make it so that it only hit once.

Regarding the signet of undeath, I’d have prefered that the trait reduce the interval of lifeforce gain instead of giving more life force. In the end it does the same but, I prefer to gain 2% every 2 seconds than 3% every 3 seconds. On the long run it can make a huge difference.

The active effect used to be fun to troll some eotm raids by ralying a dead lord when they tried to cap.

Maybe its both? They could well want multiproc because it would be much better in PvE (where Necro needs help) and weaker in PvP (where Necro needs less help). Players move out of Shades, NPCs don’t.

Let’s be honest, if multiproc was the solution for PvE, all powermancers would play minion and achieve the same level of damage than an elementalist. (which is not the case)

The problem of the necromancer in PvE is that it’s tools are designed to fonction in an optimal and balanced manner when you fight against player. The strenght of the scourge that allow him to be so effective in PvP and WvW is it’s novelty and it’s large amount of boon corruption.

In PvE, the mobs are not surprised by novelty and stick to their behavior whatever they have in front of them while Boon corruption can at best make them frown.

If anet wanted to make the necromancer competitive in PvE, they would have to do it through the core necromancer and that would be pretty simple to do. I don’t really understand why they refuse to make those change (well it’s not like they really communicate over profession balance) but the core necromancer and all e-spec actual and futur need them.

Well, the scourge is a natural player killer spec it’s a given that players of other professions would want it to be nerfed.

As a scourge you naturally corrupt boon on other, wash yourself and your allies off condition at a high rate and end up melting low life build in seconds.

Out of all this, other player in front just understand that they do as much damage as wet noodles (because they’ve been stripped of their might and fury, while you cleanse yourself super fast) and are melted by conditions.

They can only say out of their point of view : “God! Stop this nonsense and nerf damage and survivability of the Scourge!!!”

Anet’s answer will be : “Well yes, we didn’t intended to make it so powerfull…” then they will proceed in nerfing everything else than the boon corruption and the condi cleanse until someone point out that 2 condi cleaned on F2 is to much.

This will end up with core dhuumfire duration reduced to 2 second (because why not) and F2 cleanse reduced to 1 condition untraited because that’s what happen to druid’s avatar skill#2. The high survivability feeling still remaining, they will then change shroud skill cost into a %age life force cost (feel lke that’s the logical thing they would do at this point) and suddenly the scourge would feel a lot easier to deal with and players would be somewhat satisfied.

Meanwhile in PvE where boons on mobs and condition threat are at best anecdotic, the damages just disapeared and fall even below reaper’s while the support given quickly lose it’s novelty and the teams return to the solid support that actually improve their dps as a whole.

That’s how thing goes in gw2.

That’s some fine idea to kill condi reaper that’s sure. Help power reaper? Not at all.

To help power reaper Anet need to help power necromancer by stopping to see the life siphons on the blood magic traitline as damage boost and giving the necromancer proper damage boost tools.

- Pushing the axe CD reduction onto Spiteful spirit and changing Unholy fervor into a “do 7-10% more damage on foes afflicted by vulnerability” (That would help power reaper a lot)

- In a different way, changing rending shroud into an aura that reduce surrounding foes toughness by 180 would indirectly make a reaper with a long shroud uptime and the spite traitline equipped (a power reaper) desired in raid without tilting the damage done by the power reaper at all.

- Tying the life force degen to a stat (concentration) could open more room for builds that would focus heavily on shroud uptime and thus take advantage of those traits that work while in shroud and are supposed to improve our dps (Like reaper onslaught for exemple)

I’m pretty sure doing that would actually help power reaper more than totally killing the e-spec by reducing it’s condi damages.

Well, my decision were based on the sentence that I found on the wiki :

Owl represents family and hearth, giving teachings of taking care of one’s children as well as being a keen hunter.

and what owl really are.

The feeling tried to achieve is kinda that of a mother that can hyde it’s child, soothe them, protect them but still have a dangerous aspect that prevent foes to jump at it unprepared.

If you look at the norn in the guild wars’s lore, they are a race of mighty hunter that revere the spirit of nature. Each of these spirits are in their own right great hunters.

That’s why, this e-spec would be “norn flavored” by featuring as a legend the legendary hunter Owl.

From the wiki :

Owl is one of the lesser spirits of norn. When Jormag awoke, Owl was one of the four spirits who stayed behind to fight the Elder Dragon in order to give the norn time during the norn exodus to the south. She is revered with great sorrow among the norn as the last Havroun of Owl confirmed the death of Owl. Despite its death, Owl shamans and other norn still revere her. She has a shrine dedicated to her at Lost Spirits’ Hallow in Hoelbrak, as well as the now-wrecked Owl Lodge in Snowden Drifts.

Owl represents family and hearth, giving teachings of taking care of one’s children as well as being a keen hunter. Many of Owl’s teachings can be found in Damaged Writings within the Owl Lodge.

This e-spec would feature a “beastform” named Become the Owl with the a low upkeep cost as F2. Which would technically give the “hunter” a third weapon skillset.

Become the Owl would ideally take the best out of the norn’s transformation skills :

- AA being the same as the raven’s seem logical swip
- #2 is swoop a movment skill with some evade frame
- #3 take something from the wolf with snarl a terrifying shout
- #4 take another thing from the wolf with howl a support shout
- #5 take Prowl from the snow panther since a Owl, by itself is a stealthy predator.

The legend utility skills and trait would be oriented toward stealth and support throught boons.

- #6 soothing feather work like thief’s hide in shadow except that instead of removing some conditions, it would grant regeneration to allies around the hunter.
- #7 Owl’s haven work like thief’s shadow refuge but with a light field instead of a dark field. (grant regeneration instead of healing)
- #8 shadow of the white lady would be dealing damage to foes around the hunter and weakening them.
- #9 summon owl summon an illusionnary owl that nag it’s foes, periodically bleeding and crippling it. Upkeep skill (low).
- elite : snow storm a skill close to elementalist’s glyph of Ice storm except that it blind and chill foes.

Traitlines would revolve around
- Up focus on Become the owl.
- middle give regen and some bonus linked to regen.
- bottom is all about stealth/reveal.

Edit : weapon can be anything as long as it’s not a loud gun/riffle

Manijin.3428:

So you think that Scourge will have the tools to be viable as a power spec within the traits themselves?

Sure I do!

The scourge can take all, absolutely all, the dps tools of the core necromancer and put it’s shroud skills direct damage on top of this tools without beinkittened in any manner. It’s huge! It already mean that you will have a higher direct dps as a scourge than you’d have as a core necromancer and thus with ease.

Desert shroud if you are properly traited and supported by alacrity have a bit less than 70% uptime of it’s damaging component and it’s just free damages, without any cast time needed.

As it stand, I’m pretty sure that a power Scourge already outdps a power reaper on large health pool boss. It’s probably even deadlier than a reaper with it’s greatsword against a player.

If anet was willing to change the focus skill#4 into something more fiting for dps in group content, a D/F power Scourge could probably contend on a dps spot and be more legit than a power reaper.

I can’t even believe that someone didn’t see something as obvious as those almost free damage that this desert shroud give without any afterthought. Anet would probably hate it that I point it, but that’s pure power creep for a power necromancer.

Now just if the dps wasn’t trash and not seen as meme class in PVE.

Sadly that’s an issue that come from the core profession. Power reaper would have been good if it wasn’t for the fact that the core profession is a bad choice when it come to power damage. It’s probably been made like this because the necromancer have an access to minions and they are an extra source of dps (a lot like what happen to the ranger) but these minions, having their own stats, are not fit to help us in reaching wat would be considered a good spot when it come to power damage.

Well, but that’s the issue, you want a hard hitting spec that the reaper is not. The reaper have hard hitting tools, but it’s focus is on chill not on power damage. I personnally don’t think it’s healthy for the profession to have elite spec that focus on just one kind of damage. Hybrid damage kind of elite spec are what’s needed to be able to truly open a large number builds.

The area that need fix when it come to power/direct damages is the core necromancer not the reaper. The reaper is bad at doing power damage for one and only one reason : the core necromancer suck at supporting him to do these damages. And all power e-spec will suffer the same issue whatever is done.

If you look at other profession and especially profession that are good at dealing power damage, they all have a wide number of damage increase trait scatter along all teir traitlines while the necromancer’s traits are few and often brided. Even the siphon traits that are obviously considered damage boost trait by the dev only improve marginally the necromancer’s power damage.

And no! The reaper is not the self sustaining hard hitting juggernaut, the reaper is the unrelenting ruthless cold hand of death. The key word on the reaper have always been the cold which is slow, hard to get rid off and cripple it’s foes by chilling them. That is the “purity of purpose” of the reaper, this monster that chill your heart, cuting off your legs in your fear of it’s deadly promise.

All roots of the issues that the necromancer encounter come from their core traitline which are not good enough to support the elite traitlines in support and power damage.

Honestly, I think you are wrong, reaper is a melee spec not a power or a condi spec. This is a spec that was designed to take a grab at your foe and then force it to stick to you while you try to slaughter it. As for Scourge, it’s not a condition spec, it’s an area denial spec.

It’s to short sighted to put these spec into the a power folder or a condi folder. These spec are designed around a gameplay not a specific kind of damage. If reaper had been a power spec, we might have had something like the wever have, some direct damage increase on adept, master and grandmaster trait position.

The designs are the following :

However, there is none, instead reaper focus on chill and try hard to stay close to it’s foes, taking advantage of the tools that have been given to him : a greatsword, shouts and a melee shroud. The reaper is slow and cold murderer that take you into it’s chilling embrace to deliver the death blow.

Similarly, the scourge focus on the ability to controle conditions and boons in the battlefield : the sand shard, the punishment skills and the range torch skills. The scourge controle areas where they decide who will stand strong and who will wither.

Ramoth.9064:

What on earth are you on about. If you think it’s ok for pvp and wvw then pve should be even less reliant on prebuffing barrier because in pve you actually get attack telegraphing indicators, i.e. the big orange zones.

I just need to read this to see that you don’t get PvE at all. And that’s why you fight for things to stay as they are while other fight for some tweeks. Sure in open PvE the big orange zone are the treat that you need to dodge (forget barriers you’d be a fool to use them in such area).

However, in other aspect of PvE (hint : the group content) you’ll need something that lengthen the duration of your barriers to be a support, because as it stand, you’ll just be able to produce a barrier that mitigate 1 hit out of 2. As for the “big” hits just forget it.

I also see you saying that the shroud is supposed to be entered and left quickly and that the devs said it. The shroud was supposed to be our mean of support shroud skill #4, our mean of high power dps AA and defense. The real issue being that the whole defense thing hacked at the other 2 role.

A condi build was not supposed to rely on shroud, but power and support were supposed to do it. That’s why we got this whole GS crap because shroud was doing a terrible job at was it was supposed to do. Staying in shroud a bit longer mean that you have more room to support your allies and more room to actually do damages. Heck! We even have a crapload of traits that make us more effective only if we are in shroud. It should be enough for you to not say such a thing.

Relying on a stat (which by definition is limited and limit you) to be more effective should be a given. That’s why I feel that it’s another missed opportunity that they didn’t used concentration to grant to the necromancer what they were losing when they changed VP.

NB.: Another thing to say is that the scourge is tailored to be a nightmare for players, not for mobs. A scourge, however you put it, is 30% more effective against players and players cry louder than mobs will ever cry. The nerfs that will be done due to the PvP/WvW community will most likely hit harder PvE than they will hit PvP. Concentration would be a stat niche for the necromancer to have a steadier sit in PvE with a minimal impact on PvP/WvW where having higher barrier value is obviously more advantageous than having steadier barriers.

It’s just that, the dullness of PvE need mechanisms that are a bit duller while the nervousness of PvP/WvW fare well with little burst mechanisms. Which is what the current barrier is. In PvP/WvW, it’s fine to have shortlived boon/conditions because they come and disapear quickly to create some nervous “burst” and complimenting the gameplay of these game modes. In PvE it’s the opposite you need steady boons/conditions, you need a steady support and the ability to “burst”, while it was usefull in the old dungeon, lost some of it’s value with the introduction of the raids where you need high and steady sustained damage. Having the leisure to spam the Death shroud auto attack in such environment might as well help a lot in regard of dps.

The goal of the idea is to make the trait valuable for both scourge and every necromancer spec while reducing the reliance on a trait that is starting to become madatory due to the fact that it give more vitality while vitality, due to scourge, start to gain a lot more attention.

I get the fact that you are satisfied by this delay. But you certainly do not play a build that is trying to volontary support your allies. Adding concentration in the equation would only give some breath to such builds while still keeping some balance.

If 1000 concentration lengthen the barrier duration to 3 seconds instead of 2, It would add QoL, while not hurting your feeling. The actual delay is fine for dps spec and it’s a given that dps specs won’t invest into concentration.

If 1000 concentration grant -25% shroud decay, it would also help all necromancer build that would want to relie more on shroud.

Don’t consider it from the microcosme of the scourge but from the necromancer pov as a whole. This suggestion is meant to benefit the whole necromancer not making 1 build overpowered. Vital persistence vitality bonus is of a tremendous help to Scourge because it’s LF cost is fixed, the shroud doesn’t really benefit from it.

Honestly Ramoth, it feel like you are just content with one build and don’t want to look at other options. You really love the scourge, we get it. It’s effective in sPvP and WvW due to it’s high burst condi damage, sure. But, on fights that are less “nervous”, that lack boons to corrupt or condition to remove a scourge build lose tremendous damage and the barrier delay feel like a candle in the wind.

It might have been already suggested but I feel like the last patch missed an enormous opportunity to tie shroud decay and barrier moment of decay with concentration.

It would be logical that with more concentration a necromancer would be able to retain longer it’s shroud transformation don’t you think?

The same way, barrier being a “support” tools, it being affected by concentration would help a lot and even reduce some of the concerns exprimed on this forum.

What do you think guys?

Wouldn’t adding a concentration effect on this 2 mechanisms open some build diversity as well as help to strengthen any support role for the scourge?

As it stand, vital persistence give vitality, if it give concentration instead wouldn’t this lessen the strength of this traits while still keeping it usefull?

Doesn’t the fact that concentration is a stat in itself would help a lot in “balancing” any build that come out of this?

Zoltreez.6435:

still does not worth it for the loss of the HUGE dmg increase you get from the other trait….

It’s worthy in the sense that it promote a different gameplay that focus less on condition damage and more on direct damage. The trait make you a bit tankier on long fight, lengthen the boons you produce as well as the condition you inflict. Conditions are not restrict to conditions damage.

On a tanky minion build for exemple, I would favor this trait over the two other traits. this trait synergize the most with death magic in my opinion. You want long poison stack, and boost the efficacity of the poor protection you gave to your minion when you leave the desert shroud. If you add your minions, all the added toughness, the 10% damage reduction on poisoned foe, the 15% damage reduction from the shade and your own armor, you can guess how passively resilient you become.

However, even this resilient, in a high hard CC environment, this is not really effective, that’s why it seem directed at open world PvE where it will undeniably make the lazyest of us very resilient while still doing ok damages.

Zoltreez.6435:

Tobias.8632:

To allow one scourge to support a raid group of 10 people

you can do that without the trait also….

Yeah 1 common shade is enough to “support” 10 players in pve raids. It would be a waste to take this trait just because 10 players are affected around it.

In WvW raid, the fact that it affect 10 player might be a good point but it would be more effective to not take the trait and spread the smallest shades.

As for PvP… well that’s a 5v5 gamemode most of the time, their is no value in the fact that it can affect 10 friendly targets and 10 foes.

The value of the trait definitely lie in the fact that it allow you to benefit from the full effect of the minors traits with a single shade and not the fact that you affect 10 players/monsters with it.

I think it’s worth it even if it somehow limit you.

Personnally, I’d say that this trait more the area of solo open world PvE where it will allow you to somehow relax.

I know thet it doesn’t feel right but the strenght of the trait lie in the stability of the bonus provided when you have up to 3 shade not in the number of target you can support thanks to this trait.

The lack of flexibility make it hardly usefull in PvP were you’d rather have access to the 3 small shade and the 2 other traits. (Beside you don’t “need” to be able to hit or support 10 targets in this game mode).

The 10+10 target hit make it easy to tag mobs in events, it’s a given.

The semi-passive bonus given help for a more relaxed gameplay that suit open world PvE.

Otherwise, I feel that this trait suit power/tanky builds more than it suit condi builds.

It count as three shade for the minors traits of the traitline. So basically you gain full effect of these traits and can easily maintain this full effect.

This is the real benefit : 225 concentration, 225 expertise and 15% reduced damage as long as you have your shade summoned.

If you don’t have the trait, unless you “burst” summon you won’t have the full benefit and if you “burst” summon you won’t be able to have those benefit on the long run.

This trait is meant for player that want to maintain their maximum efficiency while demonic lore is meant for small burts and feed for corruption is meant for feeding on your enemies.

NB.: this is kind of a joke but, this trait give litterally some stability to the scourge stats.

Lahmia.2193:

Dadnir.5038:

Lahmia.2193:

How many HoT elite specs are as powerful now as they were on release? Yeah… ofc they will nerf it.

I’d say 2… maybe 3. Daredevil, scrapper and (berserker) come to my mind. I’m not sure for berserker cause I truly dislike the gameplay for this one and with the recent changes I won’t ever bother try it again since I’m somehow happy with my core warrior build. (I loved the axe feel and the changes just gave me 20% more damage and 5% increase in attack speed… What else? Imagine the necromancer gaining that on dagger? That’s the feel!)

As for the nerf… Well there are things that will obviously done on scourge. I’m not sure that F2 will keep it’s 2 cleanse untraited, dhuumfire will probably not proc on each desert shroud‘s tic anymore… This kind of things are somehow a given since that’s something that we could already see happen on Druid after hot release.

Daredevil yes, scrapper/berserker no. They are both definitely weaker. In fact scrapper has become meme worthy is how bad it has been nerfed.

Scrapper was better than this at hot release (or even before)? It didn’t feel it was better at that time… For me it was already meme worthy thanks to it’s incredibly useless little machine bug that fly like a “fly” around a piece of sh…

Lahmia.2193:

How many HoT elite specs are as powerful now as they were on release? Yeah… ofc they will nerf it.

I’d say 2… maybe 3. Daredevil, scrapper and (berserker) come to my mind. I’m not sure for berserker cause I truly dislike the gameplay for this one and with the recent changes I won’t ever bother try it again since I’m somehow happy with my core warrior build. (I loved the axe feel and the changes just gave me 20% more damage and 5% increase in attack speed… What else? Imagine the necromancer gaining that on dagger? That’s the feel!)

As for the nerf… Well there are things that will obviously done on scourge. I’m not sure that F2 will keep it’s 2 cleanse untraited, dhuumfire will probably not proc on each desert shroud‘s tic anymore… This kind of things are somehow a given since that’s something that we could already see happen on Druid after hot release.

Windler.4815:

Zefiris.8297:

" It’s clear. This profession is going to suck ass in PvE."

Do us a favor and sit down, part time PvEers might not enjoy it but for the rest of us, it’s great.

Superb, competitive damage coupled with good support, exactly what necro needed.

Scourge is okay in PvP, where it shines is PvE.

What kittening support? A fast degenerating barrier? Jebus christ…

Well, Zefiris don’t seem to get why the scourge will suck in PvE raids. Just a bit more and I could picture him saying that crippling bosses reduce their movement speed. In PvE, at least, barrier need to not degenerate or degen at the speed that shroud decay to be of some use as support.

The “Superb, competitive damage coupled with good support” especially make me laugh.

Zefiris.8297:

Dadnir.5038:

For PvE, the scourge will be as fine as anything else for open world or story. However for anything else the scourge is still in favor of condition damage and still lacking a meanigfull mean of support.

Might stacking is definitely a meaningfull mean of support alongside barrier, epidemic, and dps.

Everybody and it grandma can might stack except the necromancer so it’s a relief to have some improvement in this area but you definitely won’t use a scourge to replace a PS warrior.

Barrier have an horrible design for PvE, and especially for raids. It might have some use if you could maintain them but whatever you do with the barrier that the scourge have you will still need a druid backup with it’s godsend grace of the land.

Epidemic is not a support skill per se. Epidemic is a pure dps skill that need your allies to support you so that you can land optimal damage. It’s the same as a meteor shower for elementalist.

As for dps, first it is not a mean of support and second it will be balanced around the standard of the necromancer nothing more nothing less. In the end, it might become more userfriendly to do damage with scourge in raid but that’s all. You can expect an optimal condi build at 30-32k which is average and a power build at 26-27 k which is below average.

It’s almost useless in PvE but the most valuable support that the scourge provide is it’s condition management. Corruptions and condition cleanses is where the scourge shine, barrier is a mere toy that don’t really have a place in raid or PvE as a whole.

You want to give a place to the necromancer in raid? It’s easy, there is absolutely no need for an elite spec for that. You just need a single change to rending shroud and make it reduce toughness from your foes by 180 making it drop a league in defense. Just that would be enough to grant necromancers a place in raid.

You want to fix necromancer’s low power damage? A first step would be to apply the increased damage to foes affected by vulnerability from unholy fervor to all skill while the trait is equiped instead of just axe skills. Put the axe cool down duration on spitefull spirit and change unholy fervor to do that and it would already help a lot.

Want to give some sustain to other as a necromancer? Change parasitic contagion so that it heal you and up to 5 allies around you each time you inflict on yourself a condition by using a corruption or by drawing it from neaby allies. A useful trait that have synergy with the mechanism of the necromancer and the other traits of the line while sneakily giving support to your allies. Is this asking for to much?

Three changes that absolutely do not affect the balance of the game, do not add any power creep through elite spec but yet give the necromancer the tools to find a place in PvE raids. Is this really so difficult to understand? I’m just focusing on what’s needed not what’s unneeded and that we already swim into to the point of drowning like corrupting boons.

The lingering issue of the core necromancer is what’s toxic to the necromancer, it feel like anet only know how to add more and more of the things that the necromancer don’t need in high quantity. If you look at the last 3 patch note and dagger, you see :
- 1st patch note : Dagger 2 heal for 100% more while bleeding
- 2nd patch note : Dagger 2 heal for 100% more (PvP only)
- 3rd patch note : Dagger 2 heal for the same amount as in PvP.
More heal! more heal! more heal! does it resolve the lingering issue of this skill? Nope. The necromancer don’t need “more”, the necromancer need well though balance changes. Dagger 2 needed either a slow effect on hit or a longer range or the 2 but not more heal.

I see the thing going in the wrong direction each time. The scourge go in the wrong direction when it come to support for PvE. It’s just obvious. However, I agree that giving it proper support would be a power creep, that’s why I believe that the work need to be done to the core necromancer.

For PvE, the scourge will be as fine as anything else for open world or story. However for anything else the scourge is still in favor of condition damage and still lacking a meanigfull mean of support.

b) it starts with spamming F1 because shades grant expertise

I’m affraid not. Spamming them would probably prove to be more detrimental than anything else You’ll need to carefully wait a few second between each shade summon to maintain them or at least keep 2 of them with you for the whole fight duration.

For PvP, this is another really agressive traitline, the knockdown on torch feel absolutely monstrous.

As for WvW, it look like keeping up one shade is more than enough to do the job and that doesn’t mean that sand savant is necessary. Being a bit more strategical and not counting on the full passive boost is probably the safest and most practical choice in wvw.

And… Barrier… what a joke!

Well… that topic is not right.

The two underwater legend that are available underwater are mallyx and shiro.

The one that are not available are ventari, jalis, glint and kalla.

While I don’t think that kalla and ventari would work well underwater, I do think that it shouldn’t be that difficult to adapt jalis and glint.

Anet love cats ^^ another 2 cats incoming out of 5 new pets.

Thornwolf.9721:

Feels like beastmode does not do as much damage as the Pet and the player together do, It’s damage seems kind of… eh at best? I dont know just something I noticed, could be something to look into.

Months ago I had proposed an e-spec that was very close to this one with a “merge mode” and thieves venoms which are really close from what stances do here.

My focus was more on damages and after pondering a lot, I had come to chose an “on hit” effect instead of the buff the soulbeast gain from merging with his beast. The “on hit” effect had 1 second ICD and was based on the damage the pet would have done by autoattacking. I believe that it would have been closer to what’s needed to make a power dps ranger competitive.

The soulbeast does not offer a new role, it offer a kind of freedom through a new gameplay.

You still do damage but in a slightly different way.
You still support but have a better grasp on support skill that were used by AI.
You still can take a beating but the soulbeast offer you more options to negate damage.
You can still use a pet but your bond with it is stronger and can now support you in a different manner by merging with you, giving you an unique buff and an access to it’s racial skills.

It’s like a direct upgrade of what you could already do. It’s not a role but a strengthened gameplay.

Edit : you could say that it’s like berserker to the warrior. It has no real role but was a direct upgrade of the warrior as a whole.

Kam.4092:

Durhurhur gonna judge an Elite’s Damage based on squishy golems, and survivability with no one hitting it hurhur. Man I know this Elite already having never played it, but I know it’s 100% bad. It will forever suck, and Anet scammed us. Hurhur I’m such an expert.

This is all I hear on this forum.

Kam, first of all, if the devs showcase something it’s in order for the community to have a good idea of what they will get. Experienced player can thus look at it and start to picture how this would impact their gameplay.

With experience, players can more or less see if the damages will be lacking or if there is some concerning point in what they see. And no, there is no need to be an expert to arrive to such conclusion, just long hours of use of the profession.

Let’s talk about direct damage. The scourge in this area seem surprisingly interesting since the shroud skills does not need any cast time and will be directly adding themselve to the core necromancer direct damage out of shroud. This might end up at a higher level than what the reaper struggle to achieve.

When it come to condi damage, the spec seem to offer a lot but the main concern is the condition duration. Short condi duration is perfect for players versus players fight where conditions are not meant to last. However, for PvE, it’s all about duration. One can easily see that scourge conditions damage will alternate between short burst and low sustain damage. This kind of damage shouldn’t be able to overthrow the reaper’s good sustain condi damage in PvE environment.

A look at the support show that the spec is heavily oriented toward this role. Condi clear, might application, boon corruption, barrier, all of this is considered support. And sure, this is pretty good support for wvw. But outside of wvw it won’t really help the necromancer.

Defense wise, the barrier are lacking. Health point are good at soaking condition damage however the barrier don’t last long which is contradictory with the role of soaking the longlasting mean of damage. On the other hand, short lasting mean of defense are meant to prevent burst of power damage, but health points have never been good at doing such a thing and the barrier value are ridiculously low. We can see that anet tried to find a middle point but it end up feeling like a defense mean that is already nerfed for every threatening situation.

What player see are those good and bad points and forseeing what’s easily forseeable. The spec will be incredibly good in wvw zerg v zerg fight, will be lacking defense and mobility in the short scale fights that you find in pvp or roaming and will be lacking the necessary offensive support and damage to be welcome in PvE group content.

In the end, the scourge will change nothing for the necromancer which was already in a good place in wvw but was struggling in PvP and PvE group content.

Well, in all honesty, the problem is not the scourge. The problem is the core necromancer which is a bit dull when it come to direct damage, weak when it come to scaling defence and lacking when it come to support. Solutions have been proposed over and over again on this forum but none of those issues have been adressed by anet which prefer adding more and more sustain when it come to defense, focus on condition damage when it come to damage and chose over-corrupting when it come to offensive support. The choice are just bad and resolve none of the issues.

Kam.4092:

Not every spec needs to shine in PvP. Scourge will shine in PvE and WvW, just stay Reaper and enjoy your Shroud. It’s not like you have to switch. If you care so much about Shroud, and only PvP, then don’t buy the expansion.

Scourge will shine in WvW, as for PvE, it may shine in event where there are a lot of mob involved but that’s all.

The problem is more that you take this thread as something directed toward the scourge while it’s a thread that talk about a general mechanism which is the shroud. You literally read it :

“What you are giving up by giving up the shroud”

While the thread is more :

“What the shroud make you give up”

Players with experience debate here about whether or not a few extra health point can rival extra dodge, invulnerability, mobility and block. The crux of the issue is that extra health point make for a limited defensive ressource while the other means tend toward the infinite.

If you want to involve the scourge in the discussion, you have to consider whether 2k extra health point for 2 seconds are worth an extra dodge or not. Or does 5k extra HP for 3 seconds are worth 3 seconds worth of continous block.

There are certainly pro and cons but one thing is sure if you need a short lasting defensive mean because you are forseeing an incoming burst block and dodge will forever be superior. On the other hand, if you need to soak up longlasting damage, a longlasting barrier would be perfect. Except that barriers are not longlasting.

The shroud on the necromancer have to many hats. It’s our supposed mean to do direct damage, move, support and defend ourselve. If you add to that the fact that it is decaying, the necromancer is undoubtely at a loss.

The Scourge change to shroud that free us from the worry of the shroud decay when we want to support and do damage is invaluable as an elite spec. However, the playerbase have the right to feel concerned by the loss of defense and mobility since a shortlasting health barrier is bound to underperform when it come to soaking burst damage and long lasting damages.

This is not players ranting because they’ve just been wrecked by another player and don’t want to aknowledge the fact that they are lacking in personnal skills while the other player wasn’t. This a general concern about the in game balance and the inability of the dev to really make an extra health bar perform at the same level of defense than the other mean of defense. This concern have been lingering since release and have been proven legit.

1. Two Health bars: Can this make up for everything we’re going without?

Oh come one lily, you forgot… One of this health bar is in a permanent state of decay. Which is somehow important to take into account. In reality, it’s more 1 and half health bar that we have, not 2. However, if we take these 1 and half health bar and look at the cumulated sustain, the necromancer have one hell of a sustain.

So the theoric benefits are :
1- an extra half health bar.
2- number 1 sustain in game. (maybe) We are talking about 90hp per LF % gain.
3- extra passive defense through traits giving damage reduction or toughness.

The theory will never beat practice but in theory, the necromancer have a balance amount of survivability thanks to the shroud.

With a grin, from the Devil advocat.

The damages look… well… not that good. Feel like having more sand shade is better than having sand savant but i could be wrong.

The support look… hum… almost inexistent.

The barrier… I’d give them to the guardian without any after thought in exchange for some aegis that last longer than this thing.

The teleport skill… It look like if you come back it disapear, what a huge let down.

The torch look powerfull.

It might be me but it feel like they emphazised about wvw when they spoke about the spec. Which come with no surprise since the spec really look tailored for this gamemode (except the survivability part). And I agree with the comment of some here, there is no way this thing will find a reliable place in PvP and PvE.

Maybe next raids wing will showcase boonjunky monsters wave attacks that the raid will need to overcome instead of large healthpool single boss fight. The scourge could find a place if it was the case.

Sad? because that kind of behavior totally mark you as a bot in anet’s moderators view.

She/He did it in all professions subforum… that’s sad…

I’m pretty sure a large part of the necromancer community would be more than happy to just dump the whole barrier thingy to the guardian and have something that make them usefull in PvE group content and something that help them surviving any focus stunlock instead.

narcx.3570:

At least it sort of seems like the devs at least tried with Scourge…
You should see what the poor rev’s are getting.

Renegade is a good joke, I can’t even believe that they dared to take the racial skills (that revenants can’t take) and put them altogether into an elite spec.

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Dadnir.5038:

The renegade scream “charr” with every single skills it have.

My sylvari revenant can’t wait for it’s equally lame futur legend with all it’s skills spawning plant turret

Have you heard of your lord and saviour Ventari? :p

Nope ventari is lacking the freshness of the lettuce, chewing on it feel like they grain of sand everywhere. After all he summon a rock tablet not fresh plants.

Zoltreez.6435:

Dadnir.5038:

awesome special mechanism that will allow it to take root reducing all incoming damage at the cost of it’s mobility. With the greatsword…

Just play a Power Reaper lol

They were able to do it on reapers, they will most likely do the same on revenant.

The point of my post was more that the renegade’s skill are really close to the charr racials skills. Summon warband being the core of the way they works and there is even F2 (heroic fervor) which is basically battle roar and F3 (citadel bombardment) which is artillery barrage. I won’t go as far as saying that the charzooka and the bow are the same but…

Now, if you look at what we know of the sylvari and their strange fetish for calabolg the greatsword… We could easily end up with this e-spec that scream sylvaris. The right ingredient are :
- a greatsword (of course!)
- an healing plant turret
- a plant turret that throw projectile that bleeds ennemies
- a skill that root ennemies the same way ranger’s entangle do it (minus the bleeding effect)
- The summon of a plant spirit with special effect as an upkeep
- and obviously the “take roots” F2 that make you super resilient at the cost of all mobility except movement skills.

On the other hand asuras are all about golems. We could end up with a set of all purpose golems following us (a mix between ranger pets and drone).
- Five golems that have the basic fonction of a ranger’s pet.
- I’d add a focus as a support weapon with repair fonction for the golems. Something that produce animation that give a super high technology feel tlike typing on a pocket watch.
- healing skill would summon a few drone that rotate around you and your golem to heal you and maybe block attack for a short duration
- elite skill would make the revenant enter a golem suit, granting him access to the golem skills from the racial elite power suit. Upkeep skill.
- utility skills would create an area of effect around your pet (pain inverter, radiation field and D serie golem projectile block.)

Humans are all about gods. They could make it into an all around e-spec that focus on wielding the power of gods. An interesting thing would be to do things around “shouts”.
- I think that something based on kormir could do great as special mechanism. The fact that she was a paragon before godhood could create an upkeep F2 that apply a shout effect every 3 seconds. I’d name it Kormir’s hymn
- Dwayna as an healing shout skill : Glory to dwayna!
- Grenth would just massively debuff foes around you as a shout. embrace the lord of death!
- Lyssa would apply it’s chaotic effect converting enemies boons into conditions and allies condition into boon. Feel the grace of lyssa!
- elite skill would be melandru and it’s awesome relationship with nature cleansing all conditions on allies and healing them for each condition cleansed. Break stun as well.

As for our last race, the norns. I guess it would be time to stimulate their wild side.
- The F2 skill would allow a beastform that would depend on which GM trait you take (Bear, wolf and leopard). This would just replace the weapon skills and eat an upkeep (energy -4). obviously outside of the autoattack each skill would gain an energy cost.
- The utilities would be on the selfish side since norns value personnal strenght above all.
- The heal might as well be related to the wurm with a vitality boost passive and a heal on use. signet of the wurm
- The owl would grant a movement boost as passive and stealth on use. signet of the owl
- The crow would grant condition damage as passive and would bleed on active signet of the crow
- The drake would grant passive power and a knockback active. signet of the drake
- The elite would be the blessing of the wilderness granting energy as passive in a way that it reduce a lot the upkeep cost feel of the F2 (something like regen energy +2) and having a powerfull selfbuff for a short time as an active. signet of the beastman

… Oh god… I could somehow enjoy these specs, especially the norn’s one. I think that I’d somehow really feel like a norn if I could enter beastform whenever i want.

Because yellowy also feel like a terrible disease. It’s this color your eyes start to have when your livers start to breakdown, when you’ve got an hepatite…